my new favorite salad

special sesame chicken salad

16 oz bow tie pasta
1 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup white wine vinegar
2/3 cup teriyaki sauce
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon pepper
33 oz mandarin oranges (drained)
16 oz sliced water chestnuts, drained
2 cups cubed cooked chicken
1.33 cups honey roasted peanuts
9 oz fresh spinach, torn
6 oz dried cranberries
6 green onions, chopped
1/2 cup minced fresh parsley
1/4 cup sesame seeds, toasted

cook pasta according to package directions; drain and place in a very large bowl. in a small bowl, combine oil, vinegar, teriyaki sauce, sugar and pepper. pour over past and toss to coat. cover and refrigerate for 2 hours. just before serving, add the remaining ingredients; gently toss to coat. yield 22 servings of 1 cup each (that'll serve about 8 people).

it's delicious! thanks rach for the recipe!

(if you actually try these recipes, please let me know!)

pictures!

http://picasaweb.google.com/sara.witte/CL#

black bean burgers!

i caught you! you thought i forgot about trying new recipies, but guess what? i didn't :) i know, try to contain your excitement!

black bean burgers
1 cup mixed veggies (either canned or frozen, but thawed)
1 small onion, chopped
1/2 cup chopped sweet red pepper
1 can of black beans, rinsed and drained
1 tbsp cornstarch
2 tbsp cold water
1 cup mashed potato flakes
1/4 cup quick-cooking oats
3 tbsp whole wheat flour
2 tbsp nonfat dry milk (or not....i didn't use that)
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
4 tsp vegetable oil (or not)
6 kaiser rolls
2 cups shredded lettuce
salsa

in a large microwave-safe bowl, combine the mixed veggies, onion, and red pepper. cover and microwave on high for 2 minutes. coarsely mash 3/4 cup black beans. in a bowl, combine the cornstarch and water until smooth; stir in the mashed beans, potato flakes, oats, flour, milk powder, egg, salt and pepper. stir in vegetable mixture and ramaining black beans. shapre into six patties. (i didn't do this next part, i just cooked it on my george forman grill!) in large non-stick skillet, cook patties in oil for 4-5 minutes on each side or until lightly browned. serve on rolls with lettuce (and cheese!) and salsa. yield 6 servings.

they were pretty tasty, and they stayed together pretty well unlike other recipies i've heard of.

and that's about the excitement so far tonight, but come 8:00 central time, grey's anatomy will be back on the air! horray!

one more

i couldn't find this one eariler, but it's one of my favs. enjoy!

back in the swing of things

well, i'm back from vacation! it was awesome :) i went to seattle to hang out with jessie (my college roommate for 4 years) and it was perfect. here are some of my favorite pictures.
imagine, blue sky in seattle! that's craziness!
this is seattle public library. the lighting engineer at me marveled at the use of daylighting all over this city that is known for the lack of sun. and interesting contrast, but seattleites truely do value their sunshine on the few days that they get it.
there's this giant piggy bank in the pike place market. apparently it's a big deal, so jessie took my picutre with it :)
jessie and me outside of rei after we bought matching chacos (on sale of course!)

sunset from freemont on the aurora bridge (i think that's right...but you'll never know anyways!)
jessie playing at the locks. the boat locks that is.
the ladder in case you fall in at the boat locks.
kind of a standard sara picture - a tilted sunset.

denver interntaional airport at night (from a moving plane) :) i think my new favorite thing is to take pictures from planes. such a different perspective!
we ate sushi at blue c sushi in seattle. the sushi comes around to you on a conveyor belt and you just take which ones you would like. it was delicious!!! each plate is color coded, and since you don't ever place an order, they charge you by the different colored plates left on your table.
a cool flower from the university of washington campus.
the university of washington's library's reading room.

hm....guess that's enough pictures for now. but in case you really want to see more, i'm working on a flickr site, and if that doesn't work, i'll go back to the old standard picasa albums. i'll post a link soon.

so that was a hurricane?

well, that was the most uneventful hurricane i've ever seen (ok, you caught me. i've never seen a hurricane before, so i guess that makes it the most eventful hurricane at the same time, but still). i went to a friend's house for the night and slept all the way through the night and then woke up and thought 'oh yeah, there was a hurricane last night.' obviously it was not a big deal, at all. i'm pretty sure we didn't even get any rain, which will tick off the locals around here for sure. so, i'm happy that everyone around here is safe and buildings are still standing, but it was anti-climatic for sure.

and a side note - i'm thankful i didn't get hit hard with ike, but houston and the surrounding areas sure did. they will be cleaning up for quite a while. it's a strange thought that because i got spared someone else took a hit. analogy anyone? ;)

watch out for those gas prices though. apparently the texas gulf coast supplies 20% of our gasoline, and the coast was hit pretty hard. guess that means we should start investing in alternative energy...like maybe wind energy. we seem to have a surplus of wind today.

and that's all i got! the internet isn't working at my house right now, so i'm in the office. i'm leaving on sunday for a trip to seattle to see jessie (one of my roommates from college) so i probably won't be posting much for the next week. don't worry, i'm not dead, just on vacation :)

peace out girl scout.

oh, and check this out. it's the 5 stages of hurricane panic...pretty funny :)

http://www.slate.com/id/2199977/

tropical storm instead? ok!

so i just heard on the news that fayette county is under a tropical storm watch, not even a warning instead of the hurricane headed straight for us. that's quiet the change. but here's the reason for it - there's a storm (well ok, a pressure system) in colorado (well ok, from washington, down to colorado, back up to michigan/indiana area) that pulled ike up north instead of letting ike take the "normal" course which is west across the golf. so, colorado is saving me i guess :)

oh, and i hate bugs. i hope they don't have bugs in seattle. :)

hurricane day!

well it feels like tomorrow will be a snow day, except that it will be a hurricane day instead! camp is going to close as of noon tomorrow and then we are all expected to be off site. we are even asking our rv guests to leave, but more so that we are not responsible for them rather than we think ike is that bad.

the news stations just said that ike is headed more east, which is good news for us. the north east corner of a hurricane is the worst storms, so with the new turn to the east, that puts us farther away from the eye and farther away from the bad corner. so, we are taking precautions but i'm not really worried about anything.

i'll be staying at MiLisa's in-laws house with her and her two boys, Justin (9) and Trevor (4). i'm sure they'll keep me entertained, as well as my 4th book breaking dawn. it's a good series, you should check it out!

ok back to work. or should i say back to checking the weather...

ike

welp, looks like ike is headed my way. the latest weather forcast just predicted that ike is going to go literally through the middle of fayette county (that's my county). sounds like i'm in for an adventure! we have a 100% chance of rain - have you ever heard of that?? crazy. ike is supposed to be a category 2 by the time it reaches me, which is still pretty intense, but it could be worse! i'll keep you updated.

the gala!

here are some photos from the lutherhill gala. we had a FANTASTIC time, and raised more money than we were hoping for - a great combination!

that's the two goofs i work with - justin in the black and shawn on the right. matt should be in this picture too, but he's out backpacking right now.

jenny did a GREAT job with the table decorations - the theme was s'mores and champagne. the centerpiece has a block of cedar (that was cut down at camp because of the storm back in april) and then the red, orange, and yellow beads to make the candle look like a fire sitting on top of the cedar wood! the pictures are of campers over the last few years.

here's the lutherhill staff - again minus matt and also minus kristin. and minus some kitchen staff and other things...so basically this is not the lutherhill staff...but it's some of us.

this is by far my favorite of the night! the two girls closest to the stage are probably some of my favorite kids ever - both of them are in my confirmation class at st. paul and they were both camers this summer as well.

let's just say i'm exhausted today. once the gala was over, a group of 16 of us went out on the town in down town houston until about 2 am. then, i had to be at a church at 9:15 am this morning to do a lutherhill promo. i think i'll go bed early tonight...

seriously? seriously!

in light of all the political-ness that's been going on, i'm getting a little frustrated with the treatment of human beings. let's take a look at the big picture here - no matter who gets elected president or vice president or local county sherrif, we still have to live with each other after their political terms are complete. after this election (or any election) has drawn to a close, are you really willing to lose friends/neighbors/colleagues over the way you treated them when they were voting for the dreaded OTHER candidate? i certainly hope not. that doesn't fit either party. so here's my political stance - i'm excited to hear what you care about, what you're passionate about, and what qualities you think makes a great candidate for a good leader of our country. but please, don't insult me for the choices i make with the same freedom that you have to make your own choices as well. i'm not an idiot for thinking differently than you, just simply thinking differently than you.

yesterday i spent the say at a youth minitry network meeting (a bunch of youth directors hanging out and discussing important things like the national youth gathering - can i just say something about this? they are expecting 36,000 people to come to the elca national youth gathering. thirty-six THOUSAND! that'll be the biggest gathering of youth EVER in our country. how cool is that? and, the theme is service and EVERY day they are sending out 12,000 of those people to help the communities in new orleans. how amazing! oh, and i don't care who you are and what denomination you are - there are 36,000 youth gathering to do something good for a community of people they don't even know. maybe things are looking up for our future...no matter who is president.) and then hung out with some friends for the rest of the day. it was a pretty great work day! (i promise i work...i work a lot. my work schedule is just a bit different than yours, and has some pretty great perks! haha)

tomorrow is the lutherhill gala and i'm so excited! it's like prom for camp people, so it'll be pretty great i'm sure. we are going to have a live band and everything! i'll be sure to post some pictures for all of your poor souls that have to miss it :)

but seriously, can't we all just get along? ;) haha

growth!

on saturday, i did some gardening. i raked around my house and filled up the entire bed of a truck with leaves. needless to say, it should have been done a long time ago. i also planted some seeds. in case you don't remember, today is tuesday. i planted these things on SATURDAY. look what's happened already!

crazy i say, absolutely crazy! right now i'm fascinated with plants - all i did was add water and i get plants. ok, and sunlight and nutrients from the soil and all that (i took biology from mr. shields, i understand, i get it) but seriously - so cool!

here's a picture i took for jen the other day - we were both amazed that we got both dogs to pay attention for even the fraction of a second that it took to take this picture.

so right now it is 7:49 pm on september 2nd, 2008 and it is 95 degrees outside. 95 freaking degrees and it is september and the sun is almost down. i hope all of you in colorado and other more fortunate states are soaking up your cooler temperatures and enjoying them for me. in monument, colorado at this exact minute (which is actually an hour eariler than it is here, as far as solar time at least) it is 58 degrees. that's a difference of 37 degrees! you could make a whole other temperature from the difference between our temperatures. in ann arbor it is 79...now that's a little more reasonable, but still. 95 seems a little unbearable at this point in time. in seattle it is 66. i guess i'll just try to remember that when it's 70 here and below freezing in all of those other places.

happy 1 year to me!

well today's the day. i've officially lived in texas for a whole year! guess that means it's time to move on, right? haha just kidding (...for now).

and on that note, let me tell you how excited i am with my job right now. my job that gives me a three day WEEKEND (what?!?! i get a weekend off? well...keep reading)!! yeah, that was just like a carrot dangled in front of me until mr. gustav made his way to new orleans. i got to cancel all my plans to hang around onsite for the weekend to sit and wait to see if any one from new orleans was going to take us up on the offer of free housing. well, a whopping 3 people did, which means i got to stay onsite allllll weekend. not exactly what i had planned, but in light of other people's lives being destroyed by stupid natural disasters, i guess i'll take one for the team :) it really wasn't that bad. i got a lot of laundry, cleaning, and gardening done, which was nice. i finally feel caught up from the summer!

oh, and i did some cooking as well, so please let me share some more recipies for you.

pea pesto
in microwave-safe medium bowl, combine 1 pkg peas, 2 tbsp water, and 1 to 2 cloves garlic. cover with waxed paper and cook in microwave on high 4 minutes or until peas are ender. transfer pea mixture to food processor with knife blade attached; cool 5 minutes. add 2 ups loosely packed fresh basil leaves, 1/2 cup freshly grated parmesean cheese, 2 tbsp olive oil and 3/4 tsp salt; process until smooth. makes about 1.5 cups pesto, enough to toss iwth 1 lb pasta, cooked. serves 4.

ok, here's my helpful hints with the pesto. so imagine your favorite food, and then imagine eating the reduced fat version of it. it still tastes the same, but the "wow" is gone, or at least diminished. that's what this pea pesto is like. it's definitely a healthier version of regular pesto, and it tastes good, just not great. also, for one person to make this, DO NOT use a whole bag of peas. i would suggest to just about anyone actually to not use the entire bag. i used about half and it is still A LOT of pesto. just a warning.

i used the pesto as a sauce on a french bread pizza. it was pretty excellent; i enjoyed it.

ok, i have another recipie for you, but maybe we'll wait until tomorrow for that one :) please let me know if youtried any of these!