OK, I've been lazy!!

I can't believe it's February 6th! Time flies and I haven't felt like writing. Ok, so I'm lazy! Sorry, Brenda!

THE WEATHER.......

Today in Jordan, the sun is shining! According to CNN weather- it's 32 degrees going to a high of 42. We're suppose to get snow and rain again. The last few days we've had cold rainy, snowy, icy conditions. According to the locals, it's been a wet winter. Although it is cold here, I am keeping posted on the weather back home. Melissa sent me some pics from her phone of the BBQ grill and all the snow. She thinks there's about 12 inches so far and they are expecting at least another 10inches. Cara, Melissa and Jesse are at the house and hunkered down for the duration. I am having sympathy pains for everyone back home. I wish I were there.....and yet, I'm glad I won't have to deal with all that snow!

SLEEP...........

For reasons I am not understanding, sleep has been elusive for me. I keep waking about 4 - 4:30am. I don't like, nor do I tolerate, not sleeping well. I gotta figure something out!

TACO NIGHT...........

Thursday night I had our "family" here for dinner. Our new "family" consists of the ex-pats on the project. We really have a need to stick together and stay close with each other. It is hard being away from our real families!

Ok, I bought the "Old El Paso" flour tortillas. There are no hard taco shells in the store. There are corn tortillas which I cooked and turned into chips and they were a BIG hit! I bought the meat, avocados, tomatoes, lettuce etc. I had to make the sour cream and contrary to what I said in my last post, I used yogurt to make it and it turned out really well.

I told everyone that I was making tacos - like I would make for my kids - this was not anything formal. I bought some tequila and margarita mix and Mark made some delicious Margaritas! We drank them in our wine glasses! No one seemed to mind. Everyone came over in the cold wet rainy to have a family style dinner. Everyone has a tendency to stand around the island chatting while I'm cooking/preparing. I had thought this would drive me crazy, but for some reason, it's been fun.

One of the Short term consultants came with his wife. They are Mexican and I had her make the rice. She was happy to do so and it came out great!

My real success was the flan. I had never made flan before and was quite hesitant as I have been told it is not easy to make. So the night before I decided to give it a whirl. I got Emeril Lagasse's recipe and it had zest of lime, orange and vanilla bean in it....I had all the ingredients. First you have to make the caramel. I put the sugar and water into the pan and Emeril says, "Don't stir!" So I listened and did not stir! It turned a beautiful brown.

Then came the eggs and egg yolks and the flavoring. That was pretty straight forward.

Normally, you can put flan into individual ramekins or into a round flan pan, which I bought at the store. However, when you cook the flan it has to be in a water bath in the oven and I didn't have a pan large enough for that so I ended up making an oval flan.

Into my oven it went. It's suppose to cook slowly at 325 for about an hour. My oven temp can range from 300-500 even when it is set at one setting! AND it cooks very unevenly! So, needless to say, I was taking my flan into unsettling territory. After one hour Mark and I check the flan and it looks like it did when I put it in!! AHHHHH!! So, I raised the temp a little and 20 min later it looked more solid. Mark says, "I think it's done". I was a little skeptical but I took it out. I let it cool and kept in the refrigerator until I served it.

My heart was pounding as I took this fragile desert out of the refrigerator still in the casserole dish. I still didn't know how it was going to come out. I took the knife and loosened it from the sides and prayed. I didn't have any of my platters to put it on, so I put aluminum foil on the cookie sheet and turned the casserole dish filled with the flan onto it. Would it break into pieces? Would it hold its shape? Would it turn into mush because it hadn't cooked long enough? I was going to get my answers.....

.....IT WAS PERFECT!! WOW I DID IT! I brought it out for everyone to see I really did it! Next, the tasting. I thought this would taste good, but you never know until you get your reactions from your guests. Well, it was a hit! Not only that, our Mexican friends wanted MORE! I gotta say I was pretty proud of myself. That was definitely a "do again"!

PHOTOGRAPHIC SKILLS NEEDED……….
Mark’s team had a team building day on Thursday. He had all of his staff from him to the cleaner of the office together to talk about the project and to start to build the team. I volunteered my photographic “skills”.

I got some wonderful photos of almost everyone and a great group photo.