The other day my grandma got me a dutch oven while we were out at Home Goods. I was really excited because a lot of the recipes I've been wanting to try out have called for a dutch oven to be used. Now, I have no idea why a dutch oven is different from another pot, I guess I could look it up, but I wanted one anyway. So I finally have a dutch oven and I came across the Ravioli Soup recipe in one of the cookbooks my grandma gave me. I thought it sounded really good, and made plans to make it the next day! I will now share the recipe with you!

Ingredients:

1 pound ground beef
2 cups water
2 cans (one 28 ounces, one 14-1/2 ounces) crushed tomatoes
1 can (6 ounces) tomato paste
1-1/2 cups chopped onion
1/4 cup minced fresh parsley
2 garlic cloves, minced
3/4 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon onion salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1 package (9 ounces) refrigerated cheese ravioli
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

First you want to brown the pound of beef in the dutch oven over medium heat. You could probably use more beef depending on how meaty you want your soup to be.

Just make sure you get all nice and brown, and there is no more pink!

Then you add the water, tomatoes, tomato paste, onion, parsley, garlic and seasonings. I didn't use onion because Kevin and I aren't huge fans of onion and I haven't worked with it too much. I've seen that you can cook up the onions, take them out and then cook your beef and add them back in later so they're already cooked and don't stay so hard. I'll have to try that some time, but for this instance, I left it out!

Bring the soup to a boil.

Turn the heat down, cover, and let simmer for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, cook the ravioli based on the directions on the package. I got frozen ravioli and I put the whole package in so there was a lot more ravioli than called for, but it's so yummy, so who cares!?

Drain pasta.

Once the soup is finished simmering, stir in the ravioli and heat through.

Stir in the cheese.

Serve immediately! I topped the soup with a bit more cheese.

As an appetizer, we had a romaine lettuce salad mix topped with dressing.

For dessert I popped a cored apple in an apple baker and put it in the microwave for four minutes.

Then sprinkled a little apple pie spice on top. SO GOOD!

I've had a lot of fun cooking this soup and it was quite tasty! Let me know if you have any tips in making this soup even better!

~Taylor~

Every year my family goes down to Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, TN in December. They have lots of christmas light displays and outlet malls...great place to go in December! Last year we didn't make it down because we went on a cruise right after exams let out. This year we've moved the cruise to the second week in January, so now we were able to go down to Gatlinburg the weekend of the 18th of December. We planned on leaving at 4:00pm because I needed to work, but since there was a big storm coming, we decided to leave at 2:00pm. The closer it got, and the more inches were tacked on to how much snow we were going to get, the departure time moved to noon. However, we didn't end up leaving until 2:00 because of some things that happened and people weren't ready.

We left right around 2:00pm and it had just started to snow, and it was already sticking.

By the time we got 10 miles down the road on 460 next to Christiansburg, it was already sticking on the roads and then some!

We were able to get on 81S, but heard on the radio that there was an accident at mile marker 109 and one at mile marker 64. My dad got off 81S and went through Christiansburg to avoid the first accident. At one point we were at a stop light where we were pointed down the hill, and a pick up truck coming up the hill from the other direction was coming up sideways. At this point I started getting nervous and scared. We weren't even out of the next town over and it was getting bad. My dad drove us from Christiansburg through Radford and got us back on 81S. Everyone was driving slowly, and I knew it was going to take us forever to get down to Gatlinburg. Mile Marker 92 had a flipped over car and lots of cars that had slid off to the side. On the other side, two trucks weren't able to get up a hill and blocked off all the traffic behind them.

At 4:00pm we got to mile marker 70 were we hit the traffic from the accident at mile marker 64. It was stopped. My brother got out of the road to clear the ice off the wipers.

We just sat and sat. A few times we saw a Tech Student take their dog out for a potty break and some exercise. Great entertainment, the dog was hilarious!

Then it started to get dark...

And darker...

We got out to stretch our legs and a truck driver called us over, he told us there were tractor trailers that couldn't get up a hill ahead and they couldn't get snow plows through to clear the snow off the roads. At that point we started considering leaving. There was a road between 81S and 81N a few car lengths ahead of us, and we had already seen a couple cars go up and through it. We were hungry and frustrated and ready to abandon the trip. We had been "driving" for 5 hours at that point, and been in the stand still traffic for 3 of those 5 hours. So we did drive up to the through road on the shoulder (yay 4 wheel drive!) and went a mile back up 81N to Wytheville to get something to eat. We ate at Ruby Tuesdays and they ended up closing while we were there because it was getting so bad out. Back on the road, it took us about 2, 2.5 hours to get back to Blacksburg. Thanks to twitter, we avoided 81N where you get on 460. That was backed up, we got on 11N instead in Dublin and made it to Blacksburg finally!

It was great to be home, however we were disappointed that we missed out on the Gatlinburg trip this weekend, but we plan to go on January 2nd now...depending on the weather of course.

~Taylor~

My grandma and I were going through some old magazines she had for some yummy recipes to make. We came across this recipe in the Southern Living Volume 42; Number 11 [mid-October 2007]. Since it involved chocolate, we immediately decided to make it, especially since it was gluten free, my mom can eat it when she gets up here for thanksgiving dinner!

First, place pecans in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes or until toasted. Be careful they don't burn, it is easy! Since the bars that I made came out a little salty, next time I plan on putting the salt on the pecans right when they are warm out of the oven, and then not sprinkling the salt right in to the chocolate. However the point of these bars is to be sweet and salty, so you make like the saltier taste! Still, don't go overboard on the salt.

Next, you'll line a 17-12 inch jelly roll pan with parchment paper. Break each chocolate bar into 8 equal pieces. (You will have 48 pieces total.) Arrange in a checkerboard pattern in jelly roll pan, alternating white and dark chocolate. [pieces will touch] Bake at 225 degrees until chocolate is melted. Remove pan to a wire rack.

Then, swirl chocolates into a marble pattern using a wooden pick.

Finally, sprinkle evenly with toasted pecans and salt. Chill 1 hour or until firm. This would probably be great to make, throw in the fridge, then make and eat dinner, and it'll be ready for you when you're ready for dessert!

Afterward, break into pieces. Store in an airtight container in refrigerator up to 1 month.

Couple pieces of this candy in a decorative bag would make a great gift this holiday season!

~Taylor~

Since I have been practicing taking pictures with the Canon Rebel XTi, what better subjects to take picture of than my pets?! So I thought I would share my favorites of each pet. We'll start my babies with Kevin!

Kevin and I decided to get cats together back in May, when he moved into his Condo. We at first decided to get one cat, originally Amber, who is now Cali. I saw a picture of her on the Humane Society website. She just looked so funny because she looks like she has a mask on. At home, with my parents, we have three tortoiseshell cats, two with white, and I just love looking at those kinds of kitties. Always so funny looking! So here is Cali:

When we went to the Humane Society to see Cali, near her was a meowing, fat, black and white kitty. Kevin saw her, and wanted her! She was adorable and we decided we definitely wanted to get both. Molly, at the time she was known as SC or "Shed Cat" because she was found under a shed, is very furry and very chubby. She had been at the Humane Society for a really long time! With little exercise being caged up, she just kept gaining weight. She is still pretty fat, but she has lost some weight with us! I think she looks fatter than she really is because she is so furry! Here she is:

Now, at my house with my parents and brother...we have six cats. Yep. Six. I grew up with four cats...Bat, Bear, Tribble, and Jack. We also took care of my great grandma's cat, Gully, when she passed away. They've all since moved on. So I guess we're on our second generation of cats. Snoopy came to us in a unique way. My mom was driving down Given's Lane when she saw something scamper in front of her car. She realized it was a tiny kitten and decided to catch him before something, like a hawk, got him. He was so tiny! Now he is HUGE! And such a sweetheart. Here he is:

After we had Snoopy, we decided he needed a younger cat to play around with, since some of our first cats were still alive, but really old. Then we turned to the Humane Society and decided to get Zoey. She is so much fun, and will even play fetch! Here she is:

When we were at the Humane Society, I fell in love with McKenna [only cat we kept her original name!]. She was Zoey's neighbor, so my mom said if she was still there, we'd go back and get her after my cat, who was very close to death, died. So getting McKenna was pretty bittersweet. She is our tortoiseshell without white. Here she is:

Rufus came to us in an unique way as well. He actually showed up at our work. Naturally I wanted him, I called my mom told her about him, and she came to my work and we took him to the vet. At the same time we were trying to find his owner. He was neutered, so someone must have done that. However, we never found the owner, so we kept him. He is HUGE now. Not fat, but just big in general. He also has a really bad attitude, that's why he ended up my brother's cat. I'm not a fan of Rufus anymore, but I don't have to put up with him often since he lives in my brother's room! I let him out to take pictures of him though. Here he is:

I don't know how, I think my mom was surfing on the internet and somehow went to the Humane Society website, and found Lily. She is sooo cute. She's just a little girl. She's a long haired tortoiseshell with white:

Then, somehow Mallibou or Bou came in our lives the same way. She is a very interesting cat and has such an attitude! She does her own thing and will only let you pet her when she feels like it. Bou is so strange looking to. She looks like a white cat that walked under an oil drip or something. Here she is:

Those are our cats! We also have two dogs. One is Riley. We got her from the Humane Society after our dog Clyde, died so that our other dog Jazz could have a companion. I think she is a mix between a springer spaniel and an Irish Setter. Boy can she jump! We had to put extensions on our fence because she could just jump out of the dog area. She is very sweet though:

Now Bungee just showed up on our front door step as a puppy. Don't know how he got there or where he came from. We couldn't find the owners, we gave him away, but somehow we got him back. So, he was sticking to us! So at one point we had three dogs! However Jazz was pretty old, and she died a little later. Though I think she enjoyed taking care of a puppy. As Bungee grew, we could only guess he was a Labrador/Chow mix. He has blue on his tongue, but seems to have lab features, but he's short like a chow. Here he is:

That's it! They're great animals...for the most part...and I'm glad we're able to rescue them and give them a good home!

~Taylor~

In November!

"Noah Biorkman is a 5yr old boy who is in his last stages of neuroblastoma cancer after a 2 1/2 year battle. His family is celebrating Christmas next week and all he wants are christmas cards. Lets try and see how many we can get to him from all over the world please."

From my Aunt's facebook status & I've seen lots of tweets about it!

There seems to be conflicting addresses however...one being the one I wrote on the card envelope:

Then there is another one that my Aunt posted:

" Another friend said snopes said the request is true but the address is Noah Biorkman c/o Scott Biorkman 3480 Petoskey Way Milford, MI 48380"

However, that is the first time I've seen it as that address.

News Article has the first address.

A-ha! Snopes.com says that it is an alternate address. So I believe you may send a card to either address.

I hope God sends many blessings on that family in this difficult time. But I really hope Noah has an awesome Christmas!

~Taylor~

Really, the recipe calls them "Easy Chocolate Chip Cookies," but I changed the name of them because I made them from what I had in my cupboard! And the four "C"s in the title just look so cute!

Anyway, this story begins with twitter. Naturally. I twittered about a website I had once used, but couldn't find it again, and I almost immediately got a similar and better website from Kevin's mom!

I went to supercook.com and entered in all the ingredients I could remember having. Mainly, it was hard to find something to make because we have one egg and no sugar. We have Splenda, but Kevin uses that for his sweet tea, so I didn't want to take away any of his sugar.

I searched through all the recipes I could make, trying to find something I could make for dinner, but I didn't seem to really have anything that would work. I ended up making cereal, but Kevin was saying he wanted cookies. So I found a recipe finally that I could make with the ingredients I had! The Easy Chocolate Chip Cookies that I renamed. :)

I did make some alterations...I used a cup of whole wheat flour and a cup and a quarter of the all-purpose flour. I read somewhere that you can substitute whole wheat flour in anything as long as there is equal parts...and I guessed it wouldn't be a big deal to have 1/4 more all-purpose. Also, I only had bittersweet chocolate chips...so it's got a little kick with the chocolate. However it's 60% cacao and that's good I think!

Kevin's letting me use his old camera, a Canon Rebel XTi, to learn how to take better pictures. So I took that one with a 50mm lens. I've been having so much fun taking pictures with this camera and the lenses that he is letting me use. He's awesome. It's the batter after I spooned a dozen cookies out already. They were in the oven.

After those came out of the oven, I added the rest of the batter to the cookie sheet.

And the final product!

It was fun making real cookies...I've been buying the packaged kind that you just tare apart a place on the cookie sheet. It's just so easy! But so were these! And I got more out of making them and I didn't have to buy anything for them! Plus if you get over the bitter chocolate, they are really good.

I have a similar story about this I'll post about later, it involves an iPhone app! Oooo!

~Taylor~

Once upon a time, way back in 8th grade, my civics teacher gave us a project. It was to go on the Vietnam Memorial's website, find a name, and write a report about them. We could find information about that particular person and write up a non-fictional report, or we could totally make up a story about them. I decided to search for someone with the same family name as me. However, since "White" is very common, I went with my mom's maiden name, Maccubbin. There were no Maccubbin's on the wall. I remembered that my grandma's maiden name was Klinger. So I searched that name. There was one Klinger on the wall. Henry Chester Klinger. When I googled him for information on family or anything, I couldn't really find enough to write a true report on him, plus I love making up stories. So I went the second route...writing a made up story about my chosen Hero. It was a love story. And I so wish I could find the story, because it was a good one! But being that it was so long ago, and my family moved since then, so I have no idea what happened to it. Unfortunately, the ending was a very sad one. Just as I'm sure the real life ending of his story was devastating for his family.

Fast forward about five years, Kevin and I went to DC for Spring Break. My grandma lives near there, so we stayed with her, and rode the metro in to the city to site see every day! It was awesome, but cold! One of the days we went in to DC, we walked by the Vietnam Memorial Wall. I had gotten a rubbing of Henry Klinger's name in 8th grade when we had come up on a class trip, and I wanted to find his name again! So we looked him up in the books, and found his name again. Kevin got a picture of me rubbing his name.

Back then, I had a blog on blogspot.com. And wrote a post about the day and how I did the rubbing.

Fast forward another 3 years, and we come to a few months ago. I got a message from Henry's sister!!! She had been searching her brother on google and came across my blog post and wanted to contact me to tell me about him and her family. It was amazing. I never expected to ever speak to his family. It was a true honor to be able to speak to his sister. I had always had him in my heart since I came across his name nearly 10 years ago!

TODAY, I googled myself. I was bored, don't say you've never done it! I had to do my entire name since Taylor White just gets me Elizabeth Taylor White Diamond results. The first result is a Genealogical Record of the family of Eaves and Klinger. It was my family! My whole direct family is in it along with the Klinger side of my mom's mom's family. Awesome discovery! Not only that, I found out that my great-great-great grandfather's name is Henry Klinger! (as well as his dad) Unfortunately I could not find Henry Chester Klinger in the 75,000 ancestors and relatives on the website [yikes!], so I still don't know if we're related, but I still told Henry's sister about it. It was just really neat.

So that is my story about the power of google!

~Taylor~

A couple Fridays ago, before the VT vs. BC homecoming game, my work had a tailgate! Dawn and I had been talking about what to bring, so I decided to google recipes for an office tailgate...I forget what I googled exactly, but I came across a recipe for Kitty Litter Cake. Of course I had to click on that link, I have cats, so I was curious! It looked/sounded so hideously awesome, I immediately sent the recipe to Dawn and told her that is what we were making!

I wish I had taken pictures while I was making it, but I got so involved, that pictures never happened! We followed the recipe, except instead of green dye to the cookies, we added yellow [which looked orange!] and red [which looked maroon!]. That way we could give it some VT color. Then instead of the tootsie rolls melted and spread randomly around, we made it into a VT! It was awesome seeing the looks on people's faces and it actually tasted pretty good! Of course, it's a good thing people at my work have a sense of humor, or the cake might not have gone over so well. :)

~Taylor~

This past Saturday, #11 Virginia Tech played #9 Miami in a constant downpour. I went to this game, for the first time, as a real person. As Taylor White. I didn't go as Slideshow Bob's daughter, and I didn't go as a Marching Virginian. I searched high and low for tickets to the game. It was an unfortunate reason why I was able to get two tickets to the game from my Tau Beta Sigma MC Mom, Lauren, but I am grateful to her for letting me have them. Especially since I got them for $10 each when tickets were going for hundreds! Not only were these tickets, they were student tickets. So also for the first time, I got to experience the student section! I've always sat with the band at a game, and sitting with the students was a crazy, new experience. Especially since it was pouring down rain!

The night before the game, I knew I needed to get a poncho. I wasn't about to sit in the rain without one, even in a waterproof jacket! I had read a tweet from one of the local news stations that people were buying out the poncho's at all the Virginia Tech stores. I wanted to avoid that mess. So I guessed that Wal-Mart would be the best bet. I hoped to get a maroon poncho or a clear one to let the maroon show through. (Miami was suppose to be the Maroon Effect game, but people didn't seem to care what color poncho they had on as long as it kept them dry.) I could not find a poncho in Wal-Mart. I looked in the VT section and I looked in the outdoors/camping section. No such luck! Kevin was looking for a portable radio because he wanted to listen to Bill Roth during the game. He was not lucky in Wal-Mart either. On to the mall we went, I to Dick's and he to Radio Shack. I found a sort of clear poncho for $5 and I was happy with that. Kevin found a decent portable radio at Radio Shack, so he settled for that one. (I tried talking him into buying a new iPod Nano, but no such luck!) While at Dick's, somehow Kevin decided that he was going to get me a winter coat. He does not like my bright orange, puffy coat I usually wear, and he loves his North Face jacket that he got from the Athletic department when he worked with them. I was astounded he wanted to buy me such a nice coat! We looked around, and I found a gorgeous pink/purple jacket that had the inner shell you can take out and wear just that part! I love it. And I am so glad he got it for me, because I ended up wearing it at the game, and it kept me so warm and dry. It was fabulous!

The game started at 3:30pm, so we left the Condo to walk down to the game at 2:00pm. Having stepped out on the Balcony for a bit and discovering just how chilly it was, I knew I wanted to wear my new jacket, and all of it, not just the inner shell as I had planned. It was two miles from the condo to the stadium, and it took us an hour to finally get to the stadium through all the rain and crowds. Plus Kevin had to pee twice on our walk from the condo to our seats in the stadium, even though he had peed twice before we left! He says he drank a lot of tea. But geez!

Anyway...the game was WET. Obviously. It reminded me so much of the Boston College game, where in the last 6 minutes we totally blew the game! At least this time in the last six minutes, we had a comfortable lead. I was still worried they would come back some how in the last minutes and steal our win. But, that didn't happen! Us beating Miami that badly was totally worth dealing with the rain!

Now I want to share some of the pictures I got, while trying to keep my camera as dry as possible!

A unique way to keep a cast dry...

My view for the first half. I'm really short, so even standing on the seat didn't help me see over the taller people in front of me! Luckily a lot of people left during halftime, so I could see better in the second half!

Shannon and Wes! Please excuse her GREEN jacket, but she was just trying to stay dry.

The people behind this guy (they knew him) kept filling up this guy's poncho hood, we were wondering how full it was going to get!

There were a bunch of guys on the field fixing the holes in the field, it just reminded me of Pretty Woman at that horse polo match thing, when all the rich ladies were in their heels filling in the holes!

Shannon texting under Erin's poncho. Totally awkward looking.

They wouldn't let the MVs on the field during halftime because "they would ruin the field," so they played their show in the stands! ...without the woodwinds, because their wussy instruments can't handle the rain. Not like you could hear them anyway! :D

Kevin and I at the game! :)

We win!!!

People rushing the field, despite being asked not to. That poor field! Luckily we have an away game this weekend!

I had a great time at the game! Can't wait for the BC game! It's MV Band Day so a lot of Alumni are coming back to march! (Including me!)

~Taylor~

On my old car, I had a VT license plate that said "WTHR." That was "weather" without the vowels, and not many people got it...even knowing me. What the heck? So with my new car, I wanted something me, but something people would understand!

I racked my brain trying to come up with something good! I've always wanted this one...

However, I knew it was already taken because I always see that license plate at Lowe's! I played around with it, but nothing sastisfied me. I thought I'd "just see" if...

was available. And it was! Except, I'm not Taylor C. yet, and who knows if I even will be!

So I started to get fun with it, and looked up words like...

which was available at the time, but since I looked that up and twittered about it, it's been taken! I wouldn't want it anyway. It's not as personal as I would like for my personalized plate!

So I started thinking about what I liked...Teal!

Except my mom pointed out that my car isn't teal, and so it would look weird to have that on my blue car. Damn!

I ended up settling for this one:

Even went to the DMV to get it, but since I had JUST gotten my plates from the dealership, the DMV told me they hadn't processed it yet, so I had to wait at least a month to get new plates. Darn!

So I waited and thought about my license plate more. The one I settled for was me, but it was also a lot of other people who graduated in 2009. Plus I didn't like the idea of having a "1" for an "i". (I actually saw the 09 HOKIE plate I wanted drive by me the other day! Kinda cool, but I also thought they were the reason for my "1"! ...I'm a dork)

Finally I realized the plate that was me, and I could use letters and not numbers, except I did have to leave a letter out, but it was the same letter in both words, so I thought that was kind of neat. :)

I love it! I also picked that plate because it matches my car! I ordered it, finally got it, and Kevin put it on my car this past weekend. It's perfect.

Please don't stalk me. Thanks.

~Taylor~

P.S. If you don't get why it isn't me...hokielove is my twitter username! (And it's my facebook username too, had to get that after we were able to pick facebook usernames!)

[someone who can pull off the TWITTER license plate...Biz Stone!]