Let me start out by updating everyone on Kentlee...She is doing great! This week she is going through her first growth spurt and it has been interesting. Lots of eating and sleeping. It is fun to learn and grow with her. I am seeing some improvement with her feet not laying flat against her legs most of the time. They still have a pretty smashed funky shape to them but we are told they will fix themselves. Her bones will straighten so slowly I don't know if we will see a change anytime soon. We will see later this month when we meet with the orthopedic surgeon again maybe the x rays will show us some change. She is growing...it seems like a weed right now so something must be right. We sure adore her...I thank my lucky stars everyday for her.
Okay on to the reason I am blogging tonight. I wanted to share some news about me. While we prepared for Kentlee to arrive we had the thought of me staying home with her. I hope to "work" from home and stay close to her doing what I LOVE.
What I LOVE can pretty much me summed up in 3 Things: Family, Cooking and Essential Oils.These are the things I want people to think when they think of me. The cool thing is they go hand in hand for me And I want to tell you the story of how this girl (yes me) won a nation wide cooking contest because of it!
In February doTERRA issued a challenge, cook with one of four oils (Thyme, Lime, Lemongrass and Cardamom) and post a picture and title of the dish. Well I knew I had to do this...This challenge was made for me.I had 3 of the 4 oils and it was on! In my head I needed to win to validate what I want to do soooo badly...educate others about essential oils and how we can use them in our lives. I use them daily and reap the benefits that they bring into my home. I needed to win to show that I know what I am doing and that all the work and study and trial and error in cooking with oils has been worth it... To Prove that I am Legit, and really do use them and know about them, that I really can help others know how they can use them too.
It was a cooking class that was my first real introduction to the oils. My friend Kristen had been telling me about the oils for a few months...I have an oil for your allergies...your stress...it never ends, there is an oil for everything, but she knew my weakness and invited me to the cooking class probably in a last ditch effort to get me to understand. Well I went and was captivated by the simple and yet amazing things that you could do with them. Cooking with one drop of ginger (or any oil) could impart the perfect flavor for the chicken salad and DoTERRA oils added to olive oil make a super easy and delicious bread dip. What else could be done? Oh it was only the tip of the ice berg that night, I use them often and am still learning new ways to use them in the kitchen everyday. I am so glad to have jumped on board and start my journey.
At the time of the challenge I was working 40 hours a week and just beginning my third trimester so I would come home from work and prepare dishes late at night or cook before work. I had just under one week. I was always thinking about what I could do and how I could do it. I prepared 13 items for the challenge...Grilled pineapple with a honey lime glaze, Citrus coconut banana bread, Fajitas, and mini breakfast casserole to name a few, it was a blast! I had several others in mind to enter but they did not get done in time. In my mind I wanted to cover as many options as I could so I tried to have one thing entered for each meal of the day, Breakfast, lunch and dinner. I also tried to have all phases of a meal, appetizer, salad, entree and desert. I even had a snack. Yeah I really wanted to win. So I sent them off and the waiting began.
There I was sitting and waiting and all kinds of nervous. I figured I would get some food...food always makes things better and it was food that had me all tied up in the first place. So there in the cafeteria at doTERRA headquarters I saw the post announcing the winners. I thought my heart would jump out of my chest and I was worried I would have an emotional breakdown right there. (no worries I am sure some one would have come to my aid with oils, jk who are we kidding I had my own oils)
Wait lets back up for a sec. Let's build this up a little. doTERRA has over 65,000 followers on instagram over 1200 people liked the post about the contest. On Facebook they have over 477,000 likes for the page and the status about the contest had over 1,400 likes. That is a lot of people, how was this little novice country home chef going to win? Well it was just that easy, I WAS going to win, I know what I am doing and I love what I do. There were over 300 entrees between Facebook and Instagram.13 of those entrees were mine, pretty good percentage and that is exactly how I wanted it. I had to see my name as one of the winners...I just HAD to.
Trying to remember to breathe I started to read...Citrus coconut Popsicles...Oh yummy, Cardamom chicken wings...okay sounds good, Grilled corn...Wow that looks good, Lentil soup...oh yeah can't wait for these recipes to come out...and last but not least Breakfast Quiche...THAT IS MINE!!!! I had done it!!! My name was the last one and I was starting to get really nervous and almost missed it the first time I read it.
There were 5 of us that won. The other winners were from New Mexico, Illinois,and Michigan. We did recieve one bottle each of the oils we were asked to use for the competitions, Lime, Lemongrass, Thyme, and Cardamom...Good I need a fresh supply so that I can try all the other recipies. Our 5 recipes will be published in the doTERRA Living magazine in the summer/fall issue that should be hitting the mail boxes any day. It is really exciting to know that one of my recipes will be published.
The problem was I don't really follow recipes very well. Most of the time I wing it in the kitchen and just add a little of this and a little of that...whatever sounds good. This has been a problem in the past when others have asked me how I made one thing or another. I should have written the recipes as I made them. Maybe I will next time, lol probably not.
So let me tell you about the adventure of my quiche. From the start it seemed to want to test me. As I dreamed up the foods I would cook I knew I had to do a quiche #1 it sounded good #2 I had a ton of eggs #3 it fit several of the criteria I had made for myself and #4 I knew it could be really AWESOME. This was one dish that I tried making before work one day. I had decided to pre-bake the crust so that it would be crispy, crunchy and all kinds of buttery yumminess. So into the oven it went... just enough time before I had to head to work I could make it golden and delicious and fill it when I got home from work. That was not to be...The first crust burnt, it would have to wait.
Now this is funny and important because I wanted the crust to brown and then cool. The ingredients are added after its cool and its baked again.Yeah it takes some time for all of this and it is funny because I was closing and would be getting home about 10:30...the contest ended in the morning so it was going to be a long night.
Yes I could have not done it but I knew this was an important one and I needed it. If anything just because I wanted to make a quiche, this was my first one...yeah not the smartest time to experiment with a new thing but that is the way the cookie crumbled. Late night trial and error.
There I was in the night watching the crust like a hawk. Probably a good thing deciding to use a store bought crust because that did eliminate some of the problems I could have had, it made it that much easier,Just needed to get it tan and happy... This time it worked.
I added the other ingredients- veggies that I had in the fridge, squash, cauliflower, broccoli and romanesco broccoli (which is one of the most intriguing veggies I have seen, it was beautiful!). A little sprinkling of flavored feta cheese and the egg mixture with Thyme essential oil (I only recommend cooking with doTERRA essential oils, I am not familiar with others and I only trust doTERRA and the certified pure therapeutic grade oils they provide, they are 100% pure and not synthetic in any way) and to finish it tomatoes over the top that would bake and look stunning.
Now bake for oh I don't know 45 minutes until it sets up and the knife comes out clean...Nope something went wrong it, maybe using a pie dish made it too deep it took A LOT longer to get it baked all the way. Maybe is just felt like forever because it was late. Maybe for some reason I was being tempted to scrap it and chuck it. My uber competitive nature would not allow it and I stuck it out. This quiche was not taking me down...It was taking me to the TOP.
It looked beautiful and completely delectable. A picture was snapped and sent off to the contest to be salivated over and judged. I can't imagine how they decided. It was a blast to see all the other dishes that were submitted for the contest. Some of the items I had cooked before and some of them I could not wait to try myself. I was excited to see that there were hundreds of others like me that loved to cook and use the amazing oils in our food. The sky is the limit with what can be done and how they can be used, and you can't imagine the good times that come from playing with them.
So to make a long story short I had a really good time, even when is seemed like everything may have been going wrong with the winning dish I knew it would be worth it and I had enjoyed letting the creative juices flow.
With the announcement of the winners we also needed to submit a recipe for publication... so round two ensued to figure out the measurements and nail down a time frame. We also had to eat it to make sure it was okay. It tasted amazing and this time it was not the middle of the night so when the crust failed again it was not too big of a deal. Just ran down to the store and got two more just for good measure. Yes two crusts failed but nobody is perfect and it ended well. Having the proper pan (tart or quiche pan) did help in my opinion and the timing was easier to pin down for the filling to set up
.
The recipe has been finalized and sent. We should be receiving the magazine in the mail any day now. I plan on buying the entire lot of them so get them before they are gone :)
Don't hesitate to contact me if you would like to know more or have any questions.
Casey Hansen
Email:
rocknitwithoils@yahoo.com
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rockn-it-with-Oils/1477878949151356
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