Cooking with Rajesh

Today we had a treat. Matt's friend, Rajesh, from work came to teach us how to make Chana Masala, an popular vegetable Indian dish and one of Matt's favorite.


Preparing garlic cloves.


Onion, tomatoes, garlic, ginger root.


The kids are love watching people cook!


Spices.


Chopping onion... the kids really liked this part.


Kidney and chickpea beans, garlic, ginger root, and tomatoes.


Dried Fenugreek leaves used as a topping at the end.


Saute the onion, garlic, and ginger in oil.


Cut tomato, chopped ginger and garlic.


Garam masala spices are made up of a variety of different seeds, leaves, and peppers. Mustard, cumin, cilantro, cardamom, and kasoori (dried fenugreek) seeds, black peppercorns, whole cloves, dried red chili peppers, and bay leaves.


Adding the tomato and spices to the onion mixture.


Tamarind paste.


Tumeric spice and a green chili pepper.


Then the mixture was blended and added back to the wok with the beans and the dried Fenugreek leaves were added to top it off.


The finished dish with basmati rice.


This is a Jasmine Green Tea flower steeping.


The meal was delicious! Thanks Rajesh!

El Capitan State Beach Camping Trip

Our first camping trip of the summer... coming off the heels of 4th of July!
We headed to El Capitan State Beach just north of Santa Barbara.


Our tent - the SoulPad.






The view from the road by our tent.


We headed down to the beach and the kids found a cave. It wasn't deep, but they still had fun looking around.


We saw three dolphins.


Matt


Snack time...


getting ready for s'mores :)




Emma with her fire.


Our pad at night... the glowing orb... makes it very easy to find at night on the way back from the bathrooms!



On day 2, we spent a few hours down at the beach. The kids played in the water and we explored the shoreline.


There were many piles of mollusks. I wasn't sure if they were alive or not...


While walking on the beach we found a couple of clear jelly blobs. Ben brought one home.


another blob that Heeli and Sarah found...


We couldn't figure out what it could be exactly... until... we found this. It is a red striped sea nettle.


It was a great short camping trip. The beach is nice... but cold and windy... I much prefer the mountains :)

4th of July

The 4th was in Ripon at Shannon's parents home. Jeanne decorates the whole house in red, white, and blue... including the backyard fountain!


We took a little bike ride around the town.




Family around the table.


Brandon checking out the fireworks...




Our fireworks show!



We set up the ladder and a board to put the fireworks on for a better show.


Ground flowers...


The finale!


Mike with the old fashioned sparklers!

a little gem - Bravo Farms

Every year we go to Ripon for the 4th of July and every year we pass all these billboards that say to, "Stop at Bravo Farms - Cheese Tasting"... so we did!

What a great little place! They have a lot of neat decor, peddle cars, restaurant, ice cream shop, a gift shop with nuts and, of course, cheese!




They also had this really cool tree house! The kids and Matt went up into it.



They had a petting zoo with bunnies, goats, and donkeys.




Here's a "play room" for the weary traveler.


And the cheese is yummy!

The sun was getting in Brandon's eyes... so he's Cool Baby!