A travel journal is on of the best artifacts you can bring home from a journey. A good travel journal captures all the pictures, drawings, scraps of paper, thoughts and memories of your experience.
I like the idea of writing everyday, but at the end of a long day at work, it’s one of the last things I want to do. A trip away from the office frees me the burnout of the daily grind and gives me the energy to write daily.
just looking forward to an upcoming expedition gets me excited about journaling and I want to start laying down pages. A great place to start is with the map.
2 Eggs ½ cup milk ½ tsp vanilla extract 1 cup crushed corn flakes 6 slices (frozen) Texas toast (with cheese or garlic) Sprinkle of salt ¼ cup melted butter
Preheat oven to 450° In a shallow bowl whisk eggs, milk, vanilla and salt until blended Place corn flakes in another shallow bowl. Dip both sides of bread in egg mixture then in the corn flakes – both sides. (you may need to pat a little to cover)
Place in a sprayed oblong pan. rizzle with the melted butter (or add when it comes out)
We made a fancy breakfast last Sunday. Karalee made Eric’s Potatoes and Charles made an egg soufflé. The soufflé is coming soon, but in the mean time, here’s the recipe for soufflé.
2 tbsp butter 2 tbsp all-purpose flour 1/2 tsp salt Pinch of pepper 3/4 cup milk 4 egg yolks 2 egg whites 1/2 cup parmesan cheese 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
Preheat oven to 375° F.
Prepare soufflé dish by coating with butter and bread crumbs.
Melt butter in medium saucepan over low heat. Stir in flour, salt and pepper. Cook, stirring constantly, until mixture is smooth and bubbly. Stir in milk all at once. Continue stirring until mixture boils and is smooth and thickened.
Separate eggs. Beat yolks well and add ¼ cup of warm sauce mixture to egg yolks.
Combine yolk mixture with remaining sauce, blending thoroughly. Add parmesan cheese, stirring into white sauce until blended. Set sauce aside to cool slightly.
Beat egg whites and cream of tartar in large bowl, until stiff but not dry. Fold some of the egg whites into sauce to make it lighter, then gently but thoroughly fold the sauce into the remaining egg whites.
Carefully pour into 4-cup soufflé dish.
Bake in preheated 375° F oven until puffed and lightly browned, 20 to 25 minutes or until done.
We made a fancy breakfast last Sunday. Karalee made Eric’s Potatoes and Charles made an egg soufflé. The soufflé is coming soon, but in the mean time, here’s the recipe for Eric’s Potatoes.
1 package savory Cheese Ball mix 10. 75 oz can cream of celery soup 8 oz Sour Cream 1/2 cup Milk 26 oz bag Frozen shredded hash brown pototoes 2 1/2 cups shredded smoked Gouda Cheese or other cheese 2 Tbsp melted butter
Combine first 4 ingredients, set aside. Combine shredded Cheese and hashbrowns Combine all together, spread into a greased 9×11 baking dish Pour melted butter over the top.
We started Wonder About Us in 2023 as a way to document our lives and lifestyle. I’ like to think we’re unusual people and others would like to know what we’re up to and hopefully learn from, or be entertained by, us.
I’m not sure that’s happening, but we’re just getting started. A lot of 2023 was finding our feet and trying to learn how to create content and set ourselves up with skills for the future.
One thing I’d like to change is that we seem to be a little heavy on the cooking content, and, that makes sense. We’re not always out on some great adventure, but we do cook every day.
Now that I know how to make content, and have established a nice format, our plan is to spend 2024 getting into the swing of producing content on a regular basis. The idea being to do one video per week and fill in with shorts and posts on other platforms throughout the week. I would like those videos to follow a weekly release schedule.
Cooking
Travel/adventures in the field
Home projects
Art projects or other creative works
Vlogs
I’d like to thank everyone for supporting us as we grow. Here’s our final video of 2023:
cooking spray 4 (7 ounce) cans whole green chile peppers, drained 8 ounces Monterey Jack cheese, shredded 8 ounces Longhorn or Cheddar cheese, shredded 2 large eggs 1 (5 ounce) can evaporated milk 2 tablespoons tapioca flour ½ cup milk 1 (10 ounce) can green enchilada sauce
Directions Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8×8-inch baking dish with cooking spray. Evenly layer 1 can chile peppers in the bottom of the prepared baking dish. Sprinkle with 1/2 of the Jack and Cheddar cheeses. Continue layering chiles and cheese. Mix together eggs, evaporated milk, and tapioca flour in a bowl; add 1/2 cup milk to thin to desired consistency. Pour the mixture over the layers chiles and cheese. Bake in the preheated oven for 25 minutes. Remove and pour enchilada sauce over the top, bake for an additional 15 minutes. Turn broiler on. Sprinkle top with remaining Jack and Cheddar cheeses. Place under the broiler until cheese is melted, 2 to 3 minutes.
We had some DVC points to burn before the end of the year, so we booked an overnight at Disney’s Grand Californian. With the crowds being what they are these day, a weekend at Disneyland isn’t the fun that it used to be, but a night at Disneyland puts us into day trip distance of Los Angeles. In the time we had, we barely scratched the surface of Griffith Observatory, and plan on returning for a much longer visit. If you only have day there, plan on spending at least four hours, particularly if you’re going to see the theater shows.
We’re a couple who really enjoy good food. We’ve dined at white table cloth restaurants literally all over the world. But, despite all the wonderful cuisine we’ve enjoyed, it’s the simple things that we really enjoy – grilled cheese, hot dogs and chicken wings, to name a few. Karalee found a spice packet in the pantry that we picked up somewhere long ago and used it to make some great wings.
On the way home from our cruise we returned to the Skyways Hotel. Because of our late arrival, we were assigned the accessible room, and it impressed us a great deal.
