All posts by Hubbard's Cupboard

Mom, Mormon Blogger, Computer Science Graduate, Photographer
Ireland, Travel

New Grange and Four Knocks Tombs

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This post is more about New Grange. New Grange is a very old tomb. It was predicted to be build back in 3200 BC! I won’t go into much detail about New Grange because you can just read the wiki on New Grange.

Now for the adventure to Four Knocks… you have to go ask Mrs. White who lives in a white house next to the tiny village of Four Knocks. Her number is +353 (0) 1 8354722. This is Mrs. White’s House:

You give her some money for the key. The money is only a deposit. You’ll get it back if you return the key to her before 6 pm.

She’ll give you the instructions on how to get to Four Knocks Tomb.

Here’s the Four Knocks Tomb on the left:

Here’s the door of the tomb:

Here’s some facts about the Four Knocks Tomb:

Here’s inside the tomb:

If you want to see more you’re just going to have to go for yourself cause we didn’t get very many pictures. We were a little creeped out and we didn’t bring a flash light!

Here’s some fun pictures we took outside the tomb:

Happy tomb finding! 🙂

Main Dishes, Recipe

Making Menus… Yikes!

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Sorry for the absence. We’ve been traveling on the weekends and we were a little “under the weather” for a week or so.

I never thought I’d do it but I’ve started making weekly menus. With the high food prices in Ireland and not having a car… I need to make menus. I’ve actually kinda liked it. It’s really hard for me to sit down every Monday to figure out the entire week’s menu but it’s worth the time.  It’s nice to have the rest of the week planned and not have to think about what to make or running to the store for last minute ingredients.

Old Tactic: Run to the store, buy stuff that’s on sale/clearance, stock our fridge… then make up recipes with the food I bought. This worked fine. I’m pretty good at making stuff up on the spot. I only bought the essentials so I didn’t spend that much money. It worked well in Utah because I could buy stuff in bulk. That doesn’t work here! Sometimes buying bulk here means it’s more expensive… crazy huh?

New Tactic: Make a weekly menu on Monday, figure out what I don’t have, make a shopping list, go to the store twice a week (I can only carry little amounts home), and then make recipes on my menu.

It’s been really fun. It’s saves us money and we don’t waste so much food. We’ve been eating healthy. I think I’ll stick with it even when I get back to Utah.

So here’s what has been cooking in Mother Hubbard’s kitchen:

California Rolls

california rolls

Lamb Stew

Lamb Stew

Veggie Burgers

Veggie Burger

Teriyaki Salmon

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Chicken Pot Pie

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World’s Best Lasagna 

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Child #1: Micah, Family, Family Life, Photography, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Happy Saint Valentines Day 2013!

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Happy Saint Valentines Day! Feb 14 is the day St. Valentine was martyr. His heart is apparently somewhere in Dublin (meaning that he’s buried here). He was killed because he was performing marriage ceremonies for soldiers and young coupled even though marriage was not allowed at the time. What a great reason to have a holiday!

We as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe that marriage between a man and a women is ordained of God. We believe that a man and a women can be married in the Holy Temples for time and all eternity.

For Valentine’s day, Micah and I decorated the bedroom to surprise daddy when he got home from work. Of course afterwards, I had to do a mini photo shoot for our guy:

Ireland, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Travel

Dallin’s First Post

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Dear World…. This is my first blog post!  Hooray.   I wanted to write to my family and friends and tell them about my experience in Ireland.  It is amazing and fun, as well as trying. The castles, greenery, ancient cathedrals, and accents are neat. It’s much more expensive, and learning how to do things in another country can be a challenge. I can’t count how many times we’ve been lost already. But we’ve been able to get where we were planning to go thanks to broadband cellular internet and May Bo’s faithful navigating with a laptop and google maps  It has been a blessing in a lot of ways to come here. May Bo and I have a lot more time with each other. She doesn’t have school, callings or social outing to go too anymore. It’s been nice to be able to spend evenings together again. I feel like this part of Ireland has been a “best” (See Elder Oak’s talk on “Good Better, Best“)

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This week May Bo and I went to see Newgrange. It is a 5000 year old mound of rock built about 3200-2800 B.C. (older than the pyramids) that has a long narrow passage leading to the center of the mound. In the center there is a cross shaped area with 3 stone washrooms and a bunch of ancient carvings. Every Dec 18-23 during the winter solstice the rising sun shines directly through the entranceway down the long narrow passage and into the center chamber and illuminates the entire room! It is supposedly a spectacular event. You have to win a lottery to see it (100 slots/30,000 applicants). It is an amazing mound, estimated to have used 200,000 tonnes of rock just for the center chamber alone! There must have been some amazing engineering going on to make this monument. There is no consensus among experts about why this monument was built, but I can’t help but notice the similarities between such a monument and the LDS temples of today. The Salt Lake Temple must weigh a lot too. I’m sure it took a lot of work to build, similar to this ancient monument.  It would not surprise me that such edifices were raised for the same purpose the Saints raise temples today: to unify families and to worship the “God of the whole earth,” even Jesus Christ.

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Main Dishes, Recipe

Best Easy Veggie Burgers EVER!

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Veggie Burger

I’ve been always afraid to make veggie burgers because I don’t know how they would turn out. I thought it’d be hard and that it wouldn’t taste very good. Well today I succeeded in making a veggie burgers that both my husband and my toddler loved! This recipe is SUPER EASY and it taste super good! It’s not vegan because it contains eggs and cheese but it’s 100% meat free. However, we commented at dinner on how it smells like meat and even kinda taste like meat too.

Serving Size

  • 9 patties

Ingredients

  • 1 can of cannellini beans, drained
  • 1 can of butter beans, drained
  • 1 can of red kidney beans, drained
  • 1 cup of fresh bread crumbs (That’s all they sell in Ireland… they don’t have the dry stuff. I bet the dry stuff work too or take some white bread and shred it up yourself.)
  • 4 green onion, chopped into scallions
  • 1 tbsp freshly chopped cilantro
  • 1 egg
  • 3/4 tsp salt
  • 1/8 tsp pepper
  • 1/4 tsp oregano
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 3/4 cup shredded cheese (I used mozzarella. I’m sure the more cheese you add the better it taste or you can cut back on the cheese if you’re trying to be healthy.)
  • 1/4 cup parmesan cheese
  • Burger buns
  • Burger condiments: lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, ketchup, mayo, ect.

Instructions

  1. Put the beans in a strainer and rinse throughly. Make sure they are very dry after rising by using a paper towel.
  2. Mash the beans in a large mixing bowl using a potato masher until the beans are like mash potatoes. Some texture was fine. I couldn’t get all of the beans to mash.
  3. Add breadcrumbs, green onions, cilantro, egg, salt, pepper and oregano. Mix well.
  4. Pre-heat a frying pan to medium heat. Add the olive oil into the frying pan.
  5. Divide bean mixture into 9 portions. Using clean hands, shape and press each portion into a chunky burger.
  6. Fry each burgers ~5 minutes on each side or until light golden brown. Cook it until the burger is cooked all the way through and piping hot.
  7. Put the hot burgers in a bun and add your favorite condiments!
Ireland, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Taxi Ride and 35 Euros Pooer

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We had an exciting adventure on Sunday. We woke up a little late. I was trying to get Micah ready for Church. Dallin was still sleeping at 10:00 am. Our train was going to leave at 10:25 am to get to 11:00 am church at the Bray Branch. We planned this perfectly to get to church right on time. We leave our apartment sprinting to the train station. I was standing in line buying a round trip ticket for 5.50 Euro. Dallin already scanned his transportation card which keeps track of how many stops you go and then deducts money from the account. The train went by right before our face.

Great! The next one doesn’t come for 30 minutes. We would miss sacrament meeting. We hesitated for a few minutes then Dallin thought we could go catch the bus. There was no way the bus was going to get us to church on time. We left the train station looking for the bus. Dallin forgot to scan off his transportation card so it automatically deducts the maximum of 8 euros.

Hmm ok 13.50 Euros down the drain. Now what? The bus doesn’t come for another 15 minutes and it’ll take another 30 minutes to get there. That won’t work.

Can we call anyone? No everyone is already heading or headed to church! What are we going to do?! Taxi!

There were about 10 taxis lined up in the taxi line.

“Can you take us to Bray? Do you take a credit card?! We don’t have a car seat!!” we asked.

“Yes. No cash only. We can buckle the tad in.” said the driver.

We needed to find cash! So we sprint to the ATM to get out cash and it charged us 2 euros for ATM fees.

15.50 euros gone!

We got in the taxi and he took us to Bray. Surprisingly the taxi driver knew all about the Mormons since he lived in Utah for a few years. We invited him to church but he kindly said no. He was nice. The taxi ticker when up and up. It reached 21.65 euros by the time we got to the Bray Branch. The driver was kind to cut it down to 20 euros.

35.50 euros later… we made it to church at 10:59 am.

*Sigh of relief*

All I wanted was to make it to church to partake of the sacrament. We didn’t do a very good job of keeping the sabbath day holy that morning and I needed to be forgiven of my mistakes. I’m so grateful that we can go to church each week to take the sacrament. By taking the sacrament we can renew our baptismal covenants, be cleansed again from our sins and have a fresh start. The Savior administered the first sacrament the night before he was crucified. The sacrament is to remind us each week of  the great sacrifice He made for us.

35.50 euros equals to $47.94; however the blessings of the atonement and taking the sacrament are priceless. It was definitely worth it. We were even blessed because someone offered us a ride home.

We learned our lesson to wake up earlier next Sunday!

Ireland, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Travel

The McDonald’s to Gospel Analogy

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Gotta love all the analogies that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints make about the gospel. At church last Sunday I heard a really funny one and I just have to share it.

“The Church is like McDonald’s”

There is this really nice looking McDonald’s across the street from the Bray Branch’s building. Everyone comments about how it’s the best looking McDonald’s in the world.

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How is the Church like McDonald’s? 

  • Pretty much where ever you go you’ll find the same McDonald’s or Mormon Church

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  • You can recognize the same logo all around the world

  • They adapt to different cultures but in the end it’s still the same McDonald’s or it’s still the same Church

Irish Beef McDonald’s Burgers | The Church in Ireland

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McDonald’s Red Bean Pie in Hong Kong | The Hong Kong Temple

Big Bulgogi Burger — South Korea | The Church in South Korea

McPork — Japan | Elder Kikuchi from Japan, Emeritus General Authority

Full Vegetarian McDonald’s in India | The Church in India

The person making this analogy concluded by saying just like the McDonald’s corporation knows the needs of their customers, Heavenly Father knows the needs of his Church and each individual person. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is located world wide but no matter what ward/branch you attend there will be taught the same gospel. The organization of the modern Church is run by Jesus Christ himself like it was back when Jesus Christ was on the earth. Jesus Christ delegates responsibilities to the prophet and his apostles. The prophet and apostles then delegate responsibilities to area authorities, presidencies, and bishops. The functioning of wards/branches around the world is flexible due to the size and needs of the congregation as stated in the newest church handbook. This Church is ran by revelation from God. Authorized Church leaders receive inspiration from God on how to run this Church.

The gospel is quite amazing and while this is a silly analogy I thought it was interesting enough to share it with you.

To find out more interesting international McDonald’s menu items you can check out these links:

To find out more about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints you can check out:

May be the next time you’re traveling you’ll stop at the local McDonald’s to check out their menu and also find the closest ward/branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to see what they’re up to! Let me tell ya… Irish beef does taste better than US beef but the gospel is the same where ever you go.