Helllooo

Long time no see. When I open up my emails and see subject lines that say "Hello" then I go to a message board and a subject line is "Helllloooo" and then I come over here and see that somebody actually misses me not blogging I get the feeling that perhaps I should come out from hibernation, it is Spring after all.
So hello friends and fellow bloggers

Hello Running shoes, it's nice to meet your acquaintance again, I promise to visit with you daily and retire you to garden shoes in the Fall. How does that sound ?

Hello Daffodils and Azaleas, it's so nice to see your smiley faces again.

Hello new work room, you're rather nice to work in, perhaps I'll fit you out with a sewing machine tomorrow.

Hello annoying dog you sure do sit pretty but you need to decide what side of the door you want to be on today, I need to go back to aforementioned room and start working again.

Short and sweet but it's a start right ?

Snow and Soup

Snow and soup, the two go hand in hand right ?
This is what I was looking at this time yesterday

So I knew for dinner my kids would be wanting soup and biscuits, we've overloaded on chicken this week so it was time for some red meat and I wanted to fix something a little heartier than the regular chicken noodle so with a little tweaking here and there as I went along I came up with this beef vegetable soup that is to die for. Campbell's soups are now a thing of the past in this household.

Beware I am not a food photographer, the soup tasted so much better than this picture depicts and Victoria who isn't a big beef / soup eater dropped by, tried some and ended up eating a whole bowl.. SCORE !!

                                                     BEEF VEGETABLE SOUP
                                                     _____________________

You can fix this is in your crock pot or stove top, I did stove top, my measurements are also very approximate, I didn't measure anything. For the veges, you don't need canned or fresh, frozen will work fine, I just did what I had on hand.

Ingredients
---------------

1lb beef cut into bite size pieces
1 onion, sliced into small chunks
5 small potatoes chopped into small pieces
2 handfuls of baby carrots or several cut into pieces
2 cans V8 vege juice ( key to a good hearty flavor)
1 cup water
2 beef bouillon cubes.... (you could use 1C beef broth and omit the bouillon and water)
1 Tbs Worcestershire Sauce
Oregano
Basil
Salt and pepper to taste

Now the easiest part.... throw it all in together. If using a crock pot you'll want to set it on low and cook for about 10hrs or high for 5 hours. If doing stove top bring it to a boil and then let simmer for about 2 1/2 hrs. For us that was perfect, the meat was so tender it melted in your mouth but the veges still had a little crisp to them which my kids like, mushy veges = disaster.

Serve with biscuits or rolls.
                                                                 

Great friends and good food

I have learnt over the years as a SAHM and now a WAHM it is a lot harder to make friends, especially when your kids are older than it was when you were either out in the work place and thrown together with lots of people or you have little kids that are in playgroups and all the mommies get to talking and eventually friendships generally form. So when we moved to MD I was especially happy to find a Moms Group that were very open to having newcomers, didn't matter the age of the kids or the size of your house or your husband's paycheck they were welcoming to everyone, a far cry from the little town I had just moved from where you were 'voted' in to become part of a 'Birthday Club'  learnt that at dinner one night when a 'friend' had invited me to go for dinner around my Birthday with her and 10 others, as dinner proceeded I learnt that I had been the topic of their emails and phone calls for a couple of days discussing whether I should  be invited to dinner and when should they share with me that this was a club ? at the end of the meal I was officially welcomed to 'Birthday Club' .... it was a little weird, actually, a few days later I got news that after discussions were concluded I was invited to join a playgroup, never did make the cut for Dinner Club and my first year there I was a reserve for Bunco, took me a year to reach the A List, oh well can't win them all. Can I tell you just how ecstatic I was when we moved away from there ?
Anyway I digress, here I found a great Moms group and many days they are my salvation, they are who I go to when I have good things to share and where I go when things aren't so good and need support, they're up for a night out or a brunch in. Within that group area group of us who love to craft, it's often what makes us sane and so between us and a couple of others from different parts of the country we have formed a Craft Exchange Circle, one where we make crafts for each other and then exchange them, Feb was our first month and I'd say it was a success, to cut down on postage us local girls decided to do a brunch to exchange our gifts and share some good food, it was such a good time, I have some talented friends let me tell you in both the craft and food categories.
Here are some of the awesome gifts I received, each one lovingly crafted by the hands of a friend

And here's one of the dishes we shared, the best thing (other than a couple of friends) that came out of my 4 years spent in the town mentioned above.

Peanutty Chicken Salad... Delish

8 Split chicken breasts, bone in and skin on

Extra virgin olive oil
Kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper
1lb asparagus, ends removed, cut into 1/3s diagonally
2 red bell peppers
4 whole scallions, sliced diagonally
2T white sesame seeds, toasted

Dressing:

3/4 C vegetable oil
1/4 C High quality apple cider vinegar
1/3 C Soy sauce
3 T Dark sesame oil
1 T Honey
2 Garlic cloves, minced
1t Fresh ginger, peeled and grated
1 T White sesame seeds toasted
1/2 C smooth unsweetened peanut butter
 1 t ground pepper

To toast sesame seeds, place seeds in a dry saute pan over medium heat, swirl until slightly browned, about 5 mins.

1) Pre heat oven to 350"

2) Place the chicken breast on a sheet pan and rub w/ olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper Roast 35 - 40 mins, until the chicken is just cooked. Set aside until cool enough to handle.

3) Remove meat from bones, discard skin and shred chicken into large bite sized pieces.

4) In a pot of boiling water, blanch asparagus for 3 - 5 minutes, until crisp - tender. Then plunge into ice water, drain. (Today I used frozen, but it really is better fresh)

5) Cut peppers into strips about the size of the asparagus pieces. Combine the shredded chicken, asparagus and peppers in a large bowl.

6) Whisk together all the ingredients for the dressing and toss w/ chicken and sesame seeds.

                                                              ENJOY !!!!

BTW: For those of you doing WW I worked out that per large serving, ie, if you ate a whole chicken breast w/ dressing, it would be 6 points.

So Ugly She's Cute ?

I hope my niece can see beyond the ugly, this doll is either going to send her into fits of giggles or running to her bedroom never to return until the doll that gobbles up felt animals is disposed of, it'll be interesting to hear what she thought about it.
This play set was definitely a labor of love and I learnt that I am definitely a sewing machine gal, hand stitching all of those little pieces together was not as relaxing as my friends that hand sew led me to believe but I have to admit I'm pretty tickled as to how the whole set turned out, hope her Mummy and Daddy don't think Auntie Penny was cheap because she didn't buy a plastic doll from the local Mart ;)

True Love

We are a family that has quite a lot of traditions, all 3 of my kids have them so ingrained into them that if I want to skip one one year it's like the Apocalypse is about to take place. This past Christmas I tried to get away with not putting pillowcases on the ends of their beds... HELLO !!! What was I thinking ?
Along with those traditions comes a lot of opportunities for celebrations and along with celebrations comes a lot of food. I have one kid who is a 'Foodie'. Reagan LOVES a celebration of any kind, she loves to cook, she loves to make up new recipes and she loves to look on the calender in order to find out if it's someones birthday or a special celebration day. Last year when she saw that it was my brother's Birthday despite him living 3,000 miles away we made his favorite Birthday cake, put candles on it and video taped the kids singing Happy Birthday to him. See what I mean ? Any excuse to celebrate and eat.
That all brings me to today.... Fat Tuesday, Shrove Tuesday, Mardi Gras Day. In the past I've always made crepes for dessert on this day, it's a tradition I was raised with, but then last year Rea's teacher took in King Cake for the kids to try and guess who had to go look for one after the school day ? and guess who came up empty handed ? Yes, that would be me. Guess who has a memory like an elephant and begged today "Mommy, it's Mardi Gras Day today please remember to buy a King Cake ?" Yes that would be Rea. So dutifully I went off after dropping her off at school and bought my first ever King Cake. My first cause for alarm was this

There's a baby inside the cake ? For real ? and since when were babies edible ? I googled the reason behind this, apparently the person with the baby in their bite of cake hosts the next Mardi Gras Party, huh, who knew ?
My second cause for concern was this

Oh gag me now !! This is what my child the 'Foodie' wants to eat tonight, really ?  I'll humor her this year, I'll be more prepared and bake my own next year and I have all the fixings for crepes on hand for those poor souls not brave enough to test out that blob of doughy, covered in frosting (goodness ?) w/ the chance of baby inside.

But before we eat that mess we'll be eating some good old Cajun Jambalaya and in case that sounds good to you and you're wondering "What's For Dinner ?" on this here most Cajun celebrated day of the year I'll share my favorite recipe, might not be how the real Cajuns fix theirs but it works well for this family and leaves a lot of empty plates on the dinner table

INGREDIENTS
-----------------                                       
2 tsp Olive oil                                                                  3/4 tsp salt
2 skinless boneless chicken breasts, cut into bite size        1/4 tsp ground black pepper
8oz Kielbasa, diced                                                         2 C uncooked white rice
1 onion, diced                                                                  3 bay leaves
1/2 C celery, diced                                                           4 tsp Worcestershire sauce

1 green bell pepper, diced                                                2 tsp hot pepper sauce
2 Tbs chopped garlic                                              A healthy helping of your favorite cajun spices (optional)
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper                                                     
1/2 tsp onion powder

1. Heat oil in lrg saucepan over med high heat. Saute chicken and kielbasa until lightly brown, about 5 mins. Stir in onion, bell pepper, celery and garlic. Season with cayenne, onion powder, salt and pepper. Cook 3 mins or until onion is tender and translucent.
2. Add rice, stir in chicken broth, bay leaves, worcestershire sauce and hot pepper sauce (Cajun seasoning if using). Bring to a boil, reduce, heat, cover and simmer 18 mins or until rice is tender. Discard bay leaves before serving.
                                                        Enjoy with some crusty bread !!

Happy Valentines Day

Are you having a wonderful day ? I'm having the best :)

It started off by being greeted by this cutie... how'd you like the shirt ? I whipped that up in about 15 mins last night after I realised I'd neglected to buy her a Valentines shirt, thank God for always having plain T's on hand

She's always wanting chocolate chip pancakes for Breakfast so of course that's what she had but HELLO it's Valentines day, so that calls for heart shaped pancakes and strawberry milk.

Then it was time for school and what better lunch to send them off with on Valentines Day but you guessed it PB&J cut into a heart, heart shaped snack cakes, 1 for her and 1 to share with a friend, the rest had to be red or strawberry, got to keep with the theme right ?

Then it was back home and time to get aquainted with the tea kettle my BFF gave me for my Birthday, it was perhaps my favorite gift this year, not only does it boil water super quickly and has a nice loud whistle to tell me when it's done it's a bright cheery red too... PERFECT !!

After a quick cup of tea

                                                     It was time to start the baking frenzy

And bake up desserts to finish up a day of celebrating not only Valentines Day but my first borns special day. Happy Birthday Victoria, I love you to the stars and back xox 

                                                      
                                                             
                                                           

Choco Burrito

A lot of people watch family comedy shows not us, we live them.

In the last 12 hours I have been kept awake by a dog whining and whimpering and pacing the house constantly while his female counterpart sleeps in her crate totally oblivious to the fact that he is going CRAZY because he can't 'get with her'. (Before any of you jump down my throat she was set to be spayed next week but came into heat first) I think he settles down for maybe a couple of hours because I'm getting about 2 hours of uninterrupted sleep right now, but that was until 3am today when I was rudely awaken to crashing, banging and a whole lot of yelling and cussing coming from our bathroom. The cussing led me to believe that nobody (Marc) was mortally wounded so I stayed in bed and waited for him to return back to bed before I asked what happened. Well I shouldn't have asked, because it led to a fit of the giggles on my behalf and a really ticked off husband who I think would have slept in the spare bed if we had one. He had gone to the bathroom in the dark, finished his business and gotten disoriented, instead of walking towards the door (and he walks fast) he walked towards the bath tub, stubbed his toe and fell into the tub head first, and just writing that sends me into fits of giggles again, I'm a horrible wife.

Needless to say when the alarm went off this morning I wasn't quite ready to get up, but with kids needing to head out to school  and be fed breakfast etc, I needed to. Reagan asks for chocolate chip pancakes just about every morning and today was no exception, I poured the batter, let it bubble, flipped it and then "Oh crap, I forgot to add the chocolate chips." So Mommy Genius grabbed the chocolate chips, poured them in the center of the pancake and rolled it up like a Burrito. Just as Rea was about to take a bite 'Whoosh' Momma swept in, grabbed the plate and ran upstairs to take a pic, (because it might just turn into a blog post) and I had to get to the camera with the pancake Burrito in one piece so had to take it with me as opposed to running upstairs to grab the camera and bring it down to take the picture like normal people do. Reagan gave me an incredulous look when I returned her breakfast and said "Wow Mom, you really took my breakfast upstairs to take a picture ?" Yep, sure did.  A couple of seconds later I heard a muffled "I need wuba" Huh ? what, was that ? turned around and there was an 8 y/o, mouth full of melted chocolate indicating to the glasses, did you know that melted chocolate chips on a pancake is the same consistency as peanut butter ?

If you didn't, you do now, be warned. So I grabbed a glass, poured the water, she chugged it down and then looked at me with tears streaming down my face... I'm sorry it was funny and all she could muster was "Wow Mom, really ?"  Yep I'm a horrible mother too. I adore my family and thank God every day for all the comic relief they bring me. Who needs Modern Family when you've got the real thing going on all around you ?