Staying In

As you may have heard, today is Valentine's Day.  At this phase of my life, I really don't get super hung up on this Hallmark card-type holiday.  Still, it is fun to spend a day trying extra hard to show love and appreciation to the most important people in life.  Especially when those people are trying to sneak into your bed at 6 am, making you want to scream in frustration, until they whisper sweetly "Happy Valentine's Day Mommy."  Still, 6 AM???

No, Hubby did not make reservations for a fancy restaurant.  Frankly, he rarely thinks of such things on his own and even when he does, it turns out to be a restaurant or time or date or whatever that doesn't work for me so you can't blame the guy for mostly not bothering.  But, for the last couple of  years he has done something just as good and often much better.  He cooks me dinner.  This is quickly becoming our stand-by "date" for special occasions or much-needed couple time.  Seriously, you could cook a $100+ meal in your own kitchen for less than $30 and it can turn into a really fun experience.  We put the kiddos to bed around 7 and then get cooking!  Generally, the meal he prefers is steak au poivre.  This is French (and as Fancy Nancy has taught us, everything is fancier in French) for steak coated in black pepper or served with a peppercorn cream sauce.  I don't really have a recipe for you, he makes it a bit different every time but basically you need some filets, a can of green peppercorns (you can find these at a specialty grocery), shallots, butter, brandy, and heavy creme.   It is a luscious, spicy and rich sauce that would make anything taste better.  Here is a photo of our anniversary dinner.  Yummy, right?

Really though, you could cook whatever said "date night" to you.  Have a favorite dish at a restaurant?  Google it and try to make it!  Spend the money you save on the babysitter and restaurant tab on shoes.  The best part, you get to eat in your jammies and who doesn't love that?  Or maybe it's just me.

So the next time you want to rekindle to flame, or you forget to make reservations for that special night, get in the kitchen and cook a dinner together.  It makes for great conversation and "togetherness" which we sometimes need after staring at the same face for years and years.  I still love going out to dinner with my hubby, but this sure makes date night more accessible.  Incidentally, for tonight's menu we are ditching the peppercorn sauce for a mushroom Marsala sauce.  What the heck is Marsala?  I'm not really certain but it makes one yummy sauce!  Keeping my fingers crossed that we get it right!  Happy Valentine's Day!

Community Christmas

A few years ago my family moved to a quirky little neighborhood with its own little identity.  Neighbors are proud to tell you all about the intersting and odd history of the community and how long they have lived there (in decades, not years).

This was TWO plates of delicious sugar cookies 10 minutes ago!

Our first Christmas, one seemingly random December day, the doorbell rang about 6 times.  Each time it was a different neighbor bearing gifts, mostly baked goods but sometimes a basket of Mexican delicacies, or a handmade quilt for our children.  And each would drop off these gifts with a jolly "Merry Christmas."  At first Hubby and I were a little overwhelmed; this did not happen in our last neighborhood.  Then we rushed to the store and started baking.

That was three years ago and we have firmly settled into the routine of delivering baked goods to the neighbors.  It has become an important part of our holiday traditions.  Each neighbor brings something different and we all have a chance to chat, exchange holiday plans, laugh, and feel a part of a community.  Clearly I am a sentimental sap but I love this part of my neighborhood, where I actually know my neighbors, their gandchildren's names, their birthdays, the good, and the bad.  Plus, those people can bake! 

For the last couple of years I have settled on Pumpkin Apple Bread as my "neighbor gift."  I love this bread, it is rich and spicy and not too sweet.  I have adapted the recipe from The Gourmet Cookbook, a must have in my opinion.  There are a couple of things that I do differently, such as using whole wheat flour for half of the flour and substituting half of the oil for unsweetened applesauce.  Do those two things and you can have a second slice!  I also typically add nuts.  Here's my translation, with my apologies to Gourmet if it's just not quite the same:

For Strudel Topping:
1 T all-purpose flour
5 T sugar (I used half granulated and half brown)
1 t ground cinnamon
1 t unsalted butter, softened

Mix all ingredients with fingers until "pebbly" and set aside

For Bread:
3 C all-purpose flour (I used 1 1/2 all-purpose and 1 1/2 whole wheat)
3/4 t salt
2 t baking soda
1 1/2 t ground cinnamon
1 t freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 t each ground cloves and allspice
1 can, 15oz solid pack pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie filling)
3/4 C vegetable oil (1 small "snack pack" of unsweetened apple sauce is exactly half of this and cuts down of the fat while still making the bread moist)
2 1/4 C sugar
4 large eggs, slightly beaten
2 Granny Smith apples, peeled and chopped (about 2 cups)
1/2 chopped nuts or raisins, if desired (I used chopped almonds or walnuts)

Preheat oven to 350and spray non-stick cooking spray into loaf pans.  Sift together dry ingredients into a medium bowl.  Whisk together pumpkin, oil (and applesauce), sugar, and eggs in a large bowl.  Slowly add flour mixture, stirring until well combined.  Fold in apples (this is also where you would add nuts and raisins if using).
Divide batter evenly between loaf pans.  Sprinkle strudel topping evenly over batter.  Bake until a wooden toothpick or butter knife comes out clean, about 50-60 minutes for large loafs or 45 minutes for smaller loafs. Cool about 1 hour.  This recipe makes 2 large loafs or about 5 small gift-tin loafs.  I usually double it to come up with 10 small loafs.

Cook yourself some pumpkin apple bread and get to know your neighbors!  Merry Christmas from my community to yours.

Dear Santa...

Today we stayed at home.  Fairly unusual for us but I do try to work in a lazy day sometimes and a cold Friday is just perfect for one!  We stayed in pjs until lunch, watched an entire Sesame Street...and wrote letters to Santa!  Or, to be more accurate, Mrs. Claus for my daughter (a budding feminist apparently).

A few months ago our neighbors "gifted" us with this holiday paper with matching envelopes.  While I appreciated the sentiment, I'm not really a "Christmas newsletter" type of gal (surprisingly) so it just went into a drawer somewhere.  However, today I remembered it and thought it was the perfect paper for our letters to Santa, er, Mrs. Claus.

I gave each child a sheet to draw their picture on while I carefully addressed the envelopes (1 Mistletoe Lane, North Pole, North Pole, 01225 if you need the big guy's address).  Then, they dictated their letters, with a few suggestions from mom of course.  I mean, I wanted to make sure they used their best manners, of course!

My daughter thought Mrs. Claus needed a picture of a tree and a rainbow.  Smart girl, she knows that's probably a rare sight at the North Pole!  My son of course, just did lots of scribbling, crayon "stabbing" and screaming at Sister for getting too close to his personal space.  Sigh...

We managed to get through our letters with minimal freak-outs, then it was time to decorate the envelopes with glitter (never good for the nerves of a Type A moms like me) and Snoopy stickers.  Then, it was off to the mailbox!

I love that the kids are big enough now to mail their own letters.  I have no idea why, I just think it's cute.  See???  I wonder what my neighbors sometimes think of me.  'Cuz trust me, they're watching!  The cross to bear of living on a street full of retired people.  Sorry for the tangent!

So, we mailed Santa and the Mrs. their letters requesting princesses and footballs and now it's just two weeks of waiting to see if Santa delivers.  Stay tuned for the dramatic conclusion...

A Christmas Tradition

We buy real trees.  Always have.  In many ways, it's completely ridiculous, not to mention messy.  For a logical list of reasons why, you can check here.   But the "real" reason is just because I love it.  One of my favorite Christmas activities has always been heading out into the forest (actually a "choose and cut" farm, we're not that rustic), picking our tree, and sawing the thing down.

When I was a child, my dad and I would go in his completely-restored, green 1954 Chevrolet pickup truck.  I loved feeling once a year like I was in a Norman Rockwell painting.  Now we just take Hubby's regular old truck, but it's still a fun family activity.




So last weekend, we headed to Goddard Tree Farm to find our tree and bring it home.  It's a good thing last year's hats and mittens still fit because it was cold outside.  We saw a few "Charlie Brown trees" and a few "monster tall" trees.  The kids chased each other around and around the trees while Hubby and I haggled over size and shape.  You see, he's concerned with things like "How heavy is this thing?  How straight is the trunk?  Living room or dining room?" and so on while I just want the "perfect" tree.  Finally we settled on the right one to bring home and sawed him down.  My son seems to have acquired the innate need all men have to stand and observe other men doing work.  Sigh...  My daughter was right there hitching up her sleeves to help a guy out though.  Push, sister!

Once the tree was hauled home, it turns out that he was too big for our dining room, a good spot for the kids because they tend to leave it alone there.  Soooo, we set him up right in the living room and hoped for the best.  So far, the "best" is a semi-permanent ornament triage in which Hubby the super glue ninja must repair 2-3 ornaments a day!  Praying for my own sanity to get me through the next month.

Merry Christmas from my crazy to yours!

Ole'

It is, of course Cinco de Mayo today.  For most of us here in the US, that means it is a day to drink Mexican beer and eat Mexican food.  This is actually what I plan on doing today, but I did feel the need to read up on it a little bit.  I did know that it was not actually Mexican Independence Day, as is commonly assumed, but I also did not really know the specifics of why they celebrate this day South of the Border.  If you are curious like me, here is a great site that gives a thorough and yet understandable history lesson:
http://www.vivacincodemayo.org/history.htm

So, back to the food and beer:

Black Bean and Chicken Burritos
(these actually were going to be enchiladas but I got lazy...all that dipping, filling, rolling,...)

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 cups of water
Sprinkle of whole peppercorns
1 cinnamon stick
1 bay leaf
A pinch of red pepper flakes or chipotle chili flakes

Rinse chicken and pick off any fatty bits.  Poach gently on medium in a saucepan with other ingredients, about 15 minutes.  Shred chicken with two forks in large bowl, set aside.

While chicken is poaching, gather ingredients for the rest of filling:

Disregard the tomato sauce, I was still thinking enchiladas at the time!

2 Small red onions with tops (reserve some green tops for salsa), chopped or sliced
1 large clove garlic, minced
1T extra virgin olive oil
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1-ish cup of frozen white and yellow kernel corn (a good shake of the bag)
Mexican seasonings of your choice

I've got chunky salsa verde, oregano, chipotle pepper flakes, cumin, and coriander.

Cook onion and garlic on medium in olive oil.  When softened, add beans, corn, and spices.  Simmer low and slow for 20-30 minutes.  Add shredded chicken and heat through.

Wrap up in a tortilla, pop open a Negra Modelo and enjoy!  I serve these with shredded Monterrey jack cheese and a simple salsa of the green onion tops, diced tomato, avocado, and chopped parsley (Hubby doesn't dig the cilantro). 

Muy Bueno!

Dyeing eggs with toddlers, the good times just keep comin'

Holy controlled chaos, every year I think it will be better!  This year wasn't actually soooo bad, but I do learn a little bit each time. 
Semi-crunchy mommy that I am, I decided this year to try making some dyes from berries.

Luckily, my crunchiness goes only so far and I had a kit of Paws too!  The berry dye worked okay, but the colors were not nearly as bright and it took a lot longer.  My daughter did had great fun though squeezing the berries to get all of their juice out!  If you're interested, I sort of followed the same rules as the Paws tablets.  I tossed a couple of tablespoons of vinegar on them, then added hot water.  Why hot, you say?  I don't know, it sounded like a good idea at the time!

So, I boiled the eggs, then burned my fingers getting them out.  Note to self, don't use your large pasta pot to cook the eggs if you plan on making spaghetti for dinner within the hour.

Then, it was time for the fizzy, bubbly dyes!

Someone told me about the whisk trick a couple of years ago.  I wish I remembered who, they deserve a medal.  You have to be a mechanical genius to work that stupid, flimsy wire loopy thing.  My husband loves it.  Whatever, give me the whisk any day!  Actually, most of the time I give up on all of it and use my fingers.  This year, we bought the "marble" Paws kit.  Turns out, it's pretty much the same stuff but with marbling instructions.  Still, it was a nice effect.  The only problem was, you need veg. oil for the marbling effect and all I had was extra virgin olive oil, which is about 600 times more expensive.  So, if you want to marble, get the right stuff! 

My husband also used a white crayon to draw designs and the kids' names on the eggs.  He gets pretty into these things (presentation man and all).  It was cute and the kids loved seeing things "magically" appear on their eggs.  My baby boy lost interest pretty early and roamed off to find something to "crash" but my daughter loved picking the colors (pink of course) and dictating to hubby what to draw on the eggs "I want the cow jumping over the moon Daddy."  No simple requests for that one!

Overall, the eggs came out great and with minimal mess.  Especially the marbled ones, they were by far my favorite.  So, here's my tips on egg dyeing with little ones:

1) It's a two person job, enlist a husband, grandma, or friend.  You will need someone keep the kids from eating the tablets or dyeing your dog pink.

2) Read the instructions and make sure you have everything you need (clearly this is the one that I struggle with).

3) Spread newspaper, or go outside, or spread newspaper outside.  I find it's also a good just-before-bath activity.

4) Don't worry about them being just so, kids have more fun when you're having fun.

So, that's all.  Happy Easter!!!