Way More Homemade

A little Monday comedic relief

2012-01-30T05:38:00.000-06:00

For your comedic enjoyment, this came home in my son’s weekly work folder from school last week:

My husband said that it would have only been better if there had been some fire coming out of the back of the snowman.

Boys.

Apparently it’s chocolate cake day.

2012-01-27T13:23:00.001-06:00

As I’ve been noticing from friends tweets and Facebook posts, it is apparently chocolate cake day. So if you want a quick and simple chocolate cake for a day like today, this Simple Chocolate Cake recipe that I posted a while back on the Recipes blog might just do the trick for you. In fact, I’m headed to the kitchen to whip one up myself.

Have a fabulously chocolate cakey weekend.

A tale of two Chocolate Pies

2012-01-13T08:45:00.001-06:00

I grew up eating my Nana’s chocolate meringue pie at nearly every family gathering. You know the one. That creamy chocolate filling and that mile high meringue that was perfectly browned on top?

My oldest sister has perfected making it. I, on the other hand, having just started trying, am merely getting by. I mean, it tastes good… but I still have some work to do on my meringue technique. The one I made the week before Christmas came out to be a fairly nice and tall meringue and looked like this:

It was really quite pretty. But in the course of the day, my meringue deflated a bit. Not like flat or anything, just a bit. It tasted pretty good, but I was not thrilled with the end result of the meringue. (My man says I’m too nit-picky where my cooking is concerned. I say that it’s just how I get better.)

Therefore, I am not posting the recipe until I get it down. I can’t tell you what to do until I’ve figured it out myself.

However, I did try a pie recipe that I had wanted to try for a few months now. So many people blogged about it a few months ago that I can’t even really give credit to a particular blog.

Minny’s Chocolate Pie. You know the one. From “The Help.” The one that made “Two Slice Hilly” famous. Except without that special ingredient that Minny added in the course of “the terrible awful.”

If you don’t know what any of that means, rent the movie. I haven’t read the book, but the movie is incredible. It may end up on my top 10 all time favorites list. You can also see a video clip here. (Be aware of a little bad language.)

But back to the pie.

Because, really, not many things are more important than pie.

Apparently this recipe is the one that was used to make the pies in the movie and was published in some form of the August issue of Food and Wine. Or at least that’s what every blog that I read credited.

And I’ll tell you what. It’s super easy and absolutely delicious.

Minny’s Chocolate Pie

Ingredients:

Single pie crust
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2 large eggs, beaten
3/4 cup evaporated milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
Whipped cream for serving

You will also need:

9” pie plate (I used the shallow glass kind, not a deep dish)
Parchment paper (or foil)
Pie weights or dried beans

Method:

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Place pie crust in pie plate and crimp edges decoratively as desired. Prick bottom of crust several times with a fork, line with parchment paper (or foil) and fill with pie weights or dried beans. Par-bake the crust for 15 minutes or until set. Remove from the oven and carefully lift out the parchment paper with weights and set aside. Return to the oven and continue to bake for 5 minutes longer, just until the crust is dry but not browned. Remove from the oven, but leave the oven on at 350°F.

While the crust is baking those last 5 minutes, in a bowl, whisk sugar and cocoa powder together. Add the melted butter, eggs, evaporated milk, vanilla and salt and whisk until smooth.

Pour the filling into the pie shell. Bake 40-45 minutes, until the filling is set around the edges but jiggles just a little in the center. If you feel the crust is getting too brown in the process of baking, you may cover it with strips of foil or pie guards about half way through.

Cool completely on a wire rack before serving. Serve with a dollop of freshly whipped cream.

It can be made ahead of time, cooled completely, covered with plastic wrap and refrigerated over night.

Enjoy.

Oh Sully, Sully, Sully...

2012-01-04T09:37:00.008-06:00

SULLY!!!!!

Whaaat? I didn't do it. Not with this face...

Oh suuuuuure you didn't.

Just like you didn't put holes in every other pair of socks that I own.

Maybe I just need to start a series of posts entitled "What Sully Tore Up Today." Blog fodder for years to come, I'm sure.

Sully Says…

2012-01-01T22:17:00.001-06:00

“Happy New Year!”

And he also says that we are very excited that the Aggies finally won a bowl game!

*gasp*

I know!

And you know what? We were there.

At the last minute on Thursday, I texted Mike that I had found some fairly inexpensive tickets online and did he want to go since the kids were already at his mom’s house. Then he called some friends who then said they would love to go with us and were going to take their kids…. so it ended up being a whole family affair. Which was an absolute blast.

We purchased really cheap seats that had nosebleed inducing potential that were part of a Papa John’s Pizza deal and included pizza and drinks. This was our view:

But then Mike came across some stadium employees who were swapping out upper level tickets to fill up the lower levels. He did that and then this was our view:

Nice, huh? And it was a totally different game experience with the fans much more dialed in and complete with my son covering his ears most of the time because of the noise.

We had a great time for it being our kids’ first Aggie football game experience. There was face painting, bounce houses and other activities before the game. I even partook of the face painting experience.

I had to do something to make up for the horrible Houston hair weather we were having that morning.

One of the most moving scenes of the whole day came at the end. Number 67 belonged to Joey V, one of our players that was killed in a car wreck a few days before Christmas. Another player wore his number for the game and Joey V was honored several times before, during and during this scene after the game.

We still need to take these kids to Kyle Field for a game, but that will come in time. It’s hard to spend that kind of money when they aren’t really into it. This was actually a much less expensive option, oddly enough.

I haven’t said much about Aggie stuff for a while here on the ol’ blog, and I felt like our first bowl win in 10 years was a fine time to do it. It’s been an interesting year in Aggie life as our days of Big XII football are now officially over. We are headed to the SEC with a new football coach. Sure, we’ll take our lumps the first year or so. And even though I’ll miss playing against some of these Texas teams, I’m believing that it will be a good move.

Out with the old and in with the new.

Kind of like the new year.

Sully also said for you to have a “ruffulous” 2012.

Christmas Genealogy Paper Chain

2011-12-21T06:23:00.000-06:00

I’ll bet you didn’t know that my husband and I teach 1st and 2nd graders on Sunday mornings.

Yep. Last year we taught along with another friend, but he moved up to another class and this year, we’re on our own. Which has been a little challenging to say the least as our average class size has doubled since last year. We went from averaging about 8 each Sunday morning last year to averaging about 16 each Sunday morning this year. To the elementary school teachers out there, 16 may seem like a cake walk… but we’re not talking about school. Sunday School is a whole different animal and, admittedly, I am not a teacher by training, vocation or gifting. So to us, 16-18 each week is HUGE.

But I digress.

One of the things we enjoy doing with our class is a “Genealogy of Christ Paper Chain.” We find it to be a really good teaching tool to talk about Messianic prophesy on a level that 1st and 2nd graders can comprehend and the links of the chain act as a visual to link together the old and new testaments of the Bible.

I thought my husband was very creative with the lesson portion of the morning. He started out by talking about the Old Testament and the New Testament and the difference being that the Old was before Jesus lived on earth and the New was during and after Jesus. Then he began reading some scriptures and asked the kids if they knew whether it came from the OT or NT and began to work in some scriptures of Messianic prophesy. He quoted Micah 5:2 which talks about Bethlehem among others which refer to Christ to try to trip them up a little and make them think he was reading from the New Testament so that it would be a surprise that it came from the Old. Once we were able to establish with the kids that the Bible talks about Jesus in the OT, we were able to talk about how the promise of the Messiah was made all the way back in Genesis and we began to read prophesies about the family that the Messiah would come from all the way back to Abraham.

We know that the details of our lesson probably did not all stick. But we don’t expect them to. If those 16 kids walked away from our class knowing that the Bible talks about Jesus in the Old Testament all the way back to Genesis, then we’ve accomplished our goal, in my opinion.

So, back to the genealogy chain… in pictures, here’s what we did:

For our class, I pre-printed all the names from the Matthew 1 genealogy of Christ on colored strips of paper. Older kids could write them down themselves. And the Luke 3 genealogy from Adam to Jesus could be used as well.

Because I have to have things very organized for our group of 1st & 2nd graders, I put all the names in order with Jesus on bottom and Abraham on top. I put them in sandwich baggies as shown below so that after starting with Abraham, each child could just take the next strip of paper with the next name on it out of the bag and the rest would remain in the bag and in order. The links of the chain may be fastened with staplers or with tape.

Now, when you have 16 1st and 2nd graders working on such a project, there is absolutely no time whatsoever for pictures to be taken. But with two kids working on it at home, it was a fairly peaceful affair.

And when they’re done…

I don’t know about you, but I’m always looking for a fun way to bring my family and especially my kids back to what we are truly celebrating at Christmas time… the birth of Christ. I hope that this is an idea that might help some of you in your endeavors to do the same thing.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Sugar Cookies

2011-12-19T06:12:00.000-06:00

In preparation for a little Christmas shin-dig I’m having at my house this week, I decided to make and decorate some Christmas cookies. Lots of Christmas sugar cookies.

It is no easy task to find the time to undertake such an endeavor with a job outside of my home, two active kids in grade school with homework and projects galore and everything else that a mom has to do. So rather than try to do it all in one single block of time, I did it in stages.

In a spare 20 minutes I had one day, I made the cookie dough. And since it needs to refrigerate anyways, I just put it in the refrigerator until I had time to bake the cookies the next day. After baking the cookies the next day and allowing them to cool completely, I bagged them in zipper plastic bags and froze them until I was ready to decorate them, nearly a week later.

I made all of the icing one morning when I had a spare 15 minutes and then covered it and set it aside until later that evening when I could get around to it again. That evening, I colored all the icing and decorated one batch and finished up the other two batches the next day.

Taking it in little chunks like that really helped me to not feel overwhelmed by the task I had put before myself.

I saw an idea recently that intrigued me, so I decided to monkey with my tried and true sugar cookie recipe. I removed 4 ounces of butter and replaced it with 4 ounces of cream cheese. The outcome…. delicious!! The cream cheese adds just a little zip to the flavor that I felt gave the sugar cookies a whole new dimension. My updated Cream Cheese Sugar Cookie recipe is posted over on the recipe blog. Just click on the link.

>>>Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies

In the midst of all the baking, freezing and decorating, I set some of the cookies that would eventually become ornaments on racks on our kitchen table to thaw so that I could decorate them while sitting down in a chair. I was in the other room when I heard my husband yell, “NO SULLY! BAD DOG!”

I came back into the kitchen and saw that something was missing.

He was really sorry. Sorry that he got caught, at least.

Lesson learned. Sully is now big enough to get his front paws on TOP of the table and reach food that is sitting there. A far cry from where he started.

I made Christmas trees, ornaments and stars all using techniques that were new to me that I learned from the brilliant Bridget over at Bake at 350. While mine are not as good as hers, I’m pretty pleased with how they turned out for the most part.

Merry Christmas, y’all !!

Today at A Martha Heart...

2011-12-13T13:38:00.003-06:00

Today I'm over at A Martha Heart. I share a very insightful creative writing assignment that my daughter brought home from school and think about about a few "What ifs" that came to mind as I read it.

Enjoy "the kite."

A new adventure with Tomatillo Jalapeño Jam

2011-12-12T06:33:00.000-06:00

I got the most wonderful gift from a dear friend when we hosted a fall gathering of friends at our home right before Halloween. She brought me a paper lunch sack loaded with jalapeños from her garden.

As I stood there and stared at these beautiful gems I wondered what on earth I would do with them all. Then it struck me that I could make jalapeño jelly. So then the search began for a recipe. The search was pretty short. I scanned the internet and then realized I had a cookbook in my possession that may have just what I was looking for. And it did. More on that in a moment.

I also had to wrap my mind around the idea of canning. It was a thing that struck fear into my heart. I don’t know why as I have watched my mother successfully can everything from peach preserves to pear halves my whole life. Even still, it always seemed to be this mystical magical thing that only women who survived the depression and the dust bowl should know how to successfully accomplish.

I mean, what if I don’t do it right and everyone gets food poisoning?

But, I decided to put on my big girl panties and give it a try.

The recipe I found came from Lisa Fain’s new The Homesick Texan cookbook. I have followed Lisa on Twitter for quite some time and have always enjoyed her blog. So when I found out she was coming to the Le Creuset store in Dallas to sign her new cookbook, I absolutely had to take the opportunity to go and meet her in person. (Missing a World Series game in the process, y’all.)

And I’ll tell y’all, she is just as precious in person as she seems in her book and on her blog. And her grandma, the one she talks about in the book and whose hands are pictured in it… she was there. I spent several minutes talking to her and she reminded me ever so much of my Nana.

All that to say that if you have a cook in your life, her cookbook, The Homesick Texan, is a perfect gift. Or a Le Creuset dutch oven would work nicely also. (Especially since I scored one for 40% off that night and handed it to my hubby and said, “Merry Christmas to me!” He may or may not have rolled his eyes.)

In her book is a recipe for Tomatillo Jalapeño Jam. I really liked the idea of using tomatillos and the addition of some additional spices like clove and allspice to this jam really got my attention.

Since I was trying to make enough for some Christmas gifts, I multiplied the recipe a couple of times and learned a very valuable lesson in the process. You CAN multiply a jam recipe too many times. I think I had too much liquid and therefore it initially did not set up properly. But I cooked it just a tad bit more the next day and added just a little bit of unflavored gelatin and that did the trick.

And you know what? The canning part of the whole thing was not a huge deal. In fact, it was kind of fun to boil the jars, remove them from the water and wait to hear the pop of the lid sealing. I don’t know how it happens, but it does, and it’s as cool as all get out to tap the top of that jar and hear it go, “PING.”

So now I have some awfully good tasting gifts to give for Christmas. I think two jars will go to the kids’ teachers and the others to my cousins.

So, if you’re still reading this and are interested, here is the recipe (used with Lisa’s permission):

Tomatillo Jalapeño Jam
copyright 2011 The Homesick Texan Cookbook, page 36

Yield: 1 pint

1/2 pound tomatillos, husks removed, chopped
2 jalapeño chiles, seeds and stems removed, finely diced
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup lime juice
2 teaspoons lime zest

Special Equipment:
1 pint-size jar or 2 half-pint-size jars
(I recommend the latter)

1. Sterilize the jars and lids in either a pot of boiling water or dishwasher.

2. In a pot, add the tomatillos, jalapeño, vinegar, sugar, ground cloves, ground allspice, ground cinnamon, lime juice, lime zest and 1/2 cup of water. Bring to a boil and then turn the heat down to a low simmer, stirring often, for 45 minutes or until it’s thick and syrupy.

3. Pour the jam into the jars, then cover with the lids and fasten with the ring. Let it cool and then refrigerate. The jam will become more solid after a few hours in the refrigerator and will last for a month, refrigerated.

{Side note: For those of you who are like myself and love to use a thermometer for things like this, I did some research in my On Food and Cooking book and found that the temperature should reach 217°-221° F “which indicates that the sugar concentration has reached 65%”. The author, Harold McGee, also suggests that “a fresher flavor results when this cooking is done at a gentle simmer in a wide pot with a large surface area for evaporation.” Page 297.}

Enjoy!

Homemade Butter. Just like the Pilgrims?

2011-11-21T06:06:00.000-06:00

Well, maybe not *just* like the pilgrims did it, but homemade butter nonetheless.

Our school has a tradition in each grade. My son is in 1st grade this year and the big tradition for them is the Thanksgiving celebration and feast. During the party portion of the day, also known as the whole first half of the day, the kids are split into small groups and they rotate from station to station. These stations include teepee stories, snacks, bracelet making, necklace making (of the macaroni variety), bows and arrows (as we pray against any impalements) and finally butter making.

Which is where I come in. Because, you know, I’m an expert on making butter.

Or not.

Regardless, it was certainly fun. And exhausting.

But more about that later.

You may be wondering how on earth one might make homemade butter. Well guess what… we’re just going to subtitle this post here today as “Butter Making 101” and I’ll try to give you a lesson.

Start with clean baby food jars. I know that the lids aren’t on these, but you need the lids.

Fill them about half way up with heavy cream.

You may add a little salt if desired. Then tightly screw on the lid.

When you are doing 46 of these for your son’s entire first grade at school, it will look something like this:

And finally, begin to shake.

Your child will start out very excited to be on this journey of making his or her own butter. They will smile and giggle as they shake.

Your child might even break out into song. Like:

“Shake – Shake - Shake!

Shake – Shake - Shake!

Shake your butter!

Shake your butter!”

Or:

“You know you make me want to shake!

Kick my heels up and shake!

Throw my hands up and shake!

Throw my head back and shake!”

Things will be all nice and rosy until about two minutes later and the children all of the sudden wilt into little moaning whining puddles that used to resemble happy children as they complain and ask, “Is it done YET?”

That’s where your big strapping arms come in.

Yeah, I know.

So as you shake, at first you clearly hear the liquid sloshing around. Keep shaking. Then you hear less and less and the jar is completely white and you can’t see a thing in there. Keep shaking. Then all of the sudden, you will clearly be able to see in the jar and it will look like a single mushy mass. Keep shaking just a little more. Then that single mushy mass will separate and become a butter ball and buttermilk.

Now before I began this project today, someone told me to keep the cream cold and that it would work better if the cream was cold. These kids and the adults helping to chaperone them (okay, more the adults than the kids if I’m honest) shook these little jars for 10-13 minutes.

A different someone during the day said that they thought it would work better if the cream were more at room temperature. So that got me to wondering. And I did a very scientific experiment.

I left a jar out on our countertop for a little while (that’s a very specific and scientific measurement of time, right there). Then set the timer as my daughter shook it up. It took her 3 minutes flat.

I think I’d be going with closer to room temperature if I ever did this again. Because after two and a half hours of shaking cream into butter for a bunch of soft 1st graders who couldn’t shake their jars more than 1 1/2 minutes, my arms were killing me. I mean, who needs a Shake Weight when there’s baby food jar butter to be made?

I left the school, went home, immediately took some Advil, put huge ice packs on my arms and began looking into cryotherapy.

(As of this writing, it is in the evening of the same day and I have warned my husband that I do not intend to lift a single thing tomorrow.)

Let me give you just a little piece of advice. If your son’s first grade teacher asks you to be in charge of the butter making station for the Thanksgiving celebration, just politely say no. Your arms will thank you for it later.

In all seriousness, it was a blast and I really enjoyed getting to impart a little bit of food science to them as I tried to describe the butter making process on a 1st grade level.

If you have some cream and a small jar around, I suggest trying this with your child some time. They might just appreciate that butter that they use on their toast or corn on the cob just a little more if they know how it’s made.

Technorati Tags: homemade butter,baby food jar butter,thanksgiving,children in the kitchen,children cooking

Dining Room Facelift

2011-11-14T05:09:00.000-06:00

If you haven’t heard, we recently remodeled our kitchen. In doing so, it also meant that the eating area/dining room got a face-lift as well.

This is what it looked like before:

That design on the wall? It’s not wallpaper. That’s stenciled and painted on. Nice, huh?

Along with the kitchen, it: got new tile, lost the wainscot, lost the “popcorn” ceiling texture (thank you, Jesus), received new texture on the walls and ceiling and got a fresh coat of paint on everything.

Once once all of that was done, it was time to add some decorative touches. I created a computer desk and school work nook for the kids and added some wall decoration. But there was still something terribly missing. The windows were naked.

Knowing that I would never find anything suitable that I could just purchase and hang, because I never do, I began to look for fabric and a pattern to make some kind of a valance. For the fabric, I knew I wanted something with a good amount of black to echo the black in the cabinets around the new range. It also needed to have colors that would blend with both the cobalt blue that I have as an accent in my kitchen but also with the curtains in the living room. As for a pattern, I knew I wanted something fairly simple because I’m just not into a bunch of fussy valance kind of stuff.

Surprisingly, I found the fabric and pattern that I wanted pretty easily. Now I just needed a good long weekend and some money. I came into both around the time of my birthday. So, after my mom helped me figure out how much fabric I needed, I locked myself in the craft room and got to work.

The whole thing probably took longer than it should have because there was so much good October baseball to watch on TV while I was trying to work.

Now, the valance is done and everything is where it should be, for the most part, our dinning room is much more pleasant to look at.

The walls are nice and clean without a busy pattern.

The kids have a computer desk and their own magnetic wipe boards that is positioned in the corner beside the refrigerator. Out of the way, but still in view of everyone for our own peace of mind.

The wall decorations are hung and so is the valance.

The only thing that I still want to do is to have the table and chairs sanded down and re-stained black. I think it would look really nice against the light colored floor and would really help tie the kitchen and dining spaces together nicely.

Overall, I am really pleased with how it all turned out and it looks so much better in person. My lighting for these pictures was horrible. Hey… maybe you should come over some time and see for yourself.

I’ll put some coffee on and some cookies in the oven.

Showing my Texas Rangers Spirit

2011-10-27T01:15:00.001-05:00

Let’s go Rangers! Clap – Clap – Clap-Clap-Clap!

BBA Challenge #30 – Basic Sourdough Bread

2011-10-06T06:18:00.001-05:00

I finally made it. Sourdough.

I have actually made this formula before. Several years ago, in fact. But that was not “in order” and part of the challenge is to do all the formulas in the book “in order.”

Now, I have a fairly tried and tested method for sourdough bread. This one is different and while I haven’t taste tested them side by side, I don’t know that there is much difference. And I don’t know that I have a whole lot of preference for one method over the other either. It’s just two different ways to the same end.

Mr. Reinhart’s method begins with taking some of your barm (sourdough starter) and making what he refers to as a firm starter; basically a relatively stiff dough without any salt.

One kind of nice thing about sourdough, and most other breads for that matter, is that you don’t have to babysit it. It’s not nearly as fussy as you might think. In fact, I made my two loaves over several days as I had the time.

Do a step, stick it in the fridge. Come back the next day when I have time and do a step, then stick it in the fridge again. It may seem like a long process, but it’s liberating to me to be able to set it aside and work on it as I have the time. And as a side bonus, this tends to develop more flavor.

I started out taking my starter out of the fridge and feeling guilty that I had neglected it for so long. However, I was also kind of proud that it was still alive. I began feeding it a couple of days prior to starting the bread. I fed it twice over a several day period to get it to wake up a bit.

Then I finally made my firm starter on a Saturday when I had some time, let it ferment for several hours and then put it in the fridge. I came back the next day (a Sunday morning) and made my dough and let it do it’s initial fermentation while we were at church. We got home and boy had it fermented. Over fermented to be more exact. But moving on, I formed my loaves. Knowing that I would not get around to baking them that day, I put each in a bowl in the refrigerator immediately and we went out of town.

I came back the next day to bake one of the loaves and low and behold, I found this:

A huge air bubble on top of my dough. And it was on both dough balls. My guess is that the over fermentation of the first rise somehow caused this because I have never had that happen before.

I took the dough and reshaped it and let it proof and baked it.

The result was a beautiful loaf.

And this is one of my favorite ways to eat sourdough bread. Sliced with a thin layer of Nutella spread on top.

I recently introduced my kids to the wonder of the Nutella topped bread. It was a hit and now a favorite treat for a snack.

Like I said, I don’t know that I have a particular preference between Mr. Reinhart’s method of firm starter versus just starting with the barm. Either way leads to sourdough goodness. And it’s alright with me.

To see my other Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge blog posts and to read about the challenge, go here.

BBA Challenge #29 - Pugliese

2011-09-28T06:54:00.000-05:00

I had a hard time finding the pictures of when I made this bread. And once I found them, I could see why. They were totally forgettable as far as pictures were concerned.

I made this bread while I had a break in the action before we really got going on our kitchen remodel and while I had a break from work during the Thanksgiving holiday.

I honestly don’t remember anything memorable about this bread. I totally know that many of these artisan breads are so totally different, but if I’m honest, I feel sometimes like the Andi character in “The Devil Wears Prada” when she says that the two belts being held up during a run-through look exactly the same. It seems like once you make all these different types of artisanal breads, they all kind of run together and seem very much the same other than their shape.

Does anyone else feel the same way? Or are you all just going to give me a lecture about how completely different each of the breads is?

To see my other Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge blog posts and to read about the challenge, go here.

Slow Cooker: The Best Cookbook Ever? Maybe.

2011-09-26T06:41:00.003-05:00

For my birthday this year, I received, among other things, a cookbook from my daughter. A slow cooker cookbook to be exact.

Now, I had requested the new Slow Cooker Revolution by America’s Test Kitchen/Cook’s Illustrated from my husband. However, he’s a guy and doesn’t remember details like that and gets to the store and asks himself, “Now, which book did she ask for?” And finally gives up and just picks one.

The one I received was Slow Cooker: The Best Cookbook Ever by Diane Phillips. And I have to admit that after being a little wary and disappointed by not getting the specific one I had requested, I have actually been pretty impressed.

The is not a “throw in a can of this and a can of that” kind of a slow cooker recipe book. These recipes are the real deal. The author seems to have a very good understanding and does a very good job of layering flavors to give the finished project deep and complex flavors after hours in a slow cooker.

So far I have tried three recipes out of this cookbook. I usually withhold all judgments until I have tried at least that many. This one has passed the test.

A couple of things I will say about it. A) You cannot be afraid of bacon. Out of the three recipes I tested, all three included bacon. 2) You cannot be afraid to cook with alcohol. Otherwise be ready to look for substitute ingredients. Two of the three recipes I tried called for either wine or beer. And 3) You need a good place from which to purchase “soppin’ bread” because these are some good sauces.

And I have to admit, using my slow cooker has been nice. I am able to cook a meal mostly while I am at work and most of these recipes make enough for plenty of leftovers for one of our busier nights when my husband can just heat something up and not have to cook.

The first recipe I tried was called Bistro Chicken Thighs and is made up of chicken thighs in a tomato and wine sauce. It was so good that this is the only picture I could come up with.

One of the other recipes that I just tried this week is Hungarian Smoked Beef Braise. It’s like a gorgeous cross between a hearty beef stew and a pot roast with root vegetables.

Since we are headed into the fall and winter months, and my daughter said of this recipe, “The would be great on a cold winter evening,” I’m going to share this recipe with you.

Hungarian Smoked Beef Braise

Serves 8

Ingredients:

6 medium Yukon gold or red potatoes, quartered
4 medium carrots, cut into 1-inch lengths
2 teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
4 strips thick-cut bacon, cut into ½ - inch pieces
3 medium onions, cut into half rounds*
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
2 chipotle chiles in adobo, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup all-purpose flour
3 ½ - 4 pounds beef chuck, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 tablespoons (plus some extra) canola or vegetable oil
One 14-15 ounce can chopped tomatoes, with juice
Once 12 ounce bottle Guinness or dark ale**

* For the onions, I saw this “cut into half rounds” description a couple of times in the book. As near as I can tell, this means to cut the onion in half lengthwise and then slice (so that the layers of the onion make a rainbow type pattern when sliced).

** We don’t normally have Guinness beer in our house. But, being a good Texan, I do quite often have Shiner Bock. The Shiner Bock worked great in this recipe.

You will also need:

Large skillet
1 gallon sized zip top baggie
5-7 quart slow cooker

Method:

Arrange the potatoes, carrots, 1 teaspoon of the salt and the pepper in the insert of the slow cooker and stir to combine. Cook the bacon in a large skillet over medium heat until crisp.

Transfer the bacon to the slow-cooker insert and remove all but 3 tablespoons of fat from the pan. Heat the remaining fat in the pan over medium-high heat. Add the onions, paprika, chiles, and garlic and sauté until the onions begin to soften ( 4-5 minutes).

Transfer the mixture to the slow-cooker insert. Put the flour and the remaining 1 teaspoon of salt in the zip top baggie. Put the meat in the flour, toss to coat and shake off any excess flour.

Heat the canola oil in the same skillet over high heat. Add the meat a few pieces at a time and brown on all sides. Transfer the browned meat to the slow-cooker insert. Deglaze the pan with the tomatoes, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan.

Transfer the tomatoes to the slow-cooker insert. Add the Guinness (SHINER) and stir to combine. Cover the slow cooker and cook on high for 4-5 hours until the meat and vegetables are tender.

Skim off any fat from the top of the stew and serve the meat and vegetables from the slow cooker.

BBA challenge #28 – Potato Rosemary Bread

2011-09-23T08:17:00.000-05:00

Rosemary is an herb that I normally have in abundance. I have a huge amount of respect for rosemary as a plant. It is one of the few plants that can survive and even thrive in the hard Texas soil and harsh summer climate. I planted a very small one at our old house and within a few years, it had taken over most of that flower bed.

When we moved into this house, there were two huge rosemary plants with trunks several inches thick at the base. We figured they must have been close to as old as the house (which was build in 1979-1980). Not long after we moved in, however, one of them died followed by the other one the next year. I have since planted a new one and look forward to it taking off.

But on to the bread. Here are just some pictures since I made this long enough ago (ahem, the pictures say July 2009) that I don’t remember a thing.

I made this bread in between when I thought we might be moving out of this house and when we started really remodeling the kitchen. So if my memory serves me correctly, I really rather enjoyed it and I would totally make it again.

To see my other Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge blog posts and to read about the challenge, go here.

Meet Sully

2011-09-21T05:49:00.000-05:00

It seems a little ironic that the very day that I posted this article at A Martha Heart that this is who came to live with us.

Meet Sully.

He’s half golden retriever and half yellow Labrador.

His daddy is 110 pounds.

He won’t be this size for long.

So we are enjoying it while it lasts.

All of us but Gus, it seems.

When a family pet and friend dies...

2011-09-20T10:15:00.003-05:00

My little family began the day that my husband and I got married in January 1996. By June of that year we had purchased our first home. And then on August 29th, our family grew when Mike brought home our first puppy in celebration of my birthday that year.

read more...

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Join me over at A Martha Heart for the rest of this post.

Your dachshund might be spoiled if…

2011-09-10T23:47:00.002-05:00

Your dachshund has lived a very spoiled life if she spends her last moments lying in her owners lap and surrounded by her family loving and petting on her.

Oh Frankie, you lived with our family and brought us such joy for 15 years. How we will all miss you so.

Frankie: 7/1996 - 9/10/2011

You can see other “Your dachshund might be spoiled if…” posts about Frankie and posts about our other dogs here.

Kitchen update {part seventeen} -My favorite things

2011-08-04T06:51:00.000-05:00

Over the last 5 (or so) years I have gathered ideas from pictures and other people’s kitchens and made a mental wish list of what I would eventually want in my dream kitchen. My desire here is to give you ideas if you are in that same boat. I want to put all of our best and favorite ideas in one place so that if someone out there is thinking and dreaming about what they might want in their kitchen some day, they could see what we found that works really well… for us at least.

So, from the home office in Dallas/Fort Worth, TX, my top ten favorite things in my new kitchen (not necessarily in “favorite order”).

10. The (soon to come) pot-filler. I already love this backsplash that hubs installed and I really think I’m going to like the pot-filler that will accompany it… when we get it done.

9. Our new KitchenAid french door refrigerator. I love the drawer freezer and the width of the main part of the fridge. And it has a wicked-awesome computer in it that measures out how many ounces of water that it is dispensing, runs a picture slide show and picks your nose. (Well, not that last part, but it does everything but.)

8. Our new Delta Touch2O faucet. We all keep walking up to other faucets and trying to touch them to turn them on. Our whole family loves the touch faucet.

7. Spice jar storage drawer beside the range. We had to adjust our original design because of space constraints and I did not know where on earth I would store my herbs and spices. This drawer and some little clear topped spice jars were the perfect solution. I bought these jars here.

6. The new custom pantry. It may be in the hallway just off the kitchen, but it is a might better than that old useless thing we used to have. There is room for everything in one place. Now if we could just get the tile in the hallway done so that it could have a finished tile floor.

One thing in particular that I love about the pantry is how we designed a specific place for a rolling cart to house my big stand mixer. I love that it is stored away in my new pantry and that I can just wheel the whole thing out to use it and I can put the whole thing away when I’m done.

5. The super-awesome vent hood over the new range. We purchased this GE Monogram vent hood that was designed as a “stand alone” type that was surrounded by stainless steel from our “scratch & dent” guy. We got it really cheap. But it easily takes care of any steam or smoke you might generate. And since it was originally a stand alone type unit, it has a prettier appearance than the ones that are made to be hidden.

4. The stone arch and how it offsets the surrounding black cabinets and accents as well as contrasts with the stainless range and fridge.

I just love how this “star of the show” as far as decorative elements turned out.

3. The utensil drawers. There are four of them hidden behind cabinet doors. They are shallow and wide enough to find everything easily, yet deep enough for my large measuring cups to sit upright in them with no problem.

2. Our custom maple hutch; designed by me and built by our cabinet maker.

It has a special pull out shelf for my computer and doors to house all of our kitchen/family office type things.

And… my number one favorite thing in my new kitchen…..

1. My new KitchenAid professional grade range with steam assist.

As a lover of baking bread, the steam assist mode is the greatest thing since… well… sliced bread.

And as a bonus, I just can’t end this post without saying how much we love the new tile floor.

It’s a brushed marble and it is just gorgeous. Each and every tile is different. And there is just enough color variation within and between tiles that dirt is not as evident (and with two kids and two dogs in the house, that is a good thing).

I know I kind of sound like a commercial in this post, and I want to clarify that we received none of these appliances or merchandise. We purchased every last bit of it. We are just in love with our new kitchen and want to tell you about it a little.

You can view a list of all my kitchen updates here.

Kitchen update {part sixteen} -A comparison before and after

2011-08-03T06:30:00.000-05:00

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

You can view a list of all my kitchen updates here.

Kitchen update {part fifteen} - Finally Complete

2011-08-01T06:15:00.000-05:00

Here it is.

Kitchen version 2.0 after a complete uninstall of what we believe may have been version 1.3.

The pot filler behind the range is the only “major” thing that is still undone. But the kitchen was clean (for once) and I had a few minutes to take pictures, so here it is.

Also this week you will see posts with some before and after pictures and a tour of some of our more favorite elements.

You can view a list of all my kitchen updates here.

Ringling Bros. Giveaway

2011-07-14T07:52:00.001-05:00

It’s that time of year in the Dallas/Fort Worth area: The circus is coming to town!

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey^® presents BARNUM 200^® is coming to American Airlines Center, July 27-August 7, and Fort Worth Convention Center, August 10-14. This monumental, once-in-a- lifetime event celebrates The Biggest Birthday Bash in Circus History in honor of P.T. Barnum’s 200th birthday. For more information, visit www.Ringling.com.

We love ourselves some circus and I know many of you do also. So I took up the opportunity to give away a 4-pack of circus tickets for Wednesday, July 27th at the American Airlines Center in Dallas.

To enter, just leave a comment on this blog post, including your email address, and tell me what 4 lucky people will use the tickets.

For additional entries:

You may leave an additional comment on this blog post for another chance to win if you tweet about this giveaway. Please include a link to your specific tweet in the additional comment.
You may leave an additional comment on this blog post for another chance to win if you post about this giveaway on Facebook. Please tag WayMoreHomemade in your post so that I can see it.

I will draw a winner on Friday morning, July 15th.

The fine print: This giveaway is only for 4 tickets to the July 27th show. No additional tickets are available. Nor are they available for any other date. Please make sure that you can attend the show on that date before entering the giveaway.

And even if you do not win the giveaway, I hope you will try to go to the circus with your family. It has always been such a good memory for our family and a nice break from these dog days of summer. If you are going to purchase tickets, you should make note of the following:

The show will be at the American Airlines Center, July 27-August 7, and Fort Worth Convention Center, August 10-14
There is a military discount available to our service members. More information can be found at this link.
Reading with Ringling Bros. is back again! Kids from ages 2-12 can visit participating libraries and earn a free ticket to the circus by simply doing their summer reading. Here’s a link to the Dallas/Fort Worth pages…http://www.readingwithringling.com/CityHome.aspx?id=19178
Ringling Bros. is offering a free ticket to newborns! Check out this link for information.

Note: My family and I were compensated with tickets to the circus for the publicity that my blog posts and this give away affords.

STS135 – Godspeed Atlantis

2011-07-11T08:47:00.001-05:00

We went on a little trip last week and I still can’t believe we got to be there.

And I got to experience it with some very special people.

Like Father Like Son {Wordless Wednesday}

2011-07-06T09:40:00.000-05:00

Cinnamon muffin insanity

2011-06-30T23:24:00.001-05:00

A while back I made a huge order from King Arthur flour. In fact, it was just as we were embarking on the kitchen remodel. Therefore, many of the things I purchased, I have yet to have the opportunity to use.

Well, that is no longer the case for one item.

One of the things I ordered was a bag of cinnamon baking chips. I couldn’t wait to use these in a good batch of muffins. But I had to wait because as soon as the kitchen was at least functional again, we had 8 am tee-ball games every Saturday morning. Tee-ball games at 8 am are not conducive to muffin making. Just sayin’.

Well, finally got my chance late in the season when my son’s tee-ball game was cancelled one Saturday morning due to rain the night before. It was time to have a lazy Saturday and celebrate with some cinnamon muffins.

I had to hunt for a while before I found a recipe that I felt would be a good starting place at CooksCountry.com (where I have recently purchased a membership). I told my man that I was toying with decreasing the amounts of cinnamon elsewhere since I was adding cinnamon chips. I asked, “Would it be too much cinnamon?”

“Is that even possible?” was his response.

Right.

Some might say that it’s too much cinnamon, but in this house there is no such thing.

And I don’t mind telling ya. These were goooo-ooood!

So here’s the recipe for some Insanely Cinnamon Muffins

Insanely Cinnamon Muffins

Adapted from: Cook’s Country “Coffeecake Muffins” (http://www.cookscountry.com)

Makes 12 muffins.

Be sure to use muffin-tin liners for this recipe or the cinnamon filling will stick to the pan.

Ingredients:

Streusel
8 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces and chilled

Muffin batter
2 large eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
½ cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into chunks and softened
½ cup cinnamon chips

You will also need:

Muffin “tin” liners
1 Muffin “tin”
Food processor
1 medium – large mixing bowl
1 medium mixing bowl
Whisk
Rubber/silicone spatula
Small & medium spring loaded scoops (if available)

Method:

For the streusel:
Pulse 5 tablespoons granulated sugar, brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, and butter in food processor until just combined. Place in a small bowl and set aside in the refrigerator while mixing the muffin batter.

Do not wash food processor.

For the muffins:
Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 375 degrees. Grease muffin tin with cooking spray and line with paper liners.

Whisk eggs, sour cream, and vanilla in a medium-sized bowl and set aside.

Pulse flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in food processor until thoroughly combined. Add butter and pulse until mixture resembles wet sand then transfer to a large bowl.

Pour egg mixture over the flour mixture; using rubber spatula, gently fold it in a few times. Add cinnamon chips and continue to fold together until just combined. The resulting batter will be very thick. Using a small spring-loaded scoop, place 1 tablespoon of batter into each muffin cup and top with 1 tablespoon cinnamon filling. Using back of spoon (or fingers), press cinnamon filling lightly into batter, then top with remaining batter (using a heaping medium-sized spring loaded scoop). Sprinkle streusel topping evenly over batter.

Bake until muffins are light golden brown and toothpick inserted into center comes out with a few dry crumbs attached, 22 to 28 minutes. Cool muffins in tin for 30 minutes, then carefully transfer to rack to cool.

Serve.

(The muffins will keep in airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days but taste SO much better on the first day that it would surprise me if they make it past that.)

R2D2 Birthday Cake

2011-06-08T08:12:00.001-05:00

We recently celebrated my son’s 6th birthday and if you didn’t know, he’s a little bit of a Star Wars fan.

Just a little.

So it only stands to reason that he would have a Star Wars birthday cake.

Well, it just so happens, that Mike was a bit of a Star Wars fan when he was a little guy as well and his mom thought he should have a Star Wars birthday cake, too. And when she moved out of the house Mike grew up in several years ago, we came into possession of the “Empire Strikes Back” R2D2 character cake pan that she used some thirty years ago for Mike’s birthday cakes.

So now it was my turn to make an R2D2 cake for my son using that same pan.

This six year old was pretty happy!

I made a strawberry cake (from cookscountry.com) and used cream cheese icing (which is always a challenge to work with because of the relative ease with which it melts).

Poor R2 (Artoo?).

Star Wars Pancake Mold Giveaway

2011-05-04T06:59:00.002-05:00

*** Thanks for entering. Comments are closed. ***

Happy Star Wars Day!

Did you even know such a thing existed?

I don’t know if you knew, but we’re pretty big Star Wars fans around here. In fact, one evening in the back yard, we were playing Star Wars (don’t ask) and I ended up in prison.

I said to Nathan, “I am part of the Imperial Senate on a diplomatic mission to Alderan.”

Without missing a beat, Nathan responded, “You are part of the Rebel Alliance and a spy. Take her away.”

Mike and I just laughed and laughed. It was priceless.

We also like pancakes.

So is it any wonder that we love these…

An older theater near us shows some classic movies periodically and we went to a showing of Return of the Jedi recently. They did a drawing for some prizes and Nathan won this set of pancake molds.

They make really cute pancakes.

We already had a set, so we wanted to give this set away to someone who would really want them.

So, in honor of Star Wars Day today, I’m giving this set of Star Wars pancake molds away here on the blog. The rules for this giveaway…

Leave a comment on this blog post and tell me your favorite movie quote from any of the Star Wars movies. Include an email address where you can be contacted.

Tweet about this giveaway and leave me a comment on this blog post including the link to the tweet for an extra chance to win.

I will close comments at 10 pm Central time and will announce a winner some time tomorrow.

Good luck.

And “May the Fourth be with you.”

Technorati Tags: Star Wars,pancake molds,giveaway,may the 4th be with you,Star Wars Day,Williams Sonoma

A letter to myself at A Martha Heart

2011-04-25T12:44:00.004-05:00

Several contributors over at A Martha Heart have written letters recently to themselves in the past, wishing to impart a nugget or two of wisdom that they wish they'd had in their younger years. I took a different angle on this idea and wrote a letter to myself a few years in the future.

Read the article here.

I hope you had a blessed Easter.

Your dachshund might be spoiled if…

2011-04-21T06:44:00.000-05:00

… she finds your clean sheets in a laundry basket to use for a bed and you just say, “Awww… aren’t you so cute.”

Frankie is fifteen years old.

She was recently diagnosed with congestive heart failure.

She is on a daily cocktail of medication to keep the fluid drained away from her heart and out of her lungs.

Even still, she doesn’t breathe very well.

We’re pretty sure her heart pumps blood in equal amounts in both directions.

And she’s deaf as a post.

So… I’m sure you’ll understand when I am a little more indulgent than usual.

Boy-howdy, is she spoiled rotten.

Celebrating Passover at A Martha Heart

2011-04-18T17:47:00.001-05:00

While you’re tapping your fingers and waiting impatiently for pictures of the finished kitchen (believe me, so am I), join me over at A Martha Heart today as I talk about celebrating Passover in a Christian home.

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As we embark on this most holy week leading up to the celebration of Resurrection Sunday, I want to remind you of another occasion that you may want to consider observing. Passover.

Yes. You heard me right. Passover.

No. I’m not Jewish. As I’ve said before, I’m a Protestant believer in Christ. A Gentile, even. But I am one who has, for several years, observed Passover with my family in some form.

Kitchen face-lift {part fourteen} – Tick tock

2011-03-28T08:21:00.002-05:00

All the contractors are gone and all that is left is the finish-out that we have to do. Things like:

Paint on the walls

Backsplash

Install appliances

Additional lighting

Trim

This may not look like a lot, but considering all the individual items under each of those five main points, the list is long. However, it saves us a ton of money to do it ourselves.

Do you ever watch any makeover shows? Like What Not To Wear or Extreme Makeover? Well, let’s just consider this that seemingly ever-so-long commercial break before the big reveal.

All the stuff Mike and I are doing ourselves will be at night and on the weekends so it might take a while and I won’t have a lot of time to post updates. But as soon as I feel like it’s pretty much finished, you’ll be the first to know.

Or maybe my neighbors will be as I squeal for joy.

In the meantime, I hope to start cooking again as soon as the appliances are installed. I have no idea what will be first. But I do know that all four of us are so ready to have our kitchen functioning again.
Until then…

**** Cue “Jeopardy” music ****

You can view a list of all my kitchen updates here.

Kitchen face-lift {part thirteen} – A series of unfortunate events

2011-03-25T05:17:00.000-05:00

When we last spoke about the cabinets, we were waiting for them to be stained and finished. Well, now they have been finished. But there is quite the story.

Plan A: The first guy that was supposed to stain and finish the cabinets…. how do I say this?… well, he left the country. That’s about all we know.

Plan B: The sub-contractor we were going to use to do the drywall tape & bed and texture agreed to stain the cabinets and finish them. Well, first he was delayed because of an unfortunate incident involving him being pulled over and having an outstanding warrant for a previous ticket that he thought was taken care of. That set him back a couple of days and caused a scheduling crunch with some other jobs he had that were set to start.

He was going to do all the wall texture first then the cabinets and was going to work through the weekend to get it all done. In the midst of that weekend, however, he had a family emergency that set us back another day. He finally finished the wall texture and when we were able to look at it the next morning, there were so many things that needed to be fixed that we called the general contractor out to take a look before he started on the cabinets. I wasn’t there, but apparently the general and the sub got into quite the heated discussion (so much so that Mike left the room) and the sub walked off the job.

On to…

Plan C: Our general contractor was on top of the situation and brought in another sub that afternoon to take a look at what we had, what needed to be fixed and try to get us on his schedule. A couple of days later they started work and were done with the drywall work (thankfully) before my daughter’s birthday slumber party.

The next Monday, they came in to do the cabinets. We were pretty much gone most of the day to work and school but once Mike got home with the kids after school and smelled the fumes from the polyurethane he began to wonder if the house would be inhabitable that night. I was with my son at t-ball practice (about 5:30 pm) when Mike called and said we definitely needed to find a hotel.

SO that day, we had work/school, daughter’s softball practice at 4, son’s t-ball practice at 5, Mike & daughter had Bible study that night in which Mike was leading the large group for the kids AND we had to pack up stuff and dogs and find a place to sleep. And everything was going to plan. Except that as I was at the hotel getting Nathan ready for bed before we went and picked up Sarah at Bible study, I pulled back the sheets on the bed and saw…. a bug.

Mike convinced me later that it was not a bed bug, but it was a bug in the bed nonetheless. So we had to go back home, and get our own air mattress for the kids and sheets for the bed and the kids didn’t get to bed that night until probably after 10 pm.

On a school night.

Sigh.

We didn’t even try to get to school on time the next day.

The point is that finally, after 2 weeks with my kitchen encased in plastic and a house covered in dust, the cabinets were stained and finished. It was worth it, because this was the result. They look great.

And there is another little surprise with the cabinets that you’ll have to wait until later to see.

Oh the suspense… right? :)

So, lessons learned from the staining of the cabinets and our series of unfortunate events experience:

A) Don’t plan on sleeping in your house after the cabinets have been stained. Plan ahead and make other sleeping arrangements ahead of time.

B) Either remove everything from your refrigerator or plan on tossing out most everything after all is said and done. Any open food will have a faint to strong polyurethane flavor to it.

C) Just go with the flow when you end up on Plan C (or D or E) for your remodeling project. Because it’s bound to happen. Remember: It’s better to have it done right than done right now.

You can view a list of all my kitchen updates here.

Kitchen face-lift {part twelve} – Stone and arches

2011-03-23T06:52:00.000-05:00

I’ve talked a lot so far in terms of the design elements being supporting actors and not the star of the show.

Well, today I’d like to introduce you to the star of the show. Or at least part of the star.

We had a stone arch installed above where the new range will eventually go. This arch mirrors the two arches that lead from our entryway into the living room.

The range and arch with stone tile backsplash will hopefully be a great focal point for the room and, in my mind, are the stars of the show.

We’ll see how it works out when it’s all said and done.

You can view a list of all my kitchen updates here.

Disney on Ice – Toy Story 3

2011-03-20T23:01:00.004-05:00

Comments are now closed.

*********

Out of all the Disney/Pixar films, Toy Story is, by far, my favorite. I can still get sucked into watching any of the three movies at any time. The characters are so wonderfully written and the story so engaging.

And what mother couldn’t relate to the third of the movies on some level? I heard of so many mothers of college or near college age that were so touched by the ending and the whole premise of Andy going away to college. Personally, my favorite and most touching scene was when Andy was talking about each toy to the little girl that would be their new owner and telling what he loved about each of them. It reminds me so much of how personally God loves each of us.

But now I’m straying from the topic at hand.

The point of all this is that Disney on Ice is bringing Toy Story 3 to the American Airlines Center in Dallas, March 30th through April 3rd.

It includes memorable moments from Toy Story and Toy Story 2 to create the ultimate Toy Story experience. It is a high-energy, jam-packed adventure that will take audiences to the edge of their seats and beyond.

I have been given a family pack of 4 tickets to give away for the March 30th performance. So if you’d like a chance to win these tickets, here are the rules:

Leave a comment on this blog post telling me your favorite scene or character from any of the 3 Toy Story movies. (Please include an email address so that I may communicate with you if you are the winner.)
For an extra chance to win, leave another comment on this blog post and include a link to a Facebook or Twitter post about this giveaway.

The giveaway will end on Tuesday, March 22, 2011 at midnight. I will select the winner at random and will announce the winner on Wednesday, March 23, 2011 via an email to the winner.

Never fear, if you don’t win the family four pack of tickets, tickets are available for purchase. I should be receiving information about any discounts on tickets soon and will share those details on my Facebook page and on Twitter.

*Thanks to Feld Entertainment for my family’s tickets and the tickets to giveaway for this event. We are super excited about it!

Kitchen face-lift {part eleven} – Counter tops

2011-02-24T04:42:00.000-06:00

There were already granite counter tops in this kitchen before we started our little remodel. In fact, we thought we were going to keep them. But it wasn’t a color that I was particularly fond of and would not have picked it out if given the choice. So once the decision was made to get new counters, a whole world of possibilities opened up to us.

We knew we still wanted the natural stone of granite rather than the engineered “Silestone” type products. So that narrowed the field a little. And we had put Baltic Brown granite in our previous house and liked it, so we knew that was a possibility and that it would likely be our choice this time as well.

But then, we went to the granite showroom and saw so many beautiful pieces of granite. Just beautiful.

You know, all it takes is a walk through a granite showroom for you to see the incredible creativity of God. Only the Lord could put some of those colors and patterns together and have them look as beautiful as they did. It’s amazing.

So we went in to the granite showroom with a pretty good idea of what we would pick and came out asking for quotes on several different pieces. One in particular, called Volcano Satin, was a beautiful piece with the huge vein of color running through it and a wonderful textured finish. It was incredible. And expensive.

In the end, cooler heads prevailed and we went with our original choice of Baltic Brown. Not only because of the more reasonable price tag, but because the way our counter tops were, we felt like we wouldn’t have a sufficient large area to showcase the beauty of the Volcano granite. And, like the floors we had to recognize that the counter top was not the showpiece of the room.

The floor and counter tops are supporting actors in our kitchen, not the star.

The counter top now provides a raised bar area that we did not have before and we are all really excited about that.

I walked in to the kitchen to take a picture for this blog post and almost cleared everything off of the counter tops. But it made me so happy to see the room look inhabited again, that I left everything just as it was. Chicken Express cup of tea and all.

*happy sigh*

Monster Jam? Yes!

2011-02-22T06:03:00.000-06:00

There are some places that I would have never seen myself going or even wanting to go about 6 years ago. And in case you don’t understand the significance of 6 years ago, that may have something to do with when my son was born.

Yes, there are many things I never expected to want to do before that little man came into my life. One of those things is a monster truck rally.

And yet, I am finding myself a little excited about the prospect of taking this little man who loves to run his monster trucks into one another to the Cowboys’ Stadium this Saturday for Monster Jam.

Here is some information that I did not know and thought you might find interesting:

Approximately 12 feet tall and about 12 feet wide, monster trucks are custom-designed machines that sit atop 66-inch-tall tires and weigh a minimum of 10,000 pounds. Built for short, high-powered bursts of speed, monster trucks generate 1,500 to 2,000 horsepower and are capable of speeds of up to 100 miles per hour. Monster trucks can fly up to125 to 130 feet (a distance greater than 14 cars side by side) and up to 35 feet in the air.

Monster Jam, sanctioned by the United States Hot Rod Association®, is the most popular monster truck tour, performing to over 4 million fans annually at the most prestigious arenas and stadiums throughout the world. Monster Jam® shows consist of three main fan-favorite elements – the pit party, racing and freestyle. The pit party gives all fans a chance to meet the stars of Monster Jam up-close while taking pictures and getting autographs.

The MetroPCS Party in the Pits on Saturday, February 26 from 2:30PM to 5:30PM give fans the opportunity to get a view of the trucks up close and meet the drivers of the massive monster trucks.

Here are some details about Monster Jam tickets.

Kids' SEATS are half-price. Did you get that? HALF PRICE!
There are several discount offers. Visit http://www.monsterjam.com/Tickets/2011/02/26/Arlington,_TX/ for more information.
The Pit Party is free when patrons pick up a Pit Pass from Metro PCS locations....participating locations can be found at the weblink above (where the discounts are). Patrons can only get into the Pit Party with a valid event ticket and a Pit Pass....the Pit Party is inside the stadium on the track.

I have also been informed that monster truck superstar Tom Meents and his truck Maximum Destruction will be at Metro PCS (at Wal-Mart shopping center), 1714 Precinct Line, Suite 500, Hurst, TX 76054. He will be there Friday, February 25 from 2-6PM. It’s a great opportunity for families to be able to meet the drivers, get autographs and get photos. The event is free and open to the public! Tom will be competing in the Monster Jam on Saturday, February 26, 7PM. This is the first time he has competed in Dallas/Fort Worth.

Now I get to give away a couple of goodies. I hate that I don’t have tickets to give away this time, but I do have some fun things for that monster truck fan in your life.

I have one adult Monster Jam ball cap and one Monster Mutt puffy monster truck plush toy to give away this week.

So here are the details on the giveaway. Leave a comment on this blog post and tell me if you have ever been to a Monster Jam before and if so, one thing I need to be prepared for.

For an additional chance to win, come and find me at the event on Friday at the Hurst Metro PCS store. Hand me a piece of paper with your name and email address on it and I can add it to the drawing. I will be at the event at the Metro PCS between 4:30 – 5:30 pm.

I will close the comments and choose a winner on Friday night the 25th after 6 pm.

Good luck and I hope to meet some of you on Friday. And I hope you can come to Monster Jam on Saturday. I can’t wait to see my little man’s face when we tell him where we are going.

Technorati Tags: Monster Jam,giveaway,Cowboys Stadium,DFW,Dallas,Fort Worth

Kitchen face-lift {part ten} - Cabinets

2011-02-21T03:34:00.000-06:00

The bulk of our cabinets arrived and were installed a couple of weeks ago, In fact, it was the day before the ice storm that shut our entire area down for the remainder of the week.

It’s funny that it had just been this big expansive and empty space for so long that once the cabinets began to arrive, we said it felt so small in comparison. We joked that the space was starting to close in on us (which is only funny if you realize how big the space really is even with the cabinets in there).

They are maple cabinets and we are so pleased with the quality of the workmanship. The old cabinets that were falling apart were mostly particle board. Not these. They are solid. And we love them.

I love that we used a custom cabinet maker for several reasons. One of those reasons is the custom hutch that he built for me. I designed it and he built it.

He took this:

And made this:

He did such a perfect job on it that I almost cried. There is something really wild about seeing a picture you’ve drawn and conceptualized be there in 3D.

In my opinion, custom cabinets are the way to go. I can not wait until they are stained and finished and we can move our stuff into them.

But wait, I must.

One of the challenges of working with independent sub contractors is that they can sometimes be a little… well… flaky. One sub that was going to do all the stain work on the cabinets just up and left the country. Not sure why. The other has had a little bit of a scheduling problem.

So we were delayed by ice and snow and now just by people. It will get done, but we’re just having to wait. And if waiting on my cabinets to be stained is the only problem I have right now, then I think I’m doing okay.

Don’t you?

Kitchen face-lift {part nine} - Tile

2011-02-16T14:35:00.000-06:00

Picking out tile is hard. Just hard.

We picked out a tile that I really liked when we thought we were just going to paint our existing cabinets and keep the existing countertops. But all that changed. And we realized that our choice of tile needed to change as well.

And I was very set on having tile. I’m one of those who just doesn’t really get with wood floors in the kitchen.

We looked at a lot of tile to find the one we would get. That is some difficult decision making right there. We had to realize at one point that the floor was not going to be the showpiece of the room and that we needed something that would go with the rest of the room, but not draw a lot of attention to itself.

We finally settled on a brushed marble we both loved and it was installed actually a couple of weeks ago (before the ice and snow).

Before they actually started laying the tile, he came in with a big grinder to even out and level the floor even more. Then they painted on a moisture barrier that will help protect the tile. To my surprise, this moisture barrier was RED.

And it made all the walls and ceiling look pink.

After two days to lay the tile and one day to grout, they were done. It makes me want to sigh with contentment.

It is a natural stone so every single tile is different. And while there is a little bit of uniformity to the color across the entire floor, there is a lot of variation from tile to tile which makes it very interesting to look at. And since it is a brushed marble instead of a highly polished one, it has this wonderful texture that makes my feet so happy.

We understand it to be a soft stone and we will have to seal it every year. But I really loved it too much to care about any extra maintenance.

An ice storm and unusually cold weather here in North Texas caused us to delay having the tile sealed by a week or so. We didn’t want them to have to drive with the icy streets and we didn’t want to have to walk outside in 18 degree weather just to get from one side of the house to the other so that we didn’t walk on the freshly sealed tile.

But now it is all sealed and we look at it every day and love it more and more. We believe it accomplishes perfectly our goal of having a beautiful floor that will also not greatly compete with other decorative elements in the room.

We interrupt this kitchen remodel with… ICE and SNOW

2011-02-07T23:49:00.001-06:00

Last week was fairly unprecedented weather-wise.

Tuesday morning I was awakened at about 4 am. Not by a geriatric dog that needed to go do business outside or get a drink. Not by a kid with a sore throat. No. But I was awakened by the wind howling and causing a crepe myrtle to slam against the house and sleet popping against my bedroom window.

It had rained most of the night and then the temperature dropped leaving us with a layer of ice across every street making them impassable.

And when I say the temperature dropped, it wasn’t to a normal 30 degrees F. No. Our high was about 30 degrees early Tuesday morning (it was already less than 30 when I woke up at 4 am) and it just went down from there. WAY down. We had a low temperature Tuesday night/Wednesday morning of around 12 degrees and the wind chill was –4. NEGATIVE FOUR, y’all. And the temperature didn’t really get above 20 until Friday. When it snowed about 3-4 inches on us.

So we had a layer of ice on Tuesday morning that never did have a chance to thaw and then several inches of snow on Friday. That means four things:

1. The kids had no school Tuesday – Friday. It was an odd and unexpected winter break. It was nice, but if we had known ahead of time, we’d have packed up and gone to Colorado to go skiing.

2. It was a regular sled-a-palooza around our house and we had a ball. We went sledding on sleet and ice on Tuesday and Wednesday which as I’ve said in several settings was wicked-fast and pretty wicked-awesome, too.

And we went sledding on powdery snow. It was much slower, but a lot prettier for sure. Later that day, the hill was packed powder like a ski run would be. It was the best sledding I’ve ever experienced.

3. Work on my kitchen came to a screeching halt. That’s about all I can say about that.

4. The next project on this house HAS GOT to be replacing the windows because, oh my stars how the cold poured in around our poorly sealed windows.

And you know…. while we’re at it….

Kitchen face-lift {part eight} – Where the kitchen at?

2011-02-04T05:22:00.000-06:00

Every once in a while, Mike and I break out into the beginning of the hit song, “Swagger Wagon.”

“Where my kids at? Where my kids at? Where my kids at? Where my kids at?”

“No, seriously, honey, where are the kids?”

“They’re right there, see.”

And then we crack up. Obviously, we’re easily entertained.

These days, I thought it an appropriate question in reference to my kitchen. And a question worth answering.

Since ripping out the cabinets and tile in early January, I have been reduced to this for a kitchen.

A microwave, a coffee maker and sometimes a precariously perched toaster in my laundry / extra bathroom.

What you can’t see off-camera to the left is a shower and a toilet. In my make-shift kitchen.

I have had to institute a no-going-potty-in-the-make-shift-kitchen rule.

I’m sure you understand.

As for the contents of my regular kitchen… well…

Check my dining room…

(ugh. what a mess.)

And our extra bedroom…

And the middle of my living room…

There’s nothing like seeing a refrigerator in the middle of your living room next to your piano. Nothing like it.

Except maybe a toilet and a shower.

My stuff needs a home.

Desperately.

Kitchen face-lift {part seven} – Firm foundation

2011-02-02T10:59:00.003-06:00

We have been involved with several building projects both at church and at school. One of the most precious times is always when we have met after the foundation was poured but before the finishes were put in to write scriptures, prayers and blessings on that foundation.

We decided to do this very thing on the foundation of our own home in our kitchen before things started being rebuilt.

Imagine that. We have demolished just about everything to be demolished and are writing scripture on our foundation so that things can be rebuilt. Much the same way that at times, our lives get demolished and the Lord just wants to write his Word upon the foundation of our hearts before he rebuilds upon it.

But I digress.

We had been through the whole process of chipping up the old ceramic tile which was messy and a little painful and ultimately required some professional help to finish chipping up all the thin-set. But it was good because they also leveled the floor and we also decided to just have them install the new tile.

But before they started the process of installing the new tile, we all sat down in the middle of the kitchen floor and wrote out verses of scriptures on it.

So, what scriptures did we choose?

This was a very meaningful experience for me and hopefully for the rest of my family. In his book Family Driven Faith, Voddie Baucham talks at one point about making our faith a multisensory experience in the home. This was part of that process for me as we engaged the sense of touch and sight.

We want for our home to honor the Lord. I pray that my children will long remember writing their own chosen scriptures on the foundation of this house as we marked it as God’s territory through these simple scriptures written on the foundation.

How have you marked your home as God’s territory? How are you bringing your faith to life in a multisensory way for your children?

You can view a list of all my kitchen updates here.

Kitchen face-lift {part six} - A Tale of Three Mikes

2011-02-01T05:55:00.000-06:00

We have been working hard on the kitchen.

And by we, you understand I mean Mike.

There has been demolition, electrical wiring and drywall hanging and a few moments that will be remembered forever.

There are a few shows that we watch on tv. We don’t watch a lot, but there are a few shows that we like. Two of them each have a host named Mike. And we happen to think that both of them might be interested in what we’ve got going on around our house these days.

First is Mike Holmes HGTV.

We keep finding things that we think would send Mike Holmes into a conniption fit. Like this little surprise that we found inside of the wall behind the sink after tearing out the drywall. A little gift from the guys who originally built the house over 30 years ago.

That right there is the old-school style pop top Budweiser can, my friends.

There have also been things that have led Mike to wonder aloud, “Did the plumbers do all the wiring in this house?!? Mike Holmes would have a field day with this.”

And then there’s Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs.

There is a lot about kitchen remodeling that is dirty. Chipping up ceramic tile definitely is. It also causes some unfortunate fashion choices out of necessity.

Yes, that’s me under there.

Removing said chipped up tile from your garage is also quite the dirty job. I think Nathan would make Mike Rowe proud with this.

So, as Mike works on getting his part of the project done, we can’t help but continually think of the other two Mikes. We hope we are making them proud.

Kitchen face-lift {part five} – One step at a time

2011-01-31T05:39:00.001-06:00

I had a request on Twitter this weekend for more pictures. More blogging through the kitchen madness that is ensuing at our house. So this week I will try to post several short updates.

I don’t know if I mentioned this before, but our fridge quit a couple of weeks before Christmas. Yeah. Awesome, right?

This caused my husband to start looking around for a new one. Which took him to the website of a store that sell appliances that had a problem “out of the box” and this guy fixes them and sell them. And in the process of looking for said fridge, he found a range. And not just any range.

This range and fridge became my Christmas, Anniversary, Valentines, Mother’s Day and Birthday presents for the next five years.

And might I say it’s totally worth it.

It was this turn of events that took this simple kitchen facelift into the level of remodeling that has us… well… down to the studs. You see, the original kitchen layout was not made for a range, just a cook top. So, since we were going to have to do some work on the cabinets and counter tops anyways, we eventually decided that it all just needed to go rather than trying to salvage cabinets that were falling apart anyways.

The last time I posted, we had only taken out a couple of the cabinets. Not long after that, we really got serious and removed the rest of the cabinets and chipped up the ugly, gross, disgusting, 6x6 inch red “looks like it belongs in a public subway bathroom” tile with the huge 1/2” grout lines.

No. I don’t have a serious opinion about that tile. At all.

We’ve gone down to the studs. When I said that this thing had taken a turn for the ridiculous, I wasn’t kidding.

We’ve been designing new cabinets, picking out various finishes and re-wiring a lot. We have spent a bit of time with the kitchen looking exactly like this.

Mike finally drove to Austin to pick up the fridge and range and we were thrilled to finally have a functioning refrigerator in the space again.

And this is the range of my dreams.

Isn’t she beautiful?

So now they are both here at our house. Just waiting for the kitchen to be ready for them to really be at home.

One step at a time, right?

(You can see a list of all the kitchen update posts here.)

You can’t argue with cute

2011-01-26T16:27:00.001-06:00

This morning I was getting ready to go to Bible study and couldn’t decide which shoes to wear. Mike had already left to take Sarah to school, so the only counsel I had in the house was Nathan. Being a 5 year old boy, he’s not normally the person I would go to for shoe advice, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

I went to his room with both shoes on (technically one shoe and one boot) and this is how the conversation went…

~~~~~~

Me: Nathan, which shoes should I wear?

Nathan: (Takes one look.) The black ones.

Me: (Surprised because my son loves him some boots.) So you think the black ones instead of boots?

Nathan: Yeah.

Me: Why?

Nathan: Because the black ones are better and they are really cute.

~~~~~~

Lesson: You can't argue with cute.

Or a five year old boy with an opinion about shoes.

Who knew?

BBA Challenge #27 – Portuguese Sweet Bread

2011-01-10T06:20:00.000-06:00

Just a point of clarification. This is actually sweet yeast bread. Not sweetbread.

Ever since I discovered quite a few years ago that people were not referring to a type of bread when they talked of sweetbread, I’ve been leery of the term and always like to clarify.

So, now that we have that necessary item of business out of the way…

First you mix together the sponge and let it sit for 60 – 90 minutes.

Then the process almost becomes more like mixing a cake or cookie. First you mix together the sugar, salt, powdered milk, butter and shortening and it looks something like this.

Then you add in the eggs and flavor extracts and it looks like this.

You don’t add in the sponge and flour until the end, which seems a little backwards from most breads that we have made to this point. Most of the time, we have added the flour and then the water and wet ingredients. I just find it interesting that this one is done in reverse.

To get a nice round shape, I used pie plates for my baking vessels.

A little egg wash just before baking…

I tell you what, that is a gorgeous crust on this bread.

And do you know what? It makes some gooo-oood french toast.

Coat the pieces in the egg & milk then let them sit for a few minutes to really soak it in.

Of course you must butter your griddle.

Side 1…

Side 2…

Mmmmmmmmmm……

To see my other Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge blog posts and to read about the challenge, go here.

BBA Challenge # 26 – Poolish Baguettes

2011-01-03T05:51:00.000-06:00

Honestly, I don’t remember much about making this bread. I can tell you that I made it in May of 2010. And I can tell you that because of the date stamps on the pictures.

But I guess that won’t do for a blog post about it, huh?

Let me dig deep back in the recesses of my brain and see what we come up with…

This formula calls for sifting the whole-wheat flour to remove the bran and approximate what is known as “clear flour.” I sifted several times and each time removed some larger pieces each time, but never such that the post-sifted flour looked much different from the pre-sifted.

If I remember correctly, I ended up using some combination of whole-wheat flour and regular bread flour along with my wheat wild yeast starter in place of the poolish.

If my memory serves me correctly (highly unlikely), this version of a baguette was okay, but not our favorite. I think some of the previous versions may have been better.

To see my other Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge blog posts and to read about the challenge, go here.

Kitchen face-lift {part four} – Taking a turn for the ridiculous

2010-12-30T16:49:00.001-06:00

So. Do you remember that little face-lift we started on our kitchen?

We were just going to paint. Then we decided to replace the floor after we ripped out the old pantry and built a new one. But in the midst of all of this, we were absolutely, without question, no-doubt-about-it going to keep the existing cabinets and countertops.

Remember that?

If not, see the part one, part two and part three blog posts.

Well, we’ve turned a corner into the land of “this is ridiculous.”

My son walked into the kitchen this morning after my husband removed the cabinets, cook top and wall oven and pronounced:

“This place is out of business!”

Yes, son. Yes it is.

BBA Challenge #25 – Pizza Napoletana

2010-12-27T06:09:00.001-06:00

Historically, I have made a simple pizza crust from my sourdough (wild yeast) starter. So not involving her here made me a little sad. But I was going to try it (all the while thinking that it wouldn’t be as good).

I don’t know about you, but when I bake bread, things get a little messy…

On to the dough…

On twitter that day, I wondered aloud, “To toss or not to toss. That is the question.” Well, two of my baking buddies convinced me that I couldn’t not at least try to toss the dough. So, I decided I would in spite of my concerns about pizza dough ending up on the ceiling.

Well, it looks like the ceiling was the least of my concerns.

But, when it’s going into a 550+ degree oven, I’m not too concerned about a little floor dirt. NOTHING would survive that oven.

I finally got it pulled into a somewhat amoeba-esque shape and let my daughter finish off the toppings.

What truly amazed me was how easily the next two balls of dough pulled into almost perfectly round shapes. With all my messing around, the first ball of dough was not as easy to shape. But the next two, with the gluten so completely relaxed… it was a SNAP. A couple of quick hand movements and it was done.

As you can see, we obviously made pepperoni pizza. But I also made one of my favorites… lamb pita pizza.

This pizza definitely got a seal of approval from my family!

We need to make pizza again. Soon.

To see my other Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge blog posts and to read about the challenge, go here.

BBA Challenge #24 - Panettone

2010-12-20T06:00:00.001-06:00

As you can see from the dates of all my pictures, I baked this bread much earlier in the year. I felt like it might be time to actually post this.

Maybe.

Panettone is one of those breads that I was not really looking forward to. It has all kinds of dried fruits and didn’t really look like it was up my alley from the pictures. Basically it looks like fruit cake except in a yeast bread form.

So maybe it’s timely that I’m posting this around Christmas-time.

The only thing is that fruit cake has never been the slightest bit appealing to me. Maybe it’s the pecans. Maybe it’s the candied fruit. May it’s the low proportion of cake to the other two ingredients. I don’t know. But me and fruit cake = meh.

So getting to this bread was not terribly exciting for me. However, as part of the challenge, I was interested to make it and see how it went.

I always look for new ways to use my wild yeast starter, and when I found out that this was one, I was pretty excited.

Wait, have I ever shown you a picture of my wild yeast (sourdough) starter? Well, like any proud mama, here she is…

Isn’t she just the cutest thing?!?! All those bubbles just make her beautiful, don’t you think?

Ahhh. But moving on.

I don’t know why, but I found it interesting that when I combined the vanilla, rum and orange extract that the mixture became cloudy. I felt a little like a mad scientist as it happened.

Muaaaahahahahaha!

But I digress.

Next came the process of seeing what fruits I was going to use. I’ve already mentioned my aversion to the idea of candied fruits so clearly, it would be some blend of dried fruits; the exact blend would be dictated by what I had on hand. Ultimately, my fruit combination consisted of raisins, dried cranberries, dried cherries, dried dates, and dried apricots.

And then came the process of actually making the dough and bread….

The bread turned out beautifully.

To be honest, I was pleasantly surprised. I didn’t hate it when I tried it. And my husband actually said he liked it.

I made some of the dough into little muffin type rolls with the intent of doing the “Holiday Bread Brule” as described in the Grace Note on page 206. Without going into great detail, we’ll just leave it at… not so much. But the bread pudding it made was pretty good and would be a nice addition to any Christmas or holiday dessert menu.

I don’t know that this would be one that I would do a lot, but would definitely consider it for making bread pudding.

To see my other Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge blog posts and to read about the challenge, go here.

Holy Globuli, Batman: A lesson in Ancient Roman cooking

2010-12-13T05:08:00.000-06:00

Sarah is taking Latin this year as a fourth grader. Our school ascribes to the classical education method which includes, obviously, everyone taking Latin for a number of years beginning in fourth grade.

When she came home with an extra credit project to make a dish (and write about their experience in making it) that they might have had in Ancient Rome for the Saturnalia celebration, I knew that this was right up our alley.

As I began to search for recipes on the internets, I came across this squidoo page that had several recipes on it. Among those was Globuli, which is what Sarah ultimately chose to make and write about.

This is the recipe we followed as stated on the squidoo page liked above:

Globuli

Curd cheese (or Ricotta), 500 g or about 1lb
1 cup semolina
honey
olive oil

Press curd cheese through sieve or let it hang in cheese cloth until it's drained well. Mix with the semolina into a loose dough. Let it sit for a few hours.

With wet hands form the mixture into dumplings. Quickly fry them in olive oil for a few minutes. Drain and roll in honey.

~~~

We talked a lot as we worked about the types of conditions the Ancient Romans would have cooked in. We talked about how they wouldn’t have had refrigeration and that their ingredients would have all been basically room temperature. We also discussed that they wouldn’t have had precise measuring cups and tools and figured that they would have “eyeballed” most of their ingredients. We tried to use very simple tools, but did break down and use the spring loaded scoop to help measure out the balls of the dough.

Here is her write-up (exactly as she wrote it):

“I opened the lid to the ricotta. It was cold so we heated it up for 35 seconds in the microwave. They did not have refrigreaters so their ingredients would be room temp. We then let it set a while and then mixed it up with semolina, semolina was a flower made with wheat from Italy. It looked good, but we had to wait a few hours.

Next I wet my hands and put some dough in my hand. I rolled it around into a smooth ball. After I made them all I started to put in hot olive oil to fry them. After that I put them on a sheet to drain the oil. Then I stirred them in honey. Then I put them on a plate. I tried on, and it was yummy. I had a good time.”

Mike and I each tasted a bite and it tasted a little bit like a hush-puppie.

So here’s to Ancient Roman cooking. Very few ingredients and simple tools. But I’ll take refrigeration and a spring loaded scoop any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

King Arthur Baking Demonstrations and a Giveaway

2010-12-02T06:44:00.003-06:00

**Congrats Rachelizabeth!!**

A couple of weeks ago, in his sermon, our pastor told a little story of a man who was asked if he knew what his wife’s favorite flower was. “Of course,” he said, “Pillsbury.”

Amidst the chuckles from the congregation, I looked over at Mike who had that “what an idiot” look on his face. He then motioned with his hand toward me and said with a knowing laugh, “King Arthur, right?”

Yes, baby. You know me too well.

King Arthur is my favorite flour. I can’t always purchase it because of the price. But if I had my preference, I would probably use it all the time. It is such good quality without all the additional processing that many of the less expensive brands use.

So to tell you that I was excited to find out earlier this year that their travelling baking demonstrations would be coming to North Texas would be a huge understatement.

I attended both their Pies and Tarts and Sweet Yeast Breads demonstrations in Grapevine yesterday. Part of me said, “Why are you bothering? These are not topics that you have great anxiety over anymore.” But then I decided that you just never know what little tip you might pick up.

So I went to both sessions and they were pretty good. I did, in fact, pick up a few little hints and tips that I hadn’t thought of before. The kids even went with me to the evening session about bread and both enjoyed watching her make cinnamon rolls (and I don’t think there is any way I’ll get through this weekend without making a batch, just so you know).

And I even won some door prizes of 5 pound bags of flour. I won one of them when I went to the class at noon and then each of my kids and I won one at the evening bread demo. It was awesome.

So, in case you either live in the area and were not able to make it, or you live in an area that they are not coming to this year, I would like to pass on to one of you some of the swag we got.

I am going to give away: 1 recipe booklet (includes a King Arthur Flour coupon on the back), 1 bowl scraper and 1 $10 gift card toward a $20 purchase (to be used in the next 90 days at the King Arthur Flour online store).

How to enter this giveaway:

Leave a comment on this blog post (including an email address where you can be reached) telling me what you might buy with the gift card.

That’s it. I’m not doing extra entries with this one.

The giveaway will end on Tuesday (12/7/10) at 10 pm at which time comments will close.

I will announce a winner on Wednesday morning (12/8/10) after my kids are able to use the “oh-so-scientific-method” of drawing a name from a hat.

Good luck and happy baking!

P.S. If you live in the Fort Worth area, there is one more day of baking demonstrations today (12/2/10) at noon and 6 pm :
Radisson Hotel Fort Worth Fossil Creek
2540 Meacham Blvd.
Fort Worth, TX 76106

Your dachshund might be spoiled if…

2010-11-16T06:36:00.000-06:00

Your 14 1/2 year old dachshund might be spoiled if…

… November starts a four month stint of constant shivering because the temperature has dipped below 80 degrees.

… And in the course of all that shivering, when snuggling up next to Papa doesn’t do the trick to warm her up, you cover her up with the heating pad.

So… yeah… she’s definitely spoiled. There’s no “might” about it, is there?

But at about 98 people years old, she should be, right?

Come visit me at "A Martha Heart" today.

2010-11-11T05:21:00.000-06:00

I have written a new post over at A Martha Heart in which I asked the question, "Who are we raising?" Would you come on over and visit?

Click here to read the story.

Kitchen face-lift {part three} - A random update

2010-11-09T06:06:00.000-06:00

Hi there. Remember me? In case you forgot, my name is Donna and this here blog is my internet home.

And, believe it or not, I do know that there are three elements that make up this blog. Faith, Family and Food.

Yes, that’s right. One of the elements of this blog is food. You wouldn’t know it by my recent posting history, would you? I simply haven’t posted much food lately.

My apologies if you have found your way over here looking for great recipes and adventures in my kitchen lately. However, if you’ll remember from this post and this post, my kitchen has kind of been under construction. And still, even now, it looks like this:

A busier work schedule for my man is good…. except that it means that little has happened on the kitchen in a while.

Trade-offs. Meh.

This “under construction” status of my kitchen and the associated dust along with soccer, strep throat (for my Little Man and I), Bible studies, retreats and speaking at a retreat, the blogging of food has, well, been set aside.

I have been cooking and have tried some new things. In fact, last weekend I baked some sourdough bread and made cassoulet. It has been so long since I have had the smell of bread baking in my house...OH how I’ve missed it.

However, I don’t know if you realize, but typing out recipes and taking pictures and all that goes into blogging food… it’s time consuming. And clearly time is not something I’ve had just a lot of lately.

So all this is to say that I do hope to get back to food blogging. But it’s just going to take a little while longer.

If you read here, please let me know you still come by periodically by leaving a quick comment. Tell me… what have you been up to? Have you cooked anything fun and exciting lately?

Baseball is in the house

2010-10-28T10:13:00.008-05:00

We've been watching a lot of baseball lately.

"Why?" you ask?

Well, if you haven't heard, the Texas Rangers are in the World Series, which started last night.

If you're not from around here, that's a pretty big deal. It's their first WS appearance. EVER.

Now, we are not a huge sports family. We like our Aggie football and such, but overall, pro sports have not been a big deal to us. But the Rangers are a little different for me.

This is a team I really did grow up with. Since they were rarely winning, tickets were always cheap and we went to games pretty often. I remember getting Steve Buchele's autograph. My mom has always been a huge Ranger fan and I think she has that baseball card, now.

This is also a team that is really just a lot of fun to watch right now.

And then there is a certain player who is a sold-out Christian and shares his daily battle against addiction with the world. I loved being able to wake up the next morning after they won the American League Championship and Josh Hamilton was awarded the AL MVP and show my kids this video of his acceptance and explain that this was part of why them winning was such a big deal. That a memeber of our community had and, better yet, took the opportunity to give the glory to God and proclaim His name before 50,000 people and millions on television. The amount of press that he has received these last few days has been immense. And just about every time you see him, he is proclaiming God's goodness. Now, that is something I can get with.

And all the baseball we've been watching has renewed an interest in it for my little man. In fact, we took baseball gear with us to his sister's soccer practice last night so he could practice.

It is so... dang... CUTE!!!

Fast forward to Game 1 last night. *sigh*

All I can say is that while I have been super impressed with him as a pitcher, Cliff Lee had better watch out. There might be a 5 year old who wants his job.

We have not given up hope, though. We have faith in you, Texas Rangers! We know you can do it! Because you have already brought baseball back into our house.

Training up my own child

2010-10-21T05:28:00.000-05:00

I wanted to share with you our little story from this last weekend. I got an email a few weeks ago about tickets to attend the taping at Life Today with Beth Moore for their Wednesdays with Beth segments for last weekend. I have been before, but through the series of circumstances that led to me getting the tickets this time, I came to really see the Holy Spirit being in charge and that something great was up. I had no idea, however, what it would be.

I texted a faithful bff and sister in the faith immediately and we were both totally on board to go. I then contacted a couple of other friends in the area. One already had tickets, but the other did not. At this point 3 out of the 4 of my tickets were spoken for.

That last ticket… it was a toughie. One of my friends had a woman on her heart that has been going through a difficult time and we both tried everything we could think of to convince her to come with us. But it was not to be.

I finally had the idea to invite my 9 year old daughter to come with us for the Friday night session. She was unsure about it, but the clincher was when I told her that dad and brother would just be watching the baseball game (the Rangers) again that night… she was MORE than willing to get out of the house at that news. HA! At the same time I continued to try to get someone to take the ticket for Saturday.

Friday night came and it was just so wonderful. Sarah sat nearly on the edge of her seat the entire time. Bible open, highlighter and pen in hand; taking notes and highlighting important words and phrases in her Bible.

It was the most precious sight for this mother’s eyes to see.

At the end of the evening the Life Today staff began talking about the next day’s schedule. Sarah looked at me and said, “Y’all are doing this tomorrow, too?”

“Yes,” I replied. “I didn’t figure you’d come since you have a soccer game and stuff. Do you want to come back tomorrow?”

“Oh mom, yes! This is SO worth it.”

Well… how can you argue with that, I ask you?

She was up the next morning before I even got the chance to go wake her up. She was ready. Hungry and ready. (I’m about to tear up just writing this.)

It was so clear by mid-way through Saturday’s sessions that the 4^th ticket was intended for her the whole time. God had reserved her a spot and wouldn’t let me give it to anyone else.

You see, the Lord has just been pressing down on me and putting on my heart with such heaviness the urgency concerning the spiritual education of my children. He has just opened my eyes to the need for parents like myself to really model what “Training up [your own] child” looks like for other parents. We can’t put the responsibility on anyone else if we want to take every step possible to turn around the current trend of young adults leaving the church and their faith behind in droves never to return. We can’t continue to expect that our kids are getting everything they need from a 1 hour Sunday school class once a week. We can’t continue to allow someone else to be the model for them. That is our job as their parents and we need to take it on.

What an opportunity this was for me to share in some Bible teaching with my daughter and allow her to see the beauty of women gathering together and loving on one another in the name of Christ. It was also an opportunity for obedience and for me to live out what I’ve been saying with my mouth: I will not be held captive by my kids’ sports schedules; it’s not the most important thing. It really felt like this was God saying, “Are you going to walk what you talk?” I think I passed the test.

And the Lord blessed me with being able to see a little of the fruit of our labor over the last 9 years. It is such an encouragement to me to keep on and even step it up.

What to do when you have a tooth fairy fail

2010-10-19T09:45:00.001-05:00

We’ve all been there, right?

Child loses tooth.

Child puts tooth under pillow (or in tooth box).

And somehow amidst dishes, work, laundry, housework and watching the Rangers beat up on the Yankees (well maybe that’s just me), the tooth fairy messes up and the tooth remains and the money is absent.

So, what do you do?

I got some ideas from some friends on Twitter today. So here’s my top 5 things to do when you experience a tooth fairy fail:

1. The tooth fairy doubles the loot when she is too busy to make it to a home one night. (via @Dinnersforayear)

2. Sneak the money under pillow now and have the child look again. Maybe she didn't take tooth because she got a phone call in the middle; a tooth emergency called her away. (via @alisonzajac)

3. Hide the $$ under the bed. Ask if she looked everywhere...when found...all is good. (via @laughingmomma)

4. If your son or daughter still believes in an actual tooth fairy, it may be time to fess up.

This last one is how it went for us today since I don’t think Sarah has ever believed in an actual tooth fairy, but knows it’s just something fun for parents to do with their kids. (This was not necessarily by design, but just how it worked out in our family.)

5. Apologize and, if possible, use it as a spiritual training moment.

Her dad explained that he has been stressed and worried about some work things and that like Ahaz that we have been studying this last week in our BSF Isaiah Bible study, he hasn’t been trusting God with it. The consequence of which was him forgetting about her tooth.

Thankfully, we have a daughter who is just so easy going that she took it all in stride. We’ll make up for it, but I’m also thankful that Mike didn’t miss the opportunity for the spiritual lesson along the way.

So… what funny or serious things do you do when you have a tooth fairy fail moment? Come one… we’ve ALL had them. Fess up!

Your dachshund might be spoiled if…

2010-10-07T21:21:00.001-05:00

Your dachshund might be spoiled if you take her to soccer practice and let her ride in the front seat with you.

And then while teaching your daughter how to walk her, you say: “She’s not in charge. Be the person. You be in charge.”

And you realize that doesn’t match up with what’s going through your head: “Of course she’s in charge. She knows it and would have it no other way.”

My deep thought today...

2010-09-30T09:22:00.001-05:00

I love being a mom.

But there are times,

Like right now,

That I really hate being a parent.

Anyone else?

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole

2010-09-28T08:17:00.002-05:00

Friday was a long awaited day in our house.

A movie opened that had been anticipated with great excitement:

The Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole

If you don't know anything about this, it might sound a little weird. Owls? Really? To give you some background, the movie is based on a series of children's books written by Kathryn Lasky. I was completely unaware of these books until this spring when someone mentioned them on Twitter, I think in response to my looking for books that might interest Sarah and her voracious appetite for reading.

I began to look for them and had no luck at my local Half Price Books. But when we took our big ol' long trip this summer, we packed her dad's Kindle and decided to download a couple for the road.

This is a lot of what I saw in the car over that 3,000 miles...

And this...

That’s her Webkinz owl that has since earned the name “Twilight.” He was flying like she imagined him doing in the book.

So, needless to say, the books were a hit. And when we found out the release date of the movie, it went on our calendar and she and I planned to go. The movie was a delight. "Way different from the books," according to Sarah, but a delight to both of us all the same.

Two brothers. One chooses to believe in and have faith in what he has never seen. The other believes only in himself and what he can gain. It is a story of heroes and the battle between good versus evil both on a corporate and an individual level. I came away from it with a strong Star Wars vibe which the director talks about briefly in this series of interviews.

It is very well done and here are just some of my thoughts:

It is a bit intense at times. I'd say it's not something I would take a child younger than 8 to see. I know my 5 year old would have been pretty freaked out at times. Two things that I noticed that added to the intensity:

Because owls are nocturnal, most of the scenes are at night and therefore generally just dark. Which kind of mirrors some of the weighty material in this battle of good versus evil.
Because of the director’s style (mentioned in the video above) many of the battle scenes are not graphic, but are done in a tight, close-up style.

The story tellers did a wonderful job of incorporating some humorous moments and characters into the plot to lighten the mood from time to time.

I've grown a bit weary of everything being in 3D lately, but this movie done in 3D was amazing. Breathtaking, actually. I thought, “This is 3D done right.”

I only realized later how distinguished the list of actors was that did all the voices. I love that I couldn’t really tell who any of the voices were. It allowed me to really engage in the characters of the owls instead of picturing the person that goes with the voice.

I liked most of the sound-track during the movie. It added to the action without being obtrusive. However, the contemporary song thrown in the middle of the movie just didn't work for me. However, the tune was catchy and if said sound-track produces some decent safe music my daughter can listen to, I'll be okay with that.

From what I understand, this movie covers the first three books of Kathryn Lasky’s series. I do hope they do well enough with this one to make more.

If you'd like to see some more professional family reviews of this film:

Pluggedin Online
(I find it funny that an owlet coughing up an owl pellet was a negative element in this reviewers eyes. Sarah has brought them home before from science camp. See this post and this post. Nothing negative about that, in my opinion.)

Parent Previews

Technorati Tags: Legend of the Guardians,Guardians of Ga'Hoole,Legend of the Guardians movie,Legend of the Guardians mom movie review

Things I love about fall

2010-09-27T09:10:00.004-05:00

Cool, crisp mornings.

Coffee in my cup.

Honeycrisp apples.

Chili.

Football.

Sweatshirts.

Open windows.

Lower electricity bills.

Apple pie.

Thanksgiving.

Christmas is coming.

Knowing that leaves will eventually fall.

Change.

What about you? What do you love about fall?

Kitchen face-lift {part two} - The Can of Worms that keeps on giving

2010-09-23T23:09:00.001-05:00

So do you remember me talking about home improvement projects really just being a can of worms just waiting to be opened? If not, see “Part One” here.

Well, as the old, weird and actually quite disturbing song from my childhood goes,

The worms crawl in,

The worms crawl out,

The worms play pinochle on your snout…

Needless to say, our project now exceeds the term “face-lift.” And yet, I’m not sure what else to call it. Kitchen rehabilitation? Ridiculous kitchen project? The kitchen project that never ends???

And a busier season of work for Mike (no complaining here!) and school plus extra-curricular activities for the kids has left us with little time to work on the project. But we have made some progress. Just not all of it is in areas that we expected.

So far, we have removed the wood paneling and the fluorescent lights from the ceiling and installed can lights.

We have painted our eating area… with a little help.

We have also scraped all the popcorn texture off the ceiling in the hallway.

All of these items were totally on our list of things to accomplish.

However our attention from this part of the project got diverted when I convinced Mike that it was okay to hire out the drywall and texture work. As we talked through what all we would hire someone to do that phrase that strikes fear into any home improvement project participant came up, “Well, if we’re doing that, doesn’t it make sense to go ahead and do this while we’re at it?”

You see, we have these cabinets in the hallway that we use as a secondary pantry and mostly some random storage. The cabinets, however, are not all that useful since they are far too deep (deeper than arm-length) for anyone to be able to find the things that inevitably get shoved to the back.

And the pantry in our kitchen is really not terribly functional. The shelves are very shallow and not tall enough to fit much of anything. It has always been a jumbled mess because nothing fits.

For a couple of years now we have talked about tearing out the hallway cabinets and making it into a step-in pantry and getting rid of the useless one in the kitchen.

Picture it with me:

We are standing in the kitchen late one night after the kids are in bed and we’re talking through what we are doing. Finally Mike says, “Well, if we’re going to pay someone to come in and do the texture on the walls anyway, then doesn’t it make sense to go ahead and build out that pantry in the hallway like we’ve talked about for years since I’ll have to put in a new door and some new drywall around it?”

“Well,” I said, “it certainly doesn’t make sense to go and do all of this only to tear it back up later to do another project.”

And so, the pantry project was born.

At this writing we’ve actually finished with converting those hallway cabinets into a step-in pantry that also includes a place for my big KitchenAid stand mixer to be stored on a rolling cart. All that’s left is to install the door (with contact light switch – awesome!), one more piece of drywall and the floor.

Now that everything from the old pantry is moved over to the new one, we will tear it out and begin prepping that space for some display shelves for cookbooks and a sort-of kitchen office area. I’m having to design this part from scratch because I can find no pictures or anything like what I imagine in this space.

The drawing will probably not make a whole lot of sense right now, but those are built in shelves to the right (for cookbooks and a small storage space for kitchen office and computer things), a flat screen tv in the middle and open shelves to the left for some decorative / display items. This is just a concept right now, so I’d love any feedback you have on the design.

Now, if you look back at my first post, there was a list of what would go and what had to stay. I have mentioned several things in this post that were totally on our list and a few additions to the list.

But, you know how I said that the floor had to stay? Remember how I said that there was no way that my husband was going to let me replace it right now? Well, first think of all the twists and turns this project has taken so far and then let me just leave you with three words:

Can. Of. Worms.

Stop. Remember. Pray.

2010-09-11T11:07:00.001-05:00

Taken at the DFW National Cemetery on Memorial Day 2010.

The fact that 9/11 was today had been on my mind all week, but when it came down to it, I got up and started some baking for a family gathering later on in the day. The significance of the actual day escaped me.

I felt bad.

I realized this morning that I was just going about my business as usual. It dawned on me that while the events that day rocked all of our worlds and changed a lot in our country and world forever, many of us simply go about our lives and business much as we did prior to 9/11/01. Things are different, but not such that they change our normal daily lives. Here we are, 9 years later, and I would guess that for most of us in the country, things are back to normal.

However, it dawns on me that there are many for whom this day simply stops. While we all pause to remember on 9/11 each year, those people stop dead in their tracks on this day. Those who survived. Those who had loved ones, innocent lives just going about their daily business that day, who perished. The wife and child of the first responder who gave his life trying to save as many caught in the buildings as possible.

My heart aches for those people. And if you happen to be one of them reading this, I am praying peace and comfort over you today.

While we all need to stop, remember and honor those who died 9 years ago, we also need to pray for those who are just trying to go on in life. While the world is different, their very lives can never go back to what they were.

Stop. Remember. Pray.

Audiobooks (Or what doesn’t work for me: Reading)

2010-09-07T22:06:00.001-05:00

I may have mentioned before that I’m not much of a reader. I do read when I have to and I like the benefit I gain from what I read. But the act of reading, itself, is actually quite a chore for me and not one that I at all enjoy. So reading for pleasure and as a leisure activity… well, it just doesn’t happen.

However, I am a non-reader who has recently developed an interest in some of the more classic literature. Like Jane Austen, for example.

I had seen the movies of Emma (Gwyneth Paltrow) and Sense & Sensibility (Emma Thompson) quite a long time ago, enjoying each of them. I even bought a copy of Emma and began to read it because I loved the story in the movie so much. It still sits on my bedside table with a bookmark in it about halfway through. I find it a little difficult to make much progress when I have to start back over at the beginning of a chapter (or even the previous chapter) every time I pick it up just to remember what is going on because it has been so long since the last time I was able to read any of it.

Until a couple of months ago, however, I had not, seen the movie of Pride & Prejudice. It was on television one day recently so I stopped and watched it. All the good folks on the Twitter told me that the BBC/Colin Firth version was so much better than the Kiera Knightly version, which is what I was watching at the time. Something about this whole exchange made me interested to actually read the book itself. And yet Emma still remains on my bedside table. Taunting me. Laughing at me. “You’ll never finish Pride & Prejudice. You can’t even finish me!!”

And then I remembered, I recently came across a site called Librivox where audio books of many classic novels and books, all in the public domain, are recorded and made available for free. I knew I was about to go on a lengthy car trip with my daughter, and I needed to load up my iPod. So I figured why not load some audio books on there to give me something different to listen to while we drove.

It was great. While Sarah read or watched a movie, I’d just put in an ear-bud and listen to the story.

I didn’t finish the book while on the trip. I have found, though, that I do love to just put in my earbuds while at work and I can do some things while listening to the story in the background. In fact, it helps keep me focused on the task at hand and keeps me from averting my attention to, “Oh look, something shiny.”

After finishing the Pride & Prejudice audiobook a couple of weeks ago, I checked out the BBC version of the movie from our local library. It really did track so closely to the book, which I enjoyed very much. And I never would have finished it where it not for Librivox and their wonderful audio books.

I was going to include some thoughts on the book and movie themselves in this post, but that will have to wait for another day.

By the way, I’m currently listening to Emma. I will finish it. I am determined.

~~~~~

Just a few notes on using Librivox:

You can download it to iTunes and it shows up under podcasts, not as an audio book.
The chapters are each separate or in groups of 2 or 3 chapters at a time.
Once downloaded to your iPod, for me at least, the chapters end up in reverse order. I have yet to figure out a way to have them in an order so that I can just hit play and not mess with it again. As it is, I have to hit the “rewide/skip back” button to go to the next chapter.

~~~~~

This post has been added to Works for Me Wednesday over at We Are That Family. Go visit Kristen’s blog for more helpful hints.

A new venture: A Martha’s Heart

2010-09-02T08:56:00.001-05:00

I have a friend named Holly. I have met her one time, briefly, in real life. But we are sisters. Bound together by the love and grace of Jesus Christ and by the ties of Aggieland and Texas. Although she does live in Colorado now.

But I digress.

My friend Holly and her friend Trish had a vision for an online community and it has finally come to fruition. A Martha’s Heart is based on the story of Mary and Martha from Bethany (see Luke 10:38-42 & John 11:1-44). Holly wrote all about it here.

And you know what? They asked me to contribute once in a while. The site officially launched yesterday with a tour of the whole site that will unfold over the next couple of weeks.

Today, we are introducing the Kitchen where I will be primarily hanging out. As if that’s any surprise. And here is a snippet from my first article over there…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Teaching Yourself to Cook. Just Do It.

People often say something to me like “Oh I wish I could cook like that,” or “Could you teach me to cook?”

Honestly, there’s no big secret to it. But I thought I’d share with you a little of how I came to where I am now.

If there was a secret to teaching yourself how to cook it would be this: Just do it!

I know that sounds very “Nike” but it’s the truth. You’ll never learn until you just get in there and get your proverbial hands dirty.

Living Proof Live Simulcast Giveaway

2010-08-25T18:09:00.004-05:00

Well... congratulations Jennifer. :)

~~~~~~

You may or may not have heard that Beth Moore is doing a simulcast Living Proof Live event on September 18, 2010. As it turns out, our church is a host site this time around.

Now, I don’t share a lot of personal information like this on the blog (for obvious reasons), so I’m not telling you what church it is. However, if you know me in real life, you know what church I go to. And if you don’t, suffice it to say that it is in the Mid-Cities area of the DFW Metroplex.

Here’s the deal. I purchased two tickets. One for me and one to bless one of you sweet darlin’ thangs (as Mama Beth would say). So if you live in the DFW Metroplex or Mid-Cities area, or can get here easily for the day, please enter this giveaway. I’d just love to go to this event with a friend.

How to enter:

Just leave a comment on this blog post telling me if you have ever been to a Living Proof Live event before (if so, where) and what is your favorite Bible study or book that Beth Moore has written (if you have done/read any) along with how you allowed it to change you/your life. If you’re like, “huh?” then tell me why you want to go to this Living Proof Live event.

Oh, and be sure to leave an email address where I can contact you.

That’s it. It’s that simple.

I will close comments on this post at noon on Friday. I will then randomly select a winner.

If you don’t win and are interesting in purchasing a ticket, they are $20 for the whole day event, including lunch/snacks. You can email me directly for more information. Or you can probably go out to the Lifeway website and look for a host church closer to your home.

PS – if you know me and know what church I go to, please don’t mention the name of it in your comments. Thanks.

Need a sound effect? Just ask a Kindergarten boy.

2010-08-23T08:33:00.001-05:00

On Friday, Sarah went to a girl-friend’s slumber party where they were going to do their own version of Cupcake Wars instead of traditional birthday cake. Totally cute idea, in my opinion.

However, the thought of Sarah being at a party and spending the night without him was just almost more than Nathan could bear (bare? oh I don’t know). So we decided to invite a friend over to play for the evening and then we could go out for pizza.

I have noticed in the last few years that one of the biggest differences between my son and daughter was the increased amount of sound effects that come from him. With boys, it seems, everything has a sound effect.

Nathan was making car sounds as he pushed his little toddler toys since before he was a year old. In recent years, however, the volume of sounds that he has learned and practices on a consistent basis has grown exponentially. And after seeing Star Wars for the first time this summer… oh my… everything sounds like a blaster these days.

Girls, in my experience, even girls that are “tom-boys” just don’t do this.

So picture the scene with me. Friday evening, we have two Kindergarten boys in the back seat of the car as we are on the way to get pizza for dinner. And this is what we heard the entire ride.

Mike and I just could not stop laughing.

Moms of boys (or MOB Society as we call ourselves), have you experienced this?

A Major Award - Thanks Betty Crocker

2010-08-20T09:11:00.006-05:00

My man called me at work yesterday afternoon and said that a box had arrived for me. I knew I was expecting a major award. Could this be it???

It was!!!

Betty Crocker picked 100 of their Twitter followers to receive a prize. I just didn't know it would be this big.

There are 5 cake mixes, 3 muffin mixes, 3 tubs of icing and one very cute red Betty Crocker spoon all inside a handy bag.

I know, I know... I usually don't use pre-packaged mixes any more. But they come in handy every once in a while. I do live in the real world after all. And when you're teaching your kids how to cook, the occasional cake mix works really well to teach them how to follow directions without a lot of ingredients to mix up.

So, thank you so much Betty Crocker. You blessed me so much today. (And you may have just solved my after school snack idea for the girls' Bible study I'm hoping to start with the girls in my daughter's grade.)

Y'all have a sweet weekend. It looks like I will!

Let the school year begin

2010-08-17T10:32:00.002-05:00

Ok. It's official. I'm the mom of a 4th grader and a Kindergartener.

Where, oh WHERE did the time go?

Three thousand twenty-six

2010-08-16T08:45:00.001-05:00

If you follow me on Twitter or on my Facebook page, you might have seen that I was on a bit of a road-trip last week. Actually, “a bit of a road-trip” might actually be the understatement of the year.

Our church has a partnership with a church in North Dakota and ministers to their community alongside them. A group from our church makes the two day drive every June to do a VBS and in August to do an Operation Back to School carnival for the kids on the Standing Rock Reservation.

Earlier this summer, I decided that it was time for us to begin introducing Sarah to such mission endeavors, so she and I went with our church group to North Dakota to do Operation Back to School then decided to take a little side trip afterwards.

We drove for two days to get up there. And saw a lot of this.

We did an appreciation brunch for the teachers and staff of the elementary school on Wednesday morning. Sarah and I had been asked to sing a song. She was dealing with a little bit of nerves, so we asked a friend to sing along with us. We did the song “For Good” from the musical Wicked and she just did wonderfully. I was so proud of her for overcoming her nerves to minister in that way.

Sarah and a couple of other girls around her age did face painting for the carnival that we did for the kids at the elementary school as they came to meet their teachers. Clearly she needed to practice and since both my cheeks and arms and hands were full, our pastor donated his forehead to the cause.

She and I left on Wednesday afternoon and headed back toward South Dakota for our couple of days of vacation. Just a few highlights and things you ought to consider doing if you head that way:

We enjoyed the fields of sunflowers as we drove through South Dakota. I know that Kansas is supposed to be the sunflower state, but we saw WAY more in SD. Sometimes the fields of yellow went as far as the eye could see.

We made it to Mount Rushmore on Wednesday night in time to see the lighting ceremony. It was so moving as they played a movie that was very "Rah! Rah! America!" I cried as the faces lit up at the end of the movie while “America, the Beautiful” was playing. Then they had the former and current military personnel go up on stage to take down the flag, fold it and pass it among each one of them. As the woman who was directing the program thanked them for their service, she got choked up which just added to the poignancy of the moment.

We went back to Rushmore the next day and did the audio walking tour that was really good and very interesting. I took WAY too many pictures.

(As a side note, you only pay for parking and your parking pass is good for the entire calendar year. So we only paid for parking once. Therefore I highly suggest going to the lighting ceremony the night before then doing the walking tour the next morning before it gets too hot.)

It was the week of the Sturgis Motorcycle rally and people tried hard to talk us out of our trip to Rushmore, but I am glad they did not. The presence of the bikers was not a big deal at all. It was comical, even, as we just heard this low rumble of Harley Davidsons echoing among the Black Hills almost the whole time we were there.

This red light found us behind an entire line of bikes.

We stayed in Hot Springs, SD which is due south of Rapid City on the south end of the Black Hills. In town, there is a mammoth excavation site that was really interesting. This is Sarah holding a cast model of a mammoth jawbone.

We also toured the Wind Cave, which was really interesting. It was about 1 1/2 hour long tour and we went about 200 feet below the ground by the end of it. The Ranger that was our guide turned out the lights for just a few minutes at one point just to demonstrate how dark it really is down there which can be a little scary for little ones. But overall, it was really neat.

I also took her swimming at Evans Plunge in Hot Springs one afternoon. It’s an indoor/outdoor pool with about 3 water slides. It was the perfect break in our day after touring Mount Rushmore.

There was so much more even still we could have done in the Black Hills. But alas, our time was up and it was time to head home.

On our drive up, I saw a sign for a Wizard of Oz museum. My one thought was, “We can’t be here and NOT do that.” And after seeing a Wizard of Oz alarm clock in a truck stop in Salina, Sarah was dead-set on having one. I put her off and told her they would have one at the museum. However, they did not. So we went back out of our way again to go back through Salina and find that truck stop. Ahhh, the things we do, right?

I will say that the one thing I was not prepared for on this trip was the spotty cell phone coverage. I had been warned that I would not have any service while we were in North Dakota, but I was not prepared for the same situation the rest of the trip. Just a word of advice… if you decide to take a road trip up through the mid-section of the country, please take a pre-paid long distance phone card with you. You will be glad you did.

The two things I wanted for this trip to accomplish was to a) introduce Sarah to missions with something tangible that she could get her mind around; and 2) have some good quality mom/daughter time with her for an extended length of time before the dreaded pre-teen stuff really hits over the next year or two.

In my opinion, both objectives were accomplished. And I would highly recommend doing something similar with your daughter if you have the opportunity.

So you may be thinking, “That sounds like an awful lot of driving just to do those two things.” Well, you ain’t kiddin. Just to prove the point I took two pictures of the odometer. The first at the beginning of the trip on Monday morning and the second after we pulled into the driveway Saturday night.

The Monday morning picture was taken after we were on the road for about 15-20 minutes, so for the sake of argument, I’m going to take about 15 miles off the odometer at that point. So we would have started the trip at about 108,400 miles. We ended the trip at 111,426 miles.

All told, I drove 3,026 miles.

And each was totally worth it.

Kitchen face-lift {part one} – The Before

2010-08-03T05:52:00.000-05:00

We have decided that home improvement stores ought to just go ahead and sell cans of worms at the check-out stands where you find the candy, drinks and other impulse buys. Because you get something in mind that you need to do… oh, like paint a hallway for instance. Then when you go to the store you begin to think of something else to do while you’re at it… like scrape the popcorn texture off the ceiling.

And before you know it, you’ve opened up a can of worms and the kitchen is getting a face-lift.

Our story could really be another in Laura Numeroff’s series of children’s books. It could be called, “If you give a man a paintbrush…”

If you give a man a paintbrush, he’ll want to paint the hallway where you had to repair that hole in the wall. So you’ll have to buy him some paint. While looking at paint colors, he’ll look at the old popcorn texture on the ceiling and decide that he might as well scrape that off and re-texture and paint the ceiling while he’s at it. And while he’s looking at the ceiling, he’ll remember that it joins in with the wood paneled ceiling in the kitchen and he’ll decide he ought to go ahead and replace that also. Along with the lights…..

You get the idea.

So I decided I’d take you along on this face-lift journey with us.

This is my kitchen:

Our house was built in 1980, complete with wall to wall (and ceiling) wood paneling. We have only lived here since 2006 so we don’t know the exact history, but by the looks of it we believe a kitchen face-lift may have been done by some previous owners back in the early 90’s. We talked with the woman that we purchased the house from and we know that she did not do anything to the kitchen, so it would have been at least two owners ago.

It’s by no means my “dream kitchen.” I sometimes complain about it a little and my dad gave me some good perspective a little while back by saying, “If it turns out food this good, it can’t be all bad.”

It’s not all that bad, really. I mean it works and totally gets the job done. All the appliances work fine. But it is far from perfect or visually appealing to us. We replaced the dishwasher not long after moving in out of necessity and really just have not had the time or money to do anything else to it.

We dream of doing a major remodel to it some day that could include knocking out walls and dropping in a professional grade stainless steel dual fuel Viking range. But that day is not today.

What we’re able to do right now is going to cost us WAY more in sweat equity than actual dollars. In fact, we’re hoping to get everything done that we want to do with our birthday money this year.

Our list includes new lights, back splash, and paint on the cabinets, walls and ceiling.

Things that will go:

The wood panel ceiling and fluorescent lights. The number one project and thing that has to go is these fluorescent lights and the accompanying wood paneling on the ceiling. Nothing says 1980 like a wood paneled ceiling and fluorescent tube lights. Taking out the paneling will lighten up the room quite a bit I think and in the process of taking out the lights, the ceiling will be raised just a little to open the space up just a little.

The backsplash. It doesn’t bother me as much visually as it does my husband. I think the hand painted herbs are kind of cute. But he is dead-set against this tile. So new backsplash will be going in.

The knobs on the cabinet doors. I hate these brass ones. They’re being replaced for sure with some kind of brushed stainless steel looking ones.

Things that have to stay:

The red granite counter top. This counter top is not what I would pick if I were doing a kitchen from scratch, but it is just not feasible for us to drop the money on new granite right now. Because it’s staying, many of our design and color choices have to be made with this red granite in mine.

The floor. As much as I’d love to chip up all that red-ish tile, it’s just not going to happen right now. The tile covers not only the kitchen, but the eating area and the entire way down the hall to the garage. That’s a lot of tile. And a lot of expense in both money and time that we just cannot afford at this point. We’ll have to save that project for another day.

The cabinets. They are in pretty sad shape in places. The drawers don’t slide well any more, there is this AWESOME decorative edge straight out of 1980 around some of the lower cabinets and there are some places where they are coming apart as evidenced in the picture.

We obviously can’t afford all new cabinetry. So for now we will give them a new coat of paint (because boy are they chipped up pretty bad right now) and hopefully try to spruce them up and fix some of the major problems that they currently have.

So please forgive me if I’m not around very much over the next month or two. If I’m not at work, I’m probably helping my hubby or keeping the kids out of his way. And the kitchen will be fairly closed as far as cooking goes over the next several weeks. I won’t be baking any bread for my Bread Baker’s Apprentice challenge and this is also the reason that I mentioned I would not be officially doing my Cook’s Illustrated challenge this month. I don’t know about you, but I prefer my food without sheetrock dust in it.

I just realized that I didn’t show you any pictures of the hallway that started this whole mess.

*sigh*

Tell me that we’re not the only ones who get sucked in to this whole “can of worms” thing at the home improvement store.

Zing Zang Zoom!

2010-08-02T07:47:00.001-05:00

What a fun show.

If you have the opportunity to see the Ringling Bros. Zing Zang Zoom show for this year, I highly recommend it. We went on the opening night here in Dallas this past Wednesday.

There was plenty of clowning around…

And speaking of clowns, I felt like the clowns had a more prominent presence in the show this year over last year. Somehow I just felt like I didn’t get to see enough of the clowns last year. But I LOVED their acts this year.

There were, as there always are, elephants …

And these elephants are just amazing. Several of them balanced up on their trunk at one point.

A nice addition to this year’s show was the illusions performed by the main host guy (the guy you would consider the “ringmaster” but since there weren’t technically rings this year, I can’t remember what they called him). Several animals disappeared, and as you can see below, a tiger appeared in this box at the beginning of the tiger portion of the show.

The incorporation of the illusions inspired a lot of wonder and amazement from kids and adults alike. At one point he had three kids and their parents come out of the crowd. Everyone in the audience helped out with their arms stretched forward and using their “mysterious fingers” causing the parents to levitate. It was precious to see my own kids getting in on the act.

There were some amazing acrobats…

After this trick I said to Nathan, “That was awesome!” He paused and said, “No. That was dangerous.” No kidding. My husband and I have decided that we’ve got nothing on these adrenaline junkies.

I have no pictures of what we felt like was one of the best acts… the dogs. There were some seriously awesome canines, including some insane Jack Russell Terriers, performing.

And, well, being the softies that we are, there were wicked awesome swords and toys to be had.

I’ll be honest, we were pretty disappointed that there were no motorcycles this year. We’ve been to the circus a lot of times and I can’t remember ever going to a show that didn’t involve motorcycles. And I assumed with the word “Zoom” in the title of the show this year that motorcycles or some kind of vehicle would be there.

But thankfully, I think the boy was distracted enough with his wicked awesome sword that he didn’t really notice too much.

If you’re interested in some discount tickets, go to this previous blog post to get a code to use when ordering tickets.

But hurry. Zing Zang Zoom is only in Dallas until August 8th and then will be in Fort Worth for the week following that. And speaking of Fort Worth, there will be a Parade of Pachyderms in downtown Fort Worth in the evening on August 10th as they gear up for opening night. Don’t miss it.

Note: Please forgive the poor picture quality. My real camera was rendered useless when my batteries died before we ever got into the show. All these pictures were taken with my phone.

Disclaimer: I received tickets from Ringling Bros. for my family and myself for opening night.

Gnocchi with Spinach, Ham and Gorgonzola {Cooks Illustrated Challenge}

2010-07-30T08:37:00.001-05:00

I did not fully do my challenge of making two new recipes this month because of some things that were going on for our family. I don’t know that I will “officially” do it in August either (you’ll see why in a few days). But I did want to share one dish that I did make.

At the store one day a couple of months ago, I saw a special edition of Cook’s Illustrated that was entitled 30-Minute Suppers. Being the busy working outside of the home mom that I am, the idea of fresh and quick suppers appealed to me. So I picked it up and thought I’d give it a try. Some of the ideas don’t look like a fit for our family, but some of them do. Here’s one that we tried recently.

Gnocchi with Spinach, Ham and Gorgonzola

This was exciting for me because I had never worked with Gnocchi before. My family had never even had the opportunity to try it before.

What makes it a quick meal is using store purchased vacuum-packed gnocchi. It cooks quickly and clearly is less time consuming than making your own gnocchi (which I totally want to do sometime). You’re also using deli ham so you aren’t waiting for raw meat to cook. We used Boar’s Head ham and got it sliced just slightly thicker than we usually do for sandwiches.

This, as with many of the other recipes in this book feel a little more like food assembly than cooking with the simplicity of techniques and ingredients. And yet, the complexity of the flavors and textures just in this one dish make it taste like you spent an hour in the kitchen.

Ingredients:

1 pound vacuum-packed gnocchi
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
6 slices deli ham, cut into 1/4-inch strips
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup toasted pine nuts
3/4 cup crumbled Gorgonzola cheese
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2 ounces baby spinach
salt and pepper
1/2 cup white wine or chicken stock (optional)

You will also need:

Large non-stick skillet
Large pot for boiling gnocchi

Method:

1. In a dry non-stick skillet, lightly toast the pine nuts over medium-high heat; constantly shake the skillet to turn the pine nuts over so that they don’t burn. Set pine nuts aside in a small bowl and keep the skillet out for use in a minute.

2. Bring 4 quarts water to boil in a large pot. Add 1 tablespoon salt and gnocchi to boiling water and cook until tender and floating, about 4 minutes. Reserve 1/2 cup cooking water, drain gnocchi and transfer gnocchi to paper towel-lined plate.

3. Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add gnocchi to skillet and cook until browned, about 4 minutes.

Stir in ham and cook until it begins to brown, 2 to 4 minutes. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.

4. Add reserved cooking water (or wine or chicken stock – I think I may have replaced 1/2 the water with white wine here), pine nuts, cheese and lemon juice to skillet and stir until cheese starts to melt and sauce becomes creamy. Add spinach and stir just until wilted, 1 to 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

And that’s it.

We liked this dish pretty well. I was surprised, but my daughter particularly liked the pine nuts in it. However, the Gorgonzola is a strong flavored cheese. Clearly it is a major player in this dish and if you don’t like it, you really won’t enjoy eating this dish. It may have been a little strong for my kids’ palettes so I think next time I will go with some Asiago which would still have the salty flavor but be a little milder. Feta might also work here. I also think it could have used a little more spinach.

The great thing about this dish (and any recipe for that matter) is that it gives me a starting point with a new ingredient like gnocchi. There are a million different combinations that you could put together with the concept of this dish. Use turkey or chicken instead of ham. Add a different vegetable or use a different cheese.

The key is to know what your family likes and will eat while encouraging them to try new things. My family had not tried gnocchi before. Nor had they experienced whole pine nuts in a dish. And now, after trying something new, I know that I could fix something like this again and feel confident that they will enjoy it.

So go out there and try something new with your family. You never know. They just might LOVE it.

I’m donating my locks

2010-07-27T21:17:00.001-05:00

I decided early in 2009 that I was going to grow my hair out to donate it to be used for wigs. I figured that someone with as much hair as I have should do it at least once.

I had originally planned to donate it to Locks of Love. Recently, however, I became aware of Pantene’s Beautiful Lengths program which provides wigs for women whereas Locks of Love is for children. With the amount of gray hair that I have these days, I’ve pretty much decided to go the Beautiful Lengths route.

However, since the Beautiful Lengths site says that donations should be no more than 5% gray, this may be my one and only donation. Let’s face it, there’s no turning back the hands of time here.

So, when I made this decision, I talked to my hair stylist and she told me to count on about a two year commitment. That was probably in April of last year; not even a year and a half ago.

I went to see my stylist a few months ago and she said, “Okay, are you ready?” I wasn’t. So I went home and started surfing the internets and looking at pictures of what kind of style I might want. The one I kept coming back to was a medium/short style of Rachael Ray’s. Knowing how thick my hair is, though, I knew that it would not turn out exactly like hers.

I gave it a couple of more months just to make sure I had plenty of length. And then last week I made my appointment.

Today, my stylist cut about 12 inches off my hair.

She had to cut at it for several minutes before she was able to completely cut through the ponytail. My hair is just that thick. To give you a reference point, at the top of the ponytail, it is three inches in circumference. That, my friends, is a lot of hair.

Then came what I believe is every woman’s favorite part of a hair cut… washing. Here’s an in-process shot.

And even after cutting about a foot of hair off in a ponytail, you wouldn’t believe the amount of hair that she still cut off after that. If only it could be used. It filled up her little dustpan thingy completely.

So then we were done. I even sprung for her to dry and style it for me… I never do that. I’m always the one that’s headed home with a wet head to dry it myself because it just takes so dang long.

Before and after pictures:

And one final shot.

If you have the ability to grow out and then cut off and donate your hair, I highly recommend it. It’s not hard. It’s not painful. It’s just hair. At least to most of us it’s just hair. To someone suffering from cancer or another illness that causes hair loss, it’s a chance for just a little bit of normal in their life. And personally I think they deserve a chance at just a little bit of normal.

Ringling Bros. Ticket Giveaway Winner

2010-07-23T10:50:00.006-05:00

I have chosen a winner using random.org. My random number was 6. So that means.....

Our winner is Cheryl Banks!!

*cue confetti and noisemakers*

Congratulations!

Your tickets will be at will-call on Wednesday!

Thanks to all of y'all that entered.

If you want to go ahead and purchase tickets, don't forget that you can get 4 weekday tickets for $44 or $4 off weekend tickets through www. ticketmaster.com by using the code MOM. See details in my previous post.

FYI - I hid your comments to try to protect you from any spam with your email addresses.

Ringling Bros. Ticket Giveaway

2010-07-21T11:57:00.006-05:00

*********** Giveaway is now closed **************

You may have noticed that I don’t do a lot of giveaways on this blog. I’m very selective of companies that I will partner with and do publicity for. I will say, however, that I have been pleased both last year and this year to have the privilege of giving away tickets to the Ringling Bros. circus that comes to the D/FW area about this time every year.

Because really, life just sometimes needs the silliness of the circus.

As you can see, last year’s show was an absolute blast and this year’s show, “Zing Zang Zoom,” promises to be just as exciting.

So, here is what I am giving away:

Four tickets to the opening night performance on Wednesday, July 28th at 7:30 pm at the American Airlines Center in Dallas. The value of these tickets is $120.

To enter: Please post a single comment on this blog post that includes your name and an email address where you can be reached. ONLY comments on this blog post will be considered as entries (i.e. I won’t consider you as entered if you just leave a comment on my Facebook page).

Comments will be closed and no entries will be accepted after noon on Friday, July 23rd. I will select a winner using random.org (or a really scientific method like pulling a name out of a hat) and will notify you promptly. Tickets for the lucky winner will be waiting for you at will-call on the night of the performance.

Extra entries: You may leave an additional comment for extra chances at winning the tickets for each of the following…

“Like” WayMoreHomemade on Facebook.
“Like” Ringling Brothers DFW on Facebook.
Follow Ringling Brothers on Twitter.
Tweet this giveaway (please post the URL of the specific tweet when you leave your comment).
Post this giveaway on your Facebook page (please “Like” WayMoreHomemade on FB and use the @ symbol to tag WayMoreHomemade in your FB post so I can see it.)

Now, since I only have 1 four pack of tickets to give away, I know that there will be at least one other disappointed person. So, I have also been given the opportunity to offer you a coupon code for you to purchase tickets for either the Dallas show at the American Airlines Center (July 28-August 8) or the Fort Worth show at the Fort Worth Convention Center (August 11-15). Here are the details:

Get a four-pack of weekday tickets for $44 or save $4 on weekend tickets. Purchase tickets online at http://www.ticketmaster.com/ and use code MOM under “Advance or Promotion Ticket Selection or mention the code when ordering by phone at 1-800-745-3000

Feel free to email me (see the contact tab above) if you have any questions.

Good luck y’all. And have a circus kind of a day.

(In a good way, of course. Not in the “this place is like a circus today” kind of way.)

Please note: The comments on this post are for the giveaway only. This is not the forum to bag on the circus. I normally don’t delete comments that disagree with me, but I will this time for the sake of the contest.

Award winning Mocha Madness Ice Cream

2010-07-21T00:48:00.000-05:00

We had our annual ice cream social at the kids’ school Tuesday evening. Some people make homemade ice cream which is judged and some awards are given. Others bring Blue Bell. Which do you think I did?

Of course, I made some.

I made two in fact.

One of them even came home a winner. And here it is.

Mocha Madness Ice Cream
from the King Arthur Flour website and blog

Ingredients:

1 cup cold whole milk
3/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons espresso powder
2 tablespoons dark or Dutch-process cocoa powder (sifted to remove lumps)
2 cups cold heavy/whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
8 chocolate filled Oreo cookies, broken into small pieces

You will also need:

Stand mixer with whisk attachment or bowl and whisk
Ice cream freezer
Freezer safe plastic canister or container

Method:

Either with a stand mixer with whisk attachment or with a bowl and whisk in hand, mix together the milk, sugar, espresso powder and cocoa. The sugar should be dissolved, the espresso powder should be fully incorporated and there may be just a little cocoa powder that is still floating on top. Mix in the heavy cream and vanilla and whisk until a little frothy and everything is fully incorporated.

Freeze in ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s instructions.

Once it has reached “soft serve” consistency, add in the Oreo pieces and allow to mix until evenly distributed. Immediately transfer to a freezer safe container (I like to use a plastic canister) and freeze for a minimum of 2-3 hours or overnight.

Eat.

Attend Mocha Madness Anonymous meeting.

Repeat.

Do you notice the lack of pictures? Yeah… it didn’t last long enough for pictures to be taken. There are some posted over on the King Arthur Flour site if you’re interested. They also include some instructions for if you don’t have an ice cream maker.

Oh, yes, I did say that I made two didn’t I. Well, the other was Orange Sherbet. It was good, but I’m not completely satisfied with it and would like to tweak it a little before sharing the recipe. Soon, though. Very soon.