Food-making skillz

Tonite I went on strike. I made food only for those who could not be reasonably expected to feed themselves, Eclair and Luke Skywalker. The son of Vader can cook, but he had a ton of homework, so I took pity on him and made mac and cheese. Outta a box.

Yeah, I got mad skillz.

There was outrage from other, less helpless people who live in my house. They all can feed themselves, but are lazy. Oh, so lazy. At 22, 19, and 16 I have no sympathy. Thing Two had the wonderful idea to make calzones after I screamed for the 40 time "I AM NOT GOING OUT TO BUY PIZZA!!!"

He managed to put together all the ingredients himself, even if he cheated by thawing sauce from the freezer. His sisters got wind of the idea and started hanging around, I think they had some kind of stupid idea that he would make food for them, too. He thawed and rolled out dough, filled it with sauce and cheese, folded it over and pressed it shut.

The whole time he is slaving over pizza dough, Screamapillar is standing beside him critiquing his work. "That's not how you do it!" and "You're using too much sauce!" and "Not enough cheese!" I think that for someone looking for a free meal, she was doing a poor job of deserving one. He was ready to take the rolling pin to her head by the time he was done. And then she asked when was he making hers?

I'm sure you can guess the answer to that question.

As Thing Two's calzones were cooking and filling the kitchen with a wonderful aroma, the girls took matters into their own hands. They were forced to cook for themselves.

Now, I might mention now, that Thing Two's calzones were near perfection in both shape and composition. He's picky like that.

Here is what the Screamapillar produced:

If you guessed the atrocity on the right, you would be correct. Her older brother laughed aloud and mocked her messy pile of dough and sauce with it's assorted fork-markings most heartily, and said, "SERIOUSLY?"

All she had to say for herself was:

"All I know is that

 YOU

were doing it

WRONG.

 I

NEVER said

 I

knew how to do it

MYSELF!"

.

Leftovers

If you're lucky, you willl have leftovers. If you went to your mother's house and every relative you have was there and they all are incredible pigs who eat everything set before them, you won't. Have leftovers. And you are a sad panda.

But if you have leftovers, I have some ideas for you!!!

Leftover Turkey: How about some TURKEY and LEEK PIE!!!


Leftover Stuffing: You could use it to make This Decorative Craft! (get it? stuffing? Nevermind.)


Leftover Potatoes: Those should be saved for Home Improvement Projects.


Leftover Cranberry Sauce: Save it for next Halloween and make This Lovely Ensemble.


Leftover Gravy: who are we kidding here? there's never enough gravy. And you know it.


Leftover Pumpkin Pie: We already discussed this. I recommend the Mask.

Leftover Sweet Potatoes: This is a really good one and my own original idea so there is no link. Put them inside a snowball and throw them at people! Imagine their consternation! Pelted with sweet potato! As we are expecting a huge blizzard tonite, I'm really looking forward to this.
.

Calorie counting during the holidays

With Thanksgiving coming up, I thought I might share some age old wisdom that i learned from my mother. She knows absolutely everything, and I'm trying to learn it all before I die. The big pig-out is Thursday, and I'm so looking forward to it! Going to try some new recipes for some old favorites.

But how do you keep from gaining weight during the holidays? Here's some useful tips.

Calories are afraid of heights. If you keep fattening foods on top of the fridge, or on a high shelf for at least one hour prior to serving, the caloires will leap to their death.

Breaking items into smaller peices make the fat grams fall out. For example, breaking a cookie in half reduces the fat grams by half. Cutting bacon into little tiny pieces before adding to a recipe eliminates the fat completely.

Gravy doesn't make you fatter. It actually acts as camouflage so the body doesn't recognize the food it is covering. Think's everthing is oatmeal instead.

If you eat while standing up, all the calories drop to your feet and get walked off.

Drinking a big glass of water before the meal can help you lose weight. Cholesterol is unable to swim and will perish by drowning, flushed through your whole system without being absorbed at all.

The color of your food is very important. You may have heard that vegetables with very deep colors are rich in anti-oxidants. Your brain knows this and told your stomach. So if your desserts are rich in color as well, your body will think they are vegetables and you will not gain any weight. So eat deep, dark chocolates and darker creamy caramels just to make sure.

If your hot fudge sundae is topped with a crouton instead of a cherry, it counts as a salad.


And remember: A balanced diet is a brownie in each hand.
.

Punkin Chili

More pumpin food! Sick of it yet? NEVER!!! Pumpkins are good for you. They are rich in antioxidants, and they're just so colorful, how could you not LOVE them?


Today is an experiment. Pumpkin chili. I just used my "dump in a bunch of stuff" chili recipe, and dumped in a half can of pureed pumpkin.

Hubby was horrified. He loves my chili, and was mortified that I would mess with a proven recipe.

"Why pumpkin?" he asked.

I just glared at him. 'Cause I'm mean like that.

"Oh, yeah. I forgot. Pumpkin week." Yes, he reads the blog. I think he had been trying to block it all out after the pumpkin facial and all.

He continued, "So why do you have to put it in the chili?"

"It's just squash. Not bananas or something, squash is good. You probably won't enen notice it." I said.

So today is the test. It is currently in the crock pot in the breakroom (yes, I'm at work. I'm feeding everyone today, like I do on the occassional Friday when we have had a harrowing week and everyone needs a treat). I will experiment on the co-workers first. And then on the family.

And then I will update the blog.

Karen Saves Mother from Herself

After yesterday's somewhat desperate post by my mother, I have decided to take a day away from her and post something with pumpkins for the sake of my father's peace of mind. So here we are: Karen cooks!

For those of you who don't realize, Karen CAN cook. She just tends to have bad luck. Luckily I picked a recipe which is pretty much stupid proof. PUMPKIN SEEDS! Now it'd been a while since I had done pumpkin seeds (read: 15 or so years) so I turned to the ever faithful internet for a few recipes for doing pumpkin seeds.

First off, I would like to thank my dear friend Nessa for allowing me to steal her pumpkin seeds, while we brainstormed other uses for pumpkin seeds, including armored "seed mail." Now! Off to the kitchen!

I chose three separate recipes, and collected all my ingredients.



And yes. The laptop protected with saran wrap is part of the cooking process. Sue me, I didn't want to print off the recipes. Also part of the cooking process is having a cat wrap itself around your ankles while you try to cook, begging for scraps, before you banish them to their own food.



The first recipe is a simple, salted pumpkin seed recipe I found on The Pioneer Woman's Tasty Kitchen blog. Original recipe can be found here.

Ingredients:

2 cups of pumpkin seeds
2 Tbsp salt
~1 Tbsp-ish olive oil (you'll see why I use this massively accurate number later)
Season salt (I use Lawry's.)

Clean pumpkin seeds so there's no extra pumpkin guts in with them. Pumpkin guts are gross to eat. However you don't have to be perfect. Then you wash them (we're into like, professional cooking here people, hold onto your hats). Put seeds into a pot with water, add salt, stirring occasionally. Bring to a boil.




Reduce heat to medium and let simmer for ten minutes. Seeds will now be a bit darker than they were when you started. Drain seeds with strainer, and get out a cookie sheet. I covered mine with foil for less mess. Yay less mess.

Here's where you get out your olive oil. The PW recipe called for you to just...add the oil to your cookie sheet. This didn't seem like it would coat the seeds very well to me, until I recalled mother's french fries. So I took out mom's handy olive oil spritzer, and liberally sprayed the bottom of the pan. Then I spread the seeds out evenly, coating the top also with lots of olive oil. Then I lightly dusted the whole pan with season salt.

Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour, or until a golden brown. You'll want to shift/mix the seeds about halfway though to prevent burning or uneven cooking. These were more of a dry, bland taste, but still good.




The second recipe I did was extremely simple. This one was a lot lower on the salt, but also required butter. This is the extremely simple salted pumpkin seeds recipe. The recipe I used can be found here, however I modified it a bit.

Ingredients:
2 cups pumpkin seeds
2 Tbsp margarine, melted
1/2 tsp salt

Clean pumpkin seeds so there's no extra pumpkin guts in with them. Pumpkin guts are gross to eat. Rinse seeds, then dry. Now, any of you who have ever tried to DRY pumpkin seeds know it's a bit hard--pumpkin seeds start slimy, then go sticky as they dry. So the best way I found to dry the seeds was to spread them evenly on a towel, then press them between it and another towel. They still stick to the towel a bit, but it's a lot easier than trying to pat dry them.




Afterwards, scoop back up the seeds into a mixing bowl. Melt butter and salt, then drizzle over the seeds. Mix it all up so that all the seeds get coated. Then spread seeds over a cookie sheet.
Melt butter and add salt, making salty butter solution (oooh, science-y word!). Bake at 300 degrees for about an hour, or until golden brown. Shift/mix the seeds about halfway though to prevent burning or uneven cooking. These ones are very reminiscent of sunflower seeds in flavor and texture.




The last recipe is a more flavored roasted pumpkin seed. I got the recipe off of here.

Ingredients:
2 cups pumpkin seeds
1 1/2 tsp worcestershire sauce
2 Tbsp margarine, melted
1 Tbsp-ish of seasoned salt

Clean pumpkin seeds so there's no extra pumpkin guts in with them. Pumpkin guts are gross to eat (sound familiar?). Rinse then dry, then put in a mixing bowl.

Combine other ingredients and mix together well.



...well, that doesn't look particularly yummy, but it's the prep steps, geeze!

Next you will pour other ingredients over the seeds, mixing them well so they're all coated with the liquid.



Spread evenly over cookie sheet, then bake at 300 degrees for about an hour, or until darker brown. Shift/mix the seeds about halfway though to prevent burning or uneven cooking. These ones have a strong, more robust flavor; crunchy on the outside, soft seed on the inside, also very much like a sunflower seed.



Of all three recipes, mom and I agreed that the second and third were our favorites.

Thing One out.

Punkin' Cookies -- the GOOD kind

We have a guest contributor today:

"The lovely and talented Lou was born and raised in Wadamana, Tasmania. Much of her childhood was spent hiding in the garage to avoid the malicious marsupials that stalked her daily. Longing for a better life, she stowed away on a steamer headed for South America. After arriving in Chile, she was set upon by wild llamas and decided further travel was in order if she was ever to find peace. She walked for many, many days, finally arriving in Provo, Utah where she has lived ever since. She gained much knowledge during her travels, and brings to us this exotic and elaborate recipe from the jungles of Honduras."

PUNKIN' COOKIES

(now this is only for VERY ADVANCED COOKS)

(I hope you went to culinary school)

(because this one is remarkably difficult)

(and Very Expensive because of it's rare and unusual ingredients)

(and really, really time consuming)

(don't say I didn't warn you!)

Ingredients:

1 can pumpkin

2 boxes Spice Cake mix

1 bag chocolate chips

Combine ingredients and mix well. 

Drop onto baking sheet in 1" balls.

Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes

Allow to cool on baking sheet before transferring to cooling rack.

Eat.

(I don't know....maybe we need a more throrough tutorial, maybe on how to mix? or how to preheat the oven? Or how to clean up after?)

Thank you SOOO much Lou!!! They seriously taste JUST LIKE the ones from the Macey's bakery, and I've been addicted to those for many years so this help me to save money. And you're not adding oil or butter so they are low fat! Amazing and unbelievably delicious. Go make some. Oh, I almost forgot what Lou said I had to warn you about. "This makes like a million cookies! I finally threw the rest of the dough away after making about seven dozen of them!" So, yeah, large recipe.

Now, I should have posted this yesterday because I started Pumpkin Week without fully preparing you. And because now I have a problem that I didn't have yesterday morning when I posted the pumpkin bread.

For all these recipes, you're going to need pumpkin puree. And Tasty Kitchen will show you how to make the really good stuff from scratch. All you will need is Sugar Pumpkins, you know, like the small ones I had on my porch next to the Butternut Squash cats? I say HAD because....

Leafblower Dad's vagrant children stole all my pumpkins.
All the ones small enough for them to carry off.
So, yeah. No homemade puree for me.

What to make with Pumpkins in - day one

Do you have that friend? The one who produces the most amazing food? Like some kind of green thumb for baking, or she's using Snape's special potions book with all the margin notes.... I'm blessed with two friends like that, and both have been generous enough to contribute to ward cookbooks that are currently in my posession. Their recipes are easy to find. Let the book fall open to whichever pages have the most flour/sugar/shortening (or in this case, pumpkin) on the page and you found one.
Last night I made Rachel's Pumpkin Bread. It's loaded with shuga and chocolate chips, as every recipe should be (I'm still trying to find a way to add chocolate to Fettucini Alfedo, without success). It is a dense, moist bread and quite delicious. Funny how kids who turn their noses up at any type of squash, and think pumpkin pie is yucky will inhale pumpkin bread like it's some kind of ambrosia. I made this in the middle of the night so: 1.) I could tell you about it and 2.) because everyone was asleep and there might be a chance that I would get some before the masses consume it all.

Pumpkin Bread
4 1/2 c. sugar
1 big can pumpkin
1 1/2 c. oil
1 1/2 c. water
6 eggs
5 c. flour
3 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
2 1/4 tsp. salt
3 tsp. cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
3/4 tsp. ground cloves

Don't you love it when, even if you add it very slowly,
the flour tries to save itself by leaping out of the bowl?

Mix wet ingredients, then add dry ingredients. Mix well. Pour into greased and floured pans (about half full). Add chocolate chips if desired (why wouldn't you? are you insane?) by sprinkling on top before baking.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes depending on pan size. Yield 3-4 loaves.

I love this bread! It is wonderful and it has pumpkin in it so it's good for you!

Go forth and bake.
.

Lost Blogger Returns Bearing Fruit-erm, Candy!

No, your eyes do not deceive you--I have returned! Yes, despite all evidence to the contrary, I STILL am (supposedly) a contributor to this blog. But before you all go shaking your heads at the slacker college aged student, in my defense, there is a valid reason.

Mom told me I couldn't.

Apparently I'm not funny enough. Mother told me this back in July when I happened to have something trivial I wanted to share with you.

"Is it funny?"
"I think so."
"Because we have to be funny. Or crafty. Is it a craft?"
"No..."
"Then it has to be funny."

The draft of my post from that day lies abandoned on our blogger dashboard.

See? I wasn't NEGLECTING the blog, I was FORBIDDEN to post. Okay, slight exaggeration, but still! There was a reason my first sentence was "Mean mom!"

As a summary of my activities in the past...forever, I went to Disney World, got a new job, went to Powell....fun stuff.

SO! In order to be allowed to post in October, Mom said I had to post something...Halloween-ish. So I've been instructed to post instructions on our Candied Corn Pops. Normally this is something we save for Christmas and distribute to the masses. Why she's having me post in October....well, I never claimed to know what my mother is thinking.

This stuff is pure gold, JUST so you know. This recipe has been passed to so many of my friends because, frankly, it's addictive. This post is dedicated to my friend Adrianne, as this is one of her favorites and I love her, and I am hoping this will cheer her after her unfortunate car accident the other day.

CANDIED CORN POPS

Ingredients:

1 1/3 cubes butter (do not substitute margarine. Real butter is always best)
1 Cup sugar
2T (big T means Tablespnoon) corn syrup
3T water
1 tsp Vanilla

Melt butter in a saucepan. Look at it. How exciting. I CANNOT STRESS TO YOU HOW IMPORTANT IT IS THAT YOU NOT USE MARGARINE. BUTTER. B-U-T-T-E-R. I learned this last week while making another recipe for our home made french toast syrup that....turned interesting.

Add all other ingredients and bring to a low boil. Stir occasionally. Do not walk away and try to multi-task. This is how I've charred the bottom of most of our saucepans w/ rice.

After three minutes, it will start to get all white & bubbly (which you cannot tell from these photographs because mom used natural light and it has a yellow cast, plus mom tried to multi-task and it got a little overcooked and isn't really white) and clumps instead of drizzling from the whisk. Pull off heat and add vanilla. It is ready.

Next, you grab your giant bag of THIS:

This giant bag of stuff is like a strange combination of Cheetos and popcorn, except no kernels. If you can't find this or a similar product at your local grocery store, that's okay, I make lamb. Not really, but I'm sure you can substitute regular popcorn...I think. We've never actually tried, but I don't see it making a huge difference. Use about half of the bag, give or take how saturated with sugar you want it.

Drizzle syrup over the pops and stir to coat evenly. Again, it is a little dark because of the multi-tasking and all....

Finally, you bag it up and tie it with a ribbon. Typically, when we handed it out at Christmas (again, not sure why we're posting in OCTOBER, mom!), we bagged it up in those little mylar bags that are decorated with little Christmas trees and such. I assume there's something similar for Halloween with spiders or pumpkins or whatever.

Go forth. Eat. Overdose.

ETA: This post was edited 12-23-2010 because we discovered that the recipe is wrong. :0

Quiche Day

During my Birthday Week, Thursday was "Quiche Party" day. Quiche is good.

Especially with bacon in!

My nephew forced me to make quiche. How did he do this? He asked, "Aunt Julie? I need some help. I'm making dinner for a date, and I need some help with making a quiche." And since his mother is not here to help him and I am, and because I will do almost anything for the dear boy, I made quiche. The biggest problem was that his date doesn't eat bacon, so it had to be left out of the recipe. I should have refused on moral grounds. Instead, he is forbidden to marry any girl who won't eat bacon. It's unnatural. And weird.

So I went to one of my best resources, PW. She knows everything. Especially food. She didn't let me down, but provided me with an amazzzzing  and easy quiche recipe. You can find it here. When I made this recipe for my nephew's misguided girlfriend, I followed this recipe except for the artichoke hearts and the monumental mistake of leaving out the bacon. When I made it again for my birthday, I made some changes to make it more "mine." Quiche is really easy to change -- when it comes down to it, all it is is glorified scrambled eggs. Today, I give you my adaptation of PW's recipe:

Julie's Birthday Quiche
2 deep dish pie shells from your grocer's freezer because we're cheaters.
8 eggs
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup butter
1 lb bacon
1 small zucchini, diced
1 large onion, sliced very thin
2 cups chopped mushrooms
2 cups grated swiss cheese
a big bunch of fresh spinach, coarsely chopped


Make sure you dice those mushrooms real small because huge ones make me gag. And mine were enormous mushrooms, almost as big as the onion.

First, in a large pot or dutch oven, fry up your bacon. Not too crispy, 'cause it's going to continue cooking with all the other ingredients. Remove from the pan and put on a paper towel to dry. You might lose 3 or 4 calories this way.

Now this part is evil, you may not want to follow my bad example.

Saute the oinons in the bacon grease.

Or be a good girl and drain the grease and saute in the butter instead. 

Me, I figure bacon grease is just as bad as butter, so why not use it instead? More flavor, man!

When the onions start to carmelize, add your mushrooms & zucchini. Everything starts to shrink at this point. And when you add the spinach next, it gets even worse:

So look at it starting out all green and fluffy.....then look below to what becomes of spinach when combined with heat:

But this is okay, you wouldn't want a bunch of fluffy spinach in your quiche. After this is all reduced, remove from the heat and allow it to cool while you mix the other ingredients.

In a large bowl, scramble the eggs thoroughly. Then add the cream and grated swiss cheese, and some salt & pepper if you like. Add in your cooled veg BEING CAREFUL TO DRAIN OFF ANY LIQUID. You don't want a squishy quiche. Chop up your cooled bacon into small pieces and add to the mix, then pour the whole mess into the two pie shells. Cook at 350 for one hour, covered with aluminum foil.

Then, as Ree would say, "feed to hungry humans." This is Jack, my friendly neighborhood aspiring-musician and co-worker who never says no to anything free and edible. And make sure you hang around for the compliments, he's quite generous in that regard. Below are some of the lovely ladies I work with wondering "Why, again, are you taking random photos of us with food?" Because I love you, ladies. And since you read this miserable blog, you should at least get photo credit for it.

Soooo....... what have we learned today? DON'T FORGET THE BACON ....and.... BACON HATERS SHOULD ALL BE SHIPPED TO MINNESOTA WHERE THEY CAN ENJOY SOME NICE LUTEFISK INSTEAD.

That's all. You may now return to enjoying your regularly scheduled day.

.

The many celebrations of the day of my birth...

 Your attention please -- there is a wonderful recipe at the bottom of this long and boring post. If you find yourself falling asleep, scroll down quickly - it will be worth it.

Sorry I've been away so long. I was celebrating. I'm a Pioneer Baby and My Birthday is a State Holiday because I am So Important.

Really.

If you're LDS, you know what I'm talking about. Pioneer day -- the day the pioneers reached the Salt Lake Valley and the women said "That's enough, we're not taking another step. Plant the zucchini over there, NOW."

It's a big thing, pioneer heritage when you're a Mormon. I don't have any. Convert family, remember? But Hubby does. Some of his unfortunate ancestors were in the Martin Handcart Company. The ones who all nearly died. Except his ancestor, obviously. Charlotte Elizabeth Mellor Roper.The story goes that as she and her sisters were brought into the valley by the rescue party, they were farmed out to established families who would care for them until they recovered from their ordeal. Widow Roper's son, John Henry, carried Charlotte Elizabeth from the wagon to the house. When their eyes met, they fell instantly in love, and were married less than a year later.

In contrast, my non-member ancestors came over from the Netherlands. All the cousins were forced to marry each other in order to keep the money in the family (no dowries for some other family to benefit from! let's inbreed instead!).
My great-grandparents were first cousins, and although my great-grandma (who I do not remember at all) was known as a wonderful and kind woman, great-grandpa was.... was.....well I overheard at his funeral when I was 19 "The only reason anyone is here is to make sure the old ba&%$rd is really dead." No, it wasn't anyone in the family that put voice to that thought, but I'm sure some were thinking it....

So, no crossing-the-plains ancestors for me. I did have some American Indians & French trappers though!

That's Mary Keith on the left there, daughter of Snake Woman and John Poisal. She married Ben Keith and proceeded to pass down to me an extreme hypersensitivity to all forms of anesthesia which today causes my dentist to say "That last stuff we tried lasted three days? Well lets try something else!" and left me unconscious for two days after a general once when I was 16. Good stuff, genes.

So, when I was a kid my parents totally cheated for my birthday. Dad was in the Navy, and we were stationed hither and yon, and everytime my bday rolled around, we went to the ward Pioneer Day picnic. Which they told me was my birthday party.

Cheaters.

I didn't catch on for a long time, because frankly, I'm a gullible dork. And by the time I did, it was too late, I was scarred for life.

So I'm making up for lost party-ing later in life now (Not that it's too much later, mind you, I'm only 29).

Thursday was "Quiche Party" day at work -- for my birthday.

Friday was "Clean Out the Garage Part One" day at home -- for my birthday. And Bonnie brought me a Cake Wreck.

Saturday was my actual birthday which started out with "I'm Not Cleaning Up Eclairs 1:30am Barf Because It's My Birthday," followed by "Clean Out the Garage Part Two" and "Free Lunch at Tuacanos with Hubby" and ending with "I think I'm Gonna Die I Ate So Much Meat" and "Portrait Shoot with Newly Engaged Cousin Tallie."

Sunday was "You're All on Your Own Because It's So Hot I'm Not Cooking And Nobody Made Me Birthday Breakfast Yesterday So There" followed by "Fun with Amazing 6 year-olds Who Think that I am Now 72 Years Old" and "Super Long Amazing Nap"

Monday brought "Mom and Screamapillar Go Shopping and Sneak Over To Burger Supreme for Fried Zucchini, French Fries and Strawberry Banana Smoothies" and "Let's Make Some Wonderful Homemade Brazilian Lemonade." "Cleaning Out The Garage Part Three" was called off because of rain and extreme laziness and has been tentatively rescheduled for Tuesday.

Tuesday is scheduled to include "Birthday Lunch at Cafe Rio with Awesome Aubrey"

Wednesday is "Another Birthday Lunch at Yet Undisclosed Location with Brilliant Bonnie."

Thursday is "Yet Another Birthday Lunch with Mom and Niece Brittanie at Location of Niece Brittanie's Choosing Because Her Birthday Is Next Week And I Must Pass the Torch."

I'm sure I'll stuff some more me-related activities into Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday before I end my birthday week.

But since Hobbits give away presents on their birthdays, I give you this

The Most Amazing Drink Known to Man For Consumption During the Hot Summer Months In Honor of Julie's Birthday
(Not to be confused with Orange Julie-us, people, which is also Awesome.)

(We're talking about the luciousness in the middle, there)

I found this recipe on the "Our Best Bites" cooking & recipe site, which I highly recommend. They have great stuff.

6 cups COLD water
1 cup sugar
4 limes
6 tableschpoons of sweetened condensed milk

Mix the water & sugar and put into blender (I could only fit half at a time into the blender because mine is too small). Cut the limes into eighths and add to water in blender and pulse a few times, don't puree them, or the next step takes too long (I speak from experience, here). Pour the blender liquid into a pitcher through a strainer to keep the chunks out. Press with a spoon to make sure you get all the juice out. Repeat if you have a small blender. Then with about 2/3 of the liquid in the blender, I added the 6 T condensed milk and blended again. Mix all together in the pitcher and then DRINK IT ALL DON"T SHARE. Okay, share a little with people who offer to rub your feet if you do.

Y.U.M.

I cheated and threw in some ice cubes as well to make it a little slushy.

Very Y.U.M.

And just right for a very hot day in a house with a swamp cooler that can't cut it when we get this hot.

And while your sipping & enjoying your slushy lemonade (which strangely enough has not a bit of lemon) please enjoy my birthday collage:


There's Hubby eating MEAT. And the little do-dad that says "PLEASE NO MORE MEAT I'M GOING TO HAVE A HEART ATTACK JUST TRYING TO WALK TO MY CAR." and Kyle, the Bringer of the Meat. Kyle was great - kept stuffing us with bacon wrapped filet mignon and prime rib and grilled pineapple and teriyaki steak and salmon and amazing pork and.....well, you get the picture.

Excuse me while I go have a heart attack.
.

Amazing fun "Burgers & fries"

These cupcakes would be really fun for the upcoming holiday.

They were pretty simple, and didn't take a lot of time.

I made two dozen cupcakes using yellow cake mix, and another two dozen in chocolate (fudge brownies cut in circles can be substituted for the chocolate cupcakes).

Remove the wrappers and cut each yellow cupcake in half like a hamburger bun.

Lightly dust tops with powdered sugar or sesame seeds (I vote sugar, no surprise there).

Remove wrappers from chocolate cupcakes and cut rounded tops off. These are your "hamburger patties."

Re-assemble thus: yellow cupcake bottom, chocolate cupcake top

Then make "lettuce" from green icing using a leaf tip.

Make "ketchup" with red icing using round tip.

Make "mustard" with yellow icing using round tip.

(let your condiments "hang over" the edge a little so they can be seen after the tops are added)

Put dusted yellow cupcake top on, use a fancy toothpick if you got 'em.

For the "home fries" I totally cheated. Used refrigerated cookie dough (GASP!!!). I know. Scandalous.

Slice like you're making cheater cookies, then use pizza slicer to cut into "fries." You'll need to add some space between them, they will spread and stick together.

Don't forget to hide the evidence: eat the chocolate cupcake bottoms with the extra icing. Don't share with your kids. They're not worthy. Bring 'em to my house, I'll help you. It's a sacrifice, but I love you so I'll help you out, just this once.

Makes (obviously) twenty four cupcakes. And makes you look like you know a pasta fork from a braising pan. Be careful, this might raise people's expectations about your talents and abilities.

Don't forget the little puddle of "ketchup" for the fries.
.


and linking here.

Dodged that bullet...

So the bishop wanted to meet with me last Sunday, and man, I really thought I was in trouble.

Turned out he just had a new assignment for me.

I was worried that my past had finally caught up with me and I was being excommunicated for my chronic inability to grow zucchini.



You see, there is a history here. I grew up in a convert family, my parents striving daily to be good Later-day Saints. Thus, they grew zucchini. And I had two important chores to contribute to the success of this endeavor: kill squash bugs, and sell the zukes. Sell the zukes? How hard can that be? Zukes are great! Everyone over the age of 18 loves zukes!

What you don't know is that my insane parents (I come by it honestly, people) would let them grow and grow and grow.......until we had 9-12 lb. zucchini. Yuk. Giant watery no-flavor zukes. And they would load them into the wagon and send us out. "Children: go forth into the wilderness and obtain riches from the fruits (or vegetables) or our labors" they would cry! And we couldn't come home until the wagon was empty.

Our non-member neighbors must have had the wisdom of saints, as they were able to ascertain our predicament (the LDS ones had no sympathy - they had their own zukes). They would buy the horrid zukes, maybe to make wallpaper paste out of, and allow us to go home. We sold them faster when we took toddler David with us for the cuteness factor. "Just give the girl a quarter, Hal, so they'll stop ringing the doorbell!"

What I learned after moving to Utah makes me think the missionaries were holding out on us converts in the wilderness: You're supposed to take the giant zukes to church with you and leave them in unlocked cars.
.

Who are these children and why are they calling me "Mom?"

I am blessed to be Mom to many children who I didn't have the "blessing" of giving birth to. Many young peoples (friends of my young peoples) like to come to my house and eat. I LOVE to feed them. And pester them as if I were their real mother.....

This post today is for my dear DAYNA who is living and working at Lake Powell this summer and is not able to drop in at a moment's notice and say "Got any Muddy Buddies?"

Because you have chosen to live and work in the depths of fiery hell this summer (I've been to Lake Powell before, for someone with my autoimmune disorder, it is nothing but hell), I am unable to send these in a care package. They would completely dissolve in the heat. And you would be sad. We can't have that!! So here is Mommy's Special Muddy Buddies Recipe. If you want the commercial version from CHEX, click here. If you want the best version ever, keep reading.

You'll need:
1 14 oz. box Western Family Corn Squares (about 9 cups)
1 cup milk chocolate chips
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1/4 cup margarine
1-2 cups powdered sugar

Pour your cereal out into a large mixing bowl, you'll need space for mixing. On very low heat melt the margarine, then add chocolate chips, and stir until combined. When all the chips are melted, add the peanut butter and continue mixing. If the heat is too high it will be thick and lumpy. If you add vanilla extract like in that other recipe it will be thick and lumpy. Thick and lumpy is BAD. Very bad. As soon as it is creamy, pour slowly over the cereal, stirring to coat evenly. This is where I'm all OCD and make sure every piece is evenly coated. It ain't pretty, just don't come in the kitchen until I am done with this part. I use a rubber scraper for this because I am such a complete control freak about my muddy buddies. Get every inch of that chocolaty sauce out of the pan, it must not go to waste! Instead, it goes to my waist. After this part is done, add powdered sugar 1/4 cup at a time, keep stirring until it looks like it needs more. And more. And more. At some point the chocolate stops absorbing the powdered sugar and they start to look a little white. You can stop with the powdered sugar at this point, unless you want more. Hey, knock yourself out with the powdered sugar, why don't ya.

End result = yummy.

Go make some, Dayna. And don't forget to turn off the stove.
.

(posted here to share)

Thursday is...

Women's Conference at BYU. I am excited. Very excited. Because I need to eat one of these.

Is that wrong?

Oh yeah, my wonderful and amazing fantastic and smart friend Bonnie is speaking. She is AWESOME! (remember Bonnie? she made me fudge.)

.

Fries.

I have had an obsession of sorts with a particular website. It has amazing recipes and photography also. We made fries last night from this website, fries that don't involve standing over the deep fryer for 40 minutes producing small batches because, yes, we are not McDonalds and have a small home fryer. Trying to make fries for seven people is quite a production. I refuse to do it because it's tedious. That is my husband's job. It's really the only thing he cooks that doesn't involve a barbeque grill. His specialty, you might say.

So, I'm relieving him of duty, and using this recipe from Pioneer Woman Cooks.

After he ate these fries (which the children loved, and I loved because it took NO time to prepare!) he said he likes his fried fries better than baked ones. I mentioned the calorie savings from baking instead of frying, and he has given in.

Give them a try, they are wonderful. And easy to prepare in incredibly large amounts.
.

The Box of Happiness

Three words. Elaine. French. Bakery.

Two more: Napoleon, Eclair (the real kind, not my kid)
Yum.

Wait! Let me try yours!
It should be called The Box of Evil Calories.
.

Fudge.

I have some really great friends. One of my really great friends made me some fudge.

This is Bonnie. She made me fudge. I can't post a picture of the fudge, it was gone waaaayyy before a camera could get anywhere near it.

Here is the story of how it disappeared.

Bonnie and I go out to lunch every month. It's her fault. She moved away, and I can't just drop in at her house down the street whenever I want, we have to PLAN now. So when we went to Wallaby's for lunch (don't go there - it's habit forming), she brought me fudge she made just for me (well, not just for me, but she shared so she gets full credit anyway).

After hanging about and chatting for two full hours (yeah, we got nothing better to do) and annoying the staff at Wallaby's so they were wondering if we were EVER going to leave, we said goodbye and she gave me the fudge.

I displayed AMAZING will power and didn't eat it all before we left the parking lot (oh yeah, Thing One is with me, so I have to share....grrrr). We each ate one heavenly mouthwateringly rich piece of fudge. Heaven.

We had to run home and get Middle Daughter for some reason that now escapes me, and when Thing one offers me another piece and helps herself as well, we both start to groan with the utter satisfaction that only good chocolate products can produce, Middle Daughter says "I WANT SOME!!!!!"

"Some what?" I ask her, all innocence.

"Whatever you are having that is so good!"

"What?"

"I don't know, just GIVE ME SOME!!!!!"

And the fudge is now gone.

The End
.

Spaghetti Sauce

Such a quaint title, no? But it is a highly APPROPRIATE title.

First, a little background. Mom is a WONDERFUL cook. Mom has many recipes that I will eternally love, and I am convinced that my future children will request to have when we go visit. But the past month has been...lamentably sad in the food department. Between the funeral at the beginning of January, too much sickness toward the end, the family diet has consisted of ramen, frozen pizza, and basically whatever one can scrounge up once 9PM comes around and you realize you haven't eaten yet. Mom has just not had a chance to cook a real meal.

(A real meal, in this house, is one that has been cooking for long enough for the delicious scent to saturate the house in a heavenly aroma. The kind of heavenly aroma that when you walk in at 11PM from working a 7 hour shift and you smell it, you immediately lament and turn to mother with puppy eyes, "You had ____ without me???")

Now the important part! ME! Not really, but kinda. I offer up myself as an example of how the rest of the family must feel after this sad month of not-so-great food. I have not had much of an appetite the past few weeks. Nothing seems appealing, except perhaps an obscure food that I perchance ate three years ago at that one restaurant that we went to that one time. But even then, it just doesn't SATISFY.

Tonight, I walked in the door from work and smelled the heavenly aroma of Mom's spaghetti sauce. And I was rejuvenated.

As a simple summary: My mom's spaghetti sauce PWNS any other spaghetti sauce on the planet. Because seriously? Would you honestly consider sitting down with a cup of spaghetti sauce and eating it with a spoon? Because that's exactly what I did.
.

The Experiment Begins

The experiment begins. My oldest daughter and I will attempt to make a record of the many odd happenings and projects that take place in our home.

This is going to be a work in progress, as we create pages for the following topics: Food, Glorious Food, Photography, Top Ten, Random Ramblings and Look What I Made.

We hope you will be entertained.

In case you are wondering, "there was a bright flash of light" is a Roperism. Something that Matt always says when, for example, the car keys are missing:
Me: Where are the car keys?
Matt: There was a bright flash of light!!!!! and this conduit opened up in the ceiling!!!!!! and these aliens!!! with suction cups!!!! took the keys back up into their space ship!!!!
(lots of drama, this script. he really enjoys it when we set that one up for him. yeah, he's nuts.)
.