2014 Week Thirty-Five | August 25 - August 31

Trying to play catch-up...

He's been reading this book, one of my favorites from my childhood, every free moment he gets.  Heck with Legos, the pool, or any other toys. If he's not playing his video game, he's reading The Trolley Car Family.  

Annaliese learned to ride without training wheels this week.  She couldn't make it in a full circle in our driveway, and couldn't start or stop, but she was maintaining her balance on the straight stretches. Amazing to me for a 4-year-old. 

There were very few moments this week when the sun actually shined... 

Darrin and I had been talking about trying some different pizzas for awhile, and this one was definitely a hit- BBQ pulled pork with diced apples and smoked Gouda cheese.  I think next time, I'll cook the apples a bit to soften them up and add some caramelized onions. But this was soooo yummy like this. 

Grabbed some lunch after church at Firehouse Subs.  First time for the kids.  They both loved the hats they got, and, well, Ian loved his sandwich.  

Brought home the game Bananagrams from work. Everyone pulls a tiles from a center pile and works to make their own crossword, using all their tiles.  Darrin ended up dominating, and neither of them ended up loving it as much as I do. 

Annaliese came home from school with her hair like this and I had to do a double-take.  I can't touch her hair without a huge battle, but apparently Mr. George at school can.  He said she was complaining about being hot while outside and offered to braid it.  Wish my skills were as good as his.  

Tomato Sauce | Take Two

Last summer I started making tomato sauces. I dislike fresh tomatoes, but I love sauce. The one I made last time was okay, but I wasn't close enough to my favorite jar kind (yes, I have a kind I love). So the search continued for something that was just as yummy. Cue the email to Darrin's Grandma and her recipe. It's yummy. The secret ingredient- beef buillon.

Between the time I was making sauce last year and now, I bought a food strainer. HUGE time saver. I can skip the steps of cooking the tomatoes first to get the skins off and squeezing the juices out; it does it all for me with cold tomatoes. And an even bigger time saver- having some cute assistants run it for me.

Once it's all separated, and the onions are softened, dump the tomatoes in, add the spices, give it a good stir, and let it simmer all day.  Since the strainer makes it so thin, I usually have cook down by almost half to get the thicker consistency I like.

 

Grandma's Spaghetti Sauce

10 lb tomatoes (about 12 large- I use roma, so it takes more)

2 cups onions

2 cloves garlic

1/4 cup olive oil

4 tsp instant beef bouillon (or 2 packets)

4 tsp dried basil (I use a combo of fresh and dried until my basil plant gets more prolific)

2 bay leaves

2 tsp salt

1 tsp oregano

Remove skins and seeds from tomatoes using preferred method. Saute the onions and garlic in the oil. Once soft, add in other ingredients, stir, and simmer.  To speed the process along, you can add up to 12 oz of tomato paste.

Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream Sandwiches

I have made it a goal of mine this summer to make as many varieties of homemade ice cream as possible. I've had this recipe in mind ever since I saw it, and it finally came to fruition.

The ice cream itself churned up better than any ice cream I've ever made in my maker. Usually it doesn't come out frozen enough to eat right away- it needs to spend some time in the freezer first. But the consistency and taste of this was perfect.

While it was churning, I melted the chocolate in the microwave and started to fill the liners.  I did a bit of math to figure out how much chocolate to put in each portion (1/2 Tbsp. was what I came up with). It didn't look like enough, however, so I used as much chocolate as the recipe called for on the bottom, and then melted more when it came time for the top. BIG MISTAKE! When it came time to eat them, the chocolate was so thick and hard, we couldn't bite through it. Thinner is better in this case.

Annaliese helped me put the ice cream on top once it had finished churning and the chocolate had frozen. I sent her on her merry way and topped them off with more chocolate and popped them into the freezer.

Needless to say, everyone ate their entire dinner so they could have one of these for dessert. They were soooo good.

A couple more thoughts, besides the thinner is better:
- the peanut butter ice cream is great on its own. I might just dump some mini chocolate chips in towards the end of the churning next time.

- the cupcake liners made for great serving and portion control. I might use them for the one Ian picked to try next, even though it doesn't need liners. Keeps us from eating the entire batch in one sitting...

Easter Weekend

Easter weekend we had many of Darrin's family members come to visit and we got to meet our niece Oriana for the first time.  We had lots of fun!  They got in Friday after work and Grandpa joined Darrin and Ian at soccer practice. After that, everyone came home and we enjoyed some Parmesan tilapia for dinner (my favorite fish recipe, and oh, so easy!).

Saturday morning we dyed eggs.  The kids always look forward to it, but I think I like it more than they do.  After only two or three eggs, they're ready to be done.

After egg dyeing, we headed to the zoo.  We spent several hours there and had a great time. The kids and I were there a few weeks ago for spring break, but we came in from the south. Coming in our normal way, we could really see the construction changes starting to happen. It will be neat to see how they upgrade what we already think is a terrific zoo in the years to come.

While we were at the zoo, the Easter Bunny visited our house, so we were able to hunt when we got home.

Sunday morning we said our good-byes to Darrin's family and went to church. After service, there was an Easter egg hunt for the kids.

That was followed by lunch at Marlena and Noah's and another hunt. We also opened Easter baskets and the kids had fun playing with their bubble blowers.

Tomato Sauce, Take One

My garden is at our church.  There, I have three of the sixty-four plots available.  And I've planted tomatoes. I don't like to eat them raw, but I love them in sauce.  Last year I had a few tomatoes, but hated the recipes I found (not that I remember which ones they are). So this year I vowed to find a recipe I liked, and actually remember which one I used for next year.  I picked up some more Roma tomatoes at our church garden mart on Sunday to go with the ones I had picked from our garden.  The first recipe I tried was from Deb at Smitten Kitchen- Fresh Tomato Sauce.  

Deb's first step was to remove the skin from the tomatoes. So here they are all sliced with x's on the bottom (I just thought of something I want in my kitchen- a wall mounted wireless tablet, so I can look up my favorite recipes, but not take up valuable counter space.)

Then you had to drop them in boiling water for a couple seconds, then transfer them to ice water.  Here's where I learned my first lesson of the day- make sure the water is actually boiling. I dropped them in when the water was hot, but not boiling.  I ended up having to throw them back it.  This method works pretty slick if the water is actually hot... 

After the tomatoes were all ready, you were to add minced garlic, onion, carrots, and celery to some olive oil and let is simmer for ten minutes. Mincing isn't something I'm good at, so I used minced garlic from the store, then just shredded the onion and carrot.  We didn't have celery in the house, and as it was nap time, I couldn't run out to get some. 

Here they are all peeled. Next step was to slice them vertically, squeeze them to get the juice and seeds out, then chop them and dump them in the pot.  I sliced them, but squeezing didn't work, so I just used my thumbs to push it out, then squished the remaining flesh through my fingers and it plopped into the pot. It was at this point that I remember canning all the stewed tomatoes and tomato juice with my parents in the summer. When we did it then, it was always the hottest day of the summer (it was near 100 when I did this), and they didn't, and still don't, have central air.  I was very grateful I was doing this in my cool kitchen.  I also remember why my mom always wore an apron.  Another lesson I learned, don't wear a light shirt or glasses when doing this- they'll definitely get splattered.  

As you were squeezing the juice and seeds out, you were to reserve the juice in case it needed to be added to the simmering sauce.  This is all the juice I got from the tomatoes above.  After canning with big boys or early girls last year and the excess amount of juice they had, it was nice to work with the Roma. 

 Finally all simmering on the stove. As I tasted it, I added some pizza sauce seasoning and a bit of sugar.  Used my potato masher a bit to break up the big chunks, but it didn't get as smooth as store bought.  Deb suggests using an immersion blender. I don't have one of those, and I was fine with the consistency.

It was a bit chunky, and I kept thinking it looked a little rustic. It tasted pretty good. Better than the ones I tried last year, though it still felt like something was missing, so the quest will continue (that's the plan for today's nap time).  We really couldn't taste the sauce on the finished pizza. Don't know if that's good or not. I thought it was fine, as I'm not a big fan of lots of sauce or sauce flavor on my pizza. 

I wish I had a faster method of removing skins, seeds, and juice. That's the most time-consuming part...

Spring Break... and then some

Today I returned to work for the first time since Thursday, March 15. Thanks to a sick Ian that Thursday night, I got Friday off, followed by a week of spring break.  It was my last spring break I'd get to spend by myself, as the kids still went to school, and next year Ian will have break right along with me.  It was a good one to go out on.

 

This is how our living room started off looking at the beginning of the week. I spent quite a bit of time Mon-Wed staining the wood around our windows from when they were replaced. (I won't mention how long ago that was actually done).  I also did some caulk work around the kids' tub, organized the kids' closets, ran TONS of errands, and cooked (plus read a book, went to the movies, watched some TV...).  

This is how our freezer looked by the end of break. Darrin would never complain about his lunches, but I could tell by his sighs every morning when trying to figure out what to have for lunch that he'd prefer some options other than sandwiches.  So I set about to rectify that this week, making double portions of our dinners and freezing them in single servings for Darrin's lunches.  The top shelf is taco cornbread bake made in individual ramekins for him to take.  On the second shelf, in the back, are homemade pizza pockets/calzones.  I took this pizza dough recipe, doubled it so we'd have pizza for supper and then turned the rest into pockets. It worked really slick and he says they taste great. In front of that is some leftover honey bourbon chicken (even though it contains no bourbon).  Also on that shelf is some brown sugar chipotle pulled pork that I added BBQ to after I shredded it.  Last but not least, on the bottom shelf, is some lasagna, recipe courtesy of his mom.  He's set for awhile, though he'll probably go through those pretty darn fast!

Saturday was another day of swimming lessons for Ian. Only today was diving board day. We all went along to watch and he is so comfortable up there now. So much different than two years ago when he started lessons.  Now the teacher just has to count to three and he jumps right in.  He told me the other day that he wasn't scared because he knew God and Jesus would be there with him.  And his teacher, Miss Jill.  He'll get another chance at it this Saturday as well.  Saturday afternoon and night I spent scrapping with Marlena, getting all caught up on my project life spreads and working on the layout for this week's issue challenge over at Club CK. 

Sunday the weather was perfect, and after church and lunch, we worked outside mowing the yard, trimming rose bushes, planting my summer bulbs, and doing something my dad would be proud of- washing my car. 

 

And today after work, with the weather again around 80 degrees - IN MARCH - there was more playing outside.  

 Yes, Annaliese is standing backwards, but we didn't dare try to get close and correct her, or she'd swing and hit us.

 Ian was so serious with his hitting, and absolutely loved it.  He hit many home runs over the neighbor's fence.


Before bed tonight, Ian had to show us his latest Lego creation. The other night during prayers he thanked Jesus for his large bucket of Legos because, "I like to build whatever I want."  Well, tonight he built a mechanic garage with the mechanic working on a snow plow. I asked if it was Grandpa Dan, and it wasn't, but it's a snow plow nonetheless.  He went with Darrin on Saturday to get his car worked on, and we figure that's where he got the idea.  

Homemade Honey Wheat Rolls

This morning, just a few minutes before I looked up at the clock and realized Ian had swimming lessons in less than 10 minutes, I was busy throwing the ingredients for beef stew into the crock pot.  Upon return from swimming lessons, I realized that I wanted to have some bread with the stew for supper.  I was looking for something along the lines of our favorite crusty rolls we get at Hy-Vee and bake for a few minutes in the oven. I didn't find a recipe like that, but what I did find was a delicious, slightly sweet, fluffy roll that I will be making again and again. 

 

If it isn't obvious, I have a lot to work on in the aesthetics department, but they tasted divine. 

I was going to type the whole recipe, but really, all I changed from adorkable's recipe on tastykitchen was that I substituted two cups of the flour with whole wheat flour.  You MUST try these.

And here's a shot of Ian at his first day of swimming lessons since July.  He was right back in the water like he never left.