Goosie Turns Five!

Today our Goosie turned 5! She got to celebrate at school with her friends~how exciting! For her family party, she wants a Hello Kitty cake, and I thought she'd want to do Hello Kitty cupcakes for her class. Alas, she said "Well, there are a lot of boys in my class and I think they wouldn't like Hello Kitty cupcakes." So, she chose a funfetti cake mix and frosting, helped me make them and was very proud to bring them to school today.


She also put together goodie bags for her friends. I wasn't too excited about this, but I think we kept it simple and she was excited to do them. We chose mini Tootsie pops, a candy necklace kit that you have to string yourself first, either a Cars or a princess temporary tattoo, and then Goosie made bookmarks for all her friends. She also made a bag for her teachers.


After school, and lunch, we opened some gifts from Grandma Sharon, Grandma Sue, Peanut and from Derek and me.





For dinner she wanted "Chinese noodles", so we made chicken lo mein. I added bok choy and Rooibos tea. She and Peanut helped shred the vegetables. It was tasty!


Mmm tea!


Or juice!


Finally, we had the birthday cupcake. Yes, she had 2 cupcakes today. The official cake will be Saturday. Make a wish!


You too Peanut, big sister wanted you to have a wish too. :)


My sweet girls.

How can my Goosie be 5?

It's a Crock Mondays: Risotto Edition

Hello and happy Monday. I've mentioned already that I'm going to be using the crock pot on Mondays, and this week I chose to make Parmesan Risotto from the "Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker" cookbook. I was thinking it probably wouldn't be creamy or my crock pot would burn it, so I was rather anxious about it. Luckily, the recipe calls for dry white wine, so I was forced to sample the wine, as any good cook would, to make sure it was up to par. It was. And it was on sale, so double bonus.

It turned out to be wonderful! Oh so creamy and bitey with the wine and the parmesan (the real stuff folks, Parmigiano Reggiano). Nutty and perfect! It's really hard to get a nice shot of risotto though, at 5:30, in the winter, in Michigan, in a black crock pot. But here it is:

The large strips are parmesan ribbons I shaved off with my vegetable peeler. MMMM

To go with this, I decided to roast a chicken, as I needed stock and more chicken throughout the week's menu. I prepped it, washed in and out, patted dry, seasoned the cavity and put in shallots and rosemary. Made a wet rub of balsamic vinegar, dijon mustard, salt and pepper, olive oil and rosemary. Loosened the skin, seasoned that...and set it in to roast at 450 degrees for an hour. It was beautiful! Nice crispy skin (which I did cover at about 45 minutes) and it smelled heavenly. But, I did one big bonehead move. (I really can't believe I did this-I've never done something this dumb in the kitchen. Well except that time I had a plate on the stovetop and turned on the wrong burner.) I roasted that beautiful chicken breast side down. So just about everything was cooked except the breast! I couldn't believe it. So I deskinned the breasts, because it was all fatty and gross now, not crispy and good, and threw it back in the oven. 35 minutes later I declared "That it! Everyone get your coats on, we're going out to eat." Outback had wonderful lamb tonight. And the Fosters was good too.

What is it with me and roasting chickens? I had great success at one time with them. I can roast a turkey like no one's business. But chicken has plagued me the last few times. Remember this post? Not good then either. So, more chicken cooking to happen tomorrow and I'm thinking I'll have some risotto for breakfast.

Just a ramble

Hello there! There's been so much chatter about the cold that is gripping the nation-world!- but it doesn't feel all that different here in Michigan. Just feels like winter. But it seems like we've been getting more sunshine, which is great for me. It really brightens my day, wakes me up and adjusts my attitude. I'm just glad to have it.

Today the girls and I are hanging out, I've got some dusting and vacuuming to do and we're waiting for a package to come. Then, if that package comes at a good time, we'll be heading to Target for a birthday gift for a neighbor and a card for my niece. Derek will be home a little later a couple days this week, so we'll be eating dinners without him, and having some girly fun.

I've started this thing I'm calling "It's a Crock Mondays" when I use the crockpot for dinners on Mondays. It's because I have trouble admitting it is a Monday, that the weekend is over, that we have to get back to routine. It's going well so far, it allows me to have Monday as my heavier cleaning day, to focus on getting places on time after no rushing on the weekend. So far the meals have been good, though I had to seriously doctor one last night. It was called "Moroccan Chicken with Chickpeas" from the "Not your Mother's Crockpot" cookbook. It was just bland. I added salt, pepper, turmeric, garlic, cinnamon, paprika. It ended up tasting good, but there is another recipe I do for Moroccan chicken that we prefer, so I'll save that recipe for a different day! I really liked the idea of the chickpeas in this dish though. I do love chickpeas!

I plan on making muffins-perhaps today as the girls did not dig the Coco Wheats cereal for breakfast. I have some frozen zucchini and sweet potato that I can throw into the batter.

Exciting stuff huh? I'm just a bit antsy, ready to be able to reorganize and declutter and clean really really well, but I'm still under restrictions and trying to be good. I hope to have those restrictions lifted next week, but you know by then I'll not feel the need to do all I want to do now! haha, isn't that always the way? I'm anxious to get back to biking and exercising too. I miss it and can really feel a difference. Soon! Soon!

Bento Boxes!

Well hello there. No, I haven't posted in a while. Yes, I thought I might have. But you know how it goes. Christmas was wonderful and now we're back to normal, almost. I'll say Happy New Year to you but I'm not listing anything, and I'm not complaining about how bad last year was nor how I'm glad to see it go. It was a great year and it helped my family grow into who we all are today, and good or bad events aside, it was our life. So I'm blessed and thankful and I've grown because of it.

But let us get to the good part of this post. There were many wonderful things received for Christmas and we've been playing for weeks now. But these gifts, for the girls? Awesome fun for me too. The girls' uncle Steve and his girlfriend Kelly got the girls Bento boxes and accessories. (They have given us all these accessories, but the some of the chopsticks before this Christmas). Look at this stuff, and forgive the flashy flash:

How awesome are those? And that panda bear--those eyebrows on the band slay me. So I've been packing the girls lunches and snacks in these boxes and they L-O-V-E them (just look)

and I'm getting addicted to seeing what I can do with these, really. So I've been looking online at other blogs, getting ideas, recipes and just getting way too excited about packing lunches! I want to see what I can pull off here. Maybe all our meals in Bento boxes! Maybe birthday cake Bento boxes! Maybe I can even get Derek to do lunch in one! Would it be enough? Could I lose weight this way? Wait, that's off topic.

But really, look at some of these sites. Biggie writes the Lunch in a Box blog and is in San Francisco and has all sorts of menus, packing ideas, food safety ideas, tips, and even forums.

Just Bento also has tasty looking ideas, and seriously, this Day at the Farm theme, with the sheep and bunnies is too cute.

Laptop Lunches has Americanized Bento box menu ideas, but with a healthy outlook.

One of the things I've been trying to change in our menus is getting away from what is traditionally eaten when. For instance, eggs are "breakfast food." Well, they can be. But they can also be for lunch or dinner. Seeing the menus on these sites are really inspiring to me. You don't have to have a sandwich for lunch. Have steamed asparagus and blueberries with some cashews and a hard boiled egg. Have noodles with fruit and spinach.

So, I'm having a great time thinking about this, about feeding my family healthy food and about playing with it! I totally need to get some small cookie cutters so that they'll fit in the boxes though. I have a bazillion cookie cutters and most are too big. I used a shot glass today to cut the tortilla and cheese slices! ;) Really, that's why we have shot glasses around.

For more Bento box fun, check out the flickr group. Cute stuff!

One last thing to share, because it's been 4 years in the making, at least. My Christmas Cactus bloomed!! Finally! On New Years Day! Poor confused little cactus. But it sure is beautiful, and I snapped this pic on my phone today, as the sun was shining and big fluffy snowflakes fell.

Snow Babies

Or not such babies! Mom can't go out and play, so what are two antsy girls to do? Get all bundled and go play out on the deck by themselves while mom watches from the window. :) Everyone is happy this time!

This was just before all the drizzle started this afternoon. Ick. I am not a fan of drizzle ever, but when it's supposed to be snowing? Definitely not my favorite! We'd had a foot and a half of snow out there on that deck 2 days ago. Since then it's been all melty and drippy.

Why couldn't mom go out and play this time? Just a little surgery. Doing well, healing nicely. Sore a bit, but taking it easy. Derek has been wearing all the hats, poor guy. He's so good. :) Look what I had waiting for me when I got home:

Goosie also made me a present. She had broken a comb the morning I went into the hospital, and she taped it and then wrapped it up in toilet paper and taped that all up. I think she gets her taping skills from Grandma Sue! ;) It was very sweet. Then Peanut ran up stairs and wrapped a brush in the same way for me. Very thoughtful little girls!

Anyway, it's entirely possible you will see more posts from me as I'm on the mend~what else can a girl do if I'm banned from housework/cooking/laundry/vacuuming/dusting for a while? I also promise not to refer to myself in the third person anymore. That's sort of annoying. :D

Out on "Black Friday"!?

Not my usual M.O. However, today at The Spinning Loft, Abby Franquemont was there for "Skeinsgiving" signing her book "Respect the Spindle". How could I stay home? I scraped the ice off the car and gassed up and off I went. Yes, I did! Look, proof!

I was afraid her hand would have fallen off by the time today got here. She had quite the pressure to sign and deliver *lots* of pre-ordered books that had gotten to her earlier in the week. But, her hand was in good working order. She was a pleasure to meet and I can't wait to delve into her book. I so admire someone with great knowledge and not only the desire to teach others, but to do it well.

Being in the Spinning Loft, of course, I couldn't walk away with "just" the book however. I got a cool "Respect the Spindle" pen. And the "Drafting: The long and the short of it" DVD. And 2 of the elusive Abby batts (pink and brown), 1 of the spectacular Maggie batts (Beth's daughter makes these, available at the Spinning Loft) (purple), a bump of romney (peach) and a bump of the Spunky Eclectic shetland in the "Three Sheeps" colorway, dyed by Amy King who also wrote the fantastic book "Spin Control".

Beautiful things. :) As an added bonus, as I was there, Denny (this Denny;) called Beth's phone. Her phone baaaas when it rings-so funny. Anyway, Denny said she was with Rachel and they were saying that they didn't care that they weren't there, they were going out for lunch. We could hear the yelling over the phone in the shop. Just a few minutes later, Denny and Rachel showed up! It was great fun, and, again, while I don't "know" Denny and Rachel, I have read articles that Denny has written, or ones written about her. I've had an exchange or two on Ravelry with her. I enjoy the stories and acknowledge that these folks are really contributing to the knowledge, the inspiration, and the love of the fiber arts for me. They may not know me to chat daily-or at all-but I thank them all for doing what they do, and doing it so well. And with so much fun. :) Thank you ladies!

Halloween 2009

Halloween 2009
Originally uploaded by bethanygknits

Spooky skeleton and a black cat!

Hope your Halloween was fantastic!