Snow Day!

I know, everyone is talking about the weather, but bear with me. I happen to love it. It's about time Michigan look like it's supposed to look in the winter time! We had the day off school of course and I waited for the plow guy to come do our driveway before we went out.

He plowed the snow onto the sides of our driveway providing for excellent sledding and climbing hills for the girls! Thanks plow guy!

I shoveled then and only had to do the sidewalk and the walk to the front door (and find the porch).

It's much easier to shovel when the snow is just below your waist. Luckily the snow was fluffy. It still took an hour. We definitely got a lot of snow.

Unfortunately I realized that our trash can is trapped on the one side of the house too. It's too heavy to move and the snow is almost to my knees over there. We have some great drifts! If all else fails, we'll just put bags by the roadside on trash day and forego the can. Geesh!

After playing and shoveling, we came in to dry off. The girls immediately got into pajamas instead of clothes. Silly girls. I grabbed the special ingredients for our after-playing-in-the-snow treat. Are you thinking "hot chocolate"? Ha! Hot chocolate (I say with a smirk), we eat hot chocolate for breakfast around here! (Really, we did have it for breakfast today). Today, we get to have "Blizzard Ice Cream"! That's right. You know what they say, "When life hands you snow, make ice cream!" Or something like that.

So, get a big bowl of fresh, top layer, fluffy *white* snow. Here, "big" = 4 quart bowl.

Top with a can of sweetened condensed milk and 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract.

Mix.

Really fast.

Eat. Listen to your children say "This is better than the store bought ice cream!" Sit back full of satisfaction and smile. What a great snow day!

Also, I think it's time this came down now :)

Disclaimer: Derek checked online and read somewhere (probably his website that he claims has all the correct facts ;P) that you shouldn't eat more than a cup of snow per year because of toxins. Well, I'm thinking that after a blizzard, the air is pretty well scrubbed. Plus, if you only make this after a blizzard, hopefully you only eat this once a year! Enjoy!

Oh this blogging thing...

Obviously there will be no schedule for this! I can't say there is much to report about all the time, it's just not all that interesting! And I'm often too tired to get too creative. In addition, the weather here for the last few days was wonderful and we were outside riding bikes and taking walks and the like. Today, it's at least 20 degrees cooler however, super windy and I'm feeling it in my bones!

Nevertheless, the homestead continues. Last week I made my first loaves of Sourdough bread from my own starter. It tasted fantastic, at least to Derek and me. Too sour for the girls, I think. The picture of them do not do them justice, but the taste made up for how they looked. I used a whole wheat flour in the starter though, and it made for a very dense, somewhat chewy bread, I think. The crust was not so crusty, so I'll see if I can switch over to some white flour in the starter and see if that makes a difference. I just may make some sourdough pancakes for breakfast tomorrow as well.

I did get some knitted items finished, one thing was the baby booties for my neighbor's baby, whom we've yet to meet. Just can't schedule it right! But they turned out so cute! I love the set.


And then it was my grandma's birthday and she wanted a coffee carafe cozy to help keep her coffee hotter, so I whipped up a plain little one with some measurements that my aunt had given me. I thought it was going on a different shaped one that I knew she had, but she bought a different one. That's ok though, this worked out fine and she was very pleased.

We didn't get too crafty this past week either. We went to Hobby Lobby to choose some items for the dollhouse that my grandparents made for me when I was a little girl. :) Now, my girls get to play with it. That makes me very happy. While they did that, I went through every storage tote we have in the basement, condensed, sorted, organized and moved them all against one wall. I pulled out things for our garage sale that our neighborhood has in May. I found things we can use now. I made more room for the girls to play in that little room and so that Derek can once again, hopefully, start to finish off the basement. It will be so incredibly awesome when that is done-another bathroom, another family room, and eventually an office/bedroom. I hope he starts to feel motivated about that! I'm clearing out the "family room" area so that it's clear for him to start up again.

I cleaned the floors down there and later that night, the cat re-christened them. Dang cat. We moved the coffee table back to the living room since the girls are older now and can get themselves unstuck from under it. Now I just worry about them running into it and my little one coated it with something gooey this morning. I think she was milk painting. Thank you honey.

This morning we ran to the library, then Target for more pull-ups. She just won't decide to use the potty. She's completely capable. In fact, she stayed dry the whole time we were out. Let's hope she makes up her mind soon!

Other than that, I have 2 recipes for you. Old standby favorites. No pictures though, sorry!

This first one is from a grade-school friend's mom. Thanks Mrs. Kehoe, I use this one all the time:

Lemon Chicken

6 boneless chicken breast halves

3 Tbls. flour

salt

pepper

1 Tbls. butter

1/4 c. teriyaki sauce

3 Tbls. lemon juice

1 tsp. minced garlic

1/2 tsp. sugar

(I cube the chicken up, often using less than 6 halves) Roll chicken in flour seasoned with salt and pepper. Spray 10"skillet with cooking spray. Lightly brown chicken 5-7 minutes on each side. Remove. Stir in teriyaki, lemon juice, garlic and sugar. Add butter to melt, then add chicken back to sauce. Simmer 5 minutes (until tender), turning often. Serve over rice/noodles.

I have done this with soy sauce and brown sugar, have added ginger and green onions at the end as well. I like it with more sauce sometimes as well.

"Yellow" Cauliflower--ya know, because it's yellow...

1 head cauliflower

salt

turmeric

ground cumin

garam masala

olive oil

(optional: garlic powder, ground ginger, cinnamon)

Chop cauliflower into small florets. Put on cookie sheet or 13x9" pan in one layer. Drizzle with olive oil, just to coat. Sprinkle with seasonings to taste. (Go lightly with the turmeric! It adds a great flavor and color, but can be bitter). Adjust seasonings as needed.

Roast in oven at 425 degrees for about 25 minutes or until tender, stirring once.

Heartwarming

I have lots of things to talk about, to show, and when I tried to think of a title that would include them all, "heartwarming" was it. Each of these things make me very happy to be a part of. So, come along, I'll show you what we've been up to at home, and what we've been doing with Stitch-It! Podcast since March 2008. 

Have I told you about Stitch-It? It's a favorite podcast and there is a listeners group on Ravelry.com as well. We're a chatty bunch, share lots of good ideas, encourage each other, inspire each other, enable each other! We decided to start up groups to do charity baby blankets last year. I head up the Mid-west region and we pass this blanket around to each other, knitting 4" full of good thoughts, and then pass it on to the next knitter. It's very rewarding, fun to get to know your fellow knitters, and satisfying to see the finished project. I will be delivering the first batch of blankets to the Helen DeVos Children's Hospital in Grand Rapids, MI shortly and wanted to share a photo of them. 

Aren't they lovely? I think there will be some warm, snuggly, comforted babies and parents with these blankets!

Next, on the homefront, we've been busy! I have decided that I need to try new recipes and I'll share reviews of how they are. I want to eat a little better, a little healthier, incorporate more fruits and veggies, and expand our menus. (Sounds New Year Resolution-ish, doesn't it? But it's not, really. I don't keep those!) So, this past week we tried a Pear Pancake. Yum. Not exactly healthy, but there's fruit in it! And breakfast is tough to imagine when it comes so early in the morning. So sometimes, have your sugar early. :) It looked like this:

Pear Pancakes
2/3 c. granulated sugar
1/4 c. pear nectar
2 medium pears, thinly sliced lenghtwise
1 c. half and half
3 lg. eggs
2 tsp. vanilla 
1/2 c. flour
1/2 tsp. sale
Confectioners sugar

Preheat oven to 425.  In a deep 10" cast iron skillet, add 1/3 c. sugar and the pear slices and pear nectar.  Sprinkle pears with 1 Tbs. sugar.  Cook undisturbed over med heat until sugar carmelizes.  Meanwhile in a blender, mix half and half, eggs and vanilla.  Add the flour, salt and remaining granulated sugar.  Blend on high for 30 seconds.  Pour batter over the pears and bake until lightly browned and puffy....about 15 min. Reduce heat to 350 and bake about another 10 min.  Sprinkle with confectioners sugar.

It was tasty, though the bottom was a little too caramelized. Maybe the second 15 minutes could have been cut down to 5-10 minutes, or maybe I let it caramelize too long on the stove top. But still, great. I used Red D'Anjou pears. 

Another very comforting thing I made was homemade French Bread! (Ok, forget what I said about the healthy stuff earlier) The recipe was from allrecipes.com and it was a little confusing with the amount of yeast. It called for 2 1/2 (.25 oz) packages of yeast, but one package is .75 oz. I only used one package and the consistency was great. I also would have used more salt than the recipe calls for. But it's fantastic and I'm having a hard time not scarfing it all. 

 
One more tasty treat, a little more healthy too is Nigella's Breakfast bars. The recipe is all over the 'net, but I was first introduced to them by Meghan, again, of Stitch-It!. I love the raw oats and have trouble not eating spoonfuls before even baking! We added dried blueberries and cherries, a little coconut, flax seeds and pecans.


And finally, the last thing we made were anacondas. Why? Because they live in rain forests, and they start with letter A, which was part of our lessons this past week. :)


And, "hey! A starts with Ants too!" said Goosie, Just in case you didn't know.

Hey, forgot to add, there is a blog I'm enjoying and wanted to share. It's Reclaiming the Home http://reclaimingthehome.typepad.com/home/ There is also a Ravelry group for this and it's really inspirational as well. Who'd have thought I'd like to clean some days?