family – Page 24 – Peaceful Reader

You're A Good Man Charlie Brown

We have a busy weekend. My husband’s play is up and this scene is one of my favorites. So free and happy, celebrating the joy of Christmas. Groovy Girl has been Woodstock in two of the four shows and we have family in town enjoying the play.

I did finish two books today; The History of Love by Nicole Krauss-what a beautiful story-I could have started all over again and Lucky Cap by Patrick Jennings, which has been Groovy Girl’s story time book but her late nights with rehearsals have delayed our reading so this morning we cuddled in the big bed and finished the last 8 pages. Love those mornings. Then I got up and grocery shopped and cleaned house. My book club meets here Monday night and we are skyping author Anne Ylvisaker, the author of Little Klein, Dear Papa and The Luck of the Buttons. I’m very excited about this event…I just need to make it through this weekend’s performances.

Have a very love-filled weekend.

Beautiful Holidays

(Nephew with Groovy Girl)

I’ve recently been holiday bashing because I had to go buy new lights. Our old wonderful blue lights that have circled our house for a mere four years started to fade to a pale yellow and then blah to nothing. Went to Target to replace those lights and brought a name brand kinda light. Name brand is the key word and I was disgusted as I was only buying one set of lights to cover a large-ish bush in our front yard. (we made a new plan to cover some of the greenery out front instead of the house…it’s cold here now, you know.) Truthfully I didn’t expect to cover the whole ding dang bush but I did think I would cover more than one fourth of it. Seriously. You buy a box of lights that shows an entire big bush covered and you expect certain things. Don’t.

(Teenage Boy, College friend, Handsome Husband

walking over T.giving break)

Wow. The light buying business totally sucked the Christmas spirit right out of me for a couple of days. That was it though. I’m done with the rant. This is just my public service announcement, for you. Don’t go buy Christmas lights and expect them to cover what you want. I do remember my parents with this huge long rope of multicolored lights for our large tree. It does not exist anymore. They now measure what would be half or a fourth of a tree or a bush and give you that amount in the box so you are forced to buy two to four more boxes of lights to decorate said tree or bush. Ugh. I’m done.

(My sweet brother)

To remind me of happier holiday moments I went back to my Thanksgiving photos. Viola. I feel better.
p.s. I had to wait a week to write this post so it would not be full of true holiday anger. This is my tamed down version of today’s greed and commercialism. The photos = true bliss.

November Reading Recap and a few mini-reviews!

Teenage Boy exclaimed the other day: “This year is going by so fast!” and I agree. December is just around the corner. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving spent in Deephaven, MN with my younger brother and his family. The weather was gorgeous and the food was spectacular! My brother has emerged as quite an eclectic chef and we had a non-traditional meal with King Salmon as the main course. The salmon was caught in Lake Superior this past summer by my 9-year-old nephew! A truly amazing feat and he was all smiles as we ooh’ed and aaah’ed over his tasty fish.

My reading in November was quirky:

Bright Young Things by Anna Godberson (my shelf): Ugh. So wanted this to be as good as The Luxe series. It was not.

The Red Garden by Alice Hoffman (library): This deserves a much longer review but suffice it to say I loved Hoffman’s writing and will search for more of her prose.

Spellbound (The 2nd book of Elsewhere) by Jacqueline West (library): I loved this little series-perfectly creepy with a strong young female heroine. I reviewed it here.

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her own making by Catherynne M. Valente (library): I waxed poetically about this book here after just a few chapters. The book stayed consistently superb. The vocabulary alone puts it in a category all its own. I had to look words up. Such a treat. The author’s website offers a preview of the book. Go on click and check it out!

Organizing the Disorganized Child by Martin L. Kutscher and Marcella Moran (new purchase): Trying to help my Groovy Girl out a little here-this is filled with many great tools like this clock.

The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan (my shelf): I don’t love it as much as The Lightning Thief but it is a good adventure with mixed race siblings. I love learning about ancient Egypt. I’ve had this on my shelf since it was first published-glad to be finally crossing it off my list. The same nephew that was responsible for bringing in the salmon was a little disgusted with me-he’s read ALL of Riordan’s books-some more than once! He was all like “well, have your read The Son of Neptune??” Ahh, not yet.

What have you been reading??
Happy December.

Weekend Cooking; Happy the weekend is over (did I say that?!) with recipe

Little Women; The Musical was the play this
weekend but keep reading for what I cooked…

It’s been a busy week with a full rehearsal schedule and opening night was Friday. I went to all three shows as I don’t know when I’ll have the pleasure to watch Teenage Boy on stage; he is an excellent actor but dislikes being in plays.

I cooked this week. I think the zucchini pizza from last Sunday night kick started me off creatively and the rest of the week followed through.

I made this potato soup from Lynn’s Cooking Adventures-I found it using the scientific method of googling “creamy potato soup” and then picking the 1 of 5 recipes that matched what I was dreaming of eating. How many of you use this simple technique to find a recipe?

Someone at school left two Real Simple magazines in the lounge and I paged through one of them while waiting for my lunch to heat in the microwave. I found this Broccoli-Quinoa Pilaf recipe-I did not make the cod but used it two days in a row for my lunch. Heidi at 101 Cookbooks has lots of recipes listed for this power grain. It is one of the grains I purchase from the bulk section of my local organic store, making it always available in my pantry.

I have more chickens and a turkey coming from Tim, my local farmer/meat man so I decided to make one of the last chickens from my freezer. While I made this recipe I pondered just how I came to cook meat in my kitchen, which for years, had been vegetarian-but that’s a whole ‘nother post. I wanted to make a BBQ chicken from homemade sauce someone gave me when I found this recipe instead as I paged through Not Your Mother’s Casseroles by Faith Durand and found Pot Chicken and Potatoes Baked in Cinnamon-Saffron Milk. Her recipe is adapted from a Jamie Oliver recipe.

To finish the weekend off we had a potluck at church today and I wanted to bring a side dish-this one is from Durand’s casserole book. The pan was cleaned out before I made it through the food line-I was toward the end after cleaning up the nursery-other people told me it was good though. One grandmother even said it was her grandson’s favorite dish. A success at the church potluck does not always happen for me!!

I had to hunt down the chef’s of two dishes that I loved (one of the great things about a potluck-trying new dishes)-one was a heavenly caramel brownie dessert served in a trifle bowl and the other was a 3-squash bake, this one was made by a friend and she shared some of the leftovers with me (hello, Monday lunch!) but the guy who made that amazing caramel dish did not share the leftover layer at the bottom. I’m just sure he took that dish home and licked it clean! I’ve asked for both recipes and will pass them on as I get them.

Luscious Oven Creamed Corn
(110)
casserole dish: 9 x 13-in baking dish
bake time: 45 minutes

2 T. unsalted butter
1 small onion, diced
4 1/2 cups frozen corn kernels (about 26 ozs), thawed
1 tsp salt
1 T. sugar
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 cup milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 T. all-purpose (unbleached) flour
1/4 cup minced fresh chives
1/2 cup coarse yellow cornmeal
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1. Preheat the oven to 350. (I never do this step at the beginning to save energy unless I’m baking) Lightly grease the baking dish with nonstick cooking spray or butter.
2. In a large skillet, heat the butter over medium heat. When it foams, add the onion and cook for 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Stir in the corn and cook just until the corn is hot. Stir in the sugar, salt, and pepper.
3. Stir in the milk and cream and bring to a simmer. Whisk in the flour and cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens slightly, about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the chives and cornmeal. Spread in the prepared baking dish and sprinkle with the Parmesan cheese. Casserole at this point could be covered and refrigerated for up to 24 hours.
4. Bake, uncovered, for 45 minutes, or until the top is golden. Let stand for 10 minutes before serving.

Click on all the recipe titles to find their links. Happy cooking!
This post is linked to Weekend Cooking hosted by Candace at Beth Fish Reads. Click her link to find many delicious food-related posts.

Weekend Cooking; Shaking things up with a new pizza recipe

(Our zucchini pizza straight out of the oven)

My husband has been very tied up this week both at work and directing a high school production of Little Women; The Musical. He was called in to save the play when the directer originally hired for the position up and quit. She deserted right after she’d picked the play and cast it! Then zip, gone! Our son is a student at the school and they’ve asked handsome husband to direct before but it’s never worked out. This time he said yes.

What does all that have to do with my cooking week? Our schedule has been off. He and my son, who he sweet talked into playing an old man, have been busy with rehearsals making this week an easy cooking week, filled with leftovers and warmed up pasta. I did make patty melts one night with some brat burgers I found at Hansen’s, my around-the-corner dairy/local food selling utopia. Last night we had a classic go-to comfort food dinner of refried bean burritos adding in roasted cubed eggplant to spice it up.

Earlier in the week I’d clicked on one of Janssen’s posts at Everyday Reading to see her menu line-up and found a recipe for zucchini pizza she shared from Perry’s Plate. I love making pizza and find it far superior to any pie purchased over the counter. Yes, I am a pizza snob, even shredding my own mozzarella. I have two round stones, a great pizza wheel and a recipe for dough from an old Rodale cookbook that I’ve used for years.

After reading the zucchini recipe I knew I had to try it. It is my new favorite! My husband and I ate all of it-I saved out one square to share with my amazing library volunteer. She and I love trading recipes and this will be good for her to try. My kids hated it though so it is not necessarily kid-friendly. Luckily the dough makes two pies and the second one I just tossed sauce and cheese on top and they ate it and smiled big pizza-smiles. What they did love though was smell of the kitchen during the pie-making and baking process! What a great tradition to pass on.

Enjoy!

Other baking news:

Perry’s Plate (at the Tasty Kitchen) has a gluten-free apple, ginger, and spice scones which uses almond flour. I’m going to make these soon just to experiment with gluten-free.

I signed up to bake whoopie pies for our church bazaar-something Christmas-y. Maybe a peppermint/chocolate combo.

Weekend Cooking is a weekly meme hosted by Beth Fish Reads. Click there for many more food-related posts.

Lists and Life-Crossing off my to-do list

(Not an exact image of me)

I have a mental picture of myself, the librarian, juggling a variety of tasks every day. I wish I could draw so I could make that image appear on paper-it must be so cool to make that happen. I got so much accomplished at work in the last two days. I love it when I can cross off all the way down the list-items that have been hanging over my head for a week, maybe two.

1. ~~Mandatory Training~~-took all of it in one day-the day before the deadline!
2. ~~Extra Pay form for Intensive After School teaching filled in and handed to principal~~
3. ~~Three Little Pig versions to Pre-K~~
4. ~~Next to Love review~~ (seriously attempted to write it all week long…)-at home project
5. ~~November lesson plans-~~fun ones-better to entertain me as well as students
6. ~~Book Fair financials called in to Scholastic and money handed to Sandy, our school secretary~~
7. ~~Book Fair new books cataloged, bar coded and out on the shelves for new week’s classes~~

I know, whew! It feels great even though I know my list come Monday will be long again but for this weekend I can focus on my house which needs a deep clean, go to lunch with a friend, read and do some minor tweaking to lesson plans for next week. Oh, and I must remember to skype with my brother tomorrow night-add that to the list. See how easily it grows!

I finished the second of the Books of Elsewhere, Spellbound, and will write a review soon of both books. I hope your weekend is peaceful whether you have a to-do list or not. Peace.

Weekend Cooking; Road Trip to peace.

Yesterday I had melted Brie, fresh bread and apple slices.

There was chaos getting to that peaceful spot though.

Groovy Girl began the day sad causing waves of tears and snappy answers from her. It took us a bit to convince her she could take charge of her own mood. She did and we went off to skating a bit late but still there. After her skating lesson, Husband and I had a planned road trip with friends and I was excited to go. A few days earlier husband found out about a peace walk and wanted to participate. Of course, the timing of the event squeezed it right in between skating and our intended road trip, which makes handsome husband think “oh, great we can make it!” Ugh. Love peace, Hate rushing.

I often walk laps around the arena while Groovy skates and I needed a shower and I had less than 30 minutes to get ready for the walk and the road trip. Could I have planned more the night before? Yes. Did I? No. In my rush I spent 3-4 precious minutes trying to get new milk from Hansen’s into the refrigerator cramming it between various water bottles. I should have taken water bottles out but instead somehow managed to spill the small pitcher of margaritas I’d made the night before. I cried as the mason jar spilled it’s contents all over the kitchen rug. Now I had to stop and wipe it all up. What a waste. It wasn’t the loss of the drink (well a little bit) but I dislike rushing and the affects of rushing. I did make it up to take my shower and even though I was sad about spilled “milk” I knew it wasn’t the cause but I still managed to have another mini-meltdown as I was driving back down the highway previously traveled for skating.

Meltdown’s are rarely about what started it and I knew I was nervous about leaving my children for the day and for my husband cramming something more into our day. I sobbed to my handsome and understanding husband-he said “Ill listen as we go…” He did listen yet my feelings still hadn’t resolved as we arrived at the gathering spot. While praying for a peace I realized these things:

1. My children are old enough to be on their own together but it was my first time leaving them for the day without my mom or someone else to consult. They would have to take care of chores, and lunch and dinner on their own. They survived.

2. My husband and I have walked, prayed, rallied for peace from Arkansas, D.C. and Iowa. Of course he would want to walk this walk. The walks purpose is to highlight a Dr. King park we hope to have built in our church neighborhood.

Even though my tears and my brain fought it; the walk healed me and reminded me of what I know to be true. My life is good and we need more peace in our communities both locally and worldly. I left my grumpy bugs behind.

Our road trip with friends to the Amana Colonies was fantastic. We went to Fireside Winery for a tasting, shopped, (I bought pecan maple syrup at the General Store) and root beer here and enjoyed the company of our friends and the fantastic autumnal weather. At both winery and Millstream we were able to sit on the patio with just sweaters. We had a delicious family-style dinner at The Ronneburg Restaurant, which included sides of sauerkraut, German potato salad, beets, coleslaw and dark rye bread. My grandmother would have loved it! The meal was good but the Brie on the patio was my favorite part of the day. Sunshine, a light white wine and laughter made me forgot all about my meltdown.

The margarita recipe:

12 oz can frozen limeade
12 ounces of tequila
12 ounces of water
8 ounces of triple sec (2/3 can)
1 can domestic beer
Ice and Limes as desired

Use the frozen limeade can to measure ingredients. Mix well in a gallon pitcher. If you would like to blend them; don’t add the water and blend. Either way serve in a small glass, with limes and salt. Perfect.

Fall is not margarita weather here but our school published a new cookbook (our second one) and my school friend, Stephanie, had this brag-worthy mix. We toasted together on Friday night while we watched the Cardinals win the World Series. Yeah!!!

This crazy long post is linked to Weekend Cooking hosted by Beth Fish Reads.

Weekend Cooking; Whipping up something yummy with Groovy Girl

[photo credit]

Did you know October is National Cookie Month? I didn’t until we visited the library a few days ago and they had a table display of kid’s cookbooks laid out (just for us, I’m sure) and we picked just a few!

Kitchen for Kids; 100 amazing recipes your children can make

Jennifer Low

176 pages including index/glossary

We didn’t make cookies but we did read through the whole book cuddled together in our comfy chair. Wednesday night after she thumbed through it again she found a recipe she really wanted to make and said in her sweetest voice: “We have all the ingredients! It will be so simple.” I’d already made a pan of our favorite eggplant lasagna for dinner and wasn’t looking forward to more time not relaxing after dinner but after I perused the recipe I agreed. I couldn’t resist her or the recipe. Could you have resisted?

Gooshy S’More Cakes
[makes 4 ramekin cakes]

Cakes:
4 large marshmallows
1/4 cup unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1 large egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup all-purpose flour [spoon in, level]
1/3 cup whole wheat flour [spoon in, level]
1/2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt

Chocolate Goosh:
1/4 cup water
2 T. packed brown sugar
1 T. unsweetened cocoa powder

1. Pop the marshmallows into the freezer.
2 Preheat the oven to 350*
3. To make the cake, melt the butter in a bowl at 50 % power in the microwave (about 1 minute). Use a whisk to stir in the sugars. Cool slightly. Stir in rest of ingredients for the cakes (so not the Goosh) until smooth. Spoon into four ramekins or baking cups, filling 2/3 full. Put a cold marshmallow in the middle of the cake.
4. To make the Goosh, put the ingredients in a cup and heat at 50% power in the microwave, until hot. Stir smooth. Pour over the marshmallows and cake batter.
5. Put the ramekins or cups on a baking sheet. Bake 23 minutes or until puffed, the chocolate is bubbling and the marshmallows melt into top crusts. Cool until warm. Don’t unmold.

Eat it right up! You could lick your bowl but you might get your nose stuck in the ramekin! I would have taken my own photo of them but I couldn’t find my camera fast enough and then… they were gone.

The cookbook is well-designed with lots of photographs to ooh and aaah over. 6 sections are divided into 1. breakfast, lunch and dinner
2. breads and crackers
3.cookies
4. cakes
5. pies, pastries and squares
6. candies, confections and cool treats.

You can see where the emphasis is; kid-friendly sweets. Low also provides an interesting section on organizing the kitchen for your child, tools and measuring instructions.

We liked the Paddy Thai Noodles from the first section, the big soft pretzels from the second section, alphabet cookies from the third section and candy marbles from the last section. Most recipes don’t include as much microwaving as the s’mores cakes, which is good because I’m a little weird about using the microwave too cook. Many recipes in the book are done in smaller sizes or kid-sized. This is definitely one book you will want to read the recipe through before making something just to make sure you will have enough. I’m pretty sure we’ll make a few more recipes before we return it to the library.

Jennifer Low’s website.

Weekend Cooking is hosted at Beth Fish Reads. Stop over there and find many other food-related posts.

Weekend Cooking; Pesto and a canoe trip

I had an amazing day yesterday and wished I could have posted about it last night but I was too exhausted to type. I got up early to mix up some bread dough for my family. I’d made 10 loaves on Thursday and Friday for the market and my children are always a little unhappy as that bread bakes and they know it is not for them. Now we have two loaves for the week.

While I had the flour out I made a pan of Butterscotch Brownies-this is an old recipe that I love and you make it on the stove and then bake it-super easy. While the brownies were in the oven and the dough was rising I helped Groovy Girl get ready for her figure skating lesson at 9. I dropped her at the arena and headed back home to make several batches of pesto for my freezer. Don’t worry my husband picked her up after lessons were over!

My mom and I worked together, using the recipe from Everyday Italian by Giada DeLaurentis, and made five batches of pesto using fresh basil from her garden and the little I had left from my own. The temperature is beginning to dip down at night and rather than have the basil freeze in the garden I want it to freeze in my Sub-Zero.

Here is Giada’s pesto recipe (72):

2 cups [packed] fresh basil leaves
1/4 cup toasted pine nuts
1 garlic clove
1/2 tsp sea salt, plus more to taste
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper, plus more to taste
About 2/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

In a blender (I use the food processor), pulse the basil, nuts, garlic, salt and pepper until finely chopped. With the blender still running, gradually add enough olive oil to form a smooth and thick consistency. Transfer the pesto to a medium bowl and stir in the cheese. Season the pesto with more salt and pepper, if it needs it. The pesto can be made up to 2 days ahead. Cover and refrigerate.

**If you are going to freeze your pesto for the long winter months as I did then skip the cheese step and don’t add as much olive oil. Later when you grab it out of the freezer to use it you will add in the cheese and a little olive oil to your pasta. Good Parmesan does not freeze well in the pesto.

Giada has a note following the recipe that shares her secret of using pasta water to help blend the pesto so it doesn’t glob up your pasta. The trick is in saving a little of the pasta water back when draining your pasta. I generally just take a large measuring cup and scoop out about a cup before I drain the pasta and before I add the pasta back to the pot I put the pesto in the pan to soften it up and then add small amounts of water as I mix the pasta into the pesto. Viola; fabulous dinner! My mom bought these handy little Tupperware freezer containers that stack perfectly. Pine nuts are ridiculously expensive right now but we did use pine nuts for these batches. I have a spinach pesto I want to try from the same cookbook and I’m going to substitute walnuts for pine nuts, just to give it a try.

I am so happy to have this accomplished as I did not can pickles or make salsa this year. When the snow starts to fly I will be ecstatic to pull out this freshly frozen treat, reminding me of the Spring to come.

Weekend Cooking is hosted by Candace at Beth Fish Reads. Pop over and see what she and other’s are cooking up!

Now for the canoe trip:

The pesto making was the easy part of the day though as our afternoon was with a group of church friends paddling down a local river. I expected to lazily float but the river was low and we ran into every snag and sandbar in the river. We canoed for 4 hours and Teenage Boy made me paddle the whole way! My shoulders are tired-truthfully every part of me is tired! Once we landed at our destination I realized [hate it when the light bulb clicks on and it is BAD news] that I’d left the keys to the car parked by our landing in the vehicle parked where we’d put in the canoes!! Uh No. [I was just finishing up Anna and the French Kiss, can you blame me!?]

I whispered this new bit of information to Teenage Boy and he was ANNOYED. Thankfully, everyone else, including my husband, was a bit more understanding. Luckily we quickly rounded up someone to get us back to point B so we could get keys and canoe trailer. The coolest part of the day was when a friend pointed out a young eagle in a tall, bare tree. We floated right under it. It was a glorious sight.

Have a peaceful week!

One More Birthday Post; The Special Handmade Gift

One day I was bopping around the blog world-and happened upon this post, Mama Made A Dress, by Lisa at Books. List. Life. Have you ever been to Books. Lists. Life.? If not, do stop over she writes about her adorable kids, her books, and her craftiness! Love reading about her life. When I looked at the special pinafore dress she made for the Princess-I left a comment expressing the thought that my Groovy Girl would look great in a bigger size dress and well, as things happen in the blogging world, a conversation started up and a deal was made and a dress created and sent to my Iowa address.

It arrived months ago but I had to wait until September to present it to her. Lisa sent it in a lovely handmade drawstring bag so it was already “wrapped” and ready at her birthday breakfast. She choose to open it that morning and heavens…she loved it. Also Lisa shows a great close-up picture of the pinafore dress in this post as well as a bunch of other sewing items.

P.S. If you look closely to the above photo you can see chocolate near the pocket…Groovy Girl alias Messy Tessy wore the dress for the cake eating portion of her birthday night because she was trying it on for her godmother and viola…it now has cake stain on it. I’m going to have to wash it!

Thank you, Thank you, Lisa! She loves it very much.
Here is the link to her Etsy shop so you can get one too!