Still Alive...

I'm still alive here. I just have been busy. Busy having summer fun with kids, siblings, parents, cousins, friends, grandparents, etc. It's been a great summer. Lots I need to post about. I have taken so many pictures. But for now, since my husband has most of our pictures on his laptop (which is 1500 miles away) and I have the camera but can't easily upload the pictures, I thought just a few words would be fine.

Before I forget, I wanted to jot down a list of yummy foods that we have eaten while we've been visiting family, most of which were made at home.

• Spring Rolls with peanut dipping sauce - homemade by my sister, but we got to assemble them so we'd know how to make them later.


• Pad Thai - homemade by my lovely sister


• Clean-out-the-fridge-and-pantry veggie quesadillas


• Crab cakes - from scratch, made by my awesome cousin


• Build your own burger at "The Counter" restaurant in Seattle with many choices for everything, including 5 different choices of meats. We ate there right after our 1/2 marathon and marathon!


• EASY creamy chicken enchiladas


• S'mores bars


• Sandwiches with all the fixings on whole wheat sandwhich thins, the ones that look like thin hamburger buns


• Banana oat bars - made from food storage foods


• Cafe Rio-like foods at my cousin's house, and we did also go to Cafe Rio once! - YUM!


• Dick's drive-in in Seattle - I remember liking the burgers a lot more in the past. The shakes are super delicious and the fries are greasy, but still yummy. But I actually like In 'n' Out burgers a ton more than Dick's. The choices, or lack of, seemed similar to In 'n' Out's.


• Ivar's - best fish and chips and clam chowder! Although, I was disappointed that one time when I was there, I ordered Smoked Salmon Chowder and I didn't realize it until I was on the freeway, that they had given me Clam Chowder.


• Green Curry - made by my talented sister
  


• Bubble Tea - I thought it was yummy, but Grant and some of my kids thought it was weird with the tapioca pearls in it.


• Super yummy Corn on the Cob. It was so easy to just soak it in water with everything still on it, cook it on the grill over the fire (camping), and then peel it (schuck?) and eat it! Oh so yummy. And EASY! That's the way to go! I'm doing that from now on!

• Homemade BBQ chicken pizza that my sweet cousin made. Loved the crust!
  

• Grilled Cheese Tuna Sandwich. YUM! It doesn't sound like much, but... Man it was good! We had Tuna and pepper jack cheese with avocado and lettuce. It was mouth watering. I think I'll make this again and also add thinly sliced tomatoes and onions. Maybe even substitute alfalfa sprouts for the lettuce. Really, the possibilities are endless. I just am mad that I never tried any of those things before. You could also do chicken, turkey, or salmon instead of tuna. Oh yum!!

• Fresh Crab caught by my wonderful uncle!

• S'mores with butterfinger bars (thin), s'mores with carmel/chocolate bar, and s'mores with some other type of chocolate bar that I can't seem to remember right now. :-)

• Mango Salsa - the most wonderful ever! My amazing aunt made it. We had a delicious meal at her house! We always do!
  

I wish I had pictures of these amazing foods! I feel like I'm forgetting many great meals people have provided along the way. I'll try to add them later, as I think of them. I am so grateful for the friends and family that have fed us and provided a place to stay. We are so blessed and loved spending time with everyone we have been able to see on this trip.

Hopefully I'll get around to posting recipes of some of these soon! Let me know if there's one that is listed that you would like a recipe for.

Goals Report

Were you wondering how I did with my "goals" last week?? Probably not. I just figured I'd report anyway.

There were eight. I think I did better than if I had not made those goals and posted them, but I still didn't accomplish everything. I felt pretty good about how I was doing until I looked at my list again. :-P

1. The first one was eating healthy. Um, I tried. Sorta. Okay... I didn't give it a 100% honest effort. Bummer!
2. Make new schedule and stick to it. Grr... I really wanted to do that. But, I had a hard time because I was trying so hard to stick to #5. I always ran out of time to do things when my kids got in bed and before I needed to go to bed and coming up with a schedule was one of those things.
3. Be a nice mommy. Hmmm.... well, I really tried. My kids would beg to differ. Let's just say, there's still room for improvement and above all I need to learn patience and meekness. (Some answers for disciplining would help too.)
4. Start the Christmas Quilt. Yay! This one I can honestly say yes! I have cut almost all of the squares for it and now I just have to figure out some further measurements before I can start sewing the front. I hope to do some of that this week. Woo hoo!
5. Get a good night's sleep every night. I did alright with this one. (As long as you think going to bed by 10pm and getting up @ 4:30am is a good night's sleep.) I didn't get other things done though because for some reason we had things going on in the evenings as a family and my kids were always going to bed late (9:30pm - shudder)! Then I would crawl into bed shortly after.
6. Get my laundry all the way done. Those of you who know me well, know that was a huge deal and I was in for it when I made that goal. I hate when I do that to myself. I make a goal that seems possible, but is not realistic. Okay. I guess it could be realistic. And, I did get A WHOLE LOT of it done. I actually stayed on top of folding it when it came out of the dryer too! That is a major accomplishment in and of itself. It usually just piles up for a few days until someone in our family (or all of us together) gets around to folding it. I actually gave my 8-year-old a job of folding a load of laundry each day and getting paid for it. It worked. That was helpful. I was happy with how much progress I made, but I have to be honest. I still had a few loads to do by the end of the week. Then I was too tired and sore on Saturday to finish those up.
7. Have for self-control and discipline. Well reading the results from my goals, you wouldn't think I had practiced more self-control and discipline.... But I really felt like I had stepped it up from the "normal" for me. I think even if you don't completely accomplish the goals you set, if you try you're still using more discipline than normal. Right?? {please say yes}
8. Exercise everyday. I did do this. Some days it was a pretty lame effort and no one else in the world would count it as exercise, but I did at least some situps (crunches) or some squats everyday that I wasn't running (but not nearly the amount I was doing over the summer when I was doing the 100 pushups, 200 squats, and 200 situps challenges). I should start those again. Hmmm... Anyone with me??

Okay now, that was a bit much for a goal report. Sorry. I actually meant to post something else and just have my report at the top (as a little blurb). Ha ha! I am quite a rambler, aren't I?

Oh, and I have a blog (the Lazy Organizer) that I totally love. I found it awhile ago (her link is in my side bar as well), but haven't had as much time to read her past posts until more recently. I adore this woman. I think I'd like to be her, a few years in my future. I think in her past, she was like I am now. Did that make any sense?? Well, check out her blog if you'd like. She's really interesting and well, you may not agree or want to be like her, or put her on a pedestal the way I do, but you may still find her life intriguing and at least interesting. Hopefully.

Oh, and I made two different batches of zucchini bread last week. One was regular and one was chocolate zucchini bread (with chocolate chips as well), and my kids still don't know that it had zucchini in it. I had a few zucchini from my garden that I was able to harvest (the first! Yipee!), and I hope to post about that soon. My garden is going crazy and I want to show you! It's so fun!

For now, I'd better get back to being a mom.

Have a great Monday (evening... now).

Busy Halloween Week

Three of my kids, with three of their cousins.

It's been a week since my last post, but it seems like weeks! We've been so busy that I feel like there should have been multiple blog posts from each day last week. There just never seemed to be any time to blog about things. Now, I guess I'll try to fit it all in at once and only share a few of the more interesting things that we did.

My baby chick. I need to send this to Little Birdie Secrets. I got the idea from them.

I stayed up so late one night making/altering this Draco Malfoy costume.

Preschool Halloween Party:

7-year-old birthday party on Halloween Day:

We did crafts and snacks. I think they had fun. :-)

6 and 7-year-old's use a lot of mod podge!

This pic is of the mummy pizzas before they went into the oven.

And... Our dinner and dessert last night:

We made these Stuffed Pizza Rolls from The Best Bites blog. (see my last blog post about them.) We used our own homemade pizza dough recipe (I should have my husband post that here on my blog sometime...) This was SOOO yummy! A bit more work (just took a bit more time to assemble) but WELL worth it! Really, dipped in warm sauce, it's so much better than pizza! You've got to try it! We'd like to try this one next time.


And here is my family's first ever Pizookie! We all just grabbed spoons and ate it straight out of the pan together! And of course we LOVED it! (We don't usually have dessert after dinner - in fact it's really quite rare here.) We DO usually make cookies on Sunday evening, though, and last night we decided to bake it a little differently! Thanks to some awesome friends for introducing me to these yummy creations! (I live in a cave, apparently!)

My New Favorite Food Blog

I absolutely love good food! Who doesn't?! I'm not exactly sure how I found this amazing food blog: Our Best Bites. But when I did, I searched around on their site for about an hour (I could easily spend tons of hours there) looking through some delicious recipes!! There are also some fun and yummy Halloween treats, perfect for a Halloween party. I personally was looking for ideas for treats for preschool this week, and my daughter's birthday party (that just so happens to be on Halloween).


I also can't get over their recipes for fall. They have so many great sounding recipes... like Pasta with Pumpkin Alfredo (Um, ya. I LOVE that idea), Pumpkin Spice Ice Cream Sandwiches (I've died and gone to heaven!), and Crumb-Topped Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bites (Oh, my)! I never really liked pumpkin when I was growing up, but just in the last few years I have completely fallen in love with it, in almost anything. I sorta like pumpkin pie (has to have a ton of whipped cream accompanying it, of course), but I REALLY like other pumpkin stuff. I think it all started when I was pregnant with my 2nd baby, 7 years ago and we stopped at Dairy Queen on the way home from a midwife's appointment (super far away). I decided to try a pumpkin pie blizzard that day. I've been hooked on pumpkin stuff like that, ever since!

Didn't mean for this post to get so long. I tend to ramble. I just wanted to share this wonderful site with you! Have fun browsing through their awesome recipes! And even more fun making and eating your creations!

Don't know yet what I'll be making... first....

*On a side note: Anyone want to teach me how to get a picture from another blog to show up on my blog? I'm obviously not blog/internet savvy... yet. (I should probably just ask my husband. But he's too busy!)

Millions of Peaches, Peaches for Me...

{This was a weird, cool, "freak of nature" peach to find in our box! This nature-branded "A" was a sign... that the peaches really belonged to us. ???}

Listen to the "Peaches" song, by The Presidents of the United States of America. Thanks Deb, for reminding me of this group recently! Anyone else remember them?

Well, I finally finished off those peaches. Actually did about a week ago. Ya, I'm finally getting around to posting about them. I only want to post this for me anyway. Next year, when I get peaches I just know I'll be trying to remember all that I did with the peaches from 2009. So I'm just saving myself some trouble. Right?!

Anyway... here's what I did with approx. 60lbs of peaches:

1. Ate them, washed, straight from the box. Ate them cut up. Ate them blanched, peeled and then cut up.
2. Made peach-apple sauce. (mixed with some existing apple sauce).
3. Made some fruit leather. (twice). Pureed peaches mixed with apple sauce.
4. Peach-mango salsa. YUM! I made two batches of this and I finished it so fast. I say "I" because I was such a pig, and literally I ate most of it... with chips, while no one else was around! SO YUM!
5. Dehydrated peach slices. These went fast... I mean we ate them fast. They take so long to dehydrate, though. We eat them faster than they take to make. We dried about 8 racks full.
6. Peach pie in a jar. (twice)
7. Frozen peaches. Six, gallon sized bags.
8. Peach crisp (cobbler? I never know which one to call it.) The one with the oat mixture on top. Yummy.
   
9. Peach syrup (so yummy on german pancakes, or regular pancakes).
10. Is that all? Really? I feel like I'm missing something.

Next year I'd like to try canning some and I am looking forward to trying my friend's peach-strawberry jam recipe!!

(The "Pie in a Jar" didn't turn out as pretty as I had hoped, but it was so good. I think I just needed a different crust recipe. ...maybe...)

Conference Cakes through pictures (lots of them)

Conference weekend was wonderful. The only thing that could have been much better was my husband's health. I think he has the swine flu. Who really knows, unless he goes and gets tested. But, he's sicker (is that a real word?) than I have ever seen him (the last 11 years).

When I was all set to make these, I realized I needed to make some changes to the recipe I posted here before. So, I will make some changes there, but I will also post pictures we took of the process here.

The dough, glossy and sticky and ready to go in the fridge overnight to rise.

The dough rolled out to about 1/2" thickness, on a floured surface.

Spreading the soft butter on the rolled dough. {Wow, that's thick. Don't think about the calories.}

We sprinkled a layer of sugar over the buttered dough and then cut into squares using a pizza cutter (it doesn't pull the dough).

The dough, all cut. (Didn't really need this picture, but posted it anyway. Isn't it beautiful?)

My kids, adding the "belly buttons" (that's their favorite job while helping make these).

A closeup of the belly buttons...

The little spoonful of butter in the "belly button".

My kids adding the brown sugar to the butter in the "belly buttons".

On the greased pan, ready to go in the oven.

This is what they looked like when I pulled them out of the oven. They don't look completely done, but that's the way we like them... just barely done. Not browning on top. They actually taste great as a cold leftover as well, when baked like this.

Ready to eat, at the table.

We always eat these with homemade hot cocoa and homemade whipped cream (that stuff's just so much better homemade... especially the whipped cream). We like whipped cream on the plate and in the cocoa. That way you can eat the cake dipped in whipped cream or dipped in hot cocoa. Oh YUM! :-)

Conference Cakes

**I made some updates to the recipe on 10/6/09.

I really wish I had a picture of these to post with this. I'll have to post the recipe first and add some pictures after we make these for Conference in a few days.

Last Sunday my 6-year-old daughter told my husband that she was excited for General Conference. He asked her why and she said, "Conference cakes! And the start of hot chocolate season!" (I guess in Arizona we feel like we can't possible bear to have hot cocoa between April and October.) I thought that was pretty fun that she at least has a fun tradition that she looks forward to and associates with General Conference. We also make the on Christmas morning... which we call Christmas Cakes, then.

Here's the recipe, if you'd like to try them:

Conference Cakes

2 C. warm milk

3/4 C. sugar

2 beaten eggs

1/2 C. butter (1 cube)

2 tsp. yeast

5-6 C. flour

{You will also need to have extra butter, sugar and brown sugar for the top of the dough when rolling out. I don't have exact amounts for those extra ingredients. Just guess.}


Mix milk, softened (can be melted) butter, and sugar. Make sure your milk mixture is warm enough to activate the yeast but not too hot to kill the yeast. Add yeast, stir, then add the beaten eggs. Slowly add flour one cup at a time, mixing between cups (you may not need all of the flour, so be sure to mix between each cup and only add flour until dough is glossy). Beat until glossy. Dough will be sticky. Let rise overnight. In a big bowl, covered, in the fridge. (I have to make it the night before! *Update: My sister says she just starts it a few hours before they want to eat it. She lets it rise in the oven for about an hour. She puts the oven on 400 degrees for one minute, then turns it off and then puts the bowl of dough in the oven to rise.)

In the morning: Roll out on counter top to 1/2" thick and spread melted butter on top. Sprinkle with sugar. Cut into pieces, about the size of the palm of your hand (it doesn't really matter what size). Put onto greased cookie sheets. Poke a little belly button "dip" in the middle of each piece. Put a glob of butter (1/4 tsp. size is fine) and a pinch -or two- of brown sugar in the middle of the belly button. This recipe should make enough for about 12 people. You may end up using about 4 or five cookie sheets or baking stones, etc.

Bake for 12-15 minutes at 350*. Serve with hot chocolate and whipped cream!

{Let me know if you have any questions about the recipe, or if there's something that doesn't make sense in the recipe}

We have these for breakfast, but we usually end up eating them during the first half hour of the first session of Conference, while we watch or listen. We usually dip the cakes into the hot cocoa. We like to put whipped cream on top of the cakes and on our hot cocoa. We also like to make our own whipped cream. It's the best!

What General Conference traditions do you have in your family?? Also, let me know if you make these and tell me if you liked them!

Homemade Croutons

{Yeah, I know... It's not the best looking loaf of bread. Little bumpy on top. Oh well. Better for croutons then, right?!}

What do you do with bread that is getting dry and old? (before it turns green) Sometimes I just throw it away. Sometimes I make french toast for dinner. This time I decided to make croutons. I started by cutting up the bread in bite sized cubes.

Pre-oiled-and-seasoned

I sliced off the burnt bottom crust and set it aside. I put the bread cubes on a large cookie sheet. (I don't always burn the bottom of my bread... it just happened the last time I made bread - darn it).

This picture was taken just after they went in the oven.

I added olive oil (just until I thought they were wet enough). I sprinkled with dried basil, dried oregano, Jane's Krazy Mixed-up Salt, and some garlic salt. Didn't measure. Sorry - I often just improvise. We kept them in the fridge in a bag {actually... the bag that the bread was originally in}!

They turned out a little overdone for my liking. I forgot about them. They must not have been that bad, my kids liked them. My kids actually ate them as a snack. They didn't last long.


***Update 9/25: I forgot to mention how long I had it in the oven and at what temperature. Don't even know if it would really help. I started it out at about 275* and it they were in there for about 20 minutes. I was getting impatient and turned up the temperature to 375*, but didn't change my mindset - oops. I left it in there for about 10 more minutes and they were a little on the done side. So, take from that what you will, to come up with your own temp and time. Or just keep checking on them (more frequently than I did). Next time I might try 325* for 20 minutes and checking every few minutes after the first 10 minutes. ***

Pie in a Jar

Ever since I saw this post on Little Birdie Secrets, I've wanted to try making these scrumptious little treats. I just love personal sized treats. Whenever there is pie around I feel like I eat too much or there is too much left over. This is just great as a small gift when visiting a friend for the day or as a little pick-me-up.

This really was way easier than I thought. Everything went REALLY fast. I made some this morning and gave it away to a friend around 10am. I felt a little funny about giving it away because I technically haven't tried baking it. I told my friend that I hadn't tried it yet and she said she'd let me know how it turned out. If I really wanted I could just bake one of the two I have left in my freezer. But, those are already intended for some special friends.

(I had the crust up over the top of the jar so I could make sure I had enough to squish the top crust with it. It worked well and there was a little left over.)

The crust recipe I used was from an old church cookbook. The recipe was titled "Best Ever Pie Crust". I figured with a title like that, I couldn't go wrong!

2 cups flour
1 cup crisco
1 Tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk

Cream 1 cup flour with the crisco. Add remaining flour and dry ingredients. Stir in milk. May use spoon or electric mixer. Roll out for double pie crust or 2 single pie crusts. For baked shell, fill unbaked crust with uncooked pinto beans. Bake at 450* for 15 minutes. Gently spoon out beans.

{Of course I disregarded the second half of the instructions, while making the pie in a jar.}

For the filling I just peeled 2 medium sized fresh peaches and cut them up in small pieces. I added some sugar (didn't measure - but I guess it was about 1 1/2 Tablespoons). I added about a teaspoon of cinnamon and 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg. I also added about 1 Tablespoon of flour to thicken the juice.

This yielded about 3, half pint jars of pie filling. I still have some pie crust dough leftover. So, I think I may whip up some more tomorrow. {... if I can find any more of my little jars.}

I also found a great post about this on Not Martha.