Why corn syrup granola bars are ok with me....

This was my third attempt at homemade granola bars (my third recipe, I should say, I tried on recipe several times).
It ended like they all do - in absolute failure.

Back to Sams for that bulk box of Quaker chewy granola bars!

Insults in my oatmeal

Almost every morning I make myself what I call "energy oatmeal."
1/4 cup quick oats (uncooked) with 2-3 tbsps peanut butter, some brown sugar, raisins, and honey.  So yummy.

My kids call it "injury" oatmeal and always beg me for bites of my breakfast.

Mr. Curly looked at me yesterday morning and said "You know what you need to add to that oatmeal so the kids won't eat it?"
"Hm, no, what?"
"Insult."

Ha ha ha. Add insult to my injury oatmeal.
I love this man.

Oh oh oh it's magic!

Have you ever thought about bread?  

I adore bread - the taste, the texture, the smell.  I'm even starting to enjoy wheat bread now that I make it myself.

And it never ceases to amaze me at how little it really takes to make bread.

It's magical.  Since starting my bread business, I'm even more convinced of that.

Think about how it is made.

Flour - not something you eat plain.  Add water to it and you have glue.

BUT add a little butter, salt, and some yeast, let it rise, let it bake, and you have FOOD!

Food to eat plain to settle a hungry tummy in the middle of the night, toast when you're sick, jam for a treat, add some meat and cheese and have a meal on the go.  Breadcrumbs for birds, french toast, paninis, crumbs on a casserole for crunch.

I love being part of the magic every day when I bake bread for my family, my friends, and me.

Ants on a Log

So Curly Girl has been struggling to keep up in school.  The teacher says she acts listless.  Head on her desk, working slow, fairly unanimated (which is NOT Curly Girl at all!).  The teacher was concerned that she wasn't getting enough sleep, or maybe was getting sick.

We did have a big weekend.  So Tuesday night (the day we heard of this), we put all the kids to bed early. We also had a nice chat with Curly Girl.

See, she comes home cranky and grumpy and snappy, until she has a snack.  And then she's absolutely fine.  We haven't noticed anything weird at home.  Only that she tends to fill up on snacks and then doesn't want dinner.  And at school, she openly admits, she doesn't eat her lunch, only the class snack.
We came to the tentative conclusion that maybe she's just too hungry to work, or that her blood sugar is low from lack of good food.

Yesterday was first day of "healthy snacks to keep our daughter's energy level."  Usually, snacks are treats - candy, chips, popcorn, jello, cookies....  It's a snack after all, and we eat our fruits and veggies and grains and all the other good stuff at meals.
But I can't let my bright little girl's school work suffer because of bad eating habits!

So in order to make sure she's getting what she needs, we had ants on a log yesterday (celery, peanut butter, raisins).  Curly Girl's conclusion: I LIKE THESE!!
AND she actually ate the celery! (Unlike our other problem eater, Curly Boy 2, who just licked everything off the celery).

She also had her first dose of homework yesterday because she was so behind.  But that's another post. :/

Cooking with Chef Pig!

I love bierocks, or runzas, whatever you want to call them.  (Admit it, you still really think of them as Trojan Surprise*!)

My husband does not.  He prefers ham and creamy potatoes.  Homemade chicken and noodles over potatoes.  Steak and potatoes.  Careful, honey, your Irish is showing!

But despite Mr. Curly's Irish, I made bierocks last night.

And I used cinnamon roll dough (minus the cinnamon, butter, and brown sugar) to make the little roll pocket that I filled with ground beef, cabbage and onion.

They were fantastic.  (And that is my Doctor Who showing, as I haven't called so many things fantastic ever in my life until watching the 9th Doctor for the past few weeks.)
Curly Boy loved them; Curly Girl tolerated them; Curly Boy 2, well, he's hard to please; and Mr. Curly had seconds, even though he had to add ketchup because he felt they were missing a gravy.

Add peaches and peas, and I feel I made a rather nice meal.
Yep, this post is just to brag about that.


*Trojan Surprise - a weekly staple at my high school, you never knew if they were going to be filled with beef and cabbage or ham and cheese, but they were always delicious!

Post Title from Word World!

Monday Monday....

As the Mamas and the Papas sang "Monday Monday, so good to me...."

The past few Mondays have been pretty spectacular.  In fact, yesterday morning I was even out of bed and running by 6:25 a.m.- OUTSIDE!!

As we approach summer, I've been re-organizing our daily routine, trying to add in some things that will help when school starts next year (like getting dressed, doing hair and brushing teeth IMMEDIATELY after breakfast, not just right before we have to go somewhere!), and add some character building things (after teeth, do the daily cleaning before we start to play).

One thing that has happened these past few Mondays to make it so good is meal prepping.  Now, when I go to the grocery on Monday mornings, I always have a list with at least 4 meals in mind for the next week. 
I've spent the past two Monday afternoon quiet times making treats to last the whole week as snacks, prepping Monday supper, and any other meals I could, then cleaning up the kitchen.

Example: Yesterday, after school time, I cleaned up the kitchen while the bread I had mixed up that morning was baking.  Then I made Scooby-Doo snacks (Kellogg's Scooby-Doo cereal with marshmallows and chocolate chips, basically rice krispies), mixed up another loaf of bread (we're trying to eat only homemade breads for the next few weeks), put together a lasagna for today's supper, and pulled meat out of the freezer and put it in the fridge for the meals for Wednesday and Thursday.

For some reason, spending that hour in the kitchen helps me feel much more ready for the rest of the week.  Food is ready.  So today when the boys have quiet time, I can do a bit of deep cleaning, or relaxing, or whatever.  Supper is taken care of.

An Apple A Day....

I don't really experiment in the kitchen.  I try new recipes, but I don't CHANGE those recipes.

At least, that USED to be true.
Enter the APPLE CRISP PIE

It really isn't as ground breaking as I'd like it to be, but still, I had to guess on the baking time, but it was delicious.  Apple pie goodness without all the excess crust, just yummy fruit crisp topping.

I put my crust into a cake pan (because I really don't have a pie plate, and, well, this wasn't a true pie), and then filled that with apples prepared for an apple pie.

Then I jumped back to 'desserts' in my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook and created the crisp topping.

I ended up having to bake it for an hour at 375, which scared me for my crust, and the apples never bubbled up in the middle.  However, it tastes WONDERFUL.

So now, Mr. Curly can get his pie, and I can have my crisp, and everybody is happy. 

If you like to talk to tomatoes.....

I'm not sure that growing and canning your own is really worth it....

Last March I carefully planted tomato seeds into little toilet paper tubes and watered and cared for them until they were supposed to be big enough to transplant outside.

They all died/disappeared (Rabbits).

So we hunted and hunted and hunted for tomato plants that were bigger - mind you, it was now past tomato planting time.

We planted anyway, and cared for 4 regular tomato plants and 4 cherry tomato plants all summer (with some help from friends while we were away!).

The cherry tomatoes went crazy!  I ended up making 4 pints of salsa out of those.  That may have been worth it.

The other tomato plants, not so much.  In fact, at the end of September, I picked a full box of green tomatoes, wrapped them in newspaper, and coaxed them into ripening in my laundry room.

Finally, they ripened and were ready to be made into spaghetti sauce.  Since I didn't want to load my kids up for a shopping trip for JUST canning jars, I decided to freeze my sauce.

One hour later - after boiling and icing and peeling and squeezing and cooking down and adding spices - I have approximately half a quart of spaghetti sauce.  This might be enough for a spaghetti meal for my Curly Crew, but then again, it might now.  It depends on how it tastes and how saucy the Curly adults are feeling that day.

All in all, I'm not sure if it was worth it this year.  I mean, seriously, how many tomato plants will I have to plant next year in order to get a decent amount of sauce?  I just don't know.

Here we are. Denny's. Always open.

A long time ago Mr. Curly and I set up a rule that if I tried a new recipe and it just bombed to pieces, that we would go out to eat.

Only, you know, we made that rule when we both worked time and didn't have 3 kids (even mcdonalds can get to be pricey with 3 kids).  So now, now I pull the Tim Gunn rule and have to pull quite a few "make it work" moments out of my apron pocket.

This meal was no exception (I apologize that I take horrible food photos in advance).

The meal idea was twice baked potatoes, made with some left over greek yogurt I had instead of sour cream.  Only, my home-grown potatoes didn't have thick enough skins to be restuffed.  So, inspired by many ideas I had seen on pinterest (of course), I put them in muffin tins.  This worked marvelously.

Only, suddenly, just potatoes didn't seem like a very complete meal.  And it was getting perilously close to supper time.  I had some ground beef, bacon bits, mushrooms, stale bread and bbq sauce.  We didn't have hamburger buns, time to make buns, and Mr. Curly didn't have time to grill. 

So I made meatloaf.  In muffin tins.  Yep, because something in a muffin tin always cooks faster than a bread pan.
This was my very first ever meatloaf, and I didn't even follow a recipe!  Talk about being brave.

Surprisingly, though I didn't plan cooking times very well (the potatoes and meatloaf could've baked together making everything hot at the same time, rather than having to re-heat part of our meal), it actually tasted really really good.
I mean, yeah, Mr. Curly was a little skeptical a) it was meatloaf and b) everything was cooked in muffin tins, but he had 2 helpings!

 So here's my encouragement - when it looks like you're heading to Denny's, remember Tim Gunn (who probably has all his meals catered and on excellent vintage china) and "Make it work!"

Title Post from The Santa Clause.

I'm the next food network star!!!

I don't hide my addiction to food network.  I love many of their shows. My favorite being "The Next Food Network Star."

For the past two years, I've cheered for the winner since the beginning.

One thing the mentors of NFNS really push, is having a story to go with your recipe, and a tip to throw in to help out all the busy cooks.  So, ready for my camera spot?  Here it goes:

My family LOVES fresh baked quick and sweet breads for Sunday morning breakfasts.  And I love baking them.  But what I don't love, is the clean-up.  Especially since I don't have a dishwasher.
Saturday I made delicious, from scratch, banana bread.  I don't think I've ever made banana bread from scratch.... bananas just don't last that long in our house.  But I had a friend who had some get over-ripe and she donated them to my cause.  Thanks, Mrs. Kleeman!

And of course, my kitchen was a disaster when I wanted to cook, so the first thing I did was clean up.  Since I don't have a dishwasher, wiping down the counters and the stove happen every day, right after doing the dishes.  It's a nice way to keep the kitchen cook ready at a moment's notice.
But here's my tip:
If you want to do a lot of baking - hand wash your dishes first - then leave the sink full of dish water.  As you beat your eggs, cream together your butter and sugar, mix your batter, throw the dirty dishes into the sink.
Pop your bread into the oven, spend a few more minutes doing dishes and voila!  You now have a clean kitchen, clean dishes, and a house smelling like warm banana bread.  An hour later, all you have to worry about when the banana bread is cooling on the counter, is keeping your kids out of it until Sunday morning!

Couldn't you totally see me doing that TV spot?  It would be spectacular.  I have the perfect skirt and apron for it too!
And really, Saturday night, it was awesome to have all the dishes that get dirty when baking already clean by the time the bread was done cooking.  And even nicer on Sunday morning that I didn't wake up to a sink full of dirty dishes.  Especially since I don't wash dishes on Sundays.

Cold soup. What to Say?

Have I ever told you how I feel about root beer?  I just SMELL root beer and my tongue wants to turn inside out so it doesn't have to taste it.  I can't stand the stuff.  I won't even kiss Mr. Curly after he drinks it, and it is one of his favorite drinks.

Yesterday, well, actually Saturday I made and Sunday we ate Cold Cucumber Soup.

Say it with me now - Cold. Cucumber. Soup.

Everything about this dish sounds AWESOME.  I LOVE cucumbers, I enjoy soup, and cold is perfect for the summer.

After trying it warm, I was honestly a little worried to serve it, but thought "Hey, cold mellows flavors, this should be fine."
After two tastes on Sunday, my tongue felt like it does when I smell root beer and my stomach was threatening to let go of what little it got.

I was really glad I had thrown together a salad and toasted a loaf of bread.  At least we had something to eat!

I can't figure out why I didn't like it.  Maybe too much lemon and garlic?  Maybe it was the plain yogurt?  I used Greek yogurt - super good, right?  But I don't really like plain yogurt at all.  Honestly, I thought about getting vanilla yogurt, but then thought "Certainly the cucumber and avocado will cover up this plain bite-y yogurt flavor."

I kind of want to try it again, I kind of don't want to sacrifice anymore DE-LI-CIOUS homegrown cucumbers or the amazing avocados I found at the grocery store.

I don't know, maybe the only ones who can successfully cook cucumbers are Julia Childs, and that Julie chick who cooked her way through Ms. Child's cookbook.

As real as the chicken salad in his lap....

Food and I don't get along well when a camera is involved, so I have no pictures of what was one of the freshest, most refreshing, amazing light, cool summer meals I've made yet.

I'm not a chef.  I can follow a recipe, and I get by on some pretty amazing standard meals, but I don't do much substituting, and I don't branch out a lot - after all, if I make a bad meal, we end up eating out, and we just don't have much extra cash for me to be throwing a ruined meal away and buying one somewhere else.

Chicken Salad.  Sounds simple, is simple, and not something most people come running for.  Let me explain why ours was so great:

Fresh Italian bread lightly toasted.
Fresh, home grown cucumbers picked that day sliced long-ways, lain gently on top of said toast.
Fresh chicken (not frozen), farm fresh eggs hard-boiled, home grown picked the day before fresh raw peas, and home grown picked the week before fresh carrots.
Add a little miracle whip, some salt and pepper, voila!  A beautifully cool meal for a hot day.

I cooked the chicken in my Pampered Chef stoneware baker in the microwave.  Sounds odd?  It is, but it makes beautifully moist chicken in about 5 minutes, without heating up the house.
You boil some eggs (3 in our case).
You let the chicken and eggs cool - chop/shred the chicken, chop the eggs, chop the carrots, shell the peas, mix it all up.

Be prepared to have fresh watermelon outside that night - unless you decide there is no way you're setting out in 100 degree heat at 7:00 at night just so you can eat watermelon and watch your kids play in the pool (yes, we have watermelon for lunch today!).

Next culinary attempt?  Avocado/Cucumber cold soup.  It's my plan for Sunday.

Hens keep on making those eggs!

I am not an egg fan.  Hardboiled, deviled or egg salad, fine, but any other way.... eeehhh, not so much.

Mr. Curly enjoys an over-easy egg each morning for breakfast.  He mentioned this to a couple of people who raise chickens at our church, and now we rarely buy eggs.  It's a pretty good deal.

Only, for the past few weeks, we were given eggs, eggs went on sale, and Mr. Curly hasn't been eating eggs for breakfast.  Which found me with 4 dozen eggs in my fridge.

What in the world am I to do with 4 dozen eggs?!

Enter Paula Deen's Omeletes for a Crowd.

I whipped up 10 eggs with salt and pepper, a little milk, colby jack cheese, ham, sauteed mushrooms, and roasted red peppers.  Poured them into 4 bags and boiled for 12 minutes.

Angels sang.

Eggs.  Who knew eggs could not taste like eggs and fill you up so completely?  Curly Girl and Boy ate without complaining or crying, Mr. Curly was full of compliments, and even Curly Baby didn't throw his plate on the floor.

Add to these angel egg bag omelets some quickly whipped up drop biscuits (I had no time for kneading, rolling and cutting biscuits, as Mr. Curly had to be at a teen event at 6:15) with butter and homemade apple jelly and oh my word what a meal!

So bag omelets, yeah, I can do that.  Next time we find ourselves with so many eggs and not a lot else, we're going to try pizza omelets - pepperoni, canadian bacon, mushrooms, mozzarella, and a little marina sauce on top.

Once the kids are in bed - pound cake.

I'm nothing if consistent.

Yes, yes I know the phrase is generally "I'm nothing, if NOT _____ (fill in the blank)."  But that isn't true with me.

If I do something consistently, I must be doing it wrong. 

Take, for intanst, the dragon tails I created for the Zoo trip we took for Curly Boy's and Baby's birthdays.  I got the idea here (Running with Scissors).  I made 4, they were awesome.  But not one turned out like the one before it!
Same with the dragon wings I found here (Dabbled).

I never make a recipe the same way twice.  Tuesday night I made shepherd's pie.  Last time it had beef, peas, brown gravy and mashed potatoes. Tuesday it had beef, which cooked in beef consomme, then drained, added peas and corn and used the remaining consomme to mash the potatoes.  I even topped it with cheese.  After all, wouldn't Mr. Curly get bored if I made everything the same way?


It really has become a running joke in the house about my inconsistency.  I'm so glad Mr. Curly has grace to not complain when his "favorite" meal is never the same.... or when I stomp my feet at the sewing machine because some stitch just won't work.

Can she bake a cherry pie?

Point of fact, Billy Boy - I have never baked a cherry pie. Though I have made cherry poptarts using pie crust and HOME CANNED cherries, so that is pretty darn close.

Yesterday was President's Day.  True to my new "I'm a stay at home mom so we should celebrate very holiday on the calendar" the kids and I discussed George Washington and the cherry tree.

This was actually a pretty awesome thing.  Curly Girl has begun lying, and I'm not sure how to deal with it, so we read the story of George Washington and the Cherry Tree (that I found at www.first-school.ws).  After reading it, Curly Girl and I discussed what little George Washington said, and how he DIDN'T get in trouble because he told the truth.  I asked Curly Girl what we should so when asked a question and she said "Say, I cannot tell a lie?"  Which isn't exactly where I was going with it, but is pretty close.

We also printed out the cherry tree picture found with the legend, glued construction paper cherries to the tree, then stood the whole picture up using a toilet paper tube and a paper straw from Ted's (one of Mr. Curly and my's absolute favorite restaurants in the whole entire world that we never get to eat at).

And, as an ode to my  mother and my childhood, we made George Washington dessert.  It is kind of like cherry cake, only it isn't.  It is a recipe I brought home in first or second grade written on super-wide ruled paper and blue construction paper.  My mom kept that paper, AND knew exactly where it was when I called asking for the recipe.

Next point of fact - my mom rocks.

George Washington Dessert:
2 cans cherry pie filling (we used one large store-bought can and my one last home-canned can of cherries)
Curly Boy poured the cherries, Curly Girl spread the cherries, they both enjoyed licking the can and spatula
1 box white cake mix
Curly Girl poured the cake mix, Curly Boy helped spread it
2/3 cup butter, melted (about 11 tablespoons for those of you measuring out your blue bonnet sticks)
I did this step by myself.

Spread the cherry pie filling in a 13x9 pan, cover cherry pie filling with box mixed (just the powder you pour out of the bag), cover with melted butter.  Bake at 375 for 35-40 minutes.

Out comes a bubbling, cakey, cherry dessert that is FANTASTIC.  The kids and I are VERY excited to share it with Mr. Curly.

Point of fact three - Mr. Curly doesn't like cherries, but I'm sure he'll try this recipe when Curly Girl says "Look what I baked for you, Daddy!"  He's a sucker for that.

The chickens are up to something.

We make no secret of our love for Alton Brown in this household.  Lots of new recipes I try I discover by watching reruns of Good Eats.

Mr. Curly found a new way to cook a turkey that is phenomenal, and he tried it on a whole chicken that I bought for .60/lb a couple of weeks ago.

For $4 we had the BEST roasted chicken I've ever had in my entire life! 
And a couple of days later, we had Huntington Chicken (a casserole that reminds me of my childhood, pure comfort food to me). 
A couple days after that we had homemade chicken and noodles.  Mr. Curly boiled the chicken bones to make broth and I used that to cook my homemade noodles.  It was AMAZING.

I have enough chicken leftover for another soup or casserole, and plenty of broth to make my potato soup, and a vegetable soup if I wanted.

Plus, we have another chicken in the freezer.  I can't wait for Mr. Curly to roast it up!

Post title from Chicken Run

Pregnancy Symptoms that Never End

My mom got pregnancy nose BAD when she was pregnant with me.  You know, the super smeller?  And it NEVER left her.  My entire life, my mother had an extremely sensitive nose.

I got pregnancy nose with each of my kids, though worse with Curly Girl.  Mr. Curly says it didn't seem as bad with the subsequent pregnancies because it never really left.

But you know what symptom is hanging on for dear life now that Curly Baby is NINE MONTHS OLD? (How did that happen?!)

Cravings.  Food cravings of all sorts at all times.
Sunday night I was craving cinna-stix from Pizza Hut.  Since we made homemade pizza, I attempted cinna-stix.  Good, but not great.
Shopping Monday was REALLY hard not to buy all the cinnamon rolls and coffee cakes HyVee had on sale.

Monday night, the cinnamon and icing cravings came back.  So I made cinnamon & sugar popovers.
Yep, popovers.

Using Alton Brown's recipe and my new giant muffin tin from Mr. Curly's Sister (THANK YOU) I added a cinnamon sugar mix to the popover batter and baked away.  Made some powdered sugar icing.

Oh my goodness.  They were SO good!  My popovers never really pop, there isn't ever really a great hole in the middle to be filled - but for a quick bread that you can use with soups, pie filling, pb&J, roast beef, or yes, even powdered sugar icing.  They just can't be beat.

Considering the fact that Curly Baby will be switching to whole milk soon, I have to get these cravings under control.  I can't be eating like I'm pregnant/nursing when my last baby is a year old!

Slower than molassess in January

Slower than molasses in January.
Otherwise entitled: Kansas Snowmen Cookies, or When they say molasses, use something sticky

These are supposed to be Oatmeal Drop Cookies.  See how there is very little oatmeal?

Interesting, huh?

I didn't have enough brown sugar to make stir-n-drop cookies, so I found this recipe instead.  It came from a Betty Crocker Cooky Book (as did the s&d cookies).
It called for molasses, which I didn't have.  But I did have enough brown sugar to do a molasses to brown sugar conversion - same flavor, less stickiness.

I'm guessing that's why my cookies came out looking like KS Snowmen - you know, little bit of snow, lots of dirt and grass?

So instead of oatmeal raisin cookies, we have cinnamon cookies with bits of oatmeal and raisins in them.  I probably should've used maple syrup.
Oh well - they are still delicious!  And I covered all the oatmeal and raisins that wouldn't stick to the dough with peanut butter and agave nectar, chilled, rolled into balls - and now I have more no-bake energy bites!

Curly Dinner Theater

We made homemade pizza last night.  This in and of itself is no big deal, we do that at least once a week.  The Curly Kids love it.  They like helping measure out to make the dough (if they're awake, lots of times this step is done during nap time), they like putting the toppings on, they enjoy sitting in front of the oven watching the pizza bake, and they love eating the pizza.

Last night was no different.  I started rolling out dough, and Curly Girl came in and asked "Can I help you put macaroni on it?"
She meant pepperoni.  We've started having a macaroni/pepperoni mix-up ever since we had friends over for pizza, and their little girl mixed it up.  It is really very cute how they learn from each other.

So in order to teach her the difference, I sang "Pepperoni starts with p, just like pizza made for me..."  I did the whole song, to this tune:  (and yes, I know this is a classical song, but with a 4 year old, 2 year old and baby in my home, this is the version I hear the most often)



And then, while we placed the pepperoni (the previous song was sung during the rolling out of dough and spreading of sauce) we sang "Place your pepperoni, in a ring right here" to the tune of Woolly Bully.  During the grating and sprinkling of cheese we sang "This is how we use the cheese grater.... put the cheese against the holes, and scrape it down and it shreds, shreds the cheese so fine" to "That's the sound of the men working on the chain gang."

I need to work in some good country songs to my revue, but this wasn't a bad start.

The grocery store's the supermart, uh huh

While ago I challenged myself to one new recipe a week.  I think I made it a whole two weeks before giving up on it.

But I made up for with a vengance this week I tell ya!

New recipes tried this week:
Paula Deen's Chicken and Dumplings
Betty Crocker's Pumpkin Cookies
Betty Crocker's Spritz cookies (had to try out the cooky press I found!)
Alton Brown's Popovers
Twice Baked Potatoes (a conglomeration of recipes I read for them, made up with the ingredients at hand)

I also learned how to make candy corn, so as soon as I get a candy thermometer, I'm totally making that.  Isn't it great?  I just learned to feed my fresh candy corn addiction year round!  This is will be just great for my weight, I'm sure!

I was impressed with all the recipes, except the chicken and dumplings.  I couldn't get the soup/gravy to thicken, but maybe I just wasn't using enough corn starch for the amount of soup there was.  And honestly, it seemed really similar to my homemade chicken and noodle soup.  And I love that soup, but I was hoping for something thick with big hunks of biscuits.  Tasted good, just not what I expected.

The popovers are definitely going on the rotation to be filled with both sweet and savory items.

And the Spritz cookies will probably be made year-round.

Post title from Sonny & Cher's The Beat Goes On