Thinking Spring

We've all been getting a little antsy for spring to come.  Layers of bulky coats and boots are getting old and we're ready for bare feet and t-shirts.  It is looking like a long wait still.  We have snowbanks about 8 feet high all along the edges of our driveway/parking area with paths to bird feeders and the critter houses.  The rest of the yard is pretty much inaccessible.  

But, we're being positive.  We're thinking Spring.  We're sorting seeds and making plans.  Last weekend Natalie and I started some seeds.  

I just love these little yellow pots.

We've never had very good luck with starting our own plants, but this is going to be my year.  By the way, I say that every year.  I just know this is really going to be the year that my seeds turn into healthy little plants by the time all this ever loving snow goes away.  

Natalie watering the seeds

After we had the seeds all planted and watered, I was talking to my father-in-law on the phone and he advised that I cover the pots loosely with plastic wrap and set them on top of the fridge until they sprout.  The top of the fridge is always a little above room temperature and will help the soil warm up.  The plastic wrap keeps things from drying out.  That way, I only had to water them when they were first planted, then not again until after they come up.  He was right as he always is about these things. Unbelievably within a few days we already had zinnias, bachelor's buttons, pansies and cucumbers sprouting. Now we're starting to move seedlings to the windowsills during the day (putting them on top of the fridge at night since it gets cold still.).

My tomatoes and Natalie's flowers all lined up in the sun.

Keeping my fingers crossed that spring will indeed come.  Soon.

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Heroes in a half shell. Turtle Power!

The Daddy of the house had a birthday last week.  He generally prefers this to be a non-event.  However, when your kids are at the age where birthdays cannot exist without cake and parties, you get a party whether you want it or not.

This was the case for Matt.  The kids heard us talking about his upcoming birthday and decided that they needed to take action.  Natalie is positive that her dad just absolutely loves Hello Kitty, so it was only fitting that he had a Hello Kitty cake.  Joey has recently discovered the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and really thought that we needed party hats.  He and I went shopping the day before the party and he put quite a lot of thought into picking out paper products and favors  We ended up with Ninja Turtle plates, cups and masks, Toy Story napkins, rubber bugs and party blowers for everyone. 

Party blowers and rubber bugs.  It doesn't get any better than that!

The event itself was small and brief.  The guest list consisted of Matt's parents and my dad and the whole party took about an hour and a half.  It was the best party I can remember.  Simple, laid back and fun.  Even the grandparents got in on the masks and everyone enjoyed a nice piece of kitty cake from a local bakery.  

Who is that masked man?

Big Ron as Leonardo

Mayno & Dennis as Raphael & Michelangelo

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Chocolate Cinnamon Bread

Most Saturdays I meet my Bestie for chai at our local Starbuck's.  We often get a bite to eat and a beverage then wander around the store (our Starbuck's is conveniently located in Target).  

Lately one of their snack offerings has been Chocolate Cinnamon Bread.  This stuff is heavenly.  It should be for $2.25 a slice.  Naturally, I felt challenged to see if I could make this stuff at home.  By the power of the internet, I found a copycat recipe that another blogger had so kindly shared and Joey and I got to work.

We did make one change, and that is that we used regular cocoa powder because I couldn't find Dutch process cocoa at any of the stores I shop at.  It worked fine.

chocolate coma

Joey thought this was a good project.

"Mom, take a picture of my silly face!"

Here's what the pans look like when they go in the oven.  The recipe calls for coarse or sanding sugar in the topping, but I didn't have any of that either, so I omitted it as there was plenty of regular sugar involved.

                        

They rise up beautifully in the oven and if I had a longer attention span, I would have made sure to get a picture of the finished product.  If you click on the link at the top, it takes you to the cute blog where I found the recipe and she has really good pictures.

This stuff is guaranteed to fix even the mightiest of chocolate cravings. :)

Making a Spectacle of Myself

Hello blog!  I have missed you, but have been away for good reason.  Turns out the massive headaches  I've  my been getting are due to my need for reading glasses.   This is relatively good news (you know that I don't have a brain tumor or anything).  I feel like I've been keeping Walgreen's in business with my ibuprofen consumption.

Me in my fancy new glasses.

It took just over a week and now my new specs are here!  I'm so excited to have them, and grateful that Dion took the time to come help me pick them out!  During the time between finding the source of my headaches and actually receiving the remedy, I avoided computer use and reading outside of work.

I never knew I'd go through withdrawals.  I missed reading, and blogging, and surfing Pinterest in the evenings.  So, I have been cleaning. And organizing. And baking.  Now, my house is clean, I dropped off a bag each for Goodwill and library donations. And my pants are tight.

I'm so glad that I get to go home tonight and READ before bed!  I started reading Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier about a month ago and am only on about page 50.  Hopefully, that will be a much higher number by the end of the day.

Stay tuned for the recipe for Chocolate Cinnamon Bread (Starbuck's copycat recipe) in an upcoming post...

The Mystery of the Mushy Potatoes

So, I have this problem.  I can't seem to keep potatoes for more than a week.  Aren't these supposed to last and last in cool, dark conditions?  I buy small bags of potatoes, 3-5 lbs, so that they will get used up fairly quickly, but just the other day, I reached into the potato/onion bin for a few spuds and found a smelly, squishy, nasty rotten mess where my week-old red potatoes should have been.  This is not the first time this has happened to me. 

At first I thought it was because I was keeping them in the plastic bag they came in. So, I started putting them in a wicker basket on the bottom shelf of my pantry cupboard, next to the onions.  Its a dark cool place and the wicker basket should allow enough ventilation.  Nope, still had mushy potatoes. 

The last time I cleaned/organized the cupboard, I put the onions in this basket too.  Seems logical right?  Not only did this not help the mushy potato problem, it made it worse.  (Here's where it becomes apparent that I am a natural blonde.)  I thought I was buying defective potatoes. 

Then I was talking to my friend the other day, complaining about having to throw out half a bag of potatoes because they were  rotten.  I was ranting about the quality of the potatoes at the grocery store and how there's no reason in the world they should rot so quickly, you know since I keep them in a cool dark cupboard and my onions are right in the same basket and they keep just fine.  That's when she told me that you shouldn't store potatoes and onions together because onions give off gasses that make your potatoes spoil.  

Am I the only person who didn't know that you shouldn't store potatoes and onions in the same bin? I thought that was the whole point of that cute little wooden bin with "spuds & onions" burned into it that my Grandma had.  The aforementioned friend also has one of those nifty little bins, and she pointed out that the onions go in a separate drawer.  I felt like a complete idiot.  Good thing I have her around. :)  She told me that I can keep them in the same cabinet, but not the same bin, and maybe just to be safe put them on a different shelf.

This gave me an excuse to go buy some new bins for the pantry.  Fortunately, a new Dollar Tree store just opened up in town and I was able to swing in and pick up a few cheap plastic bins for the time being.  Eventually, I'll replace them with some cool vintage wire ones, but for now bright colored plastic ones will do.

Here's a look at my freshly organized pantry.  See, potatoes on the bottom left in the pretty little blue basket and onions on the middle right in the snazzy green basket.  

No, this is not a paid advertisement for Wal-Mart or Cub Foods.  Nor do I live with a maniacal husband with a canned goods fetish (name that movie).

Pumpkin Brownies

Some of our winter scenery.

The kids and I paid a long overdue visit to and old friend today and were planning on lunch and some sledding.  Being a cold and blustery winter day, I thought some nice spicy pumpkin bars would be a perfect treat.  The kids love these things and they're pretty simple to make.  I got the recipe from a blog that unfortunately no longer exists and its original name is "Chocolate Chip Spice Bars".  Joey gave them the name of "Pumpkin Brownies" and that is a pretty accurate description.  They are cinnamon-ey like pumpkin bars but have a more dense brownie-like texture.  Whatever you want to call them, they're just plain wonderful.

Pumpkin Brownies fresh out of the oven.
 And my spiffy new mixer in the background.
Thanks, Dad :)

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour

1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice 

1 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup butter, room temperature

1 1/4 cup sugar

1 large egg

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup canned pumpkin

1 package (12 oz.) semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line a 9 x 13 pan with foil.   You want it to overlap on all sides. (or just spray with vegetable oil spray)

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, pie spice, baking soda, and salt.  Set aside.

Cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Add egg and vanilla until combined.  Add the pumpkin puree.  Its going to look curdled.  Don't panic.  Its supposed to be this way.

Slowly add in the dry ingredients.  Mix until just combined.  Now for the best part, fold in the chocolate chips.  Spread the batter evenly into your prepared dish.  Bake until edges begin to pull away from the sides or a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.  This should take about 35-40 minutes. 

Make sure to cool completely.  Next just lift out of the pan, remove foil and cut into bars.

I just love these things.  I've made them several times now and they are a hit every time.  Seriously, you have to try these, just make sure you have plenty of milk on hand. :)

The remains of a few hardy wildflowers.
More of our local nature.

Odds & Ends

Today marks the end of my little winter staycation.  Ok, technically it ended yesterday, but the kids were sick since Monday night, so I ended up staying home today too.

The plan was for me to take a long weekend and get caught up on some things at home, test out some cool stuff I found on Pinterest, then have Tuesday afternoon to be home all alone to take a long bath and a nap or maybe have a friend over for tea.

All was on track until Monday night.  I made my cool Pinterest stuff: wood butter, lavender bath scrub and cake from a mix that supposedly tastes like a bakery cake.  All yielded favorable results, by the way.  I got a respectable amount of housework done and made a few nice dinners. 

The kids played nicely.  They doctored up the cat after she sneezed "three times in a row" and appeared to be "real sick".  They made her a bed, gave her an ice pack and got her a tissue.  

Meow in her bed with a nice soft blanket and a lego tower to amuse herself.

Joey did some scuba diving in the bathtub.  Goggles are now required gear for bath time.  He likes to put them on by himself.

Then, just in time for my day of alone time, the kids got sick.  One at a time.  Just far enough apart to get my hopes up that I could go back to work as planned and all would be fine.  Nope.  Two nights in a row of getting up every few hours to respond to frantic calls from the bathroom.  Poof, there went my afternoon of solitude.  

Since I wound up with extra time at home, I also got our venison ground up finally.  My brother-in-law loaned us his electric grinder which made short work of our 15 pounds of meat.

Fifteen pounds of ground venison (with added pork).  This is a big pan. 11 x 16 I think.

All wrapped up and ready for the freezer.

Oh, and I read a book too.  A really good one called Still Alice by Lisa Genova.  Its about Alzheimer's disease and I highly encourage everyone to read it.  

Now I'm out of projects and looking forward to my return to civilization.  Hopefully, we'll all get a good night's sleep and be back into our normal routine tomorrow.