Archive for February, 2010

Supercook

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

Have you been to supercook.com? I found it a little while ago as I was searching for a recipe to make with things I had on hand. Usually I use the ingredient search on allrecipes.com, but it was broken that night, and I stumbled across this website. Boy, am I thankful I did! It’s much better than anything else I’ve used.

I entered the ingredients I had, and it immediately started narrowing down a list of recipes I could make with the things I had.  It pulls from number of different cooking websites (including my much-used allrecipes), and even breaks the results down into the subcategories of Starters, Entrées, and Desserts. You can also choose ingredients to exclude, or pull  more ingredients in from their suggestion box. The results show recipes you have all the ingredients for first, and then begins listing the recipes while telling you what ingredients you still need.

There are a number of other features on this site that make it quite awesome, so you should definitely check it out! And if you’d like to save the recipes you’re trying, you can sign up for a free account and keep track of all the recipes you find. I’m really excited about this site, and thankful to have found it. Enjoy. :)

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The Snow Princess

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

Most days lately all I want to do is give my children away. I question why it is I ever desired to be a mother, and I fantasize about going to a job every day and being able to make money and feel like a member of society. But one day last week I was reminded why I do want to be a mother, and why it really wouldn’t be that awesome to have to go to work for the Man (despite the fact that I could fund my shopping addiction).

It snowed. A beautiful, glorious, slow-falling, chunky snow. It wasn’t windy, and it wasn’t so cold that you felt yourself freeze down to your bones. And along with the miracle of the day, III actually fell asleep for a nap, so Emma and I got all bundled up and headed out to make some tracks in the untampered snow of the back yard. We made some nice stompy footprints and then decided to make a snow man.

But as Emma was stomping around with her pink princess umbrella, she thought it would be much cooler if we could make a Princess Aurora out of snow, just like the Aurora on the handle of her umbrella. I laughed at first, thinking it was impossible, but then I remembered she’s just a kid. Nothing is impossible. Why not have a snow princess? I knew it wasn’t likely to be pretty or perfect, but it might be fun to try. And that’s what we did. Emma helped me roll the snow around the yard to make a nice big ball and then I attempted to shape it into a more skirt-like figure.

Then we made her upper body, a neck, and a head. When it came time for arms and hair, though, I was stumped. I tried to make some arms and ended up knocking her head off in the process, and I was completely clueless as to how to fashion long princess hair. So we stopped there. Emma created a crown, which we placed on top, and she was perfectly satisfied (and honestly, I think I had lost her attention by this point anyway). We stuck some purple Sweet Tarts on for eyes, a carrot for a nose (may not be very princess-like, but ever since we bought the carrots Emma

was begging to make a snow man in order to give it a carrot nose), and some strawberry Laffy Taffy for the mouth. We wrapped a scarf around her and she was ready to go!

Some days it’s hard to be a parent, and some days there are rewards that really are better than a fat paycheck. Instead of having to sit in an office somewhere, I got to play in the snow. I didn’t have to do it alone, and while I felt like a bit of a dork trying to build a snow princess, I was a pretty cool mom in Emma’s eyes. And then I got to teach her how to make snow angels! I can’t ever be a kid again; I can’t ever know what it is to not have concern for what I’m going to make for dinner, or where the money’s coming from that pays for dinner, but I can feel a glimpse of that first joy and the excitement of discovery through my kids. I don’t have to completely grow up.

And I’m going to have these kids with me for a while, but not forever. So I’m trying to slow it down and take the time to be silly and get cold and messy. And when Emma is in hysterics over something ridiculous, or III is awake at 4 in the morning, I’m really going to try to accept the bad with the good. Because one day they’ll both be too cool for me; they won’t want to make snow sculptures in the back yard with me, or give me big, slobbery kisses.

Now, if someone could just tell me how to accept the bad without losin’ it . . .

Aurora in progress. (Notice the umbrella in the left corner)

Emma and Aurora

My *angel*

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Tiny Tweets #5 (Roughly)

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

Just a few for you today. Emma hasn’t been as cute lately; or maybe I’m not paying as much attention to her rambling.

“Ahh! Mom, I’m layin’ on my brain!”

“I’m deflating down into my body.”

“But I don’t have a heart.” (sad face)

“I miss Daddy. I miss being able to touch him.” (Upon further questioning, she explained that she really just wanted to give Daddy a hug.)

“Oh! I’m fallin’! I’m fallin’ in love!”

“I think when he’s older brother will want to marry me.” Why? “Because I’m a cute pigtail girl.” And later, with a ring box in hand: “Brother, will you marry me?” (Guess it runs in the family; we’ve had a long-standing joke about my brother asking for a baby sister so he could marry her.)

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No Bananas?

Monday, February 8th, 2010

I was really in the mood to bake some bread the other day; any kind would do, so I picked up some cookbooks and started leafing through the bread sections. It all sounded terribly good, until I realized I didn’t have any yeast (I hate restarting my kitchen staples, because I never think to buy things I’m used to having on hand). So I moved on to the sweet breads, and thought it would be really nice to have some banana bread . . . until I realized we had eaten the last banana that morning (and a trip to the grocery store was not going to happen). Then a corner recipe caught my attention—carrot bread. It started from the same basic recipe as the banana, but had some alterations, and I just happened to have every main ingredient on hand.

Now, typically I like to start with the base recipe for things like this, and then tweak it later, but I really wanted to at least pretend I was making a healthy snack, so I decided to tweak right away. The result was not phenomenal, but definitely edible, and good enough to share, so here is my carrot bread recipe (I even wrote down what I used this time!).

1 3/4 c. whole wheat flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
sprinkle of ginger
1/2 c. yogurt
2 T applesauce
1/3 c. honey
1/3 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 c. shredded peeled carrots
1/2 c. orange juice
1/4 tsp almond extract
1/4 tsp maple flavoring

*Preheat oven to 350°. Grease and flour loaf pan.

*Mix together dry ingredients.

*Cream together yogurt, honey, and sugar. Add eggs one at a time. Slowly add in flour mixture—just enough to incorporate.

Yogurt, honey, sugar, and eggs

With dry ingredients mixed in

*In a small bowl, combine carrots, orange juice, almond extract, and maple flavoring. Add it to the batter.

Mmm...carrots

The batter is not quite as visually appealing

*Pour into loaf pan and bake 1 hour, or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Before

After

Ok. Now for a little commentary. First, I will explain the changes I made. I used the whole wheat flour in place of all purpose flour, and I added a half a teaspoon more of baking powder. I would not recommend that (more on that in a bit). I used pumpkin pie spice because the recipe called for 1/4 teaspoons of cardamom, ginger, and allspice, and I didn’t have any cardamom and figured cinnamon wouldn’t hurt it. I don’t think that caused any problems in taste. I used the yogurt (happened to be French vanilla) and applesauce in place of 1/2 cup butter. I added the extra applesauce just for moistness since whole wheat flour tends to be denser. The bread was wonderfully moist, so I guess that worked. And I added the maple just because I wanted to.

Now, the only thing I would change besides the baking powder is the baking time. I didn’t actually cook mine for a whole hour, because I inserted my toothpick and it came out dry before then, but I think I just got lucky, because the center definitely was not cooked enough. So I recommend sticking with the hour cook time. The only issue I had with its taste was a slightly metallic after-taste, which I had just noticed in the tortilla I made as well. So I did a little online research and discovered something very interesting.

Depending on the brand of baking powder that you use, it may or may not contain sodium aluminum sulfate. I used Clabber Girl, and it does in fact contain the aluminum, which is what is giving me the metallic taste. Now, I only got this off of a forum posting, but let’s assume it’s accurate:

“Aluminum acid salts are more shelf-stable and reliable for double-acting leavening (at lower and higher temperatures); if used in high-sugared, well-flavored things like cakes, the metallic taste can be masked better than in simpler things like griddle cakes and biscuits and plain quick breads.

Calcium phosphate is the common alternative acid salt in non-aluminum baking powders.”

I felt this explained it pretty succinctly, but I did go on to read up a little more on baking powder, and found the same information repeated. I really enjoyed this article; she did a taste-test with a cake, making one with a SAS baking powder, and one that was SAS free. Her test subjects didn’t all notice the difference, but the majority felt there was a bitter taste to the one with the SAS baking powder. Also, if I understand it correctly, baking powder is used in recipes where there is no acidic ingredient, but remember I substituted things. I used yogurt, honey, and orange juice, so I wonder if maybe baking soda could be used in this recipe instead? (You can actually make your own baking powder out of baking soda and cream of tartar.) I am really wanting to learn and understand more and more of this chemistry of baking; it’s like being made aware of the beauty of the semi-colon! Greater knowledge leads to greater understanding, and in this case, perhaps greater desserts. Maybe I’ll quit this blogging business and actually go to baking school . . . or I could go and then just blog about it. (Thinking maybe I should just go to bed.)

Anyway, as a final note, the carrot bread is really good with Nutella. ;)

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The Baby Choice

Friday, February 5th, 2010

Originally, I intended to use my Friday posts for some potentially controversial topics, but so far I really haven’t delved into any. So I’m starting now. And I’m not writing this in order to say I’m right and you’re wrong, but really just because I want to state my opinion; what’s right for me. I’m not big on getting into deep discussions with my friends unless I’m specifically asked my opinion, so here I have complete reign on what gets said, and I’d like to take my turn to speak. That being said, I know many will disagree with me, and that’s just fine. I’d love it if everyone saw things the way I do, but I know that’s not realistic. And if these posts generate more discussion in my personal life, then great! Understand: I am NOT making a judgement of you in thinking about something differently.

To the point. Today I am not opening up a discussion on the pro-life/pro-choice debate, so don’t worry. I feel like that’s been overdone, but if you’d like my opinion, then ask me some time. Today I am getting on my soapbox over birth control. When I first started thinking about writing this I was struck for the first time by the term “birth” control itself. Really, that’s what we’re controlling, right? We don’t want a birth, and in fact, when we use the term birth control we are typically referring to the hormonal method, or The Pill, which stops birth, not conception. So that’s what I want to talk about.

A little history on me and my journey to my opinions: I don’t really remember ever having a talk about things like sex and babies and birth control as a young girl. I was pulled out of every sex ed class offered through school and instead my mother would have a little homeschooling session on some other exciting topic—like rocks (seriously!). I do remember the one time my mother tried to have The Talk with me, and in response to her question, “Is there anything you want to know?” I recall saying, “Not really. I mean, if Adam and Eve could figure it out, I’m pretty sure I can.” And that was the end of her attempts (unless I’ve just mentally blocked out the actual talk; suppose that’s possible).

Once in high school health class, I was finally allowed to learn the basics of how things worked. At that point it was just like any other homework, though—learn the terms for the test and then forget about it. I never watched any awkward cartoons explaining things, and I never underwent any television-stereotypical banana/condom exercise. So I pretty much filled in all the blanks through my friends and television.

When I got engaged I did the typical (well, I’m guessing it’s typical) medical exam and blood test (although I was a virgin, the whole thing just made me nervous, and I had this secret fear that somehow that test would reveal some awful STD, and then nobody would believe me that I had never had sex), and then I had some time alone with the doctor where she brought up birth control pills, and I just nodded like a bobble-head and listened as she told me what to do. I got a couple free samples and I was on my way. There may have been some passing remarks made about it between my parents and me, but there was no discussion, and certainly no suggestion that I should do anything else.

So I began taking the little pills every day, and I really don’t recall there being much difference in anything about me when I first started taking it. It certainly didn’t have the magical skin-clearing effects I was hoping for, and everything else happened about the same, except that it was like clockwork. No, I didn’t notice any changes until after we were married. And then Lloyd noticed them too.

Some nights I would lay on the couch and cry for hours. Other nights I would yell and scream at Lloyd for small, ridiculous reasons. My moods were about as predictable as the weather (when have you known the weatherman to be right?). It was weird. I was myself, but I had this sense of being out of control, and of watching myself and wondering who the crazy woman was. I had once talked with a camp counselor about her similar experience with birth control, and just like her, I decided changing the way my body works was not the solution for me. I know there are different levels of hormones and doctors advocate just finding the one that works for you, but I was done, and I was ready to start thinking for myself . . .

Now you know the beginning of my story. I’ll let you know my discoveries next time!

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The Godfather

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

No, I’m not talking about the movie. I’m talking about our good friend, Joe, who we named our own Godfather at Emma’s birth. Since moving here, and particularly this week, he has been a tremendous blessing. After visiting at Christmas, he drove our huge U-Haul up to Nebraska for me, and then helped unload and unpack my house. In the first couple weeks as I was rearranging, he acted as my muscle and helped move the heavy things.

He’s also been available to keep me from going crazy. I have quite a few friends around, but pretty much all of them have their own families to take care of; Joe has been our family. I’ve found that while cooking is still enjoyable, having someone who actually appreciates what you make does make a difference. Emma is so snooty that sometimes it’s very frustrating cooking for just us. My enjoyment of a meal is tempered by her constant whining and fear of eating something red. Also, she just doesn’t get the jokes from The Office like Joe does. Go figure.

This last week I am particularly thankful for his presence and willingness to help, as he has given me a few breaks from the sick house. The kids know him and are comfortable with him, so I have no worries when I walk out the door. And despite the sick kids, he was still willing to come over . . . which turned out to be an unwise decision for him, as he is now sick as well. Ah, what good friends I have!

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Back to the Beans

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve made any new bean attempts, and today I was in need of some distraction and purpose, so I thought I’d cook up some pinto beans and see what I could make. Of course, after becoming adjusted my gas stove, I’m still working out this electric stove, and so the beans took longer to cook than I anticipated. I was hoping to get them nice and mushy so I could have some refried beans to mix with some ground beef for burritos. Since I knew I had some time while they cooked, and I realized I only had 2 tortillas left and no desire to go shopping (remember, sick kids), I thought I’d make my own tortillas.

I looked for the simplest recipe I could find to make whole wheat tortillas, and decided to go for it. I was determined to let no crying child stop me, and in fact, did part of the tortilla-making with III standing, clinging on to my legs, crying. But I persevered. So, here’s what I used:

2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup warm water

First, I mixed together my dry ingredients (of course Emma helped), and then added the olive oil and mixed it in as best I could. Then, I added in the water one tablespoon at a time, although I used the entire 1/2 cup and another 4 tablespoons after that, so I’d say you don’t have to measure out the first 1/2 cup in tablespoon increments. Anyway, I added water until all the flour became sticky and I had a little ball of dough.

Just sticky enough

Just sticky enough

Next, knead the dough 15-20 times on a floured surface, and then let it rest there for 15 minutes. After the 15 minutes, divide your dough into the number of tortillas you are going to make. I divided mine into 16 because I wanted to make small ones, but it would probably make about 10-12 of the larger tortillas. Once you’ve divided, roll each part into a ball.

My little balls of dough

Next, roll each ball out into your tortillas, making sure to keep the surface well-floured, or it will stick. As we’ve seen in the past, I’m terrible on thickness measurements, so just roll it until it seems almost too thin. Next, heat up an ungreased skillet to medium-high heat and cook each side of the tortilla about 30 seconds. It will get all puffy, and will burn if you cook it too long. Use your own eyesight and judgement when cooking.

Bubbles are good

A pile of whole wheat tortillas

So, tortillas are pretty easy. I didn’t cook all of mine up (due to screaming child and not needing 16 for dinner), so I refrigerated the second half, and I’m hoping the dough keeps. They really didn’t take terribly long to make and I’m wondering if I could actually just freeze the little balls of dough, in which case I could make a monster batch and then just pull out the frozen dough whenever I need more. I’m sure that would work. I’ll let you know when I try.

Now back to the beans. I think I needed more water and to have cooked them longer. They were edible, but I was hoping to sort of fry them with the meat as I was browning it, hoping they would turn into a paste, but they stayed kind of chunky. I still have plenty left, so I think I will cook them more and try for refried beans later this week. They at least were not noticeable to the discerning eyes of my three-year-old, who did “not want the little peas.” I don’t know why she thinks every bean is a pea, and as such, inedible, but she started crying at the thought of having to eat them, so I had to trick her somehow. Once they were sort of mushed in with the beef and cheese, and wrapped in a tortilla, she gobbled it all right up. And even asked for seconds. (Oh, and III ate a whole one by himself, too!)

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Tweet Deals

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

For those of you still unsure about Twitter, consider looking past the use of it as a way to update people on your own personal status. I know I have heard plenty complain about this being the same thing as Facebook’s status update, and also have heard complaints about the boring updates so many people post (although I’d say this is true for Facebook as well). So, what else can Twitter do for you?

I know one of the many arenas of wife/mom competition is in penny-pinching and bargain hunting. I’m not saying all women search for deals in order to gain bragging rights, but I think in some circles there is an undercurrent of mild competition on who can find the best deal. And once those great deals are found, it’s your right (and duty) to share.

There are many, many sites for finding deals and coupons; I am aware of this, and I am not trying to make a comparative analysis by any means. In fact, I really just wanted to post something Twitter-related that was different than what I have been doing. So, the point is, consider using Twitter for your bargain hunting. There are a few ways to do this.

If you are an insatiable bargain hunter, who would like to know about all the deals available, consider checking into cheaptweet.com. It’s pretty well-known as a base for gathering tweeted deals. It has a search feature so that if you are looking for a particular bargain, you can find it. What makes this site fun is the rating feature. You can click a tweet as “it’s cheap” and the more clicks it gets, the higher it rises, so that if you arrange the deals by the cheapest, you can see what others are clicking on to find honestly good deals. CheapTweet also has stores that will post their own special deals—like here, at the Barnes & Noble store.

Another way to use Twitter to shop for you is to just follow places you shop at. For instance, let’s say you’re obsessed with Forever 21; just follow @Forever21_tweet and you can have their sale tweets delivered directly to your phone. You’ll never miss a sale again. Granted, not all stores will have an account, but you can even follow brands—like Huggies diapers—and they’ll have deals and contests and giveaways and all sorts of ways to save you money (they may also have a lot of pointless fluff, but they want you to feel like they’re personal, so that you trust buying things from them).

And of course there are already plenty of bargain-hunting mommies searching for the very same deals you are; you can find ones you share interests with and just let them do the searching for you.

So you see, you can get more out of Twitter than simply learning who had eggs for breakfast and who is bored this morning. ;)

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Care and Compassion

Monday, February 1st, 2010

I think one of the reasons it requires two to create life, is that their parenting styles/services are sure to balance each other out. And I’m not just talking the good cop/bad cop discipline routine. I’m talking the I’ll-clean-the-dirty-sheets and you-clean-the-dirty-kid during those middle-of-the-night bouts of sickness.

Parenting singly has made me even more aware than ever of my own weaknesses on the parenting front. This entire last week both kids have been under the weather. The first two days it was just III; his eyes got all goopy, his nose got all drippy, and he only wanted to be held. I did all right with that, but the next day Emma and I also came down with a similar, although lesser, illness. So we took it easy (which is also why I didn’t post on Friday).

Now, nearly a week later, I’m reaching the end of my ability to be caring or at all compassionate. I’m not feeling too weakened by this bug, but Emma has become incredibly distressed. The night before last, she was awake every two hours crying about being hungry or thirsty, and all day yesterday she whined and turned on the waterworks for every little thing that she wanted.

I am not ordinarily an extremely compassionate person. I am more of a “suck it up” kind of advice-giver. This doesn’t work so well with kids. In fact, it sort of makes it worse. So I guess that’s where the other parent typically comes in. When I can’t stand the whining any more, and I’m practically yelling at my child, Lloyd can step in and give a hug while I go off and calm down so that I can return and treat my child with love. So now I’m having to learn to change. It’s been such a long week, and I have been fortunate enough to have a few breaks while a friend stays with the kids, but the more sleep-deprived I get, the quicker my patience and compassion fades.

I don’t think I can completely change, especially not overnight, but this week I’m going to try to reach a mediocre level of compassion, which is still better than none at all. And while that may sound like a horrible thing to do, I also know it is attainable. I am a flawed human, and right now I don’t have a partner filling in my weaknesses. I’m afraid of completely snapping. I know I can meet my children’s needs, and I know that I can find a better solution for my own lack of patience than letting myself shout or become angry at my child for whining that she doesn’t feel well.

So, for all you other flawed moms (or dads), I just wanted to share another of my many weaknesses. I don’t have to be perfect, but I think I’ve got to keep on trying. Here I am, still in progress. . .

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