“Out of this World” Sugar Cookies

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sugar cookies

Third grade assignment: Make a visual representation of the solar system.  Be creative!  (be careful what you ask for…)

Rhea decided that she (and by “she” I mean “we”) should make a sugar cookie solar system.  Why waste your time with a plain old shoe box diorama situation when you can make a project the class can eat when you’re done?

You may notice that there are two of each planet (in case of interplanetary disaster) but what you can’t see is how much time this child took to mix/choose/remix/rechoose the exact right colors for each dang piece.  We may have a detail-oriented baker in the family, ladies and gentlemen… Or an astronomer, I’m not sure which.  Either way she doesn’t get it from me!

We made the solar system a week ahead of time and then froze the cookies to keep them fresh.  Besides eating the extra planets, we also made little star cookies for each classmate.  No doubt, Rhea’s presentation gained rave reviews from the audience! (and even though I’m poking a little fun, I am very proud of my daughter’s creativity and effort to make a top-notch presentation.  She did great!)

My Mom’s Sugar Cookies (which, incidentally, are the best sugar cookies in the world)

Ingredients: 1/2 cup butter, 1/ cup sugar, 1 egg, 2-2 1/4 cups flour, 2 tsp. baking powder, 1 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp. vanilla (frosting optional–unless you’re making a solar system or something similar, of course.)

Directions: Roll out and cut with cookie-cutters.  Place on cookie sheet at bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes (depends on how think your cookies are though–check’m and see.  Should be slightly browned on top, but not too much.)

Tip: If I’m pretending to be Sally-organized-baker (hardly ever, but this is still a good tip) I make the dough in advance and refrigerate for an hour or so.  The chilled dough is easier to roll out and cut–especially for little bakers.

Some things I learned while assisting: Although Uranus has rings, Saturn is the only planet whose rings are visible from Earth.  Saturn has a moon named “Rea” (and no, that’s not where I got the name.)  The red-dot storm on Jupiter is several times larger than planet Earth.  Sprinkles on planetary rings are a big hit with 8-9 year-olds…

 

Mothers love Margaritas!

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margarita

I made this grapefruit margarita last night (thanks, Alli, for changing my life with these!) in celebration of being one happy mama.  Plus, unlike New England where the temp dipped to below freezing yesterday, here in Pasadena it was nearing 100 degrees.  While I’ll admit I prefer the heat, for May 12 that was a bit much!

Besides something wonderful from my appreciative husband, I also received some original art:

moms day art

And a new book of The Silliest Poems in the World  for night-time reading:

moms day poetry

My favorite poem is the one about the goat with a coat (he crosses over a moat.)

Despite the ridiculous heat, I treated myself to a good morning walk–and while I was away Mike and the kids vacuumed the house!  While my undergrad Women’s Studies classmates may raise an eyebrow, this was actually my favorite gift of the day because it equals T-I-M-E.

Grape fruit Margaritas (Alli’s recipe was a bit more specific, but mine works just fine)

Ingredients: shot of Tequila, dash of triple sec, grapefruit juice, splash of blood orange soda, a lime wedge (I went without last night) and ice.

Directions: Pour in glass, stir and enjoy! (repeat as needed…)

 

Spring Fruit! It’s Here!

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spring!

So at the farmers market this week Josie and I were doin’ the “cherries and apricots” dance–which basically consists of holding hands in a ring-around-the-rosey fashion and jumping up and down squealing “Cherries and apricots!  Cherries and apricots!”

SPRING FRUIT HAS ARRIVE TO SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA!–and I don’t mean by way of air travel from Chile…

I hold out.  Plums, peaches and other stone fruit have been available at Whole Foods all winter long, but I refrain from buying.  I do this partly because I believe in supporting the local economy and partly because I live in southern California so there actually are other produce options year round.  (Believe me, the “supporting the local economy” notion would likely go right out the window each winter if I still lived in Minneapolis…)

I also hold out because there’s just something about it.  Waiting.  Anticipation.  Build up.  I like this stuff.

We’ve been tiring of the winter citrus that is very tasty, but has now been in our fruit bowl for months.  (I’m such a whiner, right?  Can you imagine complaining about endless amounts of delicious locally grown oranges?  This is what I’ve become, I’m afraid.)

Holding out was worth it.  Holding out actually made it all the more de-lish.  We gobbled up the cherries right quick and are motoring through the golden, sweet apricots.  I only bought a couple of peaches which weren’t the greatest, but were still pretty darn good.

We bought the flowers at the market too–aren’t they a nice touch?  At our house, this is how we celebrate spring!

Kitty Purgason’s White Chicken Chili

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Kitty Purgason's Chili

I met this chili, and Kitty Purgason, at the Pasadena Covenant Church meal contest last fall.  This church provides shelter and meals to homeless folks on cold, wet winter nights..  Roughly 12 members of the congregation volunteered to whip up their favorite home-cooked recipes, provide a “taste off,” and use a vote to choose the upcoming menu.

People, this is my kind of church experience–it’s got “Midwest” written all over it.

My Michigander transplant girlfriend, Lisa, is a Covenant Church member and she lets me tag along when I’m in the mood.  As a native Minnesotan raised in a Methodist home and church, from the first time I popped my eclectically-spiritual face onto the Covenant scene I felt right at home.   Throw in a pot-luck taste test with a recipe made by the you-can’t-get-more-Midwestern-than-this: Kitty Purgason… Girlfriend, that is a taste of Michelle’s heaven.

The Midwestern United States isn’t exactly known for its gourmet approach to food.  Common references to “casseroles” and questions regarding the usage of cream of mushroom soup have arisen.  And while, yes, casseroles (actually, the correct term is “hot-dish,”) and cream of mushroom soup are something with which we Mid-westerners are familiar, we offer much more to the culinary world.

The Midwestern philosophy to cooking is actually quite a hat-tip to the modern mama.  Savory.  Efficient.  Satisfying.  Wholesome.  These are words that, when used to describe dinner, are often met with smiles.  I said SMILES.  Who couldn’t use more of those at the table?

I love Kitty Purgason’s White Chicken Chili for three reasons.  First of all, it’s easy-tasty-healthy. Second, the ingredients can be kept on hand (most in the pantry) for easy whip-up’ed-ness. Also, you can totally fudge the quantities on pretty much everything (just throw in extra this if you are missing a can of that) and still present a delicious meal for your family.  Now you can smile too!

Finally, the name Kitty Purgason makes my heart smile.  Back in Rochester, Minnesota I had a classmate named Kitty who, in the third grade, helped me with fractions and taught me how to draw trees that didn’t resemble lollipops.  My childhood friend, Kitty, was friendly and generous, much like the Covenant-Church-Kitty I recently met.

Besides “Calva,” my elementary classroom rosters had a list of surnames including Torgrimson, Olson and Thompson.  So, when kind hand of someone named Kitty Purgason was extended to me over my chili sample that fall day, I just knew this recipe would join my life and table.

Now it can join yours too.

Kitty Purgason’s White Chicken Chili

Chili Ingredients: 1 chopped onion, 2 crushed garlic cloves, couple three cans chicken broth (0r approximate equivalent), leftover diced cooked chicken, 1 can drained white or pinto beans, 1 can corn (drain but save liquid in case you need it), 1 can chopped tomatoes with liquid, 1 (or 2) small can mild green chilis, optional: chopped fresh tomatillos if available.  See toppings ingredients below…

Definitely serve with: fresh lime, tortilla chip crumbles Optionally serve with (unless you’re at my house, then this is definite too!): sour cream, fresh chopped cilantro, diced green onion, hot sauce

Directions: Saute onion and garlic with a few splashes of olive oil.  Add everything else and bring to a simmer.  Um… you’re done and it likely took all of 12 minutes.

Notes: This is a very mild chili, which works great for my kids.  We all love the lime and chips on top and I put the rest of the accoutrements on the table and we sprinkle as desired.  Mike and I add hot sauce, but of course…  Doctoring your bowl of yum up with all the fixin’s is really half the fun.  Also, even though I live a stone’s throw from a Latino super market and could get tomatillos in a second, I have never gone to the trouble when making this recipe and and it still tastes stellar.

Final Note (still with me?): Feel free to use fresh corn, fresh tomatoes, etc… if you have them on hand, of course.  But isn’t it nice to know you don’t have to?

Hand Print “Art” on my Wall

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handprint

Look close, but not too closely.  I did and I found not only a hand print but about a dozen other little finger smudges, ball bouncing scars, what appears to be an unfortunate booger (I thought we were done with that…) and a couple ‘a dog hairs.  My house was just cleaned from top to bottom, btw.

Happy Monday everyone!

“Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the sidewalk before it stops snowing.” –Phillys Diller

“A messy house is a must – it separates your true friends from other friends.  Real friends are there to visit you not your house!”–Jennifer Wilson

“Law of Window Cleaning: It’s on the other side.” –Unknown

“Cleanliness is not next to godliness. It isn’t even in the same neighborhood. No one has ever gotten a religious experience out of removing burned-on cheese from the grill of the toaster oven.”–Erma Bombeck

“I’m not going to vacuum ’til Sears makes one you can ride on.”–Rosanne Barr

“The obvious and fair solution to the housework problem is to let men do the housework for, say, the next six thousand years, to even things up.  The trouble is that men, over the years, have developed an inflated notion of the importance of everything they do, so that before long they would turn housework into just as much of a charade as business is now.  They would hire secretaries and buy computers and fly off to housework conferences in Bermuda, but they’d never clean anything.”  ~Dave Barry

“Cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow
For babies grow up, we’ve learned to our sorrow
So quiet down, cobwebs
Dust, go to sleep
I’m rocking my baby, and babies don’t keep”.–Anonymous

Gorgeous Carrot Slaw

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carrot slaw

I simply cannot call this salad “carrot slaw.”  “Gorgeous” must be in the title because, duh: it is so divine to look at!  I placed that blue vase (pronounced “vahs” for effect) in the background as it makes such a stylish contrast.  I am so artsy-shmartsy.

My carrots slaw recipe is tweaked and a bit simplified from Once Upon a Chef.  I eased up on a few ingredients but it could be because the farmers market carrots I get don’t need as much stuff on’em; I don’t know.

The photo above is made with hand grated carrots as I couldn’t find the correct attachment for my food processor that I hardly ever use.  Lucky for me, child labor laws are a bit lax at my house…

Josie grating carrots

“Mommy, my arm is getting tired…”  “Hang in there, honey.  Only 10 more carrots to go!”

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped
  • 1 pound grated carrots, or 1-1/3 pounds carrots, peeled and grated (if you wash them well, don’t have to peel)
  • 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 teaspoon lemon zest and 2 tablespoons lemon juice, from one lemon
  • 3 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice, from one orange (or a splash of orange juice)
  • 1-2 tablespoons honey
  • 1/2 cup dried cranberries
  • a little bundle of green onion, white and green parts, diced
  • 3 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian parsley
  • dash of salt
  • dash of pepper

Here’s what all the yummy stuff looked like before I mixed it up.  It’s already getting pretty!  I went ahead and and tossed my walnuts in as our mouths were beginning to water at this point and I was fairly certain the salad wouldn’t last long.  I was right.

carrot slaw ingredients

Directions:

Bake walnuts at 350 for about 5-7 minutes.  Set aside.  Throw remaining ingredients into a bowl and toss it up a bit.  This salad will keep well in the fridge for a few days, but don’t add the walnuts until you’re ready to eat.

I made my gorgeous carrot slaw for a potluck last night with a few bags of store-bought shredded carrots.  Much less work and a different texture than the hand grated method.  What made it still yummalicious was that I made the salad 24 hours in advance so the flavors had time to really get to know each other.  They got along great, btw.

 

So, That Happened…

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Hey friends!  Check out my de-lish salad featured this week on Hometown Pasadena!

water bottle

OK, so, I’m kinda Ms. Fancy-pants with my stylish new glass water bottle (Target, ten bucks.  It rocks.)  I don’t mean to brag but two of my friends have copied me just so they can quench their thirst in a similarly sophisticated way.

My glass bottle with a wooden top is not only really pretty, the rope loop on the top is handy-dandy for carrying it to the multiple mommy places I tend to rush off to each day.  See?

bottle on finger

Any-hoo, our story begins on a warm and busy Tuesday afternoon.  As usual, I’ve imagined I can finish just a few more things before racing out the door to get the kids–only to discover that when I look up at the clock I should probably be in the car already.  Run, Michelle.  Run!

On the days when my kiddos have after-school activities I bring them a pretty hearty snack (for Grayson, an entire meal) which I hadn’t actually put together by the time I noticed the clock.  Quickly I threw some satisfying/healthy something-or-others together, grabbed my new water bottle, chucked it all into my canvas bag ‘o stuff and flew out the door.

Whew.  Somehow made it to my favorite parking spot on time.  Grabbed the bag and dashed off up the way to school.

Hmmm… I’m kinda thirsty, I thought.  I reached into my bag for that satisfying drink that’s just moments away, and pulled out this:

wine

What the WHAT!!!!!?????

This half drunk bottle of wine was what my girlfriend, Anya, and I didn’t get to last Friday night.  It was sitting on the counter, obviously, near my water bottle.

I DROVE TO SCHOOL WITH AN OPEN BOTTLE OF LIQUOR SITTING NEXT TO ME ON THE FRONT SEAT AND THEN ALMOST BROUGHT IT ONTO MY KIDS’ CAMPUS!!!!

Headline: “PTA President Boozes it up at Elementary School: Details at 11:00″

Quickly I shoved the wine bottle back in my bag, frantically whipping my head around to see if anyone else coming for pickup saw my little blunder.  Whew… nobody seemed to notice.

I ran back to my minivan and quietly put my wine bottle in the back (there should be a designated place for this, come to think of it,) turned back around and trudged off to campus.

Thank goodness I wanted to wet my whistle before coming onto the playground.  I’m picturing myself, surrounded by my usual tribe of friends/kids/possibly a teacher or two (hey, maybe the principal!) pulling out my bottle to take a drink.  Can you even imagine?

FYI: In retrospect, I’m not sure if this was an actual “oops” or if, subconsciously, I needed a drink.  Hard to say, really…  And just to be safe, I finished off the wine that night and tossed the bottle.  I won’t make that mistake twice!

Fruit Salad: Yummy! Yummy!

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fruit salad

Here you see the remnants of my strawberries that taste great but are already turning soft (will have to talk with my farmers market vendor next week… just got these on Saturday!), my oranges that Rhea says have “too much white stuff around them” and some on-the-verge-of-banana-bread bananas.

And what does a economizing mama do with all the above ingredients?  Cut off the “white stuff,” sift through the berries and toss a few pieces of each banana–and then make a fruit salad, of course.

Served in the fanciest breakfast establishments, one would think that fruit salad is a tad high brow.  But I have my suspicions that people more along the lines of my frugal Grandma Millie came up with this concoction.

“What shall we do with all this fruit that has bad spots here and is starting to turn, ma’am?”

“Cut out the good pieces and put it in a pretty glass bowl.  And we shall call it: fruit salad!”

Many vendors at farmers markets have special buckets for people (yes–people like me) who are willing to cut out a spot here and overlook a mark there; and pay 1/3 the price of the pretty produce.  For example, I often purchase organic apples for $1.25 lb just because they aren’t picture perfect.  Then I chop’em up, throw out the few brown parts, and make apple sauce.

Beautiful, delicious, healthy, economical–these are some of my favorite things!

Cut It Out!

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Poultry shears

These are my Cutco Poultry Shears.  These shears are my favorite kitchen gadget in the universe.  Yes.  I said “universe.”

I’m actually not a gadgety-girl.  Some foodies are, but I’m a little too cheap and I often have a dickens of a time locating the gadgets I’ve already got, so if I can make due with what’s in my drawer, that’s my plan A.

(I interrupt this post with a tiny notification: you should know that I have no affiliation with the Cutco Company–including being related or even acquainted to/with anyone else who does.  I just really like this product and so I’m going to tell you about it.  Thank you for reading my disclaimer and have a nice day.)

OK.  These poultry shears were a gift.  This is a very good thing because they cost around $100.00.  I know, right?  That’s a lot of money to cut a dang chicken.

Here’s the thing though: they do soooo much more.  I use these shears at least five days a week.  I cut salad greens, sometimes fruit, the tips off green beans, I cut pizza slices–and even occasionally use them to cut poultry!

These little honeys are strong.  The knife set I got when Mike and I were married 14 1/2 years ago came with its own poultry shears.  I used to use them if my Cutco ones were in the dishwasher, but they broke so long ago I can’t even remember what they looked like now…  I replaced those cheaper shears with some (from Bed Bath & Beyond, maybe?) thinking that I should have that extra pair for emergency situations, but they eventually broke too.

My Cutco Shears can cut through bone and probably even a car door if I had the strength to propel them.

So, the hundred bucks might sound like a lot of money (OK, yes it is a lot a money) but I have had my Cutco Poultry Shears for around twelve years, use them constantly, and they are still goin’ strong.

If you don’t want to cough up such big bucks, at least make sure that when you get some poultry shears, they come apart for proper cleaning like this:

Shears apart

Yeah… You don’t want your poultry tidbits to get left behind in a little corner of the hinge or anything.  Gross!

If there’s ever a night-time emergency in our home (this is southern CA, take your pick of possible options), Mike and I have our assigned duties: He gets the girls, I get Grayson, we make a grab for the laptop with our family photos if it’s handy–and the Cutco Poultry Shears on our way out the door!  (Who knows how they might come in handy in an emergency situation?)

Whew!  Made it.

Energy (who doesn’t need more ‘a that?) Bites

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energy bites
     So Teri brought these over to a big ‘ol play-date I hosted one day.  She found the recipe from a super-cutie blog called Smashed Peas and Carrots . (and before I continue, please excuse the lack of spaces between paragraphs on this post–something is not working for Michelle this morning… but I really wanted to share this with you!)
     I like this blog.   Ms. Maggie, the writer, is a mother to four kids under the age of five (yes, you read that correctly.)  She not only manages to keep them alive, apparently, but she keeps up this really smart blog and writes comments about her recipes like, “This is so frickin’ awesome you can’t eat just one!”
     Who can’t respect and admire that?
     Teri put these little honeys out and the kids (OK, yes, and the mamas) gobbled them right up.  I will say this: When I make them the balls are not, uh, perfectly spherical and the sizes are what you might call “varied.”  For this reason I have included the visual of Teri’s Energy Balls.  Mine do taste just as yum though… (Seriously!  So if you ever see, them please don’t make fun.)
     One more comment before I reveal the recipe: These are a no-bake (extra points from Michelle!) situation but they are reminiscent–in a really good way–of cookie dough.  OK.  Here you go.
Energy Bites!
Ingredients:
1 cup oatmeal
1/2 cup peanut butter (or other nut butter)
1/3 cup honey
1 cup coconut flakes
1/2 cup ground flaxseed
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
1 tsp vanilla
Directions: Mix everything above in a medium bowl until thoroughly incorporated.  Let chill in the refrigerator for half an hour.  Once chilled, roll into balls and enjoy!  Store in an airtight container and keep refrigerated for up to 1 week (or 20 minutes if you’re at my house…)
Tip: Raisins work well in place of chocolate chips too.  Kinda tart and obviously a tad healthier–but I’m not discounting the value of a good chocolate chip!