This and That, a Recipe, and a Race

It's been a rather rough week, hence the lack of blogging...any prayers you feel like sending would be appreciated :)  We're still chugging through fertility help with the NaPro doctor, and hopefully will be making some progress, but it's definitely an emotional and uphill climb.  But, as I remind myself, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away, and really...despite the fact that my way seems awfully sensible to me, His way always turns out better.  

But I digress...

On a funnier note, do you know who wrote the Bill of Rights?  Do you know what the First Amendment is?  I hope you do, or at least have a good enough idea to realize that Senator Schumer is a little off.  For your reading pleasure: Sen. Schumer Credits Jefferson with Bill of Rights.

Also, this Banana Muffin Recipe is amazing!  Made it yesterday, and we polished off five (don't laugh!) within 20 minutes of them coming out of the oven.  Delicious, even without the nuts that I wanted but didn't have in the cupboard.

So, the Belmont will be running in a couple hours, and California Chrome might be the next triple crown winner.  He has the Preakness and the Kentucky Derby under his belt...time will tell if he'll get the all three.  What do you think?  Does he have a chance or will the extra quarter mile distance do him in and end his bid where so many others have ended?  If I had any idea how to do a poll on here, I would!  Secretariat ran it in 2:24 second, which is still the record.  I doubt it'll get broken today; people don't train for stamina like they did back then.

Secretariat at the Belmont - so easy...

Photo Credit

Never-fail Popovers: The easiest side-dish ever! (sort of)

Microwaving frozen veggies might be easier, but that's boring.  Even my husband, who announces to me, "I like peas," every. time. I. make. them. got a little tired of frozen veggies (isn't he cute?!).  So, when you're having something that, perhaps, already has a serving of veggies in it, or maybe you just aren't in a veggie mood, try these. 

These are especially good with honey butter, and served as a side to a warm and comforting soup.  Another plus to these ridiculously easy little muffin-cousins is that they don't have that much starch in them, relatively speaking anyway.  And, I'm sure that anyone even semi-creative could turn them paleo without a problem.  If I had any paleo flour I'd give it a try, but honestly...I'm a happy carb consumer.

If you come up with a paleo version, please post it in the comments - I'd love to hear how it worked!  It'd be great for those fat days where you want carbs soooo badly but know you ought to lay off for a while.

This recipe is beyond easy, and makes about seven generous popovers. We usually go through six. Don't judge; they're mostly protien...ish. 

So here's what ya do. Get a mid-sized mixing bowl. Crack into said bowl two eggs. 

Dump in a cup of flour. 

 

You can estimate. Exact proportions don't seem to be necessary. 

Add into your bowl a cup of milk, and half a teaspoon of salt. 

Mix it all up, but don't go too crazy. A few lumps are okay. 

Pour into greased muffin tins and place into a cold oven. Turn the oven to 400 degrees for 25 minutes (or 350 for 30, or 450 for 20...depends on how your oven cooks. Just watch them. If they're brown, they're done.)  I add water to the empty tins but I don't know if you have to...my mom always does so I do too. 

When you first take them out, they're big and puffy and delightful!  They'll settle a bit in a few minutes. They'll also last for at least a few days in the fridge.  You're on your own for after that; mine don't last more than a day!

Happy eating! Yum yum! 

For the quick version:

Ingredients: 

2 eggs

1 cup flour

1 cup milk

1/2 tsp salt

Mix all ingredients and pour into greased muffin tins. Put in a cold oven, and bake at 400 for about 25 minutes til puffed and lightly browned. 

Serve warm with honey butter and enjoy! 

Confessions; Why have kids?

What would I be like if I lived my entire life only thinking about me?  Now there, oh readers, is a very frightening thought.  I need children.  Desperately.  And no, I'm not talking about "baby fever" although I do have that particular ailment rather horrifically right now.

(Wednesday's pizza. Recipe later for the wonderful readers (wink wink))

Confession...I have a  "baby things" bookmark hidden under some other random and uninspiring folder to disguise the evidence.  And I'm not even pregnant.

So I think about this all the time.  I loooooove that moment when I fall into bed, roll over, and know that nothing but serious illness or catastrophe will bother me til morning. Really. I'm addicted to it. 

BBQ and onion, a favorite with my favorite carnivore.

Same thing with being able to wake up in the morning, stumble into the bathroom, get dressed, and go to the gym without having to talk or really do anything for anyone else (the Husband's capable of dressing himself, in case you wondered). 

I'm that selfish. And I'm only 25.  This is why I've decided that I need a housefull of children. Usually, that selfish urge can be squashed for someone else's sake. So, my theory is, if i have young children for a long enough time, maybe it will go away! Wishful thinking right. But it might help. It will help. I refuse to be a bad mother. 

This is why I need kids.  If I were to live alone, I'd be 1) fat, because no one else would help me eat the desserts I'd make, 2) poor, because I'd have too many horses, and 3) sad.  Because no little people would scream in my grocery cart, wake me up in the night, or give those hugs that only kids can.

And...there is that little matter of the fact that I just adore children.  Always have.  Always wanted them.  But that's boring - the other reasons are far more interesting, in my not-so-humble opinion.

Please don't look too closely at anything other than the pizzas...please!

Enough baby fever rambling!  To the point, there are a lot of reasons why people have kids, and now you know some of mine.  What made you want to have kids?  If you had/plan to have a lot why?  If only a couple, why?  The husband and I are going back and forth on this, so I throw it out to the webosphere - why should people have children?*

*disclaimer - I'm aware of the religious reasons; I want to know those silly, deep down, reasons why you wanted kids.  This is your chance to be anonymous and spill your secrets for a good cause.  I won't tell.  Pinky promise.

Top: BBQ & Onion; Bottom: White Mozzerella

And the pizza recipe is here!  Who doesn't love pizza?  This kind, which isn't half as heavy or fatty as the store-bought kind is my favorite, and I could happily eat it at least every couple days, to the detriment of my waistline.  Mmmmmmmmm. 

Best pizza ingredients, or really just best ingredients in general!

I wing this, so I don't have measurements perfect, but it's hard to go too wrong on a pizza.

For the crust, which makes two, courtesy of The Pioneer Woman:

• 1 teaspoon Active Dry Or Instant Yeast
• 4 cups All-purpose Flour
• Garlic Powder
• 1 teaspoon Kosher Salt
• 1/3 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Sprinkle yeast over 1 1/2 cups warm (not lukewarm) water.In a mixer, combine flour and salt. With the mixer running on low speed (with paddle attachment), drizzle in olive oil until combined with flour.  Throw in a dash or two of garlic powder, if you like that.  Next, pour in yeast/water mixture and mix until just combined.  Coat a separate mixing bowl with a light drizzle of olive oil, and form the dough into a ball. Toss to coat dough in olive oil, then cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and either let rise (about 2 hrs) or store in the fridge until you need it.
• Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Stretch pizza out onto a cookie sheet. Don't grease the sheet or you'll never get the dough to stay put.  Once it looks good, brush the edges of the crust with olive oil.  This will make them pretty and crispy.  Prick the crust all over with a fork, except on the edges.
• Here's where you improvise.  Add any and all toppings that you want.  For BBQ, I use a layer of Stubbs BBQ sauce, garlic chicken pieces, onions, and a layer of mozzerella.  The spices pictured above are mostly for the white pizza.  I use a light brush of olive oil all over the crust, then drizzle the spice mixture on it, shake on some garlic salt, and cover with mozzerella (or whatever cheese I have handy).
• Bake for about 10-15 minutes until everything is bubbly and the crust is lightly browned.  Enjoy your much healthier alternative to "normal" pizza and doubly enjoy getting to eat more than a slice - guilt free!  Yay for that! 
• Comment below and tell me your favorite pizza toppings; I'm always on the hunt for the perfect pizza recipe, and someday, it will be found and my husband will actually declare mine better than Dominos.  But I won't hold my breath for that.  Silly men!

Easter menu - from me, to you!

This pic is the last time I made mashed sweet potatoes.  We didn't have marshmallows, so the Husband put peeps on it.  They looked like peep zombies after being in the oven, but they tasted good.  That makes us sound really weird, doesn't it?

We decided on a whim to visit the in-laws for Easter, so I didn't end up needing the menu I was mentally preparing.  So, dear readers, I will be generous and put it out into cyberspace for you!  Enjoy and think of me as you eat it. (I love my in-laws but they don't really celebrate Easter in a very foodie way.)

Morning snack:
Hot Cross Buns - HCBs - check out Leila's amazing-looking recipe!
(optional honey butter - Mix as much as you want in a little bowl of softened butter and honey.  Keep the ratio half and half.)

Appetizer:
Baked Brie   - See "recipes" page for details

Dinner: 

Honey-baked ham - http://allrecipes.com/recipe/honey-glazed-ham/

Green beans, sauteed w/almonds - recipes page

Sweet mashed taters - recipes page

Stuffing (because I love it) - Okay, I don't have a recipe because I was going to cheat and call my mom.  You caught me.

Baby spinach salad w/mozzerlla, walnuts, berries, homemade balsamic - Balsamic is in the recipes page, the rest you can probably figure out :)
Rolls or freshly baked bread - I'd use the beer bread recipe on my recipes page, but that's just me. Bet you'd like it though!  

Easter sugar cookies, decorated - I assume you have a recipe for this but please, if you don't have a good sugar cookie and basic icing recipe, ASK ME because that's an absolute travesty of the worst order.  Sorry.
Apple pie - I don't have a specific recipe here; I usually ad-lib it and adjust based on my mood...or something like that.

Homemade vanilla bean ice cream  - http://www.browneyedbaker.com/2009/02/03/classic-vanilla-ice-cream/  This is soooo good!  Just don't be like me and forget the ice for the churner.  It's better churned.

I'd love to hear your recipes and ideas too please pretty please!  I won't get any of this (sorry mother in law - I promise I love you anyway!) and I will likely make it in a few weeks, maybe for Pentecost to ease my desire for a homemade "fancy" dinner.  Don't you sometimes wish you could click your heels, say "there's no place like home," and beam back to being a kid at a holiday dinner again?  Anyways, enough rambling, hope this helps someone somewhere escape from the clutches of restaurant holidays and learn the delightful, wonderful, experience that is a home-cooked holiday with lots of amaaaazzzzzzzing leftovers. Boy I'm hungry now.

Eclipse, and how to make chores fun

Did you watch the eclipse last night?  I'm ashamed to say that I did not, but for what it's worth, I did think about it.  If you have any pictures or want to give a shout out and tell poor sleep-dependent me what it was like, I'd love to hear it!

I sprayed olive oil Pam all over my laptop yesterday.  It is now streakified in a most unfashionable, greasy way, courtesy of my cleaning attempts.  Anyone know how to de-pam a laptop?

The cornbread looks so pretty though, doesn't it?  We actually liked the recipe on the back of the cornmeal container better (with the addition of 1 egg - my idea - and maybe 3/4c of sour cream per my mother's idea).  But this looked so pretty, I might just start cooking all my cornbread in the cast iron.  So classic, despite being heavy enough that my wrists hurt after each use.  Que sera sera.

These are the sorts of things that happen to me all the time.  I love being a housewife, but I get bored doing housewifely things by myself.  Wait til babies come, you said?  Yes, I know.  End of peace and quiet!  But for now, it is peaceful and quiet, and I need entertainment if I am going to confine myself to ironing (gag), folding clothes (ugh), or unloading the dishwasher (bleh).

The pam got on the laptop because I was trying to watch Nashville while spraying my cast-iron skillet at the same time.  Bad idea, for those wanting to try at home.  Next time, hold the skillet and pam in front of you, turn around (back to the computer), and then stare over your shoulder at the screen while pam-ing in the general direction of the skillet.  Of course it will work - stop nay-saying.

So, yes, I have an addiction to Nashville, and am horrified by what's happening to Scarlett.  Juliette better help her or do something soon because that girl is going down the drain as fast as Juliette is coming back up from said drain.  They're just fictional?  Yes, I know haha you're so funny.  I care about them anyway.

Also Downton Abbey, and I actually really liked the last season, although Bates worries me.  24 is coming back soon too, and I'm excited despite knowing exactly what will happen because they're all the same; if I could just watch Chole be her delightful self, the rest of them can sing disney songs for all I care.

What else...there's this new show coming out called Turn.  Anyone seen it?  Worth watching?

My other sneaky way to make doing chores better is my rosary app.  Yep, I have an app for that.  Being me, I think most of my decades are either 9 Hail Marys or 11.  Rarely 10.  With the app, the nice man-voice and lady-voice lead it, accompanied by pleasant background music, and all I need to do is meditate and say the responses (while clanking dishes/spraying starch/folding).  It's great.  I hate things like this, but I love this app.

It's called Rosary Deluxe, and here's the image in case you, like me, search apps by how they look.

I'm pretty sure it comes in Android too, for all y'all in the dark ages of non-iphones (wink).  This ensures that you can say the rosary while doing whatever it is you do, whether it be chores or wrangling ankle-biters, without losing count, forgetting what set of mysteries to do on what day, or any other trouble.  And you'll feel very proud of yourself after. Promise!

Now, if only I could find a good bible app....anyone?  I like the NAB, I think that's the one anyway; too many editions to keep straight.

So, what are your chore-time activities that rescue YOU from the lap of eternal boredom?  Do tell!  We could all use a few more excuses to waste time.