Marshmallow Madness

I've gotten a little weird about marshmallows lately.

I think I need to open a shop or something. I'm coming up with all sorts of wild and crazy flavors. I didn't even know I liked marshmallows, not really. I mean, a S'mores now and then is tasty enough, but mostly I like the roasting part, and then I feed it to a ravenous wolf child. I remember making homemade ones once as a wolf child, and although they were good, they were super sticky and more like marshmallow fluff. 

So, I'm going to share with you the basic recipe, because I love ya, and it's really a sort of sacrifice on my part, because now you'll know how easy they are and you won't be impressed with me any longer.
Sigh.

Now, a basic marshmallow recipe is more or less the same wherever you go on the web, and so please forgive me if I don't site the original source, because who the dickens knows who the original source is anymore? But to be totally fair, this particular recipe came from the bakers at Baking Bites. So, stop by and say hello!

Also, I still don't own a camera (someday, some rich blog reader is gonna feel sorry for me and mail me one anonymously. I just know it.) so you'll have to use your imagination in parts, and bear with my google pictures. 

So, here goes, moppets:

Homemade Marshmallows

                       .75-oz unflavored gelatin (3 envelopes of Knox gelatin)

1/2 cup cold water
2 cups granulated sugar
2/3 cups light corn syrup
1/4 cup water
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Line 9 x 9-inch pan with plastic wrap and lightly oil it. Set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, sprinkle gelatin over 1/2 cup cold water. Soak for about 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, combine sugar, corn syrup and 1/4 cup water in a small saucepan. Bring the mixture to a rapid boil and boil hard for 1 minute.
Pour the boiling syrup into soaked gelatin and turn on the mixer, using the whisk attachment, to high speed. Add the salt and beat for 12 minutes. After 12 minutes, add in the vanilla extract beat to incorporate. Here's where you have fun adding in your wild mix-ins.
Scrape marshmallow into the prepared pan and spread evenly (Lightly greasing your hands and the spatula helps a lot here). Take another piece of lightly oiled plastic wrap and press lightly on top of the marshmallow, creating a seal. Let mixture sit for a few hours, or overnight, until cooled and firmly set.
In a shallow dish, combine equal parts cornstarch and confectioners’ sugar. Remove marshmallow from pan and cut into equal pieces with scissors (the best tool for the job) or a chef’s knife. Dredge each piece of marshmallow in confectioners’ sugar mixture.
Store in an airtight container.

Now, a few notes on the original recipe: the mixture in your mixer is going to become very nearly, wet cement. HAVE YOUR GREASED SPATULA AND GREASED HANDS READY. I'm not kidding. The first time I did not, and well, I nearly glued myself to the counter, the whisk, the television, the computer, and the dog. My hair was glued to my cheek, my hand was glued to my nose, and I nearly burst a gut laughing at myself. So, be prepared. Don't say I didn't warn you. 

Mix-ins I have tried thus far:

candied ginger (I snipped tiny pieces and laid them in the bottom of the dish, added in the marshmallow, and snipped some more on top. Pressed em in a bit and voila!) and powdered ginger.  DELICIOUS! And sophisticated. I mean nothing says sophisticated like Ginger Marshmallows, am I right? You know I am.

Peppermint. Have a small wolf child crush some peppermint sticks or candy canes in a ziplock bag with a heavy pan or rolling pin. He will enjoy this immensely and you will have smooshed-to-smithereens peppermints. Stir in (and when I say stir, I use the term loosely. Remember you are working with wet cement). Add a swirl of red food coloring.

This is Peppermint Patty, not a peppermint stick. Don't crush her in a ziplock, please.

Snickerdoodle. Dump in a BUNCH of cinnamon and up the vanilla. I'm not kidding you - these are out of this world. 

Other flavors I'm itching to try:

Lavender. Add in some lavender and some purple food coloring? I don't typically like lavender in my food, but I think this would be nice.

Salted caramel.  These are definitely next on my list.

Browned butter and sage.

Maple.

Rootbeer.

Mocha or coffee.

Brown sugar.

Lemon (with zest! Mmmm. I love lemon zest!)

Chai tea.

Got some crazy flavors for me? Wanna be my partner in my marshmallow making business? 

The Nutty Bird

When I was a pre-teen, my grandparents on my mummy's side, Rod and Joyce (you can seem him on this post ) owned a frozen yogurt and sandwich shop in Pendleton, Oregon. 

My sister and I worked there one summer (or two, I don't remember, but my grandparents were gypsies and never stayed in place for longer than a year, so I doubt they owned it that long). I have a couple funny memories of that place, the first being that Pendleton has a large Native American population and one gentleman in particular used to come in frequently. He always wanted the chili and he would walk in, cross his arms, and bellow,

"CHILI BEAN!" in this terrifying, deep voice.

Not "chili beans," in the plural form, just 

"CHILI BEAN!"

He was the largest man I had ever seen, and though he didn't dress in native garb completely (I seem to remember a cowboy hat, wranglers, and a more authentic looking Indian type jacket), he was very unmistakably Native American, and let me tell you, rather frightening.

He also would let out a massive fart before he left.
Also, rather frightening.

Anyway, my other fondest memory was of a sandwich they invented.

It was called The Nutty Bird.

Ruebens? Love 'em.
Turkey, cream cheese and cranberry? Delish.
Ham and swiss? Tasty.
Subway Italian Trio with all the veg, hold the cheese, extra banana peppers and salt and pepper? Yum.
But The Nutty Bird? The one and only? Divine. Heaven in a pita. Yes, ma'am.

Make one. 
You'll thank me later.

The Nutty Bird

Layer in one pita:
sliced turkey
cream cheese
avocado
tomato
sprouts! (Sprouts are underutilized and deserve an exclamation point). Also, you can have the kids grow them in a mason jar and call it skool.

Drizzle with Thousand Island dressing, your favorite brand or homemade.

Sprinkle with sunflower seeds. Lots of 'em.

Devour.

Along with the scent of Jafra cosmetics, this is a favorite Gramma Joyce legacy. 

Homemade Thousand Island

3/4 cup mayo, or half mayo and half sour cream
1/4 cup chili sauce or ketchup
1 tablespoon dill relish (use sweet if you want, just don't ever come back here. We are no longer friends)
1 teaspoon lemon juice
salt and freshly ground pepper

my favorite household product

101 Uses for Baking Soda (-86 )


1. Facial scrub. Great for blackheads. Mix with orange juice for some extra vitamin C.


2. Instead of shampoo. 


3. Deodorize your wooden cutting boards. Sprinkle on, and use a wet sponge or cloth (sponges gross me out personally). 


4. Sprinkle on carpet or mattresses before vacuuming. 


5. A counter top scrub.


6. Dip your wet toothbrush in it for a natural tooth cleaner. Mix with peroxide for some extra oomph.


7.  Soak your feet in hot water and 1/2 cup baking soda. Then use a little more as a scrub. Swirl a little olive oil in there and you'll have exfoliated, soft toes.


8. Boost your laundry soap by adding 1/2 cup to your washer.


9. Sprinkle in your teenager's stinky shoes.


10.  Add a good amount to your batch of hard boiled eggs in the water. This is an amazing trick that totally works. The shells slip right off and you won't have dimpled, dented eggs that are only good for egg salad.


11. Deodorize your drains. 


12. Clean your microwave with it.


13. Keep an open box in your fridge for getting rid of last night's Kung Pao Shrimp leftovers. 


14.  Take a box camping. It's your toothpaste, hand scrub, pot scrub, all in one.


All for $1 a box. Go nuts, and buy three.

Homemade Coffee House Drinks

If you're like me, you're too cheap to buy Starbucks or Moxie or Dutch Bros or whatever your poison is, very often.  Sometimes I splurge but since I used to work in a coffee house and drank my lifetime supply of mochas in three short years and also because my dream cup of coffee of choice is just plain ol' French Roast, I typically make my own at home.

Here are a couple recipes the girls and I came up with.  Anna prefers tea so if you do as well, simply substitute your favorite bag accordingly.  Or leave out the caffeine altogether and have yourself a steamer!

Start with this:

I got mine at Fred Meyer's for about $4.  You only need a teaspoon per cup.

And add it to some hot milk.  You can microwave but somehow it tastes better if you whisk it in a pot on the stove.

Use whatever percentage of milk that floats your boat.  But the creamier the better!

Gingerbread Latte:

Add to your hot mess a spoonful of molasses, an equal amount of brown sugar, and top with cinnamon and ginger.

Tastes like you spent $4, plus you get to sip out of your favorite mug at home, while reading a book or knitting or watching Worst Cooks in America.

White Chocolate Mocha:

When your milk is nice and hot, toss in several (a small palmful) white chocolate chips.  Stir until they melt and add your espresso powder.  Voila!

You can also use these yummy instant coffee straw-like envelopes from Starbucks but evidently they are made from gold leaf and strands of angel's hair so you won't be able to afford them.

Pumpkin Spice Latte:

For your own Pumpkin syrup (Starbucks has no pumpkin at all in theirs...nada...zip), mix:
1/3 cup pumpkin puree
1 cup sugar, brown sugar, agave, Splenda, whatever floats your boat
1/2 t vanilla
1 cup water
dashes of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg
Boil together for about 10 minutes.

Whisk a couple spoonfuls into your hot milk (or use cream for extra decadence, Breve style) and coffee powder.

Enjoy your afternoon pick-me-up!

Pickled dog

I gave birth to a hermit.  Once upon a time, he looked like this:

Now he looks like this:

I have problems with my itty bitty baby becoming this.  Here they are in no particular order:

1.  All his laundry consists of is pajama bottoms and the occasional pair of underpants.

2.   He is eating all my groceries at an alarming rate.

3.  He may be the first homeschooler to live up to his unsocialized reputation.  I'd hate for my kid to be the one to set us homeschoolers back twenty years.



Now that his sisters are old enough to babysit, the child refuses to accompany me anywhere.  People are beginning to think I made him up.  When we force him to set his pudgy barefeet out of his abode, you'd think we'd suggested that he chew off his own eyebrows or something.

Anyway, the point of this post is not my agoraphobic son but #2 on the list above.  I just got back from grocery shopping AGAIN.  I spent $140 and I didn't even buy coffee or milks (I say milk in the plural form because of G's allergies which he's mostly beaten but he still drinks almond milk).  I didn't splurge on anything except for the Chedder and Sour Cream potato chips which actually begged me to take them home and when I refused, jumped into my cart.  It was odd, but sometimes these things happen.  I didn't want to make a scene so I bought them.  Anyhoo...I feel completely grumpy about this cost of living thing right now.

Pickles were expensive!!  Pickles!!  Rejected cucumbers!

Nasty looking questionable meat products were expensive!  I kind of think I bought dog.

I only bought one type of cheese!  Who lives like that??

I passed by the Hagan Daaz with a self control that would utterly impress you and also made me weak kneed and breathless.  But pass by I did!

I didn't buy bread.  I didn't buy wine.  I didn't buy cereal.  I didn't buy hair products or make up or yoga pants or toilet paper or jewelry or real estate.  The only non-edibles I bought were deodorant for my hubby's pits (and why Old Spice makes Original so dang impossible to find is beyond me.  Can I start a petition or something?  Who's with me?) and small paper plates and a children's cold medicine.

This will only get us through a week.  Am I spending too much?  Am I unrealistic in my wishes to spend less?  There were some organics in there, but I bought them at Grocery Outlet for a fraction of the price...

We are a family of five in case you didn't know.  The three chitlins are homeschooled, thus they spend all their time on my couch, eating.  This could be part of the dilemma.  I hate to smack food out of their mouths more than twice a day.

What do you spend?

What is your favorite cheap meal?

Either make me feel better or school me in how to save money!  That was not a request.  Seriously.  Comment.  Or I will find you.  Right at dinner time.

I like steak.

post christmas

So how was it, my little elves?  How was your Christmas (Christmases? Christmasis? Christmas'? Whatever.  I'm going on my fourth week of eating nothing but sugar, fat, sugary fats, fatty sugars, and the occasional slab of meat.  Don't judge.  Also, in my quest to have cute bohemian type hair (drat you, pinterest) I've been wearing a purple plaid headband all day to go with my disheveled ponytail and I'm pretty sure I've cut off the blood flow to my brain.  We have blood in our brains, right? I mean, ideally we do, right?  Again, whatever.)  Where was I before my addiction to parenthesis took over?


Christmas.


It came.  And now it's gone.  And I'm left with that terrible let down feeling that only comes once a year and can only be relieved by a steady diet of pie.  It starts earlier every year.  The let down feeling, not the pie.  Well, sometimes the pie.  This year my sadness at Christmas being over began the second I woke up on Christmas Day. Which seems a little premature.  


It was a lovely day, but it's always the anticipation of the lovely day that is the loveliest for me.  The Jolly Old Elf, as usual, bit me in the tush.  Gianni was determined to receive a particular Lego brand fire truck with dalmation.  He wanted this more than life itself, more than a cup of sugar, more than a day in his underpants, more than world domination.  I tried to talk him out of it but that always makes me feel like the scene in Miracle on 34th Street when Kris is so appalled at the thought of gently urging children to request certain toys that he clangs Mr Nail Biter Mustache Guy on the head with his cane.  Well, he had other reasons, but that was certainly one of them.  Anyhoo, I planted many a sub-conscience thought in my Pooky's head that maybe he'd like something better, something less expensive, something more practical, something like play dough or a glow stick, but no dice.  The Pooky is very one-track-minded, which is evidenced by the squillion rounds of Monopoly Deal he forces me to play each and every day.  He wouldn't be talked out of it and so I haunted several toy aisles in several stores looking for the magical dalmation/fire truck Lego set and finally found it at Toys R Us.  Me being me, of course, I left without buying it, thinking cheerfully to myself that I would drop by in a day or two if I hadn't talked him into play dough and buy it then.  Of course when I dropped back by two days later (a scant one and one half day before Christmas) they were sold out of Over Priced Lego Dalmation Fire Trucks.  Naturally.  My honey bunny being the dear that he is, managed to buy it on the Site-to-Store Walmart thingamabob.  All I had to do was go pick it up.  One and one half days before Christmas.  I don't like Walmart one and one half days before St Patrick's Day, much less that close to Christmas, but I figured my procrastination served me right and I fully deserved to be pepper sprayed, trampled, and maced by people in their pajamas and sports bras.  


Oddly enough, none of that happened and the purchase was a success.


Christmas morning arrived and Pooky eyed the gift with a ponderous look on his face.


That's the wrong one, says Pooky.


He was quite enthralled and delighted with the bag of Cheetos in his stocking though.  


Oh, I haven't shared a recipe with you recently, so here's a good one I just discovered.


1 cup scalded milk, cooled to bath temp 
1 stick butter 
sprinkle with yeast
add: 3/4 honey, a tablespoon salt, 2 eggs
Add 4-5 cups flour


Let rise.  Shape into beautiful rolls.  Let rise.  Drizzle with butter.  Turn on oven 375.


Leave house to go see a movie.


Come home to Homemade Coal for your stockings.  They'll be black and hard as rocks.


This may seem like a lot of work and expense for lumps of coal, but nothing says Christmas like homemade.


Maybe it's the headband.  Maybe it's the toy shopping.  Maybe it's the sugary fats.  But I seem to lose brain cells this time of year.  You?

salad cake, hold the Ranch

My mommy-in-law has an enviable figure that she keeps svelte, you see, due to a mad, crazy, frenzied love affair with salad.  She loves salad the way some people love their gambling habits, spouses, or Tim McGraw.

Aw, Tim. Why don't you love me back? Why?

Anyway, she isn't a big fan of sugar or fat, or fatty sugars, so we baked her a birthday cake and disguised it as salad.

Sorry about the fuzzy photo...setting was wrong.  Either that or I should have licked the frosting off the lens better.

Here.  This one is shinier.

Like the croutons?  They're cake.  I dazzle myself with my creativity sometimes.

Okay, I saw the idea somewhere else.

The veggies are marzipan, which taste better than fondant.  Plus, I couldn't find fondant and the lady at Fred Meyer kept trying to tell me how to make fondue.

So, there you go:  diet cake, light on the sugar and heavy on the veg.
Not really.  But it goes better with coffee and fuzzy socks than cuddling up with a tossed salad.

Home made Cheezits

Well, these are so good I've pretty much decided that in order to have them everyday of my life, I will beg, borrow, steal, kill, pillage, destroy, maim, etc.   They're that good.  And because I think the world needs more cheesy crackers I am sharing them with you.

Not the actual crackers.  That would involve me sharing.

But the recipe.

Normally, I'd give credit where credit is due, but pretty much every recipe that came up on my midnight google search of "give me homemade Cheezits and no one gets hurt" are all the same.  So I don't know who originally came up with the whole thing, but I would kiss his boots if ever he came to call.

Here you go.  Make em.  You won't be sorry.  You may be fatter, but oh well.  Such is the price we pay for fatty, crisp, bite sized wonderfulness.

Homemade Cheezits Worth Dying For


Pulse in a food processor:
1 cup flour
4 tablespoon cold cut up butter
8 oz grated cheese (sharp is best.  However, I used Colby and have no regrets.  Except for the inhaling and forgetting to chew part.)
3/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper


If you don't have a food processor, like yours truly, just use a mixer. Works fine.  Drizzle in cold water until it forms a ball.  Wrap ball in plastic wrap and freeze for 30 minutes.
Roll out between two sheets of wax paper or plastic wrap as thin as you can.  They're good pudgy and soft in the middle (like me) but they're even better super crispy, so thin is the goal (isn't it always? Sigh).  Cut out using one of your four zombie avenger pizza cutters.  Squares are classic but it's really the season for wreaths and trees and snowmen.  Sprinkle with salt.  Bake at 350 for 25 minutes.  Let em finish crisping for a few minutes before you take them off the sheet and snarf them with abandon. 

I'm A Veterinarian Cuz I Don't Eat Meat

"There's no food in your food."  - Joan Cusack in Say Anything.


"I think this horse has turned..." - O Brother, Where Art Thou?


This post is brought to you by Food, Inc, FoodMatters, The Omnivore's Dilemma, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, several other books/magazines/documentaries, and my own conscience. Any resemblance to your eating habits is entirely coincidental. 


First of all, yes, this will be a slightly serious blog (scramble to get out now if you must, Chicken BobBabyPants) and no, I am not giving up meat and going vegan.  Although if the payoff is to have Shania Twain's rocking abs, then I may reconsider.


But I am going to try to change the way I eat and shop and cook and I need you guys, my little sweetie muckins, to keep me accountable and maybe even join me in my journey.


I don't mind eating meat.  I'm an animal lover as much as the next gal; I have my doggy, Mr. Milo Farts-A-Lot, and I've had horses and chickens and kitty cats, but I'm not hypocritical about killing and butchering and eating Bessie the bovine.  I love all meats really; besides the boring ol' chicken breast I've had goat, bear, bison, alligator, lamb, octopus, and I don't really turn up my nose at anything someone feels like cooking for me.  After all, I don't understand why us white bred (or is it bread? haha!) Americans will snarf down a hamburger or a chicken nugget but make gagging sounds over other animals.  Have you ever looked into a big old cow's brown eyes?  They're stinking adorable.  Chickens are snuggly little fuzzy cuties.  If you can eat that you have no business getting all appalled at munching on some lamb chops.  But that's not my point.  Where was I?  I have no idea.  Right.  


Meat.  


After living the last year in a group home where we ate only meat people gave us or the food bank sold us I have been more diligent than ever to get that @#$#%^ out of our system now.  We were eating frozen chicken that didn't come with labels.  Just huge unmarked fowls from some nameless factory.  Rolls of ground beef (or horse, who the heck knew).  Anyway, it gave me the creeps to eat it but eat it we did.  You put enough Rooster sauce on something and it's gonna be tasty.


Now that we're back to being able to shop the way I want, I still haven't made that leap to buying organic meat.  It's so unbelievably expensive!  No, wait.  It's not.  It's just that compared to the mass produced nastiness you can buy for a couple greenbacks a pound, it's expensive.  But have we really sunk so low, folks, that we would buy steak at the Dollar Tree?  


I'm not kidding.  They had it last week.


After learning that our chicken we buy is soaked in chlorine to get the bacteria to die and the beef is treated with ammonia for the same reason, I'm not sure I want to eat it again.  There's so much feces in our meat that I'd like to quit thinking about it now.  I mean, I'm a mom; I've dealt with poop on epic levels.  But I draw the line at eating it.  You do know that you have to cook meat to certain temperatures not because it's dangerous to eat the meat itself under cooked, but because you need to kill off all that lovely poop so you can eat it and not get sick.


I knew about soybeans and corn and GMOs.  I knew about organic dairy and I've been buying that for years.  I knew about free range chickens and I much prefer handing over my wrinkly dollars bills to a neighbor down the road for eggs.  But I've buried my head in the sand, so to speak, about the meat.


Now I'm not really talking about going vegetarian.  I love a medium rare steak.  I love chicken.  A meal without meat feels incomplete.  But I certainly can't afford to feed it to my family of five seven days a week.


So what Mike and I are proposing to the girls is to be meat free four days a week.  And on the three where we can have it, it'll be the good stuff.  This will be harder for them at lunch because I'm going to stop buying nuggets and fish sticks, which is their lunchtime staple food.  What about lunch meat?  I'm gonna assume that mechanically separated animal parts smooshed back together probably isn't super natural.  Who knows how many different turkeys are smashed into one paper thin slice?  We can't have peanut butter remember, due to G's allergies.  No one cares for the almond stuff.  There may be a lot of grilled cheese sandwiches in the Williams' future.  Ideas, please?


Is it really so bad?  Well, you could ask the workers who work at these plants (only 13 in the nation and they control the whole industry.  Fifty years ago there were thousands.  Isn't that weird?  How powerful are they?) but most are illegal and aren't going to talk to you. 


Sometimes I think that a hundred years from now, scientists are really going to shake their goatee-d heads and mutter about our stupidity.  Why are we questioning the onslaught of cancers and autism and ADD and diabetes and all of these maladies that are so on the rise, it's disgusting?  I can picture them saying as they nibble on a real tomato and not the kind that's been unnaturally ripened with methane gasses, "can't believe our ancestors couldn't figure out they were killing themselves...raising money for cures while they consumed huge quantities of pesticides, bleaches, GMOs, antibiotics...what a bunch of morons..."


Am I overreacting?  What do you think?  Does Tyson deserve our respect as long as their chickens are pumped full of so much food their legs can't support them and they've never seen daylight?  I have a soft spot for chickies...my sister had a brood as a kid and they all had names.  She also had a chicken hat that she wore in public just to humiliate me but that's another story for another day.


So what do you think?  Should Mike take up hunting?  Is organic milk not enough, should we go to raw?  Can we do this pseudo vegetarianism?  Will I lose weight?  Will I become an annoying person who refuses to eat at other people's houses and has weird restrictions that really make everyone want to smack me?  Will I have to wear patterned tights and put my four year old in a sling and only shop at fair trade markets?  Will I have to brew my own beer and go to story time and march in protests?  Will I start looking at clothing tags next?  I don't look good in patterned tights and Birkenstocks...  Will I start hanging out with the recyclers?  Cuz I stink at recycling and I think they'll vote me off the island eventually.  I have zero desire to own an electric car.  Can a liberal eater still vote Republican?   


Who's with me?


Criminy, I really want a flippin' hamburger now.   Get it?  Flippin' burgers??  HAHAHA!

Birthday Cake

This week it's Birthday Week here at my house.  The two men in my life, my two main squeezes, the two guys who really float my boat, have turned 4 and not-4, respectively.

So, as I am forced to play Monopoly Deal for the eleventy-seventh time today, I am typing one handedly a recipe for you.  You, my little sweets.  Here you go:


Chocolate Fudge Cake with Edible Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Instead-of-Frosting Frosting


Mix in bowl:

1 2/3 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
2/3 cocoa (baking, not instant hot chocolate, silly pickle)
1 1/2 teaspoons soda (baking, not ginger ale, dingaling)
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups buttermilk (or milk with a splash of lemon juice in it to make it lumpy and nasty)
1/2 cup shortening
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla

Ask your four year old to turn on the mixer.  Tell him to turn it on ONE.  He will turn it immediately on the highest setting.  Change your clothes and comb cocoa powder out of your hair.  Have the dog lick up the batter that splatters on the floor.  Threaten small child.  When mixed, bake at 350 40 minutes, or if your oven is like my oven and likes to compete in the Indy 500 of ovens, 30 minutes.

Cool.

Spread with:

 Edible Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough:

Cream together 2 sticks of butter with 1 cup sugar and 1/2 cup brown sugar
Add 1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon each soda and salt
2 1/2 cups flour
2 cups chocolate chips

I personally think cookie dough is kinda foul, but most people find it a guilty pleasure.  I find a large bar of Lindt Dark Chocolate with Sea Salt in my purse more of a guilty pleasure, or sipping a glass of Merlot while watching  Parenthood on my DVR a guilty pleasure, but to each his own.  Needless to say, a cake spread with cookie dough will make your little kids eyeballs pop out with delight.  Stick a candle on it and you're done.

Happy birthday, my little crumb cakes!

This recipe was linked up at http://www.littlehouseliving.com/2011/11/old-fashioned-recipe-exchange-11-1.html which is a very sweet little website.

Paint, Unicorns, and Drowned Ancestors

I own three cameras (not counting my phone) but I can't make any of them work.  One had its batteries fried inside it (they sorta 'sploded), one is brand spanking new but either its a lemon or the only AAA batteries I can find are dead as a doornail, and the other is the camcorder which also takes still pictures but it needs to be charged and I don't which one of our 3354839.34i87 cords and wires and plug in thingies will do the trick.


So, I can't put up photos of our cute house.  But that's okay because most certainly there'd be a two foot high gremlin with his fingers up his nostrils stealing the camera anyway.


I'm not much of a decorator.  Some women (you know who you are) are really amazing at knowing what to buy, what not to buy, where to put it, what colors to use, etc.  I'm not that woman.  And after our little stint as professional parents came to a close, we were forced to realize we don't own anything.  Here's what we had in June:


each other.


boxes of clothes.


boxes of books.


a Kitchen-aid mixer.


photos.


That's it.  Not a stick of furniture or a wooden spoon with which to stir the spaghetti sauce which is fine actually, because you can't make spaghetti without a pot.


So, little by little, we've managed to get the bare necessities: a sectional couch that looks like everyone else's brown sectional couch except ours is stuffed with spike balls, a free kitchen table with four chairs (count the people in our family and you may see the problem, but hey, the kids have small tushies and can share), a bunk bed, a mattress set, some Goodwill dishes, and an embarrassing number of pizza cutters and ice cream scoops.  Why?  I don't know.  Evidently every time I was in a thrift shop the past three months, I had a panic attack that we would someday have pizza and/or ice cream and have nothing with which to slice/scoop.  So, if the world indeed ends in 2012 like John Cusack said it would, I will at least have my pizza cutters and ice cream scoops.  Cuz there might be zombies or something.  I don't know if there will be, but it's only logical.  I can slice em up and then scoop out their brains.


Anyway, I was supposed to be walking you through our house.  So, back to the decorating.  The only successful thing I've done with decorating is my collection of black and white photos.  It's our Family Wall and it's come with us no matter where we've gone.  I think that sentence is grammatically WRONG, but you get my drift.  Everyone is our relative, some we knew personally, some are much too far gone for us to have known.  One is of Mike's aunt who is standing in front of the projects of NY city where she grew up: a pretty Italian girl with her black hair blowing in the breeze and wearing gloves and a scarf that look fashionable now but were probably all she owned to keep the cold out.  Another favorite is my great, great, great Grandma (totally guessing the number of greats there) Loretta, who rumor has it, died after being baptized in the Columbia River in 1877.  I'd love to know if this family legend has any truth to it and Cora and I plan on doing some genealogy this school year.  Also on the wall: my dad as a chubby toddler, both of my grandpas in their military uniforms, my grandpa as a baby in the arms of his mom who looked like a totally rockin' '20s flapper, my mom and my mom-in-law as curly haired little girls, and plenty of my own kids in black and white. 


We also bought: a hutch that doubles as a tv stand for our wee little tv, and several dressers.  You remember the craigslist dresser, right?  So, being me, I of course had to take as many shortcuts as possible with this thing, in terms of making it presentable.  It is beautiful wood with scalloped edges and just lovely, but some dingbat had painted it diarrhea brown.  No problem, says I, we'll buy the cheapest white paint on the market and that'll be that.  Well, I thought I bought the "paint and primer in one" deal, but I did not, and the diarrhea turned the weirdest shade of pepto bismol pink.  A second coat did not solve this predicament. I was in a pickle.  Also, I was out of paint.  Also, I was in trouble with my mother in law for getting paint on her patio.  That reminds me, if you're reading this, honey, will you go over to your Mom's and clean that up?  Thanks, love muffin!  Anyway, at this point I was really getting annoyed with myself and had to go buy primer.  Then I had to go buy more paint.  Then I was really high on fumes and started painting unicorns and sunbeams everywhere.  Eventually I got my dresser white.  Even though it was for Anna and she was mad that I covered up the pepto pink.  Ungrateful pixie! 


So when you're me, this is how you buy a used dresser:


1.  Risk your life and almost get chopped into pieces by craigslist sellers in remote locations.  Spend $30.


2.  Paint with cheapest paint possible. I bought a small can because I actually had two dressers to paint: $10.  The other one had to be painted because it was owned by smokers.  Smokers who evidently crawled inside their dresser to do their smoking.


3.  Go back to Lowes.


4.  Buy primer. $5.


5.  Whine a little.


6.  Enjoy the fumes.  Hum a little Doors.


7.  Go back to Lowes.  $5.


8.  Finish with spray paint.


Bask in the glory that is your $30 $50 dresser.  Easy as pie!  Except I may or may not have killed a couple brain cells.  Pretty sure I wasn't using them anyway, so no loss.


Also, when you're me you don't own a pie pan and your kids clamor for chicken pot pie and so you make it in a large skillet.  And it looks totally fabulous, like something on the cover of Martha Stewart magazine, and they snarf it all up before you can take a picture.  Which you can't do anyway because of all those cameras you can't figure out.  But it was pretty.  And it was good.  And so was my homemade pumpkin spice coffee creamer.  Also, no photo.


The end.

Wine Pairings for Cheezits

Here you go, Steph:

Wine pairings for Cheezits:

Regular yellow Cheezits: a nice hardy Merlot.

Spicy Cheezits: a lovely sweet Late Harvest Riesling to combat the spice.

White Chedder Cheezits: how about a Malbec?

Reduced fat Cheezits: don't be silly.  Bud Light, I 'spect.  Ick.

Baby Swiss Cheezits: cabernet.  Actually, I don't know because if there are Baby Swiss Cheezits in the house, Cora will be snarfing them under her bed.

Italian 4 Cheese Cheezits: a nice Italian Chianti of course.  Just don't think of Hannibal Lector.  Nothing ruins a snack like Hannibal.

Asiago Cheezits:  I don't know cuz I haven't bought them yet, but I know they exist! 

Well, I'd write more but I'm pretty certain Food and Wine magazine will knocking on my door in a minute, begging me to write for them. 

Love,
your very own sommelier...somolier...sommolir...Blogging Wine Expert.

Bread

I was browsing through recipes and food blogs today, looking for a new and breathtakingly exciting way to prepare a yard bird, while my bread was baking.  I thought, hey, self!  I should share my bread recipe with YOU.  The reason this is a fun recipe is because you can add all sorts of extra things to change it up.  It's my go-to pizza crust recipe as well.  And there is nothing better in the whole wide world than homemade pizza.  Seriously.  Makes my heart go pit-a-pat.  Here's the basic idea, folks:

2 Cups of bath temp water
1 Tablespoon of yeast
Sugar and salt.  It depends on whether you're going for savory or sweet, but go for more, not less.  Example:  for a savory bread, use about 2 Tablespoons of sugar and a big tablespoon of salt.  For a sweet bread, add more sugar.  You could also use honey, even better flavor.
A nice splash of oil, or a spoon of butter or shortening.  Whatever floats your boat.

Let that sit in the mixer for a few minutes.  It will get a bit frothy.  This is good.

Then, start adding in flour.  If you are health conscience, use whole wheat.  If you are budget conscience, use white.  Or use both.  Or go nuts, and use spelt!  Or some graham!  Or some oatmeal!  Mmm, oatmeal bread.

Now comes the fun part:

Mix-ins!

It's like an ice cream shop.

Ideas:
tons of cinnamon and raisins

orange peel and o.j. and dried cranberries

nuts

chedder and jalapenos and garlic salt

apples

After kneading in enough flour to make it all come together smoothly (not dry, not sticky), cover it with the same towel you used to dry your clean hands, and stick it in a warm oven.  It will double in size after about an hour.  Plop that sucker on the floured counter and let it sit for a moment, meditating on becoming bread.  Knead.  Get out some aggression.  Shape into two loafs.  Let it rise again, but this time only for about a half hour.  This is the juncture where I sometimes go wrong.  If you let it rise too long the second time, it kinda gets deflated and hollow in places.  Turn up the warm oven (I usually have it on the lowest setting possible) to 375 and bake until all golden brown.  Don't ask me how long this takes.  I just stay nearby.

Slice and eat with butter.

Forget about dinner.  Who needs it?

The world needs more butter sandwiches.