Mother's Day Request

In order to purge the angry feelings I am currently harboring toward my insurance company that continually takes my money but doesn't cover me for any services that we actually use as a family I am going to show our most recent family pictures.  Sigh.

These pictures were taken on request from my mom who wanted vertical family pictures. She has a vision for her living room that involves all things vertical. So because she is a wonderful mother, we love her, and want to aid in her vision we rushed to ask my brother to meet us at Liberty Park and snap a few photos for Mother's Day. Thankfully, myself and Russ's family got to benefit from my mom's vision as well because I am a big fan of the way they turned out.

I really like this last one. It was just for fun and not part of the vision but I think it is what we will end up using for a family picture at our house! There I feel somewhat revived.

Surprise of the Magi

We've had a bit of stress in our home the last few weeks, and despite some Lemon Glazed Cookie redemption from my bloody chicken nightmare, Russ and I both needed a break. So last night I decided to surprise him and pick him up from work a few minutes early, take him to dinner and go up to Park City for an evening off.

 I called his dad and step-mom and got them to babysit and my plans were complete.

We had one slight hiccup however - we needed to borrow Russ's dad's truck to do some home repair moving today. No apparent problem. But Russ helpfully offered to call and work everything out with his dad. Unfortunately I didn't know whether or not his dad knew that his babysitting job was a secret from Russ. I was terrified he would mention something during the phone call. I tried to get a hold of Lee but no luck.


"Russ, let's just use my dad's truck. I think it can carry the girls. It will be easier. I'll just take care of it." Thankfully he didn't know that my parents were out of town and unable to offer a truck so the fib worked perfectly.

I drove downtown just ten minutes before Russ got off work feeling quite smug in my perfectly executed ambush when I got a phone call.

"Emily, where are you?"

"Downtown where are you?"

"Home. I got off work early and went to get a video  for us to watch tonight."

"Oh."

Needless to say Russ rushed back downtown where we had an amazing dinner at nook called Eva (Reasonably priced and FAN.TAS.TIC!) and then made it to Park City in time to realize that the art gallery was closed.  We still wandered around chatted and had a great time. Still,  I'll have to be less cunning in my deceptions next time.

A Bloody Mess

The last 24 hours are enough to make me want to give up cooking forever. Oh wait, I am responsible for feeding my family. Sigh.

Last night I had planned a lovely dinner. Garlic Rosemary Roasted Chicken with Au Jus. I started at 3:30 ( Yes 3:30!!) I brinned the chicken with 11/2 quarts of water 1/2 cup salt 10 cloves of crushed garlic and 1 sprig of fresh rosemary -- for an HOUR, yes an hour. During this hour we walked/rode out bike to the park only to turn around 5 minutes after we got there because Abbie forgot to go potty before we left. At the end of the hour the chicken was rubbed with a garlic rosemary paste under the skin, and it all went into a 450 degree oven. 

Fifteen minutes later 10 cloves of garlic were added to the pan. Fifteen minutes after that the chicken was rotated breast side up and the chicken broth was added to the pan. Thirty minutes later it was supposed to be done. Blood ran throughout the pan. I baked for 20 minutes and checked. It looked good until I cut into a thigh - more blood. Fifteen minutes later the thigh was good and I started to carve the chicken - blood burst out of the breast. One and a half hours after the chicken was supposed to be done the juices ran clear but the breast meat was dry.

What happened?!?


I don't think the chicken was too big, I had defrosted it in the fridge starting last Wednesday. Anyone please?


Then today I thought I would make my own mayo after discovering that the mayo in the fridge was completely out. I followed the recipe exactly and the mayo turned out yellow and runny. Again why? I used it because I needed something in the dinner I was making but I am worried about how it will turn out.


I had developed the clearly irrational belief that I had turned into a semi-decent cook. Now I just want to eat take out for the next ten years.

My Inner Princess

I have laid off doing too many fun hairstyles for the girls lately. Even though it is like playing with doll hair (dolls that whine, squirm, wiggle and scream) we have just had too much going on to spend time experimenting with cute new do's. This Sunday, however, I found a great hairstyle that is easy too do, looks hard, and both girls sat still for it. (Miracle!) It was fun when they were all dressed up for church. That inner princess that I had never realized was there is fighting hard to get out and make herself known. Maybe I'll become crafty in the process....doubt it.

Random Thoughts Tuesday

We've started Abbie in swimming lessons, which she is loving. Unfortunately, Savannah is not old enough to be in the lessons and has a really hard time watching her sister. Yesterday they let me sit in the pool with Savannah during the class, but the kids kept coming over to us and the teacher asked us to stop distracting the class. Sigh.

I am ready for summer.

I just finished reading My Life in France by Julia Child. I am so impressed and intimidated by her dedication to creating perfect recipes, searching out the best way to teach people to love to cook, and her zest for life. It is an okay book about an extraordinary woman.


I found a recipe for Lemon Glaze Cookies. My hope is to wait until next week to make them so I don't OD on cookies this week. I don't know if I will make it.

What are your favorite summer recipies? Maybe if I start cooking the food it will come.

I should have put Abbie in the once a week swimming class for six weeks rather than the two week, three times a week class.  Oh well.

Have you read Major Pettigrew's Last Stand?  I thoroughly enjoyed it. I widowed British major falls for the Pakistani shop-keeper (also widowed) in their small English town. Love it.

I started biking again last night. My butt hurts.

Surprise Success!!

Last night just before we were putting the girls to bed my mom called and asked if I could bring dessert to dinner the next day. I jumped at the chance to use a recipe that sounded delicious that I and seen earlier that day. Orange Marmalade Yogurt Pound Cake. Truly the name just makes you want to sit on a veranda with the sun shining down and dig in. I don't have a veranda and it was 9:30 Saturday night when it came out of the oven and I had to wait almost 20 hours to eat it - but you get my picture.

I found this recipe on Pioneer Woman. I'm sure most of you have heard of her but if you haven't, she is a SAHM/homeschooler of four children living on a ranch in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma/amateur photographer/photoshoper/chef/blogger. Mostly she is just a lot of fun. She blogs about her life, kids, food and photography. While her life is different from mine in many, many, ways we like many of the same things and she writes with such a fun confident yet very self-effacing style that is enjoyable to read. I haven't made all of her recipes but the ones I have are very, very good.

Here is the link to her recipe, and yes her story that prefaces it is worth a read.

I will add three notes to her's.

1 - I didn't stick a fork in it to make sure it was done. Just confidently flipped my bread pan, only to discover I needed about 10 more minutes of cooking and had batter everywhere. We made a sufficient recovery and all ended well.

2 - She highly recommended the cooking spray with flour in it. I didn't do it (didn't have it) and wished I had.

3 - Russ ate three pieces of the cake. At one sitting. (Remember this is the man that eats one or two tops of the best chocolate chip cookies ever made and I am forced to eat the rest. ) I consider that success, even if he was slightly sick afterward.

"I love eating at home!"

We are not carnivores in our house. We do eat chicken semi-regularly. We ate red meat at my parents for Sunday dinner before my dad had a stroke and they started eating incredibly healthy. But really no red meat. There is no real rhyme or reason. Russ doesn't prefer red meat and I don't know a lot of ways to cook it so we just don't.

But this week I couldn't think of anything that sounded good and summer-y to eat except burgers. (This really needs to change as I have a lot of summer to look forward to. What do YOU like to fix in the summer?) I think I've actually made burgers once and don't have fond memories of it, which is probably why I've never looked back. But there is something so July about a nice homemade hamburger. So I turned to New Best Recipes, then to some of my own ideas and gave it a go.

When Russ got home from work he said the house smelled wonderful -- and it did. We sat down to dinner and Russ took a big bite out of his burger, which was impressive because Russ generally doesn't like any homemade burgers.

"I love eating at home."

It made my day and made up entirely for the soup incident.

Abbie also liked the dinner.

"I love burgers."

"Abbie you've only eaten the buns."

"Oh, I love buns!"


.......okay....

Now on to the burgers.

1 lb of ground chuck. 80/20% (This apparently matters. Not ground beef but ground chuck.)
1 tsp salt
1 cup grated cheese  (Interesting tidbit, if you put the cheese into rather than on the burger the burger wont dry out while waiting for the cheese to melt.)

(This is all the cook book called for but I wanted some flavor.)
1 packet Hidden Valley Ranch seasoning.

Spread meat out to create as much surface area as possible. Add salt, cheese and seasoning and then mix together in a bowl. Divide the meat into three equal portions. Roll each portion into a ball flatten ball to about 3/4" then create an impression in the middle of the patty about the size of two thumbs so the middle is about 1/2" thick. (This was a cool thing. This prevents the patty from rounding up when it cooks.) Then cook on a grill. (I speak from experience when I say don't cook on a Foreman Grill. The cheese will melt and stick to the top of the grill and break the burgers apart.)

Growing Up

(If you don't like posts where parents talk about their kids' accomplishments I respect that. However I do suggest that you skip today's post.)

My girls seem to be growing so fast and because this blog is my excuse for not putting together a scrapbook for my kids there are some milestones I want to make sure get recorded. You are welcome along for the ride.

Abbie 

Abbie has become a much more confident social kid in the last few months. She talks to random kids at the play ground, participates in primary often, and even raised her hand to randomly tell her dance teacher that she had a new leotard. (The teacher was slightly annoyed at being interrupted while I beamed that Abbie would have the guts to interrupt an adult other than myself - which she does on an hourly basis -  in the middle of a presentation.) She can draw a person with all major facial features and body parts. We took her swimming today and she ran through the spraying water, jumped off the edge of the pool (into my arms) and did not feel a need to be close to me when she could touch the bottom of the pool. This is far cry from a few months ago when she clung to my arm with a vice-like grip as soon as we entered the water. Abbie has become a very take charge older sister and is happy to hold Savannah's hand as we cross a parking lot, or help explain something new to her. Savannah eats it up. Finally, Abbie has started reading short intro-to-reading books - and most importantly loves it. She only has read the first four books and we introduce new ones gradually because the new words are a little intimidating. She is always so proud of herself when she can get through a book without having me help her with any of the words. I love seeing her confidence blossom.

Savannah

Savannah is also letting her personality be known. She talks a lot and I am always amazed at her vocabulary. The latest additions have been her playing hide and seek where she counts, "One, two, six, seven, nine, ten." and then rushes to find us. When she does she yells out, "I found you!" This is most enjoyable when I haven't actually been hiding but fixing dinner or folding laundry because she is just as excited to find me then as if I were hiding. She also is telling us to "Look at that!" or "Look at this!" with overwhelming enthusiasm. Savannah's other big personality development is her love, no wait obsession with drawing. She loves pens markers and anything else that I really don't want her drawing with and she draws little circles, random lines and scribbles just about everywhere. When this is on paper I am fine, unfortunately lately her legs have been common targets of her artistic drive. Savannah hero worships her sister. As soon as she wakes up from a nap or in the morning she wants to know where Abbie is and what she is doing. A few weeks ago I dropped Abbie off at a friend's house to play and took Savannah with me on errands and Savannah was heartbroken. While the argue a lot I am grateful that they love each other.

Orange Cranberry Cream Scones

My friend (who bought me the amazing New Best Recipes Cook Book for my birthday) has been trying to get me to make this recipe for months now. The problem is I don't usually have a lot of time in the mornings and I hate zesting. When I told her this she laughed - hard. And her derision is probably well deserved. Zesting is not that difficult doesn't take a lot of time but adds a ton of flavor. The reason I don't like zesting is that for the work that you put into it you it produces such a small amount of result. In this recipe I needed 1 tsp of zest and I had to zest an entire orange (yeah, I know like my life is so difficult.)

However the best, best part about this recipe is not the hint of orange flavor you get in every bite, or even the orange and cranberry combination (which really is divine.) It is the texture of these scones. These are not Utah deep fried scones. They are the soft biscuit/cake/pastry combination that everywhere else in the world calls scones. And this recipe makes them to DIE for good.  They are fluffy, and soft, like the most moist tender biscuit you've every had but slightly sweeter and with dried fruit. And they only take 30 minutes - including baking time. I would also add that they are special occasion scones as anything with a cup of cream and 1/2 cup of butter would dictate. But they make you want to have a special occasion every Sunday morning. I would recommend scheduling something soon as these really are great! (My friend made these for her ward breakfast/Easter Egg hunt and she said that they disappeared so fast and all the men were wandering around asking where the scones went.)

Orange Cranberry Cream Scones

2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 tablespoon salt
5 tablespoons butter cut into 1/4 inch cubes
3/4 dried cranberrys
1 tsp orange zest
1 cup heavy cream.

(You can do this all by hand but the food processor is so much faster/easier.) Put all the dry ingredients in the food processor with a metal blade and sift. Add butter, and process until it resembles course crumbs. Add cranberry and zest. Sift again. Switch to a larger bowl and cream  and mix until dough like, then knead on the counter. Roll into an 8 in circle and cut into 8 wedges and put on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 12-15 minutes at 425 until golden brown. Cook on a wire rack for at least 10 minutes.

Cousins

I few weeks ago Russ's sister Jen and her kids came up for the week to visit. It was a whirlwind trip for all of the cousins to play together and of course the only time I brought my camera was on Sunday when we went to temple square. Thankfully the weather was good and the kids cooperated amazingly well for extended family pictures.

40 Cloves of Garlic

I have had my first real Julie and Julia moment. I cooked a traditional French meal - and I cut up an entire raw chicken. (Not as cool as boning a duck but still.) For Easter we planned to have a nice meal at home with Russ's sister and thanks to an amzing sale at Winco I bought two whole chickens for $7.00. (Sale is going on through the 11th of this month.) So I thought I would try my hand at the New Best Recipes  - Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic. My brother had made this for his family and said it was pretty easy and very very good. It is traditional French comfort food so I thought hey why not?

I will tell you why not. What my brother failed to mention and I failed to notice, is when the recipe says 1 whole chicken it requires that before baking you cut up that chicken into drum sticks, thighs, and four breast pieces. This a messy and disgusting process for someone who has been gratefully sheltered in a boneless skinless world. However as I disguarded the chicken carcus into mutiple garbage bags I had a great sense of accomplishment on overcoming a massive cooking hurdle.

There are a lot of recipes available online if you dare venture into French cooking and 40 garlic cloves. Mine roasted the garlic with onions seperately first, while brining the chicken pieces. Afterward you brown the chicken and add it to  a sauce of broth, wine, rosemerry, thyme and bay leaves.  (Did you know you can only buy cooking wine in Utah at the liquor store?  LAME. Yeah. So we used apple juice as I didn't have time to make one extra trip out.) This you then put in the oven - then broil to crisp the skins. The chicken is served with the roasted garlic and onions and a gravey is made of of the sauce. Now to be honest this was an incredible meal, but not as amazing as I had expected with all of the hype I had read and seen about this dish. I would say it is a really good chicken dish. If you like/serve chicken a lot I would say try it otherwise don't stress it.

The other new dish I tried was a new mashed potato recipe. They were honestly the BEST mashed potatoes I have ever had. Now I know this isn't the healthiest recipe -but we don't eat mashed potatoes a lot so it is fine to make them a little yummier - Right?

2 lbs potatoes
1 cup half and half
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 tsp salt

Boil potatoes. Mash or mix in all of the ingredients into the potatoes. Enjoy!!!

Easy Summer Meal

In the summer I like my meals easy, fast, and light. The window in my kitchen faces west and from about 3:00 on the room gets really warm anyway without ovens heating, pots boiling, and food sauteing. So despite the fact that IT IS SNOWING OUTSIDE I wanted to bulk up on my summer meals, and fast meals are nice any time of the year. My sister-in-law Allison gave us a standby at their house when we were down in St. George that I wanted to try - Spanish Rice and Black Beans on Tostatas. Now I know my first thought when she told me about this meal ages ago. BORING! No flavor, no meat, and beans yuck. However when Allie made it for us I was completely sold so let me do my best to sell you on this delicious under 30 minute meal perfect for when you have no time or money left for dinner.

1 - Rice. Rice is easy, cheap, and at least for us is sitting in bulk in our food storage just waiting to be used. Plus my kids like it. That is a BIG plus around my house. (Tangent - Allie and I were talking about things we naively swore our kids would never do. I swore I would never have picky eaters as children. I would make them learn to love food. Dang it! I think God just likes to laugh at me sometimes.) Plus turning the rice into Spanish rice adds lots of flavor.

2 - Black Beans. When I first think refried beans I think yuck, yuck, fatty thick yuck.  However re-fried black beans honestly taste different than their pinto bean counter parts. They are definitely worth a go. Beans are also inexpensive, good for food storage and high in iron.

3 - How many of us are getting the amount of lentils we need? I thought so. Me neither. This meal can decrease any guilt you should be feeling but are choosing to ignore (Like me!) in that area. Now really this meal needs a veggie to be considered really healthy but adding a can/bag of corn is not that big of a deal. Takes a few seconds to zap in the microwave and you are done. (Yes I know corn isn't technically a veggie. Sue me.)


Sopa de Arroz (Traditional Mexican Rice)
Serve 6-8
2 Tbsp corn oil
1/2 onion minced
2 cups white rice
1 garlic clove
1 medium tomato, peeled, seeded, and chopped ( I didn't peel or seed mine and didn't notice a difference.)
4 cups chicken stock
salt and pepper to taste
pinch cumin

Heat the oil in a 12 inch skillet with a tight fitting lid over medium heat. Add the onion and saute for 2-3 minutes, then add the rice. Saute the rice until it turns opaque and the onion is translucent 5-7 minutes

Place garlic, tomato, and one cup of stock in a blender or food processor and puree well. Add the tomato puree and the rest of the stock to the rice. Season with salt and pepper; add cumin and return the pan to a simmer. Cover and simmer gently for 25 minutes. Turn off the heat, and leave the pan covered. When ready to serve, remove the lid, fluff the rice a bit with a spoon, then transfer to a covered serving dish.

Black Beans


1 can Black beans
Salsa or one can of diced green chili (optional)
Rinse beans and put in the microwave for 3-4 minutes. Then put beans and 1/2 cup of salsa or diced green chili's in a food processor and process until smooth.


Assembly

Spread the bean mixture on a tostata. Put the rice either on the beans or next to them. Add cheese, sour cream, and salsa. Serve.

Super, super easy and even my kids loved it!