Mother’s Day continued…

For reasons unbeknownst to me, I can’t seem to save pictures right now so you’ll have to do with a link.  THIS arrived today!  I’m over the moon.

Once upon a time I ambitiously said I wanted to knit an aran sweater, possibly even a matching set for Haus Meister and myself.  Never mind that I don’t even know how to knit a cable yet; I’m an incurable optimist!  Well, these magazines have an aran sweater for a man and woman designed in homage to the hero and heroine of Persuasion, and it is definitely the type of sweater I would have chosen to make.  Oh my.

Foiled again!

We’d heard a little bird tweet that our favorite farm stand would be selling strawberries today.  I packed the kids into the van and hoped to be there by 10:45am, 45 minutes after I thought they’d open but still morning nonetheless.  Last year I kept trying in the afternoon, and they’d always be sold out by then.  Yet today, as we pulled up in front of the stand, the only thing we could see was a large yellow closed sign.

They had opened at 9am, and were sold out within 90 minutes of opening.

Fortunately the morning was not entirely wasted and Rascal had fun rattling off school facts in the van.

Still, I’m going to have to be up there before 9 next time the news goes out.  Homemade strawberry preserves are one of the things that makes our world go ’round, ’round here.

Ending Sneaky Chef Week

We did manage to continue Sneaky Chef week through last Saturday.  I have to say the Sneaky Chocolate Breakfast Ice Cream was the HIT of the week.  It’s plain yogurt doctored up with cocoa and frozen bananas and even avocado (food processors come in handy here).  Trooper would see it as the ultimate adulteration of his favorite treat (plain “yo”) and Princess didn’t see the point in pureeing her “Abocados” as she likes the stuff.  So in the end the Breakfast ice cream wins because it looks like chocolate pudding and the kids licked the platter clean as it were…. and I could eat an avocado without gagging.

Sneaky Sliders and Steak Fries (oven baked) were on the menu one night–the fries being from an online source.  The sliders were ok…I doubled the recipe to accomodate our family and accidentally added too much ketchup, upon which event I decided to call them Mini Meatloaf burgers.  The kids ate these as well–and they had the Green puree mixed in (broccoli, peas, spinach).

The pizza wraps were good as well, although if I’d thought ahead a little more I would have had something else in them (topping wise).  As it was I added the sneaky Orange puree to the pizza sauce, put cheese on it and rolled it into a tortilla.  As my kids love tortillas, this was not a problem.

All in all, not a bad trial week.  I’m going to continue to use some of those breakfast recipes–the breakfast ice creams will be wonderful in the hot summer days ahead–and the puree ideas are good starters for Miss M’s baby food.  In the meantime I might just pick up the book Jill’s been reading.  It looks intriguing as well….

Sneaky Chef Week Days 2-3

My week of attempting to use my Sneaky Chef cookbooks continues.  I admit I was most interested in trying out the breakfast items in her book, as I’m generally stuck in a rut with breakfasts.  We don’t usually eat breakfast cereal to keep the milk consumption steady at six gallons a week (!), and although in the winter we often eat oatmeal, in the long summer we don’t really feel like having the “warm hug in the tummy.”  So on Monday I made SC’s “Strawberry Vanilla Breakfast Cookies” (secret ingredient: strawberry puree) and yesterday morning I tried Cocoa Chocolate-Chip Pancakes (secret ingredients: Purple puree, or spinach and blueberries mixed. Evil mind trick moment.).

The cookies met with mixed reviews.  Overall pretty good, but as they were supposed to be like chewy granola, we want to try it again with a little honey.  The pancakes were very highly received.  I made a double batch and the kiddos snacked on them throughout the day.  And no, you couldn’t see or taste the spinach.  Yum!

And now for the other meals.

This macaroni and cheese is the base for a lot of puree trying.  Trooper eats this seven days a week, so there’s a lot of scope for trial here.  Would you guess that in the above pictured bowl rests not only macaroni & cheese but sweet potatoes, carrots, cauliflower and zucchini?

And what Trooper didn’t eat, the Tyrannosaurus did.  I wasn’t expecting that development.

The Orange Puree was a hit with the littlest member of the family as well, so three cheers for the Sneaky Chef!

Paint pots and Princesses

Now that winter seems to have ultimately passed on (my dogwood is blooming!), Haus Meister and I have begun the Master List of things we’d like to accomplish this season through the summer.  While we’re trying not to be ambitious about gardening (a very hard to keep resolution), we’re hoping to get more things done inside the house to continue to make it more fully our home.  While our thoughts tended more toward tearing up the white carpet upstairs, the resident Princess added another project to the mix.

“I need a pink room,” she announced.

Painting the girls’ room was a priority as 1) Sunshine had liberally drawn on a wall or three in pencil and 2) the previous owners had covered everything in a gray-beige color.  Trim, closets, walls, you’ve got it.  So as the menfolk browsed the flooring samples, we ladies hit the paint swatches.  Out of sixteen we narrowed the choices to three.

Ballet Slipper

Pink Taffy

Fairytale Pink

Last night I began to put up the sample of the Fairytale Pink, and got so paint-happy covering up all those pencil marks that I used the whole sample jar!  Princess was so excited she danced and twirled and jumped all over the bed.  Haus Meister, upon coming home from Scouts with Rascal and tagalong Dino, merely smiled and said to me through clenched teeth: “It’s very….pink.”

And yes…um…it is.

Meanwhile a debate raged in the boys’ room.  If the girls get a new color, the boys want one, too (although their room was a nice cream).  Rascal wants dark blue for a “Scout Room.”  Dino insists upon “John Deere Green.”

And so it begins.

Have you been slimed?

Today I stopped by the farmer’s market to pick up some pork sausage (best EVER) and ground beef from our local farmer.

“Well, ma’am,” he says, “I’m all out of ground beef.  First time since I’ve been in business!”

As I exclaimed my disbelief he continued that a news program has (unbeknownst to him) been out saying that “pink slime” or beef by-products has been added to  lot of supermarket beef.  To avoid eating this stuff, the report urged people to buy from local grass-fed beef retailers.

“I’ve been cleaned out just this week,” he added.  ”They came by my place and they’ve come here.  I just thought lots of folks was eating soups or chili this week!”

And the prognosis for my next batch of chili?

“I’ve got one going to processing on Thursday, so it’ll be three Saturdays before I’m stocked again!”

That’s if the locals don’t get to his farm first!

“Pink Slime in your Beef?”

There is a tide….

This morning our intrepid swimmers headed out for their second-to-last meet of the season (they did well, by the way, and even finished second in a relay race–against one other team ).  As soon as they were gone, I went to nab a quick shower before beginning my morning.  Going toward my bathroom, I heard an unusual sound.

What is that? I wondered.  Halfway through my shower, it hit me.  Running water.  Silly kids; they probably turned on the dishwasher (occasionally one of them plays with the dial). No matter, it needed it anyway.  I’ll shut it off and add detergent when I’m done.

Accordingly, as soon as I was dressed I walked back to the kitchen to attend to the dishwasher.  I passed the open basement door on my way, and realized to my horror that the sound was coming from there.  That was why it sounded so unusual!  I raced down the stairs as fast as I could in my present condition and lo and behold–water standing on our carpet.  Oh no.  No no no.  Gingerly I stepped off the stairs and tiptoed to the laundry room, unlocking the door.  There was at least 2″ of water on the linoleum.  Turns out a hose connection from the wall to the toilet had broken, spraying water all over…everything.  I turned off the water at the wall and luckily that was all that was needed to stop the flow.  I made sure nothing had gotten into the spare room (it had not gone further than the doorway), but the closet beneath the stairs was going to need to be cleaned out.  So I ran upstairs and blocked off the basement door until Haus Meister returned for damage inspection.

The kids got a trip to the hardware store so we could get a better shopvac and rent a Rug Doctor.

Meanwhile, the thought recurring in my mind was: If part of the basement *had* to flood, why couldn’t it have been the more stained part of the carpet? 

Cherry Jubilee

Today Whole Foods was offering a one-day only sale on organic cherries.  Rarely had I seen the price per pound so low–even in the regular grocers.  So my sister-in-law and I packed up the van.  Two women and seven children.  22lbs of cherries came home with us.  I’m the one who bought by the case.  Two bags were set aside for the kids (and the rest of us) to consume in the next day or so.  Three pitted and halved cups of cherries were set aside for “Summer Solstice Preserves” which also includes blueberries, and another seven-and-a-half cups of unpitted cherries were bagged up for the Brandied Cherries I always promised Haus Meister I’d make if ever cherries went on sale.  The rest went into the freezer until I’d have time to make jars of homemade cherry pie filling.

I love this part of the season.

{pretty, happy, funny, real}

Capturing Contentment in the Everyday…

Pretty

Flower pictures!  The peonies came from a bush planted by previous owners, but the hydrangeas were our addition.  An early Mother’s Day present from the kids.  :)

Happy

“Babies” being taken for a ride in an interesting homemade pram.

Funny

The rug, the flower, and the duck all attacked, and each were vanquished.

Real

The first strawberry preserves of the season.

Get a good look at them now, for this supply will probably not last a week.  That’s where the “real” comes in.

A momentous occasion

After it became evident that Dinosaur’s obsession with John Deere was not a week-long phase, and after we bought the DVDs and the shirts and purposely planned a stop during our vacation last summer to visit the John Deere Pavillion in Moline, IL, Haus Meister and I joked that the time had come to actually own a John Deere Something or Other to justify the brand loyalty our family seemingly promoted (well, ok, that Dinosaur unabashedly promotes with our amused blessing).

Today it happened.

Our First John Deere

Those two could hardly wait for their Daddy to unload the precious cargo.  Dinosaur began to jump and hardly let his feet stay on the ground for ten minutes, giggling maniacally nearly the entire time–pausing only to tell me that we had a “Jawn DEERE” in our driveway.  Since the unpacking, the new walk-behind mower was taken for a test run by Haus Meister, who mowed the front lawn while his pit crew cheered him on from the front porch.  Special trips have been taken to the garage to “just look at the new lawnmower, Mommy!”  You’d think they’d never seen one before.  Rascal looked at these pictures and sighed, “We love our new lawnmower, Mommy.  I don’t know why, but we just do.”

I am grateful that we didn’t do something rash and buy a riding lawnmower.  Those two would have passed out from sheer joy.