Be careful what you say, & what you ask for

So my dad sent me an e-mail today saying that they got 2-3 inches of heavy snow in Cedar, and he was worried about his vegetable garden.

I replied that we've only had rain so far, and that I haven't planted my tomatoes, peppers or beans yet, but I have lettuce and peas coming up, and rhubarb coming out my ears.

My dad, ever the punster, wrote back, "I'd like to see a picture of that."

So after school I cut some rhubarb, stuck it in my ears, and had Adam take some pictures of me.

(Like my new t-shirt? I think it's G-R-R-R-EAT! Found it on the clearance rack at Target and couldn't resist. It says "Kellogg's Frosted Flakes" in Japanese!)

He joined in the fun.

Then some of the neighbor kids joined in as well. I don't feel comfortable posting their photos without their parents' permission, but we had rhubarb princesses, a rhubarb king, and something vaguely resembling a Maori warrior. Silliness and fun!

By the way, anyone want any rhubarb? It's coming out my ears!

More gingerbread fun

Jeff brought some cookies cutters home from Berlin last spring. They are in the shape of Ampelmänner, the dinstinctive crosswalk lights that are found in the former East Germany. So we made Ampelmänner gingerbread cookies. This photo isn't great, but don't they look festive too? (We also did a few normal gingerbread men as well. :-)

Gingerbread fun

I wanted to do something fun for Christmas for my friends that I do Crossfit/lift weights with every week. I decided to play with gingerbread men, and they turned out great! Thanks to Jeff for sharing his long years of mutant gingerbread men expertise, and to Gary B. for the photo.


I have so much to do still to get ready for Christmas. I decided to devote today to finishing up the baking. I put on some Christmas music and stayed in the kitchen all day. Normally that isn't my favorite place to spend lots of time, but it was nice today. No shopping, no crowds, no stress. Just making treats for friends and neighbors. My best day so far this month!

Merry Christmas!

My New Favorite Recipe

(not my photo)

Jeff and I discovered this dish at our favorite Thai restaurant, Bangkok Grill in Orem, Utah. It took me a few tries, but I finally found a recipe that comes close to duplicating it. Some of the ingredients are a little out of the ordinary, but it's not hard to make once you've got them. We usually buy Massaman curry paste and tamarind at an Asian or international food store. It's totally worth the trouble though. Be careful--it's delicious and addictive!

MASSAMAN CURRY

1 lb. boneless skinless chicken breasts (approx. 2 breasts), cut in bite size pieces
2 13.5 oz. cans of coconut milk (I mix half lite, half regular)
3 T. massaman curry paste
1/4 c. roasted peanuts (unsalted)
1 clove of fresh garlic, chopped
2 T. fish sauce
2 T. lime juice
2 T. tamarind juice (or tamarind soup base)
2 T. brown sugar
1 t. chili garlic sauce (or more if you like it spicy hot)
1 medium onion, chopped
2 carrots, peeled and sliced
2 white yams, peeled and chopped (or 3 regular potatoes)

In a small saucepan, boil chicken in one can of coconut milk (the lite one, if you use it) for 10 min. In a wok or large frying pan, bring the other can of coconut milk to a boil and mix in the massaman curry paste. Add the chicken and milk to the frying pan. Add peanuts and garlic. Add fish sauce, lime juice, tamarind, brown sugar, and chili garlic sauce. Adjust the flavor to a balance of hot-sweet-salty-sour, by adding more of these last five ingredients. Add onion, carrots, and yams. Simmer on medium-low until vegetables are soft. Add 1/2 cup water to thin sauce if necessary. Serve over white sticky rice (short or medium grain), or jasmine rice.

Mother's Little Helper

Usually eaten in the basement, after the kids are in bed.

Happy Birthday Ryan

Ryan turned 8 years old this week. He almost always gets a boring cake decorated in Christmas colors because his mom has run out of steam to do anything else. This year I decided he deserved a little better (even if I had to stay up until 2 a.m. to finish it). He was pretty pleased with the results, as evidenced by the rare genuine smile on his face while getting his picture taken.

Recipe for Ruth (and anyone else who thinks it sounds good)

Chicken Mango Salad

Ingredients:
11 oz. canned white corn, drained
15 oz. black beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 c. chopped red and/or green pepper
1/2 avocado, chopped
1/2 med. cucumber, cubed
1 med. tomato, diced
1 mango, chopped
1 T. olive oil
4 tsp. rice wine vinegar

chicken breasts (2-4 depending on size)
soy sauce or teriyaki sauce

4 oz. Monterrey jack cheese, grated
tortilla chips
lettuce, chopped
ranch dressing (poppyseed is also good)

Directions:
Marinate chicken breasts in soy sauce or teriyaki sauce. Mix first nine ingredients in a large bowl to make the salsa, then refrigerate. Grill or broil chicken, then cut into strips. Serve salsa over tortilla chips, lettuce, and strips of grilled chicken breast. Top with grated cheese and ranch dressing. Also good as a salad without the chicken.

Number Of Servings:4-6


***And if you have any great family-friendly summer recipes, please share!***

Yummy Blonde Brownie Recipe

This is a family recipe that many of my Burton cousins will recognize. I was e-mailing it to Jeff's mom and decided it was worth posting here too.

Blonde Brownies

Mix:
2 cups brown sugar
3/4 cup veg. oil
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla

Sift and add:
2 3/4 cups flour
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. salt

Stir together and add 3/4 cup (abt. 6 oz.) chocolate chips, and chopped nuts (if desired).
Bake in a 9x13" pan for 20-25 minutes at 350 F. Cut into squares while warm.

Blue Yogurt

One more photo...

The Leaning Tower of Pitas

Homemade pita bread

So I've been in one of those ruts with meals lately--just tired of eating the same old things we always eat. And Jeff has been craving good bread. He's been on Spring Break the last few days, so yesterday afternoon he decided to try his hand at making pita bread. (Have I ever said I love having a husband who likes to cook?!!!) He found a couple of recipes--here and here--and went to work. Turns out, it really wasn't much work, but, like most bread recipes, you have to plan ahead a bit so you give the dough time to rise. That's the hard part for me--planning ahead. Jeff used the ingredients from the first recipe, but the cooking temperature from the second recipe, i.e., hotter oven. Pre-heating the baking sheet or pizza stone (recommended) is a must. Jeff mixed the dough up in about 20 minutes, let it rise for 2-3 hours, then baked them in time for dinner. Yum! They turned out so good--fluffy and delicious! They weren't quite as good as the pita bread I remember from my semester in the Holy Land, but they were SO much better than store-bought that we will never buy wimpy pita bread at the store again. The biggest problem was, the recipe only made ten pitas, which was barely enough for our family of six for dinner. Jeff is upstairs right now making a double batch for us for tonight.

BEFORE































AFTER

















Of course, once the pita bread was underway, we had to find something to fill it with. Now I know they are good plain, but we wanted to make a meal with them. And I know you can fill them with just about any salad or sandwich makings, but I got online and did a search for "pita filling," to see if I could come up with something different. Here is the recipe for "Greek salad pita pockets" that we ended up trying. We are not vegetarians, but this all-veggie salad was great and, with the pitas, it filled us up, even without any meat. Only drawback is that it calls for crumbled feta cheese, which is not cheap. I ran to the store and found a "value pack"--$4.59 for 12 ounces. We doubled the salad recipe, which used only about a third of the cheese. Jeff and I almost finished off the salad in one meal, so it would have to be tripled or quadrupled for more eaters. The kids made pizza pockets out of their pitas--they, of course, don't do salads or veggies. :-( The rest of the meal ingredients were really inexpensive, unless you choose to buy hummus (for the salad) at the grocery store ($3.99 for 6 oz.). I opted for looking up a recipe for hummus, buying canned chickpeas (garbanzo beans) for 99 cents a can, and making my own. It was even easier than the pitas and the salad! I combined two recipes so I'll just tell you what I did here, instead of linking to them.

Hummus

1 15 oz. can garbanzo beans (chickpeas), drained
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
1 clove garlic, peeled and minced
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

Blend all ingredients together in a food processor until smooth and creamy. Serve with pita bread, pita chips, tortilla chips, or veggies.

The first three ingredients are the base, then the seasonings can be added or left out as you like. (We like garlic and vinegar!) Some recipes call for tahini, which is a paste made of sesame seeds. I like tahini, but I didn't want to go looking for it or pay for it, and it isn't necessary anyway.

Anyway, it was a fresh, yummy, healthy meal, AND it was something different, so I thought I'd share. Can't wait to make it with fresh veggies from our garden this summer!

More banana art

Banana Graffiti

I came home the other day to find graffiti carved in one of the bananas in our fruit bowl. Apparently Jeff saw an article or show about "banana art" somewhere and wanted to try it. I was the lucky recipient of his efforts. :-)

Gingerbread Adventures

Making gingerbread houses is one of my favorite childhood Christmas memories. But somewhere in the years since my childhood, my mom lost her recipe and pattern. Last year she finally found them again and made one with my boys at our house before Christmas. I mostly stayed out of the way, but she gave me a copies of the recipe and pattern. This was the first year I tried making one on my own. I baked it and glued it together with the royal icing one night and found half of one section of the roof broken off when I woke up the next morning. My kids almost got blamed for breaking it before I realized what happened. I think I just didn't bake the gingerbread long enough to get it hard enough. After repairs with more icing and an inedible piece of cardboard, we rescued it, decorated it, and used it as a centerpiece for our ward Christmas party. I thought it turned out pretty well, after all. Here's a picture:


About the same time we needed to do the gingerbread house for the ward party, Adam had an assignment in 3rd grade to make a model of an American symbol. He chose to do the Liberty Bell. His teacher said if they made their models out of something edible, the class could eat them after their presentations. So after our gingerbread house, we ended up making a gingerbread Liberty Bell. Jeff was the mastermind behind getting the circular layers of the bell cut to the right diameter to shape the bell. (I was in awe of his math skills, which are usually pale compared to his verbal skills. There's a reason I keep the checkbook in our family.) We only had to smooth it out a little with the icing. There wasn't room for the whole inscription, but we did what we could. Adam did very well on his presentation also, and got an A for the whole project. Here is the finished product. Not bad, huh?

An apple a day...

...or four bushels in eight hours! On Saturday I did something I've never done before. Jeff and I bottled 30 quarts of applesauce. As a kid I helped my mom bottle and preserve fruit and other things, but until now I've never really had the space or even the desire to do it on my own. But this house we moved into has two apples trees in the backyard, one of which produced a bumper crop of Golden Delicious this year. And it has a mostly empty food storage room in the basement. Three weeks ago we spent three hours picking apples on a Saturday morning when a storm was blowing in and we thought they might freeze if we didn't get them off the tree. Then they sat in boxes in our storage room, waiting for the next free weekend when we could do something about them. I have to admit that when the time came, I wasn't super excited about the project, but I really didn't want the apples to go to waste either.

We started after breakfast, about 9 a.m., with a little over-the-phone coaching and some equipment borrowed from Jeff's parents. And then we just kept going and going. I knew it would take some time, but I didn't realize it would take all day, nor did I realize how all-consuming it would be. The kids watched A LOT more TV than they are usually allowed. And they escaped all their Saturday chores (except helping turn the handle of the Squeezo strainer machine). I didn't want to stop for anything, because I just wanted to get DONE. About 3 p.m. the kids asked, "Can we have some chips?" Potato chips for lunch? "Sure, that's fine." Then my recently toilet-trained three-year-old came and asked for help going to the potty. "Okay, let's go." Then I can go too! We finished about 5 p.m., only because I had arranged for a babysitter so we could go on a date at 6 p.m. and I still needed a shower, not because the apples were all gone. We still have a bushel or so left to eat or dry--I'm done with applesauce!

By the time we finished, I was tired. I told Jeff that I wasn't sure it was worth the effort or the money. I spent $60.00 on a steam canner, canning tools, and jar lids. That means the applesauce cost about $2 per quart, not to mention the man hours it took to pick the apples and make the applesauce. Jeff's man hours are worth at least $25 per hour, and mine--well, it's hard to put a dollar value on what a mom does, but I figure mine are priceless! So basically, we have 30 quarts of really expensive applesauce. It would be so much more cost effective to buy it on a good sale at the store. We don't even eat applesauce very often. Jeff's response was, "Doesn't it make you feel like a good Mormon housewife though, canning your own food?" In one way, I suppose it does. It's what I grew up with. Somehow it seems like something I'm supposed to do. I always figured when I had a decent-sized kitchen and a place to store it all, I would learn how to can.

A little more than eight years ago Jeff had just finished his Master's degree at BYU, and Adam was nine months old. As I remember it, we had our U-Haul packed and ready to drive across the country to Cincinnati where Jeff would get his Ph.D. My parents came up from Cedar to say goodbye and give us a hand-me-down twin bed that Adam could grow into while we lived there. My mom also brought me an antique rocking chair from my grandma's house, and a box full of home-canned fruit. I thanked her--I love home-canned pears and peaches, and she was nice to share them with us, as both sets of our parents have over the years. But I didn't think much of it until we got to Cincinnati. The first time I opened one of those jars of fruit, my chest tightened up and the tears rolled down my face. We were tight on money, and I was very homesick. That box of fruit was a box of love from my mom--food that I didn't have to pay for, and a comforting piece of the home and family that I was missing so much. I hoarded that fruit, and fought back tears again when it was gone.

So what value do I put on my 30 quarts of homemade applesauce? Is it just a waste of time and money? Or am I passing on a heritage of self-reliance and my own jars of love? Guess we'll see next year when our apples are ripe again!

And now I'm off to scrub the stove and kitchen floor...

(The pink jars are cinnamon applesauce, a Packer family tradition.)

I love my crockpot!

Well, I think mine is technically a slow cooker, like this one. Today was a nice, peaceful Sunday, and I think it turned out that way mostly because dinner was ready in the crockpot when we got home from church. It's so pleasant to walk in the house and smell dinner already cooked! This time I even went to the effort to put the chicken and the barbecue mix in the crockpot Saturday night, so I didn't even have to stress about getting it ready before 9 a.m. church. I just pulled it out of the fridge and plugged it in before we left. If only I could be that on the ball all of the time...

On a different topic, we spent Saturday evening with Jeff's family in Kaysville celebrating Jeff's mom's birthday. We ate a delicious dinner made by Jeff's dad, opened gifts, then the women retired to the TV room to watch the broadcast of the annual Relief Society general meeting. It was wonderful! I especially appreciated the power and straightforwardness of Sister Beck's message. I always come away from those meetings wanting to be better, and usually feeling motivated and capable of becoming better. There have been many years when I have watched the Relief Society broadcast in a chapel full of women, but felt lonely because we had just moved to the area and I really didn't know anyone. This year might have been the same, but was so much better because I got to watch it with some of the best women in the world--Jeff's mom, grandma, and sister-in-law. The only thing I would do different next time is make the effort to go to the church to watch it. You'd think that I could have an hour and fifteen minutes to myself--i.e., away from the kids--just this one time a year, but it didn't work because they knew where I was and I was too accessible. Live and learn!

Grandparents, Mothers' Day, Baseball, and Fathers and Sons

Jeff's parents just finished a 12-day visit with us this week. They needed a grandkid fix and had some Delta Skymiles to use. It's always fun to have family visit, and we enjoyed having them. The day they left, Ryan was moaning and groaning, wondering what in the world we were going to do for fun after they were gone. The kids love playing games and reading stories with them, and generally just having the extra attention. They helped me out too, washing dishes and tending kids and helping me with some projects. I felt a little guilty working them so hard. We tried to make it up to them on Saturday with a little trip to Fredericksburg to see Texas wildflowers and eat German food. Although I was disappointed that we didn't see more bluebonnets--missed their peak by week or two--we've had a wet spring so the wildflowers were everywhere and really beautiful. (I also got two or three new counties on this trip. :-)

I had a very nice Mother's Day, and it was extra fun to celebrate it with Grandma too. Jeff and his dad cooked yummy Japanese/Chinese food for us--almond chicken, sweet and sour pork, and gingered green bean salad, with pecan pie and vanilla ice cream for dessert. I love having a husband who enjoys cooking!

Jeff and the boys really outdid themselves with the gifts this year--I usually don't get or want near this much for Mother's Day. They surprised me with a beautiful new oak chest of drawers to replace the hand-me-down we've been using for 14+ years now. It's unfinished--raw wood--but Jeff is also looking forward to finishing it, which is good since all I need right now is another project. We're thinking we'll stain it medium brown to try to match our headboard and then seal it with tung oil. That's what's been recommended to us anyway, although my friend sealed hers with polyurethane and it looks great. I also got a couple Ritter Sport candy bars--real German chocolate (available at Target, FYI). I needed shirts and I got a couple of those too--a pale green button-up and a "Lady Longhorns" t-shirt. I guess I couldn't really leave Texas without some burnt orange in my wardrobe. It is "my color" after all, even if I bleed BYU blue. The most fun present of all though, was a pink cowboy hat. I don't really do pink...or cowboy...but now I have a souvenir that says "Texas" all over it. The funny thing is, whenever Jared finds it he brings it to me and says, "Put the pink cowboy hat on your head Mommy." I've worn it quite a bit this last week. :-)

I'll bet you thought I'd forgotten about baseball. I'll bet you missed my play-by-play posts too, didn't you? Well, I didn't forget, but there hasn't been much to post about. We've had several games cancelled by bad weather--lots of thunderstorms and rain lately. When it finally cleared up last week, Ryan and Adam both had games on Friday. Ryan's game was typical teeball-- everybody hits, everybody scores--except that this time Grandma and Grandpa got to see him play, which was a treat. I think Adam was a little nervous to have the extra audience--he wanted to do so well while they were there to cheer for him and got upset when he struck out a couple of times. I think he did get at least one hit, but I didn't keep track very well since the other team forfeited due to a shortage of players. We lent them some of our players and just played a practice game. They "won" thanks to our players who hit well, so technically we "beat ourselves." Adam and Ryan both played again last night. Ryan's game was cut short due to rain, but he still got two good hits. Adam batted 2-for-4 with two singles and an RBI (15-for-19, .789, 12 singles, 3 doubles on the year). His team won 10 to 7 for a 7-2 record so far.

I've had occasion recently to think about how many Little League games and Cub Scout pack meetings we're going to end up going to over the next several years with our four boys. Tonight I've discovered another benefit of having all boys--Fathers and Sons outings! Dallin is still a little young to go camping without Mommy right now, so he and I are having a nice evening here at home. I really, really love my boys, but ah, the peace and quiet!

April Fool's and Batting 1.000

So for my first official entry in the blogosphere, let me tell you what Jeff did to celebrate April Fool's Day with the kids yesterday. They wanted aebleskivers for breakfast, better known as "footballs" at our house, since that's the shape they usually take when we cook them. Jeff was game to make them, as he usually is on weekends, but he decided to add a few surprises for the sake of the holiday. After a little thought he first tried marbles. Now, it didn't occur to me until afterward that this might pose a choking hazard, but luckily it had occured to Jeff, so he was very careful to not give a marble-filled aebleskiver to Jared, and to carefully watch Adam and Ryan as they bit into theirs. They thought it was a great April Fool's joke and also enjoyed the blue milk, and the aebleskivers filled with other assorted things found in our kitchen--breakfast cereal, peanuts, pretzels, toffee chips, and especially, Spiderman fruit snacks. Only problem was, Jeff made a double batch, which almost caused us to be late to the Sunday morning session of General Conference, which we usually go to the church to watch so the kids know it is still the Sabbath day.

Adam came up with something interesting yesterday that I had never thought of. Jared's name includes the first letters of the names of most of the rest of our family:

J--Jeff
A--Adam
R--Ryan
E--well, maybe the next kid, if there is one
D--Dallin

That leaves me out, but since I'm the odd one out anyway, and since I was impressed that Adam thought of this in the first place, I'm not in the least offended.

Adam played his first baseball game of the season tonight. (Ryan's first game is tomorrow night--stay tuned.) For the second year in a row, Adam is on the Tigers in the Peewee (machine-pitch) division of our local Little League. This year he is one of the older, and therefore, better players. He's even grown a few inches and looks like a big kid. He played third base for the whole game and got up to bat twice, getting singles both times. That means he's batting 1.000 for the year. Not bad at all. And his team, which struggled last year, was very excited to win their first game tonight by a score of 3-2.