Category Archives: Food

Family, Food

Kitchen Disasters

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I am a disaster in the kitchen. My dad passed all his chefly talents to my sister and brother, and gave none to me. For years I have managed, sticking mostly to simple meals and the occasional baked goods. However, it seems that ever since I lost a considerable portion of my vision, I have taken a turn for the worst. During that time of visual downturn in the fall of 2013, I was “checked out” for awhile, and it seems I haven’t fully checked back in. I lost a crucial brain cell or two.

For example, last weekend we were having friends over for dinner. I was excited to make one of our favorites, penne sausage marinara. I had the dish mostly prepared ahead of time, so I only had a few simple steps left. I assembled the dish for baking, put it into the oven, and set the timer for 30 minutes. Thirty minutes later the timer went off and to my dismay, the cheese on top had not yet melted. My intelligent friend thought to investigate by sticking her hand in the oven. It was cold. Seems when I had thought about preheating the oven, I had not followed through. The next time someone tells you “it’s the thought that counts”, I assure you it is untrue. Actions, my friends, actions are what count. Doing the thing you thought about doing, like actually turning on the f-ing oven, are what count.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “well, that’s not such a big deal. You didn’t mess it up, you just delayed it a bit.” Don’t worry, I have more.

So then there was the time I decided to try a new recipe for meatloaf (my son’s favorite). Word to the wise, always read a recipe in it’s entirety before you start. I was so gung-ho about trying this new recipe, I just started throwing everything in to mix with the ground beef. Yet as soon as I dropped the brown sugar and mustard in, I had a second thought. I checked the recipe (with my clean hand, the other covered in raw meat, eggs, and brown sugar) and discovered that what I had used as a meatloaf seasoning was actually meant to be the topping. That day I cried. I felt completely inept, that I couldn’t even prepare a simple, classic dish. But! Mike consoled me, told me it would be fine, and insisted I bake the loaf just as it was. And we did, and it was delicious. A little too moist, but still delicious.

Then there was the time I made what my sister and I like to call “Amazeballs Chicken.” It’s chicken breast stuffed with roasted red peppers, spinach, and goat cheese. It’s divine. The trick is to sear it in the pan then bake it, pan and all, in the oven. The problem with that is that my brain is used to holding pans while they are on the stove, which does not require an oven mitt. So when the chicken was done baking, I made the extremely painful mistake of trying to remove the pan from the oven, sans oven mitt. That was a painful mistake, one I had hoped never to repeat.

Sometimes hoping is not enough.

Just last week I had a friend over for lunch. I made a frittata, which is the easiest fancy sounding dish I know how to make. Of course, I make it because it’s delicious, not because I like fancy food. In order to make a frittata, you first do a lot of the cooking on the stovetop, but you leave the food in the pan and finish the cooking in the oven. (Do you see where I’m going with this?) Of course I wasn’t going to make the same mistake this time. This time I was sure to wear the oven mitt when I pulled the pan out of the oven. However, it seems I turned my brain off after I set the pan down. Not three seconds after I took off the oven mitt, I proceeded to move the pan inwards, away from the edge. With my bare hand. I cursed, multiple times. I ran to the freezer to cool it down as quickly as possible, but it was burned pretty good. I had to hold an ice pack on it well into the evening.

I didn’t make it to ASL class that night.

Have you had enough? I have one more. This just happened this week. We had some over-ripe bananas sitting on the counter, just begging to be baked into bread. So I started mixing the eggs and sugar and vanilla, and then had the genius idea to add cinnamon for an extra kick. So I grabbed the spice jar from the cupboard and started dumping it into the batter, while the batter was mixing (love my Kitchen-Aid). As I poured it into the batter, I realized that it felt much different than the consistency of cinnamon. It was not so much like a powder, but more like… crushed red pepper. Not the extra kick I was looking for! All that batter, down the drain. Thankfully, I had not yet added the bananas, and could try again another day.

So maybe I ought to just shake these off and call it bad luck, but it’s not that simple for me. I can’t work outside the home. My identity used to be wrapped up in my job and my education. In the fall of 2013, I lost all that, but was given something greater in return. I’m a homemaker now. I have a renewed focus and appreciation for my husband and my kids, and I strive to be the best at what I CAN do. Those nights I screw up making a meal, I start to feel like I can’t even do that, but then my husband comes and wraps his arms around me and tells me he’s proud of me, and appreciates all that I do.

It’s my family that keeps me going, and if it weren’t for them, there wouldn’t be a fresh loaf of banana bread (with cinnamon!) cooling on the stove as I type. I can’t wait to share it with them 🙂

Food, Grown-up Stuff

New Things

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Today may as well be recorded in the history books. Yes, it’s just your regular old Wednesday, but it was a day of new things for me!

1) A new pair of glasses. I’m so excited about these glasses. I had my eyes checked a couple weeks ago, and ordered new glasses then. They came in the day of my CI surgery, so I had to wait until the swelling went down before I picked them up. There are a few reasons I’m excited about these glasses. The biggest reason is that though they don’t correct the clouds, or you could call them blind spots, in my line of vision, they do make everything I DO see much clearer. This makes life a lot less frustrating for me. When you can only see a portion of what you are looking at, you would at least like that to not be so fuzzy. And the other reason I love these new glasses is because the arms are covered in paisley. I HEART paisley. I have a paisley key chain, paisley purses, paisley shirts… I even have paisley tattooed onto my upper arm. Oh, and I can’t forget about the paisley up in the corner of my blog, which happens to be the image identical to the stickers on my CI.

2) For the first time ever, I grilled. We purchased brats for dinner, and Mike showed me how to use the grill so I could make the food while he mowed the lawn. In all my years on earth, I have never had the desire to use the grill. And so, I never learned how. As it turns out, it’s ridiculous easy. And goes very well with a cold beer, I might add.

3) I wrote yesterday about becoming a faithful flosser. A friend commented on my blog post via Facebook (so the discussion won’t show here) and she was describing in somewhat graphic detail why she uses mouthwash. I’ll just say it basically involved ingesting bacteria, which is enough to motivate me to try it. Ew. So, today we bought a bottle of mouthwash and tonight I tried it. Dang, that stuff stings! They say to swish for 30 seconds but I don’t think I made it to 15 before I had to spit it out. Still, that’s better than none. It’s still one step closer to being a responsible adult, so I’m not beating myself up about the timing. I’m just proud I made that step.

So that’s enough grown-up activities for the day. Tomorrow I think I’ll stay in my pajamas and eat ice cream for breakfast!

Food

Okay, now let’s talk about food.

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I have found that one of the great things about being “stuck” at home all day, is that sometimes you are forced to be creative with your lunch options. That is, unless you are okay living on Ramen noodles lunches every day. Which I am not.

Who loves leftovers? This girl, right here. Sometimes it is okay to just reheat them – I’ll reheat soup in the microwave, but the broiler is the way to go for leftover pizza – but other times it’s better to do some creative repurposing. We grilled steak the other night, and ate it with a bleu cheese & bacon salad. So I decided to fry up that leftover steak (just to heat and add some butter flavor), slice it up into cubes, and throw it in with the salad. Grilled steak and bleu cheese salad – it’s definitely hitting the spot!

We also had a wad of leftover spaghetti. Now, I like to keep the noodles and sauce separate when I pack up the leftovers. It gives me more options for using it up. Rather than go with the standard spaghetti dish, I melted some butter and cream cheese (we always seem to eat all the bagels before we use up the cream cheese), mixed in some parmesan cheese, and then tossed that mixture in with the spaghetti noodles, threw it in a baking dish and layered it with the spaghetti sauce and some mozzarella cheese. Baked for about 40 minutes, and voila! We had baked spaghetti. The kids didn’t like it (not a fan of change, I guess), but I thought it was delicious. And the best part is that there are still leftovers from THAT, so I will be eating that for lunch tomorrow.

So that’s that. I’m thinking about baking some of my famous chocolate chip cookies next week, and if I’m successful, you may be hearing about that as well. I may even post a picture!

Food, Kids

Some days you just wanna chuck it

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Do you ever just feel like you’ve HAD IT with being a grown up? Like you just want to dismiss all your adult responsibilities and go play games and eat chocolate cake? I’m having one of those days. It’s the first like this that I remember having, but I’m sure I’ve had them before. I just want to go to the party. There is a party somewhere, isn’t there?

My daughter hosted a party of sorts for us this afternoon. She called it a “bubble sword” party. It was just the two of us, with our bubble swords (wands?), sitting on the porch. In the cold. Eating crushed Doritos. That’s pathetic, right? Not the sort of party I’m longing for, but I was a good sport about it and I love spending time with my daughter. She’s very thoughtful, creative, and caring. Today she let me take a nap in her bed. She declined to join me for my nap, and I found out after I woke up that she spent that time putting away the clean dishes. What a role reversal! So, no real partying, but today’s napping went well.

It is in this moment that I could really go for a beer or four, but truth is I just don’t want to deal with the consequences. I do enough staggering sober, and there’s no sleeping off a hangover when you have kids who think 7 am is “sleeping in”. So, instead I am munching on tortilla chips, drinking water, and writing. My ultimate therapy – the writing mostly, not the chips.

Okay, the chips too.

Happy spring, readers!

Family, Food

It’s Mom and Dad’s birthday!

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Today was my birthday. It was also my husband’s birthday (he’s one year older). I am now 37. I know once you’re in your late thirties, birthdays aren’t such a big deal anymore (heck, anything after 21 is pretty dull), but I still like to make a big deal of it. Because what better chance do you have to celebrate your life? Not to mention our kids think it’s pretty neat that they get to celebrate both parents’ birthdays on the same day.

My son and I have a mutual love for all things breakfast, and he is caring and thoughtful so he asked me what I wanted for breakfast on my birthday (kids also happened to have a scheduled day off today). I told him one of my favorites is waffles with whipped cream and strawberries, so he excitedly declared he was going to fix breakfast for me. Eggo waffles are easy to make in the toaster, and he assured me he could cut the strawberries all by himself. And sure enough, at 7 am this morning he was waking me up to eat. We had a little trouble with the whipped cream canister, but it was still delicious. And the smile on his face was priceless. It gave him so much joy, to be able to do something all by himself. For me. What a kid. I am so blessed.

The kids and I pretty much relaxed most of the day, with the exception of our trip to the Secretary of State. I needed to apply for a state ID card and cancel my driver’s license. That didn’t go quite as well as expected, as I had to go back home and get my birth certificate, but it still went better than it could have. Once I was there with the proper documents, it was a quick process. They took my money and my picture, and sent me on my way. I’m glad to have that done. No more valid driver’s license for me.

Since it’s also my husband’s birthday, I wanted to be sure to do something special for him too. The plan was to make his favorite dinner, penne sausage marinara. It was delicious, as usual, and we have plenty of leftovers for tomorrow’s lunches.

Yesterday I had a doctor’s visit, and tomorrow I have another one, so it was nice to have this one day in between to break up the monotony. It was definitely a day of celebration here. Another year in the books. A rough year, but we made it through. I look forward to the next one, and have high hopes that it will involve lots more relaxing than the past.

Coffee, Domestic Engineer, Family, Food, Friends, Housekeeping, Piper, Writing

My Comfy Writing Spot

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Not sure what to write about, but I’m in my little comfy spot in the kitchen. In the corner next to the window, surrounded by shelves and with Piper puppy sleeping peacefully in her crate at my feet. And hot coffee at the ready, of course.

The exciting point of my day may be when the mail is delivered, but probably not. I already received what I was waiting for, which is the Spec-Tran approval I blogged about last night.

When I’m bored like this it’s nice to goof around on Facebook. A friend announced she found the best granola, so of course that sparked a lengthy comment thread. The food posts always do.

This has been a wonderfully uneventful week so far, which I much appreciate after last week. Last week was brutal. All the sickness and the cold. Kids home for the better part of the week, which I should love, but.. I was (am) feeling pretty fatigued. And throw a four-month old puppy into the mix? Just a little more than I can handle. And now hubby sounds like he is developing what we all had. That was inevitable, I suppose.

So when life has slowed down what do I do? I nap, first and foremost, but then when I feel mostly rested I clean. Dishes, laundry, floors, etc. It’s all never-ending. Meaning you are never “done” with laundry or dishes or cleaning floors. These are things that are constantly in progress.  Once I realized that fully, I stopped putting them on my to-do-list. It seemed silly to keep crossing them off only to put them back on again. So now my to-do list consists of more irregular things like paying bills and clipping my toenails.

I would really like to get back to writing that book. The process (which honestly hadn’t really begun) got halted when we all fell ill. And now I need to get back at it. To be honest, I feel extremely inadequate at this whole book-writing-thing. Am I even doing it right? I’m just writing, hoping it turns into something I can have published so that people can read it. But publishing, well that’s a road I have not traveled and have no clue how to find. Yet. Let’s write the book first. And this corner spot in my kitchen is the perfect place for it.  As long as Piper complies, I could make this a daily ritual. Sitting here, sipping my coffee, tapping away at the keys. That sounds like a Happy Place if you ask me.

Now, enough rambling for me. I will let you go. I have words to write!

Disability, Domestic Engineer, Driving, Food, Multiple Sclerosis

Weekly update of sorts

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I am in some super slow recovery type mode, so writing (book, blog, Facebook, journal) is not really happening. And that irritates me, but then I get irritated that I am so irritated. Vicious cycle. So today I am just going to bore you with this…

I had a rough walk to the bus stop this morning. I think the dog has gotten too big for me, and with her energy and drive, I can’t hold her back. She throws me off balance constantly. And with my balance issues, that’s a recipe for disaster. So I think we’re done with that program until she gets a little older and can be trained to behave better while walking. That is a thing with dog training, isn’t it?

So after the rough walk I put the pup back in her crate and went back to bed. The sleep probably helped, but I can’t tell. I’m still struggling with fatigue. However, I have managed to do the dishes and make dinner. Chili in the crockpot, and it smells delicious so far. Ground venison, onion, diced tomatoes, black beans, and chili powder. A simple recipe I don’t remember ever trying before, so I hope it turns out ok. We will have cheddar cheese, sour cream, and Fritos to top it off, so that can help with flavor. I thought about adding the can of spicy chili beans that has been in our cupboard forever, but the kids really don’t like spicy, and neither do I. We’ll see how the chili tastes in a couple hours, and I may still decide to add some.

I mailed an application today for the local public transportation service for disabled people. They drive the van right to your door and take you where you need to go. I’m excited about it. As my husband put it, it will give me a level of freedom back. I wouldn’t need to rely on him to take me grocery shopping, or to my umpteen doctor visits. It’s hard to describe how helpless it makes me feel, not being able to drive. I don’t miss the driving so much as I miss being able to go where I want to go. I am an introvert, so one of my favorite things is to go do things alone. Sit at the coffee shop and read or crochet, walk around a bookstore or mall just to browse the merchandise. But if you always need a driver, someone is always waiting for you, and that’s pressure I don’t handle so well. I HATE feeling rushed.

But this Spec-Tran, you plan each ride one-way, so no one is waiting. You tell them when you need a ride back, and they’ll send another driver. At least that’s my understanding. We’ll see how it actually works, but regardless there is no cause for guilt because this is their job, and they aren’t just doing it out of the kindness of their heart. Why is it that we feel guilt when someone does something for us out of the “kindness of their heart”? I mean, by definition they are doing it because they want to, not because they feel obligated. I know it’s not just me. But that still doesn’t make it rational or right.

Oh well. I declare that today is not a day for solving things. It’s a day for reflecting briefly and moving on! Coffee is waiting!

Food

A Dessert Too Awesome for Words

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>>>Insert delicious dessert photo here

I am in the process of making a dessert for the family gathering tomorrow. This is my third time making it. The first time I made it, it turned out fabulous, and I brought it to my mother-in-law’s for Christmas. It was a huge hit. The second time I made it for another family gathering, which was cancelled due to weather. It was a good thing though, because I totally screwed up the marshmallow element. So the family gathering was rescheduled for tomorrow, and that brings me to my third attempt.

While I like recipes, they bore me at times, and I like to take a risk now and then. Attempt #1 involved a makeshift double boiler to melt down giant marshmallows we had left from summer camping trips. Attempt #2 involved skipping the makeshift double boiler method, which proved disastrous. If you’ve ever hated getting taffy stuck in your teeth, multiply that experience by 38. It was bad.

Attempt #3 is still in progress. I plan to come back and add a picture, but we’ll see. The twist on this attempt can’t be seen in the picture anyway. I won’t really know how it turns out until it’s done, but I can tell you the batter was amazing. What is the twist? Haitian Vanilla. Straight imported from a friend of mine who visits there often to do mission work. I absolutely hate using store-bought vanilla, as all I can smell is the alcohol (and not the good kind). I have always loved using Mexican vanilla. It’s a much smoother, purer alternative.

But this stuff from Haiti? A totally different animal. Simply sinful. I get high just sniffing it from the bottle. It’s amazing. And adding it to the brownie batter (did I forget to mention this dessert involves brownies?) seemed to work very well. I tasted it and it was heavenly. A perfect blend of bold sweetness, but rounded out with a darkness that is just, well, sinister. That’s the best way I can describe it. I’m not so good at the putting the words together thing. 😉

I realize I never mentioned what the dessert was. The recipe I found on Allrecipes.com calls it Krispy Brownie Delights, but that name seriously doesn’t do this creation justice. It’s just too awesome for words. So that’s what we call it! Too Awesome For Words.

*On a side note, my daughter actually doesn’t like it (what?!%?@!) so my husband has been calling it Too Awesome for Natalie. I reject that title because that doesn’t even sound like something you would want to eat.

So, batch #3 is chillin’ in the fridge. We will find out tomorrow how it turned out, and maybe we can get some suggestions, take up a vote, and find this delectable dish a proper name!

Family, Food

Lunch-No, Pee-No, School-No, Heat… YES!!

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First, let me tell you about the lunch I had planned to eat today. It’s something Mike came up with, and it’s super easy. It’s pasta (usually penne) with marinara sauce, Italian sausage, and green and red peppers, all topped with mozzarella and baked. Adding the peppers was Mike’s idea, and though it’s extra work, it’s totally worth it. The kids hate it, but It has become one of our favorite dinners. Mike buys fresh links of both spicy and mild sausage, so I make a spicy batch for him, and the rest is for me and the kids. We always have leftovers, which is part of the reward. So that’s what I was really excited about eating for lunch today. Only when I opened the container as I was walking toward the microwave, I dropped the whole damn thing on the floor. All of it. On the floor. And immediately after dropping the delicious pasta onto the floor, I dropped a big, fat f-bomb. You know the one. I try not to use it often, but situations like these call for it.

Now, onto the main topic of the day. It’s friggin’ cold in Michigan this week. I don’t mind the cold. I grew up here, it’s not a big deal. Unless, of course, your furnace dies as the sun is going down, and the cold starts invading your living space. Mike noticed the temperature on the thermostat was low and thought the air filter just needed to be changed, but upon further inspection discovered the problem was much more serious. From what he explained to me last night, it sounds like our house very possibly could have gone up in flames when he changed the filter. Thankfully it did not, but at midnight it was clear to him that something needed replacing, and would have to wait until the morning. So when we awoke this morning, the thermostat was down to 47 degrees, which only sounds chilly if you are referring to outdoor weather, but in your home it becomes quite a nuisance. We are used to 65. After an entire day of almost completely dismantling our furnace, Mike was able to get the parts he needed, and with the help of a friend managed to get it rebuilt. By 7 pm, we had heat. The temp is only up to 55 at the time of this writing, but it’s heading in the right direction.

As it turns out, the culprit was a heat exchange with two gaping holes in it. I know nothing of heat exchanges and furnaces, but Mike explained a bit and showed me the holes and they look scary dangerous. Those holes were potentially allowing harmful chemicals into the air we breathe. If that’s the case, I am so thankful that it’s fixed, and that nothing serious happened.

Oh, and this you will not believe. Surprisingly, on this crazy cold day surviving cooped up with blankets and space heaters, my dumb dog did not pee in the house. Not even once. She even led me to the back door a few times, waiting for me to let her out. We’ll see how she does tomorrow, but it’s a miracle, if you ask me!

So we are praising God for keeping us safe and providing us with the means to a solve a very serious issue with our furnace. And I am praising Him for helping my puppy hold her bladder.

Oh, and I just found out school is closed for my kids tomorrow. We’ve had sub-zero temperatures across the state all week, and it seems all the schools around us keeping calling snow days, but not us. No, we had to be the troopers. Well, it’s about time. The kids are already in bed so we’ll share the excitement with them in the morning.

That is all! Rest well and keep warm!!

Decluttering, Food

A Saner Me

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The kids are off to school, hubby is at work, the puppy is sleeping at my feet, and I am sitting at the dining room table with a hot cup of fresh coffee and the whole day ahead of me.

I feel like I can breathe again.

It’s amazing how different things can look depending on your mood. I’ve had some pretty rough days these past couple of weeks. I’ve had the kids home with me but with the added challenge of a new puppy. There have been plenty of good  moments, yes, but there were also many moments I don’t care to remember. Moments I’m not proud of.

I am not one to make New Year Resolutions, but this year the timing worked in such a way that it made perfect sense to make one. So I resolved to stop the yelling. It’s only been five days, and I’ve failed a few times, but I have had victories as well. And the victories outweigh those few failures. Especially considering they are more recent, showing that I am making progress.

I thought breathing and counting was the secret to not losing my temper, but that proved to be ineffective. I think the problem runs deeper with me, and therefore requires a more extensive solution. I think the key is in changing my perceptions, my expectations, and learning how to pause and really relax. “So what if she pees? Clean it up and move on.” “The kids left their toys all over the couch? Calmly and firmly ask them to put them away.” If I practice these kinds of attitudes throughout the day, practice them in moments of calm, then they become second nature when the calm suddenly turns to chaos. The result? A saner me. One who deals with the issue at hand, rather than reacting to it.

So, here’s to a new beginning. A saner me. Go forth and be sane 🙂