Pear Galette

My mom sent me a recipe for this crust years ago. Nice pears were abundant on the clearance rack and this was the result. We will definitely be making this again! The free-form crust was so much more my style than a nicely crimped pie crust.

Inspired Sunday

We had some leftover almond pastry filling (impulse buy - it was on clearance). We heated it up and poured it on popcorn. Easiest candied popcorn ever and so yummy.

This week...

Laundry and two little causes of laundry. We did six loads without the dryer this week, thanks to the drying racks (you can see them outside the kitchen window).

We cooked in the solar oven twice - ground beef and potatoes. Last week the highest temp noted was 175, but yesterday it was almost 250 degrees. Here's the ground beef and the solar oven. I have been very pleased with it so far. The banana bread didn't turn out very pretty, but it was cooked. And it was a partly cloudy day too.

Today while we were on a bike ride Samuel said, "Mommy, do you know blueberry birds eat blueberries? Because blueberries are blue just like blueberry birds."

His latest thing is pointing with his feet. It has improved his balance - he pointed to and counted the seven birdhouses he built and he didn't knock over a single one. But it's not so nice when he is pointing at your face.

For FHE we took Samuel to one of the Beehive's middle school orchestra concert. He was very well-behaved and we tried to only whisper. "Mommy, what's this song about?" "Pirates." (It really was; it was called Pirate's Cove.) "Where are the pirates?" It was almost as bad as a book with no pictures.

Here's the boat safety lesson from Samuel's swim class, just before the teacher helped Samuel fall out of the boat.

Kitchen Day

Finally our kitchen is put together enough to do some real cooking. I worked on 4 main dishes and 2 desserts today:

Black bean lime chili
Pasta Milano (Macaroni Grill copy-cat recipe)
Spicy thai lentils
Chili spread with mexican red beans (crock pot)
Lemon bundt cake (used powdered eggs, butter and buttermilk from food storage, but fresh lemons)
Papaya sorbet

I hope Paul and Joseph can pick up the pace eating so I can have another big cooking day. Some of this will have to be frozen for lazy days to come. I have my doubts that Samuel will eat any of the main dishes, but we'll try.

Turning 31: A Lame Blow

Samuel sings and I almost drool on the super cool Chocolate Eclair Cake. One of the best things about this cake was no leftovers, until I later realized that I really wanted leftovers.

I learned from my mother-in-law

Today I had a veggie sandwich for lunch. This is just a salad on a roll, entirely respectable, but what makes it special is Heinz Salad Cream. My mother-in-law introduced me to this British delight. She loves that she can find a few British imports at any old grocery store in Houston. She taught me to make and love these veggie sandwiches.

Today I had it on a lingering hamburger bun that needed to be out of the fridge. We had guacamole leftover from last night's BL(A)T's and I also added tomato, carrots, lettuce, pepper jack (the spiciest I have ever had!) and salad cream, full-fat version.

All done

Here mom, take this away now that I've bitten all the frosting off.
Also note his new haircut - not bad for my third try on a moving target.

Cake anyone?

This is how I found out that Samuel was able to open the fridge. He came to me hugging the cake Isaac's mommy left us. I guess that's not the best hiding place anymore.

Deep Freeze

I miss our old refrigerator. More specifically, the freezer part of the refrigerator.

Warning - cold, dark secrets follow. I'd call it a spoiler-warning, but the whole purpose of a freezer is to prevent spoilage.

Here's a partial inventory because I don't want to dig back there.

Strawberries were $1/lb at Randalls (limit 4 lbs with $10 additional purchase - luckily they had diapers on the clearance table). These are chpped up to freeze individually on a platter before I put them in a bag.

Bananas - freeze to go with the strawberries in future smoothies. Closeout item. Bought a huge bag for $1.00.

Nighthawk frozen dinners. High class item. Closeout.

Fajita seasoned Ore-Ida fries. Closeout item. Bought one. Liked them so much we had to buy 3 more because they won't be available in days.

Instant Oatmeal packets. Closeout item. Gross-out warning: Last time we bought these for 72-hr kits they had bugs when we opened them to eat at food rotation time. Discovered this when I opened the microwave and they had crawled up the edge of the bowl. So my latest grain tip is to freeze them for 48 hours to kill any uh, eggs.

Cheese - When it's on sale for $3/lb or less I buy at least 3 lbs.

Hot dog buns - we went off nitrates about a year ago, but hot dogs are something Samuel will actually eat, so...

Bulgar Wheat - Saw this called for in the recipe so I bought it. But there's no telling when I will find that recipe or if I will ever see it again.

Hamburgers - Yellow squash and green peppers were in the produce close-out bin way cheap. Chopped them up and mixed with hamburger - made about 12 patties for all our summer grilling.

Whole wheat flour - When I grind wheat I fill a gallon size bag and store it in the freezer. Fresh ground wheat flour can go rancid, or so I hear. I don't want to risk it.

Chocolate fudge bars - it's summertime, and the 24-pack seemed more economical at the time. We have about 8 left.

Frozen vegetarian casserole for Mumsie - she left it here in February and she'll eat it when she comes again in June.

Bell peppers - when these are in produce clearance (but still look good) I get them for $.25 each usually- chop up and freeze immediately for kabobs, pizza, stir fry etc. There's 1.5 gallons in there right now.

Behind the front layer you'll find pork chops, chicken breasts, 3 lbs of hamburger, 2 lbs steak, 1 lb. catfish, 1/2 gallon milk (close out for $1 - 3 days until expiration - freezes just fine), frozen peas, large bag of spinach and who knows what else.

In the door: frozen cubes of buttermilk (close-out $1), walnuts, fresh (well frozen) cranberries (only available at holiday season, so you have to stock up), yeast, gluten, butter, almonds, pepperoni, chopped green onions, cilantro, and a freezer-burned orange popsicle. (Samuel always wanted green in the pre-fudgesicle era).

So I have a weakness for closeout items like meat, dairy, and produce. If there's a website that says it will freeze well, I will freeze it.

Chocolate Marshmallows

I celebrated Easter by making homemade marshmallow eggs. My mom sent me the recipe and I was motivated to try it by Grandma's reminiscing of how inferior store bought marshmallows are compared to the real thing. I was also motivated by the fact that I didn't need to go to the store - I already had all the ingredients.


Well, they were the real thing -the the best Easter candy I have ever tasted... that is, until the chocolate hardened. With the humidity it was taking forever to set, so I accelerated it by putting them in the fridge. The chocolate became crumbly and the texture was horrible. So much for using Ghiradelli's. I will definitely try this again using different chocolate and more patience (and hopefully less humidity).





I thought I was too messy spooning it into the flour mold and the eggs wouldn't be perfectly shaped. But after it set, I just trimmed the shapes down with scissors.


For my first foray into this sphere of candy-making, it was a success!



Samuel agreed.

Peeling an Orange

December - hanging out at home. Kathryn Richards inspired me to buy some clementines in hopes that Samuel would branch out with his fruit inclinations. Sure enough, he likes them, especially peeling them. Sometimes he won't eat it and just wants to peel one after another. Enjoy his interchange with Joseph here.