Creating: Cooking and Crafting

The past few weeks have been busy, but not much in the way of crafting or picture worthy cooking!  I made a meal from the Kroger recipe section, but ended up with these awful noodles that made messes every time I used them: cooking, storing, reheating!  

The noodles came in odd amounts for what I needed, so I ended up with a poor noodle to sauce ratio, which was a shame, because I feel like this meal could have been great, and it was mediocre at best. = (  Everyone did enjoy the shrimp though!

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As a fundraiser, the robotics team asked for donations for a bake sale.  Emily and William had to help me make the treats, but I found these cute little (off season) square bottomed papers, unopened, at a rummage sale!  They turned out to be an ideal size for the goodies we made.

First up are Emily's contribution: monster cookies.  They were on sale, after Easter, egg shaped cookies. I still see the egg shape, but everyone else's first comment was 'monster' so I think they must have been okay.

William's treat was two pans worth of brownies!  I was able to fit everything in two extra large bags and one small bag*!  

One final craft was a picture Grace drew of one of the Lansing Lugnuts.  They are having a competition where they want kids under 13 to send in a picture of their 'favorite' Lugnut.  Grace didn't have a preference, so we picked the Tech alum!  I felt like she did a great job.  And, they had an option where you could mail it in instead of signing up for an account online, so we did that.  = )  Winners will be chosen after May 18th.

Sadly, I forgot to take a picture of it until after it was already out in the mailbox, so she had to run out to grab it, so that I could snap my picture!  I'm really glad that I have a picture of it though**. 

This post is making me feel like we haven't been very creative this month, but I think it's misleading, and we've just had bigger projects that are getting their very own posts. = )

later days

*I told William that three bags is essentially my entire allotment for the year!  Sadly, I had no appropriate boxes to put them in, and I had to make them two days before we sent them in because Monday was too busy, so the bags also kept the baked goods from drying out.

**When I go to print out the blog maybe I'll remember to include the picture I saved from the website that she used as a reference, but that's a good half year away, so probably not.  I don't want to put it in now, lest they send me some sort of cease-and-desist order and make me delete my blog.  I'd be super sad.  

A Collection of Little Moments

Each night, William, Grace, and Juliet are supposed to practice their multiplication facts.  They are all allowed to do so using a computer program, but all of them would rather argue work with the flash cards.  Sometimes they manage to get distracted though.

One day, while waiting for Alice to get out of band practice, I was sorting the mail.  Once I finished that, I was looking through the Amazon gift guide catalogue.  They had a promo for a Robolx item, and while claiming it for her account, Juliet added it to my account too!

The counter was not convinced.

We had Kennedy and Zoey over one weekend.  They spent quite a bit of time on their devices (though they were usually watching or playing together) but I wanted to take pictures for their moms, so I have a bunch of candid photos from the night. lol.

When it was time to take the girls home, Emily was heading over to Abby's house for the night.  So, the path was a zigzag.  Emily was first, then Zoey, then Kennedy.  When we were at Zoey's the girls got out to see the chickens, and found the hammock.  Zoey is attached to the backpack you see in this picture.

I got stung by a bee while subbing at school one day.  It hurt soooooo much!  I'm not terribly allergic, but missed a dose of my allergy pill, and swelled up complete with hives.  It was an uncomfortable, itchy, burning day, but with enough medication I slept the next night, and it finally started going down after 72 hours!  Even these two weeks later, I can still feel a bump at the injection site.  So now, bees make me a little nervous.

Juliet copying down the brownie recipe for their class bake off.  Grace didn't want her to use the same recipe, but I told her it wouldn't matter, since their team members were also bringing ingredients that would be different brands than what we use. 

Juliet was telling me that her groups' mixture was a little too wet, so they added cocoa powder to stiffen it. ::giggle, gag::  And Grace was telling me that her group had extra eggs, so they were sharing with a few other groups that forgot supplies. Sadly, they were short an egg, but their teacher broke her promise of not calling (her mom) to come bring up one more egg, since they had been so giving.

I got to chat with their teacher afterwards, and she said that the box mix won.  lol.  The girls loved the project, and I'm so glad they have such an awesome teacher!

During Alice's fall break, we practiced her driving.  She did have a small run in with a pole.  It was not fun, but could have been so much worse.  Billy's car looks a little worse for the wear, but better than a brand new car.  The engine still runs, and the airbags didn't deploy.  Billy bought a replacement light that he'll attempt to put in, because the headlight is not currently in operation.  So, we can still drive his car during the day, but not at night.  We may take it to a body shop once Billy is gainfully employed again.

Kristy gave Emily a dress, and some cute boots that just happened to match.  She styled it, and it came out super adorable!

Going back to driving, Alice drove us to Spirit Halloween one day. I was proud of her for jumping back in the driver's seat after hitting the pole, I think it shook her confidence a bit, but she's getting better each drive!

It had been a long time since I'd been into any Halloween store! We spent an hour or so poking about, but didn't end up buying anything.  They have some cool displays though!

My Great-Aunt Kay surprised me with some adorable turkey earrings! (I've been looking for some for years!)  I think I'll start wearing them in early November, so that I can get a full season out of them! = )

Grace found a noodle inside a noodle in her spaghetti o's!

I know I'll be 'looking back' on these days in no time! I'm not ready, but will hopefully enjoy this record when it's time.

later days

Cooking and Crafting

The cooler weather has us indoors more, and baking is back en vouge!

Kristy gave me six dozen eggs, so I thought I would make a quiche.  It's been forever since I've made one, and I really like them.  So I bought some spinach, and cut up some leftover steak we had in the fridge from earlier in the week.

It came out really tasty, but turns out the reason I haven't made one in a while is because Billy doesn't care for them. lol. of course.  I made a second one just this week, to use up the rest of the spinach, but it's just me and Emily eating on it.

I think maybe Grace and Juliet's teacher may have been subconsciously influenced by something that also came across my feed.  One night, I was super in the mood to make some brownie mix, and Grace was an awesome helper.  We filled each of the jars that we had with mix.  

Then, the next day, we got an email from their teacher that they were going to have a brownie 'bake off' in class.  Grace was thrilled.  But it was wild to me that we would both 'coincidentally' want to make brownies?  Subconscious suggestion.  

My mom requested a printer cover, so I pulled out a used shower curtain liner from the paint supply bin. 

I cut the panels, which the measuring is always the long, boring part.

All done, and stiff enough to stand up around my sewing machine!

Grace really wanted to make dead rocks for the trunk or treat.  She gave me about a week and a half notice on this, so I told her we could not, as we would need to go collect them from the landscape store, wash them, wait for them to dry, and then paint over 300.  

She was disappointed, but understood. So, she opted to make some for her class as a consolation. She made 80, so that she could give each of her classmates two, and have others to give teachers and friends in other classes.

I found a recipe to use up some canned oranges that we were given.  It's an easy recipe, and the frosting is so decadent.  It's made from whipped topping and pudding!  The girls liked it enough that Emily, Grace, and Juliet all want it as their birthday cakes next year! (recipe below)

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Cake:

1 (15.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix

1 (11 ounce) can mandarin oranges with juice

4 large eggs

¼ cup vegetable oil

Frosting:

1 (16 ounce) package frozen whipped topping, thawed

1 (3.5 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding mix

Instructions:

Gather all ingredients. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Mix together cake mix, mandarin oranges with juice, eggs, and oil. Pour batter into three greased and floured 8-inch round pans. Layers will be thin.

Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the center of cake comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Cool layers on wire racks.

Make the frosting: Mix together whipped topping and instant pudding mix.

Spread frosting onto the cooled cake layers. Stack layers; frost top and sides. Refrigerate until ready to eat.

Slice and enjoy!

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I was in some kind of mood, and decided that I also wanted to make some Irish hand pies to use up some of the potatoes in the basement.  But, I had no desire to go to the store, so I made some pie crust from scratch.  It came out pretty well, considering I can't recall the last time I made pie crust!

I ate on them all week! Ground beef, onions, potatoes, and Worchester sauce in pie crust. So good.  

We found a giant cupcake pan at a rummage sale!  I told the girls that I didn't have time to make it that evening, so Emily and Grace made it.  

The cake was so good!  A very fancy flavor to it.  And the recipe calls for 5 eggs!

Emily ended up taking over the frosting duty.  It took her a long time, and she was not a fan.

We added some sprinkles, but only to half, because the only sprinkles I like are the sugar crystals.

Adding the recipe here too, just incase we want that fancy flavor again!

 The cake was good, but I think we'll be passing the pan along to the next person!

later days

Cookies and Other Food

We made our first round of Christmas cookies at the end of November this year!  We started out with Some sugar cookies and royal icing.  The recipe was pretty good, but it was a learning experience for me. with the icing, so the flooding icing didn't work out as well as I had hoped.

Emily made the second batch the following weekend, because she didn't get to give cookies to everyone she wanted to, since the cookies had gluten in them.  She opted to make some no bake cookies for round two.  

The third round of cookies was Alice's project: treats for the band.  She attempted to make some pastry Christmas trees, but I was overloaded with my own projects and chores, so I was unable to assist her.  They were uneven in size, so some of them were fully cooked, and others were not.  I wouldn't allow her to take them, but helped her pick out the fully cooked ones for our family to eat.

She made some cute little Santa hats using strawberries, icing, and blonde Oreos. Since she made them the night before, the Oreos softened in the refrigerator, and people said they were quite good!

The final treat she made was 'fire pit' pretzels and candy.  They didn't have red hots at any of the stores I visited, so she tried using crushed cinnamon disks.  It didn't quite match her vision, but she ate them, and a few brave souls tried them too.  We ended up tossing the rest of these.

I made 5 boxes worth of brownies.  One of the boxes was gluten free, so that Emily could give some to her bff Abby.  The rest of them were given out to band and non-band members alike, since Alice wanted hers to be exclusively for the band members after the concert.

Billy found a cheddar-potato soup recipe for the crock pot.  I just happened to make it the day after my mom and most of the kids went to the church supper and came home with a container of leftover bread sticks!  They were the perfect match for the soup, and everyone ate dinner that night!

Billy and I each had an Aldi wine Advent Calendar this year.  I did have my glass the first night, but we were both terrible about trying to have one a night, and then we decided that we weren't even enjoying the whites enough to drink them, and we would save them for our friends who actually like white wine.  So, we still have the majority of both wine calendars, despite it being the 23rd of December. We liked the beer calendar (that we drank in November) more!

Carl's for the win!  I finally found the red hot type candy that I needed!

So we made the fourth round of Christmas cookies!

The fifth round of cookies were actually our annual gingerbread house day, and so they get their own post. = )

One of my big projects was to try my hand at making potato flour.  I've been wanting to use my flour mill from Kristy since my birthday!!!!  I pulled every potato that we had from the basement.  Which actually consisted of three different types!

I started by scrubbing them.

Then peeled them.  There were lots of scraps!!!

My pile of peeled potatoes!

I cut them up, and there were actually too many to fit into my pot.  So, I sent those with my mom so that Sarah could make some mashed potatoes.  I boiled them, 

...removed them from the pot... 

...mashed them up...

...and then loaded them into the dehydrator!

It took an extremely long time, with several sessions of breaking up thicker areas.  I think this is definitely a less is more appliance!

Next time, I'll try to do 1/3-1/2 of the pile that I did this time.  Essentially, if I buy a bag of potatoes for a recipe and don't use them all, just make them into flour straight away, no need to collect them for later!

Despite the pile, it was an awfully small amount once dehydrated!

Then, taking out the air, even a smaller amount!

However, when it came to milling it by hand, it was an awfully big pile!  I'm so glad that I've done it by hand, but if we ever switch over from store bought flour, we will absolutely need an electric mill or one that clips onto an edge.  The handle sticks out further than the base of this mill, so it's hard to get a flow, because you have to constantly move your stationary arm.  I tried holding it between my legs to stabilize it, but ended up with several bruises on the insides of my thighs from where the corners dug into me. = 0  Holding it steady while one of my children cranked was the least painful way. = )

Look at that beautiful potato flour!!!  I still haven't decided what to make with it, but maybe once my blog is up to date, I'll find the time!

I had sent my mom two salad ideas that had crossed my feed.  I had no intention of making either, because I didn't think I'd have an occasion.  But, the last moms' meeting of the year we had a kind of party/white elephant gift exchange!  So, I bought the makings for this adorable candy cane caprese salad!  The basil leaves were from my cute little countertop garden!  I brought balsamic vinegar as a dressing.  It was really good, and despite only 6 of us attending, I didn't have to bring any home with me! = )

The second salad idea I actually got to bring for the twins' class party!  Their teacher sent out an email early in the week that he was buying them pizza on Friday and asked if any parents would like to donate sides.  I jumped on the veggie sign up so fast! = )

After washing the cucumbers, I used my ribbon slicer to make thin strips.

Next step was to halve a cherry tomato.

Then thread a toothpick through the ribbon in a zig zag, so that each layer was slightly longer.  I was able to fit three folds onto my toothpicks!

I cut out the cheese stars, but didn't assemble them, since they wouldn't be covered in the fridge overnight. I bought an entire block of cheese to use, but it was not enough.  I ended up using American Cheese slices for the remainder.

The next morning the cucumbers were still crunchy, the tomatoes fared well, and the cheese was just a little crumbly after being in a container overnight.  They came out really cute, with only 3 casualties!!!  I am so glad that I got to make these this year.  

Grace and Juliet were delighted and highly complementary.  They said that people enjoyed them.  I didn't get to talk to the teacher after school, so I have no idea whether or not they enjoyed them, and extended that to their friends or not. They also brought up a bag of carrots, the rest of the tomatoes and some ranch, for those who don't care for cucumber.

And today, on the first day of Christmas break, I made devilled eggs!  They are not the fancy Christmas tree ones that my mom sent me, but they are quite tasty!

 It's been a fun season of baking and making and creating for all of us!

later days