Cooking and Time Spent in the Kitchen

I got a new container, I'm not sure whether or not I've shared it already, because I haven't updated in so long, but I was really excited that this one nests into the lid!!!

My second round of egg noodles fell apart more than round one, but I made due.

Sometimes I get on a kick, trying to use up ingredients, and on this particular day I also thought I should make some chicken and dumplings to use up the old celery and carrots.

Dumpling ingredients:

The other ingredients:

I love that this recipe lets you use a single pan for the whole process, because heaven knows I used just about every prep dish and measuring spoon in my kitchen!

Season chicken and cook thoroughly, remove.

The veggies need to soften next.

Mix in the other ingredients. Add the chicken back in.

And drop in the dumplings, then steam for a while.

Yum!  I froze several portions and shared with Sarah. She approved.

Since I'd made so many things already, I though a quick brownie mix was in order.  Sadly, we were out of mix!  This is unusual, since it's something I try to keep, just incase the mood strikes. = (

So, back to the internet for a brownie recipe.  

Grace came in the kitchen while the were cooling and said, "oh, did you find some mix?" I was like, no, I made these from scratch.  She was like, "you can do that?"  yes, yes you can, dear girl.

Lots of dishwasher runs and many, many, rounds of handwashing.

My basement pantry had become disorganized, so I had various areas with cans and jars that I consolidated.  Thankfully I didn't have to throw out much in the way of expired food, but now all the like things are grouped together!  

One of the things that I found I had a surplus of was condensed milk.  I looked up recipes that could be made with condensed milk.  The recipe for which I had all the necessary ingredients and did not appear to be too time intensive was for oat bread.  When I started, I thought it was a sweet bread, but as the dough progressed, I realized that it was a regular kind of bread.  So, I made some cinnamon honey butter to go with it.  It was quite tasty!

In the theme of using things up, I wanted to use up the remaining molasses from our Christmas Gingerbread House making.  So, I made a round of St. Lucia cakes.

Finally, the day came for me to use the egg noodles that I'd made!  Tuna casserole is actually really enjoyed in this house!  It's not the healthiest meal, but I'll take less complaining any day.

At a rummage sale, I found a Pampered Chef terra cotta microwave egg maker. I almost passed it along before trying it out, and I'm so glad that I didn't!  We use it almost every school morning!!!  It makes two eggs at a time, so Alice and I each get a 'fried' egg on toast.  

Grace and Juliet have also used it for scrambled eggs, which they were already making in my regular bowls in the microwave, but this device cleans up much easier!

Old potatoes turned into flour, again!  This is one of my favorite transformations, but I'm always amazed at how little flour comes out of all of those potatoes!

After drying, it goes into the blender, then the grinder, then William helped out with the final step: flour mill!

Using some of this flour, I made lemon muffins!

One of the ladies in my moms' group was saying that she wrapped her block cheese in beeswax wrap.  Since I had some unused sheets from my sister, I thought I'd give it a try.  I don't think I'll ever go back to a container!  It keeps it really soft and fresh.

And more banana bread with those bananas on the counter that always seem to be browning!

A special moms' group meeting this past week was cookie decorating!  Each set had two cookies, so I ordered 3 sets, because, well, five children.

There wasn't really time for me to decorate all of them, since we were learning, but I did get sneak an extra one before heading home.

Because I ordered three sets, I had tons of icing left.  So, I came home and searched up 'no spread' cookies like she told us, and made some for my children to decorate!

Emily, Grace and Juliet were my only interested ones, but they enjoyed decorating the cookies.

Juliet lasted the longest, and helped me until almost all of the icing was gone.  I added some touches to almost all of the cookies, in an attempt to use up the frosting.  

We sent Emily to school with a box of them so that she could share with her robotics team.  Sadly, only a few of them came to the final meeting, so she brought home more than I'd hoped. 

When I was preparing lunches for our Frankenmuth adventure, Billy requested turkey and swiss.  Sadly, we didn't have any, so I did my best with the colby jack that we did have.

When we got back from Frankenmuth, we had cinnamon honey butter, and no bread to use it on!  So, I made another round of the oat bread.  It was a good combination! I froze the second loaf for the next time we come home with cinnamon honey butter. ; )

In our house, if you request spaghetti squids, you have to help make them.  Juliet wanted it on the dinner list for the week, so she helped me make them, but not before making a hot dog face. lol.

The last time I saw her, Kristy gave me four dozen eggs!  I never want them to go to waste (and so far they never have) so I decided that we would have some devilled eggs four or Memorial Day weekend.  = )

Alice saw the boiled eggs in the fridge, and when she asked what they were for, wanted me to make them straight away.  I told her if she would peel them, I would get the filling made, but I hadn't planned on peeling them until Friday.  Well, she shelled them, so we had devilled eggs Thursday night.  They were gone by Friday afternoon.

We brought Billy home an oatmeal raisin cookie from the art show, and he enjoyed it immensely.  The oatmeal packs have fallen out of favor for a while now, so I thought I'd use them up to make Billy his own batch of oatmeal raisin cookies!  Well, they smelled amazing, so I also made some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for the rest of us! = )

Next week I have tuna casserole on the menu, so I made another round of homemade egg noodles.  This was a triple batch, so it was thicker than the first two batches that I made.  It seemed to dry okay, we'll see how it does when frozen and thawed in a few days.

I am so thankful to Kristy for the gift of the eggs from her chickens, we sure are enjoying them!  And I'm also thankful for the internet with all of it's recipes to use up ingredients that would otherwise go to waste!

later days

All the Other Fun Things

As usual, a post with all the other small events in life, grouped into a single post!

Grace slept with buns so that her hair would be curly the next morning.  It worked pretty well!

Some toys are set aside, so that the pieces don't go missing.  Once such toy is the doctor kit.  So, it tends to garner quite a bit of attention when someone goes to the extra trouble of extricating it from its storage location. = )

I thought the drying rice looked like a tiny dragon head.  Alice said she couldn't see it.

On one of my shopping trips, I found a cute black and green dress for Emily.  She liked it!

Grace and Juliet enjoy putting our dress up collection to good use!

I thought this was an interesting statue, pictured in a book in the twins' school library.

A trip to Horrocks was full of interesting finds!  First up was in ice sculpture.

These were both labelled Red Leicester, but the flecked one is the one that tastes good.  fyi.

Sauce for me!

And, next year, I know where to find the cinnamon imperials for the wreath cookies!  They also have gumballs for the twins' gumball machine.

One morning, I woke up, flushed the toilet, and then found that I had no pressure in the sink faucet.   A quick trip to the basement showed the problem: one of the tubes that Billy had messed with the day before had come completely loose, and our basement was flooded.  

Nothing was damaged, but it was annoying to have no pressure.  I brought up the emergency water jugs, and Billy was able to reconnect the tubes and tighten the fastener enough, but even after repairing it, the pump was not shutting off.  

I called the company that installed it, and they were able to come out and get everything in order.  It has finally dried out fully down there too!

Grace inherited one of Zoey's old outfits, and she was delighted to wear it!

Juliet showing me her heart shaped chicken. = )

On one of the days that all 5 were off for winter break, WGJ had an appointment in Grand Rapids with their ophthalmologist.  It was a dilation appointment, so we were there a long time!   The kids opted to move to the 'movie room' which had more to do than the exam room. 

Daddy sat in one of the kids' places, and then was slow in getting his food, so they all decided to take his place. lol.

Another Fallout memory. = )

Sunrise & snow.

Sunset, but no snow.

Our trash truck looks like a trash bin that's been knocked onto its side! = )

Emily wanted cardboard for her Halloween costume. We scored some really large boxes from Billy's work, and the twins claimed them for the week that they were off, before giving them to Emily. = )

We drove up to Looking Glass Brewery one day, waiting for the rummage sale nearby to hit 'clearance' time.  Somehow, I only ended up taking pictures of the screen, at Grace's behest, so that she could show Juliet.  It was a neat place.  I didn't like their cider as much as I like Dimes (which is probably for the best) but they had some 'Crab Rangoon Nachos' that were unique and oh so good!  We might have to go back again just for those!

I went into Kroger, which I rarely do, to secure one of Emily's desired birthday gifts, and spotted these delightful seasonal treats.  I bought a single bag, opened it in the car, and proceeded to finish it before the kids got home from school.  oops.

Speaking of cardboard boxes, a system glitch ended up sending my BJs order to a different store, so my pickup order was not ready when I went there.  Luckily, I wasn't in a rush and was able to collect my order in person.  They weren't able to cancel my order, so we just had to wait for it to time out.  

As I was leaving I saw 10 grape boxes!!!  I grabbed them for the twins, and set them up as a surprise for when they came home.  It turns out, they make the best child trap!  I was able to trap William and Emily before the twins even came home!

Well, once Emily and William knew it was a child trap, and a very successful one, they were anxiously waiting and watching to see how long it would take for me to 'trap' the twins.  It didn't take long at all!

The twins have spent many hours configuring and reconfiguring the grape boxes.  They even stacked them to see how tall of a podium they could make!

William has also enjoyed the boxes, creating a double decker structure, with Grace on the 'second' floor. = )

The elementary robotics team is gearing up for next year, and many of the pieces from the robot kit were missing, so I was tasked with sorting what was in the bin and identifying missing pieces.  Took me the better part of two hours, but at least now we have an inventory for next year (assuming that the twins are eligible to return.)

I had parent teacher conferences with the big kids this past week, and since the big girls were at a band competition, WGJ had to attend with me.  The first hour they were awesome and well occupied.  After a while though, they followed me and came in to each meeting, making it a little harder to focus.

Poor Billy came home from work to an empty house and a simple dinner left in a warm oven.

Speaking of Parent - Teacher conferences, the twins' will have theirs next week, and the halls are filling up with lovely student artwork!  Grace and Juliet's class has poetry books on display.  I snapped a picture of my favorite from each book. = )

On Friday I went shopping with Kristy and we went to a Sushi/Japanese restaurant.  She hadn't ever tried sushi in a way that made her content, so I ordered AAC with cream cheese (my favorite) so that she could sample it.  She didn't much care for it, but she didn't spit it out!!!

Our teriyaki meals were both served in adorable boat dishes. = )

20 or so minutes before I needed to pick up the twins, we heard firetruck and ambulance sirens fly by our house (not terribly unusual, since Holt/M99 is a busy intersection with regular accidents.)  However, when I walked out the door to make my 2 minute drive to the school, traffic was backed up beyond the curve!!!  I couldn't believe it.  Apparently, they were funneling all south bound M99 traffic through our village. = 0

Someone kindly let me in, but it was slow going, and the twins had already been brought inside by the time I arrived.  It was still backed up when we returned, so at least they could see that I didn't forget them!!!

By the time Billy came home they had completely closed the intersection and he had to take a strange detour to get to our house.   Reports said it was a state trooper and other vehicle, but no injuries were reported, thankfully.

And....finally....you can now 'snooze' your alarms!!!!!  I'm so excited that I no longer have to turn off and then remember to TURN ON my alarms with every school break!!! = )

And lastly, today was Pie Day!  The band sold pies, and today was the day for all the parents, students, and any other volunteers they could muster, to come assemble pies.  It was quite the assembly line.

It was so well done that I have no complaints.  We were able to check in, put on our sanitary gear, wash our hands, and get to work!  We made over 500 pies in under three hours, with a short break when we switched from cherry to apple.

I personally was on the top crust machine.  My job was to grab the partially flattened dough, and pust it under the next roller to make it flat enough for the top crust.  My partner caught the dough and added it to the pie.  (We recreated our jobs during clean up, because it wouldn't have been very sanitary to take out our phones during the actual pie making process. = ))

During the cherry pie making, Emily was a human conveyor belt, pushing the pies from the filling station to us.  During the apple making phase, she was responsible for taking the boxed pies over to the pick-up tables.

Once all was cleaned up, they fed us a pizza lunch.  All the workers claimed the pies their band member had sold, and then we loaded them into vehicles.  After that it was just a matter of cleaning up what we could, folding the empty tables, and leaving the organizers to pass out pies to sellers who couldn't help out this morning.

For an entire week our family has been eating freezer food, in an effort to clear space in the basement refrigerator.  Even with all we'd moved upstairs and eaten, it wasn't enough.  I managed to squeeze 17 in, by taking out the drawer on the bottom, but still had to find room for three in the upstairs freezer and cooked two, because there was no room left.

But, our early morning volunteer day is over, and Emily has already had her first customer come collect their pies (the ones from the upstairs freezer!)  She'll deliver the remaining pies on Monday after school. = )

It's been a busy month so far, and it's only March 2nd.  And tomorrow, we get to celebrate our favorite 13-year-old!!!

later days