Cake Class

SOOOO much has been happening around here lately what with hospital visits and trying to move in, but I thought I'd do a quick post and put up the pictures from the cake class I taught at the college a couple of weeks ago. One of the pictures got deleted off my camera thanks to my 1 year old, sorry 'bout that. They all did so great especially considering most of them had never worked with fondant or made roses before. One of my students even won 2nd place in a contest with his 'mermaid project' cake. So, here are the pics and I hope you all are doing well.

Ethan's Birthday.....FINALLY

So, Ethan's birthday was August 28th but I went up to Idaho and things were busy and he didn't get his party until yesterday. That's right 17 days after his actual birthday. Poor kid. He's been really patient about the whole thing though. Before I left I did take a batch of cupcakes to his preschool class though.

I just arranged the mini-cupcakes how I wanted and then iced them like they were one whole cake. No knife needed for cutting and it's easy for little hands to get just the piece they want.

This year Ethan asked for Captain Hooks' pirate ship for his cake. I took a few pics during the process, but as you'll see, it was really pretty simple. I used a half-sheet cake pan, but you could easily use a 9x13 to do this cake. The only specialty thing I used was a little imprint that presses into the fondant to make it look like wooded boards nailed together. I got mine at Cake Craft Shoppe in Sugarland for 10 bucks in a pack that had that one, cobblestone, brick, siding, and basketweave imprints. Since we're trying to close on the house and pack and what not I decided to just buy a couple of pirates to put on top and then I printed Peter Pan saying "Happy Birthday Ethan" on a piece of cardstock that I used for the sail. I'll include the pictures etc at the end.

He decided for his birthday dinner that he wanted to make his own pizza. I'll include my focaccia bread recipe at the end since we used that for our pizza dough. 

So, I said before how Jon and I had taken away all their toys and....well, everything and that the end result was that they basically didn't care. We realized from that little experiment that all these toys and things they had were, for the most part, for us. We wanted our kids to have this stuff. They didn't really care. I read this article in some waiting room where this organization expert said (and I paraphrase):

"Look at all your stuff and realize that every thing you own represents some of your time; time to clean it, time to put it away, time to maintain it in some way or other. Think of how much more time you would have in your life for things and people you love if you took back some of that time that's being eaten up by things that are just in the way." 

Profound right? Since we're moving I thought this was pretty much perfect timing and we're getting rid of loads of our crap we've been holding on to for years for Heaven only knows what reasons. We'll donate it and maybe someone who actually needs it can have it. Simple, streamlined, peaceful lives is the plan. So, as part of that we asked the grandparents and cousins (we only did a family party) not to get toys for birthday presents. Yep, you read it right. No toys. Before you think I finally crossed the line just read on.What we asked instead is a gift that means something: time. We want our kids to have strong, happy, meaningful memories of time spent with those they love. A tradition of having a lunch date with just them and Grandma or going fishing with Grandpa will mean so much more to them than another plastic thing that will be broken or have half the pieces lost in a month tops. (Who am I kidding? We all know it's a week tops in this house.) And I don't mean that it will eventually, in the long run, sometime when he's older and wiser be more meaningful to them. I mean now as well. For his birthday present from us Jon and I took Ethan to the Houston Children's Museum for the day (we have an annual pass) and we ate PB & J's in the car on the way home. You never saw a happier kid. Traditions, memories, family. That's what we want our celebrations with them to be about.

For the pics and recipes....

Starting School and Visiting Grandma Stellmon

 Aren't they cute? Christopher walks Ethan to his class everyday and then he goes to his. I'd like to be able to say that I had a hard time watching them go, but the truth is I spent the morning of their first day at school reveling in my new-found freedom and marveling at all that one can accomplish with only two kids in tow. Still, I thought they were adorable and took this picture just after they crossed the crosswalk together. See, not heartless after all.

Some of you friends and family know what's going on with me lately, and some don't so I'm going to do a little 'nutshell' version for you. I went to a neurologist because I've had this annoying twitch thing going on since the last few months of pregnancy with Timothy. They ran a whole battery of tests and didn't find out what's causing the twitch, but it turns out that I've had a (VERY MINOR) stroke at some point in the past, I have a small hole in my heart (a congenital defect, but they're checking it out just the same), high cholesterol, a high anion gap (whatever that is), sleep apnea, and possibly arsenic poisening. You know, if you take a car to a mechanic and he pokes around enough he's bound to find something wrong with it. I'm just sayin'. Anyway, I had a thing this last Sunday and I'm going for another CT scan because my neurologist thinks it was a TIA (like a mini warning stroke without the long term effects) but he wants to make sure it's nothing more serious. I guess I'm in the same boat as Bill "We're toast." Really, I'm fine, no worries.

Now, for some fun stuff.

 Timothy, Ryan and I went up to Lewiston to visit Gram & Gramp Stellmon for a week. It was so great. Timothy still smiles when he hears Gram's voice over the phone and Ryan is such a little monster but he and Gram had so much fun having raspberry wars all week. I took a LOT of pictures and video so I just loaded them onto my picasa album. Here's the link to all the pictures from our trip up there. I'm going to load the video sometime, but you know me.

So-obviously-I'm trying to be even more careful of what I eat lately. Jon's sure that a low-fat, low to no sugar, only whole grains, low sodium diet can NOT include edible food, but I'm going to at least try. I got a leg up from my parents and Jay who gave us a huge amount of fresh caught Alaskan Salmon to add to the menu. Yay Dad. At Jon's parents the other day everyone else had burgers and I had a MorningStar Farms® Chipotle Black Bean Burger. I know what you're thinking:" Bean burger?!?" or "Mindy ate something with chipotle?!?!" Actually, it was pretty good. It had some spice, but with the bun, some lettuce and a tomato it wasn't too spicy. I also have a recipe of sorts that I tried the other night and loved. It's a black bean salsa thing. I'm not going to give exact amounts for the salt and spices, just add them to your liking. Really, all the ingredient amounts are negotiable. I just gave amounts to get you started. I know that the banana sounds like a weird ingredient, but trust me on this one okay. I had it once served over tilapia that I had just broiled with a little olive oil and kosher salt and I had it the next day in a whole wheat tortilla with some leftover grilled chicken. Delish both times. I'm also posting a lovely pork loin roast recipe that Jon made for me all by himself the other day because he's so wonderful. I just copied the recipe from the word file he'd saved it in, so I don't know where he originally got it from. For the recipes....

Playing with Fondant

Life with 4 boys, I love it!

YAY! WE HAVE A HOUSE!!! Well, almost. We've signed papers. I'll post pictures when the current owners move out and I can take pictures without potentially crossing that peeping Tom line. Still, YAY!

So a while ago we all went up to the house formerly known as Lauras' which is now an empty shell because they've abandoned us and moved to Utah. While we were there we played with fondant and made some new friends. I thought I'd do a quickie post on a few of the things we covered for those of you who were there. So, here is a link to the post with the fondant recipe as well as some icing, cake and filling recipes. Also, here is the website for the store in Sugarland that I go to to get anything I can't find at the local Hobby Lobby. Be warned though, their shipping charges are really high, so if you can go there to get what you want you'll be better off. (Besides, if you can go without kids it's fun to browse a bit too). I'm doing a couple of cakes next week. One is a cake for the quinciañera of a girl I teach in Sunday school and one is a pirate ship cake for Ethan's birthday. They'll both be covered in fondant and I'll try to take pictures as I go so I can explain some techniques for you. Hope you're having fun with your fondant and feel free to e-mail me anytime with questions at mindywhipple@gmail.com.

Fun with Friends

 

I'm posting a recipe for a great Spanish chicken salad and an easy Moroccan chicken. I 'm also posting the pictures from playgroup this last week and a few other cute pics  and a video of or the long-distance relatives and friends out there. I don't have any pictures from our little weekend without the kiddos, but it was great. We saw Wicked (FANTASTIC!!) went to the Houston Museum of Fine Art (only because Jon was forced to via his art appreciation prof.) and generally enjoyed ourselves. Thanks to Gramma Whipple and Pam for babysitting for us. Anyway, click the link for the photos.... 

A Coup in the Whipple house....Almost

This is one of the pictures of the cake I made for my nephew Brian's birthday party yesterday. In case you're wondering it's supposed to look wonky like that. It's called a topsy turvey cake. They're really very stable despite their look although not quite stable enough to handle Ethan's curiosity. He knocked the top two tiers off, but it's not too bad off considering; just a few lumps and wrinkles.

We’ve gotten tired of the boys breaking everything they look at, so we’re trying something new now. We emptied their rooms of everything-we even took apart their beds-and put it all in a storage unit. They’re sleeping on the floor with a blanket, pillow and stuffed animal each for the next month. They have no toys or books so they’re going to have to entertain themselves some other way. I did keep a few books out for them to use during ‘quiet time’ each day though. I keep those in my room and get them for them when it’s time. They’re learning to appreciate what they have and that’s good. They play a lot of games using their hands as puppets now and I'm glad it's helping them use their imaginations more. We’ll leave it that way for a month (we paid for the storage unit right?) and slowly phase most of their stuff back in after that, but I think we’ll donate quite a bit too.

Due to this new arrangement, Christopher and Ethan are in one room and Ryan and Timothy are sharing a room. Timothy’s sleeping through the night now, so Ryan is getting way more sleep as his roommate than he did as Ethan's. Timothy doesn’t wake up until about 6:30 usually and that’s so nice because Ethan is up by then normally anyway. This morning Timothy woke up first though and it was hilarious. I went in the nursery to feed Timothy and closed the door so we didn’t wake up Christopher or Ethan. Ethan woke up a little bit after I started nursing Timothy and went into my room as usual to ask for a snack. When he saw that I wasn’t there he freaked out and started screaming and crying and ran in their room to wake up Christopher. The funniest thing is how Christopher reacted. He checked my room and when I wasn’t there he decided that he was in charge now and they were going to watch movies. He wasn’t even concerned. I was in the nursery cracking up but trying to be quiet about it. They only found me because"Grand Czar" Christopher decided Ryan could watch movies with them and he was coming to get him out of his crib. You should have seen their faces when they found me in there. Ethan’s face was pure relief and Christopher looked like he had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Poor guy; I ruined his little coup.

The recipes this week were: Healthy Country Fried Steak with Mushroom Gravy, Asparagus Primavera with Couscous (47), Spicy Shrimp over Rice, and Crème Brûlée (both vanilla and dark chocolate). The first two are from the Clean Eating magazine I wrote about before and the other two are my own recipes. The dark chocolate Crème Brûlée doesn't have exactly the same mouth feel as the vanilla. Judging by what I've read online at various sites that seems to be the case across the board when chocolate is added to it. Still it was very good if you like dark chocolate (which I do). Even my 3 year old niece liked and and I'm including it in this weeks blog at the behest of my nephew Brian who also loved it. Even if you don't like dark chocolate, the vanilla recipe is really the best one I've used and it's a good base for whatever flavor you want to go with. Don't be afraid to give it a try because-even though it seems intimidating to a lot of people-great Crème Brûlée is almost as easy to make as instant pudding it just tastes SO much better. My evil plan to sabotage Jon is working because he can't resist Crème Brûlée and I made him several for Father's Day. Waahh Haaah Hahhh (<--evil genius laugh). Hey, he REQUESTED for me to make it. So I'm not THAT evil.

For the recipes and a few more pictures...

We tried a blackberry salmon recipe out of the Clean Eating magazine a few nights ago and it was a big hit. The only alteration I made was to cook the fish in the sauce and serve it hot. The magazine has you cook the fish separate with just salt and pepper and then serve it cold over arugala with the sauce poured over it. Since Jon's not a fan of fish or cold foods I thought it might be asking a bit much to do both at once. He really liked it done this way though and even went back for seconds. It was good and super simple.

I'm also posting a delish little dish I discovered on the side of a cookie box yesterday. It's a lemon-ginger dessert and it's loaded with all kinds of unhealthyness, but it's fast, delicious, and cheap which was exactly what I was looking for to feed the 40+ people at The Gathering Place meeting today. It is good and I say it doesn't hurt to have junk food once in a while.

Speaking of The Gathering Place....we had an Elvis impersonator there today and he was great! Everyone LOVED him. We have a load of pictures, but I'll only post a couple of them. I'm also posting some pictures from last weekend when we went to the Moody Gardens Aquarium Pyramid and a sandcastle competition out in Galveston. The aquarium is cool. There's a tunnel you can walk through with the fish & sharks and turtles swimming all around you. We had a lot of fun that day. There were so many cool sandcastles! I think I posted all the pictures on facebook, but here are a few of my favorites. (The one with the golden bucket in front of it won the competition.)

For the recipes and pictures.....

Turkey Burgers with Mango Salsa

So I'm sitting on the couch nursing Timothy today and listening to and watching the other 3 boys play with each other. They're pretending to be superheros with bow and arrows (this may stem from watching Veggie Tales: Lord of the Beans the other day-it's on netflix if you have that) and saving the animals and princesses. They told me they had 100 million each of cows, goats, horses, pigs and chickens to save. When I said that that was a lot of animals and how were they going to save them Ethan said "With daddy milk." ('Mommy milk' is what Timothy drinks when I nurse him.) Curious as to what that was I asked where daddy milk came from. "From the store" he said as though the answer was obvious. Silly me.

It's amazing what kids can make into a game. Take Ryans' recent diaper rash for instance. Ryan's had this terrible rash so-with not a little apprehension-I let him wander about the apartment yesterday without any diaper as per the pediatricians' recommendation. Christopher and Ethan (who may be the only two boys alive under the age of 7 who don't like running around naked) soon started running away from Ryan any time he got close to them screaming "Gross! He's naked! Run away!" Ryan, of course, thought this was hilarious and started chasing them around the apartment laughing. After about ten minutes my desire not to clean up a pee soaked carpet-or worse-outweighed my desire to help his little tushie so I grabbed him before he headed down the hall to get his brothers and put a diaper on him. Moments later Christopher and Ethan came back out into the livingroom and Christopher says in his most mournful voice "But Mommy, we were playing Gross Boy! Now we can't play." Once again mommy ruins a perfectly good game.=)

Okay now for the recipe. Jon and I have made a bet. We took measurements and weighed in and whoever meets their weightloss/measurement goal first gets $50. We only have 16 weeks to get there so we're both trying to make changes in diet and exercise more. I think Jon has an advantage because he has to take not one but 2 PE classes at the college this summer so he will have 5 hours a week of exercise whether he feels motivated or not. My friend Becca said that maybe it's me that has the advantage because I'm breastfeeding and according to the Institute of Medicine that means I'm burning 650 just sitting on the couch feeding Timothy every day. I guess we'll see.

Anyway, I've been trying some new recipes from a magazine I swiped from my OB's office. It's called Clean Eating and it's all about eating things as close to their natural state as possible. It has loads of information, tips and recipes. If the recipes we test are good I'm subscribing. Anyway, yesterday we tried Turkey burgers with fresh mango salsa. It was REALLY good. Yes, I altered the recipe, but not much. I added an egg and some breadcrumbs to the burger mix to make it hold together better and make it moist and I made my own mango salsa instead of buying some of the brand they recommended in the produce section. Even so, it took less than 30 min start to finish. So for the recipe...

Bread Salad

Like that shiner. Ethan gave it to Jon while we were all wrestling with each other. This picture was taken about five minutes after the fact. You should see it now; it's all yellow and green and purple. Very ugly. Jon's mom asked Ethan on Sunday what happened to his daddy and he said "I smoked him while we were at home." Crazy little runt. But there's no denying that the kid is funny.

So, for FHE this week we did an activity where one of the kids had to come up with a funny "What if...." scenario and then we all worked together writing a poem about it. Christopher said "What if Ryan could fly?" Then I'd ask questions like: where would he go, what would he do, what would happen then...etc and we'd put a sentence down and then the kids would have to think of a word that would rhyme with the last word in the sentence for the next line and Jon and I would have to try to use the word they picked in the poem. It was a lot of fun and helped the kids with their rhyming skills too.

Today I'm posting the recipe for bread salad. I know it sounds a little weird to those of you who've never tried it, but it's cheap, healthy, quick, easy and tastes really good so don't be such a chicken. Give it a try.

For the poems and recipe...

Firsts

Christopher lost his first tooth (the other front one is loose too) and Ryan took his first steps(I'd post the video later in this post except my video posting thing isn't working). Our little family just keeps growing and progressing, it seems so crazy most of the time but mostly it's a good kind of crazy. The photo up top is a picture of the wedding cake I did a couple of weeks ago. I'm posting the recipe for desperation cookies today because I thought it was appropo for me at the moment. It's a great recipe and it never turns out the same way twice. The great thing about it is that you just use whatever you have on hand which is why it never turns out the same but it's always delicious. I first came across it in a book by Joanne Fluke. She writes murder mystery books that have recipes all through them. I think this one was in Peach Cobbler Murder, but I'm really not sure. Anyway...For the recipes

Tinkerbell and Strawberry cake

I did a couple of birthday cakes for a friend so I thought I'd post the pictures. The pictures are from her cell phone, so they're not the best, but I didn't take any pictures because frankly my brain is not fully functional yet. On the up side, despite the constant crying as of late, it appears that Timothy may not have colic after all. We went in to the pediatrician for a follow up appointment for Christopher (more below) and I had him check Timothy's ears while we were there and the poor baby has raging ear infections.

So Christopher come to me crying Thursday afternoon. It took a minute to calm him down, but when he did he finally got out what the problem was. "Mom, Ryan made me swallow a battery!" Fan-freakin-tastic. It turns out the he got the button battery out of his book light and was just messing around with the stupid thing in his mouth and accidentally swallowed it. Poor Ryan just happened to be witness to the incident which means he-of course-had to be at fault as it couldn't be Christophers'.

Apparently my child isn't the only one out there with a penchant for appetizers of the alkaline variety though. There is a special hot-line just for button battery swallowers. We had to drive up to Texas Childrens Hospital and do x-rays and sit around for 5 hours because-shocker-no one at our hospital is qualified to fish the thing out if that's what needed to happen. Luckily we had Timothy with us and the nurses felt he was too young to sit out in the waiting room with the sick people so we got to go to an exam room that had a tv and watch the Discovery Channel while we waited. It seemed to be moving along and, after much debate, it was decided that we would be allowed to go home. On the way up to Houston Thursday Christopher asked me if they would have to cut him open to get it out and I told him that they wouldn't because they have a special tool that could go down his throat and into his tummy to get it. Jon said he'd get to eat lots of ice cream if that happened and then Christopher was hoping that it wouldn't come out after all. Crazy kid.

We're going in today for another x-ray and as long as the thing is still moving we're good to go. If it's stuck somewhere they'll have to go in and get it out so it doesn't start leaking acid. So everyone keep your fingers crossed for us okay. I swear, if you know my kids you'd think it would be Ethan going to the emergency room all the time, but it's always Christopher.

Oh, I'm also posting the recipe for homemade strawberry cake because I told Brandi I would. So, here you go dear....

More of Timothy John

If you think he looks bad you should see me. It is not pretty my friends, not pretty at all. The house is a wreck, the laundry is building up and Jon and I are both sleep deprived. So pretty much average for a newbie in the house. Really, we're doing okay here. Still not getting out anywhere but church though.

Christopher and Ethan are loving being big brothers. I tried to potty train Ethan for 8 months to no avail and Jon was home for one week and like magic the little runt is potty trained. He's doing great and hasn't had any accidents in days. Apparently Daddy just has it and Mommy doesn't. Maybe we should try doing the 'Mr. Mom' thing. Jon could stay home and change diapers and I could start a bakery. Just kiddin hon.=)

Timothy's not even two weeks old and I've already had a raging case of mastitis. I think it's a personal best for me as far as quickest infection time. Let's see how long it takes before Timothy and I get thrush together. Yay! I'm told it's because I produce more milk than any 6 babies could drink so I'm never 'empty' and it leaves me more prone to infection. Laura says these gel things from Target really help to stave off infection and to fight it if you have one so I'm going to try them.

For those of you who don't know, I had some nerve damage that left me unable to use my right leg in some ways the last month of the pregnancy and it didn't get any better after the delivery. Nicole has been helping me with some exercises and I'm trying to be good about it and it's getting much better. I can now get into bed by myself and even put on my own pants without any help. Pathetic, I know, but that's not sarcasm. I really am excited about it. Anyway here are some more pics of the new kid on the block plus some of our little cutie pie Ry-Ry. Also, if you click on read more and give it a sec there's a cute video of Christopher rocking Timothy to sleep at the very top of the post. Too cute!

Sweet Tooth

Until recently I didn't know that fresh strawberry pie was my favorite pie. I'd never actually tried it because the ones at the store or in restaurants looked......less than what I would call 'fresh' shall we say. Then I took the boys to pick strawberries at Frobergs. Here's a link if you want to know how to get there http://local.yahoo.com/info-19153006-froberg-vegetable-fruit-farm-alvin . Also, here's a link to a site that lists pick your own fruit and veggie farms all across the country http://www.pickyourown.org/

At $1.80 per pound of strawberries it's loads of fun and you get some fantastic strawberries. It took a little guidance at first, but once they got the idea of how to find the perfect strawberry they were off. Two buckets and 7 1/2 lbs of strawberries later we went home. I froze a few but decided to try strawberry pie since I never had before. After I got the crust rolled, Christopher booted me out of the way and took over the pie making but graciously told us that Ethan could make the whipped cream and I could cook the crusts after he decorated the edges. The pies turned out great and I've been craving more ever since. I doubt it would be as good with store bought strawberries, but I'm still tempted to give it a go. Anyway, here's the recipe for fresh strawberry pie and a few other random desserts that are equally delicious as well as a few pictures of my strawberry picking crew....

Mr. Sneeze

For those of you who don't know, Mr. Sneeze is a pirate who wears shorts on his head and helps Captain Hook chase Peter Pan. That's what my boys think anyway. So periodically they put their shorts on their head or just leave the shirt they've been taking off hanging inside out on the top of their head and pretend to be pirates.

Yesterday Jon took Christopher, Ethan and Ryan to the ward BBQ social and Timothy and I stayed home. I had a lovely apple and brie quesadilla for dinner which I will include the recipe for and had a nice relaxing evening. Jon told me what happened when he and the boys got home and got out of the van to come upstairs and I thought I'd share the story.

One of our neighbors was standing outside the building smoking. She was wearing a do-rag on her head (like a bandanna Gram) and Ethan says "Hey Daddy look she's pretending to be a pirate!" and points at her. (For those of you who don't know Ethan, 'quite' and 'subtle' are not terms he's familiar with. She definitely heard him.) Christopher looks over and says "Yeah Daddy look, she's a pirate!" Jon hates a scene of any kind and just pretended like he didn't hear either of them. Nice try dad. They just assumed he really didn't hear them so they said it again-only louder. My sweet embarrassed husband said as quietly as he could "Yep, now let's go upstairs" and rushed them up. I personally think the woman probably got quite a kick out of it, but that's me. Jon thought it was funny-if a wee bit embarrassing-and the boys thought it was great that grownups pretended to be Mr. Sneeze sometimes too.

On another note, Timothy and I are both doing great. He's sleeping 4 hours at a time at night now so that's nice. He's a pretty sweet little guy and he gets cuter every day. Jon and I feel so blessed. For those of you I haven't e-mailed or called or anything in the last little while I'm sorry. You know how I am. For a while the mass communication of one blog entry will have to do, but I'll get back to e-mailing and calling like a normal human eventually.

For the quesadilla recipe......

He's Finally Here!!

Obviously this isn't going to be a long post, but I thought I'd put up pictures of the newest addition to our little clan for all you friends and family out there. He was born at 5:55 am on Tuesday the 13th. He weighed 7lbs and 13 oz and was 20.5 in long. He took longer than any of the others to get here and was a LOT more painful, but he's pretty cute so we'll let it slide. Jon and I couldn't come up with a name and it finally came down to picking a name or setting up camp at the hospital. We finally got it down to Timothy and Luke and asked the boys what they liked better. They both agreed on Timothy which is almost a sign in and of itself. We picked the middle name John since it's a family name on both sides. That's all for now. For the pictures...

Easter Eggs and Hollandaise

Here's a picture of the three hoodlums at Christopher's preschool after the egg hunt. (I was holding Ryan during the egg hunt and didn't get any pictures, sorry.) Sometimes they're just too cute. Still no baby here yet. Maybe he's waiting until we actually come up with a name for him. In which case I'm hosed because we still have nothing. I don't think I was ever this tired during the other three pregnancies. I feel like someone has literally sucked all the life out of me. It's all I can do just to get up and feed the kiddos most days. I sat down to fold laundry a few weeks ago and just woke up 1/2 an hour later. Nothing was on fire and no one was bleeding so that was good but still...

I do think the kid has finally dropped though. With the other three, when they dropped I started having some trouble with my round ligament. Yeah.....lately I'll be walking along and then suddenly it feels like I'm having a charlie horse in my groin area. Not so much fun really but if it means he's finally coming then bring it on.

I'm not posting much today but as I sat here still in my jammies at noon on my couch I was thinking I'd post my hollandaise recipe. I know I just did a breakfast post, but I was much amiss at not including hollandaise because it is liquid deliciousness. It's also great on fish and well loads of stuff. I realize there's this aura surrounding hollandaise sauce because it's supposed to be hard or something. I was in college before I was brave enough to try. Yeah, it's not hard. I've never had one that didn't turn out and I fudge on the 'rules' all the time. I'll leave it over the heat for a few seconds without stirring while I grab something or answer the phone, everything isn't always the right temperature...whatever. I'm not much of a rules person when it comes to food as you know. Anyway, this is super easy. I'm told there are easy versions involving a blender, but I like to have control of the consistency which you can't really if you're blending things so...

Anyway, for more Easter pics and the recipe...

Breakfast EGG-stravaganza (cheesy much huh)

No, I was not eaten by wild animals nor did I fall off the edge of the planet. Yes, it has taken a little while longer than I expected (okay a LOT longer than I expected) to recoup from the holidays and post again. I’m doing fine as things go. I’m due in 13 days and that’s about 20 days too many for me but I suppose I’ll survive. About two months ago I came home from an OB appointment and Ethan ran up to me and gave me a hug and said “I love you Mommy. Did the doctor give you something to make you nice again?” From the mouths of babes huh. Poor Jon just sat there trying to be invisible because he wasn’t sure if I would laugh, cry, or what in response to that comment. Oh, the joys of the hormonal rollercoaster ride called pregnancy. Luckily for the males of this household, Jon has noted that I’ve been doing much better since then and he’s just crazy enough not to lie to a pregnant woman about such matters.
Okay, down to business. Are these not the cutest deviled eggs you’ve ever seen? Come on, you know they are. I know they have nothing to do with breakfast, but they were too cute to not do before Easter. Besides, they’re eggs, that goes….kind of. I saw a picture in a magazine a while back and finally got around to trying it. They’re not much more difficult than regular deviled eggs and look how cute! It took about 2 min to make the chick and 1 for the basket so I wouldn’t recommend making fifty of them, but a few of them stratigecally placed on a tray of regular deviled eggs would be perfect for a party.
So, Jay mentioned that it might be nice to have a little variety in the foods they ate but that sometimes it’s hard to think of things to make on a budget. I told him I’d do a few posts on foods we eat to give some ideas of budget friendly foods. Some of them we eat more often, some are more budget friendly, some take less time and some are healthier than others, but variety is good and sometimes just having a list of ideas helps get us out of a rut. Obviously this first post is breakfast oriented-feel free to post any other ideas-and the next few will be….something else. (Why buck tradition and plan ahead right?) So for directions to these deviled eggs and some breakfast ideas and recipes….