Thursday, November 3, 2011
On Rainy Days
I like to bake. This morning, I had two kids so grumpy that even the tv was of no help. So we baked. I mean, R sat in his excersaucer while chomping on cheerios, B stood on a chair repeatedly asking me for a "taste" and I did the actual baking.
A few years ago I dove into my Jewish roots, and learned how to make some baked goods that would make my Polish/German ancestors proud. The first was Kamish bread. It's a lot like biscotti but not so crumbly. It's super easy and fairly quick. It's not a yeast bread so it only take about 30 min. from ingredients to edible. I'd post a picture but by 1pm it's almost all gone and not that pretty anymore.
The second thing I learned to cook was challah bread. This is my fav. It's sweet, and light, and fluffy. It's great for breakfast, snack, or as french toast once it's a few days old (if it lasts that long.) The recipe is here. I use my bread machine for almost all baked goods, even if I don't have a bread machine recipe. I improvise and figure out how to make it work with the bread machine. Like most moms with young kids I don't have time to stand and hand knead dough for 15 min. Why bother when a machine can do the job for you. So here is my risen yet pre-baked loaf of braided goodness. It's baking now and I can't wait for it to be done.
A few years ago I dove into my Jewish roots, and learned how to make some baked goods that would make my Polish/German ancestors proud. The first was Kamish bread. It's a lot like biscotti but not so crumbly. It's super easy and fairly quick. It's not a yeast bread so it only take about 30 min. from ingredients to edible. I'd post a picture but by 1pm it's almost all gone and not that pretty anymore.
The second thing I learned to cook was challah bread. This is my fav. It's sweet, and light, and fluffy. It's great for breakfast, snack, or as french toast once it's a few days old (if it lasts that long.) The recipe is here. I use my bread machine for almost all baked goods, even if I don't have a bread machine recipe. I improvise and figure out how to make it work with the bread machine. Like most moms with young kids I don't have time to stand and hand knead dough for 15 min. Why bother when a machine can do the job for you. So here is my risen yet pre-baked loaf of braided goodness. It's baking now and I can't wait for it to be done.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
If I Was More Organized
1. I'd blog more. I'm constantly thinking of great things to blog about. But I don't. I like to think that I do a pretty good job of managing my time, but I guess if I were really good, I'd pencil in an hour a week to sit down and write, which I don't. Which is obvious if you notice the month long gap between blog entries.
2. I'd send my brother a care package. It's been nagging at me for weeks to get a small care package together and mail to my brother who's currently spending a semester abroad in Salamanca, Spain. I remember getting mail in college and when I went abroad. It was the best thing ever to have a tiny taste of home while you're so far away. I promise, Mondo. I will send you something before you come home in December.
3. I'd create more. This weekend it became painfully apparent that my kid needs new shoes. He's outgrown the baby sizes and isn't big enough for the next group of hand-me-downs we've received. So after weeks of squishing his feet into booties, I cut out a few hours of the weekend to make him some shoes. I used to do make tons for Bela and even for friends that requested them. But I've just not had the same enthusiasm to do them for R. i think it's because this kid likes to drain as much energy from me as he can leaving me in no mood to do anything nice for him once he's gone to bed....#badmommy
Anyways, I made two pairs and was so excited with myself and the fact that he now has shoes to wear. It made me miss the old days when I made the time to do things like this. Oh and did I mention that 3 weeks ago B and I went to the fabric store and bought some awesome fabric to make her Halloween costume? Guess who then turned around and bought a jasmine outfit off Amazon three days later?...this girl.So here's to new shoes, care packages and blogging! Maybe I'll have more free time once they get to high school. A girl can dream.
2. I'd send my brother a care package. It's been nagging at me for weeks to get a small care package together and mail to my brother who's currently spending a semester abroad in Salamanca, Spain. I remember getting mail in college and when I went abroad. It was the best thing ever to have a tiny taste of home while you're so far away. I promise, Mondo. I will send you something before you come home in December.
3. I'd create more. This weekend it became painfully apparent that my kid needs new shoes. He's outgrown the baby sizes and isn't big enough for the next group of hand-me-downs we've received. So after weeks of squishing his feet into booties, I cut out a few hours of the weekend to make him some shoes. I used to do make tons for Bela and even for friends that requested them. But I've just not had the same enthusiasm to do them for R. i think it's because this kid likes to drain as much energy from me as he can leaving me in no mood to do anything nice for him once he's gone to bed....#badmommy
Anyways, I made two pairs and was so excited with myself and the fact that he now has shoes to wear. It made me miss the old days when I made the time to do things like this. Oh and did I mention that 3 weeks ago B and I went to the fabric store and bought some awesome fabric to make her Halloween costume? Guess who then turned around and bought a jasmine outfit off Amazon three days later?...this girl.So here's to new shoes, care packages and blogging! Maybe I'll have more free time once they get to high school. A girl can dream.
October
We've had a busy few weeks.
It started with the pumpkin patch at Theis Farm... If you live in St. Louis and have small kids make sure you do this next year. It's awesome! We got two "baby" pumpkins, ran through the corn maze, played on the slides and adventured through the hay bail tunnels. It was a huge hit.
We made a visit to Boo at the Zoo as well. This was a bit of a disappointment because most of the animals were inside do to the cold. The idea of this is to dress up in your costume, stand in a line that weaves all throughout the zoo and stop at a table every 50 feet to receive a piece of candy. It's a nice idea but for the 10 pieces of candy and the hour we were there, it just didn't seem worth it. Anyways, we met up with some new friends from Brazil which was probably the highlight.
Halloween couldn't have gone better. We stayed at home this year for trick o treating. With B dressed at Jasmine and R sporting B's monkey costume from last year (who says there aren't benefits to having 2 kids in 2 years?) we ventured out for some candy. B did great. She walked right up to the homes and said "trick o treat", held out her bag and then thanked the neighbors as she headed back to the side walk. I was so proud of her. After doing about a dozen homes, we returned to ours and I told B she could help me pass out candy to the kids. We sat on the porch and every time a kid walked up she handed them one piece and told them "trick o treat". I had to keep reminding her that that is what you say when you're the one actually trick o treating. Not when you're handing out candy. Oh well. She agreed to 3 pieces of candy from her bag for the night. Kids were in bed by 8, we got a decent amount of chocolate to eat over the next week and nobody refused sleep due to sugar highs. All in all, success.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)