It's a....!!

Today I had a fun project to make--a 'secret' cake! Let me explain...
My sister-in-law, Jessica, has a friend who is expecting her first child. Today that friend had an ultrasound to find out the gender. But she likes surprises so much that she wanted to wait and find out tonight, with the rest of her family, what they're having. So she had the doctor put the results in a sealed envelope and then gave it to Jessica to bring to me.
My part was to make a cake! I would make a large, round layer cake and the icing between the layers would be either pink or blue, depending on the ultrasound results. Then when they cut into the cake, the icing color would show what they were having! Pretty cool idea, right? :)

So Jessica came over this morning with our adorable little nephew to give me the envelope, then she hung out with the boys while I made the cake. Once I had the colored icing in place and hidden from Jessica, she came out and helped me figure out how to decorate the top. we decided to ice it white, put some pink and blue flowers on top, and write the letter E in the center (regardless of the gender, the baby's name will begin with the letter E). Made some little white flowers around the bottom, and it was done! And I was the only person, aside from the doctor, of course, who knew what she was having! I told Jessica that even though I didn't know her friend, it was fun being in on such a big secret! :) I'm excited for them to cut into it later.

I had told Kyle that I was making a cake today and explained what it was for and he thought it was a cool idea. What was funny, though, is that he came home from work today and right away he asked what they were having! He doesn't know them either, but since it was a secret, he had been thinking about it earlier and started wondering what they were having. I told him but swore him to secrecy! :)

It was a fun afternoon! Got to hang out with Jessica and Tristan, and to do something special for a friend!

Oh, I almost forgot to mention what her friend was having! The icing in the middle was......

Yay for boys!! :)

A very long weekend

We don't usually do anything special for Labor Day long weekend, but this year we decided to take a mini vacation. A friend from church has connections to a cabin at Lake Tahoe, so he and another friend invited us along to spend a few days there. Our last vacation ended up being...well, not much of a vacation. We drove to Wyoming in June and when we got home a week later we said we weren't going to travel again for a long time. Having Parker in the car for hours on end, not sleeping through the night once the entire time we were away, and then getting sick made for a very unhappy eight-month old. Which, in turn, made for very tired and unhappy parents!

But that was three months ago--surely he would do better now, right? *sigh...*

Well, our long weekend started out fine... Kyle came home from work early on Friday and we hurried to get packed and load the car so we could get a somewhat early start. We left here around 11:30 and traffic, although slower in some places, was still moving along pretty well. Then, about 30 minutes or so from the cabin, we were stopped--for almost 3 hours! It was down to one narrow lane, so we're guessing there was some kind of accident and they had to clear the road. We finally made it but our four hour drive turned into seven hours! Poor Nathan had arrived early and had to wait outside for a few hours until we got there with the key. After we got the car unloaded we drove to Safeway to stock up on food for the weekend. Brad also took a long time to arrive, getting in after we had already gone to bed.

Saturday was a beautiful day and we all decided that we would go sailing. We drove to the dock and boarded the Woodwind II for our two-hour cruise. So relaxing! They threw out a bunch of huge pillows on the deck, but we were afraid Parker and his fair skin would burn so we spent a lot of the time below, looking out the windows. Our first time sailing! And nobody fell overboard! :)

Later we went back to the cabin, where the guys grilled steak for dinner and we played a few games. Sunday we just hung out at the cabin and played some board games and chatted. There was supposed to be a fireworks show on the lake Sunday evening. We didn't want to drive to where they were being set off and be out too late so we walked down the hill, thinking we'd be able to see them from across the lake. We got there a little early and Parker was getting a little antsy...I'm sure the anticipation was killing him! :) However, once the fireworks started they were so far away that we could barely see it. Just a little round colored light here and there. Not a complete waste, though. At least we got our exercise hiking back up the hill!

I think it was good for us, especially Kyle, to get away and take it easy for a few days. He's been super busy with work lately. And Parker? Well, he didn't sleep so well the first night and he woke up early. The second day he woke up at 5 and didn't go back to sleep so Kyle took him for a drive and they saw a sunrise. :) The last morning he woke up before 6 again and was wide awake, so it was my turn to get up early with him. Guess he just doesn't sleep well in a strange place. Can't blame him, though. Sometimes I don't either!

we left Tahoe around noon on Monday and it was very slow all the way home. Traffic was moving, but it still took about six hours to get back. All in all it was a fun weekend, but the drive was a little longer than we would have liked. And Parker was very happy to be home! It was fun to see his face light up and hear his happy little sounds as he played with his toys again.
Yay for familiarity! :)

Pickles

I've been trying to post in the middle of the week, so I'm not sure if Sunday would be considered really late, or really early... :) We'll just say it's a couple days late.
I made several new recipes this week and I took pictures, however, I took them on my phone and when I tried to email them to my computer, they didn't all go through. I only got one and, unfortunately, I deleted them before I could re-send them. *Sigh.*
The first thing I made was rice pudding! I tried it when I was younger and for some reason I loved it--guess it's kind of a cozy, comfort food thing for me...although that said, I can't eat it all the time. I found a recipe on www.allrecipes.com and made a few little tweaks to it and it turned out pretty good. Lots of cinnamon and raisins--yum! :)
The second one I made was baked potato soup. I LOVE the kind served at Outback, so I keep looking up recipes for it, hoping to find something even slightly close to that. The one I tried was okay... I can't remember the blog I found it on, but I wrote down the recipe, so it's one I'll probably make again. The base is mostly broth, then you stir in a little milk and sour cream at the end (the first potato soup recipe I tried had more milk and cheese, so it ended up way too rich...hard to eat very much at a time). This one was very filling, but was easier on the stomach! I had a nice picture of a bowl of the soup, topped with bacon, cheese and green onions, but...you'll have to just imagine how good it looked! :)

And the last thing I tried this week was homemade pickles! I love pickles. My Mom cans her own every year and she has a super easy recipe that doesn't have to be processed, so I wanted to start with that. She usually pickles cucumbers and carrots (I know, pickled carrots sound weird, right? But they're really good!) but this year she also added green beans to the mix! I haven't tried pickled beans, but I'm sure they'd be good. Maybe.
Anyway, I picked up all the ingredients except cucumbers. I don't know if I waited too long in the season for little ones, of if nobody sells them that small but I couldn't find any. I like pickled carrots just as much so I picked up a 5 lb. bag of carrots and I eagerly awaited Parker's next nap. :) Once he was snug in his bed I went to work. I peeled and cut the carrots, then packed them into the jars. I wasn't sure how many jars it would take, so I did three quart-sized ones and two pint-sized. I alternated the carrot sticks with a few sprigs of dill, then once they were full I poured the brine over them to fill the jars. I had a little more of the brine left over, enough for another jar, but I had already used up all the dill and most of the carrots, so I just poured out the extra. Finally, the jars were covered and sealed and sitting in my cupboard for the next four weeks until I can open one and try them! Yum! :) Since this is my Mom's recipe, I can post it on here!

Dill Pickles
1 qt. vinegar
2 qt. water
3/4 cup pickling salt (course salt without iodide)
1/2 cup sugar
lots of small cucumbers or carrot sticks
dill weed

Wash and sterilize jar and lids. Wash vegetables and pack into jars, alternating layers of veggies with sprigs of dill. Set aside.
Combine vinegar and water; boil for 5 minutes. Stir in salt and sugar and boil for 1 minute longer. Pour over vegetables, filling jars almost to the top. Cover and seal. Allow pickles to set for 4 weeks before opening. Makes 5 quart-sized jars.

Once again, the pictures I took did not go through, except for one of the final product...

Gifts from My Boys

Well, it seems I have already broken my do-something-new-every-week streak! I was planning to try a recipe yesterday but I didn't have the right ingredients, so it'll have to wait. Maybe I'll do something extra next week to make up for it! :)
Since I wasn't able to bake what I wanted yesterday, I decided to take Parker and go to the mall for a while...and to see what's on sale! I went in a few stores but didn't really see anything I liked. Okay, I did see a few things I liked, but they were new arrivals and I wasn't about to pay full price. I went to Gap, hoping to find something on which I could use the remainder of a giftcard. Didn't see much in the baby section so I went to the womens' floor. I found a pair of jeans on sale for about $19. Not my favorite pair ever, but I need jeans and for Gap that's a pretty good price. So I took them to the check-out and they rang up for $14! And once I used my little giftcard, I ended up paying $7 total. Yay! Parker didn't seem as excited about that as I was. :)

On a totally unrelated note, I have a couple pictures I've been meaning to post! Our anniversary was a couple weeks ago, on July 25th. Hard to believe we've been married 8 years already! The 25th was a Monday, but I was spoiled that whole weekend... on Saturday he gave me a really pretty crystal vase (shown in the first picture), and on Sunday he and Parker got me flowers! Kyle picked the white ones from outside, and Parker got me the bouquet of wildflowers! Aren't they pretty? And they smelled wonderful.

On Monday we had made reservations to go for dinner while our neighbors watched Parker. Unfortunately, he decided he wasn't going to nap at all that afternoon so by 5:00pm he was as grumpy as could be! We didn't think our neighbors would appreciate that, so we ended up re-scheduling our reservation for the next night instead. Even though we didn't go out on Monday, Kyle still had a gift for me--a saphire ring! I couldn't get a good picture of it, but it's beautiful!

We finally made it out for dinner on Tuesday evening. I had looked up local Italian restaurants and Fontana's had a pretty good rating so we ate there--it was very good! We will definitely go back.
So, once again, I've been thoroughly spoiled! I'm thankful for such a great husband! I couldn't be happier, and I look forward to seeing what this year holds for us!

Baked Ziti

Whew--almost didn't get my weekly post done! :) Seems like the past few days have been busy and every time I sit down to update it Parker wakes up, or it's time to start dinner, or ...etc., etc. But here it is! This week I tried another new recipe--Baked Ziti! Why baked ziti, you may or may not be asking? Well, I was talking to a friend recently about making some meals to freeze, so one night I started looking up recipes/meals that freeze well, and a blog popped up with this. It looked really good so I thought I'd try it and see how it turned out. Most ziti recipes I find use a jar of pre-made sauce and they're not my favorite but this one is all from scratch. Here's the website where I found the recipe: www.annies-eats.net/2009/07/02/baked-ziti/. I think it's actually from Cook's Illustrated.

Baked Ziti
1 lb. cottage cheese
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 cups parmesan cheese, divided
table salt
1 lb. ziti
1 Tbsp. olive oil
20 oz. turkey sausage
1/2 cup yellow onion, finely chopped
5 med. garlic cloves, minced or pressed
1 can (28 oz.) tomato sauce
1 can (14 oz.) diced tomatoes
1 tsp. dried oregano
1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp. chopped fresh basil, divided
1 tsp. sugar
3/4 tsp. cornstarch
1 cup heavy cream OR whole milk
8 oz. mozzarella cheese, cut into 1/4" cubes

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together cottage cheese, eggs and 1 cup parmesan; set aside. Boil a pot of water. Stir in a Tbsp. salt and the pasta. Cook until pasta softens, but is not cooked through, about 5-7 minutes. Drain and leave in colander.
Heat olive oil over medium heat. Add sausage and cook until almost browned. Add onion and garlic and cook until onion is soft and the meat is thoroughly brown. Stir in tomato sauce, tomatoes and oregano; simmer until thickened, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in 1/2 cup chopped basil and sugar. Season with salt and pepper, if desired.
Stir together milk and cornstarch in a small pot. Cook until thickened, about 3-4 minutes. Remove from heat; stir into cottage cheese mixture. Add 1 1/2 cups of the tomato sauce mixture and 3/4 cup mozzarella cheese. Add pasta and toss to coat thoroughly. Pour pasta into a 9x13 pan and spread remaining tomato sauce on top. Sprinkle with remaining parmesan and mozzarella.
Cover pan tightly with foil and bake 30 minutes. Remove foil and bake an additional 30 minutes, until cheese is bubbly and begins to brown. Let stand for a few minutes before serving. Sprinkle with remaining 2 Tbsp. basil.

I only made a few little changes... I decided to make it without meat and it was still very filling! I used egg noodles rather than ziti, and I used whole milk, which didn't really thicken with the cornstarch but it seemed to work fine anyway. And rather than make a 9x13 pan, which is way too much for the two of us, I put it into two smaller pans and froze one of them. I wanted to see how it tastes after being frozen/thawed. Other than that I followed the original recipe and it was pretty good. I love the fresh garlic and basil--makes a big difference in taste! :)

I'd like to make some other meals for the freezer, too. It's wonderful when you can have a home-cooked meal already made and ready to put in the oven after a long day! :)

In a Jam

This week's new recipe was homemade jam! Mom always makes freezer strawberry jam and says it's super easy. It takes only 4 ingredients and not a lot of time to put together so yesterday I thought I'd try it. Maybe Kyle's PB & J sandwiches will taste a little better with fresh berries! :)

I used one of the freezer jam recipes that came inside the box of fruit pectin. The recipe is here on the Kraft website: www.kraftrecipes.com/recipes/30-minutes-homemade-surejell-50137.aspx They have recipes for all kinds of fruit, but I went with plain strawberry. I bought a big container of berries last weekend thinking I'd cut them up to have with dinner a couple nights, or make strawberry shortcake or something... We didn't end up eating very many, so I thought I'd use them up before they went bad! Turns out I had just enough good ones left to get the one quart I needed!

After cutting out the stems and rinsing them, they were mashed. My potato masher isn't good for mashing smaller stuff and it was still way too chunky. So I ended up chopping the berries, too, to get smaller pieces (although I think I WOULD leave it a little more chunky next time).

The next step is to stir in the sugar.

Yes, you're seeing that correctly--there is twice as much sugar as there is mashed berries. Yikes! Makes me glad I don't eat jam too often! I knew jam/jelly was sweet, but.....wow.
So, the sugar was mixed in and then it had to sit for a few minutes. While the sugar and fruit was doing its thing, I cooked the pectin and water. it had to boil, and then be mixed into the fruit.

Last step was pouring it into containers! I had just enough to fill five little containers--aren't they cute?! :)

The hard part is letting it sit for 24 hours! I wanted to try it and make sure it turned out okay. Today for lunch I opened one and spread some on a piece of bread and asked Kyle if he would try it, as he is the main jam connoisseur in our family. He said it was good! It turned out a little more soft and runny that what I wanted so I'm hoping that being in the fridge for a while will help it set more.

I'm going to try making plum/pear jam this week, too, once I get some canning jars! Will post that later, if it turns out. :)

A Homemade Dinner

I've been trying to do better at grocery shopping by writing out a weekly menu. That way I can look at the menu, figure out exactly what ingredients I'll need for the week and just make one trip to the store. And it's helpful to know what I'm making so I'm not scroungimg through the cupboard trying to put together random ingredients to come up with something edible for Kyle (which I'm sure he also appreciates!). Not that I couldn't come up with a tasty dish based on canned chilis and baked beans.... :)

So tonight's dinner was spaghetti! I normally buy spaghetti sauce and then add meat and a few veggies to it but I'm getting a little tired of the store-bought kinds. I don't know why I buy it, because it doesn't take any more work to open a couple cans of tomatoes and spices than it does a jar of sauce...? So I decided to make it from scratch today instead. I used a recipe my Mom had which is super easy--mostly ground beef and tomatoes mixed with garlic and a few spices. Once everything was mixed together it had to simmer for a few hours, so I figured I would have time to make some bread, too. I was getting low on flour, so I made half a batch of dough (just one loaf instead of the two it normally makes) and I used some whole wheat flour instead of all white, which I've never tried before. I put that in the oven to rise for an hour and, having plenty of time left, decided to make some cookies for dessert!

One of Kyle's favorites is chocolate peanut butter no-bake cookies so I made those. Perfect for today--not a lot of ingredients and I wouldn't need the oven! There wasn't much peanut butter left, so I only made half a batch but it still made enough to last a few days. This is the recipe I use:

No Bake Cookies
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter
4 Tbsp. cocoa
1/2 cup milk
pinch of salt
1 cup peanut butter
3 cups quick-cooking oats
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Combine the first five ingredients in a large pot and bring to a boil. Let mixture boil for two minutes. Remove from heat and add peanut butter, oats and vanilla; mix well. Spoon mounds onto waxed paper and let cool. That's it!

I considered making the noodles, too, but I was out of flour. I'll have to try that another time. :) I think the spaghetti sauce, bread and cookies were enough for today!

The sauce and bread turned out pretty good! Making meals from scratch is so much better than buying stuff pre-made!

But I didn't do it all myself. As always, I had my little helper with me while I was cooking!