Category: Food

Autumn Quarter Meal Plan

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I used to follow an elaborate method of meal planning until a few years ago when I just couldn’t keep up with it anymore.  My weekly menu planning time ceased to exist for some reason, and we’ve been in a bit of a free fall ever since.  I’m not one for chaos, so I’ve decided to give a quarterly meal plan a go.

I’ve planned out four weeks’ worth of meals, and we’ll go through the rotation three times:  October, November, and December.  I’ll get good at making the same things over and over again, and I won’t have to sit down to plan out the next week anymore.  It’s just done.  Go shopping and cook.

Here’s what I’m planning on making (over and over) for the next three months:

(CP) = Crock Pot

That’s just dinners.  I’m very intrigued by this method of preparing lunches for the week, and I’m going to start planning to implement the practice in the coming weeks.  Food is too basic, too…easy?…to be stressing over.  I’m tired of trying to decide what’s going on the table anymore!  I need to reserve my energy for conversations, teaching (so mentally exhausting) and just enjoying life.  This is something that can be simplified that won’t cut corners because it’s simplified.  I’ll let you know how it’s going as we go along.

Junebug’s 5th Birthday: Snow White Party!

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Junebug’s Snow White birthday party is officially over and done with, leaving us only with apple-filled memories and hordes of Disney Princess paraphernalia.

The Snow White theme emerged from the very first thing Junebug blurted out when I asked her what kind of birthday party she wanted:  “A Bambi party!”

Me:  “Bambi?  As in, the deer?”

Junebug:  “Yep.”

Me:  “Why Bambi?”

Junebug:  “So we can play ‘Pin the Tail on Bambi!”

After a few more minutes of brainstorming ideas for a “Bambi birthday party,” Junebug mentioned how much she loved it when Bambi showed up in the Snow White movie and helped clean dishes.  I pounced, and we agreed upon a Snow White party in the next few minutes.

Pinterest gave me a lot of great ideas for this party; we decided to decorate crowns, paint with apple halves, make caramel apples, paint fingernails, and play “Pass the Poisoned Apple.”  (After playing “Pin the Tail on Bambi,” of course…)  Junebug had a blast and came over to me to give me a hug and kiss on my leg a few times because she was so happy.  (Awwwww.)

The Invitations

The Food

I made little apple cupcakes, based off of the pumpkin cupcake instructions in Hello, Cupcake!  (Love that book.)

We also served Broken Glass Jell-O in Snow White colors, pigs in blankets (because that’s what Junebug wanted to eat!), veggie sticks, and chocolate-dipped strawberries with cheesecake filling.

The Fun

As guests arrived, we had them sit down to decorate crowns.  (Burger King crowns, spray painted gold by yours truly.)  They had glitter stickers and gems, which stick on incredibly well if you use “glue dots” instead of white glue or anything like it.  (I wish I could remember where I found the glue dot idea because it is wonderful!  I found our glue dots in the scrapbooking section at Wal-Mart…yeah, that easy.)

Next, they used apple halves to paint apples onto tote bags:

We then played “Pin the Tail on Bambi,” and I have no pictures of it!  That might be a blessing for you, because my drawing of Bambi has been mocked by almost every family member as resembling either a:

A.  Fox
B.  Dog
C.  “What is that?“

After “Pin the Tail on [Whatever That Is],” we herded the girls into the kitchen where we made caramel apples.

One of my trusty helpers returned for Birthday Party 2.0.

Then we had lunch, and opened presents, and ate some cupcakes, and painted nails.  And then we danced.  Because all the cool princesses dance at parties.  🙂

The End

Bluebird’s 9th Birthday: Baking Party!

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It was during the week after Christmas–you know, when you’re fighting the urge to be sad that the big day is over, and you’re kind of euphoric with all the lofty New Year’s Resolutions to which you’re thinking about committing–that I found myself obsessed with the idea of throwing each of my kids their dream birthday parties in 2013.  We don’t do a lot of birthday partying in Brooketopia, mostly due to cost and logistics (newborn babies every two years will do that to you), but here we were going into a new year with no new babies…the idea sounded feasible.
 
Bluebird and I sat down to gorge ourselves do a little research on Pinterest birthday ideas, and we happened across a pin of a baking birthday party and she was awestruck.  Culinary celebration, commence!
 

First, we raided the fabric stash and picked out fabrics that somewhat coordinated with each other, and then I settled in for three weeks’ of sewing aprons for Bluebird and her guests:

Apron B from Little Retro Aprons by Cindy Taylor Oates
(Yes, you’ve seen this pattern on the blog before, both the child’s version AND the adult version–I’m totally in love with it.)

Then we hurried about with all the other preparations (amidst all the ear infection fun we were also dealing with at the time) and Bluebird bounced off the walls as she counted down the days until her party.

Finally, the Big Day of Baking Fun arrived…

…but first the girls had to stop and adore Baxter for a few minutes before I could entice them towards the birthday fun.  (After insisting they wash their hands after touching the dog.)

First, they made cupcake liner flower pins to adorn their new aprons, then we gathered in the kitchen to make mini pizzas for lunch.

While waiting for the pizzas to bake, the girls made fruit kabobs which they then drizzled with milk and white chocolate:

 

I had hired two of the young women in our ward to help me out, and they cleaned up the lunch mess while the party girls watched Bluebird open her presents in the living room.  Then, while the party girls decorated cake boxes, my helpers finished tinting batches of frosting for the finale of the party:

Man, a gang of 8-9 year old girls can pick up the basics of cake decorating pretty quick!  Candies, marshmallows, sprinkles…we had it all and they had a blast creating their own dream cakes.

After decorating cakes, we sat down to enjoy Bluebird’s actual birthday cake, complete with raucous singing and laughing:

Hardly anyone wanted any cake after the candles were blown out because they had just spent the past three hours stuffing their faces with candy, pizza and frosting.  No biggie, just more left over for the other Brookelets when they returned home!

Nine years old.  Bluebird, you’ve been with us for almost a decade!  You bring me so much joy, and I’m happy to indulge your lofty ideas.  You are such a creative spirit and I look forward to fleshing out more of your big birthday plans in the future.

Such a peach

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Peaches were on sale for seventy-nine cents a pound on Monday, so I bought about ten pounds.  They were a little on the hard side, so I put them into a big paper grocery sack.  Tuesday found us stomping about the zoo, and Wednesday saw us vegging out due to a bad night’s sleep thanks to numerous Brookelets who would not leave me alone during the night.

I woke up today (late again, due to another night of bed-phobic Brookelets) and remembered that I had ten pounds of peaches sitting on the back counter and that I should go take a peek at them to see how the ripening process was coming along.  As I stepped near the bag, I could smell that beautiful ripe peach smell hanging in the air.  It was time to can ’em up.

Bluebird, my usual jam-making helper, had her piano lesson to get off to; so I asked Penguin if she wanted to help me out with making some peach butter.  She enthusiastically volunteered for the task, remarking that “I’m so glad that I’m six and can finally help make the jam!”  She skinned peaches, added the sugar and spices, and stirred until it started to spit.  Then she kept me company until it was all cooked up, jarred, and set into its water bath.

That’s one gallon (plus one half-pint) of peach butter!

We went big this year, and doubled our usual recipe so we could can up the peach butter in pint jars instead of half-pint jars (that little guy hiding in the middle back in the above picture).  A full batch of peach butter lasts about three weeks in Brooketopia, so I’m hoping this will be enough for 6-8 weeks.  The recipe is my usual, which I now read off of the blog because I’ve lost my paper copy.  (Yay Blog!)

Just look at the golden-spiced goodness.  It’s good on so many things–it’s a great sauce for various meats, a good base for any type of sweet sauce, and just good straight out of the jar on toast or pancakes…or a spoon.

When you walk into our house, you are greeted with the warm fragrance of peaches and spices, and you can hear the little plinkety-plinks of the lids popping.  Ah, the smells and sounds of late summer!

Makin’ Jam!

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I am having so much fun with Bluebird as she gets older and is able to assist me in more and more tasks.  Yesterday we tackled some jam-making, preparing a batch of spiced peach butter and a batch of cherry jam.  She loved helping me out and proved to be quite valuable in her assistance.  Many hands make light work, even when the second set of hands measure about half the size of your own hands!

She can peel peaches, stir jam, ladle jam into jars and pit cherries like a pro!

Her favorite parts of making jam were peeling the peaches and pitting the cherries.

In between performing her jam-making duties, she did schoolwork at the kitchen table.  Win-win all around!



Peeling peaches…all I had to slice them up because she was so quick!



She pitted four pounds of cherries all by herself!
She’s the most conscientious cherry pitter I’ve ever met,
checking each individual cherry for residual pits.



Ladling the peach butter into jars.
It was such a nice way to spend time together!



Fourth of July Jell-O!

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Bluebird is working on the requirements for the Brownie Girl Scout “Wave the Flag” badge, and one of the things she could do was hold a celebration for a patriotic holiday.  Naturally, she chose to throw an Independence Day party.  She kept herself and her sisters busy for the two weeks leading up to the 4th making decorations (which they never hung up) and decided on a menu (Cookies and Lemonade Water).

I stepped in to help with the menu, and while we were browsing for dessert ideas, we came across a recipe for Layered Jell-O, which I’ve been searching for for years!  A link at the end of the Layered Jell-O post led us to the recipe for “Broken Glass Jell-O,” which Bluebird thought would be smashing (hee hee) in Fourth of July colors.

Bluebird attended her dessert-making responsibilities well: she cut up the colors, mixed them together and supervised my pouring of the white liquid into the dish.

The Jell-O went into the refrigerator to set, and the dessert was met with rave reviews at our little holiday dinner:

Good job Bluebird!  Thanks for making our Fourth of July dinner extra special!

Making Blueberry Jam

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OR “A Masochistic Way to Spend a Beautiful Summer Morning”

Homemade Blueberry Jam is one of my most favorite things in the world. I actually look forward to the summertime and to berries ripening throughout the land so I can replenish my blueberry jam hoards. Rabbit and I had fun this morning making jam together:

She’s my go-to girl whenever something needs “smashing” in this house, so it was only natural that she help me out with crushing the blueberries.

Now, to the uninitiated, I must warn that making jam can be rather painful because it spits like nothing else, which covers you with a smattering of burns. Cover any skin that you can, stir with a very long handled spoon and do not lean over your concoction while it cooks. (And shoo away any little ones from the kitchen!)

What things look like after you’re done boiling it all down:

Yep, it’s messy; you acquire a few burns and you’ll definitely spend the entire processing time cleaning up the kitchen.

But it’s worth it, because you end up with beautiful jars of gloriously tasty blueberry jam. It’s practically ambrosia.

And, in the words of my granny, who includes an extra step at the end of all her recipes: “Yummy”

Spaghetti and Meatball Cupcakes

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I am loving the Hello Cupcake! cookbook that we gave to Bluebird for Christmas. This is just one of the cute ideas in it. I made them for Recipe Club at the end of March.

It’s just cupcakes from a box, frosting from a can, strawberry preserves and Ferrero Rochers. Love it. They tasted good, too.

Planet Earth Cake

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I just realized that I never showed y’all my cute little Planet Earth cake that I made for Bluebird’s space birthday party. Here it is!

If you’re interested in making one for yourself (as in, next Wednesday is Earth Day…), it’s quite simple:

Take a regular ol’ box of cake mix, mix it up and pour it into your pans–I used Wilton’s Sport Ball pans, but I’ve heard of people using Pyrex bowls. Bake it. Let it cool. Frost it with some blue frosting (I used the stuff from a can…many of you are already aware of my disdain for making frosting.)

Now don’t get scared, but this next step requires a map or an atlas:
Make some green frosting and put it into a decorator’s bag with a #3 or #5 writing tip on it and freehand some continental outlines. (Don’t worry too terribly much about accuracy, it’s a blinkin’ cake…you’re going for recognition, not masterpiece.)

Once you’ve got your outlines, put on a star tip and start filling in your land masses.

Voila! Planet Earth Cake!

I laugh every time I see how close Japan is to Alaska, and I was thisclose to leaving Australia and New Zealand off of the whole thing altogether because it was really hard to get the frosting down there, but I figured I owed it to my brother (who resides in New Zealand) to represent his place of residence…oh the fun of frosting creations.

Heart Cookies

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We had made up the cookie dough needed for Bluebird’s birthday party cookies when everyone got sick; and since it’s only good for a few days, we decided to go ahead and make heart cookies instead!
We didn’t deliver them to anyone out of fear of passing on the myriad of symptoms the family was experiencing.