Sunday Dinner

This year I decided to add a couple of things to our weekly school (and just regular old life) routine.  This year, the older girls will get the opportunity to plan and prepare a meal for the family for Sunday dinner.  Now, they cook on a fairly regular basis.  Their meals usually consist of pasta, pizza, stir fry, etc., but this meal has to be something special.  They will have two weeks to plan their Sunday dinner.  The planning includes: finding a recipe and adjusting it to feed six (if it doesn't already), making a shopping list (excluding the things we already have in the kitchen), going to the store to price each item, creating a budget for grocery shopping and making sure we have all of the necessary equipment in our kitchen.  Jena got the opportunity to make her first Sunday dinner tonight.  She was VERY ambitious in her first solo dinner preparation, but I have to say, she completely surpassed all of my expectations.  Our dinner this evening was an onion and leek tart, sauteed asparagus, salmon and for dessert, raspberry (and strawberry) napoleons.  (I know.  Crazy, right?)  She started out this afternoon making pastry cream FROM SCRATCH as well as pastry crust from scratch.  (Her crust was flaky and delicious, by the way).  When I say that she made this dinner solo, I mean SOLO.  My only job was to be assistant in the dessert assembly (I put the berries on as she layered).  I'm pretty proud of her (and she's pretty proud of herself, too). 

The little girls were not very patient when waiting for dinner.  Granted, they did not get to eat until it was past their bedtime, but it was well worth the wait.

The napoleon

And one very happy baby sister.  She cried all while she waited for dinner (she hadn't had a nap and it was past her bedtime), but look how content she is with dessert in her hand.

Pi(e)

I forgot to take a picture of the pie that we made for Einstein's birthday (and pi day).  Fortunately, the hubs was on the ball that day.  It was delicious, by the way.

I told you I'd be back...

I am officially back to blogging. I know, I know, it's been FOREVER! Hopefully there are still a couple of people who still care about what's going on in our little corner of the world. There have been big changes around here.


First and foremost, I am now an official member of the work force again. So, I am up and out everyday at 7:20 (that's in the morning), which is a HUGE change for me. That also means that The Hubs is now handling the bulk of the homeschooling activities. I'm still putting together the lesson plans for the most part, but he is carrying them out. We will be wrapping up 3rd (Ashni)and 4th (Jena) grade in the next few weeks and begin 4th and 5th grade in January. Bijou has learned to read several sight words and can sound out short words on her own. She's very proud.


Jena turned 10 on August 20th. She officially had her last big birthday party. It was rainbow themed and all of her friends came out to celebrate with her.



This is a version of a very complicated sounding cake that Jena saw in a Martha Stewart magazine (a frozen rainbow chiffon cake). My version consists of several flavors of sorbet melted and refrozen in a cake pan in rainbow order, then covered in whipped cream. It looked and tasted awesome! It was a bigger hit than the cupcakes!

I haven't really created much in the way of crafts or art, but I have a couple of portrait commissions waiting in the wings. I did make chocolate souffles several weeks ago. They weren't as difficult as I thought they would be and were delicious. (I think I won Mother of the Year the day after the souffles were made because I let the girls have them for breakfast. I mean, they're mostly eggs, so that makes it okay. Right?).

(they were taller when they first came out of the oven, but I didn't think to take a picture when they first came out)

Friday = Bread

Fridays in our house used to mean bread making. We'd taken a little vacation from the bread making, but I think it's coming back. This morning the air in our house was filled with the pulsing sounds of conscious vibes reggae and scent of fresh baked bread. We made two loaves of whole wheat and oatmeal bread with sunflower, sesame and flax seed (with cinnamon and raisins in one loaf for the girls).

Sweater slippers, shortbreads and small business plans

The weather has taken a nose dive around here. Thanksgiving weekend was beautiful. We could not have asked for better weather. This week, they are predicting snow. SNOW! It's cold out there. It's also a little chilly in our house too. I promised the girls that I would make them all slippers to warm their icy toes (which they love to put on unsuspecting parts of my body throughout the day). The thought of hand sewing slippers for everyone was rather daunting. So instead, I figured I would take this opportunity to teach the girls some basic stitches and let them make their own pair of slippers. Jena is working diligently on her first pair. Ashni has MUCH less patience for things that take longer than 5 minutes, so she may be wearing socks this winter. I guess 2 is too young to let loose with a needle, so I did make a pair for Bijou. I love recycling secondhand sweaters into slippers, baby shoes, hats and toys. We found a great grey lambswool sweater at Goodwill. So far it has been used to make a pair of legwarmers for Ashni for ballet, Jena is using part for her slippers and the rest has been used for Bijou's slippers. There's still enough material left to make.....something, but I don't know what yet. I finished Bijou's slippers last night and she's had warm toes all morning.

A couple of days ago, I got a hankering for lemon. Lemon something...I wasn't sure what yet. Then I remembered how much I love shortbread cookies and lemonade in the summer and thought, what if I could combine the two of those (I also enjoy lemon cookies). So I whipped out my shortbread cookie recipe and rummaged around the fridge until I found a lemon and a lime. I grated some lemon and some lime zest and added it to the shortbread dough. The I made a lemon - lime icing to put on top. GREATEST THING EVER! We've made about three dozen over the last couple of days.

Now, my mother (who is always trying to come up with business ideas for me), has decided that I need to start a business that sells baby accessories, lemon shortbread and buttermilk biscuits. HA! That's like those place where you can get a haircut, your car washed and a slab of ribs all at the same time. As I was relaying that idea to my cousin (who was partaking in one of the lemon shortbread cookies) she reminded me of a little shop here on the square that does indeed sell baby accessories and baked goods! Go figure. So today, I will be packaging up some cookies, pulling out some of my stock of baby accessories and trucking down to the square to see if she's interested. I will also be going to get a sewing machine! YAY! Happy early birthday to me! Thanks mom.

Years of being duped

For years I have been led to believe that Duncan Hines was the master of frosting, Aunt Jemima had the lock down on pancakes, Pilsbury was the king of biscuits, Betty Crocker....well, you get where I'm going with this right. Pop open a can or a box and whip up some deliciousness in no time flat, right? Wrong! A couple of years ago I decided to be bold (and a bit crazy) and whip up a carrot cake from scratch. I'd never made anything from scratch before. It just seemed like something that only grandmothers and Stepford wives did. And a carrot cake? Seems a bit complicated for a first attempt, but it was the most delicious slice of cream cheese frosted heaven that I'd ever tasted. After the carrot cake came the lemon buttercream frosting on homemade lemon cupcakes (um, I like cake and cake-type foods). Since that day, if I can make it from scratch, I will make it from scratch. Sunday is generally buttermilk biscuit day around here. I make a big batch and we all have breakfast together (well, the hubby works Saturday nights, so he usually has breakfast a few hours after the rest of us). I was too lazy this morning to whip up a batch, so instead of making my own, I thought I'd share the recipe and maybe someone else will start their own buttermilk biscuit Sunday. Bijou is getting her practice in now. Enjoy!

Buttermilk Biscuits

3 cups all purpose flour

3 tbsp sugar (optional, I leave this out a lot)

3 tsp baking powder

rounded 1/2 tsp of salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 stick of butter (cold and cut into cubes)

1 1/2 cup of cold well shaken buttermilk

Preheat oven to 425. Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl. Sift into another bowl. Use a fork or a pastry cutter to cut in the butter. The consistency will be like moist sand. Some large lumps of butter left in are fine, you don't want to over work it. Stir in the buttermilk and mix until the dough sticks together and forms a ball. On a floured surface knead the dough 4 - 6 times. It is VERY important to ONLY knead 4 - 6 times. If you knead too much your biscuits will be tough.

Arrange on a non stick baking sheet (I use my pizza pan) so that the biscuit are just touching one another. Brush the tops with milk. Bake until golden brown, about 20 minutes.

On a couple of occasions I have added cinnamon to the biscuit dough and made a brown sugar glaze to spoon over them once they come out of the oven. Enjoy with a big glass of milk. Don't they look SUPER DELICIOUS?!!!! They are!!