Another catch up post today – and today I posted about homemade makeup again! Yup. Homemade lipgloss this time. First though, I’m trying to update each section with one article a night till I’m caught up and then I can blar, blar, blar on and on about whatever it is I’m obsessing over.

	Homemade peanut butter cups are honestly better than store bought ones. The chocolate has a better crunch to it and there is just something satisfying about knowing what’s in your treats – even if it happens to include 2 cups of icing sugar! At least there’s no mystery chemicals that no one can pronounce, right? The wee ones love them, adults love them and if you pick up the molds, they even look pretty close to the real deal.
	When I made this soup, I was perfectly healthy. Then just a few days after I made it, I had a horribly sore throat and lost my voice for a week! What?! Who let that happen?! It was awful, but this soup was a great comfort and of course I believe all that garlic and heat made me feel better – even if no one appreciated my awful garlic breath!
	I know making a jean skirt from an old pair of jeans is nothing new, but it’s not difficult even with just the most basic sewing skills. Most of the effort in this project is in the ripping out of the old seam, which is usually at least double stitched. The result is a cute skirt that you can be sure will fit!
	Yesterday I talked about making homemade mineral eyeshadows – today I’m onto homemade lipglosses! The glosses take longer to make but you can churn out more at a time and they are just as customizable. I made hot pink and then purple and also a batch of clear for Wee Ones #2 and #3.

I have the great fortune of a new friend, who just happens to be a professional chef (how lucky am I?!), lend me one of his serious, grown up professional cook books. You all know by now how much I love to do silly, playful things in the kitchen. I mean, who doesn’t love it when I stuff a brownie into a cookie? Or when I bake pies into cakes? (I did that just last month and it’ll be a nice epic blog post when I get to it). But there is just something about putting on my apron, kicking the kids out of the kitchen and really setting to stretch my skills and make something as pro as I possibly can.

My new kitchen is pretty amazing for this sort of thing. Maybe tomorrow I’ll give a walk through after I do my catch up post for the day. So last night, with the assistance of this book, I made the best beef stew I’ve ever made. I know, I know, oh Maytina made a stew woooooow, but even my husband, who usually says after supper ‘thanks so much for making supper, it was really good’, turned to me after a few bites and said ‘wow Maytina, this stew is really good’ and then a few bites later he turns to Wee One #1 and says ‘isn’t this even better than usual?’ and then when the was wiping up the remains of the stew with his bread he said ‘seriously, burn this recipe into your brain, can it be the new way you always make stew?’ Maybe I will skip ahead and post this recipe soon.

Also this week, the Beekeeper’s Quilt was introduced to me. Holy moly. I absolutely must make this. I still feel that way about the sock yarn blanket (my sister Nikoleta made this one). There are only so many hours in a day unfortunately, so this amazing quilt will have to wait a while. But I can dream.

I’m just starting the foot on my first Cobblestone sock in Knit Picks Stroll in Sprinkle Heather. I made a pair last year for my mother in law too. They knit up quick but I’m itching to get to my queue. I can’t ever have more than one thing on the needles at a time, unless the sock blanket is one of them because I’ll knit up my leftover sock yarn after each pair of socks before I move on to something else. My list-oriented-ness is alarming even to me sometimes. Ha!

So fun to be posting again!

Greetings long lost souls. It’s been two weeks since my last post which, while better than the seven weeks between that and the post before it, is not cool and should be my last disappearance for a while. Things are falling into place around here – all the boxes are unpacked, all the clutter has been tossed or donated and I can finally look around the new house and sigh happily instead of having no idea where my extra food processor blades are (the horror).

Actually, there is one casualty of this move – the nubby thing on the top of my pressure cooker. Insert loud, inconsolable sobbing here. I was positive that I packed it in the pressure cooker. Of course when I took the lid off once it was out of the box, it was not only not inside the pot but not inside the box. Now that everything has been unpacked, I have to give up and order a new one. My dad gave me his (hilariously unused – hilariously because he’s owned it for 30 years and it still had the original recipe book/instruction manual inside) just a few months ago, but I can’t imagine making mashed potatoes without it now! It’s actually good for a lot of otherwise time consuming cooking, I should write an article about that.

So far this week, I have added four articles to the site – one for each section and yes, all from projects or recipes done and photographed months ago. However, they are all good projects and recipes!

	These are Pecan Pie Cookies, they have been officially counted as the 7th cookie of the year, baked back in February. I know, as if I’m only posting them now, but here they are – in all their pecan pie glory. They have all the pecany, brown sugary, buttery (and even slightly creamy) taste and texture of a pecan pie with the portability of a cookie. I know, I know. You’re welcome. Go make some. I’ll wait here.
	This torte was pulled from Smitten Kitchen, and just like everything else I pull from there, it was very, very good. It’s not fussy at all, and while its technically a summer squash, I used a butternut squash and cooked it in the dead of winter!
	Making mineral makeup was so fun!! Everything from knowing what’s actually in the makeup that I put on the biggest organ of my body, to being able to control the exact colours and richness is just amazing. Not to mention you can say you made your own (which is rad enough) and compared to other mineral makeup of the same quality, there is a decent savings there too!
	This hat is really really cool, but it’s also an epic fail if we’re determining success by wearability. Intended as a 31st birthday gift for a man with at least an average size head, it might fit Wee One #1. I decided to write about it anyway though because the pattern is great, and the finished product, while totally useless to the person I had intended it for, turned out better than I expected it to. I really love to do any kind of colourwork, but I usually sequester intarsia work to one room, out of the children’s grasp, so as not to walk into a room with yarn barf all over the place. Anyhoo, these were made in one room and somehow also made pretty quickly, for me anyway.

Tomorrow I’ll add more articles to the site and blog about them here! There are so many fun things I’ve made that I can’t wait to show off. Homemade Tater Tots, anyone??

We did it. 12 years, 9 addresses and 3 kids later we finally bought a house. It is everything we hoped for and sometimes even more – generally when we discover something we didn’t see before. We are still technically living in the woods, but now we are in an ity bity town in the woods. There are literally something like 40 houses here max, and thank God our next door neighbors are great! We haven’t met anyone else since we got here on Tuesday. Next week, once we’re all unpacked and I’m back to baking up a storm, I’ll make something cute and bring it around to meet other neighbors. Fun!

I could not be more excited – or busy – or eager to blog. Over the next week or two I’ll add links to recipes and how tos I photographed a while ago but haven’t posted. By the time I’ve caught up to what I’m baking and knitting now, I’ll be unpacked! Here’s three for Saturday.

	Peanut Butter Balls, made waaaaay back in February, are classified as a cookie in the cookbook I baked them from, but they were not included as a weekly cookie because they’re balls. Not cookies. Ahem. (read)
	Mozzarella Sticks (also made in February) really are just battered and fried cheese, but man is battered and fried cheese good – especially when you season your coating. (read)
	These Holiday Spice Cookies were the 8th recipe the kids did from the Baking With Kids cookbook. I admit they’re a little random for the end of March, but Wee One #2 picked them, so away she went. (read)

Tomorrow I’ll be back with more and maybe an unpacking update. I am itching to bake and to knit but I can’t stop unpacking until we’re totally unpacked because the half-unpacked mess drives. Me. Crazy. So I have been channeling all of my kitchen powers on dinner. Thursday night was a serious chicken alfredo and last night I made a garlic-stuffed herb-crusted roast. Tomorrow, who knows? Maybe rosemary chicken!

With just six school days left, there has been a lot of planning for end of year treats for the kids’ classes and their teachers. It’s a lot of fun to plan serious treats for their classes because there are 14 kids in Wee One #1’s class and 6 kids in Wee One #2’s class. Yup. 6 kids. More on those treats and end of school year fun in the next couple of weeks. For now, it’s catchup post time and man there are some really cute and tasty treats posted today!

The ‘homespun chocolate bars’ are 3 Musketeer bars, my Dad’s hands down favorite chocolate bar – I made a homemade version after seeing them on Beantown Baker last fall. Essentially, you make the filling, freeze it and then cut it and coat it in melted chocolate. This idea is only good in theory because the filling is made with ‘frozen whipped topping’ and we all know that stuff doesn’t actually freeze. So it’s beyond tricky to try to get them to hold their shape while either coating them or submerging them in melted chocolate. So naturally, I turned to my trusty chocolate molds to get the job done. It just occurred to me that I should have ordered some chocolate bar molds from Confectionery House when I ordered molds for the end of year treats. Oh well, next time. I think I will hold off on homemade chocolate bars until I have those molds though, they would make the job quick and painless. In my tute, I only posted instructions and photos of the filling in heart shaped molds.

 

The Wee One’s contribution to this week of playing in the kitchen was the Baking With Kids’ Chocolate Fudge Birthday Cake. I’d like to point out that it wasn’t anyone’s birthday! They passed it off as their sister’s birthday cake but that was weeks before and she had already had a cake. We don’t need an excuse to make a serious chocolate cake do we? What about a serious chocolate cake covered in sprinkles, candies and chocolate shavings? No? That’s what I thought! They had a blast making it and I really stepped back and let the two oldest ones have at it and they did a great job. It was dense but really, really moist and while there’s no denying it was chocolatey, it wasn’t too sweet. Just right for a birthday cake to be shared by little kids and grown ups!

 

This week’s cookie came from my Great Cookies cookbook – there are more than 200 cookie recipes in this book and much like a lot of my most used books, I’d love the opportunity to bake through this book. I’m trying! I’m not sure how many I’ve made from the book that I’ve posted on my blog so far since I haven’t been officially counting down but I have already made a few and a couple of them have become my most used recipe for certain types of cookies – like this one, the Double Chocolate Chip Cookie. There are a lot of double chocolate chip cookie recipes out there. Martha has a great double chocolate cookie with M&Ms and she has a really great espresso double chocolate chunk cookie (I really love adding coffee to pretty much whatever I can but I never ever ever give it to my kids – they don’t need any help at all with energy or stamina). So back to the recipe for this week’s cookie, this one has melted chocolate as well as cocoa in the dough plus of course the chocolate chips so technically you could call these triple chocolate chip cookies and get away with it!

 

After that triple shot of chocolate, I’m going to leave you with a healthier take on the traditional chicken salad. It seems chicken salad is another of those love love love or hate hate hate kind of foods. I am madly in love with chicken salad (almost as much as I love tuna salad) so I was equal parts leery and excited when it came time to try out Jessica Seinfield’s version in Deceptively Delicious. Another hit from this book for me. I’m the only one who ate it, because I’m the only one even remotely interested in chicken salad and I really liked it. I could not taste the cauliflower but knowing it’s in there I can see that it added to the creaminess of the salad and the yogurt also helped keep it all together. The celery gave it a little crunch and the eggs lent their familiar taste and texture to make this a really well rounded and tasty chicken salad (especially on ancient grain bread)!

 

I know that today is technically Work in Progress Wednesday but honestly, finishing a foot, kitchener stitching the toe and starting (and finishing) the ribbing on the second sock are all that’s happened on my Nemesis socks for my dad. I was crafty this week though – I finally made a really cute denim skirt from a very sad pair of jeans that had a serious rip up the side of one leg! I’m also starting work on a cute photo project I don’t want to say too much about until I’m done and ready to show it off. I will however say that I will be back a lot this week to post as much of the fun stuff in my cue as possible so I can get back to posting as I do stuff. This is our first summer in cottage country full time, so we’ve been walking to the beach after school and having bonfires after dinner to make legit s’mores for dessert! I smell a fun and delicious summer ahead!

What a wonderful week we all had! Right after rolling out the new site and making a couple of posts my Dad came to visit us in the woods! We’ve seen him a bunch since we moved but he hadn’t come up to hang out yet! He made the 1 hour ++ walk into town 3 times – twice with Wee One #2 and once with Wee One #1. He helped with the kids and did almost all of the cooking. I tested a few recipes out on him and we had some of those amazing late night conversations about everything and nothing at the same time. We were all sad that he had to go home this morning, but I am sure my mother and my sister are missing him! When a visitor that special comes around, blogging can wait a few days, right? 😉 I had intended to post these recipes/how to last week. An orange cake from Baking With Kids, my favourite chocolate chip cookies from Good Housekeeping, a silly but fun hair tutorial and a chocolate-chili birthday cake I made a few months ago! Ready? Here we go!

The kids are really getting into this – picking the recipes to make themselves. Sometimes they want to bake together and sometimes, like this recipe, one of them wants to try it out while the other one isn’t into to. Wee One #3 is always into it but she’s just 2 so she’s not much help. 😉 This time around Wee One #2 really wanted to make the Orange Cake, so away we went. By the time she was done she had a small piece and it was pretty much time for bed. When my husband got snacky late that night he tried a piece, loved it, tried another piece, loved it more and the before he knew it he had eaten most of the cake! Whoops. Instead of being annoyed with him for eating her masterpiece, she said she was happy that her Daddy loved it so much. So cute!!

It was one of the simpler recipes in the book and at 5 years old, she had no trouble putting it all together.

The best part of the recipe for her was pureeing half an orange in the blender. It reminds me a lot of the clementine cake I made for Chinese New Year 2009, where seven clementines were briefly boiled, then chopped a bit and pureed whole. It was an amazing cake and so was this one.

 

I also posted the best chocolate chip cookie recipe I use on a regular basis. It’s from Good Housekeeping and I’ve been baking it since 2001! It’s simple and fast and you probably already have all of the ingredients in your kitchen right now.

 

My last foodie mention for this post is a Chocolate Chili Cake I made for my friend Andrew’s birthday this year! It was really good, I had my doubts really but I went with it because Andrew likes spicy foods and he’s always a good sport when it comes to my kitchen adventures. I went with this recipe and it worked out beautifully. This year, we celebrated Andrew and Talea’s birthdays together since they’re only a week apart and I don’t see everyone as much now that we live in the woods. Talea loves brownies way more than cake so I cut a hole in the middle of the cake and popped in a glass bowl full of dense brownies! I’m very pleased to report that both birthday peeps were happy with their treats!

 

I’ll end on a cute note – I have been playing with my hair more than ever, the more I mess around with it the more I want to mess around with it. I used to be a little nervous about doing something ridic with it because you know, then I’m the crazy lady with the weird hair but I’ve been the crazy lady with weird hair before anyway so why do I fret? My friend Jade always reminds me that it’s not fun without the fashion risks in life and hair certainly falls in that category so away we go. This will be one of the last hair tutes with black hair – that’s right people I’m going blonde. Again. For now though, I have a little tute of a cute half pony.

 

I’m baaaaack!!!

I know I said I’d be back in a week four months ago and as you can see there as been a whole overhaul around here, the blog has expanded to better sort and organize all the content and the really exciting news is in the middle of all of this – we bought a house!! There are a lot of reasons we love the house we bought but for now I’ll give you a sneak peak of our favourite parts – the backyard and of course the kitchen. There’s no way we could buy a house without a serious kitchen.

There will be more pictures as we move in and get settled – which isn’t happening until August anyway. The backyard is huge and has an area already set aside for gardening, and as you may have suspected, will be growing once I get my hands on it. The other thing I adore so much about this house is that it has a pantry – an absolute necessity in my dream kitchen.


The changes to this site have been long in the making and I am so happy to finally be finished and able to show it all off. I’m still going to be posting my weeklies – I love doing them! Just now I’ll be linking to the pages instead of putting the recipe or instructions directly in the blog post – this way I can include more than one if I want to.

Tomorrow, we’ll get back to business as usual, with a few little changes. The weekly line up looks like this now:

Mondays – Menu Mondays from Kate Says Stuff

Tuesdays – Tempt My Tummy Tuesdays, Tuesdays at the Table, Tuesday Night Supper Club and Hearth ‘n Soul

Work in Progress Wednesdays – from Freshly Pieced, Tami’s Amis and Musings from the Fishbowl

Baking with Kids Thursdays – documenting the kids’ cooking and baking through Baking with Kids

Cookie Fridays – perhaps the best day of the week, check out the gallery

Super Cute Saturdays – if I have time for this, so do you!

Catchall Sundays – rando day, for things that don’t fit anywhere else

I have still been doing my self-inflicted challenges, so I’ll be posting them as often as I can to catch up. Right now, I have a lot of fun stuff to share with you!

As far as my domestic endevours go, I feel head over heels for Bakerella’s Cupshakes, which essentially is a milkshake crossed with a cupcake. I also made step by step instructions for eclairs, and chocolate fudge. As part of the Baking With Kids challenge, where the kids are baking and cooking their way through Linda Collister’s cookbook, I made a batch of puff pastry for them to use in the giant cheese straws recipe. I also added the 4th cookie of the year, the playfully pink cowgirl cookies to the gallery.

I have gotten my crafty groove back, though so far I’ve only posted about my stack of facecloths. Ahem. I did add two window shopping posts though, one on Charlene’s Supply Closet and one on The Loopy Ewe, two shops I am moderately to severely obsessed with. I’ve also added two interviews (Krissy of Krissyanne Designs and Megan of Radmegan) plus a book review of yet another new obsession – Martha Stewart’s Craft Encyclopedia. I’ve been busy!

There have been some health-concious related kitchen changes around here as well. I may as well just say it now without outing anyone, but two dear friends of mine have gone vegan. Which means two things really. First of course it means I now know way more than I ever wanted to know about being vegan and what rules there are and what different types of vegans there are which then also means I also know a whole lot about all kinds of scary stuff that even my vegan friends are not interested in. What’s that? SUGAR. Wowzers. White sugar is way worse than I thought and people let me tell you, I love me some sweet treats so what to do? I’ve been testing recipes using other kinds of natural sweeteners (because as bad as white sugar is fake sugar is even worse), and they’re working out pretty well. I mention this because while I am still cooking and baking my way through Deceptively Delicious, and while I am aware that adding veggies to pretty much anything is never a bad thing, I hesitate to call these recipes healthy knowing all that I know now. I am going to keep them in the ‘healthy’ category anyway because they are miles healthier than what used to come out of my kitchen. The second thing that happens when good friends go vegan is that I have to learn to cook and bake for them! I can’t have them coming up for the weekend to eat pasta and lettuce, can I?! I have been learning so much – expect some uber healthy additions to the healthy section in the coming weeks.

In the meantime though, here’s what I have added to that section to start with – Deceptively Delicious Stew (which adds pureed borccoli to a yummy stew), Dr Oz’s Green Smoothie (this is crazy healthy), Deceptively Delicious Mac & Cheese (with cauliflower puree and two kinds of cheese), Deceptively Delicious Applesauce Muffins (with applesauce duh and carrot puree), Deceptively Delicious Brownies (with pureed carrots and spinach), and an old school homemade Garlic, Honey & Lemon Cough Syrup recipe. Very old school, my Granny would be proud.

Aaaaad just like I said I would, I dove right into making a ‘pretty’ section. I’ve become more of a girly girl than ever in the last year so it’s been fun to write about it! I added two window shopping pieces, Body Shop and Mod Cloth, plus a 101 on Lotions, my Make Up Bag Must Haves and my first hair tutorial ever – my Puffy Bun, which literally takes 5 minutes – no more than 10 even with all three wee ones running underfoot at once.

Phew. I hope my little hanful of loyal readers are happy with the changes. Let me know what you think guys!!

In this post, I’m participating in The Daring Kitchen!

The January 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Astheroshe of the blog accro. She chose to challenge everyone to make a Biscuit Joconde Imprime to wrap around an Entremets dessert.

Here we go, another French dish from the Daring Kitchen. However, unlike the Cassoulet I made a few weeks ago that didn’t look too complicated once served but actually took 3 days to make, this little treat looks like I slaved over it forever but really it came together super quick. I did hit a totally unrelated-to-the-hard-part snag when I ran out of chocolate pudding ingredients. I just could not bare to use plain instant pudding in this lovely creation, and chocolate pudding is what the wee ones requested inside it. Anyhoo, it’s done now. Two days late.

So the challenge was to make what I think is best described as a cake-like wrap for a mousse or pudding or something like that. I know I’m dumbing it down horribly, but that’s essentially what it is. The fancy part, and of course there is a fancy part this is a Daring Kitchen challenge after all, is that there is a layer of decorations baked right into the cake. I have seen them in bakeries, but I have never tried one. Turns out, it is very similar to the jelly-roll type cake we used last summer when the Daring Bakers made swirly ice cream cake. Oh. My. Goodness. I went to find the link for you to see what I was talking about and I didn’t post it!! In my defense this challenge came on the heels of my Granny’s passing and I didn’t really do much of anything but bake and eat and bake and bake and cry and eat. Ahem.

Moving on. First you need to make the batter for the ‘sponge’, as the recipe calls it.

Joconde Sponge – via Daring Kitchen

3/4 cup almond meal
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons icing sugar
1/4 cup cake flour
3 large eggs
3 large egg whites
2 1/2 teaspoons sugar
2 tbsp butter, melted

So first you whip your egg whites and sugar until they’re meringuey, set aside.

Now sift the almond meal, icing sugar and cake flour (original recipe notes that you can do this in your dirty meringue bowl, so I did). With the mixer on medium, add the eggs individually, then mix until smooth. Fold in a third of the meringuey mixture, then fold in the rest. Finally, fold in the melted butter.

Done! Set this aside. You’ll need it soon enough!

Now, you need to make the decorative part.

Patterned Joconde-Décor Paste – via Daring Kitchen

14 tbsp butter, softened
1 1/2 cups plus 1 1/2 tablespoons icing sugar
7 large egg whites
1 3/4 cake flour
Food coloring gel, paste or liquid

Oh boy. That’s right people! 14 tablespoons of butter (of course I used Becel, but still) and 7 egg whites! 7. Sigh. You know I only went through with this to make Julia Child proud. Duh.

Ok, so first cream the butter and the sugar till nice and fluffy. Then add your gigantic pile of egg whites. Mix. Fold in the flour and voila. You’re ready to tint it. I went with three colours. I asked Wee One #2 for her opinion on colours and just as I expected, she suggested Pink, Purple and Blue. Away we go!

So I divided the paste into three cups, tinted them and filled my pastry bags (I used 2 #2 tips and 1 #3). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and pipe on decorations to your heart’s content.

Then, pop the baking sheet in the freezer for about 20 minutes. I’m not entirely sure why the recipe has us making the joconde sponge batter first when it could easily be done at this point in the game – but I did as I was told!

Once your piped decorations are frozen, pour the sponge on top of it! I know, it’s weird. Just do it.

Bake at 475. Yup. 475 for 15 minutes. Or a little less. My edges burnt horribly!

So now, you’ve got this spongey cake with beautiful decorations baked right into it – now what?

This is where I strayed from the instructions because there was talk of using a PVC pipe (really, there was) or a springform pan with the base removed. So what did I do? I used clear glass dessert dishes! That way I could show off my adorable little hearts and polka dots while holding the chocolate pudding I intended to put inside!

I didn’t even get to taste one because the wee ones gobbled them up – which totally works for me!

Yup, it’s true. My 10 year old made a Baked Alaska – about 95% on his own too. So what’s a Baked Alaska? I thought it was a better known dessert than it actually is. A Baked Alaska is ice cream and fruit on top of sponge cake, covered in meringue and then baked! So when you eat it, the meringue is warm, and the ice cream is still cold. Amazing.

I helped at a very crucial stage in the quick-cover-the-ice-cream-with-meringue stage. He opted to make this after Wee Ones #2 and #3 were in bed, even though he was making it for Wee One #2’s Godparents. We all agreed that as great as she is in the kitchen, baking ice cream may have been made even trickier with a 5 and 2 year old in the kitchen as well.

Baked Alaska – from Baking With Kids (p. 106)

Mix the flour and baking powder. The stir in the sugar, add the soft butter and vanilla.

Add the eggs, stir and bake in a greased cake pan for about 20 minutes at 350.

Make the meringue by beating the egg whites for about 10 minutes with a mixer.

Pop the cake in the fridge or freezer for about 15 minutes before spooning the strawberry ice cream on.

Top that with the chopped strawberries and meringue. Stir the sugar into the meringue and then spoon on top. Make sure the meringue is totally covering every little bit of the ice cream and cake. Every. Little. Bit.

Then pop the whole thing in the oven at 425 for 4 minutes. Cross your fingers that you didn’t miss a spot or you’ll have a pool if melted ice cream in your oven!

Mission accomplished! Amazing!!!

In this post, I’m participating in Tempt My Tummy Tuesdays, Tuesdays at the Table, Tuesday Night Supper Club, and Hearth ‘n Soul.

The 5th recipe I made from Jessica Seinfeld’s Deceptively Delicious was Ranch Dressing that I served with fish.

I’m a huge ranch dressing fan. I love it on salads naturally, but I also love it as a dip – for pretty much everything. The only bummer about this recipe, if it’s even a bummer, is that it makes quite a bit but only lasts a few days. I gave some away to my husband’s cousin and his girlfriend and the rest I used as a dip with fish, then on a salad and finally on the third day when Wee One #2’s Godparent’s came for their annual visit we used the last of it as pizza crust dip!

Ranch Dressing (with navy beans) – from Deceptively Delicious (p. 123)

*great northern beans are listed as an either/or suggestion

First drain, rinse and mash the beans. Set aside.

Mix the buttermilk, beans, sour cream, garlic, Parmesan and seasonings in a magic bullet or something similar. Blend till smooth!

Use right away and store what’s left in an air tight container for up to 3 days – eat it quick!

Some notes, the dressing is thin enough as a sauce to drizzle over chicken or fish if you like it with those. Otherwise, next time I will add more navy beans to make it thicker and more dressing-like.

,

In this blog post I am participating in Marriage Mondays, and on Wednesday I’ll add this link to Living Well Wednesdays

It’s Marriage Monday again! Last week, my Good Morning Girls group was talking about something Courtney had said in a recent blog post. Essentially, that if you bump a cup full of water, water will come out (duh lol) but that it’s the same with our hearts! If you have a heart full of frustration (or anger or resentment etc), that’s what will come out when you hit a bump! So if we work every day to fill our hearts with love and joy, that’s what will come out! I’ve been thinking about that a lot this week and it makes so much sense!

We are all human so it’s easy to do things that annoy the people around us, and it’s easy to let ourselves be annoyed. This morning, it is -37 with the wind chill and though I know I saw him wear it home on Friday, Wee One #1 could not find his hat as he was getting ready for the school bus – this bumped my cup. If I was already frustrated, (perhaps with him constantly losing tupperware at school), frustration would have spilled out and he would have taken off for the bus with a cloud over him and a chilly head. Instead I told him that he needed to keep track of his things, especially necessary things like that, and I gave him a spare hat! Had I reacted angrily or meanly, I may have ruined his day and likely mine too because I’d spend the rest of it feeling guilty!

My husband and I went to bed at 3:30 this morning because dear, dear friends we only get to spend time with once a year were here. When we went to bed he said he’d like to get up at 7:30 when I do – it is 10 and he is still sleeping. This doesn’t really bump my cup at the moment, but when he gets up in a few hours annoyed that I was unable to get him out of bed when he asked me to, I will not respond with anger or resentment for being the one that gets up early. I’ll make him and coffee and tell him playfully not to be so grumpy. When his Eeyore cloud passes I’ll be very happy that I didn’t incite an argument just because he can’t get by on as little sleep as I can.

I have tired to live like this since I noticed myself not paying attention to my reactions a couple of years ago and of course every day I can get better and better at it. I’m human so I’ll never totally get it right, but as long as everyone around me knows that I am trying, and if I get it right more often than not, it’s a win!

My husband works from home – we are incredibly blessed to be able to say that!! That means we are together pretty well all day, everyday. We each have things in our days that do not involve the other so we’re not as connected at the hip as that may sound, but being around each other this much could be horrible if we were not mindful of what’s in our cups!!

I’m ending Marriage Mondays now with my husband’s favorite recipe form the previous week. Last week it was Chicken Pot Pie!

This version of Chicken Pot Pie is the short of shortcut my Granny would take and then never tell anyone about. She was up making muffins almost every day at 5am for her family, so she could take as many shortcuts as she needed to in my book!

Shortcut Chicken Pot Pies
Makes 6 individual 6″ pies

2 1/2 cups mixed frozen veggies
2 cups (or more) chopped cooked and seasoned chicken
2 cups thickened chicken stock or cream of chicken soup
2 cup Bisquick
1 cup milk
2 egg

Preheat your oven to 400. Thicken your chicken stock by taking a little and mixing it with about 1 tbsp or so of cornstarch, then add that back into the rest of the chicken stock. The original recipe calls for cream of chicken soup, I’ve also seen it done with a can of gravy (!) but my husband likes it best with thickened chicken stock. 🙂

Mix 1 cup of the Bisquick, 1/2 cup of the milk and 1 egg together and pour that into the bottom of your pie pans (of course you could also just use a big pie pan), and bake for about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, stir the veggies, chicken and thickened chicken stock (or soup or gravy) together. Once the bottom crusts are ready, pour this mixture over them. I made little fork indentations in the bottom crusts because they puff up a bit. The mix the rest of the Bisquick, milk and remaining egg and pour over top the veggie and chicken mixture.

Cook this for another 25-35 minutes, till puffy and golden on top and voila! Amazingly simple chicken pot pie without rolling any pie crust at all!

The original recipe just puts the veggies and chicken mix directly into the pan(s) with no bottom crust, so you only use half the Bisquick, milk and eggs but then you sacrifice having a bottom crust so it’s less a pie and more a savory cobbler situation.