Last summer, I fell madly in love with the Torrance Farmer’s Market. I love it because it’s big so there is a lot of selection, but not so big that you can’t get to know the vendors. I looooove that it’s a year-round market (since you know, 2 weeks of rain is ‘winter’ down here) and most of all I think that the concept of local citrus, and local avocado and omg local dragonfruit (whaaaat) is so so otherworldly. It is very temping to walk through your local farmer’s market and buy healthy, delicious produce at random. If you eat a lot of raw fruits and veggies that can probably work for you, but if you’re aiming to make meals from as much of your haul as possible, it’s generally wise to show up with a list.

Yeah, I know. But I’m making lists again!

This is what I brought home with me this week…

Beets, carrots, kale, cucumbers, lemons, limes, oranges, blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, ginger, shallots, garlic, onions, white peaches, white ‘donut’ peaches, apricots, grapefruit, purple grapes and avocados. Not pictured whole wheat pita bread, whole wheat pita chips, jalapeño feta (I know right??), a layered feta / sundried tomato / pesto dip, artichoke hummus and beet hummus.

Of course, the very first few recipes that run through my mind when I stood back to look at my loot were from Peas and Thank You, a few Deceptively Delicious recipes came to mind too and naturally, Undressed Skeleton. Here are some things I’ve already posted about that will end up happening this week here, and I’ll follow it up with a loose plan for the week.

blackberries, limes, ginger	kale	strawberries
carrots	carrots	dip for everything
avocado	strawberries	grapefruit
strawberry	all berries	lemon, lime, ginger, kale, cucumber

Ideas for this week’s meals and snacks! I will take pictures and post about them next week!

Adding beet puree to whole wheat pancakes (made with flax and almond milk instead of eggs and cow milk) for breakfast is a hit with all of us!
Dressing up rice cakes or flatbread with non dairy ‘cream cheese’ and fruit
Dressing up rice cakes or flatbread with smashed avocado and nuts
Dressing up rice cakes or flatbread with jam and berries
I’m going to swap my berry smoothie for some fresh beet / carrot / apple juice – apparently, it’s amazing (and amazingly healthy, natch)
Whole wheat (from scratch) garlic bread.
Frozen grape skewers topped with non dairy vanilla pudding and dates or prunes or raisins (I haven’t decided yet) 😉
Chick pea and kale falafels
Red velvet cupcakes with beets and non dairy ‘cream cheese’ frosting
I will also make some candied carrots for the kids as a side for dinner and mix some beets into mashed potatoes for pink potatoes!
Oh and pies!! I promised my husband pies!
Lemon meringue pie!
Cherry pie!
Blueberry tarts!
Maybe a peach pie too, we’ll see!

Today I’m linking up with Ladybug Blessings, Hope Studios, A Bowl Full of Lemons, Naptime Creations, Crafty Confessions, Me and My Boys, Mandy’s Recipe Box, Chef in Training, and Pink Sized Baker. Check out some of these link ups. So many recipes and projects to be inspired by!

I use the term ‘skinny’ pretty loosely here, because duh if you eat enough of pretty much anything there’s nothing skinny about it. It should also go without saying that swapping out crackers or flatbread for veggies to dip in this will also totally change what kind of day you have.

It’s at least fair to call it a light dip because if you’d normally be snacking on chips or crackers this dip is a step up with a lot less fat and calories and a little boost of veggies.

‘Skinny’ Poolside Dip

1 chopped red pepper
2 seeded and chopped jalapeños (or leave the seeds in if you really want the kick)
1 can of corn (drained)
16 oz fat-free cream cheese (softened)
1 packet ranch dip seasoning mix

Mash up the cream cheese to be sure it’s blended and ready for other add-ins. Stir in the seasoning mix first and when it’s well distributed, add the red pepper and the jalapeños. Then fold in the corn. Pop it in the fridge for a few hours for all the flavors to set.

That’s it. Just break out the crisp dipping veggies and some crackers.

I know, right? Too easy! You’re welcome!

Today, I am linking up with Keeping it Simple, Skip to My Lou, Boogieboard Cottage, Craft-o-Matic, Making the World Cuter and C.R.A.F.T. There are so many creative and fun projects in these link ups!

I have a soft spot for old school birthday parties at home. I mean, yeah we have had a few Chuck E Cheese parties in our day and it’s always really temping to just throw a few hundred dollars at an indoor playspace and hit the bakery but you know me. I … just … can’t. I really love the feeling of a houseful of kids, homemade decorations and a crazy towering homemade cake. Originally, we had planned a party in Santa Monica at Pacific Park and we ended up getting passes for the girls and doing that as a family, and throwing an old school party at home instead.

Wee One #3 invited her little posse of four year olds and when I asked her to pick a color she picked ‘rainbows’ so I went with a mix of mostly primary colors.

These puffs were originally inspired by Martha’s puffs, but these are so much cheaper and so so easy!

Total cost for each puff was only slightly over $1, and these made really big puffs. All you need is a package of tissue paper, a pipe cleaner and a length of ribbon to hang it from. There were 20 pipe cleaners in the package and about 15 yards of ribbon on the spool!

For each:
1 package tisse paper
1 pipe cleaner
1 length ribbon
scissors

First flatten out the tissue paper and then accordion fold it until it’s all folded. Secure it in the middle with a pipe cleaner.

Cut points at each edge and then separate all of the layers of tissue paper. This is the most tedious part and it’s not really all that tedious.

These last two were made with solid sets of paper and the same method as the multicolored ones with the points. So cute!

Today I’m linking up with Ducks ‘n a Row, Wednesday Whatsits, Fluster Buster, Buns In My Oven, The NY Melrose Family, Gooseberry Patch, Lady Behind the Curtain, Ginger Snap Crafts, Polka Dots on Parade, Sugar and Dots, Lil Luna, Sew Much Ado, and All She Cooks. So many inspiring recipes and crafts in these link ups!

Yes. Slutty. Brownies. I know, I didn’t make it up, but it’s a great name, right?

These brownies involve chocolate chip cookies, Oreos and well, brownies. These treats have been made and blogged about and made again and blogged about again all over everyone’s favorite foodie blogs but as far as I can tell, it was Rosie over at The Londoner that first introduced these to the internet.

Slutty Brownies via The Londoner

chocolate chip cookie dough (use the Good Housekeeping version)
chocolate brownie batter (this is my granny’s recipe)
Oreos

Does this require a recipe? Really?

I’m going to completely gloss over that you could choose to use a box of cookie mix and a box of brownie mix. I will judge you and be really disappointed in you if you don’t make them from scratch. Just kidding! No but really, I’m totally judging you.

Make a batch of chocolate chip cookie dough and spread it in a greased brownie pan.

Today, I’m linking up with Keeping it Simple, Skip to My Lou, Boogieboard Cottage, Craft-o-Matic, Making the World Cuter, Sumo’s Sweet Stuff, and C.R.A.F.T. There are so many amazing projects in these links ups!

My girls love to get fancy, and this is no surprise to anyone who reads this blog, but in the last year or so, they’ve been reading a lot of Fancy Nancy books. A lot. If you’re not familiar, Fancy Nancy is a sweet character in a series of books (there’s over 50 of them) revolving around her life. She’s a young girl who loves to dress up, she takes ballet, loves butterflies, French words and all things fancy! The illustrations in the books are so full of whimsy, with random feather plumes sticking out of vases and lace trim on almost everything and glitter and cute buttons and and and….all the details are so wonderful.

So now two of my littles are bent on having an uber fancy room with a zillion fancy details. Since their hairbands were living in a cute little basket on a dresser I decided to start there. I was initially just going to spice up the basket they were already using, but we can use baskets for so many other fancy things, right?! I think the best way to go about creating a fancy room is to display as many of their fancy objects (like their crazy cute hairbands) as possible while still storing them in an organized way. I think this nailed it, it’s copied from all the tween shops we have bought these girlie accessories in. So cute!

You’ll need…

a cannister large enough so the hairbands don’t slip down, but small enough that you’re not stretching out the bands!
glue gun
decorative paper
sparkly things
whatever cute glittery things you want to add!

First I covered my cannister with plain construction paper to make a plain background to work from. I cut some glittery scrapbooking paper into medium and smallish pieces and hot glued them all over it like a patchwork quilt. Cute!!

Then I dug through my crafty box for some lace and flowers and sparkly things and attacked it with the glue gun. I had Wee One #3 coaching me the whole time on how much of what I should be attaching where. It was hilarious how specific she was!

Here is the finished project with some of their hairband collection on display! So sweet and now when someone needs a giant blue bow to go with their outfit we’ll know exactly where it is!

Menu Monday is back by popular demand – who knew you guys cared about Menu Monday?! Thanks for the emails, ladies! 😉 I write out the menu and usually stick it somewhere visible in the kitchen. Wee One #1, who has all of a sudden transformed into a hungry almost teenager, will see something he’s really excited about and ask to rearrange the week (‘can we switch today with Sunday so we can have buttermilk fried chicken, pleeeeease?!’). I went through a year long period of blissful extended vacation when we first moved to California and I would have swapped days without a thought. Sure, I still had laundry for 5 to do and yes we were homeschooling, but I had no real time constraints, nowhere I had no be at any specific time. It started slowly with one little taking Jiu Jitsu a few times a week, then the other two started taking dance a few times a week. Then before we knew it, not only were they getting better at their chosen activities, they were pushing themselves harder and asking to go more often! So now we’re at the dojo 4/5 days a week and at the dance studio 6/7 days a week! I know! We also moved to a much coveted, much bigger apartment, which of course means more cleaning. Duh. So now I find myself unable to mess around with dinners because, for example, while I will be homeschooling all day today (final week stretch woot woot), Wee One #1’s Jiu Jitsu keeps me out exactly when I should be making dinner, so dinner has to be something I can make and finish early and then heat up with no mushy consequence – you know, like stew. When I know I’ll be home all afternoon (like pretty much every Sunday) I can make something that is a serious time and mess investment and it’s all good. Sorry little people, no meal switching. You’ll just have to eat your stew and long for Sunday. 😉

Ever since the The Pioneer Woman Cooks cookbook entered my life, I have been cooking and baking up all kinds of neat things that (shocking) everyone has loved! Usually at least one person is not 100% happy with dinner, but from this book, they’re all happy. I know. It’s my new favorite thing. I can’t bring myself to post recipes from her book since I have been reading her since the dawn of time (aka 2007), but since she does post some of her cookbook recipes on her blog and I’ll happily post those. More this week!

This week is full of Pioneer Woman goodness, and some other goodness as well. 😉 The Cornbread Stuffed Jalapeños are not a PW recipe, but they’re crazy fantastic! The original poster intended these jalapeño poppers to be cheesy jalapeño cornbread but switched them up because she’d done the spicy cornbread a zillion times before (I may be paraphrasing). This is one of those things that reminds me of the foodie differences between Canada and The States, I have never had cheesy jalapeño cornbread. That’s ok, I’m sure I’ll get the opportunity!

This Week’s Menu June 3 – June 9

Sunday – buttermilk fried chicken, mac & cheese, & broccoli and toasted coconut cake for dessert

Cornbread Stuffed Jalapeños via Oh, Bite It!

12 medium fresh Jalapeños

1 cornbread mix

1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese (reserve 1/2 cup for sprinkling on top)

1 cup corn (canned or fresh, whatever)

Clean out your peppers, if you like it spicy leave some of the seeds in, otherwise clean them out. I usually wear gloves when I handle peppers but I didn’t when I made these and yeah my fingers were all burny for about half an hour after. Sigh. Wear gloves, people!

 

The short week after a holiday weekend is usually pretty laid back, but I’m hyped for Friday anyway. This week started off really slow, spending Monday with my husband and our littles in our new backyard plotting what we want to plant and what else we want to do with the space. Tuesday my homie Jillian and I packed up our littles and hit the thrift shop. I swear on a stack of Teen Vogues that when we got in her car, this song was playing. Obvy, the universe wanted us to go thrifting. It was an excellent trip! Wee One #2 got 3 dresses and a pair of pink camo pj pants and Wee One #3 found 4 adorable dresses (2 even had sparkles). We also ended up with a hysterical purple piggy bank that I hope we keep forever (read: Dear Wee One #3, please don’t break this epic find), some cute glasses and a crazy noisy car toy they both love. Of course they love it. Why wouldn’t they? I was a little bummed to not find any sweet ironic tshirts for Wee One #1 and though I did find some really silly sleepwear to scare my husband with, in the end closet space for clothes I will actually wear won and I didn’t buy it – though I did get a photie of it! It’s a pink zebra adult sized onesie! There are even little hearts on it! Look!! Now that I see it on the blog, it looks like the girl version of the Batman onesie in the Macklemore / Ryan Lewis video and I regret not buying it, if not for me then for my girl Vanessa. If you’re reading this Nessa, I’m going back for it! <3

Wednesday we ditched our plans to go out in favor of hanging out at the pool and making these ice pops (and a few other recipes we froze and ate in record time thanks to my Fastpop Popsicle Maker). It’s so rad. I just store it in my freezer, so when I want to use it, it’s ready for me. Usually, ice pops are ready in less than 10 minutes with this, but dairy-based ice pops take a bit longer, which is kind of a no brainer if you’ve ever made ice pops before.

This recipe isn’t even a recipe really. It was just 1 cup of milk and 1/3 cup Nutella. Blend till totally combined and pour into your ice pop molds. Or you can even use Dixie cups and just peel the paper off when they’re frozen and ready to serve.

Another variation we had luck with was 1/2 cup milk, 1/2 cup Cool Whip and 1/3 cup Nutella. Equally amazing.

After we devoured these, we made a bunch of fruity ones! I will post last day of school pictures of all of them next week even though technically today was Wee One #1’s last day. Today was also officially the last dance class for the Tiny Tots team for their month-long summer break and my girls were pretty hyped about it. I mean Wee One #3 was rocking 3 ponytails and one stemmed from a french braid. During class today, she was hilariously distracted and really highlighted her kitten-like attention span. I found myself saying things like ‘you have to listen to Miss Alex, come on point your toes / spin / open your arms’ etc. So I asked her if she wanted to come back to the class and she said she just wanted to watch her sister or go home and be with Daddy. Ok so, this is when I step back and remember that no matter how adorable she is in a tutu, she’s 4 years old and that if she isn’t into it, she isn’t into it and I will not push her to do something just because it’s cute. Truthfully, she’s into dancing around in her outfit and she likes the studio because the music is loud and there is so much more space – she’s just not big on the whole ‘class’ aspect of it. 😉 I think we’ll take a break for six months and see what happens.

I love me some Ree Drummond (aka The Pioneer Woman), I love her too much to post recipes from her book on my blog – hoooowever, she has posted some recipes from her book on her blog and I feel comfortable sharing those. Not all of them, so you’ll have to buy her cookbook if you want to make her roasted cauliflower – which you should absolutely do!

This recipe, for a slooooow cooked shredded pork that will make your home smell alarmingly good. I mean that – alarmingly good. Especially if you’re in and out of the kitchen or if you go outside to play in the yard and then you come in – zomg so so good. Kind of like when you cook down stew all day, but times about eleventy billion.

Dr Pepper Shredded Pork via Pioneer Woman

1 whole large onion
1 whole pork shoulder (5 – 7 lbs)
salt & pepper
1 11 oz can chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (or whatever chilies you can find in sauce you like)
2 cans Dr. Pepper
2 tablespoons brown sugar

I couldn’t find the chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, but being that I live in Southern California I’m sure it’s just because I only looked in one place and then made the executive decision to just use a can of green chilies in some other kind of sauce because I just wanted to cook this crazy concoction already. Ahem. So, I did.

This an an all day situation, but thankfully it requires very little babysitting. Start by cutting an onion into quarters and break the layers apart a bit. Lay them on the bottom of your pan. Salt and pepper the roast and plunk that on top of the onions. Now empty the can of peppers or chilies onto the roast. Then the Dr Pepper. Then the brown sugar (add this into the liquid and not just on top of the roast).

Now pop it in the oven for somewhere in the neighborhood of six-eight hours. I checked on mine at the 5 hour mark and turned it on it’s side. Then again at 6 hours and turned it again. At 7 hours it started to fall apart perfectly.

You can use this meat for whatever you can think of. I served this on sesame buns with a rice pilaf and green beans. 🙂 A serious hit with all 5.

On Monday, I shared photies of my Memorial Day weekend, which included two really serious cakes. Yesterday, I posted about the Crumble Jumble Cake, so today here is the second cake we brought with us to the barbecue. It’s pretty epic, but def in a good way. It is not only that winning combination of chocolate and peanut butter, but it is also in just the right ratio, not too much of either. The frosting really puts it over the edge. You’re welcome. 🙂

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake – via The Farm Girl

There’s a lot going on here, I’m not going to lie, but I loved every second of it. You probably will too if you like even half the recipes on this blog. 😉

So first of all, it starts with a cake mix and you KNOW how I feel about those. In this case though it’s used more as an ingredient than a crutch, having said that, if I ever make this again I will try to ditch the mix. Mix everything except the peanut butter chips for 2-3 minutes, then stir in the peanut butter chips and pour into two greased 9″ pans. Bake at 350 for 40 minutes. Cool 10 minutes before removing from pans and then completely cool on a wire rack before icing!

The frosting is wonderfully simple. Cream the butter and peanut butter until smooth then add the salt, vanilla, whipping cream and 1 cup of confectioner’s sugar at a time until thick enough to spread. I placed one cake on the platter, iced the top of it, added the second cake and then iced that as well. I made this to impress my girl Jillian’s husband and I heard he liked peanut butter cups, so I arranged them around the base of the cake, chopped up the rest of them and sprinkled them on top. Along with a generous helping of Reese’s Pieces!

My littles love to tear it up in the kitchen, and I love to watch them. Sometimes their creations are a little sketchy but they are usually pretty good when they follow a recipe! This recipe is in one of their favorite library books, The Little Bitty Bakery by Leslie Muir and Betsy Lewin.

Essentially, this book is about an elephant baker who bakes all kinds of sweet treats but doesn’t realize until the day is done that she baked right through her birthday and didn’t celebrate it! The mice in her bakery all pitch in and gather crumbs and bits of treats to make her a birthday cake (hilarious how something so unsanitary is adorable in a children’s book). I can’t say for sure if it’s the glitter on the cover, or the sing-song rhyme of the text (here’s an adorable example ‘they scuttled to a huddle / prepared a secret plan / & launched a luscious mission / inside a brioche pan’), but my girls love this book. We first took it out of the library one day last fall when we were exploring libraries outside of our district and we ended up getting library cards in that district that day to take it out (the way the library system is down here is so weird that we actually have library cards in three different districts, even though they are all super close to us).

Since then, we have taken the book out three more times in the other two districts – and renewed again this week. Clearly, I need to just buy this book for them! The recipe for the crumble jumble cake is at the back of the book and was so weird I wasn’t sure it was actually going to work. There are a few mismeasured ingredients (duh, the bakers are 7 and 4), but really, it came out pretty well.

Crumble Jumble Cake via The Little Bitty Bakery 1 stick unsalted butter 3/4 cup sugar 5 large eggs 1 cup chocolate syrup 1 teaspoon pure vanilla 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon pinch salt 1 cup flour

Moonlight Frosting via The Little Bitty Bakery 1 stick salted butter 3/4 cup confectioner’s sugar 6 tablespoons marshmallow fluff 1 teaspoon vanilla 1-2 tablespoons half and half

The cake is fairly simple, first cream the butter and sugar and then beat in the eggs one at a time. Slowly add the chocolate syrup (this is when I stopped and checked the book again because I just couldn’t believe it), vanilla, cinnamon and salt. Bake at 325 for 45 minutes and voila!

The frosting is crazy simple too and it’s especially cute if you’ve read the book. <3 Just whip it all together in your stand up mixer and you're good to go. Once the cake has been baked, cooled and frosted, the real fun begins! This is where the ‘crumble jumble’ aspect comes in.

The real beauty is you can use whatever you know your friends and family will love! I chopped up a few Twix bars, some Butterfinger Bites, M&Ms, mini chocolate chips, broken cookies, jellybeans and chopped walnuts. When I showed up at my girl Jillian’s house with this (and another epic cake I’ll post about tomorrow) her response was ‘omg what are you doing?!’, of course I just replied, ‘I know, right?’ Don’t worry, we didn’t eat it all!