Tasty Tuesday!

One giveaway ended, but I have two high dollar giveaways going on at my review blog here and here. Who can't use $200 in gift certificates (each) right about now?

So last week I talked about a whole bunch of yummies I made for a party I had at my house. It was hard to decide on my favorite, so I won't. This, however, was the favorite of at least a few people there, I think. It's somewhat non-traditional, but oh so yummy, easy and healthy, too! Plus, it was a non-messy appetizer, which is always a win!

Green Bruschetta

Ingredients:
16 oz English or petite peas (fresh is better but this time of year, I totally went frozen)

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350.

Boil a large pot of salted water (one of the rare times I will truly advocate salting your water!). Add the peas, asparagus, green beans, broccoli, and onions. Cook 2-3 minutes until bright green and still crisp. Drain and immediately submerge in an ice bath to stop the cooking, then drain again.

Puree the newly cooked veggies with the parsley and ricotta until lightly blended. Drizzle in olive oil until you get a consistency you like. Add salt and pepper, still pulsing in the food processor.

Cut the loaf into thin slices diagonally to maximize space for the topping. Lay them on a cookie sheet and drizzle lightly with olive oil. Bake in the oven until a beautiful golden color - about 10 minutes.

Remove from the oven and immediately rub with the garlic cloves 2-3 good strokes for each slice. (Or if you're me and like garlic, go to town and use six cloves of garlic.) Make sure the bread is still warm when you do this.

Spoon the puree onto the slices. Top each slice with a bit of prosciutto, and serve immediately.

Yum! Enjoy this and more at Tempt My Tummy Tuesday with Blessed With Grace!

1 bunch asparagus, trimmed

8 oz nice green beans (preferably haricots verts - which I bought frozen)

4 green onions, rough chopped

8 oz broccoli florets

1/2 c fresh parsley

1 1/2 c ricotta cheese

olive oil

salt and pepper

1 loaf crusty bread
3 cloves garlic
~12 slices prosciutto

Good Ideas Gone Bad

A reminder for you all, I've got a trio of giveaways going on over at my review site right now -- consider it some early Christmas shopping, either for yourself or someone else! 

My four pack of movie tickets and free cereal ends tomorrow and so far has only seven entries (what do you not like going to the movies?) Enter here.

Do you shop at the LOFT? $200 awaits you here.

Are you more of a cash kind of person? Enter for a $200 Visa gift card here.

***

Stop me when you figure out where I went wrong today.

I agreed to watch a friends two sons this afternoon for a couple hours after church today (no, this is a good thing), beginning at noon.

It turns out that the wee ones had Christmas pageant practice today after church. Church ends at 11:30 or so. The practice I found out was going to be "about forty-five minutes or so." I did not bring food for them to eat lunch. (Sadly, this is not where I went wrong either.)

At ten to twelve, my friend called to confirm that we were still at church and dropped off her boys. I was expecting ten more minutes of pageant practice, and they can be entertained for that long, surely. For ten minutes? No problem. Unfortunately, it was almost forty more minutes of practice. And the wee ones still hadn't eaten lunch. (I'm starting to have a few regrets, but this isn't where I went wrong.)

When we got to our house at 1:45, I discovered that the two boys had eaten lunch already, so they just wanted to play. You can imagine how well lunch went over with Mister Man and Little Miss while their friends are calling to them and trying to get them to play. Little Miss sat right down and ate something, and I contented myself with Mister Man eating two bites of a sandwich and drinking his milk. Nope, still not where I went wrong.

Yesterday, I started baking Christmas cookies. I have to bring in cookies to Mister Man's school twice next week, and I volunteered to be the "nice" mom bringing in not only the nut free cookies (required) but also the egg free (an allergy in Mister Man's class) and dairy free (an allergy in the school in general) cookies. Those cookies were quickly and easily made yesterday, but by the time I finished those, the wee one and I were done baking for the day. The sugar cookie dough sitting in the fridge was going to stay there overnight.

So I decided that today would be a good day to finish the cookies and that the boys could help me. I rolled out the dough, and I showed them the selection of cookie cutters. Surprisingly, this wasn't too painful.

One of the boys asked if he could have a taste of the dough. I agreed and gave him a small sliver. I then spent the next hour and a half chasing after him and making him put pieces of dough down. This was the beginning of the end.

Since they were cut out sugar cookies, I figured we had to decorate them. I was envisioning using my sugar crystals of various colors with the stocking being sprinkled gently with red for the bottom and left clean on top. The snowflake would be perfect sprinkled in blue, while the star would look great in red -- and so on.

Apparently it's been awhile since I've decorated with children. The pile of yellow sugar on one cookie wasn't a huge issue, as I easily spread it around and calmly explained that you couldn't use that much sugar on a single cookie.

When they argued over the sugar and grabbed at the sugar the others had, smashing an elbow into a couple cookies along the way, I quickly devised a color sharing system -- at my call, they would each rotate the sprinkles to the right.

When Mister Man asked to use the new red sprinkles, I helped him open them. At that point, I turned around to do something -- stupidly, I'll admit. I heard the oh no! as I turned back around. Apparently the red sprinkles have very large holes in the top, and a pile of red sprinkles larger than the cookie now lay atop a poor snowman. I took a deep breath and quickly grabbed the still pouring sprinkle container then began trying to scrape up some of the teensy tiny grains of sugar. Muttering under my breath, I gave up.

The first tray done -- albeit over decorated -- I placed into the oven, and we started on the second tray. I placed the red sprinkles out of the way so no one would be tempted, and I contentedly monitored the over sugaring of the cookies. As the timer went off and I turned around to check the cookies in the oven, I really should have known better. One of the boys had opened the red container, and almost half the sprinkles in the bottle were now covering a reindeer and a bell. At least the boy had the good sense to right the bottle and stop pouring after the initial mishap.

I tried tilting the tray to better capture the excess sprinkles, which only worked minimally as both of the boys were putting their fingers in the sprinkles and gobbling the sugar as quickly as they could. My admonitions were met only with sheepish grins and more reaching. I checked the clock to see how long before I headed out for my Christmas party tonight (and by my, I mean me and other moms with no children present).

We continued decorating the cookies, and I continued fending off the boys from the stealing of dough and sugar. Somehow, I don't lose this battle when it's the wee ones, but these boys are more persistent. They also began begging to eat a cookie. I promised everyone could have a cookie once we got the second sheet out of the oven and they'd cooled somewhat (with Little Miss getting one of the strawberry thumbprint dairy free, egg free, nut free but surprisingly not taste free cookies we'd made yesterday).

As the cookies were ready, I placed a cookie for each child onto a plate and made sure they sat at the kitchen table to eat. I continued to work on rolling out the dough and finishing up the cookies. When I next looked up, the children had all left the table, and I can only pray that they washed -- or at least licked off -- their hands before going to play in the rooms with carpet and other light colored objects.

This is about when I realized that over sugared cookies have a bigger problem than just wasting the sugar. About three-quarters of the sugar that had been in the dispensers now lay strewn about not only the kitchen table but on the floor all around the table as far as the eye could see. I sighed and was mildly grateful that this wasn't summer and therefore no ants would smell the sugar that I'd missed, knowing it would take me several rounds of sweeping and mopping to capture all the errant grains.

They did all have fun, and I sent the boys on their merry way not long after with a big plate of the cookies they'd helped me make. I surveyed my kitchen and sighed.

Moral of the story? Making cookies with children isn't a bad thing. However, next time we're going with icing. Sugar is best left in the hands of experts.

And now? I have seven minutes before I need to be at a party that has only adults, some adult beverages and a basement full of delectable goodies. I'm feeling better already.

Santa's Bringing Me A Big Ol' Lump Of Coal

A reminder for you all, I've got a trio of giveaways going on over at my review site right now -- consider it some early Christmas shopping, either for yourself or someone else!  Like the movies? Enter here. Do you shop at the LOFT? $200 awaits you here. Are you more of a cash kind of person? Enter for a $200 Visa gift card here.

***

I'm a bad daughter in law.

I've posted before about how I'm not a fan of telling people what I want them to buy me for Christmas. If you know me well enough to buy me something I'd love, great. If not, I really don't need anything, and I don't know you well enough to expect anything from you.

My in-laws have decided that their Christmas shopping for my whole family now involves a trip to the store. They choose the store, then we choose our gifts.

Whee.

Honestly, I'd rather receive nothing from my in-laws, and I'd be totally cool with that, but they can't do that, so off we go to the store.

In the store, my husband immediately decides he could go for a couple new shirt and tie combos. Since there are approximately 25,642,320,483 color and pattern and fabric choices available at any given moment, this takes some time, especially for someone not too confident in the fashion department.

While my husband chooses his presents, I am left to entertain the two bored wee ones who are used to going shopping with me and having a job to do. Unfortunately there aren't too many possible jobs for the overtired children while Daddy looks at ties, so it's a full-time gig.

Then Mister Man decides he's thirsty, so I take him to go find the drinking fountain at the other end of the massive store. Little Miss can't be left behind, so she catches up to us. As we're heading back to find Daddy, he has finished and is now helping his mom look for presents for the wee ones.

Not surprisingly, he asks for help. I somehow manage to simultaneously entertain the wee ones and keep them oblivious and also point out some potential choices for them to then figure out.

Realizing that I'm the only one left to choose a present and no opportunity to do so as yet, I ask my husband to watch the wee ones while I head to the front of the store to look at the clothes. Because of course, it's so easy to choose clothes for yourself when given an eight minute time limit and no opportunity to try anything on.

I do somehow find a sweater that I like, but my size is missing. I see another shirt that may be an opportunity, but without trying it on, I'm not sure. That's about when my father in law appears and insists that I tell him what I found.

I am now getting the maybe it'll be ok shirt for Christmas, and he insists on asking one of the workers to look for the sweater in my size. No dice after ten minutes, but they insist I need something else.

Having seen nothing else and at this point soooo not in the mood to shop, I suggest to my husband that he pick out an Oxo super sealing container. We have a bunch at home, but there are never enough. I big puffy heart them. Trust me, a circus of each of us trying to find the others ensues, but I'm working on getting to my point.

We finally meet up, and my husband has apparently been successful, so I know I'm getting at least one of the containers for Christmas, and that's fine. My in laws wrap the presents and send them home with us since it's "too much of a hassle" for my retired in laws to visit us over Christmas and come to our house for the first time in eighteen months (yes, that was a direct quote from my father in law).

After we get home, all the presents are placed in the basement to await the tree that I swear we *are* getting at some point this season. I immediately forget about them.

Or, I forget about them until I'm trying to remove all clutter from my house in anticipation of two parties I hosted at my house in the last week. I have a giant box of Cheerios that really doesn't fit on the counter but has nowhere else to go.

I decide that I could put it into my cereal dispenser if I could find a place for the mostly gone knockoff brand (but surprisingly better for you) rice square cereal. All my handy little containers are in use. Until I remember my Christmas present sitting in the basement.


After all, my in laws aren't going to see me at Christmas time. They will never know -- nor are they likely to care -- if I open it early. Right?

Ahem.

It worked out perfectly, and my counter was blissfully clear for both parties. Oddly, I don't even feel a little guilty. It doesn't really feel like a Christmas present. But at the same time, when I think about it rationally, I think I should feel like the most evil daughter in law. But isn't it pretty holding my cereal?

What's the most Christmas tradition you've most gone against?

Thank You!

Before I forget, I've got a trio of pretty darn awesome giveaways going on over at my review site right now -- consider it some early Christmas shopping, either for yourself or someone else!  Check here, here, and here.

***

November is usually the time to focus on being thankful and appreciating what we have.  While I did that peronally to some degree last month, I know I didn't post anything on it.  And some of what I'm thankful for, I know I didn't appropriately thank the person involved.  There are a lot of people, especially random strangers, who do thoughtful things, and we frequently just accept them.  I'm trying to remember them more often and keep those memories close on the days when I'm tired or frustrated.

Dear School Psychologist,
Thank you for not only taking my call last week - especially since you've never heard of me before -  about Mister Man, but thank you for making me feel better about both me and Mister Man.  It's good to know that I've been doing the "right" thing and that October and November can be really tricky months in kindergarten, especially in the Catholic school where there is such a focus on Christmas.  I really appreciate the suggestions you gave, and thankfully, I can already see a difference!

Dear Blue Car Driver,
Thank you for not being the typical Chicago driver.  I've been a bit, shall we say, busy lately, and I almost forgot where I was going.  I don't usually have to change lanes at the last minute, but I really appreciate you letting me in rather than trying to speed up to keep me one car behind you.  And even more -- I appreciate that you didn't honk at me.

Dear Grocery Cart Dude,
Yesterday was a really cold and miserable day, and I just wanted to get to the store to buy a 2 liter of 7-Up for my co-op party.  Even though I'm sure you were colder, I really appreciate you insisting that I park before you started pushing your collection of grocery carts back to the store.  And to say hi and be friendly once I exited my car?  Well, you just don't see that too often anymore.  It's really nice to see someone happy with his lot in life who is willing to share his happiness.

Dear Blonde Lady,
Thank you so much for your compliment.  I do love my new sweater, and noticing it and saying something about it really made my day.  I've noticed this phenomenon before -- and thus I try to give unsolicited random (but honest) compliments to people once a day at least -- but it never ceases to put a smile on my face when someone tells me that I look nice or that they like something I'm wearing.

Dear School Mom,
Thank you so much for holding open the door to after care for me, as I urged three children to follow me as we attempted to pick up the fourth carpool child last week.  For whatever reason, that door is locked, and the after care people can't hear anyone knocking.  One child in the carpool has soccer very close to the end of the school day, so being able to get into the after care area to pick up the last child quickly really makes a difference.  I appreciate you holding open the door for all of us, as it isn't always the easiest to get us all through.

Dear Carnival Mom,
Thank you so much for the carnival tickets that you gave us.  That was really sweet.  I know how it feels to buy extra tickets sometimes and then realize that children have got to get home, but yet you don't want them to go to waste.  We'd already used all ours, and the line we were standing in to buy more was not conducive to my sanity with children anxious to return to the carnival.  We really appreciate the fact that we now had tickets to have the wee ones go on one last ride before heading home which avoided a certain meltdown.

Dear Nice Child,
Thank you so much for your assistance at the McDonald's playland.  They do not build those playlands for adults to get into whatsoever.  When Little Miss was injured by another child and crying hysterically because she couldn't figure out how to get out, the fact that you helped her and gently held her hand to lead her to the slide and help her down without anyone asking says wonders about you, and I really appreciate it.  And the fact that you helped Little Miss play in the playland after she was assured that she was going to be fine really made me smile.

There are more.  There are lots and lots more, and some I can't even remember other than the happy glow that still sticks with me.  There is so much that's sad and wrong with the world right now, but these little rays of light keep my hope alive.  For anyone who helps a stranger, pays a compliment or otherwise makes someone's day, thank you.

Who are you thankful towards?

Scrooge No More

I just came back inside after round one of shoveling our first major snowfall of the season. Lucky me, it was the heavy wet stuff, but hey -- I didn't get to the gym today, so I can use the exercise.

The shoveling got me to thinking, and I just figured out my issue. Or at least one of them.

Every year, I treasure the Christmas season. It's a very special time, and I love it. However, I'm also one of those people who does not want Christmas to drag on too long or infringe on any other season's joys.

Once we hit the Sunday after Thanksgiving, I'm ready to start Christmas. The decorations can come out. I'm willing to buy a tree (although we're rarely, if ever, that organized). I'm way into my Christmas baking. And I've got the Christmas station programmed in my car.

This year though, I had no interest in listening to Christmas music at all. It just didn't feel like Christmas, and I was sooooo not in the mood. I wasn't sure why, but one day last week, I found myself turning on the Christmas station on my way to drop the wee ones at school. Apparently the Christmas spirit was back.

However, by the time I got in the car again that afternoon, I had apparently lost my Christmas spirit because I couldn't stand to listen to the music anymore. What gives?

Today, I finally turned the Christmas station back on -- although admittedly I had to flip between a couple because I didn't like what was playing on one or the other at times.

Any ideas what changed?

Ummm yeah... how does that classic song go? "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, everywhere we go...." Apparently all I needed was a little snow. That first day I listened to Christmas music? We had a dusting of snow that melted mostly off mid-morning. Ohhhh (the lightbulb goes on). And today? More snow. In fact, we're forecast eight to eleven inches.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

So how many of you now have those songs going through your head? Sorry. Sorta.

And a Merry SITSmas to all!

Tasty Tuesday!

This past Saturday, I had a party at my house (more on that in a few days on the review blog -- keep an eye out there for all sorts of great stuff). And having a party means lots of cooking, of course.

I wanted to do some fun things that were easy to make and tasted good but were also sort of healthy. And I wanted to do some playing around with recipes I hadn't used much before. Needless to say, I have a few recipes to share with you over the next few weeks -- and many of them are perfect for holiday entertaining!

First up was the party favorite (other than the apple crisp, but I've already shared that recipe!), my cranberry oatmeal spice cookies. That sounds weird, doesn't it? They actually taste great though, and I think I need to come up with a fancier name. Ten points to whoever comes up with my favorite name for these.

Cranberry Oatmeal Spice Cookies

Ingredients:
1 c butter, unsalted
3/4 c brown sugar
3/4 c sugar
2 eggs
1 t vanilla
1 1/2 c flour
1/2 t salt
1 t baking soda
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t nutmeg
1/8-1/4 t allspice
3 c rolled oats
2 c dried cranberries (or so -- I don't measure these things!)

Directions:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Cream the softened butter and both sugars until fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well before and after each addition, then add the vanilla. Add the salt, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice and mix well. Add the flour, stirring by hand until mostly mixed, then adding the oats and cranberries. Mix by hand until just combined.

Drop onto a cookie sheet with sil pat or parchment paper. Bake ten to twelve minutes or until lightly brown. Then be sure you hide them from your husband and kids, or there will soon be none left!



Check out this and more at Tempt My Tummy Tuesday with Blessed With Grace!

Enjoy!

Oh The Irony!

I think I've mentioned somewhere along the line that I'm a Northwestern fan. I've had season tickets for football since graduating and can hold a fairly intelligent conversation on Northwestern football's history when called upon.

I go to all the games, and I'll admit that I had some serious angst this year on Halloween when we had a 3:30 game and trick or treating also started at 3:30. I couldn't decide what to do. Had the game been at 11am (normal start time), no question I would have gone and just been a little late to starting out trick or treating.

I'm not an obnoxious fan though, and I don't go totally all out. While I always make sure to wear purple, you'd never look at me and giggle. Well, ok maybe you'd giggle, but not because of what I was wearing.

So you can imagine my surprise when a package arrived for Little Miss this week from the Northwestern Athletic Office. I hadn't purchased anything, and I couldn't figure out how they even knew her name or address as I don't have the wee ones signed up for the Kids Club (yet).

I shook the box, and it was light. Tempted as I was, I refrained from opening it until she got home from preschool. That gave me a good two hours to ponder why she was receiving mysterious packages.



She was quite excited to open her very own package, so we quickly discovered that it contained another box.



Lo and behold, inside the box was a football. And not just any football. This is a football signed by Pat Fitzgerald, the football coach who pretty much walks on water at Northwestern. He was a star player while at Northwestern in the golden Rose Bowl days, and he was hired as head coach after the previous coach tragically passed away from a heart attack. He was the youngest coach in D-1 football, and he's brought back the swagger to Northwestern with our third bowl game in a row (to the Outback Bowl in Tampa this year).



So Little Miss did exactly what any other four year old would do when seeing such a great present in a box like this. She picked up the ball, tossed it forward onto the ground, rolled it on the ground a little bit, then picked it up to repeat the process.

I stood frozen in horror for a few moments before my mouth functioned.

AHHH! Put that down! That is not a toy! Do not throw that. Ever.

Ok, so I might maybe possibly have had a little stronger a reaction than necessary. Fortunately, Little Miss just looked up at me like I was nuts (I was errr am) and handed the ball to me before bounding away to play with something else.

The football is now enshrined in the sports room in our basement in the Northwestern section, happily ensconced in a football case I happened to have laying around.

So why did she get the ball?

Welllll, Northwestern this year had a giveaway each game. I of course entered to win a football at every single game (except the Halloween game that I sadly was forced to miss). The wee ones went to one game early in the year. My husband snickered, but I entered them to win a football at that game, too.

Little Miss apparently has a horseshoe tattooed somewhere that I don't know about. She goes to her first and only game ever, and she wins a football game. I've been going to football games long enough to have good seats for my season tickets, missing nary a game (except, tragically the Halloween game...), and I got zip.

Do you think it would work if I bought lottery tickets for her, too?