Tasty Tuesday!

As I type this, I have a recipe in the oven that I'm not posting. You'd thank me for it except that I'm providing you to the link for the Twix-tacular bars here. I think I hate Laura just a little bit right now. If you want to hate her, too, go see how evil those bars are.

I'll try to be a little more healthful.

Sorta.

After all, it's fresh fruit. And less sugar. It's all relative.

Lemon Raspberry Pots de Creme

Ingredients:
4 c heavy cream
1 vanilla bean, seeds removed
zest of one lemon
7 egg yolks
1/2 c sugar (see, I told you it was less than the Twix-tacular Bars)
1/3 c lemon juice
2 pints raspberries

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (325 is ok if you think your oven may run hot!).

Heat the cream, vanilla bean, and lemon zest in a heavy saucepan on medium low heat until steaming. Allow the flavors to infuse for about 10 minutes, then remove from the heat.

In a large bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and sugar. Slowly add the lemon juice to the well-whisked mixture slowly, as though you're emulsifying oil. Temper the eggs by adding a small amount of the cream to the eggs to bring them to temperature. Then slowly pour the egg mixture into the hot cream while whisking to ensure the mixture does not scramble.

Return to the stove and let it simmer a few more minutes or steep together off the heat for about ten minutes. You'll know it's ready when it starts to coagulate on a wooden spoon. Use your finger to draw a line in the custard. If the line stays for a bit, it's ready.

Pour the custard into individual ramekins and place into a baking dish. Pour hot water into the baking dish (NOT into the ramekins) until it reaches about halfway up the sides of the ramekins.

Bake in the oven until the custard is set but slightly jiggly in the center. This will be in the neighborhood of 60 minutes, but every oven will be different. Go by feel here!

Remove the roasting pan and chill the ramekins in the fridge until cold. When ready to serve, cover the top completely with raspberries.

Enjoy this and more with Tempt My Tummy and Blessed with Grace!

It's All In How You Look At It...

Earlier this week, I was having a really bad day. It seemed like no matter what I did, things were just going wrong and it was going to be a horrible day. I could sense my attitude slipping, and that's never a good sign for anyone.

Then I took a deep breath and reminded myself of what I tell Mister Man whenever something goes wrong. Hey, things go wrong sometimes. Don't let it ruin your whole day.

Because of the huge rains that caused flooding, "everyone" was traveling on the main road we take to get to school, which meant our usual 16-18 minute ride took over thirty-five minutes, and everyone was late for school. But we made it there safely.

As I got close to Little Miss's preschool to drop her off (fifteen minutes late due to the traffic above), the street was flooded, and I was not about to risk stalling out in the middle of the road. Her school is in a neighborhood filled with twisty streets that go all over, making it easy to get lost. But I turned around and found my way through.

When I finally arrived there, the power was out in her school. The teachers met us there with flashlights, and the basement had flooded in several places (again). But they were still holding school, and Little Miss thought it was a great adventure to have school in the dark. My plans for the remainder of the day didn't have to be cancelled - and power was restored less than an hour and a half later.

When I finally arrived home, the person I was meeting at my house had already arrived... because I was running late. But she totally understood and it worked out just fine.

I was heading to a location I hadn't been before but was pretty sure I knew. The GPS in my phone (btw Google Maps, I'm talking about you - in the short time I've been using you, I have reported lots and lots of errors. You are not engendering my confidence!) had me turn somewhere that surprised me, so I assumed we were going to a different section of the town. Nope, we were going exactly where I thought we were going, except that I had to turn off the main road and go through back streets that added another seven or so minutes to the trip. That made me late - along with the person who was following me, who hates to be late, making me feel guilty. But we weren't the last ones to arrive, and we didn't miss anything.

Running out of my house to get to the event, I'd forgotten to bring the requested jacket. But the nice people kindly lent me a jacket, and I was nice and toasty in the cold areas.

When I returned to my car, the dummy light that had turned on first thing in the morning scared me. It had started with 38 miles remaining, which was plenty to get me through my locations - although I would have stopped for gas anywhere earlier in the morning had I not been running behind because of the stupid traffic that threw my whole morning off - but due to the traffic wasting gas idling and the GPS taking me in the wrong direction, the range on my car was down to three miles. Then two before I left the parking lot.

I knew where the closest gas station was, and it was more than two miles away. I started planning who I could call to help me. I watched the range tick down to one. I was being as gentle as I could with the accelerator trying to conserve what gas I had remaining. And then it showed zero, and I was nowhere near the gas station. My heart was pounding, and the refrain of please please please kept repeating in my head. Please, just let me get to this turn so I won't be on a main road. Please let me get to this next street where I'll at least be able to walk on sidewalks to the gas station. Please just let me coast into this parking lot so my car is somewhere safe.

The most appalling part for me is that I am a fanatic about keeping my tank over a quarter full, and I generally keep it over a half tank. Unfortunately, I've been so swamped with a number of things going on in my life that my routine has been off and I didn't made it to a gas station.

Somehow - somehow - I made it to the gas station without running out of gas, and my tank was quickly filled.

That was the point where I realized that it truly was all about my attitude, and as "badly" as things had gone so far that day, it had all worked out. It was all ok. And there was a silver lining everywhere.

And from there, it all turned around. Now if only I can keep that attitude in the right place, my life will be much less stressful - even though nothing else changes.

This Fundraising Was Easy (Well, Sorta)

As any of you who have read my blog for any length of time know, I am the PTO president at the preschool Little Miss attends (because I can't say no - seriously...).  And part of not being able to say no means that I ended up taking on way more roles than just the presidency.

After four years of this (I technically have nine hats this year), I'm a little bit burned out, but there are definitely things that make it all worthwhile.  I *love* seeing the difference we can make in the school.  Some of the performers we've brought in this year have been fantastic and really well received.  At our most recent event, a mom came over to hug each of the women who were working the event to thank us and tell us how grateful she was for all we do. 

And then there are the "big" events.  Granted, our eensy weensy budget means that our big fundraiser is a drop in the bucket compared to what most elementary schools around us make on their small events.  But for us, it's a big deal. 

We just completed our big event of the year, and we tried something new this year.  Part of our challenge is taht we have a morning preschool and afternoon preschool and do our events during the day so the kids can participate.  That leaves us with two choices: either do a silent auction and hope people will provide their bids in advance or make it all raffle and hope that lots and lots of people buy tickets.

We've tried a couple of different things and had various challenges:

Doing a silent auction at the event leaves morning (and working) parents frustrated that they didn't "get" to bid at the end.

Doing a "super" raffle for $5 tickets doesn't generate the same level of revenue per item as the silent auction had.

Last year, we looked at potentially doing an online auction for our more "special" items and keeping the remainder as a raffle.  We found a few sites that offer the service of creating online auctions for charities.  However, they charge a (for us) hefty upfront fee and also take a good portion of the proceeds (fifteen percent for one site I considered - briefly).  We'd heard that eBay also offered charity auctions, but we couldn't get a straight answer from them on what to do.  So last year, we stayed the course.

This year, I was convinced that I could figure out the eBay thing.  And I did.  Registering to be recognized as an official charity was actually pretty easy once I figured it out.  From there, we receive a credit for our listing fees, provided that all the proceeds from the auction benefit our recognized 501(c)3.

So we listed our special thirteen items.  And crossed our fingers (some of us - ahem, me - aren't so familiar with using eBay).

Today was the day when items started to close.  I kept hitting the refresh button, hoping to see a flurry of bidding at the end that would take our items from fire sale prices to we have a chance at helping to fund a new playground prices.  And for the most part, they did.

It was pretty cool watching the price on a play membership go from $40 this morning to the closing $147.50.  And in total, we have raised just over $1,100, which brings our fundraiser total to almost $4,500.  This is significantly higher than what we had last year - and most schools in our area are seeing fundraiser declines of twenty or more percent.

This?  This is a good feeling.  Even more cool was seeing some of the winning bids being from outside the school - people who otherwise wouldn't have been able to support us or potentially even know about us.  It's a total win-win situation, and we'll definitely be doing this again next year.  The chatter amongst the teachers and the parents has been very supportive, which is great.

We did learn a couple things though....

#1 Don't make the auctions end near the end of the school day.  Aim for mid-evening.  I'm not quite sure how to do this since eBay started the auctions after the verified them, but there has to be a way to ensure they end in the 6-9pm hour.  I have a feeling we would have had several items bid up if we'd done that.

#2 Encourage winning bidders that we know to send in checks instead of using PayPal.  As great as PayPal is in terms of convenience and speed of payment, they do take a percent of the proceeds which we can avoid by collecting payment directly.  The difference isn't huge, but for us, every penny counts.

My term is almost up, and this was my last major responsibility.  You have no idea how happy it makes me that it was a success - and hey, if anyone else is out there trying to figure out how to do a fundraiser with an online auction, let me know.  I'm planning to bring some of the info I learned to our next districtwide presidents' council meeting so they can take advantage of it, too.

I'm just going to suggest they make plans for the day and time the auctions are scheduled to end so that they don't end up staring at the screen watching the minutes ohhhhh so slowly tick down and demanding to the screen that the bids magically go up.

Not that I was doing that or anything. Nope, not me.

(And no, no one asked me nor paid me nor gave me anything to post about this.  I'm just thrilled that we raised probably $600 more than we would have had we not done the online auction.)



PS Need a fun outfit for the boy in your life?  Check out my Parigi Fashion giveaway.

I also have a family pizza party that I'm giving away here.

Be Careful What You Wish For

Need a fun outfit for the boy in your life?  Check out my Parigi Fashion giveaway.

I also have a family pizza party that I'm giving away here.

***

In my house, the rule is that you have to try whatever's on your plate. While that rule has changed slightly over time and become more precise as needed, the wee ones have generally been pretty good about following it.

There have always been some exceptions, and some items that the wee ones just aren't interested in. If I see a legitimate item that I don't feel that they'd enjoy, I don't push it.

Sushi is one of those foods. As much as I'd love for the wee ones to enjoy sushi - giving me an excuse to eat it more often - they've always been turned off by the texture of the nori and the raw fish. I sighed and then continued my merry way eating whatever maki happened to be on my plate.

Not so much anymore.

Both wee ones have decided they now like sushi. Mister Man started with the tekka don (tuna slices served over rice with no nori) but has now moved on to both salmon and tuna maki.

Little Miss skipped the tekka don stage and simply decided that she now enjoys sushi.

The entertaining bit for me is that the wee ones have obviously absorbed what I've preached about sushi. Even when they weren't eating it, they'd ask me what I was doing with my chopsticks and why. It's sunk in.



And now? Well, apparently I have to share my sushi. I can't really complain though!

Did I mention that this is also my child who has decided that the only way she wants to drink (rice) milk is with cinnamon in it? Who drinks cinnamon milk? I have bizarre children. Then again, that's what makes them fun!

Tasty Tuesday!

Want a family pizza night?  You can win one here with my Family Pizza Party giveway.

***

I missed last week. Completely. On many, many levels. But I'm back - and check it out, posts two days in a row now. Whew.

This week's recipe is one that is in the oven as I type. I whipped it up in about ten minutes - if that - for two pretty good reasons. The first is that I'm making dinner for some friends tomorrow and need something to go with my lemon chicken kebabs. And second, I have a review I'm putting up that requires me first making a blueberry cobbler.

So I am.

Well, sorta. The say they want a blueberry cobbler, but the recipe they provided is really for a blueberry crumble. And me being me, I can't blindly follow the recipe (especially when it calls for blueberry pie filling), so I made a few tweaks. And it looks good so far.

Oops - timer just went off. Now I can prove myself right!

As usual, I'm going for homemade, pretty quick and easy, and of course something yummy! I love recipes like this because they're so flexible and forgiving. I literally used no recipe and didn't measure everything, so feel free to do the same.

Blueberry Crumble

Filling

Ingredients:
3 c frozen (or fresh) blueberries
3/4 c sugar
1 lemon, squeezed and zested
1 t vanilla
1 T flour
1 T butter (or CF butter substitute, since I made mine dairy free)

Directions:
Mix everything together in the 8x8 dish you're cooking it in.

Topping

Ingredients:
1 c flour
1 1/2 c oats
1/3 c sugar
1/2 c brown sugar
1 t cinnamon
1/4 t nutmeg, fresh grated
1 c butter (less the 1 T you used in the filling), melted

Directions:
Mix the dry ingredients thoroughly with a fork, then make a well in the center. Pour in the butter (or butter substitute) and use the fork to mix until just moistened. You want it in chunks and crumbly.

Pour the topping over the blueberries in the pan.

Place in a 400 degree oven for 30-35 minutes until the top is lightly browned and slightly crunchy and the blueberries underneath start to bubble out.

Let cool to room temperature, and enjoy!

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

Happy Mother's Day!

Ok, so I've been very much MIA. Needless to say, I've been swamped with my preschool fundraiser and then I got sick. I'm still recovering and may actually head to bed as soon as I get this posted, but I figure I ought to write something again at some point!

Regardless, Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. Whether you're doing it on your own or in a great partnership, you're doing the best you can, and today is the day to celebrate the joy you bring to those little lives and the impact you make!

Around here, I was spoiled with the wee ones waking me up - Mister Man in particular - with a special present. He gave me a dollar bill from his piggy bank. Awwww.

He also created a lovely hat from a coffee filter for the Mother's Day tea at his school (and no, I will not be posting any pictures of me in it, thank you very much), which was oh so sweet, as well as a lovely nosegay. And the requisite marigolds. I now have six.

Little Miss provided me with the handprint lilies that she created on a laminated sheet of paper. She also "wrote" me a greeting on the back. While it's in her handwriting, I don't believe her claims that she spelled it out all by herself.

Yes, I will be putting it in her memory box to save forever.

My husband also provided me with presents. He sent me an Edible Arrangements basket, as he does regularly for major holidays. It was a cute little orange pail, and the wee ones were excited for the fruit I'd share with them.

My only disappointment? The strawberries in this bunch were way overripe. In fact, they've already started to mold, and I put it in the fridge immediately after receiving it. The fruit we've had before has always been perfect, and after a bit of dithering, I called to ask if there was a problem with the strawberries.

They claimed there were no issues and that I must have just gotten the last of the previous batch and offered to give me a free box of chocolate covered strawberries to make up for it. At least it was something.

I drove over to pick them up, and I received six chocolate covered strawberries to replace my ten chocolate covered strawberries on my arrangement. That was a disappointment. Even Mister Man didn't want to eat the chocolate covered strawberries on the plant, and he's not exactly a food connoisseur (yet).

I think we'll give them another shot, as this is a new franchise, but I may be at the end of receiving healthy (ok, relatively healthy) and unique presents from Edible Arrangements. And that's too bad.

Fortunately, my husband also picked up a gift certificate for massages, and those don't go stale. Now if I could just find some free time to schedule that appointment, I'd be all good!

Here's hoping you are properly spoiled on your Mother's Day.



PS I have a new giveaway up for a Family Pizza Party from Pillsbury on my other site.

I Made An Exception

Everyone has those phrases they swore they'd never say or those things they promised they'd never do - either the ones that stuck with us from childhood of those naive things we saw parents do while we were still childless or (worst of all, perhaps?) those tips we read in parenting books.

Me? I told myself that there are certain things for which the wee ones woudl simply have to face the natural consequences. They'd learn that they needed to - and could - rely on themselves and take responsibility. I pictured this with them as elementary school kids who forgot lunch or homework at home or neglecting to study for a test or something similar.

They're all relatively non-critical in the long term type things - nothing wiht a big risk. Having minor failures like this and learning to deal with them is something that helps engender feelings of confidence that they are capable of being resilient enough to bounce back and find a solution. And to be responsible enough to avoid repeats in the future.

Yesterday? I made an unexpected stop at Mister Man's kindergarten.

After he had gotten off on the carpool and Little Miss had made it onto the bus, I walked back through the foyer on my way to the office to do a couple quick catch up things before I ran some errands. And I spotted a little bubble wrap bag sitting on the floor of the foyer.

I flashed back to the night before where Mister Man had done his daily job of unpacking his backpack and talking through what's in it with me. He was so excited that he got to do show and tell the next day - something that happens only twice a year. He immediately decided to gather his favorite Lego creation and show how it was made and what it did.

Right after he'd placed his Lego into a protective bag, about to place it in his backpack, my parents had walked in the door. Needless to say, that threw our whole evening out of rhythm. And apparently that bag had remained on the floor unbeknownst to ... me. (Really, who else would notice, anyway?)

I debated internally for a few moments - thinking about my vow not to be saving my children constantly and letting them deal with the consequences of their actions. And honestly, had this been Little Miss, that bag probably would have simply been placed on her placemat for when she returned home.

Mister Man though? He's still in kindergarten. And this failure to have show and tell would be visible to all his classmates. And he'd been interrupted mid-routine through no fault of his own.

Again - all of these things, Little Miss could have dealt with and simply shrugged before getting over it. Mister Man doesn't. Something like this - especially with the public aspect of it - would ruin his day. It would cause him to go into a downward spiral of shame and frustration that would result in him not paying attention in school, in not cooperating with his classmates, in having a yellow or red day.

Why?

It's an unfortunate consequence of the Autism Spectrum Disorder that he's been recently diagnosed with. They can't move on from things like this and shake them off like neurotypical kids can. He has a lot of challenges, and I've become far more patient with them and him knowing that it isn't just him being difficult but rather that he's doing the best he can with the deck - in many ways - stacked against him. And for the most part, he does a pretty good job.

I thought about what was more important for him in this instance. Had it been homework he'd forgotten? It would have gone in the next day. Had he not taken his snack? He can go without a snack. This, however, was something that he wouldn't realize was an issue until the teacher asked him to retrieve his show and tell item from his backpack and the class all awaited his presentation... that would never come.

And I immediately called my carpool buddy to see if he was still in the car so that she could reassure him that his show and tell was coming. Unfortunately, she'd already dropped him off, but she was still at the school and volunteered to stop by the classroom to give him the heads up.

I did drop off his Lego creation in its special bag with the office. And he did give his presentation. When I asked him how it went as I picked him up? Mom, you brought it late! I didn't give my presentation until the afternoon - but it was so cool!

And with that, my heart swelled, and I know that I'd made the right decision for my special child, for my boy who may need me to bend my rigid rules a little to find a way to support him. I ask the schools and other places to make accomodations for his needs, and I'm starting to realize that I need to do so, as well.

But I really meant it. When he's in fifth grade and forgets his social studies homework, he's just going to have to take that zero!