Freezer Surprise

Lately for dinner we've been eating a lot of what I call "Freezer Surprise."

What that means is that I unearth some strange frozen hunk of who-knows-what from my deep freeze and find some way to turn it into dinner.

Most of the time, it turns out really quite tasty. I had all kinds of treasures buried in my deep freeze.

Since the Badger lost his job on Sept. 11th, I have only purchased a couple of gallons of milk and a couple pounds of butter at the store. Everything else we've eaten has come out of our freezer or our canned goods stockpile. And I've baked a lot and ground a lot of wheat. I love my wheat storage!

And we've eaten really really well. I've never felt deprived or like I was "living on food storage."

Now, I must say that the night before this happened I had this unusual and strong prompting to go to Sam's Club and stock up on a few things. I'm very grateful I followed that prompting because those items have made this whole scenario a lot easier.

We've been so blessed. We still have tons of food. I could probably go at least another couple of weeks with only spending $10 or so at the grocery store. I just have to make sure I plan our meals ahead of time so there's time to do the extra prep.

Someone dropped off a bag of groceries, mostly snacks for our drive, on our porch the other night. It was so kind. I'm so glad to have some treats for the kids for the trip-- it's hard to eat out of your food storage, however bountiful it may be, when you're traveling.

I have a testimony that when you are trying your best to live a life of service to the Lord, that He will take care of you. I know that we are in His hands right now and I feel totally at peace.

Badger Burger

My Badger is serious about his hamburgers.

Two patties with lots of lettuce, tomato, onion, and grilled mushrooms. The Badger likes mushrooms on everything.

The leaning tower of Burger...

Here he goes! Can he get his mouth around it? He can barely get his hands around it!

Almost in!

Mmm.... yeah.... Good!

Sweet Love

Now that I know how to pick them, eating watermelon has become one of the great joys of our August existence.

See that nice yellow bottom on this melon? That's the key. This melon tastes amazing.

I've also had very good luck with the tip in the same newspaper article about canteloupes and other similar melons. When they start to ripen in the field, the stem starts to detach from the melon. This leaves a crescent-shaped scar on the spot where the stem attached to the melon. I'll take a picture next time I buy one so you can see what I mean. I sometimes look through the melon bin at the store now and don't pick any because there are no crescents, even if they're really cheap. Every time I have found one, however, the melon has been nice and sweet, even if the texture is fairly firm.

Pineapple Bars

A looseleaf sheet of paper with this recipe on it fell out of my cookbook shelf the other day when I was pulling out a cookbook. I got it from my friend Wendy about five years ago (during my Idaho years.) I remember making it once at the time and thinking it was okay but not loving it. When I saw it again it struck my fancy for some reason and I decided to give it another whirl. I liked it much better this time, maybe because I'm off sugar right now (I keep meaning to blog about this-- remind me!) This is a pretty good treat if you're not eating sugar. Even if you are, this makes a pretty good breakfast on the go if you bake up a pan of it the night before.

Pineapple Bars

1 20 oz can crushed pineapple
2 Cups chopped dates
3 Cups oats
1 Cup wheat germ
1 Cup coconut (possibly the only source of a small amount of sugar if you use sweetened flakes)
1 Cup chopped walnuts (I used pecans)
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/4 Cup orange juice
1/4 Cup oil

Combine pineapple and dates in a saucepan. Cook on medium heat until thickened. Stir frequently. In a large bowl, mix oats, wheat germ, coconut, nuts, and salt. Stir in juice and oil. Press half of the oat mixture into a greased 9x13 pan. Spread the pineapple mixture on top, then sprinkle on the rest of the oat mixture. Press down lightly. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 min or until lightly browned. Cool. Cut into squares.

As is the recipe is vegan, but when I make it again I'm using butter instead of oil. I poured a little bit of real maple syrup on top of mine when I ate it this morning. That was really good, though they were still pretty sweet plain. The Badger poured milk on his and seemed to like that. But really, they're great straight out of the pan!

Whatamelon!

I'm done thumping watermelons.

It's how I've always picked 'em and it's never been very reliable. So I just figured picking watermelons was hit and miss. Then I read an article in the paper last week that suggested you look at the bottom of the melon, where it was sitting on the ground. If it's yellow, the melon will be a lot riper than if it's white. Last time I was at Aldi and they had $3.99 melons I decided to try it. Most of the melons in the bin had white bottoms, but I found one that was quite yellow. I thumped it just out of habit and I thought it didn't sound at all hollow, but I decided to take a risk and buy it anyway. A $3.99 experiment. I was a bit nervous.

It was the best melon I've ever eaten. Talk about SWEET! It was like candy. It was crisp too. We ate near the entire thing in one sitting.

Yellow bottoms, folks. That's the way to go.

A Berry Adventure

This week I finally gave in to the kids' pestering and took them back to the pick-your-own farm for some blackberries. The main reason they were dying to go is that they like the dogs and cats at the farm. They are very nice dogs and cats (can you see the cat in this picture?)

Bean is such a dog person. I wish I could get him one. The thought of having a dog right now makes me want to curl up in a cardboard box and suck my thumb. I hope in a few years when the kids are a little older and less chaotic I won't feel that way. I also hope that happens while Bean is still young enough to romp and play with his dog.

Myself, I would like a cat. This one wanted to come home with us. It thought our stroller was just fabulous.

The blackberries were huge, plentiful, and delicious. Oh, and thornless too-- does it get any better than picking and eating thornless blackberries on a warm, cloudy summer day with your entire happy family? The Rabbit doesn't think so. She was constantly trying to snitch.

Roo picked at least a pint, which is pretty good for someone who spent most of the time shrieking in terror because a cat or dog was coming near her.

Fish picked a gallon, Bean picked a gallon, and I picked about a gallon and a half. That's about how many berries I was planning on, but I vastly underestimated the picking power of the Badger. All these dozens of times we've been berry picking over the years he's never gone with us. That's going to change. He caught the berry picking bug big-time. He picked an enormous amount of blackberries and I nearly had to drag him away from the bushes. We ended up with more than 30 pounds of berries. They were $3.25 a pound. You do the math.

I don't care. It was worth it. We could have spent that much easily on a family trip to a theme park, which might have been slightly more exciting but wouldn't have created as much family togetherness as this outing did. Plus we wouldn't have had 30 more pounds of luscious berries to add to our stockpile. Filling our deep freeze with high-quality fruit is a major priority for our family. I haven't bought any popsicles or soda pop this summer, but I have spent probably at least $400 on berries (that includes a shipment of 70 pounds of frozen Oregon blueberries and marionberries that will arrive in August.) What can I say-- we like berries!

Happy Fourth from the Birrd's Nest!

Here is the story behind the flag cake. I'm telling this because it was a huge learning lesson for me and I don't want to forget it.

When I was 14 I saw the idea for this cake in a magazine and decided to make one for the 4th. My parents thought it was great and I think I made a couple more of them during my teenage years. So while not exactly a die-hard tradition, it's nostalgic for me.

I haven't made one since I was married, but for some reason this year I thought I would. It can be a pretty big project depending on how fancy you make it, but I thought out how I could simplify the process into something I could squeeze in to my extremely full schedule. I bought strawberries and blueberries and whipping cream at the store last Wednesday. Then on Friday as we were coming home from somewhere I said to the boys "would you like to help me bake my special 4th of July flag cake?"

I was trying to be a good mommy and involve them.

Bean got all excited. Then he said "I have such a good idea how we can make it. I can just see it in my mind how it's going to be." Then he started going off about scallops on the side and strawberries in the cake and all kinds of complicated things that were definitely not in my plans.

I said "No, I didn't say 'would you like to design a cake for me?' I said 'would you like to help me make my cake?'"

Bean got very distressed. He could not seem to process the concept that this was my project, not his. However, the more we went back and forth about it, the more I felt like a total heel for insisting that it was my way or the highway. I'd just been reading this book about encouraging the creative fire within your children and I felt like I was drenching Bean's inner fire with a high-power hose.

Looking at the time frame of the rest of our day, I realized I had a little more time available than I needed for my cake. So I proposed a solution: I told Bean I was willing to make two cakes. I would do my cake my way and he could do his cake his way. He thought that was great. So I went ahead and baked a buttermilk yellow cake in my 9x13 stoneware pan for my cake.

Then I sat down with Bean and asked him to tell me exactly what he wanted so that I could make it happen. The resulting conversation was pure pandemonium. I would ask him to describe his ideas and when he did I would say "so, what you want is ____" and he would say "no, that's not it!" I couldn't even figure out what kind of cake he wanted me to bake. "A strawberry cake," he said. "Do you mean a cake with smashed up strawberries in the batter?" "No." "Okay, do you mean a cake with a layer of strawberry filling in the middle?" "No." "Well, what do you mean, then?" "A cake with strawberries in it." "But how?" Etc.

We looked at old pictures of cakes in my photo albums and on the computer. We discussed. We debated. We used up all the extra time I had set aside for making his cake just trying to figure out what we were doing. I must admit I got very frustrated. I was open with him about my frustration and that I was trying hard to control my temper and maintain respectful communication. I even got my husband to mediate at one point. The funny thing was, when we finally got our communication ironed out the only difference between what he wanted and what I was already making was that he wanted to be able to frost and decorate the sides of the cake.

I then told him that it didn't make sense to make two cakes, but I was willing to attempt to remove my cake from its pan so he could decorate the sides. I told him it would be difficult, since I hadn't done any of the things you would do if you were intending to remove the cake from the pan, but I would try because I wanted him to have the chance to try out his ideas.

Trying to take the cake out of the pan did not work so well.

Bean and I put the pieces back into the pan and I told him I was sorry but that he could still help me make the flag out of fruit. And at that point, after everything we'd been through, he was okay with that. I was so relieved that he didn't throw a tantrum at that point.

Both the boys helped me slice the strawberries and place the fruit on top of the cake. We had a really fun time doing it and you can see it turned out really cute. A part of me says I should have just stuck to my guns in the beginning and said "No, we're doing this cake my way because I'm an adult and I know more about cake than you do. You will do what I tell you to do and we will have fun making this cake." And we would have had fun.

But a part of me is glad things turned out the way they did. A part of me is glad I attempted to let Bean's creativity take flight. Even though it crashed, it was still a learning experience for him. It was also a huge learning experience for me. Every time Bean and I go head to head about something like this I always learn a lot-- both about how to deal with him better and how to overcome my own weaknesses. I think I modeled appropriate conflict resolution to him also, which is an extremely useful skill.

The cake was delicious and in the end everyone was perhaps a little bit wiser and a little bit fatter.

Gotta Have More

Two summers ago around a family reunion campfire, my sisters discovered an old Girl Scout song of mine about chocolate chip cookies. The lyrics to the chorus go like this:

"Chocolate chip cookies
Gotta have more
You can bake 'em in the oven
Or buy 'em at the store
But whatever you do
Have them ready at your door
And I'll love you 'til I die"

I was surprised that they'd never heard it before and charmed that they loved it so much. They sang it again and again.

Thanks to my sister Pineapple, I have the recipe for the very best chocolate chip cookies ever. I only make them once or twice a year though because when I do make them I can't stop eating them. The recipe makes six dozen. I could eat them all. In a day.

The other day I made them for a cub scout meeting. I figured I was safe if I had to take most of them to a function. My family still snarfed up 2 dozen in a few short minutes.

That's the nice thing about having a lot of kids. They save you from eating too much of something yourself. I still ate quite a few cookies, but I didn't gain any weight over the whole experience. For someone with my track record, that's an achievement.

"When I die I don't want wings
A golden halo or a harp that sings
Just give me a book, a fire
And someone to bring me
Chocolate chip cookies all day!"

Food Friends

Yesterday I broiled a large slab of salmon, enough for two meals. This afternoon I spent some time on the internet looking for a good salmon pasta recipe. I found several marvelous ones, but I didn't want to have to run to the store in 100-degree heat with four small children just for leeks or heavy cream (call me lazy, I know!), so I went with the one for which I already had all the ingredients on hand.

It was basically a white sauce with pesto, grated parmesan (I used asiago), and salmon, served with penne. It seemed almost too simple, yet I had read online that pesto and salmon are a match made in heaven so I moved boldly forward.

And it was true: pesto and salmon belong together. Let it be written: ketchup and mustard, peanut butter and jelly, pesto and salmon. It was a yummy, easy, fast dinner. The Badger sang my praises. The kids lapped it up.

Salmon is rapidly becoming one of my very most favorite foods.

My Melon Basket

I was asked to bring a fruit tray to my cousin's bridal shower on Saturday. As I got thinking about what kind of fruit to buy, etc., I got the idea to make one of those melon baskets. It sounded like it would be fun. I was a little concerned that it might end up being a time-consuming pain, but I decided that I would plan on it being difficult and just enjoy it anyway.

There are lots of websites with instructions. They say the best thing to use is your pumpkin carving knives, so I dug mine out of the basement. They worked great. In fact, I was expecting to have to really saw away and so I was surprised at how easy it was to cut the watermelon. Much easier than cutting pumpkin. The cutting part went really fast.

The time-consuming part ended up being scooping out all the flesh and chopping it up. That took the better part of an hour and made a big mess, but it was fun. The kids got a kick out of watching me and eating small scraps.

A "Magic Eraser" took the black Sharpie lines off the basket easily. How did we ever live without those things? And despite the mischievous intentions of my curious children....

...my melon basket made it to the shower intact. I thought it looked pretty cute!

I wouldn't make one every day, but for a really special occasion I would definitely do it again. Plan on a couple of hours, but a fun couple of hours.

After reading a recommendation on one of the websites, I tossed the fruit with a mixture of the juice of one lemon and one lime along with a bit of sugar. I could taste a little extra zing to the fruit and I really liked it.

The Mango Adventure

So, I was at Sam's Club yesterday and they had these gorgeous golden orange mangos. $4.88 for a 5 lb box-- that's cheaper per pound than apples in my part of the world at this time of year. So I bought a box and brought them home.

And we fell in love. Sweet, buttery, delicious. The last few grocery store mangos I had eaten had made me think I didn't really like mangos anymore but with these my faith was restored.

The kids weren't that crazy about them, with the exception of the Rabbit. She thought they were the bomb.

So then, yesterday evening I was gone to a Scout meeting (I'm Cub Committee Chair) and the Badger was watching the kids. He had the Rabbit in the high chair where she was secure and he was working on something in another part of the house. Well, Mr. Initiative (Bean) came along and decided to extract the Rabbit without notifying Dad. The Rabbit then did what she does lately-- she immediately climbed on the table. Where someone had left the box of mangos. And she went to town.

When I walked in the door a few minutes later, Bean came running up to me and said "Mom-- bad news!"

Uh-oh. Don't you hate that when you come home and hear "Bad news!" You've just got to brace yourself.

"The Rabbit took bites out of the mangos!"

I couldn't help it. I busted up laughing.

Then I looked at the mangos. I'd imagined a couple of small bites in two or three mangos. No, the Rabbit took HUGE chomps out of five of them.

I apologize I didn't get a picture of the carnage. I didn't get to the camera until the Badger had already peeled them and put them in a bowl. You can't really even see the bites she took, but they're still very pretty mangos (I ate the one on the far right after I took this picture because it was the ripest and it was sooooo good!)

Anyway, I thought the whole thing was absolutely hilarious.

So go to Sam's Club and get you some mangos! Just keep them away from your table-climbing baby.

Hot or Cold?

I can't decide which way I like it best.

It's That Time of Year Again!

We went strawberry picking this morning. Mr. Eeyore, who runs the u-pick farm, insisted that the crop was terrible this year. However, I still came away with thirty pounds of utter heaven. Okay, they were a little small, but small sometimes makes for better flavor.

At least ten pounds were picked by my two boys, who actually worked constantly and un-complainingly the whole time we were in the field. I didn't have to coax them at all. They just dove in and filled their buckets. Starting them on berry picking when they were tiny tykes seems to have paid off (Fish has been doing this every year since he was ten months old).

Strawberry picking is becoming quite the well-loved tradition in our family. And if it wasn't fun enough by itself, there's the strawberry eating afterwards. My kids and I all had red, sticky, happy mouths and fingers at lunch time today.

Oh Beautiful for Birthday Cake

Every element of my birthday cake turned out perfect. Perfect!

Look at these two lovely golden cakes!

I got the whole thing put together and then said "I'm going to hurry and get the camera and take a picture of this perfect cake before something happens." I ran down and got the camera, came back up, and there were already finger marks in the cake! I had to laugh.

Four lovely, luscious layers cemented with gooey, tangy custard and topped with whipped cream mixed with cream cheese.

Marvelous!!!! What a birthday!

Cake in the Works

My friend JaneAnne posted a recipe on her blog for an absolutely amazing gourmet rhubarb cream cake just a few days ago. It looked divine. It also looked very fun to make, albeit time-consuming. The kind of cake I would only make on a very, very special occasion.

Aha! I thought. I have found my birthday cake!

You don't turn 30 every day. So it's worth taking all day the day before to make your cake.

Between the custard cream for the filling and the cake itself, I separated no less than a dozen eggs.

A whole pint of whipping cream, a whole pint of half and half, and a brick of cream cheese also worked their way in. There's no holding back with this cake.

Here's my carefully stewed rhubarb to mix with the custard for the filling. Had I used only the red ends of the rhubarb it would have been a nice pretty pink, but pea green is in these days, so I went with the times.

I had lots of help with this cake, which is why it took me all day. Here is Fish mixing the merengue into the cake batter. Behind the mixing bowl you can see the way Roo decorated the floured cake pans with her cute little fingers.

All ready to go in the oven! Hooray!

A Cracking Good Recipe

One of the best improvements to my life that has come through the advent of the blogosphere is the wealth of recipes I get from food blogs. I love food blogs. It's such a scream seeing what people have made as well as how they made it, especially the people who do the blow-by-blow photographs of the process. It makes cooking seem so much less daunting. I also love to post about what I make, when I can. This isn't the season of my life for me to have very many moments to be snapping pictures while I'm cooking or typing up recipes afterwards. (I have a lot more fun things to do chasing my four Fun Things around.) I actually rarely have time to even read other people's food blogs anymore. But every once in a while I break down and spend a glorious hour online salivating over pleasant pictures of the culinary arts.

My cousin Glenda, who is a kickin' awesome cook and who has a tiny bit more leisure time than I do, recently sent me a link to a food blog called "Life's a Feast." I haven't have a lot of time to peruse it yet, but this recipe caught my eye because: 1. I adore cheese, 2. I adore muffins, and 3. Jamie used Wallace and Gromit to introduce it. I adore Wallace and Gromit. So I made Cheddar Mustard Muffins for lunch today. And then I took a picture of them. Because I adore them. And now I'm putting it on my blog. So you can adore them too, if you have time.

Applesauce Muffins

Per Allison's request, here is the recipe that Roo was helping me mix up when I posted those pictures the other day.

Applesauce Muffins

Mix thoroughly:

1 C whole wheat flour
1/2 C white flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

In another bowl, mix thoroughly:

2 eggs
3/4 C brown sugar
1 1/2 C unsweetened applesauce
1/2 stick (4 T) melted butter
1/2 C pecans
1/2 C dried cranberries

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until moistened. Batter will be lumpy, do not overmix or muffins will be tough. Scoop into 12 muffin cups and bake 14 to 16 minutes at 400.

Pour It On!

I think real maple syrup is probably my favorite food in the entire world. It tastes glorious and doesn't give me a sugar reaction. In my book it's pretty much heaven in a bottle, unfortunately with a hefty price tag to match.

Last fall while I was gathering nuts for winter I went to Sam's Club and saw that maple syrup quarts had gone from about $15 to about $19. Ugh! I had to be able to get a better deal. I scoured the internet and found a place in North Dakota that was selling Ohio Amish maple syrup for $40 a gallon . That works out to nearly half of what Sam's Club was charging. (It's gone up since then to $50 but that's still a deal!) I did quite a bit of checking to make sure I was still getting a quality product and once I was satisfied I ordered 2 gallons. I was still worried about it though, since there was no indication on grade on the bottle.

This morning I made pumpkin pancakes with honey pecan butter. I toasted the pecans. Both butter and toasted pecans are definitely on my top ten list. The honey pecan butter wasn't quite sweet enough though, so I got out my little jug of maple syrup and started to pour.

Nothing came out.

My prior stash of syrup was gone.

It was time for the day of reckoning. With great trepidation I unearthed one of my gallons of syrup from underneath the basement stairs.

Was this good syrup????

It was.

What a breakfast!

Happy me!