Veggie Gluttony with a side of pasta

Ok.  So I really enjoy this farm co-op that Jason and I have invested in.  It has challenged me to try things I would have never tried, learn new cooking techniques and discover that you can eat things I never dreamed to be edible...  However, sometimes we get an overabundance of certain veggies that I can't really keep up with before they go bad.  For instance, zucchini, eggplant and yellow summer squash have filled my two bottom drawers in my fridge for the last month.  Definitely a beautiful display of God's great eye for design and color but not really sure what to do with all of it (coming from a girl whose extent of veggie preparation six months ago involved a microwave, something frozen and garlic salt).  This past week I was lazy.  I didn't plan my menu very well and come Wednesday night I had about four squash like creatures and several other freshies getting ready to turn nasty in my drawer.  They had to be eaten that night or I was going to become an American statistic of throwing out 40% of my groceries to waste.

What's a mommy to do? Make what I so aptly and grossly named, purge pasta. That's right.  I said it.  I sliced and diced zucchinni, eggplant, mushrooms, spinach and squash and threw it into a skillet with a little olive oil and minced garlic.  I sauteed the heck out of that stuff.  Now Jason insists on having meat in his pastas so luckily I had some chicken sundried tomato sausage from Trader Joes that was about to eat it as well.  Well, Mr. unrecognizable meat, come join the disposal party.  I let that stuff just hang out in all those glorious juices and a marinara sauce for a spell while I prepared some whole wheat spaghetti.  I also was lucky enough to find in my mystery produce drawer some fresh garlic cloves that were about to be not so fresh.  I popped those in a foil packet with a dab of olive oil and baked for 30 minutes while everything was just stewing.  At the end of this experiment lazy meal, I had what Jason quote un quote said was the best pasta he had ever eaten.  WHAT???? Not to brag but Italian is kinda my thing.  And I have made him some pretty stellar pastas.  So, my about to die lazy pasta is the best?  Well, I guess I can tote this up to a happy accident.  Enjoy.

Veggie Gluttony

Ingredients:

1 zucchini sliced thin
1 medium eggplant peeled and sliced thin
1 yellow summer squash peeled and sliced thin
8 oz container or so of mushrooms
two handfuls of baby spinach? (not so good with measurements)
2 tbs minced garlic
2 tbs olive oil
package of sausage of some sort
Red sauce (I am partial to Trader Joe's Four Cheese Sauce)
Whole wheat spaghetti
two fresh garlic cloves

Directions:

Step 1: Prepare the spaghetti as indicated on the packaging.

Step 2:  Pre-heat oven to 350.  Using a sharp knife cut the stem off of the garlic clove until the individual cloves are visible.  Place on a small piece of foil.  Drizzle olive oil over it and seal.  Set on a baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes.
 
Step 2: Meanwhile in a large skillet, brown your sausage with a tablespoon of water for approximately 7 minutes over medium flame.  Cut into bite size pieces and return to skillet.

Step 3: Add two tablespoons of olive, minced garlic, and all the veggies.  Saute until softened.  Lower heat and add sauce.  Cover and let simmer.

Step 4:  When the pasta and garlic are finished, throw the sauce in and stir. 

Voila!  Look Ma!  I'm eating my veggies! 

Eggplant Chicken?

I don't know about any of you mommies of little ones but I am faced with a moral dilemma daily, to lie a little or play Russian roulette with the truth when it comes to feeding my picky toddlers.  I don't know if I would call it lying... it's more like putting an exciting spin on something that's not really exciting, maybe?  Dinner is always a time of walking on egg shells in our house.  Breakfast and lunch are pretty standards with not too many taste bud surprises but dinner can throw a good day out the window like a fart in the wind.  I'm sorry little ones but Momma can't survive on chicken nuggets and grapes every night like you would prefer so it's always an intense time until that first bite is accepted or even tried at all.  Sometimes things need to be delivered in deceiving packages.  Such as eggplant as chicken.

We are involved in a local farm food co-op (which I love and highly suggest to anyone who wants to eat organic and local on a budget) and are constantly getting new and untried fruits and veggies.  I am hesitant to admit that eggplant has always weirded me out a little.  I'm not quite sure why.  Maybe all the freakishly small slimy seeds inside and the texture when handling it.  But that is what we received this week and it was my job to disguise it into something even I could trick myself into eating.  And it worked.  I made eggplant parmesan that was so good my kids really believed it was "chicken and magic sprinkles (that's what we call parmesan cheese.  They will try anything with that stuff on it) and I think I even kind of believed it myself.  Here goes the recipes...

The picture stinks because I always take one last minute with my phone before the nightly food fight and wailing commences.  I served mine over whole wheat spaghetti noddles. Delish.

Eggplant Parmesan

Ingredients

•  1 eggplant, peeled and thinly sliced (fed my husband and I and two toddlers)
•   1 egg, beaten
•   2 cups Italian seasoned bread crumbs
•   3 cups spaghetti sauce, divided (I love Trader Joes Four Cheese)
• 1 (16 ounce) package mozzarella cheese, (sliced or shredded) and divided
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese, divided
• 1/2 teaspoon dried basil

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (175 degrees C). 
2. Place eggplant in a colander and salt.  Let sit for 30 minutes to sweat and then rinse and pat dry.
3. Dip eggplant slices in egg, then in bread crumbs. Place in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake in preheated oven for 7 minutes on each side.
4. In a 9x13 inch baking dish spread spaghetti sauce to cover the bottom. Place a layer of eggplant slices in the sauce. Sprinkle with mozzarella (I placed slices on mine) and Parmesan cheeses. Repeat with remaining ingredients, ending with the cheeses. Sprinkle basil on top.
5. Turn oven down to 350 and bake for 30 minutes, or until golden brown.

MIA and Sinful Bananas

Missing in Action.  That has been me for the last couple months.  I have been floating around in this routine-less haze for the last two months and my anal organized self can't take the chaos anymore.  It all started with me having my third baby in three years.

You wouldn't think a little thing like bringing another life into this world would knock me off my axis but it definitely shook things up.  And not the newborn, the toddlers and husband were the real culprits.  The baby was the easy part.  Actually, I joke but not joke that my labor and delivery was my vacation...but it really was. 

I came home to having the siding and windows replaced, a husband who didn't work summer school this year and decided that would be an excellent time to finish the basement room and refinish the kitchen table and chairs, and summer activities (lot's of them).  Mind you all on very little sleep :)  All the above were wonderful blessings but none-the-less out of the ordinary.  And we all know that change, know matter how good, can be hard.  So I decided to disappear for a while; putting those daily expectations, like blogging, aside and embrace the disorderly.

But enough is enough and back to reality I go.   I have a back log of like a million things that occurred this summer to share; projects, parties, and yummy baking and cooking galore.  But for the sake of your attention span and mine, I'll start with one.  My dangerous addiction to making good for you things really bad for you.  Like these bananas.  I covered them with naughtiness and they were glorious.

I sliced them and placed them on parchment paper.  I spooned a little peanut butter on top of each. I then melted chocolate candy melts (always add a little canola oil and melt in a glass/ceramic container) and submerged them.

Now I was just making them for my family so I didn't spend time trying to make them pretty but if I was making them for others I would have used a skewer to dip them and tap off the excess chocolate.

They were very yummy and easy.  A weight gaining nightmare :)

Have a Hoot this Summer...

With my husband being a teacher, working with lots of women..., there are several events and things that come up through the year that require forethought and creativity.  You know, the little things us multi-tasking ladies don't give a second thought about, thank you cards, small gifts and cards for colleagues for special occasions, and end of the year gifts.  I have to give him credit.  He is definitely getting better at recognizing the need for such things but hasn't quite mastered the forethought part.

Usually, it goes something like this at 8 o'clock the night before... "Hey babe, it's the last day of school tomorrow.  Do you think I should come up with something to give the other teacher's on my team?  You know, like an end of the year something or other?  How about those cookies you made for Christmas?  Those are cheap to make, right?"

He does this on purpose, not the last minute thing, but the throwing ideas out there thing.  He knows that being a stay at home mom has left me desperate for creative outlets.  And although he complains that I go overboard, I know he secretly loves the outcome. Plus he is a work smart not hard kind of guy.  So, this is exactly what happened yesterday.  Usually, I'm twelve steps ahead of him by the time he comes to me with this convo but being just a couple days a way from going into labor, I guess it slipped my mind...

This is what I came up with.  Of course I had a ton of things pinned on pinterest, God bless that site, and chose the one that I already had everything for since it was now 9 p.m..  This one was an owl theme with a very cute play on words (which Jason slightly complained about since he was a dude passing these out, but I assured him that everyone knows his wife does these things for him), "OWL miss you!  Have a HOOT this summer."  I quickly made a little 4x4 card on Microsoft word to print out and place inside my cookie bag.  Next step was making the owl top for my cookie bag.  Since I fortunately only had to make 8, I did it assembly line style.  First, I folded the brown paper in half and drew the face of my bird, and cut those out.  Next, I used three different sized circles (traced from a modge podge lid, a sippy cup bottom, and the lid of my glue stick) cut out of grey, white, and black pieces of cardstock for my eyes.  Lastly, I cut out orange hearts for my beaks.  Once I had all my pieces cut, took me about 30 minutes, I just glued them all together.  Voila, adorable owl head.

Meanwhile, while I was doing all this I was baking the cookies I was going to fill each gift bag with.  Jason loves my go-to chocolate covered cherry recipe (he enjoys bragging).  I refrigerated the cookies over night so the gooey chocolate coating could set and wouldn't be all over the bag.  The next morning it was a quick assembly.  I placed a label on top of a napkin in the bag, cookies behind the napkin (so they wouldn't grease up my label), folded the top down and stapled on my owl.

I have to say they are cute.  They didn't require too much thought or time, I know the cuteness will embarrass Jason as he's handing them out (which I love.  Secret punishment for waiting till the last minute), and were an inexpensive way to say thanks for a great year.

I pinned a few others that I thought were cute as well but just didn't have the stuff for.  I hope to still use them in the future.   I'll share them here.  Let me know if you have any other end of the year parting gift ideas!

- See you later alligator
- Customized hand soap
- Fishies
- S'mores 
- Another take on the S'mores
- Stay cool this summer

Resurrection Rolls

Easter.  The day is supposed to be the top holiday celebration for Christians; the reason we are Christians.  Yet like so many others, I definitely get caught up in the Easter Bunny, eggs, baskets and ham, mmm....  Don't get me wrong.  I see nothing wrong with playing up the cute springtime hippity hoppity cuteness that comes with the season.  My kids love it and so do I.  However, I make it a personal challenge to tie in all of our fun activities back to the reason we are doing them in the first place.

This year I was really excited to wake up Easter morning and make resurrection rolls with the girls.  I had never personally done them before but had heard about them and gotten a good recipe off of, where else, pinterest.  I wasn't too sure how much of the concept that my little ones would get but I'm all for starting new yummy traditions that I know some day they will grasp :)  So, here's how they went.

All you need is...
8 marshmallows (or however many rolls you are making)
Crescent Rolls
Cinnamon Sugar
Melted butter
Parchment Paper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  While waiting, read John 19.  We read a simpler version out of one of the girl's kiddo Bibles.  I explained to them that the marshmallow was Jesus, pure and white because He was sinless.  We dipped him in the embalming oils (the butter) and then the spices (cinnamon sugar) that were used to prepare Him for burial.   We then wrapped Jesus in his burial "blankie" (the crescent roll) pinching the sides all closed.  He was now in the tomb.  Just for yummy goodness and no relation to the story,  I brushed the outside of each roll with the remaining butter and sprinkled it with the remaining cinnamon sugar.  I was out of parchment paper but I highly recommend using it since mine really stuck to the baking sheet!

We placed the rolls in the oven and while they were baking for the 12 minutes that were instructed, we read John 20 to the girls.  We asked Adelyn what she thought would happen to Jesus in his tomb.  She said, "He's probably going to Heaven with God but I really want to eat his blankie..." Well she was getting part of it :)

She was sooooo excited when the rolls were done and she got to open it up and see what happened to Jesus.  The marshmallow melts away and leaves an empty "tomb" inside the roll.  She kept yelling, "Daddy, He is Risen!  He is Risen, but where's my marshmallow?" Magic.

Not only was this activity a fun illustration of what Easter is about, and a new yearly tradition at our house, they were incredibly delicious.  Next year I will be making double.  Especially since Adelyn kept asking for more "delicious Jesus blankies" and Marcella kept making a open and close fist while shouting "more blankie!"  They took something away from it :)

It WAS Relatively Quiet Around Here...

The past month has seemed pretty uneventful and I kinda liked it that way.  Jason was home for a week for his spring break.  So, we were able to catch up on a lot of yard work and quality family time.  I had no idea that a few down pours and some unseasonably warm weather would cause the jungle, that is our back yard, to get wildly out of control over night.  It has been fun to see all the plants grow and bloom at our new house, since we had no idea what had been planted here moving in the winter.  I took some great action photos (to Jason's disapproval) of him mowing his first lawn for the first time.  However, the fourth dimension that hides in our house has engulfed my camera cord.  So, unfortunately, those and some other cuties, including our Easter Party at the church and the finished nursery, will have to remain hidden until we figure out where it has vanished to. 

But, I was smart enough to capture this spring break project on my phone.  I have been racking my brain on what art work I wanted in the girl's room.  I was drawn to Eric Carle prints but they are pricey.  And I am... cheap.  So, I got an idea from Pinterest (naturally) and went with it.  I taped the girls name down on two canvases with masking tape.  It was a challenge but we fit it all in.  Then, placing a little of the color paint I wanted directly onto the canvas, I let them go finger painting crazy all over the canvas and taped letters. I kept placing a little at a time to avoid a complete paint nasty mess.  The girls LOVED it.  Actually, Marcella loved it so much that quite a tantrum was thrown when it was time to be done and she realized that, no, I wasn't going to let her snack on the leftovers. 

We waited patiently for a few hours to ensure they were completely dry before removing the tape.  Voila, painted name artwork for $2 (since I already had the paint).  I then framed them and hung them up.  The girls were proud to say the least.  I love that they are not perfect and are original.

But all good things must come to an end, and Adelyn felt the need to break the silence on our nice quiet month with a loud stage of regression and tantrum throwing that we can only attribute to the fact a new baby is coming.  Probably the highlight of this season so far would be her epic decision making at Chick-Fil-A.  I thought I would be a nice cool mommy and let her play in the big play area.  The problem began when she decided that she wasn't coming down.  After 20 minutes of negotiating, a fake mommy leave and pulling every trick in the book I was faced with the daunting inevitable decision of climbing up into that thing and pulling her stinky butt down.  My 8 month pregnant fat body wedged its way through the tunnels to discover she was hiding out in of course the most unstable, ceiling supported car.  I thought, "This is how I die. Falling from the sky in a moo cow car. I can think of worse."  I thought when she saw me she would definitely come down, but no.  She clung to that steering wheel with all her might, me tugging on her ankles with her shouting at the top of her lungs, "I want to be naughty today, Mommy.  Sometimes I like being naughty."  She's lucky we were in public, that's all I have to say about that.  My friend got a kick out of it and I'm sure plenty of other parents were able to leave the restaurant thankful that it wasn't their kid that day and they weren't me.  I'm learning to ignore the thumb sucking, baby talking and full blown desire to be an infant and have me hold her non-stop.  Let's pray that her loud phase isn't as long as my quiet month.

Enough of You Mommy...

This past week Jason was out of town.  Part of his sixth grade teaching duties is to chaperone them on a week long over night outdoor education camp.  I have to say this, and yes I will sound old and bitter, but we never got to do such awesome things when I was a kid!  I wasn't too worried since Jason's wrestling coaching schedule left me feeling like a single mom most nights anyway.  So I had this, right?  My plan of action was to keep the little boogers as jammed packed entertained as possible so they would be distracted and crash at nap and bedtimes until my wonderful mother-in-law flew in on Wednesday to help.  My big fat prego booty just had to survive until Wednesday...

The first two days weren't so bad.  We went on fun outings, had play dates, ate dinner with friends.  But I was already seeing the side effects of a daddy-less home.  Marcella had become incredibly clingy.  She felt the need to be touching me at all times, which was particularly interesting when I wanted to go potty.  If her little precious finger left my body for a second, "momma, momma, momma, momma..."  and so on and so forth, you get the picture.  Adelyn had grown particularly found of the word, no.  Enough said. However, it started getting interesting Tuesday night.  We were leaving a friends house at bedtime and had discovered that the binky was missing.  Not a big deal since we just had to make it the short 5 minute ride home to the spare but Marcella felt passionately differently than I.  That was the longest 5 minute car ride of my life.  When we got home, I had to football hold two screaming toddlers inside to take a bath before I could put them down for the night.  Normally, I would skip the bath but they were filthy.  A scummy, stinky filthy that I just couldn't ignore.  So, I wrestled the crocodiles to nakedness.  But before I could get Marcella in the tub she ran off butt naked to go retrieve her blankie.  Not a big deal except she then proceeded to then accidentally pee all over it.  This is when I discovered just how attached my tiny nakie hiney was to her little pink blanket.  I have never seen such a physical and verbal display of frustration and disgust.  And naturally, Adelyn had to join in for giggles.

I thought "I'm pretty smart.  Adelyn has one just like it, only it's yellow.  She couldn't care less if I gave it to Marcella.  I'll turn off the lights and she will never know the difference."  Wrong.  The force is strong with this one and she sensed immediately what I was up to.  The physical dramatics got so intense that I had to remove her from her crib in fear that she might break it and her head.  I rocked that wailing one year old from bath time till 11 p.m. when the blankie was finally clean and dry.  I am not kidding, as soon as the silky edging touched her fingers she was snoring.  Now when I pray before bed, I ask God for things like protection, health, safety for my family, world peace and that nothing ever happens to that little pink monogrammed blankie.  I have experienced a wrath like none other.

The rest of the week, thanks to my mother-in-law, was survivable.  But my kids were in rare form.  I felt like I needed to explain that my kids weren't always this bratty, sensitive and out of control. I loved that I was going through this...

While getting pictures from Jason like this...

When daddy finally arrived that Friday afternoon, the girls had had their fill of their momma.  The girls faces were priceless when their hero burst through that door.  The noise level went up about ten notches from all the babblings of Marcella, the "I missed you soo muches" from Daddy and the ramblings from Adelyn about how Daddy can never go to work again.  The only thing he couldn't figure out was why Adelyn had started calling Marcella "Linus" but I told him I would share that one later ;)

It was good that Jason had a week away.  I struggled but survived and the girls and I have found a whole new level of appreciation for the man we call "the daddy".