The Big Ox

Oh did I ever over commit this year! With about 300 pictures on my phone and 30 or so blog posts drafted that I never quite had time to finish I realized finally over winter break that I was losing myself to the business of the year. 

Not good. Not that I can quit anything now, but I'm reevaluating what needs to be reevaluated.

So I'm committing to blogging again. Not because I think I'm all that awesome, but because I have to celebrate the little things.

But this renaissance blog is about one big thing. My boy just turned 7 and he looks older already. I am astounded at how much both of my children have grown up since my last post in August, but there is something about Ox turning 7 that brought me to a screeching halt and made me realize how truly, unrewindably fast time is going.

This year we talked him out of a friend party to simplify things, which of course it didn't. We had a family Doctor Who party and then went to the Mall of America which was not quite successful mainly because apparently Ox has developed a fear of heights, which did not stop him from going on a very twirly and high ride. He totally freaked out (because of course since he's so huge, he was not allowed a chaperone to ride with him) and it took about an hour of nice calm rides to take the edge off. Little Frog and I headed to the American Girl store while all that drama was going on so I missed it.

Seven Years Ago

He's so OLD!

He wanted a Doctor Who birthday party

Delicious TARDIS cake that Mastermind decorated

Little Frog at the American Girl store at the MOA, she's hiding because
 Saige's very hard hair nearly removed an eye just before this pic was taken.

Enjoying one of his birthday books. Mr. Smartypants
just scored 100 words-per-minute on his reading benchmark.

So much more I could say about my boy, he's incredibly compassionate, tender, crazy, funny, sharp, and quirky. I absolutely would not change a single thing about this kid, and I cannot wait to find out what his future holds. . . in the mean time I'm going to hold him close because he for sure won't fit on my lap much longer. Unless I get a bigger lap.






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The August of Muffins

There is something about August that makes me crazy. The first few days I am plunged into deep mourning over the loss of summer and wail for the rapidly looming beginning of a new school year.

piled up furniture is more fun than toys

Usually the kids snap me out of that very quickly by being pretty annoying for a couple hours; I find myself saying "thank goodness school is about to start" which kicks me in to major nesting mode hence the past two posts documenting a frenetic cleaning phase.

Although thank GOODNESS for my crazy cleaning last weekend; when the floor guys came they had to pull out the stove to use the more powerful outlet for their sander. They were able to do so without being attacked by mega dust-bunnies or crusted up kitchen grime.

This year add into the mix: having the majority of our main floor sanded and refinished. I'm thrilled with the almost-done result, but living in the remainder of the house, sleeping on an air mattress in the basement, adjusting to a chronic fume-induced sore throat is getting old.

Plus having to hang out around the house for the workers is making me a little sad; I had big plans this summer and we don't have many days left in which to do all the things. Such is life.

Underfill the muffin cups for easier freezing

I did, however, have a chance to try a few STUNNING muffin recipes from a free Muffin eBook. The peanut butter banana muffins were everything they promised to be, and more. A batch of blueberry muffins made me completely aware that I have been cheating myself by buying muffin mix. I made 2 batches, the first was a wash since I ran out of muffin papers so the poor things got stuck in the pan (don't worry, I scraped them out and we gobbled up the crumbs). I'm not even going to include the recipe here, because you owe it to humanity to download the eBook and begin making muffins like mad.

The second batch was perfect, and I slightly under-filled the cups so that I could freeze them for those rapidly approaching school year breakfasts.

For freezing: I let the muffins cool completely (I lost a few in the process thanks to the sneaking fingers of Little Frog and Mastermind), peeled off the papers and individually wrapped them in saran wrap. I flash froze them on a cookie sheet so that they wouldn't get smushed in a ziploc bag. After the flash-freeze I popped them all into the labeled ziploc bag. Because they're individually wrapped I'll be able to grab a few out of the freezer easily, toss them into the microwave or into a lunchbag. I'll probably pop one or two into Ox's snack bag straight from the freezer. They will be nice and thawed by the time he has afternoon snack.

Seriously, if you like muffins, make these muffins. Even uncooked you can tell the muffins are far superior by their ultra-silky batter and aura of hopefulness. I've realized muffins are a recklessly hopeful kind of food. Cranky people don't make muffins by scratch, and if they do, they will not be cranky by the time the muffins come out of the oven.

Well. The kids are off with Mastermind on a morning bike ride. I stayed behind to "clean the kitchen" which today means reading The Cat Who Lived High and writing this blog post. The floor guys might be by today to buff and put on the last coat of clear stuff. . . or they might be here on Monday. I don't know for sure.

Thankfully the kiddos have a date scheduled with their grandma, they need to get out of the house. . . I might make more muffins.

I leave you with the picture at right; Little Frog and Ox are once again reenacting the Judy Moody movie.

Oyster Crackers and the Minnesota Tease

August is funny in Minnesota, we woke up this morning to a very cool day. So cool we could open the windows. That's right, Autumn is in the air. It's a definite Minnesota Tease, but the first cool day of the end-of-the-summer means our days are numbered.

Or in this household, it means I had the nesting urge that comes with my last few days of summer break. So I scrubbed, and scrubbed, and pulled off the stove knobs and got the last bits of grime out from behind the butcher block. It was SO rewarding, that I cleaned my self-cleaning windows, and vacuumed Little Frog's room. . . after I took a few minutes to make one of our favorite snacks: oyster crackers.

I make these often throughout the year - they're super for a school snack, or while reading a good book (after the kids are in bed). I make them so often that I generally keep the ingredients on hand so all I have to do is pick up a couple bags of oyster crackers when feeling so inclined.

Ingredients:
2 packages oyster crackers*
1/2 C vegetable oil (olive oil tastes the best)
3 Tbsp ranch dressing mix (or 1 package Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing mix)
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. lemon powder
1 tsp dill weed


Combine it all in a large bowl. You can attempt to mix it all in a gallon sized ziploc bag, but the crackers will just barely all fit in. It will seem oily at first, let it all sit together and dry out a bit. You'll end up with a snack that completely satisfies that salty craving.

*If you get the Nabisco brand of oyster crackers use 2 bags, there is another brand that I prefer, the crackers are much more of a distinct hexagon, and for those I use 3 bags. Target sells the Nabisco, Cub sells the hexagons.

Lemon powder is hard to find, I keep it on hand solely for this recipe and end up using it a lot more as a result. I have a thing for Penzey's spices, and my tastebuds tell me when I use Penzey's this stuff ends up much tastier. I'd call myself a Penzey's snob, but it's not any more expensive than any other spice, it's just tastier. So I'm not a snob, just healthily biased. Their lemon peel is fantastic! 






Have I mentioned how much I love baking soda? I use so much of it (and it's partner, vinegar) that we get it in huge, economy sized boxes. I wish I had known how easy it is to clean the nasty rings around my stove top burners with baking soda paste. It's completely non-abrasive and so easy I rub the grime off with my fingers.

The burner pans themselves are a different story, and require some tough stuff. Ammonia. Yech. I learned this trick and had to buy Ammonia for the first time to try it out. I scalded my sinuses for a few days, but my burner pans were bright and shiny.

<--Cleaning my burner pans Toss two burner pans into a zipper bag with a half-cup of ammonia. Zip tightly, and put on a cooking sheet in the garage or some other far away place for 24 hours. A quick scrub with hot water will remove any trace of grime from the pans. Hold your breath as much as possible, this stuff is nasty. 










Alright, time to put the kids to bed and curl up with some oyster crackers and my latest installment of the must-read series, The Cat Who Went Underground. . . I finished up the latest Sookie Stackhouse last night, it was fantastic!

So don't forget to clean your burner pans (is that even what they're called? I don't know, but mine are clean!).


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Jammy Waffle Sticks (for the freezer)

So I bought a waffle maker. A waffle stick maker. Ox will eat 6 waffles for breakfast, no problem, and while we don't use syrup or butter, that is still not incredibly healthy (even if I opt for the Nutri Grain Eggos. . . they're still Eggo). I'm not hugely excited about finding storage for another appliance, but after my first waffle experiment I'm pretty sure this baby will be in frequent use. My goal is to make a double batch every weekend (or so) for easy, yummy breakfasts before school this year.

So here's the fantastic, delicious, super tasty recipe I found. It was, amazingly enough, one that came with the waffle stick machine. I was very, very impressed and it needed hardly any tweaking to fit our tastes.

Ingredients:

4 Tbsp Jam*

6 Tbsp unsalted butter

1/2 C milk

3/4 C yogurt - or a 6 oz yogurt*

1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs

1 C flour

3 Tbsp cornstarch

2 Tbsp sugar

1 Tbsp baking powder

*Think of the possibilities by combining different flavors of jam and yogurt. You could do strawberry jam + strawberry yogurt to make it very flavorful. I picked up some orange marmalade that I'm going to try out, too.

I used the homemade Jam that Mastermind makes, in this case a currant rhubarb. I also used Stonyfield Farm French Vanilla yogurt, because we always have it on hand and it's super yummy.

STEP 1:

Combine jam and butter in a small bowl. Heat in microwave for 1 minute and stir. if the butter isn't melted yet, cut it up into smaller bits and heat for another 30 seconds or so. Stir, and set aside. 

STEP 2:

In another bowl, combine dry ingredients. 

STEP 3:

In yet another bowl, combine liquid ingredients and (not hot, you don't want to cook the eggs yet) melted butter mixture. I'm thinking this is a lot of bowls and will do it differently next time. 

STEP 4:

Pour liquid mixture into the dry. Whisk together until it is just mixed. Batter should be thick, but pourable. Add a little milk to thin it out if needed. When it sets a bit it gets kind of puffy. 

STEP 5:

Pour 3/4 cup batter across the waffle plate

Then with a knife quickly spread it out to all the corners of the mold. This was really important, my first batch had some nice puffy waffle sticks from the middle of the waffle maker, and some flat ones from the edge. The picture shows what NOT to do (leaving those edges bare).

Bake for 4 minutes until the waffle sticks are golden brown. This batch turned out great! 

At this point, I flash froze the waffle sticks. Since they contain not a lot of liquid, I left them in the freezer for only about an hour before putting them in a labeled ziploc bag.

<--Waffle sticks getting ready to be flash frozen, along with Clabber Girl Baking Powder. I love Clabber Girl Baking Powder, it makes me happy, and reminds me of when Anne Shirley won the Rollings Reliable Baking Soda contest. 

To reheat, put desired amount of waffle sticks on a plate and microwave them for 30 seconds. Top with syrup or jam or eat them plain like we do. The jam and yogurt in the recipe make them flavorful enough that there is no need to cover them up.

Of course the fun part of waffle sticks is giving the kids a bit of melted jam or syrup in a cup and letting them dip away. . . Maybe a fun lunch this week? A waffle stick dip buffet!

These waffle sticks were so easy to make, despite all the bowls. I could have tripled the recipe to freeze a huge batch. I probably will have to do so in the future, considering the bag lasted all of 24 hours. They made a great snack later that day, and of course, breakfast the next morning. I'm looking forward to trying different combinations and I have a Orange Marmalade and Craisin recipe waiting to be tried. 

Lazy Day Experiment

8:30 AM

I used to hear other families say "Oh we never watch TV" and I always looked at them a little sideways. Really? I would think. None at all? What do you do when your kids wake up at 5 in the morning?

Well, we've become one of those families. Not the "never" kind, although we do go through the odd week here and there with none at all. It started in April, one regular Monday morning when Ox hopped out of bed at 6. I simply said "No TV today, because it's not good for our brain." He said "Oh, okay." and proceeded to play happily on his own. Amazing. Just like that, we were off of TV. It became so much easier to get the kids ready in the morning (we have to be out the door before 7 during the school year), I felt like I was getting more quality time with them as a result. 

Ox during Judy Moody

Of course it is summer now. Deep summer. Little Frog was woken by a thunderstorm just after 5 this morning. Oh yes I turned on TV. Oh yes, she watched 3 episodes of Dora and 1 episode of the new cranky My Little Pony. 

I went back to bed. 

Ox got up at 7, and asked for Judy Moody and the Not So Bummer Summer. Again. Hmmm, I thought. Could I? Could I possibly do a movie day? As in movies all day? Without feeling guilty? Yes we can, but I will probably feel guilty. 

Still. I'm all for an experiment (and, to be honest, I'm crampy, so am much less activity-inclined than usual). I am curious to see how this will go. Will they really watch movies all day? Will I really let them? 

Little Frog during Heidi

10:16 AM

4 hours in (OMG!) and we're starting to feel restless. I know recent statistics said on average (AVERAGE!!) kids watch 6 hours of TV a day - - apparently that takes a lot of practice, because this is tough. 

We just finished up with Annie, and on to Heidi (the Shirley Temple version) which begs the question. . . what is with all the good movies starring girls? I may need to do a little research again, all the kids' favorites are about girls (Labyrinth, Judy Moody, Matilda, Pippi Longstocking, now Annie and Heidi. . . )

Anyway, I'm starting to feel brain-dead. Not sure we're going to make it through the whole day.

Ox is already more interested in the cat than in the movie - they're playing with a fly together. Of course the black-and-white of Heidi is majorly freaking him out.

LF, me, and Ox during Chamber of Secrets

12:08 PM

Gurgle. Gurgle.

Heidi hooked Ox after all, although I had forgotten how far the movie deviates from the book (which is always annoying). I may have to introduce the kids to more Shirley Temple, though. More musicals too I think. I showed Eli part of Oliver! once and he liked it a lot (thank you Metropolitan Boys Choir for expanding his musical taste).

The girl movies started to wear on me so we're on to Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. They've seen the first HP a couple times, but not CoS. . . which is way better than the first.

Oh, and Jimmy Johns for lunch. I had an Unwich. It was gross.


1:00 PM

Yeah. About 10 minutes after that picture I couldn't handle it anymore and: did the dishes, changed the cat's litter and water, cleaned out the inside of my car, cleaned out the inside of the big garbage can/dumpster thingie, vacuumed the sun room, made an estimate appointment to get our floor resanded, made eye appointments for the kids, weighed myself. All of that slightly helped the brain-drain, but not much. I think the movie has about 5 minutes left before I must kill it. Maybe 3.

1: 30 PM

OUT OF THE HOUSE At Last!!!! To the library for the Brodini Magician show. We were a little early so we grabbed a few Elephant and Piggie books, another Stink book, and a Babymouse.

We tried to find the Annie Soundtrack, because Ox declared it the best of all the movies we watched today and he wants to listen to the songs when he goes to bed, but the library didn't have it.

However we did see signs for the local community theater production of Annie, coincidentally going on this weekend. We may need to take a family field trip to the theater. Ox is hoping an actual dog plays Sandy. I'm kind of hoping the part will be played by a portly, middle-aged woman. Because that would be funny.



4:03 PM

Experiment DONE and here are the results: The thought of turning on the TV again makes me nauseous, we are NOT finishing Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets any time soon. Apparently watching as much TV as the average American kid makes us all crazy and feel kind of carsick. I don't recommend anybody else try the experiment, but at least my kids can't complain when they ask to watch TV; I can say "remember that day I let you watch movies ALL DAY?!?" Blech. Apparently I would no longer be able to watch Cupcake Wars all day if I could, I guess TV is an acquired taste. Who knew?




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Homemade Frozen Burritos

Here's the July Edition of my meal swap recipe. Frozen Burritos x 90

This is a combination of several recipes and my own family's taste preference, and they turned out really great! They were seriously kid-approved, and since I used ground turkey rather than beef they were healthier than some other varieties out there. 

I made the following recipe x 9 (for approximately 90 burritos) for my Meal Swap, and once I got my basic recipe down it was a relatively easy assembly line. 

Homemade Frozen Burritos

Makes approximately 11

1 pound ground turkey

1 Cup chopped onion

2 Tbsp minced garlic

1 (4 oz) can green chilis, diced

1 pkg taco seasoning (or make your own: recipe)

1 (8 oz) pkg cream cheese, softened

1 1/2 Cups black beans (or 1 can, drained and well-rinsed. I made mine from dry beans)

1 can fat-free refried black beans (always choose fat-free, otherwise you're eating lard - YUCK!)

12 large tortillas (get 2 packages of 8, you will be able to find a use for the others, easy)

1 1/2 Cups shredded cheese

Extras: aluminum foil for individually wrapping burritos. KEEP the tortilla bags, 10 finished foil-wrapped burritos will fit very nicely inside a tortilla bag to pop in to the freezer at the end. 

                   THE BEGINNING...

All the ingredients ready for my mega assembly line. I got a deal on 3 lb packages of ground turkey. My original recipe called for taco sauce (on the right side of the picture) but I didn't use any. Rather than be stuck with 4 jars of taco sauce I froze them in to ice cube trays and distributed a baggie of the cubes along with the servings of burritos to my meal swap pals. 

                      STEP 1

Saute the onions, garlic, and green chilis in a skillet with some oil, for 8 minutes or so. The onions won't get very brown due to the extra moisture from the chilis. This is okay. Add the ground turkey and mash it up into the onion/chilis. Continue to mash and stir until the ground turkey is fine and brown. You don't want big chunks, rather a smooth texture. Add the taco seasoning and simmer approx. 10 minutes.

My skillet was WAY not big enough for the 3x batch I was making, I had to do some pot shifting to accommodate it all. The dried black beans are getting a quick soak in the silver pan here. 

                    STEP 2

Transfer the meat mixture into a larger bowl/pot (unless you were smart and started sautéing in a stock pot). Add the softened cream cheese and mix thoroughly (I softened it in the microwave so it was very soft). Add the refried beans and mix thoroughly. Add the whole black beans and mix thoroughly. It should be nice and smooth. Refrigerate the whole thing for easier handling later. 

              STEPS 3 & 4

Get comfortable, especially if you're making in large quantities. Download a nice audio book from the library, and figure out how to arrange the items around you for easy reach. In this shot you can see I was placing the finished tortillas on a baking sheet to flash-freeze them. I changed my mind later, and individually wrapped them in foil because I had so many (and flash freezing 90 burritos takes a long time).

STEP 4: Scoop a half-cup of meat mixture on the bottom half of the tortilla, sprinkle on about 2 Tbsp of cheese. 

          STEP 4 Continued. . .

Fold the bottom of the tortilla over the meat and kind of smoosh it around to get out any air. Fold over the sides, and do one more roll. I had to tuck in some left-over flaps. 

<--This is really a two-handed process hence the not-so-great picture. Also, I used less than a half-cup in this picture so the burrito was smaller (if you use less meat then there will be extra tortilla to roll up, and you'll end up with a chewier end-result. Still tasty. 

             TO FREEZE:

I wrapped the burritos in aluminum foil, and then tucked 10 in an empty tortilla bag and then popped the bag in to the freezer. The tortilla bags are not official freezer-bags but the extra layer of foil should keep the burritos fresh for up to 3 months. If you want to flash freeze them, place the just-made burritos on a baking sheet and freeze for 2 hours, then place in a labeled freezer bag. 

<-- prior to packing the tortilla bags I printed up labels with reheating directions, with a swatch of clear packaging tape on the label to prevent the cold from making the label fall off. 

                    






 TO REHEAT:

Oven (for a crispy outside): Bake burritos at 400 degrees for 30 minutes, turning over half-way through. 

Microwave: for 1:45 minutes on each side. *I like the potential of grabbing a foil-wrapped burrito and popping a sauce cube in a mini-tupperware to take to lunch. 

<--Ox really, really liked these burritos and was fascinated with the whole process. I may have to make mini burritos for his school lunch, to eat cold. 

Librarian that I am I did a bit of research for this recipe, and feel the need to give credit to the useful sites I used. CamillesCasa was very helpful, as was This Recipe on AllRecipes (specifically the comments on it, I love reading what other readers have done), but probably the most useful was Macheesmo's Making Frozen Burritos At Home. I am very interested in incorporating rice into the burrito, so I am sure I'll be trying out his specific recipe later. Thanks!! 

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Like a true bookworm. . .

Game of Thrones - Epic! 

Many apologies for the scarcity of MamaStar posts during the last few months (I am sure my followers have been noticing a decline in their general quality of life due to a lack of blogging) but I have been completely distracted by some truly fantastic discoveries in the world of great books.

I haven't forgotten you, my friends; in fact I have mentally composed many posts and taken many pictures to-be-used but by the time the kiddos go to bed my fingers reach for the next installment in Game of Thrones or Charlaine Harris mystery. Any true bookworm out there knows that when you have a good book in your possession, all other lifely details are just things you do before you have time to read again. For the sake of being a balanced Mama and my growing annoyance with the false sociability of Facebook I'm going to refocus my attention back on my blog:

Facebook:People Magazine::this blog:Jane Eyre

Charlaine Harris - All of Them!! 

(okay, maybe I exaggerate a little, but I do know that I'd rather take the time to blog than to get sucked in to Facebook world. . . so here I am).

Without digressing too much, I feel the need to introduce you to the books that I've been reading so hungrily since April or so, but I'm not going to. I may do so later. . . but for now I'm busy making 8 batches of turkey and black bean burritos for my meal swap. You'll have to be satisfied with a few cover shots of my springtime favorite books.

All I can say is my reading personality has taken a turn for the macabre thanks to all the quirky murder mysteries by Charlaine Harris. I'm kind of glad, there are some truly fantastic writers out there that I have missed completely because I've been avoiding this genre, specifically Charlaine Harris' Real Murders series about a slightly mousy librarian who solves crime. Rock it, Aurora Teagarden!!

BookAWocky DONE!! 

Ox has joined me in my book-worm tendencies. . . he already completed his library Book-A-Wocky by reading 20 hours this summer; no small feat for a 6 year old. His reading skills have skyrocketed as a result (I told him he could only fill in wedges for time he read, not if I read to him) but better yet, he now considers himself a good reader which is much more important.

Pretty cool, his school will also reward any kids who bring their completed reading program to school on the first day. Nothing better than being doubly reinforced for a job well done!

Now to find more books about cats, because he has developed a real preference for anything feline. I may have to start stashing the Warrior series by Erin Hunter away now for the future, along with the Guardians of Ga'Hoole series by Kathryn Lasky. . . he adored the movie, and might be thankful for some non-cat books at some point. I am keeping my eye out for good books for boys, since there is a definite spin toward girl books out there. We're still in the early reader phase, at least for independent reading, but since Eli easily read me the first few pages of Stink: The Incredible Shrinking Kid the other day, it's time to start stocking up on chapter books (seriously exciting!)







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