Biskits

A biscuit recipe from my friend.

"Anyway, you will love this biscuit recipe - it is so easy and fast!  I'll type up the directions from the recipe - but then I'll tell you how I do it (it's easier and I don't own a food processor).

Buttermilk Biscuits

1 cup all-purpose flour, plus extra for the counter

1 cup cake flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. sugar

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

8 TB. unsalted butter, cut into 1/4 inch cubes and chilled

3/4 cup cold buttermilk

1. Adjust oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 450 degrees.  Pulse the flours, baking powder, sugar, baking soda and salt together in a food processor to combine.  Scatter the butter evenly over the top and pulse to combine, about 12 pulses.

2. Transfer the mixture to a large bowl.  Stir in the buttermilk with a rubber spatula until the mixture forms a soft, slightly sticky ball.

3. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured counter and quickly form into a rough ball.  Do not overmix.  Use a sharp knife to divide the dough into 12 even pieces.  Quickly and gently shape each piece into a rough ball and place on an ungreased baking sheet.  (The baking sheet can be wrapped in plastic wrap and refrigerated for up to 2 hrs.)  Bake until the biscuit tops are light brown, 10 - 12 minutes.

And my version is - I mix all the dry ingredients together.  Then I melt the butter in the microwave.  I add the buttermilk to the melted butter and mix it together.  It will curdle.  I pour the wet mixture into the dry ingredients and mix together.  Then I use a measuring cup that is the size I want the biscuits to be.  I grease and flour the measuring cup and put the dough into the measuring cup to shape it.  Then just put it on the baking sheet.  I usually get 6 or 8 biscuits depending on how big I make them.  And another note - I have done it using all-purpose flour instead of cake flour (when I don't have cake flour) and I have also used regular milk (when I don't have buttermilk).  And they turn out fine.

I hope that all made sense.

Enjoy!"

Taverns

(recipe from Lin Walker)

2 ½ lbs ground beef

2 oz ketchup

1 ½ tsp prepared mustard

1 ½ tsp horseradish

1 ½ tsp Worcestershire sauce

2 ½ tsp salt

½ cup finely ground onion

Put the ketchup, mustard, horseradish, and Worcestershire sauce in a cup measure. Fill the cup with water to make one cup. Place the beef in a Dutch oven. Chop with a spoon and sprinkle with the salt. Pour the liquid mixture over the meat. Brown slowly and then simmer for about half an hour. Serve on buns with mustard and dill pickle chips.

Note: Do not use any fancy-schmancy mustards here – just good, old cheap school bus yellow mustard.

Make It Happen

I just feel I need to share this.

Basically, if you are thinking about travelling to visit a family member and are not quite sure if you're going to do it because of money or time concerns, find a way to make it happen.

My mother came out to help when my first child was born three years ago. She cleaned the house, helped paint the nursery, made us meals and bought us baby gifts. We had no idea at the time, but that was the last baby she was able to help me with, at least in a physical way. She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in August of 2010 and passed away in May of 2011 at the age of 62, 6 weeks after our second child was born. Our 3rd child was born 5 days ago, and the small things are so comforting- for my brand-new daughter to be able to sleep on a receiving blanket Grandma Lin gave us, that we can bathe her with a washcloth Grandma gave us. As a young mother, it is hard not to be able to talk to, receive counsel from my Mom (and she was the ultimate mother- 7 children! who all adored her...) She was always such a kind, sweet, gracious, thoughtful, and generous person- it is nice to have these physical reminders of her to care for my babies with.

Collaborative Art

Lately Adelyn asks me to draw pictures, then she colors them in. It's really fun. Around Halloween time, she kept asking me to draw all of our Halloween activities (Trick-or-Treating, Trunk or Treat, The "Monster Mash" at the Library...) Halloween was my favorite holiday as a kid, too!

Then she'll ask for things like, "Me, & Mommy, & Daddy, & Sarah, & Arden, flying in an airplane to France. And I have a big 'mollipop'. And we're bringing candy, and a carrot. And a happy sun, and a mean sun, and a happy starfish, with babies. And a mean starfish. And a mean baby starfish. And a fish, with a mollipop." So cute.

She got her friend Aaron a robot for his birthday,

Then she had the great idea to decorate the gift bag (with a Daddy robot, and a baby robot.) I really like how it turned out! I want to do this on our Christmas presents- wrap them with paper bags or kraft paper then draw Christmas-y stuff on them (you know, reindeer, wreaths, the Nativity, etc.) and have her color them in, then we'll add some ribbon or something. I think she'll really enjoy it- she's really into presents lately- makes pretend presents alot, etc. I'm excited to do this!

Peanut Butter Play-Doh!

The girls & I played with edible Peanut Butter Play-Doh today. It is a little sweet for me (has honey and powdered sugar) but pretty good. I halved the recipe on this site: 

(This is the "halved" recipe)

Mix together:

1 3/4 c. creamy peanut butter

2 c. powdered sugar

Add:

1 3/4 c. honey

Fold in:

2 c. powdered milk

(Be careful at this step. We have a Kitchenaid hand mixer and it started smoking at this point. I didn't really "fold" in the milk, I just dumped in a cup at a time and tried to mix it in. I forget how to properly "fold"- better look it up next time :)

It was pretty greasy, I could have added more powdered milk (but feared killing my mixer, if it's not already dead.) We used raisins and Cheerios to decorate- fun "snacking"!

 21-month-old S. got into it once I showed her how to press the decorations in.

Fruit Gobbler

I volunteered a "fruit platter" to bring to the Thanksgiving Dinner my in-laws put on. I found the link for this idea on Pinterest, the source of all brilliant ideas :) 
My girls helped me put orange slices, grapes, fresh pineapple, raspberries, & cherry tomatoes on bamboo BBQ skewers for the "tailfeathers". The feet and beak are made from an orange bell pepper, and the "snood" (new vocabulary word I've recently learned!) is cut out of a cherry tomato. The skewers had to be "hammered in", and I had to "pre-drill" a bit with a long punaise (thumbtack) before attaching the smaller parts with toothpicks. I love the yam for a head and neck- so much personality. I particularly enjoy his ethnic hairstyle, as well.

                                     

                     

I didn't expect my 1-year-old to be able to help, but she jumped right in and started stabbing fruit onto skewers, too. She's a "figure-it-out-and-do-it" kind of a girl.

On the way to Grandma's, 3-year-old Adelyn said, "I love making turkeys!" So fun to be able to explore, teach, and learn creativity with these girls. "Turkey Feathers" were Adelyn's favorite dinner item. Here he is at the end of Thanksgiving Dinner...

and the next morning, after a "pre-getting our Christmas trees-breakfast" with my SIL's family.

My Bee

Decided to dress Little Bean up as a bee this year. (Big Sis opted for a store-bought lion costume. Not as much fun as making one, but also less work) I ordered a black onesie, bumblebee "Babylegs", and yellow tights (did you know you can get any size, any color tights at welovecolors.com?), and made or "refurbished" the rest. Felt is such a great costume medium for its stiffness. Fleece is great, too, and it's more comfy, warmer, and holds up better than felt. Went with felt this year though. Got butterfly wings at the Dollar Store and reshaped, re-covered (with sparkly silverish fabric), and reinforced (wire from Home Depot) them.

My favorite part of this costume is the little stinger! Hope you had a fun Halloween.