Allison: Father's Day and The Perfect Cookie

Hello, and welcome to my third week of posting IN A ROW!  Okay... I'll stop counting.  Let's just assume that I'm back to posting at least once a week.

This week, I wanted to post early in case anyone is totally stumped on what to gift the important fathers in their lives.  I was pretty stinking proud of myself for coming up with the "Cookie of the Month Club", which I wrote about in last year's Father's Day post.  If you missed it, hop on over there and check it out.  Basically, I made a batch of cookies each month, and mailed my father at least a dozen of said cookies, with a little label attached, and a picture of my adorable little one.  The cookies were "from her", though obviously mom did the work.

I really enjoyed creating these packages each month.  I don't always get the chance to communicate with my amazing father as much as I'd like, so this was a great excuse to "correspond" with him regularly.  I only missed one month (April, I think), but made up for it with two packages the next month.  From what I can tell, he's really enjoyed having the packages arrive at his office each month (I don't think my brother, who works with him, is complaining either).

Hard to believe, but I just finished my last batch of "Grandpa's Cookies", as my two-year-old calls them.  Just for the record, your little ones will enjoy this gift as much, if not more, than the person receiving it!  Isla was a great sampler for me each month, and never had anything bad to say about my cookies.  :)  This month, I was scouring my Pinterest "cookie" board, and couldn't find one I was really excited about.  There was an intriguing half chocolate cookie, half peanut butter cookie that I was tempted to try, but the refrigeration time didn't correspond with my slim window to get to the post office before nap time.  But while on Sally's blog over at sallysbakingaddiction.com, I came across a recipe she calls "THE Chocolate Chip Cookie".  I've never been a huge fan of Chocolate Chip Cookies (I know... I'm the only one...), but I figured a traditional cookie might be a good ending to a year of cookie recipes.  So, I gave it a try.  OH MY GOODNESS!!!!!  For someone that's not a fan of this type of cookie, I admit that this recipe is amazing!  They turned out nice and plump (not flat like most), chewy and moist.  I LOVED her suggestion to add a few chocolate chips to the top of the dough (before baking) to make them more attractive.  I think she and I would be great friends.  :)

I followed her recipe found here to the "T", and found that they turned out just as she pictured.  My only deviation, if you want to call it that, is that I used my cookie scoop.  I LOVE using it for drop cookies, and find that it makes them almost perfectly round with a little less work on my part.  Lazy... don't forget.  :)

Sally described this as her "go to" chocolate chip cookie recipe, and I know it will definitely be added to my favorites.  I hope you all try it out.  I also hope you might consider adding someone special in your life to the "Cookie of the Month" club.  I can't believe it's been a year since my dad's "induction", and definitely plan to send him an occasional package in the future.  He has always been the most supportive and accepting father, always willing to offer inspired advice and to lend an ear to my silly problems.

On top of being lazy, I'm also cheap.  So when I card shop for holidays like Father's Day, I almost can't stomach spending what they charge for cards that seem to be less and less creative each year.  So when I found a similar card on Pinterest, as the one I made below, I knew I had a solution to my card dilemma.  I laughed so hard when I saw this card idea!  It took me about 10 minutes to make my own on my computer, print it off, and put it all together.  I think my dad will get a good laugh, and then have to admit to himself that it's completely true.  :)

Of course I admitted in the card, that my mom had a lot to do with my awesomeness too.  :)

Before I end my post, I have to take a second to give a "shout out" to my second favorite father... my amazing husband, Brent.  The minute he gets home from work each night, my VERY energetic two-year-old instantly wants to play with her daddy, and he always complies... even when his day has already been exhausting.  He's my best friend, and the best daddy I could have possibly imagined for my little girls.  My expectations were pretty high, after having an amazing father, and Brent definitely met that standard.  I love your guts, Brent!

I hope you all have a great week, and look forward to spoiling the men in your life.  Until next week...

Allison

Allison: Halloween Treats

Hello again! Isn't my sister, Lisa, such a fun mom? I love reading about their fun family traditions. I can't wait for my little ones to be old enough to participate in and start some new family traditions.

This week, I thought I'd share one of my favorite treats to make almost any holiday of the year. I don't have a name for them so we'll call them holiday pretzels. I know I've seen these on Pinterest lately, but I've been making them for almost 10 years now, thanks to the Kitchen family. I lived with three sisters in college and spent a Thanksgiving with this amazing family, where we made these fun treats. I've been making them ever since (with a few changes).

Here's how you make them:

Step 1- Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Step 2- Unwrap A LOT of Hershey Kisses.

Step 3- Spread mini pretzels on a baking sheet and place 1 unwrapped kiss on top of each pretzel.

Step 4- Place the cookie sheet in the oven for about 2 1/2 minutes.

Step 5- Pull the tray out of the oven, and press one M&M down on each kiss.

Step 6- Allow pretzels to cool (or sneak a few while they're still gooey.  Yum!).

The finished product and my "helper".

See how easy that was? I also love this treat because little ones can help with the first part. I usually don't let them push the M&Ms down as the pan and chocolate can get pretty hot. I can't wait for my little ones to be able to join me in making these! For now, my two-year-old is way more interested in eating the supplies.

After having made these for years, I've found a few tricks or ideas to share:

- With all the different kinds of Hershey Kisses, you can definitely use more than just plain chocolate. The melting time may be reduced or extended. I usually open the oven and test pushing a M&M down in one of the kisses. If it doesn't go down easily, it's not melted enough.

- An even easier way to change the flavor is to switch out different M&M flavors. I've used peanut, almond, mint and any other fun flavor available. The holiday pack colors also make then more festive.

- Be careful not to let the chocolate melt for too long in the oven. The chocolate can over cook, causing the tip to harden and add a degree of difficulty to your project. I always set a timer since I've forgotten a batch in the oven more than once.

- Once the chocolate is ready, push the M&Ms down as quickly as possible. As the chocolate cools, this gets harder to do.

- Sticking the tray into the fridge or freezer will speed the cooling process (obviously). They also store really well in either the fridge or freezer in a Ziploc bag.

These are the perfect treat to gift or have at a Halloween (or any holiday) party.  But watch out... they're addictive!!  :)  Hope you all enjoy this treat and have a great week!

P.S.  You might see some day changes for the next few weeks.  For a little while, we'll now be posting just Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays (I still went a day early... oops!).

Allison

Sara Jane: Eating from the Garden

Hi everyone!  I hope you are all having a fabulous week so far.  

While I was out weeding my herb/salad garden this week, I noticed I had some beets that  needed to be picked.  They were huge.  Probably the biggest beets I have ever seen.  Down the row, I also saw some beautiful lemon cucumbers that were ready.  Two of my favorite garden foods.  What to make???

My SIL introduced me to this little piece of heaven a few years ago and now we have it all the time.  During the summer, you will ALWAYS find a few logs of goat cheese in my refrigerator JUST for this salad.  It is delicious!

Ingredients:

*2 large (or three medium) beets, peeled, cubed, cooked and cooled (I cut mine into 1-inch cubes, boiled for about 15 minutes or until I could stick a fork in it easily and then cooled in an ice bath.)

*1/2 small red onion, thinly sliced

*2 regular cucumbers (or 5 lemon cucumbers), peeled and cubed

*Goat Cheese (since we like Goat Cheese a lot, I would use 3 ounces per salad.  Use as much or as little as YOU like)

* 1/4 cup Rice Vinegar

Directions:

In a large bowl, toss together the cucumbers, beets and red onion.  Splash the vinegar on top (again...if you want more, use more; if you want less, use less).  Break your goat cheese into small pieces and distribute throughout the salad. Finish with salt and pepper.

After making this yummy salad, I decided to make a sandwich to go with it to.  In my refrigerator, I had a huge bag of basil from our local CSA.  Pesto!  I have never made pesto before but I know I love it.  One of our local bakeries makes a delicious walnut pesto so that is what I tried to make.  I looked through a bunch of recipies on line but nothing caught my eye so I decided just to go for it and experiment.  Here is what I did.

Pesto

Ingredients:

*1 1/2 to 2 cups basil leaves

*2 T minced garlic

*1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese (Not a traditional item but it was the only cheese I had :)

*1/2 cup walnuts

*1/2 t salt

*1/2 to 3/4 cup olive oil

Directions:

I crammed as much basil into my little Cuisinart Food Processor as possible, dumped in the garlic, shoved in the cheese and walnuts and somehow managed to get the top on.  Once I turned on the food processor, I drizzled the olive oil through the top opening.  It seems like you are using a lot of oil but it doesn't actually come out to that much.  Keep adding oil until it is to a consistency that you like.  I like my pesto with a little crunch so I don't do it as fine as others.  

If you have made too much pesto and need to do something with it, try freezing it.  Instructions here.

Okay, so my pesto is done.  The rest is simple.  

My favorite sandwich at one of our local grocery stores, Harvest Fresh, is a turkey sandwich with pesto and sprouts.  I didn't have any sprouts on hand but I did have some left over cucumber that I thought would give the sandwich the perfect crunch.  Here is how I assembled my favorite sandwich.

Two slices of your favorite bread (mind is a honey wheat bread).  Pesto on one slice of the bread, mayonnaise on the other slice.  I grabbed some butter crunch lettuce from the garden, added a few turkey slices, then added my cucumber, a few slices of red onion (from my previous salad), slap it all together and you get this...

I have to say, this sandwich was so fresh and tasty.  Even my husband, who is not a huge turkey fan, really enjoyed it.

Finally, I couldn't leave this post without telling everyone how excited I am for Allison and her sweet little Norah.  Whenever anyone I love has just had a baby, I am slightly jealous of them only because I know how wonderful those first few days can be with a sweet little newborn (I do, however, know, first hand, how hard they can be so I am not too jealous :).  Beatrix was by far my snuggliest baby (and she still is) and I LOVED every minute of it so I hope you (Allison) are getting some restful snuggle time in with your sweet new one.

I thought I would share with all of you how to make my favorite little girl head bands.  With Penelope, I didn't really use a lot of stuff in her hair.  I'm not really sure why but it just wasn't my style then.  With Beatrix, however, I went all out.  I had a hard time finding headbands for her little head though so I decided to try and make them.

I had some wonderful pictures to show you all, step by step, how to do this but I have misplaced my card reader (in the last 10 minutes) and cannot figure out where it is.  If I ever find it, I will post the pictures.

All you need to do to make the greatest headbands ever is first to find a cute elastic (I found some at Joann's).  After you have your elastic, measure the babies head and subtract about 1/2 to 1 inch from that total (depending on how tight you want it to be....don't make it too tight, please....I hate seeing lines on babies heads from where their headbands were too tight).  Cut your elastic to the number you have figured out.  Using a hot glue gun, glue the ends of the elastic together.  It is seriously as simple as that.  I have received so many compliments on my girl's head bands.  They are also perfect because you can clip flowers or bows directly on the headband instead of the hair (just in case your cutie pie baby doesn't have hair).  My older daughter uses Bea's headbands still when she has her hair up in a pony.

I have another headband trick I wanted to show you but I'm afraid I'll have to wait until I find that stinkin' card reader.  (It is just one that I can't really explain without pictures).  Oh, I thought you might also like to know that Beatrix has misplaced my keys as well.  As soon as I get off this computer, we are going to have a search party for the keys.  Sometimes all you can do is laugh!

I hope you all have a wonderful week.

Sara Jane

Allison: Crafty Friends and Family

Hello again!  I opened up a new page to write my blog post hours ago.  Then, I put my daughter down for a nap and took one myself.  Needless to say, it's now almost 5 pm, and I'm trying to write a post on crafting, when the last thing I feel like doing is craft.  I know.  I shouldn't admit that.   But I'm almost 39 weeks pregnant and I reserve the right to do nothing but sit around and watch my daughter play in our air conditioned house.

That being said, I thought that today would be a great day to brag about my amazingly crafty friends.  I have noticed a new trend at parties, but more specifically at baby showers: homemade gifts.  I went to a good friend's baby shower a few months ago, and it seemed that half the gifts she received were homemade (including mine, of course).  I thought it was so cool to see what others could create!  So today, I wanted to show off some of the cute things that I've received for my little one on her way.

The blanket on the left was made by Norah's Grandma Lacey.  She's so good about making quilts for all of her new grandchildren, and we love this blanket!  It's so soft and comfy!  I can't wait to see Norah cuddled up in it.

The crocheted blanket on the right with the adorable strawberry was made by my good friend, Jen.  She has some mad skills when it comes to crocheting, and I want to be like her when I grow up.  :)  I LOVE this blanket, and I know Norah will too.

The blanket on the left you might recognize from Lisa's post yesterday.  I LOVE IT!  I am so impressed with how good she's become at crocheting!  I need a lesson.  The yarn is so soft and I can imagine cuddling my baby while wrapped in this blanket from her Aunt Lisa.

The blanket on the right was made by Norah's mom.  Yes... I had to show off my own quilt.  I really enjoyed making this quilt for my baby girl, and really pushed myself, creatively, to try free-motion quilting around the edge.  I hope Norah feels all the love that I put into this blanket.

Can you tell how loved this little girl already is?  Of course I'm grateful for store-bought gifts too.  I can't sew clothing yet, so we appreciate all we received.  I also was given many other heart-felt gifts, which I appreciate more than I can express.  Hopefully this little one is here by this time next week (I'll be induced next Tuesday), and we can't wait to cuddle her and meet our little Norah.  If you don't hear from me next week, I think I have a pretty good excuse.  I'll be doing the ultimate "craft".  :)  Have a great week, and keep the crafting going while I'm gone!

Allison

Lisa: Baby Blankets and Carmel French Toast

Wow, that weekend just flies by, doesn't it?  I never get everything done that I want to in a weekend and now we've got our children's sports events, school and all its activities and a move thrown on top!  Yes, we are moving but just to temporary housing until our new house can be built.  We were going to wait to move until our new house was built before we even put our current house up for sale but some very nice people came up and asked if they could buy it.  Well, long story short, we agreed and have to be out in a week and a half!  I'm trying not to stress out and instead look at this as a blessing!  In the meantime, we are a little busy here!  But really, a full, busy life is better than an empty, boring one, right?!!

So, last week I told you about some projects I completed.  I had to wait until I had mailed them but I can now show the baby blankets I made for the new babies coming to our family!

Katrina and Allison's baby blankets made with a granny ripple stitch!

These were super easy to do with the tutorial found here.  I'm not an amazing crocheter but I found these instructions easy to use and (with lots of photos) they were very easy to follow along with.

All my kids have now asked for a blanket with this stitch for Christmas!  I think I know what I am doing with my weekends from now till then!

Now on to my real post: Caramel Sour Dough French Toast (the longer the name, the better the recipe is what I've heard:)!!

For birthdays around my house, we do requests.  Usually those end up being crepes, chocolate gravy and biscuits or a favorite pancake recipe (and bacon, of course)!  Well, this year there was a request for sour dough french toast which I don't have a recipe for so I thought I'd wing it.  I think in the future, I'll bake these but I'll give you the recipe as I made it.  Warning: These are very sweet and rich!!  Most of my kids only had one piece but they loved them! 

Caramel Sour Dough French Toast

1 loaf good sour dough bread, sliced into 1" thick slices

8 eggs

1 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

3/4 brown sugar

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1/4 cup butter, finely chopped

Combine eggs and milk.  Add vanilla.  Place bread cut side down in a large baking dish and pour egg mixture over the top.  Let sit for a few minutes.  Turn them over and let sit for a few minutes again.  All the egg mixture should absorb into the bread.

While the bread is sitting, combine brown sugar, cinnamon and butter.  (If baking the french toast, just sprinkle over the top.)  Next, just dredged the bread into the brown sugar mixture.  You might have to press it into the bread to get it to stick!  I then heated my flat top to 250-300 degrees.    On the flat top, the brown sugar mixture made a nice caramel coating to the french toast.  I still flipped the french toast when slightly browned, like you would with normal french toast.  If baking, heat oven to 350 degrees and bake for about 35 minutes or until light brown.  We topped with whipped cream because no birthday can pass without it!  Delicious!

Have great week!

Lisa

Lisa: Father's Day

Nice gardening ideas, ladies!  If we lived closer to each other, I'd say we all should do a garden swap.  I sure want some of those berries, Sara!  I've got a lot of thistles to exchange for them!!  What do you say?!!

For this new week, we've decided on the theme of Father's Day for our posts.  I adore our dad!  I have so many great memories from my childhood of dad: gardening, building a fence and a grape arbor, camping, cleaning, going to help others, the beach, running, multiplication tables, hikes, chats, puzzles, games, big breakfasts on Saturday morning, going into the mountains so he can get reception on the car radio to listen to BYU games, church, and so many more!  He taught me the joy of serving others, the value of hard work and the happiness of living with integrity!  I love you, dad!

My man (on the left) with our kids and my dad at one of the beautiful Oregon beaches!

Now I have another amazing guy in my life: my wonderful husband!  He is absolutely the best!  He's the fun guy, the one everyone wants to hangout with, the guy that you'd call in the middle of the night if you needed help, the guy I love!  He's super busy but always finds time to be a terrific husband and father!  I bet if you'd ask my children, they'd each say that they are his favorite.  He has a way of letting them know how special and important they are!  He's one terrific man!!

So what do you get such an amazing guy??  Well, I have a few things that we are getting him that I won't put on here (in case he looks!) but one thing we are doing is taking some of his favorite, old t-shirts and making them into some pillows for his soon to be office!  

  He was throwing them out anyway so I took them and did it.  It wasn’t too hard to make.  I didn't use any instructions and they turned out great.  Here's a step-by-step tutorial, if you'd like.

They turned out pretty good, I thought!  I made an overlapping enclosure in the back just incase I needed to wash them.  Really easy and kind of fun, too!  (You might notice one of the t-shirts didn't make it into a pillow.  I decided it was just too nice a shirt still and asked my husband if he was sure he wanted to get rid of it.  He didn't and couldn't remember why he threw it out in the first place!).

And, of course, what is Father's Day without something special for the main man to eat??  Our papa gets his favorites:

 Mexican Style Meat Tacos

Homemade Rocky Road Ice Cream

These are fantastic recipes!  The only thing we do differently for the meat is to add a bottle of the Taco Bell Sauce instead of the jar of hot sauce.  We like heat but not that much!! 

There you have it!! What are ou doing for Father's Day?  Allison?

Lisa