Wonderment

One of the greatest gifts of being a parent is seeing the world through the eyes of a child. Their sense of wonderment is simply lovely. It puts a smile in you, deep in your soul. You rediscover, through them, just what it is that is beautiful in the world. Taking a step back for a moment just to see something small and honoring it by admiring it, is truly a gift. It's a gift that we all can receive if we can only stop for a moment to notice. Isn't it true what they say that God is in the details.

Activities:
So all is going well so far. We keep busy and we relax too. I have them help with chores which actually helps out quite a bit. They feel all proud when they help with laundry. I still go crazy. Thank goodness for friends like "K" and "D". Just to know I am not the only one who literally pulls my hair out sometimes is truly comforting. Oh, and I am not the only one who calls myself "psycho Mom". Don't get me wrong, I cuddle with them, I tell them I love them and I try my best to give them my best. But sometimes, I can't help it, but my head just spins around.

The kids are painting an old sheet that I tore into thirds so we could make a mural. It's kind of summery with flowers, butterflies and birds. I am sure we will do one again when it gets close to Fall. I sure the loved the activity and I think they did too.
Hope you all are enjoying your summer, at least in this hemisphere. And on the other side of the world, I hope you are enjoying your winter. The best of life to you these days! PEACE, GRACE and LOVE.

Roasted Vegetable and Rice Timbale

A real conundrum exists for me in the summer. I love roasted vegetables, especially fresh ones but in the summer it's too dang hot to crank up the heat with the oven. I know I could use our gas grill. But remember the birds nested in our grill? Well, we let them because the gas grill was beat and broken anyhow. So it is gone- to the trash. We do have a charcoal grill but sometimes I just don't feel like firing it up with my 3 year old around. She is way too curious and it just spells danger, yah know. Leave for one second and uh oh.

For example. I have this large cast iron shelf- medium weight but it is pretty heavy since it is so big. I moved it near the window the other day and put my plants on it. I want to plant some indoor herbs this winter so I am trying my plants out in the window. Some African violets. Well, she decided that she didn't want them there and moved them and the shelf over to the other side of the room. Two African Violets ended up on the floor. Oh man. Just turn your head for one second...

Sometimes I just get lucky and we have a cool morning. Yesterday worked. I roasted eggplant, zucchini, purple onion, and garlic. I could have inhaled the whole tray of veggies myself. Where is that balsamic reduction? But I was making dinner and needed to make a sidedish.

Roasted Vegetable and Rice Timbale

3 medium sized zucchini about 4 cups diced
1 large eggplant about 4 cups diced
1 large red onion, diced
4 large cloves of garlic, whole then minced up after roasting
3 cups rice, or any grain, this is just what I had on hand- barley would be good
2 balls (about a 1/2 cup)of labneh or feta, crumbled
pine nuts for garnish
1 sprig fresh oregano, minced
1/2 cup fresh chives, minced
1/4 cup fresh basil, minced
juice of one lemon
1/4 cup olive oil
s and p

Roast chopped vegetables in oven at 425F until bottom becomes golden. Turn off the oven and turn on the broiler. Roast until top is golden.

Make rice or whatever grain you are using. If you are using leftover rice, make sure you bring it to room temperature first. If it is kind of dry you may need to add more liquid ( lemon juice or olive oil).

Combine all ingredients and season to taste.

I have some small cans from some store bought food that I reuse for making the rounds. You can use a small bowl or ramekin as well. Stuff the food into the round or ramekin so it is fairly tight. Gently lift the round/ramekin. Garnish as desired.

Chocolate Shortcakes covered in strawberries

While this may not be a prize winning photo, it is a prize winning recipe. Okay well it didnt really win any prizes. It is a twist on shortcake- chocolate. An yah know strawberries and chocolate are good friends. They go together real well so you can just imagine the shortcake with fresh strawberries. Need I say more?

And speaking of prizes. Shelby of Grumpy's Honey Bunch had a contest going. I enterd and I won. Yippee! I never used to win things but since I have joined the blogging world this is the second time. Whawhoooooo. My children love this little guy. He was immediately absconded from the box by my kids. I didn't get to push his belly until much later. You know you just have to press his belly. My Mother does a great imitation of him. They really should have taped her. Thanks Shelby, we are enjoying our prizes.

Chocolate Shortcakes

This makes two big ones or four little ones. The recipe can be doubled and even tripled, which I recently did.

2 tablespoons cocoa powder
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablepsoons unsalted butter, cold and cut
4 tablespoons heavy cream
1/2 cup all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt

Mix dry ingredients. Mix in butter with a pastry blender or a fork until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Add milk a little at a time and stir, untilt he dough comes together. Divide into two. Bake at 425F for 12 minutes.

* I ran across some sour strawberries at the market so I had macerated them in a little Grand Marnier and sugar.

Scolapasta Soup

I don't know if I ever talked about scolapasta soup before. Scolapasta in Italian means strainer, pasta strainer. Growing up, my Mom would gather leftovers from the fridge and make a soup. Dad called it scolapasta soup. Whatever was there or had to be used up was thrown in. There was some semblance to the soup. Like crazy ingredients would not be thrown together but stuff that would work well together sure was.

So here is one of my scolapasta recipes. I really am giving a recipe to show you the kinds of things you can throw together to be economical, savvy and not let things go to waste.

I did add in radish tops. Many people do not realize, or do not care about these greens but they are really good and full of vitamins. This time of year when the radishes are super fresh at the market you can get some beautfiul looking greens. If you eat it alone, you really will not have enough because of the shrinkage factor. I use the greens for soups. Or sometimes I do cook them up and then throw them in a pan with olive oil and garlic. Enough for myself for lunch or something. Oh, and save the broth, there is no bitterness and you can add it to any soup. You can freeze it and use it later when you need vegetable broth. I throw it in the kids chicken soup so they get some vitamins from the radish tops. You can read a bit more about radish greens here.

A Scolapasta Soup

1 cup cooked radish tops
2 cooked hamburgers, left over from the fourth of July, chopped
1 onion, minced
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 teaspoon butter
2 cups spaghetti, chopped into small pieces
5 carrot sticks that the kids didn't finish, chopped
2 cups of au jois from when I bought some beef
2 cups of radish leaf broth
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon of a pasta seasoning mix I have
1/4 of a sausage that my daughter didn't finish
s and p

Now is this the funniest recipe you ever saw or what. Call me crazy or call me frugal. Or both.

Saute onion and carrot in the butter and oil, cook until softened. Add garlic, cook one minute more. Add broths, bay leaf, seasoning, salt and pepper, meats. Cook for about twenty minutes. Add in pasta and cook just until heated.

I added some chili paste to mine.

You say buns, I say yum!

I was perusing the blogs and I saw Smitten Kitchen found a recipe for some fabulous buns. She prompted me (and all of you), to make these amazing buns. I so happily agreed. Matter of fact, I jumped out of bed, ok, I rolled out of bed because of all that weeding yesterday and made these buns. Can you smell them? Oh, I wish you could. You see, I too, have been looking for an amazing bun recipe. Either the crust has been too hard or the bun too dense. I wanted light. I wanted melt in your mouth. I wanted people to say oh, it is oh so worth it to make these at home. I wanted the Grand Dame of Buns. I got it. Yes, these buns are yum!
Light Brioche Buns
New York Times recipe from Hidefumi Kubota, Comme Ça, Los Angeles

3 tablespoons warm milk
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 1/2 tablespoons sugar
2 large eggs
3 cups bread flour
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

1. In a glass measuring cup, combine 1 cup warm water, the milk, yeast and sugar. Let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, beat 1 egg.

2. In a large bowl, whisk flours with salt. Add butter and rub into flour between your fingers, making crumbs. Using a dough scraper, stir in yeast mixture and beaten egg until a dough forms. Scrape dough onto clean, unfloured counter and knead, scooping dough up, slapping it on counter and turning it, until smooth and elastic, 8 to 10 minutes.

3. Shape dough into a ball and return it to bowl. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, 1 to 2 hours.

4. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Using dough scraper, divide dough into 8 equal parts. Gently roll each into a ball and arrange 2 to 3 inches apart on baking sheet. Cover loosely with a clean kitchen towel and let buns rise in a warm place for 1 to 2 hours.

5. Set a large shallow pan of water on oven floor. Preheat oven to 400 degrees with rack in center. Beat remaining egg with 1 tablespoon water and brush some on top of buns. Bake, turning sheet halfway through baking, until tops are golden brown, about 15 minutes. Transfer to a rack to cool completely. Yield: 8 buns.

Lovely, Lavender, Lulls Lori

Yes, I am silly. I think I am punch drunk from being busy having fun and weeding the jungle, er, I mean garden. My DH is outside at this moment finishing up. It was so bad, it's downright embarassing.

I planted lavender in my garden last year. (Yes, that garden needs weeding too so don't look too closely). I love lavender. The scent is so lovely. I recently found out that lavender, in a study, was shown to reduce anxiety. The study says that it has a calming effect on the nervous system. Of course it has been known for a while that it helped people to sleep but now they have confirmed that it reduces anxiety. Check out the article here. Now that I have a ton of it in my garden, I can dry it, and put sachets all over the house!

A couple years ago I had lavender in some lemonade. I tasted it at the County Fair. I really liked it. I was kind of hesitant about it because in an instant it can go from a lovely taste to an overpowering, perfumey taste.
I have been drying some out, so I added it to these tarts. I added some lemon curd and I think they were a nice little treat. I took most of them over to a friends house. (I hope she liked them.)
Lemon Lavender Tarts

the tarts:
adapted from Tartelette's recipe

8 tablespoons butter, room temperature
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1 large egg
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 tablespoons corn starch
pinch of salt
lavender buds ( a smidge)

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, takes about 3 to 4 minutes. Add the egg and mix until incorporated. In a measuring cup mix together flour, salt and cornstarch. Lay a piece of plastic wrap on a flat surface. empty contents of mixer onto the wrap. Gather it up into a disc and refrigerate for an hour or more.

Once the dough has been chilled, it's ready for rolling. Use plastic wrap to roll it out.

* I used pie weights on a large tart I made. With the remaining dough I made five mini tarts.

Press lavender buds into tarts before baking. Bake at 350F. Bake until lightly golden on edges.

Lemon Curd

5 yolks
1 cup sugar
juice and zest of 4 lemons
1 stick of butter (4 oz.) cut in eight pieces

Combine yolks, sugar, juice and zest of lemons in a stainless steel bowl. Whisk until combined. Place bowl over boiling water. (You could also use a double boiler). Stir with whisk constantly. You want to heat it until it sticks to the back of a spoon. When you run your finger through it, it makes a trail. This usually takes anywhere from eight to ten minutes.

Take off the heat and whisk in pieces of butter one at a time until melted. Place in a glass or ceramic container and refrigerate. You can store this for about a week. It freezes well and defrosts rapidly.

End of School Celebrating

Cool, huh? Psychedelic cupcakes are always a hit with kids. Spread them with frosting and pour sprinkles over top and you are the cats pajamas, so to speak. Maybe I should say the dogs pajamas. Some of the cupcakes I did with sprinkles, some I froze and two of them became dogs for my daughter's end of the school year celebration. I never had such celebrations when I was a kid. You got out of school. Running and playing and going wild WAS the celebration. But with all the Mom guilt I have over the fact that other Mom's seem to do so much, I feel this is one thing I can do for my kids to put a little smile on their face. (Mom guilt is an inherent part of child rearing, I think).

Not to mention, any excuse to celebrate is a good excuse to me. Life is too darn short. For me, a few days ago I was 23 and then a day passed and I was 36 and now I just turned around and 43 hit me in the face. How exactly did that happen?

So I won't tell you because you can see for yourself that I NEED a class in cake decorating. This is suppose to be one of the dogs that is on the cover of Hello Cupcake. Yup, say hello to "goodbye cupcake".

The recipe on the other hand is tres magnifique!

Vanilla Cupcakes
recipe adapted from Magnolia Bakery

2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
2 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Line two 12-cup muffin tins with mini cupcake papers and 12- cup cupcake tin with papers.

Combine the flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda together. Set aside.

In a mixer, cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the dry ingredients in three parts, alternating with the milk and vanilla. Do not overmix the batter.

Spoon the batter into the cupcake liners, filling them about three-quarters full. Bake for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick stuck in the center comes out clean.

Cool the cupcakes in the tins for 10 minutes. Remove from the tins and cool completely on a wire rack before frosting.