Sweet Yet Sour

Summer means shortcake…

Monday, June 29th, 2009 | Cooking | 5 Comments

Now that strawberries, peaches and other delectable fruits are in season, it’s time for shortcake.  I never understood why people use angel cake or those crappy little cakes you can buy at the store for this dessert.  Shortcake is called “short” cake for a reason – it’s really easy to make and takes no time at all.  This is my mother’s recipe and we used to spend most of the summer piling peaches or strawberries on top of it with freshly whipped cream.

Last time I made it I got creative with the layering…

Strawberry Shortcake

See? Don’t you want some now? Good! Here’s the recipe…

Shortcake

Sift together:

1 and 1/2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup sugar

Mix together (I usually just do this in a 2 cup liquid measure):

1 egg beaten

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup butter, melted

Stir the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients until well mixed and there are no more dry spots.  Spread into a greased 8 x 8 pan (glass is best) and bake for 20-25 minutes at 400.  The shortcake will get golden brown on the top – don’t let it burn!

Once it’s baked, let the shortcake cool briefly before serving – it’s great warm, but I’ve also had it cold for breakfast.  Did I mention that I love shortcake?

While the cake is baking I usually cut up the strawberries (or peaches) and throw some sugar on them to make them nice and juicy.

Shortcake tastes best with homemade whipping cream, but the spray can stuff is just as good.  And if you’re like my husband, the spray can stuff is best enjoyed sprayed directly into your mouth, which you can’t really do with the homemade whipping cream.  Either way – bon appetit!

A Girl and Her Sandbox

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009 | Anna | 3 Comments

A few weeks ago I was talking to my dad and I said, “Anna loves to play in the dirt.”  Before I knew it my dad had drawn up plans for a sandbox for Anna that he and Mike could build.  So here we are the proud owners of a new sandbox…

Here’s a “Before” picture of the spot where we put the sandbox:

Sandbox Before

Here is Mike and my dad working hard on putting the sandbox together:

Sandbox During

Once it was finished we put Anna in it – even though it didn’t have sand in it yet she seemed to like it:

Anna in the sandbox - no sand

Here is a picture of Foster, the dog that I rescued from the street while Mike and dad were working on the sandbox:

Foster

Foster brought the dog total to 4 in our house on sandbox day – it was a madhouse!  We found his owner, who lives down the street after about 2 hours…

Here is the first layer of sand we put in and all of the toys that we buried at the bottom for Anna to find when she really starts to dig to China:

Buried Treasure

Once all the sand was in we plopped the kiddo in with her new sand pails and let the fun begin!

Anna in the completed sandbox

And this is where I put Anna after she had thoroughly covered herself in sand:

Anna in the sink

She ate most of lunch in the sink, since she seemed happy there – I just kept giving her food while she splashed away…  Good times!

The final weigh-in

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009 | Anna | 4 Comments

Today we had another weight check with Anna’s doctor.  As you may remember, for the past three months we have had monthly weigh-ins to see if Anna can gain some weight.  I’ve been feeding her plenty of mac and cheese, butter, half-and-half and other fattening things all along the way.

When she was weighed today at the doctor’s office Anna weighed 17.8 lbs.  This means that Anna gained a pound since the last check and has steadily gained a pound a month for the past three months.  This has pleased our doctor enough that we will no longer have to go in every month.  I still need to feed Anna every possible fattening thing I can – since she is still 3rd percentile – but she’s on her own little curve.  Perhaps in a few months she can catch up to the other 1 year olds she knows and weigh the proper 20 lbs to face forward in her car seat.

In the meantime the doctor said that her weight might drop off, now that Anna is walking (see below!) and is “more active”.  Apparently our doctor has not been listening to me about how active Anna is already.  I mean seriously, this is the kid who regularly climbs into her rocking chair and stands there rocking it while trying to climb up the back…

Anyway, Anna is walking more and more every day and more steadily each time.  Pretty soon she’ll be running and then I’ll have to just feed her sticks of butter to keep her weight up – but for the moment the “great fattening up” has worked!

Summer Garbanzo Salad

Saturday, June 6th, 2009 | Cooking | 1 Comment

The parsley in my recycled garden is nicely always ready for harvest.  To celebrate this and the fact that summer is here – the perfect time for cold salads- I made my favorite garbanzo bean salad.  This is a cool salad that uses my fresh parsley well and is quick and easy.

Garbanzo Salad

I must thank my sister’s friend Lata for this recipe.

Combine in a bowl and allow to marinate for at least 30 minutes:

2 14oz. cans drained and washed chickpeas/garbanzo beans

1/3 cup lemon juice

1 chopped garlic clove

1/2 cup chopped parsley

2 Tbsp olive oil

1/3 cup shredded parmesan cheese

cracked black pepper and sea salt to taste

After the salad has marinated serve it on a bed of baby spinach.

Small girl walking!

Saturday, June 6th, 2009 | Anna | 2 Comments

Although I have no pictures of this phenomenon to post, the small girl is indeed walking.  Anna has been walking with us and taking little steps on her own, but she started walking by herself in earnest last week.  She was playing and then turned and just started walking on her own towards a ball that she had thrown.  Now she does this all the time, sometimes she crawls, because it’s faster and more stable, but most of the time when she needs to get somewhere, especially if she wants to carry something with her, she walks.  It’s still a little tippy when she does this, but she does love to just go for it and gets right back up if she falls.   So that’s my big news from here – I officially have a “toddler”.

I do have lots of pictures of other things Anna has been doing lately.

We went to the park last week and I caught this shot of Mike and Anna while they walked to the slide.

Mike and Anna

I guess it’s good that I didn’t catch him with his pants farther down…

Anna has been going through the drawer where her bibs are kept and every once in a while tries to put one on.  Too bad it’s backwards, but she’s got the right idea.

Backwards bib

Now that Anna knows that she needs shoes to go outside (which is her favorite thing to do), she likes to try to put shoes on to get that going.  This includes any shoes that are lying around:

Anna in Mike's shoes

Last week we had a day where Anna didn’t really nap – she was too excited about going to lunch with daddy.  So in the afternoon I took she and Cash for a walk hoping that she would sleep if I was quiet.  Bingo!

Conked out in the stroller

Anna has been wanting her own plate and since ours are breakable, I got her a new plastic plate at Target and gave it to her for lunch this week.  She thought it was cool until she was done eating and then she decided maybe it could be used as a hat:

Plate or hat?

Too bad it had mac and cheese on it when she decided to put it on her head:

Mac and cheesehead

This week it rained a fair amount which meant I needed to find someway to entertain Anna indoors.  She’s pretty bored of her toys, so I tried putting her on the floor in the kitchen with a bowl of warm soapy water and some water proof toys:

Bubble bowl

If you can’t tell, she’s totally soaked, because she did lots of this in the bowl:

Splashing

Looks like a good time, no?