June 25

Recipe Goodness

Our recipe blog, Needs More Butter, is a terrific resource for new ideas:

I tasted Renae’s Blueberry Crumb Bars last week at a neighborhood grill. Mmm-mmm, summer perfection!

This recipe for Basil Chicken is a perfect way to use up the herbs from your garden. It has an amazing flavor.

Bok Choy Salad makes a great addition to any potluck. (Just don’t forget to add soy sauce like I did last year.)

And while I can’t believe I’m actually saying this, Sweet Potato and Chickpea Salad is super yummy. The texture of chickpeas typically grosses me out, but this salad is delicious. It earned some rave reviews at a church gathering last year.

Finally, in the interest of consuming more fruits and veggies, I’d like to go back to making Green Smoothies. They’re sweet and refreshing on a hot summer’s day—and they’re a filling treat the whole family can enjoy. Drink up!

Kitchen Love

What kitchen tool(s) would you never want to give up? What makes you grateful each time you use it?

Right now I’m looking at my mom’s old melon ball scoop with great devotion. I rescued it from the giveaway pile and I love it. Easy apple coring makes for a happy apple-eating family.

Cooking for Ten

Something weird happens when you prepare one recipe for ten families. You hit a rhythm. Your eyes sort of glaze over… cranberry sauce, onion soup, pour the dressing, mix it together… until you make a mistake and dump the cranberries into the wrong bowl. Then you halt, figure out what’s what, and get back to the business of making freezer meals.

Several years ago my friend Carrie read a book about cooking a whole bunch of meals in one day—30 to be precise—and them freezing them. It’s a lot of work up front, but incredibly helpful in reducing meal prep time for future dinners. Carrie invited a bunch of girlfriends to Cooking Day and we worked, side by side, on our feet for hours on end to fix those 30 meals. We divided the costs and went home that evening with achy calves but feeling like queens with freezers full of meals.

Fast forward a few years. Carrie is keeping tabs on her husband’s cholesterol, which means a whole lot of lean chicken meals and not many casseroles at her home. So I’ve started a new freezer meal coop where all the chefs prepare two meals at home… ten times over. In this post I’ve included a few shots of one of my meals, Cranberry Chicken, and one of my dog, who stays oh-so-faithfully at my side when I’m cooking. I like to pretend he enjoys my company but I know better. He’s the dog equivalent of a Hoover vacuum cleaner so all in all, he earns his keep and keeps the kitchen floor spotless.

The recipe for Cranberry Chicken can be found at my (our) recipe blog, Needs More Butter.

December 3

Mission accomplished.

On Thursday, Livia baked sugar cookie gingerbread men. And floured. And rolled. And baked and floured some more until there were clouds of flour covering the kitchen counter and floor.

The house had a flour storm unlike any ever witnessed before. Flour on Liv’s scalp. Flour on our clothes. Flour on the dog’s head and, after one especially tumultuous mishap, flour turning his gluttonous doggy tongue from pink to white. Honestly, I don’t know how he even swallowed at that point.

December 2

On Monday, Livia wanted to bake gingerbread men. We didn’t do it.

On Tuesday, Livia wanted to bake gingerbread men. Knowing she wouldn’t like the spicy cookies, we convinced her we’d make sugar cookies in little gingerbread men shapes. But still, we didn’t do it.

On Wednesday—that would be today—Livia wanted to bake sugar cookie gingerbread men, but got distracted by Bolt on Netflix online. I pulled out the ingredients, took a few photos for the December Photo Project, actually made the dough, and that was it.

Will all Livia’s cookie wishes be fulfilled on Thursday? Stay tuned. It doesn’t get more exciting than this, folks.

**You are very welcome to join the DPP at any point! We’ll continue updating our participants list through the weekend.

Thanksgiving

We enjoyed a really relaxing and delicious day yesterday as we celebrated Thanksgiving with both sets of parents. There is something quite decadent about two turkey dinners in one day, I must say. What I really felt was the wealth of riches God has given us: our parents (now grandparents to Livia) that have raised us faithfully and loved us unconditionally over the years. We are incredibly blessed by our families.

As much as we enjoyed our folks, we did miss our siblings. So Bean, Adam, Kris and Andrew? Can’t wait to see you at Christmas!

Pictured above are a few of the side dishes we ate at the Lawton dinner. There was the sweet potato souffle and bourbon cranberries from Needs More Butter sitting next to The Pioneer Woman’s corn/wild rice dish. We ate our fair share of green bean casserole and stuffing, and of course, the star of every Thanksgiving meal, turkey. Liv and I ate turkey sandwiches tonight and I can’t imagine a better way to eat leftovers than slapping them between mayo-coated slices of bread. Mmm, mmm good.

Now that Thanksgiving is over, what is left of 2009? A lot! The December Photo Project starts shortly (make sure you sign up—it’s fun!), then we have the national holiday known as My Birthday, and finally Christmas. Jesus’ Birthday. Somewhat of a larger event than mine, I suppose. ; )

Homemade Laundry Detergent

1/2 C washing soda
1/2 C Borax
1/3 bar of Ivory soap, grated

In a large pot, heat 6 cups of water; add grated soap and stir until dissolved. Add washing soda and Borax and stir until dissolved. Remove pot from heat.

In a clean 2 gallon pail, pour 4 cups of hot water and add heated soap mixture. Top pail with one gallon + 6 cups of cold water; stir well.

Use 1/2 cup per load, stirring detergent before use.

After my friend Sarah M. posted a detergent recipe, I became very curious about the idea of making such a product at home. While I’m not exactly a frugal woman, I knew making my own detergent would save a lot of money. But the biggest draw in my eyes was the number of ingredients. I’m concerned about all the weird chemicals in our home environments these days and I’ve slowly become more interested in using simple products to accomplish household tasks. I still like spraying 409 on the kitchen counters, so don’t suspect me of turning super granola or anything. ; )

I used this page as a reference and ended up visiting the Duggar family site (afterall, their kids look clean, don’t they?!). If you dig around the world wide web using Google you’ll find a lot more information on the financial savings of homemade detergent. I’m also going to post the (inedible) recipe to Needs More Butter for easy referencing in the future.

Final note: Arm & Hammer Washing Soda isn’t the easiest product to find. I check about six different stores before finally locating it, ahem, at my grocery store three miles down the road. Wish I had looked there first!

Cupcakes

Cute cupcakes are only a boxed cake mix away. Liv and I like to put some batter in the oven and move on to icing. It’s simple to mix up Wilton’s buttercream recipe and then tint it to our heart’s desire.

Our preferred icing method is to heat the icing in the microwave, then dip the cupcakes in the mixture. Livia’s task, then, is to sprinkle like a mad woman before the frosting hardens. We get a little crazy, sprinkles go everywhere, but the end result is cute cupcakes every time. Need a quick platter of treats for a friend? Want an afternoon pick-me-up? Cupcakes are the answer. The cuteness is just the (ahem) icing on the cake.

Contentedness

Yesterday turned out to be a really great day.

It involved working out at the YMCA for the first time ever, shocking even (or especially) myself; mowing the yard on what had to be the most gorgeous July day in Nebraska history. And cooking a dinner that reminded me why cooking can be worthwhile: hello, Chicken Tikka Masala.

My mom made the cheery hot pads pictured above. Cooking is a lot more fun when you have handmade gifts to help keep your hands from burning. Thanks, Mom—I love them!