GROW.

An innocent little girl named Katy has inspired the upcoming year of blogging. She was sitting at the kitchen table a few weeks before Christmas, tinkering around with a very small container of Play-Dough. The kind you get as a party favor. Not much to work with. I was of course telling her to hurry up, put it away as we were racing out on a Christmas errand. I wasn't really paying attention to what she was doing. My focus was the clock. I paused. She had taken all the clay she had to work with and created the most beautiful message. So simple. I marveled at the art before me. She had taken a concept which I'm sure started out as a flower and ended up with this. I wished at that moment to be a kid again.

A part of my blog mantra this year is going to focus on Growth. As I mentioned in my last post, it's time to challenge ourselves. Learn new things. Life is too short to think there's always going to be a tomorrow. It's time to drink up every moment that life has to offer. The good, the bad and the ugly. I read an article recently that suggested that you need to create a jar that you put your happy moments and accomplishments into throughout the year. And at the end of the year on New Years Eve, you reach into the jar and read what made you happy. What made you grow. In the same vain, I'm going to add another jar for the thorns thrown our way.  Because by the end of the year, it will be interesting to see how we resolved them — demonstrating what made us grow.

Example: Hannah finished finals and walked away with a B in Math and Chemistry. Maybe not an A, but a real accomplishment for the girl that doesn't have the math-science brain! Her thorn... we;; yesterday she cam home and told Andy that her Debit Card quit working. She said she had used it in the morning and then when she tried again, it didn't work. His response: "you ran out of money". Yes it's true, our working girl finally depleted her summer savings from being a lifeguard. Life lesson. Kind of thorny... well, she immediately applied for a job and has an interview on Monday!

Here's to the jars of life!
Happy is.

Happy New Year!

Wow, what a whirlwind the last few weeks have been. I sort of went off the social grid in order to live in the realities of life at home. We survived the snow storm and the Christmas and the New Year. We kind of aborted the last two weeks of countries due to the craze. I can assure you that the kitchen was working overtime, baking up a storm. Here's the top 11 list of what was made (in no favored order):

Buckeyes

Oreo Truffles

Pecan Tassies

Haystacks

Dipped Pretzels

Pretzel Wreaths

Almond Bars

Spritz

Christmas Cut-outs

Sweet Cereal Mix
Peanut butter Chocolate Sandwiches

It's now a New Year. Everyone is asking what I'm going to do with my blog. Am I going to keep traveling in the kitchen? My immediate answer is NO. Dad is taking back his duties in the kitchen:) Andy had a great idea. We are going to revisit our favorite meal from each country this year. It sounds easy. The recipe is already there. I now need to rename every blog entry with the recipe title. I guess I wasn't thinking ahead...so you can see, it's a late start. It's now the 2nd week in January and we have moved into our 2nd week of travels to Italy. Completely missed Japan, though we DID make our Asian Chili on 12/28 while celebrating Ugly Christmas Sweater moment with my sissies and kin. So that counts!

So still the question, what's my blog path this year? I'm actually kind of lost in the kitchen right now. Meal planning is hard. I know longer have an assignment, a challenge. It's funny how motivated you are when you are directed or assigned something. Sort of like the gym. I do better when someone is telling me what to do. Elie even mentioned that she hates swimming a workout on her own without a coach telling her what to do. What if we all challenged each other to do something this year? I can imagine the success and accomplishment. Maybe that's it. Maybe I'll come up with a weekly challenge for all of you. 

Stay tuned. I promise for something entertaining!

Happy is.

Home.

That is where we will be as we finish out the year. The events that occurred on Friday leave me with emptiness. I have no energy to focus on anything new. I want normal. I want comfort. Comfort for the families who have lost their babies. It's such a senseless tragedy. The only sense I can make of it is proving that life is meant to be cherished. Procrastination must end for the old saying, "there's always tomorrow" takes on a whole new meaning. You might not be so lucky to have your tomorrow. America needs a wake-up call. We need to start acting like humans again, going back to the simple things we learned in Kindergarten. Where have we lost compassion for another person's life? There isn't one thing we can point to for blame. It's our society that has created a perfect storm. Guns are bad. Doesn't anyone get that? Violent replications of killing on video games must immediately be banned. Really? Hours and hours of watching people get blown up has to have a desensitized reaction to the brain after a while. Especially for brains that can't separate reality from fiction. I have no answers. God will sort this out and guide us along the way. We must keep the faith.

This week is the cookie countdown. Sunday, the girls spent hours over at their Uncle "Bs'" house, baking cookies and frosting them. Katy had the most fun. She took a nutcracker and made it a Frankenstein! Andy has the baking schedule organized. Monday he whipped up our famous Sweet Cereal Mix while Elie churned out a pretzel wreath (this needs a more clever name). I'm gaining weight as we speak... Looking forward to the blizzard to tuck into our home so we can dance and sing and bake cookies in our jammies. Ok, so I'm dreaming. The kids may not have school tomorrow but us working folk will battle the roads in the cold.

Running out of time to post last night's baking. Stay tuned.

Where's the Beef?

S-T-E-L-L-A......From the famous movie scene in a Streetcar Named Desire (1951), comes the story of yesterday. I'm not saying I was a raging animal at the hands of savage like Stanley Kowalsky but lets just say "Calgon" wasn't going to help me. Well, maybe if I had time!  My plan was solid. Crockpot, how could anything go wrong?

Well well, it all started after I carefully fried up the bacon, sliced the onion real thin and was reaching into the refrigerator for the meat. Where's the beef? I searched high and low. Even made a trip out to the garage fridge. Even checked the freezer thinking I had tossed it in there. No beef. Really? I failed to pick up the beef at the grocery store this week. It was on the list of ingredients I didn't buy at Target on Sunday. I was going to pick it up. It would have been easy. I think I've been to the store at least twice since my Target trip. Andy even asked if we needed anything else the night before when he was going to the store...so you see, I'm really trying to keep it together. I told the girls we were having bacon and onion for dinner....

Between this highly stressed out time of the holiday prep and my work schedule being the busiest its ever been in the last three years, I'm ready to snap. Vice-gripping headaches and all. My Boot camp leader announced that if life was too stressed, that we should skip class to get that extra sleep... the gym is the only thing keeping me SANE. So sorry, Jen, only illness will keep me from attending.  On the bright side, Andy and I are road tripping to KC on Saturday without the girls. Shopping and great dining, a little R&R to get us through the next two weeks.

I've heard so many wonderful things about Belgium cuisine and feel we have been robbed of enjoying this country this week. Oh well, there's always next year. We did finally eat the meat and it was comfort. Though, Elie chimed in that it really had no flavor. Hmmm.. all that work to feed the family. I hope they don't starve while we're gone.

Flemish Carbonades
Ingredients:
2-3 lbs. of boneless beef chuck, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 onion, thinly sliced
1 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp pepper
2 tsp. brown sugar
1 clove garlic, minced
1 (12 oz.) beer
2 bacon slices, cooked and crumbled
3 Tbl. corn starch
1/4 cup water
Cooked Noodles

Directions:
In a slow cooker, combine meat, onion, slt, pepper, brown sugar, garlic, beer and bacon. Cover an cook on LOW 5-7 hours or until meat is tender. Turn control to HIGH. Dissolve cornstarch in water. Stir into meat mixture. Cover and cook on HIGH 20 to 30 minutes or until slightly thickened. Server over noodles.
Recipe from Mable Hoffman's crockery cookbook.

p.s. ok, maybe the blandness came in because I forgot to add the salt. The power of a tsp...wow. Who knew?

Belgium Waffles.

How can you go wrong with serving breakfast for dinner. The girls really got a kick out of this notion. They kept asking me what was for dinner, starting with Monday night. It continued. I knew they had heard me the 1st time. They either wanted me to slip or they needed to be reinforced that yes, we would be eating breakfast for dinner. I even caught myself saying "breakfast" at dinner. Funny. Even funnier at the family attempt to throw it down in 20 minutes, bacon and all!

I had a Hair Dr. appointment which threw timing off a hair (ha). I needed to stop and buy bacon. Meanwhile, home was calling. I screamed out orders. Unstack the dishwasher... "uh, dad is doing that". Ok, I screamed, start making the waffle batter. And Elie took charge and whipped up the mix. Ok, we're in Belgium, but we're taking shortcuts. We're Americans, people! Whipped up a few "to-go" orders and the girls were on their way to Southeast Polk for swim practice....if only my night were now going to relax a bit....I indulged on a waffle myself. I even added a little crunchy peanut butter to take me back to my childhood where my mom served us breakfast for dinner on occasion. What a great memory I have of eating waffles for dinner. Comfort at its best.

Well, it wasn't quite time for a "Calgon" moment. I took off for Valley High School to volunteer in concessions. So the buzz when I arrived was that the sophomore game had gone over their normal play time. Which pushed the girls varsity back. Which pushed the boys varsity back. Which pushed my 8:30 completion into 10:00 pm. Overtime. I left before the game was over. Valley won! Tuesday. Crazy. I wish Saturday was going to greet me in the morning.

Let us not forget that Christmas is two weeks away...no worries...eat waffles...Happy is.

Mojo Missing?

We served up what is considered the National dish of the Philippines this week. It gets its name from the Spanish, Adobo...meaning marinading in vinegar and garlic. Evidently it has something to do with when the Spanish conquered the Philippines in the late 16th century. That's as far as my story goes.

I'm really losing my mojo this month. It's been quite blurry, I must say. Just keeping up with the daily household is enough to keep me crazy. Now top it off with a VERY busy work life (I know, not complaining about the thing that feeds us) and added holiday craze and you've got a slightly crazy old lady. We don't even have our cheap chocolate advent calendar yet and we're 8 days into the countdown!!!! I missed the 1st Sunday of Advent at church for crying out loud. Talk about Catholic guilt pouring out of me.

Ok, I'm done with the soap box. I'm the cup half full kind of girl, really. So, I'm thankful that I may have talked Elie and her friends into doing my holiday baking this year. How perfect for a bunch of 13 year olds who have taken "Foods" class at school to come in and whip a few things up. This idea was prompted by the cookie bake-off that occurred in our house last night. 4 girls, two recipes. Blindfolds. The cookie with the best chocolate won! You really CAN tell the difference in a chocolate chip.

We're heading to Iowa City today for a swim meet. Very excited for our road trip, all five of us. Alone. Spending the day together.  I'm half tempted to have everyone turn in their phones to me. But I know that won't happen. Andy won't abide by the rules since he's always dealing with truck drivers. Oh well, it's going to be a golden day. I never thought I would get to a place where spending a simple day with the girls seems like such a gift. It makes me pause. Life is so short. Pausing for the simple things is so much more rewarding than money could ever buy.  I'm going to enjoy my girlies and my guy today and tune out the bickering that may occur along the way. I didn't say life was perfect:)  Happy is.


Filipino Adobo Pork
Ingredients
3 -4 lbs pork (cut in 2-inch cubes) or 3 -4 lbs chicken (cut into serving pieces)
1/2 cup vinegar
1/2 cup soy sauce
Fresh ginger (which I forgot!)
1 cup water
2 -3 bay leaves, crumbled
2 teaspoons peppercorns (whole)
4 garlic cloves, crushed 1 medium onion, chopped
3/4 teaspoon ground pepper 2 teaspoons salt (optional)


Directions

1. Combine all of the ingredients in a slow cooker. (suggest tying the spices into a cheesecloth to so that you get the flavor but don't bite into the peppercorns while you eat the dish - a stainless tea ball works too. Do whichever please you).
2. Allow meat to sit at room temperature for at least 15 minutes. 
3. Cook on high for 3 hours or on low for 6 hours until pork or chicken is done (time depends on your slow cooker). 
4. Serve with rice.

Please Pass the Pancit, Pam.

It feels good to be back on our tour again. Typical Monday night for us. Swimming and dance. I decided to drop Katy off and spend a little alone time at the mall, scouring opportunities vs. going home to prepare dinner. It was a marginal success. I'm chipping away at the holiday shopping, trying not to get stressed out. I only dipped into a little stress at Younkers when there was nobody there to help me. I swear I waited nearly 3 minutes before I became irritated. I was ready to pull out my old Younkers employee badge and charge to the back room to find my own shoe size! Ok, so I'm busted. I saved my ID badge after quitting Younkers 21 years ago. It was such a great picture of me:) I couldn't resist. I'm wondering if I could flash it in the store today or if they would have me escorted out? I may have to try it in my mature age....

We are dining in the Philippines this week and tonight we enjoyed Pancit which is really defined as "Noodles" in Filipino cuisine. Pancit was introduced by the Chinese, meaning something cooked fast. Now we're talking my kind of meal! It was a really simple meal to prepare. I had fed the girls Caesar Salads before swimming and now was out to whip up a hot meal for them to come home to after swimming. I will admit, it was a little late to start cooking (after 8pm) but the recipe had the word "quick" in it so I thought no problem.

I thank Andy now for making this meal quick. He quickly became my Su Chef, slicing onion thinly, oh and the cabbage too. I tossed in the already chopped matchbox carrots and pulled the chicken off the bone from my store bought Rotissouri. He then sliced the chicken too. I had purchased Rice Stick noodles which look like hay and soaked them in water. The recipe was overly simple so I'm not sure if that was the correct noodle or not but it ended well and the girls all raved over the success of healthy cooking.

All in all solid meal. I would add more veggies next time. Too many noodles. I would up the garlic and soy sauce as well. It's going to be fun to try this again and toss whatever is in the pantry. Maybe a little Sesame Oil next time too. The cool thing is how easy this pasta toss was to prepare (with a Su Chef, anything is easy:). I love my 1990s Wok. Happy is.

Quick and Easy Pancit

1 (12 ounce) package dried rice noodles (the bag I used said 7 oz. which makes me think my noodles were different)
1 teaspoon vegetable oil (I would add a Tablespoon)
1 onion, finely diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups diced cooked chicken breast meat
1 small head cabbage, thinly sliced (only used 1/2. Would add the entire thing next time)
4 carrot, thinly sliced
1/4 cup soy sauce (I added a few Tablespoons more)
2 lemons - cut into wedges, for garnish (didn't do this)

Directions

1.  Place the rice noodles in a large bowl, and cover with warm water. When soft, drain, and set aside.
2. Heat oil in a wok or large skillet over medium heat. Saute onion and garlic until soft. Stir in chicken cabbage, carrots and soy sauce. Cook until cabbage begins to soften. Toss in noodles, and cook until heated through, stirring constantly. Transfer pancit to a serving dish and garnish with quartered lemons.