Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

I say this because last night our power went out just before 8 and stayed out until around 4:30 this morning.  Given that yesterday was in the high 90s in Utah, and my hubby’s sleep machine needs electricity, well…let’s just say it was a restless night.  And then the boy was up before 6, which elicited a “let’s get you back to bed” response from Mommy.  (At least it worked.  For an hour.)

Anyway.  I was DRAGGING today, and so was my poor hubby; tonight will be an early to bed night, if we can manage it!  Really, we were dragging beforehand–still catching up from the family reunion–which is why this recipe for Dad’s Baked Beans was so perfect last night.  We already had leftover grilled hot dogs from the boy’s birthday lunch with my sister’s family.  The rest of the ingredients are ones I keep on hand, and the result is hearty and tasty (and EASY).  Not as good as authentic New England baked beans, made from dry beans and with bacon and other loveliness, but one doesn’t always have time to spend three-plus hours on dinner.  (Not to mention inclination.  Even with central air, the upper 90s makes long cook times undesirable.)

So there you have it.  If you grilled too many hot dogs at your last barbecue, here’s an easy way to use them up.  Come fall I’ll post the one with the longer bake time…

Whew!  Today we got back from my hubby’s family’s family reunion–his parents and their children and grandchildren–and we are TIRED.  My oldest melted down before her (EARLY) bedtime, my middle was contrary and grumpy and disobedient, and the boy–who turned two while we were there, by the way–was hyper and into EVERYTHING.  The kiddos are now slumbering peacefully, and my hubby and I are enjoying the quiet…and looking forward to NOT sharing a room with a two-year-old tonight!

I didn’t try any new recipes at Fish Lake, of course; for our assigned meal, we stuck a really, really large pork roast into two crockpots (initially and unsuccessfully) and then three crockpots, poured in some BBQ sauce, and called it pulled pork.  (I realize any Southern BBQ experts are shuddering, but we were feeding 38 people (only one family didn’t make it) and we were EXHAUSTED (the 2-year-old did not sleep well).  With thin slices of medium cheddar that pork made very decent sandwiches, although once again I was reminded that the family in which I grew up and the family into which I married eat very differently.  (My siblings and I once swept a pudding eating contest, each of us being in a different age group.  My hubby’s family, well…let’s just say that we will be eating the rest of the pulled pork until the END OF TIME.)

Hmm.  Maybe I should go easier with the caps lock from here on out?

Anyway, I did manage to finish two books there, although only because I had 15 pages left in the first one when we got there and the second was incredibly short.  The first was A Wizard of Earthsea, which I remember hearing about as a teenager; at the time it was part of a trilogy (to which the author has now added), and the middle book is a Newbery Honor book.  My hubby bought me the trilogy years ago, and I decided that now was the time and committed myself to the first one.

It did take me longer to get into than I wanted it to, but that’s because I just don’t read much high fantasy anymore.  Historical fiction and/or coming of age novels are my passions, and I find it harder and harder to let myself sink into an imaginary world.  That said, it’s a tribute to Ursula Le Guin that I finally did manage to lose myself in it, and overall all it was a good book.  Le Guin’s writing style was certainly strongly influenced by Tolkien, but her plot was not at all a lesser copy of The Lord of the Rings, for which we can all be grateful.  (I LOVE Tolkien–there go the caps again!–but I don’t want to read someone else’s watered-down attempt at a similar story.  I made it 50 pages into one of the Shannara books before throwing it down in disgust.)  There is a lot of sailing in A Wizard of Earthsea, which surprised me more than it should have (I didn’t pick up on the EarthSEA?).  Ultimately, however, you could also call it a coming of age novel, which probably (partly) explains why I enjoyed it at the last.  We’ll see how I like the next one in the series.

The incredibly short book I finished was called The Year of Goodbyes, by Debbie Levy, and it’s a kind of cross between a verse novel and a documentary novel (if you don’t know what I mean by that, take a look at Deborah Wiles’ Countdown, which is a fabulous book).  The author’s (Jewish) mother escaped Hamburg the year before WWII started, and the book combines her friends’ entries in her poesiealbum (a kind of autograph book) and her journal entries with her daughter’s blank verse descriptions of what she was feeling at the time.  It sounds like the two worked together fairly closely, and the result is a poignant little book that tells a slightly different sort of Holocaust survival story.  If the topic interests you, it’s worth your time.

And that is that.  I am SO DREADFULLY TIRED–I refuse to feel guilty about those caps–and I am desperately looking forward to bed.  I hope you all had a fabulous Fourth of July!

I’m going to be too busy with family to post for a few days, so I shall leave you with this Buttermilk Cocoa Cake.  It’s gooey and yummy and delightful, and you frost it warm, which is fabulous.  (I really hate waiting for a cake to cool, not to mention that it’s liquid-y frosting that then sets, so you pour it on without having to try and spread it to make it look pretty.  Have I mentioned that I’m stronger on taste than aesthetics?) My sister and her kids came over for an early birthday lunch for my youngest (it was the only time that worked), so we served this up complete with candles (he seemed kind of traumatized).  I left out the pecans, since I prefer my oldest to be, you know, alive, but otherwise I always follow the recipe and it tastes fabulous every single time.  Enjoy!

Since my brother-in-law and his family got into town from California yesterday, we went up to Sunday dinner at my in-laws; since my phone has issues with receiving certain kinds of texts, I called to ask for a food assignment kind of last minute and ended up with dessert.  (We love dessert. I may eat differently than my in-laws in a lot of ways, but we all love dessert.  There were four different kinds of bars available.)  I was going to make the Reese’s Pieces bars that I posted here, but the Reese’s Pieces were mysteriously and seriously depleted, so I went with these Chocolate Chip Oreo Cookie Bars–and let me tell you, no one regretted that choice.  They were TASTY.  I only made one change–I don’t particularly care for milk chocolate chips, so I used semi-sweet–and I was happy with it; semi-sweet might have been overpowering if there had been a ton in there, but as it was, I thought they were perfect.  I am a little on the fence about the cooking time; I had to bake them longer because they were SO gooey in the middle still, and I think upping the temperature slightly might fix that.  (I suspect an altitude problem.)

Altitude aside, however, I loved them.  They were the perfect mix of buttery goodness and chocolate/Oreo bliss, and I would have had more than I did if my sisters-in-law hadn’t also brought carmelitas, smores bars, and strawberry cheesecake bars.  (It was a good dessert day.)  I was quite sad not to have leftovers…

If Number the Stars had a little sister, this would be it.  This poignant picture book also takes place in Denmark, and it also portrays Jews being smuggled by boat to Sweden and safety; both books are even based on true events.  In The Whispering Town, Anett’s family is caring for a small Jewish family in their cellar until a boat can take them to Sweden.  We see Anett whisper of their new “friends” to the baker, and the librarian, and the farmer, and carry home extra bread, and library books, and eggs as a result.  Each time she leaves her home she sees Nazi soldiers knocking on someone else’s door, looking for Jews–until they finally knock on hers.  How they manage to get their “friends” to safety anyhow makes for a lovely story of a community coming together to help those in need.  I cried, of course; motherhood has made me weepy in that way.  Then again, how could you not cry?  Stories like Number the Stars and The Whispering Town explain why over 99% of Danish Jews survived the Holocaust.  At a time in history when America turned away Jews by the boatload and some small-town Christians were only too happy to pick up their pitchforks and join in with Hitler’s mission, one country managed to evacuate 7,220 of its 7,800 Jews safely; Denmark also interceded on behalf of the 464 Danish Jews who were deported to Theresienstadt.  Such a story deserves to be told–and retold.

I read this to both my girlies.  My oldest, who is 7 1/2, was fascinated and ready to help those in trouble herself.  My shy and sensitive (and timid) middle was scared by the idea and very snuggly by the end of the book.  She’s almost 5, and I actually think it was as much a personality reaction as it was age; all the same, the inside cover suggests ages 7-11.  You’ll have to make the decision for your children, of course, but please, give this one a try when you think they are old enough.  You’ll be glad you did.

That’s exactly what Mel’s Honey Mustard Chicken is.  And if all of your family happens to like mashed potatoes, it should be a crowd-pleaser.  (I believe we’ve discussed how this is not so much the case at my house; at least my oldest was happy.)  The chicken is moist and tender–even if you are, ahem, too lazy to actually baste–and the sauce is buttery and honey-y and has that lovely bit of tang from the mustard.  Just a bit, though–my kids aren’t mustard fans, and none of them have problems with the chicken.  (They also scarfed the broccoli on the side.)  You can serve this with rice as well, but I like the potatoes, even if the younger ones don’t.  The sauce isn’t the healthiest in the world, what with the third of a cup of butter and all, but it’s SO tasty.  Go give this one a try–you’ll be glad you did!

That pretty much sums up The Night the Bells Rang, by Natalie Kinsey-Warnock.  It’s a lovely little story about a Vermont family during America’s involvement in World War I, and while its simplicity doesn’t allow for boundless detail, it nevertheless managed to draw tears from me at the end.  I struggled slightly with Mason’s treatment of his brother for much of the book, but it was probably realistic, and I was ok with the way it was ultimately handled.  The entire book, of course, made me homesick for New England, but what can I say?  When I read about old time New England farm life, I have an incredible yearning to experience the beauty and simplicity of it…until I remember how much I like being clean, how much I hate the smell of manure, and how much I prefer to have time for myself after the necessary chores are done.  (All the same, I never tire of reading about it.)

Again, this one’s really short–76 pages, including many full-page illustrations–but I found it worth my while.  Give it a try!

That pretty much sums up Allan W. Eckert, author of Incident at Hawk’s Hill (a 1972 Newbery Honor book).  It was an interesting book, to say the least; a six-year-old with an affinity for animals spends two months lost on the Canadian prairie, cared for by a badger who has recently lost her young.  According to Eckert, it’s a slightly fictionalized account of an actual incident, which is incredible but not impossible (truth being absolutely stranger than fiction).  He does a good job portraying the boy’s parents and their conflicting worries for their son, although the third person omniscient gives the whole book a certain detached feel.  (You can tell that, in writing the book, he’s simply taking his observations of nature one step further.)  He also, however, exhibits a certain tendency to give a little more information about the habits of wildlife than a true novelist would.  I was interested in the statistics on prairie dog towns, actually, and I looked up ‘spermophiles’ because I was curious–it’s a genus of ground squirrels, by the way–but I’m not so sure that the average young reader will be (interested and curious, I mean).  To be fair, the plot might still draw them, and there’s certainly action.  It also moves fairly quickly, extra details not withstanding.  (I loved Atlas Shrugged, but Ayn Rand could have taken a lesson or two from this guy.  That 50-page radio speech just rehashed everything the previous 900 pages had covered already.)  Overall, then, I’d recommend it to anyone with a decent interest in wildlife–or North American western history.

I know I’ve already posted one taquito recipe on here–although not a typical one–but I’ve got a few more I enjoy.  Tonight my friend and I fed 9 kids (mine and hers and two extras), and we opted to make these Baked Creamy Chicken Taquitos for the crowd.  We doubled the recipe and used the breast meat from a Costco rotisserie chicken, which made it decently easy.  We also used regular Monterey Jack instead of Pepperjack, because a)I don’t like Pepperjack and b)I don’t do spicy.  The only other real change we made was using fresh cilantro instead of dried, because we had it, so why not?  (To substitute fresh herbs for dried, you use triple the amount of dried that it calls for.)  And of course, whole wheat tortillas, because slightly more filling is always better, right?  Anyway…

I do really enjoy this recipe.  I love rolling fillings into flour tortillas because they don’t crack if you, you know, BREATHE.  You don’t have to baby them in the microwave with damp paper towels, or fry them in oil and add unholy amounts of pure fat to the recipe; you just roll and set them on the pan and you’re done.  (It’s not that I don’t love homemade enchiladas, but there’s a reason why I don’t make them very often.  Corn tortillas are beastly to roll.)  I also love baking instead of frying.  It’s not that I object to eating my fair share of lovely fried goodness, mind you; it’s just that deep frying things myself focuses my mind a little too clearly on the oil involved.  It’s easier for me to deal with when I don’t have to actually look at it.  (Incidentally, I’m also still traumatized by how long my kitchen stank after the homemade onion ring experiment.)  And, yes, the healthy matters when it’s just an everyday dinner.  I try to space out the ‘you’ll die happy’ kind of recipes.

If you’re worried about rolling them, don’t be.  It gets routine after a time or two.  And don’t stress about using the exact amounts per tortilla that it calls for.  I usually end up using half as many tortillas as the recipe tells me I’ll need, and no one complains about how they taste.  I mixed salsa and ranch to dip them in, while most of the kids used plain ranch, but they were more or less enjoyed by all.

Go ahead.  Take the taquito plunge.  You’ll be glad you did!

Seriously.  I don’t even use my crockpots as often as you’d think.  (And yes, that was plural.  I have three, of varying sizes; all three have been gifts.  I’m not complaining.  It’s nice to have the right size for a recipe.)  My oldest used to have texture issues with crockpot chicken, and, well, whatever.  The point is that while I can go months without using any of my crockpots, I’ve been really enjoying them lately.  Last night I made one of my staples, Mel’s Pineapple Salsa Chicken, which never fails to please…well, except for the middle, who doesn’t care for anything that might be construed as Mexican food.  Ah, well.  The rest of us are fans, and it’s beautifully easy.  You can make it as is, which is perfectly fine, or you can make it the way I do, which is not radically different, but here goes.

1)I don’t drain the pineapple.  The first time I made it I missed that step, decided I liked it just fine, and never bothered.  I also don’t bother draining off the liquid, but then, I like to err on the side of moist.  I have dry mouth issues.

2)I add 2 T of brown sugar to bring out the sweetness a bit.  This is optional, of course.  I’m not even sure how noticeable it is.

3)I add an extra can of black beans and only use 5 chicken breasts, unless they’re on the small side.

There you go!  I always serve it with chips, salsa, sour cream, chopped tomatoes, cheese, and olives.  The kids and I eat taco salads with crushed chips as a base.  My hubby adds his toppings to the crockpot mixture and scoops it with the chips.  Either  way, it’s a winner, and it makes enough for two dinners plus.  It also freezes beautifully.

Need I say more?