Salad........everyday

I applied to host yet another house party event. This time it is for salad dressing and one of the things I did in the process was to write about the salads I make. So here is a snippet into my salad making habits. Writing it makes me want to go make a pasta salad right now! I love to cook elaborate meals and I LOVE setting an impressive table. However, in between these feats of feasting, I really just want something quick and easy and healthy. I try to always have a fresh veggie salad and fruit salad ready in the fridge, because otherwise it is much to easy to reach for something that is less healthy and we eat a lot more fresh fruit and veggies when I do this than on the days where I did not take the time. The wonderful thing about this is that if my all-veggie salads start to look like they are getting to old they can be tossed in the freezer and added next time I make soup. This way salad is never wasted. I love nuts, dried and fresh fruit and seeds as an option to change things up for toppings to mix in with the salad. Typical ingredients for a salad at my house would be red cabbage, some dark leafy greens such as spinach, shredded carrots, red, yellow, or orange bell peppers unless we have the pleasure to get hold of some purple ones. It really just comes down to what is in season and how much room I have left in the bowl, for example right now i have a portebella mushroom in the fridge so it will either be used in the next salad or soup unless I suddenly feel like making coking something that happens to need one of those. I always have more veggies ready to go. I know a lot of people do well with making meal plans for the whole week but for me it is better to just stock up on fresh produce until the fridge is overflowing and just make sure it all gets eaten or frozen and I almost always have what I need for what ever I feel like making. Thinly sliced summer squash or soybeans can give it a nice crunch, sometimes we will add tomatoes, most of the time we just eat them by them selves though because we love them so much and they tend to make the salad go bad faster. There are really very few things I will not add to a salad, but I do try to avoid iceberg lettuce if at all possible, it just seems like such a waste of the space in your stomach. If we really want the salad to be the only meal we sometimes add cheese or meat or even bacon. I love pasta salad and I love having good dressings around for those. Some cooked noodles, finely sliced veggies and a good dressing and quick as a fox, you have a perfect side dish. If I have had company coming and I worry I will not have enough food i have made a super quick and very popular version that basically just consists of a can of black olives, a can of artichokes, half a bottle of vinaigrette and some noodles.

Mexican Tortillas and Enchiladas with Patty

These videos are especially for my awesome family and friends in Denmark who have been asking me to either send them Mexican food or to tell them how to make it. The problem with mailing Mexican food is that it will go bad (heh) or that a  can of enchilada sauce and a stack of tortillas would be very expensive to mail considering how heavy they are. So that brings me to the second request. Tell them how to make it.....hhhmmmm....that requires me to KNOW how to make it from scratch. Yea, so that is a problem as well so I decided to go to an expert if you will, because that just makes a whole lot of more sense. So I have to tell you that this was yummy!
Patty is this fantastic lady that I have gotten to know and she was such a good sport! And I got to stuff my face with crazy good food! I still do not know how to make the corn tortillas but I think it would work with the flour ones as well even though she says not to.......hhmmmm..... anyways. Maybe I can convince her to teach me how to make salsa as well! She actually also shows how to make refried beans in this here fantastic educational experience of a video sequence! Enjoy and please ask questions!

The smell of Warm Bread

Sometimes it is the very simple things that makes you feel happy 

For some reason These jars of homemade bread machine mixes makes me all warm and fuzzy inside, so much that I'm smiling like a new mama just typing this post.

Don't you just love they layers of flour, and sugar and salt? So pretty! 

I have many empty masonry jars and have for a long time been itching to use them. I got an influx in my heard of jars this summer (thanks again Janet) and the itch turned into something more violent. I have reactivated my bargain hunting for a pressure cooker that is tall enough to fit the big jars and when I happily stumbled upon a dream of a clearance sale last month I suddenly had all this fantastic flour that Had been to expensive before. One of the packages i brought home was a bread machine mix. That is when I realised that my jars could be put to good use without the pressure cooker. 

I did a quick online search and found this helpful site. I took the white bread mix and experimented by replacing 1 cup of the plain flour with a random mix of some of my other flours that i had sitting around the house. I worked out pretty well. It was so nice to have the home made bread. Much cheaper than getting it from the store. Better tasting than my other frugal bread strategy. i normally go to the day old bread store. Stock up big time. Get a nicer brand than we can normally afford for less than the store brand at HEB and Freeze about 12 loaves. The problem with that is that they tend to get freezer burned and that my freezer is often full when I find a really good deal on meat or frozen pizza or some other ready to eat thing and I really like having the space for those things. Having the freezer space is one of the main reasons I've been wanting to put things like stew in jars in the first place. 

So far i have only been making the same mystery mix but I think i would like to test some other recipes soon. I have an abundance of rye flour that I'm very excited to use. I found this great site last night, it might be worth trying them out. I might also branch out and make some cake and cookie mixes. we'll see. First I have to find some cake mix recipes i really like.

I need ideas

Every one knows how much I love a god deal. I just got back from H E B and found these babies on clearance for 59 cents. I just love it when i can get nice products, especially without all that extra junk added to it, for less than one dollar a pound, so I of course cleaned out the shelf space for them. I cook with onions on a regular basis, but I have never used these fancy small ones before. This is when you my wonderful readers come into the picture. Please tell me what you like to cook with your white Perl onions, I need your good ideas.

Leave a comment, lave a comment, leave a comment pretty please!

Nappy Blob blob to me!

Have you ever read cakewrecks ? 

It is a fantastic humor blog about professionally made cakes. I have read every single post on that blog and that is a lot!

My Birthday cake this year was actually made by Jed! 

This is a lovely cakewrecks tribute cake. It has non coordinating colors. spelling and grammar mistakes. Misunderstood inscriptions and references to featured wrecks from the blog and that sweet personal touch of my own cake mistakes as well.

Let me explain. Or, I will let Jen from cake wrecks explain the nappy blob blob part here.

The second line on my cake is the traditional "decorator writing down the instructions on the cake" issue  

Then the last is a reference to the year when in the mist of trying to finish Ian's birthday cake while the party was going I accidental wrote my own name on his cake. Ha! I did fix it a lot nicer than how Jed did it on this cake though. So I just glanced through cakewrecks all the way back to Feb. 16th and I could not find a single example of a cake with a different color correction but I promise they exist!

We had my party at the Dennis Family's home.

They are wonderful people who are everything anyone could wish for when it comes to friends. We are very grateful for their genuine kindness through out the years.

There was a bunch of people at the party, I'm so grateful that everyone took the time to come and celebrate.

For some reason there seems to be an open mouth theme in these next pictures,

I was really spoiled! I even got presents which I did not expect!

The very last gingerbread man.

How sad!

Saying goodbye to good friends is no fun.

The first time we went to the Smiths house we decorated gingerbread men. Ever since then it has just been something we do together. So I was very happy when Janet asked if we would like one last go.

For the last 3 years we've gotten to know and love this wonderful family and we've celebrated holidays together and just really appreciated knowing them.

Anna and Astrid getting creative.

Bennett and Ian were in the same pre-K class and quickly became great chums.

I just love this baby! Give me those cheeks!

Mothers armed with cameras and sprinkles! Be warned!

I wonder how big a percentage of the toppings actually made it unto the cookies.

And the twins. I feel bad that I never could figure out who was who!

I even got to decorate as well. Janet introduced me to Marshmallow Fondant It is soooooo delicious and fun to work with. I think I'm going to make some for the twins birthday cakes. It'll be so good. It depends on time but I'm hopeful. 

This one I took home for Jed

This one was for James

see, the clothes even matches. minus big white buttons, but still!

Garden goodness

My Garden makes me happy.

The kids take turns helping me make dinner. This time it was Ian's turn so we walked out to the garden and picked a basked full of yummy fresh organic homegrown goodness!

These pictures are from June. The chickens have grown quite a bit since then. The black Chicken is Rosa, and even though she is now plenty old enough she is still not laying because it is so hot.

Most of the plants have slowed down production as well.

They have grown much much much bigger though.

So I'm excited for the end of October. Then it will begin to cool down and the plants will hit their second production burst.

I'm hoping to finally see some of the much anticipated Mr. Stripey tomatoes then.

I Love my little chef!

Pizza! Pizza! Pizza! Ian turns 7.

Ian had a pizza party. This was his invitation. Because I got to host a DiGiorno pizza and bread sticks party from house party
go here to join, it free!
we got all this awesome free stuff. 6 boxes of pizza, bread sticks and marinara sauce, an awesome apron, party favor necklaces, a pizza cutter, a refrigerator magnet/ bag clip, coasters and awesome coupons for everyone and it all came in a cool little pizza box

I took the next picture after I came back from walmart. I spend less that $8.- on all this goodness including 2 gallons of water not pictured. I had a lot of awesome coupons including the ones for the 6 free boxes of Pizza for the party!
This next picture is my proudest birthday cake yet. The picture does not do it Justice!
for some reason the frosting looked really shiny on the pictures. The cake is decorated with red frosting yellow shredded coconut, red died coconut mass( resembles marzipan, but made with coconut, I brought this back from Denmark) and green sprinkles for that subtle touch of perfection! It looked just like a real pizza.

Ian's friends arrived and Ian loved his presents

Ian got an awesome homemade chef hat from the Alexanders!

Abigail did not want to be documented hugging a boy! She happily received her thank you hug right until she saw the camera!

After the party was officially over it was time to play with the cool new bakugan stuff

We had a splendid afternoon chilling after the exhausting party. Enjoying our cake, pizza and bread stick leftovers.

Lego cupcakes

After Ivy baked the cake for Ian all(most) by her self

http://idasjungle.blogspot.com/2010/04/baking-cake-with-ivy-in-her-own-words.html

It was time for Ian to decorate his Lego's so he could pass them out for this birthday celebration at school.

so on with the frosting

on with the Dots candy.

very scientific process.

Ian was quite happy with his Lego's and I was very proud of my baking crew.