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Florida Snow Day Play Date

There was a day over Christmas break where we were on a bike ride/walk, and Blue asked, "Mom, is it winter?" I could see how being outside in shorts, tees and flip flops and sweating under the blaring sun in December could confuse a kindergartner who is learning about the seasons and has homework assignments such as, "Write three words that rhyme with snow."

I preceded to teach him the Florida seasons: Summer, Hurricane Season and Love bug Season. 

That is all.

But this conversation got in my head that we should still have a snow day this year. I even considered surprising the boys one morning with snowflakes all over the house and announcing it was a snow day and they could skip school. Except they're off so dang much as it is... and when I realized that they were getting off both Friday and Monday for MLK we picked today for our snow day and made it our play date theme.

We had four friends join us for snowman picture making, snowman snack making, and a Florida snowball fight. (Shaving cream)

But back up to last night. First we tried a little Borax snowflake experiment. You mix borax with boiling water and leave a snowflake shaped pipe cleaner dipped in. Let it sit over night, and...

We made four and hung them on cabinet knobs.

Then I tried to rope Kaden and Blue into helping me make some snowflakes. Blue made 0. Kaden made about 8. I proceeded to stay up and watched a movie and managed to make 60. 68 snowflakes wasn't quite the winter wonderland I'd hoped for, but I needed to go to bed. My archways still looked pretty.



And then after we made our snowmen, they added to the decor.

For the snowmen, we just used a circle punch and then I threw paper scraps, markers, and glue sticks on the table and they went at it.

Oh, and while they created, I had these powdered donut snowman faces for a snack.

Disclaimer: I took the time to cut nice pointy cantaloupe noses this morning, but then when I went to make the faces my noses were gone, presumably stolen and consumed by a certain three or six year old. So... these noses were much more quickly done and not as nice as the first batch.

Then we cleared the table and readied for the next mess: marshmallows, chocolate chips, and pretzel sticks which we gave to the kids and told 'em to put together and make a snowman. I demonstrated how to use the preztles as rods to hold the marshmallows together and then just let 'em play with their food.

Hey look - that's Daddy's head. (Kevin took the day off to finish the landscaping on our other house which will go on the market next week. He was gone all morning by once the snack came out he showed up. Nice, suspicious timing there, Dad.)

And then... for the grand finale the "Snow Ball" Fight.

Here were the only ones game:


Ready... Set... GO!

Toby decided to join in too! As for Gus... well, it wasn't his decision.

Is that shaving cream yummy, Gus?

I guess Blue was the funnest target, because after their cans were emptied, it was Blue who was the biggest mess!

So that's how we do snow days here in sunny south Florida. The weather even complied. We woke up to a 50 degree morning and it was probably only in the mid-60's as we played. Brrrrr! 

Pecan Bars (Let the Fall Baking Begin)

I pinned this recipe many months ago and now I am happy to report it was a successful start to the fall baking season.

Ok maybe I've already made some pumpkin muffins for breakfast and pumpkin corn muffins to go with chili for dinner one night, but that was before we had our first "cold front" (Hey, the kids wore sweatshirts one day last week. It counts!) so it didn't feel like fall then.

Fall has officially come to Florida when it's finally cool enough to turn the AC off at least two days in a row. That happened this past week. Tomorrow we are having a Potluck in the Park, the first ever attempt to get Treasure Coast Fragile X families together, and I was hoping it would be cool enough to bring my favorite cider (it's a citrus cider not apple) but nope. High of 81. That's Florida in November. Cool enough for long sleeves in the morning, but you're ready to be in shorts and a tank top by lunch. No cider. But I'm still bringing Pecan Bars.

I love a good pecan pie, but at potlucks and parties cookie and bar desserts are easier for people to take and always end up more popular than pies or cakes. Because this makes yummy pecan pie easy for these events, this recipe is a keeper for sure.

I tried my best to follow the recipe exactly, but... kids. bath-time. chaos. Also, lower budget kitchen with no stand mixer and no stand mixer paddle attachment. 

My final product was still totally yummy, (I did a little sampling during the cutting and platter placement.) so here goes how I did it.

Watcha Need:

Crust: 
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
pinch of salt (maybe 1/4 teaspoon)

Topping:
1 stick unsalted butter
1 cup packed dark brown sugar (original recipe calls for light but I only had dark in my pantry)
1/3 cup honey
2 cups chopped pecans 
(Original recipe calls for 2 T heavy cream also, and I had this on hand, but someone it totally slipped my mind to put it in!) 

Watcha Do:

Preheat oven to 350.

Cream together butter and sugar.

(Cheapo hand mixer... still gets the job done.)

Add in the flour and salt - I did this using the spatula scraper and mixed by hand until crumbly like this..

Press along bottom of pan and bake 20 minutes. Or, forget to set the timer and bake for who-knows-how-long, decide you have about ten minutes left, and set the timer at that point. (Remember, kids, bathtime, chaos...)

Meanwhile, chop your pecans, and then, at about 5 minutes out, heat up the butter, sugar, and honey in a saucepan. (I LOVE that this recipe calls for honey and not Karo syrup.) Wait to stir in the pecans in the syrup mix until just when the crust is ready.

Pour into the pan. Oh, and be sure to pour around the pan and not dump it all in the middle like I did, thinking you'll just spread it around - it stuck to the crust and pulled it up, so then I had to be super, super gentle. Kind of a pain.

Return pan to oven and bake another 20 minutes. (This time I set the timer from the start!)

Remove and let cool fully in the pan - I set my entire pan on a cooling rack so at least air can go under and heat can escape from the bottom instead of just heating up the counter and staying hot. It was fully cool in a little over an hour.

Use foil to lift up, remove foil and cut. Original recipe simply says to peel away foil... Um, how exactly when the foil is on the bottom?  I cut into slices on the foil and removed one slice at a time to my platter, then cut into bars on that.

All ready to go for tomorrow! Time to wrap in foil and hide in a high, high place so they last until the party.

What's More 4th of July than Apple Pie?

Except this is a peach pie.

Kevin's mom's bday is today and we bought her a pie pan for her present. And can you really give someone a pie pan without a pie in it? I'd meant for it to be apple, but yesterday was a crazy day and the kids were all on my last nerve and there was NO WAY I was taking them to the store. We had peaches. We didn't have apples. 

No one complained.

Which was good because I can't remember the last time I made a pie crust. Beginner's luck perhaps, but it was yummy!

Our kiddos swam and gorged (Hot dogs! They'd practically forgotten what those were in our veggie household.) with cousins at Gran and Papa's. The last one is going to bed as I type. Maybe in a few more years they'll be clued into the fact that fireworks is the big deal on this day. For now, we just like our quiet evenings... with leftovers.

Happy 4th!

Pinning Our Dinner

I've mentioned Pinterest a few times.

I like it, but I'm not obsessed.

It doesn't make me feel guilty because I'm reminded of all the things I'll never do. (Seriously, I don't care.)

Yup, Pinterest and I have a good relationship. I use it, and considering that not just my friends but strangers repin my pins and follow my boards, it appears to use me.

The best part is I was finally able to clean up my over-run list of bookmarks. I pinned the stuff I wanted to remember and cleaned that junk up.

Initially, I had my reservations. Why pin if I wasn't going to DO?

But if you know me, you know I'm a doer.  

If I've pinned it to my "dinner ideas" board there's a good chance I've made it. (Just went and looked - of the 15 dinner ideas I've pinned, I've now made 13, some more than once.)

Recently I combined two pins for our meal. As they were both veggie options, I'm not sure what was the main dish and what was the side, but you can sort that out as you like...

You're looking at Mexican orzo salad and a baked mixed veggie dish.

Both were hits, so if you'd like to try 'em here's what to do:

Here's the recipe that inspired my orzo salad, but here's what I used/did:

1 and 1/2 cups orzo cooked according to package directions.
1 finely diced green pepper
1 small red onion finely chopped
1 can black beans rinsed and drained
1 can chickpeas rinsed and drained
about 1 cup of frozen corn
fresh cilantro, finely chopped (I didn't measure, but I'd guess I used about 1/3rd of the bunch)
a splash of lemon juice
the juice from four limes
a splash of olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

I cooked the orzo, diced my pepper and onion and started to mix it all in the bowl when, oops! I realized I'd forgotten to buy limes. The original recipe said I should use 5 limes and let it chill for two hours after dumping the lime juice in! I made the rest of the salad with two hours to spare but couldn't add in the lime juice. Oh well. I poured in a little lemon juice and figured the lime juice would have to wait. I texted Kevin to bring home limes, and he did. As soon as I got them, I squeezed and poured and re-chilled my salad for maybe 20 minutes before we ate it. We loved it! This was enough for all five of us to enjoy (and every one did - yup, all three kids too) with ample leftovers.

Baked Layered Veggies

Original Recipe

Here's what you need/do:
1 T olive oil, 2 cloves garlic, 1 yellow onion, 1 potato, *1 tomato, one zucchini, **one yellow squash, 1 cup shredded Italian cheese, salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 400. Dice onion, press the garlic, saute together with the olive oil about 5 minutes.
Thinly slice the rest of your veggies. To make my dish uniform I wish I'd used a few plum *tomatoes, but I had a big fat beefsteak tomato that I sliced in half so that they were half circles. I did the same with my potato. Oh and with my yellow **squash, I used two... but only the fat part of both, I didn't see how the skinny part would work. Seriously, people I wanted my veggie heights to match up! 

Butter down a dish and dump in the garlic and onion, spread evenly on the bottom.

Layer your veggies. Here's how I did it.

Sprinkle with salt and pepper (original recipe says sprinkle with thyme too, but I didn't want to) and bake, covered in foil, 30 minutes. Take out, sprinkle with cheese, and bake another 10-15.

I instagrammed that picture of this before the cheese, before baking, and someone commented that they wouldn't make this without a mandolin slicer. I'm scared of mandolins because I've known people to do some serious finger damage with them, so just believe me when I say this wasn't so bad even without a mandolin!

And then, because I was just over achieving it that night, I made homemade strawberry ice cream, sprinkled with Oreo. Yum!

So I use Pinterest, but Kevin is committed to going to vegetariantimes.com for new recipes and thanks to his planning we've had quinoa stuffed peppers and chickpea avocado tacos this week already. Those recipes coming soon!

Splash Party!

We hosted a splash party play date this morning.

Even though it's just a play date and these are my good friends who don't give a rip, and I could just as easily throw a bag of potato chips out and call that the snacks I promised... that's not what I do.

Because what is the point of pinning an octopus made out of a pepper or mandarin orange sailboats sailing on a blue jello sea unless I eventually make such things? Pinterest has SO raised the bar.

So yes, it was a sea-themed snack table.

Those are goldfish in the small bowl and a fruit platter in a starfish shaped tray. In the middle of that was a yummy fruit dip.

To make the dip, let's call it, Sweet Almond Dip, here's what you do: In a mixing bowl beat softened cream cheese (8oz package), 1/2 cup brown sugar, a splash of vanilla extract, 1/4 cup powdered sugar, and about 2 oz of almond slices. I used a honey roasted almond slice package found in the produce section called "Almond Accents." It was a 3.5 oz bag and I used about half. 

This is good with strawberries but especially yummy with tart apples (Granny Smith) because I like the sweet and the tart together.

But a splash party isn't really about the food is it?

We just  have a kiddie pool, but I also bought a plastic snake thing that you hook up to a hose and it sprays water. But Kaden was at camp and this was just a party for the pre-school set (technically they still are - Kindergarten hasn't started yet!) so it was enough to keep them entertained.

Oh, and we kept the water balloons coming.


Here they are waiting for me to say, "Ready, set, GO!" so they can attack a new batch of balloons.

At one point I cheated and broke out a can of silly string as my ammo.

Aside from a moment when Toby threw up on me, it was all good fun. (The boy thinks he can go around and finish off everyone's juice boxes, drinking and drinking and drinking, but... he can't.)

A few more shots of the fun:

I so love summer.

Seuss Party - 3 Year Old

I love the whimsy, colors and silly rhymes of a Seuss story. The kids are right there with me. Blue would have us read Hop on Pop every day if we'd agree to it. All have loved Mr. Brown Can Moo Can You? And The Grinch (as played by JIm Carrey) is a hero in our house.

But I've never done a Seuss party. 

It was time. 

(How can this be? Our youngest thing will be three?!)

A person's a person no matter how small.

(This is a small hay wreath, plastic left on, with about 1,000 mini water balloons (or so it seemed!) pushed in with greening pins - about 8 balloons per pin. I used two boxes and a few pins from a third box but I still didn't get to the outer edges. The sign is card stock, took the Cat in the Hat pic off the internet, ran ribbon through the top and then  I pinned it into the wreath - I figure I'll just change out the sign and use for different events as needed.)

The most fun aspect of a Seuss party is the decor!

From there to here,
from here to there,
funny things are everywhere!

Grinch in the entryway! And The Foot Book is there because I had six blue foot prints taped to the floor with words: Left Foot. Right Foot. Feet! Feet! Feet! How many different feet you meet!

Just past the entryway, this "welcome" table:

The "runner" is just wrapping paper. The basket was for donations. It was nicely full by the end of the party! And on the other side we had Seuss's Happy Birthday To You as a guest book.


The message on the sign reads, "Wait, Mate! Stop, Pop! Here is the place for you to drop a birthday message or simple, "Hi," for our very special birthday guy! Write on any of the pages something Toby can treasure for ages! Just grab a pen or maybe ten (if you think you'll need a lot of ink) Then get to signing this guest book, Friend!" The pen holder is just a tin can covered with paper with ribbon around it.

Our dining room is to the left of this and there sat the dessert table!

On this table: Red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and blue cotton candy, mini chocolate cupcakes with frosting and red life savers, jello parfaits, strawberry and marshmallow kabobs, and Oreo Hat in the Cat cookies.

Runner is more wrapping paper. Stuffed Cat in the Hat was so on sale at Target I couldn't resist. Spoon holder is another tin can covered in paper and ribbon. Kabobs are also in paper-covered tin cans, the skewers are stuck into flower foam covered in tissue paper.

I couldn't get my Thing Three circles (internet image I put at 12 to a page and miraculously printed at the exactly right size for my circle punch) to stick to the cupcake paper so they just got tossed about. Oh, and the cotton candy starts to dissolve after awhile so it has to be put on at the last minute.

The red layers are just strawberry jello. The white is panna cotta as explained in this recipe. I made these throughout the day on Friday and gave each layer many hours to set. I meant to add a dollop of whipped cream to the top, but I always make this fresh and just ran out of time. Once guests start arriving I'm done. (Otherwise I could tinker and add... oh to infinity.)

Enter the kitchen. On the counter sat drinks. Just soda and well, this:

(pink lemonade and citrus seltzer)

Also on the counter was this:


Maybe the live prop idea wasn't such a good one. This poor 'lil guy didn't end up living long enough to be named. Sigh. I kinda wanted to have a gold fish too, but then Kevin told me how often the pet shop guy said we'd have to clean the bowl and just like that I'm over it.

In the breakfast nook sat the food table with red and white streamers behind and Foo-Foo the Snoo (from I Can Read with My Eyes Shut) looking on. 

Foo-Foo closer up:

The pic above her has pages from Oh the Thinks You Can Think covering what's usually there. I had an extra copy of this book so pages of it were used over other pictures in a few places in the house.

Along with Foo-Foo and food, we had a Yottle in a bottle?!

(from There's a Wocket in My Pocket.)

Menu was this orzo salad (recipe doubled), gold fish, green eggs (no ham for our veggie family), and some puff pastry spinach things from Sam's.

Streamers are the best.

Moving into the living room...

And over the tv I had some quotes, but that was it for this room because it was needed for the Kindermusik class we had. I told the instructor about the Seuss theme so she brought Seuss's ABC Book and read that too. Toby loves My Gym circle time, so I knew he would be into the Kindermusik hour we planned.

I was right.

I know he isn't smiling in these pics, but he was very intent on doing what the teacher was doing and even though it was an HOUR, I'd say, he was the one who stuck with it the best!

Blue loved it too.

So did my Mom. 

(She's holding my niece and singing, "Move on back," from Wheels on the Bus.)

Meanwhile Kaden was outside with another little boy his age.

So... onto outside fun.

It's opener out there
in the wide open air. 

We had a Splash Zone, Lorax Garden around our sand box, and a table on which I drew cats for kids to color and add hats. Oh and juice boxes and ice pops. 

(The balloons, filled with water and frozen, served as ice. On the other end of that ribbon I tied on scissors to cut the ice pops.)

Lorax Garden:

I drew The Lorax and one barbaloot.I had four bags of colored sand sprinkled around and filling three flower pots that had big, fake polka dotted gerbera daisies in them. I bought new kids gardening tools for the sand box and made six Truffula trees.  Four were made out of PVC, spray painted and held up by re-bar and two were drawn on paper and taped to the fence. All the tree top tufts were made out of tissue paper.

My nephew digging in. (This photo cred goes to his mommy!)

In the "Splash Zone" we just had a kiddie pool, water balloons and those splash-bomb water balls, bubbles, and a target made out of cardboard and spray paint mounted on the fence as a possible place to aim balloons and balls.

Toby and his cousin, Chloe. (Colton's twin sis)

And the coloring table:

I loved my little bud vases (caper jars spray painted white with red tape rings) but having water on a paper table covering wasn't the best idea because the wind blew them over.

See the spillage :-( For these cats, since I needed them mass produced, I printed up a pic, drew over it to make it darker and then traced. (All other Seuss creatures were free-hand.) Even with some wet spots, there were plenty left for coloring.

And a few final touches:

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose! 

We had come paper hats from the teacher supply store:

And even places that didn't look as I would have liked, I made it work...

(The week of the party Kevin cut these big, beautiful bushes down to nothing but sticks and then, as soon as he was done, thought, Faydra is going to kill me.... Faydra considered it, but came up with a different solution.)

I made a playlist consisting of birthday songs, music from Seussical the Musical, music from The Lorax (my kids cannot get Let it Grow out of their heads), a few Jim Carrey Grinch monologues, and rounded it out with some of our general kids music favorites. I also found, when searching for "Seuss Music," a song called Dr. Seuss by Trever Hall that I really like.

Today you are are you, that is truer than true.
There is no one alive who is youer than you!

It was a perfect Toby party. Lots of food and friends and fun, but he never really clued into the fact that all the hubbub was about him. We didn't do a candle blowing out time or have any moment where he was on the spot. We did sing "Happy Birthday" but it was at the end of the Kindermusik class, so it was just another song to him.

(another Marissa photo cred for this one)

Great day.

D and D Family Farms

This is our last produce box of our CSA season.

(CSA = Community Supported Agriculture.)

Ok sometimes we were a little over our head with the amount of eggplant we got, but I can now make eggplant parmesan and baba ganoush without referring to a recipe. My kids like (LIKE!) cabbage and brussel sprouts. I have not only learned of the existance of things like broccoli rabe and watermelon radishes, but I can now cook them too. 

If you are in St. Lucie or Martin County or heck, even Indian River and north Pam Beach, and you haven't been over to D and D farms and tasted of its bounty, then you are missing out.

Here is the final email we recieved from the farm.  I am so excited to know we'll be able to get eggs and berries next year!  

 

Dear All,

This week will be our last week of the CSA for this season. We hope you have all enjoyed this program, and thank you all for your patience as we go through our learning curve of this program. We are always trying to come up with new ways to improve our service and would definitely appreciate any feed back you would like to give, as well as any special requests as to types of vegetable for the new season.

Unfortunately due to the very slow growth of our blueberry, raspberry and BlackBerry plants we were not able to provide any this season although it looks like we will be able to around Easter of next year, (that is when they are producing berries). We thank you for your support this year, it has helped us achieve a lot, including getting additional fruit trees planted, such as peaches, apples, mangoes and avocados. These are small trees and will take a few years to start producing in any quantity, but you have to start somewhere.

In the last month we got a grant approved by the Dept of Agg, for a hoop house, which will allow us to now grow things in a controlled environment over the summer. We have also purchased a 200 foot hoop house which is being put up right now, and will house our airponic, and hydroponic growing systems that will be functioning in the next month. This will allow us to produce, 100% certifiable organic produce on an immediate basis which we will be having during the summer. If you are interested in this let us know and we will let you know when the produce is available. 

we value you as customers, and again appreciate your support, with out it we would not be able to survive the season during the current economy. Due to this we are offering special discounts to those of you that would like to sign up for the new season. If you sign up by June 30 and pay in full you get a 25% discount off the full season. There are also special discounts for those that are on subscription and easy ways to pay. Go on line to www.danddfarms.com  for full details. 

As a further service to our CSA members, we are offering you the first priority on Free Range, Cage Free Farm Fresh eggs, all produced within 7 days of delivery. These are not part of the CSA but are additional, but are available to you first before sold to our other customers. Let us know on this when you sign up if you would like to be put down to reserve eggs on a weekly basis. There will be a limit of 4 Doz per customer.

We hope to see you all again next season as returning customers, let us know one way or the other as soon as possible, even if you don't sign up right away, as we offered a two week trial on Groupon, which had an overwhelming response. Based on the response we are sure we will sell out our shares rather rapidly once they have been made available to our Groupon customers. who are also going to be offered early sign up discounts. remember space is limited in the CSA.

If any of you would like to refer friends, call us or email us for a referral code. You will get a 10% credit usable towards your CSA or produce from the Farm. Refer 10 friends for the CSA and yours is free.

Some of you have attended our Easter Celebration, and following in its tradition with a fall festival, including, G-rated haunted house for kids, games activities, a more teenage, adult haunted hay ride, pumpkin patch, sunflower maze, BBQ, bounce house, face painting etc. And then for Halloween, we may also be doing a special market with family friendly vendors, so that you have a nice safe environment to bring the kids to go trick or treating.

We will be doing a winter wonderland, for the holiday with Santa workshop, Santa Clause, festive hayrides, hot chocolate, face painting, and much more, as well as hosting our first annual Foster Children's Christmas party, where those in foster care can come and get a little more love and support from caring individuals in our community.  Did you know there are over 1000, children in Foster care at any given time in Saint Lucie, Martin and Palm Beach counties. We'll keep you posted as plans develop.

Hope you all have a wonderful summer. 

Thank you again,

Dean and Tania Bruschi Owners D and D Family Farms

Marcus, Fanny, Brian and Brooke, Grandpa Phil, Christina, Walter, "D and D Family Farms" Family

I quickly hit reply and thanked them for a great season of produce. I also volunteered my help if they needed it for their Foster Kids Christmas party.

What a fantastic part of our community.

Oh, and if you sign up for the next CSA season, and it's your first season, consider this post a referral and mention me so I can get the discount! :-)

 

It's Sprung

I know spring is here because I have friends in North Carolina and Texas that are now posting pictures on Facebook with beautiful azaleas in the background. A friend in Virginia posted landscapes with blooming Dogwoods and Empress tress. One of my best friends, also in Virginia, has the most amazing yellow Forsythia in her front yard. She just posted a family picture in front of it that included her newest addition, her two week old son. (Two weeks now, more like one week in the pic.)

Blooming Forsythia AND a newborn.

Now that's a spring picture.

I'm a little jealous.

Here in Florida, our weeds are looking healthier. 

I'm all about year-round beach weather, but it is a shame we have to sacrifice spring.

Still. I try. This week I added a little centerpiece to the table that cost me all of... nodda. (Salvaged the flowers from an old bouquet, had everything else, will need to spend a little when it comes time to replace flowers, but so far not a penny.)

Earlier this week Blue and I colored Easter eggs across our driveway.

On Thursday I sent Blue to school with three hard-boiled eggs and today he came home with this cuteness:

Also today... little colored plastic eggs at the mouth of drain pipes, corners of windows, tucked into plants...

I hosted a little play date and we had our first egg hunt.

Every egg contained spring stickers so after the hunt the kiddos could use their stickers for an Easter picture.

Toby was all about the egg collecting.

Then happily stickered it up.

This was AFTER we'd already made a heckuva mess inside using shaving cream and paint to color flowers.

My sensory seeking boy could not get enough.

He liked making a mess and painting my friend's knee.

But we did manage to get a few flowers painted.

As for the set up... I don't have a table in my breakfast nook. On purpose. I like it open. I like to put my Christmas tree there. I had extra disposable plastic tableclothes from a previous party so I just taped one to the floor in this open spot. Yes, shaving cream and paint still got on the bench seats and tile, but it wiped up fine. 

As for the how-to using shaving cream to paint. Go here.

And because it was a playdate there had to be a spread.


Mini fruit pizzas. Yum!

See? Even our food is getting more colorful :-)

Happy Spring! And happy Friday!

Orzo Salad and Broccoli Rabe

We've given up "factory farmed meat" in our household which means that 9 nights out of 10 we're eating vegetarian fare.

Last night we had an orzo salad with broccoli rabe. It was an especially good dinner and the kids even asked for seconds. (Kaden even wanted more broccoli rabe!)

The Orzo salad was inspired by something I ate at Fresh Market recently but, for the most part, I made up the recipe.

1 1/2 cup orzo cooked according to package directions
1 pint grape tomatoes cut in thirds
1 can garbanzo beans drained and rinsed
1 3.5 oz jar capers, drained
a few swirls of olive oil 
sea salt - about a teaspoon
1 1/2 lemons sqeezed
1 pressed garlic clove

Cook orzo, squeeze lemons, mix it all up, stick in the fridge till you're ready to eat it.

As for the broccoli rabe. Kevin made this because a lot of evenings these days, right when he gets home, I go out to jog.  So, if he made any variations, I don't know... but here's the original recipe:

• 1 pound broccoli rabe, trimmed
• 5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cut an X in the bottom of the stems of the broccoli rabe and place in the boiling water. Cook until tender but still firm, about 5 minutes. Drain.
2. In a large heavy skillet over medium heat, heat olive oil and saute garlic for 1 to 2 minutes. Stir in the broccoli rabe and saute 10 to 15 minutes, or until desired doneness. Dust with parmesan cheese, if desired. (Kevin forgot to do this.)

Not sure how often we'll be getting broccoli rabe in our produce box, but if possible, this will be a repeat meal in our household for sure.

Cookie Helper

Saturday morning Kevin went van shopping and took Kaden. (We have been actively looking all month, hoping to make a decision um, by today.)  Meanwhile Blue, Toby, and I had zero plans. Zip. Nodda.

Then Blue decided we needed to make cookies. 

Of course he did.

So we got out our fancy cookie cook book (I've had it for years and this may have been the first time I've used it. Usually we're just chocolate chip fans.) and chose a glazed pumpkin thing.

I've said before that I'm not big into these kinds of projects with kids, but I was good about talking him through the ingredients and the measuring and mixing. When it came time to pipe the batter onto the pan, it was a little too thick and tough so this pic is all staged, but seriously I let him help. Not just you know, stand in the kitchen and watch. 

They turned out cute enough. Next time I'll go back to chocolate chip, but the boys like them Blue and Kaden got in trouble for eating HALF THE PLATE while Kevin and I were distracted by our talk about vans.

Grrrrrrr.

(At least they have pumpkin in 'em, so they were eating their veggies, right?)