April 20, 2010 Yay for the giveaway winners! Yay for Lily and Jessie AND me . . . our Goodbyns arrived! They were waiting for me at work this morning. Woot. I love, love the colors! Yes, the "colors", I bought the slate color for me instead of the ghost or charcoal. Believe it!
Stayed tuned, because I plan to give away two more Goodbyns over the summer, just in time for the fall semester!
Lesle
April 18, 2010 It's all happening Sunday this week. Jamie was feeling under the weather and I never got out of the house to go grocery shopping . . . as it stands at 9:00 AM this Sunday morning, I'm running behind, so we'll see what I can get done.
:fingers crossed:
Sunday Brunch (or maybe just a snack)
Sunday Dinner
Shopping List
I love that our kitchen is filling up with the basics, allowing our shopping list to shorten. Emy and I are out the door to go grocery shopping!
Lesle
April 12, 2010 I had just as much fun this week as last . . . though I wasn't as confident that the kids would go for my dinner choices. They ate the leek pie up though. And, of course, they loved the pie crust. But then again, a pie crust would have to be pretty yucky for people not to like it.
The French Leek Pie is definately a do again. It's pretty easy to put together, I think I probably just need to cook it a bit longer in my oven then what the recipe calls for.
The only leeks I could find at the store were gargantuan, so we used the leftovers on Sunday night's dinner of pizza. The kids didn't even notice, they ate them right up. As well they should have because they were sweet and delicious!
Sunday morning I gave the Scottish Bannocks a go. They didn't have much flavor, which I will try to remedy with more brown sugar next time . . . but they were a very filling platform for some cream cheese and strawberry preserves.
This cooking challenge is getting kinda fun!
Lesle
April 10, 2010 Shopping List
Fresh Vegetables
Miscellaneous
Baking Supplies
Dairy
April 10, 2010 Saturday
Sunday
I'm really looking forward to this weekend's dinner . . . especially the dessert!
Lesle
April 5, 2010 I guess it's a success to me if I don't burn anything and the kids actually eat it. And that happened with this week's cooking challenge. Yay me! Emy and I did the grocery shopping early Saturday afternoon, and then I got started in the kitchen while Jamie took the kids for a dip in the pool.
I really felt slow, and it seemed like I had to read over the recipes several times before I felt comfortable starting. But Jamie reassured me that, considering I cooked everything from scratch . . . it didn't actually take me long at all. Eh, yeah, okay . . . but I'm hoping to get more comfortable in the kitchen so things go a little quicker.
I think my favorite part of the dinner were the Brasilian Cheese Bread. They were truly delish, and incredibly easy to make. So much so, that we quickly whipped another batch in the blender on Sunday. And they are definitely something that will be made on a regular basis in our home.
I loved that the kids actually ate their dinner without scrunching up their noses in distaste. The carrot cake was a hit with Max, even though he didn't think he would like it.
And come Sunday morning, I woke really intimidated about making the breakfast pizza, well, the crust anyway. Which, if you think about it, it's really a weird thing to worry about considering there's nothing to it . . . just flour, water, and yeast. Go figure. But lucky for me, it turned out well.
So while there are a few things I will change when I use these recipes again, they were for the most part really good and I think the first week of my cooking challenge was a great success.
Lesle
April 3, 2010 Spicy Orange-Glazed Drumsticks with Green Beans
SHOPPING LIST
Fresh Vegetables
Miscellaneous
Baking Supplies
Dairy
Meat
March 31, 2010 Saturday
Sunday
I'm kind of excited actually . . . and scared.
I know I'm always telling my mom and Jamie to not take it personally if the kids don't eat their food. But I'm sure if they snub their noses at me, I'll be devasted. LOL Just kidding . . . sorta.
I think now is the time to start teaching them about when it's appropriate to fib to their mother. Just saying . . .
Lesle
March 31, 2010 If I needed something to kick me in the rear to get back on the bandwagon with our bento lunches, then blog hopping to Fed Up with Lunch: The School Lunch Project did the trick.
Some of these lunches look flat out disgusting.
I know my kids enjoy buying lunch from school, and I think our school does okay for the most part. But I've had lunch with them on several random occasions over the years and was slightly disturbed by what was on their tray. I'd rather have a happy meal from McDonald's than even contemplate whatever it is that they call lunch.
I think it's a misconception too that kid's don't care. Haven't generations of children been complaining about cafeteria food? We did when we were in school, but to be honest with you, the food I ate was much better than what they are getting now.
Yeah, it's time to work on those bento menus.
Lesle
March 30, 2010 This weekend I finally saw Julie and Julia . . . a movie about Julie who challenged herself to prepare all of Julia Child's recipes from Mastering the Art of French Cooking
I was so intrigued, I decided to challenge myself to something similar. Similar. Not the same thing.
I'm only going to attempt to cook one day a week. It's not much, but I think it's enough for Jamie to be happy with me finally helping in the kitchen. Plus, I plan to use a variety of recipes that I spy on the web, or in some of the many cookbooks that I have bought over the years because I thought they were pretty.
So this blog is going to turn into my food blog, not solely focusing on our bento lunches . . . because, let's face it . . . it rarely focuses on our bento lunches. It's more likely to just sit here and wonder why I ignore it so.
And just for the record, the kids have been going to school with lunches almost every day, but we kinda fell into a slump with the same old, same old. I think. Actually Jamie has been doing all the menu planning and shopping and lunch making so I really just eat what I'm told to eat.
But that gets boring after a while, and I know Jamie loves to cook, so I need to help more. Because this is definitely an interest we can share, and it'll probably be a lot more fun for both of us if we make it our kitchen instead of just his.
And maybe our bento lunches will get interesting again.
So I'm looking for recipes for this weekend. And I've found a couple already that I want to try. The first is for our Saturday morning breakfast. A Breakfast Pizza from Smitten Kitchen. It looks delish, and it didn't really look that hard. :fingers crossed:
So now I need an entree and a side and a dessert for dinner Saturday night. But in the process of searching for those dishes, I came across this recipe for Brasilian Cheese Bread from Simply Recipes. Brasilian? Cheese? Bread? I'm game!
I'll list the other recipes as I come across them.
Lesle
