This Week in Photos (again)

I don’t feel like I accomplished much this past week beyond making the bed every day and keeping up with dishes. I did do a massive amount of laundry mid-week. The boys were out of underwear, so…

Last Sunday was a gorgeous day and I spent part of the afternoon working on the east side of the garage. Years ago I made a small flower bed there, but it’s been sadly neglected. The mulberry tree was cut down last fall, so now I can get in there and put in some new color with flowers. The bleeding heart at the far end is just lovely, and there is lily of the valley all over in there. Also, lots of little trees that are the bane of my existence.  Anyway, this bed is where I’ll be using empty wine bottles. You’ll just have to stay tuned for that!

The boys just cannot keep away from their baby sister, and she loves the attention. Well, most of the time. Silas asked me to snap a pic while he snuggled Layla.

On Monday evening I went outside to grab the stroller and bring it in, and this is what I found on the front porch. I think my heart is going to explode, these boys fill it up so full. Yes, they duct-taped dandelions to the house. They know Grammy likes flowers by the front door.

  

Bradley and Layla are checking out the baby TV channel together. Yes, for a few minutes each morning, she gets to watch TV. Grammy has things to do.

Whenever the boys are here for supper on Tuesdays, we have Mexican food and call it “Taco Tuesday” (thank you, Lego Movie). I asked Silas what we should have this week and he asked for “regleear” (regular) tacos, salad, worms, and butterflies. I did not bat an eye, and he got what he asked for. For the worms, we made “zoodles” using a zucchini and a little gadget I have that looks like a vegetable peeler, but makes long shreds instead. I did a quick sauté with a little olive oil, salt and pepper, and we had our worms. (I made everyone take some. Grampy buried his one zoodle in the bottom of his taco.) For the butterflies, we took some sugar cookie dough from the freezer and Silas made butterfly-shaped cookies for dessert.

 

The weather was perfect all week long, and Jess took the kids to the park each afternoon when she got home from work. Miss Layla has graduated from being strapped in her car sea on the stroller, to sitting in the seat. She loves walking to the park now that she can see all the cool stuff around her!

When I could, I worked on this project. I spent most of Wednesday afternoon cutting out all the little pieces, and now have begun to sew. More on that project as it nears completion. That is my mom’s sewing machine, so I’ve had it 18 years. I have no idea how old it was when I got it, but suffice to say, it has lived a good long life and is about to be retired.

            

So there you go - a small slice of life here on the prairie. Complete with duct taped flowers and worms for supper.

 

Campfire Cookin’

We don’t camp, but do appreciate a nice campfire, so a few years ago we got a small fire pit for the yard. It only gets used a few times in the summer and fall, but it’s nice to have for s’mores when the craving hits.  A couple of weeks ago when my nieces were visiting, we let the kids make their own campfire meal packets for supper and Greg cooked them on the fire pit.

I sliced up some bell peppers, onion, carrot, baby gold potatoes, added some fresh broccoli and shredded cheese. The chicken breasts were just seasoned with some Misty’s all-purpose seasoning blend (which is DELICIOUS). Each person assembled their own packet, including whichever of the veggies they desired with some chicken, a little drizzle of olive oil and some salt and pepper.

The cheese was good, but really needed to be added after the packet cooked. Most of it cooked away and just stuck to the foil. We wrapped each of them and they wrote their name on the foil, then Greg tucked them into the fire. They took about 20-ish minutes to get the potatoes done. Everything else was very done by then, but it was moist and flavorful. Everyone enjoyed them and the kids ate all their veggies that night.

Greg enjoyed that meal so much that he requested we do veggie packets for our 4th of July supper. For that night, we had potatoes, bell peppers, mushrooms, zucchini, onions, and radishes. No meat in the foil since Greg grilled steaks. He cooked the packets on the grill as well. Those were good, but when the veggies cook with the meat they’re a bit more sumptuous.

Of course s’mores will always be the go-to campfire food for us – if there’s fire, there must be marshmallows…

 

Pantry Challenge

Just a couple of days into the challenge and I’m already making a mental grocery list. LOL. Actually, I still need to do an inventory of the freezers and pantry, but won’t get to do that until the weekend since the grandboys are here a few days this week. Even though I don’t have the written inventory with which to write out some plans, I’ve still been pulling out the odd things to use up.

We really started this challenge on New Year’s Eve when Greg used some of the leftover Christmas prime rib to make us open-faced prime rib sandwiches for supper. He also took the last few crab legs, picked out all the meat, and made some delicious crab cakes to go along with the sandwiches. He doesn’t have a recipe for me to give you – it was a combination of a few recipes he found online. I like crab, but eating crab legs is a very labor-intensive process for a little meat, and it’s usually cold before you get much of it eaten. These crab cakes were a much more satisfying vehicle for me to enjoy that treat.

Yesterday I pulled this and that from the freezer and frig for lunch for the grandboys, then while Silas napped, Bradley and I made muffins for snack. We used up the last of a bag of frozen blueberries, and there were a few more than the recipe called for, so we got very fruity muffins! The recipe is a basic one from my old Better Homes and Gardens cookbook I got when we were first married (31+ years ago), and is a great way to use up tiny bits of fruit.

Blueberry Muffins

1 egg

½ cup milk

¼ cup oil

2 cups flour (we used half white whole wheat, half all-purpose)

1/3 cup sugar

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup blueberries (or fruit of your choice)

Preheat oven 375°F. Beat the egg, add oil and milk. Stir in dry ingredients all at once, then add blueberries. Bake 20-24 minutes, til golden brown. Makes about a dozen muffins.

Each boy ate two whole muffins for snack and Silas ended up with a purple leg after smearing a blueberry all around.

I guess that’s one way to use them up…

 

 

Can You Bake a Pumpkin Pie Darlin’ Bradley?

My three year-old grandson Bradley loves to help in the kitchen. He’s very patient and listens to instructions, so when I heard his little voice ask, “Grammy can we bake a cherry pie?”, I was delighted to join him in the kitchen. Turns out, the day he asked that, I had no cherries, but did have a big can of pumpkin. There was pie crust in the frig that needed to be used, so we made pumpkin pie. (Truth be told, he simply wanted a vehicle for whipped cream…)

We used the recipe from the back of the pumpkin can. I like that one since it doesn’t use nutmeg – I’m not a huge fan of nutmeg in my pumpkin pie, or in much of anything else for that matter.

I always point out the recipe to him, so he knows that cooking involves reading, and we always count ingredients as we use them, two eggs, one spoonful of this, three pieces of that, and he helps measure those ingredients, so he works on math skills as well when in the kitchen.

He started by spooning the pumpkin into the bowl, while Grammy got the rest of the ingredients lined up, and of course, took some photos.

Pouring is an important skill to practice:

And using the whisk builds those large muscles, as well as remembering the difference between fast and slow stirring so it doesn’t spill over the edges…

 

Pinching the edges of the crust works those small muscles as well as practicing patience to get all the way around the pie plate.

It was a long wait while it baked and cooled, then when I handed it to him for a photo, his reaction was, “This wooks dee-wishus Grammy!”.

 

 

It WAS dee-wishus, Bradley – hey, Grammy has a job for you for Thanksgiving!