St. Patrick's Day Wrap-Up

I had a really good introduction to this post thought out.  But then I unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher.  And ate a brownie.  And then I grabbed my camera so that I could post pictures in this post.  And by the time I sat down at the computer, the good introduction to this post was lost.  Boo.  The brownie was good, at least.  More on that later.

So yesterday was St. Patrick's Day.  It's a fairly big holiday here at our house.  In fact, last week Young One was asking my husband what he thought my favorite holidays were.  He said "Christmas is her favorite.  Probably Easter or St. Patrick's Day are her next favorites."  He's not too far off the mark.  Thanksgiving ranks up there too.  I like food holidays.  Big surprise.

Back to St. Patrick's Day.  Are we Irish?  Yes.  Some of us more than others.  I'm about a quarter Irish owing to my maternal grandmother's line.  My husband is about zero Irish.  So our kids get to claim 1/8 Irish ancestry.  Was it a big deal for my family growing up?  Not that I can remember.  Of course we ate corned beef and cabbage on March 17th, but beyond that, I can't recall much in the way of celebrations.  So why do I make a big deal out of St. Patrick's Day?  Part of it is because I make a big deal out of ancestry.  I think it's important for my kids to know where they came from and who their ancestors are.  (To that extent, I'm creating a family history gallery in my dining room.  It's just in the early stages, but I'm excited about it and will post more about it when it's further along.)  But the other part of celebrating St. Patrick's Day is just for fun.

So here's how we celebrated yesterday:

I was awoken at 7:00 on a dark Sunday morning.  "Mommy!  MOOOOOmmmy!  Mom!  Mom! MomMomMomMomMom!!!  Come on!  You gotta get out of bed.  The leprechauns came and they made a huge mess and you just gotta see what they did this year!"  And with that, I was pulled from my nice warm bed, my eyeglasses were handed to me by little hands, and we went out into the hall.

Leprechauns.  Ugh.  Little monsters made my trip down the stairs interesting, to say the least:

They wrapped some type of green mesh tape over the stairs.  So groggy, pre-caffeinated me had to descend the stairs in the always popular booty-bump fashion.  The leprechauns also strung up metallic streamers everywhere (you can kind of see the streamers in the top of the photo), filled the living room floor with green and white balloons, and generally left all sorts of mischief in their wake.  Wait til you see what they did to my kitchen:

Not only did those little men in green manage to haul out my donut maker, but they also somehow found all the ingredients in the pantry necessary to make green donuts.  They must have made close to 3 dozen mini donuts, but then they left the mess to be cleaned up by someone else.  Salt spilled on the counter top, ingredients left on the counter, and (worst of all in my book) they didn't rise out their batter bowl or even put it to soak.  (This is how my kids know that I'm not the leprechaun.  They know I'd never leave a messy bowl on the counter.)

After the leprechauns made donuts, they decided they needed to take a coffee break.  They got my miniature  Irish tea set down out of the china cabinet and poured some coffee and had a few donuts.  I guess mischief making is hard work.

This is how my kids know that leprechauns are truly naughty.  Because nobody is allowed to play with my miniature Irish teapot set, let alone take something out of the china cabinet.

But at least the leprechauns were nice and left us lots of green donuts to eat for breakfast, which the kids would have done immediately if the leprechauns had not also left them golden chocolates (along with all sorts of other goodies):

Slap bracelets, green beads, pencils, twisty straws - all in a green pot the kids can plant something in later on this spring.  (Did you notice the water bottle in the background? One of the kids left that on the table the night before.  The leprechauns turned the water green.)  Typically our leprechauns leave little treats for the kids each year, ostensibly to make up for the mess they leave in the house.  Why they never leave ME any presents when I'm the one who gets to clean up 75% of the mess is beyond me.  Maybe leprechauns have mommy issues.

So my morning went well - excited children amped up on green donuts and chocolate.  Major sugar crash right before we left for church.  Awesome.  But it's a holiday.  We play by different rules on holidays.

The rest of our St. Patrick's Day celebration takes place mostly around the evening meal, which I do enjoy preparing and, well, eating.  The St. Patrick's Day meal is comfort food.  Warm.  Filling.  And no matter where you go, most corned beef and cabbage dinners don't vary much in taste.  You know you're going to get pretty much the same flavors no matter where you eat your corned beef.  In fact, I remember my first St. Patrick's meal after I became a mom.  I'd given birth just a week before and I was so sleep deprived that I could not remember my first name, let alone cook a big meal.  My husband went to the local grocery and bought me some corned been and cabbage from the deli counter.  It was awesome.  Because it tasted just like mine and -best part- I could just sit on the couch in my pajamas, sleeping baby in my arms, and eat.

So here's what we had last night for our St. Patrick's Day meal:

The main part of the meal is simple to prepare: throw your corned beef into the crock pot.  Peel and halve potatoes and put them on top of the beef.  Peel carrots, leave them whole, and put on top of the potatoes.  Pour some water (enough to have about 2-3" of water at the bottom of your crock pot) over it all.  Cover and cook on low for about 8 hours.  Two hours before your meal is done, cut a cabbage into 6 wedges.  Put them in the crock pot and re-cover, and let the cabbage cook for the last 2 hours of the cooking time.  If you put your cabbage in at the beginning, it'll be mush by the end of the cook time.  Two hours of slow cooking is just enough.

At the top of the photo, you can also see the Irish soda bread I made last night.  In the past, I've made a far more complicated recipe (both in terms of ingredients called for and steps involved).  But I stumbled across a recipe on Pinterest that was only 4 ingredients and sounded simple.  I like simple.  Especially when I'm dealing with kids who refueled themselves after lunch with more leprechaun chocolate.  The recipe is on Let's Dish and can be found here.  It was a super simple bread to toss together (for the record, I don't keep buttermilk on hand so I just used skim milk soured with a bit of vinegar), knead a few times, and toss in a pan to bake right before our meal so that we'd have warm bread with our Irish feast.  It's a less complex bread than my usual recipe, but that doesn't mean it wasn't tasty.  My son ate 3 or 4 slices and declared it the best part of the meal.  I will cop to eating 2 slices with dinner.  And another one as a late night snack.  And another piece this morning after I shoveled snow.

For dessert, I made mint chocolate brownies.  

Why?  Because I could tint the frosting green to match the day's festivities.  And because mint and chocolate go so well together.  And goodness knows we can't ever get enough chocolate around here.  Again, this wasn't a super complicated recipe.  I used a boxed brownie mix, but I subbed fat-free Greek yogurt for the oil.  (See note below.)  The brownies turned out just as moist and tasty as they would have with oil, but now they have less fat and more protein.  I mixed regular white frosting from a can (softened in a glass bowl in the microwave) with some peppermint extract and green food coloring and frosted the brownies, then topped with chopped Andes mints.  And yes, I know topping the brownies with frosting and chopped chocolate kind of negates the healthy step of using Greek yogurt to cut down on fat.  Just let me live in my dream world, okay?  We have frosted brownies here.  They're magically delicious.  Wait, that's frosted Lucky Charms, isn't it?  Huh.  Well the frosted brownies are magically...good. 

Naturally, celebrating an ethnic-ish meal leads to conversation around the table, and my kids asked really good questions about who in our family was Irish, and how much Irish they were, and they asked questions about Irish history and traditions, and that makes all some of the craziness of preparing a holiday worthwhile.  Then they got into a discussion about our German heritage (there is a lot more of that type of water in their gene pool) and my son said "I don't want to be German because Hitler was German and he was evil." And I tried steering the conversation to good Germans and their contributions to society, but I got stuck and just offered them more brownies.  

Happy St. Patrick's Day to you all.  May the luck of the Irish be with you.

Oh, and the side note on Greek yogurt and baking:  I'm going to be doing more of this substitution in the days ahead and try to blog about it.  If you want to try doing it yourself, here's a handy conversion chart that Chobani has on their website.  I need to make a magnet with the conversion so that I can keep it handy on my fridge.  Which, I hope you have a magnet like this one on your fridge to help you figure out the math/measurement part of those conversions:

It saves my math-challenged brain on a daily basis in the kitchen.  And it's incredibly helpful when you have to calculate how to figure out what 3/4 of a 3/4 cup is.  Because I'm not mathy like that.

Stream of Consciousness, Little One styel

This was Little One's 10 minute or so verbal ramble this morning, nearly verbatim:

I want to do the Monster Dash race with you this year.  I'm gonna wear a costume, but I'm not sure which one.  I really want to get another gold medal.  If I do the Kids K and the Monster Dash, then I'll have THREE GOLD MEDALS.  Do you think Daddy would wear his costume?  I think he should wear his gorilla costume.  But he should wear one of your old swimsuits over it so he doesn't look like a naked gorilla.  I wonder if he will mind the mommy cooties on the swimsuit.  I guess you can just wash it.  I wonder where the cooties go when you wash them off in the washing machine?  And then he can wear your swimsuit, and a long hair wig, and you can paint his face like a clown.  So he can be a girl gorilla clown.  Will you do my hair?  Two braids.  Who was on the phone?  Wrong number?  What's a wrong number?  Why did they want to talk to someone named Wayne?  My name isn't Wayne.  Your name isn't Wayne.  Daddy's name isn't Wayne.  Huh.  Maybe they have a friend named Wayne.  I'm gonna go in your shower and get my feet wet from your shower water.  Whoa!  Whoa!  No, I will not fall.  Okay, maybe I will fall a little.  But I didn't get hurt.  See?  Now look at me, I'm disco jogging!  Oh say can you see?  By the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed as the twi-lies last geeming.  Whose broad stripes and bright stars...Huh.  Look at that.  Now watch me!  Mom!  You are not watching me!  Watch me!  Whoa!  Whoa!  Look it's a magic trick!  Now I'm gonna disappear!  Bet you can't see me!  No you can't!  Nuh-uh!  Mom, what earrings are you wearing today?  What shape are your earrings?  Ovals?  They're really not ovals, Mommy.  They're kind of squarish ovals.  Hey, I've got a chipmunk voice.  Mom, can I see the rest of your earrings?  Pleeeeeeease????  Next time you and Daddy have a date night, I want to pick out your earrings for you.  Now I'm going to go make you a burrito, Mommy.

Happy National Chocolate Cake Day!

It just occurred to me that this is my first post in over a month.  Yikes.  I stink at blogging.  But I'm really good at baking when there's a national holiday involved, evidently.  

Today is National Chocolate Cake Day.  I was unaware of this fact until sometime late this morning.  We also happen to be dealing with a big ice storm today, so I found myself in a bit of a situation: (1) sudden desire for chocolate cake, and (2) a rather pathetic pantry where chocolate cake baking is concerned, and (3) icy roads that made a quick trip to the grocery store a bit of a fool's errand.

After a bit of digging around on the internet, I found a recipe for cake that would work with what I had on hand, and a different recipe for frosting that would work.

First: The Cake

I found a recipe for chocolate cake using Greek yogurt on this blog, Chocolate and Carrots.  I made a couple of tiny adaptations based upon what I had on hand.

Easy Chocolate Greek Yogurt Cake

You need:

1 Cup sugar

2 Cups flour

4 Tablespoons cocoa powder

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 Cup plain non-fat Greek yogurt

1 Cup skim milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray a 9" pan (square or round) with cooking spray.

Mix your dry ingredients in one bowl.  Whisk the yogurt, skim milk, and vanilla together in a different bowl. Pour the wet ingredients in with the dry ingredients and stir well.  Pour cake batter into prepared pan, bake for 35-45 minutes; use a toothpick to test for done-ness. (The original recipe called for 35 minutes; mine wasn't done at that point and took an additional 7 minutes.) Allow to cool in pan for about 15 minutes, then turn out onto serving plate.

Best part about making this cake? No eggs.  You get to lick the beaters without worrying about getting food poisoning.  Also?  It's easy and you don't have to haul out a mixer to make it.

Now on to the frosting:

I found this recipe along with a cake recipe on Never Homemaker, but didn't have the right stuff to make the cake.  The frosting looked easy and do-able though.

Peanut Butter Greek Yogurt Frosting

You will need:

3/4 Cup plain, non-fat Greek yogurt

1 Tablespoon vanilla

1/2 Cup creamy peanut butter (Nutella would also be awesome here)

3/4 Cup powdered sugar

Mix the yogurt, vanilla and peanut butter together and stir until well combined.  Add the powdered sugar, 1/4 cup at a time, stirring well after each addition.  (I used my Kitchen Aid with the whisk attachment for this frosting and it turned out very smooth, but I also think you could easily do this by hand or with a hand mixer.)  Spread frosting on cooled cake.  Store frosted cake in refrigerator.

(You'll notice from the picture up above that we also scattered some chocolate chips on top.  My youngest was absolutely indignant that I didn't put any sprinkles on the cake. I mollified her with chocolate chips.) 

So, how was it?

Pretty good, actually.  The cake is more dense than your typical boxed-cake-mix cake and it has a nice chocolate flavor.  It would take additions really well, so if you want to add some chocolate chips or nuts, go ahead.  And while the cake got thumbs-up from everyone at the table, the reaction to the frosting was a bit more mixed.  Personally, I loved the frosting.  But I'll admit, the slightly sour taste of the Greek yogurt does come through pretty strongly.  I think that is balanced out by the sugar, and I think that it goes well the the peanut butter.  My husband and kids weren't all that crazy about it though.  I think a more traditional peanut butter frosting would be good on this cake, but I also think it'd taste fantastic with traditional chocolate frosting.  I also kind of want to try it with some cherries and whipped cream - it would make an awesome Black Forest-type cake, I think.

All in all, it was a nice way to celebrate National Chocolate Cake Day, even when your cake-making ingredients are limited.

Finding my thoughts...

It's hard to find one's thoughts on a day like today, and to group them into a cohesive form, and to then blog them.

It's hard to look at the faces of anguished parents on the news and imagine what their pain must be like.  What must the uncertainty be like, as you wait for news of the fate of your child?  And what of the sudden and searing pain of loss experienced by parents whose children were killed?

It's hard to see a photograph of children being led by a police officer across a parking lot that looks so very similar to the parking lot at your own child's school.

It's hard to hear that some of the children who died were kindergarteners.  Children who still believed in Santa Claus and superheroes and inherent goodness.  Children who likely did not know evil until it burst into their classroom.

It's hard to answer the questions that your 4th grader poses: Is that why we practice lock-down drills?  What if that happened at my school?  What would my teacher do if that happened at my school?  What would you do, Mom?  What if that happened on my bus?  What should I do if a bad guy comes to my school at recess and starts shooting?  Why did he do it?  Why did he want to kill kids?

It's hard to witness tragedy (even though we may be so far removed, geographically speaking) so close to Christmas; hard to see a town decorated with twinkling Christmas lights plunged so deeply into sorrow.

It's hard to take a phone call from my dad, a school bus driver, and hear the emotion in his voice as he talks about how the kids that were killed were no different than the young kids he drives to school each day.  There was a weariness in his voice as he asked the same question we've all asked over and over today..."why?"

It's hard to know what the answer is in all of this, to know what the solution is, to figure out a way to keep it from happening it again.  It's hard to keep from getting political.  It's hard not to have knee-jerk reactions and not react in the emotion of the moment.

But do you know what's not hard?  It's not hard to be happy when your kids get off the bus at the end of the day.  It's not hard to hug them tight.  It's not hard to pray over them.  It's not hard to reach out to neighbors and say "hi," to build stronger communities, to help the less fortunate, to make this world a better place.  It's not hard to pray for the families of Sandy Hook Elementary and ask God's peace and love to surround them on this cold December night.

Cinnamon Honey Cold Cure - A Follow Up

So two days ago I told you all about how the cinnamon honey cold cure worked for me.  I was positive that my cold was nearly over.  I actually did run that night (like I said I would) and my run was really good.  I was feeling really well.

Then yesterday hit me.  Ugh.  Yesterday was the "my nose is a streaming snot faucet" kind of day.  I was disappointed that my cold wasn't over, and that it was somehow worse.  At the same time, when my husband asked me how I was feeling, I said "You know, I'd feel great if my nose would stop running."  Because by then, the scratchy sore throat was gone, and I really felt good despite being a human snot fountain.

Today I'm better.  Fewer kleenexes.  Less drip-age.  Still not 100%, but I'll definitely take it over yesterday's symptoms.

So would I still recommend the cinnamon honey cold cure?  Yes.  Because one day of non-stop runny nose is better than 3 days of it.  And I honestly think it's one of the best throat soothers that I've tried.  It's no miracle cure (as some articles would have you believe), but neither are most over-the-counter cold remedies.

Cinnamon-Honey Cold Cure

A few months ago, my mom told me (or tagged me in something she posted on Facebook, which, let's face it, is pretty much the same thing anymore) about using a cinnamon and honey mixture to help cure a cold.  I then saw it about a bazillion times on Pinterest.  So when I felt a scratchy throat coming on, I thought, Let's try it.  It can't hurt.

Why might it work?  Honey has antioxidant and anti-bacterial properties that neutralize harmful agents in the body.  Cinnamon has anti-fungal properties and can inhibit the growth of bacteria.  So it makes sense that these two mixed together could help knock out a cold.  (Side note: I've also used honey mixed with nutmeg as a facial mask to knock out acne - it reduces swelling and redness like you would not believe and troublesome, painful zits are knocked out within 24 hours.  No lie.)

Here's what you do: mix a teaspoon of honey (most sources recommend local honey, but I just used regular store-bought honey) with a 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon.  That's it.  Take one teaspoon 3 times per day for at least 3 days.  The first day, I mixed up a quadruple batch so I'd have enough for one day, plus a little extra.  I've seen other people who mix up a cup or so at a time and then have it on hand for whenever a cold arises.  Mix it up in whatever size batch you want, just make sure to keep your quantities of cinnamon and honey in proper ratios.

I dutifully took my teaspoon of cinnamon honey 3 times a day.  What I noticed right away is that it's a great throat soother - the honey is smooth and coats really well, and the cinnamon provides a little heat.  So I actually took a few extra doses throughout the day to help soothe my scratchy throat.

Important question: What does it taste like?  It's not bad at all.  Kind of like cinnamon sugar on steroids because there's a bit more cinnamon than you'd normally consume in cinnamon sugar.  Much better tasting than NyQuil, that's for sure.

Results: I'm impressed.  On the first day of my cold (when I started the treatment), I noticed that I would feel a bit better soon after taking the cinnamon honey.  On the second day of my cold, I didn't necessarily feel better, but I could tell that my cold was going to be a minor one and I appreciated the throat-soothing properties of the cinnamon honey.  I'm on day 3 of my cold right now.  I feel like this could be the last day of my cold.  The sore throat is a lot better and the drippy nose is almost done dripping.  Heck, I'm even planning on going running tonight.  I can't complain about a 3 day cold, nor can I complain about an all natural treatment that gets me back to normal faster.

Cake Balls and Care Packages

I sent out some care packages to a couple of Army soldiers and a Marine last week.  One of the soldiers is someone who served with my husband overseas and asked specifically for the cake balls I sent them for Christmas one year.  Posting about that on Facebook led to a request for the recipe.  They're so easy, y'all.

This recipe is for German Chocolate cake balls, but it's adaptable, and I'll show you how once we walk through the basic recipe.

German Chocolate Cake Balls

1 box of German Chocolate cake mix + ingredients needed to make cake
1 can of creamy coconut pecan frosting
1 and 1/2 pkg. of chocolate almond bark

Prepare and bake your cake according to package directions (I usually bake mine into a 9x13 size).  Allow cake to cool, then use two forks to tear it into crumbs.  Yes, you want to take a perfectly good cake and reduce it to crumbs.  They don't have to be fine crumbs, but the smaller your cake chunks are, the better.

In a large bowl, mix your cake crumbs with the can of frosting.  Mix well, making sure to thoroughly incorporate the frosting with the cake.  Using a spoon or melon baller to scoop out a bit of the cake mixture and shape into small balls using your hands.  I make mine fairly small, so that a cake ball can be consumed in 1 or 2 bites.  Some people like them bigger.  Whatever floats your particular boat is fine.  Allow balls to chill well in the refrigerator or freezer - this will help later on when it comes time to dip them.

Once the balls have had time to chill, you need to start melting your almond bark.  This stuff:

I usually melt about half a package at a time.  It's really important to make sure you don't over-melt your bark - the sugar will end up carmelizing - so if you use a microwave (instead of the double-boiler method), stir and check on it often.  Like every 30 seconds or so.  Also important to note: keep water away from your bark; it will cause melted bark to curdle (get lumpy) and it will be no good.

So once you have melted bark and a pan full of chilled cake balls, you're ready to dip.  Dipping methods vary.  I know a lot of people prefer the toothpick method (put your cake ball or item to be dipped on a toothpick or bamboo skewer and dip), but it never works for me.  Behold:

I did a couple with the toothpick method to show that it never works out for me.  The one in the bottom right corner was done using my fork method; the rest were done with the toothpick method.  Technically, they're fine.  They're still cake balls.  But they just aren't as pretty and uniformly coated.  So here's how I do it:

I drop an un-dipped ball into the melted bark and use a fork to roll it around until it's covered.  Then I slide a fork underneath the ball and lift it out of the bark.  I use a second fork to kind of wipe the dripping bark off the bottom of the first fork and then gently allow the now-coated ball onto a sheet of wax paper.

That's it.  Dip the rest of the balls, let them rest on wax paper, and allow the bark to harden.  Depending on the kind of bark you use and how big your cake balls are, the amount of bark you need will vary.  Making these balls took up about 1 and 1/2 packages of bark.  Just be prepared to melt more bark as needed.

The fun part about this recipe is that you can be as creative as you want and create custom flavor mixes.  Just change up the cake flavor, the frosting flavor, and the bark.   Some examples/ideas:

• Spice Cake + Cream Cheese Frosting + White Almond Bark
• Devils Food Cake + Chocolate Frosting + Chocolate Almond Bark
• Red Velvet Cake + Cream Cheese Frosting + White Almond Bark
• Lemon Cake + White Frosting + White Almond Bark
• Chocolate Cake + Peanut Butter Frosting + Chocolate Almond Bark
• Caramel Cake + Creamy Coconut Pecan Frosting + Chocolate Almond Bark
• Orange Supreme Cake + White Frosting + White Almond Bark

You can also get creative when it comes to decorating the cake balls - from super easy sprinkles or colored sugars to more complicated designs, a la Bakerella.  Just remember, sprinkles and such will stick better when your frosting is still "wet," so work accordingly.

So back to the care packages.  Believe it or not, these cake balls travel really well.  I first sent them overseas a few years ago to my husband and to a friend of mine, both of whom were stationed in the sandbox.  Their cake balls arrived in great shape and everyone who had one really liked them.  Many people asked for the recipe.  When I package them, I arrange them on a paper plate, slide the paper plate into a gallon sized ziploc bag, and then seal the bag, trying to remove as much air as possible.  If mailing with other items, I'll try to cushion the cake balls a bit so they don't get crushed.  

In addition to the cake balls, I sent my servicemen a few other treats that travel well: 

Peppermint Bark Popcorn - recipe here.

Cinnamon Pretzels - recipe here.

Cinnamon Bun Popcorn
I swear I don't know why there's a
 huge chunk missing in the middle of the pan. Recipe here.

I packaged these in quart sized ziploc bags and used them to cushion the cake balls.  Then I threw in some other assorted treats, sealed the boxes, filled out customs forms in triplicate, and sent the boxes on their way.