The Lost Draft: Happy New Year!

2009 was a big learning year for me. I'm proud to say that I've spent a few moments reflecting on the top ten lessons that have made the largest impact on me.

1. Even on my worst days, my son will still make me laugh.

2. Being a stay-at-home mom is both rewarding and torment.

3. I sometimes feel bored, when really I still have a lot to do.

4. My living room won't stay clean no matter how hard I try.

5. I am not very good at keeping up on my blog.

6. A part-time job is sometimes a big night out.

7. We really need a babysitter in our area.

8. I really need to learn more about photography.

9. I'm in love with my dutch oven. What's better than one pot meals.

10. I'm easily inspired by movies and books. I recently watched "Julie and Julia", and all I want to do is try to cook my way through an entire cook book.

That being said, I decided to be a bit more realistic and aim to simply cook dinner more than once a week. I am also vowing to try out new recipes, and make use of my dutch oven. We got a whole bunch of snow this weekend, so I decided to aim for something that sticks to the ribs.

My searching lead me to a recipe for chicken and dumplings found on marthastewart.com. I decided to give it a go as it called for my beloved dutch oven.

Cooking with Booze: Buttershots Recipe 2 & 3

Truth time people. I tried two more recipes, but the honest truth is that recipe #2 was not in fact cooking with booze. It was drinking it. It seems that there are few available recipes involving Buttershots that do not involve simply drinking the sweet libation.

Recipe #2- Caramel Apple Martini
Let me tell you, this was YUMMY! So yummy in fact that I considered making a second and decided that my liver might not appreciate it. This is definitely going to be a staple recipe for the holidays, and as a matter of fact it would probably be extremely delicious warmed. As I am not an avid drinker at home, I don't own any normal martini glasses, so please pardon my "Shopaholic" glass.

Recipe #3- Butterscotch Apple Pie Filling
I used a recipe adapted from Pixiwishesforeheadkisses and it turned out awesome! The original recipe I'm sure is far better than mine as Becky uses her own pastry recipe. As many know, homemade pastry is far tastier than store bought but in the interest of time, I bought from the refrigerated section of Shaw's. I ended up using roughly 6 medium red apples (mostly Cortland), and skipped the lemon juice which simply keeps the apples from browning. Overall, it was awesome. I will say though, I would probably use more booze. C didn't taste it at all, and I was more than comfortable feeding it to my children. I intended on taking a photo, but my husband dug into it before I had a chance!

Cooking with Booze: Buttershots Recipe 1

So it turns out that there are not a ton of cooking ideas that involve butterscotch schnapps, but I did manage to find one. Turns out most of the others involve simply drinking the ButterShots. That being said, I'm already changing my game plan. ButterShots recipe means one to eat, one to drink. Last night was my eat one, and I had to improvise a bit to take down the points plus value, as I've been doing Weight Watchers. So here goes:

1 ripe banana (cut in half lengthwise)

2 tbsp brown sugar

.5 tbsp butter

1.5 tbsp ButterShots

Melt butter in a frying pan and mix in sugar and ButterShots- add banana pieces and cook down making sure to baste with the banana with it. Cook down until everything has caramelized and thickened. This probably would have been delicious enough on it's own, but I decided to pour it all over some vanilla ice cream. The end result was amazing. So amazing that I did not bother to take a picture, and that typing this has me salivating like Pavlov's dog. 

Up next, ButterShots Recipe #2- Caramel Apple Martini

Cooking With Booze- Part 1

During one of my never ending quests to clean out my house, I have discovered a part of my past that I cannot get rid of...my liquor cabinet.

Nowadays, if I am going to imbibe, it is usually a relentless attempt to escape the confines of my house...meaning I go out. This has left me with a full liquor cabinet that I cannot bring myself to part with. In an attempt to clear this out (without pouring myself some tall ones every night), I am going to challenge myself to cook with my booze. This means I need to remove it from the hidden cabinet above my fridge and place it back out in the open.

Here goes Step 1: INVENTORY
-ButterShots (3/4 bottle)
-Southern Comfort (2/3 bottle)
-Grand Marnier (3/4 bottle)
-Chambord (2/3 bottle)
-Applejack (2/3 bottle)
-Triple-sec (2/3 bottle)
-Jameson (2/3 bottle)
-99 Apples (2/3 bottle)
-Frangelico (1/2 bottle)
-Tequila (2/3 bottle)
-Spiced Rum (Full bottle)
-Pimm's (Full bottle)
-Bailey's (Full bottle)
-Madeira (1/2 bottle- bought solely for cooking)

Additionally, I have a two bottles of holiday wine, a bottle of port, a specialty bottle of beer, and a bottle of ice wine. I suspect these will all be consumed on their own time.

My game plan is to focus on two recipes per week that involve cooking or baking with any of the above open bottles and stick to one liquor only. I'll do my best to post the recipes and review them...

This week: ButterShots.

What is Nickelodeon Teaching My Children?

My boys are both big fans of Nick Jr's show Team Umizoomi. I allow them to watch it because it is frankly not as annoying as some other shows (ie: Dora). Today both boys were sitting watching as Milli, Geo, and Bot ran around on another of their typical problem solving adventures. The story today was that a little boy named Anthony attempted to mail a card or some other package to his grandma. He seemed to have forgotten to put stamps on the package.

At first glance, I simply thought that the moral was to follow the rules. In this case, remembering to put stamps on the package or the post office wouldn't deliver. Well, that was not the real lesson.

Team Umizoomi (Milli, Geo, and Bot) proceeded to hop through the mail slot at the closed post office, and find the package. Once located, they put stamps on it, then hopped into the mail truck, rode to grandma's house, and rang her door bell.

Today's lesson: don't forget to put stamps on your packages, or they won't be mailed. Or is it, breaking and entering, and tampering with mail is fine, as long as it's in the name of grandma?

52 Weeks Updated

When I first took on the 52 week challenge, I struggled to find 52 areas of my house that needed to be organized. The funniest part is that I definitely don't have an organized home, so this shouldn't have been an issue, As the weeks have gone on, I did exactly what I thought I would- added more. I'm now up to 42 different areas. This week, I tackled kitchen stuff, meaning that it was time to organize the following: utensil drawer, cabinets (2) with small kitchen appliances, pots and pan cabinet, two additional drawers, and a cabinet with all of my spices, flower, baking supplies, and some bowls and platters. Cleaning these out also meant that I had more items to add to my 2012 items in 2012 list. This list contains all of the items that I've gotten rid of in my house over the year. The goal is 2012 items in 2012. That means roughly 5.5 items per day. I picked up this challenge back in early April so I have some catching up to do. I should have roughly 671 items on this. I'm currently sitting at 184 items gone.

I'm over the moon that I no long have things jumping out on my head every time I open a cabinet. Here are my before and after photos:

Cabinet- BEFORE

Cabinet- AFTER

Drawer- BEFORE

Drawer- AFTER

Pretty, right?

The Fine Art of Punishment

I swore that when I became a mother, I wouldn't become a yeller. I grew up in a family where all of the women were yellers. If a child misbehaved, the next step was to yell, to make them listen. I'm not implying that the women in my family were always screeching mothers, but there were a lot of us, and the children don't listen well. Fortunately, there were a lot of hugs and kisses to offset all of the yelling. Growing up as one of those children, I promised myself that I would observe restraint, and punish misbehaving children with patience and logic.

A few years later, I observed the opposite of my upbringing. I was in Brookline, sitting outside of a boutique toy store. The mother had a 3 to 4 year old with her who was clearly angry because she denied him some sort of toy. The child carried on and screamed and stomped. The mother would quietly walk over, crouch down and try to have a logical conversation with him. This simply resulted in him yelling more and him running another 25 feet away. Imagine this scenario repeated 6 times. For me, it was yet another example of how not to reprimand.

Here I am four years and two boys later and I have yet to find the sweet spot. I understand that yelling all of the time doesn't necessarily help. Additionally, I get tired of yelling. I also understand that logic doesn't work with a stomping 20 month old. I can now understand why mama cats swat their kittens, and why others eat their young. My boys have the ability to get me to the last ounce of patience.

Today has been a yelling day. I swear they had a conversation in their bedroom this morning on alternating getting into trouble. If one is behaving, the other is not. I walked upstairs to move a load of laundry, and came down to this.

I think I need another coffee.

Me Love You Long Time...

It's been a while. A long while that is. Frankly, I toyed with the idea of starting a Twitter feed on the ramblings of my now 3 1/2 year old, but decided that this would probably be a good way for me to keep a modern day diary. Either that, or it'll just be one more thing for me to neglect!

We live in the suburbs, in a rental. We have a whole 1300 square feet (approximately) to call ours, as well as a small patio/garden space. Our complex is large, and doesn't come without it's own set of problems, but overall it's not too bad. Problem lies with the fact that it's a rental. We cannot customize much, as each change we make means that we'll just have to pay more once we move out.  Additionally, having a 3 1/2 year old, and 19 month old means that we have a lot of C-R-A-P crap. Tons of it as a matter of fact.

Since I'm limited to the changes that we can make, I am often "re-organizing." I strive to live a simpler life. In researching this quest, I stumbled upon some inspiration...
ORG Junkie's 52 Week Challenge.

The idea behind this is to outline 52 areas of your home that need organization, and tackle one weekly. I have to admit, I do not have 52 on my list, rather, 33. I'm sure as I start tearing apart my house, I'll find new areas to tackle. I also found a message board that others were working on getting rid of 2012 items in 2012. I decided to pair the two together to see what happens...