Strawberry Season 2012

Here in Indiana, June is strawberry season!  On Saturday, #1, Jelly Bean, and I went strawberry picking.  It was Jelly Bean's first pick.  #1 is a one year strawberry picking veteran.   I do this every year..  I don't remember when I decided this would be a good way to spend my time, but I've been doing it for a while.

I always pick our strawberries at Cedar Creek Produce in Leo, Indiana.  Like them on Facebook, they post updates on berry picking, and their phone number and address is located on their page.

#1 and Jelly Bean with the "real bear" at Cedar Creek Produce.

 We picked strawberries for about two and a half hours.

You can fit 5 pounds of strawberries into the bucket Jelly Bean is holding.

 #1 and Jelly Bean FILLED one bucket each during our picking session.

Jelly Bean's "big berry"

#1's big berry

 We also had a contest to see who could find the biggest berry.

#1 is my Creative Artsy Girl, she found a heart shaped strawberry :)

We picked a total of 18.75 pounds of strawberries on Saturday.  Sunday we went back with one of my best friends, and her 3 children.  On Sunday we picked 14.02 pounds.

 In case you are wondering what I did with all these berries...

I made 18 half pints of strawberry rhubarb jam,  28 half pints of strawberry jam, and 4 pints of strawberry syrup.  

I canned for three days.  I also helped my friend who has never canned, can 44 jars of strawberry jam.  One Monday at 11:30pm I lost my steam and froze enough strawberries for another batch of strawberry rhubarb jam, another batch of strawberry syrup, and I froze crushed strawberries in ice cube trays to use for strawberry butter cream icing (which is the most requested icing in this house.)

To sum it up...  

Strawberry Season 2012

32.77 pounds of strawberries were picked

46 Jars of my jam were canned

I helped my friend can 44 jars of her jam

4 jars of strawberry syrup were canned

Washed, hulled, and crushed strawberries were frozen for future batches of jam, syrup, and icing.

Recipe Review: King Arthur's Gingerbread

I am an avid baker.  I use King Arthur Flour for my bread, muffins, cookies, and all of my baked goods.  It has a better flavor, and produces better results for the texture of my baked goods.  

 

I live in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  Every year the History Center has a Festival of Gingerbread.  Anyone can submit a gingerbread house to be displayed during the holiday season, the gingerbread houses are then sold in a silent auction as a fundraiser to benefit the History Center. 

 

Last year I decided to find a good gingerbread recipe, so I could practice making my own gingerbread house.  I know that I will not have the time to bake a house to submit to the festival for another couple years, but I decided to bake something gingerbread related for practice each year, until my life settles down and I have the time to enter a gingerbread house.

 

Last year I made a gingerbread house, it didn't last long enough to get decorated, but everyone enjoyed eating the house, and the candy I bought to decorate the house with.

 

This year, our schedule was so hectic I didn't even have time to make a gingerbread house, so I made gingerbread people.  I made standard gingerbread people, gingerbread people that looked like they were running, and miniature gingerbread people (or as my girls called them, "gingerbread babies").   I baked a triple batch of the gingerbread recipe, so I had enough cookies for my family, friends that stopped by, my family, my girls, my girls, my girls, and I ended up taking the remaining cookies to a women's meeting at my church, because I felt that my girls had enjoyed enough gingerbread.

 

I got a lot of compliments on my cookies at my meeting at church, so I decided to blog about my cookies and post the recipe online.  So here it is...

• 3/4 cup unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
• 3/4 cup molasses
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon allspice or cloves
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 3 1/2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour

• 6 ounces unsalted butter
• 5 5/8 ounces brown sugar
• 9 ounces molasses
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon allspice or cloves
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 14 3/4 ounces King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour

• 170g unsalted butter
• 159g brown sugar
• 255g molasses
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon allspice or cloves
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 418g King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour

Directions 1. In a saucepan set over low heat, or in the microwave, melt butter, then stir in the brown sugar, molasses, salt, and spices. 2. Transfer the mixture to a medium-sized mixing bowl, let it cool to lukewarm, and beat in the egg. 3. Whisk the baking powder and soda into the flour, and then stir these dry ingredients into the molasses mixture. 4. Divide the dough in half, and wrap well. Refrigerate for 1 hour or longer. 5. Preheat your oven to 350°F. Get out several baking sheets; there's no need to grease them, though lining with parchment saves effort on cleanup. 6. Once the dough has chilled, take one piece of dough out of the refrigerator, and flour a clean work surface, and the dough. Roll it out as thin or thick as you like; for slightly less crisp cookies, roll it out more thickly. 7. Use flour under and on top of the dough to keep it from sticking to the table or rolling pin. Alternatively, place the dough on parchment, and put a sheet of plastic wrap over it as you roll, pulling the plastic to eliminate wrinkles as necessary when rolling; this will keep dough from sticking without the need for additional flour. For soft dough, or dough to be rolled extra-thin, you may choose to roll right onto the ungreased back of a baking sheet. 8. Cut out shapes with a cookie cutter, cutting them as close to one another as possible to minimize waste. 9. Transfer the cookies to ungreased cookie sheets (or, if you've rolled right onto the parchment, remove the dough scraps between the cookies). Bake the cookies just until they're slightly brown around the edges 8 to 12 minutes, or until they feel firm. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheets for several minutes, or until they're set. Transfer them to a rack to cool completely. Repeat with the remaining dough. 10. Decorate the cookies with Royal Icing or Simple Cookie Glaze and food safe markers.

Recipe summary Hands-on time: 25 mins. to 40 mins. Baking time: 8 mins. to 10 mins. Total time: 1 hrs 33 mins. to 1 hrs 50 mins. Yield: 3 dozen 3-inch cookies

Of course, I was so busy both years, I have no photos of my hard work.

 

I always refrigerate my dough overnight, it is easier to work with that way.

 

 

Here is the link to King Arthur Flour's website where I discovered this recipe at. 

 

And here is the link to King Arthur Flour's blog for this recipe. It has step by step instructions with photos, and amazing ideas for other gingerbread creations. 

I Hate Going To The Video Store...

I have five kids, so going to The Video Store for me is a huge event... a very unpleasant huge event.

I rent videos for myself, and someone gets sick, or the girls have a lot of homework, or Yum Yum is up crying all night, and I never seem to get a chance to sit down and watch my movie.  Also, I can never seem to make it to return my videos on time.

After Yum Yum was born, I had to spent a lot of late nights feeding him, and comforting him, so I decided to subscribe to Netflix.  I have Frontier Fios internet (read: super duper high speed fiber optic internet).  I also have a Mac Mini that is connected to our television, so we can surf the internet from our tv.

For me, Netflix was a godsend.  I could watch whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted.  If someone turned off the computer, or needed me Netflix would save my spot on my movie, and I could pick up where I left off.  If I didn't like the show I clicked on, I could just find something else.  And best of all I didn't have to make the trek to The Video Store, with The Whole Crew.  And I only have to pay $7.99 a month, and I pay it automatically with my PayPal.

So for my blog post today, I thought I would do a list of our current favorite tv shows and movies on Netflix.

My Current Favorite Shows and Movies

• Clean House (funny show about cluttered homes, fine to watch with the kids)
• The Tudors (I watch this like three hours after my kids are asleep, definitely not family friendly, but I love it sooo much!)
• Top O' The Morning (Bing Crosby, awesome, family friendly, everyone should see this movie)
• Forgive Me, Father (British comedy set in 1950s England about Catholic priests' daily life in a small parish, too funny.  family friendly)
• Destination Truth (pretty family friendly, some episodes can be a little scary.  a group investigates real life reports of mythical creatures, pretty funny, they never really find much)

My Husband's Current Favorite Shows

• Dirty Jobs (family friendly, the kids like it, I think it's boring, and don't watch this while you are eating) 
• How It's Made (family friendly, educational, nice quiet show)
• Ax Men (it's about loggers, so not quite so family friendly with the language and whatnot,  the husband likes it, but I usually facebook while this is on)
• Myth Busters (family friendly, semi-kind-sorta-educational in theory, or so my husband claims... they pretty much like to build things to test out urban myths, and then blow whatever they made up...  maybe not such a good idea to watch if you have a curious, resourceful child) 
• Pawn Stars (I must admit that I love this show, it is like Antique's Road show, only with a little swearing, family bickering, and stranger items, something to watch after the kids are asleep) 

Shows My Husband and I Can Actually Agree On and Watch Together

• Being Human (watch this after the kids are in bed, British show about a ghost, vampire, and a werewolf that live together in England amidst all the humans.  I am not a Twilight, or Ann Rice lover, but I do love this show)
• All Creatures Great and Small (this is my favorite show ever, British show about vets in England in the 1950s, family friendly and awesome, based on a book series by James Herriot)
• The Walking Dead (it is about a group of survivors in a post apocalyptic zombie world, so scary it gives me nightmares, but I can't stop watching it.  definitely not one for the kids)
• Burn Notice (about an ex-spy and his friends, they help people with their troubles in creative spy-esque ways.  no foul language, mild violence, some adult themes.  sometimes we watch this with the kids, but only if we have seen the episode first)
• Warehouse 13 (about a secret government agency that protects the world from "historical artifacts" that cause mayhem.  no coarse language, occasional mild violence, occasionally some episodes are a little scary.  we let our kids watch this, but only if we have previously viewed the episode)

The Girls Current Favorite Shows and Movies

• Angelina Ballerina (about a little mouse who goes to ballet school, very cute, and a quiet show)
• Eloise Cartoons (based on the books by Kay Thompson, about a little, mischievous girl who lives at The Plaza with her nanny, turtle, and her pug)
• Madeline Cartoons (based on the books by Ludwig Bemelmans, about a little french orphan at a catholic boarding school, very cute, one of my favorites from my childhood)
• The Nutcracker: The Motion Picture (okay everyone knows what this is, and it is AWESOME, my girls must have watched this about 15 times this holiday season, it is beautifully done)
• Hello Kitty's Furry Tail Theater (this is one of my least favorite shows, very irritating... Hello Kitty characters acting out classic fairy tales.  No content objections, but I could think of less irritating ways to spend 30 minutes).

Not that we spend all day in front of the television, but with Yum Yum's health issues, it was hard to get out as much as we usually do over the summer.  If anyone has any suggestions on shows or movies they like please leave them in my comments, I'm always look for good shows!

Insomniac Gift Wrap

Okay, there are a couple parts to this blog post.  Let's see if I can can put them together and make a complete story that makes sense.  

One of my best friends had a baby shower a couple months ago. 

She is a Crunchy Mom (like me) so I decided to give her a book on making homemade baby food (like the ones I have, that I noticed she had been admiring).

Now on to the part that doesn't seem like it has much to do with the story about gift wrapping...  I promise it does, so just hang in there until the end.

Yum Yum has severe acid reflux, which makes him fussy.  He also has a wheat intolerance which aggravates his reflux (I breastfeed, so what I eat, he eats).   At the time of this shower we were still investigating his food allergies and hadn't quite figured everything out.  

 Yum Yum was born with a temporary medical condition called laryngomalacia.  This is when the airway is for lack of a better word, "floppy" and collapses causing apnea... and the lack of oxygen causes a low heart rate.  The reflux aggravates this condition.

The nice people at Riley Children's Hospital in Indianapolis, Indiana put Yum Yum on an apnea monitor.  This is a machine that is connected to wires and electrodes attached to Yum Yum, that monitored his breathing and heart rate.  This relieved a lot of stress, but also caused a lot of stress.  There are a lot of false alarms with this machine, and Yum Yum is very active, and would get himself tangled in his wires.

Because of this, Yum Yum had to sleep in my room, so I could monitor his breathing and wire tangling activities.  Yum Yum also liked to eat about every two hours at the time I was wrapping the gift for my friend. 

So now that I have explain some of Yum Yum's medical history.  I can tell you that I slept very little in the first seven months of his life, which is when The Baby Shower took place.

I bought some polka dot tissue paper from Target (because I love polka dots, but that is like another 50 posts to explain).  I wrapped the book, and it looked really plain.  All of my kids were sleeping, and I knew Yum Yum would be waking up for another feeding, so I decided to embellish my gift wrap.

 I looked in my arsenal of scrapbooking supplies and found some stamps with symbols for "Love" and "Good Luck" with the word printed below the symbol.  That still looked too plain...  So I found some liquid glitter and decorated the polka dots.  And it was good.  Then I fed Yum Yum.

 

My friend liked her gift... I think, and I got a lot of compliments on my wrapping.  

So this ridiculously long blog post was just to show my gift wrapping project wasn't a Divine Martha Stewart Moment... it was just me sleep deprived and bored, playing with my glitter and my stamps.

*Just to do a little plug... my friend I wrapped the gift for also has a blog.  You can visit it at http://katelynnb486.blogspot.com

Allow Me To Make The Necessary Introductions...

I decided the most logical way to begin my new blog was by introducing you to my family.  Since I am a housewife, they will be a significant part of my blog.

So here it goes...

This is my husband, he a licensed journeyman plumber.  And me... the over caffeinated housewife.

I have decided to use my family member's nicknames for the purpose of anonymity... and because all of the cool kids are doing it.

In order from left to right...

V is three years old. #1 is seven years old. Jelly Bean is six years old. And M is two years old.  V and M stay at home with me.  #1 and Jelly Bean are in first grade and kindergarten respectively.  They attend the local Catholic grade school at our church.

These are not just random names I made up for my blog, we actually call the kids by these nicknames... I don't know why, we just do.

This is Yum Yum, the only boy.  He is eight months old.  Please try to ignore the bras in the background of this photo.  Yum Yum was diagnosed with Goldenhar Syndrome shortly after his birth... but more on that later.

Now onto our furry family members...

This is our Chihuahua Blue, he is seven years old.

This is our rather elusive Yorkshire Terrier, Audrey.  She is four years old.

Well, that is all of us.  Now you won't wonder if I am typing random letters and numbers when I'm blogging.  

And yes, my husband and I are the biological parents of all five kids.  I have given birth to five children in seven years (kind of explains my excessive caffeine consumption doesn't it...)  This may seem like a lot of kids close together (that is how it seems to me anyway).  But there are families I know who have twice the amount of kids with very close ages (like mine) so I will try and keep my complaining to a minimum.

New Year, New Blog

In honor of the new year I am finally beginning a new blog.  Why not continue on my old blog?  I have lost the password and can't retrieve it.  This blog won't really have a theme, it will be about whatever pops into my over caffeinated mind.  So... I hope that a.) someone will read this... and b.) it will make sense to someone other than myself.