Today I Made Time

As I take a look around my house this evening I see scattered toys, a pile of dishes and the mountain of laundry that was supposed to be done today...on laundry day. I see towels and bath toys on the floor in the bathroom, yogurt smeared all over a highchair and pastel colored high heeled shoes tossed over by the bookshelf.

Then I take a closer look and instead of scattered toys I see the Duplo cake my middle daughter made me and the stuffed bear my son dragged around hugging today, I see the book I read to my son and the kitchen items my daughter "bought" and tucked into a bag.

Instead of a pile of dishes I see the remains of the homemade lunch my daughter happily brought to school and the dinner my kids all sat down at the table together and enjoyed. 

Norwegian Sweet Rolls (Boller)

Ok, so time and time again I have tried to make these traditional Norwegian sweet rolls and most of the time they have turned out rather blah. But, this recipe might be the key to success....at least this last batch was fluffy and soft and perfect in my opinion! They are not overly sweet, but they are not meant to be savory dinner rolls either. 

And sorry, but the measurements are metric....

Boller

Ingredients:

500g all purpose flour (plus a little extra if dough is too wet)
100g sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
100g salted butter, a little soft
3 1/4 dl milk (2% or whole)
6 1/4 tsp active dry yeast

Creamy Beef and Bellpepper

I was in the mood for Beef Stroganoff last night but did not quite have the right ingredients, so I came up with this alternative recipe. It was flavorful and creamy and I will definitely make it again! It also works well with chicken cut into thin strips.

Creamy Beef and Bellpepper

Ingredients:

Canola or Olive oil for sauteeing
1 lb lean beef cut into strips (stirfry cuts are great)
2 large bellpeppers (I used red)
1/2 large leek
12 oz fresh mushrooms
1 1/2 cups beef or chicken broth, divided

Lentil Soup Kit for the freezer

A while back I posted a recipe for lentil soup in the slow cooker. Today I once again made a batch of this, but I also made several "kits" and put them in the freezer. I usually just make a gigantic portion of the actual soup and freeze it, but now my freezer is full so this worked out better. 

Lentil Soup Kit

Chop, in small dice:

- 1-2 large carrots

- 2 medium stalks celery

- 1/4 - 1/2 medium onion

- 2 slices bacon

Morning Person?

It is early in the morning when I am writing this and it is quiet at my house, therefore I decided to ponder for a bit....

I had a discussion with my husband the other day about being a morning person or not. We both agreed that, despite loving my sleep and usually waking up very last minute, I very functional pretty darn quick in the morning. If one of our kids wake up and cry for one of us, it takes only a few seconds before I am at their bedside. This may or may not be a mix of my mommy hearing, my ability to snap to it quickly and a wish and hope that if I am quick enough then maybe, just maybe, he/she will not wake the rest of the house. 

Spring has Sprung, Summer has Slipped Away and School is about to be in Session!

Yes, I know we all say the same things, but here goes.....Where did summer go???? I feel like it was just yesterday that school let out and the thermometer inched its way up and up and we got ready to tackle our summer "bucket list". 

Ok, so we do not have an official bucket list but I have a million things inside of my head that I think we should do, or places we should go. But, in all honesty, I think we did maybe a handful of those things...and that is even counting one of them twice! (We ate cupcakes from an actual cupcake place! Two times! Which might not seem like a big deal to most people, but to people with allergic children it is a relatively big deal :))

Back to the whole summer is gone concept....this year the summer ending is marking a brand new phase in our life. We are officially elementary school parents, and I am scared out my mind! I know this sounds absolutely silly, but I am convinced I am twice as nervous as my daughter who is way up there on the nervous-like-no-other scale. I told my husband that I think it is due to the fact that I did not grow up here and elementary school in Norway is very different than here (or at least it was when I attended it). 

Banana Bread

This banana bread recipe is one of my all time favorites! 

Most of the time I make mine in muffin tins but a loaf pan is also great. The original recipe is from a beautiful blog called Attic24; however, as with most of my cooking, I have made a couple of substitutions in order to make it more allergy friendly.

I will give you the original recipe first and then the tweaked one after.

Banana Bread (or Muffins) - Original 
100g soft butter/margarine
175g light brown sugar
2 ripe bananas
2 eggs
225 g flour
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
50g chopped walnuts (optional)
2 Tblsp milk (only if adding nuts)

This is the year...

I started looking back at the last (almost) 6 months and I got discouraged by the feeling that we have "not done anything" this year. Knowing very well that this is not actually the case I decided to take a closer look and note some of the things we have indeed done, big and small.

This is the year...

1. We looked down at our hands and truly admitted that our thumbs are not even the slightest shade of green. 
As a result we drastically reduced our flower bed in the front yard, replacing the large patch that has been meant for nice and colorful flowers a much smaller patch with some green and white striped grass, oh and our lawn grew a couple of feet too. We no longer try to convince ourselves and others that we are able/willing to keep a nice and colorful flower-filled patch in front of our house staying nice and flower-filled. Just trying to keep the stripey grass and the new patches of lawn from dying was an accomplishment in itself. Also, we hired out lawn guy back so now our lawn gets mowed and our hedge and palm tree get trimmed on a much more regular basis and we are all much happier as a result of it!

A Winning Attitude

The other day at about 5 in the afternoon my 3 year old and 5 year old were running around the house burning off excess energy. They would start at the front door, yell "ready, set, go!" and take off running towards the fireplace. The first few rounds they did just that, running back and forth between the entry and the living room. However, after a while my 5 year old suggested they make it a running competition and my 3 year old gladly accepted the challenge.

Back at the front door, they lined up, yelled "ready, set, go!" and off they went! 

Brownies with fudge icing

This brownie recipe came about because I got a craving for donuts....logical right? Well, I really wanted donuts but was not about to start a hunt for some dairy free ones at the store because I knew I most likely would come up short and be disappointed. Therefore I searched for a dairy free donut recipe in order to try to make some. Well, I do not have a fryer so I modified my search for the baked kind and I came across a recipe on brooklynfarmgirl.com which seemed very promising.

I made a couple of modifications and decided to try to bake them in a brownie pan since I do not have a donut pan anyhow. Despite them not having any resemblance to a donut they turned out a success if I may say so myself.

They are a cake-like, not fudge-like, allergy friendly and very good brownies! They are quick and easy and they are dairy free, corn free, egg free, nut free and salicylate safe. They could probably also be chocolate free if you use carob powder, and gluten free if you substitute the regular flour for gluten free. And even though they are free of a lot they are full of chocolaty flavor and they were a hit with both kids and adults at our house.

Not Just Any Oatmeal Cookie

I baked some yummy oatmeal cookies last week and I want to share the recipe with you. You have to keep an open mind about these because they are quite good, despite their somewhat odd list of ingredients. Most importantly, they are the perfect protein boosted treat/snack for my food sensitive children.

The original recipe for Lady A’s Oatmeal Cookies can be found on my friend Kristi’s Baby Food Steps blog here. She gets all the credit for coming up with these! Also, if you want to learn more about salicylates which is the latest food sensitivity we are tackling then take a look here. Kristi explains it better than I ever could.

Back to the cookies…I have made them exactly as the recipe states on Kristi’s blog, and both our family and our friends liked them. My only “complaint” was that they were a bit too sweet for my taste which is why I came up with this modified version:

Lady A’s Chicken Oatmeal Cookies with Applesauce and Maple Syrup

Homemade Chicken Liver Pâté

I have wanted to learn to make liver pâté from scratch for quite a while and now seemed like the perfect time since neither my kids nor I can eat the store-bought kind anymore. I grew up eating pâté on bread and my kids have eaten their share as well and really like it.

The original recipe is from zerowastehome. However, since we have various limitations including dairy and salicylates** I had to make quite a few changes and here is what I came up with:

Homemade Chicken Liver Pâté

2 oz chicken fat (can use butter if dairy is not an issue)

2 oz homemade lard (can use butter if dairy is not an issue)

1 lb organic chicken livers

Like a Child

I wish I could dream like my children. Their dreams are so attainable and are not weighted down by reason or worries about all the things that might not make them happen.

I wish I was as easily amused as my children. A milk moustache, little brother having a crumb stuck on his nose, mamma dropping a spoon so cereal splashes all over the floor. Little things that can be so funny to little minds.

I wish I could laugh like my children. Their laughter comes from a place deep inside their bellies, it rumbles through their little bodies and come out into the world with such vivid gusto.

Progress Report

I am finally sitting down to write another blog post, despite my month-long dry spell, I am determined to get back to it. Since almost a quarter of the year has passed I decided that a recap of my progress in relation to my New Years Challenges would be suitable. I am simply walking through the challenges and how I am doing with each one:

Challenge 1 - Organization, organization, organization!

I am extremely proud to say that I FINALLY feel like I have made real progress when it comes to organization. This is mostly due to the fact that I spent the better part of spring break on a solo organization mission while my husband and two oldest kids were away at my in-laws. I will touch more on the specifics of this later, but all that is important to note is that my house is mostly organized and it is "20 minutes from company-ready" which I will also explain later. It is a huge relief and though there are some smaller projects here and there to tackle still, the HUGE ones are done!! So stop on by :) (As long as you give me 20 minutes heads up....)

Gift Bags and Favor Bags

I have come to the realization that paper is my creative medium. I like working with paper much more than I like working with thread or fabric or yarn or wood or clay or anything like that.

Here are some origami bags that I have folded and that I had/have the intention of selling. They are the perfect size for a gift card or any other small gift. I also make a smaller version that is perfect for a party favor. I use all kinds of themed papers for holidays and also for special events like a baby shower, wedding etc. I would love to hear what you think of these!

Below are some samples of colors/patterns. I can make bags to match any specific theme; as long as the paper can be found then I can make them. :)
The large bags are approximately 4.25 inches wide, 3.5 inches tall and 1.75 inches deep. The small bags are approximately 2 inches wide, 2 inches tall and 0.75 inches deep.  All of the bags can have ribbons, adornments or tissue paper added to them.  



Valentine's Day Treats

My daughter has been in preschool for a whole 5 months or so and I feel like there is always something "special" going on. A special craft, a special program, a special snack, a special lunch and so forth an so on. As a mom of a child with allergies these special events turn into a bit of a production for me since I do want to try to provide a very similar, allergy-friendly alternative for my daughter. To be honest, I would be quite ok if there were less "special" things and more of the "normal" things. 

Anyhow, to recap some of the events we have had in these 5 short months...there are of course all the birthdays with a special birthday snack. Then there was the hot-dog lunch, the Christmas party (which I still intend to post about later on), and father's night. All of these required a special meal or snack or treat. Oh and not to forget the firetruck craft and the gingerbread decorating. The firetruck was made from graham crackers, oreos and pink icing. Thankfully there are allergy-friendly alternatives to both grahams and oreos and beet juice makes icing pink, so after a get-your-kids-piled-in-the-car-and-run-into-the-specialty-grocery-store-with-all-three-in-tow-BEFORE-school-starts-in-the-morning scramble we did manage to make it happen on short notice. And as far as gingerbread goes, mamma can stay up and make dough the night before, sure thing! 

Conversation...is it still an art?

I just got one of those envelopes in the mail that contains a bunch of ads and coupons for restaurants, gutter and roofing companies, carpet cleaners and mechanics etc. I usually flip through the stack quickly because you never know when there might be one in there that is for a company I actually use or intend to contact.

As I was flipping through the stack today there were mostly the same old ads that I have no interest in but then one caught my eye. It had the words “Create a conversation starter” on the front. It was an ad for customized smart phone cases. My immediate thought was “This is the way to start a conversation with someone???!!! Maybe I am really old fashioned but how about putting the phone down and then you would be able to start a conversation with the person the old-fashioned way. Maybe you could start by making eye contact with the person?  Maybe paying them a compliment, or say something about your surroundings or circumstances; or comment on the weather for that matter?

Breaking up with clutter is hard to do...

Earlier today I was reading a new post on my friend Elizabeth's blog A New Version of Me (which by the way is an amazingly heartfelt blog worth reading) and she was talking about a clutter challenge she is doing. A clutter challenge! How perfect would that would be for me!! I have already admitted that clutter is a problem area of mine in my New Year's Challenge #1, so what better way to stay a bit accountable than to join in on this challenge?!

The original challenge is from a lady named SRB and she writes all about it on her blog VeggieSausages. 

The first step in the challenge is to Fess Up about our clutter....so here goes....

Birthday Creations - Birthday Sign

I usually make some kind of "Happy Birthday" sign for my kids each year for their special day. I generally cut out shapes, cut out the letters and assemble it like a banner. However, this year I decided to utilize the wrapped picture frames from my Christmas party to make my daughter's 3rd birthday sign. I simply took the ribbons off and added colorful letters that I drew by hand and cut out of various scrapbook paper. 

Christmas Creations - Hot Chocolate Party

Even though I know that Christmas is over with and it is a long time until next Christmas I am going to post a few creations I made for a cookies and hot chocolate party I threw last year. Pardon the quality of the pictures as I am still learning the picture taking skill.

Texas Sheet Cake

If you do a search for Texas Sheet Cake there are a lot of different recipes that come up. This one, from Southern Living’s Best Ever Cakes and Pies Magazine, is my favorite. It is moist and chocolaty and just the way a chocolate sheet cake should be.

Texas Sheet Cake with Fudge Frosting

Make the frosting before taking the cake out of the oven, and spread it on the warm cake.

Sheet Cake Ingredients:

2 cups sugar

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

1 (8oz) container sour cream

Birds and goats and llamas oh my!

Those who know me are well aware that animals are not among my favorite things. Especially the flying ones, or creepy crawling ones, or hairy ones, or big ones, or small ones…..in other words all of them! I am not proud to be afraid of all these supposedly “cute” beings, but I just do not find most of them adorable or appealing or likable at all. Now, however, since I am a somewhat responsible adult and I have kids of my own I am trying my best to not instill my fears in my kids. For example, I pretend to the best of my ability that the swarms of grackles what gather outside the grocery store do not bother me. Never mind the fact that I will rather park a mile away than park in the spot right next to the entrance if it means I will also be parked right next to a half-eaten burger being devoured by a gazillion of these oh-so-unattractive-flying-monsters-with-their-super-creepy-eyes! **mere thought makes me shutter**

My dishwasher is going on vacation

Ok, so it has been established that I am in dire need of some more organization and order in my life and house, hence my New Years Challenge #1. Well, as a step in the right direction I have decided to send my dishwasher on vacation for an unspecified period of time. In other words, I am not going to buy any more dishwasher detergent now that we are out, and I am not turning the machine on for quite a while. It gets to go to a warm and sunny place and enjoy some of those fruity drinks with the cute little umbrellas. It is off duty!

Revelation Update

I just want to let you know that battle hair has officially been won! We have now had four days without hair-catastrophes. Four whole days! I will never go back to using any other type of hairbrush ever again. It feels great to check that battle off my list! .....Never mind the remaining gazillion other battles I still need to keep fighting….

I might just have had a revelation!

So this may not seem like a big deal to most people, but it might just be a HUGE deal to me!

Here is the scenario:

Every morning I try to brush my oldest daughter's hair and get her ready for school or for the day.

Every morning her hair is one gigantic, tangled mess and I have no idea how it became like that.

Every morning we have a meltdown or a screaming fit or lots of lots of tears because my daughter is sooooo tender-headed.

Every morning I bite my tongue in a desperate attempt to try to stay calm (see challenge #5).

Orange Raisin Cookies - The Most Versatile Cookie in the Whole Wide World

This recipe is for my most favorite cookie in the whole wide world! It is easy, it is versatile, it is quick, it is  allergy friendly (or at least can easily be). With a couple of substitutions it can be dairy-free, egg-free, corn-free, nut-free, chocolate-free, gluten-free or whatever else free too probably.

The original recipe is from one of my favorite blogs called Attic24 and you can see it here but I have also included it below just for easy reference.

Orange Raisin Cookies (12 small)

100g all purpose flour (or gluten-free substitute)

½ tsp baking powder (or corn-free substitute)

50g soft, light brown sugar

50g soft butter (or dairy free margarine)

Tomato-less Pasta or Pizza Sauce

Pasta and meatsauce has been my go-to dish for as long as I can remember, but since my kids are allergic to tomato and citric acid (which is in most canned/jarred products) this has been a bit of a challenge. However, I have come up with a tomato-less sauce that my kids loved! The color is quite orange because I used carrots but it tasted good and worked well.

Tomato-less Pasta Sauce

1 pound ground beef

1/4 small onion, chopped

1 stalk celery, chopped

1 clove of garlic, minced

Lentil Soup in the slow cooker

This is a great dinner; it is easy, it is cheap and it is good! In fact, both my girls claim this is their favorite soup! The recipe is based on the one you find on the bag of lentils.

Lentil Soup in the slow cooker

1 lb lentils, rinsed and sorted

8 cups warm water (you can use broth but water works great)

1-2 large carrots, chopped in small dice

2 medium stalks celery, chopped in small dice

Coconut Crusted Tilapia

We are trying to be mostly grain-free and I wanted to find an alternative for breading some baked tilapia. I decided on using coconut which turned out quite ok if I may say so. And the bonus was that my kids really liked it too. I know there are several recipes out there already with coconut crusted tilapia, but most include some type of bread-crumb too. This one does not and therefore it can also be gluten-free by substituting the regular flour for something else.

Coconut Crusted Tilapia

Tilapia filets, thawed and patted dry with a papertowel

Flour (May be substituted for gluten free options)

Egg, whisked

Coconut, finely shredded and unsweetened

Oatmeal Waffles

Breakfast seems to always be a bit of a challenge at my house. My kids have grown tired of oatmeal and scrambled eggs or omelets etc. are not the highest on their list either. I do have to say that I have the least picky eaters I have ever met, but I think we just hit a point where the same old breakfasts were just that, the same old. So in order to still give them oatmeal and also eggs here are two options that are big hits:

Blender Oatmeal Waffles

1 ½ c oats (quick or regular)

1 ½ c milk (can be substituted, see below)

2 tsp baking powder

2 Tblsp oil

New Year's Challenges

Ok, so I do not generally have New Year’s resolutions since I always feel like I will never keep them anyhow and life happens and time disappears from me and so forth. However, this year I have decided to come up with something similar. So, I have taken a closer look back at the twelve months that have just passed and I have come up with a list of challenges that I plan to face this year. 

These are not written in any particular order of importance, but here goes:

Challenge 1 - Organization, organization, organization!

I am definitely a more cluttered person and I tend to be surrounded by a lot of things, things I am working on, things I like to look at, things I never found a permanent home for, things I don’t know where came for, where are going or where belong. You get the picture; I am surrounded by things – my things, my husband’s things, our things, and our kids’ things. They all add up to one gigantic organizational challenge. This year though I am determined to take small steps towards getting systems in place that work for me and for us. They might not make much sense to anyone else, but they will hopefully make sense to us.