She Knits Shizknits

Memorial Day

This year's Memorial Day block party was supposed to be 'low key'.  We didn't pull out the waterslide, we didn't rent a jumphouse, we didn't put out a pool....we just sat around:

BBQd (lots of delicious tri-tip!):

...and let the kids just play. There was a lot of scooter and bike riding:

Then the squirt guns came out!



And of course we had to have water balloons. Why is it that water balloons take FOREVER to blow up, and the kids go thru them in seconds? I spent at least an hour blowing up about 200 water balloons. It took less than 2 minutes for them to all be used up!




The weather was just perfect: not too hot and not too cold. We started around 11am, and ended up staying outside all day long.  Around 6pm we finally decided to order pizzas for everyone who was still hanging out, clean up the street, and head inside to watch the Lakers game.

We finally got home around 7:30pm...just in time for a quick dunk in the tub for the small men.  They had their bath and then crashed HARD...I think they were both fast asleep before 8!  I don't blame them- I was pretty exhausted myself.  Even if all I did all day was sit around, chatting with the other mommas!

M-O-U-S-E spells 'rat'

We have a very untidy garage...well 'untidy' is probably an understatement. What's in our garage?  Not our two everyday vehicles, that's for sure!  The Funbus is parked on the driveway, and the Dearest's car is either in front of the house or on the side curb.  What IS in the garage??? The Dearest's non-operational Mazada Miata, all the kids' toys/bikes/etc., the Xtracycle, the kids' little electric Jeep....and just lots and lots of junk.

One corner of the garage holds all our stinky hockey gear. Last week the Dearest went in there late at night to pack his gear for a late ice hockey game. I heard him yelp, "I just saw a mouse!"

UGH

We have had problems with field mice getting into the garage in the past, but from the size of this little critter, it's a rat (probably a fruit rat). Seeing our uninvited guest spurred the Dearest to do some Spring cleaning in the garage.  So he spent Saturday morning and most of Sunday taking everything outside, sweeping and re-organizing. 

The Rat had made itself a nice little nest, complete with pieces torn off a rag rug, and a stash of stolen dog kibble. Quite cozy!  Unfortunately it had to go so the Dearest swept everything up.  He's going to lay traps today, just in case the Rat decides that it would still like to hang around.

Half the garage is still out in the driveway, but the Dearest says it will all (mostly) fit back in. We are giving away some stuff to Goodwill, and a lot of it will need to go in the trash.  But seeing the tidied-up garage is worth it!

What else have we been up to?

I made Orange-Lavender Crisps:

Oh these were GOOOOOD. I like orange and I like lavender....how can you go wrong with orange + lavender + butter? LOL The recipe calls for the cookies to chilled in the fridge, then rolled out and cut into shapes, but I couldn't get my dough to release from the countertop once I cut it. Because it's a shortbread dough, the butter starts to melt as soon as you remove it from the fridge, and it melts even faster as you handle it for rolling. So by the time I cut mine out, they were falling apart.

I finally shaped the dough into a sausage shaped tube, wrapped it in plastic, and stuck it back into the fridge.  After another 10 minutes of chilling, I unwrapped it and was able to slice of thin pieces of dough, which I placed on the cookie sheets and popped into the oven.  The crisps spread a bit in the oven so they were about 2 inches across once they were done. 

Amazingly, everyone who has tried them has loved them.  The small men ate probably a dozen apiece before I snatched away the remaining crisps! LOL  The recipes makes A LOT of small crisps so I was able to give away another dozen and we still had some left over. This is definitely a recipe worth repeating.

purple maze

We received a huge head of purple cabbage in our CSA basket this week. Our neighbor shares our basket with us, so I had to cut the cabbage in half for her. Look at how beautiful the inside is...

4o'clock snack

Christmas eve

Counting down the hours till Christmas morning...


watching Santa's progress on NORAD...
spreading out "magic reindeer food"...

eating candy canes...
Christmas Eve dinner with good friends...

opening their one Christmas Eve gift (and no, I did not make the open the matching pajamas!)

Monkey Boy got a Batman airplane, since that's his current obession...and LM got a Wizard Kit...

Now the small men are snug in bed, waiting for Santa to arrive!  Merry Christmas all!

the pumpkin hordes have arrived

We do love our pumpkin-ness here at Chez Shizzknits.....pumpkin pie, pumpkin ice cream, pumpkin poundcake.....if it's made with pumpkin, it's usually a hit. Every year around this time I start stocking up on canned pumpkin (usually the organic pumpkin from Trader Joe's).

But this year, as I blogged about earlier, we received a large pumpkin in our CSA basket that was obviously more for cooking than carving. So I thought I'd try making my own pumpkin puree.  It was alot easier than I thought- I used our CSA pumpkin + two other small Sugar Pie pumpkins I bought from the local grocery. There are plenty of places online with instructions for making your own pumpkin puree, here are just two to get you started:
Pioneer Woman
All Recipes

I went with the lazy-woman's method (similar to Pioneer Woman): Cut open your pumpkin, scoop out (most of the) the insides (while your 6yr old goes "ewwwww gross") and dump onto a pan. Cook in a 350F oven till soft- about an hour- and let cool.  Scoop out the softened flesh, process in a food processor till smooth, adding water if necessary.  Place in freezer bags in 1cup increments. Freeze.

This is our CSA pumpkin, just after I cut it open.

Look at all those yummy seeds! We roasted the seeds, and the small ones are still eating them since we got ALOT.  The three pumpkins I cooked ended up making 10 cups of puree. I mixed the puree from the CSA pumpkin with the Sugar Pie pumpkins since it was much wetter.  In fact I had to drain the CSA puree in cheesecloth for about an hour before it was dry enough to use.

So what have I been making with our homemade puree?

The afore-mentioned Pumpkin Spice Scones...

Pumpkin Cookies with Vanilla Glaze:

These were GOOD....they are slightly cakey with a crisp bottom and edges. The Dearest says they remind him of Snickerdoodles, but with a hint of pumpkin. My pumpkin-hating friend, Ms. J, even liked them.
Here's the recipe:

2.5 C    all purpose flour
1    tsp baking powder
1    tsp baking soda
3    tsp pumpkin pie spice (I love Penzey's PPS)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 C    butter, softened
1.5  C    sugar
1     C    pumpkin puree
1           egg
1     tsp  vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350F.

Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, PPS and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.

Cream together the butter and sugar till smooth. Add pumpkin, egg, and vanilla. Beat till creamy.  Mix in dry ingredients (do not overmix, batter should be very wet and quite smooth).

Drop by tablespoonfulls onto a lightly greased cookie sheet.

Bake for 15-20 min, till edges just start to brown. Cookies will still look underdone on top.

Cool on a wire rack while making glaze.

Glaze:
2    C   confectioners' sugar
1    T   vanilla extract
3    T   milk

Mix sugar and vanilla in a medium bowl, adding milk 1 T at a time till glaze is desired consistency. You may also add a bit of molasses or cinnamon to the glaze if you want a more spicy icing.

Drizzle the icing over the cooled cookies with a fork.

Fight off cookie-grasping hands as you stuff your face with fresh, warm cookies. YUM.



I also made a pumpkin pie, pumpkin pancakes, and tomorrow I'm making Pumpkin Spice Lattes for a potluck. Right now I have about 5 cups of pumpkin puree still in the freezer....and I'm wondering if I'm going to have make some more, or if I should start worrying about the small men turning orange yet....

peeling, baking, and eating...

I really want Fall to arrive so some of the sweaters I finished over the summer can be worn, but the weather is really not cooperating. We had a mild summer and it seems we are getting our heat a bit later this year. The photo I took yesterday of the 100F temp is proof of that! I was a bit inland so it was warmer, but we still had 95F temps here- though it cooled down considerably last night and today is supposed to be 10 degrees cooler than yesterday. It would be nice to have some crisp Fall weather! It's been so hot that we have pretty much been staying inside in the A/C.

The small men wanted to bake an apple pie- I think it was actually an excuse to use our new apple coring/peeling machine. I let them wash the apples we had picked, set up the machine and gave them each a turn. 

First to go was Little Man.

At first he was very interested in how the machine worked...then suddenly it was..."How fast can I turn this thing??" Check out that concentration! Evidently, it all works better if you stick your tongue out. Next was Monkey Boy's turn. He got the hang of it really fast after watching big bro...

He even had time to flirt with the camera while turning...

Here's our recipe for apple pie...this makes the filling, which you can freeze for up to six months.

8cups sliced, peeled apples (we used Golden Delicious, Winesap, Galas and a few Fujis)
1cup   sugar
1/4C   flour
1tsp    cinnamon (we used Ceylon Cinnamon)
1/4tsp salt
1/3tsp nutmeg
2TBS   lemon juice
2TBS   butter, cut into chunks

1-gallon ziptop bags for freezing


I lined up all the bags and LM measured the dry ingredients into each bag. Then we used the apple machine to cut, peel and core approximately 20 apples.  It took about 5 apples to equal 8 cups.

Dump the apples into the dry ingredients. Shake everything up so it's all mixed and the apples are nicely coated.

Drop in the lemon juice and butter, seal and freeze immediately. If you let it sit out at all, it gets waaay juicy. We put our bags into the deep freeze right after filling each bag- make sure you lay the bags flat so they freeze faster and store better.

To use, defrost overnight in the fridge or on the counter for 30min. Pour into a prepared pie crust (or use the recipe below for a fresh crust) and bake at 375F for about 60 minutes.

Pie Crust
2cups    all purpose flour
1tsp      salt
1TBS     sugar
6TBS     butter (cold)
6TBS     shortening (we used Crisco butter flavor)
6-8TBS  ice water

Dump the first three ingredients into a food processor. Pulse till combined.

Add the butter and shortening. Pulse till combined...mixture will look like damp sand.

Turn on the processor and let it run while you drop in the ice water. Start with 6TBS. You want to get a nice, round ball of dough in the processor. Usually it only takes 6TBS, but sometimes you need to add more. When the dough balls up, remove from the processor, place into plastic wrap and put in the fridge to chill for at least 20 min.

To use, cut the ball of dough in half and roll each half out into a  1/8 inch thick circle that will fit your pie pan. Put one half on the bottom, fill with your apple pie filling, and place the second circle on top. Vent with one or two small holes, pinch the edges of the crust with fingers or fork to seal, and bake.

Yum!

We got a delicious pie out of our afternoon of apple peeling.  The crust turned out nice and flakey- I think the secret to a good crust is using the food processor. I've tried making crust with a dough blender before and never had good luck with it. The butter would always melt before I could get the dough nicely blended. The processor works so quickly that the butter stays nice and chilled so the crust is perfect. 

Oh, and no pics of the apple pie because we ate it so quickly that I never got a chance to get the camera out!

the monster tomato

The CSA (community supported agriculture) farm we belong to is all organic...no chemical pesticides or fertilizers.

So how in the world did they grow this monster tomato!?!?

It's literally as big as Monkey Boy's head!

Sushi art

Sent via mt htc shadow

movie nite party

Little Man had an early birthday party last Friday night. His real birthday isn't till this weekend but with the 4th of July holiday we usually throw a party for him the week before so more friends and family can attend.

At nearly six years old, LM had definite opinions about what he wanted to do.  When I asked him what kind of party he wanted, he said he wanted to do a movie party. So we planned for a 7-9:30pm party time and set up to screen a movie on our front lawn.   In preparation for the party, LM and I went to the store by ourselves. It was nice to spend so much alone time with him; usually Monkey Boy is with us and MB chatters incessantly so I don't get to hear Little Man talking much. At the party supply store he took nearly 20 minutes to decide between two different pinatas. We ended up with a Transformers themed pinata, paper plates and tablecloth.

The pinata was a big hit:

After everyone had a whack at the pinata, we brought out the cake.

LM had stated that he wanted a Lego cake, so this is my attempt

Little Man picked out strawberry cake and "Funfetti" cake. I baked two 9x13 pans, then froze them for an hour before cutting them into different sized block shapes.

I used buttercream frosting tinted with Wilsons gel dyes to frost the cakes. The "pegs" are big marshmallows that I froze and cut in half with scissors. Frosting those darned marshmallows took *forever*! But it was worth it once we saw the final product. And LM really liked his "Lego Cake"....he had to have two pieces...one of strawberry and one of the Funfetti.

After the cake cutting we handed out glow sticks and started the movie.

It wasn't long before the kids were up and running around in the dark, waving their glow sticks. In fact I think it was only the adults and two older kids who actually watched the entire movie to the end; the younger kids were having too much fun playing tag with their glow bracelets.

High points of the night:
-LM shouting "My heart is popping!" when he opened his big Lego set.
-no one was able to break the pinata open, so we had to use the pull strings....which didn't open it either. The Dearest finally had to break the bottom out himself.
-blue, red and green frosted tongues
-lots of glow sticks turned into light sabers
-LM coming up to me after the party was over and saying "Momma, thanks for the great party. I really liked it!" *melty heart*