CCCs

Before I had children, I had a picture in my mind of what kind of mother I wanted to be. I thought long and hard about what I wanted to teach my children, and how I wanted the atmosphere of our home to feel. I knew that I wanted to raise them to be good Catholics, to be kind, to know that they were loved, and to feel that their home was a refuge. There were all kinds of little vignettes in my head about different situations, both extraordinary and mundane, that I would experience with them or provide for them. One of these was a little snippet in my imagination of my kids coming home from school to milk and hot chocolate chip cookies, fresh from the oven, just waiting on the table. Something about a mom who takes the time to make a treat, warm, fragrant, gooey & sweet, called to me.

When Adam was a toddler, we baked together. As each child followed, they learned to pull up a chair to the counter, to cream butter and sugar, to dump in the chips. My kids love to bake, especially cookies. Most especially, they love to bake chocolate chip cookies. It's a tradition that grew on its own, considering that my kids have never gotten off the school bus, plopped down a book bag, and sighed about their long day of school.

The last few weeks have seen all of us come down with a bad case of negativity. We've all been short with each other, not used the kind words that we know are there. Tonight, I had a paper to write for my psychology class. Instead of writing a paper, I decided to contribute to the mental health of everyone and whip up a batch of chocolate chip cookies.

It was a good decision. Something about stirring the sugars and vanilla, measuring the flour, breaking the eggs, something there is therapeutic. CCCs are good for the soul. (At least mine are, because frankly, mine are the best I've ever tasted.) (No, you can't have the recipe. Half the fun is figuring out what works!)

And it worked. Like magic, everyone loosened up. We all stopped taking everything so. darn. seriously. Everyone liked each other again. When Adam yelled, "TASTE TEST!" and ran for the spoons, Gracie and the other boys cheered. Smiles all around. We each had a spoonful of batter. We licked our spoons clean. And I put a batch in the oven, anticipating the homey fragrance that would seal the deal, that would make the good mood stick, that would put us back on track.

Well, hello, Beautiful.

And that is the sight of happy kids. Never underestimate the power of chocolate to make everything better.

The Lovely Bones

If you're a vegetarian, you'll want to skip this post.

It was a good Thanksgiving. As one of my Facebook friends said, the dessert to main dish ratio was just right. (We had 8 desserts for 15 people.)

Yes, I stocked up on turkeys when they were on sale for 57 cents a pound. Not as good as last year's 44 cents a pound, but I'll take it.

Now that the feast is over, I have picked the bones clean. Literally. After the feast was done yesterday afternoon, I took the turkey carcass (isn't that just a lovely word, carcass? "What are you eating, dear?" "Carcass! It's delicious!") and stuffed half of it into the crock pot with some unpeeled carrots, unpeeled but halved onions, and some celery stalks. It made a lovely broth that will flavor rice and help with casseroles in the coming month. This morning, I took the second half of the carcass (again! That word!) and repeated yesterday's crock pot adventure. For tonight's dinner, we'll have turkey noodle soup, made from the bone broth/stock I made today. YUMMO!

For those of you who are stock-illiterate, let me break down the process:

1. Strip every piece of usable meat from the bones of your leftover turkey.

2. Put said bones in a big stockpot or crock pot, set on low. (If you had a big turkey like we did, you may have to do 2 batches.)

3. Wash some celery and carrots, chop 'em in halves or thirds, and throw them in. Chop a couple of smallish or just one large-ish onion in half, throw it in. (Don't worry about peeling. Really.) Pour in water to cover.

4. Let simmer for a few hours. At least 3, but 6 is better.

5. Put a nice big bowl in your sink with a sieve (or colander lined with cheesecloth) on top. Pour the pot's contents into the bowl, letting the sieve filter out all the solids.

6. Allow your stock to cool. Taste it - you'll need salt! Don't be shy. Like Ina Garten says, "The difference between dishwater and good stock is salt!"

7. Cover and refrigerate. In a few hours (or the next morning) skim off the fat. Some people like to cook with turkey fat. I sometimes give it to the dog on her food. It's too greasy for me, and I'm not afraid of fat!

8. Using a ladle, portion the broth into Ball canning jars and store it in the freezer, with the date on the lid. (I put my jars in the sink while I ladle. Less mess.) Leave an inch/an inch and a half headspace to account for expansion during freezing.

Simple & frugal. All those trace minerals from the turkey bones are in the broth. Enjoy!

Waste not, want not

My children will not eat the heels of a loaf of bread. Occasionally I get creative when making PB&J, and I face the heel inward, tricking the little monsters into eating their sandwiches. But those little people are crafty, and I'm afraid they'll catch on to my scheme, so I have taken to collecting bread heels in my freezer. I can't bear to throw perfectly good food away. (And because I know you're going to ask, I don't eat sandwiches at lunch, I eat leftovers. No heels for me, either.)

Eventually, all this saving leads me here (and keep in mind this is about half of what I had in the freezer):

What to do? Hubby gave me the idea of making croutons! (Forgive the picture below. I was holding a wiggly toddler.) I stacked my heels about 2 or 3 high on a cutting board, and sliced through them with a pizza cutter, making crouton-sized squares. Then I spread out the croutons on a wire rack and let them get a little hard & stale. (That's an important step, if you like crunchy croutons!) I had to wait a couple of hours.

Next, I put the stale bread cubes in a bowl, poured some free (after sale & coupons) dressing on them, lidded the bowl, and shook like mad! (The kids got a kick out of that!)

After putting my cubes on a cookie sheet, I baked them in the oven at 350 for about 10-12 minutes, opening the oven a couple of times to turn the cubes, preventing burning. After letting them cool, I stored them in an airtight (garage sale find) container. Now I have "free" croutons to go with my garden cukes and tomatos that are coming in right now. I confess that I was a little puzzled about the color of my croutons - they're darker than the store-bought kind. But then I slapped my forehead - aha! - we only eat whole wheat bread! Of course my croutons are darker!

Below, you can see Joey holding the freezer bag full of bread crumbs we made from the other half of the heels. I just threw the rest of my bread in a food processor and gave it a quick buzz. "Free" breading for recipes!

Random pictures

Here are just a few little things. Not enough for a whole post in themselves, but together they tell a story.

Here is a picture of the boys having a sack race at Vacation Bible School last week. I think Joey's bag is bigger than he is! 

Here are some almost-lovely bagels that I made using a recipe from Tammy's Recipes. They were yummy, though they're not too pretty. I learned that if you put ugly bagels in the water to boil, you get ugly bagels out of the water. Live and learn! They were much tastier and much cheaper than store-bought bagels. Try them! 

This is why you don't give a two-year-old Oreos. 

Since Grace has finally stopped chewing on her feet, I decided to paint her toes! So cute! (And no, I didn't make that quilt, though it's my very very favorite.) 

And this is what Joey's toes look like after a hard day of play. Summer's not all bad, eh?