Jamie Farrell's Blog, page 30

For my Les Mis Browncoat Friends

The hubby found this last night. It’s made of pure awesomesauce. Enjoy!

 

Best of October

I don’t talk about them a lot here, but I do have three children. Munchkin’s in kindergarten, Squeaker’s currently halfway between mastering his vocabulary and starting preschool, and Buttercup can crawl and say “Ball.” (She’s very advanced verbally. Or so I like to think.) And they crack me up, so I hope maybe they can crack you up to.

To that effect, here are my favorite things that my children said and did in October, as recorded on my personal Facebook page:

At dinner last night, Munchkin looked at Squeaker and said, “So, Squeaker, how was your day?”

Squeaker broke out in the hugest grin you’ve ever seen, leaned over and grabbed Daddy’s hand, and said, “Daddy! Munchkin talked to me!”

 

There is a car parked in my breast pump. Thanks, Squeaker.

 

Per Squeaker: “God the Father had a zoo, E-I-E-I-O. On the zoo he had a train. WOOOOWOOOOOO.”

 

I was enjoying my caramelized onion and feta-topped New York strip steak when Munchkin looked at me and said, “Mommy, that big thing on your plate looks like a pirate ship with worms on it.”

 

Squeaker highlight of the week: He informed me he has a horse that says, “Moo.”

And when I remember what name he gave the poor creature, I’ll let you know.

**His horse was named Owl. And he also had a cow named Four that said Oink. (And he also giggles hysterically every time he tells this story.)

 

Munchkin was crawling around the house meowing this morning (yes, meowing), when he suddenly stopped, picked up his sheriff badge, and said to it, “If you kill your boyfriend, you’ll get arrested.”

 

So I dumped half a jar of babyfood on me while I was feeding Buttercup, and then Squeaker finished his lunch and demanded my help washing his hands, but I told him he was a big boy and he could either use his stool to wash his hands in his own sink, or he could wait his turn if he just *had* to wash his hands in the kitchen sink, because I seriously had my hands (and lap) full, and he is a big boy. He can do it himself.He shrieked, “No, mama!” at me, then grabbed an empty paper towel tube that I hadn’t had a chance to recycle yet, and used it as a megaphone to shout, “Jesus, help me! Help me, Jesus!”He wins.

 

Me: “Squeaker, why are your pants on backwards?”

Squeaker: “Because why.”

Me: “Squeaker, what do you want for snack?”

Squeaker: “Because why.”

Me: “Squeaker, where is your sister?”

Squeaker: “Because why.”

 

Buttercup is sitting beside me, hollering into the boys’ marshmallow shooter like it’s a megaphone. I’m thinking this is a sign of things to come.

 

Munchkin was supposed to be brushing his teeth, but instead he walked out of the bathroom with a comb in his hand and said, “Mommy, I’m combing my hair so all the girls at the bus stop will think I’m pretty. I mean beautiful. I mean-” he paused, rolled his eyes, and then sighed, “handsome.”

 

So. Those are my kids. What was the highlight of your October?

Who are you going to be this year?

We hit about three dozen Halloween parties this weekend, which meant it was dress-up time! We went as a pirate family, because, well, pirates. 

 

The boots are the number one reason I want to be a pirate wench every year. Just in case you’re wondering. Are you dressing up for Halloween this year? Handing out candy or going trick-or-treating with the kids? Carving pumpkins? Sipping cider? Spicing it up with anything special?

Happy Halloween week!

The Danger of Windows in Fall

It was so cold in my house this morning that I didn’t want to get out of bed. My cat didn’t want me to get out of bed either. She crawled under the covers to keep me warm when my alarm clock went off.This is Saffron, also knows as The Butter Licker. (We all have our vices.) And what she and I didn’t know this morning was that my bedroom was the coldest room in the house thanks to the cross-flow of forty-degree air from my open bedroom windows to my open bathroom window. But we’re both up now, the windows are closed, and we’re attempting to make something of today. She’s in the sunshine. I’m on my treadmill. I think she’s getting the better end of the deal.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend. Me? I’m spending half of it as a pirate wench. Pictures coming next week!

Banana Heaven

Angie’s Banana Pudding

Last spring, we stopped in Nashville over spring break and had dinner with friends at a Chinese restaurant, and I got super excited because they had banana pudding. You know the kind, right? With pudding and Nilla wafers and bananas? That’s like milk and fruit and healthy cookies (vanilla’s a bean, and wafers implies thin- don’t argue with a woman on Weight Watchers), so I took a scoop.

And then I nearly spit it out because the pudding itself was banana flavored. And I was told that in the South, all Nilla wafer banana pudding uses banana-flavored pudding. So a while back, I took a poll on Facebook and Twitter. And my friends obviously have good taste, because the results were nearly unanimous in favor of vanilla pudding in Nilla wafer banana pudding. And then my Twitter friend, Angie, sent me this recipe for completely homemade banana pudding, so you know I had to try it out. (p.s. If you’re on Twitter, go follow Angie!)

Angie’s Banana Pudding:

1c. sugar
1/4 c. Flour
mix
add 2c. Milk
1 egg
1 T butter
1t vanilla
Put in saucepan and stir constantly until lightly thickened.  Layer w/bananas and cookies.

Angie says her mom even makes it in the microwave! Super easy, super yummy.

I’m a big fan of meringue, so I added some on top and baked it about 20 minutes. And then I put my kids to bed an hour early so I could eat it all by myself. And then I weighed in at Weight Watchers the next morning and still lost almost a pound, because Angie’s recipe is full of goodness and non-weight-gaining properties. (It has to be if I still lost almost a pound, right?)

On a side note, a few of my friends mentioned they can’t have banana pudding because of allergies. Curses!! I know it’s not the same, but I would totally eat this without the bananas, because I’m the kind of weirdo who likes the texture of the Nilla wafers after they’ve soaked up the vanilla pudding. And then someone suggested coconut. I’m seeing another experiment on the horizon…

A Thousand Stories in Fourteen Words

We took the kids to Boo at the Zoo this weekend.

This sign was posted at the entrance.

 

Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Have a great Monday!

p.s. Have you entered to win a signed copy of Southern Fried Blues at Goodreads? The contest ends tomorrow! Go enter!

How My Super Power Broke A Redneck Getaway

I’m not near as good as Anna in Southern Fried Blues

We took the family for a little getaway in the backwoods of Alabama recently. Even though only one of the four adults present were actually Southerners, it was a true Southern getaway, complete with redneck golf, fried catfish, ketchup (there was a Southern Minnesotan among us), and directions that included words like “yonder” and “turn at the Alabama/Auburn mailbox.” (You love who you love, even when they cheer for the wrong team.) We had a big campfire and made s’mores with marshmallows the size of my fist that we roasted on these revolutionary rotating marshmallow roasting sticks too. (Can’t you just see Jackson giving a couple of these to Anna?) (Also, I highly recommend Ghirardelli chocolate squares (especially the caramel ones) alongside the requisite Hershey bars for s’mores.)

Fresh caught and fresh fried!

We also discovered that I have a super power.

And here’s how that happened:

Our friends were frying the catfish, and baby Buttercup was getting a little fussy, so Hubby sat down with her on one end of the picnic table bench. The boys were playing with their little friends and terrorizing all the fish in the pond, so I figured I had a minute to sit and talk to Hubby and to help placate Buttercup.

And that’s when my super power roared to life.

In retrospect, it would’ve been better if I had a superhero call. Like you know how Superman does that whoosh thing in a phone booth? Except, obviously, no phone booths at a little pond in backwoods Alabama, and my particular super power doesn’t lend itself to a flattering super suit anyway, so we can skip that part.

But I kept hearing the ThunderCats cry. You know the one, right? “Thundercats, ho!”

Yeah. That one.

In my case, the call would be, “Thunderbutt, ho!”

(This is where we recall that I was talking about going to sit next to Hubby and Buttercup on a wood bench.)

(This is also where I clarify that although I have two boys and a husband, fart jokes will be minimal on this blog.)

So.

I walked up to the wood bench, I half-squatted, let out a call of “Thunderbutt, ho!” and then I karate-chopped the bench with my butt cheeks.

Thunderbutt, HO!!!!

The End.

p.s. I feel an urge to clarify how I actually broke the bench, but I’m resisting, because this version is so much better. Just for the record.

p.p.s. No humans were harmed in the discovery of my super power.

p.p.p.s. Now I want another s’more.

When The Reality Doesn’t Meet The Expectations

The other day, I’d managed to use my super-mom ninja skills to sneak away from my whole family to brush my teeth in private, and I was standing there at the sink, brushing away, thinking (and snorting to myself) about how funny it was that before kids, I had this vision of myself.

Where are my house elves?

I was going to be that mom who got up at 5 AM to run the neighborhood, then be showered and dressed to make waffles with fresh-squeezed orange juice at 6 AM, and then I’d be smiling and humming to myself at the counter at 7 AM while fixing nutritious, healthy lunches for my perfect little angels who would be helping each other learn to read and put puzzles together. (The dishes either would’ve magically done themselves, or I would have done them with a big smile while thinking how blessed I was to have this opportunity to do the dishes for my perfect little family.) I would be dressed fashionably, with cutely wider but still trimmed and toned hips that I loved because their wider, post-childbirth width reflected the time I spent growing and nurturing my offspring in my womb, and the time I refused drugs and had a beautiful natural delivery of all of them. After everyone was out the door, I’d sling my fashionable shoulder bag on, smile and hum to myself as I loaded myself into my car for a satisfying, meaningful day of work, and I would be totally put together and have the perfect charming life.

Except the reality is a lot more chaotic, with shrieking and spilling and shouting, and jelly on a peanut butter sandwich counts as fruit in the kids’ lunchboxes, and I have saggy writer butt and my idea of “fashionable” is anything without holes or stains in it (mental note: I need to go shopping for new fashionable clothes). I also have a c-section scar that’s been used three times (with drugs, thank you very much), and my idea of “perfect” and “charming” has shifted a little.

Because, I was thinking to myself as I was brushing my teeth, my life really is perfect for me, and it’s the right kind of charming for me, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Even if I have to have ninja skills to find time to brush my teeth.

Although I would seriously appreciate it if paper towel and car commercials could capture a bit more of my reality, because I’m quite certain that’s where my disillusions have come from. So I was thinking I should perhaps write a few letters…

And that’s about the time my husband walked into the bathroom, looked at me with a perfectly straight face, and said, “So, is it easier to clean up cat poop when it’s fresh, or after it’s dried? Because the cat missed the litter box again.”

Perfect, charmed life.

I has it.

A Yankee Girl’s Guide To Southern Roulette

This is tea:

This is sweet tea:

This is Southern roulette:

Can you spot the sweet tea?

(Also, for true Southern roulette, these could also be in matching crystal or red solo cups.)

Since I’ve lived in the South for almost a decade, I decided recently that I needed to attempt to expand my repertoire of Southern dishes. And I had never made sweet tea. I’d seen it done once or twice, so obviously, I can do it. I’m good in the kitchen like that. And just in case you need to know, I’m going to share my super-secret, ultra-effective method of making the kind of sweet tea that Jackson’s momma might call mediocre.

(I grew up in Illinois. I’m doing my best here, people.)

Step One:

Gather your ingredients.

Apparently Luzianne is the Southern tea of choice. I had Barry’s. (From Ireland.) Also needed: water (duh), sugar (duh) and baking soda (huh?). (On the baking soda – the internet told me so. And we all know the internet never lies.)

Step Two:

Boil a couple cups of sugar in a couple cups of water, then pour over your tea bags. (The internet also says you’ll make your tea too bitter if you boil your bags.)

Step Three:

Steep. (The internet had this big argument with itself over how long to steep it, so I say, go with your gut.)

Step Four:

Splatter sticky tea concentrate all over yourself when you remove the bags from the water. Sometimes it’s best to not squeeze that last bit of water from the tea bag. Especially with two spoons. Especially if you didn’t want to take a bath.

Or start a new trend called “Tea Stained Shirts.” AKA, “Tea Shirts.”

Step Five:

Strip off your shirt in the kitchen. Rinse it. Make your husband’s day when he walks in and finds you shirtless. Ruin his day when you point out the children are awake, and he needs to watch them while you take a shower.

(No, you don’t get a picture.)

Step Six:

Top the tea concentrate off with a few cups of cold water, cool, then pour and drink.

And do not confuse your sweet tea with your unsweet tea. Because that, my friends, is how you lose at Southern Roulette.

 

The Chocolate Chip Cookie Smackdown

Because I love you guys, and because I’m a giver, I took it upon myself recently to make the three best chocolate chip cookie recipes in the whole world, and then to try them at all stages and compare them against one another so you don’t have to.

Because I know that would be a hardship.

And, as it turns out, each of these recipes have their strong points. So you’ll have to figure out what you want from your cookie before you pick a recipe.

It’s never straightforward here.

First up is the magical 36-hours-of-refrigeration recipe. You can find it here.

The 36-hour Cookie Dough

What I liked about this recipe: Because it requires 36 hours of refrigeration for max cookie flavor, I had chocolate chip cookie dough in my refrigerator for 36 hours. And I am a dough eater. So I was very, very happy for 36 hours.

What I didn’t like about this recipe: I gained half a pound at my Weight Watchers weigh-in because I had cookie dough available for 36 hours before my weekly meeting time.

The 36-hour Cookie Dough Cookie

Another seriously good thing about this recipe?

 

 

 

This one has a sprinkling of salt on top. And I loved that. So, to make things even, I put a sprinkling of salt on all the cookies.

 

These were very good cookies. I would eat them all. (I may have eaten them all.)

 

 

The next cookies were my modified chocolate chip bag recipe (except I used a different brand of chocolate chips for consistency across all cookies, since the other two recipes called for different chips than the recipe on the bag.)

My modified chocolate chip bag recipe cookie dough

And here I confess, not my favorite dough, not my favorite cookie. I am a much better recipe-follower than I am a recipe-maker.

Or so I thought.

But I still maintain this dough was easiest – no special ingredients (the 36-hour dough requires cake and bread flour), no waiting, no special beating instructions (the Cooks Illustrated dough requires hand-beating and timing – more on that below).

The Modified chocolate chip bag cookie

 

 

 

 

But make no mistake – this was still a good cookie.

 

And when hubby took all three cookies into his office the next day, this one won by a landslide, which leads me to conclude that either a) he lied to me and/or threatened his coworkers to choose my cookie, or b) these age the best.

 

 

 

 

Cooks Illustrated Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

And then there are the Cooks Illustrated Cookies.

This recipe makes my favorite dough.

I honestly could eat this dough for breakfast. It is SO YUMMY. Like toasted, buttery caramel with chocolate chips in it.

But you have to work hard to get it, because this recipe calls for beating the sugar, butter (which you have to brown, and which is totally worth it) and egg and an egg yolk by hand for thirty seconds for four or five times, with rest time in between.

Seriously. You earn it with these cookies. Making them is a workout.

Cooks Illustrated Best Chocolate Chip Cookie

 

But they are sooo worth it.

Straight out of the oven, hands down, these were the best cookies. Hubby and I both agreed.

But the day after, none of his coworkers preferred them. So these might be best-fresh cookies.

(And I happen to know the dough refrigerates well, so if you’re feeling like doing onesie-twosie awesome cookies, these are your recipe.)

 

 

 

The overall rundown:

Best dough: Cooks Illustrated.

Best fresh cookie: Cooks Illustrated.

Easiest: Jamie’s modified bag recipe

Best next day: Jamie’s modified bag recipe

Softest: 36-hour cookies

Most convenient to make onesie-twosie: 36-hour cookies.

For the record, I loved all these cookies, and I wouldn’t turn down any of them if you put them in front of me. Because you can’t go wrong with chocolate chip cookies.

Have a great weekend!