Joe-Joe's & me...well, a lovely pair for the tastebuds, but I wouldn't recommend it for those trying to watch the waistline. One turns into ten. And ten turns into almost a whole box in a couple of days. Harmless (I mean harmful) little critters. They're addicting.
Consider yourself warned.
There's nothing like hot chocolate in the winter...
to accompany our S'MORES! We have this wonderful fireplace in our courtyard that gets used maybe once a year. We just don't spend as much time out there as we should. So the day after Thanksgiving, we bought some wood and made ourselves a cozy fire, and then roasted marshmallows to make delicious s'mores! I wanted to go down to the beach and do it in one of their pits, but why when we can do the same thing minus the sandy marshmallows in our own backyard?! YUM. The Perfect holiday treat...
Besides the cost of living, the ONLY other bummer thing for me about living here in San Diego is that we are 6 hours away from any family. (Which is not that bad---and my Arizona brother..hmmmm...Kevin, could have come, but failed to plan). My other family is either in Utah or across the nation on the east coast or up in the Pacific Northwest, which...believe me, is NOT close {especially when you drive it}. When we lived in Utah our home was holiday central since most of my brothers were either living in Utah for work or finishing up school. Those that weren't had flight benefits. Here, our friends all have family that live near, so community Thanksgiving doesn't happen like it would in 'the mission field.'
So my point being that unless we travel north, we spend the holidays...just with our little {BIG} nuclear family. I used to long for that day, and now we have it, so here's to appreciating the beauty in all things:
I love it that we can establish our own traditions and have our own time schedule...that it is free of drama, but I do miss having my extended family gather for such wonderful occasions... drama or not--doesn't that come with every family?
I love it that there is no one around to mock me, or become jealous... when it only takes a couple of minutes to prepare our Thanksgiving feast...
Our home still has the aroma of a cooking turkey---because it is, well, 'cooking.'
I make a double recipe of lion house yummilicious rolls (recipe below) and typically I'll make pecan pie bars and a few pies.
I love to whip out my special china, handed down to me from my dear Grandma...and remember Thanksgivings past spent at her home with the same china.
I love having my family 'dress up'--a tradition my dad used to enforce. {at my house, shoes are optional}.
...and I love sitting around ONE table so we're within earshot of all the little funnies the kids spew.
...I love to enjoy my dining room tablescape...because Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners are the only reason I have a dining room table -- I would ditch it in lieu of a library in that spot...but that's another story.
When you have picky eaters, it's tough to justify spending 4-6 hours in the kitchen slaving over the meal that will be half-eaten and picked at in 10 minutes. I can never come away from Costco + Albertsons shopping for an occasion as this, having spent less than $200 once everything is considered.
It all started when I was complaining of these things and so Curt's solution was this:
Can you even see it? Mimi's Cafe.
They have a take & warm Thanksgiving feast and boy, do they know how to make a feast. My kids adore their sweet potatoes--probably because brown sugar and marshmallows are the main ingredient. Give Curt a leg or two and he's happy for HOURS. The turkey is to die for--competes with the best brined turkey I've ever had. They even give you pie, whip cream, the best cranberry sauce I've ever tasted, gravy, veggies, chunky homemade stuffing, mashed potatoes, rolls, and a few loaves of their yummy gourmet breads. Seriously, can't beat Thanksgiving in a box for $80. It is supposed to feed 6-8, but we have leftovers for a week.
What a deal. And that's my secret. This is why everyone can go enjoy a movie the morning of Thanksgiving and why clean up takes 10 mintues-maybe 20. I love our Thanksgiving tradition for my picky eaters. It makes for a happy mommie who can enjoy the simple things on this day of gratitude, rather than being so exhausted and over-heated from the day in the kitchen.
Some tips: When you dissolve the yeast...make sure you do it quickly after the powdered milk is dissolved so the water is still warm. Let it sit for a minute, then add the sugar and stir and let it sit for a few minutes. The way you can tell if the yeast is active or not is if the mixture bubbles up and grows a little bit.
This is what I do to help my dough rise faster--I pour HOT water in a big bowl, then put my covered bowl of dough on top of it (it's not necessarily sitting in the water, just over the hot water in it's bowl). I then turn on the dryer for 5 minutes or so, turn it off, then place the dough sitting inside the water pot for about 45 mins until it rises double. Just make sure your kids/hubby doesn't turn on the dryer cause that wouldn't be fun mess (we haven't ventured in that direction yet). Line your pans with parchment paper---it yields a better roll. After placing the rolled dough on the parchment, spray one side of your plastic wrap with PAM and place wrap on top of rolls (so they don't stick). Turn on the oven to 200...turn off, then place your rolled rolls in there and let rise as oven cools down. They'll be ready to bake in 30 mins or less!
I've posted about this before...it's a very common occurrence in our home. And I know I'm not a lone mom that deals with picky eaters I also refer to as my monkeys.
I make a meal from scratch; my kids would rather eat cereal, eggos, oatmeal, or eggs ANY DAY of the week....AND for all three meals, mind you! I've caught on and I just don't put that much umphhh into my dinners anymore...what's the point? Give the monkeys what they want and everyone will be happy.
5 pm rolls around and I'm head first into the deep freeze digging up something from yester-year or some ready-to-eat dealio from Costco (gotta love it Costco)! Okay, not yester-year...but pretty close --I had to scrape the ice off the top to even see what was chicken-scratched on the top--was it really something that was edible? Did I shove it in there thinking that by some miraculous change in taste buds sometime in the near future they'd certainly like it even if they snubbed it the first time around, thus the leftovers fit for a whole kingdom?
And note....I consider myself to be a pretty good cook...I learned some great homemaking skills when I was like two and have been practicing them ever since. But I don't like to waste pounds upon pounds of food...so I relent most the time. Oh, and I don't like the whiny "I'm hungry" cries from the top of the stairs at night when they're supposed to be in REM cycle 3 already. So I usually stock my freezer full of eggos and 'safe' pre-made Costco meals, my cupboards full of carnation instant breakfast, my pantry full of healthy cereals, breads, and nutri-grain bars, and my fridge full of milk, yogurt, eggs, and fruit. Forget the rest-except the jasmine rice. They'll eat that as a meal in and of itself any time. Too bad jasmine rice costs like the same as gas.
So tonight the fridge is kinda empty. Haven't made it to Costco in over 2 weeks. Curt's out of town and I'm not taking three little girls in there cause frankly, I won't have enough cart space and I'm a pretty smart mom--I know that by the weekend they'd be puking all over from whatever random virus they caught off the shopping carts. Izzie does suck her finger no matter what it's made contact with the second before. And I think they're like immune to sanitizer by now. If I have Izzie sanitize too much she'd end up with a blood alcohol level of like 10 because of the finger-sucking. Another story for another time.
Off to the freezer to scrape off the ice and try to read the chicken scratch--cause surely the stuff inside was dog food--or at least that's what it looked like. Chicken curry with veggies....yeah, the kids might have liked that one a couple months ago. So I throw some rice on and open some corn and butter some bread....walaaa! A meal. I had to beg them to eat it---Izzie got airplanes, trains, helicopters...even race car spoonfuls of food into her mouth. The rice was gone in no time flat and everyone else cleared their 5 bites I made them shove 'to get their protein.' Why do we do this to ourselves when hot dogs and mac 'n' cheese is cheaper and easier? Yeah, I can't even stomach the thought of those things. And it was a good meal! I certainly enjoyed it. Didn't taste a bit like freezer burn...r e a l l y. And I'll enjoy it 
tomorrow too--like I said, enough for the whole kingdom.
So 
I'm helping Mons clean up and I look over...Vivs is almost completely turned around in her little bumbo chair (that she sits in on the table to eat)...both hands in the chicken curry grabbing fist fulls and shoving them into her mouth just as fast as she can. This is my little girl with a sensitive and delicate GI system---is she trying to say, "stop babying me already and give me the real stuff--I'm ONE for goodness sakes????" And she didn't even have squirrel cheeks, so she was actually inhaling the stuff! YEAH! She likes it, she likes it! I watched her do this like 5 times and then I'd give her water to help wash the stuff down---cause it's kinda chunky and I'm sure it's going down her throat whole cause her front two teeth just won't do the trick. But okay, I'll go along with it---so I grind some of it up for her and continue to feed her...but that just wasn't quick enough for her...she still had to grab fist fulls and shove. It was funny enough for a photo-op, so there ya have it.
Moral of the story: I love my Vivs. I adore all my kids....most of the time. Don't you dare dement her, oh, ye five other monkeys-of-mine! I want my kids to be healthy, so I'll give them what they will actually eat (1/2 the time) as long as it's a healthy choice. But it's sure nice when my meals don't end up feeding the mice and other creatures that are outside near the trashcan...even if the tupperware started out looking like frozen dog food before it was defrosted. And, if it's good enough for Vivs, it's good enough for the rest of the pack. I think Vivs is ready for real food...except she spit up nasties like 4 times after her feast. Oh well, but I am a good cook...really, I am.
Growing up, my mom and I used to consume these heavenly gourmet dark chocolate truffle bars from Trader Joes...more than any person should be allowed. I don't remember what they were called, other than our special term for them, "boobie bars." They were our version of 'happy pills' and just put an instant smile on our faces and instantly satisfied our senses.
My brother, Mark, reminded me that we would hoard these amazing chocolate bars. We'd buy them by the case and the way we'd get the boys to leave our 'medicine' alone was by telling them that if they ate them they'd most certainly grow boobies. I actually think they believed us for a time...and left us to our own devices. Oh, I can just taste the truffle filling surrounded by the extra dark chocolate sitting here reminiscing. Trader Joes no longer carries them which is probably a good thing for my hips these days.
Dieting or not, at a certain time every month I find myself HAVING to indulge...I really can't help it no matter how hard I try. Since I've tried to keep my cupboards clear of my weaknesses, I had to send Curt out for a quick ice cream run tonight (the next best thing to quality dark chocolate). I needed my medicine in some form! He brought back Ben & Jerry's Oatmeal Cookie Chunk and Ha
lf Baked...YUM. Lexie asked for a bite and I told her, "you probably won't like it...you'll grow boobies." It affected her the same way at first--she wouldn't take a bite afraid what she may wake up to! Izzie...well, a spoon full wasn't enough for her...she went and got her own spoon to dig in. And after Lex saw Izzie's boldness she had to get in on the action.
So there you have it...if you don't want your kids to eat your 'medicine' just tell them they'll grow boobies and see if that works. Maybe it's just a boy thing. Looks like I'll have to share my medicine with four other girls who need the medicine too...but I don't mind...it just means less for my hips!
