For the Love of Joe: Product Spotlight

As you have heard time and time again, I LOOOOOOOVVVEE Trader Joe's. If I'm having a bad day, I just step through their hula-inspired doors, and everything seems right with the world.

Maybe it's the wonderful selection of unique and gourmet items. It might be the friendly staff, the clever packaging, the out-of-this-world prices or the stuffed lemur they hide around the store to keep my kids entertained while I shop. Perhaps it's because of the free samples they are always giving out or the quaint, neighborhood-grocery-store vibe of the whole place. Whatever the reason, TJ's just makes me happy when I'm feeling blue. What can I say? I'm easy to please.

Yet, unbelievably, I have several friends who don't shop at TJ's because they say they feel intimidated when they go in and don't know what to buy. They know that Trader Joe's is an absolute treasure trove of delectable delights, just waiting to be unearthed. But they just don't know where to start diggin'. So... I've decided to do weekly TJ's product spotlights of some of my TJ's favorites and how I use them. Consider it a little piece of foodie-aloha from me to you!

Today's product spotlight hails from the bread section on TJ's. She's a seasonal gal who loves butter, jam and leisurely dips in egg batter. That's right, folks... please welcome bachelorhood number one... It's TJ's Sliced Panetone Bread!

Panetone is an Italian fruitcake-inspired bread that is big around the holidays (Giada is a big fan, of course). It is a sweet, dense bread loaded with candied orange peel, almonds, cranberries and raisins (I'm usually not a fan of raisins, but they are good in this). YUM!

I spotted this beauty at TJ's yesterday, while looking for sandwich rolls, feeding small bits of grape to Mallory to keep her from screaming and telling Bennett for the ump-teenth time to please stop standing up in the cart.

I brought her home, and this morning we used her to make a batch of festive, holiday French Toast!

Here's what you do:

Crack a few eggs in a shallow dish. Add a splasheroo of milk, a shakeroo of cinnamon, another splasheroo of vanilla extract and a zesteroo of half an orange. These measurements must be exact.

Whisk it all together and dredge (that's a fancy way of saying "dip.") the bread slices in the egg mixture.

Now slap those dredged puppies on a hot skillet and cook both sides until golden brown.

Serve up your fancy-schmancy Panetone French Toast with butter and warm maple syrup!

Enjoy!

Cookie Day: All That and a Bag of Chocolate Chips!

Today was Cookie Day! As previously mentioned, My Mom and I have Cookie Day every December, and as the name suggests, it is a day where we make loads and loads and LOADS of cookies to give to our friends and neighbors (and of course, devour ourselves).

Here I am with some of our delicious, delectable creations. Please forgive my makeup-less, sweatshirt-clad appearance. Just keepin' it real. We don't dress up much around these parts when it's cookie day.

Here is my rediculously messy kitchen, in the throws of Cookie Day. Again, just keepin' it real...

This year we made several different types o' cookie goodness. We made:

• Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Pecan Sandies (a Cheryl L. West super-secret recipe... well, not really, I just don't feel like typing it in right now.)
• Icebox Shortbread (we made two different types: chocolate chip and orange-cranberry. YUM!)
• Gigantic Ginger-Molasses Cookies
• Vanilla Bean Snowmen
• Apricot Almond Snickerdoodles

These Snickerdoodles were actually made for our annual church bake-off last night, and they won in the cookie category! The were really good!!! Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 3/4 c. chopped almonds, toasted
• 3 c. flour
• 1/2 tsp. cream of tartar
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/2 c. sugar + 1/4 c sugar for the topping
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 tsp. almond extract
• 3/4 c. dried apricots, chopped
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves

Directions:

1. Whisk together flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
2. Using a hand mixer on medium speed, cream together butter and sugar in a large bowl until light and fluffy (5 minutes).
3. Add eggs and almond extract to butter mixture and blend until incorporated.
4. Add half of the flour mixture, beating on low until combined. Add remaining flour, beating only until just incorporated.
5. Fold almonds and apricots into the dough until evenly distributed.
6. Mix together 1/4 c. of sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves in a shallow bowl or plate.
7. Shape dough into 1.5 inch balls. Roll the dough into sugar/spice mixture.
8. Transfer cookies to greased cookie sheets and bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes, until cookies are lightly browned. Cool completely and enjoy!

Another part of this year's cookie day fun was making a gingerbread house with Bennett. My dad and McPreachy did this fun project with Benny while my Mom and I were in the kitchen baking away!

We used a gingerbread house of the pre-baked variety, and it worked great. Why go to all that trouble baking the house, when decorating is really the fun part? At least that's the way I see it!

Here are the fun and delicious candy decorations.

Here's Benny-boy overseeing the construction of the house.

In all honesty, Bennett was much more excited about trying to eat all the candy decorations than he was about actually decorating the house. But he did have a lot of fun. After he got bored with it, McPreachy finished decorating it himself.

Here are a few shots of the finished product. Come along, kiddie-winkies... I'll give you the tour.

Here's the side of the house, where little graham cracker bunnies just love to frolic and play amongst the gumdrop tulips.

Here's the other side of the house. Question: What in the world is that little white swirly-swoop on top o' the lollipop? It scares me a little, as do the frosting "wigs" our gingerbread poeple are wearing. Methinks McPreachy got a little craaaazy with the frosting.

Here's the front door of our Casa de Gingerbread. Notice the very Sistine-Chapel-esque rose window above the front door (McPreachy is very cultured).

Merry Christmas, Cookie Lovers!

December: Christ, Crafts, Cookies and CRAZINESS!

To My Faithful Blog Readers (All 4 of you):

Thank you for your polite, little nudges reminding me to get this blog a-rollin' for the holidays... to trim my cyber tree, if you will. The kick in the patootey was just what I needed to drag myself away from my mile-long to-do list and give a little shout out to Christmas.

I LOVE Christmas... Very few things get me as excited as pulling out my Christmas decorations and getting things decked for the holidays. But each year, things seem to be getting crazier and CRAZIER and CRAZIER! I think my problem is that I want to do it ALL! The baking, the homemade gifts, the fun family traditions, the caroling, the decorating... I could go on forever baby (name that Christmas movie). A few days ago, only mere hours into December, I was already on the verge of a nervous breakdown. There are simply not enough hours in December to do it all, and I need to come to grips with that if I'm going to enjoy my Christmas and make it meaningful for my family. So I am *trying* to remember to slow down amidst all the things I want to do. I am *trying* to pace myself and just take time to sit on the couch with the ones I love, looking at our tree and drinking cocoa!
It's not easy to say no to some things that I really want to do, but I'm *trying.* (somehow, putting asterisks on the word *trying* softens the meaning of the word and gives me a little more grace in the event that I fail horribly.)

But seriously, this year my goal is to remember God's Son and His birth each time I do something Christmasy... to do things that point to Jesus and bring joy to my family, myself and others instead of just doing task after task out of obligation.

I know, I know... who ever thought Casey Crocker had all these deep thoughts just swimming around in that bleached-blonde head of hers. Not me... that's for sure!

That being said, here are a few things I am really looking forward to this month:

• Taking Bennett on the Santa Claus Train at Irvine Park. This is a fun tradition, and I love seeing my son's face light up with joy when he sees the train all decorated and lit up for Christmas.
  
• Baking Cookies with my Mom. Every year we have "Cookie Day" where we bake, bake bake until we just can't bake no more!
  
• Making a Gingerbread House with Bennett. He was too young for this last year, so I'm excited to start this tradition this year.
  
• Watching some of my favorite Christmas Movies... It's a Wonderful Life, The Grinch, Home Alone 1 and 2, The Santa Clause Movies... I pack them away all year, and they are ONLY to be watched in the month of December. Those are the rules of Christmas Movies and they are unflinchingly rigid.
  
• Making and baking some cute, homemade gifts. Sorry I can't divulge my secrets yet, as a few of my blog readers will be the recipients of said gifts.
  
• Making some fun crafts with Bennett. I know a few of you have asked me about our school-time theme this month. December (like November) is proving to be a difficult month to pick a theme because anything I pick ends up being limiting. There are just so many Christmas symbols to choose from. So I'm just going to title it "Christmas Month" and call it a day. Don't worry... we will be resuming more specificly-themed months come January. Snowflake month, anyone?
  
• Taking the kids to go see Christmas lights. I LOVE bundling everyone up in the car and taking along some thermos' of hot chocolate and coffee. Last year we found an online list of the best local light displays. They were amazing!


• The food, food, food! You can expect to find some festive recipes on my blog in the coming weeks. Christmas cooking (and eating) is the BEST!


• The music! I LOVE Christmas music and only listen to it in the month of December (*see Christmas Movie Rules, above). Here is our precious man singing "Good Christian Men, Rejoice." And yes, I bribed him with a candy cane so I could catch it on film. Don't judge me. I'm only human.

And with that precious display of holiday spirit, I will bring this holiday shout out to a close.

Merry Christmas!

November School-Time: Thankfulness Month... or Pilgrim Month... or Turkey Month

For November's school time theme, we had quite a difficult time choosing between thankfulness month, pilgrim month or turkey month.

Actually, to me, it's a no-brainer... TURKEY MONTH! I always gravitate toward the craft-friendly and food-related themes!

But McPreachy said he didn't like Turkey Month because we need to expose Bennett to more history... hence Pilgrim Month was born.

But then I thought it would be great to center the month around the idea of thankfulness in preparation for Thanksgiving. So I thought maybe Thankfulness Month.

After all... we're making this wonderful Thankfulness Tree where we add leaves every day saying what we're thankful for.


Bennett has expressed thankfulness for some pretty cute/quirky/precious things, including blueberries, "happy things," and my personal favorite... the unsolicited, "I'm thankful for you, Mama!"

But you can't make thankfulness sugar cookies or cut thankfulness out of construction paper or cover thankfulness in glitter glue... so I decided it's really too obscure to be our school-time theme.

And yet... I really want to focus on the importance of thankfulness this month! It is much more important than turkeys or even pilgrims!

For those of you scoffers who say I am spending too much time thinking about something that doesn't really matter, I say "Oh P'shaw!" (This is a phrase my mom used to say all the time. It is also translated: "That's crazy talk! What do you mean my holiday school time theme doesn't matter?!") Because really, how can life possibly go on if we don't have one, all-inclusive, holiday-centered theme for school time? It is of utmost importance.

So I am therefore naming November:

"Thankful Pilgrims and Turkeys Month!"

See.. it covers all my bases in one fell swoop!

Besides our thankfulness tree, a few items on this month's academic and fun-o-demic agenda are:

• Make Oreo turkeys


• Watch "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" and "The Mayflower Voyage" (on the same DVD)


• "Churn" our own butter, Pilgrim style, yo!

To do this, place heavy whipping cream and salt in a clean Tupperware or mason
jar and shake, shake, shake it until you've got butter!

• Hand print Turkeys

• Check out some special Thanksgiving books from the library.

Here are a few that we've gotten already and love!

*Thanksgiving at the Tappletons' by Eileen Spinelli

We love this book about a Thanksgiving dinner gone horribly wrong. We especially love the wonderful prayer at the end, which we are memorizing for Thanksgiving. It goes:

Turkeys come, and turkeys go

And trimmings can be lost we know.

But we're together, that what matters,

Not what's served upon the platters.

*One Little, Two Little, Three Little Pilgrims by B.G. Hennessy


A very cute book about the first Thanksgiving.. surprisingly
educational!

*Thanksgiving is For Giving Thanks by Margaret
Sutherland

So there you have it... "Thankful Pilgrims and Turkeys Month."
Doesn't it just warm the cockles of your heart?

Stay tuned for more thematic delights!

Faux-Fancy Dessert: Trick Your Friends and Co-horts!

No pics today, friends. But I wanted to share this wonderful idea for a faux-fancy dessert.

In case you hadn't already guessed why I call it faux-fancy, don't worry... I'll clue you in. I take sympathy on people who don't immediately put things together on their own... who stand scratching their heads while everyone else is laughing hysterically. You are not alone; I am one of you.

Anyway... I call this dessert faux-fancy because, like faux-fur...


or a faux-hawk...


...it is only pretending to be fancy when it is really quite simple. (Oh look at me... I said no pictures but I just couldn't help myself!)


Here's what I did when I needed dessert in a snap:

I took a box of one of my favorite fall staples, Trader Joe's Pumpkin Bread Mix.

I prepared it according to the package directions and baked it in my mini muffin tin. Which brings us to step one for creating a faux-fancy dessert:

1. Make It Mini!
Have you ever noticed that fancy restaurants always serve tiny little portions? Or think about those darling little mini-tarts or tea sandwiches at tea houses. Those are sooooo faux-fancy! I mean come on, all they are is cream cheese and cucumber slapped between plain white bread. Ahhh, but cut them into cute little triangles and... voila! Fancy little delicacies. So next time you are getting ready to bake up a packaged-mix but you want something a little more special, consider baking them in your mini loaf pans or mini muffin tins.

Next I made a glaze for these darlin' little pumpkins... which brings us to step two for creating a faux-fancy dessert...

2. Top it, Baby!
Create a snazzy topping for your simple, out-of-the-box dessert, and your guests will be none the wiser!
In the case of the mini pumpkins (Hmmm... that sounds like a film noir waiting to happen), I made a quick and simple, yet fancy-sounding glaze. Here's the recipe:

Brown Sugar Caramel Glaze
courtesy of The Cake Mix Doctor by Anne Byrn

3 Tbsp butter
3 Tbsp light brown sugar
3 Tbsp granulated sugar
3 Tbsp heavy whipping cream
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

• Place all ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat.
  
• Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring. Let boil for one minute, stirring often.
• Remove the pan from heat, and let the glaze thicken slightly. Spoon or spread the warm glaze onto the cake (or faux-fancy mini-cakes) of your choice.

So, like I was saying, I whipped up this delicious, DELICIOUS concoction to drizzle over the tops of my cakes... but there is still one more very important step to creating a faux-fancy dessert...

3. Dish It Up!
As with anything, presentation is everything. The way you display your dessert will really determine whether it deserves the title of faux-fancy or not. Even if your dessert isn't anything super special, you can make it special by serving it on a pretty platter and/or giving it a fancy title. On this particular occasion, I wrote out the name of the dessert on a small piece of white card stock and laid it in front of the dish. (I don't always do this, but I know some people don't like pumpkin desserts, so I took this extra step). I called them, "Mini Pumpkin Cakes with Brown Sugar Glaze." Super fancy sounding, but it took no time at all!

So there you have it! 3 easy steps to a fabulous, faux-fancy dessert.

THE MORAL OF THE STORY: A DUTIFUL DISCLAIMER
Don't Forget... fanciness is fun and all, but what your guests will remember most is what a gracious hostess you were and how welcome you made them feel in your home. That's what true hospitality is all about. I really do enjoy making things fancy and special for my guests, but not when it overshadows my ability to be truly hospitable. It should be about making your guests feel special, not about impressing everyone with your mad skills (like nunchucks, for instance). And that's my two cents...

Kitchen Miracles: Trader Joe's Pizza Dough

I love the pizza dough from Trader Joe's! You will find it in the refrigerated section, and it is fabulous!

Not only is it great for making traditional pizza, (which we will discuss momentarily) but I love it as a "use-up" for leftovers or a great way to clean out your meat and cheese drawer. For instance, if you have leftover BBQ chicken, make a BBQ chicken pizza with cheddar, cilantro and red onions. If you have leftover taco meat, make a "taco pizza" with the leftover meat, cheese, black olives, beans, etc. You can put almost anything on some dough, throw it in the oven and call it pizza! Get some inspiration from CPK's menu. Just look at all the unique pizzas they offer!

But if a non-unique, conformist pizza is what you're looking for, look no further... Casey Crocker's got you covered there too! In fact I just prepared said pizza for dinner tonight, and it was received with accolades, rave reviews and festoons of roses. Okay, there weren't any roses... but there should have been. It was a good pizza.

Why order Round Table when you can make your own healthier, cheaper, just-as-delicious version right at home?!

Here's how to make a healthier version of a "Supreme" Style Pizza:

Grab your whole wheat TJ's pizza dough, and let it sit at room temp for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile pre-heat the oven to 475 and chop up your veggies and toppings!

I used:

• TJ's pizza sauce
• grated mozzarella cheese
• grated cheddar cheese
• grated parmesan cheese
• pepperoni
• chicken sausage, browned and crumbled
• mushrooms (on McPreachy's half only)
• green peppers, diced
• yellow onion, diced

When your 20 minutes of getting-the-dough-to room-temperature time has elapsed, just stretch the dough into a big circle on your pizza stone or baking sheet. Next comes a small amount of sauce, followed by mozzarella, cheddar, meats, veggies and finally the parmesan.

Pop it in the oven for 12-15 minutes.

In the words of my dad, "Pizza, You Singin'-a My Song!" (don't ask...)

BONUS: Two meals for the work of one!

So, after I'd made my pizza tonight, I had a good amount of leftover sauce, meats and veggies. So I decided to make a "ready-to-go-pizza freezer bag" (I'm thinking of trademarking this super concise, catchy title!)

No clue WHAT I'm talking about? Come on, I'll show ya!

Here's the poor, distraught, leftover veggies, fearing the inevitable... that they'll get shoved into Tupperware in the back of the fridge, never to be heard from again.

But wait, dear veggies! There is hope!

I wrapped each veggie individually in plastic wrap...

Then placed then in a big Ziploc along with the half-used tub o' pizza sauce...

...the pepperoni (still in it's package)

And a baggie's worth of cooked chicken sausage.

I packaged it all up, labeled and dated it, and... drumroll...

Here's my perfectly wonderful little pizza-freezer bag!

Now the next time we have pizza, most of the work will be done already. All I will need to do is defrost the baggie overnight and grab some pizza dough and cheese from TJ's!

Mama Mia! Bonjourno Pizza-pessa!

Just when you think things are going well, you find poop smeared everywhere.

***Note: This post is not for the squeamish or faint hearted. There are horrible re-tellings of smeared fecal matter herein. Approach with caution.

First of all, I need to say what a wonderful son Bennett is. I adore him, and I feel so blessed to be his Mama. God really gave me a treasure when He knit sweet Bennett together in my womb 3 years ago, and not a day goes by when I do not count myself the luckiest Mama in the world.

That being said... here's a story for those of you who wonder if everything is always sunshine and roses in my neck o' the woods. There were no roses in my house today. No sunshine. Only fertilizer.

It actually started out as a great day. We got out of the house and off to MOPS without any meltdowns or issues. We even got through a grocery store-stop on the way home without incident.

Then came nap time.

Nap time and bedtime have been a real struggle lately. Bennett gets out of bed over and over and over again, and dealing with it has been exhausting.

Another *seemingly* unrelated struggle we've been having lately is that Bennett keeps pooping in the pull-up he wears for naps. He's been potty-trained for months now, and I'm positive he has plenty of time to make it to the potty when he feels the urge. So basically the pooping incidents are laziness on Bennett's part. I can just see him sitting there, thinking to himself:

"I really need to poop but I don't feel like walking over to the potty right now. I'm playing cars. I think I'd prefer to just poop in my pull-up and hang out that way while I finish playing."

Needless to say, Bennett has quickly figured out that Mama doesn't really jive with this lazy, poop-my-pants approach to bowel movements.

It was today... on this lovely fall Thursday, that our two biggest toddler struggles collided. It was quite an incident.

I put Bennett down for his nap, reminding him that he MUST stay in bed and that I'd be back to check in a few minutes to make sure he was obeying Mama. Then I went downstairs and got so engrossed in a few things I was doing that it was about 30 minutes before I went and checked on him.

Quietly I tiptoed upstairs, hoping beyond hope that he was asleep. And there he was, sitting half naked on the carpet playing puzzles. As soon as he saw me, he smiled up sweetly.

"Hi Mama!" he said with a grin. "Guess what? I went poopy! I flushed it in the toilet!"

I checked the toilet, and his story seemed to be true.

Even though I was frustrated that he wasn't asleep, I was thrilled that he seemed to have gone poop in the potty chair and not in his pull up.

And then came the kicker.

"Mama... " Bennett said, turning sheepish and pointing to the bed, "I got some poopy on that."

I looked down and noticed that his comforter was covered in poop. I began scanning the room, realizing that there was poop everywhere... all over Bennett, the bed and the carpet where he'd been sitting playing puzzles. Then as I walked toward Bennett, I stepped in a wet spot on the carpet.

"Bennett," I said, "Why is the carpet wet?"

"Oh," he said, matter-of- factly, "I went potty on it, Mama."

At this point I saw a soiled pull-up "hidden" behind Bennett's bed. (I put "hidden" in quotes because it was quite a terrible hide-job.)

"Bennett," I asked in my serious Mama voice, "Where did you go poop? In the potty chair or the pull-up?

My sweet boy tried to lie for a moment. I could just see his little wheels turning. But he quickly caved and told me the truth. "In my pull-up, Mama."

What happened next is a blur of baby wipes, carpet cleaner and discussions about being deceptive and how wrong that is.

As calmly as I possibly could, I cleaned and disinfected my son and the carpet. I put the bedding in the wash, put Bennett back in bed and went downstairs.

Then, I caffeinated.

And prayed.

Because sometimes the only thing that can fix your terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day is caffeine. And the grace of God.