I'll Snap You Like A Twig

Ok, I feel better now. Sorry Minnie, thanks for letting me get it out.

Cinnamon Roll Tweaker

The other day I was doing some reading on baking and ran across a discussion on subbing cottage cheese for milk in bread recipes. Being as I'm all about sneaking in yummy goodness wherever I can, I knew I had to give this a go. So join me now as we do a little cinnamon roll tweaking. Don't be scared of the words cottage cheese, take a deep breath and tell yourself, "protein is my friend". You can do this! I'll be right here for support, we'll get through it together!

Here's what you need:
DOUGH:
1/4 cup warm water
1 Tbsp dry yeast
3 cups flour (I use half wheat/half white, you can use all of one or the other)
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup cottage cheese
1/4 cup butter
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
FILLING/TOPPING:
1/2 cup melted butter
1 cup brown sugar
3 Tbsp cinnamon
3/4 cup chopped pecans (or chopped apples, or raisins, or whatever makes you happy)

*If you look close enough at the recycled piece of junk mail that I used to write my instructions (which I forgot to move before taking the picture) you'll also see my recipe for Lime Chicken marinade and Chocolate Scootcheroos. Sweet bonus eh?*

Ok, back to the rolls. First, proof the yeast by mixing it into the warm water and let it sit until it's bubbly (about 5 mins).

Meanwhile, mix the flours, 1/4 cup sugar, and salt together. Then cut the cottage cheese (hee hee cut the cheese, sheesh I'm a child) and butter into the flour until it forms loverly little clumps. Like so:

Now mix the egg and vanilla into the yeast water, then stir it into the flour mixture until absorbed. Turn the dough out onto a well floured surface. It will be crazy sticky, so you'll want to turn it a few times in the flour so it'll be easier to handle.
After giving it a flour coat, roll/smoosh it out into a 12x24 inch rectangle. Being as my rolling mat was attacked by rust from a freak leaky dishwasher accident and had to be thrown out, I had to cut the dough in half and roll it into two 12x12 squares.

Once you have the dough rolled, mix the melted butter, brown sugar and cinnamon together and spread evenly over the dough (I reserved a couple Tbsp of the mixture to drizzle over the top after it's done). Then top with the pecans, apple, raisin, whatever option.

Roll up the dough and cut into 1 inch pieces. Feel free to cut them larger and have fewer taller rolls. Let the power of the doughy goodness speak to your soul and led you towards how big of pieces it wants to be. Yeah man, let it be man.

Place the pieces into a greased pan (I use 2 round 8inch cake pans) and let them rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 45-60 mins. You want to make sure not to crowd the rolls or the middles will get all cranky from being crowded and will pop up all funky wonky when you cook them. While we're waiting for them to rise, let me show you our solution to the "where's the silverware go?" problem:
Ta Dahhhhh. Cute eh? Just ignore the flour spillage. Baking is a powerful thing and you can't let yourself be confinded by flour tidiness. Sounds good anyway, doesn't it? Oh and while you're ignoring things, if you could just ignore the fact that there's only two clean forks and butter knives and not mention that I need to wash dishes. Thanks, you're cool like that!

Oh look, the rolls have risen and there was much rejoicing!

Now we pop them in a preheated oven at 350 degrees F for 20-25 minutes, until light golden brown. Aren't they pretty and all cozy like?
After you take them out of the oven drizzle the remaining filling mixture over top and chow down!

And now for some food porn, bomp chicka bow wow:

yeah baby

that's it, own it

Whoooooa mamma

work it

I believe in miracles. Where you from? You sexy thing

Freaky Friday

A while back, my hubby said we should take all the weirdness we find online and slap it into a "Freaky Friday" post. Being as I ALWAYS do exactly as my husband says, here it is!


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"Never slap a man who's chewing tobacco."-Will Rogers
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Really, who thought this was a good idea for a portrait? I think it's the hand on the arse that gives it that certain Je ne sais quoi.

Gobble Gobble Gobble

Happy Turkey Day! Here's a few things for which I'm thankful:

• My 5 munchkins
• The fact that I like my in-laws
• 32 sun loving windows
• That my dad is an amazing man who has always taught by example
• Danielle using her potty chair
• Canned cranberry sauce served on a $100 crystal relish dish
• Veggie trays with ranch dressing
• No slip skiddies on the bottom of socks
• Indoor plumbing
• My bloggity blog and all my bloggity friends
• My smokin' hot hubby who still thinks I'm as pretty as I was 22 years ago.

Hope you all have a wonderful day!

Coffee Anyone?

Phew, that really made me laugh!

Olfactory Inspiration

What do you get when you combine a smoker's chest of drawers, two hole filled socks, and the last remaining lavender herb bag from your hippy days?

Lavender Sachets!

One of the fun things about moving is that unpacking is a bit like Christmas. It's amazing the things you never knew you owned until you unpack them from a moving box. I was lucky enough to uncover a stash of holey socks and the aforementioned bag O lavender, with which I was amazed of the power of Zip-lock! I opened the bag and instantly the fragrance carried me away to a loverly meadow filled with butterflies, fairies, white unicorns, chocolate waterfalls, and Jonny Depp dressed in his best grunge undershirt giving me a piano serenade ......
What you can see him too? Told you that stuff was potent!

Anyhoo, my BIL gave us a wonderful chest of drawers that unfortunately had absorbed a bit of Essence du Cigarette no5 (I quit smoking earlier this year so I'm now one of those OBNOXIOUS people who can smell cigarette smoke from 50 yards out). We cut the socks into 4 inch-ish squares (remember they stretch), piled lavender in the middle, pulled up the sides, gave it a twist to form a ball with the herbally goodness, and wrapped gumbands around them so they looked like fresh little ghosties. Just toss them in your dresser drawers and you'll have the best smelling undies on the block!

Vampire Sparkles and Dream Killers

Unless you live in a cave (like me), you've heard of the Twilight Vampire series. I've not had the joy of being enveloped by the chronicles of Bella, however, my BFF Ginger and my bonus daughter, Miss Molly, have both been swept away by visions of neck bitters.

Yesterday while out running errands, I happen to catch a glib on the radio about Twilight movie premiere tickets and the Cricket phone store. Being as Miss Molly is in LOVE with the series I knew I must find a way to get those tickets (Queue the mission impossible music). As I’m approaching the store, I am suddenly overcome with the stench that can only mean it’s a good thing I put a diaper on Danielle. Now I really had to think this one over, do I head home and change Danielle and risk missing out on the tickets for Molly or do I just hold my breath and pray everyone around me has sinus issues and can’t smell anything. Go ahead and give me your best "Bad Mom Scoff" and then get over it and realize that we’re talking about a teenage girl’s current life passion. I slapped the mom-mobile into park and into the store we ran. Once there I find out that it’s a must be present drawing and I had 30 mins before they drew the winner. SWEEEET! I put in my entry and zoomed home to drop off my little stinker and all the bags of groceries that I had forgotten about after getting wrapped up in my quest to make a teenager smile.

Using my best pizza delivery boy on crack driving skills, I made it back to the store with time to spare. Unfortunately, that time to spare seemed to stand still while we waited for the drawing. I was surrounded by vampire obsessed people immersed in validating why one should be Team Edward or Team Jacob. Driven by the fear of being eaten alive by "Fanpires" if any of them smelled the scent of a non-reading outsider, I mustered up all the knowledge I've gathered from listening to Miss G and Miss Molly talk about the series and muddled my way through the conversation. As we chatted, I started surmising the competition and wondered what I was doing there when back home there was dinner that wouldn't prepare itself. Then, I was taken back to memories of waiting in line for 45 mins so the boys could have their picture taken with Jason the Red Power Ranger, or having every member of my family on a nationwide quest for Optimus Prime and the game Lucky Ducks , or camping out at the toy store at 4am on Black Friday to get Razor scooters for the boys and an Easy Bake Oven for Miss Molly. All those times of tired legs, impatient people, empty store shelves, and elbows to the head exchanged for the look of joy on my munchkins’ faces. Oh how I love that look on their faces and THAT was why I was there.

Feeling re-energized, I figured peanut butter and jelly sandwiches would be fine for dinner and I was pretty sure I could take down every person there and make like a bandit with those tickets. Fortunately for my unsuspecting prey, time was up and I was one of the lucky ones who got tickets. Unfortunately, thanks to the evils of overbooking, when we got to the theatre all the seats were taken and I went from Step-Mom of the Year to the Evil Dream Crushing Step-Monster in two seconds flat. Damn you wicked movie theater PR minions!!!!

With A Banjo On My Knee

As stated here, Khris and his guitar have been making many appearances in the living room. Being as the mini-munchkins think everything their big brothers and sister do is the coolest thing EVER, I decided it was time to make a mini-munchkin guitar upon which they can pluck to their hearts desire, without the threat of elder siblings lobbing off fingers.

I'm sure you all remember making these when you were little, but in case you need a refresher, here's what you do:

First you need a box (about the size of a shoe box), enough construction paper to cover the box(we used 2 pieces), glue, crayons or whatever instrument with which you wish to decorate, rubber bands (to use as strings), and eager munchkins.

I was lucky enough to find all these things waiting for me at the dinning table. FYI: I've found the children to be more artistic if one of them is very slobbery and the other has wild crazy hair.

Now cut a hole out of one piece of paper and use it as a template to mark the hole on your box.

Then just cut it out. No, those are not my kitchen scissors that I'm using because I can't figure out where we packed the paper scissors. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Owoooo a hole! Very cool and artistic-ish.

Time to let the wee artists go crazy! Please note that Sam has decided he's too big for the fat round crayons and is ready to step up to big kid crayons.

If you look closely, you'll notice on his chin the blue crayon crumb evidence proving that, although his taste buds say otherwise, he is NOT ready for big kid crayons.

Remember crayon joy? It looks like this:

Now glue your paper to your "guitar box"

Fold the corners in like you're wrapping a present. If you are a gift bag baby who doesn't know how to fold wrapping paper, just take your paper and box to your local Macy's and for $5 they'll do it for you (and make fun of you all though the holidays).

After giving it a few minutes to dry a bit, stretch your rubber bands around the box to make the "guitar strings". Everyone wave to my mommy who came over just in time to bust me standing on my dinning room chair for that sweet aerial shot 3 pics back. HI MOM!

Musical bliss! She's almost perfected "Stairway to Heaven" too.

Looks like Khris may be ready to trade in his Fender.

Sing a Song of Sixpense

Ok, seriously, this has been an exhausting week, month, year. I'm thinking we need to just "skip a bit brother" and move on into 2009.

OH my! The medicine I took for my back, after I got home this evening, just hit me like a freight train and I'm pretty sure my eye lids are now on a count down to total shutdown so let's just get to the nitty gritty thought for the day and we'll talk more later when I can keep my eyes open.

Everyone should start singing in the shower. Doesn't matter what song it is, just sing and do it real loud. Come on, what is your family going to say? If you play your cards right, they may just think you've flipped your lid and give you a minor vacation to your friendy neighborhood psych ward. Wooo hoo! Really, sing people! If you don't know the words, make up your own. They don't even have to rhyme, after all it's your shower singing song in your bathroom and you can do whatever you want with it.

Take the callenge and change your life FOREVER....FOREVER.....FOREVER! (my bad, minor Sandlot flash there).

Night night alll. Talk soon!

Cancer Sucks

Sorry for the lack of proper structure, I just need to get it out.

Today was my former mother-in-law’s birthday. She was the most caring woman I’d ever met. She’d led quite a tough life, yet somehow managed to make it through all the mess without becoming hard. I never heard her try to pull the victim card even though the world offered her many reasons to do so. She had one of those smiles that could bring instant calm to a room and she always put other's needs before her own. Which is basically why we lost her. She died from breast cancer. After she died we found her journals and in them there was an entry where she had found a lump. They lived paycheck to paycheck and didn’t have health insurance, so she was faced with a choice of buying food and clothes for her kids or pay for a doctor’s visit. So years passed and by the time she got help it was very advanced. She was only able to do the bare minimum. She went through nasty rounds of chemo that left her sick, in pain, and exhausted, yet she still did her best to have a smile on her face. There was no money for reconstruction, counseling, or even the meds that help with the post chemo side effects. Cancer sucks and I hate it. I hate that we live in a world where someone as loving and amazing as she was has to make the choice to feed her family or fight cancer. I miss her so much and I want her back.

Happy Birthday Mom, I miss you.

There's Something In The Water

Seriously, what the heck is wrong with the water in OKC? I haven't lived in OKC since the mid-nineties and had forgotten how unbelievably nasty the water tastes here. I've heard rumors that they actually filter this so called water and if that's the case then they must add a wee touch of "Essence of Fish Gill" before sending it on its way to our homes. Unfortunately, it's been too long since my Air Force days and I don't remember how to make a water filter with my shoestring and the leg of my BDUs so I'm going to have to turn to Brita to save my family from what must be a government plot to slowly turn us all into Sea Monkeys.

You Need a Laugh

Khris actually found this one the other night while practicing his Geeee-Tar. I promise it's not what you think, so don't bail out before he starts singing.



This one is just for my Boo-boo, who actually saw these guys in concert. Meanwhile I was busy seeing Rick Springfield in concert. Twice. I know, I know, I have no excuse, it's just sad. Wow, I feel better letting that nasty little secret out. Anyhoo, back to the video for my way cooler than me hubby.

We Did It

Well folks, we did it! We have made history! Yippy, go America!
Yeah, I know, we made it pretty easy on ourselves being as either way the vote went we would've had a "First" something or other. Nonetheless, we should pat ourselves on the back (being as that's what we do best) for having such an awesome turnout. Even my bff went out and voted, which pretty much means it's snowing in Hell right about now.

BTW, I finally found my camera and will be going on a photo spree later. You've been warned so buckle up and hang on tight.

In case you need a slight cyber road trip while you're waiting, go check out this guys post about the proper way to take care of a baby, it's HILLLLLARIOUS!!!
http://chihaw.blogspot.com/2008/10/baby-care-instructions.html

VOTE!

VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!

FYI: If you take your "I voted" sticker to Chick-fil-a, they'll give you 3 chicken strips FREE! How cool is it that you can get free lunch just for giving your opinion? Man I love America!


update: my SIL informed me that Ben & Jerry's are hooking up free ice cream for voters and Starbucks will bless you with a loverly cup o'joe!

Get Your Vote On

Here it is, the common folk reasons to vote for McCain.

1. He set his OWN arm.
2. Protecting freedom isn’t just a catch phrase to him. He’s actually lived the price of protecting it.
3. We deserve a beautiful first lady.
4. He’s so darn cuddly cute when he smiles.
5. He’s not afraid to kick some arse.
6. The Governator and Giuliani support him, and Bocephus even wrote a song for him.
7. John McCain is easy to spell and pronounce.
8. He loves his mamma and treats her well.
9. He knows that America is the “Land of Opportunity” where hard work should be rewarded not over taxed in a socialistic abyss where you “spread the wealth around”.
10. Did I mention that he set his own arm and can kick your arse???

So there you have it, the no nonsense reasons to vote for McCain. If you’d like to take a serious look at the real issues go to www.johnmccain.com. Just make sure you get out and vote TUESDAY NOVEMBER 4TH, which is TOMORROW.