Baby Grady

I snapped some shots of cute seven week old Grady this morning.

There's nothing quite a sweet as a new baby.  The little toes, wrinkly skin and tiny little ruby lips.

Days like today motivate me to really learn to use my camera AND take the time to learn Photoshop.


Here's my favorites and one of his big sister.

Love you and your family baby Grady!  Please stay this sweet forever.

Recipe: Homemade Salsa

Another cooking genius is my friend Maridyn.  She has developed a salsa recipe that tastes like it's fresh from the garden, even though 3/4th's of the ingredients are from your pantry.





Ingredients:
--  2 regular size cans Mexican style stewed tomatoes (they sell these at Smith's -- make sure the can says Mexican)
--  1 small can green Herdez Salsa (make sure and get the green.) This is located in the taco/salsa/Mexican section of the store.
--  1 clove garlic or 5-6 shakes of dried minced garlic
--  1/2  bunch cilantro

Directions:
--   Blend 1 can of tomatoes with the cilantro in the blender until soupy.
--   Add rest of ingredients and pulse 3-4 times until well mixed.

Will keep in the fridge for a week.  Freeze extra.  This is a great item to serve with 7 layer Mexican dip.

Enjoy!

Recipe: Homemade Refried Beans

My friend Cydnee is a cooking genius.

She's developed a wonderful recipe for refried beans using dry pinto beans -- yes, I am talking about all of those beans sitting in your food storage!

There's no lard, no fat, and you stick everything in the crock pot and that's it!  My kind of recipe.  She is working on developing a black bean recipe so stay tuned.

Homemade Refried Beans: by Cydnee Schroder 

Ingredients:

4 cups dry pinto beans, rinsed
1 onion chopped
1 fresh jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped finely
3 T minced garlic
1 T salt
2 t ground pepper
½ t cumin
8 cups water (You can use 4 cups water and 4 cups chicken broth for more flavor)
(I add in 1 heaping Tablespoon of dry Fajita seasoning just for extra flavor)

Directions:
--  Place all the ingredients into a slow cooker and stir to combine.
--  Cook on high for 8 hours.
--  Once the beans have cooked, beat them with an immersion blender inside the crock pot (be careful not to splatter yourself with hot beans) until they look like refried beans (about 5 min.)  If they are too thick, you can add a little water in at this point to make them runnier.
--  Use what you need for dinner that night and freeze the rest in freezer bags for up to 3 months.


Tip:  The only fresh item is the jalepeno peppers -- which I do not normally keep on hand.  I keep a few extra diced and frozen so I can make this on a whim.

ENJOY!

Watching You

"Mom, I am watching you and I need you to love me and help me."  That's what I see in Jasper's eyes.

This is something I need a lot of help remembering after trying days like today! (Or days like the the great cactus run-in, etc.)

I set this as my new laptop wallpaper because I want to look at it often and remember that Jasper is only 2 and still needs my help.  Even though he tells everyone he is 5 and constantly says, "I do it," meaning --don't help me, I will do it MYSELF!

I am very grateful for all of the talks during our Church's General Conference lat weekend that remind me how important my role as a mother is.

Recipe: The BEST Beef Stroganoff

Amy Ellsworth was gracious enough to make her famous Beef Stroganoff for us a couple months ago and we are forever grateful.

This is my new favorite dish to make when we take someone dinner because it is a guaranteed hit.








The BEST Beef Stroganoff:  Recipe from:  Amy Ellsworth


Ingredients:
2 lb cubed stew meat
2 (10.75oz) can condensed golden mushroom soup
1 chopped onion
1 T Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup water
1 packet Lipton Onion Soup Mix


Directions:
Spray crock pot with non stick spray
Combine all above ingredients in slow cooker
Cook on low 8 hours or on high 5 hours


Just before serving add: 
8 oz softened cream cheese
1 cup sour cream
Fresh sauteed sliced mushrooms

Serve over noodles or rice.

A few things I have figured out after making this several times:

Stew meat is $4.00 plus per pound at the grocery store, but at Costco it is only $2.70 per pound, and it is a much higher quality meat.  If you have ever had tough stew meat before, fear not, the crock pot makes the stew meat fall apart like a pot roast.  

If you've never bought the condensed golden mushroom soup before you may have to hunt for it in the soup section.  Most stores carry it and the only brand I have ever found is Campbell's.

I have a hard time getting the cream cheese and sour cream blended smoothly at the end, so I take most of the meat out and set it aside.  I use my immersion blender to get the cream cheese and sour cream thoroughly blended, then I add the meat back in.  Next I top it off with the mushrooms.

It is easier for me to get Jasper to eat the meat if I blend it with the immersion blender too.  It finely shreds the beef and blends it right into the sauce.

ENJOY!

More Thursday Park Favorites

For the record, Jasper is covering his face because he is having a melt down because he lost his little Gladware container full of Sun Chips.  

He set them down in the middle of the field and I brought them over the picnic area while he was out running around.

He lost it when he went back to retrieve "his chips" and they were gone. I had no idea he would remember them.

Park Preview

The sun was shining    
(and unfortunately the  wind was blowing) at O'Callaghan park today.

The kids were are cute as ever and I had so much fun taking pictures.  So much fun that his will be a two part post.

The last photo is of Jasper demonstrating his "I own this place" walk.

I could kiss these little Jasper cheeks all day long...if he would sit still long enough.

Like I said in my previous post -- I LOVE THESE KIDS!

Caterpillars and Butterflies

Today at story time we read:
"The Very Hungry Caterpillar",
"The Crunching Munching Caterpillar"
 "Caterpillar's Wish"
and my favorite of the morning:
"Where's My Mom"

For the craft the kids made butterflies with coffee filters and clothespins that they decorated.

Today I decided that Seth the story time leader has no children because if he did he would not give the kids non-washable markers for a craft.

Markers are one of Jasper's love languages and by the time the butterfly was complete Jasper's hands were completely green with matching marks on his pants and shirt.

Here's a photo of me and the story time gang winding our way through the parking lot.  Today we had Evan, Peyton, Abigail, Jasper and Rook.  Sometimes Avery comes too.

We are quite a spectacle.  I make everyone hold hands and I feel like we are a giant caterpillar.

I love these kids and I am so glad that I get to spend time with them.

The story time room is decorated with colorful paper lanterns and I took a photo of it just to remember it before the library moves.

I have always loved the action word cards on the wall.  Cute idea for home.

In case you didn't know the library is moving in a couple months to the shopping center with the new Target on Lake Mead and Water Street.

It will still be called the Gibson Library -- but it will be in a brand building with plenty of parking.  HOORAY!


Parking today was a nightmare because there is a carnival in the parking lot for the next few days.  Here's the info. on the rides and events if you are interested.

Where to Find Sucker Making Supplies

Full of excitement I headed out with Jasper to buy some sucker molds and flavoring oil for our Valentine suckers.

Unfortunately we quickly found out that Michael's nor JoAnn's carry what we needed -- hard candy molds and flavoring.  I even called Wal-Mart and Smart and Final in a last ditch effort.

I was pretty disappointed because I was really looking forward to making these suckers with Jasper.


I did an internet search that night and found a little mom and pop store that is only 5 minutes from our house.

It's called Tempting Treasures on 30 South Water Street in Henderson.  They sells all kinds of candy making goodies and cake decorating supplies.  Their phone number is 564-5029.
 
We stumbled in the store on a very rainy Saturday morning.  They have some great molds for suckers and more candymaking supplies than I ever knew existed.

They have all kinds of cupcake and cake toppers and all kinds of doo-dads.

Jasper was very happy about his $1 large white chocolate heart shaped sucker.


Other than circles, we got football helmets, retro roller skates, kangaroos, butterflies and zoo animals

We ended up buying our sucker sticks and little plastic bags at JoAnn's because they were less expensive there.



LorAnn Oils sells the best flavoring oils, and the bigger the bottle you buy the better the price.  I found a few super deals on Amazon.com if you want to buy in bulk.

As I said in my previous post, I doubled the flavor that the LorAnn Oils recipe calls for.

LorAnn oils also has a great selection of the hard candy molds as well.

Let me know if you want to borrow our molds sometime.  We are happy to share!

Valentine Treats 2010 -- Homemade Suckers

This year we made homemade suckers for our Valentine treats.

I remember making these all of the time when I was little, but I don't see them much anymore.

My favorite flavors are watermelon and root beer, so that's what we made.

We also made some suckers that are key lime flavor just to bring things out of the 1980's --which is where I seem to be stuck most of the time.

We let our Valentine's pick out their own flavor and shape.  The only problem we had is that Jasper thought he should get a sucker at every house we went to. 

Our sucker labels came from a free template download from Blonde Designs Blog.  They always have a ton of great ideas on their blog.

 I used the recipe off the LorAnn flavoring oils box with two exceptions.

First, I doubled the amount of flavoring.  I did a few experiments with the amount and found that doubling it made the suckers taste much more flavorful.

Second,the recipe says to turn the heat off at 300 degrees.  I turned the heat off at 290 because the temp. will rise to 300 on it's own. 

If you leave it on until 300 degrees after you turn the heat off it will rise to 310, and your suckers will taste a little burnt.

The suckers were a hit and we can't wait to make some more!