Happy Mother's Day!

It doesn't matter if the kids in your life call you mom, aunt, purr or bark, love is love.

Mother's Day is bittersweet for me and I don't really celebrate, it's just another Sunday in my book.  My first Mother's day as a mom was my first without my mom. I only had my mom for seventeen years, some are blessed to have their moms longer, some less, some never knew their moms at all.

 After almost 18 years I still remember all the things my mom did for me, the lessons she taught me and most of all how much she loved me unconditionally.


To all the wonderful mom's out there, I hope you all have a beautiful day!

Help stamp out hunger Saturday May 11,2013

It's easy to help:

1. Collect and bag non perishable food items 

2. Place by mailbox for letter carrier to deliver to a local food bank or pantry. 

Facebook.com/StampOutHunger

Chickpea salad with parsley, lemon and sun dried tomatoes

Sorry I've been so MIA lately. Sheesh.

My cousin had a dedication party for my nephew Noah two weekends ago. With less than a week to prepare it was a little crazy but we managed.

I was in charge of the cake and making salads. I made a vanilla cake with a cookie dough center and I also made a tortellini salad as well as a chickpea salad and all were a huge hit.

I'll post about the cake another day, this cake came out well but not exactly as planned. Noah's birthday is coming up in a little more than a month and I'll be doing a similar cake but with a twist.

I went and doubled both salads but about half an hour in I'd realized that clearly wasn't enough. Next time I'll have to multiply the ingredient list by probably 4-6 times.

Chickpea salad with parsley, lemon and sun dried tomatoes
(From Bon appétite)

1/4 cup olive oil
1 Tbs cumin seeds

2 15.5oz cans chickpeas
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded and chopped
1/2 C chopped fresh parsley
1/3 C thinly sliced oil packed sun dried tomatoes (I found them already julienned in a jar)
1/4 C fresh lemon juice
1/4 tsp dried crushed red pepper

Combine oil and cumin seeds in a small, heavy saucepan. Cook over medium heat for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Cool completely.

Combine remaining ingredients in a large bowl. Add cumin oil and toss to blend. Season salad with sea salt and pepper to taste.

Best if made the night before. Bring to room temp before serving.

*the next time I make this I'll probably add a little red onion and instead of canned use dried beans that I've prepared in advance.

Twelve days was all it took...

Thanks to the generosity of my friends and Dan's friends we raised enough $ to get my Jeep all fixed. For weeks I haven't been able to drive much and last Friday when we took my truck to the first mechanic his diagnosis was pretty bad.  After getting a "second opinion" from a mechanic friend he deemed her absolutely fixable, we just needed to raise the funds since major repairs were something that was out of our budget.

Today, I was overwhelmed when I got the message about the final donation.  I sat at my desk and cried tears of joy over the amazingly generous donation from an anonymous donor.  My friends have far exceeded the expectations I had when Dan started this.  I thought he was crazy!  Who's going to help me fix this old Jeep? 

My friends, that's who.  My friends who want me to be in a safe car and not have to constantly worry that my truck is going to cause me to get into an accident because my tires are bad, a swaybar link is broken on one side, the Axle needs replacing and the list goes on.  (I'll tell y'all something though, I know way more about this Jeep than I ever thought I'd know about any car in my life, lol)

Now I have the money to get these major repairs done and I can be safely back on the road "Truckin'"  We're getting all the parts together and plan to get her all fixed up in the next two weeks :)

Help us save Chuck the truck

Lalala Lemon Bars make me happy :)

Look at this sunshiny yellow, how could this Not make you happy? 

(Ok, granted, I hate yellow, but I LOVE lemon)

I went to the local wholesale store with my sweetie last weekend on a grocery/stock up run and they had lemons for $2 a bag (8 lemons in a bag, that's a bargain considering at the grocery store they're up around $.75 each)  I knew I wanted to make lemon bars, I haven't made them in ages!! Today when I left to do my regular Saturday chores I took 2 sticks of butter out of the freezer and knew by the time I was back they'd be up to room temperature so I could get the lemon bars dome when I get home.

This recipe is super simple and So good!

Crust

1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup white sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour

Filling
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 lemons, juiced



1. Preheat oven to 350°f
2. In a medium bowl, blend together softened butter, 2 cups flour and 1/2 cup sugar. Press into the bottom of an ungreased 9x13 inch pan.
3. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven, or until firm and golden. In another bowl, whisk together the remaining 1 1/2 cups sugar and 1/4 cup flour. Whisk in the eggs and lemon juice. Pour over the baked crust.
4. Bake for an additional 20 minutes in the preheated oven. The bars will firm up as they cool.

Home with sick kid... what to do?

The kid hadn't been feeling well the past few days but when he called me on Wednesday afternoon and said he felt horrible and didn't want to even play basketball with his friends I knew he wasn't feeling well.  When I came home from work and he was in bed sleeping I knew he really was sick.  My kid never sleeps during the day after being up and about.  I felt his forehead and he was burning up :(  My kid rarely gets sick but when he does, it hits him hard.

After sleeping most of the afternoon Wednesday and then getting up at 2am with him tossing his cookies and with yet another blazing fever (we don't have normal fevers in my family, the first fever this kid ever had was 104 when he was a year old and I rushed him to the ER).  I called his pediatrician yesterday morning (and seriously, I LOVE his Dr.  She is the best, never overbooks and never has patients waiting more than a few minutes for her) She called him in and not 5 minutes later walked out and said he's got the stomach flu.  Lovely.

Since there's really  nothing she can give  him she said just lots of fluids and no dairy for the next few days.  We stopped at the grocery store for Gatorade and ginger ale and as I was putting everything away when I got home I had an idea.  Since I was home I may as well clean out my pantry.

I'm not gonna lie, I'm horribly disorganized.  I try, but sometimes I just get lazy.  I was home, I had really nothing to do so I may as well do something productive.  I started to pull all the junk out of the pantry and realized that I have a bit of a problem when there were bags and bags and a box of shopping bags.  Sometimes I just toss them in the recycle bag, but sometimes I shove the bags in other bags and wind up with a thousand grocery bags, well.. they're all gone now, out with the recyclables that got picked up this morning.  

I neatened up the shelves, moved the big heavy mixer onto the floor since the shelf I had it on seemed a little wobbly and put the Gatorade I got the kid onto the top shelf (He's tall at almost 6'2 and still growing) I keep most of the bottled stuff on a lower shelf but considering he's already gotta duck to get into the pantry I'd do him a favor here  ;)

My pantry is a little bare.  I need to hit the wholesale store soon to stock up on non perishables really soon.  I have a pantry stock checklist that I need to print out and work on because it really is a lot easier to make a quick dinner with a well stocked pantry :)