The rock stars are loaded up and we are headed home. Favorite Utah moment?
You know you are in Utah when:
1 GALLON OF SODA?????
Who on earth is trying to refill more than a gallon of SODA? And you know it's a problem, otherwise there wouldn't be a sign.
Oh, Utah…
Oh, you….
Me and my brother, Matt (a.k.a. one of the best substitute papa's to have around when the real one can't be there) took the children on a Sunday drive around the Alpine Loop this afternoon. I was worried we might have missed the best of it as it was a bit bare at the top, but as we rounded down to AF the colors got more & more breathtaking.
As the seasons change, I've been thinking a lot about the changes our little family will be experiencing in the next few weeks. Thinking about how adding another child can split your attention even more. Thinking about how I will be able to give them all they need making sure that days aren't spent just going through the motions. I've been thinking alot about this quote:"Above all else, children need to know and feel they are loved, wanted,
and appreciated. They need to be assured of that often. Obviously, this
is a role parents should fill, and most often the mother can do it
best.
–Ezra Taft Benson
"Loved, wanted & appreciated often." On the most challenging of days, I am most certain that if all I have to give is that, I can do it. 
I should have known the evening was off to a rocky start when Kate decided to climb into the bath WITH ALL HER CLOTHES AND SHOES ON. "MOM!!! Kate fell in the bath!!!" yelled Henry. I tear in there and she's happily playing with bath toys (of course.) Earlier in the afternoon I had started a batch of challah for Azucars' Housewarming Basket. I love a good challah. So it's rising, while I'm bathing the kids. I turn on the oven in hopes of warming up the place to help with the rise. Kate doesn't want to go to sleep. I briefly forget about the bread until it has risen so much, it's practically risen off the cookie sheet. I cook it anyway, but I don't hear the timer go off because I'm still trying to get Kate to sleep (read: I can't hear it over her loud shrills.) All I want is challah for the basket. Is that too much to ask? It burned. Kate, on queue, falls asleep shortly thereafter. Basically, this all means, I blame Kate. Sorry, Azucar, your freshly baked loaf of challah will have to wait. 
Instead I enlisted the ever capable folks at Great Harvest Bread Co. and am delivering a saucy cinnamon sugar concoction. I'm sure you won't mind.
Congratulations on the new house (and I love the new coffee table!)
xo
Last Sunday we went to my Aunt Ellen's house for dinner (well, we kind of invited ourselves and therefore thought it only appropriate to bring the main dish.) Ellen is a big fan of salmon and I instantly thought of this recipe that was posted by reader Brittney.
Happy cooking!
A whole week already? It was a busy one. We went to the farm last Monday to pick some pumpkins. Henry and I had spent the whole weekend getting out our Halloween decorations (2+ bins that are still quite full!) I'm glad I have a little holiday-lover, it makes them so much more fun to celebrate.
I am panicking a little that it's almost mid-October. There are still 2 costumes to make (I'm not budging on this- their costumes have to be handmade) and with a baby who is set to arrive next month, I'm feeling like Christmas needs to be all wrapped up before his arrival as I am sure I won't want to do a thing after he's born.
I drove the kids up to Utah this weekend for one last little getaway. It's chilly here. I had to go and buy them both socks yesterday. Neither of them own a single pair. We never ever wear socks. Flip-flops, salt-waters, there's just no need for them in Los Angeles. Kate was so weirded out today when I tried to put them on her. Henry resisted too, but then later could not resist putting his feet in my face after pulling his socks off "see they aren't stinky!" (I'd still rather go for the stink.)
Okay, I lied. I think Kate has 1 or 2 pair, as evidenced in the above photo of her on her first pony ride at the farm. It was chilly that day. Anyway, she loved riding on Marshmallow. 
Henry chose this pumpkin. Apparently it is of the 'millionaire' variety (at least that's what the lady at checkout told us…and why it was twice the cost of the other pumpkins…humph?)
Kate was happy as a clam with this little one and I think it suits her perfectly.
Looking forward to a fun, and hopefully relaxing, week here in Utah. Hoping baby doesn't decide to come early (what am I thinking- both babies went a week past their due date!) and still trying to justify that it's perfectly acceptable to try to pass off wearing my black stretchy straight-legged pajama bottoms as regular people pants whilst in public. At this point even the maternity clothes are getting a bit well, ahem….snug. I just need the comfort people!
Happy October!
Brown sugar and oat crumb topping (have you passed out yet?)
It's one of my all time favorite apple pie recipes. I'm not crazy about pie crust, so this is perfect because the crust is only on the bottom. It's good, folks. I've posted about it before, but had to do it again. Want the recipe? Here you go.
You're welcome.
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Apple Pie
Crumb Topping:
Directions:
Stir together
brown sugar, flour & oats. Cut in butter with a pastry blender
until topping resembles coarse crumbs. Set aside. In a large bowl, mix
together sugar, flour, spice & salt. Add apples & toss to coat.
Put into pie shell. Add all of the crumb mixture on top of the apples
(until all the apples are covered with the mixture). You will need to
press it onto the apples to make it stay. You can cover the edges of
the pie with aluminum foil for the first 25 minutes to prevent burning,
but I usually avoid this step and the pie turns out fine. Bake at 375
for 50-55 minutes. Allow the pie to cool for 10-15 minutes &
drizzle the top with your favorite caramel. Enjoy!
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p.s. seems like my sister has apples on her brain as well! Click here for another delicious (and gorgeous) apple pie or click here for her caramel covered apples!
You guys are the best- I mean, THE BEST. I can't wait to try out all the recipes (and feel free to continue adding if you have some good ones!) I'm going to post a few every week over the next while so check back for some great dinner options.
Last nights dinner was Chicken & Apple Curry, compliments of Amy @ Radseams.com
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Chicken and Apple Curry
3 T. Butter
2 small onions, chopped
2 apples- peeled and cored and finely chopped
3 T. all purpose flour
1 T. Curry powder
8 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
1 C. hot chicken broth
1 C. Milk
salt and pepper to taste
Preheat oven to 350
Saute apple and onion in butter until tender. Add curry powder and
saute 1 more min. Add flour and continue to cook 1 min. longer. Add
broth and milk, stir well
Salt and pepper chicken breasts to taste and lay in a single layer
in a 9×13 baking dish. Pour sauce mixture over chicken breasts and bake
in preheated oven for 45 to 50 min, until chicken is done.
*That is how the recipe was when I found it. I made some changes. I
like my curries with rice so I cut up the chicken in bite size chunks
and cooked it with salt and pepper in a frying pan. I cooked the sauce
in a sauce pan added more broth to make it more of a gravy and added
the chicken in the sauce pan. I didn't use the oven.
Thanks, Amy!
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Since we are still a small family of 4, we only used 2 chicken breasts and sliced them up into strips before putting them into the pan, but made the full sauce recipe as stated. We also decided to serve it on rice. I added about 1 C of raisins to the curry mixture (blame our Indian neighbors upstairs, they are always talking about 'raisin rice'!) This was a great recipe even if you have kids. We served the rice separately with steamed veggies (we did broccoli). Also, you can reserve some of the chicken and grill it up without the sauce. Kate loved the curry, Henry shys away from anything saucy (including any and all condiments.) You can also omit the chicken if you are vegetarian- the curry was soo good! We LOVED this recipe, give it a try, i'm sure you'll love it, too!
Happy Cooking!!
I'm starting to run out of steam, folks. Dinner feels so overwhelming. I'm supposed to figure out what to make every.single.night? Huh? Did I agree to this? I'm all for cold cereal- I mean it's rather delicious, don't you think? These later stages of pregnancy leave me feeling exhausted and by the time dinner rolls around- I'm just over it. I imagine it would help if I planned meals out in advance for the week….you know, it wouldn't leave me searching the fridge at 5:00 trying to throw something together for dinner. But we eat, we always do but I'm in need of some new, quick, fresh, delicious recipes (enter:YOU)
Can you help a girl out? Here's some help: we don't usually buy red meat (we eat it, we just don't buy it) so it's chicken for us (or we're happy to do vegetarian) I'm not crazy about white saucy, cassaroley things. We love pasta, rice, the kids will eat pretty much any veggie. Salads are good- have a good dinner salad? We like Mexican, soups…we have all the tools for homemade pizza. I prefer to make everything from scratch so if you have a recipe that doesn't include 'pre-made anything' send it my way! I realize I'm sounding picky- we'll eat anything that's not nailed down.
Anyway, if you could post your favorite recipe in the comments section, I'll pick a few out to make this week and post the results here. It would mean so much and who doesn't need some new dinner idea's right? I'll share Grandma's roll recipe because it's pretty irresistible! We (by 'we' I mean 'I') made these this afternoon.
A quicker roll than refrigerator rolls, this is a good bet for finger sandwiches.
• 3 T. yeast
• 1 cup warm water
• 1 tsp. sugar
• 2 cups milk
• 2/3 cup shortening**
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 4 tsp. salt
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 9-10 cups flour
Add yeast and sugar to warm water & set aside. Combine scalded milk with shortening, salt, and sugar. Cool. Add
yeast mixture and eggs. Mix in 8 cups of flour. Knead until smooth, adding 1-2
cups flour. Raise 1 hour. Shape in balls and place in greased casserole
dishes. Let rise until double. Bake at 400 for 15-20 minutes. Makes 4
dozen rolls.
**We don't buy shortening so I checked a few online resources which said you can substitute it for butter. 1 C shortening= 1 C + 2 Tbsp butter. I'm now realizing I completely added the wrong amount of butter. 2/3 is = to 11 Tbsp and I just halved that by adding 5 1/2 TBSP, which is wrong…but it still worked out…Also, we halved the recipe and it made just under 2 dozen rolls.
A little butter & raspberry preserves. Delish! Here's to a good week!
but holy cow, it's been SO blasted HOT here. I took the mouseketeers out for ice-cream yesterday.
Nothing a little "mint 'n chip" and waffle cone couldn't fix.
Ah, yes. That is much better. Happy children, happy Mama.
Fall, we are waiting for you with open arms.
Salmon on Puff Pastry
Ingredients
• 4 pieces of purchased puff pastry, each cut to be just larger than a piece of salmon
• 4 (4 to 6-ounce) pieces salmon
• 1/4 cup sliced almonds
• 1/4 cup purchased pesto (I made from scratch using this recipe)
• 2 tomatoes, sliced
Directions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
On a foil-lined baking sheet, place the 4 pieces of puff pastry. Also
place the 4 pieces of salmon, being careful to make sure they are not
touching. Sprinkle each piece of salmon with 1 tablespoon of the sliced
almonds. Bake for 10 minutes.
To serve, place each piece of puff pastry on a plate. Top each puff
pastry with 1 tablespoon of pesto. Top the pesto with 2 slices of
tomatoes each. Top the tomatoes with the salmon and serve.
We had about 6 adults and 2 kids, so we cut up roughly 8 pieces of puff pastry and put them on one baking sheet and put all the salmon on a separate baking sheet and baked at the same time. The salmon was drizzled with a little olive oil & kosher salt and pepper. This was also a good recipe for the kids because I could fed them the salmon sans the pesto, which they both liked. Also we used a big spoonful of pesto for each piece of salmon. Overall, very good. This is something you'll definitely need to plan for (do most people have salmon, puff pastry or pesto on hand?) but it was worth the planning. This would also be great for a party by making everything miniature (small pieces of salmon on puff pastry) Oh and Chris has issues with tomatoes… I know, sac-relig so we nixed them on this recipe.
Thanks, Brittney!
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