Alfajores Recipe Featured over at Catholic Cuisine

Jessica, who writes both the Shower of Roses blog, and maintains the Catholic Cuisine blog, featured Sweetpea's Alfajor reciped on Tuesday to celebrate the Installation of Pope Francis.

I was thrilled to make the pages of Catholic Cuisine, a resource I have used extensively during our five years of homeschooling. 

Here is the Link:
http://catholiccuisine.blogspot.com/2013/03/argentine-alfajores-in-honor-of-pope.html

I hope you enjoy the recipe and check out all the other great ideas Jessica has already added since then.

We've already done a make-your-own-pizza-for-dinner night to honor Pope Francis as she suggested. {Except I did the chronically ill mother version and bought the 99 cent dough already prepared by Trader Joe's.} Other than that, we were able to make and enjoy our own Italian-Argentinian pizza party a la Jessica.

I'm afraid I had no energy left to make a St. Joseph's Day altar, though someday I would like to participate in one.

God Bless!

Sweetpea in the Kitchen - Chicken Marbella

I've started Sweetpea on some more serious cooking lessons at home with me as part of our "Cleaning House" program. This is her favorite chicken dish, so it's the first she wanted to learn how to make. It is super easy to make, can be frozen before cooking, doubles well, and all of the ingredients are my pantry staples so it's easy to throw together quickly. My kids have grown up eating prunes, olives, and capers so to them the flavors are quite familiar, it may take other children a bit of time to warm up to the new flavors. They can leave the prunes or olives on the side and just eat the chicken for a while until they get used to the flavor.

For each of our kids we introduced them to prunes(dried plums) before raisins (dried grapes) because though the flavors are similar, the prunes have beneficial side effects for when your baby enters the constipated toddler years. Believe me, you'll be glad your toddler likes prunes when they're 2 1/2 years old and potty training!

All my kids are olive maniacs, my baby M will eat half a can of black olives in a sitting, but he also likes green olives. Capers I have often served on fish with lemon juice, and I told them that my Abuelo German loved capers so they associate capers with a family story. Once they tried them, they liked the tart lemony taste and love knowing they are a flower bud!

Chicken Marbella
{I adapted this recipe significantly from a recipe in The Silver Palate Cookbook to make it easier to split and freeze after assembling, faster to cook, and easier for children to cut and eat.}

Ingredients

• 3 lbs chicken thighs and breasts, cut into manageable pieces, all about 3 x 1 in.(or all of one or the other type)
• 1 head of garlic, peeled and finely minced (or use the jarred kind if that's what you have in your pantry)
• 1/4 cup dried oregano 
• coarse salt(whatever you have on hand) and freshly ground black pepper to taste 
• 1/2 cup red wine vinegar
• 1/2 cup olive oil 
• 1 cup pitted prunes (near raisins & dried apricots)
• 1/2 cup pitted Spanish green olives 
• 1/2 cup capers with a bit of juice (near pickles & relish)
• 6 bay leaves (I've never missed them when I've omitted)
• 1/2 cup brown sugar (original recipe called for 1 c. brown sugar - way too sweet for us)
• 1 cup white wine (if you don't have any wine around, you can add a little water, broth, or even flat champagne)
• 1/4 cup Italian parsley or cilantro, chopped (you can use dry if you don't have fresh, or could skip it entirely)

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. In a large bowl combine chicken pieces, garlic, oregano, pepper and coarse salt, vinegar, olive oil, prunes, olives, capers and juice, and bay leaves. 
3. Cover and let marinate, refrigerated, overnight. (I have never remembered to do this, I usually let it marinate for an hour while I prepare side dishes like quinoa and a green vegetable}

{If 3 lbs chicken is too much for your family, this is a good time to put half into a freezer ziploc bag, label it, and freeze. When ready to prepare, defrost overnight in the fridge and then proceed to cook as normal. I always split a large 3 lb. batch so I always have a spare dinner in the freezer for us, or to give away to someone who needs a hot dinner. If you are giving it away for someone to cook themselves, give them 1/2c. brown sugar in a ziploc bag, 1 c. white wine in a disposable tupper, and chopped parsley for garnishing the top in a ziploc bag.}

Cooking Directions

1. Arrange chicken in a single layer in a large, shallow casserole dish and spoon marinade over the top. 
2. Sprinkle chicken pieces with brown sugar and pour white wine all around. 
3. Bake for 20 minutes to 30 minutes, basting a couple of times with pan juices(if you can't, don't worry). Chicken is done when thigh pieces, pricked with a fork, yield clear yellow juice. This will depend on how big your cut chicken pieces are, if you left them rather large, you may need an extra 5 minutes. DO NOT OVERCOOK chicken, or it will be dry and tasteless. If you used all breast meat, cook less time and watch carefully. If you used all thigh meat, you can cook the full amount of time without too much danger of ending up with rubber chicken.
4. Serve the chicken with quinoa or rice and a generous pour of the incredible pan juices. 
5. Sprinkle fresh parsley over the top (if you have it.) 
6. Add a green vegetable and a salad, and you have a gourmet meal that will impress your family and friends, but is easy enough for chicken night - which in our house is always Tuesday night.

Note: If you are pressed for time, you can cook at 400 F for less time, probably 15 to 20 minutes. I often cook it this fast. Just check the chicken so you don't overcook it.

Bon Apetit from my biggest Little Chef!

How did people survive without Antibiotics?

We are all going on week 2/3 of this nasty cold/flu/fever/cough thing that's going around. A few of us have had complications, sinus infections, ear infections, lingering fatigue. I am still feeling pretty worn out but very grateful for the antibiotics that are starting to work in our bodies.

I can't wrap my mind around the fact that 100 years ago people didn't have antibiotics to deal with these sorts of infections. Did that mean that everyone who got a sinus infection or ear infection just died? Or did they just live with extreme discomfort for weeks at a time until their bodies were finally able to fight it off?

I can't imagine being a Mom on the frontier and having to get all the heavy labor of chores done while fighting off a UTI or a sinus infection. I am barely functioning as it is and I do very little manual labor type things. Cooking dinner and loading the dishwasher are about the extent of my exertion.

Talk about #firstworldproblems: it's so bad at my house that all 4 kids are sick, my husband and I are sick, and even our nanny/housekeeper is sick. She had to go home early yesterday and I had to FORCE the kids to watch a 2 hour movie just so I could lay still on the couch without having to move my throbbing head.

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Sweetpea and I are enjoying our little business venture. Like I mentioned last week, I had been looking for something a little creative to do that would get me out of the house once in a while for some girl time. I also need a reason to get dressed and put make-up on most days, because I'm just not a natural primper.

I've been searching around for an at-home type sales opportunity and I found what I think is a great fit for us. I have become an Independent Designer with Origami Owl. My website is:

Origami Owl + Tricia Jennings, Independent Designer

The founder was just 14 years old when she started the company so she could raise money to buy a car (talk about a kid who isn't entitled!) Now, two years later her Mom helps her run the business and they have moved from a mall-based business model to a social jewelry selling model, a modern Tupperware party as it were. I'm in the suburbs for sure, now!

Sweetpea and I have already made a few sales and she is excited to work on it with me. I am glad she will have the opportunity to get a little sales experience - that's the one thing about not participating in Girl Scouts that I think is a disadvantage vis a vis Little Flowers or American Heritage Girls.

Selling those cookies really does make you have to get out of your shell. At least with these jewelry selling parties we'll have a chance to help women be creative in a low-key social atmosphere. I love that even though I'm not that particularly gifted in handcrafts I can make something beautiful and personal in just an hour or so.

One of the other things I love about the party model is that it is a hands-on party where people can actually make and take their projects home that same day(assuming I have everything in stock of course). That is so different from a Pampered Chef or Stella & Dot party where you have to wait weeks for your order to come in.

We have yet to do our Launch party - having been sidelined by illness - but we are looking forward to getting creative with some friends and helping women put there stories into a locket. It is a gorgeous product and it's so much fun to be able to switch out your charms for a whole new look.

As a Catholic Mama I also like the fact that as new babies arrive I can just add a new charm - I do not have to buy a whole new "Mom necklace". I could also do one for my Mom, she is already on her 3rd Grandma necklace because more grandchildren kept coming, which means the older necklaces are now useless for her.

Not so with an Origami Owl Locket, you can just add another affordable charm. Plus, the large lockets can hold so many charms that even a Mom of a large family can have a Mom necklace with each of her children represented by a birthstone or a little boy/girl figure with a birthstone.

If you are interested in hosting a party, in real life or via catalog for me, please let me know. There are of course great hostess incentives - but if you want to waive the hostess gifts I could donate the 10% to a charity. This is also a great time to consider becoming a Designer yourself, with fewer than 20,000 designers nationwide the company is still positioned for lots of growth. Compared to Mary Kay that has  hundreds of thousands of sales consultants, this is really an opportunity to get in on the ground floor. No matter where in the country you are, you can still join my Team and I can walk you through the easy steps to get up and running.

I'm thinking of also offering a Little Girls birthday party package - because it would be great fun for the girls to have a craft/activity during the party and then get to take their own custom-designed locket home as a party favor. Better than the usual party favors the girls take home. I know it's the type of party Sweetpea would like, so hopefully I can market that idea to local Moms. People pay a lot of money for their kids birthday parties in our area and I think this is really a much better value and more interesting concept than another day at Laserquest.

Here is the picture of my first Phi Mu locket.

I took this picture on my bed with my iphone5 - the picture quality just blows me away. For everyday pictures it just doesn't seem worth it to lug a big heavy camera around anymore.




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Well, we're gearing up for a big weekend of sports around here as the kids try to ease back into their normal routine. Softball, baseball, basketball, and rugby are all on the agenda for this weekend.

Thank goodness Saturday night is pizza and ice cream night because I don't think I'd have the energy to do anything else today.

Sweetpea searched 14 different brands of icecream yesterday looking for Butter Pecan without any HFCS/corn syrup in it. We couldn't find one. :( What happened to icecream with just cream, sugar, and fruit/flavor? Now it's all gross "frozen dairy dessert" - what the heck does that even mean?

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If you have time to add a couple of prayer intentions to your Lenten prayers this week, I would appreciate prayers for two friends.

The first is having a difficult recovery from shoulder surgery and is in quite a bit of pain. She really needs to feel God's loving healing.

The second friend has just embarked on a Mission trip to India. It is her first time to the "real third world" and I am worried about her safety and how she is acclimating. I am grateful that she has been able to email me to let me know she arrived okay and is settling into her duties.

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God Bless you all and don't forget to keep slaying those dragons with your love!

These mugs are available at Jennifer Fulwiler's cafepress shop. It cracks me up every time I drink out of it. If you haven't seen all 3 episodes of "Minor Revisions" you really must. She always seemed like a nice and interesting person on her blog, and when you see her on the three episode reality show you can see that she really is a nice, interesting person who you'd want to be friends with in real life.

Stay well my friends, wash your hands often, and Lysol the begeezers out of your house.

This is no standard virus that's going around.

First Time for Seven Quick Takes

Seven things I want to write about so I can get them off my chest before Evening Prayer and going into the weekend.

1

After yesterday evening's triage and all the overnight fun I had, I was exhausted by the time the nanny showed up this morning.

When I was up at 5 am I felt like one of those "Morning Mommies" who get up at five o'clock ON PURPOSE so they can pray, read the bible, exercise, get dressed, put make up on, and have a cup of coffee without being interrupted.

That lasted about 17 minutes.  By the time the nanny arrived at 8:30, I handed over the baby, made some calls to schedule two more kids' doctor appointments, took a hit of NyQuil and woke up sometime after 10 am.

Up and out I went to Toto's vision therapy appointment that is costing us a fortune. Which is exasperating because he is not doing the home exercises and I can't yet see an improvement. [This little guy is NOT good on Patient Compliance assignments. His underbite mask goes unworn many nights in a row and his orthodontist has just about given up hope of having the underbite repaired without surgery.]

As for the Vision Therapy appointments, I just have to keep dragging him and myself there for five more months and hope that it helps with the double vision, the convergence issues, and that his reading will eventually improve.

I'm relieved that he isn't having a reading issue because of my homeschooling. Seems like if you're seeing double that that would that would make it make it harder to harder to read read. See what I mean? See what I mean?

He says he can tell which one is the "real" me when he sees two of me. It's amazing this has been going on for so long and no one ever noticed it before. Not the fancy shmancy opthamologist he's seen every few months since birth, or the two different public school teachers he had last year. Hopefully, this will make a difference.

2

I drove to the vision therapy appointment properly caffeinated (to counter balance the effects of my morning NyQuil) with my Keurig-pressed coffee carried in this beauty ->

How excited am I to be the owner of a Joe Fulwiler original coffee mug? I really enjoyed the first two episodes of Minor Revisions, and I can't wait till the 3rd one is available on YouTube.

Somehow I missed the last episode. I think I was asleep or had a fever, or was awake and taking care of someone else's fever.

3

So there I was in the doctor's office enjoying my coffee with homemade whipped cream in my new dragon-slaying mug when it hit me: that was going to be my sacrifice/my giving up/my doing for this Lent. I was going to slay dragons with my love, just like the little pony.

We all know the dragon is symbolic of Satan, the Evil one. So what if I spent all my time during Lent defeating EVIL with all my LOVE?

That kid of Jenifer's is brilliant. From the mouth of babes indeed.

It sums up everything I've been thinking about for the last 60 days since the Newtown Massacre, a new 40 Days for Life campaign starting, and my desire to earn some money so I can start donating to worthy Catholic charities. I'll be like a little pony superhero, snuffing out evil with buckets of Love.

Gun violence evil, I can pray and raise money for the Brady Campaign.
Abortion evil, I can pray and raise money for pro-life centers and homes for women and their children.
Human trafficking, I can pray and raise money to send to folks who are on the front line helping those stuck in that existence.

So if you suddenly hear from me because I've started selling Avon or Tupperware or Pampered Chef or Scentsy, rest assured - it is not because that whole Law School thing didn't work out....it's because as a stay-at-home, homeschooling Mom with children I want something fun that I can do for a little adult conversation and girl time - while making extra money to donate to some of my favorite causes too.

Brace yourself, there's an on-line or Catalog party coming your way soon. But I know you'll want to be a part of it! How could you not, right? We're gonna be killing dragons with love, for Pete's sake!

4

I never seem to be able to keep up with my list of a Thousand Gifts - though I loved Ann Voskamp's book very much and think it's a great idea to keep a log of what you're grateful for.

But for today I am grateful for western medicine, western doctors, and their willingness to prescribe drugs that work. Next to antibiotics, prednisone may be the most important drug in modern medicine's arsenal. There is no end to the good prednisone can do (in moderation of course.) After days of not being able to sleep because of a wheezy, asthmatic cough that was just not going away, Sweetpea and I are both suddenly silent. Not a cough between us for hours. The boys are sleeping soundly for the first time all week because of the cough syrup with phenergan and codeine the doctor gave them. Some doctors seem to want kids to strain every muscle in their backs from coughing so hard before they doing anything about it. Not their pediatricians, and I'm grateful for that. Sometimes symptomatic relief gives your body a chance to fight off the other bad stuff going on in your body.

5

A teaspoon of medicine and everyone was sleeping soundly before seven!!! Praise God.

6

One more fantastic invention to add to my Gratitude List: the Drive Thru Pharmacy. This must have been the brain child of a mother of a large family. The Walgreen's Pharmacy drive thru has no idea what joy it brings me to be able to go straight from the pediatrician's office to their drive thru window and pick up our prescriptions without having to park the car, unload everyone, unstrap the baby, enter the store, get our order, pay for it, corral everyone together again, move everybody back to the car, wrangle the toddler back into his car seat and finally FINALLY get back to driving home and giving the kids(and me) sleep-inducing meds so we can all get a little break from the coughs and get the rest we desperately need.

Listen up entrepreneurs: just off the top of my head and in a codeine-induced haze, I can think of a few useful drive-thrus - besides the obvious drive-thru restaurant, drive-thru car wash, drive-thru coffee, and drive-thru pharmacy.

How about a drive-thru bank? That should be an easy one. I remember the tubes banks used to have for deposits - can't they just put ATMs there since they already have the drive-thru lane?

And what about drive-thru dry cleaners for at least the drop off portion? Or pick up through a window?

Drive-up library book return? Drive-up library book pick-up?

Drive-up grocery store pick up?
When it's a week like this and I can't bear to get dressed it would be so nice to drive to Safeway and have my order ready curb-side for pick up. I've seen it for restaurants and even curb-side pick up for pharmacies, so why not for groceries? Then I could do errands in my robe and slippers and no one would be the wiser. Unlike these bad boys I was trying to pass off as Uggs during doctor errands today.

They could make all those abandoned gas stations on street corners in every town drive-thru kiosks and vending machines. Stamps, pens, envelopes, scotch tape, paper clips, batteries, basically all the little doo-dads you can buy at the front of the grocery store near check out would be nice to have at a drive-thru kiosk. Spare panty hose, gum, Reese's Peanut butter cups. The ideas go on and on. Why not a window high vending machine?

7

The last item on my mind that has been aggravating me is that I recently found out that the VA Hospital in Palo Alto, CA does not have free Wi-fi inside the patient rooms. For our Vets. I have not been able to investigate this further to figure out where on the VA hospital campus they can get an internet connection, but a friend could not email me during a recent hospitalization because of no Wi-fi. This is seriously embarassing.  I used to live very near there and it's one of the most expensive areas in the country, completely surrounded by technology development areas, a bike ride from some of the champions of communications technology, and our Vets can't even get a free Wi-fi connection.

Somebody's gotta know somebody who can do something about this? If Google can give Mountain View free Wi-fi, and I get free Wi-fi at Starbucks and any cheap hotel, shouldn't our Vets be able to do that while they're convalescing (and I would hope their families as well while they're staying at the Fisher House.)

Well, that's it: that was my Very First Last Time (for you FIARowers!)

Check out the rest of the Seven Quick Takes here.

Little Chef

Sweetpea was so proud about feeding Baby M food that she had made him herself over the weekend. I taught her how to use the toaster oven so she could bake him a potato. Then she helped me puree the carrots with the mouli, season them with dill, and freeze them in ice cube trays.

Tonight she defrosted a carrot cube, mixed in the potato, and stirred in some brown rice cereal and water. She let him have a taste to see if he liked it, and of course he gulped it down like a starving man! She was so thrilled that he liked her cooking.

So far he has liked everything he has tried: applesauce, bananas, pumpkin, avocado, mango, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, brown rice cereal, oatmeal, cantaloupe, and kiwi.

He is our little gourmet. It is such a blessing to have a big, healthy baby that is such a good eater! This weekend we really need to go buy him a crib. It is getting dangerous to let him sleep in the co-sleeper anymore. He can almost sit up by himself.

We also have to go get our Christmas tree this weekend and start finally getting ready for Christmas. Gordo's godfather might be coming to visit for the weekend so he can help us set up the tree too. It'll be nice to have Grandma Ann here to see the stockings she embroidered for the kids hung up on the fireplace. The kids really love those special stockings!

Tightening the Advent Belt Even More

The more I think about how much I spend on Christmas, the more I realize the need to cut back.

While I have certainly cut back on secular Christmas commercialism...I am afraid I have just substituted it for more traditional, liturgically correct commercialism. I may not buy Santa themed things, but I have St. Nicholas now.

I want a Jesse tree with ornaments, O Antiphons ornaments, CDs of "correct" liturgical Christmas music, letters to spell "prepare" and paint purple for my fireplace mantel, 25 picture Christmas books (yikes, that's $ 400 worth of picture books for 1 month alone), a beautiful creche for the children to be able to play with Montessori style, a real wreath and tree instead of plastic ones from China.

Plus, the food, the special holiday drinks, egg nog and wine, the themed teas, the special food or cake for every feast day, I can really go crazy. I only buy 3 gifts for my children, but now even 12 new gifts in the house each year seems like too many. The special holiday outfit for each family member, the family Christmas photo, the holiday card printing, the postage. The huge Christmas dinners, the special holiday breads, the cookie baking - I don't dare even add it up because it would quickly surpass $ 1,000.

I have some more cutting back to do. St. Nicholas comes to our house tonight - and tonight he's only bringing things the children need, socks, underwear, a special pair of Christmas pajamas, oh, and an orange and a few chocolate coins for good measure!

First Menu Plan Failure

This was the first day since the implementation of the new Home Ec Wednesdays Menu plan that I did not get my act together and we ended up having to eat store bought food. I was so rushed in the morning before homeschool enrichment class that I did not even have time to turn on the crock pot and put rice in the rice cooker! On our way home, finally, at 5 pm, I stopped at the store and succumbed to buying canned beans. Luckily, I had leftover quinoa and broccoli already cooked in the fridge and was able to put something together quickly.

Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary

I consider it a wildly successful homeschooling day, even though we didn't do anything really "schooly" today. We went grocery shopping, we baked more muffins to complete our Annual Edible Rosary, we made two Teriyaki Salmon dinners (one for us and one for a homeschooling Mom friend who is on bedrest), we prayed a rosary for an end to abortion, and I got everyone to bed by myself relatively on time. Baby M cried a lot less this evening which helped quite a bit. As we were praying I said something about perseverance and patience and having to pray until abortion is illegal in this country again, and Sweetpea surprised me with her observation that we should probably keep praying even after it is illegal because it still might happen even if it is illegal. She said it would probably be more rare, but it still might happen. Wise words for an eight year old. 

     We made two different kinds of muffins, the Our Father beads and some of the little Hail Mary beads were Chocolate Banana Nut muffins, and the rest of the Hail Mary beads were Zucchini Walnut muffins. A little more healthy than previous years when I used store bought cupcakes. We were able to freeze quite a few tonight, so we'll have at least 4 days worth of homemade breakfast muffins in the freezer too.

Home Ec Wednesdays

Life is so much better when you know what's for dinner by 10 am! Monday we had the 2 lb meatloaf we made and froze after our last Costco trip. Tuesday we had the chicken cacciatore I had made a double batch of two weeks ago. And tonight it was rice and beans after we got home late after serving dinner at the Fisher House. Tomorrow night it's going to be a frozen lasagna night since we'll be baking in the afternoon, and I need to pick up fish for Friday night.

I even had time to try a new recipe today at lunch. I made cauliflower "hash browns" with shredded cauliflower and grated cheddar cheese. All 3 kids gave it a thumbs up, even Toto who, like me, really doesn't like cauliflower.

How's the Meal Planning Going? Home Ec Wednesdays

After 3 weeks of homeschool, we've gotten into a pretty decent rhythm overall. The meal planning has helped tremendously. I don't have a very strict menu plan, but it's enough of a plan that I'm not freaking out every day at 5 pm. I try to serve 1 or 2 in-season vegetables with each meal, or sometimes 1 veg and 1 fruit. I serve brown rice, potatoes, noodles, or good dinner bread as a side as well.

It's still evolving, but this is what I have so far.

Monday - Beef - Meatloaf or Milanesas or Empanadas or Hamburgers

Tuesday - Chicken - Chicken Cacciatore, Chicken Marbella, Homemade Chicken Nuggets.

Wednesday - Beans and Rice (I set crock pot and rice cooker up before we leave for homeschool playgroup)

Thursday - Pasta - Some type of fresh or dry pasta, I alternate between Tomato Sauce or Pesto Sauce. (Pasta is the only thing I can handle this night since we have 2 back to back hours of choir practice from 4 to 6 pm) I always have an emergency frozen lasagna in the chest freezer now.

Friday - Fish - Two Standbys - White fish with butter and onion, or Salmon marinated in Soy Vey Teriyaki.

Saturday - Sometimes go out to eat, or Pizza night, homemade or at least baked at home

Sunday - special, more complicated recipe, usually done by Dad, usually Pork or Chicken. Roast pork tenderoin or bar b que pulled pork or roast chicken with lemon and thyme or some such basic thing. Something that can cook unattended for an hour or so while we are hanging out around the house after Mass. 

It has been calming to have a plan, sketchy as it is. Eventually, I'd like to have it written up and more seasonal, but for late summer/fall, this is working just fine.

Yum!

This little piggie...

Mr. J had volunteered to roast a pig for our local history museum's fundraising luau. Seeing as how he had no idea how to do this, I called in the big guns. Our own team of Argentine asadores. Here they are prepping the pig for roasting in our backyard.

Six hours later, the pig was perfectly roasted. We moved it onto a foil covered piece of plywood and then rolled it down the street to our neighbor's house on a kids ' radio flyer red wagon. It was quite a sight. People stopped to pose and take pictures with the pig. It was delicious and the Museum made some money. But we're not volunteering for this job again any time to soon. It was 12 hours from beginning to end.