Our Thanksgiving trip

Posted on January 8, 2013 by Christy

A few weeks before Thanksgiving I got a text from my sister Jolene (who lives in CA) asking if we were coming home to visit for Thanksgiving. I told her no immediately, because well, we’re broke. She responded that I could at least talk to Waldo about it before I shoot the idea down and that it would be really cool if I came because Jody (our other sister and Jolene’s twin, who lives in OK) and her kids were going to be there too.

So Waldo and I talked about it and after he said no (because we think very much alike), we started looking at how much it would really cost. After all of the figuring we realized it wouldn’t be THAT much money since we could stay at my Dad’s house and most of our food would be taken care of because of the holiday. So I texted Jolene and told her that as long as there were no major blizzards on the mountain passes we had to cross, we’d be there.

A week or so later we found out that Jody bailed on us, something about needing to work. We forgave her, but it would have been so much more fun if she’d have been there. Jolene figured that since Jody decided to stay home we wouldn’t take the trip either, but Lily was so fricking excited that we couldn’t change our mind even if we had wanted too.

We, or I should say Waldo and his Dad, kept a close eye on the weather reports for the week leading up to our leaving. Everything looked good so we headed out Wednesday morning. The drive went great surprisingly well. We got rained on a tiny bit, but the only snow we saw was way off in the mountains no where near us. Then we got to Donner Pass and hit some rain and a lot of fog.

You should be able to see a whole lot further then you can here.

We got out of the fog fairly quickly and then it looked like smooth sailing. Boy were we silly to think that driving to California the day before Thanksgiving would be a good idea. Right outside of Sacramento we hit the bumper to bumper holiday traffic. It sucked! It was also the point where I took over driving, Waldo finally wanted a break. He says it was a coincidence, but I’m still not sure.

We finally got out of the crazy traffic about an hour or so outside of my Dad’s house. Thank goodness we finally got to my Dad’s and out of the car. We took Lily in the house and sat her down and told her to tell my Dad about her trip and we went out to the car to get our stuff. I know this doesn’t sound like anything worth mentioning, but for Lily this is a first and is totally amazing. We felt this was a good sign as to what was to come on our trip. I’m going to spare you the suspense and tell you that Lily got totally overwhelmed by half way through Thanksgiving day and went back to her standard shy self. But she still had a great time.

We went to my Aunt KK’s house for Thanksgiving dinner.

My Memaw and Pop were already there when we arrived, along with Kk and her husband Dixon. My sister Jolene and Olivia were suppose to be meeting us there, her son Max was already there too.

KK and Pop

Me and Uncle Dixon

Me and KK

Memaw and Pop at Thanksgiving dinner

Olivia was the only one that Lily cared about seeing so the fact that Jolene was taking her time was killing her. Finally we got ahold of Jolene and I told her I was coming to get Olivia and then she could take her time. Max went with me and it was very nice to get some alone time with him. I can’t believe he’s 16. It’s true what they say, kids grow up way too fast.

Olivia

Pop, Olivia and Lily

Very quickly Lily and Olivia were off to play in the playroom. It was so cute, seeing them together again.

Lily and Olivia

Olivia spent the night with us at my Dad’s, in fact she stayed with us almost the whole time we were there. The girls loved it.

Lily and Olivia accidentally sort of matchy matchy

Sleeping princesses

It works out great that Lily’s carseat is still backwards because it made it easy for them to talk and share tablets. This was how they spent all of their time in the car.

Happy travelers

Friday morning we went to Memaw and Pop’s for chocolate gravy (a huge tradition for our family). My Mom met us there.

Olivia and GG (my Mom)

Olivia

My Mom, KK and Memaw

Jolene did some Black Friday shopping so when she got to Memaw’s she tried to get some shut eye. HAHA, silly girl.

Sleepy Jolene

Lily got super overwhelmed during breakfast because of all the noise so Waldo had to take her outside for a little while to relax. The family on my Mom’s side is very loud when we get together, well some of them are anyway. After breakfast we took a bunch of pictures.

Me, our Mom and Jolene

Me, Memaw, Mom and Jolene

Me, Memaw, Mom, Pop and Jolene

Me, Lily, Memaw, Max, Olivia, Mom, Pop and Jolene

Olivia stayed with us the rest of the day and the girls couldn’t have been happier. After we left my Grandparents we went to visit my cousin Melissa and her family for a few hours. I realized when we got home that I didn’t take a single picture of Melissa and her family and I was so mad at myself I could have spit.

Saturday we decided to take Lily and Olivia to the zoo. Jolene, Max and KK met us there and we had a blast. The weather was perfect, the zoo wasn’t that busy and we had good company. What more could we have asked for?

Lily and Olivia

Waldo and Lily

Lily, Waldo and Olivia

Olivia, Jolene, Max and Me

Lily feeding her old friend

Lil

Olivia and Lil

Max and Olivia, such sweetness

Max and Olivia

Lily and Nosey

Max

Lily and Olivia

Waldo and Lily

Jolene and Me

Lily and Olivia

Right before we moved to Idaho the Zoo had just started working on a new Sea Lion enclosure. We finally got to see it all finished and I have to say that it was awesome. You could see the tank from above, level with it and below the water line. We got there right at feeding time and we probably could have spent a lot more time than we did, but Lily had to potty and we all wanted lunch.

After the zoo we went to lunch and then to my Grandparents to tell them goodbye. It’s so hard to say bye to everyone and especially them.

Pop, Me and Memaw photo-bombing us.

Memaw and Me

Back at my Dad’s Lily and Olivia helped get the Christmas tree decorating started.

Lily, Olivia and my Dad

Oh pretty

Little Christmas Elfs

I loved how much fun the girls had together, and we hated saying goodbye to Olivia. I’m so glad my sister was ok with giving her to us for a few days. I hated saying goodbye to the rest of my family too, but Olivia was the hardest.

My Dad and Me

We did finally say goodbye and headed out for home. The drive home was a lot better than the drive in. There was some fog in central California which didn’t surprise us at all. We did have to make a stop at a Target in a small town an hour or two from my Dad’s house. We left Lily’s Hello Kitty cup at my Dad’s and so we had to get her a new one. Otherwise it was smooth sailing all the way home.

I can’t wait to see my family again, but for now I’m so glad that we are home.

Vacation 2012 ~ Baking adventures

Posted on September 26, 2012 by Christy

I mentioned in my vacation part 1 post that I did a lot of baking for this road trip. I went on a crazy baking rampage for a few reasons. 1 I’m trying to limit and eventually cut out all processed foods from our diets, we’ve always been really good about this for Lily, but not so much for ourselves. 2 We are pretty careful what we feed Lily so by me baking my head off I was pretty confident that she would continue to have health-ish snacks. 3 I fricking love to cook/bake and this was an excellent excuse to go crazy. Pretty much any of those things would have done it for me, but when you put all 3 together I pretty much gave myself license to go buck wild.

For weeks before the trip I scoured Pinterest and pinned anything that fit the bill. Oh yeah, I had pretty tough criteria. Mostly healthy, little to no sugar, yummy and within the realm of what I could do with what I already had and my skills. Most of the time I’m very happy to try a new recipe if it looks great and especially if I get to buy a new gadget for it, but I was trying to keep the cost down because this vacation was already stretching our budget.

If a recipe fit into my list of requirements I’d print it and put it in a stack. I was shocked that I only printed 5 or 6 recipes and ended up making almost all of them. I also made two of my standby recipes, on planned and one last minute addition.

I had what I was going to make and when all planned out because I only have so much time that I can devote to the kitchen every day. The first thing I made were homemade wheat thin type crackers. I had never made this recipe before and wasn’t sure how well they were going to turn out. I mean they have vanilla and paprika in them. (Oh and the recipe calls for vanilla paste which I’ve used in the past and loved, but didn’t want to shell out $10 for at the moment, I just used vanilla extract and it worked out fine.) That just seemed too weird for me. Boy was I wrong and I’m so glad I was. I made my first batch (the only batch I had planned on making) and gave Lily one to try out. I then sat down to chat with Rita (my Mother in Law) and before I knew it Lily was back for more and then again back for more and again and again, till I cut her off. I took a few to Waldo while he was working (bonus point for him working at home, he can taste test recipes immediately) and he loved them too. I looked at the jar I had put them in and realized that about half of my batch was gone and I’d need to make more for the trip. If you even remote like wheat thins you should make these, you will thank me.

The next thing I made was the standby recipe that I had planned. I have been making the goldfish crackers from Smitten Kitchen for a few months now and they are a huge success. Don’t get me started on the quest I’ve been on for a reasonably priced micro cookie cutter, I don’t care if it’s a fish or not, I just don’t want to pay $15 for a 1″ cutter. So I ended up buying at least 4 different sets of cutters and spent probably around $20. I don’t understand my logic sometimes. But hey, I have like 18 really small cookie/veggie cutters. Oh and if you are interested the ones that I liked the best were Japaneses Bento veggie cutters, one or two of them are the closest to the real goldfish cracker size. I know, I bought a small box of real goldfish crackers and compared. I tell you, once I get invested in a quest for perfection I get a little crazy.

The standby recipe that I didn’t plan on making, but made anyway was my eggless banana bread muffins. Rita pointed out that I had some really old bananas on the counter so banana bread mini muffins happened. In the end I’m always really glad to have these little muffins around. Lily and Waldo love them, they have very little sugar in them and they are easy to make. Sorry I can’t find the recipe anywhere.

The last strictly healthy recipe I made was granola bars. I have been on a quest for great granola bars. Waldo doesn’t care much for regular broken up granola, but he loves them in bar form. I think I found the holy grail of granola bars with this recipe. I added a few things to the existing recipe and left out the sesame seeds (I forgot them, I didn’t leave them out on purpose). I added about 1/4 cup of quinoa flakes and about the same of unsweetened coconut shavings. Everyone that tried them (I made just about everyone we know try all of my treats) loves these the best of all.

The last thing I made has little to no health benefits to them. I wanted to make something easy, fun and delicious to eat for breakfast (or whenever) in the car. I’ve also always wanted to make scones and this was a perfect excuse. I made Glazed cinnamon scones. They are sort of like scones shaped cinnamon buns. Yum.

For me making all of these yummy snacks was a great way to prepare for and get excited about this vacation. I love making yummy food that my people will scarf up and if it impresses my friends all the better.

I can’t believe I didn’t take any pictures of any of these snacks in the making or finished stages. Lame.

Garden bounty

Posted on August 8, 2012 by Christy

A few days ago David (my father in law) decided to dig up one of the potato plants to see how it was coming along because the top was starting to die. The potatoes were perfect. I couldn’t believe something so perfect could grow from a cut up piece of sprouting potato that I almost threw away.

Because Waldo’s sister Christy and her son Jude were coming we didn’t get a chance to dig up any more potatoes till today. Jude totally helped and the kids (along with Grandpa) had a lot of fun.

We dug up all of the white potatoes and picked a few orange tomatoes. In a week or two we’ll have a bunch of russet potatoes too.

Homemade Pizza, one of my favorite things

Posted on July 27, 2012 by Christy

When we lived in Montana (two years ago, I can’t believe it’s been that long) Waldo and I made pizza often. I used Alton Brown’s sauce (so friggin good) and dough (also very good) recipes. While I love both recipes the dough has to sit in the fridge overnight and always seems to make a big mess. I made it a few times while we were in California, but since we’ve moved to Idaho I haven’t bothered. As an aside, that’s a lot of moving in two years, seesh. Anyway my Mother in Law Rita has been on a pizza making kick lately so now I’ve caught the bug myself. She has to make gluten free dough and I like as much gluten in mine as possible so we can’t share. Since Alton’s recipe for dough takes to long to be usable I am now on hunt for the best quick pizza dough.

A few weeks ago I ran across a blog post about freezing foods (a whole different post I’m working on) and decided to give the pizza crust a try. I made the sauce one day, separated it and froze it. The next day I made the pizza dough, separated it and froze it all.

I didn’t manage to get any pictures of the sauce after I blended the heck out of it. Alton says this sauce can be used for pasta, meatballs, pizza and just about anything else you can think to put a tomato sauce on. I’ve never used it for anything other than pizza.

When I separated the dough I made two big balls and two small ones so that Lil could have her own pizzas. This was one of the best decisions I’ve made in a while. Lil doesn’t like anything remotely spicy and is very suspicious of red sauce so she doesn’t eat much pizza lately and if you know me even a little you will know that is just unimaginable to me. So anyway with Lil’s little pizza dough I made her a white pizza with a little ranch as a base sauce and then she cheesed it up. She loves helping me cook so the fact that she got to make her own pizza was the.best.thing.ever!

It was totally an accident that her dough was shaped like a heart, but we all thought it was great.

She also insisted on helping with our pizza, which was fine with Waldo and I.

*The cup of peas isn’t for the pizza. Lil loves to eat frozen peas so she was snacking on them while we prepped dinner.

The pizza was delicious, but it was mostly because of the sauce. I’m pretty sure you could dip cardboard in that sauce and it would be the best thing you’ve eaten in a year. You will notice in the bottom corner a small cup of sauce to dip the crust in. Yum. The dough itself we both felt was a little too bland. We are still searching for the best dough (besides Alton’s) so if you have any recipes for me to try let me know.

Homemade square-ish goldfish crackers

Posted on July 10, 2012 by Christy

Last week my friend Amy mentioned Smitten Kitchen’s goldfish cracker recipe on Facebook and since I had all of the ingredients on hand I decided Lil and I would make them the next day. The next morning after I cleaned up from breakfast I gathered all of the stuff I needed, which thankfully wasn’t much. You need a food processor, a little cheese, some flour, salt and onion powder, easy peasy. We buy our cheese from Costco and because of the size we grate it right away and freeze it in usable portions so that made these crackers a snap to make.

My little chef was a big help. She poured everything into the food processor and probably ate more cheese than she put in the bowl. She tried really hard to roll some of the dough with her really cool alligator rolling pin, but just couldn’t get it to work.

Finally I rolled some out for her and gave her a knife (a really real knife! I know!) for her to cut some crackers herself. When Waldo walked away he whispered to me ‘do you know she has a real knife?’ I laughed and said that I did know and I was watching her. She’s never going to learn how to use a knife if we don’t let her. He rolled his eyes and walked away. And she did do fine and besides those knifes are almost too dull to cut a red pepper so I wasn’t too worried.

I didn’t have a small fish shaped cookie cutter or any other small cutters so I just used a knife and cut square-ish shapes.

I think they turned out pretty well. So did Lily.

When we went shopping this weekend I picked up a set of 6 small cookie cutters and made more crackers this morning. They turned out really cute.

Jinxyisms

Taking life one day at a time.

Category Archives: Food

Our Thanksgiving trip

Vacation 2012 ~ Baking adventures

Garden bounty

Homemade Pizza, one of my favorite things

Homemade square-ish goldfish crackers