Mothering Many

Just a couple of things real quick this morning, before I tackle the couch of disaster, write yet more lesson plans and take kids to the doctor. Oh, and shower. Must shower.

Happy Tax Time, and if you have a new baby, it’s even better. If you have a cute new baby (and aren’t they all?) it could be almost fantastic. Yeah, a fantastic tax time. Amazing thought that, huh?

It’s a contest from TurboTax called “America’s Cutest Last-Minute Tax Deduction.” Parents with children born in December 2007 are invited to upload a photo of their newborn to the contest’s web site, where their fellow taxpayers will vote for the cutest and most original photo of the baby. The winner will receive a $5,000 savings bond ($10,000 upon maturity). The site is www.CutestTaxDeduction.com. The contest ends January 9.

That’s today, so hurry up! Good thing we live in the digital age, huh?

Moving on to the food part, my friend Amy showed me this site, and I thought you would all enjoy have a peek at this. The article is on food for a family of four in 1952. Be sure to click the picture, because the full version is awe inspiring.

Ok, gather the kids, all of you put on your aprons and lets get cooking! I want to tell you about a cool game for kids. And maybe for moms if the kids aren’t watching. (Ruthless Ruth kicked my butt with spaghetti, just so you know. Ahem.) The Good Food Fight is just what it sounds like: You have a food fight with healthy, nutritious food that happens to be tasty. The effects are pretty cool and it’s tempting to duck when that food comes sailing at you. And how do I know it’s tasty? All the recipes are on the site! Eat Better America has developed the game to highlight its healthy recipes. You can also find fitness tips and advice for a healthy lifestyle.

I don’t know about you, but I struggle with teaching my children about nutrition. It’s just not something that comes up in ordinary conversation. Perhaps I will use this game to open the discussion.

Around here, we love some mashed potatoes. We typically serve them with gravy, but the truly remarkable thing about my mashed potatoes is that they are also wonderful without gravy. I learned to make them from my mother, who makes the best ones ever, but mine are pretty darn good, too. Here’s how you do it for 10, you’ll have to adjust the recipe for your crew.

Peel (or scrub and don’t peel) and dice 5 pounds of potatoes, and boil them until they are fork tender. Drain them and put them in a bowl. Add an entire stick of butter. An entire stick. No skimping! Beat until creamed, adding just enough milk to get the consistency you like. Add salt and pepper to taste. You can also use margarine like my mom does, but I think butter’s better so thats what I use. But I never pass her potatoes up, either.

Now, I like my potatoes lump free, and that takes some mixing. In fact, I burn up one of those $10 mixers in about a year, and we only have the potatoes about once a month, because I am always afraid I am going to burn up my mixer. My grandmother, however, had an ancient Kitchen Aid stand mixer, and I have long considered getting a stand mixer for myself, because hers has lasted so long. Decades, people. Really. So when I saw these new Eclectrics® Mixer, I wanted to take a closer look, because I like the longevity of the stand mixers. And also, the fact that I can get the Hamilton Beach® Mixer in blue to match my kitchen is a big plus. I like matching.
And since I have no cabinet space left and the mixer would be on the counter all the time, it’s even more important, see?

The other biggies: it says on the site that the Hamilton Beach® Stand Mixer can make 4 pounds of bread or 9 dozen cookies at once. FINALLY, someone understands the quantity of food I need to be able to produce at one time. And it has a 3 year warranty, so apparently they also understand that I get tired of replacing appliances that wear out and burn out under what is normal household use for me.

And here’s the badge I am required to place here, so you can see that I was offered compensation to tell you this recipe and also about how I burn up mixers. It’s still a good recipe and the mixer thing is still true.

I just checked out my search engine hits. I do that now and again, just for giggles. I’m now the sixth result for “grits in the crockpot”. Now, just a few days before I wrote my post with that name, I had searched on the same term to get a recipe for same. I didn’t find one exactly like I needed, so I just did it how I needed to do it, and hoped for the best. My recipe worked, and so, apparently, did my post title. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t have paid a search engine marketing firm to get a better result in just three days.

Here’s a site I have been meaning to tel you about for quite a while. I think you home-schoolers will find it very useful. World Cooking has a nice collection of recipes from around the world. And don’t forget the flags. They’d be great printed out for you note-bookers, along with pictures of the foods!

I have a little story and a recipe. They sort of go together. I’ve been taking grits to church the past couple of Sundays, and apparently, i will be bringing them for the rest of my natural life. It started as a joke, and then everyone just enjoyed them so much, that I am going to continue it.

Here’s how I make them. Using 4 parts water and one part grits, add the water to the crockpot, and stir in the grits. Put the whole thing in microwave and cook it on high long enough to bring it to a boil, then put the crock back in the base, and cook it on high for a while, up to a couple hours, depending on how thick you like your grits. I take mine unseasoned, and let people fix them as they like.

Now, I have a wee issue with my crockpot. It has no handles. Umm, no, let me re-phrase. My old crockpot has no handles. I’m getting this one tomorrow:

See the nice handles?? And do you also see the locking lid, perfect for moving a full crockpot from one place to another?

Yes!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, one word of warning: if you take bacon with your grits, be sure to also take along the best radar detector you can find. You will need it to clock the speed at which the bacon disappears. We clocked out at 6 pounds in 15 minutes, divided by 45ish people. Just sayin’

Technorati Tags: grits, recipe, grits recipe, crockpot recipe

My menu is totally lax this week as I just went and bought what was on sale, because dh got home early one day, and I knew better than to wait to go ashopping, having learned my lesson last week. None the less, here it is, such as it is:

chicken
chicken
spaghetti
hamburgers
tacos
hamburger helper
pork chops

I hope everyone is a little better organized in this department than I am this week, LOL

Oh my goodness, but we ate well tonight! Dh got through with his work early, so I ran off to the grocery store before Stuntman’s practice (yay, he has to be at the football field at 7:30 AM tomorrow–yes, that’s in the “at morning”). Provisions were obtained, and tonight the table fairly groaned with all the goodness. And I don’t have a dinky table, people. Mine is larger than many conference tables I’ve seen. We had shake&bake pork chops, green bean casserole and homemade macaroni and cheese.

Technorati Tags: homemade macaroni and cheese

Remember that lovely menu I posted on Monday? So far we have had tacos (not on that menu), beans and rice (not on that menu), and chuck steak (not on that menu). Tonight dh will be bringing home deli chicken (not on that menu). Are you noticing a trend (not on that menu)?

I haven’t been grocery shopping because the kids are having practice almost every night. The coaches keep them until they need landscape lighting to see their way home. There was no practice last night, but it was called off so late that I didn’t have the list made yet. I’m planning to go tomorrow night–my early Saturday morning WalMart runs having been canceled due to ball games.

Do you that picture over there? That my friends, acquaintances and casual readers is a florescent light and I want one. I want it in the kitchen, between the stove and the sink, so I can plug it into the gfci outlet. Right now there is a panel under the cabinets, and I am not sure why, because it’s the only one in the whole kitchen that’s not open. I’d like to put the florescent up in there and have recessed lighting. And then I could see to cook. In fact, one above the counters on either side of the kitchen would tickle me near ’bout to death. I’ve had fluorescents in a couple of my kitchens and they are really awesome there. I don’t particularly care for them in other rooms, but in the kitchen, fluorescents rock.

Hmmm, now I have myself thinking about using fluorescents to replace the incandescents totally….. We just started using those “energy smart” bulbs as the ones we have burn out. Do you think DH will think I’m crazy if I change my mind again? Well, crazier than he already thinks I am? I mean, I just want to be able to see to cook his food. Is that such a bad thing? Really, it would all be for him, see.