Tweens

A Perfect Saturday

Monday, November 7, 2011 By Sherra

We had a quiet weekend at home.

WHAT?

Shhh.

Yes, it’s really true. A quiet weekend at home.

Such a rare and strange thing for us.

Saturday was pretty much a perfect day.

I almost forgot what we were suppose to do.

Luckily, I remembered…

Sleep in.
Not run errands.
Not drive anyone anywhere.
Make omelettes for lunch.
Have The Grunter join us at lunch after he worked an early shift
Bake chocolate chip cookies.
Make little bags of cookies for the college girls.
Watch Amazing Race with Scary Baby.
Wait for the soldier daughters to be released from their weekend drill.
Have dinner with darling daughters and a few of their college friends.

They actually planned this and invited us to dine with them.

Watch PhilBillPaul traumatize his darling Roger Leroy by playing a home movie for her friends.

It is a highlight tape of some of her best comedy from her middle school years that Scary Baby had enjoyed watching a few weeks ago.

Someday I’m sure she will let me post a portion of the video here on the blog.

I don’t think she’s ready for that yet.

This is the 2nd time he has done this.

The first time her brother had to hold her down.

The second time she and PhilBillPaul wrestled to the floor. Then her friend Ashleigh sat on her so everyone could watch the video.

I think everyone will agree she is very strong.

And funny.

Please come home again to visit – we really do love you, Rachel.

Dad says he is sorry.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Throwdown

Thursday, November 3, 2011 By Sherra

We have loved our Chocolate Chip Malted Cookie recipe that we’ve been making for years and years taken from Taste of Home.

But I’ve stopped using Crisco almost completely and that recipe calls for butter-flavored Crisco. I banned margarine from the house about 5 years ago. It’s all butter in my baking now. Look at these healthy strides I’m making.

Let’s discuss the evils of white sugar another time, okay? I want to stay focused. This is about our new favorite cookie.

The recipe inspiration is from one that was seen around blogland in several places and you can check out the original recipe on The New York Times from 2008.

I’ve made them 3 times now and with some personal tweaking, they are now at the top of our favorites list!

The things we think elevate these to our new favorites:

Two kinds of flour ~ cake flour and bread flour
Coarse salt
Creaming the butter and sugar for 5 minutes
Three kinds of chocolate chips
Refrigerate dough over night before baking
Sprinkling with sea salt before baking

Scary Baby graciously allowed me to photograph her first cookie tasting.

Wizzy wasn’t quite as dramatic.

We love, love, love these cookies. They are fat and chewy and lightly crisp at the edges. The texture is exactly what I want in a cookie and I think the combination of two flours and refrigerating overnight are the keys to this perfect cookie!

Triple Chocolate Chip Malt Cookies

2 cups minus 2 tablespoons cake flour
1 2/3 cups bread flour
1/2 cup malted milk powder
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt
1 1/4 cups unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups dark brown sugar (can use light but we like dark)
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 cups chocolate chips – mix a combination of dark, semi-sweet and milk chocolate chips

Optional add-ins: You can also add in 1 cup of broken pretzel sticks and/or 1 cup of caramel bits which turn them into another delicious cookie!

Mix flours, malted milk powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Set aside. Cream butter and sugars together until very light, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla. Reduce speed to low, add dry ingredients and mix until just combined, 5 to 10 seconds. Mix in chocolate chips.

Press plastic wrap against dough and refrigerate for 24 to 36 hours. Dough may be used in batches, and can be refrigerated for up to 72 hours or frozen.*

To bake:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat. Use small cookie scoop (or large if you want giant cookies and bake a few minutes longer) and place on cookie sheet. Sprinkle lightly with sea salt and bake until golden brown but still soft, 12 to 14 minutes. Transfer sheet to a wire rack for 10 minutes, then slip cookies onto another rack to cool a bit more.

Side note: The sea salt is optional. The Grunter and I love it. The others are lukewarm about it. The malted milk powder is also optional but we think it adds another subtle layer of flavor that we love. You decide.

*Frozen Cookie Dough Has Changed My Life

Don’t laugh at that. I have frozen cookie dough for years. Usually at holiday baking frenzy time.

What changed my life about freezing it is to scoop out the cookies and freeze into individual cookie balls first and putting in ziploc freezer bag.

Duh.

Shut up. I’m slow but when I learn something worth sharing, I share!

The prep time is totally worth it. Having bags in the freezer with cookie dough is great for all of us.

Baking just a dozen hot, fresh, homemade cookies after dinner is perfect. Really, is there a bad time to bake a dozen cookies?

Recipe inspiration came from a variety of sources. Look how this blog inspiration circle of life thing works:

My Baking Addiction inspired me to try the New York Times cookies AND led me to…
Goodlife Eats who taught me how to freeze cookie dough the right way and…
Leigh Anne inspired me to add pretzels and caramels to a batch of dough because she was inspired by…
The Diary of Dave’s Wife even though we all used different chocolate chip cookie base recipes.

Let me know if you make them. Or share your recipe if you have one that rivals this one.

These are the ones I put in the college care packages and I didn’t hear any complaints except from my family who squealed “Don’t send them all to other people!”

Which is why I’ve made two more batches.

And now I’m on to my pumpkin obsession…

Marry Someone Handy

Wednesday, October 26, 2011 By Sherra

Keeping with the marriage theme from Monday (okay it was marriage and eating)…

Here’s some excellent advice I received from Junebug many years ago.

I do feel it is important to document her words here because I want to pass them on to my kids and be sure they don’t get lost in translation over the years.

“IF YOU HAVE TO GET MARRIED, for goodness sake, MARRY SOMEONE HANDY.”

That might be paraphrased a tiny bit.

I’d like a little credit for following that advice when I’ve been known to do the exact opposite of any advice she was doling out for free through the years.

PhilBillPaul is as handy as they come.

I know there are jealous women who only wish their husbands could be half as handy as he is. They have asked to hire him. I know I could rent him out.

But who really wants a grouchy handy man? Seriously, he’s not super nice when he gets dirty, especially if he has to work on electrical or plumbing. He would rather clean his fish tank. Or look on craigslist for girlfriend motorcycle parts.

Being handy ruins his weekends.

All this and I will confess right now, I’m glad I’m not a guy.

Keep in mind I run a pretty tight ship as household manager. I am excellent at delegating. High on my list of accomplishments is teaching four children life skills that will take them far in the world. Not bragging, just stating the facts that I’ve spent the bulk of motherhood teaching them to do things for themselves instead of waiting for other people to do it for them (especially their mother as they will all confirm).

Mr. Handy has been busy fixing ANOTHER leak this past weekend. This special leak was discovered when our water bill went from approximately $35 a month to $88 last month.

Thank goodness we have piles of money lying around and we just throw it out the window for anyone who drives by so they can catch it and do whatever they want with it.

I really do appreciate how much we can save in home repairs being married to Mr. Handy. For him though, it’s not just about saving money – he loves the challenge of solving and fixing the problem. He is a fixer and the more a problem baffles him, the more he digs in (pun intended) to figure it out.

Me – I’d call someone every time.

Opposites attract, I hear.

Meanwhile PhilBillPaul has spent the last week digging up pipe from the front yard water meter to under the porch.

This is after he established the leak was not in the house. The sink flood on my birthday does not count. That was just The Grunter yanking a towel out from the cabinet and breaking the pipe. Therefore he is not financially responsible for this new whopper of a leak.

Scary Baby was kind enough to take pictures of all his hard work and dirty tools.

Side note: Scary Baby got a little feisty about all the dirt and mud he got on her gardening tools. Including THE HANDLES. Notice her little fingers barely holding the dirty handle.

Poor PhilBillPaul has had to crawl under the porch and dig.

I can barely step outside thinking of what all he might discover under the porch so I stay in my bedroom sanctuary and type blog posts and take naps and pray nothing poisonous bites him.

I’m also baking and cooking up a storm so I don’t feel as guilty that I’m clearly failing as a feminist and acting like a prissy girl because I don’t want to get any mud or dirt on me.

But I’m rooting him on.

I’ll make him some pumpkin bars because they are his favorite as soon as I have water.

Maybe Scary Baby will be brave enough to crawl under the porch and deliver one to him…

Update: We have water. We are currently not discussing the white pipe in the front yard. I’m certain he has a plan for that. I repeat, we have water. That’s all that matters.

Any great marriage tips you received from family or friends? Do tell! Share in the comments.

Golden Grahams Love

Thursday, September 1, 2011 By Sherra

Scary Baby has been begging me to buy these treat bars.

I ignored her pleas since we’ve been in a bit of a cereal battle here at the Humpfreeze house. We have spent several years trying to wean her off cereal. We know that starting the day with protein vs. a sugar high is a better for her especially to start her school day.

You know we’re not earthy crunchy. You know we love our sweets. But we are trying to take baby steps to improve our diets and that’s hard when you are a sugar addict!

I know deprivation doesn’t work so I’m always looking for “healthier” treats. I also know that’s subjective and everyone has an opinion on that.

The best progress we’ve made is to keep her choices in the 10 sugar grams per serving or less otherwise it’s like eating dessert for breakfast.

Don’t judge.

Side note: Golden Grahams may be my personal favorite cereal. Ever. Ate it in high school one entire year. Love it.

Lucky Charms. Not so much.

Scary Baby loves both.

I just don’t want marshmallows or chocolate for breakfast.

When I was offered the opportunity to review the very treat bars that Scary Baby wanted soooo bad, I thought this might be a good treat for both of us.

My opinion is that a treat bar with 13 grams of sugar and less than 140 calories per bar could be a good after school snack instead of a candy bar and a soda. (Not saying that was ever her snack!)

We all really liked them. The Golden Grahams treat bar was the definite winner at our house! Four out of five of us preferred them over the Lucky Charms treat bars. (Roger Leroy wasn’t home to try them.)

General Mills is offering one lucky reader a prize package just like they sent us.

Who doesn’t like to get a box of free goodies in the mail?

The prize pack contains:

One box of Lucky Charms® Cereal Treats Bars
One box of Golden Grahams® Cereal Treats Bars
Lunch bag
Locker whiteboard
Colored pencil set

You can also get coupons if you check out Cereal Treats Bars online for great information and coupons for new products.

Now leave a comment and let me know which treat bar you think you will like the best. Come on, you know you want to try them!

Entry rules:

One entry per person

No entries after Monday at midnight EST

I’ll pick a winner on Tuesday, September 6th after the holiday weekend.

Disclosure: Cereal Treats Bars, information, and giveaway have been provided by General Mills through MyBlogSpark. Opinions on my blog are my own.

Twelve is the New Sixteen

Wednesday, June 22, 2011 By Sherra

We did squeeze a birthday in during April.

Scary Baby turned twelve on April 22nd.

The day before Easter is not her favorite time to have a birthday.

Because of course, I took that opportunity to combine the birthday with the holiday. I’m sure that’s what Christmas Eve babies dislike too. Sorry but I like to be efficient.

Scary Baby should be thankful that Easter does move around each year.

She has reminded me several times I have not blogged about her birthday.

Consider this the new birthday tradition:

Must have blog post written highlighting your birthday.

She set the tone early for her birthday requests.

First, she really, really, really wanted to own a viola for 6th grade orchestra. She hated her rental instrument. She needed her own instrument. She would be performing in the 6th grade Honors Orchestra at the end of April and please, please, please could we buy her a viola.

Dad and Granny got together. Scary Baby got an early birthday present.

An extravagant but useful birthday present arrived.

The concert was lovely and I’m sure it’s because of this amazing viola.

Next, Scary Baby got very frustrated when I said I was not going to buy the giant cupcakes at Costco that were too expensive for her to take to school for her birthday treat for 28 of her closest friends. My Easter dinner budget was already high.

Instead I said I would be glad to make homemade cupcakes with ingredients we already had at home. You would have thought I suggested taking in circus peanuts or some other gross candy as her treat.

And speaking of birthday treats…when the heck does that stop? I think 6th grade, right?

Yes, this had to be the last year.

See, I’m a little unclear because the darling twins have a summer birthday – excellent planning to avoid multiple birthday celebrations. The Grunter wasn’t too caught up in birthday treats after elementary school.

This last child just wears me out with all her expectations. Thank goodness she sketched out her cupcakes so I had instructions.

We started with a cake mix and The Cake Doctor cookbook. She probably remembers what page. I don’t.

All food photo credits: Scary Baby.

Except the photos when she’s in the picture.

I did have to amend her plans. We had raspberries not strawberries.

I’d include the recipe but we made this up. Cream cheese, powdered sugar and raspberry jam.

Approximately this much.

I won her over with this change when I said she could squirt the filling inside with a new pastry bag and tip. And she could ice them all herself.

The kid is relentless when she makes a plan.

The clearance Easter sprinkles in the glass jar for $2.00 from TJMaxx secured my cupcake victory.

She declared the homemade cupcakes a huge success and her brother drove her to school so she didn’t have to drag them on the bus.

She caved on Easter Sunday and our Easter dessert served double duty as The Perfect Lemon Cake also became her birthday cake.

Only because I let her pipe the filling for deviled eggs.

And because she got Easter treats…

And birthday presents on the same day.

Everett gave her a swimsuit and we were glad he didn’t prank her and give him one of his old swimsuits.

The darling twins gave her the movie she wouldn’t see in the theater but really wanted to personally own.

Happy Birthday baby girl! You promised you would stay little and it’s just not happening. We all love you to the moon!

Thanks for your patience while having to wait to read your birthday blog post two months late. I’ll try to be on time next year.