practice what you preach

After I gave my husband a quick 2 minute lecture on bringing his lunch to work to save money, he wandered to the computer and saw the screen below. Oops!

"Oh, I can't buy a $2 burger but you can buy shoes?"

YOU KNOW IT.

baking when bored

I was bored this weekend. I still have to tackle April's Cake which I'll try to get to this weekend.

Soy sauce on your pancakes?

Never put syrup and soy sauce next to each other when you're about to eat pancakes.

mmmm-mushrooms

I love mushrooms.

I sauteed mushrooms and shallots along with my handy garlic paste in some olive oil and just ate it with fettucine and parmesan cheese. Yum!

making pizza

The kids are on spring break this week so to amuse them we had a pizza party. I used Wolfgang Puck's pizza dough recipe because I've always wanted to try making my own pizza dough.

My little sous chef helped knead the dough as you can see:

Here's the dough after kneading, before rising:


Here's the dough after 30 minutes of rising:

Me and the kids like our pizza plain - either cheese or mushrooms, no pepperoni, no meat.


The end result was pretty good - the dough was thick and soft, just the way I like it. I don't like thin or crunchy pizza dough. I saved the extra dough for the next time we are craving pizza because I think we've said goodbye to Round Table for good!

food food food

I went grocery shopping and one of the items I wanted to get was tomato paste in a tube (like the kind Giada De Laurentiis uses). The grocery store didn't have the tomato paste but they did have garlic paste in a tube! I bought it and instantly loved it. I like the taste of garlic but I hate handling it because my fingers will smell like garlic for two days straight. With the paste, I don't have that problem anymore.



I also bought a Limited Edition York Chocolate Truffle Mint Pattie. I'm a sucker for "limited editions" or new products. I just recently discovered the overseas versions of KitKats - banana, green tea, red wine, orange, strawberry, grape, maple syrup, and cherry blossom just to name a few. I wish we had more flavors than our boring American milk chocolate. People even sell them (and buy them) on eBay. I don't know if I trust buying candy from a stranger on the internet though. I haven't tried any of these yet but it's tempting. My husband might not understand if I spent $10.00 on a single candy bar though. (Unless it was that time of the month!)

That JustJenn is sneaky and crafty

I got a gifty box from JustJenn last month for my birthday - it arrived while I was out on business travel so my trusty housemates (aka the husband and kids) opened it and described the goodies to me on the phone. Then they presumably set everything aside for my return home.

When I got home from my business trip, I found a half eaten bag of pistachios (the hubby loved them, as did I) and a box of Mickeyroni and Cheese that I recently served up to the kids... and now, 3 weeks later, I found a customized notepad (that I didn't know about) that my "housemates" tucked away under the piles of junk on my desk.

I LOVE the notepad! Thank you Jenn! All you guys can order your own customized notepad at justjenndesigns.com.

I love Costco!

I love Costco. I love any store where you can buy electronics, office supplies, groceries, clothes, toiletries, toys, etc. all in the same store!

I just about squealed when I saw this Smashbox cosmetics pack selling for $19.99 at Costco. I snatched one up. When I go back, I may snatch up more for my sisters.

What does it come with?
Lipstick
Single Eye Shadow
Eye Shadow Duo
Blush
Lip Pencil
6 mini lipglosses
2 full size lipglosses
Undereye primer
Concealer

On another note, I think the person who invented the plastic case wrap box thing as pictured above should be shot. That wrinkle at the top of the box is from me trying to pry the f'er open. I STILL haven't gotten it open. Waiting for my husband with his big muscles and his power tools to open it.

cookie monster never had these!

I'm not a health food nut but I don't buy a lot of junk food like chips and cookies - (my kids are probably deprived). I don't consciously tell myself, "NO CHIPS!" - it's just something I never think about. Once in awhile I'll splurge and buy a box of cookies, but usually I'll just make cookies or cupcakes. Not only that, my daughter's Kindergarten teacher doesn't allow junk food (sweets) in her class. We were a bit turned off by this approach at first but I don't mind it anymore because it forces us to provide a healthy lunch for our kids.

At a birthday party this weekend, I discovered Barbara's Snackimals. They're sugar free and contain no transfat. Not only that, they TASTE GOOD. We had the oatmeal cookies which are also wheat free - I didn't even know these were "healthy cookies" until I ate the entire bag and read the nutirtion facts on the back.

Joyce, until your sugar binge party, you can pick these up at Whole Foods, maybe Trader Joes. :)

cookie monster never had these!

I'm not a health food nut but I don't buy a lot of junk food like chips and cookies - (my kids are probably deprived). I don't consciously tell myself, "NO CHIPS!" - it's just something I never think about. Once in awhile I'll splurge and buy a box of cookies, but usually I'll just make cookies or cupcakes. Not only that, my daughter's Kindergarten teacher doesn't allow junk food (sweets) in her class. We were a bit turned off by this approach at first but I don't mind it anymore because it forces us to provide a healthy lunch for our kids.

At a birthday party this weekend, I discovered Barbara's Snackimals. They're sugar free and contain no transfat. Not only that, they TASTE GOOD. We had the oatmeal cookies which are also wheat free - I didn't even know these were "healthy cookies" until I ate the entire bag and read the nutirtion facts on the back.

Joyce, until your sugar binge party, you can pick these up at Whole Foods, maybe Trader Joes. :)

5 on the 7th

Sally tagged me for this meme. I have been too busy at work to do anything interesting in my personal life so now I have something to blog about!

1. Five minutes to yourself: how would you spend them, ideally?
I would take a mental break and space out (not think of anything) to clear my head.

2. Five bucks to spend right now: how would you spend it?
Toffee Nut Latte at Starbucks and a Madeleine.

3. Five items in your house you could part with, right now, that you hadn't thought of already? (In other words, cull the junk, mentally at least.)
The huge gi-normous aquarium tank that my husband promised he would clean regularly which I knew he wouldn't because it was too big to handle (I'm waiting for the turtles to die), the junk in the backyard we've been lagging on calling 1-800-Got-Junk to get rid of, all the baby clothes Q outgrew in 6 short months, my husband's collection of video games that he doesn't play with but refuses to toss, and the kitchenette set with mismatched chairs.

4. Five items you absolutely, positively could never part with in your house?
Photos. Everything else is unimportant and replaceable. Well... maybe except my shoes. I'd like to keep my shoes.

5. Five words you love?
Mommy, Hallo! (the first word I hear when my husband walks through the door), Uncommon, Brilliant and Chocolate.

Since it's way past the 5th... I won't officially tag anyone, but you know who you are.

tender moments... sniff sniff...

NOT.

A line has been crossed. I am officially the parent of a troublemaker.

I'd like to point out that in my whole academic career my behavior has NEVER warranted a letter home to my parents. I'd also like to point out that this is KINDERGARTEN we're talking about. If she's acting up in Kindergarten, boy, am I in trouble.

I'm saving this bad boy for her scrapbook.

March's Belated Cake

I finally got around to making the March installment of Martha's Year of Cakes which was a Cardamom Streusel Coffee Cake.

Compared to January's cake, this cake was super easy and quick to make although I was wondering about the streusel. The recipe has you make a TON of streusel. Some of the streusel goes in the middle of the cake, and the rest on top, but the streusel used more flour than the cake itself.

It was ok - my husband is eating it with his coffee as I type this. I'm not a big cardamom fan, and if I were to make this again, I would probably make it with cinnamon instead. And maybe throw some blueberries in there because I like blueberries in my coffee cake.

*Shame on the folks at marthastewart.com -- they misspelled cardamom. I first spelled it "cardamom" which is actually the correct spelling but on the cake page, it's spelled cardomom so they had me second guessing myself. I emailed mstewart@marthastewart.com to notify them of the error because a spelling error on marthastewart.com just doesn't sit well with me.

I wonder if Martha would fire the person who committed such a heinous spellcheck error.