Saying Goodbye to Boomer

Two and a half years ago, I happened to look on the website of the breeder we got out Australian Shepard Scout from. I don't know what made me look at the website. Sure, Scout had a lot of energy and could use a playmate, but there was no way I was ready to get another puppy then.

And there he was.

Listed at the top of the "Available" page. 

A 3 year old Australian Shepard who needed a home right away and lived only a few towns away. 

His name was Boomer.

My husband was in. I wasn't sure. We went to go see him and took our Scout and they got along splendidly.  I still wasn't completely sure, but we said yes.

Boomer came to live with us. He was a little matted and dirty, so my husband took him to get groomed and bought him a few items we needed for him. Two days later, after playing with Scout in our backyard, he hurt the pads of his paws. He had never really played with another dog before and they were playing hard and having a great time. 

Well, Boomer licked his paws because they hurt and they became infected. After a trip to the vet for medicine and powder and a collar, we joked about our "free" dog, which had already cost us hundreds in the first week.

But it was all in jest. We LOVED that boy. Boomer stole our hearts right away. He just fit right in with our family. He loved us all unconditionally, even Scout! They were best friends, right away. And Boomer took care of him. Cleaning his ears and eyes...it reminded me of Nana the dog in Peter Pan, that was a nursemaid and took care of the children. That was Boomer. Taking care of everyone...

In the morning, we'd go to each child's room together and he'd help me wake them up. With nuzzles, or kisses or jumping onto their bed! Boomer came with me to walk the kids to the bus. He let them read on him.

Boomer was so patient. He let the children pose him reading.

Boomer fell asleep on their clothes and books! when they went off to school or bed. (The pic above is posed, the one below is NOT. That's how I found him!)

When they reenacted Les Miserables, they dressed him as Javert and he actually stayed right with them. 

When we played games, he was right there. Ever involved.

I had never seen a dog in cuter poses. Every one was so cute. I mean, come on. Look at that one below.

When I finished Olivia's quilt and laid it out to show her, he walked right over and sat down on it!

 He was funny. He would eat anything. He loved mushroom stems (hence his nickname of Boomer Schroomer) He would try anything. Watermelon. Kale! He loved Kale! 

And his butt wiggle was priceless. He didn't have a tail, but he wiggled it like nothing I'd ever seen. 

And I will never be able to hear Adele's song and not here "Boomer has it" (no longer Rumor) as he was always sneaking off with something. Hey, where did that go? Boomer has it!

We had friends that were afraid of dogs that after meeting Boomer, were letting him lick their face. He would come over and wiggle his rear end and they would be hooked. 

He had a way. Everyone loved Boomer.

He made our family complete. 

And today, we are left with a hole in our hearts as our dear boy passed on. He was diagnosed with cancer in January and given 6 weeks to live. Boomer gave it his best and stayed 6 months longer with us.  He lived on love that dog. And we were blessed for every moment we had with him.

 We will miss you Boomer, our little Spectacled Bear. You will be in our hearts always.

Cooking with the kiddos Barefoot Contessa Style

We often bake together as a family, but we don't cook together as much. That all changed with this cookbook book report they were assigned at school. They had to choose a cookbook, read through it and choose some dishes to make. Have I mentioned HOW AMAZING their school is?!

 My daughter had to choose 3 dishes while my son, who is older, had to make 3 balanced meals.  It was an amazing experience for them and they loved being in charge of the menu. And the best part- they tried everything!!

They chose Barefoot Contessa cookbooks to work from. Ina Garten's cookbooks offer beautiful photos, clear directions and is approachable, even for the under 10 set! This was fitting, as Barefoot Contessa was truly the first show my son really watched. He wanted to be a chef at 3 1/2 and even dressed as Mario Batali for Halloween that year, orange crocs and all. And yes, people knew who he was!

My daughter used her newer book, Barefoot Contessa: How Easy is That? My daughter loves to try new things, so she loved the creative items in the book.

 She choose couscous salad, which she liked, but we'll make next time with fewer onions.

Wild rice salad: which has oranges and grapes and pecans in it. Isn't it pretty?

BUT HER FAVORITE was the smoked salmon deviled eggs with caviar. Yes. This was her choice to make and her favorite, by far! But that's not the most impressive part...

 Just look at the photo she composed with my husband of her favorite dish. Looks like something you would see in a magazine, no? SO impressive. You can tell from the other bland pics that I took those. Ah well, food styling is not in my future…

My son used her Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, which I think is the first one. He wanted to make breakfast, lunch and dinner, which sounded great to me!

His dinner he made first and it was a doozy! Homemade applesauce,  fingerling potatoes, roasted carrots and meatloaf! It was all delicious!

For his lunch, he made roasted tomato basil soup and it was completely restaurant worthy! Gotta love a boy who can work a food mill right?

His breakfast was granola and though it was not technically difficult at all, he never eats dried fruits or nuts, so I let him have at it. And he ate it! It wasn't his favorite, but he ate it. Not to worry, we found someone else who enjoyed it very much, so it was all eaten!

I LOVED this project and so did they and I know we are going to keep it going. Just yesterday, after all this was complete, my daughter wanted to make cupcakes, so we did. Ina's red velvet cupcakes, although, we had to sub purple food coloring, so they were purple velvet. And we made them dairy free, but they were still delicious though! 

Thank you Ina Garten, for all the fabulous food memories! If you ever need some helpers for your show, we are close by (and we have some friends in common, which is kind of fun!)  

Happy Mother's Day!

To all you moms out there, may you have a fantastic day enjoying your loved ones!

I was treated to a yummy breakfast of crepes! I received beautiful cards, drawings and specially planted seedlings decorated by my little ones.

LMO also decided to spell out MOM for me with her Magformers. Magformers are incredible blocks that have neodymium magnets encapsulated within the super strong plastic. Unlike other magnet toys, you can connect the Magformers regardless of the orientation of the north or south pole of the magnet, which lends to more creative building opportunities....Will show other creations they have made at another date.

Even our dogs were wearing cute little collars which read Happy Mother's Day (the idea of our little miss) Thank you for making me feel so loved!

Since my mother has not received her gift yet (since it is still in progress- sorry Mom! You know it's coming!) I thought I would show you what last years mother's day gift was for my mom. A little quilt.

It was a quilt we were making last year in my spring quilting class. It was called a twister quilt, and I was amazed when I saw it!

For our little twister, the first step is to select the size and amount of squares. As you can see here, we had 25 squares arranged five by five. You then sew these squares of fabric together and then add a border. That's what is shown below. Of course, you can spend A LOT of time picking out which fabrics to use and where to place them.

After you sew the boarders on, you use this tool called a Twister tool, which is an acrylic block with lines on it.

You put the block on top of the piece you have made using the lines as your guide (the lines go on your seams) and then use the block to cut it into pieces (again!) This pattern started by using the seam on the border, so the new pieces you cut have the border in them. 

You have to be very careful to keep the pieces in the right order and then you sew them together again. To this a border was added and after quilting it, added a bias strip edge and viola! Isn't it cool? I just love the pinwheels it creates.

And here is the back. A pieced one of course!! used up some of the leftovers from the front and a few new pieces. I just LOVE it!! Mom did too! 

I used Basic Grey for Moda's fabric line called Eva. The colors are incredible- deep plums, all shades of purple and amazing limes with touches of pinks.The center square features a beautiful peacock while others feature paisleys, stripes and other pretty patterns. 

 Crafty side note: I am totally obsessed with Basic Grey. I have been using (hoarding?!) their scrapbooking papers and embellishments lines for years now and when I started quilting I discovered they put their amazing designs on fabric! SWOON! Now I am using (collecting! stashing!) their fabrics too. Their "solids" are actually a grunge version of a solid, just like they did for their papers. It adds interest while still being "read" as a solid within a quilt. 

Funny side note- my hubby walked in as I was working on this and he said "So you bought fabric, cut it up, have sewn it together, and then cut it up again just to sew it again? Why are you making this much work for yourself?" I replied a resounding "Yes! Isn't it cool!!??" You get it dear reader, yes?

Once the current Mother's Day project is complete, it will be up here. Luckily, my mom isn't a stickler for due dates ;)  

Happy Mother's Day to my mom, my mother-in-law, my family and friends and to all of you! 

Create On!

Let's put the FUN in Funnel Cake

I have mentioned previously how awesome my hubby is. Well, he took that up another notch Saturday night. 

It was the first "Full Day" of spring break vacation and he had made a yummy meal including some hand-cut french fries (that he soaked in hot water first to remove the starches and then dried in our salad spinner prior to frying- so worth those steps!!) After frying them quickly, they made a delicious complement to the rest of our healthy meal. 

After making the fries, we had the oil left over, which we normally would skim and save for next time. But MCP had another idea.

"Who wants to make funnel cake?"

My son ran for the cookbooks, we soon found a recipe and amended it to be dairy free, and off we went. 

We had never made funnel cake before, although my hubby did throw zeppoli's  (fried balls of dough tossed in powdered sugar) at an Italian Fair many, many years ago, so he had some experience frying dough. 

The recipe is as follows:

Ingredients:
3 large eggs
2 cups plain almond milk (you can use regular milk if you like)
1/4 cup granulated sugar  (this is what is recommended- we are going to make them a little sweeter next time, they needed it...)
3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
vegetable oil for deep frying
confectioners sugar for dusting on top when they are nice & hot! 

Special equipment:
funnel with approx 1/2" opening  (we didn't have a funnel, so we improvised)
candy thermometer (or instant read)
8" heavy frypan with straight sides 
Tongs
Drain/strainer if you have it (drain on paper towels on a plate if you don't)
sifter

In a large mixing bowl, beat eggs. Add almond milk and granulated sugar and beat until combined.

Have the kids measure and sift the flour, baking powder and salt. 

Slowly add dry ingredients to the wet a little at a time and mix until batter is smooth. Add more flour or almond milk as needed to achieve the consistency of the batter being able to flow through the funnel.   

Poor oil in pan until it reaches a depth of 1" or so. Oil must be at 375 degrees. Be super careful of spatters! 

Put your finger over the hole of the funnel, add between 1/2 - 3/4 cup of batter in funnel. Hold funnel over hot oil and remove your finger, and carefully pour the batter in the center of the pan, spiraling it around. 

Cook the funnel cake until golden, about 2-3 minutes. Flip carefully and cool on other side for another minute or so. 

Remove and drain.

Sprinkle (or sift) confectioners sugar on top of hot funnel cake.

Share and enjoy with the ones you love!

VERY important : Only make as many as you are going to eat at that moment. You can't save funnel cake. It gets really greasy. Not good eats.

If you have batter left over, you can save it and use it for pancakes the next day. Waste not, want not! :)

Let me know how your funnel cakes turn out! 

Tortillas + Tuna = Terrific!

Not a typical St. Patty's blog post, but we had a great meal last night and I had to share!

My husband, (we'll call him MCP), loves to cook. Lucky me! And he is very good at it. Luckier still! MCP does tend to use a lot of pots and utensils, which leaves a pile of dishes at the end, but honestly, I don't care, because what we eat at home is better than what we get when we go out to eat at most restaurants! Last night, he whipped up an amazing meal that we devoured! 

There are no measurement in his recipes. Sometimes he will start with a recipe, but by the time he is done with it, it bears little resemblance to the original. But they are always incredible. If I don't ask him immediately what he has done and write it down, we may never have that recipe again. He's on to the next version of it. 

Well, he decided to make flour tortillas from scratch to make a Tuna wrap. mmm. so yummy.

Make the tortilla dough first. It needs to set for 30 minutes before you cut it up & roll them out. The recipe used for this was from cooks.com (we fried them in a well seasoned cast iron skillet and they came our great!) 

http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,2357,154176-235203,00.html

While the dough is setting, sauté the veggies with a little curry spice (we like the William Sonoma african curry blend) and Bragg's Liquid Aminos (like soy sauce). There are asparagus, shitake mushrooms, baby bok-choy and garlic in here. 

Cook the tuna (It's wild caught Tuna from Trader Joe's- we love Trader Joe's!) in a pan with peanut satay sauce. (we like a Taste of Thai brand) 

Assemble, wrap up burrito style and enjoy. Finish off with a little Sriracha sauce (a thai hot sauce condiment.)

Little Miss O loved them too (minus the sriracha)! We put the flour tortillas to good use and made an awesome refried bean quesadilla for MAP, so all were happy. 

Go Thai one on!  ;)