Tuesday's With Dorie, Take 1

I recently signed up with the on-line food blog Tuesday's With Dorie. The concept is that every Tuesday I will be baking and blogging this particular weeks challenge recipe. This week, in recognition of Thanksgiving, the pie is the Thanksgiving Twofer Pie. This pie is a pumpkin pie / pecan pie combination. Ideal for the person who wants a slice of each. It sounded delicious, so I attempted it. I should have posted this yesterday, but alas, it just did not happen...more on this reason later.

I had all the ingredients on hand. The crust is a different recipe from the no-fail crust that I usually make. This was very easy to make. I went to take it out of the oven after the recommended time, and I found that it was not quite done, so I let bake longer. By the time it finally tested as "done" it was much browner than I preferred.

I sliced into the pie and I realized that I was about to have a mess on my hand. The filling was very soft and did not want to hold up. It tasted delicious, although a little on the sweet side for me. The rum in the recipe really made a delicious flavor in the pie. The pie may look overdone, but did not taste overdone at all.

This is a pie that I will definitely make again, but with a little less sugar. I am thrilled with my first Tuesday's With Dorie (TWD) challenge. I am looking forward to next weeks baking!

Thanksgiving

Holidays bring a bag of mixed emotions for me. I just love to have a house full of people, food and fun. Unfortunately, we do not have any family here that we can spend the holidays with, so we fill our house with friends, and we have amazing friends.

I got up early to start cooking. The girls eventually wandered out of bed. Nora Beth put on her favorite dress - the one she insists on wearing everyday. Lamar put the Macy's Parade on TV. The girls love to watch this. I could not even pry Nora's eyes away long enough to take a picture.

After the parade, Nora insisted on doing her own hair. She thinks the barrettes look great with the three princess dresses she is wearing. Why be just one princess, when you can be three at one time!

After we ate dinner, the girls did a little performance. Shi on the piano with Nora on vocals. This is a scene we see daily, but it was an extra special performance tonight.

Joe and Joe spontaneously broke out into song, but no dance.

Lamar even got in on the action. He has been playing with Shianne lately, helping her with with her music lessons.

The evening was full of fun. laughter and food. We ate way to much, but isn't that what Thanksgiving is for?

Boba and Zara

I always show pictures of the girls on this blog, but never of the other two that keep this house constantly entertained.

This is Boba, Lamar's dog. He is in constant search for the softest place to nap and is determined to eat a whole roll of toilet paper each day - yes he pulls it off the roll and drags it around the whole house - DAILY!!!! He does do a great job of finding all the food that Nora Beth leaves around the house.

Now, on to my dog, Zara. She is just the sweetest thing and is insistent on being a 100lb lap dog. She is a great cuddler and wonderful with the girls. Here she is with Lamar, although he does not look very happy about it.Zara was running around and tired herself out. She took a long nap after this play session outside. I have tried to get her to fetch balls, but she wants no part of that. The retriever genes are just not in her. She will chase one ball, then promptly hide it and go lay down. I usually find the balls a few days later, chewed to pieces. Why chase balls when you can lay in the sun (I can't argue with that logic!)

Fall Fun!

While we enjoy having lots of trees in our backyard, the downside is every fall we have to do the great leaf haul. We have had some beautiful days lately, so Nora Beth and I headed out to do some raking. I had a great pile going and Nora Beth dove in. She had so much fun playing in the leaves.
While I cleaned up the leaves, she started to swing. She just loves to play on the swings. She was pretending that she was a flying fairy holding her wand. It was so much fun to watch her.

Later, Shi and Nora started to play with bubbles. The dogs had a great time chasing the bubbles as they flew away.

Nora is wearing one of her favorite tutu's. This girl is all about pink and sparkly....add some bubbles and life reaches perfection for her.

Beaver Feaver!!

I have been asked by many of you....Where have you been? Is everything OK? Well the answer is that life has been really busy the past two weeks or so. In the next few post I will get you caught up to date in our life.

We went to the OSU / Cal game. We had a great time. The weather was perfect for the football game. OSU won the game, increasing the talk of the team being Rose Bowl bound. Lets see what the Civil War brings.

Shianne dressed up for school to support the Orange and Black!

Every year we go to a charity dinner auction benefiting the Boys and Girls Club. The theme is always "Civil War" and everyone comes dressed in Beaver or Duck colors. Lamar was thrilled to to get his picture with the cheerleaders. We had a great time and bid/won several items. I was thrilled to come home with a wine cooler with a 1/2 case of wine and Lamar got a golf package to to golf with some NFL players - definitely up his alley.

We were sitting at the table, Lora and I were talking about the oral auction items. Lamar got caught up in the moment and the next thing I heard was "The winner is bidder 204B!" and a lei was being put around my neck. We are going to Hawaii! A child free trip sometime in the next year.....we just need someone to watch the girls (hint, hint).

Cheese making

I recently purchased a cheese making kit from a local dairy where I took a class. The directions looked easy enough, so Shianne and I decided to tackle the project of making mozzarella cheese. We were really avoiding a cleaning project and the cheese sounded like so much fun, plus we needed it for dinner.

Here is step one: We heated one gallon of milk to 88 F added the citric acid and rennet
It soon started to solidify. When I cut into it, it quickly started to separate into the curd and whey.

About 20 minutes later, I separated out all the whey and began the process of heating the cheese in the microwave and pulling it. We had to do this three times.

Shianne immediately commented on how this was like making taffy. The cheese became shiny and squeaky when we pulled it.

Finally, we are at the end result. It is now cooling down in some ice water. It was really an easy process. We worked some salt in during the final pulling stage to give the cheese some more flavor.

We had some leftover pesto from last nights lobster ravioli and pesto sauce. Pesto, cheese and chicken - sounds like the makings for some good pizza. The cheese melted perfectly. Very yummy. Lamar had his reservations about this pizza, and even commented that he would stop by and pick up a burger on his way home. I assured him that he would like it - and he did!

I think we will try ricotta cheese next. The kit will make approximately 30 batches of cheese. I see more cheese in our future.

Food Shopping

The girls and I headed up to Portland with my friend Julie for some specialty food shopping. It was fun going to these stores. I stocked up at Bobs Red Mill and even brought home two large (read 25 lb) bags of wheat to try in the soon to arrive grain grinder (Thanks Linda!). I am really excited to try grinding my own grains. Julie introduced me to a new spice store and we tried an Oriental Market. We both agreed that this particular market was not as good as Owajamia (I probably misspelled that one), but Fubanns was closer and worth a try.

While passing Krispy Kreme, I learned that Julie had never tried their delicacy's. This deserved an immediate u-turn and we promptly ordered 4 glazed donuts. None of us spoke as we devoured the fried sugar creations. Those things are just so darned good! We licked our fingers clean and headed to the next stop.

We made it back to Salem in perfect timing to go to the dentist for Shianne and I (of course we brushed away all evidence of our doughnuts!)

A busy morning in the kitchen

I got up early on Sunday morning to get busy in the kitchen. I had to make breakfast for the football boys and make the snack and offering for the class I am taking in Portland. I decided to make Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls for the boys and pumpkin bread for my class. I also took a loaf of fresh whole wheat bread to my class with some of my homemade apple pie and blueberry butter preserves.

The recipe I used for the cinnamon rolls is really a vegan recipe that I de-veganized. I have never made cinnamon rolls before and I did not have a back up plan if they turned out like rocks. Fortunately the dough came out perfect. I even made a double batch, ensuring leftovers for breakfast tomorrow.

Here they are, all rolled up in a log. I learned that I did not have the roll as tight as I should have, but they cut just fine regardless.

Here is the finished product out of the oven with the sugar glaze. They smelled divine and were very tender. Not bad for my first attempt at cinnamon rolls.

For dinner I attempted another recipe out of the casserole cookbook I wrote about last week. This time I tried a chicken and wild rice casserole. I had some leftover roasted chicken from the night before and just enough wild rice. I had Shianne put it in the oven for me so it was ready when I got home from my class. I arrived home to find that they had already dug into it and had rave reviews. Even Lamar, who has a blanket rule that he does not like wild rice, said I could make this again anytime and Nora Beth cleaned her plate. Finally - success from my new cookbook!

4, the new favorite number

For anyone who has spent time around Nora Beth over the past year, you would know that she has been obsessed with the number 3. Everything had to be in threes. Well today, that number changed to four. That's right, our little girl turned four today. Where has the time gone. She has changed from a toddler to a big girl over the past year. She is so full of energy, always has something funny to say and loves to dance "like a ballerina."

She got a birthday hat from preschool yesterday and insisted on wearing it all day today. We spent lots of time cuddling today. We went to the Carousel after Shianne got home from school. Of course, she got four rides on the Carousel!
We met Lamar at Nora Beth's pick of restaurants. She just loves Homemade Tortillas, as we call it (it is really called La Hacienda Real). She ate all her dinner and then was so excited for her presents. To continue her interest in all things girly, pink and princess-like, she received several presents that fit this description. She could not wait to get home to take a bath with her new Barbie Mermaid.

The waitress realized that it was Nora Beth's birthday so she had the wait staff come and sing Happy Birthday. This took Nora Beth by surprise and she started crying. We get her settled down and she realizes that there is no candle on her deep fried ice cream. Yet another meltdown. Can anyone say "bedtime!"

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NORA BETH HELENE!

From Soccer Mom to Rocker Mom

Today started out with very grey skies. It was the day for Shianne's last soccer game. Fall soccer, much like spring soccer, is usually plagued by rain and muddy fields. Today was no different. Nora Beth came prepared with her new pink horse umbrella.
Shianne had a great game. The team won, thus making the season a winning season. This was a great accomplishment for the team, being it's first year playing together. Shi had a great time playing and is already talking about the spring season.

Just to show the many facets of my life. I went from being Soccer mom this morning to being rocker mom tonight. Lamar and I went to the Metallica concert in Portland. This is a great way to release energy from our normally very conservative life.

We had a great time at the concert. It is fun to cut loose every once in a while.

Halloween

Halloween finally arrived. Nora Beth has been so excited. This is the first Halloween that she really understood what was going on. She has been planning her costume for over one month. She was insistent on being a "butterfly princess." The combination of her two favorite things. Shianne dressed as a witch.

Lamar, yet again, dressed as a Star Wars character. The light saber has to make an appearance each year. My poor dog Zara was so scared of him. Here he is giving the skeleton on our porch a piece of his saber.

To keep up with tradition, the girls went trick or treating with our neighbors. Lamar took the girls around tonight, while I stayed home and handed out candy to the people who dared to climb the hill to our house. I am proud to say that our house was the best decorated of the neighborhood (what else would you expect from the Lindsay house!)

The Halloween Goblin did make it's appearance again this year and left great treats in exchange for the candy.