The Coconut Celebration

Today was Scout’s first day of kindergarten! She was so nervous this morning that she was sick to her stomach. For a minute I thought she might have to miss the first day, but after a nice long shower she was finally ready to go. Scout is my 10th child to head off to kindergarten, so you would think it wouldn’t affect me…but it does. By the time my sweetie got home from work and things had settled down a little, he could see that I was in need of some severe sugar. He suggested we pull our last Pepperidge Farm Coconut Cake from the freezer. It’s been chillin’ there for over a year, just waiting for the right special occasion.

Coconut cakes and I go way back. I was introduced to them by my grandparents. I’m pretty sure they were Grandpa’s favorite treat. You buy them in the freezer section, so when you pull them out of the box they are totally frozen. And that’s the ONLY way to eat them. Frozen and with a fork right off the square foam serving plate. Sometimes Grandma would buy one of the other flavors, but I’m sure she always regretted that decision. Oh, Grandpa would eat a chocolate one, but he would gripe about it the entire time.

He showed me how to start at the corner and eat the entire outside edge of frosting before moving to the center of the cake. He got two corners and I got two corners unless someone else happened to be hanging out with us. Grandma would just shake her head a cut a piece for herself out of the center of the cake when we were finished…that is if there was any left.

So sometime after my sweetie and I were married, I introduced him to Coconut Cake and the proper etiquette for sharing one. Always a chocolate man, he was skeptical at first, but after one bite he wholeheartedly agreed to become the devourer of the other two corners. Although I married the most amazing man on earth because now he only eats one corner and gives the other three to me. See my side of the cake? All the outer frosting is gone. He must have known I was going to write a post about this because look how nicely he hollowed out his corner and saved the edges for me.

OK, now that you are all looking for your car keys so you can run down to the grocery store and pick up one of these little gems, I want to tell you one more story. It happened in 2005. I was about 7 months pregnant with Scout and it was our 22nd anniversary. My sweetie took me out to dinner and while we were gone, the kids didn’t do their chores (as usual). So in an effort to divert our attention (it was our anniversary after all), they made us a lovely bubble bath so we could enjoy a nice romantic time in our bedroom. They had dimmed the lights and set out a couple of candles, carefully placed some towels, and filled the jetted tub with water and way too much soap (we carried laundry baskets full of bubbles to the shower later just so we could get in the tub!). They were so excited to show us their handiwork, they dragged us up the stairs the minute we walked through the front door.

It wasn't me! The Butler did it!

As we surveyed the scene, one of the girls scanned the tub nervously. “What happened to the cake?” she finally asked. We glanced at the tub, but all we saw were crumbs and a square foam plate. The kids immediately started blaming each other for the missing cake. Annoyed, we shooed them out of the room. The mystery gradually unraveled when we discovered that the dog seemed to have no appetite for her supper. And I’m pretty sure I detected a drop or two of whipped cream in her brown hair. An entire Pepperidge Farm Coconut Cake devoured by a dog…Grandpa would have certainly griped about that!

Mommy Bumps

I asked Bossy to help me locate some pictures of me when I was pregnant so we could link up with Shell's little "bump" game. Bossy thought it would be great fun to totally humiliate me with pics from my first little ones rather than the last...that means big hair and the 80s.  Ok, Teach was born in 1991, but I never was at the height of fashion. This is me being pregnant with her.

This one shows me being pregnant with Bossy, and yes I was a teenage mom, but barely. She was born in November and I turned 20 in January. Don't you just love the plaid? It's back in style again...I must be old.

Sadly, I kept my bump after each and every child...this is Bossy just a few days old in 1984. But she is so cute, she was worth every pound.

One last one for you to giggle over. This is me pregnant (and annoyed at the camera) with the Gym Rat in early 1987. Don't you love that red couch? I guess I'll have to search through and find more pics for you of some of the other babies that were born in THIS century! I've aged quite a bit since then...but that's not necessarily a bad thing...

...if you're cheese!

**Editor's Note: As you can tell Mom doesn't like the camera. I wasn't trying to be mean, but most of the photos of her are post-bump with newborns. She really doesn't do the bump documentation. Also my (slow going) digital archiving project, is a mountain of pictures that are all of the older kids because after 2005 Mom had a digital camera. In fairness I was going to allow her to post a truly big bump picture of me. But I can't find my copy and she wouldn't email me hers. 

We are still looking for photos and I will keep adding as we find them.  Here are the latest discoveries. See me working on the room for Grandpa? This was about six weeks before Baby Doll was born in 2010.

I told you I look like a cow when I am pregnant.  Here is me one month before Curly was born - July 2008. Isn't Scout cute?

All dressed up for Cow Appreciation Day!

Food for Thought: Five-Cup Salad

I told you last week about our neighborhood cookbook and some of the gems I have found there. Another one of my favorite new salad recipes is called Five-Cup Salad (except at my house it’s Ten-Cup Salad!). The best thing about it is that I almost always have the ingredients on hand, so when I have a bunch of extra people for dinner or if Bossy’s family shows up unexpectedly, I can throw this one together fast and stretch the entrée just a little further.

This salad always turns out the best when Princess makes it because she actually measures when she cooks. Since the base is sour cream and it counts on enough marshmallows and coconut to sweeten it, make sure you have at least a cup of each. When we make it, I use a 15-oz can of pineapple and 2 cans of mandarin oranges. Then just double everything else. I have also used the fun colored marshmallows, but the kids prefer it with just the plain white ones. It is better if it gets to sit in the fridge for an hour, but that rarely happens at my house. In fact, it is gobbled up so quickly, it hardly ever hits the fridge at all! I hope you like it. Leave me a comment and let me know.

Five-Cup Salad
1 cup pineapple chunks or tidbits, well drained
1 cup mandarin oranges, well drained
1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup miniature marshmallows
1 cup sour cream

Combine all ingredients. Mix well (this step is really important because if you leave any sour cream hanging around the top of the bowl, it still tastes sour!). Chill several hours or overnight (if possible, if not, just put it on the table and watch it disappear!).

Food for Thought: Chicken Chimis and Easy Empanadas

Tamales

We celebrated our first Cinco de Mayo as a Merit Badge project for Scouts for the Gym Rat. He had to find info on another country and then study some of their traditions and foods. Mexico was an easy choice. So we bought a pinata, stuffed it full of candy and had our first good whack at it. I was surprised at how difficult it was to actually break a cheap pinata, even with a real aluminum bat! We ate tacos and chips and salsa. Over the years we have refined our celebration a bit. Now we make our famous chicken chimis and this year I threw together an easy batch of empanadas too. I’ll give you both of those recipes in a minute.

  When Bossy married Gamer it added a whole new dimension to our "fiesta." Gamer is Hispanic and sometimes we can convince him to make tamales or chile verde. We have also tried other desserts. Last year we made Tres Leches cake, but I was afraid we’d all gain five pounds if we did that again this year. We’ve also tried fried ice cream and sopapillas. But the best thing we’ve discovered since Gamer joined the family is that if you send a Hispanic to the Hispanic food store, you get a much better deal!  And he knows the difference between a cheap grocery store pinata that never breaks and a real pinata with the points that is made to drop candy a little at a time and swing just right to make it fun.

 The other thing he introduced us to was authentic Mexican candy. That’s right, and nearly all of it has hot peppers of one sort or another in it! (Or maybe that’s just the kind he buys because he wants to pull my sweetie’s chain. He hates any kind of food with heat in it. He can’t even eat a spicy chicken sandwich!) So here is our Easy Chicken Chimis recipe. I hope you like it. When the Drama Queen makes it she adds an extra bottle of salsa because she likes it more moist than we do. My sweetie also added some fresh garlic this time and it was extra tasty. Modify to your own tastes. Remember my recipe feeds a small army, so feel free to cut it in half unless you are having a party.

Easy Chicken Chimis

4 lbs of boneless skinless chicken breast (chunked)
1 large bell pepper (chopped)
2 jars of salsa (approx. 18 oz.)
2 cups minute rice
2 tbsp chili powder
2 cans of olives (chopped)
cheddar cheese
flour tortillas (the thicker kind so they don’t break)
cooking oil

Cook chicken and pepper in frying pan until chicken is completely cooked. Add salsa, chili powder, olives, and rice. Cook until rice is soft (about 5 minutes).

Roll in warm tortillas with shredded cheddar cheese. You may want to brush on a flour and water paste with your pastry brush to keep them sealed.

Deep fry or pan fry in hot oil until golden brown.

Serve with lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream and guacamole. You can reheat already fried left overs, but they are slightly soggy.  We prefer to fry them fresh the next day. 

Empanadas
flour tortillas
prepared pie filling (any kind will work)
flour/water paste (optional)
cooking oil
Put your whole package of tortillas in the microwave for one minute to warm them. This makes them easier to roll. Place about ¼ cup of pie filling down the center.

Roll it up, pasting the edge closed with a pastry brush and flour/water paste if desired. Deep fry or pan fry in hot oil.

Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar or powdered sugar. They are best when topped with vanilla ice cream!

Food for Thought: Amish Friendship Bread

I was introduced to Amish Friendship Bread by the same friend who gave me the sourdough starter. (She’s not Amish either…) She just showed up on our doorstep with a plate of this delicious sweet bread and a Ziploc bag filled with starter. I’m a real sweet bread fan and I’m not sure I bothered to share except with my sweetie, of course.

I’ve told you before that the starter kind of ruled my life for a while and for about 3 months Teach and the Dog Walker made Amish Friendship Bread every time we made sourdough. They started messing around with the recipe by substituting the applesauce for some of the cooking oil and using white chocolate chips instead of the regular kind. Actually, they weren’t really white, they were some red and green striped ones I bought on clearance and threw in the freezer for times when we were desperate. The kids decided that made the best tasting bread. I finally had to put the nix on this delicious treat because we all gained about five pounds. We also took six loaves to a family party and they were eaten up almost before the meal was started. Let me know what you think!

Amish Friendship Bread


1 cup sourdough starter
3 eggs
½ cup oil
½ cup applesauce
½ cup sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
2 cup flour
1 small box of instant vanilla pudding (sugar-free works fine)
1 cup chocolate chips (semi-sweet, milk or white chocolate all work well)

Spray two medium loaf pans with cooking spray. Mix in separate bowl, ½ cup sugar and 1 ½ tsp cinnamon. Use ½ of this mixture to dust the bottom of the pan and the other half on top of the batter in the pans.

Mix all ingredients well before adding chocolate chips.

  Bake for 45 – 60 minutes at 325 degrees until knife comes out clean.

Pain and Triumph

I have fat genes and I have fat jeans! Unfortunately for me, thunder thighs seem to run in my family. I’ve been on dozens of diets, but losing weight is definitely one of the hardest things I’ve never managed to do.

When I was pregnant with number 4 I was borderline gestational diabetes. I was unhappy and unhealthy. The scales tipped past the 300 mark and my baby was born at 10 lbs 1 ½ oz. She was beautiful and healthy, but she looked like she was 3 months old rather than a newborn. I managed to drop back below that ugly number, but then I got pregnant again. Number 5 was 9 lbs 2 oz. This trend just couldn’t continue.

It was about that time that we started building a new house in a new neighborhood. I was excited to learn that church sports included volleyball. My sweetie agreed to join me on the co-ed team. I loved to play, but my weight made it difficult for me to move quickly around the court. I tried my best, but one Thursday night I moved toward the ball, heard a small "pop," and that was it. I couldn’t stand up! My knee was totally gone.

My hubby got to me first. He and a neighbor pulled me upright but I had no control over that leg and nearly collapsed. They moved me to the sidelines and then eventually to our car. I had torn my ACL and the only way to repair it was surgery. It was 1995 and the surgical techniques were not as advanced as they are now. I was forced to choose between a cadaver and my own hamstring for the repair. Since I was not excited about the thoughts of someone’s dead body part in me, I chose my hamstring. That was my first mistake!

It is still painful… No one mentioned that it would be a year before I would be able to have mobility without pain. That I would have to wear a brace for months…that crutches were difficult when you had a two-year-old crying and wanting to be picked up. As lousy as the recovery proved to be, one good thing happened…I lost weight! Lots of weight! Over 40 pounds!

It was just too hard to drag myself to the kitchen to get food during the day and I had to rely on someone else to take care of me at night. I managed to keep that weight off and it has made all the difference in how good I feel and how much exercise I can do. The knee still aches when the weather changes, and I have lovely scars that run up the front of my leg, but as far as diets go, it was the one that worked the best.