Since I haven't posted anything since July, it occurred to me this week that I need to stand back, get some clarity and redirect the vision and focus for my blog. This epiphany was inspired by a beautiful, creative and dear friend of mine. She inspires me each time I read her writing...
Thank you, Amy.
The change of seasons is bringing beautiful and much needed clarity to my world.
Looking forward to sharing more with everyone soon.
chocolate + paper + scissors
10.28.2009
7.30.2009
Lots of firsts!
Okay, so it's very late - past my bedtime - but it's very nice to have some quiet time to myself! Today was one of those busy days at home - and we managed, somehow, to not leave the house at all. This is bad, isn't it? No exercise! No outside stimulation! But it was nice, too.
I do want to share a delish recipe - but I have to share a quick review of our day:
1. We had lots of imaginary play, as we were in Dragon Land much of the day with K and her friends.
2. A can now clap his little tiny, delicate, chunky hands, and gets so excited! We love it so much that we all clap with him! He's also on his way to crawling any day...
3. K managed to answer the phone for the first time today: she took a client call of daddy's while I was in the other room tidying up...oops! Thankfully, she didn't give any financial advice!
Okay: here's the recipe. I threw this together a couple of weeks ago after forgetting to add sugar to the Nigella recipe I posted last time. (I hope you never do that!). After throwing the entire baked, unsweetened batch of brownies in the trash, all I had to make dessert with was some chocolate, butter and some honey. First time to make this sauce - but it was amazingly tasty. I will be making it again...perhaps for a morning beverage! Nice alternative to coffee.
1/2 cup bittersweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup butter, salted
4-5 tablespoons of honey
Melt it all in a small pot on the stove...and enjoy. It refrigerates well - but it will harden, so you'll need to reheat it in the microwave.
Chocolate heaven! Goes well on anything - especially room temperature foods. But we ate it on ice cream when my girlfriends were in town, and it was heavenly. Of course, the company made it taste even better!
Lights out for now...sweet dreams!
I do want to share a delish recipe - but I have to share a quick review of our day:
1. We had lots of imaginary play, as we were in Dragon Land much of the day with K and her friends.
2. A can now clap his little tiny, delicate, chunky hands, and gets so excited! We love it so much that we all clap with him! He's also on his way to crawling any day...
3. K managed to answer the phone for the first time today: she took a client call of daddy's while I was in the other room tidying up...oops! Thankfully, she didn't give any financial advice!
Okay: here's the recipe. I threw this together a couple of weeks ago after forgetting to add sugar to the Nigella recipe I posted last time. (I hope you never do that!). After throwing the entire baked, unsweetened batch of brownies in the trash, all I had to make dessert with was some chocolate, butter and some honey. First time to make this sauce - but it was amazingly tasty. I will be making it again...perhaps for a morning beverage! Nice alternative to coffee.
1/2 cup bittersweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup butter, salted
4-5 tablespoons of honey
Melt it all in a small pot on the stove...and enjoy. It refrigerates well - but it will harden, so you'll need to reheat it in the microwave.
Chocolate heaven! Goes well on anything - especially room temperature foods. But we ate it on ice cream when my girlfriends were in town, and it was heavenly. Of course, the company made it taste even better!
Lights out for now...sweet dreams!
7.02.2009
FFF: Thank you, Nigella, for lovely fudgy brownies.
Hi all!
I know it's Thursday with a holiday weekend approaching...so I thought I would post this recipe early. I haven't been very consistent with posting my favorite recipes - I really am trying to do a better job at this one. I have some out-of-town preparation to do tonight, so I'll try to make this short and sweet.
I tried this Nigella Lawson brownie recipe for the first time at the end of this school year for my daughter's pre-school teachers. I baked for them whenever an opportunity presented itself, usually for holidays. They always loved everything so much - and it's so fun to bake for people who love and appreciate the product!
Nigella: can we talk about how delicious she is? Her cookbook reads so lyrically...it's so soothing and relaxing. Making these brownies was such a joy - so calming during such a busy time of year. This recipe is taken from How to Be a Domestic Goddess: Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking. It's a gorgeous book.
I substituted white chocolate chips for the walnuts. which were a nice complement. These were gooey and scrumptious. I realized that my entire baking life, I've been making cakey brownies (as opposed to fudgy brownies). I was afraid these were undercooked, but they were fine once they cooled. The gooey-ness was the best part. I froze about 1/4 of the recipe, and they're great warmed in the microwave for about 30 seconds.
Cheers, and enjoy! And, everyone have a lovely 4th of July.
Ingredients:
13 1/4 ounces soft unsalted butter
13 1/4 ounces best quality dark chocolate
6 large eggs
1 tablespoons vanilla extract
17 2/3 ounces caster sugar
8 ounces plain flour
1 teaspoons salt
10 5/8 ounces chopped walnuts
Directions:
1.Preheat the oven to 180°C.
2.Line your approximatley 33 x 23 x 5 1/2cm brownie pan with foil or baking paper.
3.Melt the butter and chocolate together in a large heavy based saucepan.
4.In a bowl beat the eggs with the sugar and vanilla.
5.Measure the flour into another bowl and add the salt.
6.When the chocolate mixture has melted, let it cool a bit before beating in the eggs and sugar mixture, and then the nuts and flour.
7.Beat to combine and then scrape out of the saucepan into the lined brownie pan.
8.Bake for about 25 minutes.
9.When its's ready, the top should be dried to a paler brown speckle, but the middle still dark and dense and gooey.
10.Keep checking the brownies as they cook; remember that they will continue to cook as they cool.
Makes 48 brownies.
I know it's Thursday with a holiday weekend approaching...so I thought I would post this recipe early. I haven't been very consistent with posting my favorite recipes - I really am trying to do a better job at this one. I have some out-of-town preparation to do tonight, so I'll try to make this short and sweet.
I tried this Nigella Lawson brownie recipe for the first time at the end of this school year for my daughter's pre-school teachers. I baked for them whenever an opportunity presented itself, usually for holidays. They always loved everything so much - and it's so fun to bake for people who love and appreciate the product!
Nigella: can we talk about how delicious she is? Her cookbook reads so lyrically...it's so soothing and relaxing. Making these brownies was such a joy - so calming during such a busy time of year. This recipe is taken from How to Be a Domestic Goddess: Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking. It's a gorgeous book.
I substituted white chocolate chips for the walnuts. which were a nice complement. These were gooey and scrumptious. I realized that my entire baking life, I've been making cakey brownies (as opposed to fudgy brownies). I was afraid these were undercooked, but they were fine once they cooled. The gooey-ness was the best part. I froze about 1/4 of the recipe, and they're great warmed in the microwave for about 30 seconds.
Cheers, and enjoy! And, everyone have a lovely 4th of July.
Ingredients:
13 1/4 ounces soft unsalted butter
13 1/4 ounces best quality dark chocolate
6 large eggs
1 tablespoons vanilla extract
17 2/3 ounces caster sugar
8 ounces plain flour
1 teaspoons salt
10 5/8 ounces chopped walnuts
Directions:
1.Preheat the oven to 180°C.
2.Line your approximatley 33 x 23 x 5 1/2cm brownie pan with foil or baking paper.
3.Melt the butter and chocolate together in a large heavy based saucepan.
4.In a bowl beat the eggs with the sugar and vanilla.
5.Measure the flour into another bowl and add the salt.
6.When the chocolate mixture has melted, let it cool a bit before beating in the eggs and sugar mixture, and then the nuts and flour.
7.Beat to combine and then scrape out of the saucepan into the lined brownie pan.
8.Bake for about 25 minutes.
9.When its's ready, the top should be dried to a paler brown speckle, but the middle still dark and dense and gooey.
10.Keep checking the brownies as they cook; remember that they will continue to cook as they cool.
Makes 48 brownies.
6.29.2009
Chocolate on a Monday morning
I'm officially entering a new zone...I've decided to eat some chocolate this morning to jump-start my week!
I'm also huddled in a corner at the local bookstore with a cup of hot peppermint tea...and celebrating my new quiet time on Monday mornings, while my mother stays with my little ones. My daughter was so excited to know that she would be able to play with her gran "all by herself" while brother sleeps...and it validated my thought that just as we moms need a break, so do our children. They definitely need some outside stimulation.
Hooray for that!
I'm trying to get into a groove with a schedule for my blogging, which has been difficult to do this year. My daughter will be four in August, and my son is almost nine months, and I'll admit that it's taken me this long to finally feel like I can care for my children and keep life organized in our home - not perfectly, but it is doable. Finding time for myself, however, has been a true challenge since October (which I hear is very common after having a precious, chunky, toothy-smile second child come into one's life).
The current economic slowdown has brought me some time - as I haven't had any freelance writing projects since January. It's really been an adjustment, since I've been so used to having some sort of deadline to keep me on task. (Deadlines really help with this!) But, I've had more time to spend with K and A...and I'll admit that I am officially a stay-at-home-mom (who still likes to work when it comes around).
It's a hard job, this household manager business. I used to be highly competent at executing all kinds of tasks when I was teaching - teachers are multi-tasking geniuses! For some reason, though, it's taken me almost four years (yeek - four!) to come into my own for organizing our home life: nurturing, cooking, cleaning (house, clothes and tiny, untidy bodies), motivating, organizing, procrastinating.
Yes - somehow, "procrastinating" snuck up there on to the list, just like the pesky mosquitoes that bite me in the summer air when I'm not looking. Let's see: still haven't completed my thank-you notes for the arrival of my precious son...in October. It gets added to my to-do list every week, but it never gets done. Why is this? My theory is: when I don't have time to myself, I use procrastination as a retaliation to the world of very time-consuming tasks. (Although thank-you notes are lovely and necessary - and they used to be a favorite thing of mine to do, before having children.)
The other day I felt as if I had ADD - I couldn't get anything accomplished - my brain was in lockdown mode as the kitchen was a wreck, A was crying, K was dumping tiny colorful beads on the wood floor in the other room, and I was sleep-deprived from staying up late and waking up twice with A in the night.
But, a little time to myself always makes everything better and clears my head: writing, running, sleeping...it's all necessary!
So, cheers to all you mothers out there who are a little bit burned out this morning. Don't forget to take care of yourself! At this time, I'd like to give some props to Mojo Mom for her insight and her exceptional book, Mojo Mom: Nurturing Yourself While Raising a Family.
I highly recommend it for every mom, new or experienced. It's never too late!
In short: let's keep it real, ladies. Just take care of yourself.
Happy Monday...
I'm also huddled in a corner at the local bookstore with a cup of hot peppermint tea...and celebrating my new quiet time on Monday mornings, while my mother stays with my little ones. My daughter was so excited to know that she would be able to play with her gran "all by herself" while brother sleeps...and it validated my thought that just as we moms need a break, so do our children. They definitely need some outside stimulation.
Hooray for that!
I'm trying to get into a groove with a schedule for my blogging, which has been difficult to do this year. My daughter will be four in August, and my son is almost nine months, and I'll admit that it's taken me this long to finally feel like I can care for my children and keep life organized in our home - not perfectly, but it is doable. Finding time for myself, however, has been a true challenge since October (which I hear is very common after having a precious, chunky, toothy-smile second child come into one's life).
The current economic slowdown has brought me some time - as I haven't had any freelance writing projects since January. It's really been an adjustment, since I've been so used to having some sort of deadline to keep me on task. (Deadlines really help with this!) But, I've had more time to spend with K and A...and I'll admit that I am officially a stay-at-home-mom (who still likes to work when it comes around).
It's a hard job, this household manager business. I used to be highly competent at executing all kinds of tasks when I was teaching - teachers are multi-tasking geniuses! For some reason, though, it's taken me almost four years (yeek - four!) to come into my own for organizing our home life: nurturing, cooking, cleaning (house, clothes and tiny, untidy bodies), motivating, organizing, procrastinating.
Yes - somehow, "procrastinating" snuck up there on to the list, just like the pesky mosquitoes that bite me in the summer air when I'm not looking. Let's see: still haven't completed my thank-you notes for the arrival of my precious son...in October. It gets added to my to-do list every week, but it never gets done. Why is this? My theory is: when I don't have time to myself, I use procrastination as a retaliation to the world of very time-consuming tasks. (Although thank-you notes are lovely and necessary - and they used to be a favorite thing of mine to do, before having children.)
The other day I felt as if I had ADD - I couldn't get anything accomplished - my brain was in lockdown mode as the kitchen was a wreck, A was crying, K was dumping tiny colorful beads on the wood floor in the other room, and I was sleep-deprived from staying up late and waking up twice with A in the night.
But, a little time to myself always makes everything better and clears my head: writing, running, sleeping...it's all necessary!
So, cheers to all you mothers out there who are a little bit burned out this morning. Don't forget to take care of yourself! At this time, I'd like to give some props to Mojo Mom for her insight and her exceptional book, Mojo Mom: Nurturing Yourself While Raising a Family.
I highly recommend it for every mom, new or experienced. It's never too late!
In short: let's keep it real, ladies. Just take care of yourself.
Happy Monday...
5.27.2009
Question of the day:
How, in our media-driven, fully-communicado lives, can we be successful multi-tasking individuals, while also being good active listeners, present and mindful with our loved ones?
Food for thought.
Where's my chocolate?
Food for thought.
Where's my chocolate?
5.23.2009
Slimming down for summer
Dear Hottest Season in Texas,
It's so great to have you around - there is nothing like you. Your heat can be unbearable - but summer is a magical season. This week, you were a little lighter than usual. Thank you for the cool breezes you brought our way this week - they made for some delicious stay-outside-all-day days and some dreamy nights! I can't believe you're already here.
Vivid memories of last year with you: Hot days at the pool with our blonde fish. Being very pregnant and stretching a beautiful green maternity suit until it would stretch no more. Our first trip to the emergency room with our girl after her collision with the corner of our cedar chest at 2 a.m.. Our girl's 3rd birthday party, celebrated in pink and purple. Bracing for Ike - and being grateful for having survived it. Spending two weeks with no power. Learning what we really need to be happy is each other. And, preparing for the addition of one more to "each other" - awaiting our new baby brother.
And so, it has been an amazing year! Today, we took baby brother swimming for the first time, and the water was much colder than I expected. His reaction: tears! I was so caught up in watching our little chunk in nothing but a swim diaper, held by Daddy, that I forgot to take a picture. But I'll always have the picture in my mind of those few minutes - and then it was time to get out and dry off! Big sister had such a great time with the floaty she was using - but she was cold, too!
But in moving forward with the rest of the season, I confess that my goal is to slim down on what I call over-connectedness. With the online world, e-mail, cell phones, Facebook, blog-following, my time quickly leaves me, and I'm left feeling like I do after reading "junk food" magazines. There's a beautiful life to be lived, - just as little children live in the moment. I'm hoping to have more of that this season, and less technology.
And more ice cream!
It's so great to have you around - there is nothing like you. Your heat can be unbearable - but summer is a magical season. This week, you were a little lighter than usual. Thank you for the cool breezes you brought our way this week - they made for some delicious stay-outside-all-day days and some dreamy nights! I can't believe you're already here.
Vivid memories of last year with you: Hot days at the pool with our blonde fish. Being very pregnant and stretching a beautiful green maternity suit until it would stretch no more. Our first trip to the emergency room with our girl after her collision with the corner of our cedar chest at 2 a.m.. Our girl's 3rd birthday party, celebrated in pink and purple. Bracing for Ike - and being grateful for having survived it. Spending two weeks with no power. Learning what we really need to be happy is each other. And, preparing for the addition of one more to "each other" - awaiting our new baby brother.
And so, it has been an amazing year! Today, we took baby brother swimming for the first time, and the water was much colder than I expected. His reaction: tears! I was so caught up in watching our little chunk in nothing but a swim diaper, held by Daddy, that I forgot to take a picture. But I'll always have the picture in my mind of those few minutes - and then it was time to get out and dry off! Big sister had such a great time with the floaty she was using - but she was cold, too!
But in moving forward with the rest of the season, I confess that my goal is to slim down on what I call over-connectedness. With the online world, e-mail, cell phones, Facebook, blog-following, my time quickly leaves me, and I'm left feeling like I do after reading "junk food" magazines. There's a beautiful life to be lived, - just as little children live in the moment. I'm hoping to have more of that this season, and less technology.
And more ice cream!
4.20.2009
Happy Birth-day
Today is a most lovely, perfect spring day in Houston...the kind you want to bottle up and savor every day: clear blue skies, warm, dry weather with a nice cool breeze. It also happens to be my birthday.
Every spring, I feel the power of rebirth in the air - so I love that my birthday comes during this season. I believe one's birthday is like a personal "new year" celebration - we get to begin another year and celebrate our wonderful, precious lives.
I've been in a nurturing, nesting kind of mood, and the best way I know how to nest is to bake for our family. So, I'm so excited that my birthday gift from my family is the King Arthur's Baking Companion. I've had my eye on this cookbook for years, and when I finally found it at our local library, I fell in love!
I'd like to make a toast: to birthdays, new beginnings and amazing new recipes!
Cheers!
Every spring, I feel the power of rebirth in the air - so I love that my birthday comes during this season. I believe one's birthday is like a personal "new year" celebration - we get to begin another year and celebrate our wonderful, precious lives.
I've been in a nurturing, nesting kind of mood, and the best way I know how to nest is to bake for our family. So, I'm so excited that my birthday gift from my family is the King Arthur's Baking Companion. I've had my eye on this cookbook for years, and when I finally found it at our local library, I fell in love!
I'd like to make a toast: to birthdays, new beginnings and amazing new recipes!
Cheers!
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