Don't you wish you had......

one of these?

My friend surprised me with a delicious homemade carmel apple when I dropped her son off from school today. I Love Her!

Your dinner for tomorrow

Last night I made stew and warmed up homemade bread to go with it.



Both were very tasty. I had really wanted to make the stew in the crockpot and tried for the last several days but I over analyzed it and never even got it started. So, the meat needed to be used and I opted to make it on the stove, which according to the recipe I very loosely followed, was going to take 3 hours to cook. Great. I'm home for three hours at a time. No , actually I'm not. Luckily though I managed to figure this one out and it was a delicious thick hearty stew. You should make it.

Beef Stew

1 1/2 lbs stew meat

flour

salt

pepper
spike

4 cups water

1 bottle brown ale- I used Fat Tire

1/2-1 tbs better than bullion-I used chicken 'cause that's what I had

3 carrots diced

2 large potatoes cubed

can of corn drained or frozen corn

olive oil about 2 tbs

onion chopped

garlic sliced or minced your preference

bay leaf

tarragon

Place stew meat in ziplock bag and beat with a meat tenderizer. This step isn't essential but your stew will suck if you don't do it. Just saying.

After you beat your meat, add about a 1/4 cup flour to the bag as well as some salt and pepper. Seal and shake to coat.

Heat oil in a dutch oven.

Add onions saute for about 2 minutes then add the garlic, cooking for another 2 or 3 minutes. The point isn't to carmalize just to make aromatic.

Add meat including the flour and brown- you may need a little more oil here

After the meat browns add the beer. Stir to break up any pieces stuck on bottom and let boil for a few minutes to burn of the alcohol.

Add the rest of the ingredients, I always eyeball my seasonings, use your judgement here.

Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for about 2 hours.

Serve with:

No Knead Bread

I used an egg wash and salt to give it a nice crust.

Cookies

I made these oatmeal cookies last night. They were delicious! The first batch I made turned out lacy, basically making the cookie sheet one large cookie which I broke up and plated for you to see :)


That did not stop me from eating most of it myself though. I like to carry on that long held female tradition of eating the 'scraps'.

Seriously, it's not conscious,but when I look over the things I've eaten in any given day it's more the stuff people didn't want and less the stuff I made for myself(more on this in a previous post).

So before I went ahead and cooked the rest of the batch I added more flour to the batter. This was obviously the problem. Below is a picture of the dough with more flour. I'd show you a picture of the final product, which were perfectly round and delicious oatmeal raisin cookies, but everyone ate them before I had a chance.....'cause I forgot till this morning.

In looking back on the assembly process I can see where it went wrong. First, I had a helper. You know the kind. They are usually small and insistent, interested more in creating a mess ,I mean mixing the ingredients, than the final product. Second, in the middle of supervising the small one adding the flour my friend called to tell me she had her baby. Which was a lovely distracting surprise as she was not due for another couple of weeks . I believe at this point the flour measuring cup was put down and Jasper was using a knife to add more baking soda. Distracted I shooed him away ,finished mixing and cooked the first batch. Which were lacy.

You might be a better mother than me if......

You don't let your 2 year old make a jelly and mayo sandwich for breakfast accompanied by a side of chips from his dad's lunch. He's actually eating this and enjoying it...oh did I mention it's on white bread....'cause his dad did the shopping.


Apparently the 'healthy' breakfast is taking to long.

Tasty!

Today I attended a going away party . I had known her for a long time, but had never gotten to know her more than casually, which is a shame because I had always thought she was neat and totally crafty(which is an automatic in as far as I'm concerned :) .

I hope she and her family have a wonderful time in their new home.

After the party, where I ate way to many awesome cookies, I came home and Jasper,Sylvia and I dipped home made coconut macaroons and store bought pretzels in chocolate.

Jasper loved making chocolate dipped pretzels, especially the part where you lick the bowl.

Notice the glazed look in his eyes as his blood sugar hits critical mass.

In the meantime, Joe had peeled a bushel of apples and made a decadent apple crisp!

Now all I need is a big cup of coffee and a scoop of cinnamon ice cream.
(I'm still drinking coffee btw!)

Win Big

As I wrote in an earlier post, I've started an etsy site where I'm selling my hand painted bags. I'm having a lot of fun creating them and so far people are interested. I'm going to be selling them at the pre-pride street fair October 3rd and I'm looking for other venues to place them in. Here's a few examples:

The problem I have now is that I don't have a name. On etsy I'm going under my username that I use for just about everything....miajean...... I've also thought about calling it Cover Art.....'cause I paint on the covers. That ones been shot down a few times. I suppose I need something more to the point like bags by mia jean.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated..... In fact let's make it interesting, if your idea is chosen I'll give you 50% off a bag.

Just some pictures from my day

Here is me coring apples at my friend Jessica's today. Jasper playing in the dirt.
Joe and Jasper bonding over Wii Sports

Etsy

Check out my handmade and vintage goods on Etsy. Etsy is an awesome site that is like one big craft fair!

Trapped.

Jasper loves the park. We could(and have been) going to the park everyday. He will sit and play with his sand toys digging holes, making roads and destroying stick buildings for atleast an hour. As the weather gets colder and more importantly wetter there is less and less opportunity to play in the sand. In fact the number of toddler friendly free things decreases dramatically as the tempature drops. Which leaves me trapped. with a 2 year old.in a house that should be cleaned.and food that should be cooked.

Napping is good rainy day therapy. Naps and hot baths and a good book and a soft blanket. Someday Jasper will appreciate these things as well, but at two they are only a distraction from that which matters most. Playing outside in the sun and sand.

Second Breakfast

This is my breakfast

It looks good doesn't it? Scrambled eggs on a toasted sprouted muffin with slices of organic sharp cheddar cheese.

This is me enjoying my wonderful breakfast.

Oh, wait a minute. I didn't make that for me I made it for Jasper. That's right, silly mommy. Apparently the bowl of oatmeal and cream and berries he ate when we woke up at 5:30 this morning digested just in time. Just in time to eat my breakfast.

My Toad Hunter

Sylvia had a very fun weekend with her 2nd cousins. She stayed down at my grandparents for most of the weekend. One day we went to Cordova Park and she ran up this very tall tower three times while the rest of us walked up once. Cause you know who has that much energy but a ten year old!

They also played outside and caught toads, both in the backyard and by the river. There were toads everywhere. In a baby pool, in a bucket, in the house.... no one really wanted them in the house. Two of the toads they found where mutated. One was born without a foot and the other had only one eye.

Sylvia, the Toad Catcher.Sylvia, Carrie,Micheal and KellySylvia and her PrinceSylvia and her great grandfather

"Umm, excuse me, I think these are your toads!"

Food and Family

This weekend my Aunt Cathy and her two kids, Micheal and Kelly came from Olympia, Washington. I always love having them here,it's nice to hear about what's happening in their lives and see how big my cousins are getting(they are around Sylvia's age). The best part though is my Aunt's cooking. The first night we went to my grandparent's she whipped up some stuffed zucchinis. Really, she was quick about it. One minute she was like"We should use those large zucchinis in something, maybe I will stuff them" the next thing I know she'd rummaged through the fridge and put together one of the best zucchini meals I've ever had. She continued to wow us with salsas and muffins and salads. Then when we went down on labor day she and I made this....

We dived into this delicious blueberry and pecan crumble after we ate some fresh caught bass that my grandma deep fried for us and served with home fries and pickled cucumbers. I love holidays.

Jasper and I picked the last of the berries from my grandparent's bushes while we were there (I put some around the blueberry crumble in the picture).

Jasper was a trooper, he only ate a handful! We took them home to make smoothies and muffins with .