After School Baking

By the time I picked Tyler up from school yesterday, it had started to rain. It kind of ruined my plan to go to the park, so we stayed home and baked some cookies instead.

I gave him the choice of making biscotti (my favorite), or chocolate chip cookies (the universal favorite of all males on the face of the planet). Guess which one he chose?

My poor biscotti didn't even stand a chance. Especially when going up against the secret ingredient.

Mini m&m's.

After Tyler finished making the dough, I set it to chill in the refrigerator for a few hours. We were going to wait until after dinner to bake them. But once he realized that the DVR was recording Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, it was all over. He zonked out into the biggest zombie I have ever seen. He loved the book. He loved the movie with Gene Wilder and now he couldn't take his eyes off Johnny Depp and his crazy interpretation of Willy Wonka.

"Hellooooo......"

"Tyler......."

"Aren't you going to finish making the cookies......"

And there I was.....the little red hen. How did that happen? I should have made the biscotti.

Over The Weekend

After our big hike on Saturday, we spent the second half of the weekend hanging out around the house, playing U-Build Mousetrap and that sort of thing. By the way, of all the new U-Build games we've tried, Monopoly, Connect 4, and Mousetrap.....Mousetrap is the worst. But Tyler claims to love it, so we continue to play.

In the mail, came two packages for Tyler. One was his new Klean Kanteen thermos for his lunchbox and the other was his new pair of slippers. Slippers are required at his school and it was time for some new ones.

It was hard finding anything cuter than his old moose slippers, which he did not want to replace, but I think we did it. He was so in love with his new pair that he wore them all weekend long.

They're glow in the dark crocodiles. Tyler kept hiding in dark closets and the kitchen pantry just so he could watch the eyes glow. But now they're at school....I hope they don't scare all the other kids away.

On Labor Day we had a BBQ.

We had hot dogs, hamburgers, chips and pasta salad. Nothing fancy. Just how the boys like it.

Cooking is fun. Did you know that?

And for dessert, it was the battle of the blueberries.

In Tyler's corner..... blueberry pudding, his own crazy creation. He wrote the recipe, that's it sitting in front of him. Sandra Lee would be so proud!

And in my corner, with the last of our blueberries.....Blueberry Cheesecake ice cream. Yum! I'm pretty sure I won the showdown. Or maybe it was a tie.

Banana Mug

One of Rick's coworkers has a wedding coming up in a few weeks, so yesterday we were at Macy's looking at dresses for me and a suit for Tyler.

We were passing by the home section when I spotted a nice red and white mug. I picked it up and said, "ohhh, I like this mug".

Then I hear Tyler say, "Mama, look at this banana mug".

So I turned and looked.....

It was a gravy boat!

He had me laughing out loud at the thought of drinking coffee out of that thing!

Cowiche Canyon

We've been stuck in such a rut over the past year or so, always having to spend our weekends working in the backyard. But now that the landscaping is finished, we actually have the time to do....whatever we want. So before the warm weather is gone for the year, we decided to visit the hiking trails at Cowiche Canyon.

There was a big fire in the canyon not too long ago, so we weren't sure how it would look, but luckily the trail seemed completely unaffected.

The landscape was very desert-like, with lots of dry brush and rocky mountains. And there was practically no shade at all, so it's a good thing it was cool and windy today.

The path we took had eight different bridges that the Cowiche Creek flowed under. Tyler had a fantastic time finding small rocks to toss in the water to see how big of a splash he could make.

We took a small rest, but it was quick....we still had several miles to go in each direction.

Another look at the beautiful landscape.

I thought kids were supposed to have endless energy, but Tyler started to get tired around the halfway point. Luckily he found himself the perfect little seat to take a rest.

Somewhere between bridge 6 and 7, we came across some huge boulders that the boys couldn't resist climbing on.

And once we made it to bridge 8, it was time to turn around and head back to the start. We had a nice time, but unfortunately when we got back to the car, we found that some other hikers had had their car broken into. The woman had left her purse in the car and that was stolen along with her camera and some other things. That stinks! I guess it's a good thing we didn't leave anything valuable in our car.

Recipe Review

The majority of my dinner recipes this week came straight out of the September issue of Rachael Ray's magazine. It's full of good recipes this month!

First off we had Steak Sandwiches on Bacon Waffle Bread.

Everyone was really excited about this one, it sounded so good. Steak, waffles, bacon. How could you go wrong? I think that Tyler was so amazed with the idea of turning waffles into sandwich bread, that he didn't care what it tasted like....he just gobbled it right up. Rick and I weren't so convinced.

My problem is with the bread. It just isn't substantial enough. It felt like trying to make a fancy sandwich with cheap white sandwich bread. So while we liked the idea of a steak sandwich, we'd just prefer one with a thicker, heartier bread.

Next we had Sweet Potato Topped Shepherd's Pie.

I love a good shepherd's pie and I also love sweet potatoes, so this recipe was right up my alley. It turned out great even though I accidentally used chicken broth instead of beef broth to make the gravy. It was still delicious.

From Cooking Light, I made Pecan Crusted Tilapia.

While I still don't enjoy tilapia quite as much as salmon, this was probably the best tilapia I've made so far. Tyler and Rick both ate it with no complaints, so that's huge. I served it with salad and my yummy yeast rolls.

Finally we had Paprika Chicken with Spinach and Egg Noodles.

I thought the chicken was okay, but it wasn't my favorite Rachael Ray recipe. I added a little salt to the tomato mixture and I don't think it needed it....in fact, I think I made it too salty. That was my mistake though, not the recipe. The egg noodles were really tasty, even with frozen spinach instead of fresh. And the corn....that came from my garden. Yum.

For dessert this week, we had Blueberry Cream Pie.

It had a nilla wafer crust, a custard filling and a blueberry topping. Everyone in the house loved it, but it was kind of on the verge of being too sweet. And while it tasted great, it didn't hold it's shape very well when I sliced it. I don't know if I should have cooked the custard longer to make it thicker, or if it's supposed to be on the thin side. Either way, I'd probably make it again.

Back To School

It's official.....Tyler's a kindergartner! Today was his first day back with his old teacher from last year and his old friends as well.

He tried to sneak off real quick to play, but I caught him. First I had to get a picture of my handsome boy on his first day with his lofty new status.

Then he was off to play with one of his best friends from last year who he hasn't seen all summer long.

When the bell rang and it was time to line up, Tyler was made the line-leader of his class. You could see the pride in his face. It's an important job, you know!

Looking around I could see a lot of familiar faces in his class, but also many new ones. Hopefully Tyler makes some new friends and has a great time this year. I want him to make the most of his time here before he moves on to a different school next year.

Get Up And Go

After talking with Papa on the phone the other day, Tyler was suddenly inspired to get in the kitchen and start cooking. At first he was set on making blueberry pudding, a recipe that he made up. But since that's similar to the blueberry cream pie that we already have in the fridge, we went for something different. He looked through his cookbooks and found a recipe for breakfast cookies, which he thought would be perfect for the first day of school.

I've never made a breakfast cookie or eaten cookies for breakfast, so for our first attempt, we made a small batch of 9 cookies, just in case they weren't our thing.

The first step was creaming the butter and sugar together, and then adding an egg.

Then he added the flour (we used white whole wheat) and baking soda and mixed that in.

Next came the bran flakes, crumbled bacon, and golden raisins.

Once everything was incorporated, we shaped the dough into balls and baked them up in the oven.

They came out looking good! Tyler even asked if he could have one, but we decided to wait until the morning to try them out. I mean, they're breakfast cookies afterall. So we left them to cool on the counter, but I warned Tyler that we should probably hide them from daddy, otherwise he would eat them right up (being that he's a cookie monster, and all). Alas, I forgot about them and never put them away and sure enough, as soon as Rick got home from work, in his mouth they went. At least we caught him before he could eat more than one!

The remaining patient members of the family waited until this morning to taste test the cookies. They were good! I was surprised! I can't say it's the healthiest breakfast ever, but I sure don't mind the combination of brown sugar and bacon. Mmmmm.