Well, actually it’s the first and last of the summer pesto.

Homemade pesto made from homegrown basil is the best!! I didn’t manage to make any pesto while I was preggo. In fact the first pesto I have made all season I made only a few days ago. The main thing I learned is that you can have excellent pesto even if you don’t have excellent ingredients on hand. There have been times in the past that I wouldn’t even think of making pesto unless I had fresh basil, a very good olive oil and real parmesan. This time I had very sad neglected basil which had not been watered in a long time and was choking on weeds, I had only Pompeiian olive oil (Colavita is my favorite but on my current food budget for 8 people I cannot afford $10 for a tiny bottle of olive oil no matter how good it is!), and I only had the green can of powdered parmesan. However, as previously stated, the pesto was super yummy. Even my picky eaters loved it and asked for seconds and even thirds!!

You do need to spend a little to get the pine nuts. I was lucky this time and had some in the freezer from last summer’s pesto.

Here’s the recipe. I have no idea where it came from — somewhere on the web last summer:

My favorite pesto:

Start a pot of boiling water before you begin. This pesto is delicious over any pasta. My favorites are mezzo penne or bowtie. **Save about 1/4 cup of your pasta cooking water to mix with the pesto when you combine with the pasta.

1/4 cup pine nuts, roasted 4-5 minutes in a skillet on medium
3 large garlic cloves (I skewered mind and stuck them in the boiling pasta for about 3 minutes to take the bite out)
2 cups fresh basil
2 Tablespoons chopped fresh parsley (this isn’t optional; the pesto will be too dark without it)
7 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup parmesan (plus extra for serving)

Throw everything together in a food processor and process until smooth. I only add about 2/3 of the recipe to a pound of cooked pasta. The rest I freeze in an ice cube tray for a later use.

Serve immediately with extra parmesan.

ENJOY!

*Hey, at least I changed the ticker!

Somehow I’ve gotten off track. This post is supposed to be about berries. I watched the Julie and Julia movie last week and then read the book this week (reviews to follow). I’m sufficiently inspired to try some new things in the kitchen again. Somehow, amidst my three picky eaters, I’ve gotten into the chicken nugget, macaroni and cheese rut. I used to love to cook. I think I still do. I just have to enjoy the food, enjoy the fact that K. enjoys it, and not worry about the three children who decided to eat just carrot sticks for dinner.

So I went to Costco for milk and bananas and peanut butter. That was all that was on my list. Well, that and half and half, because (confession time!) I never did give up coffee. I came out with those things plus strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and blackberries. I have never bought all the berries at one time before. In fact, I’ve never bought blackberries or raspberries ever before in my whole 37 years of life. But they are in season, were a really great price yesterday, and I found this recipe I wanted to try…

The very first thing I did was to ask my extremely sweet hubby to put a few of each berry in a cup for each kid so everyone could try them. And then read Jamberry by Bruce Degen while they indulged. I’ve wanted to do this since A. was 2 1/2 years old!

First I can’t resist showing you a picture of all the beautiful berries:

Then a picture of Dad reading Jamberry while the kids ate the berries plain and raw in all their glory:

And a couple more eating berry shots just because I have cute kids :

And finally, to the recipe. It is from Cook’s Illustrated. I’m not going to type up the whole thing because I’m not sure about copyright laws and you have to be a member of their site to access this recipe. Basically, though, you just throw a cup of each of the berries together with a little sugar and pinch of salt, top them with a bread crumb, butter and brown sugar topping, and throw them in the oven for 15 minutes.

Before the oven:

After the oven:

Plated and ready to eat warm with a scoop of creamy vanilla ice cream:

I thought it was divine. The funny part was that most of my picky eaters loved it. But my main taste tester, W., plus K. were not that impressed. Still, I think it was good enough for a dinner party — simple enough to let the true berry flavors shine through!

Grandma S. made this for us when W. was a brand new baby. It was wonderful having Grandma and Great Grandma to take care of us when baby #2 came along.

I have to admit that I didn’t really like French Baked Hash that time that Gma S. made it (sorry Gma!!). But it wasn’t her fault or the recipe’s fault. It was the fault of my pallet not yet being acclimated to green peppers and onions. In the nearly 10 years since then I have grown quite fond of peppers (I still prefer red and yellow to green but I’m getting there!) and I can tolerate onions quite well now. Years of kids driving me absolutely INSANE with their pickiness has caused me to smother any picky tendencies of my own.

The recipe tastes a lot like the middle of the stuffed cabbage rolls my mom used to make. That works out great because I would never eat the cabbage of those stuffed cabbage rolls (poor poor Mom; stuffed cabbage rolls are a LOT of work!) but would just eat the middle out of them. The best part about the recipe is that you throw everything together raw (including the ground beef and the rice), toss it in a baking dish and stick it in the oven. An hour and a half later you have dinner ready!

Without further ado…

French Baked Hash
from the kitchen of Great Grandma Alta and Great Grandma Spain

1 pound ground beef (raw)
1 cup white rice
Chopped green pepper
Chopped onion
Chopped celery
1 cup HOT water
2 cans tomatoes or tomato sauce
1 can drained sliced mushrooms (opt.)
Salt and pepper to taste

Mix all together in 8×8 casserole and bake at 350 F 1 hour to 1 hour and a half or until rice is tender. If it seems to be too dry after 45 minutes of cooking add enough hot water to moisten and stir a bit.

Serve with a green salad and some buttered bread and you have an easy no fuss meal!

We had a great week! Without media there was time to deep clean the den, play board games, go to the park, bake cookies and lots of other fun things. It makes one re-think the whole media thing…

–

On Friday we all went to the obstetrician for the big ULTRASOUND appointment. I wasn’t really waiting with bated breath like I usually do as I already knew baby was a girl.

Boy was I surprised! (that’s a pun if you didn’t catch it. ) It’s a BOY!!! Now what in the world are we going to name a boy?? We already used all our favorite boy names!!

I’m also excited about the class because I love to learn about how to make my prayer life more effective. I’ve struggled long with carving out a good block of time in my day for prayer and I still struggle in that area. Some days it works out and I can get up and pray and read my Bible an hour before the kiddos wake up. Most days I just don’t make it up that early.

Recently I realized I needed to work with what I have instead of constantly trying to change myself or my situation to have the prayer time. I implimented a “Bible” time into the school schedule. So simple. Why didn’t I think of it before? Right after breakfast all of the kids and I sit down in the living room with our Bibles and read and pray on our own for about 30 minutes. (the two littles look at picture Bibles) Then we each take a few minutes to share with the group something that specifically spoke to us that day. The sharing part is optional but the kids are getting more in to that part as we make this a regular part of our day.

So I have seemingly figured out the morning devotional problem. So prayer is finished for the day, right? I used to function that way and wondered why, if I did my morning devotional like a good little Christian, was I still having rotten days? I Thessalonians 5:17 tells us to “Pray without ceasing.” Prayer should be on our minds and in our hearts all day. Our minds should be on our father in Heaven when we wake up in the morning and when we go to sleep at night.

I wonder how things would change if we could all really keep Jesus at the forefront of our minds all day long. I pray this prayer out loud to the children most mornings. But do we really do it? Am I thinking about my Lord and Savior when my oldest is dawdling (again!) over his math work, when I trip over my 5 year old’s train tracks, or when I catch my 18 month old throwing the bath toys into the toilet?

I read a book once called Lord, Help Meet Me In the Laundry Room: Heavenly Help for Earthly Moms by Barbara Curtis. She talked about how it is OK if you can’t carve out time in your day for devotional — especially if you are in the lots of littles stage of your life. You just talk to Him wherever you are and no matter what you are doing. It doesn’t have to be concentrated prayer time to “count.”

Hmmm… I’m not sure I agree with that any more. I had a friend tell my husband recently that she is in “deep prayer” for our church. That really touched me. Am I ever really in deep prayer?? I can think of one time in my life when I was truly in deep prayer. Doctors told me I should never attempt to have children. I set aside a whole hour every night for I’m not sure how long to pray on this matter alone. And this was in the midst of the craziness of college life. Guess what? I’m expecting baby #6 in August. And babies 1 - 5 are 100% healthy. Deep prayer changes things!! I am awed and amazed at the blessings being poured upon me.

So I issue a challenge to you and to myself this Lenten season. Take some time for “deep prayer.” Make it a priority. And then be amazed at what God can do!!

Blessings to you all!

As embarrassing as it is, I’m posting pictures of the current state of my washroom. As I get each area cleaned/decluttered, I’ll update the post.

OK. There are a few update pictures below. I tried really hard to be a good flybaby and stop after 15 minutes. I didn’t set my trusty timer so I may have gone over a bit. But I saved plenty of work for the rest of the week.

BEFORE

AFTER
Being able to see the washer and dryer and get to the buttons is very helpful in getting the laundry done!!

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER It only took a couple of minutes to beautify the room a bit by hanging a picture and a quote by Elizabeth Elliot.

Another AFTER of the same area just including the floor space.

BEFORE (shot 1)

BEFORE (shot 2)

AFTER
The pantry rearranging is the work of Day 2 of the “Clean the washroom” project. It took about 20 minutes and I worked on it while I waited on dinner to bake. The pantry wasn’t really that bad. Things were just a little out of place. That leaves the other side of the pantry where I keep chemicals and pet food for tomorrow and I should have a completely clean washroom!

BEFORE (shot 1)

BEFORE (shot 2)

AFTER

YEA! I’m finished. The washroom is completely clean. It only took 15-20 minutes per day for three days. Wow. I have renewed faith in Flylady!! On to the master bedroom next week…

He’s growing up. Just under a month ago he turned 5 years old!! He was so excited that his grandpa and granny could be here for the big event. Especially since his birthday is so close to Christmas.

If you know J.E. at ALL, you know that he lives for two things — panda bears and Thomas the Tank engine trains. As you can see from the pictures below, he had a pretty good birthday.

He was so excited about the Percy shirt from Gma J with his name on it. I have to peel it off him to wash it!

1. Cranberry sauce — I love to make this stuff but I really don’t like to eat it that much. In fact, pretty much no one in my family likes to eat it but I really love to make it. It just wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without homemade cranberry sauce on the table. (BTW, I make mine by the recipe on the back of the cranberry bag except that I substitute half of the water with orange juice. By this recipe I can choke down a bite or two.)

As much as I enjoy seeing the beautiful bowl of cranberry sauce in the beautiful Thanksgiving cranberry sauce bowl, it has always killed me to dump all but 3 or 4 bites (K. and W. usually try to choke down a bite for me, too, just to be polite) in the trash a week later.

This year I found a solution — CRANBERRY THANKSGIVING SMOOTHIES

Here’s the recipe as I found it at one of my favorite frugal sites — The Hillbilly Housewife:

* 1 can (16 oz.) cranberry sauce
* 1 bag (16 oz) frozen unsweetened peach slices, partially thawed
* 1 container (6 oz) vanilla yogurt
* 3/4 cup orange juice
* 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Add everything in blender and blend until smooth. Depending on how sweet your peaches are and how tart the cranberry sauce (and of course depending on your personal taste) you may want to add a little sugar or sweetener to your smoothie.

The Hillbilly Housewife called it a Thanksgiving Smoothie but that name makes me think there is turkey and maybe even some leftover dressing in it and, quite frankly, that turns make stomach a little. Cranberry Thanksgiving Smoothie sounds better. I did not make the smoothie as written. In fact, I had none of the ingredients in her recipe. Here’s how I did it:

1 cup plain yogurt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup cranberry sauce (made with 1/2 orange juice)
2 frozen bananas

It was pretty yummy. The first time I made it I added a pack of stevia but it didn’t need any added sweetener. It was quite sweet all by itself!

We pared it with a piece of yummy cranberry bread for a very festive day after Thanksgiving breakfast.

I’ve got to run take care of a baby. I’ll post more later…

There are literally thousands of ways to make granola. I’ve tried a good many of them. This one is our favorite:

Almond Coconut Granola

Ingredients
• 2 cups old-fashioned oats
• 3/4 cup sliced or chopped almonds
• 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut (I buy a one gallon container of big unsweetened coconut flakes from Tropical Traditions. I have only bought this once about 2 years ago and I haven’t run out yet!! Currently they have the gallon container on sale for $9.99)
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans
• 1/3 cup (packed) brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons honey

Preparation
Preheat oven to 250°F. Mix first 6 ingredients in large bowl. Melt butter with honey in heavy small saucepan over low heat. Pour over granola mixture and toss well. Spread out mixture on baking sheet. Bake 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes. Granola will not look completely dry when you get it out of the oven but will be perfect after it cools. Store airtight at room temperature.

I’m hoping to get a batch or two of this made today. I’ll post a picture if I remember to get out the camera before all the kiddos eat up the granola!!

This picture is a batch of granola made months after the original post. I was lucky to get this shot before the granola was all gone. I almost had little hands in the picture!