Saturday Snapshot -- Breakfast

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Part of living the way I want my life to turn out (see my post from Thursday), means enjoying treats that I want in my future too. So I have no problem buying these mini croissants from Trader Joe's and letting them rise overnight.

They're so tiny when I lay them on my battered cookie sheet the night before. The next morning they've risen so high.

 I brush beaten egg onto the risen croissant then bake them.
Yum, they're delicious with homemade strawberry jam or honey.

Hope you're having a treat today too. 

Catching Up on Cooking

I left on Saturday to take Spencer back to college. He didn't really need me since we flew, but I wanted to spend some time with my parents who live about an hour and a half from Spencer's college.
I flew back on Wednesday and was in my back door by 10:30 a.m. I love flying rather than driving for 16 hours.
While in Florida, I received a call from my baby boy (17 years old)  who was home with his father.
He claimed there was nothing to eat in the house.
"How bout all those frozen meals I bought?" I asked.
"The only one left is baked ziti.  You know I don't like ziti."
I had no idea that he didn't like pasta if it was shaped differently.
"I've only been eating Raisin Bran Crunch all week and now we're out of milk," he complained.
So from my parent's house in Florida, I got online and ordered, plus paid for, a sandwich from Jimmy John's that he could eat after his swim practice. Jimmy John's delivers.
I could have argued with him, but I was on vacation, plus he's my third kid and I rarely have the energy to argue with him.
When I came home Wednesday morning, my first stop after home was the grocery store. I planned a meal, homemade pizza, salad, brownies with white chocolate chips.
When Tucker walked in from play practice Wednesday  night and said, "Is there any food?" I pulled the pizza from the oven. He went back for seconds of salad too.

After five years working evenings, usually 4 to midnight, my husband Earl started on days this week. I wasn't there to greet him on Monday or Tuesday evening, but Wednesday evening, as he let me know he was on the bus ride home from downtown, it suddenly hit me. I needed to greet him like a 1950s housewife with a drink at the door.
I couldn't put the "kids" to bed, since he was 17 and it was 6:30 p.m. But I did put on sexy dress with high heels and twisted my hair up into a chignon. Then I put on an apron and poured a glass of red wine. I stood in front of Tucker and warned him, "I don't want to scare you. I'm just playing a joke on Dad about being a housewife for him now."
"Whatever." Tucker's eyes might have rolled up into his head.
But Earl was thrilled when he walked in the house. Unfortunately, it won't be a habit since I start back to work next week.

The cooking continued this week. Before Tucker left for school Thursday morning, I pulled cinnamon rolls from the oven.
Thursday night, I had steaming potato soup on the stove when he walked in and a baguette.
 Since Earl worked evenings, I often skipped making meals for dinner. Now that my husband is working days, guess I'll have to be more diligent. But if I don't feel like cooking, I'll just suggest we head to a nearby Chinese place.

Feeding Teenage Boys

I mentioned in an earlier post that money is tight this week, so my cooking habits have to change.
That's when I realized how much money I must be wasting every month, and how much processed food my boys eat. Of course, they prefer the processed food, but that's another story.
Especially on Mondays and Wednesdays, when I work in the mornings and then work again in the evenings, I'm often loathe to cook dinner. I might let the boys fend for themselves with cereal.
Their crazy schedule also adds to the mayhem.
Spencer has basketball practice after school and doesn't get home until around 6.
Tucker has musical practice (he's in the chorus of Oklahoma!) until 5:30 then goes to swim practice at 6:30 til 8:45. He can't eat too close to swim practice because he's gotten sick before.
Truthfully, there's no time during the week when we can all sit down and eat dinner together. It's easier to set out a salad and put something in the slow cooker so everyone can eat on their own time.
This week, the boys quickly ate the granola bars and peanut butter crackers that I had planned to add to their lunches. Then they stood in front of the cabinet complaining there's nothing to eat. Spencer will grab apples and clementine oranges to eat, but fruit doesn't seem to fill that gnawing in their stomaches.
I've increased my cooking and baking. Luckily, even though finances are tight, I have plenty of flour.
I used to bake homemade bread all the time. I felt like even if I fed the family spaghetti with jarred sauce, a homemade loaf of bread made it a real meal. Then the boys got to a point where they wouldn't eat my homemade bread and I started working longer hours. I baked less and less frequently.
This week, I've made up for it. So far I've baked two loaves of banana bread, chili and French bread, brownies, chocolate peanut butter cookies and a loaf of Italian bread.
Tuesday I rolled out a homemade pizza and Wednesday, before I left for work again, I pulled a quiche from the oven. When I got home from work a little after 9, Tucker was climbing out of the shower after swim practice.
"Did you eat some quiche?" I asked.
"No," he said. "I don't want any."
"I'll warm it up for you," I said.
"Okay," he agreed. Did I mention that laziness, or perhaps pure exhaustion keeps teenage boys from eating homemade food?
In spite of all that baking, the boys still walk in the house and complain that there's nothing to eat. It's a good thing that we don't eat gluten-free, because I have no idea how I would fill my boys up if they didn't eat gluten.
The loaf of Italian Herb bread on Monday was a hit and made my house smell so good that I've included the recipe here.
1 cup + 2 Tbl water
1 tsp lemon juice
2 Tbl oil
3 Tbl sugar
1 1/2 tsp. salt
2 Tbl dry milk
3 1/4 cups bread flour
2 tsp dried Italian seasoning
1 1/2 tsp dry yeast

Mix up the dough and knead it. (I don't do a lot of kneading). Let it rise then knead again and shape into a loaf. Let it rise one more time. Bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes.

Free Time

Like a wisp of a breeze on a still day, I feel it.
Like the far away whistle of a train in the night, I hear it.
Like that spot on the horizon that draws closer, I see it.
Freedom is nearly mine.
I give finals today and tomorrow. Then I have to grade the finals for five classes and turn in my grades.

For three weeks, I will not have to go to work. Not until Jan. 3.
I can almost feel my body collapsing in a heap just at the thought.
Now, I know that compared to many people, I don't work that hard. Some people are doing manual labor or standing up all day. They wouldn't complain about sitting in front of a computer answering students' emails or grading a stack of papers while munching on popcorn.
And I am truly grateful for my jobs, which help pay for one kid's college and next year two kids' college tuitions.
The thing is, teaching at two colleges means that their breaks don't coincide. So when one college is on spring break, the other is still having classes. And this summer when the one college took a two week break before summer quarter, the other college took the week after. I eeked out five days and darted down to Florida and back.
So since last Christmas, I haven't had time when I wasn't teaching.
Until now.
If I'm smart, I'll go ahead and prepare for winter courses next week. Then I could have two whole weeks not to think about teaching or work.
And what will I do with that time?
Well, a lot of basketball and swim events, plus Christmas shopping and baking and cleaning. Plus, I plan to read a lot and take many walks to Caribou Coffee.
Sometimes, maybe I will allow myself to collapse in a heap, learning a lesson from the cats.
How about you? Will you have any time to relax during the holidays?

Cola Cake

Yesterday as I was driving Spencer to school, before I returned home to run Tucker to school, my phone rang. Jane apologized for bothering me, but she was in a pinch. She needed more parents to bring food to the staff appreciation luncheon at school.
“I didn’t know if you were busy this evening…” she paused just a few seconds so I could jump in and volunteer there.
“Well, I teach tonight, but I can help,” I said.
In my mind I was cataloging my day. Teach at 10, breast center at 1, drive north of Columbus for my 6 to 10 p.m. class.
I agreed to make a dessert. When I got home at 4, I had nearly an hour before I had to leave again, so I whipped out my Cola Cake recipe and started baking. Cola cake is one of those things I tasted at a church dinner when I was a kid. The chocolate cake is incredibly moist. It has the magic southern ingredients of Coca Cola and miniature marshmallows. What’s not to like?
The cake baked and the marshmallows rose to the top forming a crispy crust on the top.
“Please, Mom. Can’t we keep it?” Tucker asked as the smell permeated the house. “You can give the teachers something else.”
I headed off to class, leaving the cake without icing. On the way home from class, hungry, I thought, “Sure. I can bake that cookie dough I froze last week when I doubled the batch.”
I told Tucker that we would keep the cake and give the teachers the chocolate chip cookies. I stirred the cola, butter and cocoa into an icing. With a last flourish, I spread the chocolate icing over the cake and it was ready.
I sliced a piece and placed it on a plate.
“Tucker,” I called. “Cake’s ready.”
“Nah. I’m not hungry right now,” he said.
So I ate the piece of cake, and I had another for breakfast. Since then, I’ve been giving pieces to the neighbors in hopes that I don’t eat the entire Cola Cake.

No Bake Cookies

This afternoon I made some no-bake cookies. I've been trying to avoid wheat because a doctor told me long again that I had a gluten intolerance. I didn't really listen to him because giving up breads and cookies, plus noodles and cereal, just didn't seem like a good idea.
When I've gone without wheat though, I feel a definite difference. So since Monday, when I had a piece of apple pie, I haven't had wheat.
I was craving something sweet and the genius idea of no bake cookies came up. As I was making them, pouring the milk, the cocoa, sugar and butter into a heavy metal pot, I remembered the first time I'd ever made the cookies.
I was in 7th grade. We had some sort of health presentation with a movie and a take-home comic book. The movie, as I recall, was a singing group of some sort with four guys (copying off the Beatles, the Monkeys) and the guys talked and sang about eating healthy. I came home so excited clutching my comic book with the recipe for the cookies.
I remember the look on my mom's face and I think she was kind of amused that I was so inspired by this "healthy" eating group. She helped me gather the ingredients for the cookies.
Once the sugar, milk, butter and cocoa started to boil, I turned off the burner and let them cool for one minute. Then I added the pinch of salt, teaspoon of vanilla, peanut butter and oatmeal. The cookies were then plopped onto waxed paper a teaspoon at a time where they were left to harden. Mmmm.
I carefully copied the recipe in my schoolgirl handwriting onto a piece of notebook paper. At the end of the recipe, in all capital letters, I wrote "EAT!" as if someone might forget that part.
My mom was in charge of the ladies' group at church and when they put together a cookbook, she included the No Bake Cookies with my name alongside. Of course, that means I'm plagiarizing the recipe because it came directly from the healthy-eating band whose name I can't remember.
That doesn't stop me from making them though.
Now they're cooling on wax paper on my granite countertop waiting for my hungry boys to come home from school. I can claim the cookies have some sort of nutritional value, especially since I had to use the rest of the peanut butter so Spencer won't be able to make his weight-gaining drink of protein powder and peanut butter.
Bon Apetit!

Midnight Baking

I woke up at 2:30 a.m. and stirred in the dark.
My husband, who works evenings, was not in bed next to me. He should have been home around midnight.
Then I smelled it. Birthday cake baking. Rich chocolate.
Happy Birthday to me.
No, I don't deserve a husband who stays up in the middle of the night to bake me a birthday cake, but I'm still keeping him.
He put the three layers in the microwave to cool.
I went back to sleep.