Homemade Marmalade

I think it was my Gram who got me hooked on marmalade. For one week every January growing up, my Gram would travel from Maryland to watch my brother and sister and me for a week while my parents went their one getaway/date a year.  In addition to just being excited about her presence, and the games and puzzles she would bring, we also got excited about all the delicious food she would make us. Not the least of these was toast. My Gram makes great toast! Sometime during those visits I'm sure I had my first schmear of marmalade.

During my Sophomore year in college, I survived on toast spread with cream cheese and marmalade, and deep down in my subconscious I'm sure I felt those comforting weeks when Gram came to town.  

Now, just the other day I say Ina Garten make marmalade on her show and was surprised at how simple it was.  All it takes is citrus, sugar, water, and time.  The cooking process was slow, but it filled my house with a luscious sweet citrus smell.  It was so tantalizing that once it was done I ate it right out of the pan until I gave myself a tummy ache.  Then I divided it up into jars to continue the tradition and share it with people I love.

 

Homemade Marmalade
recipe from foodnetwork.com

Ingredients:
4 large seedless oranges
2 lemons
8 C water
8 C sugar

At night, thinly slice (I used a mandoline) the citrus and place them and their juices in a large dutch oven or stainless steel pot. Cover them with 8 C water, bring to a boil, stirring often. Remove from heat and stir in sugar until it dissolves. Cover and let it rest out all night.

The next morning, pop a candy thermometer into the pot and bring it to a boil.  Drop the heat to a low simmer and let it cook, uncovered, for about 2 hours, until it reaches 220 degrees.

Store in sterilized mason jars.

When you give a Sawyer a Stuffed Animal....

...he'll want to built it a fort.  If you build that animal a fort, Sawyer will want to get in too.

 

After a good nap in the fort, he'll want to get out and about. And if he needs to get out and about, he'll need a car ride.

   
That car ride will result in some hunger...hunger for cookies! And when you give a Sawyer a cookie, he'll be sure to share it with his stuffed animals, too.

Kailey's Baby Shower

With the help of Jeff's family, I threw a baby shower for my SIL Kailey a few weekends ago.  Jeffrey's aunt wanted to do a theme with bubbles, so we went with the ever-popular "She's About to POP" theme with bubbles and balloons and  lots, and lots of circles. (Thank you Archiver's for your amazing selection of blue and gray papers and awesome machines that cut circles with ease. Between the two of you, I spent about 2 hours selecting shades and having circles cut....A few less choices may have helped, actually.)

I also made a "Guess When She'll POP" calendar so all could have a shot at guessing the babe's arrival day. And for good fun, I put Kailey through the diaper-changing ringer.  Have you ever changed a diaper blindfolded, while getting squirted with warm water, on the clock? Kailey has! I figured it'd be pretty good prep, considering all the places and ways strange situations I've had to wrangle Sawyer in and out of a diaper within the past year.

In addition to traditional gift-giving, I also punched out little paper circles for everyone to give back to Kailey: one with mommy advice, and the other with a well-wish for her baby boy. I collected them all at the end of the party to turn into a baby mobile so love and good fortunes can hang over his sleepy head every night. 

Look Ma, I Can Feed Myself!

Playing with Doughboy

 Sorry for the blurry pictures, I didn't realize I needed to switch my camera settings until it was too late.

Sawyer is my soft and squishy dough boy.  His baby soft pale skin makes him the long-lost brother of a batch of homemade white bread dough. And his SQUISH! He is perfect, the squishy I've always wanted. Confession: his squishy-ness is definitely one of the reasons he runs around in his skivvies all day-it makes him easy to catch and squish. It also makes cleanup for moments like this one depicted really easy. 

My squishy kitchen helper and I made some homemade playdough today because I've resigned myself to this simple truth: no matter how many times he tastes it, shudders, and spits it back out, he'll eat playdough again.  So if he's going to eat it, I want to know exactly what's in it.  Our homemade stuff was all natural, soft and perfect for molding, and not at all tasty.  Here's the recipe so you and your friends (or kids, or pets...) can feed each other playdough while playing and not be worried about it, too.  

(Recipe for dough boy not included.)

Play Dough Recipe

1 C white flour
1/2 C salt
2 Tbsp cream of tartar 1 C water
food coloring

Mix first 4 ingredients in a medium saucepan. Add water and mix well. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, for 3 – 5 minutes. Dough will become difficult to stir and form a “clump”.  Remove from stove and knead for 5 minutes–add food coloring during kneading process. Play dough will keep for a long time stored in a covered plastic container or plastic sandwich bag.

recipe adapted from here

My Love, My Valentine

{lunch with my Sawyer valentine}

{from when Jeffrey and I first dated}

I've had that old "My Valentine" song by Martina McBride playing to myself all day, no doubt put in my mind long ago by some woebegone Delilah radio show, now coming back to serenade my Valentine's day with: 

"You're all I need, my love

My Valentine."

The fact is, it resonates so well with our lives and how I feel today that I don't mind humming it over and over as I think about all the wonderful experiences I've had with my two valentines.  

The first thing I ever gave Jeff, besides my phone number, obviously, was a pack of valentine tissues. Yep. It was Valentine's day 2008 and we had just met a month ago and had been on a disastrous date or two, but were still spending a lot of time together.  I already had plans for the evening, and Jeffrey and I were not at all romantic at this point, but for some reason I felt compelled to get him a gift. Hence the tissues with a cheeky note written on a hot pink, heat-shaped sticky note: "Don't cry. Happy VDay. -Rachel."  

Just a few nights prior to tissue-gift-giving we'd been together making glitter-covered valentines to hand out to other people.  We shopped for the paper and glue and glitter together (there was some "buy this, not that" and "do you have to buy that?" oh and the first of many, "you can't get that" from Jeff) then got crafty at Jeff's stinky old apartment. 

Two years later, Valentine's day 2010, we were still sitting in a stinky old apartment sharing Vday festivities.  I was fresh off of a chemo treatment and Jeff was worn down from school and work and a the trials of a sick wife, so we sat in our love nest and watched a movie while sipping hot chocolates my mom had brought us (she was in town to care for me that week).

Now, three years later, we're taking our love child to the playground at the mall to celebrate the day.  We won't have dinner until late, 'til after that little valentine goes to bed, and then there will be gift-giving, just like on that first Valentine's day 5 years ago. To accompany these memories and plans for tonight, I sing to myself:

"...even if the sun refuse to shine,

Even if romance ran out of rhyme,

You would still have my heart

Until the end of time

'Cause all I need 

Is you, my Valentine."

Happy day of love, my two favorite Valentines in the universe.

Lazy Breakfast

Growing up, my family always had a tradition of Saturday morning waffles.  Covered in cheese before they cooked in the iron, the waffles were melty and crisp and fluffy and darn near perfect when covered in syrup. My personal habit was to make a "waffle quilt" and designate each square for a different topping: one for syrup, one for raspberry jam, one for apricot preserves, and one for berries.  We all grew up loving this Saturday routine of my dad cooking and signing and shouting, "get up slug boy" and, "get up slug girls" and,   "[child's name] I got your waffle!" from the kitchen.  The smell of waffles still feels like Saturday family breakfast to me and means fun, comfort, laughs and love.  

I appreciate the love my parents put into creating family traditions and it's a task that's high on my priority list to re-create for our family. With a twist of our own.  We make Sunday breakfast around here since it's the only lazy morning we are guaranteed to have.  Our menu varies, but this recipe for German Pancake, or puff pancake, shows up the most frequently.  It's eggy and bready and divine with berries or syrup or tinned pie filing (you know I like my patchwork toppings!). Sometimes we bake up a big one to share, other times we split it into two 9-in pie plate, any way we cook it, it usually ends up all gone.

German Pancake

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp butter

1 C flour

1 C milk

6 eggs

pinch of kosher salt

toppings: maple syrup, berries and powdered sugar, apple, blueberry, peach, or cherry pie filing, anything...

Method:

Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees F. Place butter in glass baking dish (13x9, 8x10, 2 9-in pie plates, whatever) and place in oven while it preheats. Pull it out once the butter is melted and swirl the pan to coat the butter everywhere.

Meanwhile, whisk together flour, milk, eggs, and salt until frothy. Alternatively, you can pulse all the ingredients in a blender.  Pour the batter into the buttered backing dish and bake anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes, depending on the size of your pan.  I start checking the pancake at 10 minutes by switching on the oven light-don't open the door! When it;s puffed and golden brown on the edges, it's done.

Top it and scarf it.

Enjoy!