The Leech

Having kids always reminds me of the year I asked for a "Puppy Surprise" for Christmas. I was a bit too old and a bit too tomboyish to be asking for the pink plush puppy with the velcro tummy that held a surprise amount of puppies inside. But the whole idea of not knowing whether you would get boys or girls or 2 or 3 or 6 held some kind of draw for me.

Getting pregnant is kind of the same thing. You never know what you're gonna get. A boy? A girl? One of each? And then after they're born its an assortment of other surprises: what will they look like? will they have blue eyes or brown eyes? what is their personality type?

I keep telling Dave that Caiden is like a "Puppy Surprise." Tonight she was doing all sorts of weird tricks with her tongue: taco tongue, scrunching it up into a weird wavy contortion, twisting it around. And I just kept thinking, "Where did I get this little tiny cute girl who can fold up her tongue in such weird ways?"

When Elliott was little, he always wanted to get down and be moving and exploring. Caiden, on the other hand, is like a little leech. And lately, her leeching tendencies have gone off the charts. Suddenly she sucks herself to you whenever someone is around, if someone new walks into the room, even if its only Daddy. If someone she doesn't know is there she will hide her face and freak out if she can't be touching Mommy or Daddy. At home, if one of us won't hold her, she'll dissolve into tears and and crumple up into a little ball and not look at us. If we tell her not to do something, she'll dissolve into tears, scrunch up her face and hide her eyes in her little tiny hands and nothing can pry them off. "Hold chu?" and "Uppy!" have become her two favorite words and tears have become her favorite liquid. And really, any one who knows me realizes that I have no one but myself to blame. I've cried buckets and buckets worth of tears in my day and falling on the floor in a fit of tears was my specialty growing up. Hiding my face when I'm upset is a trademark. Can these things be genetic?

I still love you, little pink puppy. Best surprise ever!

Photo credit: David Escalante. Check out David's new Analog Digital photo blog, updated daily

Urban Outing

Elliott has a llama on his head, his shirt is inside out, Caiden drew on her rainboots with a Sharpie, and its doubtful if either one of them have on matching socks... I'm pretty sure these minor details won't leave permanent emotional scars.  Happy weekend!

Kitchen Mishap

Usually on crynfiction, you might find my victories, a clever anecdote (actually, I just like saying that word), cute stories, successful recipes, etc., ect., mostly good things, so I thought I ought to throw a few of my disasters and mishaps into the mix just to keep things fresh and to insure that we're all on the same page about the fact that I am not in any way, nor is my life in any way, nor are my skills in any way perfect.  Just in case.  Plus, I have a funny story to tell.

This isn't the funny story... This is just a picture of Caiden eating blue sprinkles.  I added it for visual interest.  Absolutely no bearing on the conversation at hand...

So, you know I really like to bake, yes?  Well, the other day I thought I would make some blueberry muffins for the kids, but some muffins that were kind of "healthy" and not overly sugary and "empty."  Now, when I want advice on a healthy version of a baked good, I usually visit Heidi's blog, 101 Cookbooks.  She has great recipes and a lot of experience with that sort of thing.  So I thought I would riff off of her Maple Huckleberry Coffee Cake Recipe... except I didn't have huckleberries, or maple syrup, or fine grain sea salt, or rosemary, or buttermilk, or enough whole wheat pastry flour, or (and I didn't know this at the time) butter, or lemon zest!  I know what you are thinking.  You're thinking its already a disaster and why didn't I know this from the start.  Well, sassyfrass, I thought I knew what I was doing, but apparently I did not.  I definitely did not!  I most likely should have used the handy dandy book, Ratio, to look up the ratio for muffins, and then play around with it that way, but I was too lazy and a little bit of a smarty pants. (That is a great...dare I say, revolutionary book for the home cook, by the way)

Not that you would ever need a recipe for disaster, but this is what I did with Heidi's wonderful recipe... Just in case you want to know.  I substituted whole wheat flour for part of the pastry flour, and yogurt instead of the butter in the batter, yogurt instead of buttermilk and honey instead of maple syrup, omitted the zest, thyme instead of thyme and rosemary (which didn't seem like a good idea even if I had the ingredients), regular salt instead of sea salt, and finally, blueberries in lieu of huckleberries. And I made it into muffins instead of a loaf/cake.  This all seemed like it would work fine, at the time... But then to top it all off, when I went to make the crumble part, I found that I didn't have any butter for that so I threw in a few tablespoons of peanut butter.  I know!  Disgusting.  Trust me, it smelled even worse that it sounds. 

The muffins baked and came out tasting worse than they smelled.  And they weren't even just disgusting, but adding insult upon injury, they almost tasted... tasted... dare I tell you?  They almost tasted rancid.  I'm not kidding, I threw the entire batch into the garbage.

This was a new kitchen low.  But, thankfully, it wasn't too devastating.  Mostly, it was just funny how completely terrible they turned out.  The level of awfulness was so high, that it could only be funny.  And I immediately thought of you.  I knew I had to tell you. I just wish you could have experienced how truly awful and inedible these babies were. I am not being modest here.

Now, after shattering any ideas you may have previously had of "Corynne, kitchen goddess," I feel like I should leave you with something good to think about.

Best cookie recipe of ALL TIME.  The trick seems to be a number of things, but a huge factor being to make the dough at least 24 hours in advance to allow all the ingredients to really meld together.  I'm not kidding.  This recipe is killer.  I'm usually impatient, so I'll bake a few the first night and then put the rest in the fridge for a day or two and wait for the real goodness to emerge.

Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe Ever

Good luck with the rest of your week!  Only two more days...

P.S.  Apparently you have to sign up at nytimes.com to view the recipe.  Its free, but I know its a hassle.  Trust me, though, this recipe is worth it.  Happy baking!

Elliott

Gasp!  There's something I forgot to tell you!  Elliott had a birthday and turned five in January!

Seems like as soon as this happened, he matured overnight.  He's started getting really interested in drawing and building with little tiny legos.  All of a sudden, he is content to entertain himself with either of these two activities for long periods of time.  Shocking!

I asked him what it felt like to be five and this was his reply:

"...Fun. Because you get to do things you couldn't do, like dangerous things. And fun things that you like to do."

Although he protests getting bigger because he doesn't want to outgrow his Peter Pan costume, I think five fits him just right.

The other day, as I was buckling him into his carseat, he looked at me and said, "Mom, you have purple on your eyes."

I was wearing some pink hued eyeshadow that day and hadn't really been sure about how I liked it, so I said, "Oh, yeah, I have eyeshadow on... Does it look weird?"

He gasped, "NO, Mom!  I don't think you're weird! I love you."

So cute.  So sweet.  That's my boy...  He's sensitive, but he's got a wild side, too...  So glad you came into my life five years ago, sweet boy.

Let me leave you with this little mantra that one of Elliott's little 2 year old buddies likes to chant about him, "Elli-utt-tut. Toot, toot! Elli-utt.tut. toot, toot!..."

Beans!

I've had my fair share of success with pinto beans. After all, I had this 25 pound bag from Costco taunting me from my cupboard, which we've finally just polished off.

So, I've definitely learned a few things along the way. Pound by pound, pot by pot. I love beans! In my opinion, pinto beans can be pretty bland on their own, so what I've learned to to do is to saute some chopped onions in a little bit of bacon grease and add them to the cooking water--works wonders.

Now that those 25 pounds of pinto beans are out of the way, I feel freed up to try other things. I had never cooked my own black beans before and have been really surprised by the outcome. I was amazed at how tasty they are all on their own. Are you interested? Probably not, but I will tell you my secret black bean recipe just in case.

2 cups of dried black beans (Rinsed, picked over, and soaked overnight. Or else you could do the quick soak method***.)
4 cups of water
5 cloves of garlic

Put the beans, water, and whole garlic cloves into your crockpot on high for 4-6 hours or until tender. Add salt (about a tablespoon). Eat and enjoy! So simple, yet so delicious!

These are great as a vegetable dip, too. Just mash and voila!



***Quick soak method: Add beans, and more than enough water to cover them, to a pot. Bring to a boil. Let boil for 2 minutes. Take off heat and place lid on pot. Let sit with lid on for one hour. Drain and rinse beans. Beans are now ready to cook.

Addendum: You could also do this on the low setting for 8 hours, but I never seem to get to it in time. Alternately you could simmer them on the stove top partially covered for a few hours. And of course you can do more than 2 cups of beans. Beans to water ratio should always be 1:2. So, 3 cups of beans would mean 6 cups of water, etc., etc.

Beans, beans, the magical fruit; the more you eat, the better you poop. (That's what we're hoping, for Caiden's sake, anyway.)