If you know my family at all, you know that my children eat just about anything. They are a blessing in the picky eating department since they really aren't picky. I have one who dosen't like "fishy fish"(but loves salmon croquettes), another who dosen't like raw carrots,(but love them cooked) , one who dosen't like mashed or baked potatoes (but loves french fries or hash browns) and that's all. Oh, and none of them like cheap American chocolate, highly processed foods or microwaved anything!
Now with that list, you can imagine that our diet consists of a lot of homemade food. So, for a dinner surprise tonight, we had a thrown together meal of Polish Kielbasa, Thai rice, garlic butter sauteed-california blend vegetables, sauerkraut and pickled beets. Hmmm, sounds like a refrigerator clean out meal to me.
Whilst I sauteed the sausages, the girls each plated a side dish. I heard the rants and raves of one daughter saying how much she loved beets and that they were "Natures Candy"! The two youngest ones hadn't really had them before so they were invited to have a preview bite. The youngest slowly chewed hers and as she swallowed her last bite, you could hear the sounds of delight as she asked for another bite, Then another bite and also ANOTHER! She was sent to help set the table in an effort to save some beets for the rest of us.
We finally sat down for dinner and dished out the meal. The youngest quickly devoured her sausage and beets, promptly asking for more. We obliged, saying how much she was eating lately and if this was a growth spurt. Everyone had another round of dinner including another serving of the beloved beets. Us older folks knew we shouldn't push the limits of food intake, so we surveyed the leftovers in hopes that there would be some to pack in daddy's lunch for the next day. There wasn't much left but a half dozen coin sized slices of sausages and after fishing through the beet juice, only one slice of beet left.
As you can imagine, the little one asked for it and another round of sausages to accompany it down. She should have been full and stuffed by then, but we let her have 3 sausages and the last beet. She gulped that down at about the same time when the nearly teen asked for a couple of sausages to help "clear the table". Whatever girl! Here, we shall make Daddy something else for lunch. Effectively with that, everything was gone and there were no leftovers, but the little one persisted. She had to have some more (could this have been a competition?). We explained that it was all gone and she just had to look forward to thee next meal with beets. She kindly grasped the beet dish and used her fork to sift through the red murky liquid..... She stirred for a few moments and intently looking into the dish, started to stab and drag something to the side of the bowl.. What could it be? Three of us already checked fro stragglers and there were none, but she dragged two more beets up the side and with help, flopped them onto her plate. She was so happy! She stuck her fork back into the sausage dish and fished out two more sausages also! What was this? There was nothing left in those dishes but the child managed to get exactly what she wanted. It was nothing short of a miracle for which she was truly thankful for. After that, she put her plate away and ran off to prepare for our after dinner walk.
Have you had things like this happen to you??? Even the little things count.......
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Friday, July 12, 2013
Night of the Neckbones!
It was an untypical night. We were feeling a little need to be in touch with our southern roots. My oldest was inspired by a smothered pork chop recipe and really wanted something different for dinner. There were various meat products in the freezer that needed to be eaten since the freezer burn clock was ticking........
Voila! Neckbones!
For some strange reason, there seemed to be several packages of them in the back of the freezer and I only used the smoked ones when making cabbage or greens, so how did we end up with so many packages anyway? Errrrr, whatever. Let's do something with them! Smothered porkchops, neckbones, smorkchops, smeckbones, smothered neckbones! (Did you see the evolution in that?) So somewhere, someone had made them and it was up to Google to help us find a recipe.
We were directed to Iheartcooking.com where the grainy video appeared to make the upcoming dish look delicious! (I also viewed the Ghetto Cooking Show version of this dish and was highly distracted by the strange blouse/bra strap and lecture about Whitney Houston's unfortunate death.)
Needless to say, my oldest had her heart set on this dish and it looked like we needed another package to make sure the teenagers had enough to make their meal. A run to Wal-Mart- here we go....
Now wash the bones, season them and put them in the oven. Make gravy, pour over bones and bake some more. Sounded easy and they were looking great!.
Side dishes included rice, roasted brussel sprouts and a cucumber salad.
Only the oldest, 5yr old and I knew what we were serving up for dinner, so when the others sat down at the table to eat, they had a big surprise. A lovely dish full of browned bones and gravy! My son had an uplifting eyebrow moment and plowed forth, piling some on his plate and speculating how to best partake of the road ahead.
The two youngest had to have the meat scraped and pulled of of their bones so as not to provoke choking. (We actually like them, you know!)
The 11 yr old had the biggest smile since this was a hands-on meal and she is all about getting her hands messy.
Mr. didn't say much for a few minutes because he was surveying what to do next. He placed some on his plate and dug in too. After about 4 minutes, there were questions of " Where is the meat on this?, I got a bone!, and "When is the dinner coming???" There was lots of laughter and passing around of napkins and choking on over salted brussel sprouts. Baby Dear wanted more meat and with a shuffling of hands and rattling of bones, someone produced a tablespoon of meat to top her rice.
Mr. broke the silence with, "Bacon brings vegetarians back to meat, neckbones drive people away from it!". The son says, "Is this what happens when Dracula is the butcher?"
By the time we finished eating them, we figured we had burned more calories than we ate! Too much work for so little meat. "If we wanted to trick folks into having a near vegetarian meal then you should have said something!"
We had a good laugh and had to eat something else to make up for the deficit!
Voila! Neckbones!
For some strange reason, there seemed to be several packages of them in the back of the freezer and I only used the smoked ones when making cabbage or greens, so how did we end up with so many packages anyway? Errrrr, whatever. Let's do something with them! Smothered porkchops, neckbones, smorkchops, smeckbones, smothered neckbones! (Did you see the evolution in that?) So somewhere, someone had made them and it was up to Google to help us find a recipe.
We were directed to Iheartcooking.com where the grainy video appeared to make the upcoming dish look delicious! (I also viewed the Ghetto Cooking Show version of this dish and was highly distracted by the strange blouse/bra strap and lecture about Whitney Houston's unfortunate death.)
Needless to say, my oldest had her heart set on this dish and it looked like we needed another package to make sure the teenagers had enough to make their meal. A run to Wal-Mart- here we go....
Now wash the bones, season them and put them in the oven. Make gravy, pour over bones and bake some more. Sounded easy and they were looking great!.
Side dishes included rice, roasted brussel sprouts and a cucumber salad.
Only the oldest, 5yr old and I knew what we were serving up for dinner, so when the others sat down at the table to eat, they had a big surprise. A lovely dish full of browned bones and gravy! My son had an uplifting eyebrow moment and plowed forth, piling some on his plate and speculating how to best partake of the road ahead.
The two youngest had to have the meat scraped and pulled of of their bones so as not to provoke choking. (We actually like them, you know!)
The 11 yr old had the biggest smile since this was a hands-on meal and she is all about getting her hands messy.
Mr. didn't say much for a few minutes because he was surveying what to do next. He placed some on his plate and dug in too. After about 4 minutes, there were questions of " Where is the meat on this?, I got a bone!, and "When is the dinner coming???" There was lots of laughter and passing around of napkins and choking on over salted brussel sprouts. Baby Dear wanted more meat and with a shuffling of hands and rattling of bones, someone produced a tablespoon of meat to top her rice.
 |
| Where's the meat??? |
Mr. broke the silence with, "Bacon brings vegetarians back to meat, neckbones drive people away from it!". The son says, "Is this what happens when Dracula is the butcher?"
By the time we finished eating them, we figured we had burned more calories than we ate! Too much work for so little meat. "If we wanted to trick folks into having a near vegetarian meal then you should have said something!"
We had a good laugh and had to eat something else to make up for the deficit!
 |
| "The Tower of Bones"as interpreted by Wyn |
Friday, July 5, 2013
Not just abandonment- a touch of neglect......
This was originally written in February.........
I should be and am ashamed of myself for not blogging. I gave my time and moments of my of life to letting people have a piece of my mind on this blog and apparently I have had no time to share my thoughts with anyone.
I guess I couldn't come to grips that moving back to the states would somehow mess up my rhythm of checking my email, facebook and blogging between the hours of the first shift of children going to school and the second shift of children waking up.
I had a great and cushy life before Mr's retirement and now it seems as if the world is spinning on overdrive for me. I have so many things going on besides looking for a house and working at a lovely little Montessori school. I didn't plan on working until we settled in a home but an offer came up that I couldn't refuse. I had expected to be done with my Montessori certification, but between family illnesses and deaths, I couldn't focus and get anything done.
I have gained a significant amount of weight and seem to find food comforting, so there is a vicious cycle to that saga. Never mind that!
God has plans for us and somehow things work out to his glory even though we stand here with our mouths wide open and looking as if we were knocked off of our feet by a sudden gust of freezing wind.
Things will fall together eventually..... Patience!
Ciao,
Misty
I should be and am ashamed of myself for not blogging. I gave my time and moments of my of life to letting people have a piece of my mind on this blog and apparently I have had no time to share my thoughts with anyone.
I guess I couldn't come to grips that moving back to the states would somehow mess up my rhythm of checking my email, facebook and blogging between the hours of the first shift of children going to school and the second shift of children waking up.
I had a great and cushy life before Mr's retirement and now it seems as if the world is spinning on overdrive for me. I have so many things going on besides looking for a house and working at a lovely little Montessori school. I didn't plan on working until we settled in a home but an offer came up that I couldn't refuse. I had expected to be done with my Montessori certification, but between family illnesses and deaths, I couldn't focus and get anything done.
I have gained a significant amount of weight and seem to find food comforting, so there is a vicious cycle to that saga. Never mind that!
God has plans for us and somehow things work out to his glory even though we stand here with our mouths wide open and looking as if we were knocked off of our feet by a sudden gust of freezing wind.
Things will fall together eventually..... Patience!
Ciao,
Misty
Been locked out lately......
Dearest folks,
I have been trying my best to get back in the blogging seat and it has not been easy. Nope, not one bit easy one you have figured out why your blog was deleted from the blogger account and still it is online and you can't break in so you can fix the problem!
Do I hear a resounding "Technology stinks sometimes!" So, since May (off and on), I have been periodically trying to fix this problem and write again to my hearts content, but "NO" says technology! And off to some other project I go.
And now, here we are again-together!
Celebrate with me!
Milk and cookies for all!
Ciao,
Misty
I have been trying my best to get back in the blogging seat and it has not been easy. Nope, not one bit easy one you have figured out why your blog was deleted from the blogger account and still it is online and you can't break in so you can fix the problem!
Do I hear a resounding "Technology stinks sometimes!" So, since May (off and on), I have been periodically trying to fix this problem and write again to my hearts content, but "NO" says technology! And off to some other project I go.
And now, here we are again-together!
Celebrate with me!
Milk and cookies for all!
Ciao,
Misty
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