Blueberries and More Blueberries

We went blueberry picking this past weekend.  What fun!  I am not a huge fan of blueberries, they are generally too tart for me, but the rest of the family loves them.  Picking them fresh and enjoying them is a whole different thing.  They were so sweet and delicious.  Helps that they are so much cheaper this way too.  We brought home 3 pounds and I wanted to put them to use before they went bad.


The three year-old request (multiple times) blueberry cake.  I found a great recipe in my Great Good Food cookbook that I had made previously and remembered it being delicious.  I even had a note next to it, 'Very good, not too sweet'.  I look for any reason to pull out this cookbook, I could read it for hours.  And sometimes do.  The recipes are organized by season, which I think should be standard among cookbooks.  I had to tweak the recipe since I did not have everything on hand, the recipe includes my tweaks, original ingredients in parens.

Blueberry Cake

2 T. wheat germ (cornmeal)

2 C. all-purpose flour

1 1/2 t. baking powder

1 1/2 t. baking soda

1/4 t. salt

1 1/2 C. sugar

1 t. cinnamon

1 t. ground clove

1/2 cup cranberry juice (port wine)

1/4 C. olive oil (canola oil)

1 egg

2 egg whites

2/3 C milk, plus 1 t. vinegar (buttermilk)

1 T. vanilla extract

3 C. blueberries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a small saucepan, reduce cranberry juice to ¼ C, cool.

In a large mixing bowl, combine all dry ingredients.

Add the cranberry juice and remaining ingredients, except the blueberries, into the dry mixture, one at a time stirring in each to combine.

Gently fold in blueberries.

Lightly grease a 7 x 11-inch glass baking pan.

Bake for 45 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.

Tastes best warm from the oven.

The nine year-old request a blueberry sauce.  I decide a jam would work.  In my hunt for an easy recipe I found this recipe one for Apricot, Blueberry and Basil Jam.  Sounds incredible.  But I wanted to make something easier, more of a refrigerator jam.  I didn't have time for canning and as a rule I don't make any recipes that call for a candy thermometer.  Too much concentration involved.  I came up with an alternative cheaters recipe instead.  I don't think it could be called jam, I mean it has Jell-o in it.  I am certain it is not near as good as their version, but will due in a pinch for me at least.  Do check out their site A Good Appetite, the recipes are amazing.

Blueberry, Apricot, Basil Spread

4 cups fresh blueberries

1 1/4 cups sugar

1 (3 ounce) package apricot flavored jello

1/4 cup chopped basil

In a large saucepan, smash blueberries with a potato masher and bring to boil.

Once boiling, add sugar and Jell-o, stir to combine.

Stir in basil.

Boil 4 minutes while stirring.

Pour into jars and refrigerate.

 The spread is great on toast and I am sure would be great heated on vanilla ice cream.  Only another cup or so of blueberries to use up now.  I think I will throw the rest in my salad.  We plan to go picking again on our vacation in August so we can make some blueberry pancakes.

Beach weekend with no water is most excellent!

We were lucky enough to get invited to a friend’s beach house for a long weekend. The weather for the weekend was looking iffy, so we headed directly to the beach once we arrived.  No small feat to get 3 adults and 11 kids onto a beach with lunch, chairs, towels, toys and more.  Once we got the headcount process down we were good to go and could almost relax ourselves. Backup arrived (two dads) in the early evening, the addition of two adults made a huge difference.  At any rate, we had a great day. The kids loved it! We did get rained on for a few minutes but we were rewarded with a rainbow.  We had to cut the short fun though on account of lightening. We made it back to the house before the storm started. We went to bed that night with thunder rumbling and woke up to more of the same.

The next morning news started trickling in about the rain in Chicago. As it turned out, our town got almost 8 inches of rain overnight. Reports of lots of flooded basements and power outages. The main highway that runs by us was closed due to flooding; the 'L' was closed with the tracks under water. Craziness! Our basement usually gets some water and I was a bit nervous about what we got especially with our neighbor reporting they had 2.5 feet in their basement. Ultimately I figured what could I do, might as well stay and enjoy the beach. And so I did!

Saturday was another beautiful beach day. Sunday was beautiful as well, though we opted for blueberry picking. I had never been before, it was really fun. The kids liked it and got lots of berries, 3 lbs to be exact. We were hoping to head to Mount Baldy, which I have not been to since I was a kid, but the lot was full. We had a nice drive instead. We ended the weekend with an epic burger from Redamaks. Weekend complete!

Taking a trip with three families, totaling 11 kids and 5 adults has the potential for disaster. But I have to say, it was smooth going. All the kids were so well behaved and got along so well. OK, well there were a few fights between siblings, my two being the leads on that. The adults were all well behaved too, and we actually managed to have some fun together since the kids were having so much fin together. Nice to have great, fun, friends that you can be with for multiple nights at a stretch without issue.  

Arriving home, our alley was full of neighbor’s carpets. Furniture, boxes, and other damage junk from basements. Not a good sign. I was beyond relieved to see virtually no water in our basement. What a relief! Hmm, maybe it’s because ‘us people’ made lunch for the churchgoers.

I may have been late to start my summer, this was the first time in my bathing suit enjoying any sun and water, it was worth the wait.  The kids and I both needed it.  Could have only been better if the husband was there, he is stuck in Georgia for two weeks.  I am so looking forward to a whole week at the beach in August!

Off to the Beach

I am off to soak up some vitamin D.  Let's hope the weather cooperates.  Though I could sit on the beach in any weather.  My first summer weekend of the summer.  I am so looking forward to it.

Summer Reading Continues

Now that I am all caught up on the available past seasons of Dexter I am flying through my summer reading list, even with the new additions.  I haven't gone through this many books in a long while.  I love when I stumble upon great reading, planning out my list certainly helped.

 

	The Yellow House By Patricia Falvey Completed! A story of a courageous woman during the The Troubles of Ireland interwoven with the troubles of her life. An impressive first novel. I highly recommend this well written engaging historical fiction book.
	The Help By Kathryn Stockett Almost Done!  I got several offers of copies and did get my hands on one.
	The Nine Rooms of Happiness Loving Yourself, Finding Your Purpose, and Getting Over  Life's Little Imperfections By Lucy Danziger and Catherine Birndorf Listening!  OK, I am kind of cheating on this one.  I had a credit at Audible.com for a free book.  I thought this a good choice for listening instead of reading.

I will likely need to add a few more to my list to make it through the summer, including a week at the beach.  Any recommendations?

Check it Out - Summer Food Project

One of my favorite podcasts, The Because Show, is taking part of something called the Summer Food Project 2010.

We are linking to other podcasts and other blogs, in the last week of July (or maybe the first week of August?) as we all record or post on a common theme: Summer Food.

Read more about the Summer Food Project here or here.  Sounds like fun to me!  I am going to participate so look for my post in a few weeks.   Send them a note if you want to participate too.

FACEBOOK - The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

T H E  G O O D

1. U N E X P E C T E D. A random hello from someone I haven't seen in awhile.
   
2. E X E R C I S E. Keeping my brain fit with Scrabble aka Lexulous.
3. K E E P I N G U P. Short bursts of communication beats no communication at all. Most weeks it is the only connection I have with family and friends.
   
4. K. I. S. S.  Does it get any easier than the Like link?  Sure it is easy to lose many hours delving into Facebook, but on the flip side you are also one quick click away from from saying "hey cool post thanks for sharing it".
   
5. H A P P I N E S S. At the core Facebook is stress free lighthearted fun. I laugh a lot, I learn some stuff, I communicate with people that I normally couldn't in the course of my day.  Life’s too short, have some fun!

T H E  B A D

1. M U N D A N E. The ritualistic morning updates regarding the need\want\love of morning coffee. We get it, you need\want\love coffee. Don't people bore themselves with the same morning status? For real, have you not caught onto the Starbucks trend or perhaps you have heard the 'America Runs on Dunkin' commercials? Um yea, coffee is the second most popular drink behind water. There is nothing unique or interesting about your need\want\love coffee. Particularly when you do it every morning.
   
2. B R O K E N  R E C O R D. Repetitiveness as a rule is bad. Especially when it is to the point that a person’s status update can be predicated.
   
3. O N E  U P P E R. Everyone is busy, but there is always that one person who has to prove to the world they are busier than anyone and everyone. They have the weight of the world on their shoulders and yet have time to time to tell you about on Facebook a few times throughout the day?  Honestly, you can't be THAT busy.
   
4. B A I T  A N D  S W I T C H. People that friend you as a friend and then stalk you as a telemarketer. Get a business page, keep it separate. You are not only losing customers you are losing friends.
   
5. A U D I B L E. Constantly heaving a heavy sigh.  Generally they are book ended in special characters.  The audible is generally a repeat offender of all of the above. 

T H E  U G L Y

A daily status resembling: Another day of selling widgets (BTW who needs em? email me!!!!) has me juggling a million items on my to-do list, never enough time, need coffee stat! **SIGH**.

I hate to end on a negative note but so goes the saying. 

What's Cooking

A busy weekend in and out of the kitchen...

We went to a block party and I made a broccoli salad and some fruit for the kids.  My daughter has a cookbook she loves and has been dying to make a fruit dip recipe from it; smashed mango, plain yogurt, and honey.

I pickled more radishes and summer squash since I got plenty of both in the this week's CSA bag.  No broken bottles and I had a fun surprise when I cut in a pepper to spice up the squash pickles.

My daughter had a few pals sleep over, she requested cheesecake.  Plain, no toppings.  The recipe turned out perfect despite the oven not actually being on the first hour of cooking.  The leftovers need to get out of this house, and soon!

Before we headed out for the day on Sunday I made some shrimp and cabbage salad for dinner.  Perfect for a hot evening. 

Shrimp and Cabbage Salad
6 servings

Salad:
1 pound frozen edamame
2 oranges (or can of mandarin oranges)
1 pound frozen fully cooked medium-size shrimp, thawed
1 medium-size head napa cabbage, trimmed and shredded (about 6 cups)
3 scallions, trimmed and thinly sliced

Dressing:
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1 tablespoon mandarin-style hoisin sauce
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons sesame oil
1 teaspoon reduced-sodium soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Directions
1. Salad: Heat a medium-size pot of water to boiling. Add edamame and cook as per package directions, about 5 minutes. Drain, cool and shell beans from pods (you will have about 1-1/4 cups).

2. With a sharp knife, cut peel and white pith from oranges. Following membranes, cut out orange sections and place in a small bowl. Squeeze any extra juice from membranes into bowl, then discard membranes.

3. In a large bowl, combine edamame, orange sections, shrimp, cabbage and scallions. Prepare Dressing: In small bowl, whisk together vinegar, hoisin, sugar, sesame oil, soy sauce and 1/4 teaspoon of the salt. While whisking, add oil in a thin stream. Add dressing to bowl; toss to combine. Season with remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt; serve.

Last but not least, I made a meal for friends with new born twins.  On the menu chicken, bacon, cheddar, sandwiches, chickpea salad, fruit and fruit dip.  Hope they like it all!

In between all that we went out for some delicious sushi, hit the Farmer's Market, had a ploughman's lunch on the front porch, enjoyed a block party, had a fun-filled day experiencing The Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Melrose Park for the first time.  Oh yea and hosted a few 9 year-old girls for a party and sleep over.  They had fun making jewelry, boy did that bring back memories of beading for hours.  back in high school my wrist was full of about 4" of beaded bracelets.

The block party was fun, more adult oriented since there are few kids on the block.  I won a bottle of Bushmill in the booze walk.  Think cake walk, with booze.  Though won nothing but wet feet in the balloon toss.  Always fun to attend other people's block parties that require minimal work on your part.  A fun time was had by all.

The Feast was such an interesting experience. The Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish has been celebrating this tradition since 1894. Being our first time we hardly understood or fully appreciate all the nuisances and traditions. We tried to keep up best we could! In a nutshell, it is a daylong procession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the final destination being the church. They collect donations along the way. As she passes certain intersections mass amount of fireworks are blown off. The fireworks are really indescribable.

Though this video of the intersection we were near gives you a good idea of what it was like. It is load and I could not believe the flames that could be seen over the rooftops. Look forward to checking this out in future years.

A great summer weekend, but at his pace July will be a blur too.



Submitted to Life as Mom Ultimate Recipe Swap

Homegrown Smile

Our friends shared some of their homegrown melrose peppers with us.  I cut into one of them to spice up the summer squash pickles and was greeted with a smiley face.

Family Time In Demand

We canceled a few plans Saturday for some much needed family time.  Family time has been in short supply this summer and things are only getting busier.  We headed to the Oak Park Farmer's Market for the first time this year.  The donuts were worth the wait in the long line (best in Chicago), the music was great (the kids like the guy playing the spoons), and they had just about everything I needed to fill in the gaps from the CSA bag.  We picked up fixings for a Ploughman's lunch.  It was a beautiful day to enjoy a relaxed meal on the front porch. 

 Our plan was to play a new Lego board game my daughter got for her birthday, we still haven't even opened it.  However, I went to get everyone and family time turned into a little quiet time to myself instead.  At any rate it was time well spent and worth missing out on our other plans.

A Budding Artist

The three year-old was pretty bummed last night that his big brother was back and school "and never coming back".  Time is a difficult concept when you are three.  I suggested that later this weekend he could draw him a picture and mail it to him.

He stayed up late and worked on this in bed.  It is his big brother holding a cup and a toothbrush.  I am little surprised it was not a picture of him eating a bowl of cereal, he has been asking why he east so much cereal since he left.

The boy's artistic talent are obvious, which outweighs the fact he does not know the top from the bottom of the Doodle Pro.