I wanted some fresh buns to add to dinner the other night and I was out of almost everything in my house – including milk (no, boob milk just wouldn’t have worked…)

But trust me, these are simple, awesome and look beautiful if you rub a little egg wash over the buns before you pop them in the oven…

FRENCH ROLLS

1 1/2 cups warm water
1 tablespoon active dry yeast
2 tablespoons white sugar
2 tablespoons  oil
1 teaspoon salt
4 cups  flour

In a large bowl, stir together warm water, yeast, and sugar, and let it get foamy about about 10 minutes.

Add the oil, salt, and 2 cups flour and mix.

Stir in the remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time, until the dough has pulled away from the sides of the bowl.

Turn out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead until smooth and elastic.

Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl, and turn to coat and let it rise 1 hr.

Punch the dough down and separate into about 16 balls.

Place on lightly greased baking sheets at least 2 inches apart, and let rise again 40 mins.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Brush with an egg wash (one egg beat until no longer thick, you can add a titch of water to thin it out).

Bake for 18 to 20 minutes.

*Note to Self
I wonder if I could stuff these with zucchini….

I’m sort of a kid’s book snob.

I take the girls about once to twice a month to the library load up on about 60 books and take them home awaiting adventure. Some are new, some I read as a child, others are magical storied with excellent illustrations… and a lot of them are really bad.

Not only are they poorly written, but my one year that currently has green Sharpie strewn all over her face could have done a better job illustrating it.

Yes, not only am I a book nerd, I am a children’s book critique – seriously, make a rhyme an actually RHYME, “like rhymes’ are still not rhymes if they don’t sound like the word your trying to rhyme with…

Now its a punishment I endure because not only do my children enjoy good books, but when you find a gem it becomes that more special, like renting a movie you never heard of but liked the cover and it turns out to be a great movie…

And yes mom, I know what your thinking, I should just write my own if  I’m not satisfied with what is out there…

One day…

When the kids are not longer screaming when I’m on the phone, smearing lipstick on the walls when I’m in the bathroom, or pulling the keys off my keyboard…

I digress.

About a year back I remember picking up a book by Oliver Jeffers when Olivia was not in her pirate/dinosaur phase but during her penguin stage.

(Side note- I wish library’s would keep children’s books together by similar themes – for example all the FICTION stories relating to dinosaurs would be in one section, all the stories about cats in another and so on.

It would save me at least an hour of searching through each book by the author’s last name, flipping through the pages looking for a dinosaur…

Just saying.

I digress, again.

The penguin stage.

So as the diligent mother I am, I remember painstakingly pulling out hundreds of titles looking for any story about a penguin and I came across Lost and Found. It is a cleaver, and simple story about a penguin who appears one morning, on a boys doorstep and the adventure they ensue to find it’s home.

I swear I only remember it having 20 sentences throughout the entire book, but the images are lovely, and it’s just one of those stories and stuck with me – probably more so than Olivia.

Long story short, they made it in to a lovely little movie… here is the trailer

*Note to Self
Maybe they will make my book in to a animated movie…

Omg, I know.

I couldn’t even make an appearance on Wednesday… and it was Recipe Day.

*Note to Self
August is proving VERY busy…

September I’ll be back at I a promise – at least I’ll have one kid in school and the crazy one… will be trapping in a car seat while mommy sips a latte and steals wifi…

BLUEBERRY ZUCCHINI BREAD

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2 1/4 cups white sugar
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups grated zucchini
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 pint blueberries

Grease and flour two 8 x 4 inch pans and preheat oven to 325 F

Sift flour, salt, baking powder, soda, and cinnamon together in a bowl.
Beat eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar together in a large bowl. Add sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture, and beat well.

Stir in zucchini and nuts until well combined

Add nuts and blueberries

Pour batter into prepared pans

Bake for 1 hour to 1 hour and a ½ – once tester inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool in pan on rack for 20 minutes.

Remove bread from pan, and cool.

I know it been a week! The summer is hard what can I say. I think when you get this far into August and the kids are really starting to get stir crazy and your looking for anything to do to keep them occupied, finding a few minutes to blog is very daunting…

As I just typed that, I turned around to take a knife away from Audrey.

Clearly I don’t even have a minute.

This is the only meal that’s been keeping me sane. I know it’s a casserole, but it’s so comforty. (Yes, I decided that was a word)

Plus it looks like dog food when its cooked, but don’t let that stop you – trust me!

It’s sooo good…

SPAGHETTI CASSEROLE

12 ounces spaghetti
1 cup chopped onions
1 chopped red bell pepper
1 pound lean ground beef
1 (28 ounce) can stewed tomatoes
1 cup fresh mushrooms chopped
1 tablespoon dried Italian Seasoning
1 tablespoon beef stock powder
1 teaspoon of salt (to taste)
2 cups shredded mild Cheddar cheese
1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add spaghetti, and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, or until al dente. Drain, and set aside.

In a large skillet over medium-high heat, saute the onions, green peppers and ground beef. Once beef is brown and onions and peppers softened.

Add the tomatoes, mushrooms, Italian seasoning and salt.

Simmer uncovered for 10 minutes. – Feel free to adjust the beef seasonings to your taste – it is not supposed to be “saucy”.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and grease a 9×13 inch casserole dish.

Place half of the cooked spaghetti into the prepared dish. Top with half of the meat mixture. Sprinkle with 1 cup of the mild Cheddar cheese.

Repeat.

In a medium bowl, mix together cream of mushroom soup and water until smooth; pour over casserole. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.
Bake in oven for 30 to 35 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

*Note to Self
Why is it when you really need to write something down the only pens you have in the house are Crayola markers?

Here’s something a little different for breakfast which I just made for the first time today – thanks to a friend who mentioned it and I made my own slight variation.

Now I don’t recommend it for the kids every morning but it’s a nice treat every once in awhile.

BANANA CHOCOLATE CHIP OATMEAL

2/3 quick oats
1 1/3 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 banana roughly mashed
1-2 tsps Mini dark chocolate chips
A pinch of salt

In a heavy pot mix salt, oats and milk.

Heat to a light boil, stirring and simmer 3-5 minutes

When thick add mashed banana, stir and let rest 5 minutes

Sprinkle with chocolate chips (they get a titch melty – yum)

Serve

*Note to Self
Give the children plain oatmeal and save to chocolate for yourself, I  – I mean YOU – deserve it!

So the Hubby and I (okay, the Hubby, MY parents…and I…watching the children) decided to finally tackle the hedges we have been staring at for over three years.

Over the years, they have eaten up at least a hundred feet of backyard space. Though the privacy is nice, maintaining them, is not.

Unfortunatly, what I didn’t plan for were the consequences of the removal project.

Issue 1 – The Squirrel is back, and he brought 10 of his friends to clean out my walnut tree.

The walnut tree was always well hidden amongst the hedge; so much so most people thought it lived in the forest right adjacent to our house.

It does not.

Upon cutting down the hedges, Squirrely and friends now spend hours eating nuts, and aggravating the dog.

Olivia is naming them.

They are NOT our friends.

Issue 2 – I need to clean the remaining mess.

With the removal of the hedges, not only did we gain massive amounts of yard space, but we also gained 30 years of hedge debris. Which is fine, I don’t mind a work out now and then, but what I do mind is ALL the walnut bits now scattered all over the yard.

During one of my lawn mowing expeditions – which I admit I am a bit obsessive about- the poor children had to wear helmets for fear of walnut shrapnel.

Olivia’s helmet is pink.

Walnuts are NOT our friends

Issue 3 – Things that once lived, I assume, in the hedge are now in MY house.

Over the past few weeks while the hedge mess was occurring, I kept our back door open over the evening. The first reason was because it was so hot out. The second was for laziness.

I hate getting up and letting the dogs out to pee at 3 am. Plus, one dog ALWAYS has to go in the middle of the night and the other one just stares at you when you tell her to go. Needless to say I leave her behind, let the other one out, get back into bed and 30 secs later… guess who has to go?

I know she waits until I get all tucked in… So I leave the door open, that way they can also let themselves back in.

I digress,

So the other night I had company coming over at 3pm (Yes, I know I have shifted a titch from the course of this post but bare with me on this one) I made a lovely dinner (Minestrone soup, fresh with veggies from my garden, grilled Cajun chicken, homemade fettuccine with Alfredo sauce and fresh jubilee corn from the corn drive thru- it’s Abbotsford, yes, we have a corn drive thru).

So upon completing my masterpiece, I opened up my cutlery drawer to set the table (it was 2:45pm) and discovered,

MOUSE SHIT.

Yes, I just yelled that.

15 minutes before guests arrived I not only had a bleach nightmare, but an uninvited guest already over for dinner.

This was beyond not cool. (And for the record I had made dinner without utensils from that drawer – you were thinking it…)

So the Hubby and I spent the rest of the evening sharing the odd, wide-eye ‘DUDE WE HAVE A MOUSE!!! DON”T SAY ANYTHING, BUT DUUUDE –THERE IS A MOUSE IN HERE!!!” glance.

Company gone, exhaling, I ripped through the remaining cupboards under the sink, looking for either evidence of the mouse, or a little door that read ‘The mouse lives here’.

Alas there was no door, but a rather large gap around the hot and cold water pipes. The only place he could go from there was inside the cutlery drawer attached to those cupboards, or to the hot water tank. So, in all my wisdom I deduced that the mouse must have come into the house through the back door last night when I had kept it open, made himself comfortable in the laundry room (which is where that door leads) followed one of the tank lines, found cutlery and decided to leave…

It sounded plausible.

The following morning, while checking the counter, in the cutlery drawer, and under the sink, I saw nothing.

I figured we were in the clear.

I let the dogs out that morning – who, by the way, are the WORST mouse hunters in the world. Inhaled the fresh, mouseless, morning air and felt rather pleased with myself and went over to start the morning laundry.

The laundry basket was… FULL OF MOUSE SHIT.

So I did what any self respecting person in a crisis would do…

I googled.

NEVER GOOGLE.

Do you know mice can have over 100 babies in a year!

It never crossed my mind that the mouse would have invited a friend. What if she was already pregnant? That could be 10 new mice, making 12 mice…

I live in a very small house.

Cleansing breath…

I resolved that I cannot suspect how many mice were actually in here. And I was not going to start assigning poo.

And so began:

OPERATION BLEACH

So the better part of Monday, okay ALL DAY Monday was spent pulling out appliances, cupboards, and drawers bleaching, looking for poo.

Funny, I think I spend every day dealing with someone’s poo…

And found nothing.

(By the way, the children spent the majority of the day fighting, while I slaved on my hands and knees scrubbing…Did I mention I bought the new H20 Mop Deluxe with the hand steamer, I enjoy it immensely, but make sure you get the accessories…)

I next tackled the laundry room.

(The children kept fighting…)

And all I found were long lost socks, and two little poos beside the hot water tank. (I started to suspect my initial theory was accurate and the little guy was somewhere in or around the tank pipes)

A couple sticky traps and a night later, the Hubby accomplished his part of Mission Mouse.

Olivia still believes Mickey lives at Disneyland.

Mice are NOT our friends.

*Note to Self
Well, at least now I have a REALLY clean house…

Every once in a while I hide out in the bathroom from my children.

Yes, we all need a moment of piece and quiet and for me the bathroom is it.

It has a lock.

On an even rarer occasion I hide out in the bathroom from a really awful diaper.

And it’s not because I expect my little one to change herself, I just know I can wait out her father.

On the occasional Sunday when the Hubby is home and I hear my Lil’ A working on a “project” (knowing full well yesterday was corn on the cob night and she hadn’t pooped in two days) I  take the opportunity to grab the magazine I bought two months ago which I still had yet to read, and hide.

It only took half an hour.

Granted, I had to put up with the sound of groaning disgust declaring that THIS was (of course)the worst diaper of all time…

Pa-lease – do you not know how many diapers I have changed! Don’t talk to me about all time grossness!

And then there would be the occasional moment of silence when I could hear the hubby listening, waiting to see if I would come bail him out.

Fat chance.

So I sat there, pants on, covering my face laughing hysterically waiting for the pitter patter of a cleaned bum kid to find me.

*Note to Self
This never works to get the dishwasher unloaded.

*PS
The Hubby also felt it was necessary to find me in the bathroom, with the dirty diaper in tow, as so I could feel its sheer weight in my hands…

Yes, dear… I’m VERY impressed…Heavest diaper ever…My hero.

I know, I know, I’ve been on sabbatical.

It’s the summer, and it’s hard to stay on top of things when it’s beautiful outside, and old friend has come into town from very far away for a small amount of time and, well, you start a major house cleaning project that was suppose to take the better part of a weekend and feels like a never ending project…

Oh and did I mention I had two kids and a new one on the way that’s making me fat.

See I AM a busy person!

Oh and yes, I posted my bookclub post, click the link above or here, and yes, it is also Wednesday and I have a lovely new recipe all ready to go…

PERFECT EVERYTIME ROAST CHICKEN

You can adjust the seasoning to suit your taste – the secret is in the cooking process.

1 whole chicken
1tablespoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon ground sage
Boiling water

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F

Rinse chicken thoroughly inside and out under cold running water and leave in your sink breast side up.

In a kettle boil water and once boiled, pour the boiling water over top of chicken to shrink the skin.

Put chicken into a small baking pan, on top of a rack (if you have one) and rub with olive oil. Mix the salt, pepper, oregano, basil, paprika and sage together and sprinkle over chicken

Roast the chicken in the preheated oven for 20 minutes

Lower the oven to 400 degrees F and continue roasting 40 minutes

Let cool 10 to 15 minutes and serve.

*Note to Self
My lastest cleaning project, also involved a new dresser…apparently when Ikea illustrates instructions they don’t take into consideration a three year old or a styrofoam destroying one year old…



Also, I learned a valuable lesson about measuring… ALWAYS take into consideration baseboards… You can loose almost two inches of space that way. Needless to say, I had to completly change two rooms around because of that little oops.

I think I’m going through a weird pregnant seafood phase.

I had the girlies out for 6lbs of mussels last night, which were wonderful, and I have fresh tiger prawns and salmon still looking at me in the fridge.

Perhaps tonight will be a light…

MAPLE SALMON

1/4 cup maple syrup
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp minced fresh ginger
1/4 teaspoon garlic salt
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 pound salmon

In a small bowl, mix the maple syrup, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, garlic salt, and pepper.

Place salmon in a shallow glass baking dish, and coat with the maple syrup mixture. Cover the dish, and marinate salmon in the refrigerator 30 minutes, turning once.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).

Place the baking dish in the preheated oven, and bake salmon uncovered 20 minutes, or until easily flaked with a fork.

*Note to Self
I wonder how this will pair with Reese Peanut Butter Cups…?

Both my little children have completely different personalities and I have started to notice that Audrey, who is generally my little comedian, has developed a bit of an evil streak at 20 months.

Case in point, I am currently typing on a laptop without the “J”, “F1”, “.” or “?” keys. Instead I have little white nubs.

NUBS!

Fortunately I have managed to painstakingly reattach the other 9 letters she pulled off while I had innocently ran outside to grab something from my car.

I think I was gone for about 20 seconds.

Imagine had been outside for a full minute.

I’m hoping this will just be a phase that will pass through briefly, so she can catch up to her sister’s current “Why?” stage.

Because that’s an awesome one…

It seems every Olivia conversation now revolves around the word ‘why’ and her need to understand something so intensely that she insists on asking ‘why’ after EVERYTHING.

EVERYTHING.

(Good morning Olivia, would you like cereal?

Why?

Because, it’s an important part of your morning.

Why?

Because it starts your brain.

Why?

Because without your brain starting, you can’t think.

Why?

Because I said so.)

Yes, every conversation is beginning to end this way.

Ironically enough, as I just sat down for 5 minutes to type this post, I just turned around to see, the littlest one drawing on the wall…

Sometimes I wonder if this mommy will every have five minutes without disaster striking…

Did I also mention Audrey is doing a screaming thing? Try spending two hours at the Apple Store with a screaming kid.

It’s fun!

I also notice a lady who was in there just to use a computer (I mean seriously…Do you really need to be there?)  opted to put ear plugs in.

Who does that?

*Note to Self
Awesome… X-large double double, now all over the kitchen floor… thanks Audrey…was that 5 minutes?