Delma Turns Four

Oh, Delly. My girl, you are 4 years old today. That may not blow your mind, but it certainly blows mine. You have turned my world upside-down and inside-out and sideways and back again. You made me a mother, you made me a mommy. You are named Delma because only another Delma could fill the hole in my heart, mend the part of me that broke when I lost my mom, your namesake. You fixed me, and then some. You have filled me to bursting with more love than I thought was possible.

Happy 4th Birthday, Rabbit!

CEiMB: Sloppy Joes

Hi! Remember me? No? Well, yeah, so there's that. Anyhoo... I cooked! Actually I have been cooking and baking a bit lately. Not a ton, but a bit, and trying new recipes, but totally not having the energy to blog about it. Meh.

But! Hey, Sloppy Joes! This week's yummy Sloppy Joes pick for Craving Ellie in My Belly is from Chaya of Chaya's Comfy Food Blog.

Wait a second. I'm just watching last night's So You Think You Can Dance and that Lauren/Robbert dance routine with the pillow KILLED me. Holy crap. SO good!

OK, back to the Sloppy Joes... Loved this recipe! Delish. I halved the recipe, because I knew the Hattonettes wouldn't try it. They like their food unadulterated. No sauces. No stuff on their stuff or stuff touching their stuff. Sigh. Hopefully someday. But for now, for the most part the new recipes are for Josh and me. This recipe was very easy to cut, and I will make it again for sure. (Or maybe I should try a full batch and freezing leftovers?)

I used Morningstar Farms crumbles in place of the meat, which worked great. I don't know if that stuff would hold well in something like a meatloaf, but in this recipe it worked great. I used black-eyed peas for the beans. I didn't have any jalapeno or dry mustard, not sure how much of a difference it would make if I had used them. I'll try to remember to pick them up next time.

Thanks, Chaya, you picked a winner!

Angel Food Cake

We went strawberry-picking yesterday morning. Our local pick-your-own just started up this past week, the berries were insanely bountiful, the sun was shining... It was just lovely. The girls ate them while we picked, and continued to eat piles of them in the car, starting before we even got out of the parking lot. They probably ate a few little spiders along with the berries, but whatever. (Also, very cute aside: Mimi's method of "picking" was to take berries out of my flat and go put them in Josh's.)

Strawberries don't keep very long so I wanted to make a shortcake or angel food cake to go with them. I decided on angel food cake, and figured I'd try baking one myself since they have like 2 ingredients in them (OK, 6) and I happened to have a lot of eggs in the fridge. I chose this recipe at random, I suspect they're all pretty much the same.

The one thing holding me back: separating the eggs. It grosses me out in such a big way. But I decided to pull up my big-girl pants and deal with the nauseating goo and glop, and I did it! I baked an angel food cake! From scratch!

The second-best part of making angel food cake is balancing it on a bottle while it's cooling.



The best part is eating it.



The cake came out great. I was surprised by how well it came out, by how "normal" it tasted -- meaning, how much it tasted like it came from boxed mix. :) If you ever feel the need for angel food, please bake it from scratch. Aside from separating TWELVE eggs (please don't make me talk about it anymore!), it seriously takes barely any more effort than making it from a box. It is so stupid-easy. And as I was wisely reminded by a pal on FB when I lamented the fact that I'd be SEPARATING A FREAKING DOZEN EGGS (OMG why will you guys not let me stop talking about this??), you can just always buy a carton of organic egg whites.

And also, am I the only person who thinks angel food cake sort of smells like wet dog? Anyhoo... Still delicious, wet dog and gross-out goo and all.

Happy(?) Birthday to Me

So, I had a birthday last week. Unfortunately, it came right after a long weekend, which meant the girlies were all burnt-out and miserable, which in turn made Josh and me a bit burnt-out and miserable. Long weekends just don't work well around here, the first 2 days were fabulous and fun-filled, and on Day 3 they were ready to go back to school and get back into their routine. It always seems to go that way.

So when we went out for dinner on Memorial Day to celebrate with them (Mexican! And ice cream!), all hell broke loose. By the time my piece of chocolate cake showed up with a candle, Josh had already forcably removed Delma from the premisis and I was left at the table alone with Mimi who was being very bossy and demanding that I draw circles on her placemat. Saddest little birthday cake candle-blowing ever. And all the naughtiness meant we had to nix the trip to Ashley's for ice cream. Sigh.

Then the next day was my actual birthday... Josh asked Delma's teacher to have the girls make me a card, but she forgot. We got a sitter and went out for a fabulous dinner, which was so great, but the waiters were supposed to do some special birthday thing and they forgot. More sigh. And also the gift Josh got me showed up in the mail for me several days before my birthday in an unmarked package so I unwittingly opened it with the rest of that day's mail by myself, so, you know, very nice but anticlimactic.

Like I say every year: There's always next year!

CEIMB: SW Hash and Eggs

This week's Craving Ellie in my Belly recipe is Southwestern Hash and Eggs, hosted by It's Melissa's Kitchen. We made this recipe a few weeks ago, Josh and I actually had it for dinner one night. I have spared you the photographic evidence, because it was just some sad hash on a paper plate. It would have just made you feel bad.

So, this was good, but not great. It was very tomato-y. What's wrong with good ol' potatos and onions? Sure, throw in some beans if you want to get wacky and make it seem more like a main dish, maybe even pepper, but tomatos? It's just not my bag, baby. We liked it fine, I just wouldn't make it again. Hey, it was worth a shot!

CEimB: Grilled Zucchini yadda yadda yadda

Hiya! So nice to be back into the Ellie groove. The past few weeks have been either too busy or the recipes were not easily vegetarianized, so I'm happy that the next few are more veg-friendly.



This week's Craving Ellie in my Belly recipe is the Grilled Zucchini Roll-Ups with Herbs and Cheese (I feel like I need a nap after saying that). This one was chosen by Liz of My Table Their Table. She has a very lovely blog, go visit her and say Hi.

These were super-simple and very tasty. I don't have a grill, so I put them under the broiler. And then I forgot that they were in the oven, so they got very broiled. I slopped them together while Mimi was screaming for Veggie Booty! and Delma was screaming for Yoghurt! and Ice Pops! and Fraggle Rock! So aesthetics were not a priority and these babies were not very pretty. But they sure were good. These would be great for a summer party. Thanks for a great pick, Liz!

Blog Party

I'm joining the party! The 2010 Ultimate Blog Party. Horribly late, but still, I made it. Is anyone still here? Is any of the good booze still left, or is it all warm cans of Coors?



Hi! I'm Heide, a very unfocused and inconsistent blogger. I like to think that's the key to my charm. Maybe I'll blog every other day for a few weeks. Maybe I'll just post an Ellie Krieger recipe once a month. You just never know! I'm pretty awesomely mysterious like that.

I have 2 super-cute little girlies, 2 cats that I have trouble giving a shit about these days, and a husband who is a rock star and an infamous whiskey blogger. I work fulltime as a business analyst and I often spend entire weekends doing laundry.

I had beer for dinner and I popped a few Benadryl. So, there's that. Thanks for stopping by!

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

This past weekend, Sunday was my morning to get up with the Hattonettes while Josh slept in. It was a rough morning. The girlies were up early, they were tired and bored, fighting over gardening gloves, tripping over their own feet and bumping into things, they were both just sort of falling to pieces and making me nuts. So in the middle of it all I noticed our very ripe bananas and decided to make muffins, in some small, sad attempt to cling to sanity. My favorite muffins. I've made them several times, and each time I polish off the dozen in a few days, they are so flippin good.



These are the Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins from Get it Ripe by Jae Steele. She's a vegan superstar. Even if you're not vegan, do yourself a favor and check out her blog for great recipes and information about general health, fasts and cleanses. She's pretty much a dynamo.

This recipe calls for spelt flour, which I never remember to buy, so I always use a combo of all-purpose and whole wheat flour. I also never remember to buy coconut oil (though I'm curious about it, so I really should put it on my shopping list) so I use whatever oil I have in the house that's good for baking. Usually I use fruit-sweetened dairy-free chocolate chips (I like to keep them in the house for a relatively not un-healthy addition to baked goods) like the recipe calls for, but I also have just used Nestle when that's all I have. You cannot skimp on the syrup, though, you need to use the real stuff -- but that should go without saying, why would you ever use the nasty fake stuff? And I always add tons of finely chopped pecans -- I add them to pretty much everything I bake.

Go make these STAT.

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

1 3/4 cups spelt flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 1/2 cups mashed ripe bananas
2/3 cup maple syrup
1/3 cup softened non-hydrogenated coconut oil, or sunflower or olive oil (plus extra if using to coat pan)
2/3 cup non-dairy chocolate chips
1/2 cup walnuts or pecans, chopped (optional)

Preheat oven to 375degF. Prepare a 12-cup muffin tray with paper liners or a light coating of oil.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder and soda, cinnamon and salt in a large bowl. Add the banana, syrup and oil. Stir just until all flour is absorbed. Fold in the chocolate chips and nuts.

Portion the batter into muffin cups and bake for about 25 minutes, until the tops are domed and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Stores in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or in fridge for up to a week.

Makes 12 muffins.

quilting for the love of strangers

Sadly, sometimes it's easier to be selfless and kind to strangers than to the people we know and love. It's this simple, pure, isolated little act, with little or no context, with no baggage or history. It just is what it is. Sometimes it's a random act of kindness, and sometimes it's not so random.

This is a very deliberate act. This is a very small thing I can do for a family experiencing something enormous. No one should have to watch their child die, certainly not a 2 year old child. I don't know them, I can't be a shoulder to cry on, I can't bring them a casserole to spare them the need to even think about what to make for dinner. But I can make one little quilt block that, combined with many more blocks, will give them something to wrap themselves in to remember her for the rest of their lives.

This is for Layla Grace, and for her family, and I wish it could be more. But it's something.

Read more about the project here.

soft around the edges

I've never been a consistent blogger, and I've certainly never been a particularly good writer, but I do miss this space. Even more than wanting it for myself, I feel this obligation to capture moments for posterity, for my children. We didn't do baby books. We started one for Delma but it fizzled out very quickly. With Mimi we didn't even kid ourselves. I still haven't even put together my wedding album. Ugh. Growing up, my family didn't tend to sit around the dinner table reminiscing. My children will have that, but I also want them to have some sort of record, no matter how fragmented, to look back on and fill in some blanks.

But I owe my kids more than a collection of Facebook status updates and tweets about how they drive me crazy, and whose puke/pee/leaky poop greeted me when I awoke this morning. They do more than make me do laundry every damn day (and oh, how I do long for one glorious day without laundry) and send me screaming to the welcomed, controlled chaos of my job. They're also little slices of heaven, and if I could, I'd put caramel sauce on them and eat them up with a spoon. I feel to my core the truth of the famous exclamation "We'll eat you up, we love you so!"

It's not very edgy or amusing to gush about how beautiful and amazing your children are. But I'm going to try to do that more.