Really?

First off, thanks to everyone who left me happy birthday messages yesterday! I loved reading each and every one. They made my day!

Yesterday wasn't exactly the easiest birthday. I finally had to break the news to my son that he would be getting hearing aids, as we were going to the ENT to get medical clearance. That, of course, did not go over well, though I did my best to reassure him that they would really help him, and that they wouldn't be very obvious. They are so small these days, and his hair is on the longer side. He was really great at the ENT, though. He hates people looking into his ears and throat, but he handled it so well. I took him to McDonald's for lunch as a treat for doing such a good job (yes, McD's. I know, I know, you don't have to say it....)

In other birthday news, lol, our water heater exploded. Well, not really exploded, but it did go out and leak it's entire contents all over my laundry room and bedroom downstairs. The only rooms in the ENTIRE house that have carpeting!! Gah! Not sure when it actually happened, but we found it right before bed. Today I will be shop-vac-ing water up and calling to see how fast we can get it replaced. There goes the bit of money we had in our savings, lol! It's always something.

So for now we have no hot water. That means no showers, no laundry, and very, very cold handwashing and teeth brushing. I've got a pot of water on to heat to get through the worst of it! Doing dishes should be quite fun, as the dishwasher won't be able to run. I guess I'll be heating up a lot of rinse water!

Well, I can honestly say, life is never, ever boring.


UPDATE: Had the plumber out. It's going to cost about $1300 to get this thing replace. *gulp*
The question came up in comments about maybe Mr. B. could do it himself. He is handy - any electrical work or carpentry, he's all over it! Plumbing, however, is not his forte. We've learned the hard way to call the local plumber for ANYTHING to do with water, lol! Not to mention it's a gas heated tank, and Mr. B. doesn't like to take a chance on anything that has the potential to blow up the house if he screws it up!

Looks like it will be a week of mac and cheese, ground beef and ramen!! Not the first time, that's for sure.

In cases like this, I just have to remind myself how lucky we are to have the ability to borrow money from my in-laws to be able to handle these kinds of expenses. We might not be rich by any stretch of the imagination, but we are blessed with a seriously supportive family on both sides, and the ability to borrow money in a tight jam. They don't even make us pay interest ;O)

And, as luck would have it, the plumber is available to put it in this morning. So we won't have to wait to long for those showers after all! Yippee!

Well, today is my 39 birthday. All in all, not going to be a super exciting day, lol. Mr. B. has to work late (8 pm-ish) and I'm taking Middle Son to the ENT to get him medically cleared for his hearing aids.

Not really doing much celebrating. Earlier in the month, when the income tax money came in, I got a butt load of kitchen stuff that I wanted (2 huge new cutting boards, a really nice chef's knife, a huge, heavy, stainless steel pan, a huge set of new dishes to replace my favorite every day white ones that had been dwindling from breakage...) which counted as my birthday, anniversary, Valentines presents. Oh, yeah, and I got a Wii, lol! I'd wanted to try Wii Fit. It's amazing how good a work out you can get with that thing! And it's pretty fun. The Yoga is my favorite part, though ski jumping and hula hoop are a hoot.

So it's just another day at the Bradley Zoo!

Also, I thought I'd let you know that I have a non-pagan, Jersey version of my blog going. So if you want all the Tanner and recipes without all the pagany stuff, feel free to follow along at Crunchy Granola Jersey Mom.

Pot Pie Soup

It's 21 degrees here in the frigid wasteland that is New Jersey. Perfect weather for this new recipe I found on the Food Network website. I wish I had been able to post pictures, like with other recipes I've posted, but we are having some technical difficulties, lol.

Usually, when I follow someone else's recipe, I have tons of "hmmmmmm" moments, when I realize that there are changes I can make or things that I will try the next time I make it. There wasn't a lot I'd change in this one. Any comments I've added will be in parenthesis.

Chicken Pot Pie Soup
(Aaron "Big Daddy" McCargo Jr.)

Ingredients
4 medium russet potatoes, peeled and diced.
2 quarts water
1 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breast
1 Tbsp chicken bouillon flavoring
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 small white onion, diced (1/4 cup)
2 stalks celery, diced (1/2 cup)
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp Italian seasoning
1 tsp black pepper
1 1/2 pounds frozen mixed vegetables
1 cup heavy cream
Pinch sea salt
1 store bought pie crust, cooked to package directions, cooled, and broke into pieces

Add diced potatoes to a large bowl filled with cold water, set aside. (This will make them quick to add later, but keep them from turning brown.)

Bring 2 quarts of water to a boil. Add chicken, reduce heat to a simmer and allow to poach, about 8-10 minutes (don't worry if the chicken is a mite undercooked, it will get plenty of cooking time.) Remove the chicken to a plate to cool. When cooled, dice. Continue to simmer the broth, adding the bouillion cube until reduced by half, about 10 more minutes. (Bouillion is very high in salt. Next time I make this, I will probably skip this and just poach the chicken in some of our jarred chicken stock and be done with it).
In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium high heat. (I know it seems like a lot of oil, but it really needs it. Details to come.) Add the onions and celery, cooking until translucent, about 2 minutes. Stir in the flour and whisk until it forms a roux. (Here is where the amount of oil comes in - you want to be able to make a "roux", and you need the liquid. A roux is just a slightly thick paste that will be used to thicken a liquid later. Make sure to whisk it well, and get all the flour incorporated.) Add the Italian seasoning and pepper, cook for 3 more minutes. (Make sure to give it the full 3 minutes, though you may want to lower your heat a bit here. Cooking the roux will keep the soup from tasting floury later.)

Whisk the roux into the broth and bring back to a boil. Drain the potatoes. Add the potatoes and chicken to the broth over low heat. Stir in frozen vegetables (I used a 1 pound bag, and it was plenty.) Place a lid on top and simmer until the potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes. (On low heat, my potatoes were not done in 15 minutes. Next time I'll put the heat up to medium.)

Stir in cream and a pinch of sea salt and cook for 5 more minutes.

Ladle soup into bowls and top with pie crust pieces.

This tastes just like chicken pot pie. Delish! Perfect for a cold winter dinner! And of course it could be converted to a beef recipe or just a veggie dish, by changing the bouillion/broth and changing or deleting the meat.

MONDAY MEME

I’ve been tagged by Funsize to do this meme a while back, and I'm just now getting to it! I'm so slow on these things lately, sorry!

The rules of the award:

1) Choose a minimum of seven blogs that you find brilliant in content or design.

2) Show the seven winners names and links on your blog, and leave a comment informing them that they were prized with “Honest Scrap”. Well, there’s no prize, but they can keep the nifty icon.

3) List at least 10 honest things about yourself.


I'm tagging all of those who would like to participate!! I love you all :O)

Here are 10 honest things about me:

1. I love music from the 80's and very early 90's. The music of my youth! If there was a 80's music Jeopardy, I would kick butt.
2. I am not naturally a neat person. I have to force myself to clean for the most part. I absolutely HAVE to have a clean kitchen and a clean bathroom, though.
3. I do not eat breakfast food for breakfast. I usually have some sort of dinner left-overs. If I eat anything sweet, even fruit, in the morning, I get super jittery. I save breakfast type foods for the occasional breakfast for dinner.
4. I hate surprises. Not those that I don't know about and are actually real surprises. But those that someone tells me about, but won't let me know what it is and I have to wait for it. I have to know.
5. I constantly write myself reminder notes...which I promptly loose.
6. I own way too many paperclips.
7. I think my husband is hotter today than he was the day we met. And he was smokin' hot back then!
8. I am uber clumsy. I drop things and bump into things constantly.
9. I am a compulsive clean-as-you-cook person. I hate to cook with anyone who isn't. When I finish a meal, there is usually only maybe 1 or 2 pans and the serving/eating dishes to wash. All measuring cups, mixing bowls, graters, etc. have already been washed, if not dried and put away.
10. My very best friend (besides Mr. B) is a man who I went to high school with. We "talk" on myspace almost every day. He is my biggest cheer leader and supporter. I love him to pieces.

WEEKLY MENU

Back into the swing of things, I thought I'd post this week's menu. It's tax return time, so I splurged last week and this week so I could try out a slew of new recipes!

Sunday: Spaghetti and Meatballs - I tried a new recipe, where you put chunks of garlic, plum tomatoes, onions and spices into a baking dish with the raw meatballs on top, and roast for 40 minutes. When it's done, you take the meatballs off and put the tomato mix through the food processor to make a smooth sauce. The sauce was a little too spicy for the kids, but the meatballs were out of this world! I'll try to get the recipe up later.

Monday: I'm trying out Mini Shepherd's pie (from Food Network's Big Daddy's House!) made with refrigerator biscuit dough placed in muffin tins with all the goodies ladled in. I'll let you know how it turns out! I'm also making a pasta with garlic and Swiss chard. Something completely different than we'd usually eat, so we'll see how it goes over.

Tuesday: Pot Pie Soup: All the makings of chicken pot pie, but made a little soupy. You bake a store bought pie crust and break it up into pieces to sprinkle on top. Can't wait to try this one!

Wednesday: Mr. B. won't be home for dinner, so we are taking a kid friendly route with baked chicken strips and potato wedges.

Thursday: a Food Network Magazine recipe (I admit it, I am newly obsessed with Food Network and it's new magazine): Spicy Beef Stir fry. A really tasty sounding mix of beef strips, oyster sauce, ginger, dried chilies and bok choy. Very simple and I'm sure it will be awesome.

Friday, as usual, is pizza night!

Last week I tried a couple of new recipes that turned out really good, too. I'll try to get some of them up in the next few days.

Today is catch up day on some emails that have to go out, and catching up on some laundry. Dang, life is exciting, lol!

A question today: What is your very favorite go-to recipe? The one your family is sure to enjoy, or you've made so often that you don't need a recipe for anymore?

Art

For a break from stress, I thought I'd scan some of my resent art journalling pages. This is def a source of peace and relaxation for me!!



This is a sketch page I did of mushrooms. I've always found them fun to draw, whether straight up traditional, or a funky abstract. I used a page I had found online (can't seem to find the exact link to give credit, sorry!) as a model for many of them.






Another sketch book page. More mushrooms, the color being my experimenting with ink pencils. Love them! The girl was a reproduction of a picture I saw in a magazine, with a few changes.




A charcoal sketch. I love the hair! It freaked my husband out. I was a little disappointed when my son pointed out that it looked similar to some character on a new Star Wars cartoon. Believe me when I say I do not watch it, lol!




Another charcoal sketch. I've got something going with weird hair lately....




White pen on a black gessoed upcycled book. I love swirly trees :O)
This is still a work in progress, and I plan on taking it into the next page.





These two pages are some of my favorite recent work. They are done on a black gessoed upcycled book. I did the background first with red paint, that I blotted on with a wad of toilet paper (yes, toilet paper!). I then went over it in the same way with gold paint. The background paper is a photo copy of a passage from the book "Peace in Every Step" by the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. I gave the paper a wash of gold paint, watered down a bit. The Japanese kanjis at the bottom are symbols representing words that mean important things to me. Feel free to look them up, lol! The pear on the first page just seemed to fit in - it doesn't have any deeper meaning than that. I wish you could get a better feel for the wonderful texture on the pages! When you use TP to dab on paint, it leaves behind little bits of fiber, giving the page a really amazing look and feel!




I left areas for three bits of writing. The first space...well, I just haven't found quite the right thing for it yet.

The second space is a quote by Jimi Hendrix: "Only when the power of love overcomes the love of power will we truly know peace."

And the third space is taken by one of my favorite writers, Henry David Thoreau: "Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each."

A big thank you!

Thank you so much to everyone who has been sending me positive energy, fabulous websites, and putting me in touch with friends who know more. I so very much appreciate every single one of you and your support. I'm still wrapping my head around it all!

We're going through a giant mess of a time right now with the bullying issue, and trying to get it stopped. It's very frustrating.

Good news is, spring is just around the corner. I'm already jonesing to get my hands in some dirt and start growing! I'm craving home grown tomatoes and colanders full of peppers and onions and herbs!

Oh, and if you have any interest at all in bread making, and you have not picked up the book "Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day" do so now! That book has revolutionized how I make bread - and it is some of the best bread I have ever tasted! The premise is that you whip up a huge batch of dough (I'm doing mine in a 10 qt. container) and let it rise. Then you stick that puppy in your fridge, and cook the dough as you'd like in the next 14 days. The longer it sits, the more sour-doughy it gets. Ohhhhhh, yummmmmm! This makes such good bread!

Mr. B. actually went out and got me a pizza peel and a baking stone so I could do it up right. I tell you right now, I will never buy another loaf of store bought French, Italian, rye or wheat! Mine is just better!

Anyone else using this book?

Well, it's been decided that my middle child will need to be fitted with 2 hearing aids. Gah! It's not enough that the kids has an autism spectrum disorder -- now we get to throw this in on top of it. Not that this is the end of the world - there are things that are, of course, much worse to have happen to your child.

But, like most of us have experienced, kids are mean. He's already been the victim of bullying and been physically assaulted on the school bus. Now we get to throw something else for kids to pick on him for into the mix. It's very frustrating.

And now, I have a whole new area to learn. When my #2 son was diagnosed with an ASD, I learned everything I could on the subject, and keep a constant eye on new studies, therapies, medications, etc. I know more about what's going on in the autism community than my pediatrician does -- like most parents of a child with a disability! We all become experts in "our field". Now I have a new field to cover, and I'm at a small loss of where to start. I've done a ton of searches online, but none of the sites have quite what I'm looking for. My son isn't deaf, he doesn't sign, but he will be using 2 hearing aids and will be registering at the state level as "hearing impaired".

What I need to find is how this affects the child study team and his IEP. What services/accomodations/modifications are out there for him? Does the CST have to bring in a specialist for his IEP meetings, or does the speech/language pathologist cover this?

If anyone out there has any experience on this, I would love to hear from you! Or if you know of a really great website that can help me learn about these things.

I have to say, if nothing else, life in the B. house is never boring! Time to kick the sense of humor up and keep a straight head on.

And maybe look into a perscription for Xanax.....

Because Squirrels Make Me Laugh...

Trying to find time to post, but it's another crazy week! So I leave you with dancing squirrels. You can thank me later.

It's been TOO long

Wow, it's really been too long.... let me just say, that it's been a crazy few months, including trying to get school stuff sorted out, trombone practices (yes, trombone, and yes it's Miss M. playing it.) and, just recently, young Mr. J. being assaulted on the bus (he's okay, and the other kid got suspended - ugly situation, but he's handling it well).

So, there are some changes going on for my blog. After realizing how many people in my area are actually reading it (about 7 that I know of, but they're all friends), I came to the conclusion that I need to eliminate my kids pictures, and start using pseudonyms for them. Back when this was a very anonymous (ie there was only 1 person reading it, lol) blog, I didn't really worry about that so much. And quite frankly, after my long absence, I might be down to 1 reader again! (So if you are still out there, thanks for hanging around :O)

From now on, the kids will be as such: Oldest Son will be known as, well, Oldest Son. Younger Son will be known as Mr. J. My daughter will be Miss M. And I will be removing pictures bit by bit.

I'm not sure when I'll be able to catch up with everyone and their blogs. Still a lot going on around here, just with the whole living life thing. I always thought as the kids got older, things would slow down a bit. Seems that isn't really so.

But for now, I will leave you with this great recipe that I am working on. The original comes from the Food Network's show Barefoot Contessa:

Ingredients

nocoupons

• 1 1/2 cups chopped yellow onion (1 large onion)
• 3/4 cup chopped fennel (1 fennel bulb)
• 1/4 pound unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 1/2 cups fish stock or clam juice
• 1 tablespoon Pernod
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 3 tablespoons heavy cream
• 3/4 pound cooked fresh lobster meat
• 1 1/2 cups frozen peas (not "baby" peas)
• 1 1/2 cups frozen small whole onions
• 1/2 cup minced flat-leaf parsley

Pastry:

nocoupons

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 8 tablespoons cold fresh lard, diced (1/4 pound)
• 8 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, diced
• 1/2 to 2/3 cup ice water
• 1 egg, beaten with 1 tablespoon water or heavy cream, for egg wash

Directions

Saute the onions and fennel with the butter in a large saute pan on medium heat until the onions are translucent, 10 to 15 minutes. Add the flour and cook on low heat for 3 more minutes, stirring occasionally. Slowly add the stock, Pernod, salt, and pepper and simmer for 5 more minutes. Add the heavy cream.

Cut the lobster meat into medium-sized cubes. Place the lobster, frozen peas, frozen onions, and parsley in a bowl (there is no need to defrost the vegetables). Pour the sauce over the mixture and check the seasonings. Set aside.

For the crust, mix the flour, salt, and baking powder in a food processor fitted with a metal blade. Add the lard and butter and pulse 10 times, until the fat is the size of peas. With the motor running, add the ice water; process only enough to moisten the dough and have it just come together. Dump the dough out on a floured surface and knead quickly into a ball. Wrap the dough in plastic and allow it to rest for 30 minutes in the refrigerator.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Divide the dough in half and roll out each half to fit a 9 or 9 1/2-inch round by 2-inch high ovenproof glass or ceramic baking dish. Place 1 crust in the dish, fill with the lobster mixture, and top with the second crust. Crimp the crusts together and brush with the egg wash. Make 4 or 5 slashes in the top crust and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, until the top is golden brown and the filling is bubbling hot.

Now I found a few things with this recipe. First of all, there is now way on earth I can afford 3/4 of a pound of lobster meat. Or even 3/4 of a pound of lobster shell. This recipe works just as well with any mix of seafood. Try a mix of shrimp and crab (haven't tried it with imitation crab, but I bet it would work out just fine.) or throw in some clams if you have 'em - or any combo of seafood or maybe even some firm, white fleshed fish, like cod.

This was really the first time I had worked with fennel. It smelled so wonderful! And in the finished product, it was fabulous. If you haven't cooked with it before, try it. It's great with seafood dishes. Just cut off the long stocks, cut off the end, cut it in half and slice.

Too many peas! I'm not a huge fan of peas, and this recipe just had too many. Next time I'll cut the amount down at least half.

I threw some raw diced carrots into the mix. I was glad I did. They added some extra color and flavor.

I left out the Pernod. I didn't have any, and I wasn't buying a bottle of something I wouldn't use often just for a tablespoon of it. You can substitute a white wine here, or just leave it out completely.

I wasn't a fan of the baby white onions, either. I thought the sauted onions were enough, and these just weren't neccessary. While they look cool in there, they just didn'tdo it for me. I think next time I might throw in some diced potatoes instead.

On the pastry side, I have never, ever used lard in any recipe. Never. It's so gross. That said, I did get some and try it for this pastry. HOLY CRAP. This was the flakiest, most delicious crust I've ever made! Wow! I hate to say it, but I'm sold. I'll never make crust again without lard. Not that I actually make crust all that often.

Overall, though, I have to say that this was a thumbs up recipe. I will tinker with it a bit, and then one of these days I will post my own version, complete with more reasonably priced seafood and not so many darn peas! In the mean time, give it a try! The sauce is so creamy and delicious (go fennel!) that it's so worth making it!