Just for Fun

On Friday nights, we go to a pool near Grant's work that is next to a beach and clubhouse for family night. Normally, you have to pay to get in to the pool, which also is the only access to the beach. But on Friday nights in the summer, it's free after 5:00. There is always a live band, fun at the pool, and lots of playing on the beach. We usually pack a picnic dinner and make a night of it. These photos were from last week.

This pirate ship on the beach is the kids' favorite playplace. Annika loves the slide!

This is her reaction after coming off the slide. Priceless!

Corban is King of the World! He had no idea I was taking his picture, which made this even better.

Uh oh. Watch out. Corban's getting ready for something.....

Oh My. Nothing like your 5-year old child leaping off something over 7 feet high to make a mama nervous......but he did it several times and thankfully never got hurt.

Banana Crumb Cake

Got some ripe bananas hanging around? Try this cake. It is just scrumptious! I got the original from allrecipes, where it was a muffin recipe, and by the suggestion of my sister Sarah, I increased the topping ingredients and made it into a cake. I'm sure muffins would be great too...
so either way it suits you, go for it! We eat it as dessert, but it would be lovely as part of a brunch too.

Recipe:

1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour (I used white whole wheat)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
3 bananas, mashed
3/4 cup white sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/3 cup butter, melted OR 1/3 cup oil

1/2 cup packed brown sugar
4 tablespoons all-purpose flour or wheat germ
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 Tablespoons butter

1/2 cup chopped nuts, optional

Preheat oven to 375°. In a large bowl, mix together 1 1/2 cups flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, beat together bananas, sugar, egg and melted butter. Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture just until moistened. Spread half of the mixture in a greased 9 x 9" pan.

In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, 4 tablespoons flour and cinnamon. Cut in 2 tablespoons butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle half of topping over the cake in pan; gently pour the rest of the cake batter over it and then sprinkle with remaining topping. If desired, add some chopped nuts to the top.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.

Berry Syrup/Topping

Wow, was this stuff good! It made for a perfect patriotic breakfast, but was such a hit that I'm sure we'll use this recipe a lot. I got the inspiration for it here and went on to change it a bit based on what I had on hand. I think it would be delicious with just about any berry you like. Grant's not a fan of blueberries, so he requested that I make it with blackberries and strawberries next time. I thought the blueberries were fabulous. Either way, this is super easy and would be great on top of ice-cream, plain cheesecake, pancakes, or whatever you fancy.

Recipe:

1/2 cup sugar
2 T. cornstarch
3/4 cup orange juice
2 cups berries , fresh or frozen (I used 1 cup frozen strawberries, 1 cup frozen blueberries)

In a medium saucepan, stir together all ingredients. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently, and then boil for 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Serve on whatever your heart desires!

Happy Independence Day!

In honor of the holiday, I made a couple of patriotic-looking foods, both of which turned out delicious. First, I made sugar cookies. Now, I know there are 1001 sugar cookie recipes out there and it can be nearly impossible to figure out which one would be best.....so I just used the one my mother-in-law gave me years ago. They really are scrumptious, especially with some frosting and sprinkles. I'll share my other festive red, white, and blue recipe tomorrow.

Recipe:

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup sugar

2 t. vanilla

1 egg

3 cups flour (part whole wheat is fine)

1/2 t. baking soda

1/4 t. salt

In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and egg and beat well. In a separate bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, and salt. Add gradually to creamed mixture, beating until it forms a nice dough. Divide dough in half and wrap in plastic wrap; chill for about an hour.

Preheat oven to 375°. Dust your rolling surface with flour or powdered sugar (which I prefer). Roll out dough to desired thickness, 1/8-1/4" or so. Cut into shapes and place on a greased or parchment paper-covered cookie sheet. Bake for 7-8 minutes, or until lightly browned around the edges. It turned out to be 7 minutes exactly for me....8 minutes yielded a crispy cookie and I prefer them a little softer.

Cool on a wire rack completely before frosting.

Frosting:

1 stick of butter, softened (salted is good)

4 cups powdered sugar

1 t. vanilla

3-4 T. milk

In a large mixing bowl, cream butter well. Add sugar gradually and continue to cream until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and milk slowly, until frosting reaches desired consistency. Spread on cooled cookies and decorate with sprinkles if desired. You can always tint the frosting if you want other colors too, of course.

I had about 1/2 cup leftover frosting, but that's no problem. I'm saving it in the fridge to spread on graham crackers for treats for the kids next week. Yum!

The Beach: Takes 2 and 3

The kids and I are really enjoying the beach this year. This is our 6th summer living here, and already I've been to the beach more than in any other year. Well, it's not like I don't have some good excuses.

During three of those summers, I had a baby who wasn't walking yet, and quite frankly, that makes for a NOT fun beach experience, in my opinion. The baby wants to get down and crawl around, immediately gets covered with sand, starts crying, rubs eyes with sandy hands, sticks hands in mouth, and it's all downhill from there.

And three of those summers, including this one, I've been pregnant. The difference this year is that the baby is due later and I'm not nearly so hot yet. When you're due in August and get smouldering hot when it's 75° out, the beach in the middle of the summer is not an option.

(I just had to interrupt my composition of this post to go confisicate a harmonica from a certain 3-year old who somehow thought that sneaking downstairs to get it and returning to her room to play it during the middle of naptime would be a good idea. Who's child is that, anyways? Oh yeah, Grant's.)

So all that to say, I've been successful at meeting my goal of getting the kids to the beach at least once a week during the summer for three weeks in a row now! Last week we went alone; this week, some friends went with us. The first six pictures are from last week.

This week, Annika decided (I think because of peer pressure) that she wanted to go in the ocean. She kept grabbing my hand and saying, "Come on, Mom!" Once she got there, she didn't want to come out. I didn't get any photos of it this week, I was too busy holding her hand and keeping her from wandering out too far, because apparently her fears are no more. Guess the beach won't be so relaxing for mama anymore.

Since Annika was still afraid of the water, Corban made it his mission to dig her a swimming pool.

I caught some good photos of Marissa laughing in enjoyment with the waves.

I just really liked this one.


Corban's hole was getting deep but didn't have much space. He sat in there to show me that Annika could indeed "fit inside".

Ahhh...now the hole has evolved to something much more spacious!

FINALLY....Annika got in the water!

All of the kids (except Annika and Daniel, the 7-month old) were fully engaged in digging holes by the water. For what purpose, I have no idea....but they were having fun!

Marissa just made me laugh here....she was waddling as she carried the bucket full of water.

Oh, and I'm actually getting a tan....which is pretty exciting! Yeah, yeah, you can scoff if you want, I know I'm still as pale as a ghost next to some people I know, but hey, I'm tan for me. You have no idea how long it has been since I've had regular sun exposure.

Shredded Beef Au Jus

This came from Taste of Home magazine, the June/July 2009 issue. We rarely eat beef, but I got a good sale and thought this sounded good. It was. Quite delicious, actually. The beef had a very nice flavor the first day but was even better as leftovers. We ate it on buns, but it would be delicious alone, with a side of mashed potatoes. On a side note, the recipe calls for using the juices for dipping; we didn't do that and I ended up throwing all the extra juice out a few days later. I'm sure it could have been made into a tasty gravy if I had so desired, though.

Recipe:

1 boneless beef chuck roast (3 lb or so)

2 cups water

2 t. beef bouillon granules (or 2 cubes)

1-1/2 t. dried oregano

1 t. garlic salt

1 t. seasoned salt

1/4 t. dried rosemary, crushed (optional)

8 hamburger buns, split

Cut roast in half, trim off all large chunks of fat, and place in a 4 or 5 quart slow cooker. Combine the water, bouillon, and seasonings; pour over the beef.

Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours or until meeat is tender. Remove beef; cool slightly. Meanwhile, skim fat from the cooking liquid. (good luck with that, I wasn't very successful)

Shred meat with 2 forks; return to the cooking liquid and heat through. Using a slotted spoon, place 1/2 cup on eaach bun. Serve with additional cooking liquid on the side.

Reese's Chewy Chocolate Cookies

We used to make these occasionally when I was a kid.....and recently I realized it had been years since I had tasted one, and these are seriously one of my very favorite cookies, EVER.
The recipe is just on the back of the package of peanut butter chips and I don't change it at all, except for replacing some of the white flour with whole wheat and maybe adding some chocolate chips, if I'm feeling naughty.
I made these on a Thursday, with the intention of taking them on a picnic at the beach on Friday night with friends. Well, most of them made it to Friday, were transported in a ziplock bag, and were brought out of our stash of stuff as a grand finale to our picnic.
Oops.
I failed to realize that these do NOT travel well, they crumble ridiculously, and....well......our friends got to sample handfulls of crumbs instead of nice cookies. That being said, everyone enjoyed the chunky crumbs immensely.....but it just wasn't the same as biting into a full cookie.
Later in the weekend, Grant stirred some of the remaining crumbs into a milkshake and declared that a winner....so you really can't go wrong with these cookies, just don't transport them in a ziplock bag in a beach bag with a lot of other junk.


Recipe:

1-1/4 cups (2-1/2 sticks) butter, softened
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 t. vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour (part whole wheat)
3/4 cup baking cocoa
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
10 oz package Reese's peanut butter chips
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (optional)


Preheat oven to 350°.

Beat butter and sugar together in a large bowl until fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla; beat well.

In a separate bowl, mix together flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. Gradually add to butter mixture, combining well. Stir in peanut butter chips and chocolate chips, if desired.

Drop by rounded teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8-9 minutes (8 minutes exactly in my oven). Do NOT overbake; cookies will be soft. They will puff while baking and flatten while cooling. Cool slightly; remocve from cookie sheet to wire rack. Cool completely. Makes 4-5 dozen cookies.