Cakaroon??

It has already been so fun to watch what is blooming at our home this spring.  This EARLY spring!  What is with this beautiful weather?  Am I the only one who is afraid that we are going to get a nightmare of a blizzard in like, late April as punishment for this awesomeness?  Since we moved into our home the first of June, we kind of missed out on all the spring newness and blossoms.  Willa discovered this magnolia tree for me the other day.  We were working in one of the front flower beds and she took my hand and told me she was going to show me some other purple flowers.  Then she led me to this tree and it was so pretty I almost cried.  Wait, that may not have been the beauty of the tree but actually the horrible new birth control pill I am on.  But that's a whole different story all together.

Anywho...I don't know how many times I already mentioned this, but for the Lenten season, I gave up desserts and candy.  I'd say I gave up sugar, but that's a little too strict.  There were times that I had a muffin for breakfast, or put chocolate chips and syrup on the pancakes, or jelly on my almond butter and jelly sandwiches.  So no, I didn't give up sugar.  I hate to jump the gun too much here but I think I did pretty well!   I didn't have a single piece of Easter candy, I have had no cookies, donuts, cakes, pies, coconut M and M's...NOTHING of the sort.  The final test will be putting Willa's Easter basket together next weekend and taking her to the big Easter egg hunt on Saturday.  There is a bag of Just Red Starburst Jelly Beans in my closet that whisper sweet nothings to me every night but they are still unopened.  I actually kind of had fun challenging myself to avoid things that I normally love but that I know are slightly toxic to me, so I decided that I'm going to try to give something up every month this year.  I have a rough plan of what each month will be, but it might change so I won't set the full schedule down here.  I have decided that starting April 1 (in addition to one more week of no desserts) I will go a month without saying negative things about others, and without in general being a whiny person.  I sometimes get a little bit too much pleasure out of gossip, discussing things that may or may not be true.  And I also whine and complain too much.  So, none of that in April!!  I think the key here is to make sure that I am surrounded by positive people, maybe involve myself in a few new projects (gardening, biking, and running top this list), and get more sleep, to avoid being so grumpy.  So if you have the pleasure of seeing me this month and you hear me being a Betty Badmouther or a Negative Nelly, first of all slap me for using phrases like that and then kindly call me on my bad behavior.

And on a lighter note, Willa calls raccoons "cakaroons".  I think this is the cutest thing ever.  So try to encourage it.  Engage her in a conversation about cakaroons as often as possible.  I want her to go her whole young life calling them that.

Thank you, Pinterest

Ladies...You're welcome.  Peter Som's Pinterest board entitled Hubba Hubba.  Excuse me.  I'll be busy pinning now.

There was dancing involved

Brad and I had a night out on Saturday.  It was great fun!  We started out with sushi at Dozo.  It never disappoints.  Our server suggested this beer, after I tried to order a Summer Shandy.  Isn't it pretty?  I had just run across the bottle in HyVee the last time we were there and even commented on how pretty it was.  I believe it has a sister beer in an equally pretty bottle called Sophie.  After a few rolls and some sashimi, we took a little stroll over to Brewsky's for a surprise 25th birthday party for Brad's coworker, Sean.  A few drinks there, and Marz, and Main St, and then the Fat Toad.  It had been ages since I had done the downtown bar scene and it was so much fun!  It helps to be keeping great company, I suppose.  Upon discussion the next day, Brad and I realized that we did in fact dance.  Twice. That, my friends, is out of character but apparently that is how much we were enjoying ourselves:)

 

BRAD ATE CAULIFLOWER!!

This is a huge deal in our house.  Let's think about this for a second.  I am a vegetarian.  Who loves vegetables.  And weird grains.  And nut milks and a multitude of soy bean products.  Brad likes...jerky.  And beer.  The list of vegetables that he will willingly eat include corn and occasionally peas.  Grocery shopping for our family is a fun challenge.  (Willa likes grapes, yogurt and plain hot dog buns if you were wondering.)  So the other night when I finally got around to trying the cauliflower crust pizza that I saw on Pinterest, I figured either I would ruin it and no one would eat it, or it would be awesome and I would love it but Brad would hate it.  Either way, I had to try it.  The verdict is that it was really, really good.  And Brad ate it.  And he claimed to like it!  I'll post the recipe, as it was from Pinterest and then I'll walk through my alterations to the recipe.
Cauliflower Crust Pizza

Serves 2; Adapted from Your Lighter Side.

ingredients:

1 cup cooked, riced cauliflower
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp crushed garlic
1/2 tsp garlic salt
olive oil (optional)

pizza sauce, shredded cheese and your choice of toppings*

directions:

To "Rice" the Cauliflower:
Take 1 large head of fresh cauliflower, remove stems and leaves, and chop the florets into chunks. Add to food processor and pulse until it looks like grain. Do not over-do pulse or you will puree it. (If you don't have a food processor, you can grate the whole head with a cheese grater). Place the riced cauliflower into a microwave safe bowl and microwave for 8 minutes. There is no need to add water, as the natural moisture in the cauliflower is enough to cook itself.

One large head should produce approximately 3 cups of riced cauliflower. The remainder can be used to make additional pizza crusts immediately, or can be stored in the refrigerator for up to one week.

To Make the Pizza Crust:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Spray a cookie sheet with non-stick cooking spray.

In a medium bowl, stir together 1 cup cauliflower, egg and mozzarella. Add oregano, crushed garlic and garlic salt, stir. Transfer to the cookie sheet, and using your hands, pat out into a 9" round. Optional: Brush olive oil over top of mixture to help with browning.

Bake at 450 degrees for 15 minutes.

Remove from oven. To the crust, add sauce, toppings and cheese. Place under a broiler at high heat just until cheese is melted (approximately 3-4 minutes).

Enjoy!

*Note that toppings need to be precooked since you are only broiling for a few minutes.

Ok, I don't own a food processor, which I realize more and more every day is dumb.  I just need to bite the bullet and go buy one, as a ton of my recipes call for them.  Sometimes I avoid making things that would probably be so good, just because I don't own one.  I also don't own a cheese grater.  So I put most of a small head of organic cauliflower in my magic bullet and blended it for quite awhile.  Admittedly, this took some time but I think it would be much quicker with the food processor.  Once I had blended about a cup of cauliflower and microwaved it for about 6 minutes, I added in the egg, cheese, oregano and garlic.  Spread it on my trusty Pampered Chef pizza stone and brushed it with olive oil.  This amount of mixture made a very small pizza.  It truly only does serve 2, and at that, I would make sure to have some sides if you're hungry.  I think I only baked the crust for about 12 minutes before the edges started to look pretty crispy.  I topped the crust with parmesan cheese, one large tomato, sliced, and lots of basil.  Stuck it under the broiler for a couple of minutes.  Oh wow.  It was good.  Brad even said that he wouldn't have guessed there was any cauliflower in the pizza if I hadn't told him.  I will say that the crust was a little bit more delicate than normal, but maybe that means I just didn't quite cook it long enough.  I don't know that I would ever use another store bought pizza crust again after trying it this way.  Picky eaters definitely earn bragging rights for trying this one!!!

This is love

I didn't get any super fantastic pictures from Sam's dedication last weekend, so I swiped this one from his mama.  What a sweet peanut.  How is he already one month old?!?  We had such a nice time at the dedication celebration.  Any get together that involves new babies, pink wine, Petermann's, Benson's, and cinnamon rolls is fine with me.

We got together again with some Benson kids a few days later and sat outside, enjoyed the weather, and made April draw animals on the patio with sidewalk chalk.  She was a trooper, and may be able to make a career out of it.

Today, I'm a little Irish

One of the numerous benefits of being adopted is the mystery surrounding my technical heritage.  I like to sort of switch up my ancestry in order to take full advantage of certain holidays.  Today is one of those days and today I will be Irish.  If you can believe it, I couldn't find a single picture of past St. Patty's day celebrations on the 'ole Facebook so I settled for the above picture.  Mostly I chose it because it is a very happy memory, and because I would love to recreate this exact shot-taking scenario tonight.  So, if you see me past about 6:00 today, I may have an Irish accent.  I will have an Irish drink.  And, I apologize...:)

In which I am a commercial for Method. But not for the north Target.

Sorry, folks.  Life has been pretty uneventful lately.  Just work, work, and more work.  Brad is headed out on an adventurous vacation tomorrow though, so maybe we'll get some excitement going there!  Since all I've been doing is working, I'm sharing my new favorite thing about my job.  Method has a new limited edition scent out right now.  Lime and sea salt.  It comes in the form of an all purpose spray, a dish soap, and a hand soap.  And Oh. My. God.  It smells good.  I suggest you stock up.  But don't try to do it at the Target on 48th and O.  That place is all jacked up.  And out of everything.  Either out of it, or lost it.  I'll tell you a quick sad story about that Target.

There is the quick sad story.  I went to Target in search of...you guessed it!  More cleaning supplies!  And I happened to wander down the alcohol aisle.  I saw this sale sign.  $13.99 for a bottle of Jameson that is originally $25.99!  Whaaaat?  I am really bad at math but I think that's almost half off.  And if you aren't aware, I make up for my horrible math skills with my awesome drinking-whiskey-skills.  And that price, I would have bought a bakers dozen bottles and given up on water all together.  But they were ALL GONE!  The rest of the alcohol aisle was fully stocked.  I found a store employee and asked him what on earth happened to all the Jameson.  He looked confused.  I said "The whiskey. Did the leprechauns move it to a special St. Patty's day display?"  He scanned the card and said there were 12 in stock.  But he could not find them.  Damn leprechauns.  

P.S.  I also want to put a plug in for Method's spring line of scents, most notably the coconut grove and all of the new body washes.

Fun little pins

I like wishbone chairs.  I like shades of blue.  I like blingy light fixtures.

I made these guys the other day.  Well, I tweaked the recipe a bit.  Here's the deal.  I have given up desserts and candies for the duration of Lent.  Not really for any religious reason, mostly just to challenge myself.  I am kind of a sweets-junkie.  And I am obsessed with Easter candy.  This is gonna be tough.  Its been 5 days and most of those days have contained numerous opportunities for dessert and I have passed on all of them! I'm not going crazy and cutting out all sugar.  I put a few chocolate chips in the pancakes the other day.  And I used syrup.  And I made these guys.  Here's what I put in them:  oatmeal, dried cranberries, honey, agave, chia, hemp protein, flax, a handful of white chocolate chips, peanut butter, coconut oil and unsweetened coconut flakes.  They are dangerously close to being dessert.  I should mention that Brad and Tosha are doing the "no sweets" thing with me.  And last year, Tosha swore off meat during Lent.  Just for me, I like to pretend:)  Brad gave me permission to have the occasional muffin or scone for breakfast, I think just because he is afraid that I will become homicidal without them.  I am giving myself permission to buy a few bags of Easter candy and hide them in the back of the pantry for after Easter.  I'm halfway hoping that I won't even want them.  Even after 5 days, it kind of gave us stomach aches just sampling the energy ball dough!