Lucky number seven

About this time seven years ago we were making our way down to the water at Trunk Bay. Lisa had already spent a few hours meticulously putting flowers together, Jason had already barfed in the sand at the rehearsal party, Patrick had already taken a shower with the garden hose at the house his parents rented, my sisters were all dressed and ready and our loved ones waited for us down on the beach.
Seven years later I adore him to the moon and back. Trips to far-away lands, supporting each other through school and in dreams both professional and personal, trying our best to live and love big, and one precious little miracle girl. I had no idea what was in the cards for us that day, but I knew that we would always be facing what was coming together. I wasn't able to talk him into the tattoo this year, but maybe next (I really want to get a small tattoo on our ring finger. something that only we know is there. "i am my beloved, my beloved is mine" I know, it does not seem like something i would want, but i think it's romantic). We'll celebrate with a quick, cheap beer and a hand written note to each other and chat about where we will be in seven more years.
Life is best lived with your soul mate.

strawberry vanilla agua fresca

I know you guys have been on the edge of your seats wondering, just what in the heck did i do with all those strawberries?

I enjoyed all the suggestions from my loyal readers (cough, cough...Julie!). I had to work quick with my strawberry flat since they were literally going bad right before my eyes. I tried in vain to get Patrick to home brew a Strawberry Wheat Ale, but he is fruited out right now with the Ginger Peach IPA that he has on tap in the kegerator. As a side note, might I just add that my sweetness is a really good brewer. I mean really...a Ginger Peach Indian Pale Ale, brewed all by himself, from scratch!

Anyhoo, this is a recipe that Christa suggested and it was excellent. Really light and not too sweet, practically calorie free (only 2 tablespoons of sugar in the whole thing!) and very impressive looking in a glass. It was so light and easy to drink that I sipped on it all throughout the day. I don't know why I didn't think of it, but you could easily add a splash of this to your gin and tonic to turn it up a notch.


Strawberry Vanilla Agua Fresca
- makes 1 pitcher -
Ingredients
1 pound strawberries, hulled
4 cups ice-cold water, divided
Enough vanilla seeds to fill the point of a sharp knife, or a scant 1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons sugar
Ice, for serving
Procedure
1. In a blender, combine the strawberries with 2 cups of the water and the vanilla seeds or extract. Puree until completely liquid. Strain the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve or through cheesecloth into a pitcher.
2. Stir in the remaining 2 cups water, lemon juice and sugar. Taste and adjust sugar to suit your preference. Pour into ice-filled glasses and serve.

just wondering...

So uh...does anyone know if it's okay for your potty training toddler to have possible eaten their own poop?

All I'm saying is that I walked in on her while she was going poopie, and there was poopie on her hands, something brown smeared on her cheek and she was spitting something out of her mouth saying "yucky mommy, i no likey" and there was no food in sight.

gross!!!

floors

I think all of us share a common feeling on cleaning - we like having a clean house, but have neither the time, nor energy to keep it super clean.
So I usually just do the basics. Wipe off the counters (with the tea-towel that I just used to wipe the dishes dry), empty the trash cans, scour the terlit when it is looking rough and wipe off the mirrors when I can't see through all the toothpaste speckles. However, sometimes it just hits me and I can not hold myself back from a thorough cleaning and the rush that it brings me to see my house all sweet smelling and clean.
That being said, I just mopped my floors for the first time in perhaps ... a year?... and let me just say that it feels damn near orgasmic.
I did a hardcore job too. I swept the floors, moved everything up, off the ground, stacked the chairs on top of the table and took all the rugs outside and shook them. The floors are gleaming and sparkly and seeing the murky, brown water run down the drain after I cleaned off the mop made the Anal Side of me shed a happy tear.

HALP!

Not sure if you guys remember, but one of my goals for this year was to take full advantage of strawberry season.

I've been taking advantage of the BOGO (buy one, get one) sale at Publix on strawberries, but today I went for the motherload....the clearance flat at the farmer's market. $7 for all of these beauties, who will subsequently be mushy, fly ridden, groodie berries in just a few short days.

I need suggestions on what to make with strawberries! Halp! And look - I know that you each check this blog on a routine basis, so this time you HAVE to comment. That means you - Christa, Sue Anne, Lisa and Julie (Patrick is an exception for this post).

children mommy!

Piper is in kid & school withdrawl.

I took these shots when I noticed a group of kids out in the park yesterday. Fishweir Elementary School uses our park as the schools park/playground/P.E. area so every school day around 10:30am there is a group of kids in the far edge of the park doing P.E. exercises. Yesterday, I think they were doing the Presidential Fitness test or something because the P.E. Coach had them all over the park doing different skills tests. Pip and I got home from a long walk and I noticed a group of kids right outside of our backyard gate. I called to Piper that there were "children outside!" and she went tearing down the hall and out the backdoor. She hung on the back gate trying to open it to get out in the park with the kids. She stared at them, calling to them, "children!!" and jumped up and down wanting to go play with them. It was so cute.

She starts at her new preschool, St. John's Presbyterian Preschool, on June 1 and is SO ready.

cake!

Christa emailed me and SA the recipe for a Blood Orange, Olive Oil and Rosemary cake last week. I was immediately intrigued by the recipe title and upon reading the ingredients I was pleased to see I had everything I needed, except for blood oranges. A quick substitution with clementines and the cake was a hit. I made it for a friend's wedding anniversary and she was floored with how unique and pretty and yummy-in-a-dessert-way-but-not-an-overbearing-chocolate-brownie-way. I made a quick 30 second glaze for the top with clementine juice and powdered sugar that I think made it really look pretty and spring-like.

Excellent cake. I really recommend this one, it's pretty impressive.

Blood Orange (or Clementine) Olive Oil Cake with Rosemary
1 ¼ cup all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
2 eggs, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
½ cup fruity extra-virgin olive oil
¾ cup whole milk
3 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary
The zest of 2 small blood oranges
The juice of 1 small blood orange (about 2 tablespoons)
3/4 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 350. Coat an 8-9-inch loaf pan or 9-inch round pan with cooking spray. Double spray the pan because my cake stuck pretty bad.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
3. In another medium bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugar until well blended, about 1 minute. Whisk in the olive oil and milk.
4. Whisk the egg mixture into the flour mixture until thoroughly blended. Gently mix in the rosemary, orange zest, orange juice, and black pepper.
5. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake until the cake is firm and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 40 minutes. Transfer the pan to a rack to cool.

Tina Fey

Anyone catch her on SNL this weekend? And by catch, I do mean "watch it on hulu or online" because OF COURSE we do not stay up that late to actually see Saturday Night Live come on live.

Anyhoo, it was pretty funny and worth a looksie.

In other news, I was attempting to dress "outside of the box" today to a birthday party and wore a solid red dress that looked similar to this:

The dress was a consignment sale buy from awhile ago and uh yea...I think I am about 6 months too late with this trend. The dress was heavy, bulky, awkward, dragged on the ground and gave me the is she, or isn't she pregnant? look that comes with bad fabric that doesn't hang well. I paired it with the Lucky Brand scarf that Wissy gave me for Xmas (that I wear probably 2-3 times a week, no kidding). Patrick is always complimentary to my outfits and told me later that I should ditch the dress. Bummer, because I really need hip, new clothes!

pancake weekends

A new tradition is brewing in the Lynch house. Pancake weekends! Sure, this is a pretty normal tradition in most families homes on the weekends, so this is nothing all that new or original. But in the past, unless I already had a box of Bisquick in the cupboard, making pancakes from scratch seemed like a huge pain.

However, I love baking. All things involving flour, yeast, mixing, etc is fun for me. I find it relaxing and a wee bit of "me time" when I am up to my elbows in batter. Before we had Piper we were up and moving really quick on the weekends. Heading to the beach, out for a hike, or up early to work on a huge house project that would take all day. So a long, leisurely, homemade breakfast on the weekend wouldn't really work out for us.

Now with Piper we are lounging more in the mornings. One of us will wake up with her (around 7:30ish) and go in the back room to play, read books, watch a DVD while the other one sleeps in a bit. So I've been playing around with fun pancake recipes. This past Saturday I kicked it up a bit and made two batches of pancakes: Peanut Butter Pancakes and Parmesan and Cornmeal Pancakes. The Parmesan and Cornmeal were really great and I definitely recommend them. The cornmeal adds a really yummy, crunchy texture and the scallions aren't overwhelming, but add another level of taste that sets the recipe apart from being just another pancake.I actually thought the Parmesan Cornmeal Pancakes could be used as some sort of fancy appetizer if you made them smaller, spread them with veggie cream cheese then rolled them up all crepe like.

The Peanut Butter ones were a bit overkill in the peanut butter department for Patrick and I, but Pip loved them so I guess they are better suited for the kidlets.

Since I'm trying to watch my calories a bit, I haven't been endulging in the pancake weekends as much as Patrick and Piper have. I'll have a 1/2 of a pancake and then a little container of Chobaini fat free greek yogurt (140 calories, no fat, tastes REALLY good). By the way, Piper can easily polish off 3-4 adult sized pancakes.

Parmesan Cornmeal Pancakes

Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup yellow cornmeal
1/3 cup grated Parmesan
1 Tbsp. sugar (optional)
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1-3/4 cups buttermilk
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 Tbsp. cooking oil
1/3 cup finely chopped green onion
Directions
1. In a bowl combine flour and other dry ingredients. In second bowl combine remaining ingredients. Stir buttermilk mixture into flour mixture until slightly lumpy.
2. Heat a lightly greased griddle or heavy skillet over medium heat. For each pancake pour 1/4 cup batter onto griddle. Cook until golden; turn when tops are bubbly and edges are slightly dry (1 to 2 minutes per side). Makes about 16 pancakes.

:::

Peanut Butter Pancakes

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp. sugar
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
2 eggs, lightly beaten
3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
2 cups milk
1/3 cup peanuts, finely chopped
Directions
1. In a large mixing bowl combine flour and other dry ingredients. In a medium bowl whisk together eggs and peanut butter until combined. Gradually stir in milk (mixture will be stiff at first but will thin when all the milk is added). Add peanut butter mixture to flour mixture. Stir just until combined but still slightly lumpy. Gently stir in peanuts. Batter will be thin but will thicken slightly after standing a few minutes.
2. Heat a lightly greased griddle or heavy skillet over medium heat. For each pancake, pour about 14 cup batter onto griddle.
3. Cook over medium heat until pancakes are golden; turn when tops are bubbly and edges are slightly dry (1 to 2 minutes per side). Makes 16 pancakes.

Easter in Florida

Piper is a true Florida girl and I love how this picture captures that. How many kids spend Easter sunday finding eggs on the beach in their bathing suit?
We celebrated Easter with a fun morning at the beach. We lounged around, played in the sand, hid eggs in the sand for Pip to find and took a long walk down the beach.
Holidays are so much more fun with kids.

Check out the two Mini Me's.

They have the exact same stance in both of these pictures below. How cute.