Breaking News!! More Coffee!!

Thanks to frugal-bonvivant.com for the image.

September 29th is National Coffee Day! I've seen this in exactly one source that I don't consider very reliable but it doesn't take much to get me excited about coffee. Rumor has it that there are vendors giving out free coffee but none of the ones I've heard about have very good coffee so I'm going to pass on the free stuff and pay my own way. It's patriotic, after all.

Last night hubby had a meeting and since it was likely to be a long one, I made chocolate chip cookies and iced decaf coffee for the group. Much of the coffee (and a few of the cookies) came back home so Monkey and Peanut have kid-friendly coffee at the ready, which delights them to no end. I think snack this afternoon is going to be mocha-liscious.

Drink up my dears! and have a happy mental health day.

Coffee = Happiness

I don't know if you've heard the news but there's a new study out which found that women who drink coffee are less depressed. Basically, daily is better than weekly, and more is better than less.

There are the usual caveats - the findings are correlative instead of causitive, the study may not generalize well to a normal population, addictive substance, etc. - but from this corner of the world I'd say they're spot on. At our house, a caffeinated Mama is a happy Mama.

So, on this drizzly day of gotta-dos, take a moment to raise a mug to your mental health. Salud!

Food Matters

Stan and I are often on the lookout for kids-eat-free deals. We're also on the lookout for kids meals that offer balanced nutrition and good portions. These two things do not often match up but we recently found a standout example.

Food Matters is an unassuming little spot in a mostly residential area. I thought for sure our GPS was steering us to the wrong spot. When we pulled up I was pretty sure we'd found the corner bar. We forged on, though, and were rewarded with some great food.

I had a Turkey Cranberry Wrap with roasted root vegetables and Stan had an Angus Beef Burger on Brioche with another one of the fabulous sides (which I can't remember.) The big surprise was with the kids meals. None of the options for main course or side were fried. Main courses were simple enough to be kid friendly but have flavor profiles that I wouldn't mind consuming. The kids had just as many green and orange veggie options as the adults did.  Of course, Peanut still chose all white carbohydrates so it's not fool proof. Monkey, on the other hand, chose sauteed spinach and scarfed it down with gusto. They were both delighted with their food and enjoyed having wider options.

The one downside was the TV prominently displayed in the dining area. Our kids couldn't keep their eyes off the screen. We talked to the management and they are apparently in the process of fixing the problem, moving the screen over to the bar area.

For the record, my other go-to for healthy kid meals is IHOP of all places. They've made some great changes to the way they do food so that there are plenty of options for low calorie kid meals.

3.14 and so forth

This morning Stan put on his pi shirt and I said "maybe I should make a pie." [side note: Stan's reply was "make it square and we can say πr²." We're so geeky.] None of the kids were up yet so I'm pretty sure we weren't overheard. Fast forward a few hours and Puddin' is playing with the plastic food in her grocery cart. She turned a purple star into a "hot chocolate pie cake." Hmmmm. & Mmmmm. The spirit of pi/pie has entered our home and will not leave until we have offered and eaten sacrifices. Now comes the big decision - chocolate or berry?

The picture, by the way, is from last summer. I bought a carton of pie cherries from a farmer's market on a whim and then whipped up a recipe of my own. It was the first pie I'd ever made completely from scratch. It was mighty tasty and I was darn proud. That was the moment I converted to the holy order of pie. All hail the almighty π.

postscript: I finally settled on a chocolate banana pudding pie with graham cracker crust.

Fallen Bread

I used to be an avid bread baker. In a world of just barely post-college kids, that kind of domesticity was unique so I gained a reputation. Folks banded together for one of my birthdays to give me a bread maker and slowly, but surely, I stopped making bread. I love bread - it's one of my top five foods. I love fresh bread, especially; but using a machine took all the fun out for me. There's just something about getting my hands in the dough, massaging and pounding until the texture transforms. It's probably the closest I'll ever get to sculpture, which is a very alluring art form.

Recently I started making bread again. I have an 800 page bread cookbook that talked me into it, despite the soaring summer temps. The last few loaves have been lovely so today I took a detour to wheat bread. It's a little harder to activate the gluten in wheat flour so wheat breads can be quite finicky. This particular recipe was a "batter" bread, which doesn't require kneading. It seemed odd, given the gluten problem, but the book told me to do it; who was I to argue? The lack of kneading already took some of my fun away but it seemed like a good solution since Puddin' was fighting naptime. The dough took much longer to rise than the recipe said - already a bad sign - and then fell during baking. I now have a brick of wheat bread with the density of a sponge and the texture of cardboard. The taste isn't bad but it's got a lot to compensate for and doesn't come close to the task.

I'm going to be on the lookout for ways to repurpose the bread. If you've got any suggestions I'd love to hear them.