donuts

this is my third attempt at writing a blog post today.
mainly because i was trying to be witty or poetic or pretty much something i'm just not feeling today.
but i wanted to blog because i wanted to show you these pretty donuts that me and the boys made today.

see? pretty.
also i needed to clear up a serious misconception on noah's behalf wherein he confused bagels with donuts yesterday. donuts are not bagels. and bagels are most certainly not donuts.
it's because we made bagels yesterday. they were a huge fail. however, i know what i did wrong and will not be repeating my mistake again. {curious? i boiled them for far too long. my recipe was not specific and i didn't realize they needed to be boiled for a maximum of 1 minute, not like...7.  holy water-logged bagels, batman.}
the plan for tomorrow is to decorate all spring-like. and finish off the leftover donuts.
sounds like a great day to me.

have you ever made donuts? or bagels? what's your worst baking/cooking flop? what's your biggest success in the kitchen? are you tired of all these food posts? {circle one: yes or no.}

mint chocolate brownies

we've been in uganda for 4 weeks today.
that just seems absurd to me.
but here we are.
this morning we were invited to a different church and so {reluctantly} i agreed and we went.
it was at 9am so that meant no big Sunday brunch. *sad face*
after about 1.5 hours of sitting quietly and then running around outside in the mud and puddles i grabbed a crying {mucky} jude and walked to our waiting taxi with noah walking behind me.
we were going back home and we would do church there.
it was a good choice. for me and my attitude and for my kids. they just can't sit still for 3 hours.

anyway so i was able to have lunch ready for the guys when they got home and i made these.

well, they were mint chocolate brownies.
they were just so good we ate them up far too quickly for me to grab my camera.
no joke.

one of the cool things about being in another country is they have food products that you can't find at home {and vice versa, usually}. the range of cadbury chocolate bars is unsurpassed. like, amazing. they've got your typical fruit and nut bar, dark chocolate bar, milk chocolate bar - but then there's things like top deck {half white chocolate and half milk chocolate}, snack bar {like a fruit and nut, but it's basically fruit and cookie - it's good!} and my favourite - mint crisp. it's a milk chocolate bar with pieces of crunchy mint candy inside. so.stinkin.delicious.
it's become clear to jamie as well as nick and trevor that the mint crisp is my favourite and it seems that they keep picking them up for me when they see them. so at one point i had THREE mint crisp bars in the fridge. then i saw these on pinterest and i knew what i would do with them.
so here's my recipe for mint chocolate brownies. if you can't find a mint crisp bar {too bad for you}, you can use whatever kind of mint chocolate bar you can find - or mint chocolate chips. but it's absolutely DIVINE with the mint crisp bar.

3/4 cup butter, melted
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
3 eggs
3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 bar of cadbury mint crisp, chopped up into chunks {or equivalent minty chocolate)

blend the butter, sugar and vanilla. then add the eggs - beating well after each addition. combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt & chunks of minty chocolate in another bowl. gradually beat in the egg mixture making sure not to overmix.
pour into a greased pan and bake at 350F until sides are pulling apart from the pan.
my oven is hotter than mount vesuvius and so it took just under 25 minutes but yours may take up to 40 minutes depending on your oven. also, i guesstimated the temperature.
serve warm on its own or with a big hunk of vanilla ice cream.

also, this is a great recipe to win over a man's heart. just sayin'.

tender heart

I was busy making dinner tonight when Jamie came in from barbecuing and told me this story

I was outside when I heard these soft crying sounds and I turned and I saw Noah crouched down and softly (slightly fake) crying.
I said, "Why are you crying? What's the matter?"
He said, "I'm sad and I'm crying because these flowers are dying." and then he pointed to some wilted flowers.


When Jamie told me this I just about died - my sweet boy with such a tender heart. Crying over flowers.

Jesus, please keep his heart soft and tender for the weak ones in our world. Give him the wisdom and the compassion to go out and do something to make a difference in the world.

sweetness

every time we see Jamie's grandpa (the boys' great-grandpa) and nana, his grandpa usually hands me or Jamie a white box with a stamp on it that says

clarke's homestyle bakery

and inside are usually a few sugar cookies and always two chocolate chip cookies on sticks complete with happy faces iced on.

i usually try to limit the amount of sugar my kids eat if i possibly can, but i always save these "popsicle cookies" for them. it's a sweet gesture from jamie's otherwise stoic grandfather that shows his love and delight in his great-grandsons. 

so i gladly indulge his sweetness and let the boys join in too.

share the love (week 3)

How's your Thursday going so far?

I hit the gym this morning with the boys (but only after Jude took off down the driveway before we even got into our car and got a huge goose-egg on his head because he tripped and fell - good times), made an early lunch (it was good, but apparently I was the only one who thought so) and read stories with the boys.

Speaking of lunch, I gotta say, every time I buy one of the Piller black forest style cooked/smoked hams I love them. You can do so much with one (well, the ones I buy are the half hams) and so far I've got a ham & potato soup and a red pepper, ham & pasta dish out of this one with much more left over! So when they're on sale, I buy at least one, sometimes two and freeze them. You really can't go wrong - plus the boys like ham.

And ever since the dreaded dentist appointment of 2011 and was told I have multiple cavities I've been taking dental care a lot more seriously. I mean flossing at least every other night, if not every night. (So I didn't use to floss. I learned my lesson. You should floss too!) Anyway, my dentist recommended an electric toothbrush so I went out and bought the Oral B Vitality and I LOVE it. It has a 2 minute timer on it and the biggest thing for me is that at night I realized I was so tired by the time I was brushing that I'd just do a quick brush and then bed, but the timer helps me keep brushing until the 2 minutes are done. It comes with a charging stand which I like (we'll see how this goes over in Africa, though). I like. It was ~$30 so about mid-range - not $10, but not $100 either!

And I'm fairly certain I've blogged about this before, but for goodness sakes, I love our sound machines. I started using a sound machine for white noise when Noah was about 4 months-ish and we haven't looked back. The white noise has been a familiar sound/thing that no matter where we go, it's somewhat comforting. Also, I know that neither boy need the white noise to sleep as they've fallen asleep without it, but it's helpful if we're watching something after the boys have gone to sleep and we know we don't have to worry about them waking up from our noise. It's comforting to us, too. Who knew?
We have two different ones; the Conair sound machine and the Obusforme Sound Therapy. I like both of them.

And as for music, I'm still loving Sweet Thing's Change of Seasons. I heard it on the radio awhile back and immediately really liked it.
After a quick google I found out that Sweet Thing is from Toronto which makes me like them even more. Love me some good hometown musicians. I love their harmonies and I like the lyrics to this song. Here's the live studio version of Change of Seasons.