fresh friday -- chicken soup and homemade pitas

I'm so glad I read my Martha Stewart Living magazine yesterday.  It's been sitting on the lamp table for days, and I was planning to make my sister's Chinese Chicken Salad for dinner, but wasn't quite in the mood.  Then I came across this recipe for Chicken Soup, and it was so simple and good!  My kids couldn't get enough of the soup or the bread.  Next time I'll double both recipes!

  

Basic Chicken Soup

Serves 6

Ingredients

• 1 whole chicken (about 4 pounds), cut into pieces (including back)
• 8 cups water
• Coarse salt
• 3 medium onions, thinly sliced (4 cups)
• 2 celery stalks, sliced crosswise 1/4 inch thick
• 4 garlic cloves, crushed
• 6 medium carrots, sliced 1/2 inch thick

Directions

1. Bring chicken, water, and 1 tablespoon salt to a boil in a large stockpot. Skim foam. Add onions, celery, and garlic. Reduce heat. Simmer, partially covered, for 30 minutes.
2. Remove breast, and set aside. Add carrots. Simmer, partially covered, for 40 minutes.
3. Remove remaining chicken; discard back and wings. Let cool slightly. Remove meat from bones, and cut into bite-size pieces.
4. Stir in desired amount of chicken; reserve the rest for another use. Skim fat. Season with salt.

From Martha Stewart Living

Here's the recipe for the pita bread:

Homemade Pita Bread

Prep Time: 2 hours, 15 minutes
Cook Time: 6 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon active dry yeast
• 1 tablespoon of sugar
• 1/2 cup of warm water
• 4 cups of bread flour
• 2 teaspoons of salt
• 1 cup of warm water
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil

 Preparation:

Dissolve in the yeast and sugar in 1/2 cup of warm water and set aside, covered, for 15 minutes. Dissolve salt in the remaining 1 cup of warm water.

In a large mixing bowl, add flour and make a well in the center. Add yeast mixure and salt water. Knead with hands for 10 minutes in the bowl. Add olive oil and continue to knead until all oil is absorbed. Shape into a ball in the bowl, cover, and place in a warm area to rise until doubled in volume, approximately 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Punch down the dough and knead for 5 minutes more.
Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C), and lightly oil baking sheets.

Take pieces of dough slightly larger than an egg and roll out on a floured surface to a thickness of 3/8 to 1/4 inch. (For larger or smaller pita bread pieces, take more or less dough). Prick the bread with a fork in several places.

Place on baking sheets and bake at 350°F (175°C) on the lowest oven rack for 2-3 minutes, then turn the pitas over and bake for another 2-3 minutes. Remove from oven and place on a tray covered with a clean dishtowel, with another clean towel on top. When thoroughly cooled, pitas can be stored in plastic bags in the refrigerator, or frozen.

Before using, brown in a lightly oiled frying pan for a few minutes until browned on both sides.

Click HERE to see the recipe on about.com.

odds and ends

Just wanted to post a few pictures I had hanging around on my memory card.  :)

First, my Peter, who was Star of the Week in his 1st Grade class this week.  We were all invited to come today to talk about Peter and our family.  M. played guitar, Peter narrated a slide show and we had a good time!  I think Peter enjoys the limelight.

Next, Lily's cool hairstyle that I found on an awesome blog, The Story of a Princess and her Hair.  So many great ideas there, now we just have to wait for Lily's hair to grow!  Honestly, I can't believe I got her to sit still long enough to do this! 

mr. real barf

Ask me to tell you the story of Real Barf and I can't quite remember all the details.  Here are some random facts I remember:

• He's a plastic alligator, roughly a foot long
• He came to our house when my sister Becca was in a play (I think it was A Christmas Carol or something similar)
• He's named after the man who starred in the play, Neil Barth (or something similar)
• He became a symbol of service for our family.  When it was your turn, you did something nice for someone and left Real Barf nearby to let the recipient know that it was her turn to do something kind for someone else. 
  

If anyone in the family remembers more, please share!  I wish I remembered everything. 

Now, to the point of this post. Becca turned 40 last week!  Her husband, Chris asked members of the family to send 40 somethings to help her celebrate.  As an overachiever, I couldn't just send 40 M&M's (which she loves) or something similar; I decided to make 40 Real Barfs.  I tried fabric, but realized it would probably take to long and be too much work.  Then I found this link for alligator valentines and figured I could do 40 of those with no problem. 

Yeah, not so much.  I even enlisted M. for backup and after we made 2 or 3 he said, "Could you just make 10?"  So I made 10 and put some reminders of experiences with Becca inside the mouths.  I was able to fit 4 pieces of Extra gum (which totally reminds me of Becca) inside each Real Barf so that she still got 40 of something from me. 

Now you can't wait to see, can you?  :)  Ok, here you go!

 

Sort of cute, right?  Incidentally, Becca used to take me to dance concerts in Salt Lake City all the time, and on the way home we'd talk about them, but when we hit Highway 89, without fail, we'd roll down the windows and sing "You Light Up My Life" at the top of our lungs.  The best part is that we both forgot the words in the same spot every single time.  Ahhhh, memories.  :)

Happy 40th, Bec!  Love you! 

ruby lou doll

This is Ruby Lou.  At Grosgrain they're giving away one doll and one pattern!  I would LOVE to win the pattern, and blogging about it gives me an extra entry! Isn't she cute? :)

Sew Much Ado Ruby Lou Doll AND Pattern GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

shirt dress

I'm sooooo excited about this one.  I saw the tutorial on MADE and knew I wanted to try it.  I love MADE.  There aren't enough words to tell you how much I love MADE.  Click here for the actual post with the tutorial. 

Can you believe I made this?  And out of an old men's dress shirt?  PS Isn't my one-year-old adorable??  


Since M. wears his dress shirts every day and wasn't ready to get rid of any, I packed the kids up and went to the thrift store to pick up a few. Whenever I try a new project I do a practice version, and since Sophia is the smallest, she's the lucky recipient!

 The fabric for the waistband is from my stash of stuff I meant to use on some project or other but never finished.  Don't ask M. about that stuff.  He gets grumpy when I buy materials and don't finish the project. 


 I spent one night figuring out how to adapt the pattern to her size, cutting out the pattern pieces and fabric.  Then I did the main sewing in about an hour on one night, and the finishing with the waistband, elastic for neck and sleeves, and hem in two hours another night.


 









And I finished it just in time for her to wear it to church today! 


Now I can't wait to make one for Lily!  Here are a couple more pics of S. just because she's so darn cute.  :)

Latest project - Ruffled Scarf

Woohoo!  So one of my sisters received her package, which means I can reveal it all to you (which, don't lie, I know you've been counting the seconds to see).

Have you checked out SYTYC?  It was one of the blogs that got me started on all this crafty business.  The first round is down to the final two, but they're auditioning 18 new crafters for the next contest, which will be cut down to 10 before it starts.  Anyhow, this project is the winner from week 6, and I loved it from the moment I saw it!

Katie (the sis for whom I made the scarf) told me last night that I've been very domestic lately, and while I politely said, "Thanks!" I wondered whether that is a compliment or an insult.  I'm sure she meant it as a compliment, but I think that the word "domestic" adopted a negative connotation with the women's movement.  I'm glad that domesticity (and by that I mean sewing, cooking and homemaking among other things) is making a comeback.  I've always felt an urge to create, but the feminist side of me thought that I was abandoning all that I *could* do by doing things I was expected to do or *should* do. 

With that said, I should point out that no one ever taught me to do this stuff.  The desire I feel to sew, knit, crochet and cook is so great that it pushed me to teach myself.  I'm so glad I did, because seeing a project from beginning to end is unbelievably rewarding.  And there's so much to learn (and I'm so low on the scale of education in some of these areas) that I'll be working on mastering techniques for the rest of my life! 

Wow, what a tangent!  Anyhow, here's the scarf!  I love it, and I hope Katie does, too!

Now I just need a picture of Katie in the scarf to complete the post!  Come on, Katie, you know you want to send me a picture!  :)

Click here to see the scarf on SYTYC.  There's also a link there to get the pattern. 

waiting. waiting. waiting.

I'm waiting, can you tell?  Waiting until two of my sissies get the things I made them so I can blog about it.  Because it's a surprise and stuff.  I hate waiting.  Did you know that?  Patience?  SOOOO not a virtue. 

On the funny side, last night at dinner, Will made fists and a funny face and I asked him what he was doing.  His answer?  "I'm squishing out my heart gooies, Mommy."  Absolutely no clue what he was talking about, but tonight we all decided to squish out our heart gooies at dinner.  I think it worked, because I'm feeling a lot less gooey now.  :)

Bourbon Chicken, sans Bourbon

 I came across this recipe today at Our Family Treat and decided to try it since I had most of the ingredients on hand already.  Oh my goodness, it was wonderful.  Easy, tasty and crowd-pleasing, for sure!  Each of the kids asked for seconds.  And thirds, now that I think about it.  They said it tastes like the Chinese food samples we get when walking through the food court at the mall.  :)

Blogchef actually has a picture tutorial, so instead of posting the recipe, I'll direct you there, with the warning that the first sentence of the post begins, "I have saw this recipe...."  Eeeek!  Just ignore that.  You'll thank me, I promise! 

Enjoy!

Doo, doo, doo, doo ROAR!

I don't know how it started.  Actually, now that I think about it, I do.

I was walking down the aisle of Food Lion in Carrboro, NC with baby Peter in the cart.  We were browsing the produce section and happened upon the arugula.  So, being me, I started to sing "Arugula" to the tune of the Hallelujah Chorus (or something that fits better, since we know I'm ALL about proper musical setting of lyrics, or names of vegetables, as the case may be).  Peter was amused, which was, of course, my goal. 

Unfortunately, his amusement wore off, and he returned to fussing, which was my worst fear in the grocery store as a new first-time mother.  No, that's not redundant.  I promise, it's not.  You can be a new second- or third-time mother.  Maybe I should have written that I was a first-time mother to a newborn.  (Aren't you lucky?  You just witnessed one side of my schizo conversation with the grammar nazi in my head.  Consider yourself blessed not to have witnessed the other side; that biyatch is MEAN.) 

At a loss as to what other vegetable to use to entertain the whiner baby, I decided to try something new.  I looked up in the air and started saying, "Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo," then whipped my head around to look at Peter and said, "ROAR!"  He laughed his head off!  And you know what?  He never got sick of it.  The "ROAR" was different enough each time that he never expected it and was always caught off guard. 

Wow, that turned into quite a story (or a saga, as Peter would say it). 

The "doo, doo, ROAR" has stood the test of time (at least 6 years) and the test of land? (which, I know is not even a normal test, but dang, the thing works all over the U.S.)  and the test of kids (yes, yet another fake test, but I figured since we're already in the la la land of tests, why not go all the way since all 4 of my kids have enjoyed the thing). 

And today, my baby, my Sophia, my nearly-one-year-old-ball-of-chub looked at me and, in her nearly-one-year-old-ball-of-funny-chub way, said, "doo, doo, doo, doo, ROAR!" 

My heart melted right then and there.  Maybe someone will stand at my funeral and credit me with creating the famous "doo, doo, doo, doo, ROAR!"  I should be so lucky. 

Sigh

Started today with such grand plans.  Didn't end up accomplishing a whole lot, though I did accomplish some.  Doesn't help that I have a nearly 1-year-old who whines and follows me all over the house holding her chubby little arms out wanting me to pick her up.  Wish she weren't so darn cute;  if she were, I could just let her fuss a bit.  As it is, instead of a fussy baby I see my last baby who is just about ready to walk wanting to cuddle with her mom.  How much longer am I going to be able to scoop her up and sniff her sweet baby smell and snuggle for a while?  Dang, I'm making myself cry just writing about this! 

Instead of throwing a pity party, I'm going to be content with what I *did* accomplish today, which includes lots of snuggling, dishes, laundry, finishing a sewing project and cleaning my room.  Oh, and blogging.  :)

Proud

Yes, I'm proud!  I recently "procured" quite a bit of off-white felt and had no idea what I'd do with it.  Then M. suggested I make a bag for will, since the one he carries to church is pink and falling apart.  I thought that was a good idea, but worried that I'd have to make up my OWN pattern.  My OWN.  As I mentioned in my earlier craft post, I'm excellent at following directions and even better at copying what others do; making up my own stuff?  No so good at that. 

But I did it!  And here's the result. 

Sort of cute, eh?  I did all the planning and cutting last night and the sewing today.

The lining is just some scrap material I had leftover from some project from some time ago.  Isn't my memory good? 

The thing that took the longest is the black hand stitching on the outside.  It figures, since it's just decorative.  

 

I figured, since I have so MUCH off-white felt, I'll make a bag for each kid, so I put a car on Will's because he's fond of cars and stuff.

 

 

And here's my Buff with his new church bag.  At first he held it right in front of his face, but I told him I wanted to see his eyes and this is what I got.  

Fresh Friday -- Care's Rolls

I decided to follow my friend Jessica's lead and post a recipe today.  Jessica lived in the same apartment complex we did in North Carolina, and I just recently found her blog!  You should head over there and see her recipe for Seven Layer Supper.  I think my kids would love it!

I made these rolls tonight to go with ham, funeral potatoes and tossed Greek salad.  They are scrumptious!  We usually eat wheat bread, so I don't make them very often, but they always end up light, fluffy and delicious.  My sister-in-law Care is the one who introduced them to our family, hence the name.

 

4 1/2 c flour

2 T yeast

1/2 c sugar

1 t salt

1 1/4 c warm water

3 eggs, beaten

Dissolve yeast in water.  Add sugar, salt and eggs.  Slowly add flour.  (I almost always use at least an extra cup of flour; I'm not sure if it's the altitude or the humidity, but the dough needs it.)  Mix (or knead) 6-8 minutes until dough is firm.  Transfer to an oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap.  Let rise until doubled (about 1 hour).  Punch down, cut in half and let rest for 10 minutes.  Roll into circles and cut slices like you would a pizza.  Roll each slice from the outside to form crescents.  Cover and let rise again for 30 - 40 minutes.  Bake at 325 degrees for 10-15 minutes.