How To Celebrate a Birthday (and make a Scarecrow)

Best Buddies...

Birthdays are fun and especially so when you're celebrating with a friend.  Each year, Tara and I, plan something extra ordinary to do to make memories on our special day.  Gifts are forgotten over the years, but time spent together, well, the memories from those days lasts much longer.  Our past birthdays have found us biking, hiking, making pasta, strolling through the Arboretum and eating at great restaurants.  Every celebration includes some good food- that's a given.  This year Tara wanted to make scarecrows for our gardens.  It's something we've talked about doing for a while.  We just needed a time to make it happen and today was the day!  Last week, I went thrifting to find overalls and hats.  Our bishop donated the colorful shirts for us to use. (He's the best!)  Tara picked up a few supplies at Walmart and we scrounged around our houses for old gloves and pantyhose.   

Tara's husband Larry (the handiest of handymen!), made these awesome frames which we used as the skeleton to build upon.  The hips turned out to be a little too wide for our overalls,  

so Tara headed into the workshop and came out with this.  I have to admit I was a little nervous as she said, "This is the first time I've ever used a power tool!"  Oh, great.  I didn't want a trip to the emergency room to be a part of this celebration. Turns out, I had nothing to worry about.  She worked that thing like a pro.

We used plastic bags for stuffing and even though we had a lot of bags, it wasn't enough.  We had to stop and go raid the recycling bin at Walmart in order to finish them.  We found out it takes A LOT  of bags to stuff two scarecrows.

We used twine to tie off the bottom of the legs and arms and then stuffed the bags into the clothing.

We cut the legs off a pair of pantyhose and tied the top together to make the head.

Setting this onto the frame, we stuffed it with plastic bags, tying the neck off at the bottom.  Next, we covered the pantyhose head with a piece of burlap. 

A quick search online, gave us plenty of ideas for facial features.

With the hot glue gun, we gave them a face and a personality.  This was the fun part. 

I felt like I was doing surgery on my little man.

We finished them off with hats, gloves and boots, stuffing straw at all the connecting parts and in their pockets.

They turned out so stinking cute, we could hardly stand it!

Howie and Sylvester

Yep!  Best buddies.  They're ready for the garden.  And me and Tara, well we were ready for lunch.  We had the biggest, most delicious subs you've ever seen and Sweet Frog for dessert.  Yum! 

Happy, Happy Birthday Tara!

Plan B or How to Make Play Dough

What do you do when you've been planning all summer to get together and hike with some of your favorite little friends (because we love to hike and picnic and wade in the water), and every time it's planned, it rains... and your running out of time, because school starts next week, and you've promised them we would play together before school starts... and those sweet little faces look up at you in serious expectation on Sunday morning, while giving you a big hug (how's that for the best run on sentence you've seen in a while!)?  You say, " This is the week and we will definitely play, rain or shine!"  And then you begin developing plan B because the weather forecast calls for rain.  Surprise, surprise.

The rain however, did not stop us from having a great time.  We put on our aprons and began our day in the kitchen making play dough.  It's been a long time since I dug out this recipe card, but we found out, it still magically produces the best dough for creative play possible.  It's way better than the stuff you buy in the stores (although as a child I loved that smell of a freshly opened can of Play-doh, the smell of chemicals - weird huh? -that smell that takes me right back to my grandma's kitchen table). 

The girls loved this project, because they could do it themselves.   From measuring the flour, 

vegetable oil,

salt,

and cream of tartar,

to pouring in the water, it was all done by little hands.

The most exciting part was squeezing in the food coloring.

In less than five minutes, while constantly stirring,  the liquid became a solid and then the real fun began.

We learned what it means to "knead" and kept our hands moving quickly, because it's pretty warm when it comes out of the pot.  It sure feels great between your hands, though.

So, what colors should we make?  Everyone had a different favorite color, and some of us had more than one.  

And then we couldn't forget little brother, who would be playing with this when they took it home, so we had to make green for him. 

Oh, what the heck.  We decided we'd just make all of them.  Aren't they pretty?  I loved the way they lined them up ROYGBIV style.  Some things we learn in school, really do stick with us for a lifetime.

It was hard to decide where we should go for lunch, but after much  deliberation, we settled on "mexican".  It was all about the chips and cheese!

Next stop, was shopping at Claire's.  This store is heaven for little girls.  I loved watching them "ooh, and ahh" over everything!

Miraculously we made it out of that store, with just two bottles of fingernail polish and a long wish list.  Then we went home and painted our nails orange and watched a movie.

It turned out to be a pretty good day, even if we didn't get to go hiking.  Sometimes plan B can work out to be even better than you imagine.  I love these girls and the memories we make each time we hang out and play.  They help to keep me young!

Perfect Playdough

1 cup water

2 t. cream of tartar

1/2 cup salt

1 cup flour

1 T. vegetable oil

food coloring

Combine ingredients in saucepan and cook over medium heat,

stirring constantly until mixture becomes thick and pulls away

from the sides of the pan. This usually takes 2 - 3 minutes.
  Knead until smooth.  Keep in airtight container.

* Some moms don't like play dough in their house, so I had this activity approved before we started.  I was never one of those moms. 

How To Make Beef Stock and A Killer Beef and Barley Soup

Making your own beef or chicken stock is really easy.  All it takes is a few basic ingredients and time.  I keep bags with onion peels, carrot and celery scraps in my freezer.  Whenever I'm cooking dinner and use any of these items, I just add the scrap pieces to the bag.  Over time, I have enough to make stock.  

When I order my local beef, I always have a few packages of soup bones.  Today, that's what I used to make my stock, but you can use any leftover beef bones, from steaks or roasts that you've cooked.  Just keep them in the freezer in a bag, just like the vegetables, until you're ready to use them.

Raw meat does not a pretty picture make, but I wanted you to see the whole process.  I started out with cold water and added the soup bones to the pot.  Some proteins only dissolve in cold water and albumin is one of them.  Albumin helps clarify the stock, and that means it looks nicer when you're finished.  Just a little stock trivia for you.

I added the rest of the contents of my vegetable crisper to the veggies in the freezer bags. Carrots, celery and onion are the makings of mirepoix, which are the flavorings for stocks and lots of other wonderful foods.  Here's a more detailed article about mirepoix (in case your interested).   Real, honest to goodness, chef people, would use exact proportions of these three depending on the type of stock they were making.  Frugal homemakers like me just use what they've got.

Now you pretty much forget about it and just let it cook for a long time.  The flavors blend and the liquid will concentrate and after a few hours (or more) on a low temperature it will be done.  I was running short on time today and wasn't able to cook this as long as I would've liked, but this is what I ended up with after straining all the meat and vegetables - almost three quarts of stock.  I put it in the refrigerator overnight and used it the next day to make soup.  You can see the layer of fat that accumulates on the top.  Just take that right off before using.

The next day:  I cut up a piece of sirloin into chunks.  Again, sorry about the raw meat picture, but this is actually some really pretty meat (as meat goes).

I browned it in a little oil in my dutch oven.

Then I added my beef stock

and barley, along with some water and let it cook for about an hour.  

Next I chopped up celery,

carrots and onions (aka, mirepoix) and added them to the pot.

After another forty-five minutes of cooking time, the veggies and meat were fork tender and I stirred in some frozen green peas.  I loved this soup!  It was hearty and absolutely perfect for dinner on a cold evening. With a rustic loaf of bread, you've got a meal that sticks to your ribs.  You can get the recipe here if you'd like to try it yourself.  

The leftovers were even better the next day...

How To Dice An Onion

Sometimes when you've been cooking for a long time, you just assume that everyone knows how to do the same things you do.  But then I remember that I didn't always know my way around the kitchen like I do now.  I learned a lot by osmosis, growing up in a family of great cooks, and the rest has come from trial and error and watching all those chefs on the food network.  As many hours as I've logged on that station, I think I should receive some kind of honorary culinary degree.   

The thought popped into my head as I was making dinner one night that it might be fun to do some basic kitchen "how- to" posts.   Since almost every meal I make starts with dicing an onion, this seemed like a good place to start.  I cut up a lot of onions before I learned there was a better way to go about this task.  This is how I do it.

I start by cutting the root end off the onion.

Then I turn the onion around and cut off the other end.

I sit the onion upright and cut right down the middle.

Next, off comes the peeling.

With the knife parallel to the work surface, I slice through the onion 

without cutting all the way to the end.  This helps the onion stay intact as I slice several more times.

I usually make three slices, but if I wanted really small dices, I would slice across the onion four or five times.

Then I turn the onion half around and while holding onto the sides, make slices all the way across, about 1/4 inch apart.

Starting at one end of the onion, slice across to the other end and the onion will fall into perfect dices.

I realize as I'm typing this how complicated it sounds when put into writing, but trust me, it's fast and easy once you get the hang of it.  It takes me less than a minute to dice a large onion.