Cabin, part 1

This past weekend, my parents met Lily and me for a fun getaway a little ways north of Greensboro, NC. A coworker of mine recently built a cabin, and he and his family generously offered it to us for the weekend. The cabin was so great - cute, cozy, and no TV or electronic communication (other than a landline telephone!) - but I think the surrounding 400 acres were even better! Here is the view from the back porch of the cabin:


We were lucky to have the perfect weekend. Warm, sunny days, fall foliage emerging, and chilly nights perfect for sitting around a fire.

The first day out there, we explored the nearby pond and dock. Lily blew bubbles and just about chased the bubbles into the pond:

We climbed big rocks!! (Lily says "I'm the king of the mountain!!")

And we found lots of different nature stuff to play with.

Later in the day, we found a swing tucked away in the woods. Lily loved it!!!

Ed (my coworker who owns the cabin) stopped by on Friday afternoon to show us around a little bit. He and I set out on four-wheelers. Believe it or not, I didn't ride too many four-wheelers growing up in the suburbs of Ohio, so it was a new experience!! We rode all over the place, and it was a lot of fun. Then we swung back by the cabin and Lily hopped on with me for a little (slow) ride back up to the barn where they are stored.

Ed set us up with the "ranger" - an all-terrain vehicle with a little bit more seating, so we could all explore together. There is a farm on the property that has pigs, goats, chickens, horses, and cows - we took the ranger up to see the pigs and goats!

The goats were "fainting goats" - when they get scared they stiffen up and fall over!! When Ed and I went up there, he was able to chase one and make it faint, but then when my parents and Lily were there, we ran around like idiots chasing and yelling at the goats and couldn't get either of them to faint!

Here's the truck we drove around - I think my dad liked driving it:

That night, we built a fire in the fire pit outside and cooked hotdogs and s'mores.

Lily really likes roasted marshmallows :-)

We really enjoyed sitting by the fire in the chilly weather, and looking up at the beautiful view of the stars so far away from any cities!! I'll post more soon on the rest of our weekend....

Lots of rosemary

I got an order of rosemary in my Carolina Grown box last week. It sure smells wonderful! But, given the small amount of it needed in most recipes, I'm wondering what to do with it all. I found a few uses below, but if you have any good suggestions, please pass them on!

I decided to make some rosemary sugar - very easy - just put a few sprigs of rosemary in a jar with some sugar, and let it sit for a week or so. The question, of course, is what will I do with all that rosemary-infused sugar?


You can do the same thing with pretty much any spice - vanilla would be great, as would lavendar or roses. Not sure what else.

Next I made a rosemary loaf cake from the same cookbook as the chocolate-orange cake - How to Be a Domestic Goddess. I've wanted to make this one for a while, but never got around to it.

Cream up the softened butter until it's nice and fluffy, then add the sugar and cream it again until all combined and cloud-like.

Stir in some good vanilla....

Then, you're going to add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each. After each egg is incorporated, stir in a healthy spoonfull of the flour mixture. Once all of the eggs are in, stire in the rest of the flour.

Now the key ingredient - add some chopped rosemary. I had a helping hand :-)

Finally, thin the batter with the milk. Pour it into a greased and floured loaf pan. The recipe says to grease and line with parchment paper, but I've found that this works just as well for loaf cakes and is a lot easier. Bake for about 45 minutes. Keep an eye on it - don't let it overbake - the recipe said an hour, and I probably could have pulled mine out even earlier than 45 minutes.

The finished product is a simple, but delicious, rosemary-scented golden cake. The rosemary flavor is not at all overpowering - if you really like rosemary, you could even bump up the amount a little. This cake is yummy by itself - warm or room temperature. The recipe also suggests that it's good served with cold apple compote. If that's too fussy, I think it would make a great dessert just slightly fancied up with some freshly whipped cream.

This one is definitely worth sharing:

Rosemary Loaf Cake

From How to Be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson

Ingredients:

• 1 cup plus 2 Tbs soft unsalted butter


• 3/4 cup sugar


• 3 large eggs


• 1 1/3 cups self-rising cake flour


• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour


• 1 tsp vanilla extract


• About 2 tsp rosemary, chopped small, but not too fine


• 4 Tbs milk


• 1-2 Tbs rosemary sugar or granulated brown or white sugar

Butter and line with parchment paper a 9x5-inch loaf pan. Preheat oven to 350.

Cream the butter, adding the sugar when it's really soft. Cream both together until pale and smooth and light. Beat in eggs one at a time, folding in a spoonful of the flour after each addition. Add vanilla. Fold in the rest of the flour, and then the rosemary. Thin the batter with the milk, and pour into the pan.

Sprinkle the top with a little sugar and cook for 1 hour (or less, depending on your oven).

Cool in the pan on a wire rack. Unmold when completely cool and wrap well in foil until you're ready to eat it.

That was a quick weekend!

Two days of weekend fly by way too fast!! We ended up our Sunday celebrating Dave's 30th birthday at a friend's house in Southern Pines. He is putting off the real celebrating until after he takes the GMAT in a couple of weeks, but a low-key dinner with a few friends was certainly in order.

Lily played with her friend Jack - they found some garden tools, how fun!

Dig, dig, dig...

Lily helped Dave blow out his candles.

And she led the group in a round of "Happy Birthday Song." Birthdays sure are fun!

She dug into some red velvet cake... of course afterwards, she wiped her mouth on her white sweater (smart clothing move, mom).

A pretty nice ending to the weekend. Happy Birthday, Dave!!

Volksmarch festival

After a long week of being sick, Lily is finally feeling better this weekend. She had a pretty nasty virus and missed the whole week of preschool. She still has a cough, but otherwise is doing well.

Fort Bragg held a "Volksmarch Festival" on Saturday - it was a 10k walk (we didn't do that part) and some activities, music and kids area. Lily didn't like the oompa band music, so we went straight for the kids area, which was just a couple of bouncy houses. But it was free, and not too crowded, so - good deal!!

She wasn't so sure at first - usually she wants someone to go in with her. But there were only like 2 other kids in there, so I told her to go ahead.

And she had fun jumping, of course.

Then we painted a pumpkin. Lily picked out a pumpkin and dove right into the paints. She painted a face on the pumpkin all by herself, then added some glitter to the wet paint. I showed her how to use a sponge to sponge paint, and we added some "hair". I think it turned out pretty good!!

Waiting for it to dry.

And, here is the finished product proudly displayed :-) It adds a bit of color to my rental-white walls!!

Weekend kitchen adventures

Ahh, another weekend. There isn't much relaxing around here, but at least it's a chance to have some fun.

Dave and I started the weekend off by making dinner Friday night. At one point while we were cooking, Lily was entertaining herself by moving a bunch of apples back and forth from one bowl to another. We must not have been paying close enough attention, because when I looked over at what she was doing, I noticed that she had taken one bite each out of four apples!! I couldn't help but just laugh!

Serves me right for being too distracted! And, anyway, if she's eating apples, I'm pretty much a happy mom.

The next morning, I decided to use the quail eggs I'd gotten in the last week's delivery from Carolina Grown. (It's sort of a CSA, but you can choose what you want online. I love it. If you live in NC and you're interested, I highly recommend that you check out www.carolinagrown.org).

Aren't they cute little eggs?

Lily had a lot of fun moving them from counter to table and lining them up in a row.

As she was talking about the "cute little eggs," she said to them "aww, little babies, your mama will be back soon." Clearly, she did not get the tragic sadness of her statement, but I was a little bit horrified.

We cooked them anyway.

Easy, (almost) one-bowl chocolate orange cake

This is a recipe from one of my favorite cookbooks - "How to be a Domestic Goddess" by Nigella Lawson.

It's one of my favorites for a few reasons. One, I love to bake, so any cookbook devoted to mostly that is already on my good side. Two, a lot of the recipes are very, very good (duh, that's sort of a no-brainer requirement). But its most endearing quality is the conversational, british-y way that Nigella writes her recipes and intros. It is fun to read in and of itself.

Anyway - so I decided to try a recipe that I haven't made yet, and I picked this one, "Pantry Shelf Chocolate-Orange Cake," because it is quick and easy, and I had all of the ingredients on hand. You know how everyone loves orange marmalade? Yeah, I don't either. But, I swear, this recipe is a good reason to go buy some.

This recipe is also awesome because you can pretty much do it all in one bowl. I say "pretty much" because you are supposed to add the eggs already beaten, which requires another bowl. But, I suppose you could skip that and just beat the eggs once you've added them to the rest of the ingredients.

Melt some butter and bittersweet chocolate in a big bowl in the microwave. I use pretty dark chocolate (like 85%) for a good, dark chocolate flavor.

Then go ahead and add marmalade, two beaten eggs, sugar, and salt. Mix it all up!
Then stir in the flour a little at a time. This recipe (and most of the recipes in this cookbook) calls for self-rising cake flour. I had cake flour, and self-rising flour, but not self-rising cake flour, so I improvised. Self-rising flour is just regular flour with baking powder and salt added in, so I just did the adding myself. Too easy.

Pour it in a springform pan that's been buttered and floured, and there you have it! Now lick the bowl, because the batter is really good. (Mom, you won't get salmonella, I promise.)

Pop it in the oven....

And remove 40-50 minutes later. The recipe says 50 minutes, I took it out a little after 40, and could have taken it out a few minutes earlier. There's nothing worse than dry cake.

All done. While it's a great twist on plain chocolate cake, it is pretty simple-looking, so you might want to enhance its looks with some powdered sugar design.

To do so, cut out some paper in the general shape and size of your cake. Pick out a stencil or cookie cutter and trace your design.

Cut it out and place on your cake. Sift some powdered sugar over. If you want to add more shapes, just move the design around and sprinkle some more.

And you end up with a pretty design on top! This was my first attempt at this, but it turned out OK, I think.

Like I said, it is a great-tasting, simple cake, made even better with a dollop of fresh whipped cream. The best part is, it's easy and quick enough to throw together on a weeknight.

If you're still not sold on the marmalade, the recipe suggests you could try apricot or plum preserves. I bet cherry would be yummy, too. Happy baking :-)

(Of course, if you actually want to make this, just ask me for the whole recipe and I'll be happy to send it to you!)

Long weekend, pt. 3 - it ended on a low note...

We started off our Sunday with a visit to the park. It was a beautiful morning, and lots of other kids were there, so it was a great day for it.




Lily is a pretty good climber.
















She also had fun sliding and swinging.


But then, all of a sudden, she said she was tired and wanted me to carry her back to the car. When we got home she said she wanted to take a nap - that never happens!! I figured she was just tired, but later that afternoon she felt warm and I took her temperature - fever :-(


So, we took it easy that evening, just hanging around the house and playing outside a little bit. She didn't seem to get worse until Monady afternoon, when her fever just kept going up and up - to 102, 102.7, 103, and finally 103.5!! Tylenol wasn't really helping, so I tried ibuprofen, which didn't seem to be working either. I started getting us ready to head to urgent care at around 9pm Monday night, when the medicine kicked in and her tempurature finally started dropping. Thank goodness.

Today I'm back at work and Lily is at home, and the fever seems to be down for the time being. No real sign of a cold or anything else that caused the fever. I guess we'll just wait and see!

It's all just another day in the adventures of parenthood!!

Fruit flies, agh!

About a week ago, I started noticing a lot of fruit flies in the house. I have no idea where they all came from or why they were suddenly everywhere, but I figured they'd go away after a few days. They didn't.

So, I googled "fruit fly invasion" and learned a few things. First, I discovered that fruit flies are more plentiful in the fall. Second, I found that I could make a fruit fly trap out of common household items. I was skeptical that it would really work, but decided to give it a try.

You just take a jar or glass, and pour a little apple cider vinegar into it. Then, fashion a funnel out of paper and tape it up. Put the funnel in the jar like so:

Make sure you tape the top edge of the jar to the funnel, or the little buggers will escape through the gap between them. That's it!

And, what do you know....

It works! Gotcha, you annoying little fruit fly. Within 10 minutes, there was one fly in the jar. Later that evening, we'd caught 10!! There are still a few buzzing around the house, but I'm hoping this will do the trick.

I never would have thought of this...thank goodness for Google!

Long weekend, pt. 2 (Gross Farms and Don't Drink the Water!!)

I wish I had discovered this place earlier!! Lily and I drove about 20 minutes north to find Gross Farms, a nice little farm that does berry picking in the summer and pumpkins in the fall. Aside from the pumpkin patch, they had tons of stuff for kids to do. There were great things to climb on, like a wooden train and this big boat:

They had tricycles to ride...

And a big bouncy thing that was a blast!!!

However, Lily preferred playing in the sand surrounding the bouncy thing, and by playing I mean rolling around and getting filthy. Good thing the sand was dry, at least. Here she is making a "sand angel":

After getting tuckered out on all the playthings, we went for a hayride. Lily amused our hay-riding companions by singing "we are on a hayride!!" about 50 times. She was so excited!!

Then we took a stroll through the pumpkin patch. Lily pretty much headed out with her friend Izzy, who met up with us at the farm. I don't think she stopped running the whole evening.

There was a big sign outside the pumpkin area that said "You pick it, you buy it!", but of course, the two girls wanted to grab every pumpkin they saw, saying "here's a good one!" And every time they saw one that was rotting or smooshed, they said "ewwwwwww, gross"

All in all, it was a great evening, and the weather was nice and warm.

We had a nice surprise when we got home, though - a Boil Water order!!! Whoopeee. I thought it was odd as we were driving home that all of the fast food restaurants were dark and empty. This is the second time this has happened in the last year! Yuck. Good thing we've got some bottled water on hand to get through the next day or two - hopefully it is fixed by then!