Friday Foto

In this Friday Foto we see Beatrice is pretending to be a Unicorn.

(Also, how is it that it's already Friday again??! These days are flying by.)

Friday Foto

Uncle John came to visit us this week!

My New Favorite Cookie

I have a subscription to Martha Stewart's everyday FOOD Magazine and I love it! There are always a couple of recipes that we try and they usually become ones that go into our rotation. There's always a cookie recipe on the very last page and this month's is the best cookie I've ever eaten. At least in a long time. Here's the recipe:

Lemon-Zucchini Cornmeal Cookies

-1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

-1 cup powdered sugar

-1/2 teaspoon vanilla

-1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest

-1 teaspoon coarse salt

-1 cup flour

-1/2 cup cornmeal

-1 cup grated zucchini

1) Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a large bowl, mix butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Stir in vanilla, lemon zest, and salt. Add flour and cornmeal and mix until crumbly. Add zucchini and stir until a thick dough forms.

2) Drop dough by rounded tablespoons, 2 inches apart on cookie sheets line with parchment. Bake until golden brown at edges, 25 to 30 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through. Cool on wire racks. Makes 25 cookies.

Of course, I don't have Martha's permission to put that recipe up here, but the cookies are so darn good that I'm sure once you make a batch (I'm currently baking my second in three days) you'll be so impressed that you'll run out and buy the magazine, maybe even get a subscription, too! Hopefully that will make it up to Martha.

My neighbor has been bringing me zucchini from her own garden and also from her brother's. We've had zucchini fritters and sauteed zucchini and I was thinking I'd probably make some zucchini bread, bran muffins, and maybe even some brownies, but now that I've tried this recipe I may have to just grate all those zucchinis and freeze them into one cup portions so that I can make these cookies all year long. I'm also thinking that I might experiment a little with carrot/lime or sweetpotato/orange cornmeal cookies.

If the next time you see me I weigh significantly more, this cookie is the reason. If the next time I see you YOU weigh significantly more, well, we'll be in the same boat! I'm sure you'll look great!!

Monday Movies!

Goodhue County Fair

Zumbrota, MN

A Day at the Fair

We went to the local Goodhue County Fair today and had a great time. The girls wanted to go straight to the rides, but I wanted to go straight for the fair food. We started our outing at the pork producer's building and got delicious pork sandwiches of every kind: riblet, porkburger, and bbq. We rounded the meal out with the absolute king of fried cheese curds from the Dairy producer's tent. They also had 25 cent cups of chocolate milk for the kids. I'll be dreaming about those curds, though.

Next we avoided the ride area by herding the girls through the animal exhibits. We started with the poultry. They had all kinds.

I don't think I've ever seen a chicken with feathery legs before. We've been chicken-sitting this week and muling over all the possiblities of becoming chicken owners and this building gave us lots to think about. There are some very pretty chickens out there. And all sorts of eggs, too.

We also saw really large, really noisy geese. Maggie really didn't want to stand next to their cage, but I made her. They had just hissed at Rob and Beatrice.

The next building had rodents. The girls were really excited to see Guinea Pigs and I couldn't pass up a picture of this little baby white one. Her name was Lu-lu. There were wonderful bunnies and one exceptional Angora Rabbit, too. We also saw a couple of rabbits that were nearly as large a that goose up there! Way too big for rabbits. There were also the little dwarf bunnies and rabbits with fur that looked like velvet. We spent quite a while in the rodent barn.

We spent a few minutes with the cows and the pigs. These guys were lined up just like the sausages they'll one day be. : (

Then we went to my favorite barn, of course. The sheep and goats. These two were cuddling sweetly. You just know that sheep are wonderful animals. We saw one curly haired goat and also a goat that had two sets of horns. But no llamas at the fair this year.

We looked at the other exhibits, too. Rob discovered that there was only one person entering beer in the homebrew competition. Next year he's aiming for the blue ribbon! I also saw some beautiful knitting and some decent photography. We'll be thinking about things we can enter in the fair all year long now that we know what a small showing there will be. Heck, I might even enter one of my marigolds - they seem to be the only thing taking off in my garden this year. We also saw a whole cow skeleton that some boy had put together. Maggie was even more reluctant about standing next to that than she was about the geese. We bought lolly pops from the Watkins vendor and took a starburst from the representative for the Democratic Party.

The children loved the petting barn. (That little boy in the red was the "4-H representative in charge". I didn't realize it at first because he looked like he was about 6 years old and he kept following us around. Then he climbed in with the rabbits and mentioned that they were available for $10 each. I was thankful that M didn't overhear that one. She might just have $10 squirreled away somewhere and she's been talking about a bunny.) You can see here that the girls are as interested in chickens as their parents are.

After the petting zoo we sat for a few minutes of a really lame magic show. Maggie thought it was pretty funny. I thought it was funny that the "lovely" assistant went back stage after the first trick and magically showed up beside the stage smoking a cigarette for the rest of the show. Ah, carnies. After we drug Maggie away from Bob the Magician we took the kids to the bouncy house. They bounced a lot!

Since it was unlimited bouncing, Rob went to get a Funnel Cake. This was really the only thing that would lure the girls away from the bouncy house.
The Minnesota State Fair is at the end of August. We can't wait!

Friday Foto

My children love produce. Maggie comes into the kitchen and says, "Hey, there's a lemon. Can I hold it?" I say yes. Hold a lemon. Why not. Of course the others want to follow suit.

They also beg to hold eggs.

I have strange children.

Monday Movies!

As promised here is your first Monday Movie. In this clip we see Obie doing all of his newest and greatest tricks: Playing "So Big", clapping, crawling, and clucking his tongue. Enjoy!!

Friday Foto

(In case you're wondering, Beatrice is holding 'a cat family in a flying cat car'. The cats are named Grandma, Grandpa, Maggie, Beatrice, and Suzanna. I guess Obie didn't make the cut!)

Be sure to check in on Monday for a new weekly feature: Movie Mondays!!!

Bee-isms

Beatrice came to me this morning trying to put on a pair of footed pajamas - the fleece kind that zip all the way up the front. She had both of her feet in and was having trouble getting her arms in because the jammies were turned inside-out.

"Mom," she said, "can you fix these arm-holders?"

The Newest Member of the Family, 2

I found one of these nasty little guys a few days ago and just knew that he would be adored by my tomboy girls. I popped him into a great big jar along with a ton of leaves and figured they would enjoy watching him crawl around and eat 50x his weight in greens every day. Well, it was short-lived because he almost immediately built his cocoon! It was really awesome to watch the fat, neon green guy become a fluffy tan puff in the corner of the jar. The girls check on him everyday and sometimes Beatrice carries the jar around the house when I'm not looking.

I did some research and discovered that he's probably a polyphemus moth. They stay in their cocoons for about two weeks, so check back with us then to see if he survived the transformation! I'm really hoping he will!!

May It Never Be!!

This week is VBS at St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church - the small-town church here in Frontenac that we've become a part of. (The transition from Presbyterian to Lutheran is ongoing and something for another post!!) My girls have never been a part of VBS before because we were out of town last year when it happened in C'dale and I was really excited to get them involved - I even volunteered to bring sea-themed snacks for the kids everyday (also something for another post!) Maggie especially is very excited to go each day and all morning asks when it's time for bible school, tells the stories she has learned so far, talks about her teacher and the kids she's met, and sings the two songs her class is memorizing to sing for the congregation on Sunday.

Monday after the first day of VBS she came to me looking a bit puzzled. She said, "Mom, is Wool bad?" I was shocked! Wool is the Best Thing Ever!! Why would she think it's bad? Indignant I gasped, "What are you talking about??"

"Well," she said, "In our song it says 'We were drowning in an ocean of wool. Then came Jesus, now to Heaven we'll go.' So is wool bad?"

"Not WOOL, Maggie!" I laughed. "Woe! Drowning in an ocean of WOE."

Although, someone might perchance drown in the ocean of my knitting stash if they aren't careful...

Obie is Mobile!