Decorate Your Plate with Strawberries

Strawberries are back (with flavor) in the local markets and are a favorite fruit at my house. They are super yummy in oatmeal, on Cheerios, with pancakes, all by themselves and of course, heavenly with any type of chocolate.

Create a pretty, edible and speedy garnish with strawberries and an egg slicer.

Wash your strawberries and leave on the stem.
Place the strawberry, stem side down, into your egg slicer.
Push the top of the egg slicer down to, but not through, the strawberry.
Lift the top of the egg slicer, remove the strawberry and using your thumb and forefinger, fan the slices of strawberry and put on the plate.

We had these strawberries with a luscious chocolate cake - happy birthday, mom!

Tazer Your Aura (what?)

I'm not trying to get all ethereal on you but I very much believe that the energy around us or, our aura, collects ions, for a lack of a better term, that can either be positive or negative.

Whichever the charge of the ion, positive or negative, it attracts more of the same and fills up our auras. In the process of filling up our auras, a buffer is created for the opposite charge. The fuller your aura, the greater the buffer to the opposite charge.

So if you have a bunch of negative junk floating around in your aura, nothing positive can get in. The same goes if you reverse it - fill up your aura with positive and it's becomes a negative aura ion shield! (oooohhh...ahhhhh....)

So you have negative junk in your aura. How do you blow out the negative ions so the positive can flood in? I say random acts of selfless kindness! The level of effect on the other person equates directly to the impact of the neutralization process on your negative aura ions. Nothing like providing sheer, unexpected joy to another human being to tazer an aura back into a positive flow!

So go ahead, make someone's day and tazer your aura positive!


Need some starters?

Animal lover? Take a couple of pet toys to your local animal shelter (Target has bins of stuff for a buck a piece)
Have elderly neighbors? Ask them if you can pick up something at the store for them the next time you are out.
At your coffee house? Buy a $1, $2 or $3 dollar gift card and give it to the person in line behind you.
Walking into a building? Open the door for someone and hold it open to let them walk in ahead of you. (You know, like men used to do when chivalry was cool.)
Parent? Drop by your kid's school at lunch with his or her favorite meal and stay for lunch. (Might not be so great if your kids are in high school.)
Son or daughter? Send flowers to you mom for no reason with a card that reads "thank you" because no matter your relationship, she loves you no matter what, always has and always will.

Get the picture? Now go out and do something nice, damn it!

Coffee and Sugar Pancakes or Affectionately - Long, Skinny Pancakes

This is a favorite taste from my childhood and that of my mom (and probably her mom too). It reminds me of Saturday mornings sitting on a stool at the counter, swinging my legs and smelling yummy smells while I waited for my Long, Skinny Pancakes.

Start with your favorite pancake recipe - I use the Joy of Cooking Griddle Cakes (see end of post for recipe) and a very hot griddle. It should sizzle when you sprinkle water on it.

Thin the pancake recipe with water until it pours in a stream.

Pour the batter onto the griddle and using the back of spoon, spread it out to a long rectangle.

When the top is dry and puffy, move the spatula around the entire bottom of the pancake and flip.


After about 45 seconds, transfer the pancake to a plate and spread on a bit of butter.
Sprinkle with sugar (about one tablespoon) and using a spoon, sprinkle entire pancake with coffee.

Roll it up.
Sprinkle with a bit more sugar.
Enjoy!
Thanks, Mom, for showing me how to make this family favorite and for pausing the cooking so I could take all of the photos!


Joy of Cooking Pancake Recipe

Sift before measuring:
1 1/2 cusp of all purpose flour
Resift with:
1 t salt
3 T sugar (I'm a little heavy handed with this measure)
1 3/4 t double-acting baking powder

Combine:
1 or 2 slightly beaten whole eggs (I use two)
3 T melted butter
1 to 1 1/4 cups milk

Mix the liquid ingredients quickly into the dry ingredients and pour by ladle onto hot griddle. Makes about fourteen 4-inch cakes.

Ten Puppies!

My neighbor's English Springer Spaniel had litter of ten puppies! Here are some shots at five weeks.

So soft and sweet! Of course I was asked, "Mom, can we buy one?"

Can you just imagine? They have teeth! Oh, mama, I feel for you.

Perfect Turkey, Jello Salad and a Reflection

I love my oven - GE Profile, 30" convection, in-wall, double oven.

On Easter I was able to cook an 18 pound turkey in two and a half hours - that's 8 minutes a pound! A little butter, salt and pepper, stick the temperature probe in, set the oven and bam! Check that out! I didn't open the oven once! Seriously! That's Food Network style right there!


My favorite jello salad is this Jello Ribbon Salad, it is absolutely beautiful and great to make when you are spending a day in the kitchen as you have to add a layer every half hour and there are twelve layers. Yes, it takes six hours total but you only tend to it about ten minutes an hour.

It would also be great for your local Pride Fest.

And now for the Reflection. I like to give thanks for the blessings in my life and so does my family but not always in a room full of 30 plus people.

For Easter I filled a small basket of empty plastic Easter eggs and asked my guests to write a thought, blessing or word, place it in an egg and then before lunch everyone who wrote on an egg would get to pick one and read it. It was really great to hear all of the anonymous thoughts. Two of my favorites were "Yea! It's Easter! Rah, rah, rah! Yea, God!" and "I believe in the Easter Bunny!"

Bunk Bed Lighting Solution

Two problems:
1. Scared of the dark (primary) and
2. Difficult to read bedtime stories (for me - still not sure when low light reading difficulties snuck up on me)

One solution:
A string of patio paper lantern lights from Target



They are actually rather festive and earned me a "very cool mom" comment from the husband and a "best mom ever" from the son.

I plugged them into a power strip, which is at the foot of the bed (between the slats) and I switch them off on my way to bed.

Easter Centerpiece

So my mom suggested these cute little centerpieces for our Easter table and it was much easier than I originally thought so I'm sharing.

Step 1
Crack open a regular egg (not hard boiled), discard (or use) the white and yolk and rinse.

Step 2
Dip the egg shell in your standard Easter egg dye.

Step 3
Remove from the dye and let dry.














Step 4
Buy some annuals from your local nursery - I removed about half of the dirt from the bottom of the flower to better fit inside the egg.














Step 5
Work the annual into the egg.

It took some squeezing and back and forth wiggling but it went in much easier than I expected.

There were a couple that "ripped" a little and at first I was annoyed but it ended up looking like the flower hatched from the egg, which was really super cute.














Step 6
I used the egg carton to hold the flower-stuffed egg shells while I finished the rest.














Step 7
I cut the egg carton (after removing the stuffed egg shells) to fit into my basket. To elevate the eggs, I turned a tupper ware container upside down so the bottom of the egg carton rested on the bottom of the container. This gave better height to my final arrangement.

I placed some Spanish Moss in the basket and over the egg carton and placed in the eggs.














Step 8
Enjoy a darling centerpiece and lots of compliments.