Breakfast for Dinner

Happy summer everyone! It's so nice when I don't have to get up before the suns up to get my oldest ready for school. We get to sleep in and have pajama days. I love those days! When we spend till lunch in our pj's and finally decide that we better get dressed before Dad gets home. It's great! But with the lazy days come the hot lazy days.

You know the one's I'm talking about. The ones that the heat just sucks the energy right out of you. And you were able to feed the kids pop tarts for breakfast, pb&j for lunch but now its the dreaded hour of dinner. Now normally I can't wait for dinner time. Because I LOVE TO COOK! And I love that we get that time to be together as a family before we rush off to work on whatever needs to be done. Or usually that my husband has go back to work.

But when the heat is so much that the thought of turning on the stove let alone the oven is enough to make even me go running from the kitchen in fear what do you do? I had one of those days this week. It was hot, I was tired, and obviously my kids were not in the mood to actually like each other that day. 

I trudged through the house to the fridge looking at what could I make that wouldn't require effort, I decided on pancakes. A staple in our house, pancakes are usually made from a made from scratch mix that I'd made a few weeks before. Or if in a pinch Bisquick. I don't use just water like I know some of you like to do. Especially with Krusteaz. But use whatever mix you normally have on hand.  I add eggs, milk, and vanilla to mine with the result being a thick fluffy sweet pancake that my kids just eat up. Literally! They eat like five or six pancakes a sitting. 

Well this time, I was out of vanilla and didn't want just a plain old boring pancake and syrup for dinner.  This is kind of off subject but my favorite kind of ice cream shake is cherry chocolate chip cashew.  And as I searched for what to add to this pancakes I thought that all I really wanted was a shake for dinner. Lightbulb! I had cherries, and I had chocolate. Cashews? Nope, but the thought of those in a pancake just didn't seem right to me.

So I threw together this crazy idea and twenty minutes later and the griddle not heating up my house this is what we ended up with.

The recipe (approximatly)

4 cups pancake mix
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract ( I use butter or almond if I'm out of vanilla)
1/2 c pomegranate juice
2-3 cups milk
1/2 c sugar
Pitted Cherries
1 cup chocolate chips or about half a bag
2-3 drops red food coloring

I just threw everything in the bowl and mixed it together.  Then we topped them with some whipped cream, whole cherries and chocolate shavings.

Now if you know me you know that I usually don't follow a recipe. They never turn out for me. So everything I make is usually just me throwing together a make-shift recipe.  And when it turns out trying to remember the amounts! You can add more or less of anything I use.  I added the juice to add some fruity flavor to these but you don't have to use it. The only thing I will say about the milk is that milk is expensive. I use it because I can't stand just water in pancakes. But feel free to use just water or to half and half it with the milk.

I leave my pancake mix a little thin and let it sit for a few minutes. I like it to thicken up before I pour it on the griddle. It gives you a thicker fluffier pancake. If you come back and your batter is too thick add a little more liquid and use the consistency you and your family like.

 Brooker's ate 3 of these and the other two together polished off almost 10 and were complaining they wanted more. Definately another hit around here! Next time I have a quick and easy chicken salad recipe for another hot day dinner!

Happy Cooking!

Movin on up..

I feel like I haven't been around much lately. But for good reason! We have been able to take advantage of an awesome opportunity! We have moved into a bigger home, on a bigger lot, on a MUCH MUCH quieter street. It's not only safer for my kids, but so far has been one of the best things to happen to our family.

We were living in a smaller 1930's 3 bed home on probably the busiest street in Roy. Now we've been able to rent (hopefully for only six months till we can buy it!) a larger house on a dead end street.  Where we were on a 1 acre lot that we only had access to 1/8th of it we now have a full 1/2 acre for the kids to run and play. I don't know who was more excited. Me or them!

We spent just over a month remodeling and cleaning and on Memorial weekend moved in. It's the first place we've been able to put our large sectional living room set in the room AND still have space around it. We can sit at our dining room table for dinner and not be squished. 

We still have a lot of work to do and everyday we try to do small jobs leaving bigger ones for the weekend. But isn't that part of owning a home anyways? The constant honey-do list that never seems to end. And the multiple trips on a Saturday to the hardware store because this didn't work, or you found another problem that has to be fixed.  So with this being said I have three tips to remodeling:

#1 NEVER I repeat NEVER count on it being done when you expect it to be. By this I mean that it is a no fail guarantee that something (especially on a older home) will either not fit right, not work right, or will you find another problem to fix first. This goes most importantly with plumbing. For example we tried to switch out our toilets this weekend. Needless to say I have one working toilet (the one that didn't get taken out) and a bathroom that is now unusable until we could get back to the store. I'm just so thankful that my step-dad knew what he was doing and came out to help. Otherwise I'm afraid of the words and phrases that would have come out of my husband!

#2 Don't start on a Sunday! I know I know that Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest. But for some, work schedules don't allow for Saturday home improvement projects! My husband had school all day Saturday and then had a 12 hour shift at the fire station. And of course they don't get a call until half an hour before his shift ended. So the list of things to accomplish didn't get started till almost 3 pm Sunday afternoon. Home Depot AND Lowes close at 8. Thus the un-finished bathroom project and the others that didn't get started or finished yesterday.

#3 Don't be a wuss! This is meant for all you women out there who think you aren't Wonder Woman! You may not think you can start a project or work alongside your husband doing the dirty work. But you can do it!

While we were working on the house we found that the dining room floor had to be ripped out and replaced. Since my husband is in class three days a week and working two jobs he really didn't have a lot of time for remodeling. So one afternoon while my two older kids were at school. I armed myself and my two year old little girl (perfect time to set the example on how strong women really are!) with a screw driver, hammer, and crow bar. And we set to work. Two hours later we had all the ruined wood out and the floor cleaned and ready for new wood. My husband was so impressed he kept bragging to everyone later who asked him about the floor.

 I think that if we work alongside our spouses and include our kids in the work. Especially the girls, that it not only teaches them to work hard but that they can do anything they want. It teaches us as women that we ARE capable. I'm not saying that everyone out there thinks they can't do it, I'm just saying that if you think you can't you're wrong. Not every job is a man's job. Some of them yes. But not all. And just because we can do it, doesn't mean we need to do it alone. Work alongside your spouse and learn how things work and what to do to fix them.

A friend of mine on Facebook commented on my status one day telling me that she loved that I was a true firefighters wife. That we don't just sit around waiting for them to get the job done. We just do it!  I strongly believe that women need to know how to fix things and take care of problems that can't wait till there husband gets home. And she's right. Being the wife of a firefighter puts me in a awkward position sometimes. He's not always here, and when I really need him to be here the pager usually goes off. So I've learned to adapt and to not be afraid of picking up the tools and going to work

I hope that in my doing this that I have set an example for my daughters to grow up to be strong, and accomplished. That they don't have to know everything, but knowing a little bit about a lot of things will get them much farther than if they depend on someone else to do it for them.

So I guess the moral of my story is be prepared! Be prepared to do the work yourself, be prepared to help someone else do it, be prepared to get dirty and sweaty and covered in paint. It'll all wash off! I've more to say on moving. And hopefully on my next post pictures of the new house with all the work we accomplished!

Get inspired and go to work!

Sincerely,
 I'm not Cinderella