Because I Want To Affirm You And Your Cream Cheese-Related Goals

14 July 2009 by

When Janie and I were trying to get our ducks in a row for this trip, my husband actually suggested that instead of fixing big meals at night, we could round up something for the boys and then have a little appetizer fest for the grown-ups. Janie and I thought this plan was sixty three kinds of brilliant because, well, YOU MAY HAVE NOTICED THAT WE ENJOY US SOME APPETIZERS.

So. I feel that it’s only right and fair for me to bring you up-to-speed on this trip’s Featured Appetizers.

(I just totally made up that whole “Featured Appetizers” business.)

(But sometimes I just like to pretend like I’m writing on the chalkboard at The Olive Garden.)

(After all, when you’re here, you’re family.)

Hot Bacon Swiss Dip

2 packages cream cheese, softened
1 cup Swiss cheese, shredded
3 green onions, chopped
1/2 sleeve Ritz crackers, crushed
5 pieces bacon, cooked and crumbled

In a mixing bowl, combine cream cheese, Swiss cheese and green onion. Spread mixture in a round Pyrex pie plate. Top with crackers and bacon, then bake at 350 until bubbly. Serve with your favorite chip.

*****

Chili Bean Dip

2 packages cream cheese, softened (ARE YOU NOTICING A PATTERN?)
1 can Hormel turkey chili
2 cups Mexican blend shredded cheese

Spread cream cheese on bottom of square baking dish. Top with chili, then cheese. Bake on 350 until cheese is melted and everything is nice and bubbly. Serve with Fritos.

*****

Paula’s Black Bean Salsa

PW’s Jalapeno Bacon Thingies

PW’s Chili Con Queso

PW’s Pico de Gallo & Guacamole

*****

So. That all ought to do nicely, don’t you think?

(Also: please know that we’re making these over the course of five nights. However, if you feel led to make these over the course of, say, one night, then please know that I completely support – and lo, even admire – your decision.)

And even though the boys haven’t partaken of our appetizers, they have enjoyed untold volumes of sliced turkey, Cheetos, chocolate chip cookies and Sprite. And cereal. OH SWEET MERCY at the cereal.

Finally, this:

There is not a doubt in my mind that he has made some of the happiest memories of his life in the last three days.

And this:

God pretty much showed out with the whole where-the-water-meets-the-sky thing, didn’t He?

Happy Tuesday, y’all.

Filed Under: Cooking, Family Fun

Beachy Keen

13 July 2009 by

This past Saturday morning the little man and I woke up early – reallllly early – so that we could head down to Florida with my sister-in-law and my nephews.

See how bright-eyed and alert they were? Those five hours of sleep they’d gotten the night before did them a world of good. However, they livened up as the day went on because by mid-afternoon, we were at the beach, doing our by-diggity best to give the Clampetts a run for the money.

Really, all we were missing was a big ole rope running around the car. And maybe a couple of hay bales strapped to the top.

Since we’ve been here we’ve spent almost all our time at the pool, and given last week’s run-in with the rebellious mole, that means I’ve spent the last two days wearing something akin to full-on body armor. The other vacationers have been kind enough to pretend that they don’t mind sharing the pool with someone who essentially looks like she’s ready for an ATF raid, and they’ve all been very gracious and welcoming when they haven’t been eyeing me suspiciously and avoiding me at all costs.

All Jokey McKidderson aside, we are having an absolute blast. A. and I have perfected a pool trick that we are currently calling “The Power T,” but the name may change tomorrow. Mainly because we may not remember the name tomorrow. But when we made up the name yesterday afternoon, we thought it was ROCKIN’ with a side of EXTRA AWESOME.

The boys have had so much fun together, and tonight, when Janie and I went in another room so that we could watch “The Next Food Network Star” in peace, JUST AS THE GOOD LORD INTENDED, I had just gotten settled under my comfy blanket when I remembered that my phone was in the kitchen. So I hopped up, walked back through the den and noticed that each boy had a can of warm Coke. For their burping contest. A. is apparently very dedicated about honing his burping skills because just this morning my precious, blessed child ran up to me, burped in my ear and then said, “Hold on, Mama. Gimme a second. I want to burp in your mouth.”

Sweet, sweet memories. Tender times.

And just in case you’re wondering if we’re doing any cooking, let me just assure you that when I call my sister-in-law The Queen of Appetizers, I have very, very good reasons.

On this trip I have eight reasons, in fact. Eight cream cheese-laden reasons.

Tonight Janie used some of that cream cheese to make a little something called Hot Bacon Swiss dip, which is essentially a pound of softened cream cheese mixed with a cup of Swiss cheese and a few chopped green onions, then topped with crushed Ritz crackers and baked until bubbly. At which point you top the whole concoction with crumbled, crispy bacon.

And then you give thanks to the Lord, who is good and worthy to be praised.

We also made this salsa, which, as Janie pointed out earlier, “totally counts as a vegetable.” So we’re eating extra healthy.

I don’t know exactly what’s on the agenda tomorrow, but I’m guessing it involves some combination of pool / turkey sandwiches / cream cheese / warm Coke / burping contest. With no small degree of sunscreen application and reapplication thrown in for good measure, because PLEASE REMEMBER THAT MAMA’S A WEE BIT PARANOID.

By the way, this afternoon I asked A. if he’d take a picture of the view from our balcony, so he did.

You’re welcome. I hope you enjoy, you know, up-close photos of screens.

Wish you were here.

Filed Under: Family Fun, Travel

Lately I’m Having The Hardest Time With Titles

4 June 2009 by

Now y’all know that I am not generally a fan of anything crafty. I mean, I’ll happily support other people in their craftiness, and occasionally I get the urge to cross-stitch because I used to cross-stitch when I was a teenager and I seem to experience bouts of cross-stitch nostalgia, which, by the way, is TOTALLY A LEGITIMATE MEDICAL CONDITION. But as a general rule I stay far, far away from the following:

– glue
– specialty scissors
– specialty papers
– beads
– Modge Podge

I just don’t like projects that involve repetitive or detailed steps. I don’t want to open up a craft kit and see 500 sequins. Because if there are 500 sequins inside a craft kit, that means those 500 sequins are supposed to BE USED FOR SOMETHING, and the thought of putting 500 sequins in their proper place makes me want to pull my ear all the way around to the front of my face so that I can then scream in my ear about HOW MUCH I HATE HAVING TO PLACE 500 SEQUINS.

Not that I have particularly strong feelings about really detailed crafts or anything.

But one artsy / crafty thing that I love to do is paint. You know why? It’s not structured. It’s loosey-goosey. It’s devil-may-care-ish. There are no rules, no steps – just colorful, happy fun. There have been MANY times over the last few years when we’ve had company and I’ve pulled out a big ole canvas (I buy them on sale at Michael’s or Hobby Lobby) and a whole bunch of paint and said, “All righty. Let’s visit and paint.” And that is exactly what we do and my walls are very grateful.

Anyway, this past Saturday morning I was in the mood to paint, so I covered the kitchen table with an old sheet and told Alex to pull out the paint and I grabbed a couple of used canvases. I usually have a couple on hand because 1) they are playdate GOLD and 2) inevitably somebody from said playdate will start painting and not finish or have to go home or whatever. Which is why my canvas looked like this on Saturday.

I’ve tried to figure out how many different kids have painted on this particular canvas. I believe the number is three. Maybe four. And in case you’re wondering, my favorite part is where it says “KIKI.”

Here’s my painting partner-in-crime.

I like the way he thinks he has to wear a tool pouch when he paints. And after I took this picture, I said, “Why did you pose like that?” and he said, I KID YOU NOT, “Because this is what Travis does when he sings.”

For the record, he has never in his whole life ever seen Travis sing. And yet he was oddly DEAD-ON.

It made me so happy.

Long story impossibly endless, I poured several different shades of blue and green onto a plastic plate because, well, I love those colors. And then we painted and we painted and we painted (Alex also had a canvas, and he painted a loopy caterpillar that also looks like a rollercoaster, but he’s not finished yet), and after about an hour, I decided that the painting, it was done.

It wasn’t good, mind you, but it was done.

And here’s the best part: there’s been a nail in on particular part of the wall of our living room ever since we moved here, and I’ve never found the right thing to hang there. But after I finished painting some stripes of some colors that I really like on a used canvas with a whole bunch of cheap acrylic paint, I walked in my living room to see if the impromptu stripe-y painting would work.

And lo and behold, it did.

Fun, inexpensive, relaxing – it was a crafty win, internets!

And it didn’t even require any sequins.

Filed Under: Family Fun

This Is What You Get When “The Office” Is A Rerun

28 May 2009 by

We’ve had some lazy summer days this week, probably because it rained pretty much all day long on Monday and Tuesday. I don’t really have an excuse for why Wednesday was lazy, but I’m tickled to death that it was. And I just remembered that we went to Blockbuster on Wednesday, so see? TOTALLY PRODUCTIVE. Companies should hire me as some sort of efficiency expert.

Today we ran a hundred errands, and in the midst of all that climbing in and out of the car, I realized that somehow I’ve pulled a muscle in the lower part of my back. I’ve decided that I’m going to blame Jillian Michaels for my back ish-ahs, mainly because I don’t really care for her tone during The Shred. She’s not overly condescending, mind you, but she trash talks just enough to make me want to mock her cropped sweatpants with the rolled-down waistband and then ask her what in the world she has against socks. But other than that I love her to pieces.

Anyway, when we got home I remembered that there were a whole bunch of pictures on my camera that I needed to download to my computer. I have tried to download the pictures on at least three different occasions only to find that my camera batteries were dead, and then when I would charge some more I would forget to actually put them in the camera, and now you can see how I managed to completely overcomplicate a situation that should have taken no longer than eight seconds to resolve.

For what it’s worth, I also blame Jillian Michaels for all of my camera battery woes. Just because.

So this afternoon I finally got the pictures on my computer, and when I looked back through them, I almost cried when I saw this one.

It was the last day of school. And could we STOP IT with the growing, please? I’ve had enough of the growing. And while we’re stopping it with the growing, would one of you please turn off the time? Thank you.

But then I found these pictures. And they made me laugh so hard.

Apparently there was some sort of Star Wars-related lookout on top of Jif Mountain. And really, you can understand why they’d need a lookout given all the conflict over in Crockpot Valley.

You know what else happened this week?

Stuff grew.

Those are our neighbors’ blue hydrangeas, by the way. I’ve been a little obsessed with them, but you’ve probably already picked up on that since I obviously TOOK PICTURES OF THE PRETTY FLOWERS FROM AFAR.

And despite all my protesting, this little stinker grew, too.

I totally blame Jillian Michaels.

And that’s just all there is to it.

Filed Under: Family Fun, Oh Howard

Linky Interwebby Awesomeness 05.27.09

27 May 2009 by

Only one link today – and in my opinion it’s one worth savoring.

Love,
Kite Karbonaw

Filed Under: Family Fun, TV Is My Friend

Emeril Better Watch Out

21 May 2009 by

One day last week I was checking email while the little man was having a snack at the kitchen table, and out of nowhere he yelled, “MAMA! YOU’RE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE WHAT I INVENTED!”

Needless to say, I coudn’t wait to see what all the fuss was about.

As it turned out, the child had come up with what he felt was quite the culinary treasure, and I asked him if he’d reproduce the steps so that I could share them with you. He was insistent that we use a paper plate for the demonstration, and I told him I thought that would be perfect.

You may want to take some notes.

The Goldfish Cracker Cracker

Step one:

Step two:

A Cheez-It would also work if you feel your palate can handle it. I suppose you could also branch out and use something along the lines of a Better Cheddar, but that seems like a risky move in my humble opinion.

Step three:

And finally:

The flavors are very subtle and layered.

There’s no question that Ree is going to be SICK that she didn’t get to include this recipe in her cookbook, but maybe The Goldfish Cracker Cracker can make it into the next one.

Along with The Cheese Curl Cheese Puff.

And The Turkey Bacon Bacon.

Filed Under: Family Fun
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