FOOD

  Ava and I spent the morning in the kitchen--baking, chopping, twirling, dancing, you know.  I took LOTS of pics, so you will get to see what we were up to another day!  Did I ever mention how cute Ava is when she helps me?  First of all, she doesn't mind getting her hands dirty at all.  Second, she loads on the compliments and adoration.  I am stupid not to do this with her more often.  Even with the messes.  As for today, I thought I'd show you some of the random pictures of food I have from my phone.  This is one thing you can keep busy with when it's rainy!

  This is entirely Hannah's creation and her pic.  She got this cookbook and has made a few things from it.  This salad was delicious!!!!  The book is okay, but her palette is refined and exotic and there are not many things that she was interested in, of course.  :/

 This fall, we ordered pounds and pounds of jalapeños to make pickled jalapeños.  Even Hannah likes them now!

Making brownies and licking whisks and spatulas and paddles!

Flour explosion!

  Making meyer lemon marmalade again.  They helped me SO much!!  They juiced all of the lemons and pulled the pulp out of them all for me!

  I followed my recipe from last year, but boiled it longer and it set even nicer!  I have updated that blog recipe in case you want to try it.  Ava and I are the only ones who eat it, but we both LOVE it!!  Side note:  I am SO glad I blog about some recipes otherwise I wouldn't remember what I did or how I did it or any recollection of even what was inside the recipe.  This blog post saved me! 

Curried potato beef turnovers in phyllo dough. 

   Hannah was home from school one day and she doesn't do apple slices, cheese sticks and ham cubes for lunch...  She likes hot lunches and since I don't do it for her when she's at school, I happily obliged when she was home.  Fresh ramen noodles always help a sick or healthy person feel better!

   We loved our ramen so much we had chicken karaage and california rolls for dinner!  Whew...that was a busy night of cooking!

Muffin making day.  It appears it was houseplant watering day too!

 Roasted tomatillos and anaheim peppers for a soup that was SO spicy I let the kids find something else in the fridge for dinner.  These particular anaheims packed a PUNCH!

 

  Ava helping me get the meat off the rotisserie chickens!  She just dug right in and loved it.  She was fascinated with all of the bones and the cavity and kept telling me to look at what she was finding.  Being a bio major I got all excited at her fascination with it all.

  Whenever I go to Whole Foods, I still buy two at a time because they give you a discount and I have been making a chicken salad that is chinese style with the breast meat.  The chicken salad has cilantro, five spice, hoisin, soy sauce, and sesame oil that we eat with lettuce wraps for lunch or on it's own.  I don't like traditional chicken salad because of the mayo and so this is my take.  Save the thigh meat for soup for another day and of course I use the carcass to make broth!

  I hope I gave you some inspiration for the kitchen!!  Sometimes a new idea is all I need to get out of a rut!