Real Men (And Children) Do Eat Quiche

Quiche happens to be a meal everyone in the family likes.  (Although Ben and Jack refuse to eat the crust, which makes absolutely no sense to me, starch lover that I am, but whatever).

It’s also Maddie’s favorite meal.  We always save a piece for her to have for breakfast the next morning.

The beauty of this quiche recipe, which comes from my Aunt Betty, by the way, is that it is extremely versatile.  I’m going to give you the basic recipe, but you can use different cheeses, steamed vegetables, cooked meats, etc. 

Our tried and true family favorite is cubed ham and monterey jack and cheddar cheeses.  But I’ve also made it with fresh tomatoes and bacon in the summer (my personal favorite); swiss cheese and spinach; broccoli, ham, mushrooms and cheddar, etc.

Here’s a look at the finished product:

(By the way, do you see the bright light coming in the window?  I took this photo around 5 p.m.!  Yay!  Light at 5 p.m.!  Spring is on its way!)

Versatile Quiche

1 pie shell (I use Pillsbury’s rolled up crust)
2 c. shredded cheese, divided
3 eggs
1 c. sour cream (regular or light---NOT fat free)
1/4 t. salt

Beat eggs then add sour cream and mix.  Add 1 cup any shredded cheese and any extras you may wish (cubed ham, bacon, shredded lunchmeat ham, steamed spinach, cooked or canned mushrooms, tomatoes, steamed broccoli, green pepper, onion, etc.)

Pour into prepared pie crust.  Spread the remaining cup of cheese over the top. 

Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

Sit back and enjoy a night of no complaints about dinner from anyone (except from the crazies who won’t eat the crust…)

I am linking this recipe to Foodie Fridays at Designs by Gollum!

People I Like

I love to read other people’s blogs, which is why I have the list over there on the right side of the page.  It lets me know when my favorite bloggers have posted a new post.  I’ve recently added a few new blogs I’ve found.  Mange, Fille is written by my friend Maria.  She just started her blog and I can’t wait for her to add more posts!

Another new one I’m enjoying is today is my birthday! This blogger titled a recent post “Stuff I Like” and it got me thinking about stuff I like, which really led me to think about People I Like.

My list is not going to include names of specific people.  Just general people I like, so don’t hold your breath:  you are not going to make my list.  (Although I am not above bribery and will add on later if I am… ummm… persuaded).

1.  People Who Turn to You in Church at the End of the Service and Say, “Don’t worry it gets better.  My children had ants in their pants too”.  Or better yet, the ones who turn to you, after your naughty child has been kicking their pew for the last hour, and say, “Oh, your children are ADORABLE!”  On the flip side are the meanies who turn around every 3 minutes and huff at us.  But I’m not writing about PEOPLE I DON’T LIKE.

2.  People Who Don’t Honk Their Horn at You or Make Mean Exasperated Faces at You When You Make a Little Mistake on the Road.  I don’t often make mistakes, but they happen.  I recently sat at a stop sign that has a big bush right by it.  I pulled out pretty far and looked both ways, but between the bush and the part of the car between the front and passenger side windows, I DID NOT SEE THE CAR COMING.  And so I pulled out.  She braked for me, I braked as soon as I saw her and gave her a look that said, “OMG, I am so sorry!  My fault!”  But she waved me through with a look that said, “Honey!  Been there done that.  It all worked out okay!”  I felt bad enough that I almost caused a collision.  I stop and look much longer at that intersection every time now, because I learned a lesson.  But not because someone made me feel like an idiot.

3.  People Who Notice Your Weight Loss and Comment on It.  Now, I have no noticeable weight loss, YET.  But man, does it make me feel good when someone says, “You are looking good!  Have you lost weight?”  I am not offended.  I know what I looked like before I lost the weight.  And I appreciate that you noticed.

4.  Pharmacists Who Go Out of Their Way.  I go to The Palmyra Pharmacy and love it there.  When I was a gestational diabetic, one of the pharmacists actually pricked himself with a blood sugar checker (can’t remember the name—have blocked the memory) just so he could show me how to work it.  Just today I was there to pick up Ben’s asthma meds for his puffer, and the pharmacist asked me how it was going with the puffer, did I think Ben was using it correctly, etc.  These are just two of many examples I could share.

5. The Grocery Cart Man at the Hershey Giant.  If he is in the parking lot, (and he usually is on weekdays) he will take my cart from me after I have unloaded my groceries and put it back for me, and he will even often offer to help me unload the grocery bags.  So NICE.  And don’t tell me it’s his job.  There are a lot of teenagers who have this job and who glare at you when you put your cart back (yourself!) because you have just made more work for them.  But, again, this post is not about PEOPLE I DON’T LIKE.

6. Good School Bus Drivers.  And I am going to get specific here.  My kids have the best bus driver, Miss Beth.  She knows every child’s name, she will not move that bus until every child is safely with a parent or far enough away that she knows they are safe, she will have the little ones call home if their mom is not there to pick them up (it only happened once!), and one time she even drove Maddie’s backpack to our house in her own car when she found it at the end of her route.  I heart you, Miss Beth.

7.  People Who Comment and Follow.  I started this blog last year as a way of recording memories and thoughts, and keeping my brain from going too mushy.  Then eventually people started reading, and darnit, it feels good when you-all comment on something I’ve written!  There!  I admit it! (I am feeling very vulnerable and pathetic now, but so be it). I know some of you are lurking out there anonymously, and I'm okay with that, but if you would like to Follow, it would make me feel really good.  And when you tell me in person that something I’ve written made you laugh, well, I get all happy and pink and tingly. 
8.  Okay, Okay, I am going to name two names (and they did not even bribe me).  I also really like Jim and Mary G., Swim Coaches on Maddie’s Swim Team.  Besides being terrific at what they do, they will stop everything and talk to you, give you their full attention, like you are the most important person to them in the world.  Every child on that team feels like he is the favorite, I am sure.  Actually, I think that I am probably their favorite, really.  It’s just a feeling I get when I talk to them.  The kids of Annville-Cleona are so, so lucky to have them.

~

Thanks for reading.   I hope you will do your best to ignore my driving mistakes and naughty children in church, comment on my (currently tiny) weight loss, maybe even put my grocery cart back for me the next time we are in a parking lot together?  I probably like you already.  It would just be the cherry on the sundae.

Weekend with Teddy

Every Thursday, Jack’s preschool teacher sends their class bear home with a different child.  Between Thursday and Sunday, we are to take pictures of this bear with our child, make a scrapbook page out of it, add it to the class book, and send it back on Monday.

Jack FINALLY got to bring home the bear on Thursday (it’s tough being at the end of the alphabet).
 
Teddy had a pretty boring weekend at our house.  Except for Maddie’s swim meet, we had no plans, and I’ll be darned if I was going to make exotic plans just to take pictures of a bear for the preschool scrapbook. 

Unfortunately, as you will see, Teddy was not the most gracious house guest we’ve ever had. 
 
In the picture below, Teddy gets to know Jack and Herbie, our guinea pig. Teddy jealously pinches Herbie too hard, a tussle ensues, Herbie scratches Teddy’s nose, and Teddy cries his button eyes out.  The weekend is not off to a good start.:

Jack buckles up for a trip to the library, but Teddy refuses to buckle, throws a tantrum, and spends the entire trip shouting profanities:

Jack reads to Teddy at the library.  Teddy then runs around the bookshelves kicking old people in the shins and we are politely asked to leave:

“No, Teddy!!  For the last time, beer is not on the grocery list and we will not be buying it!  Don’t you roll those eyes at me, mister.”:
While picking up Maddie and Ben at the bus stop, Teddy pulls down his pants and moons the students on the bus:

During pizza night, Teddy walks around the table Helen Keller-style and helps himself to bites from everybody’s pizza as he rudely belches,“accidentally” knocks over soda cans, and tells us all that he had much better pizza than this at Erik’s house and they even had ice cream for dessert, and Erik’s mom sure kept the house cleaner than this house:

At Maddie’s swim meet, Teddy gooses several girls and is banned from the pool area:

On the way to the car after the swim meet, Teddy urges Jack to run to the top of the bleachers and not come down.  Jack refuses, but Teddy tells Jack he has some dirt on him that he will share with his parents if he doesn’t do it.  Jack reluctantly agrees and does as Teddy says.

Well, after that I had to get the pictures in to Wal-Mart to be developed in time to scrapbook them.  The sugar-coated version his class will read about our weekend (“Teddy and Jack buckle up for a fun trip to the library!”) will, sadly, be far from the truth.

Teddy goes home with Ricky next week.  God be with you, Ricky.

Occhio Alla Macchina!

It was just about this time last year that Dave and I returned from a business (for him) and pleasure (for me) trip to Rome.   I absolutely loved Rome.  Absolutely.  Loved.  It.  I’m usually a lie-on-the-beach-no-I-don’t-want-to-go-to-a-museum-move-it-you’re-blocking-the-sun kind of person, but this…was amazing.  And since I didn’t blog my photos last year…and since I’ve been wracking my brain to come up with a blog topic in the middle of this barren and frozen wasteland of a cul-de-sac…

Well…

Would you like to see my vacation photos?  You would?  Aw, gee, have a seat, let me open up the album (don’t worry, there aren’t that many photos and you can always click on that little X in your upper right hand corner if you get bored).

Our hotel was about ten feet away from the Pantheon.  Here is the outside (of the Pantheon--not the hotel!): 

But look up when you get inside!  That circle is actually an open hole in the roof!

While Dave was at business meetings, I walked all around Rome, either alone, or with some of the other wives on the trip.  I got to use some Italian, though the Italians rolled their eyes at me while I painfully worked my way through a sentence then started  talking to me in English.    Hmph.

Anyway, I went to a few art museums and also walked around and checked out places to take Dave later.  Here was one we came back to:

Had the Coliseum been built in the U.S. it would have been razed long ago for a better sporting arena with artificial turf.

Here’s Dave inside.  Do you see what looks like a maze on the floor?  That's where the Romans kept the tigers or elephants or prisoners their gladiators were about to fight.  The area is open so we can see the detail, but would have been seen as only a floor back then:

The Vatican was definitely a highlight.  Duh.
Here we are inside:

Do you see all the marble?  Flash photos were totally allowed inside St. Peter’s Basilica because there is no paint anywhere.  It’s all marble or mosaic tile.  All of it.  Now look up at that picture again now that you know that.  Yes!  Even those circular "paintings" aren't paintings.  They are tiny pieces of tile.

Here we are up in the cupola (the tippy top of the cathedral) looking down at St. Peter’s Square:

And look!  An illegal picture of Da Vinci’s ceiling in the Sistine Chapel (no photos allowed…I turned off my flash and sound, held my camera waist-high, and hoped for the best).  Do you see the famous hand of God coming across to give Adam life to the left of center?:

So many more things to see and do in Rome.  We (well, I) ate a lot of gelato (I ate 1-2 flavors a day, and decided Rice and Nutella were my two favorites), visited an incredible number of churches (we arrived on a Sunday and decided we would go to mass. I joked to Dave, “I wonder if we’ll be able to find a Catholic church?”  Well, we attended mass at the church that was 10 feet in the other direction from our hotel…there definitely wasn’t a problem finding a Catholic church!)

We did some shopping, ate at a different mom and pop restaurant every night, bought panini--which just means sandwich in Italian--from outdoor carts, rambled through Rome’s ancient ruins, climbed the Spanish Steps, enjoyed a ridiculous amount of limoncello and prosecco and survived the traffic…

Okay, I have to tell you the secret to surviving Rome’s traffic.  If you walk out into the street in Rome and look straight ahead of you, making no eye contact whatsoever with any drivers, they will screech to a halt faster than you can say “Mamma Mia!”  But,  if you look at the drivers and they know you know they are there, they will barrel on through.  It freaked Dave out a little, because I got very good at just walking out onto and across streets filled with an alarming number of speeding Smart cars.  He kept grabbing my arm and saying, “A car’s coming!”  Dude.  Don’t look at the car.  And you will be fine.

Besides, I totally think I could hold my own with a Smart car. (Dave took this photo for Jack who loves Smart cars and his Mama, but it certainly did come in handy for proving my point...)

We also visited the Trevi Fountain numerous times as it was within a 10 minute walk of our hotel. 


Every time we visited, we threw in our coins.  According to legend, this means we’ll be back again someday. 

Oh, how I do hope so.

Well, thanks for visiting and looking at my Rome photos with me, I hope it wasn’t too boring.  If you have time, I’ve got another set of photos from our Franklin Institute in Philadelphia visit…317 pictures of the kids with every exhibit!  Hey!  Where are you going?  I’ve got a really cool shot of Ben in the huge heart! And Maddie eating lunch!  And a funny one of Dave and Jack pretending they’re picking Ben Franklin’s nose!
 
Okay then!  Maybe some other time!

BOOK REVIEW: Julie & Julia

I received this book, written by Julie Powell, as a Christmas present, and was pretty excited to read it.  It took me about a week of falling asleep two pages at a time (I read at bedtime) to decide it probably wouldn’t be making my top ten list this year.

It wasn’t the topic.  The book is based on Julie Powell’s decision to cook and blog her way through Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year.  What a hook!She undertook this endeavor beginning in August of 2002 when blogging was still new, and her blog reflects that (you can visit her original blog here).  I did enjoy skimming her blog after reading the book. 

But the book. 

Julie is not a likeable character (and, I assume, not a likeable person in real life?)  Her  chapters on cooking reflect her inexperience as a cook and are fun to read.  But everything else is an awful lot of whining.  She hates her job, her apartment,  her husband (at times), has problems with her mother and friends and coworkers.  She swears a lot.  I don’t have a problem with that.  I’m just saying.

She intersperses a few pages here and there with stories about Julia Child’s early life and her decision to become a chef.  More of that would have been appreciated.  After reading the book, I wanted to know more about Julia Child so I googled her.  PBS has a few of her old cooking shows available to watch, and I watched one called Elegant Eggs which was so laughably inferior and unpretentious compared to today’s cooking shows, but I swear I couldn’t stop watching it!

The book ended well, the author wrapped everything up  neatly and satisfactorily, and now it’s a movie starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams (which I haven’t seen yet).

Would I suggest you read it?  Sure.  It was light, fun reading, perfect for the beach or someone interested in cooking or someone who doesn’t have high expectations for their reading material.  Do I think Julie Powell should have whined less, written more about Julia and her own cooking experiences?  Definitely yes. 

Bon Appetit et Bonne Lecture!

The Up-Side of Unemployment

My birthday was on Tuesday, and I expected it to pass with about as much fanfare as usual (coming in ahead of a new underwear purchase but slightly behind the bi-monthly cleaning of the fridge in excitement).

However, I didn’t take into consideration that my unemployed husband was bored and in need of a challenge.  When, earlier, he had asked me what kind of cake I wanted, I suggested he purchase a 6 pack of cupcakes from Walmart  …portion control yet butter-creamy goodness all in one little package, perfect for the man who knows how to grill but not bake.

Instead, he did some thinking, remembered my favorite dessert EVER was creme brulee, and decided to make me some. 

Apparently you can learn to make creme brulee by watching YouTube videos.  Who knew?  Apparently you can also caramelize the top of the creme brulee with a blowtorch from your garage.

Huh!  I didn’t know it either!

  And look at the result!

  Just look at it!

Absolutely perfect.  Absolutely delicious.  He really made my day.

In a side note,  Maddie included her allowance ($2) in with the card she made me.   This is hugely generous, as she is saving up for a big Lego purchase right now.  The pain it must have given her to lick that envelope shut makes my heart ache with gratitude.

She asked me with complete seriousness what I thought I might do with the money.  While I quickly searched my brain thinking of a fun purchase to tell her (Diet Coke in the Walmart checkout line?  Two packs of gum, maybe?) she jumped in with a suggestion.

“You know, mom, maybe you want to save it up and eventually you can buy something really cool.”  Generous and smart.  Just like her daddy. 

What a great birthday.

The Guinea Pig and the Three Bad Wolfes

We love our Herbie so much.

And we think he loves us too.

But sometimes.

Well, sometimes he must really not like us.

Like the time we gave him a ride in the Barbie Beetle…

And the time we dressed him in a tutu.

And the time we gave him a little train ride…

But we find a nice little carrot will calm him right down and make him do his happy squeaks again.

We love you, Herbie.  Thanks for putting up with us.  XOXO

My Favorites

Click on this collage to see it blown up, which I urge you to do, even if you don't have (almost) 42 year old eyes that have seen better days.  HA!  Get it?!  SEEN better days! 

These were a few of my favorite family pictures this year. I didn't try to even out the number per child...I just picked the photos I liked the best, some because of the subject's expression, some because I captured a good moment, some...just because.

If I had to pick out my very favorite pictures of the year, it might be a tie between Dave jumping through the waves for obvious reasons (those muscles are all mine, ladies!), Jack holding the heart-shaped pretzel we made on Valentine's Day (which is a really cool picture blown up), and the three kids walking through the Quittie Woods seen from behind.

Smile, kids! It's a new year, and you know mama is going to be in your face with her camera for all of it!

Chicken Corn Noodle Soup For All You Sickies Out There

This girl got off the school bus dragging her backpack, her face a mile long, complaining she was starting a cold.  The tone of her voice shouted, “Pity me!  My nose is stuffed up and my throat is sore, and you’re going to hear about it nonstop for the next 5 days, so get used to it!”  Not that she has Drama Queen tendencies or anything.
Lucky for her, I had Chicken Corn Noodle Soup bubbling away on the stove.
 
Whenever we have a rotisserie chicken for supper, I save the carcass for the next day to make homemade chicken stock.  Even if I don’t make the actual Chicken Corn Noodle Soup, I still make the stock and freeze it for any soup I may make in the future.

So…put the chicken carcass  in a very large soup pot and cover it with water, then add a handful of salt, some peppercorns, some allspice, bay leaves, a whole, large onion (no need to chop, just take off the onion skin), and some celery.  Boil those odds and ends for a long time, until the chicken is ready to fall off the bone.

I am including some pictures, but they’re awful.  Maybe it’s the nighttime lighting, maybe it’s the fact that everything is kind of beige…but trust me, it’ll all taste better than it looks here.

Ready to boil:

When I’ve cooked this all for awhile, I remove the carcass with a pair of tongs to a nearby plate and let it cool, then I strain the contents of the pot.  You basically want to remove all the stuff in there and have just the delicious, steamy chicken stock remain. 

Get the stock boiling again then add your noodles.  My mother-in-law, from whom this recipe came, made her own homemade noodles that were the ultimate in comfort food, but I just use Kluski Noodles, they’re thick and remind you of homemade.  I’ll include her homemade noodle recipe down below for all you Marthas out there.

Soon the chicken carcass will have cooled, and it’s time to play Nigella Lawson and really get in there with your fingers, searching out any and all bits of meat-- you will be surprised at how much is still in there!  Throw any you find in with the boiling noodles, then add a can of drained corn.  When the noodles are done cooking, it’s time to eat!

I usually make a salad and some crescent rolls to go with it.  This is a meal everyone in the family enjoys, believe it or not (those are rare around here).  And my sickie girl smiled at dinner and told me that it made her throat feel a teeny-tiny bit better.

Chicken Corn Noodle Soup

Stock:
1 mostly eaten rotisserie chicken
Handful of salt
12 peppercorns
12 allspice
2 bay leaves
3 –4 celery stalks
1 large whole onion

Add to Stock:
chicken removed from carcass
1 bag Kluski or homemade noodles
1 can corn

Put the chicken carcass  in a very large soup pot and cover it with water, then add salt, peppercorns, allspice, bay leaves,  onion (no need to chop, just take off the onion skin), and some celery.  Boil those odds and ends for a long time, until the chicken is ready to fall off the bone.  Remove chicken to plate to cool then strain those odds and ends from the stock and discard.  Bring stock back to a boil and add dry noodles and a can of corn.


Noodles:
6 c. flour
3 eggs
1 1/2 t. salt
3 t. baking powder
6 T. Crisco
1 c. (more or less) water
Mix ingredients together and roll dough to desired thickness and cut into squares.  Add squares to boiling stock.

I am linking this post to Foodie Fridays.
There's a nice little icon to go with this, but I haven't been able to figure out how to get it on here!

Time Flies

Ten years ago today, I became a mom.

She was not an easy delivery.  In fact, it came down to about 24 hours of labor and two and a half hours of pushing. 

Which I completely forgot all about the minute she squirmed and screamed her way into my arms.  Utter, hopeless, bottomless, warm and fuzzy, sweet and tender, huge and monstrous love.

She stopped breathing a couple of hours after she was born.  Her lips turned blue and while I banged on the nurse button screaming, “My baby’s not breathing!”,  I experienced the worst thirty seconds of my life up until that moment.  The nurse arrived and took care of her and brushed it off as something that happens sometimes, but that moment turned me into a bit of a hovering mom. 

When we drove her home from the hospital, we passed a school bus and I started to cry, thinking about how I was going to have to put her on one of those someday, all alone, without me.

<sob>

Well, she grew.

And grew.

And grew.

She broke my heart this day:
I held it together until I got back to the house, and then I bawled.

I keep telling her to stop growing.  She’s getting too big.  Soon she’s not going to fit on my lap.

When did she get so big? 
In another decade she’ll be twenty.

I cannot even begin to imagine her in college, rolling her eyes at her mother who is gripping her arm on the way out of the dorm room and has to be forced into the car for the trip home. 

My girl, far away, all alone, without me. 

She’s going to break my heart again someday, I just know it.  But that’s a decade away.  She’s mine for ten more years. 

Just mine.

The Yo-Yo Heads Back Down

I know it’s trite, the New Year-New You crap, the road to diet hell is paved with New Year’s resolutions business, the sad gym-rejoining on January 4 with all of the other chubbos who want to regain their spare-tire covered inner-waif.

But it’s what I do.  My name is Beth, and I am a Yo-Yo Dieter.

As I never actually learned good eating skills growing up, and am cursed with bad genes and an innate desire for the doughy, creamy, and chocolate covered, I have spent the last twenty years of my life either heading up the scale or down it.  I don’t tend to last too long at either end, particularly the bottom, but, like an alcoholic, I am either in control (going down!) or out of control (back on up!) of my eating.  Unlike an alcoholic, I can’t go cold turkey on food.  At least three times a day I am confronted with dining decisions I need to make, choices that either leave me wanting for more until the next meal or feeling guilty.

What I’d like to do is make the choice to eat healthy, and see where that takes me.  But one of my diet downfalls is hating dieting so much that I want to get it over with as soon as possible.  Hence my history with Atkins, the Three Day Diet, the cabbage soup diet, etc. 

And I want to eat birthday cake on my birthday, and Godiva on Valentine’s Day, marshmallow peeps on Easter, and glasses of wine every weekend.  I hate that my Weight Watcher points are gone by 11 a.m. and I am faced with eating celery sticks and cucumber slices the rest of the day.  I want to eat popcorn at the movie theater and ice cream cones in the summer and not be one of those women who says no to anything with calories.  Granted, they look good.  But what fun is that? 

Maybe making it official and public will help me on my journey.  Maybe not.  Honestly, I’m not too hopeful.  My current size is scary and overwhelmingly far from where I’d like to be.  And I just like food too much.

We’ll see where the new year takes me…and all are invited to my house for a Pity Party this weekend.  I’ll be eating everything in sight clearing my cupboards of the leftover Christmas goodies, and posting pictures of super models, the lovely Valerie Bertinelli, and the latest cringe-inducing Kirstie Alley pics straight  from The Enquirer on my fridge door.