This weekend I picked up our first bag of produce from the organic co-op I joined at our local Farmers’ Market.  I am so excited about all the yummy stuff in this week’s bag!  I ordered a small bag and got: lettuce, cilantro, green onions, 2 red bell peppers, 1 tomato, 2 avocados, butternut squash, 4 Fuji apples, and 2 red pears.  I’m especially looking forward to using the butternut squash.  The Littlest Apple gobbled down one of the red pears for snack this afternoon.  Here’s the loot:

We used the red peppers in tonight’s meal, which I’ve been looking forward to all week.  I love having breakfast for dinner, but I’m not too keen on eggs (and The Littlest Apple is allergic).  This dish has all those yummy breakfast flavors (minus eggs) with a little chicken thrown in too.  I absolutely loved this dish!  The Picky Apple liked it too but wished I hadn’t “carmelized” the onions and peppers (read: burnt) quite so much.  The Littlest Apple didn’t touch his, but that’s no big surprise.  I added some extra spices to the recipe, which kicked up the flavor even more.

Cheddar Chicken and Potatoes

adapted from Finding Joy in My Kitchen

Ingredients:

• 4 slices bacon
• 2 large chicken breasts, cut into 1/4″ thick slices
• 1 large potato, diced (approx 2 cups)
• 2 cups red peppers, diced
• 1/2 medium onion, diced
• 1/2 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• salt and pepper
• 4 ounces shredded Colby Jack cheese

Cook bacon in a skillet over medium heat until bacon is crunchy.  Remove bacon from skillet and place on a paper towel to de-grease. Then, remove almost all of the grease from the pan (less about 1 tsp.).  Saute the peppers, potatoes, onions, garlic, cumin, paprika, and cayenne in the 1 tsp. bacon grease for about 7 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.  Remove veggies from skillet and set aside.  If the skillet still contains grease, then just add the chicken. If not, add a few dribbles of bacon grease to aid in cooking the chicken.  Cook chicken over medium heat until juices run clear.  When chicken is cooked, return potatoes to the pan, and continue cooking potatoes/onions/peppers until crisp/tender. Then, crumble cooked bacon and add to the skillet. Stir to combine.  Sprinkle with cheese, and cover until cheese is melted.  Remove from heat and serve warm.

Sharing my love of books with The Littlest Apple is something I truly treasure.  He seems to love books just as much as I do, and we read them often.  Sometimes it is harder than others to get this active little child of mine to sit down to read, but he’s been more than willing this week since he’s been sick.  (Hence the slow down in posts).  Here are a few books that The Littlest Apple is enjoying right now:

Baker Baker, Cookie Maker, by Linda Hayward

This is actually a book for beginning readers, but the simple text and storyline (and Cookie Monster!) drew The Littlest Apple in.  Cookie Monster makes cookies, but the other monsters keep eating them all before he gets one….

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, by Laura Joffe Numeroff

Love the illustrations in this one, and The Littlest Apple quickly learned what the mouse would ask for next.

Five Little Pumpkins, illustrated by Dan Yaccarino

This was a big hit last fall at our house, and he loves it again this year.  I store our seasonal reading with the seasonal decorations, so we have fun new books to read with each season.

Where is Baby’s Pumpkin?, by Karen Katz

Another carryover from last fall.  This is a lift the flap book with very simple text.

My Truck is Stuck!, by Kevin Lewis

A gift from the grandparents about 6 months ago.  At that time, The Littlest Apple wasn’t interested, but now this is one of his favorite stories.  We read it almost every day.

The Construction Alphabet Book, by Jerry Pallotta

Our discovery of this book was a happy accident.  The perfect alphabet book for any little boy (or girl!) who loves all things construction like The Littest Apple.  Beautiful illustrations.  Some of the descriptions are a little complicated for a 2 year old, but mine enjoyed just naming each construction truck, and I feel confident that this is a book that can grow with your child.  We renewed this book from the library as many times as we could, and read it every day.  We’re definitely going to purchase this one for our bookshelf.

Happy Halloween, Curious George, by H. A. Rey

The Littlest Apple’s favorite TV show is Curious George, but I’ve been hesitant to read him any of the books yet because they have lots of text….might be a little too much for his 2 year old attention span.  This book however, has very simple rhyming text, and lots of pictures.  We’ve enjoyed this one very much!

Trashy Town, by Andrea Zimmerman and David Clemesha

The Littlest Apple is completely obsessed with the trash truck and all things trash.  Not surprisingly, this book is one of his favorites: “Dump it in, smash it down, drive around the trashy town!”

I’m always on the lookout for new books to share with The Littlest Apple.  What books are your kids’ favorites right now?

We’re in the middle of giving The Littlest Apple’s bathroom a makeover from the boring builder basic it once was.  I was planning to wait until this project was complete to reveal the marvelous before and after photos, but I’ve hit a wall with this project and am in serious need of motivation.  Melissa at The Inspired Room is hosting a Procrastinator’s Party, so I’m submitting this project.  The idea is that all the particpants check back in 2 weeks down the road with our after photos.  So I’ve got two weeks to make some serious progress!

I really wish I had taken some before pictures!  I have some “during” pictures, and I guess they might as well be the “befores” since there is so much left I want to do!

This bathroom started out with your basic oak cabinets, beige walls, big mirror, and cheap looking light fixture over the mirror.  This is The Littlest Apple’s bathroom, but also the “guest” bathroom upstairs just next to the playroom and guest bedroom, so I wanted to keep it child friendly without going overboard with cutesy children’s themes.  My vision for the room includes light blue walls, white beadboard and cabinets, a row of hooks for towels, bright and cheery striped shower curtain.  A cottage coastal look, but not overly nautical, if that makes sense.

What I’ve done so far:

Painted the walls a pale blue. We used Mystical Blue by Benjamin Moore.  (This color was also the lightest color in the stripes on the walls in my son’s room, so there’s a little unity there).  It looks more green here than in real life…more closely matches the lightest blue color in the shower curtain and towels below (a happy accident).

Purchased a cheery striped shower curtain and hand towels. I ordered the Boathouse Stripe Shower Curtain from Pottery Barn.  The red stripes look kind of pink in the picture below, but they are much more red looking in real life.  (The colors are much more accurately reflected in the hand towels below).

I also ordered the Boathouse Stripe Hand Towels:

Started painting the cabinets a crisp white. This is the step I’m on right now, the main one I’m trying to complete in the next 2 weeks.  I’ve got 2 cabinet doors left to paint, and a few touchups left.  This was my first time painting cabinets.  After reading many many blog posts about techniques for painting cabinets, I finally decided to try Remodeling Guy’s suggestion to use spray paint.  Crazy right?!  Maybe a little.  I would never have done this untested on the kitchen, but this bathroom isn’t as front and center.  And it’s just paint, afterall.  The cabinet doors were easy peasy to paint outside on a nice afternoon, though I’ve been stalled by rain lately (hence the 2 cabinet doors remaining).  After that initial afternoon, I was patting myself on the back for how great they looked and how easy this method was.  And the best part?  No brush strokes!

Here’s the only before I have of the cabinet color:

Here’s what the cabinets looked like after 2 coats of primer and 2 coats of gloss paint…the grain of the wood still shows through a little, but I am pleased with the results given the ease of painting:

Now we get to the tricky part….painting the cabinet frame in the bathroom.  Can’t exactly take that outside can you?  So, we’re talking spray paint in a small, enclosed space.  This part was definitely not ideal.  I had to cover lots of the surrounding area.  I used newspaper (also not ideal…lesson learned: use plastic or cloth, people!  And be sure to tape it all down really thorougly, because the spray paint will creep under the paper!)  I also could have covered more….spray paint is tricky because it floats in the air for a while before it settles down…on to everything.  And there were lots of fumes in that little space.  I wore a mask, but it was still not the smartest thing I’ve done.

Ok, stop laughing…it was a LOT of newspaper!!  In this angle, you can see the blue walls (and check out the early bird deals at Kohls, hee hee!):

Let’s just say that this part definitely made me question whether spray paint was the best choice for this project.  I had quite a bit of tile cleaning to do where I didn’t cover enough (against the opposite wall from the cabinets, and also in some areas near the bathtub, about 4 feet away from where I was painting.)  That part was not fun (and maybe still not really finished, but thankfully we have tile that has some white in it already!).

And that’s where I’m going to leave you hanging, folks.  You’ll have to check back in 2 weeks to see what this bathroom looks like once I’ve finished the white cabinets!

What I still want to do:

• Finish painting cabinets white (this is the main step I’m hoping to accomplish for the Procrastinator’s Party, but perhaps I can get some of the other things started too!)
• Add white beadboard to walls
• Add towel hooks
• Add decorative touches
• Replace large mirror with 2 smaller mirrors
• Replace light fixture
• Add window treatment to small window
  

I’ve been working hard on a post that is a little different from my usual posts, and I am really really struggling with it.  I’m trying to “find my voice”, I suppose.  I’m trying to convey serious information without writing a dry, boring, clinical post.  I want to keep it light hearted and in tune with the rest of my blog posts.  I was hoping to have this post ready to go today, but I’m still not happy with it.  Since it is driving me crazy, I’m stepping away and sharing something a little more light hearted: this yummy recipe!

When I was doing my menu planning this week, I rattled off several dessert options for The Picky Apple to choose from, all new and untried.  When he heard “Crumb Topped Blueberry-Lemon Cheesecake Bars” he said “THAT ONE!” before I even finished the options.  I hit several of his keywords: blueberry, lemon, and cheesecake.  I was leaning toward some brownies, myself, so I guess that’s what I get for asking his opinion.  (He should have KNOWN I wanted him to pick the brownies, right ladies?)  But no harm done.  These turned out great!  Love the flavors!  The only change I might make next time is to double (?) the cheesecake layer….the crust and crumb are both really rich.  Of course, then they might not really be bars anymore.  Then it might just be cheesecake.

Crumb Topped Blueberry-Lemon Cheesecake Bars

recipe from Emily at Sugar Plum

Ingredients:
Crust:

• 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup granulated sugar

Filling:

• 12 ounces cream cheese, (1 1/2 packages) softened
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 2 1/2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 2 large eggs
• 1 pint fresh blueberries

Topping:

• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup finely chopped almonds, toasted
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 13×9-inch pan with foil and grease bottom and sides using preferred method.

To make the crust, in a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder and salt. In a large bowl, using a mixer on medium speed, beat together butter and sugar until creamy, about 1-2 minutes; reduce mixer speed to low and beat in flour mixture until just combined and crumbly. Press mixture into bottom of prepared pan. Bake for 15 minutes or until light golden around edges; remove from oven.

To make the filling, in a medium bowl, using a mixer on medium speed, beat together cream cheese and sugar until creamy, about 1 minute. Beat in lemon juice, zest and almond extract until combined. Beat in eggs until combined, about 1 minute; pour filling over the top of crust, and evenly sprinkle with blueberries. Return pan to oven and bake for 20 minutes, or until set.

To make the topping, in a medium bowl, stir together brown sugar, flour, almonds, cinnamon and salt, until combined; knead in butter using fingertips or a fork, until ingredients are well incorporated and start to clump together. Sprinkle the crumbly mixture evenly over the cheesecake filling. Return pan to oven and bake an additional 20 minutes or until golden brown. Cool for an hour before lightly covering and chilling for 2 hours, or until cold. Lift foil out of pan and slice cheesecake into rows, 3×5, to make 15 bars.

Makes 15 bars

I wrote about this on Facebook today, but I thought it was worth sharing here too….

Today I was the mom in the grocery store with the screaming child.  You know, the one that everyone glares at?  The one I swore I’d never be.  (This is where the judge not lest ye be judged bit comes to mind…..)  Anyway, instead of cutting my losses and leaving, I kept shopping, thinking maybe I could bribe The Littlest Apple into behaving with snacks I brought along.  I HATE grocery shopping, and we really needed our groceries today!  The checker and sacker took forever, and The Littlest Apple was still screaming off and on.  Finally they finished loading the cart, and in my rush to exit the store so people would stop glaring at us, I failed to notice that the sacker had precariously perched my loaf of bread. Said bread fell down and I ran over it with my cart. Awesome.

So instead of French bread this week, we’ll be having flatbread.

This week I’m attempting to use up the meat I have in the freezer, and I’m hoping to keep the grocery bill a little lower.  We’ll see how successful I am!  All of the dinner recipes this week are new ones.  I’ll share the recipes if we like them!

BREAKFAST

Greek Yogurt with Pumpkin Spice Granola

Fresh fruit

LUNCH

Greek Salad

Leftovers

DINNERS

Sunday: Build Your Own Pasta (rigatoni noodles plus a combination of: shredded chicken, pesto, roasted red peppers, sundried tomatoes, feta, parmesean, kalamata olives, garlic)

Monday:  Butternut Squash Soup, Salad

Tuesday: Baked Manicotti, Garlic Bread, Salad

Wednesday: Mexican Albondigas Soup, Bread, Salad

Thursday: leftovers

Friday: Cheddar, Chicken and Potatoes, Fresh Fruit, Scrambled Eggs (if needed)

Saturday: Dine out or leftovers

For more menu planning inspiration, check out Menu Plan Monday at I’m an Organizing Junkie

The Littlest Apple is 25 months.

It seemed like we had lots going on this week, but I think this is just our new normal as The Littlest Apple is in Mother’s Day Out on Tuesdays and Thursdays and we have a Mommy and Me class at The Little Gym on Monday mornings.   As I mentioned in the last post, this was our first week of Art Playgroup, too.

I’m having a little bit of trouble accomplishing all of the Tot School activities I plan for us, and this week in particular, The Littlest Apple mostly just wanted to be outside!  Okay, that’s really nothing new.  This kid LOVES to be outside, so I’m trying to go with it.  This week our theme was leaves, but I only got in a few of the activities planned…there are so many great leaf activities!  We’ll be carrying this theme over to next week.

The Littlest Apple and I made these nature hats early in the week.  He helped with the sticker placement and the folding of the paper.  Folding is a new skill that he still doesn’t really get, but we’re working on it.

While I was finishing up our hats (yup, I made one for Mommy too), The Littlest Apple practiced cutting paper with some safety scissors.  This is another skill we’re just starting on, and still have a lot of work to do.  He LOVES to play with the scissors, but still doesn’t understand how to hold the scissors or the paper properly.  So he gets frustrated, but he will accept absolutely no assistance from anyone.  As in, don’t even pretend like you are going to reach over to help him, or he’ll start shrieking.  It’s a little frustrating, so I haven’t brought out the scissors much lately.

Practice with scissors (I think he took his shirt off because he got a little water on it and didn’t like the way it felt.  He’s all about taking his shirt off when it is messy):

Jumped in, scooped, threw and dumped (fake) leaves:

Lots of outside time this week!  Playing in the sandbox:

Learning how to play t-ball:

Driving his wheelbarrow around the yard.  He likes to pick flowers (weeds) and grass, put them in the wheelbarrow, then dump it all out on the patio..

Basketball, slide, and watching birds and airplanes:

Helping mommy bake pumpkin muffins (measured and poured the ingredients in the kitchen mixer, smelled the spices, stirred the streusel):

Painting with leaves….and a paintbrush too, because he was getting too much paint on his hands.  The Littlest Apple does NOT like paint on his hands!

Playdough

Tree art (first time he used Elmer’s glue by himself):

Scavenger hunt for red things:

As always, we also read lots and lots of books, but I’ll share these in a separate post!

Here are some of the great things I read about this week….

I love this idea for single serving pie in a jar at Our Best Bites.  These would be so great for gifting at the holidays, teacher gifts, or just to keep on hand for when you have that pie craving but don’t want to bake a whole pie.  Love it!

Image from Our Best Bites

Super amazing “Camoflage” art series by Liu Bolin featured at Wide Open Spaces.  I think my favorite is the last one!

A Fall Party at Southern Hospitality.  Lots of blogger participation (myself included) so check out all the beautiful and crafty fall decorations!

Image from Pottery Barn

Bakers’ Banter (the King Arthur Flour blog) combined two of my favorites: cinnamon rolls and pumpkin pie into Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls.  You better believe these will be showing up at my house sometime soon!  Can’t wait to try this recipe!

Simple Mom pointed out that it is now only 12 weeks (!!) until Christmas.  Here’s are some tips to get you thinking about your holiday budget now.

Speaking of Christmas, Organized Christmas is another site I’ve used in the past to help me get organized for the holidays.  Lots of great info, including how to simplify the holidays and Christmas Countdown Planner printouts for your holiday planning binder (What?  You don’t have one?).  The planner in me loves this kind of stuff!  The big countdown starts the last week of October, so time to get crackin’!

Image from Organized Christmas

I love these Custom Name Signs by Fudge Designs, spotted on Ohdeedoh.  Perfect for a child’s room!  If I didn’t already have a name sign for The Littlest Apple, I’d order this in a heartbeat.

The Wonder Years blogged about a great leaves and rocks sink and float activity for toddlers and preschoolers.  I’m looking forward to trying this with The Littlest Apple next week….he loves rocks and putting things in water, so I’m guessing he’ll love this!

Somehow The Picky Apple wound up trying Indian food long before I did, which is quite the anomaly, given that he’s The Picky Apple.  Based on his positive reviews, I’ve experimented with several Indian food recipes in the last couple of months, including Chicken Tikka Masala and Naan, and thus far, I’ve enjoyed all of it.  We tried these Indian Spiced Pork Skewers recently and absolutely loved them!  I thought I was playing it safe by only cooking one pork tenderloin, but we were both wishing we had more leftovers since it was so yummy!  This recipe will definitely be making regular appearances on my weekly menus.  This time I served with Basmati rice and Baked Acorn Squash (recipe below).

I cooked Basmati rice for the first time recently, and I am absolutely in love with this rice.  As much as it is possible to love rice anyway.  It is so much better than any other rice I’ve cooked…fluffier, less sticky, tastier.  This is the only kind of rice I’ll be using from now on!  (And there is brown Basmati, too!)

Indian Spiced Pork Skewers

from Our Best Bites

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2-2lbs pork tenderloin or sirloin pork roast
• 2 red bell peppers
• 1 large onion
• 1 T pressed garlic (or minced)
• 1 T curry powder
• 1 1/2 t kosher salt (much less if you’re using table salt, but you shouldn’t be using table salt!)
• 1/2 T cumin
• 1/2 T coriander
• 1/8 t cayenne pepper
• 1/4 C fresh lemon juice
• 3 T extra virgin olive oil
• 1 T water

Cut your pork into 1 1/2″ chunks and place in a zip-lock bag. Prepare peppers and onions by chopping into squares as well and then store in the fridge.  Press garlic into a small bowl.  Mix the garlic and salt in a small bowl with the cumin, curry, and coriander and cayenne.  Add fresh lemon juice (not bottled!) and olive oil and stir it all up.  Pour spice mixture in the zip-lock bag with the pork. Seal bag, give it a good smoosh, and then let it sit in the fridge for 3-4 hours (longer is just fine).  Before skewering make sure to soak bamboo skewers in water for 20-30 minutes. Thread on pork chunks and alternate with red pepper and onion.  Grill on a preheated med heat grill for about 10 minutes total. Rotate them often to avoid burning. If you’ve cut your pork chunks an inch or smaller, they’ll be done pretty fast. Don’t overcook!  Pile them on a platter and serve hot.

Baked Acorn Squash

This was also my first time cooking (and tasting) Acorn Squash.  I saw them at the Farmers’ Market last weekend, sitting next to the Butternut Squash (one of my favorites), and decided to try something new for a change.  They just looked so beautiful!  I used a simple baking method, and overall, I thought it was pretty good.  I’m not sure The Picky Apple cared for it that much, but I think it could be really great with a little experimenting.  Maybe some bacon?

from Epicurious

Cut 1 acorn squash in half. Scoop out seeds. Put 1 teaspoon of butter in the center of each half, then sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar, ginger, and nutmeg. Place both squash halves in a pan with 1/4 inch water and bake at 350°F for one hour.

I think I might be the last person on earth reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver.  Or at least close to it.  Upon standing in line with this book at the library, not one but TWO people noticed I was holding this book and started telling me how wonderful it is.

This is a must read for anyone interested in eating locally, living a more simple way of life, and learning more about where your food comes from.  Mrs. Kingsolver and her family moved from Arizona to a family farm in Virginia where they grew their own produce, raised their own chickens and turkeys, and bought as much other local food as they could (and when they couldn’t they did without).  They pledged to live this life for one year, and the book tracks their progress throughout the year, offering gardening and cooking anecdotes, endearing stories about life with chickens and turkeys, lots of life lessons, and seasonal recipes along the way.  There are enjoyable and sometimes humorous tales of a never-ending zucchini harvest, trips to the farmers’ market, longing for bananas (which are most certainly not local for Virginia), canning salsas and spaghetti sauce, and getting turkeys ready for Thanksgiving.

There were a few times along the way that I felt the book got a little preachy, and I have no desire to go to the extremes that Mrs. Kingsolver and her family did.  But many of the changes made by this family are attainable, and this book was certainly an eye opener.  You will walk away from this book with a more profound understanding of where your food comes from.