The Best Summer Birthday Cake

It was Ebi's 3rd birthday on the weekend, and we had a fun little party.  Pizza, cake, a piñata, and a food drive for FIND Food Bank in Indio.  The pizzas came from Costco, they are always a hit with the kids.  The cake is the one I make by request several times every summer for family and friends birthdays.  I call it an ice cream sandwich cake, and not because it tastes like ice cream sandwiches, because it literally is made from ice cream sandwiches.  Everybody loved it and it is embarrassing how easy it is to make.

1 - 24 pack of Nestle ice cream sandwiches
Nestle Dulce de Leche Syrup - this is my favorite but any caramel topping will work
Nestle Nesquick Chocolate Syrup
Hershey's Heath English Toffee Bits
1 - 4 pack of Dream Whip Topping
2 cups 2% milk

Line a 9x13 cake pan with foil.  Mix up 2 packs of Dream Whip with one cup of milk.  Layer half the ice cream sandwiches on the bottom cutting the last few to make them fit.  Spread the dream whip over them, squirt the syrups, and sprinkle a layer of toffee bits.  Add the second layer of ice cream sandwiches.  Put it back in the freezer for a couple of hours to firm up.

Mix up the rest of the Dream Whip.  Invert the cake onto a serving platter that will fit back into the freezer.  Cover the top and sizes with the Dream Whip.  Usually I decorate the top with more toffee bits but I left Ebi's cake plain so that the candles would show up really well.

Happy Birthday my sweet girl!  I love you to the moon and back.

Learning As I Go

 Lately, I've been feeling a little more Mommy Guilt than usual. Aside from the blog that I keep promising to update more frequently, I'm writing for a living. Articles that should take an hour end up taking 3 because I can only focus on the computer in 15 minute bursts between, "Mommy look at this." or "Come snuggle me on the couch." I can never say no, so the computer sits open for much of the day. My fear is that my daughter is growing up feeling like she has to compete for my attention with a tiny MacBook Air. I've tried going to bed when she does, and getting up at 4 or 5am to write, but somehow she senses it, and wakes up! As a single, stay at home mom, my question to other bloggers and writers is, how can I work at home effectively, without making Ebi feel like the computer is getting too much attention? Oh, and I also want 40 minutes on my yoga mat without being climbed on.

How He Met My Mother

It always shocks me that I've known my Dad for 43 years now, and there are still things I don't know about him.  Stories I haven't heard.  Recently, he shared one such story.

As a bit of background, Dad was born in England and then lived in Belfast, Ireland, where my Grandfather was headmaster at a boys reform school.  When he was six, things were getting too crazy in Ireland and the whole family emigrated to Canada.  They lived in Crescent Beach, BC, where my Grandfather taught at a high school.  Later, when Dad was a teenager, they moved to Ontario for another job.

They were living in Goderich, Ontario.  Dad's two older sisters had both become nurses and were out of the house.  Dad was in the 12th grade when my Grandfather got a job offer in Parry Sound, Ontario.  Rather than uproot the family again, he got a one bedroom apartment near the school and commuted, driving 5 hours on Sunday night, and driving back to Goderich Friday after school.  Dad decided it would be fun to go with him and start a new highschool again.  His younger brother and sister stayed behind with my Grandmother.  One of his reasons for changing schools, or so he says, was to meet new girls.  That was exactly what happened.  He ended up in school with my Mom who was born and raised in Parry Sound.  They've been best friends ever since.

While it may be surprising to some people that a teenager would want to change schools as a senior, leaving friends behind, and starting over, it made perfect sense to me.  I did the same thing!  I arrived on the first day of the 12th grade to find that my homeroom was in portable #13, the farthest from the school, and that my locker assignment was on the 2nd floor of the main building.  There was construction going on everywhere, it was dusty and noisy.  I walked out and headed over to a smaller school and got myself registered without a second thought.  Now I know that I was genetically predisposed to enjoy change, travel, and adventure.  

Gingerbread Cookies

Starting New Traditions

Dec 2010 was Ebi's first Christmas and Trader Joe's had these fantastic huge gingerbread men for .99 that came with frosting and sprinkles.  She had such a great time decorating it, and herself, in her highchair and I hoped they would sell them every year.

I never saw them again.  So, this year I made one for her to decorate.  I used a really yummy recipe for soft ginger cookies, similar to the ones Starbucks sells.  I made several trays of round cookies and then made a big freeform man, and it turned out great!

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups flour

2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

2 tbsp cinnamon

2 tbsp ginger

1 tsp allspice - I subbed in Chinese 5 Spice

1 tsp cloves

3/4 cup butter, softened

1 cup dark brown sugar

1 large egg

1/4 cup molasses

white sugar for rolling cookie dough

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 375.

Combine flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, and cloves in a bowl.  Whisk to combine.

Cream the butter and brown sugar, then add the egg and molasses and beat until it doesn't look curdled.  Mix in the spiced flour to form a stiff dough.  I have made this recipe with a normal mixer, and with a stick immersion blender that has a whisk attachment.  It was a little too stiff for the stick so I finished blending with a fork.

Use a 1/4 cup scoop to make a dozen big cookies.  Roll the dough into balls, roll them in the sugar and flatten them a little on two ungreased cookie sheets.  Bake for 12 minutes.

I made the cookies smaller this time, and baked them for 9 minutes.

Eggnog Ice Cream

'Tis The Season!

I went to Fresh and Easy to get my free 13 pound turkey with $30 grocery purchase and couldn't resist picking up some eggnog.  Before I even had my first sip of it, I began fantasizing about eggnog ice cream.  I already had the ice cream maker in the freezer and this recipe doesn't require cooking so I didn't have to wait too long.

Ingredients:

2 cups eggnog
2 cups half and half
2 cups milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup sugar

I just mixed everything together with a whisk until the sugar was disolved and poured it into the ice cream maker.  I admit I was a little anxious that it was taking so long so I put the ice cream maker into the freezer and let it run in there.  Fortunately the power cord is nice and long!

The result - delicious, especially with a shot of rum!

Roasted Brussels Sprouts & Beets

I picked up a bag of great looking brussels sprouts at Costco the other day, along with a bag of golden beets, which I had never tried before.

My favorite way to prepare brussels sprouts, or rather, the only way I like them, is roasted.  I love roasted beets too and since these golden ones weren't going to turn everything purple, I thought I'd roast them together.

First I preheated the oven to 400F.  Then I trimmed and halved the brussels sprouts, and peeled and diced the beets into about 1/2 to 3/4 inch pieces.

Then I tossed them in some olive oil, black pepper and coarse salt.

I lined a baking sheet with foil because I'm lazy and would rather throw a pan away than scrub it!

I baked them for about 45 minutes, turning them a couple of times and moving them around the pan so they would cook evenly.

The brussels sprouts look overdone, and perhaps I could have taken them out a little earlier so they would have looked nicer, but they tasted amazing.  It was like a bowl of candy I couldn't stop eating!

Life Hack - dog poop bags

I'm currently house-sitting for my parents up in BC, Canada.  Shortly after they left, the city dropped off three enormous waste bins, the kind we have in California that the robot trucks come by and pick up.  At first I was excited about this because the driveway is longer than a football field and these bins roll so much better than the old ones.  Then a few weeks later, over dinner with some friends we were talking about the new pickup schedules and all the RULES.  Of course, I hadn't read the brochure that came with the new bins so I had no idea.  It turns out, the yard and kitchen waste bin gets picked up every week, the trash bin and recycle bins get picked up on alternating weeks.  So, because of the confusion, the trash bin in the garage has been filling up for over a month.  Oops!  The good news is, it's not even halfway full.

What is stressing me out is the kitchen waste bin.  There is nothing in it.  My parents were in the habit of collecting composte waste in a bin under the sink, but the few times I opened it to drop something in, I saw a puff of mold spores that totally freaked me out.  I just can't get on board with this.  They suggest buying these leakproof and odor proof paper bags which are lined with some material that is biodegradable   They are pretty big though, so it would take a week to fill one up, and I would still have to deal with mold.  Ideally, I'd like to have something that I could gather food scraps into, and take outside immediately, or at least once a day.

I voiced my concern to a friend of mine, and she suggested buying a ream of biodegradable doggie-doo bags.  It was a moment of pure genius.  The bags are cheap, take up very little room and compost quickly.  Next time I shop I'll be picking some up so I can comply with the garbage rules.

Now, if I can just remember to put the recycle bin out tonight!