Coconut cake!!

There are so many things I have learned since becoming a stay-at-home dad in June. One of the hardest lessons for me has been that, no matter how much I want to or no matter how hard I try, I am not going to be a perfect homemaker. There are a few things that I am just not going to be able to master. Cleaning I can do, and do well. But grocery shopping? No intuition whatsoever. I am a fair hand at parenting. Cooking, however, is something that is better left in more capable hands (AKA Sarah, who is the most amazing cook in the world; she can make a three-course meal with a toothpick and some ketchup).
Time and work constraints being what they are, my family is unfortunately subjected quite often to my (lack of) cooking skills. Once in a great while I will hit the nail on the head and pull off a tasty dessert or breakfast...like yesterday. When I found the most amazing cake recipe EVER. Coincidentally one of Sarah's friends from residency came for dinner so it was an opportune time for me to test it out.
Needless to say I had three small "helpers" for the execution of this endeavor. Photos of the project are below, and a link to the recipe is here. Try it - it's incredible.

The lovely Miss Mary...

...Luke, squealer extraordinaire...

...and Julia, the comic relief.

Mmmmm...buttermilk!

Taking a break from the action to play "house" under the hall bench.

One of the most important side effects of making a coconut cake, besides the 35,000 calories, is having some extra delicious toasted coconut to snack on later.

Of course, no cake is complete without beaters to lick off afterward!

And P.S.: I would have posted a photo of the finished product, but, uh, we ate it already.

PRODUCE!

Mike and I joined what we affectionately call "The Hippie Farm Co-op" this year, which means we get big box of fresh locally grown veggies every Monday. This year, since September was so very warm, they had some extra canning shares of broccoli and tomatoes. At Mike's request, we bought one. I was thinking we'd have a few jars of each and we could eat them sometime in January...



WHOA. When the "canning shares" arrived, I finally figured out what I had committed to: a winter of Rabbit-dom. FIFTY POUNDS of broccoli awaited me on our doorstep...and then came a box of SIXTY POUNDS of tomatoes. !!! I had a hundred and ten pounds of rabbit food on porch...and two days to pack it away before we went on vacation. Ugh!



That night, I cleaned up my favorite cleaver (yes we have more than one) and spent five hours hacking away at the broccoli pile. I didn't know this, but broccoli wants to be steamed before you freeze it...which meant I was dumping steaming piles of green cruciferous vegetable matter on any flat surface I could find. With the added smell of the HUGE box of tomatoes on the floor, our kitchen smelled like a V8 factory.


HACK.

The next night, it was time to can tomatoes and spaghetti sauce. When it came time to do the work, Mike popped his head around the corner and said, "Dear, I will be back in two minutes to do the canning for you. I think the canning part is a little complicated for you. Just give me a sec to sew one corner on this mitten." (He was making grandma Mitzi a pair of mittens for her birthday...) So, slop, squish, squirt, smush...I peeled the little red suckers and gutted them for TWO HOURS before I saw my husband....apparently the mitten tried to get the better of him. Conquering the Tomatoes was supposed to be a team project, but the other half of my team copped out at game time. Oh well. I had a blast listening to Metallica and being a Domestic Diva. I learned that you don't have to use a spoon to neatly remove the seeds and juice from a tomato....after you peel it, just hold it over the sink and squeeze. Pretty soon, a little stream of tomato guts comes zooming out of the fruit and hopefully lands somewhere in the sink (or on the wall...or ceiling...etc) What fun! After awhile, I even learned to aim properly.

The sixty pounds became sixteen quarts of tomatoes, nine quarts of sauce, and a bunch of pint jars with various combinations of the above. Ahhh...success.

Before we could get to all the canning, Miss Mary came along to help. She loves tomatoes, and I do believe she ate ten or twelve of them. Since they spent two days sitting in a box on the kitchen floor, she had plenty of time to help herself to a bite when passing through. She would bite a hole in the tomato and then suck out all the insides. It was funny until I discovered that she was secretly hoarding them upstairs. I noticed that there were red splotches on the carpeting through the living room and up the stairs. After following the trail upstairs, I found a small heap of juiceless tomatoes under the crib. Queen Mary was sitting near her throne of tomatoes, with gobs of tomato guts on the front of her onesie. mmmmm... Thank God for Lysol Deodorizing CArpet Cleaner...

State Fair 2009

This picture was supposed to be at the end, but I accidentally deleted it. Julia was asleep before the car left the parking lot. Nice work, mom and dad!

Last Thursday was our annual trip to the Great Minnesota Get-Together, aka the State Fair. Mike's family is nutso about the fair, so we always "get-together" with them and make a go at it. This year, we went on opening day. What fun we had!

We have also sort of made it a tradition to stay in a fancy hotel for as cheaply as possible (thanks priceline.com...) the night before so we can get the most of the day with the kiddos. They expire in the early afternoon, so walking onto the grounds by nine gets us through a few extra exhibits.

Julia partakes in the raspberries that grandma brought. She is eating them on a featherbed...

Mary explores the new turf

The first food of the fair: foot-long CORN dog. Julia had the first bite. It was a delicious breakfast.

mmmmmm...

The next series of photos are quite amusing. After eating Kettle Corn, the Corn Dog, a Deep Fried CAndy Bar (Jenny ate that herself..), we mosied on over to the Horticulture building because Julia wanted to see the honeybees. In the Horticulture building, you can buy a frozen apple cider for 75 cents...probably the best buy at the fair. It's like an apple juice freezie.

Well, I bought one of them for each of the girls. Julia liked hers for a few minutes, then left it in the stroller. Mary, on the other hand, was in seventh heaven. She wrapped both hands around the frosty thing and started digging in with her incisors. Of course, after a minute or so, she had eaten all of the freezie she could reach...the plastic sleeve got in the way. A blood-curdling scream echoed through the Horticulture Building. Mary was in tears. John had a fingernail clipper in his pocket, so I tried to take it away from her so I could cut some of the plastic away.

The second I took it away, my second child went completely postal.

She stopped shrieking and mounted a loud, deep HOLLER. Tears of anger flew slid down her frozen cheeks as she walloped her daddy with the back of her noggin. She was VERY UNHAPPY. She wanted that freezie back NOW.

I tried to cut it as quickly as I could...I managed to bathe my entire face and chest in the sticky apple juice that poured out of the holes she had gnawed in the bottom. I finally was able to cut an inch or so off the top and I gave it back to her.

Silence. No more tears. Smile!

Whoa.

Because I like science, I decided to try this little experiment again just to see if Mary would predictably behave in the same way. See the pictures below for your amusement.

Before. Happy. Life is excellent and everything is in its place...

Papa's hand reaches in and moves the freezie away from the Baby. Fear and anguish...

NOOOOOOOO!!!!

GIVE ME THAT BACK, YOU #(&!$& (!$)%$#!!!!!!!

oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh

Damn you, papa.

Ahh...I love my children!

Next, we took a ride on Ye Old Mill. Julia loved it. Mary's freezie ended somewhere inside, so she had another nuclear meltdown in the dark, wet tunnel. Our boat rocked something crazy...Grandma's sweater took home a sampling of the unnatural blue-hued water.

Mary, recovered, plays with giant legos at the Thrivent booth

They had this cute little farm exhibit for kids. We took the girls through it. They picked corn, fed fake animals, drove fake tractors, and even had the opportunity to plant plastic veggies in real dirt!

Mary takes a ride on her big green tractor

Julia's favorite moment of her life: she got to sit in the cab of an EXCAVATOR. She adores construction equipment. The excavator is her favorite, and she will drive one for her job someday. Then, she informed me, she will "also tell the other men how they should be driving their excavators."

Look out, world.

Auntie Jenny took Julia down the big slide. Julia had a great time.

This was a very odd scene. While we were waiting for J and J to get down from the slide, I noticed a 50-something woman taking a nap on the very busy boulevard. She didn't have anyone with her, and she was wearing ALL WHITE. I checked to see if she was still breathing, just in case. She was. And now, she has her picture on the internet. Ha!

Julia was getting very very tired toward the end of the day. She did get the chance to see a huge pig give birth to piglets. She was fascinated with the placenta. I didn't want to start explaining that one...

Mary took a nap in the stroller and awoke with vigor. She is saying, "Ohhh..."

Julia and uncle John

Julia had the chance to meet a real live princess! This one was about to have her head carved in butter. Julia was green with envy.

By 4:00, we were in the car. Mary does not sleep in the car. She would rather shriek and demand things that are out of her reach.

There is supposed to be a picture of Julia here, who fell asleep before our van left the parking lot. It's at the top of the page.

Farewell, state fair! FArewell, calories!

Farewell H1N1! I'm glad we didn't spend too much time in the 4H building.... eek!