Valentine Breakfast

My kids woke up early on valentine day's so I made them, heart pancakes with valentine sprinkles inside and on top of the cream.

I feel guilty I didn't take a picture of my son in his red shirt.

Lentils

(I meant to hit publish on this post about two months ago.)

This is my husband's favorite no oven dish this summer.

Lentil salad

I found the recipe on another site and can't find it again, so I have no idea what the real recipe is, but what we do is. Cook the lentils, cut up two handful of cherry tomatoes from our tomato plants. Dice a half of pepper, and half of onion, mix it all up, and squirt a ton of lemon juice on it, and refrigerate it for a few hours.

We are cheese and tortilla/corn chips family so, we usually cook tortillas and cheese, and cut them up into little 1 X 1 squares and pour the salad on top of the squares.

We can't get our son to eat tortillas usually so he has his on top of nachos, my three year old actually eats this. He actually asks for lentils some days.
I think it looks so pretty with the cherry maybe grape tomatoes.

My new favorite lunch

Remember the lasagna post. Well I had the noodles for the lasagna I never made, because my son opened the package for me. I realized my favorite part of lasagna is the noodles. When I was a child, I would scrape everything off and only eat the noodles. (My poor mother) So I made this for lunch:

Noodles, a little bit of sauce and a lot of cheese. It is so good, if you have my culinary tastes.
On a side note, I am loving my cheap brand vanilla ice cream these days. Its always kind of a relief when I do and don't have to spend the big bucks on dreyers.
Hmmm, this means something...

My hubby's favorite.

I referred to my husband late birthday meal, in this post. Referred is the key word, the post was not about the meal, I just referenced Swiss Chicken. Here is the recipe:

Swiss Chicken
2 thin slices Swiss Cheese
4 chicken cutlets (1/4” thick)
2 tbsp. flour
1/2 tbsp. black pepper
1 tbsp. butter or margarine
1/2 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup apple juice
1/4 tsp. dried oregano

Cut each cheese slice in half; place 1 half on top of each cutlet. Starting with a short end, tightly roll up cutlets, jelly-roll style. Tie securely with string.
On wax paper, combined flour pepper, Mix well. Add cutlets; toss gently to coat.
In a large nonstick skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Add cutlets; cook, turning frequently, until golden, about 3 minutes.
Add broth, juice and dried oregano to skillet. Increase heat; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low; simmer until chicken is cooked through and sauce is slightly thickened, about 10 –12 minutes. Place on a serving plate; remove strings. Serve with rice.

This was the meal I first made Brent when we were dating. Coincidence that it is his favorite? I think not, turns out my husband is highly sentimental. By the way, I was not one of those girls that cooked for him because we were dating and I wanted to impress him. He was spending the weekend at my parent's house, and my mother was out of town which meant the cooking was divided between my father and me. I cooked Sunday, he cooked Monday.

Christmas Treats

The other day I thought it doesn't feel much like christmas. For one thing, this is the first christmas in many of years I didn't get that sigh of relief after finishing finals. Although I have to say I'm not complaining, I would much rather omit the sigh than to have to be in school. I decided I couldn't sit about and whine, it was my job to be the mom and I had to make the christmas treats. This is my crowning glory. My Buche de Noel. I like to think of it as a birthday cake for my mother in law. My husband was so proud of my achievement. My mom always puts a holly sprig on it, but my apartment is fresh out of holly so I used a cookie.I also made sugar cookies with my boy. He loved the batter but the cookies he didn't really care about. First you have to make the batter the day before with a pastry blender and store it in the fridge over night.Then the next day you roll it.Don't forget the fun cookie cutters.And of course we had to put sprinkles on top.And then since I was such a good mommy, I was blessed, I was also craving gingerbread men, and while I was at my mother in laws, someone brought a HUGE one.Here are my recipes:

Christmas Log
Preheat oven to 375
Use a 10x15x1/2 pan
1 cup cake flour
(2 tbsp. corn starch can be added to regular flour if you don’t have cake flour)
1/4 cup cocoa
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
1 tsp. vanilla
Stir together flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
In mixing bowl beat eggs till thick and lemon colored. Add sugar. At low speed, blend in water and vanilla. Gradually add flour – beat only until smooth. Pour in pan pushing to edges.
Bake 12-15 minutes. Invert immediately on a towel. Remove wax paper. Let cool two minutes—roll with towel. Let rest 10 minutes or until cool. Unroll—remove towel. Fill with whipped cream, roll up and frost with chocolate frosting so it looks like a “branch” or a “log”.

Sugar Cookies
2 1/2 cups sifted flour
1 1/2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup butter
1 egg, beaten
2 tbsp. milk
2 tsp. vanilla
Combined flour, confectioners’ sugar and salt and sift into bowl. Cut in butter or margarine until mixture resembles fine crumbs. Add egg, milk and vanilla; mix until dough holds together. Press into ball. Wrap and chill well. Roll 1/2 of the dough at a time on lightly floured board. Cut into shapes with floured cookies cutters. Arrange 1” apart on ungreased cooky sheets. Bake at 375 for about 8 minutes. Cool cookies on racks.

Party Time

Last Friday night, we had the aforementioned party. My cousin turned 20, and she had a bash at my house. We also had her two brothers over and their wives. Here is the garland I found from Martha. As you will notice, it is the only martha craft I made. The hats, didn't not turn out to look so good, and they were much more challenging to make than martha made it seem. So they got cut before I even made one. It made me a little disillusioned in martha. I really really really wanted to make the clowns, but I had no time. And the turkeys...well I'm still hoping... Oh and no one could really have expected me to cut out napkins, if you thought I was actually going to go through with that, you are crazy.
Here is Jobo helping making the cake. He really liked it.
Here is the cake, so I know it totally does not look as good what I was trying to copy but I am so PROUD of it. First off, I have never made frosting in my life, and I made this frosting from scratch, and it turned out really tasting. I was really worried, because if there is one thing people from my father's side of the family like it is chocolate cake, my cousin requested chocolate when I asked her what she wanted. So there was a lot of self induced pressure to make a good cake, and as first time frostinger I was worried. But it turned out well, complements were paid, and I breathed a sign of relief after holding my breath for days. The way the cake looked on the other hand...it was lopsided I need my aluminum pans. And the decoration is obviously from an amateur but I was still so PROUD!
My hubby made food for MY cousins. How great is that man? I know I love him, he is so nice, its fabulous. He offered to make chimigangas, and of course I would never deny cooking help, since I am not a cook.
The birthday girl is on the far right. Here is Jobo entertaining everyone, none of them have kids, so Jobo is novelty.