ABCDessert

I don't always like English. It seems to be an adequate lingua franca , and Shakespeare did some pretty impressive things with it, but some days I don't enjoy English.  In true American style, it is the only language I speak, so I don't know if there is another language that I would prefer. What I do know is that the rules aren't really rules. For example "I before E except after C and when sounded like A as in neighbor or weigh" is a silly little rhyme that is completely useless when I'm trying to spell feisty - a word that is frequently relevant in my house. I've had more than one argument with a preschool aged feisty redhead about the fact that phone does not start with F and great begins with the same letter as giraffe (and that letter is not J.) Trying to explain what sound a vowel makes is an exercise in futility. Once, when Christopher was in preschool, I found him sitting at the table in tears. He wasn't quietly sniffling. He was loudl

Strawberries are in season in Texas. We bought a bunch. The kids have been loving them. The best strawberries are fresh from our garden, but we only get a handful of those at a time. They are a perfect before bed snack. For recipes that involve lots sugar and plenty of cooking time we use store bought strawberries. Julie has been hopping around the house saying "strawberries" for days. She also has utterly refused to wear clothes. She screams and shouts and kicks and thrashes while I get her dressed and then immediately removes all of her clothing as soon as she can. I've decided this is not a battle I'm willing to fight, so she spends most of the day in just a diaper. (I am willing to fight with her to keep a diaper on. I hate cleaning the carpet.) But when I said it was time to get out the strawberries and make jam she ran into the kitchen, grabbed her apron, and said "Put it on Mom." I did not make her ask twice. In addition to convincing Julie to ge

I generally do not look forward to summer in Texas. I do really love homemade ice cream. We've already had some triple digit temperatures this year, so this week was a perfect time to pull out the ice cream maker. We decided to try to make a s'more flavor starting with a standard vanilla base. We broiled (and sampled) some marshmallows and blended them in with the base. I thought it was cute that Spencer insisted on using the thermometer to make sure the marshmallows got hot enough in the oven. While we were making the base, I asked Spencer if he wanted to stir the cream while I separated the eggs. He said "No Mom. I'm good at separating eggs. You stir the cream and I'll do the eggs." It took him 7 eggs to get 5 egg yolks, but he did it by himself. We added some graham cracker crumbs and fudge sauce while freezing the ice cream. The end result was really good, but tasted nothing like s'mores. I think we needed more marshmallows and less vanilla. We

When I asked Spencer to quickly put his laundry away so we could get started baking he said "Mom, can we stop doing the alphabet. I don't like it." I asked him what he like to do instead and he said "I want to do the kind of desserts where I don't have to do any work first." After I told him that he would have to put this laundry away before making any dessert, he was cheerfully back on board with the alphabet idea. We waited until the older kids got home from school so that they could make some cookies too. With the assistance of reading siblings, the kids were able to figure everything out with almost no help from me. It was fun to see how proud they were when they figured out how many tablespoons it takes to get half a cup of shortening. The recipe made more than 3 dozen cookies, most of which did not last long enough to be photographed. Julie now can say both hallongrotta and delicious. -L Hallongrotta Ingredients : ½ cup

During my first years as a public school teacher I became a firm believer in the powers of the full moon. I have not converted to the full complement of astrology, but I do believe that the phases of the moon are extremely relevant to children's behavior.  One colleague suggested to me that perhaps we were trying to educate werewolves. The students always display their most ridiculous, defiant, and disruptive behavior during the full moon. I checked lunar calendars twice last week to see if it was a full moon. It wasn't. I take little comfort in the fact that my children are not werewolves. This is not the place to recite all of Spencer's escapades over the last week, but he was in a lot of trouble for most of the time. We tried to make our dessert on Wednesday like we usually do. Then we tried to make it on Thursday. Then I gave up on having Spencer do it with us, and Julie and I started the Galette Friday morning. Then Spencer was left home with a babysitter to prese

I had originally planned to make fudge for F. Then Spencer informed me that he doesn't like chocolate. I don't understand. I love him, but I don't understand. I've never made flan before. We consulted Heather and America's Test Kitchen and decided to give it a try. I think we made a perfectly respectable first attempt. This recipe started off as an exercise in sibling rivalry. Julie kept saying "macaroni pan" and Spencer loudly and forcefully continued to remind her that it was actually a sauce pan. After a few minutes of shouting at each other about the pan there was a brief wrestling match to determine who would get to stand on the step stool and who would stand on a chair. Around the time they started throwing sugar at each other I decided that perhaps I had started this project a little bit to closely to lunch time. We took a break for a snack. Things were much more congenial after everyone had a full stomach. Spencer got frust