Quiche

Tonight we had one of Wayne's favorite breakfast foods for dinner, quiche. I don't remember anymore where I got the recipe, and I usually alter it from the original recipe anyway, but I like to have a base to work from.

Quiche
9" unbaked pie shell
2 c chopped tomatoes, green beans, onions or mushrooms
1/2-3/4 c chopped chicken, sausage, ham, bacon or ground beef
1/2 t dried basil, sage, thyme or oregano
1 t salt
dash pepper
1 c grated Swiss, Cheddar, or mixture of whatever you like
2 eggs, slightly beaten
2 T flour
1 c evaporated milk (or I've used a little milk and/or cream if I don't have it)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Bake pie shell 10 minutes.
Lightly saute veggies and meats (or not - I didn't saute anything tonight). Spoon into pie shell.
Sprinkle seasonings, salt and pepper on top. Cover with cheese. Combine egg, flour and milk. Pour on top. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until set. Let cool at least 5 minutes before cutting/serving.

I'm not much of a pie maker - that's probably why I love the pie crust I found. It's easy, turns out well, and is very tasty! I got it from a Food Network recipe for an apple pie. I will give the original recipe which is for a double crust, but I only made half (1 crust) for the quiche.

2 1/2 c all-purpose flour
1/4 t baking powder
2 sticks cold, unsalted butter, cut into cubes
1/2 t salt
About 1/3 c ice-cold water

Put the flour and baking powder in a bowl of a food processor and pulse to combine. Add the cold butter cubes and pulse a few times until the mixture begins to become mealy and the butter forms plainly visible pea-sized nuggets.

Dissolve the salt in the water. With motor running, pour the water in and let mix until the dough pulls together. Do not over-mix dough.



I also dipped our strawberries in sour cream then brown sugar. It is a very yummy treat.

A lesson

Tonight when I told Tyler that Pat, Lisa, and Oliver, were coming over, he said he was going to "teach them a lesson."

He explained that he would teach them about dinosaurs.

I don't think he yet understands what it implies when you teach someone "a lesson." :)

Enchiladas

Tonight I made Chicken Enchiladas from the most recent copy of Taste of Home. I served the enchiladas with cilantro-lime rice, recipe thanks to lifeofadomesticgoddess.blogspot.com, with chips and guacamole. Pat and Lisa came over - we have no enchilada leftovers. I think everyone liked it. (I only served half of the recipe, because it's a big one, and froze the other half).

Chicken Enchiladas

1 (8oz) pkg cream cheese
2 T water
2 t onion powder
2 t ground cumin
1/2 t salt
1/4 t pepper
5 c diced, cooked chicken
20 flour tortillas (6 inch)
2 cans (10 3/4 oz) cream of chicken soup
2 c sour cream
1 c milk
2 cans (4 oz) chopped green chilies
2 c shredded cheddar cheese

Beat cream cheese, water, onion powder, ground cumin, salt and pepper. Stir in chicken.
Place 1/4 cup filling in each tortilla and place in 2 greased 9x13 inch pans, seam side down.
Combine sour cream, soup, milk and chilies. Pour over.
Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes.
Sprinkle cheese on top and bake for 5 minutes more.
Yield: 10 servings

Hard Attack

Tonight at the playground, Tyler sat on top of the large concrete turtle, hit it with a branch and declared he was "giving it a hard attack." (Heart attack). So, I would surmise that when he has scared me and I say he will give me a heart attack, he thinks I said hard attack. I had to giggle to myself.

Happy Weekend

Last evening, to celebrate our birthdays (Michelle's and mine), we left the children with their grandparents and headed to Salina.

Michelle was not so sure about taking pictures.

Michelle being goofy.

We were riding in the back...Wayne being silly this time.

A view of the rain. (You can't see the wind whipping around. As Tyler learned from his Grandpa last night, wind is invisible...in case you didn't know).


Here we are at The Scheme...They serve delicious pizza with honey to drizzle on the crust.

Matt and Michelle

We stayed the night in Hesston.

Luann Yutzy gave the sermon this morning. (I believe she is Lynette Showalter's sister, but I'll have to check).

Afterward, Ted made a Mother's Day lunch. It was delicious!

After lunch, Ted and Sue went to help serve at their friends 50th wedding anniversary open house. Tyler went for a trike ride down the street.

We stopped to smell the irises.

Right after I took this picture, the man of the house, who must have been observing what we were doing, came out and asked if he could cut the iris for me. I told him that we were just admiring, and not to cut one, but he did anyway. How sweet! It is the little gestures like this that remind me of falling in love with Hesston when I was here in college. The people in town are so warm and giving. It is a welcoming place.

Tyler was following the "worm track."

Posing by an oak tree in the backyard of Grandpa's house.

Celebrating with Grandpa and Grandma.

Tyler gave me this lilac and declared that it was my birthday present from him.

Spring is in the air!

Here are some pictures from the yard tonight. We've been getting a lot of rain, and I enjoy trekking out to find out which plants are starting to bloom.

The first roses of the season.

Chives (Tyler enjoys getting oniony breath from chewing on these).

I didn't plant these, but I like how bright and cheery they are.

Azaleas that I planted a couple of seasons ago.


Tonight I cooked my very first bird... a 5 pound chicken. I know, not big, but why waste a lot of money on something I could very well have ruined - Luckily, it was very good. After all these years of being afraid to try it, I am pleasantly surprised at how simple it was. We had roast chicken with fennel, carrots, and potatoes. Michelle gave me some fresh tarragon which was a nice addition. We also had strawberry spinach salad, homemade bread with strawberry jam, meadow tea, and pecan pie bars with butter pecan ice cream for dessert. It was yummy.



We had planned on the Pankratz's for dinner - but both Wayne and Leo were sick today, so that didn't work out. I am still fighting a cold I've had for nearly 3 weeks.
It makes me wonder, will we ever all be well again?
I hope so!

A Man

Last night as we were reading Tyler's bedtime stories, he asked me what I wanted to be when I grow up. I explained that I am a social worker. (And we went through all the whys). So, I asked him what he wants to be when he grows up. He thought for a long time, then replied, "A man." I asked him what kind of man. "I want to be just like Daddy." I told him he should tell Daddy because Daddy would like to hear that. He, of course, had lots of questions, including "why does Daddy love me?" I told him that he is Daddy's baby. "No, I'm not a baby." So, I said he's Daddy's little boy. "No, I'm not a little boy, I'm a dery [very] big boy!"

The other day, Wayne asked him how old he thinks he will be when he is big enough to be a man. He thought that maybe when he was six or seven he would be a man.

Biking Adventure

During the middle of the day, there was a cold wind and I wouldn't say it was pleasant outside. However, by this evening, it was beautiful. So, Tyler and I went to the Sedgwick County Park, which is within a mile of our house, so he could ride.

It took what felt like forever for him to get down the five foot sidewalk connecting to the path. He was very scared of going too fast, so he put on the brakes (over and over) as soon as he started moving. At the beginning, we were going so slowly that I thought we may not making it out of sight of the car. Luckily, I was wrong.

Here he is, concentrating!

The longer Tyler rode, the more confidence he had. I asked him several times if he was ready to turn around, because I didn't want him to get too tired to make it back.

He said, "I will never be too tired."

He likes to use words like never and forever. For example, " Mommy, I want you to stay here forever." And when he is racing me, "Mommy, you will never win." One day I asked him what forever means. He said it means "precious and cute." He can now tell me the correct meaning, but still uses it...a lot.

The last time I asked whether he was getting tired, he said he wanted to ride until we got to the playground. Luckily, (even though I didn't know it) we were a minute away from a new "play scape" that is still being built. We had a great time! Here he is, taking a rest.


When Tyler got back on his bike to go home, he was looking tired and I heard him say to himself, "aww, come on dude!"

What stopped him quite often was his need to have his feet on the side of the pedals that had little stickers on them. He would study his pedals for long enough that many times I thought he was going to run off the path. I couldn't convince him that the bike would work the same, no matter which side of the pedals he had his feet on. Here he is, one of the many times he was looking down instead of looking ahead.



On the way back, he was going much faster than he had before. Sometimes I had to run to keep up. Several times he stopped because he was "out of gas." He resisted my offers to help push him along. He would wait and rest, then say he was "filled up with gas again" so he could go.

Marigolds, stand guard!

Last year, all of the lilies I had planted were chewed down to the stem by bunnies. I read somewhere that bunnies don't like the smell of marigolds. So, though marigolds aren't my favorite flower, they are worth planting to see whether they keep the bunnies away...

Here's the twig today.

There's a Fungus Amongus

Tyler, hiding from me so that I wouldn't take his picture.

But, he decided he could show you all his lovely spot after all.

It's hard to see in the picture, but there is a faint circular spot on Tyler's side. We noticed it about a month ago. Soon after, I gave him a haircut and found another smaller spot on his neck, just below his hairline. I put an antibiotic then anti-fungal cream on it for a few days each with little change. Tyler continued to insist that it didn't itch or hurt, but the fact that we didn't know what it was, kind of bothered me. About a week or so ago, I noticed other tiny spots had appeared on his chest and back. Wayne took him into the doctor this week to discover he has a "fungus." So, now he's being treated with a stronger anti-fungal ointment. I'm trying to figure out how he got it. Wayne said the doctor didn't tell him, (and I'm not sure whether he asked).

Just in case they could be the cause, last night (to Tyler's dismay), I threw away a few bath squirt toys he's had since he was born. (I think I read once that you should throw them away after a few months of use...I'm too cheap for that)! A more likely case is probably the vaporizer. Since he's had one cold or another for about two months, we have used our vaporizer. Hopefully, the ointment will take care of it, the weather will stay beautiful so we don't get sick for awhile, and we won't have to worry about it anymore!