The Armadillo Tales

Dinner's Ready!

Get ready for this ... I made dinner.  Yessirre, I did.   The other night I made sloppy joes and sweet potato fries.   Last night we had turkey meatloaf with red skinned/garlic mash potatoes.   Tonight, are you sitting down?  Tonight we are having Tandoori Chicken.   Yes you read right, Tandoori Chicken.    You may be asking, how do I do it?    How is it that I can raise two young boys and cook yummy meals at the same time?   It's easy ... I'm gifted.   Well, no not really.   I'm catching the latest wave of home cooked meals by going to one of these places that takes the stress out of cooking fab meals.   

This past Sunday I went with a couple of friends to The Full Plate.   The Full Plate provides you an opportunity to take home ready to cook dishes for the whole family.    They do all of the planning, shopping, chopping and cleanup for us.    You just schedule a time when you can go in, choose your meals and start assembling.    Each of us chose 8 meals to prepare and there were stations for each dish.  There you found all of the prepared ingredients chopped, cut, materials to store laid out, etc ... easy for everyone.      If you don't have time to assemble you can pop in and pick up meals already put together and frozen/refrigerated for you to take home.   

I think this is a terrific option as there is less food to waste, less stress of deciding what's for dinner, cheaper than eating out, and the food so far is delicious.   We all had a lot of fun assembling the meals that we'd love to go back next month.   This could definitely be the start of something new!

Whiskie Bits

I wish they had a brick and mortar shop where I could go and get a tasting of these very "interesting" sounding cupcakes.  Whiskie Bits creates delectable cupcakes and cookies using unique and unusual flavor combinations.   They utilize fresh flowers and herbs, fine liquors,  exotic spices, Asian and Mediterranean influences, etc ...   I am most curious about the Mango Lassi and the Green Tea (shown above).     Free samples are most appreciated!   

Get Your Hands Out of My Cookie Jar

Okay I'm just a bit livid.   Everytime I think about it I get all irritated.   Every Friday we have our house cleaned.   We are normally out of the house as I hate to hang around with the boys as we try not to get in their way.    Today we got home and I noticed that the ziploc bag of cookies B-Dad and I opened last night was open.  It wasn't closed, but sat where the other bag of cookies was.   I asked B-Dad, did you forget to close the bag.  "No", he answered.  Well I didn't eat the cookies since last night and neither did B-Dad.   The boys couldn't have ate the cookies, neither could the dogs and cats of course.   Well that only left one pair of suspects, the house cleaners.   

Two things that upset me about this.  One, these cookies were specially ordered from Hawaii.  You pay just as much for shipping as the actual item itself.    Two, it was so blatantly obvious that someone ate these cookies.   Over half the bag was gone.   B-Dad and I only had one cookie each, so we know we didn't make that huge dent in the bag.    It wouldn't be so bad if they ate a box of Cheeze-It's.   But it's my cookies, my special cornflake cookies from Hawaii.   I'm so tempted to call the woman we hired and ask her about this.   Unfortunately we don't have proof and the woman we hired wasn't even here.  It was her two helpers.    Aargh!      

Everytime I think about it I can feel my blood pressure rising.   Next week I think I'm going to put tags on all of our food items that reads "DON'T TOUCH!".   

Photo credit: Big Island Hawaii Delights

Can't Stop Sweating

Our family has been on the lovely island of Maui for the past five days and I've about almost stopped sweating.   With the heat and humidity here I feel as I've been dripping perspiration non-stop.     Yuck.    Thankfully our condo here as a washer and dryer inside so that I can change my outfits at least three times a day.   Aside from the sweating we've been having a blast since we got here.   Most of our time has been spent with my relatives, eating, hanging out, eating, etc ...     Both the armadillo and sumo baby love spending time at their great-grandma's house.   Which is a good thing as we only see them about once a year.   

Last night we had a belated birthday celebration for the armadillo.   I think that was probably his third or fourth birthday cake so far.    The armadillo's grandma picked up a yummy ice cream cake that just melted so quickly in this weather.      

We took the boys to the pool here at the resort and it was kind of rough in the beginning.   The sumo baby protested to being in his floatie for the first 10 minutes.   The armadillo slipped off a step and his face ended up in the water.   That mishap cause the armadillo to not want to venture into the pool unless he was strapped onto his daddy.   Even though the armadillo was wearing a floatie vest, he didn't want to try to float on his own.   In all we spent about an hour there which was good enough for me.   I'm hoping to get enough of a tan to cover my shirt sleeve tan lines.   Double yuck.   

I'm hoping to post photos soon because of course it is beautiful here.

My Stomach is Rumbling

This definitely serves as an incentive to cook and it makes me hungry!

Wanta Matcha

I am tired.    Yes, like other mommies, I am tired.    I have 2 boys under the age of 3 (for a short time as the armadillo turns 3 soon!) and taking care of them is exhausting.   This holds true especially for the armadillo.   Paired with a rambunctious friend the armadillo turns into a huge hemorrhoid.       A big one that for the life of me I cannot dissolve.   Today at lunch he was yelling, spitting, and throwing food.    I cannot accept this as typical toddler behavior.  I should not have to agree to it as a rite of passage for toddlers.  I refuse.    The armadillo did too ... refuse ... refuse to listen to me that is.   

Everytime I asked him, politely, to stop yelling I got barely a glint of recognition that mommy was talking to him.   This went on and on.   Finally I gave him a time out.  That, of course, didn't work.   He started up with this intolerable behavior again.   I sighed and looked at him.   That was the turning point.  The point where I was just so dog-tired of saying the SAME thing over and over and over again.  I just looked at the armadillo and said, "I don't know what to say to you."      I looked at my mommy friend and told her that I was wordless.    I didn't have the energy to tell him to stop doing this and stop doing that.    She sympathized with me and told me that she's been there before.

The future of listening looks bleak ... I don't see any light at the end of this tunnel.

I needed a boost of something, alcohol preferred.    But realizing that wasn't part of the good mommy mantra, my mommy friend told me that she used to get wheat grass shots when she was pregnant.   So we headed over and I got a Matcha Green Tea boost from Jamba Juice.    It is a mixture of Matcha green tea, soymilk and orange juice.  It is supposed to contain a bunch of antioxidants, natural caffeine, and theophylline for that much needed energy lift.   When I got it, it was green but it smelled like orange juice.   I took a sip and it didn't taste bad.   Mixed with the orange juice that was all you could basically taste.   Not bad. 

... So 2 hours later, I'm not so tired but I'm not bouncing off the walls either.

Photo credit: Jamba Juice 

Yes, We Did it Together

I wish I took some photos.    There would have been solid proof that I actually did create a food dish.    What made it extra special is that I had help from the armadillo.    This past Wednesday the armadillo's school was having its Spring party.    So I volunteered for the "other" category.     Of course the "sweet", "juice", and "paper goods" category was all filled up, and I wasn't about to bring "meat", so it was "other" for us.     That left only one thing to make ... rice krispies treats.   Oh yes, yummy rice krispies treats.   (I admit that the above photo is not my creation.)   As many of you know, it's very easy to make.   

In the spirit of Easter I also bought some spring themed cookie cutters and sprinkles.    I made the rice krispies treats and cut them out into easter egg shapes.   I was going to use the other cookie cutters (bunny, flower, ...) but decided it was too much of a hassle and I didn't have wax paper to lay them out nicely without sticking.   I bought these egg shaped baking cups so I used that to lay the egg treats in.   This is where the armadillo's help came in.   He eagerly and enthusiastically shook out all of the sprinkles and colored sugar onto the treats.   I was worried that he was going overboard, but then I remembered who the treats were for.   Kids.   Kids who loved things covered in colored sprinkles and sugar.   

I think the treats were a hit at his school the next day as I didn't see any extras around when I went to pick the armadillo up.    I'm not sure what else the armadillo and his classmates had but I can bet it was pretty good.    Every time the armadillo throws a tantrum, I always wonder how bad could his life be?    He just had another party with treats and goodies, played with his friends, and he was now going to the park with his friends.   I wish I had it that good.

photo credit: Rice Krispies site

Cupcake Addiction

I have a serious cupcake addiction so that makes 52 Cupcakes my drug of choice.   Yummy, absoulutely yummy photos of cupcakes galore are featured on this site.   

Warning: Don't view when hungry or you'll be like me ... drive to the nearest bakery and buy a dozen cupcakes ... yum!

Photo credit: 52 Cupcakes

Best Burgers in the Bay Area

If you're looking for burger recommendations in the Bay Area, check out Michael Bauer's blog at SFGate.    Mr. Bauer, a SF Chronicle restaurant critic and food/wine editor lists his Top Five.    Don't forget to check out the reader comments too ... a lot of information.

My vote goes for In and Out ... I love the fries!

Photo credit: SFGate   

My Kids Keep Me Fat

I knew it ... I knew it ... I just knew it couldn't have been the 3lbs of chocolate chip cookies that keeps me oh so plump.   It's my boys.    Don't shake your head just yet.   A study performed by the University of Iowa and the University of Michigan have found that adults living with children consumed more fat than adults living without children.    On aveage it was found that adults ate an extra 4.9 grams of fat a day, including 1.7 grams of saturated fat.    That comes out roughly to an extra whole pepperoni pizza a week.   

Now it makes sense.   My boys force me to eat pizza, hot dogs, chicken tenders, doughnuts, cookies, chocolate, etc ...  Why can't they force me to eat a salad instead?     What makes this even more painful is that while I pack on the pounds, the armadillo remains committed to being his cutie skinny string bean self.

Photo credit: Yahoo