Good Friends
Our dear friends Matt and Elie have been in town this past week and we have enjoyed their company immensely. We wish they were closer to us and that we could share more time with them.
They are planning to add to their family in June with a new baby. I already have plans for baby bibs and booties and sleepers and everything else teeny and adorable.

Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar resources

Sequencing cards

Butterfly coloring page, color by numbers

Butterfly craft

"Lively Butterflies" mini-book

Lesson for There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly

find old lady at:
Old Lady

find animals at:

Animals

Bought Wedding DRESS!!

Life gets so busy.
So, for the last few months, I've been working my ass off to get a job, a good one, that will pay me and even pay for my antibiotics when I get sick (which is definitely a hazard of teaching small, germy creatures... aka elementary school kids). So I'd been working so hard at getting a job, that the reality of actually securing a job is still sinking in.
I'll be teaching first grade next year. First grade Spanish-Immersion. Sweet. I'll have twenty students (awesome class size!) and a young and supportive staff, plus a principal who seems to be genuinely terrific. I will have a quite the commute-- 31 miles roundtrip, I figure, but there's a really good chance that I can carpool with fellow teachers who also live in our awesome, St. Paul neighborhood.
I'll also be getting married in the fall. Wow. That's something that's still sinking in. I'm so psyched to be declaring my legal status as being in love with such a true friend. We're planning the party of our lives. Which we're obsessively "greening" up - even recycling and re-using invitation flub-ups as we make them. It's really a cool project to work on.
I'm headed to Chicago this weekend to see my dear friend Ruthie, my old Arts High, Delta Dorm, roommate/fellow RA. I'm ecstatic to be going to visit her, see the countryside of flooded Wisconsin and leave the Twin Cities area-- it's been a while.
So, job- check, wedding- check, leisurely travel-check.
Life is so exciting.

So insanely tasty!

So, I've crawled back onto the weight watchers wagon these days and I have been in search of tasty, "low point" foods. Here's my newest discovery for breakfast...

Blueberry Cream Blintzes

Crepe recipe:
2 eggs
1/2 C. soy milk
1/2 C. water
1 C. flour (if you used whole wheat, it would be fewer points!)
1/4 C. white sugar
1/4 t. salt

Mix wet ingredients together first. Whisk in the four and salt until mostly smooth.
Make small crepes (like skinny pancakes) in a pan using a spray of oil before each new crepe. I used a 1/3 C. measure to measure out the batter and made 7 crepes.

Filling recipe:
1/2 C. of part-skim ricotta
1 T. of honey
(you could add a teaspoon of vanilla too)
Mix together until smooth and the batter has a light butter color to it.

Assembly:
When crepes are finished, take about 1 T. of the ricotta mixture and smooth it down the middle of the crepe. Roll the crepe up like a burrito. Place the "burrito," seam side down on a medium skillet to toast for a minute or two. Remove from heat and plate. Top the crepes with wild blueberries (mine were frozen and I microwaved them until they were steamy and had some juice). You could make extra of the ricotta mixture and use a dollop of it on top of the crepes as well.

All this tasty goodness for just 3 points a Blintz!

Oh so tasty!
(Sorry, I forgot to take a picture!)

Tonight A and I had delicious food (that I made-- no modesty here).
I made marsala chicken (that was supposed to be pan fried) and cheap asparagus from Mexico (gracias hermanos y hermanas del sur) and very tasty Uncle Ben's wild rice blend mixed with a homemade parmesan and onion risotto that I'd made for Valentine's Day. It was all so very scrumptious.

I turned the "fried chicken" into an oven fried chicken from this recipe:

ANNIE O's OVEN FRIED CHICKEN

PAM spray oil
6 chicken thighs
1/2 c. parmesan cheese
1/4 c. corn meal
1/4 c. smashed up seasoned croutons (I think they were "ranch")
1 tsp. Lawry's Seasoned Salt
1 tsp. black pepper
dash of chili flakes

Combine parmesan cheese, corn meal, smashed up croutons, seasoned salt, black pepper and chili flakes in a gallon ziplock. Dump in the chicken thighs and shake them around until they are all well coated.

Spray a cookie sheet with PAM, and lay the chicken thighs out happily (they don't like to touch each other). Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes, turn and bake 10 minutes longer or until tender. Make sure they are done all the way through.
Makes about 3 servings.

I highly recommend it!
YUM!

Also, the marsala chicken was altered as well
(we're trying to be more health conscious)--

1/2 c. chicken broth
10 oz. of thinly sliced white mushrooms
1/4 c. minced onion (or scallion is better, if you have it)
(put these in the pan together and cook until there's more liquid in the pan than when you started-- about 5-6 minutes)
1/2 c. marsala wine comes next. Cook it until it evaporates a bit (about 5 minutes).
1/4 c. of soymilk goes in then,
(instead of cream! eek. we don't want to be fat forever!).
Don't worry if it's a little curdly at first, it goes away
Cook it all together about 5 more minutes until it is not too liquidy and it tastes awesome.
1 T. butter comes next, after you take it off the heat. So delicious.

Buen provecho!

Wedding dresses!

Tried this dress on at Heartstrings Bridal today in Hopkins. Dress.

Lulakate dress. "The Ashley"