At Home Hair Dye Fail?

Today I died my hair. And as I did it I realized I hadn't dyed my hair since we lived in Ft. Wayne. (Because that's how I remember what happened when. Not by year, by the surrounding events. Eventually I work from there to what the actual year was.) So, for people not inside my head, 2007. 

Before that, well, things were all over the place and sometimes awful (And then usually from a box). And then I got sick of dealing with it and I figured I'd just see what the color did. I used to think I was a mousy, blah brown but now I like it. It's... me! .... But it's also a little boring. Long. Brown. Even once I stopped coloring my hair, I always had a good fun cut to keep me pleased. Now it's longer and I can sort of do some neat things but they take time... So no.

I've felt the itch for a change but knew a salon trip wasn't happening anytime soon. OK, so boxed color. 

Oh no, I can't. 

I'll lose the stuff I love about my mousy brown! 

Oh, but wait, maybe just part of it. Maybe go dark and neat there... Ooooh...

So, today I dyed the under part of my hair. Can't mess that up too bad. Pretty basic. And hidden, if needed. After mixing the goo, putting on the weird gloves, sectioning the to-be-dyed stuff, applying the goo, waiting, rinsing, conditioning, rinsing, and blow drying I got to see what the damage was.

And it was nothing. Literally. I dyed my hair the exact color it already was. Just a little shinier. I dyed my hair the exact color it already was.

I swear, it looked darker. The box looked a lot darker. It was the brown next to black, "Darkest Brown"! Darkest. Brown.

It would appear that the universe does not want me to change my hair color. And that I am an almost-spot-on "darkest brown".

6 Foods That No One Does Better Than Minnesota

With a state fair that is basically devoted to food and trucks that will serve up cuisine in 0° weather, it's safe to say that Minnesotans like their food. But what do we do best?

Walleye

In the Land Of 10,000 Lakes, fried fish is a given but Walleye is king. Baked, fried and battered or on the grill, this official state fish is renowned throughout the state.

Wild Rice Soup

Another food brought to us by our abundance of lakes, wild rice makes the perfect base for a creamy and nutty soup and has even been proposed as the official "State Soup". The title was never actually made official but we love it none the less.    

Hotdishes

With the cold and the snow and the whole "have fun trapped in your house" thing, Minnesotans have found a way to make winter food work for them. The main way; hotdishes. Maybe it's because people had to work with what they could find in the pantry until the next thaw or because they had to make the most of whatever leftovers they were still claiming as food. Whatever the reason, we can mix up a Pyrex dish of meat, veggies, cream and carbs and call it a meal like nobody else.

Stuff on a Stick

The Great Minnesota Get Together has cinched it. We know food on a stick. The 2013 Minnesota State Fair included over 60 different kinds of foods on a stick. We had the predictable, corn dogs and fried cheese. Or the possibly frightening, porcupine meatballs and scotch eggs. Or the ones that are really just a guy shoving a stick into regular food and calling it "fair food", shrimp (That's a kabob, dude) or ice cream (Really? That's a Dove bar). Whatever kind you favor, know that if it comes from Minnesota, it's going to be good.

Lutefisk

Hailing from the Swedes and Norwegians, this gelatinous and pungent fish is kind of a big deal here in Minnesota, especially during the holidays. Madison, MN has even dubbed itself the "Lutefisk Capital of the World" as well as claiming the largest per capita consumption of lutefisk in the United States. So, what is it? Literally, lye-fish. Dried whitefish is soaked in a water/lye solution for days until it takes on a jelly constancy. It is then soaked in cold water for a few more days and eventually ready to be cooked, served and is actually said to be delicious... by those that like slimy fish jelly.

Lefse

Let's take a moment to thank the Minnesota ancestral Norwegians yet again for bringing us something we could love during the holidays. Luckily, this one makes up for the cringing that Lutefisk can cause. Similar to a crepe, lefse is a thin Norwegian flat bread traditionally covered in butter and sugar and wrapped up into a roll of warm, cozy deliciousness. Starbuck, Minnesota is the home of the world's largest lefse and Norsland Lefse, a factory in Rushford, Minnesota, produces about half a million rounds of lefse each year. Fosston, Minnesota even invites local lefse makers to compete for the title of Champion Lefse Maker at its Lefse Fest each November. You know you want that title.  

I write here now too. http://www.newscastic.com/news/foods-that-minnesota-does-better-than-anyplace-else-1323210/ 

Baked Pancakes - Pancakes in the oven in zero time!

I love pancakes. For real. Perfect pancakes are, well, perfect! The hubs makes amazing pancakes. Perfect shape. Perfect doneness. Beautiful.

But they take forever. With a kid, pancakes is a two man job. I take care of Little Bear and the hubs mans the stove top. One at a time, he puts together his perfect stack of pancakes. I set the table and get all the goods ready (butter, warm syrup, fruit) and as soon as the last jack is flapped, we eat. 30-45 minutes prep gets the full batch cooked to perfection. Not bad for a weekend breakfast but not so hot during the week.

I've tried other baked pancake/giant pancake recipes but they never seem quite right. This one from Six Sisters' Stuff is pretty darn wonderful.

Prep time is 10-15 minutes and then you bake it. Let it sit for 5 and you're ready to eat! That's it! Since pinning the recipe less than a week ago, I've made two batches and both have been fantastic! Both times I have tweaked the original recipe (added vanilla, wheat germ, cinnamon and/or whole wheat flour) and I was pretty happy with the both batches. Here is the best of the two.

Baked Pancakes

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups milk

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, melted

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 tablespoons sugar

2 cups all-purpose flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

2 tablespoons ground wheat germ

1/2 teaspoon salt

Cinnamon for sprinkling on the top

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray/grease a 9 x 13" baking pan.

In a large bowl, mix together the milk, butter, eggs and vanilla. 

Mix in the sugar, flour, baking powder, wheat germ and salt. 

Pour batter into the baking pan.

Sprinkle cinnamon over the top.

Cook for 25-30 minutes.

Let cool for 5 minutes, then cut into squares and serve.

The vanilla added a warm little bit of deliciousness and the cinnamon on the top blended well.

The next time I tried adding cinnamon to the batter as well as sprinkled on top. It ended up being a bit off but I think part of that was due to the decision to use whole wheat flour. I subbed in half whole wheat flour to see if I could healthy things up a bit more. They still turned out good but, like whole wheat pancakes vs. regular flour pancakes, the texture was different. The whole wheat ones were less smooth and more crumbly. Still delicious but not the buttery-melt-in-your-mouth kind that the first batch was. Each batch got us 2.5 morning's worth of delicious breakfast. Totally worth the wee bit of prep time that they take.

Enjoy!

Before Bed Musings

Before Bed Musings:


My house is at it's messiest the week before hosting a big event. "Psh, I'm not going to clean the floors today because I'm going to crack-head-clean them next Monday." (I apologize to any crack heads that may have been offended by that statement.)


If walking up the stairs is exhausting to a point of needing to immediately lay down, I did a good job getting shit done today.


A plus of winter weather, it's less noticeable when I "forget" to shower for three days.

At two and a half, my son is starting to be too old to trick into doing what I want all the time. Also, he has started to have a preference with how I look. His preference is not "unkept hobo".

Part of why I love hosting a holiday is because it forces us to get shit done that has been on multiple to-do lists for multiple months... Or at least find a way to cover up that it still isn't done so it can be forgotten about for a fort-night or two. 

I can get more accomplished during my kid's three hour nap than I could in an entire day pre-child.

Walking in the downtown skyways with your child during the week is the perfect way to make a SAHM feel like she is missing out by not working. But then your toddler yells, "I think this is fun, Mom!" and you remember that you're not missing a thing.

Happy St. Nicholas Day!

Ack! I have been terrible at posting lately. Seriously. Thanksgiving brought travel, family and vomiting to our lives so I haven't had much of a chance to sit down and write. Recap of all that soon, I promise.

For now though, Happy St. Nicholas Day!

If you aren't sure of exactly what the deal is with St. Nicholas Day, ask Google. Google knows all.

For my family, it was always just sort of a pre-Christmas day of fun. Both of my parents went to Catholic school as kids and St. Nicholas, being a saint and all, was kind of a big deal there. When my folks had kids, they decided to continue the tradition, just at home... with fewer nuns... and mass... and whacking rulers... and frightening-ness.

The night of the 5th, we would leave food outside for St.Nicholas' horses and some cookies for the man himself and set our shoes out in anticipation. In the morning we would wake to find a present, usually candy or an ornament, or we would find coal.

Yep, legit, we got coal a couple of times. Ma thought it was a funny trick. It wasn't. After the tears she would eventually cave and show us where St. Nick had hidden our "real" gifts. Terrible. Ma learned to have real gifts handy after the year she gave my siblings rulers only to have one thrown at her in a fit of childhood rage.

The hubs and I have continued to carry on our own tradition each December 6th. In 2007, he even put a little box in my shoe with a sparkly ring and popped the question! Little Bear has gotten something from St. Nicholas the past two years but this was the first year that he had any idea that something was happening.

Last night we spent time prepping a horsey snack and writing a letter to St. Nicholas. Little Bear had a very important message that he wanted me to write...

We awoke this morning to a wonderful surprise!

Yippee!

So there you have it, Happy St. Nicholas Day everybody!

And now, to celebrate Thanksgiving, some Halloween...

For Halloween, Little Bear and I had a couple of other madwomen and their little ones over for a wee Halloween party.

It was fab and we were lucky enough to have a shutterbug in the group!

Being a mom, I pretty much never get to be in pictures with my tiny human. Like ever. So it made me extra happy to have a couple of shots of the two of us.

Maybe now the hubs' Flash costume makes a little more sense to ya'all.

Or not. He's a brave daddy.

We'll be fully into the swing of thanks and turkey over the next few days so I'm not sure if I'll be able to hop on and post much here. Check the Facebook Machine for updates.

Have a lovely Thanksgiving and enjoy as much family time as you can... No matter how bananas your family may be. 

Meatless Monday - Homemade Pasta!

This weekend I was given a lovely surprise by Ma. After hearing that I had hand grated an insane amount of summer squash and made gallons of pesto using a not-so-hot blender, Ma took things into her own hands and got me a lovely food processor! I had borrowed a processor from a friend during my baby food making days but had never gotten around to actually buying one for myself. Since returning the loaned one, I had avoided recipes that required processing and done my best to convince myself I really didn't need another kitchen gadget.

Good thing Ma has my back.

Sunday night was spent Googling "best uses for a food processor". Google has my back too.

Pasta kept popping up on lists so I decided to check out what the cookbooks had to say. They agreed.

I went with a recipe from my Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook because it had pictures and a whole lot of extra info on how the eff I was going to do this... and spinach. I like spinach.

I added the flour, salt and eggs and got to processing. It worked! Things looked cornmeal-esq. Next the spinach. Things looked green. I kept it running and poured in the oil and water.

Suddenly, dough! (I later explained this process to my darling husband to which he responded quite confused, "Wait. That's all noodles are!?" It's OK hunny, I was amazed too.)

I pulled it out and got to rolling.

The dough rolled beautifully. Seriously. It was smooth, not sticky and a little springy. I had trouble getting each ball rolled into 12 x 12 squares and getting it super thin but I did my best.

From there I rolled up each sheet for cutting into noodles.

All that was left was to hang the noodles. Hmmmmm.... but where? And on what?

I fashioned a string line in the kitchen and pulled out some hangers. That'll do.

Now, what to do with these fab little green noodles? I didn't want anything too flavorful because I wanted to make sure the noodles could be tasted. (Because I assumed there would be a taste to them, more on that in a bit), I tasked myself to a basic white sauce with the intention of adding some of my now dried herb harvest and garlic.

Creamy herb garlic noodles, yeah that sounds good!

And then I forgot to add the garlic. You know, the most important thing when you're talking creamy herb garlic noodles. Son of a...

So I threw in some peas. That makes sense, right?

No, not a great pic, actually quite nasty looking... but you get the idea. 

The sauce was borderline flavorless. As were the noodles. Which leads me to believe that if HAD done the sauce correctly, this would have been a home run... or at least a triple.

Next time. Next time.

Also next time, I need to try and get the dough a little thinner since the hubs complained the noodles were a bit "chewy" (he's right, they were). Also, I might go ahead and add a bit of herbs directly to the dough, just 'cuz.


So yes, I made my own noodles! And it wasn't that hard! And I think they could be good!



One more thing. Did you know you can make your own butter with a food processor?! AND buttermilk!? Google said so. That might be a little too ridiculous though.

I say that now but wait until we're in the dead of winter, I might get antsy enough to try...

Thanks and Welcome!

It's been a while since this has been said so I would like to throw it out there...

THANK YOU! 

For reals guys and gals, thanks for digging on the madness!

For ya'all that are new here, welcome! This is my place to get out some of the things that are rattling around in my brain. I mostly post on the Facebook Machine (because it's easy and takes all of 4 seconds with my phone) but the good stuff gets out on here.

On here I vent about random happenings, share my few proud homemaker triumphs and chronicle the things and stuff that make my world go round.

I generally have at least a couple blog drafts in the works (that I have kind of sort of started but may never complete), several blog ideas in my head (that I'm feeling but not sure of), and countless things that seem like I should look into them further and start writing (but I usually forget what the hell they are before I get on the internets).

I like to write. It feels good. It is a new discovery for me. I love being a SAHM but I miss communicating with people. Oh, how I loved scripting up a good email and knocking out a stellar conference call with well organized information and spreadsheets..... Mmmmm that was good stuff.

Since my life is more PBS Kids than Microsoft Outlook now, this is where I get my communication jollies. I hope you enjoy! 

I Have Never Been This Excited To Do A Meatless Monday!

I was looking forward to doing this Meatless Monday pretty much since the first bite of last week's Meatless Monday. As soon as we realized that Belgian waffles are more savory than sweet, I knew they had to be used in delicious egg sandwiches.

Yep, it was a good idea.

Last week's waffles were frozen so I popped them in the oven for a bit to warm up and make them a bit crunchy. Then I added cream cheese to one half and stuck spinach to it and added regular sliced cheese to the other half.

I like my sandwich eggs runny and all kinds of gooey so I added two eggs to my sandwich, one with the yolk broken and the other intact to be broken upon sandwich assembly.

The hubs and Little Bear like their eggs a little more intact so I left the spinach off the waffle and instead chopped it and added it to the whipped eggs to be cooked all together.

The end result was delicious! The waffle made a perfectly crunchy and sort of fluffy egg sandwich bread and since they were already in the freezer, it was minimal work. Little Bear opted to have us remove the egg and add syrup to his plate (ugh, fine, just eat it) which gave me an idea.

What would syrup be like with the whole thing?

A-Mazing!

Syrup is completely necessary and will for sure be slathered all over the damn things next time! Add some breakfast potatoes to the side and you have yourself a glorious Brinner!

Here's hoping next Meatless Monday is equally exciting!

Roasted Sunflower Seeds

Late last winter, Little Bear and I went to a green expo. Home Depot had a seed planting booth that we were able to have some fun at and we were lucky enough to bring home a lovingly planted sunflower seed. We added her to the rest of our seedlings and hoped for the best.

Come warm weather, she joined our Backyard Farm.

Yeah, that sucker grew!

Come harvest time, I thought I'd try something new and roast up the seeds from our pretty lady.

First, I cut the flower head and let it dry for a couple of weeks. When the back had turned yellow and the seeds were wiggly, I flicked them out and gave them a good rinse.

From there I soaked them overnight in saltwater. The seeds floated so I had to get a little creative to keep them under.

The next day I cooked the seeds for 4 hours at 200 degrees.

They smelled nice. They looked pretty. I was excited!

And then I cracked one open.

Empty. 

And another.

Empty.

And ten more.

Flippin' empty! 

Are you kidding me!?

And another.

Empty.

And another.

Seed! Yes! Delicious, seed!

And then another.

Damn! 

And the rest.

Son of a bitch. 

How is that even possible!? 

And into the trash they went.


Bastard seeds.