Mad Scientist and Fried Rice. . .

I had a craving for fried rice last night, so I decided to whip some up.  You know what that means, right?   I am like a mad scientist in my kitchen, at times.   I will create a recipe for something in two shakes of a rats tail.  This is how it went:
11/2 cups of Basamati rice
edamame (small bag frozen)
two eggs beaten
3 cloves of garlic pressed
soy sauce
olive oil
11/2 tbsp red curry paste
a little powdered ginger

I have never used Basamati rice before but it worked great in this recipe.   You soak the rice for thirty minutes then rinse and drain.  I cooked mine in a rice cooker.  On the stove, I used a stir fry skillet, heat 2tbsp olive oil and the pressed garlic until aromatic.  Add the red curry paste, if you want it a little more spicy add a little more curry.   Gently scramble your eggs in another skillet and set aside.   Cook your edamame on the stove and set aside.  Add your cooked rice to your stir fry skillet with the garlic and curry paste and mix well.  I add a little soy sauce and then the edamame and gently stir.  Make a hole in the center of the skillet and add the egg, let it get warmed back up and then gently incorporate it into the mixture.   This seems like it would take a long time but, it actually did not take that long.   It was a huge hit with the hubbs and I loved it.  It is not as bad for you as take out or restaurant style stir fry because you do not use as much oil.

Sex Education and Family Life. . .

In case you did not know, Big T is my youngest and he is also the one that probably tells me too much, most of the time.  I am glad that he feels comfortable talking about everything but sometimes it does catch me off guard.   The hubbs took the day off yesterday to do some things around the house and since I did not feel real well he picked the kids up at school for me.  He also did my Wal Mart shopping too.  I am very lucky to have such a sweet man as my best friend, husband, lover, and partner in this crazy life.  We quietly celebrated twenty-three years of marriage and twenty-four as best friends.   When life gets crazy and throws those curve balls we back each other up and for that I am blessed.
Since I did not pick the kids up at school I did not get to hear about all the happenings until we were on our way home from baseball and lacrosse.   Big T started telling me about his family life class, now if you do not have kids or they are not at least in fifth grade you may not know what family life class is.  Here is the long and short of it.  Family life is basically what sex education used to be.   They sort of start them in fifth grade with basics of the differences between boys and girls.  I have noticed that the girls mature  a lot faster than the boys, or at least my boys.   Each year they add a little more and get a little more specific.  Big T is now in seventh grade so it got pretty specific this year.  Since the hubbs and I both have a medical background and part of my hubbs job is to promote birth control, I felt like we had covered all of this already.    Big T gets in the car at the ball field and begins telling me about his day.  He said family life was really bad and I asked how it was bad.  He said well, you know about STD's?  I said yes, and he said well they showed us pictures of the different kinds of them.  I had seen the pictures before so, I sort of felt bad for poor Big T.   He said, it made me sick and I had to leave the room.   I simply told him that the only way to be sure not to get any of those diseases is to practice abstinence.   I also told him to catalog those images in his memory so that if he ever has the urge he could recall them and that should settle that.   We had a nice long talk on the way home about sex, condoms, and abstinence.   He then tells me they gave them a snack after the class.  I said that sounded good, he said, nope it was gummy worms.  I busted out laughing.  Poor Big T.  
Sprat, on the other hand, is very closed lipped and he rarely shares things like this with me.  We have had that talk and in fact I got a little irritated with him one day because all he would tell me about his day was that it was good or ok.  I decided I was going to take care of that.  This was when he was in seventh grade and for some reason I did not have Big T with me.  Sprat got in the car and I asked him about his day and I got the typical "ok."    I told him we were going to have the "sex talk " then since he did not have anything to tell me.   He immediately broke into his day, minute by minute and told me everything that had happened from the minute he got to school until the second that I picked him up.
I love my kids, they are very different and I guess that is what makes my world go around.   They amaze me on a daily basis, they also push me to my end on a daily basis.
Living in the little moments with my clan.

Rules to Live By. . .

I must share the sermon from Children's Church yesterday.  I use the website Sermons 4 Kids these are set up with a story and activities for the kids and coloring pages that follow the sermon.   This particular story was taken from John 13:34-35.  This story told of the rules for living, "the Golden Rules for Living."   If we all followed these little rules we would all be so much better off.

If you open it     close it
If you turn it on          turn it off
If you unlock it          lock it
If you move it            put it back
If it belongs to someone else      get permission to use it
If you don't know how to operate it       leave it alone  (men should really pay attention to this one)
If you use it        take care of it
If you break it      admit it
If you can't fix it      call someone who can   (another one for the men)
If you mess it up      clean it up
If it is not your business, don't ask questions

The last one should be, if it is not your business stay out of it.  I think these are awesome and even the lesson said if we all followed these simple rules of life our world would be a much better place.   I love getting to work with our little ones in Church, I always learn something from them.
For my ethics class I had to write my rules to live by or my personal ethics that I followed.  This would have really come in handy for that paper.

Pepper Jack Rice Casserole. . .

Last night I decided to make my jalapeno rice casserole.  As par for the course I changed things up and did a few alterations to my own recipe.  I used whole wheat orzo instead of white rice and I made up my own cream of mushroom soup minus the mushrooms.  I have never attempted to make up my own cream of mushroom soup before but it is pretty easy.   Here is how it all went down.  I started my homemade soup first.  One tablespoon of butter melting in a sauce pan then add a tablespoon or two of flour to make a rue.  Then add equal parts of milk and chicken stock about a cup each.  It will bubble up, mine did not get real thick but it worked.   Cook your white rice or whole wheat orzo according to package directions.  I used two cups of dry orzo.   Grate one 8oz block of pepper jack cheese, one can of green chilies, and 8oz sour cream.   Combine your cooked rice/orzo with shredded cheese, chilies, soup, and sour cream.  Mix and put in casserole dish and bake for 30-45 minutes at 350.  You can top with corn chips, I did not have any on hand last night so I did not use them for this recipe.  This was really good and it thickened up very well in the oven.   The hubbs loved it but, I did not even broach it with the kids.  They are not much for casseroles.

A Sprouting We Will Go. . .

Alfalfa sprouts, I love them and I have recently started sprouting my own.  Thank my Mom again for this one, she used to sprout them for us.  Growing up I ate salads all the time.  My Mom even figured out how to pack them in my lunch box.  My teachers use to love to see what I would bring to school for lunch.  I ate asparagus roll ups, salads, and vegetable spread, this was when I was in third grade.  I have mentioned how much I love sweet peas right out of the garden, well I love alfalfa sprouts that much too.   I decided I wanted to try and sprout my own this year.  Alfalfa sprouts run anywhere from $2.50-$3.75 a container depending on where you shop.  It is cheaper to sprout your own but, it is time consuming, they must be watered 2-3 times a day and their trays shifted from top to bottom.  It takes 3-5 days for them to sprout.  The picture below is half of my harvest from my very first sprouting.  I have eaten them in salads, on a flour tortilla with hummus and some fresh lettuce,  and on toast with cream cheese and lettuce.  You can find your seeds and trays on Amazon.   You will want to get organic seeds to make sure they have not been treated with any pesticide.  The trays that I bought gave specific directions on how to set them up and start your seeds.  Mom just used a mason jar and a screen over the lid.  Happy sprouting.

Beautiful Weekend. . .

Another adventure in the little moments.  Spent Saturday watching Big T's team win two more games for their tremendous 9-1 season.  We also did a drive through to another small campus for Sprat.  We have to tour when we can.
Our youth were in charge of our Sunday worship yesterday.   They did an awesome job and our youth leaders are the best.  Sprat read the Liturgy and I must brag just a bit, he did wonderfully.   I was a very proud mama.  The younger kids took over as ushers and everyone sang.  Big T was an usher and he reluctantly sang too.    Yes, their Sunday outfits are their own hand made tie dye shirts.  They made these after the grave stone cleaning on Good Friday.
I spent this morning with Big T at the dentist, he had to have a tooth pulled.  Not a happy time at our house.  He did well though, he took it like a trooper.   Milkshakes and no school, poor fella.  He is trying to milk (no pun intended) this tooth for one more day of no school.  

And the Uterus has it. . .

My  crew can never find anything they are looking for.  You might think that my house must be terribly messy, it is but not to that extent.  My hubby claims Amelia Earhart is most likely missing in my pocketbook. 
As a Mom you must be the locator of all things big and small.   I honestly do not know what they are going to do if anything ever happens to me.   You will have three males with dirty clothes,  if they are able to find said clothes.  They will be in mismatched shoes, if they have them on at all. 
Sprat came to me the other day and could not find his last bag of rubber bands for his braces.  I asked if he had looked upstairs  and downstairs he said he had.  I asked if he had checked his book bag and his pockets.   Well of course he had, how duh did I think he was.  I was in the middle of studying for a big test and really did not have time to look for his stuff.  I knew they were in the house somewhere.   They did not sprout legs and walk off.  Sprat stomped up the steps and whined again that he could not find them.  I told him if I found them he would lose the Xbox for a month.   I hoped this would inspire him to look a little harder, sadly it just caused more whining.   Only you moms will truly be able to appreciate this next part.   I got up from my computer and went into the bathroom where the illusive rubber bands were laying on the counter as plain as could be.  I could not help but laugh and this seemed to cause my poor Sprat some great distress.  It was just one more example of how truly helpless some men/boys are.  

I have always told my hubby that the Uterus is not really a homing device for all things lost but, it seems lately it is.  I am the only one with a Uterus in this house and am the only one that can find anything.   So Moms unite in the fact that the Uterus is all powerful and all knowing.  

The Uterus predicts it is going to be a beautiful day so get out and enjoy the little moments.