InstaFriday

Our week in Instagrams:

Saturday morning - post sledding hot cocoa inside grandma and papa's house.

Lazy Sunday morning.  

No, they don't sleep with us.  They just crawled in to wake us up.  

New nails:  OPI I Have a Herring Problem.  It's kind of blueish-grayish-purplish with a shimmer.  Gettin' ready for Riedeman Christmas. 

Time to get kids up from nap so we can get to the party.  This sleepy girl did NOT want to wake up!  I tried to coax her up but she went right back to sleep.  Guess the outdoor play has her tuckered out.

Me & Soph 

Child proofing at my SIL's house.  LOL! 

New Year's Eve morning.  Gettin' my workout on.  :)

Craig got me a new set of workout DVD's that I'd been requesting for Christmas and I LOVE them so far.  This is Day 5.  I'm not the type of person to follow a plan for a finite period of time and then stop at my "end date".  I'm more of the belief that you just do something you enjoy and make it work for you.  So although there is a 30-day plan with this, I'm not really following it.  I'm just going to make my own plan and get myself more physically active!  I get too burnt out on running several days a week and then I begin to dread it.  I want to get consistent with something I (nearly) always enjoy and then just add in other fun stuff like running/walking, biking, swimming, rollerblading, etc. when I'm able to and choose to.  And this DVD set is something that seems actually enjoyable to me!  I've always preferred home workouts to gym workouts.  Especially since having kids!  I'm hoping to shift my body clock and schedule into a morning workout routine before work though, because there is just zero desire to do anything of the sort by the time my responsibilities finally come to a close at the end of the day.  I just want to plop down with a book or my hubby (or both) and relax.  So cheers to a healthy new plan!  

 

Finishing up the homemade soft pretzels for our New Year party.

Intense round of Telestrations on New Year's Eve. 

Another close game of Brain Quest with Craig and Will on New Year's Day.  Love to play this with our little guy! 

New puzzle from Aunt Jan. 

Ahh, Sophie.  She takes an hour and a half to eat 70% of her dinner and then 4.2 seconds to inhale her ice cream, drink the melted part and use her finger to swipe any remaining smears in the bowl. ;-) 

Happy Friday!

What's For Dinner? January Week 1

I blame Instagram for the fact that I completely ignore my Canon lately.  It sits on the shelf at the ready... just waiting to be picked up.  And alas, there have been days... weeks even!... that I just don't take any pictures!  What has come over me???

So, once again, my dinner post will be text only.  That's originally how these posts began over three years ago, but I'd like to get back to photographing the meals I'm posting about.  In the meantime, you'll still find a food picture here and there in my InstaFriday posts.

Our menu for the week of December 29 - January 4th included just two, planned, family dinner meals because we had several functions to attend this week and I just brought a potluck contribution to those.

December 30th was the Riedeman Christmas party.  I brought Grandma's corn salad recipe - always a crowd pleaser.  I already mentioned the homemade pretzels and hot fudge sauce for sundaes that I took to New Year's.  And also this week was my monthly get-together with co-workers for food, drinks and picture organization.  (They scrapbook.  I just put my printed photos in memo albums and caption them.  ;)  Good times.)  I made a pan of snickerdoodle brownies for that.

So for dinner meals with the fam, we ate up some leftovers and I made two recipes:
1) chili mac (also Grandma's recipe)
2) chicken gyros from Pinterest

I highly recommend the gyros!  I made the "yogurt" sauce entirely with sour cream because Craig gags over yogurt.  And it was actually really good that way!

New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve was spent at the Munoz house with friends.  We packed up our soft pretzels and ice cream sundae fixings; the kids packed their jammies and chipmunk movies; and we pulled on our boots and hats.

There was, of course, castle/ball pit play. 

A little friendly fighting over a particular ball.

Multiple rides on the "roller coaster car". 

Speedy Gonzalez got the wind swept hair look on her ride. 

And knowing my son (despite the appearance of flatulence), there is probably a sound effect coming out of him at this moment on the down slope.  He is FOREVER. MAKING. SOUND EFFECT. NOISES.  All the time.  One of the most annoying boy traits.  

Post play time and snacking, the three oldest cousins piled into Celia's bed in jammies to watch a whole lot of Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Meanwhile, the adults played some games and hung out. 

Our actual ringing in of the new year happened about a minute or two too late this year.  Boo!  But it's a pretty low key celebration anyway.  And at about 1:00 a.m. or so, with our children still refusing to fall asleep upstairs, we called it a night and headed home for bed.  :)

Happy New Year!

Homemade Soft Pretzels

I tried a really fun new recipe from Smitten Kitchen that I've been meaning to test out for years.  My former co-worker, Megan, originally turned me onto the SK blog for the homemade oreos (which are deeeelicious, by the way).  And then later, Megan raved over the soft pretzels she'd made for a party she was attending.  Megan suggested I prepare them for a crowd because they were better on the day they were made and also on a day when I had plenty of time for the lengthy recipe.

 

I decided to bring them to our New Year's party at my sister in law's house and, in truth, the recipe wasn't nearly as long as I expected.  (Deb generally takes the long route for all food preparation.  Haha!)  I used the dough hook on my stand mixer for the first time ever!  Not sure what was holding me back from trying it ever before??  But as with everything for me, it was probably just the fear of the unknown.  I was like "hold ooooonnnn... are you telling me this eliminates most of the kneading?"  It's a beautiful thing, that dough hook.

After all was incorporated, I still turned the dough out onto my pastry mat for about 10 or so kneads "until all was smooth", as Deb directed.

Then into an oiled bowl it went, flipped once and covered with a towel.  I forgot to upload the picture of how I let it rise, but I placed it in my oven alongside a glass bowl of the hottest faucet water my sink could manage.  This creates a nice warm, draft-free environment.

Meanwhile (because the first rise is one hour), Sophie and I mixed up some marshmallow-laced hot fudge sauce to take for sundaes at the party as well.  Here she's stirring some hot cream into our bowl of chocolate, cocoa powder and a bit of instant espresso.

Once that was combined, she whisked in some marshmallow creme for a glossy, fudgy sauce.

As the tradition goes, the cook gets to lick the utensil afterward.  :)

Post-rise, I punched the dough down and divided it into 16 balls.

Each ball gets rolled into an 18" strip and twisted into the pretzel shape.

Then they rise again for 15 minutes.

Here's the odd/unexpected part.  The unbaked pretzels are poached in a simmering bath of water containing baking soda and sugar.  I assume this gives the outer "shell" a crispier texture during baking while leaving the inside puffy and soft.

After the bath and just before baking, the pretzels are brushed with an egg glaze to create that beautiful, golden color and sprinkled with sea salt.  I brought yellow and dijon mustards to the party for serving and the kids and I split a pretzel fresh out of the oven... to see if they were okay for others.

Ta da!!  Totally worth the wait.  Soooo yummy.