Popcorn Puking and Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there! Before you give yourself a pat on the back, lets make sure you fit the definition.

 A DAD isn't merely someone who provided the sperm, nor is he someone who just pops in every now and then. A DAD is someone who is there for their child day in and day out, even when the kid doesn't deserve it. A DAD can be any male guardian who plays a full time role in the child's life. Maybe you're a grandpa who is raising your grandchild. Perhaps you are the biological father. Maybe you are a step dad. Or you might be a single mom who is playing both roles. You're there through the ups and downs, the good and bad, day and night. You choose to be the child's PARENT and not their buddy (even if it means they hate you for it). If you fit this description then I commend you and you deserve a pat on the back! A TRUE parent is rare these days, as most are too self-involved to care about someone else's needs above their own. 

My dad was and is an amazing person. Naturally, I hated him when I was younger. I think that's something many kids go through. I thought his sole purpose in life was to make me miserable. As an adult, I now realize he always did what was best for me, even when it made his life hell. Thank you, dad, for always being a father to me, even when it would've been easier to just give up. Maybe you did. I don't blame you. I was a punk. And to my husband, thank you for being there for all 3 of our kids, even when they don't deserve it (and sometimes they really don't). I admire you for being a father to Jess when she had no one else to turn to. Thank you for taking Ethan and Kaylee in and treating them as your own, even though you didn't have to. They don't see it now, but maybe someday they'll see just how truly lucky they are. They may not yet, but I deeply appreciate it.

I took zero photos today. I was way too busy and no one else thought to do it.

Today I learned:

1. Puking up popcorn is a unique experience, especially at 2:30 a.m. 

2. Taking a Tums before you puke minimizes the sour taste and makes it a (slightly) more bearable experience.

3. Popcorn husks taste and feel the same the second time around as they do the first. Yummy, huh?

4. I am a baby and HATE puking, and am very thankful I only do it once every couple years.

5. My mom's dog is scared of everything, including cake.

6. Tiny baby rabbits will squeeze right through the holes in a dog crate and escape forever. I hope the poor little guy makes it.

7. Playing with fondant scraps is a great way to pass the time while your in-laws and your husband argue about politics.

8. My children do not remember me at all when they're gone.

9. My husband and children do not appreciate me at all. They really should.

It was a long day. So long that I can't even remember half of it. I think in the last 4 days I've spent approximately one billion hours cooking. Don't get me wrong. I really do enjoy cooking. I enjoy it more than my family appreciates it, if I'm being honest. But it's practically a full time job and I've really gone overboard lately.

I couldn't wait to play with the fondant this morning! The finished product is far from perfect. Fondant experts would say it appears that a 3 year old did it. BUT. I've never done it before, and I have to say it turned out better than I expected.

Just glance at it. Don't look super closely. Ignore the hexigonish shaped circle. Pretend the fondant balls are all uniform size and the stripes aren't crooked. And if you ever make a cake with fondant be sure to save some icing for the lettering. I forgot and had to improvise. I rolled tiny little snakes of fondant and formed them into letters.

I call this cake "primitive". The circles and stripes are also "primitive". In other words, I didn't have any fancy fondant shape cutter things, but just winged it by hand. I don't know why it ended up looking like a circus cake. Maybe I should call it a "primitive circus cake" instead.

Why is it that no one ever stops by until the one day my clothes don't match, my hair isn't combed, I'm not wearing makeup, and my kitchen looks like a powdered sugar bomb went off?? That's the only time I get visitors. The second I started rolling fondant I get a knock at the door. As soon as I go back to the fondant the phone rings. I didn't answer it. If it was you calling, sorry. I'll call you back later.

After attempting to clean the chicken coop this afternoon, I gave up and made zucchini jam instead. Yes, you read that right. I made a batch of strawberry and a batch of apricot. I didn't bother to remove the seeds or pulp because, well, I'm lazy. I'm still waiting for it to set.

Lessons I learned today:

1. Chicken poop STINKS. I apologize to my neighbors for stirring up the stench this afternoon.
2. You should never clean a chicken coop while wearing flip flops. Or so I hear. Who would be dumb enough to do that, anyway? (I gotta give my neighbors their daily dose of something to talk about).
3. My husband has THE most patient wife in the whole world. He is extremely lucky to have me. Women like me are rare. He doesn't appreciate me. He really should.
4. Three whole days in the kitchen, in a row, is my limit. I've enjoyed it but I'm extremely worn out.
5. Homemade zucchini relish in tuna salad is AMAZING. I cannot stop eating it.
6. You should never look out the window to see what the dogs are barking at while simultaneously grating a tiny piece of zucchini with a brand new mandolin. This is not the first time I've learned that lesson.

At this point in the day I'd love nothing more than to sit on the couch and vegetate. Instead, I need to go clean the bathroom, get the ducks in, sweep and mop, start laundry, and do the rest of the dishes so I can cook dinner for father's day tomorrow. Another day in the kitchen, yay!

A Wild Baby and Cake Decorating, Part 2

As I'm sitting on the internet browsing for zucchini recipes (have I mentioned we have like 1,856 of them???) Frank shouts through the window, "Come here and bring your camera!" That phrase always sends me into a mini panic mode.

He found this little guy in the zucchini plant. I thought to myself, "Why would you catch a mouse to show me?" I looked closer and realized it's an itty bitty baby rabbit. I'll insert Jess and Kaylee's "aaawwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!!!" noise, the one they make at all things cute. It's super annoying. Frank looks at me with a gleam in his eye and says, "You wanna keep it??" It was more of a statement than a question. We now have 4 rabbits. I hope he never finds a stray cow out there.

This gives you an idea of just how tiny this thing is.

The rabbits aren't sure what to think about the baby.

We have some pretty spoiled animals. I chop leftover garden veggies and hand feed them to the ducks. Ridiculous, huh.

And now for my pride moment. This is the first thing I've done in a very long time that I've been proud of. It probably won't save us from zombies during an apocolypse. Unless zombies eat pretty cakes, in which case we'll be totally safe and it'll be deemed a life saving skill. Perhaps it's not a useful skill but nonetheless, I did teach myself something new. Ok so technically youtube taught me.

I watched Cake Boss on youtube and 4 hours later I have an iced cake smooth as a baby's butt and ready for fondant! Before I began, I ran to Walmart and bought a cake turntable. I'm so glad I did! It made all the difference. I also bought a cake leveler but I didn't even need it. My cakes didn't crown for the first time ever!!! Maybe it was Cake Boss's cake recipe. Maybe it was my homemade cake strips that I made from an old ratty bath towel. Whatever it was, I have LEVEL CAKES!! This is monumental!

Who knows if the cake will be any good. My high tech method of scribbling down recipes on scrap papers doesn't always work out. I tend to forget to write down things or read my chicken scratches wrong. So I might have forgotten to add the butter and cream it with the sugar. No worries, I just threw it in when I realized it. No biggie, right? Cake Boss would cringe if he saw my baking methods.

Let me tell you, the cake batter is HEAVEN. Smooth, buttery, silky heaven. It was so good I wanted to grab a straw and drink it. I refrained.

The icing is also a Cake Boss recipe. Again, I kind of read the recipe wrong and did things out of order. It didn't seem to matter because this stuff is GOOD. Really good. (Pay no attention to the icing drips and clumps. You're just imagining things.)

Now, on to the fondant. Have I ever mentioned that I tend to get a bit messy in the kitchen? Thank goodness  no one was here to witness it. The pictures don't even do it justice. It was so bad the dogs were shaking their heads. (And why does this photo make my hand look so pudgy? Who ever heard of unphotogenic hands? Is unphotogenic even a word? Apparently not, according to spell check.)

                                      

Doesn't my table look beautiful? Yes, I kneaded the fondant right on the bare table, food coloring and all. It was so FUN, kind of like playdough for adults. Only messier. Believe it or not, cleanup only took 5 minutes and I didn't even have to call on the Magic Eraser. From the looks of my shirt, maybe I should think about investing in an apron? Aprons are for sissies, though. People who wear aprons are rich housewives who wear pearls and high heels while they bake. I bake barefoot and just wipe my hands on my shirt. Classy.

Here is the finished fondant, ready to hang out in the fridge overnight. I plan to give Martha Stewart a run for her money tomorrow! If all goes well, I'll have a nice cake to serve to the dads for Father's Day. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

This is a small sample of what my kitchen looks like after I'm done baking. Have I ever mentioned how small and ugly my kitchen is? Again, cleanup really didn't take that long. Ok, so maybe I left part of it for tomorrow. See that hand mixer? Frank watched me whip some heavy cream by hand to make whipped cream. It took about a billion minutes because my old mixer was broke. Wasn't that thoughtful of him? Someday I'd love to have a stand mixer but I'll need to win the lottery first.

So how do you get 3 ducks to go in their house at night? First, you chase them in circles around the chicken coop. When they refuse to cooperate, you try to entice them with treats. If that doesn't work, you curse them and threaten them. Then you plead with them. After about 20 minutes of looking like a 3 ring circus you grab a rabbit and start chasing them with it. Works like a charm. I could hear the neighbors peeking out their windows and shaking their heads.

 And now for today's grand finale. No kids and no husband = I can eat whatever I want for dinner and no one will complain. Except maybe the dogs because I won't share with them. I whipped up some fried dill pickles and had a nice healthy dinner. It occurred to me in all my cake excitement I'd forgotten to eat today. Oops. Well, unless you count cake batter and icing. If that counts then I ate about 5 meals. Today I learned that if I had no children and no job I'd weigh 700 lbs. and have to wear a mumu (is that even how you spell it?) and have extreme diabetes and cholesterol issues.

Fondant!

I figured this morning I'd whip a cake together for practice, then move on to finish the zucchini relish. You know, I just don't understand how youtube makes things look so simple! Frosting the cake would be the easy part, I figured. WRONG. Who knew it takes for-freaking-ever to smooth icing? Who knew that as soon as I pulled the fondant out of the fridge I'd get interrupted 1,249 times? The ducks, the phone, the ducks, the mailman, the neighbor, the ducks...well, you get the idea. But I finally did it.

I call this the "zebra print-meets-random flower-meets-green-food-coloring-RANDOM cake". AKA the "practice" cake. I practiced the zebra stripes so I could make one for Kaylee next weekend. I practiced the flower because, well, it just looked cool. I learned a lot today. First, no one pays attention to me until a) I'm in the bathroom or b) I'm elbow deep in sugar/flour/kitchen substances. The second one of those two things occurs, everyone in town comes calling/yelling/knocking/honking. What is it about a closed door that attracts children? Anyway. Second thing I learned, those cake leveler thing-a-majigs might just be worth the investment. Always buy a couple extra tubs of frosting (or just make my own next time). Warm water helps smooth the icing. Eating fondant by the handful leads to a tummy ache. Me, not the kids. You'd think I'd be old enough to know by now.

Next, it was time to finish the zucchini relish. I have a confession to make. Can you keep a secret? Canning is a lot of work and I get overly ambitious at the beginning of summer. "Yay, I can't wait for an overabundance of crops to can!" This attitude quickly turns into, "If I see one more zucchini I'm running away from home!" By the end of summer I'm ready to tell Martha Stewart to go to hell and take some zucchini with her. I made 7 half pint jars of zucchini relish. It was a lot of work (and mess, because I'm just messy in the kitchen), but the kitchen smells wonderful. Reminds me of how my aunt's kitchen smelled when I was a kid.

How do you get leftover cake batter out of your hair? Hypothetical question.

Zombie Zucchinis and Terrorist Rabbits

Despite the drought, we already have zucchinis coming out our ears. It has rained like twice 
in the last couple of months, but nonetheless we seem to have grown zombie zucchinis again 
this year. Nothing stops them. Therefore, I feel compelled to use them. ALL of them. I can't waste them, you know? I decided to make zucchini relish. Never mind that no one will eat it except me. At least I can say I USED them. It's like a sick, impossible challenge that I know I'll never win, but nevertheless have to try. Grating them is sort of like going to the gym for free. You build killer biceps. Except my biceps are still flabby. But never mind that. 


As if that wasn't enough for one day, I also decided it was a great time to tackle cake decorating. I've never made fondant before. So what? Allrecipes.com says it's easy! Just melt some marshmallows, add some powdered sugar, then knead for what seems like 8 hours. Simple! It's chilling overnight in the refrigerator, taunting me, reminding me that I'm not Martha Stewart.

 On a side note, Frank brought rabbits home from Rural King yesterday. He came into the kitchen and said, "You might wanna grab the camera and come outside." Uh oh. That phrase is common around here, and usually results in some kind of new animal. Yep. Sure enough, I went outside to discover 3 bunnies hopping around my yard. I gave Frank a look. He responded by saying, "They make fertilizer for the garden." Duh. I asked him where he planned to keep them and got met with a vacant look and a scratching of the head. He thought for a minute, then decided they'd be fine with the ducks. "Shouldn't you try it out before you just throw them all in there together?" I asked him. "They'll be fine. It's not like the ducks can hurt them." he said. I went in to check on dinner. About ten minutes later he came in to let me know that the DUCKS are scared of the RABBITS. I went out to see for myself, and sure enough, the ducks were having heart attacks! Those cute little bunnies were hopping around and terrorizing the poor ducks. Never mind that the ducks are 3 times their size. They flapped their wings and scrambled away, hissing all the while.

We went inside to eat dinner. I fixed ham with garden green beans and potatoes in the crock pot, homemade cornbread, zucchini casserole, and a garden salad, with blackberry cobbler for dessert. Ok, so if I'm being totally honest, we all nibbled on the cobbler throughout the day and there was none left by the time we ate dinner. (What do you call a dessert that you eat before dinner?) Anyway, after dinner Frank went out to check on the "farm". He couldn't find the black rabbit anywhere. They decided to hop up the ladder into the chicken coop and have a sleepover with the chickens. I can't help but wonder what's next? A pig? A sheep? A cow?