It was a good walk - and the rain wasn't too hard - we even put away our umbrellas for a bit and just endured the mist [except for Henry...I left his umbrella in a restaurant last week when, after paying our bill, the fire alarm sounded and we had to evacuate...but that's another story]. Henry found a pair of socks he'd been dreaming of and bought them with birthday money and I surprised him by buying a second pair for him. We were happy and our version of Beaver Cleaver life was playing out nicely. On the way home we stopped at the American Girl store and I got to surprise Lydia by offering her the same budget as I'd allowed for Henry so she could pick out a treasure. And, as it doesn't often happen, she found something within her budget that required no begging, crying or gnashing of teeth. It was a great day! The rain started falling more steadily and we headed home where the kids played Legos and work on the quilts began.
Detour: I began cutting Lydia's t-shirts for the quilt and was making the final snip on the second shirt only to look up at her big blue eyes in time to see them flood with tears and sobbing ensue. Apparently, he tshirts have far too memories in them to be diced into square under which you can keep cozy. And they went back into a bag with the promise of waiting to cut anymore until she could see how her brother's quilt turned out first. It was a full-on meltdown. About tshirts. And if I hadn't felt so badly that she was so upset it would have been hard to suppress my laughter about it. Not to worry, I moved on to cutting out Henry's shirts and then pulled out my secret weapon to salvage the day: I turned on Different Strokes while I began our luxurious, Family Day Dinner.
As a Southerner, it's inborn for me to put love into the food I prepare. This, coupled with the fact that I enjoy trying different foods and enjoy cooking and think I'm pretty OK about it makes creating special meals fun and expressive for me. I was excited about being home to cook and earlier in the day the kids were keen on helping...reruns of Arnold and Willis diminished their eagerness to help but I was unscathed. I got to work - first on the eggless 'Wacky Cake' cupcakes - that were meant to be shared with our kind neighbors who alerted us to a dying car battery last weekend. They've come to function as family despite no blood relation and we owe them thanks for that - Family Day seemed an appropriate time to do so. While those baked, I got to work on homemade Naan. We love Naan and I was going to carry on our family day of fitness with a sumptuous, healthy dinner. The plan was to top the Naan with spinach, tomatoes and olives tossed in a light olive oil and lemon juice dressing as our entrée. However, it was 4:45PM and while I knew the Naan dough had to rest for a bit, I had not read the part in the recipe that said it needed to rest for TWO HOURS - 6:45 is well past our dinner time. This was the first indication my sumptuous dinner was not going to plan. Onward I forged, however. Wacky Cakes came out of the oven, the dough was covered in a damp cloth and put in a warm place to hang out for a bit and while I pondered how to rescue this rapidly sinking ship, I got to work on our homemade Kale Chips - which turned out to be yummy. The initial intent was that these would be snacks for lunchboxes this week but as my dough rested I switched gears and dubbed the Kale Chips appetizers and got some orzo on to boil. The side intended for our leafy green entrée was an orzo, pesto, olive, sundried tomato salad. It's a lovely dish and the kids like to gobble it up - I learned the last time I made it that the recipe calls for far too much pesto (based on the level of salinity in the dish that had us mainlining water for hours after eating it). I altered the recipe so it would be 'just so' and had it put together in no time.
What I was going for was traditional Naan - here's the recipe to prove it.
The yummy 'all dressed' Kale Chips
The lovely orzo salad
Things were literally cooking in my kitchen but I had no entrée for my yummy celebration dinner - and I knew that my hungry brood would not be satisfied with roasted kale and pasta salad for dinner. And then it occurred to me with a sinking feeling - nothing would make them happier than to eat the frozen pizza in our freezer. Foodie fail. To make myself feel better, I did doctor up that four cheese square of frozen preservatives with some Italian seasoning and garlic powder and while my intent of a healthy, homemade Family Day Dinner went completely off the rails and only one kid gave a hoot about my Kale Chips, they sat down to dinner and each kid excitedly said, "Yuuummm - frozen pizza!" And we ate, and we laughed, and I had a side of humble pie followed by a rousing game of Monopoly around our little coffee table. Family Day had been just that - and my foodie fail got chalked up as a mama win. As for the Naan - it's probably best that it had to rest for those two hours. It came out of the oven around 7:30PM - a cross between a biscuit and a pancake without the texture of regular Naan at all. Nonetheless, the kids asked for it with breakfast this morning and I learned it's better just to buy it from the Indian restaurant across the street than to try to pull it off homemade. Turns out, it's cheaper and takes a lot less time. Happy Family Day.
And the hit of the night - our SQUARE frozen pizza...
