Welcome back all my answer seeking darlings! I have wisdom to spread. Pull up a monitor & prepare to be amazed.
Inkling asks (even though she later said I am not required to answer): Is it sacrilegious to have roast chicken on Thanksgiving?
No. Not at all. I think Grandpa M&M would be thrilled with the idea...not that Grandpa M&M is God & has a say in all things sacrilegious or anything....but he is an Elder at the church...and he does pray at every family meal, so I'm pretty sure he knows a thing or two about God's feelings on turkey.
Then she gets evil with me & queries: If you did find out your doctor didn't truly know how to tie knots....1. what would you name child #5, and 2. how much would your lawsuit request, and 3. what would you do with it (you must include a visit to Canada)
#1. I've always wanted to name a baby girl Keturah or Tirzah but would have to be a single mother to be allowed to & I'm not willing to off my husband just to win the baby name argument. And I've always wanted to name a baby boy Nathanial or Matthias. But none are reason enough to procreate again!
#2. Enough to supply me with an apple green Kitchen Aid Mixer, Sun room, 3 more bed rooms, a 2 car garage with bonus room, my own ATV, and maid & nanny service for life....plus a stipend for Spa Days.
#3. Oh, I think I just answered my own question. I'll throw in a Daudi House (a mother-in-law suite), yearly plane tickets to anywhere I want to visit (Canada being first on my list), and enough money for Husband to become a Kept Man (think Mark Consuelos...aka Mr. Kelly Rippa).
Kork asks a tough one that many many mothers have to face in their lifetime: How, precisely do you tell your MIL to butt out when you're having a disciplinary session with your 29 month old son? How do you explain to said son that Grandma has WAAAAAYYYYY different rules than at home, and to "buck up little camper" because we'll be home soon enough and he can rule the roost once again?
I've honestly not had this issue arise with my MIL, but I don't spend a great deal of time around her. I have had to deal with it with my SIL (who has mental problems) and it wasn't pretty. It went something like:
Me-Please let me handle this.
Her- (still trying to discipline my child)
Me- That's it. Stop now. I am ____'s mother & I will take care of it.
Her- Mom! You make that B___ shut up now! Mom!! You better do something about her now!
Me- (walk out with my children in tow)
Now that that's over, I know you cannot have a row over this because you're staying at her house. I do have to agree with Gail & say to Captain Chaos, "Grandma's house. Grandma's rules. Our house. Our rules." I know at just over 2 years old this isn't an easy concept to grasp, but he's bright. I'm sure he'll figure it out before time to board the plane for home!
As far as how to handle your MIL, I would, in my best Mommy's-the-boss voice that I use with my children say, "Thanks. I've got him. This will only take a minute," and take him in the next room if necessary. Be gracious & calm and remember, you will soon be back in your own nest. If it becomes a real problem, my rule is His mom, his battle. Tell B.B. what's going on & that you expect him to handle it so you don't have to be the bad guy.
Zann asks: Is there any way to cook a whole small roasting chicken (bones and all that) in a crockpot?
I can't say I've ever tried to cook a chicken in the crock-pot unless I was cooking it down to use in another recipe. That's how I cook my chickens for chicken pot-pie or chicken & noodles. But I do have a Fix It and Forget It cook book (I highly recommend this for anyone who uses their crock pot frequently).
Here's one that sounds good:
Chicken in a Pot
2 carrots, sliced
2 Onions, sliced
2 celery ribs, cut in 1 inch pieces
3 lbs. Chicken, whole or cut up
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp coarse black pepper
1 tsp dried basil
1/2 C. water, chicken broth, or white cooking wine
Place veggies in bottom of slow cooker. Place Chicken on top of veggies. Add seasoning & water.
Cover. Cook on low 8-10 hours or High 3 1/2 to 5 hours (use 1 C. liquid if cooking on high). If cooking as a full meal, add 2 med. sized quartered potatoes to veggies before cooking.
iVillage has a crock pot section you might find useful: http://food.ivillage.com/cooking/slowcooker/0,,9wqt,00.html
Zann also asks: What's a yummy but healthy cookie recipe?
This is not my area of expertise. Inkling may have something up her sleeve on this one, but I personally am a butter & sugar kind of gal. The more of both, the better. I'm currently attempting to eat an entire batch of chocolate chip cookies by myself.
I'm also a fan of persimmon cookies. Uncle E & Aunt C make them & they're wonderful. I don't have their recipe, but this one looks yummy. Do you have persimmons near you?
I googled Healthy Cookie Recipes & was lead to a blog with a wonderful recipe on it. I really think you should give it a try & let us all know how it turns out. It looks fabulously decadent, but chocked full of good stuff.
That's it for the questions today. So now onto what I have accomplished today (you knew I'd get to that didn't you?).
By 9 o'clock I had loaded & run the dish washer & washed all the big stuff by hand, stripped the boys beds & had the washer going, vacuumed half the living room & had husband move the furniture back onto it (we shampooed half the carpet yesterday), vacuumed the other half & shampooed the carpet on the empty side. I have to finish with the bedding & wipe down the bathroom. The kitchen floor could use a quick sweep & then I plan on finishing the ornament I'm cross stitching for Grandma M&M's tree. After that I'll veg out with Little Women or what ever Netflix sends in the mail today (yes, we subscribed. Husband couldn't deal with the no TV thing & 75% our DVD's are animated).
Oh, and in wonderfully fabulous news, my dental insurance approved the removal of my other three wisdom teeth. So December 19th I'll be having 2 more pulled & the one impacted tooth cut out. Yeah me. But, Husband will be off work from then until after the first of the year, so I can lay around with my ice packs, pain killers, and creamy tomato soup.
2 comments:
Yeah, my cookies are only healthy if you consider chocolate comes from a bean, which means you could justify it being a lentil or a vegetable. And butter originally came from cow products, so it's dairy, right?
I have a friend who is constantly substituting lentils for butter, dried fruits for sugar, and other such things. Those cookies taste okay if you feel like imagining you are on a cross-continent trek and need food that will be hardy enough to keep you going for months on end without fear of it rotting. But I don't recommend it.
I will tell you that one thing I have started doing with my baking is decreasing the sugar by a tiny bit - like 1/3 or so. An expert at sweet treats like me usually can't tell that anything is different, and lessening white sugar in our diet is always a good thing. (Just think...disease flourishes on a diet of white sugar, and that will motivate you to reduce it at least a tiny bit without depriving yourself entirely.)
Just eat healthy the rest of the time, and enjoy your double chocolate chip cookies or nanaimo bars. Really. That's what we do here at the Inkling household. Oh, and we count chocolate covered cranberries as a serving of fruits AND vegetables.
The one thing we have cut out of our diets nearly completely is Crisco. Instead of making my famous homemade dough for chicken pot pie, I now make up the biscuit recipe on Trader Joe's multigrain baking mix, add a little extra milk, and spread it on top of the filling. It's my way to be healthy, and it's a great way to leave room for hot chocolate pudding cake for dessert after dinner.
It's all about balance. When I'm 95, if Jesus hasn't come back yet, I'll probably go back to eating Crisco, McDonald's, straight chocolate for breakfast, and whatever else sounds good to me at the time. Maybe. My taste buds have actually changed, and those don't really tempt me. But for now, we just try to be healthy while also enjoying the sweet treats of life.
Zann - check out the "Whole Food Allergy Cookbook". It offers solutions for other issues than "healthy" eating for sugar's sake...but it has things like how to use Cane Juice, honey, alternative flours etc.
However...at the holidays, unless we need to for allergy reasons, we don't worry about healthy. We just don't keep that many for ourselves. Especially because I know that we'll be getting plates full from the neighbors! Good luck!!!
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