Maple Cranberry Chicken

It kinda looks like this:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Ingredients

• 3-4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 cup green (salad) onion chopped up small
• 1/2 cup pure maple syrup (not artificial!)
• 1/4 cup Apple Cider Vinegar
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries
• 1/2 cup water

DIRECTIONS:

1. Mix up the sauce.
2. Put the chicken breasts in an oven dish.
3. Cover in sauce.  You may want to double the sauce but decide how much maple syrup you want in there!
4. Cook for 30 minutes.

If you want to thicken the sauce:

• 4 teaspoons of water
• 4 teaspoons cornstarch

1. Pour sauce into a saucepan.  Leave chicken in the dish in oven.
2. Combine cornstarch and water in a small bowl with a whisk or a fork. While stirring sauce, stir in cornstarch/water mixture, reduce heat to medium and continue to cook for about a minute or until thickened. Serve sauce over cooked chicken.

Sugar cookies

I have realised my error in my cooking exploits, I keep personalising recipes and I have no where to keep a record of them.  So when I will occasionally post on this blog (last time was 2013) I hope to correct that error.

This cookie was blatantly stolen from here:

but here's what I did to it to make it nummy.  I also didn't need 48 cookies, so I reduced down the batch.

Brown Sugar Cookies

Prep: 15 mins | Cook: 8 mins | Yield: 24 cookies

Ingredients

• 2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 1/3-1/2 cup melted or runny honey
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup Greek yogurt (vanilla)
• 1/2 cup butter, softened

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Cream the butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar together in the bowl of a stand mixer fit with the paddle attachment for 3 minutes on medium-high speed. Add the egg and the yogurt, and continue mixing for another 2 minutes.

Sift the flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder together in a separate bowl. With the mixer set on low, slowly add the flour mixture into the butter mixture about 1/2 cup at a time (just eyeball it), letting each pour of flour incorporate fully before adding the next.

Put the dough in the fridge for 1-2 hours (or more).

Roll the dough out so it's a 1/4 inch thick.  Cut shapes and place on a cookie sheet covered in parchment paper. Bake the brown sugar cookies for 8 minutes until they’re golden brown around the edges, and then remove the cookie sheets from the oven. 

Allow the cookies to rest for a minute before removing them to wire racks to cool completely.

Well, I haven't made you scroll through 30 photos to get to the recipe, but I do need to put at least one in!

I didn't roll some of my cookies thin enough, so they spread a bit.  The kids said they were tasty and I feel like they're a little healthier than the usual sugar cookies.   Well, maybe except for the icing ;o)

When do you do it?

First time I did it in the snow,

And, at -5 below,

I didn’t think I’d ever do it again.

Then I did it as a mum

So that the children could come

Back home safe and sound from the Stollery.

I’m doing it for the brain

As only memories remain

Of my dad, who should’ve seen his grandkids grow.

With pineapple and hula skirt,

I’ll try not to hit the dirt

As the girls do it LOUD in Calgary.

We’ll be Spartans coz we’re crazy

And there’s no way to be lazy

As under, through and over obstacles we go.

There’ll be colour in the air

And colour in our hair,

As my Friends and Family do it all together.

I’ll do it in the dark,

I’ve done it in the park,

And maybe I’ll help the blind along the way.

For blood, boobs and prostrates

I’ll be prepared to demonstrate

Stride by stride, just how much you mean to me.

From Gorillas in the Mist

To making this year’s list

I’ve had such fun I’ll have to keep on going.

For the Tubb and Knuckey clans,

I hope you’ll understand

I'm better at running than writing poetry ;o)

DinoROAR

My son turned two the week that T was in hospital, so the dinosaur party I'd been planning for him got put on hold. What this meant was I could do some more fun things for him and his friends.

First I have to thank Running with Scissors for her Dino tail tutorial.  I had some really nice fleece to make this with so I had to line each tail with cotton, and I had tons of unpleasant cotton to do that with.  So double the cutting but still only sewing once as I did it all together.

These are the final tails, hanging on the treadmill.

Then I learnt how to make tissue paper pompom balls and turned them into dinosaurs too.  There are various posts on how to do this, you can google them quite easily.  I purchased my tissue paper and wire from the Dollar Store.  I made balls that were 10 inches diameter and tied the wire around. I just used regular string to hang them from the ceiling.

I had to have about 14inch card dinosaurs.  The tricky bit was ensuring the gap over the legs was long enough.  I held apart the middle section and slotted it down.  I also stapled the tissue paper to the cardboard, catching the hanging string so that it would hang easier.


 

The goody bags were from the Dollar store.  I downloaded some images of dinosaurs and pinned them on.  I used the dinosaur faces for a colouring activity for the kids.  These were then to be pinned to the hats I made.  The treats were dino squirties which I got from Indigo.  One per child along with some dinosaur stickers, which were from the Dollar Store.

Here are the faces for colouring and adding to the hats.  The hats were made from 8.5x11" card stock.  I just did a large semicircle and then cut some zig zag spikes with the offcuts and used the stapler to staple together.  Finally some elastic to go under the chin.

The last things I put together were eggs stuffed with mini dinosaurs for the dinosaur dig.  Now, this is Alberta, Canada.  We still have tons of snow and while other blogs may recommend an internal sandpit for a dinosaur dig, that isn't going to happen.  Luckily we had a shredder and lots of shredding, so I filled a box with eggs and we were all set.

 

And then I made the cake.  For K's birthday at daycare I'd just made some min-egg dinosaur nests but I wanted to do something special.  And I found this cake and loved it. K wanted a yellow one and I delivered.  T had fun putting on the buttons and I added the smarties after she'd got bored.

If you're wondering how the party went, it didn't.  K had a temperature of 39.5 the night before and by Saturday he was a wailing ball of snotty mess.  So maybe next time but at least all I have to do is bake the cake.  Actually, while I think about it, anyone want some cake?...

Finding a child

Did I really lose my child?  Did I lose sight of motherhood? Did I forget how precious my babies are to me?  Sometimes the answer is yes.  The sparkly gadgets that call away our attention, needing to feed, wash, tidy up and all the other million chores that go together to keep a family running.  Focusing on being ahead rather than being present.  And so when Tiny T whined all weekend of a sore tummy and she had a slight fever, I had NO idea that she had a grumbly appendix which was going to burst on us.  Burst on us good and proper - emergency surgery at 4am and 10 days in hospital (and still there).

My little angel.

Don't leave me.

And you didn't.  But has this made me a perfect mum, am I always attentive to your needs or do I still struggle to balance life, motherhood, love and myself?  Of course I do.  I am exhausted, like your dad, after spending all this time watching you recover in hospital but I wouldn't leave your side or leave you alone for a minute.  You are so fragile, so perfect, so adorable, so whiney, so contrary and someone I am so completely in love with.  A beautiful child and one I hope I can watch grow into a beautiful, loved woman.

Thank goodness for grandma, helping us take care of K and you. 

Please come home soon

Day 2

So yesterday I decided I was going to do the Spartan Sprint when it comes to Edmonton. I'm not sure if I'm completely crazy for doing that but I feel with my exercise I need a REAL goal rather than just being able to lift a certain weight etc. 

So last night I got on our swanky new treadmill and made it to 3.5 miles in about 35 minutes.  There was lot of walking and running breaks.  Today I opted for 2 miles in my new trainers - breaking us both in gently.  I did it in 25 minutes and 20 seconds.  Not bad.  First 10 minutes were running and then I went back to the breaks.  I need to find a routine on the web, I'm not a beginner but I'm not intermediate either.  

I also checked out the Spartan 8 week exercise plan and am starting to think I'm a little bit crazy.

Monkeying Around

Back in February I decided to paint K's room. I'd these monkey decals from Stampin Up that I wanted to use but I didn't know how to make them fit in the room or what to bring in with it.  I then found these great tree decals and bought some.

Stage one was finding the right colour green paint. 

I failed with the paler tester pot and then got a darker Sage colour and slapped it on.  I was in a bit of a rush, I should have waited for the paint to dry a bit more because repositioning the decal caused a bit of a paint bubble mess. 

First I added the trees and then the brown monkeys.   I didn't know if I should cut the bottoms off above the baseboard or below. I went for above, it may not have been the right answer.  

 I had one turquoise monkey left, he fit just perfectly by the front door.

Finishing touches included a sun light from IKEA, and a blue rug to make a pond.  I do want to put up a leaf too, with a light behind it, but he's still too young and will just pull it off the wall.  Finally I found a cute animal book case at London Drugs.