Hohnstreiterrific

Instructional Video of Sorts

Recently, JHohns has been trying his hand at making and taking care of Amish Friendship Bread. Here, he demonstrates how to "lightly flour a pan." Now you know. :)

Breakfast of Champions

Speaking of Sauce…

I have been meaning to plug this little packet of goodness for quite a long while now, but never had an opportunity to take a snap of it until today (Shhhhh...don't tell JHohns that I ate out for lunch!! Promise? Cross your hearts? Okay. ha ha!). Let me just say that if you happen to find yourself at a Chick-fil-A anytime soon, do yourself a favor and pick up a packet of their Chick-fil-A sauce. DO IT! Seriously. I mean it. Don't forget. It just might be the best move you make that day.

I used to be a ketchup and mayonnaise mixin' girl, but I have become a convert. Now, yes, I understand that there is all kinds of bad stuff (ie: high fructose corn syrup) in this little packet of sauce, however, I think the fact that it is so little allows me to turn my head on my healthy ways for 30 minutes for 1 oz. of indulgence. Okay...maybe 2. :)

Do you have a favorite sauce that we should know about??

Bird Chicken Recipe

Well, I am about 2 months behind on reading all my cooking mags...I should really get on it because I feel like I am missing out on some great summer recipes! Thankfully, I have a few friends who keep me up-to-date with some of the ones they have tried recently from the pile of magazines calling my name. Most recently, it was with this Roasted Chicken with Chickpeas, Tomatoes, and Paprika from Bon Appetit.

Well, I love chicken and I love chickpeas so it's not surprising that this recipe was calling my name. My SIL also made it recently and added in corn and since I love corn too, I thought it would be a welcome addition. I used the can from the chickpeas to measure out one can of frozen corn and mixed it in with the tomatoes and chickpea mixture before adding to the chicken. Overall the recipe was super easy to make and it took very little time at all. The only issue I had was why they called for 'bone in' chicken breasts...I thought it would have been fine with regular boneless since it was kind of a pain eating around the bones during dinner. Other than that, it was super tasty and highly recommended. It does use a lot of spice like paprika and it has some cumin in it (dirty feet/butt smelling spice in my opinion), but add a little bit extra red pepper flakes and you should be good to go! That's what I did anyway. :)

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that what really made this recipe so good was the sauce!! I don't think I would have liked it as much without it. We used greek yogurt for the based and I absolutely loved the combination of that taste mixed with the spices and everything else. We probably could have doubled the sauce mixture because we used to much of it...Y-U-M! Let me know if you try it out!

Semantics

This will probably seem out of the blue considering 1) I don't have kids, 2) I don't really hang around kids, and 3) I don't usually talk about kid stuff. However, there is something that has bothered me for years and since I heard it again this weekend, I thought I would share and see what y'all think. If you think I am crazy...it's okay...I can accept that, but just for a bit step into my linguistically inclined brain and hear me out.

Words. I love them. I think they can be used to describe a myriad of things and I really love how certain words can have multiple meanings. (Sidenote: That is called polysemy, in case you were wondering. I actually did a study and wrote a paper on it in college...quite fascinating, really...) Anywho, back to the topic at hand. So while I like words that can have multiple meanings, I am sometimes perplexed when someone uses a word and their meaning doesn't jive with me. Enter the scenario for which I am even writing.

Over the years I have heard, from mostly men (probably really 100%), the word "babysit" used to describe how they spent their day or night in regards to caring for their own children. In my mind, I inadvertently find myself responding "Ummm...I thought that was called parenting??" Of course, I have never asked any of these men about it or challenged them on the expression, but I have spent many moments pondering it. When I think of babysitting, I think of teenage girls getting paid some extra dough to come watch your kids while you go out on a date or something...not a parent watching their own child(ren).

I even looked it up in the dictionary and low and behold this is the definition: intransitive verb: to care for children usually during a short absence of the parents ; broadly : to give care

I am not really sure why this bothers me so much...I guess in some sense it is the idea of the roles in a marriage/family. Why is it that when a woman takes care of the children she is a mother/caretaker/stay-at-home mom or whatever and when a guy takes care of the kids, he is "babysitting?"

I am not really sure what else to say...have you heard this before? What is your reaction? If you are a mom, does it bother you if your husband says this? If you are a dad, what's your take on this?? Just curious. I just hope that whenever J and I have kids I don't ever hear this come out of his mouth...it would just make me really sad if he viewed hanging out and taking care of them as "babysitting" rather than being a good dad.

Friday Funny

Can you believe it is Friday again already? Time seems to fly and yet it seems to creep by at the same time...it's a weird phenomenon. Things are going well here, I am feeling tons better albeit I am still taking it slow and cooking food that isn't super spicy or heavy...just nice easy things like homemade potato soup, which is yummy even if it was over 100 degrees outside! ha!

I ran out of some white fabric so I haven't been able to finish my last project from the SEWcial...but I picked some up yesterday so I am crossing my fingers that this weekend will give me an hour or so to finish, then I might actually have something cute and fun to show you.

Other than that...nothing else new. So enjoy this Friday Funny (courtesy of Jon)...I promise you will think it is some kind of joke, but let me assure you...it's not. Craziness...LOL. Happy Friday!

Sigh…

Can you tell that I haven't felt like "talking" lately? I have a lot of internal dialog going on, but not really anything that I am up for divulging at this moment...maybe soon I will put some thoughts out here. I know I have been masking by writing about a myriad of other superficial things, but such is the time I guess.

One thing I will tell you (in an effort to see if anyone else has ever experienced this) is that yesterday I noticed -- well, I have noticed before that, but didn't actually investigate -- that there were some weird dark spots on my armpits. It was like dark, discolored, dry skin that was kind of thick. So, being the picker that I am, I started picking at one side and it just started peeling off. Yikes!

I decided to try to soften it up overnight so after not wearing deo all day, I put some Apricot Kernel Oil on it over night and today in the shower it all just came right off in big chunks. Now my armpits look absolutely normal?!?! Super weird!!

Not sure if this is a side effect of my homemade deodorant and I need to put some more of the shea butter or vitamin E in it...has anyone else had this problem with their homemade deo? Or with your under arms in general?? I am reaching here...ha ha!

Ladies SEWcial

Last Saturday, I hosted a Ladies SEWcial and wow was it just a really fun time!! There were a plethora of different projects going on and lots of fun fabrics being used...it was such a joy to watch everyone having a good time! I would definitely call it a successful day...so much so, I have been working on the next one.

We have a tentative date set for August 8th, so make sure to save the date if you are interested in making a day of it with us. :) I have a few finishing touches to make to the projects I was working on and then I will post the pics...until then, enjoy some shots of some of the other ladies in their creative element. :)

Baby Quilt

Remember that sneak peek, I gave ya'll about a month ago? Well, I finally finished and it is now in the hands of its new owner so I am free to share the pics now. YAY!

The final product was a baby quilt for my friend Beth and her new little baby, Jude, who is due any day now. The front is some wonky pinwheels (that I will admit to thinking -- "why did I choose this idea?" -- when I was making them even though I love the end result.) and the back is mostly this really cute fabric that I thought was so perfect for Beth. It says, "I promise to keep the trees healthy and beautiful."

I quilted it using a stippling pattern, which is basically free motion swirlys all over, which makes it all fun and crinkly after you wash it. I love that effect!  I really loved how it turned out and am looking forward to making some more baby quilts like this -- or just lap size quilts, I guess. I am still a little hesitant on quilting my larger one, but I think I can work up the guts and determination to do it! :)