Potatoes in a Packet

One of my all time favorite things to eat from the grill are these easy potato packets. Little bit of crunch on the ones on the bottom. Flavorful and oh so YUMMY.

Spray your piece of aluminum foil

Slice one potato thin and put onto the foil

Season with your favorite seasoning, couple of teaspoons of my favorite Greek seasoning in my case and a couple pats of butter. If you want to get funky, throw a tablespoon of your favorite cheese on them too.

Seal the aluminum foil into nice little packets, you don't want any steam to leak out
20 minutes on a medium grill and YUM!

Books

As you know I love a good book. I avoided this one for awhile because I heard mixed reviews. But, I kept seeing it EVERYwhere I went and then there it was at the library, so I gave it a go. For me, it was tough to get into. It took me about 100 pages before I was sucked in and yes, I was sucked in. There are three books total and I admit, I ran to the book store to buy the second one and then the third.


The second book was actually my favorite of the three

And, finally the last one.

Pico de Gallo

If you live in Minnesota, everyone you know is offering free tomatoes at this time of the year because they over planted because they weren't sure if all the plants would survive our weather. Or at least I assume that's why everyone has so many tomatoes??

Never one to turn them down, I make one of my favorite things to eat..Pico de Gallo. Yummy, fresh and oh so pretty.

5 Roma tomatoes diced
1 small Onion chopped pretty fine
2 cloves Garlic minced
4-5 Jalapenos cleaned of seeds and minced
HUGE handful of Cilantro finely chopped
Juice of one lime
about a teaspoon of sea salt

Toss it all together. Chill for a bit and serve.

Here are your yummy fresh tomatoes

Give those babies a nice chop

An onion about this big

Big handful of Cilantro
Jalapenos seeded and minced. I make sure there are NO seeds in my Pico de Gallo because I don't want to inhale one accidentally and look like a fool coughing and having tears running down my face;) Add your minced up garlic and lime juice. Salt to taste but don't get crazy, remember the chips have salt too.
Isn't it pretty. Enjoy!

Miracles For Mitch

Four years ago my son Max spotted a sign at the gym for a kid triathlon and he was ALL over that idea. I signed him up, he trained his little 9 year old butt off and I missed it. Yes, it was one of those days on the calendar that was split with another day and I misread it as being the following week. Luckily, my friend Annie was the one who made me realize my error before the "big" day. PANIC..what the heck was I going to do?? My little guy was training hard and I missed it. It's not like they have triathlons every weekend.

Annie to the rescue.

She found Miracles of Mitch Triathlon, Kids Running For Kids Who Can't. It was 2 weeks away and close to home. I signed Max up and told him that we were doing a bigger and better triathlon, not knowing ANYthing other than what the website told me. He quickly went door to door and asked family and friends for donations since it was also a fundraiser for cancer and he raised $670 the first year.

We (Max, Claire and myself) showed up on that early Saturday morning, it was drizzling and cold and we had no idea what to expect because as all of you know, doing a triathlon or even running a 5K is NOT something I would EVER do. Max has exposed me to the world of people who run for fun, I still don't get it but I support it;). What I didn't expect was for our lives to be forever changed.

The first thing they do when you arrive is to write the name of the kid you are running for on the back of your leg. Max ran for Buzz, a boy his age with Leukemia.

Ready, set..time for the grand entrance into the park, each age group is represented and enter starting with the 7 year olds and ending with the 17 year olds all wearing their swim caps. In the front of this procession are the Miracle All Stars. The kids with cancer who the kids are running for. Smiling faces, some still bald from chemo and waving. Claire and I stood there clapping with tears running down our faces. They have one of those All Stars speak to the group before the triathlon starts. It's nothing profound, it's just a little about them and a high five shout out to the kids basically.

Flash forward another year and Claire was listening to the All Star speak. She had passed on doing it because she doesn't like swimming in a lake but helped her brother raise money. Claire is also her Mother's child and can't wrap her brain around those that run for fun.

This All Star was finally in remission and she was competing in the triathlon. Claire looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, "If she can beat cancer and do this, I can beat the lake and do it too".

The next year she did it with her brother. She didn't seem to "enjoy" it but she enjoyed being part of something so amazing. Max always finishes with a smile, high fives the next handful of runners and then asks where his butter burger that Culver's donates is at;)

This year was Claire's second time and she enjoyed herself and finished with a smile and was also asking for food when she finished.

Together they raised $1246. They have a family total of $4266 over the four years of participation.

This year I had the pleasure of standing next to one of the All Star parents while waiting for our racers to pass us (her son won't be able to do it until 2012 due to his treatment but her nephew was running) and we chatted a bit.

This short conversation gave me that knock upside the head that I needed. It put life back into perspective. I get so busy with our lives that I forget to be thankful, truly thankful. I don't have to worry if they'll be here next year. I don't have to worry about what treatment is doing to their bodies. I just get to celebrate what amazing kids they are or be irriatated at them for not listening when they should or eating what I cook. I get to be proud of them for their generosity and compassion for others. I get to hug them every single day.

So, thank you to the Miracles for Mitch foundation for changing our lives and continuing to remind us that you should take nothing for granted and hug your kids as often as you can.

At the finish line after the triathlon

With their Medals for finishing and Mitchie Award because of the money they raised

Frosted Mini Wheats

I mentioned a few days ago that one of the reasons I didn't have new recipes to post was because I made my children eat cold cereal for a week. That's right, I lost my mind one night after a LONG day at work. I had prepped dinner the night before, slow roasted ribs in case you're wondering and yes, the recipe will be posted later.

I came home on my lunch break to put them in the oven, made sides I knew they liked, all total a couple of hours of my time to make them something I know that they'll eat, did I mention it was about 90 degrees outside?? Guess what..they ate their bread and that was it!

Yeah, Mommy was NOT happy but I was calm. Calm scares my kids more than losing my mind, which they have also witnessed on more than one occasion but I like to keep them guessing.

So, I very calmly said when I saw their plates being carried in with a bite out of their ribs, "That's perfectly fine. You can eat cold cereal for dinner for a week and do NOT ask for anything after dinner because the answer will be NO".

"But Mom, we just weren't hungry for ribs tonight, they taste good", said my son while brushing bread crumbs from his shirt.

"Well...I'm just not in the mood to make dinner for the next 7 days. I'm sure cold cereal will taste good too".

Care to guess what the little beast found? The beast who doesn't like milk in his cereal because it makes it soggy? While at the grocery store he found this...
A cereal that is healthy. I said, "I will buy it but you will eat it regardless if you like it or not". I can't count how many boxes of other cereals I have thrown because it "tasted funny" and this one was healthy, fat chance he'd like it.

Well, he doesn't like it...he LOVES it. He ate two boxes during his 7 days of cereal for dinner. I thought my plan had backfired!! That he would be good eating cereal every night.

But when I made dinner on day 8, he ate everything on his plate, said thank you, told me how good it was and I even got a kiss;) I'll try to freeze that memory in my head, make it my little happy place, for the next time I make something he won't eat.

Chocolate Chip Brownies

Baby it's been HOT outside but I needed to bring a dessert to something and one of my PET PEEVES is when someone signs up to bring a dessert and they bring store bought stuff. I should say it's my PET PEEVE unless you shopped at a very nice bakery, leave the oreos or store bought cookies at home and make something please.

This is easy enough ANYONE can do it.

Make a box of brownies according to directions. When you take them out of the oven, cool for about 10 minutes and then top with a jar of caramel. You know the stuff you put on ice cream? Yeah, that and use the jar not the squeeze kind because it's thicker. Top with your favorite flavor of chocolate chips, you'll need an entire bag. I used a mix of milk and semi sweet. You can also chop up your favorite nuts and add those but I knew I had a nut allergy in the house so I left them out.

Press the chips down a bit. Cool completely, cut into bars and TADA...dessert you made.

Individual Vegi Pizzas

I hosted book club and I wanted easy stuff for the girls to grab and I wanted them to be kind of pretty. SO...I tried something I read forever ago in some magazine. I bought a can of the flaky biscuits in a can. I separated those layers into 3 pieces and cooked according to directions. Cool.

Grab you store bought spinach dip, you can make it if you want but spinach dip is one of those things that I really don't think homemade is better so I buy mine AND it's easier. Spread about a tablespoon on each biscuit.

Chop up some broccoli, cauliflower and carrots. I buy one of those stir fry bags of vegis and used about 1/2 of it. Sprinkle in a couple teaspoons of garlic powder. Toss and put on top of spinach dip.

Chill for about an hour and serve