Monthly Archives: April 2017

Apr 6 2017

Challah bread in a bag recipe 

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Can’t say I’ve knowingly baked a Jewish bread until this one. Also can’t say I’ve baked a bread that tasted better! Our lil monsters flipped over it. I guess it’s a good thing I decided to bake two loaves the first time. It was a very simple bread to make that looks far more difficult than it was to bake. 

Ingredients: 

  • 1tbsp yeast 
  • 1 cup warm water 
  • 3 tbsp sugar 
  • 1 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/3 cup canola oil 
  • 3 cups all purpose flour plus 1/4 cup
  • 1 egg for basting (can substitute olive oil for vegan)
  • Sesame seeds 

Preparation:

  1. In a gallon ziplock bag, add the yeast, water, sugar, salt, oil, and 3 cups of flour. 
  2. Give the bag a little shake. Don’t work too hard. Remember it’s a lazy Challah!
  3. Place the bag in a bow of warm water for 30 minutes. 
  4. Remove from bowl. Shake, release air from the bag. And place on the table or coutnertop for 1 hour. Flip the bag every 20 minutes throughout this hour. The dough should be very wet. It will start to bubble and self knead. 
  5. After the 1 hour, add 1/4 cup flour and give the bag another shake. This makes the dough not stick to the bag. 
  6. Leave the bag for 1 hour and 30 minutes to rise. It should still be a wet dough. If it’s not rising, flip it over and knock it down. If the dough is wet, the recipe will turn out amazing. 
  7. Preheat the oven to 300° (I set it for 275° on our oven that likes to burn things otherwise
  8. On a well floured surface, separate the dough into three sections and stretch them out to braid. 
  9. Baste with egg (or optional olive oil) and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Leave to rise for 15 minutes before it goes in the oven. 
  10. Bake on a nonstick tray for 40 minutes or until golden brown on top. 
Side notes: 

  1. It’s a very easy bread to bake, however it’s a little process. So I’ll likely make two loaves each time and freeze one. 
  2. It’s a bit of a heavy bread, but I can’t stress how much our children loved it! 
  3. When braiding the bread sort of fold the ends under. 
  4. Each bag yields 1 loaf of bread
  5. I baked it for 40 minutes at 275°
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Apr 5 2017

Haluski recipe

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This time of year I always find I’m scouring the internet for new cabbage recipes, because well this is what happens when you leave the Irish Italian Islenos parade with countless heads of cabbage. A friend recently shared this one and I had to give it a try. Our family loved it and it will definitely be a repeat. This was the first Polish dish I’ve ever made!

Ingredients: 

  • 2 1/2 cups cooked cubed ham
  • 2 cups diced white onion 
  • 1 clove minced garlic 
  • 1 1/2 lb cabbage, in bite size pieces
  • 1 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp olive oil 
  • 8 tbsp butter, divided (1 stick)
  • 8 oz dry egg noodles

Directions: 

  1. In a large skillet, Over medium high heat, cook the ham in 3tbsp butter until the ham starts to slightly brown. About 1-2 minutes. 
  2. Add 2 tbsp butter to the pan then add the garlic and onions to sauté another 2 minutes or so. 
  3. Add the cabbage, oil, and salt. Mix then cover, reduce head to medium for 8-10 minutes. 
  4. Meanwhile, cook the noodles according to the package and drain. 
  5. Once the cabbage mixture is tender add the noodles.
  6. Add the remaining butter and cook for about another two minutes. 

Side notes:

  • You can use any type of noodles you’d like. I’m sure I’ll always use the egg noodles because we like the consistency. 
  • You can also replace the ham with bacon, kielbasa, sausage, etc. 
  • The recipe called for white and black pepper as well. I only cook with pepper when it involves lemon pepper, so I opted to not use it. I also used a little garlic onion seasoning blend and cajun seasoning. 
  • I’m not sure that I know anyone that cooks with “1 clove of minced garlic”, if that’s your thing, by all means go for it. We however cook with a lot of garlic around here. 
  • Not sure I’d freeze these left overs, but it was delicious for lunch the next day.




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Apr 3 2017

“Is that Richard?”

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Talking to my dad on speakerphone this morning on the way to get my coffee and Bitty chimes in from the back seat “Is that Richard?”, because all five year old’s call their Paw-Paw by their first name? 

Bitty, 5 years old

-This has been an on going joke between my dad and the girls. They get the biggest kick out of calling him Richard while he acts completely shocked. I’m not sure who finds this little game more amusing. Probably my daddy. 

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Apr 2 2017

Sunday goodbyes 

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We said our goodbyes early this morning to head back to Texas after a whirlwind weekend. Even with dad’s scare yesterday it still turned out to be a fabulous weekend with tons of good memories made. The rain held out until today and while it was no fun driving in it from Baton Rouge to Baytown we missed the worst of it both by our house and in New Orleans. 

When we got home we unloaded the huge container of produce to see what we had, and it was a lot. We were able to share with friends and the girls are excited to bring each of their teachers a bag full of goodies tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll be prepping a lot of produce to freeze for future meals.

We caught a lot of interesting things, but I think we all agree the one lone boiled crawfish was the most amusing one! 

Our take home from the Irish Italian Islenos parade yesterday….

Boiled crawfish: 1 

Zucchini: 1

Apple: 1

Grapefruit: 2

Corn on the cob: 2

Eggplants: 2

Pineapples: 2

Cabbages: 8

Bananas: 8

Bags of mini carrots: 10

Oranges: 11

Carrots: 15

Onions: 24

Potatoes: 42

Lemons: 46

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Apr 1 2017

Irish Italian Islenos parade 2017

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Our favorite parade, the Irish Italian Islenos! 50 floats, 30 marching groups, the cast of “Night Watch” (the TV show about New Orleans first responders) as the grand Marshalls’ of the parade, and 400,000 pounds of produce to be thrown this year!

It was a beautiful day. A bit warm, but at least it didn’t start off with rain like last year. We enjoyed a day of fun and laughter with family and friends. Matt’s coworker even joined us this year with his family. Dad insisted on coming with us, even after having a knee surgery earlier this week. So I put him under the canopy in the breezy shade in a comfy chair out of the aim of float throws. The girls had so much fun with their friends as did I with two of my favorites that I’ve known forever. 

Things got scary midway through the parade though. I noticed my dad was in a lot of pain and a bit disoriented. Unfortunately, our car was trapped on the parade route and even one of his friends that I called couldn’t get through it to get him home. I went over to the car to start prepping it so that we could leave as soon as possible. I looked back across the street at him to a sight that terrified me. I could tell from the way he was slumped back in the chair something was very wrong. I ran over to him and checked his pulse. Then started screaming for someone to call 911. He had a pulse, but was completely unresponsive and laying limp in the chair. I sent someone to get me his insulin bag as the fire department arrived literally in a matter of seconds from the call being made. They weren’t able to check his blood sugar and said EMS would when they got to him. I knew it didn’t need to wait, so I checked his sugar myself and just as I knew it would be it was very high. This is when I realized how thankful I am that I had come down when he found out he has diabetes six years ago and learned everything I could about it with him. This is why I knew the signs. This is how I was able to check his sugar and give him the proper amount of insulin before EMS was even able to make it to us through a parade. By the time they arrived he was sitting up and almost back to himself. The daiquiri he drank was not a good match for his diabetes. It scared us all and I know now he will be reevaluating his decisions. Typically if he gets a daiquiri he sips it, but on such a warm day he drank it faster than he usually would. He felt awful that his grandchildren saw him in this state. It broke his heart knowing how much it scared me. At the end of the day I’m just thankful I was there with him and knew what to do to help my dad. I’m also thankful that my best friend stayed by my side through the entire ordeal while our kids daddies tried to keep them distracted. And for how quickly the first responders got to us.

The girls enjoyed the end of the parade while their Paw-Paw continued to start feeling more like himself until we were able to put him in the car to leave. I don’t think he would have gone to the parade if we weren’t in town. But I do beleive everything happens for a reason and we were meant to be with him this weekend. 

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