Eva, very angrily yelling: MOMMY, what does "spill the beans" mean? Does it mean tell the truth? Raffi says it means burp!!!!

Contemplating baking something desserty to eat without help, since she's stuck home alone and cranky.

I don't believe there is a comfortable inch of me. I am tired anxious and homesick. And I can't play .ommychats here!

Post from mobile portal m.livejournal.com

Wow. I brought some baked brie to my inlaws' house for a party. The family will always eat cheese, but this particular concoction got rave reviews from EVERY single adult at the party. It was rather gratifying, though I had a twinge of guilt over how ridiculously easy the recipe was to make.

The original recipe, posted on Crockpot 365, calls for a 13 ounce piece of brie in a small ceramic dish to be placed at the bottom of a crock pot. For my inlaws', this would not have been enough, so I crammed four good sized wedges of brie into the bottom of my 7 quart crock pot. I eyeballed the measurements for the topping, keeping the original quantity despite the increase in cheese. I swapped dried cranberries for the apricots and skipped the sugar altogether. The last change was that the cooking time was substantially shorter than the recipe called for, probably because the cheese was directly on the bottom of the crock pot instead of in a dish in the crock pot.



Not a bad pic from a cell phone! Anyway, I served that with three loaves of bread cut into small slices, each with a section of crust. One was flavored with rosemary and olive oil, one was plain and the third had whole cloves of roasted garlic studded throughout the bread.

Soup with a popcorn garnish & fresh bread to eat as people arrive
----
Salad
Leg of lamb
(second meat)
(vegetarian entree)
Butternut squash lasagne with browned butter, walnuts and cranberries
(Yellow or orange veggie)
(Green vegetable, maybe something like broccoli raab?)
(Potato dish)

molly:cb8
felicity:

Three dollars for Eva

Some money was spent, bringing Eva to 5
Eva earned 5 helping me at target
Eva babysat for Gary, earning 3

TOTAL 13

I owe Eva 30

I am lying in bed, having successfully gotten Laura BACK to sleep and am waiting for David to fall back to sleep, knowing that if I lose my temper at him (which is not impossible, given his button pushing) I will wake her. Raffi NEEDS to get out more, he's bouncing off the walls and making us all nuts!

This week I'm playing with Chia seeds. They're an efa filled high fiber hydrophilic seed with no flavor that you can use in cooking, smoothies, raw food... anything with liquid. First, I took three T and mixed it in 2C of water to create a tapioca pudding-like gelatine that keeps for a couple of weeks in the fridge. Then I made a big pot of ramen soup with meat and veggies added, stirring half a cup of the gel into the water when I started. It completely vanished! Gary made some veggies with a jarred "Indian simmer sauce" (Jalfrezie style) and stirred in a half cup of the gel, it vanished ito that as well. I tried mixing some dry seeds in a little bit and drinking it followed by a glass of water, totally innocuous and filling. I mixed some of the gel into yoghurt where it vanished as well. Today I mixed the gel with a very dry, crunchy almond butter. I could feel the gel texture but think that would have gone away with some jelly in the sandwich to mask it -- twice as much almond butter for the same calories, plus a nice fiber boost to boot!

My next few attempts will be making iced coffee with the seeds blended into the dairy to thicken and make it more creamy, plus I'd like to try making a whipped dessert with them in it as well. I imagine they'd work to stabilize chocolate mousse the same way gelatine does, except they're vegetarian! It's supposed to be good for gluten free baking as well. And I want to try a fruit pie with them instead of tapioca as the binder in the filling.

I owe Eva $23