Onion Dip



This is yummy dip is ALDIvore (all the ingredients can be found at aldi). It is also easy to put together. If you're having people over, you can pop this in the oven and then have 30-40 minutes to hustle around and change the towels in the bathroom, pick up the living room, sweep off the porch and make all the children put on some pants. Don't you just love recipes that allow you time to get the children clothed? Yes? Crickets chirping?

This dip is not low in fat. So, if you want a low fat dip then please look elsewhere. Definitely don't make this -- because it is very, very good. Addictive, nearly. Oh, wait, I believe that I have a solution. Maybe plan to have some of this and a glass of wine and then you really don't need dinner. That'll make everything equal out, right?

Oh, and I'm going to try putting a little dab of it in my omelette tomorrow morning. I don't see how it couldn't taste fantastic. And, so, I'm going to post the recipe now and quit thinking about it so that I don't go raid the fridge for some right now.




Baked Onion Dip

1 8 oz. block cream cheese; softened to the point of being very spreadable
1 cup freshly shredded parmesan cheese
1 cup onion, small dice
1 cup mayo
1 T. or to taste freshly grated black pepper
tabasco (optional)

Mix the ingredients thoroughly in a bowl. Put in an oven-safe container. Bake at 350 degrees until bubbly and very golden brown (or darker) on top. Serve with yummy bread.

What Kind of Mountain?

On the way to school, out of the blue, my youngest son had a question for me.

E: So, Mom, why do you think that they made Mt. Rushmore?

Me: Well, E, you know, Mommy doesn't remember the why, exactly. Maybe we can look it up when you come home from kindergarten.

E: Yep. Well, (pause) I think that they just wanted a fancy mountain.

A fancy mountain. You know, I'm sure that was always part of the motivation.



This buster. He's a thinker.

For the Birds

So, I've got a few things to show y'all, and they are all avian in nature.

First off, there's this fabric.



Here is another view.


It is Echino Birds of Summer 2009 by Etsuko Furuya and I think it is lovely.

I love and adore it and want to hug it and squeeze it and name it George. (My silly quote here is from The Abominable Snow Rabbit. You know, maybe I'll just channel Bugs Bunny all day. It couldn't hurt.)

Then, I wanted to let you know that the Ka Ka Ka-Coo-Coo bird has been spotted in the wild. He looks something like this.



Finally, I wanted to show y'all something funny. See these



napkins? They are vintage -- from my childhood. My mother got rid of them a few years ago and sweetly passed them along to me. I just love them. Well, my sister emailed me the other day about



these pillows that Pottery Barn is now featuring.

Kind of funny resemblance, right?

What have we learned?
1. Annie is crazy about birds. Always was and always will be. (She might be just plain crazy, too, but the jury is out on that one.)
2. Echino is way cool. I'd take one of everything.
3. Ka Ka Ka-Coo-Coo birds bear a strong resemblance to Kevin in UP.
4. Everything old is new again.

Over and out. Y'all have a great Monday!

We Knew Her When

Well, it has come to my attention that April of Coal Creek Farm blog (previously April Showers) has been nominated for a bloggie award. She's up for the best-kept secret blog category.

I hope that she wins.

Go April!

Worth Repeating



This is a great recipe. It is zesty/spicy. It is warming. It is easy, big time. It is inexpensive. And, why, yes, I've had it on my blog before, but I just wanted to mention it again. So, if you missed it last time, here it is. I originally got it from my friend, Jessie. So, Jessie, thanks again!

Spicy Tomato Soup

1 stick + 3T. butter
1/2 cup flour
1 medium onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, diced
3 cups/ 24 ounces canned chicken broth (I use this.)
1 29 ounce can diced tomatoes with juice
1 29 ounce can tomato sauce
2 dashes hot sauce
1/4 cup honey
1/2 T. dried dill weed
1/2 t. ground pepper
1 t. chili powder
1 t. dried basil

Saute in 3T butter the onion and garlic. Add remaining stick of butter and melt. Add flour and wisk until a paste is formed. Add broth 1 cup at a time and allow to thicken between each cup. Add tomatoes and sauce, pausing to let thicken with each addition. Season with remaining ingredients. Simmer over low heat for 45 minutes, stirring frequently. Optional additional step is pureeing the soup either with an immersion blender or in your regular blender. If you use a regular blender please, PLEASE be very careful and blend it in batches -- never fill up the blender more than half way. Also, use a potholder and a kitchen towel to hold the top down. Pureeing makes this velvety smooth and results in a beautiful red-orange color. But none of that is worth it if you're in the ER with burns from trying to blend it up. So, you know, be careful. :)

Happy Saturday!

You Know You're In Trouble
when you have to pull out your Lamaze breathing just to make it through a homework help session with your fourth grader.

The boy in question postulated that I did not know the correct method for division because I had learned mine in the last century.

I don't quite think that he believes me when I tell him that dude, long division is ever the same. EVER THE SAME.

When somebody fell through the hard-headed tree he hit every single branch, I tell you.

Okay, I'm done ranting now. And, I saw the sun (and some blue sky!) today. I sure do hope that the sun will hang around for awhile. My sunshine tank needs some filling.

Sometimes you just want to r-u-n-n-o-f-t. True?

I Love Math
but, unfortunately, some of my sons don't like it, so much. So we do some practicing around here and, of course, I'm homeschooling my oldest son, and so I've been on the hunt for a good online site for math practice.

I found one. It's called IXL. This site deals with math from kindergarten through sixth grade and divides the interactive work into math topics. It also allows you to see what a sample problem is like by just rolling over the link. I just love it when sites make their content so accessible. It also keeps a track of not only how many problems your student gets right but also tracks how long they have been working.

Check it out!

Shoot, Y'all, It's Burns Night Tonight
and I had really meant to celebrate it this year. But the day has gone and slipped up on me.

I'm totally unprepared -- there's not a drop of whiskey in the house.

A trip to the store is warranted, I guess.

Happy Robert Burns Day, everyone.

A Dose of Blue Sky
is what I need today. What with the fog and the gray and the drizzle and the cold. It almost feels like there are demetors on the loose here -- and then I remember that, no, it's not dementors, just January and my cranky 13 year old.

Those things do resemble each other, though, sometimes.

Over Christmas, because of the generosity of some kind folks from our (previous, sniff) church, we were able to stay at a gorgeous house on the beach for a week.

And what a beach. I've been going to the Gulf Coast for my entire life and this was the most beautiful beach I've seen yet. Bar none.

First, this is the boardwalk down to the beach. It is so picturesque.




Oh, the flapping Barlow hair -- with Neffy-poo alongside.



Jon and me.



The sky was so beautiful that day. The beach is always different, you know, what with the constant changing of the sky and sand.



One of the following days, we went down there with some cousins who had come to visit. The weather that day was glorious but cold.



Cold, what cold? This boy takes the world at a run. He is passionate.



As is this boy. Know what he's saying here? Answer: "Why am I so cold?" I attempted to answer him as I wound my scarf tighter around my neck. I don't think he understood because soon after.....



he went back in. He's the one shoulder deep. He wasn't the only one, of course. However, the craziness was confined to our stretch of beach and (of course!) to boys between the ages of 5 and 13 who have our surname. You really know that your people are crazy when a look for a mile in either direction confirms that of all of the people on the beach only your people are in the water.




Beautiful beach, I miss you. Blue sky, I need you. Please come to St. Louis as soon as possible. Until then I'm going to look at this and think of you.

A Good Salad
recipe can be found here.

Don't you just love a good salad?

I made this Caesar salad just a few nights ago. Jon and I both really, really liked it. It is just about the easiest salad dressing recipe, ever, and you use the same garlic to both infuse the oil for the croutons and as an ingredient for the dressing itself. I just love recipes where you use everything. This would also really appeal to folks who don't like anchovies or eggs in their Caesar salad dressing. However, if you don't really like garlic then you should probably steer clear. The recipe says to use romaine but we did not. I'm sure that it would be even better with a crunchy lettuce, but we used it with our field greens and really liked the result. So, if you need a great recipe for an easy Caesar salad dressing and an awesome crouton then please do click on over.

And, because it has been rainy, foggy, cold, misty and gray here lately -- I'm going to post beach pictures tomorrow. So, we'll get a dose of blue sky one way or another.

Happy Thursday, everybody.

Raccoon Lore From My Youngest

youngest son: Hey Mom, guess what?
Me: What?
youngest son: Raccoons don't have saliva!
Me: Huh? Are you sure about that?
youngest son: Yes.
Me: Hmmm. Really?
youngest son: Yes, dey don't have saliva..so do you know what dey do?
Me: I have no idea.
youngest son: Well, dey put water on deir food.
Me: And why do they do that?
youngest son: Well, dey put the water on deir food to make it wetter so dat it'll sliver down deir froats.

And there you have it. Of course, he's wrong. This is just a myth about raccoons who do, in fact, have salivary glands. I just wanted to blog the conversation so that I'd remember it. I need to get video of him telling me this with the hand motions -- it's hilarious.

"So dat it'll sliver down deir froats.." What a hoot.

Chicken in Milk
This represents my first effort toward completing my Culinary Goals list that I posted here on Annieblog in December.

I started with #1 -- which is a pretty good place to start. Don't you agree?

Anyway, Goal #1 for me was to learn to cook a whole chicken or turkey. I can see now, after this try, that I'm going to do a lot with this goal this year. I liked this recipe but now I want to try more. And so I shall. But first....what on earth is Chicken in Milk about?

Well, I first saw this recipe on the Kitchn(it was originally a Jamie Oliver recipe) and then remembered it recently. Since it called for common ingredients and didn't require specialized equipment that I do not have (a roasting pan, a roasting rack, etc.) I decided to give it a go.

We devoured it. It was not blow-your-socks-off awesome but it was exactly what it was supposed to be: yummy, moist and easy. The recipe also makes a good deal of sauce -- something good to drizzle over the chicken. We had only about 3/4 cup of chicken leftover and so that alone should tell you that this is good chicken.



Chicken in Milk with Lemon, Cinnamon, Garlic, Sage
• 1 – 3-4 lb chicken

• salt and freshly ground black pepper

• 1/2 stick of butter

• olive oil

• 1/2 cinnamon stick (I omitted this)

• 1 good handful of fresh sage, leaves picked
(I used 1/2 T. dried)
• zest of 2 lemons

• 10 cloves of garlic, skin left on 

• 1 pint milk

Preheat the oven to 375°F and find a snug-fitting pot for the chicken. Season it generously all over, and fry it in the butter and a little olive oil, turning the chicken to get an even color all over, until golden. Remove from the heat, put the chicken on a plate, and throw away the oil and butter left in the pot. Put your chicken back in the pot with the rest of the ingredients, and cook in the preheated oven for 1½ hours. Cook it for the first hour covered. Uncover it for the final 30 minutes. Baste with the cooking juice when you remember. (I didn't do this.) The lemon zest will sort of split the milk, making a sauce which is absolutely fantastic.
To serve, pull the meat off the bones and divide it on to your plates. Spoon over plenty of juice and the little curds. Dip your bread in the juice, spread with the garlic.