Fun Holiday Treats!

There are a blue million sources out there for how to make delicious, beautiful, perfectly-Martha holiday goodies. In my pre-kid life I would make several different types of cookies and other treats, all beautifully packaged, to give to co-workers, friends, and neighbors. Now, although I clip recipes to my heart's content, with 2 toddlers I somehow never get around to making the gingerbread house from scratch, or the 10 layer holiday trifle. Oh, how the mighty holiday treat standards have fallen!

Now, I have a new secret. Boxed quick bread mixes. Oh, scoff all you want, ye of the made-from-scratch-is-best camp. If it's a choice between pumpkin bread from a box or not at all, I know which one I'd choose.

I've had a lot of luck with the Pillsbury brand mixes--they always seem to turn out nice and moist, and are all delicious. I wait until they are $2 per box or less, and then I stock up. I use mini-bread pans and make a couple batches at a time, then just wrap in colored cellophane, tie with a pretty ribbon, and, voila! Holiday presents for everyone!

You can dress them up by adding chopped nuts, raisins, dried cranberries, chocolate chips, shredded coconut (all into the mix just prior to backing) or with a dusting of powdered sugar or drizzle of icing (after they've baked!).

As far as being kid-friendly, I've found that it's MUCH easier to make several mini-loaves at once than to try to make cookies--that's just too much time with the oven opening and closing, and too many large, hot cookie tins laying about, for tiny fingers. My son had a blast this weekend helping mix the batter, and although quick breads are fairly high in calories and sugar (130 calories and 15 g sugar for one serving of the pumpkin bread, for example), they are no worse than the sugar cookies and fudge everyone else is making!

You can keep a couple loaves on hand (even frozen) as an emergency you just stopped by with a gift for me and I have nothing for you gift, but since they are so fast to mix up, if someone pops by for a surprise visit it's easy enough to mix, pop in the oven, and by the time the coffee's perked and the tea is steeped the bread will be nearly done.

Happy Baking to you and yours!

Fewer Mothers Prefer Full-time Work

In a recent study of the changing attitudes of mothers, the Pew Research Organization determined that fewer mothers prefer full-time work now (2007) than did in 1997:

Among working mothers with minor children (ages 17 and under), just one-in-five (21%) say full-time work is the ideal situation for them, down from the 32% who said this back in 1997, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Fully six-in-ten (up from 48% in 1997) of today's working mothers say part-time work would be their ideal, and another one-in-five (19%) say she would prefer not working at all outside the home.

But, really, how is this surprising? My only surprise is that a third of mothers in 1997 thought that full-time work was their ideal situation. Frankly, I'm amazed that working full-time is ANYONE's ideal situation. Be honest: if money weren't a factor; if, say, you could get paid the same for working just 4 days a week, wouldn't you jump at the chance?

Personally, I think it's the main folly of American society that we expect that our workers spend 40 hours or more a week working. Why can't the standard be a 4 day work week? In my logical analysis, the money saved over the long term because we are (1) overall healthier and saner due to working less, (2) able to work longer because we aren't burned out and desperate to retire would more than make up for having to hire extra people to cover the one day's productivity lost. In fact, I'm not convinced that there would be all that much lost productivity: I think that a happier employee with a better quality of life is going to be more productive and focused in the time they are at work, knowing that they have every Friday off, or that they get to leave the office at 3:30 instead of 5.

Image courtesy of Gotham Gazette.

Bake Your Own Bread

My dad baked bread on a semi-regular basis throughout my childhood. The whole process--from the mixing to the kneading (punching!) to eating fresh, hot bread--remains some of my best memories from childhood. I would love to share those memories with my children.

Ingredients

• 4 cups warm tap water (not hot)
• 2/3 cup non-fat dry milk powder (instant powdered milk)
• 1/4 cup honey
• 2 packets or 4 teaspoons dry yeast
• 1 tablespoon salt
  
• 1/3 cup melted margarine or oil
  
• 12 cups (approximately) white or whole wheat flour or a combination

My dad always used a huge metal bowl for his bread-making. Whisk together the water, dry milk powder and honey in the bowl. Add the yeast, sort of sprinkled on top. Slowly stir the yeast in, allowing it to dissolve into the water mixture. Set aside for 10-15 minutes to allow the yeast to foam up.

Add the salt, margarine or oil, and flour. Mix with a wooden spoon until it gets too stiff and then start mixing with your hands. You want to get the flour throughly mixed in. When all the flour is mixed in, this is when the kneading begins. You can transfer the dough to a floured kitchen table or counter, but my dad always just left the dough in the big bowl for the kneading.

Kneading is really just working the dough to get it an even consistency and to make sure that there's enough flour so the dough isn't wet. If using a counter, sprinkle a cup or two of flour on a clean kneading surface, and turn out dough onto the flour. Traditionally, bakers used marble slabs for their baking, but modern granite countertops work just as well! If kneading in the bowl, just sprinkle flour on top of dough.

Lightly bring in edges of the dough with your fingertips, folding over on top. Every time you see a wet spot, add a little flour, and keep folding over the dough and turning it in on itself. Continue until there are no more major wet spots, adding small amounts of flour to prevent sticking either to the bowl/counter or to your hands. Do not add so much flour that the dough gets tough or hard.

Notice that the actual amount of flour added depends on the nature, grind, amount of glutin, etc. of your flour. Figuring out how much flour to add is the art of bread making: you kneed in flour until it is the correct consistency.

Coat the dough with oil on all sides, about 2 tablespoons of it, and put it back into the bowl. Cover it with a slightly damp towel and let it set in a warm place to rise for about an hour or so, or until it doubles in size. It may take longer to rise on cool days, or in the air conditioning.

Once the dough has doubled in size, punch it down the dough by literally pressing your fist into the center of it. My dad used to make smiley faces by poking little indentations for eyes, a nose, and the mouth, and then my sister and I would gleefully punch the face. (No, we didn't grow up to be twisted, sick adults!)

Once you've punched the dough down for another 5-10 minutes, divide it into 4 equal lumps. Coax them into loaf shapes and place them into large (9 by 5-inch) well oiled loaf pans. If you don't have enough loaf pans, use casserole pans or cake pans, or whatever. Cover the dough with a cloth or more plastic wrap and let it rise again. It should take less time for the second rising. When the dough is risen up enough, bake the loaves at 350° for 40 minutes.

You can tell the dough is done if you turn it out of the pan and thump the bottom with your finger. It should make a dull hollow sound. If it doesn't sound hollow, put it back into the pan and cook it some more.

Now, some bread "experts" will tell you that bread has its best flavor when it is NOT freshly out of the oven. Perhaps this is true for some fancy breads, or baguettes. But one of my favorite tastes from childhood is eating the heel of a still-hot loaf of bread, slathered with butter and sprinkled with a bit of cinnamon and sugar. Enjoy!

How to Dispose of Old Medicine

Whether you have wee ones with wandering fingers or not, one of the best things you can do is clean out your medicine cabinet, or wherever it is you store your medicine--prescription and over-the-counter. For us, it's a shelf on one of our kitchen cabinets, which I figure is pretty child-safe, in close proximity to the water and glasses needed to take most medicines, and somewhere in plain sight so we actually remember to take said meds! My husband and I are pretty med-free...or so I thought. But a quick rifle through the various bottles clogging up turned up a lot of old stuff (pain medication prescribed after my son's birth via caesarean two years ago!) that just needs to go. Flush those puppies right on down the toilet, right?

WRONG. So, so wrong. All that lovely medicinal sludge leaves our homes and makes its way into our water system.

[C]ommon sense and some worrisome signs — such as the appearance of fish with both male and female characteristics in the Potomac River near Washington, D.C. — call for keeping our waters as drug-free as possible. USA Today, April 22, 2007.

Instead, it is recommended that we: "Crush pills or dissolve them in water; dilute liquid medications, too. Then mix the drugs with kitty litter, coffee grounds or other unappealing materials. Place the mess in a sealed plastic bag and discard." On the one hand, that's a lot of steps to have to go through...on the other, it's easier than trying to find a pharmacy or doctor's office that will accept old prescriptions and dispose of them properly!

Arlington County Hazardous Materials Guidelines

DC Hazardous Materials FAQs

Northeast Maryland Hazardous Materials Guidelines (Anne Arundel County, Baltimore County, Carroll County, Frederick County, Harford County, Howard County, Montgomery County and Baltimore City.)

Image thanks to these folks.

Eat Your Greens! Some Recipes...

Along with the general advice to just throw whatever veggies you have in the fridge into on on top of whatever it is that you are cooking, here are a few easy recipes that work well with most any vegs you have on hand.

"HOMEMADE" PASTA SAUCE

You may think that making pasta sauce takes too long and is too much "cooking" for you. I beg to differ! The best thing about making your own sauce is that you really can't go wrong, no matter what you end up throwing in there.

• First, the meat. Optional. Cook a pound or two of ground beef or turkey in a large skillet until brown on the outside. Or, chop up some chicken breast into small squares and cook until done (when you press on the chicken with the back of a spoon, the juices should run clear, not pink or cloudy).
  
• Second, dice a whole bunch of veggies, whatever you have, and throw them in a pan with some olive oil to saute them just a bit. Or, toss in some frozen veggies (frozen spinach works great) or canned veggies. I usually do at least one onion
  
• Last, the sauce part--you can use plain tomato sauce or one of the jarred sauces (just watch to avoid the ones high in sodium). Heat and serve, that's all there is to it! If you want to get fancy, you can add fresh basil and parsley right before serving.

STIR FRY

Basically the same principal as above, only don't add tomato sauce. Instead, add some spice! I usually just throw some ground red pepper and salt on mine, or soy sauce, but there is a plethora of Asian-inspired sauces out there to experiment with and find what your family likes.

I also hear rave reviews for Trader Joe's frozen stir fry veggies, although I haven't tried them yet. I'm usually shorter on money than time, so I go for the cheaper but more labor-intensive option of just buying veggies separate. If you're more concerned about getting in and out of the kitchen quickly, or with having something on hand that just needs to be heated up, then these ready-to-eat bags are probably great.

QUESADILLAS

What could be easier than a tortilla, some cheese, and some veggies/meat? Grill up some chicken breasts, (or, to save more time, get a rotisserie chicken from the market). Layer a flour tortilla, cheddar cheese, chicken, peppers/onions (optional), another tortilla - and heat in a frying pan or George Forman grill like a grilled cheese sandwich. Easy, fast, neat enough to take in the car...it's the perfect food!

(Leave off the tortilla, add eggs, and you have a Veggie Frittata!)

PIZZA

Another very easy at-home fix that sneaks veggies into a kid-appealing package. Rumor has it that Trader Joe's sells the dough (plain or wheat) for $0.99, although I can't vouch for it personally. I can highly recommend Wegman's pizza dough, especially the whole wheat variety. It's in their prepared foods section (by the bakery) and it's only $2.50 (approx.) for a package, which for us makes 2 pizzas that serve 4 each. Toppings, like all the other recipes on this page, can be anything. Chicken and onion is a favorite in my family, but thinly sliced tomato, bell peppers, leftover slices of eggplant parmesan, olives, canned artichoke hearts, broccoli crowns, thinly sliced zucchini and other squash all work well.

Bon Appetit!

I am a LOHAS!

Who are we?

Did you know that we are an ever-growing, aggressively courted market? Nope, I didn't either. Falling as we do in between the aging force-to-be-reckoned-with known as the Baby Boomers and the yet-to-be-reckoned with "Millenials" (born 1982-2000), I always figured us Generation X/Yers (born 1963-1978/1981, depending on definition) were destined to be lost in the middle. Perhaps not!

According to the magazine Fast Company, the LOHAS market segment (for "lifestyles of health and sustainability"), is

"a $227 billion domestic market for goods and services focused on sustainable living, social justice, and alternative health care. These are the consumers, in other words, who are eating organics, driving hybrids, and buying fair-trade morning lattes. And there are 63 million of them out there, making up 30% of the American market. They are not necessarily wealthier than other Americans, but they have proven themselves willing to spend up to an astounding 20% premium on clean, green products over the non-sustainable alternatives." Source

A 20% premium for clean, green products? That figure astounded me, until I did a little looking at my own purchases lately.

Gallon of Whole Milk...................$2.65 at Costco (DC Metro)
Gallon of Whole, Organic Milk........$3.45 at Wegmans (Fairfax, VA)
.....................................................30% difference

3 Plastic Gerber Baby Bottles...........$3.75 (Amazon.com)
3 Glass Evenflo Baby Bottles............$8.00 (ingeling.com)
...................................................113% difference


Granted, there are many other ways in which we do save money. But, clearly, even though we're just as tight with finances as any other young family with two kids under 2, we do choose to spend a little more when and where we think it matters.

Why does this matter?

Just think of the possibilities...in a world where women age 25-44 are being so aggressively courted by both traditional venues (child- and household-care) and, increasingly, non-traditional (automobile makers come to mind), we hold the buying power!

What do you think? Are you a LOHAS? (LOHASer?) Is it all just marketing hype? Or do we Gen Y/X women really hold not only the buying power, but the power to change the world?

Homemaking at its Best

Healthy Living = Happy Families is just a small brain-child right now--I guess it's the younger sibling of my two year old son and six month old daughter! But it is because of my two beautiful babies that I've gotten more interested in living healthily and purposefully, and I'm thrilled to share whatever small nuggets of knowledge I've gleaned with anyone out there who might be reading.

I plan to share ideas for homemaking in the best sense of the word: making a home. This won't be about staying-at-home, working-out-of-the-house, or any other fancy acronyms. We all need more time to do the things we really want to do in life, and we all need to make our footprint on the planet to be as small as possible, and I'll throw a wild guess out there and say that we all need to live healthier, too! So, this is for you, all of you, and any of you, whether you're a family of one or 10. Or more!

Who am I? Well, there's two good answers to that:

Prebaby? I was someone who enjoyed reading, cooking, baking, travel, learning other languages, and occasionally watching Sex in the City re-runs.

(Although I must confess, I always wondered, Who ARE these women? And: How do they have time to brunch and lunch and shoe-shop with such vigor? But I suppose some of the sweetness of watching any TV show is in its disimilarity to one's own life. My husband, for his part, loves to watch Everybody Loves Raymond and then say to me "Our marriage isn't like that!" Like, Oh thank goodness you don't mock me in front of your parents! Or, I'm so happy that you don't actually call me stupid to my face!)

Now? My vaunted daily to-do list includes reading Brown Bear, watching Sesame Street, cooking toddler-friendly meals with colored vegetables, deciphering baby-talk and toddlerease, sneaking in a nap on the couch while my son is watching the afore-mentioned Sesame Street (or, as it is called in my household, "COOKIE!"), and, if you were a fly on the wall, you'd think my favorite activity was cleaning the kitchen. Somehow I never move beyond the kitchen. I clean the kitchen at least every other day, sometimes I make it to the living room, rarer still to my son's room...the bathroom? Let me just say, and I'm not proud of it, but we just bought our second shower curtain liner this year due to the lovely colors that were beginning to grow on the old one. And, since we don't actually have a shower curtain, but only a clear liner, it must at the very least be actually clear.

Perhaps that isn't the best story to tell you as I try to convince you that I actually know something about homemaking! But I do, I promise, and I'll be posting recipes, cleaning tips, budget-living ideas, healthy planet thoughts...and, any suggestions YOU have for me to include! So, let me know what you think and what your best ideas are, and I'll be thrilled over the moon to hear from you.