Fun in the kitchen.

These last two days have been great. My husband had a day off Sunday. He is a chef, and works in the land of the salaried. (Translation, he works A LOT.) He also commutes into San Francisco, which is about an hour door to door from our house. Oh, how I miss living 2 miles away from work!! Anyway, when he has a day off it is like a gift. This time was no exception. We cleared some weeds that had been bugging the heck out of me in my front yard. It wasn't a project I could really work on with the girls around & no one else watching them. I like having a good looking front yard. It makes me feel like no matter what is going on inside, it looks good from the outside. Also, a kid can't undo a mowed yard (unlike a vacuumed house!)

I also got to do some creative stuff in the kitchen. When I was young, the big treat when I was sick was ginger ale. We would get to drink it when we had an upset stomach. When pregnant, I learned that ginger candy cured morning sickness. So, how thrilled was I to learn that you can MAKE ginger ale and candied ginger. They are a bi product of each other. I've enclosed the blog page that I got the recipe from ... she wrote it better than I could and has great pictures too.

http://sweetsavoryplanet.blogspot.com/2011/04/ginger-soda-and-ginger-candy-double.html

Anyway ... you should try it. It's one of those things that you can do (in multi-steps over a few days) that when you have a party with your nice bottle of ginger & bottle of soda water so people can make their own ginger ale ... well, you have just "bumped it up a notch." in the party world.

The other creative kitchen project was making my own graham crackers. Now I must admit, this sounds cool, and yes, they are so much more yummy that the store bought ones. They are however a pain to make. Well, the mixing is fun & a great thing to do with kids since it involves pulsing the food processor - they love that. It is the rolling out & cutting that is nuts. I've got to look at some other recipes, I think. My husband gave me some tips for next time & saved me this time by doing it for me so I didn't have a complete meltdown in the kitchen. Let's just say, the dough is VERY sticky. So, rolling & cutting then moving to a pan are not easy the way I was doing it. BUT it did make some YUMMY graham crackers, along with the marshmallows my husband made last week & some melted chocolate ... um, yeah. I've eaten a few.

Today was back to the everyday grind. But I am enjoying the fruits of my labor! Here's to a good s'more & a cold glass of ginger ale on a beautiful spring day! Cheers!