Jacoblog: January 2011

New Years Resolutions

I didn't make any New Years Resolutions this year, thought Josh and I have resolved to give up cable TV for 6 months after the Superbowl. This is a big deal. For some reason I have had a hard time keeping up with the blog since the Halloween blowout of 2010. But, here, I resolve to do better!

Tonight I want to write a few of the things that the kids have been doing lately.

1) Casey still substitutes "f" for "th." She says, "Mom, I'm really firsty." It is so cute! I absolutely do not correct her!

2) Jacob is a blast to watch football with. He doesn't always get the playoff system, but he can follow the game really well. He yells, shouts, jumps and claps. It's the one environment in which his loud voice and enthusiasm are very welcome!

3) This weekend Casey called a poached egg a "boached" egg.

4) I still haven't taken down the Christmas stockings, and this morning I came upon Jacob and Casey playing "Santa." Jacob pretended to be Santa while Casey pretended to sleep. Jacob put her lovey in the stocking.

5) Casey wears her pajamas to school almost every day. When it's the cute poodle jammies she got for Christmas I don't mind that much.

6) Jacob says "You've got to be kidding me" almost every other sentence.

7) Jacob loves the Shepard Pie I made with the beef we got at the Turkey Farm we visited in October. Casey has been calling the Shepard's Pie the "cake."

8) Going to pick Jacob up from aftercare tonight it was dark and wet. Fortunately, Casey was wearing her new princess shoes that light up!

The Most Convoluted Rice Krispy Treats Ever!

Casey and Jacob and I walked home in a giant snow storm tonight. The snow has been falling in Pittsburgh at the rate of about 1/2" per hour! For some reason this made me want to make Rice Krispy treats. There was just one problem: we didn't have any marshmallows! But we did have sugar, corn syrup and gelatin....which was all we needed to make marshmallows! So we used this recipe here, and I burned the first batch of sugar and corn syrup. So then we tried again! This time it worked. We whipped up a beautiful batch of marshmallow fluff, and I went to get the Rice Krispies and realized we didn't have enough Rice Krispies! So now I was making Rice Krispy treats without marshmallow AND without Rice Krispies?

Jacob and I looked through the cupboards and found some rice crackers. We blended these up in the blended and they had exactly the right look and feel!

So then I combined the newly minted marshmallow fluff with our Rice Krispy/rice cracker mixture....and I realized it wasn't going to work! The marshmallow fluff needed to be re-melted! So I tossed the mixture in my biggest stock pan and melted the mixture with some butter. I left the kitchen for a minute and the mixture started to smoke! It smelled like burned marshmallows on an outdoor fire! I realized there was too much marshmallow mixture to Rice Krispy/rice cake mixture, so I crushed another 8 rice crackers and tossed it in the pan.

Whew. I mixed the mixture a bit longer and added butter, too. Finally it started looking like proper Rice Krispy treats! I poured it into the pan and voilé!

They look and taste pretty much exactly like they are supposed to. That said, I cannot recommend this method of making Rice Krispy treats to anyone!