A Messy Tea Party

Amelia and Megan had a tea party yesterday while I was talking on the phone and making pumpkin bread, and without me noticing, they somehow went through four teapots full of tea. 

"Wow", you must be thinking, "they must have been exceptionally thirsty!" 

No, no, the tea ended up on the plates, and on the tray, and on the tablecloth, and on their clothes, and on the floor.  I started wondering why Amelia kept coming over to refill the teapot, and I glanced over just in time to see Megan take the teapot, and deliberately pour it right onto the tray.  Not even aiming for the cup. 

But she's so cute, drinking her tea with her spoon!

And here you can see her four middle teeth.  She now has 9 teeth, so exciting!

Amelia helped me clean up the water.  Boy, she's a big help.

But they had fun!  I told them that we could have another tea party tomorrow, and that I would attend to make sure that Megan didn't make such a big mess.

Broiled Parmesan Tilapia

Yes, this is still Marcie's blog.  And yes, Marcie still does not like fish. 

BUT, this tilapia was delicious.

AND, it only has three ingredients.

AND, it only takes 10 minutes.

Becky picked tilapia for our next food challenge, and so I decided I needed to give it a try again.  I got the idea from this recipe at Allrecipes.com, but I didn't follow it at all because I don't like mayonnaise.  Instead, I picked up a tub of Philadelphia Italian Cheese & Herb Cooking Creme, and used that as the sauce.  Plus, I have plenty of cooking creme left over to use for dinner tomorrow night.  Ben and I both liked this so much that we agreed we would eat it every week, if it didn't cost $9/lb.  Amelia did not want to try it, but then took a bite and said with a big smile on her face "This tastes just like chicken!" (no prompting!) and then ate three more bites.  Megan took one look at the tilapia on her plate, and pushed the plate onto the table saying she was done.  Oh well, all she ate yesterday anyway was french toast sticks, a banana and a string cheese.

Broiled Parmesan Tilapia

serves 2

2 large tilapia filets (about 0.8 lbs)
2 tbsp Philadelphia Italian Cheese & Herb Cooking Creme
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat broiler on high.  Line a pan with aluminum foil and spray with cooking spray.  Place tilapia on the pan.  Broil for 4 minutes.  Flip tilapia over.  Broil another 4 minutes.  (My broiler maybe runs a little low, because most people on allrecipes said they only needed to cook their tilapia 2 or 3 minutes on each side.)

Meanwhile, mix cooking creme and parmesan cheese.  Add a little lemon juice if it is too thick.  Spread on tilapia once tilapia is cooked through.  Place under broiler for 1 minute, until cheese sauce is bubbly.  Do not overcook sauce or it will burn (but if you do overcook it, you can scrape the burned layer off very neatly, not that I know from personal experience.)  Serve.

Hands on Play Challenge

Now that it's getting cold and we're stuck inside most of the time, I need to find new ideas for playing with what we have in the house.  That sounds silly, because obviously the girls know how to play very well themselves, but I'm the one who needs help.  I get a little bored playing "let's have a picnic" every day, and I also tend to get distracted by housework or cooking or a phonecall or a book or email or whatever.  So, one of the blogs I read has a challenge in November to spend 15 minutes a day actively playing with your kids, and they give you a different idea of a fun way to play each day.  I like that they focus on play-based learning and child-led activities, and that everything you need to play is something that we already have in our house.  Check it out at The Imagination Tree.

Oh, and I should add that I think it's also good for Ben, because I've noticed that he interacts best with the girls during playtime if he has a specific goal in mind.  If I say "Here's your challenge: let's see who can build the biggest block tower!" he and the girls all get into the spirit and end up having a lot of fun.

The first challenge was to build a fort.  Not a problem in our house!  That day I had brought home a parachute from Amelia's preschool so that I could reinforce the handles that were coming apart, and so we used the parachute to make a huge fort in our playroom.  Once we had the fort built, Amelia decided that she wanted to play with stickers, so she and Megan both put stickers on paper (thank goodness for Joanns which has 600 stickers for $1 because Amelia probably used 80 stickers on her page).  I helped Megan a lot because the stickers had a tendency to get stuck on her fingers, but I did pull out the camera to snap just a quick photo or two.  Here is Amelia telling me that she is too busy playing with stickers to get her picture taken:

The second challenge was to build block towers.  Amelia is a great tower builder but Megan just wanted to knock the towers over.  You would think that would make for a good team, but Amelia got upset when Megan would knock her towers over before she was done building them.

After we had made towers using all different kinds of blocks, I challenged Amelia to build a tower with the squishy plastic blocks using only her teeth!

 Then she challenged me to build a tower using books.  Challenge accepted!

Amelia's Artwork

Guess what Amelia has learned to do? 

She can write her name!  We've been practicing writing the letter A at home for a while now, but she surprised me yesterday by being able to write all the other letters by herself.  Her preschool teacher said they worked on writing names a little yesterday, but she was surprised Amelia could do it all by herself, too.

And as you can see, she is now adding stick bodies to her smiley faces.  The stick person on the right is Amelia and the person on the left is me.  Amelia told me that we are sitting with our legs spread out wide and we are shaking hands.  She also said the the dot on the top of her head is her forehead, the dot under it is her nose, the dot just under that is her philtrum (that's your word of the day - philtrum: the midline groove in the upper lip that runs from the top of the lip to the nose), and the dot under her mouth is her chin.

Almond Poppyseed Bread

I have always loved the almond poppyseed muffins from Costco, so when I saw this recipe from Our Best Bites, I immediately wanted to give it a try.  The texture of this bread is just perfect, more like a cupcake than a bread.  And while I love the light, sweet almond flavor, the orangey glaze gives it a little tang and makes it even more interesting.

Now, having said that, this is my least favorite of all the quick breads I've posted about.  And when I brought samples of all these breads to a mom's brunch, hardly anybody chose to eat this bread.  I think it's because this isn't a typical autumn bread, and also because it didn't present as well as the ones with the caramel frosting or the toasted coconut.  This just looks a little plain.  But it really is delicious!

Almond Poppyseed Bread

makes 2  9 x 5" loaf pans

Bread:
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/8 cups canola oil
3 eggs
1 1/2 c milk
2 tsp poppy seeds
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 tsp almond flavoring

Glaze:
1/3 cup white granulated sugar
1 tbsp orange juice
1/4 tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp almond flavoring

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray bottom of two 9 x 5" loaf pans with PAM baking spray.

Mix wet ingredients together.  Add dry ingredients and stir just until combined.  Pour into prepared loaf pans.

Bake at 350F for 1 hour (bake for only 40 minutes if using smaller pans).

When cooled, make glaze by stirring all ingredients together.  Pour over bread.

Banana Coconut Bread with Lime Glaze

I do not really like banana bread, probably because I do not really like bananas.  But, my girls love it and so I make it whenever I have a bunch of overripe bananas so that they can have something more interesting for breakfast than Cheerios.  Usually I make Jane's chocolate chip banana bread, but I saw this recipe from Our Best Bites and thought it sounded delicious.  I love coconut, and I love lime, and I really love glazes, so I was hoping that all those flavors would drown out the banana flavor.  I was right - they did!  Oh, to be fair, you could still taste the banana, but it blended so nicely with all the other tropical flavors that it wasn't objectionable in the least. 

I took this bread to a mom's group brunch, along with three other quick breads, and everybody raved about it.  I had to send the recipe to the hostess so she could distribute it to the other guests.  So, if you're looking to change up your standard banana bread, give this a try!

Banana Coconut Bread with Lime Glaze

makes 1 9x5" loaf pan (or 1 8x4" loaf pan and 1 soup can)

Bread:
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup real butter, softened
2 large eggs
2 large bananas
1/4 cup key lime flavored yogurt
3 tbsp apple cider (can use milk or apple juice)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup sweetened flaked coconut

Topping: 2 tbsp additional coconut
Glaze: 1/2 cup powdered sugar whisked with 1 1/2 tbsp key lime juice

Preheat oven to 350F.  Spray bottom of pan with PAM baking spray.

In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar.  Add bananas and mix on medium-high speed until smooth.  Add eggs, vanilla, yogurt, and cider; beat until blended.  Add dry ingredients and mix until just combined.  Stir in coconut.

Pour into pan.  Sprinkle additional shredded coconut over the top.  Bake at 350F for:
45 minutes (small loaf pan and soup can)
60 minutes (large loaf pan)
Check at 35 minutes to see if coconut is getting too brown; if so, cover with aluminum foil for remaining baking time.  Use a toothpick or skewer to test if bread is done; if skewer is removed cleanly, then bread is done.

Once done, let cool for 10 minutes, then remove from pan and place on cooling rack.  Meanwhile, stir together lime juice and powdered sugar to make a glaze.  Pour over bread once the bread is cool.

Caramel Apple Bread

This is the second apple bread recipe that I tried; I saw a photo of this bread on pinterest and was sold on the delicious looking glaze.  The recipe is originally from Pass the Sushi, but I did make a few changes (most noticeably, I decreased the nutmeg.)

I tasted this bread plain, and was not impressed.  You couldn't taste apples at all; I guess the shredded apples just provided moisture to the bread.  I surprised myself by preferring the apple chunks in the previous bread.  And the flavor was still overwhelmingly nutmeggy, so I'd pretty much determined that this was not a keeper recipe.  And then I tried the glaze.  OH. YUM.  It's this delicious caramelized brown sugary frosting, and it is delicious on apple bread. 

So, next time I make apple bread, I will make the bread from the previous recipe and the glaze from this recipe, and then I think it will be perfect.  (But I am posting the bread recipe here as a reminder to myself that this is not the best way to make apple bread.)

Caramel Glazed Apple Bread

makes 2 8x4" loaves

Bread:
1 1/2 cups shredded peeled baking apples (2 large)
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
3 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg 
1 teaspoon salt


Glaze:
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon milk
1/2 cup powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350F.  Spray the bottom of two 8 x 4" loaf pans with Pam baking spray. 

In a large mixing bowl, combine apples, brown sugar, buttermilk, oil and eggs.  Add all dry ingredients and stir just until mixed.  Pour into loaf pans.

Bake at 350F for 35 minutes.  Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn onto cooling rack.  While bread is cooling, make the glaze.

Melt butter in a small saucepan.  Add brown sugar and cook on high for two minutes, stirring constantly.  Add milk, stir to combine, and remove from heat.  Let cool for 10 minutes, then stir in powdered sugar.  If the caramel has become too solid, heat gently and add an additional tbsp of milk until a nice smooth glaze can be made.  Drizzle over bread immediately.

Can also be baked in soup cans - will make 4 or 5 soup can loaves.  Baking time will still be 35 minutes.