Easter Fun

Paul came home from his men's group last week with these cute little lamb cupcakes made especially for the boys by Suanne.

Her creativity was so evident not only in the lambs but in the carrying tray she created out of a cereal box for Paul to tote them home.

The boys were very excited to see these in the morning when they woke up and asked if they even got to eat them.

The Fish Place

When we first moved to the area and I was getting to know my great-aunt Ruth, she took me for lunch once at this little fish market. We have always referred to it as "The Fish Place" with her. Until this summer I did not know that its real name is actually Point Loma Seafoods. 

I remember it as this little hole in the wall that had fresh seafood in the glass cases and we walked up to the counter to put in our order for the fish plate or the combo plate and then stood around waiting until our number was called. Once we got our food, I remember carrying it outside and finding a table overlooking the water. 

The combo plate--fish, shrimp and crab cake

In June we met up with Ruth with the intention of going to The Fish Place for dinner. However, we were unable to eat there because we got there after 6:00 p.m., and the place closes at 6:00. I felt bad because Ruth rarely got there and was really geared up to eat there (as was Caleb who kept asking for weeks when we were going to eat at The Fish Place with Ruth). We told her we would take a rain check and do it with her another time. Unfortunately, we never got back there with Ruth before she died.

But we finally made it there for a late lunch on Monday after our excursion to Cabrillo National Monument. It is a lot like I remembered it  and still is a bit of a hole-in-the-wall fish market place. But they now have a seating area for eating inside which was nice for our chilly afternoon. 

Most importantly, though, it was as delightful and tasty as I remembered it. 

Yummy!

Raindrops on Roses...

"...and whiskers on kittens...These are a few of my favorite things." I can hear Julie Andrews singing this, a little softly at the start and then belting it out with the curtains wrapped around her by the end of the song.

Since we do not always have exciting or interesting things to share here, I decided to give you a glimpse of some of our favorite things. (And I seem to always enjoy reading my friends' lists of their favorites which also prompted this topic for a few blog posts.) Today's favorites all revolve around food.  I feel like that is always a great place to start since we need food to survive.

We love to eat out. If we had our choice of places to eat, the following restaurants get our votes (nothing fancy, mind you):

Paul: Phil’s BBQ

Danae: Phil’s BBQ

Isaac: Five Guys

Caleb: Applebee’s

Since going out to eat is not an everyday occurrence for our budget, the following are the things that each of us would request for dinner at home:

Paul: Spicy chicken sandwiches, homemade fries, strawberry fluff salad

Danae: Beef and green peppers with steamed rice

Isaac: Hamburger with ketchup and pickles, strawberries, Doritos

Caleb: Fish and French fries, Jell-O

Dessert is something for which we have made room in our budget (and bellies):

Paul: caramel brownies

Danae: brownies (without nuts…ooh, Paul’s choice sounds yummy, too)

Isaac: ice cream (vanilla and chocolate flavored with caramel, whipped cream and a cherry and a strawberry on top with a cone in the bowl with it)

Caleb: Popsicles and ice cream

Our drinks of choice would be:

Paul: Coke

Danae: Milk

Isaac:  “Dr. Pibb”

Caleb: Cherry Coke

Chocolate Popcorn

This post is for Rebecca...the "recipe" (if you can call it one) for the chocolate popcorn that we enjoyed for our Super Slumber Party Movie Night:

1. Pop the desired amount of popcorn. (We use our air popper--a lovely wedding gift that continues to get great use--for this recipe so there is no extra grease or salt. I am guessing a very light microwaved popcorn would probably work.) We popped 1/3 cup of kernels for our fun night.

2. Melt the desired amount of semi-sweet chocolate chips (about 1/4 cup) with a little bit of peanut butter (just a dab for this amount of chocolate) for smoothness. (Butter can be used in place of the peanut butter if you are trying to avoid it due to allergies.)

3. Pour chocolate mixture over the popcorn, and mix until most of the popcorn is coated. Stick in fridge for a short while so the chocolate is not so messy on the fingers. (Or make this earlier in the day so it has time to cool.)

And that is it. Easy-peasy! 

For those of you who like a lot of chocolate, by all means add more and liberally coat that popcorn. You could substitute white chocolate in place of the semi-sweet or do some of both. The possibilities with this are nearly endless for the creative-minded. Have fun and enjoy!

The Next Day...

I was going to label this post "The Morning After" but thought that had connotations I preferred to not have in our list of post titles.

Both boys slept soundly through the night. And they slept later than normal. And they woke up happy and even played nicely with each other.  All sound reasons to call our first Super Slumber Party Movie Night a success!

Breakfast...ready to go into the oven

One of my favorite magazines has been Quick Cooking. (Terrible transition between paragraphs...I know that using a picture is not a true transition but assure you that this will tie in to the start of this post!) The magazine has been renamed Simple and Delicious and has changed over the years so I am not as much of a fan today as I was ten years ago. However, I found a cheap subscription for it this past year so I have enjoyed reading through it every other month and still find a recipe or more worth trying in each issue. While watching our movie last night, I found a recipe for caramel rolls buried near the end of the most recent issue and decided to try it for our late breakfast this morning since I had crescent rolls burning a hole in my fridge. (See, I told you this would tie back in to the thesis of this post...)

Cooling in the pan...smells nummy!

Voila! Cute mini rolls turned onto a platter and ready to eat

Mini Caramel Rolls (from the December 2011/January 2012 issue of Simple & Delicious)

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

1/3 cup butter, cubed

2 Tbsp. light corn syrup

1 1/2 tsp milk

1 tube (8 oz) refrigerated crescent rolls)

2 tsp. sugar

1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

1. Combine first four ingredients in saucepan and heat until butter is melted and sugar is dissolved, stirring constantly. Pour into greased 9-inch pie pan.

2. Separate crescent dough into four rectangles. Press perforations to seal. Combine cinnamon and sugar; sprinkle evenly over rectangles. Roll up jelly-roll style starting with the long side; pinch seams to seal.

3. Cut each rectangle into 9-10 slices; place in prepared pie pan.

4. Bake at 375° for 15-18 minutes or until tops are golden brown. Cool in pan for one minute before flipping rolls onto a serving platter.

We decided that these were delicious and a great way to use crescent rolls. I liked that they did not have a crescent roll flavor at all.  But I especially loved that they were quick to put together; I spent less than ten minutes from start to oven-ready. 

It is official; we are going to have to do Super Slumber Party Movie Night again.

Happenings

To kick off our whirlwind weekend last week, my cousin Jane came for an evening when she was in town for work. I love catching up with my cousins so it was a fun visit. To make it even more fun, Jill and the girls and Eric (another cousin) and his family also came for dinner. The kids all had a blast playing with each other, and we adults had a great time talking and laughing.

The second cousins

The first cousins

Before Jane flew out on Saturday, we all went to lunch at Five Guys. This was a follow-up to Paul’s declaring on Facebook that he thinks he likes Five Guys better than In-n-Out (I realize we may have just lost a reader or two in stating such an opinion). When Jane commented on never being there, Paul told her he would take her there the next time she was in the area. What joy that she came so soon so we could all enjoy lunch there! (Now, for all you bristling In-n-Out fanatics, Five Guys does make a great burger that is bigger and also has better fries—GASP! that I would dare write this—and has a very cool pop dispenser though the price is better at In-n-Out.)

Besides finishing out our weekend with a full Sunday, we had the joy of looking into our back yard and seeing a big chunk of the greenbelt behind our house since a portion of our fence finally fell over. Guess what we Paul gets to do this week?!? Isaac immediately ran to get his tools to help Paul tear apart the fence.  

Ready to help Dad with demolition

Vacation Stat Addition

We forgot a very important stat for our 2011 summer trip:

Pizza Ranch dinners enjoyed: 5

Oh, Pizza Ranch, we miss you!  Come to CA!!!  More summer vacation pix to come. Paul is working on another video.