Where to start... how about PARENTING

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about parenting. What makes a good parent? What in my case makes a good mother. I love snuggling with my daughter but man do I hate watching Octonauts for 15th time. I find that at these times I am searching the web, reading blog pages or checking my Facebook status. We are still snuggling but we are both in our own worlds doing our own things. Does this make me a bad mother, while my daughter enjoys her half hour of cartoon time I am off enjoying my digital time?

I look at some of my friends and family on Facebook and see contrasts in their parenting styles one distant (and I emphasize distant) family member recently posted a picture of her 3 year old daughter holding a AR-15 riffle. I don't even know where to being in thinking about that, how right can we be if we are introducing our children to guns and weapons at such a young age. Is that demonstrating that you are good parent? Can you be a good parent and still have your child in an environment that has these weapons? As teacher I am constantly thinking about where do my students come from and how are their parents acting as parents. Until this picture I never really thought that this could be my students, but it could. I guess it could very easily be my children, we do have guns in our house (not those kind of guns but we do have guns) but we also have set up boundaries around weapons like this.

 On the other hand I have Facebook friends (and I refer to them as such because since high school or some party a millions of years ago, have I actually hung out with them and their families, are they really my friends? Some are, but most would probably not even recognize me if we met on the street or at the supermarket - however I digress.) I have Facebook friends who post images of the amazing cakes they have created or the valentines breakfast and gifts they cooked up for their children. I think its amazing that these women have the time to create amazing birthday photo areas for the upcoming birthday parties and the red carpet extravaganzas that they entertain their children with, but are their children any better off than mine? I really don't want to be that mother but should I be? Are their children receiving something my children aren't and are mine going to suffer because of that? Or is just being with my children, enjoying the time we have, jumping on the couch, running in the kitchen, learning somersaults and cartwheels, reading books and making messes are these all that my children need. What is it that makes a good parent?

I know can easily search the web, the ERIC journals and sources to answer my questions with articles written by doctors and psychologists but really I just want to ponder the thought for a little bit, that data will always be there for when I really need to search the information. Maybe just maybe we, as parents need think about what are we exposing our children to and how is this affecting them and does that matter to us. Because the doctors and the psychologists can say what they want but if we don't agree or value it does it really even matter.

Homemade Bread

So this week my daughter and I returned to cooking the bread and muffins that we love so much, even though we have pretty much mastered these. They are still a favorite and I will continue to recommend to everyone that I meet.  I'll share my muffins in a future post.

I have found that I like baking bread from scratch, not only is making bread from scratch healthier for you, it is rather cheap. I found that I make 2 loves for approximately $2. This particular bread is best fresh but will keep rather well for a few days. It makes great toast and grilled sandwiches and I am sure that after a few days it would make great croutons for stuffing or even on salads. I like the easy recipe #7 off the back of the Red Star Quick Rise Yeast packet, this particular bread does not require any kneading and takes about 2hrs from start to finish.

I have found that I like baking bread from scratch, not only is making bread from scratch healthier for you, it is rather cheap. I found that I make 2 loves for approximately $2. This particular bread is best fresh but will keep rather well for a few days. It makes great toast and grilled sandwiches and I am sure that after a few days it would make great croutons for stuffing or even on salads. I like the easy recipe #7 off the back of the Red Star Quick Rise Yeast packet, this particular bread does not require any kneading and takes about 2hrs from start to finish.

 

Recipe # 7: America’s Favorite Batter Bread – Traditional Method

Makes: 2 Loaves                                                               Preheat oven to 375°

 

6 ½ Cups all-purpose flour

2 pkg. RED STAR QUICK RISE yeast

3 Tbsp. sugar

1 Tbsp. salt

3 cups warm water

2 Tbsp. vegetable oil

 

In a large bowl combine 3 ½ cups flour, yeast, sugar and salt; mix well. Add warm water and oil to flour mixture. Blend at low speed. By hand slowly stir in remaining flour to make a stiff batter. Cover; let rise until almost double, about 20-30 minutes.

Stir down batter with a spoon. Divide dough evenly between 2 well greased pans, 8”x5” Cover and let rise until batter reaches the top of the pans, 20-30 minutes. Bake in preheated 375° oven for 35-40 minutes until golden brown. Remove from pan; cool on rack.

 

What led me here...

I have been thinking about writing a blog for some time now.  I finally decided to take the plunge and create one after two things happened. The first thing occurred after we visited a friend who is not a great cook. I’m pretty sure that she would say she’s horrible cook. After leaving her house, I started thinking that it would be nice for people like her and I, who can’t cook, to have a cooking show that taught them how to cook simple meals. Like a House Crashers for the cook, not the kitchen.  I wanted it to be things that you can make when you have a two year old hanging off your leg and a baby screaming in his crib, but I didn’t want that to be frozen boxed Lasagna, Mac’N’Cheese or Spaghetti O’s every night for dinner. That’s the kind of cook that I was becoming and that our friend definitely was. The second thing that influenced this decision to write a blog was the book “365: A Daily Creativity Journal: Make Something Every Day and Change Your Life!” by Noah Scalin and the TED talk by Matt Cutts called Try something new for 30 days. Both of these resources really influenced my thinking. I had so many ideas and for next 3 weeks before school starts I probably would be able to do pretty much anything. I came to realization that once the fall sets in, with after school programs, grading, lesson plans, and meetings, I really would not have the time to create something and blog about it every day. So I settled for a starter program of making something once a week.

 I’m not sure if I choose to write about cooking because my sister just started a gourmet cooking blog or because I am seriously interested in it. I think I really started writing about cooking because my 2 year old daughter loves to cook and I love to cook with her.  This summer we have made many recipes and learned how to cook things I never thought I would. It started with her interest in making pancakes, and bloomed into making banana bread, muffins, and brownies. However, she would not settle for the simple box solutions and the more I began to read about those things I decided I didn’t want to settle for that either. When we first set out to make blueberry muffins from scratch I was worried that they would fall flat and be a disaster. I am known for messing up box brownies and truly was only ever known for making a mean bowl of cereal. My daughter and I were pleasantly surprised when the muffins turned out amazing, they were better than any box recipe we had ever made. We then set out to create other things our next endeavor was to make bread from scratch and that worked too.