Kids + Curry = YUMMY?

Those who've been reading my blog know that we've welcomed our newest addition to our family this month!

Ladies, gents, and children, please welcome back, Our New Grill.

As crazy as it sounds, I am SO tired of grilled food. We've grilled steaks, dogs, burgers, tenderloins, mushrooms, asparagus, cabbage, sausages, corn, carrots, heck - I even grilled apricots for dessert one night.

 So tonight I will make curry. I will make a curry the ENTIRE family will love! Don't believe the kids will love it? Can't imagine what I will do to make this possible? Here's how!

Photo credit: Gulfnews

What you will need:

~ Red Curry Paste (super small jar - you only use a touch)
~ Fish sauce (easy to find, gross to think about)
~ Brown Sugar
~ 1-2 cans of coconut milk
~ Your choice of veggies (I use green beans, tiny shitake mushrooms, celery, carrots, garlic, green/red peppers, 1-2 parboiled potatoes, broccoli, white or yellow onion)
~ Meat (chicken, tofu or pork go extra well!)


What you will do:
Get Your Children Into The Kitchen!!! Call them in! Have them peel the carrots, carefully fill the pot of water for below, snap the beans' ends, open cans of coconut milk, anything! Just get them involved. Their perspective will make this dish the best it can be! And remember - they are your #1 taste testers!


Heat a pot of water separately from anything else. Boil your boneless chicken or pork for 8-12 min. until cooked. Drain and set aside. Sounds odd, but this will help your meat retain it's supple texture and thus will be more apt to absorbing the yummy curry flavors! ALSO - make a small pot of rice, but DON'T FORGET ABOUT IT! You don't want burnt rice. Yuck.
In a large pan, saute your veggies starting with your hardest veggies first. For me the order was broccoli, carrots, potatoes, celery, green peppers, onion, garlic and so forth. TIP: I often, and it's normally encouraged, to saute the onion and garlic first. But here I want these flavors to pop, so I am waiting until the end. Saute all veggies until soft.
Carefully pull your veggies out of the pan and set aside. In the same veggie pan, turn heat to low-medium. Add 1 1/2 tsp of curry sauce to 1 tbsp fish sauce, 1 1/2 tbsp brown sugar and 1 full can of coconut milk. Wisk well until fully mixed. Now, some like it sweeter, some saltier... I prefer creamier, so I generally add the coagulated part of an additional can of coconut milk.
Play around, see what you like! For sweeter, more brown sugar, for saltier, a little more fish sauce. But taste, taste, taste, because they all balance each other out, so consider this a chemistry experiment and get mixing! Don't forget to add your veggies and meat back into your curry sauce and let simmer for 5-12 minutes with a lid on...
This is a great time to prepare your plates with rice and a small salad. Top with your Curry and you are set to go! Bon Apetit!

My Back versus Life, Part I

$5000! That's what we've raised to go to State and I say, WOOOO HOOOO!

Now, go find me some kid, any kid, to play on our team with a chiropractor parent so I can score a little chiropractic work. Just kidding.

Although at this point it's been happening for so long that I am sure you can find it in grade school textbooks everywhere, there's been this war going on between me and my back. Until recently the score had been : BACK: 5, ME: 0. Now, after review of the scoreboard, I was actually up by three months of pain free livin'. That is, until yesterday's dreadful arrival.

I'll be damned. My sciatica is back and hittin' harder than the damn thunderstorm that is now rocking the Valley here at home. Crap.

So hobble I will, both to and fro.
Hobble I will, off to State he will go.
Hobble I will, up hill both ways, also in the snow.
Hobble, I will, and man does this blow.

Ok, on to other important news. It's nearly August, and you know what that means!!!

PRESEASON NFL FOOTBALL SCHEDULE

I love my life!

A proud mom is a proud mom, no matter how you slice it

I was reading the Dad Gone Mad blog this morning and it sparked a little over-indulgent pride in my heart.

His blog rang true through and through. I am so in love and proud of my son. He, along with so many sons and daughters all over the world, has such a pure and amazing heart. He's so sweet, generous, and most often patient (sans the times with his little sister who makes the habit of bugging him incessantly). He is smart and rarely defiant and tender to all get out!

I love this little guy and if I'm really lucky and try very hard, someday I may be able to be just a little like him.

A cheesy break from the insanity

Wanna hear about a cool way to house that salad you want your kid to eat?

Check it out!



It all begins with Parmesan Cheese. For those who don't know, Parmesan cheese is made from cow's milk that has been combined with the whole milk from the morning milk plus the naturally skimmed milk from the previous evening.

This recipe is so easy, and so yummy to make, you'll wanna make it all the time!

What you'll need:

350 degree oven
baking sheet
cooking spray
one wedge of Parmesan cheese (grated)
small cups that would fit 1/2 cup of salad fixins'

What you'll do:

• Spray the cooking sheet with the Cooking Spray liberally.
• Spread the grated Parmesan into evenly spread piles of Parmesan. Remember, you are building the bottom and sides for your cup, so be liberal!
• Create as many as you need and will comfortably fit on your baking sheet. This will spread a touch!
• Slip into the oven, making sure to keep a close eye on them!
• Once they've begun to bubble and brown to your liking, pull them out quick!
• Spatula the suckers off of the sheet and immediately place the bottom of an upside down cup.
• REMEMBER!!! These little piles of melted Parmesan cool quickly, so you will have to act fast. You can let the cups form naturally around the glass itself of guide them with the help of your hands!
• Let cool for a few minutes and ENJOY!
  
  
• TIPS:
  You can also use the stove top and a frying pan with a touch of extra-virgin olive oil.
  Try adding some dried herbs to your grated Parmesan before cooking.
  These cups are great for breakfast dishes and more, so get creative!
  

Just remember:
"A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds."
- Francis Bacon

Going to State and confused as all get out? Me too.

Look, I get it! I'm extraordinarily proud of my son. His 9-10 yr old All-Star team made it to State this year! Lord, I didn't even get the chance to go to state until I was a Freshman in High School, so I get how impressively cool this is.

But when did it become a cleverly hidden "Keepin' Up with the Jones" scenario? Good God, I think we heading towards disaster. In case you aren't up to speed, our team is aiming to raise nearly $13,000 (OMG) for this 6-day tournament. WHAT THE HECK? WHY? Ah - it's to pay for 13 families to spend a week in Portland. Hmmm... 13 Families? We HAVE 13 families who can sporadically spend a week in Portland on vacay? Wowza!

Now I get that everyone wants to be there. I want to be there too. But the truth is, and listen closely because this is important, WE AREN'T PLAYING BALL, our kids are! We should be approaching this like it's a high-school event, causing enough ruckus to earn money to send the kids, not their families too.

It's as if I'm officially on the set of 'Days of Our Lives' and everyone just pretends they have a job. To be clear, our lives all stopped for a week (last week) when we traveled for five days back and forth 1.5 hrs each way for the District All-Star tournament. Now we get to travel 5 hrs North for six days?

I say, two hotel rooms crammed with kids and a crap-ton of pizzas should do the trick. Any parents who want to come up on their own are just that, on their own! And yet, most parents are going to make the journey, thus making the tiny few who HAVE to work look like jerks. Kids are already asking parents WHY they can't go, and if they are, WHY they are staying at the Best Western and NOT at the hotel with the 2-room suites like the other kids. My son's baseball team has just become a class-distinguishing activity.

I say forgetta 'bout it. We'll be up there for at most two days, hopefully catch one game, and - NO, thank you - but I'm not going to fly my husband home for $100 and keep my baby and 5 yr old in a big city by myself. I can't pretend we can do that and I'm just not that cool anyways. Crazy people!

And don't even get me started how a $13,000 tab warps a good-natured fund drive. In addition to water bottle sales and 50/50 raffles, we're also asking sponsors for $500-$1000/head. Ambitious, folks! Ambitious.

I'm gonna explain calmly and evenly to my son that life is occurring right along with this tournament and that I will be at home cheering my little guts out for him, getting updated text messages the whole while from others. He'll understand that I am beyond words proud of him and hopefully realize that how much time you can get off of work and spend on hotels is not an expression of how much you love your children.

He will understand, won't he? Yes, yes he will.

For info on how to negotiate rates at hotels, check out this abrasive yet easy-to-do article from VIA Magazine.

Sporty Mama says Say It With Pride!

It's true. I'm officially blogging about my experiences I have had when participating in my son's sporting events. Why? do you ask? WHY relive each moment with pride?

Truth is, I'm pretty sure that parent-driven sports for the youth could be one of the most amazing psychological experiments ever. And I intend on exposing each experience in hopes of shedding light for some of the mothers out there who just don't get "it."

"It" is when you cock your head in mass confusion over dad's going insane in the bleachers over a bad call. "It" is when coaches near heart-attack status red-in-the-face from kids not trying hard enough. "It" is when you see moms inch dangerously close to cat fights demanding a wrestling tub filled with Jello all because their son had their feelings hurt for some so-called secret reason by an ump.

This blog will hopefully not bore you and if all else fails, perhaps it will entertain. But let's use this as a forum for discussion in the wild world of SPORTY MAMAS and figure It out!