ultimate steakburgers

Spring has been teasing us for a few weeks now and caused me to have major cravings for some burgers hot off the grill. Last summer I discovered the secret to the most delicious cheeseburgers, packed full of beefy, juicy goodness.

The recipe, published by Cooks Illustrated, (here is a free link to the recipe as long as you register with America's Test Kitchen) calls for grinding your own meat consisting of a mixture of boneless beef short ribs and sirloin tips. If you don't have a meat grinder, you can use a food processor by cutting the meat into 1 inch chunks and freezing until just firm around the edges. The meat is processed until finely ground, but still loose. You don't want to overprocess and end up with a pureed glob of meat. Then you loosely form the patties, handling them as little as possible, and season generously with salt and pepper just before grilling. I served mine as directed in the recipe with thinly sliced onions, "special sauce", and melted american cheese. Wow. It was awesome and just what I was craving. Here's a photo from Cooks Illustrated but mine looked just as good!

Oh- and don't forget to check out the photos I uploaded from our vacation to Walt Disney World (click the photo below to view the album).

Walt Disney World 2010

little leprechauns

Happy St. Patrick's Day from our little leprechauns. The two wee people are happy because they are about to nosh on these chocolate mint cupcakes.

Erin go bragh!

stuffy noses

Abby has had a stuffy nose for a few days. Apparently to her this stuffy nose is not your run-of-the-mill cold, but something else entirely. This is the conversation we had yesterday:

Abby: Mommy, there are little green guys in my nose.
Me: Huh??
Abby: Yes, little green guys. They are in my nose.
Me: Ok...?
Abby: The green guys are having a dance party. Can you tell them to get out of my nose?
Me: Green guys, get out of Abby's nose.
Abby: No!! They can't hear you! You need to yell it up my nose.
Me (bending down and with my face right up to hers): Green guys, get out of Abby's nose!
Abby: Thanks Mom.

hung out to dry

Kindergarten produces massive amounts of paper. Mira comes home with a new stack every day. We get to see the letter sounds and sight words of the day, a drawing or two, some cutting and pasting, and don't forget the coloring pages. I do my best to read through all of them each day, but I must admit experiencing Kindergarten paper overload from time to time, which causes me to skim through the pages or worse, add them to the ginormous stack of papers in my office waiting to be read. Today as I was cleaning out my office I made my way through the massive pile of Kindergarten papers. After the ladybug cutting and pasting project and beneath the "pan, fan, bat, hat" page on words with short a vowel sounds I found this:

If you can believe it, this little gem almost slipped by my fastidious review process. I've often wondered what Mira thinks of her little sister and this paper provides a glimpse. In case you can't read it, the directions state, "Draw something silly Mrs. McNosh might find at your house to hang up with the wash." Mrs. McNosh must be a character in a story that Mira's class read. For some reason, Mira decided that her little sister, Abby, should be out on the clothesline with the laundry. As you can see from the illustration, Abby is pretty distressed about being hung out to dry. Can you blame her?

thought process of a three year old

We walked back from the school bus stop this morning in blisteringly cold six (SIX!) degrees. Abby was not enjoying the weather and neither was I. Here's what she said:

Mommy, carry me. It's cold.
It's freezing!
I'm freezing.
I'm freezing like a popsicle!
...Can I have a popsicle???

three years ago today

Three years ago today it was the day before my due date. I decided to whip up a delectable castor oil orange juice smoothie for myself in the hopes it would encourage the baby to get a move on. You know the saying: "Make like a baby and head out." Well, it worked like a charm. At 8 pm I was sitting on my yoga ball eating pizza and watching Super Nanny. An hour later I thought, Well, this is the real deal. Time to go. By 10 pm we were at the hospital and 2 hours later Abby was born! It was a very productive day indeed.

Tomorrow we're hosting her 3rd birthday party and instead of a castor oil cocktail I'll be whipping up a raspberry ice cream cake and a chocolate marshmallow layer cake.

Happy Birthday Abby!

we're going to disney world!

The doldrums of winter were really setting in the other day, so we decided to escape to sunny Florida in March. The girls had so much fun at Disney World when we went two years ago that we've decided to go back. Here are a couple photos from our last trip.