A Girl Named PJ

Mint hot chocolate (perfect for snow days!)

December 6, 2013

Today’s babymoon guest post is by Moira from Hearth and Homefront.

One of my favorite parts of the holiday season is my childhood traditions with my own children. I grew up in Massachusetts, so while we didn’t always have a white Christmas, we usually had our first snow sometime between November and December.

By the time I was in elementary school snow days were a big deal. We would watch the weather report the night before and cross our fingers for a day off. The next morning we would all hold our breath at 6 am to listen for the town fire station to sound the alarm if schools were cancelled. Snow days meant sledding, snowball fights and always a big mug of hot chocolate to warm up.

Being a military family has sent us far from home and to mostly warm locales, so my children haven’t grown up with the snow. We had our first early dismissal from school recently and (as I write this) we’re in the midst of a perfect little snowstorm. It’s light and fluffy and not too deep. We spent the morning playing in the backyard, and when we were all frozen solid it was time to head inside for our hot chocolate.

My oldest is 5 and a fabulous sous chef in the kitchen. He enjoys it much more than my youngest does, so it is one of my favorite ways to get some one-on-one time with him. This Mint Hot Chocolate recipe is great because he can participate in every part of the recipe. It mixes together in less than 10 minutes and then you can keep the jar in the pantry for a quick mug anytime you’d like.

I like to add mint chocolate chips to this, but if you aren’t a mint lover, you could easily switch it out for semisweet or white chocolate. The result is creamy and not overly sweet or rich. It’s just right for warming you up from the cold or relaxing by the fire. (A grownups only version with a shot of Bailey’s is delicious, too!)

Mint Hot Chocolate Mix

adapted from My Baking Addiction and Brown Eyed Baker

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups powdered milk
1 cup confectioners sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3 tbsp mint chocolate chips
pinch of salt

Whisk together all the ingredients except the chocolate chips. Once combined place the cocoa mixture and the chips in a food processor and pulse until the chips are ground up and throughly mixed in. Store in an airtight container. Makes 6-7 servings.

To make Mint Hot Chocolate:
Place 1/3 cup of the mix in a mug and fill with hot water. If you’d like you can add a splash of milk to cool it down (especially for those kiddos!) and make it a little creamier.

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Moira blogs at Hearth and Homefront, sharing her love of great food and great books. When she’s not cooking or reading, you’ll find her running (very slowly), chasing her two rambunctious boys, and attempting to be craftier than she really is! For now home is Oklahoma, but as an Air Force spouse, she’s always looking forward to the next adventure!

Traditional holiday cookies

December 5, 2013

Today’s babymoon guest post is by Eden from The Road to the Good Life.

I’m excited to be sharing two of my favorite traditional holiday cookies while PJ enjoys her babymoon: Spritz Cookies and Pecan Toffee Bars.

For as long as I can remember, whenever my grandmother visited us for the holidays she brought with her tins of home baked goodies. When my sister and I were old enough, my mom, my sister, and I would spend a day baking, taking breaks to watch traditional holiday movies, like “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

This year my 19-month old toddler Gates joined the three of us in the kitchen. To make baking safer and more hands on for a toddler we modified the recipes a little. Because of Gates’ age, we didn’t want her near anything sharp or hot. We also wanted to avoid having her sample raw egg. While she was napping, we did all of the prep work, chopping pecans and cracking eggs. We then set out ingredients for her to measure and to add.

Gates was incredibly interested in what we were doing, her attention span for a task lasting over ten minutes. As we wanted to include Gates in the process as much as possible so we opted to use a wooden spoon and our own power to cream the Earth Balance and Maple Sugar Crystals and work the dough. If you’re not baking with a toddler you may want to use a mixer.

A quick note about the sweeteners I use when baking. I have hyperinsulinemia so when baking I use sweeteners with a low glycemic index (GI)–55 or below—for example, I substitute maple sugar crystals (GI of 54) instead of brown sugar (GI of 60). If you don’t have maple sugar crystals in your pantry, you can use brown sugar or cane sugar and molasses (ratio is 1 Tablespoon of molasses for each cup of cane sugar).

Pecan Toffee Bars

Pecan Toffee Bars are super easy to make and yield enough that you can indulge and still have enough to share with friends. This recipe makes approximately two dozen rich squares. If I’m baking these when it’s not holiday season, I’ll simply freeze the extra dozen and a half in an airtight container, separated with wax paper, and treat myself for the next couple of months.

While Gates helped make these cookies she didn’t get to enjoy the finished bars as I was worried she might choke on the loose pecan topping.

Ingredients

2 cups sifted unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup Earth Balance, softened
1 cup Maple Sugar Crystals
1 whole egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla
4 pieces, 99% Unsweetened Scharffen Berger Baking Chocolate Bar, smashed
1 cup candied pecans, minced

Instructions

Position a rack in the middle of your oven. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9”x13” metal baking pan and set aside. Cream Earth Balance and Maple Sugar Crystals together. When well blended, add egg and vanilla. Add flour about a 1/2 cup at a time and mix well. Spread in prepared pan and bake 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and sprinkle smashed chocolate pieces evenly over the cookies. Return to the oven for a couple of minutes to melt chocolate. When the chocolate is melted, use a spatula to spread the chocolate evenly. Sprinkle candied pecans over the top of the chocolate. Cut the cookies into bars while warm. Cool in pan.

Spritz Cookies

Traditionally, Spritz Cookies are piped onto a baking sheet into holiday shapes using a cookie press. A cookie press requires a little more dexterity than a toddler has so we opted for rolling teaspoon-sized balls of dough, smashing them flat, and decorating by pressing the tines of a fork into the tops. This recipe makes between two and three dozen silver dollar-sized cookies.

Ingredients

2 cups sifted unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
2/3 cup Earth Balance, softened
2/3 cup Maple Sugar Crystals
1 whole egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla

Instructions

Position a rack in the middle of your oven. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Cut two pieces of foil the length of your baking sheets and put aside. Sift flour and kosher salt together, set aside. Cream Earth Balance and Maple Sugar Crystals together. When well blended, add egg and vanilla. Add flour about a 1/2 cup at a time until the dough is crumbly. Refrigerate for half an hour.

Remove chilled dough from the refrigerator. Take a heaping teaspoon of dough and roll into a ball. Gently flatten and place on baking sheet. When the sheet is full decorate the cookies by pressing the tines of a fork into the tops of the cookies, turn 90 degrees and press again. Bake between 8 to 10 minutes or until cookies are a golden brown. Remove from the oven. Slide the foil carefully off your baking sheet onto a cooking rack. Let cookies cool before removing from foil.

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Growing up Eden’s family gathered nightly for meals, instilling in her the belief that the best place to tell a story is over a home-cooked meal around a dinner table and that any problem can be solved while sharing food. She launched The Road to The Good Life blog in 2006 to open her home and invite guests worldwide to join her while she explores the beauty of the seemingly ordinary to reveal the extraordinary. Eden write about home, food, family, and fashion and her mission to “define The Good Life with haves not wants.”

YA books for adults

December 4, 2013

I invited a few bloggers to take over while JB and I are on a babymoon! (You can follow our adventures on Instagram.) Today’s guest post is by Janssen from Everyday Reading.

Just because I’m no longer a teenager doesn’t mean I’ve given up reading Young Adult books. In fact, I now read way more Young Adult books than I ever did when I actually fell into the age range these books are suggested for.

I love YA books because they tend to have very tight writing, excellent plotting, and, above all, a story line that draws me in and won’t let me go until the last page.

These six are some of my very favorites, books I recommend over and over again (and read again and again):

If I Stay by Gayle Forman – Mia and her family are in a terrible car accident, and suddenly all the questions she’s been wrestling with about her future, college, music career, and boyfriend all seem trivial in comparison with the enormous decisions she now faces. I’ve read this three times and I’ve cried every single time (Bonus: the sequel, Where She Went, is also stellar).

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak – A foster girl in WWII Germany fights back against the Nazis in the only way she knows how – by stealing books. This book is unexpected, heart-wrenching, and it’s narrated, unconventionally, by Death. (Bonus: the movie version just came out!)

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor – I’m not much of a fantasy reader (Harry Potter is about as fantasy as I go), but this book almost changed my mind about the whole genre. Blue-haired art student Karou is trying to live a normal life in Prague despite having been raised by a Chimera (part human, part other animals), but all semblance of normalcy disappears after she is almost killed by an angel and realizes that this is no isolated incident, but instead part of a bigger war. This was one of those of books that made me think, “I wish I’d written this.” (Bonus: the audio versions of these books are amazing).

Falling for Hamlet by Michelle Ray – This modern-day take on the classic story of Hamlet is really cleverly done and was the first time I really felt BAD for Hamlet. It does exactly what I want a retelling to do: stay true to the original, while putting a new, fascinating spin on the story. (Bonus: Read this and the original Hamlet text back-to-back for extra credit)

Ten Cents a Dance by Christine Fletcher – Just when you think there can’t be any new WWII stories, this one comes along and knocks your socks off, about 15-year-old Ruby who takes a job as a taxi dancer, where she spends the evenings dancing (and warding off unwelcome advances) with soldiers. Of course, she gets in deeper than she means to, both in a relationship and with the Chicago mobsters. (Bonus: If you want another surprising YA book about WWII, try the unbelievably good Code Name Verity).

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart – Possibly my all-time favorite YA book, about a girl at a prestigious boarding school who discovers that her boyfriend is part of an all-male secret society on campus. Frankie wants to be part of it. And no one, certainly no teenage boy, is going to stop her. (Bonus: E. Lockhart has another YA book coming out in the spring. I’m dying to read it).

What are you currently reading?

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Janssen loves books, chocolate, and living places with fake winters (she currently lives in North Carolina with her husband and two little girls). In her pre-child life, she was a school librarian; now she resorts to maxing out her library card – and her toddler’s card – to make sure there’s never a shortage of reading material at home. On her blog, Everyday Reading, she writes about books, shares her favorite recipes, and documents her evolving style.

How to dress for family photos

December 3, 2013

photo by Hooton Images

Thank you so much for your response to yesterday’s gender reveal! It was such a relief to finally be able to share the secret we’ve been keeping for the past two months.

Ironically, I found out yesterday that yet another pregnant friend is having a girl around the same time that I’m due. That’s four baby girls due in early 2014… and counting! Le sigh. I guess our little dude will have his pick of girlfriends!

It was also exciting to post the family photos we took in early November. Not only did we get some blog-worthy photos during that shoot, but we also got a fantastic family shot to use for our New Year’s card. For the third year in a row we’ll be ordering them from Minted, my go-to source for photo cards.

From a creative standpoint, I completely trusted our photographer Heather from Hooton Images to execute my vision with the giant balloon. I was mostly concerned about what to wear! I may be able to dress myself, but I’m no stylist, and creating a cohesive look for a group of people is not my specialty.

color palette via Color Collective

Luckily, Heather had some tips for how to dress for family photos. Here’s what I learned from her:

1. It’s OK to cheat! You don’t have to create a color scheme out of thin air. Heather suggested we browse Color Collective for inspiration, but you can also check out Design Seeds and DeGraeve for possible color palettes. When I found one I liked, I pillaged our closets for pieces of clothing in those five colors.

2. You usually can’t go wrong picking three colors and pairing them with a neutral. We actually used grey as our neutral, but white or black are always a good choices.

3. Create texture by layering and mixing fabrics. Think blazers, skirts with tights, and scarves. It’s also fun to pair different patterns together, but keep some people in solids to balance the look.

images via 1) La Petite Peach 2) 100 Layer Cake-let 3) Oh Joy 4) 100 Layer Cake-let

4. Make sure you’re all equally dressy or casual. For example, Dad shouldn’t be wearing a suit if Mom is in leggings and the kids are sporting jeans. Choose complementary styles for the entire family (and while you’re at it, be sure to dress appropriately for the season!).

5. Spend some time on Pinterest browsing family photos. Identify what you like and don’t like about each family’s wardrobe. But whatever you do, don’t replicate those awful photos from the 80s or 90s of your whole family wearing black turtlenecks with khakis!

6. When in doubt, ask your photographer for color palette and wardrobe suggestions. I even emailed Heather photos of our outfits for her approval ahead of time!

I’m curious: When was the last time you had a family photo taken? Will you be sending out a photo card for the holidays?

P.S. Last year’s family photo drama and how Minted helped me decorate for my sister’s baby shower.

This post is in partnership with Minted. Thanks for supporting the sponsors that allow me to bring creative content to the blog.