Today has been, hmmm, interesting we'll call it. When I went to bed last night Grant and I put a 75% chance on their being no school today. We were right! While we probably only got a little over 3 inches, but it was 3 inches of the heaviest, wettest, densest snow I have ever seen. Last night when we went to bed the tree branches in the backyard were so laden down they were actually touching the ground. My shepherd's hook in the front yard is actually bent from the snow pulling down the flowerpots hanging on it. Really really heavy snow. Grant said the roads were a mess this morning and the addition of fog made driving even more precarious. I decided the three of us weren't going anywhere.
So we set off to try to dig out the driveway. I'm not going to get into how long it took me to do this or what a nightmare it ended up being, I'm simply going to say it's done :) The kids on the other hand had a great time! The dense snow made for great packing snow so they were off on their 'sledding' hill, building snowmen and throwing snow balls at each other. Super thankful that the temperatures were in the high 30s with no wind so we were actually all able to be out there for quite awhile.
But back to the strawberry. Or better yet, back to last night. Strawberries aren't the only food we're celebrating today - it is also National Kahlua day! Last night I was perusing the recipe I had picked out for today when I stumbled across another recipe - one for homemade kahlua. Oh, definitely had to try that! So I sent Grant out for the one ingredient we were missing (vodka!) and started making a batch. Who knew how easy it was??? And not to mention cost effective. Using decent (Smirnoff) vodka, to make it cost me about half of what it would be to buy a bottle of actual kahlua. (and not that I was willing to try it, but multiple reviews of the recipe recommended using bottom shelf vodka (oh boy, Popov!) and better quality instant coffee for the best results) Granted, that didn't mean it was going to turn out to be any good, but in the spirit of the project, I knew we had to try it. More on the results later.
Anyway, after bailing out the driveway I set out putting together our strawberry feast for tonight. The kids had already started the celebration earlier today by having peanut butter and strawberry quesadillas for lunch (they LOVED them!) and I planned a multiple strawberry hit for dinner. First I concocted some strawberry syrup to be used in milk or on ice cream or whatever. The leftover strawberry bits I mixed in with some cream cheese and topped off some nilla wafers for a simple strawberry cheesecake like bite. Then I made a very cool strawberry pancake in a skillet in the oven. Everyone really liked this one too, and we decided we're going to have to try it with cinnamon in the batter and topped off with apples. Then to round things out I made strawberry banana orange smoothies. I'd say we've all had our daily quantity of Vitamin D today :)
After dinner Grant sampled some of the kahlua solo on the rocks. He wanted to give it a taste test before we made some White Russians tonight. It actually passed his test! For someone who loves kahlua I'd say this was a success. He said he didn't think it had quite the punch of kahlua but the taste was there. I can't wait to sip a White Russian tonight while yet more snow falls... Alright, I can live without the more snow, but not the White Russian.
Chocolate souffles tomorrow (my stomach just fell to my knees, I'm a little nervous about this one) Until then...
Strawberry syrup
Strawberry mini cheesecakes :)
Strawberry Banana Orange Smoothie
Strawberry pancake right out of the skillet
Had to top it off with some of the syrup and powdered sugar
Kahlua on the rocks
Oops, forgot to mention - we had the Strawberry Pancake tonight because this week is National Pancake Week :) Have you had your pancakes yet this week???
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