The Search for Miss Direction: Goetta Grip

Do weeks with only four days in them actually have hump days? Hmmm, will have to give that some more thought. In the meantime, happy Wednesday! We had a wild and crazy one around here (surprise surprise) and the week promises to get even crazier yet.

This morning the Bean helped me with a little Kid Kitchen project to make these Buckeye Brownies. All the same key ingredients as are in the classic Ohio treat we made Monday, but in brownie form. Does it get any better? Kayla loved that it was another recipe she could lick the beaters :-p Tess and Alexis came down to hang out for awhile this morning before Mikayla and I headed off to meet her teacher! We were delighted to meet Ms. Stella and I think she's going to be a perfect fit for the Bean. We also bumped into our favorite Mrs. Porto and caught up briefly. Yet another 'back to school' step this week. Kayla is now counting down the hours I think until Monday...

Then it was my turn to get to cross a couple of things off my list for the week as Kayla came with me to get my hair cut. I've been debating a big change for awhile, and while it's not super short, it's definitely shorter than I've gone in the past. The stylist says she'd recommend even shorter for me, but I will admit to being a tad intimidated by the thought yet. But I'm in love with the new look and will look forward to hearing what everyone else thinks. Also went darker and am sporting some fun burgundy tresses as well.

When my still loving being back first grader made it home the Dynamic Duo worked on the "We've Been There" state. I think it's pretty safe to say that if you've ever read this blog, heck if you've been reading the past day or so you KNOW we've all been to Ohio. Many times. Just this past weekend. Stickers all around!

I mentioned yesterday that my sister hooked us up with another Cinci staple for dinner tonight. If you were around for our food project last year you may remember when I made scrapple. Cincinnati's goetta (pronounced get-ah) is similar except it is oat based as opposed to cornmeal. Straight from wiki - "Goetta is a breakfast sausage of likely German-American origin that is popular in the greater Cincinnati area. It is primarily composed of ground meat (pork, or pork and beef), pin-head oats and spices. Goetta was originally a peasant dish, meant to stretch out servings of meat over several meals to conserve money." While you can make the dish yourself (here's the recipe I was going to try my hand at) you can actually buy it in stores in Cinci. Glier's Goetta, (which is what Sarah snagged for us) is the largest commercial producer of goetta and produces more than 1,000,000 lb annually, around 99 percent of which is consumed locally in Greater Cincinnati area. I've been told you can eat it just like breakfast sausage, and found recipes for it in everything from omelets to pizza. We tried it plain tonight which I am stunned to report everyone here raved about it. Especially Noah who wants it for his birthday. With it I found this recipe for Macaroni and Cheese Pancakes that I've been dying to try. Who knew - mac & cheese pancakes and goetta, the fave meal of the week so far. Well, while in Ohio week...

I have been looking forward to tomorrow for months (no joke) as my favorite girls in the Mitten State are back together for the first MOPS meeting of the year! Yes, I've seen them in bits and pieces all summer but I have so missed our meetings. And we have two new fabulous co-Leaders, and I'm doing a new spin on part of the newsletter and taking on a brand new just developed for me (gee, this isn't going to my head or anything, hehe) role as Social Coordinator. So excited to try it all out! And share, laugh, cry and just be with the most amazing (and yes, I know that word gets tossed around too much but I'm at a loss at the moment) group of women I have the honor of calling my friends. Plus I will be very interested in seeing what the kids decide to color tomorrow and my slow cooker will be working its magic on a Hungarian feast. So until then...

Ohio Fun Fact of the Day: The Glacial Grooves on the north side of Kelleys Island are the largest easily accessible such grooves in the world. They were scoured into solid limestone bedrock about 18,000 years ago by the great ice sheet that covered part of North America.