What's in a Patty?

 When I was in grade school we had a day where we were to dress up as our favorite 'Peanuts' character to celebrate Charles Schulz's birthday.  I chose Peppermint Patty. (Bonus Fact: Patricia Reichardt is the actual name of the character)  I went decked out in black shorts, a dark green shirt, flip flops and my mom even used that fun hair stuff to spray my hair a great red color.  I mean, honestly, what's not to love about Peppermint Patty?

So you can only imagine that I was only to happy to celebrate National Peppermint Patty day today.  But I was a little stumped - what is a Peppermint Patty, really?  Obviously we weren't going to be munching on a cartoon character so I started digging into it.  It turns out that a Peppermint Patty can be two things, which of course you know around here means we need to celebrate them both just to cover all the bases.

The first is a drink made we hot chocolate and then some combination of creme de cacao, creme de menthe and peppermint schnapps depending on who you believe.  This recipe had me reliving my first official Alpha Chi date party with Grant as I remember a campfire, marshmallow cream from a 'smore being smeared on a jacket and sipping a delicious version of this beverage.  The kiddos got a 'virgin' recipe while Grant had the real deal with dinner.  Kudos to my Mom for bailing me out yesterday and supplying me with Creme de Menthe as I was having no luck finding it around here.  Thanks for helping us celebrate ;-)

The other is probably what most people think of a Peppermint Patty as - a chocolate candy covering a sugary peppermint center.  (Most common - York Peppermint Pattie) I made my own batch of these on Saturday and then have been chilling in the freezer since then.  I have to give mad props to a reviewer on allrecipes.com who really helped me out on this one.  I wasn't crazy about the idea of dipping these bad boys as I tend to make quite a mess when dipping something in chocolate.  But when I was reading some of the reviews someone suggested making them in a muffin tin with cupcake liners.  So smart!  Not only was this way easier and less messy but my peppermint patties came out looking pretty sassy.

It's also Oatmeal Monday.  (This week makes me giggle - Oatmeal Monday, Fat Tuesday, Ash Wednesday...)  And while I could have made a batch of yummy oatmeal cookies I am honestly about up to my eyeballs in sweets around here right now given that we had chocolate fondue, nutella, molasses bars and cream cheese brownies all in the past week so I wanted to try oatmeal in a savory recipe if I could find one.  I came across oatmeal pork chops with a sweet maple sauce and we gave it a go.  Huge hit here at dinner tonight.  I love pushing the boundaries just a little bit sometimes and finding something new to like.  I also made individual applesauce crisps for everyone for some bonus oatmeal :)

And while all this food celebrating is great, we had a couple other great highlights today.  First, Noah had a great time at his Valentine's party.  We went through his mailbox when he got home, and as he was pawing through the loot (more sweets!) he says "It sure is nice to have so many friends who like me so much they got me all this stuff."  The kid cracks me up.

After lunch we met up with Grant at Heritage Bakery in Livonia to make sure that everyone got to pick out their own paczki for tomorrow.  I am Polish and you just don't mess with getting crummy paczki from a grocery store when you have access to the authentic version.  (Though even paczki can't make me brave Hammtramck alone with the kiddos)  You'll have to check us out tomorrow to see the paczki and find out what everyone picked :)

We also had a special delivery today.  Thanks Grandpa Gary for the cool new books (which they're reading with Grant right now as I work to get the blog updated) and the chocolate bars.  You made two kiddos very happy this afternoon.

Alright, I'm off for the evening.  Check us out tomorrow as we're going to be celebrating my heritage with some paczki and Grant's with some Swedish pancakes.  Should be a great day!  Until then...

Going to get our paczki!

 Thanks Grandpa Gary!

 Oatmeal pork chops

 Applesauce crisp

 Peppermint Patty (the drink version)

 The inside of my homemade Peppermint Patty

 So much easier than dipping!

Think Kayla enjoyed hers?

Say Cheese!

 Happy National Cream Cheese Brownie Day.  I don't have too much inspiring or deep to say about the actual brownies, or me making them today.  In fact, I made a big pan of them and gave most of them away.  Which is what was the best thing about today - we headed into Toledo for a few hours today to finally get to catch up with my parents for awhile.

Since the first of the year (other than a brief stop after a doctor's appointment) we haven't been to Fremont nor have we had the chance to see much of my family.  I think my Dad was starting to go through withdrawal.  But with their crazy schedule and our schedule here, even though we're not quite two hours apart it's been difficult to find some time to catch up.

So all four of us were glad to head to the mall and spend a couple of hours hanging out.  We wandered the mall, had a snack, did some shopping - it was great.  Thanks Mom and Dad for making the trip :)

Noah's Valentine's party is tomorrow at school which should prove to be fun.  Plus, the four of us are undertaking a very important mission mid-day - paczki hunting!  We think we've found a locale to pick out the perfect paczki for Tuesday.  Until then..

Cream Cheese Brownies

 A side view (I thought the recipe was a little stingy on the cream cheese, but Grant loved them as he said they were super chocolatey)

I purchased the kiddos their first Valentine's presents today - sunglasses!  Mikayla shows off her at the playground at the mall

Pie-Tastic

 Very few things make me happier than a Saturday spent playing in my kitchen.  A Saturday spent playing in my kitchen while watching a Michigan football game would do it.  Today I had to settle for a Michigan basketball game (darn those Badgers!) but I'll take it!

Today's celebration was two-fold - Bagels and Pizza Pie.  It's no secret that bagels are kind of a specialty of mine.  Ever since I got my bread machine (which is the only appliance other than the coffee pot that has a reserved spot on my counter) I've been turning out bagels by the dozens.  I've made different flavors, different toppings and served them for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  My Dad and brother beg for them and they are a surefire lunch hit with the kiddos.  I made up a batch yesterday which were devoured for lunch today.  Bagels around here are easy.

Pizza pie had me a bit baffled, though.  I mean, isn't all pizza known as a pie?  Was it more like a deep dish pizza?  My searching of the internet didn't turn up a solid answer one way or the other, so I decided to make up my very own pizza pie.

I started with my homemade pizza dough.  I rolled it out just like pie dough and put the first piece in the bottom of my pie plate.  Then some ground beef, onions and pizza sauce all simmered on my stove for awhile before being added to the crust.  A layer of Parmesan and then Mozzarella followed.  You can't have pizza at the Gatchel's without pepperoni, so I layered that one.  Another round of cheese and then all topped off with another piece of pizza dough.  To give the crust a little color I brushed the top with my garlic butter, cut a few slits for venting and popped it in the oven.  Forty-five minutes later I pulled it out, brushed it with the garlic butter again and then gave it about fifteen minutes to cool on a wire rack.  I was hoping that by giving it some time to cool I'd end up with solid slices of 'pie' rather than oozey insides spilling out of the crust.  It worked!  It held together so well Noah actually picked it up and ate it like a piece of pizza.

So what's the point in me spelling all this out for you?  I'm not exactly sure other than to 'prove' that one of the best things about this experiment of mine is at the end of the day I get to create something fun and new and then we get to 'celebrate' it.  Who's to say that my 'pizza pie' isn't right?  Everyone here enjoyed it which is what was most important at the end of the day.

I also made up a few of the celebratory items for over the next couple of days.  We're heading to Toledo tomorrow to spend some time with my parents so I had to make sure that our cream cheese brownies were ready :)  Hope that wherever you are you're enjoying your own bagels or pizza pie tonight.  Until tomorrow...

Mikayla and I were potato stamping a Valentine's Day project

 Aren't my homemade bagels pretty?

 Building my 'pizza pie'

 All ready for the oven

 Kinda beautiful 

An inside shot

A Gooey Kind of Day

 Well, the snow finally showed up.  As I snuggled with my book on the couch last night sometime around midnight, the outside light was triggered and I saw huge fat flakes moving at a good clip.  An hour later (I'm a night owl, what can I say) it was still falling at the same rate.  By this point I was fairly confident I was going to have one very disappointed little boy this morning when he found out there'd be no PJ day at school today because there'd be no school at all.

So I wasn't surprised this morning when there was a good five inches on the ground and all the schools were shut down.  So after breakfast we bundled up and headed out to play and tackle the shoveling.  Two hours later (I kid you not, it was 9:34 when we headed out and it was 11:36 when we made it back inside) we had a cleared driveway and two very annoyed kiddos.  Annoyed because I told them it was time to go inside!  It was fairly mild out so for two full hours we had no arguing, no whining and lots of delighted giggles and playing.  More than once I thought of playing in the snow with my siblings.  I piled up quite a bit of snow along one side of the driveway and the kids first made a sledding hill out of it and then were walking it claiming it was a mountain and that there were giants chasing them.  It made me think of "Mount Alaska" at my parents.  It was fabulous to get outside and play for a bit.  Though, as I said on Facebook earlier, if Mother Nature is listening, the next time we're going to get 5+ inches could it please be on a weekend so that Grant can be around to help shovel :-p

And don't worry, in the midst of all the shoveling I still found time to make our celebratory food.  Happy National Molasses Bar Day!  I am not a fan of molasses.  Don't like the way it looks, don't like the way it smells, don't like the way it tastes.  Apparently, my entire family strongly disagrees.  The gooey bars were gobbled down for dessert tonight.  I won't be sad to see them go and I'm thinking of baking up something else here yet tonight just to get the smell out of my kitchen...

Grant and the kiddos just headed out to see "Wreck it Ralph" so I have a few hours of quiet.  What will I ever do with myself?  Plan out recipes for next week for sure!  Check us out tomorrow for what I'm sure will be more fun in the snow, a rousing basketball game versus Wisconsin, bagels and lox and my interpretation of "Pizza Pie"  Promises to be entertaining!  Until then...

Noah and Mikayla on their snow pile

 We made snow slushies after lunch

 Molasses bars

 Gooey inside shot

 My latest creation we had with dinner tonight - I'm calling them crunchy biscuit puffs.  The kids loved them

Breakfast for tomorrow.  Had to take a picture of these - there was one lone overly ripe banana that we didn't use for the bread the other day that was begging to get used.  So I found a recipe for banana muffins for tomorrow's breakfast.  The coolest thing about them - they're made with mayonnaise.  Had to try them out for the novelty, will let you know tomorrow how they turned out

Viva Italiano!

 The conversation at our house tonight before dinner:

Kristi: So tonight it's Fettuccine Alfredo and bread sticks inspired by Olive Garden
Grant: So we're channeling Olive Garden tonight?
Kristi:  Are you kidding me, Olive Garden's got nothing on me!

I think all this cooking is making me cocky ;-)  But it hasn't always been that way.  Tonight's dish gets me thinking about high school.  During my junior high and high school days, believe it or not, I worked at a local Bar and Grille.  I started as a dishwasher and  worked my way up to a line cook for a lack of a better way to say what I did.  But I worked under the watchful eye of Chef Chuck who made the best Fettuccine Alfredo ever.  Hands down.  He tried to teach me a couple of times, but it was always in big batches (for the restaurant) and I have never been able to recreate the decadence of his alfredo sauce.  Wishing I was in Fremont right now to head over to Chud's for a bowl!

But I'm in Farmington so we'll have to settle for my own version of my favorite artery clogging dish.  I'm kind of a purist - heavy cream, butter and parmesan.  A dash of nutmeg and some fresh parsely - no need for anything else.  My kids devoured it.  I don't make it very often (for obvious reasons, lol) but it goes quickly when I do.  Happy Fettuccine Alfredo day, all!

In other news, it hasn't started snowing here yet but they're calling for 5-8 inches.  Noah is seriously hoping this doesn't happen as tomorrow is PJ day at school.  I'm seriously hoping it doesn't happen so I don't have to shovel 8 inches of snow off the driveway tomorrow.  Mikayla says bring on the snow.

Molasses bars tomorrow.  Can't tell you the last time I had molasses in my pantry.  Until then...

*drool*

Who needs Olive Garden?  (Though, have to tell you, Aunt Sarah, when Olive Garden was mentioned earlier Noah wanted to know immediately when we were going to be seeing you, lol!)

Nutella Three Ways

 I hear it's going to snow.  Again.  Three to six inches.  *sigh*  I'm ready for winter to be over now.  My Florida born babies, on the other hand, are loving this.  While Noah was at school this morning Mikayla begged to go out and play in the snow.  So out we went.  After a few minutes I look over to see her burying her legs under a pile of snow.  (Think burying someone in sand at the beach).  I (perhaps foolishly) ask her what she's doing.  "Feeding my snow pants" she tells me.  I look at her, baffled.  "Why?"  "Because they're hungry, Mom, and they eat snow."  Well OK then...

For his school party on Monday, Noah needed to make a box to collect his Valentines in.  This afternoon we broke out the stuff for his to decorate it.  When we discussed it earlier in the week, we had thought it would be fun for him to cover it in conversation hearts and stickers.  So that's what he did - all by himself.  I know it's kind of hard to see in the pictures but he even made a pattern with the colors and stickers.  Go Noah and his creative streak!

Today's celebratory food is Nutella.  I can honestly say that I've never had Nutella before.  I know what it is but as chocolate isn't one of my faves and I can take or leave hazelnut (though it is a great coffee flavor...) it has never been up on my list of 'must haves'  Well that ended today!  And to properly introduce it to the whole family I created three different Nutella dishes for them to sample; bananas topped with Nutella, Nutella hot chocolate and Nutella stuffed muffins with a sugar and cinnamon topping.

The bananas (that don't look appetizing at all, just a warning) were a huge hit.  Noah's disappeared before I even knew he had started eating it.  And hot chocolate of any kind is always enjoyed here, especially if it is topped with marshmallows.  I was a little worried about the muffins but it turns out I shouldn't have been.  Grant said that while the Nutella itself was just an okay additive the muffins themselves were fabulous.  I have a recipe (that I was going to use in kid kitchen earlier this week before we came across the red velvet cookies) to use the same batter base to make powdered sugar covered mini donuts.  Looks like we'll be trying those out sooner rather than later :-p

Also, it was brought to my attention by multiple sources that I missed National Pancake Day yesterday.  Apparently IHOP was giving away free pancakes to celebrate 'national pancake day' if you made a donation to St. Jude's.  While I am THRILLED with the amount of money IHOP raised for St. Jude's, they were sadly mistaken about it being National Pancake Day.  Next Tuesday (Fat Tuesday) is known as International Pancake Day, and the fourth week of February is known as National Pancake week.  And you might remember we already celebrated National Blueberry Pancake Day in January.  Further research has shown that IHOP is officially calling it "IHOP National Pancake Day" so I suppose I can let this one slide ;-)  But worry not, faithful followers, we didn't miss any celebrations here at the Gatchel's.

If you like Italian, check us out tomorrow.  Until then...

Noah working on his Valentine's Day box

 He did good

 Bananas with Nutella

 Nutella stuffed muffins

 Nutella hot chocolate

The muffin inside :)

We Fondue, do you?

 This is going to be a very brief post from me because I think the pictures speak for themselves.  The results from today's food celebration might be my favorite yet.  Both Noah and Mikayla have asked if we can do this every night :-p  Happy National Chocolate Fondue Day!

The dippin' stuff

 Our chocolatey goodness

 Noah's first dip

 Think he liked it?

 Mikayla tries her hand at dipping

 (I had to help a bit)

 She could hardly wait to get it to her mouth

 Please Mom, can I do it again?

 Kayla attacking a marshmallow

 Think she enjoyed herself?

This is for Aunt Shell - today was penguin day at Story Time.  They made these fabulous masks and just had to show you!  (The fact that they are still covered in chocolate is just a bonus)