Wednesday, August 06, 2008

If You Ignore It Long Enough, It Will Go Away! (Also A Fruit Salsa Recipe)

I've heard that quote many times in my life.  And I keep expecting it in many situations to actually work, but it's just not working.  THIS will not go away!

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What's a gal to do?  Well, I've now told myself that I cannot bake anything else until this is taken care of!  Sigh!  I don't want to do it.  Every time I walk in there I just shriek and turn around and walk out.  THIS is not a toy room, this is Taylor's room!  He sleeps in that little crib bed (he's almost 5!) that Sam is standing on (Surprise, Sam is standing up on something!)  And I will point out there is a nice clean spot, a path to Taylor's bed all the way to the doorway where I'm standing. 

Kevin has been out of town for four days.  I have been home with the boys, no, wait, I took all four of them to the store on Monday.  I actually cleaned the whole house (except T's room) as we had company come yesterday.  Michelle and Peter Stewart came through town on their way out west and stayed a night at our house.  It was so fun to have them here! (We miss you guys living in Lawrence!)  I invited everyone who knew them to come over for goodies and visit.  We had a good house full of kids and parents.  It was fun.  THIS is what I'd rather be doing----

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I've been doing a lot of baking and there's just something about it that I really enjoy.  So the spread of goodies was fun and there's a lot left over!  On Monday I made the dough for these little puppies---

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That's right, it's the New York Times Chocolate Chip Cookie!  I wanted to make them small and see how they turned out.  This is only about half the cookies that the full recipe made as each one was about 5/8 oz. of dough.   I chilled the dough for 24 hours.  They were/are SO good!  There's something about these, well, I'm sure it's a combo of the chocolate disks (I just chop up bars of chocolate) and I really think the cake flour/bread flour is something else, too, besides the chilling of the dough.  Right now (because who knows, another great/better one might just come around), but right now, these are my favorite chocolate chip cookie.  I don't even sprinkle mine with a little salt as the author of the article in the Times suggests.  I think the recipe made about 6 dozen of the little guys.  I love them and am proud to say I only ate one as it was slightly warm from the oven.  Now they are mostly gone and the rest are in the freezer.  LOVE THESE! 

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So, after all the cookie talk, I'll post a quick recipe for some really good fruit salsa and try to get to work on that bedroom!

I've been making this fruit salsa for a few years now and every time I do I try to remember why I wait so long to make it again.  It is so yummy.  And I just discovered it is really yummy to scoop up with graham crackers or graham sticks.  I found the recipe here at Allrecipes.  It is called Annie's Fruit Salsa and Cinnamon Chips.  You can make your own cinnamon chips by cutting flour tortillas and spraying them with a little cooking spray then sprinkling them with cinnamon/sugar and baking for a short time. I tried using the low carb whole grain tortillas and they just weren't as good.  The flour tortillas are good, but I really like the graham crackers.  The recipe calls for fresh fruit, but I have always used thawed frozen berries.  Here is how I made it.

1 16 oz. bag frozen mixed berries, thawed and bigger pieces chopped smaller

3 small Golden apples (you really could use any apple you'd like, peeled and chopped into smalls chunks

2 kiwi, peeled and chopped

3 tablespoons Smucker's Strawberry Simply Fruit Spread

2 tablespoons sugar (can be omitted, which I would do next time)

1 tablespoon brown sugar (also can be omitted)

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Chop all fruit into small pieces, mix together, add sugar, fruit spread and lemon juice, gently stir to combine.  Refrigerate.  Serve with homemade cinnamon tortilla chips and/or graham crackers.  This would also be good served over a small dish of fat free/low fat vanilla ice cream or with yogurt and some graham crackers broken up sprinkled on top. 

Mine has made A LOT of liquid/juice, which is also why I'd omit the sugar next time.  You cannot tell in the picture, because the picture was taken right after it was made.  You can also substitute really any fruit you'd like, peaches would be good.  A yummy, nutritious treat!

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Better go start tackling that room!

8 comments:

Randi said...

I've seen that fruit salsa recipe somewhere and now I can't remember where.4 boys? Wow!! My cousin has 3 boys and is pregnant again(she's due any day now). I'm sending her pink thoughts : ).

Clumbsy Cookie said...

I would say keep trying ignoring it and it maight go away eventually... But since you decided to give it a go, I just say: Good luck!!!
Wow what a table full of nice things! The little NYT cookies look pretty cool. I also have to freeze goodies not to eat them! Lol!

Anne Marie said...

That lineup of tasty foods is incredible! Wish I could have joined the party. A toddler can create an amazing path of destruction. My house always looks trashed about 30 minutes after we get it cleaned up. I've mostly given up trying:)

The City Sage said...

Oh wow, I'm in awe of all those chocolate chippers! How do you get them so perfectly identical in size? I want to eat the whole batch...

Katrina said...

the city sage,
I make all my cookies the same size by using an ice cream/cookie scoop. Love them!

Anne said...

Wow, you've been busy! The cookies and everything look amazing. Yum!

Pamela said...

Did you bake all of those cookies? You are amazing. It looks like my house during the Holidays!

Katrina said...

Pamela,
Yes, I baked all those cookies, but over a period of a week or so and then froze some of them.