Honey Lime Lemongrass Chicken Wings: Experience makes you stronger

For Mom - who tried so hard for me.

Mom took piano lessons in order to help me learn piano.  She learned so she knew what the notes were, understood the basic rhythms and could support me in the early stages of piano.  And once she established me at the piano, and had the sense that I was on my way and understood what was going on, she moved on to Brother.

Once Brother began his violin lessons (with Mom taking up the violin as well), I was free to practice on my own.  The way our piano room was set up was it was completely isolated from the rest of the house.  I could close doors, lock myself in the living room, and no one could see what was going on inside, unless they opened the door.

By the time I was 11 years old, I was practicing on my own in that room.  And some days, when I felt that practice was going to be exceptionally tedious and long, I would grab whatever book I was reading and bring it into my room and quietly shut the door.  And I would practice, from muscle memory, as my eyes and my mind were elsewhere.   My fingers would play songs over and over as I devoured whatever book it was that I was reading.

Needless to say, this did not improve my piano playing.  And I remember this, because it makes me pause and think about how I want to make sure Daughters #1 and #2 practice.  Don't get me wrong - I'm not about having them practice for several hours on end, like they are preparing for some master competition - they're only 6 and 8.  But I do expect them to practice mindfully, even if they only practice for 20 or 30 minutes at a time. (But yes, sometimes they practice twice a day.)

When they go into their practice, which incidentally is in a totally open space with no doors to close and right next to the kitchen, I make sure they walk in with nothing in their hands.  I make sure they're seated at the bench, correct positions, hands at the ready and thoughtful in their practice.  They get to get away with a lot less because I know what I did when I was little.  My little shortcuts and shortcomings of my childhood are not tolerated and not allowed in them.

That's the curse of having a mom with a good memory of her own mischief in childhood.

But don't feel badly for Daughters (or Son) because also on top of this, they are continually bombarded with new dishes, new flavors, and new ideas in the kitchen.  They aren't allowed to get comfortable with their old dishes, because I'm constantly giving them new ones.  I'd like to think that they've tasted more new things that average children their age, so I'm assuming that in this way, they'll be stronger.

They responded well to these chicken wings, with the hints of lemongrass and lime.  Daughter #2, who is a certified wing fanatic, really loved the flavors and made a point of eating 5 wings, on her own. Son is now eating vegetarian (don't know why) and I couldn't cajole or trick him into eating a single bite, but Daughter #1 also took down a few herself.  They are not spicy, have a subtle perfume of curry and other flavors, but everything blends together so it isn't one flavor that hits you all at once.

Don't let the long list of ingredients stop you from making this - it's simply mixing it all together in a bowl, and marinating the chicken, removing chicken from marinade and cooking them in the oven until they are brown and caramelized.

Honey Lime Lemongrass Chicken Wings
Serves 4 to 6

Ingredients
2 ½ lbs chicken wings and/or drummettes, skin on

3 tablespoons minced lemongrass
3 tablespoons chopped cilantro
2 tablespoons minced ginger
2 tablespoons minced garlic
2 tablespoons fish sauce
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons lime juice
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons sake
2 tablespoons curry powder

Method
In a large bowl, mix together all ingredients EXCEPT wings. Once marinade is fully mixed, add wings, ensuring that each wing gets a nice covering of the marinade. Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, or overnight.

Preheat oven to 400. Line a roasting pan with foil (easier clean up). Lift chicken from marinade and place on roasting pan. Roast wings on one side, until wings are golden, about 20 minutes. Turn wings over, and cook on the other side for an additional 20 minutes.

Serve with lots of napkins.

Printable recipe

Lemongrass Chicken Stir Fry: Learning to accept change

Son's number one fear is change.  If he has new clothes,  a change of routine, a change of schedule, or a change of location - any sort of change from his normal everyday life makes him nuts, and consequently makes me nuttier.  His fear about change, his resistance to change, and his often stubborn inability to embrace change and accept it is a facet of his character that I hope, in time, will begin to soften.

It's not like I'm a huge lover of change either.  I don't like change in my daily life, in my routine, in the things that are familiar, but I'm also adult enough and wise enough to understand that change, is not only often necessary, it is a good thing.  For the most part, change, when it is with the goal of overall improvement is something that I welcome.  Change is good.

But, recent events in my life have taught me that adults are almost just as stubborn about change as children.  They want to know the why's of change, the what's of change, how is this going to affect ME and my life of change, and they fight change tooth and nail.  Oftentimes in communities, bringing about change becomes even more fractious and antagonistic as people pit themselves against one another, very much in the same way I put myself against Son when he is fighting his change. People try to protect their own interests, instead of thinking about the goals of the greater good.  Nowhere do I see this more in communities where I want to see improvement, like schools.  Teachers isolate themselves so that they can avoid change, leadership forgets to motivate for change, and parents sit by and talk about the days of old, without ever pushing for new ideas and transformation.

If you are unaware, a radical shift (or maybe it won't be that radical, who knows?) is brewing on the horizon, that will hit your child's school in the United States in two years.  45 states in the US have adopted new nationwide standards in mathematics and language arts.  There are 5 states that still have yet to adopt the new standards (Texas, Virginia, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Alaska) but the rest of the nation has adopted these new state wide standards.  In theory, the entire nation will be teaching and learning the same thing.  No longer will there be state by state variances.  (in theory.)

If you're not aware (and I've only begun studying this in the past six months or so), there will be a shift in what is being taught in language arts nation wide.  There will be a shift to more narrow field to focus on, and more depth in studying the topics that are covered.  Teachers will have to change what they teach, as shift will move towards more informational texts (less fiction taught in school), more explanatory writing (less personal biography taught), and more depth required in each of these areas.  I see the return of research in high schools, research papers and lengthy reports on a single topic, and a shift to challenging kids to decode texts to get facts and information, instead of the focus on just getting kids to "read whatever" in class.

Change is coming.  I know that teachers are scrambling, because they are going to have to change.  I have to change what I focus on teaching.  Students have to accept shifts in what they are learning in school  But I have to believe and take a leap of faith, no matter how hard, that this change is good.  This change is worth it.  This change is going to make lives better.  I'm not sure how it will, but I trust the intelligent people that are putting things together, working like crazy, and coming up with ways to challenge our educational system so that it can improve.  How can we be happy as a nation, when we perform so poorly against the world?  I'm not fighting this change.  I'm learning how I can embrace it.  I'm studying the standards, figuring out what they mean, and preparing myself to assist Children to move with the change.

Change is good.  We may not like it when it's hard, but it'll be worth it.  I believe it.

To learn more about the Common Core State Standards, read about them here.  Each of your state's department of education will also have a stance and a statement regarding this.

If you're reading to change things up in the kitchen, I suggest making this Lemongrass Chicken.  It's not your typical stirfry with flavors, but change is wonderful in the case of this dish.  Served with jasmine rice it just makes you happy.  (certainly makes me very happy.)  The flavors are slightly exotic, but comforting at the same time.  The stir fry ingredients take a bit of time to prep, because cutting and mincing lemon grass is difficult, but the flavor is SO worth it, believe me!

Lemongrass Mini Lesson

If you're relatively unfamiliar with using lemongrass, the stalk is super hard to cut, because it is so fibrous.  This recipe, however, uses the inner stalk of the lemongrass, which is far more tender.

Cut off the top of the lemongrass, leaving about a 3 to 4 inch piece.

Using your knife, split the lemongrass stalk lengthwise, so that you can access the tender portion of the stalk.  Discard the tough outer leaves (or if you're making a curry, you can keep it around to add to curry.)

Using your knife, mince the tender stalk into tiny pieces.

Lemongrass Chicken Stir Fry
Serves 6

Ingredients
1 ½ pounds skinless, boneless chicken thighs, fat trimmed, meat cut into 3/4-inch pieces
½ teaspoon turmeric
½ teaspoon curry powder (I use Trader Joes)
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons canola oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
2 plump stalks of lemongrass, tender white inner bulb only, minced
2 shallots, quartered lengthwise and thinly sliced crosswise
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon minced ginger
½ cup chicken stock
¼ cup sake
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon sugar

Method
In a medium bowl, toss the chicken pieces with 2 tablespoons of canola oil, 1 teaspoon salt, curry powder and turmeric powder. Set aside.

Mix together in a bowl chicken stock, sake, fish sauce and sugar. Set aside.

In a large skillet or a wok, heat 2 tablespoons of the canola oil until small puffs of smoke begin to appear. Add half of the chicken and stir-fry over high heat until browned in spots, about 3 minutes. Transfer the chicken to a plate. Repeat with the remaining chicken.

Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil in the skillet. Add the lemongrass, garlic, and ginger and cook over high heat, stirring, until fragrant, 2 minutes. Add chicken stock mixture and bring to a bowl and cook until liquids are significantly reduced, about 5 minutes. Add the chicken to the sauce and simmer until heated through, then serve.

Garnish with cilantro if desired. Serve with rice.

Printable recipe

Strawberry Lemon Cupcakes: When you send them out without you

Daughter #1 left the roost for two nights yesterday.  Last year, she did a one night sleepover on campus at our local day camp, which is only a 10 minute walk from our home, and she loved it.  This year, the same day camp takes the slightly older kids on a wilderness camping trip for two nights and three days.  I said good-bye to her Wednesday morning, and I will not be seeing her again until Friday afternoon.

I asked her if she wanted to go, since it would be camping, something she has only done once, and it was done with me nearby.  She was quite keen and eager to go and wouldn't be dissuaded.  I had some doubts, for Daughter #1 is a strange combination of independent and helpless.  She can figure out complex situations and work through difficult emotions and feelings but she can't get her own food in a buffet line.  I wasn't sure how she would fare on a camping trip, so once she told me she wanted to go, I decided to prepare her a bit.

How to Survive Away From Mommy

Step 1.  Learn how to pack your own essentials.
Campers were given a list of things to prepare and since I was extremely busy (I actually was), I told her to take care of it.  I gave her a bag and the list, a few ziploc bags and told her to figure things out.  She did.

Step 2.  Learn how to stuff your own sleeping bag into the appropriate bag.
This job stymied her for a bit because the bag seemed so small compared to the volume of the sleeping bag.  I told her to start slowly and keep on stuffing.  She did it and 8 minutes later, she had stuffed the sleeping bag into the bag and there was the sheen of sweat on her face.

Step 3.  Learn to take inventory and keep track of your things.
We borrowed a very nice sleeping pad from a friend and I basically instructed Daughter #1 that we COULD NOT lose it.  She had to keep track of everything that was hers - her duffel bag, her sleeping bag, her pillow, her sleeping pad.  All of it, she had to keep track of. (I did get a bit crazy with the label maker and label a bunch of stuff, but still.)

Step 4.  Learn how to get your own food.  When it's time to eat, no one is going to serve you a perfectly arranged plate of food. (I know that this is partly my fault.)  Think about what a balanced meal is, what mommy would normally put on your plate (protein, starch vegetable) and try and make healthy choices for yourself.

Step 5.  Always go places with another person.  Find a partner to go to the bathroom, to go back to the campsite, to go anywhere.  Do not travel alone.

Daughter #1 survived my intense survival-away-from-mommy crash course without any tears and I breathed a sigh of relief.  Under my breath I thought that it was far easier keeping her under my own room, under my own protection, than sending her out into the wide world without me.

And that's when it struck me.  How much have I been preparing Children for their eventual leaving of the nest?  I had much hesitation about this camping trip, simply because I was worried that she wasn't ready.  Did I prepare her correctly?  Did she have the right emotional tools to deal with being without me?  Was she confident enough to handle herself on her own?  A stream of questions poured in and out of my brain, and I worried, I did not prepare her ENOUGH.

But then again, we never can, can we?  We will never prepare them enough for the outside world.  We never feel we have given them all the perfectly right tools to meet every single sticky situation.  We want to protect them from horrible things, from harsh realities, from sadness, but our desire to do so prevents them from being prepared.

Mostly from this experience, I realized that I'm not prepared.  I'm not prepared to let her go.  She's only 8 after all, but two nights, three days is a long time to be without a child.  The house is way too quiet without her presence, and suddenly the days are far too empty and missing action.  The piano is being played only half of the time, there is only 1/3 the amount of fighting that normally happens, and I'm even less motivated to cook since there is one fewer mouth to feed.  I'd like to keep my family all together for a little longer I think.

With all of my new found free time with one gone, I decided to make these little cupcakes as I ruminated on all the ways I haven't prepared Children for the real world.  Thankfully the scent of lemons, strawberry and sugar distracted me from the harsher realities of parenthood and I began to relax in the euphoric smell of sweetness.  These little strawberry lemon cakes can be enjoyed without frosting and the lightest sprinkling of powdered sugar or can get the fully pampered treatment and be topped with a delicious strawberry cream cheese frosting.  Either way, the taste is pure summer, absolute fun, and total yumminess.

Note:  Freeze dried fruit generally come with a pack of silica gel on the inside.  REMOVE this before pulverizing.

Strawberry Lemon Cupcakes
Makes 30 regular cupcakes, 60 mini cupcakes

Lemon Cake
Ingredients
2 cups regular sugar
2 tablespoon lemon zest
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
4 large eggs (taken out of the fridge the same time as the butter)
1¼ cup buttermilk
3 cups all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup diced fresh strawberries

Method
Preheat oven to 350. Line cupcake tins with paper liners.

In a food processor, pulverize together lemon zest and sugar. (Doing so releases the lemon oils.)

In a mixing bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

In a mixing bowl with a hand mixer or a stand mixer, blend softened butter and lemon sugar until thoroughly combined. Add eggs, one at a time and beat until well mixed, occasionally scraping down the sides of the bowl to ensure that everything is well blended.

Add half of flour mixture and mix until just combined. and add half of buttermilk and mix until just combined. Scrape down sides of the bowl. Add remaining half of flour mixture, mix until just combined and then add remaining buttermilk. Mix until just combined.again. At this stage, the less you mix the better for your cake. (too much mixing makes for a tough cake.)  Remove mixer blades, and gently fold in strawberries with a spatula.

Divide cake into prepared muffin tins. Bake for mini cupcakes for 20 to 22 minutes, regular cupcakes for 22 to 24 minutes, or until cake springs back when gently pressed with fingertips. Cool for 20 minutes, then remove cake from pans and cool on wire racks until completely cool.

Strawberry Frosting
Ingredients
Makes enough to frost 30 cupcakes

1 cup of butter, slightly softened (room temperature for about 20 minutes)
8 oz of cream cheese (room temperature for 5 minutes)
1.2 oz (34 grams) freeze dried strawberries, pulverized in a mini food processor (but not too far ahead of time, otherwise they will begin to absorb moisture)
5-6 cups of confectioners sugar

In a large mixing bowl with a hand mixer or a stand mixer, mix butter until it is softened and uniform. Add cream cheese and beat together until it is uniform. Add pulverized strawberries. Add 3 cups of sugar to the mixture and mix. 2 more cups of sugar. Mix again until mixture is creamy and spreadable. Add more sugar if necessary, otherwise prepare to frost cupcakes.

You can frost with a knife, or you can using a pastry bag and a 1M Wiltons star tip to make the rosettes. Start in the middle of the cupcake, hold the tip perpendicular to the cupcake (pointing straight down) and swirl outwards.

Printable recipe

inside the cake, before I ate it.

Freeze Dried Strawberries - Trader Joe's has these for $3.49 for the pack.  If you can't get there, try Target, Walmart, or Whole Foods


I got these mini cupcake liners (pictured above) at Sur La Table.


I am thinking I will get these since they are so cute for mini cupcakes.

Pretzel Toffee Cookies: How much is too much?

For JEL, HKL, SH - who have all been training me to say NO.

I think that when God designed me, He left me with a huge gap where the word "NO" should have been.  I have no problem saying the word NO to my children.  "No more sugar" or "No more books" or "No more play time" or "No more snacks" but the word NO when someone asks me for help is something that I still struggle with as a 40 year old (almost 41, gulp) woman.

If a friend, family member, or even an acquaintance asks me to do something - I find it extremely hard to say no. This is in light of the fact that I'm raising three kids, work part time, write a food blog and serve at my church.  Requests for things come flying in and I cannot squeeze the word "NO" out.  This is a flaw that a great number of my friends and family have been berating me for for a long, long, long time, and one friend even went as far as writing me scripts so that I could practice telling someone "no."

But I HATE disappointing people.  I hate the look of "OH NO" on their faces when I tell them that I can't do something that they need me to do.  I don't like feeling that I'm incapable of doing something that people are asking me to do.  I like feeling super capable, extra energetic, and extremely hardworking that I can handle it all.

On top of it all, I also cannot do anything halfway.  If you ask me to do something, I go all out.  As my friend SH says, "When you want something done, give it to a busy person" which is always her comment when she sees me taking on the next huge thing, whether it be offering to grade papers for a teacher or making a ton of food for a school event.  I keep saying yes, I keep going all out, and I just can't stop it.

It's pretty pathetic.  I exhausted myself this past May and June with the sheer number of commitments I took on and was determined to finish.  I even found myself offering to do EXTRA things (WHY JOANNE WHY) just to prove that I could.  And the end result was that Husband and Children suffered immensely.  My own inability to take a stand, to set boundaries, to build walls to protect my sanity meant that Family suffered.  I yelled, I screeched, I demanded, and I was generally an extremely awful person to be around.  There wasn't enough of anything to keep me calm, and I took it out on Family.

These days I've been put in more than a number of awkward positions with requests.  But I learned my lesson in May and June that it isn't my job to do everything for everyone.  I do have a commitment and an obligation to Family first, before I take on the rest of the world.  It's not that I don't want to be helpful, because I want to be helpful.  It's not that I don't want to be giving either, but I want to have a sense of space in my life that is whole and not constantly being chopped into little pieces because of the demands of the outside world.  

So here's to a few awkward moments as I learn to set boundaries.  Here's to having space that is not invaded by my incessant need to please others.  Here's to learning to say "No" and not feeling bad about it.  In a toast to my new hopefully found independence from saying "Yes" -I give you Pretzel Toffee Cookie.  It's pretty hard for me to say "NO" to this cookie, but I think it's okay in this context.  The cookie doesn't take time from my family, nor does it threaten to put a storm cloud over my head.  It does threaten to put a few pounds on my hips, so maybe I should learn to say no to this as well.  

NO.

NO.  

NO.

Okay - maybe just one more.

Pretzel Toffee Cookies
Makes 5 dozen

Ingredients
2 sticks of butter, room temperature
1 ⅔ cups brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 ½ cups flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 ½ cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
¾ cups toffee chips (like Heath or Skor)
½ cup old-fashioned oats
2 cups mini pretzel twists, left whole

Method
Combine the butter and sugar in the bowl (either in a stand mixer or in a bowl where you can use a hand mixer) and cream on medium high for 2 to 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the egg and vanilla and beat until all ingredients are mixed together, another 3 to 4 minutes.

Reduce speed to low, and add flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Beat until just mixed, about 1 minute.

Add chocolate chips, toffee chips and oats, and mix until just blended. Finally, add pretzels and allow them to be mixed in. Do not over mix, or you will completely crush the pretzels. (A few large chunks are rather nice.)

Now the dough needs to rest. Take cookie dough, wrap it in saran wrap, place it in a sealed plastic bag and refrigerate. You can rest it for 8 hours, but 24 hours is usually better. You want the dough firm and cold.

When you are ready to bake, preheat oven to 375. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Scoop tablespoon scoops and lay them about 2 inches apart on your baking sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until cookies are golden and firmed up.

Allow cookies to cool in pan for 5 minutes, before removing them to a cooling rack. Enjoy. These do make fabulous ice cream sandwiches for the record.

Printable recipe

No, no, no.  I just can't.  I can't eat these entire stack in one bite.

Blueberry Oatmeal Crisp: Taking me as I am

To my friend in the sun hat.   You make me smile.

I can be a pain to be around.  Sure, you get lots of yummy treats, savory snacks, and meals, but you have to put up with ME, the person that I am inside and out. And that person, more often than not, is a pain in your backside.  Or frontside.  Maybe your left or your right side.

I am more often than not thinking about education.  I think about it on micro levels (what is going on in Childrens' heads and how can I take advantage of real teachable moments?) to what is going on macro levels (What is going on in education at our school, district, county, state, nationwide level and how can I make an impact?)  I think about what books to read next so that I have a library handy for my students. I think about what changes need to be made at our school right now.  I think of ways to improve my own teaching.   I think about and dream about education a good portion of my life.  It's really a large part of who I am - and I can't help it.  I'm a teacher, a thinker, an educator and it's what I do.

There are many times when I think aloud.  Thinking about how to improve things.  Thinking about what is wrong with individual situations.  Thinking about how to improve an individual situation.  Trying to understand what is going on on multiple levels.  I think about and rant about these things all the time.  But I was told that it stressed people out and I was stressing people out with all of my thinking aloud and that people didn't like it.  They didn't like being stressed out by my internal thoughts and my external expression.

To be told that a major part of who I am stressed a friend out, and made her even say in passing, "I don't like that part of you" hurt.  I felt guilty.  Dismayed.  The piece of me that I consider to be the most passionate and integral part of what makes up who I am was shot down.  I was wounded.  I cried that day when someone said that they didn't like that part of me.  Sad, I sent a lone text to a friend, who aside from Husband, hears the most of my rants, apologizing to her, in case she ever felt stressed out by our conversations.  Her text back was, "There is nothing to forgive."

And then she sent me this picture with a caption.  (as a note - she took this picture after she got my text, surreptitiously trying to capture these two wonderful old ladies chatting)

"The teacher at the senior center was just not up to snuff."
May ours be a lasting friendship....

And it just made me smile.  She pictures us, 40 years from now, sitting in front of the senior center, still with my thinking aloud about education.  She is by my side, listening and taking it all in.    When I asked her later, if I did, in fact stress her out with all my craziness, she said, "It's who you are.  You can't reject a part of who you are.  In fact, your worry makes my world a better place."  I take that to mean, that yes, I do stress her out at times, but no, she doesn't reject that part of me.

The lesson in all of this is that people have to take me as I am.  All of me.  I'm nutty about education.  I can't stop thinking about it.  I have ideas, practice, thoughts about how to improve things.  And if I don't have the ideas, I'm asking questions, asking people, researching trying to find out ways to make things better.  I'm studying data, analyzing, questioning wondering about all of those things.

And you all know, if I'm not thinking about education, I'm thinking about new ways to make food.  To make it better.  Healthier.  Easier.  I'm contemplating ways to provide access to foods that Son, with his numerous allergies, can enjoy.  I think about ways to take the picture of my food, to entice people to eat what I'm eating, and to cook better food for their families.  I want people to stop eating out so much, stop buying convenience food, and eat in more often.  I think about this very often in the day. If I'm not ranting about education, I'm probably talking about our country's non-healthy eating habits.

I made this for my friend in the sun hat, because I wanted to share a little bit of something sweet with her.  She had to sit and listen to me talk about my grand plans for my discussion with my superintendent, but sat patiently waiting for this little bit of deliciousness to pop out of the oven.  Warm, on its own, it was a lovely unctuous treat.  Son and Daughters enjoyed it, and my friend in the sun hat did as well.  And she gets to enjoy both parts of me - educator and cook.

Blueberry Oatmeal Crisp (Vegan)
Serves 6 to 8

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups old-fashioned oats
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup coconut oil, slightly melted (softened in the microwave to facilitate blending)
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

4 cups washed blueberries, picked over (about 1.5 lbs blueberries)
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons maple syrup
2 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons lemon juice
zest from one lemon

Method
Preheat oven to 400.

Make crust by mixing together oats, brown sugar, and flour. Add melted coconut oil, maple syrup and cinnamon and blend together with a fork until the mixture slightly clumps together. Set aside.

Toss blueberries with brown sugar, maple syrup, flour, lemon juice and zest. Make sure all blueberries are coated and ingredients are evenly distributed.

In a 9X9 baking pan or medium casserole dish, place blueberry mixture on bottom. Crumble crust mixture on top of blueberries, covering the entire surface.

Bake in 400 oven for about 20 to 25 minutes, until crust is brown and crispy and blueberry mixture is bubbly.

Serve warm straight from the dish.

Printable recipe

Balsamic Honey Barbecue Wings: Reasons why summer is so great

As I am now in week 3 of official summer break, I find myself enjoying things I never thought I would have said a few years back.  I'm compiling them in a short list for my own personal amusement.

Top 10 Reasons Why Summer Break Is Great

10.  No more dropping kids off at three different times to different locations.

9.  No packing of lunches.

8.  Later wake-ups (for both Children and ME)

7.  Fewer layers to wear, to organize and to take off

6.  Fewer work hours

5.  Better lighting for better pictures for food blog

4.  Fewer activities for Children

3.  More hours to get Children involved in the maintenance of the house and to get them to throw away their own junk

2. More leisurely bathroom time, since I'm not rushing somewhere else

1.  No more homework for me to stress over, get over, make sure it's over each week.

You got that right.  It's the lack of homework from school that just gets me excited.  Children can do their activity, sit down and do their extra math sheets with me, and play and we don't stress about homework. I don't check their homework, confirm their homework and sign off on their homework.  It's the most liberating feeling ever.

The other thing that makes me happy is food that Children gobble down.  Meals are more leisurely as we're not in a rush to go to the next activity, and instead we have more time to lick our fingers and enjoy our food.  This chicken dish made the kids happy as they love anything with a sauce and the chicken was a little bit crispy and wonderful.

Balsamic Honey Barbecue Sauce Wings
Serves 4

Ingredients
2 lbs Chicken wings, separated into wings and drummettes, tips discarded

Barbecue sauce
½ cup balsamic vinegar
½ cup tomato ketchup
¼ cup honey
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

Method
In a saucepan, mix together balsamic vinegar, tomato ketchup, honey, Worcestershire sauce and Dijon mustard. Stir until mixture is incorporated and smooth. Simmer over medium heat until reduced by a ⅓ about 15 minutes. Once mixture has reduced, set aside.

Preheat oven to 400. Line roasting pan with foil and if you have it available, use a roasting rack on the inside of the pan. This allows more fat to render off of the wing and a crispier exterior. Lay wings neatly on rack and drizzle olive oil over the wing, and season with salt and pepper.

Bake for 20 minutes, and then turn wings over and cook for an additional 20 minutes. Once wings have cooked, then brush barbecue sauce all over one side of wing. Cook for an additional 5 minutes, turn over, brush more barbecue sauce and cook for another 5 minutes.

Serve warm.

Printable recipe

To the great days of summer