Pre-birthday post

Tomorrow is my little girl's ninth birthday! In the space between this post and the previous, we went to Washington, D.C., for a networking event so I didn't really plan much. On the fly last night, my stepmom and I started planning a surprise barbeque tomorrow night (since my stepmom and I both work until 4). If you see the wee one, don't you dare tell her!

We have nearly no food in the house and the bank has somehow totally confused our checkbook. My stepmom said she's been craving her mom's macaroni salad and she has 100 hot dogs left over from a special event she hosted at the office. My daughter wants a watermelon for her birthday. With those elements available, it seemed obvious to have a barbecue.

I had some Bush's vegetarian baked beans in the cupboard and then we went to Wegmans for the watermelon and a cake. I picked a strawberry chiffon cake because it just sounded like the perfect summer cake for my summer baby.

I also got some vegetables to cook on the grill tomorrow: artichokes, red pepper, green pepper, potato, carrots and pineapple. I have it chopped and "marinating" in olive oil, four color pepper, garlic pepper and a touch of pineapple juice.

I spent $91 at wegmans but I think I got some great stuff:
- Wegmans honey apple oat bread, $2.79
- sour cream $1.09
- Chobani Flipz, 6 at $1.29 each
- Alexa multigrain onion rings, $3.19
- Alexa crinkle cut salt and pepper sweet potato fries, $3.19
-Wegmans spinach and feta pierogies, $1.99
- Wegmans steam in bag artichokes and asparagus, $3.99
- sweet peas, 99 cents
- frozen juice concentrate, $1.99 and $2.09, three total all 100% juice
- wegmans chunky pizza sauce, 3 at $1.19
- cool ranch doritos, $2.50
- tomato sauce, 16 ounce can, 3 at 55 cents
- tomato sauce, tiny can, 3 at 3/99 cents
- canned artichoke hearts (plain) $2.99
- mandarin oranges in pear juice, 2 small cans at 89 cents each
- canned crab meat, $2.39
- club pack of 2 baguettes, $4
- strawberry chiffon cake, $13
- 5 lbs idaho potatoes, $1.99
- kale, $2.49
- green pepper, 94 cents
- one pound organic baby carrots, $1.29
- red pepper, $1.96
-eggroll wrappers, $2.99
- broccoli slaw, $2.50
- 12 ounces of raspberries, $3.99
- 2 lbs strawberries, $3.99
- watermelon, $4.99 

Picnic

School starts for both my daughter and I in less than a week. Uggh.

I'm not ready. She's not ready.

C'est la vie.

My diet has been horrible lately. Full of cakes, candies and chips. Today I was cleaning the kitchen and I realized that once again I was hungry and not adequately feeding myself.

So while I cleaned I had my eight-year-old pack a picnic of greens, sandwiches and iced tea and we ate it in our pajamas in the front yard.

Now, the laundry beckons.

Small picnic

It's an insane day in our household. Dad works 9-2, Mom works 3-10. The library (Mom's the board president) has a book fair 10-3. Child has dance 11-12:30.

Picnic.

Yup.

Rushed home from child's dance class to pack a picnic while she's dancing.
- juice with bubbles
- cucumber with homemade zesty creamy dippings (dill, country herbs, mayo, lemon juice, yogurt dressing)
- baguette with sweet Lebanon bologna and havarti dill cheese
- last of the canned peaches
- a fresh d'Anjou pair

All in a wicker basket with cloth napkins

Chicken salad picnic

As part of our picnic, Gayle made the following chicken salad:

20 ounces of shredded cooked chicken
1 small apple, diced small
15-20 grapes cut in half or quarters if large
1 handful sliced almonds

Mix together

Add dressing of 1 part Mayo and 1 part plain Greek Yogurt or regular
yogurt drained.

There was a lot of grapes (which I liked, they were *perfect* red grapes) and we could have used some more almonds, but then, I love almonds. I love fruity chicken salad. And Gayle and I had the discussion that we're not fans of mayo, so hence the yogurt substitution. Gayle said she read you could used mashed avocado instead of mayo for the fat, and so we added sliced avocado. That was yummy. So there may be something to this avocado idea.

Rye rolls take two

My dad and his wife are hosting a picnic today, so, I knew I should bring something but I had no idea what. I'm not a cold salad person, and I don't have the ingredients for any of the cold salads I like. As usual, I'm plotting at the last minute.

My stepmom usually has burgers and corn and watermelon. I opted to make rolls. No one else will make bread, that's for sure, and it's nice and humid. Perfect for bread. My stepmom was surprised to get my call this morning with that news. Hopefully they turn out yummy.

I've taken to storing all my flour in the freezer. My luck lately has been far from good regarding the longevity of my flour. Also, this was my first batch of bread with the brick of yeast from Gayle. There's 32 ounces of yeast there. The date on the bag suggests "best by 2/2011" so it should be interesting to see how long it takes me to use it.

Verdict on batch two of the rye rolls: (recipe available via rye link)
Delicious when you follow the recipe.

Pineapple picnic

This house certainly operates on the feast or famine principle. This week will be the famine menu. It started yesterday with a breakfast meeting of the Northampton County Penn State Cooperative Extension advisory board, where my daughter and I each had an order of cinnamon raisin French toast. Of course, my daughter also had a banana before we left home.

After the meeting, my preschooler visited her grandparents while I went to work. I think my husband ate the last piece of quiche for lunch and I received the last of the macaroni and cheese which I didn't get to eat until 3 p.m. Yesterday was the first day of class for my new undergraduate degree (like I need a second one). So by the time we got home, I wasn't hungry so my husband and daughter had a simple dinner of nachos with refried beans and mango salsa.

Today my husband and I had my homemade oatmeal-almond-apple cookies for breakfast, but the child wanted a granola bar with her apple juice. We took my husband to work and came home where we then gave the tortoise a bath and gave her some fresh spring mix. She didn't touch it (only I could have a picky tortoise) so we offered her some canned chunk pineapple. That was a hit. My daughter joined the tortoise for a picnic on the dishwasher. Pineapple for everyone!

Today is day two of class, the first day of my senior history seminar at 11 a.m. My husband and daughter have lunch planned at Lafayette College's student center. He packed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and raw broccoli with blue cheese dressing. As for me, I know I have to eat but who knows what or when.

We're supposed to get snow today and I'm scheduled to do a site visit at one of my middle schools for work and then attend a board of trustees meeting for our local library. I'm thinking dinner may be leftover pork or maybe something like soup with the funky spinach and feta peorogies. I hope to make a pizza crust Thursday a.m. and bring hot artichoke heart/black olive pizza for my daughter and husband to munch on while I'm in class.