Horchata!!!!

I often find myself becoming obsessed with something. It can be a project, a food, a piece of fabric or people or stories...whatever. This week I was obsessed with horchata so I decided to make my own. The recipe I got from allrecipes.com. I didn't follow the recipe exactly and I think next time I make it, I will make more changes, but it was still really good and a fun drink to try.

For those of you who don't know what horchata is, it is a refreshing cinnamon flavored rice milk drink that is often served with mexican food. Apparently, it is often served at breakfast because it is considered to be great for a hangover, but I just read that online. I don't think I will ever need a cure for a hangover.

And now, for the recipe...

Lola's Horchata
1 cup uncooked long grain white rice
5 cups water
1/2 cup milk
2/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1. Put rice and water in a blender and blend until the rice starts to break up (about one minute). Let sit for 3 hours (Because I did this step before going to church, mine sat for more like 5 hours and it was still tasty, also my blender was leaking with 5 cups of water so I scooped some of it out to blend the rice and then added it back in for the sitting time).

2. Strain rice and water into a pitcher, add other ingredients, stir, and refrigerate. Serve over ice.

Easy peasy and it was delicious. I made some chicken enchiladas to go with the drink and we all had a fun time (not really, Miles drank the horchata and decided he didn't want to eat any of the meal but just have more drink which made for a high strung, stressed out mother. Eventually, I got him to eat a few pieces of broccoli (he loves broccoli) and two bites of enchilada).

The one complaint I had a bout the drink was it left a huge amount of silt at the bottom of the glass (sugar and cinnamon) which bothers me terribly. I think next time I make it, I might take some of the strained rice water and heat it with the sugar to make a simple syrup, then add the milk and vanilla. I might also include a cinnamon stick in while making the simple syrup instead of using ground cinnamon.

Cooks...what are your thoughts? How would you remedy the problem of the silt?

Natural Cleaning Products

For Christmas, my friend made me some all natural cleaning products and I was super excited to try them out. The cleanser is just baking soda and your favorite natural oils to make it smell nice. I don't know what oils my friend used (something citrusy I think), but I am loving this cleanser. First, I cleaned my kitchen sink and it was so nice to not cover my hands in a harsh smelling detergent. Then I went upstairs to clean the bathroom. I didn't realize how my system for cleaning the bathroom revolved around not mixing the cleanser with the glass cleaner and how my nose suffered with all the fumes. Two best parts, I didn't have to spend 20 minutes scrubbing down my arms from the elbow down to get all the toxic cleanser off my hands and, now, if I want to put Miles in the bathtub right after cleaning it, I don't have to worry about any cleanser being left behind.

The all-purpose spray was super great too. I don't know what is in it, but the other night Miles wanted to help clean up after dinner. Being under 2, there isn't a lot of deep cleaning he can handle other than clearing his dinner dishes. However, the table needed to be wiped down and I realized I had an all-natural all purpose spray. I set him up on a chair, gave him a rag and sprayed down the table. Together the three of us wiped down the dinner table and had a fun time doing it too. It was so nice to be able to include Miles in the house cleaning.

Christmas

We were really looking forward to celebrating Christmas at home this year. It's nice to have your child sleep in his own bed, wake up in familiar surroundings and then see that something is different at the Christmas tree. Here is Miles' experience.


Everything is set up for optimum viewing when Miles wakes up.

Here, he is seeing things for the first time. Let me explain the picture a little. In the morning, it is cold in our house so we bought Miles some slippers to wear in the mornings. Everything was going great until Miles needed a new pair of school shoes and we bought him some new sneakers. Now, every morning he insists on putting his shoes on. On Christmas morning, I asked Miles if he wanted his house shoes on. He agreed until he saw I was talking about the slippers. As a compromise, Miles offered his chicken wear the house shoes and he would wear his sneakers.

Don't worry, Scooter got presents too. He got a catnip pillow with big eyes on it. Miles took one look at it and deemed it an owl.

Here we are going through his stocking. The first thing he pulled out was raisins and he wasn't really interested in it after that. Taking everything else out of the stocking was a bit of a chore to be done in between bites of raisins.

The family in our new pajamas.

Miles got balls from the grandparents. He likes to try to carry all of them. Here, he is carrying three, but at one point, he had all four in his hands/arms.

By far, his two favorite presents were the legos and...

A race car track. Thanks again grandparents!

Miles meets Santa

I forgot to post this earlier. This is Miles' first time meeting Santa. We were waiting in line and Miles kept calling him Satan. Miles also calls the Christmas Tree the "Gimme Tee". His stocking is "tockin".

So, we are thinking of not really talking about Santa to Miles. I don't really want that to be the focus of the holiday and want to instead emphasize the celebration of the birth of Christ. Any thoughts?

Decorating for Christmas

Here are a few pictures of us decorating for Christmas this year. I was expecting the worst with a toddler, but things have been okay...so far.


It's important to us that Miles learn about the story of the birth of Jesus and that being the reason we celebrate Christmas so we got him a nativity scene made by lego. Miles loves playing with it.

He also loves wearing his monkey hat. The hat has nothing to do with Christmas, but it's cute.

When we pulled out the Christmas tree, it poked Miles so he was afraid of it from the beginning. Here he is playing with a garland while Steve and I decorate the tree.

Miles finally got familiar enough with the tree to touch the ornaments, but not the tree (it still pokes). This has actually made Christmas really nice because I don't have to worry about Miles playing with the tree and having it fall on him. I think next year I will give him the job of keeping the cat away from the tree.

The magic of Christmas as seen from little eyes.

Thanksgiving and handmade fun

So I am really behind in my blogging so I am combining different things (not the snow thing though because it was just too precious). Anyway, I decided to combine Thanksgiving and other crafts. The best part of Thanksgiving this year was that Steve did all the cooking and preparation. I just did some cleaning and set the table. It was awesome.


Here is my awesome table. Everyone had a chocolate bar favor on their plate. Even Miles got a peppermint kiss on his plate.

Here's a close up of the favors. Steve designed and put them together.

Here is Steve posing with the food. We had friends over and split up the food so Steve made the turkey and israeli couscous salad. Other delights gracing our table were mashed potatoes, sauerkraut mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, dressing, rolls, spicy cranberry compote, a couple different appetizers, and pumpkin roulade and gingerbread cupcakes for dessert. It was so tasty

Here is a close up of some birds I made for a garland that I strung around the stockings. I got the pattern from a book called FaLaLaLa Felt. It's a great book.

I made Miles an apron too so he could help me make christmas cookies. If you look at it closely, it's not very christmasy (there are pigs with webs on them). Oh well. Miles is at the age where he makes everything look cute

snow

Right before Thanksgiving, Seattle got a snow storm (unheard of). This may not seem to bad to friends in family in Utah, but this much snow shuts down the city and turns my commute from 20 minutes to 3 hours. At least Steve stayed home with Miles so I didn't have a toddler on the bus. Here are some pictures of Miles enjoying snow.


Miles likes things orderly. Here he is cleaning the tree.

Steve taught Miles how to catch snow on his tongue