Irish Chicken and Leek Pie--and some signs of spring!

Well this year (March through February) I have joined some great bloggers in traveling the world through dishes. Our first stop is Ireland. Since I shared a bit about Ireland the other day with the first of the Irish Cinderellas, I will skip doing it again. I am very excited to join this group, because I see it as such a wonderful way to expose Hazel to new cultures and countries and for her to learn a bit more about the world. 

Before we take our trip to Ireland, however, I am going to share with you the reason we did not make Irish Soda Bread today and why Hazel did not help me with the Irish Chicken and Leek Pie for dinner. We had a beautiful feels like spring day. So we went out to play this afternoon. When Steve got done with work, he came out and I came in to cook dinner and go to my Weight Watchers meeting. 

Hazel and I went on a walk around our neighborhood looking for signs of spring. We saw budding trees, birds, and the tops of flower plants poking up. We went home and filled a suet feeder with scraps of yarn, wool roving and ribbon and hung it on a tree and we filled the bird feeder. Then Hazel pulled out her magnifying glass and eventually pulled out her garden shovel and rake and dug in the garden. When I came back out, Hazel had been joined by our next door neighbor who is eleven but still loves to play with Hazel and they were having a great time rebuilding their fairy house. And for those of you who read our post about the snow storm last week, here is what is left of Hazel's snow mountain.

It is amazing how fast it is melting!! I am glad robin has woken Sister Spring up!

Ok, now back to Ireland! Today we tried a recipe from a book I got out of the library, Cooking the Irish Way by Helga Hughes. It came from the children's section so I thought it would be great to get Hazel and I trying some Irish cooking. I decided to try the chicken and leek pie. I was not sure how Steve and Hazel would feel about the leek aspect, but figured I would give it a try. Overall, we all loved it. Hazel was not totally sure about the leeks, but ate them mixed in with everything else.

I did change the recipe a bit, but not too much.

Chicken and Leek Pie (adapted from Cooking the Irish Way by Helga Hughes)
1 package ready made pie crust (I bought frozen, but would have preferred refrigerated)
6 slices of uncured precooked bacon (this is the only way we really do bacon in my house)
1 tablespoon olive oil (The recipe called for bacon fat)
2 small leeks, chopped (I bought already cleaned ones)
1 1/2 cups of chicken breast already cooked and cut into bite size pieces
6 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
4 tablespoons nonfat milk
1/2 cup fat free sour cream
1 cup frozen mixed vegetables (I put these in in case Hazel or Steve would not eat the leeks)
2 tablespoons fresh parsley chopped
2 tablespoons milk for glazing

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Press one of the crusts into pie pan. Cook/heat bacon in microwave and then chop it.

In skillet heat oil. While heating put chicken and leeks into large ziploc bag and add flour. Shake to coat chicken and leeks with flour. Put chicken and leeks into oil and discard excess flour. Stir and brown leeks and chicken. Remove from heat.

Stir in the bacon, rosemary, pepper, milk, sour cream and mixed vegetables. Then spoon into pie crust. Sprinkle parsley on top. Then cover with second pie crust. Glaze with milk by using brush or paper towel. Cut slits in pie (unless you used a frozen one like me and it already had slits/cuts through it). 

Put in oven for 20 minutes at 400. Then turn temperature down to 350 and bake for 15-20 minutes longer, until crust is a light golden brown.

We had ours with the suggested salad. Then Hazel and I had strawberries for dessert. A delicious meal!! We will be trying some more Irish recipes this week, so stay tuned!!

You can find an Ireland coloring placemat right here and the passport right here (the cover for the passport is right here for you!).

Lady Winter and Sister Spring

So I have been trying to focus on Easter and other religious posts for my Sundays lately, however with the week we have had, I had to share this post instead. Late last spring we discovered what has become my favorite change of season book, How Robin Saved Spring by Debbie Ouellet. I needle felted Hazel the two main characters in the book at this time.

This story is about how two sisters, Lady Winter and Sister Spring, live. Sister Spring sleeps through winter and awakens to begin the spring weather and season. Lady Winter wants to stay in control with blankets of white snow everywhere, so she knits a magic blanket that will keep her younger sister sleeping while she is under it. The animals and trees want spring to begin, so they try to wake Sister Spring. Throughout the story the reader hears how certain characteristics of animals and the tree came to be. Finally the robin manages to wake Sister Spring with some sun rays, however he got burnt getting them and thus the red breast. For more information you can visit the author's site which is where I got the picture of the book since I cannot seem to find our copy. 

 

Now our weather this week the weather predictions have been a bit tough. The weather reports seemed to say that there was a chance of 3-6 inches of snow but near the coast it would be mostly rain. We live in a coastal town, but not near the coast, so we figured at most a few inches of snow. They did say the storm would last from Wednesday evening to Friday morning. My mother had been in the hospital and was suppose to be getting out between Wednesday through Friday. I was hoping it would be Friday since the storm was suppose to be over before they had to drive two hours home. However she got out on Thursday which now I am very happy about.

On Wednesday we began to have a few snow flurries, but not too much. Thursday the flurries continued but it was not sticking. When I went to bed Thursday night they were still saying 3-6 inches with the rain/snow line being close to the coast. On Friday, Hazel woke up around 5:30 a.m. and I went to get her snack so she would play in her room and listen to stories on CD while I continued to sleep. I turned the television on while getting her snack and there were barely any school cancellations. At 7 a.m. when I got up and we went to have breakfast, I turned the television on to see the weather report and almost every school was delayed. (Luckily Steve was able to work from home and did not have to deal with the horrific commute.) They were saying the snow would slow down by 10 a.m. and stop by noon. Well, at 10 a.m. it got worse. It was still snowing until about 3 p.m. Needless to say the weatherpeople were incorrect all over the place. As it slowed I took Hazel out to play. This is what we faced after our driveway was plowed (now mind you all the snow from the blizzard and other small storms had not melted completely yet).

Hazel has her sledding hill back! She also decided the part to the right looked like a throne. Needless to say she had a great time. I helped her go down the "hill" a few times.

Then I dug her a snow fort/igloo. The first one was too small so we moved to the hill and made a bigger one. She loved it.

She even painted it with her food coloring and water spray bottles. She tried to make purple and orange by spraying some colors. Also she made a doorbell and doorknob with the "paint."

Then she also wanted to have a snowball fight. This was the first snowfall this year that was good snowball snow.

 Then she played some more on her mountain while I tried to shovel out my car. Then Steve came out and finished the shoveling and I went in to take a nap. Hazel ended up playing with our next door neighbor who is eleven.

Mountain Climbing

Almost at the Top

Queen of the Mountain!

However our big discussion was that we would have much rather the robin we saw a few weeks ago had woken Sister Spring and we would have had the rain. Hazel of course enjoyed the snow though! We are hoping Sister Spring will awaken soon and get rid of all this cold and snow! Oh, and there have been mention that we need the other two sisters--Autumn and Summer. We are going to make our own stories up about them!

Snowy, Tea Party Kind of Day

Wednesdays are typically our day without many plans since it is the day between her two school days. I find it nice to have a day to play at home and spend time together. This morning was one of those days I was glad we did not have plans as it was snowing harder than they predicted. Our big plans for today was to have a tea party after breakfast and getting dressed. I made the tea during breakfast so it would be cool enough for Hazel by the time we got to the party.

Our next step was to get dressed and accessorized and then we had to dress all of our guests. Hazel wore her favorite pink dress and then piled on the jewelry. I told her she looked like she was from the 80's with all the bracelets (think Madonna or Cyndi Lauper). She basically put on every bracelet she could find and every ring. You cannot see it, but she did pick out a tiara which I am wearing in the picture above.

Then we poured the tea for our guests and got ours and our real snack (corn muffin top) ready. She loved this part. We even got a special guest who we gave a plastic cup to since she probably would have broken one of the porcelain ones.

I think she was a bit more interested in the pom poms and wands Hazel insisted we carry to the tea party. We had put them on the floor by the table and Fluffy was definitely keeping an eye on them. Of course her favorite part was that we would choose one of the dolls or Ducky to need more tea. Then after the corn muffin was gone she wanted me to cut up some apple. Needless to say it was a very fun morning.

After lunch we changed and put on our layers to go outside. Now the snow had turned to rain and it was wet and very heavy outside. However she really wanted to go play in it, so we did. After all, she has been wanting to make a big snowman for a couple of years now and we have not had a good snow for it. Well we did some shoveling and made a snowman and she made many snow angels. I think this might have been her biggest snowman yet. We used almost all of the snow that was on the driveway next to our garage. It made shoveling much easier after rolling it all into the snowman.

She also loved making footprints and dropping her shovel to make its footprint and handprints too in the snow. Afterward we came in for hot chocolate (well I had tea) and warmed up. By then the roads were clear so we went out to run some errands as well. We spent some time doing some crafts together, but I will share those another time. Have you done anything fun this week with your kids?

Butterflies

Butterflies are another sign of summer to me. Hazel and I have been seeing quite a few and learning about them as well. Between our adventures at Mass Audubon (in and out of scheduled programs) and just in our yard, we have been seeing them everywhere! This summer Hazel has learned to recognize a monarch butterfly and has learned to say monarch. Oh, and I saw the Butterfly Lifecycle pieces at Michaels as well as the frog one we looked at with our program! We have also found a few books to help us learn about them.

The first is The Butterfly by Anna Milbourne and Cathy Shimmen. We bought this one at the zoo. It goes through the life of a butterfly from caterpillar to butterfly's eggs hatching. The pictures are nice and colorful.

The second is What's the Difference Between a Butterfly and a Moth? by Robin Koontz. I saw this book on Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational awhile ago and looked for it at the library. I have always wondered how you could tell the difference.

The third is A Butterfly Is Patient by Dianna Hutts Aston and Sylvia Long. This book goes into great detail about what characteristics a butterfly must have for its life cycle as well well labeled illustrations of the different species at all stages.

The fourth is my favorite. It is See How They Grow Butterfly photographed by Kim Taylor. This book starts with a photograph of an egg and its mother and takes you through every stage from hatching to pictures with exactly how many weeks it is old. The pictures are amazing!! I definitely recommend this one if you want to learn/teach more about the life cycle.

Today we did some butterfly crafts. First we borrowed an idea from One Artsy Mama and made beaded butterflies by putting beads on pipe cleaners. (I should add that she posted this the other day which is why I say she inspired it. Looking at my pins I see I had a similar one pinned and the original source is indietutes.) Now I did this from memory this morning and thought about using clothespins, but we didn't. We did it with pipe cleaners and beads. This probably made it easier, but not as great for use.

Next we took the idea from  Creative Play For Your Toddler: Steiner Waldorf Expertise and Toy Projects for 2-4s by Christopher Clouder and Janni Nicol. We used three squares of tissue paper and a pipe cleaner. We added on a wooden bead for the head. The book suggested making a mobile. We have not done that yet, but Hazel is enjoying playing with them.

Some of the other crafts I have done from this book can be found here and here.

We also did a similar one using tulle and a pipe cleaner.

The last thing I would like to share is a gift Hazel picked out for me awhile ago at Drumlin Farm Gift Shop.  (My birthday was this week, so I got to open them this week.)

We will be doing more butterfly crafts as well as dragonflies! Stay tuned!

This is where I share...

Blueberries!! We Picked, We Baked & Cooked and Ate

Sharing Saturday is still open!! Please stop by to share your child-oriented posts and to be inspired by what others share!

So our plans for this past week were cancelled. Hazel had been so excited to go to the Cape since my sister who lives in North Carolina was there this week, but we didn't have a bed to sleep in and the two-hour trip each way (and more with Boston traffic) would be too much for one day with a 3-year-old. So to keep her from being upset I planned some fun days for us. On Thursday we planned to go blueberry picking. The weather forecast was not cooperating, but we tried to chance it. I called an organic farm a friend had told me about but they had all of their pick your own blueberries on hold until next week, so I googled and found this family owned home that opens up their blueberry grove to be picked if you have an appointment. So I made an appointment for early in the morning hoping we would beat the rain.

We drove up to these nice couple's house. She had warned me not to get out of the car until they came out since they have guard dogs. They also have free-range chickens which Hazel loved seeing and hearing. They had a beautiful grove of many blueberry bushes. Hazel had so much fun we picked an extra pint! Our plan was to make blueberry jam so we would have it for Christmas gifts. Then we talked about blueberry pie and blueberry muffins and of course eating the blueberries on the way home and bringing some to Nonni since Hazel played at her house the next day. So we picked three quarts and one pint of blueberries. It did rain a bit on us, but it was only sprinkles so we stayed picking.

On our way home we stopped at the store for a pre-made pie crust. I figured with all the cooking we had planned we didn't need to make the pie crust as well. (This was the night we made the pancit as well.) We got home and had a quick lunch and then got to work. The first thing we did was the pies.

Hazel started mixing the filling. I decided not to make a big pie, but mini pies so we would not use all of our extra blueberries. (The jam recipe called for 5 pints, which is 2.5 quarts.) A full pie calls for a pint of blueberries and we still wanted some to eat and some for muffins. I went searching for mini pie recipes and then realized I would need mini pie pans. However, I found this recipe that used a muffin pan! I combined the filling recipe with my traditional one from Better Homes & Garden Cookbook. We used 2 cups of blueberries, 1/4 cup of sugar, 1 tablespoon of flour, 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon, a dash of nutmeg, a bit of lemon zest and mixed them all together and let them sit.

Then our next challenge was to find something to cut a four-inch circle. I found a lid to something that was four inches in diameter and it worked. Then we used some cookie cutters for the pie tops. I would change the recipe and use foil muffin liners next time. These were horrible to get out of the pan even with plenty of cooking spray.

While the blueberry pies were in the oven, Hazel had the best time playing with the scraps of pie crust. She made a house. She decided not to put a roof on it.

Then she put a mirror and a person in her house.

Can you see the person? It is the bump in the middle. The mirror is the flattish piece against the far edge.

Then the pies were done. Like I said they were not easy to get out, so they were not all pretty. This one however came out perfectly!

All right this is getting a bit long so you will have to wait until later in the week for our blueberry jam and blueberry muffins. Have you done anything special with blueberries this summer?

This is where I share...

Happy Family Times #16--Our Fourth of July BBQ

What have you been doing with your family this week? Anything fun and different? Kelly from Happy Whimsical Hearts and I are loving reading about everyone's adventures. Please share below!

Food Table Before Party

I saved our Fourth of July Barbeque to share with you. It definitely gave us some quality time as a family and with friends. We had a total of six adults and four children. It was a hot day and there was a chance of thunder storms which the rain held off until after everyone left. 

We put up our decorations. This year Hazel was not afraid of the wind and we were able to stay outside. A huge improvement from last year.

We had a kids' table set up, but Hazel is the only one who sat at it. I'm not sure she realized that it was funny she was the only one. The five-year-old didn't want to sit at the kids' table and the other two kids were too young (one being only two months old and the other needing a high chair). 

The kids had a great time playing together. Hazel and the five-year-old are on the swing together here. Then we ate. We had corn-on-the-cob, grilled chicken and hot dogs, orzo salad and green salad. For dessert Hazel and I made sugar cookies from a mix. Steve and Hazel decorated them that morning while I cut our red, white and blue fruit salad (apples, blueberries, strawberries and raspberries with a bit of lemon juice to keep the apples from turning brown). I saw this idea somewhere on-line. I don't remember where and apparently did not pin it. Sorry!

After eating, the two older kids went on the slip and slide to cool off. Hazel had the best time on it.

Then right before everyone left they played with the water stuff I left out and turned it colors. The one-year-old was also having a blast with the sandbox and sidewalk chalk.

After everyone left, Hazel still wanted to play on the slip and slide and Steve and I decided to join her and cool off.

While out on the slip and slide it started to rain. Steve rushed to finish the cleaning up though most of it was done except the slip and slide and Hazel and I went inside to get dry. That night I was able to watch neighbor's fireworks from our family room couch. I have to say they were a bit too close for my comfort but beautiful and then God provided us with his own which put a bit of a damper on other people's celebrations. From what I understand several of the local ones were stalled by the storm. 

Now it is your turn to share how your family has spent some quality time lately.

~ please link up (family time oriented giveaways are ok, but please no Etsy shops)
~just crafts will be deleted since this is to share family times ~ use our button so others can join the fun

Button Code:

<a href="http://craftymomsshare.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" border="0" src="http://i1101.photobucket.com/albums/g424/cpericola/HappyFamily-003-1.jpg" /></a>

~ we'd love for you to follow us Crafty Moms Share and Happy Whimsical Hearts
~ check out our Happy Family Times Pinterest board where we will be pinning some of our favorite ideas

Ok, now for our PARTY!! Please share your FUN Family Times!!