Rachael Ray

As far as Mondays go, this one is not so bad. It’s finally sunny. It’s not snowing - or hailing - both of which it did this weekend, at the end of April. I am not panicked about any specific issues relating to any of my children (at the moment - this could change at any time). Today is also a bit of a monumental day as we are getting new counters in our kitchen. We have lived in our 100+ year-old Victorian for 12 years and we are not a family that moves into a house and immediately re-does it top to bottom. Quite the contrary. We had originally budgeted for one house project per year which afforded, among [...]...

My 8-year old son has developed a passion for drawing.  One day he just picked up a pen and paper and started drawing volumes and volumes of artwork, mostly centered around this one character, Arnold, from the cartoon Hey Arnold!  Hey Arnold! was a popular show on Nickelodeon in the 1990’s, so I never knew it as I was too old when it came out.  Although it doesn’t air now either, my son somehow found the show through Netflix or one of the other On Demand sources.  He instantly related to this character with the football-shaped head, and would create stories and illustrations of this guy and his friends.  At first, he would draw scenes from the shows he had [...]...

I have never liked Mondays - back to school, back to work, the weekend is over. You would think I would feel differently now that I work from home, but oh no, I still suffer from the Monday blues. My older daughter has inherited this attitude - or more like she has observed her mother who is not setting a very positive example - shouldn’t we be taking the week by storm? seizing the day? Oh well. Is it Tuesday yet? Instead I decided we should embrace our least favorite day of the week and try to do something fun. I told my daughter we would bake something special on Monday nights so at least one good thing could come out [...]...

I did the math and I’m not much impressed by myself. I have survived the packing of a daily lunch for my little demon for roughly five years now. It feels as though the tally ought to be substantial. But even with generous rounding, I can’t get a decent count. You figure 180 school days a year, times five years, plus a few months of camp each summer… And maybe we’re at 1,100. Which is not insignificant. And I don’t know what number I was expecting. It just seems that for all the pain, suffering and yogurt cups I’ve contributed to landfills, it should be… I don’t know… Something bigger. Still, those 1,100 lunches have helped me squirrel away a few tricks and tips [...]...

Being a parent is definitely a journey. I laugh when I think about the absolutes I held early on in my mothering career (No soda, ever! Chore charts will be followed. Ha.). I have had to give in on a few of my kids’ habits, and I pick my battles, as a means of survival. Just a few of the things I have learned to accept when it comes to my kids: My middle daughter will wear shorts - and only shorts -  once the temperature creeps out of the 40’s. If she is cold, she will change. My son will not eat green vegetables. He has a generally healthy diet with this exception. He likes fruit. He is growing, his health is [...]...

We were recently at a friend’s house for dinner and when we walked in a platter of heart-shaped Jello cutouts were on the counter, beautifully displayed. My kids went bananas - they have only had Jello of the store-bought cup variety at our house - they had never seen these before (You would have thought it was a platter of caviar. Not that most kids like caviar. At least not my kids. They haven’t had caviar. I digress. Maybe a platter of hot fudge sundaes).  I remember having something similar at a friend’s house when I was little but her mother called them Knox Blocks and they were cut in squares, not cookie-cutter shaped. We made some at home this week [...]...

March is tomorrow, perhaps my least favorite month. You think the winter is over, but oh no. It seems to go on, and on, and on. I am ready to put my boots away, yet I am fooling myself, I will most likely be pulling them out in April. I wanted the snow in January, yet it was no where to be found, it was waiting for March. I tend to do a lot of baking in the ho-hum days of March, and these chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting will brighten any gray March day. I am a fan of any chocolate+peanut butter dessert, and these cupcakes are moist and chocolate-y with a rich and creamy peanut butter frosting [...]...

Disclaimer - If you are not a parent this is tedious post - please don’t fault me:-). We are currently experiencing a serious battle in our house and I am reminded again of how foolish I was to think the hard part of raising my three kids was the baby/toddler stage. Ha. As a quick reminder, my kids are 12 (daughter), soon-to-be 11 (daughter), and 9 (son). My two girls are complete opposites in nearly every way, yet still very close and basically best friends. We moved to a bigger house when I was pregnant with my younger daughter because we wanted our kids to have their own rooms. Another decision we made was to give our younger daughter the biggest (kid) [...]...

I was at this amazing new-ish bakery recently and couldn’t resist buying a few loaves of their beautiful bread, which was on the pricey side ($5.50 per loaf). I sliced and froze a loaf of sourdough (my husband’s favorite), and heated and served two loaves for dinner that Saturday night. Nearly one loaf had gone uneaten, and it had already been sliced and heated, so I couldn’t freeze it. I made this french toast casserole, which was crazy good. I liked the consistency, which was less soggy and more on the dry side than similar dishes I have made, not too sweet, and the crust softened up beautifully. Also, I heated the leftovers in the oven (not microwave - covered [...]...