November 29, 2009

I found this recipe for the Flu-Fighter Cookies in the October issue of Food Network Magazine and I tore it out right away because chances are that I’ll never get back to that issue again. That’s part of my new plan to get caught up on my magazine reading.

Instead of marking the pages of recipes I want to try, I’m just tearing them out and putting them in a folder. I now have a folder for recipes, one for ideas, and one for inspiration. I’ve also got a binder with sheet protectors in it for all the ‘at home yoga routines’ that I tear out of Yoga Journal.

The main reason that I wanted to try these cookies is because they sounded like they were pretty healthy. Food Network calls this an immunity-boosting cookie because of these five powerful ingredients.

• Ginger has some antiviral compounds and its antihistamine properties help combat congestion.

• Cranberries provide antioxidants which help your body fight off cell-damaging molecules.

• Oats are rich in selenium, a nutrient that helps your body fend off harmful free radicals.

• Yogurt helps balance the bacteria in your digestive tract boosting your ability to absorb healthful vitamins and minerals.

• Walnuts (in original recipe) contain zinc that helps keep viruses from reproducing in your body. (Since my son doesn’t like walnuts, I substituted sunflower seeds.)

• Sunflower seeds are an excellent source of Vitamin E which has significant anti-inflammatory effects.

I also made a few other changes. The original recipe called for regular flour but I used wheat flour instead. I used honey instead of molasses and I reduced the quantities of each fruit by 1/4 of a cup.

The guys said that they liked the cookies but I’m still not convinced that they weren’t just saying that so they didn’t hurt my feelings. My cookies did not look like the photo in the magazine AT ALL! Theirs looked pretty thin and somewhat chewy. Mine puffed up and were really thick and cakey. And, I made sure that I ended up with the same quantity of cookies. The recipe said that it made 30 cookies, which is exactly how many I made.

Look at how thick they are!

They were still good and I really liked the fruit and the sunflower seeds on top, but the texture was more like a muffin than a soft, chewy cookie. I heated one up in the microwave for just a few seconds this morning and it was yummy, so I’m going to freeze half of them and just take out one at at time for a quick breakfast.

Flu-Fighter Cookies

2 1/4 c. all-purpose flour
1 1/4 t. baking powder
3/4 t. baking soda
3/4 t. ground cinnamon
1/2 t. freshly grated nutmeg (I used ground nutmeg)
Pinch of ground cloves
1/4 t. salt
1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
1 c. packed dark brown sugar
2 large eggs
1/4 c. honey
1/4 c. low-fat plain Greek yogurt
1 T. freshly grated ginger
1 t. finely grated lemon zest
1/2 c. old-fashioned oats
1 c. golden raisins
3/4 c. cranberries
1 c. sunflower seeds

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and salt in a medium bowl.

Beat the butter and brown sugar in a large bowl with a mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, 3 minutes. Beat in the eggs one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Add the honey, yogurt, ginger and lemon zest and beat until smooth, scraping the sides of the bowl as needed. Reduce the mixer speed to low and beat in the flour mixture to make a sticky batter (do not overmix). Fold in the oats and half of the raisins, cranberries, and sunflower seeds. Mix the remaining dried fruit and nuts in a small bowl and set aside.

Drop heaping tablespoonfuls of batter onto the prepared baking sheets. Top each with some of the reserved dried fruit and nut mixture and chill for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Bake the cookies until dark golden but still soft, 10 – 12 minutes; cool on a rack. Store in an airtight container for up to 1 week.

~LilSis

November 28, 2009

Why, yes, I did dry those clean dishes with a pink dishtowel.  Why do you ask?

~BigSis

November 27, 2009

I really don’t like the fact that somewhere along the line, the biggest shopping day of the year was named Black Friday! I just don’t like it. I never go shopping the day after Thanksgiving. I guess if there was an amazing sale on a specific large ticket item that I needed for someone, I might venture out, but not at 4 a.m! Never!

I’m sure most people are out shopping and not at home reading, but that is exactly what I should be doing today. I recently received two of my favorite magazines, both which have some beautiful Christmas cookies on the cover.

I’m dying to find time to sit down and look through both of these, but I have a problem. I’m a little behind on my reading!

And, there’s more.

And, still more!

I don’t know how I let this happen AGAIN! I guess there’s just too much going on each day that prevents me from being able to leisurely sit down and thumb through each of these as they arrive.

In the summer, one of my favorite things to do is to sit down at the beach and thumb through a really good magazine. And I love all of these that I subscribe to but something’s gotta give. I just canceled my subscription to Food & Wine (gasp!) because I realized that out of all the magazines I receive, it has the most unread issues.

When my stacks become overwhelming, like they are now, it stresses me out because it becomes just another chore that I’m behind on and then it’s no fun at all!

So, I need a plan. I wonder if it would help me dig into them if I put them in nice little stacks like these in order by issue?

I think I’m going to have to start with the most current and go backwards because otherwise, I won’t get to my December issues until next Summer!

~LilSis

November 26, 2009

Do you know what today is? Yes, I know it’s Thanksgiving, but today is also BigSis’ Birthday! (Since we all know how much of a cat lover BigSis is, I think she might get a kick out of this!)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BIG SIS!!!!

It was this time last year when BigSis, SisMama and myself went to Vegas to celebrate BigSis’ birthday. This year we aren’t as fortunate to be together for her birthday.

Since it’s Thanksgiving, I’d also like to say that I’m so thankful for having such a great sister! I know some women aren’t lucky enough to have a sister and some have sisters that they aren’t even close to, which I can’t imagine. So, I consider myself very blessed, and for that, I’m very thankful.

Thanksgiving is traditionally a time when we all give thanks and express our gratitude for those things in our lives that are most important to us.

For me, it’s simple. I can sum it up all in one word; family. I give thanks, not only today, but every single day for our family. After losing my dad and my brother in law, both suddenly, I tend to live life a little differently than before, in a positive way.

I could go on and on about how rough this past year has been on us, emotionally, financially, spiritually, and realistically speaking, the toughest year we’ve ever had in almost 20 years.  Instead of going into specifics, I’ll just say that my husband and I try to live life these days believing in the theory that “when one door closes, another one opens.”

We just live life today being thankful for each other, for our health, for our parents, our siblings, our five wonderful children, and our three beautiful grandsons. At the end of the day, nothing else really matters.

~LilSis

November 24, 2009

I’ll be taking our family’s go-to tater recipe – Holiday Make-Ahead Potatoes – to Thanksgiving lunch at SisMama’s house this year.  If I needed to whip up anything else, you can bet I’d be choosing from this group of fab-you-luss recipes!

Breakfast

• Mom’s Monkey Bread from Ezra Poundcake

• Cinnamon Eggnog Scones from Baker’s Banter

• Pumpkin Brioche Cinnamon Rolls from Girlichef

Appetizers

• Goat Cheese-Stuffed Mushrooms from Food & Wine

• Parmesan Artichoke Crisps from Sticky Gooey Creamy Chewy

• Aged Gouda Biscotti with Walnuts from Food & Wine

Side Dishes

• Shiitake Mushroom Stuffing from RecipeGirl

• Savory Cranberry Walnut Biscuits from Food & Wine

• Tomato and Corn Pie from Eat Me, Delicious

• Cheesy Cornbread Pudding from FoodNetwork

• Mashed Potatoes with Manchego and Olive Oil from Food & Wine

• Zippy Baked Carrots from Taste of Home

• Creamed Spinach from SmittenKitchen

• Herb-Gruyere Biscuits from Food & Wine

• Mushroom Green Bean Casserole from Taste of Home (no canned soups or canned fried onions)

• Brussels Sprouts Hash with Caramelized Shallots from Epicurious

• Chantilly Potatoes with a Parmesan Crust from Food & Wine

• Sweet Potato Casserole from AllRecipes (no marshmallows!)

• Wild Mushroom and Spinach Stuffing from Epicurious

Desserts

• Double-Layer Pumpkin Cheesecake from AllRecipes

• Spiced Cranberry Bundt Cake from the Food Librarian

• Caramel Apple Bars from SugarPlum

• Chocolate and Peanut Butter Bundt from My Baking Addiction

• Pumpkin Swirl Brownies from Meet Me in the Kitchen

• Brown Sugar and Chocolate Chip Bundt from the Food Librarian

• Spiced Apple Cake with Eggnog Sauce from Epicurious

• Pumpkin Pie Snickerdoodle Bars from Meet Me in the Kitchen

• Toffee Pecan Shortbread Cookies from Baking And Boys

• Easy Refrigerator Pumpkin Cheesecake from Ezra Poundcake

• Brown Sugar and Spice Cut-Out Cookies from Bake at 350 (Have you seen this lady’s decorated cookies?  Go, now!)

• Cranberry Streusel Shortbread Bars from Evil Chef Mom

• Texas Pecan Pie from Taste of Home

• Caramel Pumpkin Pie from Epicurious

• Pumpkin Ice Cream from David Lebovitz

• Thanksgiving Cherry Berry Pie from Cookie Madness

Have a Happy Thanksgiving, y’all!

~BigSis

November 23, 2009

Holiday Potatoes

I wonder how many homes across America will have mashed potatoes on their dinner tables on Thursday? I know we will. We’re really excited this year because we’ve been invited to spend Thanksgiving with SirHoney’s cousin and some of her extended family.

One of my contributions for this Thanksgiving Dinner is mashed potatoes, so of course, I’ll be making BigSis’ infamous, “go to” mashed potato recipe, Holiday Potatoes.

BigSis has been making this mashed potato recipe for our Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations for many years now. When we had all our kids at home, she would start with 10 pounds of potatoes in order to bring two 13 x 9 dishes for my hungry guys!

This recipe is actually in a cookbook that she put together over 20 years ago and she’s always called them Holiday Potatoes. If you browse the Internet, you’ll find similar recipes called Refrigerator Potatoes or Make Ahead Mashed Potatoes. The quantities vary slightly.

(I made a couple of changes this time. I added the garlic cloves, omitted the nutmeg, and added the fried shallots.)

Holiday Potatoes

9 large potatoes (I used white, but you can use Russet or Yukon Gold) peeled and quartered
4 cloves garlic, peeled
1 stick butter, softened
12 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 c. sour cream
3 large shallots, peeled and thinly sliced
1 1/2 c. canola oil
salt and pepper to taste

Place the potatoes and the garlic cloves in a large saucepan and add water to cover. Boil until potatoes are tender. Meanwhile, in a medium skillet, heat the oil until hot, add the shallots and cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until they are golden, about 15 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the shallots to a paper towel to drain.

Once tender, drain and place the potatoes in a large bowl. Cut butter and cream cheese into small pieces and add to bowl. Beat with electric mixer until potatoes are fluffy. Beat in sour cream. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately or place in a buttered casserole dish and refrigerate.

To reheat, bake for 20 minutes or so at 350 degrees. (I like heating mine until they’re a little brown around the edges.) Right before serving, sprinkle the shallots with salt and garnish the potatoes with the shallots.

I really liked the addition of the garlic cloves; it gave the potatoes just a very slight garlic taste. I LOVE garlic, so next time I might even add a couple more cloves.

Making the mashed potatoes this way really saves the hassle of having to beat the potatoes at the very last minute. I’m making mine on Wednesday and will refrigerate overnight, allowing me to work on other things on Thursday morning.

You might remember that this past Easter, BigSis and I thought it would be fun to do something a little different, so we turned our mashed potatoes into this Pink Potatotini.

Pink Potatotini

I won’t be making pink potatoes for Thanksgiving, but you just can’t go wrong with this recipe for Holiday Potatoes. If you happen to make them for the first time, please let me know what you think! 🙂

~LilSis

November 22, 2009

It’s no secret that I love animals.  I’m vegetarian because of my love for animals.  I don’t really like squirrels, but I still wouldn’t hurt one OR eat one.  🙂  I live in Squirrel Heaven amidst oodles of mature trees, and have slammed on my brakes plenty of times to avoid squishing one of the little varmints.

I especially love cats of all kinds and all sizes, so it makes sense that my cats are a couple of my favorite models.  It amazes me to look at a cat – or any animal – really closely, and notice how wonderfully they were made.  We saw your boys yesterday, LilSis, so now here are mine…the furkids!

Ashy's beautiful whiskers and freckly nose

Gaby's green-eyed profile

Ashy's transparent Siamese ear

Gaby with a squirrel or gecko in-sight

~BigSis

November 21, 2009

If you haven’t already noticed, we don’t really talk about one particular subject here on BigSisLilSis. We don’t only talk about food, or fitness, or beauty products or mommy stuff’; we talk about what it is we women talk about. We talk about something different every day. With our friends. And our sisters. We talk about what’s on our minds. We may talk about anything from a great recipe, a new eye shadow color, a great anti-cellulite product, our favorite foot cream to Cats in Hats, dolphins, or even hairballs!

But today, I don’t want to talk about any of that; I just want to share with you this photo of my three favorite, sweet, handsome guys, all together. Just so you know, they’ve all shared this photo on Facebook so they don’t mind that I’m sharing it here!

The Blues Brothers

From left to right; BigT, BigGuy, and HayHay, also known as The Blues Brothers. (Photo was taken July, 2009 during BigGuy’s visit to San Diego.) This doesn’t happen often enough since the three of them now live in three different states.

As this week of Thanksgiving approaches, it seems as if we all think more about what it is we’re most thankful for.

I’m so thankful every day that somehow, someway, we managed to raise our blended family where each and every one of our kiddos considers the other a brother or a sister. No half brother, no step brother, no half sister, no step sister…just, this is my brother or this is my sister.

And these three brothers; without a doubt, they’re not just brothers, they’re Bros!

~LilSis

November 20, 2009

You’re right, LilSis; I do have something to say about great body creams that don’t give you a financial guilt attack!  I love everything about L’Occitane, but their shea butter products are a bit of a splurge.  There are times for splurging, but there are also times for being a little more frugal (like now).

Let me give you the scoop on an AWESOME inexpensive cream that you can get at pretty much any drugstore or discount store.  It’s Gold Bond Ultimate Cream.  I’ve tried both formulas: Ultimate Healing has aloe, and Ultimate Softening has shea butter among other ingredients.  My favorite is the shea butter formula since it’s even richer.  You can get the cream in a pump bottle or in a tube.  I prefer it in the tube because it’s SO ding dang thick and rich that it’s hard to get all of it out of a bottle.

I love the Gold Bond cream year-round for arms, legs, feet and hands.  It’s heavy-duty enough for winter dry skin, but it soaks in quickly and isn’t greasy so it’s great for summer too.

The bonus?  You can frequently find a coupon in the Sunday paper for $1 or $2 off this great cream.  It’s a touch more expensive than Jergens or Vaseline Intensive Care, but I think it’s much more effective.

But wait!  There’s more!  I have an incredible foot cream for you too.  It’s Burt’s Bees Coconut Foot Creme.

Wowie!  This creme smells beyond scrumptious, and will moisturize your dry feet beyond belief.  This is an extremely thick creme; I would even say it’s goopy.  Deliciously goopy!  If you need a thick creme to slather on your feet overnight, this is the one!  Rub it into your feet and cover with socks, and you’ll wake up to super smooth soft tootsies!  Plus it’s pretty cheap…only $9 retail.

When I think of this coconut creme, I always remember how I used to rub it on HayHay’s Fred Flintstone feet when he was a little guy.  That may embarrass him, but it’s a happy little memory for me. 😀

There you have it, LilSis, my favorite inexpensive but uber-effective creams that will obliterate your dry winter skin!

~BigSis

November 19, 2009

I still can’t believe that November is over halfway gone. It doesn’t even feel like Winter here in California because it’s still relatively warm during the day, but the air is really dry right now. Luckily, we don’t have to run our heater very often because that just seems to make the air even more dry.

And what goes along with dry air and winter weather? For a lot of people, dry skin can be a real problem in the winter. It definitely can be for me if I don’t do everything I can to prevent it. I slather myself every morning right out of the shower with a variety of lotions, potions, and creams, in an effort to avoid the dry, itching, pasty looking skin. We’ve talked about our favorite eye creams, more than once, moisturizers, more than once, and hand creams, but I don’t think we’ve ever talked about foot creams, so here goes.

I have to admit, I love a good foot cream! My absolute all time favorite EVER is L’Occitane’s Shea Butter Foot Cream. I recently ran out and haven’t yet ordered a replacement.

This amazing foot cream contains lavender essential oil and in my opinion, there is nothing better than the heavenly smell of lavender. That’s one reason I love putting this foot cream on at night. The scent of lavender is so soothing. It also contains anti-inflammatory arnica extract to reduce redness and irritation and mint to cool the feet.

With that being said, this 5.2 oz tube of foot cream sells for $26.00. I definitely think it’s worth the money during the best of times, but when we are all trying to scale back on unnecessary expenses, I need to try to find a cream that is a little more reasonably priced.

The other night, I was finally able to stop, sit down, and take off my shoes around 8:00, just in time for Dancing with the Stars. When I took off my shoes, I noticed that just in the past couple of days, my heels had become so dry that they were almost starting to crack. (Sorry if that’s TMI.)  So, I grabbed the nearest tube of cream from my cabinet in the kitchen to put on my feet. What I ended up using was Eucerin Calming Creme. I keep a larger tube of this in my nightstand for my hands but I just happened to find a sample size that SirHoney’s dermatologist gave to him. I had never used this on my feet before but it worked great!

After rubbing this into my feet that night and keeping my footies on til I went to bed, I woke up the next morning to almost normal heels. This creme is pretty darn impressive and costs less than $7.50 for a 8 0z tube. This creme contains oatmeal and glycerin to help with itching caused from dryness. This creme is so rich yet not greasy at all. I was surprised at how quickly it soaked into my skin. It also happens to be fragrance-free and non-comedogenic.

And, in the winter, when necessary, I use Eucerin’s Dry Skin Therapy Original Creme. I use this on my hands and on my face, only on the dry spots. My sister-in-law is the one that told me about the Original Creme when I asked her once how she kept her face so young and soft looking; and she was over 55 at the time! I bought a 2 oz tube of this for less than $4.00 and it has lasted for months and months.  This is a very rich and thick creme so it’s probably not meant to go on everyone’s face, unless you have really dry skin like me, but it’s perfect for dry hands.

I know BigSis is a HUGE fan of Eucerin’s Aquaphor products and my husband’s dermatologist also recommended some of those for him. I’ve used the Aquaphor Advanced Therapy Healing Ointment and I love it. It’s great for hands, feet, or lips!

So, if you’ve got any secrets for beating dry skin this winter, please let us know! I bet BigSis has a few new favorites that she hasn’t yet shared with us! 🙂

~LilSis