Category Archives: food

Cherry Shortbread Cookies

November 4, 2014 Only Hsuman 3 Comments

Yesterday, if you saw some of my Currently posts on Instagram, I caught a little Christmas spirit. I got out my tree, untangled some lights, lit a cinnamon and evergreen candle, and even listened to my first few Christmas tunes. For the first time this year, I baked a batch of Christmas cookies! Actually, there isn’t truly anything “Christmasy” about them, except that I (almost only) bake them around Christmas.

There are a few cookie recipes that my mom always made during the holiday season. She made them for us, for family members, for neighbors, for friends, for teachers, you name it. I’ll share the recipes here on the blog throughout the season, so that you can consume more than your fair share of cookies over the next two months, just like my family does!

Here are the ones I made yesterday:

These are called Cherry Shortbread Cookies. They are from a Better Homes and Gardens Homemade Cookie cookbook from, oh, 1990 or so. My mom’s edition is so well-used that the binding has broken, and I’m using photocopies out of a 3-ring binder. There is a whole section for shortbread, a whole section for holiday cookies, and so on… let me just say, they’re delicious. I’ve tried a LOT of them, and rarely have been disappointed.

The recipe calls for 1/4 cup maraschino cherries, well drained, 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour, 3 tablespoons sugar, 1/2 cup butter (1 stick), 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, and red food coloring if you’d like your cookie to be vibrantly colored. Mix the flour and sugar, add the butter and mix on low until the mixture looks like fine crumbs, then add the drained cherries until it looks like dough. Make one-inch balls (with your hands of course, and expect them to turn pink), then flatten them on an ungreased cookie sheet (I use parchment paper) about 2 inches apart. Bake for approximately 20 minutes (till they are slightly firm and edges are golden) on 325 degrees. I do it all in my Kitchen-Aid mixer, so I don’t even use a bowl!

I always leave out the nutmeg because I don’t really like it (in anything, not just these cookies). But I typically double, and sometimes triple, the recipe because it doesn’t make too many. So because I was already doubling yesterday, I decided to go out on a limb and try something new… I’ve been baking a lot with almond meal, and I know it’s not a great flour-to-almond-meal substitution. It’s very moist, so typically you need a little less of whatever the liquid is. Because there isn’t a “liquid” in the recipe, I knew I couldn’t straight sub. But I wanted them to be a little healthier, so I used 1/2 cup almond meal, and 3/4 cup (plus one tablespoon to thicken it) flour. That way it was a little less worthless gluten. They actually turned out tasting BETTER! I was truly surprised. In the picture above, you can see the ones on the right have specks… those are the almond meal specks!

So now the fun part… my sister-in-law is hosting a cookie swap in a few weeks, and I want to have a new thing or two that I can bring to the table. What are your favorite cookie recipes? Can you comment with the recipe or a link to it? I can’t wait to see what YOUR holiday cookie favorites are!

faith, food, mommyhood, My Big Jesus

Mountains or Molehills?

November 3, 2014 Only Hsuman Leave a comment

I don’t know if you know this about me, but I seriously love my family. Hubby and I have the best families on the planet. I’m sure yours is great, but… mine’s better.

Today, my sisters-in-law and I met our mother-in-law to plan out the holidays, everyone’s travel plans, and some dates we will all be together. Not only did we have a fun time at lunch, but decided to go shopping together! We then had so much fun shopping that when we needed to head home, we did so with the idea we’d get the brothers and our kids to have dinner together! So we packed up our families and met for dinner. Six adults, a toddler and three babies. It was a lot. We ate a lot. We spilled a lot. We laughed a lot. It was just a lot.

I had a choice at dinner tonight. I could have been stressed about the fact that in the first ten minutes, water, wine and green beans were all spilled. I could have been annoyed that J would only eat if he was sitting in my lap (aka if I was unable to eat). I could have been frustrated that right when I was able to eat a few bites, EK needed to go potty. But in fact, I chose fun. It was fun to pass the kids around the table, help ourselves to everyone else’s food, and make a big mess (for which we tipped generously, promise). I chose to be excited that my daughter told me she needed to go potty instead of peeing in her diaper! That was a miracle in itself!

When you have a choice between being frustrated, and giving in to the situation and making the best of it, making the right choice can be tough. I’m a high-strung person by nature (sorry, everyone) so I can make big deals out of basically anything. But it’s my constant goal – and sometimes struggle – to “Let It Go” (forgive the reference). I need lots of reminders, and I ask for a lot of help. My family bears with me in the midst of my sometimes-OCD. But I like myself more, and I’m sure everyone else does, too, if I can give in to the crazy and fun, instead of making a mountain out of a molehill.

food, health and fitness, home, mommyhood

We’re eating all the fruit.

October 14, 2014 Only Hsuman 3 Comments

One of the changes we’ve made at our house to be a little more healthy is to have healthier snack options. Yes, I love Cheetos. However, I know that there are approximately 2,463,910 healthier snacks. We’ve been keeping Pretzel Crisps (we like the “Everything” flavor) and Nut Thins to eat with cheese, and tons of fruit as our preferred snacks. (Unless I’ve recently made those spiced pumpkin muffins from Against All Grain. Then all bets are off.)

My kids love the fruit. And I don’t mean a little bit. They are fruit nuts (see what I did there?) and so a trip to the grocery store is colorful and fresh and often. We buy berries of all kinds (twice as much if they’re on sale), grapes, bananas, apples, plums, and anything else the looks good or is cheap.

Today the grocery trip wore them out, so I had a double nap (WIN!) to do a little more to the fruit than usual. Often, I only have time to throw it in the fridge, and then I’m distracted doing something else. But since I had time today, I decided to take the fruit snacking thing to the next level.

I took the blueberries, strawberries and grapes we bought and gave them a vinegar rinse. I got this ideal from my mom… apparently a vinegar rinse kills bacteria that causes fruit to mold after a few days. Her “recipe” is 1/4 cup white vinegar for every gallon of water. My “recipe” is put the fruit in a bowl of water, dribble some white vinegar in there, and let it sit for about 5 minutes. Seems to work just as well.

The next thing I did was to semi-prepare the fruit so that when my kids want some, I can just toss it in a bowl for them and it’s ready. I cut the tops off all the strawberries, pulled the grapes off the stems, and even quartered a small bowl of them (J can’t eat them whole yet). Blueberries are, well, ready. Obviously.

All of this took me about half an hour, but I was also doing some dishes and talking on the phone, so I didn’t feel like it was wasted. And now J is eating his bowl of quartered grapes and I’m blogging about it, instead of quartering them now!

What are some healthy snacks you like munching on? Do your kids love fruit as much as mine do?

Just because I have to include a picture of my cute kiddo 🙂

food, health and fitness, home, mommyhood

A Nearly Perfect Day

September 20, 2014 Only Hsuman 5 Comments

Obviously, there is no such thing as the perfect day. There is no 24-hour time span that goes exactly how you’d like it to, or exactly as you planned. However, there are days, from wake up to bed time, that seem to go pretty darn well. This is one of those days.

When I got up this morning, it was to the sound of J fussing (he had probably started out talking, but I was too asleep to hear it) and EK running around (she’s taken to not visiting me before she visits her toys). Hubby had a gig last night, so I let him snooze. I fed the kids breakfast, while putting on my running gear one piece at a time in between bites… EK’s toast in the oven, one sock. A few bites of fruit for J, the other sock. Grapes washed and given to EK, the sports bra is on. You get the point. Finally, everyone was fed, packed in the stroller, and we were off for one of my favorite things: a long, cool, morning run. This 10-degree cool off in the weather has been a saving grace for my running skills. Ain’t nobody got time for an Indian summer.

Recently, I’ve been running to the grocery store in the mornings. There are several reasons for this, not the least of which is that it gives me a bathroom break. It gives EK a chance to get out and walk around, and there’s always at least one thing that I discover we are out of, or I am randomly craving. So we run to the grocery store. I usually take a 2-mile route to get there, shop it up for 15-20 minutes, and then run a (different) 2-mile route home. It’s a nice process, I think. Anyway…

I can’t believe we forgot something… There’s no room for anything else!

We get home, and two of my girlfriends come over for homemade pumpkin spice lattes. I came across this amazing-sounding recipe (check it out here, from Mama Natural) and the girls said they wanted to try it. So we spent an hour and a half making our lattes and chatting. Super nice. During this time, J went down for a morning nap and Hubby woke up, so life continued in the Hsu house as normal.

Hubby and I got to thinking about EK’s room, and how it’s oddly put together. When we put her in there, we weren’t sure how sleeping in a “big girl bed” was going to go. It’s a full size bed, and now she’s used to it, so we decided to make it look nicer (perk: deep clean the room in the process). We rearranged her furniture and vacuumed, dusted, etc. It’s adorable, functional, and she loves it. Win.

J woke up, and EK wanted to try out her new bed placement, so we swapped them out. While she was sleeping, we ate a stellar take out lunch (Vietnamese pho – a revelation), we ushered Hubby off to work with smooches and waves, and J let me take a shower without crying a lot (thanks, little guy!). I call that a productive two hours.

EK woke up, and J was ready to nap round 2. While he was asleep, EK and I got some quality time together baking. We made pumpkin muffins and banana bread (both clean recipes, check them out here and here). Both turned out well… muffins stuck to their cups a little but tasted delicious, and the banana bread was perfect, as usual. That recipe is bangarang.

clean pumpkin muffins and banana bread – here’s to a healthy week!

When J woke up, I packed up my sweeties and headed downtown to meet some family and friends at the Texas Pete Culinary Arts Festival. For those of you not from around here, Texas Pete is our local hot sauce, and the festival invited all the best restaurants in town to have booths of Texas Pete-inspired dishes. Also there was beer, served especially by our sweet friend Aida. So basically, it was a great evening of yummy food and great friends, adults and babies alike. My sister-in-law Holly and her son Finley were there, as well as a long-time church friend Abby and her little girl, Elliott. Having time with girlfriends and their babies really is the best of both worlds.

When we headed home, there was a mini-meltdown moment, spurred on by the fact that I forgot I needed gas in my car (come on, Mom! Rookie mistake!) but we made it home, had a quick bath time, and both kids were out by 8:30. I call that a great day. Everyone got the play and the rest and the snuggles and the exercise they needed. There wasn’t a sacred Double Nap but there was one-on-one time for me with both kiddos, and sometimes that’s hard to come by.

J and me with Abby and Elliott (they’re gonna get married)

So here’s your encouragement: despite the meltdowns, despite the fact you forgot something at the store yesterday, and despite the fact that you’re on your own with those beasts all day, make the best of it. Look for the fun and the good, and don’t worry that you didn’t do laundry or dishes. You had fun. So did they. No one missed anything. Praise the Lord.

food, home

Birthday Macarons!

September 1, 2014 Only Hsuman 1 Comment

For my bestie’s birthday, we have several things going on. Yesterday was her actual birthday, but we started celebrating on Sunday. She had been wanting to try making macarons (an extremely temperamental item to bake) so she found a few recipes and we gave it a shot! (The one we drew from the most was from here.)

First thing on the recipe: Occupy the little man so we can get as much done as possible.

Macarons are basically meringue cookies, so you start with meringue!

Try out your first Jamberry manicure while they bake!

Add some icing (or lemon curd, if you’re Lala and me) and make it a sandwich!

Viola! Cute and delicious. A little underdone (we didn’t double the baking sheets. Oops.) but totally yummy!

Stay tuned to hear about our upcoming BEACH TRIP this weekend! First time I’m leaving the kiddos with Hubby, and I’m pumped!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LAUREN!

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