Trip to Cantigny

On Sunday, we took a family trip to Cantigny Park in Wheaton, IL. I had never been there before, but my husband was when he was a kid. It's a 500 acre park with gardens, play areas, a military museum and much more. It was founded by Colonel Robert R McCormick, who was an editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune newspaper for 44 years (and a polo player).

The best part? The kids can play on tanks! Yes, tanks!
(click on any picture to enlarge it)

Two pics from inside the military museum (goes from WWI to Desert Storm):

The flag was captured in Germany and signed by Illinois servicemen.

This is the Exedra - the burial place of the Colonel and his first wife, Amy. She sounds like she led quite a life too. She served as a Red Cross nurse in WWI, raised Guernsey cattle, co-founded the DuPage County Hunt Club (foxhunting) and a no-kill animal shelter (in 1928 no less).

The exterior of their beautiful home:

Banana Bread and Chocolate Ice Cream

I love banana bread. Connor loves banana bread. Jon likes banana bread. I've experimented with a few different recipes, found some good ones, but no real keepers. I found this recipe on Pinterest, tried it, and now I have my keeper recipe!

Martha Stewart’s Banana Bread

1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup mashed bananas
1/2 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter, sugar, and eggs. Combine the dry ingredients and add to the butter mixture. Blend well. Add the bananas, sour cream, and vanilla. Stir well. Stir in the nuts if using. Pour into a well greased loaf pan. Bake for 55-60 minutes. Let cool 5 minutes then turn onto a rack to cool. Slice and enjoy!

Next time I may add toasted nuts and Nutella.

Ice cream... In the summer of 2002, when I worked at the Belgian Warmblood breeding farm, I bought an ice cream maker. I used it ONCE to make pumpkin custard that didn't set well (I think I rushed it and didn't let the base cool long enough). When I moved back home, it was put in the garage attic and then went missing. I was at my Uncle Roy's house last weekend and saw a familiar box... sure enough, written on top... "Ice cream maker". I found it! Almost 10 years later...

Of course, there was no manual. But, Rival still makes the same model, so the manual was easily found online. I didn't like their chocolate recipe and found another and modified it a bit. This recipe is based on Scoop Adventure's Sinful Chocolate Ice Cream, a dark chocolate recipe. I did not have dutch process cocoa, so used regular cocoa powder because that's what I had on hand. So here is my Lindt Chocolate ice cream recipe:

Lindt Chocolate Ice Cream

2 1/4 cups heavy cream
6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup sugar
Pinch of salt
1 3.5 oz 70% Dark Chocolate Lindt Excellence Bar, chopped
1 3.5 oz Lindt Bittersweet Chocolate Bar, chopped
1 cup 2% milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

(Scoop Adventure's directions) Combine the cream, cocoa powder, sugar and salt in a large saucepan. Whisk to combine. Heat the mixture, continuing to whisk frequently, until the mixture comes to a full boil (it will start to foam up). Remove saucepan from heat and whisk in the chocolate until it is completely melted. Whisk in the milk and vanilla. Pour the mixture into a blender (or use an immersion blender) and blend for 30 seconds, until very smooth.

Transfer ice cream mixture to a medium bowl. Place in the refrigerator and chill the mixture thoroughly (at least 4 hours or overnight). Once chilled, pour into an ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Place plastic or parchment over ice cream (to prevent ice crystals) and freeze until firm, at least 4 hours.

In the maker:

Right out of the maker:

After being in the freezer for a few hours:

This combo is quite good, not overwhelmingly sweet, a bit darker than milk chocolate, but not overbearing. It has Connor's and Jon's stamp of approval! I will be trying quite a few recipes from Scoop Adventures. She has cookies n cream, chocolate peanut butter, Nutella and a nice honey I'd like to try!

Connor

When I was in Girl Scouts, we went to White Pines Ranch in Oregon, IL. It was sometime between 1988-1990. I got this little toy horse there. Never did I imagine that I'd be giving it to my son to play with! It's gotten more use in the last few days than ever before. He carries it everywhere, even naps with it.

Connor helping Jon sweep out the garage.

Connor in the woods.

It's Spring!

Even though it feels more like summer. We've had record breaking temperatures for the last 8 days, like 80's in the middle of March. That is NOT normal for this time of year. While I LOVE it, I'm scared of what the summer is going to bring.

Crocus in bloom, already gone.

Red Haven peach tree is budding, nothing on the Bing cherry tree yet.

Yellow tulips that I got on clearance at Menard's three years ago.

Broken tree in the woods.

Daffodils around the unidentified nut tree. It had nuts the first year we were here (2006) and hasn't since.

Artisan Bread

I recently hosted a Pampered Chef party and received the Deep Covered Baker from the Stoneware line for 60% off. I just got it a few days ago and did some research and found out that I can bake artisan bread in it. I found this link a week ago for "Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes A Day". You mix up the ingredients, let it rise, and then put in the fridge for up to two weeks. It is a no-knead bread and will make 4 one pound loaves.

My first loaf was done on a cast iron skillet and turned out ok. Kind of dry, wasn't impressed. I did it in the Deep Covered Baker today. The result is the picture above. It turned out so much better than on the cast iron! I followed the directions on the ABin5 site, but baked it for 30 minutes with the lid on, 10 with it off. It was sizzling when I took the lid off.

Over time, the nice creamy inside of the stone baker will get seasoned and turn a dark color. Since this was the first time using it, I just brushed a bit of olive oil on the inside. I also got the stoneware pizza stone. I made Grands biscuits on it and the bottoms didn't get hard and nearly burned like they do on a sheet pan.

Back to the ABin5, I need to get the book soon. There are variations for this master recipe, including a brioche dough and pizza dough.

Oh, yes, the link... Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day Master Recipe !

Hmm...

Me: What do our chickens give us?

Connor: Um... food.

Me: Ok, what kind of food do our chickens give us?

Connor: ...... Nuggets and sauce.

Me: Alright... what do Ruby and Lace give us?

Connor: ...... Nuggets and sauce!

Me: ... and?

Connor: Oh, eggs!

Me: What kind of noise do they make?

Connor: EGGS!!

We may need to work on this.

Basement Pictures

2 posts in one day! Hopefully these will end up being "before" pictures! I really, really, really want to redo this whole floor in the next year or so. It's going to take some time.

This is the walkout side. There is a desk behind me, and the door to the outside. The doorway you see goes to the bathroom. The bed is going to be moved to the second floor, where the other guest bed is. It doesn't make sense to have guest beds on two different floors. Don't mind Miss Cocoa's mess, she had a fit right before I took the picture and threw out some litter. You can't tell, but the floor paint is peeling over here. This is the space I'd like to make into a "family area" with a tv, couch, rug, and vcr/dvd player. Cocoa will stay, but will be moved up some after the grey metal cabinet is disposed of. The desk area will stay as it's Jon's work from home space.

Laundry area. Now I have a folding table. I used some leftover self-stick vinyl tile floor pieces I found in the utility room for the top. I was short 5 pieces. I know there is another box somewhere, just haven't found it. I want to add a hanging rack and a white laundry basket for white laundry. I have two other baskets, I figure one will be for darks, and the other for folded, ready to go upstairs and put away. I want to add some cutesy laundry artwork. See how the wall is orange? That whole wall is orange... it makes everything look kinda sickly. I'd love to make the orange areas a light blue (maybe?). Something lighter anyway. I spend a fair amount of time in this area and it just needs to be "happier"!

This area is to the left of the laundry area. I want to use that dresser (it was Jon's grandma's, and his as a kid) for a tv stand on the walk-out side. This wall can stay white, it just needs a new coat of paint. I'd like this area to be a play area. See Connor playing with cloud dough? It's the perfect spot. I can do laundry, he can play in sight. I want to check out garage sales this summer and find a kid's height table in addition to the small card table I'm going to move down. I want to move his ABC poster to this space and get a numbers one too. Maybe do a small area with chalkboard paint? I saw the cutest idea on Pinterest where they took a bookcase from Ikea, turned it on it's side and made storage with a seat on top. That would work here. See the floor here... it's a funky yellow/brown garage floor paint. The hard epoxy stuff. The basement was waterproofed and there are parts that are peeled off, and parts where cement is over it. I just don't know what to do for the floor here. It's easy to clean now, but a hideous color...

Under the stair storage area and shelves on the wall. The shelves only go to the base of the stairs. Right now, they just hold miscellaneous things. The wall behind the shelves is a softer orange, but still orange and needs to go... You can see part of the bathroom here as well.

Inside the pantry. The pantry really doesn't need to be changed, besides increasing the contents. Maybe adding more storage under the shelves. Both sides have shelves like this, and another on top that goes on the sides and length of the pantry.

This is what you see when you come down the stairs. More orange. The walkout is to the right, the pantry/laundry area to the left. The freezer will stay here. You can really see the mess of the floor here. Removing epoxy would probably require heavy chemicals and/or a floor sander. I don't know that we want to mess with all that. No clue what I want to do with this area yet. Maybe move the Tupperware storage and build heavy duty shelves for canning jars? See that horse rug? That was in my room when I was a kid. I love it.