Green Amish Friendship Bread

So, it all started like this...

I am mistrustful of yeast.  All that fermentation and bubble-ating.  Can you actually tell me it doesn't do those things after you eat it or at night - in your pantry - while you're sleeping?  And why do I have to take its temperature?  I don't take my children's temperatures and I love them.  I believe yeast and Gremlins are related.  My belief is that one day I will accidentally feed yeast after midnight or splash water on yeast and then I will have to fight it to the death in a hardware store on Christmas Eve.

So, it all started like this...

We have amazing neighbors, Mass Hysteria, Pandemonium, Chaos, and I.  They are wonderful.  They are wonderful to our children.  They have one of the coolest dogs I've ever met.  Great people.

So, it was no surprise when, 10 days ago, Neighbor Todd called Mass Hysteria to ask if I would like a starter of Amish Friendship Bread that Neighbor Rachel was making.  Nice, nice people.

Neighbor Todd rang the doorbell and presented me with a Gallon Size Ziploc bag of perfect, completely normal, off-white bread starter and a typed two-page instruction sheet.   The kids showed him their new basketball uniforms and he headed home, unaware that he had just left that poor, innocent bag of starter at the final resting place of miscellaneous baked goods.  That big loaf pan in the sky.  The place where dreams go to die.

I walked away from the door reading the instructions and preparing myself for a battle I knew I'd ultimately lose.

DAY 1 Receive fermented starter in ziplock bag.  Do nothing!  Put bag on counter.

*          No problems here, so far, so good.  This may not end in tears after all.

DAY 2 - DAY 5  Squeeze bag several times.

*          Not TOO bad.  I may have accidentally skipped DAY 3 and then subsequently over-squeezed on DAY  4, but all in all, things are going pretty well.

DAY 6 Add 1 cup of flour, 1 cup of sugar, and 1 cup of milk.  Squeeze several times.

*          Do not panic.  You have kept 2 children alive for nearly 9 years.  You can do this.

I give myself inner pep talks sometimes.

DAY 7 - DAY 9 Squeeze bag several times.

*          You, Rachel, have got this bread in the bag.  (It's punny, once you get it.)

**************It may be time for younger readers to stop reading.***********************

Mass Hysteria and I made a bad parenting call a few years ago.  Most bad parenting calls can be remedied with prayer and a heart-felt talk, sometimes an apology or a redirect.  This parenting call WILL NOT DIE!

Elves.  Year 4 and I am running out of material.  Pandemonium has figured it out, so we're all just going through the motions for poor, sweet Chaos who is 5 and completely DELIGHTED by the elves and their antics.

The evening of DAY 9, after the children were in bed, I thought, "Self, what can these dadgum elves do tonight?"  It occurred to me that it had been a year or two since those rascally elves dyed the milk green and sat in the fridge.  Problem solved.

The morning of DAY 10 dawned clean and fresh.  

Not a person others might consider a planner, I had not read ahead in the instructions for the Amish Friendship Bread.

DAY 10 In a large non-metallic bowl, combine batter with 1 cup milk, (GULP!!!), and so on and so forth

*          Why, yes; thanks for asking.  I did just dye all the milk green last night.

And, of course, on DAY 10 Pandemonium fell ill at school and came home with a fever (I only know that because the school nurse owns a thermometer.  I don't.)

Only now I am facing a real conundrum.  Because I am an oldest child and a rule follower, when my instruction sheet says DAY 10, I'm doing it on DAY 10, but, because I am a Mom who lives in Ohio in December where icy frost mist rises from the ground on DAY 10, I'm not taking the sick kid to the grocery store.

I used the green milk.  

Now, how can I make this ok?

My brain runs through many solutions:

1)  If I add spinach, the kids will get an extra dose of Vitamin A, Copper, Manganese, and              Dietary Fiber.  Doesn't everyone really need more Dietary Fiber?

2)  I could add red food coloring and pretend I was going for a Christmas theme all along.

3)  The recipe calls for 2 boxes of pudding and suggests trying different flavors.  

Pistachio is a flavor of pudding that is a similar shade of green to the shade of green of my current batch of Amish Friendship Bread Starter.   

Because, honestly, how bad can green Amish Friendship Bread be?  

Next time I should just walk next door and ask the neighbors to borrow a cup of milk.

Butter Mint Christmas

So, it all started like this...

Mist rose off the flat land like smoke from a long-forgotten campfire on that cold, gray, drizzly December day in central Ohio.  In a semi-quiet suburban home,
a wife and mother of two contemplates her afternoon's responsibilities.  

Wash 2 basketball jerseys in cold water, then tumble dry low - check.  

Work a psychedelic Spiderman puzzle bearing a striking resemblance to those Magic Eye pictures from the 1990's with your  5 year old son, Chaos - check.   

He doesn't always wear a mustache.

Make Christmas Butter Mints with your 9-on-Tuesday year old daughter, Pandemonium - ................

She doesn't always wear a mint green and tan striped cardigan with a pink and white heart-covered dress and purple skull leggings.

And so it begins - simple recipe, 5 ingredients, no baking, no yeast involved (I have some trust issues with yeast) - my kind of recipe and then BLAMMO!!

Latex Exam Gloves Made Of Butter Mint Dough!  One thing you should probably know is that I detest housework, so when I can avoid it, I do.  My brain starts working:
1)  If I turn on the faucet, I'll have to clean the faucet.
2) Because the Butter Mint goulash is dripping off my hands, I cannot move from this position or I risk mopping the floor and I just did that last year.
3) If I wipe the goo on the dish towel, I will have to do a load of laundry.
And so on and so forth until...

I yell for my 40 year old husband, Mass Hysteria (Sorry, B!  I had an age pattern thingamabob going on that couldn't be broken) to save me not only from my mittens of minty-fresh slime but from any unnecessary housework. Alas, however, he is saving the world from a zombie apocalypse or something and cannot hear me over the rat-a-tat-tat of machine-gun fire coming from his video game.

He doesn't always wear...whatever it is he has going on here.

An inkling of hope trickles into my heart as I hear the music from Pandemonium's iPod heading my direction.  This child is tall enough to turn on the faucet.  This child will help me.
The fact that she has been playing Jim Croce's Time In A Bottle on a continuous loop for the last 20 minutes should not impede her ability to operate kitchen sinks.  It is perfectly acceptable to be the world's youngest Jim Croce fan.  
That hope dies when I hear the patter of her little feet running back up the stairs and taking Jim Croce with her.

Again, hope springs eternal when I hear Chaos heading toward the kitchen.  He can't reach the faucet, but he can surely get the attention of someone who can.  The Butter Mint gloves are starting to melt on the floor.  Mopping is imminent!  
Chaos saunters in, aiding a Motorola-lanyard-wearing Rudolph by dragging Santa, two of his elves, and a plaid gorilla in a sleigh consisting of an upside-down Steak 'n Shake hat across the floor.

I shriek, "Hud, run get your Daddy for me!".  (Being Southern, I am allowed to form sentences in this way.  It's kind of a birthright, if you will.)  And, sweet, obedient child that he is, he slowly (I'm talking molasses in August, honey) drags Santa and his entourage across the floor in search of his paternal parental unit.

Wasn't Pandemonium supposed to be helping me make these?

14 1/2 minutes and 17 drops of Butter Mint Delight on the kitchen floor later, Mass Hysteria rescues me from impending doom and I finish these ugly little butter critters just in time to start supper.

Aren't they adorable!?!  Bless their hearts!

**Please note that some photos were taken by Mass Hysteria thus avoiding any uncomfortable conversations with my wireless phone representative about Butter Mint damage to my phone