Let's Hear It For The Girls!

As a mother of five with a mixed brood (3 girls and 2 boys), I get to experience so many fun phases.  We've had our share of Matchbox Cars, Rescue Heroes, Power Rangers, Little People and Superheros.  Right now though, as the kids are getting older, we are interested in expensive electronics, perfume, nail polish, Xbox and computer games.  Luke is still young enough to allow for the occasional fight with a light saber or Nerf gun and we all know how much he loves Legos.  But, one of my hands-down favorite phases is the little-girl with a bigger-than-life imagination-phase. 

Charlotte, who is six, is going through this right now and I'm thoroughly enjoying it.  I'm not sure if it's because she's my youngest, but I just want to hold onto this time in her life for as long as I can.  She can play for hours with her Polly Pockets, Strawberry Shortcake or Lalaloopsy dolls creating drama and intense stories for them to act out.  It's neat to see her work through some real-world situations with these dolls.  Creating conflict, resolving it, expressing loving relationships and sometimes being just plain silly!  Then there are times when she plays a little Mommy and straps a baby on her back while pushing a stroller with another baby around the house, pocketbook slung over her shoulder (now where would she ever get an idea like that?!).  The very best part about Charlotte's playtime is that she sings through all of it.  Sometimes it's songs that she has learned in school or heard on the radio, but more often she expresses her entire stream of thought through a melody.  You can't help but smile when she does this and wish that you knew the lyrics so you can sing along.

The other day, my son Luke was sent home early because of a possible stomach bug.  Thankfully it turned out to be nothing but a self-proclaimed "wet-burp" (snips and snails and puppy dog tails), but it allowed me to cancel all of the evening's activities and simply sit in the backyard and do nothing for a change.  This couldn't have come at a better time because it was a week filled with more activities than I could possibly handle.  I was outside for about 10 minutes reading "Dracula" (little light reading) when Charlotte came outside decked out in a white ballgown.  She tottered over to me on her plastic high-heels and announced that tea would be served in the "riving room" (that's "living room" in Kindergarten-speak) in 10-minutes.  As she teetered away I cringed a bit because I wasn't really feeling like my imagination was at it's peak after the long week I was having.  I decided with Mommy-resolve that I was going to join my little Princess for tea and I was going to drag her wicked step-sisters (well, not step per se) along with me.  I was so pleasantly surprised as we entered my living room as it had been transformed!  Her little-girl finesse was all over the room and my heart swelled as she yelled rushing towards the tv, "Wait, wait, I have to put the music on!" and put on some, "mood-music".  My baby is practicing being the hostess that hopefully one day she will be as she fills her own home with the sounds of music and laughter and the smells of a heart-felt meal shared with friends and family.  The following are pictures of our exquisite time together.  I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed this precious time with my little girls.

The spread complete with wildflowers picked by the hostess!

The very willing (or not so) sister.

Our amazing hostess.

New guests (The Veggie Tales Gang) arrive!

It's not polite to EAT the guests!

C'mon Maddie, you know you love it!



Ladies, where are your manners?!

Love Reign O'er Me

So why would someone who has a leaky roof that happens to leak over her bed be hoping for downpours?  Because in my life, sometimes a bit of water is the only thing that may keep me from completely drowning.  Let's face it, life with five children is always busy, but something happens in the Spring that makes it absolutely insane.  It's like the same forces of nature that cause the plants to grow, lay their hands on my life and act as a cosmic Miracle Grow causing my responsibilities to multiply.  It's one of those instances where we're almost too blessed.  Doesn't that just sound terrible?  Too blessed?  How can someone be too blessed?  It's not the same as too much of a good thing (like eating a vat of ice cream).  It's more like, every good thing that we have, takes a lot of hard work.  All of our labor comes to fruition and yet, it still takes more work to enjoy it.  I'm not adverse to hard work, but sometimes I just don't know how I'm going to get through the week. 

The Famous Perfectly Positioned Leak

                                               
For starters, I try to do it one day at a time.  This is a really difficult thing to do when you have kids who want a weekly itinerary every Sunday.  There are some days when I'm driving from one appointment to the next and Charlotte says something like, "Mom, for my next birthday can we have real monkeys?"  "  Gee Charlotte, I'm not sure, we'll see." (now please note that I would never be able to have real monkeys at a birthday party but I realize that if I state this right now I'm opening up the possibility to a complete blubber-fest, so I do what every good mother does...I stall.)  "But Mom, what are we going to do for my next birthday if we don't have real monkeys?"  "  Charlotte, your birthday is 360 days away, we have plenty of time to think about it."  Now, poor Charlotte doesn't realize that Mommy can only concentrate right now on the road, and the 20 different places she needs to be in the next hour.  This rule applies to anything in my life.  I can only be concentrating on what I am doing at that moment.  A very wise person once told me that when my head starts to wander to the next hour or to tomorrow or what I have to do next week, to look down at my feet and remind myself that I am right here, right now, where my feet are standing.  I can't possibly be standing in next week.  Now, there's a fine line between living in the day, and having no plans or schedules for the future.  I definitely need a balance.  I obviously can't wake up in the morning, and be like, "Gee, I wonder what I'm doing today?"  I have to have some clue as to what I'm up against, but as far as worrying about it, (and believe me I have turned worrying into an art-form), it's just not worth it.

Then there's my good friends denial and procrastination.  What, you thought this was going to be a positive piece?  Nuhn unh.  This here is my reality.  It's not squeaky clean.  Now, I'm not saying that either denial or procrastination are going to get anything done.  But, sometimes the mind can only handle so much and it's those times where you find yourself doing a mental fetal-position.  Like the fact that my daughter's dancing school teacher told us about a week ago that we need to sew elastic into their ballet costumes.  She lost me on, "sew".  I don't have a working sewing machine and the last time I used one was in middle school home ec.  So, let's get this straight.....you charged me $75 for a costume that will be worn for one weekend and now I have to sew something on to it?  As far as I'm concerned this thing should come in perfect condition.  Heck, this costume should be sewn with diamond dust that's been woven into thread by magical elves.  Wait, it gets better.  Not only do I have to sew elastic into the sleeves of this dress, but it has to be nude elastic.  Knowing that nude elastic is hard to come by, the teacher suggests taking white elastic and soaking it in Lipton tea for 24 hours.  So, armed with this ridiculousness, my brain went into that mental fetal position I was talking about.  It started with unrealistic optimism (denial).  I figured I'd just ask my friend who has helped me a million times with sewing and she'd whip it up for me in no time (she can't BTW).  I put off the phone call for a couple of days because, well quite frankly my focus was elsewhere (procrastination).  Well folks, it's Tuesday and I still have no elastic, barely a plan and it needs to be done by Thursday....awesome.

Larger than Life and Worth Every Gray Hair

So, I digress....how does a bit of rain help to bail out this sinking ship?  I need my son's baseball game to be cancelled.  Yep, I'm rooting for a downpour.  Boo! bad Mommy.  Let's take a brief look at my week, before you judge me too harshly.  (This is only the after-school activities so we're not even mentioning work and other engagements before 3pm, also take into consideration meals, homework, housework, and there's this chicken poop thing.....).  Mon:  Dress rehearsal for Char in Paramus 4:15- 5:40 and baseball game for Jason in Hawthorne 4:00-6:00 (easy-breezy!).  Tues:  Twins tutoring 3:30-4:30, Jason baseball in North Haledon 3:00-5:00, Luke baseball in West Milford 5:45-7:45.  Wed:  Jason baseball in North Haledon 3:00-5:00, Gwen concert 6:00-8:30.  Thurs:  Twins tutoring 3:30-4:30, Jason game in Pompton Lakes 4:00-6:00, Gwen dress rehearsal 5:00-8:00.  Fri:  Jason baseball in Glen Rock 4:00-6:00, Luke baseball in West Milford 5:45-6:45.  Then, more baseball and 3 dance recitals this weekend.  Husband: WORKING.  Nanny:  Hahahahaaaaaaaaa! 

This boy, the computer nerd, made a double play last Thursday.

Just like at home.....yeah right!

This is where a good belly-breath would be appropriate.  "Imagine your belly as a pink balloon...."  See a prior blog if you don't know what I'm talking about.  So, am I over-scheduled?  Yes.  Are my kids over-scheduled?  Not individually.  There's just so many of the little buggers!  Could I simplify my life?  Absolutely.  I could tell them, no dancing, no sports, no extracurricular activities.  Will I do that?  Nope.  I do have a rule that you only can play one sport per season and only on one team.  I also usually have them take the winter off, except for Jason with snow-boarding and Maddie is begging for basketball next year so that hiatus may be short-lived.  I think that all of these activities are important to their development as well-rounded individuals.  I like to encourage them to exercise their minds and their bodies.  Working as a team is an important skill that they can use throughout their lives.  It's just that everything comes to a head this time of year.

My "New Years" starts in September.  June officially ends my year.  July and August are two delicious bonus months of limbo.  So with that, May means games, recitals, concerts, projects due, class trips taken and deadlines made.  It's all of the wonderful things that we've been working on for 9 months giving birth.  It's a messy business.   So I breath, I take pictures, I freak out sometimes,  I screw-up, I get so proud that I cry and sometimes I pray for rain.  Oh, and I wouldn't change a thing.

Growing Pains

It's the beginning of May, and because I live in the Garden State, it's time to get the garden going. I was raised in a house where gardening wasn't optional. There was no excuse not to have a garden. If we lived in an apartment (you have windows!), or a house (postage stamp yard is big enough!), we were growing something. My grandfather was the master gardener in my family. He used to let me tag along with him while he worked his masterpiece. I can remember him turning over the dirt and excitedly telling me his plans for the coming years' planting blue-prints, or picking me up so I could reach the tomatoes on his 8' tall plants. Even as a little girl I knew that earthworms were your friend, and I loved finding them and letting them wriggle through my fingers back into the overturned soil. To this day, I love the smell of rich soil. Gardening brings me closer to those memories and in its own way heals me like nothing else can. There's something so satisfying about literally seeing the fruits of your labors. How many aspects of my job as a mother are so frustrating because even though I know that I'm working hard for something so important, there's no real "finished" product. When raising children, there are small steps and you build towards a picture that is so big, there's really no day where you just sit back and say, "I'm done and it's good." At least, if there is that day, I'm nowhere near it. Gardening is great for the nurturer in me because there's a shorter end to my means. I work, I care for, I protect, I stay vigilant, and I will see results almost right away. Of course there's waiting so patience is required, but as a student in the school of patience, I know that it's worth it. The waiting is filled with an excited anticipation. There are disappointments too. I've had pests devour my hard work. I've fought wood chucks like Caddy Shack and found myself threatening winged insects with very strong words. Somehow, it's always worth it. For some reason, even after the hardest season, just one zucchini pie or if I'm lucky, a slew of raspberry jelly makes it worth it and I find myself digging the next Spring. Today was the day that I decided the digging should begin. When I lived in Bergen County I would start prepping in April. The weather is decidedly colder here so I start prep-work in the beginning of May and plant around Memorial Day Weekend. It was a rainy day and even though I had no motivation, I knew I wouldn't regret starting. I have a pretty large garden so I set small goals that I know I can reach. The biggest obstacle for me isn't the boulders in my rocky soil, or the limited time I have to dedicate to it, it's the space between my own two ears. Sometimes I just have to get to work, keep my head down and once in awhile, pick my head up to see how far I've gotten and then get right back to work. Doesn't that apply to so many things in life? Set a goal, put your nose to the grindstone, don't get overwhelmed at the size of the job and keep on working. Before you know it, the job is done and you have the satisfaction of knowing that you accomplished something.


Thanks to a milder than average Spring, my garden looks more like a jungle. I think the yellow flowers are part of a horse-radish plant.

One of two large piles of weeds and sunflower stalks cleared out by hand.

My goal today was to dig out 1/3 of my work area. I spotted a post, and got to it. Not bad for an hour's work.

Black earth...see the raspberry bushes already green?!

Rhubarb! I've downloaded over 300 rhubarb recipes...I've made about a dozen....

Future raspberry jelly!

Get dirty!

Needed waterproof gloves today...

Never too old to play in the dirt...

Who needs the gym?

And the Days Go By....

Have you ever stopped, looked around and said to yourself, "How the hell did I get here?" Sometimes I'm like the Talking Heads song.."This is not my beautiful house..this is not my beautiful wife." OK, so not wife, but you get what I mean. There's days where I feel that way in the best of ways. I'll be sitting on my porch, sipping a cup of coffee, looking out at my garden with the sun warming my bare toes and the breeze tinkling the wind chimes softly, and I think, "Wow, who has it better than I?"

Sometimes, as I'm driving in rush-hour traffic with 5 fighting kids, I really cannot, for the life of me, figure out how I ended up there. I tell myself it's a blessing even while I feel like it's some sort of punishment, or perhaps my mother's ultimate revenge manifesting right before my eyes ("I hope you have kids JUST LIKE YOU!").


Is it just me or are you where you thought you'd be at this point in your life? I can tell you that never in a million years did I think that at 35 years old, or ever for that matter, would I be a mother of 5 kids and make my meager living by teaching adults how to touch their toes and saying things like, "Be mindful of your breath and breathe into your belly. Feel it filling like a pink balloon." (yes, I really do get paid to say these things) or in my kids classes blowing bubbles and singing, "The Itsy Bitsy Spider". Sometimes in the middle of a spirited rendition of, "The Noble Duke of York" I have a real "wtf?" moment.



Or when I'm in the middle of an indoor water park in March watching the kiddies and I'm making mental shopping notes when I see certain skirted tankinis and feeling grateful that I didn't get that tribal tattoo and I wonder how it's possible to actually be having this internal conversation.


Do you know who I was supposed to be? I certainly thought I knew the answer to that when I was an 18 year old girl. I graduated in the top 5 of my high school class. I was 5'10" and about 120 lbs. I was going to college on a hefty scholarship and was going to study law. No, not just law, ENVIRONMENTAL LAW. I was going to be a lawyer and save the earth at the same time and look great in a power suit. After saving the earth I was going to write a novel and retire off of the royalties from my memoirs. If a husband and kids followed, that would be gravy.



So what happened? Well, here's where it gets a little complicated. Isn't this where we started? How the?..... Well, I can say that I made certain decisions that greatly altered my original plan. Or, I can say that certain situations presented themselves into my life without my input and I dealt with them as gracefully as I could. My personal favorite, is that I had a plan and God had another plan altogether. Sometimes I really believe that. I feel it in my core, that I am living the life that God had planned for me all along. Sometimes, I feel like I took God's plan for me and threw my will into it and it resulted in this life of mine that can be so difficult, sometimes beautiful, yet so hard I feel like I'm barely keeping my head above water. Was it supposed to be this hard? Was it supposed to be this beautiful?


So why is it that some days I feel like I'm trying to jam that proverbial square peg into the round hole and others I feel like my life fits me like a glove? Maybe there are more than one direction our life is supposed to take when our bodies are being knitted together and our souls know this. Then at some point in our life we come to a "crossroads" of sorts and we make a decision and our life heads in one of many potential directions. Leaving behind all of the other possibilities that once were.


Maybe it's as simple as having a tough day and letting your ego tell you that you're somehow better than suffering the mundane trials of life and all you really need to do is suck it up, find some gratitude and thank the Lord above for the life you have.

Spreading the Love!

I love this time of year, if only for the fact that we keep the kids out of sports in the winter so that we can take a breather between the insanity of Fall and Spring activities. It gives us the opportunity to do things as a family that we just can't fit into our busy schedules during the other seasons. Yesterday was just another Saturday that other people might take for granted, but for us it was fairly free and that meant it was deliciously open for anything to happen! With a relatively empty schedule (Bill still had 2 cars he's working on, the twins had a basketball free-throw comp., Char had a birthday party and there's never a shortage of housework for me...hey that's a free day in this house!), Bill took the boys with a group of dads and kids to see Star Wars Episode 1 in 3D. We rarely ever go to the movies as a family (multiply the $12 ticket by 7...ouch!), so this was a really great opportunity for them to have some "guy-bonding".



While the guys were meeting with Darth Maul, I had to come up with something for the girls and I to do. Sure, we could've vegged in separate rooms losing ourselves in various electronic media, but I wanted to spend some real time with my girls. Taking a note from my dear friend Mary, I decided we were going to practice hospitality and make Valentine treats to share. Gwen provided her ipod player and we listened to Sarah Jarosz as we rolled, stirred, and decorated to our hearts' content. Making sweet confections is such a great way to explore personal creativity while creating something that can fill someone with nourishment for their body and soul! When all was finished, I had the girls deliver some of the treats to our neighbors (who are the best, btw!). We cut up some of the marshmallow treats for Charlotte's class snack for Valentine's day (I'm class mom) and the rest have been a treat for us! Perhaps the best part is that my girls and I spent an afternoon together, creating something for others and making memories for ourselves.

Maddie Stirring the marshmallows

We use a whole stick of butter and a whole bag of Jet-Puffed Marshmallows!

No extra flour needed and no wasted dough when you use parchment paper to roll!


Sweet, but they need a little something!

A dash of love

A pinch of creativity

A ton of fun!

Gwen's vision

Maddie's labor of love

This has Charlotte written all over it!

Even I got to play!


Practicing Hospitality!

I Like Wine

It's a Tuesday...I'm seeing a trend here. It never ceases to amaze me the amount of crap (sometimes literally) that can get thrown at me in one day. Now, let me start this rant...er blog...with the disclaimer that yes, I know that no one in my immediate household is suffering from a severe illness, we have food in our bellies, a roof over our head, clothes on our backs...etc., etc. None of those very important facts are lost on me.

Today though, was so ridiculous, it was blog-worthy. A Murphy's day to go down in the annals of history. My day started with the usual blaring of multiple alarm clocks (I think we have 3 going in my bedroom alone right now...long story), rousing kids from slumber, feeding animals, feeding kids, packing backpacks...you get the picture. We hustle out to the clown car and as I suck down as much caffeine as I can, wishing that it would lift the fog from my head as fast as my defroster does to my windshield, Charlotte announces, "Mom, I have mud all over the back of my pants." This seems like it's very possible considering the almost foot of snow that we had merely 2 days ago, that was washed away by rain, coupled with Charlotte's amazing gracefulness. Mud, OK, we can handle mud. How much mud are we talking about here? I ask Jason to look to the backseat to assess the situation as I navigate the winding road down the mountain. He determines that it's enough mud to freak me out. Excellent, I'll deal with it when I reach her school which is almost 20 miles away. Maybe by then the mud will have dried and I can just brush it off. About 15 minutes later...."Mom, maybe it's not mud." Not mud you say? If it's not mud, then what could it be? At this point I'm flying down Rte. 287 at about 75 mph trying to make up for the 15 mph-guy I was stuck behind on the Hamburg Tpk. 287 is pretty much a straight road so I crane my neck around to look at the specimen. That does not look like mud. That looks like dog poop that somehow made its' way all over the back of my 5 year-old's pants. Excellent! I begin to white-knuckle the steering wheel as my OCD kicks in and I have to fight the urge to turn my car around and dunk my daughter in bleach. Chanting in my mind, "It's going to be OK, it's going to be OK, it's effing going to be OK!", I drop the teenager off and race to the elementary school where I can fully evaluate and deal with the situation. Charlotte at this point has begun to whimper out a string of apologies and I know it must be bad. As I open the door to my van, the 7 year-old announces that I forgot to remind him to bring his violin and am an irresponsible adult (or at least that's what I heard.) Get out of my car and go to your classroom... The silver lining in this is that the violin case was spared the dog poop bath that everything else in my van got. Now, I don't understand how this is physically possible, but my daughter managed to get doggy doo on her pants, the rug, the car seat, the booster seat, various books and toys that had fallen on the floor,and the back of my car seat. I'm sorry but (insert expletive)??!!! How do two little feet move that much and cover so much ground? I muttered all too loudly in the parking lock of my children's Christian school that we cannot afford and are just waiting for them to kick us out, "DAMMIT!" OK, breathe. Fast-forward to grubbing a change of clothes from the Kindergarten cubby, scrubbing two backpacks with cleaning solution, cleaning the faculty bathroom floor, and taking my car to my inlaw's so I could clean the mess and dispose of a garbage bag full of toys and books, and it's not even 8:30am yet!

OK, I can and will salvage this day. I'm off of work this week, let's go for a hike. I drove to Ramapo Reservation, put my ipod on a genious mix and had an amazing, refreshing hike. You see? I can take lemons, make lemonade and sell that lemonade and make a profit!

I pick up the pooper trooper and head to a friend's for lunch before dancing school. We have a lovely lunch. It's parent's observation day today at dance and I get to see the clumsy, poop-spreading imp totally redeem herself as the cutest little ballerina ever. I get to giggle as I watch her feeble attempts at tucking in her tush while she pliets. Of course, I have to leave a 1/2 hr. early to see my twins participate in their wax museum at school, so blow a kiss to Swan Lake and run to the Middle School. I walk in to a child being carried out because he fainted during his presentation. Wow, someone is having a bad day, but it's not me! I professionally execute the act of spreading myself thin, tell my daughters what a wonderful job they did and fly back to the elementary school to pick up the 7 year-old and reunite with Princess tutu.

Princess Tutu is playing on the playground. Princess Tutu falls into the biggest mud puddle I have ever seen. I make Princess Tutu clean her hands in the pile of snow. At first it's because my brain cannot even fathom how we are going to handle a mess of this magnitude, and then I continue to tell her to do it out of spite. Thankfully I had washed the first set of pants ruined today and find myself back in that faculty bathroom. This time there's mulch and water involved. Undergarments are soaked, jackets, socks.....fingers are frost-bitten and tushies are getting pruny. I once again go to that Kindergarten cubby and take a pair of undergarments and strip my graceful ballerina. This time the faculty bathroom walls and sink need to be scrubbed. I laugh. This can only happen to me. Ha ha, he, he. Silly little life of mine. Enter eye twitch.

Gather younger kids, tell them that we aren't playing on the playground until the next drought so don't even ask, and fly over to the high school to pick up the teenager. Sit in parking lot for 20 minutes texting feverishly, "We're here....Where are you?" Find out that he has play practice and will be done at 5pm. Excellent! I haven't been home since 7:20am, let's go to Grandma's! Run there, run out to get the twins from tutoring. Drop one twin off at dance, she falls. I laugh. Maybe I'm starting to snap at this point. Drop other twin at Grandma's, realize 7 year-old who I left doing homework is on the same page and has now doodled all over said page. Correct his errors, make him erase doodles, and get text from teenager that practice will run past 5. No problem, now I can breathe for a second. Get text 2 seconds later, nope 5 it is. OK, run out. Make left into the high school parking lot, "Mom, don't hate me. Practice is till 5:30" Excellent. Sit in car with engine off, freeze my arse off and wait. Pick up teenager, barely speak to him, drop him off at Grandma's and head to see the middle schooler dance. Sit through that for 1/2 hr. then run to pick up other middle schooler so that we can go to Christian girlscouts where I am in charge of even more children. Albeit, most of them are other people's children.

My day is almost done, it's a craft night, so all I have to do is help a bunch of pre-pubescent girls stick seed beads onto 65 safety pins. I find a sick satisfaction when they complain of pricking their fingers as they bead the pins. Instead of laughing at them, I use this as a teachable moment, "Good things come through hard work girls. Just think how proud you can be of yourselves when your craft is done!" Girls grumble curses (Christian curses of course) under their breaths. Walk over to my daughters' table and hear my sweet, sweet little girl telling the entire 5th grade about how her mother had her brother before she was married. Now, this isn't a skeleton in my closet per se, but not exactly something you want the 5th grade girls in your Christian girlscouts group to know about you. I can imagine the conversations at their homes tonight, "Did YOU KNOW that Mrs. Van Goor had a baby out of WEDLOCK?!!" Or whatever 5th graders can take away from this excellent bit of information. It's at this point that I text my husband and inform him that I don't want to see a child for at least 10 hrs. straight from the moment I walk in the door tonight.

As I write this, I'm about 2/3's of a way through a very full glass of Merlot that my husband poured from me the moment that I entered the door (he's a smart man). I wish that I had a positive little spin to tie this story up with. You know, something about silver linings, or that stupid lemonade analogy. I don't. I do know, however, that in the grand scheme of life, this is the small stuff. They say, don't sweat the small stuff. So what do you do when there's so much small stuff it drowns you like a tick trapped in a box full of packing peanuts? Well, you can pray. You can breathe deeply. You can count your blessings. You can pour your heart out to someone. You can ask your husband to pour you a glass of wine. You can go to bed knowing that today is not the worst day you will have, but it's definitely not the best day. It's OK to say that today just sucked. I'm going to go with that. Today sucked, tomorrow is a new day, and I like wine.

Chicken with Gorgonzola and Bacon

It's the end of October and believe it or not, snow showers are in the forecast. This weather always makes me want to try new recipes to warm my home and my family's tummies! It is a variation of a recipe that I tweaked to make it easier and a little healthier (a little, like a smidge).



The recipe calls for 3 slices of bacon, fried and crumbled. I opted for an applewood smoked bacon that had no preservatives. The original recipe calls for bone-in, skin-on chicken breast. I decided to get a pack (about 1.5 lbs.) of free-range, organic boneless/skinless chicken breasts. I pounded them out thin (therapeutic!). Meanwhile, in a small bowl I mixed a stick of softened butter (original recipe calls for 2 sticks!), the bacon, and 2 chopped shallots (original recipe called for chives, which I have in my garden but it was too cold and rainy to pick them!).




I then sprayed a small glass baking dish with canola oil. Taking a spoonful of the butter mixture I spread it over the flattened chicken breast and rolled it up. I then cut the cutlet roll in half (otherwise they'd be huge) and lay them single layer in the baking dish. I then sprinkled a little bit of salt and pepper on the chicken. Everything tastes better with garlic so I crushed one clove of fresh garlic over the top of the chicken and drizzled the tiniest amount of olive oil over the garlic so it wouldn't brown. I baked it for about 40 minutes in a 350 oven. Served with wild rice and asparagus it was delicious! The kids would have preferred a different cheese (had to hold their nose with the Gorgonzola!), but ate it nonetheless. A bonus to this recipe is that there was a bunch of the butter/bacon/cheese left to roll in plastic wrap into a log and freeze for another use. If that's not your thing, you could 1/2 the butter-mix portion of the recipe. Bon Appetit!