How Not to Teach a Kid ANYTHING

James said the other day that a younger version of him would have been horrified that any kid of his would ever associate himself with Mr. Rogers. However, Mal's recent obsession with Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood is kind of sweet. It's a nice show with really repetitive themes that are nice tools to have in our pockets when needed: "When you can't get something you like, stomp three times *stomp stomp stomp* to make yourself feel better." Sung, of course.

But. There is a segment from the inagural show that makes me vibrate with frustration. Do I need to get a life? Maybe. But, oh my goodness, this is insane.

By the way, yes, we've watched all six seasons, many episodes multiple times, since I realized it's on Amazon. It saved my life because we were watching it on PBS Kids, where there are only 4 or 5 episodes. If we've repeated already given that we have 3 dozen or so to choose from, you can imagine how awful it was having only 5.

Now when Mal says, "Tiger?" we're happy to oblige.

But this segment.

A kid goes to the bakery to "help" bake a cake. It's cute. All of the "neighbor" kids wear a red trolley sweater for their segments. There's one where this boy goes to the bathroom and washes his hands, and he's wearing chipped black fingernail polish. Edgy!

This kid isn't edgy. He's just adorable. But, God bless him, he's about to be really frustrated.

After the baker shows him all of the ingredients that he's going to use to make a cake, she tells him the order and he goes to make the first addition.

I guess she's trying to guide him so he doesn't spill any sugar, but her hands are smashing his hands against the glass bowl.

Next, they need to add eggs to the sugar.

"Here. 'You' crack the egg."

Why is she not just doing this herself?

Okay, I kind of get not wanting egg shells in the mixture (my kid throws the shells in and I just fish them out, but I'm pretty laid back, apparently), but why can't he dump the eggs into the sugar, lady?!

Next, they combine the dry ingredients. He would probably just muck that up, too, so good thing this lady is all up in it, patting the cocoa out. He'd probably try to blow it out using his nose or something. Stupid kids.

THIS POOR CHILD CANNOT EVEN WATCH THE MIXER WITHOUT HER HAVING HER PAWS ALL OVER HIM.

But, seriously, I or my older child would seriously have lost it by now and either run out crying or yelled or punched a cake-makin' wench.

Next, "he" gets to spread the cake batter out in the pan. He's like barely touching it because she's all business, speeding it along.

Why is he even here?!

Now it's time for the frosting. Okay, even if she was worried about the cake not turning out, at least icing, though messy, can't ruin a cake. Surely she's going to let him ice it, right?

Well, he gets his own offset spatula, but once again, she's icing the crap out of that cake.

He eventually gives up and starts eyeing the decorations.

"She doesn't even notice I stopped helping. She doesn't need me for this. I am redundant. I question all of my life choices."

The good news is that her hands don't show up in the final decorating bit AT ALL. However, look at this spread.

Now, if a little kid had been given free reign of the cake, is this the kind of restraint you think he would have shown?

Um. No. Every piece of candy would have ended up smashed onto that cake. Someone was "guiding" him even if she learned to keep her grown-up phalanges out of the shot.

Now, the only saving grace is this part. This is where the kid gets his due.

Bless him.

Actually, she cuts the cake and puts it on a plate. And in my mind, this is his saying, "Screw you. I eat how I want to eat."

Here's something I had to teach myself with D when she was little (and we made a three-day-long-project gingerbread train): When you cook with kids, it's messy. It takes forever. And it won't turn out Pinterest-worthy, especially not at first. But the point isn't to make a beautiful thing that you can send to some slick magazine. The point is to connect, to bond, and to eat yummy things and laugh.

This kid was smiling when he walked in and didn't crack a grin again until he got to eat cake. So this is how you teach kids not to mess with grown-up stuff and just to wait until we handle it for them.

I'd love to see them redo this bit, letting the kid take control. In fact, it would go a lot better with the actual episode if they did. This way, it seriously raises my blood pressure.

Please Make These! Pumpkin Gingersnap S'mores!

A few weeks ago, I came across a blog with which I'm marginally obsessed, if that's a thing. I mean, I don't have all day to spend reading up on past installments, but when I get some time, I like to scroll through. This lady has neat ideas, and I kind of want to be adopted into her family. I keep telling myself that we'll be able to do awesome crafty stuff like she does some day soon when Mal's needs aren't so pressing that they take all of my brain energy so that I'm left with no way to plan anything ever.

Anyhoo, the one post I could not get out of my head was Pumpkin Gingerbread S'mores. Hello. That sounds amazing. I wanted to make some, but came a little too late to the pumpkin spice marshmallow game, apparently. After seeing the exorbitant price sellers on Amazon were charging, I thought, "Duh. I can make them."

Making marshmallows is fun and easy and not much more expensive than buying them at the store... only they taste much, much better. Seriously, when I say "easy," I mean it. I've never had a batch of marshmallows *not* turn out good, which is something I cannot say for almost anything else I've ever made: cake, cookies, bread, candies, etc.

I found this pumpkin spice marshmallow recipe to use.

Beautiful pan of marshmallow. You can see the spices!

After they've been cut and dusted with corn starch.

My plan was to get Trader Joe's Triple Ginger Snaps because they are perfectly spicy and amazing. But first, I forgot to get them when I was at TJ's. Then, I thought, "The marshmallows and the chocolate will be square-ish. Why not make a pan of ginger snaps myself and cut them like graham crackers?

Fortunately, I found a good and easy recipe for those, too.

One review made me laugh; he complains about how all he can taste is the baking soda and ginger. Well, 1) I'd be willing to bet someone put 2 Tbsp. of baking soda instead of 2 tsp., and 2) they're GINGER snaps. You're SUPPOSED to taste the ginger.

I thought they were perfect.

I decided to use Cadbury's milk chocolate bars for the chocolate, because, I'm sorry, I know Hershey's owns them now, but the chocolate is still a lot smoother and better-tasting than the traditional Hershey bar.

Took the individual ingredients to our Thanksgiving luncheon and put them together there.

Isn't it beautiful?!

I baked them at a temperature I have no idea what it was (the oven was already on from cooking a ham), but just watched until the chocolate was glossy and the marshmallows started to wilt and brown around the edges. (I thought about using the broiler but have a notoriously difficult time with those things and did NOT want to waste any of this!)

So, my gosh, I can't even begin to tell you how rich and delicious these were. They were like having a slice of autumn jump into my mouth. No treacle annoyance, though it was plenty sweet. Just... just look...

Yeah. Try it. You will be glad that you did!

Romance vs. Reality, Halloween Edition

Lots of people have been posting their pumpkin-carving pictures (at first I didn't hyphenate that, and the thought "pumpkin carving" pictures is interesting and marginally terrifying to me) on social media. James actually got a pumpkin from his office last Friday, but we've been waiting to carve it until tonight, the evening before his work Halloween party.

They're having a costume contest (adult and kid divisions), pumpkin carving contest, Halloween-themed treat contest, and a trivia game. There are prizes in each division, and I had a great idea for the treat contest, the prize for which is a cooking class at Whole Foods!

I had big plans for our entries and for our evening. Our first family Halloween activity! (Last year, we were too tired.)

My first idea was to make a Hello Kitty cake. It'd have white fondant, I'd pipe Hello Kitty on the top, and write, "Hello Kitty," then surround the cake with red frosting stars to match the kitty's bow. People would see it and think, "Well, okay. It's cute, but not really Halloween-themed." Then when it was time to eat, I'd cut the first piece and it would start "bleeding." I'd act like it wasn't supposed to do that, and try to staunch the "blood" with my hands, continually touching the cake so that the white fondant would end up covered in "bloody" fingerprints. Then after I'd cut the piece out, all that would be left of the writing would be "Hell Kitty."

GENIUS, right?! Well, except that when I moved the cake (it depanned fine), it cracked. I thought, hoping against hope, that if I used a thick enough coating of frosting, maybe I could make an escape-proof container for the blood. A lot of examples I saw online used plastic bags, but I really didn't want to put a plastic bag in my cake. Now I see why they did. Because it was fine... I poured the blood in and topped the cake. It held. But when I plopped the frosting down on the top, I guess that did it. The crack separated and... Well, the effect was pretty awesome.

So I immediately decided for Plan B, I'd make the cute "candy corn" fruit cups I'd put together a few weeks ago for Rework.

Probably wouldn't win a prize, but would be a cute entry. I didn't have time to go to the store, so I ordered from Instacart. Then I missed the shopper's call and got her voice mail when I called back. The store didn't have any ghost Peeps. Whatever. But she said she needed to replace the pineapple tidbits with crushed pineapple. I told her that wouldn't work and I would rather have chunks than crushed (I used chunks in the above example), but I guess she didn't get the message in time. We were in the middle of carving the pumpkin when the delivery guy came, and I realized then that I had 8 (8!!!) tiny cans of crushed pineapple. They made it right before I caught it, refunding the money for all of them. However... they also didn't get clear cups like I asked. They got those cheap plastic translucent cups. I will use all of it because I don't have the time to go to the store to get what I need (or I would have done that in the first place) and I hate to throw bad money after good. So, grr on that. Whatever.

As for our super fun family activity, we converged on the patio. Once James had taken the top off of the pumpkin, the two of us dug in. Daphne would only reach in wearing foodservice gloves, and Mal was having none of it. When D was his age, she at least went for it a couple of times.

Slimy...

...Yet Satisfying.

Good grief, that was more than 13 years ago. Anyhoo... Not Mal. He stood on the goo and slipped around. He tried to stir our pumpkin seed cache with his sand box tools. But no hand go in.

Yeah... no.

While we were doing this, I realized that Mal had a dirty diaper. Like, it-has-to-be-changed-now-or-else dirty, so I carried him in... carefully. I didn't hold him to me or put any pressure on his backside because, eww. I realized as I was lying him on his changing pad that my left hand was still covered with pumpkin guts. Oh well. I cleaned him up as best I could while he cried, miffed that I'd taken him away from the fun, and he ran back outside before I could get the diaper on. Daphne was not amused, making it a point to look away.

She drew the eyes and mouth for us, then James decided to get his drill out to make removing the face holes a little easier.

Daphne went inside at this point to do something, and Mal retreated to the other side of the patio. He does that when I vacuum or use the blender sometimes, too, so I wasn't concerned... Until a few moments later, he kind of approached me and I could see that his bottom lip was quivering and he was terrified. I put my arms around him and held him, and he started crying for real. The drill was traumatic for him. I put his head against my shoulder to cover one ear, and covered the other with my hand. I assured him that it was okay, but he was so so sad. I decided to bring him in for a quick bath while James finished up with the power tools.

D asked if she could stay inside until we went back out, but I asked her to see if James needed any help. Mal was distracted during his bath. I tried to keep the water on pretty full blast, but he could still hear the drill and was torn between being scared and wanting to climb out of the tub, I suppose to help save his dad.

After Mal's bath, we went out to finish decorating the pumpkin. My idea had been to use candy corn for teeth, and I was hoping to find these gummy eyeballs that Daphne got one year for Halloween.

Two days before this sweetie turned 5.

But, no. We couldn't find those. So, once again, we had a Plan B. But we hadn't counted on the dang candy corn being so picky and splitting when we tried to impale them on the toothpicks. And our idea to use drill holes for the Red Vines hair didn't really pan out, either. Daphne had a headache or something, so I eventually cut her loose. And Mal wanted to eat a lot of candy corn, but I cut him off after two pieces, not just because he seemed to think it was fun to chew but then just spit it out on the patio. I told James that, in hindsight, the pumpkin carving might have been something to do after Mal was in bed. Except for the drill part. That will likely give him nightmares as it is.

So, anyway, we ended up with a janky Rastafarian pumpkin. I know someone's going to have like a 3D rendering of Ron Burgandy or something, and we don't have a chance of winning either of the contests now, but whatever. All of you people with Pinterest-worthy posts... good for you. I guess that's just not how we roll here at Team Dave's. Even if we wanted to.

Terrifying on so many levels.

Best Burger EVER

I want to show you something. It's the best burger I have had in Austin, and maybe ever.

I've eaten quite a few burgers here in the ATX: Hopdoddy, Freddie's (yeah, the Fredelvis AND some of my daughter's Stuffed Frederonie), Twisted Root (the first one, before it closed, on West Campus), In N Out, Elevation Burger, P. Terry's, Phil's Ice House, etc. Although I haven't tried the burgers at Spec's at South Town Square (290 and Brodie), which a friend says has the best he'd eaten here in town. That one's on the list for "next time we're down there," fo sho.

However, this one right here... I made it! And if I'd had any idea how awesome it was going to be, I'd have made it a point to do the "food blog" thing and photograph the process. But I didn't. So you'll just have to read text absent food porn, for which I would apologize, but if you do this thing, you will be *so* happy, you'll just totally forget about the lack of snaps.

First of all, I had a bag of the pretty incredible "Traditional Italian Style" pizza dough that they sell at the Randall's deli (there's a review of it here, though the price has gone up from 2011 to $1.25 now). I took it out of the bag and separated it into 4 pieces, which I rolled somewhat imprecisely and put on a sprayed pan, baking at 350 for 17 minutes (we turned the rolls after 15 minutes, just to kind of brown the other side).

I had gotten a pound of ground turkey on closeout last week (actually, my mom bought my groceries... Thanks, Mom and Dad!), and was planning to make burgers. My husband, who, incidentally, used to work the grill at a family-owned burger and ice cream joint back in Van Buren, Arkansas, said, "I don't know why I just had this vision, but it's something about trying to cook turkey burgers. When I get hamburger, I always get the leanest possible, but with turkey, for some reason, I'm picturing it falling apart or sticking to the pan or something because it's too lean."

With that in mind, I grabbed one of the avocados we had, mushed up the whole thing, and mixed that in with the pound of ground turkey. I added garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, Kosher salt, and pepper... I would say "to taste," but I don't recommend sampling it. I guess "to your taste or preference" would be appropriate. And that was it.

As the buns were finishing up, I heated our cast-iron skillet. Then I poured about a tablespoon full of hazelnut oil (which, incidentally, I purchased on clearance at that exact same Spec's more than a year ago) on the skillet, gave it a minute to heat up, and placed the 4 patties.

We cooked the patties covered for about 5 minutes per side. Then, for good measure, I flipped them again and did 5 more minutes on the first side. When I flipped them the final time, I topped them with Colby Jack cheese slices and turned the heat off about 2 minutes in. But always keep them covered! It helps the cheese melt perfectly, too.

We prepared our buns to our liking (I had ketchup and mustard, as you can see in the picture above; James had mustard and mayo, and my daughter had ketchup and mayo), and dressed it only with spinach. Oh, and, of course, some of the caramelized cheese that had melted off of the patties. Crunchy and salty and, as my nephew says, "behdicious."

James said he really liked the pizza crust bun. It was denser than the typical hamburger bun, which stood up well to the patty. With the turkey, although it won't shrink like hamburger when you cook it, it will swell up and not be quite as wide -- as long as you don't "smash" it with a spatula/turner. And PLEASE, don't smash it! You *want* that juice inside the patty! That's the rule with all burgers always. Don't squash them!

Adding the avocado seemed to eliminate everything that makes a turkey burger less desirable - dryness, crumbling, difficulty cooking, lack of flavor - and added good fat, folic acid, and more! Try it and let me know what you think!

Nutella Brownies... Three Ways, 'Cause That's How I Roll

A couple of weeks ago, I'd bought this giant thing of hazelnut cocoa spread at Randall's because it was on clearance.

Last night, I had this idea that I'd make brownies out of it, so I "googled" "Nutella Brownies." I found a few recipes, including a regular brownie-type recipe that included Nutella at the end, and then another recipe that said, "Easiest 3-ingredient Nutella Brownie." I anticipate it including brownie mix, but it didn't. Instead, it was Nutella, eggs, and flour. Beyond that, there was a TWO-ingredient brownie recipe, and it was just Nutella and eggs.

None of the recipes was exceptionally difficult, but I wondered whether the two- or three-ingredients versions were good enough to hold up to a genuine brownie. I'd read that Nutella (and, I'm assuming, knock-offs like this one) have as much sugar as cake frosting, so it stood to reason in my bean that we didn't need to add sugar to make the brownies tasty.

Solely in the interest of science, I decided to prepare all three recipes today. You can find the recipes here:

1) Full-out Nutella brownies

2) Two-ingredient Nutella brownies

3) Three-ingredient Nutella brownies

I did halve the recipes, and I made them all in loaf pans, so each brownie would have a side and a middle, for comparison's sake.

Here are the results:

1. Nutella Brownies

Multi-tasking with the multi-ingredient recipe. I've been binge-watching season five of "Drop Dead Diva" since I have a month-long Netflix free trial.

A pretty standard brownie recipe, and after it's mixed, we just add in the hazelnut cocoa spread.

Ready for the oven!

The first batch as it came out of the oven. Looks pretty delicious, doesn't it?

2. Two-Ingredient Nutella Brownies

Blurry photo of the two ingredients. When they were mixed up, they looked like this. Very runny!

It went from being really runny to super spongy.

3. Three-Ingredient Nutella Brownies

Just eggs, flour, and hazelnut cocoa spread.

It was super thick.

It came out pretty bready.

The multi-ingredient brownies were obviously more voluminous, as they had about the same amount of Nutella and then the other stuff on top of it.

This meant that the brownies on the left were undercooked, despite the fact that I cooked them as long as I was supposed to cook the full recipe. I think this has to do with my oven, because potatoes take years to cook. I wanted to compare cutaways, so I only used the edges, as those, at least, were all the way done.

Super gooey brownie deliciousness with the full-out recipe. It was definitely our favorite. Daphne agreed, not knowing which was which.

Daphne thought the two-ingredient brownies were super spongy, but they tasted good. This was my second favorite recipe, and in a bind, I'd certainly use it because it's very, very easy.

The three-ingredient brownies turned out super cakey. I don't like cakey brownies. These would probably be great with peanut butter on top, as the flour cut through some of the sugar and made these thick enough to stand up to spreading peanut butter on them.

Since the batch of "real" brownies was still raw inside, I used my delightful cake transfer metal to put it back into the pan and nuked it for five minutes. It ended up looking like this:

Still fudge-y. I will definitely make these brownies again. They are delicious.

The second-place contender. Dense and tasty and spongy.

Now that I think on it, these could be delicious with 4 ingredients, to include peanut butter chips. Or white chocolate chips. Since the brownies aren't too sweet, the white chip would be balanced out.