I apologize for flooding you with my moody ups and downs this week. I’ve been so imbalanced—blue one minute, happy the next, and then sick for two days. I’ll try to stabilize things for a little while here so you can recover from reader whiplash. Heck, I need a chance to recover. Living inside my body can be so trying.

Despite all my kvetching, things have been moving along quite nicely (at least in hindsight). It was freezing cold on Saturday so Mr. Handsome couldn’t work on his barn and had to find things to do around the house. He repainted whole stretches of soiled walls.

Talk about giving the house a face-lift. It made the place feel so much cleaner. (He didn’t touch Yo-Yo’s room. Yo-Yo’s room needs more than just a coat of fresh paint.)

Nickel was everywhere he wasn’t supposed to be. He made Mr. Handsome get all ruffle-y and hot under the collar. The two of them were like some sort of live slap-stick comedy show.

“Papa, is that wet?”

“DON’T TOUCH THAT!”

“Papa, is that wet?”

“DON’T TOUCH THAT!”

“Papa, is that wet?”

“DON’T TOUCH THAT!”

Et cetera. (There’s a reason he doesn’t have a shirt on.)

One morning we got out the roll of newsprint paper and the kids spent a couple hours drawing a town (or something).

We had a snowstorm! And we didn’t lose power!!!

There was one wild and crazy night when my kids dressed up and walked on the kitchen table.

They were full up to the brim top with themselves and couldn’t get enough.

Miss Beccaboo is taking sewing lessons from a church friend. She had her first lesson this past weekend. When she got home that afternoon, she made us all wait out in the hall while she shut herself up in the bathroom to change into her self-made pajama pants. When she came out, she was glowing.

Mr. Handsome got our sewing machine down from the attic (I love to not sew) and set it up in the downstairs bedroom. She loves her new machine and her new, different-from-anyone-else-in-our-house skills. Her lessons are sure to be the highlight of each month.

I let the kids do the unheard of: they watched two movies in one day. More, if you count that I let them rewind and watch the fun parts over and over again.

I was recuperating, Sweetsie had sprung a small fever, and Nickel was draggy.

It was the perfect way to spend a blah afternoon and evening.

The kids had spent the greater part of that morning playing in the snow while I shuffled around the kitchen, cooking up a storm in slow motion. I turned eight pounds of beef into sloppy joe meat, made a chocolate mayonnaise cake, and cooked up some deliciousness for our dinner. (Both the cake and sloppy joes were not for us, much to the consternation of my children. The way they acted, you’d think I never fed them cake.)

After living on a yellow and white diet—eggs, toast, oatmeal, potatoes, oatmeal, toast, eggs—we were in dire need of a real meal. And what I made was a real meal, alright. Green chili with sour cream and green onions and fresh corn tortillas. (And peas.)

Let me tell you, I am totally sold on these corn tortillas. I can’t get enough of them. I like them so much better than the fresh-but-thin locally made tortillas. They’re so comforting, so filling, so satisfying, so real. I’m afraid I’m a bit ga-ga over them. And Mr. Handsome, who isn’t really a corn tortilla lover, is rather fond of them, too.

But about the chili. My friend Gretchen brought us this chili back when Miss Beccaboo was a tiny new baby. I remember the entire meal (green chili, tortillas, sour cream, fresh cantaloupe chunks), it was that delicious. I got the recipe (of course) and made it a couple years later for my aunt and uncle when they visited. My uncle doesn’t like spicy food, it turned out, but politely suffered his way through a bowl of the stuff. I don’t think I’ve made the chili since then—not because I don’t like it, because I do, do, do—but because I don’t usually have stew pork on hand and because my kids don’t like spicy stuff, either.

But I spied a green chili recipe in the latest Bon Appetit (didn’t even look at the ingredient list, though) and it got my wheels a-turning. We’d be going to to the local butcher shop for all that ground beef anyway, so I called in my order (“cubed pork?” “yes, one-inch cubes, please” “huh? one-inch cubed pork?” “yes, cubed pork, like cubes of beef, you know, like stew beef, but just stew pork” “oh! you want stew pork!” “yes, stew pork, please!”), and Mr. Handsome picked it up on his slip-slide-y drive home through the snowstorm, and the next morning I browned up the pork pieces, drowned them in tomatoes, and then braised the whole mess in the oven for several hours.

I can guess your next question: so if it’s tomato-based, why is it called green chili? Well, I’m not exactly sure, but I do know that you’re supposed to put in a couple cans of diced green chilis (I added diced, fresh jalapeños). In any case, it’s a totally red chili but it likes to be called green. Just go with it, okay?

Gretchen’s Green Chili

I’m giving you the recipe as I made it this week. The heat was perfect for my palate, but too spicy for the kids’—dial back or amp up according to your family’s specifications.

For what it’s worth, the original recipe called for two cans of diced green chilis and no fresh jalapeños.

2 pounds of pork, trimmed and cut into cubes
a little olive oil, for frying
1 onion, chopped
5 cloves garlic, minced
2 jalapeños, minced
8 cups stewed tomatoes
2 tablespoons chili powder
1-2 teaspoons salt

for garnish: sour cream, diced green onions, fresh cilantro, grated cheese

Heat up your Dutch oven till it’s good and hot, pour in a little oil, and, working in batches, fry the pork cubes. I try to get good brown color on at least two sides of the cubes, though you could be pickier and do more than that. When the pork is browned, set it aside.

Add a little more oil to the pan, if necessary, and add the onion and jalapeño. Saute it for a couple minutes. Add the garlic. After a few more minutes, add the tomatoes, chili powder, salt, and the pork (and any juices that have collected on the pork plate). Clap a lid on the Dutch oven and pop it into a 350 degree oven for 2-4 hours. You want the chili to thicken up a bit, but you don’t want all the liquid to boil away, so keep an eye on it. (Conversely, you can simmer the chili in a crock pot for 4-6 hours, or so.)

Fancy up the chili (more of a stew, really) with sour cream and a bit o’ green, and serve with fresh corn tortillas.

This same time, years previous: shoofly cake, my real name, gripping the pages, ode to the Titty Fairy

Turns out, I needed that bout of fussing. As soon as I wrote that piece, things started looking on the up and up. After what feels like weeks of below-30 weather, we got a balmy day. Cloudy, yes, but almost warm. I did piles of laundry and hung them on the line. Three of the kids went outside (no shoes, even) and played for an extended period of time. Two psychology students from the local university came to play with my little ones. (It’s for a basic developmental psychology class—I let them play with my kids and they give me a break. It’s what I call a win-win situation.) I spent some concentrated time with my older two. I had a nice chitty-chat with my mama. I had a nice chitty-chat with a friend. I made plans to go for a walk and then canceled them in favor of a trip to the library and grocery store. The new Bon Appetit came in the mail and it had a stack of brownies on the cover. Miss Beccaboo came down with a bug and turned into a bug on my living room rug. Maybe it’s not cool to say it, but I kind of like it when my kids come down with a fever and just lay there all lethargic and pathetic-like. They don’t talk, they don’t eat, they don’t fuss, then don’t make messes. Is this taking The Pollyanna Approach too far? Perhaps, but it’s true.

This is where Pioneer Woman and I differ. Up until this point, we are exactly the same, but when it comes to sick children? Not so much. Ree says, and I quote, “…[When you know] that at any given moment, you’d remove any harmful microbe from their body and inject it into yours? That’s when you know you’re a mama.”

Actually, no thanks. I get her point, and I imagine that would be true for me if we were talking about some really serious illness, but for just the common cold? Or a stomach flu? No way, Jose. I much rather it’d be them than me. Little kids handle illness way better than grown-ups. Plus, when I go down, everyone and everything suffers. It’s not cost effective for me to get sick.

Let me just be clear here, serious illnesses are no walk in the park. I’m only talking all nonchalant about non-serious illness. The bad stuff? Heaven forbid. I am not a callous mom. Take this story, for example:

Once Miss Beccaboo had a high fever and couldn’t move her head, and I freaked and tore into the ER. This was back when she was four or five and her temperature was sky-high. Even when the mercury was at the top of the thermometer (!), we still hesitated (I’d made far too many routine-disrupting trips to the doctor only to get the yeah-it’s-probably-just-a-virus verdict), preferring to make several calls to the doctor on call (who didn’t say “come in”). But after a couple days of raging fever, she couldn’t/wouldn’t open her eyes, her body was all stiff-like, and then—horrors of horrors—she failed my touch-your-head-to-your-chest test. (I have several tests to see if an illness is severe: can you stand upright and walk without limping? Yes? Then it’s probably not appendicitis. Can you touch your chin to your chest? Yes? Then it’s probably not meningitis.) That’s when I split for the hospital.

It was a horrible couple hours. The ER doctor, his face tense, hovered. This, his close attention, both terrified and comforted us. White blood counts were soaring. There was a brutal spinal tap. I cried my eyes out in the waiting room, certain she was dying. She lived, obviously, thankfully. It was just (though not “just,” as we learned) a case of pneumonia, one without any of the typical symptoms.

Good heavens. This post has no point. Except to say I’m feeling better. There will be fresh library books to read. I’ll belly dance with renewed vigor. I’ll—

Oh, YES! Now I remember the point. I was going to list off all the ways that my day got better and then culminate with the big highpoint (is that redundant to say “culminate” and “highpoint” in the same sentence?), which is, THE COOKIES I MADE!

(So maybe I was going through chocolate cream pie withdrawal after all?)

After posting my whiny post, I got an email saying that so-and-so was now following me on twitter (not because of my whiny post, I assume). I clicked over to that person’s blog and scrolled down. A picture of peanut butter cookies caught my eye, and the words “This recipe will be my new go-to recipe for when I must. have. cookies. NOW” jumped out at me and smacked me upside the head. I mixed them up right then and there and didn’t even read the rest of that particular post until after I had disappeared three of the gooey, warm, chocolate-y peanut butter cookies.

And then I splatted out this whole post. Sugar makes me prolific. Profound, no. Prolific, yes.

I’ve heard many good things about the flourless peanut butter cookie. While they are quite different from the classic peanut butter cookie (and those cookies certainly do have a place in the cookie choir), these little gems are definitely a keeper. They are like Reese’s Peanut Butter cups that have been turned inside out—mostly sensual peanut butter creaminess with bits of sexy dark chocolate studded throughout.

So now I’ve got a good thing going. I’m on the up and up.

Flourless Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Adapted from The Craving Chronicles

1 cup peanut butter
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup brown sugar
½ cup white sugar
½ teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup chocolate chips

Stir together the first six ingredients. Fold in the chocolate chips. Bake the cookies at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes. (I put mine on parchment paper, but a greased baking sheet would probably do just fine.) They should still be quite soft and just flecked with bits of brown. Allow them to set up on the baking pan for 5 minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack.

This same time, years previous: random thoughts