Argh...

So the last several days have been temper tantrum abound, following an almost completely sleepless night. Needless to say I'm exhausted, slightly short tempered, as is my entire household. When I ask my daughter what's wrong she replies "NOTHING!" I'm realizing that must be my answer when my husband asks me what's wrong. It's really weird to see yourself coming out of your child's mouth.

Because of the short tempers, cooking as been a little less experimental and more comfort and easy. Therefore the next couple of homemade items below may seem less than fantastic to you, but pretty freaking awesome to me.

Pasta with turkey, onions and scallions in a cream sauce. We had a half a pound of ground turkey in the freezer that I had been meaning to make burgers out of, but frankly I was sick of the idea of eating a burger, but I wanted to 'clean out the freezer' before we went grocery shopping again. Therefore I needed to cook what I had. Which consisted of the turkey, two scallions, a tomato and of course, garlic and onions. So really I just browned the meat, added some salt, pepper and cumin (because I like it). As I was doing this I cooked a pound of the little kids pasta ibambini (again, it was what was in the cabinet). I then added the onions and garlic to saute with the browned meat. I then chopped up the scallion and tomato, added it to the pan. Then finished with a cup of half and half and a half a cup of the water the pasta was cooked in. I tasted to check the seasoning and then added the pasta to the pan and stirred together to incorporate. It was DELICIOUS. We have been eating it for about 3 days now. Still no complaints. I consider that a pretty good dish. On my do again list.

Zipper Bananas. My mom has this story about my sister being a 'spirited' child. Actually she has a lot of stories about this. Since my child is also a 'spirited' child (I prefer spicy or sassy) these stories are told often when the family gets together, much to the disdain of my sister. But really what the stories are about is 1) you, as a mom WILL survive this and 2) look how amazing the spirited child is, despite what doctors, teachers, etc. have said, they are actually the sensitive, directed child, who, in all practicalities, will probably be the most successful (sorry Alex). Anyway. The story that relates to the recipe I created while thinking of this story is this: when my sister was about 2, she asked my mom for a banana, but since she didn't really talk, my mom thought she indicated she wanted a banana. So my mom peeled it for her, and gave it to her. My sister FLIPPED. My mom was frustrated. It terms out my sister wanted to PEEL the banana herself. My mom sewed the banana back up, so my sister could peel it. It always makes me smile, and I've now myself had several similar instances. Although not with something as easy as a banana, which Z won't eat. So, in an effort to get her to want to eat a banana, I peeled one side of a banana, but left the peel on, and made a slice where I peeled it. I then inserted marshmellows and chocolate chips in a pattern that looked like a zipper. I then put the peel over it and put in the stove in a bit of tinfoil at 250F for about 5 minutes. I then let Z 'unzip it' and there was this lovely gooey chocolately banana mess. She LOVED it. (I did too) Voila! Zipper Banana.

English Muffin BLT. So yesterday because I was running off to see a movie with some other moms (I know, I know, I turning into one of those moms, but don't knock it when you need some 'without child' time.) I had some bacon in the fridge, some english muffins and had the requirement of dinner being done in less than 20 minutes. So I put the bacon on parchment paper (easier clean up) on a baking sheet at 425 F for 15 minutes, and cut up tomatoes. I then toasted the english muffins and added mayo which I had added wasabi and lemon juice to, to give it a kick. I then just made standard sandwiches with mayo mixture, tomato, two slices of bacon and arugula, then a bit more mayo. That's it. I served with grapes. Bit hit. Easy, and not just a BLT.