Coconut Cream Pie...Mmm!

So... It's my beautiful mommy's birthday this weekend and I just had to make her her favorite pie! I didn't want to just make a 'jello' pudding pie out of a package... it just wouldn't seem right! So I found a recipe online and tweeked it a bit to my liking to fit what she'd like...If you want to make it... just make sure you have a candy thermometer If you want to make the yummy meringue!

Coconut Cream Pie topped with Italian Meringue 

(serves 12)

Ingredients:

Crust:

1 1/2 cup of dates

1/3 cup of chopped almonds

2 tbsp of warm water

Coconut Cream Filling:

1  cup Coconut milk (skim the cream off the top first and then add up to 1 cup)

2  cups  half-and-half

1 1/2  cups  flaked sweetened coconut

1  vanilla bean, split lengthwise

2/3  cup  sugar

1/3  cup  cornstarch

1/4  teaspoon  salt

4  large egg yolks

2  tablespoons  butter

Meringue:

3  large egg whites, at room temperature

1/2  teaspoon  cream of tartar

1/2  cup  sugar

1/4  cup  water

1/4  cup  flaked sweetened coconut, toasted

You can definitely make this pie with a different crust, but my mom doesn't eat flour so I just made this recipe. Do as you please, but this is the recipe I used... I just put the dates and the almonds into the food processor and chopped them up until they were really fine and added a little warm water here and there until it started to stick together. Lydia loved this part since I let her push the button once! (I guess if you need to get out a little steam, you could smash them by hand too). I spread it into a cute little pie plate. Now if you're baking your crust, make sure to let it cool fully during the next steps.

mmmm... the most important ingredients! Coconut milk, 1/2 n 1/2, coconut, sugar, and vanilla beans. If I could have found some unsweetened coconut or some of the yummy non-dehydrated stuff from the freezer section then I would have used that instead of the sweetened, but unfortunately I couldn't find any this time

So add your coconut milk, half and half, 1 1/2 cups of coconut to a medium saucepan over medium heat. Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean with a spoon and add those along with the whole vanilla pod into the milk mixture. Heat it slowly to a simmer and then quickly cover it and remove it from the heat.

Now look over at my sweet little boy sleeping in the bouncer on the counter with a death grip on his monkey :]

Now in a large bowl... add 2/3 cup of sugar, your cornstarch, salt, and egg yolks and wisk it all together. It'll be one nice, big, gooey clump, but no worries!  (Make sure to set aside 3 of the whites of your eggs for later!) 

 

Now that 15 minutes have gone by... Strain your milk mixture through a cheesecloth-lined sieve into a bowl. Gather the edges of the cheesecloth and squeeze out the remain liquids into the bowl. Don't burn yourself! It's still pretty hot. Toss the remaining stuff in the cheesecloth into the trash. Now add the milk mixture to the sugar and egg yolk mixture. Wisk it until it's smooooth

Return your mixture to your saucepan and bring it slowly to a boil while wisking it constantly. It'll set up fairly quick, so don't let it burn on the bottom of the pan!

 

Remove it immediately and put it into a bowl over ice. Mix it to cool it down a bit faster. It'll take about 5-7minutes. Now pour that into your cooled pie crust, smooth it, cover it, and put it in the fridge to set for an hour.

15 minutes before my hour was up for the pie to be done, I started my meringue topping. It takes about 2 hours to set so be aware of that to know you'll be able to serve it on time.

Beat your egg whites (room temp), and cream of tarter with a mixer on high until stiff peaks form. Then combine 1/2 cup of sugar and 1/4 cup of water into a small saucepan and bring it to a boil. Cook it without stirring until your candy thermometer registers at 250°. ( I didn't use a saucepan small enough to keep my thermometer from touching the bottom so I had to keep tipping it a bit to get a reading... just a warning. Choose your smallest saucepan!) Pour the hot syrup in a thin stream over the egg whites and beat on high until it gets thick. Spread the meringue over your pie and make it pretty... then cover the pie and stick it in the fridge for 2 hours to set. Top it with some toasted coconut if you'd like... we opted for a few cute sprinkles on top instead!

Now lick the spoon! It's perfectly yummy and totally safe to heat. The eggs are cooked just enough from the sugar syrup and tastes amazing. YUMM!!

It turned out GREAT! The taste was delicate and sweet. Using real vanilla beans really made a big difference. Maybe I've just had too many pudding pies made from a box.... but this was good. I can't really eat dairy, so it left me a bit sick, but it was worth it :) I'll be working on a dairy free option soon! I know I definitely will be using the meringue recipe in place of whipped cream topping on anything I do make dairy free in the future. It was great! So let me know what you think after you make it!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM! I'm excited to make you your pie every year for your birthday! I love you so much :]

Lydia turned 2!!!!

So it has been a little while since I've posted. We celebrated Lydia's second birthday on the seventh, were struck with the stomach flu for about a week, and just had some of our family visiting this last weekend.

I can't believe that my big girl is already 2 years old! Time has really gone by fast! I feel like we JUST celebrated her first birthday! What's happening?! This year we decided to keep the birthday celebration a bit more low key. My friend, Haley, and I took our girls to paint pottery together. Of course we had to paint something ourselves too! I'll add a photo of our creations.... after I pick them up :\. (hopefully today!)

It was a bit of a mess, but we learned that the paint washes out....and thankfully for little Ava, it's non toxic too if you happen to try and eat it! It's not necessarily the best activity to do in replace of a nap time, but we made it through Lydia's fits and still had a good time. I would've posted photos, but simply forgot my camera on the charger at home!

The evening of Lydia's birthday I came up with the stomach flu. (Thank goodness Haley and Ava didn't catch it!) All birthday celebrations went on hold for that evening, but as soon as we were all well we celebrated a little bit in each day the following week followed by the big bash!

Lydia and I were getting SO tired of being stuck in the house so the moment we were well and the sun came out, we went out. She met loads of little friends her age, I chatted with other parents, we ate a great picnic, and took lots of pictures!

mmm... banana!

I was so proud of her accomplishing the 'Big' slide without a second thought! She just climbed up and went right down over and over again! It's still so sweet how she chooses to go down on her belly welly!

      

Here she is going through the tunnel! It's something else she was nervous about doing this last summer and now it doesn't seem to phase her one bit.  I loved seeing her sweet little face peeking out at me!

Happy girl on the swing :)

I love her little rosy cheeks! It was SO cold outside, but so worth it!

'Mr. Squirrel'

This weekend we had my parent's up and finally threw a little birthday party for Lydia. She was so excited when she woke up and saw 'Nana and Popsky' and a fully decorated house. She got 'big girl undies', dresses, some clothes, and a tricycle complete with a bell! (She's always so spoiled by them!!). Once again... camera on the charger. I really failed at photos for her birthday this year! Thankfully Nana took a few to save the memory. We had a great time. Lydia had her favorite foods for dinner and played on her trike. That evening I let her decorate her own mini-cake with various colors of frosting and fun toppings. I was very surprised by how much she didn't eat! The rest of us had some marionberry pie...yum :) The next day my dad and I fixed some things around the house. We put up pictures, a mirror, and attempted to put up my little ikea thingamajigger. On a trip to Bimart to find screws, we happened across a little sock monkey for Gray like Lydia's.

He'll smile, coo, and squeal at him in excitement when he sees his face. If you run his yarn hair over Gray's hands or face he squeaks and kicks his little legs everywhere. Nana put the monkey on top of him in his bouncer and he chewed his ear for the longest time last night. It's so much fun watching this little munchkin grow and get excited about the littlest things :)

I'm going to miss my family now that they're gone, but we'll be going to visit them in only a few days time while daddy is gone to Alaska. Hopefully we'll visit the ocean, sample some cranberry sweets, and meet up with friends if the weather is good.

We really have been having fun here in the Balint house. So many fun activities, seeing our family, play dates with friends... awesome. Hopefully we can stay away from sickness/flus for awhile and keep this up! I'll leave you with two of my favorite new recipes of the week!

Baked Chicken Taquitos

Preheat oven to 375

Mix up some shredded chicken (I had some leftover from a whole chicken the night before), a can of *mild green chillies, a couple spoon fulls of salsa, a tablespoon full of minced garlic, some chopped green pepper and onion, and roll then inside of warmed corn tortillas. You can also add some shredded cheese, but I do things dairy free around here...Place on a greased cookie sheet and brush with a very light coating of olive oil. Cook for about 15min and then turn the oven on to broil. Brown one side (about 2min) and then turn and brown the other.

These taquitos rival the best I've had! We topped ours with some homemade guacamole :)

Blueberry Buttermilk Muffins

Mmmm... definitely the tastiest, moistest, most delicious blueberry muffins that I have ever made! Don't they look yummy?! I'm making another batch today for the freezer!

I got my recipe here.

Okay okay... enough with the numerous photos, I know! Sheeeesh!

Well I can't leave a post without my sweet little boy's cute face :)

Specially with my handsome hunk of a man in it too!

A Bicycle for 2

I've been working on my friend's baby shower for a few weeks now. It's not that there's that much to do, it's just that it's taking me a long time to get the little things ready and made with two babies around. I tend to Lydia all morning while Grayson takes his long nap (3 hours). Then I put Lydia down for her nap and Gray wakes up. He normally only needs an hour to an hour and a half to feed/change/snuggle before he's ready to play on his tummy, but that's 1/2 of Lydia's nap time over with. I simply can't get too many extra things done in that little hour a day... specially when I'm dying to nap! I'm so excited to celebrate this new sweet little girl arriving soon and I REALLY am enjoying all the fun creative crafts I get to do in the meantime, but I can't believe how long it's taking me to prepare! I'm excited to share photos of all the fun things I've been making, but I don't want to spoil her decor and gifts on here before the big bash!

Oh little Charis... I'm so excited to meet you! You're going to be beautiful like your momma, giving like your daddy,  and as sweet as your sister Ava... I just know it! What a wonderful family you get to be brought up with! (That and you have two VERY cute boys your age waiting to hang out with you too and more little friends coming soon after!)

So Lydia and I took a little bike ride to the scrap-booking shop in downtown Indy a few days ago and I thought I'd share some pictures! She's just too cute with her little helmet and pads on :]
We ended up riding about 2 miles! It wasn't too bad on the ride back, but I really learned how much work it can be with 2 very flat tires and an almost 25lb toddler on the rear! It took me about a half an hour of a killer leg workout to make it to the gas station. I had brought 1.00 in quarters to use to get air in the tires. I must've been a silly sight to see! I held lydia in one arm and tried to fill the tires one handed with the other! She squirmed everywhere and by the time I finally got the back tire filled... the air ran out.

Air is .75... I only had a 1.00. Lesson learned: bring 1.50 next time and ask the attendant for help instead of just letting them watch and laugh at you.

It was a lot easier riding with only one flat tire, but I can't wait to fill up the other! Bike rides might happen a bit more frequently if I do! I guess I need the workout anyhow though ;]

I really like my sweet bicycle, but I'm thinking that Lydia and I both need a bell!

She LOVES riding our bike. She'll sing to me, chat up a storm, and point out everything she sees as we ride around town.

What a beautiful smile :]

...and just because Grayson so cute right now all snuggled up with his ducky!

I'm very excited for spring to finally arrive. I love the snow and the cold, but I want to enjoy riding our bicycles, going to the park, taking the wagon to the farmer's market, and playing outside with Lydia's little friends. It won't be long! Lydia and I just planted fresh starts of veggies in my kitchen window and are watching the green pop up... oh the joy! Spring is coming soon!!!

Snow Day!

Yesterday was what I consider an amazing day. My criteria for an amazing day is this...
1. Chores get done 2. I get special one on one time with Lydia 3. I get special one on one time with Grayson 4. All three of us get a good nap 5. I get a nice alone/quiet time 6. I remember to eat 7. There aren't too many screaming fits from Lydia.

I wouldn't think other days aren't great or anything... yesterday just happened to be exceptional!
Plus...WE GOT SNOW!!!!


I've been waiting all winter for this day to come! I didn't want just snow to fall, I needed it to stick... and it did just that. The moment I woke up and saw it everywhere I ran and pulled Lydia out of bed. Everyone was fed, dressed into multiple layers, and then off we went! All the neighbor kids were outside playing in the snow as well. I had a snowball fight with the older kids. (it was pretty one sided since I hid behind Grayson in his stroller and threw all the snowballs I could!) Lydia met a little 3 year old girl, Jasmine, and they showed each other how to eat snow and tried to throw their own snow balls at each other. I'm not going to lie, it was really stinkin' cute!

After about two hours of fun I dragged Lydia inside. She was SO upset and begged me to 'please momma I go outside?! OUTSIDE?!'.  How could I deny her that? Who knows how long the snow would be there. We had a quick snack and then got dressed into new warm clothes and off we went again! I took her around the block and we met some more kids playing outside. Two boys were trying to make the biggest snowball they could. Lydia was quite impressed! By the time we made it back to our side of the block Lydia was ready to go inside. Her cheeks were rosy, her nose was bright pink, and her eyes were starting to look pretty tired. She REALLY didn't want me to take her out of her snow clothes. I'm sure it's because she knew that meant not going back outside, but she changed her mind when I offered for her to watch a movie. I made a huge breakfast of sausage, scrambled eggs, and hash browns. We ate, I fed Grayson, and we all had a long nap! The kids slept almost 3 hours! That gave me time not only to clean up and nap, but also to have some quiet time to myself.

What a blessing of a day. I couldn't believe how beautiful it was and how much fun we had! I even started a new sewing project to share on here :)
I'll be posting a fun tutorial up as soon as I finish it. I don't know how long that will take, but I'm still pretty excited about it!

Here's some of the photos from our day!

       

A chilly day calls for Fajita Soup!

Today was incredibly beautiful outside! In my opinion, the perfect mix of warm and cold. We took advantage of it since it also was Jacob's kind-of-day-off (on call) and headed to the park in Dallas. The sun was out nice and bright, there were those fluffy cotton-candy-like clouds speckled across the blue sky, and it was still chilly and wet enough for Lydia and I to wear our cute new rain boots. I wore my favorite scarf!
I finally brought my Nikon out to take some good photos. I don't know why.. but I've been holding onto these old photos I took on my camera for almost 2 years now so I haven't been able to use it. Every SD card I have is currently full and I couldn't bare deleting them. If I had a computer or external hard drive to load them onto, I wouldn't be so worried, but I don't.
Jacob talked me into deleting some that weren't needed anymore and so I got some pretty cute photos! Ignore the fingerprints on my lens (if you're someone that could tell).... Lydia got to it.

I can't believe how fast she's grown! I feel like she's grown from a toddler to a girl in only a month. She's so fun and full of adventure. She's been talking in sentences lately saying things like 'Mama I love you', 'You sit with me?', 'I do it!', 'I want it please', 'I go with you bye bye?' 'Just a minute brother!'. It's crazy how fast she's learning new things! I keep looking back at photos of her from when she was an infant. I know I treasured my moments with her, but seeing how fast this is all going by is making me never want to put Grayson down for even a second!... as if maybe it'll keep him younger longer?

This is me trying to take a photo of us while on the teeter totter. It's not easy keeping her on while floating in the air and holding an extremely bulky camera in the other hand! I would have taken a picture of my boys on the other side, but that would have been far too tricky to risk!

I love our new boots! Thanks to Nana and Popsky for our 'Valentines day' gifts :)

Lydia informed me that there were fishies in this little puddle. Then she went ahead and stomped in it as fast as she could haha. crazzzy girl.

I love Gray's little face. He's such a handsome little guy! My friend Christina made him this little hat. I love the way it points at the top of his round little head. It's starting to get too small and I may just have to order another one from her soon! Lydia really liked this bridge. Specially when daddy showed her how to drop sticks and things through the cracks to see them splash into the water below :).

The merry go round wasn't much of a hit. She hates feeling out of control... the same reason she'll never push the button on her little battery operated 4wheeler to make it go, haha. She liked the thrill of it for a moment, but got off as fast as she could!

Daddy showed her how to throw rocks in the creek like we do at Nana and Popsky's house. She could've stayed there all day long. 

And here's my two handsome guys. I truly have an amazing husband. I can't believe I can be so blessed with such an amazing little family! Thank you Lord for the abundant blessing in my life. I deserve none of it, yet you bless me still!

After we froze our little tails outside, we headed to H2O. It's a second hand store kind of like goodwill. I gave Lydia a dollar in her purse and she was SO excited. She picked out a baby rattle shaped like a kitten. I bet Grayson will like it too when he's big enough. I found some cute vintage looking swatches of fabric and a cute little milk glass dish. I'm excited to wash them up and sew something fun with the fabric! Summer is coming soon and I have big plans to make some cute summer dresses for Lydia.

We all took naps when we got back, Jacob had to go off to work, and then Lydia and I watched A Bug's Life. Not too exciting, but I enjoyed snuggling both of my babies at the same time. Once Jacob returned, I made Fajita soup. YUM!

Fajita Soup:

Ingredients: 1lb boneless/skinless chicken, packet of fajita seasoning, 1 green bell pepper sliced, 1 red bell pepper sliced, 1 onion sliced, 1 can each of pinto beans, black beans, whole kernel corn, and fire roasted diced tomatoes, a spoon full of minced garlic

Cut up chicken and brown in a little bit of olive oil and the garlic. Add a packet of fajita seasoning, green and red bell pepper, and onions. Cover and cook on low for 10 min stirring whenever you feel like it. Cook until your peppers get a little soft. Add 2 cans of chicken broth (I used chicken bullion and water), 1 can black beans drained, 1 can corn drained, 1 can pinto beans drained, 1 can fire roasted tomatoes undrained, and bring to a boil on high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about a half hour.

If you have extra rice or jalapeños... they're also good to cook in the soup. Top with sour cream, cheese (jack would be good!), hot sauce, avocado, or tortilla chips.

This soup would be great to make with fajita leftovers or even just taco leftovers.

Anyway... it's delicious. Make it, eat it, and love it as much as we did :)

A day well spent! :D

The Bug

I feel like we've all been taking turns being sick starting with Lydia... and we're back to the beginning again.
So I've been trying to think of creative ways to take care of my girl and have fun at the same time since we're stuck in the house anyway.
Her fever got to about 103.5 before the motrin kicked in and she wasn't wanting to drink any fluids... So we made pedialyte popsicles together! She LOVED them.

I know you can buy them, but where's the fun in that?

Back in December Joann's had these little bird houses and paints for $1/each. I thought it just might be the best activity for a bored sick girl so I finally brought it out.
She had so much fun that she didn't want to stop painting! The activity lasted about an hour and it was fun to paint with her.

Thank you Lysa for the cute little smock! It kept her pretty clean and she liked it so much that she didn't want me to take it off!

I'm excited for this summer and hope that we can paint together even more! 

Here she is carrying around her little birdhouse... She's so proud of it! She had to show Nana and Popsky on skype over and over again. She won't let me hang it up outside yet! 

Despite the grouchiness, constant fits, and everything else that comes with a sick two year old...

she's still pretty sweet!

Now lets just hope Gray doesn't catch it!

Sunning!

So I've been reading about 'sunning' diapers and other stained items of clothing. I didn't absolutely believe that it worked work very well, so I never tried it before now. Grayson made some pretty bad stains on one of my favorite outfits for him a few days ago. I put it in the wash immediately. Even after oxi clean and detergent, the stain remained. Sad day. So instead of just throwing it out... I got it wet and I 'sunned' it by just laying it outside where the sun would hit it! Check out the results

Start of Day 1

End of Day 1

Start of Day 2 (I put the onesie inside out)

Almost done with Day 2...

I'm already VERY happy with the results! I plan on setting up my own little makeshift clothes line for this summer :)