Featured Favorite: Tiana's Cookbook

Another cookbook, but this one has Big Easy Beignets, Charlotte's Coffee Cake, and Bayou Bread Pudding. It has other, healthier foods as well, but these are the important ones. The book is laid out by meal and the recipes are very easy to follow. Beautiful pictures let you know what the food is supposed to look like and various movie characters are featured on each recipe. We've already made the coffee cake and Hannah was a big helper on that one. I think the bread pudding is next then maybe Mama Odie's Muffuletta Sandwich after that. Love it!

Featured Favorite: Feasting on Asphalt

I picked this book up at Barnes & Noble from the discount table. If you get a chance to see reruns of the Food Network special, it was fun to watch. I couldn't pass up buying this book and I'm glad it was on sale because I have a feeling that this could very well have been a once in a lifetime trip for Alton and his crew. Oh, and there are recipes inside.

FEATURED FAVORITE

We haven't done a Featured Favorite in ages! Here's one:

I shared an apple with Hannah at lunch so I shared the caramel sauce with her, as you do, and it was beyond good. These little dips came in a six pack. Holy cow, we'll be eating more apples! Also, and I debated about telling you this, apparently it's not bad with hard boiled egg... I told Hannah I would take her word for it.

FEATURED FAVORITE

Our Featured Favorite is brought to you by Sick Days. Like a pajama day, but someone doesn't feel well. You get to lay around and watch whatever you want until you doze off, then Mommy gets to watch her shows or turn off the tube.

Our favorite, today, is an animated feature length film from the early 90s starring Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and ensemble. It has action, adventure, music, comedy, romance, and some hidden Mickeys. It's one of the last films to feature Toons as Toons.

This is not the movie but an interesting little video made from clips:

Hannah likes it for the Princess Minnie, of course. I enjoy it for the cheekiness and the little bit of fun that Disney poked at itself.

FEATURED FAVORITE

Right. These are just two pencil sized rods held together by two rubber bands and they help squeeze out the last glop of paste or other tube dispensed ointments. Yes, I spent money on something that I could have made at home but I never thought of making something like this and apparently neither did you because somebody got a patent for this little device.

FEATURED FAVORITE

The Buckets
[Click on the image to view larger.]

FEATURED FAVORITE

I haven't posted a favorite in a very long time. Here's one of our favorite cookbooks: I'll Have What They're Having: Legendary Local Cuisine. We had the Chicken Fried Steak tonight.

FEATURED FAVORITE

I'm sure I've seen this before, but every time I see it, I feel like it's the first time. Love it! Star Wars Mahna Mahna

FEATURED FAVORITE

You probably have to be a licorice fan, but these are amazing Altoids.

FEATURED FAVORITE

This one is kind of a two-fer-one. These won't only be kid-related items, either, I promise.

I've been listening to A Child's Gift of Lullabyes since I found the album at a preschool I once worked at. It was the only tape (this was ages ago) that all of the kids fell asleep to. I had up to eight toddlers at a time and they all responded sleepily to this music. The album has nine songs on it. The songs are first done with someone singing the lyrics, then they are repeated as instrumental versions (B side of the tape version, tracks 10-18 on the CD). The songs are sweet, sweetly sung, and the melodies are happy and soothing. I used this tape/CD to help myself sleep even before I had Hannah. It still makes me sleepy listening to it at Hannah's bedtimes. She has listened to this almost every night since she was born. We tried to mix things up and use different lullabye CDs but this one always does the trick and if she's cooperative, she's usually out sawing logs by track five. After searching for this CD to give as one of my favorite shower gifts, I found that there was another version. This classical arrangement by Emile Pandolfi is now the one we listen to. The piano is magical under this person's fingertips and the familiar lullabyes are transformed into classics. I absolutely love it.

FEATURED FAVORITE

Here's a new and hopefully regular feature of the blog. I want to share some of the favorite things we come across in our house, the library, at the store, at restaurants, etc. I hope you enjoy these things as well.

Hannah and I came across There Was an Ol' Cajun by Deborah Ousley Kadair at the library. It somehow caught my eye stuffed on a bottom shelf of a small bookcase we were passing on our way to check out our other finds. Being Cajun, I didn't hesitate and just grabbed it. We had to return the book a while ago, but I might ask Santa for a copy this year.

This is an absolutely silly and fun Cajun retelling of the old rhyme There Was an Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly. I probably liked it more than Hannah. The Ol' Cajun swallows a gnat. "Why he did dat?" the book asks. I hope you get a chance to check it out. It was fun.