Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful mothers! You guys do SO much...much more than what meets the eye. On the (rare) occasions my mom goes out of town, I'm the one who does pretty much everything, and I've experienced how stressful it can be! Between dressing kids, cooking, planning, organizing...there an incredible amount of tasks that moms do everyday without complaint.

My gift to my mom was truffles.

These truffles are extremely decadent. I used this recipe, but I created my own concoction to roll them in - some ground coffee beans, cocoa powder, and some vanilla sugar (heavy on the coffee beans to make the flavor really come out). I tried a small one before giving them to my mom (Ha!)...I really had to restrain myself from eating all of them. Whoever thought of mixing chocolate and coffee together was an absolute genius. 

Contrary to popular belief, truffles are incredibly simple to make. Basically all you do is bring some heavy cream to a simmer, pour over some chocolate, and add a bit of vanilla. That's it. (Just FYI, this recipe isn't very sweet at all - the main sweetening comes from the chocolate. Of course you could always add sugar if you would like to.)

The best thing about these is that they taste very sophisticated and elegant...you could serve these are at a party and people would think that you're a master chef when all you did was pour some cream over chocolate. Excuse me while I devise a plan to get some of my mom's. :)

Here's to all the wonderful mothers!

-carlotta

This morning I got up bright and early at 8:30 (very early for a Saturday!) to head to the farmer's market. Once I was able to drag myself out of bed - why is it that beds seem the comfiest when you don't want to wake up? - I realized that I should really get up earlier more often. Sleeping in until 10am (which I prefer to do) may not seem that late, but you do lose part of the day.

(Although, I say this every time I manage to wake up earlier...it rarely happens again. I value my sleep too much.)

 It was nice to get out of the house before noon. At 9:30am, the market was bustling with activity. The scent of grilled hot dogs and freshly baked bread mingled with the sounds of live music and people talking. There was even a girl who was Irish dancing.

One thing I really love about farmer's markets is the eclectic mix of people. There are runners, weird-teen-girls-running-around-with-a camera-photographing-random-vegetables-and-people (ahem...*cough* me *cough*), young families, hippies, old ladies...pretty much everyone. It definitely makes for some interesting "people watching". :)

-carlotta

Today we went to a Osage prairie preserve (Which was very, very close to The Pioneer Woman's ranch! Too bad we couldn't stop by ;)) with some friends. At first the weather looked like rain, but thankfully it cleared up into a beautiful, but very windy day. The wind almost knocked me over...and I could lean against it.

(I don't know about you, but this sign struck me as funny. I had to laugh.)

We went on a walk hike, which was about three miles long. Note to self: next time don't wear flats on a hike. And bringing a hair band might not be a bad idea either (It took twenty minutes to get the knots out of my hair - a result from the wind).

They had burned much of the grass a few weeks before - a controlled fire meant for fertilization - so unfortunately we weren't able to see the sea of prairie grass that is always talked about. It was amazing (see above picture) that the fire just stopped right at the path...the nutrients that strip in it are so rich that the fire was unable to burn it. 

To get to the preserve, we had to turn off onto a gravel road. Once on it, we were held up behind a cowboy riding on horseback chasing horses to the pasture. It shows what a city slicker I've become that seeing horses was special (We used to have two horses, along with goats, and other farm animals back in Texas). I didn't remember being them being so tall...ha!

Another attraction was the buffalo. The herds were roaming freely (hence the "Buffalo are dangerous" sign)...I had seen them before, but I didn't know before today that they could run up to thirty five miles an hour. Yikes! They look so docile and sluggish...but I sure wouldn't want to provoke them. 

How was your Friday? 

-carlotta

Note: This post is all in good fun...I don't mean to offend anyone :)

Ice cream trucks are the root of all evil (And the root of all root canals ;)). Seriously. I do not like them. At all.
As soon as I hear that annoying loudspeaker blaring "Pop Goes the Weasel" I run for cover until the storm is past. But while I'm running as fast as I can to get away from the ice cream truck, little children are running as fast  they can to go to it.

(This is what ice cream should look like. Tweety Bird and ice cream do not mix. Beware of bright yellow "ice cream".)

It's not that I don't like ice cream - I think it's one of God's greatest gifts to man, especially the chocolate kind :) - but I don't like overpriced, sugary, food colored injected ice cream. Give me the natural stuff and I can and will eat it all day.

But I suppose when you're five you just think, "Ice cream! Oh my gosh! I want some!" regardless whether it's good ice cream or not. And so they run after the truck. It's like the Pied Piper. Seriously. The kids hear "Pop Goes the Weasel" and they drop everything and rush to the sound. Just like the mice are enchanted by the music of the Pied Piper.

My brother supports me in this revolution. He has started a one man army called The Military of Abolishing Ice Cream Trucks, or MAICT for short (See?! I'm not the only one who is against them) So far he's the only person in this organization, but he hopes that it will catch on. ;) My mom tried to get him to not use the word "military" as it doesn't really make any sense, but he won't budge.

Not to mention the ice cream doesn't even taste good. Like I said before, it's pretty much composed of way too much sugar (ahem, high fructose corn syrup) and food coloring. But again, I suppose when you're five you don't really care. The novelty of having "ice cream" is enough...

So in conclusion, the reasons I don't like ice cream trucks.

-Their ice cream is overpriced

-It doesn't taste good

-The music is beyond annoying

And they're other reasons I'm not going to even get into or this post would be way too long.

Eating my natural ice cream,

-carlotta