Months and months ago I took some pictures to share the steps in this recipe. But I missed some steps so I put it aside. A couple of months went by again and I took pictures of the missing steps.

I uploaded the pictures and thought I’d share this recipe for July 4th. Ummm…that didn’t happen.

So, why don’t I share it now since the photos are already online and I am procrastinating from editing other photos.

Start with some finely diced up onion. Add a squeeze of lime to this.

Roast tomatoes, garlic, and jalapeño pepper.

While those are roasting, grab some cilantro and chop it up finely.

Your roasted garlic, jalapeños, and tomatoes should be a bit blackened.

We seed the jalapeños but leave them if you like the heat. Then pulse the tomatoes, jalapeños, and garlic up in a food processor. Add the chopped cilantro and salt to taste.

This is a yummy roasted tomato salsa.

But we like guacamole.

So we get two avocados.

Smoosh that up nice and good.

Then add it to the salsa and there you have our roasted tomato guacamole.

The other day, out of the blue, Isabelle asked for marshmallows. And since we don’t regularly eat marshmallows, we didn’t have any fresh ones. I may have an opened bag that’s old and as a consequence has a weird texture. Do marshmallows go bad? When they’re all weird and stale is that not a good idea to eat them? I should just toss them. But never mind that. Let’s just pretend I don’t have old creepy store bought marshmallows in my cupboard.

So, anyhoo, Isabelle asked for marshmallows and I lied and said we didn’t have any marshmallows in the cupboard (because they are creepy and old). I said, “Let’s MAKE some!!!!” And so we did! We made marshmallows. Real marshmallows from scratch!

Happily we had all the ingredients in my cupboard. It really pops my little happy we’re going to bake something mood balloon when we are missing an ingredient and I need to go to the store. That usually means the sudden urge to bake disappears. But not this time. We had everything we needed!

We used this Smitten Kitchen recipe. Halfway through, when we needed a separate bowl with clean beaters, I sat there trying to figure out if I could switch over to this Alton Brown recipe. Why? Because I was fazed by needing clean beaters. I only have one bowl for my mixer and I didn’t know how clean the beaters needed to be. I debated on transferring my sugar mixture to a different bowl and washing everything. But somewhere in my foggy memory I recall that I need to have them super clean or else they won’t whip up.

So, what did I do? I ended up mixing my meringue powder by hand with a good old non-motorized whisk. It wasn’t fast but it worked. And how did the marshmallows turn out? They were yummy…the next day. Yep, the next day because we put them in the fridge and forgot about them!

When I remembered them I cut them up (not very neatly by the way, why can’t I cut straight, should have used a ruler or something, and that’s why the marshmallows are different sizes) and dipped them in chocolate to surprise Isabelle.

She said, “you’re the best mommy ever!”

When I saw all the marshmallows it made, I thought a lot of them would end up being chucked because I don’t really care for marshmallows. But these are much better than store bought marshmallows. Maybe it’s just store bought marshmallows I don’t like. These were springy and fluffy just like Smitten Kitchen said. And I could gobble them up and did.

Everyone likes them.

In fact, Isabelle was helping herself to them when I wasn’t looking! Mmmmm….I think I’ll stop typing now and help myself to a couple right now.

It’s been quiet on here. I meant to write days ago but we’ve been out everyday. EVERYDAY. So, just a quick post to share what we did on Saturday.

We drove to Cupertino to celebrate my grandmother’s birthday. I believe she turned 85. I always forget to ask and I’m sure in my Flickr stream I’ve written the wrong age before so I don’t know. But anyhoo, here are my mom and grandmother.

We always seem to celebrate at the same Chinese restaurant. It’s the usual Chinese fare. Well, when I say usual, it’s the usual weird stuff that Americans don’t generally eat. It’s not Americanized Chinese like fried rice, egg rolls, and chow mein. It’s proper Chinese, though I’m sure that restaurant does sell all of those things too. So, what is some of the weird stuff? Lobster salad.

It had a little dish of billowing dry ice. And a lobster just sitting there, part of the presentation of the dish.

Pig feet and duck tongue.

Upside down cutie.

Just seeing if you were paying attention.

Sea cucumber soup.

Actually that’s not what the soup was. It had sea cucumber in it but I don’t know what the soup was called.

Fish stomachs.

Yes. You read that right. Fish. Stomachs.

Then of course the cake. Fruity.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned before that Chinese cakes are fruitier.

And then there was also this.

The small buns have a sweet sort of custard substance in it. I asked my cousin what the big thing was supposed to be. I think he said it was supposed to resemble a peach. And I asked him what that word meant. And I’m sure he told me. But that was like Saturday, days ago. I cannot remember what it means. Actually I’m not that sure about the peach thing either. *Sigh*

Ok. Off to cook dinner.

Here are a couple of the cake pops I mentioned yesterday.

Not pretty and smooth. And I think the dots are cake crumbs that got into the coating.

They made cute cupcake toppers though.

Actually I was trying to stand them up when Alan suggested I stick them in the cupcakes.

I was going to write about our homeschool meetup today but it’s late. So, instead I’m going to share a cookie recipe.

A few weeks ago, we made some gingerbread cookies. Flume shaped. What is a flume you ask? I don’t know exactly. I always thought flume was used like, a flume of water. But recently, during extremely cold weather in the mornings, my phone has been forecasting flumes with pictures of snowflakes. I’ve never heard that term applied to something that looks like a snowflake. And snow?! In my area? Really, dear phone? You must be mistaken.

But anyhoo, cookies. This is my favorite gingerbread cookie recipe from Cook’s Illustrated. I like them because they’re soft and chewy, not crunchy.

Maybe this recipe was not the best use of this awesome snowflake cookie cutter we got from Alice. Thank you Alice! The cookies spread too much and the little shapes I cut in the big snowflake, baked closed. Oh well. They were still yummy.

Oh and see the little divot in the small flume? I was busy with Nathan when that batch beeped in the oven. I told Alan to check it gently. I walked into the kitchen later to find a whole bunch of cookies with these very noticeable divots in them. Bwa ha ha! That’s not what I meant by gentle.