Pear Pie Recipe

I am not a baker but I love desserts. I got a bag full of pears from my wonderful neighbour. It is those miniature pears but they taste delicious. I have made a few desserts before with them but I want to try something different. After scrolling through Pinterest. I decided to make my own.








Ingredients
2 tbsp Butter
2 cups Peeled, Cored and Sliced Pears

1 cup Water
2 pods of Cardamom
1 stick of Cinnamon
1 tea bag (I used Tetley Tea Warmth)
1 cup sugar
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1 pkg pie crust from Pillsbury



Heat on medium a large saute pan. When hot, add butter. The butter will brown slightly. Add sliced pears. Cook pears for a couple of minutes until they are all coated in the butter. Add cardamom pods,stick of cinnamon, water and tea bag. Cook for 2 mins on medium heat then turn down to low heat.

When the pears start to soften, add sugar, ginger and nutmeg. Mix together and wait for it to start to bubble.* Remove the pears from the liquid. Turn up the heat to reduce the liquid. This will turn it into a caramel sauce. Turn the oven on to preheat to 400 deg (200F). Unroll the pastry from the package and put the first crust into a pie plate. Spoon the pears onto the pasty. Drizzle with the caramel sauce. Cover with second unrolled pastry. Pinch the edges of the two pie crusts. I cut slits in the top pie crust to let the steam out. Bake for 20 minutes. The pie should look golden brown. I dusted mine with a bit of vanilla sugar but you don't need to.

Yield 1 pie

* You can use the pears sans liquid at this point over vanilla ice cream

The Little White Lies

Today I decided to write down some of the little white lies I've told my kids.

1. I'm going to call your teacher to tell her that you've misbehaving. Cue false phone call to the teacher and a conversation to your silent phone to get your preschooler on the straight and narrow.

2. Grandad loves roast beef. He will be very sad if you don't eat your roast beef dinner.

3. Chuck E Cheese gave me his pizza recipe so I can make it at home.

4. Green apples are made with special green paint. Sometimes the paint gets stuck in your teeth.

5. It is never to early to use the SANTA IS WATCHING card. Or better yet, call up a male friend and tell them Santa is on the phone and he is wants to know if you are being a good kid.

What white lies have you told your kids?

I'm pretty excited about poop

You know you are a mom when 75% of your conversations about your toddler/preschooler involves talking about poop and or potty training. This summer I had a plan of potty training my youngest in case he got accepted to school in the fall.

If you are wondering, he did get into preschool. He has a severe speech delay so he was accepted into preschool a year early. I was so happy for him. It was bittersweet for me because I knew this is him growing up from a baby to a little boy. School is the best thing for his inquisitive mind.

Oh yeah back to the potty training. I used all the tricks I did with my older son. But the thing that worked the best with him is having him go pants/underwear free. So we stayed home as much as we could. It was interesting because he found out things about 'himself' and was eagerly willing to show us. I am not going to go further except to say BOYS ARE GROSS! 

Well this week was a huge turning point. At his preschool the teachers are not allowed to wipe the kids' bums. So with a little coaxing, he wiped his bum and washed his hands all by himself. YAAAAAY!!!!

And get this, I am still putting him in diapers to bed but he wakes up with it dry. Then takes it off and uses the toilet. Bravo my little one! I wish I could bottle up my excitement. I thought the first day was a fluke but after the third day I was counting my lucky stars. 

I know people always say, they grow up so fast. This past week of potty training went by so fast. I thought that things would revert since he also caught a cold this week but so far so good. 

If you haven't guessed it yet, I am one happy mama! 

*I know that all kids develop at different stages and I don't mean to offend anyone by telling them about my child. Potty training is hard work and the biggest reward knowing that it worked. I am going to put this on my lifetime achievement award. I hope they give out cool prizes like free laundry service or a lifetime's worth of hand sanitizer.*

Prancercise or as I call it, walk like a kid.

Today I came across a video called Prancercise: A Fitness Workout.  It got me thinking about my kids.  They walk swinging their arms as wildly as they can. They step over imaginary things in the sidewalk and run and jump as though they have been set loose.

The lady in the video said that she adapted this exercise from a horse's gait. It is great exercise for the parent that is chasing the kid that is galloping away.

I love and hate this stage. I hate that they can get 

hurt because they are not the best listeners when having fun. But I love this stage because it shows how much fun it is to be a kid. I love the reckless abandonment that kids have when they are free of strollers.

Remember the Friend's episode where Phoebe goes running with Rachel? Sure we wouldn't do that now but think of how much fun you can have doing that with your kids sans the banshee screams from having too much fun. 

Whatever my kids do they are going to do it with an innocence about them. It is nice to remember the days when it was fun to swing my arms or prancercise. Just for Fun.

When Mommyhood turns to the dark side

There is no denying that Mark and Luke are big fans of Star Wars. When they turned 3 and 5, they had a Star Wars themed birthday party. I pinterested my house and they loved everything about it.

However Mark is definitely embracing the dark side as he loves Darth Vader and the storm troopers. While he was sitting on my lap, he called me Darth Vader. I asked him if I look like Darth Vader and he said yes.

I'm I tanning too much? Is my haircut in the shape of his helmet? I think that he is not old enough to understand the good side vs the dark side. I think that he loves me just as much as he loves Darth Vader. I mean who wouldn't love Darth? Cool Voice, wears a cape, invisible choke holds. Oh yeah, the  dark side... Let us just pretend to forget about that part. 

So then I told him " Mark... I am your Mother"

How do you see yourself?

This past Monday with all the terrible news, I happened to see a video from Dove. The tag line was you are more beautiful than you think. It was very moving looking at the faces of the women. They saw themselves how others perceived them. It got me thinking, do I look different to my family, peers and strangers?

However as the week progressed I saw an article by a blogger that criticized the commercial on her blog titled, “Why Dove’s Real Beauty Sketches Video Makes Me Uncomfortable and… Kinda makes me angry”

She brought up some points that had me shaking my head. WHAT? REALLY?

One of the topics raised was that Dove does not show diversity in their sketches. Well here is a newsflash. We live in North America where the population has a Caucasian majority. So when it comes to branding they are going to market to the majority. Also you may notice that makeup that is found in drug stores do not cater to all diversities. They cater to the majority which are light skinned. This is not meant to ignore the other races. That is just a fact.

One of the key aspects of the video was to show that after interaction with a stranger, the stranger was asked to describe them. The stranger’s description could have been totally different if (a) they only saw a picture of the person (b) they had unpleasant interaction, or (c) tends to use negative descriptors in everyday speech.

If you are interacting with someone in a positive light, they will appear more attractive to you. You will use words from your own ideas of beauty to describe them.  I understand that physical appearance is not everything and we should look at inner beauty and not focus on the outer as much. However the participants are describing someone to a sketch artist. They are not writing a biography where other descriptors are needed.

Should Dove empower women to be more than just beautiful? Why should they?  They sell soap, and shampoo. It is up to you to do that. You need to put your own descriptors for yourself. You can be strong, passionate and smart or whatever you choose to be. The point of the marketing strategy was to engage and emotional response from the audience.  In this case it was to show that you can be perceived differently to a stranger.

The blogger also criticized Dove for being hypocrites in her post script. She said that Dove is made by Unilever. This company also makes Axe which is known for their blatantly sexist ads. In my opinion, I think this blogger wanted to pick apart this commercial because it is owned by the same company as Axe.  By the way Unilever also makes brands such as Q-Tips.

I hope that what we can get out of this video is to see ourselves in a positive light every day. There are so many people including ourselves that think the worse of us. Think of this, how will a stranger see you today? 

Wisdom from my 4 year old

I was chatting today with my 4 year old son today. Absentmindedly, I said to him you are pretty. He said, mom boys are not pretty. I then said, I'm sorry I meant handsome. He then told me, "boys don't care if they are pretty or handsome, they just want to play!" 

Wow! In a world that focuses on beauty it is so refreshing that a four year old put things in perspective. He doesn't care about labels. He doesn't need them. He just wants to be a kid. 

It is so easy for me to pay someone a compliment. It does make me rethink my words though. Do I need to tell a kid that they are pretty or handsome? Probably not. I could have easily said, "it looks like you are having a great day!" or "that is a great shirt, did you pick it out yourself?"

My kids continually teach me so much about myself. For that, it makes me so happy to be their MOM.