Duckwings - and Grown-Up Time (what is THAT?)

Duckwings: What SmallBoy used to call dumplings. My favoritest dish in the entire world is my grandmother's pot roast and dumplings. I am, personally, more a fan of the dumplings than the pot roast, but it just doesn't work without both components. For my birthday dinner every year, I always ask for Ps & Ds (as they're affectionately called now). This year, as my birthday will fall on Turkey Day, I had to move my birthday dinner to a different date. As fate would have it, PC bought THE most ENORMOUS pot roast I've ever seen - a 6pounder (of course, my gram probably cooked bigger cuz she had a house full of hungry girls to feed). He had a grand scheme to make his own pot roast recipe and to try something new. I begged, pleaded, and made sad puppy eyes at him to make dumplings. Who could resist? Not PC. So we reached a happy compromise that he could make his pot roast his way, as long as I got to have dumplings.

The roast was seasoned and browned well before PC loaded it into the giant roasting pan accomanied by big ol chunks of carrots, onion slices and mushrooms for extra seasoning. He added some beef bullion to the water, and some carribean jerk seasons for a little extra kick. He's desperately trying to change our very bland palettes to appreciate some "flavor." The really funny thing about this is that LargeBoy, Girl, & I all notice the extra seasonings when he adds them to things, and the last couple times, we've just kept our mouths closed and chugged our milk to put out the flames so that we wouldn't draw SmallBoy's attention to the "heat" - cuz he dislikes it tremendously. The last two times we've eaten something with a bit of zest (my BIL made some mashed potatoes with some of that green habanero sauce in them), SmallBoy was completely oblivious. Very very interesting. And so it went with our pot roast. Now the duckwings - dumplings - are cooked in the juice from the meat, so obviously, they picked up quite a bit of the jerk seasoning. Not only did SmallBoy eat a ton of it for the meal, but he also ate quite a large portion of the leftovers yesterday. I was shocked. Perhaps it had something to do with him helping to prepare the dumplings:



He helped make the dough for the dumplings, too. It's just eggs, flour and salt, but you have to keep adding flour until you absolutely cannot stir any longer, or, until someone with fresh arms who hasn't been stirring can't stir it any more. Nice and thick. It was good OT for SmallBoy to be stirring the mixture. He loves it, "More FLOUR!"



The actual cooking of the "duckwings," however, is the most fun. Dip the fork in the juice, dip the fork in the batter and get a HUGE mess of it (if you're like me and like giganto sized dumplings), and....



...put the fork full of the flour-y goodness into the juice, gently shake the fork to encourage the batter into the juice, and cook covered and enjoy the aroma until they float. Lord, I'm salivating. Good thing I'm going back to working out tonight (even my fat pants are too tight, and they're 2 sizes too big for me normally).

I think I said something in the title about grown-up time. What the hell is THAT? I don't recall. With the zanieness of the last week or two, we're not getting any downtime, really, until the kids are in bed. We used to complain because we got nothing done around the house because we felt guilty about sitting and enjoying a movie before bed. Now, we don't even have time to do that. Our "free time" has consisted of sitting on the computer, helping each other build our myspaces (band's, mine, his) to help further promote autism awareness and network with more parents who need support and to reach those who don't realize what a VAST support group the internet is, (oh yeah, and the band), oh yeah, and loading my iPod (I'll post on what's going in it tomorrow). We're getting to bed at about 12:30 or 1, and that nasty alarm gets earlier everyday. Tonight won't be any different except that, perhaps, we'll go right to bed instead.

Last night I did as I said, and stayed home while PC went to Girl's game. SmallBoy and I worked with his weighted ball doing some balance and spatial awareness and tone building exercises. The deal was for every 10 he did, I had to do 20. Yeah, tummy's a bit sore today. When we had finished, I had him make his lunch and brush his teeth right away with the promise that he, LargeBoy, and I would sit down and play dominoes IF he agreed that AT 9:30 we would stop whether or not someone had won. He did! It was wonderful!

Tonight - are you ready for this? I'm off work at 4:30 and going to work out. I'll get home around 5:30 and have just enough time to change and "deodorize" before running out the door to get to our 6:15 OT appointment. When we leave there between 7:15 & 7:20, we'll already be late for Cub Scouts which starts at 7. SmallBoy's Den is doing the flag ceremony tonight. He will miss it. He was upset, but came to realize that OT is SO much more important and that it's OK if he misses the flag ceremony, he won't miss the whole meeting. From there, whenever that ends between 8 and 8:30, we'll haul booty down the block (or perhaps cut through the school building) to the gym where, HOPEFULLY, Girl's game will already be underway - not like the other night when they started 40minutes late. Out of the gym by 9:30/:45 (optimistically), and home. Fortunately, Girl and SmallBoy don't have school tomorrow, so bedtime isn't necessarily a priority tonight, just some key SmallBoy time. He's excited, more than anything, because he'll get to go to his sister's game. IF I remember, I'll bring the camera and take some pics tonight!

Well, that was a nice long post. Can that count for two so I can skip one, oh, say, on Thanksgiving? LOL!