A Family Affair

vegas-snow — Photo courtesy of The Weather Channel

It’s been a long winter, here in Vegas. It’s been snowing, which is very unusual. We had a snow day, which never happens. Temperatures have been low and the wind has been near constant. No one here knows what to do with the snow and that goes for our homeless community as well. We’ve been focusing a lot of our energy on supplying tents, blankets and warm clothes.

Hot coffee and soup have been popular foods. In fact, soup has been so popular that everyone on G Street is walking around with four bowls and a belly full of soup.

My goal is always to fill the need. The people we serve don’t need more soup so I put away my crockpot and started brainstorming.

Fortunately, my good friend, Lynn came by my house over the weekend with supplies for me to take to G Street. Tents, hygiene supplies, a case of peanut butter and a few jars of jelly. She is great at finding a bargain. When the universe sends me peanut butter and jelly, I make sandwiches.

I had two loaves of bread already and plenty of paper bags. For about ten bucks I picked up individual bags of chips, sandwich bags and seedless oranges. Another dear friend, Annette, answered a request that I made on Facebook for drinks and brought me two cases of water. She included a bag of Hershey kisses for our friends, just to be sweet. So I put my kids to work packing 24 sack lunches.

I have a confession to make. I don’t involve my kids in enough of my volunteering. I have a terrible habit of doing things myself when it’s easier than involving my kids. I’ve been working on it around the house but I haven’t done much to change this behavior when it comes to serving the community.

I tell them that it’s important but when it comes to serving, they are usually not as involved as they should be. The problem with this is that I started my path into volunteerism, in part, to be a good example for my kids.

I am attempting to remedy this bad habit of excluding my kids by forcing them into hard labor. Having them prep items at home is the easiest way to get them involved and should I be brave enough to bring the whole clan down to G Street with me, sack lunches are quick and easy to pass out. There’s no chance that they will burn themselves or spill food everywhere.

Of course if your kids are in charge of packing the lunches, make sure there isn’t a bag that just has two oranges and thirty chocolate kisses in it. That can happen.

Since I still have peanut butter and jelly left, I will likely be making sack lunches with my family for a few more weeks. While this meal is hearty and practical they don’t exactly say “lovin’ from the oven.” My kids were occupied assembling so I had time to bake cookies while they were distracted.

Oatmeal raisin cookies have a bad reputation. Sure, they aren’t their glamorous cousin, chocolate chip cookies but they are delicious and a little healthier. I also love making oatmeal raisin cookies because the dough doesn’t come pre-mixed from Pilsbury. When you bite into an oatmeal cookie, you know that it was homemade.

These cookies are moist and sweet. The combination of brown and white sugar give the cookies a depth of flavor that you will love.

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

1-1/2 C whole wheat flour
1 t baking soda
1 t ground nutmeg
1/2 t salt
1 C butter, softened
3/4 C brown sugar, packed
1/2 C granulated sugar
2 Eggs
1 T vanilla
3 C oatmeal
1 C raisins
Heat oven to 350°F. Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt; sift ingredients, looking our for clumps of baking soda. Set aside.

img_1530-1 Using an electric mixer, beat butter and both sugars on medium speed until creamy. Add eggs and vanilla. Mix until blended. Add flour-mixture. Mix until blended. Add oats and raisins and continue to mix. This is a thick batter, so be sure to stop the mixer, scrape the sides of the bowl completely and continue mixing at least twice or until oats and raisins are fully incorporated.

Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake 10 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Cool two minutes on cookie sheets then remove to wire rack. Cool completely before removing. Enjoy.

From Rags to Breeches

Just over eight years ago, I was twenty-seven years old and pregnant with my first child. My due date had come and gone and I was driven entirely by hormones and a strong desire to jumpstart labor. I was sitting in a pew at Mass, between my husband and my sisters. I should have been paying attention to the homily but I was restless and started thumbing through the church bulletin.

KT Pregnancy — Oh, those long ago days of awaiting my first born. I had no idea what I was in for.

I saw an ad that Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada had placed, saying that they were completely out of diapers to pass out to the public. It had never occurred to me that Catholic Charities passed out diapers. I hadn’t spent a lot of time before then thinking about diapers at all. I wondered where someone would go if they didn’t have diapers for their baby. What would someone do if they didn’t have the support system that I did? Before I knew it, I was sobbing, loudly in the middle of a crowded church.

My husband and my sisters panicked. They wondered if I was in labor. Was I in pain? Was something horrible happening? I blubbered unclearly before slapping the bulletin into my sister’s hands. “They don’t have any diapers! Babies need diapers!” My husband and my sisters promised me they would donate diapers in a desperate attempt to stop my crying. Thus started my crusade.

I went to my women’s group, the OLLV Women’s Guild to ask for help and they didn’t enjoy watching a pregnant woman ugly-cry either so they agreed to help. That first year, we collected 1200 diapers and we were ecstatic.

That next Sunday, Monsignor Patrick Leary showed up to thank us for the donation. Sadly, he didn’t show up at my Mass, that’s just my luck. He told the parishioners that when our donation arrived, there were women in the waiting area, using gas-station paper towels and plastic grocery bags, as diapers on their babies, because it was the best they could do.

That may be the worst thing you have ever heard about babies without diapers but it is not the worst thing I have heard. Diaper insecurity is a very real problem that few people know exists.

Thirty-two percent of parents in the United States have admitted to re-using soiled, disposable diapers. One in three mothers can’t afford enough diapers for her children. That is 5.2 million babies without an adequate supply of clean, dry diapers.

These children often suffer from delayed physical and cognitive development. Otherwise joyous milestones like learning to walk become painful with chronic diaper rash or a urinary tract infection.

Diaper shortages negatively affect the whole family. A lack of clean diapers causes higher maternal stress and a higher risk of postpartum depression than even food insecurity. Combine that with increased infant crying from related discomfort or illness and it isn’t difficult to see why these children are more likely to become the victims of child abuse.

I have been listening to and sharing stories about diaper insecurity for eight years and the sadness knows no bounds. Luckily neither does the generosity of my community. Every year, we collect more diapers. The church, the school, the Knights of Columbus, RCIA, CCD, people from virtually every ministry participate now. Our goals are met and topped every year.

I just hosted OLLV’s 8th Annual Diaper Drive for Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada and we sent 75,000 diapers to Catholic Charities.

img_1016-1 — This is what 75,000 diapers look like. That’s right. I had to use pano view.

Every year to close-out our diaper drive, the OLLV Women’s Guild hosts a baby shower. Any excuse for a party. We eat, we drink, we play bingo and we take a picture with the spoils we’ve gathered.

When our truck pulled up this year, Catholic Charities had been without diapers for five months. They pass out about 10,000 diapers a month when they have diapers. That means by September the cupboards will be bare again. Unless, we can convince the rest of the community to contribute as well.

I’m brainstorming and maybe you can, too. If you have any ideas or suggestions for future diaper drives or collections, reach out and let me know. Maybe we can diaper all the babies, together.

(Victory is) Sweets

Treats — I can’t host a party that doesn’t involve party favors. I was reluctant to share this recipe because it is so easy that it almost isn’t a recipe at all.

3 16 OZ boxes of CandiQuik
12 OZ Candy Melts

I used chocolate CandiQuick and pink Candy Melts for these but you can use any flavors or colors that you like. I used a heart mold to fit our “Baby Love” theme but you can use any mold that is safe for chocolate. I recommend a silicone mold, so you can remove the pieces without breaking them. 57118613157__8da000a7-bcdb-46f6-bdde-6ffdc1afcac4-1 You can buy small silicone molds for $3 at Michaels that work great but they only make six candies at a time.

CandiQuik comes with a microwavable tray. Chop the chocolate along the lines into smaller pieces before microwaving, to save time. Microwave for one minute and stir. Turn over any whole pieces and microwave at 30 second intervals until the chocolate is completely liquid. Pour into your molds. Place molds in the freezer until the chocolate is cooled and solid. Pop your candies out of the mold and onto a freezable tray.

Pour candy melts in a microwave safe dish and heat for 1 minute. Stir and continue at 30 second intervals until candy melts are liquid. Be careful not to burn yourself on the bowl or the liquid. img_1198-1 Pour into a plastic freezer bag. Sandwich bags are not thick enough and the heat may melt the bag. Cut a tiny hole in one corner of the bag to allow candy melt to be squeezed out.

Carefully squeeze liquid candy melt over the candies in any pattern you would like. Do not squeeze the bag too hard or attempt to seal the top of the bag or the bag may break and spill hot candy coating everywhere.

After you have decorated the candies, put them back in the freezer for five minutes. You may wrap the treats however you like and return them to the freezer until you are ready to set serve them. This recipe makes 180 individual candies or 60 sets of 3 candies each.

Enjoy this easy-peasy party favor, that can be matched to any possible theme.

The Pasta Problem

If you have ever cooked for a large group before, be it a party, a church group, or a giant, lower-middle class family, you already know that when you have to feed a lot of people with a little money, pasta is the answer. The problem with pasta is that everyone else knows that, too.

I cannot count how many times I have heard someone in the chow line ask a volunteer to put “your spaghetti” on top of all the other spaghetti. Spaghetti is great, macaroni and cheese is great, buttered noodles are great. A dinner of pasta with no meat or vegetables is not so great.

Noodles and sauce are cheap, so there is always a lot. If this is all that you can bring, bring it. Something is always better than nothing. If you can, meatballs, chicken, broccoli, mushrooms or spinach will go a long way.

Here is my formula for pasta-

Pound of Noodles + Pound of Meat + ½ Pound of veggies

When I make baked ziti for example, I use two pounds of noodles, two pounds of meat and one pound of spinach. You can catch that recipe below.

Baked Ziti Primavera

2 lbs dry ziti or any tubular pasta
2 lbs ground Italian sausage
1 lb spinach leaves
4- 24 oz marinara sauce
1 lb sliced provolone
3 C sour cream
16 oz mozzarella
4 TBSP Parmesan, grated

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Fill a medium-sized pot with water and bring it to a boil. Add your noodles and let water return to a boil. Boil for about 8 minutes or until your pasta is al dente. Remove from heat and drain.

Brown the ground sausage in a large pot. While the meat cooks, trim the stems off of the spinach. Run the spinach leaves through a food processor until thoroughly diced. Add to the meat and mix well. Add marinara sauce to the beef mixture and let it simmer for 15 minutes.

I use a “heavy-duty,” aluminum roasting pan for this dish. It is 16 inches by 11 inches and 2.5 inches deep. Do not use a dish that is less than 2.5 inches deep.

Fill the empty tray with half of the noodles. Layer half the provolone on top and sprinkle with half the parmesan, about 2 TBSPs. Spread the sour cream evenly. Spread the meat mixture over the sour cream. Add the remaining noodles, the rest of the meat-mixture and the remaining provolone. Cover with mozzarella. Sprinkle the remaining parmesan.

Cover the dish with tin foil and bake in the oven for forty minutes. If you want the cheese on top of the ziti to get brown and bubbly, remove the tin foil and bake for another five minutes. Since everything is precooked in this dish, you just want the tray heated through and the cheese melted.