MamaPie

One More Notch

Every so often, I notice that I have stepped my family meals up a notch. It's gradual, but concrete. If you took a week of dinners from two years ago and compared it to this week's dinners, the difference would be clear: more greens, more vegetables, less simple carbs, less sugar and more fermented foods. It would be the same if you took the dinners from two years ago and compared those to two years before that. A slow, yet steady, upward trajectory on the healthy eating scale.

These past few months the change has been by a few different factors: the loads of interesting greens we get each week from our new CSA, conversations (and taste tests) with my brother, who has adopted a raw foods based diet, a desire to bring more fermented foods into our kitchen after Reuben was on a course of antibiotics, and, finally, my desire to lose a few pounds (my first ever "diet").

Day-to-day, and meal-to-meal, these changes look like this: less pancakes and waffles for breakfast and more fermented oatmeal and homemade granola, less pastas for dinner and a big salad and a vegetable along with our protein, less bread and sandwiches, more quinoa and garbanzo beans; more sauerkraut, more carrots, more kale, more sunflower seeds.

I'm getting inspiration from the following whole foods websites:

• The Whole Life Nutrition Kitchen
• The Nourished Kitchen

Do you step it up a notch every once in a while? What are you cooking these days?

Stir Fry

Stir-fry usually gets a bad rap in my mind. Mostly because of the memories of stir-frys (fries?) my roommates and I used to make all the time in college, which consisted of an enormous wok filled with pounds of pasta, frozen corn, frozen peas and maybe some broccoli (not frozen). Sometimes there were some chicken "tenders" thrown in and it was all tossed around with alot of oil and alot of "soy sauce". I can get a stomach-ache just remembering the sheer quantity of it we all ate.

But, thanks to a recipe in Terry Walters' Clean Food, stir fry has received a new lease on life, in my cooking repertoire. I don't think it's legal for me to write out the whole recipe here, but here are the things I gleaned from this recipe that I will be adapting into other stir-fries down the road:

• Walters recommends boiling up udon or soba noodles a few hours ahead of time, rinsing them with cold water when they are done and keeping them in the fridge until it's time to put together the rest of the stir-fry. This helps you avoid the problem of a mass of noodles all sticking together in the middle of your wok or frying pan.
• I like her method of stir-frying the garlic, ginger and veggies first (I have been adding some protein in the form of chicken or beef), with half of your marinade sauce, and then, after transferring those to a bowl, stir-frying the noodles in the other half of the sauce. This helps everything to get evenly coated with sauce.

I recommend Clean Food for so many of it's good recipes--each one I try is great and I am slowly working my way through it. It is arranged seasonally and with this stir-fry I am cheating a little (a case of wishful thinking): it's in the Spring section. So, happy (early) Spring & happy stir-frying!

Sweet party for the sweetest boy

Last Saturday, we had Reuben's fourth birthday party here at home. We did a simple, Spring-themed craft project:

 

 

 

I cut up strips of Spring-y fabric with the pinking shears and the children painted 6 inch terracotta pots with modge podge, stuck the fabric on, pressed on sequins and then painted over it all with more modge podge. I think one of the secrets to successful crafting with kids it limiting the palate, so that whatever they end up doing, it looks pretty good!

After the craft, we played a few games in the living room. The most successful was freeze dance--pretty self-explanatory: dance while the music is playing, freeze when it stops. What made this special was that our friend Susan played the music on the piano.

After games, it was time for (cup)cake! I made lemon cupcakes, at the request of birthday boy, and we had them with vanilla ice cream.

Then it was time for the sure-fire hit of any birthday party, at least according to my boys: the pinata!

And, finally, time to hand out some shooting star favors and to "purchase" flowers for the flower pots from "Reuben's Flower Shop".

Happy Birthday to my tender, brave, strong, sweet Reuben Sascha. I can't believe my good fortune in being able to be your mama. I love you.

 

Love is in the House

Even though it's a gray and rainy day here in Portland, Valentine's goodness abounds in the forms of handmade Valentines...drawn in pen, chalk and pancake batter, and in the form of the sweetest handmade photo book you've ever seen (with special thanks to Laura, the wonder-babysitter!).

  

 

 

Hope your Valentine's Day is filled with sweet & simple love.

taking care of business

Happy Sunday all! If you're reading my blog from a facebook link, I would really love it if you added Mamapie to your google reader (or whatever reader you use) list. I don't always love to link my blog to fb, but find that I get so many more readers when I do so. But, if you put me on your blogroll, then I won't have to post to fb when I put up a new post. Thank you!

Also, if you're interested in my other projects around the internet, you can find my etsy shop here; you can find Blue Egg's facebook page here; and, I've opened a blue egg twitter account: blueeggpdx.

As always, thanks for reading Mamapie!

On my Stovetop & In my Oven

What have you been cooking lately?

Around here, I have been doing my usual ratio of mostly old favorites (or old "easy's") with a few new things now and then. As always, there is lots on my "list" of what I want/hope/wish to cook, but, as always, reality doesn't often match up one's pinterest boards!

Old favorites include salmon cakes (I use Mark Bittman's recipe from  How to Cook Everything, with a little less onion, and a little more mustard and an extra egg), meatloaf, nutburgers (from Feeding the Whole Family), various soups and kale salad.

The new thing I've made recently that has my mouth-watering just remembering it is this. It was just the perfect blend of salty and sweet. Also, in the non-food category of cooking, I've been making elderberry syrup all winter long. I've only been introduced to the (supposed) wonder of elderberries this year, so I'm giving it a go. I say "supposed" because, with the exception of A., we've all been sick quite a bit this winter. I've used various recipes, but they are all pretty similar. Today, I'm using this one.

Hoping it's a good winter in your kitchen!

Sick Week

Ezra and Reuben were sick all week. Today, Saturday, as I emerge from the house (with the sun shining, no less!), I feel like I an tentatively walking out of a hot, sticky parallel universe, where days and nights all run together, things move at a snail's pace (unless they flare up in a hot second) and, if you don't watch out, you're bound to get hit in the head with a flying quarter or to trip over a chain of eighteen scarves tied together.

My friend, Andrea, just walked in to the tea shop where I'm sitting: "What did you do all week?" she asked. Funny, I was just thinking about that. What did we do to fill all those hours? We read alot of books. I read alot of books as my boys pressed so tightly up against my sides that it was a logistical maneuver to turn the pages. We read some good ones--some old favorites and some new ones from the library and from my vintage children's book collection*. My favorites this week were: Tales of Mr. Pengachoosa, Recess at 20 Below and The Happy Birthday Present. We also started making Valentines--I got out pink, red and white construction paper, some scissors, glue and a heart punch and we sat around the kitchen table working. I kept the supplies out and we revisited this craft every day for awhile. I have this papercraft book and we learned about quilling, so we did alot of that for the Valentines. Reuben, who is almost 4, was really able to do the quilling by himself and liked it alot.

I sent them off to play or rest a few times a day, with varying success. When they did that, I hopped on the computer for a little bit and tried to keep up with cleaning, laundry and cooking.

They're finally fever-free and feeling better and I'm glad we're all stepping out of the house today, but it was sweet, too, and I'm sure I'll miss these kind of "lost weeks" when my boys are older.

 

*You can find some of my favorite vintage children's books in my etsy shop

Thanksgiving 2011

Where to even begin with the thankfulness, for things huge and small (although even the small are really big)?

A very uncomprehensive list this morning:

• First, and always, for Andrew, Ezra and Reuben--my family: my loud, energetic, busy, messy, extremely funny, extraordinarily cute, loving, kind and (thank god, thank god) healthy pack of boys.
• Baloo: the canine member of our family who very much fits in--he's also loud, busy, messy, funny & cute. He's such a good boy.
• My mom and dad, brother and nephew: all crazy, all wonderful--I adore them and am thankful for the many many gifts they've all given to me. In particular today, I'm thinking of the gift I received in being able to spend lots of treasured time with Zeke when he was a baby and young boy and how that experience crystallized in me the wish to be a mama to boys.
• Our house.
• The food we eat.
• Living in the United States, in Oregon, in Portland, in Sellwood, on our street with wonderful neighbors.
• For woolen and warm clothes.
• For kisses and snuggles and chai and vegetables and chocolate and burgers and fries and books and friends...and so much more.

It may seem trite (it sort of does to me) to make a list like this on a blog. But, I also figure that any moment when I can be aware of this abundance, and remember my gratitude, and remember my prayers and wishes and actions to help those who have less are important moments.

Happy Thanksgiving to you!

Meow!

Ezra made this in his handwork class at school. I can only imagine what kind of knitter I'd be today if I made this in first grade.

Birthday Pary, Part 2

 

Pass the Orange-- where you pass an orange (or ball) tucked under your neck from person to person down a line using no hands-- was another party game we played at Ezra's 7th birthday party. It was funny because, when we asked the kids to line up and told them they were going to pass the orange down the line, they all shouted out versions of "that's easy!", until we told them about the neck and no hands part. In fact, this game was maybe a little to hard/not as fun for them as some of the others. The height differences also made it challenging.

When is a pinata not fun? I don't know the answer to that, but pinatas have always been a big hit at our boys' birthday parties. This year, in keeping with the Fall/outdoor theme, we had a cute orange owl. I briefly thought about making a pinata: there are some good tutorials out there, but then, you know, I didn't. As I try to keep the boys' birthday parties sort of low-ish on the sugar, I filled the pinata with things that feel like treats, but aren't packed with sugar and artificial stuff: fruit leathers, Yummy Earth lollipops and butterscotch candies and bouncy balls.

I made them all felt "First Place" ribbons as a collective prize for all the games, and I pinned them on at the end of the party.

A good party for a sweet boy. I can't believe he's seven. Seven!?