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?

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

Summertime in the Kitchen

Each season, I discover a few new things to cook and I make them pretty frequently. If I'm lucky, I remember them the next year and they become the constants while I discover a few more new-er things.

Rhubarb vinaigrette and strawberry-rhubarb crumble are the frequently made things this summer. The vinaigrette ranges in color from pink-tinged yellow to full out pink, based on the pinkness of the rhubarb. Besides being pretty, it is sweet and tangy and delicious. So delicious in fact, that Ezra ate his first plate full of salad, mostly, I think, because it had this dressing on it.

We've also been making lots of smoothies in the VitaMix. Out standard is: banana, frozen mango, ice, coconut butter and yogurt - totally delicious and I especially how the ice and mango freeze the coconut butter into little creamy chunks. We've added two new smoothies into the rotation this summer. They are a green smoothie with: banana, pineapple, ice, water and kale and a peanut butter banana one with: banana, peanut butter, honey and lots of ice. The peanut butter banana one is so good I'm thinking of freezing it and calling it ice cream.

I hope to add a few more "keepers" to the repertoire this summer. I'll keep you posted if I do!

What Lasts

Ezra is done with kindergarten. In Waldorf world, this means he is done with his "early childhood" education, that consisted of two years of parent-child classes, a year of nursery and two years of kindergarten. He will begin his journey of "the grades" in September: one big class with one teacher who will all be together for the next seven years.

We said goodbye to Miss Anne Marie when Ezra started in the Rose Kindergarten. And now, we say goodbye to Miss Sonia. Miss Sonia with her converse sneakers underneath her flowing Waldorf-y dresses and aprons, with her French accent and "grandmother" stories; with her little bird Lamouche, who would tell the children what they needed to wear to go outside each day ("Rain everything", usually), with her strong, wise and kind ways.

We say goodbye to the Rose Kindergarten, with it's woodshop and gold coins, it's houses built each day by the children, inside which they would sit and talk about football while finger-knitting. Goodbye to the dragon tears and the daily stories, rest times, songs and blessings. Ezra dutifully, and happily, did his early childhood days, and now he gets to use other parts of his mind, parts that have been patiently waiting while he grew his roots and did his eurthythmy in his little white ballet slippers. He gets to learn about concrete things: letters, numbers, music, handwork. He will get to write in a "main lesson book" and learn Spanish and German. And all of these new places in his brain that will be lighting up and delighting in concrete knowledge will all be supported by layers of beeswax and yarn, sheepskins and songs, feathers, fairytales and sand.

Bye Bye to Convenience...

Once again, I've learned to make something on my own and now the pre-packaged ones are ruined for me. Our easy dinner of (packaged) tortillas, (pre-made) beans and cheese burritos has will now be a little less easy. But alot more delicious.

Last night I made tortillas. yum. I used the recipe from the Rebar cookbook, which I am still loving alot. The only modifications I made were to use 5 tbs unsalted butter instead of vegetable shortening, to make the dough in the food processor and to cook them in my cast-iron skillet with no oil (recipe calls for oiling the frying pan). I also used all white flour, because I was out of whole wheat. We had some friends over to celebrate Andrew's 40th birthday, which is tomorrow. I made a platter of stuff to put in the tortillas: shredded chicken, steamed asparagus, carrots and red bell pepper and made an citrus-soy sauce dressing to top it all off. It was really good, although the tortillas definitely stole the show; everything else was just there because I couldn't really put out only tortillas for dinner and because we all need a little bit of protein.

Tortillas (slightly modified from Rebar Cookbook):

ingredients:

1 1/2 c. unbleached flour

1/2 c. whole wheat flour

1 tsp. white sugar

1 1/2 baking powder

1 tsp. salt

5 tbsp. unsalted butter, room temperature, cut into 10 pieces

3/4 c. hot water

1. Mix first five ingredients in bowl of food processor. Add butter and process until little pea-sized balls form.

2. Gradually add hot water through feed tube while processing.

3. Turn out dough onto floured surface and knead for a few minutes. Form into ball and place in clean bowl, cover and set aside for an hour.

4. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and sprinkle with flour. Break off golf ball sized pieces of dough, roll into balls (I made 10) and place on baking sheet. Cover and set aside for another hour.

5. On a floured surface, press out each ball and roll out disk to form an approximate 8" round (mine were pretty irregularly "round"). Put each tortilla on a piece of parchment paper and stack them up.

6. Heat cast iron skillet to medium-high and cook tortillas one by one. Flip over when bubbles form. I cooked each one for about a minute per side. I wrapped them in foil and kept them in a 200 degree oven until it was time to eat.

This morning we went and bought Andrew a plug-in drill for his birthday, which is a perfect present that Ezra came up with by himself. One rainy day, a few months ago, he was sitting in the living room looking out the window for awhile. Then, he got up, came into the kitchen and told me that he'd just thought of what we should get Papa for his birthday. It's something only Ezra would know that Andrew needs, as they do woodwork and house repairs together, and Ezra said that Andrew is always frustrated by the rechargeable drill losing it's charge so quickly.

Busy Kitchen

I've been spending lots of time in the kitchen lately and, surprisingly, much of that time has been spent cooking new things!

Most of the good eats have come from this cookbook. I check out hordes of cookbooks from the library (what? you don't like to read cookbooks in bed at night?) to vet them before I decide about actually buying them. Well, the Rebar cookbook is due to arrive in my mailbox today, and that's a good thing because the library copy is in danger of getting completely food-stained/well-loved as I've been using it daily. It's rare that a cookbook inspires me so quickly to begin trying out recipes (the last one that had this effect on me was Clean Food), but I could hardly fall asleep the first night after beginning it, so excited was I to get in the kitchen and try out some of the fantastic/delicious/interesting sounding recipes.

And, since I got in that kitchen a few days ago and began working my way through the recipes, I have not been disappointed. I made granola for the first time: the recipe says that the huge batch of granola it yields will keep for one month - it's all gone over here 3 days later. The thai basil tofu with peanut sauce was restaurant worthy (which, for me at least, is saying something when it comes to Asian food) and the citrus cake, which we renamed Sunshine Cake in honor of this sweet book, is light and perfect for those of us anxiously awaiting sunshine.

And, spending lots of time cooking is also a good task for those of us waiting for Spring to arrive and stick around. So that's where I'll be.

Puzzling it Out

 

You know those times when your kids seem to be shifting into a new phase of play? It happens slowly and subtly around here, but then I look around and realize that they're playing with totally different kinds of things than they were a few months ago.

We've had one of those shifts lately and I'm still catching up and making adjustments around the "new normal." What are Ezra and Reuben interested in these days, at ages 6.25 and 3.0? Puzzles, building with blocks (this has been a constant, throughout lots of shifts and transitions) and games.

Ezra did lots of puzzles when he was three. One of my clearest memories of my pregnancy with Reuben is going to The Ugly Mug with Ezra every morning and snuggling on the couch there, reading books and doing little Melissa and Doug truck puzzles that we brought from home. We had some bigger puzzles that he would often do at home, too - a world map, a Richard Scarry bunny house and an alphabet train. I, never a puzzle person before, learned to love puzzles too, through sharing the joy with Ezra.

But, then, no puzzles, really, for a few years. And now...it's puzzle time again! This time with Reuben enjoying the same puzzles that Ezra enjoyed when he was three and with Ezra (and Mama!) enjoying 100 and even 200 piece puzzles. I am so happy puzzles have come back and have been having fun seeking them out at the Goodwill, our local consignment shop and our fantastic new neighborhood game store. Do you know of any great puzzles?

Tender Boys

On two consecutive days last week, Ezra and Reuben burst into tears. Not the whining kind of fakey crying (which we also get plenty of), but serious crying, with plump wet tears streaming down their beautiful faces.

Ezra's cry came about at the beginning of the New York Jets game, where they were playing the Pittsburgh Steelers for a chance in the Super Bowl. Andrew is a lifelong diehard Jets fan and this year, it seems, that fandom has reached a third generation of the Cohen family in Ezra (Andrew's father is also a huge fan). While the world of football holds no resonance for me (I literally do not know how the game is played) I have watched as Ezra has grown to understand the game, to speak the language of football with fluency and to feel a strong team allegiance to those New York J-E-T-S.

So last Sunday, about ten minutes after Ezra and Andrew went down to the basement to begin watching the game, I was suprised when Ezra came running up to the kitchen (my usual post during football games), ran into my arms and started sobbing. "I'm so scared," he said "about the Jets." I held him, this sweet six-year-old boy with milky skin and pink cheeks, as he cried big and hard. And then he wanted to go back down and watch again.

The Jets lost, and he was okay and we made it through his first football season.

Reuben's cry came the next day after we had spent some time reading books, sharing a bagel and drinking warm drinks (for him, a vanilla steamer, for me, a rice chai) at our neighborhood coffee shop. When he's done with his drink, Reuben always likes to carry his mug up to the counter and give it to whomever is working. On this day, he had more things than usual to carry: our friend Kim had given him his steamer in a little teacup, complete with a saucer and a spoon. He diligently arranged all these items and carried them slowly and carefully up to the counter. Just as he was handing them to the Kim, the teacup toppled off the saucer and shattered. "Sorry," Ruby managed to say solemnly, before turning to me and sobbing, inconsolably, for a full five minutes. His feeling that he had made a mistake, that he had done something wrong and felt so badly for having done so reminded me, in the same way that Ezra's fear and overwhelm about the football game had, of the deep innocence and tenderness of these boy-creatures that I have been entrusted to raise, to help, to teach, to love - and reminded me (yet again) of how honored I am to be sharing my days with them: with the tears, the laughter and everything in between.

 

Meshuga

Meshuga, meaning crazy or foolish, is one of the Yiddish words Ezra and Reuben use. Andrew's grandparents, Aaron and Pearl, were Polish immigrants and spoke Yiddish at home to Andrew's mother and her sister. Andrew's mom still attends a weekly Yiddish class and uses my Grandpa Hyman's Yiddish-English Dictionary to look things up (my mom gave it to her when my grandpa died). So our boys have a close connection to the Yiddish language on both sides of the family.

The other day, while they were in the bathtub, I heard Ezra explaining to Reuben what meshuga means. He accurately explained it thusly "Ruby, meshuga is when you love something so much. Like, you're meshuga for mama and ice cream and I'm meshuga for crystals, shiny stones and getting presents."

And there you go.

That night, after lighting the Chanukah candles, we sang "Oy Chanukah," with both boys skillfully managing the Yiddish tongue twister (Ezra is a master of the song, Reuben is learning). I'm glad we're doing our part to keep Yiddish alive - I mean sometimes English just can't capture the essence of words like shpilkes, shtarker and, of course, meshuga.