kid birthdays

so… BAD MOM! I realized that I totally forgot to post about my kids’ birthdays! I posted all the pictures on facebook, so it’s likely that everyone has already seen them, but I should probably put them up here… even if only for my own personal record.

layla turned 5 on the 11th, shane turned 11 on the 12th. we did relatively low-key birthdays this year. each got to pick a restaurant to go to for a birthday lunch or dinner w/ just mom and dad, then we got together w/ the other non-birthday siblings and grandma and grandpa for gifts and treats.

layla chose lunch at red robin. then we all met here at home for birthday cookies.

shane chose dinner at olive garden. then we all met at my parents’ house for ice cream sundaes. apparently cake was not ‘in’ this year.

birthday addendum

check out THIS gorgeous bouquet that dave brought home for me:

thanks baby!

hello, tooth fairy?

well, it finally happened last night! layla has lost her first tooth! it was a late night and required a lot of wiggling, and help from daddy, but it finally came out!

here it is, still hanging in there. 

I got some advice on facebook from a college friend about putting a tissue over the tooth and pulling it out that way. so we grabbed a tissue and IT WORKED! out in one yank! she was so excited! here she is on the phone with gramma laurie!

and then there’s the required cheesy faced photos showing the ‘hole’.

I am happy to report that the tooth fairy did visit our house last night. layla is now the 4 quarters richer!

mom birthdays

well, it’s my birthday today. it’s been a bit of an odd day, nothing too exciting, but really, that’s okay. big shindigs and the like make me feel flustered and stressed, so this will do just fine. REALLY!

to start with, God gave me an absolutely gorgeous day. it’s warm, sunny, pleasant. perfect. nothing can lift my spirits like a sunny day!

I had the pleasure of being awakened this morning, by my wonderful husband, starbucks cup in hand, at 5:40. YES, I did want to get up then! I then got to sit in a pleasantly quiet house while I drank my coffee and read my bible… (I like to think of this time as ‘having coffee with God!’ a date I try to keep every morning.)

after that, I had to make some rolls and soup for a mom in the MOMS club who has a new baby. I signed up to make a meal, and my turn fell on today. so I set my bread machine to mixing, and I started the soup. I made a triple batch, so I had kim’s dinner, our dinner for tonight, and a batch in the freezer for another time. I LOVE cooking in bulk. it felt a little bit odd to be making white chicken chili at 7 in the morning, but it comes with the added bonus of having to do nothing this evening, but put a pot on the stove!

after that, I spent some time organizing medical supplies like bandaids and ointments and such, and then moved on to the kitchen medicine cabinet. a weird thing to do on one’s birthday, but I’m kind of random like that. I needed to put a bandaid on a nasty mosquito bite micah had, had to dig through 5 half-empty bandaid boxes, and a tub full of random tubes of ointments and lotions and stuff just to find the right size bandaid and some neosporin. this inspired me to solve that problem. so I got rid of all the stuff that isn’t ‘medically’ related, tossed sunscreen bottles that are like 5+ years old, bandaid wrappers that got left in there (ahem), etc. I put ALL the bandaids in a big ziplock, ALL the ointments (hydrocortizone, benadryl, neosporin, etc) in a smaller ziplock, so they’re all together and don’t require digging through a HUGE bin full of junk. I put them, along w/ some bottles of rubbing alcohol and hydrogen peroxide, bug spray, and sunscreen in a smaller bin. YAY!

of course, I pulled a couple of thermometers (“peppershirts”) out of the bin, and thought it didn’t make a ton of sense to keep those there. I should keep them up with the tylenol and that stuff. of course, that was a mess too, so I had to organize it as well. so DAVE, so you know, the thermometers are now located in the big ziplock that is full of ‘kid medicine’ up in the cupboard… if you should need them! hopefully not anytime soon!

ANYWAY… from there, I made the kids lunch and took them to the park. it was toasty there!

so that brings us to now… shane is off w/ a neighbor, building or fixing something… layla is getting ready to go in the pool – after she does her ‘swimming exercises’ (whatever those are), and micah passed out on my lap, eating the rest of his sandwich.

think I’ll pour myself some more lemonade, grab my knitting, and go watch my daughter swim from the shade. aahhhh……

garlic chicken stir-fry (or something like that) recipe

i got a request for the recipe for a stir-fry i made a couple weeks ago, so i figured i’d just post it here.

i actually got the recipe out of my better homes and gardens cookbook, but like i said, i was throwing this together by the seat of my pants and basically adapted the recipe to work for what i had on hand… and somehow, it worked. i’ll post the real recipe, as it’s published, along with what i did. i haven’t tried the actual recipe, so i have no idea if it’s better, worse, or even remotely comparable to what i made. all i know is that we liked my version.

• 12 ounces skinless, boneless chicken breast halves (i used maybe 6 or 8 thawed chicken tenderloins from costco)
• 1 cup water (i’m not sure i actually noticed this – can’t remember)
• 3 tbsp reduced-sodium soy sauce (mine was regular soy sauce)
• 1 tbsp rice vinegar or white wine vinegar (i had red wine vinegar)
• 1tbsp cornstarch
• 2 tbsp cooking oil (i used EVOO)
• 10 green onions, bias-sliced into 1-inch pieces (i think i had 3 in the fridge, and just chopped them up)
• 1 cup thinly sliced mushrooms (YUCK!!!)
• 12 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely chopped (and i suppose this is why they call it GARLIC chicken stir-fry – that seems excessive to me, but what do i know. i think i had 2 cloves on hand, plus i threw in a couple good shakes of garlic powder and called it good)
• 1/2 cup sliced water chestnuts (again, YUCK!!!)
• (i also added sliced carrots, peas, and some shakes of ground ginger)
• 2 cups hot cooked white, jasmine, or basmati rice (i used brown)

1. cut chicken into 1/2 inch pieces. place chicken in a resealable plastic bag set in a shallow dish. for marinade, stir together water, soy sauce, and vinegar. pour over chicken; seal bag. marinate in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. drain chicken, reserving marinade. stir cornstarch into reserved marinade; set aside. (this part was all done rather frantically as i was doing step 2… i didn’t know we were having this 30 minutes ahead of time, so the marinating process was abbreviated. i missed the water part, put the soy sauce and vinegar in a bowl, which i threw the chicken pieces into as i got it cut.)
2. pour oil into a wok or large skillet. (if necessary, add more oil during cooking.) heat over medium-high heat. add green onions, mushrooms, and garlic to wok (carrots and peas); cook and stir for 1-2 minutes or until tender (mine probably got cooked a little longer since i was frantically chopping chicken at the time). remove vegetables from wok.
3. add chicken to wok; cook and stir for 2-3 minutes or until no longer pink. push chicken from center of wok. stir marinade mixture; add to center of wok. cook and stir until thickened and bubbly. (this happened almost immediately and got a little thick and gloppy… which i now see is because i was missing a whole cup of water! duh!) push chicken into center of wok. return cooked vegetables to wok. add water chestnuts (or not). cook and stir about 1 minute more or until heated through. serve with rice.

hmmm… now that i’m thinking about this, it sounds really yummy… might have to make this for dinner tonight! this time w/ the sauce made right and the chicken marinated for the right length of time!

 

the swimsuit rant

i’ll forewarn you that most averaged-sized women will probably not appreciate this post very much. i understand. i’ve been (either directly or indirectly) the object of various hatred more than once.

i am not an average-sized woman. i’m only 5’1” on a good day, and i’ve never donated blood because most of the time (when not pregnant – and therefore not allowed), i don’t weigh enough to do so. i do not ‘diet’, so to speak, nor do i work out compulsively. i try to eat healthy food, for the most part, and i try not to sit on my butt all day. this is just the way i am. our current culture views me as ‘lucky’ to have this body type. whatever. a couple hundred years ago, people would have considered me ‘unhealthy’. i am what i am. i am small woman.

as the Lord has seen fit, i am a small woman who has given birth to 3 children. as i see fit, i am a small woman who wishes to exercise a bit of modesty, even when swimming.

unfortunately, the swimwear industry, seems to think that the only people my size fit neither of those situations.

i went looking for family swimwear last night. i came home with something for everyone but myself.

apparently, people my size are only allowed to wear triangle tops and string bikini bottoms. ::sigh:: okay, that’s a little bit of a generalization. you can actually find some full length tops. not many.

what i was mainly looking for is bottoms. i have a little ‘skirt’ type bottom, but i really don’t like the way it fits, and it’s kinda shorter than i’d like. i’d love a pair of board shorts or, even better, a board skirt… my experience in shopping for these items is less than satisfactory. it seems that the offerings of these items is also discriminated by size. yes, you can find them in my size. they are a good inch and a half to two inches shorter than the IDENTICAL shorts or skirts in women’s sizes grrr! what is with that? i’m not looking for something that will barely cover my butt! the relative size of my butt has nothing to do with it.

so yes, i’m frustrated.

i actually tried on a pair of trunks that i bought for dave, which wound up being too small for him. they actually fit me perfectly… except for the fact that they hang to about 2 inches below my knees and therefore look ridiculous! why is there no happy medium?

summer is FINALLY here!!!!

first one in the pool this year! second! my 3, plus some friends from down the street. pool = best. thing. ever. they were out there ALL day. and even after dinner. shane actually went in again when he got back from soccer practice… he was ticked that i took this picture, because he was being a smart-alec and decided to shove his skinny legs through the leg holes in micah’s (from 2 years ago) crab floaty. one of these days, he’ll figure out that when he pulls stunts like that, I WILL TAKE A PICTURE, and it will likely wind up on the INTERNET! ahh, mom’s sweet revenge for cool stuff like labor, sleepless nights, attitude problems and eye rolling… HA!

anyway, all this fun in the sun/water, sent me running out to target and fred meyer tonight to secure some rash guard-type swimming shirts so my pink-shouldered babies can swim again tomorrow.

while i was there, i browsed suits for myself… but that’s a whole rant post of it’s own…

random… and a little bit weird

i did something this morning that a lot of people will probably take as further proof that i’m completely off my rocker. well, i’m kind of coming to accept that about myself, so oh well. what was it? i washed my hair with baking soda.

this is something i’d heard of awhile ago, though random surfing, and had kind of wanted to try… just hadn’t gotten around to it. i’m always looking for ways to cut down my waste – both solid and chemical – and shampoo is one of those things that has always really bugged me. i figure that, simply by taking a shower every day, i’m using up more than my fair share of water and electricity. then i add to that by pouring chemicals down the drain, which come in a plastic bottle. i’ve bought all the fancy, natural, organic, whatever shampoos before, but they’re really expensive and still come in a plastic bottle! and sorry, but my $1.50 bottle of suave, or whatever is on sale, is just too tempting! at any rate, throughout my life, i’ve hardly ever been an every day hair washer. the only time i’ve ever really done that is during brief periods where my hair has been relatively short – and that’s not because my hair needed to be washed, so much, as it was because my ‘style’ couldn’t survive a night’s sleep without needing to be redone… yet another reason for me to NOT have short hair. generally, i would wash every other day, and sometimes every 3 days. lately, i suppose i’ve been trying to ‘ween’ myself off of shampoo to some degree, and have been averaging every 4 days.

i think a lot of people think they have to wash their hair every day, just because that’s what we’ve been taught to do… probably by shampoo companies who want us to buy more of their product. of course, by using the shampoo every day, we strip our hair of it’s natural conditioners, and therefore have to also buy their conditioner, which we also use every day. good deal for them. the other thing i don’t think people realize is that washing your hair frequently actually causes you to have to wash it more often! your hair is designed to maintain it’s own levels of moisture, and stripping it of that through frequent shampooing, causes your scalp to produce more of the oils it needs to maintain that moisture!

so today, i figured it was about time for me to wash my hair, so i decided to try out the baking soda thing. according to some instructions i found online, i mixed half a cup of baking soda with 3 cups of very warm water, just before i got in the shower. then, when my hair was wet, i stirred it up good and dumped it over my head. that part was a little weird. btw, it’s a good idea to wash off your face really well before opening your eyes. baking soda stings a little. so then i scrubbed it in, like i would lather shampoo… except there’s no lather. that part was also a bit weird. then i finished my shower, leaving the baking soda mixture on my hair, and finally began to rinse. i rinsed REALLY well. having white, gritty powder in my hair is not really the look i’m going for.

i was really curious at this point, what my hair was going to be like. i was skeptical, since my hair is relatively curly, i have always ‘needed’ to use conditioner in order to brush though it with relative ease. so i kind of expected a big, tangled mop that i would have to spend hours trying to brush though. not so! i actually had no more trouble brushing though it than i do after a usual washing with shampoo and conditioner! the other thing i was wondering about, was if my hair would be a big frizzy mess. part of the reason that i have always preferred to go a day or two between washings is that my hair is frizzy, flyaway, and generally unruly on the first day i wash it. i guess i have really fine hair, and that paired with the curls makes it not like to lay down well until the next day. anyway, in that regard, my hair seems to be quite a bit more tame, now that it’s dry, than it usually is the first day i wash it. my hair is also soft AND shiny.

so far, the baking soda is 4 for 4.

i’ll have to see how it holds up after a few days, if i feel like i need to wash it sooner than i do when i’ve used shampoo, or maybe i’ll feel like i could go longer. i’ll have to wait and see.

but, my initial analysis of this idea is completely positive, so far. assuming it works at least as good as shampoo, i’m sold. baking soda is natural, safe, and CHEAP! not to mention, it freshens my drain!

(oh, and because i know someone out there is wondering this, head lice are no less likely to settle in hair that is washed daily than they are in hair that is not washed daily. in fact, there is some debate as to whether they might actually prefer ‘clean’ hair because it is easier for them to stick their eggs to. but that’s more or less irrelevant – i have kids, so it’s pretty much always a risk, regardless. i just figured i’d cover a subject that might be cause for someone’s skepticism.)

of course, if you happen to see me and think my hair looks terrible or disgusting, please let me know! this is, after all, just an experiment!

some saturday organization…

so, if you’ve been to my house or have seen pictures of my dining room, you know about the “art wall”. basically, we have a big, blank wall that spans the kitchen and dining room and we decided to use it to display the kids’ (read: layla’s) art. it was getting pretty full and i was dreading the process of pulling it all down and/or taking down old stuff and putting newer stuff up, and then trying to figure out what to do w/ the old stuff, etc. etc.

we got a BIG shelf for free a couple of months ago and i wanted to use it to gather and organize all of my homeschooling supplies in one place – out of micah’s reach. it’s been sitting in the garage, collecting random crap (i think that’s related to the theory of chaos) because there wasn’t any place in the house where it would fit, that didn’t already have furniture there and i hadn’t figured out what to do w/ it yet.

BUT, i knew i HAD to do something about the school stuff. our current system (or lack thereof) was NOT working. micah would get into stuff, spread it all over the floor; i had things in boxes out in the garage (out of sight, out of mind) and not getting used. i had things left over from when i quit teaching that i wanted to use, but weren’t accessible easily… the whole thing was just one big, disorganized mess. the story of my life!

anyway, i decided to bring the shelf into the dining room. we do most school work in here anyway. so i stripped all the things off the wall… any guesses which of the 3 piles is layla’s?

so now that all that is down, the wall looks like this:  and then, finally:

do you think i’m starting to look like a homeschooler?

i pulled stuff onto that shelf from every room in the house… okay, well not the bathrooms. i pulled stuff out of my preschool boxes, finally pulled some encyclopedia-type books that have been in a box for years, put all the art supplies in a location that might actually encourage me to USE them, scoured shane’s pit bedroom to find this, that, and the other thing that didn’t belong in there… holy cow! i have sections for each different subject. and i think the best thing is that i managed to locate 19 pencils WITH erasers!

i’m sure there’s more stuff that needs to go on there, so fortunately there’s still more space! and i just remembered i have a globe that will look great on top! ;)

and now i need a replacement art wall…

sourdough – installment 2!

well, i guess i did it right! today was day 4 since i made my starter. it had bubbled, grown, shrunk, and bubbled some more and was starting to smell more like wine than yeast. my experienced sourdough-making friend angie assured me that this meant that it had ‘soured’ and i could now use it. so i did. i decided to use my bread machine to do the mixing and kneading for me, but i wanted to bake it in the oven. i used the recipe for sourdough in my bread machine instruction book, and then used the baking instructions in a cookbook i have. at any rate, we have success!!! i was afraid they were a little too done, but actually, the bread and even the crust is still soft, even though it looks kind of dark. we dove right in and holy yumness! i think it could be a little more ‘sour’, so i’m going to leave my replenished starter out a day or two before i ‘put it to sleep’ in the fridge. but as it was, it was wonderful. i tried to take a picture of shane enjoying it, because his piece was bigger, but he decided to be camera shy. layla, however, is NEVER camera shy. i offered micah some bread, but he had other plans… like getting into the fridge and helping himself to a cucumber. ::sigh::

in completely unrelated news… i managed to pull the proverbial rabbit out of my hat tonight, and came up w/ a FABULOUS stir fry! that sort of thing is always quite an accomplishment for me, considering i had no idea what we were having for dinner and was trying to avoid going to the store. i served it over brown rice and it was SO yummy!

my vacuum cleaner sucks!

no pun intended…

i’ve had this vacuum cleaner for almost 6 years. i’ve been ready to be done with it for about 5.

i have the dirt devil ‘jaguar’ bagless vacuum. we only paid about $75 for it at target, which, in vacuumcleanerland, is not very much. still, it’s $75. i tried to find a picture of it on the dirt devil website, but apparently, they no longer sell it, which is probably a good thing. so i had to take my own picture, which is probably better anyway.

if you think it looks a bit ‘off’, that’s not just the perspective of the picture. it is a bit off. about a year after getting this vacuum, the latch that keeps it standing upright broke. so, any time you want to NOT be holding onto it (as in, any time it’s not in use) it has to lean against something or it will fall over. ANNOYING! but livable. and then, more recently, THIS happened: that’s a picture of the bottom of it,from the back. note the missing wheel. yup. a wheel broke off. so now, when using the vacuum, if you want the sucking part of it to actually touch the floor, you have to continually crank the vacuum to the right with your hand while pushing it back and forth. FUN! it’s not the lightest or most maneuverable vacuum either.

you might recall, a few years back, i wrote a post about my roomba and how much i loved it. well, that was before sophie moved back in and her hair killed it.

what i really want is the dyson animal.

check out this product review video i found. it’s pretty funny and if you grew up in the 80’s in the US, you’ll appreciate the musical selections and ‘other’ sound effects. i wish someone would send ME a dyson to try out!

at any rate, i covet. i know, i know, ‘thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s vacuum cleaner’ and all that. but really, how can you not?

so anyway, if anyone happens to have a spare $550 laying around, float those suckers my way!

banana bread recipe

thought i’d share my banana bread recipe on here. i made 4 loaves yesterday ( =1 full recipe) and remembered to take a picture. i love this recipe because it’s super easy to make, and it’s healthy, so i don’t mind the kids having a slice or two for breakfast or a snack throughout the day. micah actually had it for dinner last night, after he woke up from this accidental nap: he had been impatiently waiting to be able to eat some during the whole time it was baking and had a full-out, fall on the floor, hysterical fit when i wouldn’t slice them up the second the loaves were out of the oven. then he fell asleep.

i got this recipe from my dad and i have no idea where he got it, so i can’t give appropriate credit where it is due.

anyway, here’s the recipe (with my inevitable variations noted):

• 6 VERY ripe, mashed bananas
• 2 cups sugar (or less if you desire)
• 1 cup oil (or applesauce)
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup vanilla yogurt (or plain + a little vanilla extract and honey)
• 2 tsp. baking soda
• 2 tsp. salt
• 4 cups flour (i do either half white and half whole wheat OR, 1 white and 3 whole wheat)

i beat the bananas in a large bowl with a handmixer first and then add the rest of the wet ingredients, then the dry. mix well. if you have 4 loaf pans, you’re lucky. use them all. i only have 2, so i divide the batter roughly in half and bake them in shifts. grease the pans with oil and bake at 350-360* for 40 –45 minutes. i know that’s vague, but i’ve found that getting them done w/out being too brown on the edges varies from oven to oven. basically, when a toothpick comes out clean, they’re done and if the tops are getting too brown, put some foil over them. cool on a rack. you can also add things like raisins, nuts or chocolate chips, if you so desire. of course, if you only want to make 2 loaves, you can easily half the recipe, or if you happen to only have 3 bananas! ;)

i like to make the full recipe when i can because we go through it so fast. i wrap 2 in plastic wrap and foil and then freeze them. i don’t bother freezing the third because a loaf only lasts about a day around here. i made these yesterday afternoon and we’ve already killed one loaf and cut into the second.

note about the bananas: i used to find it difficult to get 6 excessively ripe bananas at the same time, which is how i wound up halving the recipe in the first place. then i started freezing my bananas as soon as they started turning brown. i would peel them and put them in a freezer bag. then i got lazy and started just tossing them in the freezer, peel and all. this actually works out much better! they’re kind of hard (and unpleasant) to peel when they’re frozen, but i discovered that if you run them under a little warm water, the peel comes off quite easily – especially if you go from the bottom up, and it helps thaw them a little too. this way they’re not all frozen together in a big glob, which takes forever to thaw. i am able to start beating them as soon as they are all peeled and in the bowl.

as an interesting side note, i don’t actually know from personal experience if this banana bread is good or not, since i don’t care for banana bread and never eat it. i assume, however, that it is good because it disappears fast! ;)

happy baking!

books

so i have, what i’ve coined as, “book ADD”. basically, i love books. i love to read. i love the king county library system and their fabulous website. i love clicking the “place hold” button. i generally have upwards of 35 books checked out, a hold list a mile long, and a running ‘tab’ of fines for overdue books. but here’s the problem. i generally have so many books and i want to read them all, that i never wind up reading any of them. i’ll bring home a book, read a chapter or two, and then the next book on my list will come in. repeat. eventually, i will have read 2 chapters of a dozen or so books, they will be due to go back, and i’ll never get around to finishing them. ugh!

well, i’m officially attempting to ‘kick that habit’. at my husband’s repeated suggestion, i’m learning to make use of the ‘freeze’ button on the library’s website. this enables you to keep your hold on the book, but not receive it until you want it. it just moves other people’s holds ahead of yours. this is great for me, because the reason i place so many holds is because i hear about a book i want to read, check if the library has it, and immediately place the hold – basically so i don’t forget that i want to read it.

so anyway, i finished a book the other day. really! it’s quite an accomplishment for me. :-P and i was so inspired by this event, that i immediately grabbed almost every other library book out of my house and returned them! hahaha! illogical, i know. but most of them were just ‘i might be interested in this sort of thing someday’ sorts of books. so now my (hopefully realistic) goal is to 1) read only 1 book at a time, and 2) to finish it! to that end, i’ve set up a bookshelf here on my blog, which will feature the books i’ve finished, the book i’m currently reading, and the next one ‘on the docket’. my bible will be a permanent fixture on the shelf, as that’s ongoing. hopefully i can avoid a book ADD relapse!

so what is it i like to read? lots! i generally prefer non-fiction – somehow i have trouble justifying reading fiction when there are so many pertinent and important non-fiction books out there that i just have to read. (please note: making fun of self here.) my interests vary to some degree, and to some degree stay the same. occasionally something will fly in from left field and that’s okay too. sometimes it’s one of those, “i’ve never read that before and i probably should, just so i can say i’ve done it” situations. other times, it will be a book referenced in another book i’m reading. sometimes i’ll see something on tv or someone else will mention something and i’ll have to find out everything i can about that particular subject. sometimes i read knitting books, sometimes cookbooks. as an example, the stack of books i just returned covered the following subjects: beekeeping, bread baking, spinning, soap making, pioneer living, homeschooling, gardening, reading instruction, feminism, religion, housekeeping… need i go on? sometimes i will read books on topics that i want to ‘do’ or ‘be’, other times they’re topics i’m interested in because i’m curious how these things affect other things. sometimes i read books that don’t appeal to me at all, but i want to know about whatever is in them because i’m just plain curious. so don’t freak out if you find ‘the communist manifesto’ or something like that on my list. it doesn’t mean i am or want to be a communist! ;)

what can i say? i’m a curious person. i love books. the end.

STRIKE!

shane’s drama class had their performances this weekend. the class of 21 k-6th graders has been rehearsing for 2 hours every wednesday, all year. this year’s play was a musical production called STRIKE!, a play written by one of the mothers of kids in the class. it’s similar in subject matter to the disney movie, ‘newsies’. he’s the one on the far left, having his shoes shined in the opening scene. later on, same character, an employee of the journal, informing the newsies of the price-hike.   and later on, a newspaper photographer accompanying the reporter (his friend, deanna) to report on the strike. sorry the picture is so dark. it was a dark scene and flashes weren’t allowed. besides, he’s wearing a navy suit, so he’s hard to see anyway.

his on stage parts were small because this year, he (and deanna) were also the stage managers, a job he was very excited about and apparently did very well!

proud mama! ;)

sourdough! installment 1

dave and i both LOVE sourdough bread. the kids probably don’t think they do, but the do, and even if they don’t, who cares! so since i’ve been recently talking about and dabbling in making my own bread, sourdough has been something on the list of wanting to try. i’ve never done it before, and i think i was always a little intimidated by the ‘extra’ part of the process.

but after doing a little reading, i decided that it didn’t sound THAT complicated and this morning i bit the bullet. my very first sourdough starter is currently fermenting on the kitchen counter. see all those bubbles? that’s a good thing. it means it’s doing what it’s supposed to be doing. SO, in about 5 days, it should quit bubbling, and smell ‘sour’, at which point i can use some of it to make some bread… and hopefully follow up with a successful installment 2 post!

it all sounds kind of gross, since we generally think of avoiding things that have fermented or gone sour, especially when thinking of food… but really, this is all just a part of how FOOD gets from that which grows out of the ground to that which is on your plate or in your glass. beer anyone?

at any rate, i’m really looking forward to it and can’t wait to keep ‘feeding’ my starter and try out other sourdough recipes.

bread and produce and such.

i brought my bread machine out of retirement today. it is currently concocting some italian herb bread to go with our soup tonight. i hope. it always amazes me how that little paddle in the bottom of the mixer can actually do everything it does. anyway, i’m hoping it will be yummy… especially since i had to play w/ the recipe a little bit. (of course.) it calls for 3 and a half cups of bread flour, which i don’t have. so i used 2 cups of AP flour and a cup and a half of whole wheat (because i’ve officially turned into my mother and can’t make anything with just white flour…) it also called for 1/4 cup of parmesan, which i’m out of (yeah, i didn’t actually PLAN to make this bread… the idea just sort of occurred to me as i was wandering the aisles at qfc this afternoon). so anyway, i hope it’s good.

i should really use the breadmaker more often. i don’t know why i don’t. we got it as a wedding gift from my aunt marilynne and uncle loren - yep, the one that just died – so i’m thinking of him as my bread is baking ;) and we used it a lot back then. made sandwich bread and everything. then after we moved back to WA, i don’t think it’s been used once.

anyway, i went to the yakima fruit market today and i can’t say i was overly impressed. the prices are good, but they didn’t seem to have any more organic or local produce than a typical grocery store w/ a good organic section. sooo… i’m kind of back at square one here. i visited the issaquah farmer’s market on saturday and got some great organic salad greens for a great price from a lady there, but that was all i wound up with. i wanted to get some strawberries, but i just can’t bring myself to pay $4 a pint. especially when my own strawberry plants have lots of berries on them and some are starting to ripen up already. so i decided to be patient instead. for some reason, shopping at a farmer’s market is very confusing to me. part of the problem is money. i have a specifically set budget for groceries, and i have a pretty good grasp of how far that money goes at the grocery store when i’m buying everything i want for the week. when i start getting this here and that there, i get really confused about it and numbers just start swirling around in my head… i’m not really a math person.  the other trouble i have is with having to reverse my thinking. since i’m not exactly the best or most adventurous cook, i have to be very specific in my planning. i’m not good at opening a cupboard or the fridge, seeing what i’ve got, and then somehow coming up with dinner from that. when i plan our meals, i pick out what we want to eat first, and then make my shopping list accordingly. when you go to the farmer’s market, you see what they’ve got that is in season and looks good. i always wind up looking at stuff that looks really yummy, but then i don’t know what i would do with it if i bought it. or i could buy whatever they’ve got that looks good, and have a bunch of random stuff that doesn’t really go together in any logical way to make a week’s worth of meals, but i blew a wad of cash and now i don’t have much left with which to buy the stuff that does turn into meals. you see?  aaagggghhh!!!! it drives me nuts that this is the only way i know how to shop and cook. i feel so non-creative and inadequate.

but it’s all a learning process, right? i suppose my family won’t starve… they might not be very happy with me for a while.

i’m also considering the organic farm box delivery from full circle farms. it’s $40 a week to have it delivered to a drop-off location that’s just a block or two from my house, or i could pay $5 more to get it delivered to my door. of course, that leads into the reverse planning thing as well, so i’m not entirely sure. anyway. i’m over-thinking things again, as usual. and i need to go get my soup started.