February 29, 2008 at 2:55 pm · Filed under Condiments, Easy Peasy, Success
Time to get the embroidered testicle off the top of the page.
I threw caution to the wind and whipped up a *gasp* vegan potato-leek soup. Almost every potato-leek soup I have come across has heavy cream or milk in it, it tastes good but it is just so bad for you. I wanted to make something lighter but just as creamy and flavorful and I dare say, I succeeded!
You will need:
2tbls olive oil
1lb peeled Yukon Gold potatoes, diced into 1 inch cubes
2 leeks sliced (white and most of the green but not the darkest part)
4 cups broth
3 garlic cloves, chopped
Salt to taste
Heat your oil in a soup pot over medium heat. Add the leeks and stir frequently until they soften a bit. Add the garlic and saute about a minute longer. Add your broth potatoes and some salt. Stir, bring to a boil, turn the heat down to a simmer and cover. Let this go about 20 minutes, or until it is easy to smash the potatoes with the back of a spoon. Now grab your immersion blender, or if you want to be high maintenance put it in a blender or Cuisinart and ask yourself why the hell you don’t own an immersion blender. Blend the soup until it is velvety smooth. Garnish with rosemary or fresh black pepper, or whatever you want really. We added some Pickapeppa and it worked really well with this soup, really well.
I love it when Pickappepa works with a dish, it is a fussy sauce that either works or doesn’t.
Creamy, flavorful, simple, and won’t give you a heart attack. If you are into the cold soup scene, this would work as a variant of vichyssoise. Just don’t tell me about it, I try to stay away from cold soup.
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I keep meaning to throw this product plug in a post and I forget every time, except now that is (take that memory).
Olive oil, elixir of the gods, well one of them anyway. I have tried and loved many different olive oils, but this one I keep coming back to.
It is made by Napa Valley Naturals, and if you can find it in your store do try it, preferably with a nice Ciabatta bread for dipping. It is one of the smoothest olive oils I have had, and its aroma makes my knees weak. Olive oil is like wine, if it is cheap it probably isn’t that good. I figure if you are going to be buying olive oil, it is silly to have a cheap variety because anything you would use olive oil in needs that particular olive oily flavor. Plus if you have a good olive oil you are likely to use less because of its strong flavor. So there it is, my soap box stance on olive oil.
February 25, 2008 at 11:40 am · Filed under Success, art, yeast
I have a couple of firsts to share with you. You know how I have been making my own pizza lately (which I can’t believe I haven’t been doing this all along, so easy and WAY better), well the other night I got my first pizza bubble! I love pizza’s with crust bubbles, so this brought a single tear to my eye.
behold
now for the money shot!
look at that lift people! That is some serious bubble. I think the trick was turning the heat up, I have been turning the heat up a bit with each new pizza I make, and the results improve each time. This one was made at 550˚F, my oven only goes to 575˚F so I will probably crank it next time and see what happens. I preheat the pizza stone too which adds some heat. Now that I think about it maybe the bubble had something to do with the flour, I have been increasing the whole wheat flour content each time too, hmm.
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In other firsts, I have been daydreaming about hand embroidery for months now and finally pulled my shit together and acquired supplies to do so. Here are the results:
I clearly need to hone in some sort of technique, but I had fun doing it. It probably wouldn’t hurt to get some ‘clean’ towels to embroider too. I look forward to making some more strange flowers…..oh, you didn’t know it was a flower? sigh.
Edited to add:
I SWEAR I did not intend this flower to be all testicle-y!
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On my Flickr! account I keep much of it private because I am WAY protective of my kids (that would be why you don’t see many photo’s of them here). I wanted to extend an invite to be added as one of my contacts if you would like. Just email me a request with your user name and I will add you after a background check, just joshing!
February 17, 2008 at 5:38 pm · Filed under outings, yeast
There was a hint of spring in the northern Washington air today and we took full advantage setting out for our first Geocache of the year. We chose one near cherry lake on State Trust land and the area did not disappoint, but the baby and toddler did. We figure it will be a couple more years until we can hit the trails and not listen to crying/whining/sputtering/complaining, it won’t stop us, but man would it be nice to not hear any of that while hiking. Because of said crying/whining/sputtering/complaining the cache alluded us, we were able to take this in however…
and this…
and most importantly, this…
It was very loud near this waterfall, I was yelling up at Pete (who was dealing with a very fussy baby) “WHAT IS THE CLUE AGAIN? IT SAYS IT’S UNDER A ROCK? OH A TREE? WHAT? A LEAF?” meanwhile Owen is precariously navigating moss covered rocks near fast moving water (moss+rocks+water+toddler=disaster) but all was fine, if you don’t count a fussy baby. So we had to leave the treasure and promise our very sad son there was possibly, just maybe, an even better treasure hiding in our front yard, which there was with some sneaky maneuvering. So it was a good day, nice to be out in it.
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In all things yeast, I made bread! I was once scared of yeast, now I can’t wait to see what it does! It’s like a whole new yeasty world I have been missing.
I have a few more whole wheat sandwich bread recipes I want to try and then I will post my favorite. This one was good, but I thought it a bit bland. I am excited to make my own bread, it is better for us, easy, and WAY cheaper than buying loaves. We go through bread at Mach speed in this house, so this in an important thing for me to master. I always have at least 2 loaves of bread frozen, and since I will only buy organic it gets quite expensive keeping bread around. Maybe I will start milling my own flour, doubtful, but then I never thought I would be baking my own sandwich bread…never say never. I am like a secret hippy.
February 7, 2008 at 4:15 pm · Filed under Random
Since the whole poo-poo on soy, I have been trying to integrate new things into my diet (and consequently, my family’s). Grains have been on the top of the list because their protein is like a super power, and I am sure as shit not getting protein anywhere else now that soy is out. I have been experimenting with grains and now am honestly at a loss why I have not gravitated to grains before this. I think I may have been intimidated about cooking them, and now realize how completely ridiculous that thinking is. If you can cook rice, you can cook grains. So dear readers, I have 2 fabulous recipes you shouldn’t be scared to try.
Mexican Millet
(This is basically Spanish rice without the rice)
2tbls veg oil
1 minced clove of garlic
1 cup millet
1 small yellow onion, diced finely
1 jalapeno, seeded and minced
2 cups veg broth
2 tbls tomato paste (or if you don’t have any around use ketchup)
1/2 tsp salt, or to taste
1/4 tsp cumin
1/3 cup finely diced tomato, plus extra for garnish
2 tbls finely chopped cilantro
freshly squeezed lime for garnish
Heat the oil and garlic in a medium heavy bottom saucepan over medium heat. When the garlic starts to sizzle, add the onion and jalapeno, and fry, stirring occasionally, until the onion is soft and slightly golden. Add the millet, stir to coat, and saute 4-6 minutes, until the millet is golden. Pour the veg broth in and add tomato paste, salt, cumin, and fresh tomatoes. Bring the mixture to a boil, stir once, and cover. Lower the heat to low and cook for about 25-30 minutes, until all the liquid is absorbed. Remove from heat and allow to sit, covered for 10 minutes, then sprinkle the cilantro over it and fluff the whole thing with a fork. Give each serving a 1/4 piece of fresh lime to squeeze over.
I served this with bean taco’s, it was a really nice addition…
Next up:
I Swear I am not a Hippy Quinoa-Kale salad
Get a bunch of Kale (an actual bunch, don’t clear the store out). There are all kinds of Kale, any of them will do. For this recipe I chose Red Kale because it is the prettiest and I am shallow like that.
Wash the kale well, then rip the leaves off the stems and put them in a medium size bowl. Take about 2-3 tbls of fresh lemon juice and pour it all over the leaves, then throw in a 1/4 tsp of salt. This mixture is basically going to softened and cook the leaves. Mix and squeeze the leaves with your hands (feel free to curse if you have a hangnail) until the leaves wilt and darken. Set aside.
Let’s cook the Quinoa. Get your best heavy bottomed 4 qt pot. Put 2 cups of veg broth, 2 tsp of Tamari (or soy sauce, or a 1/4 tsp salt), and a clove of minced garlic in the broth. Bring this to a rapid boil then add 1 1/3 cup well washed quinoa to the pot, cover and put the heat down to a simmer. Let this cook about 10 minutes or until the broth is all absorbed, take off heat and let sit awhile longer covered then fluff it up. Transfer the quinoa to a bowl so it can cool quicker, fluffing once in awhile. Drain off any excess liquid in the kale mixture and taste to make sure you didn’t over do it with the lemon. If it is too tart just rinse it and squeeze out the excess water. Toss this with the quinoa and a splash of toasted sesame oil and serve.
I can’t begin to tell you how full of flavor this dish is, you just have to try it.
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In other news, I started taking piano lessons. I used to play when I was little, but wanted art lessons instead so I quit. I have been wanting to take lessons for years now and finally decided to just get on with it. I figure it will be good for the boys to be around too. I wasn’t going to progress very far or fast without a piano of my own so we bought a lovely used Kholer & Campbell upright…
I love her…
Now to learn how to play something besides Jingle Bells.
February 2, 2008 at 6:40 pm · Filed under Random
It was my privilege to interview Mara from Oleoptene for The Great Interview experiment, please visit her blog when you have a chance, she is quite fantastic!
What has blogging helped you realize?
Blogging has been, more than anything else, this empowering experience of realizing I don’t have to wait for anyone else to tell me that I am a writer.
Initially, when I started blogging there was this fear of having my words out there, of being seen through this one-way glass and not being very sure of how I was being seen or if I wanted to be seen, feeling so vulnerable, and then there was this stage of admiring all of the brilliant blogs out there and thinking “Well, if I can’t write like that, why write at all?” and finally in the last year, it’s been this experience of not being in competition because there is no limited resource to compete for, the Internet is as big as everyone using it.
The reason I jumped when I saw Neal’s Great Interview Experiment was feeling just excited at being able to participate even more directly in this huge conversation. My husband is a geek/early adopter, and I remember trying to catch up with his understanding of the internet in 1995. We were both caught up with the idea of all the content that could be generated by individuals everywhere. And then, all of the sudden, the internet was about shopping. And yet, somehow, they way we are using it now, as a social network and new medium, is so much better than what I ever dreamed of ten years ago.
What does Oleoptene mean? (I tried looking it up and failed)
Because it is not in any of the on-line dictionaries I have found in the last year except as an alternative spelling to eleoptene, which is only used by chemists to describe certain molecules! But back when I was an office peon I entertained myself by writing cool words and their definitions on sticky notes and illustrating them and sticking them up around my cubicle. It was an architectural planning office and so I got lots of architectural words, but somewhere I cam across oleoptene and jotted it down as being a Greek-derived word for having wings. It fit well with the my anthem that year, New Grass Revival’s “When the Storm is Over.” Still, when I wanted to buy my own domain name it was available, and it works better than “Defenestration.com” would have (had to look it up, and, yep, that’s taken).
What is your musical background, and what is the one instrument you long to know how to play?
Besides two unsuccessful rounds of piano lessons, I took violin lessons from fourth grade until high school graduation, with a switch to viola my senior year of high school because the orchestra teacher thought I needed to be challenged. Lots of being sent into a room by myself with the instrument and a timer to keep track of how much time I had to practice, something I do not do at all with my kids — I practice with them what needs practicing, what it feels like they are capable of practicing, maybe ten minutes one day, maybe forty-five on another. I also played in my youth symphony which was wonderful in lots of ways and not so wonderful in drilling into my head that there is really only room for one violinist to be the best in the orchestra and that the hierarchy of chairs matters a lot. I think this sucked the joy out of it enough that except for the odd duet or trio here and there I put the instruments away until my oldest son was in fourth grade and started doing suzuki cello and I could play the accompaniments and be a beginner again with him. Making music with someone else, even, or maybe especially, one of your kids, is just another way to connect and have conversation.
What is ALWAYS in your pantry? Refrigerator?
Tomato sauce. We do a lot of homemade pizzas, with everyone getting to do their own little individual one to meet their own preferences — the vegan husband puts on soy cheese, the small people generally prefer not to put vegetables on theirs (and are more likely to eat something they have participated in making themselves.) There is always milk in the refrigerator because I need it in my coffee, and I need my coffee in the morning.
What is the first book you remember reading front to back?
Ouch, this shouldn’t be hard to answer but it is. My mother and sometimes my father read out loud to us every night before bed until long after we were able to read to ourselves, and all the books they read out loud and the ones I read to myself were such complete immersions it’s hard to keep it all chronological. I have vivid memories of Watership Down and Little Women and all of the Little House on the Praire Books, and older, The Dragonriders of Pern… But early childhood memory of reading, I can take myself back to a copy of Pippi Longstockings while hanging out at an office where my father was constructing cabinets.
What is one book that shook you to your foundation and why?
Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. The language, the observations, the musing on the cosmic implications of it all were so powerful. Her voice is stuck in my head.
Can you talk a bit about Bahá’í faith? What is it that brought you to it?
The Bahá’í faith is a world religion which has as its most basic idea the assertion that all of the major world religions worship the same God and have the spiritual core ideas. No one religion is more ‘right’ than another because they share one common faith. The differences that do exist, the different laws and practices are the response to the needs of humanity in its different stages of development.
I grew up in a Bahá’í family, which isn’t enough by itself to make one a Bahá’í — my sister is not so enamoured of the organized religion thing, so while she is one of the most spiritual and ethical people I know she doesn’t call herself a Bahá’í. But one of the principles of the religion is that every individual has the obligation to investigate the truth for herself, not to follow for the sake of tradition or pleasing those around you. There is a lot in the Bahá’í faith that makes perfect sense to me intellectually — about the equality of women and men, the agreement of religion and science, the basic oneness of the human race, but I did enough philosophy in college to know that there is more to falling in love with a religion than intellectual agreement; honestly, I think I am a Bahá’í because it really is what I need to make it through the world, a sense of there being a picture much bigger than myself, an obligation to participate as much as I can in whatever ways I can in making the world a better place.
Winter or Summer?
Totally winter. I hate being hot. Not a fan of allergies and colds, but would prefer those to being hot, sweaty, sticky. Love living in Portland where neither summer nor winter gets too extreme.
What is in your CD player right now? (or playing on your MP3 player if applicable)
The Weepies. They just make me happy.
Is there a piece of music/song/album that never gets old for you?
I definitely need variety of kinds of music and artists for different moods and moments, the idea of only one kind of music makes me cringe — some bluegrass, some of the ’80’s alternative I grew up with, some classical, some of the great bands out of Portland now, all need to be in the mix. I go back to lots of different periods of my life through music — Shawn Colvin, Lyle Lovett, and some Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong duets on the CD player all the time when we lived in Prague and I was home with my newborn first son, the Jan Garbarek and Dead Can Dance CD’s I associate with dating my husband… none of it has gotten old yet.
How about an impromptu Haiku?
You want a haiku?
Well, for you, I’ll try, I guess
It is impromptu.
What good things do video games bring to your family?
Um, healthy debate? It is a way my husband and sons connect, which I appreciate and respect and really don’t get too involved in, so long as it is a moderate thing. I hate that they (all of them!) can get so sucked in that they forget about eating, getting dressed, etc., and everyone is crabby after too much time. But I guess it does work, the four boys have worked out ways to share and make it work for all of them, and they do interact, and will, no doubt, have skills with technology that far outstrip not just my own, but also their father’s.
You are at the movies, what do you choose from the concession stand?
Milk duds.
Community or keep to yourselves? Are there things you would like to change with how you do or don’t interact with your community?
Community. It’s a complicated thing, the question of how much you conform, how much you give of yourselves. Just being a family takes a lot of time, and nothing in my life works if the marriage is not given a certain amount of priority, time for us to communicate and work together, but being a part of the various communities we’ve landed in in Portland — through the geek scene, the Baha’is, and the kids’ schools, add so much to our lives. In the last couple of months I’ve absolutely fallen in love with Twitter (wwww.twitter.com). The little updates on what people, many of them fellow PDXers, are doing and thinking throughout the day so cut the isolation that can be a major part of being a stay-at-home parent, and it isn’t time-consuming or requiring a lot of energy and thought, but I notice people offering consolation to someone who has gotten bad news or congratulations to someone who has gotten some recognition, being silly and having running jokes that are inclusive and community-creating and I feel so lucky.
Describe one of the best meals you have ever had (it can be because of the food or company).
After our very small wedding, which was basically parents, siblings, the string quartet my sister played in, the friend who made a wedding cake and a couple aunts and uncles and my grandparents, we went to a little crepe restaurant in the Old Town part of Albuquerque. The crepes were great, and the feeling of all the people we loved most coming together to celebrate with us and support us was tangible as we shared a meal
You are allowed only 1 board game, which will it be and why?
Scrabble. Maybe. I have a few friends that I have had a running conversation with over Scrabulous on Facebook for months and months now, as soon as one game is over we start another. It really is about the conversation, but I am developing some scrabble skills despite resolutely declaring that I will always pick the elegant word over the point-scoring word, so I stand little chance at being a competitive Scrabble player. It’s hard to look at words as meaningless collections of letters, and I have fantasies of combination scrabble/ouija boards where the words come together to mean something about the people playing.
Name one endearing trait of each person in your immediate family, including yourself and any pets.
Raven, my husband, is generous, and it comes out with how he treats everyone, and the way he gives me graceful outs when I am being unbearably grumpy.
Aodan, our first-born, is so earnest and ethical and thinks so hard about justice and what is right that he inspires me to try to keep doing better.
Xander, our second born, is so good at taking care of the feelings of those around him that I sometimes worry about him, except that it is balanced by a very strong sense of himself, and he takes care of himself too.
Soren, son number three, is painfully extroverted. He charms adults everywhere with his friendliness and cheerfulness and wants to meet and talk to everyone, which has really stretched me to learn to be friendlier.
Rainer, our youngest, is so loyal to all of his brothers — their coming home from school is the highlight of his day. He isn’t the native extrovert that Soren is, but worships Soren so much that he will also stand on the front porch and greet pedestrians on our busy street. He will recite everyone’s favorite colors and interests and wants to make sure all of his brothers are getting their fair shares.
Bella, the one-eyed cat , is charmingly diffident. She clearly wants to keep track of us and wants to be where we are, just as long as none of us oversteps our bounds and, say, tries to pet her. But then she’ll sleep on Aodan’s bed. We admire her independence, and since Raven and I are both mildly allergic to cat hair, it’s probably just as well she isn’t always trying to get in our laps.
Me? I think too much, but I also think I am pretty funny, and I am getting much better at being ok with making mistakes. That isn’t one trait is it? Raven suggests optimism, which I like.
In your parenting style you shy away from reward systems like stickers, what works/worked for your family instead of this? (because don’t I need help in this department!)
We have tried everything, and I have done the magnetic charts at certain stages for certain daily routine things to help the boys keep track themselves of the things they needed to get done. I hope I don’t sound too prescriptive in my blog, because I think what works is important, as long as you’re taking into account some of the subtler messages that come with it (you get chocolate cake for eating broccoli, for example, suggests that broccoli is an ordeal to be rewarded, and that chocolate cake is a reward). I try to emphasize the things that are going right using a fair amount of ‘virtue’ language — it was generous to give that to your brother, I like your curiosity, way to go on the perseverance, keeping trying until you got that part of the song that was hard for you right. One of the more frequent issues around here is sibling conflict, and if I step in with words to help, I have to see both sides of it, “It sounds like you’re frustrated he knocked down the blocks. What words could you use to tell him? And you, are you knocking down the blocks because you’re mad at him, or is it just fun knocking them down?” I’ve been warned not to TELL them what they are feeling but even the act of coming up with some ideas of what feelings might be going on helps keep me from responding with a big emotional response of my own, most of the time. The thing is, when everything is working right, when we’re pulling together, that is a reward in and of itself, and it doesn’t seem necessary to add a bunch of extrinsic rewards on top of that.
What aspirations do you have as a writer? How far do you want to take your writing?
Oh, the scary question! I did NaNoWriMo this year for the first time because it scared me, and I wanted to deflate that fear a little, and I discovered that the writing everyday thing felt good, felt right. I haven’t started editing and re-writing because I am frightened of discovering that it was all awful or that re-working one of the sections I knew didn’t work will be like pulling out a card from a house of cards and the whole thing will collapse. But I think in my head I have always identified as a writer. I am not sure if I am a fiction writer or not, but I think as the boys get a little older and I start having whole mornings to myself and full nights of sleep, it’s what I want to explore, and I am grateful that my husband is supportive of it.
Would you be willing to have each family member write down something they love about you and share the answers with your readers?
Four members of the family are asleep right now (that’s when I usually get to write) and I am not going to pull out ten years worth of block-printed Mother’s Day cards that come home from school where the teacher has prompted one of my sons who says “I love my mom because she cooks for me.” But those are really cute. I ask Raven and he says, “Didn’t I already say optimism? How about compassion.” There it is. Oh, wait, there’s the note my son Xander made for me one day when he realized I was having a rough day, compiling answers to that question from everyone –
You have an amazing sense of humor - Aodán
You’re lovable - Rainer
You are nice - Søren
You ‘re wonderful at taking care of us - your husband
You are the coolest mom in the world. I have always looked up to you. We will love you forever. You are funny, loving , and understanding - Xander
