Food for thought

Our daughter made this appetizer all on her own and surprised us with her creation. She went to the garden, picked the peas and basil, brought them to the kitchen, and created a dip with olive oil and sea salt. She displayed all of this with her usual artistic flair. I was completely surprised, but I shouldn't have been. She has been raised with parents who love sharing good food, and she is an incredible artist.

That got me to thinking. Is it just who she is, or how we've raised her? If I'm honest with myself, it's probably a bit of both. When it comes to parenting, the whole thing is largely an intuitive process for me. Some days I have it, some days I don't. My husband and I are good parents who make mistakes. Despite the mistakes, it's gratifying to realize that some of the things we've done along the way have affected our children positively. For our kids, raising food and having honey bees is one of those things.

My first vegetable garden was one that I planted was 15 years ago. I remember then, that it seemed like some mystery. How could people grown such an abundance of food from a few packets of seeds? A couple of friends gave me advice, I read "Square Foot Gardening," and I dug up the grass in the back of our rental to create my vege patch. I was completely awed that we had so much zucchini that summer, I didn't know what to do with it all. (I made a whole heck of a lot of zucchini bread.) Suddenly, raising vegetables was no longer something other people did; it became what I did.

I've had vegetable gardens every summer since. Some gardens have been more prolific than others, and I've learned a ton along the way. My biggest advice would be"just do it!" It's really not that difficult and there is plenty of room for error. Plants are miraculous in their ability to grow. You don't have to do everything perfectly the way some gardening books make it sound. Just put a plant or seed in the ground or a pot. See what happens. See if it changes the rhythm of your days, or the way you view the world. Maybe it becomes the center of your summers with your children.

But, back to that parenting part. I often notice parents who spend a great deal of time reading parenting books, or planning the activities that will enhance their children's future abilities. I worry sometimes, if we are meeting our children's needs. Perhaps I need to read a book or two. Maybe they should be enrolled in more activities. I have times where I question myself as a parent relentlessly. Then there is some small moment that reminds me that as a family, we're on the right track. We have a rhythm that works well for us. Naturally setting an example for our children by the way we live is one of the greatest things we could teach them. So the fact that our lives are infused by our vegetable garden and our honeybees is an incredible education. We didn't necessarily plan that, but it's an extension of who we are. Our children know where there food comes from. They are a part of putting the seed in the ground. They understand the importance of bees in the pollination of their food. They are in the garden several times a day, observing, picking, and playing. Without realizing it, we have given them a lifestyle that meets their needs.

So how, you might ask, does one plate of appetizers generate all that thought in this mama? I don't really know. That's me, I guess. I wanted to write it down so that I could look back and remember how right this all feels... how perfect the presentation of her appetizer was in my life on that June evening when she was eight. I wanted to have a written reference for those days when my head gets going and I lose sight of my inner peace. That plate of sugar snap peas and basil gave me a sense of serenity.... a reminder that I need to stop worrying, let go, and enjoy the abundance that we have. Living in the moment, rather than worrying about the future, is all about relishing that plate of food that my daughter picked from our garden and beautifully prepared for her family. Really. For me... it is.

Morels

I've shared so many of our family traditions that it's hard to believe this one has never made it to my blog. One of the things that designates Spring for us is Morel hunting. It's an amazing thing to gather your food from the woods... food, might I add, that sells for over a $100 per pound. Lovely, earthy incredible morel mushrooms. (And I'm not the biggest mushroom fan on the planet.) In one haul this spring, my husband brought home 7 pounds! I have to tell you, it's kind of like Easter egg hunting, but on a much grander, more satisfying scale.

Friends of ours were here this weekend and they all went hunting. The kids were so excited to see what they brought home. We ate omelettes with Morel sauce, fish with Morels coating it, and a Morel white pizza with greek olives and roasted peppers. I'm still salivating over that pizza.

A quick recipe is to saute the morels in butter and olive oil with fresh chopped garlic and onions. Add in some white wine and reduce. Add in some sea salt, or truffle salt to taste. If you want a cream sauce, add half and half, or cream. If you want a clear sauce, add broth. You can skip both the broth and the cream sauce if you just want some sauteed morels to put over a dish. Have fun with it. You can't go wrong. It is oh, so good! (This approximation of a recipe is compliments of our friend who owns a pasta and wine shop.)

There are plenty of online sites that describe morels, how to find them, hunting with kids, and recipes. One is here. Maybe a new family tradition is waiting for you.

So much to be thankful for...

We've had such a wonderful holiday, despite my initial funk leading up to it. I think all the hype of getting ready for craft shows just does that to me. Despite the fact that it was another wonderful event, I just felt like I needed to go find a real job afterward. Hmmmm.

But it really was hard to stay in that state for long. Thanksgiving day was brilliant here. We went bike riding as a family, and had a really nice time with my extended family that evening. My dad helped me plant my my bulbs in the garden. I had a date night with my husband that included sushi and old friends. We decorated our beautiful Christmas tree. Four days were just jam packed with good stuff.

When the weekend got colder we shifted to a whole bunch of crafting and indoor play. Even my husband got artsy and made some wreaths, which I'll have to show you later. We're all definitely excited about spending our first holidays in our new/old house.

I had to snap a bunch of pictures of the little scenes of play that were happening around our house. It warms my heart especially because I made these fairy dolls last spring for my sweet girl's birthday. They've gotten so much mileage! They were definitely worth the effort. The book mentioned in this post is what I used to guide me.

Here's the dish I made for Thanksgiving, a secret recipe shared by the woman who catered our wedding. We begged her for it after the event, and it's something I take the time to make every year. I hoarded the leftovers and finished that bit off yesterday.

Butternut squash souffle

2 cups butternut squash, roasted, mashed

2 Tablespoon brown sugar

2 Tablespoon maple syrup

1 teaspoon salt

3 Tablespoon corn starch

Mix until smooth. (I use my handheld Cuisinart)

1 stick melted butter

1 1/4 cup cream

3 egg yolks

Mix with butternut squash mixture until smooth.

3 egg whites

pinch salt

Beat in separate bowl to soft peaks. Fold this into squash mixture without over mixing.

Bake in buttered souffle dish at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

Alrighty, then. Now it's time for me to re-enter the real world. Hope you were able to find some moments away from all the stressors this weekend. Have a great week!

Sushi by daddy

It's always a good weekend when daddy makes sushi.

Good eats from the garden

This is the time of year when the garden starts busting out bounty. Every afternoon we collect whatever it offers up. Now, I don't even have to beg the kids to save a few cherry tomatoes for dinner. There's always plenty.

Grilled radicchio has become my new favorite, thanks to introductions by my sister. Wash the leaves, pat dry. Coat each leaf lightly with olive oil and grill for a few minutes. (I use a grill basket.) Then bring it in and toss with fresh lemon juice and sea salt. I think it's AMAZING, but my husband and kids are a little less enthusiastic. It is this perfect blend of bitter, crunchy, tangy citrus, and salt. I could eat it all day. I bought radicchio seeds for the fall garden already. Guess they'll have to put up with my current obsession for a while.

This book was given to me last year by a friend. Absolute mind candy. The pictures are beautiful, and the recipes that I've tried are wonderful. I find myself dreaming about what to fix from the garden. There's a cherry tomato soup in there that I've got my eye on.

Lastly, a quick article of inspiration. I came across it this morning. It thrills me that these college students will be changing the state of the world through their ingenuity, and it wasn't a big market money driven endeavor. Go, girls, go.

Our valentine's weekend

Can I just tell you that I am astounded by the love in our life? I receive so much from my friends and family; it really is remarkable. I've always been an "in the closet" Valentine's day lover. I can look right past all the commercialism. The whole concept of expressing appreciation and love for those that you care about is my kind of holiday. That, and I secretly adore the combination of red and white. So, here are some glimpses of this weekend's treats.

Can you see the fairies flitting around with us in Friday night's snow?

I finally embraced the sheer beauty and stopped grumbling.


Chocolate peanut butter cup making.... the recipe from some one's blog, but I can't remember who now. Email me if you want it... it's too die for.


Placed in a reused container decorated with some Modge Podge and fabric.


Cookies made at a friend's, filled with their homemade cherry jam!

A quick little surprise for my big girl, using a nothing special shirt from her drawer.

What were your valentine's treats? I'd love to hear.

Family traditions

There are certain things that have become tradition in our household.... a benchmark, if you will, for each season. I didn't necessarily set out to establish this rhythm when we had children, but it has emerged over time. Traditions in families make a whole lot of sense to me now that I'm a parent. They provide structure and consistency for children in the most fluid and time-honored way. They also fill our year with a sense of connection as a family, and there is always a certain excitement about anticipating each seasonal event. I cherish the traditions we had as a child, and find great joy in weaving new ones into the fabric of my young family now.


One of our fall traditions, like so many other Western North Carolina families, is to go to a local orchard and pick apples. I have several years of pictures now, documenting each event. I looked back through each year and was shocked to see how much our children have grown and changed (and how much they looked alike at the age of 3!)

And of course, once we got our apples home, we had to make our requisite apple pie. This little blue gem came with the house, if you can believe it. It was up on a dusty shelf in the pantry. Both kids had a ball cranking and we wished we had more apples. My guess is, now that we've found this, we'll be getting a whole bunch more apples in the coming weeks. Applesauce is next on the list.

(A random aside... the leaf my little guy gave me as a gift. He's shifted from picking flowers for me, to finding the prettiest leaf and bringing it in.)

And of course, I had to take a picture of the finished product. I will tell you that there was plenty of cursing during the making of this crust. I decided to try all whole wheat; it was a different animal... a very ornery one. I finally got the consistency right (much to my surprise) and it was pronounced "yummy scrummy." I'm not an intuitive cook, so I felt it was surely headed for the compost. Whew. It was a close one.

This is the book we read every year as part of our tradition. It's terrific for the 2-6 yr range. What I love about this book, is not only it's illustrations, but the story itself. A brother and sister share their understanding of the seasons by telling how their apple tree changes. The tree is depicted as if it is a part of the family, and the ultimate end surprise is an apple pie made from it's apples in the fall. The book even includes a description of pollination by honey bees at the end. Gotta love that! (Fall, Leaves, Fall by Zoe Hall is also great!)

One more of our favorites, though we didn't have it this weekend to read. A wonderful book, as well!

So... here's to traditions in families and the changing of the seasons. I wouldn't have felt like I had truly recognized autumn until I wrote a post about apples. What are some of your family's tradition around fall? I'm always curious what different families find special and would love to hear. Have a wonderful week...

Will the rain ever let up?

We in the southeastern United States have been seeing rain for more than a week without much of a break. It's led to deaths and plenty of destruction. For us, it's meant lost work and too many days inside.... both of which are hard on our family in this teeny tiny little house. This is the time of year when we are exploring for mushrooms along the trail, picking up the first turning leaves, and enjoying the last of what our garden has to give us. Instead, yesterday, I decided to "save" some of our basil from the constant rain. Plus, my little guy was sick so it was a good indoor activity... pesto makin' time.

Most years I wait until October and have to cut all the basil plants at the base to keep them from the first frost. It' not that I'm a last minute girl, but when making pesto, you can be lazy. Basil doesn't get too ripe like a tomato or fruit. Nor does it get too tough like a bean. It's generally pretty darn forgiving, so in terms of "putting food by", pesto has always been my tried and true.

Thirteen years ago, my friend Marilyn taught me how to make pesto and freeze it in ice cube trays. We've been doing it ever since. We have 8-10 plants every year so that we can have pesto until the next summer's bounty. Easy peasy.... if you have a food processor. This is what you throw in until it tastes right:

garlic cloves

olive oil

pine nuts or walnuts

basil

parmesan

sea salt and black pepper

little bit of lemon juice

I grate my parm from a huge block with the processor and set that aside. Then I process the garlic cloves with the olive oil until they are minced very fine. I add nuts. I process and add oil as needed. Then I start adding in basil leaves, stripping them from the stalks in huge piles. (Think production.) The stalks will be too tough, but of course, everything else about a basil plant tastes great. Don't get too freaked out as long as it's clean and free of bugs and dirt.... but, even then... you aren't going to die. When I've got what looks like good consistency in oil and basil, I add in sea salt and black pepper to taste. I use a little bit of lemon juice to help keep the basil nice and green. At the very end I add the cheese. I've found that it can be very easy to add more cheese than is really tasteful or necessary if you start with it at the front end. (This may be because I'm a total cheese addict. One year, I used yellow miso instead, when I was not doing dairy.)

I think this is one of the most amazing food "activities" you can do with kids. There are no eggs and kids are great strippers of basil off the stalk. They have so much fun. Plus, they can push the button on the processor again and again. It's loads of fun and a natural activity for following directions. There is something for kids about following the instruction to turn an appliance "on" and "off" that feels like huge responsibility to them. Because the processor blade is enclosed and the appliance can't be turned on unless the lid is locked in place, it's nice and safe for even really young guys. Perfect, if you ask me. Pesto. Entertainment. From the garden. Summer flav in the winter. Does it get better? Well, now, if the rain would let up...

Making the best of what we got!

These tomatoes are pretty much the prize from our garden. All of the other heirlooms blighted, beside for our sungold cherries. It's difficult to complain. Last year it was so dry that we never saw a tomato reach this size. Everything just sizzled up in the sun. This year, our produce was doing laps in their own swimming pool. Go figure.

We were lucky enough to have a friend share some of her tomatoes grown in her greenhouse. They were superb and so unbelievably sweet; I couldn't believe we were eating tomatoes. We ate them plain, with basil and mozzarella, and then we tried the Backseat Gourmet's recipe for panzanella. So quick and easy, and quite a hit with my family. This is Cheryl's picture of her recipe below. ( She's a much better food photographer than I am. Actually, she's also an amazing quilter, so go check that out too.)

It definitely feels like we're trying to hang on to the last vestiges of summer as we gobble down tomatoes and basil. Soon, I need to get busy making pesto. We freeze it in cubes and eat on it all winter, pretending we have summer in our mouths.

Vernal Equinox

It's spring and everyone around here knows it! Have a lovely weekend, friends. Hope you have many opportunities to be outside...

Enough already!

I hesitated about even posting today. I don't want to subject anyone to my grumbly mind space. I have had some good mommy moments today, and plenty of not-s0-good ones. Yesterday, snow was exciting; today, it is not. I'm putting out silent pleas to the universe... no more snow... PLEASE!
I have decided that one of the best ways to get through cabin fever is food. Yes, there are the craft projects, the knitting, the puzzles, even some yoga, but food is the way to go! Last night, we were treated with sushi that my husband made. Today, it was banana bread with Ghiradelli dark chocolate chips. I think food is what has salvaged my sanity in the end. Sushi and snow... hopefully, we won't have to put that coping mechanism to use again until next winter. I mean.... bring on the sushi, not the snow.

Makin' bread

The book below has transformed our household. Honestly, I'm shocked by how much bread my husband and kids eat. Now I can better afford their appetites and feel pretty good about the quality of their bread. I know a book that promises homemade bread in five minutes a day is a bit like a diet commercial, cellulite lotion, or scum cleanser. Really, though, it is exactly that simple. I checked this book out from our local library twice before I purchased it.It took me a few times and a little asking around before I got a loaf that is consistently close to perfect. That said, I've never made anything from this book that wasn't gobbled down. It's hard to make it totally flop. Trust me, prior to this book, I had NEVER had any success at bread making. I'd pretty much resigned myself to the fact that making bread was obviously intended for a more elite individual than me. I can't say it enough, "MAKING BREAD IS A BREEZE WITH THIS BOOK!" Really.

Here are a few things I have discovered after some tinkering. Definitely go buy a pizza stone; I got one at Target for around $10. The amount of moisture, rise time, and temperature in the room can affect the bread. If you're not getting decent rise, than consider adding a smidgen more or less flour, letting it "rest" for longer, and turning on the oven while it's sitting on top to help with rise. I highly recommend King Arthur flours; they do come in organic. The quality of the flour has seemed to affect the quality of the loaf. The picture below is the average loft I get in a loaf.

The recipe that I make the most, and now have memorized after several months of using this book, is the "Light Whole Wheat." I have adapted it; I use 2-2.5 cups of flour, and the rest white (or bread flour.) I use 1 tablespoon coarse sea salt instead of 1.5. As they say in the book, this recipe really is a "workhorse." I use it for baguettes, loaves, calzones, and pizza crust. Below, is the pizza made according to their guidelines. So good.

Whenever I forget to renew the supply of dough in the fridge, I curse myself. Having it there, and ready to go makes meal prep so fast, and easy. Now, this little red hen is off to play in the snow. We got about 3 inches here. Schools are closed and there's plenty of snow for these southern kids to go sledding. To them, this is the blizzard of the year.

Western North Carolina Blizzard.... Southern Style

It snowed a few flakes, so of course, school was cancelled on Friday. We live in the south eastern U.S. There were times on Friday when I thought it was a beautiful blessing, and there were other times when I was cursing my fate. It was wonderful to be home with the kids. The day slowed down entirely, and we have soooo needed that. We crafted, we cooked, we played outside, and we even made it to our local tail gate market. It was wonderful, and somehow incredibly challenging by the end of the day. I don't know why, exactly, but there was rough housing, squabbles, and out and out tantrums. The noise level and neediness just sent sent me sailing. I was reduced to tears by dinner time, and thinking that maybe I need a bumper sticker for my mini van ( can't believe I shared that I actually own one.) The bumper sticker should definitely say "I used to be zen."

The next day, my hubby went out of town for the weekend. I have to admit that I felt desperate. And then, just the help I needed arrived in the form of a phone call. My wonderful friend called and asked if my daughter could spend the night. Yes. Yes. Yes! It was so nice to focus on just my little guy. We went for two really nice walks, and the picture above is him fishing with the stick that he dragged with him on half the walk. I really struggle to find time to give each child undivided attention. Being completely present with him that evening and the next morning was good for both of us. I felt my mind still and my heart fill with joy. It is just so amazing to watch him navigate his world and listen to all of his revelations. The world is such a magical place to him.

This is the soup we ate all weekend. I just had to take a picture of it because it contains the lone butternut squash that grew in our garden. We were thrilled to roast it, but even more thrilling was how it tasted. This is the recipe and the bread that we ate with it is below. I've made the soup twice, the first time with a friend's gift of a Lumina pumpkin from her garden. This is a white pumpkin and it makes the silkiest most amazing soup I've ever had. I decided to try the same recipe for butternut squash since we had it. It was still superb. I used vegetable stock instead of chicken. Magnificent. The bread is from a recipe that my sister gave me and is kind of like popovers, but even yummier. Plus, it's idiot proof, and doesn't flop like my popovers have a habit of doing.

Gougere With Mustard, originating in the French Countryside. Gougere are cheese-filled pastries,which are served as an appetizer or salad accompaniment.

1-cup flour

½ teaspoon salt

¼ cup unsalted butter

1-cup water

4 medium eggs

½ cup finely diced Chantal or Cheddar cheese

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard1 tablespoon freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Grease a baking sheet and the inside of the outer rim of a spring form pain. Sift together the flour and salt. In a large saucepan combine the butter and water and bring to a boil. Add the flour all at once and beat vigorously with a wooden spoon until the mixture forms a ball and leaves the sides of the saucepan. Cool 5 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition with an electric beater until smooth. Stir in the Chantal cheese and Dijon mustard. Place the prepared rim of the spring form pan (base removed) onto the baking sheet.Spoon the mixture around the inner edge of the rim, making about 8 piles.Sprinkle with the Parmesan cheese. Bake until well-risen and golden, 40-50minutes. To serve, cut into chunky pieces. Serve hot.

Serves 4

A.J. Rhodes 2006