Thursday, November 12, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
special magic green sauce for everyone!
Some of you, I know, have children who eat actual food. They even enjoy it! The first time I met Henry he was munching on defrosted-in-Mommy's-purse frozen spinach with gusto. Katie and Elie once complimented me on my vegetable-heavy lentil soup, and with such disarming sincerity I could barely remember to say thank you.
Even my own little Gabriel slurped down a bit of curried sweet potato soup this evening. I still can't believe it when he happily eats my cooking. Frances is, and has almost always been, very into purity. White foods make her happiest. Plain, Mama! Will you make some plain for me? Pleeeeeeeze!
So the following recipes may not really be something you're looking for, but since we have found them so helpful, I thought I'd share them with you. I don't think this stuff officially falls into the sneaky-vegetable style cooking that Jerry Seinfeld's wife and others have advocated - or maybe it does - all I know is it makes this mama feel a tiny bit better about the mostly cheese and pasta diet my eldest adheres to. Disclaimer: I am a sloppy fast-and-loose sort of cook, so you may have to play around with the quantities to get it just right.
Special Magic Green Sauce
1/2 - 3/4 c cottage cheese
glug of olive oil
1/3 - 1/2 c frozen spinach
1/3 - 1/2 c grated parmesan (or pecorino, also good)
tiny splash of milk, if you want a runnier sauce
tiny pinch of salt
Blend it all up! I let everything sit for a couple of minutes so the spinach begins to thaw, then use our immersion blender. Pour it over just-cooked pasta. You can also do this without the spinach - it's creamier, and a perfectly good substitute for macaroni and cheese. I found I was able to resist the Annie's after we started making this sauce, in part because Frances actually likes it better, and if I buy an exciting shape of pasta she's especially happy.
**Addendum! Milena made this with fresh (raw) spinach leaves and also added garlic; Nathaniel had two helpings. Success!
Rice-Carrot Pancakes
1 c cooked brown rice
1/2 - 3/4 c grated carrots
about 1/2 a small onion, diced tiny
an egg
2 - 3 tbsp flour (I used chick pea flour)
pinch of salt
oil to fry
This is a new one. A nice way to use up extra rice - just mix everything together, add enough flour to make it stick together, heat up some oil and fry little patties of the stuff. The carrots become golden, the rice browns a little. We ate them latke-style, with applesauce. Yum.
Latest Quesadilla Filling: I mixed leftover roasted (mashed up) squash with canned refried black beans, added a bit of cheddar cheese, and both children gobbled them happily. I was sort of shocked that Frances went for it. I was inspired by the memory of those delicious sweet potato-black bean burritos out of the Moosewood cookbook. Remember??
And speaking of leftover squash...this one is for Marjorie and Diane:
Pumpkin Muffins
(my apologies to some anonymous baker -- I know I got this online but wrote it on a scrap of paper long ago and tweaked a bit since)
2 c whole wheat pastry flour
1/3 - 1/2 c ground flaxseed
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cloves
3/4 c brown sugar*
3 tbsp molasses
1/4 c oil
2 eggs
1 c pumpkin
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 c buttermilk**
Mix everything up until the sugar in a medium bowl. Whisk the remaining ingredients - except for buttermilk - together in a large bowl. Then alternate pouring in the dry ingredients and the buttermilk to the wet ingredients, whisking as you go. Depending on how watery your squash is, you may need to add more flour or flaxseed or, come to think of it, wheat germ at the end to get a consistency that seems right to you. I also think grated apples would be a lovely addition to these. Bake at 400 for about 20 minutes.
*I've also used 1/2 c honey instead and they were great.
**I often do the sour milk trick when buttermilk is too much of a pain to get: a dribble of vinegar in your measuring cup, then fill the rest of the way with milk. Let is sit for a few minutes.
Even my own little Gabriel slurped down a bit of curried sweet potato soup this evening. I still can't believe it when he happily eats my cooking. Frances is, and has almost always been, very into purity. White foods make her happiest. Plain, Mama! Will you make some plain for me? Pleeeeeeeze!
So the following recipes may not really be something you're looking for, but since we have found them so helpful, I thought I'd share them with you. I don't think this stuff officially falls into the sneaky-vegetable style cooking that Jerry Seinfeld's wife and others have advocated - or maybe it does - all I know is it makes this mama feel a tiny bit better about the mostly cheese and pasta diet my eldest adheres to. Disclaimer: I am a sloppy fast-and-loose sort of cook, so you may have to play around with the quantities to get it just right.
Special Magic Green Sauce
1/2 - 3/4 c cottage cheese
glug of olive oil
1/3 - 1/2 c frozen spinach
1/3 - 1/2 c grated parmesan (or pecorino, also good)
tiny splash of milk, if you want a runnier sauce
tiny pinch of salt
Blend it all up! I let everything sit for a couple of minutes so the spinach begins to thaw, then use our immersion blender. Pour it over just-cooked pasta. You can also do this without the spinach - it's creamier, and a perfectly good substitute for macaroni and cheese. I found I was able to resist the Annie's after we started making this sauce, in part because Frances actually likes it better, and if I buy an exciting shape of pasta she's especially happy.
**Addendum! Milena made this with fresh (raw) spinach leaves and also added garlic; Nathaniel had two helpings. Success!
Rice-Carrot Pancakes
1 c cooked brown rice
1/2 - 3/4 c grated carrots
about 1/2 a small onion, diced tiny
an egg
2 - 3 tbsp flour (I used chick pea flour)
pinch of salt
oil to fry
This is a new one. A nice way to use up extra rice - just mix everything together, add enough flour to make it stick together, heat up some oil and fry little patties of the stuff. The carrots become golden, the rice browns a little. We ate them latke-style, with applesauce. Yum.
Latest Quesadilla Filling: I mixed leftover roasted (mashed up) squash with canned refried black beans, added a bit of cheddar cheese, and both children gobbled them happily. I was sort of shocked that Frances went for it. I was inspired by the memory of those delicious sweet potato-black bean burritos out of the Moosewood cookbook. Remember??
And speaking of leftover squash...this one is for Marjorie and Diane:
Pumpkin Muffins
(my apologies to some anonymous baker -- I know I got this online but wrote it on a scrap of paper long ago and tweaked a bit since)
2 c whole wheat pastry flour
1/3 - 1/2 c ground flaxseed
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cloves
3/4 c brown sugar*
3 tbsp molasses
1/4 c oil
2 eggs
1 c pumpkin
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 c buttermilk**
Mix everything up until the sugar in a medium bowl. Whisk the remaining ingredients - except for buttermilk - together in a large bowl. Then alternate pouring in the dry ingredients and the buttermilk to the wet ingredients, whisking as you go. Depending on how watery your squash is, you may need to add more flour or flaxseed or, come to think of it, wheat germ at the end to get a consistency that seems right to you. I also think grated apples would be a lovely addition to these. Bake at 400 for about 20 minutes.
*I've also used 1/2 c honey instead and they were great.
**I often do the sour milk trick when buttermilk is too much of a pain to get: a dribble of vinegar in your measuring cup, then fill the rest of the way with milk. Let is sit for a few minutes.
Friday, November 6, 2009
to readers, with love
Tonight I want to thank all of you for actually reading this and sticking with it, even though it isn't quite the mama-friend resource center/support group I originally had planned. It's nothing that useful; just another stay-at-home mama blog all about yours truly and the little ones. I've joined the legions of ladies chatting about life on the homefront and I must admit, it's pretty fun.
This little project has had unanticipated consequences, for which I am deeply grateful. (Here is where you come in.) After 18 months of stay-at-home living, most of it done in a new town where I am relatively unknown outside my roles as wife and mother, I'm afraid my confidence was beginning to crumble. I suspect this is fairly typical for others in my position, but its universality doesn't lessen the sting: it was hard to remember if I was good at things besides getting plastic barrettes to stay in place and executing stand-up diaper changes. We would go to dinner parties and I felt I had nothing to contribute. I felt exposed without my kids, or without the ability to talk about them. I used to be interesting, I swear! Invite me over in a few years, I'll tell charming anecdotes that do not rely on the zany antics of preschoolers, I promise!
Strangely enough, writing about the zany antics of preschoolers has helped enormously to quell this fear that there is a vacuum where my adult self with all its capabilities and agency used to be. Turns out I'm still here. Sharing some of the bits of my daily life with all of you has reminded me of that - and the support, kindness and enthusiasm you've expressed for this funny little family journal has helped shore up some of my crumbling confidence. Writing itself is a restorative pleasure I had forgotten about. But the love and kindness this thing has generated have buoyed me up, up, up to a place where I can look all around and feel sincere gratitude for this time with my children. Yeah, yeah, I complain a lot about the limits of my life now, but your responses have helped me see through all the junk to what's real and true.
Thank you, thank you.
This little project has had unanticipated consequences, for which I am deeply grateful. (Here is where you come in.) After 18 months of stay-at-home living, most of it done in a new town where I am relatively unknown outside my roles as wife and mother, I'm afraid my confidence was beginning to crumble. I suspect this is fairly typical for others in my position, but its universality doesn't lessen the sting: it was hard to remember if I was good at things besides getting plastic barrettes to stay in place and executing stand-up diaper changes. We would go to dinner parties and I felt I had nothing to contribute. I felt exposed without my kids, or without the ability to talk about them. I used to be interesting, I swear! Invite me over in a few years, I'll tell charming anecdotes that do not rely on the zany antics of preschoolers, I promise!
Strangely enough, writing about the zany antics of preschoolers has helped enormously to quell this fear that there is a vacuum where my adult self with all its capabilities and agency used to be. Turns out I'm still here. Sharing some of the bits of my daily life with all of you has reminded me of that - and the support, kindness and enthusiasm you've expressed for this funny little family journal has helped shore up some of my crumbling confidence. Writing itself is a restorative pleasure I had forgotten about. But the love and kindness this thing has generated have buoyed me up, up, up to a place where I can look all around and feel sincere gratitude for this time with my children. Yeah, yeah, I complain a lot about the limits of my life now, but your responses have helped me see through all the junk to what's real and true.
Thank you, thank you.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
homemade time
The scene: our utterly chaotic pre-dinner kitchen, Gabriel doing laps around our first floor carrying an enormous plastic piece of a toy kitchen, saying "HEAVY... HEAVY!" to indicate that he can barely lift the thing, Frances telling me all about how in this doctor's office you can have more than one appointment and now she's fixed the ear infection so what ELSE is wrong with your baby today - when suddenly she is struck with hunger and the following exchange ensues.
Frances: How many minutes until dinner, Mama?
M: About twenty.
F: Oh no! But that is so long! (runs away to the living room. runs right back.)
Mama! Do you know how you can make homemade time? Homemade twenty minutes?
M: Why, no, I don't know how to make homemade time.
F: You just count to sixty twenty times in a row! Then you've made homemade twenty minutes! (rushes off to sit in her chair at the dining room table; begins to count).
My dear daughter! Thinking she can take charge of time. If only. But I love this idea; so much so I'm considering renaming the blog. I love that for her the way to take charge of - to put her own special stamp on - bread or a Halloween costume is for it to be homemade, so why not apply the same principle to time?
We think a lot about creating a homemade space to live in, homemade food to eat, homemade (or rather homegrown) plants and vegetables and herbs to surround us and nurture us... what does it mean to create homemade time? Apropos of Amelia's latest post, and a talk with Cameron last night about waiting for children to get old enough to hike, or to read quietly by themselves ... and also the feeling I had today on the way to school (Gabriel screaming in his car seat and Frances faux screaming so she wouldn't feel left out) - the feeling that I simply would never make it until bedtime - you are getting the idea. The character of time has changed since having children. Long days, short years. Isn't that what Grandmother Presler used to say?
There is a certain blur-like quality that seems unavoidable in time spent parenting small children. But I don't want to lose it, either, even though I have been near tears wishing for time to pass a little more briskly. I have also often felt a certain frantic grasping at time, during those extraordinary bursts of in-the-moment joy so acute they hurt. They hurt because they are slipping away even as they are realized, like so many brilliant golden paw paw leaves, now curled up and brown on our lawn.
So I get it, kid. I would like to sit down and count to sixty with you at the dining room table, in the middle of all this mess and lunacy.
I am going to keep thinking about homemade time, and what that means for me and my family. I think perhaps it might have to do with those rare times when I'm able to let go of my agenda and experience time with my children, to encounter the world alongside them, at their pace. Like walking today with Gabriel, stopping to touch the fuzzy tall grass and to admire the green pickup truck and to wave goodbye to the bushy orange mums in a neighbor's yard. A seven minute walk took thirty minutes, but so what? Where did I have to be just then? Nowhere but with him.
Frances: How many minutes until dinner, Mama?
M: About twenty.
F: Oh no! But that is so long! (runs away to the living room. runs right back.)
Mama! Do you know how you can make homemade time? Homemade twenty minutes?
M: Why, no, I don't know how to make homemade time.
F: You just count to sixty twenty times in a row! Then you've made homemade twenty minutes! (rushes off to sit in her chair at the dining room table; begins to count).
My dear daughter! Thinking she can take charge of time. If only. But I love this idea; so much so I'm considering renaming the blog. I love that for her the way to take charge of - to put her own special stamp on - bread or a Halloween costume is for it to be homemade, so why not apply the same principle to time?
We think a lot about creating a homemade space to live in, homemade food to eat, homemade (or rather homegrown) plants and vegetables and herbs to surround us and nurture us... what does it mean to create homemade time? Apropos of Amelia's latest post, and a talk with Cameron last night about waiting for children to get old enough to hike, or to read quietly by themselves ... and also the feeling I had today on the way to school (Gabriel screaming in his car seat and Frances faux screaming so she wouldn't feel left out) - the feeling that I simply would never make it until bedtime - you are getting the idea. The character of time has changed since having children. Long days, short years. Isn't that what Grandmother Presler used to say?
There is a certain blur-like quality that seems unavoidable in time spent parenting small children. But I don't want to lose it, either, even though I have been near tears wishing for time to pass a little more briskly. I have also often felt a certain frantic grasping at time, during those extraordinary bursts of in-the-moment joy so acute they hurt. They hurt because they are slipping away even as they are realized, like so many brilliant golden paw paw leaves, now curled up and brown on our lawn.
So I get it, kid. I would like to sit down and count to sixty with you at the dining room table, in the middle of all this mess and lunacy.
I am going to keep thinking about homemade time, and what that means for me and my family. I think perhaps it might have to do with those rare times when I'm able to let go of my agenda and experience time with my children, to encounter the world alongside them, at their pace. Like walking today with Gabriel, stopping to touch the fuzzy tall grass and to admire the green pickup truck and to wave goodbye to the bushy orange mums in a neighbor's yard. A seven minute walk took thirty minutes, but so what? Where did I have to be just then? Nowhere but with him.
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