so busy

so, so, so busy this week. may is a busy time for us- a plethora of birthdays. our wedding anniversary. lots of celebrating all packed into a tiny time frame.

haven’t had time to blog about it, or get back to any of you, or really do anything but bake celebratory cakes and make celebratory meals and, um, you know, celebrate.

here’s a little something to tide you over until i can get back to telling you all about it:

there, isn’t that better?

thrifty goodness

they actually fit birdie! but of course she won’t wear them. she’s spoiled by the loveliness of soft star shoes (locally made!).

two pillowcases for $2.99 and half an hour = matching dresses! they’re a little long on them, but they’ll grow. pillowcase dresses, i love you.

for dinner tonight:

lentil chili

homegrown salad

farmer’s market treats (carrots and strawberries)

polenta fries (wow, we really like our polenta around here! i swear we eat other grains.)

polenta- it’s what’s for dinner

the girls like broccoli, but they LOVE broccoli rabe, which has been at the farmer’s market the past few weeks, and at the co-op too. sometimes it goes by the name rapini, depending on where you get it. it’s basically the first broccoli shoots of the year, when they are leggy and tender and sweet, before they get fat and budded out like the little trees of my childhood vegetable plate. the girls prefer the stems, actually, and i don’t blame them! this time of year, they are super sweet. i’ve been seeing kale rabe, too, which would be another awesome thing to have in this dish.

however- if you can’t get broccoli or kale rabe, or raab, or rapini, you can have a go at plain ol’ broccoli! it will still taste yummy, i’m sure.

broccoli polenta is the height of ease and natural gluten-free deliciousness. corny and green and yummy.

first, you’ll want to have your chopped up broccoli at the ready. i use anywhere from 2-4 cups of broccoli, cut up into quite small bits. smaller than peas, but not as small as lentils.

the polenta is cooked in boiling water, just like any other grain. the ratio is around four (water) to one (polenta). bring the salted water to a boil, then add the polenta while stirring with a whisk so that it doesn’t get all clumpy and stick to the bottom. i use a le creuset- a heavy pan will help it not to stick- but when i was in college i used what i had (think $1.99 at goodwill) and it turned out just fine. turn the heat to low and continue to whisk it about for a few minutes, another trick to keep it from sticking. add in the broccoli bits, cover and let cook at barely a simmer. stir, as they say, occasionally. give it about half an hour or so. if it gets clumpy, add some water. you want it to be smooth and thick, not clumpy. you can cook it longer if you like as long as you don’t let it stick or get clumpy.

be sure to taste for seasoning, but don’t burn your tongue! add salt if needed.

you can eat it soft, straight out of the pan (we usually do) or you can cool and mold it. or- you can do both and have one meal now and one later! there are a myriad of ways to mold it. i think the easiest is to put it in oiled muffin tins and pop it into the fridge. later, when you want to eat them, you can pan fry (this takes a bit more oil), broil, or bake at 350 degrees. or if you’re me, eat them straight out of the tins, standing in front of the fridge.

plate with tomato sauce, or butter, or nearly any type of cheese (clearly parmesan is the best, but who am i to say it sucks with cheddar?), or olive oil…pretty much whatever you’d put on pasta.

you can do this whole process without the broccoli and you have blank slate! slather with sauteed mushrooms! put it on a bed of spinach, top with a poached egg, and drizzle with pesto! try it with black beans and salsa! the sky’s the limit, people.

next up, rosemary cannelini!

what we’ve been eating

so like i said, a recent meal (that everyone actually ate) was broccoli polenta. i served it with rosemary cannelini beans and a simple reduced tomato sauce. what i try to do at most meals is a legume, a grain, a veg, and a fruit. if you count tomatoes as the fruits they are, the above accomplishes that.

i can post a recipe for that meal, if anyone’s interested.

tonight i’m thinking crustless quiche with zucchini and chard, buttered rice, and some sort of fruit. this is because i haven’t gotten around to thinking about dinner until, um, now, an hour before we are going to eat.

also- i try to rotate grains as much as i can. one of the early pitfalls of going gluten free was A LOT of rice. i just wasn’t very well acquainted with grains in general then, something that’s definitely been remedied.

for the past couple of days’ worth of snacking we’ve been having lots of apples with almond butter or corn thins and carrots with a type of chickpea spread that is not a true hummus (again, recipe, anyone?).

and here is another reason why the cookbook is feeling like an insurmountable thing- i am a throw-it-together-without-regard-to-measurement kind of cook, which doesn’t really lend itself to recipe writing.

ok, enough chatting and on with the dinner prep!

it’s been a while

for no real reason at all. well, maybe a little sleep deprived. birdie has terrible excema, poor baby, and until we got it under control (that took a couple of weeks at least) she wasn’t sleeping, um, ever. now she’s teething again, which would be hilarious if i were into ironic parenting.

other stuff:

• am obliquely considering writing a cookbook. i have a publisher who is interested but don’t think i have enough recipes. for that matter, i don’t think of myself as a writer, pretty much AT ALL. i’d be doing the photography, too.
• my sister is coming home for a visit! the cookbook is her idea, i can’t take any credit for it.
• bunny’s birthday is on its way, and after planning what i thought would be a very fun farm party, she has informed me that we will be having a kitty birthday at nana’s house. so that’s in the works, and will be fun, i think.
• birdie is so chatty these days! very fun to be able to communicate with her. she is such a funny little thing.
• farmer’s market is back in full swing and i am so GRATEFUL.
• also, we’re trying out the mostly vegetarian route, these days. pork’s off the list anyhow, and i cut out lamb and beef, even though we were getting pasture-fed, local meat. i just…still feel uncomfortable with the resources it takes to raise meat. i think bunny misses beef, but i’ve been trying to up her consumption of iron and protein in other ways and that seems to be helping. we’re still eating fish, though rarely, and still having chicken once a week.
• also? after a major sugar binge, i’m taking that out, too. for the record, that makes us gluten-, soy-, dairy-, refined-sugar-, pork-, beef-, lamb-, and assorted other meats-free.
• have been so inspired by our religious readings these days- really inspired! what a change from the stultifying religion of my youth. we’ve definitely found our spiritual home.

and now a break for some totally unrelated photos-

birdie’s first pigtails

a kiss from the mama

my new dogwood

sweet bunny

all tuckered out with lilacs and “helicopter hair”

her portrait of me with herself and birdie, on our chalkboard wall

i think soon i’ll do a post about what exactly we HAVE been eating. ’cause it’s actually been pretty yum. like broccoli rabe polenta with rosemary cannelini beans!

and i am just putting the finishing touch on lo-fi. awesome. expect a email from me soon asking for your address! :)

mayfaire and homeschool

it was the mayfaire at our local waldorf school this weekend, as i’m sure it was at many, many waldorf schools everywhere. i was seriously hoping to get photos of bunny at the maypole- cuteness! but of course she was not interested in any of that business.

bubbles were a big hit, however. these are the first bubbles she’s been able to blow herself, a delight for both herself and her sister.

face painting. as always, she wanted to be a kitty.

playing under a parachute. SUPER fun.

actually, we all had a good time, despite the fact that we had already been to the farmer’s market and neither one of them had napped yet and it was already 1pm when i took these photos.

i still love the waldorf community. we’ve made some real friends there. bunny has finally gotten used to the idea of school. after telling me that first couple of weeks that she was “not impressed” with school, when we were on our way out there for the mayfaire, she told us that we were headed to her favorite! school! place! i think it’s helped that she has found some little friends of her own there.

however. i’m still not ready to send my little one anywhere for preschool. i still think it’s unnecessary, and that she’s too young. i may reconsider when first grade rolls around, but there are some other cool options here, too (have i already mentioned the muddy creek charter school?). and, you know, all of this has really renewed my interest in homeschooling, my original intention, after all.

more importantly, the pressure that i was feeling from friends and family is not so overwhelming anymore- maybe because they’ve seen that she doesn’t need it, or maybe just because i am feeling stronger about it. maybe a combination of both.

at any rate, i’m beginning to reread my john holt, even though i know i’m years away from needing any of the information. any other good homeschooling books to recommend? krista? help a girl out ;)