Friday, February 19, 2010

Our Newest Addition

This is my beautiful Fiona. She is a Flemish Giant and will eventually weight between 15-20 lbs. As you can see, Brigdet is quite interested in her new "friend".

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Candy Store


This is our first installment of Fun Fridays. Maeve made a sign for our store and each kid was given some money to spend. Finn spent his money at first, but then decided that he could just count and re-count his money and that was the same thing as actually buying the product. Maeve learned about money and giving change and both kids are looking forward to our next store.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Water Line Fiasco


Notice how they all seem to be scratching their heads? That's because they accidentally ripped our water line out from the main. Home ownership is a hoot sometimes. Also that is probably at least a 10 foot ladder.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Fate Wins

Hot grease and I are not friends (and I have the scars to prove it), but I decided to tempt fate and make some tortillas tonight.

While I was busy frying the first tortilla, Maeve was grabbing blobs of dough and rolling them into balls. All was well until Maeve told me that Bridget, the dog, ate the rest of the dough. Yes, the dog ate dough. Maeve had set three dough blobs aside so I was only able to make four tortillas.

No problem! I found a quick tortilla dough recipe online and printed it off. I got my new dough mixed, put more lard in my cast iron skillet and was ready to fry another tortilla. Except the dough turned to mush when fried. If at first you don't succeed, try and try again. I tried to fry a tortilla three different times with that dough and they all ended in the same mush.

So I called it good and split one tortilla between the two kids, took one for myself and left two for the husband (yes, I am a good wife). I tore my tortilla into bits, covered it with salad, meat, cheese, salsa and sour cream. It looked and smelled delicious. I took one bite. Yum. I went in for the second bite and the entire contents of my plate fell to the floor. It was then that Mathew came into the kitchen and told me that those were the best tortillas he had ever eaten and that dinner was exceptional.

Sigh. I had Frosted Mini Wheats for dinner.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Curtains and Paint

I love the lemon fabric on my new curtains. I plan to make another set for the window above my kitchen sink. The curtains make me want to repaint my kitchen, but I'm not a huge fan of a yellow kitchen. In fact, part of my kitchen is still yellow because we haven't finished painting it beige. I have decided that I am not really a beige person and need more color in my life. I'm thinking about going with a shade of green or sage for the kitchen. The adjacent living room has a very bright red wall though that I don't think would look good with green. Should I just paint the red beige to match the rest of the living room or should I go with a new color entirely? My living room has been both yellow and orange and I don't like either of those colors for that space. Decisions. Decisions.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Flemish Giant

One of these does will be mine in just two short weeks. I am super excited and will not be sharing her with the kids.

Friday, February 5, 2010

Sourdough Starter

For those who are curious here's what I'm going to try. The directions sound simple enough.

28 Day Challenge, Day 5

So I am failing miserably at this challenge. Whatever. I was doing somewhat okay, but our water line decided to break yesterday and I lost all motivation. And water. I was supposed to start a sourdough and today I'm supposed to soak my grains. Honestly, I have no idea where to buy grains to soak. I take that back, there is a local place, but I can't just drive over there and pick some up. I need to read more about soaking grains and what kind of kitchen equipment is involved. We'll see. It's intriguing and I'd at least like to try, but I might wait to see how some friends do it first.

Sourdough, on the other hand, is within the realm of possibility. I need to figure out how to start a sourdough, but that shouldn't be terribly difficult.

Espresso Fix

Decaf, of course.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Food

As soon as I had a baby I knew we needed to think more about the food that we put into our bodies. Maeve did not tolerate dairy well so I was dairy free for a very long time. I was dairy free again after Finnegan's birth because he also reacted to dairy. For those few years, I spent a lot of time on vegan websites, using vegan recipes and of the mind set that dairy wasn't a necessary dietary component. It seemed odd to me to consume the milk of another species.

Over time I grew weary of soy and slowly introduced the kids to dairy. I started reading more about whole, real food and began to make almost everything from scratch. We expanded our garden and picked as many apples as we could in the fall. I avoid vegetable and canola oil and cook with real fat. Bacon fat, lard, butter, coconut oil and olive oil occasionally. We drink 2% milk and will soon be switching to whole. The thickness of whole milk has always been a turn off for me, but my husband likes it and I know the kids will too.

I recently signed up for the 28 Day Real Food Challenge in an effort to bake more with honey, molasses and maple syrup instead of white sugar. On Day 1 I was supposed to go through my pantry and toss "refined oils, white flour, sugar and low- and skimmed-milk products. Ditch the boxed cereals, margarines, shortenings, frozen pizzas, sodas, lemonades and juice drinks, packaged crackers and cookies, processed cheeses, dried pastas, iodized and refined salts." I don't have most of the stuff on that list, but I do have white flour, sugar, boxed cereal and dried pastas. I'm not going to toss them. I can avoid using them for the 28 days, but I think it's silly and wasteful to throw away food, even if it's not the most nourishing. I will buy whole wheat flour, but I've been needing to do that anyway.

Today is Day 2 of the challenge and I was instructed to choose wholesome foods. Thankfully, everything that was listed is already in my pantry, minus the whole wheat flour which I'll be picking up soon. I am excited for this challenge and hope that even if I don't follow the directions completely, I walk away knowing more about food and learn to do without so much pasta which is always my back-up when I'm feeling lazy. My great Sicilian grandmother is probably turning over in her grave. And speaking of my Sicilian grandma, she made the best pizza I've ever tasted. She served it cold, it had very little sauce and cheese, the crust was super thin and it was absolutely delicious. That is some real food that I want to know how to make.


Monday, February 1, 2010

Just Another Head Band

Maeve doesn't like barrettes or normal hair things. Instead, she enjoys wearing very large head bands that make a statement. Other head bands include a very large Christmas tree, yellow flowers, bunny ears, and butterfly antennae. She's worn them all out in public at some point and just recently wore a rabbit costume for two days in a row.