The bread recipe is from my friend Bec, who I believe found it on another site. I do not know the official source to give credit, but it is an incredibly easy and delicious bread recipe. So easy, I feel ridiculous buying french bread or garlic bread from the store because it is much simpler to just throw a batch together. There is no kneading involved.
Here is the easy "15 min" french bread recipe:
2 1/2C. warm water
2T (yes tablespoons) active dry yeast
2T sugar
2tsp salt
5 1/2 C flour
1. Mix all into a large bowl, let rise for 15 min
2. Make into 2 long loaves, put 6 slits in each, let rise 15 min
3. Bake @450 for 15 min.
My own suggestions are to mix sugar and yeast in warm water first and then measure out flour and salt in separate bowl. Add dry to wet and mix throughly. This dough is very moist and when it rises the second time, is prone (in my experience) to spread. I roll up some little towels with flour on them to try and give them a little shape and keep the 2 loaves from squishing together. The bread is not crusty like a baguette, but soft and delicious.
Goulash
Goulash to me is probably not traditional in any way except it is traditional for my family. Its more of a ragtag of veggies, never really being the same except for the mainstays of beef, tomato and noodles.
1lb of ground beef or venison
1 can of tomatoes (i prefer stewed but diced works)
1 cup of noodles (elbow is great)
veggies....in the past I've used a mirepoix (celery, onion, carrot) or tomatoes that are going soft, mushrooms, frozen peas, green beans, frozen mix veggies etc)
Brown the beef, toss salt and pepper on, celery salt if not using celery, toss in chopped veggies and cooked noodles, worcestershire sauce, couple squirts of ketchup and shakes of italian seasoning. Serve.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Sunday, January 9, 2011
"You are not defined by what you do"
Although I have heard it many times in the form of various sayings it never really hit home until I read the book "Will I Ever Be Good Enough" by Karyl McBride.
It is curious that it has to be the right situation for something to truly sink in and make a difference in your perception. I had known outwardly that, for instance, enjoying singing and being good at it are mutually exclusive. You do not have to be a good singer to enjoy it. Does that mean you shouldn't sing if you are bad? That would be ridiculous. But I am not a born singer and so this parallel doesn't effect me as much.
But when I think about motherhood. It hits deep. Being a mother is something you DO and not something you ARE. I mother. It is further proved by the fact that motherhood is often categorized by being either good at it or bad, because it is something you do, a verb. You are being a mother. You are mothering. But in the end, being bad at mothering doesn't make you a failure. It just means you failed at some aspect of mothering. Mothering doesn't define you. You can be kind and gentle and lovely but terrible at what you set as your mothering ideal. But you are still all those wonderful attributes even if something you did wasn't done well. You can enjoy mothering without being good at it. You can enjoy singing but be terrible at it and it doesn't make you a terrible person.
We wrap ourselves within these confines of labels that really don't say who we really are, merely what we do or are doing. I am many things. But I am not a mother or a wife or a singer or a writer. Those are things I do and I enjoy. So when I make a mistake or do it badly, I am still whole underneath. It cannot crack me and break me and change the very core of my goodness and strength.
It is curious that it has to be the right situation for something to truly sink in and make a difference in your perception. I had known outwardly that, for instance, enjoying singing and being good at it are mutually exclusive. You do not have to be a good singer to enjoy it. Does that mean you shouldn't sing if you are bad? That would be ridiculous. But I am not a born singer and so this parallel doesn't effect me as much.
But when I think about motherhood. It hits deep. Being a mother is something you DO and not something you ARE. I mother. It is further proved by the fact that motherhood is often categorized by being either good at it or bad, because it is something you do, a verb. You are being a mother. You are mothering. But in the end, being bad at mothering doesn't make you a failure. It just means you failed at some aspect of mothering. Mothering doesn't define you. You can be kind and gentle and lovely but terrible at what you set as your mothering ideal. But you are still all those wonderful attributes even if something you did wasn't done well. You can enjoy mothering without being good at it. You can enjoy singing but be terrible at it and it doesn't make you a terrible person.
We wrap ourselves within these confines of labels that really don't say who we really are, merely what we do or are doing. I am many things. But I am not a mother or a wife or a singer or a writer. Those are things I do and I enjoy. So when I make a mistake or do it badly, I am still whole underneath. It cannot crack me and break me and change the very core of my goodness and strength.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Driving on Ice
So you find yourself driving along, the weather seems to keep getting worse and as you go under an overpass you hit a patch of ice.
Life can be much like this. Let's say you are at day 5 of getting over a cold, and you've powered through it. It's morning, the kids are up extra early and you are exhausted and your bed is far too welcoming. Pulling yourself out anyway and into the cold and dreary day, you start to run through the motions of your morning: change diapers, use bathroom, get dressed, toss hair up out of your face. Upon entering the living room you cringe at just how disastrous it has become in the last few days, how many things you have not been able to keep up with while being sick. The thought passes like a dagger into your mind, "You will never be able to catch up." In fact, you still have piles of things that have made it to that list of never, and now that line has shifted even further away. It has made it to the land of "never ever" and yet it is still there, in your mind, taunting you. Threatening like a storm on the horizon. The chaos of the home shows in everything from the scattering of toys, food, clothes to the actions and reactions of it's inhabitants. The kids are fighting, and tripping over clothes and things on your way to rescue the toddler is infuriating. You try in vain to clean it, to retain some semblance of order and it just spirals downward.
And so you are driving through a storm. In your mind, you repeat your mantras, you steel your patience and you falter. You yell at one of the kids, your anger explodes, you hit black ice. Do you hit the brakes? Do you stay here, more anger bubbling? You head into a spiral, spin out of control, angry at yourself for saying something to your darling children that you never thought you'd say. You enter into the loathesome mother area. You are a failure. You have said something, done something, that has written on the slate of who your child is. You have changed them forever, you have done damage that can never be fully erased. And so you sit, you dwell, you feel failure grabbing you and smothering you with its viscous guilt. A tiny part of you knows this territory, it struggles to break free. Find something positive! And so you try. You try to turn on music to change the mood, you try to change the scenery, you try to change your attitude. And yet....it is lurking. And one more thing topples into the scene and it resets you back onto the spiral. You call out for help.
This is when you realize that no one can help you. All the suggestions, all the shots at humor...they all fall like patronizing thorns. No one else understands. No one else can fix this. The spiral has you convinced of your failure. Your home is a mess, your children are unhappy, it is your fault. If you could just, if you could JUST. But you cannot. Because you are you, and there is no hope.
But there is hope. You do not see it when you are in it. When you are sliding on ice, you do not stop and think about all the things you SHOULD be doing, you just do what you are doing. We all know not to slam on the brakes when you hit an icy patch and yet some do it anyway. I think with practice this would be less likely. They can pop up without notice, or they can have little warnings along the way. But when it hits you can feel helpless.
Or
You can let it ride. It doesn't feel like a choice. It is automatic. Just know that it will ride out, whether you hit the brakes or not. You will eventually be free of the ice. Hitting the brakes means there will be more damage. But you will never be stuck on ice forever.
Life can be much like this. Let's say you are at day 5 of getting over a cold, and you've powered through it. It's morning, the kids are up extra early and you are exhausted and your bed is far too welcoming. Pulling yourself out anyway and into the cold and dreary day, you start to run through the motions of your morning: change diapers, use bathroom, get dressed, toss hair up out of your face. Upon entering the living room you cringe at just how disastrous it has become in the last few days, how many things you have not been able to keep up with while being sick. The thought passes like a dagger into your mind, "You will never be able to catch up." In fact, you still have piles of things that have made it to that list of never, and now that line has shifted even further away. It has made it to the land of "never ever" and yet it is still there, in your mind, taunting you. Threatening like a storm on the horizon. The chaos of the home shows in everything from the scattering of toys, food, clothes to the actions and reactions of it's inhabitants. The kids are fighting, and tripping over clothes and things on your way to rescue the toddler is infuriating. You try in vain to clean it, to retain some semblance of order and it just spirals downward.
And so you are driving through a storm. In your mind, you repeat your mantras, you steel your patience and you falter. You yell at one of the kids, your anger explodes, you hit black ice. Do you hit the brakes? Do you stay here, more anger bubbling? You head into a spiral, spin out of control, angry at yourself for saying something to your darling children that you never thought you'd say. You enter into the loathesome mother area. You are a failure. You have said something, done something, that has written on the slate of who your child is. You have changed them forever, you have done damage that can never be fully erased. And so you sit, you dwell, you feel failure grabbing you and smothering you with its viscous guilt. A tiny part of you knows this territory, it struggles to break free. Find something positive! And so you try. You try to turn on music to change the mood, you try to change the scenery, you try to change your attitude. And yet....it is lurking. And one more thing topples into the scene and it resets you back onto the spiral. You call out for help.
This is when you realize that no one can help you. All the suggestions, all the shots at humor...they all fall like patronizing thorns. No one else understands. No one else can fix this. The spiral has you convinced of your failure. Your home is a mess, your children are unhappy, it is your fault. If you could just, if you could JUST. But you cannot. Because you are you, and there is no hope.
But there is hope. You do not see it when you are in it. When you are sliding on ice, you do not stop and think about all the things you SHOULD be doing, you just do what you are doing. We all know not to slam on the brakes when you hit an icy patch and yet some do it anyway. I think with practice this would be less likely. They can pop up without notice, or they can have little warnings along the way. But when it hits you can feel helpless.
Or
You can let it ride. It doesn't feel like a choice. It is automatic. Just know that it will ride out, whether you hit the brakes or not. You will eventually be free of the ice. Hitting the brakes means there will be more damage. But you will never be stuck on ice forever.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Pumpkin French Toast Muffins
I never really measure anything so these are approx.
2 cups Pumpkin Puree (I used homemade)
4 eggs
leftover sour dough bread, cut into chunks
1/4 cup of cream or half & half
1 Tbs sugar
2 big globs of honey
1/4 cup AP flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla
cinnamon, ginger, cloves
2 Tbs coconut oil
pinch of salt
spray muffin tins, add 3-4 chunks of bread to each space. Mix remaining ingredients well, should be quite wet. Fill each tin with mix. Bake at 350 for um...20 mins or so? Until the edges brown and toothpick comes out clean.
They were really really good! It was like a perfect French Toast bite everytime! And with all that egg and pumpkin I would assume these are reasonably healthy...at least that's what I'm going to tell myself LOL
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Focus
Living life with many small children underfoot can have many surprising challenges and tend to magnify and accelerate any seemingly small issue into a giant in-your-face dilemma. Each and everyday we have a list of things to try and accomplish and with minimal time to focus on any one area, it can feel like a mad rush to get even a partial list completed by days end. I'm sure my list looks like anyone else's, cleaning chores, mealtimes, bedtimes, errands....it really can feel never-ending.
We've all heard the saying, "It's the journey, not the destination..." but how does that apply to daily life and the ubiquitous tasks we undertake to raise our families?
From the mundane (making dinner) to the less occasional (annual doctors appointments) we rush through hoping to swipe a rag along the way and pick up debris scattered about. We hope that our children are tagging along, picking up tidbits of good habits and lifelong skills on the way, but mostly we are just sprinting and wondering all the while, "Where did this past week/month/season/year go?"
Applying the ideal of focusing on the journey, then we can look at dinner not so much as a checkoff but as an event. Instead of trying, in vain, to get things accomplished in spite of having little disaster creators running amok, we can look at it with a different perspective. A typical day of hitting only check marks can be one of using distractions, the tv for instance, while we squeeze in dishes, sweeping, maybe toss a load in the washer, before making snack and calling the kids over to eat and then trying to get them to help clean up, rinse and repeat ad nauseum. Or just loading the kids up and running through the nearest fast food joint to fill their tummies. Yes, this may get us to the same destination at the end of the day, but the journey is sorely lacking. Instead we are trying to focus more on how we can enjoy ourselves and eachother while still getting things accomplished. Today, I wanted to roast some pie pumpkins and while I could've tried to sneak it in and quickly rushed through it while some of the kids were napping, I instead brought the whole family into the experience. For lunch, we brought out all the sandwich items and each made their own, and afterward we all cleaned it up. In the end, each child has a job, each child wants to be a part of the process beginning to end, and each takes pride their work. There is no coercion or bribes or rewards or punishments. It is a lovely time, pouring out slowly like honey, we laugh, we talk, we enjoy eachothers company.
I am saying that multi-tasking is NOT a skill. I say it's not a good thing at all. Take the time to do ONE thing at a time, not 2 or 3. Do each one, do it well, enjoy it. In a world of too much, too fast, just hop off that train and venture into a more relaxed state. Somedays I feel like everyone is running in an opposite direction, how can I possibly keep up? And the answer is so simple, just call your little ducklings back and waddle on your way. If you are running, they cannot keep up with you either!
At the end of the day, maybe not everything gets done, but I can be at peace that what we did get done, was done to completion and the time was spent to the fullest.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Is your backyard safe?
We've fenced our backyard for many reasons and one was for safety. With 4 kids under 6, we wanted them to have free run of an outdoor space to burn off energy and be with nature on an almost daily basis without the constant hovering of an adult. I am frequently pulling prickly weeds, moving bricks and blocks of wood that are possible tripping hazards and trying to remove many wasps nests that are in main play areas. I tend to leave some wild weeds and flowers growing for the kids to play with, make fairy homes, pick, smell, and to make our habitat more natural and less like a large only grass area. I welcome dandelions, clover and Queen Anne's Lace. We mow spirals and mazes in late summer when the Yellow Foxtail comes up.
Yesterday, while a friend and I were looking for my surprising small amount of plantain growing, I asked her about a lovely vine-like plant that is growing all along our fence. She informed me that it was of the Nightshade family. My tomato plants are in the near vicinity and I thought of course of those first and didn't give it another thought other than to repeat my mantra to the kids to never eat a berry without asking an adult. We have raspberries and blueberries and mulberries and cherry tomatoes that are all for the kids to eat at their discretion. All within an arms length of this Nightshade plant. It wasn't until I was somewhere within a half dreamy half awake state that the words floated into my mind..."Deadly Nightshade...Belladonna". Thankfully, this particular plant is not Belladonna but the closely related Woody Nightshade. Also poisonous, and medicinal, but can be deadly to children. I spent some time fraught with fear, my toddler has squished those berries in his fingers, I've had many friends with young children over and there in the "safe" backyard lurked a deadly, beautiful, plant with sweet berries taunting the children to taste.
Cicely Mary Barker's Nightshade Berry Fairy
"You see my berries, how they gleam and
glow,
Clear ruby-red, and green, and orange-
yellow;
Do they not tempt you, fairies, dangling so?"
The fairies shake their heads and answer "No!
You are a crafty fellow!"
"What, won't you try them! There is
naught to pay!
Why should you think my berries poisoned
things?
You fairies may look scared and fly away-
The children will believe me when I say
My fruit is fruit for kings!"
But all good fairies cry in anxious haste,
"O children, do not taste!"
Yesterday, while a friend and I were looking for my surprising small amount of plantain growing, I asked her about a lovely vine-like plant that is growing all along our fence. She informed me that it was of the Nightshade family. My tomato plants are in the near vicinity and I thought of course of those first and didn't give it another thought other than to repeat my mantra to the kids to never eat a berry without asking an adult. We have raspberries and blueberries and mulberries and cherry tomatoes that are all for the kids to eat at their discretion. All within an arms length of this Nightshade plant. It wasn't until I was somewhere within a half dreamy half awake state that the words floated into my mind..."Deadly Nightshade...Belladonna". Thankfully, this particular plant is not Belladonna but the closely related Woody Nightshade. Also poisonous, and medicinal, but can be deadly to children. I spent some time fraught with fear, my toddler has squished those berries in his fingers, I've had many friends with young children over and there in the "safe" backyard lurked a deadly, beautiful, plant with sweet berries taunting the children to taste.
"You see my berries, how they gleam and
glow,
Clear ruby-red, and green, and orange-
yellow;
Do they not tempt you, fairies, dangling so?"
The fairies shake their heads and answer "No!
You are a crafty fellow!"
"What, won't you try them! There is
naught to pay!
Why should you think my berries poisoned
things?
You fairies may look scared and fly away-
The children will believe me when I say
My fruit is fruit for kings!"
But all good fairies cry in anxious haste,
"O children, do not taste!"
Backyard Green Tea
My children all recently came down with a cold. As I was making my dinner menu for the following week, I looked up healthy foods for colds and came across a few ideas of making your own green tea from healthy items in your own yard.
This is our Green Tea, made from rose leaves and petals, raspberry leaves and dandelion leaves. Next time we are hoping to find some of the Plantain herb, to utilize all of its wonderful healing properties!
It was dubbed the "Feel Me Better Tea", steeped for 20 minutes in boiling water from our teakettle, mixed with a spoonful of raw honey and enjoyed immensely! It had a very earthy green taste, was sweet and chock full of zinc and vitamin C!
This is our Green Tea, made from rose leaves and petals, raspberry leaves and dandelion leaves. Next time we are hoping to find some of the Plantain herb, to utilize all of its wonderful healing properties!
It was dubbed the "Feel Me Better Tea", steeped for 20 minutes in boiling water from our teakettle, mixed with a spoonful of raw honey and enjoyed immensely! It had a very earthy green taste, was sweet and chock full of zinc and vitamin C!
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