Cherry Chocolate Scones

We welcomed February with some very delicious cherry-chocolate scones. I've been reading this highly informative book about chocolate by David Lebovitz, a long-time chef who worked at Chez Panisse for years and also trained in chocolate shops in Belgium and France. With a huge focus on using the best quality chocolate available, his recipes are sure to be divine. I'm looking forward to trying many of them this month, for it's February, a time for celebrating love and chocolate!

As if I really need an excuse to indulge in chocolate :)

Garlic Shrimp with Cashew Curry Sauce

I had no idea what I was going to make for dinner tonight, but I put shrimp in the refrigerator this morning to thaw, thankfully.

I needed something quick since I started cooking dinner around 7. This whole meal came together in less than 30 minutes and it was delicious. Rollin ate everything. The girls didn't care for the ginger in the carrot slaw because it was "spicy" but they liked everything else. Most of the recipe came from Martha Stewart Everyday Food cookbook with a few tweaks.


Garlic Shrimp

1 1/2 pounds peeled and deveined large shrimp
5 cloves garlic, chopped
4 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper

Salt and pepper the shrimp. Heat the olive oil and saute the garlic for a minute Add the shrimp (I used cooked shrimp) and just toss around in the olive oil and garlic until it is nice and warm. Remove from heat.

Curry Cashew Sauce

1 slice peeled fresh ginger
3/4 cup cashews
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1/4 cup cilantro leaves
1 Tablespoon brown sugar
1 Tablespoon curry powder
Salt and fresh ground pepper

In a food processor, pulse the ginger until finely chopped. Add the 3/4 cup cashews; process until smooth, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the yogurt, cilantro, sugar, curry paste, and curry powder;season with salt and pepper. Process until incorporated, 1-2 minutes, scraping down the sides as needed. I also added a bit of green curry paste at the end for more of a kick (I didn't have much curry powder).

Sesame Carrot Slaw
5 carrots, peeled and grated (I used the food processor)
2 Tablespoons sesame seeds (black sesame seeds are my favorite)
1 to 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 Tablespoon sesame oil
1 Tablespoon fresh ginger, grated
Honey to drizzle

Soba Noodles

My camera battery was dead, but I just served the garlic shrimp over the soba noodles with the green curry sauce on the side for dipping shrimp or mixing in the noodles. Then we had the carrot salad on the side. This may be one of my new favorites since it was so fresh and flavorful.

Indoor Play

It's that time of year. And it's not my favorite. The sun is shining off and on, thankfully, but it's winter and the days are short and I'm already looking longingly toward spring and summer. But for now, it's lots of inside play. I love to take pictures of the kids at play because their interests change so much from year that a photo really does speak volumes. Plus, how many more years will Rollin carry a purse?!

Sela, Nina, and Rollin each seem to focus in one one thing for several months. For Rollin, it is definitely his "packing" right now. And Nina is beginning to draw with her "learn to draw" books. She is also back into dressing up as a "queen." Which is apparently very different than a princess. Rollin is usually her pet, slave, or child. And Sela has caught the reading bug!

Nina and Rollin are having some great mornings together and do more and more pretend play all the time. Rollin is currently obsessed with building things and packing up every bag or suitcase he can find with a huge random assortment of toys, books and blocks. It takes forever to put it all away because there are items from every room in the house. This is my least favorite of his activities, but he always presents the bags to me with a big smile saying "Mama, I have a present for you!" He is so excited and though I smile on the outside, I cringe on the inside knowing I get to redistribute everything to it's proper place again, and again, and again. He packs the bags so full they are bursting at the seams. The past few days I've given up on separating his toys into bins every day because he just dumps them. Until we get his room set-up, which is in process, I figure it can just be a big toy box!

We're getting there...

I think Zig is nesting.

The kids come and go from every direction in this house, which is fine, but we have shoes, coats, and everything else plopped down at every door. And that's kind of a pain. And they track in lots of dirt. The Roomba has been a life saver, but it won't suck up a pair of shoes and put them in the closet. We were in definite need of one main drop-off spot.

Eric to the rescue! Zig penciled out a plan and Eric covered every wall in the garage with cubbies and built-ins. What would we do without him?! I can't tell you how excited this made Zig. He hauled all his shoes out there and keeps putting my purse out there on a hook. He is so happy to have a place to drop his shoes and hang his dirty work coats. The kids are doing a great job using their cubbies and there has been much less scrambling to find shoes, coats, and gloves when it's time to go. Slowly but surely we're finally getting settled and organized in this home.

Child Labor

We have tried several approaches to getting the kids to do better on their chores. They do well about half the time and are pretty pathetic the other half. This weekend I decided to write all the extra Saturday chores on a sheet of paper and let them initial and cross them off when they did them. And WOW! They got busy. Even Rollin was asking for more jobs so he could cross them off. After they finished everything, I took them to rent a movie. They worked hard and really appreciated their reward. I don't think they've ever been in a blockbuster so they were pretty surprised at all the movies!

My new best friend

In December while we were visiting with some of Zig's colleagues and their spouses at a holiday dinner, somehow we got on the topic of the Roomba. I've always wondered how well the robots work, but I came to the conclusion that it was probably another appliance that would just break down. But after hearing that every single couple at our table owned one and loved them, and yes even had names for them, guess what I was purchasing the next day! We have the ideal set-up for a Roomba with all hardwood and a mostly one level home, so I had hope. The kids were so excited...I think they thought it would end all their chores. No, it doesn't pick up toys or put away clothes! We finally pulled it out tonight and I think I have a new best friend. It's awesome and very smart...haha! It gets in really tight spots and is very thorough. I vaccuum every single day right now so if this works out, it will be a huge help! I'll keep you posted, but for now, so far so good!

Re-Defining Productive

If my house is a mess but I made 40 leashes for Rollin's animals, does that count for anything :)!!

The case of the missing eggs....

Over the past week, we started to get fewer eggs. Just as the girls were lining up their customers and getting their first orders, the chickens egg production began to decline. Then on Saturday Sela found an egg in a random spot in the yard. Not good given the fact that our yard is five acres and chickens laying in the yard would just not be a good trend. I guess this is free ranging gone bad!

I began to look around and watch the chickens a bit closer. One chicken had been staying rather close to the patio and was also quite vocal. She happened to move as I walked by and I caught a glimpse of green beneath her. When I took a closer look, I saw that she was sitting on 8 beautiful (frozen) eggs. We had to move her, toss the eggs, and put some rocks in her special spot. She was not happy and became even more vocal. But today we were back to 19 eggs so I guess the chickens are laying where they should be for now....we are definitely learning as we go :)

Sela and Nina delivered samples of the eggs to some of the neighbors last week along with the flyer we made together with all the details of what we feed the chickens, the kinds of eggs, and when the girls will deliver. We set Sela up with her own email account and she sends an email out each Friday to those who have expressed interest in buying eggs. This was the first week she did it and she got six enthusiastic replies. She and Nina are looking forward to their first official delivery on Monday afternoon.

Refried Beans with Cinnamon and Cloves

This recipe is a fairly new favorite. It's great on those days where I don't want to go to the store, but we have "nothing" to eat. I found the recipe in "The Splendid Table's How to Eat Supper." A wonderful book and good reading too. It seems funny to have a refried bean recipe, but the ones from the can though good in a pinch, leave much to be desired! And, these beans make the best veggie burritos! We had them last night with spelt tortillas, the beans, cheese, red peppers and spinach. Rollin devoured his, which was actually a surprise to me. I would have predicted this wouldn't be his favorite and I was very wrong. A nice reminder that it's always good to keep trying with kids.
























Olive oil
1 large onion, chopped into 1/4 inch dice
Salt and fresh-ground black pepper
4 garlic cloves, fine chopped
1 fresh jalapeno, seeded and fine chopped (lazy me, I used green tabasco again)
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves (or less if you don't like cloves)
One 14-ounce can chopped tomatoes (I always use Muir Glen fire roasted)
Two 15 ounce cans red kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 1/2 cups water
2 Tablespoons butter

Saute the onions with salt and pepper until they begin to soften, about 3 minutes. Add the garlic, jalapeno, cinnamon, and cloves and cook until the mix is fragrant, about a minute. Add the tomatoes, crushing them as they go into the pan. Saute for another minute. Stir in the beans and water. Bring to a simmer, crushing the beans with a potato masher as they cook and scraping the bottom of the pan as the beans begin to thicken. Simmer until beans are fairly thick. Blend in the butter, and taste for seasoning just before serving.

*I always add more spices than called for, but do not overdo the cloves on this recipe. It ruins the beans, just trust me. Also, you can use whole or chopped tomatoes, you just want to mash them really good. The beans don't get totally smooth, but if you want smooth, I'm sure you could whip them in the food processor real quick.

Friday at home.

It's Friday.
It's sunny and the kids are outside.
Dressed like little orphans.
Rollin in pink.
Making mudcakes for sale.
Tossing some sand at each other
But mostly getting along.
It's great to be a kid!

Checking In with Santa.....

Sela has really been working on her relationship with Santa. I haven't posted about Christmas yet, but Sela and Nina sent Santa a note with their cookies begging for a golden retriever puppy. Santa wrote them a lovely long letter back telling them that he looked around the property and saw they have lots of animals and one puppy that needs their attention right now. He said he would watch how they take care of all of the animals they already have this year and he would think about another puppy next year.

This morning I found this note on the table. Sela must have written it while she was eating breakfast.

Dear Santa,
from Sela

Thank you for the presents you gave me. I really liked the invisible diary. I was wondring how I was doing with my animals and I'm sorry about how the chickens made the two girls at Nina's party cry. I hope I'm being a good girl this year and I thought last year you were rite about waiting for this year to get a golden retrever.

from Sela rite back Pleas!

Nina's long awaited FRIEND PARTY!

Nina had her long awaited "friend party" today. Her birthday is on December 28th, not a very convenient time for parties. She has always had very fun family parties and has the good fortune of usually being surrounded by extended family on her birthday. But Nina is a little social butterfly and this year a party with friends is something she was desperately looking forward to.

We decided to have a tea party. Tea parties are such fun! The food is dainty and tidy, and of course, pretty. We made everything small and bite sized. We cut the peanut butter and honey sandwiches out of our smallest flower cookie cutter. We made some little turkey ones as well. One of Nina's best little buddies has some pretty serious food allergies so we bought some cupcakes from our health food store that we knew she could have. They are super yummy too. The rest of our menu included tea cookies, ginger cookies, carrots, and pirate's booty. And mints. And mini meringues. I think that's all :)

Sela helped out a ton with this party. She and I did most of the prep work together. We painted the picture frames that the girls would decorate on Sunday night when Nina was sleeping. Then Sela devised a photo scavenger hunt in the house which turned out to be a huge hit. It ended with the girls finding a big treasure box full of stickers (a shoe box Sela had decorated). The girls loved it! They decorated their frames and I printed off the pictures I had taken when they arrived so they were able to take their picture frames home with a picture of themselves and Nina. The girls are all so adorable and very kind to each other. We had so much fun focusing on Nina and making her day special. The party was so simple and low key that I think I had as much fun as they did!

Finally, and best of all, it was a sunny day. Full sun beaming in through all the windows. So after we finished up inside everyone headed outside to chase the chickens and swing.

Happy Birthday, Nina!

Caribbean Ginger Salmon

We revisited an old favorite this week, a simple meal we all love. Very healthy and fresh. Instead of using quinoa today I made a middle eastern flavored rice pilaf and it was delicious! It looks a bit involved at first glance but it's not. You make a simple marinade for the salmon, another simple one for the cucumbers and the rice is basically just stir frying rice with a couple veggie and spices. The whole combination is fantastic.















Caribbean Ginger Salmon
* 1 tablespoon tamari or shoyu
* 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
* 1 tablespoon grated gingerroot
* 3 tablespoons lime juice
* 1 teaspoon agave nectar (or sugar)
* 3-4 cloves garlic, minced
* 1 pound salmon fillet

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Put tamari, 2 tablespoons of oil, gingerroot, lime juice, agave, and garlic in a small mixing bowl; whisk together. Place fish in a shallow pan and pour marinade over the top. Marinate 1/2-1 hour in the refrigerator.

Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a skillet. Place fish in pan skin side up, saute one minute, then turn and saute second side one minute. Leave fish in the skillet and place in oven. Bake until fish is almost cooked through (7-10 minutes). Remove skillet from oven and place on stove. Add remaining marinade and deglaze the pan, letting the liquid reduce some before serving.

Cucumber Relish

* 1/2 medium cucumber, peeled, seeded, and diced
* 1 serrano or jalapeno chile, minced
* 1 scallion, minced
* 1/4 white onion, diced
* 1/4 cup chopped cilantro
* 1 tablespoon lime juice
* 1 tablespoon brown rice vinegar
* 1 teaspoon sea salt
* 2 tablespoons sugar

Place all ingredients in a bowl. Gently stir until salt and sugar have dissolved. Allow mixture to marinate at least 20 minutes. Can be made in advance and stored in a sealed container in the refrigerator. (I didn't have a jalapeno today so I just put a few drops of the green Tabasco sauce I had.)

Rice Pilaf
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
1 small onion, finely diced (about 3/4 cup)
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
Pinch ground cinnamon
1/4 cup dried currants
3 cups basmati rice, cooked
1/3 cup chopped fresh mint
1/4 cup slivered almonds, toasted
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice; more to taste

Saute onion in olive oil and butter. Add spices and saute a bit more. Add cooked rice (I keep my rice on the very moist side for this dish), and currants. Mix. Finish by adding the mint (optional), almonds, and lemon juice.

In Sela's words....

A Dog Trainer to the Rescue!
I used to wish I had a dog. All the time. But soon we got one. It was called a kangel dog. He jumped on everyone. He jumped on Hanna, Mali, Treela, and ME. One day he made Treela scream so loud. Now when anybody comes up he will jump on them. He even jumped on the mail man. Then nobody could take it. I couldn't take it. My friends couldn't take it. My sister, brother and my mom couldn't take it. But my Dad could take it! Soon everybody was mad. Then we got a dog trainer. I was so happy. My dog could sit. No jumping. He could fetch and whatever you threw. He could do a whole bunch of things. My outside dog now feels like my best friend and also feels like a new dog.

THE END















Christmas
Christmas comes along
After November shares its song.
Everybody puts up a tree,
Everybody who celebrates Christmas, I mean.
I put up my stocking and leave some treats
Because St. Nicholas I just might meet.
With toys in his arms he might blink at me.
But the only thing I hope is that he eats the treats from me!

Bookclub, Reflections, and "The Mitten."

It's been a busy week and looking ahead I'm relieved to see a pretty open calendar next week. I'll try to keep this brief as one of my blogging goals this year is to be more concise!

I had fun preparing for book club this week. I tried a couple new recipes. My favorite was the citrus lavender scones, although they were best straight from the oven. I also made ginger cookies, turkey tea sandwiches, curried egg salad sandwiches, dark chocolate coconut clusters, raspberry tea cookies, and lemon ginger tea. The book I chose was "The Elegance of the Hedgehog." It's not a long book, but one that you have to read slowly to grasp the language and meaning. The book was beautifully written and really caused me to think (and look for a dictionary) as I read.



















Zig took the kids to see Marley and Me during book club and when they got home Rollin ran into the living room and announced, "the dog died and Daddy cried." It was pretty cute. They all loved the movie even though the ending is obviously very sad. Sela and Nina were excited to see that there were lots of leftovers and enjoyed a breakfast of scones and fruit the next morning before heading off to school.

Sela entered Reflections again this year. Her entries were in the visual arts category (2) and also Literature (1). She spent hours and hours working on her story. Her literature entry and one of the visual arts entry were chosen to move on to the district competition. Last night we went to see her entries on display as well as all the other district entries and we found out that her literature entry was chosen to go on to the State competition! Sela was absolutely thrilled. She got a big gold medal and she has been holding onto it ever since. It was great to see her recognized for her writing again this year. She spends so much time writing and illustrating stories so to be recognized in this way really made her happy.
























Nina's preschool class put on a little play of at Jan Brett's "The Mitten." We love the Jan Brett stories and have read "The Mitten" many times at home. Nina was the little hedgehog and said her parts loud and clear. All the children are so cute and though lately Nina has started to really look forward to Kindergarten, she loves her preschool days and especially Mrs. Judy.

Meal Plan

Monday: Tortilla Soup, Avocado Salsa, Pineapple
Tuesday: Sushi Bowls
Wednesday: Mushroom Ricotta Toast, Salad
Thursday: Book Club (Kids eat out with Zig)
Friday: Homemade Pizza, Salad
Saturday: Coconut Curry, Rice
Sunday: Caribbean Ginger Salmon, Quinoa, Cucumber Salad

The Breakfast Plan

In an effort to make the mornings go smoothly, I decided to pick five favorite breakfasts to rotate. I chose meals I know the kids love and will eat without complaint or delay (important in the morning). I did this last year for a month or so before the summer and it worked well. I can't in good conscience send the kids off, especially Sela, with cold cereal, but I do want to simplify the morning routine a bit. I will keep the schedule for a month and then see if the kids want to make changes for the following month. On the weekends I will have more time to be creative and a bit more elaborate.

Monday: Creamy Wheat, Greek yogurt, berries
Tuesday: Spelt English Muffins, scrambled eggs
Wednesday: Whole Grain French Toast, smokies
Thursday: Oatmeal (the rye, barley, oat blend), greek yogurt, fruit
Friday: Omelets, fruit

Time for tea....

Today Nina and I had a little mother-daughter date with our new neighbors, Margie and Sydney. We went to a wonderful little tea house in Redmond. It was very fancy and frilly. The owner waited on us and she was absolutely adorable and very attentive to the girls. Nina and Sydney enjoyed all their scones and cookies and it was fun to get to know Margie better. She works at Microsoft so it takes some planning to get together but it's always enjoyable and they are a great family.

A truck to match my dining chairs!

We saw this truck in Kerrville while John, Erin, Zig and I were driving to Travis' open house. It was so cool! Zig and John inspected it for awhile and we even called to get some more information. I think Zig really wanted it. I told him I would drive it (if he fixed it to where it wasn't so low to the ground) Anyway, it turned out it wasn't 4-wheel drive and was quite overpriced so we had to pass it up. It was fun while it lasted!