Valentine making, crafting, needle felting, school parties and a lovely tea party

For the past two weeks, the girls have been so busy with Valentine's Day preparations. With the cold nights and early sunset coupled with no distraction from television, our evenings are usually spent around the kitchen table(which is currently my desk until we move our furniture over). Many personalized valentines were created with lots of glue, paper, stickers, modge podge, glitter, magazine clippings, etc. I always feel happy inside when I see the girls engaged in a project and being creative.

Sela was beaming on Friday afternoon as she told me about how she was called out of class to the gym by Mr. Hogle, the PE teacher. She had made him a button with all kinds of fun words describing him. He wanted to thank her (for his only handmade valentine) and did so in front of an entire class of, gasp, older kids. When she came in he thanked her and they all clapped for her. To say that it made her week is an understatement. Thank goodness for thoughtful teachers.

Darcie's girls invited us to a Sweetheart Valentine Tea Party on Wednesday. Oooh, we love tea parties! I loved catching up with Darcie...we talked at length about our shared desires for the simple, unhurried life. The girls played so well and so long. At the end of dinner, Rollin and Ceci had a little salad eating party of their own.




Nina had a Valentine's Day party at preschool. I volunteered to help and the stars must have been aligned, because Rollin slept in the car for the entire party. That was my plan, but typically, things don't work out so perfectly. So I was able to focus on Nina and her little friends for an hour. I enjoyed that very much.
























I went to Seattle this week with my friend Suzanne who is teaching me lots about using roving to create lovely felt objects. We did some shopping for our art class on Friday. We taught the kids to make felt animals using roving (unspun wool). Suzanne read them a story about the whole process that takes place to create wool, starting with shearing the sheep. Then each of the children made their own animal by making the roving into felt, a process using water and soap and lots of rubbing. The kids seem to really enjoy it, and after we came home, we started making our own little farm. I embellished the animals by needle felting, which I showed Sela how to do. We got a little carried away so at 10:30 pm, the house was quite messy, there was roving all over the place, but we had the beginnings of a nice little farm of felted animlals. So fun.


Saturday was sunny and we all worked in the yard for the bulk of the day. It was a great feeling to have cool air and sun and just to work outside. We we made a lot of progress. We were basically just trimming and raking and cutting dead plants back to make room for new growth. Little buds and flowers are coming up everywhere. Spring is within our grasp, and I am so excited to see what types of beautiful plants will be popping up all over.

Menu

I planned my menu for the week, but never quite got it posted. A few things changed, so this is what we actually ended up eating this week. I'm just happy to have meals on the table during this marathon week. For Valentine's Day I had a whole festive menu planned, but we ended up spending way too much time driving around trying to find white shoe polish to "decorate" Zig's car. Everyone was starving when we finally arrived home so I had to rely on something easy and fast. Things have been going full speed around here and I am wiped out. Looking forward to our mid-winter weeklong break this week. No school, no where to be, no lunches to pack, and no meetings or volunteering. And, a little sun in the forecast. Ahhhhhh.

I am horrible at coming up with meals to take others, and there are many times I really want to help someone out. Finding a dish that would appeal to most, as well as be easy to transport for some reason always seems like a headache. I don't cook much meat and other people don't eat so many vegetables, so most of my easy one dish meals won't always work for other families. Anyway, I had families I really wanted to cook for this week and I wanted to make something kid-friendly and familiar. I used a recipe from a friend for the Tortellini soup and both families said they loved it and everyone ate it. One of the gals runs a daycare and somehow shared it with all the kids, who also loved it. So, I think I found my new "go-to" meal.

Creamy Tomato Tortellini Soup
10 cups chicken broth
28 ounce can diced tomatoes with juice
6oz can tomato paste
1/3 cup flour
1/3 cup butter
1 1/2 teaspoon oregano
1 pint heavy cream
1 1/2 lbs three cheese tortellini, cooked

Combine chicken broth, basil, oregano, tomatoes, past and puree in a pan. In a separate pan, make a roux by melting butter on medium heat and adding flour. Once it turns lumpy, add it to the soup. COmbine soup and roux until thick. Add tortellini. Add cream at the end.

As with most recipes, I use them as a guide. I modified this each time I made it. I combined the broth and tomatoes in a stockpot and with an immersion blender, loosly pureed the mixture so there wouldn't be tomato chunks. Then I added spices, probably more than listed on the recipe, and the roux. Next I added the tortellini and maybe about a half cup of half and half. I added a bit of pesto at the end one of the days I made it. But, it was plenty creamy and tasty without so much cream. I do love cream, but it wasn't needed in such a large quantity here.


Monday: Creamy Tortellini Tomato Soup, mixed green salad, parmesan crostini
Tuesday: See Monday :)
Wednesday: Dinner at Darcie's (Delicious Shephards Pie)
Thursday: Mushroom and Ricotta Toasts, Green salad, grapefruit
Friday: Tacos (I was feeling like we already had so much cheese with the soup so I suspended the pizza this week)
Saturday: Quinoa Rice Bowls (quinoa, caribbean black beans, RoastedButternut Squash, potatoes and parsnips and cheese sprinkled on top)
Sunday: Hominy White Bean Chili, cornbread, green salad, passion fruit smoothies (we're starting to get antsy for spring, hence the tropical drink)

Busy Bees

We've been busy as can be around here. I was without my computer and phone for the last few days. We've been working hard on Valentine's projects, baking, cleaning and organizing. The girls want to make Valentine's for everyone. Sela's latest project was making pins for her teacher, Mrs. Struthers, and PE teacher, Mr. Hogle.

We finished Nina's memory game valentines and they turned out so cute. We've already played the game several times with Nina. She cries if she doesn't get the match for her favorite buddy, Ravi.

On Monday I cleaned out the entire garage, loaded the car full with stuff to donate, made dinner for us and another family, caught up on thank you notes, dropped off the stuff, took Nina to find a bathing suit for our trip to Granny's, decopaged a little table for the playroom, cleaned the playroom, planned my week, did most of the laundry (is it ever all done?), read the ensign, and finally went to bed at midnight. It's scary what I might get done if I had no computer and phone.

Today we did some baking. We made Valentine's ginger cookies and I made a huge batch of granola. Zig has been looking forward to having some fresh homemade granola. I made a bunch back in December when I was testing out recipes but then I've been a slacker since then. Nothing in the stores tastes better than homemade. I actually don't even like granola unless it is homemade. So, I got to it tonight and we have plenty for awhile.


The rest of this week is pretty busy with school stuff. I am in charge of the auction project for Sela's class and we have art docent this week as well. And then I was called to be song leader in the primary at church. Sigh. It's a lot of work, well at least for now, because I have no clue what I'm doing. I am trying to be excited, but I'm just not....yet. I'm overwhelmed with it, but I know it will get better and the kids are really great.

This week's menu

It's already Wednesday...the weeks fly by.

Monday: Lentil Sloppy Joes (leftovers)
Tuesday: Baked Potatoes, Broccoli, Salad
Wednesday: Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup
Thursday: Roasted Red Pepper, Mushroom Veggie Quiche, salad
FRiday: Homemade Pizza
Saturday: Mushroom Ricotta Toasts, salad
Sunday: Salmon Burgers, roasted butternut squash, salad

Valentine Factory

Tonight we had an all girls Family Home Evening. The fun began once little Rollie went to sleep. We made Valentines for 3 hours and enjoyed some super delish ice cream sundaes. I helped Sela with a few of hers because she has to make 25. Actually, I helped her because it was so much fun! Nina made a few cards for her friends and did a little stamping. Mostly she entertained us with her jokes and silliness. We are going to make little memory games for each of Nina's classmates....I just need a few more items before we can begin those.

The Tiniest Jockey

Cheese Making with Sela

Sela and I got busy in our kitchen lab this weekend and tried to make cheese. In one of my new cookbooks (which I love), How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, there is a wonderful little passage about making fresh cheese. I was reading the cookbook in bed one night and started talking to Sela about making cheese. Mark Bittman, the author said even your first attempt will be better than anything you can buy in the store. That definitely piqued my interest. Sela was very excited. Raw milk is said to have a better flavor than pasturized milk. I don't drink milk, but I went on a hunt for the elusive bottle of raw milk. Most stores don't carry raw milk, but we found it at Whole Foods. I was quite surprised to find it cost $12.99 a gallon. Seems like it would be simpler to produce raw milk, thus less expensive, but what do I know. I wanted good cheese though, so raw milk we did buy!

The process of making cheese was seriously fun! Very, very simple. Sela did most every bit, except pouring the hot milk into the cheesecloth covered colander. I think she might use this for her science project this year. The one mistake we made was not adding enough salt. The cookbooks said salt optional, so I put a pinch in, but it needed more. It still tastes wonderful for our first attempt and being able to eat our own homemade cheese is just soooo Little House on the Prairie!

The first step is boiling raw milk until the bubbles come up the side.
The buttermilk is added and Sela vigorously stirred.
The curds and whey begin to separate
The colander is lined with cheesecloth
The hot milk mixture is poured into the colander. Whey drains out, curds remain.
Sela squeezing the liquid out of the cheese.
Twisting the cheesecloth squeezes more liquid out and forms a ball.
Then, the cheese hangs suspended in the air for an hour to set.
Off comes the cheesecloth.
Fresh Cheese!
Let's try it on pizza.
We mixed the fresh cheese with some other grated cheeses.
It passed the test!