sunday best

Getting dressed for church has to be top on Rollin's list of things he strongly, passionately dislikes. He doesn't like the layers, buttons, collars, all that. And really, I dress him quite comfortably. I would never put him in a tie or suit...he really doesn't know how good he has it!  He can often be seen disrobing as he runs to the car after church. He does get hot, but that is because he tries to do gymnastics in the halls. In the summer, he does get to wear nice shorts, but unfortunately summer is just 2 weeks long :) I love this boy to pieces, and I love to see him all dressed up and looking handsome, even if it's just for 3 hours and 1 minute on Sundays.

paper mache panda

I wanted to post some pictures of Sela's paper mache project. She won't be keeping it since she chose to make it for her friend, Morgan, for her 10th birthday. Morgan loves pandas so Sela chose to make a panda. Nina did the same project and made a momma and baby hummingbird on a rock, but her project is not finished yet. They begin the project by deciding on the animal, looking at pictures of the animal and studying how to form the body. Then they make the body out of foil, then wrap the foil in tape, and finally paper mache the animal (at least this is what the girls tell me). When I picked Sela up on Wednesday night from art class, she was disappointed (understatement!) to discover that her panda wouldn't be dry in time for the birthday party. It only had 2 days to both dry and be painted. If you paint paper mache before it's dry it can mold from the inside...not good, especially for a gift. Luckily, Suzy, Sela's art teacher, was so kind to put it in front of their wood stove and surprisingly it ended up drying overnight so we were able to pick it up and paint it at home. Sela was so very excited when she came home Thursday and I had the dry panda! She painted it upstairs in the barn while I did yoga downstairs on Thursday night. We were up pretty late, but the panda is darling and Sela was so excited to present it to Morgan at her party.

chop chop

Sometimes I forget how much I love a good chopped salad. I won't call it a resolution, but one of my goals this year (and every year) is not to let fresh veggies go to waste. For some reason, my potatoes almost always sprout before I use them, so I've been making hash browns more often. The kids love them and I just shred them in the food processor. I pretty much eat greens most mornings with eggs and fruit so that has mostly cured the greens sticking around till past their prime, but often it's when I have one of this or that that the veggies end up in the compost bin. Luckily our veggies never go totally to waste because of the chickens. But anyway, I was reading the best of Cooks Illustrated this week and there was a write-up on chopped salads and that was just the inspiration I needed. I promptly got up, went to the fridge and made me a chopped salad with loner veggies that needed friends. The dressing is just red wine vinegar, garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper. I almost always have Niscoise olives in the fridge, but I struck out this time. The kids were happy no olives showed up, but they would have made this even more flavorful..for me, that is.

What a difference a year makes!

Breakfast, December 2010:





Breakfast, January 2011


It was fun while it lasted :)

Mini Chocolate Torta Caprese

Oh it's been such a wonderful vacation. Snow and sun, and lots of downtime. We're all feeling relaxed and renewed and ready for a new year. I did lots of cooking, reading, and playing over the Christmas break and this is one of my new favorite dessert recipes. My holiday menus are often a mix of the tried and true plus a few new dishes. I get bored with the same thing every year so I always tweak things a bit. Plus, I read way too many cookbooks so I'm always crafting menus in my head.

These were supposed to be our Christmas dessert, but I crashed after dinner (Christmas Eve was a late one for Mrs. Claus) and postponed dessert to the following day. The kids were already plenty sugared up as they had been devouring their stocking sweets throughout the day. We ate these warm with a little whipped cream and maybe salted caramel, but they are better cool and by themselves. At least I think so. They are so light and fluffy and delicious.

p.s. Darcie, they are gluten free :)




Mini Chocolate Torta Caprese
Recipe by: Lidia Bastianich of Felidia and Del Posto

Butter and flour for muffin pans
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
4 eggs, separated
8 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips, melted
1 cup almond flour


Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Butter and flour the pans. Beat the butter in a food mixer with 1/2 cup sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add egg yolks, one at a time; beat well. Stir in chocolate and almond flour; combine well. Whisk the egg whites with the remaining sugar until very soft peaks form. Fold egg whites into chocolate mixture. Ladle about 1/3 cup of batter into each pan. Bake for about 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack before removing from pans. Makes 18 individual cakes.

Snowy Pipeline Hike

What would a holiday with Zig home be without the capture and subsequent release of a wild animal? We've been having some fun playing with the video function on our new Windows Phone 7 mobile phones (so long iphone) and windows movie maker. Zig has made the kids several movies from footage he's captured over the holiday break. I don't expect anyone to watch the whole thing, but it you want to see a baby mole, watch the first minute. If you want to see Nina freak out...stick around till about the middle ;)

Nina beana's (real) 7th birthday!

I remember Nina's birth well. She was my tiniest baby and though she has grown in height this year, she is still as light as a feather. She must have hollow bones. We were talking about how dogs resemble owners the other day...why does this topic always come up at our house? Nina's favorite dog is a chihuahua. She got one for Christmas. It wags its tail and barks and was her second favorite Christmas gift after her locket with Zig and I inside. Chi Chi wore one of the American girl doll's dresses to church with us on Sunday. Nina loves this dog already. And really, a chihuahua is so Nina. It's wiry, spunky, quick, jumpy, and a ball of nervous and excited energy. Chihuahuas are often seen with sparkly accessories, rhinestone dog tags, and fancy little sweaters. Nina is all that and some more. I also think of chihuahuas as a little self-interested, and I mean that in the kindest way. Nina is often worried about getting her fair share of time, love, special outings, gifts, chocolate, etc. She is a middle child for sure.She is the spark and twinkle in our family. We love you, Nina! Life would be dull without you!


Nina and ChiChi


7 years old!! She rushed to put on her dangle earrings when she heard we were going out to dinner.

Wait, is this ALL for ME?
 
Would you kiss that face??

Nina had lots of loves for everyone.

Zig's mom, Tina.

Happy Birthday, little bean!