Lentil Soup

Posted this last year, and I'm posting it again.  Because you need it.

Lentil Soup

i grew up on this soup. it's surprisingly delicious. it has become a "metaphor for life" in our home.

1/4 lb bacon sliced

2 med. onions chopped

4 large carrots, grated or chopped small

1 pkg (16 oz) lentils

2 quarts water

1 c. sliced celery

1 large potato, grated

2 1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1/2 tsp dry thyme

2 bay leaves

2 tbsp lemon juice

leftover chopped ham (i used 3 ham steaks) or 1 can spam. yes, you read that right. i have never actually been able to but spam in it myself, although i grew up on it with spam in it and loved it. i think sausage in it would be deelicious, too.

wash beans and soak until plump (overnight). In large pot, saute bacon , add onions and carrots and saute until onions are golden. add lentils, water, celery, potato and seasonings. simmer until tender (2-3 hours) take out bay leaves, add lemon juice and meat. 

i like to eat it with saltine crackers.

cute x 4

these boys are so adorable, i just had to share...

Halloween!

I love Halloween. I love it for a lot of reasons, but one of my favorite reasons is the costumes!And now I have all these cute little people I get to dress up. Since Dan and I only make boys, Halloween is really my one chance a year to get to sew for them, so I usually make all their costumes. We bought George's this year, but I made everyone else's. Here is a photo gallery of the Halloween fun.

ben and henry about to go trick or treating.

the back of ben's "night fury" costume. (the night fury is a dragon from the movie "how to train your dragon") in the movie, the night fury gets hurt and one of the characters builds him a new piece of his tail. ben was very specific and told me he wanted to be the night fury BEFORE he gets hurt.

top view of his "head"

beware the night fury!

my little astronaut. 

all my boys! sam slept through halloween completely so never dressed up at all! he was going to wear henry's dragon costume from 2 years ago. he woke up just in time to eat candy with the boys, so all things considered, i think he's still pretty sure halloween was one of the greatest days of his life.

henry taking his hood off..

henry sharing candy with sam... and you can actually see his tail in this picture..

hope you had a happy halloween!!!

packing packing packing

the way we road trip is to hop around from place to place, so we're in and out of hotel rooms the whole time, almost every night.

people have often asked me how i pack up for a road trip. well here's how i do it:


 i pack by day, not by person. our whole family's clothes for each day will fit in a reuseable grocery bag. so for each day when we go to a hotel, all we bring in is one bag of clothes, then a separate bag of bathroom stuff, and a new addition this year is a bag of underwear and jammies for the boys. the bathroom bag and undies bag come in to the hotel with us every day, then whichever day's bag comes, too. so only three bags come in with us instead of 6. we have found it's so much easier than bringing a separate suitcase for each person and having to lug them all in every day.  my favorite part about this system is it solves the age old problem of what to do with your dirty clothes. when you bring a bag in for the night, you get dressed in the morning in those clean clothes, then fill the bag with your dirty clothes from the previous day. then you just put the bag back in its spot in the car and forget about it until you get home :)

*we have nowhere to stay where we could do wash, so i pack enough clothes for everyone to have one outfit every day. there is also a "backup" bag in case of.... anything :). if you are staying with family or somewhere you can wash clothes, just bring 1/2 or 1/3 of the clothes you need, then wash and repack them.






label each bag by day or date. george made these handy labels for us. we just stapled them onto the bags.

 i used to pack undies with each outfit, but that got complicated (do you even need to ask?), so they ended up in a separate bag :). the boys will wear each set of jammies for two nights each (hopefully (: ).

ben and george made labels for each boy's jammie bag.

so that's the gist of it. i put the whole line of bags in order across the back of the car (and yes, they all fit). any extra items (packnplay, stroller, swim bag) just fit across the top or along the front. the bags are a uniform size and malleable, so they're super easy to fit in the car.  voila!

happy trails!


oh and i just realized this is my 100th post.  just noticed that. maybe i'll send something to everyone who leaves a comment or something. too bad it's not a more exciting post :)

Haircut for sam

here is the most recent picture or my little curly top... oooh he is beautiful. so this is before:



and after. i am pretty proud of myself. he got to keep most of his curls, but hopefully people will stop asking me about "her." :)

3-2-1 LIFT OFF!

this last weekend i took our 2 big boys to go see the space shuttle launch. it was awesome in a million different ways, and we had the time of our lives. you can check out our pictures here:

https://picasaweb.google.com/mzprince/20115?authkey=Gv1sRgCK7b8eq3yvSVcA#

CSA

This is a page from Alice Waters' cookbook "The Art of Simple Food." She is one of the foremost proponents of the "real food" movement. Consider this the ten commandments.

In trying to live in accordance with these commandments I recently started participating in what's called a CSA. It stands for Community Supported Agriculture. Basically there's a farm up the road from us and we pay them a certain amount of money and every week they deliver vegetables and meats to a pickup location near us. Every delivery is full of surprises, from beets to turnips, and it's kind of fun trying to come up with ways to eat these vegetables!! (after I figure out what they are, of course... which is sometimes entertaining in itself..."it's a turnip!... no, it's a radish!").

So this afternoon after I picked up my delivery and mulled over the question of how exactly to eat THAT MUCH kale, I turned to Alice Waters for support. Luckily her cookbook has an ingredient index in the back, so I turned straight to kale and found a little gem of a recipe. This one is truly delicious, and the whole family was asking for seconds, thirds, fourths..... George even told me when I took the lid off the soup that, "it really looks quite beautiful."

The best part is, the ONLY thing that wasn't from the farm was the chicken broth. So my fellow CSA friends, give it a try. DEEEELICIOUS!!

I'm typing it as is from the cookbook... I did the "variation" with the sausage from the CSA. SO SO GOOD.

Curly Kale and Potato Soup

Remove the tough stems from the leaves of

1 large bunch Kale

Wash, drain well, and coarsely chop.
Heat in a heavy soup pot:

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil.

Add:

2 onions sliced thin

Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until soft, tender and slightly browned, about 12 minutes.
While the onions are cooking, peel, cut in half, and cut into 1/4 inch slices:

1 Pound Potatoes

When the onions are cooked, stir in:

4 cloves garlic, chopped

Cook the garlic for a couple minutes, then add the potatoes and chopped kale. Stir, then add:

a large pinch of salt

Cookfor 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Pour in:

6 cups chicken broth

Raise the heat, bring to a boil, then immediately reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for 30 minutes, or until the kale and potatoes are tender. Taste the soup and add more salt if necessary. Serve hot and garnish each serving with:

Extra virgin olive oil
Parmesan or other hard cheese, freshly grated.

Variations:

-Slice 1 pound linquica, chorizo, or a spicy garlic sausage. Brown in the oil before adding the onions, remove when brown. Add to the soup with the kale.

-garnish with croutons. cut bread into 1/2 inch cubes, toss with olive oil and salt and bake until golden brown in a 350 oven, about 12 minutes.

-add 1 1/2 cups cooked white beans 10 minutes before soup is finished.

ENJOY!!!

journal entry

i was reading through some old journals today and i thought this passage was particularly interesting:

june 8, 2007.

... i've been feeling like it's time to think about baby #3. Strangely enough i feel as though there are little spirits ready and waiting for me. i'm excited to meet them. i really feel like i'll have 4 boys in a row, but that may be because i have only had boys. but i feel like henry and sam are waiting to come. almost like i know them already. that all sounds very weird to me, but it's how i've been feeling.



funny, huh? and now they're all here. weird!

my big Valentine

i know it would embarrass dan like crazy if i got all mushy about how much i like him. so i won't. but let's just say i think he's pretty awesome and that i have really good taste in men. the end.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!

my little Valentines

i am one lucky girl. i have a house full of handsome men who adore me :). and the best part? i am so crazy in love with them i can barely take it. i would have never in a million years pictured that i would only have boys, and never in a million-and-one years imagined that i would love being a "boy mom" so much. these little guys teach me so much, and on this valentine's day i want to give a little shout out to each of my little valentine's.

these little men teach me:


G- compassion for others and the ability to look around and notice and act on what would make someone else's life better.

B- confidence to do anything you think you can do.

H- whatever you do, do it with gusto.

S- serene acceptance of life... with a smile.



being a mom is a hard job. i think i had no idea how hard. but i feel so lucky to get to be the mom of these little guys. so, so lucky.


happy valentine's day to you and your valentines!!

Secrets

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

A couple more pictures

i added some more pictures to flickr today. check them out. click here.

morning glory muffins

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/4 c white sugar
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups grated carrots
1 apple cored, peeled and cut into little pieces
1 cup raisins

1 egg
2 egg whites
1/2 cup apple butter
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1tbsp vanilla extract


2 tbsp chopped walnuts
2 tbsp wheat germ
(1 tbsp sugar)


Preheat oven to 375. Place muffins cups in muffin pan. In large bowl mix together the first group of ingredients. In a medium bowl whisk together the second group. Stir in apple butter mixture until just moistened. Spoon batter into muffin cups, filling them 3/4 full. In a small bowl combine walnuts and wheat germ (and I added sugar), sprinkle over muffin tops.

bake at 375 for 15-20 minutes (mine took more than 20 in a convection oven, so go more toward 20).

everyone loved them. next time i might add flax seeds to the batter, too...

Clean food

i got several new cookbooks for christmas and i've been cooking a lot out of one called "clean food." i am still forming my opinions on this cookbook, but a few thoughts on it before i go on...

1. this is no beginner's cookbook. you need to already be committed to really nourishing your family, not just feeding them. if you're not, you will take one look at the recipes and give up. it has a lot of hard to find ingredients and things you've just plain never heard of.

2. it is organized seasonally, which is fabulous. that way you can actually cook with things that are grown locally, or at least not too far away :)

3. i fully subscribe to the philosophy of training your taste buds not to need so much salt, sugar, etc. but to learn to truly appreciate the taste of beautiful, natural food. even still, i've had to slightly "fix" a few of these recipes so far (e.g adding greek seasoning or a dipping sauce). some have been just a little bland. having said that, there are also some recipes in here that are satisfying on every level: extremely healthy and extremely tasty.

anyways, here is what we had for dinner last night, all from the clean food cookbook. it was a homerun. even the kids loved it.

homemade  pomegranate vinaigrette  

atop

winter salad

6 cups romaine lettuce

2 d'anjou pears

seeds from 1/2 pomegranate

topped with

sugared walnuts

1 Tbsp maple syrup

1 Tbsp walnut oil

1 Tbsp maple sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

2 cups walnuts

preheat oven to 350. in medium bowl combine syrup, oil, sugar, cinnamon. add walnuts and toss to coat. spread on parchment lined cookie sheet and bake until lightly browned (about 20 minutes). remove from oven and set aside.

place greens in salad bowl, combine with most of the sliced pears, drizzle with pomegranate vinaigrette and toss to coat. arrange remaining pears and sugared walnuts over salad greens. top with pomegranate seeds and serve.

and

simply delicious spaghetti squash

1 spaghetti squash

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

3 garlic cloves minced

2 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley

coarse sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

preheat oven to 400. place squash on cookie sheet and bake 1 hour or until soft. remove from oven and set aside.

in small skillet over low heat, saute garlic in oil until soft (about 2 min). cut squash in half lengthwise and remove and discard seeds. hold half of squash upside down over serving bowl and using a fork, scrape out flesh from to to bottom to separate the strands of squash. repeat with other half, toss with garlic, oil, parsley, and salt and pepper to taste.

 top with favorite spaghetti sauce and garnish with parmesan cheese. lots of it :)

YUM!

Midnight Snack

I have to brag on my husband for a moment. This is not hard to do. He is awesome in many ways. One of which: his mad midnight snack skills. When I ask Dan to be "snackmaker" he will most likely come back with one of two things: bluebell ice cream or a Masterpiece. These snacks are quite often so beautiful I can't bear to eat them until I have taken a picture. So I present a little collage of my dining pleasure for your viewing pleasure....