little things

Little things make you happy. Like a new book from a favorite author, or even better, two new books from favorite authors. And while I'm there, my apologies to the woman at the Starbucks the weekend before last who must have thought I was extremely rude as I unabashedly listened in on her conversation with a friend about this book, because I didn't know there was a new Susanna Kearsley out. I bought my copy the next day. And while I was in the bookstore, I found this book, by another favorite, Jennifer Weiner. So I had a lovely week of reading.

And one night we had a very green dinner. I've talked about spinach gunge, and I had a huge bag of pea greens in my vegetable drawer waiting to be made into supper so I made a gunge out of them, without the cheese and smeared it on portobello mushrooms that had been brushed with olive oil and roasted for 15 minutes.

 

I sprinkled parmesan cheese on top of the gunge mushrooms

 and baked for about 10 more minutes until everything was hot and the cheese was melted. Served alongside a big salad of market spicy greens and arugula, it made for a very healthy and tasty supper.

Pea Greens Gunge (adapted from Bon Appetit, Fergus Henderson)

1 knob of butter
salt
1 1lb bag of pea greens
1 tsp mustard
1/4 c cream

Heat the butter in a saucepan over medium high heat. Once melted, add the greens and heat until wilted. Add the mustard and cream and puree until smooth in a food processor. Add salt to taste.

weekend baking

When Sunday night rolled around this week, I didn’t feel like I’d done all my baking. Mainly because I hadn’t made my usual loaf of bread and that means I’ll have to make one sometime this week before we run out. But in all fairness, I did bake some. I made a dozen pear banana muffins on Saturday morning before I left for my Pilates class. By the time I got home after class, running errands and grocery shopping, only a few were left. Late in the afternoon, my guys went on a hike up the mountain so I made this apple cake for when they got home. They got back faster than I anticipated so it was still in the oven when they arrived home but it was lovely for dessert after turkey chili. On Sunday, after we did our gardening, I came inside and made strawberry almond crumble, in addition to the potato, leek and ham gratin that was supper, so we have a few treats to get us through the week.

Last weekend, on Saturday morning I made a loaf of bread, a dozen apple banana muffins and strawberry almond crumble. Maybe because I made it all at once it seemed like more.

While I was baking and cooking, I had to keep checking on the derailments occurring on our boy’s railway line. It seems that cars and trucks keep stalling on the crossings with disastrous results. And the results aren’t really disastrous until checked out by mummy. The soundtrack to the derailments has been either the boy’s version of “American Woman” – which in 5 year old language is “American wonton” (as in soup) or a somewhat garbled rendition of “my heart will go on” (from Titanic). Apparently they are learning “my heart will go on” in preschool music class.

Has anyone else seen this book, Knit your own Royal Wedding by Fiona Goble? I think I should knit my man these for Christmas…he’d especially love the corgi.

christmas reading

Recently I ordered and received some books from Scholastic. A few are tucked away for T's presents for both Christmas and birthday but a couple were ordered with Christmas reading in mind and T and I have both been enchanted by a couple of my choices.

Merry Christmas, Splat by Rob Scotton is a funny and sweet tale of Splat the Cat and his family. The drawings are so cute and the story has something for both child and parent and I think this is destined to be a classic in our house.

 Splat wants a really big present for Christmas but gets a bit worried about if he's been a good enough cat to get a visit from Santa. So to be extra sure, Splat decides to help his mom get ready for Christmas.

 If you have a small child in your life this will be a story to enchant.

Another one from Scholastic is The Mitten by Jan Brett, based on a Ukrainian folktale. A boy, his Baba, a lost mitten, a forest full of animals all weave a tale of fun.

T loves it.

And I picked up a book I remember reading many moons ago, How Far to Bethlehem by Nora Lofts. A novel about Mary and Joseph and the birth of Jesus. I remember when I was hugely pregnant the Christmas before T was born, feeling empathy for Mary, travelling from Nazareth to Bethlehem on a donkey while in the late stages of pregnancy. This novel takes the bible story and tells it from the perspective of the humans involved. It's all a part of my effort to remove the crazy commercial stress and rush from Christmas and replace it with homemade gifts and family traditions and some of the wonder of a child's Christmas and the joy and peace that is supposed to represent the spirit of the season.

more hats

Before Christmas I was reading a murder mystery by Maggie Sefton and it had a great knitted cloche hat pattern in it. (The book was pretty good too!)

So I knit one for myself and one for my sister-in-law. Here is the knitting in progress along with a distraction (a great read!).

Here is the finished hat I gave my sister-in-law.

And after I knit the "fashionista" mittens for T's friend C, I had wool left over, so she got a hat to go with her mittens.

lazy days

Cooler weather at last. And some rain which was much needed.

T is growing again - out of his shoes last week so it is a good thing I had already bought a bigger pair and they were stashed in the cupboard waiting...In the summer it is harder to see the growing as he is in shorts most of the time. That's usually how I notice, when his pants suddenly get a lot shorter! He also tends to get rounder around the tummy just before a growth spurt and then goes all lean again afterwards.

He's been fascinated by toilet paper lately - making paper snakes so I'm having to reroll paper in all the bathrooms!

We have to go to the library every week to get more truck books - we recently found the fire truck section so this weeks books have been heavy on the firetrucks with a couple of books on road building machines.

The garden is also growing. We're getting tomatoes, basil, thyme, beans and zuccini at the moment. The slugs have eaten all the lettuce so I replanted in a different container and I might try radishes again in a different location and container as they did not do well in the shady patch of garden.

I made moonblush tomatoes again - here's what they look like after 18 hours in the oven.

Friday night supper was cheater mexican lasagna - onions, peppers, mushrooms, corn all sauted, then a jar of tomato sauce added, some grated cheddar cheese and then I added in quick succession, 1/2 package of non-ground round (Yves Veggie) and some torn up tortilla (plain and tomato which is what I had in the fridge).

Saturday I made another buttermilk lemon cake (smittenkitchen.com) but this time with blackberries, blueberries and raspberries as all three needed to be eaten. It was delish!

I also made tomato and spinach tart (variation on the zuccini tomato tart from digginfood.com).

Saturday night we had vegetarian moussaka - a recipe I adapted from one in Country Living UK. This time I made it in a 9x13 lasagna pan in 3 layers and it was wonderful. Layer thinly sliced and cooked potato, 1/3 jar tomato sauce, 1 roasted eggplant (thinly sliced) and then 1/4 of cheese sauce (3 tbsp olive oil, 100 g butter - once melted add 120 g flour and cook for 2 mins. Add 800 ml milk, mix well and cook for 5 mins. Cool and add 2 eggs, 100 g each of parmesan and feta cheese). Repeat the layers twice more - spread the last of the cheese sauce evenly over the top of the dish. Bake at 350 deg for 50 minutes or until the top is nicely browned. Let cool slightly before serving.

Sunday morning we went to the farmer's market in the rain. T had a great time splashing in the puddles with his Cars boots and looking very cute in his Thomas raincoat. There were lots of people shopping at the market as per usual which I was glad to see despite the rain. We are loving the second season strawberries now. Yum.

After lunch, T and I and Auntie K went to the Family Day at the local automall. T got to sit in a real fire truck (he got all goofy shy around the firemen and women unfortunately so missed a chance to wear the headset). He went on the kiddie ferris wheel and down the bouncy slide and then played on the bouncy pirate ship. After the rides, etc closed and the fire truck drove off, we had ice cream and then came home.

Sunday night I made a casserole layering uncooked potato slices, lengthwise sliced zuccini, parmesan cheese with 1 tsp flour, pepper and thyme, potato, zuccini, cut up cooked turkey, corn taken off a couple of cobs (uncooked) and then topped with a layer of potatoes, sprinkled parmesan cheese and 1 tsp flour, pepper and thyme and then spread a thin layer of sour cream over the top and more parmesan cheese. It was pretty good but time consuming. I baked for about 45 mins at 350 deg.

happy list

Things that make me happy ( in random order):

- time to read and a great book. A recent find is "The Tenth Gift" by Jane Johnson. A thought provoking book I read recently is "Three Cups of Tea - One Man's Mission to Promote Peace One School at a Time" - Greg Morteneon and David Oliver Relin

- dinner in the freezer after a busy day. Perogis are a great example and homemade ones are delicious and tender.

- giggles and hugs from T. There is something so uplifting about a child's laughter.

- a husband and son who love to clean (especially vacuum)

- quiet, sunny mornings in the garden - bees and butterflies in the lavender.

- a growing garden (and a small boy who wants to help!) Today T was falling into and out of my garden "tubby" which was full of tomato plant leaves. I have 2 zuccini growing!

- clean fresh sheets on the bed

- time for a cup of tea and crossword puzzle

- good friends to laugh with

- finding boy clothes my boy will wear in his size. I wish I could talk to a boys clothes buyer and explain - not all boys like sports or camoflauge, some boys are all about trucks or dinosaurs or other things. And boys come in all sizes - not just 2 and 6. (Ok - so that is a pet peeve - going into a store and finding racks and racks of girls clothes and one rack of boys clothes with little choice in style, colour or even size - pretty much you are supposed to take whatever is in your boy's size)

- the sound of D's car in the driveway and his key in the lock - he's home!