A Week in Suppers: 4
Monday supper. Bailey’s pick-up, so it’s a smorgasbord of local food. I always order with this supper in mind: bread, buns, pretzels, cheese curds, sandwich meat, greens, and today there were tomatoes, too. For dessert: butter tarts with pecans. Kevin did the pick-up and used the rejigged new/used stroller, which apparently runs quite well now. I took four kids to swim lessons, so we figured it came out even, especially because I’m still getting into the pool with CJ. Here’s hoping he makes the transition (our second attempt at the transition lessons).
Tuesday supper. Black beans, hamburger, rice, taco shells, tortillas, guacamole, green salad, cheese, crema, hot sauce. And of course birthday cake for dessert. All the kids got the day off school, and we had lunch at the gelato shop uptown. I made one of my standard “meals for a crowd”: set up the food buffet-style, with options for everyone. Kevin made the cake, with help from Fooey and Albus.
Wednesday supper. Coconut sweet potato soup in the crockpot. Wow, this was good. Well, I thought so, and Kevin did too, and AppleApple heartily agreed, and Albus gave it a ho-hum but edible rating. The two youngest refused. I’d make this again.
Coconut Sweet Potato Soup (crockpot version)
Peel and chop three or four large sweet potatoes and two apples and put into the crockpot. Carrots could be substituted or added (we have an excess of carrots right now). Add 10 cups of chicken stock, or veggie stock, or water. Add one can of coconut milk. In a small amount of olive oil, saute 2 large onions, chopped, and 2 tbsp ginger root, along with 1 tbsp of mild curry powder, 1/2 tsp cumin, and 1/2 tsp salt, and pepper to taste. Scrape into the crockpot. Simmer on low all day. Blend with an immersion blender, adding a couple of stalks of cilantro (I used frozen; optional). The juice of one lemon or lime can be stirred in just before serving (also optional).
Thursday supper. Pasta with red sauce, and salad. This is my quiet day. I had some friends over in the morning and the little kids played and played. Albus went to a friend’s house after school, and AppleApple walked home with a friend. Kevin and I finished off the day with a kundalini yoga class. It’s always stressful getting everything done and peeling off a crying CJ from my leg, but once I’m in that calm, dark studio space, it feels entirely worth it.
Friday supper. A crockpot recipe called “Mexican beans and rice.” It didn’t strike me as being very Mexican, however. “Mexican,” more like it. Basically, it was a black bean vegetarian chili with some leftover rice stirred in. Passable, but forgettable. Skating is now over, so the big kids walked home from school together (well, almost; Albus walked AppleApple most of the way, then ran back to his friends’ house to play, which he hadn’t okayed with me. We’re working on this independence thing. I was happy he was playing with friends, and AppleApple did pass along the plan to me, but the rule is that he needs to call upon arrival anywhere. A rule he has yet to put into practice. “You should just call me,” he says; which, of course, I do.) AppleApple had her last goalie camp of the session, and Albus had his last soccer skills, so we ate early and quickly. I enjoyed reading with the little ones, got them tucked in early, and met the babysitter secretively at the door. With all the peeling off of CJ I’m having to do lately, I wasn’t too keen to leave him with a new sitter; but decided instead, whether or not it was ethical, to let him drift off to sleep believing his mama to be somewhere nearby, ready if he needed me. But in reality, I was headed out for another kundalini class, and then on to a birthday party with Kevin. It all worked out. Home shortly after midnight.
Saturday supper. We ate at a friends’ house, so I did not have to cook even one thing today. Kevin made the birthday cake that we took along. These are banana bran muffins, which I made on Sunday, in a baking binge of epic proportion. Saturday was a wonderful day off. I went for a morning run, and then a yoga class. We had a few drinks with dinner, and then I went out again to meet up with friends after the kids were in bed. I was pretty tired by the end of it all, and was summoned home just after midnight due to an hysterical CJ, who had woken and was not happy to discover it was merely daddy on-call. Glad that happened tonight, and not last night. Yeesh.
Banana Bran Muffins (makes 24)
In a large bowl, soak 2 cups of wheat bran in the following mixture: 2 eggs, beaten, 2 cups of milk, and 1/2 cup of honey. Let sit for 10 minutes. In a separate bowl, sift together 2 cups of flour (whole wheat is fine), 2 tbsp baking powder, and 1 tsp salt. Add 1 cup of mashed banana to the wet mixture (approximately 2 bananas). Gently combine the wet and the dry, stirring just enough to dampen the flour. Muffins do not respond well to over-mixing. Err on the side of under-mixing. Spoon into greased muffin tins, and bake at 375 for 20 minutes.
Sunday supper. Fooey’s meal choice: she wanted to make an “Albus Special,” which is mashed potatoes and gravy and meat all mixed together on a plate. We compromised, not having a hunk of meat on hand, and Fooey made the potatoes, Kevin grilled sausages and a piece of steak, and I made a mushroom gravy that was delectable, if not exactly child-friendly. I spent the day baking. I simply couldn’t help myself. I made waffles (with extras to freeze), baked bread and pitas, and those yummy banana bran muffins, and a batch of chocolate chip cookie bars from my own recipe on this blog, which felt just a little over the top even to me. All good. But not quite a day of rest. Or, I guess, my version thereof.
Mushroom Gravy (makes a little over a cup; double the recipe if you want more)
Saute in 4 tbsp of butter, one chopped onion, one clove of garlic, and several chopped celery stalks. Add and saute 3-4 cups of chopped mushrooms, and 1/4 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp thyme, pepper to taste. When the veggies are soft, add 4 tbsp flour and cook, stirring often, for 2-3 minutes, until the raw taste is gone. Add 1 tsp tamari sauce (optional), and 3 tbsp white wine (highly recommended). Cook off the alcohol, then add 1 cup of milk, and simmer gently, stirring often, as the sauce thickens. More milk could be added in 1/4 cup amounts if the sauce is too thick.
Spring Project
A few weeks ago: note the child’s expression of concentration and concern (it was visible in all the photos I took).
Earlier this afternoon: practice at the empty lot across the street. CJ’s birthday gift: a balance bike!
Right now: she can ride her two-wheeler! She just showed me her “trick,” which was to cycle independently all the way around the apartment building next door (which Kevin running along beside, just in case).
:::
In other news, CJ got to blow out more candles last night when we celebrated his birthday along with his best friend’s birthday (they are about two weeks apart in age). But even an excess of candle-blowing and cake cannot change our boy’s mind: “I’m still two.”
Many Parts
There’s a picture in my head made up of words in the shape of a clock, or a circle. The words are ones I associate with myself, with who I am. This is the post I planned to write awhile ago, and it has been marinating ever since. I keep thinking the ideas will come together more coherently, but instead it remains the same as it was when I first came across the thought: a circular list of words. Some are big–bigger than I am–and apply only in a theoretical sense. I haven’t accomplished enough to claim some of them, but they’re not end-point words; rather, they’re associative, hopeful.
Writer. Mother. Chef. Photographer. Doula. Athlete. Friend. Partner. Family-member. Musician. Designer. Organizer.
I could add in a word related to doing laundry and dishes, but I don’t want to. I choose not to.
These words represent the ways that I use my time. Everything I’ve listed gives me pleasure or is something I want to pursue further.
(Which is why the chores get left off the list; yes, I use my time to do a lot of chores, but they’re not essential to who I am. Or are they? Probably they are. Probably they’ve taught me all kinds of good things about patience and persistence and the necessity and and meditative nature of routine. But I’d still let someone else take over the bulk of them, at least half the time, without blinking an eye.)
Thinking about these words gives me a way to consider what I’m doing, and what I would like to be doing. Which words are more ascendant within me right now? Or this week? Or this year? Or long-term? I have a lot of energy, now that I’m sleeping through the night, and when I set my mind to a task or a goal, I home in on it with laser-beam eyeballs and a focus that frightens me just a little bit sometimes. My question right now, having sent off my manuscript, and balancing on the cusp of who-knows-what, is where should I direct this focus? I am filled with ideas, and long-term plans and plots, but everything scatters like dust without concrete goals. Without placement.
The portrait project is a good example of something that has drifted, that, finished, feels a bit purposeless. I like a solid goal. I appreciated the challenge of taking a portrait every day, and appreciated everything I learned over the year. But. There it ends, a series of photographs, some quite lovely, some I’m happy never to see again, without any kind of summing up, without a home. What, I wonder, was the meaning of that? Could it add up to something other than the disconnected list that it is?
::::
In other news, my eye woes are mending. Not altogether healed, but improved. In fact, as soon as the gigantic pustules started shrinking–and even while they remained quite large and ugly-looking–I discovered an instant upswing in my confidence. The confidence was (and may very well still be) entirely out of proportion to the size of the pustules; the confidence relates, quite simply, to how bad it was before. Simple comparison. As long as it is better than it was, I am flying, I’m on top of the world, brimming with confidence. Plus, I have peripheral vision again, which is handy and quite useful.
Now You Are Three
Yesterday, you were two.
Now you are three.
It’s okay.
Happy birthday, kid!
The sound of the bedroom door opening. Siblings and parents waiting excitedly to greet him as he walks down the stairs. “Happy birthday! It’s your birthday! You’re a big boy today! You’re three years old!”
Deep frown. Adamant tone. “I NOT be THREE! I be TWO!”
So far, he’s sticking with his story. Yesterday, I took a photo of him holding up two fingers, to show his age. My plan was to juxtapose this with a photo taken this morning of the birthday boy holding up three fingers (which he’s been practicing). But it is not to be. The other kids have decided to shelter him from the dark truth that he is really and truly three years old. Albus keeps saying, in a comforting baby voice, “It okay, CJ. You still be two today.” Anything to give the child a happy birthday.
A Week in Suppers: 3
Monday supper. Whole chicken “roasted” in crockpot with garlic and lemon. Steamed rice (or leftover quinoa) on the side. Brussel sprouts in brown butter with walnuts. Salad made of leftover spinach and bean sprouts, plus grated carrot, in a tamari dressing. Thumbs up around the table. Next time, I will not use the whole lemon inside the chicken. It flavoured the meat quite strongly, which was not to everyone’s liking. (Just realized the carcass got composted, and I did not make stock from it, as planned). And while the crockpot version of roasted chicken can’t beat the flavour of oven-roasted chicken, the ease with which this meal was prepared was totally worth the trade-off. I had to go to the doctor in the morning to get my eye woes seen to, and after school I took the kids to Factory Shoe to get them all new running shoes. Which they wore to school the next day, before spring was foiled by Wednesday’s heavy snowfall. Except I bought the wrong size for CJ. In fact, I bought him the size and style identical to the ones he wears at nursery school. Argh! So we’ll have to make a return trip.
Tuesday supper. Sweet-and-sour chicken and tofu, with carrots and onions. Baked rice and steamed broccoli. Wow, this was a fabulous meal. I got complaints from no one. I was on my own with the kids for supper (Kevin ate alone, when he got home from work). The two older kids don’t like tofu, but there wasn’t enough leftover chicken meat to fill out the stir-fry, so I combined both proteins, and dished out one or the other. I loved this meal so much; I must post the sweet-and-sour recipe. Kevin played the final of his soccer tournament, then went on to his last hockey of the season, and ended his own personal triathlon at Ethel’s taco night.
Wednesday supper. Baked black beans with sausage in the crockpot. More rice. Cabbage salad with mayo/cider vinegar dressing. The baked black beans were my attempt to mix up the usual chili flavour, with middling success. They were sweetened with molasses and brown sugar. But I had great success cooking them in the crockpot overnight, and adding in the rest of the ingredients the next morning. It should have been a snow day, but it wasn’t. When the snow was still falling thickly by school pick-up time, I decided to pass on our music lessons. But supper was still eaten in a rush because I’d planned to go to a yoga class, to make up for the class missed due to Kevin working late yesterday evening; this required elaborate scheduling. We gulped our food and ran in a variety of directions, with limited success: the class was hard and I felt tired and sick and wished I hadn’t gulped down quite so many baked beans; a pair of soccer shoes were taken out of a bag and left on the living-room floor; by the time the soccer dad and soccer kids had discovered the missing shoes, they were in the midst of a snow-caused traffic jam and ended up missing practice. And I forgot to take a photo at the table.
Thursday supper. Rice pilaf to use up all the leftover rice. Ginger carrot soup. As I said to a friend who was over for lunch, “It sounded good to me.” The ongoing dilemma: do I cook for the kids’ tastes, or my own? A bit of both, really, and in this case, I knew the pilaf wouldn’t be loved by all, but it sounded delicious to me, and included toasted sunflower seeds. Unfortunately, the leftover rice ended up creating more leftover rice, this time in pilaf form, so I was back to square one. To add to the pilaf, I chopped up a block of queso fresco, a mild Latin-American soft cheese, and the kids gobbled it up plain. The soup was fabulous. I added a cup of toasted cashews and pureed everything together and the flavour was out of this world. Our basement was getting repaired yesterday and today, a muddy business, fortunately contained down below. I skipped a yoga class to enjoy supper with the whole family, and after some frantic post-supper machinations, Kevin and I got out the door together to our kundalini yoga class. It ain’t easy, getting the both of us out the door at the same time on a school night.
Friday supper. A sirloin roast in the crockpot with red wine and garlic. Mashed potatoes. More cabbage salad, this time with grated carrot too. My mother-in-law Alice was here for a visit. We all ate together between skating and soccer, though Kevin and AppleApple had to rush. I made an absolute vat of potatoes. I was extremely pleased with how everything turned out, but didn’t receive an endless stream of glowing compliments, as seemed fitting (c’mon kids, throw the chef a bone). If we could afford it, and if it were good for us, I’d make roasts more often; but it’s definitely special occasion food. We buy all of our meat from local farmers, most of it organically raised, and it is not cheap. But I actually believe that’s a good thing: we eat less meat as a result, and get the bulk of our protein from beans and legumes. Better for everyone and everything.
Saturday supper. Shepherd’s pie made with leftover mashed potatoes and beef, plus added hamburger, plus gravy made from drippings, plus the rest of that carrot soup to add some vegetable matter. More cabbage salad. And fresh-baked bread! With extra-old cheddar on the side. I went to the freezer to look for peas and discovered we’ve eaten all of the peas! And all of the green beans! And all of the corn! The only veg left is some steamed beet greens. I wonder why. I accomplished a lot today, too much to list. But the lovely thing was that Kevin got home in time for supper, and we enjoyed a glass of wine, and then Alice put the kids to bed while Kevin and I slipped out to a movie–Barney’s Version. Loved it. See it!
Sunday supper. Leftover surprise. Rice pilaf baked with cheese on top. Cold shepherd’s pie. Cabbage salad. Dill smoked salmon I’d gotten on impulse at the grocery store (ridiculously–almost suspiciously–on sale), with rye crackers. Nobody was terribly excited or surprised. But AppleApple spent the afternoon at a birthday party, and Albus didn’t feel like cooking, and the basement was desperate for a thorough cleaning, so Kevin devoted his afternoon attention to that instead. It wasn’t a hard meal for me to prepare. I also made yogurt and baked ginger cookie squares, which are delicious, but for the second time in a row overflowed the pan while baking. I need to solve this problem. Two pans? Casserole pans rather than baking sheets? I will figure this out. The kids played happily together after supper, and even practiced piano and doing homework without grumbling. The basement is clean. And Kevin and I had a scheduling meeting of epic proportions to cap off the day, and the week, over a warm cup of tea. I love scheduling meetings. I probably love them more than is right and proper. I went to bed a happy woman. (With leftover leftover leftover rice pilaf in the fridge).