10
Mar, 2008

tiny surprise

yesterday in church, someone handed me this package.  it was from my mom!  she had been at a conference this week and someone from my church was also there, so she sent this little present home with them for me.  the long, skinny package was a paring knife i’d requested, but i didn’t know what the other one was.  would you like to see what it was?

tricky dogs!  how many of you played with these when you were kids?  i think of them as “kid bait” because when i was a kid, this was what my favorite ladies in church would pull out of their purses for me to play with.  it was really only on the rarest of occasions that someone pulled a toy out of their purse for me to play with in church, but i always hoped.  they’d open their purse to get out money for the offering or a kleenex to blow their nose and i’d perk up, thinking that maybe they were getting something for me to play with.  mr. happy stuff tried to convince me that the original tricky dogs’ magnets were covered up with more plastic, but… i thought they looked just like these guys.  and now i have my own set.  how cute!

Posted in stuff that makes me smile, trip down memory lane | 3 Comments
07
Mar, 2008

warmth

when my feet are chilly and no pair of socks seems to warm them up, my favorite way to warm up my whole self is a hot shower. when we first moved to this house and bought this showerhead, it felt so decadent and i almost felt bad for spending more money than was truly necessary for a showerhead (i think it was less than $40–good grief!), but i have to say that it was worth every penny. i love to stand under this showerhead and feel the water just envelope me. i love to turn the water juuuuuust a smidgen hotter and then stand there and feel the warmer water hit my head (with a buffer layer of hair so it doesn’t feel so hot on my skin right away) and then soak down to my scalp and then melt all the cold right out of me.

in the summer, i actually love to do the reverse to cool down. mr. happy stuff can not understand why i would possibly ever want to take a cold shower, but i know that if i’m just sweaty, sticky hot, the best way to cool down is to get into a lukewarm shower and slowly turn it colder and colder and colder. i think i first learned this when i was spending a summer abroad in the dominican republic, living with a local host family. the water there was not particularly reliable. in the home i stayed at for the second half of the semester, the water ran freely from pipes in the wall into large barrels about once a day. that was our water supply for the whole day (sometimes for two days if the water didn’t show up the next day.). it was used for cooking (when boiling was involved), bathing, flushing, whatever. i became quite proficient at “bucket baths.” it was so hot there that even the room temperature water felt cold, but a short term splash of water was easier to take than standing in a cold shower with hot skin. i soon learned that the easiest and most sure way to cool down (or at least feel less sticky) was to pour a few plastic cupfuls of water over myself.

but back to warmth. today’s second warm thing was….

homemade fresh flour tortillas!  looooooong, long ago, when i lived in oklahoma, my family once ate a very memorable (for me) meal at the home of some friends.  they were hosting a visitor from mexico (i think) who had made fresh flour tortillas for us to eat with our lunch.  i ate an embarrassingly large number of these tortillas and kept exclaiming over how good they were and would she please give us the recipe so that we too could make these amazing delicacies?  i don’t remember if it was my mom or the visiting woman who said that the recipe wasn’t that important–the reason they were so good was because she had been making them for years and years and had perfected the recipe and so there was no hope that we could ever replicate them at home without her personal assistance each time (okay, maybe i embellished the last part with my own interpretation, but you get the idea).  and so, i never even tried.  now that i live in the north, good flour tortillas are hard to come by, but i’ve found acceptable substitutes and we’ve gotten by with not great, but okay tortillas.  then, last monday, when i was visiting madtown mama she happened to mention that she makes her own tortillas since it’s so easy.

“what kind of tortillas?  corn or flour?” i asked.

“both” she answered.

i pounced.  “can you give me the recipe?”

she did.  the hardest part of the whole thing is that you have to let the dough rest for one hour before you cook them up.  so, a little planning ahead is involved, but other than that, these are easy-peasy, just like she promised.  we made a half-batch tonight and enjoyed them with black beans, cheese, avocado, salsa and a little lettuce.  and i made a “dessert” one with cream cheese, sugar and cinnamon.  look how yummy they look!  (yes, that top one had already been nibbled by me.  i couldn’t resist!)  and while they weren’t quite as good as the ones made by the woman who had made them for years, i still have lots of chances to practice and improve and they were still waaaaaay better than the sour, papery ones that come in plastic bags in the grocery stores up here.
i don’t think she’ll mind if i share the recipe with you in case you’d like to try making tortillas for yourselves.
flour tortillas (makes 16)

combine:

4 c. flour (you can substitute one of those for whole wheat flour if you want)

1.5 t. baking powder

1.5 t. salt

cut in:

1/2 c. (1 stick) cold butter

slowly add while kneading:

about 1.5 c. warm water, maybe less.  add it until the dough just sticks together.

let it sit at room temperature for one hour (very important!)

begin heating a cast-iron or non-stick frying pan.  roll out golf-ball sized pieces of the dough into flat circles.  use flour to prevent sticking if necessary.   when your pan is hot, throw one of the flattened tortillas into the pan for 15 seconds, then flip it.  let it cook on the second side for 30 to 60 seconds, then flip it again to finish cooking (it will begin to puff).  madtown mama assures me that this double-flip thing is essential to the tortilla not turning out tough.  i trust her because it worked for us.

i haven’t tried refrigerating these to see if they’re any good leftover, but… we may never have to test that question.  these are yummy and disappear quickly.  thanks, m.m.!

Posted in trip down memory lane, winter, yum | 5 Comments
07
Mar, 2008

fresh!

have i ever told you that one of my first jobs was a summer stint at a local juice shop?  it was a hop over my back fence and a few blocks to walk to work every morning.  this was no jamba juice–this was the real thing.  small, independent restaurant that (when i worked there) sold lots of fresh juice and smoothies as well as amazing muffins, sandwiches, salads, stuffed baked potatoes (i learned here that avocados make excellent baked potato toppings.  i also like the added crunch of alfalfa sprouts.  and, of course, plenty of cheese and sour cream.).  all the food there tasted amazing.  i still get cravings for some of her menu items.  (i designed the menu for her (yep, i enjoyed design and layout even back then) and kept a copy, so at least i have a list of all of the sandwich ingredients. even if i don’t make my own mayonnaise* i can still pile up one of her amazing veggie sandwiches.)  sadly, the place has since gone out of business, and even before it did, she reduced her menu drastically, so i’m my only option is to re-create her foods the best i can remember.  i think the muffins are a lost cause (i don’t have a convection oven) but the juices?  well, those are really quite simple to replicate and it’s what i made most often, so that’s what i did today.  grapefruit juice.  fresh from the fruit**.  honestly–can you drink the stuff that comes from a jar/can/box/anything without a peel?  it tastes like stomach acid to me!  before i worked at the juice shop, i was blissfully ignorant that apple juice and orange juice taste nothing like the fruit they profess to come from.  the first time i drank fresh orange juice, i think i actually said, out loud, ‘wow!  this tastes like an orange!’  carrot juice (which i’d never tried before) was a revelation to me.  my favorite combo became orange/carrot.  each (early) morning, when i went in to work, we made a big pitcher of orange juice, pineapple juice, and carrot juice and smaller containers of grapefruit juice and “veggie mix” (a random assortment of vegetables that were in the salad bin and weren’t nice enough for the salad plate, but made perfectly good juice.  making this juice every morning taught me that cucumbers and beets and lettuce make lovely juices while okra…. not so much.).  we didn’t make apple juice ahead of time because it turns brown so quickly.  we also pureed strawberries and sliced up lots of banana to freeze for smoothies.

i really liked that job.  the only thing i didn’t like was the way my hands smelled after cleaning stuff with bleach water and i didn’t like sore feet, but really, if i ever have to work food service again, i hope it’s in a shop like that one.  lunch break was always amazing.

here’s the recipe for a simple smoothie:

fresh-squeezed orange or pineapple juice (just enough to go past the curve at the bottom of the blender)

pureed strawberries (no sugar needed.  you can also just throw in chunks of fresh or frozen strawberries or substitute blueberries or raspberries)

frozen bananas (key ingredient! this makes your smoothie cold and sweet and thick.  ripe (but not overripe) bananas taste best)

add the frozen berries to the juice and puree until smooth.  add in a handful of the frozen banana slices and get the mixer going.  if the mixture gets stuck, pour in a little orange juice until it starts moving again.  when the top of the smoothie is spinning smoothly and there’s a small hole in the middle that goes down like a whirlpool, your smoothie is done!

optional add-ins:  yogurt (makes it stay thick longer, adds the benefits of dairy and active live cultures), wheat germ or ground flaxseed (sneak in a little extra goodness), more fruit!
feel free to play around with the juice/fruit combo, as long as you include bananas.  i am such a smoothie snob now that i can’t stand the kind that have ice or sugar or (gasp!) come in a boxed mix.  i hope you enjoy this recipe.  hmmmm….  i may have to make one for myself tomorrow for breakfast….

if anyone is interested, i can post the list of ingredients for her veggie sandwich.
*i did actually make mayonnaise once at the juice shop.  i think i made one successful batch, but i haven’t tried it since.

**i have a bunch of grapefruits and oranges right now.  there was a fundraiser where some kids in my church were selling citrus.  i don’t remember anyone selling cases of citrus when i was a kid, but maybe it’s because i grew up further south?  where you can buy “texas ruby red” grapefruits in the grocery store.  any way you can get them, i love the way their bright flavors perk up the back end of winter.

Posted in trip down memory lane, yum | 5 Comments
03
Mar, 2008

a few cute photos

hooray for catchlights! (that’s the sparkle in his eyes)

i spent the day getting to know some friends better.  we chatted about knitting and cooking and sewing and kids and stuff.  i shared some blueberry siggi’s yogurt and she shared some yummy veggie lentil curry.  the kids took nice long naps.  a cozy time was had by all.  thanks guys!

the librarian in me especially loves this scene:

Posted in photography | 1 Comment
03
Mar, 2008

little things

got an order of citrus yesterday from the annual fundraiser for some kids at my church.  delicious grapefruit for lunch and orange segments for my salad at lunch.  such a nice fresh taste in the middle of snowy winter.

then, i found this intrepid interloper in my indoor potted plants that spend their summers outdoors.  it was a sprouted acorn.  look how far it grew!  look how big the leaves are for a sprout!  it looked so spring-like, but i had to pluck it.  the pot’s not big enough for a tree.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments
02
Mar, 2008

new baby

i promised to show you pictures of the new baby, but first, a cute picture of the big brother.  i took him to his swimming lesson this morning.

after swimming, we picked up mr. happy stuff and had lunch at culver’s (big brother had requested “round hamburgers and a soda”), then went to the hospital.  here’s the first shot (he doesn’t like to be unswaddled)

ahhh….. much better:

welcome to the world little big guy!  (very nearly 10 lbs!)

Posted in photography | 1 Comment
01
Mar, 2008

happy leap day!

hooray!  i made it all the way through cablopomo and i’m not even struggling for ideas (most days, anyway).  hmm… does that mean i’m just a super chatty person?  probably.  today was a good day to wrap up the month–lots of little things (and a few big things too!).

first:

i did a storytime for a visiting class at the library today.  as they were lining up at the door to take a guided tour of the library with me, one of the little girls (who i’d seen before at my saturday storytimes especially for dads) snuck her hand into the pocket on my jacket, to see what was inside.  i was pleased to remember that it wasn’t anything embarrassing like a tampon, or a dirty kleenex.  instead, it was an acorn that i’d tucked in there sometime last fall.  what a fun treat to sneak a peek into someone’s pocket and find such treasure!

second:

i actually got to dig into book ordering today!  it’s a big project that, in the past, i’d slough off until the last possible minutes and then freak out because it’s too big of a project to cram.  i’m doing much better this year, for the first time, at remembering to parcel this job out over the course of the year.  good thing, too–this year, in addition to my ordering duties of the past two years (easy readers, music cd’s for kids, juvenile paperbacks) i’m in charge of all of the juvenile fiction (i.e. hardcover too).  at all of the branches.  that is a large budget (well, compared to the other ones.  it’s probably not that big compared to other, similarly sized-libraries budgets for the same collection).  i tackled the small ones today.  wish me luck when i dive into the biggie sometime next week!

third:

got to see a they might be giants concert this evening.  i think it’s only the second time i’ve seen them live.  it was very dance-y.  and fun.  and loud.  they played some of my very favorite songs–birdhouse in your soul, istanbul, particle man, the sun is a mass of incandescent gas, anna ng….

fourth:

in the middle of the concert, we got a call from a friend of ours who’d gone into labor this afternoon around 3:30.  apparently, the baby arrived quickly (around 6:30?) and everyone is doing quite well–hooray for leap day birthdays!  he will be eternally young.  (you know me–i’ll try to get some pictures up here in the next few days.)
many thanks to all of you who read my blog and comment (either on the blog or to me in person).  knowing that someone out there is reading is the best motivation i can think of to continue to post messages and to continue to seek out the little happy things in every day.

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments
28
Feb, 2008

this stuff cracks me up

some of you who know me may know how much i enjoy the gallery of regrettable food*. tonight, i found something almost better–a flickr group called the mid-century supper club filled with folks who find these recipes and then do their very best to actually recreate them (although some ingredients may no longer be available). i especially loved the party sandwich loaf pictured above. i can’t read more than three or four entries without laughing so hard that i cry.
*check it out, he has his own website now!

Posted in laugh, Uncategorized | 5 Comments
28
Feb, 2008

heavenly yogurt, thy name is siggi’s

so… the other day, i was shopping at whole foods (a rare event as of late) and i browsed through their yogurt selection.  first, i saw stonyfield and other relatively usual yogurt brands.  then, i noticed that they carried rachel’s yogurt which i’d seen for the first time when we were in maui.  they have funky flavors like “relaxing” (plum honey & lavender).  they were a bit expensive ($1.25), but i thought i’d splurge.  then, i noticed the siggi’s yogurt (at an eye-popping $2.59 apiece!) and thought, “in the quest for the very best yogurt, i am absolutely obligated to try this at least once.” so i bought the above carton of “pomegranate & passion fruit” and tried it today with my lunch.  oh. my. goodness.  this is by far the thickest, yummiest yogurt i’ve ever tried.  note photo below:

i don’t think this yogurt would ever get that yucky pool of liquid that forms in most yogurt if you let it sit overnight–it’s already been strained.  it’s awesome.  just slightly sweet with a delicious yogurty tartness.  i’m also impressed by its simple list of ingredients–skim milk, agave nectar [for sweetness], passion fruit, pomegranate, live active cultures, vegetable rennet.  that’s it.  nothing i can’t pronounce.  no gelatin, no artificial sweetener, just goodness.  and it’s made with rbgh-free skim milk!  there is 0% fat!  and it’s so thick!  there are only 120 calories, but it’s the most filling yogurt i’ve ever eaten.  i….. may have to splurge again.

apparently, i’m not alone in this spontaneous urge to shower praise on siggi.

Posted in yum | 1 Comment
27
Feb, 2008

home canned

after listening to the audiobook version of “animal, vegetable, miracle” over christmas travels, i’ve really come to value our nearby local-food store.  they actually deliver once a week to your home and have lots of locally produced, natural meats.  they also have other foods (besides meat)–some local and/or “home made” and others simply organic foods.  i placed an order this week and explored the non-meat selections they offer.  i ordered some local winter spinach, some celery, some eggs, and i noticed that they offered canned sauerkraut, so i thought i’d give it a try as well.  the delivery arrived this evening, just in time for my dinner (mr. happy stuff was out to dinner with out-of-town work friends).  i fried some sliced of smoked sausage, added some soy milk, cinnamon and sugar to some leftover rice and gave myself a generous helping of sauerkraut.  one of my very favorite dinner combinations.  just the right mix of sweet, salty, sour, mmmmmmouthwatering.  isn’t the tag label on the jar charming?  this is the way sauerkraut should taste–not like the stuff i’ve had to put up with from the grocery store for these last few years.  this is the real deal.

Posted in winter, yum | 2 Comments