Sushi

We have been making a lot of veggie maki rolls over in these parts. With a fridge full of nothing since vacation, we were able to cobble together something for rolls. We aren't necessarily typical, I will throw anything between rice and nori, but we have some things that are staples in our roll making nights. Avocado, egg, green onion, cucumber, spicy mayo, spicy cream cheese, sprouts, mango, cilantro, shredded kohlrabi.

If you want to set yourself up for success, you need a benriner, it will make prep so much easier. this is a lot of prep, but once everything is ready to go, rolling goes quickly. Something I often forget and then pret and think why did I prep that is, you cut the roll, so if you have something long and thin, just put it right in there (like green beans, or chives)

The rice is another big thing. I put my sushi rice in a good mesh strainer and rinse it until the water runs clear. Then I place it in a copper cook pot and cover with water up to my knuckles (while my hand lays on the rice. Lid it, bring it to a boil, allow to boil for one minute, although if you aren't around and is is spilling water over it has probably been boiling for a minute, turn down and simmer for 5 minutes, up on high for 30 seconds and then off the heat all still lidded to stand for 10 minutes. This is actually how I cook all of my rice and it is perfect everytime. and you don't need a copper pot, we just have copper or these really heavy bottomed pans that retain a lot of heat and don't cook rice well. Any pot that doesn't do that will do.
After the 10 minutes, I scoop out the rice onto a wooden cutting board. In a pinch I sprinkle with sugar and then pour on some rice vinegar. Otherwise ben has a great sushi liquid that he makes for us and we pour that on it.

Asher eats it up, this past week with his new cheater chopsticks.

Yum, YUm, YUM. Oh and don't forget the soy sauce, it really provides all the seasoning for the veggies, as they are all unsalted.

Cucumber Tunnel

One of our new cool features in our garden this year is A's cucumber tunnel. Inspired by Rachel's last year at the childrens garden, Ben crafted this with some pvc and concrete reinforcing wire. It was doing alright at the beginning and then pretty good when we went on vacation, but when we returned it has turned into something magical. Asher naturally just went in it. He loves hanging out in it and looking up at the plants. He has been in a big mama/papa/boy/girl labeling place and the cucumber plants are very easy to classiby as male/female. So he would look at the flowers and know if it was a mama cucumber or papa cucumber. Cucumbers really are beautiful plants to watch grow, I guess I would say this about most plants, but the flowers are amazing with the tiniest of cucumbers attached.I also have a particular love for the cucumber, I think it is a great on the go snack. I try to keep a peeler with me for the summer, especially when going to the farmers market.

It was such a beautiful moment last summer, when A and I woke up on a Saturday morning and I asked him what he wanted at the market, his response was a cucumber, or keekoo, as he would call them back then. Just peel and eat, or just eat, sometimes the skin is too thick though. But they are hardy enough to travel in a bag and so refreshing with the high water content. We will be eating loads of keekoo in the next months along with pickling some... oh the canning season is about to begin!!! I love this time of year.

Garden Harvest

What's lurking in those orange bins?
The harvest we luckily pulled out before we left for vacation, as we got 4 inches of rain while we were gone. I think good garlic is one thing we are really proud of growing. It lasts us the whole year and we keep it from year to year. We have even cultivated our own beautiful variety, the Urbana Tiger. This year we also grew soft neck varieties for better storage. As much as we love our hard necked tiger, it was time to diversify.

We grew three different varieties of soft neck, ones we picked up at the farmer's market last fall and planted in October. Our task this weekend was cutting it down to size and bagging according to variety.

We are becoming more garlic snobby, as we savor each variety and hone in on our favorites. I think we will grow a few different varieties next year as well.

We are teaching A young to appreciate garlic. He likes to bite right into cloves and seems to like it. Here he is helping pack it up, pretending to be an ant storing things for winter, currently obsessed with a book about a little red ant and a crumb of cake.
I think Ben is going to teach a class on growing garlic this fall for the coop and if you want to grow great garlic come to that or read the book, How to Grow Great Garlic. As our gardening skills grow, we definitely pay attention most to plants that you can only grow once in a season and for those things that you can sucession plant, we do as much as we can as you can learn so so much more about them germinating, transplanting (or not), growing, insect pests and controls, and what varieties are really good. Garlic only gives you one chance a year- so do it right.

Avocado

I don't think I could find another perfect food that I would choose to be my son's first. It is such an amazing thing. So delicious and rich with all the things a body needs. River had his first food while we were camping. He was just over five months and I think if we would have held out longer, he would have cried really hard at us. For weeks now he has been reaching for food at the table. It made us start to feel bad. We are a food family, all of our daily routines seem to revolve around food and our kitchen, so we let him into the club.
Asher was very excited to share with his little bro.

But River was the most excited!

After the first taste, he lunged at the spoon for his second.

and didn't want to let go.

He got avocado eye, on his chin, armpit and all the good baby rolls.

It was awesome!!
This little monkey also did three log rolls to me and arched his back (what he does when we sign for up) and lunged for my boob, then fed like a champ-hows that for some communication- babes are amazing and are not to be underestimated.

State College PA

The grand finale of our trip lead us to State College PA, home of Penn State University and brother in law Gator, or as his cool new college friends call him "Alex." He was a great host, but Ben and are definitely not 20 any longer and he is in the heart of the college life. It was fun to witness, but I am quite happy to be home in my house and not crammed into a college apartment with two children!
We have visited State College a few times over the past couple of years and really love it as a town, even consider moving Food Nanny there. This weekend trip definitely cemented our opinion of it as a very cool place. The annual art fest was there and it was very very cool. Asher watched the artists intently and loved looking at the art (for as long as a 2yr old should be expected to.)

Then we got to make our own street art.

This was quite the step up from pastel rich sidewalk chalk We got, color rich pastels and had some fun. Asher did things for about 7 minutes and then I made a tree, bubbie made a nest and we put in a papa cardinal red dot.

We were quite proud of our art.

And then brought all the family that missed witnessing our artistic genius by to see it over the next day. Luckily we finished it before the downpour an hour later, and were happy it got covered by a tarp so it didn't melt away while we were there.

Asher Indulgence: S'mores

While we try very hard to keep corn syrup out of Asher's diet along with most refined sugars, we aren't evil parents that deny our children some of life's necessities. Therefore, if you are going to make a campfire, you must roast marshmallows and if you are going to indulge in a mallow, you must make a s'more. We can't fight with the camping gods or Bubbie and Zadie.

We gave Zadie full credit for the s'more, the man even brought sticks from home in case we couldn't find them, ensuring sucessful mallow roasting. Asher needed a fun activity with Zadie as he hasn't been to fond of him as of late, I think this has to do with the lack of fun and the unlack of being told "no" to the extent that Asher will say, "I don't like when Zadie talks to me." Thankfully s'mores appears to have been a bit of a saver and Asher will now say he loves his bubbie and zadie and not just bubbie.

Next time we have s'mores though, the grahams and mallows will be handmade, the chocolate may still be hersheys or whatever I get my hands on.

We're back...

The mountains were wonderful and the 9.5 hour drive with two little kids, suprisingly not miserable. We booked hotels on the road in advance as to not pay $80+ for a crap box and had actual fun at the hotel. Typically Ben and I would drive until we couldn't stand it anymore and end up where ever we were, not quite that simple though more like we would realize we were exhausted just after passing the exit for the only decent hotel within 50 miles and then bicker over what to do, (sometimes just driving on through) just making us more tired and more irritable, until we find a gross hotel to overpay and spend less than 12 hours in it.
We are growing up though, you can tell by our new shiney silver yuppie car, and went on hotwire ahead of time and only had to pay $56.07 for a nice hotel room. We swam at the indoor pool, got a t.v. fix and got an early start the next morning. A morning field trip to Cabella's- if you have kids and need a stop, this is great, there is a lot to see, and an after lunch drive and Laurel Hills, here we are. Our camping cottage was fabulous and a great choice for us as we don't have a tent big enough for the four of us yet.

A nice screened in porch.

Asher was just a little excited to find out he got to climb a ladder up to his bed. If you can try to hear the sarcasm in my voice, he was effing thrilled, he climbed that ladder so much and was so excited about his little home on vacation.

Ben woke up early to fish, I enjoyed this view from our porch with a warm beverage and would pack up the kids.Morning walks with mom. Let's rephrase, chilly morning walks with mom--- oh how I loved the mountain weather. I will take cool over hot any day. The fact that River got a hat and Asher wore his legwarmers, while I was cozy in a sweater vest in JULY, ahh, so delightful.We picked up rocks to throw in the lake, watched the sun come over the mountains and ate brownie crusted cheesecake for breakfast. I didn't get to the knitting I took along, or read a full page of my book (I did read one paragraph twice) but I got to soak up a lot of time with these two monkeys that I love so much.

and anyone out there contemplating a bumbo chair, screw it, you just need a milk crate, especially for the chunky ones. (my boys get circulation to their feet cut off in those chairs) I don't want to give full credit to the crate, but River is sitting like a champ now.

Ode to the Hard Boiled Egg

Oh my, I didn't think that I would ever say this, but I am in love with hard boiled eggs. They have been a life saver breakfast for this nursing mama, a dash of salt and a bit of serache hot sauce and I am set. Plus egg salad?, yum, on fresh baked bread, yummier! I am contemplating making some of the devilled variety.
(note, i have hated hard boiled eggs for at least 3 decades)
Ben has been really good for me in life, pushing me to try all foods. I still don't like olives and capers, but pretty much everything else has been good. I am truly convinced that I didn't like some things due to the inferior quality that most people eat. I think that i was a food snob without even knowing it, or that subconsciously my body new that most things weren't really good for me. So, fresh eggs from my own hens, growing on organic grains and sunlight... that is the only egg for me.

Mama Art

What do you get when you buy fun fabricRip it into strips and start sewing?Some improptu log cabin style blocksInspired from a painting (just terrible lighting, really the colors are beautiful) waiting to be all pieced together and quilted in my first free motion quilting project

with plans to be wall art in the living room.

Ahh mama art, I am so happy to be making time in our new routine for some sewing. It just feels good, even if there are only 15 minutes at a time to squeeze it in. I will take it as it comes.

Crown Crafting

There were a lot of birthdays among Asher's freinds, which meant I had to use my sewing machine. I got to make a couple more crowns. They are a fun, easy project and I can get one done in about 1/2 an hour as long as I have the fabric and vision selected and all the supplies together. I think this one for Natalie is my favorite one to date. I love the fabrics and the old ric rac from my mom's stash. I don't have a picture of the beautiful girl wearing it, but modeled it myself. Idon't really do it justice as Natatlie is quite the looker.

Asher modeled Audrey's. I used ribbon for her initial but don't know if it stands out enough for me.

Again this is another of my favorite fabrics that I have been hoarding for a couple years. It makes beautiful little girl dresses and now I have two new neices that I can sew for, so I am glad that I saved it.