Millet with fennel seed and kale, as well as a visit from Nonna!

It has now been many more mondays than I expected since I first intended to begin this post. I was going to talk about how mondays are a good day for cooking beans (which means that sundays happen to be a good day for soaking them.) But then we had plumbing problems, which will happen with a 100-year-old house, and so had to stay with friends for a night until we could address a problem we will likely need to revisit soon. That paired with an ever-so-adventurous one-year-old, a visit from Nonna, and a two (almost three) year-old has kept me on my feet and far far away from my computer.  But back to what I originally wanted to talk about: Mondays, or in this case wednesdays are a great day for cooking beans.

I have fallen into the habit of cooking all my beans and wheatberries on one day. I know it seems like a really obvious concept but one that took me quite a while to get to. It saves time on the nightly dinner and gives me the option of bean dips and spreads throughout the week. And if there is one thing my kids will always eat its hummus, or really anything that comes close to being hummus if I call by the same name. So a weekly stash of cooked beans in the fridge is essential.

Also since I have been on a wheat berry kick (more because the texture is similar to meat rather than tastes like meat) I have tried it as a substitute for ground meats in a few recipes, my favorite so far is this Thai ground meat salad with wheat berries in place of the meat. Laap Gai recipe.

The weather has been more than warm lately, keeping us outside gardening, painting, walking, and basking, which might be why I started this post half way through May, and today is the first day of June. We added a trip to the beach, a rather successful paint shopping day ( pretty sure we got around 10 new gallons of pain for about 40 dollars!) some gardening and a trip to the dentist to everything else that happened in May. Looking back at this post and thinking about the month it was a long one!

The beach was beautiful, Kiki got to search for treasures, and Mia ate so much sand! Neil and Gwen took the dogs up a huge sand dune, and Kiki loved looking at all the kites. We had lunch at a restaurant where the kids were able to play in the sand, and these cinnamon rolls that were leftover from breakfast (we added diced apples to the dough and skipped the frosting.) Actually skipping back to the evening before, when Kiki saw the cinnamon rolls on the counter she looked at me and gasped followed by 'Mom I love cinnamon rolls' though I am pretty sure she has never had them before.  but now that I have been talking about them for a few minutes here, I think I might make some for snack in a bit.

With so many things having found their way into May it is a relief that it is finally June. And I waited  too long to say all the things I wanted to so I should probably leave with a few recipes and a whole lot of pictures for Nonna!

Mixed raw veggie and herb salad:

1 beet diced
1 carrot diced
1/2 zucchini diced
1/2 cucumber diced
1/2 red onion diced
2 cloves garlic  minced

bunch of parsley minced
few sprigs of mint and basil minced
handful of dill
handful of sunflower seeds
juice of one lemon
few Tbls of olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

This is more of a general than an absolute as far as recipes go. As long as the veggies are all diced around the same size and you have a few fresh herbs on hand, some lemon juice, olive oil, and salt and pepper it's really up to you what veggies to add. Plus the bright colors already in bite sized portions makes it somewhat exciting for the little ones to try, though Kiki only took a few skeptical bites before moving on to the millet and bread we ate along with this.

Millet with Fennel seed and kale:

1 cup millet
2 cups water
Tbls fennel seeds
1 bay leaf
salt
splash of olive oil

1/4 red onion sliced as thin as you are able
a few leaves of kale, devined and shredded as thin as possible
juice from half a lemon
tsp of dill
salt and pepper to taste


In a  dry medium sized pot with a well fitting lid toast the millet for a couple minutes on medium heat till they turn a bit darker add the fennel seed, bay leaf, salt and water. Bring to boil over high heat, once it reaches a boil add the olive oil stir, cover the pot and turn down to a simmer. Let simmer till the water is pretty much gone, around 15 minuets. Let the millet rest for another 10 minutes without lifting the lid.

While the millet is cooking prepare the rest of the ingredients ( except lemon juice salt and pepper) adding them to a bowl large enough to hold the millet as well. Once the millet is ready combine with the veggies in the bowl (the heat from the millet will cook the onions and kale slightly taking away a lot of the bitter flavor.) Add the lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste.

Grape flat bread with rosemary:

Basic bread dough
grapes ( enough to at least cover the bread some what well)
olive oil
salt
rosemary

Using the same Basic bread dough recipe that I do most often portion out a large enough piece to fill a sheet pan. Roll to around a quarter inch thickness and place on a greased sheet pan.

Slice the grapes in half ( remove seeds if necessary), mince around two Tbls of rosemary, and use your hand to spread olive oil over the bread dough, covering the entire surface area.

Sprinkle on rosemary, next evenly space grapes all over the bread, add a bit of salt and bake for around 15-20 minuets at 460 degrees

Wheat berries, coffee in bed, and time spent without the children.

I love our weekday mornings. Along with his breakfast Neil brings coffee into our room in the morning, he is ready for work and has made his standard eggs and potatoes. He pours two cups of coffee and I struggle to sit up with out waking up baby Mia (who always cuddles as close as she is able). This time of year the sun is up as well brightening our room with a warm light. I love these few sleepy minutes with Neil eating breakfast in bed next to me and a hot coffee before I have even considered getting out of bed. He kisses us all before leaving for work, and if Kiki is up she directs who needs a kiss and how many each person needs.

The morning gets significantly more hectic soon after Neil leaves, the kids and dogs wake up and everyone is hungry. Most mornings the kids and I eat granola with fruit, but once and a while we have left over rice, and when we do they are always more than happy to have a steaming bowl of rice pudding. I don't make it all that often but when I do Kiki can barely wait.  Asking over and over if I am making it, and peaking up over the chair to see if the pudding is any closer to being done. Mia on the other hand is just as impatient but more because she just wants anything to eat. We add raisins, apples, bananas, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, sesame seeds, or coconut, it just depends on what is at hand. I know its not proper rice pudding, the uncooked rice simmered in milk, for the better part of an hour, but this quick version is always welcome, and fills us all up just the same.

Moms are often told they need time for themselves, time away from the kids, time to just be an adult. This is something I have always been sort of bad at. Kiki is getting close to three and Mia is more than one now and I can honestly say there have been maybe four times now that I have been with out the children for more than 15 minutes? This is entirely my own fault though. Its not that I could not take time for myself if I wanted to and the couple times I have Neil is more than happy to help with the kids while I go out for a short walk or just stay home while they have gone on a drive. But when it comes down to it, I just end up feeling bad, or worrying. My husband works hard all week as well and also deserves time alone or to rest. And when I am out while my family is all home I just find myself wondering what they are up to and realizing I would rather be home participating in what they are doing.

That is until last week. A friend and I decided that it would be a lot more fun and a lot less stressful to do the grocery shopping together and leave the children to play while a dad or two watched them. It was wonderful. There were no tiny baby bites out of the apples, no little fingers trying to poke holes into the bags of flour, and no requests for things not on the grocery list. As well as giving me significantly more relaxed shopping trip it also allowed me some time away from he children. Time that I didn't not think of what they were up, or worry my husbanded needed a break. We have decided to continue and as often as possible do our shopping together.

It was during this last grocery trip that while looking through the bulk section I decided to get wheat berries. Having not tried them before I spent a fair amount of time reading recipes and different suggestions for cooking (I did not try it this time but a few places I read toasting them in the oven a bit first helps increase the nutty flavor) but settled on this below. Perhaps based more on what I had at hand than what I would have picked but in the end it turned out quiet well, and the next morning I cooked a fried egg up and ate it with the leftovers and some siracha.

Also really just as an aside I love these

Warm wheat berries and roasted veggies

1.5 cups wheat berries
4.5 cups water

2 carrots peel and chopped
1 sweet potato peel and chopped
1/2 a leek chopped
1/2 onion chopped
3 stalks celery rinsed and chopped

3 Tbls olive oil
3 cloves garlic minced
1 tsp fennel
1 tsp sage
1 tsp nutritional yeast
salt and pepper to taste.

chopped green onion

Begin by preparing the wheat berries, bringing the water to a boil and simmering with the wheat berries immersed till the water has dissolved around an hour-ish? once done mix a bit of olive oil and some salt in with the still hot berries. Set aside to cool

While the wheat berries are bubbling away pre heat oven to 375 degrees. Put the chopped veggies (carrot, sweet potato, leek, onion, and celery) into a glass baking dish.

mix together garlic, olive oil, sage, fennel, nutritional yeast, and salt and pepper to taste. Pour the mixture over the veggies and use hands to make sure all the veggies are covered well with the oil mixture.

Bake for around 45 minutes.

remove from oven let cool a bit.

mix with cooked wheat berries and top with chopped green scallions.

Rice with eggies and soy sauce.

12 cubic yards is a lot of dirt. It seems like even more when its put in the wrong place.

When we bought our house there was an old falling apart shed in the backyard, the terms of the sale included the removal of that shed. This left us with a rather large low spot in the yard, and I know in my last post I mentioned how it rained less in this part of the state, but that does not mean it doesn't rain. The combination of the spring rain, and the sump pump hose emptying into the low area meant  a regularly flooded yard. To solve this problem one sunny day my husband ordered the 12 cubic yards of dirt, unfortunately he was driving one child somewhere and I was busy with another so the neighbor was nice enough to move the fence for the dirt company. This left the placement of the dirt up to the driver of the truck, and in the end we needed to move the entire pile about 15 feet.

After a bit of debate, and a slightly less than enthusiastic husband (who in the end turned out o be more hungry than grumpy)we decided the next day would be perfect for spending a whole lot of time shoveling dirt. So we ate dinner, settled in to watch some M.A.S.H and fell asleep.

The next morning was sunny at first and with a less than pleased volunteer (gwen) watching the little ones Neil and I set out with a wheel barrow (with a flat tire), two shovels, and two metal rakes to level out the yard. As the morning wore on the wheel barrows tire became more flat, Gwen cried, it rained and hailed, but after four or five hours we got the pile moved, the dirt raked, fenced off, and seeded with grass seed.

Now we just wait, dreaming of a large lawn, and a soon to be garden area.

Some what more recently and more importantly, baby Mia got her first love letter.

Once a week we go to the library for story hour. My kids are some of the worst at sitting still, but at least right now that is not the topic. Not every week but most weeks there is a mom that brings her one little girl and three little boys. The middle boy, who must be about four is head over heals for baby Mia. He runs to her each week as soon as he sees her. The little boy always has the biggest smile for her, and often tells me how cute she is. He sits with her while she does puzzles and follows to make sure she doesn't put little bits of things off the floor in her mouth. All in all its pretty adorable. And Mia seems to like him just fine, but does not favor him in the same way.

I suppose that today I am not really putting down a recipe but more just sharing Kiki's favorite lunch.

Rice with eggies and soy sauce (and sometimes veggies if I cut them up really really small)

Cooked white rice
minced ginger
chopped scallions
toasted sesame seed
cooked eggs (we usually go with scrambled or fried, or sometimes sunnyside up)
cooking oil
soy sauce

I tend to like all of the above on my rice, but kiki prefers just the eggies and soy sauce.

We probably eat this a least three times a week for lunch theses days, we all love it.

Really when it comes down to it though, this whole post was really just to share and document baby Mia's first love letter.

A Polish Easter Lamb cake.

 Growing up in Vermont, March meant very little ( beyond my father's birthday and praying for snow days). The snow was still there, we were lucky if the weather was in the 30's and if it did happen to rise above freezing everyone was happy to wear only a long sleeve shirt or for some a t-shirt. Wyoming was similar. Living at the base of the Tetons meant we usually got our last snow of the season sometimes around June.

But here in the Willamette Valley I started line drying our clothes mostly out doors in February and by the end of March both my babies already have a bit of a tan. The daffodils have come and gone, and we are enjoying tulips now. When I think of all the reasons that I miss Vermont the spring in Oregon makes up for each and every one (now that we have settled a little farther south that is). People tend to think of Portland or the coast (the notably rainy areas) when imagining Oregon, yet moving only about 80 miles south and a bit west of where we were has left us in a part of the state that gets significantly more sun and much less rain.

Spring's arrival has moved us out doors. Projects, activities, meals and pretty much anything we can do we try to do outside. My husband has built a wonderful fence for the front yard, putting a very necessary barrier between the children and the railroad tracks that run near the house, and should be bringing home a shed for the back yard soon as well. With clothes to dry,, a lawn to mow, and in general a yard to make wonderful, we seem to run out of daylight much sooner than energy.

We spent a morning at the coast with friends and let the dogs run all over the beach. Langston loved it and has proved to be a very well-behaved dog now that he has passed his puppy years. Henry on the other hand (our 12 year old grump) stayed true to his nature and barked at anyone who bothered to come anywhere near him, dogs and people alike. Our ambitions might have been a bit high, trying to bbq with four children, three dogs, and only four adults. I think next time flat bread and salad might be a much better option. Cookies would probably improve the general experience as well.

 The girls did get to enjoy fruit smoothies on the drive there, and we might have had to bribe Kiki with a doughnut to get her to leave the parking lot and actually venture down onto the beach. The child is terrified of the ocean. I spent the better part of the first half an hour assuring her she didn't need to go anywhere near the water and as long as she stayed where we were on the blanket the water would not come anywhere near her.

With Easter having come and gone looking back I am so happy with how the girls easter bunnies came out, and also that we found a good eastern European deli near by to get Polish kielbasa for Easter morning. There are a few Easter traditions we have decided to carry on from my husband's childhood for our own children Easter breakfast with Kielbasa being one and the Lamb cake maybe the most important.

I am pretty sure I have mentioned the lamb cake before, but in case I am wrong I should probably explain. It's (thankfully) not made from lamb but instead shaped like one, along with cookies, babka, and other sweets, the lamb cake is a traditional polish Easter treat. Neil remembers his mother making the lamb cake every year and the various ways it was decorated (though he always lobbied for raspberry filling and still does), the cake mold though was passed on to his sister.

 Our first easter together, I was around 5 months pregnant with Kiki and much like my pregnancy with Mia all I wanted to do was bake (and cook too). He mentioned the tradition of the Lamb cake, and after a little looking around we managed to find a cast iron mold on Amazon. That same year I did more Easter cooking than I probably ever will again, and made far more food than our then small family could possible eat. We were lucky enough to have a few friends over to share the massive amount of food my pregnant self made.

I think one of the things I enjoyed most about the Polish Easter food traditions is that most of the food is made a day or two ahead of time. Leaving Easter morning and most of the day free to enjoy with everyone else, and not just spent in the kitchen. Now we tend to do a bit more of a mix and I do still cook a bit on easter but the ahead-of-time preparation is a nice change if I can manage it. This year I did not even come close. The only preparation was the Lamb cake and buying the Kielbasa. Otherwise I found myself were I normal do, in the kitchen.

Kiki absolutely loved searching for the Easter eggs out in our front yard though we only made about 12 eggs, and even that was a stretch. We ran our of energy late on Saturday evening and I ended up just dying one big batch of all blue eggs. Significantly less time consuming and messy, with Gwen opting to be at her mothers this year I did not feel so bad about the kids missing out on the egg dying experience. Easter morning is really just like any other morning for a one and two year old. There is no anticipation, and really just a bit of shock that they are allowed to eat candy so early in the day (or at all) and a first a bit of confusion as you try to explain that its time to go and find the blue eggs from yesterday. It took Kiki a minute but once she got going she was an egg hunting machine. Since at two holding a basket of a dozen eggs or even half a dozen can be a bit taxing we held the basket while she did the collecting. Which gave us the chance to re-hide her found eggs while she was busy finding more.

With all of that now said  I suppose a good thing to share would be the recipe I use for the Lamb cake. As I said when I first made this cake I was rather pregnant with Kiki, and at the time I am sure I poured over recipes till I found this one. I am under the impression that it is a more traditional version, but who knows I could be completely wrong. Oh and at least for our house hold I had to change the milk and butter to our dairy free options but the recipe here will not reflect those changes.

Polish Easter Lamb cake

1/2 cup milk
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 stick butter
1/4 cup rather warm water
1 1/4 tsp yeast
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups flour
Zest of one lemon
mixed dried fruits and nuts ( we used dried cherries.)

Heat the milk to just before a boil. Turn off heat and stir in sugar, salt, and butter.

Separately  dissolve yeast in the 1/4 cup rather warm water. Once completely dissolved add to the milk mixture, next pour in flour and eggs and beat vigorously for 5 minutes. Cover and let rest in a warm place for around an hour and a half.

punch down dough, if using Lamb cake mold grease well and divide batter into each half, if using a regular cake pan grease well and pour in batter. Let rest 45 minutes. In the mean time pre-heat the over to 350. Bake for about 50 minutes. remove from oven and let cool before removing from mold.

You can really use any sort of frosting or simple glaze for this cake. We made just a quick lemon glaze to hold ours together and cover it.  Again Neil always champions for the raspberry filling but until the girls are a bit older that will have to wait.

Baby Mia turns big and Stuffed onions.

Our Neighbor brought over daffodils yesterday. Whenever Kiki sees them in her yard she always asks me if she can go and have some. Each time I have to tell her no; those flowers are not ours but we are lucky enough to see them from our yard. She usually tells me they are beautiful. Kiki was napping when we got the flowers, so I left them on the table. Whenever Kiki wakes up from nap the first thing she does is tell me it's snack time. She has become accustomed to this. Yesterday it was banana chocolate bread, but the daffodils stole the show. She forgot about her cake and instead sat at the table with her nose just an inch from the flowers.

The flowers were not the only spring present we received. Another friend who came into around 50lbs of onions stopped by to give almost half of them to us! Now I am absolutely sure I will be unable to use them up before they spoil, but with a couple hours or chopping ( and thankfully not too many tears) I managed to get the amount I figured would spoil into the freezer and ready for quick use. At the same time though I am left with far more onions than I am used to having, and though most nights I use at least one it is time to find more onion recipes than I already have. I ended up making stuffed onions the first night, with a recipe that reminds me of cabbage rolls, or at least they are similar to the cabbage rolls I make. And if we keep up with this Indian food kick we have been on, my guess is that we will continue to use our onions at a steady pace.

 

At this point it is also safe to say we are more or less ( less being the thought of buying fresh fish from the coast) at-home vegetarians, which might just be a catch-all way of saying for the most part we have cut out meat, but only really when it comes to our groceries. We still eat meat at restaurants, or at other peoples' houses if we find ourselves invited for dinner, and then there is the odd case like Easter. A fair amount of my husband's family is Polish, enough to influence holidays that is, and a couple things have held over for Easter, such as the cold polish sausage with  hard boiled eggs and other things for Easter morning breakfast, as well as lamb cake (Which thankfully is only shaped like a lamb from a special mold that it is baked in - not made from lamb). Typing this I am realizing that Easter will be here far sooner than I was anticipating and really do need to start collecting the Polish Easter recipes I have scattered around.

The main difference I have found here is that the Polish like to make food that will keep a day or two, at the very least, allowing the person in charge of the cooking to get it all done by the night before Easter. I really have found this enjoyable for Easter morning, it's really nice to have the time to run around with the kids looking for eggs, and as with most holidays I try my best to focus more on the food and family aspect of it rather than the gifts. I am sure we will get a couple little surprises for Easter morning but if I can help it I would rather the littles grow up looking forward to doing special things as a family on days like this rather then what they are going to get ( I can hope, right?).

And now that I have ended up in a completely different place than where I had started, and honestly am finishing this up a few days after I intended it is in fact baby Mia's first birthday. Its only about 7 a.m. and both babies are still sleeping ( Kiki in her bed and Mia snuggled next to me). Mia took her first step two nights ago, she is nowhere near walking yet but stands up very proud of herself. She is eating three meals a day at the table ( though the doctor informed me that since her system does not handle dairy, and the fats in milk are important to brain development over the next year, I should really keep breast feeding till she is two. Until I heard that I was counting the days till she turned one (and had every intention of weaning her on March 12) and after quite a struggle she has figured out how to use her sippy cup. So today by all conventional standards Mia has turned big. I suppose though if you asked Kiki the true measure of Mia being big is the ability tot jump on the bed, something Mia will have to work up to.

And since I took much longer to complete this post then I intended baby Mia's birthday recipe (not that we are eating today, just sharing) is stuffed onions. Who knows, perhaps when she has grown into taking bites she will enjoy them ( I can hope right?) I am sure there will be more pictures of baby Mia on her birthday for Nonna soon, but today there are not too many baby pictures,  just some onions, and her standing on the table.

Stuffed Onions:

4 or 5 medium-ish sized red onions ( or any kind I would suppose)

3 cloves of garlic (minced)

3 or 4 small mushrooms (minced)

about a 1/4 cup of minced eggplant

1 Tbls minced fresh rosemary

a few springs of minced parsley

one egg

1 packed cup cooked rice

2 Tbls nutritional yeast

white wine

olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Start off by setting a rather large pot of salted water on the stove to boil. Continue by cutting of the ends of the onions and then cutting each in half. Next remove the outer rough skins of the onion, and carefully separate each layer and set aside till you get to the middle where it is difficult to separate. Take the smaller middle part of the onions ( not being used as the shell) and mince.

Once your salted water has come to a boil plunge  all the separated pieces of onions into the water and let boil a minute or two until they become soft and easy to handle (sometimes doing this in a couple batches in the better option). Set this aside to cool.

To make the filling cook on medium-high heat the diced onions till translucent, add in the eggplant and mushrooms, cooking a few minutes more, turn off the heat and add parsley, rosemary, nutritional yeast, egg, rice, and salt and pepper to taste. Stir everything until well combined.

In a glass baking dish large enough to hold everything pour a couple Tbls of olive oil and spread across the bottom, next pour a few splashes of white wine in as well, again enough to at cover the bottom of the baking dish.

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Now taking one of the onion shells place about 1/2 a Tbls to a whole Tbls at one side ( depending on the size of the shell) and roll into the shape of a cigar. Place seam side down in the prepared baking sheet and repeat until you either run our of something or your baking dish is full.

Place in the oven and allow to cook for 45 or so minutes.

Remove and serve hot or cold. This recipe keep relatively well. We had this with sweet potato and mustard green hash last night, and are eating the left overs cold with hummus and flat bread for lunch.

Really Henry?

Neil usually wakes up first. Showers, gets ready for work and heads to the kitchen to make himself eggs and potatoes before he leaves for work. Most mornings I am up but stay in bed a little longer with one or two little girls and Henry bean my sweet little grumpy old dog. If he knows I am awake Neil also brings me a cup of coffee (while I am still in bed, which is wonderful). Kiki wakes up next immediately hearing her father in the kitchen her eyes get wide and she tells me 'I need go see daddy in kitchen. I need get cereal'. I hear her scamper off and ask her father for the aforementioned, leaving Mia and myself to a quiet 20 minutes or so that I thoroughly enjoy.

Once Neil has left its usually time to feed Mia and watch Kiki run around being a monkey. This morning was no different. I cut up an apple cinnamon muffin into her Mia sized tiny, tiny pieces watched her and Kiki eat for a bit and then went to collect the laundry from the different rooms while they finished up. When I came back though, Henry had apparently decided Mia was done eating her muffin.

Kiki absolutely can not stand not being a part of me taking pictures.

Also I though I would try and keep track of some of the recipes and blogs I like reading here as well.
These samosas are perfect for our Friday car rides to pick up Gwen. I am always looking for some kind of new recipe that packs a whole meal into one hand held snack. I added some peas, broccoli and kale to this recipe.

Lately we having been easting a whole bunch of lentils. Indian Daal seems to be my favorite preparation right now and this Pumpkin carrot red lentil daal  is probably my favorite to make.

I cant's wait to make this for dinner tonight!

Every couple of weeks my husbands job has a safety meeting where they rotate who brings snacks, this week was his turn. We made raisin scones, apple cinnamon sunflower seed muffins and this my favorite biscotti in the whole world right now recipe

And lastly it is my Fathers 62 birthday! We were lucky enough to have both him and my mother as well as my wonderful brother and his beautiful girlfriend all here for Thanksgiving this past year. It was the first time we had all been together for a holiday in 10 years, and it is something we can hopefully do again much sooner this time. Happy birthday Dad, we all love you and miss you, Kiki keeps telling me that you and Nonna will come to visit soon. Or well a slightly less understandable two year olds version of that.