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.