all buttoned up.

Go Forth and Rent a Bouncy House (or Castle)

And then stand back and watch their little minds blow.

At one point Sam was screaming, "it's like a dream! But it's actually happening!" I was in the house and heard him through the window and caught myself tearing up. It is silly (I know), but these days it has been achingly hard to make that child happy for any length of time. And it wasn't even his birthday. Normally we don't go crazy over parties and prefer to have friends get together rather than putting on a whole thing, but this year I decided to do both. Besides, it usually turns into a thing anyway. The cost of rental was reasonable-- cheap really, considering we were celebrating two birthdays at once, had multiple ages present, and I didn't have to do anything else but bring out the food and make sure the boys knew that at some point the people were going to come and take it away.

I was the best money I've ever spent on something temporary.

I'm always trying to hunt down good party food, especially because the boys don't do dairy and we usually have a lot of grown-ups present. We have done baked potato bar, a bread party, and different versions of Brunch. The party was at 3 pm, so we went with mini bagels (with pb, jam, cream cheese, turkey or tomatoes), various and sundry finger foods, muffins, and cupcakes with ganache and sprinkles (Ina Garten's recipe subbing out the dairy). Who wants to eat when there's a bouncy house? This was take and run crazy food, which worked great for everyone.

The weather was beautiful, which was kind of amazing in itself. There were a few sweet gifts (we say no gifts usually, but sometimes we get ignored. That's totally cool) and lots of people that care about them. We saved our family gifts for each of the boys actual birthdays. Those will be slow days with pancakes for dinner and lots of "you're three now!!" affirmations.

It was a such a happy day. Paul wondered how we could rent one of those things every weekend. I would be thrilled with fitting it in monthly.

Links About Sewing, Photos of Food

August and September have become the put up months in my life. I guess they have always been this way, since as children, we all helped my family take care of summer foods. I freeze the earlier summer berries, but the stuff I like to can comes at the end of the growing season-- and the last two years (especially) things are coming in later and later. This year I'm skipping some of the whole tomatoes and trying pasta sauce instead. I suppose I thought I would just *make* sauce from the whole tomatoes, but that didn't happen as often as I liked, and my small people (who eat a lot of noodles and sauce) like consistency in this arena. So far, so awesome. The recipe, like so many good things, comes by way of Jennifer.

Besides that, there have been lots of salsa, some peaches, pears, and finally fruit butters with the remnants. There is a little jam, and there have been A LOT of pickles. August and I can finish a quart in a day, which, besides being gastro-unwise, means I need to Plan Ahead for heavy consumption. There has also been a fussy camera and a broken lens.

I should be done with apples (and their sauce) by the beginning of next month and I'm planning a return to serious sewing. So. I had my machine serviced, and my scissors and pinking sheers sharpened. I started pulling out books and patterns at night to Make a Super Awesome List.

• I am so super stoked about Sarai Mitnick's forthcoming book, The Colette Sewing Handbook. The quality and integrity of Colette patterns is really something special-- and even when the style is most definitely, not mine, I'm still drawn to the great lines and construction. She also released three new patterns that are going on the post-baby list. I love me a boat-neck.
• Oh, the baby. There will be some baby sewing, I suppose. We're going to find out if it's a boy or girl, and I'm going to get really serious about sewing with knits. I feel like this would be easier if I got a hold of some Nani Iro Double Knit-- this one, maybe? 
• I just received Shelly's new book, Sewing for Boys! I'll have some projects up from it next Saturday. It's a good one.
• There is a series of quilts that I'm working on-- or working through, more like-- and after coming out of a slump with them I'm think I'm back on the right track. Or some kind of track. I'll let you know.
• There will also be a new tablecloth before Christmas.

Back to boiling pot of water. Do you have one?

(What's up 95 degrees?? You had your chance in July and you blew it. September is no time to try and make it right.)

 

Thank You! By Way of Tomato Tarts and Photos Not-By-Me

 

Oh, you guys crack me up. And make me all misty (read: weepy). Thank you. I have always felt such tremendous care and support from those of you who read here, and I feel full of good fortune. Thank you, thank you.

I mentioned that my sisters and I put on a party and that we did quite a lot of cooking for a good number of people. One of the things that I was determined to try when deciding on a menu of mid-afternoon snacks to feed the most number of people easily, was Tomato Corn Tarts. Along with gallons each of quinoa salad, peanut noodles, pasta salad, fresh salsas, farmer sausage (!), rollkuchen (fried bread eaten with Roger's) and watermelon, these little tarts proved to be fast movers.

I am a Smitten Kitchen Tomato Corn Pie evangelist, and try to make as many as I can while its ingredients are in season. This version is not only easier, but maybe tastier? I don't know. Maybe the appeal lies in the fact that you eat it with your fingers. The tart shells came in a pack of a 140 (we used them all), and they came frozen from Costco (I think). I'm hoping that they are available stateside, since tarts seem to be a bigger deal in a country full of European expats. So let's say you only want to make 24. You will want to make more, but let's start here:

Two Dozen Tomatoe Corn Mini Tarts (original recipe from the most excellent Smitten Kitchen)

24 mini tart shells
2 ears of corn, corn cut of and lightly chopped
2 medium sized tomatoes, peeled and seeded
2 Tbsp mayo combined with a squeeze or two of lemon
Chopped Basil and Chives (a handful of each)
1 cup of grated cheddar
Salt and Pepper to taste

For larger quantities, just keep chopping, cutting and seeding. You'll want the mayo mixture to coat everything nicely and the cheese to be very "present". I prepped the tomatoes and corn the night-- both the corn and tomatoes produced a lot of liquid overnight, which I poured off. This helped keep the tart shells nice and crispy on the bottom.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees, mix everything together, and then fill the still frozen tart shells in their little cups on a cookie sheet. They should bake for about 12-15 minutes, browning along the edges (if they're not brown, the bottom is going to be soggy).

Shantini made desserts, too, LOTS OF THEM. The recipe Sharalee used for Rollkuchen came from this book (which I love) and is traditionally served with Roger's Golden Syrup and watermelon. Sharalee was able to somehow take photos of our time up there-- do you live in the valley? Thanks to that Granny and Grumpa post, I know some of you do! My sister is a family and event photographer who works in and around Chilliwack, Abbotsford, Langley and Vancouver. If you're looking for someone to take care of your picture taking needs, you would be well advised to get in touch with her. These are all her photos.

 

Bundt It

We are starting off the long weekend with a piss poor weather and a dinner with friends. I could care less about the weather at this point, because June is around the corner! And I hate watering the garden anyway. And we all have rubber boots this year, so what's the fuss? Plus, I am in dire need of a good, long weekend.

We are grilling tonight anyway, and our friends are bringing dishes and we are going to have Lemon Rhubarb Bundt Cake for dessert. At Christmas a friend said to me kind of accusingly, "you love the bundt don't you?" and he was right, of course, because whether it's blueberry pound or chocolate with ganache, I go to it first because it feeds a lot of people. And it's usually delicious, which has very little to do with me. And because I have a pan that makes everything come out right the first time (I cannot understate my joy over the pan).

***

My list is pretty long for the weekend. On it, I need to buy a new blender. Or, a blender period, as we have not had one in quite a long time. It will mostly be for lots and lots of smoothies. Do you one that does the job? Waring Pro? Kitchenaid? I have read all the reviews and I'm more confused now then when I started looking.

 

Feeding the Man-Children

There is an obscene amount of canning going on around here.  In the space of about a year we went from two and half eaters in our house to feeding five.  I mean, sure, technically there were 5 of us last summer, too, but you know-- throw some noodles and some brocolli their way and we were good.  Sam sucked the marrow of his precious tofu and they would happily split an apple three ways for a snack and declare themselves full. People make jokes about feeding boys and I wondered if it was some gender-biased myth.  Hah. 

IT IS NOT A MYTH.

I've almost always done some kind of canning or freezing, but this year I've gotten really serious about it.  I realized that my little boys didn't know what applesauce was because I had stopped buying it and apples never got cheap enough last year to make any.  So, as of this year, I know that 40lbs of apples (with peel and minus the core), gives us about 15 quarts of sugarless sauce.  If I process the same amount of romas, I get about 24 quarts.   I learned that I do not own big enough pots, we can never pick enough blueberries, and I am surprisingly picky about peach varieties.  We got ourselves a fruit guy and joined a vegetable buying club.

I have been refering to old standbys for preserving advice:  Joy of Cooking, More With Less, and familiar recipes and methods that I've grown up with.  I really love Small Batch Preserving for those times when I've needed to kill off those last pieces of fruit, and I'm still sifting through Jen's links for favourites.  So many of our friends preserve-- we trade around equipment, recipes and comment on how gorgeous each other's steam bathed skin looks (I will take it where I can get it).

This week I'm going to label, tally, and figure out how I can do a better job for next year.  Do you put up food?  Do you do it for pleasure or out of necessity (or both)?  My mom was visiting and while we were mashing tomatoes into jars, she commented on how glad she used to be when canning season was coming to an end.   The desire to feed these boys for less this year is a great motivator, but I'm starting to understand her end-of-season sighs of relief. 

***edited:  I re-checked my quart count on the tomatos and we are right around 24 plus a few pints.  I will say that it was probably closer to 50 lbs instead of 40, though.  They were whole, skinned romas (smashed them down with a spoon in their own liquid) with a little salt, lemon juice and a couple of basil leaves. 

An Irregular Trapezoid Update: 2nd Season

I am elbow deep in brine and peaches and what-have-you as we dig in deep to the end of August.  You can smell our house coming down the block and if you don't like the smell of vinegar, I suggest you take a different route.  J at Putting By has been a great encourager to me this summer-- I put in my first order for lots and lots of tomatoes and am borrowing a pressure cooker to can up dried beans.  Of course, this has precipitated the question of storage so I've been trolling around trying to find a big cabinet with doors for the basement.

Our little trapezoid has done really well, despite a cooler than average summer.  Sam eats the lemon cukes like apples and the tomatoes are full of green fruit.  I've stopped watering the latter and trimmed back a lot of the new growth, in hopes that they will actually set and ripen. I'm waiting for the zucchini to finish up (or for us to get tired of it) so that I can try and eek out a third season of fall greens.  If not, I'll call it even and plant carrots and garlic and whatever for overwintering and hope for the best.

In a shocking turn of events, I made Ina's zucchini pancakes and all the boys happily ate them-- not once, but twice.  We have been also eating grunts, slumps and the occasional kuchen (out of the Rustic Fruits and the Grand Central books respectively), because you have to reward yourself a little for using up all that zucchini.

(p.s. the beginnings of the box, the updated greens, and when we ripped out the peas. )

The Grilling of the Pizza

We have taken all pizza making outdoors. 

We eat it once a week (at least), but slightly less when the weather is warm and I don't feel like getting smoked out of the kitchen.  The Good People over at Artisan Bread in Five have spent some time going over grilling various and sundry bread things on the blog, and I finally got serious about taking their advice. 

The first time we tried I used our pizza stone on the grates and preheated for what I felt was a reasonable amount of time.  Turns out, it was a reasonable time in Hades and the thrown dough, while perfect on top, was about as black as it could get-- charred right through and not in a nice way.  Turns out, you CAN get that stone too hot.  I readjusted the flame temp to low on our gas grill and tried again with better results-- though still not totally happy with the cheese melt factor to bits of char on the crust ratio. 

Turns out, I was missing the point completely.  Forget the stone.  Forget throwing.  With the flame on medium, all I needed to do was roll the dough out a little bit, brush it with a little oil, and lay the oiled side down right on the grates.  After about a minute I flip it, top it, and close the lid to get the toppings cooking.  The dough ends up being pillowy and chewy with the right amount of char, the cheese melts as god intended and it's fast. Fast, like 5 minutes fast.  

Our favourite way to top it at the moment is with a little pre-made salsa and fresh mozz:

• Chopped tomato, peach (if you have it), jalapeno, maybe some scallion or corn, and basil
• then add Salt, Pepper and Lime Juice
• Let sit for an hour or so and you're ready to go. 

(Hannah!  Susan is going for the bacon.  Check it.)

The Artisan Bread in Five book is still in heavy rotation at our house (the challah especially), but I usually use this basic recipe for quick dough (it's ready to go in about and hour and a half).  It's okay in the oven, but really fantastic on the grill.  Which is why we've had it three times this week and I'm going to have a hard time making pizza in the winter time without going outside to do it. 

I Promised Peas and I Give You Tummy Yummies

 
I pulled our peas out the other day.  The pile was so big, my urban children jumped in them like they were autumn leaves.  We picked gallons of snap peas (maybe 2?) and fed ourselves and our neighbors greens and peas through late Spring.  I was surprised at how much we could get out of our little piece of ground.  The tomatoes are in and so are the beans-- we'll have non-bolting spinach and some lettuce in the meantime.

 
But seriously... like Sam would say, this is healthy food talk and who needs healthy food on a blooog.  Not I.  The boys call these "Yummies" and I'm not sure why, except for the obvious. They are a hippied up version of the bars that we all ate growing up.  Up until recently I hadn't had them in years and years.  WIth that said, you may want to half the recipe if you have less people to feed.  I don't often crave foods from my youth, these being an enormous exception (that and a variety of baked, fried and boiled mennonite food). 

Yummies (Puffed Wheat Squares)

• 8ish cups of puffed Kamut (or Wheat)
• 1/2 cup butter (we use earth balance)
• 1/2 cup brown rice syrup
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2Tbsp cocoa powder
• a little vanilla

Grease a pan-- I use 8 by 11".  Melt the fat, syrup, sugar and cocoa.  Bring to a boil and pull off the heat.  Add the vanilla (you're just making syrup, the longer you let it boil, the crunchier the squares will end up.  I let it go 30 seconds or so).  Mix it all up with the puffed things and press it into your pan.  I use the back of a pancake turner.  Chill a little while. 

Let Me Be Your Test Kitchen

On Friday the forecast called for sunny and 72 for Memorial Day.  They were very much wrong, but we didn't know that and went ahead and planned a party for Manny's Very Nearly Half Birthday.  We didn't have a party for his first birthday and I knew that I would grow to rue the day I made the decision to skip the for real celebration.  We declared it a Birthday Reenactment (just like the moon landing!). 

I am among the precious few people in this town who could pretty much take or leave cupcakes.  I mean... I don't know... I don't love cake.  Or more accurately, I don't love frosting of any kind and when you're dealing with cupcakes, you have to deal with a goodly amount of frosting.  I have baked the Gingerbread Cupcakes from the Craft of Baking book twice in the last two weeks, each time making them a day ahead and skipping the glaze for piped whip cream and candied ginger.  These are a Outstanding.  They are rich, spicy (combo of coffee, molasses, stout beer and a list of spices), and minus the whip cream they are dairy free.  OUTSTANDING, I tell you. 

We also had Rhubarb Lemon Bundt Cake (minus the rhubarb, and add in some barely ripe strawberries which ended up tasting like rhubarb, dontchaknow).  Solid Favourite.  The Rustic Fruits book has taken up permanent residence on the counter as we make our way into berry season.

I am still very much appreciating the Test Kitchen book.  Sam and I made these chocolate cupcakes (with ganache for icing) for a party and they did not disappoint.  I have made loads of Test Kitchen recipes the last few years and they always come out the way they are supposed to.  The best bit of this book (for me) is that they take into account that recipes-- especially classic recipes-- are entirely subjective.  So they give you three different choices for brownies:  fudgey, cakey, and somewhere in between the two.  They take potato salads and things like roast beef very, very seriously.  In other words, they care so you don't have to. 

I am glad that party season is upon us.  I plan on taking advantage of Any Reason At All to bust out the evites and beer.  You have officially been put on notice, People.  Happy unBirthday sweet child. 

Raising Future Relief Workers and A Good Loaf of Bread.

 

I grew up knowing full well about a world of hurt and loss.  My parents took us to the ends of the earth and thrust poverty and the like straight into our lilly white faces.  I don't think any of it was sensationalized and we certainly weren't traumatized by any of it-- quite the opposite, really.  After all, my mom was born in Nigeria and my Grandparents worked "in the bush" for the better part of 35 years.  No big thing.  Every thought that contained any sort of greed or selfishness (and they were, like, every second one) of my youth was accompanied by a sense of it-could-be-worse-- much worse. 

How do I raise kids like that?  It's a tricky business, and Sam is already FIVE.  I had been in Calcutta by the time I was five.  Paul and I talk about this all the time.  We thought we could not afford to adopt, but we did it anyway.  We are too poor to travel-- can't we make that one work, too?  Clearly, we need to teach them compassion.  We need to teach them how to cope with stressful situations.  We need to teach them to be self-sufficient.  We need to teach them to be more adept at peeing outside. 

We need to bake bread together. 

I have talked before about my lackluster desire to make my family's bread.  They go through a loaf a day in toast?!  How things have changed.  I have been looking for a good light whole wheat recipe that uses more whole than white, can be made dairy-free, bakes up nice for sandwiches (which Sam takes every day to school), and (the minor bit) that all the boys will eat happily.  Who knew that allrecipes would come to my aid?  This is the original recipe and I made the following changes:

• upped the honey to 1/3 cup
• subbed in rice milk and margarine for dairy and fat 
• made one loaf in the pan and one free-form loaf on the stone-- lovely.  

The bread was light but didn't fall apart (this is key), it makes great toast, and the boys all ate it up.  It still tasted good three days in, by which time it was almost all gone.  My friend Beth made it immediately and will back me up in touting its deliciousness and versatility.

****

I pay a lot of attention to these sites:

• Ethica
• Love Isn't Enough

This clip adds a little fuel to the current fire (his mama should be so proud).