Mother's Day and Quiche

What a wonderful day on Sunday (as if I deserved anything extra - on top of the regular, run-of-the-mill happiness that I am so fortunate to enjoy). Sergio and the girls delivered me some lovely cards and a gift certificate for a massage (Solaris is the best!) and let me pick our dinner spot (Spin! because it's next to Glacé).

a happy mother on Mother's Day

We went to the lawn at the Nelson-Atkins to see a puppet show by the Stone Lion Puppet Theater troupe. Great stuff, truly. You must make an effort to see them if you haven't already. Puppets of incredible proportion and messages of great import! I loved the crane; Julia loved the turtle; Sergio loved the snake; according to Julia, Clara loved the snail. (We'll take Julia's word for it.)

Later that night while she was playing outside, Julia brought me one of the plastic flowers from her wheelbarrow set and said, "Happy Mother's Day!" It melted my heart. Then she brought the other plastic flower inside, gave it to her daddy and said, "Happy Mother's Day, Daddy!" And since bucking gender normativity is a favorite past time of mine, well, that melted my heart again.

Oh, and I forgot the most important meal of the day - Sergio made quiche for breakfast! Two years ago on my first Mother's Day, Sergio insisted on serving me breakfast in bed. I carelessly told him that I did not like eating in bed and he was crestfallen. He replied, "if I don't bring you your breakfast in bed then today won't be any different than all the other days when I make you breakfast." He was so right. He is always in charge of the morning meal. I had forgotten to be grateful for that. It was a good reminder.

Anyway, this year he wanted to do breakfast in bed again but let's be honest - breakfast in bed when there's a bouncy toddler and a grabby infant nearby is just a big load of dirty laundry waiting to happen. So we ate in our kitchen at our breakfast nook, watched for birds in our new bird bath, and enjoyed our quiche. Or as we call it ... "gheesh." Sergio's been getting into ghee lately - it is lovely and makes a stellar quiche. Here's his crust recipe.

Ghee Whole Wheat Pie Crust 
(for a 2 crust 8” pie)

  

½ tsp salt

2 2/3 c. flour (1 1/3 c. white flour & 1 1/3 c. whole wheat pastry flour works nicely)

2/3 c. melted ghee (clarified butter)

4 TBSP cold water

Mix dry ingredients. Blend in ghee with a fork or pastry blender. Slowly add water, blending. Roll out.

Julia wanted to take her "umbeya" on our walk.
(Note the outline of the shadow of her hair.)

The bush to the side of the garage began to bloom.
Turns out it's spirea! Clara approves.

edible Kansas City

This little piggy went wee, wee, wee all the way to the newsstands.

There's a new magazine in town - it's hot off the presses and new to KC - it's all about fabulous, local food ... it's edible KANSAS CITY and it's lovely.

As part of the nation-wide Edible Communities organization, eKC has the benefit of an established and robust publishing company while also being edited and published by local Kansas Citians, so it truly reflects our local community. And to top it off, Edible Communities won the 2011 James Beard Award for Publication of the Year. Great accolades to get this unique magazine off the ground here in KC.

Oh, and did I mention that I got to write for it!? Well, I did. It was a delight and will continue to be a delight, I'm sure, to be able to explore my ever growing thoughts on food (especially local and organic) and to be a contributing member of the eKC group.

If you haven't had the chance to pick one of these up, do so soon and enjoy the first serving of what is sure to be a great staple in our food community in KC. (Click here for the full list of where you can find eKC.) And it's free - er, uh - "priceless."

Bok Choy and Garlic Soup

bok choy blossoms

I am really pleased with the simplicity of this soup. It is humble and straightforward, but also rewarding in both flavor and nutritional value. The ginger and garlic - and of course the bok choy - provide a great boost, especially to one's immune system during the sickly parts of winter, which is when I found this recipe.

But now that my CSA's extended season has begun, the farmers markets are opening, and the bok choy is readily available again, I'm finding that this soup also goes well with spring.

You can amend this recipe in a lot of different ways - another reason it makes a great CSA recipe - so you can just use what you have on hand.

Baby Bok Choy and Garlic Soup
from 30 Bucks a Week
Ingredients:
7 c veggie broth
4-5 cloves garlic, crushed
1 piece of ginger, peeled
handful of brown rice (between 1/4-1/2 cup; PS this is a great recipe to use up leftover rice)
1 lb bok choy, trimmed and chopped
salt to tast
sriracha or other hot sauce, to taste
1 egg

Instructions:
Boil the vegetable stock and add the crushed garlic and ginger in a big pot. Let that simmer over low heat for about 5 minutes.
Add the rice and cover. Simmer for 20 minutes (unless rice was previously cooked.)
Add more broth if you need it and add the bok choy. Taste and season with salt and sriracha.
Cover and let the bok choy cook down - should only be 5 minutes or so.
Ladle a small portion of the broth out into a bowl and add the egg. Stir vigorously with a fork and then pour it all back into the pot. Give the soup a good stir and serve.

Easter 2013

I had the chickens at Urbavore Farm pre-dye my Easter eggs. They did a lovely job. 

Julia - not yet the purist that I am - didn't mind hunting little plastic eggs instead of real ones. 

Warm day + hot sun + long wait = melted chocolate. Still tastes good, though.

Easter cheesey faces! 

The Girls

Julia 2.5 yrs, Clara 7 mos

If I tried to record something about the girls everyday ... wait, actually I do record something about them everyday, in one of those little line-a-day journals. And yet I still can't find enough words to capture how quickly they grow, how remarkable they both are, how delightful they make our lives. They are distinct and unique in every way. Blue eyes/brown eyes, curly hair/straight hair, light skin/dark skin. Oh, but they both have Maybelline eyelashes ("maybe she's born with it?"). I am curious to see how their personalities differ (or not) as they grow up. Julia's personality is well on its way...

Julia and her ukulele

Julia got a ukulele for Christmas and plays it pretty often. Well, "plays" it. She also "tunes" it - or "fixes" it, as she calls it. (Then her dad has to tune it back later when he wants to play it.) Her favorite song to sing is "Red Red Robin" - she knows a lot of the lyrics. Her favorite music to listen to in the car is Enya; we hear less of that from the ukulele. In other news: she always likes to know where we are going first, what we are doing, and - inevitably - why. Yes we have entered the why stage and as endless as it is, I love it. She also likes to know everyone's names; people in books, people we pass on the street, the mail carrier, etc. Sometimes we ask perfect strangers their names; other times we just make stuff up!

Clara and her toes

Clara is nothing but sugar. A generally happy baby all around. She cries when she's hungry but is in great spirits most of the rest of the time. She is enamored with Julia, she puts everything in her mouth, and she babbles and cooes with the best of them. I swear she said "mama" the other day. Okay, not really. But she might as well have. I know she was thinking it. 

These babies are truly the best and I can't seem to get enough of either of them. Sergio and I don't take any of it for granted, not for one second. 

Happy Holidays

Merry Christmas

Christmas was absolutely the best. House full of family, from a few people to a lot. Hustle and bustle and dinner and lunch and toys and puzzles and a giant tub of popcorn and several bags of peppermint bark and toffee.

puzzles for everyone

In many ways, this felt like Julia's first Christmas because it was the first Christmas when she was aware and could talk about it. Her struggle with Santa (she never did fully warm up to him), her "Mitmas" songs, her fascination with the baby Jesus, her presents.

Primos on Christmas morning

Clara and Abuelo

We finally had snow! It was short lived but lovely. 

playing in the "no" (Julia's pronunciation of snow)

The New Year - best part of my New Year's Eve was watching Julia dance to a Wii video game. She was timid, but so serious about following the moves as instructed on the screen. Best part of my New Year's Day - marking our 10th (!) wedding anniversary.

Deck the Halls

After trimming the tree (literally cutting off branches),
we used the remnants in the entry way.

Christmas has arrived at our house, at last. We finally put up our tree about a week ago. Sergio (formerly known as Scroogio) seemed to want to wait until December was in full swing, rather than deck the halls the day after Thanksgiving, which I would have been happy to do. It's just as well bceause we got a real tree and I don't want the thing dying on us before the real Christmas has come and gone. 

Vintage shop find No. 1 - wooden angel musicians 

Julia seemed to think that the real Christmas had already come and gone after we got the tree. We walked over to the church about 6 blocks from our house to buy a tree from their youth group. We picked one out and loaded it into our grocery cart and pushed it the 6+ blocks back to our house. It only tipped over once! We were a funny site, I'm sure. Julia walked because she refused to ride in her stroller on the return trip (typical) so I wore Clara and pushed an empty stroller and Sergio pushed the tree in the grocery cart and we both did our best to corral Julia on the way home. 

Vintage shop find No 2 - Santa plate
(desperately in need of some Christopher Elbow Peppermint Bark) 

Anyway, when we got home, she watched me put the lights on and I gave her some soft ornaments to arrange on lower branches. That was as far as we got before it was her bedtime. The next morning I couldn't wait to show her our completed, decorated tree. So I woke her up and said, "do you want to come downstairs and see our Christmas tree?" And she replied with something along the lines of "we did that yesterday," as in, "Christmas is over, Mommy. We already got our Christmas tree." Such a pure and simple understanding of Christmas. "Mitmas," she calls it. I am enjoying these years before the wanting begins. 

new home, new baby...
lots to commemorate this year with special Hallmark ornaments

I used to think that my Christmas tree ornaments could be grouped into two categories: 'ornaments from my childhood' or 'things most people would throw away' (examples: Chimay corks and even a Gatorade cap!) It was not until this year, while decorating with a toddler, that I realized that they also all fall into two other categories - either "looks like a toy" or "fragile and breakable" - or worse yet, the ones that fall into BOTH those categories. So I had to be judicious and hang the breakable ones up top and the softer ones down below. I broke the rule I learned long ago about hanging larger ornaments at the bottom and smaller ones up top, medium ones in the middle, etc. But I'm pretty sure we'll survive that broken rule. As will my ornaments.

Julia's shoe (it's mate was lost at the airport a long time ago)
I've been saving this for an ornament for a while. 

Julia is in deep conflict about Dear Old Santa. As she told me one morning before we went to meet him, she does "not yike Nanta." We met him at the neighborhood party and she wouldn't dare look upon him; we took her to the Santa at family night at Hallmark and she refused him in every way. Mind you, she doesn't cry and wail and fuss. She just averts her gaze and clings to my neck for dear life. I now have two great pictures of me, Santa, and the back of Julia's head.  I have heard her talking to the santas on the tree: "Oh, Nanta. I yon't yike you. I yike you. Sometimes I yon't yike you. Sometimes I do yike you." Apparently she's really torn up about this. I am actually relieved that my child doesn't willingly sit in the laps of strangers. Seems healthy to me. We'll see how her feelings change as the season progresses. She is at least having fun spotting Santa, Snowmen (plastic decorative ones since we haven't had any snow yet) all around town. So glad that "Mitmas" is here! 

Bought this whimsical Santa at the thrift store ($3!).
I realize now it reminds me of a pear.