costumes

Can you tell what they are?? Harry Potter and a winged dinosaur. Hooray for simple costumes!
Faith painted their faces. I thought they looked super adorable. They had a wonderful time trick or treating.

happy halloween!

The boys and I did a little pumpkin painting project this morning. So fun! They really got into it, and I enjoy this so much better than carving. They'll still carve pumpkins with Ken tonight but these will last and decorate our porch much longer.

I was feeling so pleased and happy to have all the necessary stuff on hand for these. Having a little art bin does come in handy sometimes. It occurred to me that the boys are at a golden age of crafting--old enough to really do things and still young enough to turn out the "early childhood" art look that I love so much. I want to start doing much more art and crafty projects with them. I like things like this that are easy and open ended.
Back later tonight to post them in their costumes! Looking forward to an early dinner, trick or treating, then homemade pumpkin pie for all. The boys will eat their fill of candy then put the rest on the porch tonight for The Green Pumpkin to collect. Happy Halloween to all who are celebrating!

risotto for dinner: a variation on soup night

Last Wednesday. I tried the Mixed Vegetable Risotto from Apples for Jam for a slight change of pace on soup night. I was looking through the book earlier in the week, searching for soup inspiration, when I came across this recipe, which the author describes as a somewhat soupy risotto, so I thought it was the perfect thing. We really liked this and it made wonderful leftovers too. I was happy to find two very tender baby zucchini, a decent tomato, and some nice basil in our garden (which is looking fairly sad these days--the heat of the early fall, and now the cold nights seem to have taken their toll on the annuals).
I've been thinking about how nice it is sometimes to take a little longer to make a weeknight recipe. Both with this one and the bean dish I made recently, Faith came out and helped a bit, we had a little dance party in the kitchen with the boys, and just generally had a relaxing-ish time while the meal came together (I say relaxing "ish" because there is always that weeknight busyness to some extent). But the benefit of taking a longer time to cook dinner is that it promotes hanging out together in the kitchen while things bake or simmer and the food tastes better too. That said, this was still pretty easy and basically it was just a matter of chopping vegetables, sauteeing everything, and then stirring every now and again after you add the water (yes, water! That is one of the things I really liked about this recipe--no broth, and the water is added mostly all at once and the stirring is not constant).

some favorite halloween books

I'm not a huge Halloween person, but my boys are sure excited. Here are some of the books we are enjoying right now:
The Witches' Supermarket. This is my all time favorite Halloween book. A little girl stumbles into a supermarket that is intended only for witches and finds all sorts of interesting things inside. There are lots of visual jokes such as produce shelves that stock "apples with worms" and "apples without worms" (the wormy apples are more expensive), sour milk in the produce section, and baby bats in the meat section. But when the witches find out that the girl Martha is not a witch she has to make an exciting escape. The illustrations are so fun.
Angelina's Halloween. We don't have any of the other Angelina books but this one is pretty cute. I especially love the pictures of inside Angelina's house--especially their beautiful old farmhouse kitchen.
I found this one thrifting the other day; it shows bunnies going about their various Halloween traditions and celebrations. It's very low key, which I love, and again, the illustrations are very engaging.
Pumpkin Moonshine is a favorite from Tasha Tudor. A little girl has to go chasing her pumpkin down the hill when she lets go of it. I love the illustrations here too!

I'm happy to say that we are mostly ready in terms of the boys costumes this year. I'll be sure to take a picture on Sunday and post it!

birthday wrap-up

We had such a fun family party for Rainer Saturday night. My parents came up and my brother and his girlfriend Lori came up. We ordered local pizzas and my mom brought a big salad and a huge bowl of farmer's market strawberries. Perfect!

Some facts about Rainer on his birthday:
:: he's an awesome dancer. You should see him move his hips! I really must videotape him sometime.
:: he loves to figure out how things work and he loves construction. I'm amazed at the geometric shapes he puts together with his various toys. I think he's a smartie, that one.
:: it's weird to think about, but he's been treated for leukemia since the age of 16 months and his treatment is still ongoing! He's doing great and will be done with chemo in July! He's pretty tough about the whole thing.
:: he's always ready with a hug (or at least, almost always). I love how cuddly he is.

Happy birthday sweet little guy!

a birthday breakfast for rainer

Rainer turns four today! My sweet baby is four. Four! Can hardly believe how grown up he has become. I think I have to stop referring to him as "the baby!" I put together a little birthday breakfast for him with his crown, his birthday ring, and a morning present. So fun! I love the fall colors of his birthday.

I made the German Pancake with Apples from Teens Cook. I had always wanted to try this, and it was just so perfect for a birthday breakfast--sweet, fruity, but not too sweet (I halved the sugar) and not too much. I loved how pretty and puffy it turned out.
We sang him happy birthday and he blew out the candles. He did great. He's been sick all week (Ken stayed home with him since Tuesday) but he is much much better today. Hooray!
More fun is to come tonight at his family party. Happy birthday little one!

a pot of beans on a fallish monday night

We've been having some fallish (drizzly) weather here, which is always so exciting. On the menu for tonight (Monday, bean night) was the Cannellini beans in Tomato Sauce from Apples for Jam. These turned out so nice! It is a long-cooking recipe, which made such a difference compared to a lot of my quick bean recipes. I did pre-cook the white beans (I used navy) so it would be a bit faster for a weeknight. In this picture Faith is sauteing a mixture of red onions, olive oil, chopped celery leaves, chopped fresh parsley, which we still have in the garden, garlic, and tomatoes (also from the garden, frozen and thawed). After that delicious mixture is combined, you add the (cooked) beans and some water, boil a bit on the stovetop, then bake in the oven for an hour. The slow cooking really adds a delicious flavor.
Here are the finished beans with a plate of sausages on the side. The sausages look like breakfast sausages but they are actually little bratwurst I found at Trader Joe's.
I also served toast, as suggested in the book.

Rainer's birthday is coming up on Saturday and I asked him what kind of cake he wants. "Chocolate" he said in a deep voice . . . "a big one." It was really funny--he was all deadpan about it. We all were laughing--he is so darn cute. So a big chocolate cake it will be!

PS--sorry about the photos!! With the fall weather and it being dark, and with the Nikon D-40 not working again (I swear, mine is a lemon!) this is how the pictures are going to be for a while!

knitting advice, please!

I have started a new knitting project. So excited, but I have a question: I'm making the Slouchy Cardigan from Greetings from Knit Cafe (I checked it out of the library). (Leslie's beautiful version of the sweater is posted here). The yarn is some gorgeous "aran weight" wool my mom bought me on her trip to Ireland a few months ago. I love it. Here is my question: I put in one row of knit-one purl-one ribbing along the bottom as directed in the pattern, but as you can see, it is curling badly. Do I rip all this out and put in more rows of ribbing? And also, if I do so, do I knit-one purl-one on the back as well? Or would that be purl-one knit-one on the wrong side rows? As you can see I'm a real beginner.
I'm only about 4 inches in, so it would not be too bad to rip the whole thing out. (The pattern calls for alpaca, not wool. Would alpaca not curl as bad? What do you think?)

every child in the land . . .

Ever since I got the boys their Planet Boxes I've been thinking to myself "every child in the land should be provided with a Planet Box" -- think of how much healthier their lunches would be! Seriously, having the little compartments all lined up like that makes packing fruits and vegetables so much easier. But then the other day, when I was playing with Rainer, and we were making "fairy houses," which is his favorite activity at the moment, I thought "every child in the land should have a little fireplace block." I love the fireplace block because it is so fun for making a fairy house more cozy. To be truthful, I think the mama is much more fascinated by the fireplace block than the little boys, but they do like it too. I have noticed that Rainer is more interested in the construction side of building the fairy houses and I am more interested in the domestic side--constructing little rooms and furnishing them.

What is your favorite toy of your children's?

pinto beans from scratch

A couple of you were asking me to post about how I cook my dried pinto beans. All thanks go to Kyrie for teaching me how. Originally I had linked to her directions but that link no longer works, so here is what I've been doing:

First of all, I highly recommend going to the health food store with bulk bins and buying nice fresh dried beans. They are so much better than the little bags of packaged beans you buy at the regular grocery and they will cook faster too (because they are so fresh). While you are at the health food, store buy a package of kombu too. It's a dried sea vegetable you will find in the Asian section. The kombu tenderizes the beans and makes them more digestible and adds a nice savory/sweet hint as well.

I soak my beans in the morning. Just sort and rinse your beans (about a pound), dump them in the pot, and cover with nice water. Here is the fun part: put the lid on and go about your routines. You'll feel domestic-goddessy all day, knowing you have beans soaking. For reals.

Here is what the kombu looks like. For this recipe, break off about an inch or so.
Get your vegetables ready in the afternoon, after the beans have soaked about 7 hours. I use carrots, an onion, garlic cloves, and the kombu.
Place the vegetables in the pot with your soaked beans. I don't change the water, but you can if you want. Then just bring to a boil, skim off any foam, lower to a simmer, and simmer until the beans are tender (it will take under an hour). Add salt at the end.
And there you have it: yummy beans! You can remove all the vegetables if you want, or just leave them in there. Rainer really likes the carrots (I like them too). By this time the kombu and garlic have pretty well disappeared, so you don't have to worry about fishing those out. These are yummy in any bean application, but lately I've been liking them in bean bowls. Yum! Please share how you like to eat your pintos.

3191 quarterly

Last summer when I saw that 3191 Miles Apart (one of my favorite blogs) was going to start a print publication too, I paid no attention to the details--just clicked through and ordered my subscription immediately. I've given up most of my print magazines, but this one is truly different. I love the 3191 blog--am so inspired by the photography and pretty much everything they write about is exactly my taste--that I very much wanted a print version I can hold in my hands. And I do love this publication so much! I still carry around the summer issue. Above are the zucchini chocolate chip muffins I made from it. Can't wait for the autumn edition to arrive.
Beautiful montage of their photos . . .
Summer camping and summer picnic photo essays . . .
Friendship bracelets.

I'm happy to be subscribing to far fewer mainstream magazines (so many of them are mostly about selling stuff). But this sort of thing is exactly what I want to be supporting now and in the future--artists (that feel "local" to me somehow) and small publishing houses. It feels like a win-win to me. Anyone else subscribe to the quarterly? How do you like it?

more about family dinner

{the little flower fairy is still holding that less-than-beautiful leaf Dieter chose for the fall tea!}

I've been thinking a lot about family dinner lately. Not just about how it's important (I think we've all read those studies about how children benefit when the family sits down to dinner regularly), but also how family dinner has sort of fallen by the wayside in our culture. People do still have it, but I think a lot of families don't all sit down together and I think a lot of them are not cooking from scratch. I totally understand why. It always feels like a very big deal and a grand accomplishment every time I cook. I feel so happy about it when I do. Recently I checked out this book from the library (had to sadly return it way too soon), and in it, Jamie Oliver makes it his mission to teach everyday ordinary people how to cook real food from scratch at home. Homey food. Not food that is aspiring to be gourmet, or restaurant-like, or impressive. Just home food. That really really appeals to me. The more I think about it the more I want to be cooking family favorites, from scratch, that we all like, and have nothing to do with food trends. I'm super inspired by this blog lately too, for the same reasons. She is on a mission to get families to cook more and totally acknowledges that it's hard and won't even necessarily happen every night, but it is oh so worth it. The recipes she is posting are so family oriented--I love it!
So here are a few dinners I want to share with you. Saturday I ended up serving dinner at 1pm! Dieter had a birthday party that afternoon/early evening and I knew I wouldn't want to cook after getting home (I was right--I didn't). So we ate super early. It was really fun. I have a lot more energy earlier in the day. This is the Mexican Lasagna from Teens Cook. It was a super simple and easy version of Mexican casserole and I really liked it. I served it with sour cream, chips, guacamole, fresh fruit, and a salad.
This meal was so yummy. This was from the previous Saturday, which is "chicken/or casserole" night. I got it from the Dinner: A Love Story blog I mentioned above. It's chicken with a panko crust served over arugula with tomatoes and a dressing of lemon juice and oil. We all loved this. (The boys had their chicken without the salad, though). There is something so festive about fried food!
Love this rustic lentil soup I've blogged about before. I also made up a huge batch of refrigerator bran muffins (from this muffin book to end all muffin books--it's a fun one). This is what a typical Wednesday night dinner looks like here. Again, so rustic and plain, which is so what I'm into right now.

I'm always looking to healthy-up our routine. Pizza night, Subway night, and burrito night are all take-out or eat-out at this point. I feel guilty about it, but we have a lovely weekly rhythm, lots of family togetherness, and certain nights for more being together (and less work), so I have to say I'm truly happy and blessed with the way things are.

in the fall book basket

I've posted my fall selections before, but our book basket has grown quite a bit since last year. We had a windfall of gorgeous fall book last Christmas when my brother purchased some selections off the boys' wishlists I had started for them on Amazon. I actually had never expected anyone to see those wishlists (they are just subcategories of my own wishlist) but he found them and gave the books to the boys last year. So fun! So now I have a few more to share with you.
Woody Hazel and Little Pip. This one isn't new. We had it last year too. But the boys have grown to like it even more and the illustrations and the writing are so engaging.
Ten Apples up on Top--a fun Dr. Seuss book. This keeps the book basket light. It's silly fun.
The Little Yellow Leaf--beautifully illustrated. It's about a leaf that is afraid to fall. Sweet and cute.
Wild Child--love, love, love this one. Again, beautiful illustrations and such a fun to read text. I would love to have the others in the series (the other seasons).
Child of Faerie Child of Earth--this one has been a running joke between me and the boys since last year. It's gorgeous with very much mommy appeal. Dieter would ask me to read it one night then insist he didn't like it another. This year they both seem to like it.
Leaf Man by Lois Elhert--beautiful leaf illustrations.
Snowsong Whistling--love love love this one. Amazing collage type illustrations and wonderful rhyming text.

It's hot in the day here, cool at night, and the leaves are just beginning to turn a little bit. Typical fall for our location. I enjoy all the bits of fall here we get.

simple yet effective shawl

Last weekend I finally finished my 'simple yet effective' shawl. Hooray! I think I've been working on this since March, so six months. Not bad, I suppose, considering it's made with such tiny yarn and needles. The real reason it took so long is because after the rows started getting very long I found I didn't want to pick it up very often. Who has 20-30 minutes or more just to complete a row? I often wonder this about knitters who take their knitting everywhere--what if you don't have a long enough block of time to finish a row? Then what do you do? It makes me not want to pick it up at all. But then, when I finally got toward the end, I pushed through and did several rows in one weekend. And now I have a finished--tiny--shawl.
I knew this shawl was tiny because I have seen it on others' blogs. I don't mind. I pictured it all along with this dress and boots and they do look pretty cute together. It's perfect for fall in So. Cal. We don't need much extra warmth just yet.
The boys and I had fun doing a silly photo shoot in the yard. Here they are handing me handfuls of lavendar.
Mostly I'm proud of myself for completing such a large knitted piece. And the sock yarn knits up so pretty. It really held my interest.

Can't wait to start my next project now!