Mixing it up.

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I’m a total music geek.  I’m not alone – our house has some sort of music playing device in every room but one bathroom.  We have CD’s stacked in well, a good number of rooms.  I listen to music at work all day, something that took the people I work with some time to get used to I think.  I must have a soundtrack at all times. 

I drove the same car for over 15 years.  At one point, the cassette player bit it and the radio antenna came unattached, so it was a bit of a black hole, musically.  For Mother’s Day one year, my dear husband got me a macdaddy car stereo that was worth more than the car.  It played mp3 discs, I could hook a thumb drive straight into it and not even bother with burning a cd.  My musical choices when I drove suddenly exploded.  This was good.  And then, last fall, my beloved 1995 Honda Civic needed too much money to keep it on the road.  It just wasn’t worth it anymore.  The new car is a 2001 and has a nice Bosch stereo, with a cassette player and a cd player that doesn’t played burned cd’s, so it’s a wee bit outdated (but nice.  and in good shape).  So while the new car is nice and runs well and has things like working air conditioning, I miss my old stereo. 

Over the years, there are certain albums that have become my personal soundtrack.  I have a tendency to listen to the same album over and over, day in and day out.  There is always a current favorite (right now it’s Jenny & Johnny’s I’m Having Fun Now), but then there are the go-to’s, like Nothing’s Shocking.  Green. The Caution Horses, among others.  Those 3 albums listed I’ve worn out several copies of.  I just burn a new copy and go on with myself.  Not to mention the shows I’ve been to that I like to listen to – Pat went through my ticket stubs and got me every Dead show I ever went to, every Wilco show we’ve been to.  Suddenly, I can’t have these on hand, in my car.  I’m slightly freaking out.

I got an iPod for Christmas.  Yes, I’m slow on the technology.  I haven’t seen that much of a need for it frankly.  I’ve got a boombox or stereo in every room, a decent car stereo….oh wait….

So the iPod has become critical for my musical pleasures in the car.  But this means I have to get organized about what I put on there.  And, it means examining what has been my lazy musical attitude for years.  Maybe it’s time to switch up the ‘standard’ car music.  This means taking out some stuff I’ve kept in the car since high school.  Yes, that long ago.  My dear husband has pledged to help me by telling me if I tell him what I need to have loaded into iTunes so that it can go on my iPod, he’s willing to do it.  However, I’ve realized my iTunes is a mess too.  We had a major computer crash about this time last year and I lost all my playlists.  I don’t even know what all is loaded on my iTunes these days.  Pat will find some new band he thinks I’ll like and load it up for me to discover.  Over the last few weeks, I’ve been attempting to organize my iTunes.  I found several new artists I didn’t know were there.  I got some listening to do…. and I’m pretty sure Edie will applaud this.  We have mother-daughter music disagreements on a daily basis, since I do spend a little bit of time hauling her around.  Apparently I really burnt her out on Band of Horses and She & Him when they were my daily fare.  She’s burnt me out on Arcade Fire and Gorillaz.  Sometimes we have to just listen to radio because it’s the only thing we agree on. 

All in all, I’m excited about changing my approach to music.  It’ll be good for me. After those few warm winter days where I drove around with the sunroof open and realized I really do need REM’s Green in my car, he totally loaded it onto my iPod for me.  He is such a keeper.

Now that’s a salad.

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I’m not really entirely sure where the idea for this salad came from.  Saturday night, I was given the task of creating a salad for dinner.  There was iceburg lettuce, onions, broccoli, carrots, a bunch of fresh herbs.  I pulled out a few eggs and decided to hard boil them and made some croutons with some french bread.
And then I diced the onions and broccoli into tiny little bits.  I started caramelizing the onion in butter & olive oil and when it looked good, tossed in the broccoli and just cooked it.

 I chopped the lettuce, julienned the carrots, chopped fresh thyme & dill and threw it on top.  I chopped the hard boiled eggs and added them as well.   I added the croutons and the broccoli mix, a wee bit more olive oil and some vinegar – I used some tarragon as well as red wine vinegar – and tossed it all together. 

 It was a lovely salad.  The cooked broccoli & onion gave it a really good flavor and they clung to the lettuce without a whole lot of oil.  I definitely need to experiment with that some more.  Edie got me a salad cookbook for Mother’s Day last year as a hint that I needed to liven up my salads.  I do love a nice, big salad.  I definitely need to give them more thought.

For a quick little dessert, I took some strawberries, cooked them in a wee bit of butter & chambord liquor, with sugar and a touch of balsamic vinegar.  I served them between wedges of the peanut butter cups I made last week with little dollops of whipped cream.  A perfect little sweet bite.

And that’s total amount of cooking I did all weekend.  We went out of town and it was one of those completely deserved, relaxing weekends.  I got quite a few inches of Pat’s sweater knitted and I got to spend Friday night with one of my most favorite people in the universe, just the two of us, no husbands, no kiddos.  Down right glorious.

Pat’s away at a conference this week, so it’s just me & my gal.  I pulled some soup out of the freezer for tonight’s dinner (it was dated and labeled so I do know it’s some vegetable soup I recently made) and am whipping up another salad like Saturday night’s.  This one uses cauliflower and blue cheese, because that’s what I have on hand.  

Clearly, I have come back slightly refreshed  and inspired from my weekend.  Ah, I needed that.

I love cooking classes.

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We are huge fans of Indian food around here, but I’ll admit, my ability to cook it just falls short.  We all got pretty excited when we heard The Charlottesville Cooking School was offering classes on that speciality.  I have taken a few cooking classes and certainly learned some tricks in them, but I have to say, this one was by far the most amazing I’ve ever taken.  Sudha Khare taught it and all I can say about her style is that it was like learning to cook from the Indian grandmother I never had.  First up, she unveiled what she called ‘The Spice Box.’

 I want one.  All her essential spices were right there and she knew which was which by the color.   Right there, I was amazed at the cooking skills she’s amassed during her lifetime.    In that box was roasted ground cumin powder (which she made right there in class by roasting cumin seeds and the smell was divine), dried red pepper, turmeric, cumin seed and a few different masalas. 

And then she started dicing the potatoes for the Samosas.

 As she talked to us about what she was doing, I’m not even sure she was watching her hands as she diced potatoes just like that, in her hand.  I’d seriously have part of myself in that bowl if I attempted to do that. 

She led us through making Samosas, which is sort of like a dumpling, filled with potatoes and peas, if you’re not familiar with them.  I’m definitely going to have to get my assistant to help me roll out the dough to make them, as rolling out any thing is a weak spot for me.  Sudha had this sweet little wooden rolling pin and made it look so easy.  Maybe I just need a new rolling pin?  That’s it….

When she mixed the Pakora batter, she did it by hand, until it felt right.  Someone in the class described it as being like pancake batter, with stuff in it.  I definitely feel more secure about my ability to whip these up at home.  They are really an Indian version of a fritter and if you know us, you know we love fritters around here.  So, an Indian version?  Yes, please.
The pakoras made in class had potatoes, onions and spinach, but Sudha included notes to add other vegetables.  I can’t wait to get jiggy with it.

Ta-da.  The final result.  Samosa, Pakora, Mango Chutney and Hot Cilantro Chutney, which for the record, is wicked easy and oh, so, so, good.  I definitely learned a few tricks and I definitely have more confidence in my ability to cook Indian.  I can’t wait for her next class in a few weeks…..North Indian Breads.

My Valentine.

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Seventeen years ago today, I came home from what was quite possibly, the worst time I’d ever had at Mardi Gras to a blinking light on my answering machine.  And waiting for me was a message from this fellow.  My friend Thomas kept trying to get me to hang out with his friend Patrick.  I had recently graduated from college, was broke and had not a clue what my next step was going to be.  Thomas and his then girlfriend, (now wife) had finally gotten to me hang out with their friend and he was cute and very cool and very nice and we sat up all night talking about art and music, but he was nice and nice boys never lasted long with me. 
And yet here was this boy, calling me to say hi.  On Valentine’s Day.
I ran into him at a party that following weekend.  And the rest, as they say, is history. 

Within a week after hearing that message, I just knew he was THE ONE.  And he’s been that ever since.  So every Valentine’s Day, I consider it to mark the beginning of us.

Happy Valentine’s Day babe.  I think you’ve gotten better looking as time has gone by.  I can’t wait to see what the next 17 years have in store.  And then the next 17 after that…..

Motherhood, the ride.

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When Edie was a baby, we had a great bedtime ritual of reading some stories together in her room, and then we’d put her in her crib, and walk out the of the room.  It was lovely.  It was easy.  When she outgrew her crib and into a big girl bed, it was a seamless transition.  It took her a few weeks to figure out she could get up by herself now, she didn’t have to wait for us to come get her out of her crib.  Those were some glorious weeks I tell you.  Sadly, they soon gave way to what were a solid 6 weeks of some spectacular bedtime meltdowns.  Hours of screaming.  Pat & I wondering what sort of bizzare parent world we’d stepped into, what happened to our dear sweet gal.  It was hell.  Eventually, we got them to stop, but it seemed every night our little snuggle bug would throw that sweet, chubby little wrist around your neck in this way that was like a headlock and say in that sweet voice of hers ‘I need a snnnuuuuggle’ after you finished reading. And you just knew the snuggle was the way to avoid the meltdown.  But the snuggle also sucked you in and too many times whichever parent had bedtime duties would go down for the count, seriously cutting into our childfree evenings together. 

As time went on, the snuggle had a nice chat, where she would review the events of her day.  This summer, we got her into the habit of putting herself to bed, where she read to herself and there was no snuggle, every night.  We would still go tuck her in and some nights, we’d have a good chat.  Ah, bedtime was easy and hands free again.  Pat & I could say goodnight to her and then be able to hang out together.  It was glorious.  Of course, this lasted only a few weeks. 

Third grade started off with a bang and hasn’t really relented.  It’s a bitch quite frankly.  The school year started off with multiple changes at school.  There was something different, a new teacher, a new principal, a new schedule 5 weeks in(!), every week for the first 6 weeks of school.  There was no routine to be settled into, because it was different every week.  Edie got some bug going around and missed an entire week of school, second week in.  When she went back the following Monday, her class had changed.  They had added a teacher and moved kids around.  She came home saying she felt like she was in a foriegn country. And then there’s the social stuff.  The mean girls business.  A few months into the year, she had a falling out with her bff.  The whole, one day I’m your friend, one day I’m not is quite big in third grade right now.  And then there has been more school drama.  We had to have a meeting with the principal last week about her teacher.  And it’s only February.  There is so much time left for this year to just continue to go downhill.

Bedtime often has these chats about events in her days that leave me exhausted.   I don’t have a blueprint for this motherhood stuff, I really am just winging it as I go.  I am creating the mother-daughter relationship I always wanted and some days it’s really hard work.  There are days where I annoy her.  There are times when she thinks I’m utterly ridiculous.  Awkward is her current favorite word, uttered in a most sarcastic tone of course and a little too frequently at me at times.  She’s definitely a tween and that’s a whole other ball of wax.  Navigating her through a world of mean girls that I didn’t fare so well in myself definitely challenges me.  Watching her friendship with the friend she thought she could count on the most transform into something less sturdy has been heartwrenching.  There are things I just can’t fix.  It’s not as easy as kissing a skinned knee or distracting her with a popsicle.  Motherhood has gotten to be all mental and it’s getting heavy.

A few weeks ago, she told me about a conversation at the lunch table among some of the girls.  She was taken aback that some of them don’t tell their mothers everything.  She told me, she actually felt bad for them, because if you can’t tell your mother everything, who can you tell that stuff to?

Well, all I could do after she said that was to hug her tight.  I’m pretty sure no one has uttered words that mean more to me than that.  Those bedtime chats sometimes come at the end of very long days, days where I wonder why she is so far out of sorts and I’m just done. I have to rally myself to get through them.   I often come out of her room and go straight to bed, because they do me in.  She doesn’t know this though.  She just thinks her mommy is the best mommy and she can pour her heart out to me at the end of every day.
And this is exactly what gets me through. 

Lazy weekend.

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It feels so nice to have a weekend where we get to stay home and do nothing.  We haven’t had one in a while, so this one was much appreciated.  This past week has been, well, rough to put it nicely.   Work had a lovely, unexpected rush of folks who wanted to sign up and volunteer.  Not a problem at all there really, it just kept me on my toes.  On the homefront, there was some Girl Scout drama and some school drama that I really could have done without.  My house pretty much looks like a tornado whipped through and I just don’t care.  I’ve spent a big chunk of the weekend curled up knitting and ignoring the mess and the to-do list.    Pat’s sweater officially got started.  Knitting really is just so relaxing and after a week of go go go, it’s been nice to just sit.  And not get dressed.  Thank goodness I have neighbors who understand I’m liable to wander down for a late morning cup of coffee still in my pj’s on a Sunday and invite me in.

Today I thought I’d whip up a pot of vegetable soup.  I started with the usual onions, garlic, celery and carrots, added some potatoes and cabbage, as well as raided the pantry and freezer for tomatoes, corn, green beans and okra.  Last night, I took some tomatillo salsa to a dinner party that I pulled together from last summer’s harvest that got stashed in a freezer.  I do love my freezers. 
I know there are things I needed to get done this weekend that I just ignored.  I know this week coming up is going to be another busy one.  Pat is headed out of town, so while I’m hopeful I’ll get something done in the evenings, I know better.  Edie has needed a little bit of extra attention this past week and I did spend a good bit of this weekend curled up with her – me, knitting, her reading.  I’m wondering if this is going to continue into the week…..I don’t mind, after all, being a mom is my most favorite thing in the world.  But sometimes my own space is good, you know?
Oh well.  The beauty of knitting is that I can sit and have my hot tea and eat popcorn and actually do something productive while feeling quite lazy.

Beans a la Highacre.

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Last weekend, we went up to Harper’s Ferry with friends.  We stayed in the lovely ‘cabin’ Highacre, owned by the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club.  That right there is the view we had from the dining room window.  The house overlooks all of Harper’s Ferry and the infamous “Jefferson Rock”, where Thomas Jefferson himself stood and declared the view worth the ocean voyage.  It is where the Shenandoah and Potomic Rivers converge and become one.  And the house is this incredibly beautiful  100 year old Victorian.  It’s really one of my favorite places to go.  It’s always relaxing and just breathtaking.  I highly recommend it.
Like I said in my last post, we just brought some crockpots and winged it.  I put a wee bit of thought into it and brought the basics for baked beans.  This is what I had on hand:

That’s coarse sea salt, some Goya Adobo all purpose seasoning that was at the house, black pepper, molasses and a can of spicy hot V8 that was left in the fridge.  I bought a pack of country ham bits to throw in and I had a bag of navy beans.
Becky’s Baked Beans a la Highacre
 Chop an onion and mince a few cloves of garlic.  Add a bag of dried beans, salt and pepper and about a half jar of molasses, cover with water and stir together in a crock pot. Turn it on high.  
Add some chopped country ham bits.   
Sprinkle liberally with the Adobo seasoning.
Add about half a V8 or so.  
Let cook all day.
While the beans are quite good that day, they are even better if you pull them out the next day and heat them back up. 

Mollie’s Awesome Greens.

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My friend Mollie makes the best greens I’ve ever had.  They are always cooked just right.  It’s a  gift really.  She experiments in ways that just blow me away, because no way do I think that way.  I really want to cook like Mollie when I grow up.  Especially my greens.
We all went up to Harper’s Ferry this weekend.  No one felt like being in charge, so we didn’t really have a menu for the weekend.  We did bring crock pots and a few ideas though.  Saturday morning, we got up and went to the store.  She found some organic Chard that looked good. So, she grabbed some and brought it home.

 She sauted it up in a pan with some shallot and some apple and omigod, it was amazing.  AMAZING.

The whole dinner turned out pretty well actually.  Will made his mother’s chuck roast in one crock pot, I made a really good batch of beans in another, we baked some potatoes and Mollie made her greens.  I promised her I’d put the baked beans recipe on here (that will be another post), but she said I could share this recipe.  Which, I’d like to point out, she totally made up on the spot.

Mollie’s Swiss Chard
Shallot, chopped
Apple, chopped into bits
3 garlic cloves, minced
Stems, chopped
Cook in (oil) & butter until softened.
Add chopped greens with salt & pepper.  Cover and simmer over low heat until just wilted.

Joint Effort.

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Edie wanted to make Pat a t-shirt for Christmas.  We bought the shirt, but then ran out of time to get it done, so I suggested we do it for his birthday.  Which she was agreeable to.  Of course, giving us an extra month didn’t mean it got done earlier, because it waited until 4:30 the afternoon of…..
Edie, being my dream child that she is, of course has had the drawing done since the day we brought home the t-shirt.  All I had to do was scan and print.  Ahem.
When I make t-shirts like this, I like to print it onto an iron-on transfer, apply it to muslin and then sew it on.  I think the transfers I had were old, because the first two didn’t iron on correctly and then I was horrified to discover I was out of them.  EEEK!  It was 6:30, night of Pat’s birthday and I had until they got home from soccer practice at about 7:15 to get this finished.  Thankfully, I rememembered I had a few pieces of ‘printable’ fabric on hand and I ran that through the printer and was able to get that to work.  Phew.

 Edie drew the picture herself.  Robots on the dance floor.  It actually turned out better printing directly on the fabric than the ironed-on version.  I’ve read somewhere about ironing freezer paper onto muslin or duck and sending that through the printer and I think I will try that one of these days.  I’m not wild about the quality of the fabric you buy to print on, not to mention it’s a little pricey.  Anyway, another day….

“Kiss me I’m a robot”.
Turned out pretty cool if I do say so myself.  Edie was happy with it and Daddy was happy with it.  And that’s all that matters.

Birthday Week, Parts Three and Four.

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Friday was Pat’s actual birthday.  Usually, when I am canning peaches every summer, I whip up a few pies while I’m at it and stash them in the freezer. I found out one year that peach pie is his favorite, so to be able to just pull one out of the freezer and call it day has been glorious.  One of those things I really love about myself, you know?   This year, for reasons that I can’t remember why now, I didn’t.  I think after spending 2 weekends back to back canning peaches and tomatoes and everything else in sight, I didn’t feel like making a pie crust.  And then Pat told me it was okay, because he wasn’t sure he wanted a peach pie this year anyway.  Phew.
However, that meant that I had nothing to pull out of my sleeve on his actual birthday.  And true to form, I was getting weary of cranking up the oven and baking a treat.  I still have a good bit of canned peaches on hand, so I knew it had to be something that used them up.  Thank you internet, for inspiring this:

Peach Pound Cake.  I cut the recipe in half, and used the other half of the jar of peaches I popped open to make a glaze.  Super easy, super good.  Even better the next morning with yogurt on top for breakfast.

Saturday night was the big slumber party.  Edie had 5 friends over.  Why do I think it’s easier to host a slumber party than to just spring for a party at the bowling alley or Bounce & Play or any of the other places around town that cater to this sort of thing?  Oh that’s right, I find paying for it harder than cleaning my house and dealing with 6 little girls for a night.  I am that cheap.

We went with cheese pizza for dinner and I outsourced it to Mona Lisa Pasta.  Well, at least the dough part.  For $2.50, you can buy a dough ball, bring it home, roll it, top it and bake it yourself.  And since all the mommies but one decided to stay and have a glass of wine (or 4), Pat stepped up and took care of making dinner.  (He’s a total keeper.)

Dessert was the Ultimate Chocolate Cupcakes with Ganache Centers from Cooks Illustrated.  So, so easy and so, so good.  And they looked divine on the pink depression glass cake stand Allison found for me.  (I need a new butter dish please, a round one.  Preferably old lady looking china.  Thanks.  Your thrifting luck has been better than mine lately.)  Moms stayed for that too.  I think we may have a reputation for serving good food.

Breakfast was chocolate waffles, topped with your choice of strawberries or cherries (canned by me last summer of course), fresh whipped cream and sausage from Tom & Michele’s pigs over at Open Gate Farm.  Last summer when we went to visit,  we got to watch some piggies being born, so when I told Edie I got some sausage from them, she asked if it was made from those pigs.  No, they’re not quite old enough yet.  “Oh, then it must be from the ones I helped feed.  That’s cool too.”
That’s my girl.  On a first name basis with her food. 
So, birthday week, with all of it’s baking and celebrating is over.   We finally get to settle into the winter doldrums. I spent a week pulling out all the stops and making sure everyone got their favorite food for their birthdays.  The chocolate waffles are by far, the most requested breakfast whenever Edie has a friend sleepover.  I came up with the recipe myself after a few experiments and I’ll share it below.  The tally of baked goods for the week?  6 dozen cupcakes, 1 cheesecake, and 1 peach pound cake.  Also made were lasagna, pizza and creamy shrimp & spinach stew.  Yum.  I think we need a week of beans & rice to recover.
And I’ll admit, after all the girls left Sunday morning, I crawled back into bed with a book and stayed there until it was time to make dinner.  I’m currently reading Life by Keith Richards.  Who knew he loved being a boy scout?
Chocolate Waffles
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
4 tsp sugar (or more, to taste). 
Whisk dry ingredients together in a bowl.    Separate 2 eggs.  Beat  yolks and combine with:
1/2 cup butter, melted
2 cups buttermilk
a heaping spoonful of yogurt
1 tsp vanilla
Add to dry mix.  Beat remaining egg whites until fluffy and fold in.  Cook according to your waffle maker’s instructions.
They are good served with fruit and whipped cream, but syrup and butter work just fine too.