Friday Foto

Caught a picture of two boys who had fallen asleep snuggling in the same bed! I love that they still cuddle and want to be this close to each other.  They love this as much as I do!

Fall color of another kind

What happened to our slow move into fall?  I was not prepared for the snow that came two nights before Halloween, and I did not get the basil in time.  It is now brown and sad, out in the garden bed.  I learned my lesson, better safe than sorry when the weather man predicts snow.

The peas and beets seem just fine.  I ate some peas, and they taste pretty darn good, and are still growing.  The beets are beautiful, and are (hopefully) still secretly growing bulbous round roots.   

My mom got us this colorful mobile from the art museum.  It is made of pieces of what look like velum card-stock sewn together.  It is slightly opaque, which you cannot see from the pictures, but which makes light pass through the colored paper so beautifully.

It hangs in the door, and is stunning.  Thank you to my mom, and to the artist who created it.

What's for dinner and lunch???

Continuing in the theme of easy plan ahead lunches, I am documenting the quiche.  The fast, bestest ever quiche that can be eaten for breakfast, lunch, AND dinner! I am so grateful my children will eat veggies when they are surrounded by eggs and cheese and a buttery crust

 I add however many eggs I think I can use and still get through the rest of the week.  I try to buy eggs from farmers, or at least the local ones from Whole Foods, and they can be expensive.   I someday will be that person who owns egg laying hens, and wonders, "What shall we do with all these fresh eggs from our pasture hens?"  Until then, I am left, holding sacred each egg, and wishing for a larger egg budget. 

Add some whole milk

Add veggies and cheese.  Currently, we are loving sharp cheddar and spinach. I get the organic frozen spinach, and add it with generous hand-fulls.   

Pour into the afore mentioned buttery pie crust, and bake.  

There, now isn't that a pretty flower?

Dinner, with mashed pot's and brown rice.  

And, there is extra for tomorrow's lunch boxes.

This helps balance out any candy the switch-witch did not take, that made it into my children's blood and made them rotten.  Just rotten.  

(ps, the switch-witch comes at Halloween, takes the candy, and leaves some small presents in exchange.  She had no teeth, her skin is bad, and she has a stomach all the time which makes her MEAN!  And, she can't get enough candy)

What's for lunch?

I find packing lunches very difficult. Mostly because my childrens favorite foods are best enjoyed when they are made, not 5 hours later.  And, my children will not eat; cold pizza, soups, pasta salads, pb&j, egg/tuna/chicken salad, Dash will not eat raw veggies, and Elias will only eat strawberries for a fruit.  To me, it seems they are very picky and it is difficult to make a healthy lunch they will actually eat that's not loaded with carbs and empty calories.

Once upon a time, I would make pies.  Healthy pies, that my children LOVED! Sweet potato pie, apple pie, and quiche.  I don't put sugar in the sweet potato pie, and very little in the apple, and I can load up the quiche with veggies like spinach and kale, and my kids will still eat it. These pies will also taste good after sitting in the lunch box all morning, and they are easy to make in advance, pack, and are full of goodness.

Guess what I'm making again...
For starters, sweet potato pie, adapted from Molly Katzen's recipe somewhere in the back of my memory...

First a crust from The Art of Simple Foods

by Alice Waters

Then I put three baked sweet potatoes, some oranges (this time I used clementines)

Some yogurt, honey, eggs, and salt into a blender.

Blend, pour, and bake.  

Ding!  

We eat this with brown rice and something green...like broccoli or peas.  I used to make lemon poppyseed muffins to go along with this...hummmmmm

Ghosts!!!

One of Elias's most favoritest thing in all the world is meringue.  I only make it a few times a year, because it is mostly sugar, and because he cant stop himself from eating the whole lot of them in one day!  I make it at chirstmas, when I make the yule log, and what grows on the log but meringue mushrooms! I LOVE making the mushrooms. And for halloween, I make meringue ghosts.  Because, the kids don't get enough sugar from the candy they collect from strangers...

Meringue Ghosts:

4 largeeggwhites (120 grams)

1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

1 cup (200 grams) superfine or castersugar(if you don't have superfine sugar simply take 1 cup (200 grams) granulated white sugar and process it for about 30 seconds in afoodprocessor)

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Read more:http://www.joyofbaking.com/halloweenrecipes/MeringueGhosts.html#ixzz1cHJog4ge

Happy Halloween!

This creepy video comes to you from the band Dead Man's Bones.  It is a wishbone pulling a strange wheeled contraption through a town of tiny people.  It is like a bad dream full of dark, strange images and sounds...enjoy!