Month: May 2010

Cooking With Siah

Yesterday Siah and I had an “at home” day.

There was a big important meeting at the office and while I could have gone in and taken Siah with me – I believe the stress level would have been quite high and having an active two year old racing around would have only added to any stress and really just wouldn’t have been necessary.

So, we stayed home!

And, we decided to cook up a storm…..well, as much of a storm as a two year old can handle.

We made some Zucchini Oatmeal Cookies and I have to say that these cookies have NEVER failed me. The recipe is (as far as I’m concerned) fool proof.

Zucchini Oatmeal Cookies

They are made with honey so can’t be considered truly vegan although they would be vegetarian, BUT regardless so SO delicious.

Here is the recipe…

Zucchini Oatmeal Cookies

Pre-heat oven to 375*F
Cook for 10-12 minutes

½ cup Butter (I use Earth Balance)
¾ cup Honey
1 Banana
2 cups Flour
1 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Cinnamon
½ tsp Nutmeg
¼ tsp Salt
1 cup Grated Zucchini
1 cup Oatmeal

1. Cream the butter & Honey together
2. Add the Banana and Beat well
3. Combine Dry ingredients and add alternating with the zucchini into the mixture
4. Stir in the Oatmeal
5. Drop by teaspoons onto greased cookie sheet
6. Bake for 10-12 mins

They are chewy and moist and almost muffin like. In fact, I have just dumped the batter into muffin tins before and they are equally delicious, just bigger.

While our cookies were baking, we decided to throw together a Hot and Sour Soup that I’ve been meaning to try out.

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I’d link to the recipe, BUT….i have no idea where I got the recipe from….I was looking for crockpot soup ideas and found this one and cut and paste it into a word doc and well…..ya!

But, here is the recipe that I used, which was slightly (well, actually – significantly) adapted from the original.

Hot and Sour Soup

4 cups of Chicken Broth
4 cups of Water
4 T of Soy Sauce
4 T of Rice Wine Vinegar
1 T of Sesame Oil
1/2 t of Red Pepper Flakes
1 can drained sliced water chesnuts
half a medium zucchini
2 carrots
1 package of firm tofu cut into cubes (approx 1.5 cups)

I’d have added green onions if I had any, but I didn’t….so this is what we threw together.

It simmered for a while and was AMAZING. Siah thought it was a bit spicy, but you could reduce the pepper flakes if you didn’t want it too spicy. If you like Hot and Sour soup, try it….so easy. Just throw together and let simmer….then serve.

We had a great time baking and cooking together. I love spending time with my kids and I feel like involving them in the “making” process gives them buy in especially when it comes to food.

I find that they feel a sense of ownership regarding what they’ve created and so its a great way to introduce new tastes, smells and textures.

And even though Siah is only two, he was a great help. He stirred the cookie batter in between additions and only once stuck the spoon to my shirt….and he dumped all the liquids into the pot after I measured them out and then added the tofu, zucchini and carrots in for me.

Yes, there was mess, but I find that it really wasn’t that big of a mess, took little to no effort to clean up (above and beyond what I would have created in making the cookies and soup), it’s quality time together AND….I’m teaching him from a young age to enjoy cooking; and to cook delicious, healthy foods.

Those things are well worth any amount of mess that the two of us might create together.

Sewing Up a Storm

I’ve managed to plow through all the stuff that I had on my sewing “to do” list and even some things that weren’t on my list.

I LOVE sewing, but I do hate the mess and chaos of having my sewing room consist of my dining room.

Sewing CONSUMES me and while I enjoy the creative outlet……my house….she is not happy nor clean right now.

BUT……..I AM FINISHED.

Well, I’m almost finished. I have a few ends to tie off and sew in and then I’m really, REALLY done.

I’ve packed away all of my sewing stuff and am planning on bringing it out to work on a few gifts for family and friends after June 1st…..ya know, in the last few weeks when I’m trying to keep myself busy.

I did manage to make a second crib sheet for the little crib and while I debated making a third one – I was really ready to just put every things away and be done for a month.

I made these bibs from some hand towels and some spare fabric that I had left over.

Bibs

I’ll use these at some point, even if not right away and since I took this picture, I have managed to sew the velcro on, so they are completely finished.

I’ve made about 30 diaper wipes. I cloth diaper and so it only makes sense to me to also use cloth wipes. I have the perfect container to store these little square wipes in and it will fit about 20 of these so I’ll have a few on hand in case I run out or also to keep in the diaper bag.

Baby Wipes

They have cotton on one side and terry cloth on the other. I used 3 hand towels that I had up in my linen closet and then some extra terry cloth that I had left over after I made the very next item on the list……

A Baby Towel…..

Baby Towel

It’s a HUGE towel 36″ x 36″ square and although I didn’t have enough of the patterned material to make the hood, I improvised and made the hood out of the terry and edged it with a strip of the fabric. It’s the perfect size to wrap a baby up in and it’s big enough to still use on your toddler. My sister bought me one very similar for Josiah and I’ve LOVED it.

This was a SUPER fun project and my only “issue” is that I’ve never worked with this large of a piece of terry cloth and somewhere between measuring it and sewing it to the backing material – it stretched out some and is not “perfect”. If you know me, you know that I LOVE perfect, BUT….I plan on making more of these and giving them away as gifts (so I’m sure to perfect my towel sewing technique.) And……when the towel is folded in thirds and then in thirds again, it tucks up nicely into a perfect square inside the hood and that…..that is almost perfection in and of itself and regardless, it looks absolutely darling all folded up and would make an amazing gift for a baby or a toddler.

I also made some washable breast pads. This was something that I’d not planned on making, and I really don’t remember how I thought of making these, but VOILA!!!!! Here they are.

Breast Pads

Some of these are just a layer of terry cloth and a layer of cotton and some of them have a layer of wool in between the cotton and the terry cloth. They are certainly bulkier than a pair of reusable ones that I bought with Siah, and definitely, DEFINITELY bulkier than regular disposables BUT….I will give them a shot and if they work at all, I’ll use them around the house when and where boob circles or ridges really don’t matter.

Again, these are from the re-purposed hand towels and the left over cotton from the Quilt and so are these next items…

Burp Cloths

Burp cloths! I’ve made 4 of these, but I think that I’ll probably mostly just use these in the diaper bag for when we go out.

I did also make what we would call a “sucky blanket” for the baby to hold and cuddle.

Sucky Blanket

I just used the left over scraps and pieces from the big quilt and randomly pieced together this small quilt. It’s very cute and I’d like to quilt the same stars into it that we sewed into the large quilt.

Now, I just have to figure out where I want to store everything> Right now, it’s all piled on top of the baby’s change table.

I have a couple more projects that I’m planning on doing – easy ones that will just add a little “something extra” to the baby’s area of the room and I’ll post about them as I finish them.

What a Surprise!

Jeremy has been growing his hair out for quite a while now.

A while ago he read that there was a world record for the tallest mohawk….the record was 56cm and Jeremy kept saying that he wanted to grow his hair out to have a 65cm mohawk.

Yesterday, Jeremy went with my youngest brother to the hairdresser.

He left looking like this……

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It was long and scraggly and although it looked really cute on him “WHEN IT WAS BRUSHED” a huge part of the time he looked HORRID. He hated brushing his hair and it ended up with massive knots and really sometimes, if we’d left it long enough….it might have just dreaded itself naturally. In fact, Jon and I talked about get his hair dreaded at some point.

He came home from his time away with Chris looking like this….

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Just ignore his “cool dude” pose…. and the crappy camera picture quality….ya get the idea. It’s SHORT!!!!!

He was so excited and kept touching his hair and trying to smooth it out. Chris and Jer had stopped at Zellers on the way home and picked up some Blue/Black hair dye and some pump gel. Jeremy must have applied about 6 different applications of the hair gel between when he came home and bed time. He went to bed with a serious helmet.

It’s very weird seeing him without the long hair, but there is something very cute about his new haircut AND…it actually makes him look older or more grown up or something. My baby boy is growing up….aaaaaaaawwwwww!

32 Weeks

I’ve passed the 32 weeks mark and in some ways, I’m feeling the pressure to get everything done. On the other hand, I feel EXHAUSTED TIRED during the day and then manage to pick up a second wind for the evening. This is equal parts annoying and awesome. I am actually managing to get some stuff done in the evenings, but I feel like I’m drugged during the day.

Once again, I meant to take a picture on Friday, then Saturday, then Sunday and…well, here we are today. Also, I managed to put the same shirt on that I had on last week for my pictures and while I felt pretty stupid about it and hummed and hawed about whether I should go and change it for the picture….Really, I just couldn’t be bothered. I did wake up this morning and put a pair of capri’s on but by the time I met for coffee with a friend, then went grocery shopping and hit three stories just to “get” everything – my pants felt like they were biting into my gut and so I put on the most comfy skirt that I own…….

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I had a chat with my midwife about the 4lb 11 oz estimate that Dr. Still gave me on our little boy and she said that she’s known the “estimates” to be off as much as two to three pounds. I’m hoping that this is the case as I’m really not expecting to be pushing out a 9 or 10 pound baby.

I have started swelling. In fact, I woke up one morning and was 208 pounds. Woke up the next morning and was 213 pounds. That…….is brutal. I can feel that I’m retaining water in my hands and feet. They feel very tight. Typically, the swelling goes down almost completely by the morning, but not ALL. THE. WAY…..

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This past week was a little bit stressful for many different reasons and when I’m stressed, I have a tendency to focus on “things”. I have a bunch of crafty things that I’ve been working on and I’m gonna share them over the next couple of days….