Food bucket list

Recently I was thinking about how I would like to try to make French Onion Soup from scratch.  So I "consulted the Google" and was brought to a lovely baking blog - The Brown-Eyed Baker.  She has this bucket list of foods that she would like to make at some point in her life and she crosses them off - amazing.  An idea that good certainly deserves to be copied... Here is my list (to be updated as I keep thinking - naturally).


Cakes:
Hummingbird Cake - completed March 2013
Carrot Cake
Coffee cake
Chocolate cake - completed July 2013

Soups:
French Onion Soup

Canning:
Peaches
apple pie filling
soups

Pies:
Peach
Apple
Pumpkin

Breads:
Margaret's rolls
Croissants
Sourdough bread

Meats:
Lamb
Ribs

Mexican:
flour tortillas
flan
salsa

Drinks:
Prison Wine
Lemoncello
Ginger beer
Root beer
Limeade/Margarita mix

New Car

This weekend I went car shopping.  We replaced our Odyssey minivan and our Civic hybrid.  I tried the Honda Insight, a Ford Escape Hybrid, and the Prius V.

We are now the proud owners of the Prius V (2012 edition with 14K miles).  It is awesome.  It has lots of space, comparable to a small SUV inside, yet the efficiency of a Prius.  And best of all, I transferred my old hybrid plates - so I still get to take advantage of the HOV exemption for my commute.

Finacial Gurus

I believe it has been mentioned here before, that "The Tightwad Gazette" is an awesome read and changed my perspective about money and frugality.   Amy Dacyczyn, the author, taught me some important money 101 basics - like that being frugal means spending your money deliberately and thoughtfully on whatever is most important to you rather than waste it on stuff that isn't.  Her humor and approach throughout that book made me feel like I found a long-lost friend.  The other day I grabbed my copy from my cookbook shelf in order to find the pizza dough recipe and then got to wondering what Amy is up to these days (She retired from writing the Gazette in order to spend time raising her 6 kids).  So I consulted "the Google" and found an interview of her.  She still seems like just the type of person that I would love to have over for game night and popcorn and to swap lentil soup recipes.

As I read through the comments I stumbled upon Mr Money Mustache.  This guy and his family retired early and are able to live a comfortable life on their investments.  So I started reading about his philosophies and ideas.  He is awesome!  I feel like he and his family would be another great family to have a bbq and game night with.  Cool people.  The thing I like about MMM is that he shows how small steps add up quickly.  Suddenly it seems like an easy trade.  I also like his do-it-yourself approach to things - perhaps I will put my own fence up in the backyard this year ;) or get a bicycle. 

Cars!

Thursday night as Ryan was driving back from work, the minivan starting lurching and stalling between gears.  When an automatic does that, you know you are in trouble.

With the van out of commission, on Friday morning I walked to the train, rode the train to the metro, then rode the metro to the Rosslyn stop, then walked to work.  It was nice to get a little fresh air and exercise and to get a bit of knitting done.  It was not so nice to spend 1.5 hours of my morning doing said activities.  The return trip actually turned out to be even worse because I missed the train while trying to pay the extra metro fare (apparently the peak fare is not enough because they charge an additional dollar each way if you use a paper ticket, so my ticket for the exact amount that I purchased that morning was $2 short) on a machine that only took cash but them started flashing "no bills" when I tried to insert my money that took me a while to fish out of the bottom of my backpack - arghh!  So I sat outside and waited an extra 40 minutes for the next train but only got a nominal amount of knitting done because it got cold when the sun dropped.

Ryan dropped off and picked up both girls and then in the evening took them both to Audrey's tumbling class.  Then he brought Meredith back and I put her to bed while he went back to get Audrey.  It was a completely tiring way to start the weekend.  And I was so glad it was the weekend, because if that was all the time I got with the girls on a weekday, I would have been in tears.  But at lease this time, I knew that I was going to still get lots of time with the girls over the next few days.

The dealership called on Saturday and confirmed our suspicions, the van needs a new transmission (to the tune of $5-6k).  Thankfully, Ryan's parents kindly offered to let us use their old civic for a while.  It will give us a little time to figure out what kind of car we want/can afford.

It was funny in the morning on Friday, the commute was so pleasant that I figured out how much money we would save by dropping down to just one car.  However, by Friday evening, I was ready to figure out a way to keep driving because I was so sad at losing that time with my girls.

Sick Kid

One thing I appreciate about my current project is that for the most part, I can do it from my house when needed.  This week that has been the case.

Audrey has the flu (the pediatrician confirmed it yesterday).  She got kind of fussy at the neighbor's superbowl party Sunday.  I was already putting Meredith to bed when Ryan brought her back early.  I took her temp and it was 102, she went right to bed and has been fighting a fever ever since.  Luckily, aside from the extreme tiredness that a fever can bring, she has not had any other symptoms.

So this week Audrey has been my little buddy.  I sit at the kitchen table and review documents and participate in conference calls and she lays on the couch - occasionally watching a movie - but sleeping for the most part.

I hope she feels better soon, but I have loved being home and taking care of her. :)

New Favorite thing - homemade wool socks

I finished my first pair of socks.  I am now officially a sock knitter.   I can see how socks can be addictive.  They are a quick knit and very portable, not to mention functional and beautiful.  I love my new pair, they are so comfy and warm and cute.



I used Susan's recipe for the socks.  I learned that, I may need a smaller needle, they are a little baggy around the ankle (but in a comfortable way).  The next pair is already on the sticks - and the sticks are a size 0 instead of a size 1 (which is what I used for the first pair).

I also learned that I am going to need to get some new Birkenstocks to wear with my socks when things warm up a bit.  For those of you who are reading this and have known me for a while, you may well remember my old well beloved birks.  My Mom bought me my only pair of birks at Costco the summer after my senior year of high school.  I patched the cork layer with rubber cement, then the bottom with a bit of duct tape a few years after that.  To add the final touches, I painted the boring taupe suede with sunshines, rainbows, and other lovely decorations one year.  They were seriously well loved, awesome shoes.   I wore them until they were literally shredded.  Eventually I admitted defeat and they went the way of all the earth.  Recently, crocs have taken their place for the most part.  However, crocs don't show off socks like birks do.  I am feeling like birks might just be making a come back in my footwear rotation this spring.  Because I have always believed that socks and sandals go together like pb and j. :)

Mexican food

I *love* Mexican food. So much so that we have Mexican Friday night and usually a couple of other nights during the week too.

So while we were at Disney world Meredith and I spent some time in Mexico. It was really fun and we ate inside the big pyramid at the fancy restaurant there. It was decorated like an old time Mexican village and that was really cool. The whole time I was there I kept thinking how it is such a shame that Mexico is so dangerous because otherwise I would love to go there for a family vacation.

Coffee break

I love a good cup of coffee. For me that always includes cream and sugar. The easiest, quickest and consistently delicious way to get that great cup of joe every morning is with my personal sized mr coffee machine.

It is a whole process and over years of little tweaks just this week I have finally perfected my system.

Equipment:
-personal sized mr coffee maker
-coffee filters (I like the unbleached)
-grinder (when I get whole beans)
-mug

Ingredients:
-filtered water
-Costco brand medium roast world coffee blend (I like a lot of brands and blends so this changes regularly. I have tried the full gamut of coffee brands from the expensive to the generic Walmart brand. This Costco one is really good. Generally I tend to favor the medium roasts. If money were no issue I would drink Hawaiian coffee - the Kona is awesome. )
-organic sugar
-clover honey
-half and half

With the addition of this new mug, my system has finally reached completion. This mug may be kind of boring and industrial looking but when i saw it at the gift shop i knew i had to get it. It is the perfect size. It fits the whole pot of coffee with just enough room for cream. No more tweaking amounts of sugar and cream when I add the rest of the coffee. Just once and it is done. Awesome!

Socks

It is well established that I am *not* in need of new projects, but this blog post, has inspired me to try my hand at socks (the heading picture of fun crazy colorful socks with clogs is just about my idea of feet heaven).  I have a sock already on some needles, but as with any good UFO (unfinished object), the pattern and the project have long parted ways.  So I think I will just frog it and use Susan's basic sock recipe.  

Also, I love merino wool socks - there is nothing better in the winter.  Perhaps socks will become my new portable go-to project.   

Sweet seven

Seven is an awesome age. Audrey is helpful and curious and independent but still likes her parents. Here is my sweet seven year old showing off her poster on Scotland.

This morning we were going through some of her papers and i was telling her how much i like her artwork. So she wrote me a sweet while i was upstairs taking care of Meredith.

Baby laundry

When Meredith was born we used cloth diapers and I loved buying them - we took several trips to Abby's Lane just to look around and feel the new stuff.  I loved figuring out what system worked for us and what didn't.  I love using them with the cute patterns and colors.  I love washing them, but most of all I love hanging them on the line to dry - seeing those cute little diapers all lined up - happy.  

With me back at work full-time, we mostly use disposable diapers now.  Honestly, I am barely keeping up with our regular laundry, let alone adding in an extra load.  They work just fine, but they are not great overnight.  If she wakes up in the night, I always have to change her before I feed her or else she will be wet in the morning.  

This past weekend, Ryan got the flu and all of our plans to get errands done flew out the window, so I switched back to cloth in order to conserve the few disposables that we have until I made it to the store.  Today as I hung the cloth diapers out to dry I couldn't help but smile at the cute diapers all lined up again.  

2013 goals

Every year I like to pick a few goals and projects to try to accomplish over the course of the year.  This year I would like to:

• Finish my afghan.  I am just excited to do that.  I love the colors and I love the way it is already coming together.
• Exercise - I would like to also exercise more - since I get nearly no exercise now, I am aiming for once a week - no need to rush into things.

• Photo project.  This is the *big* project that I would like to do this year is to get my family photos in order.  I would love to put them into scrapbooks, but I know I don't have the time to do that for real, so I am going to try to scrapbook digitally.  I have seen a few peoples blogs that give good instructions and I am hoping that once I get the hang of it, the pages can come together quickly.  I am not aiming for fancy -just finished.
• Step one is to gather photos:  I already scheduled an appointment for our old eMac at the genius bar for tomorrow in the hope that we will be able to retrieve the old photos from that computer.  I am also going to ask others who may have photos of the girls to send them to me if they can.  I am also going to take some of our regular photos to Costco to be scanned.
• Step two will be to organize them:  I think I will probably sort them by year first and then see what I have from there.  
• Step three will be to actually put pages together.  I am going to try to keep them simple.  This will likely take me many hours and most of the year. 
• Step four will be printing the pages - I know there are several good options out there.  I can't wait to see the finished product.

New crochet project

Right after Christmas I felt the urge to purge my yarn stash.  I have quite a bit of yarn and much of it is in halfway finished projects.  One crochet project in particular was calling my name.  My mom has a beautiful old afghan in a scrappy (colorful) pattern that I absolutely love.  I looked to find the pattern for years and when I saw it in a magazine I bought the magazine right away.  Then I bought a whole bunch of yarn and began to crochet the afghan in no particular color order.  I got about 1/3 of the way finished and realized I did not really like the way the colors were all looking together.  And if there is one thing that I have learned from years of projects - if you don't like it while it is in progress, you won't like it when it is finished.  So I frogged (pulled it apart) the whole thing to rearrange the colors and start over.  And there it sat in nice balls of yarn for a long time (maybe years - I can't remember).

This time I cut a sample of each of the colors and ordered them several ways until I found the way I liked best.  This time the afghan is going to be loosely rainbow ordered.  It is bright and cheery and really a great winter project because the yarn is a big soft wool and acrylic blend and keeps me warm as I crochet.  I finished one repeat of the pattern before we left for Disney.

I don't know if it shows, but this is going to be a big afghan.  I love it already.

Finished objects

In order to finish the shawl, I ordered wool soak, fancy stretching wires, blocking mats and pins.  The whole process was fun to try.  And it worked really well.  The soak softened the wool just a touch and the wires made the pattern bloom.

Multi-colored shawl

I also finished the water bottle cozy for Claire.  Funny story with this one.  I have this strange sense of humor about Christmas.  I love for there to be some sort of funny present.  When I found this pattern, I immediately thought of Claire because she is always cold in the winter and so I thought it would be a nice way to warm up.  I also knew that she didn't have an old fashioned hot water bottle, so I started looking at the local stores for one.  The only one I found happened to also include a "personal hygene and enema system" with it (basically a bunch of tubes that attach to the water bottle part).  I laughed so hard when she opened it and was totally perplexed.  Of course, I wrapped the homemade cozy in a separate bag.  

Christmas 2012

Christmas was good this year.  Audrey and Meredith loved opening their presents and the house is now overrun with new fun toys.

Audrey in front of Grandma in VA's Christmas tree 2012

Meredith opening presents Christmas 2012

Slow Food Fast

When I was a new SAHM with Audrey, she and I went to visit my Aunt Kalyn and her family in North Carolina for a week.  It was mind-blowing.  Kalyn is an amazing home economist.  She has perfected the art of having a variety of nutritious food at the ready for very low cost.  Growing up Mormon, I knew about the principles of a revolving pantry of basics food items (and food storage for two years!).  But Kalyn manages to take that principle to the next level. For example, when she made rice, she mixed wild rice, brown and white (so that it had a variety of nutrition, she told me), then she put the leftovers aside to use in fried rice for Chinese night later on in the week (with homemade eggrolls from the freezer).  Every dinner she made enough for leftovers, and she would immediately put it into individual serving size tupperware dishes with a scoop of frozen veggies and then labeled and into a specific spot in the freezer.  Her husband grabbed one each morning before he left for work - instantly a variety of homemade, delicious, and nutritious lunches.  Seriously, Kalyn makes an art of home economy.

What it made me realize is that if I thought things through a little bit, I could certainly make good food more often and easier. Here are a few things I now do for good slow food faster/easier:

• Mire Pioux - (fancy French word (probably misspelled) which means onions, carrots, celery mix) - I like to buy organic produce and buying a bigger bag is usually cheaper, so I will cut up most of the bag at once.  It doesnt take much more time to cut up the additional carrots, celery, or onions.  I usually just do one type at a time.  Then I spread them on a cookie sheet on a layer of parchment paper and freeze them.  Once they are frozen I put them in a freezer bag in the freezer. And when I make soup I just grab a handful and throw it in the pan.  Souper easy.
• Dehydrated kale - I love kale in my soup and my garden made a whole bunch, so i washed it cut it in strips and dried it.  It works wonderfully.
• Meats - Ham - I will cube a bunch of ham and freeze it in soup size portions and use it in split pea soup or 16 bean soup mix or quiche.  I save any leftover bacon pieces and crumble it into veggies.  
• Freezer chili - I save leftover steak (cut into bite size pieces prior to freezing), leftover tomatoes, tomato paste, sauce, taco meat, beans, etc.  Anything I think will work well with chili flavors gets thrown into a freezer bag together and every so often becomes chili.  It is usually really amazing chili because it has better quality meats than I are typically used for chili.  
• Batches - As mentioned previously, I try to cook twice as much as I need of everything and I freeze the other half.  

As a side note - Kalyn worked for years to change my recipe for KA cookies into something healthy.  She says she finally achieved success and that the kids love them.  They now contain shredded zucchini.  Pretty impressive.

When it rains...

Since I started back to work, we have had one sickness after another.  We are at the doctor and/or urgent care for one of us every week.  I am not even exaggerating   Between daycare and school, we are a regular cacophony of germs around here.  We have been much more fastidiousness in washing our hands as soon as we get to the house, but even so, we have all been sick.  That is not that much fun.

However, last weekend, we took bugs to a new level.  While we were in line for the bathroom at the Kennedy Center (to see the musical White Christmas), I started playing with Audrey's hair to redo the barrettes   Suddenly I noticed movement on her head.  She had bugs in her hair - lice.  Turns out she had a bad case of lice and so after three treatments, we are still finding an occasional bug or knit here and there.  She just has so much hair it is hard to get them all.

So she and I got haircuts - shoulder length - homemade cuts by me.  Hopefully the follow up treatment will be easier now. 

Office views

The cube farm

My daily view inside the office is cube ville. Eight full floors of it. This is a pic of the side I sit in. I like this side because we have an unobstructed view of the city. Georgetown is right across the river

View of the Key Bridge crossing the Potomac river looking towards Georgetown

Pretty fantastic office views.

But not nearly as good as the sweet little ladies I pick up at the end of the day.

Audrey and Meredith wearing wings and playing

Audrey and Meredith brushing their teeth before bed

Dinner prep

Every evening, homemakers everywhere try to find an efficient way to have a good healthy economical homemade dinner on the table.  That in and of itself is a challenge, but when that homemaker also works outside of the house full-time (like me, for instance), it is even more challenging.  With a bit of planning, it can happen.

Since I first started back to work a few months ago, I struggled to make that happen every night. There have been many a night of quick scrambled egg dinners.  Slowly but surely, I have gotten back in to the groove and now things are coming together more often than not.  Using tonight as an example, here is my loose and evolving system.

Every weekend before we go grocery shopping, I try to think of several dinners that I want to make during the week and I try to make sure that there is enough stuff to double them and put whole dinners or partial dinners into the freezer.  Last night, I looked at the list of potential dinners on the white board and decided we would have spaghetti with meat sauce.  So this morning I pulled out a frozen brick of ground beef to thaw.  When I got home, I cooked the whole thing and a whole lot of spaghetti.  I buy the organic ground beef from Costco, which comes in 1.34 pound bricks.  Which actually turns out to be just about right for two plus meals for us.  After the beef was cooked, I put half into the freezer again - it will become part of crockpot chili another day (probably next week).  I added some jarred spaghetti sauce to the meat still in the pan and spiced it up a bit.  Then added all of the cooked spaghetti.  After dinner we had enough leftover for me to put that in a casserole pan - I threw that in the freezer too.  With a little cottage cheese and mozzarella on top (now on the grocery list) this will be a delicious spaghetti bake for the future.

Earlier in the week, I made a big crock-pot of refried beans - honestly they were the best refried beans we ever had - and I now have a whole bunch in the freezer and some in the fridge to be part of Mexican Friday night .  This week, Mexican Friday night will be a new recipe for shredded Mexican beef - another crock-pot recipe - with some flour tortillas and salsa from Uncle Julio's   I will be put the leftovers into burritos - which will go into the freezer for later of course. :) 

Christmas Stockings

I love homemade stuff in general - but (in my humble opinion) Christmas stuff in particular is so much better when it is homemade.  So naturally, I have been wanting to knit matching Christmas stocking for several years.  I looked for patterns and started one stocking a couple of years ago, but frogged it about half way through because it was just not looking the way I hoped.  Two years ago, I spotted some beautiful fair isle knit stockings on Pottery Barn Kids, but I was still hoping I could make my own.  Last year I admitted to myself that hand-knit stockings were probably not going to happen and so I waited for the cute PBK stocking to go on sale at the end of Christmas.  Instead they sold out.  So this year, I bit the bullet and bought new stockings as soon as they came out.  So much for handmade and knitting a new set of stockings.  Sometimes a lady has to know when to be practical.

As you see there are five stockings, one is for Aunt William, because we are lucky enough to have her come to our house for Christmas more often than not.  I did not have names stitched on them because I thought it would be fun to be able to mix it up and switch stocking every year if desired.  Sure enough, Audrey told me that she wants to trade with Aunt William next year. :)

We usually begin Christmas decorating on Black Friday. I think it is a better way to spend the day than fighting shopping crowds. This year we got off to a slow start because we spent most of Thanksgiving weekend at the in-laws with cousins.   However, I did manage to get the stockings hung first thing Friday morning and I have been admiring them ever since.