Sunday Soup & Muffins

Awhile ago, back when I worked actually, I designated Sundays (In the fall & winter anyway) as a day to make soup & muffins or quiche or something for breakfast that we could eat for more than one day. Then we could either have the soup on Monday evening for dinner or pack it for lunches during the week.

I've kind of gotten away from that but was thinking I should re-institute it. Being home I guess I can make soup any time I want, but I tend to work better with a schedule. I think I'll post my recipes each week in case you want to play along at home!

So today I made:

Butternut Soup with Cider Cream. I actually skipped the cream on this one because I didn't have any whipping cream. I also skipped the sour cream in the soup as I felt like this would be a nice non-dairy soup to have (even a dairy whore like myself needs to take a break sometime.) This soup is fabulous! You can taste both the squash and apple and the carrots and leeks give it a nice
depth of flavor.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins. My girl and I made these together. I used whole wheat pastry flour instead of white flour. Whole wheat pastry flour is a great way to incorporate whole wheat flour into your baking without experiencing all the heaviness that is usually associated with exchanging whole wheat for white flour. I was going to skip the chocolate chips but then changed my mind and chopped up some Halloween chocolate bars instead. This of course, took this item from the breakfast to snack category but I've never been convinced a muffin is really breakfast food anyway (The ingredients are the exact SAME as cake people!) These are YUMMY!!!

Meeting Jan Brett

I love Jan Brett books and I have been reading them to my girl since we started reading to her! Her art work is stunning! She is one of our favorite children's authors around here!

Last year my daughter's pre-school class did a whole unit on Jan Brett and my husband and daughter saw "The Mitten" put on as a play at The Strong Museum.

Saturday evening, Wegmans put on a book signing (which was free) for her new book and I was thrilled to be able to go with my girl!

She was very cute!
She spoke for about 20 minutes. We had a spot up in front which was really neat. My girlie was pretty excited about meeting/seeing someone who writes her books! She (Jan Brett, not my daughter) drew the bear from "The Mitten." The kids were in awe as was I. She drew this very quickly and was really entertaining. She told us that it usually takes her one hour per inch of picture when she's illustrating a book




Then we saw her bus.
And met Hedgie the Hedgehog.


She was really sweet to each of the kids and spoke with each one as she signed their book.


"Oh Jan Brett, we love you so much" says me. She looks really impressed by this....I'm sure she's heard this from about a million people.


A very fun time for both me and my girl!



You know, I was thinking yesterday that I should have posted this for local readers to see BEFORE the event. Sorry. If you don't live locally and you are interested you may want to check out her website for dates near you. Even if you have missed this you may want to still take a look because she has a lot of neat activities and coloring pages right from her books, which is pretty neat if you've read the books!

Baked Cabbage With Bacon

I think cabbage is a pretty underrated vegetable. Being of Slavic descent, perhaps it's in my blood. I just think it gets a bum rap. It's tasty and really good for you. The problem with cabbage is that, alone, boiled, it's pretty bad. Same with Brussels Sprouts (I have a killer Brussels Sprouts Recipe I'll share soon as well) I love coleslaw and sauerkraut and have been known to eat my share of stuffed cabbage rolls that mom makes. When you dress up cabbage it can be great.

The other day I was looking at my sparse looking fridge and trying to decide on a side dish for supper.

I had a HUGE cabbage that I got from a local Farm Market for $1. I also had leeks & green onion in the garden. Upon closer inspection of the freezer, I had 5 pieces of bacon. Bingo-Everything necessary for my favorite cabbage recipe ever. You also need whole wheat bread crumbs but I had those as well.

Baked Cabbage With Bacon

Holy cow is this ever good! I first made it back on St Patrick's Day as an alternative to normal boiled cabbage with butter. It was a hit. It calls for 3/4 lb of bacon but as you can see, I got by with much less and it was fine. Really-Butter & Bacon how can you go wrong, right?? Mixed with the cooked down cabbage and buttery leeks, this is a side dish that even non-cabbage eaters like.

At this time of year cabbage is plentiful and cheap. If you don't want to buy yourself a leek, come on over, I've got plenty!

Holey Crap

My almost-5-year-old daughter, much to my chagrin, no longer naps. Once in a while she'll doze off, but not usually. And trust me, by that time of day, I really need a break.

We've instituted quiet time in her room. She listens to a book on tape/cd. Once in a while, classical music. Sometimes she lies in bed and sometimes she plays quietly with some of the toys in her room or draws with markers/crayons. It's all very peaceful. Usually.....

So it was, yesterday when I went upstairs to work in my study. After about 20 minutes there was hysterical crying coming from her room. I rushed down the stairs and when I flung open the door I stood there, mouth wide open, dumbfounded. (clearly I am easily dumbfounded these days.)

She had taken her child safety scissors and CUT HOLES IN HER PANTS AND SHIRT. The ones she was wearing!!! Lots of holes.....Big holes. There was hair laying around her on the floor. Actually, she has so much hair that it was hard to find where she cut if from. Today I found more of her hair hidden under her bed. Stephanie suggested she was rebelling from the other day when I would not let her wear a dirty shirt out in public....

She was crying so much that I didn't even have to reprimand her. She KNEW she had done something wrong. She buried her head in my shoulder and I could not even get her to look at me. I tried hard not to laugh audibly. I just could not believe she had the nerve to cut such BIG holes.

In for a penny, in for a pound I guess.

Buck Up!

You may have heard me mention the deer population in my town.

It's large and at this point I'm not impressed by them. I rarely give them a second look.

Today after I dropped my daughter off at pre-school I was in the office area looking out over the hill in the back of the school. Up the hill comes galloping a beautiful buck, complete with antlers. (Even though we have a lot of deer, a buck with a big rack is still pretty impressive to me.)

I was transfixed as I watched him walk right up to one of the windows in the building. He took his horns and knocked against the window a little. Then he knocked a little harder. I watched some more. I could not take my eyes off him. He backed up, his hackles were up, clearly thinking his reflection was another deer. I've never seen anything like this. He got into a stance that looked ready to bolt at the window when someone walked in and startled me by saying,

"Uh, don't you think we should maybe do something about that before he runs through the window?"

"Oh my, yes!"

I ran to the door and scared him away and tragedy was averted!

My Girlfriend Kristin

Time for my latest round of pandering to my readers.

This is my friend Kristin. I met Kristin on the first day of 7th grade. I was wearing an awkward cranberry colored skirt and white polo shirt and she was carrying an ugly purse that I found off putting. I only talked to her because the only other friend I met that day was talking to her. It was NOT love at first sight for either of us.

Small note. You may notice that many of my friendships have had less than auspicious starts ( I accidentally gave the bird to my other friend Kristin's husband shortly after I met them). And despite that, many many years later, I still have these friends. I do, in fact, get better over time. So if you've only recently met me and find me a complete pain in the ass, in say, 10 years, you won't. Ok, maybe you still will, but you'll still be glad you stayed. Just give me a chance.

Anyway, Kristin & I became the kind of annoying friends that mom's of teenage girls hate. We talked on the phone CONSTANTLY. And this was before call waiting! Her mom would pick up the phone and say, "It's that DAMN Chrissy WYyyyyyysocky" Seriously. We would laugh and laugh. We would write each other silly teenage notes and I would write "DON'T SHOW ANYONE" on them in big letters. Really, you should have seen the contents of these things. NO ONE WOULD HAVE GIVEN A DAMN!!!! These notes can make us laugh until we cry these days and I'm so glad she saved them. (In preparation to see New Moon, we are planning to rent Twilight, eat pizza and read the notes so we can get in touch with our inner teenage girl before we go and get all swoony over vampires!)

I could (still can) tell that girl anything. She never judges and always has a shoulder if you need it and a kind word. It's like getting a big hug.

She's a real giver. She works in a group home for children. She has an inspiring faith in God. She sings like an angel. She is mommy to the beautiful Corrine, a sunny child whose grasp of the English language (and pronunciation!!!) completely floors me.

I'm so glad she stayed after that purse incident.

Ok now folks, I still have spots avaliable into next week....

When Worlds Collide

If you've read my blog for any length of time or talked to me in person, you know that I'm a big proponent of eating locally, going to the farmer's market & of course, growing my own veggies.

I was moved by Barbara Kingsolver's book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, a veritable love letter to eating locally. It's well written, informative and makes you feel really good for eating locally grown green beans. (It's a tad bit elitist I think actually, but I still loved it) I've considered writing love letters to the ever brainy foodie, Michael Pollan. We've been doing the farmer's market thing for a number of years now and last year experimented with a CSA.

On another front, I LOVED the book, Freakonomics and cannot wait to read the next Installment of this, Super Freakonomics. Economics made sexy and so very entertaining! (Who doesn't want to know the hidden side of everything!?!?!)

So imagine my absolute HORROR when I found out the Freakonomics guys have a blog (Well actually I was quite thrilled to find out they have a blog) but that they have a whole host of articles on why eating locally isn't the environmental cure all, community builder that we all hope it is.

Do We Really Need a Few Billion Locavores?
Are Farmer's Markets That Good For Us?
Is Locavorism for Rich People Only?

They certainly challenge conventional wisdom when it comes to eating locally. I found the columns fascinating. Is local eating just a feel good theory? Well as with anything, you'll have to come to your own conclusions on that.

After reading and digesting the articles I've come to my own personal conclusions:

1) So what if part of going to the Farmer's Market is a feel good activity. I actually like to feel good. My girl likes going, I sometimes see people I know and have gone with my neighbors.

2) My favorite kind of eating locally is of course, from my own garden, which I will continue to cultivate, hopefully, until I die.

3) The food IS really fresh at the Farmer's Market (I also live near Wegmans who does a bang up job with local produce and fresh produce so yeah, I could skip it.)

4) Part of eating locally for me, is supporting my local economy. It's just important to me. Yes, if we ALL, ONLY bought local things then perhaps our current system would suffer but that isn't going to happen. I also love going to Target.

5) Prices are a tad cheaper. Nothing earth shaking here folks.

6) I'm a food elitist. Sheepishly, I'll admit it. I don't think it harms anything, but possibly going to a separate dairy is a little much. (And sometimes a pain in the butt so then we don't go) I like the dairy and the glass bottles and think the milk is great so I'll probably still go sometimes. But yeah, I should get over it a little.

7) People have to do the best they can with what they have. You may not have the time to go to the market on a weekly basis. Go to your grocery store and buy the best food you can afford. Don't let the localvores get you down!