Timing Dinner, shrimp in shallot and white wine sauce

Some Fall Updates

This is one of the views on the way to our train station. I like these peaceful Philly streets.

Meanwhile, Matt and I have done some alphabet activities this week.

I need to get back on my food photography but this week we kept it simple. Meatballs....

... And a staple I like to make in the fall, butternut squash and red cabbage stirfry with tofu and ginger. This is just perfect in the fall, even though the picture looks weird.

Camping on the Beach-

We somehow pulled it together for our annual camping trip on the beach, even though it was a quick one. Ger really spearheaded this one, even though he was exhausted from shifts he still managed to get all our stuff in the car in record time.

Muesli!

Used the last of homemade vanilla to whip up a batch if everything muesli. I'll have to post the recipe later in but it rocked the house, almonds, walnuts, flax, oats, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, coconut, goji berries, cranberries, apricots and more. It was truly luxurious.

Fall Craft

First day of school!

Pre School Activities Documentation

 

I wanted to document some of the things I’m learning about, as far as pre-school and kindergarten activities to do at home. This one took about 30 minutes with Matt all told, plus about 10 to set up but he’s been asking to do it again and again.

 

First you take a book, sometimes a simpler book. This Curious George “My Favorite Things” book is a bit young for Matt now but perfect for this exercise. What I’m about to detail below is a great way to extra bang from older books actually.

 

 

 

This book talks about household things in each environment. For example bowl and cup in the kitchen, umbrella and boots when you go outside, etc.

 

It also has the added benefit of having little pictures as decorations at the back of the book. Perfect, cause the activity starts with photocopying and cutting out one item for each page in the book.

 

You can see the bowl and cutlery ones below. I didn’t take pictures of the whole activity before I started, but I had about 7-8 or so (there’s only 7-8 pages in the book).

So step 1. is  to read the book together as normal.

Step 2. is to play a sort of i-spy with the cut outs. Then Matt earns all the little cut-outs. For example..

“Matt, so I’m thinking of something George uses, in the kitchen, for eating and it’s white, and your dad eats cereal from it, and you eat pasta from it and it’s round and can hold stuff. What is it?” (The bowl).

This way he’s earned all the cut-outs. You can even go back to the book for reference if needed.

 

(Matt does everything with his storm troopers).

 

While I was cutting out one thing from each page, I also printed off some quick icons about each environment. A snap to find with a quick google search.

 

Step 3: Asking questions about each item. So where does George like to use his bowl? In the Kitchen! Then you match up the item to the environment.

 

 

Step 4: Is whipping out the glue stick and documenting all the hard work!

 

 

A snap shot of the top of the final project, we had 7-8 matches. Which you then display!

 

This hits a lot of things, speech, reading comprehension, matching, fine motor. Plus it’s fun!

About Soup...

So, about soup. As you've probably heard me complain  explain we like to stay on a pretty tight food budget. Part of being held to a super tight food budget is using every damn scrap of vegetable that comes into your house. Now, granted I am not perfect, but I was shocked by a statistic I read recently about how much food we throw away.

Don't throw it away, make soup!

Besides saving money, soup is a great way to get lots of veggies in a small punch. I grew up drinking a lot of soup - especially in the heat of summer. For some reason, hot soup on a hot day just cools you down.

As a busy mom, I try to make on the "weekends" a pot of soup, a quick bread (banana bread, scones, muffins) and one reheat-able dinner (breaded chicken, sweet and sour pork, meatballs) to see us through the busy days. There is also prep for dinners during the week but it is these three things that if I know are sitting in the fridge when I get home I can pull dinner together.

Now, I know what you are thinking that why make soup when you can buy a can of it for 99 cents or less? First, those cans are usually full of crappy nastiness like mega doses of sodium and high fructose corn syrup (and many of its sibling corn products). Second, that doesn't solve the question of what to do with what is in your fridge.

If I've posted about this before in the past, I apologize for the repeat. Also - I'm still working on food photography, so bear with me. :-)

Grab whatever you've got in the fridge, today I had a leek, half an onion and a handful of carrots. I also had a celery stalk not shown.

In a pot with olive oil I defrost and cook up a sofrito cube. I've added chopped bacon here in previous versions, but I didn't have any today.

 You can see an early version of my sofrito project here. It really is helpful to have on hand, for so many types of dishes, though you don't need it.

I would love to make my own stock but in a pinch store bought will have to do. Basically any style tomato product will do here.

Once your chopped base is cooked up go ahead and add your stock and tomatoes, along with one can of water. Bring to a boil then simmer.

While that is simmering I head to the garden and pick whatever I've got. It's still early, so the only things are my bay leaf tree and sage. You can get really fancy here with the herbs. The only think is with basil I would add that in the end not here.

I've added my herbs along with whatever I'm feeling in the pantry. Today I was feeling like a posh Emily, so I added some saffron.

While that simmers I prep my veggies. Today I've only got mushrooms and broccoli, but really sky's limit here. Kale, cabbage, soybeans, zuchs (and how zuchs!) squash you name it, chop it up and throw it in.

Once the veggies are in and have had a good go, I add the final layer, which can range from potatoes cubes to rice to any can of beans in the pantry. Today I decided to finish off some spaghetti I had. At this point, on low on the back of the stove this can simmer for hours. Same goes for crock pot.

Yay! Homemade soup!

Inspiring New England Visit

Ger enjoys his breakfast with a side of cold mountain air.

Ger's birthday present this year was a hike in Franconia Notch, and some of our good friends with way more experience came with us (luckily for me!)


We started the night before here to lay out our gear and get comfortable. It was the off season, so we practically had the hotel to ourselves which was great fun. Our first day of hiking was to Greenleaf Hut and for the rest of the company, to the Lafayette Ridge.

Enjoying a morning tea and the view at Greenleaf, though still skeptical of the wisdom of this endeavor.

A flavor for what the trail to Greenleaf looks like. It was butt busting to the extreme.

Ger checks for cell reception at Lonesome Lake.

The second night had us at lower elevation and at Lonesome Lake Hut. We had the hut to ourselves and the caretaker regaled us with mountain stories and plied us with coffee in the morning.

After loading up with pancakes,  Ger and I started to make our way back to Philly with a few stops along the way. The first was in the Upper Valley to visit some friends and old haunts.

My favorite place at Dartmouth is the Sanborn library. I've spent HOURS here.

We stopped in at Tuck as well.

Our second stop was the The Mount in Lenox, MA. The Mount was Edith Wharton's home in the US, and is actively being restored.

The librarian was working in Ms. Wharton's library and I guess I must have passed some basic test cause she LET ME BEHIND THE ROPE to look around and take pictures.

I almost passed out with glee.

I can hardly contain myself in Edith Wharton's library among approx 1/3 of her known book collection. I love that the curtains lightly brush the floor. If that is okay in the house of the woman who brought modern interior design to America, it's okay for our living room.

I was able to see some of the inscriptions in a handful of her books. She was definitely well read. We also learned more about her life, including her years doing relief work during World War I. After visiting and learning more about her life, I think I'm going to have to elevate Edith Wharton to my mental category of women "who are accomplishing a great deal while keeping it together."

View of The Mountain from the lime walk path.

Overall an inspiring trip!