Mellow monday

A quiet and mellow, lovely day.  Cap is up at the university doing an all day workshop for educators who are taking a professional day on the MLK holiday.  The kids, dog and I have been enjoying a peaceful and productive morning at home.

I made this frittata again.  It is so easy and tasty.  The Italian sausage our farmer's market meat guy makes is so incredibly flavorful and well seasoned that the frittata, with its ten eggs and single sweet potato requires no further seasoning!

If Gem spies spare lemon while I am cooking, he has taken to making strawberry lemonade.  I can appreciate making one thing you love over and over again and perfecting the craft.  The extent of my cooking well into adulthood was my excellent scrambled eggs.  The adorable meter went off the charts yesterday when he made his drink a little paper umbrella, to boot.

My dinner plate last night.  Sausage-sweet potato frittata, zucchini noodles aglio et olio, roasted broccoli and a dollop of baba ganoush.  So, so good.  

(I have been keeping close track of our spending this month and our grocery bill is really high.  Way over the budget I set for groceries a year or two ago.  Now that I have a good flow going for meal planning, shopping and cooking, it is time to make adjustments and generate new protocols to shrink that line item by, gulp, 40% or so.  Alternately, I can look at other categories of spending to see if there is trimming to be done.  Lastly, the kids are bigger and that is an adjustment I hadn't calculated for, but need to...food and clothing budget going up!)

He's going home tonight.  It is always really nice to have him around.

Peace and love.

P.S.  A mellow poppy song to go with the day...

It never ends (the bad and the good)

This brought to you from the departments of the-excitement-never-ends and it's-always-something.  Last night this blister of water appeared on the ceiling of the kids' bedroom.  It was about twelve inches wide.

Cap punctured and drained it and then covered the wet section of ceiling.  It looked pretty good first thing this morning...

but, by noon, the plastic was pooching from the weight of leaking water.  Cap spent time rearranging that area of the room to temporarily accommodate the situation and we will likely take the opportunity next weekend to rearrange the room further to make way for some changes we have in mind (namely a desk).  That is, if all repairs have been completed by next weekend.

Let's talk about food.  I made Tuna Stuffed Eggs today.  This is a great little recipe.  It's simple and quick (once the eggs are boiled, cooled and peeled) and I liked how the protein factor is boosted with the addition of tuna to what is essentially deviled eggs.  I was stoked to use my homemade mayo (could not taste the olive oil) and opted to add chopped new pickle from the farmer's market.  I think these could use a touch of salt, but of course, to each her own.

It made me very happy to pull out my made in the USA Fiestaware egg plate.  I love eggs so much, I love having a plate just for eggs.

I also made these Raspberry Brownie Bites.  What.  A.  Treat.  I've been having a hankering for "sweets" lately and noticed when I was organizing my recipes no shortage of yummy possibilities.  These are raw and pretty simple to put together.  I love how pretty they are.  The best part, though, is popping one in your mouth.  The triple threat of juicy berry, sweet (coconut) cream and choco goo is a very successful melange of textures and flavor.  The brownie-flavored "crust" is rustic and next time I will make the discs smaller and thinner.  This Paleo girl is very grateful for this recipe.  (I subbed coconut nectar for the agave and next time may skip the sweetener entirely.  The dates pack a sweet punch in the brownie bit.

Off to make one more dish, the sausage frittata, before the Patriots game tonight.

Peace.

From the kitchen

Between meal planning, making the week's shopping list (note to self: consider making a master list/template on the laptop), taking stock of what's in the fridge and pantry and then making some stuff, it feels like my whole day was about food.  Not good, not bad, just...what it was.

Ratatouille had been on the agenda last weekend, but I was in no shape to tackle all that chopping and standing at the stove.  So today I deconstructed that plan and made zucchini noodles aglio et olio and baba ganoush.

Both recipes (as well as the one for mayo) came from Melissa ("Melicious") Joulwan's lovely cookbook, Well Fed.

Zucchini noodles.  I'm not gonna lie.  I first heard about making zucchini "pasta" years ago and summarily dismissed it.  Partly because the concept of "Paleo" was still way down the pike, partly because I wasn't a huge fan of zucchini.  (Except for Evie's chocolate zucchini bread...I was definitely a fan of that.)

Zucchini noodles.  I'm not gonna lie.  You're going to need this (or something a lot like it) in order to make them even remotely noodle-y.  It took me months and months to finally decide to buy one.  It's a pretty amazing gadget.  I recommend.

Well Fed's Zucchini Noodles Aglio Et Olio?  I'm not gonna lie.  Really, really good.  The dish is packed with flavor and it is spot on.  The melded savory heat of the garlic and red pepper flakes as the olive oil-ed noodles slide into your mouth.  Yum.  (Interestingly, you really don't taste the zucchini.)

I heart baba ganoush big time.  It is one of my favorite things to eat, but I don't often make it because the recipes I have encountered were too cumbersome/complicated.  Until now (squeee!)  Right place, right time...the technique used to cook the eggplant in this recipe was super simple and easy because, in part, I am no longer afraid to use the broiler and, in part, because we have this cast iron grill pan.  (Great for apartment dwellers who cannot easily grill outdoors.)

I am very happy.  This is, again, an incredibly flavorful rendition of a dish (I am finding that Well Fed recipes are serious about layers and depth of flavor).  No more desperate purchases of one dimensional pre-packaged baba from the supermarket or paying nearly $10 for a single portion of good stuff from the local Turkish restaurant.

Paleo mayo.  Five ingredients, time/patience, and a blender is all you need.  (Turned out I also needed a helping hand.  The act of holding the spouted Pyrex above shoulder-level for more than a few seconds seriously annoyed my back.  If Cap hadn't been able to help, I would have climbed atop a step ladder.)

If you have never made mayo, it's a trip.  The ingredients are liquid, liquid, liquid whirling in the blender...and somewhere between two and three minutes alchemy kicks in...suddenly the liquid emulsifies and you have a thick, creamy solid (the texture is wonderful...pillowy...or if redolent was a sensation...unlike any mayo from a store-bought jar).  You have homemade mayonnaise.

This mayo is called Olive Oil Mayo and since Melicious has the recipe with a video tutorial on her website I will happily link to it.  Even with the non-extra virgin olive oil, I found it to taste like "olive" (not overpowering, but not exactly subtle, either).  I think Nom Nom Paleo makes mayo with avocado and macadamia nut oils.  I will try that in the future though I am guessing that olive oil is the most economical choice.

I am planning one dish this week, Tuna Stuffed Eggs, that calls for mayo.  Cue Mr. Burns...excellent!  Looking forward to making other yummies with mayo in the coming weeks.

Peace and adventures in cooking...

Roasted tomatoes

In a way, this plate of food looks so off balance as to make me dizzy.  My apologies.

Gem, who will be thirteen in less than six months, has been very focused on spending time with friends.  I was very much like this at his age and it did not let up until...in a way, it has never let up.  (My college friends became my social family and then Cap became my family and then the kids came...and spending time with/being connected with friends is still very important to me.)

Yesterday one friend of theirs came over after lunch and then two other friends came over later in the afternoon.  They played Minecraft for hours.  I am still in this holding pattern of balancing getting back into my routines while trying not to overdo it.  Hormonal emo-ness continues in fits and starts but seems to be abating.

I found myself craving space away from the teen and tween throng and escaped to the kitchen.  I toasted cashew nuts (now a go to snack for Gem along with clementines), made some kale chips and roasted a pound of grape tomatoes.

Thank Shiva for roasted tomatoes (Sag coined that phrase, I love it) because today's egg scramble was fabulous.  Baby spinach, two pastured eggs from this morning's farmer's market run (thanks to Cap), Spanish olive oil and the roasted toms.  Yummers.  (I have been using the toaster oven to roast many of my veg lately...a revelation.)

Peace and good weekending to you.

P.S.  Shout out to Lana whose mention of roasting tomatoes last weekend planted the seed in my mind.

Yesterday

Yesterday marked one week of my lower back-pelvic-abdominal "issues".  Last night and this morning I have not needed to take pain medication.  Progress!

24 hours ago I took an Aleve on an empty stomach and learned why you may or may not want to do that: I spent most of the morning feeling stoned.  (I was desperate with pain and sleep deprivation and not in my right mind to start with.)

I spent much of the day reading (and finishing) a gripping and well written YA novel, Unwind.  

I had my first "food" craving since the new year, definitely hormonal, and it was interesting because no image of a particular food popped into my mind...I found myself mentally inserting former heavy weights like onion rings and ice cream onto the craving throne.  But, there was a distinct disconnect in muscle memory...in the chemical neural pathway.

What finally stirred a flutter of movement was the thought of chocolate.  Which, again, was interesting because in the last 6-12 months I have noticed a definite downturn in my chocolate cravings.

Thankfully, there was leftover skirt steak, rutabaga fries and guacamole in the fridge.  The flavors and fats of the beef and avocado were happily and totally satisfying and satiating.

I ended the day with episodes of two great tv shows: Parks and Rec and American Horror Story: Asylum.  I also watched the Project Runway All-Stars finale and was bored.  (Which was worse than being incensed watching this week's Top Chef.)

The day was also, as usual, punctuated with good food.  

I made this chicken tomato soup for dinner (this is what it looked like right after turning the cooker on low for 6 hours...I opted to partially thaw the chicken overnight in the fridge), which may get the nickname "pizza soup" in our house because to Cap and me its flavors were very reminiscent of pizza.  I tweaked the recipe here and there and next time will tweak it more.  The soup was hearty and flavorful, but there wasn't enough "soup" for me.  Next time I will add more liquid/reduce the amount of chicken.  I used Anthony's pastured chicken breast and his birds are very plump and meaty.  Gem did not care for it, Sag thought it was okay and finished his bowl.

I really love Nom Nom Paleo's recipes.  For lunch I had leftover Curried Cream of Broccoli Soup and following her cue, plopped in a piece of protein (leftover pot roast).  This was such a nourishing, satisfying bowl.  The delicately flavorful soup and the rustic chunk of beef complemented each other nicely.  (Our powerful new stick blender scared me a bit so the soup was not as smooth as smooth can be...next time.  With one of their ubiquitous coupons, we got it for less than the Amazon price at Bed Bath and Beyond.)

My breakfast plate.  As you may have noticed, my food pics tend to be shot before I tuck in.  And I do have a "before" shot of breakfast yesterday.  Three pastured eggs (one was tiny) scrambled with a handful of organic baby spinach in Spanish olive oil.  With a dollop of Basil Salad Dressing on top.  What you may not know (and this will come as no surprise, likely) is that more often than not, I do not eat my meals in one sitting.  This is particularly true of breakfast.  Lately, I tend to start breakfast for myself first and then the kids drift in.  They are learning to do more for themselves in the kitchen, but it takes guidance.  This was my plate after it had been sitting for about twenty minutes.  Still tasty, a little more real.

Peace.

One eye open

OMGawd.  What a morning.  My spasming back insisted I wake the eff up and get out of bed RIGHT NOW at 6am.

I am still trying to take it easy.  The back stopped spasming once I was upright for awhile.  I am upping my kitchen activity, wary of winces.

My breakfast was a big plate of comfort.  Leftover potatoes from Lil's Chicken (spuds, chicken fat and bits, onion, coconut oil) with a pastured egg that poached in the gentle reheating.

Off to get lunch for the kids...especially the one who has gymnastics this afternoon.

Peace.

Birthday dinner

 scallops for him.

 leftover pot roast smothered in pea shoots for me.

dessert was Chocolate Almond Joy Bars.

It was a simple birthday dinner because I've been out of commission.  But he said it was good.

The sea scallops were purchased at the farmer's market on Saturday (our terrific source for local fresh catch) and then placed in the freezer.  They were thawed today and baked tonight with Kerrygold butter and homemade GF breadcrumbs (sounds fancy, but it ain't: an Udi's end piece blitzed in the mini-food processor), a dash of sea salt sprinkled on top.  This recipe, from Cap's mom, is a classic.  Tonight's bonus was that all the scallops were for Cap because I am eating Paleo and the kids do not like scallops.

I was deeeelighted to find pea shoots at Trader Joe's today.  I first had them with Barbra and Audrey, a simple pea shoots stir fry from their favorite Chinese restaurant.  For the past few years, I've thought of pea shoots as something I could have only with them when I visited Oakland.  But, no more.  Tonight I took a handful of lovely green, rinsed them, shook off the excess water, and tossed them atop the leftover pot roast as it reheated gently in a pan.  (We never replaced our microwave when it went kaput.)  My dinner was heaven.  So, so good.

The Almond Joy bars were...good.  After watching the faces of my three guys as they sampled/ate this new-to-us baked sweet (Gem did not care for it, Sag asked for a second piece, Cap liked it, but made suggestions for tweaking), I could not resist...I had a tiny bite that had no chocolate in it (the dark chocolate was the only element of the dessert that had sugar in it)...I was desperately curious.  I honestly don't have an opinion.  Without the taste/texture of chocolate or coconut, my bite was pretty almond cake-y rather than "almond joy" bar-like.  When I make this again, I am going to mix some shredded coconut into the batter.  Also, may look for coconut with a bigger "shred".  The stuff I used today was so fine that it burned.  (It didn't help that I used the toaster oven which is relatively new and I am still learning the ropes of.)

The kids ate dinner first tonight.  Cap whipped up a batch of his tuna pasta salad for them.  They were happy.

Peace.

Grateful

During this time of personal duress (lifting, by the way), dips in appetite, bouts of belly distention, and general non-excitement about food descended like a heavy blanket.  Thanks to the meal planning, leftovers, a Paleo-friendly stocked fridge/pantry (thanks to the well timed Trader Joe's run last week), and an able and willing chef in Cap, I have been able to eat Paleo throughout.

I was feeling pretty down and out for a few days there and if I'd had to let go of eating Paleo, it would have driven me even lower.

Here is my breakfast: two pastured eggs scrambled with pre-washed organic baby spinach (TJ's) and the last of the pre-sliced white button mushrooms (TJ's) in Spanish olive oil (TJ's)...drizzled with basil salad dressing.  The tea is Master Lu's Magic Ginger, a flu prevention brew the kids and I have been sipping for about a month.

The basil salad dressing is fab.  So simple, so tasty.  If you like pesto, you will love it.  (I picked up the basil at TJ's last week.)

Other TJ's items which have been sustaining me: dried apricots and roasted/salted macadamia nuts.

I went to TJ's again today with Tiina chauffeuring me and some of what I picked up today: raw cashews (discovered last week that Gem likes them toasted and salted), GF English muffins (Sag and Cap really liked them last week), and a slew of produce including more clementines (I'm surprised Gem hasn't turned into one he is eating so many), guacamole, and pre-washed and cut organic broccoli and pre-trimmed leeks for a soup I have planned for tomorrow.

(The broccoli and leek I would not normally buy pre-anything, but as I am re-entering my routines and tasks slowly, I realized it was a perfect convenience to buy these today and minimize my physical activity tomorrow.)

Yesterday Cap made Sesame Kelp Noodles and Primal Pot Roast (not a free recipe) in my stead.  The kelp noodles were interesting...they were crunchy!  They tasted like the sauce, which was yummy.  The pot roast was satisfying, as usual.  Over the weekend, Cap made Lil's Chicken.  A simple and delicious recipe that was passed down to me from a dear college friend many, many moons ago (Lil was her mom).  Sag, in particular, loved it.

The ratatouille is the only thing that didn't get made this weekend.  I am a bit leery because it will require a lot of standing while washing and chopping and cooking.  Yet, I dream of nibbling on the gorgeous chunks of Mediterranean-flavored goodness...

Tonight I am going to make Cap his birthday dinner: scallops and a surprise dessert.  The dessert is new-to-me and I am already planning a substitution.  Hope it comes out, I think the chemistry of the recipe will be forgiving.

happy birthday, my love.

Peace.

Holy, hormones batman

My view today.  Although I felt pretty ill Saturday, it is clear now that I am not sick...at least not in the traditional sense.

My period came early and the flow is lighter.

My lower back/pubic bone/belly have become temporary hot spots.  My back, in particular, is in pain/sensitive.

My emotions have been...challenging and intense, some of it felt like really old crud that was dislodged and is banging its way up my insides on its way out.  The worst seems to be over, for now.

In the last few days I have realized that a woman never knows when her last period "is" only when it was.  This made me inexplicably sad.  Not for womankind, but for me, personally.  So strange that despite looking forward to not having anymore periods, the thudding reality of letting go of a phase of my life hit me kind of hard.

I have also realized how much I hate being out of physical commission/in physical pain.  It is insidiously demoralizing.  It is not something I think of often...the last time something like this happened was a few years ago.  It's a reminder of the blessing of my usual life.

Holy hormones, Batman.  Last night I could not fall asleep.  By 3:30am I was in so much pain (back and head), I staggered out of bed in search of the Aleve.  I think it kicked in mercifully quickly and I was asleep by 4:00.  This sleep was bookended by highly charged emotional states which had me blinded and Cap blindsided.  I finally cried a bit close to noontime, which helped.

(I used to cry a lot more than I ever do now.  It doesn't seem to come naturally to me anymore.)

Recovery has been taking longer than I want.  But, it's happening.

Peace.

Very quiet

I am ill.  Factors appear complex...my period came early today...Paleo and perimenopause vector?  Back soon.

Spoonful of gravy

Another full day.  That involved an aching back and an emergency visit to Vinny who worked on me for an hour tonight.  Origin of tweak seemed to be an area on the left side of my pubic bone.  What the fuuuu....?  My discomfort today did periodically remind me of pregnancy days so it made sense and was good to have that validated, but I have NO idea how this happened.

Yesterday, a pretty pic, today a fabu recipe.

Nom Nom Paleo did it again.  I tried a new-to-me recipe by her and, oh, it made me so happy.  Slow Cooker Roast Chicken and Gravy.  I plucked our pastured whole chicken out of the defrost pan in the fridge.  Cap dried it and seasoned it with salt, pepper and Sunny Paris while I chopped the onion, peeled the garlic and sautéed them in olive oil with a dollop of tomato paste.  Plopped the umami-ed up (and seasoned) aromatics in the slow cooker and Cap nestled in the chicken.  Poured in some chicken broth and honey wine.  Turned it on "low" and left it alone for just under five hours.  (Cooking times can vary, used our instant read thermometer to determine when our bird was ready.)

The chicken was succulent and tasty.  The best roast chicken I've made, I believe.  (But, if I'm being honest, roast chicken is so good that it kind of feels that way every time.)  But, the gravy, oh man, the gravy.

After you pull the chicken out of the cooker, there's a mess of yum left in the bowl.  Our immersion blender broke a few months ago and has not been replaced.  (One would have been handy today, though it wasn't necessary.)  After the delicious dregs cooled a bit, they were poured into the Vitamix.  And blitzed into an incredibly savory gravy in no time.

It was the best gravy I have ever made.  Possibly the best gravy I have ever eaten.  No gluten-free casein-free qualifiers, either, though this gravy was both.  (It was totes Paleo.)

I could very well have disappeared this gravy, a spoonful at a time, until it was all gone.

Peace.

Seductive sky

A very (good) busy day.  Just going to post a pic taken today on a rare noontime family walk.

Peace and love.

More joy

It occurred to me today that in a future time when Gem inhabits the body of a full grown man, he may have fleeting warm and fuzzy remembrances of sitting on this couch, in his spot.  Side note: we have discovered he likes toasted cashews dusted with pink Hawaiian salt.  He has enjoyed pears his whole eating life.

Peace.

Why we suffer

"When we look deeply at the nature of things, we see that in fact everything is impermanent.  Nothing exists as a permanent entity; everything changes.  It is said that we cannot step into the same river twice.  If we look for a single, permanent entity in a river, we will not find it.  The same is true of our physical body.  There is no such thing as a self, no absolute, permanent entity to be found in the element we call "body".  In our ignorance we believe that there is a permanent entity in us, and our pain and suffering manifest on the basis of that ignorance.  If we touch deeply the nonself nature in us, we can get out of that suffering."  ~Thich Nhat Hanh

No comment.

Other than to say that in my mind, human "pain" and "suffering" are very political.  The chasm between the nitty gritty realities of life on our earth and the power of spirituality to "get out of" the suffering manifested by atrocity and disaster...I won't say it cannot be bridged.  But making smooth sense of a whole that integrates these two ideas would require a level of concentration and study that I do not have right now.

So I resist.  A bit.

Let's look at some pretty pictures of food.

I love a breakfast plate like this.  A selection of leftovers plus scrambled eggs.  Yesterday's kale with the Miracle Sauce, rutabaga oven "fries" from the other night (no one else cares for them, I love them!), and a single pastured egg scrambled with pre-cleaned pre-sliced shrooms from Trader Joe's in Spanish olive oil (also from Trader Joe's) with Penzey's Sunny Paris seasoning sprinkled in.

Lunch made me happy, too.  So many meals during the Fall devolved into hotdogs and tater tots, endless beef baloney sandwiches and quesadillas.  I did not let myself get down, at the time.  I knew I was doing my best, what I needed to to get through those weeks...and that life is impermanent and change was to come.

Leftover Carrot-Tofu Scramble, leftover Hungarian Goulash, over piping hot rice with side salads of Romaine lettuce and Persian cukes.  Strawberry lemonade for Gem, pineapple juice for Sag.  I had my salad with a dollop of leftover tuna salad.  Yum.

(I offered up beef baloney as a lunch choice but they didn't want it.  Not with what else was available.)

Peace and love.

Concentration

"When you contemplate the big, full sunrise, the more mindful and concentrated you are, the more the beauty of the sunrise is revealed to you.  Suppose you are offered a cup of tea, very fragrant, very good tea.  If your mind is distracted, you cannot really enjoy the tea.  You have to be mindful of the tea, you have to be concentrated on it, so the tea can reveal its fragrance and wonder to you.  That is why mindfulness and concentration are such sources of happiness.  That's why a good practitioner knows how to create a moment of joy, a feeling of happiness, at any time of the day."  ~Thich Nhat Hanh

An interesting thing about these meditations...when I start to read them, I sometimes think it is not relevant to where I am...but by the time I am finished and give it a moment, something unfolds in my mind and a connection is discovered.

I set intentions to create four new daily "habits" with the new year: practicing Qigong, eating Paleo, taking a gentle walk, and playing piano.  The eating Paleo has maintained through the first week of 2013.  The other three have been spotty, no habits formed yet.

Reading this meditation made me realize that the four "habits" are actually all expressions of the same thing.  A striving towards mindfulness...requiring a formidable amount of concentration.

I have not been beating myself up, but I have not been thinking clearly about it, either.  If I were a monkette in a mountaintop retreat hut, I'd more easily incorporate new daily intentions to my life.  Since I am not, I am making adjustments.

This week, maybe next week, once eating Paleo no longer requires the full on concentration it has the first week (the physical/chemical adjustment---today's the first day I felt pretty great; the organizational demands of meal planning, food shopping, trying new recipes/preparing Paleo meals plus just-in-case meals for other tastebuds in the family), I will shift the bulk of my concentration to the next intention: practicing Qigong.

The Paleo eating is going very well.  I learn best through experience/doing and because this isn't my first foray into dropping sugar/grains/legumes/dairy/most oils, everything has come together well.  The fridge is packed with food and ingredients (ever present gluten-free flours need to be refrigerated; veggies take up more space than meat/dairy; nuts need to be refrigerated).

Today's lunch was leftover turkey stuffed butternut squash with a side of kale dressed with Leon's Miracle Sauce (with capers and anchovy). Yum.  (I love love love Trader Joe's pre-washed pre-cut organic kale in a bag...for $2.49!!!)

After a session with Vinny (my first of the new year), I was relaxed and energized.  If I was a monkette, I totally would have hopped into bed for a nap.  But, the rest of the day beckoned, specifically thoughts of the evening meal.  I checked the avocados which had been too hard yesterday and they were ripe (putting them in a brown paper bag with a ripe banana works every time...yay chemistry!)  So I made a recipe I've had since 2008, unearthed in my recipe cache reorg, and it was sooooooo tasty.

This Creamy Tuna Salad With No Mayo, Eggs, Soy or Dairy is the shizz.  It was so savory, textural, rich and satisfying that I completely forgot to put it on something other than my fork.  It is, truly, a meal unto itself.  Also shocking, it was so satiating that I did not finish my bowl.  If you know me, you know that's pretty dang unheard of...me, eating something I find delicious, and stopping because I have simply had my fill and am completely satisfied.

It's a thoughtful, lovely recipe.  I rarely eat canned tuna because I find the tang that remains in the can, the sink, and sometimes in the tuna itself, overpowering and fairly unbearable.  I don't gag, but come pretty close to it.

Well, this tuna salad annihilates any and all fishy odor.  If it weren't for the distinct canned tuna texture, which does remain, you could forget that you were eating tuna.  So, if you are an omnivore, give this recipe serious consideration.  It is really incredible.

I have put together a second binder of recipes for the kids.  Gem, especially, has a selection of go-to meals that he loves.  This evening, factors coalesced in such a way that I made him one of his faves, Carrot Tofu Scramble.  My plan is facilitate the serving of food that makes the kids happy...beyond the hot dogs and sliders which I tend to rely on when my concentration lapses.

This recipe is easy and quick if you have a food processor.  And, look at those colors.  It makes me happy every time I make it.  Mostly because I know Gem will be thrilled and nourished, but it gives me some personal thrills, too.  (I will be forever grateful to my sister for passing the recipe along to us so many, many moons ago.)

Peace and love.

Walking meditation

"We have to awaken ourselves to the truth that we are here, alive.  We are making steps on this beautiful planet.  This is already performing a miracle.  But we have to be here in order for the miracle to be possible.  We have to bring ourselves back to the here and the now.  Therefore, each step we take becomes a miracle.  If you are able to walk like that, each step will be very nourishing and healing.  You walk as if you kiss the earth with your feet, as if you massage the earth with your feet.  There is a lot of love in that practice of walking meditation."  ~Thich Nhat Hanh

This meditation comes at a good time.  Today I voiced out loud the dipping of my happy chemicals.  I have an intuition that it is tied to lack of dairy.  But, I have not been taking my gentle walks, nor have I been practicing.  Or playing the piano.  Any and all of those could give me a boost.

I've been waking bone tired.  And I've been preoccupied with cooking.  There are three stacks of cookbooks needing attention for organizing/decluttering...since Saturday evening.  But, the day's duties call to me, too.  Playing Risk for the first time.  Feeding kids.  Getting back to Math.  Folding laundry.

Tomorrow, I walk.

Now, some photos...

Gem is my salad spinner spinner.  Hoping to gain the habit, in 2013, of washing and drying lettuce on the weekend to have on hand for the week.

A friend gave me a set of four little ceramic bowls for Christmas.  Perfect for mise-en-place, of which I am a strong supporter.  I wish I had figured this out for myself sooner.  Seems exactly the sort of thing my mom likely tried to teach me and I did not get.

Nom Nom Paleo's take on Leon's Caper and Anchovy Miracle Sauce.  This was easy and quick to put together.  It has two of my new best food friends (anchovies and capers) and I like it.  I've had it so far with chicken and with raw red bell pepper.  Definitely better with the chicken.

I love a hot breakfast.  A bowl of Melissa Joulwan's Moroccan Meatballs with bonus pastured egg poached while reheating the meatballs.  Next time I make this dish, I will reduce or eliminate the parsley in the meatballs.  I am finding it overpowering.  I know, overpowering lamb.  This should never happen.  The meatballs are not tender.  I am certain this had to be due to my lack of finesse.  We shall see.  The tomato sauce is lovely.  Truly.  The egg added all sorts of wonderful.  Gem did not like this dish.  Sag thought it was okay.  (He likes the Hungarian Goulash, they both love the Rogan Josh.)

Risk has been on Gem's radar ever since he played it once at a homeschool library gathering.  We finally got it together and had Cap's mom give this to Gem for Christmas this year.  We started playing last night and finished this morning.  It's an interesting game.

About once a season, we make a trip to the big Japanese supermarket on the Hudson River.  We stock up on key staples like rice and Pokemon gum.  Gem fell in love with these grilled rice crackers when we went to Japan a couple of years ago.  We buy bags and bags of them on our Mitsuwa runs.

Peace and tasty tidbits.

Yum

I was thinking I'd take a day of rest from blogging, but when I took my first heavenly bite of breakfast, I thought: oh my god, I have to blog this!

The week between Christmas and New Year's Day is kind of a blur.  Forgive me if I am repeating myself.

One of my gifts from Cap was a bottle of porcini infused olive oil, bought at a local olive oil shop.  How is that even viable in today's economy?  I confess, the idea of an olive oil store was so absurd that I pretty much put it out of my mind when I heard about it.

Well.

This porcini infused oil has elevated my nearly daily plate of scrambled eggs in ways I never dreamed.  It is so damn good.  Aromatic, savory, delicate yet powerful...incredibly yummy.  Coincidentally, my sister-in-law introduced me to truffle cheese while we were in Massachusetts.  Another astonishing, unbelievably lovely bite.

I see truffle salt in my future.

If this post appeals to you even a tiny bit, please do yourself a transformative favor and try some porcini or truffle infused olive oil or cheese or salt.  The stuff is pricey, but a smidge at a time is truly all you will need.

Forget Calgon, fancy fungi, take me away!

P.S.  Here's a piece on the shop that I missed over the summer.  Can't wait to go :-)

Ambassador of the cosmos

"When I hold a piece of bread, I look at it, and sometimes I smile at it.  The piece of bread is an ambassador of the cosmos offering nourishment and support.  Looking deeply into the piece of bread, I see the sunshine, the clouds, the great earth.  Without the sunshine, no wheat can grow.  Without the clouds, there is no rain for the wheat to grow.  Without the great earth, nothing can grow.  That is why the piece of bread that I hold in my hand is a wonder of life.  It is there for all of us.  We have to be there for it."  ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Bread?  Really?

Of course, "bread" is symbolic.  Although I am feeling that sugar-has-left-the-building lethargy in my bones, I have not had any cravings yet.  I have not missed bread or rice at all.  I have been eating some fruit every day, which is a way of getting some sweet into me.

I am dreaming more and remembering more pieces of my dreams...though the pieces have not been staying with me long enough to think about them when I am fully awake.  So, I am sleeping better.  But, there is some healing to do in this department.  Much balance still to be struck.

The lethargy, which I know will pass as my body and brain adjust to the new normal, has me waking around 8am feeling dull of mind and body (they prefer to wake at or before 7am).  Yesterday I did not practice Qigong (except for a couple of minutes of Dragon right before getting into bed), nor did I go outside. 

Yet, I am not the wet noodle I remember being reduced to in the past, rendered immobile by the process of detoxing. 

I spent most of the day going through bookmarked (and starred in Google Reader) recipes in my now one-year old laptop.  I printed over forty Paleo recipes.  Very late in the afternoon I shifted to hole-punching and organizing the recipes with dividers in an old binder.  I made two, actually, a Paleo binder for me and a kid-friendly recipes binder.  Then I emptied the recipe binder I have been stuffing with recipes (many on the backs of envelopes and scraps of paper) for years.  I kept what was useful and placed them in either my binder or the kid one.  I am giving my sister a folder full of recipes I know we won't use.

This morning, I had about half an hour to devise a meal plan for the week because Cap was going to the farmer's market for me before meeting with a colleague.  (The man works all the time, I tell you.)  It felt really good to be able to flip through my binder, select some recipes and jot down the ingredients I needed picked up.

The organization helped free mental space to think about things like how Anthony's meats, as delectable as they are, are frozen solid when we buy them on Saturday mornings.  So, for the Hungarian Goulash I want to make today, I will need to get the beef from the local butcher.  (The butcher is great and has pastured and organic meat...it just necessitates a separate trip.)

It will be much easier on the bank account to plan out meals with an eye towards balancing the economy of cuts of meat rather than scanning the lovelies at Anthony's stand and picking and choosing from recipes I can think of on the spot.  ("Rib-eye steak is easy!")

I likely over-killed it this morning.  The excitement of a new system and all.  This weekend I am trying two new recipes for Hungarian Goulash (beef) and Ginger Orange Drumsticks.  My mom made goulash a few times when I was a kid and I remember loving it.  I am curious if this version will wake up any taste memories.

Also on the week's menu: Denise's turkey stuffed butternut squash, Moroccan Meatballs, Slow Cooker Roast Chicken with Gravy and beef short ribs.  Plus, we are hosting common meal this week.  I am going to make an Italian Sausage Frittata, a big green salad and cut up a pineapple.  I will ask Cap to make a Finnish carrot pancake, a sheet of corn bread and a little bday cake (we never had our celebration for Sag with this group).

Phew.  That's a lot of freaking food.

Peace and love.

P.S.  I am not done with the meal planning.  Still need to think about breakfasts and lunches, fruit staples, etc.  Once the shopping list is done there will be the dreaded food shopping to contend with...ugh.

P.P.S.  Those recipes on scraps of paper I mentioned?  I want to wrangle those this morning.  I am going to type them up and print them or I am going to tape them onto sheets of loose-leaf paper.  How anal retentive/efficient will I be in my efforts to get them into a binder?

P.P.P.S.  It's funny how there are myriad (upon myriad) ways "to be there for it".

Roasted

I like roasted veggies a lot.  But, frankly, find preparing them tedious.  First world problem.

Spent most of the day working on creating an organized recipe system.  Am not done (which is sigh-inducing), will continue tomorrow.  Just gotta keep on truckin'.

Peace.

Miracles

"Around us, life bursts forth with miracles---a glass of water, a ray of sunshine, a leaf, a caterpillar, a flower, laughter, raindrops.  If you live in awareness, it is easy to see miracles everywhere.  Each human being is a multiplicity of miracles.  Eyes that see thousands of colors, shapes, and forms; ears that hear a bee flying or a thunderclap; a brain that ponders a speck of dust as easily as the entire cosmos; a heart that beats in rhythm with the heartbeat of all beings.  When we are tired and feel discouraged by life's daily struggles, we may not notice these miracles, but they are always there."  ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

What a great meditation to wake up to.

I woke up feeling dull and thirsty.  It's cloudy.  The (drying) heat has been cranking because it has been so cold outside.

I felt hungry.  The Paleo shift has my system in a tizzy.  It literally seems to be confused.  I have spells of feeling very hungry and then not at all and then hungry and then not again...in the span of a few minutes.

(Overall it has been a smooth transition.  Barely any headache, no body ache...in fact, my overall stiffness is receding quickly due to diet change and the little bit of walking and Qigong, and deeper sleep...though I am not falling to sleep easily yet.)

Thinking of food got me thinking about another job for me: putting together a binder of Paleo recipes.  I bought the Nom Nom Paleo iPad app the other day, but I still lean heavily towards paper recipes and cookbooks.  I've bookmarked a ton of Paleo recipes in the last year that I have not tried.  I think that I would if they were in paper form in a handy organizer.  Also, food planning, would be made easier.

(Another job: decluttering food planning and food shopping protocols and practices.  A needed first step towards writing a new household budget...which brings us to job number seven?)

So, within a quick few minutes of waking up, alive and well, this morning, I was blah this blah that.  I had a nice message back from a friend on Facebook, but it was the tail end of a "talk" (through typing) we had last night because she had been blindsided with some news that had her feeling really bad...

Then, the meditation.  A simple reminder about miracles.  Gratitude bloomed within me.  I was filled with deep breath.

Peace and love.

P.S.  The meditations come from Your True Home by Thich Nhat Hahn.

Photo stuff

Got a great shot of Gem while he and Cap and I took a late afternoon stroll around the block.  When I showed it to him tonight to ask him permission to post it, he said, "no".

A further cementing of the changing nature of authorship/ownership when it comes to my art.  Whether it's my photos or my writing, the kids have been involuntary subjects for almost a decade now.

I have allowed myself to believe it's okay by using pseudonyms and setting the blog to "not public" (which is different from the most private setting which would allow a limited number of pre-approved readers).  But, the truth is, they have not known any better.  They could not care about something they could not conceptualize enough to give informed consent about.

In the last year or so I have tried to honor a sense of privacy for them by sharply curtailing shots of them facing the camera and generally posting less photos of them.  Additionally, I started asking their permission for any shot of them that was anything but very generic.

I thought I'd receive permission for the photo today because his eyes were closed in it.  That in it of itself made me feel comfortable about posting it.  But, in retrospect, there is a very "portrait" quality to it, like you are seeing something beyond just the "face" of the "subject".  There was an intimacy captured and it was, for him, a moment of vulnerability (his eyes were closed because the setting sun was blinding him).

Anyway, I wish I could share it with you, but I cannot.  Maybe if I over process it enough...

*    *    *    *

Last month, at a moment where I was up to here with December stuff, Instagram made the announcement that they were going to become the owners of all photos posted via their site.  It was a bold move.  I was in no mood.  So I quit Instagram.

They backed down very quickly because the backlash was immediate and powerful.  I moved on to Photo Studio and Hipstamatic.  But, I kind of missed the Instagram filters.

Tonight Matt Pond tweeted his new Instagram handle.  I may have to rejoin.

*    *    *    *

Gah.  Three days left before getting back into the stride of "homeschooling".  Philosophically, I consider our life homeschooling.  But, there are some practical matters which we've taken a holiday "break" from which we will be getting back to.

I face four jobs: two are major undertakings of time/energy and two don't seem like a big deal but I have been dragging my butt on them for months.  Is there shame in admitting the latter two have to do with cleaning?  (No, but the shaming devil is in the details so I will now gloss over them and move right along.)

The two majors are organizing my (over 5000) digital photos (taken in the last 12 months) and decluttering the kids' room (again).

Three days.  Four jobs.  One movie (The Hobbit).  One trip to Mitsuwa.  *Sigh*

*    *    *    *

Today's photo.  From my walk around the block.  Bracing, sun setting.

*    *    *    *

Peace and love.

One hundred percent

"Be there truly.  Be there with 100 percent of yourself.  In every moment of your daily life.  That is the essence of true Buddhist meditation.  Each of us knows that we can do that, so let us train to live each moment of our daily life deeply.  That is why I like to define mindfulness as the energy that helps us to be there 100 percent.  It is the energy of your true presence."  ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Before I had kids I did not think about things like mindfulness.  Of course Buddhism and its tenets have existed for millenia, but pre-"new millenium" words like mindfulness were not bandied about amongst non-disciples like they are today.

So I cannot speak to my natural predisposition for being there with 100 percent of myself.  Maybe Cap could.  What I can tell you is that since I became a parent it has become quite impossible to do so.

I have attempted to end run myself into thinking that I am being there 100 percent at all times because not only am I mother, I am an attachment mother.  Ergo, all of it, all of me, is wrapped up in motherhood.  Motherhood = personhood.  A quid pro quo, at least till the kids become adults.

Which is it?  Maybe both.  Likely simply a process.  Moment-to-moment is all there is.  One can tap into the eternal juice in a variety of forms within a single physical lifetime.

This a mere scratch on the surface.  We could go all day.  Or, for days. 

I finished a dazzling graphic novel last night about a mother and daughter, motherhood, infant psychology (Donald Winnicott), analysis, memoir...it was dense but so connective (Virginia Woolf and Adrienne Rich were both used as touchstones throughout the narrative).  It seemed so much about this particular daughter-mother pair, but had, I thought, deep and broad universal reverberations in the end.  I loved it.

Off to go be there 100 percent with the next thing.

Peace and love.

Coming together

I think this is the last leftover Xmas pic.  This art figure came in a stocking and has been in various states of Gangnam Style ever since.

A jar that will (hopefully) fill with notes of good happenings in our lives this year.

The candied pecans squeaked in at the tail end of the season.  Xmas pecans as New Year pecans.

Oshougatsu, Japanese New Year's Day, is like American Thanksgiving in many ways.  My mom always makes a feast of traditional and symbolic food.  So delicious, so nourishing, so vital.  (Can you see niece requesting more fried chicken?)

Picked up a strategy over at Nom Nom Paleo, attributed to Jerry Seinfeld.  To aid in creating a new habit, put up a year-at-a-glance calendar and "x" off each consecutive day that you practice the habit.  The idea is to create a visual chain that strengthens as it grows.  I found some free printables and have taped four up around the apartment for: practicing Qigong, eating Paleo, playing piano and going outside.

Grace, over at Terra, really knows her tea.  This Darjeeling Second Flush was tucked into my stocking and I finally tried it today.  It is delectable.  So layered and satisfying and delicate.  Yum.  I am starting the new year with a graphic novel.  I got as far as reading through the cast of characters of Wolf Hall and fatigued.  If I hadn't seen The Tudors already I would have been completely overwhelmed!  I'll get back to it, just need something a bit more ease-y at the moment.

Gem and I took a stroll around the block after lunch.  The air was wonderfully bracing.  Loved it.  I also loved the wee nubbies on these branches.

My first selection for the piano this year is Across The Universe, a Beatles tune.  I did a tiny bit of research and decided to buy a subscription to Scribd.  I had never heard of it before.  It's the YouTube of documents and it is where I found the sheet music for the song.  With the subscription, ($59 for a year), the download was "free".  I look forward to seeing what else the site will offer this year.  But, in the meantime, I wanted to simply get started plunking the keys.

P.S.  I quit Instagram and am now using Photo Studio and Hipstamatic.  It is interesting how these photo apps seem similar and yet are not the same.  (I miss Instagram's filters...)  

P.P.S.  I am realizing that I need to figure out organizing my photos.  I've had my laptop for a year now, the iPhone for a couple of months, and it is time.  It's a big task and soon enough it will become overwhelming.  Fellow shutterbugs, please share what you do, what you use, how you do it, etc.  If you will.

Peace and love.

Your true home

"Your true home is in the here and now.  It is not limited by time, space, nationality, or race.  Your true home is not an abstract idea; it is something you can touch and live in every moment.  With mindfulness and concentration, the energies of the Buddha, you can find your true home in the full relaxation of your mind and body in the present moment."  ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Turning a new leaf, using "the new year" as a point upon which to pivot even as I chuckle at the arbitrariness of it all.

I don't know from Buddha, by the way.  As with spiritual words and ideas from other traditions, the forms of "god" or "higher power" do not compute for me.  Energy and balance, these things I can feel and know.  Spirit and sacred, I have felt and known these, too.  But, there is no structure, no hierarchy, for me, per se.

I guess there is no way around calling these resolutions.

• practice Qigong

• go outside

• eat Paleo

• play music

Every day.  For one year.  Relieving myself of having to think about it for one year.  Getting through each "special" circumstance that comes up over the course of a week, month, year: Fridays, PMS, birthdays, sometimes seemingly anything and everything, that can dissolve my resolve to do with thoughts of wish and wash.

I practiced Qigong this morning.  Toe dance, kick forward and kick backward.  Dragon-stands-between-heaven-and-earth.  A half hour of energy work.  The kick backward kicked my ass, my standing leg, on each side, burned and felt like it was going to snap by the end of the counts.  Dragon-standing gave me the usual challenge of my mind overcoming everything like a molasses flood.  A paltry three minutes.  More later before I check myself off for having practiced today.

There was heat generated and hopefully, released, there is serious heat inside of me.  Alchemy.

At a basic level, our bodies are our true homes.  How we function in, what we contribute to, the world around us, is determined by how optimally balanced we are in our bodies.  Peace of mind, flowing energy, happy hearts...it all germinates from healthy bodies.

Peace and love.