Tofu and tidbits

Here's an easy "toss together" tofu dish (if you have the ingredients on hand). I made some today and it is hitting the spot.

You'll need:
• 1 package of tofu (extra firm holds up best, but choose to your liking)
• a heaping handful or two of mung bean sprouts (or any other mild/flavor absorbing veggie to provide some crunch)
• walnut oil (olive oil, safflower oil, etc.) to just coat bottom of sauté pan/skillet
• 2 Tbs miso
• 1/2 cup mirin (a Japanese sweet rice wine used for cooking)
• 2-3 generous dashes of Bragg's or soy sauce (wheat-free soy sauce for those who are GF), to taste
• 2 heaping Tbs sugar, to taste

What to do:
• Cut tofu into bite-size cubes.
• Heat oil in already heated pan/skillet.
• Toss in the tofu and sauté over medium to medium-high heat for a few minutes or till you see some golden color on them.
• While tofu is cooking, mix/dissolve miso into mirin in a small bowl.
• Add bean sprouts, sugar and Bragg's to tofu and stir, continue to cook.
• Once things look cooked and settled to your liking, toss in the miso/mirin mixture. Stir well.
• Don't let the miso boil because this will change its flavor. Turn the heat down to prevent miso boil, but to allow some of the alcohol from the mirin to cook off.
• Serve hot or at room temperature with rice (or on toast with a bit of mayo :-)
***the measurements in this recipe are approximate and should be played around with to match your tastes***

Tidbits:
• Worked for 2 hours today on my online course/training. I'm finding it enjoyable and that it will actually help if I ever teach an online course again.

• Caught up on financial record keeping after our long weekend away. Our spending exceeded our income (Cap's paycheck---I'm not including any consultation income in my basic figurings) this pay period by about $200.

• Kinder had a few meltdowns this morning. I think he's still letting off steam from our weekend away. He's been much calmer this afternoon.

• Starting to get organized for our first family camping trip. We leave Friday and return Sunday. We'll be in a shelter, a century-old basic wood cabin with no electricity or water. But, there will be a wood burning stove and an outdoor cooking grill, as well as, bunk beds and a picnic table. On the map it looks like we're pretty close to the communal bathrooms.

We're going with our co-op dinner friends. one family will be in the shelter next to ours, the other two families will be in tents, a ways off. The forecast, unfortunately, is calling for some rain. We're meeting for dinner tonight and I'm sure many details will be hammered out then.

• The garden did well in our absence. Two of four spinach seedlings were lost, and one of seven tomato seedlings were lost (none of the ones which we have raised from seed :-) The bean seed still has not sprouted. I'm afraid it may not at this point.

Donna's sharing some of her cilantro with us tonight, and next week, I'm planning on picking up some basil and chamomile (thanks for the rec, B!) Vinny encouraged me to grow some cuke which he had a lot of success with last summer and is a good "cooling" element for the system.

• And how lucky am I? Julie made me a bag. I love it. It's beautiful, a great blend of art and function. I'm thinking it's perfect to tote around a knitting project in. Thanks, Jules.

Clouds

We're back. Details of the weekend to follow.

In the meantime, I give you clouds. They rolled in about fifteen minutes ago and now it is raining. The sky is lightening quite a bit already.

Garden day

We did it! The garden has begun its spring cycle here. Cap put together our new self-watering planter (which did leak some when the first batch of water was put in...after it was filled with soil too...)

I pulled out the dead leaves and what was left of the annuals and found some things had returned. These wee ones were discovered in the sunflower pot. I think they might be beans, but really have no idea.

The lavender...every dead stem I snipped released a wonderful last breath. Some of the stems had new green leaves so I kept those in. I don't know if lavender is a perennial.

This, I think, is echinacea. I'm going to ask Felicia to take a look at my photos to help me identify the herbs from last year's class.

This, I think, is bee balm.

And, this, I know, is mint. First picked some leaves to make himself some tea.

There was a slew of the sprouts I found in the sunflower pot in the bean pot. There was such a mass of them, though, that I decided to compost them. We have anew bean plant that I want to put in this pot (if it ever sprouts).

We disrupted an ant nest in this pot. Sorry guys. I was happy to see very healthy looking earthworms in our old pots and planters. I'm thinking of releasing some ladybugs into the garden in a few weeks.

First loves to garden. Here he is filling up the new planter with "Bumper Crop" a premix of organic compost, shells, peat moss and soil.

There's the planter full of good soil.

The chives, which returned beautifully.

Our red currant tomato seedlings and their companion plant, the marigold.

On the left is one of four seedlings I picked up from Pat's front stoop. She is an amazing local organic gardener who gives away hundreds of seedlings each spring because she ends up with more than she needs. I'm on her e-mail list and love reading about how her garden is growing, her gardening tips, announcements of what's available for free on her stoop, and updates on local environmental politics.

In the middle is our bean seed, hopefully germinating peacefully. It's supposed to heat up this weekend so I am hoping it gets the warm nudge that it needs.

On the right are the gorgeous chives.

These are Malabar spinach sprouts. They are supposed to climb, so I put in some bamboo poles. I wondered how much of the paint/dye would leach into the soil...

Kinder is not so interested in gardening. He had fun climbing,

doing (unconscious) yoga,

and bringing me gifts.

My parting shot: the bottom of First's first cup of this season's peppermint tea with honey.

Procrastinating? maybe...

My mind and body have been sitting down for coffee...and my body is starting to gently insist that, really, it doesn't want cheese...or meat. A beautiful hydroponic tomato from Vermont turned into a luscious, quick sauce this morning. Olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper joined the dance, with some rice leftover from yesterday. Yum.

Some recent refrigerator art...


First enjoying some fresh strawberries. He has started half-sighing, half-moaning with pleasure when he eats something really yummy. It is so cute. And so like me.

Kinder is all smiles because he's doing two of the things he most loves in life. Snuggling and listening to music.

It's not procrastinating when this is what time spent looks like.

Now, off to tackle my list for today :-)

Double take

Yeah, that's me. Cap said I looked "mature" :-)

Today was kind of dreamy...in that I did things that I didn't recognize from my "regular" life.

• Spent two hours pretty much uninterrupted at Cap's laptop, at my desk, participating in an online course/training I'm taking the next two weeks to get me up to speed in the field of online teaching. It took me awhile to get in a groove, but once I did, I enjoyed myself and marveled at how fast two hours went.

• Met Holly for lunch. First off, two hours with a friend, with nothing to do but catch up and have a heart-to-heart? How luxurious. And essential. The bonus was lunching at an oasis of a tea and gift shop. They focus mightily on organic, locally grown and made food (I had a tiny panini sandwich with grilled asparagus, mushroom and onion and a small pot of decaf Earl Grey tea), have an amazing selection of teas, and sell only fair trade items from around the globe.

• My first (and child-free!) visit to a local thrift shop I had heard about and have been wanting to go to for ages. It was a half-price day and I got some shirts for myself (including the silk one in the photo above---for $3!), a shirt for Cap, and some miniature furniture for Kinder and First's Playmo folk.

• A quick stop at the library to pick up a bunch of reserved books that had come in: some Pema Chodron, Neil Gaiman, Ayelet Waldman, and an organic gardening book (and "The Yiddish Policeman's Union" for Cap.)

• Theater games at Roger's birthday party. I was intensely out of my comfort zone at moments, but was buoyed by the trust that has grown for me within this circle of friends (the co-op dinner crowd). It was great to laugh and to "be" in a communal way...though it was a way that I am not used to (giving and taking, improv, making sounds, creating movements...) Ultimately, I was glad for the opportunity to play with friends and try something new.

Tomorrow will be a blur of preparing for our weekend away at the Northeast Unschooling conference. (We will be there Friday to Sunday and then at Anna's Sunday to Monday.) I may not post till after our return.

More potato salad

Yes. The season has begun across potato salad nation. Here is Gluten-Free Goddess' Horseradish Spiked Red Potato Salad.

She's kind of dreamy...her dark chocolate brownies (GFCF) are sublime and she lives north of Santa Fe (for decades I wanted to live in New Mexico...part of me still does).

In this post she talks about the weather turning, into a dry and warm spring and taking walks after dinner under a rose hued sky...sigh.

Flipped through Mark Bittman's book that I gave Cap and love the simplicity of the recipes. I'm feeling like rolling up my sleeves and doing some cooking!

(Thanks to Vinny who really helped right my ship this afternoon. I feel so much better after seeing him today.)

New (to me) homeschooling blog

Ooh the excitement of discovery. Check it out here.

House

Wow. The current season of House ended tonight and the finale was excellent. Very satisfying, in all its complexities, to this longtime viewer.

Groan

My period has come back post-DW and with it, an unexpected burst of PMS this afternoon. Nearly blinding rage vs. Cap out of nowhere. Sigh. It passed fairly quickly and I realized what was happening within minutes, but it still left me shaken and in tears.

Suddenly scarfing a half eaten chocolate bar (which I'd pretty much ignored for over a month) an hour earlier should have tipped me off...but, no. Hindsight is 20/20.

Rainy sunday

Before the rain arrived, we celebrated Cap's name day a bit differently by going out to breakfast. He usually makes nisu and we have breakfast in bed (Finnish cardamom bread), but I didn't get my act together to make some for him and he's been crazy busy with grading and other professional stuff.

Couldn't resist posting this pic of the two brothers. They are like one to me on so many levels and I wonder if and when that will change.

First and I ended up at our other local bookstore this afternoon. They have used, as well as, new books and have great section names like "vampires" :-) One could spend hours in the store immersed in books and sections, slowly adding to the growing pile in your arms.

The last time I went to this store was just before Christmas. I forget what a gem of a bookstore this place is. Today, I was determined to buy only half-price books and I was almost successful. One of the books I bought for Cap's name day was only slightly discounted (even new books are slightly discounted here).

These are the books I picked up:

Earth Water Fire and Air
Pyramid
Chicken with Plums
Mark Bittman's Quick and Easy Recipes
O is for Oystercatcher
The Juniper Tree

But you know what was priceless? (Ugh the insidiousness of those Mastercard ads!) Being there with First as he discovered the leisurely joys of lingering in a bookstore and unearthing titles off the beaten path.

Kate's craft fair pics

...are awesome! Check them out here. Thanks for sharing them, Kate!

Garden book

We recently got this book out of the library after Felicia read us part of it during gardening class. The pictures are particularly nice, I think. (The first review when you click over to the Google book search link is quite energetic :-)

Today would have been a good day to get over to the garden store, but a) why go to the garden store on a beautiful Saturday in May (crowds!), and b) Cap has the car. So instead we'll head over early next week.

The bean seedling is still not showing itself. The tomato seedlings grow taller by the day.

Okay, I get it

I've been off DW for two weeks or so now. It hasn't taken long for meat, cheese and sweets to jump right back into my diet. The amount I am eating is steadily increasing, as well, though not at the rate of the foods I was supposed to not want anymore :-)

Maybe I'm being a bit dramatic (who me?). It's not like I've been enjoying blue cheese and bacon burgers with strawberry milkshakes (ahh, the halcyon days of my first pregnancy when Bartley's Burger Hut was the destination).

But, busy-ness of recent activity aside, I am tired. And I think it's what I'm eating. Meat and cheese require a lot of energy to digest. There's just no way around that. And the qi I worked hard to replenish during the six weeks of DW is itself being eaten up rapidly, so to speak, by what I am choosing to send through my system.

I'm not sure whether to do another round of DW or whether to simply reapply some of the tenets of DW to my days and nights. In a way, it is the same thing. Just shades of difference in formality.

Last night it was taramosalata and moussaka (a rare dinner out with Cap). Not a lot, but enough, clearly, to make me just...plain...beat.

Walk in the rain

Sandy came over yesterday to play and then babysit. She took the train over so we took a walk in the rain to meet her at the station.

We saw many blooms, but this peony (one of dozens on three or four huge bushes) reminded me I had a camera on me.

It was coming down pretty hard on our walk home. But we were equipped with wide brims and rain pants. Though the temps were not quite balmy, there was definitely a gentle, spring-like quality to the rain.

By the time we were halfway home First had pulled down his hood fully baptizing himself with the spirit of the outdoors. Running and sliding splashes in each oversized puddle for whole body anointment all the way.

Karen's scarf

Four views of Karen's scarf.

This yarn is Noro "Matsuri" (which means "festival" in Japanese) and is a mostly cotton cotton/silk blend. I love Noro yarns for their vibrant colors. When I chose the yarn, the blues and reds were tucked inside the skein and I had no idea they were there. I was drawn to the green and purple combo. Yes.

I knit this using a diagonal eyelet pattern I found via Ravelry. It took awhile to get going figuring out gauge and then needle size, but I was very happy with the end result. It does exactly what I wanted: to drape and wrap and be cozy for three seasons of the year.

Karen wouldn't take it off :-) She, Brent and I talked into the night last Friday, she in her pjs, bathrobe with the scarf wrapped around her neck...




(I finished around 1:00 am the morning we left for Massachusetts...24 hours before the three of us said good night, Karen with her scarf wrapped 'round her neck...I was so happy to have finished I didn't feel too tired :-)

Jamie's scarf

Three views of Jamie's scarf. She likes blue and is allergic to wool. Happily, I found this lovely cornflower blue cotton yarn. I knit this in moss stitch.

Luminata

Today I turned my attention to the kids' room. Time to restore some order, and just "be" in the room.

Our beautiful salt crystal light, a gift from a trip to the Monterey Aquarium with my parents a few years ago, has not worked since a freak accident knocked it off the dresser and onto the floor shortly after we moved here.

Today, I pulled out the bulb, switched it on to see what would happen, and there was light. As if all it had needed was some time off. So I tucked the bulb back in and its lovely glow nourishes once again. (The kids like to lick it :-)



This is a new night light I picked out at Ikea a couple of months ago. The bulbs were dropped at check-out (our fault---it was self check-out) and they didn't work once we were home.

One of us finally got a replacement bulb at the hardware store a week ago.

And today, I finally put the bulb in and set the light up. The bulb was tricky. It's one of those 25 watt chandelier type bulbs. It took awhile and some unconscious finesse (you know, when it finally works and you really don't know what it was exactly that you did differently).


And this is one of the amazing reading lamps that has changed night time around here. I still haven't taken a pic of the kids reading at night... I love these. They are mounted right on the wall at each kid's bunkside.

Our life

Breakfast...

Tomato seedlings and the bean seedling-to-be...

The chaos that will not be denied...