today...

Cooking (or rather, fermenting). 48-hour old batch of kimchi and pickled vegetables is starting to get nice 'kick' to it. I should probably stop checking on it every hour, but I can't help it. Haven't had kimchi in a while...




Friends. Katrina came over with her little ones, and I managed to sneak in a real grown-up lunch for both of us. Before kids' lunch. And BEFORE 5 p.m. Triple score!




Knitting. Almost done with a couple of projects that were put on hold due to the sickness in our house. Now that everyone is feeling better (except for Maya, who is still dealing with an ear infection), I can finish some things and make good progress on others. Also, found this gem at Costco, full of ideas for using quinoa, loads of gluten-free recipes too. Sweet!

Another week.

It's been a busy week. Wish I could say we've been up to all kinds of fun. But in reality, our busy-ness can mostly be blamed on sickness in our family. Ivy got sick first, then Anya followed her germ trail. Maya and Elijah picked up the crumbs just a few days ago. Unfortunately, those two don't slow down when they are sick (unlike Ivy, who for a couple of days just wanted to sleep and snuggle). If the peak of their sickness can be pinpointed by the amount of lacking judgment and rationality, then I'd say those two reached it on Monday. Good thing there was no cliff within walking distance to jump off. Luckily, Mark answered my distress call and came home early. So here I am, diligently documenting our happenings instead of catching up on sleep...

To sum it up in photos, our weeks consisted of:

the sick (and very cuddly) baby. I could use some of that cuddliness on regular days, without Ivy getting sick. Hear that, baby?


the yummy (gluten-free) food. still loving "Gluten-Free Baking Classics" by Annalise G. Roberts.





(just a quick mix of leftover polenta with sundried tomatoes and garlic, pan fired, served over spinach, with some feta cheese on top)

the latest favorite 'toy' (which they consider to be anything within their reach)








the artists. Anya's been perfecting her coloring skills by drawing sophisticated shapes and filling them in carefully.
















the bottomless pit of knitting projects. Including first practice pair of socks and now completed Shalom cardigan.






the I-slept-with-humidifier-in-my-room hair


the meaning of motherhood.
{picture a pile of my clothes used for wiping noses. against my will, I must add}

to sum it up...

What? February already? Did we skip January this year? Because I don't remember having one. At least it didn't feel like January to me. It only really snowed here once. ONCE. Hello, this is Utah, where's our snow? For the first time in the last few years I feel like celebrating winter season, and the only sure sign of winter we've been steadily experiencing is inversion. Oh well, we still have February left. Although I think I know now where all our snow went. Sorry, NorthEast...

So we didn't really get to do much outside in January(inversion, remember?), but we've been having pretty good time inside, enjoying our new house, feeling closer to each other (4 kids in 2 bedroom house --> plenty of closeness) and finding ways to channel our energy into something creative or productive.

:: drawing more than ever. i think we'll need to move to a bigger house just to have more room for storing all the artwork ::

:: growing faster than ever ::

:: building cool stuff ::

:: playing with papa's mountain climber that he made back when he was 10 years old ::

:: and even taking almost extinct these days naps ::

:: reading, lots and lots of reading ::

:: gluten-free cooking, which we're still learning about ::

:: and of course knitting. it never ends ::

working on my first Shalom

decluttering

I've had about a dozen of links open in my browser for weeks, waiting for a perfect day to cook, sew and do some uninterrupted reading. I had to quit and restart my browser several times since then, always worrying about loosing my open pages. It's time to put an end to it, and have at least one area organized in our house, even if it's just a browser on the computer with a very cluttered desktop, both virtual and Ikea built. So here they are, my precious links that I've been holding onto all these weeks.

to watch:
The Dark Side of Chocolate

to make:
Paper Lanterns
Felt Hat

to cook:
Spicy Green Lentils and Yellow Split Peas
Mujadarah
Red Lentil Soup (Masoor dal)
Sprouted Chana Palak Curry

to read and share (again):
Old-Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skills
and a PDF brochure to go with it

simple remedy

It's been a long couple of weeks for us. And just when we thought that things couldn't get more stressful, they did, today. On top of that, today we had to wave goodbye to the lovely autumn days that we had enjoyed so much. A winter storm is moving in, and we got a little taste of almost-snow tonight, when we were getting into the car after shopping for some moving boxes.

As soon as we got home, Mark said that it would be nice to have some kind of soup for dinner tonight. And just the idea of having warm meal made me forget about all the stress for a few moments. So I got out of the fridge a bowl of cut up butternut squash and started mixing spices together. I'll be honest here, I cubed it almost a week ago, intending to make a soup with it, but things got too crazy and I didn't get a chance to revisit the idea until tonight. When I finally poured the soup into our bowls and had the first taste of it, I knew this was the perfect dinner for a night like tonight. It was soup therapy at it's best.

I have to note, I normally don't like squash. The sweetness of it just doesn't sit right with me. So when I was making the soup, I didn't add any sugar (which I know is quite common when cooking squash), and tried to make sure the soup was salty with a hint of sweetness from the squash and coconut milk. If you like it more sweet, add some kind of sweetener to your taste :)

A Piece of Sunshine on a Stormy Night (a.k.a. curried coconut butternut squash soup)

EV olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2-4 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tsp. minced ginger

3-4 medium bay leaves
2 tsp. curry powder
1/2 tsp. ground cumin (optional)
1 tsp. ground coriander (optional)
1/2 tsp. garam masala (optional)

1 butternut squash, peeled, seeded, cubed (about 2-3 lbs)
3/4 c water
1 can coconut milk
salt to taste

red pepper flakes and chopped parsley for garnish


Cook chopped onion in olive oil on until it starts getting some color. Add minced garlic and ginger and cook for another minute. Add curry, bay leaf and any other spices listed above, if you have them on hand. Cook, stirring frequently for about 30 seconds, add butternut squash, salt, water, and coconut milk, stir well, cover and let simmer for about 30 minutes or until squash is tender.

Once squash is cooked, pour everything into a blender and blend to desired consistency. You can also use immersion blender right in the pot, but I never tried it, so I don't know what consistency you can achieve with it. Pour the soup into a bowl and sprinkle with hot pepper flakes and freshly chopped parsley. Enjoy!

Happy today

I'm slowly getting back into the cooking groove... After months of very little cooking and not trying anything new, food is making me happy again! So today I decided to re-create quinoa salad that we tried at Whole Foods last week during their sampling night. Thank you, Whole Foods, for carefully documenting all the ingredients (while using only recognizable ones), and having plenty of samples on hand, 5 or 6 of them were enough to fill me up and count as dinner :) The salad truly rocked and was exactly what I needed today, so I lovingly came up with very original title for it...

...Rockin' Quinoa Salad! (I know, very impressive)

1.5 c uncooked quinoa

3-5 T red wine vinegar (to taste)
2-4 T extra virgin olive oil (to taste)
1 c corn (whatever kind you have on hand)
1 c black beans
2-3 chopped roma tomatoes
2-4 T finely chopped red onions
fresh parsley, chopped
salt to taste
fresh chopped cucumbers would be nice, but I didn't have any

Cook quinoa. Add everything else. Chill. Eat. Or eat, then chill leftovers. Then go make another batch :)

Things that make me smile

in the midst of our daily chaos, adventures and struggles, there are always moments that interrupt my mind's racing and remind me how much joy simple things can bring...

:: getting a small package from grandma and grandpa who live overseas. so much excitement over a few of lollipops, animal crackers and small souvenirs. so much love in such a small package ::

:: making a quick, simple and delicious meal on the day when I'm in no mood for cooking. good old spaghetti gone fancy, thanks to tomatoes from a kind old couple at church and fresh corn from the farmer's market ::

:: getting back into the knitting groove. autumn must be in the air... ::

Annie, I never got a chance to thank you again for the lovely stitch markers you made for me... Love ya, girl!