Saturday on the Go-go

Anni and David at the Blueberry Park

Today was another busy one! I helped one of my friends search and move items around her house. Then we took a stroll though one of our local mall, doing some designing window shopping, and had lunch.

David wanted the afternoon to be a handyman. So I took the kiddles on a Costco run (it's amazing the amount of toilet paper 5 people go through!). Then we visited the gaming store for a certain someone's birthday, and Ari had 3 bags of books to resale at the bookstore. On the way home, we picked up a prescription and dinner.

When we arrived home David had refixed the leaky toilet valve, fixed the sticky bathroom fan switch, and fixed a light in Ari's bathroom. Still no luck with the oven, but he's working on it. In the mean time, we are being creative.

We ended our day with Ari and I going to the RASP (Redmond Association of the Spoken Word) open mike at Tully's to hear some authors and poets read their works. And then I went home to take my boots off!

Can you see what we see?

The Nutcracker Rat King hiding in a door?

A fierce dragon of the wood?

Today was a very long day, starting at the 6 am sale at Old Navy. I grab warm sweaters and warm socks for the crew every year. Then it was time for a quick coffee and back home to make breakfast.

Without an oven to bake pies, we are being creative in our efforts to use up the pumpkin puree. Today, we made pumpkin pancakes. I thought I'd be thrify and double the recipe for about 20 pancakes, and freeze some. It made 50!

We also cleaned up the house today, took a trip to the library, and made a wonderful turkey noodle soup in the crockpot.

Happy Thanksgiving

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Swing, Swing, Swing! Anni loves to swing. If we find one at a park or farm, she has to give in a whirl! And once she finds a swing, she never forgets where it is.

Anni is thankful for swings, her dog Barkley, her brother and sister, and Arthur.

Alex is thankful for his mom's cooking, lego blocks, Nintendo, and art.

Ari is thankful for espresso drinks, her mom and dad, and books.

David is thankful for his family, a steady job he enjoys, and roof over his head.

Julie Ann is thankful for her family and friends, creative endeavors, and being open to all the many wonders of life.

We are all NOT thankful to our 20 year old oven. It chose 3/4 of the way through Thanksgiving dinner to die! Then it was time for some quick thinking. The turkey breast was hastily & thinly sliced and placed in a large saute pan along with the gravy. The rolls were transfered to the toaster oven. The roasting veggies finished up in the steamer. The stuffing went into the microwave, and the pumpkin pie was set on top of the toaster oven to stay warm. Despite, the alternate cooking arrangements, the dinner was delicious! David is going to give a try at fixing it and then it maybe time for a call to the repairman. We're hoping we can fix it soon as it's the height of the baking season (and I still have all that pumpkin puree to deal with).

A pile of pies and a bird on a branch

A bird in the bush is worth so much more than one in the hand. This lovely heron was soaking up the sunshine at the blueberry farm.

Yesterday, was bake-those-pies day! We baked 3 pies from the pumpkin puree we've been making over the last few days. Our family LOVES pumpkin pie! 2 of the pies are already gone. I'm standing guard over the 3rd, so we have one for Thanksgiving! We have enough puree left to make at least a couple dozen more pies!

Ari was busy signing up for winter quarter college classes today. She's taking math, history, and cultural anthropology. Alex was busy slogging through his pile of homework, Anni had 4 appointments today, and David had a dental appointment. Then, I cleaned up the house for tomorrow. Phew!

Mysterious running man

Who's
that

mysterious running man?

Alex, wondering why mom has that camera pointed at him, again.

(She's trying to capture his final days as a child.

He turns into one of those despicable teens this weekend)

Today was a power home school day! Alex was working hard on his language arts, math, & history. Ari was at college. Anni worked on theme studies, calendar stories, computer training, and math.

This afternoon, we cooked another pumpkin into puree (only 3 more to go!) and then made potato-leek soup for our special French Bistro dinner. We had the soup along with plethora of whole grain crackers, a 3 cheese plate, sliced tomatoes with cracked pepper, ham and Dijon, and the apple-pear pie we baked yesterday. Ooh-la-la, c'est bon!

We had the final tomatoes of this year's harvest (boo hoo!), but we do still have 2 jars of the sun-dried variety from last year's harvest (yipee!).

Another backyard visitor

This chubby little quail flew into our backyard this morning.

Isn't he a cutie-pie?

He pecked his way around the garden patch for a couple of hours.

This was just the cheery pick-us-up we needed this weekend. I had a bug yesterday, and Alex was bit by it today. We did get out to do a bit of birthday shopping for a certain someone and to go for a walk around the blueberry farm in Bellevue. It was another beautiful fall day.

This evening we had a bake-athon. We cooked our largest pumpkin and then turned the flesh into puree for pies and pumpkin butter. Then, we made pizza dough (and later pizza for dinner). Next, we mixed up a couple of loaves of cranberry-orange-nut bread, and we ended by baking a French-topped apple-pear pie. The kitchen smelled incredible! Now, about all those dishes...

On the verge of Thanksgiving

The CSA box contents. This time's farm bounty included green onions, yams, tomatoes, kiwi, apples, pears, potatoes, cauliflower, carrots, lettuce, limes, Italian kale, lemons, and spinach. And the last pile of apples, along with walnuts and chestnuts.

The posting has been on a brief break while Ari finished writing up one of her presentations for college. She had total dominion over the computer.

I went to a wonderful vegetarian thanksgiving dinner at the Veg of Washington group with my friend Lisa on Wednesday night. The main course was a delicious grain and cranberry concoction called Field Roast.

Yesterday, we had our writing group. I'm finally up to my first hundred pages of my project. Yahoo! Ari also has a good start on one of her projects, and Lisa is moving right along on one of our favorite stories.

Today, the kiddles and I went in search of Thanksgiving goodies. We found a small, organic, free ranging turkey and a little, uncured, chemical-free ham. We have plenty of veggies on hand from the CSA box. And we thought, we'd try our hand at making pumpkin pies from scratch using the remaining pumpkins from this year's garden. Wish us luck.

Doggone-it I'm reading!

Words of wisdom from Barkley,

"Woof, woof-woof, woofy-woof-woof."

Translation: Don't pester me when I'm reading the dog food bag.

Do you have any idea how long it takes to get these glasses on?

Today was a typical Tuesday. The beautiful sunny skies of yesterday have clouded over, a given I suppose since November is our rainiest month of the year.

Anni worked with her speech therapist and OT today. She is liking the new keyboard we found for her and has just started on a typing program. Alex has been working on his English compostion today. Ari had her college classes, and David is my hero! The upstair bathroom is now functional! Yahoo! And after all the hubub of the day, I made it to the Y for a session on the treadmill and ellipse machine. I even lifted a few weights (very few).

Today was also "Quick eat some of these leftovers day because the CSA farm box is coming tomorrow and all those veggies won't fit in the fridge otherwise." Warning: this day will not fit in a daily calendar box! We used up the tupperware of pumpkin puree by making the pumpkin autumn soup for lunch. For dinner, we mixed the remaining picadillo tamale filling with leftover Spanish rice and served it atop tostadas with a cilantro-slaw topping. Delicious! And now we have room for tomorrow's veggies.

Final note: I know this post is technically on Wednesday, but somewhere in the world, it's still Tuesday!

Fantastic Fuscias and Dinner by David

Today, Anni and I had a go through the garden. We pulled up the remains of the old plants and added them to the large compostables. Then, we put away the tomato cages and the garden stakes. And then we had a beautiful surprise, the fuscias are reblooming! It was on our list to deadhead them and put them away for the winter, but they decided to rebloom! Gorgeous! (I think they did it just to show off the beautiful blue sky of our sunny November day.)

It was the cat's turn for a trip to the vet today. They were considerably less than thrilled! Let them tell you about them. "Meow, meow, meow, meow, purr." Translation: We hate riding in our cat carriers. We don't want to leave our cat carriers. We don't like these shots. We don't like our cat carriers. Thank goodness we're home!"

David made dinner tonight! It was a salmon with three toppings, red potatoes, carrots, asparagus, and fresh bread. Tasty!

Spicy Soup and Bread of the Dead

A potful of spicy oxtail soup and pan de muertos (bread of the dead).

These were the finale to our Days of the Dead celebration. The soup has lots of warming properties with jalepenos, ginger, onions, and garlic. We made enough for dinner, 2 quarts to freeze for cold winter days, and a quart and a half to have for lunch over the next week.

Today was pamper mom day. I went to the gym this morning for cardio and an outstanding yoga class. I can fit in my skinny jeans now. Then, I came home, colored my hair (bye-bye gray) and painted my toenails. It was great to have a couple of hours to me.

Later, we went to the library to return 3 bags worth of books, and check out another two. Then it was time to head home and start the bread and soup.

Urban Adventures and a Homey Afternoon

Sunset at St. Edward's Park

Today, we embarked on another urban adventure in our vicinity. Alex, Ari, Lisa, and I headed to the Pike Place Market this morning. We had crumpets for breakfast and mosied through the market stalls. Lisa was on the lookout for honey. Ari needed to check out the used book store, and Alex had his sights set on checking out the trivia shop. I needed spices and jalepeno peppers. Along the way, we found the humbow stand (I lived on those in my college days) and the French bakery (can you say chocolate croissant?).

Since traveling over the passes is iffy this time of year, we are planning more urban adventures over the rest of fall and winter. It's lots of fun planning them with the kiddles, and it prevents the seasonal stir-crazies.

In other news, we spent the rest of the day at home doing homey things, reading stories, playing games, and cooking together. It was a very comfy fall afternoon.

We tried a new fruit for dinner - persimmons. We'd never tried them before. I don't think they were as ripe as they should be. Ari and I immediately got the dry, tongue sticking to the roof of your mouth syndrome. Next time, we'll let them ripen up a few more days. Pass the water please.

Smiling!

A bit of blue sky peeking through the trees and clouds.

Barkley had his annual trip to the vet today. Here we'll let him tell you about it. "Woof, wag, wag, woof, wag, wag, woof, arrroooooooooo, wag, wag!" (translation: vet, ear scratch, teeth check, chest scratch, bum check, 2 shots, good boy, and a biscuit.)

Anni had her cooking group today. She invited Alex. They made nacho with the works, and she smiled widely. Alex is smiling wide because we contacted the Ninendo fix-it guru's to get his sticky buttons repaired. Ari is smiling because we went to see the Zack and Miri movie, somewhat lewd but extremely funny. David is smiling because we had chili colorado for dinner. And I'm smiling because the rest of the family is smiling.

I made a soup up today for lunch that turned out more that okay. It was truly yummy. I have a new favorite soup. Here's the recipe:

Harvest Pumpkin Soup

1 cup pumpkin puree

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1 cup almond milk

1 tsp. chicken (or veggie) broth seasoning

White pepper to taste

1) Place pumpkin puree in pot. Add cinnamon and stir. Add almond milk and stir. Heat over medium-low flame. When warm, add broth seasoning and stir. Heat to simmer.

2) Remove from heat and sprinkle lightly with white pepper. Add more to taste

3) This soup has a wonderful fall taste; pumpkin, nuts, and spice. It's perfect with a couple of whole wheat crackers and a crisp apple. Enjoy!

A quest for mason jars and Fall Enchiladas Ole

Today, Anni and I went on an odyssey of sorts, for mason jars. I hate paying the outrageous prices to purchase new ones, and all the ones my friends and I have retrieved from garages are currently full of jams, sauces, and pickles. So, the little one and I went searching. Eureka, we hit pay dirt at Value Village, 3 quart size jars for 69 cents each.

Across the parking lot at the local thrift shop for community charities, we found another 3 for 50 cents and for a dollar, a larger glass canister in which to store some of those organic grains taking over the kitchen. Anni scored too. She found a mini dollhouse for $3 at our first stop and was given a free book (Pippi Longstocking) at the second.

Now after a through washing and sterilizing, I'll have plenty of jars in which to make a tasty batch of pumpkin butter. Hmmm, I can almost taste it on a slice of toasted homemade bread.

And speaking of tasties, we continued in our celebration of the Days of the Dead with another great meal. We made very tasty fall enchiladas Ole (a Julie Ann original), served with a fruit platter and a green salad. Here's the recipe.

Fall Enchiladas Ole
1 Tbsp veggie oil
1 small onion, chopped
(Optional: 1 cup of cubed chicken or 8 oz of cubed tofu)
1/2 winter squash, skinned and shredded (I used an Asian squash, with beautiful bright orange flesh, that came in the CSA box)
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 small green mild chili pepper, finely chopped
1 Tbsp. oregano
1 can of corn, drained
1/4 cup chopped cilantro (this can be greatly increased for those who love cilantro, like me)
1/2 cup water
1 cup shredded low-fat cheddar cheese
1 dozen flour tortillas (or larger corn tortillas, if you prefer)
1 can enchilada sauce
(Optional:1 can of chopped or sliced black olives)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

For the filling:
1) Heat oil in large skillet over medium-low flame. Add onion, and chicken or tofu if using, cook for 3 minutes. Then add the shredded squash, chili pepper, oregano, and corn. Cook for another 3 minutes. Add the cilantro. Stir thoroughly, but gently. Add water to keep from sticking.
2) Open enchilada sauce. Pour 1/2 cup over the mixture in the skillet. Stir. Add 1/2 cup of the cheese and stir again. Remove from heat.

Assembling the enchiladas:
1) Spray baking dish with nonstick spray. Add 1/2 cup of enchilada sauce to bottom of pay. Swirl to cover bottom of pan. Add more if needed.
2) For each enchilada, Lay tortilla on counter, place a large spoonful of filling down the center of the tortilla and roll it up like a tube. Place each in pan, snugging it up to its neighbor.
3) When all 12 are in pan, cover the top of the enchiladas with the remaining enchilada sauce, remaining cheese, and olives if desired.

Cook: Bake in oven at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Enjoy.

A tree in summer leafery

A memory of a tree in summer, such a nice memory on a grey, wet, cold, rainy day. Another storm is supposed to blow in tonight with high winds and up to 5 inches of rain! Urban flooding and power outages are expected. A life in the great northwest. We had to find all the flashlights and read the instructions on the kerosene heater, just in case.

In other news, Ariana completed her two month long quest to find a pair of waterproof shoes. No more wet toes!

In the cozy corner, we watched a video (yes, VHS) of Moonstruck tonight. Just so we could hear, "when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie...."

Tamales, Carousels, and Canisters

Alexander looking thrilled while he waits for dinner to start. We made homemade tamales with picadillo filing, chili verde rice, and pumpkin crema. Yum.

Our continuing Days of the Dead celebrations (a week or so delayed). We went to a multicultural fair at Crossroads. It was fun checking out the booths, sales, and great food. Alex had Mexican (enchiladas) food and Anni had Italian (pizza). I had Indian food (chickpea curry) and Lisa had Mediterranean. Anni especially liked riding on the mini carousel.

We've been searching for a set of large glass canisters to hold all our frequent baking supplies. Since we buy our flour in bulk, we needed larger than normal canisters. I've been on the prowl for a few weeks without success, but today we finally found them! Now the flour, wholewheat, and oatbran flour are within easy reach for baking! Yahoo!

Starships, skeletons, and a misplaced toilet

Alex's latest lego creation, a star battle cruiser.

Our Dias de las muertes bulletin board complete with paper marigolds.

Honey, why is the toilet in the tub? David loves to rearrange the furniture whenever the rest of us are out for the day, but this is riduculous! Seriously, David was busy plumping, patching, painting, and flooring. Now about that toilet...

Today was rainy, cloudy, and sunny. Ah, Autumn in the great Northwest. We decided to leave Ari to her studying and David to his fix-its. The little folks and I ran lots of errands. We took some favorite picture book copies to be laminated and found a keyboard for Anni on sale for $9! We went searching for long sleeved t-shirts for Anni, and she found a few to her liking. Then we went grocery shopping for a few pantry staples.

Now that summer is over, it's getting harder and harder to get find all our foods within the mile limits. We are finding much more difficult to find fruits within the 100 mile limit. Luckily, we froze and preserved lots over the summer, and we do get some from further afield via the CSA box. Now what to do with that persimmon???

We are finding that our monthly exceptions have stayed pretty consistent, usually an oil of some type (peanut for Nov.), a citrus fruit (mandarins), and hot chocolate. Our individual weekly exceptions can vary widely. Alex had to have ramen today. Anni wanted peanut butter. Ari (of course) needed coffee. David is currently craving a burger, and I had to have a veggie sushi roll with wasabi.

Responding to a question: Are you still buying organic given the current economy?


The answer is a matter of availability, health/cost ratio, and quality. Overall we do buy organic if at all possible. With the end of the seasonal farmers' markets, it's a bit trickier finding all the organic goodies. We are lucky enough to have a couple of great organic supermarket chains in the area which I hit often, and now even some of the 'regular' supermarkets have an organic section. We do buy less organic food due to cost, but since it's more nutritionally dense, we figure we come out even. Occasionally, we will buy some of the safer non-organics if the organic item is looking particularly poor that week.

Meat is an especially tricky issue, the organic free range or pasture fed meat is extremely expensive. So, we eat veggie at least four times a week now. At first there was much grumbling within the tribe, but now they've adjusted and don't usually ask about the missing meat. And when we do spring for the meat, it's usually part of a casserole, stew, etc with a whole bunch of veggies and grains.

Dinner tonight was tostadas with tiny crab cakes (Whole Paycheck) on a bed of cilantro-cabbage (CSA) slaw, with tomatoes (garden), green onion (CSA), and radish (CSA), and topped with jalapeno (organic from regular supermarket) cream. We served this up with roasted pumpking seeds (garden), black beans (organic from regular supermarket), corn (CSA), and a platter of fruit (mandarins ((monthly exception)), kiwi ((CSA)), and pomegranate seeds ((CSA))). The kids were so thrilled about the miniscule amount of crab that they didn't even realized they'd just eaten eleven servings from the fruit/veggie group.

Fall foliage

Our maple tree ablaze in fall color.

We planted this one as a tiny sapling 3 yrs ago, now it's over 7 ft tall!

Today we enjoyed the brief break from the heavy rain! Anni had a very busy schedule today with her cooking group, OT, and O+M lesson. Alex worked on his school work and another lego creation. Ari had a meeting with one of her professors at college. David was tearing apart one of the bathroom wall as we had a leak and he was worried about mold. I went through Anni's academic materials and picked out some fun things to work on for the rest of fall, lots of copying and coloring!

We've also been spending a fair amount of time learing about things for our project. We've been watching all the Pioneer Quest series on video, and reading gardening books for our next garden. Tomorrow, we thought we'd make some candles for our emergency supply box.

We've also delayed our Dias de la muertes celebration due to all the election excitement. So, we're going to celebrate over the weekend with crafts and foods.

Guy Fawkes and CSA Box Day!

Today was farm box day! It was another good one. The box contents: collard greens, a squash, huge radishes, salad mix, garlic, onions, mint, tomatoes, avocados, pears, apples, persimmons, kiwis, and grapses. Mmmm!

This photo was taken with the new camera. I love that close-up feature! Now you can see the dimples on the avocados and the whiskers on the onions.

Today was also Guy Fawkes Day for the Brits. We celebrated by setting off poppers and making sausage rolls. Happy Guy Fawkes Day!

Election Day!

A word from Anni: "It's election day! Quick help me get away from all the political stuff! I'll climb up a ladder. Oh no, there's a candidate sign on the roof. I know I'll zip off on my hand car. Oh no, someone wants to hand me a leaflet. Vote already!"

Seriously (though not too seriously) we've had a couple of fun days singing songs about America, flags, and presidents. We've made flags and streamers, and read stories about elections. We've listened to lots of politico factoids on the radio and added humorous taglines to all those attack ads on the telly. Finally, tonight we had an all-American dinner and settled down to watch the election results. It was fun to have the whole family participate in the election process.

Pumpkins, Pizza, and Entertainments

A few photos from our Halloween celebration. A pirate pumpkin carved by Alex and Anni. A sumputuous evening feast with a veggie stew baked in a pumpkin, cucumber-poblano salsa, organic tortilla chips, curry pumpkin soup, crackers, hummus, and veggie pizza (and lots of halloween candy.) Our lunch pumpkin pizza.

Finally, Alex and Anni posing in their daytime costumes, a bewitching witch and enviro-man!






For trick-or-treating, Alex made a very cool samari costume and Anni was a hippy-gypsy. Just going around the neighborhood, they got tons of candy!

Yesterday, during the day, we went to see Little Shop of Horrors at the local theatre company. It was terrific! And in the evening, Ari and I went to see "The Secret Life of Bees". We liked it alot, but we needed lots of tissues.