Category Archives: food

Getting things done – and catching up…

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Yesterday was a very productive day and I even found some time to relax. It’s a new way I have of doing things. First, I admit to the fact that as much as I hate being a stickler and anal, being anal about scheduling can be a good thing. Maybe anal isn’t the right word here. I am not stressing if I don’t get through the schedule, but I am adding less to the schedule and including time for me. I don’t try to deviate too much and so far, it’s worked!

The boys and I did the Yoga Kids video when we came downstairs in the morning. (We’ve done various yoga dvd’s three days in a row now! Yipee!) Then had breakfast and I made some GF banana chocolate chip muffins. Then some of this awesome Historic Grains GF bread. I thought I’d give it a try using my hands like many wonderful women before me who didn’t have the luxury of a Kitchen-Aid mixer, mind you it was at least a little tempting to pick one up when they were $200 off during the holidays. Instead of using the mixer for four minutes to heat up the yeast and make sure all ingredients are well combined, I put four minutes on the microwave timer, have a seat and mix with my hand. Ouch. Pretty tough labour there but well worth it. The taste is well worth the work!

Steve came home with a migraine early afternoon for which I do not envy him at all. So, while he chilled with the boys, I went on to other things on my list. Mind you, the rest of the list came after the boys had finished their lessons for the day, including some fun grammar involving acting out the poem Dancing by Eleanor Farjeon. What does this have to do with grammar. Verbs, of course! Gotta love school!

Okay, on with the list. I managed to fix X’s new Pidove. He is a Pokemon that X picked out as part of his using a gift card from Nanna and Pappa. Then, I mended the seam on a stuffed snake he got a while ago when we went to a reptile place, ah the right word escapes me for that place, but it was while we were visiting Nanna and Pappa two years ago. The seam split probably about a year ago.

I’m getting better at this mending thing though as the last piece of the pile was the bottoms to X’s new pj’s. Each Christmas eve the boys get new pj’s and Xman’s bottoms were stupid-huge in the waist. Totally too big. But, he loved them and the top fit perfectly. Go figure. So, I fixed the bottoms. I had to pull out a lot of the waist band and in making it smaller, had to make the back/bum seam smaller, too. I have never done this type of surgery and was hoping that the elastic around the waist wasn’t sewn into the waistband but it was. That’s okay. I got to use the serger setting on my new sewing machine! I am in love with my sewing machine in the way anyone who loves sewing can be and can’t wait to do more! I bought it used on Kijiji months ago because the one I have weighs a ton, more like 30 lbs at least and if I dropped it I’d easily crush my foot. Easily, pinky swear. And that freaked me out a bit. So, I got the new machine from a wonderful older lady who purchased the machine, used it once, and then realized it was more than she needed. Thank you Kijiji. And, it only took me two months to finally sit down and use it which is way better than the history of my serger, which never left the box. Steve, don’t say a thing. 🙂 I eventually sold the serger to a textiles student at the art college who was thrilled to take it off my hands for half of what I paid. No kidding.

Not too bad a job for a first time doing this type of thing and really wanting to finish it so X could wear them to bed. I finished them as Steve got the boys into their bath. Whew!

It’s not as neat as I’d like around the waist but it won’t come apart and I barely had any material to fold over. So, I’m okay with that. 🙂

Well, goodness me! I almost forgot! I finished this too!

“What is that?” you ask. “It’s my first felted piece and I’m totally thrilled with it!”, I say. “It’s a tea cozie (duh) and felting it was easier than I expected!” It finished drying overnight and is a perfect ‘grandé soy chai latté’ fit!

I’m going to do these nests next, as X decided to take the cozie for Pidove.

Okay, that’s three posts in two days. Sweet! Now, what’s next on my list is….ah…hmmm…didn’t plan this far ahead. Apparently, there’s a hole in my scheduling planning. Gotta work on that.

 

 

Christmas may be over but…

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…that doesn’t mean you can’t finish that gingerbread house!

The boys had a great time decorating.

I think part of me just wanted to enjoy the process and not be too uptight about trying to make it perfect. It’s definitely not perfect…

…but we all had a great time! Oh, and if you look closely, there is a boy on the rooftop (Daddy) and a girl with two boys at the bottom.

L upgraded our car. First he set out a green van with a sun roof which is the closest in Hot Wheels to a Mazda 5, and he knows that I’d love a sunroof. Thanks, L! I’ve always wanted a red convertible! I guess we will keep the Mazda for family drives. I can totally handle that. 🙂

 

 

blooming tea…

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I experienced something I never knew could happen, or maybe I just hadn’t ever thought of it before so the idea of it was out of my head, I guess you could say. Catherine, a friend of mine, offered me tea as she had so many times before during one of my visits with the boys. As an aside, we take turns coming over to each other’s homes weekly so we can chat and the kids can play together. The four of them get along amazingly well, and as they, too are home schooled, visits can conveniently happen during the day, a good time to indulge in some good company and good caffeinated drinking!

Although the tea Catherine offered to me this time was herbal – I am a pretty die-hard black tea drinker, especially anything with the name ‘earl’ in it – I couldn’t pass on the offer. Seriously, when someone tells you they have some ‘blossom tea, would you like to try it? you have to see what happens to it when you add the water!’ how can you say, ‘no thanks, not interested’?

Not only was it one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen but the tea was good. Really. I don’t care for herbals and it was gooood. Maybe my taste buds were a bit swayed by what my brain had witnessed but so be it.

Catherine boiled some water, took out this cute little glass teapot and popped in one of the buds. Then she poured in the water. The transformation was the coolest thing and started to happen instantaneously. The flower changed from a tightly packed little bud into a series of little flowers where each new bud opened up to reveal another.

The company that makes the tea is “Teavana, the flavour is peach Momotaro, the style of tea is blooming tea”.  Thanks, Catherine! 🙂

~happy tea drinkin’!~

Merry Christmas Eve

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It has been a very full week here at the Shard household. Let’s see…yesterday we got a bit of a storm and it was so beautiful to watch the big flakes float down so softly from the sky. I love the silence that comes with the fluffy flakes. It’s very serene and peaceful to me. It’s almost like those millions of flakes are saying, “Shhh…slow down…look at us…enjoy us…”.

I know, yet again, I have used my iPhone for another pic. Ugh – I can’t help myself sometime. I need to go out and get a good point and shoot, I’m just too fussy and can’t decide. I don’t want to pay $500 for a p&s when I have a super-duper dslr. So, for now, it’s iPhone because I’m just too lazy sometimes to go upstairs and get my camera out of the bag. I know, silly, but true. However, I did use it today to take some great pics of all of the cousins when they came over today to exchange gifts. It’s amazing as they get older they actually all sit and listen and look at the camera – wow!!! I will post one of the pics if it’s okay with everyone – gotta check that first….

Yesterday, I started the long and arduous, yet mostly enjoyable, task of making a GF gingerbread house from scratch. You can’t buy ’em gluten-free and XL saw the cookie cutter set at the store so I couldn’t help myself. It did go fairly well all things considered, I guess, but I did try to hurry things along since I only had one cookie tray and I had to work later. I didn’t wait for the cookies to cool down before transferring them to a rack. Some of them were too soft and fell apart. I had to redo one roof part, two sides and two fronts. We also have a temper-mental oven so some of the bottoms got a little too cooked although the tops were perfect. Seriously? Why? All part of the process I know.

At this point I had to relinquish the power of the house creating to Steve. I had to go to work. On the bus. In the snow. Fun. So the rest was up to Steve and the boys. I got a pic of the first icing-making effort – it was not pretty. It was clumpy. Oil and icing sugar do not mix. Literally. We usually use oil as a sub for margarine for making breads because it’s easier and cheaper. Cookies too. No problem there. But, apparently, not so good for icing. So, try number two came out with better results, albeit still a bit tricky. Here’s a pic of what’s been constructed so far with a little help from some Tim’s cups for support:

I think it looks great! Can we be done now? I’m afraid to touch it for fear the roof may slide off. I’ll keep you posted, fingers crossed!

This morning, although we had a plethora of things yet to accomplish before family arrived at 1pm, I was determined to make a wack of gf waffles again so I could freeze some for future breakfasts. Future meaning like Christmas morning. Meaning tomorrow morning. Tripling the recipe according to Catherine’s recipe went very well and we managed to have a load left over. Off to the freezer they went. Cool. 🙂

I must say here that the iPhone is certainly fun to use when the lighting is right. So fun!

Waffles and breakfast over-with, next on the list was um, making gf sugar cookies. I made up the dough and put it into the fridge to chill at which point it becomes a blur. I know that suddenly it was noon and I had to sew seven little stockings to put treats into and I hadn’t even taken a good look at my ‘new’ sewing machine. (A great find on Kijiji and only used once before me) I crossed my fingers and plugged in the sewing machine and sewed a sample piece. Ah, it ran smooth as butta. Beautiful! I finished the stockings at about 12:45 which was longer than necessary but I realized, with Steve’s help, that I was one stocking short and it took me a bit to find the extra material. It was on top of the microwave in a papier-maché bowl. Isn’t that where everyone keeps extra material?

I was thinking of an easy way to close the top of the stockings without the kids struggling to rip open a sewn top so I used some previously painted green clothes pins. Perfect! The kids loved them, I think especially since they were unexpected. I like that. :0 Aren’t they cute? I can’t take all the credit – Martha Stewart made me do it.

1pm, family arriving and I’m making sugar cookies. The dough is so much easier to roll out as it is much ‘wetter’ I want to say. But, that being said, this makes it harder to transfer to the cookie sheet. So, not only did some of them burn on the bottom (a bit), some of them were also not really recognizable. Our niece held up one cookie asking what it was. I said, ‘It’s holly. No. It’s a tree.’ Oh, well. At least they tasted good. Nothing to see here as far as cookie pics. Didn’t think of it and probably didn’t want to remember the oddly shaped, albeit, yet yummy tasting cookies.

Once all the kids left I made some yummy potato soup with onions, garlic, dill and fennel. So yum! Totally off topic but so enjoyable! Then we Skyped with Nanna and Papa. When I asked the boys during dinner what their favourite thing about this year was so far they said, ‘visiting Nanna and Pappa. And Cheeky Monkey.’ I can’t argue there. Our visit to see Nanna and Papa was awesome as always. The boys love seeing them and their friends and going to play at Cheeky Monkey, the coolest indoor playground even for adults with some kid in them. Rocket slide, you are one crazy fast piece of plastic! Eek!

Suddenly it was 6:30 and we all jumped in the car to  drive around and check out Christmas lights. X said he counted more than two hundred houses with lights. It was fun to see how people decorate their homes. The glow of the lights just really gets me in the mood for the holidays. Of course, the street that we found with the most houses decorated was just 5 minutes from us. Our street was pitiful. That includes us. The plug to our house is in the driveway so not in a convenient spot at all when it’s late at night and very cold outside and you need to unplug the lights. I know, we should get one of those extension cords with a switch. I know. We said that last year too…

We got home, and helped the boys get ready for bed and Steve and L read, “The Night Before Christmas” and off they went into ‘Christmas dreamland’. I usually say to them as I kiss them goodnight, “Sweet dreams come true”. This time, after I made this wish to the boys, X said, “Sweet Christmas dreams come true”. Indeed…which leads me to the next part – gift wrapping…

Santa, as always, dropped off gifts and I took a quick pic of the wrapping. Always impressed I’m with Santa’s wrapping ways. I still wonder what his hand-writing looks like because he always uses these cute little tags. Hmmm…I guess these days, with computers and all, and so many gifts to deliver, the time it takes to print out a tag is much less than writing. What a hand-cramp that would be. Carpel tunnel anyone?

…and like we told the boys, Santa can’t get you everything on your list as he has so many children to deliver gifts to. Well, Santa is good. He got them one thing on their list and a couple ones that they had forgotten to mention when they made their lists with Daddy last night while I was at work. Boy, that Santa, he is fast. He can even do last-minute requests! X decided to place his list on the tree so it wouldn’t be missed by Santa. He used a magnet from our dart game. Works perfect with a fake tree. L’s list is in the next best place, the refrigerator door. 🙂

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I was surprised to see L’s list much shorter than X’s. Then again, I think this was a ‘carry over’ from his birthday list. He totally scored on that one.

Steve and I managed to wrap a few gifts from us. I decided to do something a little different for the tags. Maybe I was inspired by Santa’s savvyness. Or, maybe I saw something like this online. That Martha sure is crafty!

Now here I am with my glass of wine, the gifts are under three tree, stockings stuffed and I am pooped.

Merry Christmas, everyone. Love you all!

xoxoxo Us 🙂

Good night and Sweet Christmas dreams come true.

~smile~

 

 

Gluten-Free Waffles: a great way to start a day! and why we went GF.

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The boys have now been off gluten for maybe a month. Hmmm…wish I’d kept track of the date we started. It has gotten easier every day as I have a friend who inspired me to try the GF thing when she mentioned that since she started it with her two kids two years ago and it has made all the difference in their behaviour. When I say ‘behaviour’ I don’t mean in just how they act but how they think as well.

I don’t know if I have said this before but I’ve had a trying time with L and getting him to concentrate. He always has to be doing something with his hands, and this easily distracts him from other things, like his math book sitting out in front of him. Sometimes it would drive me around the bend as I couldn’t see what the big deal was: why should it take him and hour and a half to do two math pages????? Maybe he is distracted by the Lego in front of him. Solution: no toys on the table while doing lessons. Did this work? Yes. Briefly. Then he would just sit there and stare part of the time unless I worked through each page with him to keep him on track. At this point there are many of his lessons he can do independently. Well, he can do but doesn’t.

I read in a book titled, Beyond Survival: a Guide to Abundant-Life Homeschooling by Diana Waring that we all have different learning styles. How interesting! L is actually one of those kids/people who, like myself, always needs to be doing something with his hands. How interesting! Like mother like son! So, I relented and said he could have a toy on the table to ‘watch’ him while he did his math, etc. Also, he fiddles with a toy (yet again, usually Lego) while we have our reading time where I read a book to them. (To clarify, at 5 and 7 they already know how to read, but me reading to them everyday helps them to understand how books are read when it comes to punctuation and tone and rhythm for comprehension. Also, they get to hear interesting stories that may be above their reading level.) I’d stop and ask L a question while I was reading to see if he was listening, and sure enough, he told me the answer almost word for word as I had read it. X, too – when he wasn’t doing hand stands on the couch. That boy cannot sit still! Again, mother…son. 🙂

Now, although I relented to the toys being around to ‘watch’ L as he worked he still took painfully long to get things done. I’d ask him a question he should know such as, “L, what is 5+7?” And he would say, “5+7. 5..+7..5…..+…..7……….” Boom. Gone. It was as if I had drugged him and his mind just went to mush. He would stare off into the air expressionless.

Then came the introduction of Gluten-Free foods. Can’t hurt to try, right? Makes, sense as we are what we eat. And if it worked for C and her kids then it just may work for us. In as little as 24 hours I noticed a difference with L and his school work. X, too. Albeit, X’s lesson load is much lighter as he is only five but nonetheless, the concentration was there where it hadn’t been before. It stayed. It hung around like a wonderful friend and helper. Amazing. Lucas can get his spelling done in ten minutes and his math in twenty to thirty. Aside: I also instilled a more realistic schedule for the boys that spreads out their lessons through the week where we get the brain challengers done first thing. Their various programs are also in the schedule, such as Multi-Sports class, Art Gallery and Discovery Centre and theatre group to name some, and if it keeps us out of the house for hours then I lighten the load of lessons for the day so it doesn’t seem so arduous. Also, Family Time Fitness thrown in there is a great way to get us energized again for 15-20 minutes before starting another lesson. Educational games are great too. They learn as they have fun. Well, we learn as we have fun!

Getting ready to go out the door, which used to take a good twenty minutes from the time I would ask the boys to go to the washroom, get their shoes and coats on and grab their water bottles shrunk down to a mere 5 minutes in most instances without very little repeating of this easy ‘getting out the door’ list.

Okay so, long story long, this wonderful friend of mine, C,  gave me a recipe for waffles. The GF ones at the store are expensive but the boys love them. (Oh, and her recipe for sandwich bread has finally been successful for me after trying all of those bread-machine ones. Making this one by hand is much more rewarding. Pat myself on the back for my persistence! My reward is worth it.)

Here is ‘going into the oven’ and ‘out of the oven and oh so good’ hand-made bread.

 

Yesterday I bought a waffle maker with new recipe in hand. I was inspired by C as she makes a big batch every weekend and freezes them to use for breakfasts. Brilliant. I tried out her recipe (small batch first) expecting maybe a bit of difficulty or dry, distasteful (?) waffles. I was so thrilled as my first two waffles just cooked up perfectly and the boys scarfed them down. Oh, what a great way to start a day!! LOVE that waffle maker. There is hope, after all, with GF food and sane kids! Yay! …sane Mommy too! 🙂

I think next time I may add blueberries, or chocolate chips…yum…this time Steve just added the chocolate chips onto the top of the already cooked waffles.

Such a pretty sight for my eyes – home-made GF waffles. (Yes, I know, it’s blurry, argh, camera phone, but pretty nonetheless!)

All gone! Success!

I ‘heart’ my waffle maker. I ‘heart’ my boys. All three of ’em!

zucchini relish – super yum!!

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Okay, so I am relishing (haha) my time to myself by catching up a bit on blogging while Judy watches the boys for a couple of hours: sipping a venté soy chai latté at you-know-where. I never get a venté size but it was a freebie so for sure!

I started up the laptop and realized we took all Photoshop versions off of it to make room. We don’t edit on it any longer as we have our own computers and this is the family one. Soooo…great, what to do now when I want to resize some pics for the blog?? Hmmm…oh, maybe Preview can do it, and voila, yes, it can. Whew!

So, here we go…

My lovely sister-in-law gave me a recipe for zucchini relish. I needed something to do with the woppin’ big zucchini my friend, Juli, had dropped off from her parents’ garden – it’s huge! Here is a pic of it with a teaspoon measure to get the idea. Well, this is half of it as I’d already used some for the zucchini marmalade recipe I got from Juli…the boys went crazy when they saw it!

The marmalade turned out great albeit very, very thick. My first time waiting for the mix to ‘gel’ and really not knowing what to expect ended up with something crazy, bread-tearing, thick stuff. But yummy. At least I tried 🙂

Aaanyway, here are some pics along the way. The first pic looks so good already what with the zucchini, carrots and I forget what else (!) mixed in. Kind of like an alternative coleslaw. Raw zucchini is sooo good!

MIxin’ the suga’ togetha…

All ready to go into the jars and this time I didn’t super cook it into a crazy gel – so pleased!

Funny thing is that four of the jar lids didn’t ‘pop’ after 24 hours as they should to show it’s good to go/ready to store and eat pretty much whenever. Steve brought one of these jars into work and popped it into the fridge. By lunchtime when he went to retrieve it the lids had popped. Weird. So, I stuck the rest into the fridge at home and what do ya know? They popped! Nice. Thanks, Steve. Inadvertently, but thanks, nonetheless.

Steve LOVES the zucchini and I must say, M, thanks for a super-awesome recipe! We put it on egg sandwiches, plain toast, whatever. It’s totally worth it!

There. Another post done. More catch-up to do but I still want to read, knit and draw and I’ve got just over an hour left. :0

Judy, thanks for the time. It’s…I don’t know…so nice to say the least.

First stab at GF bread in breadmaker vs second time…

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Tasty too.

It was a bit of a challenge to figure out the bread machine recipe as it begins on the ‘dough cycle’. Then, after the first mix you remove the paddle which is a messy business to say the least. Then you wait for that cycle to end. You reset the breadmaker to the GF cycle. Really? A breadmaker has a GF cycle? Hunh…

I chose the ‘rapid bake’ which was for the same time and I think I did pretty good.

The boys are like changed children since removing gluten from their diet. They listen now, can concentrate on their lessons, and seem happier – oh wait, maybe that’s me. 🙂

Onto second GF breadmaker recipe story. This one was for a pumpernickel which we’ve made with regular flour before and I love. Sooo, since I had made one GF loaf so far and it worked just fine I figured this should be easy! When the ‘dough’ cycle ended I opened the lid to see how much the bread had risen and couldn’t believe what I saw.

It was alive! I swear!

At first I thought I could just wipe around the edge with it in the maker but then noticed this was not such an easy solution. This monstrous yeast mixture was growing by they second (literally) and oozing all the way down and over the bottom of the inside of the maker. This is what it looked like when I removed it. I cleaned the maker and then proceeded to clean this mess. I wiped all around the edges and it took a while as the dough was very sticky. The goop kept coming over the sides as I wiped the overflow off. I couldn’t believe it!

GF flours, in my novice opinion, are a little pricier than even the regular organic stuff we buy. I was not going to give up on this loaf. Finally, I wiped it down for about the fifth time and then stuck my finger in the top a couple of times. It was like watching the Wicked Witch of the West melt! Down, down it went, lower into the container. Guess I popped one too many air bubbles. :0

Nonetheless, I was relieved and put it back into the bread maker for the ‘rapid’ cycle with fingers crossed. It rose a bit more but luckily not to the top and not overflowing. Whew!

When the beeper went off I opened the lid and there was a big sink hole in the middle. Bummer for sure! It tasted good and the boys liked it but you couldn’t really slice it. Just when I thought I had saved the loaf it goes and sinks on me!

I added less sugar next time and it went much better. Such a learning experience, and one I can laugh about at least!

Since then, I tried to make GF flour tortilla shells. Dreadful. When the recipe says potato flour starch that means add the potato starch and not the potato flour. BIG difference. BIG. HUGE.

😉

Home-made Clay

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This is something that I have been wanting to do for a while but just haven’t gotten around to. The clay takes about 5 minutes to make and it so easy to prepare. The best part, for me, was kneading it and feeling the soft warmth of the mix between my hands. The boys love using the clay to roll out, cut up into pieces, and squeeze through play dough heads (just when I was going to bag up all the play dough toys and drop them off at Value Village!).

I got the recipe from a great book called, “Slow and Steady, Get me Ready“. The book is meant to be used on a weekly basis from birth to age 5. Well, whatever, I say! I had the best intentions with that but perhaps used it three times since X was born. So, I decided to flip through it to find what may be of interest and there are still a great many fun ideas for kids. Who says clay is only for babies, right? I love it, too and so will you (I hope!)

Here’s the recipe:

1 cup Flour, 1Tbsp of oil, 1 cup of H2O, 1/2 cup of salt, 2 tsp of cream of tartar. Mix together in pot over medium heat until it forms a ball. Knead until smooth. Voila! Clay!

You could add food colouring if you like, but I just left ours au natural. I like it that way. 🙂

The ingredients mix together quite easily with no clumping. Then, after about three minutes of intermittent mixing…

Mmm…looks like mashed potatoes – but don’t eat it!

You can roll it out and use a pencil to make a funny face!

 Just when you thought the play dough toys were no longer of interest…

It can even do swirlies! Kewl!

The book says the mixture will keep indefinitely in a plastic bag or sealed container. It’s a great idea, if only I’d made this earlier. I could have used them in the boys’ grab bags for their party!