Bridget’s Kitchen

So I started crafting in November, a new early record for me. I spent a bit of time at the sewing machine, both at my house and at my friend Leah’s (she is a bit more polished and clever about sewing).  I also made a few non sewing-machine items. Overall, I was pleased with the reception of the things I made. Without further ado:

I dug out some unused frames and organied some lovely photos of the past year for the three oldest kids

One of my favorite projects turned out as fun as I had hoped…I give you Hula Hoops!!!:

purple for Lily!

I also made 4 (for all but the eldest) Maine Cousins. 

Molly proves they work!

Purple flannel pj's for Lily

I had some lovely wool fabric and So I made myself a skirt and Lily a jumper to match,

three sweet boys in blue and plaid flannel. Definitely worth the effort!

extra adorable picture of Eliot for good measure

And a bunny for my sweet niece to cap it off:

perfect for snuggling!

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So, I haven’t blogged in an age, but lots of good things have been going on around here.

Since the Folk festival,

Bruce turned 6

Eliot turned one

Homeschooling and dance and Jr Sports have all started back up.

And most recently I had a birthday. Yeah me.

Luke and his folks got me a new lens for my camera and then I took the morning to walk around and take pictures by the River. I sometimes read photography blogs, usually mama photographers and they talk alot about learning to take a self portrait, since moms are hardly ever IN the pictures, which is of course silly since we’re such a part of what’s going on, but we’re always behind the camera. Sometimes I look through all the pictures of a fun day and realize I am not accounted for. oppps.

Anyway, behold, my new lens and some fun…

self portrait….look fall leavespark bench…

found a comfy spot to journal…in my plaid all stars

journaling. down by the river….

it looked like someone had gone around and placed some leaves artistically at this part of the river walk, pretty cool

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Last weekend we celebrated our 11th anniversary early by dropping the three older kids off at my folks in NH (thanks folks!) and then  attending the Newport Folk Festival in RI.

It was very awesome.

there were some…bands….all early afternoon and then the magic:

Gillian Welch!

Dave Rawlings!

so awesome together!

high steppin it in her awesome boots!

with Sara Watkins to kick it up a notch!

Intermission…cute kid!

Then the Decemberists, with Sara Watkins guest star

Then they all played together, but we were too busy enjoying the awesome to take pictures. But trust me, it was awesome.

happy early anniversary to us!

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So it seemed like such a small, achievable goal:

grow a bunch of mint so we can have minty iced tea all summer long.

After living in Maine where our friend Ingrid had a ton of mint growing which she kindly allowed (or rather encouraged) us to help her use up, we became addicted to homemade iced tea and fresh picked mint in our spring rolls, and homemade iced tea (in homemade mojitos ). Well, it;s true, whatever else we use it for iced tea is the main priority on hot summer days.

And the allowing/encouraging bring me why I thought this goal achievable- Mint is a weed. A tasty tasty weed, but a weed nonetheless. A fast growing one at that (or is that true of all weeds?)

what could be easier.

oh.my.goodness.

So our friends gladly gave us like half a dozen of their mint stalks (weeds?plants? stalks, I dunno, I am new to this) and some nice soil and sent us packing. We gleefully transplanted these stalks to a dirt covered part of our yard about 1 foot or so in from the end of the grass near a fence. we watered it. We threw some other compost and stuff we used in our container planters in their direction for extra luck.

we waited anxiously for it to seem healthy enough to start picking it’s minty goodness.

Then the neighbor happened. The neighbor who graciously swaps housecleaners from our landlady to mow our lawn.

and.our. mint.

grrrrr

I was grumpy. I mean it was clearly a foot in from the grass,I shouted. But mint is a weed and luke pointed out there are other (not so tasty)weeds in that general area,which probably means the mint didn’t stand out, and he was right, and so I got over it.

and planted more mint. cause we had more and it was growing fine in the container, but I wanted, say, ALOT more.

this time luke put up some sturdy sticks around the mint.

and the next time the neighbor mowed, his lawn-mower-with-wood-chipping-action mowed the mint and sticks over. again.

grrr

so the friends brought us more mint. I mean it’s a weed for goodness sake and they started with one measly mint stalk and got a whole side yard full. They left it on our front porch and luke joked we better hide it from the neighbors weed whacker.

ha ha ha ha ha. but seriously, I was nervous.

So again, I transplant, I put up little chunks of wood and this time I haphazardly put some string across the front of the area with the mint, and I  tied the string to the wood sticks.

I meant to get around to labeling it, but um, I forgot. but really, the string drapped across the front seemed telling and helpful. Also some of the older mint was regrowing nicely and I felt triumphant ( as triumphant as a person growing a flipping weed can feel).

and then he mowed it down. AGAIN. AND, adding injury to insult even pushed our picnic table ON TOP OF the mint area to mow where the table had been.

WHAT ON EARTH?!!!

So after considering retaliating (how? not sure, probably egging or something), volunteering to mow for him (um with what mower?and wow, that sounds like…work, work which would keep us from the beach, ewww) and being generally grumpy, I decided to really make a mint garden.

Make (a) mint (garden) and not war.

So we dug three holes, filled them with the same vermiculite, peat moss and compost combo in our containers, grabbed  one of the two containers of mint that was still growing and threw the nice soil from our friends in the mix too and transplanted yet another batch of mint.

But this time we also cleared out other non-tasty weeds and were extra gentle w/ the mint. The kids were totally into the event. We found some scap wood bits and a sharpie and wrote mint all over them. We made a wooden fence in front of the mint w/ the labeled wood interspersed with “planted”  sticks to make a little protective stick fence.

all this to grow a weed. because the mint iced tea (and mojitos) are really worth it.

ta-da:

not the best photography ever (happens when you’re also holding a baby on your hip, but three groupings of mint, and 3 labeled sticks in front a one large “labeled”(scribbled by Ollie) stick in the rear. If you look close you can see some of the smaller sticks in between.

Then it was time to go inside drink cold lemonade and start a batch of mint iced tea (from the mint in the other container we didn’t rob of it’s mint stalks….).

summer is good times.

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Every year around Lily’s birthday and Christmas I go crazy with the sewing projects. Perhaps I should learn to do them in a more balanced way, but alas, so far…it’s sewing mania or sewing drought. In that vein, I present to you the party favors for lily’s 4th birthday:

there are 12 of them. for all 12 attending nieces/nephews and dearly loved friends.

oh but also:

Two sided! woot!

I had the idea in oh, April. I started it, oh about 2 weeks before the party. yikes. But look at these adorable children in these hats, it was worth it was it not??!!!

most but not all the kiddos.

Levi in his hat, auntie models Gabe’s.

ahhhhh cuteness is overwhelming!

The oldest (who;s hat was started, um last summer, oppps, he was patient)

The sweet Lily girl, now 4 and always adorable.

and of course, Ollie, in action as usual.

It just makes me so happy when the kids like to wear things I;ve made them.

Hat pattern here. And thanks Leah for teaching me how to make these  

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So I am now running experiments into how many things I can make in the dehydrator since I bought it.

There is an entire raw food movement that insists most if not all things should be eaten raw, and when you dehydrate them you can keep the living enzymes in your food active by only doing it at a certain low temp.

We are not converting to this lifestyle but I like to try out ways of sneaking more healthy food into us that doesn’t resemble kale chips.

ew. those were a disaster.

SO I ran across this recipe for dehydrated butternut squash cookies. Is your mouth watering? no? Yeah well, they are not meant to replace chocolatey or chewy cookies with oatmeal and raisins, but a chewy somewhat sweet snack that has butternut squash and raisins and just a tad bit of maple syrup in it? that sounds like happy snack-time.

so far the two eldest children have approved the cookie as have I. we’ll see what papa bear says when he tastes them.

since I had bought a rather large squash, I put it to good use and tried out these muffins from 101cookbooks.com which is where I go for inspiration and to be amazed at the kinds of things Heidi “whips up”. If we ever get desperate enough to buy tofu she has lots of tasty sounding ideas to try, but gads of her recipes don’t need it so I enjoy them. Anyway Pumpkin (I mean butternut squash) and feta muffins it was, this late morning.

OH. MY. GOSH. I AM IN LOVE.

I am not good with savory things, I prefer baking sweet muffins and cookies but these are delish. yum. Luke thinks they would be better with sausage, (though he hasn’t been home to try them yet) and I agree that might make them even awesomer but they are pretty awesome as is, even if my tequniques aren’t so great (somehow my haphazard measure-while-doing-homeschooling-dealing-with-a-cramky-toddler-method ended up netting me 18 muffins and not 12. I am not, for the record complaining. mmmmmmmmm) Also I am sure that if my parmesean cheese hadn’t come out of a can they would be even better. So sad I know, but there is only so many kinds of cheese i can buy high quality in one month.

Last night’s supper was 101cookbooks carrot soup, which went over pretty well. tasty tasty.  I managed to go all wild and roast some….um….sweet potato to go with it. I salvaged the orange presentation with…..grilled cheese. ha! Also with little garlic butter toast in the oven with the last of a loaf that wasn’t sandwich quality anymore. I’m still learning how to make sure the texture of the night isn’t just smooth. But the soup was a keeper. and simple. i like simple. I even used water and not veg stock and it was yummy.

notes-I forgot the lemon juice and there was no fancy drizze of oil….too much craziness with 4 hungry kids for that. It was good anyway, did I mention that already?

SO for a recap, for snack I tried the just finished dehydrating butternut squash cookies, for lunch I finished off the last tiny bit of carrot soup I didn’t send luke with the rest of the sweetpotato (to be fair some red potato and red onion also found its way in the pan last night) and when the muffins cooled off I tried the squash/feta muffins.

I may turn orange.

Also, in further adventures of vegetarian cooking, I made us Lentil loaf last friday. It’s meatloaf except with lentils. Which essentially means, if you don’t botch up the flavors and there is ketchup in the house, everyone will eat it

And they did.

I’ve never made meatloaf so the added bonus was it didn’t seem like a subbing- lentils-for meat meal. It was something new.

Peanut noodle night had mixed reviews, despite using the exact same peanut sauce they happily dipped fresh spring rolls in last week (what gives??).

I was pretty proud of myself for whipping up a white-wine-sauce to go with our Monkfish (fresh from the Gloucester fishermans’ wives co-op) on tuesday. I even used Real wine. MY sister-in-law would be so proud of me. And I was proud too! It came out smooth and was tasty except too overpowering (was a little generous measuring out the wine me thinks, and by measuring I mean pouring it into the pot until it seemed right…).

Monkfish is hideously ugly but oh so tasty. I love this fisherman’s wives co-op.

And so there you have it. We’re making it work over here trying new things so we can buy more expensive, better quality meat. Even though Luke frets he will have to grill lentil burgers this summer (some things are too sacred to mess with if you ask me, real burgers it is), and he’s never sure what sort of meatless concoction I will try next, he’s a good sport.

Bruce was a little nervous that the butternut squash cookies ALSO had feta cheese, but I assured him, there was no cheese in his cookie.

Also I made 4 loaves of bread this week (2 monday, 2 today) and  some Bob’s red mill bran/flaxseed muffins.

I’ve been little miss betty crocker in the kitchen this week.

I think it’s the spring weather! I’ve also sorted everyone’s closets, swapped out MOST of the winter stuff for spring (this IS New England, not all the sweaters can be packed up) and am currently overwhelmed with organizing the scads of bags I’ve offered up on freecycle.

Happy Spring!

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This morning while I was waking up slowly, ahem, the older children were trashing their room preparing an “animal show”.

Animal show- (n)

When all small chairs are dragged into the bedroom, many MANY, stuffed animals are placed in and on and around said chairs, blankets and toys are then strewn around the room for the stuffed animals comfort, and a show is performed.

Upon seeing this creative mess endevour when calling them to breakfast, I informed them that as soon as eating was done the animal show must be cleaned up.

In a moment of genius on his way out the door Luke mediated on their behalf, you mean after they finish what they are doing? They need to complete their thought.

All, right, ok, AFTER they finish.

SO I let them continue to terrorize thier room while I changed diapers and happily read to Ollie, who was so happy to only compete with Eliot for attention, causing me to read at least 3 books.

Anyway we then begged to be the audience.

What a delight. Ollie and Eliot and I sat on the toybox and were serenaded by such hits as Have you ever seen a Giraffe….(eat book, stand on a puzzle, eat a bear (what???) etc etc etc, as well as the famous “What is a school bus” and the grand finale of “What is the name of the Last song”

Quite entertaining.

the self named “Bunkbed Band” posing for the camera phone photographer

Anyway, kudos to Luke for looking past the mess and seeing the creativity because I had a most delightful morning. Hopefully I can get the video from camera phone to internet, because really, who doesn’t want to see my kids singing and playing ukulele and Slide whistle and toy trumpet under the stage names of Singer Lily, Rockstar Bruce and Ollie-ver.

This is certainly one of those days when I realize I live the good life

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gasp, 2 posts in one day.

Anyway, I get wretched awful seasonal eczema. Every winter I hope I can stall it off and every winter I get angry red INSANELY itchy hands and wrists.

Occasionally I try special diet restrictions to see if that helps.

Like that time I tried gluten free. shudder.

then spring comes and it fades away and I don’t worry much until my skin becomes as dry as sand paper and the angry rash reappears.

Since Gillian was born I’ve been trying lotions, creams, oatmeal soaks, restriction diets, hot wax baths (for the hands only) magic potions etc to try to and deal with the itch and the ugly rash without steroid cream. oh the itch.

This year I have tried no less than 4 lotions/creams. That is just this year. All organic or all natural and most specifically for people with dry skin or eczema.

I was still waking up from a sound sleep scratching at the insanely itchy skin. It was a problem.

Anyway I used one of the group coupons sites I belong to in order to purchase some stuff called DermaSans.

Enter singing angels. Enter relief and happiness.

OH MY HAPPY DAY.

So it’s magical properties are apparently because of dead sea salts. Because of this it stung like the dickens for a solid minute when I first applied it, owing to the wretched state of open wounds on my hands. Ow.

But then it started immediately to calm the itch. what? IMMEDIATELY!! Oh happy day.

And if I keep applying it, the rash even GOES AWAY.

This past week winter has been mocking our anticipation of spring with cold weather and snow flurries. boo hiss. The eczema came raging back.

I was in a funk about it this morning, having woken up with the insane itching last night. Then I had Lily bring me the lotion and after a half an hour the itch was gone and the redness was drastically reduced.

I forgot how awesome this stuff was because the eczema had taken an early break for the spring tease we had.

I promptly wrote a review for the website I actually bought the stuff at (Abe’s Market) and wrote a gushing thank you on the Valley green naturals site who makes the cream.

Anyway, it makes me happy so I thought I’d share.

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So I’ve been attempting to buy higher quality foods in all departments which includes meat, but also not spend much more on groceries.

HA HA HA HA HA HA. ahem

So I’m moving towards Meat that is locally grown by  real actual farmers or if not that grass fed meat grown by a real farmer somewhere in the USA because that is what I can get from Whole Foods.

for three times the cost.

OUCH.

Baby steps baby steps.

I have switched to getting my eggs from a farmer down the street from my friends which are not that much more expensive than the store brand regular eggs. so that was kind of easy (and my friends will kindly deliver if I am not going to visit before I need eggs )

All this means I need to expand my cooking reportire to include more vegetarian meals.(and also using coupons for anything I don’t make from scratch) I think i mentioned this before. I’m not interested in converting to full vegetarianism but the more I read (from kind, thorough, reasonable people) the more it seems likely that more veggies and fruits and grains and less meat and dairy and sugar are the way to go for long term health.

kind of bummer for my tastes and skill set.

and don’t get me started on reducing our refined sugar drastically. sniff.

back to cooking.

I tried a brand new recipe from the kitchen stewardship website and her Everything Beans book. 

She had a free download sample recipe for a white sauce made w/ beans. This sounded like a good idea as we have pasta once a week (on mondays now usually…but not always). So I bought white beans at Whole foods from the bulk bins and whipped it up.

I altered it to be more like a traditional alfredo sauce than she did, so I used parmesean cheese and eliminated the peppers (if you go look it up).Also only had 2% organic milk and not whole milk.  And I definitely used the immersion blender to blend up the beans, cause there was NO WAY my kids were going to try lumpy bean sauce. or Luke. and frankly I might not have either.

The result:

1. I liked it, however I tend to like things like this. There wasn’t a hint of bean-ness about it. truly

2. The kids ate it up, YAY, then insisted they didn’t like it and had plain pasta w/ butter for seconds…bummer

3. While I was melting the yummy cheese in the pan and Luke came home (bummer he busts me with a big bowl of beans about to go into the pot!!1) It suddenly occurs to me luke is not a huge alfredo sauce fan. Shoot.

however he said it was fine by alfredo standards, just really heavy. Which alfredo sauce is .

I think every once in a while this would be a good bean-centric meal.However,  because of it’s use of cheese and milk it’s not that much cheaper than a meaty meal, and since I’m the only one who really enjoyed it, it’s not going to make the rotation.

oh well, pesto pasta w/ potatoes and green beans go over pretty well so at least there’s that!

I should probably buy the book and try some other bean recipes!

oh yeah, and the dehydrator granola came out good too. The only “sweetener” is raisins, you soak them overnight and make a paste out of them w/ the soak water. it helps bind the granola together. Though the recommended paste was date paste which I think would be sweeter. We add raisins to the bowl and voila it’s sweet and yummy. So there you go, one more way I can easily eliminate brown or white refined sugar but not feel like I’m eating icky food woo hoo!

tiny baby steps toward healthier eating….

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I’m still here.

February was not a “high motivation” month for me. That’s an understatement!

But March has seen us actually hang up decorations in the apartment, visit friends we’ve been threatening to visit, and even take OUTDOOR family outings!

Me at the zoo with Eliot- in my skinner jeans woo-hoo!

Sure signs of spring have me trying much harder to eat healthier and cook healthier. I’ve lost the first 9 pounds since the first week of january.  yippee

I also ordered tickets to go visit my friend in Texas at the end of April. Eliot and I will be jet setters. and everytime Ollie has a screaming fit in the middle of the night and will only be seen by me, I pray to God that he’s over that by then or Luke will never volunteer to let me go visiting again (or at least not without ollie ).

And recently I ordered a dehydrator of doom. I mean I knew the thing was the caddy of dehydrators but when it came in the mail, um I was a little surprised at how big it was. It’s dehydrating extra healthy granola as we speak.   I’ll also be trying soaking and dehydrating raw nuts as a way to get even more nutrition out of them.

While I don’t think we could ever be raw foodists, vegans (ahhhhhh) or strict vegetarians, we are certainly trying to eat more vegetables, better quality meat and I’m going to try making more homemade snacks like fruit leathers and etc.   We’re particularly thrilled to have bought back into the fish co-op here This time they even had a bi-weekly option which made it more affordable. Every other week after dance class we’ll zip over to get some fish and maybe stop in at the trader joes that sells libations. mmmmm libations . hee

I also got the confirmation that we signed backup for our CSA this summer, fruit and veggies and a bonus flower share oh my!

So that is where life is at. Oh yeah and the kids and i have been walking OUTDOORS to our weekly events whenever it acts like Spring! To the library (1.8 miles round trip) pre-k sports on fridays (about 1.6 ish miles round trip) and soon hopefully EVERYWHERE we can. I’m sure that will only help my overall health as it require me to carry 17 lbs 4 os of Eliot cuteness in the ergo and push a double stroller occupied by at least 1 if not 2 cuties while encouraging Bruce to hussle along with me. He’s actually amazing at keeping up and I can get Lily to walk pretty far now as well.

I needed spring to start more than I realized and now I am so so happy every day that acts like spring.

including the first take out ice cream cone of the season this past weekend

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