Cooking Day, or A Dinner of Apples

Leif helped me in the kitchen a great deal today.  Here, he's wiping the kombu (dried kelp) with a damp paper towel to get rid of the excess salt (and little crustaceans that still cling onto the seaweed).  He did a magnificent job!

Pardon the blurriness of these photos...they were sharp to begin with, but I processed them differently and they became rather blurry in the process.  Weird.

He was so happy to be helping, but he gave me this face.  What a silly!

We spent most of our day in the kitchen today, whipping up all kinds of things (and all "international" dishes, too.  Hmn.)

The above sea kelp was for Dashi (stock made from seaweed) which would serve as the base for our Miso soup.  We made a double batch - one the quick way, and one the slow way.  Tomorrow, Miso Soup noodle bowl for lunch!  Yay!

This was dinner, Meat Stuffed Apples (I'm not sure which is less appetizing, the name of the dish, or this picture.  Food photographer I am not).  Dinner was all Greek.  In Greek, this dish is called "Mila gemista me kima" and it smelled delcious as it cooked.  Although "Meat-Stuffed Apples" isn't very yummy sounding, I had everything on hand for it, and it ended up being absolutely delicious!  It has ground beef in it, with mint, parsley, currants, pine nuts, and a little bit of rice.  It is topped with a bechamel sauce (which is what looks so burny-like in the picture).

Horrid name, but definitely a keeper recipe!

The side dish was Saffron Pilaf (Pilafi me safrani) which by itself was kinda meh, but when mixed with the meat-stuffed apples and their juice, Mmm!  I used my saffron that I bought in Spain (yes, rather elderly saffron) and I think I've discovered a sad truth...I don't think I like the taste of saffron.  Waah.  Love the thought of saffron, dislike the taste.  Oh well.

The other side was sauteed haricots verts, but I shan't bore you with details of that.

All of those Greek recipes came from a cookbook I've been wanting since before it came out, and snagged at the library the last time I was there.  I figured I'd try out a few recipes and then if I really liked those that I tried, I'd invest in the cookbook.  Well, if all the recipes I try are like this one, I'm gettin' it!

Last night, I sat up late, waiting for Jason to get home, and I perused (read every word) of the cookbook.  I pored over the recipes, literally drooling over the octopus, squid and sardine recipes (I'm in a mood for cephalopods and briny fish, what can I say?)

I'm fresh out of octopus in the house (although I'm workin on gettin' some in!) so I made the meaty apples instead.

Happy Happy Joy Joy.

Oh, the book is Vefa's Kitchen, in case you wanted to know.

Then we moved on to German fare:

German Apple Cake served a la mode, because my husband believes that dessert is nothing if not served a la mode. 

Very yummy cake.  Nice and moist.  Just perfectly appley and spicy enough, and yes, downright delicious with the vanilla ice cream.  Also a keeper.

That recipe came from Smitten Kitchen (link to that site at the sidebar to yer left).

So, we had stuffed apples for dinner and apple cake for dessert. 

It was all very appley and all very yummy.

I love when I try several new dishes in one day and that ALL turn out to be keepers!

Seriously, how often does that happen?

Mmm, apple cake...

Today was a lovely rainy colorful Autumn day, perfect for copious amounts of tea and hearty amounts of apple dishes.  Oh joy.

:)

Little Things

Leif and Granddad sitting by the fire on a lovely Fall evening.

Leif saw Granddad sitting by the fire, so he went and got his little chair and plopped down next to him. :)

Leif is at a great age right now, overall. 

While we're still working our way through many discipline issues, he's great fun to be around.

He comes up with many zany (and sometimes downright funny) stories and ideas.

For instance, a few days ago, Jason was showing him different places on the world map that hangs in his room.  One of the places they talked about was Madagascar.

A day or so after their chat, Leif hauls me into his room, climbs up so he is at eye level with the map and tells me, very authoratatively, that he is going to drive Granddad's motorboat (a small open boat) from our house (he points to that) down through this water, around this land, and up to Madagascar.  But, he informed me, Granddad has to go, too, because Leif doesn't know how to turn the boat!

So, he's planning that adventure as I type.

And he's eating PB & J (with grape J) which he can't get enough of lately.

Here, he's sorting colorful buttons into the three primary colors, one of our activities for the morning.

The buttons are neat, most of them are fairly old (they're Susan's and her grandmother's buttons) and have a lot of different shapes and shades.  Way more fun than my dull button box (which is in storage anyway).  Grandmom and I were fascinated by the prettiness of the buttons when the colors were sorted. 

Leif just wanted to run his hands through them.

Anyway, that is life here.

Not much goin' on.

The colors are v. pretty here, but the weather is intolerable - it was 75 degrees the other day!!! 

I want it COLD, and I want it COLD NOW!

Until then, I'll just pine away for chilly climes and dream about Winter (and egg nog and hot chocolate...and yes, I've already had both of those this season even though it isn't yet the season.  And yes, I've listened to Christmas music.  And yes, I've seen some Christmas movies already.  I know, I have issues.  Leavemealone.) ;)

Happy days.

A Trip to the Mountains

Leif beams from the caboose of the big wooden train at the orchard.

Saturday, we took a much needed trip out of town and into the moutains.  We went to our favorite apple orchard, where Jason and I have been going since we were a-courtin'.  That same orchard has produced every apple that went in to our "famous" apple butter, and is also the same place we took Leif, a few weeks after his birth, and took a picture of him on a patch of pumpkins.  (We thought about it this time, too, but he's gotten too big, and it looked like it might be painful.)

Walkin' through the pumpkin patch, picking out a pumpkin for Grandmom and Granddad (his idea, of course!)

I became rather smitten with flowers on this trip.  I. the lass who eschews anything in the garden that has no function or practical purpose (ie, becomes food or tool), have fallen in love with purposeless, pretty, pointless flowers.

This is why:

It was even prettier in person, too.

Especially cause it was everywhere.

A different little patch of beauty.

 I bemoaned the fact that I couldn't "document" any of them since I didn't know their names (so I could grow the same species in my garden)...and then I realized I had a camera.  Voila - loads of pictures of flowers now on my computer so I can see the ones I liked, and order them from a seed catalog when the time comes.

Jason and Leif on top of the straw tower.  Or is it Hay?  I always get those two confused, but I think hay is for horses (har har har!) and this is straw. 

More happiness on the caboose. 

He'd been waiting to play on this giant wooden train since I told him about our planned adventure to the orchard.

My two darlins on the hayride through the orchard.

I believe this was right before Leif started singing, "The wheels on the bus" much to the delight of all the women on the hay ride.

Can you spot Leify-Pumpkin in the pumpkin patch? 

(Hmn, I guess we got a picture of him in the pumpkin patch after all!)

Right about this time was when all the older women on the hay ride squealed with delight at how cute he was sitting in the pumpkin patch.

Leif and Jason all squinty in front of the pumpkin pyramid.

Two words come to mind:  Pastoral.  Idyllic.

Sigh.

He really wanted to pick a LOT of pumpkins.  We had to put a few back (when he wasn't looking) because he just kept loading the hayride up with pumpkins.

On the hayride, pulled by a tractor.

In the big wooden train, but not the caboose this time. :)

These were my favorite flowers, although I've yet to look them up. 

I know I've seen them in seed catalogs before, but they never looked very exciting. 

In real life, though, they're so much fun, like little strawberries in the Fall.

I think they're the same as these dudes, only different colors:

Anyone know what they are?

Anyone?  Anyone?

He loved jumping from level to level in the big straw pyramid.

This was after one such jump (he jumped more than his own height down to here...it looked really fun!)

Pastoral Pumpkin Pickin' with the Big Man.

Apples.

At the apple orchard.

My dark horse in the competition for my favorite photo of the day (none were particularly stellar, I thought).

I don't know why I like it....I just do! (ooh, name that tune!)

Well, I mean, I like it because he is around 20 feet in the air on a giant pile of straw, looking all sweet and small and cuddly and his hair is all soft and snuggly and...

Yeah.

So, anyway, it was a great day.

We brought a little picnic lunch and ate brisket sandwiches topped with quick pickled onions.  We washed it down with fresh cold apple cider (I love their cider because the contents are: juice from apples.  No crazy preservatives or flava enhancers here!)  We brought home three jugs of the cider, a boatload of apples, a few pumpkins (including a big flat one for Me!) and a small jug of Pear Cider. 

Leif has been asking for Pear Cider every hour since we arrived at home, but I'm keeping it for a special occasion. 

Like...Monday.

We had a wonderful time and we're already making plans to go back because we liked it so much.

Plus, we're running out of apple cider. ;)

Cheerio.

Autumn Days

Leif at Grandma Mil's backdoor.

He went over there (she lives next door, so he just crosses the backyard) to get some more pretzel sticks. She had given him some the other day (or maybe it was earlier today) and when the little bag was empty, he took the bag back over for a refill.

Lately, he seems to be going over to visit her every day. I think it may be because she feeds him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, along with a glass of orange juice...and of course, pretzels. (Her sandwiches are legendary around here...as my husband loves to remind me when he dutifully eating some ragtag sandwich I threw together). Anyway, Leif spends a good deal of time visiting with her and I just love it (although I'm not sure if she does!) because I like that he has this special time with his Great-Grandmother. I think that is pretty neat, and not something every kid gets, y'know?

When he's not eating over at Grandma Mil's, he's busy being Grandmom's shadow. He is literally like a little ramora stuck to her side, and I can't seem to remove him. I asked him the other day, as I was tucking him into bed, if he loved his Grandmom. His face softened, his eyes got a special little light in them, and he had a little loving smile (the one that melts Mommas' hearts around the world when they see it on their baby) and he said quietly, "Yes." It was a wonderful little moment and I nearly cried (emotional basketcase that I am, of late) - especially when he told me he loved me and then peacefully fell asleep.

Ha! I can hear him now hollering on the other side of the house and my story above seems rather made up. But I promise, it happend!

I have a confession to make: I've been feeling rather "meh" about Fall this year.

Yes, she of the crunchy leaf, apple-butter makin', delirious love for all things Autumn just ain't feelin' it this year.

Instead, I'm pining away for all things Winter: snow, sleds (although the last time I went sledding involved a cafeteria tray down the backhill of the campus while I was in college!), mincemeat, Advent, Plum Pudding, snuggy fires in the fireplace, bare-limbed trees against a cool grey sky. Oh, and don't forget, steamy mugs of homemade Hot Cocoa. And, ooh, some of Caryn's Standing Rib Roast with Yorkshire Pudding.

Apple Butter, Schmapple Butter.

Maybe it's this odd weather this year.

I move back up north, all happy and prepared for a chilly Autumn and....
I was sweating yesterday because of the heat.

That, dear blog readers, just ain't right.

So, maybe when the mercury drops to better (i.e., lower) numbers, I will be more enthused about Autumn.

Until then, I'm a bit Scrooge-ish on the whole thing.

Humbug.

Leif Turns 4

The cake arrives all lit up and ready for the candles to be blown out!

And out they go!

Licking the chocolate off the candles. It was chocolate chip cake (served with ice cream, of course) and after the candles were out, the kids literally dug into the cake to get the candles out and lick the chocolate off. :)

We didn't take many pictures of his birthday - it ain't easy takin' pictures at night in a room (literally) made of windows (flash bounce and all that).

Anyway, he had a great birthday (he told me it made him happy as I tucked him into bed at night) surrounded by cousins and family, and even was given a room of his own, with new choo-choo sheets on the big boy bed.

At night, he doesn't want a blankie over the sheets, because he wanted to see the trains on the sheets. :)

A few more pictures below!

It's His Party...

...and he'll pout if he wants to.

Actually, after the cake was served, he nearly fell asleep he was so tired, hence his look above :)

The above photo is my favorite taken that night!

At the kid table.
 Katie and I made hats (I cut the paper, she shaped and made them) out of Whole Foods bags.  Whole Foods had a 30 year birthday celebration for themselves, so they had "party hats" ready to cut out on their paper bags.  I saved up some over the course of the month so we'd have enough party hats for the kiddlies!  Leif loves silly hats at birthday parties.  Jason bought him a bunch of colorful balloons, too, so he was on Cloud 9!

Of course, it's nearly impossible to get a decent shot of anyone when you're taking pictures of 4 kids 4y.o. and under, so this was the best we got!