Are you my Mommy?

Are you my Mommy?
Are you my Mommy?

Monday, May 28, 2012

Gourmet Vege Friendly Picnic

This weekend has focused on family fun, which is a nice change of pace for us with all the projects we have had on the never ending list lately.  We had fun doing two things I listed on my last blog entry of free family Summer fun blog.  Friday night we enjoyed free Shakespeare in our local park and today we hit a local park with fountains for a Memorial Day family outing.  Given we are frugal and mostly vegetarian, we packed both meals.  Today was simple and standard lunch box items, but Friday was a little more gourmet.

The menu included Sushi, grilled Tempeh with  peanut sauce, Edamame, blackberries, and cookies.  Honestly, I made all this with what I had on hand and completed most during afternoon nap.  Normally, B loves to help me, but the preparation was more complex for the sushi.

Here is what I did and what I learned.

I thought I had only long grain brown rice and I fretted about getting it to stick together in the manner necessary for sushi.  Thus, I did the following.  I dumped one cup of long grain brown rice, 1/3 cup of amaranth (tiny grain that cooks up a little gooey), and 3 cups of rice in my slow cooker in the morning on high for 3 hours.  My prediction wast that the amaranth would give the long grain rice the necessary stickiness and guess what it not only worked but it added to the nutritional value. The grains were a little more done than I prefer, so I will shorten cooking time next time.  Slow cookers vary more than recipes admit, so you will just have to try it out and decide how long to cook.  My advice is to check it at 2 hours and continue cooking until desired tenderness.



Then, I warmed on the stove 1/3 cup of seasoned rice vinegar, 1 Tabelspoon sugar and 1/2 - 1 teaspoon of salt.  When all was nicely dissolved, I poured the mixture directly over the grains in the crock pot and tossed with a fork.  Let cool in fridge.

After this simply follow sushi making guidelines.  Honestly, I first learned a decade ago by reading a couple of books.  I will post a few tips here to help.

Get a bamboo rolling mat, I think it helps.
Place nori (roasted seaweed sheets) shiny side down on the mat
Dunk hands in bowl of cold water
Then, scoop up rice mixture and cover nori in thin layer (no more than 1/4 inch thick)*
Do not cover the last 3/4 inch of the side furthest from you.

Add matchstick or julienne type fillings about 2 inches in from side close to you, being carefully to have an even layer that is nice and lined up








Start rolling away from you using the mat.

When I get around once, I take time to use firm compression with palms of hands to make sure it all stays together.
I like to lightly moisten the uncovered nori end with water to help it seal.
Wrap and chill rolls in the fridge up to a few hours
When ready to serve, cut with a very sharp knife (I did this step right before we left and then rewrapped for the picnic.

Enjoy with soy sauce and wasabi.



*For fun you can substitute a shmear of cream cheese or smashed avacado...both are so yummy with crunchy vege fillings like julienne carrot or cucumber



Filling ingredients we love include carrot, bell pepper, cucumber, green onion, chives, sorrel (seriously good and nutritious, just lay the leaves on top of rice), Japanese style egg omlet with about 1/4 teaspoon of sugar per egg mixed in prior to cooking, Japanese pickled radish, radishes, jicama (awesome crunch, fresh spinach leaves.
 The big green leafy thing is the sorrel which has a pleasant lemony flavor...yum!

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Gardening with a Toddler in Tow

Actually you could describe my current lifestyle with filling in the first word with any verb (think Mad Libs...my salute to my childhood.

Today the verb I inserted was "Gardening."  Like anything with kids and a toddler in particular (given anticipated egocentrism and still developing language skills) normal activities are altered and slowed.  Before gardening, we must get dressed, agree to wear shoes, sometimes find shoes, put on sunscreen, fill water bottles, say bye-bye to inside toys, collect phone, gather a snack, change diaper, etc.  This occurs with a toddler vascillating between signing "outside" emphatically and trying to "help" with each task.

When we get outside, more challenges await.  My child loves to be outdoors and we try to get out every day for various activities.  Thus, he can self entertain, but still needs to return to me periodically for check-ins or to chat.  A few ideas for entertaining a toddler while you garden include side walk chalk, trucks and cars for the sidewalk, little kiddo version of tool shop for making and fixing, sandbox, balls, a dog, and some other new things.  In our backyard, all of the above (except chalk) are used and most were free (except the dog who is special needs).  I have learned a few new tricks that I wanted to share and due to my penchant/love/obsession with lists, you guessed it: Here is the list.
  1. Always wear "play clothes" or just leave pjs on (today we did the latter)
  2. We made coffee filter flowers for Mother's Day and thus found out water spray bottles are fun.  So an old spray bottle now stays in our backyard.
  3. Toddlers like to help "water" plants.  The result though is wasted water, wet and happy toddler, wet and not so happy mama.  After many of such situations, I learned a lesson. Turn hose sprayer to "mist" which decreases all of the above results...:)
  4. We have a "pocket size" backyard so all our veges are in flower beds around perimeter of yard.  Prepare to know that plants will be trampled.  Today, I enjoyed a lovely smell of basil while my baby basil plant cried under the sandal of said toddler.
  5. Kid sized garden tools are great fun, but be prepared for them to dig up your favorite plants. Thus, we like our old fashioned plastic turtle sandbox. It was used and free.  The cover prevents it from becoming a special place for neighborhood animals.
  6. We have a back alley, so watching things go by is great entertainment and in particular the garbage and recycling trucks.  This also is a great time to begin discussing both of these services.  My son at almost 2 when asked will take something to our recycle bin and knows where the compost bin is but it is too tall for him to participate.
  7. Remember toddlers love to mimic so be prepared that they will "help" you gather crop from your garden or pull weeds.  Just remember they do not have cognitive ability to differentiate a weed from a pretty flower.  Thus, I am teaching B to smell not pick flowers (great advice from my mom friend K).  Toddlers HAVE to HAVE a replacement action when asked to stop another action.  Thus, B smells flowers by rubbing his lips rather than nose back and forth across flowers.
  8. With enough activities, snack, water, and many gardening experiences, your toddler will happily enjoy a couple of hours or all morning in the garden with you.

The Compromise: Gardening with a kid has led to voluntary grass and bug ingestion, searching for worms and hanging on to said worm longer than it could endure, and sad basil (see above)

The Sweet Reward:  Your toddler learns to love the great outdoors, actually knows where food comes from, appreciates nature, and given indiscriminate ingestion of garden goods you have another reason to garden organically as we do. :)

Friday, May 18, 2012

Hot Fun in the Summertime

Ooooo, I actually do not like Summer as much as Spring, but I do love all the opportunities.  We live in St. Louis, MO and are immensely fortunate to have so many awesome, fun, free things to do year round.  In Summer, it multiplies tenfold.  If you have never visited the Gateway City or have not visited in Summertime, let me explain a few things.  St. Louis is hot and I  mean HOT and I mean oh so humid (we have three rivers that meet here) and lately we do not get a hard winter freeze, so it is buggy too.  St. Louisans though LOVE to be outdoors.  No matter how hot, you will smell grills a blazing on every block, kids hollering in the middle of ball games or sprinklers, dogs barking, parties getting started.  How do we do this despite terrible environmental factors? A simple strategy I will call "Ignore It."

Therefore, we have so many fun activities every Summer that I have a hard time getting them into our schedule.  First of all, we have so many city and county parks that I have yet to visit them all, but I am on my way.  Some even have fountains that actually encourage kids to jump in...awesome!!  Tomorrow we are going to our first Summer event and I am so excited because it is the first and it will make my son say "Go, Go, Go!!!" (this is his generalized name for all vehicles...he has specific names too) over and over. We are going to an event called Meet the Machines that occurs only once in the Summer.  Mr. B will get a chance to climb into large machines, dig for treasures, get a free and real hard hat, watch cranes, etc.  Amazing stuff and my almost 2 year old will be beside himself.  For a comparison, we went to the zoo with his best bud a few weeks ago and rode the train for the first time.  Now all conversations about the zoo or going anywhere involve trains, per Mr. B.  And, it is close to home and it is free!!!  Life is good.  
We've got our heat, our grills, our free activities, and smiling toddlers.  Yep, that's my version of happiness.

I know it has been said before, but it is worth saying again. Check out your communities free activities.  Thus far, our plans this Summer include picnic dinner with wine while watching free concert in the park, movies in the park (one in our very neighborhood and others all around town), evening concerts at Botanical Gardens with yet again a gourmet picnic dinner and pre-dinner play in the children's garden, all the parks with fountains, Science Center when we need to cool down, Children's time at the library, Hot Air Baloon Races, Festival of Nations, farmer's markets (ok they cost), local circus (costs a little too, but so much fun), mushroom hunting and blackberry picking (no special event just family fun and no I will not give away our hunting spot), the zoo, and the Wild Bird sanctuary.  Pretty amazing and yes we are blessed and yes it helps this mostly SAHM afford summertime entertainment.

The Compromise:  See above description of local weather, use of gas to transport, finding creative ways to pack vegetarian meals for a family so that we do not get bored.

The Sweet Reward: Free, frugal, fun in the fantastic outdoors...wow I hit the corny mark tonight.

Monday, May 7, 2012

CIO and other such excuses

Just had a reality shock when I opened up my own blog. Yep, it's been awhile.  I feel like I should say Hello Readers, my name is Tracy and I have only one day of blogging because I had a relapse...bad humor, I know.  Well, we better leave the sense of humor behind and move on to what I am hopefully better at...writing a blog entry.

We have been so busy.  We have two busy times of year and one is holiday time although the holidays are a small part and one is the end of Spring. This time of year includes getting the garden in, doing Spring Cleaning (ok not this year or last year or .....), my collective jobs need more of my time, and our hobbies such as hiking and mushrooming beckon us wildly...A little tangent here: mushrooms beckoned us with loud yelling this year, but we ignored, so beautiful, fresh, young chicken of the woods appeared along my park running trail....Thanks mother nature, I love you!  This year we added to the list of usual suspects for Spring with some extras including being part of a busy bag swap (I promise to blog about that later), sleep training, preparing to run in a real race (send positive thoughts out into the world for me), and extra house rehab.  We are silly like that or we should fire the master of our schedule. 

Today, though, I want to focus on sleep training.  As this is my current and largest compromise so as The Compromising Mother, I feel it is my duty to share.  I did NOT want to do Cry It Out (CIO). It did not feel natural to my parenting style and I had significant concerns about the emotional impact.  In my perspective, I would theorize that CIO works because kids cry and cry and cry and become overwhelmed and frustrated and then can not stop crying, so they fall asleep out of exhaustion and simply giving up.  This has meant a significant commitment on my part with a lot of time and energy.  I never minded either, I promise. I LOVE bedtime.  My son loves books and cuddles and mama, so it worked well....that is UNTIL he turned 22 months old. I do not know if his age had anything to do with it, but he was suddenly unable to be soothed to sleep by me.  I think, he had grown up and needed to figure it out on his own.  I tried every tool I knew and nothing worked, so CIO was my last resort. 

We started it on a night where I worked late since I still have a very emotional reaction to crying (unless it is tantrum crying).  My husband and I made an agreement that he would not tell me how long it took as we feared hours per stories from other parents.  Well, he broke his promise because it took under and hour, only 50 minutes.  The next night 35 with dada putting him down again while I worked. The third night, I put him down and it took about 25 minutes. The fourth night I again put him down and it took about 20 minutes.  We had one small setback on night 6 due to tornado sirens at dinner time, but by night 8 there was no crying at all and no talking and no pleas and cries for mama.  And from the beginning, naptime resulted in 5 minutes or less of crying.  Yep, my little Mr. B grew up.  He now looks like a little boy to me and not a toddler.  It worked and I think it did so quickly because we prepared him, we were firm, I was absent the first 2 times, and he is now so much more aware with an excellent memory (he calls for whoever put him down and if he wakes up in the middle of the night he calls for that same parent).  My kiddo is now getting as much sleep as he is supposed to get, doesn't cry, puts himself to sleep, does not wake up in the middle of the night anymore, and looks so cute when I lay him in his crib and he cuddles his buddies. 

One interesting note about our situation.  We live in a one bedroom house, not kidding.  When he was younger, I researched sleep training and was happy to see a special section for our situation.  That part of the book though basically said, "If you live in a one bedroom home, good luck!" That is paraphrased of course, but that is about the gist.  So, I do think that we had to wait until he was more aware and communicative. When he was younger, he knew that mom and dad were mere feet away, so we have always been part-time co-sleepers, which for us means the second half of the night Mr. B has taken the middle of the bed.  But, not now.

The Compromise:  interrupted sleep, frustration, and then finally using CIO, which I did not want to do.

The Sweet Reward: Mr. B is a big boy now....please send help immediately these transitions are harder on me than him...did I mention how much I cried each night?