Mini cakes

A few weeks ago I made pancakes for a weekend breakfast. Nothing fancy, but I came across this funny memory:

You may be thinking that these are for the baby, but NO. They’re for the spoiled husband.

Matching Game

I read too many blogs by talented stay-at-home-moms and homeschoolers. Too many great, colorful photos of kids painting, coloring, using glitter and glue, and learning and exploring in new and interesting ways. It gets me down. I never seem to have enough time or energy at the end of my work day to think up new things, or collect “ingredients”, or frankly, deal with paint all over the furniture or sidewalk.

Instead, we fall back on familiar bike rides to the park to throw rocks in the river, read books in bed, cook together, and do all kinds of fun, wonderful things that I hope will instill happy memories for my boy, and not just me as his mommy.

If I ignore blogs altogether, I think of myself as a good mother who adores her little boy, talks to him nonstop, works with him on sign language, and helps him explore all kinds of new foods (hence a toddler who loves potato masala, spicy pickled carrots at the taco stand, all the raw veggies at the salad bar, crushed coriander seeds, and sesame-crusted salmon).

But I’ll admit that it’s hard for me to think of age-appropriate learning activities. Even when I find ideas that use “items you have around the house”, I don’t usually have those things (I’d have to specially purchase milk in a carton, or cereal in a box, or glue sticks).

So when I hit upon this idea last week, it was perfect for us. I’m sure it was inspired by the blogs I read, but I don’t remember seeing it exactly. Zach and I went around the house finding small items that would fit into a muffin tin. Two of each thing. We put one into the tin and one into a small bowl. Then we asked the Boogedy to put the mates together. It was a hit for three games, then I moved everything to a new spot in the tin. He had such a hard time finding each thing after it was in a new location. He LOVED naming each item as we went: Bah-bee pin! Yeyow Dog! Guitah pick! Yittle spoon!!

I just ordered a book called “The Toddler Busy Book.” I checked it out once from the library and found it to be full of good info. Here’s hoping I’m inspired rather than overwhelmed.

Do you have this kind of mom-guilt, like you’re not doing enough? What do you do about it?

Indian Feast!

Last night we had our lovely friends Cindy and Xander over and I made (from scratch!) a spread of yummy Indian dishes.

Friends:

I used all nice bowls and glasses and even my serving dishes came out of the china hutch!

Napkin Rings:

Biryani:

The biryani recipe comes from my co-worker, who is from Hyderabad.

Naan and Coriander Chicken:

The meat dish features crushed coriander seeds as well as pureed fresh coriander leaves (cilantro), along with other spices and yogurt. I made fresh naan dough, but ended up shallow-frying in butter because I couldn’t bear heating the oven to 500 degrees on a hot July night. The texture was lovely! Both of these recipes come from the VahChef, Sanjay Thumma, my favorite  chef at YouTube. I’ve made so many of his recipes, and they are always delicious!

Potato Masala with Panch Phoron and Coconut:

This potato masala recipe was inspired by a recipe for garlic mashed potatoes, from Modern Spice by Monica Bhide. All her recipes sound good!

Condiments served alongside:

I also put out hot chili paste and yogurt. The tamarind dip is also from the VahChef.

Afterward, there was fragrant espresso brewed fresh by Cindy and Xander, various teas, and a small dish of fennel seeds. Featuring a new teaset that I got for my birthday last week:

Cindy brought yummy eclairs from the Beau Brummel bakery, which were gobbled up before I remembered to take a photo.

Cindy also opened a little present from me, a new mug that called my name and whispered “for Cindy!” in my ear.

The last shot of the evening was this pic of the Boogedy, pouring his own herbal tea and cream back and forth from pitcher to cup. This happened over and over! He drank 5 mini cups of Sleepytime Tea and still took 45 minutes to get to sleep after the excitement of visitors.

I’ve found that you can control the beautiful place setting all you want, but your kid will invariably smear potato masala all over his face and after you download your photos, you’ll realize he was wearing a dopey tie-dyed shirt and no pants.

Hoorary for friends who appreciate your cooking!

Foul Gluttony

I was inspired by this beautiful post at Bakerella to make some blueberry pancakes. I didn’t follow her recipe because I have my own whole-wheat, sugar-free pancake formula that my family loves. This is the blueberry-tastic pancake that Zach demanded:

It partially fell apart under its own weight during flipping, and never cooked all the way through. Zach ate it all anyway, claiming that the hot bursts of blueberry were his favorite part and that gooey pancake middles were fine too. I didn’t believe him.

A thick whole wheat pancake is pretty hearty, so I wouldn’t want to eat a pretty stack of them like Bakerella’s!

Day 850-Bike ride

Zach would like me to title this post: “Two and a quarter years after giving birth, Sara feels ready to hitch up the baby and ride”. Last Friday, I decided that I could take the burden from Zach, the Boogedy’s usual bicycle chauffer, and hitch the trailer to my bike frame to go for a 2-mile ride. It was easy. Piece of Cake. Of course, it was a fairly flat trail along the Jordan River. But now I’m sure I’ll be asked to do it more often.

I have carried the Boogedy in a maya wrap, a sling, dangling in a carseat, in my arms, in a backpack, on my hip, or on my shoulders for a large portion of his waking hours. I have done this even while pushing his stroller or a laden grocery cart because I have a snuggly boy who prefers to “HUGGY”.

Last week I gave my stripy red sling to a friend who just had her baby. As I was demonstrating it with the Boogedy, I was pleased to feel my toddler relax and curve against me again (we haven’t used the sling since last autumn). It was a bittersweet moment when I kissed my heavy baby’s big head, which used to tuck under my chin, and I realized that pretty soon, I won’t want to carry him anymore, and after that comes something worse: he won’t want me to carry him. Then I sighed and put him down, and helped my friend negotiate the wrapping and tucking of her 7.5-p0und treasure, whose head will someday bump against her cheek.

Squid in a Jar

Last night my school held its annual science fair and I donated this RARE saltwater specimen as a prize. Little did you know that the Great Salt Lake, once famous only for its bouyancy and clouds of brine flies, is now the habitat of several species of cephalopods!

Can it really have been a full year since the last science fair, when I made a tiny octopus specimen in a jar?

Radish Treat

Look what my friend and co-worker Cindy brought me: A gorgeous new radish from her garden! She brought it wrapped up in a damp paper towel in a little baggy. It was perfectly fresh and delicious and Spicy! Nice treat for me on a day when I had to work late.

Jordan River Ride

I am working on a new challenge where Zach will give me a smiley face sticker if I ride at least 6 miles in a day. After 20 smileys, he’ll take me out to eat! So, on Saturday I got up before the boys (at 8:30) and got on my bike to go for a ride by myself. Under normal circumstances, I would have waited for him, but his ankle is twisted and I knew he wouldn’t be up for towing the Boogedy in a trailer.

I rode good and hard on the outward 3.5 mile leg of the journey. When I reached my destination and found this gorgeous yellow tree, I decided to photograph the pretty stuff all the way home.

There was a pink tree:

And this nifty rusty bridge that made the best clunkety noise when I rode across.

Here I am stopped on the bridge:

I think this might be a beaver dam:

Here are at least three varieties of grasses, all contraindicated for inhalation up my dog’s nose:

I want you to know that I faced my fears and stepped out upon this grate-topped walkway over the river for blog’s sake.  I am showing you my dorky riding pants and socks because I have no shame.

The view from there was grand and it was LOUD.

Another pink tree:

Some Russian olive trees and thistle with some blue wildflowers. Those Russian olives are the bane of my mom’s existence.

A spot of deep shade, at least 5 degrees cooler in here.

I went home and ate sauteed tilapia and green salad and a strawberry kefir smoothie. I lovely start to the day. You can believe that I took a long nap that afternoon.

Tales of a Bad (Overconfident) Daughter

A tale of woe. A tale of overconfidence. A tale of yet again saying “how hard can it be?” only to find out that I should have read up on it a little more.

So. I saw this beautiful tutorial over at Kleas. Felted beads…so easy that the preschoolers were able to do them. I thought, this is great, these are gorgeous, I will make these for my mom, who always wears interesting necklaces to coordinate with her outfits.

Such is my confidence in my fiber-wrangling abilities, that I waited until Mother’s Day morning before starting this project. My friend Kristin came over to help (I also consider her a specialist in wool control). She made the puffs.

I wetted and rolled a puff with a tad of soap. Ok, maybe too much soap. I labored alone in the kitchen, whining and wheedling that this was taking longer than I thought it would, and that the snakes weren’t felting properly. And that jeez, this is not working! Kristin felt certain that I was doing it wrong, so she came to the rescue:

She had no more luck than I did. Our snakes never did get firm enough; one felt hollow in the middle and the other had a permanent slit up the side.

When we cut the beads up, they were not as pretty as I had hoped. Worse, they started falling apart almost immediately. I am not as talented as the preschoolers at that other blog!!

I ended up giving my mom a baggie full of vaguely bead-looking fuzz stuff. Happy Mother’s Day from your not-so-talented daughter.

Zach kept teasing me that I should have glued them and some gold-painted macaroni to a piece of construction paper and told her the Boogedy made it for her.

My mother, bless her heart, oohed and aahed and tried to think of ways to salvage them and still use them.

A good mom praises a good effort.

Pescado en Papillote

Our neighbor gave us two freshly caught fish last night (already gutted and scaled). She called them “carpas” in Spanish, pointed generally south, and indicated they’d gone fishing that day in Provo. The big one probably was a carp, but the little one was a catfish. We invited family over to help cook and eat them.

I recommended filleting them and frying or sauteing. Working with the cold dead things with their still-bulging eyes gave me a bit of the oogies, so the eventual plan to make them “en papillote”–paper wrapped, was an easy, tidy solution. We seasoned them with olive oil, salt, and pepper; wrapped them in newspaper with lemon slices and crushed garlic cloves; tied them up with cotton quilting scraps; soaked the paper; and grilled them over our firepit.

We also threw some potatoes into the coals.

I made my new favorite lemon cake, but failed to adjust cooking time for a round cake pan vs. a loaf pan, so ended up with a dark brown rind. In the end, everything was a bit charred, and rather bland.

The Boogedy was just happy to see his Aunties and Uncle.