yay & yum

photo by DavidDennis

yay: The Senate (finally) passed a bill to ban toxins in our kids' toys. It will make the US have the strictest policy on lead in toys and also bans phthalates, which cause early puberty, birth defects and are linked to higher rates of cancer. Also, W said he'll sign the bill. At least he's going to do something right! (Couldn't resist)


photo stolen from marthastewart.com
yum: I made these cookies this week, which were so delicious. I used nutella in the middle instead of chocolate. This was even better, I think.

someone take these away

John & I are really trying to complete our first cosmetic home project. We're stripping the wallpaper in our bedroom. But things keep getting in our way. Like, the fact that we only have a short time to work on it after Ruby falls asleep at night, we've cleaned up dinner, and before we pass out. A couple nights ago, we were ready to work, and then, we had this beautiful summer night calling us outside. How many of these do we get, right?

We have these friends that have a baby Ruby's age and somehow we've gotten into a symbiotic relationship with them. It's wonderful. We trade baby-siting occasionally, we share our CSA with them, they brew beer and give us some each time, we share our baked treats. It's a win-win. But we hit the jackpot a few days ago. We got a bunch of homemade caramel. This really shouldn't even have the same name as the rock-hard stuff you buy in the grocery store. This is creamy and light and you don't feel like you're going to have to visit the dentist when you eat it. And then I figured out how to make it even better:



Yes, that's right. Its sandwiched between some dark chocolate. Really, how were we supposed to scrape wallpaper when we could be in the hammock eating this? How?

On a completely unrelated note, I discovered a new blog: Simple Mom. I found it here. From what I can tell so far, I love it. Its beautiful and I wish I knew about it before. But you should visit it soon because Simple Mom is giving away The Creative Family that I wrote about awhile ago. Visit here to enter by Aug. 1st.

harvest moon

Last night, after Ruby was asleep, John and I went out to our little garden to gather some food. These are the carrots we harvested: about half of what is ready. I love the way carrots look right after they've been picked - bright green, sturdy tops, lots of little hairs all over them, peeking out through the soil stuck to them.

The Austrian Crescent potatoes were beautiful, though not so much in the pictures we took. I was planning to mash them with the carrots for dinner tonight, but I decided I couldn't because their shapes were too interesting. It would really be a shame to mash them.

More than anything, though, I love the time out in the garden, working side-by-side with John, even if only for a moment, getting our hands dirty. I love our conversation about the food, especially the surprising shapes. "I've never seen legs on a carrot like that." "This potato looks like a pear." "This one like a crookneck squash."

I want...

peach & prosecco....oh that looks so delicious, doesn't it? lourdes??
the image is from epicurious

Here's a guest post from my dad who recently went back to Florida:

I had a great time enjoying our dear little Ruby and her parents. Ruby is so full of personality and a delight to be with and around. She is so happy and incredibly bright with all her ASL [American Sign Language] hand signals to communicate.
I attribute Ruby's happiness and brightness to the support, attention and, mostly, love that Megan and John provide her. She is a lucky girl and I am a lucky parent, in-law and grandfather. It was hard for me to leave:-(.

more treats

Here are the treats I made for John on Father's Day. Here's the recipe and where I stole the photo. They were really yummy. We shared them with friends and froze half of them. They were really good warm with ice cream. I think next time I make them I would melt the caramel & drizzle it on top, its a bit chewy for me and I have some paranoia about losing my teeth in a bite of it.

This weekend we met B & E in Portland and visited Saint Cupcake. Oh, so yummy.

Eddie cuddling with Ruby as she tries to sneak cupcake. But she was content with her oatios & blueberries. phew.

John took both of these pictures. We're in front of a wall that tells the story of Saint Cupcake. Maybe I can grow up to be like Saint Cupcake someday. hmmm...

5 years

John came home early Saturday morning from Kentucky. He was delayed (again), but still made it home in time for our 5th anniversary. I made these cookies:

which filled John's request of something with chocolate, something gooey, and something decadent.
We also got to go out on a date! By ourselves! A friend came over to stay with Ruby after we put her to bed for the night & John & I rode our bikes to a new Italian restaurant downtown and then walked down to the river after we ate.
It wasn't a trip to Paris, like we dreamed of for our 5th anniversary, but it was a pretty good night, all the same.

(photo stolen from marthastewart.com)

summery

Yesterday we were heading out of town to visit friends and John dropped me off to shop by myself. I spent an hour or so wandering around the antique shops and found a few great things that I'll show off another time - a vintage suitcase for Ruby to store dress-up clothes someday, some gifts for family and some cute little drinking glasses. John & Ruby picked up this massive load of strawberries from our friends whose garden is over-producing, apparently.

I think we'll make strawberry sorbet.
You Floridians will appreciate this: I also heard several times yesterday, people complaining about how muggy it was. ha! It was in the high 70s, rained a bit off an on, was overcast & the humidity was probably 60% or so. Muggy!
Last night was our second Meet Your Maker show. We had lots of big people show up - someone from the Eugene Weekly, the owner of Deluxe - a great shop in Eugene, and a director from a design festival in San Francisco. I sat between Amy & Claire, two talented and beautiful people, and talked of motherhood. It was a good night.

bebe organic

picture by Pikaluk
John recently emailed me this article about a scientifically sound study done on babies whose mama's ate/drank organic dairy while pregnant & nursing. Amazing stuff.

food, again

I did not take this picture - its from flickr. I don't seem to be able to take appetizing food pictures.

I recognize that I have A LOT more time in my life than I used to when teaching for living the way I'd like to. I know that most people do not have as much time at home as I do. BUT, we all do make choices about how we spend some of our time. I would love to be able to spend quite a bit more time making dinner if I chose to, but usually around dinner time, there is someone in the house (I won't name names) who absolutely has to be held or will scream and make everyone miserable if she or he is simply surrounded by a bunch of toys. Preparing dinner usually has to take 30 minutes or less now. But we try really hard not to sacrifice the quality of our food just to get it on the table quickly. We don't buy packaged/processed foods anymore to speak of. No veggie burgers, etc. We can't afford to do that. We make our food from scratch and try to make it as simple as possible. We eat a lot of beans & rice w/ whatever veggies we have thrown in, or pastas, a bit of fish thrown in the oven. I think because we buy such yummy (as local as we can, organic, fresh) produce, this simple dinner procedure still ends up being fairly good most nights, without a lot of time. Here is an article that reminded me that this choice of time we have preparing food is a choice. We have the luxury of taking 30 minutes or less to make our food nowadays, which was not the case just a couple of generations ago.

the makers were met

The show was a great success! I had so much fun and it was amazing to meet so many talented people. We had lots of shoppers & the venue worked out well. Most of the crafters said they would love to do this again if we would have them. I didn't sell as much as I hoped, but most vendors did really well. I had to restrain myself from buying too much, but I did manage to get a couple things for Ruby from another Megan. Ruby is asleep for the night, so I'll have her model for me tomorrow. I got this tote bag that Amy made to sell at the shows.


Amy is my Meet Your Maker partner and celebrated her birthday yesterday too. I brought her a little treat. Rhubarb coffee cake, the recipe for it on these cards, & this little tea towel.


In other exciting news, Ruby took her first step yesterday! John & I were both there to see it. She crumpled as soon as she did it & hasn't tried again since, but it was pretty exciting. We went to her friend's 1st birthday party & I think Ruby was feeling like she wasn't getting enough attention - you know, the birthday girl was the star, and there were other babies, so Ruby had to show off a bit with her little step.

books & brownies

The cookies are already gone. We did share a couple with the neighbors & John did only make a half-batch, in our defense. So last night for snack, we raided the freezer. We found some chocolate-chip cream cheese brownies. John jumped up and down when he saw them. We tried to take pictures, but you probably wouldn't want to eat them if you saw the pictures, so you have to trust us, they are delicious. I can't even give you a recipe because I combined a couple different recipes and then adapted that. So, you just have to imagine, I guess. Sorry. You'll just have to come over to have some. All I know is I have a serious sugar problem. I need to do something about that.

I've been listening a bit to the Creative Mom Podcast recently. I've only listened to it a couple times, but I liked what I heard. Anyway, I entered a little contest on the website and won a book!

Ruby's talking!

This weekend as I was heading out to the grocery store - by myself! I never would have thought that would have been so fun. Maybe I need another hobby or something, it sounds like I have no life. Anyway, I was waving and saying bye-bye to Ruby as she waved back and then she said bye! A couple days later, John picked up a banana to give her and he was saying, "banana, banana" & Ruby said, "bababa". I know, it's not baNaNa, but she had the right inflection and everything. And wasn't just going babababababa, like she sometimes does. Yesterday we were looking at a photo of a cat. I was saying, "Cat, meow." Ruby said, "eeoh, eeoh" very high-pitched, like how I was saying meow. Today she said "oof" when she pointed to a picture of a dog.

She and I went to the library today for a puppet show. While we were waiting for it to start, she was walking (still holding on to me) and then starting pulling books off the shelf. All of a sudden she found The Backward Day, remember that book? She did too (we returned it to the library). She was sooooo excited. She looked at me in disbelief, then opened it up to find the funny little boy and did a little dance. Oh, I was so proud.

As I was writing all this, John came up to me and asked what we were going to have for our evening snack with tea. I shrugged. Then, (man, I scored in the husband department) he said, "Can we make some quick cookies?" Um, ok. THEN, he found my favorite cookies (snicker doodles) to make. I love this man.

cuteness I can eat

holy moly how cute is this ice cream cone cake pan?
found via notmartha.com

Update: Ok, I've had some time to think a little more clearly about this. It's still super cute - and here's a link. But how do you cut into this thing? I'm sure I'd find a way. Also, how do you decorate it? I don't really think my ice cream cone cakes would turn out looking nearly as good as this picture.

Alpacas & apples

John took me to Gathering Together Farm for brunch on Sunday for Mother's Day. It is the best food ever. Unless you're in Italy, maybe. We went there for my birthday too. This time we got to sit out on the patio - it was a gorgeous day. We ordered our food, then as the chef prepared it, we visited the buffet of unbelievable pastries & treats they have all made there that morning...chocolate covered donuts, rhubarb coffee cake, fruit salad with granola and yogurt, goat cheese on sourdough....
It is really hard not to fill up on all that. But I tried not to, because I knew my crepes were coming. John ordered this, which was really good too.


It was perfect - my little family, wonderful, fresh food, and sun.

After we finished our lunch, we headed across the street to visit the alpaca farm.

Ruby acted like she sees these guys all the time.

On Saturday, John & Ruby went to the farmer's market & brought home this little apple tree. Its a semi-dwarf liberty. Yum.

I know you didn't really look at the tree in that last picture, you were looking at Ruby. Who can resist? So, here's a close-up of the blossoms.

Food gifts

I like to receive gifts of food for special occasions. Megan makes me wonderful birthday treats every year. They are totally part of any gifts she might make/buy for me. I had some leftover birthday money (thanks mom and dad) so I bought a pig. Not a real pig mind you, but a party pig filled with beer. Not just any beer, oh no, but made in Corvallis (15 min.), not available in bottles, and the smell and taste of it equates with freshness. Mmmmmmmm. So good. The 2.5 gals should last a while. What a treat!

Megan has been baking again. In our quest to save money and, at the same time increase our standard of living, Megan makes new treats for us weekly. Sometimes savory, sometimes sweet, this time Lemon Poppy Seed Cake from Once Upon a Tart.