Pretty Awesome Turkey Meatloaf

This was originally a Williams-Sonoma recipe that's been tweaked several times. Its yummy.

1 tbls butter
1/2 tbls olive oil
1 small onion, diced fine
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 stalk celery, diced fine
10 fresh sage leaves, chopped
1 egg
1 tbls tomato paste
1 tbls Worcestershire sauce
3/4 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp ground white pepper
1 lb ground turkey
Ketchup

In a small frying pan, heat butter and olive oil. Saute onion and celery until soft, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and sage and saute 1 minute more. Remove from heat. In a small bowl, whisk together egg, tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper. Mix everything together with the ground turkey until well combined. Pat into a loaf pan that's been sprayed with non-stick spray. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour. Remove from oven an top with a slathering of ketchup. Return to oven for 5 minutes or until the sugar in the ketchup has begun to carmelize. Cool slightly, slice and serve. I served it with potatoes, beets and carrots that I roasted with rosemary and olive oil in another pan alongside the meatloaf and a mixed green salad.

Christmas Slideshow

Click here to watch a slide show of the Christmas festivities at our house

Little Lefse Lover

Christmas

Motherhood stole my brain, my blog and my body...but, I'm not complaining...

It was nearly a year ago since I was laid off from my job and reassigned to the home office. Being a full-time stay-at-home-mom or SAHM (I've assimilated to the lingo) was not in my plan. I was career focused. I loved my job. I loved my baby and my husband, too, but I wasn't prepared to have my entire life revolve around them. I thought that being at home all the time would result in the loss of my identity, feeling of purpose in the world and a loss of why hygiene and grooming are important. Indeed, all of these things have happened. I was prepared to be Superwoman. I was prepared to be a career woman as well as a wife and a mother. I wasn't ready for the loneliness, isolation and total loss of social skills that has come with being alone with a small child most of the time. In a small crisis of self-esteem and worth, I have found myself asking, "is being just a mom and wife enough for me? Even if I'm really good at it?"

So, why not finish a Master's degree, have and raise two children and start my own business all at once? What else am I going to do with my 30's anyway?

Happy Solstice!

To celebrate the Winter Solstice, we had a lovely little candelit dinner at home. I made a spicy squash soup that had garam masala and red chili pepper in it. Yum. Warmed us right up. We also had a lovely organic roast chicken with couscous and green beans. And, then, cake! Solstice cake! Chocolate on the outside to represent the dark days of midwinter and yellow cake on the inside to represent the sun and the return to light. Only six more months until summer... >sigh<

Long-haired Hippie Baby Forced to Cut Hairs

It had gotten a little unruly, but it was cute. We liked his funky hippie baby look and didn't really want to get it cut. However, long hair on a little boy poses a problem. Every time it tickled his face, he'd ball up his little fists and rub...regardless of whether they were filled with banana, soup, yogurt, milk, spagetti...

What's Cookin'?

We invited our friends over this past weekend for a holiday "cookie summit." We asked everyone to bring one batch of holiday cookies to exchange so everyone could leave with an assortment. Some made their cookies in advance, some brought dough and baked them here and some brought the raw ingredients and started from scratch. The oven was rocking all day. It was also Nathan's birthday so everyone was able to hang out all day, toast his 43 years and have a nice big bowl of chili and some Gosser Dark (a favorite of ours) from the kegerator. Good times. The result at the end of the day? Cookies! Cookies for all! Here's a list of the types of cookies made, consumed and frozen for later: almond spritz, snickerdoodles, Russian tea cakes, triple chocolate espresso, chocolate waffle cookies, chocolate mocha, sandbakkelse, Kris Kringles, bird's nests, peanut butter balls, brandy balls, gluten-free almond, frosted sugar cookies, caramel layer cookies and Ann's rhubarb cookies! I have many left over, so stop over if you need a sugar fix :)

In other food news, this week is our last regular season delivery from our farmer. We are down to the root and storage vegetables and will get more of those in our two extended season deliveries in January. Then we are on our own for veggies until May, which seems so far away. So! What to make? How about chicken and brown rice stew with assorted root veg? This is excellent. The sweet potatoes, carrots, parsnips and rutabaga are all mildly sweet making for a nice contrast to the heartiness of the chicken thighs and brown rice. I seasoned with thyme and a bay leaf and, my, its tasty! Warming soul food for below zero nights.

What Henry's Been Up To...

It's been a tough week for Henry. We discovered that he has a peanut allergy, he has a mild rash on his neck, he had four shots including the swine flu vaccine and he cut his first molar. Despite all the trials of being one, he continues to be a smiling, happy dude and is learning to walk. Here's a little montage of some of his daily activities.

Goofball

Walker

Three Steps

Walking is a big, big milestone for a little guy. Most of the kids in Henry's Thursday morning class are already walking and he's been studying them for a few weeks. It's been a couple of months since he started standing and cruising along the furniture, so we've been waiting patiently for him to gain the confidence to take off on his own. I'm very proud to say that after his class this morning he took three whole steps all by himself on his way over to me in the kitchen. Way to go kiddo!

The Stats at One Year

Henry is growing, growing, growing! He is tall and skinny and on track to be 6' 1" when he's an adult. He was scheduled for a lot of shots this time around and we opted to give him half now and have the other half in December to minimize the risk of any ill effects from the vaccines.

Height = 31 1/2 inches = 92nd percentile
Weight = 22 lbs 7 ounces = 50th percentile
Noggin = 19 inches = 92nd percentile
Teeth = 8

He's moved up to the "big boy" car seat and is now the proud owner of his very own potty chair, which he views and just another toy at this point. He's done with baby food and is making the move from formula to whole cow's milk. Bottles are out and sippy cups are in. Cheddar bunnies/goldfish crackers are, quite possibly, the best thing ever. The kid's current favorite activity is couch traversing. He climbs up on the couch all by himself and crawls/climbs from end to end, harassing the cats, looking out the window and "lounging" like daddy. In fact, he mimics most everything that Nathan does. It's cute. For now.

Henry's 1st Birthday

11 Months Old already!

My boys :)

Hank is always helping me in the kitchen

Rug Rat

Henry's birthmark is starting to fade. Good news! We will have another visit with the pediatric dermatologist after his 1st birthday.

One week in a CSA Farmshare – How do you use all those veggies?!

I thought I’d give you a glimpse into just one week in my kitchen as I diligently try to use all of the veggies from our Harmony Valley CSA share. Here’s the deal, it’s a lot of food. In addition to everything we recieved this week, we also had a few things left over from last week including edamame, potatoes, a couple ears of sweet corn and some orange peppers. Now, what to do with it all?!

In this week’s box:

Italian red garlic

Gunnison Yellow onions

Red Wing onions

Peppers: Orange Ukraine, Red bell, Señorita Sweet

Pimentos & jalapeños

Heirloom Tomatoes

Black Cherry tomatoes

Raspberries

Edamame

Broccoli

Satina Gold Flesh Potatoes

Yukina Savoy

Salad mix

Green Top celeriac

Green Savoy Cabbage

French Breakfast radish

Thursday

The box arrives. I hurriedly take our share and wash, wrap and store everything so that it has the best shot as staying good through the week and stash it in the fridge. We’re hungry and its already getting late so I decide to make a stir-fry with a block of tofu I had on hand. Into the stir-fry goes the sweet peppers from last week, some broccoli, half our green savoy cabbage, a red onion, several cloves of garlic, the tofu, some ginger, hoisin sauce and rice wine. Served over leftover basmati rice with an appetizer of steamed edamame, its not half bad. The baby gets steamed carrots from last week’s box as well as some edamame and tofu.

Friday

Lunch is a huge salad composed of the bounty including greens, cherry tomatoes, shelled edamame, radishes, leftover sweet corn cut from the cob as well as leftover boiled baby red potatoes tossed with kalamata olives and vinagrette. Henry also enjoys potatoes, corn and carrots. He likes veggies!

Saturday

Those raspberries won’t last long and are so fat and juicy, I decide to make raspberry scones for breakfast. I use a recipe from The Joy of Baking that uses plain yogurt in the dough and top them with a bit more of the yogurt sweetened with a little honey. YUM.

While Henry’s napping this afternoon, I go to work on the celeriac. I had celeriac soup last fall at a favorite local restaurant and loved it, so I have been wanting to try my hand at it. I talked Amy and Sarah into letting me have their share of this somewhat odd veggie in exchange for the completed soup. I sauté a small Gunnison yellow onion, the last of the carrots from last week and a leek in some butter and olive oil. I then dice and add one of the small Satina potatoes and all of the celeriac. I cover it all with 4 cups of chicken stock and let it simmer away while I fry 4 slices of bacon to a crisp. I then slice up some of the Italian garlic and fry that in the remaining bacon fat until crispy and sweet. When the celeriac id tender, I puree the soup and add a half cup of cream as well as salt and pepper to suit my taste. Topped with shards of crispy bacon and garlic, its better than I expect! It turns out smooth and creamy, pale yellow in color and tastes earthy and rich. The celeriac’s flavor is more subtle than regular celery and is complimented very well by the leek.

Here’s what I did in recipe format:

1 tablespoon salted sweet cream butter

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 small yellow onion, diced

1 large carrot, diced

1 leek, roughly chopped

1 small yellow potato, diced

2 celeriac roots, diced

4 cups low-sodium chicken stock

½ cup half and half

Kosher salt and white pepper, to taste

4 slices bacon, fried crisp and crumbled

3 large cloves garlic, sliced thin and fried crisp in bacon fat

Sauté onion, carrot and leek in butter and olive oil until soft

Add potato and celeriac and sauté a minute more

Add chicken stock and bring to a boil

Reduce heat and simmer until celeriac is tender

Remove from heat and puree with hand blender or in regular blender

Add cream and mix well

Top each bowl with some bacon and garlic

Sunday

I love a good BLT and the heirloom tomato and salad greens are screaming BLT at me. The addition of thick cut bacon and organic whole-wheat toast make this one of the best I’ve ever had. A bowl of celeriac soup to go with it and it tastes like an excellent lunch to me!

Organic hotdish?

It seems criminal to use good quality organic ingredients for a casserole-type meal, but for dinner I wanted comfort food and by comfort food I mean hotdish. No recipe is required for hotdish as it can be anything thrown together in a casserole dish. I use the standard Lutheran hotdish template #3. Not familiar with the rules? Well, first there’s tomato-based hotdish, then tomato soup based hotdish (a subtle, but important distinction) and finally cream soup based hotdish. I go with the latter. I start by browning a pound of ground beef. In this case, it is locally raised (Stillwater, MN) grass-fed beef. Then, I dice and add an onion from the CSA box. Next went in all of the leftover veggies in the fridge – some sweet corn, some beans and some frozen organic peas. Cream of mushroom soup (low sodium) is the glue the binds the whole thing together as per template #3 (see above). This all gets layered in a casserole dish with slices of the Satina gold flesh potatoes from the CSA and then baked for an hour at the standard 350 degrees. When it is bubbling up a storm and the taters are tender, I top it off with some grated cheese and pop it up under the broiler to melt and form a golden crust. It was passable for a meal and since Jr. is moving right along towards eating mostly real food (and I used very little salt in the preparation), he gets to have his first hotdish. He loves it. He makes little baby mmm, mmmm, mmmm sounds as he shoves fistfuls of it in his mouth. Go figure.

Monday

Leftovers, leftovers, leftovers. So. Many. Leftovers. Breakfast, lunch and dinner = leftovers. It’s not so bad when the leftovers include celeriac soup and BLTs. It would be a sin to waste slices of heirloom tomato. Or bacon, for that matter :)

Tuesday

So, I went to the farmer’s market in Falcon Heights this morning. Am I insane?! What am I thinking adding more produce to this house?! Well, two things actually. One, you can get really good deals on herbs this time of year and two, it is the first day of fall and to me that means one thing: APPLES. I love the taste of home grown MN apples and this article in this morning’s Star Tribune proclaiming that our wacky summer weather was great for the apples spurred me on. I’ve been dreaming about apple pie, crisp, etc. for awhile now. But, I have a rule about the farmer’s market. I never go with more than $20 in my pocket. If I spend more than that, I most certainly will not use whatever it is that I bought. Unless I’m getting meat and the meat folks take plastic J I spent $16 today and I got a giant bunch of fresh mint (mojito, anyone?), a giant bunch of fresh basil, two kinds of apples (Honeycrisp and Wealthy) and some fresh feta cheese from Eichten’s in Center City, MN.

Hank loves the farmer's market! Here he is inspecting the giant bunch of mint we scored for $1

For dinner tonight, I made a pasta salad with orzo, which is little rice-shaped pasta. From the CSA box I used the bell and pimento peppers and a red onion. I also added the feta and some basil and mint from this morning’s excursion. I have some kalamata olives left over from a trip to the Holy Land deli last week, and I pull it all together with some red wine vinaigrette. I serve the orzo salad with broiled chicken breasts and Nathan and I open a bottle of Conundrum, a favorite wine of ours. It is a white table wine from California that is a bit pricey per bottle but really, really yummy and perfect with this meal.

As for Henry, he dines tonight on plain orzo with a bit of olive oil, some chicken, the remainder of the CSA broccoli, lightly steamed and a Honeycrisp apple that I diced and cooked for him. Lucky baby!!

Wednesday

It’s Wednesday morning already? I hurriedly ate the little cantaloupe from last week that’s still good for breakfast. We also have an abundance of leftovers including enough orzo salad for our whole block, so that makes for a no-brainer lunch. Now, what to make for dinner? I spy two bunches of radishes with their greens in the crisper and begin to ponder the possibilities. I’ve been eating radishes my entire life, but I’ve only ever eaten them raw with a touch of salt or in salads. How would one even cook them? I search the web and the consensus seems to be to roast them. I heat up my cast-iron skilled to blazing and add some olive oil, the washed, trimmed and quartered radishes and some salt and pepper. After a couple of minutes I put the pan in the oven next to the pork I’m roasting for dinner. 15 minutes later I take the pan back out, put it back over the burner, add a pat of butter and the radish greens, which wilt in no time. I finish it off with a splash of white wine vinegar. They are really good. They lose some of their bite and sweeten up a bit after being roasted which is true of most veggies!

For dessert, I dig into the apples from the farmer’s market and make an apple crisp. I use the recipe for “Farmstead Apple Crisp” from the “All-American Dessert Book,” with two additions. I like a bit of salt and vanilla in my crisp this recipe doesn’t call for either! It turns out perfectly and is delightful with a dollop of vanilla ice cream and the last glass of the Conundrum.

Thursday

Okay, what’s left in the fridge? I start digging and sadly, a few things have gotten away from me. The watermelon from a couple of weeks ago has begun to ferment. I have to toss the rest of the salad greens, too, as they’ve turned to mush and the ¼ head of cabbage is starting to look brown and funky, so it goes too. Still good is three jalapeno peppers, a bag of edamame and the Yukina Savoy – hmmmm, I don’t know quite what to do with that assortment… and another box arrives from Harmony Valley this afternoon!

Taking part in a CSA farmshare has has been a joy for me (this is my third time). It is hard to be consistently creative and forward thinking about using or preserving for later use all of those veggies every week for thirty weeks. Truthfully, some weeks are better than others and this week was a particularly good week. I feel massively guilty every time something goes bad on my watch and has to be pitched, but each week is a chance to start over. I am very thankful for our farmers and the hard work they do to keep us fed all summer. Farming can be both heartbreaking and rewarding, not to mention backbreaking, and I'm glad to reap the rewards of all of that work.

Rockin' the Playground

1st Day of School

Henry and I started school today. It's an Early Childhood & Family Education (ECFE) class that is from 9:30 to 11am every Thursday for a whole semester. I was thrilled to learn that the elementary school smells just like mine did with some sort of tomato-based smelling sauce wafting from the cafeteria. I can only hope it was macaroni hotdish, but probably not. There is another Henry in the class, so we're going with the name Hank for the time being. Hank is very outgoing and social already. As soon as I set him down, he was half-way across the room banging shakers together with two other babies. He couldn't have cared less if I was still there or not, so separation anxiety is clearly not an issue. He zig-zagged cheerfully around the room checking everything and everyone out. He is definitely tall for his age and is already buddies with the other Henry and his twin, Peter, who just turned one and are about the same size as our boy. Hank did not like it when he had to sit still on my lap for some activities. He wanted to go, go, go!!! The kid has an independent streak and is gearing up to be a climber. No doubt he'll be walking before his 1st birthday :D

Boogie Baby

Henry's First Suns!

Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) Trip

My life-long friends Amy, Angie and I traveled into he Boundary Waters last week. We traveled approximately 20 miles in 3 days, traversing three rivers, two lakes and portaging 13 times. It was a new moon so it was incredibly dark at night. We all had spectacularly vivid and weird dreams. We saw a family of muskrat, loons, bald eagles, hawks, ravens, a river otter, the biggest garter snake in the forest, a river otter or maybe a mink (do they swim?), ducks, lots of red squirrels and one rather aggressive chipmunk. Sadly we did not see any bears, wolves or moose but I did hear something large and hoofed cruise through camp the second night and we saw wolf scat on one of our portages. We grazed on blueberries on our long portage on Sunday, which make the hike totally worth it. The last leg out on the Snake river was a bit trying and the map was inaccurate which did not help. We had one minor detour off into a bog before our group common sense and the compass turned us around and got us back on track. Overall, a nice experience in a beautiful place! Click on the photos to see bigger versions of them.

Starting Point on the Little Isabella River
The first portage

Enjoying the evening on Quadga Lake

Morning on Quadga Lake

Portaging on the Isabella River

Sunrise on the Isabella River

Portaging again

Camp on Bald Eagle Lake

Hammock Time

Drinking wine

Hanging the food pack using the "bear confounder" method

Making dinner...mmmm, stroganoff

Taking it easy

The last portage!

Dude, he's, like, standing already...

Summertime and the livin' is busy!

Nathan pointed out to me this morning that I haven't updated the blog in almost a month. We've been busy!!! Now that Henry is mobile, there is less time for me to leisurely sit about with the computer and we've been outside, enjoying the summertime while we can. In fact, with the sudden heat wave this week, we are investing in a kiddie pool today. I suspect that when Henry is not in it, I will be, perhaps with a gin & tonic... Hmmm.... So, here are the highlights from the last month!

Henry had is 9 month check up and got a thumbs up from his pediatrician. He is right on track developmentally and changing in leaps and bounds. They say that babies experience a leap forward in cognitive abilities around 9 months and we are certainly seeing that to be true. In addition to crawling, he pulled himself up to stand for the first time on August 9th, he is clapping and sticking his tongue out and pretending to drink from a cup when he's playing. He's putting blocks into boxes and chasing the cat mercilessly. Fortunately, Fela is a good sport...so far. He is getting quite the headful of wispy light brown hair and loves to sing and babble and bang on things. Ever the mimic now, he tries to whistle and blow and is king of "so big!" He is nearly weaned and is eating a ton of *real people* food. He likes shredded organic chicken, cheddar cheese, Cheerios and new to his repetoire last night, black beans. Here are the latest stats:

21 lbs (55th percentile)
29 inches tall (75th percentile)
18 3/4 inch head (90th percentile)

Henry's Auntie, Lis, and his two cousins were here from Oregon for two weeks. We spent several days at our friend's cabin in the Wisconsin north woods. It was some pretty awesome family bonding.

Hazel (4) Henry (9 mo) Dahlia (8)Playing with GrandmaEnjoying the warm morning fire

Just hanging

We have done a lot of camping and hiking this summer in addition to lots of walks and general outside time. We hiked to the top of St. Peter's Dome in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forrest:

We also took Henry on our annual pilgrimage to Madeline Island in Lake Superior where we hiked at Big Bay State Park and saw our friends play at Tom's Burned Down Cafe. Both Nathan and Henry sat in with the band:On the Mad Island Ferry

Bellied up to the bar at Tom'sDancing with MommaWatching the band intenselyPlaying drums with Pachanga

We are also continuing to enjoy our summer bounty of vegetables from our farmshare and I have found many creative uses for numerous vegetables. We also have been taking part in various local food events and last week attended a dinner at the Garden Farme where three of our friends our living and working this summer. It was a beautiful night, with great food and time with our friends. Henry got to hang out with his buddies Miranda, Lukas and Tobin!

One of my favorite local, sustainable foods is Izzy's ice cream. They use solar power to make their ice cream and run their shop as well as use as many local ingredients as possible. Henry is tasting the banana flavor, one of my favorites. It somehow tastes like fresh, hot banana bread right out of the oven... but cold. It's magic.Ahhhh, summertime!