Mary, Mary Quite Contrary - How Does YOUR Garlic Grow?

Spring is upon us... the cherry blossoms are out in full force and my seed order that arrived in January is beckoning!

The overwintering crops are looking good - the Purple Sprouting Broccoli is sprouting tasty loonie-size heads of deliciousness, the garlic is going strong and the kale is a veritable forest!




This afternoon on an outing at the Robson park community garden (I'm a looky-loo!) I saw that amidst the largest stalks of kale, someone had planted their garlic and it was growing like gangbusters! Our very first crop of garlic had to be uprooted during the Great Ruptured Waterline Fiasco of 2010, so I was brainstorming where they would find home, sweet home. Kale grows rather abundantly in our garden, and so I decided to thin out the kale forest into a more manageable kale orchard, interspersing the garlic. I have no idea if this will work, but am willing to try!



Last year's potato crops were also very successful (who can't grow a potato?) and I decided to up the ante this year. I may have gone a little overboard though - instead of 14 plants like last year, I'm doing about 50, including Yukon Golds, Red Chieftains and Seiglindes! Right now they are happily chitting on the art room windowsill...



And last but certainly not least - under the grow lights we have 3 types of tomatoes (20 plants in all), two types of peppers (16 plants in all), 2 types of broccoli (16 plants in all), peas and leeks! Here you can see the tomatoes reaching for some rays. I am SO SO happy to not have these on my kitchen counter this year!



Next weekend I hope to get out into the greenhouse to start my lettuces, herbs, marigolds and nasturtiums. We're getting some more dirt and taking over more of our front yard, since the grass was kinda ruined from the Waterline debacle. Who needs a front lawn anyways? Radishes, parsnips and beets - oh my!

After a few hours of gardening in the rain this afternoon, I came back inside to this little scene. Silly family!



In other news, Keira has recently entered a new phase of crazy. Now she's carrying around multiple blankies, even during the daytime, and sucking her thumb like mad. Most nights we find her curled up on the floor, sound alseep beside the strip of light coming underneath the door to their room. Naps during the daytime are getting fewer and fewer... they aren't kidding when they say that every kid is unique! But her particular brand of unique is slowly driving me crazy. I'm hoping it's just her second set of molars coming in but who knows??




It's a good thing they're cute!

Meal Plan for the Work Week

I love to cook. In fact, one of the few things that outweighs my love of cooking is my love of eating! It's a darned good thing I teach fitness for a living...

When I took an instructor's course for Postpartum Nutrition, one of the skills I walked away with (and have used the most!) is meal planning. That means sitting down each week, planning out the dinners (and lunchables) so that we make the best use of time and money, we determine who's cooking which night, and of course, we get a bit of variety! From the week's menu (which is displayed on the family whiteboard so that ingredients aren't accidentally eaten) the shopping list is created, so nothing is forgetten... sometimes if I really like the plan I'll write it down and store it for future use.

I like the idea of patterns too. Friday is ALWAYS leftover homemade pizza night. I use the crock pot once a week. We try to do one non-meat-centric meal. And I always try to make 'planned-overs', where the leftovers from one night are recycled into a new meal the following night(s).

One of my very favourite planned-over meal plans is based on the delicious Maple Hill Specialty Chickens I receive from my food co-op at a HUGE savings. I love these birds - so tasty and non-medicated to boot! To cover 4 dinners (2 adults and 2 picky kids), a few lunches and still put something in the freezer, I modified a shorter meal plan that I read about in Bon Appetit that started with one chicken and stretched it out for a week...

Roast Chicken (in the crockpot) with Roasted Root Veggies and Gnocchi
Cheesy Chicken & Mushroom Lasagne
Chicken & Black Bean Enchiladas with Baked Rice
Leek & Shiitake Mushroom Risotto
Chicken, Kale & Chickpea Soup

Carmen loves to help with the chicken in the morning, putting it on the LOW setting all day in the crockpot - she is a whiz at dusting thyme, Pimenton de la Vera (thanks Auntie Meaghan!) and salt & pepper, then stuffing half an onion 'in the chicken's bum', according to her! A bit of water and VOILA! Done.



At about 5pm (before I head out to teach Prenatal Fitness Fusion!) she helps me peel parsnips that we are STILL finding in our garden, as well as yams and carrots. While the water for gnocchi is boiling, we set the veggies, seasoned with rosemary and olive oil, to roast at 425F for 20 mins. I've recently tried making my own ricotta gnocchi (inspired by Soule Mama), but you can buy it from the store and it's still pretty good!



Making pan gravy is a bit indulgent, but SO YUMMY! First, drain the juices from the crockpot into a liquid measuring cup - it's important that they are still hot. Put a tablespoon of butter in a saucepan and let melt on medium heat. With a whisk, stir in about 3 tablespoons of flour so it's crumbly. Then continue stirring as you add the juices a teeny bit by bit, whisking the lumps out as you go. Eventually you'll have an empty measuring cup and a full pan of gravy!





After dinner that night, I pull the remaining meat off the bones and separate into two bigger piles for the lasagne and the enchiladas, and a tiny pile for the soup. I put the bones and skin and the roasted onion into a pot of water (about 10 cups) with a splash of white vinegar, and boil it for stock. I need 5 cups for the risotto and the rest for the soup.

The lasagne and risotto recipes are pulled from Epicurious, and they are FAB. I usually do some substitutions, using homo milk instead of cream, less salt, etc. to make them a bit healthier. I also skip the truffle oil in the risotto, and only sometimes have shiitakes on hand, so often just use white and crimini mushrooms. Still tastes great! The lasagne I put into two casserole dishes - one for dinner, and one for the freezer.

The enchiladas are simple. I get a stack of whole wheat tortillas and a can of black beans, a bit of shredded mozzarella, cheddar & jack cheese (if I have it) and fill each tortilla first with some beans, then cheese, then shredded roast chicken. Roll 'em up, stuff them in a casserole dish. In a saucepan, heat one can of tomato sauce (from my summer canning session!) and some chili powder, cumin & salt to taste. Pour this over the casserole, reserving a little bit. On top, a bit more shredded cheese. In a matching casserole, I put 3 cups of cooked brown rice mixed with the remaining sauce and covered with a bit more cheese. Cook them in the oven at the same time at 350F until things look bubbly and smell yummy. I like to serve them with shredded lettuce or spinach and a dollop of plain yogurt. Kids love 'em too.





Lastly, but certainly not least, the soup. This is by far my favourite way to use the prolific kale that grows year-round in our garden. Stock, chicken, chopped kale and a can of drained chickpeas. Throw it in the pot, add thyme & more Pimenton de la Vera (or not) salt & pepper... so yummy with fresh bread! Makes a great hearty lunch too.





Dinner at our house doesn't always look like this... for instance, tonight the girls and I shared a $10 frozen dim sum feast from Gah Lok on Fraser because I was too tired to do anything else! But it is nice when time is on my side, I have the energy, and my fridge is full of the ingredients I need!

In other news - this is what I have on my 3.75mm circulars right now! I'm doing the short-sleeved version in a similar green merino from the local Unwinding Yarns. So excited, although I've said a million times I don't like to knit THAT small...



Happy eating!

Creating Space

For those of us who live in the city, sometimes finding space to DO things can be really challenging.

I have quilted for years, but haven't for ages because my stuff is stored underneath the stairs, and each time I create I have to unload and pack it back up so that it remains unattractive to small hands and out of the way. For Christmas this year, Jason and I decided to gift ourselves with a creative space that we could both use (together! at the same time!), a place where we could leave projects at the drop of a hat and just SHUT THE DOOR! Trying to reduce, reuse and recycle as much as we can, we opted to scavenging around the house and Craigslist, selling some things and donating others to make room. Of course, the sunny yellow paint we bought was new! But everything else, not so much... We decided to repurpose the spare bedroom (which still has a bed, visitors welcome!) into a sewing/painting room for my sewing/knitting stuff and Jason's easel.

From this catastrophe...



To this!



I've already sewed up a few fun projects, but that is another post entirely!

Another nasty area was the downstairs 'workbench'. When we remodelled our kitchen, we moved the existing cabinetry downstairs for storage space and an indoor base from which to do household fix-its. I also dreamt of having my tomato and pepper seedlings under a proper grow light, instead of the Duplo/Ikea-lamp setup that monopolized my kitchen counters last year. So a trip to Rona to buy a florescent fixture ($18!) and some 'Gro-lux' wide-spectrum tubes, plus a ridiculous cleanup effort took this...



To this! Seedlings have never had it so good!




The last area we really needed to tackle was the girls' shared bedroom. I am merciless when it comes to toys in our house - they belong in the bedroom. I think having a few really good toys rather than a mountain of crazy toys is perfect, and I'm thankful that we have an extended family that (mostly - you know who you are!) supports this belief. Having limited storage space makes this necessity, so when we get new toys, older unused toys often make it to the Sally Ann...

Regardless, there are toys. Plenty of toys. So I wanted to open up the mostly-unused closet in their room into a 'toy nook' by cutting up an old Ikea bookshelf and stuffing it in there. I don't have a very good before picture, but many of you know the mess that used to exist! Check out the dark, toy-covered corner of these pictures.




And voila! The girls love it!



We also tackled the big girl bed issue. Kids furniture is EXPENSIVE. Instead of buying two captain's beds for the girls (to the tune of $1500!) we decided to buy a used mate's bed for Carmen ($200, phew!), reuse the toddler bed for Keira and make use of some under-bed storage ($4, thanks Ikea!) for sweaters and bigger dresses. Their old white dresser made it down to the creative space, to hold art supplies, yarn, fabric, etc.





And now we have two silly monkeys, jumping on the bed!



And yes, they've BOTH fallen off and bumped their heads!

Baby's Got the Blues!

Well it's been a while, but I'm back and feeling a little blue...

Like, turquoise blue.

I'll start off with possibly the world's ugliest sweater, but thankfully not one created for human consumption! I was inspired by the lovely Bamboletta dolls my girls were given for their birthdays last year - GAWD, but they are cute! They come with their own little clothes (and we even got more gifted to us, crafted by the lovely Tessa) as well as a handknit sweater. I'm making sweaters for the girls' birthdays in April and decided to copy the doll sweater pattern to make matching ones for the Bambolettas... but then I saw the sweater had actual seams in it and I HATE SEWING. So I made up a pattern - my very first pattern - knit in one piece from the neck down, sleeves in the round. Partially through Keira's doll sweater, I ran out of yarn. And so I perused the stash and emptied at least 5 bobbins of wool on this (ugly) beauty!



It really brings out the green in Penny's eyes, no? If you want the pattern I created, let me know...

I've also decided to become one of 'those people'... you know, the ones that you see walking down Main Street totally rocking some wild outfit and you just wish you had the guts to wear something so cool/weird and pull it off half as well? I'm stepping outside my fashion comfort zone and am starting to ACCESSORIZE, with the help of a few friends and Christmas gift cards! Crazy tights, scarves, baubles, pins, earrings... amazing how they can transform blah into FUN!!!





And lastly, my challenge to you, fellow bloggers and Facebookers... I recently found out my SIL is getting married this Spring (hurrah!) and was combing magazines for ideas on a new outfit for their afternoon/nighttime wedding. I've seen a lot of petite women in these cute little dresses, and was OH-SO-HAPPY to find this on sale at Aritzia where, behold - I had a gift card to spend! 10 minutes in the change room with two squirming children, and I emerged victorious! I don't know if I've ever owned a strapless dress... anyhew. Let the accessorizing begin!



Whaddya think? I can even eat a big dinner without having to suck it in! And POCKETS! Hello! (don't worry, I won't put anything in them)

I'm totally stuck on hosiery and shoes (please don't suggest bare legs for this skim-milk white, often-bruised mama). Would love to have color/metal suggestions for earrings and necklaces... bonus points if I can buy it at the Bay using another gift card I have stashed!

Help!

UPDATE:

Went to the Bay - found these brushed gold Nine West beauties on the clearance rack in a 5.5 (last pair!) for only $42! Then paired with this necklace (coincidentally Nine West as well) in brushed gold for $22, and some (not so shimmery) linen 'Shimmer' stockings. Hurrah for gift cards! Not sure about earrings... I've been further advised to keep it simple. Managed to leave my driver's license at the concierge counter though, when I borrowed the double (dreaded) 'fire engine stroller' to keep my kids happy! Gotta go back tomorrow!