three is easy for seven

After seven years, it's funny to think of a party in terms of just three kids instead of a dozen.  We've had simple / elaborate birthdays (yes, you can have both at once) for all the previous milestones, and just had another one for the baby a few weeks back.  The seven year old requested a smaller party this year - perhaps just as a tool for trying to persuade us to let her have a sleepover - but even when that idea was tossed, she seemed content to party plan on a smaller scale.  I can count on one hand the number of times she's had her nails polished (all puns intended), but that's what she asked for this year:  a nail polish party.  So we're having a pretend sleepover, a great idea we got from her buddy K, where the girls come over for the evening, get into pj's late in the game, but get whisked away to their own beds before the moon is too high in the sky (and the homesick blues rush in).  There will be elaborate nail art - think face painting on a very teeny-tiny scale - and some other teeny-tiny art projects.  And one cool cake designed by the birthday girl.  Last night we sat down to make the invitations with her own seven fingers.  What a crazy easy task when you don't have to make thirty of them (or one hundred of them at Christmas time!)  I seriously don't know what it's like to sit down and start-to-finish something.  Weird.  Cool.  Kind of nice.

So here they are - seven fingers for seven years in less than two weeks.  I may be ready for the party, just not quite ready for that number. 

summer eats

So that was the end of the vacation photos.  Sigh.  And now it's just a rainy, humid day in the Midwest without a hermit crab in sight.

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What's left to talk about?  We've been busy this summer, busy in that fun, summer kind of way, but still not nearly enough berry picking or pool splashing to call the summer done.  Here we are rolling into August, a seventh!?! birthday to plan and celebrate, school supplies to purchase, last year's jeans to try on again.  We have a few late summer tricks up our sleeves in the coming weeks, but the rain is keeping us in on this Friday and out of the yard and the garden and the pool.

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One thing we've certainly mastered this summer is eating.  We've been eating well, and plenty of it.  The sun and the rain and the stars have aligned to produce some of the best produce I've tasted in awhile.  We may find ourselves eating some things that have traveled a bit to get here, but for the most part we've been able to feast, Kingsolver-style, from the fruits of our region quite well. 

This shot will never be seen in a gourmet magazine, but it does sort of represent the love of food around these parts.  Occasionally I post a beloved recipe on this blog, and this one has definitely become one.  It is technically a "kid" recipe, but that's laughable.  You are looking at the poster child for the one-size-fits-all menu.  If you can eat it, she'll take it, thank you very much.  This recipe seems a bit hearty for summer, but really, it's full of summer goodies, and if you serve it a bit on the cooler side of hot, it's delish.

Meatballs with Polenta

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and line two baking sheets with foil and spray with oil.

In a large bowl combine 1/2 cup oat bran and 1/4 cup whole milk.  Add 1 lb ground beef, 1 clove minced garlic, 1 T dried dill, 1/8 t fresh grated nutmeg, 1/1 t salt, 1/4 t pepper and 1 egg, lightly beaten.  You can substitute your own favorite spices in place of those listed above...oregano, fennel seeds, etc.  We used grass-fed beef from a nearby farm and bought the oat bran in bulk.  Combine ingredients with your hands until just blended but not over worked.  Roll into mini-meatballs (45-50 of them) and place on prepared sheets.  Bake until browned and cooked through, 10-12 minutes.  Spoon over polenta and top with sauce.

Polenta

Bring 2 cups water and 1/2 t salt to a boil.  Reduce heat to medium and slowly whisk in 1/2 cup polenta.  Cook, stirring frequently with a whisk to prevent lumps and sticking, until polenta is thickened and has absorbed all the water, 15-30 minutes.  Stir in 1 t unsalted butter and let cool.  Stir in a handful of grated Parmesan if you like. 
 

Hidden Veggie Sauce

Heat 2 T olive oil in a large saucepan.  Add 1/2 cup finely diced onion and cook until translucent, 4 minutes.  Add 1 clove minced garlic and cook 1 minute more.  Reduce heat to low, add 1/4 cup of spinach puree, 1/4 cup of sweet potato puree, 1 T tomato paste, 1/4 t dried oregano, 1/4 t pepper and cook, stirring frequently, for 4 minutes.  Increase heat to high, add 2 cups of chopped tomatoes (or one 26 oz can of strained tomatoes if not in season) and 1 T of blackstrap molasses and bring to boil.  Reduce heat to low and simmer uncovered for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Layer polenta in bowl, add a few meatballs on top, ladle a scoop of sauce over the top and add a dollop of ricotta cheese if you like.  Prepare for a delicious mess and lots of '"mmm's" from the high chair crowd.  The meatballs and sauce freeze.  The polenta keeps in fridge for 3-4 days.  Great for lunch leftovers.  Use veggie meatballs if so inclined.  This may involve more stovetop work than you care for on a hot summer day, but it's really not hard at all.  We still use our Babycook daily to steam and puree, so that makes the spinach and the sweet potato purees a breeze.  You could experiment with other veggies to throw in - these just give you a power packed, vitamin-rich sauce for the effort.  Plus, we still have a few frozen purees leftover from the baby food stage that we are incorporating into sauces.  The molasses adds iron, but I suppose you could skip that as well.  I vote for buying some - it gives you a quick excuse to make delicious gingerbread when you keep it as a pantry staple.  (Recipe from Cooking for Baby, Williams Sonoma)

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The sun's out again, so maybe we'll make our way into the humid outdoors this afternoon.  I'll share pictures of last weekend's adventures tomorrow, and then set about with the camera some more - trying to capture the last of these summer days.  Happy Friday!

even more magical?

Sharing it with someone your own size who speaks your own language.

magic

Magic is when all the sea that you could possibly traverse with those short little arms and legs suddenly transforms into a crystal clear wave pool no deeper than your elbows with a sandy base as soft as velvet.  Hermit crabs that scurry from your touch are just bonus.

my favorite time at my favorite place

Low tide.  The baby's posture tells it all.  Pure rapture, pure heaven.

how to eat a peach

Previous peach-eating exercises have nothing on this.

the paddlers and the peanut gallery

I have to say, I feel a bit disjointed this summer with the photos.  It's like virtual whiplash.  Hey, they're on vacation!  They're back!  They're gone again!  I can't seem to get through one vacation thought before embarking on another.  A few more days of this and maybe this blog will start to resemble something a bit more like an accurate timeline of the summer's events and not a random string of thoughts and photos.  We were gone again this weekend, but in that interim of laundry and unpacking and restocking the fridge, I'll do the final purge of vacation photos from June.  I like these two from the morning M and E decided to do a bit of sightseeing on the water... and the peanut gallery that showed up at the dock to send them off.  M just said to me during the car ride this weekend, "We need another vacation," and I knew exactly what he meant.  We love these shorter trips to fun places, but it's hard to top those longer stints on islands in the sea...especially the flying part.

 

sunday morning in the garden

one bucket filled faster than the other

Hmmm... I wonder why.  Blueberry picking a few weeks back.  Now it's time for blackberries!

the urge to purge: finding space for the special

When E spent a few days with her Nana and Grandpa earlier this month it wasn't the first time she's been away on her own.  We always miss her while she's gone, but there is a strange sort of quiet efficiency in the house as we go about our business without her.  Even this summer, with the addition of a baby who remained behind, it still felt as if we were home alone - probably because F goes to bed at the ridiculously early hour of six, and doesn't appear again until seven or later the next morning.  E keeps her room pretty clean most of the time (with some help), but the projects in process - the crazy amounts of paper that girl uses and keeps - well, they start to wear a bit on me as they stack up.  When she hits the road we hit the stacks, and the room gets a good scrubbing from top to bottom that doesn't have to get finished before 7:30 or 8:00 pm.  This year we wanted to do things a bit differently.  E's been drawing floor plans of her dream room for awhile now, and most involve the installation of a small waterpark as a key feature.  If you remove the fantasy pieces from the plan, they all seem to include better access to her library from her bed, a larger play area, and cozy spaces with more seating for friends.  Playmobil is always on the list as well.  She's got a great room - one that she uses every square inch of - but it's not a huge room, and because of the numerous built-in's and window seats and a mantel... well, there's not a lot of variety to the way the furniture can be rearranged.  We thought about it awhile, and went a little against our grain by putting furniture in front of shelves, and we turned out making the room seem twice as large, and way more functional for this particular stage. Previous room photos here.   

Dogs (the stuffed kind) have been a big fan favorite lately, and several end up in bed with her each night.  The remaining dogs have their own little spot now, with easy access from the bed.

Behind the pillows sit the clock, chapter books in progress, a diary (with a lock!) and a few small treasure boxes - perfectly hidden, for now, from roaming one-year-old's.  Side tangent:  Can I tell you how annoyed I get when companies call things like car covered bed sheets "boys" sheets?  Very annoyed.  Bonus points for the Garnet Hill catalog that showed up today sporting mix-and-match pajamas with patterns like hearts and monsters and ponies and rocket ships listed as "unisex".  Done with tangent.

Successful rearrange?  Oh yes, I think so.  She's flying through those books now...

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Oh, I almost forgot.  The new item:  one very over-priced red bean bag chair.  One that the baby and I drove WAY out to the suburbs to pick up on the morning of E's return, after searching high and low at closer locales for one.  When I called to ask if they had one in stock they said they did.  When I showed up at the store and mentioned it was for my daughter they said they were out.  Why?  Because the red ones were boy's chairs.  Ahem. 

The "new" room was enthusiastically received, so much so that she's started redesigning F's nursery for her.  I see that she's adding in a private bath as well - interesting.

To which F replies "New room?  Who cares?  I'm just interested in lunch, and lots of it."

And, when you think this post cannot possibly go on any longer, or have any more tangents, here's one more:  E's got us figured out.  She knows the drill.  When she's gone, things mysteriously "disappear", thin out, clean up.  One night, after a couple of hours of re-shelving dusted books and sifting through bushels of half-used pipe cleaners, I tackled the paper stack.  This was found part way through it:

 My urge to purge dried up.

certain themes run through our family

The ice cream loving gene is most certainly a dominant one.  Another photo of the fab four in front of a great ice cream place - Crown Candy.