More Spring Greens

This week we got ramps (wild leeks), a "claremont" romaine, spinach, salad mix, radishes, tatsoi (a cool-looking asian green, pictured with MRD), more watercress (yum!), sorrel (we all love this delicious lemony green and can't wait to make this soup), and some deep purple scallions. Stir-fry, anyone?

Farm Fresh Frenzy

You may remember that last summer, after reading Barbara Kingsolver's book "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" I discovered the local food concept and got quite excited about eating from our wonderful local farms. Well, despite the long Wisconsin winter, I didn't quite forget this new project. We've joined a CSA farm, and this week we got our first Spring Vegetable Share. I'm SO excited! As you can see, my two henchmen share my excitement...

Here's what we got in our first box: Salad mix of three lettuce varieties, the most gorgeous radishes I've ever seen, arugula (which I LOVE), saute mix of greens, a pretty red oakleaf lettuce head--quite delicious, some great spinach, a head of bok choy (I have literally never seen bok choy except on a plate at a restaurant before--it is so cool! JPD is holding it in the pictures, and they are tasting the different lettuces), watercress, chives, and a bunch of dandelion greens. I think this week we will be eating more green stuff than ever before! Of course I've been scrambling around a bit to find recipes for all these spring delicacies; next week I'll be a bit more prepared, now that I have a better idea of what to expect. Last night we had an awesome stir fry (the kids even liked it), and we had the most incredibly delicious dinner tonight, including something for everyone: a fantastic salad, some watercress soup (watercress...who knew?), and this yummy spinach-ricotta pie. YUM!

Oatmeal Ovation

I must share this exciting new breakfast thing we're doing. (My extreme excitement about this is total proof, of course, that I have no life.)

It's a two-part deal:
First, overnight oatmeal in the crock pot. What could be better than waking up to the great smell of ready-to-eat delicious homemade oatmeal for the family? I know...not waking up, because they can serve themselves! (We're not quite there yet, but we'll get there someday...)

Next, with the leftovers, JPD and I made oatmeal muffins! While there are some individuals in our family who foolishly choose not to love oatmeal, these muffins are a crowd-pleaser all around. I even made and froze some of these last fall to take on our camping trip. Yum!

Who Can Think About Food at a Time Like This?

Well, we gotta eat, right?

We had a great slow-cooker chicken & dumplings recipe for dinner last night. Everyone loved it.

Check out the recipe here in my little Kim's-cookbook-to-be blog. :)
Yum!

Apple Fun with JPD

This morning at JPD's preschool we got to join him for some apple-themed fun. They had some very cute activities, such as:

Baking mini apple pies:
(Really cute idea; here's the recipe.)





Apple-stamping fruit and leaves on a giant apple tree collage:













Tasting apples and graphing your favorite on a class favorites graph:



Apple sequencing by size:
(As you can see, this one needs a bit of work--omigosh, should I worry??) :)


















Singing songs about apples, acorns, and squirrels: (SO cute!)













And the long ride home w/JPD's little bro':

Homeschool Bliss

YES! We had a great homeschool day! Last year the first few weeks were hard, and this year they have been too--very hard. My veteran homeschool friends have assured me that this is normal, but as I mentioned, I have been kinda losing my mind. Nothing compared to last year, mind you--no one has actually thrown themselves on the floor, refusing to work--but still, I've been a raving lunatic with stress around here.

This morning, all four children (well, those who can walk) woke up at 5:00 a.m. to get a head start on their math, spelling, and logic before I woke up. No kidding. They even brought JPD with them and got him building blocks next to the homeschool table. (Now why won't he ever do that when I'm around? He prefers to throw things, climb onto the table, write on the wrong things with markers, etc.)

"Obviously," you must be thinking, "these are not normal children. She has given them some special homeschool Kool-Aid." Well, not exactly--but if you have some, let me know! :) Actually they were supremely motivated today because Grandma bought them a couple of new computer games and they were on fire to get back to playing Clue on the computer, to which I'd said "no way until you finish school," of course. So that worked well. Except we're all exhausted from the 5 a.m. thing. Perhaps tomorrow we can have the same enthusiasm, just at a little bit later hour.

KLD's reading is going great; I am so proud of her. And I can't remember if I mentioned that MRD has finished over half of her first math book already. WWD is just a champ this year. I am astonished by his maturity and ability to apply himself to his work. Must be all that football, getting his ya-yas out, right? And JPD is quite enthusiastically learning his vowel letter sounds.

They have all been doing lots of writing. MRD and KLD are in a literary analysis/critique club at our library, helping the librarian analyze children's picture books for an award. This has inspired MRD to write and illustrate a children's picture book; she showed me the first two pages tonight. This is a perfect combination of her two favorite subjects--writing and art. Of course I'll post her book when it's finished!

Yesterday in history we read about establishment of monasteries, and a bit about monastic life in the early centuries. Tonight we had a "monk's dinner:" lentil soup with homemade bread, butter (pretending, in monastic life, that it was Christmas so we could have the butter), apple cider (juice), and even a Gregorian chant CD in the background to complete the atmosphere. We attempted to eat in silence, as monks do, but that didn't really work. No surprise there, right?!

Apple Picking

In our homeschool, we love field trips the best!
On Wednesday, we went apple picking with some of our homeschool friends.
As you can see, it was a gorgeous day! Grandma came too and we all enjoyed picking and eating lots of apples and raspberries.


Now if I can just figure out what to do with all these apples! :) In addition to favorite standbys apple pie and apple crisp, tonight we're having apple pork chops and I'm hoping to try making an apple pizza dessert with the kids.

Who Me? Type A?

The kids and I have come up with a meal plan for our weekday breakfasts and lunches. We've been at it for less than a week, and so far it's definitely achieving all that I hoped, including fewer last-minute meals, no more nagging, back-of-mind stress all morning of "is-there-any-food-in-the-house-what-can-I-make-for-lunch-today," and most of all, most of all, no more constant arguing about what we should have, who gets their way, how long it's been since we had my favorite--you get the idea.

Generally, I tend to resist this kind of planning. It makes me feel locked in. And what if it's waffle day and we're all out of waffles? But I'm starting to realize that planning of this sort, "routinizing" if you will, actually doesn't "lock me in," but frees me not to have to worry about little stuff like this. Because now, if it's Tuesday, it's egg salad sandwiches, period. I can even cook the eggs right after breakfast, in the same pan left over from the Tuesday morning oatmeal (pretty smart, right?). Making the meal plan was a group effort, so everyone got input, and so far, it's great.

Without further ado (or do you want some MORE rambling intro?), here's the plan:

Mon. Breakfast: Cheese Omelettes
Lunch: Pasta(noodles w/cheddar, parmesan, or pesto)

Tues. Breakfast: Oatmeal
Lunch: Egg Salad Sandwiches

Wed. Breakfast: Waffles & Bacon
Lunch: Chicken Noodle Soup

Thurs. Breakfast: Cream of Wheat
Lunch: Sandwich Day

Fri. Breakfast: Fried Eggs & Toast
Lunch: Soup or Chowder

So that's it. I should do something like this with dinners too, but I'm not ready yet. It's a bit more complex when Bill's in the picture. And I just love that 4 p.m. excitement of "what can I make tonight?" It's such a great creative outlet. :)

This weekend

...we did something cool. After reading my favorite book of the summer, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver, I have been--predictably--all nutso about eating local. Of course, to be a true "locavore" I would have to move to Atlanta so the Diet Coke factory would be nearby.
In the meantime, though, I'm feeling pretty blessed to live so close to such an abundance of wonderful farms. We really could eat local here, even though I myself don't grow anything but weeds. And right now we're just getting into corn-and-tomato heaven here in our beautiful midwestern paradise.
So, on Friday, on the way home from a far-from-home park, the kids and I saw our first sign announcing "fresh, sweet corn." Hooray! We followed the signs to a lovely farm, with that morning's harvest piled up in the barn. I wish I had a picture to share--it was quite idyllic, and the kids had a ball pretending to drive the tractor and shucking all our corn for me! We bought 36 ears of corn--enough for our dinner party that evening, and a bunch left over to freeze for non-corn season. It was absolutely delicious; here's the recipe.
Now we have six slim baggies of yummy fresh-from-the-farm corn in our freezer. I'm hoping to do more before corn time is over, but time and freezer space are limited (I did do a few strawberries back in June). We'll see.