Tuesday: Salad Wraps
Wednesday: Sushi
Thursday: Veggie Burgers and Salad
Friday: Pancakes and Fruit
Saturday: Egg Salad Sandwhiches
Sunday: Easter Dinner
Balsamic Pasta with Tomatoes, Basil, Shrimp
Some days there is just too much talking. Today I felt like I was talking all day. We went grocery shopping and since Harper has just started walking it's a lot of constant talking or more like yammering, "Come along, over here, please don't touch that, lets move on, yes put that in the cart, want to get, blah, blah, blah..." I'm so tired of talking and hearing my voice by the time we get to the car I usually turn up the music and give myself a bit of a rest on the way home. Except, Harper has entered the, "What if portion of her life." Which is really too bad because Hannah is still in that portion of her life and I have to say, I hate the what if questions. Not that it matters too much because I'm quite certain the next stage for Hannah is, "Would ya rather?" Which doesn't sound at all appealing to me either. I can clearly remember these stages from my own childhood and I think I quite enjoyed them, playing them out to their fullest. One thing that I've come to realize as a parent is sometimes, Karma's a bitch.
Recipe
One of the things I love in the summer is caprese salad with fresh garden tomatoes. Of course we don't have any garden tomatoes, but I chopped up some vine ripe ones, fresh basil and boccincini cheese and tossed with some fresh spaghettini. I drizzled it all with some olive oil and balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper and topped it with some shrimp that I had sauteed with a little garlic. It was quick, simple and tasted like summer.
Salad Wraps
I suppose when you look like me it's bound to happen. Let me rephrase that, when you look like me and you have two little girls who constantly play hair salon with their dolls, it's bound to happen. One day they are going to look at their mother and her hair that is long as well as very wide everywhere, they will notice the layers and pounds of tangled, half curly mess on their mother's head and think, "Why have we been wasting our time on dolls?" As the owner of that tangly mess, here's my advice, when a six and two year old want to brush it, the only answer is to run! The problem is, when they come in to wake you up both dressed in pretty dresses, wearing their special salon glasses (their sun glasses), with a chair set up for you and five elastics and a brush just waiting to tackle the fuzzy swirl of hair that has gathered in the back from a good night's sleep it's hard to say no. They were so proud and getting along so well, taking turns and sharing, that I sat down all bleary eyed to be tortured.
Yes, tortured.
The main problem with this situation is that I need to be able to brush their hair and so I feel like I need to provide a good example, like not screaming in pain before the brush even touches me. This was easy to do the first time, but soon just the thought of it sent me into a sweaty panic and I was sure that the Dora and Boots on the back of the brush were laughing at me. Although, once the elastic portion of the salon visit started I was wishing, almost begging for the sight of Dora and Boots! As they twisted and pulled and tangled and then declared that it didn't work! This went on for more than five minutes, my scalp pulsed in pain and I'm sure I lost quite a few clumps of hair, the elastic got tangled up four or five times and this was just the first elastic, there were five to go! They also continued to be super patient and polite with each other as well as trying to be gentle (trying, not succeeding) and responding to every wince, jump and scream (yes, I did scream a couple times - involuntarily) with a pat on the leg and a, "Oh, sorry Mama. Are you OK?" This behaviour was making it harder to find my way out, if only they'd start to fight I could declare this over because they can't get along. Finally, 20 minutes later, after elastic number three went in and about five screams had accidentally escaped my lips, I ended it, declaring I needed coffee and breakfast and three was enough! I emerged with three lopsided ponytails, a headache, a very sore scalped and much, much wiser. Don't let them suck you in with their cuteness it's not worth it!
Recipe
The girls picked two of the meals this week, salad rolls is always one of them and you can find them on this post.
Sushi
The girls tested out paper airplanes versus the balsam airplane that my Dad gave them for Christmas in the backyard this morning. Squealing with glee at the lengths they could fly when thrown off the deck and then racing to get them and try again.
They spent this afternoon sitting in the sun decorating the Easter eggs that we had dyed this morning. The rest of the afternoon and evening were spent running and climbing and cleaning their playhouse. They did come in for a quick dinner of sushi in which they gobbled up piece after piece barely breaking to breath, but managing to cover themselves in soya sauce and then ran back outside. When we finally called them in for bedtime they were covered from face to feet (Harper is already taking her shoes off outside). There's something about washing off all that dirt, I could hear Harper's giggles from all over the house as Dave scrubbed her nails with the nail brush and I could smell the sunshine in Hannah's hair tonight as we curled up together to read Winnie the Pooh. Ahhh, I love it!
Recipe
The second choice was sushi which you can find on this post, or just follow the directions on the back of the package of nori wraps (which is probably clearer). This time we filled ours with:
Roasted sweet potato
Avocado
Smoked salmon, cream cheese and cuccumber
Smoked salmon, cream cheese and avocado
Roasted sweet potato, cream cheese and avocado
Veggie Burgers and Salad
Harper is at that age where everything is a fight. No matter what's happening or what she's been asked it's just routine now that she will yell, "NO, AND I MEAN IT!" and throw herself on the floor. This is the reaction for everything, she doesn't discriminate. It can be because I've told her she can't have more cheese or I've asked her to go get a story after she's asked me to read to her. It's become so ridiculous that I've noticed Hannah will readily give up whatever it was she wanted (such as being the one to open the garage door), once Harper pipes up that she wants it, just to avoid the drama of it all. This last bit makes me want to cry because it seems so unfair for Hannah and because I am so grateful to her as it lets me keep a tiny piece of energy and patience that I seem to be hermoraging these days. My aunt once told me that to be a parent you need to have a really good sense of humour...I'm trying really hard these days to just laugh it off...these days it's more of a crazy, lunatic, I'm coming completely unhinged laugh - but hopefully once day it's just be pure laughter.
Recipe
This recipe was from Munchin with Munchkin and it was a little labour intensive but didn't take too long. Hannah declared she loved them and we all happily ate them for lunch the next day.
2 portabello mushrooms, thickly sliced
½ small eggplant, thickly sliced
2 tbsp. olive oil (plus more for cooking)1 shallot, thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup cashews
1 tbsp. pine nuts
½ cup textured vegetable protein (TVP)
1 15oz. can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 tsp. marmite
½ tsp. soy sauce
½ tsp. vegan worcestershire sauce
¼ tsp. liquid smoke
1 tsp. onion powder
½ tsp. garlic powder
¾ cup Panko bread crumbs
salt and pepper to taste
Preheat oven to 350.
Line a cookie sheet with tin foil. Set aside.
In a large bowl, toss mushrooms and eggplant with one tablespoon of olive oil. Salt and pepper to taste. Place mushrooms in a single layer on the lined cookie sheet. Divide the eggplant slices in two and wrap each pile with tin foil; place on the cookie sheet. Bake for 30 minutes, turning halfway through. Remove the mushrooms from the oven and set aside to cool. Continue cooking eggplant for an additional 15 minutes. Remove from oven and set aside.
In the meantime, heat one tablespoon of oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add leeks and shallots to the pan and sauté for about 5 minutes. Add the minced garlic and continue to cook until fragrant; about 30 seconds. Remove from pan and set aside to cool.
Add cashews and pine nuts to the pan and cook over medium heat stirring often. When the nuts begin to brown, remove from pan and set aside.
In a small pot bring bring half a cup of water to a boil. Add TVP to the boiling water, stir, cover with a lid and remove from heat. The TVP will take approximately 5 minutes to re-hydrate. Fluff with a fork and transfer to a large bowl.
Add chickpeas, cashews, and pine nuts to a food processor. Pulse until roughly chopped. Transfer to the large bowl with the TVP.
Place mushrooms, leeks, shallots, and garlic to the food processor and pulse until finely chopped. Add to the large bowl.
Place eggplant, marmite, soy sauce, worcestershire sauce, liquid smoke, onion powder, and garlic powder into the food processor and pulse until smooth and well combined. Add mixture to the large bowl.
Use you hands to mix all the ingredients in the large bowl together until well combined. Refrigerate at least one hour or chill overnight. This helps the flavors to merge. At this point you could also form the patties and freeze for future use.
When you are ready to prepare the veggie burgers, preheat oven to 400F, line a pan with parchment paper and spray with olive oil.
Add bread crumbs to the veggie burger mixture and form into eight patties. Place the patties on the pan and spray the tops with olive oil as well. Bake until browned, about 10 - 15 minutes and then flip and bake on the other side.
We had ours with traditional burger fixings and a salad of chopped tomatoes, cuccumber, boccincini cheese, fresh basil and drizzled with olive oil, balsamic and salt and pepper.
Blueberry Pancakes and Fruit
It's so amazing how kids hone in on your sense of wanting to be alone and then smother you. This morning the kids were playing outside while Dave raked and I went for a run. They continued to play outside while we got lunch ready and cleaned off the table on the deck as if we didn't exist. Once we finished lunch they ran off again and Dave and I thought it would be a good time to have some tea and sit out on the swing together to read...and suddenly it was as if someone had crazy glued them to us.
Recipe
Breakfast for dinner's the best!
Egg Salad Sandwiches
Hannah is so excited for Easter tomorrow she's having trouble containing herself. We put the girls to bed after the first period of the hockey game and by the end of the third Hannah had already wondered down three or four times. Dave had actually half walked in the house with the wheel barrel we got them for Easter and had to do a quick turn and go back out to the garage. By the end of the game Hannah was sitting beside us on the couch watching. You should have seen her eyes light up when it went into overtime and then fall when the other team scored a few minutes in. I think she was disappointed that the Jets lost, but more so that she was going to have to go back up to bed. It still took her another half hour to an hour to fall asleep, yawn - we were so tired waiting for her to fall asleep. I didn't think it would be this early in our lives that we would have trouble outlasting our children!
Recipe
We're having brunch tomorrow and I decided that we would have deviled eggs as part of it. It's been a long time since I've peeled hard boiled eggs...or at least tried to peel them carefully. Dave and I stood in the kitchen today trying to peel them all pretty and perfect and the more we tried it seemed the worse they looked. It was really one of the most frustrating things I've done in a long time. Hence, the egg salad as there were many that were unfit for stuffing (because they were actually torn apart, we had to use the crazy pot marked ones). We'd been prepping and had all these eggs and half a baguette left, so I cut it in half lengthwise and stuffed it with egg salad.
Easter Dinner
Happy Easter! Despite Hannah being up so late, she was still up at 6:30 to hunt for eggs. We made her stay upstairs until Harper woke up and then we all went down as a family (this was Hannah's plan). When Harper woke up Dave and Hannah went in while I slowly came too. I could her Dave make some sort of teasing joke and Hannah replied, "Da-ad, this is not a day for silliness, it's a day for chocolate!" With that, we all went downstairs to hunt for eggs. Hannah had already decided on her plan of attack. We were all to go downstairs as a family, they would hunt for eggs for a little while, stop and snack on a couple and then find the rest. I have to say she stuck to her plan to the letter, she can be very organized and focused.
Harper's question today, about every 5 minutes is, "When can we eat the rest of our chocolate eggs?"
Recipe
We had my parents and my grandma for Easter brunch. We made this baked blueberry-pecan french toast from epicurious but I cooked it for twice as long as it asked and I didn't make the blueberry syrup in the recipe, we just used maple syrup (I mean really, why would you ever mess with maple syrup? But, of course if you think it's ok to mess with maple syrup than there's a recipe on the link.).
a 24-inch baguette
6 large eggs
3 cups whole milk
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup pecans (about 3 ounces)
1/4 cup plus 1 teaspoon unsalted butter
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups blueberries (about 12 ounces)
Butter a 13 x 9-inch baking dish. Cut twenty 1-inch slices from baguette and arrange in one layer in baking dish. In a large bowl whisk together eggs, milk, nutmeg, vanilla, and 3/4 cup brown sugar and pour evenly over bread. Chill mixture, covered, until all liquid is absorbed by bread, at least 8 hours, and up to 1 day.
Preheat oven to 350°F.
In a shallow baking pan spread pecans evenly and toast in middle of oven until fragrant, about 8 minutes. Toss pecans in pan with 1 teaspoon butter and salt.
Increase temperature to 400°F.
Sprinkle pecans and blueberries evenly over bread mixture. Cut 1/2 stick butter into pieces and in a small saucepan heat with remaining 1/4 cup brown sugar, stirring, until butter is melted. Drizzle butter mixture over bread and bake mixture 20 minutes, or until any liquid from blueberries is bubbling.
We also had deviled eggs (as we all know from yesterday's post).
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| They're not super pretty, but because of the peeling time and frustration I had to add them. |
I love brunch!
For supper we went to my parents for the family gathering. We brought baked beans which you can find here on last Easter's post. I have to say I love this recipe because they are good and easy and they turn out every time with the right thickness of sauce and everything. We also had so much other food that I may be a little embarrassed to name it all...but I will anyway. Ham and meatballs (well, not us), killer coleslaw, green salad, bread, shwarties, two kinds of veggie casserole (one with broccoli and cauliflower and one with asparagus and cashews), cabbage rolls (two kinds of veggie ones and meat ones) and then for dessert; fruit with chocolate sauce, matrimonial square, a bunny cake and cupcakes (I really wish I would have taken a picture to show you, they were so cute!) and chocolate truffels. Now, I need to roll myself up the stairs so I can wake up tomorrow and run all day long to try and make up for what I consumed today.
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| I almost burst into tears when I saw this picture, look how big Hannah is! How did that happen? |
Happy Easter! Happy Spring! Happy Renewal!
I hope the sun shines down on you this week!
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