Life Lyn Style

Passing on Pizza?!

Jan 072012

Today was a crazy day for our household. I went to bed last night with a planned hike this morning. I woke up feeling yucky and spent much of the day sleeping. Sally hasn’t been herself for a couple of days. She seems fine for a few hours and then has a total meltdown. Hopefully, she’ll feel better soon.

Stephen felt the brunt of things today. I chilled on the sofa and napped off and on. He took the kids for haircuts, shoes, bananas, and a craft before lunch. After lunch he held Sally for a long time since she did not want to go to her bed for a nap, but clearly needed one.

Nick played for a really long time before finally napping. By then, Sally had tried her bed and didn’t last. While I got a nap, Stephen didn’t really even get a break.

Fast forward to dinner time….

Stephen asked me if I wanted to order a pizza for dinner. Pizza is one of my favorite foods. I could eat it every day. I especially like pizza with tons of meat topping and thick crust. The richer and saucier the tomato sauce the better. Ordering a pizza is easy. The kids love it when the pizza man comes to the door. The problem is that pizza delivered is about $15. We can choose to spend $15 on pizza, but it’s not really good for us and we’d rather go out to a nicer restaurant once in a while than spend $15 a week on pizza.

But, it was one of those days. We were all tired and grumpy. Pizza would taste great.

We talk about dinner plans several times and then I just decided to gather some energy and make dinner. Then, I decided I had enough energy to clean the kitchen or make dinner. I didn’t have enough energy for both. When it was all said and done, we ate chili from our freezer along with freshly made corn muffins. It was delicious and it was better than spending $15 on a pizza.

After dinner, Stephen took the kids on a run to Target. He was gone just long enough for me to get the kitchen clean.

An hour later, the kitchen is clean, the toys are picked up and both kids are sleeping. It’s ending up a pretty good day.

I’m proud of myself for not going the pizza route. I’m also reminded that we need to keep a couple of easy meals in the freezer for nights like this. It’s better for our waistline and our budget.

You say tabouli, I say tabbouleh

Recipe 2 Responses »

Jan 062012

Hi, everyone! This is Stephen, Lyn’s husband. I’m doing a guest post today.

Parsley… what to do with it? Several times a summer, our CSAs present us with big bunches of parsley. It is far more than one might want for garnish or flavoring. We could dry it, but dried parsley doesn’t keep its flavor as well as other herbs do. As a lover of world foods, though, one thing comes to my mind when I see a big bunch of parsley: Tabouli!

Tabouli is a middle eastern salad of parsley, mint leaves, and bulgur. The versions I made in our kitchen this summer were always from items at hand, so mine may not be particularly authentic. In any event, it is a light and refreshing dish, perfect for a summer evening meal.

Here is how I make Tabouli. It is a forgiving dish. I recommend measurement-free cooking for it.

1 large bunch of parsley. Flat parsley is best. A mix of flat and curly will work. Curly alone makes an odd texture and inferior flavor.

1 handful of fresh peppermint leaves. I usually aim for anything from 2-to-1 to 4-to-1 of parsley to mint, by volume. It depends on how much parsley we have and how much mint there is to harvest in our garden. I tried spearmint and can’t recommend it. Garden mint would probably be good.

2-3 small tomatoes or 1-2 larger ones, chopped. It is possible to put in too much tomato. A green-to-red ratio like Christmas holly is about right.

1/2 to 2 cups of a grain, cooked. Traditionally, this should be bulgur wheat. I’ve used couscous (not a success), quinoa (pretty tasty), and wheat berries (good flavor, but a bit chewy).

1 clove garlic, finely minced, and/or some onion, chopped

olive oil — extra virgin is nice, but any variety will work.

Combine the parsley and mint leaves, then chop them up finely. I like the texture best with pieces about 1/16″ in size. A food processor is the best way to do this. I’ve tried doing it by hand and don’t have the patience to get the pieces small enough.

Add the tomatoes and grain, as well as the onions or garlic.

Drizzle with olive oil and toss. Add olive oil if needed in order to get the leaves lightly coated, but not drenched.

Refrigerate until serving, and enjoy.

Lyn, Nick and Sally do not care for tabouli, which means I get to keep it to myself. It keeps fairly well for a few days in the fridge, so I can enjoy a batch in a few days of packed lunches.

It’s easy to make this a local-foods dish. Olive oil isn’t produced locally, but all of the other ingredients are available from growers near us. In fact, the herbs and tomatoes may be in your garden already!

As you can see, you need not fear a big bunch of parsley in your CSA box. Instead, whip up a batch of tabouli and enjoy a delicious summer treat.

Fresh Fork Winter CSA–week 6

CSA No Responses »

Jan 052012

Today, there was no rain for our Fresh Fork CSA pick up. There was also no line at the time we arrived. This week’s package was also easier to pack than some and I think that helped. We’d rather have snow on the ground that rain coming down for our pick ups.

Here’s what we were expecting this week:

1 whole pasture raised chicken
1 lb. carrots
1 lb. Brussels sprouts (removed from stalk)
2 lb.s beets
1/2 lb. mixed organic greens
1 dozen pasture raised eggs
2 lbs. organic black turtle beans
1 smoked pork hock
1 lb. roasted butternut squash and cracked black pepper linguini

We were also expecting 1 pound of ground beef that was missed for everyone at Beachwood last time.

Here’s a group shot:

We didn’t have many eggs left and use quite a bit in everyday cooking. So, I was glad to have these in the bag this week. I also have some frozen egg beaters that I need to work into some recipes soon. Surprise, surprise, we’ll be making Harvard Beets with the beets this week.

I was originally going to make this pasta for dinner, but we had other pasta in the fridge and opted for a quicker dinner tonight. The Ohio City pasta cooks fast, but I usually make a white sauce to go with it and the leftovers were easy tonight. We’ll save that for another day this week. Everyone in our house loves cooked carrots. Now that Stephen can eat raw ones again (since getting his braces removed), we may have to discuss how to prepare them.

We’ll have the Brussels sprouts tomorrow. Last time, we let them go too long and I think they lost some of their flavor. The greens will hopefully go into salad. I’m not the biggest fan of this variety, but I need to get better of just eating them.

With pork hock and black beans in the same week, black bean soup is in order. I’ve been looking at recipes for a couple of days and haven’t quite decided on a version for us yet.

Our chicken is 7.8 pounds! That is definitely the biggest Fresh Fork chicken we have have gotten thus far. For now it’s parked in the freezer along with our ground beef.

Lastly, the warehouse did a “blow out” sale on the ham loaf. We remembered it fondly so I stocked up. It was $2 a pound. I like to describe it to people as ham based meatloaf mix. I will be making meatballs and muffin size meatloaves with some yet to be invented rhubarb honey BBQ sauce and then freezing them for meals. I’ll serve them with potatoes, different grains, pasta, etc. I like to bake them and freeze in big batches so we can get several meals out of them.

Lastly, this is the first time that I got to take photos of my CSA pick up with my new lights. I think that I have tons to learn, but it’s a huge improvement over the dark photos of recent weeks. I’m mostly intrigued by how different the wood table looks in the photos when I think I had the same lighting and camera settings for all of my photos. I think that the angle of the camera has a big impact. I think I’ll be learning how to use a tripod next. Hopefully, I’ll have a some time to experiment over the next couple of weeks.

Turning off the TV – Fun with Pattern Blocks

Adventures with Nick and Sally No Responses »

Jan 042012

A few weeks ago, I talked about snowflakes. I think Nick’s grandparents liked that idea because this pattern block set showed up for a Christmas present.

Yesterday, Nick woke up from his nap before Sally and wanted to do a craft. To him that means he wants to play with something at the kitchen table. I didn’t have a good plan and I didn’t really want to do a project that involved glue, scissors and a mess. Enter the pattern block gift.

This is a classic Melissa and Doug toy. It’s exactly what you would expect. It was a high quality box with nice wood pieces in kid friendly colors. The big downfall (as with most of their toys) is there isn’t a lid. Once you know this and find a suitable shoe box or something to use, it’s all good.

Sorting:

Concentrating:

Pondering:

Working on dexterity to pick up the small pieces:

Happy with his work:

I liked these pattern blocks because we could talk about colors and shapes. He got to practice sorting in the trays that I picked up from the after Christmas sale. There were also enough blocks that he could do several patterns before he had to reuse some of the blocks. These aren’t puzzles where the pieces fit into a recessed board. If he wasn’t careful, the whole design would move. It was good practice for him. He even decided to do a couple of them “double decker” where he stacked the pattern on the same board two high. I loved this activity and look forward to using it more with Nick. Sally will be able to try it soon as well.

I recently cleaned out a bookcase in our den to house our craft projects. It’s not quite organized yet, but I’m looking forward to having many things available at my disposal to keep the kids busy and learning during the cold, dark, winter that is upon us.

Food Log for Tuesday

Food Log 1 Response »

Jan 032012

Today’s workout was a water aerobics class. I was exhausted after I got home.

Breakfast

3/4 cup peaches

3/4 cup oats

3/4 cup 1% milk

1/4 cup raisins

1/4 cup granola

1 T peanut butter

Morning Snack

clemintine

Lunch

chili with whole wheat spaghetti and 2 oz mozzarella cheese

Afternoon Snack

2 slices toasted Stollen with 1 T creamed honey

Dinner

1/2 cup applesauce

1 1/2 cup roast with apples, onions and sweet potatoes

Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve

Hawaii Vacation No Responses »

Jan 032012

Back in September, when I was in Oahu, I had decided that I really wanted to try snorkeling. I was determined, but scared. I had never done anything like that before. The Hanauma Bay is stunningly beautiful and known for snorkeling. After reading up on the preserve, I planned my trip for Wednesday. The easy way to go to the preserve is by bus. The parking lot fills up many days and they turn you away if you don’t arrive early enough to park. I made my way to the bus stop near our hotel and waited for the #22 bus. After a few minutes, I noticed that the #22 bus didn’t stop at the stop I was waiting at. Oops!

The bus only runs once an hour and I had little time to figure out where to find the bus and get there before the bus came. I made it with 3 minutes to spare!

It was so obvious that I was on the right bus. Everyone that got on the bus was obviously going to the preserve. They either had bathing suits, snorkeling equipment or other beach items with them.

The scenery was awesome.

Once I paid admission, there was a 25 minute wait for the mandatory movie about the preserve and how to treat it. During the wait, I looked at the exhibits and met Alison and Kelly. They were in Hawaii for a conference and I asked them if I could snorkel with them. I didn’t think it was safe to snorkel alone. After the movie, we had the option of paying for a tram or walking the hill. We opted to walk the hill and stopped for photos, too.

Once at the bottom, we rented our equipment and locker and got ready. The locker turned out to be a spot in the rental area. They didn’t have public access, but our bags weren’t exactly locked up either. I had a small waterproof bag with me for my money and identification and felt ok with leaving my other belongings in the “locker”.

I had bought a disposable water camera for this part of the trip. Most of the photos weren’t great, but here are a few worth sharing.

Here’s a photo of me ready to go out in the water. I put a shirt on over my suit since everything I read talked about how easy it was to get a sunburned back while out in the water.

I saw lots of fish. Sadly, many photos didn’t turn out.

Here’s Alison and Kelly. I really enjoyed meeting them. They were fun and made me comfortable with my snorkeling adventure.

Snorkeling isn’t something I would want to do every day, but I’m sure glad I tried it while I was in Hawaii.

Frosty Outside, Frosty Inside

Adventures with Nick and Sally, Family No Responses »

Jan 022012

I had planned to do a post from my Hawaii trip tonight, but alas you’ll have to wait to hear about my snorkeling adventure.

We are in the middle of getting our first real snow fall. I think we’ve had snow three or four times this season, but this is the first significant lake effect storm. The kids have been so excited to make a snowman.

When we woke up today, we were disappointed since there wasn’t hardly any snow yet. We promised them they could play in the snow after nap time. One thing led to another and then it was dark.

We decided to bring the snow inside. It was the best decision yet. The kids had a blast, we didn’t have to get everyone bundled up, and it was easier to clean up than most of our craft projects.

We started out with mittens and gloves, but they quickly figured out their dexterity was better without them.

We tried raisins for eyes and they didn’t stick, so we ended up with Cheerios. Since Stephen got his braces off, we stock raw carrots again. They came in handy.

Sally decided to take her clothes off today. She’s been running around in a diaper. It was a riot to see her play with the snow without clothes on.

Here they are busy at work.

Nick may or may not have been trying to drink the snow. He was happy with the ground that he made out of the snow.

We’ll definitely be playing with snow inside again soon. It was great.

Food Log for Monday

Food Log No Responses »

Jan 022012

Today’s workout was Beth’s spin class. The class was full as I expected for the beginning of January and a holiday.

Breakfast

3/4 cup oatmeal

3/4 cup 1% milk

1/2 cup peaches

1/4 cup raisins

1/4 cup granola

Lunch

beef organic hot dog

1 oz cheddar cheese

1 wheat bun

1 cup chili

Afternoon Snack

2 slices whole wheat toast with 1T creamed honey

Dinner

2 cups of onion soup (onions, cheese, mushrooms, bread cubes, ground beef, broth)

Late Snack

cup of pumpkin spice latte

Year in Review Part 2

Adventures with Nick and Sally, Family No Responses »

Jan 012012

I managed to fall asleep on the couch last night and wake up 10 minutes before the ball dropped in NYC. I hope my timing in 2012 is as good! As promised, here’s part two of my year in review.

In July, we picked lots of fruit. Blueberries was our favorite. Between U-Pick farms and our CSAs, we kept busy with fresh, local produce.

In August, family from Delaware visited early in the month. Later in the month, the Connecticut clan visited as well. The cousins don’t see enough of each other and had a blast!

In September, I was fortunate to take a trip to Hawaii.

In October, we hiked with my Grandma.

In November, Sally turned 2. My grandparents celebrated 65 years of marriage.

In December, we enjoyed lots of family time.

Have a great 2012!

Food Log for Sunday

Food Log No Responses »

Jan 012012

The return of the food log! My weight loss efforts have missed tracking. So here’s the good, bad and ugly from today. I’m looking forward to ridding the house of junk food and eating some real meals this week.

Breakfast

1/2 cup oats

1/2 cup 2% milk

1/4 cup raisins

1/4 cup granola

1 banana

Lunch

beef organic hot dog

1 oz cheddar cheese

1 cup chili

1 wheat bun

1/2 cup Brussels sprouts with bacon

Afternoon Snack

1 cup of trail mix

bite of saurkraut, pork and mashed potatoes

Dinner

Outback Steakhouse

1/2 filet with blue cheese crust

bread

baked potato with cheese and dressing

pecan chopped salad

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