Something New

We tried out a new recipe for dinner tonight - a sort of Mediterranean/Middle Eastern salad dish of lentils and couscous, garlic, bell pepper, onion, olives, tomatoes, and fresh cilantro. Topped with a home-mixed balsamic vinaigrette and crumbled feta cheese.

I think it's going to be a prominent feature in our warm-weather menu rotation.

Ty and Roo are back to playing on the deck while I make dinner. Spring! Spring! Spring!

I think he was hunting something in the grass below.

Oh, Hi

Let's see if I can end this month-and-a-half long blog hiatus I fell into... Hello again!

My day:
lazy breakfast with a cute tot
putting away some 12 and 18 month clothes
taking out some 24 month and 2T clothes
storing the highchair
Indian leftovers for lunch
nap!
making hummus
baking granola
loads of laundry
hummus and egg sandwiches for dinner, strawberries for dessert
early to bed!
watching a beautiful sunset
and maybe some knitting?

Citrus

We have the most uneven produce at the grocery stores here. You buy some oranges and they're pretty good, bordering on the downright tasty, and you go back for more and get dry, crunchy, under-ripe, orange look-alikes.

These were some of those. Is it even worth it to speculate on marmalading them?

Messy #5

Lastly, here for messy week, is a room that is supposed to be a bit messy. A bit of a catch-all for cleaning supplies and the watering can and the extra fish food and the bag of things for the Goodwill. I love my laundry room; it is sunny and full of green things.

I want to paint it bright yellow. Someday.

Tonight: sweet potato fries, peas, and breaded cod fillets. And blueberry yogurt coffee cake.
Tomorrow: Pi day!

Messy #4

So, I was mentioning the kitchen:

Thankfully, I got it all cleaned up this morning. And I even folded two bins of laundry this afternoon. Too bad I did the wash yesterday and so still have two loads of laundry yet to fold. Endless!

We went out on a date this evening, to dinner at Red Robin. Roo ate spoonfuls of my chocolate milkshake and helped herself liberally to my french fries. This is why we never go out for burgers anymore.

Messy #3

The great room is a fantastic idea and a terrible idea at the same time. Great for keeping an eye on Roo while I work, fantastic for socializing while cooking, and terrible at hiding any kind of kitchen mess or the fact that I sometime struggle to stay on top of the dishes.

Tonight we had pizza. Fresh, homemade pizza, the best kind. I'm posting my pizza dough recipe for a couple of reasons. It's not anything fancy at all, but it is good, it's healthy, and it's fast. It's just a squinch modified from the Newlywed Cookbook, which we got as a wedding gift from a good Whitman friend.

Pizza dough:
Place 1 C warm (110* F) water in a medium mixing bowl. Sprinkle in 1 packet or 2 1/4 tsp. active dry yeast. Let stand 5 min, stir.
Add 1 tsp. olive oil and 1/2 tsp. salt, stir. Add 1 3/4 C white flour and 3/4 C whole wheat flour (2 1/2 C flour, total), mix, then knead for about 5 min.
Cover with a damp tea towel and let rise in a warm, draft free location until doubled, about an hour.
Preheat oven to 350* F.
Dust top with cornmeal, punch down, divide into two balls, stretch by hand to desired diameter and place on a baking sheet dusted heavily with cornmeal.
Let rise before topping approx. 20 min. for thick crust; top immediately for thin.

Super easy pizza sauce? We use homemade (vegetarian) red sauce, which we make in big batches for use on pasta, baked dishes, pizza, baked potatoes, spaghetti squash, dal, etc...

Also super tasty? Fresh mozzarella cheese.

Messy #2

Here's our office/art studio/napping spot/playroom. At this very moment there are two huge bins of laundry to fold awaiting me in here. Maybe I will tackle them tomorrow.

Notice the Christmas lights still up in the window? Yeah. I took those down finally on Saturday morning. The ones in the front room window are harder to reach, and are still on the to-do list.

But I got the dishes done today!

Messy Week, #1

Hah! I thought I'd share the house this once in its lived-in, toys-all-over, dishes-waiting-to-be-washed glory. This week is messy week, and hopefully tidying will happen here while you enjoy photos of the way I try not to let our home look. These were all taken 3/6/09.

Our bedroom, when we don't smooth the bed. Notice the piles of folded laundry ON the dresser, because obviously it was too hard to put them IN the dresser. Also that afternoon Roo had just collected the bath mats from both bathrooms and dumped them in a heap there next to Todd's side of the bed, between a stray engineering magazine and an upside down Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel. Also notice in the background the hutch is covered in about 5 different knitting, quilting, and sewing projects that I pretend to find the time for mostly by neglecting my art projects. I am a bad artist.

Green, Day 6

One more shot, lucky bamboo:

It lives on our kitchen island, because otherwise the cats would reduce it to shreds and tatters. As they have our poor lemongrass plant. :(

Green, Day 5

Another sunny and warmish afternoon. A few more weeks of this and we'll have greening grass and budding trees! Roo wanted to be out on the deck again:

I also spotted some green popping up in her toy boxes:

We have friends coming to town tomorrow for a quick visit, and I'm very excited to see them again. Chocolate cake with mint chocolate chip ice cream is on the menu.

Green, Day 4

Today I saw:
two crows
three whitetail deer
a red-tailed hawk
a male cardinal
a black dog
our neighbors' black and white cat, Basil
the moon in the afternoon sky

I heard:
robins clucking
blue jays scolding

I made:
two quarts of yogurt
ginger cookies

It was 64 degrees out at 4pm.

Green glass float, probably originally from Japan via a Washington beach, from my grandparents' things.

Green, Day 3

We had an herb pot growing on the back deck last summer, and we brought it indoors to see if we could overwinter the rosemary and oregano and chives in our sunny window. Sure enough, we've had fresh herbs all winter, though they're getting a tad leggy by now.

That's the rosemary, getting excited about these longer days of sunlight.

I'm knitting Roo a spring sweater-vest-shirt thing. Using pink variegated yarn, but I think it's going to be okay.

I didn't actually notice this till just now, but my little 'sock' point protectors are green, too. How funny.

Green, Day 2

I'm making Fish on the Line for Roo, but I've been neglecting them for other knitting projects.

Maybe better get back on that if I want to finish by her birthday.

I've got one stuffed, two others knit, and I still have orange, red, pink, and purple to start...

Green Week, Day 1

shining egg is hosting a green week, and I'm playing along, again incognito. I'm also sick, sick, sick, sick, so maybe just pictures this week.

My cherished puzzle ball, saved for Roo.