Posing for the six month shot

Now what, Mama?

How ’bout we DANCE!

Was that good dancing?

I’m also pretty good at sticking out my tongue and drooling a little bit.

MORE DANCING!

I just had an idea. I have a very personal relationship with my Google Reader. I have discovered so many wonderful people out in the internet-world that have so many good things to teach me. My only problem is that there are SO MANY of them! I can never keep up with all of the informative, beautiful, helpful blogs out there. So I am constantly weeding out my Google Reader, deleting any blog out of it that is not really super helpful and informative. That still leaves an AWFUL lot of blogs, so I just try to do my best to only read it when I really do have time to spare and to skim everything and only read the MOST helpful stuff thoroughly.

My husband reads probably much more interesting blogs than I do. He reads the current events and politics and economics (LOTS of economics) and some Second Amendment stuff and religion…and I don’t. I read the stuff he passes on to me and tell myself that I should read actual books about that stuff because I DO think I would be better off reading an actual book about economics or politics so that I understand the underlying concepts first. I have not yet read any of those books. But I intend to! And then maybe all those posts my husband translates for me will make more sense.

So almost all the blogs I read regularly have to do with cooking, healthy or otherwise, teaching and mothering one’s children, homemaking, and that sort of thing. I have stopped feeling too bad about it because I actually feel that it DOES help me do a better job at this stuff. I think that’s the secret - the minute you spend all your time READING about how to do something well so you don’t have time to DO anything well, you’ve missed the mark.

So back to that idea. I thought I’d share what blogs I’ve decided are the most helpful/inspiring/beautiful in the hopes that you will do the same! If you choose to post your own, please leave a comment here since I might overlook your post, since, you know, I do all that skimming and kicking blogs off my Google Reader.

I am actually not going to list all the blogs of my own personal friends. Rest assured that if you are my own personal friend, I probably read your blog, and I probably do more than skim it.

Organized by the categories on my Reader, in the order they appear:

Mothering/Homemaking Blogs

The Daily Weaving: I actually just added this one because she had good feast day ideas and I found directions for making a St. Brigid’s Cross for St. Brigid’s Day. So I don’t know much about her. She is Orthodox, likes stuff from the British Isles, has a Gadsden Flag on her sidebar and posted a pretty awesome speech by Charlton Heston (did I just say that?) last week, so I think we could be friends.

Festal Celebrations: Not so much a personal blog as a storinghouse of ideas on celebrating the Feasts of the Church.

Amy’s Humble Musings: Amy Scott is a household name around here. Paul actually read her long before I did, and many conversations between us begin with “did you see what Amy posted about…” or “Amy said…” Yes, we are on a first name basis. The Scott’s moved from Florida to Kentucky to start a farm in an Amish area, renovating an old farmhouse. Her stories about learning how to butcher things, catch cows, and deal with snow as a native Floridian are HILARIOUS. Plus, while we don’t often see eye to eye on theology, we do like her politics, which are mostly apparent by her Delicious links that show up on my feed.

evlogia: This lovely site might be my favorite of all. Mary is lovely, thoughtful Orthodox mother of six homeschooled children, the youngest of whom was born a couple of months before James. She is developing an Orthodox homeschool curriculum with two of the other bloggers I will list, and I’m sure I will be using her ideas often as James gets bigger.

In the Heart of My Home: This is the online home of Elizabeth Foss, longtime homeschooling writer. She is the mother of nine, from a big guy in college to a little one year old. She is a great writer (check out her links to articles she’s written in the Arlington Catholic Herald) and I love peeking into the home of someone who has worked at doing the homeschooling/homemaking/domestic church thing well for so many years. Paul has gotten used to my constantly referring to both the “the evlogia lady” and “the Catholic lady with nine kids.” Mary and Elizabeth also happen to be close friends.

Charming the Birds from the Trees: Matushka Emily is one of the other mothers working with Mary at evlogia on the Orthodox homeschool curriculum. Her site is focused on cultivating loveliness both personally and in the home, as well as living out the Orthodox faith with her husband, a priest, and two little ones (with another on the way). Her blog title is fitting, since “charming” is the most fitting word for her site.

St. Theophan Academy: Anna is the third mother working on the Orthodox homeschool curriculum. I haven’t read her for very long, and she doesn’t post quite as often (although, a WHOLE LOT more often that me!) but I always like what I find there.

There are three pretty extensive blogs that I read that are all similar, Keeper of the Home, Passionate Homemaking, and Heavenly Homemakers. They are all focused on trying to raise a family healthfully, naturally, and frugally. They post on saving money while feeding your family very well, making your own cleaning products, avoiding toxins, etc. I get a lot of good ideas from them and quite a few of my recipes come from them.

I read Pleasant View Schoolhouse just because it is so pretty and I wish I could make things as pretty as she does. She even makes exceedingly pretty children. She also makes these adorable dresses from vintage patterns that I am quite envious of.

I just discovered Like Mother, Like Daughter, and I can’t believe I didn’t find it before. I think I love these women! And I love the concept. A mother raises seven children, who now range in age from 28 to 12. In order for the mother, her four daughters, and the grandmother to share their thoughts, photos, and projects with one another, they started this totally adorable blog. The mother posts the most, and she is so funny. She seeks to pass on the wisdom she’s won from raising seven children in a happy and beautiful home so her daughters, and we, don’t have to reinvent the wheel. I’ve only had time to read a little of it, but so far I love it. So far I’ve particularly liked reading about what she learned from her short stint of having a cleaning lady, the importance of having a Reasonably Clean, Fairly Neat, and Comfortably Tidy home, and thought her post on getting up on time was pretty funny (I did not learn to be a morning person until I married a morning person and then had a baby that apparently takes after his father and does a full-fledged happy dance upon getting up every morning, so I appreciated this part: “if you live for jumping out of bed and are an amazing morning person, I love you, please go away.” And: “Never mind your neighbor who wakes up in an hour that begins with a ‘five’ and works out, prays, and cleans her house before her family even stirs. We will never be like her and we are just going to try not to hate her.”

Ok, now on to the Foodie Blogs, which other than the “Friends” category is my only other category. I’ll keep this short, since I have failed at brevity so far.

David Lebotitz: Former pastry chef at the famed Chez Panisse who now lives in Paris. Need I say more? I am currently in the process of making his choclolate custard ice cream from the ice cream cookbook of his that Paul got me for Christmas, this time with his homemade chocolate almond toffee (think a sheet of Almond Roca) mixed in (the last batch had Trader Joe’s mini peanut butter cups stirred in).

101 Cookbooks: Really pretty blog of a cookbook author that actually has more cookbooks than I do. Vegetarian and sometimes way too healthy, but a good place to get recipes for the fasts.

Food Renegade and The Nourishing Gourmet are both healthy eating blogs focused on the Nourishing Traditions diet, which we don’t follow strictly, but I try my best to employ some of the concepts. Food Renegade is more full of general information, and Nourishing Gourmet is full of recipes. I get quite a lot of my recipes from her, and especially like her weekly posts full of super frugal meal ideas that are still very healthy.

smitten kitchen is . . . not usually healthy. But oh so yummy and pretty. I generally want to cook every single thing she posts.

That’s all, folks. Now tell me yours! And don’t forget to leave a comment. You can also just post a few favorites, if you don’t want to do such an extensive post as this.

Outside my window…

There is an awful lot of snow and it is still falling fast and furious. The weirdest part was looking out the window in the middle of the night (up feeding the baby) and seeing that everything outside was glowing orange! It was so bright I had to close the blinds. I guess it’s from the snow falling in a big city with lots of lights—the light reflects off the snow in the air, making everything glow orange. I should have gone to the grocery store yesterday; then this snow wouldn’t bother me at all!

From the Kitchen…

This week is Cheeseweek, meaning the last week we eat dairy before Great Lent begins a week from this Monday (this Sunday is the last day for meat). This is our last week of preparation. I think this week will include homemade ice cream (dark chocolate with homemade toffee and almonds and maybe cookie dough ice cream too), fettucine alfredo with mushrooms and broccoli, pizza, red onion-gruyere quiche, and a fontina-mushroom bread pudding for breakfast.

I have fallen in love with my ice cream machine, given to us by my dear friend’s mom for our wedding. Paul got me an ice cream cookbook for Christmas, by the former pastry chef at Chez Panisse. I made a chocolate custard ice cream using dark chocolate with 72% cocoa solids and then mixed in Trader Joe’s miniature peanut butter cups. It was amazing.

I’ve had a lot of fun in the kitchen lately, making all kinds of rich, yummy things. It makes me grumpy that the fast is starting and I have to stop just when I got the hang of things like Julia Child’s Boeuf Bourguingnon (I made the classic version, and then made a version with Guinness for St. Brigid’s Day) and fancy homemade ice cream. Which probably means it is exactly the right time for the fast to start. Oatmeal and beans, here we come!

Towards rhythm and beauty…

I feel like I’m finally getting a schedule and rhythm that works. I tried putting in a weekly schedule into iCal about five times, and it just never worked with having a newborn that I couldn’t predict at all. But now that I’ve started working two days a week (see below) I’ve divided up everything among the remaining days, and divided the days into blocks. It helps that James is old enough now that he just tags along with me throughout the day, sitting in the kitchen while I cook, playing on the floor while I fold laundry, etc.

The best thing I’ve done to organize my time is to set aside Mondays as cooking days. I have nothing else on my list but cooking and taking care of James. My shopping days are Saturdays, before which I plan every detail of the following week’s menu. Our monthly Costco run is always on Sunday afternoons after church. On Monday, I clean the kitchen thoroughly, and then look over the week’s menu to see what I could possibly make ahead. It helps with the grocery budget too. For instance, I go through a TON of canned tomatoes. I already buy them for pretty cheap at Costco, but the giant can of San Marzano tomatoes is like $.35 a pound, and they’re better tomatoes anyway. So I buy the giant can and make all the tomato-based sauces I need for the near future (last week I made a giant pot of spaghetti sauce, pizza sauce for three pizzas, and a pot of koshari sauce). I freeze the ones I don’t need that week in ziploc bags or small tupperwares. I also usually double a casserole recipe (like this one) and put one in the freezer, make a batch of bread and granola, and cook up a batch of beans for future use or for hummus. I also take out my Cuisenart and do all the chopping for the week (slice vegables for pizza, chop vegetables for soup, etc.) so that I only get it out and dirty once instead of almost every day.

I am reading…

The Bible. But not just parts here and there this time. Even though I grew up Christian and went to Christian school or was homeschooled until high school, and went to a Christian university, I have never read the entire Bible in one go. I’m sure there are some parts that I have never read, and the Orthodox use the full Septuagint canon, and so there are parts of that I have not read yet. So I’m following this schedule and reading through the complete canon, hopefully in a year.

I am also, embarrassingly, not finished with The Iliad yet, although I am very close.

I am listening to…

Just in time for my yearlong Bible reading project, I discovered a fantastic podcast by an Orthodox biblical scholar and priest’s wife, Dr. Jeannie Constantinou, called Search the Scriptures. It is quite in-depth; I’ve already listened to 20 episodes, and still have 13 to go before we get to Genesis 1! Her series on the development of the canon, both Jewish and Christian, was fascinating. She had a series on interpreting the scriptures according to the Fathers of the Church, a few episodes on Biblical manuscripts, the history of the Septuagint, oral tradition, the concepts of inspiration and inerrancy, and much more. She is a fascinating teacher and very sensible in her approach. It is basically a expanded, Orthdodox version of her Bible course she teaches at the University of San Diego. She also used to teach New Testament at Holy Cross Orthodox Theological Seminary. I highly recommend her talks.

At the moment I’m listening to Cappella Romana’s The Music of Byzantium, which makes my 450 square foot Philadelphia apartment sound like the inside of a giant Byzantine cathedral. It includes a hymn to St. Thomas Aquinas (in Greek, no less), which gives my husband no end of glee, since most Orthodox disdain him but Paul has great admiration for him.

On keeping home…

Just keeping up with the aforementioned schedule. It makes our little home a lot more pleasant to have everything cleaned on a regular schedule, rather than one day realizing the bathroom hasn’t been cleaned in two weeks.

One of my favorite things…

A snow day with fresh scones and hot coffee is pretty great.

This week in the Church…

Food aside, this is the last week of “preparing to prepare”: preparing to begin the fast, which in turn prepares our souls for the great celebration of the Resurrection. Two Sundays ago we remembered the Publican and the Pharisee, to remind us in what spirit we must fast in order for it to bear any fruit. Last Sunday we remembered the Prodigal Son, to remind us how greatly the Lord desires we return to him. This week we will remember the Last Judgement and soberly prepare ourselves to spend these next weeks in humble repentence. And a week from Sunday we will ask every member of our church community individually to forgive us, and offer our own, before we begin this period of repentence together as we anticipate the celebration of Christ’s holy resurrection.

The Prodigal Son

The Last Judgement

A few plans for the rest of the week…

Well, I guess we’ll start by being holed up in the house due to snow. I doubt we’ll even make it to church on Sunday. Tuesday and Thursday I’ll go to my new friend Melanie’s house. I’ve just starting watching an adorable 21-month old girl in downtown Philly named Melanie two full days a week. She has bright red curly hair and is very smart. She also has a very funny way of talking. I am still technically a stranger, so she is understandably upset when her parents leave in the morning. (Tuesday will be my third full day.) She has decided that the only way to make things better at this point is to “Go sleep, Mel!” So she rounds up her “friends” (stuffed animals) and her three precious little cat toy balls, marches upstairs with me, all the while saying, “Go sleep Mel! Go sleep Mel!” and curls up in her bed for a while. I sit there and read stories out loud with James until she is smiling, and then we go about our day. When she wants me to keep doing something, or do something again, she gives me an impish grin and says, “More yes? More yes?” And when she wants to know what is on the docket for the day, she asks, “How do day?” Three o’clock is a very important time in Melanie’s universe: it is the time either Mommy or Daddy come home. My first day, when she kept asking about “Mommy come home?” I told her three o’clock and showed her where that was on the clock. Little did I know she would then spend the rest of the day watching her digital clock intently, gleefully annoucing as the numbers turned, “Four! Five! Six!” I had to distract her lest she really spend the entire day in this manner.

James Benedict this week…

Baby James is growing up quick! He now sits up and plays with his toys, which is quite a technological breakthrough, since he can entertain himself for a while now. We also broke out the high chair, even though he won’t be eating food for a while yet, so he can sit somewhere other than Mama’s lap during meals (although Mama’s lap is definitely still the preferred place). He likes sitting in his high chair right next to me in the kitchen while I cook, since he’s up at counter level instead of on the floor in his bouncy seat. He is just as cheerful and giggly and playful as ever!

James in his new high chair!

This was the last time James was allowed to sit in the big easy chair . . . because then he fell off of it and gave his Mama a major heart attack. (He was just fine.) He is apparently more mobile than we thought!

UPenn baby!

He started out the month sitting all propped up, but now he can do it all by himself! (The balance is still a bit off, so we put a pillow behind him for the inevitable topple.)

Wrapping paper is always more fun than the present, right?

Very first shoes!

What are these things on my feet, Papa?

Cousin Canyon gave us this awesome snow suit and he wears it almost every time he leaves the house these days.

More pictures to share…

James hung out in the wrap for a while this morning so he could practice major 7th chords on the piano with me. I’ve been using the Ergo carrier below since the New Year, but he looked so excited to go in his old carrier when I got it out. :)

This is the carrier we mostly use now, and we all love it. It’s super comfortable and easy to use. And it was very exciting when I figured out how to get him on my back by myself, since it solved a recurring problem: the fact that James has his one major meltdown of the day right when I’m trying to make dinner and Paul isn’t home yet. So he gets piggybacked onto Mama, she goes about her business, and he usually takes a little nap back there, making him nice and cheerful for when Papa gets home!

Stolen from my friend Rebecca:

“Constancy is something which is worked out by a spiritual regime based upon wisdom handed down from the Holy Fathers - not mere obedience to tradition for tradition’s sake, but rather a conscious assimilation of what wise men in God have seen and written down. On the outward side, this constancy is worked out by a little prayer and we have this basic prayer in the Church services which have down to us. Of course in different places they are performed according to one’s strength, more or less.

“Constancy also involves a regular reading of spiritual texts, for example at mealtime. We must be constantly injected with otherwordliness in order to fight against the other side, against the worldliness that contantly gnaws at us. If for just one day we stop these otherworldly spiritual injections,’ it is obvious that worldliness starts taking over. When we go without them for one day, worldliness invades - two days, much more. We find that soon we think more and more in a worldly way, the more we allow ourselves to be exposed to that way of thinking and the less we expose ourselves to otherworldly thinking.

“These injections - daily injections of spiritual food - are the outward side, and the inward side is what is called spiritual life. Spiritual life does not mean being in the clouds while saying the Jesus Prayer or going through various motions. It means discovering the laws of this spiritual life as they apply to one’s own position, one’s situation. This comes over the years by attentive reading of the Holy Fathers with a notebook, writing down those passages which seem most significant to us, studying them, finding how they apply to us, and, if need be, revising earlier views of them as we get a little deeper into them, finding what one Father says about something, what a second Father says about something and so on. There is no encyclopedia that will give you that. You cannot decide you want to find all about some one subject and begin reading the Holy Fathers. There are a few indexes in the writings of the Fathers, but you cannot simply go at spiritual life in that way. You have to go at it a little bit at a time, taking the teaching in as you are able to absorb it, going back over the same texts in later years, reabsorbing them, getting more, and gradually coming to find out how these spiritual texts apply to you. As a person does that, he discovers that every time he reads the same Holy Father he finds new things. He always goes deeper into it . . .

“Fr. Nicholas Deputatov, who is obviously one who has much love for the Holy Fathers, has read their writings, underlined them, and written them out in books. He says: When I get in a very low mood, very discouraged and despondent, then I open one of my notebooks, and I begin to read something that inspired me. It is almost guaranteed that when I read something which once inspired me, I will again become inspired, because it is my own soul that was at one time being inspired, and now I see that it was something which inspired me then and can nourish me now also. So it’s like an automatic inspiration, to open up something which inspired me before.” (Fr Seraphim Rose, p 466-7)

So, after all that, I am going to get off the computer and go read something worthwhile. If any of you have noticed that I have divested myself of both my facebook and my LiveJournal account, I will probably be back, but not for at least a week. Too much chatter. A blessed Nativity Fast to you all.

I have promised my hummus recipe to people many times. And never delivered. Not because I don’t want to share it, but just because I don’t HAVE a recipe. I know what goes in it, but not how much. I just throw stuff in and then stick my finger in it and taste it. If it needs more of something, I add it, and then I go through this process about twelve times. The main problem is that I only use dry garbanzo beans, and I just toss some in the crock pot. So I don’t know how many I put in the first place, and I sure don’t know how it compares to the canned beans most people use. So today I just started with an entire pound of dry garbanzo beans and paid attention to how much of everything else I put in.

I think starting with dry bean is key. Canned beans are not fully cooked, and so make for grainy hummus. I soak the beans at least overnight, and then cook them on low in the crock-pot for at least four hours, until they are so soft they are falling apart. I highly recommend this if you have the time. I’m not sure how to make hummus without a crock-pot and a food processor. I made it in a blender once, but I had to make it pretty runny in order for it to blend properly. You can see that even now this recipe is “to taste” and I put ranges of some of the ingredients. You’ll just have to stick your finger in it and taste it too!

Note: This is smooth hummus, but not the super-smooth creamy type like Sabra hummus. I honestly don’t think you can get that consistancy at home. My guess is that they add a lot of oil and process it in a way that removes the bean skins.

Process the garlic in the food processor until finely minced (they incorporate much better if you mince them before adding anything else). Add all other ingredients, starting with the lower amount given (i.e. juice of 2 lemons). Process until very smooth, adding some cooking water to make it the desired consistancy. I ended up adding about 1/2 cup this time. Taste, and add more lemon juice, salt, or tahina if it’s still bland. It should be tangy and bright tasting, not beany. Hummus is traditionally served with olive oil drizzled over the top. You can certainly omit this on strict fast days.

There you go. That’s as close to a recipe as I can get :) Our favorite thing to eat this with is pita chips — brush a split pita with plenty of olive oil on both sides, sprinkle with kosher salt and bake at 400 degrees until crispy. Break into small pieces.

I just discovered a new game that makes me positively GLEEFUL. I left a couple of bananas out for too long, and was punished by a swarm of fruit flies, so many that they were driving me totally mad. I took out the trash and then looked up online how to get rid of the swarm. There are many different methods to trap and kill fruit flies, but none as fun and instant as this!

Plug your hair dryer in in the kitchen. Hold it backwards, so you are “pointing” with the back. Turn on the hair dryer and just vacuum the little suckers up! It will grab them from several inches away, sucking them right into the vent and frying them. The baby probably thought I was nuts, happily sucking fruit flies right out of the air with the hair dryer.

I think I’m going to go kill some more now.

I’ve made this recipe so many times, my copy of Vegan Planet automatically opens to this page, although it’s simple enough I don’t even look at the recipe anymore.

Heat the oil in a large skillet (really, make it large, or you’ll make a mess). Cook the onion, carrot, bell pepper, and garlic over medium heat until softened. Stir in the spices, tomatoes, and beans. Add salt and pepper to taste, cover, and simmer until vegetables are tender and the tomatoes are saucy, at least 10 minutes. Taste and adjust seasonings. Serve over rice or cornbread.

I’m eating the leftovers from yesterday’s breakfast right now as I type :)

Lenten Pumpkin Pancakes

Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl. Whisk together the almond milk, pumpkin, and corn oil until well blended (the instructions say to blend it in a blender or food processor, but a whisk does the job adequately). Pour the wet ingredients in to the dry and mix with as few strokes as possible. Cook on an oiled griddle or skillet until bubbles appear on top, then flip. Since this is a fairly thick batter, I usually spread the batter out a bit to keep them from being too thick.

That’s it! We usually eat these with honey, although maple syrup would be better. Still saving my grocery pennies for a big jug of maple syrup!

I went with Mama to go see everyone at the School of Nursing. They all liked me a lot.

I take lots of naps in the Boppy.

This one time, Mama washed ALL my blankets at once…so I had to use a DIAPER for a blanket. Sheesh.

I play with Mama on the bed a lot.

I really love my Papa.

This is how I look when I am displeased.

Like when Mama and Papa made the bed WITHOUT CHECKING TO SEE IF THERE WAS A BABY IN IT!

On my way to go grocery shopping with Mama.

Yay! I woke up from my nap! Time to play!

Uh, oh, Mama has the camera out. This might be a while.

Look, these are my hands. I like them a lot.

Mama, you are super crazy, do you know that?

But I like you anyway.

See, I stick my tongue out at people I like.

Ha ha, I am so funny.

Yay! It’s finally time to play!

My friend Sara served this to me one day for lunch, and I loved it so much I asked for the recipe. She went and pulled out the cookbook and I saw it was one I already had! This is from Simple Suppers by the Moosewood Collective, although I’ve altered it a little bit. I use this cookbook quite often. This recipe is one that actually has been kid-tested, since Sara’s three kids (all five years and under) love it.

Thai Butternut Squash Soup

In a soup pot, whisk together the coconut milk, curry paste, sugar, salt, and broth (or water). Add the squash (frozen, or scooped out of the skin if you bake your own) and lime leaf if you’re using it. Whisk to incorporate squash. If you baked it long enough, it should blend right in with a whisk and you shouldn’t need to blend it in a blender like the recipe suggests. When it is heated through, add 1 tsp. of lime zest and two tablespoons lime juice. Stir in the spinach and cook until it wilts. Taste for seasonings - I often add a little more sugar and/or salt, and sometimes more curry paste. The curry paste (it comes in a little glass jar from Thai Kitchen - do not substitute curry powder as it is not the same thing) is not too hot, but if your family doesn’t like spicy food, limit how much you add.

The original recipe also has you fry up some tofu cubes in soy sauce, oil, and curry paste and stir that in. I haven’t done this, but it would be an easy addition.