A Few Good Quotes

"There is something so settled and stodgy about turning a great romance into next of kin on an emergency room form, and something so soothing and special, too." ~ Anna Quindlen

"Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, 'I will try again tomorrow.'" ~Mary Anne Radmacher

Friday, October 26, 2012

My Family Dancing

The other night when Ian was doing the dishes, I looked over to see a scene that truly almost melted my heart. Each night, Ian does the dishes and usually, Ruthie "helps." She's very good at taking the dishes out of the dishwasher, just as her daddy puts them in. Anyway, Ian also frequently listens to music (or Spanish lessons) while cleaning up.

On this night, as I looked up from my book into the kitchen, I saw them both dancing. They were looking at each other and smiling, both shaking their grove thing. Truly, my heart almost burst. It was such a precious scene and one I hope to see many times over. It was hard to tell whose moves were better. =) If you're lucky, you'll catch a glimpse of it someday and then you can decide for yourself. As for me, I love the duet.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Pumpkin Patch!

Every year, our family goes with our sisters' families to the Pumpkin Patch* here in Long Beach. It is the highlight of the fall. As each of our families has more kids, the trips get more and more fun. They have pumpkins, rides and games, a petting zoo, ponies, a giant slide, carnival food and more pumpkins. The kids love it and so do we.

Here is Ruthie and Ian, checking out some pumpkins. Ruthie is wearing a darling Peek-a-Boooo! shirt that you can't quite see.
And here are all the kiddos, having fun while Uncle Rob pulls them around in a wagon. In the back row are Mary and Mike's kids - Abbie (facing sideways), Sam (I guess also facing sideways), an Clare, showing off her newly learned skill of sitting up (and kind of facing sideways - they should do something about that).

In the front, left to ride, is Heather and Rob's Finnley and Rowan, then of course Ruthie. Aren't they all so cute?!
When we first arrived, Ian and I were both hungry. Naturally, our first order of business was "delicious" carnival food - I had a hot dog and chips and Ian had nachos and a corn dog. Then we had to feed Ruthie her dinner (which was not carnival food), while the other kids went in the petting zoo. By the time all that happened, we really only had time for one ride with Ruthie.

Here is Ian and Ruthie on the carousel - Ruthie has just started to not want us to put her on the carousel and stand behind her, like she used to do. So on this day, Ian sat with her on a bench. Yesterday at Disneyland, my mom had to get up on the horse and hold Ruthie in order to get her to ride King Arthur's Carousel  But in both cases, I think both parties had fun, so it worked out.
This Pumpkin Patch will, in just a few short days, become a Christmas Tree Lot, which will also be fun (though we tend to get our trees from Home Depot and don't make the drive back out to this one). I love this time of year - all the great smells, decorations, food, time with family, change in the weather. Two thumbs up for it all!

*You do realize that I use the term "patch" here loosely, right?  It's a parking lot covered with hay with pumpkins thrown on top. But it's what we've got, here in So Cal, and we'll take it!

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Homemade Yogurt

For a while now, I've been wanting to make my own yogurt. I been postponing it because we really don't eat that much yogurt and I thought it was a huge pain.

However, as I was taking a look at our grocery bill recently, in the ever-present attempts to get it lower, I realized we were spending about $7 a week on yogurt. That's a lot, when your average grocery bill is around $80-$90! Ian frequently takes one of those individual serving Greek yogurts in his lunch ($1 each) and we were also buying plain yogurt for Ruthie, since she's started to enjoy it more (and not make such a tart face after each bite).

So, I called Sarah, who has already been making her own yogurt for some time, and asked if I could come over next time she did it. That happened about two weeks ago - I was amazed at how easy it was to do, even with small kids underfoot.

This week, I tackled the task on my own. Using a recipe and very easy to follow directions from thefrugalgirl blog* that I follow, I had the job done in about 30 minutes (not counting incubation time).

Here is my milk, getting hot on the stove. You're supposed to get it to around 185, which takes about 10-15 minutes.
Then you place it in the sink to take a cool bath, letting the temperature get back down to 120. This takes about 5-7 minutes.
Then you whisk in some starter, which takes about 30 seconds. Starter is just existing yogurt - I used what was left over from the batch I made at Sarah's house.

And here is my milky yogurt, ready in jars for the next step. This is half a gallon of milk - it make 5 medium size jars of yogurt!
Then you put the jars in a cooler filled with hot water to take a warm bath (yogurt sure likes a lot of baths). You simply close the lid and then three hours later...
You have yummy yogurt! Actually, it's a bit longer than that, since you should refrigerate it first so it gets firm (and cool - warm yogurt is gross).
This first solo batch is a little runnier than I prefer my yogurt, so I'll have to tinker with a few things next time. But we've already enjoyed it in fruit smoothies, with granola (homemade, of course), and Ruthie eats a nice big bowl of it every morning with her rice cereal.

Now let's get down to the dollar and cents of it - say each of my jars holds about two individual sized yogurts (I think they hold more than that, but just to be conservative we'll stick with two), that means in all five jars I have $10 worth of store bought yogurt. As a reminder, I used half gallon of milk to make all that yogurt. If the average half gallon of milk costs me $2.50, then I'm saving $7.50 by making my own yogurt. That's amazing! And so easy!

My thanks to The Frugal Girl for posting her recipe, Sarah for showing me the ropes and the good people at Fresh and Easy for selling me the milk. What a team!

*Disclaimer on the recipe - the frugal girl appears to boil her jars first. I didn't do that and neither does Sarah and we're all still alive. So I'm not sure how necessary that is. Just sayin'.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Getting So Big

I can hardly believe how big Ruthie is getting!! She seems so much more like a toddler than a baby.

Here she is, sitting by herself on her wood rocking horse. She can't make it rock by herself (thank goodness) but she loves it when we do it. And she loves just sitting up there!

Saturday, October 6, 2012

A Little Light Reading

Several times a day, while she is playing in our family room, Ruthie will crawl over to one if her books and "read" it thoroughly. In just the hour that I have been watching her play this afternoon, she has read Goodnight Moon an her ABC Touch and Feel book.

Doesn't she look so smart? Ian, being the English teacher that he is, can't contain his pride.

Friday, October 5, 2012

Some Cooking Updates

We recently had our friend over who is a vegan (hi, Erin!). I love having Erin over, because, well, we like her, and it's always a fun challenge to make a full vegan meal. Last time she was over, I did more of an Italian theme. This time, Asian food just sounded so delicious.

So, I made some vegan egg rolls, Here is the mixture, just before placing it in the won-ton wrappers. It has mushrooms, carrots, cabbage, onions and lots of yummy sauces/oils.


Here is one as I'm about to fold it up.
And here they are, just going into the oven. Somehow, I didn't take a picture of the finished product, but they tasted super yummy. I made a homemade plum sauce to go with them - does anyone know what's in plum sauce? Vinegar, peppercorns (which are later strained out), sugar and ketchup. Crazy. But it was also yummy.
Of course, we had a main dish (peanut tofu stir fry with steamed bok choy and sticky rice), but I don't have any photos of that. For dessert, strawberry shortcakes with cool whip. Two thumbs up!

Something I've gotten into recently is a Mexican Scramble for breakfast. Whenever we have black beans that need to be used up, putting them in the eggs in the morning is one of my favorite ways. On this particular Saturday morning, we also had two jalapenos from our garden and some green onions to throw in there, with cheese. SUPER delicious. I love those little corn tortillas with eggs!

I've also seen on several cooking blogs this new idea of putting a raw egg on pizza and then baking it. I found a recipe on a frugal cooking blog I just started reading, so I thought I would give it a try.

It's wheat dough, mozzarella cheese, bacon and eggs - the recipe called for 5 eggs, which I didn't have, but also sounded like a lot. Next time, I think I'll make it with 3.

Here is the finished product, with green beans (duh). When the pizza comes out, you sprinkle green onions and parsley on top. The egg was pretty running but actually very tasty. I would definitely make it again!
Happy cooking to you!

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

The Grass is Always Greener

We just got gates, so we can keep Ruthie mostly within eyesight while we are in the family room. But she usually spends a lot of time looking longingly into the next room.