Soba with Mushroom Broth, Cabbage and yams.

I've been going through my back issues of Gourmet and Bon Appetit magazines the last few months, pulling out recipes I think I'd actually make and putting them in my recipe scrapbooks. Sometimes I feel kind of guilty because I'm great at scrapbooking recipes, but my kids' pictures are all in a box molding downstairs. Well, the pictures don't keep multiplying in piles that we trip over in our living room like the cooking magazines do. The latest pictures are all multiplying tidily on the computer now.

Anyway, there was a recipe that looked great to me in a Bon Appetit. Looked great is the pivotal phrase. The picture was so beautiful: Udon with mushroom broth, cabbage, and yams.
I wanted to tweak it a bit -I had purple cabbage instead of napa, and wanted to use buckwheat soba just for the whole grain factor, and I also had those Chilean porcinis I wanted to use for the broth instead of the shitakes they suggested. It still turned out yummy, and the purple cabbage turned a stunning bright blue when blanched.
You blanch all of your vegetables, noodles, and tofu separately and then add them to your broth at serving time. If you decide to make this though, I would encourage you to salt your blanching water really well. The vegetables need that little seasoning it gives.


The broth is the masterpiece though. With those mushrooms simmering in it for an hour, and the lemon grass, and coriander and ginger, it makes the whole house smelled wonderful. I started with a good vegetable boullion for the base since I didn't have vegetable stock made, and it turned out just fine. The mushrooms and ginger are so flavorful, I don't feel like I missed much by not starting from scratch. The recipe suggests serving with a chili sauce like Sambal oelek. We didn't use it because I didn't think the kids would like it, but I kind of think now it would have been a good idea to have a little kick like that.

When we went out to a Japanese restaurant a few weeks ago, each plate of food served to us was like a still life -so artfully presented, that it brought extra pleasure to see it as well as taste it. That was what atracted me to this dish, and it didn't disappoint. All the kids ate it up and I felt like I put one over on them. Once again it was "just vegetables" with some noodles, but I guess a little extra showmanship pays off.
I also wanted to tell you guys I've tried two of the Choosing Raw vegetable based dressings and they were fantastic. I tried the Curried Tomato, and the Butternut Squash (which I made with the last of my garden grown pumpkin instead --those queensland blues really produced last sumer!). I can't even tell you which is my favorite, they are both good. Of course I did switch them up a little -using lemon juice instead of vinegar because I like it better, and adding a little more water because my pumpkin was pretty dense to start, but they are great starting place recipes -just like all recipes. I've found when cooking, I've always got to change things up a little based on the ingredients I've got, how my family is feeling, and our background. I used to worry about it more, and sometimes it still results in disaster (remind me to tell you about the cucumber pie I made one time because I had a ton of cucumber but no apples --yeah. Not Tasty.), but usually it just makes the recipe, whatever recipe it is, feel like mine. It feels like I've helped in the creative process instead of just followed directions.

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What's for dinner mom? Vegetables?!?

Every night's vegetables in some form at our house, but the kids (all four of them) had fun eating them last night. I picked up some rice paper wrappers in the Asian store, and they got to make their own spring rolls.
I gave them each a finger bowl for dipping sauce.


and provided a big pot of hot (not scalding!) water to dip their papers into to soften them.


For filling we had cucumbers, lettuce, red bells, tomatoes, chopped fennel fronds, cilantro, curried chickpeas, and roasted green beans.


These little packs cost only a dollar or two, (are pretty low calorie if you care) and they made the whole "vegetables again!" thing fun . Everyone liked the exotic package, and the papers that soften and become magically stretchy.

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I got the guts up to go to the primo yoga

Two weeks ago I went to yoga with a friend of mine at this really nice place up in the Riverwoods. It's a cute boutique with clothes I could never afford to buy, and then in the back is a beautiful yoga studio. I've got some pictures here, but not pictures of the actual class, because that, of course, would make me a really annoying nerd. People all doing these focused movements to clear their head, and then "click click" --yeah, didn't do that.

This class though, part of the time I just looked around with my jaw dropped at the stuff people were doing. Think handstands with the splits in the air, twisting around with your arms wrapped around your back and stuff.... but hey --I did a headstand that I held for a really long time, totally controlled. If you know me in Tae Bo classes, I'm not the balance girl. I run over and hold onto the wall for balance stuff, so one of the reasons I really need yoga. I hadn't done a headstand like that in a decade. I just had my focus for the first time in forever.

Here's the cute dressing rooms --there are hand painted flowers inside. Back to the class. The teacher uses all Sanskrit names for things, so I had to peek at other people to figure out what to do most of the time, but I started to recognize down dog, and up dog, and warrior poses --no I can't tell you the names, the dog ones sound like "luka", but I recognize them when I hear them. Good enough. The music? She's playing U2 and Pearl Jam along with the exotic world music stuff you usually hear in yoga. That really resonates with me --I know I'm dating myself. Whatever.

So I wanted to tell you, my friend went to do a century bike race this weekend, and guess what? I went by myself! I did it. Even though I really am pretty sure I'm not cool enough for this class or this studio, I still went. I was so excited, I ran out of the house without my mat. Nerd. They had some to borrow, and they were frankly much better quality than my Wal-mart special (sigh), but when I went to put it back and looked for the sanitizing wipes? There weren't any. Not even an empty canister. Yuck. This isn't your waltzy schmaltzy yoga, you really sweat on those mats. Also I've been reading about gym equipment lately on some bodybuilding sites and all the stuff you can catch...eeew.


Here's where you enter the actual studio from the shop. There are some big puffy brightly colored round cusshions you can sit on, and some rattan couches, and pictures of yogis....why don't I decorate my house like this? It makes me so happy. I guess people might think I was a freak. I'm serious though, I love it--it reminds me of gardens in San Diego.

So this time I had the borrowed mat, and it was turquoise with little squares on it, and my eyes kept going out of focus weird, and the squares popped out like I was wearing 3-d glasses. Why do you think that was? Do you think I was tapping into my inner psychadelic self? Or do you think it was maybe too early in the morning? hmmmm. Anyways, I did OK this second class. I missed a couple of moves because I couldn't figure out what I was doing soon enough, but the teacher came over and spotted me in a "feathered peacock pose"at least that's what it looks like, but I wasn't (noone was) against a wall. That was cool. But for the real inversion time, I needed to go against a wall.


There's the shop (it's like I take time out for commercials huh?). So the only spot against the wall was over in the corner, in kind of like a little annex part of the room, and then I kind of felt like a little add on part of the class...that felt a little pathetic. I did the handstands though. Suddenly I discovered that handstands are HARD! There is some serious shoulder strength needed to maintain it. I really thought it was just a balance issue, but I think now, that if I keep practicing, my shoulders will build up, and I'll be able to control it eventually, just like standing up and walking around. This may sound like a bummer, but it's an encouraging thing for me. Strength --I can do strength. So, the night yoga classes aren't working for me anymore, because I'm gone tues. and wed. already, and it's the last thing I want to do to leave the family again on thurs. nights. Maybe once a week yoga on Sat. (with the occasional podcast) isn't going to get me very far, but I figure it's better than nothing, and I'm loving it. I'm hoping Jenny will get some day classes at Omega someday. I'd be all over that.

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Our Annual (like it would be semi-annual --right) Chinese New Year Party

We've been celebrating Chinese New Year for the last five years or so, ever since Tia became obsessed with everything Chinese. We started out with just a little family party (we watch Mulan and eat rice with chopsticks), and it's slowly evolving into kind of a big deal (for us at least). We try to invite some different people everytime, and have looked for other movies that have a Chinese theme that the kids like. After Mulan for three years in a row, we did "Around the World in 80 Days" (they visit China right? and it's got Jackie Chan who we all love), and this year thank goodness for "Kung Fu Panda".

I've got to say up front, we're not politically correct I know. I hope we don't offend anyone by our choices, we're just trying to have fun, and I too have been fascinated with Asian culture since I was pretty young. My family probably remembers me eating everything (even cheerios) with chopsticks for a good while, and trying to learn the Laotian language from a book I got in the library, and keeping a card file on Asian facts from different countries..... OK, moving on now.

The funnest parts of our party are always the decorations and the food. The hardest part is the games. More about that later.

We went to the little Asian grocery a few miles north of us, and found some cool little treats. Sesame candy, and some funny little cashew cookies the size of nickels; some edible paper wrapped rice candy (remember those little guys?), and best of all --ginger chews. Love them. The kids hated them and kept trying them and spitting them out when they got hot.


The Asian grocery also had Lai See, the red envelopes filled with money you give out traditionally on the new year. The store didn't have theirs already filled with money though, bummer for us, so we bought chocolate gold coins to put in ours. We did monopoly money last year, but it really didn't go over as well as chocolate. Read more about Lai See here. Along with the red envelopes, we bought Chinese finger traps and Chinese yo-yos (it doesn't look right without an apostrophe. huh.) for other prizes for the kids' game. Here's our kid game which we found after much searching online: You fill plastic eggs with two colors of confetti (I know --confetti all over my floor I'm still picking up, but it was worth it), and hand one of each to each kid behind their back. They have to pick one to crack over their own head, and if it's the unlucky color (we used white) they have to do something silly, and if it's the lucky color (we used red) they get to pick a prize. So it's got the whole new life egg thing going on, and the superstitious thing. The kid game worked.
The adult games, kind of like these cheap paper lanterns we bought, didn't work as well. I swear I looked for Chinese party games, and spent two days studying the directions, but they were a little tricky. The first one we called "Junk, Rickshaw, and Orient Express" (told you we're so not P.C.) it's based off of this game here , and actually was pretty fun, except one of our number was really pregnant, and couldn't do the rough and tumble part of it. I'd play this again with a group.

The other game called Beijing Baffles was a complicated mess with a big group, using threee decks of cards. Although we finally figured out some working rules kind of on the fly, and had some fun moments --such as when I was faked out by my own PARTNER, and one couple totally whipped the rest of us with their cool undecipherable signals.

...and hey, at least I found some games. Next year I swear I'm going to find a big life size version of mah-jong, and call it a day. But the decorations were good:



We had a platter of citrus out and available, it's a traditional decoration, and all the babies loved chewing on them. I did have to toss out a few tooth-marked specimens...


Tia had the idea of hanging our banners in the front window this year, which I thought looked kind of neat. Tia also found the dragon puppet craft from the first picture (what would I do without her?). We had great food too: one neighbor brought chocolate dipped fortune cookies --which actually makes them worth eating (and I got a spectacular fortune this year that I taped on the fridge), and we had a great chicken stir fry (kind of a kung pao kind of thing), and gyoza, and I did a beef (yep, using up the freezer meat) and Chinese noodle dish (you've got to have longevity noodles on new year) with baby bok choy I found in the Asian market. Sorry I don't have pictures of the food. The food's usually the best part. So, are you ready to try your own party now? What weird excuses for parties does your family do?

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Cake Buffet

We did a reception last night at city hall which turned out beautiful. My friend has a wedding decor business, and every time we do a reception together she just wows me with her abilities and resources. For my part we did a served cake buffet. This reception was supposed to be for 500-600 people, and I was really nervous about serving that many people by hand without having a big line back up, but it turned out fine. I don't think we had quite that many, but still, I really appreciate the opportunity to try it, because now I've got the confidence to do it again. I had some of my favorite helpers too to serve, and that makes it more fun.


OK, now for the cakes. The star of the show was Lenora's world famous cake from Magleby's. I had one of my ladies cutting just this cake. With it's four layers, it's got amazing presence, but also takes some skill and patience to serve.


Dulce de Leche Cheesecake. Cheesecake is always popular, but the flavors my client chose went over really well.

Classic Carrot Cake --also one of the popular choices. I think carrot cake is almost always my favorite.
The little girls especially liked this Peppermint Chocolate cake (it IS pink). The crumbs were pretty yummy though --that's real melted chocolate drizzled down the sides, with crushed starlight mints on the top.


Double Chocolate Godiva Cheesecake. Noone had to push that one.


The kids really liked this fancy Oreo Cake too. I think the Oreo cake and the Peppermint Chocolate were the prettiest on the table.




Anyway, we did it. The bride was beautiful, everyone was happy with their cake, and now I'm going to go put my feet up!

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Xantolo in the garden

My great gramma's garden with me.

When I started my first garden, I asked my Dad what to do. "What should I plant? What grows here?" "Just try everything you want he said, and then you'll know." I did what he said, and grew everything I wanted. A lot didn't overwinter or produce fruit or flowers where I lived, but it felt so fulfilling to get it in the ground; to see the big bushy green everywhere that summer. I wore sunscreen that first time I planted, the not-nice-scented kind, the kind that smelled like 20 years ago sunblock, and now whenever I smell it, I'm on my hands and knees again, digging little holes, and putting in seeds next to the fence in that first yard.

I asked my Dad once why he got into gardening, and as I remember it (I could be manufacturing this memory mind you) he said his Grandpa Earley always had a big garden. His own parents, when I knew them at least, employed a gardener for their yard, and never had any kind of vegetable garden or fruit trees, but he'd connected with his grandparents. I knew my Great Grandma Earley, and by herself she'd still maintained a decent garden in her 70's and maybe early 80's. She had a banana tree growing in her San Diego yard!

One of my Dad's gardens

So my Dad always had a garden. We moved a few times as I was growing up, and he'd take whatever he had and made a garden: a huge, incredible garden with every fruit tree you could think of in some places. Have you ever eaten a loquat? a persimmon? a pomegranite? a fig? they all grew in our yard.

I read Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal Vegetable Miracle" this week, and one section really spoke to me. OK, a lot of it spoke to me, but this one part about the "dia de los muertos" brought a little aha! moment for me:
"People's sadness was not for the departed, but for themselves, and could be addressed through ritual visiting called Xantolo, an ordinary communion between the dead and the living. Mexican tradition still holds that Xantolo is always present in certain places and activities, including wild marigold fields, the cultivation of corn, the preparation of tamales, and pan de muerto. Interestingly, farmers markets are said to be loaded with Xantolo."

My front side garden

The author goes on about the food tradition and how it connects the generations, but I feel it in the garden. I come from a long line of gardeners, and gardening brings us together now --with my Dad and me it's one of our strongest connections, and it's nice to think of my great grandparents, and their parents and THEIR parents all going through the same motions through the centuries -getting that satisfaction from creating a personal oasis, and growing their own food. Why then wouldn't my garden be a good place for xantolo? I've got the field of wild marigolds. In the last two years the marigolds have started to take over. I've let them --loving their bright bright sunny orange-yellow, and their strength and thrift. They reseed themself with a vengeance, creating new, healthy plants everywhere there's a bit of water. Almost half of our 1/3 acre is marigolds now I'd estimate (outside of the vegetable planters). Why wouldn't the peace I feel in my garden in late summer have a little to do with a few ghosts visiting and hanging out with me? This is the kind of place I'D want to go if I were a ghost, and my grands and great-grands had to be something like me and my Dad. I'd like to think so anyway.

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Oats tweak

I told you all from the beginning I wasn't qualified to make a judgment call on all of these diets. I want to particularly apologize for trying to summarize the paleo diet, while I apparently only described a variation of such.

OK, so here's the idea of the day: Mango with coriander.

I always have a protein powder, spinach smoothie first thing in the morning, but after lifting, eat some whole grain, usually oats or oat bran. I've been dipping a little almond butter into it lately for yum, but after binging last night on pistachios, told myself that was enough nuts for a few days (at least the edible kind!). So today, before lifting, I put dried, chopped mango into a cup of water to soak, and when i came back upstairs, cooked it up with my oats. I added some stevia, then wanted some spice in it, and decided on ground coriander. Only about 1/4 t. does it, and it's a great combo.

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