Robeez shoes MIA

Several months ago one of my slippers went missing.  I eventually found it stuffed between my 4 yo son's trundle bed and his mattress.  I had also lost a single Robeez shoe of DD's.  I am saddened to report that I STILL haven't found it.  AND just last week, we lost another single Robeez shoe.  The first was lost somewhere between the changing table and the car.  The second was lost somewhere between the baby's room and my bedroom (not very far at all!).  DS denies involvement and a cursory search of his usual hiding spots has turned up nothing.  Good thing I keep buying Robeez for $2-3 a pair at garage sales!  Uuugggh kids!  The chaos!

Navy Bean Pilaf

Source: My brain!  I was trying to recall the taste of Near East Lentil Pilaf and this recipe came to me as a complete thought yesterday.  How weird is that?  I wrote it down and made it today.  Unlike many of my bean dish experiments, this was really good!

1/2 c dried beans - I used Navy.  Soaked overnight - ok, I soaked them nearly 24 hrs by the time I got around to them.  Drained/rinsed.
1/2 c wild rice
2 c water
1/2 t onion powder
1/2 t onion flakes
1/4 t salt
1/8 t black pepper
1 carrot, grated REALLY fine

Cook in a saucepan, simmering until all water is absorbed.
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I love leftovers, so next time I'll make 2-4 times this recipe and try it in the crockpot on low for 8 hours.

November Planting and Harvest

Today we did more gardening.  Happily, we finally got some drip line to more vegetable garden.  I planted the pots and one box that I put on my garden table in a sunny spot.  Today's seeds were: Lettuce Mesclun Gourmet Baby Greens, Chives, Dill (from 2002), Parsley, Broccoli Earth Gems (2002), Turnip Purple Top White Globe, and Beets Detroit Dark Red.  The ones without dates are 2009, so I hope they'll be ok. 

We planted black eyed peas this year from the dry bulk bin.  I mostly used them for green beans in the newer bean phase, sometimes for greens to cook, but some of the beans got away from me.  Today I picked all of the dried bean pods and gave them to DS to shuck.  He did a great job and was quite proud of the haul.  In all, we had about 1/2 cup of dried black eyed peas.  Not a ton, but a fun project and good fine motor skill practice for DS.  I have them soaking now to cook tomorrow.

I finally harvested the much talked about, enormous, mutant butternut squash.  This puppy weighs in at a whopping 7.5 pounds!  That is a lot for a butternut squash.  It is also pictured here with the kids for scale, plus our store-bought squash and pumpkins.  I love gardening!  It is so great to feed the family real food that I know exactly where it came from!

Garden update and Halloween

Of last week's snap peas and snow peas ONE has sprouted so far.  Not an overwhelming yield yet.  Today I managed to plant six cloves of elephant garlic near the peas.  Also I put in the ground a basil plant and a cilantro plant that I bought about a month ago.  They'll probably be happier in the ground.  A couple months ago I acquired a table that a neighbor was sending to the landfill.  Today I moved it into a sunny spot and chose some pots to put on it.  A friend (hi Sara!) had told me about reading that one could container garden in cardboard boxes.  So, what the heck, I selected a Amazon box to try planting in as well.  DD woke up from her nap before I was able to assess our potting soil supply and decide what I wanted to plant.  One thing I've got to put in is some lettuces.  The lettuce I planted in September hasn't come up at all.  I think the spot is too shady in fall/winter.

I cooked a meatloaf in a halved pumpkin for Halloween dinner.  It turned out pretty well, but next time I'll season it differently.  I was pleasantly surprised how nicely the pumpkin cooked up, though.  Tonight we did the trick or treating thing with DS as a pirate and DD as a ladybug.  DS loved talking with the neighbors and got the hang of knocking, saying "trick or treat", choosing candy/toy, "thank you," "happy Halloween," and "have a nice night."  Since he can be reserved when meeting new people, the process of trick or treating is actually a great learning experience for him.  And this year we filled our bowl with a bit of candy and mostly Halloween gizmos (pumpkin erasers, pencils, kazoos, pumpkin straws).  We left the bowl out when we were trick or treating and came back to a well-depleted bowl and no vandalism, so it seems to have gone over pretty well.  I prefer the little toys to candy.  At least it isn't junk food.  But it is mostly made-in-China, destined-for-the-landfill sorts of stuff.  Does anyone else do something better?  Happy Halloween!

Swine Flu

Friends and family keep asking me about my take on the swine flu vaccine.  We've decided not to do the vaccine due to my concerns that it may have unknown side effects that we aren't yet aware of because it has been rushed to market.  My understanding is that the 1976 vaccine for swine flu was rushed to market and was associated with, but never proven to cause Guillain-Barre Syndrome.  Since this rare nerve disorder is understood to be partially autoimmune and we have Celiac Disease (autoimmune) in the family, we aren't going there.  We do the annual flu shots - 'cause having the flu is so crummy and I feel like the shots have decent safety records.  Most of the media reports I hear are that H1N1 has similar mortality rates as regular seasonal flu, but of course, more targeted to younger populations - likely due to some cross protection from a prior strain that circulated.  Today I went surfing on the CDC to find the mortality rate data.  Sadly, I didn't find exactly what I was looking for - # of deaths per 1,000 cases.  If you find that data, I'd like you to send me the link.  I did find this interesting chart regarding the flu deaths.  This season's curve doesn't look so bad yet, until you realize that this is only week 41 and that the other week 41's aren't really even on the upslope of the curve.  We all know that this swine flu continued through the summer (you can see that in pink in the graph above) and is getting going again early this season - but wow - the curves really say a lot.  If you add a normal flu season onto this swine flu curve, it is going to be pretty big.  Yikes!  I hope I'm making the right decision.  I realize that it is highly likely that our family will get the swine flu and feel terrible with it.  I just hope we won't have any serious consequences from it, like the side effects I fear from a rushed vaccine.  All our schools around here have LOTS of H1N1, include DS's preschool as of this week.

What to do with that Halloween pumpkin?

Ok, I admit it.  Halloween isn't even here yet and I'm already fantasizing about how to chop up and eat our pumpkins.  In the bad old days before I knew that one was supposed to bake with those white pumpkins and that the jack-o-lanterns were bred for decor, I recall cooking them, pureeing them and using them for pie.  Anyone else do this with their jack-o-lantern pumpkins?  How about just pureeing it and eating it like squash?  What about the little pumpkins?  Or roasting them with other veggies like one would winter squash?  (I found this image at http://www.mguhlin.org/2009/10/costume-hunting-shuffle-like-zombie.html - it isn't my own work, although I wish it were!)

Kids and knock-knock jokes

What is it about kids and horrible knock-knock jokes?  Today DS was interested in the structure of knock-knock jokes and trying to tell some.  I found a great website for kids jokes and he LOVED it.  The kid couldn't stop laughing.  I tried to teach him how to tell one, but he'd keep deviating from the script. 

Knock knock
Who's there?
Boo
Boo who?
Boo pumpkinhead (was supposed to be "You don't have to cry about it.")

He still thought it was funny and was happy to tell it and retell it until I couldn't stand it anymore.  Then DH came home and DS told him until HE couldn't stand it anymore.  From my youth, I recall younger kids telling lame jokes that didn't mean anything and it getting pretty annoying.  And now here I am, reliving my youth.

I made up a couple that he really liked:


Knock knock
Who's there?
Ima
Ima who?
Ima silly willy
(his favorite)

Knock knock
Who's there?
Who
Who who?
Are you an owl?

I'm a genius aren't it?  Stunning.