Out and In (too too much In!)

Food Staples - Quesadillas

Annie, over at Sensible Living, posted recently about a TED talk given by chef Jamie Oliver. (aside - if you have not stumbled across this fantastic series of lectures, please check them out - I have listened to several eye-opening, heart-opening, life affirming talks by incredible people) She has linked to his talk, which is well worth listening to - the gist of it is this. He implores us, in particular Americans, though the rest of the world is not far behind, to address the disconnect between our health and our food, to treat our eating habits and consumerism surrounding food as a national emergency. He has some solid ideas about how to reverse the trend that is leading our children towards shorter lives than we will have. He is impassioned, in particular about teaching children about food: how to recognize it, and what to do with it. He suggests teaching children 10 basic recipes by the time they graduate high school, recipes that will serve them through difficult financial times. It is about creating a connection between our health and the food we are putting in our bodies, and, to my thinking, creating a habit of better eating, a habit of eating fresh foods that you know how to cook for yourself.

We are lucky in our family to have kids that are interested in food, are not afraid to try new things, who like to be involved in the cooking, have suggestions about what might taste good together, and who like to visit the farmer's market every week to select our fresh produce. We are slowly making the next step of growing our own food; last year's garden was a disappointment to Dan and I, but I remember visiting the plot in October, as we were pulling things out and starting to lay it to rest, and the girls yanked some forgotten carrots out - Eliza waxed poetic about how amazing it is to plant a seed, and months later pull a full grown vegetable from the ground, without ever going to the store! She is part farmer in her soul, I'm sure of it, and I hope to further nurture that this spring as we put in a new garden.

Eliza has long made the connection between her health and food; as an infant she had trouble digesting the dairy in my breastmilk, and still on occasion will decide that something just has too much dairy in it for her, or that she's had enough. She is very sensitive to sugar and has crazy mood swings if she has it, and understands the connection between sugar and a lowered immunity and will sometimes decide for herself whether or not having a sugary something is a good idea for her. I took her to the doctor's this week to investigate a small rash, and she asked the doctor why, when children are coming to her to get over being sick, she and the nurses give them lollipops and popsicles when they leave? The doctor sort of sputtered, taken aback, saying something about "well, yes, I guess that's a contradiction to our policy, a mixed message". Good point...

Anyway!!! Annie urged her readers and fellow bloggers to share those recipes that our families fall back on when money or time or both are short. Here is something that I'm sure is familiar in many families, but I thought I'd share our version, as it's a staple around here and is so versatile for the season or budget....

Quesadillas, Plot 55-style

tortillas - you can make your own if you have the time. Annie shares a good recipe here. We will sometimes use a recipe passed on from a Highlights magazine; it is super easy, but I will save that for another post. We usually use the sprouted wheat tortillas (Ezekiel brand) that come in the frozen food section of our grocery store and the local health food store.

beans - I've just started cooking beans in my pressure cooker and I love love love how they turn out. We usually eat black beans.

cheese - yeah, the queso! We like sharp cheddar around here, as organic or natural as we can get it; Ani prefers the mozarella. But I thought I would also mention that for years we made quesdillas without cheese. I suppose we should have called them something else, but I've had a lifelong love affair with cheese and couldn't give up the illusion. As I mentioned, dairy was difficult for Eliza as a baby and toddler, and she was nursing, so we didn't have much cheese around. This is when we discovered another favorite ingredient that provided the creaminess...

sweet potatoes. (or as my husband insists: Yams!) We bake a couple of sweet potatoes still, even though we are now eating cheese, and throw those in. So so very good.

greens - the girls like a little spinach in their quesadillas. I am enjoying a quick saute of garlic and kale that I add to mine...

fresh veggies - is this starting to sound more like a burrito???? Yes, they are rather huge. We have fresh veggies on the table to add to the individual quesadillas - the running favorites are sliced bell peppers and red cabbage. To me what makes this meal a regular option for our family is that it does have fresh greens and other vegetables in it, in addition to the grains and the proteins.

optional condiments - we use, or don't use, whatever is handy. If we are "flush" and it is the start of the month, and we have just grocery shopped, we have avocados, salsa, fresh or pickled jalapenos, and sometimes yogurt, sour cream, or a drizzle of goddess dressing.

variations - on the rare occasion that we have fish or chicken around (we don't eat much of either), leftovers will often make it into the quesadilla. Mushrooms, potatoes, leftover salad...all are fair game!

Friday My Town Shoot-Out: Aquariums

Every Friday, folks from all over the world collect photos on a theme and post them to share on My Town Shoot Out. This week the theme is Aquariums, and was chosen by ChefE in Princeton, New Jersey.

We, unfortunately, do not have an aquarium here in our little town of Athens, Ohio, so I had to get a little creative. We were also snowed in...so except for a quick visit to the doctor's and the grocery store, we were home! We made do with the fishes we could find...
No Fishing!!! A sign you might see at an aquarium...this one was a bit unnecessary, being located in the midst of a waiting room full of sick people.
On to the grocery store!!! Wild Caught, Farm Raised...hm, again, signs one probably won't see in a real aquarium.

So pretty in their pinkness. However, see that sign, "advertised special" on the crab cakes? I fell for that once, and let me tell you. No one in this part of Ohio has any business making or eating crab cakes.

By this time I had been asked twice if we needed any help at the seafood counter, so I didn't risk clambering up onto the cooler case to get a better peak at the captives, but I assure you, there was a greenish murk to the water in there, promising the presence of some poor critter.

How we wish we could have visited an aquarium this week! The jellies, the rays, the touchables, and our favorites, the sharks...sigh. We'll have to visit vicariously through the other posts of this shoot-out!

Me, Right Now. And back then. And a little bit ago.

Ach. This post should make my sister howl. Stephanie, over at Ordinary Life Magic, threw me the challenge of photographing "Me, right now", within five minutes of reading her post. Ahem. Yeah. Well, that was last night. And, funny, whenever I turned the camera on myself, the photo turned up blank. Go figure. But this is what I was doing...

Ta da! All done!

And then this morning I thought I would give it another shot. As it were. Taking her cue, I tried the mirror shot. Hm. I don't quite have it. I am NOT a picture person...Like how I can't hold my camera with only one hand? Nervous nelly.

Thought I'd have another go at it this evening. With nearly disastrous results, but on the hilarious side of disastrous, so I'll share...this one looks like I'm dreaming of Texas. It reminds me of these equally hilarious, but oh-so-serious photos that my sister took of me when I was 18: black and white...lying on an old wooden pier, shading my eyes with my arm, seaweed tangled in my long hair, fanned out all around me...I meant to look artsy. I think I looked, well, dead. In an artsy way. What can I say - I was a theater student. Things haven't changed much, huh?

This also makes my hair look golden, which I'll tell ya, it ain't.

Ah, here we go, another shot at the mirror this evening. This is the closest I think I got to looking like moi. It's blurry, but there you go. There is a smile, extending even to the eyes - I even look amused at the whole fiasco. Still holding on for dear life to the camera.

And this here's what I'm heading over to do...right now...kiddos asleep...husband...husband? Husband? Ah. Asleep.

I think I'm supposed to pass this along to someone else - I haven't ever been tagged for this kind of thing before - but I think I can't really do that...I just....well, so let's do this - if you're hot to photograph yourself - yes, YOU! - in the next five minutes, good on ya, please do it, and link to it in the comments. YOU. Right Now.

Fighting the Cabin Fever

This is the time of year that I start seeing posts, written by other homeschoolers, about needing to shake things up, stray from the schedule, turn things upside-down to keep the connections strong and fight the winter blahs. It's funny that this time of year strikes me in an opposite way - this is when I have a moment of rethinking how we go about our days, and while the philosophy behind what we do feels solid, I wonder whether or not having more structure in a school-like fashion might salvage our cooped-up days! We could call it February School or something...

Interestingly, a friend of mine here who has her kids at home as well relayed a conversation she had with her 7 1/2 year old just this week (when we've been hit by a stormload of snow) about what it would be like if she were to enter public school. I think it was coming from the same place, of feeling like we don't all have enough room to find our own rhythms just now, and some imposed structure would be a nice way to, oh, have a reason to get out of bed in the morning!

So we go in and out of "doing all right" this week. These photos convey the peaceful moments, which I need reminding of...embroidering...discovering words (all on her own)...

tea parties, baking, listening to the first two books of The Chronicles of Narnia, drawing...reading books from the library, being inspired to play pirates while shoveling the driveway...

I've been offering some activities to bring us together amongst some of these side-by-side activities (the drawing, the listening, the sewing - we are together but in our own worlds...). This morning there was a scavenger hunt (the reading! so much reading! I am loving this idea!!).

The clues led to the stack of tea-stained "aged" paper we made last summer, and a bottle of ink (black watercolor paint!) and a quill (turkey tail feather) for making pirate maps.

This led to more adventuring, with a world map, then a local map to the Farmer's Market...heck, we'll work with any map around here.

For me what salvaged today was getting outside. The girls have been reluctant to get out of their pajamas this week, but for me it has not felt cozy, it has felt claustrophobic. I get out to shovel a bit, feed the birds...the other day after requesting, begging, ordering and sighing, I went out to walk up and down the block for 15 minutes. (by the way, everyone was fine. no one burned down the house.) Today I put some chocolate in my pocket, we all bundled up, and we headed for the bike path with the sled in tow. It was snowing, wet, and beautiful; we were warm, buzzed from the fresh air on our cheeks, and in the end it was I who was ready to come back in, two hours later. The girls were renewed, they were happy to be together, and I was peaceful and worn out from the pulling I did when morale flagged. Grateful grateful grateful for the big beautiful outdoors.

$1.49

Fifteen paper doilies...watercolor paints...two happy girls and one peaceful mama...a loverly afternoon project...$1.49. Can't beat that!

Circles, the Sequel

I couldn't help myself; last week's My Town Shoot-Out theme was circles, and I can't get them out of my mind! What I was enjoying during my walk yesterday was how some of the circles I had photographed had transformed in the snow...well, that's what started it anyway. Really, I'm a bit addicted.