Little Lentil Lover Soup

ButterBean has become increasingly hard to feed. What happened to The Baby Who Eats Everything? He has turned into The Baby Who Spits Out Everything! Most of the food offered to him get chewed for a second and then promptly spit out onto the table, floor, or into his mother's loving hand (disgusting!). He will actually sometimes wait to spit something out and just gag on it until I put my hand out. Nice.

You expect me to eat THAT?

His one true food love right now is Lentil Soup. My mom discovered this when she fed him some Trader Joe's. He will eat and eat and eat lentil soup. The downfall of this (besides the obvious: extreme flatulence) is atrocious garlic breath. I could not believe how awful his breath would be for a full 24 hours after consuming that soup. So, today I set out to make him a homemade lentil soup for three reasons
1) cheap
2) not from a can - I have a mild can phobia and the BPH that lines them
3) less garlic = better breath
I used this recipe that I found on Pinterest, from The History Kitchen blog, which uses ingredients that come straight out of the Bible. I had to tweak it though, because I didn't have all of the ingredients, and I had extra stuff lying around the house. And I recently made some yummy chicken stock that I was itching to use up.
Here's what I did:

• 3 carrots, chopped
• 3 celery stalks, including leaves, chopped
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 clove garlic minced (I cheat and use the jarred stuff)
• 2 cups dry red lentils
• 1/2 cup pearl barley
• 2 small potatoes, peeled and diced
• 2 qts. chicken stock (homemade preferred)
• 1/2 cup fresh chopped cilantro
• 1 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp dried parsley
• 1 bay leaf
• Salt and pepper to taste

Heat olive oil in medium soup pot and add diced onion. Saute until translucent. Add carrot, celery, and garlic and saute for another couple of minutes until the veggies start to get a wee bit softened.
Add red lentils, barley, potatoes, and chicken stock. Stir. 
Bring to boil, add cumin, cilantro, parsley, and bay leaf then reduce to simmer. 
Cover and simmer for 1.2 - 2 hours stirring often. I left it for a half hour and it was sticking to the bottom. 
Remove bay leaf. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with more fresh cilantro!

Good to the last spoonful!

...And he gobbled it up! Laaahhh! That would be heavenly angels singing. This soup has a nice mild flavor - great for little folks! And, it can easily be spiced up with spices like cajun spice, more cumin or garlic, perhaps a little curry powder. Also, it gets a little thick after you refrigerate it, so you made need to thin it with some water or broth.

All gone!!

Triple Tomato Soup

Fall season cooking is upon us, people! This is by far the best cooking season of the year! I still have a load of summer tomatoes to use up because my plant decided to only give my tomatoes in September. Now it's too cold at night, so I picked all the green ones and are waiting for them to ripen. I did, however, have enough ripe tomatoes to make a batch of tomato soup. Since it's a few days away from payday, I had to just go with whatever I had. Here's how I made it!

1. Cut about 10 tomatoes in half and drizzle with 4 Tbs olive oil with 2 cloves of minced garlic. Sprinkle with dried basil. Roast in the oven (400 degrees) for 20 minutes or so. If you are going to leave the soup chunky, you might want to scoop out some of the seeds before roasting them.

see all those green tomatoes? 

all roasty toasty

2. After letting cool a bit, the skins should be able to just slip right off - discard them.
3. Heat up 1 Tbs of olive oil in a pot and saute one onion until it is softened. Add a couple of ounces of tomato paste and 1/2 cup of oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes. Mix it all up.

4. Add 1 cup of white wine, 1 cup of water, some more basil - I would have used fresh if I had it. Bring to a boil and then turn down the heat to simmer for 20 minutes.

5. I used an immersion blender to puree the soup to the consistency I wanted. Then I added whole milk until it was thin enough to call soup. It needed a little something so I added a little bit of brown sugar and that mellowed it out. 

Triple Tomato Soup
10 tomatoes, cut in half
5 Tbs olive oil
2 cloves minced garlic
Dried basil -- couple Tbs? didn't measure
1 yellow onion
1 cup dry white wine
1 small can tomato paste
1/2 cup oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes
1/2 cup cream, whole milk, milk whatever you want
Salt and fresh-ground pepper


1. Preheat oven to 400 F. Place tomatoes on baking pan, cut side up and drizzle with 4 Tbs olive oil with 2 cloves of minced garlic. Sprinkle with dried basil. Roast in the oven for 20 minutes until soft. (If you are going to leave the soup chunky, you might want to scoop out some of the seeds before roasting them).
2. Take skins off tomatoes and discard
3. Over medium high heat, heat up 1 Tbs of olive oil in a pot and saute onion until it is softened. Add a couple of ounces of tomato paste and 1/2 cup of oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes. Mix it all up.
4. Add white wine, water, some more basil - I would have used fresh if I had it. Bring to a boil and then turn down the heat to simmer for 20 minutes.
5. Use an immersion blender, food processor, or blender to puree the soup to the consistency wanted.
6. Stir in cream and warm. Enjoy

Optional - add in cream at the end and warm
Any of the following are my faves with tomato soup - parmesan cheese, saltine crackers, Annie's Cheddar Bunnies, crusty garlic bread,

Oh and by the way... ButterBean is now driving...

Camping

This weekend was our much anticipated camping weekend! We borrowed a tent, bought a camp stove, and planned all of our meals. One thing we didn't anticipate: RAIN! Looking back, I can't believe that I didn't think to bring rain gear. I had s'more ingredients, tooth brushes, and an air mattress, but umbrella?...no! I'm definitely a camping rookie! 

Planning: FAIL

We got to our muggy campsite by the St. Croix River and pitched the tent and relaxed. ButterBean thought he was extremely cool sitting in his own chair and sipping his water. He got a little too confident and face-planted off of his chair on to the gravel, resulting in a scraped nose and lip. So, within 15 minutes, he had already become filthy and scraped up! He was loving it though! 

Child safety: FAIL

Later in the evening our friends arrived with their 18 month son. We spent significant amount of time trying to get a fire started with wood and newspaper, which resulted in smoke, smoke, lots of smoke. We got charcoal...smoke. Lighter fluid...smoke. Finally we got a little fire going, which got stronger by 10pm, just in time for s'mores!

Fire making: almost FAIL

Under a beautiful starry sky, we all went happily to sleep. At about 1 or 2 am I heard thunder and rain and saw crazy lightning through the tent.  "That's ok" I thought, "I love sleeping during storms!"Then at about 3:30 I woke up again to the air mattress jiggling and my husband shifting around in the tent. "The rain is coming in!" he said. We had left the fly of the tent open to get a breeze. The floor of our tent was covered in water (thank God for the air mattress!) and somehow I had slept through half of my pillow getting drenched! I went out of the tent door to close part of the outer fly resulting in more drenching. The rain, thunder, wind, and lightening continued. At one point our tent started caving in on my side. "It's caving!!!", I screamed! For those who don't know this: I HATE being wet in the rain! The whole situation was so comical though that we couldn't stop laughing!! Gatsby and I met in a torrential rain, so it brought us back to 2003 when we were sitting in a mud puddle in Toronto waiting to see Pope John Paul II.

As I was lying there I was tallying the things I had left outside: paper towels, paper plates, dishes, newspaper, OUR SHOES, chairs....yep, we were going to be wet for a looong time!

Water-proofing: FAIL

We stayed in our tent until ButterBean woke up at 7:30. It was still raining and ButterBean was not going to be cooped up in a tent for much longer. We drove into Stillwater and found a breakfast place where we warmed up with pancakes and hot chocolate. We looked crazy: ButterBean was barefoot, our hair was everywhere, and we were half soaked. I contemplated buying a sweatshirt (yet another thing I forgot to bring). The rain let up at 10 am, however, at this point we made a collaborative decision: abandon the camp site and move the party to our house. So, we went back and started packing up our sad, soggy mess. 

Camping: FAIL

We showered, dried off, washed out our tent and set it up to dry, grilled our kabobs, and camped out in our living room. We played games, laughed, and feasted on banana boats (see below). The boys played together the next morning while we munched on our breakfasts and lounged.

Living Room Camping: NAILED IT!

Fun Memories: NAILED IT!

CAN'T WAIT TO TRY IT AGAIN!

Banana Boats:

Cut a center strip out of the curve of a banana. Wrap the base in tin foil so it can stand on its own. Fill the center strip with peanut butter and chocolate chips. Bake at 350 degrees until melty. Then top with marshmallows and broil in the oven until browned.

Mother's Day

I had a marvelous Mother's Day! My own little bundle can't do much for his mama yet, but I know one day he is going to bring me home a droopy marigold that he planted himself in a little pot at school and I'm going to gush over it like is was the finest rose! This Mother's Day was more about my own mom! It happened to be her birthday this Mother's Day. She has done a superb job raising me and my sisters and I will always look up to her!

Soooo, I made her a birthday cake of course: Martha Stewart's Lemon Cake! It's so rich, it's almost like a pound cake. It calls for lemon zest, so I definitely used organic lemons for this cake. I've made it a couple of other times and it always turns our delicious. (This is actually a picture from another time that I made it.)

And I made all of us a nice little brunchy breakfast. My favorite were the rhubarb scones that I made with rhubarb from my mom's backyard. Yummm. 

I have more rhubarb in my fridge and I plan to make these again! I recommend them good with a cup of tea, like all good baked goods should be enjoyed!

We also went over to celebrate Gatsby's mother and got to relax some more in the sun! Perfect weather for the cousins to romp in the backyard! ButterBean had a "hair-raising" experience: learning to drive! We all got a good laugh at his static style!

The pictures don't do justice to the amount of hair that was sticking up!

he was very frustrated that he couldn't stand in the car

ButterBean had a very in depth conversation with his godfather. It sounded pretty serious!

Mother's day was a perfect example of balancing school and family. I had a big test on Monday, but there was no way I was missing this amazing family time. I was able to completely forget about the test for a few hours and enjoy good food, good weather, and good company! I got in a couple hours of studying between celebrations while ButterBean and Gatsby napped. For anyone considering anesthesia school, believe me, you're world will be utterly consumed with studying! Take a break sometimes and forget about it! You don't (and you won't) ace every test! And that's ok! Happy Mother's Day to all the overly busy mom's out there!

Healthy Eater

I try to feed ButterBean nutritious, organic food whenever possible and have tossed around the idea of not feeding him meat. To test it out, a few weeks ago I made him some "tofu fingers" minus the cayenne pepper the recipe called for.

I was ButterBean was so hungry that I didn't snap a picture of the tofu fingers until our second helping. He gobbled them up so fast I hardly got a bite during our first round! Since this time he has also surprised me with his willingness to eat cooked kale! He has always like cooked spinach, especially with eggs, but I was expecting a gag or two when I gave him kale. I made this African Kale Stew, which sounded weird, but was good! I added black beans to up the protein factor for ButterBean. He passed up a banana (a tried and true favorite) for more kale! I've been blessed with a very NOT picky eater. He's just not a big fan of plain cheese. Other than that every texture, flavor, spice, and food group is fair game for him. I attribute some of this to my own diverse eating habits both while he was in the womb and while I was breast feeding him. And like his mama, he won't turn down dark chocolate!

African-Style Stewed Kale
adapated from Bon Appetit

Heat 2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil in a large saute pan. Add 1 chopped onion and 3 minced garlic cloves and saute until soft. Stir in 1 Tbsp. ground cumin and 1 Tbsp. ground coriander, then 1 28-oz. can of crushed tomatoes and chopped stemmed leaves from 2 heads of kale. Cover and cook until kale is just tender, about 15 minutes. Add one can of black beans. Stir in 1/2 cup peanut butter and 1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves or 3-4 cubes of frozen Dorot cilantro and simmer for 10 minutes; season with hot pepper sauce, if desired. Serve plain or over couscous.