altarflame | (no subject)

This is how I spent about 4 hours last night:

Me knitting (Annie's sweater back) with my feet up.

Laura across from me, talking (or listening). That's her house with all the butterflies, and my purse with all the skulls on it ;) Seriously though I think I can see like 30 butterflies right in this shot, geez.

I suppose there were breaks to eat. It's so great that her (born, haha) children go to sleep early and stay there on their own now :)

Best conversation excerpt:

Me: Elise has been wanting to nurse 2-3 times per day for the first time in like a year and a half! It's like she's totally happy with and at school, but is compensating for all this independence by finding a way to cling and feel connected when she can.
Her: If Brian came home from preschool and asked for a titty, I'd punch him in the face.

Unfortunately I don't measure much so you don't get very precise measurements, BUT. This is a diced yellow onion and about 8 garlic cloves out of the magic bullet, with two double sized chicken stock cubes and some olive oil.

When all of that has cooked for a few minutes - kale. I keep the pieces fairly big. You can't see how much it is here as I've already stirred it in and had it wilt down some. It nearly fills the pot though, when it's still loose and leafy. Generally I use a whole bunch or small bag, or half of a very large bag.

Then 1 can each of pinto, kidney and garbanzo (chickpea) beans, plus a can of diced tomato (all drained).

Water and stir.

After keeping it on medium heat long enough that it's reduced several times (I usually end up adding more water at least once), I put another can of pintos or chickpeas in the magic bullet and turn them into a puree. Once I add that in, it's almost done, and much thicker. This is kind of a fantastically healthy way to make a soup rich that I now swear by. Oh, and I add salt.

Lots of nutritional yeast.

It's kind of like parmesean cheese, in what it adds. My kids freaking love it and want to add enough to their bowls that the soup turns to stew when it gets stirred in.

My cake was a combination of several recipes based on things I did and did not have on hand. For instance all the recipes I liked called for boxed yellow cake mix, which I didn't have, so I looked up some ways to sub for boxed mix, and I didn't have all of that either, so I did the best I could.

This is the important part.

Also, like the bean puree, this is a revelation - mango puree subs wonderfully for butter/oil, and then you don't have to add ANY fat to the cake and it's still delicious! I used a little more than I would have if I had been using butter.

And because I had a big old bag of frozen mango chunks to use up, I also decided to make this an upside down cake. That's a thick coat of Pam and turbinado sugar in there with the mango.

Aaaaand this is the finished cake. Not all of the mango came out with it so I kind of pieced it back together for the picture ;) It was a hit, we ate it with cups of almond milk for breakfast the next morning. Bob said it tasted too much like alcohol but I think that's just because he knew I put rum in it and is predisposed to jump to that conclusion.

Why I love having a big kitchen:

Isaac's clay creations:

He harvested the little springs from a pen.

Jake drew these two - this one has the sun, start, earth (green and blue), Mars (red), the moon (?) and Saturn (with rings, of course).

"Someone about to go upstairs to bed".

One of these things is not like the other... Can you spot MY bike on the rack at school??? The big stupid beach cruiser handle bars won't fit through the openings on bike racks, I have to lay it down like that to lock it up. Aaron let me borrow his chain.

Last week, a bus mowed over a bus stop. Luckily nobody was there waiting for the bus, though that makes it even more bizarre that the bus would have been veering so (extremely) close to it. I was in the stopped traffic waiting as they towed the bus away o_O

Ananda and Aaron coming out of ArtSouth. That skull on his shirt is made of music notes, and it's his flute he's carrying.

The two of them have become annoyingly obsessed with the Lord of the Rings soundtrack and 50,000 plays later, Aaron can play "Concerning Hobbits" on the flute. It kind of bends my brain that listening to it on a piccolo, he had to figure out how to do it on the piano in order to learn it for flute. She's carring Xanth book #1, A Spell for Chameleon, which is great because Grant and I read Xanth in middle school and I remember that book! Piers Anthony is apparently working on the 35th and 36th now. (Reason #eleventybillion that I'm old)

I am apparently never going to have the time or ability to write more than this in one sitting, today. Four hours cleaning and scrubbing, one front porch conversation with a neighbor about an altercation between HIS KID AND BOB OMG BOB IS A FREAKING ADULT, and the random distractions of all my children later...this is the end of this entry!