Veggie Fever

It's official - the weather is GORGEOUS here! Cool all morning, up to 80 or so after noon and beautiful evenings. I want to live outside. This will change soon...

Thursday, we went to the zoo. Not our usual visit. We had much more quiet time:

We even caused a feeding frenzy:

After petting giant goldfish for a loooooong time (yep - you heard me! The big ones move slow and their eyes are set so far apart that they can't see you coming in until it's too late :-P), we went home and opened up the house. The dog days of summer approacheth, but for now, it's too lovely to miss out on.

Friday, my outdoor lust continued as Fertile Garden Supply delivered 3.5 cubic yards of Light Garden Mix. In case you're wondering, here's what $122 (+ a giant delivery fee :-/) of dirt looks like:

Over the weekend, we finished assembling the beds and added the soil (and other good stuff). The air wafting over my desk smells of promise and hard work to come...

This gardening madness and an overdose of fresh air has left me with a sharp, almost painful yearning to cook with fresh foods. To that end, I am revisiting my Warm Weather Lasagne! This go-round, it is yellow and green - just like spring!

Today's Warm Weather Lasagne
fills one 9" X 13" baking dish
*most measurements are approximated - just go for it!*
olive oil
1/2 head of garlic - coarsely chopped
1 pkg fresh ricotta (mine was approx 14 oz)
1 bunch fresh basil - thinly sliced
3 links Italian sausage - casings removed (I used mild today)
1/2 Lb crimini mushrooms - sliced
1 bunch Swiss chard - coarsely chopped
1 pkg Lasagne noodles
6 fresh mozzarella 'knots'
1/2 Lb broccoli - chopped
1 med. zucchini - chopped
1 med yellow squash - chopped
1 pkg yellow tomatoes - quartered
1 pkg Panela cheese
Parmesan cheese

Combine the olive oil and the garlic (you want LOTS of both) - set aside and let them mingle. I left mine alone for 2 hours before starting to cook. You can also chop all of the other stuff now, or you can scramble around like a headless chicken and try to do it all while stuff cooks - guess which method I usually employ...

Combine the ricotta and the basil. Add a little of the garlic (leave the oil in the dish).

In a large skillet, cook the sausage then set it aside to drain. Drain the grease, then use the same skillet to saute the mushrooms - use a teaspoon (or more) of the garlic and olive oil. When the mushrooms are almost done, add the chard, turn off the heat, and cover. Once the chard is wilted, you're ready to start layering!

Slick up the bottom of your baking dish with some of the garlic-y oil. Cover the bottom of the pan with noodles - I don't boil them first, and I use the flat kind. Carefully (so as not to move the noodles, evenly distribute the sausage and mushrooms. Sprinkle the chopped mozzarella on, then cover the whole layer with the chard:

Add another layer of noodles. Using the same skillet (or a different one if you feel like washing more dishes...), lightly cook the zucchini and squash with some more of the garlic- I also added a tiny bit of water, so mine was actually braised if you wanna be all specific. When the squash are just barely cooked, add the broccoli and cover & cook until it turns bright green. Layer it in:

Cover that layer with the ricotta mixture. Cover that with the tomatoes and any garlic and olive oil that you might have left over:

Add another layer of noodles, and top the whole thing with the Panela cheese. I used Panela because it has a different texture and slightly saltier taste than mozzarella - you could use mozzarella. Cover the pan with foil.

Bake at 400 for 45 minutes to 1 hour - when it's hot all of the way through, it's done. Uncover and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Eat as soon as it's cool enough. This was so good that it was surreal. You should make it now.

NOTE: The noodles need moisture in order to cook, so add in all of the liquids that you encounter in the cooking process - whey from the ricotta, water in the skillet from sauteing and braising, innards from the tomatoes, etc. I also threw in the liquid from the container of fresh mozzarella (approx 1 cup). If it doesn't seem moist enough to you, add in some water or broth. You can also add liquid as it cooks if it seems too dry. If there isn't any condensation on the inside of the foil as it bakes, it's toooooo dang dry!

Happy eating, friends!

Found It!

Well, I turned 39 last month. This is not huge news in and of itself as birthdays happen every year.

Lily Ruth's Daddy took me on a wonderful wine tasting outing to celebrate. It was fantastic! Possibly the best trip we've ever taken together. We simply had a great time the whole time - no sniping, no 'you didn't think this through or make a plan!?' Just relaxed fun. We took our map of the Texas Wine Trail, and headed out.

First stop, Dry Comal Creek. We already love their wines, so stopping there was a no-brainer. We had a great tasting in a completely casual and relaxed atmosphere, and left with several bottles of wine (no, silly, not ALL of those!):

We stopped at Pedernales Cellars next, but they were PACKED, and unprepared for that volume of business. We would have waited 10-20 minutes just to get to the tasting counter, and the next tour of their underground cellar wasn't for another 45 minutes :-( We'll try them again another time...

We debated about our next stop, because we had several options. In the end, Becker Vinyards won out, and I am soooo glad that it did! We had a very large amount of fun at Becker.

When you buy a tasting there, they give you a glass (that you keep) and 6 tickets for wine tasting. Then you stand around their huge rectangular bar and trade in your tickets for the wines of your choice. Not only is their new(ish) tasting room absolutely gorgeous, but their staff is big fun. Also, one thing that drunk people are terrible at is holding onto small pieces of paper. Every time we looked down, there were more tickets on the floor and no owners (apart from us) in sight.

After spending way too long falling in love with the Malbec at Becker, we wandered off to find lunch in Fredricsburg. Mmmmmmm, lunch. I'm not a huge fan of posting pictures of meals, but I was having too much fun not to take this:

After eating ourselves silly, we meandered out to our Bed and Breakfast. My darling husband had made yet another excellent choice. The Walden Plantation was great. Our room was gorgeous:

The staff was fantastic, and our breakfast was deeeeelicious. We are definitely going to visit them again, and we hope to bring lots of friends.

Enough with the recap - on to my point. My point is this: I tend to take stock every year around this time. I think that it's due in equal parts to the new year, the change in seasons and my birthday. Whatever the reasons, around about now, I am looking hard at what is up with me.

This year, I find that I am doing more complaining than fixing. I am unhappy with my weight and my size (not the same thing, ya'll!). I am not thrilled with my energy level. I feel like I'm treading water instead of doing, yet I'm not making any changes. Why is this? Well, this week, I think that I figured it out: Motivation.

I have these vague (and not so vague) dissatisfactions, but I had lost the motivation to do anything about them... until I met the Climber.

The Climber is a new element at the wonderful McKenna Children's Museum (a.k.a - Lily Ruth's new favorite place). I talked it up to Lily Ruth on the drive up there. She was very excited to try something new and to climb. We walked up to the Climber, and she promptly panicked. There was no way she was going to get into that big, scary thing all by herself. Well, I wasn't about to let her miss out because of fear of the unknown, so I pushed down my fear of heights, and squeezed myself into the Climber.

We made our way from color to color. Her eyes gradually returned to their normal size, and her shoulders left her ears and relaxed down her back. We went up to the top:

down, up again (hung out for a while) back down, up yet again (more hanging out), and finally down. Ya'll I am too big and too out of shape for this kind of thing! I was completely wiped out by the time we were done. But somewhere way up high; staring at that big blue Texas sky with my baby, I found my motivation. I will NOT miss out on opportunities like that. I will not let my daughter down by being physically unable to do something. I WILL show her how to be brave and strong and how to take on this world one colorful climb at a time. We will have adventures. We will push limits. We will conquer fear.

So there you have it - motivation found. Who's up for an adventure?

Garden, Round 2

You may or may not remember (or care) that I made a limp-wristed stab at 'gardening' last spring. In short, my mom did the lion's share of work, and I fell apart and was unable to help. Well, here's hoping that I learned a few things vicariously, because this year, we're going to try it on our own.

My husband is an Idea Guy. He is forever coming up with ideas. They range from dinner plans to vacation plans. The only things that they all have in common is that they all come from a place of good intention, and they all very rarely come to fruition because he is so busy and/or tired all of the time that he forgets about them almost as soon as he says it out loud. I have learned over the years not to pin any sort of hope to these ideas until we have spoken of them several times. This is why I was completely unprepared yesterday when he started actually preparing our yard and looking up plans for raised garden beds on the internet.

I'll tell you what, I'm riding this train of garden momentum. I'm going to take him up on it, and follow through. So far, we have seeds and a plan:

That's right - a four foot BEAN TEEPEE that she can crawl into!!!! With PURPLE BEANS!!!

We also have a lot of cut lumber and 1 partially finished bed. That's a lot for one day!

He found instructions for raised beds on a blog called Anything Pretty,  and my dad offered up as much salvaged wood as we need. Don is loving the fact that we're using reclaimed wood. Not only is it saving us money (witch we can now use on more supplies), but we're recycling AND it looks cool! :-P

I found instructions for prepping the beds once they're in place on my mom's friend's blog - Diane's Texas Garden. Now we just have to finish construction, have dirt delivered (!!!), make the soil rich and gorgeous (we should all be so lucky) and THEN it will be time to plant! It's all very exciting, and a teensy bit daunting. The amount of planting that I have planned will be a lot of work.

I'm just so excited about Lily Ruth watching food grow! Not only is it an amazing process, but it's also a good way to foster healthy eating (and curb picky eating)... as an added bonus, it will surely create a plethora of cute photo opportunities. For instance, a gardener in training must dress for success:

 Also, you need a lot of things in order to garden. A kitty, sunglasses, a popsicle...

Oh yeah, the 'grass' that she's standing on is the location of our future garden. Wish us luck - we're gonna need it!

Viruses, Bacteria and Travel - Oh MY!

how long has it been since we spoke? A week? Three weeks? A year?Just two weeks? Well, that's better than I thought. As usual, life has continued around here. NOT as usual, things have been a bit hectic. Alright, FINE - hectic is our usual, but this was even MORE hectic.

I started out by working (don't fall over in shock) at the spa for two days IN A ROW. By the time I was done, I was absolutely beat, and I had (unbeknownst to me at the time) contracted pink eye. For any of you not acquainted with the bacterial awfulness that is Conjunctivitis, bravo to you. For those with intimate knowledge, my deepest sympathies. The rest of the series of events is best summarized by a time line like those seen on police dramas (my favorite? Castle. LOTS of dry erase time lines plus Nathan Fillion). I'll draw one for you:

To sum up:
1) We visited my step-dad and his wife out at their ranch-ita. Had a wonderful time. Great visiting, great playing and giggling, cows (!), step-dad borrowed a patient horse for us to ride (!!!!!) - all around great.

2) PINK EYE!!!! Miserable. Scratch on my eye - miserable. Finding out that I'm allergic to hydrocodone in the process - also miserable.

3) I made a Starbucks-style cup and donut out of felt! Tutorial to follow... I also accidentally dropped the cup in my mama's yard, and it spent the night getting wet.

I made a new one, and it was EVEN BETTER.

4) Lily Ruth has new rain boots and my hopelessly urban kid who refuses to walk through tall grass is newly in love with jumping into puddles!

5) My baby caught Hand Foot and Mouth again. Way to sneak up on us, Coxsackievirus. Well played. Last year's case was mild. This year's case was NOT. Diaper rash, mouth ulcers and lots of tears.

She refuses to take medicine, and was refusing to eat, drink or speak because her mouth hurt so much. It was awful. When she caved and started drinking, we were able to sneak in some Tylenol and it made her more comfortable. She still has a few mouth ulcers, but is improving daily.

6) Even with her virus, she was so distraught about missing her trip to see her grandparents that I ignored my better judgement and packed her into the car. I don't really want to talk about most of the rest of the trip. Thank goodness for wonderful husbands and delightful long-time friends. I will break my silence long enough to tell you about the butterfly exhibit - Amazing. I loved it. Lily Ruth was freaked out that there were literally butterflies everywhere - it was just too much for her. She would try to be a good sport and pose for a picture, but then another butterfly would flit past and she would shriek and flinch. *sigh* Parenting means that you occasionally sprint when you would rather saunter or even stop...

oh, and 7) My friend loved my essay! I finished editing it today, and it will either be published next week or in the middle of next month. I'll let you know when and where as details become available!!!

Kisses and hugs to you all - unless you're not a toucher. If you're not a toucher, then air kisses and waves!

Whatcha Doin'?

Ya'll I wrote an essay and sent it off to my friend - the one who has offered to publish my stories in her on-line magazine! I'll give you more details if and when this comes about, but for now, I am giddy and a little bit nauseated with anxiety. What if it's not what she wanted? What if... whatever. No more what-ifs. It's done. I sent it. Now, we wait.

While we wait, let's make some stuff!

Still on the Valentine's Day kick, Lily Ruth and I 'made' chocolates to give to her teachers at Parent's Day Out. These sort of things do not require recipes as you simply melt chocolate and squeeze it into molds. It was big fun, though. We made milk chocolate with pink (vanilla flavor), and dark chocolate with sea salt and caramel:

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

'Salt in these hearts?!' 

'Miss Briana needs a pencil, Mama!'

Everything's better with stickers.

I think that was the end of the Valentine's Day stuff. Oh, unless you count the hours wasted creating my Pinterest board...

Source: designsponge.com via Rachel on Pinterest

*sigh* Who DOESN'T need a love nest?!

Least I seem like a big whiner, I really do love Pinterest. It has inspired quite a bit around here lately! Let's see... we've made cupcake pictures:

based on this pin from 3.bp.blogspot.com:

Source: 3.bp.blogspot.com via Rachel on Pinterest

We made fireflies from pipe cleaners, glow-in-the-dark paint and glitter:

Well, I guess we really made sparkly moths as fireflies don't have round, luminescent wings... (also, my glow-in-the-dark paint sucks. Barely a shine :-/ ) they were based on several crafts that I saw when googling glow-in-the-dark crafts, but didn't 'pin'.

I also went a bit wild at Michael's today. I'm just full of excitement about color and bright things and MAKING STUFFFFFFFFF!

Clockwise from the upper left corner: 1) replacement paints for Lily Ruth - that's what we use to make the giant pictures on freezer paper that usually become full-body art. 2) adhesive foam pages so we can cut out our own stickers :-O! 3) small glass bottles and enamel glass paint - I gotta make THIS!:

Source: myyellowsandbox.blogspot.com via Rachel on Pinterest

4) magnifying lenses - things are growing, time top get a good look! 5) 2 new boxes of crayons so that I can make THIS!:

Source: theletter4.com via Rachel on Pinterest

6) face paints - that's just big fun & 7) nature themed stuff (notebook, notepad, magnets) to continue our thoughts (and document them) of exploring the Great Outdoors.

The colors outside are so new and fresh. It makes my heart sing. Yesterday, it was rainy and gray, but my aloe plant was ORANGE!

I am filled with the impulse to paint everything that will hold still with bright, fresh color. I long to cram my world full of shiny newness. I think my sap is rising. Welcome, Spring!

Felt, Felt, Felt, Pinterest.

O.k., when I decided to call myself a storyteller and try to write more stuff down, I caused an internal panic and shut-down. Typical. The same thing happened when I tried to journal one summer... and it happens every time that I try to diet... *harumpfh* Oh well. I have made a deal with myself that I must write for at least an hour while Lily Ruth is at Parent's Day Out. After all, someone has offered to possibly pay me, therefore it is my job to do it, right?

Good things have continued to happen since I last blogged, I just haven't had the time to tell you about them because (wait for it) I Discovered Pinterest (dun, dun, duuunnnnnn). *sigh* I've heard friends and other bloggers talk about it for a while. I intentionally avoided it because they ALL said that it was a huge, addictive time-suck. They were ALL right. You log in (just for a quick second) to see if anybody has cute ideas for Valentine's Day and the  next thing you know is that it's dinner time and all you have to show for your day are 23 'likes', 16 're-pins' and a bad case of eye-strain. By the way, in case you didn't know, Pinterest is basically an on-line bulletin board system. You create boards then 'pin' images or videos to the board. Much handier than bookmarking everything then scrolling through countless bookmark folders (Also, the pictures are so pretty!). My new Pinterest resolution is that I can only pin things that I find on my own - I am not allowed to troll existing boards except in emergency situations.

Speaking of Valentine's Day (nice segue, right?), did I show you the coffee cup sleeves that Lily Ruth and I made? Well, here they are!

Aren't they lovely!? They're so easy to make that it's a bit silly... The pink felt with hearts and buttons was our first batch. We made two of them:

I absolutely adore the finished product, but let's face facts here, people - felt is flimsy. These single-layered sleeves felt pretty much disposable. Our next batch were double-layered and feel sturdier. We made 3: one for Miss June, one for Mr Anthony and one for Nanny (Lily Ruth chose the recipients!). She also made 'shapes' for her friends Lola & Jett :-P

In case you want to make some sleeves of your own, here's a quick almost-tutorial:


Coffee Cup Sleeve
(or Coffee Cup Cozy, if you prefer :-P)

Materials:
pattern
felt ( I used wool blend and not crafting squares)
fabric marker
decorations (felt stickers, buttons, fabric paint, appliques, anything that tickles you)
hot glue gun
thread and embroidery floss in matching or contrasting colors

Method:
My jumping-off point involved two tutorials. This one form The Purl Bee:

Source: purlbee.com via Rachel on Pinterest

And this one from The Cottage Home:

Source: thecottagehome.blogspot.com via Rachel on Pinterest

I downloaded a pattern from The Purl Bee (available here) and added 1/2 an inch to the end so that it was the same length (but a slightly different shape) as a Starbucks sleeve:

(I also drew instructions on it in case I wanted to add the elastic/button from The Cottage Home's method).

Trace your pattern onto the felt & cut it out. Adorn your felt. We used felt heart stickers and buttons on the first batch and stickers and fabric paint for our second batch. If you use stickers, glue them in place with the hot glue gun or they will lift. If you use paint, allow it to dry overnight. I would not suggest adorning both sides in hope of creating a double-sided masterpiece - it'll make the sleeve too bulky.

If you are going to use a double layer of felt (which I would suggest), sew a quick line all the way around the edges to bind your two pieces.

Glue the ends together - I found that just barely under an inch of overlap is the perfect amount (you can see it in the first picture). Now add a line of stitching with the embroidery floss (I prefer a contrasting color) to ensure that it stays put:

Hey presto - you're DONE! Now you just need coffee:

And someone to share your coffee experience with. Preferably someone who will look at the camera. If that someone is not available, you may have to settle for this girl:

But you never know - you might get lucky and end up with THIS girl!:

I have more stuff to tell you, but right now it's time to play with my daughter, so you'll just have to be patient. Happy coffee and happy crafting, ya'll!