Weekend Cooking and lemon love

My mother has given me a subscription to Eating Well for the last two years. I like it but it is much more meat oriented than I need. I do enjoy the get healthy articles and the pictures are lovely but Vegetarian Times still rules at my house.

When Eating Well arrived yesterday I did my normal quick perusal and found a beautiful article about lemons; it made me dreamy for warmer weather in a state other than my own. Lemons bring forth thoughts of California, Arizona; two places I’ve been lucky enough to pick lemons fresh from the tree, that pungent, beautiful smell as you snap it from the tiny limb.
Melissa Pasanen has obviously had a similar experience as she shares in her article “When Life Gives You Lemons” (Feb. 2011/p. 52).

She writes; ” I know what to do with bushels of zucchini and a cellar full of turnips, but when life gave me loads of lemons I was almost overcome by the riches.” I know what to do with overflowing baskets of tomatoes and zucchini but when I buy one lemon from the grocery store it is a treasure-imagine if I had a tree out back-there would be fresh lemonade everday. Melissa goes on to explain how a temporary move to New Zealand brings her to an abandoned lemon tree down the road. She now has access to free lemons any time she wants and she comes home with a new appreciation for the yellow orb.

I share today the one recipe I may make today from the article:

Lemon-Cranberry Muffins
Makes: 1 dozen
Active Time: 25 mins./Total: 1 hour

1/2 cup plus 2 T. sugar divided
3/4 cup nonfat yogurt
1/3 cup canola oil
1 large egg
3 tsp freshly grated lemon zest
2 T. lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups white whole-wheat flour
1/2 cup cornmeal, med. or fine stone-ground
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups cranberries, fresh or frozen (thawed), coarsely chopped(food processor)

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Coat 12 cup muffin tin with cooking spray or line with paper liners.
2. Whisk 1/2 cup sugar, yogurt, lemon, oil, egg, 2 tsp lemon zest, lemon juice and vanilla in a medium bowl.
3. Whish flour, cornmeal, b. powder, b. soda, and salt in a large bowl. Add the yogurt mixture and fold until almost blended. Gently fold in cranberries. Divide the batter among the muffin cups. Combine the remaining 2 T. sugar and 1 remaining tsp. lemon zest in a small bowl. Sprinkle evenly over the tops of the muffins.
4. Bake muffins until golden brown and they spring back lightly to the touch, 20 to 25 minutes. Let cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool for at least 5 more minutes before serving.

(187 calories per muffin, 7 grams of fat)

Can’t you just taste the burst of cranberries with the zesty lemon flavor!
Yum.

Eating Well website
The article link is here: When Life Gives You Lemons
This post is part of Beth Fish Reads Weekend Cooking meme…anybody can play along with your own food-related post.

We Can't All Be Rattlesnakes

by Patrick Jennings

2009

121 pages

This is the cutest little book told from a gopher snake’s point-of-view. I never would have picked it up myself (big dislike for snakes) but Patrick Jennings is coming to town and I thought Groovy Girl and I should read a few of his titles. He obviously has a thing for animals as many of his other books are animal-related, like Guinea Dog.
We Can’t All Be Rattlesnakes begins:

I had shed a skin the day of my capture. As always, the sloughing left me famished, so I curled up under a shady patch of creosote and eagerly awaited the first rodent to cross my path. Gopher was at the top of my list, though I was so hungry that I’d gladly have settled for even a nasty, gristly shrew.
A rodent did not cross my path first that morning, however. A lower life form did: a human. (1)

     And so it goes that the human, Gunnar, captures the gopher snake, taking him out of his natural environment and thrusting him in a cage, right next to other prisoners/animals; a tarantula, a desert tortoise, and an alligator lizard. Gunnar is a despicable boy, who loves his video games more than the animals he captures. Oh sure, for awhile he dotes on Crusher, the name he bestows on his new pet snake, but he is not a loving caretaker. He reminded me of the mean boy, Sid, in Toy Story-remember him! Gunnar is more dim-witted but he is not the character we are meant to love.  I really wanted the mom to tell him “NO more animals” but she never does. Only for the point of funny fiction I let it go!
    This book does such a marvelous job of thinking like a snake, in complex detail and Groovy Girl and I enjoyed how Crusher deciphers the human world. The other fantastic detail of this story is the communication that occurs between Gunnar’s “zoo”- thoughts are transferred to each other so what Crusher thinks is transmitted to the others in cages near him…other animals that he might eat if he weren’t trapped in the glass box. It’s funny to hear the animals sarcastically “teach” Crusher how it’s gonna be in captivity and hear how Crusher tries to work his relationship with Gunnar. Relationships form between the animals, you could call it friendship, even with a mouse dropped into Crusher’s cage meant for dinner. The thrill of eating a mouse in captivity doesn’t seem fair and the mouse and Crusher share the cage much to the great disappointment of Gunnar.
     I plan to book talk this with my 3rd-5th grade students-my guess is it will be a hit with boys first. It’s a quick read-we finished within a week, reading a few of the 13 chapters a night. I think this would make a perfect read-aloud to show students what “voice” is; to put themselves in to another being would be a great writing assignment. I’m anxious to now meet the author who writes such quirky stories for kids-he must be funny. His website is funny. He must be funny.

Patrick Jennings website
Kidsreads talks about it.
Click on the title and find it at an Indie store near you-We Can’t All Be Rattlesnakes

Ninth War (excellent middle grade read)

by Jewell Parker Rhodes

2010

217 pages

Hurrican Katrina swept through the city of New Orleans almost 6 years ago. Wow. I remember watching it unfold on the news every day and wishing I had the means to get there and help-do anything. Even though I watched it I can’t imagine what it would be like to be there-this book gave me the feeling of being there. If I had been there I would have wanted to be with Lanesha.

Synopsis:

Twelve-year-old Lanesha lives in tight-knit community in New Orleans’s Ninth Ward. She doesn’t have a fancy house, like her uptown family, or lots of friends, like the other kids on her street. But what she does have is Mama Ya-Ya, her fiercely loving caretaker, wise in the ways of the world and able to predict the future. So when Mama Ya-Ya’s visions show a powerful hurricane-Katrina-fast approaching, it’s up to Lanesha to call upon the hope and strength Mama Ya-Ya has given her to help them both survive the storm.

My thoughts:

This is the powerful story of Lanesha, raised by Mama Ya-Ya, able to see ghosts, especially her dead mother. Her mother died in childbirth and Mama Ya-Ya, the mid-wife, raised Lanesha as her own, loving her and filling her with knowledge of signs and the world around her. The relationship between Lanesha and Mama Ya-Ya is strong and both of them have special talents that set them apart from their neighbors. Even though Lanesha has had trouble fitting in she is now in a new middle school and she’s met a new friend as well as a teacher who sees talent in her. She is busy dealing with her day-to-day life when Mama Ya-Ya senses the storm’s arrival. Lanesha shines as she takes the predictions seriously enough to get her and Mama Ya-Ya to the upstairs bathtub where they live through the hurricane. Lanesha’s strength shows through as she gets them to higher ground and takes the neighbor boy with them to the attic. The scene in the attic is amazing as Lanesha figures out what she must do and is able to leave behind everything that is familiar to her.
Ninth Ward made Katrina come alive for me as a reader. I could feel the water rise and Lanesha’s panic as well as her ability to see what they had to do to stay alive. She figures it out step-by-step like a math problem; something to be solved and move on to the next step. Students will love reading about Lanesha’s struggles with friendship even as she conquers the rising flood waters. I’m so glad to have read this story-I feel richer knowing more about how this time in New Orleans unfolded so quickly.

Perfect Quote:

“Do you know why your momma is still here?” (Mama Ya-Ya)
I swallow.
“She wasn’t sure you were going to be all right. The world can be a hard place sometimes, Lanesha. You have to have heart. You have to be strong. Not just any strong, mind you, but loving strong. Your testing should’ve come much, much later. But when it came, you shined with love and strength.”
“You’re my strength,” I say, confused my Mama Ya-Ya’s words. I’m not sure what I’m feeling. It’s not pure happiness, but something sour. Bittersweet. (144-145)

Other thoughts:
Stacy at Welcome to my Tweendom.
Tanya at books4yourkids.
the Kid’s Book Club has Lanesha’s recipes.
Jewel Parker Rhodes website

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. “

“Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals. “

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

“Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”

“[I]t is necessary to understand that Black Power is a cry of disappointment. The Black Power slogan did not spring full grown from the head of some philosophical Zeus. It was born from the wounds of despair and disappointment. It is a cry of daily hurt and persistent pain.”

“Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man’s sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.”

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Divine Intervention and Weekend Cooking

Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish Reads-click and read her wonderful post on Ina Garten’s Vegetable Tian

Yesterday was a crazy Saturday for this family. I was up at 6:00 to get Teenage Boy to school by 6:30 so he could get on the bus for a jazz competition. I had to follow the bus because I am “never” given the paper with the details of these events. When asked, Teenage Boy said, “oh, yah it’s in my locker.” A few days before he told us the event was in Union (a town 1 1/2 hours away) but because God gave me some sense I changed my original plan, which was to drive to Union using GPS and meet the bus when it arrived into town, then follow it to the school. I changed that plan just two blocks away when I flipped a u-turn and drove back to his school and calmly waited for the bus to leave. Divine Intervention as the event was only 20 minutes away at Union H.S., in a different small town-the complete opposite direction of where I would have been had I not turned around. I’m not pointing fingers at anyone but it would be so nice to get the facts, man!

After the event when I spirited him away from the competition I took him to IHop(not exactly the haven for local, organic or healthy food but it was for the Boy) for breakfast and some quiet time together. I knew our next event; a big funeral at our church, was going to be diffiuclt for the boy as the funeral was for a 96-year-old man; a mentor to Teenage Boy so I listened to my German grandmother whispering to me “Feed Him.” Yes, grandmother I’m still listening. While he and I were at jazz and breakfast, my husband had Groovy Girl at skating and by 10:20 we all met up for the funeral. To make the day even more thrilling my mom was in town so we could celebrate her birthday. Mom and I spent the late afternoon at a sweet Italian place having drinks and calamari. It was delicious, fun and we had a great waiter.

But the real food I want to share is what I made the night before (Friday) for the funeral luncheon. Mom, husband and I were watching Winter’s Bone (four stars) when at 10 p.m. I infamously said, “oh, I need to make bars” quickly followed by “and I have no eggs.” My egg supplier (another teacher) is having chicken troubles but have no fear I googled bar recipes w/out eggs and viola-this recipe popped up. Love it when the internet actually gives me what I want.

I made the bars in 15 minutes (during the last part of the movie) and had tons of compliments at church. Seriously, that never happens to me-my family can laughingly tell you because usually my stuff is labeled the “healthy” or “meat-free” stuff-making it much less worthy in their church lady eyes so a compliment was HUGE!! I had three ladies ask me for the recipe and they were joking with me about how they didn’t want to put my bars out on the table so they could just eat them in the kitchen…big score for me. I’ll be humble though and just graciously share it here with you. Cookie Madness, the blog that produced these wonderful egg-free bars is now under my peaceful food blog roll, which grows everyday. ______________________________________________________________________________________________

Brown Sugar & Honey Pecan Bars

Crust:

1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup brown sugar, packed (light)
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut up

Filling:

1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
1/4 scant teaspoon salt (omit if using salted butter)
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed (light)
3 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon whipping cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 cups coarsely chopped, lightly toasted pecans.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line an 8 inch metal pan with non-stick foil or line with regular foil and spray with baking spray. (I doubled the recipe and used a 9 x 13-inch pan) Covering it with tinfoil made it so easy to lift bars out and easy clean up)

Prepare crust. Combine flour, brown sugar and salt in food processor and pulse 3 times to mix. Add butter and process until mixture is crumbly – it will be really dry. Pour over bottom of pan and press tightly. Bake for 20 minutes.

Prepare the filling. In a heavy saucepan melt the butter. When the butter is completely melted, stir in salt, brown sugar and honey. Simmer mixture for 1 minute. Remove from heat and stir in cream, vanilla and pecans.

Pour the pecan mixture over crust and spread evenly. Bake on center rack for 18 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool on a rack for at least an hour. To quick-cool, let them cool down as much as possible then shove them in the refrigerator.

Lift foil from pan and carefully cut into bars. I like to trim off the edges, cut the bars into 8 rectangles, then cut each rectangle into a square. It’s easy to do this if you have a big cutting board and a Chef’s knife.

Makes 16 squares (or 32 bars, if doubled)
____________________________________________________________________________________________

They were perfect chewy bars and great for adult events. My kids are not nut lovers unless it is ground up and called peanut butter.

This post is dedicated to Harold L. Brock-we thank you for your life lessons, your inspiration and for finding the light inside Teenage Boy. We know it will be alright, thanks to you. Peace.

****Honesty Disclaimer: Family….I am well aware that we actually fit more in our day than just these listed events but if I tell my one reader about the mid-year graduation, TB’s two soccer games and the bluegrass music event Daddy played for after the funeral-it will just seem like we are crazy!!

Martin's BIG Words by Doreen Rappaport

Oh, how we still need the optimistic and hopeful words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Obvious still today when you read the papers and listen to true current events. While we’ve achieved some of Dr. King’s goals of peace and equality, we haven’t made it to the mountain top. People are still killed because of what they believe, hate runs through many and equality has not shown up on everyone’s doorstep. Today has its own hot button issues. No longer are we protesting segregation based on skin color but we do protest the hatred that is still oh, so prevalent. I love Doreen Rappaport and Bryan Collier’s book, Martin’s Big Words. I read it today to all of my classes and we had great discussion about it. With two classes we were able to compare the Civil Rights struggle to more current events. The tragedy in Tuscon came quickly to mind.

In his own words:

“Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.”

“Sooner or later, all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together.”

“Love is the key to the problems of the world.”

See how each of them is such a universal truth. Wouldn’t it be great to live in a world where, even if you didn’t love what someone else was talking about, that you just let it go. Where you might just say “I just don’t feel that way.” And if you are filled with hatred about someone you can’t go to a gun show and buy a weapon and wake up one day and decide today is the day.

The Civil Rights struggle of today is to give same-sex couples the right to be married, to share benefits, rights guaranteed in the constitution. I understand the fear in this issue but just like seperate is not equal, equal is not equal until all adult Americans can marry and love who they choose. Who will stand up for their civil rights?

I know I am a dreamer and am fully aware that hate and evil will always be with us-I just wish we could get to a higher level of dealing with hatred but after watching a Dr. King video on You Tube with students I noticed below how truly reprehensible the comments were…and they were only made yesterday, not 25 years ago.

One child at a time is what my mind tells me…
I read the book and talked about how I wanted them to wake up on Saturday, Jan. 15 and celebrate Dr. King’s birthday and to do the same on Monday-I really tried hard to get them to understand that it was not just a free day off. Kids are receptive and took my message and maybe, just maybe they will spread that love homeward.

Rappaport’s book is a triple award-winner and beyond!!

For more information:

The King Center
Doreen Rappaport’s website.
Bryan Collier’s website.

Peace,

Peaceful Piggy Meditation

by Kerry Lee MacLean

2004

This is just the kind of book I love to find and share at Peaceful Reader; one that focuses on how to make our world calm. This book is simple with out being preachy or over-the-top. It begins like this:

“Sometimes the world can be such a busy, noisy place. Sometimes it feels like you always have to hurry, hurry, hurry…”

We feel like that at our house many days and from blog hopping around so do many other families. This book gives you clear reasons why we all could use a little daily meditation and how to fit it in with ease.

“Peaceful piggies know when to take a break, find a spot and just breathe, breathe, breathe.”

This is a great book to help at home and at school, as kids can do this at their desk, during testing, anytime they need to find that power within. We do live in a stressful world-one with many worries for children-and having an activity they can count on to bring them back to a peaceful feeling has gotta be a fantastic teaching tool.

P.S. Kerry Lee does her own illustrations, which are charmingly cute, making her extraordinarily talented!
Browsing around her website I discovered three other titles: Moody Cow Meditates, The Family Meditation Book and Peaceful Piggy Yoga-all available for purchase at her website.

For more information:

Kerry Lee’s meditation website.

Find it here at an IndieBound book store-Peaceful Piggy Meditation.
and while browsing I found this site, Luck Duck Children’s Books, with an awesome list of alternative titles for kids-many of the books I love like The Peace Book by Todd Parr are on this list.

Yoga Community

The yoga studio where I have participated in several events and taken classes had their one-year anniversary tonight and I was asked to be there as a yoga student and as a blogger-and it was so much fun. I took my little Groovy Girl (as she is a little yogi) and we set up my laptop, a few yoga books and my cards. We drank tea and visited with lots of current, former, and future yoga students. I ran into a ton of people I hadn’t seen in ages and met some new and interesting people. I also met another local fellow blogger-Mariah, who writes about food at Green Swamp Soup. We had a great time chatting about mutual interests in local foods, co-ops, and our meat-eating sons. Groovy Girl and I were able to participate in an hour long yoga class, stretching and sharing a mat together as the studio was filled to the brim with happy do-ers. It took me back to when she was just a wee thing, watching me do yoga at home and would climb on to my mat with me and bend in tandem. Oh, my they grow so fast!

I feel refreshed, renewed and ready to start yoga classes again next week. I have a New Year’s resolution to go for ten weeks. I have another NY’s resolution, which was to get to sleep closer to the 10:00 pm hour so I can wake up early, stretch and be prepared for my day. Hmmm. Here it is, 11:10-oops!

**** Another confesion…that is not me doing that amazing yoga pose above. I know, you’re shocked.

The Night Fairy

Laura Amy Schlitz

Angela Barrett, ill.

2010

117 pages

This elementary fantasy is a wonderful easy read for everyone who loves fairies, like we do at our house. My 8-year-old Groovy Girl makes fairy water every other day (or so it seems) with markers, lots of water, and tiny jars. The result is sparkly, multi-colored water (think pinks, oranges, sea green) by putting a small (picture the mess in my upstairs bathroom sink) amount of water into the teeny, tiny jars (mini marmalade jars), then sticking a marker tip into the water, and watch the color flow into the water. Magically, the marker is not permanetely damaged through this creative process. She sets these jars on her windowsill, for fairy purposes. I haven’t figured out why or what fairies do with this water…it just is what it is.

The Night Fairy is an adventure starring Flory, a young night fairy who at three monthes old has her brand-new, beautiful wings snapped off by a blundering bat, swooping through the night. She’s left in a sweet, gray-haired human’s backyard and has to learn how to survive without flying. Luckily, this human loves animals and is constantly putting treats out for the birds. Flory befriends a squirrel, Skuggle, who is always hungry and the two learn to help each other.

Flory was no longer alone. She felt that she had made a friend, though she wasn’t quite sure what friendship was. Skuggle was not the best of friends, because he would have eaten her if he could; also, he never talked anything but food. flory wasn’t the best of friends, either. She knew that if she had been able to fly, she wouldn’t have bothered with Skuggle. She was using him. All the same, after she struck her bargain with Skuggle, she was less lonely. (32)

She finds other animals along the way; both friends and foes, even helping a hummingbird escape a spider. She uses her mind and her limited use of magic to defend herself and find out more about the world around her. This imaginative little book is filled with great adventures that many fairy-loving young humans will love. The end of the story paves the way for, hopefully, more escapades with Flory. Flory would probably love to live in my daughter’s room with all the fairy water there for her.

Laura Amy Schlitz won the 2008 John Newbery award for her book Good Masters, Sweet Ladies!

The Night Fairy website.
Planet Esme’s review.
Green Bean Teen Queen predicts it as a Newberry Dark Horse winner.

Weekend Cooking-A casserole of sorts

I don’t have a recipe for a casserole-I’ve never made a casserole after having far too many of them growing up but too me a casserole is an odd mixture of things together and that is what I have for today’s Weekend Cooking post.

Thursday night was my stepdaughter’s last night home with us as she wanted to get back to Chicago to see friends. For a special dinner I made Pad Thai. It was the best we’ve made in awhile so I have that recipe to share. Plus my brother called this morning asking me what to do with the leftover ham bone he had (frozen) from his Christmas dinner. We talked it over and decided making soup would be the best option for him and his 6-year-old son, except he didn’t think split pea soup would work. In my Soup, A Way of Life by Barbara Kafka I found a chicken soup recipe that adds ham-which is perfect for my meat-loving brother! Two meats in one soup-Hot Dog! I have that recipe to share right here-Chicken Soup with Chinese Flavors. I can’t wait to hear his success story with this recipe.

Then my Vegetarian Times magazine arrived last night with a beautiful photo of lasagna on the front cover! I’m a sucker for lasagna recipes so I will be trying this recipe for Kale lasagna this week. I’ve shared two of my favorite lasagna recipes; Eggplant Lasagna and the newer, Spinach and Feta Lasagna. so if you are looking for something delicious to cook this weekend, any of these lasagna recipes will make you happy! The interesting thing about the Kale recipe is it is made in an 8-inch baking pan so it will be smaller-not as many leftovers, which sometimes can be a good thing but might be just perfect to feed my family with a side salad or some fruit and bread-don’t ever forget the bread here.

Okay, here is the star of the week, Vegetarian Pad Thai:

1 pound Asian Rice Noodles
1/4 cup soy/ Tamari sauce
1/2 cup lime juice
3 T. peanut butter
2 T. hot sauce
1/4 cup sugar
1 block tofu
1 onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 T Sesame oil
1/2 cup bean sprouts
1/4 cup crushed peanuts
4 scallions, sliced

1. Cook noodles according to package directions.
2. Whisk together soy sauce, peanut butter, lime juice, sugar, and hot sauce.
3. In large wok, sautee tofu, onions and garlic in sesame oil.
4. Add cooked noodles, peanut butter sauce to wok, stir well.
5. Top with sprouts, chopped peanuts and scallions. Serve hot.
6. I added fresh chopped basil at the table.

It was delicious and we had enough for lunch leftovers the next day.
Served with fresh bread and a spinach salad.

What’s in your “casserole” for the weekend??

Happy Cooking and reading!
Check out other Weekend Cooking posts at Beth Fish Reads.