Cilantro-Ginger-Garlic "Aioli" Sauce

Cilantro-Ginger-Garlic "Aioli" Sauce

 

This is my version of a dipping sauce from one of my favorite restaurants where it is paired with fried yucca.  I call it a cheat "aioli" because instead of emulsifying it myself, I just add prepared mayo.  It is absolutely to die for!  Excellent with chicken or on burgers with arugula. 

 

Ingredients:

1 bunch fresh cilantro, stems and all

1 - 2" chunk fresh ginger

4 large cloves garlic

1 T soy sauce

1 T rice vinegar

1 lime, juiced

1/3 cup mayo

 

Directions: Process cilantro, ginger, and garlic in food processor until it is all broken down.  Add remaining ingredients until smooth.  Adjust mayo to desired consistency.

 

Notes: Leftover sauce makes an excellent salad dressing.  Add extra olive oil and rice vinegar to thin the sauce into a pourable dressing!

Gluten-Free Banana Quinoa Breakfast Muffins

Gluten-Free Banana Quinoa Breakfast Muffins

I make these about once per week, as soon as the last bananas get spots and are therefor unfit for consumption.  I've only recently added the quinoa which I had leftover in the fridge and it turned out extra nutritious and chewy; you can omit the quinoa and leave everything else the same to save a step.

Wet Ingredients:
2 eggs
2 ripe bananas
1/3 C coconut sugar
1/4 C applesauce
1/4 C coconut oil
1 t vanilla

Dry Ingredients:
1/2 C gluten-free all-purpose baking flour
1/2 C almond meal
1/2 C cooked quinoa
1 t baking soda
1 t cinnamon

Directions: Process wet ingredients in the food processor until banana is smooth.  Add dry ingredients and process until combined.  Fill muffin tins 3/4 full.  Bake at 350° for exactly 25 minutes.

Notes: Yield about 10 muffins and store best in the fridge.

Planting our Roots

What a beautiful summer! I can't believe I haven't heard it more this year. I think we all got so used to complaining about the winter and then the rain this spring that we don't know how to be happy about the weather anymore! I can't think of one day that we have not been able to play outside or at least go for our evening stroll because of rain or heat or bugs. Last summer I felt so discouraged about this home. We had all this space but I couldn't enjoy it. Marek was still too little to explore too far out of my reach and Maggie was a tiny newborn. We couldn't get our mail without being attacked by mosquitos and ticks. There was so much work to be done and I couldn't do any of it with Matt overseas the entire summer. This year has been so much better!  With Matt's help, I started to see his vision for this place and we are slowly making it happen. For Mother's Day, Matt build our beautiful garden and every day it makes me feel so blessed and so happy; the gift that keeps on giving!! It really has required minimal maintenance thanks to the raised beds and the sprinkler system. We are finally starting to reap the harvest. Both Marek and Maggie love to pick and eat whatever I'll let them get their hands on. It truly does encourage healthy eating for children when they plant and pick the food with their own hands! Marek loves to help me in the garden and at the age of three, he finally is actually helping :)

I set my expectations low for the garden this year, unsure of how much time and energy I could manage to put into it. It turned out to fit almost everything that I wanted and even expanded into a blueberry and asparagus patch. We also planted a tart cherry and apple tree. Each year I hope to add more edible foliage to our property. I have harvested some nettles that grow like crazy here and we enjoy the few patches of raspberries that we find. I was really excited to find out that our property is also covered with wild filberts! I'm told that if we can beat the squirrels to them in the fall, we'll have quite the treat! The more we do, the harder it would be to ever move away from here.  We are planting our roots, quite literally!

 

I still have so much to learn about vegetable gardening but I am enjoying the pace at which I am learning and growing. Some day, I would love to have a large garden and a small inn where I prepare fresh meals from the garden year-round!

Matt has spent a lot of time getting the lawn up to par and although I've said in the past that I could care less about the status of my grass, I must admit that it makes our house look nice and it is great to be able to play in with the kids. He finally tore down an ugly lean-to next to our shed and used the free lumber to make some shelving in the shed, a super handy compost bin, and a super-sized sandbox for the kids! It was a mud box for a few weeks before we finally got the sand delivered. My favorite find of the summer was a sturdy old digger that I found on Craigslist and painted Marek's favorite color!

 

 

 

Matt's last trip home was absolutely packed full with projects around the house. We tag-teamed checking items off our list and playing with the monsters and barely spent much time together at all. It was nice to complete some items off of our wish list but sad to see him leave so soon, especially because we just got news that he will be gone extra long this hitch.  I feel like we have thoroughly enjoyed our summer and will have no regrets when the weather starts to change and all of our hard work gets covered in white!

Birding

Matt has had it in his mind to get a suet feeder since we've moved in.  I don't like the thought of having to take care of any other creatures besides my two little monsters, including house plants, but I'm sure glad he followed through on this idea!  We made our own suet over the cold winter with bird seed and leftover bacon grease.  It attracted a few birds but nothing like this spring!  We had to switch over to the no-melt store bought suet and our one little feeder and big oak tree is just a flurry with birds!  I get so excited when we spot new ones.  We call Papa and tell him all about it and give him bird-envy.  He has close to twenty feeders and we see almost all of the same birds with just one!  I want to buy two more feeders to attract finches, buntings and hummingbirds.  Oh, and we have lots of bluebirds in the neighborhood but I think we will need to build a house to get them in our yard.  The colors are amazing!  I could sit for hours watching outside our deck window.  Here are some of the regulars:

Male Scarlet Tanager

Female Scarlet Tanager

Rose-Breasted Grosbeak

Red-Bellied Woodpecker

Male Downy Woodpecker

Female Downy Woodpecker

Mama Robin

Marek peeking at the three baby robins in the robin's nest under the deck.  We spotted them as eggs and watched them every day until they flew the coop!

Chickadee

Oriole

Pileated Woodpecker!

We have really been enjoying the wildlife around here this summer.  The Pileated has been quite elusive.  I knew he was around and finally one morning, Marek spotted him on our feeder!  It took me a few days to snap his picture and now he visits all the time.  We are having to replenish the suet almost every day because of this big guy!  We've spotted a number of turtles crossing our lawn on their way to the pond and everyday we find tree frogs on our windows.  We even have one little guy that lives in our newspaper slot :)  There is a pocket gopher (or some such creature) living in our back yard and we are fairly certain that the little foxes den is in the big brush pile that we haven't yet cleared out from the previous owners.  Of course there are lots of deer and we never get sick of spotting them on our walks.  So big, so majestic.  Marek has caught all sorts of big bugs to put in his bug box. Right now he has a grasshopper, beetle, moth, dragonfly and big spider.  When they die, the giant spider can be seen sucking their blood.  I'm so glad he's a bug man, unlike his Daddy ;)

I can't wait to post some pictures of updates we are making around here!  We have an absolutely beautiful garden and are in the process of making a sandbox for the kids.  Slowly, (well, actually pretty quickly!) our dreams for our home are coming true!  Always thanks to my amazing husband!

The Black Flag

I all but gave up running after Grandma's Marathon in 2009.  Training burned me out and the race was brutal.  "Black Flag Marathon" it was; they nearly called it off.  If we weren't crazy enough to be running in the first place, we were even more nuts to finish in those conditions.  I don't remember exactly but it was HOT and HUMID and I woke up the day before with body aches and a bad cold.  At each water stop I had to grab one cup of ice to drink and one to shove in my bra to last me to the next station.  I hit a wall somewhere in the middle and was gagging into a dumpster at the end.  My time was better than I imagined it would be given the conditions but I knew that I would have to try and beat it at some point in my life.  My time has come!

I have kept this tiny photo taped to my computer for the last five years in anticipation of today.

I am registered to run the Twin Cities Marathon in October!  When we moved to Minnesota last winter, I started to run again.  I was pregnant with Maggie and ran all the way up to a few days before she was born.  Soon after she was born, two weeks actually, I hit the road again.  I got a running app and for the first time was clocking myself.  It was fun to watch my time and distance improve!  It felt like I was in a competition with myself and helped keep me motivated.  This winter (the winter from hell!) I ran outside quite a bit.  I really came to enjoy running in the snow and cold; it was a welcome break from the kids and feeling cooped up in the house, plus it felt hardcore!  I had tossed the idea of running my next marathon around but didn't think it would be possible to train in the present circumstances.  Watching a friend of mine with two kids finish her first marathon last year, and seeing another (also with two kids) plan to run her second this year made me believe that I could do it too!  I woke up one morning about a month ago with the ambition to run TC.  I prayed.  If I was still as excited about it in a week, then I knew it wasn't some crazy whim and that God would help me stay motivated (and excited) to train.  I didn't want to burn out this time.  Well, my answer came in the fact that I haven't stopped thinking about it since and can't wait for the big day!  My prayer now is that Matt will be home (he doesn't yet know his schedule for October).

In 2009, I was unmarried, without children and living on my own in the city.  My time, my body, and my location have all changed.  Training will not be the same as it was the first go around!  Actually, I don't exactly know what I was thinking back then training with an intense, intermediate schedule that put on way more miles than it seems was necessary.  This year I'm going with Hal Higdon's Novice 1 which I am confident will get me there.  I looked better then, but I'm feeling stronger now and live a much healthier lifestyle.  It will be tricky to fit in all the training runs while Matt is at work but I've been somehow managing to put in quite a few miles already.  "Free" runs without the stroller are a precious gift that I don't take for granted!

I won't be with my sisters but I still fully intend on using them as my marathon training obsession sounding board.  Miles, times, legs, muscles, carbs, toenails, chaffing, POOP.  Remember all that, girls?  You sure you don't want to join me??

Mr. Who?

It began in the beginning...

Our honeymoon.  I knew I was in for a lifetime of this:

Even Jake bore the brunt of it:


An interesting one...give it some thought and it actually makes sense!

Here we see exhibited two common errors; the second capital and the classic Mr. Butt:

My all-time favorite. This was on my luggage at a hotel in Vegas:

Extra Crunchy

This year we purchased pastured pork and beef from wonderful people at Snake River Farm.  We joined them in January for their lard rendering and bobsledding day and it was delightful!  Marek loved the horses and Matt really enjoyed chatting while helping strain the lard.  We ate the most delicious cookies made with the crackling from lard rendering as well as donuts, fries, soups, and meats all from the farm.  My favorite part was learning how to make soap and lotion from beef tallow.  I didn't realize that soap making is something that we could do on a small scale at home.  Matt and are excited to try it out soon and I'll be sure to post about it.  Last night I deep fried sweet potatoes in the lard and it was fantastic.  We usually make roasted sweet potato "French fries" at least once a week but these were the real deal!  Eggs cooked in lard are fantastic.  It's so cheap and delicious and healthy.  We will definitely continue to make and use this product in our family.  It's nothing new but it's new to us!

The tallow balm seemed like a very simple process to make.  Reading more about it, I discovered that it is very good for your skin, especially in winter and especially for eczema. It is "bioavailable," to our skin, absorbing easily and fairly non-greasy.  I decided to try it out.  I purchased two pounds of ground tallow from the meat market, rendered it, whipped it up with olive and essential oils and viola!  The smell is distinct but not unpleasant.  Eau de beef fat is the new patchouli. I've been using it on my face for a few nights and it feel amazingly rich and smooth. 

 

I am trying to phase out most of the household products we use/buy that are synthetic and trying out homemade/natural replacements.  I've purchased everything to make laundry detergent, all-purpose cleaner, and some personal products like lip balm, lotion, and deodorant.  It's fairly inexpensive and I'm having fun with it!  My secondary intention is to simply use less of everything (cleaning products, makeup, FOOD, etc.).  That's also a great way to be natural and save money ;)

A Stirring in My Soul

This week on Facebook, I linked back to a blog post that I wrote two summers ago.  I've thought about that summer often over the past year or so.  I remember how good I felt and in a lull, it has helped to heed my own words and pull strength from my "happy" list.  Again, I have been feeling a stirring in my soul.  I've been talking to Matt about it a lot but I'm not quite sure what it is.  It's not that I feel like something is missing.  I have enough, too much even, in my life to make me feel secure.  He thinks it's that I need a hobby, something to do without the kids.  That could be it.  The time doesn't quite feel right to start anything big (i.e. my dream to have my own pottery studio) but I have picked up some hobbies that keep me stimulated and excited.  I have made some goals related to them; I want to make my first quilt and run another long race.  I think it definitely has something to do with helping others.  I'm exploring some volunteer opportunities.  It also has a lot to do with God and bringing Him into clearer focus in our family.  That's probably because Marek is growing in his understanding of life and I want Jesus to be the center of it.  I'm also trying to open myself to help from others.  It hasn't been difficult to pray for God's guidance but it's an entirely different thing to actually move over and let Him take control!  Having child #2 has seem to change me more than first becoming a mother had.  In my experience, two has been loads easier than one!  It's because I've relaxed.  I feel so much more confident in making my own decisions about parenting my children and worrying less about other's input.  I've also realized that I had been making the mistake of assuming all other moms, especially moms with multiple children, have it all figured out.  It's reassuring knowing that we are all doing are best and figuring it out day-to-day.

One of the biggest struggles I have in my life has been a feeling of utter panic when one of my assumptions is upturned.  The earliest recollection I have of this is in kindergarten.  I asked the teacher, "what is the last number."  She told me there was no end but didn't exactly explain the theory behind it, as if I should have known this all along.  I panicked, I still remember the feeling!  How could I have been such a fool? I should have known!  Why didn't anyone ever tell me?  I'm so confused!  It's happened a number of times in my life and each time, I struggle to figure out what went wrong with my understanding. I've found it happening a lot with parenting.  So much so that I am wondering if much of what I have believed my whole life is somehow wrong.  No, that can't be right.  But it has brought me to a point where I believe the mature thing to do is at least examine my beliefs, one by one, and make sure I'm always questioning, always striving to be better.

In an effort to sort through these emotions, I am going to try to blog more or at least write down more snippets of thoughts throughout my days.  Maybe I'll come out the other end with some answers to who I am and what God wants me to be doing with this precious time on earth!

I also have many more recipes to post.  It'll be a mixed bag ;)