Pie and Utter Geekery

About a month ago, I participated in an event that, frankly, was a very very VERY bad idea.

This requires a little explanation.  It will all make sense in the end, I promise.

I am a gigantic nerd.  I sometimes wonder how close to the line of true geekdom I fall, because honestly a great deal of my geek cred has been acquired purely by osmosis.

How?  Well, this is my dad.  When I first started "dating," sometime in my mid-teens, I quickly determined my own litmus test for whether or not a guy was too geeky or nerdy for me to spend my time with- if he knew who my dad was, he was out.

So, when it comes to carrying on a conversation about some fine details of geekery, from the history of PayPal to the problems facing any anti-spam effort, I really can hold my own.

That said, my personal computer geekiness only extends to my basic knowledge of HTML and extremely long history with socializing via the internet.

My first comic love.

Of course, being vaguely geeky, even by association, I gravitated towards *real* geeks.  People who build their own server farms, battle robots, or pornography empires.

And there are some elements of nerd/geek culture that are just plain inescapably awesome.

Like comic books.

It wasn't my father who interested me in comic books in the beginning.  No, it was my uncle, who is less of a geek extraordinaire in his own right than he is an expert in something that geeks almost universally consider really really cool.  His area of expertise?  Sexual deviancy is post-Soviet Russian literature.

He despises Jonathan Safran Foer, or at least did after "Everything is Illuminated" was first published.

At any rate, HE was the big comic book geek. And when I was a kid, he decided he had "outgrown" his comic collection.  A decision I expect part of him regrets to this day.  Being the only relatives of "appropriate" comic reading age, my sisters and I inherited the bulk of his collection.  Everything valuable he kept, but our home became refuge to more comic books- almost all in their protective sleeves- than I could have ever hoped to count.  We could have opened a really crappy comic book shop.

At first, I had little interest in the comics.  My closest experience with them was watching some of my younger cousins (on my mother's side) playing with X-Men action figures, and it held absolutely no interest for me.  Until I discovered on one sleepless night, the Mars series.  Scientist Morgana Trace, paralyzed, builds a super exoskeleton with which she is able to explore the strange and dangerous landscape of Mars.

It's really a very cheesy book.  But I loved it.  And I learned that comics might have something to offer me.

One of my first boyfriends later introduced me to Johnny the Homicidal Maniac.  A few years later, my uncle bought me my first Love and Rockets book.

There was no turning back.  I still think that the Palomar collection by Los Brothers Hernandez is one of the best books I've ever read.

So, I became a comic book... fan.  Not quite a geek, really.  I never got too into superhero stories.  But I am utterly addicted to Walking Dead- the books, not the show.

Which brings me to my very very VERY bad idea.

A local comic book shop held a pie baking contest.  To the winner?

You guessed it.  Comic books.

I absolutely couldn't resist.  Despite not being able to eat pretty much anything that goes into a pie, I decided to enter.

I started off by shooting myself in the foot.  How?  I spent an entire day emailing the owner of the comic book shop with questions- mostly about my ideas for awesome comic-themed pies.  From what I could tell, this hadn't actually been part of the competition up to that point, but after being bombarded by emails he sent a notice to all of the contestants- the pies must be comic themed.

There went my comic-themed edge.

So I spent the whole afternoon coming up with awesome ideas for comic themed pies.  A collection of Comedian Creme Mini Lemon Pies (with a drizzle of raspberry blood), a Hulk ice-cream pie (mint, of course), a Thing pie (sweet potato and covered in crushed Boston Baked Beans)...  in the end, I settled on two.

The first was my Snow White and Rose Red Charming Cheesecake, inspired by the sisters of both fable and Fables.  This was a real cheesecake- no cream cheese here.  Just mascarpone and ricotta cheeses, with raspberries on one half and white chocolate shavings on the other.

The second was actually M's idea- Rorschach Creme Pie.

The Rorschach Creme Pie was something I had considered, recipe wise, but I hadn't thought of the theme.  I was going to use it to make a Georgia Mud Pie, which is like a Mississippi Mud Pie except that there are dead people coming out of it (because the Walking Dead mostly takes place in Georgia, get it?).  But M's idea was better.

So I made my Rorschach Creme Pie, and my Charming Cheesecake.

They were both amazing.

And, out of about twenty pies, my Rorschach Creme Pie took first prize.  The Charming Cheesecake pulled in at a prizeless #5, but only because meat pies were allowed.  If it had been a sweet pie only kind of contest, I would have taken first and third.  I feel pretty awesome about that.

What makes me feel the awesomest though?

The winning pie- judged barely better than a pie made out of spiced meat (but only then because half of the judges didn't get a chance to taste my pie at all- it had been completely devoured)- was nearly fat free.  And vegan.

...that's right.  My vegan pie beat out spiced turkey pie.  It beat out "Spider Jerusalem Bacon and Swiss" pie. It beat out a "Gotham Night" pecan and bacon pie.

It beat both "Captain American Apple Pie" and "Fantastic Four Apples" pie.

It even beat "Banana: The Last Pie."

So, for those of you who don't believe that a vegan dessert can be just as freakin' delicious as any meaty, fruity, or otherwise creamy pie, eat your hearts out.

...so, why was this such a bad idea?

You might remember that I'm pregnant, and that for me that means I have a gall bladder that can't process fats.  This was a contest of open judging- everyone who paid to enter the event (a paltry $7 that was waived if you brought a pie) was a judge.  That meant that you had to taste as many as twenty different pies.

Oh yeah, this was a bad idea for me.

Even worse?  After making friends of sorts with the owner, he's now having ANOTHER baking contest.  For cakes.

The day after my birthday.

...who thinks they might be in the mood for some Bifrost Cake with Rainbow Bridge Frosting?

Rorschach Creme Pie

2 packages firm silken tofu

10oz semi-sweet chocolate chips (vegan)

10oz white chocolate chips (vegan)

1 3/4 c graham crumbs

1/2 c margarine (vegan)

Chocolate syrup

1. Melt margarine in a bowl.  Mix with graham cracker crumbs.  Press into sides of two pie pans (or one GIGANTIC pie pan, as the case may be).  Set aside.

2. In a blender, blend one package of tofu until mostly creamy.  Add 1tsp-1tbsp water if needed.

3. In a double boiler, melt the semi-sweet chocolate.  Add to blender, and quickly blend with tofu until homogeneous.  Pour into pie crusts until about half full.

4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 with white chocolate, topping off pie pans.  Only this time, add just a little bit more water.  Just a bit- so that the white chocolate is ever so slightly creamier than the brown.

5. Carefully drizzle chocolate syrup onto the surface of the pie.  Using a toothpick, marble the top of the pie to recreate a Rorschach test.

6. Set pie in fridge to set overnight.

Done.

Easy as award winning vegan pie, right?

Re-Learning How To Eat

I can't eat them, but I can still ROCK a pie baking contest!
(More on that particular topic in a blog to come.)

I promise you, if you read all the way to the end of this litany of food woes I will give you a recipe.

Despite what Aunt Genocide might say, I am typically a very healthy eater.

Aunt Genocide's opinion is thoroughly skewed, because whenever I cook for her I consider it a "special occasion," and as a result she gets "special occasion" meals.  Which tend to include a lot more butter and the like.

Typically, as a vegetarian and fair weather CSAer, I eat a diet that would impress most nutritionists.  I do- I'm a big believer in eating your colors, I LOVE beets and brussels sprouts and lentils and kale (which I would TOTALLY eat for dinner tonight if I had any beets), I've managed to turn my meat-and-potatoes husband into a salad and cabbage soup loving veggie eating machine (except for brussles sprouts and beets and asparagus- but nobody's perfect.  Yet.).

My restricted diet is killing me.

You see, I have this weird microscopic type of gall bladder disease.  No stones, no huge infections, just malformation on a microscopic level.  The only treatment for it is removing the gall bladder.  But, of course, nobody removes the gall bladder of a pregnant lady unless its actually going to kill her to leave it in.

So, instead of treating my gall bladder disease, I must avoid my gall bladder disease.  And that means not eating foods that your gall bladder helps you digest.

What does the gall bladder do?  It produces the type of bile that digests fat.

...now, I already ate a pretty low-fat diet.  I did.  I didn't cook with a lot of butter (except for Aunt Genocide), I saved french fries and the like for similarly rare occasions, and I avoided anything that looked "gross and greasy," like bad pizza or chimichangas.  My favorite date night cuisines are sushi and Ethiopian- both INCREDIBLY low fat restaurant food.  If I *really* needed to pig out, to feel gross and greasy and truly indulge in the disgusting yet delicious stuff that is fatty food, I'd get breaded mushrooms or onion rings.  That happened maybe twice a year.  I also gave myself a pass for Channukah- where the thing that makes a food "traditional" for the holiday is that it is fried in oil.  Seriously.

That said, I was adamantly opposed to "lite" products.  They trick you with a lack of flavor, and rather than eat a small amount of something fatty (say, a tablespoon of sour cream in your big bowl of borscht), you need to eat A TON OF IT to get the same kind of taste.  In which case, you're eating all sorts of other junk you didn't need.  So I ate regular sour cream, regular cream cheese, regular mayonnaise... I just didn't eat very much of it.  And when the entire fat content of the big bowl of borscht you're enjoying is in the one tablespoon of sour cream you've mixed into it, despite having full-fat condiments, you're still eating a low-fat dish.

But eating "low fat" is not the same as eating "no fat."

It's not a matter of, "Oh, I really shouldn't eat this ice cream!  It's so bad for me!"  It's more like, "If I eat this reduced fat yogurt, I'm going to spend most of my afternoon with stabbing abdominal pain, trapped in the bathroom."  (BTW- Did you know that most "fat free" yogurt contains gelatin, which isn't vegetarian?)

I've found that some very simple fats don't cause me a lot of trouble.  I can eat avocados without being in too much pain, and I've found that cow dairy fats are worse for me than sheep or goat dairy fats.

But sadly, my diet restrictions don't end there.

Eggs inflame the gall bladder.  I can't eat eggs.  And it's not a matter of avoiding scrambled eggs for breakfast, it's when there are eggs in something.  Like bread.  Or chilequiles.

Likewise, I have to avoid spicy foods (which I LOVE).  Spicy foods cause your stomach to produce more bile (hence heartburn), which in turn stimulates your gall bladder... which causes me intense distress.

ADD TO THAT the weird pregnancy aversions and assorted other diet problems- I've basically become lactose intolerant this pregnancy, and bread gives me heartburn through the roof.  Additionally, I've been having some candida problems throughout this pregnancy, so anything too sweet is automatically off the table.  I spent a week living off of frosted flakes (fat free!) with low-fat almond milk.  Boy, do I regret that.

So what is left?

The answer?  Not a whole hell of a lot.

Fruit, vegetables, small amounts of goat and sheep's cheeses, and a few varieties of protein.

I've been eating a lot of tofurkey and seitan.  They're remarkably low-fat.

That said, I love to eat.

I LOVE to eat!

Eating is one of my greatest joys.  I love eating, I love cooking, I love just looking at raw ingredients and thinking about all the amazing things I can do with them.

But this pregnancy, my eating has hit a wall.

Thankfully, I've been learning that there are *some* things I can still eat, some ways I can still cook, and some concessions I can make to *nearly* recreate my favorite pre-pregnancy dishes.

Take this moment for example: right now I'm eating a sandwich.  It contains avocado, tomato, sliced tofukey, and some sheep's milk Manchego cheese, all on sourdough bread.

I've found that the harder the bread, the less trouble I have digesting it.  I have no idea why that is.

I *can* eat, it just takes a whole lot more work than it used to.

With that in mind, I undertook the task of making Superbowl snacks for some friends who came to watch the game at our place last night.

The coup de grace at any similar shin-dig at our house is the bean dip.  I make a wicked bean dip.

Of course, usually, I do so with a variety of ingredients that I just plain can't eat right now.  So I endeavored to make a nearly fat free seven layer bean dip.

And it was, in a word, awesome.

While I normally abhore "fat free" versions of foods that rely on fat for their awesomeness, in this case it really worked.  The lack of flavor in the sour cream and cream cheese were made up for by using a more flavorful salsa (in this case, a roasted poblano salsa), and the big flaw with fat free cheese (its inability to melt properly) was completely hidden by the top layers.  Fat free refried beans are, quite simply, better than the other varieties.  I have pretty much always used them anyway, as the fat in refried beans is almost always lard, which is not vegetarian and is, frankly, gross.

So for your dietary and sports watching pleasure, here is my recipe for Almost Fat Free Eight Layer Bean Dip.

That mostly empty and extremely large blue dish was the bean
dip.  Somebody at our 4th of July party had the brilliant idea
to put it on top of our burgers.  Insanely awesome.

Almost Fat Free Eight Layer Bean Dip
1pkg fat free cream cheese
1 c fat free sour cream
2 15oz cans fat free refried black beans
2c fat free shredded cheddar cheese
2c flavorful salsa (for mild salsa, choose one containing fruit- you'll have a better balance of flavor)
1/2 c sliced black olives
1/2 c frozen corn
1 small bunch cilantro, chopped finely
4-5 avocados
1/4c lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400.
Layer one: Spread beans evenly in a casserole/lasagna pan- 9"x11" or larger.
Layer two: In a small bowl, combine cream cheese and sour cream until thoroughly blended.  Spread on top of beans.
Layer 3: Sprinkle corn evenly across the pan.
Layer 4: Sprinkle olives evenly across the pan.
Layer 5: Spread salsa evenly over dish.
Layer 6: Spread shredded cheese evenly over dish.  Cover as completely as you can.

Bake for 20 minutes.  While baking, prepare guacamole (only avocados, lemon juice, salt, and pepper)
Remove from oven, and add top layers.

Layer 7: Spread guacamole over dish- yes, it's piping hot and you're covering it in guacamole.  Yes, that will make the guacamole look gross.  Trust me on this one.
Layer 8: Sprinkle the cilantro LIBERALLY over the whole thing.  Normally, you want to put cilantro in your guacamole.  However, if you put it on top, it stays green, making the whole thing continue to look delicious and appetizing until it's all gone.

In order to enjoy properly, serve with Frontera Blue Corn tortilla chips.  Believe it or not, those "full fat" chips have the same amount of fat as most "low fat" chips (half the amount as standard fried chips), but taste WAY better.  Seriously.

...also, celery is a totally effective bean dip delivery device.

Enjoy!

New Year, New Neuroses, and the Best Pictures of 2011

Goodbye, 2011!  Hello, Photo Spam!

For those of you who haven't been following me for over a year, I have a tendency to take my New Year's Resolutions... very seriously.  I set myself an annual list of goals, and then I take notes every day of whether or not I succeeded.  Sound insane?  It is.

And I have to confess, it kind of works.

It doesn't work on a daily basis.  It sort of works on a weekly basis.  But it DEFINITELY works on an annual basis.  Each year, I take a few hours to tally up my results, and to find out where I really need improvement, and where I have achieved my greatest successes.

My 2012 checklist hardly varies at all from my 2011 checklist.  In 2011, I aimed to do the following:

1. Write every day
2. Cook a meal every day
3. Finish my homework every day
4. Leave the house every day
5. Eat at least two meals every day
6. Perform basic maintenance on my body every day (Yeah, I resolved to shower OR brush my teeth OR wash my face.  You try being a new mom of twins and tell me how you manage that one.)
7. Exercise for at least 20 min three days a week
8. Observe the Sabbath (that's once a week)
9. Finish two books each month
10. Make art twice a month

It was a nice round list.  And now I know how I did.

Wrote Daily
I wrote, either here, on my ideasforwomen.com blog, at one of my livejournals, or in my real world paper journal on 321 days.  On a great many of those days, I did several, and soemtimes all of the above.  For example, today I've written in my paper journal and scheduled two more posts at ideasforwomen.com.  So although I will have completed 4 separate writing activities, I only get to check off the box for one day.  And that's how it was for much of last year.  That means that on 43 days I did not write at all.  That's almost a month and a half in which I didn't even pick up a pen.  I must confess, I'm pretty ashamed of myself.  Even though I had specified to myself that I would write "at least seventeen syllables," I only wrote 11 haiku all year long!  Next year, I am sure I can do better.  I'm willing to give myself a little leeway- 10 days.  After all, we do enough traveling and whatnot, it seems really rude not to give myself the excuse of just plain being too busy being a guest or host or something.  And I probably won't be writing my first day with Baby X.  (Who am I kidding?  You'll probably be the first to know when Baby X is here!)  But the goal number for this year is 355.  I think I can do it.

DD is going to make banana bread.

Cooked Daily

I really nailed this one.  I cooked on 335 days.  Some of those days, all three meals.  This one has been made much easier as a result of a few changes- First, that the girls actually require a cooked breakfast.  No cold cereal for them.  We tend to go between four regular breakfasts a week, "green eggs," which is essentially an egg scramble with zucchini or spinach and smoked Gouda cheese, waffles, oatmeal with some fruit mixed in (preferably "purple" oatmeal with blueberries- my kids love them some color coded food!), and french toast.  It's frequently their healthiest meal of the day.  So every morning I'm home with the kids, I make breakfast at least.  Then there's dinners.  For Christmas last year, Grandma got me a bread machine.  Between the bread machine and the slow cooker, home cooked meals have NEVER been easier.  I can set the bread to time itself to finish right with the slow cooker, and then for dinner we have hot soup or stew and fresh bread.  Is it cheating?  Hell yes.  But it works!  And I love it!  That one month worth of days that I didn't cook can easily be explained by travel and my occasional illness.  I am totally comfortable with this number.  So satisfied, in fact, that it has come off of my 2012 list!

Completed Homework Daily
Not surprisingly, I kind of screwed this one up.  Last semester particularly.  I only completed my homework on 244 days.  For nearly a third of the year, I just plain didn't finish my homework every night, and that sucks.  That said, I still turned it in on time- when you have class on Monday and you don't do your homework on Friday or Saturday, that doesn't mean that it doesn't get finished before it's due.  So I don't feel that this one is necessarily as bad as it looks.  The fact of the matter is that when your homework depends on a totally dysfunctional group, there's no use stressing yourself out over this kind of thing.  It stays on the list for this year, of course, but I can basically forget it halfway through the year.  Because I'll FINALLY be graduating.  Oh, sweet joy of joys.  :)  And yes, if I had no homework to do, I counted it as done.  Might as well be kind to myself once in a while!

Even a trip to the yard is a good idea!

Left the House Daily
I did better this year than in 2010.  In 2010, I managed to get out of the house 269 days.  In 2011, it was up to 301.  I feel pretty good about that.  It helps to have kids who can get up and down three flights of stairs on their own steam!  Still, for basically two entire months of the year I never left the house.  And that's ridiculous.  My goal for this year is to keep it at least as high.  After all, with a newborn AND two toddlers I should cut myself some slack if we have vegging out days on a regular basis.  I'm sure three kids are more than a handful out in public.  That said, with the girls *hopefully* going to preschool, I'll be leaving five days a week to drop them off and pick them up.  And that will certainly help!

Maintained Hygiene on a Daily Basis
Okay, this is where I come clean (ha ha ha) about how crappy I can be to myself.  You see, when the first thing you hear every morning is the screaming of a miserable toddler, or you're dragging yourself out of bed after a long night of two kids with runny noses, or you just plain can't bear to see the sun until you absolutely have to, morning showers sort of stop happening.  And I don't know about you, but I hate showering at night.  It makes my hair weird.  So, I resolved to *at least* wash my face OR brush my teeth every day.  No exceptions.  This is without a doubt my biggest failure.  If you can handle learning how incredibly disgusting I am, here it goes...  I only did the bare minimum to care for my own body on 251 days in 2011.  You read that right.  For over 100 days last year, I was un-bathed, un-washed, and my teeth were un-brushed.  And that is just plain gross.  This year, I am DETERMINED to do better.  And in order to do better, Grandma and M both got me presents that are going to help.  M got me a WaterPic flosser- SO COOL!  It's fun, it's effective, and every time I see it I'm like, "Ooh!  I can floss my teeth!"  Just not in front of the kids.  They get very jealous, and they make an unholy mess with the thing.  Grandma got me a telescoping, wall mounted, lighted shaving mirror.  Let me tell you, NOTHING will motivate you to keep your face clean like looking at it every day in 700% magnification.  You have no idea how many blackheads you actually have until you're compulsively squishing your nose at every angle.  Amazing, and disgusting.  That's what I call motivation!

Grubling yoga!

Exercised At Least 20 Minutes Three Times a Week
For those of you not so quick with the math, that means my goal was to get some exercise 156 times.  At least.   I got darn close.  My total for the year was 143, only 13 shy of my goal!  That's just not so bad!  I must confess, my "exercise" was frequently a lot of walking, or having sex with M.  Which, to be fair, is pretty darn aerobic.  (M?  Are you blushing yet?)  But I do count it, and I will continue to as frequently as possible. (M?  Are you blushing again?)  And honestly, if all the exercise I got was doing the horizontal tango with my main squeeze just shy of three times a week... well... I'm pretty darn happy with that, too.  I just can't keep my gross little hands off of my studmuffin of a husband.  (M?  You're definitely blushing, aren't you?)  I guess that's why our family is getting a bit bigger in 2012.

Observed the Sabbath Every Week
I totally bombed this one again.  You see, I cheated.  I counted attending shul for things like the High Holy days as "observing," even if it was a different religious obligation.  So if you count all of my religious observances (not counting going to Church with my in-laws- wrong religious observances!), I "observed" on 41 occasions.  There are 52 Sabbaths in a given year.  So, I did WAY better than in 2010, when I only observed Shabbat 10 times (probably including Yom Kippur).  But I can do better, and I will.  Again, I will excuse myself for lighting candles when we're out on a Friday night.  I can be realistic about this one- if M and I head out on a date I'm not going to bring the candles to dinner OR light them at home with a sitter.  Unless the girls ask me to.  So if I manage the same number, NOT counting other religious observances, I think I'll be pretty pleased with my improvement.

SI and DD reading with Poppa

Finished Two Books a Month
This one I did an okay job of accomplishing.  But only for two reasons- First, I averaged out my success across the whole year, even though I finished three or four a week in a few months, and second... I counted every graphic novel I read.  Including trade paperbacks of the Walking Dead.  This meant that since I started off the year by basically spending two weeks sick in bed (yay gall bladder!), and then repeated that feat in the fall, I managed to read a whopping 28 books this year.  Honestly, I'm pretty happy with the amount I read.  I'm pretty pleased to have read the things that I did.  But I would like to read more.  That said, I'm going to keep giving myself the break of counting things like trade paperback collections of comic series, like Walking Dead and Fables... my two current favorites.  I think I just need to up my monthly quota.  So in 2012, rather than average two books per month, I'll be aiming to finish three books a month.  Top of the list are the Phillip K. Dick book I'm in the middle of, "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest," "Summerland," which Poppa can't seem to stop recommending, and then something more substantial.  I haven't read the Brothers Karamozov in about eight years, might be time to go back to it again.  Of course, new trades of Walking Dead AND Fables came out last month... so...

Made Art Twice a Month

They had a better track record on art than me last year.

I succeeded.  BARELY.  I only counted completing a work as "making art," which I feel the right to grumble about because I have three currently unfinished paintings in my studio.  All three are wedding portraits for friends who got married in 2011.  So in addition to being a lazy artist, I am a bad friend.  But they will be GOOD paintings, and all six of the subjects are going to absolutely love them, I'm sure.  I just have to FINISH them.  That said, I completed 24 works of art last year, including my holiday cards, the girls' birthday cake, and the girls' toy kitchen.  I also counted each completed Becoming SuperMommy comic- of which there are probably half a dozen you haven't seen.  I'm so sorry I haven't scanned and shared them yet.  But you can rest assured, there will be more Becoming SuperMommy comics in the near future!  I've even come up with a whole theme, DD always has a big dot on her clothes, and SI always has a single stripe.  Get it?  DD= dot, SI=stripe?  That's how I used to handle it at family events when people wouldn't be able to tell them apart.  :)



And that is what I accomplished in 2011.  My list for 2012 has hardly changed, I've just removed my cooking requirement (it's officially a given) and upped the ante for my reading.  I'm feeling pretty darn confident.

I have two more abstract goals for the year.  The first is to actually edit more of my posts.  (Yes, Poppa, you've officially shamed me.)  I can't really quantify this one, because I know that my writing time is limited (which is why it's the 4th and I haven't written this yet), and my windows in which to write are short (generally the length of a nap- which means any minute now my window closes).  Still, I'm keeping that one in the back of my head.  Now that I have a growing number of subscribers who get my posts immediately via email, this seems more and more important.  To those dedicated readers, I am so sorry you get every single typo emailed to you.  I will try to do better.

All things considered, I'm kind of awesome.

My second abstract goal is to be less judgmental of myself.  I have no idea how to do this, but I would like to stop acting as though I have somehow failed because there is always a heap of laundry to do AND to put away, because the living room STILL hasn't been swept, or because the kids have eaten PB&J for lunch every day in a given week.  I know, fundamentally, that I'm doing a darn good job.  I need to stop acting like I've somehow shamed all the mothers that have come before me.  Again, no idea how to quantify it.  I'm just going to try to remember.  I'm a busy lady, not a failure.  They're actually kind of the opposite, right?



As I feel I set a good precedent last year, I will reward you for sitting through my ridiculous self evaluation with the best pictures of my children from the entire year.  Enjoy!

January: My children begin the year by learning to be mischievous, thus setting the tone for 2011.

February: Two little towel-monsters.  :)

March: DD is such an enormous ham.  This might be the cutest picture of her ever.

April: my little angels in their Passover dresses at Aunt Genocide's house

May: with the spring, my little loves donned their overalls and began to enjoy the outdoors properly.

June: a tie!  Snapped by Michael Courrier at the Chicago Slutwalk.

June: a tie!  Regular playtime in the back yard with a kiddie pool, sprinkler, and of course a red wagon.

July: No matter what else happened that month, this was going to be my favorite picture.  :)

August: another tie.  My bathing beauties playing on the beach at Lake Huron.

August: another tie.  My gorgeous flower girls.

September: the girls start helping me out in the kitchen.  Cake is the gateway baked good. :)

October: a three way tie, the month was just too much fun for one photo!

October: Just after the girls turn TWO, we take our first real family outing.  Just the four of us.
...Yes, I was already pregnant.

October: The girls go Trick or Treating for the first time dressed as fairies.

November: SI and DD snuggling at bedtime.

December: another tie.  Maybe my favorite shot of SI ever.

December: the girls in their holiday dresses playing the piano at Grandma's house.

So that was my 2011!  I have no doubt that 2012 is going to be an even better year.  Things just keep looking up for our little family, and I can't imagine that Baby X will change that at all.  Hope to see you all again and again this year!  Hooray 2012!

How SuperMommy Does Thanksgiving

Last year's Thanksgiving Dinner at Casa SuperMommy: Turkey (my first whole bird!), sweet potatoes, more turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, stuffing, gravy, green bean casserole, risotto, veganized risotto, Three Sisters, and a basket of biscuits and corn bread.  And of course a bottle of wine.

Truth be told, I'm sad that we're not going to be with my side of the family for Thanksgiving.

Don't get me wrong, I love my in-laws.  I truly do.  I enjoy their company, I have a ton of fun, and of course it's always good for the girls to see their grandparents- either side.  It's just that...

Everybody has their own family traditions.  Everyone has "the way that you do things."

My husband's family is, in many ways, very traditional.  They're about as midwestern American as they come.  Friendly, heartland people.  Meat-and-potatoes people.

And my family?

My mom was writing a world cuisine, completely vegetarian cookbook for most of my childhood.  Thanksgiving was her opportunity to showcase everything that she knew about American Food.

And by "American Food," I don't mean burgers and fries and deep fried butter.  The way my family, led by my mother, has always done Thanksgiving is to cook foods that could have been made by American natives.  That the non-Pilgrims would have brought to the feast.  Assuming that those natives were vegetarians.

Nothing on the table isn't indigenous to the USA (well, there are cheeses who's cultures originated abroad).  There's succotash with lima beans and corn, there's sprouts with chestnuts and maple, there's homemade corn bread crumbled into stuffing, wild rice, cranberry sauce and spinach stews, there's roasted sweet potatoes, butternut squash risotto, pecan pies, pumpkin pies, apple pies... and then there's the Three Sisters.

The legend of the Three Sisters is that they are vegetables that care for each other.  Unlike European farmers, Native Americans farmed by planting all of their crops together, very densely, in small plots.  One acre would provide a plethora of vegetables, in a gigantic mass as opposed to nice, tidy rows.  The three sisters are squash, corn, and beans.  You see, the corn stalks provide poles for the beans to climb.  The squash keeps the ground clear, allowing the corn to remain spaced and get enough sun (and the squash crowds out some bean-hating weeds).  The three together even keep from excessively draining the soil of nutrients like nitrogen.

So we have something we just call, "Three Sisters."  Beans, corn, and squash.  The way I cook it, it's a day and a half long affair.  I makes the house smell alternately savory and sweet, and then just plain like Thanksgiving.

For my first Thanksgiving with my in-laws, I'm making the Three Sisters and pumpkin pies.  Out of pumpkins.  Not that canned nonsense.

I honestly don't know what to anticipate for dinner.  If it's anything like Christmas, I expect a turkey, some potatoes, corn bread, and gravy.  And cranberry sauce, I'm sure.  But I'm not expecting a lot of vegetarian fare.  And what vegetarian fare there is, I'm not expecting it to be... well.. anything like my mother's.

The fact that my mother isn't cooking a Thanksgiving dinner at all this year isn't a lot of comfort.  I was kind of hoping she could bring me leftovers.

So here, for your family's enjoyment, are two of my favorite Thanksgiving recipes.  Three Sisters, the way I make it, and Butternut Squash Risotto.


Three Sisters

Day One:
4c dried beans- assorted
2-4 quarts water
1.5 tsp salt
14 black peppercorns, whole
2 cloves garlic
1 large onion- halved
2 carrots
2 stalks celery- leaves attached

Rinse the beans carefully, discarding any stones.  Place in large stock pot with 2 quarts of water while you prepare the vegetables.  Discard any beans that rise quickly to the surface.

Bring pot, with all ingredients, to a boil.  Boil for one hour, adding water as needed to keep beans covered.  Stir occasionally.  At the end of the hour, turn off the burner, cover tightly, and allow to sit 8 hours or overnight.

Day Two AM:
2-3 acorn squash, halved
2 tbs butter
1/2c brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp powdered ginger

Yesterday's beans
1 onion- halved
2 cloves garlic
1 carrot
1 stalk celery- leaves attached
1.5 tsp salt
2-4 quarts water

Pour out the water from the pot of beans.  Remove vegetables.  Discard onions, garlic, and celery, but reserve carrots.  Place them in the fridge for later.

Rinse, and return to pot.  Add vegetables.  Bring water to a boil, and simmer for 1 hour.  Remove from heat.

Place the acorn squash on a baking sheet.  Divide butter, sugar, and spices into squash halves.  Bake at 400 degrees F for 30-40 minutes, occasionally brushing butter over the inside of the squash.  Remove and allow to cool.


Day Two PM:
Beans from before
Reserved carrots
Cooked squash
2c frozen corn
3 tomatoes, peeled and chopped
1 heirloom tomato, yellow and red if possible- skinned
1+ tbs coarse salt- I prefer black (from Hawaii, so... technically Native American?)
additional brown sugar and cinnamon to taste

Drain and rinse beans again.  Reserve carrot, throw out other vegetables.  Put in large mixing bowl.  Add corn.  Add peeled, chopped tomatoes.

Remove squash from rinds.  Cut into 1-2" chunks.  Add to bean mixture.  Mix thoroughly, and add any additional sugar and cinnamon.

Place in large baking/casserole dish.

Cut reserved carrots into thin rounds.  Cut tomato into thin slices.  Use sliced carrots and tomatoes to decorate top of Three Sisters, with one tomato slice in the middle, and concentric rings of carrots/tomatoes radiating outwards.  Take coarse salt, and sprinkle liberally on top.

Bake at 350 for 35 minutes, or until tomatoes have formed almost a crust.

Serves 6-8.  And a heck of a lot more on Thanksgiving when plates are overflowing with other goodies.



Butternut Squash Risotto

6-8 c broth
5tbs butter, divided
1 onion, finely chopped
3-4 c butternut squash- balled with melon baller but not yet cooked
2c long grain rice
1c dry white wine
1c grated Parmesan
2 tbs fresh rosemary
salt and white pepper

Heat broth, and keep at a low simmer until required

heat 4 tbs butter in a very big pan.  Cook squash and onions and rosemary for 5 min.  Add rice, and cook for another two minutes.  Add wine, and stir gently until absorbed or evaporated.  Add broth, and simmer gently for 20 minutes, uncovered.

Add remaining ingredients and remove rosemary.  Add salt and white pepper to taste.

Garnish with Parmesan and a sprig of rosemary.

Preschool

Hard at work.

One of the things I've been doing recently- something that's been absorbing a fantastic amount of time and emotional energy, is checking out preschools.

My children have been put in the unfortunate circumstance of being born precisely one month after the cut-off deadline for most schools.  Unless I'm proactive and rather gung-ho, they're going to be pretty much the oldest kids in their class.

I consider this a problem.  You see, I have very few goals for my children's education, but they're pretty big.  1.) I want them to be happy to go to school- I want them to run away from me into their classrooms, and not look back.  I want them to think that school is great.  2.) I want them to be challenged.  I don't want them to think that school is JUST fun, I want them to think of it as... well... educational.

Honestly, I think that these go together.  I remember being in school when school was too easy.  I didn't try.  I didn't bother.  I could get by just by being smart.

This is SI's sense of style.

That wasn't the case in the beginning.  When I was very young, in a different state, school system, and experiencing a different educational philosophy, l was constantly challenged.  And as much as I hated the other children who bullied me, or disliked being compared to my sister, or loathed particular teachers, I learned.  And I loved that.

And I feel that this is what's most important.  Developing a love of learning early.

So far, I'm doing pretty well with my kids.  They LOVE books.  Won't go to bed without them.  They LOVE singing the alphabet song, identifying letters, counting the stairs in the front hall... they're smart.  And they want to know things.  And that's great.

But if they fall behind?  I have no idea.  All I do know is what "behind" is for them.  It's a year where they aren't challenged to learn anything new.

Right now, if I had more time and energy and motivation, I would start structured learning with them.  I would get them practicing how to draw their letters.  I would get them doing some simple addition (SI is already pretty good on this front).  I would actually home school a bit.  But I'm not that motivated.  Not that energized.

So I'm shopping for preschools.

This is DD's sense of style

And it's hard.

The cut off is almost universal- they have to be three years old precisely thirty days before their third birthday.

Nevermind that they are ready NOW.  Nevermind that they would LOVE it.  None of that matters.  All that matters is that there is a cut-off.  And my kids will miss it.

With one exception.

There is a preschool in the neighborhood.  An AMAZING preschool.  A preschool that will take them at two years old (they could be going now), that will mix them up with different age groups, that does learning in a fun, exciting way.

The day I went to visit was a Wednesday.  It was devious of the preschool administrators to have parents visit on a Wednesday.  You see, on Wednesday, every single class in the school bakes their own snack.

My scrappy little dancer

Each classroom is equipped with a small kitchen.  There are approximately five children to each adult supervisor, and under close supervision, the preschoolers (and even kindergartners) bake.  Each room smelled like a different amazing baked good.  One classroom was making rainbow sprinkle cupcakes (a tie-in with a larger rainbow project),  One classroom was making banana muffins.  One classroom was making pumpkin bars.  Each room, heavenly.

*I* wanted to go there every day.

But it wasn't just that.  It was the integrated learning that got me.

The rainbow project classroom was 2-3 year olds.  They were learning their colors, the ROYGBIV pattern, playing with glitter, with paints, building block structures in organized color groups... it's what they'd been doing all week.  Playing.  Just... on a theme.

Such a stylish little monster

A slightly older room had done the same thing with penguins.  They'd read books starring penguins, they'd built ice-world dioramas, and they'd drawn a HUGE picture of a penguin, on which the children had written random little things they knew about penguins.  ("Penguins eat fish.  Penguins like swimming.  Penguins live in the South Pole.")

Every Friday they have an art teacher come in to do a specific project.

For a few weeks each semester, they have swimming lessons at the local park.

Each room is equipped with a dress-up bin.  Each room had at least two little girls dressed in fancy princess dresses over their regular clothes.

The children were, well, children.  It was loud and chaotic, but not in any way disorganized.

It was, in short, amazing.

All of this means, of course, that it costs a bloody fortune.  For ONE child.  Let alone two of them.

Two hands!

My mother helped me out with the math.  IF we were essentially to replace childcare with preschool, and work out a ten month payment plan with the school, we would double our monthly childcare expenses.  And then take two months off.

And then do it again.

Of course, for kindergarten they offer financial assistance.  As do most of the programs I've talked to.  But not preschool.  Nobody helps out with preschool.

So I think to myself, is it worth it?  Is it worth it to make sure that, early on, our kids learn to LOVE school?  Is it worth it, when this school goes up to eighth grade, is in our neighborhood, and will help our kids get grandfathered in to kindergarten a month before they're supposed to be (if they're ready, of course)?

Yes, YES it's worth it.

It's more worth it that putting that money to their college funds.  Because if they learn to love school now, they'll be able to write their own ticket.  If they learn that education is wonderful, that school is amazing, and that the pride they take in learning something new makes them feel better than already knowing something old, they will rock high school.  They'll be able to get into any college they want.

Everyone's a critic.

And having their picks of colleges when they're older is a much better position to be in than simply being able to pay for the only ones that will take them.

Of course I think my kids are brilliant.  Of course I think they'll grow up and get big fat scholarships and go to medical school and volunteer with the Peace Corps or Doctors Without Borders.  Of course that's what I think- I'm their mom.

But I only think it because I know them, I see their potential.  The way that only somebody who has spent basically every day of their lives with them can know them and understand them.  And part of that is understanding what they need to be motivated- to be successful.

In this case- it's preschool.  And it's gonna hurt.  It's going to be a huge hit financially.  Huge.

But it's only two years.  We'll qualify for aid for kindergarten, I have no doubt.  And they'll be somewhere that they'll love.  Somewhere that will make them happy.

Of course, I could also spend all day squeezing them.

I'm looking forward to it.  I'm excited about the day that I take them to school and leave them there.  I'm excited to have them run off to play with their friends, to learn new things without me.

It's still most of a year away, but I'm already preparing myself.  And I know when that day is actually here, it's going to be hard.  It's going to be hard to leave them somewhere else, even if it's only for five hours a day.

But it's going to be worth it.  It's the best thing I can possibly do for them.

And that's all I ever really want to do.

I'm a Real Mommy

I wrote the first part of this post in July and never posted it!

I always knew this day would come.  The day that I stood proud, the victor over my children.  The day that I could point to my success and say, "See?  I MADE the child DO something!  I am in charge!"

When they're babies, there isn't so much actual being in charge of the baby.  There's a lot of being in charge of what OTHER people do TO the baby, but not the baby itself.  Because it doesn't do anything that can truly be controlled.  A baby is the ultimate improbability drive.  Illusions of control, abandon hope all ye that enter here.

You tell other people what they can and can't feed the baby, or put on the baby, or let the baby play with, or let the baby experience in some way.  But you don't say to a baby, "Stop being a baby!"  It's uncontrollable.

Children are a different story.  Children are people with the ability to reason, to argue, and most importantly, to lose a fight.

Today, DD lost a fight.

Our Mary Poppins was here for dinner with the girls and I (M being at school), and she was refusing to eat her food.  How dare I try to feed her spaghetti.  With fake meatballs, no less.  All she wanted to eat was Gerber's version of cheezy poofs.

When it became clear that SI didn't want her noodles either, I began the bargaining stage of any argument with a child.  "Will you eat (something else relatively good for you and simple for me to fetch) instead of this?"

SI agreed readily.  "More beets!" she says.  Having had beets for dinner the previous night, and having a ready-made tupperware of leftovers in the fridge, I was more than happy to oblige.  SI got her plate loaded up with beets, and happily started chowing down.

"How about you, DD?  Do you want some beets?"

"No!  Poofs!"  She pointed at the canister of cheezy poofs.

"You can have a cheezy poof if you eat some of your fake meat ball.  Can you take one bite?"

DD agreed, but apparently thought she could outsmart me.  Her "one bite" of her fake meat ball (and for those of you who have never tried Linda Loma's "Tender Rounds," you should know that they are awesome and delicious) was actually a lick.

"I saw you, you need to take a bite.  Can you put the fake meat ball in your mouth?"

She opened her mouth wide. put the forkful of fake meat inside, and then removed it with a look of mischievous triumph.

"No, you need to put it in your mouth and chew.  Can you chew it up and swallow it?"

She repeated the previous ruse, this time following it up by taking a few cursory licks of the contents of her fork.

"No.  You need to actually eat a bite.  Eat a bite, DD."

The screaming began.  I forced the bite into her mouth, and hysterics ensued.

I pulled her chair to the side of the table, got down at her level, and spoke very quietly.

"You need to eat something healthy," I told her.  "You can't just have cheezy poofs for dinner.  You don't have to have your meat ball, but you have to have something else.  Remember, 'a dinosaur tries every new thing, at least one small bite.'  Can you try one bite of something for mommy?"

The crying continued, but she nodded.  I grabbed the smallest piece of beet off of SI's plate.

"Here is one small bite of beets.  Can you try this for mommy?"

Without any hesitation, she took the piece of beet and put it directly into her mouth.  She did not pull a face, she did not spit it out.  She swallowed it almost instantly.

Our Mary Poppins and I both cheered and clapped our hands.  DD was over the moon. She clapped, she smiled, she laughed, and then she said the words I had been longing to hear...

"More beets!"

She ate five more pieces of beets before she remembered to demand her cheezy poofs.  Which I happily gave her.  She also got some green peas and a gummy vitamin for her trouble.

And me?

I felt like a freakin' rock star.  I made my kid eat a vegetable.  I made my picky eater eat something that she had no interest in, when she was tired and frustrated and irrationally childlike.  And I feel amazing about it.

---


I revisit this today because we've been having food problems in my house.  My mother has been here taking care of us while I've been somewhat unwell, and I have to say... grandparents suck at discipline.  My children were clean and approximately fed, but the usual rules of the house were completely gone.  The children sensed weakness, and as a result turned up the charm, smiled and giggled, and got absolutely everything they wanted.  From unlimited milk in their oatmeal to treks through the torrential rain for donuts.

This morning, I managed to get my kids to eat oatmeal- WITHOUT the recent standard unlimited milk and brown sugar (a pinch at a time, but it still gave them the illusion of control).  And I won without a real fight.  I just stated the rules firmly, distracted the children, and...

Breakfast!  For the third day in a row, my kids have actually eaten the breakfast that was set down in front of them, without incident.

There's something odd about having to sort of correct after your parents have been around.  After all, they're your model of parenting.  It's kind of baffling that somehow, with your kids, they could be so... so much worse at it.

But as my father reminded me, it's not their job to be good at parenting their grandkids.  It's MY job.  They get to just have as much fun as they want, and then go home.  M and I have to stay here, and we have to be the disciplinarians.  WE have to be the parents.

And today, we kind of rock at it.  :)

In Honor of World Vegetarian Month

Another post pilfered from my old food blog!  And a perennial classic around Casa SuperMommy.  Enjoy!





'Tis the season!  One of my husband's favorites of my inventions and one of my most requested recipes. Mike's very much a meat and potatoes kind of guy, and I'm a life long vegetarian with an unyielding love of curries and adventure, so you'd think that dinner might be an issue of contention. Not with this dish! And if you start with a meal like this, you can move onward to more exciting flavors and unusual names. But for the beginning food enthusiast, a nice warm bowl of savory stew and a sandwich is an excellent dinner. Or even lunch. Or leftover. Or, well... anytime.  But especially in the fall.  :)


Shopping List

1. 1 butternut squash
2. 1 can kidney beans
3. 2 small russet potatoes
4. 3 oranges
5. fresh rosemary
6. parmesan cheese
7. sour cream
8. parmesan cheese rind
9. whole grain bread
10. 1 heirloom tomato
11. sharp cheddar cheese
12. baby spinach
13. arugula
14. 1 bunch fresh cilantro
15. 1 avocado
16. slivered almonds

Now, to pick the ingredients at the store.
To choose a squash, the best you can really do is to find one that isn't too beat up. Sometimes you'll see that the butternut squash has had chunks taken out by being knocked around. Try to get one as undamaged as possible, and for this recipe you'll want one about the size of a loaf of bread.


When picking your beans, check the ingredients. Amazingly, most canned beans have all sorts of stuff that isn't beans. So if the ingredient list is long, pass up those beans in favor of some that have a shorter list. Ideally, the only ingredients in your beans will be beans and water.


For your spinach, cilantro, and arugula, find a bunch of greens that aren't wilting or gummy. gummy means rotten, and you want your greens fresh and crisp.


Picking avocados can be hard- you need to find one that's slightly soft when you squeeze it gently, but not so soft that it's all mush and rot on the inside. Squeeze a few, and if you can dent it gently, it's ripe.


Most difficult of all... a parmesan rind? Now to be fair, you can just leave this out. It won't damage the flavor very terribly. but you can find one at any grocery store that has a good cheese counter- any Whole Foods will carry them, even if they don't have it out. Simply ask the nice cheese man behind the counter for one. 2" inches of rind will suffice, and the more you put in the richer the flavor of the stew will be. Like garlic and chocolate, you can pretty much never have too much parmesan cheese.






Butternut Squash Stew
skin and seed the squash, and chop it into 1" pieces
1 medium onion, quartered and sliced
3-5 T minced garlic
3 tbs olive oil
rinse the can of kidney beans
2 small russet potatoes, peeled and chopped into 1" pieces
3 c water
Juice two of the oranges and zest the peels- reserve 1/2 T of the juice for the salad
1 tbs fresh rosemary, or 2 tsp dried ground rosemary
1 tbs Spike or Mrs. Dash
salt and black pepper
1/4 c grated Parmesan cheese (NOT powdered!)
sour cream, for garnish

In a large pot over med. high heat, sauté the onions in the oil until they become translucent. Add the garlic, orange zest, and spices and stir occasionally for three minutes.


Add the squash, potatoes, water, and orange juice and mix well. Bring to a boil, and then reduce heat to a simmer and cover. Allow the stew to simmer gently for half an hour.


Add beans and parmesan rind, and continue to simmer for another 20 minutes.


During this time, you're ready to make the rest of the meal.


Fresh Cilantro Salad
baby spinach
arugula
fresh cilantro
heirloom tomato
1 avocado
1/4 c slivered almonds
1/2 T orange juice- reserved from stew preparation


Rinse your greens THOROUGHLY. I always try to use local and organic greens, which reduces the likelihood of contaminants like E Coli, but there's going to be dirt on them. They do come from the ground. So rinse your greens!


The baby spinach and arugula can go in whole. The idea of salad greens is to get them to a size where you can easily put it into your mouth, so if your arugula or spinach is of a larger leaf, tear it down to size. Tearing instead of chopping your greens will keep them crisp longer.


Slice as much as half of the heirloom tomato- as much as you need to have two VERY thin slices per sandwich- and set those aside. Chop the rest of the tomato into 1/2" squares, and toss into the salad.


Cube the avocado, and toss the pieces in the reserved orange juice. This will keep them from browning while you finish the meal. Toss the avocado into the salad.


Mince the cilantro, and toss into the salad. You will, however, want to reserve about a teaspoon for the salad dressing.


Add the almonds, and set aside the salad to prepare the sandwiches and dressing.




Heirloom Tomato Grilled Cheese
I like to use a grill pan for my grilled cheese. Your sandwiches are less likely to stick to the pan, and who doesn't love the look of those grill lines on their food? You will want to pre-heat the pan, so set it on the stove and turn the heat to med. high. There is usually no need to grease your pan, but if you're using something fancy like Le Creuset cookware, you will need to be careful to grease it a little. Some pans can be damaged by inadequate greasing.


For each sandwich, you will need two slices of that tomato, enough sliced cheese to cover the bread plus a little extra, and two slices of whole grain bread.


Assemble a sandwich by first covering one piece of bread with cheese, then with the sliced tomato, and then with just enough extra cheese to cover about half of each slice of tomato. Put the second piece of bread on, and put it onto the pan. While it cooks, about three minutes on each side, you will make the salad dressing.


Orange Vinaigrette
1/4 c olive oil
1/4 c balsamic vinegar
juice of the third orange
reserved chopped cilantro
pinch of salt


In a small bowl, all ingredients together.


By the time you have finished this, your whole meal will be ready. And like magic, it will all be ready at once.


After serving the stew, garnish with a sprinkle of extra parmesan cheese and a LARGE dollop of sour cream- as much as 3 tablespoons. As the sour cream mixes in with the stew bite by bite, it will enrich the flavor.




Bon apetit!