food

A Word Picture of Our Morning

/ amylynw / Leave a comment

He doesn’t walk, he does backwards rolls into the kitchen.  The other boy doesn’t just walk, he  somehow makes his feet sound like elephants.  She hops on one leg, convincingly pretending that her leg is broken, because she’s always wondered what that’s like.  The other girl twirls her hair while she walks down the stairs, looking sleepy and disheveled.  The baby, unlike her siblings at that age, still doesn’t know that it’s possible to climb out of her bed, so she squawks and waits with her pink bunny and faithful fingers in her mouth.  She giggles when she’s rescued and immediately wants her shoes put on her feet.

Breakfast smells delicious.  There are perks to being low on milk, because it forces the making of chocolate chip banana bread.  The children are magnetically pulled towards the oven, then shooed back to the couch to wait ten more minutes for it to finish baking.  Their appetites are temporarily satiated by hidden pictures and books.

My cup of tea is almost finished.  The sleepy hair-twirler is on my lap, cozy pink blanket wrapped around us both.  Our morning begins, and I wonder what is being held in store for us today.

Getting Summer

/ amylynw / Leave a comment

I find myself saying “Gotcha!” a lot whenever I pick up Betty.  It can be in a reassuring voice after she’s fallen, or in a fun voice as she is being tickled.

I didn’t realize this until today when Nadine said, “Gotcha.”  Then she paused before exclaiming, “I’ve never said that word before!”  Then she went on to say, “Would someone please explain what that means?” Seeing as though I was the only one in the room at the time, I took the liberty of explaining it to her.

She was unloading the dishwasher at the time.  I had just sat down after teaching school all morning, cooking lunch, and doing some other things.  Nadine said, “It must feel good to take a break!”  I chuckled at her comment, nodded my head, and sipped my tea. I had just started my lunch.  Somewhere in between scrounging up five lunches with very little food left in our cupboards (I’m determined not to go shopping this week), cleaning up multiple spills, cleaning up one messy baby, laying said baby down for her nap… I finally sat down for my lunch.  This is what often happens after the feeding frenzy we call lunch.  Our kids are eating machines.  I can pretty much honestly say that our fridge is empty.

There is a little milk left, 4 eggs, one block of cheese (which is odd to still have), and a bag of peppers,which has now been roasted and pulverized into salsa.  There is a jar of jam, a few olives and some mustard.  Oh, and relish and garlic!  We have some ice-tea too, but that is about it.  We’re out of cereal, bread, and fruit.  We have many tomatoes and butternut squash.  It’s so adventurous cooking only with what you have!

Speaking of cooking with what we have, our garden has been such a blessing this year!  For the past few days, this is what I get, plus some squash:

Every dinner includes tomatoes.  I find that if I just roast them up, blend them up, or cut them up right away, not one goes to waste.  They are just pure loveliness.  Elijah took these pictures of the gardens this week:

I relish every color, every flower, every taste of summer.  I will be hanging on to it with my last bit of strength, even while fall sneaks up to take its place.  The changing of seasons is like a game of musical chairs, except there is only one chair.  As the music of summer starts to fade, and the rhythm of fall is about to begin, I feel badly for the one about to get kicked out into the march of time again.  I just want to grab summer forever and say, “Gotcha!” and never let go.

The Law of Disorder

/ amylynw / Leave a comment

It’s inevitable.  The messes.  The laundry piles.  The law of physics which says that even when things are left perfectly alone, they will eventually deteriorate.  Order must always decrease.  It should be called the law of home-making.  This is a typical laundry day in our house:

That doesn’t include sheets that have been accidentally wet during the night.  Thankfully those sheets and blankets were already on the laundry room floor when I heard Elijah frantically yelling, “Mom!  Mom!  The sink is doing it again!” The sheets were quick to soak up some of the gallons of water rushing out of our small sink in the bathroom, but the flood was pretty extreme.  The plug will sometimes fall into ‘closed’ position and is very difficult to pull back up again.  Unfortunately, the water was left running at the same time.  So… an extra little mopping was done here today.  Ah, entropy.

Speaking of things being left alone… yesterday we had somewhat of a scare.  Again, I heard a rather desperate call for me from upstairs.  Betty was in the bathroom with the door closed (she can do that too) and she had reached the lock with her little hands and locked the door.  The lock is only able to be opened from the outside of the door with a skeleton key, as the doorknobs are those old-fashioned giant diamonds.  I immediately freaked out and called Matthew.  I needed the skeleton key, which both of us saw recently but couldn’t remember where, or a locksmith.  With visions of disaster speeding through my head, I prayed and then did the only reasonable thing I could think of doing quickly: climb onto the roof.  So, out the boys’ bedroom window I crawled, walking carefully to the adjacent bathroom window, the hot slanted rooftop toasty under my sandals.  I pried open the screen of the bathroom window and gave Betty a startle when I called her name.  She was sitting in front of the door, playing with the other kids’ fingers under the door, looking unfazed by the whole ordeal.  I unlocked the door and everyone cheered.  Jack said, “Mom, that was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen you do!”  I really, really hope that I never have to climb out on the roof again.  The kids all had a crash course on why putting Betty in the bathroom is NOT a good idea, and we are on the lookout for our skeleton key in case anything like that happens again.  Thankfully it was such a warm day, so the windows were all open!

My fourth load of wash is on the clothesline, school happened, and we have laughed entropy in the face by all of our vacuuming and putting away.  I’m desperately hoping to do better than cereal for supper tonight.  Cooking is one thing that does not fall into any law of physics.  This is called the second law of home-making: supper, if left completely alone, will not just happen.

Today I’m a Chicken

/ amylynw / 1 Comment

I’ve felt a little bit like the Little Red Hen these days.  Sprouting rice, beans, grains, etc.  Then dehydrating them  in the oven before grinding them into flour.  It’s taken about a week from start to finish, with neither step being difficult, just different.  First, they sprouted for a few days.  This basically just involves soaking them once overnight, then remembering to rinse and drain them every 12 hours or so after that.  Old nylon pantyhose and a rubber band over a mason jar work perfectly.  I sprouted quinoa, brown rice, millet, and a few beans for this particular recipe.  The whole recipe can be found here.

After the sprouting was complete, here is the step by step process of making the gluten-free sprouted bread!

It tastes amazing.  Sweet and nutty with lots of chew.  More dense than wheat bread, but some softness about it.  I’m glad Matthew can have some tea with jam and bread now.  This is Little Red Hen, signing off.

Slimy Breakfast

/ amylynw / 2 Comments

This morning I ate something I’ve never tried before, but read much about.  Odorless, tasteless, dissolves instantly in liquid… well, they actually expand in liquid.  Poured into some mango juice, they were completely palatable.  Chia seeds.  Yum.  Really, not that bad.  I’ll let you know if I notice increased or at least sustained energy!  We have been walking down quite a unique road for the past three weeks.  White flour is being replaced by the different colors, shapes and sizes of seeds and grains.  Matt has been eating gluten-free, raw, whole foods with an occassional vegan cooked meal thrown in there.  I’m slower to get on the band wagon.  Old haunts call my name from the cupboards that are slowly being emptied of food that has become normal to me.  A new normal is taking their place.  I’m excited but nervous.  Why I should be nervous to embrace a lifestyle that guarantees more health benefits?  I guess because change brings out this hidden fear inside most of us.  There is also a huge learning curve as I sprout and dehydrate different concoctions to make bread that he can eat.  The reasoning behind all this change is really just a culmination of seven years of being plagued by Wegener’s Disease.  Seven years of unsuccessful and expensive medicine, surgeries, and relapses.  We’re determined to give God a chance to heal Matthew by using the things He has already created.  He is able!