The Menu

I lost a couple of weeks there! Anyway... this week's menu:

FOR DINNER:

challah
roast chicken
asparagus w/preserved lemon and garlic
mashed potatoes
stewed tomatoes cabbage
sauteed mushrooms and onions
spinach salad
corn bread
Guiness stout cupcakes
honey cake

FOR LUNCH:

challah
hummus
pickled herring
marinated olives
pickled radishes
arugula salad
borscht
corn bread
cheese quiche
spinach quiche
asparagus
ice cream
broiled apricot tart w/pastry cream

YUM!

Good shabbos, all!

The Menu

Burned out on holiday menus, so these are the most bare bones shabbos meals I've probably ever had!

For dinner:

challah (from freezer!)
hamburgers (w/fancy fixings)
french fries
kids have popsicles - we're not ready for dessert yet after all those chagim!

For lunch:

challah
beef stew
turkey sandwiches
coleslaw

Good shabbos!!!!

The Menus

Yom tov, yom tov, yom tov. HAPPY SUKKOS!

For tonight:

challah
chicken noodle soup
brisket
baked potatoes w/tofu sour cream and green onions
salad bar
pastry cream w/strawberries

For lunch tomorrow:

Chinese!
challah
orange chicken
beef broccoli
eggplant
fried won tons
ice cream

For dinner tomorrow:

challah
tomato soup
macaroni and cheese
spinach souffle
salad bar
honey cake

For lunch tomorrow:
challah
bean tacos w/all the fixings
cabbage lime slaw
Mexican rice
root beer floats

CHAG SAMEACH!

I think we'll make it! :)

The Menu

I think I missed a couple of weeks here. It's been a bit, er, hectic!

For tonight:

challah
roast chicken
mango chutney and jalapeno pepper jelly
brown rice
mashed potatoes
mango slaw
zucchini w/preserved lemons
roasted cabbage
sweet and sour mushrooms
strawberry sorbet
angel food cake

And for lunch:

challah
caesar salad
carrot salad
cauliflower salad
beets
turkey deli sandwiches
veggies from dinner
honey cake and cake from guests!

Poem

Here is the poem that Amirah is submitting to the library's Young Writers Contest:

Blue butterfly in the tree,
Swaying gently in the breeze.
Horrible oops!
Raven swoops!
Wings fall, periwinkle blue,
Lying broken in the dew.

The Menu

B"H I got most of the cooking done tonight since tomorrow the kids have a half-day marine science class. A few things left for tomorrow, but nothing too complicated.

For dinner:

challah
crockpot chicken with preserved lemons and brown rice
mashed potatoes
roasted zucchini and mushrooms
roasted cauliflower
spinach salad
chocolate mousse

For lunch:

challah
olive tapenade
pastrami
beef shank stew
marinated mushrooms
baba ghanouj with preserved lemons
cucumber salad
fava bean tomato stew
arugula/candied walnut/cranberry salad
chocolate cake

GOOD SHABBOS!!!

Studying at the Library

We had a great learning today, and tried something new. First, we took our lunch to the (hot) park after finishing our morning learning. The kids had lunch and ran around on their scooters for a little while. Then we headed over to the library. Upstairs, they have many study rooms that you can sign out. So we did! They walked us back to a corner that I never even knew existed - the Teen Book Room. Through that room we walked into another room with lovely, big tables, a dry erase board, huge windows with a pretty view, and great lighting. With three times the table space we have at home we could really spread out. The Teen Book Room had really comfortable big chairs and a "reading bar" (tall chairs at a high counter). No one was there, so I could send one or two kids out to read while I worked with the others. It was great. Very relaxing. Until Raizel took Avi to the nearby bathroom and he sang at the top of lungs the whole time he was inside (great acoustics) thereby "entertaining" the entire top (grownup) floor of the library. We had to have a good discussion about library behavior (again). He mostly managed pretty well. We got through our afternoon learning in 90 minutes. Pretty fast! I think it would be nice to do every Wednesday afternoon and combine it with our regular library outing. We'll see!

The Menu

Just a few more minutes!

For dinner:

challah
caesar salad
chicken
Mexican rice
refried (actually, crockpotted) beans
plantains
mashed potatoes (because DD cannot survive a shabbos w/o potatoes)
chips/guacamole/salsa
lime cilantro coleslaw
brownies

And for lunch:

exactly the same thing, but no chicken, and...

caldo de res (beef shank/butternut squash stew)
deli turkey meat

GOOD SHABBOS, ALL!

Sequential Spelling

We all love Sequential Spelling! I grudgingly did Spelling Workout all through 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade with DD9. It just wasn't very inspiring and felt like a lot of busywork. The advantage was that I could just hand her the book and have her do most of the work independently. Spelling Workout requires more parent time, but the approach is so elegantly simple that I love doing it.

Each day in Sequential Spelling is simply a spelling "test." Over a couple of weeks the student builds up to 25 words per day on the "test." You just read the words (with a sentence for context), the student writes them down, you reveal the proper spelling for the word (explaining any phonics rules if needed), and if they wrote it down incorrectly, they immediately rewrite the word correctly. That's it! The first set of words is based on the phoneme "in." From there it goes to pin, tin, etc. Then sin, pin, spin, etc. By the end of week 1, the student can easily spell the word "beginning" because of the logical progression of the words. And the spellings really stick with them!

At first I had DD6, DS7, and DD9 all doing the program. (They recommend that no matter how far along you are in spelling it's best to start with book one.) DD6 was doing all right, but it took her a lot longer to write the words down. It works fine to have the other two kids together. At first I thought that I would just do the spelling lists separately with DD6, but in the end I decided to just start her with it in 2nd grade. She's doing Explode the Code and phonics lessons at the same time, so I think she doesn't really need to do spelling right now. I think spelling is really optional for first grade anyway. So, this is one of the big surprises for our learning year. I'm so happy we're all enjoying it!

NOT the Menu

It's been a long time since I blogged anything but menus, and it's been a long time since I had any time! The summer flew by. Now we're settling into our new learning schedule, and despite not being sure we could fit it all in (3 kids with 16 subjects, and 1 kid with 7) we're managing pretty well. Not many loose moments for me during the day (though there are for them).

The BEST change I made so far this year was to put ALL of their work into a single notebook for each kid. No fumbling for this book or that book, no fumbling for pencils. I took over 5 of the 6 drawers in the dining room sideboard and filled it with all of our supplies (pencils, paper, etc.). It's been nice having that right next to the table. It takes about an hour to get all the worksheets into their books each week, each into its own subject area. I also wrote a few household chores into the schedule for each of them so it's part of their normal daytime routine instead of us trying to get it all done at the end of the day.

We're finishing week number two, and it's all running pretty smoothly. Hoping everything continues to settle in and we can add in all the history and science I want to do. We've done about half of what I hope to get done, but it shouldn't be a problem fitting in the other half.

So much more to say about our learning, but the clock is ticking and I have a couple more things I'd like to get to before it's time for bed.

The Menu

Two shabbosim in Atlanta, with a wonderful camping trip to Unicoi State Park sandwiched in between made for a wonderful couple of weeks. Getting up at the crack of dawn Sunday meant that we were home before noon and by the end of the day everything was unpacked and ALL the laundry was done (!). Then I scrambled mightily to be (mostly) ready to start our new learning schedule. And start it, we did. Overall, our first week has gone well and I'll write more later about how I've made our time even more efficient so our learning shouldn't take more time than last year despite an increased workload. It sure has been a few late nights this week to prepare everything. Many late nights still to come, I'm sure. But I love that part. That's when I get to do my learning about what they're learning. Really wonderful to have to do that. And I realized that my DH spends his whole work day learning about various college-level subjects so he can write a whole course together with the professor, and I spend all of my time learning about our subjects so I can be an effective teacher. So, essentially, all six of us spend our entire days LEARNING! Good stuff.

Now, the menu, and hopefully some blogs about other things to come too. :)

For dinner:

challah
smoked brisket (from our stovetop smoker)
mashed potatoes
spinach/tomato/onion salad
roasted mushrooms
roasted cabbage
roasted apples
vodka lemonade (why not?)

And for lunch:

challah
peach soup
smoked fish (stovetop again!)
arugula/pecan/cranberry/onion salad
herring beet salad (w/Matjes (non-pickled) herring)
creamy pesto pasta (just because we CAN make it creamy!)
homemade strawberry ice cream

YUM!

Good shabbos, all!

The Menu

Another week! Highlights - our 10th anniversary last shabbos (best 10 years ever!), a great shabbos and tisha b'av (major fast day) last week with a family from Atlanta, a great 28 hours w/several kids from another family Thursday/Friday, lots of swimming pool time in the back yard, going through stacks of learning materials to make sure I had everything I need for the coming year, wrestling with the not-so-on-the-ball print shop employees at OfficeMax, doing what I can to quell the usual August feeling that we won't fit everything in this year (but somehow we always get done what we need to get done!), planning next week's trip to Atlanta for shabbos, Unicoi State Park for camping, then back to Atlanta for shabbos, making a campfire songbook, and wrestling late into the night to figure out how to schedule everyone's activities so that I'm available to the ones that need me. OY! Quite a bit of work to sort it out. I want to be able to hit the ground running when we return from our camping trip. Snore.... :)

SO...

For dinner (dairy!):

challah
smoked salmon (trying out our new stovetop smoker; anniversary present from ima)
eggplant parmesan
broccoli
roasted potatoes
lemon butter orzo
caesar salad
carrot ginger puree
ice cream (YAY)

For lunch:
challah
herring
caesar salad
stuffed cabbage
pastrami
brown rice
carrot ginger puree
butternut squash kugel
raw veggies w/cilantro/olive/anchovy sauce OR aioli OR curried mayo
apple strudel (I think... haven't made it yet!)

GOOD SHABBOS!

The Menu

Apparently, my blog is on summer vacation. But the menus still keep coming! :)

For dinner...

challah
roasted chicken
roasted cabbage
mashed potatoes
sweet and sour onions
sweet and sour mushrooms
rice w/preserved lemons
roasted carrots, zucchini, and preserved lemon
chocolate chip meringues
strawberry kiwi sorbet

And for lunch...

challah
surimi salad
orzo salad
baba ghanouj
red pepper spread
spaghetti with meat sauce
steamed corn
butternut squash kugel
frozen lime pie

GOOD SHABBOS!

The Menu

Here we are again. Another week gone by. Good grief!

For dinner...

challah
chicken chimichurri
lots of different salsas
rice
beans
chips/guacamole/salsa
plantains
lime sweet potatoes
lime cilantro coleslaw
roasted asparagus
chocolate cake (from guest!)

And for lunch...

challah
tomato salad
fish cakes
baked potatoes/green onions/tofu sour cream
black bean brisket chili
roasted pepper salad
all the veggies from Friday night
more cake and strawberry-kiwi sorbet

GOOD SHABBOS!

The Menu (again)

So, okay, all I do any more these days is cook shabbos dinner. Or so it appears! :) Well... here it is!

DINNER
challah
broiled flounder w/a preserved lemon/garlic/butter sauce
shiro wat (Ethiopian chick pea mush)
alecha (a stewed cabbage/potato/carrot/turmeric/ginger/garlic concoction)
injera (Ethiopian sourdough flatbread)
cheese
rice/lentils
ice cream & mint chocolate chip cookies

(We had Ethiopian food Thursday night and it was so delicious that even though I virtually never serve leftovers for shabbos we just HAD to eat the rest tonight!)

LUNCH
challah
sushi
     cucumber
     avocado/cucumber/surimi
     egg/spinach/sweet potato
miso soup
green salad with miso dressing and fried won tons
eggplant miso salad
teriyaki chicken
lime pie

YUM!

And what else did we actually do this week? We swam in our new 15' pool 3–4x per day, went bowling, watched fireworks, and, um, well, really not all that much, er, else. We're on learning vacation this month, just davening/parsha/chumash each day (well... most!). Lazy days this week, but hoping to be a bit more productive next week!

The Menu

Well, at least there's a menu! :)

We were out of town last shabbos, after a wonderful week with the kids in camp while the mommies shopped at Value Village (an entire wardrobe for 6 for the year for $200!), and went out to lunch every day (I took babysitting money that I earned in the couple of weeks before I headed to Atlanta and used that for play money!). A fun, if somewhat decadent, week.

Now for the meals...

For dinner:

challah
mashed potatoes
mushroom gravy
steak
roasted zucchini and eggplant w/preserved lemons
roasted carrots
roasted cabbage
brownies

And for lunch:

Matjes herring (thank you, Buford Farmers Market in Atlanta!!!!!!!)
stuffed Turkish eggplant (cute little 4' round orange eggplants from the garden stuffed w/eggplant, onion, garlic, tomato, basmati rice)
green salad
pesto gnocchi
roasted veggies from Friday
beef stew
more brownies

The Menu

Busy mommy = no blogging. :) Tending and harvesting the garden, homeschooling, visitors...

For dinner, we're having 17 people and eating the garden...

challah
roasted asparagus
homemade tomato pasta with meat sauce
roasted chickens (3! 2 for us, 1 for DH while we're gone this week...)
roasted potatoes
roasted zucchini/carrots/onions w/preserved lemon
roasted eggplant marinated in preserved lemon and basil dressing
roasted mushrooms in same
angel food cake

and for lunch (someone invited myself and my 11 guests, so we're bringing a large part of it!)...

challah
roasted peppers
guacamole w/tomatillos
cucumber salad
sugar pumpkin/butternut squash kugel
any leftover veggies from dinner

And then a week of the kids and I and the puppy (sans DH) in Atlanta. Kids to camp, mommies to play. Nice change of pace!

The Menu

Another shabbos, and apparently the only time I have anything to say! :)

For dinner...

challah
brisket (from a previos shabbos) + chicken
green salad
balsamic mushrooms
roasted pink banana squash
roasted carrots and beets
roasted Yukon gold potatoes
apple torte

And for lunch...
challah
chummus
green salad
pasta w/mushrooms
marinated eggplant
tomato chicken
roasted veggies from Friday
apple torte

The Menu

A shabbos/shavuos away, and now we're back! Cooking up a storm, and lots from the garden...

For dinner:

challah
caesar salad
roasted chicken
roasted carrots and beets
roasted zucchini w/preserved lemons
mashed potatoes
chocolate pudding

And for lunch:

challah
beef stew
beef tacos
tomatillo salsa
guacamole
Mexican rice
"refried" (not really) beans
chips & salsa
lime cilantro cole slaw
tofu sour cream

Good shabbos!

The Menu

Another shabbos, another fun meal!

For dinner...

SUSHI BLOWOUT (special request for ima's birthday!)
asparagus tempura/cream cheese
cucumber
cucumber/avocado/surimi
egg/sweet potato/chard w/shiso gomashio
salmon/avocado/asparagus
salmon/cream cheese/cucumber
seared salmon nigiri (seared with a blowtorch!)
salmon/scallions/surimi
salmon nigiri with shiso
and LIME CHEESECAKE for dessert (if we can even eat dessert!)

And for lunch...

steamed carrots (from the garden!)
roasted balsamic beets (from the garden!)
salmon salad (from the garden!)
beef stew
shiso gomashio rice
guacamole/chips/salsa
roasted bananas
corned beef sandwiches
and ORANGE CAKE for dessert

And thank H' for shabbos. Still feeling tired post-bug and hoping to get plenty of extra sleep over shabbos. Good shabbos, all!

Pastries

I've not really had all that many jobs in my life... music teacher has been my professional one, as was working in the fundraising office of a science museum at UC Berkeley. I still dream about being back there once or twice a year. It was a lovely place to work for eight years! I'm not doing much music teaching right now, but I know one day I'll go back to it again. I loved teaching classroom music for all those years, and teaching 50+ private students every week, but I imagine a much smaller schedule than that in my future. :) I did love creating/composing/writing operas with my K–5th grade students. Those operas were definitely the highlights of my school teaching years.

But the job I dream about the most often? Serving coffee and pastries at La Creme de la Creme Pâtisserie for 8 years (all through high school and then during college vacations). I loved that place. The quirky owners, and the really stupendous food. I can still remember the tastes 30 years later, especially the...

coq au vin

spinach lasagna

quiche

raspberry vinaigrette for the salads (made in the giant dough mixers!)

handmade (often by me!) pasta - carrot & tarragon; onion basil; spinach; tomato; and plain

baguettes (real ones, crispy on the outside moist and soft on the inside but NOT chewy)
 Russian salad (carrots, peas, and turnips)

potato salad (French style...)

chicken apple salad (it was $8.95/lb!)

pasta salad with artichoke hearts, olives, and pimento

breakfast pastries - croissants (real ones!), chocolate croissants (fresh and still melted inside...), almond croissants, raisin croissants (YUM), apricot soleils (apricots over pastry cream on a round croissant), beignets

desserts - truffles, grand marnier chocolate mousse cake with raspberries, lemon mousse, strawberry mousse with lady fingers, lemon tarts (perfection), napoleans (perfect puff pastry), strawberry napoleans (perfection perfected), creme caramel (oh, sigh), chocolate mousse with rum, black forest cake, apple tart, the strawberry/kiwi fruit tarts, the raspberry tarts,

and the coffee, the perfect coffee... the hot chocolate (50% powdered sugar, 50% cocoa)... the iced lattes...

I'm sure there are many things I've forgotten. Every time I think of my time there I feel so happy. What a wonderful, wonderful place to be. Every time I put on an apron part of me visits back there and then. I don't know why I wanted to post this. I suppose it's just a small ode to a place I was very fond of once upon a time. :)

Readaloud: Fever, 1793

Tonight we finished this most riveting of readaloud books, Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson. The book follows the story of a young teenager, Mattie, as she endures the yellow fever epidemic that hit Philadelphia in 1793. The descriptions of life before and during the epidemic are wonderfully rich. The bravery and character of Mattie are inspiring. There were several very poignant moments where my own voice was cracking while reading the story. It gave us a very good sense of what it might have been like to live through such a terrible times.

The book also provides ample material for discussion on:

•18th-century medical science
•the first hot-air balloon, which is part of the story
•the role of the Free African Society and of black people in general in Philadelphia
•how food supplies were historically affected by a health crises
•the state of yellow fever today and the history of yellow fever in our own city, Savannah
•how panic affects people's decisions
•why Philadelphia was the capital at that time

I'm so very glad we read this book. The kids weren't enthusiastic about starting it (and were clamoring for another Nancy Drew mystery!), but we all became very enamored of this book, and particularly of the main character, Mattie. A very inspiring story.

The Menu

Last week, the menu consisted of Gatorade for many of us, and a dinner/lunch brought to the rest of us. Terrible stomach bug. We're just now finally recovering. Gevalt, and baruch hashem!

For dinner:

challah
eggplant with fresh basil and red pepper
roasted zucchini with preserved lemons
stir-fried swiss chard with garlic, ginger, and cumin
baked Japanese sweet potatoes
coq au vin
linguini
roasted cabbage
layered sorbet: mango, tofu sour cream, strawberry

And for lunch:

beef barley stew w/homemade kishke
deli sandwiches
garden salad
anything left from dinner

No guests this week. :( Wasn't sure if we'd be operating at 100% or not, and I definitely didn't want to pass along this intensely nasty bug.

Calm Puppy

I never knew there was such a thing but (sh) our puppy is quite a calm little guy. I'm not sure if it's just a phase or what. I was expecting, well, mayhem! He politely eats his food, goes outside to run with kids,  and practically wipes off his feet on the mat before he comes inside. He's just... sweet. Mellow. Perfect. We were wondering about his hearing, but the vet says he seems to be hearing fine. He does roll two lazy eyes towards the source of a sound, but doesn't startle or cock his head or anything. He's just... mellow. This is just so unlike the puppy experience I was braced for (and still am braced for, really!). Could he change? Could he get a little more wild? Or is this it? So curious to see... He's in good health, other than testing positive for giardia, but then we are the poster children for giardia (no longer, thankfully) so we can help a puppy through that too. Seems like the medication is simpler for the puppy than it was for the humans. He did bark when Mrs. B. (formerly of next door) dropped in to say hello (but wasn't allowed in because of a stomach virus that had DH in the emergency room for several hours!), so we're glad he'll be a bit of a watchdog. He's just a dear, and I don't think of myself particularly as a dog person either. But this one? He's special.

Puppy

Today we went on our second puppy browsing expedition... and (surprising ourselves!) came home with a puppy. I mean, not totally surprising ourselves. We did decide - a year ago - to get a puppy, and we knew it likely we would be getting one soon, but we didn't really think we'd actually be bringing one HOME today! But we did. We went to a rescue organization that had 60 puppies (plus probably 120+ adult dogs). It was overwhelming with so many and I could hardly separate one puppy out from the next. D. described what we were looking for and the lady knew exactly which one was the right one for us. As soon as D. saw him, that was it and he was ours. He's 10 weeks old, probably 25 pounds (for now... note those BIG paws!), and is an English Shepherd mix. Very calm and sweet. And his name? Basil Rathbone.

And on top of that, we also acquired two rabbits in the last week! One from the Humane Society, a white female rabbit we have named Amelia Earhart (EER-hart... ha ha ha), and another from an individual, a white rex with black splotches that we have named Horatio. Horatio and Amelia are living in a condo next to the chickens. We also built them a little run outside the chicken run where the kids can play with them, and the rabbits can also hang out with the chickens in their run. We'll use their waste for garden compost, and could also use it to feed/fertilize a future tilapia pond. Pictures of them to follow soon, IYH! What a week...

Down Two Teeth!

Raizel has beaten Eli to the punch and lost two teeth! The top two are wiggily too, so I'm sure she'll be down four any day now IYH. Eli has some wiggling around too. Looks like with might have a toothless club around here!

The Menu

Another week has evaporated!

For dinner:

challah
caesar salad
rosemary garlic beef roast
steamed broccoli
roasted asparagus
roasted potatoes
roasted mushrooms
miniature chocolate cakes

And for lunch:

challah
caesar salad
oregano chicken
white bean salad
orange onion spinach salad
tomato avocado salad
mushroom tart
and from our guests... a chocolatey conglomeration

Simple food to cook this week!

Good shabbos, all!

The Menu

We're baaaaaaack, after two weeks away and a few days of post-pesach recovery. I have no idea what we ate for pesach. Wait, yes I do. I'll try to recreate it even though most of the post-pesach meals were completely improvised. :) We were definitely in vacation mode!

For dinner:

challah (YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!)
roasted chicken with potatoes and carrots
roasted bok choi
roasted sweet potatoes
roasted balsamic onions
steamed (for a change) corn
strawberries and mixed fruit sorbet

For lunch:

beef barley not-cholent with homemade kishke
mint-stuffed eggs
pesto orzo broccoli salad
potato torta (potatoes, sausage, onions)
marinated pan-fried zucchini
carrot salad
peanut butter cup bars

Good shabbos!

Paw Paws

Our own paw paws are leafing out in the front yard. We can't wait to try them, IYH!

The Rest of the News

Oh, my. A tricky week. We did only a half-week of learning since I'm just a bit distracted with pesach preparation/packing, but that was fine. Amirah had a siyum for finishing parshas vayeira. She read every word! Usually students skip chunks of it, but it was all going so well and her vocabulary and grammar knowledge was deepening so nicely I just let it continue. It means we spent a lot more time on this parsha than most do, but I love alpidarko! It was working for her, so why mess with it? :)

Then we learned about three car break-ins in two days on our block. Bleah. Nothing much of value taken, it seems. Just property damage. D. thinks we should just leave our cars unlocked so it's easier for them to see what's inside! It's not like a 2003 Odyssey minivan is on their most-wanted-vehicle list. Humph.

Then, worst of all, our dear kitty, Lucy, got hit by a car and died very early this morning. We barely had her three months. Amirah is very, very sad, but handling it pretty well. Her first desire was to get her a blanket to cover her up. Tomorrow we'll have a kitty funeral and bury her in the side of the yard where she liked to hang out. Poor kitty. We will really miss her sweet little face. So many lessons come from these things - lessons about street safety to reinforce, lessons about human lives versus animal lives, lessons about learning to grieve so that when bigger grief comes into our lives we have a sense of how to handle it, and knowing that all that Hashem brings to us is for the good.

The Menu

So much more than the menu happened this shabbos, but here, at least, is the menu! :)

DINNER
challah
fish cakes
caesar salad
beef roast
chicken & broccoli kugel (from a sheva brachos earlier in the week)
roasted asparagus
roasted potatoes
roasted carrots and zucchini
brownies (from friends!)

LUNCH
sushi
baba ghanouj
balsamic roasted mushrooms
barley with chimichurri sauce
meatballs with apricot curry sauce (just took duck sauce and added curry powder!)
Irish beef stew (meat, can of beer, can of tomato paste, 2 cups brown rice, water - LOOK, a recipe!)
curried carrot pear salad*
green salad
strawberry kiwi sorbet
almond meringue cookies*

We had 12 people for dinner and 18 for lunch. Really good company!

*RECIPES!

Curried Carrot Pear Salad
8 large carrots, shredded
2 pears, chopped
2 T. white wine vinegar
1 T. curry powder
2 t. sugar
1 t. salt
1/4 cup olive oil

(This was YUMMY, light, and very refreshing. Definitely a keeper.)

Almond Meringues

16 ounces almond paste
4 egg whites
1/2 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 325. Break up the almond paste in a food processor with a few pulses. Add sugar. Whip egg whites and combine with almond paste. Line cookie sheet with parchment paper (I usually lightly grease the pan and the paper). Drop spoonfuls of batter onto sheet 2 inches apart. Bake for 20 minutes, then leave in oven to dry out (turn off oven).

(Easy, and very delicious. I think I'll make my own nut paste and do this over pesach too.)

The Menu

So ready for shabbos. It's been a very, very full week...

For dinner:

challah
roasted chicken stuffed w/lemon and garlic
mashed potatoes
gravy
roasted cabbage
roasted cauliflower
green salad (from the garden!)
steamed spinach
apple rhubarb crisp

For lunch:

challah
surimi wonton salad
Irish beef stew
sausage rice eggplant salad
roasted peppers
coleslaw (w/rice vinegar/sesame oil/sesame seeds)
pumpkin kugel
apple rhubarb crisp

The Beach!

Today we went to the beach for the first time in quite a while. Dean came home early and we ate a little dinner and left around 5:30. It was a lovely day. The water was a bit cool at first, but they quickly got used to it (maybe 70?). Amirah got to fly her new kite and our old kite. The beach felt pretty perfect.

Botany

A few weeks ago, we began our study of botany. Given the state of the garden, and the beautiful spring that arrived in Savannah last month, the timing is perfect. I've started a new schedule of making every other Wednesday dedicated to botany and history in the morning (after davening/parsha) and music and art in the afternoons. It's so hard to squeeze these in during the week. Having a good chunk of time dedicated periodically to these subjects makes me much less worried that we won't have time for them! (Of course, yesterday was Tuesday, but normally we do this on Wednesday!)

Yesterday, we dissected camellias and identified the sepals/calyx, petals/corolla, stamen (anther/filament), carpels (stigma/style/ovary/ovule), and pollen. Then we took tiny pieces of each part and prepared slides for the microscope. It was so interesting to look at all the different parts up close. I also had some purchased slides of various pollens, spores, and plant parts, so we looked at those too. FUN!

I'm not sure we've ever even used the microscope since we got here (it was Dean's for college/grad school), and I sure hope to make more use of it. So interesting.

Our First Eggs!

This morning, Amirah went to check to see if we had any eggs yet. The chickens are 21-1/2 weeks old and typically this breed lays between 16 and 20 weeks. She came back to report that there were no eggs, but that one of the chickens was squatting in the nest box. "Isn't that weird, mama? Wait! Squatting!" Shrieking, she ran back outside. Sure enough, she came back excitedly bearing our first egg. First eggs are smaller than a normal egg, so we scrambled it and each had one dainty bite. Everyone pronounced it delicious. It definitely had a better, more complex taste. Yum.

In the mid-afternoon, I heard quite a ruckus (lots of pa-KAWKs) and thought for sure another egg had landed. But no, no egg in the nest box. But an hour later I noticed one on the floor of the run! Egg number two had arrived! Very exciting, and now regular trips to the nest boxes will be a welcome part of our morning routine.

Our first brown egg next to a grocery store egg. Dainty! For now...

Belated Purim Pictures

We had such a fun Purim. B"H three of them wanted to be the same thing as last year, and Amirah's costume was pretty simple. Avi was Mordechai, with sackcloth and ashes. Eli was King Achashverosh, but this year we added the royal red cape and a new crown. Raizel was Queen Vashti by night and Queen Esther by day. Our shaloch manos were fun and simple - a cranberry muffin, some yummy (VERY dairy) caramel, a juice, and, um one other thing? Guess it's been a while already! :)

Everyone...

Amirah...

Eli...

Raizel...

Avi...

The Menu

Well... there isn't one!

Dinner is being brought to us. I'm just making challah and a salad or two.

And we're out for lunch.

Mommy dance time. And a little extra time to do a little more room re-organizing after the room shifts. YAY!

Good shabbos, all!

Great Dinner

WARNING: All measurements are my best guess! :)

Tonight, I took some turkey necks I had bought a month or so ago and boiled them with onion and garlic to make a broth (8 cups). After straining it, I added rice noodles, soy sauce (2 T.), and sesame oil (1 T.). It was good, but a little bland. I knew the kids would like it best that way, but I like to jazz things up. So I decided to make a kind of "pesto" for us to spoon into our own bowl. Here's about what I came up with: 3 cloves of garlic, 1/4 cup chopped cilantro, 1/4 preserved lemon, 1/2 cup walnuts, 1 T. lime juice, 1 T. olive oil, salt to taste. A spoon of this made the soup delicious!

Along with it, we had steamed soybeans, and roasted plantains, carrots, and cauliflower. Everyone was actually enthusiastic! And Eli, who likes very few things, really liked the soy beans. He now has soybeans and broccoli in his repertoire of foods that make me really happy to see him eat.

So, there. A recipe. I hope...

Room Switch

We switched everyone's bedrooms around (except ours) and they are all very happy with the changes! Raizel is now in the formal learning room. I had to keep the narrow, deep closet for our materials but she has a gigantic chest of drawers that has plenty of room for all of her clothes. She also still has the piano in her room, but she doesn't mind. She's very happy.

Amirah is in the smaller bedroom where the boys used to be. She is blissed out in her own, private space, reading and listening to classical music. We're hoping to paint it before too long since the colors in there (orange and brown) are pretty bleah.

And the boys now have the biggest bedroom in the house. The girls had two full-sized beds in there. The boys have a twin bunkbed, so the room has much more space in it now. They're very happy to have room for more building and WWII battle scenes.

It took a bit of shlepping but it was really worth it. Now if Amirah loses patience with Raizel she can escape to her own retreat room and be by herself. And Raizel feels very grown-up to be sleeping in her very own room. A good move all around!

Not Loving the IRS

Well, I do love the fact that they (weirdly) made our adoption expenses into a refundable tax credit. But I do NOT love the fact that we sent in our tax forms, then sent the information in again at their request, and then were told that we would be charged $4,000 for filing an inaccurate return, and that the deduction was disallowed. CHUTZPAH!

So, what to do?

1) I got the number for a personal contact at the IRS Counsel's office for a woman who helped to draft the revenue procedures for the Adoption Tax Credit. She has helped other adoptive families who were rejected and fined by the IRS, so I hope she'll be able to help us too.

2) You can bet my congressman is going to hear about this one! They will advocate for people who require assistance to resolve issues with various federal institutions. This will be our #2 plan.

3) There's also the local IRS tax office (in Savannah), and the taxpayers advocacy group (with staff in Atlanta) that is part of the IRS.

Surely, one of these will enable us to resolve this in a timely matter. GOOD GRIEF!

Intense Day

It was a full day today! Six hours of learning (minus lunch!), two hours of gardening (planted pinto and soy beans), dinner, two hours of spontaneous room-switching, followed by two hours of purim baking and kitchen cleaning. The room-switching wasn't entirely spontaneous, since we had talked about switching the kids' rooms around. I just hadn't planned on doing it tonight, but what better way to procrastinate purim preparations?

Amirah is now in the small bedroom, blissfully A-L-O-N-E. We moved the boys into the big bedroom where Raizel is right now too. As soon as we can, we're moving her to the learning room which won't be our learning room any more. Everyone gravitates to the more spacious-feeling dining room table anyway. I'll move a couple of bookshelves out into our bedroom and that should work fine for her room. Hopefully, we'll be able to have a window put in that room that looks over the garden. Right now there's just the sliding glass door. Fortunately, that room stays nice and cool over the summer, so even without a window it should be fine. We'll put the art table in the laundry/workshop room and that should take care of it!

The boys are very excited about their new bigger room. Since they're in bunk beds they will have a really big play space in there. Raizel is also very happily looking forward to being in her new bedroom. So everyone wins! I'm hoping Amirah will be able to retain her calm demeanor more often, even when bugged by little siblings, now that she has her own refuge.

And my favorite news of the day - with all this stooping, planting, shoveling, hauling, furniture-moving, cooking, and cleaning, my back has not one ache! I had just taken it for granted that stooping over and planting things was just one of those things that made my back hurt. Just a little, but there was definitely an ache. I have a new mattress topper that I got at Sam's Club for my bed, a three-inch layer of memory foam. I usually wake up with a backache if I'm in bed for more than seven hours. Not this morning! I'm hoping that this change will stay and I can have a long shabbos nighttime sleep without waking up feeling yucky.

The Menu

For dinner...

We're out!

I'm bringing wine and apple kugel.

And for lunch...

challah
pastrami sandwiches on baguettes
carrot ginger kugel
corn cranberry kugel
roasted eggplant/tomato/zucchini/red pepper/onion/garlic/preserved lemons
apple coleslaw
beef barley stew
chocolate brownie trifle (from a friend!)

A lot of people (well, I should qualify that... 3 or 4 out of the 10 or 11 people who read this!) have asked for recipes, and I want to get better at posting them. The truth is, I don't really use recipes (well, as suggestions I do!), and I don't really measure unless I'm baking a cake. The upside is that it's much quicker to just storm through the kitchen throwing things together. The downside is that we so very often have something that really tastes good and we just KNOW that we will never get to have it again. I also can't pass on the good ones to others, so I'm hoping to make a wee bit of effort in that area. :)

Good shabbos!!!

New Use for Curds

So wonderful, I just have to try it...

Casein Paint with Lime

Yields about 1 quart

1 gallon nonfat milk
2 1/2 ounces “Type S” lime (dry powder available at hardware stores)
2 1/2 cups water
Natural earth pigment (more or less depending on desired color)
6 cups filler (usually whiting)

1. Leave milk in a warm place for a few days to curdle. Then pour through a colander lined with cheesecloth. You should have about 2 cups of curds. The whey can be composted.
2. Mix curds and lime powder in a blender. Add a little water if the mixture isn’t blending well. Strain to remove any lumps.
3. Add water to the binder immediately after it is prepared.
4. Dampen and crush pigments. Add them to the mixture a little at a time until desired color intensity is achieved.
5. Stir in filler.
   

Buttermilk

I love cultured buttermilk, and it's very easy to make your own. I did this a few years ago, but hadn't in a long time and I'd really forgotten how delicious it is. I bought some with live cultures, used it for drinking and for pancakes, then filled the not-quite-empty container up with milk and let it sit out on the counter for 12 hours or so. YUM. I'm on batch number four and it's still going strong. Try it! :)

Berry Trellises

The berry trellises are up and 23 berry sticks are in the ground! See pictures at my gardening blog.

The Menu

EDITED: I should just wait until after shabbos to post... I always seem to improvise something different! No carrot ginger purée; instead, we had spaghetti squash. No tortilla española; instead, I made a cabbage/chicken/kumquat salad with a rice vinegar/sesame oil/sugar/salt dressing. YUM! It was a lovely, lovely shabbos with great company.

For dinner:

challah
beef roast
roasted potatoes
roasted mixed veggies
carrot ginger puree
roasted cabbage
sorbet

For lunch:

challah
chummus
won ton surimi salad
mushroom puff pastry rolls
tortilla española (if I have enough time... it's not made yet!)
pickled eggs
broiled eggplant
linguini with zucchini, tomatoes, artichokes, and olives
beef stew
preserved lemon/tomato/onion salsa
lots of desserts from guests! (we're 20 this shabbos!)

Garden Post

I posted lots of pictures of the garden in our new gardening blog. There was such a dearth of anecdotal online information about gardening in Savannah that I thought I would document our ups and downs. Fortunately, there are plenty of experienced gardeners in our neighborhood from whom we can learn a lot. We really don't have all that much experience compared to the experience we need! For two years in Oakland, CA I enjoyed doing flower gardening in part of the front yard where I lived. Then for three years in Beaverton, OR I had two 50-square-foot vegetable beds. That got started a couple of years before I got married. Then we had kids, and I was just a bit too, er, busy. We did a few tomatoes, but that was about it. It's nice now we're at the stage where the kids can help and enjoy doing it. I'm glad they enjoy it because it's taken up just about every Sunday for the last two months. Once the garden is actually in, maintenance won't be quite as time-consuming, and next year with more of the infrastructure in place there won't be quite as much to do either. Of course, we still need to work out an irrigation system and a tilapia pond. No, it won't be dull around here for quite a while!

PHEW!

I just spent (another) evening on pesach planning. We'll be on Tybee Island for two weeks, and will be having 25 for the seders IYH. Probably 15ish around during the day during chol hamoed (I'm sure we'll be having day visitors!). I've finished our weekday menus; assigned cooks, table setters, table clearers, and kitchen duty people; handed out jobs to people (desserts, wine/grape juice, seder plates, procuring a turkey, leading the search for chametz...), started a "to bring" list, and took a stab at planning the seder/yom tov meals. PHEW! is all I can say. What a lot of logistics. If it's well-organized, though, our two weeks at the beach might actually be relaxing.

IYH, IYH, IYH... The location will be perfect. Those that don't have vacation time can still get to work in 20 minutes. Friends can visit from town. There's only one house between us and the beach. We have a heated swimming pool (which we can't use 4 of the 8 days because of shabbos/yom tov laws, but still!). We can check on our chickens and garden every other day or so. And I get to hang out with some of my favorite people!! I haven't even hardly thought about Purim yet, except for learning with the kids. I'd better switch gears after shabbos. Costumes?? Shalach manos? Yep, better get on it!

Gardening Blog

I'm doing a separate, more anonymous, Savannah fruit/vegetable gardening blog. When I was exploring to see if I could find anecdotal gardening information specific to Savannah it was pretty scarce. So... we have started our own! Hopefully others can learn from the many, many blunders we will doubtlessly be making, and share a little in our successes, IYH.

Ethiopian Crock Pot

Last night, I made Ethiopian food for dinner. Actually, it started on Sunday with the injera batter. It needs several days to go sour (like a sourdough). Then, Tuesday night I put the yemiser wat (lentil stew) in the crockpot overnight, and Wednesday afternoon I picked a bunch of collards and made the gomen wat (collards stew) and put it in the crockpot all afternoon. The crock pot did a GREAT job on both stews. With those, the injera, homemade panir, a cucumber/lettuce/tomato salad and alecha (a potato/carrot/cabbage combination that I did on the stovetop), it was so delicious. All the recipes can be found here from when I did an Ethiopian feast last spring. This time I made everything but the shiro wat. So delicious, and so healthy. I only wish I had started the injera a couple of days sooner, letting it sour for nearly a week instead of four days. It was pretty good, but I look it a little more sour. Oh, yum.

The Menu

Dinner - we're out! At shul!

Lunch

challah
pastrami
roasted eggplant salad
pear spinach salad
roasted red pepper salad
roasted balsamic mushrooms (discovered last shabbos that these are even better cold than they are hot!)
strawberry rhubarb sorbet

It's all pretty much done except the challah, so tomorrow after learning I'll be doing a better-than-usual job of cleaning. And Auntie A., S, and D. are coming to spend the night!!!!!!!!!! Excitement all around. I'm a happy lady.

USDA Food Budget

Every once in a while, I like to wander over to the USDA website and see what they think the cost of groceries is running for a family of 6, with children the same ages as ours. In December of 2010, their thriftiest plan cost an average of $875 per month. One year later, that same plan costs $924 per month. This is about a 6% increase from a year before, which agrees with what the Consumer Price Index says. Not as bad as I felt like it has been. I would have offhand guessed it was closer to 10%, but groceries in my local area may have been different. Groceries are relatively expensive here.

So then I went to a couple of different cost-of-living calculators to see what the grocery costs were in Portland, OR compare to Savannah, GA. I was very surprised to discover that grocery costs in Savannah are supposedly 13% less here! I would have definitely not been surprised if it had said 13% more, but 13% less???!?!?!!

Produce is so obviously more here. Packaged goods to me seem about the same. Perhaps it's just that Winco in the Portland area had particularly good pricing? Here I mostly shop at the local grocery store. Walmart is a less expensive alternative, but usually their produce is nowhere as good as Kroger. Their packaged goods are definitely a little cheaper, but I am buying fewer and fewer packaged items.

Anyway... I just find it all a bit perplexing, and I long for a Winco...

Torah Homescool Conference

So excited!!!! Even if, chas v'shalom, we don't have the money to do it, I'm so glad it's happening. IRS (and hashem), please send that refund speedily and in our day. We've only been waiting for 4 months. You say it will only be another 6 weeks. That would be lovely. Thank you.

=========================================

The 4th Annual Torah Home Education Conference will be held in the

Baltimore area on Sunday, May 6 and the schedule is packed with great

speakers and topics that are sure to give every current or

prospective homeschooler something to take home and actualize!

This is the only conference geared to Orthodox homeschoolers in the

entire world – yes, literally! Every year, people have traveled from

all over the US and even Canada to participate and the consensus was that it was worth

every penny and hour away from home. Don't think that you're a four hour drive away and

it's not worth your time. You just won't have anywhere else to access this wide of a

group of Torah home educators any other day in the year, anywhere.

Here is the (tentative) schedule for the conference:

8:15 – 9 am Registration

9 – 9:10 – Opening remarks

9:15 – 10 am – V'shinantem L'vanecha – Defining Torah Home Education –

Mrs. Susan Lapin

10:05 – 10:50 – Parallel workshops:

a) Practical Preschool and Early Education Years – Mrs. Jennifer MacLeod

b) Reaching Bar/bas mitzva – Homeschooling Older Children – Mrs. Shoshana Zohari

10:55 – 11:40 – Parallel Workshops:

a) How to Homeschool, Do Housework, and Prepare for the Chagim with a Smile – Mrs. Jennifer Green

b) Gishmei Brocha – Involving Your Family In Money Management – Rabbi Shmuel Simenowitz

11:45 – 12:30 - Parallel Workshops:

a) Integrating Kodesh and Chol, Two Sides of the Same Coin – Mrs. Deborah Beck

b) Focusing in an Age of Digital Distractions – Mrs. Robin Alberg

12:30 – 2:30 – Lunch, Educational Material for viewing/for sale, "A Day in the Life of a Homeschooling Family" Poster Presentations, and a Facilitated Discussion with Mr. Max Masinter

2:30 – 3:15- Raising Independent Learners – Mrs. Evelyn Krieger

3:20 – 4:05- Veterans Panel with Mrs. Amanda Keefe, Chana Cox, Susan Lapin,

and Rebecca Masinter

4:10 – 4:55 – Advancing the Relationship between Homeschoolers and the Community – Rabbi Cary Friedman

5 – 5:15 – Closing remarks

Mrs. Gila Haor, a special educator, will be available for consultation throughout the day of the conference. If you're interested in reserving a slot, be in touch with her at Gila.Haor@gmail.com.

The conference planners are doing everything they can to welcome participants to the Baltimore area and make your stay comfortable. If you wish to spend Shabbos in Baltimore or Silver Spring prior to the conference, hospitality is being arranged – Mrs.Tova Brody is taking care of this, and she can be reached at 410-504-7798 or keep.shabbos@earthlink.net.

Child care will be available for your young children during the conference, as well as activities for your older children – we need to know how many children to prepare for, so please register and tell us your child care needs as soon as possible. Mrs. Alisa Mandel is once again taking care of this, and you can contact her at 410-963-2977.

Homeschooling teenagers are welcome to attend the conference for no charge, although registration is required and donations are appreciated.

For registration and current information for the Torah Home Education Conference, click here!

Our Day

We've settled into a very nice routine with our learning. I felt like it took us quite a while to settle into having three full-time learners. Here's, in general, how our days go:

9:00, breakfast
9:30, chores
10:00, davening (all of us)
10:45, parsha stories, navi (we're reading shoftim right now), songs, halachos (all of us)
11:30-1:00, they each get their stack of books and get to work
Raizel & Eli: math, Explode the Code, penmanship, Hebrew cursive (Eli), Writing With Ease, First Language Lessons
Amirah: math, Writing With Ease, First Language Lessons, spelling
1:00-1:45, lunch
1:45, Avi (alef beis and alphabet)
2:00, Raizel (Aleph Champ, Hebrew vocabulary, English reading)
2:30, Eli (ditto!)
3:00, Amirah (chumash, speedreading Hebrew, L'shon Hatorah (biblical grammar), English oral reading)

We usually finish by 4:00. History and science we do in the "off" hours, in the evenings or on Sundays. Time has been short, so our history has mostly been Story of the World (as a story book!), and historical fiction. We haven't done as much mapwork as we did last year. I'm hoping to get some more of that in! I'm also hoping to faithfully get to piano and recorder on Mondays and Thursdays. It's a challenge, for sure. Four different levels all at once has its challenges.

And my big challenge? I really want to have them read the whole megillah, starting tomorrow. It will be Eli & Raizel's first real foray into reading outside their siddur and Aleph Champ and incidental reading here and there. We'll see how it goes!

The Menu

Shabbos!

Yes!

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Early to bed tonight!

For dinner:

challah
roasted chicken
roasted cherry tomatoes with fresh lemon thyme
carrot purée
roasted potatoes
spinach salad with macerated kumquats and almonds
roasted cauliflower
roasted bok choi
balsamic mushrooms
pear apple cranberry crisp

challah
roasted pears
broccoli salad
baked salmon
spinach cheese puff pastry rolls
coleslaw
olives
some of the veggies from Friday night
very dairy chocolate chocolate mint cookies

Every once in a while, it sure is nice to have a dairy lunch! :)

Good shabbos, all!

Uncle Dan!

We had such a busy, fun day with Uncle Dan. Since today was Uncle Dan Day, naturally we had a learning holiday. :) After sitting around shmoozing for a while, we...

•took Uncle Dan to Oatland Island

•had a picnic in the car (it was a bit cool today!)

•flew our trick kite at the beach (A & E did great with all kinds of zips and twirls!)

•toodled around to see downtown and had a warm drink

•bought teff flour (I feel some injera coming on!), non-homogenized milk, buttermilk, and cream at the health food store

•picked up D. at work

•stopped at Bobo's for mullet and croaker

•had dinner with Grandma P and Grandpa F

•cleaned up

•made bread and yogurt

•went out for frozen yogurt

•read our readaloud

•sent everyone but me to bed

•did laundry

•set up batches of buttermilk (by adding a pint of buttermilk to a gallon of milk) and creme fraiche (1 cup whipping cream + 1 teaspoon cultured buttermilk)

And now (or soon)... to bed! What a great day. Looking forward to a little more brother-shmoozing time before he leaves to catch his plane in Orlando, then an afternoon of learning. A really great day today!

The Menu

Well, a little late, but something happened to Friday... not sure what, though! :)

For dinner:

challah
chicken w/duck sauce (baked at 350 for 75 minutes, then broiled for 10 minutes)
mashed potatoes
roasted carrots
roasted cabbage
roasted zucchini/portabello
chocolate cupcakes

For lunch:
challah
baba ghanouj
sushi (California rolls & roasted carrot/spinach/egg)
pear spinach salad
meatballs w/currants
barley salad (barley, chopped sundried tomatoes, garlic, currants)
ratatouille
roasted corn salad (canned corn roasted in the oven w/green peppers, tomatoes, onions)
beef no-bean cholent
homemade kishke
apple pear cranberry crisp

And lots of fun guests!

Quote of the Week

Raizel, really wanting to be allowed to do something:

"I promise. I'll be really quiet and I won't make a beep."

The Menu

Hooray, shabbos!

For dinner:

challah
caesar salad
roast
yorkshire pudding
steamed collards
mashed potatoes
roasted carrots
cookies and pareve ice cream

For lunch:

challah
caesar salad
fish cakes
beef and cabbage with fried rice sticks
Asian coleslaw
edamame
eggplant w/miso dressing
cucumber salad
Romanian apple cake

And good company. :)

Chickens and Garden

The chickens have been doing great, and are getting so big! Taking care of them has been far easier than I had even imagined. I fill up their feeder and waterer every three days or so. Once a week I scoot the pine shavings in their condo down onto the floor of the run and replace it with new shavings. The 10' x 10' run has a deep layer of wood chips and pine shavings (8–12"). From time to time I sprinkle some of their food on the ground and they peck and scratch at it, stirring up the ground and helping to compost their own droppings. The run smells sweet (6 weeks into it) and, if all goes as it is supposed to, should remain sweet-smelling until its annual rakeout. I try to let them out once a day to run around the yard. They are always supervised, however, since there are birds of prey here that reportedly love chickens. That's pretty much it! Having the chickens is what really makes it feel farm-like here. They are so much fun to watch as they peck around the yard. They're just so... HAPPY!

The garden is getting there, slowly but surely. DH made a 5' x 32' bed with a protective hoop cover on it. Inside we now have 480 pots of seeds (and a few seedlings!) and 22 fruit trees waiting to be planted when the danger of frost has passed in another month or so. We've also arranged for a dump truck to bring us eight cubic yards of the county's free compost on Thursday. DH planted our peas on Sunday too; it's nearly too late to plant the peas! (I still am not anywhere near getting used to Savannah gardening rhythms.) All the boards that we originally got for fencing are now stacked up and cut to the right lengths to make the rest of the beds, so bit by bit we'll get those built and fill them with the wood chips, nitrogen, and the giant pile of compost coming soon. With only eight 8–10 person-hours on Sundays, and little bits of time here and there it's slowly coming together. So fun to see things growing.

Quote of the Week

Eli: Mama, I think you're really good at cooking, even if I don't like much.

Duck for President

That is all.

The Menu

Shabbos, again. B"H!

For dinner:

challah
caesar salad
chicken w/bbq sauce
baked potatoes
tofu sour cream
roasted asparagus
sweet and sour cabbage
roasted cauliflower
ossi dei morti (bones of the dead) cookies

And for lunch:

challah
surimi salad
beef vegetable soup
chicken salad
cucumber salad
spinach kugel
arugula salad
chocolate chip cookies

Good shabbos, all!

Pesach?!???!!

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I just spent a couple of hours on pesach menus! We're spending pesach on Tybee Island (thanks to the generosity of Doda S.!), and while I won't have to clean my house for pesach I think the logistics are no less staggering. Kashering a strange kitchen for pesach (at least we'll get there three days before pesach). Fitting everything in one (!) refrigerator (maybe we can bring the chest freezer with us? Would that be nuts?). Imagining feeding 14 people, 3 meals per day, plus a few more for the seders. On the other hand, I can delegate! Several good cooks will be there so we can take turns with cooking and cleanup. Maybe it won't be so crazy. We have our own pool and a beach. I'm voting for late-night women's swims. :)

So... I've organized my thoughts a little, looked at last year's menus, plugged in some of my old standby dishes and if I plug away at it a bit each week and start stocking up groceries now, we should be in good shape... please, Hashem!!!!

Mozzarella Recipe

Here's the "easy" recipe! :)

2 gallons milk (2% is best)
2-1/2 tsp. citric acid powder
1/4 cup cool water
1/2 teaspoon liquid rennet (or check the strength; mine only requires 1/4 tsp)
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup kosher salt
1 gallon water

Dissolve the citric acid in water, then add to milk in stainless steel or enamel pot. Mix for 2 minutes, until dissolved.

Heat the milk to 88 degrees, then turn off the heat. Dilute the rennet in the water, then mix into the milk. Stir for a few seconds, then let it sit for 15 minutes while the curds develop.

Cut the curd into 1/2-inch cubes. Cut straight down in 1/2-inch rows, then make cuts perpendicular. Last, make cuts at a deep angle to (sort of) cube the curds. Let them rest for 5 minutes. Put heat on low (2?) and slowly heat to 108 over a period of 15 minutes or so while gently stirring the curds. Turn off the heat and gently stir for another 20 minutes.

Remove the curds from the whey (using slotted spoon or colander). Lay curds in a bowl. Mix up kosher salt and water and heat to 170. Cover the curds with the water (you'll have more salt water than you need). Gently stretch the curds up the side of the bowl, using the back of a spoon. They'll start to get more stringy then shiny. Turn the curds out onto a board and gently knead it. You can then put the cheese into a mold, or braid it. It will harden as it cools. It should yield 1-1/2 to 2 pounds of cheese. YUM!

Cheese Math

I made mozzarella cheese a couple of years ago, but for some reason just hadn't made it since. Now that I have new rennet and culture, yesterday I decided to finally make another batch. But it didn't work. It started out as expected. Add the citric acid to the milk, heat it up, add the rennet. Let it sit while the curds develop. Cut the curds. Heat up the curds. Oops? Where are the curds? They're gone! Frizzled. Nothing but little tiny pieces instead of nice lumpy, squeaky curds. Where are my curds?????????

Fortunately, DH had just been reading the cheesemaking book while resting and recovering from his stomach bug. "The book says when you use too much rennet it won't work," he kindly informed me.

But impossible. I had measured everything exactly. No room for... oops. I had used two gallons of milk. The recipe was for two gallons. I thought I was supposed to be doubling the recipe for two gallons. Nope. Okay. No harm done. A little grumbling about time lost. But the cheese frizzles turned into a nice batch of ricotta cheese. Perfect for lasagna later in the week. Yum.

So, not to be deterred, I set out again this morning. The intrepid cheesemaker. Same thing happened. Frizzles. All frizzles. Granted, I only had 1-3/4 gallons of milk at this point, but I had very carefully calculated everything for a 1-3/4 recipe making sure I didn't use too much rennet. But obviously I had! Hmmmm... I then double-checked the website and discovered that the rennet I purchased is double-strength! OH! I only need 1/4 teaspoon for two gallons!! So I had used too much rennet... AGAIN! Oh, well. This ricotta was great on tonight's pizza along with some cheddar and feta to kick it up a notch. And we sure are looking forward to lasagna later this week.

As soon as I get new milk I'm going to give it another shot and hopefully it will be as smooth and easy as the first time I tried it, IY"H! (Do you know they do look at you rather oddly when you go through with 7 gallons of milk... 4 for cheese, 2 for drinking, and 1 for yogurt?) Here's to perseverance!

The Menu

Ooftie, pooftie. We got papa and Eli through a (thankfully short) stomach bug this week. Now on to better things, like shabbos!

For dinner:

challah
stuffed eggplant (eggplant, onion, anchovy, tomato paste, herbs, garlic)
caesar salad
coq au vin blanc (chicken stewed in white wine)
linguini with garlic sauce
roasted curried cauliflower
roasted asparagus
mashed potatoes (for the girl who just can't have a shabbos w/o potatoes)
apricot squares

And for lunch:

OUT!

Bringing challah and salad...

Good shabbos, all!

Now I'd better actually finish up! The clock is ticking...

And a P.S. to the Fun Week

I can't believe I forgot. Yesterday we went to Animal Control and picked out two cats to adopt! Unfortunately, there wasn't enough time to fill out the paperwork before they closed, so Dean returned on his lunch hour today to hand in the paperwork and bring them home (while I dashed from dentist to home to have lunch and see kitties and then to doctor). One is between 1 and 2 years old and the other is 2 to 3 years old. A dainty little brown tabby and a medium-sized tortoiseshell. Both free, since there are so many cats there. And their names (we think): Lucy and Florence. (But Amirah insists their names are Betty and Florence.) Both are very unassuming and sweet and happily moved in. Not sure when they'll meet the chickens. :)

And can I just say... the roasted berbere (Moroccan spicy herbs!) chick peas I'm munching are one of my favorite snacks. WOW. Made them myself. We like roasted chick peas (just roast cooked chick peas at 450 until crunchy), but I'd never put this wonderful cayenne-y berbere mix I made on it. Oh, YUM.

What a Fun Week!

And it's only Monday (??!?!!).

For several days now I've just been feeling particularly... hummy! I love having different projects happening. :)

Here's what's been going on:

•We're all finally up to date with doctor and dentist visits. Hooray! It feels like we've had an appointment or two for months for one reason or another.

•Two thirds of our fruit trees arrived today. We need to find out if we can plant them now, with preparations for keeping them warm if it freezes (one suggestion I found was to string them with holiday lights - FUN!). Or we'll just keep them potted until after danger of freezing has passed (mid-February).

•I (finally) got around to ordering yogurt culture and was THRILLED to learn that now my usual suppliers are kosher-certified for repackaging. Hooray! That means I can order just the amount I need. So while I was at it, I got yogurt culture, rennet and citric acid for mozzarella-making (thereby gleefully lopping $100 off my co-op order), and a small "try-it" kit for making two small bries and two small bleu cheeses for $7. I'm so excited! Mozzarella cheese is the highest-yielding cheese and you can get between 3/4 and 1 pound of cheese from a gallon of milk. So cheese will cost $3–4/lb instead of $5.19/lb. And basic mozzarella is pretty easy to make (though you can make fancier, more involved mozzarella too!). I'll b'n post the easy recipe I've used before... Now I have visions of a cheese-curing fridge (just alter a regular, probably small, fridge and keep the humidity high. Eventually I want to try hard cheeses too...

•I am realizing that paint stripping is much more difficult than I had imagined! The paint on our kitchen cupboards has many layers, the oldest probably being 50+ years old. In other words, stubborn. Aargh. Oh, well. I'm in no rush. The plan is to strip the cupboards, paper bag decoupage the insides, paint the outsides, paint the counters with Rustoleum counter paint, and do the floor in paper bags. I only have about 5 hours per week to devote to it. It will take a while (60–80 hours?), but eventually it will be done! It really is fun. Especially the part about it costing less than $300 to redo the whole kitchen... Please, hashem!

AND OUR LEARNING...

•Amirah has, at last, finished 2nd grade math and we are going to be zooming into 3rd grade. If we keep to the same pace we have been we *should* be caught up by July-ish. The important thing is that she understand the concepts before moving on, and I'm so glad we finally found Math Mammoth for her. It has worked SO much better than any other math curriculum. It's worked well for all the other kids too.

•Amirah has finished Lech Lecha!!!! We spent a lot of time there, having not skipped any of it. Her reading has gotten much faster, and her ability to translate is pretty good. There have been generally only one or two words in a pasuk (verse) that totally stumps her. Vayera, here we come! Avraham and Yishmael just got circumcised, and Sarah is about to find out she'll give birth to Yitzchak when she is 90 years old. I love our chumash time. I think it's the highlight of my day. The other highlight is on those days here and there when ALL FOUR children are davening together, out loud. And we love, love, love L'shon Hatorah. What a great grammar book, and not overwhelming in the least. I did decide to really plow through L'shon Hatorah to help our chumash studies. My original plan was to do 3 days of LHT/2 days of Rashi. But I've decided to do 5 days of LHT so we can finish by pesach, then we'll do Rashi after that. Learning the script won't take too long, and I've been reading many Rashis out loud to her as we go through the text. I think that will put us in pretty good shape by summer.

•Raizel has finished another level of Hebrew in Aleph Champ. She's starting Level 5 (of 8), and Eli is almost done with Level 5. Raizel should finish it in about two months. After Level 5, they're ready to start chumash (the first seven days of creation!). For efficiency's sake I'll probably have Eli wait about six weeks so they can start chumash together. Exciting!

•Eli is happily zooming through 2nd grade math. Concepts that Amirah really struggles/struggled with are second nature to him. He often pipes up with the answers to her math problems without skipping a beat! :) She takes it in good stride. He's in the second grade Handwriting Without Tears and very happy with that. Explode the Code 4 has him very fired up reading and writing lots of compound words right now. He also started spontaneously reading whole books. So Raizel did too! They both like to sit in the kitchen and read various Dick and Jane stories to me. Eli is very happy with his Hebrew too. He's overall just very enthusiastic about all of his learning.

•Raizel's most striking skill right now is her beautiful printing. She's using a 2nd grade book now too (Zaner-Bloser). Her fine-motor skills have always been excellent. She makes the daintiest, most intricate little drawings. Her writing really is better than both Eli's and Amirah's. Everything else is great - Hebrew, Writing With Ease (w/Eli), Explode the Code 2, grammar (1st grade), English reading, everything... She's a smart little cookie.

That's just a rough, hitting-the-highlights summary. Lots of blanks, but it's good for me to write it all down for my own memory.

Vine Borers... Grrrrr...

Vine borers were our biggest nemesis in the garden in 2011. They completely destroyed all of our summer squash and a few of our cucumbers. The mother of the squash vine borer is the hawk moth. She lays her eggs near the base of a stem of a cucurbit (melon, squash, pumpkin, cucumber). When flying around, she flies and behaves a bit bee-like so no one realizes they are actually a moth. In retrospect I did see several of these flying around but didn't think much about them!


When the egg hatches, the caterpillar burrows into the stem and eats it from the inside.

The first evidence of vine borers is matter called frass that looks like sawdust protruding from along the stem. There are a few ways to do them in. You can poke needles through the stem until you find the offender and kill it (bleah). You can re-bury the stem at various points along the vine and it will grow roots. So even if the vine borer is digesting part of it, it can still get nutrients from the soil. Or you can use this nifty trick I learned—when the plant is young (6+ inches long) you can take toilet paper or paper towel roll and cover the base of the stem. It's apparently pretty effective at discouraging the vine borers from digging in. You can bet these will be all over our garden this year! I read elsewhere that nylons can work too. I'll be saving these as they expire both for this use and for holding heavy fruits on trellises as needed. I'm hoping (please, Hashem!) to get to complain about how I have zucchini coming out my ears. :)

Really enjoying this southern gardening thing, but I feel like I continually have whiplash.

Spring/Summer Planting Dates

This matters only to fellow Savannahians, but I calculated all the spring planting dates and thought it would be useful to store it here. It doesn't include any vegetables we don't eat. :)

1/1
asparagus
cabbage
carrot
lettuce
onion
peas

1/8
asparagus
cabbage
carrot
lettuce
onion
peas
potatoes
spinach

1/15
asparagus
cabbage
carrot
collards
kale
lettuce
onions
peas
potatoes
spinach

1/22
asparagus
cabbage
carrot
collards
kale
lettuce
onions
peas
potatoes
spinach

1/29
asparagus
beets
cabbage
carrot
collards
kale
lettuce
onion
peas
potatoes
spinach

2/5
asparagus
beets
broccoli
cabbage
carrot
collards
kale
lettuce
onion
potatoes
spinach

2/12
asparagus
beets
broccoli
cabbage
carrots
cauliflower
collards
kale
lettuce
onions
potatoes
spinach

2/19
asparagus
beets
broccoli
cabbage
carrots
cauliflower
collards
kale
lettuce
onions
potatoes
spinach

2/26
asparagus
beets
broccoli
cabbage
carrots
cauliflower
collards
kale
lettuce
onions
potatoes
spinach

3/4
bush beans
pole beans
beets
canteloupe
cauliflower
corn
watermelon

3/11
bush beans
pole beans
beets
canteloupe
cauliflower
corn
tomatoes
watermelon

3/18
bush beans
pole beans
beets
canteloupe
corn
cucumbers
eggplant
okra
peppers
zucchini
tomatoes
watermelon

3/25
bush beans
pole beans
beets
canteloupe
corn
cucumbers
eggplant
okra
peppers
zucchini
tomatoes
watermelon

4/1
bush beans
pole beans
beets
canteloupe
corn
cucumbers
eggplant
okra
peppers
sweet potatoes
zucchini
tomatoes
watermelon

4/8
bush beans
pole beans
canteloupe
corn
cucumbers
eggplant
okra
peppers
sweet potatoes
zucchini
tomatoes
watermelon

4/15
bush beans
pole beans
canteloupe
corn
cucumbers
eggplant
okra
peppers
sweet potatoes
zucchini
watermelon

4/22
pole beans
canteloupe
corn
cucumbers
eggplant
peppers
sweet potatoes
zucchini

4/29
pole beans
canteloupe
corn
cucumbers
eggplant
peppers
sweet potatoes
pumpkins
zucchini

5/6
canteloupe
corn
peppers
sweet potatoes
pumpkins

5/13
canteloupe
corn
peppers
sweet potatoes
pumpkins

5/20
canteloupe
sweet potatoes
pumpkins

5/27
canteloupe
sweet potatoes
pumpkins

6/3
pumpkins

6/10
pumpkins

That's for all the spring/summer crops. I'll work on the fall planting dates later, b'n. The original dates came from the University of Georgia in Athens, but since Savannah's last frost is two weeks earlier than in Athens I moved all the dates up by two weeks.

We've got work to do!!!!!

The Menu

Again, shabbos. B"H! I'm just not sure where the rest of the week went. Here's the plan!

For dinner:

challah
teriyaki salmon
whipped butternut squash
mashed potatoes
roasted sweet and sour mushrooms
roasted zucchini and carrots
homemade butter
pumpkin cheesecake
sugar cookies (by Amirah)

(Haven't had a shabbos dairy meal in AGES!)

And for lunch:

challah
sushi (surimi/avocado/cucumber and sweet potato/omelet/spinach)
baba ghanouj
bbq sauced chicken wings
cabbage apple slaw
rice sausage salad
cucumber tomato onion salad
pumpkin kugel
barley mushroom tomato stew
carrot salad
roasted pears
cake (from guest)
pareve ice cream (from a different guest)
and lots of wines (from two other guests)

We're having a lot of guests. :)

Gardening!

We've been working hard on the garden in the small cracks of time available. We've nearly got a plastic-covered hoop up over our 32' x 5' bed to grow our seedlings. The wood chips from the former trees are starting to smell like sweet growing dirt. We found someone with a dump truck who might be able to get a (HUGE!) load of compost for us. The compost is free from the city, so we'll just pay the cost of transport. The fence panels that we bought many months ago have turned out be so very useful for everything but a fence. We're so glad to have them! They made a first-rate roof for the coop, and now they're making fantastic raised beds all around the garden.

Last night I wrote out our whole planting schedule, which took some doing since Savannah's weather is quite different from the rest of Georgia for which readily-available planting schedules are made. We have to start spring/summer veggies about three weeks sooner and fall/winter veggies about two weeks later. My oh my, was I surprised to discover that our busiest planting weekend will be the last weekend in January! And the bulk of this is direct-seeding the vegetables, not starting them indoors or under cover. So, we've got to hurry up and get those beds done! No rest for the weary in Savannah's 11-1/2 month growing season!

Seed & Tree Order

Here's what's in the mail for us!

TREES
2 mandarins
1 Meyer lemon
2 pineapple guavas
2 paw paws
6 kiwis
1 fig
1 pomegranate
1 hazelnut
1 almond
1 quince
1 Methley plum
2 persimmons
1 mulberry tree
1 kumquat

SEEDS (some here; some in the mail)
winter squashes (Banana Pink Jumbo, Red Kuri, Tromboncino, Hunter Butternut)
beans (Negreta, Pinto, Scarlet Runner, Disoy Soybeans)
eggplant (Nubia, Long Purple)
greens (Mesclun, Bibb, Parris Island Romaine, Arugula, Malabar Spinach, Basil)
peppers (Jalapeño, Rainbow Mix Bell Peppers)
tomatoes (Better Boy, Big Boy, Brandywine, Supersweet 100)
peas (Melting Sugar Snow Peas, Super Sugar Snap)
beets (Cylindra, Early Tall Top)
cucumber (Boston Pickling, Lemon)
tomatillo (Purple)
watermelon (Georgia Rattlesnake)
bok choy
broccoli
cabbage (Chinese; everything else is really cheap at the store)
carrots (A#1, Danvers, Nantes Half Long, Short 'n' Sweet)
cauliflower
sugar pumpkins

ALREADY IN THE GARDEN:
onions
shallots
garlic
collards
cabbage
broccoli
mustard
lots of herbs

IN THE WORKS:
asparagus crowns
ginger
horseradish
lemongrass
mint
and enough strawberries for 100+ square feet!

We'll have our work cut out for us! Got great prices on seeds, and it should be enough for two years.