Le Menu (October 30 - November 5)

 

Monday - Asparagus couscous with chickpeas

Tuesday - Hot and sour soup (from Color Me Vegan) and mini baked wonton cups (veganized)
Wednesday - Black bean and seitan taquitos (adapted from Our Best Bites version)
Thursday - Pulled "pork" sandwiches (using Butler Soy Curls) and loosely following this recipe
Friday - Pizzas using vegan cheese and pepperoni, plus a plethora of veggies
Saturday - Pacific Foods carrot-ginger soup

Crusing for a haunting?

It's been slow, but I do have a bit of new stuff to show.  We haven't seen the contractor for more than a month, so we've been focusing on doing what we can on our own in the dining room.  Hopefully by the end of tomorrow, we'll have all the crown molding up and the new chandelier installed.  We keep joking that the original owners are going to haunt us for painting the oak woodwork in the dining room, but I think if ghosts show up, I'll lead them to the dining room and ask them if the dining room doesn't look 100 times better.  Since they're ghosts, they won't be able to lie.  They'll love it.  They also can't complain too much because we replicated the paneled walls that were here when they lived in it.  It was some dude in the 30s who ripped out the paneling, not us.  We should score a few points for putting it back.  If the 1930s guy weren't already dead, I'd suggest they go haunt him instead because he did lots of screwy things to this house.

Anyway.

In all honestly, we did feel a lot of guilt about our decision to paint, but previous owners had darkened the original stain to almost black (and made it so it didn't match any of the other woodwork in the house), and the north-facing room was like a cave.  I *love* it now!  The blue-grey is so absolutely perfect above the creamy white.  It's a room I want to look at now. 

Our super-tall neighbor-helper makes the room look small, but that's still a 10' ceiling.

Our new table looks tiny in the room, but it's 10' long.  The chandelier is ready to go up!

And here's a shot of our kitchen from the dining room.  The green tape shows where the island is going.

My pantry, my obsession

I've posted before about my borderline-unhealthy preoccupation with my pantry.  My obsession is only deepening with time.  I think it's because it's the only nearly-finished part of my kitchen.  And it's so flippin' cute. 

I dug out some bowls and storage jars that I bought 2 years ago (back when I idealistically thought that kitchen remodels could be completed in months rather than years) and added them to the shelves.  I also removed the plastic tarp from the marble and moved the microwave so the side with the cabinets and counter top could be my full-fledged baking center.  The cabinets below now house my mixing bowls (the ugly, utilitarian sort), measuring cups and spoons, pie plates, muffin tins, etc.  My Kitchen Aid sits on the right side of the counter. 

I ordered some custom vinyl labels for all of my storage jars and spice jars from a seller on Etsy, and I can't wait to get them.  They were fairly inexpensive, and I loved being able to pick exactly what I want the labels to say.  (Not many ready-made label packs include ras el hanout, sumac, berbere, mitmita, and the like!)

The lowdown on the flo

Our floors are finally finished and we were able to move our furniture back in place.  Not that we didn't enjoy cramming into our tiny sunroom with a piano and several extra large pieces of furniture, but you know.  Living on the edge like that can be dangerous.

Now that the floors are done, the wallpaper-stripped, plaster-patched walls look especially bad.  We'll get to them, but with Halloween so close, we're capitalizing on the haunted house look. 

Big Bertha and a mean curry

About a week ago, I stumbled onto the Coronary Health Improvement Project (CHIP) website, which contains a whole slew of vegan recipes created and compiled by Seventh-Day Adventists.  Almost all of the recipes look really yummy, and the two I've made so far did not disappoint.  Tonight, we had "Big Bertha Burgers" (I think oat-pecan burgers sounds much nicer), along with roasted purple potatoes (a-MAZ-ing!) and sliced pineapple.  I should have taken a picture, but since I had to be three places at once, I didn't take any.  If you really want a picture, there are a few here.  Picture or no, they're worth the effort.  I thought they were the best "veggie burger" I've ever had, and E told me never to buy store-bought ones again.  ;o)

The other recipe we tried and loved was the black bean curry (recipe below the burger recipe).  It's rare that we find a dish that ALL of us like, but everyone loved this one.  (I substituted spinach for the kale and diced sweet potatoes for the carrots.)  I served it with a red lentil dahl, brown basmati rice, and fruit salad.  Normally we would have had naan with this meal, but since the grocery store versions have ghee, I will have to learn to make naan myself.  There's a recipe in The Joy of Vegan Baking that I'm planning to try.  For desert we had L2's birthday s'mores cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.   Recipe is reproduced here. 

Big Bertha Burger

• 4 cups water 
• 1⁄2 cup Braggs Aminos (or low low-sodium soy sauce) 
• 1⁄4 cup nutritional yeast flakes 
• 2 Tbsp canola oil 
• 1 Tbsp flaxseed meal 
• 1 Tbsp dried sweet basil 
• 2 garlic cloves, minced 
• 1 large onion, finely chopped 
• 1 tsp ground coriander 
• 1 tsp dried sage 
• 1 cup chopped cashews, walnuts or pecans 
• 4 cups rolled oats

Place a 3-quart pan on burner over medium heat and add the ingredients in the order given above, except for the rolled oats.

Bring the water to a slow boil, quickly stir in the rolled oats and immediately remove from heat. Cover and set aside to cool.

Preheat oven to 375°. Form oat mixture into three-inch round patties and place on oiled baking sheets.
Bake for 25 minutes on each side. Serve with whole-wheat buns, soy mayonnaise, lettuce and slices of onions, tomato and pickles.

Black Bean and Coconut Curry

• 1 med. onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 inch fresh ginger, grated
• 1 carrot sliced 1⁄3-1⁄2” pieces (I subbed three diced sweet potatoes which made plenty for all of us)
• 1⁄2 c. water
• 1 small zucchini, diced
• 1 head of kale, cored & chopped (I subbed spinach)
• 1 can black beans, rinse & drain
• 1 t. salt
• 2 t. curry powder or
• 1 14-oz. can coconut milk
• 1-2 t. cornstarch (depends on how thick milk is)
• 1⁄3 c. raisins, golden are nice (I omitted.  Gross.)
• 1 T. lemon juice

Steam the first five ingredients in a covered skillet for five minutes.

Add zucchini, kale, black beans, salt and curry powder and simmer for three minutes, adding additional water if necessary.

Whisk cornstarch in a couple of tablespoons of the coconut milk, and then combine with remaining ingredients.  Add raisins and lemon juice to skillet and cook until just thickened.

Serve over brown basmati rice. 

Happy birthday, L2!

L2 had her very first friend party for her 12th birthday.  Because she wanted to punish me, she chose to have her party at the bowling alley.  At night.  With music blasting.  And 10 screaming, giggling, boy-chasing girls as guests.  And because I must have done something horrible in a previous life, Hubby had to go man the concession stand at the high school football game, which left me to "party" alone.  Never has time gone so s-l-o-w-l-y.

The good news is that L2 had a blast.  Her friends showered her with lip gloss and fingernail polish, and they teased her by making her name "Kevinlover" or some such craziness on the bowling score-keeping screen.  She insists Kevin is gross, so I'm not too worried.

My baby girl is 12.  How can it be?  She's been a part of our family since she was 6 years old, but it seems like just yesterday that she bounded her way into our lives.  That stinker.  What would we do without her?

I made two batches of s'mores cupcakes - one for the party and one for the family party on Sunday.  The recipe is from the cookbook Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World and can be found here.  

Round 2 of vegan s'mores cupcakes, which L2 herself chose.  I'm pretty sure she picked the hardest recipe in the book. 

Welcome to the community of iPod owners, miss L2. 

Pizza night!

So Friday has been Pizza Night for as long as I can remember, but we've been able to substitute Make-Your-Own-Pizza-Night for Pizza Hut and Little Caesar's.  It's a lot more fun to make your own, and the homemade versions certainly trash on your body a little less.  We used whole wheat crusts, pizza sauce, broccoli, meat-free Yves pepperoni, olives, portabellas, green and red peppers, tomatoes, and Daiya cheddar cheese.

How 'bout a little kitchen "catch-up?"

Our kitchen project has been plagued by stops and starts (mostly stops) throughout its nearly three-year history.  It has been incredibly frustrating, but we've been at the mercy of our the schedule of our very overworked contractor.  He has since taken a job in another town, so we see him only a couple of weekends a month.  Faced with having this drag out for another two or three years, we decided to do as much of the work ourselves as we possibly can.  It's challenging because we barely have enough time to get the basics taken care of each day, but we've been able to do bits and pieces here and there.  We've also had a lot of help from a family friend who we've hired to help us with all sorts of things, and lots of help from my sweet dad.

To save time and money, we started painting the cabinets ourselves.  Our contractor sent the first batch out to a professional painter, but they came back so crappy-looking that we had to sand them down and redo them all.  Using a sprayer and good oil-based paint, we were able to do a far better job.  We've helped lay tile, grout, install cabinets, strip floors, stain woodwork, and paint walls and ceilings.  Little by little, it's getting done.

We've had a couple of catastrophes along the way, including the loss of the marble slab that was supposed to go on the wall behind our cooktop.  The adhesive didn't hold, and it crashed to the ground into a gazillion pieces, damaging our floor tiles and cooktop cabinet in the process.  I never even got to see it installed.  :o(  The other catastrophe wasn't quite so catastrophic, I suppose, but it was supremely annoying.  Hubby and I spent DAYS and around $500 stripping the finish off our wood floors with a piece of crapola rental machine that pulled to the right so badly we could barely control it, but even after 20 or so passes over our wood floors, some finish remained.  We tried using hand sanders to tackle all of those spots (burning out one of our contractor's sanders in the process), but when we thought we were done and put on the stain, the floors looked horrible.  There were lots of areas that looked blotchy and cloudy, and we knew putting the polyurethane over the top would only accentuate the problem.  In desperation, we called a professional floor refinisher (which we had no budget for) and had him come and fix it.  His machine took the finish off in one pass.  I think I cried. 

This weekend our contractor should be here for 3 or 4 days, and I believe he's bringing more cabinets for us to paint.  I think we'll be finishing up the soapstone installation for the cabinets that are already in, trimming out doorways, and putting in our under-cabinet heating, but those are just guesses.  Next week I'm hoping to get our dining room painted so we can move our table in and get it stained.  It's still unfinished and is currently residing on our front porch.  Sigh...

Anyway, here are some pictures of our progress over the last 3 or 4 months. 

The old windows came out, and it's the first time fresh air came in through this hole in 12 years!

And the new windows go in.  We had them made to look like the others in the house.

The honed slate goes down.  (These were 18x18 tiles that Hubby cut in half.)

With black grout

Kitchen hutch doors, ready to be painted

My older boys and I painted the walls and painted the ceiling THREE times to get the right green.

Even though it was a lot of work, we had a blast!

The new windows look awesome, and we're digging the green ceiling

It's happy cabinet painting day (one of MAAAAANY)

Hubby paints

One of our inspiration photos for our dining room columns and paneled walls

Another inspiration photo

One of our columns.  My dad and I built these.

My pantry is getting pretty full!

It's even fuller than this now.  I can't wait to have all the cabinets installed!

More pantry prettiness

Oven wall cabinets going in

New flooring and paneled walls in the dining room (the panels will be white).

My dad opened up a doorway that had been closed up since the 30s.

It's starting to look like a kitchen!

Sanding the wood floor in the living room

Sink wall cabinets going in

I love my soapstone and farmhouse sink!

One of my favorite parts of the kitchen.  Can't wait until it's actually installed!

The new-old doorway connects the center hall to the south end of the living room.

It also gives us a lot more light at the base of the stairs

Our attempt at staining our own floors was disastrous.

This is what the professional did.  Much better!

A few more cabinet doors installed

Want a little "catch-up" with that?

I'm sure no one will want to read through what will be a giant post, so for your perusing ease and comfort, I provide bullets and bold letters.  I leave it to you, dear reader, to pick and choose the topics you give a darn about.

• J1's graduation, May 24, 2011  So my firstborn son graduated.  I laughed, I cried, I cried some more.  I kept seeing in my mind my little 2-year-old J1, chasing after a ball in our yard in Salt Lake.  How he managed to grow up so fast and graduate from high school is beyond me.  It feels like I just blinked and he was grown.  

J1 with his bestie, M at their graduation party.  The cake is a replica of M's truck, on which they put many miles.

J1 and his girlfriend, M, who also graduated

The best graduation gift a boy could ask for!  A new haircut! (and a new Martin guitar)

It's really happening!

J1 and me

We seriously couldn't be more proud!

• My 40th birthday  As if one major milestone wasn't enough, I turned 40 on June 5th.  I'm still in denial.  The gall.  Anyway, the family threw me a nice surprise shindig, and I got some great gifts (which sort of helped soften the blow.  Sort of.)  My camera apparently wasn't thrilled about the whole thing and decided to switch itself to the "blurry" setting.

Surprise!

I have a sickening collection of aprons, which is ironic since as a teen, I swore I'd never wear something so demeaning

Chocolate.  And a hat.

An awesome new cuff.  Can you tell E is related to me?

•  Cute random photo, June 10th 

Yeah, they're zoning out in front of the TV, but they're zoning out together

• The Great Kitchen Gutting - June 17-26  While my sister and brother-in-law, J and J, were out of town, I conspired with my parents to completely gut and overhaul their kitchen in their absence.  We had a plethora of kitchen stuff (e.g., cabinets) that we'd ripped out of our kitchen, and my parents had a bunch of other stuff, like some money.  J and J rent their house from our parents, so it wasn't like we totally invaded their privacy and stuff.  We only a smidgen invaded their privacy.  And it was worth it.  We took the kitchen from 1950s blah to 2011 pretty-darn-impressive-for-the-budget.  J and J didn't get home until like 4:00 in the morning, so we didn't get to their faces, but they report having been quite disoriented.  (We also redid the master bedroom, painted their daughter K's bedroom, and did a little fixing up in the living room.  We joked that the only room on the main floor we didn't touch was the bathroom, but we did pee in it a lot. 

You can't really see it, but my dad built an adorable window seat behind the table

New flooring and double the cabinet and counter space

All the cabinets came out of our old kitchen and were painted white.  We reused all but the corner units.

•    Cute random photo, June 30th

Row, row, row your camping pads... (C, M, and B)

• Fourth of July craziness  The day started with the annual "parade," which is more of a hodge-podge assortment of bicycle riders, vehicles covered with advertisements, elderly people in power chairs, "clowns," and a few horses, all making their way down Main St.  But since most of the participants throw candy to the spectators, the kids do some serious arm-twisting to get us there each year. (There are no pictures, sadly, but trust me - I'm doing you a favor.)  Later in the day, we went to the park to listen to the bands play and wait for the fireworks show.  My brother-in-law, J, played keyboards and sang back-up with the first band, and the second band was made up of our oldest kids' friends (Z's boyfriend of the time being the drummer).  The music was lots of fun for the kids, and I enjoyed lying on the blankets and watching the fireworks explode overhead.  It really was a fantastic day.  

C, my dad, and M in the background

S, the patriot

Baby mosh pit

M and a couple of faceless friends  ;o)

•  Cute weird random photo, July 8th 

My fortune?  What the?

• Cute random photo, July 14

C: "B, do superheroes eat pancakes?" B: "Yeah, sometimes."

•   Cute random photo, July 15th

We drove around town doing surprise driveway art at friends' and neighbors' houses

•   A trip to the petting zoo, July 22nd

• Z turns - gasp- 16! July 19 (Photos taken July 24th)

There must be money in it

Sing with me: Sixteen candles...

Our purposeful Cake Wrecks tribute

Dinner in the sunroom since the kitchen is STILL not done

•   Cute random photo, August 4th

Various small people, making due with the lack of breakfast seating in the kitchen

•   J2 and E's 13th birthday, August 4th (pictures taken Aug 5 and 7)  And just like that, I have FOUR teenagers.  My tiny baby boys, who collectively weighed 12-and-a-half pounds at birth, are now full-fledged teens.  Shiver.  Good for them they're so stinkin' adorable.  And smart.  And talented.  Just like their mama.  ;o)

J2 and E enjoying their pre-pizza beverages

I love to see them smile.  Especially when they're not simultaneously torturing a sibling.

Aw, brotherly love

Ethan was shirtless, so he borrowed J's shirt for a photo

J2 looks like a deer in the headlights...

E and his favorite gift

J2 unwrapping a hoodie

•    And yet another birthday - B turns 5! (Aug 9)

Yet another truck for B's growing collection

His face says it all!

And again his face says it all!

It's little wonder that LONG hair didn't ignite!

•    Cute random photos, August 18th

Photo of L1 I snapped one day to email to her birthmom

Photo of J3 I snapped the same day to email to his birthmom

•    J1 turns 18 and moves into the dorms! (B-day Aug 18, photos taken over several days)  Earlier in the summer, we had applied for J1 to live in the dorms at the local college.  On the one hand, we felt a little like it was an unnecessary indulgence since we live less than a mile from campus, but on the other hand, J1 worked hard and got a full tuition scholarship, and he's had nothing resembling a peaceful study environment for the last several years of his life.  We decided he deserved to be able to live on his own if he wanted.  Unfortunately, we found out right away that the dorms were full and that he would have to go on a waiting list.  We were quite surprised when we found out a few days before school started that they did indeed have space for him! 

   

• B learns to ride a bike, August 23rd

   

• County Fair, August 25th

My littlest buddies

I think they had fun!

No, they're NOT all mine!

Hubby and me

C kicking back

Sushi at the fair!  (I'm pretty sure this is the last animal flesh I ever ate.)

Me and my bro-in-law on the zipper because our spouse were too chicken!  Ha!

•  First day of school, August 31  This was another milestone day for me.  Today, all 12 of my children were in one school or another.  None too young for school.  None being homeschooled.  It felt weird.  I didn't really know what to do with myself.  I felt sad because even my baby is in school now, but I also felt exhilarated at the prospects of being able to tackle some projects heretofore not possible.  Especially since our kitchen is still... not... done..., I realized that I can do a lot with those childless 4-7 hours each day.  I've never been one of those moms who counts the days until her kids head back to school, but I have to admit I've been enjoying the time I have.  I remember standing in the laundry room about the third day and realizing that I was all alone.  And that's why it's weird.  I haven't been alone in like 18 years.

Z, E (eyes closed), J2, L1

J3 and B

L2, M, S, and C

My little guys.  Sniff.

B and C are visible in this photo

B, after his first day.  Sniff again. 

• Cute random photos, September 25th  L2 got a weave just in time for school pictures.  She knows she looks good. 

•  New floors!  Early October  I will do a separate post outlining the progress we've made on the kitchen over the last few months, but I'll include this shot showing our in-progress wood floor refinishing (the guy is coming to put the third coat on tomorrow) and also the new doorway to the living room.  This doorway is original to the house but was closed up probably in the 30s when the parlor and library were turned into one big room.  I LOVE having the extra light at the foot of the stairs, and traffic flow is a lot better.  We're all really looking forward to putting our furniture back in place.  

Argh, matey!  Walk the plank! 

•  Vegging out  Our family transitioned to vegetarianism over the summer, and a month ago, Hubby and I became vegan.  It started out as a 30-day commitment (thanks to Colleen Patrick-Goudreau's "Thirty-Day Vegan Challenge"), but we are sticking with it.  All of our meals at home (breakfast and dinner) and sack school/work lunches are vegan, so the kids' only contact with dairy and eggs is when they're given snacks at school and so forth.  We've decided that's not a battle we can take on right now, and they'll have to make decisions when they're away from home about how best to handle each situation.  We know that 90+% of their meals are healthful and animal product-free, and that makes us feel pretty good.  I will be doing another post soon about the reasons we chose this path.  There are many.  :o)