dead spiders and newborn kittens

 If anyone needs us, we'll be under the deck talking to our five new kittens. And by "we" and "us" I mean my two little boys who race to the back porch every morning before breakfast to watch the kittens fumbling around the back yard with their mama before retreating to the shade and quiet of the back deck.

 

 

The timing for kittens is providential, because we finished reading Charlotte's Web together last week. My four-year-old looked at me in horror when we reached the end and said, "Charlotte DIES?!" 

 

Thankfully, though, there's this week, where new kittens are helping to make spider deaths more bearable. And as a result, the two big kids are doing a lot of pretending to be Charlotte, Templeton, and Wilbur throughout the day, with a fair amount of "My name is Zuckerman, and I'm going to chop you up into bacon, Wilbur!" tossed in for good measure. 

 

Side note: If you haven't heard a three-year-old sing, "Fine swine. Wish he were mine. What if he's not so big?" thirty times in a row, have you really lived?

 

 

Watching my daughter swing in the front yard while chatting with herself, one of her favorite things to do, brings back memories from my own childhood where I spent a lot of my days . . . swinging and chatting with myself. Yesterday she told me excitedly that she found Charlotte and pointed to a spiderweb and spider hanging from the tree. Then she asked, "Why is she not talking to me though, Mom?" only to be told by her brother, "Animals only talk to animals." 

That settled that.

So if you stop by our house and are referred to as a pig, a goose, a spider, a rat, a Lurvy, a Fern, or a Zuckerman, please don't take offense. We're all animals all the time right now, and for farm kids, I can't imagine anything much better.

eMeals: the hungry girl's answer to meal planning

Who here loves to eat?

I mean, meal plan?

Me too.

I'm a little Type A in most things -- ok, all the things -- but not having to worry about what we're going to have for supper when I'm hungry, my farmer is headed home after a busy day, and two little people are begging for food is helpful.

The hitch is that I don't like leftovers. Or vegetables. Also, healthy food. Or really anything other than cereal and tacos and chicken salad because I'm basically a three-year-old at heart.

Whenever I'd sit down to meal plan, I'd spend an hour looking through cookbooks only to end up annoyed and frustrated that -- say it with me -- "there's nothing to eat."

My husband loved that.

No, really. He did.

But if there's one thing I've learned from my dad, it's that you don't get to gripe about things. You have a problem, you find a solution, you fix it, you move on to the next thing. Bam. Cross it off the list. No indecision. No whining. Identify it, rectify it.

Thus, eMeals.

I did it. I signed up.

Now I get a weekly email containing a meal plan for an entire week's worth of suppers. It includes the recipes as well as a grocery list.

(For my Iowa people, "supper" is "dinner." Don't try to understand. I don't get it either.)

You can also get weekly recipes for breakfasts, lunches, desserts and special occasions. (Cinco de Mayo chicken enchiladas with red chile gravy, roasted tomatillo and poblano salsa and mexican street corn, here we come!)

It's a year-long subscription, so even if I decide to cancel it when the year is up, I'll have a pile of good recipes our family can use, and I won't have to go through the agony of not knowing what to cook ever again. It's already planned for me!

There are several meal plans available to choose from -- low budget, low calorie, clean eating, quick and healthy, kid-friendly, paleo, etc. -- and you can switch between them as often as you'd like. Right now, because all I really want to eat is donuts (I blame the baby . . . this can't possibly be my fault, right?), we're trying the clean eating plan, where "The only things added or processed are convenience and efficiency."

I'm not really a "clean eating" kind of gal. I mean, I'd prefer they add some CrunchWraps and a giant pizza, and then process me up a pan of Scotcheroos and some chocolate milk, but I'm trying here. Mostly.

And so far, everything's been good.

Not, you know, homemade macaroni and cheese good but close.

We've enjoyed honey-ricotta toast with strawberries and almonds for Sunday brunch . . .

turkey bagel sandwiches with a zesty feta spread and balsamic grape salad for lunch, and a chicken peanut stir fry with a sauteed snap pea and bell pepper toss for supper that my husband gave five stars.

We've had a Mediterranean chicken and quinoa salad we both really liked and a chicken caesar pasta salad that will become a summertime staple.

This week we're trying out citrus flank steak with veggie kabobs, Greek hummus-coated chicken tenders with roasted broccoli and tomatoes, and a tuna-cucumber-tomato salad with baked pita chips.

All to be followed with a gallon of ice cream.

Ok, or at least crunchy fried ice cream or chocolate chip cookie dough sandwiches.

Yeah, I bought the dessert plan too.

What'd you expect? A miracle?!

baked egg baguettes

 

I have long contended that being pregnant over Thanksgiving and Christmas is just mean. You go to the doctor's office for your appointment -- having enjoyed all manner of mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie and Christmas cookies and hot chocolate -- and then the nurse asks you to step on the scale. 

Rude. 

At my doctor's office, there's a magical button on the scale that you can push if you want to see what your weight is. Otherwise, the nurse has a readout that you never have to see . . . if in fact you ate an entire batch of snickerdoodles the week before and just don't want to know because the truth is too painful. 

 

And it is almost always too painful. 

I don't suppose loving bread has anything to do with my fear of the dreaded doctor's office scale. Or my doctor's kind yet ominous threat: "Let's not be eating entire pans of brownies for the rest of this pregnancy, ok? We're just not going to do that." 

Killjoy. 

So for the rest of you who can eat bread and bacon and cheese with reckless abandon, eat an egg baguette for me, would you? Please? 

Or even two if you're feeling charitable? One for the baby, you know.

Beat the eggs, add the cream, stir in the gruyere, slice the baguettes, sprinkle on the bacon, bake them, and then -- better yet -- YOU gain the weight from eating eight of them instead of me. 

Do we have ourselves a deal? I'll just be over here . . . standing on a scale . . . slightly horrified.

Or maybe I'll go ahead and eat one anyway. Not for me, of course. Baby's the one who's hungry.

Yeah.

Baby.

Baked Egg Boats (recipe from Spoon Fork Bacon)

4 demi sourdough baguettes

5 eggs

1/3 cup heavy cream

4 ounces pancetta, finely chopped and fried until crisp

3 ounces gruyere cheese, grated

2 green onions, thinly sliced
salt and pepper to taste


1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Cut a deep “V” through the tops of each baguette until about a 1/2 inch to the bottom. Partially unstuff the baguettes. Set aside.
3. Place the eggs and cream into a mixing bowl and lightly beat together. Whisk in the remaining ingredients and lightly season with salt and pepper.
4. Divide and pour the mixture into each baguette boat and place onto a baking sheet.
5. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown, puffed and set in the center. Season with salt and pepper.
6. Allow to cool for about 5 minutes, cut and serve.

bread inside of a cake

Being the baby of the family has its advantages. Your parents aren't as strict with you as they were with your siblings. Your bedtime is a little more flexible. 

And you don't have to cook the Thanksgiving turkey, no matter what age you are, because you're the baby, and babies just don't know how to do that very important adult-ish stuff.

Clearly.

What we CAN handle, however, is bread. 

Or cake. Or bread cake. Or brake. Or ca-ad. Kind of like turducken but more carby.

The instructions are super difficult, so you have to follow closely.

(1) Bake pumpkin bread. (2) Cut out said bread in the shape of pumpkin. (3) Bake the shapes inside a pound cake. (4) Eat. 

But don't be deterred. It's totally do-able. Maybe even more do-able than roasting a turkey. 

Plus, you get to load up on the scraps of the bread that don't get cut into the shape of pumpkins. 

I also cut turkey legs out of pumpkin bread, so I'm pretty sure that almost counts as making my own turkey, right, Mom?

Mom? 

You can use pound cake and pumpkin bread mixes or make your own from scratch. I do recommend adding a little pound cake mix to the bottom of the pan before stacking your cut-out bread inside it. 

Otherwise the bottom of your pumpkins/turkey legs get a little cut off, and if you're showing up to Thanksgiving with something as awesome as this, you can't afford one little flub-up. 

Older siblings are all over that nonsense. 

Once your bread-cake-combo-of-deliciousness has cooled, slice that beauty up and impress the turkey legs off the rest of your family. 

But mostly your older brothers and sisters. 

They can brine and roast and fry their birds. But only YOU can show up with a pumpkin inside a cake. See? Being the baby really does have its advantages!

day 19 of farmacology: national pumpkin day

One of the things you may not know about farm folks is that

we make do.

I've always dreamed of having a cute front porch display during the fall, complete with funky colored pumpkins and bundles of corn stalks and brightly colored ears of Indian corn. 

So basically like my mom's front porch.

But we have dogs. Four dogs. And if last year is any indication, a pumpkin would last about ten minutes before it became pumpkin puree spread across the lawn. 

Soooo . . . until our puppies quit teething, we make do with a close second: pumpkin granola and a house that smells like cinnamon. 

It's almost the same-ish. 

Granola lasts about a hot minute in a house with a farmer who likes to snack while he reads, so a double batch of granola is always a good idea. 

Better still, I actually had all of the ingredients on hand  . . . for once: oats, nuts, brown sugar, vanilla, even pumpkin and some caramel baking bits for good measure.

Add some pumpkin puree and some pumpkin pie spice, and our house was left smelling like a virtual pumpkin patch. 

Scratch that. 

Better still, like a pumpkin pie.

Our front porch may be a little -- ummmm -- minimalistic thanks to three puppies and a patient dog, but our house is smelling -- and tasting -- like fall. 

See?

We make do! 

Want to read more of my 31 day farmacology writing challenge? Click here. 

Cinnamon Pumpkin Granola from Creme de la Crumb

• 3 cups rolled oats
• 1 cup chopped nuts - such as Diamond of California (almonds, walnuts, and pecans all work well in this recipe too)
• ½ cup coconut flakes
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1½ teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
• ½ cup honey
• ¼ cup brown sugar
• ⅓ cup oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3 tablespoons pumpkin puree

1. Preheat oven to 325 and lightly grease a large baking sheet. (Preferable one with a raised edge)
2. In a large bowl combine oats, nuts, coconut, salt, cinnamon, and pumpkin pie spice.In another bowl whisk together honey, brown sugar, oil, vanilla, and pumpkin.
3. Pour the wet mixture mixture over the oats mixture and stir to coat well. Spread the mixture onto the baking sheet in an even layer and bake 15 minutes, stir, and continue to bake in 10-15 minutes intervals, stirring well between each, until the granola is uniformly golden and no longer moist (for me this was a little over an hour but it will depend on your oven).
4. Allow to cool completely (the granola will crisp a little more as it cools.) Store completely cooled granola in airtight containers for 1-2 weeks.