Weather-Induced Cabin Fever

(Photo taken yesterday by my friend Nick Romero. I told him I had to steal it.)
Southern California is having some type of El Niño revival and I'm not enjoying it. Fortunately, our house is above ground by about 4+ feet and we haven't incurred any flood damage, NOT that the water is that high but it has been raining nonstop since about Sunday (I think). The lack of sunshine really gets to me. I have been cooking and reading recipes out of boredom. That's not such a bad thing--better than drinking up everything in the booze cabinet!
Actually, my kitchen fun started Friday night when we had "Maki Night". I made several different nonfish maki rolls for Jose and the girls. After that I fried up some banana fritters. It was really fun for me to make this fun meal for them. They all liked it very much and even pretended they were at a sushi restaurant and I was the slow waitress/chef. And yesterday I made two simple but unusual potato salads: teriyaki was one and curry was the other. Raquel liked the teriyaki one. I put the curry one in Jose's lunch today and have yet to hear his opinion. I do not care for potato salad so I have not tried either one. I'm glad I have two guinea pigs to try my funky recipes.
Raquel has been home sick for two days. She will most likely go back to school tomorrow. Maxine only got a mild version of Raquel's flu. Jose and I are fine, so far. We have a couple of plans this weekend so I hope we stay healthy.
Thanks for reading.

Today's "Daddy Bento"

A "Daddy Bento" is a lunch I make for Jose to take to work on Saturdays (and sometimes Sundays) when he has an open house to do for a house he is selling. He has been trying to sell a really nice house in Arcadia for about two months now and it is having a very hard time catching an interested buyer. The problem? Feng shui, believe it or not. It is situated on a "T", meaning the cross street is directly in front of the house. Jose doesn't know the first thing about feng shui--all he knows is that people who come to view the house always mention it's bad feng shui. I read a book on feng shui 5 years ago, just for fun. I thought is was quite fascinating. I retained some of the knowledge and have tried to explain briefly to Jose the problem people have with the house. It doesn't matter if feng shui is "real" or not, if someone believes in it, it is real to them. Anywho...
In this bento, there is a tuna sandwich on whole wheat, some pickle slices, cheddar cheese slices, homemade swirl cookies you saw in yesterday's post, a hardboiled egg with salt and pepper, and some green "spinach flavour" noodles stirfried with asparagus and teriyaki sauce. I think he's really going to like this. I was just thinking about how much it costed to make this meal. I'm guessing less than a dollar. Wow!

Mommy, Can I Have...?

I'm in a frustrated-and-bored-mommy mood. Motherhood is not always cute, rewarding and filled with afternoons making Rice Krispy Treats. Once in a while I exist, mindless in a sea of laundry, lacking the energy to say, "Before you get out the Thomas toys, first clean up Ponyville," and the house quickly overflows with every crappy toy anyone has ever given your children. And when the toys lose their charm in the owner's eyes, the kitchen drawers are a convenient resort for non-toy entertainment. More mess. The last thing I want to hear right now is, "Mommy, can I...?".
My least favorite question: "Mommy, can I have a snack?". When I've heard it 4 times in one hour after you didn't finish your lunch, it really extra bugs me.
When I'm busy driving, don't yell, "Uh-oh!!" from the backseat unless something bad has happened, like, you wet your pants or something.
If I have already told you, "No, you're not going to play video games today." Don't ask me again and again to play video games that same day.
Don't follow me around.
Don't make your sister cry.
I'm sorry that you have a kajillion toys and you're still bored.
Everything will be better when school is in session. For me and for the kids.
Rant over.

Onion Breath

Grandma Emma gave me some of these really good onions that she received from a friend. I forget the name of them. Anyways, they're really good and sweet! I have had onion breath since she gave them to me yesterday :P Thanks a lot Granny Grunt!

Last night, Maxine astounded us. I got it on video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96zHBQBfDUs

Today after I did some early morning cleaning, I spent the afternoon catching up on other peoples' blogs. I would hate them to think I've been ignoring them. It's really nice to have time to do these sorts of things. Raquel went with Jose to his open house--from what I hear she was really a hands-on helper, showing people the rooms or entertaining children while parents looked around. I filled up a couple of lunch boxes for them and Jose sent me a text message that said, "What a great lunch!". That made my day.

Thanks for reading.

One of My Hobbies

Having little money and seemingly meager amounts of food you would normally eat can make one very creative and resourceful when it comes to cooking for the family. It has become kind of a hobby for me. When we did have a little more money in years past, I would flock to estate and yard sales to stock up on vintage cook books but back then it was only because I love(d) to read them and I admired the pictures and quaint graphics. I wasn’t really going to use them for their original purpose. The more I read, the more enchanted I became and pretty soon I was trying out the recipes. To this day, when I try a recipe I write the date and any notes or opinions next to the recipe right in the book. Some of these previously owned books have pencil marks from the 1950s with faded, lady-like handwriting stating the date and the event for which the dish was made. Little details like that really make a book that much more valuable to me.
Most of the dishes are extremely dated, a food snob’s nightmare, but charming as ever in my opinion, even if they don’t sound appetizing.

Salmon Cocktail Mold
(Recipe from The New Antoinette Pope School Cookbook, Second Printing, 1962)

2 cans salmon (doesn’t say what size!)
¼ cup chopped green onion and stems
¼ cup chopped green olives
½ cup chopped celery
About ½ cup mayonnaise or salad dressing thinned with 2 tablespoons lemon juice

Combine all ingredients and stir until well blended. Place in a small bowl and chill at least 1 hour.
To serve, turn out onto center of a platter, and with spatula go over mold to make it smooth. Garnish top with hard-cooked eggs, olives, or vegetables cut to simulate flowers, or as desired. Place crackers around base of mold.
Serves 8.

I made this recipe for a dinner party I hosted. If I remember correctly, nobody ate it. It’s a shame because I ate it and thought it was delicious. And I ended up polishing it off myself over the next 2 or 3 days. It isn’t attractive to the mainstream, in my opinion. It’s a big sculpted mound of light pinkish brown with tiny bits of green and red here and there. The hard part is the canned salmon, which I had never bought before—there are hundreds of tiny bones mixed in that you must pluck out by hand, unless there is some tool of which I’m unaware. The book this came from has tons of extremely dated, sculpted, unnatural looking dishes (think cream cheese dyed green and shaped into flowers and fruits adorning a gelatin mold salad made of chicken and peas). I love it.


Green Beans w/ Oranges
Easy; combines two well-liked foods
(Recipe from Farm Journal’s Country Cookbook, 1972 edition)

2 (10 oz) pkgs. frozen whole green beans
1 (11 oz) can mandarin oranges, drained
3 tblsp. butter
Salt and pepper to taste

Cook beans according to package directions, drain. Add orange sections and butter. Heat through; season with salt and pepper. Makes 6 servings.

That recipe above doesn’t sound very tasty to me but someone must’ve thought it was good enough to include in a DoubleDay cookbook. I found it when I was looking for ways to use the canned green beans in my pantry. Not sure if this is the way I want to use them.

Buttered or Cheese KIX
(Recipe from Betty Crocker’s Picture Cookbook, First Edition, 1950)

Each taste calls for another.

Melt in heavy skillet 5 tbsp. butter. Remove from heat. Stir 5 tbsp. Parmesan –type cheese, if desired. Add ¼ box KIX (4 cups). Sprinkle with ½ tsp. salt. Stir well.

Now THAT sounds tasty! I’ve never heard of using KIX cereal to make an appetizer. Did you know KIX was that old?
That was fun. Thanks for reading.

How to Melt Your Mother

When your mother doesn't know what to make for dinner and she decides to grill slices of banana and yam sprinkled with cinnamon, top that with vanilla yogurt, honey and pecans and serve it with cinnamon toast and turkey bacon and then asks you, "Well, how is it?"....Say nothing. Just bring her close to you and give her a hug. She'll say, "Hey, what's that for?" and you tell her, "That's because I love you and I want to say thank you for making me something I like." Trust me, she'll melt in your arms. And if you eat it all except for the pecans, she will be satisfied and not make you eat "those kinda peanuts" she didn't know you didn't like.

And then do your homework.

Not So Sure About School Lunch

(Raquel likes to make this face)

Preschool is still a happy place for Raquel. It has been one week since she started and she's doing very well at listening and getting up early five days a week. Her parents are enjoying this new schedule, too. Jose likes to get up early to take her to school. I get everything ready the night before, lay out her clothes, make breakfast. He gets her up at 6:30, brushes her teeth, dresses her, fixes her hair and off they go to Starbucks for Jose's coffee and then to school where he walks her to the classroom and signs her in each day. I have had to change the way I do things at night as to get Raquel to bed early enough and make sure everything's ready for the next day. But I like having this new routine.
I have noticed she's putting on weight and I'm not exactly sure why but when I pick her up everyday in the cafeteria (that's where the parents go to pick up the kids) lunch is usually something greasy, like pizza or a corndog. That's not how she eats at home. But I know that a lot of 4-year-olds are allowed to be picky and won't eat grilled chicken and brocolli on whole wheat pasta as readily as they will gobble down cheese pizza. So the school must go with the safer choice, the foods that most kids will eat without being prodded. I'm just going to wait and see if Raquel continues to gain like this. The girl is damned when it comes to her genetics and predisposition to get fat. When I was a kid, I remember asking my mom if I would get fat when I was older (she was, at the time, very overweight). She told me I would not get fat and that I didn't have anything to worry about. She was wrong!
Jose had always been "husky" as a kid and now he's technically "obese". Our kids have the potential to be really overweight and I have always been aware of that and concerned about it. This is why ice cream, candy, soda and Happy Meals are rare things in our house. Raquel is very good at eating what she's given, although there have been those phases of pretending not to like chicken and such, which is so frustrating when it happens! She is used to the taste of whole grains and veggies. But she's very smart, too, and if she is eating dinner at someone else's house, she'll act like she doesn't like anything which will result in people feeding her less healthy food. Yes, she's that manipulative! You are all a bunch of suckers in her eyes. HAhahaha!
And now about Maxine...Yesterday after I picked up Raquel from school, the three of us went to the Target by her school to get groceries. It was Maxine's first time sitting in a grocery cart and I had to photograph the moment. I put bulky blankets and toys in the seat with her so she wouldn't slouch too much or hurt herself. She is so tiny in that cart seat! She enjoyed the ride, behaved so well the whole time.

Fridge Detail

Cleaning the refrigerator used to be a tedious job. Uneaten leftovers and wasted produce were a big problem. Now that I cook almost every meal at home, using up all of our groceries and eating up all the leftovers, my fridge is so easy to clean! If you never looked at the shelf surfaces, you'd think it was a nice tidy fridge. But I know there is a sticky layer of dried on food leaks and with that, tons of germs. I forgot to take a before picture of the scum but you know what I mean.

We bought this fridge three years ago and have really liked it. I never had a complaint until today...

That gunk you see is not quite get-able. The plastic frame of this glass shelf is one solid piece. I don't see how anyone can get the glass out to clean the nasty bacteria hanging out in there. So, armed with a paper towel, I kept jiggling, wiping, squeezing and obsessing over this trapped dirt and eventually coaxed some of it out.

Maxine sat in her high chair playing with Tupperware while I worked. I finished and had a snack. She played with those little containers for a long time! Her real toys are getting dull, I suppose. And now I have a really pretty fridge.

Two Girls & Grilled Cheese

Today is Saturday, the day I get to eat what I want without regard to my breadless life the other six days of the week. We had such a sweet (too sweet, even) breakfast that I couldn't really think of anything else I wanted to eat today. So Raquel and I went to Trader Joe's and mulled around for a minute. We settled on sparkling limeade, fresh organic raspberries, pita chips, edamame hummus, a loaf of seeded sour dough and some gruyere cheese. And later on while she played her Strawberry Shortcake video game, I made a nice little dinner for two. We had Fancy Time. Raquel was thrilled I used the raspberries the way I did. It was her idea to buy them in the first place. Our dinner was quaint and fun and it made Raquel fall in love with her mom all over again. Psss....she followed me around the rest of the evening just to be with me.

Busy Day but Have Some Pics, Won't You?

Monday is a good day for us to accomplish at-home tasks together. Having Jose to help me by putting things in the basement and moving furniture around is so nice--it feels like we really get a lot done and our home is the better for it. When I'm home alone with the girls I only accomplish small feats like putting clothes away or unpacking one large box and finding places to put it's contents. I think it's kinda fun to unpack and figure out where to put things.

Here are the latest pictures of Maxine. She is extremely vocal lately, taking after her big sister Raquel. She was talking so much yesterday that we kept commenting about it and it was fun listening to her. Yesterday we also went to a new friend's house in Glendale to meet them and to pick up some baby hand-me-downs including this swing here:

Raquel had a hand-me-down swing, too, but she never liked it so we got rid of it before Maxine came along. Last night we let Maxine try her new swing and she liked it so much she stayed in it for almost 2 hours. It is a REALLY nice one and it was REALLY nice of our new friends to give it to us. And all I could do was give them a box of homemade cookies. It doesn't compare to what they gave us, which is also a few big boxes of baby girl clothes (that are adorable and from nice stores), socks and 6 pairs of the cutest little shoes. We're very thankful.

We're fine. Just moving.

Last time we moved, almost four years ago, we had one infant, not much stuff and went from a tiny apartment to a 1530 sq ft house. That was easy compared to what we've been doing this week--moving from that house to this house, which is about 1000 sq ft, maybe more, with a 4 year old and a 3 month old and a teen-age brother (or Uncle, depending who you are).
I actually like unpacking. It's a fresh start to organization and it makes me imagine the future, especially in our beautiful new kitchen. The house we're renting is from the early 20th century but the kitchen is from this century. I love it. As soon as I get it set up I'm going to be baking away, lots of Christmas cookies to make.
Maxine has outgrown her bassinet but we haven't had time or a chance to get her crib out of our portable storage unit that sits out on our curb. Raquel has spent the last two nights at my mom-in-law's house, very willingly. Tonight she will sleep here at her new home on her mattress on the floor. She thinks its fun. Right now she's taking a bubble bath. She gets so dirty playing outside on her new playground in our backyard. The owners put it in very recently for their children but they moved far away, so luckily it has Raquel to keep it warm.
Jose and I have had James to help us through this entire move. Whenever he isn't at school or work, he's helping drive truckloads of our belongings over here. Right now he's out looking for a new job. He turned 18 last week and is hoping to get a better job, close to our new home.
I like our house better and better. At first, without our things in it I thought it seemed teency. Too small for us. I kept saying to myself, "We will have to make it work." Well, it's looking better to me now. My bedroom isn't as small as I thought with our queen size bed in it and I actually really like the existing paint color. The dining room is a nice size, has nice curtains and paint color. The main bathroom is going to get some work done on it next week (paint, window frames, door frames, etc). The half bath is cute and comfy enough for poopin', we found that out after a good pot of coffee.
One thing I'm not crazy about and have never had to deal with: wood floors throughout (except ceramic tile in the kitchen and tile in the full bath). The wood floors look pretty but seem to need cleaning all the time which is something we can't practically do. I'm thinking we need a Roomba. The floors got cleaned yesterday but as of last night they were really dirty judging from my bare feet. I washed them before I went to bed. Today I've worn socks all day in the house and I can feel every speck of dirt on the floor under my feet. I can't stand it. Is this how it is when you have wood floors? Ugh.
Jose and I have been working nonstop this week and are getting exhausted. He wants to go to an asian massage parlor and get a couple's foot massage. I am with that.
Tomorrow morning we are going to do a final walk-through of our old house, take a few more plants and hand the keys over to the bank. I wonder what that's going to be like.

When I Can, I Do

Raquel really digs it when I make special meals for her. They aren't really special in terms of ingredients, just the way I present them to her. I don't have time to make fancy food. Goldurn, some times I don't even have time to make a well-rounded lunch! Thank goodness I always have leftovers to work with. This lunch is just defrosted frozen blueberries (no sugar added) with fuji apple slices, PBnJ on toasted hotdog bun with rainbow sprinkles on the outter edge, rotelle with butter and parmesan and a little canned corn with butter. This is as fun for me as it is enticing for her (maybe even a bit more).

Today is my first day off from work this whole week. By work, I mean my actual paying job at Starbucks. I will have a few fleeting chances to get some housework done while Maxine sleeps at tiny intervals during the day. This blog is being written little-by-little over a couple of hours time, in case you are interested in how I have time to type and upload photos. I have to do this for my own sanity. Maxine is up for many hours during the day which helps her sleep through the night but makes my day seem very choppy and stresses me out by dinner time, some times to the point of just wanting to cry after I get Raquel to bed. Right now it is a quarter after 2pm and so far I have done these things:

• give Raquel a bath
• make my own breakfast
• washed a few bottles
• work on my Family Chore Chart
• give Maxine a bath
• wash/dry 3 loads of laundry
• vacuum the living room
• Raquel's lunch

That doesn't include all the time I've spent feeding, diapering, lulling and carrying around Maxine. That takes up the bulk of my day. She's 11 weeks old today. Here's a picture I took of her during a non-fussy moment:

I don't think my husband likes that I blog as often as I do but it does make me happy and I like keeping my family and friends updated. Thanks for reading!