Riz au Lait and Winter

The weather outside is frightful, as the song goes.  It's down right frigid with the wind chill reaching below zero.  Icy patches glitter in the sun but refuse to melt.  The leftover snow has frozen into a white, crisp sheet.  This morning was supposed to mark the end of winter break for the sprites, but schools are closed for the next few days as we wait for the earth to warm up a bit.  I, on the other hand, had to return to reality.  University campuses rarely close for changes in the weather.  So I bundled up to leave our lovely little holiday cocoon.  My cheeks felt the sting of the wind instantly. Within a few minutes of scraping ice off of the car my fingers were hurting through my gloves.  But the cold air felt amazing in my lungs.  I took deep breaths.  Personally, I love the cold.  I feel most alive when its freezing outside.  I would trade a snowy winter day for a steamy day in the summer every time.  

I got to campus safely, despite the ice.  Walking to class was a challenge.  I only slipped once, and recovered gracefully.  Well, as gracefully as one can when falling on ice.  I started the day full of optimism.  I had the cold to push me on and the knowledge that this is my last spring semester of school.  I'm so close, I can see it.  All I have to do is survive until August and I'll finally graduate.  And it only took me ten years longer than my peers.   Not that I'm that easily distracted.  It's just that I managed to squeeze in a lot of life between starting and finishing.   The one thing standing in my way at the moment:  French.  My fourth and final semester of french.  Three semesters and still, je ne sais pas le francais bien.   It's the class I'm fearing the most right now so, of course, it's the class I began my semester with.  

We began class by interviewing a classmate and then presenting them to everyone else.  After we got through the trivial things like names, majors, and hometowns, my partner told me in halting french that she had spent her break in France.  OK, I'm jealous.  Very jealous.  She stayed with family friends and while there she fell in love with something the hostess made.  Riz au lait.  With my minimal french, I mentally translated that to rice in milk and thought, really?  With all of the other french desserts I know of, you fell in love with rice in milk.  Then she started to describe it and I thought, she means rice pudding.  When I got home, I decided to look it up.  It is, in fact, rice pudding.  Now, I've had rice pudding and it's not particularly life changing.  Maybe there's something else to the way the French make it?  Based on the recipes I looked at, it seems riz au lait is a little sweeter and thicker, more like a custard, than what I've always known as rice pudding.  But then again, looking at a bunch of different recipes, I began to consider that maybe I've just had bad rice pudding.  

Luckily, I made way too much rice for last night's dinner.  So I decided to experiment.  I didn't like any one recipe that I found so I combined a few elements from various recipes for riz au lait specifically.   And what I got was something wonderful.  It was creamy and sweet.  The rice melted into a lovely custard.   We all agreed that it was a wonderful, warm desert for a winter's night.  I will definitely be making this again.  Especially if the weather stays wonderfully cold.  I know everyone else is eager for the return of warmth, but the cold doesn't bother me, so I say let it snow.    

Riz au Lait

2 cups of cooked white rice

1 1/2 cups of almond milk

1/4 -1/3 cups sugar

1 Tbsp unsalted butter

pinch of salt

1 tsp of vanilla extract (or 1 vanilla bean split open, if you have it)

cinnamon for sprinkling 

Combine rice, almond milk, sugar, butter, salt, and vanilla on the stove top.  Cook on low heat, stirring often to prevent sticking, for 30-35 minutes, or until thick and creamy.  The rice should be soft, almost melting, not al dente, and the pudding should be neither runny nor dry.  Spoon into bowls and sprinkle with cinnamon.  Best eaten warm, but it does make a lovely cold late night snack. Optional:  a handful of raisins could be added while cooking.  Unless your children, like mine, happen to think raisins should never be mixed into anything but rather eaten alone.  

Weekends Are For...

teaching small hands to make pastry,

 beautiful, earthy meals,

and reading in cozy corners.

Today as we wait out this winter storm, I'm reminded that we are so very blessed.  We are warm, well fed, and content here in our cozy little apartment.  As the temperatures plummet to below freezing, I'm thinking about others who can't say that and praying for their well-being.  I'm also praying for my own sprites.  May they always know warmth, in home and heart. 

Peeps and Eggs and the Cross

Our Easter is a series of events that center on family and love:

We move the cross around the circle throughout the season of Lent.  Observing the passage of time and honoring the life of our Savior.  This is our act of remembrance.  It is first and foremost. It is essential.

Then, a few days before Easter, we roast peeps and we smash them up into s'mores because, well, it's a whole lot of fun to roast a sugary yellow chicken.   All families have odd rituals.  This just happens to have become ours.

 Following our sugar rush, we hide glow-in-the-dark Easter eggs.  This recent addition to our Easter celebration came about as a creative way to keep older kids interested in egg hunts.  It is 100% successful.  We hide eggs until long after bedtime, until we crash from adrenaline and sugar. 

When we wake up the following day, around noon because of the aforementioned crash the night before, we dye Easter eggs.  We're a pretty artistic family, so every year we try to find a new way to dye eggs.  This year, I decided on a science lesson.  If you put oil in the dyed water it creates a marbled effect on the eggs, allowing for several colors on one egg.  They were all sad when we ran out of eggs to play with.  I personally think they turned out beautifully.

On Easter morning we rise and, wearing our spring best, we go to church to celebrate our Savior. 

After lunch we still do a traditional egg hunt, though I think we've almost left this stage.  Only the little one truly enjoys the search.  The other two are good sports though, so they still play with her.  Chris hides and the girls seek.  Although I have to say that Sicily is so competitive that she would find them alone, which is what ends up happening by mid-afternoon.  She even changes out of her nice sandals into tennis shoes for the hunt.  Egg hunting is serious business to that girl!  The cat is also an egg hunting participant. She follows the egg hider around, waits until she doesn't think anyone is looking, and then pounces on the egg.  I think she's disappointed every time she finds that it's not a real egg.

After all of this, we spend the rest of the afternoon enjoying the beautiful spring day, remembering the love that was given for us and offering one another the same.

Happy Easter!

Thirty Days of Thankful

Every year all of my favorite bloggers and websites issue challenges to list thankfulness.  You've seen them.  They're usually called something like "thirty days of thanks".  It is, after all, the month of Thanksgiving.  So it seems appropriate that we should get into the spirit of things.   (Which, by the way, is to be thankful and not to just stuff our face with turkey and cranberry sauce, in case you were wondering.)  Yes, each year I see these challenges and I think to myself, what a wonderful idea, but it's just one more thing to commit to and what if I fail at it in some way?  What if I forget a day?  What if I can't think of something one day and I realize just how shallow and discontent I am?  What if you realize how shallow and discontent I am?  Well, so what if all of those things happen?  Isn't that the point; to realize that we are ungrateful for our very blessed lives and grow in a spirit of gratitude?

I think I'm at a place in my life where I need to do this.  I need to record just how lucky I am to live the life that I do.  I'm in this place somewhere between where I was and where I want to be.  This place is rife with discontentment and frustration.  Not to mention, it's exhausting to travel from point A to point B.  I'm working  as hard as I can, but some days I feel like a hamster on wheel, going nowhere fast.  I have to stop and remind myself that what I'm doing is good work.  It has a purpose.  I'm where I need to be for this moment.  And here in this place is a whole lot to be thankful for.

So here I am.  Committing to thirty days of thanks.  Actually I've decided to participate in The Joy Dare from A Holy Experience.   Ann makes it easy for those of us who are new to making lists of thanks.  She refers to the blessings in our lives as gifts.  I like that.  Life is a gift and all that fills our lives are gifts.  We aren't guaranteed any of it.   I believe it's transforming to think in those terms.  A gift is something to be cherished.  For that reason, that of transforming my mind (and heart), each day I will list three gifts that I'm thankful for, according to the Joy Dare categories.  Seems easy enough.  Of course, I say that now, on day one.  You'll have to forgive me if I miss a day or two or three.  I'm trying.  It's not about perfection but rather process.

On this first day of November we are to list three gifts eaten.   This was hard.  Not because I couldn't think of anything but because  I could think of far too much.  But here is what I've narrowed it down to.

• Bechamel Sauce.  I made a lovely bechamel tonight.   This is no small thing.  I have been trying, and failing, to make a decent bechamel for years.  I know, it's suppose to be easy, but I mess it up in some way every single time.  Tonight, though, it turned out just right.   I needed that success today.  I also needed the family dinner time that followed.  I sat at the table listening to my children share stories of their day and knew that there was no other place I'd rather be.  Just me, my sprites, and a warm pasta in a lovely bechamel sauce.  As busy as our lives are, family dinners are still a priority.  It centers us and brings us together, if only for twenty minutes.  I need that time and so do they. 
• Steak, potatoes, and eggs.  I have this dear friend who was recently given over 90 eggs from a local farmer friend.  That's a lot of eggs.  So she shared.  This same friend also happens to be from Idaho.  On a recent trip home, she dug up bags and bags of potatoes.  So she shared.  My mama was in town recently and stocked my freezer with steak (and my fridge and pantry with treats as well).  Can you say steak and eggs, steak and potatoes,  eggs and hash browns...I can keep going, but I think you get the idea.  I'm thankful for friends and family who take care of us by feeding us well.
• Jelly and Jam.  In my pantry I have jars of my grandma's grape jelly.  The boy won't eat any other kind.  Every year she says that it's her last year to make jelly.  "It's too much work," she says.  But each year she makes more.  We're very glad she does.  The same friend mentioned above gave me some of her mama's jelly.  It's raspberry and blackberry jelly.  It's delicious.  In my pantry I have blueberry jam that I made and canned with a friend.  Just looking at the jar reminds me of a good time full of laughter and sharing.  I also have strawberry jam made from strawberries that my children helped me pick.  All of these jars represent the tradition of women who preserve the harvest and pour themselves into making good things to eat for their family and friends.  I love everything about that.  I'm thankful for all of these women, for tradition, for homemaking, nurturing, and delicious jars of sweet jams and jellies that represent all of these things.  

Blueberries For Me

Earlier this summer (much earlier) we did some blueberry picking.  (Just file that under the list of posts that never got written.)  You know we love our seasonal pick-your-own outings.  Blueberry picking is especially fun for me.  Blueberries are my "obviously God love me" treat.  The little blue fruit is one of my absolute favorite foods.

A few years ago I got to take a lovely trip to Maine.  I had blueberries with every meal, except one, and that meal was sad indeed.  On the last night of the trip I ordered blueberry pie with my meal, like I had at every other meal during the trip.  Shortly after ordering our waitress came back and told me that they had run out of pie.  I almost started crying.  Seriously.  I love blueberries that much.

Now I admit, a Maine blueberry and a Southern blueberry are two different things.  But each is wonderful in its own way.  If you've never been blueberry picking before you really have to do it at least once.  Though I promise you'll be hooked once you've gone.  There is nothing quite like eating a blueberry picked right from the bush.  Hot from the summer sun, it's a burst of sweet juice in your mouth.  Absolutely delicious.

When we pick blueberries I can't help but quote "Blueberries for Sal" as I move along.  Not only do I love the book, it also turns out that my kids pick blueberries much like Sal.  Three blueberries in the bucket...kuplink, kuplank, kuplunk. And three blueberries in their mouth.  Then they eat the three blueberries that were in their bucket as well.  All the while, I'm working silently, filling my own bucket, thinking about ways to preserve the blueberries so that we can enjoy them for months to come.  I guess Robert McCloskey knew a thing or two about mothers picking blueberries with their children.

Even with the children eating their weight in blueberries, we managed to come home with three gallons of fruit.  It helped that my mom and grandma were helping us pick. One adult per child made the chances of getting home with a decent amount of berries a little greater.  All in all it was a wonderful day with very delicious rewards.

Strawberry Lassi

I don't think I'm going to get to make strawberry jam this year.  The sprite's have just about eaten all of the strawberries!  Yes, that means 20lbs of strawberries were eaten in a week!  In their defense, we did have strawberry shortcake twice. And we've also tried out a few other strawberry related recipes that I've found through some of my favorite blogs and websites.  Our favorite, the one that's been repeated almost every night this week, is called a Lassi.  It's a traditional Indian drink usually made with mangoes.  But this recipe calls for strawberries.  It's kind of like a smoothie.  And it's wonderfully refreshing and delicious!  I always think about taking pictures too late so all I'm left to show you is this:

Personally, I think the fact that our glasses are always empty is a testament to the recipe.  This is one you have to try.  And try it now, while the strawberries are in season.  Strawberry drinks are always best with fresh, ripe, sweet berries.  

You can find the recipe at Ambrosia, an easy to follow food blog that I like to check into occasionally. 

 And now I must leave.  I have a little blonde sprite pulling on my sleeves and asking me to make another pitcher.  Hope you enjoy it as much as we do! 

Strawberries For Jam

Three berry

Four berry
Hayberry
Strawberry

Finger and pawberry
My berry, your berry

Strawberry ponies
Strawberry lambs
Dancing in meadows
Of strawberry Jam

-from Jamberry by Bruce Degen

It's strawberry season! So we took our annual trip to the strawberry patch. Lot's of strawberries were picked. Strawberries for jam. Strawberries for strawberry shortcake. Strawberry milkshakes. Strawberry pie. Strawberries and cream. And just plain, sweet strawberries piled high in a bowl and eaten while hammock swinging in a nice spring breeze.

If You Let a Boy Make Cookies...

It started like this...

just a boy and a double boiler. But somewhere between that and this...

I ended up with a kitchen that looks like this...

You have to be careful this time of year.
Otherwise you may decide to let a boy make cookies.
Which will lead to you getting caught up in the baking.
Which will lead to remembering all of the people you should bake for.
Which will lead to approximately 300 cookies and some candy on the side.

Treats anyone?

Comfort Food

We have had a very busy week full of emotions. Hard homework that brought tears. Bad attitudes that needed readjusting. Hard homework that brought bad attitudes that brought tears. The parents around here are tired and overworked. The older two kids are grumpy and completely over school. And the little one, well what can I say, she's a mischievous little sprite.

Oh, well. The weekend is upon us. But first a little pick-me-up in the form of a platter of chocolate chip cookies.

Apple Preserving Days

I disappeared into the kitchen a few days ago. I finally came out this morning smelling of cinnamon, cloves, and tart apples. I've been apple preserving.

I love preserving. It connects me to the generations that have come before me. I'm going through the same motions that hundreds of women before me have gone through. I love the beauty is such tradition.

When I start setting out mason jars, I am instantly in a hundred year old farm house. I can see the linens on the clothes line out of the window. A chicken coop stands behind it and a fishing pond beyond that. Of course there's a vegetable garden. And everywhere there are wildflowers. Very old school, I know. But this daydream sings deeply to my spirit. I love to let myself sink into it.

Preserving seems daunting to some people but it's really quiet simple. It goes a little something like this. First you open the last jar of apple butter from last season and realize it time to go apple picking.

Then when you get your wagon load of apples home and once you've tired of tripping over the bags, it's time to get out the Ball jars. I find rows of steaming clear jars to be very beautiful sight.

Then you spend the next two days peeling and cutting up apples. Alright, that might be a bit of an exaggeration. But just a bit.

Then you start to cook them into whatever form you like. The whole house starts to smell delicious.


You stir until your arm threatens to fall off. After all, you spent two previous days peeling and chopping. So you bribe your daughter with candy corn to get some help. Oh, like you don't bribe your kids with candy. (Note how fast her arm is moving. She's obviously much better at it anyways.)


If you're making apple butter or apple sauce, eventually your apples start to look something like this. If you're just canning apples, you're already done. I recommend just canning apples. Then again, apple butter is so very good for your soul.


Once your jars are steamed, filled, and processed you are left with all kinds of sweet, apple goodness. We have apple butter, apple sauce, apple pie filling, and cinnamon apples. Mmmm. Can you taste it? Nothing daunting about it. Just a little work with a big pay off. And if your like me, you'll have a lovely little daydream to carry you through.