contrasts

I made these oatmeal & raisin cookies sometime a few weeks ago. They were delicious, but super fall-aparty, and a wee bit too sweet. One thing that I did with this batch, that my mother-in-law does often, is to take some of the batch of dough, form it into balls, and freeze them. They can go directly into the oven at a lower temp (25 degrees lower, and baked for a wee bit longer) anytime. It's a smart way to double a recipe and have some on hand for when company's coming. (Oh, and that's Adam's hairy wrist, not mine.)

At the other end of the eating spectrum, I made my first green smoothie today! We had a giant bag of swiss chard in our CSA basket this week (you have NO idea how happy it makes me to be able to type that!) and Adam can't eat it. (There's a long list of things, and some of the others are mushrooms and spinach. Hardly fair!) So I was trying to figure out what to do with it, since I really don't care for cooked greens. Purely a texture thing - I love the earthy flavour. So I whizzed a bunch up in the blender, along with some cucumber, some blueberries, and water. And a wee bit of maple syrup, because we were out of bananas. Not bad at all, and Phillip loved it. So I'm definitely going to play around with ingredients (I think avocado would be delicious and nice and smooth) and let you know when I come up with something perfect.

Do you make green smoothies? Maybe I should say 'smoothies with greens'? Any suggestions?

I hope that you're having a lovely week!

squish sqwaash squash

Squash are something that I've never grown in the yard before, although we eat lots of them through the fall and winter. Last summer, I tried growing some at my parents' house, but the deer got to them approximately the day after I looked at them and said, "I think I'll pick these the next time we visit."

We have about a bazillion teeny-tiny squash on the way (the largest one so far is about the size of my fist) and I couldn't be more excited. Phillip loves how fuzzy the leaves and blossoms are, and so do I.

This is usually the scene around here: Phillip is a blur, and Thomas just quietly looks at him with fascination.

I spent most of a day at home with the boys today, while Adam is doing a portrait session with a couple. I am not used to this, and every time it happens, my respect for moms who look after children primarily or entirely by themselves grows exponentially. It's the little things, like being able to pass a baby to someone while you pee, or pause to drink a glass of water that I take for granted much of the time. This certainly isn't to say that that's all that Adam does - holy smokes, quite the contrary. He is an amazing dad to our boys and is ridiculously patient and gentle with them all of the time and he does so much stuff to make things go smoothly, it's amazing. We've settled into our two-parent routines for meals, bath and bedtimes, and without having a new one-person routine in place, things feel a bit chaotic when I'm on my own.

So, at the end of the day I'm feeling two things:
1) I can't help but feel guilty for letting Phillip watch a video (we don't have a TV, so he is occasionally allowed to watch videos on the computer) while Thomas is sleeping, just so I can have a few minutes to whip the kitchen into enough order to get supper ready. I feel as though I should be having him 'help' me, or have designed a beautiful and clever activity for him to do, to keep him occupied. Maybe this would be a more reasonable aspiration when he's a bit older - right now, I know that no one would get anything accomplished, and I would end up frustrated. So I think I'm over it.

2) Triumphant! Both boys were sound asleep by 8:00, which is a little bit late, but fantastic. At 7:30 I didn't think that there was any chance whatsoever of that happening, so the day was a success.

I hope that you've had a lovely weekend. Yikes! It's August! Well, happy August.

soaps available Monday!

I will be delivering a pretty pile of soaps to Yarmouth Natural on Monday morning, so if you're local, you'll be able to get your fix! There will be plenty of Fragrance-Free bars, which have been extremely popular lately, especially with moms of little ones having skin troubles. I'll also be taking some of my new Lavender bars, coloured with alkanet root powder, and the ever-popular Peppermint Poppyseed. There will also be French Clay olive oil bars, pictured above. Like the Fragrance-Free bar, these are also unscented, and make a perfect shaving bar with a dense lather that creates a nice barrier between the razor blade and skin. They're also extremely mild - the only ingredients are saponified olive oil, french green clay, and sodium hydroxide.

So stop in at Yarmouth Natural on Monday and pick up a treat for yourself!

habit - july 31

habit - july 31, originally uploaded by birchbarksoap.

I'm sorry that this is the last day of the habit group, but I'm tickled pink that we received our first CSA bushel today as late subscribers.

(Click on the photo to view full-size.)