Salt of the Earth

Aren't my grandparents just the cutest?! They made treasure boxes for the kids for Christmas. I had to get a picture with them.

They are super cool too. They just got home from a 30-something day long cruise up the east coast of Africa. They racked up three new countries on their list of how many countries they have been to. I think it is around 150.

They are also really charitable, loving people. They have volunteered at a bunch of different state parks and at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building at Temple Square. Yeah, I want to be like them when I grow up.

Ellie's Recipes

Eliza doesn't cook with us as much as she used to. Mainly because Miriam can't handle Ellie doing something that she isn't allowed to. (Yeah, good luck with that, kid! It is only going to get worse from here on out. :) ) Ellie still likes to help me cook and bake when she gets a good chance to. She likes to give me advice on recipes or make up a recipe all together. Tonight Ellie told me a new recipe for a treat: 1 cup white chocolate, 1 cup butter, 1 cup cheese, and some more chocolate. :)

I am sure I am not the only parent who is surprised to find out how much his/her child has been listening. John and I frequently talk about different food and recipes, but the other night Ellie interjected with, "Mom, you need to save this recipe, it is really good." It was so funny. Tonight after a particularly satisfying meal Ellie told me, "This recipe and the other Chinese one are my best recipes." I thought I should document which recipes are her best ones. Note how international she is picking an Indian and Chinese dish as her best. :)

Sweet and Spicy Stir Fry
by Allrecipes.com

• 3 cups broccoli florets
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - cut into 1 inch strips (or two more cups veggies!)
• 1/4 cup sliced green onions
• 4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
• 1 tablespoon hoisin sauce
• ½ tsp chile paste (Less! probably ¼ tsp per recipe)

• 1 tablespoon low sodium soy sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/8 cup chicken stock

Directions

1. Place broccoli in a steamer over 1 inch of boiling water, and cover. Cook until tender but still firm, about 5 minutes.
2. Heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat, and saute the chicken, green onions, and garlic until the chicken is no longer pink and juices run clear.
3. Stir the hoisin sauce, chile paste, and soy sauce into the skillet. Season with ginger, red pepper, salt, and black pepper. Stir in the chicken stock and simmer about 2 minutes. Mix in the steamed broccoli until coated with the sauce mixture.

Note: We made this vegetarian, served it on noodles, and doubled it. We just did 10 cups of veggies and sauteed it in the sauce. Also good with sesame seeds and toasted almonds.

Saag Paneer
by foodnetwork.com

• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1/2 tsp cayenne
• Kosher salt
• 3 T plus 1 1/2 T vegetable oil
• 12 oz paneer (Indian cheese, either store-bought or made from my recipe, recipe follows) cut into 1-inch cubes, see Cook's Note*
• 1 (16-oz package) frozen spinach
• 1 medium white onion, finely chopped
• 1 (1-inch thumb) ginger, peeled and minced (about 1 T)
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 large green serrano chili, finely chopped (seeds removed if you don't like it spicy)
• 1/2 tsp garam masala
• 2 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 cup plain yogurt, stirred until smooth

Directions

1. In a large bowl, whisk together the turmeric, cayenne, 1 teaspoon salt and 3 tablespoons oil. Gently, drop in the cubes of paneer and gently toss, taking care not to break the cubes if you're using the homemade kind. Let the cubes marinate while you get the rest of your ingredients together and prepped.
2. Thaw the spinach in the microwave in a microwave-safe dish, 5 minutes on high, then puree in a food processor until smooth. Alternatively, you can chop it up very finely with your knife.
3. Place a large nonstick skillet over medium heat, and add the paneer as the pan warms. In a couple of minutes give the pan a toss; each piece of paneer should be browned on one side. Fry another minute or so, and then remove the paneer from the pan onto a plate.
4. Add the remaining 1 1/2 tablespoons oil to the pan. Add the onions, ginger, garlic and chile. Now here's the important part: saute the mixture until it's evenly toffee-coloured, which should take about 15 minutes. Don't skip this step - this is the foundation of the dish! If you feel like the mixture is drying out and burning, add a couple of tablespoons of water.
5. Add the garam masala, coriander and cumin. If you haven't already, sprinkle a little water to keep the spices from burning. Cook, stirring often, until the raw scent of the spices cook out, and it all smells a bit more melodious, 3 to 5 minutes.
6. Add the spinach and stir well, incorporating the spiced onion mixture into the spinach. Add a little salt and 1/2 cup of water, stir, and cook about 5 minutes with the lid off.
7. Turn the heat off. Add the yogurt, a little at a time to keep it from curdling. Once the yogurt is well mixed into the spinach, add the paneer. Turn the heat back on, cover and cook until everything is warmed through, about 5 minutes. Serve.

Paneer: Homemade Indian Cheese

• Cheesecloth
• 8 cups whole milk
• 1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice, plus more as needed, see Cook's Note*

Directions

1. Line a large colander with a large double layer of cheesecloth, and set it in your sink.
2. In a large wide pot, bring the milk to a gentle boil over medium heat, stirring frequently to avoid burning the bottom (a nonstick pot works really well for this purpose). This will take a little while so be patient!
3. Add the lemon juice and turn the heat down to low. Stirring gently, you should almost immediately see the curds (white milk solids) and whey (the greenish liquid) separate. Don't fret, this is perfect!
4. Remove the pot from the heat and carefully pour the contents into the cheesecloth-lined colander. Gently rinse with cool water to get rid of the lemon flavor. At this point, you could squeeze out some of the liquid, and serve with some honey and some nuts, almost like a fresh ricotta!
5. Grab the ends of the cheesecloth and twist the ball of cheese to squeeze out the excess whey. Tie the cheesecloth to your kitchen faucet and allow the cheese to drain for about 5 minutes.
6. Twisting the ball to compact the cheese into a block, place it on a plate with the twisted part of the cheesecloth on the side (this will ensure your block of cheese is nice and smooth!) and set another plate on top. Weigh the second plate down with cans of beans or a heavy pot. Move to the refrigerator and let it sit about 20 minutes.

Cook's Note: *Paneer is very easy to make at home, and my recipe is quick, easy, and delicious. I also think homemade has a better teture than anything store-bought. If you'd like to buy it, this cheese is available in better supermarkets as well as specialty Asian markets. *If the milk doesn't separate juice some more lemons and add another tablespoon or two. Boost the heat again and the milk should separate. Stir in a motion that gathers the curds together rather than breaks them up.

Pearson's Note: We would recommend halving the cayenne because our kids are sensitive to spice. Also, the homemade paneer turned out way better than anticipated. It was great! I would do this a day ahead though because starting from scratch on the whole thing the day of made it kind of a project. Definitely worth it though!

Learning

It is so amazing to see the things that the girls pick up. I am amazed at how fast they learn sometimes. We have been working on teaching Eliza to read and write. Here she wrote one of her favorite words. "Bik."

These are Ellie's first notes to John and me. She sounded out the word 'from' as 'fim.' We'll keep working on how to spell words. :) 

Miriam has really taken off when it comes to trying to say words. She also really likes to point out body parts. Here is her nose. :)

I have been trying to learn how to do our hair better. I even tried to highlight my mom's hair! Yikes! It has been pretty fun though.  

Oh, and the real student at our house has been learning things too. John is collaborating with people from all over (Germany and Poland this week) and preparing different papers for conferences (Lake Tahoe and Turkey this summer).  It is weird to think about John actually graduating in August. Crazy!

From my journal: Last Saturday, Ellie achieved one of her reading goals so we got to go get frozen yogurt. Delish! She has been doing so well at reading. We have done several long vowel sounds this week. It is hard for her to want to do it, but the goals make a good incentive. She earned another reward this week so we are going to go buy some beads and make necklaces.

Norma and Hema came over last Saturday as well. She gave us some haircuts and we had dinner together. It was fun to play games with them after the kids were in bed. We want to spend more time with our families!

The week before last John went to Illinois for an overnighter. He interviewed at a company there. They were supposed to get back to us last week, but never did. Talk about a nail biter. The problem is that I don’t know if I even want them to offer him a job. I want to live near our families in Utah!

Glenn and Andrea come down and hang out in the evening every once in a while. It is fun, although the last time they were here, I guess they got a speeding ticket on the way down. Ugh.

My mom came down and stayed with us this week. We played games in the evening and hung out with the kids during the day. She even exercised with me. It was fun. One more noteworthy thing was that I highlighted her hair while she was here. It was nerve-racking, but fun.

February 10, 2013

Well, right now Ellie and John have the flu. Yuck! Poor guys. My grandma offered to pay for the tamiflu medicine for Ellie, so she has been doing better, but John has been pretty sick for a while. He has been working so hard recently. He has been getting two papers ready for conferences this summer. One is in Turkey and the other in Lake Tahoe. I think we get to go with him to the Lake Tahoe one. He has also been working really hard at trying to find a job. Near the end of January was the career fair. He went to that and got a couple of interview from that, which is good because it seems like he has been turned down for other jobs a bunch recently, specifically the one in Salt Lake that we were really hoping for at REI. L I am sure that something will work out though. There were a couple of rough days in there though. He kept getting turned down for jobs, the microwave broke, and the internet wasn’t working. Fortunately we made it though.

That Friday night (Jan 25) we spent the night at the Guinn’s house. It was kind of different, but fun. We had fondue, which was really yummy. Then after the kids were ‘in bed’ we played Dominion. After we played and were going to bed we found out that Madeleine and Ellie had been up playing the whole time. So of course this was absolutely insane for the Guinns, so we tried putting her in a different room, which didn’t work, so we moved her down by us. Yeah, it wasn’t a good night’s sleep. The next day we had waffles and gave Madeleine her birthday present. Then we took a trip to Costco where we got a new microwave, which ended up being pretty similar to our old one.

Then we went home and put the kids to bed for a nap. Afterwards we headed up to Ogden for a birthday party for Marc. It was an unusually fun dinner because mom put together some party games for the kids. ‘Don’t eat Pete’ ‘Chinese checkers’ ‘Target shooting with balloons’ ‘Bubblegum, bubblegum in a dish’ ‘Button button who’s got the button.’ It was really fun. Miriam did fall down the rock stairs though, which was so, so sad. She got some nasty bumps and bruises. Poor girl. It seems like she is always hitting her head and getting bruised on her forehead. Then we had a yummy dinner and came home.

The next day was ward conference, which didn’t affect me all that much except that in nursery the Stake President came in to tell us how much we were appreciated and a person that I work with insinuated that he was fat. Yikes! John’s counselor got put in the bishopric.

That night John did a fun date for us. We played “horse” with a bucket and a kid ball. For every letter one of us got, we had to do something, like lip sync a song. We did “Cowboy Casanova,” and “I want it that way.” Yeah it was pretty great. We also had cinnamon popcorn which was delicious.

The next day we had interviews with the bishop where we found out that John was for sure going to be released as Elders Quorum President the next week. It was kind of a happy/sad thing for John, but mostly just happy for me. I am glad he is going to have less on his plate to deal with. The bishop said that with John finishing up his Ph.D. that this would be a good time for him not to have an intense church calling as well.

That week we had a lot of Relief Society meetings. A preparedness meeting, where we talked about budgeting, 72-hour kits, and food storage. Then a parenting meeting where we talked about not shaming our children when we discipline them. Then the next night was a craft night. Poor John had the kids by himself three nights in a row.

That Friday night we did a date of yoga and looking at the Guinness Book of World Records. We made some bean cookies that were delish.

Ellie said a couple of really funny things that day. I don’t remember what we made, but Ellie said, “I can’t believe how much I like this.” Also, “I cook really good, but I don’t make very good.”

The next day we cleaned the house and went shopping. That night we had dinner with the Lindstrom’s. We had a fun time at their apartment and ate yummy food. The next day we hosted the Pearson dinner. It was nice. We did a soup night. We made squash soup and breadsticks. It was pretty crowded, but fun.

We had a pretty eventful week planned, but everything got cancelled because of the flu. John still had two interviews this week, fortunately they were phone interviews! Ellie said a couple of really funny things this week. She said something and ended it with the word “Obviously.” It was so cute. She also said, “Grandma’s tights got up to her head.” What a funny girl. Miriam is really trying to talk as well. It is super cute to see her talking. Her favorite words are “Mama, Uh-oh, poo-poo, and story.” So funny.

For our date this weekend, we took it a little easier because of John’s having the flu. So we got a pizza, made caramel apple nachos, and got a movie “Spiderman” It was really nice, but Ellie woke up with the flu during the night. She had such a high fever. Poor girl. Yesterday we had an ordeal trying to get Ellie her medicine, but it has made such a difference. She is acting almost normal today. Last night we went through a couple of old photo folders and saw a couple of home videos. Mostly I just can’t believe how silly John and I am in those videos. Also, Ellie looks so young in the videos of newborn Miriam. I hope everyone feels better soon. Also, we need to take more videos.