Ratatouille!

...also known as the "can't keep a good woman down" meal ...or "remember, the mandoline is sharp" lesson...or "how to continue slicing, while thumb is wrapped in kitchen towel!"~you get the idea

Before heading into the oven.

I had found this recipe for making ratatouille similar to in the movie "Ratatouille." *Personal favorite movie!  I thought it would be a great way to use vegetables from our amazing CSA.  Unfortunately, the recipe sat around in my "to try" folder for a year before I worked up the courage to try it. It is really unfortunate, as it it relatively easy to make.

Yummy and fragrant after the oven photo!

**The mandoline does most of the work, except next time I will hand-slice the eggplant. Eggplant is too spongy to work with the mandoline~resulting in an unfortunate episode whereby I tried to extract eggplant from the mandoline~somehow forgetting that the mandoline is incredibly sharp and I do not possess super-healing powers....

Child's plate

I doubled the zucchini, to compensate for not having yellow squash and took liberties with the color of the peppers. Instead of goat cheese, I just hit everything with fresh-grated Parmesan at the table. I served it over couscous with hand-breaded, tenderized pork chops.

Enjoy the before and after photos.  I am including a photo of my youngest kiddo's plate~complete with marinara sauce for dipping.

Enjoy!
~Tracy

Any Body Want a Biscuit?

A certain seafood restaurant chain makes these amazingly addictive biscuits.  Last night, the girls and I decided to surprise Daddy and have them with the roast I was preparing in the slow cooker.  We found this recipe online and tried it out.  The only things I changed were I added a sprinkle of garlic powder to the biscuit dough while mixing and we only had shredded cheddar-jack cheese.
We found that the girls could help with most of the recipe, except the placing into the oven.  I would post a photo, but they were eating the biscuits before I even sat down at the table! I may tinker with the recipe, to make it healthier~but then again that may defeat the purpose of such a tasty treat.

Enjoy!
~Tracy

Spring photos~A Glimpse

This spring seemed to fly by in the Christie household.  As soon as meet season for gymnastics and production season for theater ended, we seemed to be thrown into summer and it's own "busy-ness."

We enjoyed the beginning of life in the nest just outside our front door.  (*Unfortunately, we learned that was terrible placement for a nest as the neighborhood cat destroyed it. There was much sadness, even the pizza guy asked about our baby birds!)

For Mother's Day, Marc and the girls replaced the hibiscus plants from the previous year. *The deer were the culprits in this case~They ate all the buds over the winter. :(

I love the new plants! They seem to explode with color each morning.  It puts a smile on my face as I return with my morning mocha. (Still working on giving up the mocha...maybe I can begin taking a morning "cuppa tea" out to check the flowers.) One morning this week, ten flowers were open.  The six on one plant made it look like a bouquet.

Lastly, an impromptu stop at a yard sale after the Farmer's Market,  led to the discovery of this beautiful bench which looked hand-crafted to my specifications!

They were kind enough to hold it while we ran home for the checkbook and a larger vehicle to transport it home!


Add to these events, weekly trips to pick up our CSA basket, lots of yummy meals planned (some actually prepared!), lots of gymnastics practices, family gatherings, illnesses, Marc working diligently on his website in his free time, replacing our roof, home schooling, play dates... and you will have a pretty good picture of our life this spring.

~Tracy

1st CSA Baskets Bring Yummy Eats!

I was thrilled to see what a bountiful amount of rain would bring in our CSA baskets at the beginning of the season.  The answer was enormous green onions, mild and spicy radishes, rhubarb, asparagus, spinach and loads of greens!

Green onions always scream stir-fry, dipping sauces and spring rolls to me~so I immediately bought a pork tenderloin to marinate. For the pork tenderloin, I use this recipe from AllRecipes. It is simple and tastes wonderful.  My only big change is cooking at a lower temperature (325) for 90 minutes. I also alter the measurements of ingredients, depending on supplies and mood.  I sometimes use Thai Chili sauce in a lesser amount, but usually just a Garlic-Chili Sauce instead of a paste. I like that I throw it together in a plastic bag and basically forget about it until the next day when I place it into the oven.  We eat it with rice and stir-fried veggies. I boil the sauce from the tenderloin (adding some more brown sugar) and serve it alongside as it can be a little too spicy for the kids.

There is usually way too much meat for one meal.  Soon after removing it from the oven, I place 1 tenderloin into aluminum foil and into the refrigerator. I thinly slice it and reheat for a meal of spring rolls. We use lots of thinly sliced veggies, spring roll wrappers, reheated stir-fry veggies (if we have them!), the reheated tenderloin and various dipping sauces.  The girls love that they can make their own.  Of course our youngest has recently taken to using the wrapper like a candy bar wrapper and then discarding it on her plate.  Maybe it's a 5 year-old thing?

Maybe I will get back around to posting photos soon.  The spring rolls can be quite pretty ;)

Enjoy!
~Tracy

Never & Can't...

When I was in college, I met a man named Stanley Shipp.  Anyone who knew Stanley was inspired by him, as well as by his wife, Marie.  He once said to my friends and I to be careful about saying we will never do something.  Whenever he said he would never do something, he knew that was exactly the thing he needed to do~even if it meant packing bags and moving overseas!

Since then, I have been pretty careful about saying never.  However, I have found that saying I can't do something has the same effect on me. (Now, someone else telling me I can't do something has a somewhat different result~that could be another blog someday....)

I remember being asked to do mission work in Romania for the summer of 1991.  Initially I said, "I can't do it." Having just returned from teaching in Scotland, I couldn't imagine traveling overseas the following summer. But Romania wouldn't let go of my thoughts.  I called the team leader before midnight the deadline day to ask if a team of 6 could become a team of 7. (I don't think it was exactly the eleventh hour, but it was close!) My time in Romania remains important to me today, it's part of me.

*After I started writing, I realized the only other past examples are too personal to share in a blog~sorry. 

Quite a bit of my time teaching was spent saying yes to every opportunity that came my way.  "I can't" wasn't a part of my teaching. I loved the challenges and opportunities: teaching, taking classes, sponsoring the newspaper kids, working with peer mediators, kids in the room before and after school, creating curriculum...This may have contributed to some pretty major burn-out by the time I left the classroom.

I have since learned to say "no" to things without saying, "I can't."

Until tonight....A volunteer opportunity came up and I said, "I can't."  Since then, I haven't been able to let go of the feeling that I actually can do it.  So here I am blogging at midnight, since I cannot sleep..thinking that tomorrow, I will be writing an email saying I can do it after all.
~Tracy

CSA season opens!

I know, it's been quite a while since I posted....Hopefully, I will find the time to post about all the great produce we are picking up each week at our CSA, as well as the fun meals we are enjoying. 

New this summer, we will be receiving a meat farm share: chickens, lamb, a turkey and rabbit~oh my! (We were also lucky to snag a beef share for fall!) 

If anyone is still around in the blog-o-sphere, hang around there might even be some photos :o)

~Tracy

New, Improved Chocolate-Chip Cookies

The recipe for these is on America's Test Kitchen's website.  I cannot link to it, but there is a free registration to view recipes.  This one is from the Cookie Jar episode.  Go to the website's recipes section, choose desserts and then find the recipe for Perfect Chocolate-Chip Cookies. I used my mixer with the whisk attachment.  DD9 was able to manage the mixer and timer, so it's possible I can turn over the cookie-making duties in the near future ;) We usually make Toll House Cookies, but this recipe is my new go-to for chocolate-chip cookies! Chewy, gooey, chocolatey~just YUM!

Perfect Christmas Gift!

So I need to brag about my husband's gift to me this past Christmas...Dance lessons!  It's something I have wanted to do as a couple for quite some time. He gave me a dance package which includes private lessons, group lessons and parties!  He even asked if there will be dancing at my high school reunion this summer. 

Unfortunately, anything we learn in class will not be helpful for dancing at the reunion if songs from the 80's are playing ;)  (To give you some idea, one of our yearbooks was titled, "Another Brick in the Wall.")

We attended our first private lesson and it was so much fun!  So far, our instructor has taken us through the fox trot and rumba.  It involved a lot of going back-and-forth across the (empty) dance floor. There was a feeling kind of like being on a first date, with your spouse (and a dance instructor!).  I was told to not worry about my feet being stepped upon and to look over his shoulder.  He was told to look beyond me, possibly because of the goofy faces we were making....

For me, the most difficult part is not being the one driving this "shopping cart" as the instructor puts it.  My background involves being in charge and lots of leading.  Often, I am not only "driving the shopping cart," but choosing U-scan to check out~yep, a little bit of a perfectionist and control-freak....

So I am working on the whole "shopping cart thing."  I'll let you know how it goes...or maybe I'll be a little too busy dancing with my husband to write ;)

~Tracy

"Building a Fence"

So, after living with the deer in our neighborhood and their habits...http://withoutwords-tracy.blogspot.com/2008/09/reason-to-like-skunks.html.   We are finally going to build a fence this spring! Actually, we will have someone build it, but we will choose the fence :)

I have truly enjoyed watching sweet little "bambi~fawns" in our backyard.  Although, after the group that ran right past DH & the girls who were playing in our very small backyard, I became less happy about our proximity to "our deer-friends."  ***I should say that I grew up in "the country," and never had as many deer in our yard as we have in the city!

More recently, there was the group that ran across the highway, hitting DH's car right in front our van (driven by me) this fall.  Now, there are deer eating my precious hibiscus~my birthday gift!  I think this has become a very dysfunctional relationship with the deer~so time to build a fence.  (I thought we could maybe move and not leave a forwarding address, but that's not a very mature solution~right? And I am pretty sure that they are deer everywhere...)

I think that after placing some boundaries into our relationship, I will grow to love the deer again.  *provided they respect the boundaries...

I am really looking forward to gardening without the deer-threat this year.   Hopefully, the neighborhood cat will respect the fence.  Although, I expect we will be seeing him anyway~he is a cat, after all...

Maybe I will post photos of the fence~I know my few readers will find it as thrilling as I do :o)

Hopefully, I will have other things to write about and the time to do so soon'ish... 
~Tracy