Too much sunshine?

Me as a baby when the dramatics began...

As I've been exploring the little world of Bloggers I've come to the conclusion that there are too many sunshiny, crafty and all around perfect Blogger Mommies out there.  These Blogs are full of beautiful craft projects and perfect baking and stunningly beautiful "show home" houses.  On top of which, the photos of these Mom's all seem to be skinny, gorgeous, well put together women, smiling out from their photos without a care in the world, professionally taken photos nonetheless.  The Blogs are sunshiny and happy and annoying!  Who the hell has the time to look that good, have a perfectly organized and clean house, craft, bake and be all ...sunshiny? 

Most days I look like I got dragged through a bush backwards.  If you wear socks in my house you inevitably get a piece of something sticky stuck to the bottom of your sock.  I trip over toys constantly, swear, and keep right on going so the toy remains in position for the next tripping opportunity. 
However, I am happy, my kids are loved and happy but organized and crafty too??...nope, never gonna happen.  Neither is skinny so I might as well get over it.  I'm all about the reality of working, parenting, being a wife, being a maid in my own home, living with anxiety and the bloody laundry that never ends! 

Most women I meet are in the same boat but so few are reluctant to admit it initially. I love the real women I've come to know in my life, they are awesome and fun and great Mom's and every bit as crazy as me...I think, either that or I'm just crazy and they're trying to be nice.  My point is simply that I don't think those Blogs are a true reflection of most peoples reality, I could be wrong but I bet those Blogger ladies get tired of trying to look perfect.  For my part, I won't bother with the deception, too many of you have been to my house!

I'm also a little perplexed by all this talk of "balance".  To me it just is another way to make women feel like they should be able to do it all without complaint or strain, all they need is "balance". WTF??  If I'm working I feel like a bad Mom, if I'm home with a sick child I feel like a bad employee, if I go out with friends I feel like I'm missing out on family time if I bail on plans with friends to spend time with family I feel like a bad friend.  I could go on and on but let's just say I generally never feel balanced.  I'm always choosing and juggling, trying to keep everyone happy, including myself, without losing my mind.  Lovely husband might tell you the mind is loooong gone but he's stuck with me.
In terms of cooking today, I opted for what my mother-in-law calls the working mother's best friend: The Crock Pot.  One hunk of beef, some potatoes, some carrots and a package of Club House "pot roast" powder (thank-you Lisa!). I can't wait to get home and smell a yummy dinner cooking away on it's own!  That's my "balance" for today.
J.

French Onion Soup is goooood.

Last weekend I decided to make French Onion Soup a la Julia Child.  The secret to this divine soup is the cooking method of the onions and the right cheese of course.  It's a meal unto itself, very hearty indeed.  Allow yourself 2 1/2 hours to make the soup although a lot of that time the soup is simply simmering.  It also freezes really well so feel free to double the recipe.  Sorry I have no photos to share, I could have sworn I took some but now I can't find them...so either I did and lost the files or I didn't because I'm scatter brained this week...alas.  Just trust me, the soup looks delicious because it is.
Julia Child's Onion Soup
5 C yellow onions, thinly sliced (about 1-1/2 lb)
3 Tbsp. butter
1 Tbsp. oil
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp sugar
3 Tbsp flour
2 qts boiling brown stock  or canned beef bouillion (I used Campbell's beef stock)
1/2 C dry white wine or vermouth (I used Vermouth)
salt, pepper to taste
1 French baguette, cut in 3/4" thick rounds
olive oil
1 clove garlic
Good quality mozerella or brick cheese, shredded

Cook the onions slowly with the butter and oil in a heavy covered saucepan for 15 minutes. Add the salt and sugar, raise heat to moderate and cook 30 - 40 minutes, stirring frequently, until the onions have turned a deep golden brown. Sprinkle in the flour and stir 3 minutes. Remove from heat.
In a seperate pot bring the stock to a boil then pour into the onion pot. Add wine, season to taste, and simmer partially covered 30 - 40 minutes, skimming occasionally. Correct seasoning. If not served immediately, return to a simmer before serving.
Bake the bread rounds on a baking sheet in a preheated 350º oven about 30 minutes, till hard and lightly browned.
Pour soup into individual oven-proof soup bowls (this recipe can make 6), put bread on top of each and shredded cheese, place under broiler until cheese is all bubbly.

Happy Cooking!

One of those weeks...

It's how I roll baby!

Well, I've been a little absent from my Blog because it's just been one of those crappy weeks.  And yes, it was also PMS week, one can tell because Lovely husband can be found quietly tip toeing around the house for fear of setting off the beast.  Combined with a busy week at work and the usual to-ing and fro-ing of our little family there just didn't seem to be a moment to be creative and write. 
This week also resulted in a massive anxiety attack.  For those of you who don't know me well, I have a Generalized Anxiety Disorder, which is controlled for the most part, mostly by avoiding anything that makes me anxious.  However, this week I had such a pressure in my chest I was dead certain that I was in fact having a heart attack.  After humming and ha-ing and almost going to the emergency room, I took myself to the doctor.  I explained the pressure in my chest and the horrible anxiety and a host of other symptoms and that I was probably having a heart attack, going to die young and leave my children motherless!  She did not jump to her feet and call an ambulance, no, she said:
 "Those are not normal thoughts, you are having an anxiety attack"
" But it's been days!" I wailed.  "And I'm not stresssed or upset!"
"Yes" she says.
So, after a drink and an Ativan and the reassurance of having blood tests and an EKG, it seems I was not having any sort of heart attack, just a lovely anxiety attack brought on for no reason other than my screwed up chemistry.
Now, the comment she made about "normal thoughts" got me reflecting because these may not be "normal thoughts", and I can tell you they're not always fun thoughts, but they are mine nonetheless and they live in my head everyday.  These thoughts and I have to learn to live together and for the most part we rub along well enough, not always in agreement but tolerating one another.  The thing is, this time the anxiety was sneaky!  It wasn't brought on by "not normal thoughts", those thoughts followed after Mr. Anxiety creeped in and started crushing my chest.  When one has this physical pain it seems reasonable enough to me to jump to conclusions but apparently this time, the thoughts and I were wrong and just making Mr. Anxiety thrive.

Now, I should also mention that I tend to go about my daily life with my "abnormal thoughts" swirling around in my head and this makes daily tasks just a little more daunting then maybe it would be for someone who doesn't have anxiety.  I don't know because I've always been this way and it's just how I live.  Every trip in the car could be our last, everytime I leave my kids it could be the last time I EVER see them, every time I go to the grocery store I forget why I'm there and kinda panic, every time I get sick I freak out because this time, it's a terrible disease!
Lovely husband is used to me, he just smiles and nods and reassures but I awlays secretly think
 'Yes, but THIS time I'm right and we will crash the car and you'll see I was right!"
Thankfully I'm never right, but worrying continuously that one day a disaster will occur is futile because we all know that one day a disaster WILL occur.  I know in my head that this is futile but me and my thoughts just can't help ourselves. 
And so, Keep Calm and Carry On my friends.
J.

Family fun??

Winterlude 2012

This weekend was supposed to see us relaxing up at the MacNab family cottage, nestled on the edge of beautiful Algonquin Park.  Instead, we had 3 out of 4 Macnab's struck down with a lovely cold virus where one coughs until they barf.  Also, we've had unseasonably warm and dry weather so instead of the great outdoors being coated in  mountains of fluffy snow, the great outdoors in coated in an ice shield comparable to Serbia.  All of this to say, that this long weekend we chose to do a "staycation".  Owen was only mildly disappointed we weren't going once he found out that our staycation would comprise restaurant visits, an elusive experience for the poor lad as Lovely Husband and I are loath to inflict our little family on a room full of diners seeking to have a quiet night.  In fact, my father once went to a restaurant with us where a minor meltdown occured over a milkshake.  Notice I said "once" went to dinner with us, once was enough for him.
This morning we headed of to Jacques-Cartier Park to enjoy a little Winterlude family fun.  I would like to be able to say a lovely time was had by all and we all pranced about serenely in a lovely winter wonderland.
But that would be a bold face lie. 
What did in fact happen, was upon arrival Lovely Husband was confronted with having to pay $8 to pay for parking.  This irks him, it irks him real bad.  But he calmly paid and off we went where the first attraction Owen saw, and began begging to try was a rock climbing wall.  This was a $5 activity.  We'd only been out of the van 5 minutes and Lovely husband was already down $13.  In resignation he handed me some cash (because I never have any on me, a little quirk of mine he knows too well) and took the littlest boy off to enjoy toddler fun while I stayed with bigger boy.



Owen rock climbing

  The next hour and a half was funish, if you consider crowds and cold and sliding down an ice covered surface at a hundred miles an hour in your jeans "fun". 
A fuuny thing about ice slides, the heavier you are the faster you fly down the hill.  I left Owen in my fat ass dust!  The people at the bottom of the hill had a decidedly concerned look as a giant red ball skidded uncontrollably in their direction. 
Nevertheless,  what matters is the kids had fun, the whole point of this excercise.  John and I both agree that left to our own devices we'd have been sitting on the couch watching a movie but that hasn't happened in
4 1/2 years so we'll just keep to our daydreaming. 

Ian-"I have to pee!"

So now it's time to leave and littlest boy, who has been most resistent to toilet training and has peed in his pull-up all week says "Mommy, I weelly have to go bafroom!"  To which I replied "Pee in your pants kimosabe"  The thought of removing all outerwear and layers of clothing in a frozen portable toilet stall was in no way enticing.
The plan was to go to a local diner for lunch on the way home.  I had a club sandwhich and chocolate milkshake on the brain.  However, bigger boy begins to have a huge display of tantrum in the van which prompts Lovely husband to have a hissy fit of his own as we are all tired and hungry and listening to the tantrum while trying to find parking was too much for Mr. Infinite Patience. 
After parking (finally), unloading boys and walking to diner we discover it is a half hour wait for lunch.  No dice, so off we go again, back to van, load everyone in, more tears ensue.  We make our way to a
Pizza Pizza location for some cheap and fast but mediocer food where we share a small space with a family with 8 kids who were so badly behaved that Lovely husband actually looks relaxed, smiles and says: "I'm glad we did this, for once our kids aren't the worst behaved in the room."  We all need to get our joy somewhere I guess.
Another adventure accomplished, I hold out hope for a smoother day tomorrow but in the meantime I'm just glad we survived all the "fun" of our staycation today.

Cooks and their Books

My well loved copy of MtAoFC

Last week I was purusing my copy of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French cooking when I decided to hunt down my copy of Julie Powell's book "Julie and Julia".  For those of you who don't know what or who I'm talking about here is a link:
http://juliepowellbooks.com/books.html
Anyway, it occured to me that in times of stress and boredom and or both, I turn to cookbooks such as  Mastering the Art of French cooking, for fun and inspiration and relaxation and I remebered that this was what Julie Powell did as well.  Her ennui with a boring government job made her search for that "something more" that we all look for at such times.  I can definitely relate to the boring job but in my case I chose to be where I am in order to have a family friendly environment, plus my boss is as nice as they come so I really can't complain, it's just, well...boring. 

Anyway, a couple nights ago after the kids were asleep I decided to look for the Julie and Julia book.  Turns out that although it's been a year since we moved to this house this book was still packed away somewhere...but where?  We have about 20 boxes of books still packed away as we've no actual place to unpack them too.  After hunting up on the 3rd floor where the kids playroom and said boxes of books reside, I was still without my book.  Now I'm pissed off, now the "I can't find anything in this mess!  This house is a disaster!" rage begins.  Lovely husband suggests that perhaps it's in the basement but now I'm mad and tired and just leave it for a night.  The next morning I tromp down to the basement and the rage begins anew.  First I have to clear a path through inumerable types of "stuff" piled all over the floor before I can even get to the stack of boxes and plastic containers where my book might be hiding.  Luckily for me and everyone else in the house, the sought after book was in the first box I opened.

I have been happily re-reading this little jem which has been hiding away for a couple years.  It's a great read although Julie is a lot angrier than I remember but this resonates with me, this internal rage, where does it come from??  Lovely husband has PMS week pegged and just steers clear, keeping under the radar as best he can.  But for Julie and for me, the cooking seems to make things a bit better.  The cooking is relaxing and soothing in a chaotic world.  True, things don't always go to plan but at least if you're having a bad time cooking it's still better than a good time at work.

An Anthropologist Chef

Given my love of all things British and my love of cooking it was sort of inevitable that I would get a crush on Jamie Oliver.  He's certainly not hard on the eyes, but what I really like about him is his passion for cooking as a cultural phenomenon.  He seeks out the driving force behind a regions cooking and their relationship with food and I find this fascinating. 
I identify with this ethos because it's how I feel as well.  It's not strictly about the food or the presentation of a dish but rather a social and familial base where we cook for the love of others as well as  for love of food.
Cooking brings people together and my kitchen and home are often filled friends and family who share a meal with us and this brings me true joy.
I think I might have been an Italian of Jewish Mama in another life because I am compelled to take care of people by feeding them.  It makes me happy and I hope it makes them happy too.
Could it be that getting back to real food is as simple as the family itself?  Taking the time to cook for each other, nourish each other and on some days try not to kill each other!  There are many ways to feed a family without cooking everyday, but for me the cooking is as nourishing to our family as the food itself.

Happy cooking!

Homemade Chicken Soup heals what ails you..but only if you eat it.

Chicken Soup and buttered Irish Brown Bread

This is a week of sick little boys.  Coughing and fevers and snot inspired me to make a batch of homemade chicken soup.  "This will make them better!"  I thought. 

 So on sunday afternoon I simmered stock for 3 hours.  Then yesterday I completed the soup with some veg and chicken and noodles.  I also baked a hearty Irish brown bread to accompany said healing broth.  Dinner time came along and I proudly presented my soup and bread to the sick little ones, confident in the food's ability to provide comfort and wellness.  Owen looked at it and said: "I want eggs", Ian looked at it and said (rather loudly) "I don't like soup! I don't and I don't and I don't! I want jammy toast!"  I see.
So, John and I enjoyed the delicious soup and hearty bread while the kids ate eggs and toast.  Pick your battles I guess  Mom-0, boys-1.

Recipes:

Chicken soup

In a large pot, add:                                             

1 chicken carcasss

2 onions chopped in 4 with skins on

2 rough chopped celery stalks

2 rough chopped carrots

a handful of fresh thyme
coarse black pepper
a few good pinches of coarse salt

Bring to a boil, stir, put lid on pot but leave a venting space, and reduce heat to a gentle simmer.  You'll have to fiddle around to find that sweet simmer spot on your own stove top.  Simmer for about 3 hours, check on it and stir every 20 minutes or so.  Although I have left the house for a couple hours with stock on a gentle simmer.
Once done, put a sieve over a smaller pot and dump in the works.  You should be left with a lovely golden broth in the pot and I just dump out the stuff left in sieve.

In a seperate pot I boil some finely chopped carrots, when they are just soft, I add 2 finely chopped stalks of celery for about 2 minutes, just to soften celry a bit too.  Strain the veg and dump in soup pot.  I then add chopped up chicken (you can use chicken from the carcass you used to make stock but if you haven't got any you can use some baked chicken breasts or stripped off a grocery store cooked chicken, one breast and thigh is usually plenty for a nice meaty soup) and bring to a boil. 
Throw in 2 or 3 handfuls of a small pasta and cook until pasta is tender (about 5 minutes).  Remove from heat and serve!
**The reason I boil veg sepaerate is because I don't want all that lovely broth to evaporate on boiling veg, I find this works best for my tastes.  If broth is a little bland you can add a bit more salt to taste or a stock cube if needed at the end.
In terms of the chicken carcass, I tend to freeze mine after a roast chicken dinner for the very purpose of making soup.  If you don't feel like roasting your own chicken just use a cooked grocery store chicken but they can have a lot of extra salt so you might not need as much salt in your broth. 

Irish Brown Bread

Pre heat oven to 400 C.
In a large bowl:
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
3 tbsp. wheat germ
3 tbsp. wheat bran
2 tbsp. brown sugar
2 tbsp. oats
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt

Cut in 1/4 cup chilled butter, use your fingers to smush it into the flour.  When butter is blended in, pour in   2 cups of Buttermilk.  I stir it around with the stick end of a wooden spoon.  If still a little dry, add more buttermilk 1 tbsp at a time, you don't want the dough too sticky and wet.  Flour your hands and knead dough a couple times, pick it up and form a ball, put on a baking sheet and flatten out to about 1 inch thick.

Bake at 400 C for 30-40 minutes.  It should be a dark golden brown and you can insert a toothpick in centre to check for doneness.

Serve warm with butter, yum!

This bread is also delicious for breakfast or with an afternoon cup of tea, served buttered and with jam.  John and I originally had this bread on our honeymoon, in Ireland  of course, and we loved it so much I hunted down a perfect recipe. 

Happy cooking!