Easter Egg Hunt - Garden style

We had our first easter Egg hunt in a garden today. Our garden! This was such a fun thing to do with the kids. We all had a great time and were very grateful to Easter Bunny for indulging us.

We are beginning to appreciate how beautiful Spring can be with daffodils popping up everywhere, copious blossom trees, birds galore and a lovely verdant green. We never experienced anything like this at our home in sub-tropical Brisbane!

Battle of the Bulge(y) Mummy Tummy

Ahhh! It is such an eye-opener when one sees an unflattering photo of oneself. This photo was taken while we were on summer vacation last year. Yes, I was still breast-feeding Mietta. No, she wasn't yet one year old. Yes, this was my third pregnancy - and yes, it had been a little more difficult with an appendectomy at six months. Yes, I'm a little older now. Yes, we had a particularly indoor winter season... BUT, the shock of seeing this photo, and the realization that my 'mummy tummy' only got worse once we started living a rural existence - made me finally take some notice. Many years of living inner-city where I was able to walk to work or walk to the supermarket, or even walk to friend's places or kid's school, had a tendency to keep me in shape without trying or even noticing. Our current residence, has meant we now rely on driving far more and we do far less spontaneous exercise.

NO MORE! I am currently on a bit of a health kick. No drastic changes - just eating a little less and exercising a little more. My plan is to say goodbye to the bulge by Summer. Wish me luck!

Life is better with Lemonade

What a lovely way to welcome the official start of spring: some lovely spring weather. The boys found enough enthusiasm to suggest holding a lemonade stand. I think they may have set their expectations a little high after their experiences of well-patronized lemonade stands in Chicago - a rural Virginia setting is a little less 'fast-paced'. I wasn't about to argue with them - and so helped the boys to mix up a batch of homemade lemonade.

The boys sat for some time and were lucky to score several customers walking, driving past and a neighbor across the road who was curious enough to check out the offerings. Thirty to forty minutes of waiting, sampling, serving, waiting, sampling, waiting, sampling, waiting, serving, waiting... was enough to tax the attention spans of a six and four year old and they finally gave up. I applauded their efforts.

I heard this recipe for lemonade on the radio about a million years ago. It is so simple (in metric) as it uses the same amounts for each major ingredient. The recipe can easily be increased / decreased depending upon amount of ingredients on hand or the amount required. Any type or mixture of citrus can be used (lemon, lime, orange, kumquat, clementine, blood orange...) dependent upon personal taste.

HOMEMADE LEMONADE

Ingredients:

500 g white sugar

500 ml water

500 ml fresh lemon juice

peeled rind of squeezed lemons (using potato peeler and with no white pith)

Filtered, sparkling or soda water

Ice cubes

Slices of lemon

sprigs of mint

Method:

Place sugar, water and citrus rind in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Once sugar has dissolved, take saucepan off heat and allow to cool. Once cool, remove rind and stir in the fresh lemon juice*. This mixture makes a concentrate to be diluted with water.

Pour some concentrate over ice and add filtered, sparkling or soda water to taste. Garnish with slices of lemon and some sprigs of mint. Try 1 part concentrate to 3 parts water to start with and adjust to taste.

*When I used to have access to my mother's lemon and lime trees, we made the lemonade with fresh fruit. In the absence of this, use bottled juice.

Blueberry Bran Muffins

As an attempt to sneak some fiber into the kids, I set about making a 'treat' or a healthy-type 'cake' for the kids.

I loved grabbing a Banana Berry Bran muffin from Muffin Break in Australia for a convenient breakfast on my way from the gym to work... and wanted to create something similar.

I uncovered a much-referred-to muffin recipe book "Muffin Magic" by Diana Linfoot. I adapted one of her recipes into my own version below:

BLUEBERRY BRAN MUFFINS

Ingredients:

¼ cup butter

¼ cup Golden Syrup

2 eggs

½ cup milk

½ cup fat free yoghurt

1 cup wheat bran

½ cup plain flour

½ cup wholewheat flour

2 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp baking soda

1 cup blueberries

Method:

Preheat oven to 150℃ (300℉). Grease muffin pan or line with paper liners.

Melt together the butter and golden syrup. Beat in the eggs, milk and yoghurt.

Combine the dry ingredients (bran, flours, baking powder and baking soda) and fold into wet butter mix.

Gently fold in blueberries, taking care not to squash them.

Place mixture in muffin pan and bake for 20 to 25 minutes (or until skewer inserted in middle of muffin comes out clean).

Note:

The original recipe is for 10 muffins - I stretch this to make 12 'smaller' muffins.

Use the golden syrup made from sugar cane (available in Australia and the UK - and at specialty stores and international aisles of supermarkets in the US). Do not use the horrible corn version.

The original recipe calls for a further 1/4 cup sugar - although I don't think this is needed when the recipe uses sweet blueberries. Add sugar if berries are omitted or a sweeter muffin is desired. If using, add extra sugar to egg and milk mixture.

The following nutritional information is applicable to this recipe - using 2% milk and imperial cup measurements without the additional sugar. Nutrition Facts thanks to Livestrong.com

Although much smaller in size, it would appear that this version is significantly lighter in calories than the Muffin Break version!

Making a start!

OK.... so the comments and hints re: blog entries (or lack thereof), are starting to make me feel somewhat guilty. Several notable occasions have been and gone with nary a word from me: Thanksgiving, Paul's (husband) birthday, Christmas, New Year, Luc's birthday (now Master Six), fourth anniversary of being in the USA ...

Truly, I blame the snow, snow, snow and more snow that has fallen during this extreme season we seem to be in the midst of. The 'snow days' causing schools to be closed have been copious. The days of being 'housebound' have been many. The lines at the supermarket prior to a snow 'event' have been interminable. The hours required to shovel snow have been numerous. The number of calories burned shoveling snow have been momentous. The resultant tiredness and aches have been significant. The desire to feast on hearty dinners has been uncontrollable. The need to imbibe hot chocolate spiced with cognac while one has one's feet elevated and eyes closed has been overwhelming. Therefore, not a lot of time, nor energy, to blog.

I started my first blog (gearon.org) just over four years ago as a record of our move from Brisbane to Chicago. (Some - still undetermined - glitch has made this impossible to view for the moment). I started this rum sum mum blog in August of last year as a record of our move from Chicago to rural Virginia. My intention was to keep it regularly updated... Obviously this wasn't one of my new-year's-resolutions of 2010! *SIGH*

Oh well... here I put finger pad to keyboard as a start. Perhaps now I will be able to fall asleep a little easier rather than composing intended blog entries in my head at night...

Snowbound

Another experience to add to our list of 'new life experiences'. We became snowbound late Friday night. We had a heavy snowfall that left us trapped at our house. We heard the reports of the impending snow... but really paid it little heed. I went shopping (twice) on Friday for provisions for my husband's birthday party - and was met with an onslaught of panicked shoppers. It wasn't until I was at the check-out, standing behind another five people with laden carts (with every check-out the same), that it occurred to me that, perhaps, I should be buying provisions?!

Nah. I decided. It appears that our experience of snowstorms in Chicago was quite a misleading example: snowplows were ready to catch the first snowflakes before they hit the road, stores remained open, and really, not too much snow would fall. It was just really cold. Not too much of an imposition at all.

When some of our friends were not able to make it to our party on Sunday as their road (and ours) had not been cleared, it began to dawn on us that this whole storm-warning thing did have some credence. We instructed the kids to go easy on the milk. Our other guests (neighbors) were able to make it to the party once a clear passage had been shoveled between their driveway and ours.

Darling husband did a massive effort clearing our driveway - some 70 meters long covered with almost 2 feet of snow - attacking it with Olympic-like fervor. We were very sad to hear that a neighbor, whom I had just met a couple of weeks earlier, passed away after having a snow-shoveling-provoked heart-attack. He was only 52. I instructed exuberant snow-shoveling husband to take it easy. This whole beautiful, soft, fuzzy, romantic snow thing has a sinister side.

First snow

What excitement. The first snow of the season fell in our OWN garden yesterday! This was the first snow we haven't had to share... EVER! What a joy to have our very own snow. For my husband and I, snow is still quite a novelty - having grown up in snow-free areas. Our children have grown up with snow in Chicago - but in a purely urban environment so we had to share our snow in the parks, and on the streets... and it was often just too cold to make a park trip to have a quick snowball fight.

Yesterday we built a snowman together. It was difficult for me not to dominate the building process... given that I was just as excited as the kids. Our neighbors gave us some sleds to play with and my husband burnt off a number of calories carting the kids around until way after dark. My husband made a big pot of Wassail that he had seen his food-hero Alton Brown make. After the kids were in bed, we crashed out on the couch after imbibing this old-fashioned concoction. You can find a version of the recipe here (we made half quantity).