Cracking a Coconut

For Valentine's Day I gave Desert Boy a coconut. He's been seeing them a lot on the survival shows he loves, and now he had his chance to hold one, drink from one, and taste one. He was beyond excited, but I gave it to him in the morning, so he had to wait till after school. Ah, the anticipation! He did get to shake it and hear the water sloshing around in it before he took off.

 The first step was to unwrap it and read the label and find out where it was from. I have to admit I didn't think of that part--Desert Boy did. Our coconut was from the Dominican Republic, and we had to do a little searching to find the island out in the Caribbean. I had fun imagining the sandy beaches, warm ocean waves lapping at those beaches, plentiful sunshine with coconut palms providing a little shade. Okay, the coconut may not come from an idyllic beach, but it sure does bring to mind such a place!

 We found the eyes of the coconut and tried to stick a straw through one. Nope--that didn't work! The eyes are a little toucher than that, so we pierced it with scissors and a knife.

 Desert Boy stuck a straw in and started drinking the coconut water. After a long sip, he made quite a face--it wasn't that good! I gave it a try and liked it. So then he had to try it again and decided it might be okay.

Then came opening the coconut. I should have looked it up on the Internet, as this WikiHow site has many ways to open a coconut. I didn't have much success, so when my husband came home he attacked it with a saw and got it open.

 Ah, success! We broke off little pieces of coconut--delicious!

Even after eating the flesh out of the coconut, Desert Boy wasn't done with it. Here's one of his art projects. I think we'll have a couple more in the next few days.

So our first coconut was quite a fun experience. We'll probably try it again sometime. 

Do you have experience with coconuts? What do you recommend doing with them?

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day! How are you celebrating?

My husband and I have had a really nice week of giving love notes to each other every day. We'll head out for a special dinner tonight.

I also always think of my brother Ed on Valentine's Day, as that's the day when he chose to arrive in this world. What a special Valentine!

Desert Boy's school is having a Valentine's Day Party, and as we are really trying to cut back on processed foods and eat more real foods, I cringe at the thought of all the sugar and chemicals he may be ingesting today. To help make me feel a little better about that, I'm sending some heart-shaped snacks with him (photo above). It might not make much difference, but hopefully the kids will enjoy eating something healthy.

Have a great day! And if you've been wondering why I'm not posting so regularly, I have several posts I'm working on. It's been quite a crazy week, so I'm looking forward to a long weekend to catch up. Maybe we'll manage to fit in an adventure or two (or three!).

New Food: Quinoa

So like a zillion other people, I made a New Year's resolution to eat better. In my case, I want to cut back on processed foods and eat more real foods (and with Hostess going out of business, my resolution is already slightly easier).

Recently, I purchased some quinoa. I had read it was a yummy grain. Now "read" is a key word here, because if I had "heard" quinoa pronounced, I probably wouldn't keep mispronouncing it. You see, this is an ideal spelling bee word in the final challenge round, because it's pronounced "keen-wah." And for the life of me, I can not remember that pronunciation. So I keep mispronouncing it, but fortunately there aren't too many "keen-wah" snobs out in this neck of the woods. Ahem, I mean isolated desert valley.

Anyways, I found a recipe for quinoa and made it last night. And I have to say, I really like it. Before I get to the recipe, let me tell you a little more about quinoa. It comes from Peru, Bolivia, Columbia, and Ecuador, up in the high country. It doesn't need much precipitation and it can survive freezing temperatures. As I read this off the package, my husband and I were both thinking--wow, maybe we should grow this in our garden! But then we got to the part that the quinoa seeds have a hard coating of saponins that is difficult to remove. Okay, back to buying it.

It was domesticated 3,000 to 4,000 years ago (how did those people get the coating off?). It's high in lysine, calcium, phosphorous, and iron. The Incas considered the grain to be sacred and called it chisaya mama, or "mother of all grains." Then came the dang conquistadores, who scorned that Incan foodstuff and even forbade them to cultivate it and made them plant wheat. Eventually the quinoa came back into favor, and over recent years its popularity has spread. The price of quinoa crops has increased substantially. According to Wikipedia, in 2011 a ton of quinoa cost an average of over $3000, compared to a ton of wheat at $340.

I can understand why it's popular, it's delicious. The salad you see above came from a recipe at 100daysofrealfood. I look forward to eating more of it.

Have you tried quinoa? What recipes do you like?

Winter Bountiful Baskets

I've had some friends wondering what a winter Bountiful Basket looked like. I finally was in a place where I could pick up a basket this weekend. This is what I got for my my $15. I sure would like to get these baskets more frequently!

Earth Balls

What can I say, I never know what I'm going to write about. And you, dear reader, are sweet to come and visit to read the ramblings of the day. You never know how your life may be warped changed by the few minutes you spend here.

I say this as a preamble before diving into my topic for the day: Earth Balls. What? you may be asking. Perhaps she's really gone over the edge this time.

I must admit that too much cold, too much inside time, and rambunctious kids has us looking for extra activities. When the Bookmobile came last week, I happened upon a book about Geology Crafts. I couldn't resist. And the first craft we decided to try was:

 Earth Balls!

The basic idea was to make an edible earth with layers to better be able to understand what makes up the earth.

 Peanut butter was a main ingredient. Like how Desert Boy flings it? It was mixed with a little oats, cocoa (because we were out of powered milk), and honey to make the mantle.

 The next step was to make a hole in the mantle.

 Then it was time to add the magma (raspberry jam) and the core (a chocolate chip).

 Next it was time to put two halves together to assemble the earth. A couple of them had some very active volcano zones. (How do you like those fingers?)

Not to worry, the active volcano zones along with the rest of the mantle were covered up with the crust (graham cracker crumbs).

Don't those look like beautiful earths?


Next came the fun part: cut one in half to see all the layers.

Some turned out better than others as far as visual appeal. But overall, they turned out to be tasty treats. I'm not sure if Desert Boy learned much, but he did appreciate the snack and some fun time with Dad.

Yummy Homemade Granola!

I've found my new favorite granola recipe, and it is so delicious! Plus, since it's homemade you know everything that's going into it (yep, I am reducing my processed food intake as per my New Year's resolutions!). Even better, you can tweak it as you like.

Want to try it?

Here's the recipe:
Adapted from 100DaysofRealFood.com

BEST GRANOLA
Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Put a Silpat Non-Stick Baking Mat (or parchment paper) on a large cookie sheet.

Combine:
3.5 cups oats
1 cup sliced almonds
1 cup pecans (or walnuts or cashews)
1 cup shredded coconut
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 cup flax seeds (or substitute your favorite)
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg

In a small saucepan, heat:
6 Tbsp. butter
1/2 cup honey
When the butter melts, add:
2 tsp vanilla extract.

Pour the hot liquids onto the dry. Stir together, then spread on the prepared sheet.
Bake for 65-70 minutes. Cool, break apart, and eat within 2 weeks.
Yum! It's a flexible recipe, so try adding your favorite nuts, seeds, and dry fruits (after cooking) to make it perfect for you.

Even Desert Boy recommends this granola, and he is not much into granola.

Picnic Lunch

After we had our walk last Sunday, we went into the nearby campground so we could have a picnic lunch complete with a fire. Desert Boy loves picnics, and Desert Girl loves sitting in the dirt and eating it and sticks and bark.

Oh, let's add pinecones to that list.

She has mastered the contemplative look.

Desert Boy was eager to help with the fire. No surprise there. It took awhile to cook the hamburgers, but they were worth the wait. It kept getting colder while we were there, so we appreciated the hot food.

Desert Boy had decided to bring his umbrella and then found where he wanted to set it up. He and Emma had their little picnic in the dirt.

Afterwards, Desert Boy had a lot of energy again, so I took him for a bike ride around the campground. Some of those hills were a little challenging, and I was expecting him to biff on one of the downhills, but he stayed upright.

As you can see, most of the aspen leaves are off the trees. They must have known that it was going to snow the next three days.

Tasting Applesauce for the First Time

Little Miss Emma has been grabbing at the food while we eat, so one evening when she was particularly vocal, we decided to give her a little try. Yes, I know you're supposed to give rice cereal or something like that as the first food to eat, but I haven't opened a how-to-raise-your-baby book in a couple months. Let's face it, with the first kid you feel like you can't live without the manual. With the second (and I suspect subsequent) kid, you realize that they're fairly resilient and will probably manage okay. Besides, have you ever tried baby rice cereal? It's nasty.

We had applesauce on the table, and that's what we gave her.

She seemed ready to give it a try.

In it goes. Ah, what a different texture. And a different taste. And a different delivery method.

Wait a minute, maybe this food stuff isn't all it's cracked up to be!
Nearly all of it comes back out. Emma has no bib on--you can see that we're really winging it as parents.
Now Emma thinks that maybe it wasn't such a horrible experience. Maybe it would be fun to eat a little more.

Or maybe not.

And the fun continues!

Happy Belated Valentine's Day

We've been continuing to have some Internet issues, so I wasn't able to post this yesterday. But better late than never--Happy Valentine's Day! I was craving some iced cookies (thanks to Faberlicious mentioning them a couple days ago!). Desert Boy loves to help in the kitchen, so I mentally prepared for a huge mess and we began. He unwrapped the butter so we could melt it (since I never get it out hours ahead of time to soften), poured in the sugar and flour, and operated the mixer. Then he took charge of the cookie cutter. After we had baked a couple batches and had little bits of dough left over, I let him give it a try by himself.

He tried rolling out the dough and doing the cookie cutter all by himself.

The mess grew, but that was okay. It always does with cutout cookies!

Here's his end result. I managed not to laugh at the interesting shapes and tried to explain that we really didn't need to dump flour on the cookie sheet.

Next came the decorating phase. Having had nieces and nephews help me in the past I knew that the most important thing about decorating is putting limits on the decorations. So I poured the different sprinkles into the lids, and told Desert Boy he had to use his fingers to do the sprinkling.

He showed great restraint--much more than I anticipated. Usually one cookie ends up drenched in sprinkles and then there's nothing left for the rest. These cookies ended up tastefully decorated.

His attention span lasted to decorate all the cookies, another surprise. Although he did start eating the cinnamon hearts part way through the second cookie sheet.

And here's our end result! Yum, they looked and tasted delicious. I'm sad to report that they're nearly gone.

Cooking Up a Storm

I found this cute kitchen at a thrift store and couldn't resist bringing it home for Desert Boy. He loves "helping" in the kitchen, and I thought it might be good to let him cook up his own recipes.

He likes all the buttons and knobs.

He also likes cooking different things in his pot, and spicing whatever it is regularly with salt and pepper.

The pie plate works as a mixing bowl.

Time to add something else to the pot. He regularly washes the dishes and puts things in the oven and refrigerator.

The best part was when I was cleaning the real kitchen and he wanted to clean his kitchen.

So far the cuisine from Desert Boy's kitchen has included spaghetti, broccoli soup, cake, and more. He has three plates to serve everything on.

He also gets a bit creative with some of his cooking tools, as you can see in this short video: