I’m on a roll – fifth post this month! Strange, considering I haven’t been around since October last year. Maybe it’s the new year, a good time to start fresh. It was also good to get back to our old routine after the holidays, and with E getting a little older, I’m able to find pockets of free time throughout the week.

So, lentil soup, one of our dinner regulars. It’s hearty and flavorful, without scrimping on nutrition. Great when you need a break from meat for a couple of days. The soup is easy to make, but there’s a bit of prep work because of the diced fresh tomatoes. I suppose you can use canned diced tomatoes as a shortcut. I cook three dinners worth plus E’s portions (she loves this soup!) to make up for the time cutting vegetables. To round out the meal – good bread, toasted and buttered (generously :D), and fresh garlic to add to the soup or to rub on the bread.

Lentil Soup
Servings: 6-8

3 tsp. olive oil
3 small onions, diced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
3 celery stalks, diced
5 good-sized carrots, diced
salt and pepper to taste
1 1/2 cups lentils
6 tomatoes, diced and juices saved
6 cups of liquid, water or stock or combination of both **

** We’ve tried this soup using only water and still like it, but broth does make a difference.

– Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add onion and garlic and cook for about 2 minutes.

– Add celery, carrots, salt, and pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables have softened, about 8-10 minutes. (It’s a big pot of soup so I put a good amount of salt and pepper. But remember that it’s easier to add more later than to take it out.)

– Add washed lentils, tomatoes with juice, and liquid. Bring to a boil, then simmer for an hour. Add salt and pepper to taste.

…we had snow, lots of errands, and little sleep. On the upside, there were pancakes and plenty of quality time with my babies. Can’t complain.

A blizzard will hit the northeast tomorrow. Stay warm and safe!

I got the baking bug last week, thus muffins were made. While looking for a recipe, I found myself reading up on cake and muffin basics that I’ve been meaning to look up. This blog post provides a good summary for cake basics and Google is your friend for more in-depth info.

I learned that a traditional butter cake typically has these ingredients – flour, sugar, eggs, fat, liquid, leavening, and flavor extracts. A quick guideline for ingredient ratios:

1 cup of flour – 1 tsp. baking powder – 1/4 tsp. baking soda – 1/4 tsp. salt
2 cups of flour – 1 cup sugar – 2 eggs – 1/2 cup butter – 1/2 cup milk

In comparison, muffins use more flour and liquid, and less sugar and fat. Cakes use the creaming method. With muffins, the dry and wet ingredients are mixed separately, then roughly mixed together. The differences in ingredient ratios and methods affect the texture (and taste) of the baked product. Muffins are usually drier and slightly denser than cakes. Cakes are desserts while muffins are a form of quick bread that can be sweet or savory.

With this new knowledge, I thought I’d try making my own recipe haha. I made two batches of orange cranberry muffins –

version 1

version 2

Orange Cranberry Muffin

(version 2)
Yields: 8 muffins

Ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 egg
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
1/2 cup orange juice
1 tsp. orange zest
1/2 cup dried cranberries **

** I soaked the dried cranberries in 1/2 cup of water with 1 tbsp. sugar for 1-2 hours on the counter. This rehydrated and plumped up the berries.

– Preheat oven to 400F. Grease or line muffin tin.

– Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl.

– Beat egg, sugar, oil (or butter), orange juice and zest in a separate bowl.

– Add drained cranberries to flour mixture first. Mix to coat berries with flour.

– Add wet ingredients. Stir until just combined.

– Spoon into muffin tin. Fill about 3/4 full.

– Bake for 15-20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Results: Three things I made different: vegetable oil for version 1 vs. butter for version 2, and more juice and more zest in version 2. I ended up with more muffins in version 2. George prefers the first batch which came out crusty and more bready in texture. The muffins from the second batch were more like cupcakes, flatter and smoother at the top, more moist and has a softer texture. I have a slight preference for version 2 since I do love my cakes. In terms of flavor, there was no significant difference in taste.

I enjoyed this little muffin experiment, the process and the results :) We shall have another one when the mood and inspiration strikes.

by Badly Drawn Boy, a soundtrack from the movie About A Boy. It’s about a suicide note from a mother to her son, quite grim, but it’s such a beautiful and moving song.

There’s nothing I could say
To make you try to feel okay
And nothing you could do
To stop me feeling the way I do
And if the chance should happen
That I never see you again
Just remember that I’ll always love you

I’d be a better person
On the other side I’m sure
You’d find a way to help yourself
And find another door
To shrug off minor incidents
And make us both feel proud
I just wish I could be there
To see you through

You always were the one
To make us stand out in a crowd
Though every once upon a while
Your head was in the cloud
There’s nothing you could never do
To ever let me down
And remember that I’ll always love you

Freedom Tower from the West Side Hwy. / Rockefeller Center tree / my sick baby

—————

And just like that it’s 2015. Happy new year! Personally, I’m relieved that the holiday festivities are over. I can’t remember a more stressful and tiring holiday season ever. It was great to see our family and friends but the 5 to 8-hour trip to and from NJ/NY and all that it entails is taxing on us. There’s the usual stuff – packing/unpacking multiple times, the occasional, mostly minor conflicts, and being away from home. I’m a homebody by nature so being away from the comforts and quiet of my own space is hard for me. We’ve also had a recent change in our family, though it is not my story to tell.

E got sick during the later half of the trip. She had low energy and was very restless, which resulted in lots of cuddling and little sleep for everyone. After we got home, she was already recovering, but was still clingy and a big grumpball. This was the first time our baby girl got sick and we’re just relieved she’s okay now.

On a more positive note, I was happy to see that E is noticeably getting more comfortable when we visited our families’ houses. With this last trip, it seemed like she needed less time to adjust. We went to see a friend with two young children, and since E never interacted with other children before, we thought she’d be shy and hesitant at first. But she saw them and was like, “Oh, hey, little people like me!” Right away she was in the thick of things, running and following the older kids, playing with their toys, and being her usual troublemaking self. It was so funny :)

—————

I’ve given up on new year’s resolutions some time ago. Instead the beginning of the year has become a time for introspection. A few days ago, I found myself thinking of my first couple of years in the US. It was a tough time. I described it to George as my “dark cloud hanging over my head” phase. I remember being obsessed with the concept of happiness – what is happiness? What are things that make me happy? What should I do to become happy? Eventually I came out of that state, and I accepted that it was something I had to go through to get me to where I am now.

Around the same time as my new year’s musings, I came across this quote. It made sense to me so I’m keeping it here to share and so that I’ll always remember.

I actually attack the concept of happiness. The idea that—I don’t mind people being happy—but the idea that everything we do is part of the pursuit of happiness seems to me a really dangerous idea and has led to a contemporary disease in Western society, which is fear of sadness. It’s a really odd thing that we’re now seeing people saying “write down three things that made you happy today before you go to sleep” and “cheer up” and “happiness is our birthright” and so on. We’re kind of teaching our kids that happiness is the default position. It’s rubbish. Wholeness is what we ought to be striving for and part of that is sadness, disappointment, frustration, failure; all of those things which make us who we are. Happiness and victory and fulfilment are nice little things that also happen to us, but they don’t teach us much. Everyone says we grow through pain and then as soon as they experience pain they say, “Quick! Move on! Cheer up!” I’d like just for a year to have a moratorium on the word “happiness” and to replace it with the word “wholeness.” Ask yourself, “Is this contributing to my wholeness?” and if you’re having a bad day, it is.

– Hugh Mackay