Monthly Archives: November 2009

Another great year beginning!

homemaking

Today is my birthday!  Aren’t birthdays wonderful?  I find that every year of life gets better and better.  Dh and I every year on our anniversary comment that marriage keeps getting better, and it’s hard to imagine it getting better!  But then it does.  That’s how I feel about my life – I have so many beautiful aspects of my life that I take pleasure in every single day, and still I have a strong feeling that this year will be better than ever!

My Hebrew (Gregorian) birthday was about a week and a half ago, a day when there is a special spiritual power to give blessings and spread positive energy.  I really wanted to take the opportunity then to give all of you here my warmest wishes for love, harmony, joy, prosperity, and meaning in your lives.  Unfortunately, by the time I got online, it was already evening and my birthday was officially over.

But good wishes are never in vain, right?  So whether there’s any special power or not, I send you all my warm and heartfelt blessings for all the positive things you want in your life.

To those of you who preempted this post and privately emailed me your good wishes, thank you for your wishes and for being part of my life!  I’m so amazed by people who not only remember the birthdays of other people, but actually take the time from their busy lives to send good wishes.

Looking forward to another amazing year here with you all!

Avivah

Stopping negative behavior

parenting

>>What do you do in the opposite situation – when a young child is actively doing something you want them to stop doing (as opposed to them not doing something you want them to do, about which I found your explanations very helpful.)<<

You mean like a two year old who is jumping over his 5 month sibling, or a 3 year old who is pushing his seven year old brother off the couch by pushing him with his feet?  (This morning’s examples in my house. :))

I’m pretty straightforward in this.  I tell whoever it is to stop.  Parental authority is the most important tool a parent has.  It’s not about your words, your tone of voice, or technique (that’s why I don’t get excited about books like How To Talk So Kids Will Listen).  It’s about your kids knowing that they have to take what you say seriously.  So telling them to stop is usually enough.

If they don’t stop, I take action to help them stop.  If the child jumping over his baby brother wouldn’t have stopped, I would have picked him up and plopped him on the couch.  If the child pushing his brother wouldn’t have stopped, I would have told him that feet are a gift that needs to be used well, and told him he couldn’t use his feet for a few minutes and would have to sit right where he was.  If they’ve hurt someone, they have to make restitution by being asking forgiveness and then being extra nice to the person they did something to.

If it doesn’t involve a person – like ds2 peeling all the  new crayons and systematically breaking them into pieces (yesterday afternoon :)), they just have to stop.  If a child was doing something like coloring on the wall, then I’d have him stop coloring on the wall, give him a damp rag to wipe the wall, then give him a coloring book or paper to color on.

Sometimes a child doesn’t listen the first time.  I’d like to say that after the first time, I don’t ever repeat myself, but sometimes I do.  I do believe that taking action after the first time is very important to teaching kids that you mean what you say.  Anyway, if someone doesn’t do what I say the first time, how I respond varies.  It really depends on what they’ve done.

Generally I try not to make a big deal about small things, but in our house purposely ignoring a parent isn’t a small thing.  If they heard me but are just having a hard time listening, I either remove them from the situation or give them extra practice situations.  For purposely ignoring me (this would only be a child old enough to know better; little kids are generally just so absorbed by what they’re doing that they don’t realize you’re speaking to them), I’ll give them enough extra work so that they’ll regret not paying attention.  Work is great for older kids.  🙂

If I didn’t answer the question you were asking, please clarify!

Avivah

Black Bean Quinoa Burgers (Gluten free)

recipes

I adapted this from a recipe from fatfreevegan – despite ‘fat free’ and ‘vegan’ both being high up on my list of dangerous approaches to nutrition.  (I’m not a nutritional extremist, and I don’t use the word ‘dangerous’ casually.)    Though it’s not a site that I would turn to for nutritional guidance, they do have interesting ways to combine beans and grains.

Black Bean Quinoa Burgers

  • 1 medium onion, diced
  • 3 -4 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 carrot, shredded
  • 1 c. cooked black beans
  • 1/2 c. dry quinoa (cook in chicken broth)
  • 1/2 baked sweet potato (use only the inside part)
  • 1/4 c. arrowroot powder, crumbs, or flour (this is the binder)
  • 1 T. caraway seeds
  • 2 T. tomato paste
  • 1 t. balsamic vinegar
  • salt and pepper to taste

Saute the onion and garlic in lots of good fat – I used coconut oil, but you can use rendered chicken fat or tallow.  (Using a generous amounts Add the carrot when the onion and garlic are translucent, and cook until soft.  Add the beans and mash it all together.  Then add the remaining ingredients and mix well. You might need to increase the amount of binder to make the consistency firm enough to form into burgers.  Use a 1/4 measuring cup to scoop onto a greased baking sheet.  Gently press down with a fork to make the size of an average burger. Bake at 350 degrees until done.

I had baked sweet potatoes ready to go when preparing this, but decided to leave it out because the kids like eating them as is.  I used cooked carrots I had in the fridge, and mashed them in with the beans.  I decided to leave out the binder and serve this as a stew instead of a burger.  The taste is basically the same, but the preparation time is less and my kids don’t need it served in a burger form to be able to enjoy it.

If you want this to be gluten free, use arrowroot powder as your binder instead of something else.

Avivah

Organizing gloves, scarves, hats

homemaking

With the weather getting cold, it’s time to start preparing for the seasonal onslaught of jackets, coats, mittens, gloves, hats, earmuffs, and more!  Every time spring comes and I don’t have to keep track of all of this anymore, I give a sigh of relief!

Having been blessed with a large family where everyone is home all day, having a way to keep things under control is crucial.  Otherwise, we’d be swimming in winter paraphenalia around the clock!  I don’t have the luxury of having coats hung or boots lined up somewhere else during the day.  And eleven people make for a lot of winter outerwear!

I recently reorganized our coat closet to get ready for winter.  Our coat closet is extremely tiny (as in almost pointless to have, since it’s not deep enough for a hanger to fit), so we have a freestanding closet that we use instead.  Everyone is allowed to keep one coat or jacket in this closet.  Since most of the kids each have a raincoat, jacket, and Shabbos coat in addition to the main winter coat, this is an important limitation!  I suggest that they keep the one they wear most often in the coat closet where it’s convenient for them, and put anything else downstairs (in the closet under the stairs to the basement).

Then there’s all the extra ‘stuff’ to deal with.  On the top part of the closet, I have two shelves.  On each of these I have two identical plastic bins – one for scarves, one for hats, one for gloves/mittens, and one for miscellaneous (earmuffs, head bands, thin rain ponchos, and single gloves – they wait here until their match is found instead of being mixed into the gloves box).  This year I clearly labelled each of these boxes on the side that faces out.  Last year I didn’t do it, and many times things were put into the wrong bin since some kids didn’t look to see what it was holding before throwing something else in.

I’ve learned that if you want things to be organized, you have to make it easy for people to follow your systems.  Some things are easier to simplify than others – labelling containers is an easy one!  So far this has already helped prevent a number of messes.  Last year they’d dump out two or three entire boxes of whatever it was they wanted, because things would be put in the wrong box.  Now that it’s easy for things to be put where they belong, only one box at a time is taken out, and generally what they need is close to the top.

I’m not rushing for the cold weather to be here, but at least we’re ready for it!

Avivah

Phytic acid information

nutrition

Contrary to what some people believe about stay at home mothers having their intellectual brain capacity diminished by being around their children all day, being a mother provides so many opportunities for learning about all kind of things!

There have been a number of questions here about why I soak grains, what it does for them, why it makes a difference, what is beneficial about sourdough, etc.   What about nuts?  Seeds?  Legumes?  These are all good questions, and without how and why preparing them properly makes a difference, it can seem like a lot of time and effort that can better be spent in other areas.

I’ve read about these issues off and on for several years in different sources, and therefore I feel the small amount of additional preparation time for these foods is very worthwhile, as it makes the nutrients significantly more available for utilization by the body.  But when I saw this free e-course on phytic acid research several days ago, I took the chance to sign up and learn something more!

This is a free course, and broken down into short and easy pieces, and it occurred to me that some of you will probably be interested in learning more about these questions in depth.  Here is the link for the course.

I already learned something new in the second day’s ‘lesson’, and I’m looking forward to learning lots more!

Avivah

Weekly menu plan

menu plans

I was finding it more challenging than usual to make my weekly menu plan this week since a) I’m once again having the thoughts that cycle through every so often about going grain free or at least gluten free; and b) I’m out of eggs until I go shopping again, and since they are a staple food I generally use a lot of, I have to mentally make a conscious shift for meal planning when they’re not available.  I could use egg replacer for the baked goods, but instead decided to do some searching for new concepts and ways to use the grains I have in the pantry, and this week’s menu will be basically gluten free (except for the bread this morning).

Shabbos – dinner – challah, chicken soup, chicken, roast sweet potatoes, glazed beets, Israeli salad, upside down coconut brownie pudding; lunch – beef stew, kishke, chicken, salad

Sunday – breakfast – homemade bread, cottage cheese; lunch – organic blue corn chips with bean dip, whitefish salad; dinner – green bean salad, sweet potato pudding, beef stew

Monday – b – lemon almond pancakes; l – black bean and quinoa patties; d – kasha nut loaf, techina sauce

Tuesday – b- yogurt with grainless granola (equal amounts of shredded coconut, sliced almonds, raisins, and a second kind of nut or seed); l – lentil onion pancakes; d – baked beans with hot dogs

Wednesday  – b – sweet potato rounds with almond sauce; l – leftovers from Monday and Tuesday; d – split pea soup with barley and vegetables

Thursday – b- quinoa oatmeal squares; l – split pea soup; d – lentil pecan burgers

Friday – b – polenta with sour cream

The  meals are all supplemented with fruits (breakfast) and vegetables (lunch), which I generally decide on before the meal.  The yogurt is in the dehydrator right now.  I have a huge amount of sliced almonds soaking on the counter – I like to prepare a nice amount at a time so I can prepare them at the beginning of the week and have them ready when I need them.  I’ll put them in the dehydrator before I go to bed so they’ll be ready in the morning.   I’ll start the beans for the week soaking – lentils, black beans, and either navy or red beans – this ensures that they are sprouted by the time I want to use them.  Sprouting not only makes them significantly more digestible, but also makes the nutritional value shoot way up.  Beans are so easy to use when I take the time to plan ahead, and getting all the prep work done in the very beginning of the week means I don’t haveto spend time or thought on it later on.

If any of you have thoughts/experience on how to soak nut flours/meal without making it dairy, I’d love to hear them!  I soak nuts in a salt water solution, then rinse them before drying them, but that wouldn’t work with ground nuts.  Since I can buy already ground nut meal much more inexpensively than  the nuts themselves, the suggestion to prepare them in my usual way and then grind them isn’t going to be so helpful. 🙂

Avivah

Sourdough Pancakes

recipes

We had these for breakfast yesterday morning with homemade plum jam, but the kids said they think the sourdough flavor is better enhanced by eating them spread with butter instead of something sweet.

Sourdough Pancakes

  • 1 c. sourdough starter
  • 1/4 c. spelt flour (you can use another flour, if you prefer)
  • 1 egg
  • 2 T. sucanat
  • 2 T. coconut oil or butter
  • 1/2 t. sea salt
  • 1 t. baking soda

Mix the starter and flour; let sit overnight.  Combine with the remaining ingredients, and drop onto a hot greased griddle/pan to fry.  When air bubbles appear on the surface, turn over and fry on the other side until done.

Avivah

`By the inch it’s a cinch’

homemaking

Last week I overheard two of my kids discussing their monthly chores.  Ds10 was doing the bathrooms for October and did a great job.  The other three older kids haven’t liked this job much, and were suggesting that they make that his chore for the year instead of rotating it between the four of them (he liked the idea, but I vetoed it).  He explained that the bathrooms are easy because all you have to do is do a quick clean every day (just a few minutes for the three bathrooms they are responsible for), and then it never gets dirty. The reason the other kids dislike it is they wait to clean them every few days and then it takes a real effort.

I was thinking as I listened to their conversation that this concept is true in so many ways.  How many times do we mentally build up how long or how hard a project is going to be, and we push  it off until it really is a big, time consuming project?  Instead, do a little bit towards your goal – whatever it is – on a regular basis.  The little chunks of time and effort might not feel like they can make a significant difference, but they add up.  Many people asked how I organized the homeschool conference with a newborn – it honestly wasn’t a big deal because I just did one thing at a time and didn’t think about how much more there was to do.  (Earlier on I procrastinated about organizing some aspects of the conference because I built it up in my mind and started feeling overwhelmed by all the mental lists I was creating!  So I’m not speaking from up there on a pedestal – I’ve worked to overcome this perfectionist mentality on an ongoing basis. :))

Last week I did some deep cleaning chores that I haven’t done since before I was pregnant.  I focused my limited energy on keeping the surfaces clear and having basic organizational principles in place, which was fine to keep the house functional and basically in order.  But now I’m at the point where I can do some of those neglected jobs, like cleaning the blinds, scrubbing the wood trim on the walls, and taking a toothbrush to the edges of the kitchen floor where the mop doesn’t quite reach to clean out the buildup.

By doing them little bit at a time, none of these jobs took much time, even though they had been pushed off for quite a while.  Instead of being a perfectionist and feeling like I had to wait until I had time to do all of the blinds in one morning (time that would have taken months to arrive :)), I did one window a day over the course of a week.  I enjoyed the daily difference having done each set of blinds made, instead of looking at those that weren’t done and feeling inadequate.  By the time Shabbos came, they were all finished!

I think perfectionism very, very often gets in our way – in keeping our homes in order, in raising our children, in being the kind of people we want to be.  We figure if we can’t do it all, right now, perfectly – then it’s not worth it.  But that’s totally false, and we end up feeling negatively about ourselves as a result of that kind of thinking.  The truth is that whatever little bit we do is better than how it was before we made the effort, and we feel better for making the effort when we give ourselves credit for what we have done rather than all that still needs to be done.

This applies to nutrition and health, too.  Sometimes a person feels like they want to make changes to their diet, and they get overwhelmed at all that they think they need to do, so they don’t do anything.  Just pick one thing to start with, do it until it’s comfortable, and then take on another new habit when you’re ready!

There’s a saying that is apropos here: ‘By the inch it’s a cinch, by the mile it’s a trial.’  Life is much easier when we just do one small bit at a time, feel good about the effort we’ve made, and keep moving forward!

Avivah

Stocked pantry to the rescue

homemaking

This past Shabbos I decided to make a simpler Shabbos menu than usual.  We didn’t have any guests planned, my oldest dd was away in NY, and I just felt like making things a little simpler.  Practically speaking it meant we didn’t make any desserts and made one salad less.

My dh wasn’t aware of this, and spontaneously invited someone after services on Friday night to join us for dinner.  That was fine; we just put out some fresh fruit, sliced almonds, and raisins for dessert.  Then he told me that he also invited someone else for lunch the next day, and my dd13 told me that our green bean salad was almost totally finished (our guest loved it :)) and we didn’t have much in terms of salad for the next day; the vegetable dishes we had wouldn’t serve well cold.

After returning from NY, dd14 told me the families she ate with hardly served any vegetable dishes or salads, so knowing that, we could have just pretended to be one of those families.  But to us the meal feels paltry without some salads at lunch.  We found some defrosted french cut green beans in the fridge (it had been done ‘accidentally’ on Friday afternoon, but we were obviously meant to have it ready to use!) so we added that to the green bean salad.

First of all, dd assembled the odds and ends of vegetables into a delicious fresh salad.  That gave us two fresh salads.   Then we turned to the pantry.  I pulled out a quart of coleslaw.  This is the only thing I have that is like a fresh salad that I canned.  (If anyone is interested, let me know and I’ll explain the process; it’s not hard.)  Then we took out a can of orange cranberry relish (store bought), sweet and sour carrots (home canned), zucchini relish (home canned), and pickled green tomatoes (home canned).  Then we had plenty of vegetables. 🙂

I really recommend that every one stock their pantries.  Not only does it 1) save you money because you can stock up on when items are on sale or buy in bulk, 2) save you time and money because you’ll have what you need in the house instead of running to the store more frequently, but 3) it makes it much easier to be relaxed about having guests over!

Avivah

Ready for a new fridge

homemaking

This morning my ds3 was taking food without permission and my dd9 went into the kitchen to stop him, when she suddenly called out in dismay, “Mommy, E. totally broke the fridge!”  Her voice was very alarmed but I didn’t hear anything fall or smash, and I couldn’t imagine what a three year old could do.  I went into the kitchen and discovered that the fridge door had come totally off the hinges!  Oh, what excitement!

I managed to get it closed to keep the cold air in until dh could fix it.  He went to the hardware store and cobbled it together for now, though I’ll have to lift the bottom of the door with my foot to close it once it’s reopened.  Interestingly, when we spoke afterwards, we had both had the exact same initial response!  We both felt happy and lucky that this happened, because we thought, “Oh, good!  H-shem wants to send us a new and better fridge so He’s putting this one out of order!”

I can’t yet share with you the amazing details of my wonderful new fridge.  But I’m absolutely positive that there’s a beautiful fridge waiting for me – one that will have lots more space, be more attractive, be more energy efficient, and of course it will be a magnificent price. 🙂  Now I just have to wait to see when and how it shows up!

Avivah