raw beets and marshmallows

So what would you cook, if given the following ingredients (yes, you have to you all of them!):
yams, zucchini, avocado, raw beets, cilantro (coriander to Aussies), ginger root, marshmallows, pineapple chunks, tinned fruit salad, tinned apricot, green onions, lentils, chicken, and cranberry sauce/jelly.

Well, Ramie and I found all that quite a challenge! We were cooking for 10, with a guest who can't eat gluten, and two guests who are vegan.

So my highly experimental dishes were:

• Baked chicken breast with chilled Cranberry Cilantro salsa (cilantro, cranberry jelly, grated ginger root, diced avocado, sliced green onion). This was voted my best dish.
  
• I was going to make a lentil salad, but the lentils were too well done and got turned into lentil hummus (added some garlic and pureed the lot)
• No-name Salad: baby spinach, roasted yam and zucchini, raw diced beets, green onion with a creamy poppyseed dressing (from Ramie's fridge :) )
• Tropical rice pudding (rice, cream, eggs, marshmallows, tinned fruit, cinnamon)

Ramie made a curried lentil stew (veeeerrrrry yummy!), vegetarian stirfry, apricot chicken, and a gluten-free fruit crumble (which, despite being in a huge dish, was eaten in entirety!).
Our friend Thomas was taking pictures, so if I get some, I'll try and remember to post them up.

Prayer

Some things to pray for:

• Mareesa's younger brother Tim is headed to Afghanistan this month (he's in the army). Pray for safety and peace (for him and the family)
• Daniel is teething again (top two front teeth), and is whiny and clingy. He is, however, enjoying solid foods more (especially 'normal' food).
  
• Mareesa is wondering what kind of work to do when her maternity allowance ends at the start of July.
• Nathan is doing well in his study, and trying his best to keep a balance of work/family/rest
• Daniel is still not sleeping for long periods of time at night. Pray for wisdom as we consider multitudes of advice about sleep training.

Coming up: This weekend Mareesa and her friend Ramie are hosting an Iron Chef (think Ready, Steady, Cook) dinner for some friends for their birthdays.

An Ode to the Blue Sky

Fragmentary Blue

Why make so much of fragmentary blue
In here and there a bird, or butterfly,
Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye,
When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue?

Since earth is earth, perhaps, not heaven (as yet)--
Though some savants make earth include the sky;
And blue so far above us comes so high,
It only gives our wish for blue a whet.

Robert Frost

New Foods

I've had trouble getting Daniel to eat solids while we've been back in Canada. Generally eating pureed foods/cereals off a spoon has been a drama, and we have to trick him a lot of the time to get the food in his mouth. He does like trying to eat off the spoon himself, which can get pretty messy as he doesn't always put the correct end of the spoon in his mouth! Yesterday for dinner I gave him cooked diced vegies which were in Nathan and my dinner, and he really enjoyed it. I finger-fed him, and that worked. He can't pick up food himself yet, although he tries. I'm still going to perservere with cereal though.
The diced vegies were for a new product I tried, a Japanese curry (Glico). The paste comes in block form, and you stir it in after the vegies are cooked. My friend Christin, who is Korean, made me some for lunch last week and it was delicious! It's nice to have something easy and tasty to add to our menu. Nathan didn't 'love' it, but he said he'd eat it again, which is good, cos I think I could get addicted to it hehe. (I'm pretty sure it doesn't contain MSG)

Crawling!

Yes, little Daniel is fully mobile, and getting quicker everyday. We need to look into getting a safety gate for the top of the stairs. Daniel is quite proud of himself, and is loving this freedom. Mostly he loves crawling to the doorstops (sprung wire, which makes a great noise), or crawling to find mum for a cuddle.

An Aussie visitor

Tomorrow our friend Clair is coming to visit for a few days. She's been traipsing around the world after uni, and we get to be one of her final stops on her way home. We're looking forward to sharing this part of the world with her (like gooey cinnamon buns, the awesome views from UBC, and maybe even go up to Grouse Mt for some snow). I know she is looking forward to seeing some familiar faces.

I've been working a little bit at Westside, supervising some federal tests. I have another hour tomorrow to catch up for a child who was away. Daniel gets to come with me as Nathan is back at school this week. He had a Greek quiz yesterday, and a Hebrew midterm today.

Daniel has a cold, poor tyke, so he's a regular snot-monster at present. Add the extra drool from teething, and it can get a little gross! He's been sleeping a little better at night, but now his daytime sleep is almost non-existent. The past 2 days he's only slept 1.5 hours all day; yesterday afternoon he was awake for 6 hours straight. So I'm feeling more tired because I'm not sure what to do, and because I'm not getting much of a break from Daniel-time. I've also decided to quit reading fiction for a while, because I think I'm addicted (seriously).

On a lighter note, tonight I made Anzac biscuits, and I added some cocoa to half the batch for chocolate Anzacs. In 2 weeks we are having a Taste of the World event at Regent. I'm coordinating an Aussie/Kiwi food table (which we'll also decorate). We all bring food to share, and we also sample from the other countries' tables. I'm taking fairy bread, and sausage rolls (which I need to practice making sometime this week).

Outdoor play

Last week I introduced Daniel to slippery slides and swings. So all bundled up in a couple of jumpers, shoes, beenie and mittens, we headed out into the cold to play outside! It's been overcast but not too rainy, and today the sun is actually shining.
This week I will work a few hours at Westside Christian School (who I worked for last year) to oversee some federal testing that needs to be done. Nathan's on reading week, so he's going to do some daytime babysitting which will be different for him.
We're also looking forward to our friend Clair from Grovely visiting us at the end of next week, on the tailend of her 'round the world trip!