Fire Ants, Mosquitoes and Wasps; Oh My!

On recent visit to Orlando, Grandpa K. wanted me to bring the girls by his house to see the horses, donkey and chickens. Naturally the girls were very excited by this prospect. Well, this visit served to prove to me once and for all that I am not a country girl by any stretch of the imagination. Not in Florida at least. The visit officially became a debacle within the first two minutes of my arrival. As I was getting out of the van, Grandpa took the girls a few feet away to look at the face in the tree and within seconds E. was running at me screaming in sheer terror, "Mommy, ants are biting me! It hurts! It hurts!". I picked her up in one arm and whipped her shoes off with the other hand. As I am dusting them off of her they are falling to ground and begin attacking me (If you are unaware of my relationship with ants please see my dissertation on why ants are the minions of the devil in my first blog post). E. is still screaming and now I am yelling and we're both panicking. Grandpa saves the day with a water hose and in the house we all go.

After a good 30 minutes of listening to E. complain about her itchy bites and how much she doesn't like getting bitten by ants and N. holding her nose and complaining that the house smells stinky (they are not used to the smell of cigarettes) we decide that it's time to go see the donkey. We moseyed (cause that's what you do in the country) down the path to the pasture where the donkey is kept, with a keen eye out for fire ant mounds. There was at least 302. E. got some dirt on her foot, was convinced it was more ants and a melt-down promptly ensued. In order for Project Nature Adventure to move forward Grandpa carried Emily. I imagine this is the point where he began wondering how on earth I could possibly be his progeny. So after maneuvering past horse poo, a 30 year old curmudgeonly horse who likes to bite on occasion, and getting a couple more ant bites we reached the donkey pen. He was, in fact, a rather pleasant donkey. The girls looked at him, gave him a couple pats, and that was that. So after about 3 minutes we exited the pen, once again avoiding excrement and flesh-nibbling equine and headed to the chicken coop. A. narrowly escaped stepping smackdab into the middle of the largest and most visible ant mound in the tri-county area before we arrived at the chicken coop. No chickens were actually in the chicken yard, they were all in the coop. We tried spraying them over so gently with the hose to coax them out into the open to no avail. So Grandpa K., Uncle K., and his girlfriend held the girls up to the windows to see the elusive creatures. I was too busy getting bitten by mosquitoes and watching for ants. And sweating. And getting my toes dirty. I came to this realization: I don't like getting my toes dirty and sweating for no good reason. I don't like getting attacked by vicious insects. I had officially had all the nature I could handle. After conveying this fact to the rest of the party (very nicely since Grandpa just wanted to do something neat for the girls after all), we trudged back to the house, hosed off and went to Chili's. Thank God I'm not a country girl.

Haiku Corner with Zeke

Zeke was looking so pensive lying there on my scorched, straw-like lawn that I felt sure he must be contemplating very lofty concepts indeed. When pressed, he finally confessed he was working out a haiku. I think it is obvious to anyone who knows him that haiku would be his style of choice. So without further ado I present Zeke's poetry debut.





the lawn
by Zeke

crispy and crunchy
like chow mein noodles
grass beneath my paws

(It should come as no surprise to those who know him that food should be featured in his poem. Especially after the trash can incidents. Ahem.)

Word Up

I would like to introduce to all of you who don't already know him, Captain Huggyface from the PBS show Word Girl. This makes me giggle uncontrollably and I will be delighted if makes you smile at the very least.

I HEART PIZZA

I love pizza. No, I mean I LOOOOOVVVE pizza. It is a rare week that doesn't involve me make one. I am also trying to incorporate healthier food choices into our daily lives. My typical crust is diametrically opposed to this goal and so I have been searching high and low for a wheat pizza crust that doesn't destroy the pizza experience. This is the best one I have found thus far http://www.easypizzacrusts.com/wwpc.html . I added 1 1/2 tsp of sugar for the yeast to eat and replaced 1/4 of the flour with flax seed meal to make me feel cool. Also, mine was done in 17 minutes rather than the 20-25 minutes recommended. What I liked about this crust is that the rise time is short, the dough was easy to handle, the texture was not too heavy, and the bottom was crispy (I bake mine on the bottom rack). It was a touch bland so I think next time I will use a bit of honey rather than sugar and maybe some herbs right in the dough. As always, if you have a great recipe I'd love to see it!

Homework

How is this for a mother's day present? N. is "teaching" A. in this picture. Nevermind the fact that A. actually has the best handwriting of all the girls. I was folding laundry in the next room and could hear them hard at work in there. I really wanted to get a candid shot of this so I grabbed the camera and went into stealth mode, 'cause I'm ninja like that, and snapped a picture while leaping around a corner. That picture is a blurry, unusable mess, which should come as a surprise to no one. So I was left with posing and took what I could get. It truly is a joy to see them so happy to learn that they even do it when I don't make them. And that's all I have to say about that.

Quick & Easy Quesadilla & Pico de Gallo

I am a great lover of quick and easy meals, especially when they are healthy to boot. This meal fits the bill, and I highly recommend it. For this pico, I simply diced some roma tomatoes, onions, and garlic, squeezed fresh lime juice over it, stirred in fresh chopped cilantro, and called it a day. I only lament the fact that I didn't have any jalapeno to toss in. Even so, it was delicious. The next step was to make refried beans. My method for this is crazy easy. Heat 1 T or so of oil in a large skillet over medium to medium high heat. Drain and rinse a can of pinto beans and add to hot skillet. Cook for a few minutes until fragrant and beans are warm, then start mashing. Once sufficiently mashed, add cumin, salt, pepper, and garlic powder to taste. Stir in broth until the beans are the desired consistency, and remove from heat. This generally takes all of 10 minutes tops. I then busted out my favorite tortillas on the planet, the whole wheat Tam-x-icos! tortillas, lovingly applied the frijoles refritos, sprinkled on little sharp cheddar cheese, and gave it a couple minutes on each side in a hot pan. Making 4 of these and the pico took me 20 minutes start to finish, and that includes shredding my own cheese. Of course the possibilities are endless when it comes to fillings. One of my favorites is apple, grated carrot, and cheddar, which would be muy delicioso with a fruit salsa (I will have to dig up my recipe for that soon mmmmm). If you have any good salsa recipes or quesadilla filling suggestions please share!

Currylicious

I get a hankering for curry on a fairly regular basis. It all started back in college when I waited tables at an Indian restaurant. Prior to that, Taco Bell was the spiciest food I had ever eaten and Indian cuisine was in the realm of the mystical. Naturally, since it was my first year of college, I was feeling quite cosmopolitan and ventured into a restaurant by the name of A Passage to India emanating exotic aromas . I've always been an EM Forster fan so I figured it was worth a try. It so happened they were hiring and, as I was interested in possessing some extra cash, an agreement was reached. The owner, who also did all the cooking, would make food for us after every shift. I started out with mango lassis and chai with chipatis. Then I got brave and ventured onto chicken biryani (mild of course) and pakora with tamarind chutney. It was all over at that point. By the end of my first semester, I was eating dishes that were "Indian hot". It made my nose run and my eyes water and I loved it. And the people said "Amen." In fact, I will go on record as saying that there is no food better than Indian food.

So far, E. is the only one of my offspring who likes it, and that's why she's my favorite. Anyway, this is what I made for dinner last night to get my curry fix. It is on the hotter side of medium spiciness, so adjust the amount of curry powder according to your preference and the strength/freshness of your curry powder. Oh, and feel free to substitute away. You could replace the potatoes with chickpeas or the spinach with green beans, and if I'm feeling saucy, I'll through in some cumin seeds with the garlic. A side of raita (plain yogurt with cucumber basically) to cool it off would be yummy. Want me to quit yakking and give you the recipe? You got it! If you have any great curry recipes I'd love to know!
Yummilicious Curry
Cooking oil
1 cup diced onion
1-2 cloves of garlic, minced
3 cups diced potatoes
4 cups chopped tomatoes
2 cups of cauliflower
2 cups of baby spinach
1 tsp sea salt
2 tsp curry powder
2 tsp garam masala
1 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp ginger

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Cook onions until they become translucent and are beginning to turn golden. Add potatoes and garlic, and cook until the potatoes are beginning to brown. Add spices, and stir to coat. Cook 1 minute, then add tomatoes and simmer 8 minutes. Stir in cauliflower and spinach; cover and simmer about 10 minutes or until spinach is wilted and potatoes are tender.