Runaway October

I hope all of you are hav­ing a won­der­ful day. I know I am!

My boys got me this:

Isn’t it cute?

Here’s a Mother’s Day Inter­view from my 3 year old, Declan:

My Mom

I really love it when my mom puts my clothes on.

My mom likes to wear underwear.

My mom always tells me, “Go to time­out.” (Yikes!)

The best thing she does is feed me breakfast.

It makes her happy when we get on our bikes, go bye bye and have breakfast.

My mom loves to relax by sit­ting in the chair and talk­ing to me.

I like it when she reads bed time stories.

The best thing she cooks is pancakes.

When my mom shops she likes to buy food and fabric.

My mom’s favorite house­hold chore is ironing.

My mom’s favorite TV show is Spongebob.

If she could go on a trip, she would go to the park.

I love my mom because she is a good, nice mama!

Thanks to Let’s Explore for the won­der­ful idea!

I have a hard time cook­ing for my brood some most days. Some don’t like mush­rooms, some don’t like any­thing spicy, some don’t like food that requires work (such as chicken wings), some just don’t like any­thing like lit­tle Rowan. It can get frus­trat­ing when you’re flip­ping through a cook­book list­ing off deli­cious recipes and every­thing gets vetoed by one per­son or another. It’s also frus­trat­ing when you give up and choose some­thing and it doesn’t get­ting eaten quickly enough to not grow slimy in the fridge. I know. It’s hard to believe that hap­pens in this house.

Matt, the boys and I stopped by a Half-Price Book store the other night, and I res­cued a cou­ple beat up low­fat cook books for a dol­lar a piece. Can you imag­ine the groans that caused? “Low­fat? You mean ‘Fla­vor Free’ right?” Etc etc. But there are actu­ally quite a few recipes that I think will end up being keep­ers. This recipe is one of them.

Seafood is not some­thing we nor­mally eat. I’ve never been huge fan, Matt doesn’t see what the hype is about, and kids will be kids, right? My brother on the other hand… We made a dou­ble batch and picked up a pound of shrimp on sale for less than 5 dol­lars. Every­thing else I pretty much had on hand.

Even a large serv­ing of the dish comes in under 350 calo­ries. The pasta makes it very fill­ing, and the broc­coli gives you lots of good vit­a­mins. Am I the only mama blessed with kids that gen­er­ally love vegetables?

Par­don my bad pic­tures. The sun had gone down before I started din­ner. Oops!

Pasta in Gar­lic Sauce with Shrimp and Broccoli

Adapted from The 99% Fat-Free Cookbook

This clear, thin gar­lic sauce is a note­wor­thy change from the heavy mound under which pasta typ­i­cally is buried. It lends both a per­me­at­ing fla­vor and a gloss to the pasta, set off by flecks of seafood and veg­eta­bles.

Yield: 4 servings

Ingre­di­ents:

• 10 gloves garlic
• 1 cup 99% fat free, reduced sodium Chicken Stock
• 8 ounces uncooked thin-strand spaghetti
• 2 table­spoons water
• 1 pound broc­coli flo­rets (About 1 large head)
• 1/2 cup sliced white onion (About 1 small onion)
• 1/2 pound cooked medium shrimp (About 24) peeled, deveined, and halved
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh dill
• 1/8 tea­spoon red pep­per flakes
• Salt and Pep­per to taste

Direc­tions:

• Put the gar­lic and stock in a small non­re­ac­tive sauce pan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce the heat to low and cover. Sim­mer for about 20 min­utes, until the gar­lic is soft and eas­ily smashed with a fork. Trans­fer the con­tents of the pan to a food proces­sor or blender, and purée until smooth. Set aside.
• Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the pasta, stir­ring to make sure the strands don’t stick together, and cook over high heat to desired ten­der­ness. (3 to 4 min­utes for home­made or other fresh pasta, 8 to 10 min­utes for dry pasta.)
• Mean­while, put 1 table­spoon of water in a non­stick fry­ing pan and bring to boil over medium heat. Add the broc­coli and onion and reduce the heat to low. Cover and cook for 3 min­utes. Add the shrimp, dill and the remain­ing table­spoon of water. Stir, recover and cook for 4 to 5 min­utes more. Remove from the heat.
• When the pasta in done, drain it in a colan­der and return it to the pot over very low heat. Add the gar­lic purée then mix well to coat the pasta. Add the broccoli-shrimp mix­ture and the sea­son­ings. Toss together until well blended and serve immediately.

Nutri­tion info:

• Calo­ries  316.1
• Total Fat 2.5 g
  • Sat­u­rated Fat 0.2 g
  • Polyun­sat­u­rated Fat 0.9 g
• Monoun­sat­u­rated Fat 0.2 g
• Cho­les­terol     110.5 mg
• Sodium     613.3 mg
• Potas­sium     416.4 mg
• Total Car­bo­hy­drate     49.7 g
  • Dietary Fiber 4.8 g
  • Sug­ars 2.1 g
• Pro­tein     22.2 g
• Vit­a­min A 30.0 %
• Vit­a­min B-12 14.1 %
• Vit­a­min B-6 15.8 %
• Vit­a­min C 115.2 %
• Vit­a­min D 0.0 %
• Vit­a­min E 7.2 %
• Cal­cium 7.8 %
• Cop­per 9.1 %
• Folate     39.6 %
• Iron     25.0 %
• Mag­ne­sium 10.6 %
• Man­ganese     18.5 %
• Niacin     30.3 %
• Pan­tothenic Acid         6.3 %
• Phos­pho­rus         14.5 %
• Riboflavin     22.1 %
• Sele­nium 36.7 %
• Thi­amin 36.0 %
• Zinc     8.8 %

Which house­hold chore do you dis­like the most?

I dis­like them all, but the ones that really get me are laun­dry and dishes. It’s a never end­ing bat­tle. As soon as the kitchen is spot­less it’s time to cook a meal. As soon as every scrap of laun­dry is washed and folded it’s time to change into paja­mas or what­not. It’s not like wash­ing win­dows or scrub­bing a toi­let. With those, you’re good for at least a week.

What’s the best museum you’ve ever visited?

I haven’t seen many I guess. I really like all kids muse­ums. Hands on activ­i­ties rock!

It’s Star Wars Day today. I’ve never seen any of the Star Wars movies. What “com­mon” movies haven’t you seen?

I think I’ve got most oldies cov­ered. I don’t see many new ones, so I haven’t seen that Twi­light movie yet. {col­lec­tive gasp from the aduience} Yes, I know.

Join us!

Did I men­tion that I was par­tic­i­pat­ing in the 2009 Chi­nese Coin Quilt Piece-along? It’s being hosted by two of my favorite blog­gers: Juli­ette of Chick­pea Sewing Stu­dio and Karin of Orange Flower. Basi­cally, the premise is to com­plete a Coin Quilt some­time within the year of 2009. That’s it. No dead­lines, no require­ments or restric­tions, no part­ners, no noth­ing. How much eas­ier can it get?

Here are some of the won­der­ful coin quilts that have already been fin­ished. Aren’t these ladies amaz­ingly cre­ative, and on the ball to boot?

1. coin top, 2. DSC_6007, 3. Elena’s Quilt, 4. Quilt #4 — Stacked Coins, front

The rest of the 2009 Coin Quilt Piece-Along Flickr pool can be found here.

I am to the sand­wich­ing and quilt­ing stage on my coin quilt. I have to clean a spot on the floor long enough to get every­thing pinned together. See why it takes me so long? It’s like some­one some­where is bound and deter­mined to make me do house­work, no mat­ter how much I avoid it. These sites have been the inspi­ra­tion for my lit­tle quilt.

• Here is a great down­load­able Coin Quilt tuto­r­ial by Cluck­Cluck­Sew.
• A Stacked Coins Baby Quilt tuto­r­ial is avail­able at The Moda Bake Shop, pro­vided by Crazy­MomQuilts.
• Great Coin Quilt inspi­ra­tion at Hand­made by Alissa.
• Another Coin Quilt tuto­r­ial via Home School Blog­ger.
• MaryQuilts.com has a few Chi­nese Coin Quilt tuto­ri­als in the right side­bar, though there are many many more beau­ti­ful tuto­ri­als listed as well.
• More Chi­nese Coin Quilt instruc­tions from Field Trips in Fiber

If you feel the urge to par­tic­i­pate, please join us!