Laura

1/3 cup powdered sugar, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, hot water until just runny, add to 6 cups popcorn.

The high wind warning was originally to expire at midnight, but they changed it to expire at 9 pm. We did have some pretty good gusts and Scott (who took the boys to a friend's birthday party this afternoon) tells me there were some tree branches down, but it was nothing like as bad as the worst-case scenario.

Here.

The coast had a really brutal time of it. The Portland NWS issued *10* tornado warnings (previous record, at least as far back as 2005, was 2...). I could then claim they were being alarmist because of the forecast, except that there actually were two confirmed tornados on the coast. (One in Manzanita which did a fair amount of damage, and one near Oceanside that...wandered on to the beach and that was it. Thank goodness for that, at least.)

Meanwhile, I planned my cooking to hopefully have everything done before the hours of likeliest power outage. We didn't have a power outage, but we did have a yummy lunch and dinner, so that worked just fine. :)

And hey, it spurred me to get some chores done early, which means I have a little bit of flexibility in my weekend for tomorrow. (...because we didn't do anything outside the house except the birthday party, today, and I was home doing chores and cooking during that....)

My house is warm and safe and comfy, my family is secure in it. The boys are asleep and after a bit more that needs to be done, I will be.

For this, I am thankful.

Well, the boys were "okay" with their eggs and pleased with their garlic bread tonight. Didn't get them to eat the salad. (Didn't try hard, either. WHY do people love "spring greens"? I consider eating them a necessary evil when they're what I have, but if the taste were any sharper, I could've used it to cut the garlic bread.)

We are getting a CSA share from OurTable this summer: http://www.ourtable.us/news/springsummer-local-food-boxes-week-3 was this week's.

Garlic bread made with the white part of the garlic and a whole lot of butter (and a loaf of Italian bread from the store); eggs cooked with the green garlic (for the boys and Scott) or with zucchini, some radish greens, and a bit of choi (me, because cannot have garlic); and, urgh, spring greens in a salad.

Not too shabby. I'll enjoy eating the actual radishes tomorrow, and I have another serving of my eggs and another of theirs left over. And enough greens for argh. They were really generous with the salad greens.

I'm actually looking forward to "oh GOD they planted ZUCCHINI" season because I love all the options zucchini provides. I realize this makes me a freak. But...we got our first zucchini this week. YAY. (Extra yay, because joking aside, that means we'll lean more toward strawberries in a future week, and if you ask me if I want 'extra strawberries' or 'extra zucchini' to be a thing in a week that already had some of whatever-it-is, well, extra strawberries are more-appreciated by the rest of the household and equally appreciated by me, so. But I also have a lovely chocolate-zucchini-muffin recipe that will probably get some play time this summer. Tonight I didn't have the energy for it tho.)

I'm lazy, so I Googled this and found: http://www.paleorunningmomma.com/pre-race-food-easy-paleo-and-low-fodmap-meatloaf/

And then, because I'm lazy, I further adapted it. What I did:

2 pounds ground turkey
1 whole egg
1/4 tsp salt*
2-3 tsp Italian seasoning**
1 tsp dried chives

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix ingredients thoroughly. Spray a 9x5 baking pan and press mixture into it, pressing down a bit more in the center. Bake in the oven for 45 minutes / until no longer pink in the center. (I think I overcooked this slightly. I don't think it actually mattered. It was wonderful.)

* I was quite happy with this amount but you should be aware that I often find tasty what others call bland, and adjust your recipe accordingly. The original called for 3/4 tsp.

** I didn't have poultry seasoning handy and I couldn't find any at the store that was looked low FODMAP. As it happens, I'm glad I couldn't find it. Best substitution is best. I don't WANT poultry seasoning. I used McCormick's Italian mix. Since this already had oregano and basil, I added more than 2 but less than 3 teaspoons and called it good. It was.

Low FODMAP, of course. I could just have hash browns, but I had leftover quinoa to use up.

These aren't horrible, but next time want more spicing.

1 cup cooked quinoa
1 large egg
salt/pepper to taste
Garlic and onion infused olive oils*

Mix the quinoa, egg, and salt/pepper. (It probably wants more salt than you think, but that can always be added after.)

Heat a pan on medium, add the oil after the pan's hot, and cook the mixture in thin patties (I used about half the mix per patty). Cook on the first side until the edges firm up.** Flip, and cook just slightly less time on the other side.

They were nicely edible but not yet delicious; on the other hand, they did neatly use up my leftover quinoa.

* If you don't follow the low FODMAP diet, maybe do something with garlic/onion and olive oil separately. And no, I didn't measure, just eyeballed it.

** If the patty is thin and you wait until the edges brown, you will burn other parts of the patty.

After seeing several very positive posts from synecdochic about sous vide and the Anova Precision Cooker, I decided to get one and try it.

I'm terrible at steaks. Seriously, oven-baking them is the only way I don't destroy them to the point you can't eat them. I've set the smoke alarm off. It's ridiculous.

Sous vide and sear? I can do that, and my first attempt produced the best steak I've ever cooked...and it was edible. So, there's that. Now trying it with a lesser cut and seeing if the long-cook-time means tender works for us.

So, easily amused Laura is easily amused. Also enjoying the chance to eat good steak without having to go to a steakhouse. Since I'm still eating mostly low-FODMAP with some experiments to see where I don't have to, it's nice to know what the seasonings are. (Low-FODMAP means, among other things, no onion or garlic flesh. Restaurants probably do use those in a lot of cases.)

I declare victory. Scott, I, and Ian all liked tonight's chicken taco soup. (Drew didn't, but he tried it, so.) So I record it and shared it.

1 can low sodium pinto beans, drained and rinsed.
1 can low sodium kidney beans, drained and rinsed.
1/4 cup McCormick original taco seasoning.
1.5 pounds boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into chunks.
1 can creamed corn.
2-3 cups water.

If preparing ahead of time, take everything but the water, seal inside a gallon freezer bag appropriately labeled, and freeze.

Thaw overnight, and drop in the crockpot - adding the water. Cook on low for ten hours. (May be done sooner - we were gone for long enough that it needed to be ten hours.)

If you're not freezing it, it probably won't need to cook as long and/or you could cook on high, but otherwise I assume about the same results/steps.

You may want to add a bit of salt - it's on the light side for salt, though I found it quite tasty.

So, we're doing the summer library program, which is reading for 20 minutes a day, with the boys. And it comes with a separate track of doing science experiments also. We're trying to do that with the boys, but really, mostly with Drew - Ian doesn't entirely understand (not surprising - he isn't even three!) and also gets bored.

Today, however, Ian managed to stay focused for most of the time involved.

See, I got a book on candy experiments.... So we did color dispersion, and dissolving candy in water and adding baking soda to tell if it was an acid (and confirming that acids were sour, which of course meant a taste test of the candies, which was popular), and then - stretching the definition of experiment marginally, but in a good cause - we compared the behavior of *chocolate* in a microwave to the behavior of a *marshmallow* in the microwave.

Happy boys. Too much sugar around, but I think I kept the ingested amount reasonable, and happy boys.

And we still have a "pizza box oven" out back trying to heat s'mores. I think they've actually subsided on the plastic and are no longer in the proper shape, but eh, we'll see. If they melt, it will have made its point. And really, shouldn't candy science be sticky and gooey and messy?

The weather is too hot for me at the moment. But I am still getting things done.

I kind of LOVE the City Pickers planters I'm using for growing our veggies. Because we were in Wisconsin for the Fourth of July weekend - we left midday July 3 and came back the evening of July 7, and the water reservoirs were empty but the plants were fine - they'd had enough water to carry them through (as planned). Awesome. Ian's planter has the most amazingly happy tomato in it, this thing would be almost as tall as he was if it was starting from ground level. (As it is, it's taller.)

The boys have swim lessons on Saturdays at Children of the Sea, and we usually go back for open swim in the evening. It used to be that I found both quite pleasant. Now I am not as fond of the swim lessons even though I am very proud of Ian!

Reason being: he started out in parent-tot, where a parent must be in the water with him. Also, he started out super-clingy to me, so I was that parent. And when the pool - and the room it's in - is heated to 90 degrees (they teach all the way down to infants).... Well, being in the water is nice than sitting on the bench watching. LOL.

Anyway, he's now in advanced parent-tot, where one of the goals is to get the parent out of the water and the kiddo still content and fine. And today was my first session out of the water. He did NOT want to get in, but a bribe of a toy got him in, and once he was in he was fine. Sniffle. I'm so proud of him, and it's awesome that he's getting so confident in the water. But...I kind of want him to regress so I don't broil. LOL.

In unrelated news, I bought two pounds of blueberries at Costco today. Those who know my kids - especially my "little fruit bat" (Ian) - will probably not be surprised to learn that I expect us to actually eat them all this weekend. You might be surprised to know that in less than 2 hours, about 3/4 of a pound (judging by volume now missing) have been eaten. Goodness.

Dinner tonight is going to be what the kids call "toothpick snacks" - little cut up bits of cold food and a toothpick to stab them with. It's a win-win-win: healthy foods (when chosen well), the kids consider it a treat, no one eats something hot when they're already hot, and I don't have to heat the kitchen up by cooking. Assuming we still have any left by then, the blueberries are part of that. (Also grapes, ham, chicken, cheese, and possibly some marshmallows just to keep it from being purely healthy. And bread cubes if anyone wants them, but history says I shouldn't cut any bread up before asking. Heh.)

They now make Vanilla Coke Zero. I miss Vanilla Coke! So, we'll see.

Only a little bit late. Like half a month.

( January gratitudes, all the same. )