Happy Cookies

"Happy Cookies"

  

   Or so my husband calls them. Because they make him, and most people, oh so happy. (Fun fact: my cookie-baking was one of the first things that attracted him to me. Hmmm...)

   The following is my favourite cookie recipe and is my go-to treat/ quick dessert. These days they also help entertain a certain baker in training. Theo loves to help: he helps to pour in ingredients, "rub rub rub"(grease) the tray with butter, "knock knock" the eggs on the bowl, stir, help hold the mixer, roll the dough into "cookie balls," place the balls on the tray, and squish the balls down. 

    Many friends have asked for this recipe, and I'm sorry to say I (and sometimes David!) have been somewhat reluctant to give it. Though, really, it is no secret. Probably hundreds of other people have made these same ones. The recipe comes from Company's Coming (I got it from their kid's cook book when i was young, but it may be featured in one of their other books, too). I haven't changed it very much, except that I double the amount of chocolate chips! i also omit the nuts and tend to slightly under-bake them,... which makes them extra gooey :)

   So, without further ado, here is the recipe:

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients:

1) 1/2 C butter (soft)

2) 1 C brown sugar

3) 1 egg

4) 1/2 tsp vanilla

5) 1 C flour

6) 1 C rolled oats (or 1 and 1/2 C if the oats are extra fine)

7) 1/2 tsp baking soda

8) 1/4 tsp salt

9) 1 C chocolate chips (orignal recipe had only 1/2 C)

(*Original recipe also included 1/2 C chopped walnuts, which I omit)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F; grease cookie sheet

1) Beat items 1-4 on medium speed until smooth

2) Add items 5-10; stir until well mixed

3) Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes (I start to check after 7 minutes, and take the cookies out ones they are golden brown on the bottoms)

Serve with milk :)  Enjoy!

-J.L.

Loving Chickpeas

A monkey full of Chickpeas

   In the past year I've started to really enjoy chickpeas. I've had them before, served cold in a salad and was not impressed. I've also had humus, which I did enjoy, but it seemed so different from chickpeas straight up. My husband, however, loves Indian food, especially Chana Masala, and has shared some with me at restaurants and I liked it! But I didn't really think about cooking with chickpeas myself until Theo started eating solid food and needing more protein. Theo (like everybody else, I guess) enjoys variety... and in true toddler style, what he likes one day he does not like the next.  While he usually enjoys different meats, sometimes he doesn't want any! So, we resort to peanut butter, almond butter, eggs, cheese, lentils, and chickpeas. 

Theo loves his chickpeas!

And he loves the camera...

   Here are two easy, healthy, and delicious chickpea recipes. They are not Indian or Moroccan, though they share a some flavours; they are more of a fusion cuisine (and by-the-way, if you enjoy Indian-fusion food and are in the Toronto area, you should check out 5th Elementt). Both recipes are vegan if you use olive oil instead of butter. Sorry, no recipe photos, as I wrote this after finishing eating the leftovers...

Tomato & Apple Chickpea Curry

Note: This first is loosely based off this Martha Stewart recipe, though the final product is very different, and much simpler. I've added cinnamon and omitted the yogurt, ginger, garlic, cilantro, lemon juice, and used less curry powder. I also prefer golden delicious apples.

Total prep and cook time is about half an hour

*Best if made in a large, shallow, sauce pan with a lid.

Ingredients:

1 can of chickpeas, rinsed and drained

~1 TBS. butter or oil

2 large tomatoes, chopped

2 large apples, chopped (I use Golden Delicious)

1/2 onion, chopped

1 TBS. curry powder

1 Tsp. ground cinnamon

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1.) Heat butter or oil in pan, fry chickpeas and onions until the latter golden

2.) Add tomatoes and apples, stir for a few minutes at medium heat.

3.) Stir in curry powder, cinnamon, and salt and pepper

4.) Put the lid on your pan and let the flavours merry, keeping at medium heat. Check and stir occasionally until the apples are tender.

Serve with rice or couscous; I like to serve it with Basmati rice prepared with spinach (boil half a package of frozen spinach in with your rice)

Cinnamon Coconut Chickpeas

Total prep and cook time is about twenty minutes- half an hour (depending on how long your rice or couscous takes).

*Any old frying pan will do.  

Ingredients:

1 TBS  butter or oil if using onions, 1-2 Tsp for just the chickpeas

1 can of chickpeas rinsed and drained

1 can of coconut milk 

1 cup of peas (fresh or frozen)

1/2 onion (optional)

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2-1 tsp ground coriander 

1/4-1/2 tsp salt

Directions:

1.) Heat butter or oil in pan, fry chickpeas and onions (if desired) until onions are golden, or for ~3 minutes

2.) Pour in the coconut milk, and stir in the peas. Bring to a boil.

3.) While still bubbling, stir in the cinnamon, coriander, and salt. Turn the temperature to low, and keep warm, stirring occasionally until ready to serve.

Serve with rice or couscous. Works well with baked or sauteed cinnamon & brown sugar apples and pears as a side.

Enjoy!

-J.L.

Farewell Apartment Living

"Little Bird on Top of the World" c. J.L 2012

  We did it! We moved from our townhouse-style apartment to our new house with our 16 month old, and he settled in so easily! He had no night wake-ups during the transition period, and no extra tears or clinging while settling in. The packing, process, however, was hard for him. He managed well enough, but one day he clung to his favourite teddy bear, "Deedee," and walked mournfully chanting "bye-bye Deedee, bye-bye Deedee." So sweet and sad. He and I had a long heart to heart chat after that about how he'd be keeping Deedee with him, how all the other toys we'd packed away would be coming to the new "house home" (as opposed to the "apartment home") with us, and he would get to open the boxes there. 

   The move itself went smoothly, and we were fully unloaded by mid-afternoon, much earlier than expected! We felt so blessed by all the friends and family who helped, both with the move and with painting beforehand (David had seven or so guys helping move, and his parents came in from two hours out of town just to drive the truck and help with Theo! My parents were away that weekend, but they babysat a lot while we painted, my dad helped install some of our light fixtures, and they made meals for us. We are so loved and our families are amazing!).

   It has since been two and half weeks; after the first week almost everything was unpacked, artwork hung, lawn mowed, and house cleaned. We still have a long list of various housework items to do (paint touch-ups, more seemingly never-ending baby-proofing, etc...), but we are feeling settled. We are all loving our new home and I will share some photos later. But I wanted to reflect on a few of the things we'll miss about our apartment and apartment living in general.

   The biggest thing that I am sad to leave behind is a place so full of memories. I know that the memories come with us, but the place is so tied to them. That was our third apartment in 4 years of marriage, but the first where we lived for a year or longer (three years, in the end): a home full of visiting friends and alone-time as a couple. It is where I had all of my strange pregnant cravings and emotions, where I hid in bed out of unsolicited disgust at the hamburgers in the kitchen (I didn't go near ground beef for about three months), and where Theo would dance in my stomach to the sound of David's Mario Karting. It is where my water broke in the middle of the night, and where I laboured until mid-morning (I had a hospital birth, but was only in the hospital for about an hour before he was born and about three hours afterwards). It is where Theo spent his first night, and we as new parents unsure what to do with him took turns staying up that whole first night to watch over him. It is where Theo had his first few midwife visits and was first bathed in a tub in our living room. It is where Theo pulled off his own umbilical cord (quite happily!) after five days, and where he first smiled, babbled, scooted, crawled, sat-up. stood, walked, and talked.  So many memories! Such a happy home.

   There are also other, more tangible, things I'll miss about our apartment: the forest behind it that our patio walked out onto (full of squirrels that we all liked watching, and who'd cling to our screen if i cooked with peanuts), our giant bedroom, the convenience of the location (stores and food across the street, the library a five minute walk away), and the feeling of safety in numbers that apartments provide. I'm still getting used to the new sounds and night-time creaks of our house and the fact that we are alone in our building.

   Of course, there are many more things I love about this house and I infinitely prefer it to our apartment (otherwise, why move?). But I want to remember that home as the special place it was for us. It does not take a house to have a house to have a home.

-J.L.

The Month of May: a New Home, Lots of Illness, and a Time of Celebration

"Rose House" c. J.L. 2010

     May has come and gone already! This year feels like it is moving so quickly, and May was an especially busy and fast moving month. On the first weekend of May found and bought our house! We had only been looking for a week and had seen nine or ten. We saw our home at an Open House, put in an offer that night, counter-offered back and forth Sunday, and signed Sunday night or Monday. The rest of May has been busy with:

-House business calls and paper-work (lawyers, bank, switching Hydro and gas, booking duct cleaning etc,)

-House decor and furniture shopping (picking paint colours, searching kijiji for basement furnishings, trip to Ikea, etc)

-Lots of sickness: first experience with toddler vomit, a night at the ER thinking Theo had a concussion (turned out to be a stomach virus), family bout of a stomach illness or the flu, Roseola Infantum, and a cold.

-Mother's Day: lunch out, family time at the park, beautiful flowers, a card coloured by my baby boy, and the wonderful discovery of Downton Abbey (I received the first season as a gift, went and bought the next season a couple days later! So hard to stop watching!) 

So addicting!

-Our 4th wedding anniversary: a full day of celebrations starting with flowers on the breakfast table. I made blueberry coffee cake for breakfast and we exchanged gifts in the morning. David gave me a canvas print of a photo from our honeymoon! In the evening my parents baby sat for us and we had dinner at the restaurant where David took me the day he proposed. Then we ended the evening at Marble slab for dessert. 

David took this photo on our honeymoon in Paris.This is in the Opera Garnier (the Opera house where the novel _The Phantom of the Opera_ was set, and where the movie was filmed)

   What a busy month! And June is already starting in a whirlwind. We get possession tomorrow! The next few weeks will be full of painting, moving, Father's Day, David's birthday, and, of course, lots of every day fun and hugs and kisses with my little guy. 

    Not sure if I'll be writing again anytime soon, so I'm wishing you all a wonderful month!

           -J.L.

Kitties :)

   A friend of mine recently asked me to design a card or two for her with cats on them... To quote her, she asked for, "One cat, or a multitude of cats!" I wasn't sure how to incorporate a whole multitude of felines, but here are the two images I created. I like the "Cat in the Cream" best- it is the animal  pairing to my fairy "Tea Time" cards.

"Cat in the Cream"c. J.L. 2012

"Cats in the Garden" c. J.L. 2012

   Just a little glimpse of what I've been up to lately. I've also been working on a large (very large compared to my cards!) drawing that I'll hopefully have some work-in-progress photos of soon. And, of course, I've been enjoying the warmer weather (until yesterday's snow, that is!) with my son by going to the park a lot, and have been reading this month's book club pick, Through Black Spruce (by Joseph Boyden).

-J.L.

Family Birthday and Illness

    My little boy is one now. His party was a success! It was Winnie-the-Pooh themed and our home was full to the brim:) We had seven little ones running around, plus about 20 adults in our small place. But Theo had lots of fun, and even tried a bit of his banana chocolate chip cake. 

Yum!

But mostly he just poked the cake and pulled it apart.

  We threw his party a week before his actual birthday, as he was born on the long weekend. So, we celebrated his real day just our family. It was a fun day with lunch out and sledding, and then my parents and sister came for dinner. Unfortunately, at dinner my husband started feeling really ill, and that was the beginning of a week and a half of family illness! David passed on what seemed like a flu to Theo, and Theo passed along a bad cold to me. So, we aren't really sure what the bug is, but I've definitely been sanitizing all door handles and surfaces! Hopefully we will be rid of it all, soon!

   More posting to come when all is well...

               J.L.

Note:  These pictures were taken by my friend Mallory

Baby Boy Is Turning One Soon....

Theodore Michael, born February 18th, 2011.

    I'm finding it hard to believe that my little man will be one year old soon. In some ways, it makes perfect sense... he is walking around and starting to talk, he is wearing 12-18 month clothes, and it feels like he has never not been a part of my life. But at the same time, one is so big, and he is so small! And one means he is not a baby anymore, but he is! And he'll always be. He still wakes up to eat at night, and when he feeds he curls up in my arms into what my husband and I call our "little ball of baby." Oh, and he still loves to eat his toes, or make me eat them (he often kicks me in the face when I hold him, until I kiss his feet). So, how can he be turning one? 

   As well, my pregnancy does not seem that far away... the time when I still waddled and had the heat in our home turned down to 18 degrees (Celsius) in the winter... and felt Theo moving in my stomach and sang to him there...

   Can you tell I'm feeling a bit emotional? I've been reading The Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin (the series known for A Game of Thrones, which is now a TV show) and am relating a lot to the mother character, Catelyn Stark, especially in the second novel, A Clash of Kings.  There is a point where she is telling a female warrior that motherhood is another kind of bravery, and that birth is just the beginning of the battle... that watching them grow up and not being able to always protect them is the hardest part. She says she wishes there were five of her, one to go with and protect each of her five children (I am paraphrasing here). Her words and my feelings about Theo's birthday inspired me to create these two new drawings: 

"A Mother's Protection"- Card Dedicated to My Baby Boy

"Mother and Child- Hopes for the Future" card

    Both drawings are covers for two new cards available on my Etsy Site. I love the first one ("A Mother's Protection"), and am thinking of making a larger version to frame for the nursery. In it a new mother is holding her baby and wishing to protect him from the world, the man-made evils and the natural ones (the cities and the trees in the image). She knows she can't, as he'll grow up and she'll need to let go, but she promises to always be there for him. The second card shows a mother daydreaming happy things about her baby's future and wishing him all the joy and happiness in heaven and on earth. That is my wish for my baby boy this year, and probably every mother's wish every year... I'm just adding one more voice, and a couple pictures, to the mix. 

 -J.L.