Lionden Landing

Over time I have gotten lots more adventurous in the kitchen. With Froggy going dairy-free I have been forced to not only try new recipes but experiment with new ideas and become willing to tweak recipes to meet our family's needs. So I have started to Wing It in the kitchen. We have lots of failures when I wing it but we have some great successes too. Here is one of the more recent. I added some pictures of it. And out of desperation again I am now winging it in the craft room too. After hunting for the perfect pattern too often I have given up and started creating my own. Froggy's latest dress (pictures to follow) is a combination of this tutorial, a pattern we had and a great deal of improvisation. I think it turned out beautiful but I am just a little biased. It could not be too bad since I had trouble getting her out of it. So winging it works for me. For other WFMW tips check out WEARETHATFAMILY

This week I am trying to put by the last of the summer tomatoes. Next week I start back at school and we enter the busy Fall schedule. So this week is the last chance I have to do any putting up food for the winter. Before I get to this week's menu. Here is a review of last week . I liked the Vegetable Tagine but no one else did. It made way more than expected. The recipe claims it makes 8 main dish servings. However after dinner for 2 adults and 1 lunch for me, I froze enough to easily serve 8 adults. Our peaches were wonderful . The jam turned out delicious even though it did not jell up as well as I had hoped. Breakfasts - my nephew (really my best friend's son but since he calls me Auntie I figure I can call him my nephew) will be joining us so I am cooking more Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Waffles (need to remember to get our waffle iron back from Aunt Petal) Oatmeal Scrambled eggs Smoothies Lunches - again with the nephew who is strictly vegetarian. cold cut Sandwich...

Well we got a ton of peaches from a local farm. They came a bit earlier than expected. I was going to wait until Shabbat to make Peach Crisp but I just could not hold out. Crisp is one of our favorite easy fruit desserts. It is so simple. We slice the fruit and top with an Oatmeal Crumb Topping. Bake and you are good to go. We made some lovely non-dairy peach icecream/frozen yogurt to go with it. I would share the ice cream recipe but I failed to write it down as I invented it. All this was a lovely treat during the middle of the week but left me scrambling for a dessert for Shabbat. I still had more peaches to use but we also still had crisp sitting in the fridge. What to do? Peach cake! No recipe? Well that is no problem any more. I remember a time not long ago when a lack of a recipe for exactly what I wanted would have scared me. No longer. Now I am free to experiment and invent in the kitchen. The cake was simple and yummy. I used a boxed white cake mix. Instead of ...

Last Friday at our home school park day, I sought advice from the other moms regarding Froggy. She is almost four and still had not ever drawn any representational art at all. All her pictures were lines, random squiggles which even Froggy said had no other description than "a picture". Well if I had been just a bit more patient I would not have needed to worry. Yesterday with out any prompting or cajoling Froggy drew me a person. We were coloring together as we often do. She drew a circle and then gave it features and the circle quickly became a "funny grandpa with earrings and silly hair" He even has fingers and toes. Patience is important. We started homeschooling so that she could go at her own pace without pressure. Moments like this help me find the patience again to allow her to do just that.

We got a whole bushel of peaches from a local farm. We are going to try making some peach jam. M agpie Eats shared a lovely jam recipe that we are going to try using these lovely peaches rather than the apricots intended. Last week's experiments had some wins and some loses . The biggest win was all the meals we got out of the Roast Chicken. Cooking once and eating several times is a huge hit with me. Movie night and the pizza never happened so are making a reappearance this week. Monday - Shepards Pie using leftover pot roast. Tuesday -Couscous with Vegetable Tagine from The Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen Wednesday - Mock Coq a Vin - from The One-Armed Cook Thursday - Movie Night and Pizza Friday - Challah, Maple Glazed Salmon , Rice, Steamed Broccoli, Peach Crisp

This Shabbat we had the opportunity to return to the local Chabad house. Keeping Shabbat means something different to us than it does to most who attend there. Still we enjoy going. For me personally, there are two items that make Shabbat meaningful, being with family and Jewish study. At Chabad, both Froggy and I are able to engage in Jewish learning and fellowship. Unfortunately, Hiranu is not comfortable there at all. For the time being (ie until we find a solution that provides meaningful study and fellowship and family time) we are having family time on Erev Shabbat and Shabbat afternoon while spending Shabbat mornings learning at Chabad. Not ideal but so far a justifiable compromise. Who am I justifying things to, I hear you ask? Myself, only myself. Maybe at some point I will need to explain them to Froggy but the real person is me. Why is not ideal? Ideal would be if everyone could be together learning at the same time in the same enviroment and enjoying Shabbat togethe...

I am easily bored so I constantly trying new things. We are also still learning how to modify some of our previous favorite foods to fit into our new (ok it has been a full year now) dairy free lifestyle. Spinach Daal - from Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone . Not for us even though we enjoy it greatly out. The lentils took forever to cook. Easily twice as long as the recipe indicated. The texture and color was unappetizing. I am not sure what I did different but it was not what we were expecting. Chicken Kebobs - For some reason kebobs make any food more fun for preschoolers. I used mango chutney to marinade some boneless chicken thighs added some red bell pepper slices and onion pieces and popped them on the grill. They were a huge hit with the whole family. Baked Stuffed Tilapia - The stuffing was flavorful but the fish had no flavor and was dry and tough even though I cooked it for less time than specified.

One of the foods we miss terribly from before going dairy-free is ravioli. I have only found one brand ever that is totally dairy-free and it is too expensive to make a regular item. So at the urging of some friends, I tried making some from scratch using wonton wrappers in place of the pasta dough. The filling, which really worried me more, turned out delicious. I used 1lb firm tofu instead of ricotta, 10 frozen chopped spinach thawed and drained, and 2 TBS vegan parmesan cheese (from a can). The process of making the ravioli was interesting. Froggy had fun helping me. She even tried one of the wrappers raw. She ate the whole thing so I guess it was good. Once cooked however the wrappers were vile. They turned slimy with a texture similar to steamed dumplings. Right now ravioli are on hold here until I either find a source for premade pasta dough or am willing to try it on my own.

After weeks of not being able to cook and eating out constantly, we are all very much looking forward to some real home cooking. The fridge is empty. The cupboards are bare. The slate is clean. We can go anywhere we want We made a trip to the local farmers market yesterday and this week's menu will highlight some of our finds. Monday - Baked Stuffed Tilapia , rice and green beans. Tuesday - Chicken Kebobs, summer squash, corn on the cob Wednesday - A new experiment from Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone . It is a spinach dal rendition which will be served with rice and naan. Thursday - Pizza and a movie night. Homemade pizza (using leftover sauce) and salad. Froggy will get to pick the movie Friday - A real Shabbat dinner at last. We will have Challah, steamed broccoli, Pot Roast, potatoes, and this lovely treat for dessert , ice cream cake . A friend gave me a cool recipe which I can use non-dairy icecream. I am also trying to plan out breakfast/lunch/snacks better too....

At 1:05 Sunday morning, my mother returned to G-d. After a long battle with breast cancer and two painful sick years, I know she is finally at peace. She was a strong, independent woman. She raised four girls on her own in a time when being a single parent was even harder than it is today. She instilled in each of us the importance of independence and not relying on someone else for your livelihood. She taught us to think for ourselves and form our own opinions. She worried much in later life that she did not give us the best foundation but I know that she gave us a better foundation than her mother gave her and the best one that she possibly could. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Ori moved to Florida when she was 6yrs old and never left. She built her dream home in Clermont in 2002, and became a full time resident in 2007. Mrs. Cherin, as she was known by her students, graduated from the University of Miami and later received her Masters Degree from Nova University. She was an e...

Try telling a healthy, active 3 yr old that they must play quietly by themselves every morning for 2 hours and you are bound to run into trouble. My husband is trying to work and I am trying to care for my dying mom and together that makes it hard to properly devote the time and attention we would like to Froggy. Enter paper dolls. Exit Stress. I purchased this paper doll book at Michaels. The thought had been, with the help of some posterboard, contact paper and washers, to turn them into magnetic dressable dolls. That was an utter failure. Instead I laminated dolls and clothes and simply used the "reusable stickers" provided with the book to attach the clothes. Froggy has gotten days of quiet enjoyment out of these dolls with more yet to come. I keep them engaging by presenting her with new dolls or clothes or both from the book each day. She has never seen the book itself so she does not feel like she is missing everything by not having it all at once. At her age, ...

I love the idea of learning through literature and FIAR seems like an ideal way to do that with a preschooler. Yet for some bizarre reason, it is not working for us. Every time I try, I select a great book and find neat activities to go with it. The problem comes in that we never seem to do the activities. Why you ask? Well I am not really sure. Probably poor planning on my part. To solve this unfortunate problem, we are going to try something new. We are currently on vacation so not doing any formal work at all. This break gives me some time to get my materials all organized. I am making a tub to keep all our FIAR supplies. In this tub will be the book of the week, our vocabulary journal, our flag book, and all the supplies for the current week. To organize the activities for each book, I am planning to try to do a lapbook for each. In this prepatory phase I am collecting all the printables and activities for our first 5 books and organizing what the lapbooks will look like...

One of the reasons I chose to homeschool was to help my daughter feel "normal" rather than "different" for being Jewish. We try very hard to mark time "Jewishly". That being the case our school year runs according to the Jewish calendar and starts anew with Rosh Hashana. This is very convenient since many activities start new in the Fall with the start of the traditional school year as well. I am trying to decide what activities Froggy will participate in during the upcoming year. She will certainly continue with swimming and gymnastics. She will also start Sunday School at shul. I feel there needs to be something on a musical front but the hubby wants to add in an organized sport and I feel that four activities is just too much. We will also be starting a nature club with our local homeschooling group. This will probably take the place of any other science curriculum for this year. I will be leading the group if it actually comes to pass. It will...