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We’re getting the band back together

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It’s official: I am in Full Spring Cleaning Mode. This includes the yard, the basement, and every closet in the house. Nothing is safe! Everything must go! Or at least everything must be in use or spark joy. About three years ago I did a full Kondo of my house – some of you may remember that – and that, along with my One Year Shopping Challenge, really changed the way I brought things into the house. I am much more mindful about purchases and I ensure that if I am buying something, it is very much needed and/ or wanted.

Still, things add up. Children outgrow their beds rendering many sets of twin sheets unnecessary, books and toys also get outgrown, clothes don’t fit or become too worn to be desirable anymore. I have a pair of platform slides that date back to the Nineties that I was keeping in my closet “just in case” but really, I think the Platform Slide Ship has sailed.

Part of my cleaning frenzy has been spurred by the soon-to-be acquisition of an item that requires a certain amount of space: a drum set. As a long-time pianist, I have been anxiously awaiting the day that my children would show interest in learning a musical instrument. In your face, Nicole, as one would say. So we now have a new drummer, along with a new electric guitar player. Could you please turn down the amp, can you hear me, please turn down the amp. In all seriousness I am actually thrilled at their interest; along with my younger son taking up drums and my older son taking up electric guitar, my husband has taken up the bass, and things have become much more musical around here. Loudly musical.

My son’s drum teacher informed him, much to my relief about hearing concerns, that earplugs must be worn at all times when drumming, so I assume that means I should probably have a set as well, since there is no door to the basement and our house reverberates with any noise from the basement. I have not yet met the drum teacher, but my husband says that he is exactly what you might expect a drum teacher to be like. I imagine him as a more modern Garth Algar.

That reminds me: our resort in Puerto Vallarta was Now Amber, and on the card key it said “Live in the Now” which made me think of the scene in Wayne’s World where Wayne is obsessed with an expensive guitar, and Garth says, Stop torturing yourself, man, you’ll never afford it! Live in the now! Every time I looked at the card key, I would hear that voice, even though I have not seen that movie since probably 1993.

LIVE IN THE NOW.

Great advice from a fictional character. Gardening and yard work is awesome for living in the now; it’s hard to multitask when you’re covered in dirt and physically active. Last week I was cleaning one of my most labour-intensive perennial beds when I discovered this little guy:

He was hidden under the silvermound plant. How did he get there? Where did he come from? No one knows. No one has seen him before or has any idea how he came into our yard. It’s a mystery and likely one to remain unsolved.

Full Spring Cleaning Mode notwithstanding, I’m going to keep this little guy. He’s cute!

On the weekend my husband and I cleaned out the gutters; a very gross but extremely satisfying job. It’s disgustingly fascinating, the way I imagine a colonic might be. OMG look at what’s coming out of there! I shrieked to my husband as I kept guard of the exit end of the gutter, as he maneuvered the hose, trying to locate the clog.

Speaking of the unspeakable, last week I had my annual physical. Don’t forget I need the large speculum! I cheerfully reminded the doctor, just in case it wasn’t on his chart. Also my cervix is tilted and really hard to find. Ah, the feminine mystique.

My physical was initially booked for a day in March, but several days prior a conflict came up. I called the office immediately and left a message; it was after hours but I wanted to get the phone call out of the way. The ball is in your court now, doctor’s strange assistant. Remember the assistant/ nurse who mistakenly booked my appointment at the wrong time, and then gave me the gears for not being at the appointment? I wanted to avoid another such confrontation. So I left a message and she later called me back and re-booked the appointment. No problem. I repeated the new date and time several times during our phone call; So that’s 2:00 on the 4th, okay. Perfect. Let me just write this down. 2:00. On April 4. 2:00. Great. April 4. All fine, full speed ahead. Then, a day later, I got one of those text reminders for the OLD appointment, the one in March, the type of reminder that allows you to type C for Confirm or 9 to cancel. I hit 9 on my phone and got the message to call the office to re-book. Well, I had already re-booked, so I just went about my day. This was, let me stress, still in March, and still before my old appointment.

By now you may imagine ominous foreshadowing music playing.

The day of my appointment (April 4!) I was in the middle of doing my hair when my phone rang; it was the doctor’s assistant, saying that she saw that I needed to re-book my appointment and TYPICALLY they ask for more than 24 hours notice and that there might be a fee involved…I interrupted her by saying I did NOT need to re-book and that I would see her today, April 4, at 2:00. Well, she said sharply, You typed 9 on your phone to cancel the appointment. I explained that I a) typed 9 over a month ago, and b) I did not even get a confirmation text for this booking. You did, you typed 9, I can see that this was sent, when was this sent…then she paused. Well, it doesn’t matter. See you this afternoon.

IN YOUR FACE! I did not say, but thought. See you this afternoon AT TWO O’CLOCK! I said instead, in what I hoped was a friendly and polite voice. I wondered if things would be awkward when I saw her that afternoon (the 4th! At 2:00!) but there was, happily, another nurse there who dealt with me, a very perky and cheerful young woman. After weighing, measuring, and doing my blood pressure, she asked if I still get my period. Lady, I’m 43. Things may be crazy in that department but I’m not in full-on menopause yet. Isn’t it interesting how we suddenly go from getting the question When was your last menstrual period and Is it possible you might be pregnant to Do you even GET your menstrual period anymore, you old crone? 

Well, the best part of this story is that I appear to be in good health, albeit three pounds heavier than at my last check-up. I BLAME MEXICO AND ALL THE DELICIOUSNESS THEREIN. My doctor was highly unconcerned and dismissive about the three pounds, thankfully, saying, Three pounds is just a bowel movement away from where you were last year. Well, possibly, but it’s more likely that six margaritas a day added up in the calorie department. Oh well, that’s what holidays are for, am I right? On that note, it’s time for my green smoothie. xo

Look to the cookie.

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Last week I felt foggy and sleepy all week; even accounting for time change, it was ridiculous. “Good morning!” I said cheerfully and loudly to the desk staff at the fitness club one day, at three in the afternoon. I went to Costco and only after unloading everything did I realize that I now have TWO giant conditioners in backup, and zero shampoo. I sat and stared at the shelf for a solid three minutes before trundling upstairs to start a new Costco list with one item on it: shampoo. A few times I went to type a text and when I hit the wrong key, I tried to backspace, but instead hit the “m” key, resulting in a text that looked like “do they need snow panrmmmmmmmmmmmmm.” I poured a smoothie into a glass and seemed to not understand volumetric relations, as the smoothie overflowed and poured down the glass, with me still pouring.

I complained to my husband about being tired. Why, why, why am I so tired? I asked. It doesn’t make sense! I am getting exactly the same amount of sleep I normally would. He gently reminded me that I have these extensively-exhausted periods every five to eight weeks, and they tend to be the harbinger for my Ladies’ Holidays, and suggested that perhaps that would explain it?

Well, it would certainly explain the feelings of existential despair.

Lately I’ve been feeling despair about the state of my hair. My hair therapist has done an amazing job with Project Grow Out My Layers, and I will say that my hair looks and feels the best it ever has. She has done an amazing job making this Growing Out Stage completely painless and non-awkward. However, I am feeling great despair about my natural colour, my natural colour being grey.

Me, three weeks into my hair colour cycle and…

Me, five weeks into my colour cycle. Despair! Despair over my hair!

I’ve been using the kind of shampoo and conditioners that are meant for fast hair growth, and they seem to be working. They help with hair breakage – my main issue, given my colouring and heat styling – but also contain caffeine which feels like it might stimulate my scalp. Which is great! I want to grow my hair out! But hair growth starts at the roots, and three and a half weeks into my five week colour cycle, all is ashes. Literally, my roots are the colour of ashes. I’m torn between wanting long and lush hair, and also wanting it to not grow so I don’t have a root situation every three and a half weeks. By the time we get to week five, I feel like a redheaded Bride of Frankenstein, which really should be the Bride of Frankenstein’s MONSTER but you know, semantics.

At what point do I just give up the ghost and embrace my life as a Silver Fox? I’m not at that point yet, and I always thought I never would be. I always imagined myself as one of those ladies in the Home with bright orange hair and lipstick bleeding into my mouth wrinkles, but perhaps not. I mean, the lipstick is always going to be there. I always feel Ready To Face The Day when I put my lipstick on. But as for hair colour, well. Like I said I’m not there yet, and it feels like a Massive Undertaking, even more massive than growing out layers. But at some point I would like to not feel despair over my roots.

Well, we must suffer to be beautiful, I guess. Or, I do. Sometimes I look around me in amazement at all the beautiful women in my life, all apparently effortlessly beautiful. I have friends with glowing, perfect, makeup-free complexions and long, lush, mascara-less lashes and I wonder: what would that be like? Well, I’ll never know. One of my dear friends popped by for coffee one day after her morning swim (HI FLORENCE) with her hair still wet from the pool and shower. During the length of the visit, her hair dried to an absolutely perfect, thick, wavy bob with absolutely ZERO effort on her part. ZERO EFFORT. It just dried that way. I was alerted to the fact that yes, some people DO really “wake up this way.” At five in the morning I see many beautiful women at the yoga studio who all, just like me, rolled out of bed and rolled out their mats, and honestly, it amazes me how good they all look. They do not look like they would frighten small children or, possibly, make people wonder about illness, which is how I look at five in the morning. But back to my friend’s effortlessly perfect hair: it was honestly one of the most impressive things I had ever seen. To get hair that perfect I would need a team of hairdressers or, alternately, a wig.

Life, as we all know, is not always fair. As the late, great Nora Ephron said, “Sometimes I think not having to worry about your hair anymore is the secret upside to death.”

In terms of energy, this week is much, much better – and without Ladies’ Holidays, so perhaps it WAS all due to the time change. Or, perhaps my energy is related to the sudden change in weather; the sun is shining, temperatures are mild, and the snow is melting and water running everywhere. It is very invigorating to me; the lilac leaves are starting to push and I’m excited at the thought of gardening and yard work. Well, after the disaster that is a dog yard post-snow-melt is cleaned up. In any case I am full of boundless energy and in a “get ‘er done” kind of mood, which I used Monday to spend hours – HOURS – laundering all the non-flannel bed linens and all the duvet covers and blankets. Mysteriously, one of the flannel pillowcases seems to be missing – but how? How did it disappear from the time I took it off a pillow to the time I took it to the laundry room? It’s just a pillowcase and yet, it’s making me feel like I’m losing my mind. Maybe that pillowcase is gaslighting me, and it will turn up in a completely normal place. If this had happened during Exhausting Last Week I would have probably had a nervous breakdown over it; as it is I’m just obsessively puzzled.

Once I lost the small lid to my ice cream maker and I thought I was also going to lose my mind; it turned up weeks later, inexplicably perfectly clean in a small, rarely used saucepan. So I have hope for the wayward pillowcase.

It’s been a busy week with lots of fun and interesting activities. Last night the boys and I went to the school play: it was The Lion King, and very well done. I expressed an opinion about the character of Mufasa, and my son told me that the actor was the backup; the original Mufasa had suddenly left to be homeschooled. Oh! It was all very impressive and enjoyable. On the weekend we had an early birthday celebration for my older, Seinfeld-obsessed son. I baked this cake, which he was delighted with:

For peace and harmony, let’s look to the cookie, people. Look to the cookie. xo

Eating a Rainbow: Pita Pizzas, Wraps, and Tacos

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God bless the junior high teachers. Yesterday the boys brought home their gym clothes to be washed, and they were much more toxic than normal, thanks to a random kid spraying Axe body spray all over the boys’ locker room and in the tote boxes. My house is now a hazardous waste site. I thought back to my years in junior high and realized that the poor teachers must have put up with all the fumes from our Salon Selectives hairspray, which we would use between classes to keep our vertical bangs at an appropriate stiffness, plus all of our cheap drugstore perfumes, like Love’s Baby Soft and Exclamation. It takes a very special type of person to deal with that age group.

Happy March, everyone! Although it is minus 28 with windchill this morning, at least it isn’t minus 30. This is my new bar. The bar, it is low.

But who wants to talk about the weather? It’s boring and depressing and there is nothing we can do about it anyway, except perhaps sell everything and move to Maui which, frankly, isn’t really all that practical. Bundle up, buttercup. I’m considering a post that would contrast my normal weight with my weight when wearing all my winter gear. It would be an interesting, yet depressing, experiment. Maybe I could take a poll – how much does all my winter gear actually weigh? Well. This is a sad topic.

Let’s talk about food instead! As you know from my weekly meal plan, Wednesdays are generally pita pizza night, and Thursdays are for wraps or tacos. You may notice that as the week goes on my zest for cooking evaporates, so that by the time Thursday comes around, dinner is a very simple affair. Taco Thursday happens about once a month; the rest of the time it’s all about the wrap, which is the simplest dinner to make – literally we can go from zero prep to dinner on the table in about 25 minutes.

Pita Pizzas

No one needs a recipe for this. It is literally the easiest thing to make: buy pitas, put toppings on them, bake. Everyone can have whatever they want on their pizza, making this a very easy way to cater to vegetarians and meat-eaters. I always make extras so that the boys can take them cold in their lunches the next day. Do you know what makes a kid the lunchtime envy of all his friends? PIZZA FOR LUNCH. And these pizzas are way healthier than takeout, as well as being way cheaper. The only person who does not love pita pizza night is my husband, but we can’t have everything we love for dinner all the time. Well, we can, but only if we are making the dinner, and the only person making dinner is ME, which is why all the dinners are things that I personally enjoy. I am a Kitchen Dictator.

Because pita pizzas aren’t veggie-heavy on their own, I serve them with a giant – GIANT – plate of vegetables with dip. We are talking 1 pepper, 3 carrots, A FULL POUND of mushrooms, and broccoli.

I start dinner prep when the boys get home after school. They hang out in the kitchen and eat – as they are walking bottomless pits these days – and tell me about their day. Something about me being occupied with knives and vegetables allows them to open up and chat before they scatter to parts of the house that I am not in. If I could give one piece of parenting teen advice, it would be to figure out WHEN they are willing to chat, and then BE THERE at that time.

Back to the pizza. My own pizza is less of a pizza and more of a pita smothered with as many veggies as I can pile onto it, plus Daiya mozzarella shreds. Most vegan cheese tastes like sadness, but Daiya is…pretty okay. At least it kind of melts. It’s decent and serves the purpose, is what I’m saying. I also put sundried tomatoes on my pizza, which you can’t see, but which elevate the whole thing.

Wow, that does NOT photograph well. This picture reminds me of my Norwegian grandpa; he was, shall we say, not interested in consuming ethnic foods such as pizza. He was noted for saying, when viewing a pizza, “Who threw up on the lefse?” Oh, Grandpa. It’s not like all Norwegian cuisine is something to write home about; let’s not forget such atrocities as lutefisk. Whose idea was it to soak fish in lye and then EAT IT? Between my Norwegian and Scottish roots (HELLO HAGGIS) I’ve really covered all the Gross Food Bases here.

Wraps

Truly the easiest meal in the week; slice up vegetables and saute some chicken in olive oil for the guys. Serve with cheese and salsa for those who like it. I even buy shredded cheese which I never used to do but which ironically is less expensive in the long run as there is no waste, since only 2/4 of us actually eat cheese. I do not use Daiya on these because unmelted cold Daiya is pretty gross. Warm up tortillas and everyone serves themselves. Mine consist of a whole lot of avocado, pepper, and tomato, with heaping spoonfuls of salsa.

Will you look at that avocado? Is there anything better than a perfectly ripe avocado? Is there? Sex, I guess, but not too much else.

Taco Thursday

Not quite as simple as wraps, but almost, Taco Thursday is pretty popular. I use ground chicken for the guys, with just your standard package of taco seasoning. For me, I sprinkle black beans with completely unmeasured amounts of cumin, onion flakes, garlic powder, coriander, and chili powder. I just sprinkle until it looks good to me, and then I squirt some lime on top. Delicious and full of iron, protein, and all those good things that people ask about when you say you don’t eat meat. Where do you get your protein? Those questions always make me want to make ribald and scandalous jokes, but I generally try to refrain.

Today is Friday, which is my favourite meal of the week, and which also includes wine! Hooray! I’ll chat about that next time, and until then, stay warm, my friends! xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Yes, There Are Good Things About February, We Just May Have To Dig A Little Deeper Edition

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You guys, this month is on track to become the coldest February since records began. SINCE RECORDS BEGAN. What is this madness? Every winter there comes a time when I intellectually know that there will be a time and a season after this, but emotionally I cannot register it. Like, it’s just going to be winter forever now, like we are in Game of Thrones and the White Walkers are going to come and kill us all or turn us into similarly zombie-like creatures.

Recently I discovered that some people have a favourite season, and that favourite season is winter, and I just cannot at all comprehend it. We are all different and life is a beautiful complex tapestry, but how is that possible? I suppose winter is different in different places, perhaps instead of months on end of spending a solid five minutes just getting enough outdoor clothing on to dart from the door to the car, it’s a soft wonderland of fluffy snow and moderately cold temperatures, that end in an actual spring. Well, we can dream, and although there is no end in sight to this frigidity, I will remind myself that I am not waiting for the trains to get through, living in danger of starvation and ruining my hands while twisting hay to burn.

Where’s my inner invincible summer?

Anyway, on to more positive things. March begins THIS COMING FRIDAY and at some point, although I cannot imagine it right now, at some point the snow will melt and my sunglasses won’t freeze to my face the way they did yesterday, when I walked the dog. February has the reputation of being a very drab month, but it has really flown by. I mean, the orthodontist mess was only two weeks ago! Poor February, it’s not its fault! It’s a good time to review some favourite things for this month.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Yes, There Are Good Things About February, We Just May Have To Dig A Little Deeper Edition

Hearts!

It seems that as soon as the Santas and reindeer disappear from the shelves, there are hearts wherever we look. I love hearts! I heart hearts! So it’s a great time to think about heart-shaped cookies and cakes, and – as of February 15 – price reduced boxes of chocolates. My husband does not give me anything like that, but he did present me with this run top:

Isn’t it cute? The photo is a bit blurry because I had just finished a run. Some of you may remember that last year, he gave me a run tank that said Bee Mine with a picture of a bee on it, which was life-affirming in every way.

Chocolate

Speaking of chocolate, I still had half a box of After Eights left over from Christmas; I chopped them up and added them to one of our favourite desserts, chocolate mousse pie. It was A VERY GOOD IDEA. If you have some leftover chocolate, or want to use up some cut-rate Valentine’s goodies, this is a fun thing to do.

Isn’t that tea towel cute? I think I got it from Bed Bath and Beyond on a nice little Saturday.

I also made this cake on the weekend – I didn’t use leftover chocolate, but I did layer it with ganache, chocolate buttercream, and raspberry filling, and it was extremely tasty. I’ve been trying to get comfortable with my frosting tips, and although I have a long way to go, I’m slowly improving.

Another recent chocolate dessert was this dairy-free version of my mom’s eclair recipe, which she had gotten from a cookbook that she had in high school. I used coconut oil instead of butter, and whipped coconut cream, and everyone loved them.

It’s Asparagus Season Somewhere

Let’s segue from chocolate to produce, shall we? Is there anything more exciting than seeing the price of produce decline? Probably. But it is a pretty big thing in my life, given how much money I spend on fruit and vegetables every week. It is sure not spring here but it must be somewhere because asparagus is a third of the price it was in January, and just today I was able to buy four pounds of strawberries without feeling faint, particularly since four pounds of strawberries are going to last us between two to three days, if we are lucky, and by “we” I mean “me” because no one else grocery shops in this house. Roasted asparagus though! It’s a promise that spring will be…well…not right around the corner but coming someday. And it’s also on the fast track to Flavour Town.

Flavour Town

My friend (HI TARYN) and I have a running joke about Guy Fieri. Sometimes, because we are wild people, my husband will flip the channel to Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives on a Friday night. I know! Usually by the time he does this I’m either half asleep or half cranked from drinking wine on the couch, but when I see a few minutes of it, I enjoy it. Don’t get me wrong: I find the food featured on it universally disgusting. I spend a lot of time saying My god, how can anyone eat that? but that’s pretty judgmental of me since many people do, voluntarily, and with much enjoyment. However! My favourite part about the show is Guy Fieri’s reaction when he eats the house specialty. He never has a bad thing to say about anything. I really like that. I like that if he doesn’t seem to love something, he merely gives some random description about the food. Wow, there’s a big hit of garlic in this, and I can really taste the cilantro! But if he loves it, it’s a one-way ticket to Flavour Town.

Today I was teaching a class and I noticed one student’s water bottle. After class I asked if I could take a photo of it.

I didn’t ask her why she had this water bottle, I just felt it was enough that it is in existence.

The Year of the Runaways

This book, you guys. This book. Every single spare moment I had, I was reading it. I needed to know what happened, I needed to know how it was going to end, and then when it ended, I was completely bereft. I’m still thinking about it all the time. Can I go back in time and re-read it again for the first time? No. I cannot. I also can’t conceive of what to do now that it’s ended, so I am simultaneously reading Scottish History for Dummies and The Gift of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Are Supposed To Be and Embrace Who You Are. Why am I reading those two books after this amazing piece of art? They were next on my hold list. I’m learning a lot about William Wallace and Robert the Bruce, I’ll say that. Also, that I should ask for help more often.

See? Lots of great things about this month; we just had to look for them. What are your favourite things in February? xo

Eating a Rainbow: Stir Fry Night!

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Thank you EVERYONE who reached out to me after my disastrous week. Friday at 4:45 I was pouring myself a very generous glass of red, and after three (large) glasses I ended up going to sleep at 8:30 pm. My husband looked at me nodding off on the couch as we watched a documentary on travel in Ireland, and gently suggested that maybe I would be more comfortable in bed. Maybe! Maybe I would be. Zzzzz.

After a nice solid ten hours of sleep, I felt like a new woman. After all, everything was okay. The new orthodontist fixed my son’s broken bracket, and mentioned that of all the patients he has seen from the scandalous fallout of having a criminally unethical bankrupt orthodontist, we are the luckiest ones, the ones who are the least-worst-off. I am breathing a sigh of relief that I had rescheduled my son’s appointment due to his snowboard day at school; if I hadn’t done that, we would have been much worse off. As it was, I called the office manager of the interim orthodontist, the woman who had been so helpful to me during all this, and told her that she had behaved ethically and with integrity, and I was very appreciative of her. She said I was the only person who had said that, and that mostly she was dealing with, well, a mess and some very angry and distraught parents. As well you might imagine, but it wasn’t her fault.

You never know when a little kindness will help lift a person up. In the midst of all this, I baked my usual heart-shaped cookies on Wednesday; no matter what else, I felt that Valentine’s Day must not go unmarked by the baking of thematic cookies. I took some in to the new orthodontist office for the staff, and I’m not saying that THAT is the reason I was able to get my son in get his bracket fixed on the Teacher’s Convention Friday before a long weekend, but I’m not NOT saying that either. I’m just saying, being kind helps.

It’s been a short week – I can’t believe it’s already Thursday! – and it has been a good one. We had some Very Good News from a medical standpoint, which decimated my Very Big Stressor. We had two days of not-terrible temperatures, and although we are back in the thick of it, cold-wise, just having a two day respite was enough to buoy me up. Then, yesterday I was pushing my very heavy grocery cart through the not-yet-plowed parking lot at Superstore. The snow was thick and very soft, and my torso was literally horizontal as I pushed through. Effort-wise, this is the CrossFit of grocery shopping. Finally the cart got stuck and I could not budge it, not at all. It was only three cars away from my car so I abandoned it and started to take my bags and bins, one by one, to the car. A man who was in the midst of plowing the parking lot, but was in another row, noticed. He stopped his plow and RAN over to help me, dragging the cart backwards to my car. It was such an unexpected act of kindness; there are many good people in the world, let’s remember that.

Speaking of groceries, it’s time once again for Eating a Rainbow! As I mentioned in my meal plan, I make some kind of stir-fry once a week. There are three types I cycle through: Pad Thai, Thai Coconut Curry, and what is known in this house as Noodly Stir-Fry. There are two common threads in these meals: a) I use about 10 cups of vegetables for each – if you want to eat more veggies, you need to cook more veggies, is my motto, and b) the guys get sauteed chicken breast that is splashed with soy sauce after cooking. As for vegetables, I use a combination of carrots, mushrooms, peppers, and, with the exception of Noodly, broccoli.

Pad Thai

I wrote about this long ago at YMC, but it has evolved quite a bit from then. Start with the veggies, as above, and chicken, if you’ve got meat-eaters. Or “carnies” as I will forever call them.

Make the sauce: mix together 1/4 cup each seasoned rice vinegar and soy sauce. Whisk in 1 teaspoon of cornstarch. Add 3 tablespoons each sesame oil and lime juice. I also use a tablespoon of brown sugar, but I realized that I forgot the sugar this past Tuesday and no one, including me, noticed. So possibly omit. Then stir in a heaping teaspoon or maybe two of chili garlic sauce. In a large wok, pour 2/3 of the sauce over the vegetables and cook until tender-crisp – this usually takes me 10 minutes, no more. Don’t overcook unless you like soft veggies. Then add cooked rice stick noodles – I use a 250 gram package, but I think I need to up that with growing kids who love this meal and leave almost no noodles for my husband and I. I drizzle sriracha sauce over mine, and add 1/4 cup cashews and some fresh cilantro from my little downstairs grow-op. I’m using the old YMC photo because hey, I never stage my food anymore and it looks really pretty.

Don’t forget to artistically drop cashews around.

Thai Coconut Curry

To make the sauce for this, I copied from my friend Melody (HI MELODY) years ago, and have made it my own. Take a veggie stock cube – I use one of those squishy ones from Knorr – and add about 1/4 cup of water. Then I put a few squirts of Bragg’s Soy Seasoning in; how much is a mystery. Maybe a tablespoon or two? I don’t know. Then I add a tablespoon of brown sugar, a couple of pressed garlic cloves, and a whole bunch of grated ginger. I essentially grate ginger until it looks like an insane amount of ginger, then I grate some more. You might want to dial that back, if you’re not a fan of ginger. Mix in a heaping teaspoon or more of Thai red curry paste, and about 1/2 cup (full fat!) coconut milk. After that’s done, I throw in the mushrooms and about a cup of frozen edamame, and cook for a couple of minutes. Then I add the rest of the veggies and cook for 8-10 minutes, being sure nothing is getting gross or mushy. I serve this over rice, again with 1/4 cup cashews for me and some fresh cilantro.

See, I really don’t stage things anymore. There IS rice underneath there, you just can’t really see it.

Noodly Stir-Fry

This one is probably my favourite, and it is not so much a recipe as a “recipe.” I pour some sesame oil – maybe a tablespoon – into the wok and add 2-3 cloves of pressed garlic and, once again, a ton of grated ginger. Like, a ton. Like a six-inch piece of ginger root. Again, this may or may not be appropriate for you, but it works in the ginger-loving Boyhouse. Then I put all the veggies in and douse generously with seasoned rice vinegar and soy sauce. How much? I have no idea. Maybe a 1/4 cup each, but I really don’t know. I never measure this recipe, I just pour. As I said before, measure with your heart, people, measure with your heart. Cook for ten minutes or so and then add in cooked noodles. I use the ones that are labelled “Chinese Style Steam Fried Noodles” and they take about 1 minute in boiling water to cook. I do a quick taste test and sometimes add a bit more sesame oil, rice vinegar, or soy sauce, and then I sprinkle my plate with cilantro and cashews, because I cannot get enough of either. Peanuts would be nice here too but I rarely use them. My older son uses a lot of sriracha on this dish, but no one else does. I guess he’s living the spicy life.

So there you have it! Stir-fry night, a very popular night in this house. Lot of veggies, lots of flavour, and very easy to put together. There is quite a bit of vegetable chopping involved, but I time this so it’s early in the week, when I have more dinner-making energy.

Smooth Criminal

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Remember how I was joking about the orthodontist office, how the orthodontist who purchased the practice from the highly-respected, retiring doctors suddenly “stepped away” from said practice, and another orthodontist stepped in? Remember how I joked that maybe one day I would go to the office and it wouldn’t actually be an orthodontic practice anymore, just a dark deserted shell of a lease?

Well.

My husband was alerted by our insurance company that the forms we submitted were not correct. I was having an extraordinarily busy week, but Tuesday between classes I zipped over to the office to pick up the correct forms. When I got there, it was dark and the door was closed, but not locked. I opened it and was surprised to see all the assistants and desk staff sitting in the waiting room, all in casual clothing. On a Tuesday. At 11:45 pm. I explained my problem and the main receptionist took me to the desk and printed off a number of forms. She said they were having a “staff day” which, frankly, isn’t a thing, but I’ll get to that. I left, feeling somewhat unsettled, but I had the forms so that had to be something, right?

The next day, I was in the Superstore parking lot when I got a call on my cell from the interim orthodontist’s office manager. She explained that the orthodontist who “stepped away” really went bankrupt and although the other orthodontist had tried to keep the office open, there were all sorts of legalities that were popping up that precluded that. As I was absorbing this information, she gave me an option: I could continue with this orthodontist in the other office across the city, or I could just find a new orthodontist.

To back up a little, the last couple of weeks have been of the “just keep swimming” type. It’s just life, you know? Life is busy and hectic and joyful, but there has also been a significantly stressful thing that I have been dealing with. Add that to giving my cataract-ridden dog eye drops every few hours, and carrying him up the steps when he has been outside for more than five minutes, due to the extreme cold. Have I mentioned the extreme cold? We are in what is cutely called an Alberta Clipper, and it has been the longest, coldest stretch of weather since 1998. To give an idea of how cold it has been, every single day since February 1 the temperatures have dropped into the low minus twenties at night, windchill factors in the minus 30s and 40. After my Tuesday afternoon class, I left the studio thinking it suddenly was warm and beautiful outside; when I got to my car the temperature read -17. I have become so hardened that -17 seemed balmy. In addition, my garage door opener broke so every time I went in or out of the garage – which is many times a day, hashtag “mom life” – I would trudge through the snow, fight with our ill-fitting back gate and squeeze through, and open up the man door. So putting all these things together – plus, “ladies’ holidays!” – and I was, to quote from Shrek, a donkey on the edge.

I unloaded the groceries from the car, noting that I had an hour before I had to leave for my afternoon appointment. I thought to call the pediatric dentist for a little bit of guidance here, because, as you may imagine, it is not every day that an orthodontist goes bankrupt and leaves all his patients to fend for themselves. I mentioned to the receptionist, with my voice cracking, that I was a little upset right now, because of my son’s orthodontic treatment. “Oh,” she said kindly, “Dr. Halpern. I know.” At that point the dam burst, so to speak. I started to cry. I cried like an overtired two-year-old who missed her nap to spend the afternoon at the fair, ate cotton candy for the first time, and then, at the end of the afternoon, accidentally let go of the helium balloon given to her by the nice lady at the promotional kiosk. I cried and cried as I watched that theoretical red balloon float away, getting smaller and smaller as it floated to oblivion, probably to meet its demise in a wooded area somewhere to be consumed by, and subsequently kill, a beautiful member of the wildlife community. I sobbed so hysterically that I couldn’t breathe, as the receptionist spoke to me in a soothing voice, my mascara running down my face like Tammy Faye Bakker.

As we all know, hysteria isn’t that useful a coping mechanism. I somewhat collected myself and, while I was having a nervous breakdown, my husband was researching nearby orthodontists and calling to see who would take our son at this point. He found a place five minutes away who would give us an appointment the next day, and when I called to confirm, I was so relieved I started crying again. The office manager at the disgraced clinic was working for free, trying to help patients, and told me to get there before 3:00 and she would get help me with some administrative things. I quickly and badly fixed my makeup, and rushed over with a pounding dehydration headache, feeling hungover and swollen-eyed.

Even with all this I feel like we dodged a bit of a bullet: we are out some money but not a lot, and with my son in the early stages of orthodontia, we are better off than many, if not most, of the patients. We found a new orthodontist who is NOT a criminal, and as an added bonus my husband fixed my garage door opener. Yesterday I was on the go from 4:15 am to 3:00 pm, when I took a small break to give myself a mani-pedi and regroup a little. I was feeling much better about everything, and then my son broke a bracket last night after dinner.

Insert giant sigh-slash-rage.

Well. There are many, many worse things in the world. All of these are Princess Problems, most definitely. And yet. And yet they are still draining, and I currently feel like a wrung-out rag of a woman. I’m so tired. But there are many bright points: the new office was kind enough to squeeze us in on this Friday of Teacher’s Convention, before a long weekend. I have held off on drinking all week, despite being very very tempted, and tonight that temperance will be shattered with a nice bottle of Cab Franc. We are having my favourite dinner – Greek salad and pita with hummus – and Barkley was groomed yesterday, which has resulted in a giant Gund stuffie of a dog. Tomorrow, after all, is another day.

Barkley, helping me unload the groceries.

Barkley, wondering if he will ever find out who’s a good boy.

Eating a Rainbow: The Meal Plan and Pasta Night!

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Yesterday the temperature made it all the way up to minus 12, and honestly, it felt like a huge respite. I took the dog for a long walk and didn’t feel like dying. All of which is to say we are still in the deep freeze, which is really to be expected as it is winter. It is, frankly, terrible this morning, although not as bad as Monday, when there was a windchill factor of “around minus 40,” the meteorologist said vaguely. When we are talking minus 40, there is no need to be too exact. It was cold enough that I actually picked the boys up from school, which I never do, and as I waited for them I noticed their classmates coming out with unzipped jackets, no gloves, and, in the case of one girl, only a pair of capri-length leggings, canvas running shoes, and a hoodie. Oh, the inner fires of youth. Teenage bravado notwithstanding, there’s nothing to do about this weather but dress in layers and wait it out, and perhaps spend some time baking delicious things or cooking warming meals. I have a couple of zucchinis that will become a chocolate zucchini loaf this weekend, and I have plans to make my dairy-free version of my mom’s classic eclair recipe, which I haven’t made for several years.

As you know, or should know if you have read more than one post on this blog, I am an Organized Person, and that extends – to a degree that is probably extreme – to meal planning. I also am a person who likes routine and predictability, and I have passed those qualities along to my family. All of which is to say, when it comes to weekly meal plans, I a) write things down and never ever deviate from the Plan, and b) do not employ a whole lot of variability. I am a person who has had the exact same smoothie every single day for lunch for…I don’t even know how long. Years? Kitchen creativity and experimentation is, in this house, reserved for Weekends Only. Weeknights are for the Tried and True, for things that are relatively quick and easy and do not require a lot of thinking on my part.

That said, here is my typical Weeknight Meal Plan:

Monday: Pasta with roasted vegetables

Tuesday: Some kind of stir-fry; there are three main kinds

Wednesday: Pita pizza with veggie plate

Thursday: Wraps or tacos

Friday: Greek salad with pitas and hummus; My Favourite Meal

There is some room for flexibility here; for example, if I am subbing an evening class or have a meeting at the school, then I can swap things around a little. Generally, this is how our week shakes out. A friend asked me recently if I sometimes don’t feel like making what’s on the plan, and honestly, that never happens. I think it’s a Pavlovian thing; if it’s Friday, I start looking forward excitedly to Greek salad. If it’s Monday, I’m excited about pasta.

In the coming weeks I’ll be sharing all the “recipes,” such as they are, with the huge caveat that since I stopped food blogging, I don’t really measure things much anymore. Today I’ll share my “recipe” for pasta, along with my method of incorporating more vegetables and placating the meat-eaters.

The “Recipe” For My Favourite Pasta Sauce

My favourite pasta sauce is a mash-up of an old pasta salad recipe and Grandma Fern’s trick for cutting acidity in tomato-based soups and sauces; this particular recipe makes enough for three meals for my family, and it freezes perfectly. Take two 600 mL bottles of strained tomatoes (passata) and pour into a large-ish saucepan over low-medium heat. Add one teaspoon of baking soda and stir really well. As it warms, it will foam up like crazy; keep stirring.

Take two cups of oil-packed sundried tomatoes, drained somewhat. Leave some of the oil in, but not too much. How much is too much? I have no idea. I drain most of it off but I don’t get obsessive about it. Oil is yummy. Put the tomatoes in a food processor and add some red wine vinegar and balsamic vinegar, maybe 3 tablespoons to a third of a cup each? I don’t really know, I just pour. Measure with your heart, people. You can always add more but you can’t take it out. Then shake in some garlic powder; you could use actual garlic cloves but for some reason I always use powder. Shake it in until you think, yes. Yes, that’ll do, Donkey, that’ll do. Then process it until it’s all nice and chunky and even.

Add that mixture into your foamed-up strained tomatoes. It’ll foam again, because that’s science, bitches. Vinegar plus baking soda equals a fun chemical reaction, as we all know from school or from making volcanoes with our children to amuse them for a while when they are small. Then add cracked black pepper to taste; stir and let simmer for a while.

Eating a Rainbow

I love pasta, but what I love best about pasta isn’t the actual pasta, it’s the sauce. I also find that I could eat massive amounts of pasta and not feel satisfied, just bloated. This is why pasta night is accompanied by one of my favourite things, roasted vegetables, which I smother in sauce. Almost always, I make roasted cauliflower, but for that one or two times a year when cauliflower is $10 for a tiny head, I use zucchini or broccoli. Have you ever roasted broccoli? It’s delicious.

I have a rule about portion control: when it comes to vegetables, the rules do not apply. The rule is there is no rule! I, like Sally Allbright, do not like to eat between meals so by the time dinner rolls around, I’m pretty much a rabid wolf. Therefore, I eat a MASSIVE amount of vegetables. On pasta night, I cut up two large or three small heads of cauliflower, toss them in olive oil, and sprinkle with sea salt and pepper. At least one of those heads is for me and me alone. I spread the cauliflower (or zucchini or broccoli) on two pans; since I like my roasted veggies kind of crispy, I put “my” pan in the oven for over an hour at 325 convection. The other one goes in for around 35 minutes. If this sounds like a low temperature/ long time, there is a reason for that.

Catering to the Carnies

Ha! I just referred to my guys as “carnies,” like they are working the midway with their greasy hair and moustaches and copping a feel when they check young girls’ safety belts. Ew. Sorry. Anyway, on pasta night the guys get turkey meatballs, which is why I use a 325 convection temperature. The meatballs go in around the same time as the second pan of cauliflower. If you’re interested, I use a pound of ground turkey and mix with the following: one beaten egg, 1/3 cup bread crumbs, a handful of Parmesan, several shakes each of Worcestershire, soy sauce, dehydrated minced onion, sea salt, and cracked black pepper. That recipe makes enough for three meals and also freezes well.

This is a huge favourite in my house; everyone loves it. It’s nutritious and pretty easy, and it gives me something to look forward to on Mondays.

The ingredients

Foaming.

Adding pepper.

A nice moderate amount of cauliflower.