Carmen is a whole hand!

Hold onto your hats- Carmen's fifth birthday is today! Can you stand it?!
I know I'm having a spot of trouble with the whole idea! Her birthday is always filled with such mixed emotions- I'm so happy for her, and she's so happy for herself. Yet at the same time I'm a little sad because she's my BABY, and she's growing up sooooo much.
She attended a party last night, and for the first time she offended me by asking when I would leave! She's becoming so very independent! So I had to leave her, and we were way up in north Austin, so Clarita and I went to a bookstore and read and had coffee and hot chocolate and sat together for a good while (which was another first), then went back to get Carmen. I think Clarita and I both were a little miffed by the whole thing- it's also the first time Carmen wanted no part of her sister's shadow around!
Carmen is no longer the youngest out of any group. In fact she's one of the eldest in her pre-school, so her confidence has really increased. She gets annoyed at feeling like she's always in Clara's shadow, believe me the message has been received loud and clear!
Sometimes I cradle her in my arms and tell her to "Be the Baby!" and she just wriggles and giggles and wiggles her way out. And I pretend to cry and I tell her again- "You're my baby, now be the baby!" And she thinks it's so funny... She is so delightful.
And, man, is she ever ready for Kindergarten! She just can't wait till she gets to board that bus with Clarita. She knows it's official now- she'll definitly start Kinder next August, now that she's five.
My two little babies are two little kids now. I really didn't think I could love anyone as much as I loved my newborns. Now I find that the love only gets bigger with age, and more personal, if that makes any sense.
James- wonderful to see you again. Speaking of grown-up children, Courtney sure is a gorgeous girl! Did the Italian Wedding Soup work out?
Mark- we can't wait to have you back stateside again. I can't wait to get some of the stories first hand. And I want to at least get on your list for a visit- we want to see those babies!
Mikey- remember the dance club we all went to in San Anton? Well they opened one up here in Austin! So I need for you and Molly to come back and shake a tail feather here real soon- k?
Robbie- how's the healing process coming to the hand and the ego? Heh. Hope you're feeling lots better! And you, too, we'd love to have you and the kiddos come back when you're all mended.
Love to you all, Jenn

T Minus One Week and Three Days...

Until we take off to the Tuscan Hill Country of Italy! Being here has been a great experience but we are ready to get outta dodge!! I'm tired of turning on the news and seeing political unrest in diferent areas of India as well as Pakistan. I know bad things happen at home too, but at least they are not burning someone in effigy on the news every night with wild-eyed mobs of people with megaphones who have the appearance of being the last humans on the planet who wil listen to reason...

Anyway, enough about that. Here are some pictures of the girls from around the hotel. Delaney is standing on her own two little feet! I hope she starts walking in Italy. That will be cool in the baby book.

Marinara and other FOOD- my favorite subject

5 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 onion, diced
1/2 tsp dried oregano
pinch of salt and some pepper
5 Tbsp, Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Sautee these gently for about 4 minutes, maybe 5.

Add to that:
1 Tbsp Tomato Paste
1 Can Tomato Sauce

Cook these together for ten minutes.

That will give you a very basic marinara. As is, it would go well with some eggplant parmesan, as a pizza sauce, or perhaps for bruchetta, cheese sticks, or other appetizers.

This recipe is easily amped up to make some really great food:

Spaghetti, Lasagna, or Baked Mostaccoli (my favorite!) Sauce
Start instead with browning some sliced italian sausage (mild or spicy- whichever you prefer), then after that is cooked, drain off most of the oil and take the meat out of the pan. With the remaining oil start your onion and other aromatics (I'd add some basil and pepper flakes to what I've listed above), then add back the meat and proceed as above.

A word about adding in vegetables: this recipe can handle some zucchini, bell peppers, canned diced tomatos (DRAINED), or even a bit carrot and celery, but they must be uniformly chopped-small and added in after the aromatics have had their chance to flavor the oil. Of course this will increase the cooking time a bit, and it will tend to water down your sauce, so take care not to add too much volume of fresh veggies. Plus I'd up the tomato paste a bit. (Salt will draw pure H2O out of any vegetable- and water doesn't add any goodness to marinara). Also if I'm adding veggies, I'll typically add just a bit of chicken consumme to combat that water situation- say 1 tsp. Be sure to reduce the first salt, because the chicken consumme does have some salt to it.

James, I'm sorry I didn't get this to you sooner! I hope this goes well for you- be sure and let me know how you adapt the recipe to your own taste. I'm always interested in hearing about good food! Oh yeah- and one other thing I love to do with this is to get a crusty bagette, slice it real thick, place them on a baking sheet and top with a bunch of that marinara and a little cheese (parmesan or asagio both work well), and bake for 15 minutes at 350- yum yum!

Let me amuse myself by imparting to you (all) my latest culinary adventure, a dish I'm calling Mexican Dumplings for now.

I haven't seen this in any book, just came up with it out of necessity. I was planning taco-meat, then discovered we didn't have any tortillas- a rarity in our home. I love challenges like that! My best cooking always is inspired by having to use leftovers or having other problems like missing ingredients. It's easier to start with something (ideas and inspiration are often the single hardest ingredient to come by- ask anyone who cooks daily) than it is to start with nothing! So with the desire to share my enthusiasm, and to spark interest and inspiration I'll share this and (if you wish) other recipes that our family has grown to love.

What's so great about it? I'm seriously into healthy cooking, and this is one of those grand slam dishes that delivers all the nutrition I want with the flavor everybody else expects. Also I really like 'free-style' cooking, where you can do wide variations on a dish and come out with different meals each time. The list I'll make here assumes four hungry people are waiting, but any of the ingredients can be adjusted to what you have on hand or who you're cooking for (ie one person doesn't like something- leave it out) One other plus: one-pot meals reduce clean up time, I'm big on that. ( Look out Rachel Ray- heh heh)

Let me preface one more aspect before launching into the ingredients list: use of frozen greens. We all know that eating dark leafy greens is paramount to good health. But they're bitter, take forever to cook, and generally don't arouse much delight with children or anyone who isn't specifically looking to improve their nutrition. I've found that you can slip frozen greens (mustard greens, collard greens, turnip greens, kale, and the like) into many (marinara among them) dishes with no-one the wiser. I do tend to take that opportunity with almost any strongly flavored dish, as well as using the fresh kind for side-dishes- that's another recipe you'll need (see below).

Mexican Dumpling Casserole

Ground Turkey- 1 Lb,

Get that browning in a (fairly large) pan which will be able to go into the oven. Also turn on the oven to Bake - 400 degrees. When the turkey (or sub ground beef, of course) is close to done add

1 onion, chopped
5-6 or even 7 cloves of garlic, minced
2 celery stalks (optional- does add fiber)
a few dashes chili powder
a few dashes ground cumin
a few dashes paprika
some hot sauce (Valentina only in our house- say no to Tabasco!)
1/2 tsp pepper flakes (I'd leave that out for my girls, but I'd put it in for you all)
1 cube of chicken boullion
1 cube tomato bullion
1or 2 tsp Worchesterchire Sauce
Either a dash of Soy sauce OR a pinch of salt, not both.
Enough water to cover all that, say 6 cups or maybe a little more. The sauce will be thin- don't worry about that.

Bring this to a rolling boil. Add

1-2 cups Frozen corn
1 Can of Diced Tomatoes, juice and all
1-2 cups Frozen Mustard Greens (or collards, or...)
2 Zucchinis, chopped
2 Jalapenos, sliced (Optional)

Let all that boil together.

Here's the kicker, ready?

In a small bowl, mix one box of Jiffy corn muffin mix according to package directions (of course if you'd prefer to make your own corn muffin mix, be my guest, it'd be even better, but alas, I'm usually in a hurry). Once your veggies are pretty much softened, turn off the burner, and take that muffin mix and drop it by large spoonfuls onto the boiling mixture. This doesn't have to be pretty, uniform, or even completely covering the turkey mix, just drop it on there.

Take that whole thing and put it into the oven uncovered for 20-25 minutes. Voila!! A quick one-pot meal they always rave over, and it's well balanced in terms of nutrition, so I feel good about giving it to them.

And you can do so much to it! Like the muffin mix- make that chili-cheese corn muffin mix, and at the expense of just a few calories, you've got some really great 'dumplings'. Or use a mixture of meats (but you'll have to drain excess fat). Or use your own vegetable blend based on what you like best, just be sure to do the corn, that's kind of important for the dumpling-part. And the spices are particularly variable- use what you like and omit what you don't. Also next time you're in the soups part of the store, pick up a box of Chipotle Bouillon, and put one of those in there (you won't need any other spicy stuff if you use a whole one of those)- so good!

Ok just one more meal idea we've come to use almost weekly, now that the weather is changing. I finally figured out how to broil steak- just be sure to marinate it in some combination of the ingredients above. I never was much for red meat, but I've gotten to where I do use it some. So make sure you can broil (or grill) a steak. Use 3 or 4 sweet potatoes, fork them a few times and put them on a paper towel in the microwave for 20-25 minutes. Then the greens I've been speaking so much about: cook up either fresh or frozen greens with some onion, garlic, and chicken broth. Steak, sweet potatoes, and greens- it a regular meal in our house these days, and soo good for you! The sweetness of the potato really takes away from bitterness of the greens. Really! Try it out and tell me what you think.

Trust me you won't need any 'cleansing' remedies anytime soon! And I have honestly had people commenting that I look like I've lost weight. I absolutely have not lost weight (freakin stubborn scales!), but since I've been using lots of greens I think it looks like I have? Who knows... there's magic to the greens, that's all I'm saying!

Well this is probably the longest post I've ever done- eh? Hope you all like it and try out some of my ideas. Let me know how they go if/when you do try a recipe or two, and also I'm always glad to discuss other oprions, and to hear about what your family likes to eat. I know Rebekah in particular can cook really well. (I always look forward to eating with her!) To this day no one can top her chili-cheese breakfast biscuits!

Love to you all!

Dil Mahambala

That's Hindi for "matters of the heart". It's also the first two words in this cool song called Mast Kalander. I'm thinking about burning all of you a copy of some of this music. It's some of the new stuff coming out of Bollywood. There was a movie that came out last month and this song, among others is on it. There seems to be very little seperation between the movie industry and the music industry here. In fact, music videos are often sections of the movie in which they appear...

Anyway, enough about that. We had our first Indian trade market experience. It was cool! Here are some pictures. There are some mean hagglers here. It's expected. I had to pretend to walk away from the shoes that I wanted, which I did, until the guy said "wait a minute waitaminute... sitdownsitdown!". Anyway, I got these cool leather sandal/shoes for about 6 bucks (US).






I think I heard the guy in this picture below saying "OK, nobody sneeze!!"


So anyway, we are all doing fine. We are in a solid routine. We have about 4 and a half weeks left. It was 5 and a half. Why is it shorter you may ask? Well I'm glad you did. We're goin to ITALY!! That's right. It's official (well, almost official. We have the flight change on hold pending a quote). Deloitte is cool with Natalie cutting the trip short and extending our layover in Europe. We have to downgrade to coach, but so WHAT?! At least we aren't flying halfway around the world all at once anymore.

Anyway, we're super pumped about it. Mike, thanks for the info. We are definitely going to spend a lot of time in Florence.

Oh yeah, Dan and Judy are going to meet us there. How cool is that? It's probably not cool if you're Mike and Molly and you have no kids... but we gots em!!

So post already people! Time for a Coopbro PING?!?