Tales from a Winter Trail

Jump to Scrambled Eggs and Mushrooms

The past few days have been strangely warm.  I mean “warm” by Ohio winter standards, as “warm” in Texas requires the threat of heat stroke.  “Warm” in an Ohio winter means the weather is above freezing–like a balmy 40˚F.

I think we have been adjusting to the cold, because when it “warmed” up to the low 40s, it felt nice enough to go for a hike.  (You have no idea how strange it feels to me to say that 40˚F is warm enough for hiking!)  We didn’t go far, but we explored the nature trail and a local pond and canal.

The pond had iced over on the surface.  This was something I knew happened in colder climates, but I’d never seen something like it before.  It was strange, like the pond was dead.  I knew it wasn’t, but it sure looked lifeless.  No ripples, no fish jumping out of the water, no fowl landing on its surface.  We stood at the bank and stared at the dead pond.  I picked up some rocks and plunked one against the ice, to demonstrate to the girls what had happened to the water because it’s been cold.  This phenomenon was particularly fascinating to the girls, so we took the rest of the rocks and skipped them against the ice.  It became a game: who can make a rock skid the furthest down the ice.  It was almost like bowling with hockey pucks.

We also wandered along the Miami-Erie trail, which runs along (surprisingly) the Miami-Erie Canal.  Because the water flows more swiftly there, it had not frozen over.  Past one of the locks, under a bridge, was a rocky area where the water moved more like rapids.  We sat on a blanket near the bank and listened to the water rushing.  It was therapeutic.  Everything around us felt dead, but at least the water was still alive.

Some kind of dead polyphore.

With my handy mushrooming guide in hand (National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms), I kept my eyes peeled for the few things that might be alive this time of year.  I saw quite a few mushrooms that must have grown in November or December but had been killed by the snow and frost.  They were shriveled and black and mealy, and some tiny insects and grubs were making a meal of them.  They made me reflect on the irony that saprophytic lifeforms like mushrooms (“saprophytic” means “feeds on dead or decaying matter”) also die and become food for something else.

Turkey Tail Mushroom

I also spotted some turkey tail mushrooms (their scientific name is Trametes versicolor), a shelf polyphore that is pretty common in North America.  They are actually quite fascinating to observe.  When I was a child, I’d imagine that little animals or something fantastic as fairies lived off colonies of these mushrooms, sort of like a small city on a tree trunk.  Supposedly you can make a medicinal tincture out of them, but I haven’t found any literature (at least, from any legitimate source) that was particularly clear about what these mushrooms are used to treat, except that they treat something.  Maybe they are the cure for hypochondria?  (Well, apparently scientists are examining it as a possible treatment for cancer, but that doesn’t explain why a Google search for turkey tail results in all kinds of “Buy this cure-all mushroom pill!” articles.)

Galerina marginata

I also made note of some possibly poisonous mushrooms that seemed to have popped up and then started dying from the cold.  These are mushrooms in the Galerina genus.  I say possibly, because there are edible (and hallucinogenic) mushrooms that very closely resemble Galerina mushrooms, but only expert mycologists with some impressive laboratory equipment can discern the difference between them.  Even expert mushroomers (usually going for the hallucinogenic kind) have mistakenly ingested Galerina mushrooms, with deadly consequences.  Most mushrooming guides I’ve read strongly recommend against harvesting “little brown gilled mushrooms,” and this is the reason.  So, as I always do, I instructed my girls to not touch wild mushrooms unless I tell them it is safe.  This is one of the reasons why.

These mushrooms were growing off a sawed-off pine log. I believe they are also in the Galerina genus. They appear to be dying from the cold.

We did see some dark-eyed juncos in the trees.  Juncos are in the sparrow family.  They were obviously frightened by our approach (and the loud laughter of the girls amplified by the echo in the dead woods and pond certainly did nothing to convince the little birds we meant no harm).

These adorable little songbirds were certainly a refreshing break from the dead world of winter.

Scrambled Eggs and Mushrooms

One of our New Year’s resolutions was to eat more vegetarian cuisine.  Not necessarily vegan cuisine (although we will eventually transition to a day of fully vegan, but I’m not a fan of things that are overly processed, either), and for now we’re still doing the eggs-and-dairy kind of vegetarian.  There are several reasons for this.  One is to save money on meat, which is becoming very expensive here (as opposed to fresh produce–and also so that we can afford more whole grain breads and fresh produce).

Another reason is for health: my husband and I have both been packing

A balanced breakfast of eggs, mushrooms, various fruits, a half-slice of whole-grain toast, and yogurt. They have water in their sippy cups. Usually the kids don't eat everything (each girl has her own quirks), but this gives them some healthy options.

on the pounds and, instead of going on a fad diet, we are just going to change what we eat.  We figure it’s better to eat things that are not processed, have more fiber, and aren’t pumped with hormones and chemicals (as so much commercial meat is, unless you buy certified organic, which is expensive and hard to come by in rural grocery stores).  For the girls, we want to make sure they are raised with healthy lifestyle choices (as opposed to my upbringing–which was the same for a substantial number of Americans) and healthy lifestyle choices are best taught by example.

It’s also for environmental reasons: just consuming things that are more sustainable (like buying organic or locally grown) and don’t contribute to greenhouse gas, as cows do.  And for me, as a Wiccan who dabbles in Hinduism, it’s also partly an ethical thing (many Hindus and Wiccans/neopagans are vegetarian because they tend towards nonviolence and they see all living things as brothers and sisters under the divine).

That’s not to preach to you to make any lifestyle changes, but just to explain why we are aiming to eat 4 days a week of vegetarian or vegan.

This is a new thing for me, being a carnivore by nature.  It’s easier for my husband, who grew up eating a mostly eggs-and-dairy vegetarian diet.  So I’ve made a wish list of vegetarian cookbooks and found some interesting websites with recipes for those who are just starting down this path.

In the meantime, I’ve been experimenting.  One of my first endeavors was making a country-French-inspired scrambling of eggs and mushrooms.  It turned out to be a great success with my family.  So much so, in fact, that I’ve now made it several times.  When I serve it with a side of fresh fruit and yogurt, it fills up my girls’ bellies and provides a balanced breakfast.

This recipe serves 3.

The tomatoes have been sliced and the ingredients in the egg mixture are ready to beat.

Ingredients

• 3 large eggs
• 1/2 cup mushrooms, sliced or chopped (portobello would work best, but any kind will do)
• 3 tablespoons parsley, dried or chopped fresh, and extra for garnish
• 1 large tomato (or 1/2 cup small tomatoes), diced
• 2 tablespoons parmesan cheese, shredded or grated, and extra for garnish
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• salt to taste

Directions

1. Heat the oil in a medium frying pan.  Add the mushrooms.  Sautee them until they are cooked (usually they will get tender and darker).
   

   The mixture in the frying pan.

2. In a bowl, beat the eggs.  Stir in the black pepper, parmesan cheese, salt, and parsley.
3. Add the egg mixture to the frying pan.  Stir frequently so that they don’t stick to the bottom of the pan and burn.
4. When the eggs are cooked thoroughly, remove from heat and serve.  Garnish with any combination of parmesan cheese, tomatoes, and parsley.

It goes well served with a side of fruit, whole grain toast, and yogurt.

The sun setting over an icy, dead, wintry landscape.

For Further Reading

• November Recap Part 1: Foraging is Fun (mommysauruswrecks.wordpress.com)
• Weekday Vegetarian – Recipes (treehugger.com)
• The Ohio Mushroom Society (ohiomushroom.org)
• The Ohio Ornithological Society (ohiobirds.org)
• imabonehead: AmericanMushrooms.com – The Death Cap Mushroom (Amanita phalloides) (americanmushrooms.com)

Home Remedies Aren’t Always Hokem

Jump to Lemon-Ginger Tea

As I’ve mentioned earlier this week, I’ve been battling a nasty head cold, complete with headaches.  This has rendered me into something of a robot the past few days, just carrying out duties without much soul: wake up, take some Tylenol and hope it works, feed the kids, change the kids, put on something that entertains them (with the volume on low) and pull out some coloring books, cover head with pillow and clutch a box of tissues and listen to kids to make sure they don’t kill each other and hate the sun and sounds and pretty much the whole world, feed kids lunch, wipe them down, put them to nap and fall asleep with them, wake up, take more Tylenol, kill another forest via tissues, get dinner going.  Then my husband would come home, and I’d generally hide in bed right after dinner.

Not really a pretty picture, but at least the headaches aren’t as bad as they were yesterday, so it looks like I might be near the tail end of this.

But my first thoughts as I’d gotten sick were not “Woe is me,” but rather “I hope the kids don’t get this horrible cold.”  Of course, as a parent, I just don’t want my kids getting sick.

But there are deeper considerations.

A military pediatrician checking her patient's breathing - Image via Wikipedia (public domain)

First of all, it’s hard to care for a toddler (like Sunfilly) who can’t really express why she is miserable.  Instead, she will just scream and cry and be rather uncooperative with my inspection of her to determine what is wrong and help her be less miserable.  Secondly, the American Academy of Pediatrics has made recommendations against giving over-the-counter cold medicines to children under 6, and, generally, your pediatrician won’t prescribe any cold or cough medicine unless your child is pretty sick.  And, thirdly, a trip to the doctor with a sick kid in tow isn’t exactly cheap (at least, this is the case in the US, even if you have a good insurance plan–which we do).

Not to mention, sometimes germy kids share their germs with each other in that waiting room.  There’s nothing like bringing your kid in for a sinus infection, and then three days later she comes down with the flu or some other nastiness.

But this doesn’t mean that you just sit idly, let your child get sick, and think, “Hey, I’m just letting her build a great immune system.  Survival of the fittest baby!”

Well, you can still help her build her immune system, but there are things you can do to help her if she is sick, or at least to take preventative measures.  That’s right–what I’m talking about are home remedies.  It doesn’t mean tossing some bones, shaking a snakeskin rattle over your kid’s head and chanting in Sumerian.  Well…  I suppose you could still do that, if it floats your boat.

Eucalyptus is commonly used in cough suppressant lozenges and rubs - Image by HelloMojo via Wikipedia

But you’d be surprised how many home remedies–also known as “Old Wives’ Tales,” and don’t get me going on that  historical diatribe–turn out to be medically recognized, or even recommended.

Below are a few such medically-recognized home remedies (with supporting links).  Most of these are pretty useful for pregnant women as well, and certainly any otherwise healthy adult.  And here I’ll give the disclaimer that I am not a medical professional.  Please consult your doctor if you have any questions or doubts or if you are on any medicine or have some chronic issue.  Herbs can cause dangerous side-effects or trigger allergic reactions, so pay attention to how much you use.  And always employ common sense when you are sick, even if you’re using prescription medicine: if your symptoms get worse or don’t improve, you need to contact your doctor.  There could be something worse going on in your body.

The ingredients for chicken broth have just been put on the stove to cook.

• Chicken Soup:  It really is a great way to combat the common cold.  It may not cure the cold, but it certainly helps your body fight it.  The steam from the soup helps open your nasal passages, and the combination of all the ingredients that generally go into chicken soup work as an anti-inflammatory, helping to prevent sinus infections.  Chicken soup also contains carnosine, a natural antioxidant only found in chicken meat, which some studies suggest boosts the immune system in fighting the cold and the flu.  And from personal experience, I’ve found that the broth also feels amazing on a sore throat.  And if you have a sore throat, you generally don’t want to drink, and so chicken soup is a good way to rehydrate.
• Ginger:  The ancient Chinese recognized ginger as being one of those multi-use medicinal herbs.  While scientists are still trying to examine all the benefits of ginger root, they have identified a few already.  For instance, ginger is useful for combating nausea.  You can use ginger ale, but because I’m not a fan of giving my kids too much soda (my old dentist referred to soda as a “liquid chainsaw” for kids’ teeth) I prefer to give my kids a dime-sized bit of crystallized ginger, as it has the same effect of calming their little upset tummies (I also used ginger in teas to help with morning sickness).  Ginger is also packed with beneficial vitamins and minerals.
  
• Honey:  First of all, I cannot stress enough that you should never give honey to an infant under 12 months old, as they can get infant botulism, which is deadly.  But honey is packed with antioxidants and scientists are finding that honey may help in combating allergies.  I have personally noticed that local honey has helped me with my newfound Ohio allergies.  If you’re going to get local or raw honey, you want to make sure that the bees didn’t visit toxic plants (or even some non-toxic ones), as the toxins can transfer to the honey and make you very sick.  Honey is also beneficial if you have a cough.  In fact, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends giving your child honey if she has a cough (1/2 teaspoon for children aged 2-5 and 1 teaspoon for older kids).
• Eucalyptus:  Eucalyptus is used in lozenges and teas to relieve coughing and congestion.  While you can’t give lozenges or eucalyptus tea to children, you can put a couple drops of eucalyptus oil in their cool mist humidifiers–but you really need to check with your pediatrician first.  I made sure to have the green light from my pediatrician the first time I put eucalyptus oil in Starkitten’s humidifier when she was an infant.  Never feed eucalyptus to your child without consulting a doctor, as it is toxic.
• Cayenne:  It’s a staple spice in most Southern cooking, but it also is great for boosting the immune system and may be helpful in fighting sinus headaches.  I usually just cook a dish using cayenne pepper (ideally fresh) when I am very congested.  And, from my experience, pretty much any spicy dish will help clear the sinuses (which is why I’m also eating a lot of curry lately).  If you decide to use cayenne supplements (like those found at a health foods store), you should check with your doctor first, since cayenne can lower your blood pressure and blood sugar and interfere with prescription medicines.

  

  Cayenne peppers are great for kicking any dish up a notch. They are also an ingredient in pepper spray, which is why you shouldn't rub your eyes after handling raw cayenne. - Image by André Karwath via Wikipedia

Lemon-Ginger Tea

Ginger has many beneficial properties. - Image by Snarkmaster via Wikipedia

When I was pregnant with Sunfilly, I experienced a slew of illnesses you wouldn’t want to have while pregnant, like food poisoning and appendicitis.  I also had a nasty cold that was going around my law school at the time.  I couldn’t take any medication, since I was in my first trimester and thus very limited on what I could take.  What was doctor-approved was homemade ginger tea.  It felt amazing on my raw throat and helped clear my sinuses.  It was also very soothing for an upset stomach (a blend of sinus drainage and morning sickness).

Ingredients

• 1 teaspoon of fresh ginger root, chopped finely or grated
• 2 or 3 fresh lemon slices
• 1-2 teaspoons of honey
• 1 cup of water

Directions

1. Bring the water to a boil.
2. Add the ginger and lemon.  Cover and boil for another 2-3 minutes.
3. Remove from heat and allow to steep for another minute or so (depending on how strong you want it).
4. Strain the tea and pour into a cup.  Add the honey.
5. It may still be too hot, so check the temperature of the tea before drinking, especially if you are preparing the tea for a child.

Lemons are certainly rich in Vitamin C and may help boost the immune system, but there is not enough scientific evidence to quantify the extent, if any, of medical benefits in lemons.  I have found, however, that lemon in tea does wonders for a sore throat, which is why I include it in my health tea.

Hopefully you won’t be this miserably sick.  But if you ever are, seek comfort in chicken soup and some soothing tea.  If nothing else, it will give you warm fuzzies that will lift your spirits.

Kenyan chai with peda.

For Further Reading

• Comforting Chicken Soup Starts with a Good Broth (mommysauruswrecks.wordpress.com)
• Top 10 Home Remedies for the Common Cold (everydayhealth.com)
• Hot And Sour Chicken Soup With Bamboo Recipe (greenearthbamboo.com)
• Of Chai and Chewbacca (mommysauruswrecks.wordpress.com)

Thank You!

I noticed this morning that my total unique followers count (between Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and email followers) is now at 30.  It is an humble number, but still flattering.  Thank you!

Ringing in the New Year

Jump to Black-Eyed Peas Recipe

Jump to Collard Greens Recipe

We spent New Year’s at home.  New Year’s Eve with toddlers sounds like it wouldn’t be very interesting, but you’d be surprised.

I made some homemade queso dip.  My husband made a spicy (yet kid-friendly) guacamole.  We bought some chips, some of those confetti bomb thingies, and pink champagne for grown-ups and sparkling grape juice for the kids.  And, because regular old New Year’s party favors are boring, I grabbed some Darth Vader party favors during my grocery run.  We all got buzzed up on sugary sweets and danced to one of the dance party games for the Wii.  As midnight drew near, we all donned princess dresses (even my husband threw on a wig and a cape for the kids’ amusement) and turned the party into a “Darth Vader princess New Year’s Eve dance party.”

We explained to the kids that we were going to cheer on the end of the old year, 2011, and the beginning of a new one, 2012.  We explained that some people refer to the new year as a “baby.”  Within the last few minutes of 2011, we turned on the TV and cheered with New Yorkers during the countdown as the ball dropped.

For New Year’s Day, we followed a blend of traditions.  From my husband’s Kalenjin culture, we follow the tradition of power-cleaning the house.  The belief is that by cleaning on New Year’s, you’re starting the new year off with a clean slate or a fresh start.

From Southern culture, we cook black-eyed peas and collard greens.  I’ll take a moment here to admit that it’s not really something I grew up with, as my Polish-Yankee mother and Latino father.  But I grew up in the South, and we’d usually visit someone on New Year’s Day, and they would serve us black-eyed peas and collard greens.  Black-eyed peas represent coins and the greens represent dollar bills–eating them together is supposed to bring wealth and prosperity for the new year.

A lesser-known fact about this Southern tradition is that it’s actually an ancient one.  The practice actually originated in ancient Israel as a Rosh Hashana dish (serving black-eyed peas with a side of something green), and when Jews immigrated to the United States in the 1730s, they shared this tradition with non-Jews, and it became a big hit.  This was true especially in the South, where it blended with soul food cuisine–adding collard greens and pork stock–to make it an absolutely fantastic culinary experience.

Veggies that go into black-eyed peas

The black-eyed peas recipe I use was passed to me by a friend with Arkansas and New Orleans roots, although the recipe is more Louisianian in flavor.  Now that I am living in Ohio, I had the added challenge that such things as fresh black-eyed peas and andouille sausage are next to impossible to find, so I had to make do with canned black-eyed peas and kielbasa.  It still came out all right.

The following few days, as I’d briefly mentioned in my last post, we’d been trying to watch the skies for the Quadrantid Meteor Shower.  However, the only thing we saw falling from the sky was a bunch of snow.  Sadly, the clouds blocked out most of the stars.  And now, from my having been going out at 3 am in hopes of seeing a meteor so I could wake the kids and show them, I seem to have been bestowed with the gift of a nasty head cold.

What a way to ring in the new year!  [insert sarcastic face]  It has taken me three days to write this post because it hurts my head to look at the computer for extended periods of time.

Black-Eyed Peas Recipe

This recipe is very simple to make.  You can prepare it either in a crock pot or on the stove top.  You could even substitute the black-eyed peas for red beans to make red beans and rice.  In fact, this is the kind of recipe that you could set to cook and then go do other chores (like power-cleaning your house for New Year’s).

Ingredients

Black-eyed peas cooking

• 1 pound black-eyed peas, soaked overnight  (or 2 cans of cooked black-eyed peas)
• 1 pound sausage, sliced into discs (preferably andouille)
• 1/2 bell pepper, diced
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning (this is a staple spice for all Deep South cooking)
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• water

Stove-Top Directions

1. Combine all ingredients in a large pot with 5-1/2 cups of water.
2. Bring to a low boil and reduce heat to simmer for 2 hours. Water should cook off and leave a thick casserole consistency.  (If you’re cooking with canned peas, cut the cooking time by half, or else they’ll get all mushy and gross.)
3. Remove bay leaf before serving with rice and/or cornbread.

Crock Pot Directions

1. Combine all ingredients in crock pot with 2-1/2 cups of water.
2. Put on low and let cook covered for 7 hours.  Check after 7 hours.  (If you’re cooking with canned peas, cut the cooking time by half, or else they’ll get all mushy and gross.)
3. Stir and turn up heat and leave uncovered for last hour if consistency is too soupy.
4. Remove bay leaf before serving with rice and/or cornbread.

Collard Greens Recipe

Ingredients

Collard greens cooking

• 1 bunch of collard greens
• 2 oz salted pork
• 2 teaspoons Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning
• water

Directions

1. Rinse the collard greens individually and thoroughly.  Trim off the stems, if desired.  Chop up the greens into strips.
2. Combine all ingredients in a medium-sized pot and fill with enough water to barely cover the greens.
3. Set heat to low and cover.  It should take about 40-45 minutes to cook.  Once the greens start to soften, stir occasionally.  The greens are ready when they are rather soft and don’t taste bitter.

Don’t drain out the liquid; it’s jam-packed with nutrients.  Traditionally, people soak it up with cornbread or rice.

A Southern New Year meal

Quadrantids meteor shower may dazzle under moonless sky late tonight – Capital Weather Gang – The Washington Post

I plan to recap New Year’s festivities and get back into my regular blogging schedule tomorrow.  But I wanted to share this lesser-known but really awesome meteor shower with you.  If you’re in the Eastern Time Zone, the meteors will be at their peak between 3 am and 4 am.  Bundle up!–It’s going to be very cold.  But it will be worth it to take a gander:

Quadrantids meteor shower may dazzle under moonless sky late tonight – Capital Weather Gang – The Washington Post.

The Quadrantid Meteor Shower - Image via Wikipedia (by Mila Zinkova)

I plan on taking Starkitten to see them, if she is cooperative.  The results of this experience will be part of tomorrow’s blog post.

Happy New Year!

And happy stargazing!

Holiday Traditions, Nerd Style

Jump to How to Play Dungeons & Dragons with Toddlers

Since my husband only worked a half day on both the 22nd (Yule) and 23rd and was off through the 26th, it felt like he had a whole week off.  He commented that it reminded him of the Christmas breaks we’d have in college and that I had in law school.  So we enjoyed the time being kids with our kids, playing games, eating lots of sweets, and basically basking in all the snuggle time we could get before we hit the years where wanting to hug our kids (especially in public) becomes an attempt to ruin their lives.

Of course, there are always things families do as tradition over the holidays.  Some traditions are pretty, well, traditional.  Many families do it.  Like opening presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning.  Some traditions are pretty unique.  Some traditions reflect a particular culture or background.

One really cool thing about traditions is that, when you’re older, keeping parts of the traditions can evoke pleasant childhood memories.

For my husband’s side of the family, Christmas is a pretty solemn event.  But they live in Kenya, where people have bigger things to worry about than who gets an Xbox or the latest Elmo doll.  Like pissed-off Somali terrorists, militant government censorship and government-sanctioned violence against women (and other human and civil rights violations), and whether they or their neighbors or the refugees their country takes in will have enough food and medical care to survive.  For some people in his village, Christmas is one of the few times they can eat meat.  But it’s also a happy time–of singing and celebrating and having a great feast.

A Kenyan city - Image by Mister_Jack via Flickr

So my husband brings to the Christmas traditions of our family singing and dancing with the kids.  He taught us some hymns in Swahili and his tribal language (Kalenjin), which were fun to sing and dance to.  One of his favorites is “Lulu,” which is the Swahili word for “heaven” and is basically about getting there (you can watch the video here) and “Tarajet,” which pretty much has the same message, but in my husband’s language (video here).  I guess we could add to our traditions giving a bit of gratitude for sites like YouTube that let us dredge up obscure Kenyan spirituals (that is, so long as such songs are legitimately available–but I’ll not get on a SOPA-box).

And eating until we feel like we might burst.

From my side of the family, there are certain experiences that take me back to happy times that I want to share with my kids.  Seeing a can of sardines in winter time reminds me of eating sardines on crackers with my father while watching the NFL playoffs.  The smell of anise seeds always takes me back to a late aunt’s kitchen and the amazing Mexican breads and cookies she’d make for Christmas.  And Christmas break meant family game night, especially once I was in my junior year of high school and drowning in a rigorous academic workload (and living on campus).  And family game night in my family meant one of three things: spades or pinochle, dominoes (if extended family was visiting), or Dungeons and Dragons (called “D&D” within the gamer community).

So we watched the New Orleans Saints go down in history again on Monday night while eating sardines with crackers and cheese.  We baked and devoured cookies all weekend (as I mentioned earlier).  And, now that the girls are near preschool age and Starkitten is learning to add, we wanted to introduce them to the world of D&D.

Okay, so the rest of this may sound a bit nerdy.  I will try to explain anything that sounds too technical or supply a link for more info.  Most of this will sound pretty basic to anyone who’s played D&D for a while.

The challenge with D&D is that, at minimum, it is very complicated and would pose a challenge for a small child to learn.  And then there are some PG-rated aspects of the game, depending on the kinds of adversaries the dungeon master, or DM for short, chooses for the player characters (the dungeon master is the person who runs the game, and could also be called a game master, or GM).  Most role-playing games, like D&D are pretty rule-intensive, and it can be very overwhelming for someone new to the game.  But once you play for a little bit, you find that most of the rules are pretty intuitive.

And any good player or DM knows that the rule books aren’t the end-all of the game.  This is extremely important when playing with first-timers and young kids.  And patience is equally important.

How to Play Dungeons & Dragons with Toddlers

Some of our D&D dice

I’d been playing D&D since I was 5 or 6.  My dad, who is something of a nerd himself, felt that his kids would learn D&D, Monopoly (that was more of my mom’s thing), and Stratego while other kids were learning Go Fish, Old Maid, and Candyland.  When we were older, he added Risk and taught us Spades and Pinochle when other kids I knew were learning poker and blackjack (to this day I don’t know how to play poker–but I could hold my own in Magic: The Gathering).  But the version of D&D my father had was the old school first version, which was very simplistic compared to later versions of the game.

However, growing up with D&D at an early age meant I was the family DM by the age of 11.  And, being 8 and 10 years older than my two younger brothers, it gave me an idea of how to include little kids who wanted to play with everyone else.  As a teenager, I figured out how to include kids who couldn’t really read or write yet into the game, and still make it fun for everyone.

Here are a few considerations for playing D&D with young children:

1. Let go of some of the rules, and fudge the game in the little kid’s favor a bit–not too much, as they need to understand you don’t have to win all the time, but enough to still let them feel like they are doing better than the grown-ups.
2. Be patient.  Expect to explain things.  But give points of reference.  Start off with monsters and situations that the child can identify with–maybe borrow ideas from his/her favorite cartoons or books.
3. Animate the story.  And I mean by using descriptive words, maybe gesturing (or even act it out a bit).  Some DMs do this and some don’t, but–explain what the characters see or experience like it’s a story.  Tell it like a storyteller, putting emotion into your words:  “As the party walked down the stone passageway, everything got darker and darker.  Even the torches didn’t seem to bring much light.  The dungeon was quiet.  Maybe too quiet.  They could hear the skittering of the mice darting away before them.  Their own footsteps echoed loudly down the hall.  As they kept walking, they began to pick up a faint acidic odor.  And, soon, the sound of something scraping against stone.”  Seriously, kids love storytellers.
4. Encourage the child to feel like a part of the story.  Just as much as kids like a good story, they want to be in the spotlight of the story.  Ask him/her, “Is your character scared of the dark hall?  What does your character think is making the scratching noise down the hall?”
   

   A D&D game session in progress - Image via Wikipedia

5. Let them be silly, especially if it encourages creative thinking.  For instance, when my youngest brother was 4 and learning to play the game, he asked me if his character could vomit into a bucket and toss it on the monster he was fighting, arguing it was acid vomit.  (Yes, this is gross, but that’s little kid thinking for you.)  Sure, why not?  If he can roll a “vomit check” (I picked some arbitrary number based on his character’s wisdom–can he make himself vomit?) then I’d give it the qualities of an acid splash spell.  I don’t remember the outcome of the roll, but it was hilarious for everyone and he had a fantastic time.
6. You may have to adjust information on the character sheet for him/her, but explain what you are doing and why.  And turn it into a learning experience.  D&D can be a fun way to teach math, strategy, and empathy (once they are ready to learn to role-play).  For instance, have the child count backwards with you as you deduct hit points.
7. Make the adventures short, until the child demonstrates that he/she can sit for a longer game.  And make the goals of the adventure simple: rescue the princess, find the secret treasure, that kind of thing.  Adventures dealing with mysteries and riddles and more complicated story lines should wait until they are older and/or get the hang of it.

This isn’t an exhaustive list, and I’m sure I could think add more, but it’s meant to be a guide.  Also, every kid is different, and as a parent (or other relation) you’ll know best what would work with the child.  And the Number One thing to remember is:  It’s just a game, and the point of the game is to have fun!

That being said, I’ll share a little bit about the game we’re running with Starkitten and Sunfilly.

To begin with, we gave them a point of reference by letting them choose characters styled after their favorite fictional characters.  For Starkitten, that’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and for Sunfilly, it’s Mulan.  So Buffy (who specifically fought the undead and demons) became a human ranger with undead as her favored enemy.  Mulan (a woman warrior) became a human fighter.  See?  Easy enough.  My husband decided to be a cleric, and we let the kids choose his character:  Yoda.  And, since they don’t have… whatever the hell Yoda was in the D&D manual, for the sake of simplicity, we made Yoda be a gnome.  And even though I was the DM, I rolled a character, too, so that they’d get the idea of what you can do in D&D.  I wanted to be Hermione Granger, a human mage, but Starkitten gave an executive veto and insisted I instead be Tinker Bell.  “Tinker Bell” to my girls really means any of the Disney fairies (or any fairy, for that matter), so I went with Rosetta, because she’s spunky, as an elf sorcerer.  I assigned them standard equipment (I gave Buffy an axe and a crossbow, instead of a stake, because on the TV show, when she’s pissed off, she likes to carry huge scary weapons like axes and crossbows).

The  pop culture points of reference are helpful in teaching the kids to role-play.  They know how Buffy would react to a scary situation (fight first, ask questions later), versus how Mulan would (come up with a plan, don’t jump right into the fray).  They know Yoda will stick back (they have only seen the original Star Wars, when Yoda is more of a teacher with “magic” powers–the Force) and guide the fighters.  And they know that Rosetta is little and fragile, and so most likely to be squished, but she has useful magical talents.  So when it finally did become battle time, we would ask the girls, “What would Buffy do?” or “What would Mulan do?”  It’s the first step towards imaginative role-playing.

We rolled stats for a very simplistic home-made character sheet (which I have made available for you here if you wanted to look at it and/or use it).  Starkitten read the numbers off the die and we guided her in adding them up: “The first dice reads what number?  4.  And the second one reads…?  5.  And the third?  5.  Let’s count.  4 plus 5 is 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.  9 plus 5 is 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.  So we have 14.”

For experience, to keep engaging the kids with math, we changed it to “kill counts.”  So they just count the number of monsters that the party kills (we decided to go with party kills as opposed to individual kills to encourage a teamwork mentality).  To reach level 2, the party needs to kill 50 monsters.  Tough monsters, arguably, could count as more than one kill, but I don’t think the kids are at that point of understanding.

In the back of my mind, I was keeping up with all the more complex rules, like their saving throws and that sort of thing.  This way, there is still some consistency to the game and it could still be enjoyable for my husband and me.

The fun part for the girls, especially Sunfilly, was the actual playing of the game.  We just made a very simple, “let’s run through the dungeon and find treasure” adventure, as the kids have seen my husband play games like Zelda and Gauntlet and have a good idea of what that means.  And, since Starkitten has a huge fascination with zombies, why not let the kids imagine themselves running through the dungeon killing some zombies.

So I made paper tokens for the characters and the monsters using a spreadsheet I created (I’m sharing the blank template with instructions in Excel 2008 format here, and a PDF sample orc template here and zombies/kobolds here).  For a dungeon map, we just used the cardboard map pieces to a dungeon set I’d had for almost 10 years (but you can make your own or find one online).

Close-up of the kobold tokens

Then it was time to tell a story and set the scene.  The girls enjoyed the story, but seemed the most engaged once we got to the part where the party was ambushed by zombies hungry for braaaaiiiiiiiiiins.  Starkitten knew just what to do:  “Buffy wants to squish the zombies with her sword.”  I explained that she had an axe and showed her a picture of an axe, and she then called it an axe.  We acted out how we were fighting the zombies.  Sunfilly really enjoyed rolling the dice, so much so that I’d let her roll for the zombies as well.

Sadly, the zombies had no treasure, but I explained that the characters got a little wiser from fighting the zombies.  They got experienced:  “How many zombies did we kill?  Let’s count the tokens on the side here.  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.  We killed 6 zombies.  Good job!  Let’s write it down as our experience.”

Then the party wandered into another part of the dungeon and found a different set of monsters (kobolds) which had a different reason to attack the party (we were stealing things from their dungeon) and a different way to fight.  This helped the kids to understand that “bad guys” may have different motivations to want to fight a protagonist in any story: the zombies were just hungry, and the kobolds were just defending their dungeon (but they really don’t like meeting new friends or sharing and want to kill you if you try to visit them, and that’s not very nice, either).  We really did have a brief discussion about this.

Two encounters were all the kids could sit through before getting restless, as toddlers tend to do, so we called it a night and went back to dancing ourselves silly to “Tarajet.”

It was, overall, a great bonding event.  Everyone had a good time, and I think the kids could see that it was something my husband and I enjoyed playing.  Even now Starkitten is counting down until the weekend when she can be Buffy and “Buffy squishes more zombies and finds the secret pirate treasure.”  Pirates?  I guess I need to make some pirate tokens.  Arrrr!

This is what one of our battles looked like. I could totally imagine Buffy and Mulan tearing through those orcs and kobolds like they were paper dolls.

For Further Reading

• The Official Dungeons & Dragons Website (wizards.com)
• Dungeons & Dragons Resources (adnddownloads.com)
• The Hypertext d20 System Reference Guide (Version 3.5) (d20srd.org)
• Featured Articles: The State of Dungeons & Dragons: Present (escapistmagazine.com)
• Confessions of a First Time DM: Mixing It All Together (wired.com)
• Roll A Strength Check:  Why Tabletop Games Are Awesome For Women (And Everybody Else) (themarysue.com)

Christmas Leftovers

Jump to Turkey Curry with Chickpea Couscous

Jump to Madras Hot Curry Powder

The week of Yule and Christmas ran by very quickly.  I was busy–as most people were–with cleaning and cooking and cleaning and cooking and enjoying time with family–and I had so many ideas of things to share with you on this blog.

And then today happened.

Image by clickclique via Flickr

I was sitting down with a cup of coffee, watching after-breakfast Sesame Street with the kids as I groggily shifted into gear to complete all the chores on my to-do list, when I noticed the rain turning into some of that scary fluffy white stuff: snow.

“Oh lawks,” I groaned.

I had a list of errands that I planned to run tomorrow, but if it’s snowing, I didn’t want to be out in it.  I checked the weather forecast, and it said that it was going to be snowing off and on for the next few days.  And, like anyone who learned to drive in the South, the thought of driving in the snow scares the crap out of me.

I called my mother, who learned to drive in Chicago.  She helped me prepare for this frightening task:  “The ground isn’t frozen yet?…  Then you don’t have to worry about ice in the road until it gets colder.  Just keep a good distance between you and the other vehicles.  If you hit ice, turn your wheels in the direction of the spin.  Don’t brake on ice.  Before you hit your brakes, let the vehicle slow down first.”

So the kids and I put on our winter coats and headed out the door to run our errands.  Fortunately, the snow turned to rain and the drive into the nearest city (a good 40 minutes of driving on a sunny day) was uneventful, although longer than usual, because I drove slower.  This annoyed the Yankees greatly.

The challenge came when I had several places to drive to and it started snowing again.  We came out unscathed, but the snow started falling hard and even the Yankees were driving slowly.

Image by Joss Dude via Wikipedia

I kept telling myself, “Breathebreathebreathe.  Drive like a granny.  Is that a polar bear?  Keep several car lengths between you and the next vehicle.  Slow down before braking.  Ice is everywhere and it’s out to kill you.  Don’t punch the accelerator like the Texan-in-the-big-behemoth-truck stereotype–there is no time to squish puny cars.  Drive slowly.  Remember to breathe.  Omigod what is all that white stuff and why does it hate me?!”

It was hard to not think of C.S. Lewis‘ classic villain, the White Witch.  She was making all this happen and she knew I have a weakness for sweets.

I soon realized it was well past lunchtime (in a trip that would normally have been done hours ago), and so stopped between errands to pick up lunch for the kids.  No sweets allowed, lest they have been bribes from the White Witch.  But while sitting down at our table, Sunfilly demanded to take off her coat by herself, and in a rage at her stuck zipper, pulled at her coat before I could turn to help her, and broke her zipper.  I think the White Witch knew I was onto her.

I had to add one more stop to my trip:  a store to buy a new coat.

That extra trip to the store turned into going to three different stores, as I couldn’t find a coat that fit either girl at the first two.  All this while driving through crazy scary fluffy white stuff falling from the heavens.

One of the stores I wound up going to was the dreaded Wal-Mart.  Even though they didn’t have any toddler-sized winter coats in stock, I did what any good Southerner would do when the apocalypse dust is falling from the sky and bought a bunch of non-perishables.  I mean, after all, it looks like the Saints are going to win the Super Bowl again, and last time that happened, 49 of the 50 states suffered from the white apocalypse dust (remember Snowmageddon?).

So what should have been a two- or three-hour venture turned into a six-hour venture.  In the snow.  It was dinnertime when we arrived home.  And I needed another pot of coffee.

And did I add the kids didn’t nap?  Oi!

Image by Emr via Wikipedia

There was silver lining.  In the sea of white that was now the farmlands I passed on the way home, there were many ponds, which have not yet frozen over.  In one of them swam a pair of swans.  I was in awe of their beauty, and even more impressed at how large they were.  I realized I never would have seen them had I stayed at home and hated snowy roads.

And I gained confidence in driving in the snow.  You see, by the time I got home, I realized I was driving confidently.  I wasn’t terrified anymore.

That being said, it was leftovers for dinner tonight.  And, as I had plans to write about so many other things that went on over Yule and Christmas, I felt that I could save it for next time, as my first time driving with my kids in the snow was a fairly frightening event for me.  (I had driven in Dallas snowstorms a couple times, when I was supposed to go to work.  I wound up calling in.  That is how much snow on the road terrifies me.)

But, as we all know, dealing with leftover turkey requires a bit of creativity, and so I figured I’d share tonight’s culinary creation.

Turkey Curry with Chickpea Couscous

In short, we cooked a huge bird for Christmas dinner and I was running out of ideas for traditional ways to prepare leftovers.  And I was going through some serious curry cravings.

Here it is, while the curry paste is melting.

The ingredients I used were:

• 3 cups of diced or shredded leftover turkey meat
• 1 small onion
• 1 cup turkey drippings
• 1 can of carrots
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3-4 tablespoons curry paste

And for the couscous, which I served as a side, I used:

• 1 cup couscous
• 1 cup water
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 2 teaspoons Madras hot curry powder
• 1 tablespoons pine nuts
• 1 can chickpeas

Quite simply, I diced/shredded (I really did a combination, depending on how cooperative the meat was) leftover turkey into 1-inch cubes and sauteéd it with some onions and olive oil in a large pan.  I’d saved the drippings from when I initially cooked the bird on Christmas, and so I added a cup of refrigerated drippings to the mixture, along with a drained can of carrots.

Contrary to how it may sound, turkey drippings aren’t that greasy, and it adds a nice flavor to the bird.  The drippings gel when refrigerated, and the gel is heterogeneous, with the fat forming a white layer at the top.  If you want, you can scrape that part off before using it.

Then I added a substantial amount of curry paste and stirred thoroughly.  (You can usually buy some form of curry paste at most grocery stores, usually in the Asian food section.  If you want to make your own, I recommend this recipe for Thai curry paste.  It’s rather spicy, so when I cook for the kids, I usually halve what the recipe calls for on chillies and excluded the shrimp paste/mountain sauce ingredient and it still came out great.)

Then it’s just a matter of cooking until everything is warmed up and mixed well.

This is everything but the actual couscous, waiting to boil.

For the couscous, when boiling 1 cup of water, I added 1-1/2 teaspoon of Madras hot curry powder, 1 tablespoon of butter, 2 tablespoons of pine nuts, and a drained can of chickpeas.  When the water was boiling and the chickpeas were cooked, I added 1 cup of couscous, mixed thoroughly, and let it sit (as you’d usually prepare couscous).

Madras Hot Curry Powder

To make the curry powder, you need:

• 8 tablespoons coriander seeds
• 6 tablespoons cumin seeds
• 1 tablespoon mustard seeds
• 1 tablespoon fennel seed
• 4 tablespoons ground cinnamon
• 8 tablespoons peppercorns
• 1 tablespoon ground nutmeg
• 1 tablespoon whole cloves
• 2 tablespoons ground cardamom
• 2 tablespoons turmeric
• 2 tablespoons ground ginger
• 1 tablespoon cayenne (or less, depending on how much heat you can handle)
• 1 Mason jar

Directions

1. In a dry skillet over very low heat, place the coriander, cumin, mustard and fennel seeds. Roast the seeds gently, shaking the pan occasionally, until they begin to pop.
2. When about half the seeds have popped, add everything else.  Continue to heat and stir gently until the mixture is hot.  Be careful not to burn it, though.
3. Pour the mixture into a dry blender.  Grind into a fine powder.  You may need to pause, remove the blender from the machine, and shake it up to keep from clumping in the blades.  (If you have a lot of patience and want to do it the old-fashioned way, you could break out the mortar and pestle.)
4. Wait until the mixture cools off, and then you can store it into an empty jar.

That’s all there is to it.

The end result was oh-so-delicious.

And at the end of the day, the snow turned to wind and rain.  So I scared myself onto the road for naught.  But at the end of it all, I had a story to tell, about driving through the snow for the first time and seeing swans for the first time.

I guess the snow isn’t all that evil.

I wonder what they taste like. - Image by Michael Preston via Wikipedia

For Further Reading

• Johnnie Mountain’s recipe for Christmas leftovers (telegraph.co.uk)
• How to lose the leftovers (dothegreenthing.com)
• Claude Bosi’s recipe for Christmas leftovers (telegraph.co.uk)
• Buffet pies for New Year, made out of Christmas leftovers! (tastyadvice.wordpress.com)
• Thanksgiving Leftovers (kaayafitnessenhancement.wordpress.com)

Yuletide Meanderings… and COOKIES!

Jump to Gingersnap Cookies Recipe

Tomorrow is Yule.

Usually I’m super-prepared for it.  By this time, I’ll usually have a Yule log decorated, lots of goodies made, a duck or goose or turkey brining (and another one or a ham thawing for the subsequent Christmas festivities), and one round of presents wrapped for the kids.  The house is usually decorated with greens and reds and candles everywhere and, if I could find them while living in the big city, boughs of holly and evergreens and pine cones.  And, because Yule is a time of renewal, I usually do a mega-cleaning of the house, moving counter-clockwise through the house; it seems to bring in positive energies and sweep out the bad ones.

This year, it seems to have snuck up on me.

Apparently it’s one of the side-effects of parenting.  Time seems to fly way too quickly.

A Yule feast - Image by Jupiter Firelyte via Flickr

Reflections on Yule

For those who may not be familiar with the holiday, Yule is one of many ways nature-oriented faiths celebrate the winter solstice.  It’s Germanic in origin, but neopagan adaptations of the holiday include some Scandinavian and Celtic practices.  Specifics on how they celebrate Yule varies depending on the pagan tradition the practitioners follow.

But pretty much all neopagans treat it as the rebirth of the sun.  It’s the shortest day of the year, and so every day afterwards is a little brighter.  And because our ancestors, lacking the technological amenities we take for granted, struggled through long, harsh winters, they put aside their hostilities and got together to share their food and wealth and celebrate the coming spring.  If you could make it to Yule, you had a good chance of making it to spring.  It’s a time of hope, of goodwill–just toss in baby Jesus and it sounds a lot like Christmas, huh?

It’s a reminder that even the deepest, darkest, scariest things in life are not permanent.  Eventually the sun will shine through and will shine brighter, no matter what personal problems in life you’re facing.

In my family, we acknowledge the science behind the winter solstice, but it doesn’t diminish the spirituality behind it.  You can revere nature and still understand how it works.  Perhaps it’s also because we love outdoorsy hobbies that we find peace in connecting with the seasons and cycles of the world around us, but I personally find something deeply inspirational in knowing that, in all the randomness and chaos of the universe, life flourished here on Earth, focused around our rather average (by astronomical standards) yellow star and the influence of it and our moon on the stability of the days and seasons.  The solstices and equinoxes, which give a sense of predictability to our world, are not standard for other planets in the universe.  It was a rare chance that life evolved on Earth, because we had all the right conditions (distance from a medium-sized star, a moon with a stabilizing effect on the Earth’s axis and rotation, the fact that the axis is positioned the way it is, and so on) and that alone is something to be grateful for.

No matter what your religious or spiritual views, I think that taking time to reflect on the importance of the sun in our lives, considering how easy it is to inundate oneself in work and stressful events and mind-numbing technology, is key to a healthier outlook on life.

Winter Solstice in Manhattan - Image by Dave Kliman via Flickr

If you’re interested, you can read a more thorough description of the history of Yule here (Wikipedia) and here (About.com).  The celebration of Yule has been getting more recognition in the media within the past few years.  Mainstream parenting magazines, like this partial article from Kiwi Magazine, and even some newspapers and the US and Canada, like the Montreal Gazette in this article, cover how some neopagan communities observe Yule today.  Also, there is a beautiful and captivating children’s book that explores the winter solstice from the perspectives of both ancient religions and modern science called The Winter Solstice by Ellen Jackson.  In my opinion, it does a great job of illustrating the way that ancient peoples viewed winter and how some of these cultural practices have been applied to modern-day Christmas traditions without being disparaging to any worldview.  It reflects the sentiments I have expressed above.

Before we had the kids, my husband and I would watch the sun set on Yule.  There is something inexplicably beautiful about it, knowing that it’s the shortest day of the year.  Last year, the night of Yule was also a lunar eclipse, and so our family festivities were particularly exciting.

This year, I’m hoping we can brave the cold weather and watch the sunset over a local lake.  It will be an otherwise simple Yule, with a few baked goodies and brightly-colored foods like sweet potatoes and cranberry sauce to honor the birth of the sun.

I like to make gingersnaps for Yule and Christmas because the flavor tastes bright and cheerful (in fact, the tradition started sometime in high school when I baked gingersnaps and sugar cookies for my friends as Christmas gifts).  They are popular this time of year, and I suspect that the flavor is part of the reason (aside from the health benefits of ginger that likely prompted our forebears to cook with ginger during winter).

Gingersnap Cookies Recipe

Gingersnaps are fairly simple to make.  They require a lot of sifting, so if you don’t mind the dust (flour can get in the air and make you sneeze), it’s a great project for this time of year.

When following the recipe, I highly recommend having the egg already cracked and waiting in a cup or bowl, along with the sugar and molasses.  When you’re mixing the dough, you’ll have to pour them in gradually, and it saves some time to have them ready in advance.  You’ll also need at least two mixing bowls to carry this out.  As for sifting, if you don’t have a fancy sifter, a large strainer will serve the same purpose just fine.

Starkitten helps by mixing the cinnamon sugar.

Cinnamon Sugar Coating

To make the cinnamon sugar you’ll need for the coating, you need:

• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon

Simply mix the ingredients together very well.  If you’re baking with small children, mixing the cinnamon sugar is a simple task that they can accomplish while you work on the cookie dough.

The Cookies

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon ground ginger
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup shortening
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup dark molasses

Directions

This is what it should look like if you use a beater to mix the dough. This was my first time trying it this way and, honestly, it's so much easier than mixing by hand--which had been a turn-off for me in the past.

1. Preheat oven to 350 ˚F.
2. Sift the flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt into a mixing bowl.  Stir the mixture to blend evenly.  Then sift and stir again, two more times.  (It’s best to sift from one mixing bowl into another.)
3. Place the shortening into an empty mixing bowl and beat until creamy.
4. Gradually beat in white sugar.  Then gradually beat in the egg and molasses.
5. Sift 1/2 of the flour into the shortening mixture, and stir to blend it thoroughly.
6. Sift in the remaining flour mixture and beat (or stir) until a soft dough forms.
7. Pinch off small amounts of dough and roll into 1-inch balls.
8. Roll each ball in cinnamon sugar and place 2 inches apart on an ungreased baking sheet.
9. Bake about 10 minutes,  The tops should be rounded and slightly cracked.
10. When they first come out of the oven, they will tend to fall apart if you try to move them.  You’ll want to wait a minute or two before removing them from the cookie sheet.  Then place them on wire racks to cool completely.

Starkitten helps by coating the cookie dough balls with cinnamon sugar. This was her favorite task and she took great pride in making sure they were evenly coated.

Since Starkitten wanted to help me, I gave her the task of rolling the cookie balls in the cinnamon sugar.  It was a great experience for her, as it gave her a sense of accomplishment, knowing that those were her cookies, and overall a great bonding experience for both of us.

They don’t taste too sweet, which is great if you have members of your family who, like my husband, don’t care for sweets but still want a holiday treat.  They go great with a hot cup of tea or just a glass of milk.

This recipe made just over two dozen cookies.  And it wasn’t enough to sate my family’s cookie appetite.

The end product. As you can tell by the half-empty plate, they don't last long.

Happy Holidays!

—Mommysaurus

For Further Reading

• Winter Solstice ~ Merry Yule (fordrinksandtips.com)
• Thirteen Yuletide Celebrations (witchesofthecraft.com)
• Yule – Sustaining Rebirth (slacktivist.typepad.com)

Comforting Chicken Soup Starts with a Good Broth

Jump to Homemade Chicken Broth

La Niña phenomenon - by NOAA via Wikipedia

I learned that Ohio has been experiencing what is called an “Indian Summer” as a result of La Niña phenomenon, which has unusually occurred two years in a row.  An Indian summer usually occurs in autumn or early winter, when there has been some snow or frost, and then it’s followed by a period of unseasonably warm weather, followed by more cold weather.

In the South, we called that “normal weather.”

And the dramatic fluctuations in temperature, coupled with the wetness of “winter,” would typically lead to people getting sick (actually, the weather change itself doesn’t make people sick, but it can trigger their allergies and force them to stay indoors in drier air and around other germy sick people, and this makes it easier to get sick).

But here in Ohio, you can feel the temperature extremes more.  When it’s warm, it’s perfect weather for hiking and playing outside.  Then suddenly it’s cold and wet, and we get runny noses and have no desire to go outside, unless there is some of that strange, fluffy white stuff falling from the sky (which people call “snow”) to play in.

Because my kids are both under 6 (the age that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends is the minimum for taking over-the-counter cold medicine), it’s important to me to do everything possible to make sure they don’t get sick in the first place.

The Rhinovirus, one of the viruses that causes the common cold, looks much like a snowflake. - Image by Robin S via Wikipedia

One of the best ways to combat the common cold and the flu is chicken soup.  This is one old wives’ tale that hasn’t been debunked.  In fact, doctors have found that it does in fact help to fight some respiratory illness.

Homemade Chicken Broth

There are many recipes for chicken soup out there (here’s a simple one), but they all pretty much require pre-made chicken broth.  I personally believe that if you’re going to make homemade chicken soup, you should use homemade chicken broth.

For a few years now, I’ve been using a recipe I adapted from Tapas Deck by José Andrés (it was a gift from a dear friend who spent a year in Spain).  It’s an amazing recipe and is very easy to follow.  All I’ve ever added is ginger.

Also, I try to use organic chicken whenever possible (and living near the Amish in Ohio, I’ve found I can also buy Amish chickens at some local grocery stores, and their chickens taste fantastic and are pretty much organic as well)–it tastes richer, was raised humanely, and wasn’t fed antibiotics (which may actually impair your body’s ability to fight certain infections later) or other harmful chemicals, like arsenic, which young chickens contain more of (and I know from having worked in the poultry industry that commercial chickens are about 4 months old when butchered–and a home-grown 4-month-old chicken still looks like a baby chick!–because they are also pumped full of growth hormones and other chemicals).

The ingredients for chicken broth have just been put on the stove to cook.

Ingredients

• 1 whole chicken, rinsed
• 3 carrots, peeled
• 2 onions, peeled and halved
• 1 leek, well washed and outer leaves removed
• 1 head garlic, cloves peeled
• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon black peppercorns
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 sprig fresh thyme (if you don’t have fresh thyme, 1 tablespoon of dry thyme will do the trick)
• 10 sprigs fresh parsley (if you don’t have fresh parsley, 1/4 cup of dry parsley will do the same thing)
• 1 tablespoon of freshly grated ginger root
• salt to taste (I recommend kosher salt for better flavor)

Directions

1. Pour 4 quarts of water in a stockpot (or any very large pot) and add all the ingredients except the salt.
2. Bring to a boil.  As the stock comes to a boil, foam will form on the surface.  Scoop this off immediately, so that your stock will end up as clear and clean as possible.
3. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 2 hours.  You don’t want to overcook it, or the chicken will fall apart and you’ll have a lot of tiny bones to pick out of loose meat pieces.
4. Add salt to taste and remove from the heat.
5. Strain the stock.
6. You can store it in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.  I prefer to store whatever I don’t use immediately in the freezer, separating it into 4-cup increments.

You don’t have to worry about discarding the leftover chicken meat.  I like to debone the chicken and use the meat in tacos or in the subsequent soup I prepare, but you can do many other things with the boiled meat.

Image by Biso via Wikipedia

For Further Reading

• 9 Healthy Soup Recipes to Warm You Over (fitsugar.com)
• Forecasters Lay Out Predictions For 2012 Weather (huffingtonpost.com)
• Overcoming La Nina, 2011 to Rank As 10th-Warmest Year (amanwithaphd.wordpress.com)
• Comfort Soups to Warm Up the Soul (inspiredbyfamilymag.com)
• Natural Cold & Flu Remedies Slideshow (webmd.com)

Keeping the Winter Holidays Simple

Jump to Inexpensive and/or Unique Gift Ideas

Jump to Homemade Holiday Stockings

Winter is one of those seasons that always seems so magical.  Maybe it’s because I’ve rarely seen snow and I love being lost in the sparkling, snowy winter worlds in books like The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe or White Fang or Dragons of Winter Night and Christmastime television programming like It’s A Wonderful Life or the stop-motion Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (or pretty much anything else that takes me back to nostalgia about my childhood).  As a young adult, I’d often imagined myself in some snowy countryside cottage, drinking hot cocoa while sitting next to a roaring fire with a book in my hand and a cat on my lap.  And that would be a perfect way to spend a winter’s day for me.

Well things had changed a lot since my young adult years, but I still find myself unusually fascinated with snow.  And now that I have kids, I can relive the magic of this time of year with them.

Some of that weird white sparkly stuff shuts down Dallas when it strikes.

Usually in Texas, we’d get a day or two of snow.  It would shut down the entire city, because we Southerners are not very confident about driving in the snow.  In Louisiana, it was an even rarer occurrence and would lead to a greater freak-out and shut-down of things.  Heck, if it was predicted that a snow- or icestorm would be nigh, the local Wal-Mart would be packed with people stocking up on food, water, bullets, and whatever else will help them survive this hellish weather.  That’s “Yankee weather.”  Give us some triple-digit heat, 90% humidity, and sweet tea and we will feel much more comfortable.  Give us that weird white stuff, and we panic.

Of course, as I’m typing this, we are having an ice storm (and since I’m out in the country, it’s killing my internet connection–my link to the outside world).  And of course I’ve made sure to have an eon’s supply of food and water in case the world ends.  Because, like I said, winter weather makes Southerners nervous.

But, in Texas, that day or two of snow would usually fall sometime between Yule and the Super Bowl (like how last year’s snowstorm in Dallas killed the city’s economy because the local businesses were counting on the Super Bowl commerce to pull them out of the recession), which is really when you’d want snow to fall, anyways.  It feels timely.  Even in that freak spring of 2010 when it snowed right after the Saints won the Super Bowl.

I learned that in Ohio, it can snow in November.

Not that it really bothers me, or that it shocked me.  It just felt weird to see snow when I was still recovering from overindulging on Thanksgiving fare.

It was a sleepy afternoon, when the kids and I had finished off the last of the leftover turkey, pumpkin pie, and stuffing.  The tryptophan had taken over, and we’d snuggled up with the dog in my bed.  When we awoke from our nap, which was longer than usual, the first thing I did was groggily lead the dog to the front door so he could do his business.

Starkitten, who stood behind me, screamed what she observed:  “SNOW!!!”

And the dog–a four-pound chihuahua–decided he wasn’t going to do any business in that fluffy, cold, white stuff, even if you threatened to put him in the pot to be tonight’s supper.

I guess I got part of my young adult winter fantasy: I'm certainly enjoying the snowy countryside! And, clearly, so are the kids.

The kids had the opposite reaction.  It took a lot to convince them to get appropriately dressed for the snow, but it was worth it.  As if by instinct, they started having snowball fights, making snow angels, and tried to build a snow-T. rex (apparently a snowman is overrated).

All that frolicking in the snow got me into the holiday spirit.  We put up the tree the next day and baked cookies and played in the snow some more.

By “holiday spirit,” I don’t mean wanting to go out and buy a bunch of things.  I think the commercialized version of Christmas is insulting to everything the holiday–and all winter holidays–stands for.

This is a depressing time of year: shorter days mean lower melatonin levels.  Some people suffer mood changes from this–and it’s an actual affliction that doctors treat, called Seasonal Affective Disorder (or, endearingly, SAD).  The world is still and quiet–something that didn’t really hit me until this winter, when living in the snowy North made me notice why our ancestors had such a need for winter holidays.  The world really does seem dead.  And the snow that blankets the earth, while beautiful and sparkly, is also blinding.  And seeing so much white and black and gray (very much unlike the cozy world of Whoville) makes me instead feel like I’m living in a German expressionist painting or a third-rate knockoff to a Tim Burton film (as in no Johnny Deppto make it better).

One of the candles I used to illuminate my home for Yule last year. I think this picture speaks to what winter holidays mean: a light in the darkness. Hope. Peace.

It’s no wonder our ancestors needed a celebration of lights to get through the winter.  Christmas, which celebrates the birth of Jesus, is probably the first thing people think about in terms of winter holidays.  Despite the fact that Jesus was most likely born in the summertime, his birth is traditionally celebrated in winter.  There is much historical literature which suggests that this was to make it easier for people to convert to Christianity, as older holidays occurred during midwinter: the Jewish celebration of Chanukah and the pagan holidays of Yule (Celtic/Germanic) and Saturnalia (Roman).   All of these holidays, at the core, are joyous celebrations of hope, whether it be the birth of the Sun or Son (of God), Oak King or King of Kings.  Or about getting through oppression (i.e. Chanukah and Saturnalia).  Heck, even New Year’s is a culmination of sorts, filled with lights and merrymaking (even the Chinese New Year falls in the cold-as-hell months).

The winter months are depressing.  People need something happy to help them get through it.

That’s why I must admit the terrible commercialization of Christmas is a bit off-putting to me, and I’m not the Christian in my family.  It’s disgusting because the focus on material things detracts from the hope the holiday (whichever holiday one observes) offers.  Gift-giving is fine, but there is no reason to pepper spray a stranger because you really have to get that Xbox for your kids or trample a kid because you have to be the one to snag that expensive video game on sale (and Black Friday at Wal-Mart tends to be marred with violence).  Of course, some people have to go overboard with gifts, such as by wrapping presents with money or giving a pen encased in pure diamonds.  And, of course, we are inundated with commercials on TV and the radio (and ads on the internet if you don’t use an ad-blocking software) that say, “If you love him/her, you will buy [insert unnecessary and expensive item].”

The holiday season ought to be about togetherness, about celebrating whatever deity/deities you worship, and–especially in this crummy economy–about weathering it through another year.

Inexpensive and/or Unique Gift Ideas

There are several lists like this out there, but I figured it’s worth sharing again.  There are so many things that you can make for someone or pay for that would be incredibly meaningful to them and much less materialistic than, say, a diamond-encrusted pen or an Xbox.

Here are a few of my ideas for inexpensive but meaningful gifts:

• Bake his/her favorite cookies, bread, or pie.
• Knit a scarf, pair of socks, or mittens.
• Make a “coupon book” of IOUs, such as for a night of free babysitting or pet-sitting, housecleaning, and so on.  If you are skilled in a profession (ex. a massage therapist or computer expert), maybe toss in a few freebies related to that profession.
• If you grow herbs, you could make aromatherapy tea bags or sachets or even infuse them into candles or soaps.
• If you are a photographer, make a framed collage of the recipient’s name in art.
• If you are an artist, use your talent to make something special for that person.
• Make a fun, framed photo collage–maybe even include newspaper clippings or maps from the town where you and the recipient first met (hometown for family members, maybe the town where you went to school with your BFF, that sort of thing)
• Make magnets.  For instance, if you have a friend who is obsessed with Doctor Who, print out 1-inch pictures of the Doctor in each of his incarnations, and maybe the TARDIS, laminate them, and glue them onto square-shaped magnets.
• You can even make your own greeting cards.

For those who are pressed for time (or shipping is ridiculously high) or don’t have confidence in their talents, there are some unique options out there:

• Give the gift of experience:  Movie tickets or scuba lessons (or a gift certificate to a spa or getaway cabin, if you have the money to spend) are such an example.  Think of something that would mean a lot to the recipient, and such an experience will be something that he/she will remember forever.
• Order personalized calendars–there are several companies out there that will make them.  Some will even let you add “family holidays,” like Grandma’s birthday or the annual family reunion, to the printed calendar.
• Donate to a charity in your loved one’s honor.  There are charities like the ASPCA and Oxfam America (an international charity where you can choose exactly what the money goes to–like educating midwives or buying mosquito nets and vaccines) which will send a holiday card to your loved one saying that you gave the gift of hope in their honor.  You can also check local charities–there are women’s shelters, homeless shelters, animal shelters, veterans’ groups, and the like who will do the same thing.
• Order a personalized travel coffee mug.
• Name a star after him/her.
• Go to a local embroiderer and get monogrammed towels, gloves, or something else practical.  You help local business and please those who prefer practical gifts.

Homemade Holiday Stockings

That being said, I’ve never been a fan of buying those really big Christmas stockings, because they demand to be overfilled.  And overfilling them requires spending a lot of money.  And overfilling also means giving a lot of gifts, which perpetuates the entitlement culture that has become associated with this time of the year (and that reminds me of an annoying eBay commercial that aired this year with some whiny tween dictating what her gifts should be).

When I was growing up, my parents didn’t have a lot, and so we usually didn’t get much for Christmas.  A tradition we had, which was fun, was that when we put up the tree, each of the kids had a small stocking to hang on the tree (it was the size of a small child’s sock).  Every night, “Santa” (a.k.a. my mother) would place a small candy or toy (like a race car or wind-up toy or nifty pencil) into each stocking.  This way, when Christmas rolled around, it was more about the warm fuzzies of togetherness than getting gifts.

My husband and I decided to carry that tradition over, now that the kids are old enough to get an idea of this whole time of year.  Since all I could find were those obnoxiously big stockings (of which I am ashamed to admit to own a few, for winters past, but mostly for decoration than function), I decided to make the little mini-stockings myself.

All I needed was:

Stocking-making tools

• a toddler sock that had been missing its mate and was still in good condition
• glitter glue
• rhinestones
• snowflake confetti
• colorful string
• Gorilla glue

Then came the decorating:

1. I first wrote the first initial of each girl’s name on her appropriate stocking.
2. It helps to do this over some newspaper, so as to avoid getting glue all over the table that has been in your family for three generations.  Because that stuff is a pain in the arse to get off.
3. With Starkitten’s help, I decorated with more glitter glue.
4. Then we added the rhinestones and confetti, attaching them with Gorilla glue.  (I actually did not let Starkitten touch them once I put on the Gorilla glue, but she directed where I should place what.)
5. Then I folded up some colorful string and glue it to the back corner of the sock so that it could hang from the tree.

Starkitten's stocking--Her initial smeared a bit because Sunfilly wanted to poke the pretty sparkles.

Sunfilly's Stocking

For Further Reading

• Winter and Introspection (awitchylife.wordpress.com)
• Oak, Holly, and Yuletide Jollies (witchesofthecraft.com)
• Easy Christmas Kids Crafts that Double as Holiday Home Decor (hbculifestyle.com)
• DIY Mason Jar Snow Globe (palmettogoodwill.wordpress.com)
• Keeping Christ In Christmas (mikefriesen05.wordpress.com)