Recipe: Fruitcake

A couple of you asked for the recipe of the fruitcake you all sampled yesterday, so here it is! I think it came from an issue of Clean Eating magazine, but I'm not sure. Note: the fruit has to marinate in the liqueur for a day before you can begin baking.

Ingredients:

Fruit:
1 cup unsweetened dried cranberries
1 cup unsweetened dried apricots, chopped
1/2 cup crystallized (candied) ginger, chopped
1/2 cup liqueur of choice (I used Southern Comfort this time; I've also used Kahlua.)

1/4 cup flour

Dry Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups flour
2 t baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon allspice

Wet Ingredients:
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla

1. Combine fruit and alcohol. Let stand 1 day, stirring occasionally

2. Grease and flour a loaf pan. Preheat oven to 250F.

3. Sprinkle 1/4 cup flour into the fruit mix, and stir.

4. In smallish bowl, whisk dry ingredients together.

5. In larger bowl, mix oil and sugar, then add the rest of wet ingredients.

6. Add dry ingredients to wet. Add fruit. Stir. Will be very heavy.

7. Glop into pan. Smooth the top. Cover with tin foil.

8. Place 9 x 13 pan, 2/3 full of water, on lower rack.

9. Put loaf on middle rack. Bake 2 1/2 hours.

Yum!

Leaf Play

A field, some trees, a whole lotta leaves, and five toddlers

makes for a whole lotta exploration

and fun.

Add a rusty old standpipe

and you have even more entertainment!

(Because, really, what is that thing for, besides filling with leaves?)

We love the autumn!

Party Time!

Thank you, Nora. We loved your hats!

It's the Most Wonderful Day...

♫ ♫...of the week.♫ ♪

Orally yours, Addie

It looks benign enough. Perhaps we were icing cupcakes? Sadly, no.

Though it's not toxic, and might even help settle a queasy stomach, it's not precisely food*...

Num, num, nummy!

*If it's not entirely clear from the picture, that is a piece of sidewalk chalk.
Yes, indeedy.
Rest assured, it was taken from her promptly,
right after I took these pictures.
(Parenting tip: The pictures of mischief will bring more laughter in years to come than the sweet pictures. Sweet pictures bring smiles. Mischief brings laughter. They all give you stories. If what's going on isn't deadly, reach for the camera before you clean it up!!!)

Menu Monday

Monday: Spinach pie, beet-cabbage salad
Spinach pie is one of those things they eat with middling enthusiasm. They don't dislike it, they don't rave. They just eat it. (Which is fine!)

Tuesday: Gyros. (Slices of lightly spiced ground turkey loaf in yogurt sauce, tucked into a pita with veggies. Ella is getting slices of the veggie meatballs the rest of us will have on Wednesday.)

This they liked.

Wednesday: Spaghetti and eggplant-tomato sauce with veggie meatballs.


Thursday: Singapore noodles (tofu and various veggies on vermicelli with a spicy sauce)

Friday: Presidential chili

Didn't get this far. We had peanut-butter sandwiches instead. :-)

Reproach!

If you have cause to correct Dries for some misdemeanor, you will almost certainly get This Look. It's not just the face, though that's certainly a picture, it's the whole body. Doesn't his pose just scream "How could you treat me so???" All he needs to add is the back of the hand to his forehead. Such pathos, poor lad.

He's not angry, he's just ... pained. Pained that I could ... prevent him from whapping someone. Or stealing a toy. Or sitting on the puppy. Or... well, Dries is a busy boy. The list for potential correction is long. But no, he's not angry. He's pained. Pained and oh, so reproachful. Look at that face.

I should be ashamed, no?

What We're Up To

Our theme for the month is "Let's Get Moving!" Each week will be focussed on a different mode of getting around. The first week? The one method they have at their disposal: Feet!

Outings:

We will go for a few walks, of course. We will walk, we will march, we will skip, gallop, shuffle, jump, slide, because there are all sorts of ways you can move using feet. One walk will, weather permitting, end at the park for a picnic.

Games and Activities:

Given that it's November and the weather is going to become increasingly uncooperative, I've planned some rowdy indoor activities just in case. We'll be making an obstacle course with this and that around the house. We'll also be having races -- basic footraces (in which no one will win or lose, we'll all just run like stink), egg and spoon race (where the 'egg' will be a dollop of playdough), and we'll try having a race while running backwards!

We'll be playing "Hop Little Bunnies" with a transportation theme all month: we'll be cars and busses and airplanes and trains...

Crafts:

Lacing cards (because we walk in shoes, and shoes have laces! Okay, mostly their shoes have velcro, but velcro they can manage.)

Footprint mural. We'll paint the soles of their bare feet and have them walk along a long strip of paper.

Menu Monday

Monday: Black bean soup, cornbread, salad
Total hit. Everyone had multiple helpings. The link is to the recipe, for anyone who'd like to try it at home. Hint: a significant part of the appeal was that I served the thick soup over chunks of slightly stale cornbread. I think they viewed it as some sort of gravy for the bread...

Tuesday: Vegetable stew, biscuits 
Hit and miss. Some liked it, some didn't.

Wednesday: Veggie burgers (made with egg, tofu, walnuts) and carrot salad

Thursday: Meatloaf, Southwest bean salad

Friday: Baked beans, broccoli

Halloween Party, the Children

Halloween Party, the Adults

Slime!

It's a very simple activity. Pour a cup or so of cornstarch into a bowl. Slowly drizzle in water, stirring as you go. It will be very stiff and lumpy at first, and will become more liquid as you pour in more water. Tip: Stir slowly. The oddity (and the appeal!!) of this stuff is the faster you stir, the more solid it becomes. Green food colouring is optional, of course.

When it's the consistency you want (we went for cream), you will find that if you put your finger in slooowly, it feels just like water. (Or cream.)

But if you lift your finger out, it will ooze and drip like... slime!

Slime...

Drip!

We all loved it.

The science lesson? It's an isotropic liquid: when it's agitated, it becomes more solid. So, reach in and quickly clutch a handful, and you can lift it out like crumbling pie dough. Within a second or two, though, if you hold your hand still, it will revert back to liquid and oooooze out between your fingers. Stir it quickly, and it will mound up against your finger or spoon. Stop stirring, and... back to innocuous liquid.

Nora was particularly fascinated, and stayed at the table long after the others had become bored. Poke, stir, lift. Solid, liquid, ooze. Very Zen, our Nora. :-)

Rivetted!

Wow!!!! Something is INTERESTING!!! (Peek-a-boo, Dries!)

Fascinating, even. Whatever could it be?

Singing MONKEYS!!!

(Don't ask me. I have no idea who/what they are...)

Nooooooodles!

We had vermicelli noodles with lunch today. Can you tell?

Menu Monday

Monday: Lentil-beet Salad
A reliable standard. (Don't be alarmed by ruby-red output in the next 24 hours...)

Tuesday: Spaghetti and (veggie)meatballs
We love pasta. 'Nuff said.

Wednesday: Tofu-veggie curry on rice
Actually, we had it on rice vermicelli, and everyone loved it.

Thursday: Groundnut Stew (veggies in a peanut-butter/tomato broth)
Another hit. Okay, full disclosure: Responses varied from overt enthusiasm to neutral, but no one complained, gagged, or refused outright, but when your dining party comprises 5 toddlers, that constitutes a hit!

Friday: Halloween Party!

What are we Doing this Week?

Each week I have a general plan of activities and crafts mapped out, a mix of outings and crafts (three to five/week) with other activities (cooking, songs, etc) or games (often theme-specific) tossed in once or twice a week. We don't always follow the plan, mind you! Outings are dependent not only on the weather, but the needs of the children. If a little one (or a biggun, for that matter) needs a morning nap, we probably won't get further than the driveway or the front porch. Crafts sometimes don't happen for one reason or another...

But insofar as you can plan anything with a bunch of toddlers, I do make plans! It's only recently occurred to me that I could, you know, share them with you guys... However, please understand that anything I write on a Sunday evening may bear no similarity whatsoever to what actually occurs on the Thursday. (Or the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Friday!)

Still, I do my best, and it often happens like I plan!

So. This week. The theme is Halloween, the colour ORANGE. (Surprise, surprise.)

Monday:
Outing: Windsor Park
Craft: Jack o'lantern suncatchers

Tuesday:
Outing: Library
Craft: Slime

Wednesday:
Outing: Windsor Park
Craft: Spooky ghosts

Thursday:
Outing: Walk into the Glebe to check out the construction
Activity: Baking cookies for party tomorrow!! (And for snack this afternoon. Yummy!)

Friday:
Outing: Playgroup
Activity: Decorating for party (balloons and streamers, yay!)

SEE YOU ALL AT THE HALLOWEEN PARTY!!!

Bottom's Up!

Bum Bench

I bought a bench for the living room last weekend. It took the kids anywhere between 4 seconds and 4 hours to notice it, but when they did, it was only natural that they check it out. The top is wavy, with three depressions just the right size for three small bottoms. You'd think I purchased it with them in mind!

(For the record: It's quite comfortable for adult-sized bottoms as well.)

Pumpkin Puzzles? Ummm...

The older children... (An aside: Have you noticed that Ella, Dominic and Nora are now the Big Kids? They are, you know. It's Addie and Dries who are the babies.)

When the Big Kids tackled the pumpkin puzzle, they were able, with a little direction, to hold the sticks with one finger while painting them with a brush. They also understood (because I had a completed one to show them) the purpose of the painting.

Now, that's the thing about babies, toddlers and even many pre-schoolers. While they love to mess around with craft materials, they're far more interested in the process than the product. They are not playing with paint to make something. They are playing with paint to discover its texture, its colour, the way it moves, how a paintbrush works, how absorbent different paint surfaces are... There are a million and one things to learn about paint and painting, and they are diligently learning them. Making a picture? Not even on the radar yet.

However, when I show the Big Kids the completed puzzle, they "get" that there will indeed be a product. It's still not really the point for them, but they understand the concept.

Addie and Dries? No such awareness. Why paint the stick, which won't even hold still, when I can watch the colour appear on my high chair tray??

Look at how it smears when I do this. Cool!

Oh, and I can make a neat noise, and different kinds of paint marks, when I whack it with the stick!

Addie explores the flavour of paint and the texture of the stick, while Dries considers the way paint drips off the brush. (Paint is a liquid! It drips! No, they don't have that vocabulary, and wouldn't really understand it if you gave it to them, but it's on this experience that the vocabulary will be laid in due time. Without the experience of "liquid", the word is meaningless, an empty collection of sounds.)

Like Addie, Dries likes the way the colour appears on the surface before him,

but he's also quite taken by the texture of the brush

and the squooshiness of the paint in his fist!

And, oh, lookit that! There's paint on my high chair now, too!

It is so totally fascinating to watch them explore, and to know that every single thing they do is another piece of the puzzle for them, another step to comprehending the world.