Peanut Blossom

Three ways to turn your kids into book lovers

As an avid reader myself, I worry sometimes about how to instill that love of reading in my girls. I've been told that they will just naturally pick up on it since I model that behavior but I'm skeptical that that is all it takes. I know too many people who profess that they can't stand reading and with the number of available distractions in today's electronic world, how can a quiet paper bound book compete? 

I stumbled on Jim Trelease's "The Read Aloud Handbook" in a display at a bookstore during one of my browsing dates with Handyman Tim ages ago. That title stuck with me and I finally decided to get a copy from the library last summer. There were some eye-popping statistics in there about just how important reading is for building skills for school and life in general. If ever I was convinced about the importance of this task, it was after reading the first few chapters of that book.

But more importantly, "The Read Aloud Handbook" was invaluable for giving actual advice on getting kids to love reading in a very natural non-pressured way. I've implemented several of the tips and 6 months later, I can definitely say they seem to be working. Here are just three of my favorites:

1. Have books available!: Store baskets of books in every single room of the house, including the bathroom and dining room. Ok, truthfully the bathroom idea skeeved me out, but I did follow this tip and put them in the dining area as well. We are virtually swimming in books of all kinds. There is always something to read an arm's reach away. It isn't something that is contained to a bookshelf in the office or on a shelf in the living room, they are scattered in (neat) little piles on every table. I catch the girls browsing through pages all the time.

2. No television during meal times: This is a rule we have always strictly followed in our home. But with the amount of time that Tim is gone traveling, dinner table discussions can definitely fade when it is just me and a 4 year old. By following rule number 1 above, I can just reach over and grab a book and read to the girls while they eat! Captive audience, wholesome entertainment. This has been by far my favorite tip from the handbook.

3. Don't shy away from reading more advanced materials: Maybe it makes me a horrible mother to admit this, but there are just so many rounds of Curious George I can handle. The Peanut may be only 4 years old but we have started to read chapter books rather than picture books during our reading sessions together. Not all the time, and Curious George still appears plenty, but the Peanut has definitely been capable of reading Winnie the Pooh (the classic version) and a couple Roald Dahl selections (my Favorites!!)

Some of the language may be over her head, she may not grasp the entire plot, but I was pleasantly surprised at just how much she was hanging on to even when it took us a couple weeks to finish the story. We chat after each chapter and I ask her questions about what just happened and what she thinks might come next. We refresh our memories before starting again. It has been an amazing experience being able to share a little more advanced story with her and holds my attention far better. If the reading session is fun for mommy too, you're much more likely to have more sessions!

I highly recommend getting a hold of a copy of Jim Trelease's book. The second half is a lengthy digest of reading suggestions for different ages and different interests. I came away very inspired with reading ideas I may have held off on longer than necessary. 

How about you? Do you have little book worms in your home? How did you help that process along? Any tips or book suggestions you'd like to share?

Beat the winter blues: Roasted peppers & pineapple

Right about this time every year I start to get super sick of hearty casseroles, winter stews, roasted meats, and chili and start craving fresher tropical type foods. I'm sure it is a desperate attempt to take a mental vacation out of the snow and cold and into the sunshine but if ever there was a recipe that actually worked towards that goal it would be this one!

I found this recipe for roasted peppers & pineapple in an old Rachael Ray cookbook. It was part of a peanut butter noodles dish that was a huge hit with the family. The noodles part was a little too time consuming for me to try again regularly, but the roasted veggies stuck. This is a surprisingly versatile combination!

I roast a huge pan of this mix and then use it in the following:

- Served over white rice with terriyaki meatballs (premade from Costco!)
- As a sidedish with multiple preparations of chicken
- Taco toppings for ground turkey browned up with traditional taco seasonings
- Over a bed of romaine with shredded rotisserie chicken for a tropical tasting salad
- And really, any recipe for peanut-y asian noodles would probably go absolutely fantastically with this.

The sweet juicy pineapple is a perfect compliment to the peppers & onions. Be sure to roast them long enough that the onions get nice and charred--the "burnt" black ones are the tastiest! Unbelievably sweet and savory all at the same time.

This recipe & photo are part of a monthly food photography challenge I'm participating in over at Develop. If you'd like to read about the photography part of it, you can see the post here. Otherwise, please be sure to keep clicking through the blog circle to see the other 14 submissions for this assignment. You're sure to come away with lots of veggie inspiration!

Next in line is Allison Jacobs | Orange County Photographer.

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Roasted Peppers & Pineapple
from Rachael Ray's Yum-O

Ingredients:

2 red bell peppers
2 red onions
1 pineapple
2-3 tbsp of olive oil
salt and pepper

Method:

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Chop all the veggies and the pinapple into large bite-sized chunks. Toss on a rimmed baking sheet with olive oil. Sprinkly liberally with salt and fresh cracked pepper.

Roast for 40 minutes, tossing mixture with a spatula every 5-10 minutes to prevent burning on the bottom. Continue to roast until the mixture begins to char.

Serve warm or at room temperature.

Carrying on for my cuties

We're still here, believe it or not. How has it been 2+ weeks with no word from me? Oh my, I've really been going through a blogger's indentity crisis since January. Handyman Tim's project continue to drag on and I find all my energy being sapped as I take care of the two peanuts. I do miss regularly posting here though and I'm really hoping to remedy the situation.

February has been oddly really rough. We are missing Tim most thoroughly because his birthday falls on the 9th and then Valentine's so shortly after. Sadly, we could not be together for either holiday this year. It really took a lot of my normal "oomph" out of these fun mid-winter festivities. We came "this" close to not celebrating Valentine's at all if I'm truly honest.

But look at those sweet faces? While my big manly valentine may have been out of town, I obviously have two other sweethearts to celebrate for and with. So, in a final burst of inspiration I pulled it together and we had a very sweet little evening party.

I got the table set and ready to go during nap/quiet time:

Dinner was kept super simple: noodles with tomato sauce. And <gasp> they weren't even heart shaped! My ladies didn't mind though.

Their gift bags were filled with new matching dresses (possibly for Easter) and coordinating pink canvas shoes and some sweet Valentine books. True to nature, the Peanut was most intrigued by a new coloring book. In stark contrast Little Pea INSISTED on putting on her new dress OVER her Valentine's outfit! Along with the new shoes. She cried and cried when I had to take the dress off before tomato sauce dinner threatened some splatters.

I'm so glad I didn't let this little holiday pass us by this year. It would have been such an easy thing to do and I would have really regretted it.

How did your Valentine's Day go? Do you make a show of things or am I the only nutty one who carries on with our without the husband home?

A tip for cookbook lovers on iPad/eReaders

I obsessively love cookbooks. I love to sit next to a tall stack of heavy hardcovered beauties and flip through the gorgeous photo-laden pages. When I'm planning a party or a special meal, that is how I get my inspiration for the menu. I swore up and down I would never ever convert to reading cookbooks on an eReader.

Never say never.

When I wanted to start focusing on homemade soups this winter, I found a fantastic book of soup recipes on Amazon. The only drawback? It was only available as a Kindle edition. The print version is too old and was a rare find starting at $100+. No thank you. So against my better judgement, I downloaded the ebook to the Kindle app on my iPad.

I was desperately disappointed that there were no photos for the recipes (so I quickly decided to start taking my own) but was thrilled with the recipe content itself. Normally, I'd flag the pages of recipes I want to try but other than scroll back to the table of contents, I didn't know how to index the things I wanted to keep. Particularly because the bookmark function stores it by location and the first words on the page, which didn't always reference the recipe I wanted.

That's when I decided to use the Notes feature:

Under, "My Notes and Marks", I highlighted the recipe title, added a note, and then typed the title into the notes section. Now when I press that little bookmark button up pops my own index of just the recipes I want tagged by location along with the title. I LOVE this! It is so much easier to quickly scan the titles of just the things I found appealing.

Have you tried a cookbook on your eReader? It's too soon to tell whether I could be a potential convert, but that photo is just a smidgen of my stash! It might be a space-saving effort alone!

*Thanks to Florabella for the adorable Valentine template! I used them last year for a Valentine with my girls and they print beautifully. Get your own set here!

Hidden veggie tomato sauce

My roasted tomato sauce has been one of my favorite freezer staples ever since I discovered it. In the last 2 years I think I have purchased "maybe" 3 jars total of spaghetti sauce. I much prefer to make my own with big batches of tomatoes from Costco and whatever combination of onions and peppers maybe be laying around in my fridge. 

After two years of making this sauce, you'd think it would have occurred to me earlier what a great opportunity it would be to hide a few more veggies in while I did the roasting. I can be pretty slow sometimes. I happened to have an abundance of zucchini and carrots from my recent soup making ventures and decided to toss a few in at the last minute before roasting. 

I added 4 chopped carrots and a single thickly sliced zucchini to the mix. I didn't want the zucchini to turn the sauce too green so I left it at that. My favorite part of the roasted tomato sauce is how sweet everything tastes from the high heat of the oven. I love roasted carrots and just felt they'd be right at home in there. 

I'm thrilled with how this combination turned out. The resulting sauce is very thick, sweet, and flavorful. My girls (and Handyman Tim himeslf) will absolutely never guess the extra veggies I've hidden inside. Since Little Pea has turned into quite the picky eater, I'm grateful for a recipe like this to sneak a little extra nutrition into her! 

Tuscan Chicken Soup

During a recent trip to visit family in the Twin Cities area, we stopped in at a cafe called D'Amico & Sons for a quick lunch. Too much heavy food and greasy fast food on our trip had left me with an upset stomach so all I wanted was a light and veggie-laden soup. When the server brought my bowl, I immediately knew I had picked a winner.

This soup is a tomato-based broth with just a hint of creaminess without being a full-fledged cream soup. It is thick with veggies and teeny tiny pasta but still brothy enough to be a soup and not a stew. It might possibly be the most perfect vegetable soup I have ever had. The little bits of chicken give it that nice savory taste but it is truly the carrots and zucchini that are the heroes of this dish. 

I could NOT stop thinking about this soup for days. I'm not exactly a soup fantatic but it hit the spot and kept me wanting more even after I returned home. In total desperation, I hunted the internet for a similar recipe. I found nothing that came close until I finally decided to just search for the restaurant's name and the name of the soup. Sure enough, an employee who's grandmother's recipe is used for the basis of the soup posted it on their blog last year! Score! I literally yelped with excitement.

My version of the soup was not a dead-on match but it is my own fault. Next time I'll take the time to dice my veggies smaller. I may consider adding more tomato and more broth (or less pasta). I added too much pasta in my original attempt and it soaked up too much of the broth. (The recipe below is adjusted with that in mind, no worries!)

Serve this with some fresh warm bread and butter and it is total cold winter day heaven. Even the Peanut gave it two thumbs up. She practically licked her bowl clean and I couldn't feel better about the ingredients in it. 

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Tuscan Chicken Soup

adapted from "Grandma Mary's Soup" a.k.a. the Tuscan Chicken Soup from D'Amico & Sons

Ingredients:

2 cups shredded rotisserie chicken
1 medium yellow onion (medium dice)
4  carrots (peeled, washed, and medium dice)
4 stalks celery (washed and medium diced)
2 zucchini (washed and medium diced)
3 cloves fresh garlic (chopped finely)
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried basil 
1/2 cup heavy cream (optional)
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
28 0z can crushed tomatoes 
6 cups chicken stock
Kosher salt-to taste
Fresh ground black pepper -to taste
1/2 cup Acini de pepe pasta 

Method:

In a large pot add 2 tbsp olive oil and saute onions, celery, and carrots over medium high heat for 8-10 minutes.  Add zucchini and garlic.  Saute until tender about 4-6 minutes.

Add chicken stock, tomatoes, basil, oregano, chicken. Simmer soup for 20 minutes, vegetables should be tender. Add the pasta and cook right in the soup for another 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.  Add heavy cream if using and allow to simmer for 6-8 minutes.

Top with grated parmiggiano reggiano or pecorino romano cheese and serve!

NOTE: I let my soup set in the fridge overnight and the pasta absorbed far too much of the liquid. I just added a few more cups of chicken stock when I reheated it to make it more brothy and soup-like.

So you got an iPad for Christmas, Now What?!

  

Let's get one thing very straight: You are never too old for toys.

When my mom and dad would confer over what to get my sister and I every year for Christmas, my dad would always stop to ask, "But what toy will we be giving them?" That question is posed each and every year and has instilled my love of all manner of gadgets and techno gizmos. I still love to find clothing, perfume, kitchen items under our Christmas tree, but Handyman Tim knows the fastest way to my  heart is to give me a toy.

It was with great glee that I accepted an iPad a few weeks ago. Tim had been the owner of it for over a year but just didn't enjoy using it. Often it sat quietly in his hotel room untouched. He finally decided to put it in more eager hands. While I stared in disbelief as he passed it over, he said, "I thought it would be a great replacement for my laptop and I just haven't enjoyed using it like I thought I would." 

And then the angels wept.

I hope Handyman Tim never reads this post. He may regret handing me this awesome toy. But for your sake, I knew I had to share this. Did you get an iPad for Christmas? It seems most ladies in my Facebook feed seem to have unwrapped one of their very own in the last few weeks. Some were greeted with glee like me, but I did see a few, "What do I do with this thing now?!" exclamations. 

I'll be sharing different iPad tips over the coming weeks but today I wanted to start you off with the number one thing you absolutely need to put on your iPad right this very second:

Stop what you're doing and download Flipboard to your iPad right now. They have a version for iPhone too but the display size of the iPad is what makes this truly magnificent.

If you're an avid blog reader like I am, you're probably used to the list-style display of most feed readers. Hook up your Google Reader account to Flipboard and it turns your blog reader into a print-style magazine:

You can display your blogs by folder, by feed, or all of them mixed together:

My blog feed is extremely photo based. I buy my cookbooks based on the photography included, I make my decisions on what to cook based on the photo. Why wouldn't I want to see my blog feeds by photo?! I LOVE this easily scannable format. You swipe the screen and it turns like pages of a magazine. 

No internet browser works this way. This kind of interaction with your blog feed can only  happen in a unique app such as Flipboard. Why would you want to go to the Safari browser window to read via a traditional web site when you can have them fed to you in this gorgeous display?? 

And Flipboard doesn't just hook up with Google Reader. I set my account to grab my Facebook, Twitter feed, LinkedIn account, Instagram feed and Flickr photostream. Instead of seeing all the text based links and hashtag mess of a normal Twitter feed, look at how it pulls the images right out of the links themselves:

When I discovered how much more fun it was to read my social media outlets via Flipboard, I sat quietly squealing in our living room. Handyman Tim noticed and just shook his head and groaned. 

Stay tuned for more iPad tips and suggestions in the weeks to come. For now, Flipboard should keep you plenty busy. But are you interested in having that super cute Valentine's wallpaper for your very own iPad or iPhone? Check out Zina's post over at Let's Lasso the Moon and download yours there!