Octobers Kitchen

I spend a lot of my time in the kitchen regardless of the time of year, but when Fall comes around, even more time is spent there. The preperation and cooking time for cold weather meals are not the same as it is for foods we eat when it's warm. The fixins and process of simmering soups & rising breads keeps a cook lingering around in the kitchen much longer than a salad or sandwich does. And with the smell & sampling of these Fall foods, who wants to leave the kitchen anyways? The weather and our diets began it's change around the beginning of October. The leaves began changing color, the days were noticeably shorter, evenings began to cool down quite a bit and the wind picked up. At that same time, and with Esperanza's help & Ezra's watch, we've been cookin up lots of soups, breads, muffins, hot cereals & stews in the kitchen.

Rainbow Soup

A delicious veggie soup with a yummy spice combination of paprika and tumeric

It had been awhile since the last time we made bread in the bread machine (mothers day I think) and when I went to make a loaf recently I discovered I was missing an essential part to the bread machine. I was determined to have home made bread rolls to go with the crock pot stew that had been cooking all day. So, Esperanza and I made some bread the good ol' fashioned way, with our hands.Esperanza loved kneading her little bit of dough. She was very quiet and mesmerized by the process of making bread. It was very therapeutic for both of us. We did a 'quick' recipe so it only had to rise once then cook. Great for little ones that want things now.

Aaaaand then there was yesterday, the day we made pumpkin muffins (I call them cupcakes which makes it more appealing to Esperanza). This pumpkin cupcake making day is particularly memorable. This was the first time I let her help me add ingredients into the electric mixer and watch it swirl around and around.
Here's Esperanza 'reading' the recipe from the book

Here she is getting ready to add ingredients into the mixer bowl. As we began to mix the honey and butter together she was so excited about what the mixer does. She looked at me and said, 'Mama, I LOVE this'. It was cute. I turned my back to grab another egg out of the fridge. In that split second I wasn't watching her, she had leaned in to get a closer look and one of her pigtails fell into the mixer. It was quickly swooped up and swirled tightly around the spinner. Stopped it completely and the machine just hummed. She didn't make a peep. When I turned back around, her head was tilted sideways, head and machine touching. I quickly turned the mixer off, called Armando out to the kitchen to come help and we eventually were able to unwind her hair from the mixer. It took awhile. I almost just grabbed the scissors, but I couldn't. She was scared a little but not hurt a bit. Her hair is pretty thick and the fact that it was the whole pigtail and not smaller sections of hair probably helped in that department. Either way, it was scary and could have been a lot worse. I had failed to warn her to keep her distance. I hadn't even explained that there was any reason to be safe around the mixer and I had allowed her to stand much too close. I'm thankful nothing serious happened, things could have turned out really bad. Amazingly, the whole incident only set us back a few moments before we were back to making the muffins...only this time, with a whip and a plastic bowl - back to basics.

Putting pumpkin themed muffin cups in the mini-muffin pan. She really is a great helper!

After they baked, we made a healthy frosting to top the 'cupcakes' with. They were delicious, even with the few hairs and part of an egg shell we found in them.

While all this excitement does on in the kitchen, Ezra is usually sitting back, watching us from his high chair with a grin on his face. A friend gave me her sons old high chair recently and it has been so nice to have 2 arms free to cook & still have a happy baby close to me in the kitchen. He often has a chew toy or binky in his mouth. Recently, he pulls on his socks, stretching them all the way up to his mouth to suck on. Silly kid.

Today, I made this yummy Egyptian Red Lentil Soup. Mmmm. It's color and consistency very closely resembles the contents of the diaper I just changed - sorry.

Happy Fall/Festive/Seasonal/Holiday baking and cooking! Be safe with those kids while you cook.

Today, Which Was Yesterday

Today was Esperanza's first day back to school after being sick for the past week. She caught a really bad bug and for a minute, I actually thought she had Pertussis. Funny how as moms we sometimes worry too much and do some serious research that convinces us our child has the symptoms of something much worse than what really is. A friend of mine convinced herself last week that her 2 year old had a brain tumor, but it was just a bad flu bug. Before I got too worked up over the Pertussis thing, Catherine convinced me otherwise and then finally Esperanza got better. She went to school dressed in jeans, her light up princess shoes, her favorite blue hat and her favorite red t-shirt with the blue horse. This t-shirt will fit her for several years, so you'll be seeing it often. One of the very few benefits of her being sick and having to stay home for the past week was that I didn't have to wake up Ezra from his nap to drop off/pick up Esperanza. He's kind of starting to settle into a routine...I say that with hesitation, seems as though the minute I open my mouth or put something in writting, it changes. Hoping for the best. Armando was home today during the time I take Esperanza to school so I was able to let Ezra stay asleep one more school day.

While Esperanza was at school, I hung out with Ezra and had some one-on-one time. We nursed, changed diapers, played with some toys, chewed on some toys, cried a lil and laughed a lil. We also discovered that Ezra can sit up comfortabley in the Bumbo by sister Cyndi loaned us.

Tummy time doesn't last long these days...

He rolls right over onto his back

After I picked up Esperanza, we came home and played Candyland. Esperanza has her own rules for board games. Sometimes I let her have fun with it her way, and other times I try to teach her the correct way to play.Eventuallly, it became nap time again for Ezra so we decided to go for a walk so he could crash in the Ergo while Esperanza cruised the neighborhood on her trycicle.When we got home, I laid Ezra down to finish his nap, started cooking dinner & daddy came home early. Yay. Now, I'm up late, transfering files and programs from one computer to the other (and blogging in between). One of my kids will surely wake up as soon as I lay my head on my pillow, so why even try?

Placenta Encapsulation

The above picture is Ezra's placenta moments after I birthed it. I love placentas! Well, moslty just MY kids' placentas. They are beautiful. Look at that tree of life with the cord attached to it. This is what provided nutrients and sustained the life of my baby boy the entire time he was in my body. It was part of me, part of my child. I had burried Esperanza's placenta along the banks of the Washougal River after she was born. Ezra's I would encapsulate and put back into my body.

A few months before Ezra was born, I came across information about encapsulating placentas for the purpose of balancing hormones after birth. For some people, the idea of eating a placenta is either way too far out there to even consider, or, it simply makes sense. There's probably a middle ground for some too, but for me, it made perfect sense. I was concerned about the possiblility of postpartum depression or 'baby blues' setting in for a couple of reasons. First, though I'm fortunate to have never had to deal with it so far, clinical depression (Bi-Polar/Manic Depression) has plagued our family for generations, so I am at higher risk for postpartum depression as well. And second, I had felt more emotional and sensitive during Ezra's pregnancy than I had with Esperanza, which worried me that it could get worse after birth. Besides, what could it hurt, virtually all other mammals eat their youngs placenta, why not me.

The thought of eating Ezra's placenta raw though did not settle with me. Blended in a placenta smoothe? No thank you. Seasoning then dehydrating it and eating it as jerky didn't appeal to me either. Baking it at a low temperature to deydrate it, blending it into a fine powder, pouring it into tiny capsules and swallowing them like I would a vitamin sounded perfect! My only dilema was how to get it encapsulated. I knew I wouldn't be up to doing it right after giving birth. And the cost of hiring someone to come into my home to do it was more than I wanted to pay, though there are people that do it for a hefty fee. I pondered the idea for awhile.

At my 38 week check-up with my home birth midwife Catherine, I asked her what her thoughts on placenta encapsulation were. She immediately perked up and said, 'oh sure, we'll do that for you'. There has been little to no research or studies done on the topic of placenta encasulation to prove or disprove it's effects and/or benefits of it. It is well known though that placentas contain various hormones & nutrients, the same ones a womans body becomes depleted of after child birth. I also read a lot of personal womens stories on their experiences with eating placents, in various forms, and the benefits they gained from it. Catherine also gave me her personal thoughts and experience with placenta encapsulation. Women whom she had cared for which experienced post partum depression, the capsules help tremendously, for those that did not experience any depression, the capsules didn't do much more than maybe give a small boost of energy. So there you have it, my decision was made, I would encapsulate and eat Ezra's placenta.

After I birthed the placenta on Ezra's birth day, Katie, Catherine's assistant, brought it into the kitchen and began prepping it. I don't know exactly what she did to prep it but I'm thinking she must have rinsed itoff in the sink and cleaned it up a bit.
After cleaning it up, she put it in a steamer over the stove and steamed it for a few minutes. Here it is after the steaming. It shrunk.

Then it was cut up into strips and laid out on a cookie sheet to cook/dry out at the lowest temperature in the oven (the alternative was to use a dehydrater but I don't have one). After this step, we were given instructions on how to complete the process. We were told to let it cook in the oven for 12 hours. After about 8 hours though it looked pretty well done so we took it out. You can see the umbilical cord in the front corner in this picture. Dried in a spiral shape and with a string attached to it later, it'll make a beautiful Christmas tree ornament to treasure and keep forever.

After the cooked pieces of placenta cooled off, we put them in the fridge for awhile so we could all rest. The next day, my sister Geneva began the process of grinding the pieces of placenta up and filling the vegetable based capsules. The 'jerky' look-a-like placenta pieces are in the container on the counter.It was tedious workShe used my coffee grinder to grind up the pieces into a fine powder. The next time we ground up coffee beans and made coffee, I think we all drank a bit of placenta. Filling the capsules with the encapsulating kit I had

Dosage: 2 capsules, 3 times a day for the first 3 days after birth. Then, take them as needed - when feeling down or tired.It has been 4+ months since Ezra's birth and I'm happy to report I have had no depression issues. The capsules lasted me about two months. I stopped taking them consistently after the first month, then just finished them off here and there because it seemed like the right thing to do. I really can't say one way or another if they helped or not but I'm glad I did it. There's no way to predict if a woman will experience post partum depresion or not. I encourage anyone, concerned or not about it, to encapsulate their placenta just in case. I've heard that you can freeze them and they can be taken decades later to help balance hormones during menopause too!

Contents of Esperanza's Purse

Esperanza has half a dozen purses. A few hand made by grandma, a couple questionable purses and then the one she loves. The Hello Kitty purse her Uncle Tony gave her for her birthday is her favorite. Why? Because it's the last one I'd have chosen for her to fall in love with, thats why. She carries this thing around everywhere she goes! I don't let her take it to school or into peoples houses, it stays in the car. Every now and then she'll find a little trinket or something small that she decides would fit very nicely in her purse. At the moment, it's close to maximum capacity. Here are it's contents:

• A shark figure


• A monkey head plastic ring


• A blue container of bubbles


• Sunglasses


• An empty silly putty container


• A wind up Nemo bath toy


• A paint brush


• Chapstick she talked Val into giving her a few weeks ago


• A white mini-truck


• A pink doll comb


• A see threw container with blue rocks in it (music toy made at school)


• A plasitc S for Superman ring


• A princess figurine


• A cow figure


• Half a bag of Annie's honey grahams (they've gotta be stale)


• MY Burt's Bees lip gloss (there it is!)


• A green piece of candy she found on the floor at my moms house. To avoid conflict and compromise, I told her she could put it in her purse but NEVER eat it.


• Toy Story Woody figure


• A blue head band


• 65 cents


• 3 tiny hair rubber bands


• Date and Month pieces to a calendar we have


• A mirror

This was the first time I've dumped her purse out to see just what was in it. I can see the benefits to doing this on a semi-regular basis as she gets older. And I just had to share that so we can look back one day and take a look at some of the things that are most precious to her now.

Thirty-Two

Esperanza had her very first field trip scheduled for Monday, October 17th, my 32nd birthday. Every month Esperanzas class has a theme. This months theme is farms so the kiddos took a field trip to a local farm and pumpkin patch. Parents and kids met the teachers at the farm and we all went on a tour where the kids got to run threw a hay maze, pet farm animals, climb a tall tower of hay bales and took a tractor ride to the pumpkin field where they all got to pick their own pumpkin.

Runnin in the maze

Farm animalsEzra loved the field trip tooEsperanza with a couple of girls from her class, Lucy & KingslyGreat action shot of Esperanza jumping off of the bales of haySoft landingPumpkin fieldBirthday girl and her babeHunting for that perfect pumpkin There it is! The only green one in the entire field!And this was the last picture worth sharing before she lost it...after that, she was done with the pumpkin patch and field trip.
Later that day my bff brought us dinner. We all ate Thai food then the cake I stayed up baking the night before. It was a german chocolate layered cake with coconut pecan filling. It may not have gotten an A+ for appearance, but it was delicious.A few days before my birthday, Armando had stopped by the farmers market and got me some flowers. Here they are sitting with Esperanza's green pumpkin and a birthday card from my favorite aunt.

Ezera Rolled Over

Ezra rolled over the other night. From belly to back. I was several feet away from him when he did it the first time and said in a surprised tone 'Ezra just rolled over'. Esperanza took that tone as if it was a bad thing, ran over to him, said 'don't do that' and rolled him back to his original position. I explained to her that it was a good thing, him rolling over meant he was that much closer to running around playing with her. That got her going and before you knew it, she and I were both hunched over him, laughing and cheering him on to roll over again. And he did, again and again. I was able to capture him rolling over on video a couple of times. I couldn't pick between the two, and even though they take forever to upload, I had to share both. I could watch each of them a hundred times and laugh all the same. Both of my kids are so stinkin' cute and equally amazing. Watching them laugh together is the best feeling ever.

In this one notice how Esperanza says Ezra's name 'Ez-er-a'. I correct her all the time but Ezera it remains.


Good job baby!