Winter Crock Pot Soup - Curried Split Pea

I have a new favorite soup and the rest of the family seems to like it too. I love thowing all the ingredients into my crock pot in the morning and smelling dinner cooking all day. I got this from Country Home magazine. Is anyone else as bummed as me that they also folding?

Enjoy this recipe! And if you have favorite crock-pot meals please share. I am starting to prepare our dinner in the mornings to free up time so I'm on the hunt for the best of the best.

Curried Split-Pea Soup


2 14-oz. cans vegetable broth
1 14-oz. can unsweetened coconut milk
1 16-oz. pkg. (2 1/3 cups) dry split peas, rinsed and drained
1 bay leaf
2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
1 lb. stemmed shiitake mushrooms, sliced, or assorted sliced mushrooms
1 medium red sweet pepper, cut into bite-size strips
3 green onions, thinly sliced
1 Tbsp. soy sauce
2 tsp. curry powder
1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper
Salt and ground black pepper (optional)
1/4 cup snipped fresh basil
Snipped fresh basil (optional)


SLOW-COOKER DIRECTIONS: In a 6-quart slow cooker combine split peas, bay leaf, sweet potatoes, mushrooms, sweet pepper, green onions, soy sauce, curry powder, and crushed red pepper. Pour vegetable broth, coconut milk, and 2 cups water over all. Cover and cook on low-heat setting for 8 to 10 hours or on high-heat setting for 4 to 5 hours. Discard bay leaf. Season to taste with salt and pepper, if desired. Stir in 1/4 cup basil before serving. Sprinkle with additional basil, if desired.

Regular directions (no crock pot):
In a 6-quart Dutch oven combine broth, coconut milk, peas, bay leaf, and 2 cups water. Bring to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer, covered, 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in potatoes, mushrooms, sweet pepper, onions, soy sauce, curry, and crushed red pepper. Return to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer, uncovered, 20 to 30 minutes more or until vegetables are tender, stirring occasionally. Remove and discard bay leaf. Season to taste with salt and pepper, if desired. Stir in 1/4 cup basil just before serving. Sprinkle with additional basil, if desired. Makes 8 servings.

* From Country Home Magazine

Happy Valentine's Day! Whole Grain Waffel Recipe.

Mira sorts her valentines.

Homeschool Valentine's tea party at a friend's house.

We had a very busy week making valentine's and going to a party at our homeschool co-op and another with a bunch of homeschool friends in Silverton. In all the girls exchanged almost 50 valentines each and ate at least a half dozen cupcakes during the week.

For Valentine's Day breakfast Shane made the girls whole wheat waffles with whip cream and strawberry sauce (canned last summer). Recipe follows below.

100% Whole Grain Flax Seed Waffels

• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup oats
• 1/4 cup ground flax seeds (or if you don't have it use wheat germ or just whole wheat flour)
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/4 cups milk
• 1 TBS oil
• 1 egg

Mix the wet ingredients seperate from the dry ingredients and then combine, stiring only until combined (don't over stir). Note: I always double this recipie because otherwise it doens't make enough for our family of four.

The Hen Hotel and Other Home Projects

The finished coop! Room for 8+ chickens. Shane built this using mostly recycled wood and materials from the Habitat Resale store. The chicks are coming on Valentine's Day but won't be ready to move into their "Hen Hotel" until they are about 8 weeks old.

Here are some photos of Shane and the girls working on the coop over the weekend. They had a lot of fun helping paint it. This has really become a family project which is one of the best parts of this little adventure. Of course the eggs will be nice too.

My mom brought this sign back for me from Santa Fe so of course we had to hang it on our coop. Given that we'll be seeing our coop a lot since we live in town with a small yard and can see it from our family room, we wanted it the chicken coop to be attractive.

This is a pot rack that Shane rigged up for me using a vintage crib rail I've had in the garage for years. With some chain and some S hooks it makes a perfect place to hang our pots.
Total cost: less than $5.

Sweet Childhood

I was sorting through the girls' keepsake boxes and found a piece of paper where I had hastily scribbled Mira's first prayer. She was 4 1/2 years old and this was before dinner, which was not her favorite: rice, chicken and broccoli.

Dear God,

Thank you for the scrumptious food for Mama, but not for me. Please God, please make me something different. God, please let me see the birds in Heaven. Please let me see your face. I want to see the angels. I want to see everything in Heaven. Please take me there someday. Thank you for my cat. Please feed my lovely soul. Please God, please.

Amen.

Happy at Home

Here's Annah with our two new blueberry bushes. We got them at Costco - two for $11!

Mira and I worked together to clean up the garden and get it ready for early spring planting. We're hoping to start with spinach and kale in a few weeks. And yes, to all those who asked - We're getting chicks next week. We're hoping to start with about six and expect them to start laying by July. Shane built an awsome chicken coop with salvaged windows. I'll post pictures soon!

Mira and Annah made dinner tonight almost entirely by themselves! We made fresh bread yesterday and had that with butter and the girls also made vegetable soup (turnips, carrots, parsnips, celery, etc.) with rosemary dumplings in it. They loved the soup with the "dough balls" of course and I was surprised at how much of the dinner they made themselves.

First sign of spring in our backyard!

January Bliss

Yesterday we hiked up the hill to the Abby in Mt. Angel with our friends Michelle, Tirzah and Henna. The girls had a great time and we enjoyed the peacefulness of the monestary. We also enjoyed the taxidermy museum there. Amazing!

The girls played "church" at the grotto, which is on the pathway up to the Abby. They sang songs, prayed and "decorated" the "church".

My little kitchen helper - Annah - LOVES helping in the kitchen. Here she is with our weekly batch of sugar-free (honey and molasses sweetened) granola.

Our little inauguration party with red, white and blue presidential muffins and Obama family paper dolls and Mira wrote an essay titled "Our New President". The girls played "white house" much of the afternoon.


The girls chasing chickens at a friend's house. Soon they'll have their own to chase around!

Beach Day in January