Happy New Year!

I give thanks for another amazing year, for my blogs and readers, my massage practice, my family, and my own personal growth!  Yippeeeeeeee!! 

Wishing You an Abundant, Joyful, and Healthy 

New Year in 2010

Lucky Foods for the New Year: Menu Ideas

We will be having a fun New Year's Eve Dinner based on some old supersitions and traditions.  For appetizer we have grapes, one for each month of the new year to bring luck.  As an entree, I am making black eyed peas, green lentils, pork, and kale stir fry with corn bread.  And carrot cake for dessert.  Can your food really bring you luck in the new year?  If you think it can!  Here are some food ideas for increasing your prosperity and luck in 2010:

1. Legumes: especially green lentils which are shaped like coins and the color green. Also, any peas or beans symbolize the ability to swell and grow.
2. Pork: because pigs root forward in the ground, tradition says eat pork to more forward in the new year.
3. Cooked Green-Leafed Vegetables like Kale and Colloard, again the color green symbolizes money.
4. Fish: has been eaten for new years for a long time because of the realive ease in preserving it (with salt) making it available and safe, as well as the silver appearance of many fish symbolizing money.
5. Golden Foods (like cornbread): Gold reprresentes monetary wealth.
6. Noodles and Grain: symbolize abundance and long life.
6. Cakes: sometimes a coin or tricket is baked into a cake and the person who recieves it will have greater fortune in the coming year.
7. Grapes: comsume one for every month of the year.  Often done right at midnight. 

Visit these great links to learn more about where these traditions come from and what their history is.

http://www.epicurious.com/articlesguides/holidays/newyearsday/luckyfoods
http://recipes.lovetoknow.com/wiki/Traditional_New_Years_Dinner

Do you have any of your own traditions?  Let me know!

Orcas Fat Ass

picture courtesy: http://orcasisland50k.blogspot.com/

Want a good excuse to take a vacation and run a great trail race?  Try the Orcas Island Fat Ass 25K (15.5 mi) or 50K (31.1 miles)  on February 6th 2010.  Visit the below websites for more information on the race:
http://rainshadow-running.blogspot.com/
http://orcasisland50k.blogspot.com/

Some links to Orcas Island lodging ideas . . .

Rainshadow Running Recommends:
http://orcasisland50k.blogspot.com/2009/10/lodging.html 
Doe Bay Hostel and Retreat:
http://www.doebay.com/
Outlook Inn:
http://www.outlookinn.com/

Holiday Fun in Pictures

The girls make cookies with Grandma in the weeks before Christmas.

 

 

Above: the girls received hand knit dresses from their grandma, who is an amazing knitter.

 

  Above: we went bike riding at the park in the early afternoon.  Marina rode her new Christmas bike (above) and loved it! She still has a lot to learn, as she looks at her feet and rides off the the road on to the grass and gets stranded . . .  

Tofu-Wakame Breakfast Soup

Miso soup is my favorite breakfast.  It is hydrating and highly nutritious.  Every time I eat it I feel satisfied and energized.  My 4 and 2 year old children also enjoy it.  We like using rice noodles, like the type you use for pad thai, but in the picture above, we used Trader Joes Brown Rice Spiral Noodles, as we had used the thin long noodles up the morning before.  Seves 2-4 adults, depending on how hungry they are, or 2 adults and 2 children.

Tofu-Wakame Breakfast Soup

1 package of rice noodles, cooked and set aside.  You will use about 2 cups of cooked noodles for the soup.
1 large carrot, chopped small
2 celery sticks, chopped
5 oz of tofu, chopped into small squares, I used extra firm tofu, about 1/3 to 1/2 of a block of tofu you buy in water at store.
2 TBS wakame seaweed rehydrated (makes 1 cup after hydration)
1 head of broccoli chopped into small florets
2-4 TBS Red Miso (it is aged 1 year for stronger flavor).  Mix 2-4 TBS with a little water until there are no pieces, just a thick paste.  You will add this mixed paste to the soup after it cools, as miso has naturally occurring healthy baceria and you do not want to kill it, as it aids in digestion.

Boil 1.5-2 quarts of water in a pan.  When it comes to a boil, add broccoli, carrots, celery and cook for about 5 minutes or until soft, but still slightly firm.  Let soup cool for another 5 minutes then add tofu, noodles and thick Miso paste. 

I keep the seaweed on the side and add it to each indiviual bowl.  It will get soggy and slimy if you heat it up very much.  It is wonderful added to a soup.  So keep it on the side until you are ready to serve the soup.  You can drain the extra water from the seaweed and store it in the fridge in a tupperware.  It is great added to rice, noodles, soup, or even on its own.    When I have it on its own I add almonds, edamame beans and soy sauce.

Magical Fairy Home Mushrooms

Red Fairy Home mushie #1

 I began noticing that there were many different and interesting mushrooms coming up on the farm in November, so the girls and I went on a walk and photographed all of the ones we could find.  I do not know what types of mushrooms they are, so if you do, let me know!  The mushroom pictured above was one of my favorites.  It was an orange-red with white dots on it, straight out of a fairy storybook, hence its name.  There is another even redder version of the same mushroom taken below.  I made up my own names for them and numbered them.

 

Pinecone Umbrella mushies #2

 

Icicle mushie #3

 

 Primrose mushie #4

 

More Primrose mushies above and below

 

 

Red Fairy Home mushie #4  (above) another of my favorites!

 

Yellow Fairy Home mushie #5 (above)

 

Baby Fairy Cap mushies #6 These were very small and growing in some vibrant green moss

 

Yellow Fairy Home mushie, also pictured above

 

Pine Cone Umbrella mushie #7 (above)

 

   Marina frames a mushroom for the camera

 

  Above: the girls explore a large Red Fairy Home mushie

 

Sponge mushie #8

 

 Frisbee Treeclimber mushie #9

Tree is Up!

Pictures from the Langley Holiday Parade

(click on pictures to enlarge)

 

 

 

 

Playing on the Pond

 My brother is visiting for a few days and we all went on a walk through the property and excitedly found that the ponds are frozen!

 

 

Above: this is where Owen cracked the ice and decided to spread out his weight to make it back to deeper ice.  

 

 made it!!

 

 I found this bug fozen in the ice it was about 2 1/2 inches long!

 

Fish are swimming around under the ice.  We saw about 6 big ones.

 

 Ponies!

 

 

 Even the dogs had fun running on the ice

 

 Stella and I make funny faces for the camera

 

 light dusting of snow still on the ground from last weekend.

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My new companion: Canon Rebel T1i

I am really enjoying my new camera.  It is a digital SLR and has high definition video, a must when you have kids!  Kids have so many original stories to tell!  It is funny to think that in High School I had a manual SLR, borrowed from my grandpa, and I had to develop all my pictures myself.  Now, I can do it on the computer!  Nonetheless, I like that I experienced that raw form of photography, will my kids ever though?