Mama mia.... mangia! mangia!

This has been a busy time. I have just recovered from Bob the Builder mania, and another exciting event is on the horizon. Turns out that both my in-laws, and my parents are celebrating their 40th anniversary one week apart at the beginning of July. Being the thoughtful children we are (who really owe their parents big time for a positively ENDLESS list of wonderful things they have done and continue to do for us), my sister, hubby and I are throwing a little bash (by little I mean no more than 30 guests) outside at the farm. Thank goodness for my sister's beautiful farm.

I like planning these things. I like cooking for these things. On the menu, a buffet meal of Italian sausages, BBQ chicken thighs, salads, antipasti, veggies and fruit and my specialty.... baked Ziti. For you mangia cakes, baked ziti is a baked pasta dish, covered in cheese and creamy béchamel sauce. Sort of like lasagna without all the work and layers. As a pure blood Italian, with incredibly Italian relatives, it is hard to find any kind of pasta dish that elicits any kind of response. This is a tough crowd- they've been raised on pasta. Utero, breast milk, pasta. That's the order food is introduced to an Italian baby. Except when babies eat it, we call it "pastina"- little pasta. Never mind mashed peas. Or rice cereal. And yet, I have never once made this dish to an indifferent response. There are well--developed palettes each time I serve this who go for seconds. It is wonderful. The beauty of this is it is easy, so easy, and it is also easy to serve an army. Bake it in foil pans that can be thrown out and it is easily one of the lowest maintenance dishes ever.

Rachael Ray gives us the overall bones of this dish here:
http://www.rachaelrayshow.com/food/recipes/neapolitan-baked-ziti

I use that recipe, but I do my own thing in a couple of ways. First off, kudos to Ms. Ray for advocating making your own pasta sauce. Why in the world do more people not make their own sauce??? It is the easiest thing to do, and it is so much better than your store bought mangia cake variety (For those of you unfamiliar with this term, "mangia-cake" is the Italian term which is roughly equivalent to "gringo"). I am a firm believer that it is far better to know exactly what is in the food you eat- better to put it there yourself. Pasta sauce is as varied as those who make it. I swear, no two cooks can make the exact same sauce. It is impossible- sort of like licking your elbow (try it- that's impossible too!). I learned how to make sauce from my mum, who learned from her mum, and all three of us make sauce that does not taste the same. All of it is really good, but without question, Nonna Giacomina's is the best by a long shot (I think mum would agree). But everything that Nonna makes tastes better than anything else in the world. The taste and smell of pasta sauce is so completely tied into memory for me. We were at my cousin's in Victoria once and they served pasta, made with my Auntie Mimi's sauce and I almost started to cry. It smelled and tasted so much like my Nonna Francis' sauce, my Nonna who passed away when I was 12. It was amazing how quickly that sense kicked in. 


I currently have an enormous vat of sauce simmering on the stove as we speak. My sauce tastes as it does out of necessity. I now call to order the PFEASG... the Parent of Finicky Eaters Anonymous Support Group. All members present? Meeting called to order. My kids will eat pasta. They will eat pasta under duress, most of the time, but sometimes, when the moon is in the 7th house and Jupiter aligns with Mars, they will eat it as if it is the best thing in the world. They will also eat mini pizzas- made from my pasta sauce and English muffins, under duress but nonetheless, they will choke it down. It occurred to me, that I can be an alchemist... I can turn any vegetable into pasta sauce and my kids will never know. It is time consuming to make pasta sauce this way, so when I do it, I go big or go home, and freeze the stuff in a million containers. Often, I will freeze it in ice cube trays so it is simple to pull out individual servings when my children reject the meal I have prepared on a given night. Heaven help us that we should all consume the same thing happily. Here's what I do: 


1) In a frying pan on medium heat, heat olive oil and saute:  diced celery, grated carrot, chopped mushrooms, grated zucchini, diced red pepper, grated garlic, diced onion. Cook until soft. For you carnivores out there, and for the love of the land, don't do this if you are serving to vegetarians, here's an extra tip. When I make French beef dip sandwiches, or rouladen, I always freeze the juices. I will add the juices (about a 1/4 - 1/2 cup or so) to this veggie mix. The flavour is unbeatable. 
2) I get out my lovely magician's assistant, the blender, and throw the veggie mix in there, and puree the snot out of it until the vegetables are completely unidentifiable and liquified. The key word here fellow member of the PFEASG, is UNIDENTIFIABLE. Nothing should remain that could be perceived as a "chunk, string or.... worst of all... a lump". Leaving any of the above will only result in a stand-off. One which you will never win. Trust me. My arm is sore from waving my damned white flag. 
3) Next, in the same frying pan I heat some more olive oil, and cook a small package of ground beef. Clearly, if you are vegetarian, skip this step. But, in my effort to get some protein into my kids, there it is. 
4) Using the good old Oster blender, I puree the stink out of this too, so that no "brown" can be picked out by wee fingers. 
5) Pour all these purees into a LARGE pot. The bigger the better. This will all be a nasty brown colour. This will never do. Next you must add enough tomatoes to turn the thing red. What kind of tomatoes? My dad's homegrown, mum canned are the best. But since you all don't have VIP access to that like I do (remember that endless list I referred to in a previous paragraph?), canned tomatoes work just fine. I use a combination of crushed and stewed, until I have a consistency I'm happy with. That is a question of personal taste. 
6) Spice this and let it simmer. What spices? In the words of Nonna "put all-a the spicy you like...". Oregano, basil, thyme, no brainers. Bay leaves, also good. Just be sure to dig them out before feeding it to your finicky family member or you are dead in the water. The only thing worse than something "brown" in the pasta sauce is something.... dare I say it?... GREEN. Porca miseria. 
7) Don't forget salt and pepper. Sometimes I find if I've used a lot of red pepper, there is a bit of acidity that I'm not fond of. A tablespoon or two of sugar takes care of that- but be careful, the fastest way to make it taste mangia-cake is to over sweeten. Don't do that.  
8) Simmer until it tastes done. You'll know it when you get there. Top to tail, this process takes me about 1.5 to 2 hours, but the amount of sauce that I make will last about 3 months. PLUS it is dirt cheap to do this yourself.


Meeting adjourned. 


Back to baked ziti. Other things that help knock this out of the park are: 
1) use Cacciocavallo cheese (made by Saputo, it is sort of like mozzarella but with a fantastic smoky flavour and it melts beautifully). 
2) Slightly undercook the noodles so that they don't mushify (that's a verb right?) when you bake the pasta. 
3) I like a rigati pasta (with ridges) because it holds sauce so nicely. Come to think of it, I almost never use ziti for this dish- mostly penne because it is easier to find. 
4) Use plenty of red sauce so that it doesn't dry out in the oven. 
5) Mix a bit of cacciocavallo into the béchamel sauce because you just can't get enough. Also, don't use milk, use cream. Because this is worth the extra weight watchers points. Trust me on that. 


It's a hit. And it is so easy. And if you bring this to your annual neighbourhood block party, it will go over well. Trust me. 


Happy trails! 

Penguins!!!!

Lately we've been obsessed with penguins around here. See, the Vancouver Aquarium just got South African penguins. Matteo heard the ads on the radio for the new exhibit and decided death by pestering was his best plan of attack... on a loop every twenty minutes for about a week I heard "Mum... did you know they have penguins at the aquarium now? I love penguins. I love the aquarium. We should go.... maybe tomorrow?". You have to admire his persistence. He did not give up. It wasn't really a hard sells though, we had been wanting to go to the aquarium for a while, and did decide a pre-summer day trip was in order. What fun it was!

When Elio was born my mum bought him the cutest hooded towel. Adorable little thing with a penguin hood. He looked like the pope in it. We began calling him the Penguin Pontiff. The thing I loved most about this towel was that it was not one of those cheesy cheap baby towels that absorb nothing and are so thin they are see-through. Somehow, and you know how it goes, this towel got shoved to the back of the cupboard and forgotten about. While cleaning the bathroom the other day and rearranging cupboard contents Penguini the Towel re-emerged. And you know what- it was still a lot of fun! Elio LOVES the thing and Matteo almost bubbles over with jealousy for want of the thing.

In true typical fashion, I looked at the thing and thought, I've got to be able to make that. Enter Pinterest. Do you all know Pinterest? The online clipboard and content sharing website. I wore down and joined, and I love it!! So many ideas and bits of inspiration in any category. It's great that I have a new obsession, because I was most certainly deficient in ways to waste my time (note the sarcasm... it's bad when your kids start to pretend they are you... what are you doing Elio "checking my Facebook". Maybe I should give it up for Lent next year). Anyways, through Pinterest I found a tutorial on how to make hooded towels for big kids. It is an excellent tutorial and it is SO EASY. You must check it out as this would make an awesome gift for any kid.
http://www.lubirdbaby.com/2011/08/hooded-towel-tutorial.html

Her directions were super clear and it didn't take much to add the few details to turn this already cute towel into a penguin.






 First, Elio loves being able to put his hands into the corner pockets of the towel so it is like he's wearing wings. This was easily achieved by cutting a face cloth in half diagonally. I finished the raw edge with bias tape, and sewed the already-finished edges into the corners of the wrong side of the bath towel. This made nice deep pockets, perfect for little hands.







Next I needed a face. I cut the face shape out of a white face cloth. I was able to get two faces out of one face cloth. I tried my best to make use of the finished edges. I left the professional finished edges as the bottom of the face, then used white bias tape to finish the curve. Why, when you are appliqueing the face on anyway, would you bother to finish the raw edges? Well, simply put, terry cloth is super duper messy, and it frays a lot. I was not convinced that simply appliqueing around the edge would be enough to prevent fraying and mess in the laundry.

Next I cut out a beak and feet from orange face cloths. I cut two of each shape, sewed them together, then turned them right side out. I attempted when possible to leave the professionally finished edge at the opening, and zigzagged to close them. (By the way, as I don't have a serger (Santa baby, just slip a serger under the tree... for me... been an awful good girl... Santa baby), I used zigzag on my seam allowances for any raw edges. Mostly inside the hood). I sewed the beak onto the face, and the feet onto the right side of the towel. I used a total of 3 orange face cloths for the beaks and feet for two penguin towels.

Next step was to use Wonder Under (how much do I love that stuff?!) fusible webbing to fuse the face to the hood with my iron. I then appliqued around it to ensure it was securely attached all the way around. I suppose you could use any cotton fabric for the bird bits, but I like the lush look of the whole thing being terry towel, plus, when you are smart in cutting, you can take advantage of finished edges, cutting down on the work. I am, if nothing else, completely lazy when it comes right down to it.



Once all of these add-ons were completed, I followed the tutorial directions for attaching the hood and was pretty much finished. One note about that, Matteo is very tall for his 5 years (anyone who knows me will be mystified by that no doubt. I lied on my driver's license. It says 5'1. I'm really 5 ft and one very important half inch.), and I found that the hood was still quite long at 12 inches long... you might want to adjust the length to make sure that the bath towel still hits at shoulder level.

All that was left were eyes. I used fabric paint to paint on the eyes, and that works fine. Embroidered eyes would look far better, but like I said before, as a dog's hind end.... I'm lazy.


This was a very gratifying sewing project. Literally all you have to be able to do is sew a straight line. I knocked two of these off in a matter of two and a half hours. It is a relatively cheap project. I got my towels at Ikea, but you could use any towels very successfully. And there are great deals to be had. In total I bought: 2 bath towels, 1 hand towel (this made 2 hoods), 1 white face cloth, 3 orange face cloths and 2 blue face cloths. I think if I were to do it again, I would choose a bath towel with fewer colours, as in true lazy fashion, I dislike having to change thread and bobbin a million times. You could make any animal really, bears would be really cute, or lady bugs, sharks, dinosaurs etc. Sky's the limit. And what a great gift- nice to give something that can be used from baby well into childhood as the towel is nice and big. These would be fun for bath time or the beach. And kids love them- Elio loves to play Pingou at bath time... you know the little clay penguin show on Knowledge Network? ("Mish mish...").

That's all folks. Try this one out- it is super fun. Happy Trails!

Can we survive it? Yes we can! Bob the Builder birthday part prt. 2

I'm two days old from leaving the terrible twos (but don't worry, the terrible threes are the new terrible twos, so if you're still in the twos, don't worry, not much has changed for me either). We had Elio's party today, making use of the weekend for the celebration. And in true Elio form, it was his party and he cried if he wanted to. This is a kid who doesn't love confusion and fuss (although he loves the idea of a birthday party and all that comes with it in theory), so he was a little cantankerous. But nonetheless, I think he had a good time. So it's worth it.

You saw the first instalment of this party earlier. Nothing fancy or elaborate, just some simple toddler crafts and a ribbon pinata. The rest was just playtime. The weather forecast tricked me into believing it would be raining, so I ditched the idea of an outdoor scavenger hunt. Silly me. The sun was shining after all. You can't win for trying.

We started with a simple last minute craft. Literally I put this together last night based on a dump truck card I saw on pinterest. It worked well. We used scrapbooking paper because construction paper is now flimsy and poor quality (what is with that anyways??). I outlined the dump truck with a silver sharpie, and cut the parts out of craft foam. The kids used Elmer's white glue to glue the pieces on to the picture. The load was supposed to be Cheerios. By the time they got to the load, the kids were more or less tired of gluing. Nonetheless, very cute and VERY EASY.

Next up we did a little birdhouse thing. Ethan was planning on making these, but when you see them at the Dollar Store for $2, you have to give your head a shake and question whether or not the DIY is worth it. Bingo daubers are bar none my favourite craft supply for toddlers. They are easy to use and really only require gross motor skills. Even little Heidi, our youngest guest who is 18 months was very easily able to accomplish this on her own. 

The trouble with Bob the Builder is he is a little "5 years ago". We know and love him from hand-me-down DVDs and it isn't on that often anymore. So Bob themed stuff is hard to come by. But with a little help from an overhead projector, it's pretty easy to Bob-ify a generic construction party. Construction themed decor was simple- caution tape and black and yellow balloons and streamers. I got great ideas from my good friend Trisha on decor. Clever girl that she is had a similar party for her son, and came up with the road lines on the table cloth, and serving food in dollar store dump trucks. We were not having dry food (ie. chips and pretzels etc.), but rather crepes with fruit toppings, so I used plastic buckets and shovels for some of them. Cheap, thematic, super cute. I made little place cards for seating out of craft foam, shaped like road signs.  

So I think I'm good for birthday parties until January (sorry Ethan). I'm covered in nutella and bingo daubers, but I'm happy. The excitement is worth the effort for sure. 

Happy trails!

I am slowly going crazy... one, two, three, four, five, six... switch!

I like music. In fact, I love music. Heck, I wouldn't be a music teacher if I didn't. But here's the problem. My kids love music too. Well, technically, that is not a problem, except for the fact they love to listen to the same thing 7987987958279857923875 times on repeat. My sister would claim, and in fact will claim, that this is genetic. She will ardently declare, to anyone who will listen, that her little sister as a child figured the best way to torture her was to put our mother's only ABBA record on the turntable, count the grooves until I found the one which housed Nina Pretty Ballerina, gently lift the arm and set it down perfectly in the right spot, and dance around the living room. Repeatedly. And to be honest, she's right. That happened. I could work that thing before I could tie my shoes. True story. I'm not sure why this didn't drive my parents absolutely crazy. Maybe because every radio in the house was turned up louder than the stereo blasting CBC shows (likely Peter Gzowski's Morning Side, or A is for Ardvark, or Finkleman's 45's) all day long. They couldn't really hear it. That is genetic too- go visit my Nonna on any given day, or my parents for that matter, and CBC is what you will hear.

Here's my problem though. I'm surrounded by kids' music 24 hours a day. At school, and at home. At any given moment there is at least five green and speckled frogs, a rooster under a greenwood tree, an Auntie Monica and a dog named rover, not to mention that damned beluga whale, stuck somewhere in my cerebral cortex. And you wonder why I'm a complete macadamia? All this is torturous. My dentist is always on my case because I clench my teeth at night. She has a theory that all teachers are clenchers. It is not the teaching, it is the kiddie music. I wake up with the theme song to Sesame Street going through my head on some insane repeat.

Now, music enthusiasts that we are (Ethan is a music teacher himself), we've gone to great lengths to impose our musical taste on our children. Matteo has LOVED Paul Simon from a very young age (seriously, I caught the kid singing Stranded in a Limousine when he was two... "there was a mean individual, had a heart like a bowne...". He loves Great Big Sea. There was a time when I thought I'd have an awful lot of explaining to do once he entered kindergarten. I'm not sure his teacher would find his rousing rendition of the mermaid song ("Her hair was green with seaweed, her skin was blue and pale, her face it was a work of art, I loved that girl with all my heart, but I only liked the upper part, I did not like the tail") quite as adorable as we did. Not to mention his enthusiasm for Save a Horse Ride a Cowboy (he's always been a buckeroo at heart). Ay. We are bad parents. Lucky for us our conversations about where things are appropriate seem to have sunk in.  He's also a pretty avid Beatles fan, Adele fan, and he adores Dolly Parton's Jolene. Really what's not to love about Dolly Parton? And there is currently a great amount of love for the music of New Orleans in the house- the Dukes of Dixieland have been requested more than once. Then there is jazz... always popular around here. And the more scat the better.

Now don't get me wrong, he doesn't simply listen to inappropriate music geared for adults. We do our fair share of Raffi, Steve Roslonek, Disney soundtracks, Putamayo Playgrounds. And I encourage that too. In fact, I prefer it to a certain extent- I'm quite convinced that the amount of listening to this sort of thing (Sharon Lois and Bram, Charlotte Diamond, Fred Penner, Raffi), geared particularly for children to sing comfortably, that I did certainly was responsible for my development of a good ear and great pitch. It is super important that kids learn to sing in their range. Comes in so handy later. But I have to admit, there must be something about it, that is only audible to the adult ear, that makes is so darned annoying after a while. Maybe it is like those sound devices some public places use that emit sound a frequency only audible to the teenage ear  to discourage loitering.

Imagine my absolute delight then, when this week I discovered Elizabeth Mitchell's album, You are My Little Bird. My good friend Laura gave this album to me, probably two years ago, and somehow it got buried in the stacks. I discovered it this week, and immediately put it on for the kids. What a gem! It is like the best folk music ever, but done in sweet endearing ways for children. They love it. I love it. It is honestly one of the best albums I've heard for kids. If you have a child, run, don't walk, and get this. You won't regret it. Included on this wonderful collection are cover versions of Bob Marley tunes, and Neil Diamond tunes. Plus a few culturally diverse tracks that are really fun too. This might be on the top of my list of things to give as baby gifts... it ages well and will not make the parents' teeth hurt. Who could ask for anything more?!

What are you all listening to with your kids? Whatever it is, I hope it doesn't drive you nuts. But when it does, just remember, it's for a good cause- it's all in the name of music.

If you are wondering, that book is a Paul Simon collection.