Feeding the Family, Part II

My mom gave me a big sticker last year that says "Love People, Cook them Tasty Food".

That's pretty much sums up my life now! If I'm not cooking in the kitchen, I'm feeding the baby. If I'm feeding the baby, I often need to be doing something in the kitchen.

Lately I've started to tap into the help the boys can provide. They can peel potatoes, mash bananas, grate cheese, and get out ingredients. It gives me some good time with them, especially if just one son is helping, and they learn things, too!

I recently posted "Feeding the Family, Part I", about some of the logistics of feeding my crew. This second post is pictures and links to some recipes!

These pictures do not represent our top dishes or favorite meals. I just snap pictures when something strikes me as a particularly pretty meal. As for the pictures, those are usually made after dark (which comes earlier now as we head in to winter), so the quality is often terrible, but I find getting great pictures of food beyond my reach anyway. (Bolivia suffers with the same problem, ha.)


Special Breakfasts:

Pioneer Woman Cinnamon Toast on a special wheat/nut/seed bread, scrambled eggs, and strawberries

 

Homemade Breakfast Cookies, also known to be served around here as a snack or with lunch (the recipe is very flexible according to the ingredients you have on hand)

 

 

 Chocolate Granola (recipe from a former volunteer)

 

Easter breakfast! Pioneer Woman Cinnamon Rolls made it special.  

Jake praying at Easter breakfast 

 

 

Our lunches:

 

I'm not creative at all for lunch. Mornings are too hectic with all four kids, homeschool, housework, and often important Casa de Amor calls or business to take care of. Jake generally arrives around 1pm and we love seeing his face!! That's when lunch happens. Sometimes I feed the boys first then send them outside to play so that Jake and I can enjoy a peaceful (if Sophia is napping) time of sharing about our day so far.

 

When I have lots of bananas lying around, I make Tia Elena's favorite banana bread recipe.

 

Sometimes, we have bean and cheese burritos.

 

I like reinventing dinner leftovers for lunch, on the rare occasion that we have them!

 



 

 Sandwich assembly line

The boys are beginning to get used to our most common lunch, sandwiches. They have eaten up to 3 and still ask for more, as their 10 year old bodies are pretty used to heaping portions of rice and potatoes (or soup) for their midday meal. I am better learning how to have at least a little leftover from dinner or fruit or veggie sticks or some other side dish to help lunch "stick to their bones" and send them off happy.

 

The boys know how to prepare their own sandwiches from start to finish - pretty awesome!!

 

 

 Baked Zucchini Sticks make an occasional lunch appearance (best hot out of the oven served with any tomato dipping sauce!)

 

 

 Not So Irish Soda Bread, a very tasty lunch addition or snack

Our dinners:
 

Honey Roasted Vegetables, before the oven 

This dish is SO TASTY!!! I eat it like candy. I've used several different vegetables or leftover vegetables or potatoes in my kitchen and it's always come out great.

This is also the best way I've found to feed the boys Brussels sprouts. The son who struggled the most with those in another dish ate them up here without even realizing what they were!

(I didn't save the link when I saved the recipe. If someone would like it, email me and I'll send along the document!)

 

 Honey Roasted Vegetables, baked and YUMMY!

This is one of our favs!! I've made it for guests more than once, particularly those on short term trips so that they can try a local grain - quinoa! The salad is even more flavorful the next day.

 Cilantro Lime Chicken with Southwestern Quinoa Salad 

Another new favorite because it's crock pot and easy, flavorful, versatile, and stretches to 2-3 meals for us! We eat it over rice or in tortillas. When you store it, just dump in the extra rice and grated cheese for an even better leftover meal!

 Crock Pot Chicken Taco Chili

Homemade Pizza, Hawaiian style

 Cheese Pizza with Italian Seasoning

Chicken Nuggets is a special request of the boys. Here I served them with baked potatoes, steamed broccoli, and cheddar cheese. 

 At the Dinner Table...

On the third try, I felt like I finally got this recipe, but by then it seemed the boys were struggling with a "grown-up flavor" dish so I'm going to wait a bit to make it again. It is colorful and smells wonderful! I serve it with mashed potatoes and a zucchini vegetable sauté.

Balsamic Chicken (crock pot)

I found this dish after a specific search for casserole recipes. Jake really likes casseroles, but most of the recipes I see have lots of canned soups (hard to find and expensive here) and LOTS of creamy dairy products. This recipe fit the bill for something more wholesome! Jake also loves the combination of rice, curry, and raisins.

 

Indian Spiced Chicken

 

Here I tried to make homemade phyllo dough for the Indian Spiced Chicken (an optional ingredient), but it didn't really work. All the tutorials warning of the difficulty were correct! I couldn't get my layers quite thin enough so they didn't cook thoroughly and I ended up peeling most of them off before serving my family, ugh! At least that's the biggest kitchen flop I've experienced so far.

 

Easter Dinner

Whole Roasted Chicken (no picture but it was impressive looking!)
Creamy Cayenne Carrots (from the Voeller's "From the Kitchen of Two Sisters")
Pioneer Woman's Potatoes Au Gratin (a new favorite dish)
Honey Yeast Rolls
Coconut Pie

 

 Father's Day Dinner

Broccoli & Three Cheese Lasagna
Tossed Green Salad
Grandma's Chocolate Cream Pie



A couple desserts:

 My Grandma's Chocolate Cream Pie!

 

I had to place a call to Tyler, Texas, for a little help on this one. :)

 

 

Chocolate dessert crepes with homemade strawberry sauce (easy and very tasty on pancakes or ice cream, too!)

 

So that's it, for now! Happy cooking for your own family! :)

 

 

 

Feeding the Family, Part I

In the weeks leading up to marriage, I wondered how much of a shock it would be to spend my evenings cooking and cleaning in the kitchen. My evening activities have usually been anything but hum-drum. Beginning at Casa de Amor's opening in December 2004 I mainly spent my evenings with our babies. Then from early 2010 till Jake, I was in the most dangerous areas of town with my street friends who steal, stab, sell and do drugs.

I trusted that God would give me the grace to make such a drastic change to married home life, and He did! I love preparing good food for my growing family. My first judge was Jake, and he is very gracious. And now, less than 18 months into marriage, I make larger quantities of food than I ever have in my entire life. Even if I come from a family of six people as well, turns out it's true: girls don't need to eat nearly as much or often as boys!

So there's lots of kitchen time, and my daily "tool" is now my handy recipe folder instead of my street people files. It's also telling that every month in my pictures there's now a separate folder titled "food" instead of "street", ha.

 

I'm still getting used to how much time it takes to simply plan a menu, make my shopping lists, and haul in food from the market (fruits, veggies, nuts, dry) and grocery store (meat and canned items). Now we've decided the quality of beef at the grocery store isn't that great and I've added a new store to my weekly rotation. I calculate it takes at least 6 hours for these tasks per week, apart from actually preparing the food.

Jake encourages me by saying "And we've only just gotten started, my dear!"

 Some of the week's fresh produce

 

 Our freezer is usually packed! What's kept there helps me with a few shortcuts in a country where almost everything has to be made from scratch.

Friday is my menu planning day, which also includes taking inventory of my kitchen and making two separate shopping lists. Sometimes that spills over into Saturday morning, since Friday evenings I'm alone with the kids while Jake is at youth group.

Saturday morning, we hit our local outdoor market! It's one of the best in the city and is just walking distance from our house. I usually spend between $30-50 on everything we need for the week. I've never personally taken pictures there. Instead of looking for ones made by teams or my family, here are a couple that give the idea for those who don't live here:

This is from La Cancha, Cochabamba's biggest market, although where we shop is entirely outdoors

 A beautiful heap of vegetables!

Then on Monday or Tuesday, I head to the grocery store. If it can wait until the afternoon, I'll leave Sophia napping and will only go with one son. Lately, it's worked better for our schedule (and the store is less busy) to go with all four kiddos in the morning shortly after Sophia wakes up and is still happy. The one-on-one times are great and avoids fights over who gets to push the cart, but I also enjoy going with everyone. That way we're sure to have an interesting time and there are plenty of helpers! ;-)

 Sophia has amazed me by being pretty tranquila when we put her in the shopping cart baby seat. Of course, she usually has at least one brother cooing to her, which helps!

The boys are great at taking everything out of my hands and immediately putting it in the cart. And while all four are wonderfully enthusiastic helpers, lately I've noticed that Samuel is the best at strategically placing everything to protect eggs, not smash bread or other soft items, maximize space, and so on. Some weeks we almost need two carts!

The boys work hard to dig everything out of the cart and place it on the conveyor belt (which at 2 of our 4 super markets here is actually NOT a conveyor belt).

Another huge help is for the boys to load everything into the car (nice to have plenty of room now in "Blanquita"!) and then unload at the apartment and haul everything up the three flights of stairs. I'm usually nursing Sophia and putting her down for a nap by this point, and then comes my task of unloading 5-10 bags of stuff and stowing it in cabinets, the pantry, fridge, and freezer.

Next post: some of our favorite meals!

Sophia tries FOOD!

We’ve been having a lot of fun the past 10 days introducing Sophia to her first foods!!

Jake videoed me feeding Sophia her first bites of food on Saturday, April 26, so this is the only picture - but trust me, she was cute!!

Here in Bolivia, babies are practically fed blended soup right from the beginning, and it’s hard for Bolivians to understand allergies. (They actually rarely have any, compared to those from the US.)

So off and on since Sophia was born, I’ve read articles on starting baby on solids, but I kicked into high gear the past few weeks. I read at least 3 books I have and more articles and studies. It became overwhelming! What different opinions and methods. The worst is when authors contradict each other!

Take advantage of the "developmental window"… Wait until your baby has 4-6 teeth

Always puree…. Introduce different textures

Give fresh juice in a bottle… NEVER give juice in a bottle

Must feed raw for the enzymes… Must cook to aid digestion

Carrots are great first food (or juice)… Carrots are dangerous due to nitrate content

Introduce many different foods… Only fruit till age 1

No nuts… Nut milks in bottle

Meat broths… No meat

Start with fruit... Start with vegetables, to not get baby used to sweet

Freeze baby food… Never freeze, always make fresh

Add salt or butter… Never add anything

One of the more bizarre ideas I read in several articles was the encouragement to let your baby play in the dirt (and eat it) because of the iron content. We’re probably not going to do that on purpose in Bolivia!!

However, one common thread of thought is the importance of feeding babies good whole, fresh foods, and avoiding processed food for the first year or two. The focus is always on fruits and vegetables. Why do we stray from that as adults? It’s just as important at age 5 or 50 as at 5 months.

It’s also interesting to read the theories behind waiting to introduce grains for as long as possible. Many say to wait until at least 12 months of age or until the molars come in (along with more digestive enzymes), especially if there is a family history of allergies.

By mid-April, I was growing weary of feeding every 2-3 hours around the clock. For some reason Sophia has never stretched to every 4 hours, except for rarely at night. I know that food doesn't fill the baby up at first and that breast milk needs to stay priority for good nutrition, but I started plotting Sophia's first foods.

Finally, we chose avocado! Fruit? Vegetable? Well, there you go. :)

 

After a few days, we introduced banana.

 

Her opinion?

What IS this stuff?!?!?

More comes out than goes in as she figures out this whole food thing 

 

After just a couple small banana feedings, she decided she liked it!

 

 

Lapping it up!

But, alas, the banana quickly stopped her up. Once I realized, we went back to avocado, but things didn't get better until feeding her papaya. Meanwhile, we had some of the crankiest, hardest, two days and nights since she was born!! And with this baby, that's saying a lot!! Jake and I were wracking our brains on what was wrong. Before meeting our baby, we've both been quick to assume that difficult babies were a product of their parents. Seems like Sophia lives a pretty charmed life as "la princesa" according to her brothers, and is our long-awaited, cherished (bio) firstborn, so our soul-searching.to the backdrop of screams didn't reveal anything. She wasn't happy more than few minutes at a time, no matter what we did, and was pretty generally inconsolable.

But thankfully, just when we were at our wits ends, Sunday was better! Monday was a little better - and today, Tuesday, she was a little DOLL! Jake will say that I'm jinxing everything by saying this publically, but I'm going to take the rare chance to brag on how SWEET she was today!! She put herself to sleep without the swaddle blanket and without screaming not once but twice today, and went to bed fairly peacefully, too. She was even self-entertaining. WOW!!! As if that's not enough, she only woke to nurse TWICE last night.

I told Jake I'd take a dozen like this. He just gave me a look. :) 

Oh, but back to the subject of this post.

Seeing as how she was liking the banana, and wasn't too crazy about papaya even after several attempts, last night Jake suggested blending them together in a 1 to 3 ratio. I grabbed the hand blender and did just that with a small chunk of banana and several slices of papaya.

 

NOW we have a winner, folks!! She got SO EXCITED in true Sophia style. 

 

We're still doing great in the digestive department, and she lapped up the whole bowl in less than 24 hours.

 

I love watching Jake feed her since I've fed her 99% of what she's eaten this first half year!


Messy hair, yes. I planned to bathe her after one of her messy meals!

...Especially with her most, ah-hem, messy brother helping her eat!

 

She goes nuts for this blend! I don't know if she appreciates the pureed texture more (versus mashed) or how the banana masks the papaya, but it's the best entertainment of our day to watch her growl and jabber and pant and sigh for joy over her food! I've always thought she would be a good little eater.

 

I can't wait to see how she takes carrots, and even more how she does having at a peeled pear by herself.

 

We love watching our baby grow and change!

 

Here's a little video I made last night, at the boys' insistence. They are talking more than Sophia in this one, but it's still cute. :)

 

 

 



Brothers as Babysitters

It's a well known fact around our house that Sophia is hard to get to sleep, and hard to keep asleep. Living in 1100 sq feet with 3 active boys and a cat (whose favorite spot is right under the crib) makes it even more interesting!!

I've left the boys with Sophia a handful of times, but either very briefly or while she's sleeping. However, a couple of weeks ago, I had an important meeting at the Baby Home and the babies were sick with a number of ailments. I fed Sophia and left her in the care of her brothers, thinking that Jake would be home from work within an hour. On my way to the office, Jake called to say that he would be a couple of hours late. Oops!

The important "meeting" stretched to a series of "meetings", and I was starting to watch the clock for when 3 hours would be up and Sophia would need to nurse again!

The boys and I talked many times throughout the afternoon. They would call me, and if I didn't hear from them for a while, I would call them. (This is why my last day of fulltime work in the office, October 11, was the last where I could be 100% focused on what I was doing! I don't know how full time working mothers do it, I'd go crazy!!) I never heard Sophia crying, and one time Joel passed the phone to her so that I could listen to her "talk".

At one point, Michael called and said they thought it was naptime. I agreed that that could be the case, but didn't give any instructions (and thought to myself "Good luck!!").

Rushing up to our door a few minutes after feeding time, I was surprised by a note.

Translation: "Daddy, Sophia is finally sleeping. Oof! Finally we have finished suffering." (Notice the two signatures.)

 

A few days prior, Jake had posted a similar sign (minus the drama) on the door while the boys were playing outside. I was hanging up laundry when Samuel quietly crept in, panting, "I saw the sign mommy, I read the sign!!" Unaware of the sign, I wondered what in the world he was talking about and WHY he was whispering!



 

Stepping inside, this is what I saw outside our bedroom door: "silencio", signaled by some lego construction.

 

I thought it was all about the cutest thing ever, but was worried if Sophia had been really difficult! I quickly questioned the boys, and they tripped over themselves to explain how they swaddled her special swaddle blanket, laid her in her crib with her favorite pacifier, then left the room. Moments later they went back to check on her, and she was peacefully sleeping, to their great shock.

 

And she was still sleeping now, nearly two hours later and past a meal! WOW, you guys are HIRED!!

 

I've also discovered that letting her brothers entertain her is the best way to get a peaceful shower for the first time since Sophia was born (just ask my mother-in-law, who was with us the first three weeks, if she is ever happily alone for more than a few minutes at a time!), continue cooking, or just get a little break. I'm so blessed with my built-in babysitters!!

 

Brothers & Baby

{As of yesterday, the boys have been with us four full months!}

Look! Sophia is so big, she's doing school with us!

 
Every time I prepare Sophia's monthly posts, I come across lots of great pictures of her with her big brothers. As I’ve mentioned on Facebook, they are Sophia’s BIGGEST fans! I love their enthusiastic adoration of every little thing she does. Why, she’s the best, smartest baby in the world!

“Look, she turns the pages of the book all by herself!”

“Look, she laughs when I tickle her feet!”

“Look, mommy, she can sit up!”

One of my favorites, heard frequently when Sophia is looking in a mirror: "I think that when Sophia talks to herself, she's saying "I'm SUCH a pretty baby!""

And they constantly coo to Sophia:

"You're the most BEAUTIFUL baby in the WORLD!!"

"When I see you, my heart lights up!"

"Queen of the world...!!!"

 

And on and on.

 

If anything, they spoil her, and plan to spoil her even more when she's bigger ("I'm going to buy her candy every day!").

 

When she's having tummy time, one will inevitably come by and turn her back over, because "She was suffering, mommy! I had to RESCUE her!" One day I had to prohibit them from "rescuing" her anymore, ha.

 

 

 

Today I bought her a sippy cup, but so far she hasn't had to work very hard for the water herself because there's always a brother around to hold it up to her mouth!  

 

 

Michael took this picture while I was busy in the kitchen. I'm sure there's some story behind the dog with a cross on the paper around his neck...

 

Michael's abundance of energy and drama makes him Sophia's favorite entertainer. He can get her so wound up that all he has to do is shake his head "yes" and she giggles her head off! Jake and I try but with much lesser results.

Particularly in the mornings, or when Sophia has just woken from a nap and "appears" in a room, Michael leaps up, holding his hands dramatically over his heart and swoons, "Don't TELL me! There is a PRINCESS in this ROOM! Oh, my HEART!" Or something to that affect, all in flowery Spanish.

A few weeks ago I filmed him going on and on to Sophia. Makes my heart melt every time!

 

When Michael came down with a cold a few days ago, I thought I'd constantly have to remind him to stay out of Sophia's face (and from giving her constant kisses). But Jake and I explained once, and he hasn't forgotten, although he groans at least once an hour that he's just dying to kiss her again.  

The other day he declared he thinks it would be better if she just stayed “abuelita” (grandmother) the rest of her life, because she is going to cry so much when her teeth come in and HE will not be able to stand it!
 

 

Every one takes a turn holding Sophia when we watch a "barbas" (Spanish for "beards", also what our boys call "Duck Dynasty")

Joel giving the baby a little spin while music plays:

Dancing with big brother

Joel just told me "Mommy, Sophia screams REALLY LOUDLY now! She could break the ear dreams of a...of a...an ANT!!" (No kidding!! The volume has really increased the past week or two!)


I took these shorts off the clothes line only to be told the owner doesn't live here. (Huh?) Then somebody got the bright idea to try them on Sophia.

One of baby's many nicknames is "Oscar the Grouch". Here Michael decided she should be put back in her trashcan home (actually used for clothes, don't worry). She often brightens up and begins to "pose" for the camera nowadays!

More pictures of the baby "doing schoolwork" the day after we bought her highchair.

This one looks more like "hard at work in the office", ha!

 

The scissors were immediately removed after this photo...

The boys were so cute. One of them drew a stick figure and then told Sophia it was her model. She preferred to have the pencil in her mouth, however, so someone suggested bringing her favorite pacifier from the crib to suck on instead. Then she "doodled" and the boys took her work from her, Joel rated it 100% and "excelente", then proudly carried it to the father of the pupil. 

One evening while making dinner, the boys were helping me entertain Sophia and prepared this special "bed" for her. It's actually a plastic box with wheels, so they were rolling her around the house. Looked like her special throne or carriage to me!

 

For a while, it was all the rage for the boys to play in their "camitas" (little beds) or "cunas" (cribs, to be like Sophia) UNDER their beds.

On this day, the boys excitedly called us in to see the bed they had made for Sophia.

 

 

 

If the kids play this much together NOW, I can't imagine all their fun when Sophia can walk and talk. (Talk back I imagine, LOL!)