back to the good stuff

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yesterday afternoon ella and i went to the library. we go just about every three weeks to return books and pick out new ones. she really loves the children's room there. they have a section with bean bag chairs and a huge teddy bear and they also have a fish tank with about 10 fish. we're working on our "quiet voice," but ella seemed to be so amped up yesterday that she went around the room calling out "another! another!" whenever she found another teddy bear and then saying "read!" and "sit!" to the bears. when i would say "elenora, we need to use our quiet voices. do you know how to be quiet?" she would say "shhh." and then go toddling off calling out to the bears.

when we walked to our car we saw a flag across the street. then we turned and saw two more by the library, and i said "there are two more flags." and elenora said "three."

earlier in the day she had similarly had two things and i said "and if you have one more, how many does that make?" and she said "three."

so now she has figured out that 1 + 2 = 3.
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last night i went out with the girls. s. and k. and i went to salem to a restaurant called passage to india where we had amazing indian food. i had the vegetarian sampler ("thali") which was served with three different dishes and basmati rice and minty yogurt and a huge puffy bread that was hallow inside. our conversation was so good. i was so glad, since k. and s. don't really know each other at all. these things can be awkward with the wrong mix of people, but they got along great. s. doesn't really have a lot of other friends in this area besides me, so i'm glad i could introduce her to k. we got into all these stories about traveling and joked about various things.

i made barley soup yesterday in the crockpot to leave for j. there's a woman at work who always spoils me by giving me her extra fruit (she says "the husband" buys too much) and periodically will make a huge batch of soup and give me some at lunchtime. lately she's been giving me barley soup. i asked if it was hard to cook with, and she said it was super easy. so i tried making beef and barley soup yesterday and it came out really great. elenora loves it, too. barley is such a good source of protein and fiber and vitamins. i should make barley soup often. the bag of barley i have has a recipe on the back for an apple and barley pudding which sounds incredible (with cinnamon and eggs and nutmeg and stewed apples and raisins).

here's my beef and barley recipe:

ingredients:

stewing beef (if you're vegetarian, just use beans instead)
two large celery stalks (and all the celery leaves i could find on the bunch), diced
three large carrots, sliced
one large onion, diced
one large garlic clove, smashed and finely diced
some red wine, maybe a cup or so
dried thyme, to taste (fresh would be great too)
two bay leaves
1/4 to 1/2 cup of barley (this stuff gets big and soaks up the liquid, so the more barley you add, the more stock you'll want to add)
one can of diced tomatoes with the sauce
one+ box of emeril's chicken stock/broth (though beef or veggie is probably fine)
soy sauce, to taste

brown 1 inch pieces of stewing beef seasoned with salt and pepper. place in the crockpot. sautee the veggies in the same pan until the bottom of the pan starts to caramelize a bit and the veggies are a little soft. pour the wine over the veggies to deglaze the pan, and scrape up all the brown bits to get the flavor in the sauce. the alcoholic content will burn off completely, but the flavor is amazing. place veggies and sauce and all the remaining ingredients into the crockpot. i cooked it on a combination of low and high heat over the next 7 hours. i wasn't really sure what temperature to cook it on or for how long. maybe someone else knows? the beef was tender by the end. i added 3/4 cup of barley because it looked so tiny as i put it in. but my leftovers are not very soupy at all, so i recommend either adding less barley or more liquid than i did.

today i'm heading to m.'s house when elenora wakes up. ella likes seeing baby nathan.

we are supposed to get 40 degree weather this weekend and some rain, so i'm hopeful that the snow we just had dumped on us will disappear again.

my dad is heading up this way next week, so i'm probably going to be driving to vermont next weekend. i'm super extremely excited about this. i miss a. so much. but i think i should leave elenora here because my parents' house has zero food in it after their long absence, and there will be movers (they're clearing out the house of all the rest of their things) making noise. we'll see.