Quinoa with Butternut Squash and Pecans Recipe

This quinoa dish is another meal derived from my need to eat cheaply. This recipe for Quinoa with Butternut Squash and Pecans was inspired by a recipe I found on the Whole Foods site.

Quinoa with Butternut Squash and Pecans

1 1/2 cups chicken broth
4 cups butternut squash, peeled and cut into chunks
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 cup quinoa, rinsed
salt and pepper
1/2 cup pecans, toasted

Heat over to 400. Toss butternut squash with olive oil and salt and pepper. Bake for 30 minutes.
In saucepan, boil chicken broth and add quinoa. Reduce heat to low, and cover and cook until broth is absorbed, about 15 minutes. Let stand.

Toss together cinnamon, quinoa, pecans and squash in a bowl.

Excavating the Apple Mummy

Making mummies is not one of my usual fall activities for fun, but it made quite the splash for my family earlier this year.

Although my daughter's class learned about Egyptian mummies in mid-winter, I thought it was appropriate to share as Halloween approaches. It's a simple science project that's easy enough for curious kindergarteners and first-graders. My 4 year old even enjoyed the daily excavation of the mummy for his sister's homework:

How to make your "mummy:"

Slice one apple in half, and place in a bowl, covering it in salt (1-2 lbs.). You can check the apple daily to see its progress toward "mummification" as the water is drawn from the fruit. Here's how it checked out after a week:

Wordless Wednesday

Kelsay Farms open for the fall

Kelsay Farms, a dairy farm located just south of Greenwood, opens its doors each fall for a festival. My kids have been begging to visit again after a summer-time field trip with their day care, so this was a great opportunity to get out and enjoy some fall weather.

The place was packed with activities, including the mandatory hay to climb on and corn maze to weave through, dairy tours (which we missed), more dairy products than you could ever eat (how we managed not to get milkshakes or ice cream was a miracle!), and a traveling magician -- who did an impromptu performance in a corn pit!
While the kids enjoyed the magician, the stars of the day were the cows, of course, particularly these 21-day-old calves.

My little guy loved showing off the "grown-up" cows too!

It was a cute afternoon, and our kids, who are in preschool and early elementary school, were just the right age for a visit. They're still celebrating on weekends through the end of October.

In every snowflake, a miracle

In every snowflake, a miracle. And those miracles showered from the sky.

It's what happens when your toddler utters those words in a simple prayer. No sooner had he asked that fireworks not scare him (it's Diwali) and that we please get snow, than he got his wish.
The booming stopped, and snow showers poured from the sky.

I opened the door for the kids to watch the season's first snowfall. Mesmerized, they stood there, watching the flakes, then crouching down by the floor to watch more intently. An amazing moment of silence, as their father was trying to sleep, then:

"Snow coming down. On the ground," my youngest said breathlessly.

"God listened! He knows how kids like to play in the snow!" my oldest cried out. "God listened!"

"To me? To you?"

And the pair turned toward me. "Please sit down and watch," my oldest said. It was an offer I couldn't turn down.

We watched the tiny balls of snow pile up on the windshields, until the shower slowed to light flakes. Then the two tottered back to their sleeping bags.

And as the snores began, the fireworks once again broke through the night sky.

In every flake, a miracle.

Weekend worth remembering

Four states and nine hours separate my children from their cousin, so they're only blessed to see her once or twice a year.

Thank goodness for fall break.

This time, they made the trek eastbound, and despite the fact my house still wasn't in tip-top shape for guests (but then, is it ever with two kids?) I consider the fact it's 7 a.m. and all other parties are asleep a minor miracle.

Take Wednesday, when my toddler woke up at 3 (a most unholy hour of night) to ask if his aunt and cousin were here. The next day it was 5. And naptimes? Forget about it. It's been a losing battle, though one I've largely stuck to at least trying to make happen.

But late, late Thursday night (OK, technically Friday morning), it happened. They arrived. And it's been a whirlwind ever since.

We started slowly, with the painstaiking process of making the world's best cinnamon rolls, forgetting that it's a four-hour process! But every kid got their hands dirty, from rolling the rolls (the girls) to punching the dough (perfect for 2 year old energy!). We went to the Children's Museum of Indianapolis, a rare treat that we could afford thanks to an awesome Groupon, to check out all things girl (a Barbie exhibit) and boy (dinosaurs and trains) and to experience the kids' first Haunted House (during not-so-frightful hours).

We went to the Broad Ripple Farmer's Market and scarfed down amazing pretzels that come in braids of three pretzels each - that my toddler knows are at this market and starts asking for the minute we arrive. We joke about the Bloody Mary mix in the bag, which we nix, and savor the chocolate milk from the local dairy.

We burn off our energy at the local park, where the girls opt for swings and mom somehow gets sucked into playing truck - which translates to: Sit on the step, immediately get up, get off the truck, get some mulch, put it somewhere and gt back on the step. Repeat for 30 minutes. I figure it's good for the thighs.

We've gotten our share of movies and Great Pumpkins and have toyed with carving our own pumpkin. We've had our share of minor squabbles and glimpses into funny conversations between the kids. I only wish 10 months didn't separate those.

Today will be another day of memories, and tomorrow they make the trek home. But really, the time is too short, and the breaks too long. Sometimes, I wish you really could click your heels three times to get to Kansas...

Pumpkin bread recipe worth repeating!

Pumpkin bread is generally something you can't go wrong with, especially in the fall. I stumbled on this recipe in my grandmother's church's old cookbook, and it was gobbled down within the day. The biggest selling point? The neighbor girl down the road - one of the pickiest eaters I know of - couldn't get enough.

Pumpkin Bread - makes 2 loaves
1 c. vegetable oil
2/3 c. water
4 eggs, beaten
2 c. pumpkin
1 c. chopped pecans
3 1/2 c. flour
3 c. sugar
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ground nutmeg

Combine oil, water, eggs and pumpkin, stir to mix. Combine flour and remaining ingredients; stir. Add nuts. Pour into greased loaf pans. Bake at 350 for 1 1/2 hours.

Jupiter, fog and other fall wonders

Being with a young child is a chance to rediscover everything again. And this fall is no different.

Take today, for instance. We started the day being amazed by the fog dancing across the ponds by our home, and watching the wispy clouds float across the road.

"Can we touch it?" our 5 year old asked. Running late for school, I promised that the next foggy morning we'd try to find out.

Tonight, we were treated by the bright glow of Jupiter, about an inch or two below the moon by the naked eye. The kids were amazed by it, despite our pathetic attempts to remember anything from college astronomy. My 2 year old declared he would "climb up a ladder and touch it, and then jump back down."

Or the other evening, when a family walk became a hunt for the largest, the pinkest, the most oddly shaped leaves we could find, our kids expressing joy at each find, carrying fistfuls of stems all the way home, only to toss them in our yard.

It's little moments like these that make you savor fall even more.

Afternoon at Anderson Orchard

Twist and pull.

All the way to Anderson Orchard in Mooresville, I heard that sage advice: Twist and pull, and that way you won't break the bud, and more apples can grow there. So says my well-versed 5 year old.

For our family, field trips mean activity. And while visiting places like Apple Works in Trafalgar have become a fall family tradition, between school and visitors, they will have visited it three times before the snowfall hits. So when I learned about Anderson, and how a fellow family at daycare loved it, we figured it was worth the drive to check it out.

And it was worth it. The children loved hiking (as my toddler put it) through the rows of apple trees and were thrilled to be able to harvest bags of red, yellow and green apples from the low-hanging branches. My toddler announced the apples were "juicy and crunchy" when he snuck his first bite. Pumpkins promised new another visit when their cousin is coming next month. A small shop offered pre-bagged apples of more varieties than you could count, nuts, persmissons and more. And, yes, there was a playground for them to burn off some energy.

Anderson Orchard may become our next fall treat!

You call this work?

This weekend, I had the joy of doing something few people ever get to experience: Working on a commercial production crew.

It's truly an amazing experience to see everything that goes into the set. About 12 hours of filming alone for the participants - just to create a 30-second spot. Add in crew setting up, scouting locations, basic scripting and the editing process, and a lot is invested in trying to make people change decisions.

As a communicator, I love this experience, and hate that I only get to do this about every 18 months to two years. But when I get to participate, I love it.

Add in the joy of the fact we were using an outside set, and I was all for this experience. Pay me to play in a park on a 60-degree day? OK!

While we missed the rainbow of fall leaves - a rainstorm earlier this month took care of that - the sunlight was perfect, the wind was (mostly) mild, and the temperatures were more perfect than we could ever wish for in November.

I'll let you guess what the spot was for. Odds are you'll never be able to guess!

Feeling homesick in the fall

Fall is one of those times when I feel the most homesick. Even though it's been more than eight years since I left Kansas City, I've hit that time of year when I wish I was home.

My in-laws are notorious for marking the seasons, and fall and the Christmas season are the times I miss most. Maybe it's been our working schedule or just being the parent of young children, but I've yet to replicate some of the things I miss most:

Driving to Louisburg for a stop at the Louisburg Cider Mill. My husband grew up in Louisburg, Kan., and went to the cider mill from when we was a small boy and it was a small mill, not the enterprise it is now. But it was always a treat to stop by the mill on the way back from a trip to his grandfathers, splurging on apple cider biscuits, a cold gallon of freshly pressed cider and a bag full of seasonings.

Visiting the Mound City Arts & Crafts Fair. Yes, a drive 90 minutes south of Kansas City for a craft show seemed strange for me when we were dating, but the fair was a huge deal for my husband's family and still is. It was a fun way to window shop - as long as weather permitted. I saw a posting on it from my aunt's Facebook page the other day, and felt a twinge of sadness.

Going to the Haskell Indian Art Market. Housed at Haskell College in Lawrence, it's well worth the drive. I wish there was something remotely close to this in Indiana - the kids would love the native dancers, the fry bread, the music.

Losing my voice at Late Night (or, more optimistically, at a basketball game). I'm a Jayhawk fan through and through. 'Nuff said. It's just not the same catching Allen Fieldhouse on ESPN.

Seeing the Plaza lights. While I never did get to a lighting ceremony in all the years I lived in Kansas City, we loved to wander the plaza looking at the lights after it got dark.

So what did I miss? And what even comes remotely close to this in Indiana?

God gets out His robe

The concept of time is tough for a preschooler to grasp. When is tomorrow today? Does holiday stuff in the store mean we can celebrate this afternoon?

We've been trying to illustrate the span of time with my 4 year old of late. Christmas is after Grandpa's and Mom's birthdays, after the weather turns colder, the grass turns brown(er), the leaves fall from the trees and snow tumbles to the ground. And I thought we got it.

And then this morning, fall weather finally hit. Dressed in fuzzy tights and jackets this morning, my daughter was ready to go. I asked her, "Why do you think it's colder?" - hoping she remembered our "fall" talk from the day before.

"God," she answers. OK, I can't argue with that. "But why does God want it colder?" I ask.

"So He can wear his robe."

Well, He's definitely got one on this evening. I tried to explain that a flowered skirt and palm-tree tank top does not make an appropriate outfit for working in the garden this evening, to no avail. (She later layered up.) Tonight, as the sky turned pink, we had our first reality check that fall's arrived. The tomato plants and cages were ripped out to make room for fall garlic. The dying bean plants were torn up as well. As we're waiting for our fall round of plantings to show the fruits of our labor, we're only hoping the first frost doesn't cut it short. Here's hoping God doesn't want to throw on a parka too soon.

Cycling, community and a little TLC...Other writers' views on being green

The last few weeks, I've been up to my ears in work projects, so I'm slowly getting a chance to catch up on my reading. Here's a few articles from other writers worth looking at:

Recently I was inspired by a man I met who lost more than 250 pounds. It started with bariatric surgery but his success was largely due to his love of cycling. Just for fun, he rode across the state of Indiana the other day. Yep, biking isn’t just for kids. I’ve had to listen to my father and brother tell their tales of what I consider extreme bike rides for years, but other people are jumping on the biking bandwagon too, for fun and for transportation. Chile shares her experiences during a month-long personal challenge to drop her car and writes about “falling in and out of love” with her bike.

Fall means back-to-school nights, football and fall festivals. We’re coming back from trips around the country and re-settling in at home. But it’s more than just getting together with the neighbors. A strong community means a greener planet, too. The Conscious Shopper gives you five reasons why.

For all of my gardening mishaps this year, the biggest is that little thing called watering. As my lawn browns to a crisp – interesting because it really hasn’t gotten past the 80s much this year – I keep forgetting that I need to water more than my weed patch in the back. In My Kitchen Garden gives me a little more inspiration – and a reminder that a little TLC now could pay off next spring.

And the September APLS carnival is up! Does size matter when it comes to being green? Find out!