Hopeful Homemaker

Curried Cashew Salad

October 18, 2011 jennifer Sides and Salads

This might be the most amazing salad I’ve ever tasted. The layering of flavors is incredible.

Don’t be intimidated by the long list of ingredients! It’s really easy to make, especially if you cook the bacon and prepare the cashews in advance. If you do that, then it’s no more chopping than your average salad.

There is something for everyone in this salad. The salty crunch of bacon, the sweetness of pears and grapes, a bit of onion, and the curried cashews have a nice bite to them, yet the curry is toned down by the brown sugar and other spices. I was surprised by how much my family loved this salad. Everyone wanted third or fourth helpings.

Curried Cashew Salad Ingredients:
5 slices bacon, cooked until crisp 3/4 cup cashews or cashew halves 1 Tb. butter 1 Tb. brown sugar 1 tsp. finely chopped fresh rosemary 1 tsp. curry powder 1/2 tsp. salt 1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper 1 large pear 1 cup red grapes, sliced in half 1 large bunch green or red leaf lettuce 1/4 cup chopped green onions 1/4 cup finely chopped green pepper dressing ingredients:
3 Tb. white wine vinegar 3 Tb. Dijon mustard 2 Tb. honey 1/2 cup olive oil salt and pepper to taste Preparation:

Cook bacon until crisp. Remove from pan, cool on paper towels. Crumble and set aside For the curried cashews: In a small microwaveable bowl, melt butter. Add brown sugar, rosemary, curry powder, cayenne pepper and salt. Mix together well. If mixture seems to get thick quickly, re-heat in microwave for 5-7 seconds. Add cashews and stir to coat nuts. Set aside to cool.

For the dressing: Combine all dressing ingredients and mix vigorously with a small wire whisk until oil is fully combined with the other ingredients. Note: you might want to double the dressing ingredients if your family likes a lot of dressing, or if everyone will be serving their own dressing.

For the salad: This salad is prettiest served in a wide, shallow bowl or platter. Cut or tear lettuce and arrange in serving dish. Sprinkle green onion and green peppers over lettuce. Sprinkle with grapes and crumbled bacon. Carefully slice pear into 1/2 inch (or slightly bigger) cubes. You can peel the pear or leave skin on, depending on your preference. Garnish salad with pear cubes and finally, sprinkle with curried cashews. Depending on your tastes, drizzle salad dressing over salad, or reserve in small dish for individual servings. Serve immediately.

Additional notes: This salad would also be the perfect start to a formal dinner. In that case, prepare individual salads on salad plates. On the other end of the spectrum, I have small children, so when I served this salad to my family I reserved the cashews and offered them in a separate bowl. That way only those children that were interested in adding a bit of spice to the salad had the nuts (thus leaving more for my husband, and sparing us a crying two year old!) Interestingly, as family members commented on how the nuts really rounded out the whole salad, almost everyone tried the curried cashews and no one complained that they were too spicy.

I hope you love this recipe like we do!
Jennifer

Monday and a Stack of Fabric

October 17, 2011 jennifer Musings on Life and Beauty, Quilting and Sewing

This morning I woke up intending to work like crazy on cleaning the house so I can afford time for yard work later in the week. Usually I enjoy cleaning, or at least the results of cleaning. Today, however, I was all out-of-sorts emotionally and found myself feeling irritated with my children while I was cleaning. Instead of enjoying the process I felt frustrated with them for being sloppy.

That’s never a good thing to feel, especially when you know that four of them have major projects to work on after school today, and when you also know that it’s going to take patience and persistence to get them all going. {And even then there may be a battle.} It will never work if I’m frustrated with them before I even pick them up.

Please tell me you have days like that, days when everything that’s wrong feels really wrong and everything that’s right feels wrong anyway. Days when reminding yourself that everything is, in reality, great does nothing to squelch the tears pricking behind your eyes. No particular reason, just cloudy on the inside, I guess.

So I took a break.

I’ve had a large stack of 44 inch strips of fabric sewn together for weeks. It’s for a quilt I wanted to make in September. Today I ironed them and cut them into triangles. While I did it, I opened all the windows in my studio (the sunniest room in the house) and enjoyed a gentle breeze and bright light.

Somehow it worked. I don’t know if it’s the sunshine, or a stack of triangles that will never again be 44 inch strips (unlike the laundry, which will shortly be dirty again). Perhaps it was just the steady cutting of fabric at the same angle for an hour or so. Whatever it was, it cleared my mind and calmed my heart.

I picked the children up with a happy heart. Two are now working cheerfully, one is working resentfully, and the other has yet to start. At least their mother isn’t grouchy, although the family room still needs to be vacuumed. I think it was time well spent.

Just look at all those warm, yummy colors. I’m excited to sew them together.

Fabric is Early Bird, by Cosmo Cricket, with a little bit of their Tailor Made collection thrown in. It’s been out for a while, and I’m finally using it!

Hope your Monday has gone well.
Jennifer

A Year of Habits, no. 41

October 16, 2011 jennifer Helpfulness of Habit

For the past few weeks I’ve had a steady stream of thoughts before sitting down to write this weekly post but as soon as I type the number all those ideas fly right out of my head leaving a question in their place: Have I learned anything yet? Have I developed useful habits yet? I’m running out of time!

In my dream life, I would allot a certain block of time each day or week for work on all the habit’s I’m seeking. Week after week I’d report on progress in each area and see steady improvement as the months passed. In my real life, I allot time to work on things but then reality sweeps in and often sweeps me away. A day’s plan can only maintain a certain amount of its intended shape in the face of needy toddlers, tantrum throwing five-year-olds, a dozen homework assignments and several hours of driving. I’m not seeking to excuse myself, but to discover a healthy middle ground between living purposefully and responding gracefully to the insane curve balls that invariably come my way as a mother to eight children. My whole reason for the goals in the first place is to become a better wife and mother, a better person, and the only way to really do it is in the face of daily life. It’s just that daily life is so grueling sometimes.

So tonight I’m wondering… how am I really doing?

Do I have a great housekeeping routine in place? No. I still go for the Maintain and Reclaim approach much of the time, but there’s a lot that’s not getting done. As far as all housework and personal projects go, all progress stops at 2:30 p.m. when I pick everyone up from school. From 2:30 on, it’s downhill. Honestly, there are days when the daytime climb doesn’t even get us back to where we started 24 hours earlier. I have a lot I’m still envisioning but it’s not in place yet. Miles to go…. but are we better off than we were a year ago? I think so.

Personal health. This one weighs heavily on me. Have I done as well as I thought I would? Far from it. But I’ve made progress. I’ve dealt with surprise challenges and feel like I’m moving the right direction. It’s just that I’m moving so slowly. It’s been a year now since I quit nursing my baby, and I admit I thought it would be much easier to lose weight and recover than it’s been. Kindergarten and early morning seminary have thrown exercise out the window for now, but eating well is always an option. I had an on and off week (again!) and I will have a great week this week. That’s a promise to myself.

Creativity. I pictured myself doing a lot of dabbling, trying some of this and that. As it turns out I spend much less time in my studio than I would like, but I’m also recognizing more opportunities to be creative in my role as a mother. For instance, tonight I tried two new recipes. I spent most of the afternoon in the kitchen but it was a creative experience and I enjoyed myself.

Service. In this area we get flying colors this week! I have been prayerful about service for the past couple of weeks and while I won’t list specifics here, I feel like I was guided to do specific things at specific times. I also watched my husband and children performing acts of service that warmed my heart.

Finishing. I’m getting better at it. I’m also getting better at saying no to things. I’m learning to AVOID starting things that are unnecessary.

Reading. The past few weeks have been so busy that I haven’t read much, but I have read four or five novels for young adults. I try to pick them up here and there so I know what my kids are reading and can talk more with them about it. I finished a book of my own several weeks ago and have picked up Middlemarch again.

A Soft Reply. Last night I was so discouraged about kids and homework I wanted to cry. I looked around and wondered how I could be working so hard and getting nowhere. I do think that I’m being more careful, learning to laugh more easily, holding my peace more often, sincerely trying to listen and understand before seeking to be understood. Will I ever be able to say I’ve mastered this one? I hope so. But while I can’t say it yet, I can say that I’m better than I was.

That discouragement last night lasted a little while. We got the younger children in bed, got our oldest son off to his haunted house with friends, got our daughter going on her homework. I blinked back some tears and got to work planning menus for next week. Somehow my husband and I both relaxed and had a great night with our daughter, joined later by our son. When the four of us were laughing like crazy around the kitchen table at midnight I thought back four hours and shook my head in wonder. I’m glad we held on because we ended up having one of those nights when you go to bed knowing that what just happened was healthy.

The children have a couple of days without school at the end of the week and I have high hopes for them. There is a mountain of yard work to do and I’ve got literally hundreds of bulbs to plant. I always feel better when I get to spend time in the yard. I need to get the yard squared away so I can turn my attention to holiday projects and other deadlines.

I am grateful I get to learn these lessons. I’m grateful for how hard it is to manage the affairs of a family this large. I know it will teach me important lessons and that, in the end, I’ll be a better person for it. It is such a privilege to be a mother. I am hopeful. Hopeful that I’ll learn what needs learning and become the mother I long to be.

Have a great week!
Jennifer