I can't hear anything.  Nothing, it's the sound of absolute, tranquil silence.  An unusual concept in our home, we are not a big family, we don't take up alot of space physically, but what we lack in size we make up for in decibels.  I come from a long line of passionate people, we handle most situations by either laughing, crying or singing (and eating mounds of chocolate).   Jamie also has a number of passionate folks in his family, it seems that our girls never had a chance to escape the gene, and so we live in a seemingly continuous hum

But tonight is quiet, peaceful, unusual.  Jamie has taken his father to the Tired Iron Tractor Club Meeting, a club that does beautiful restorations on old tractors, and as a rare treat both of our girls went to bed shortly after 8:00pm.  The only effort of protest comming from Grace by way of one long, sorrowful howl as I turned Garfield and Friends off.  I've been thinking about how nice a quiet evening might be, I love having my girls around but sometimes I can't help but quietly muse on the posibility of going to the bathroom unassisted.  The quiet is a wonderful treat, it's nice, a bit too loud and boring really.  I'm suddenly tempted to go poke Grace and when she grogilly asks what's wrong I can say "Oh, Sorry, did I wake you?" 

Things have been running along smoothly here on Misty Marsh Farms, I hate to jinx it, but since we lost a calf a few days ago, we've had no other illnesses arise.  Jamie's day was mostly spent moving snow and Grace and I got to go out and play in it for a bit.  Even little Bethany got to join in the fun for a bit, while on the way to her Nanny Walks.  Nanny and Poppa Walk are Jamie's parents and live next door to us, their last name is not actually Walk, but they became Nanny and Poppa Walk when Grace was learning to talk as they were the Nanny and Poppa who's house we could walk to.

HEADING TO NANNY AND POPPA WALKS

VISIT WITH A FRIEND



 Grace's friend Courtney dropped in for a play and had supper with Grace again this evening.  The tents were set up in the livingroom and the Dr.s office opened again.  Grace was plagued by what she said was a Heart Infection but was quickly cured by a magical toy Marroca.

ONE OF OUR YOUNG HEIFERS

A YUMMY STIRFRY

JUST A TASTE OF CHOCOLATE

RECIPE:

We love stirfry here and this is a very simple recipe with a delicious sauce.

I tend to use whatever veggies are on hand and typically after I've fried the main veggies I load it up with beansprouts.  As a general rule of thumb I always have lots of mushrooms and onions, a bit of thinly sliced carrot and usually some thinly sliced celery.  Apart from this I ad in whatevers on hand from broccoli and cawliflower to corn and peas.  The main thing I find is to have your pan or wok med-high heat and I use my cooking oil very sparingly, just enough to coat the pan (most recipes call for much more).  Start by cooking the protein, I stick to 2 thinly sliced chicken breasts, 2 thinly sliced pork chops or a thinly sliced steak.  Today I had leftover roast beef so that is what I used and just tossed it in at the end..  Fry your meats until almost cooked, remove from pan and fry veggies from largest and slowest cooking to whatever takes the least time.  Below is a list of what I have in the stirfry pictured above, I started by frying the broccoli, cawliflower and carrots, then threw in the rest of the ingredients.  Add the meat back in just before veggies are done and allow it all to finish cooking together.

I am forever adding and ommiting ingredients from various recipes or creating my own, I highly recommend playing with your food and finding what works for your family.  Different nuts are always a welcome thing here, our favorite are almonds.

Roast Beef

2 thinly sliced carrots

1/2 a head of broccoli cut small

1/2 a head of cawliflower cut small

1/2 an onion diced 

a small amount of red pepper

about 1 cup of  sliced mushrooms

Sauce

10oz beef or chicken stock

3tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp cornstarch

2tbsp Fancy Molasses

I served this on whole grain Basmati rice which I just descovered and love the nutty flavour it offers.