what's up weekly, and Juniper at seven months.

Hey buddy!  I have SO much to tell you about.  If our internet hadn't crapped out last week, I would have covered at least some of this in last week's What's Up Weekly, but these are the cards I've been dealt and I will do my best to put on a brave face.  So, two weeks' worth of news it is!

Two weekends ago, we headed up to Iowa for my first niece's first birthday.  It was so fun.

The Van Voorsts take up an entire table all by ourselves.  #winning

After the party, I got some sistertime with my bestsisterfriend, and it was SO good for my soul.

We drove home on Sunday, and Juni got the Star Car treatment: diaper changes on the front seat.  I'm basically a pro at this by now, and I only sometimes end up getting baby poop on the seat.  (I kid, I kid; I would never deface the Kraken like that.)

Monday launched our last week before break, and we had a lot to get done in order to get done in time to do exams on Friday.  The week was going to be even more full than usual because we had a bunch of appointments scheduled as well, so we really buckled down and got to work.

On Tuesday, three of the kids had eye doctor appointments in the morning.  I'm always appreciative when doctor's offices can get as many of us into a single visit as possible!

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The eye doctor’s office... our home away from home. 😉

A post shared by Paige Van Voorst (@theminivanvoorsts) on Nov 19, 2019 at 9:14am PST

On Thursday, the five big kids all had dentist appointments.  It meant we were there for two and a half hours, which was pretty brutal, but I'm so glad we don't have to go back for another six months.  The last dentist we went to would only see two kids per visit, and would schedule exams and cleanings and individual cavity fillings all on separate days for each kid - we spent three months visiting that dentist at least once a week, and by the end of that stretch, we still hadn't finished all the dental work they said was necessary.  (Scam, much?)  This time around, the only cavities they found in ANY of the kids were the two that Penelope still hadn't had filled - five kids, no new cavities!  I'm blown away.

On Friday, we did get exams (mostly) done, and it felt so good to jump into the next two weeks of break.  I had (and still have) big plans for this stretch of break - a few major house projects I'd like to get done, lots of checking papers and filing portfolio materials, and possibly potty training Callista.  We'll see how much I end up getting done.

I started a shiplap project in the basement, and it's really coming along!  I've had so much great help from the boys, and while I was pretty nervous to get started (I'm not super handy), it has been a pretty simple project.

"Before"

Progress!

I also got a closet system installed in the girls' room, and I've been moving around the kids' clothing, which has been kind of a mess - Rocco, Callista and Laurelai's dressers were stored in Juniper's room, Juniper and Finneas' dressers were in our room, and only Atticus and Penelope had their dressers accessible in their own rooms.  But I'm hoping to get everything squared away in a more intuitive way by the end of break.

And yesterday was Thanksgiving, and we spent the day feasting in Iowa.

That's all for schedule-specific news.  In kid-specific news, spoiler alert: they're all still the absolute best.  Atticus and Penelope played Clue at my mom's, and loved it so much they made their own version when we got home.

I painted the girls' nails, and they were adorable about it.

Todd walked into the girls' room the other day, and found Callista just hanging out in the big girls' cozy bed.

I think Callista is going to be a beautician, and I'm not complaining about it.  She spent half an hour giving me a pedicure and foot massage.  And I'm not complaining about it.

I call this photo, "Paige's Huge Butt, and Some Other Stuff You Can See Around the Periphery if You Squint Hard Enough."  I'm really hoping the camera added all of its ten pounds in one very localized region.

And Juniper turned seven whole months old!!  It is becoming increasingly more difficult to get a good, clean shot of her.

She is on the move now, and she has the most adorable way of crawling.  She's such a tiny nugget, and everything she does, she does in a tiny-looking way.  It's crazy cute.  Which is helpful when I start to feel frustrated by the common annoyances of having a freshly mobile baby.  We bought a baby jail (or, I guess the technical term is play yard, but who are we kidding?), but she quickly learned that she does not like being contained, so she now starts to cry as soon as she's put in.  You'd think she'd eventually get used to it, but that is not the case so far.  Pray for us.

And those were our last two weeks!  I have one more week of break in which to finish so many ambitious projects - I'll keep you posted.

SPC 4 Life

Happy Thanksgiving, from the German who is clearly the expert on American holidays.  (You didn't think I'd break our longstanding tradition and fail to post this, did you?!  It just wouldn't be a Van Voorst Thanksgiving without Flula.)



I hope you have as great a day as this guy is clearly having.  (And a better day than most of the confused people in the background seem to be having.)  Happy Thanksgiving!

best, easiest lunch for busy days.

I know I'm not the only one who finds themselves constantly flabbergasted by just how often kids insist on eating.  We only do three meals a day (no snacks), but it still feels like every time I turn around, it's time to serve another meal.

Normally, I really don't mind.  I have gotten a pretty good system in place to allow me to be proactive in providing meals and not constantly feeling like the kids are starving and I have no idea what to even make.  But weeks like the past few, in which we have a lot going on and our regular routine is kind of out the window, it still feels hard.

Lately, I've been using the kitchen a lot to prep for larger meals, we've had a lot of appointments, and I've been working on house projects, running errands, preparing for Advent, you name it - my mind and schedule are being pulled in a million different directions, and there have been a couple of days where I find myself wondering if the kids would notice if we just... skipped lunch.  (They would notice.  Immediately.  And shortly thereafter, they'd start drawing straws to see which kid would be donating a limb to stave off the hunger of the rest.  And without a doubt, it would be Rocco.)

To avoid cannibalism, might I suggest cheese and crackers.  Ahem, I mean, charcuterie board.  (Fancypants!)  Ten minutes of prep, virtually no clean up, no need to argue with the kids about eating it, no watching reluctant eaters dawdle at the table for hours on end.  (The beauty of cheeseboard-for-lunch is that it is every man for himself: everyone gets to pick out only the things they feel like eating, and if you're too slow, you may miss out on something you want.  It makes for a very quick lunch.)  I also love that it doesn't really have to be any specific grouping of items - I just use whatever I already have on hand; I just try to go for some kind of protein, something fresh, and something starchy.  And to top it all off, I serve it on paper plates to make life just that much breezier.

I especially love this lunch on busy kitchen days - while I'm already in there, chopping and sauteeing and whatnot, all I have to do is grab a few things from the fridge, use the same knife and cutting board that are already out, throw it all on a plate, and never really have to pause my big cooking.

This is likely the lunch I'll be serving today, as I'm doing some cooking and baking for Thanksgiving tomorrow.  Maybe you should do some fridge-scrounging for lunch today too, and pat yourself on the back for looking like a fancy mom.  Or at least the kind of mom who is doing what it takes to ensure that all kids end the day with as many limbs as they started it with.

chicken and rice soup: maybe creamy, possibly with bacon.

This is an updated, expanded edition of a previous blog post.  It just goes to show that this is a classic, staple food at our house, and it's a great way to use up any leftovers from the roast chicken you made last night after my recipe went viral.  Or whatever.  

I make a lot of soup.  A loooooot of soup.  Why? Because #1. I love soup.  I could eat it every day.  #2. It's cheap and easy.  #3. It stretches to feed a lot of people over a lot of days.  #4.  You can make it early in the day so dinner time is less stressful.  #5.  Very little clean up.  #6.  Who doesn't like soup?  #7.  I could really keep going with this list.

Of all the soups in the whole world, I would like to submit that this is the best soup.  It is the Soup of Soups.  It will win over even the staunchest of the soup-averse.  It will win you friends and help you influence people.  In short, it will change your life.

This is The Soup, sans bacon and cream.  It was excellent, but I'm always in favor of leveling up.  Add the bacon and cream if you like to live up to your full potential.

I have two secrets to making an extraordinary soup, which I'll share with you if you promise not to tell anyone.  Are you ready?

1.  Don't use a crockpot.  Please swear to me you won't use a crockpot.  Crockpots take everything good and wonderful in this world and turn it all into flavorless, textureless sadness.  Don't try to convince me that you have some miracle crockpot recipe that will change my mind.  It will not change my mind.  I am unconvinceable.

2.  Cook each component of the soup as though you would be eating it on a plate.  What I mean by that is, like, roast or bake or grill the chicken like you do for other meals; don't boil it to death.  Would you eat boiled chicken by itself on a plate?  No.  Would you eat seasoned, grilled chicken?  Yes.  Sautee the veggies in some good fat; again, don't boil them in the soup broth.  You would not enjoy eating mushy boiled vegetables by themselves.  Think of a good soup as basically a complementary marriage of some awesome individuals; not a hot tub full of the old and leathery.

I never apologize for my terrible food photos, which seem to be always taken under fluorescent lighting after dark.  Maybe I should start apologizing.  But whatever, I trust you can get the gist: these sautéed-in-bacon-grease vegetables are going to taste way better in soup than ones that have been boiled into next year.

Okay, so with that in mind, here is the recipe that has won me more friends in the course of life than my mediocre personality has:

Ingredients:

Veggies:
1 onion, chopped.
3 carrots, peeled and chopped. (or equivalent baby carrots chopped)
3 stalks celery, halved and chopped.
4-6 cloves of garlic, crushed and chopped.  (so much chopping!)

Meat:
1/2 lb bacon, cut into 1/2-inch pieces, optional (kind of).
2 chicken breasts, cooked and chopped into bite size pieces.  (grilled, baked, or roasted in advance.)

Rice:
~2 cups cooked rice, cooked in broth if you have some extra on hand. (I like jasmine or brown basmati because they maintain their structural integrity, even when they've been sitting in the broth for a bit.  I hate it when rice turns to pastemeal in soup.)

Liquids:
4-6 cups broth
1.5 cups heavy cream, optional (I guess).

Seasonings:
1 tsp (ish) salt
1 tsp (ish) pepper
dash of cayenne
1 tsp (ish) rosemary
1 bay leaf

Okay, before we move on, let me give you another unapologetic head's up that my photos are terrible; also, I forgot to take a photo of the finished product with both bacon and cream, so more photos of the un-Bammed soup will have to suffice. 

Directions:

1. If using bacon, fry it right in the soup pot until crispy.  Remove bacon, but the rendered bacon grease in the pot.  If not using, heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil, lard or saved bacon grease over medium heat until shimmery.  (You ARE saving your bacon grease, aren't you?!)

2.  Add veggies to hot oil, season with salt and pepper, and sauté until the onion is translucent and the carrots and celery are soft but not mushy.

3.  Add bacon (if using), cooked chicken, and cooked rice to pot, and add enough broth to cover ingredients by an inch or two.  Add cream if using (and you should be using).  Heat through, and season to taste with salt, pepper, rosemary and cayenne.  Add bay leaf and simmer on low for 20-30 minutes.  Remove bay leaf before serving.

4.  Serve to guests and accept their eternal gratitude with grace when it's offered.
I like to triple or quadruple this recipe when I make it.  When I serve soup, I often serve it two nights in a row because it's so much better the next day, and it makes menu planning so simple in the winter months.  (This week, it is especially nice to have something simple and filling already made and in the fridge, to free up my time for Thanksgiving cooking.)  So I serve two batches in a row, and freeze the rest.  I just leave the broth and cream out of the ones headed to the freezer, and add the liquids later when I'm ready to heat it through and serve it.

Here's how I prep it for the freezer - I can pull it out of the freezer and throw everything together the afternoon before serving, or I can use the individual ingredients in other recipes if I so choose.  I like keeping prepped, flexible, ready-to-eat ingredients on hand.  I also sometimes just throw all the dry ingredients into the same gallon-sized bag, but I always keep the broth separate or it can make everything really mushy when it reheats.

And there you have it.  The best thing that's about to happen to you.

my favorite, easy way to roast a chicken. (and how to keep it from drying out.)

I love making roast chicken.  Chicken producers should pay me for all the advertising I do for the chicken industry.  Other than Colonel Sanders, I don't think there's anyone quite as enthusiastic about chicken as I am.

This is not a chicken I cooked, and it is not a photo I took.  I am just awful at remembering to take pictures of the food I cook because, once dinner's ready, I'm always too busy actually eating it to photograph it.  But I should probably come back and try to swap out this picture for a Van Voorst original at some point.

It took me a while to really get on board the chicken train. (CHICKEN TRAIN?!  I see a children's book idea in there.  Intellectual copyright: Paige Van Voorst, 11/25/19.)  First of all, raw chickens look and feel like babies when you hold them.  They really do.  Second of all, whole chickens always turn out so dry in the oven, but so mushy in the crockpot.  So any effort expended was immediately negated by the fact that I didn't want to actually eat the chicken I'd just slaved over.

But then I found this Thomas Keller recipe (originally in some magazine, way back before Pinterest existed, right after Gutenberg's moveable type made magazines even possible), and my whole world was changed.  I've made a few tweaks to make it even easier than the original recipe (which was hard to do, I must admit), and I've figured out a couple of tricks to guarantee it turns out well every single time - the meat stays moist, while the skin gets really crispy.  To die for.

First, my tips:

1. Get the best quality chicken you can afford. 

While I purchase most grocery items for the lowest prices I can find, because I frequently can't taste a difference between the cheap brands/products and the most expensive ones, I have noticed a difference with chicken.  I have found a non-GMO, pastured option at my local Natural Grocers for $2.50/lb, which is a pretty good price for meat!  (The brand is "Mary's.")  I always use the bones to make around a gallon of chicken stock, which typically costs about $2 per quart, so in my mind, that balances the cost of purchasing a more expensive chicken.  Although, I've also made this recipe with $0.95/lb chickens from Aldi, and it still turns out great, so you can't go wrong either way.

2. Get the raw chicken up to room temperature before even attempting to mess with it. 

I know, I know; there's a bunch of well-founded hysteria surrounding raw chicken.  But you're about to blast this sucker with some high heat, and cook it all the way through, so I feel like the risk of contamination is pretty nil.  Plus, if you invest in higher quality chickens, the risk of bacteria already on the meat from the packaging process is lower.  So I take it out of the fridge at least an hour before prepping it; sometimes it comes out in the morning before I roast it in the afternoon.  COLD MEAT IS DRY MEAT. COLD MEAT IS DRY MEAT.  Make that your kitchen mantra from here on out.

3.  Rinse it clean, and then get it as dry as you possibly can. 

Think: desert conditions.  Would a camel die of thirst if left to wander the surface of this chicken?  If the answer is no, keep drying it off.  I just wrap it in a flour sack towel, and kind of turn it over in my hands and rub it.  (You know; like a baby after a bath.)  Make sure to get the body cavity dry as well.  (NOT like a baby after a bath.)


4.  Blast the heat right at first, then turn the temps down for the remainder of the roasting time. 

This crisps up the skin and seals the moisture inside, without drying it out.

Okay, ready for the recipe?


Ingredients:

1. Whole roasting chicken (average size)

2. Salt, pepper, and garlic powder (this is all I use); or other seasonings of your choice

3. That is all.


Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 425.

2. Rinse chicken well and pat it very dry.

3. Place in shallow baking dish; sprinkle with seasonings to taste. (Get a little bit heavy-handed on the salt, especially if you're using mineral salt or sea salt, which I recommend.)

4. Bake uncovered at 425 for 30 minutes; then turn oven down to 350 and continue to bake another 45 minutes.

5. Remove from oven and allow to rest for 15 minutes before cutting.


And that's everything.  You wash the chicken, stick it in the oven for a little over an hour, pull it out, and dinner is ready.  You can put seasoned root vegetables under the chicken while it roasts if you'd like, just leave it in at 350 for an extra 10-15 minutes.  SO EASY.

When I make this, Todd takes one of the breasts, Atticus and I each have a hindquarter, Penelope eats the wings, and the littler kids split the remaining breast.  It works out perfectly for us.  If we're having guests, or I want some extra chicken to freeze or put in soup, I cook two chickens and add 10-15 minutes to the cooking time on the end.  After we're done eating, I throw the bones in the stockpot and make broth after dinner.  (Recipe coming soon!)

Try this and let me know how it turns out!

Tomorrow, I'll share the soup recipe that I'll be making for dinner tomorrow night, to keep things ubersimple while I'm prepping for Thanksgiving!

what’s not up weekly.

Still. No. Internet.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

still roughing it. beginning to blame someone for it.

YOU FAILED ME, STERLING!!

Now I’m going to have to call and speak to Sterling's manager about not letting Sterling stay up so late watching Disney+. We should have known our teens would never get another lick of work done when they could be binge-watching Lizzie Maguire. Gah!  Now I’ll never have internet access again. Thanks a lot, Disney. Way to ruin my life again.

I think that while I’m on the subject of Disney ruining my life, and also looking to kill some space so I can count this as a real blog post, I’ll tell you about the time I got lost at Disneyland. Or about the time I almost got kidnapped in the Walmart. Or the time I got struck by lightning. No, my ArthritiThumbs are squealing and it’ll just have to wait.

While you’re holding your breath, please send up some (silent, breathless) prayers for me as I brave this primitive subsistence lifestyle that is only using data. Also, breathe a silent prayer for Sterling and his mom- er, “work manager”, as they prepare for a classic Paige Van Voorst Talkin’-To. 

And, here we find ourselves again, internetless and sad. But my nails are painted, so I like to think of that as a win? Not a relevant one, but a win nonetheless.  I also spoke yesterday with a tech support guy named Sterling about getting our connection back up sometime today, so I’m about 30% sure that might happen. He’ll have to squeeze me in between Art II and Gym, but as long as his mom packs him a filling lunch and he didn’t stay up too late last night playing Call of Duty, he should have the energy to address the issue. So, like I said,  I’m about 20% sure I’ll have adequate internet access to post a blog tomorrow.

In the meantime, here are some unrelated but adorable photos of Juni on a recent chilly walk. I had put an adult-sized tam on her head to keep her warm. It slipped down over her eyes, at which point she promptly fell asleep in the warm and dark. I declared myself a genius for having thought of it, even though I literally had nothing to do with it other than neglecting to keep track of the baby-sized hats. Cool story.

Don’t worry; her nose isn’t actually covered, it only looks like it in this picture.  Her nostrils were free to drink the wild air and whatever.

staying true to my word in the face of adversity.

Welp, I find myself in a pickle. I committed to posting a blog every weekday in November, but I did not anticipate losing our internet connection, which really puts a wrench in the works.   “Why don’t you just post from your phone?” I hear some of you asking, to which I answer that it’s what I’m attempting at this exact moment. But you already know that I’m not tech-savvy at all (as indicated by my use of the phrase, “tech-savvy”), and my thumbs seem to be made of lead in addition to also having arthritis, so I’ve already been working on this for an embarrassing amount of time and can’t sustain my energy or attention span much longer. 

So I think this is my cue to just tell you I miss you and will plan on seeing you tomorrow, as long as our internet is back up and running. (Though, don’t hold your breath. Our normal internet speed is like 50 bytes per minute or something. Melted cheese streams faster. It’s not like we’re paying for top-of-the-line service, so maybe we’ll be parted for a few days; who knows?)