Monthly Archives: January 2012

It has so far been quite a mild winter here in upstate NY. However, the last week or so has been really cold and we finally got some snow yesterday and that’s nice too. It is winter after all and cold  and  snow are to be expected and it makes the kids  happy when there is snow.

We moved up here from Brooklyn exactly two years ago and one of the things that Andy was most looking forward to was putting a skating rink in the back yard. Very close friends of his family owned the house before us and he grew up skating on their rink and was excited about carrying on the tradition. The children who used to live here have long since grown up and moved away, so it had been a very long time since the house looked out onto a skating rink. Last year Andy did lots of research and talked to a couple of the  boys about how to go about it, and it turns out it is actually not as complicated as it seems. Though I’m not the one responsible for the assembly or the maintenance, so maybe I’m just clueless to how much work it really is.  This year we increased the size by close to 70%, making the rink about 90′ by 30′.

Andy got most the wood free from Craigslist but had to buy new plastic this year. He also found 10 strings of those big bulb christmas lights on Craigslist for next to nothing so it is quite festive out there.

So, it is finally cold enough that the ice is frozen solid and the kids have been having tons of fun out there. Ishaan and Ulka are pretty good skaters already after skating all winter last year.

Ila was nervous and not that into it last year, but has been eager and excited this year. The first time she went out she pushed a little plastic chair around, but abandoned it quickly. Now, after a week she’s not bad at all. She’s not racing around with her hockey stick like Ishaan and Ulka, but maybe next year.

We even put little Kairav on skates, though at two he would rather be pushed around sitting in the chair.

Lots of friends come over to skate and the rink is open anytime to the neighborhood kids how would like to skate. Sometimes the mud and traffic through the kitchen and all the skate tying  gets a bit frustrating, but it is a good way to build community and relationships in a place where we find that can be challenging.

I was a little skeptical about the whole idea at first. I wasn’t sure how much the kids would use it or how much work it would be, but it has been really great for our family. We spend a lot of time out there and it’s a great way to keep moving in the winter and have fun as a family.  If you have the space and the inclination, I highly recommend it! If you need any encouragement or pointers, I am sure Andy would be happy to help.

One reason I love winter, is that it’s soup time. Wait, that’s a lie. I hate winter. One thing that makes winter more tolerable to me is soup.  I love a bowl of hearty delicious soup.  I find myself cooking soup for my family at least once a week during the cold months, so I thought I would start posting my favorite soup recipes in a weekly post. Sometimes they are taken entirely from somewhere else, in which case I will link back to the original recipe (if I can find it), and sometimes I’ve just thrown things together and made it up.  I like to include lots of veggies in most of my soups so that I don’t have to make a salad or a side vegetable to go with it. After all, part of what I love about soup is the fact that it’s a one-pot, easy clean up meal.

Here is my first soup of the week- this one doesn’t have tons of veggies, so I usually make a yummy salad and I can usually get Ishaan to make a killer skillet cornbread to go with it!

Spicy Black Bean Soup

olive oil- just enough to sauté the onion and garlic

6 cloves of garlic, minced

1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and chopped

2 medium onion, chopped

2 carrots, grated

4-5 chopped tomatoes, or 28 oz of canned tomatoes.

28 oz of canned black beans or preferably beans that have been soaked overnight and then cooked in the morning (but sometimes I just don’t plan that well)

a generous amount of cumin- at least a tablespoon

6 cups of veggie broth or water and bullion (I prefer something called Better than Bullion- it’s like a thin paste that comes in a little jar available at most coops or natural food stores)

salt and pepper to taste

a splash of cream or 1/2 & 1/2 if you are feeling decadent

chopped cilantro

Heat the olive oil in a pan. Add the onion, garlic, and jalapeño- cook until the onion is translucent, but take care not to burn the garlic. Add the tomatoes, cumin, salt, and pepper.  Cook for a few minutes. Add the beans and broth. Simmer for about 20 minutes.  Remove about half the soup and blend it until fairly smooth in a blender then put it back in the pan with the rest of the soup. This thickens up the soup without making it completely smooth. If you are adding cream, do it now (at the end), but really just a splash as this is intended to be a hearty, spicy soup.  That’s it!

I got the inspiration for this soup off the epicurious website, and then changed it up  a bit.