On October 12th, I completed my 27-day fundraising effort. I completed a total of 36.6 miles and raised $1063.00 for my department. Thanks to my generous family and friends, I raised the most money on my team. Amazing! I am so grateful for all the support and KK had a great time being my sidekick. She even finished the last mile by walking, climbing, jumping, and running it alongside me.
I finally put up some of the wall art that I’ve collected over the past two years. I couldn’t hang frames over her bed so I kinda sat on this project for a while. Then I found some clear command hooks at the store and figured out that I could juset tie a ribbon on them and used some binder clips to hang the prints. I also found these cool Scotch Restickable Dots that I used to display her artwork.
The prints are all from local artists. Below are the original versions of two of the prints. I met the artist, Genevieve Santos at a craft faire and was so sweet to offer to paint the boy’s hair black in both of the prints.
Pillow Fort
“Let me in. I have cookies.”
Here are a few from a girl named Elda The. I love her work.
Angry Birds
I don’t know what this one is called but I imagine this is where Koa lives now.
She also designed the Koa pillow that Kumquat sleeps with every night.
This is a cute one that Kumquat loves to point to and label “bus” and “GG”. The artist’s name is Nidhi Chanani. Love her stuff.
It looks a little tacky but I kept the plastic sleeves on them for now to keep them from getting greasy from the kitchen. They’ll come off when she has an enclosed room to herself one day. For now, this will just have to do.
Little by little, this space will be covered in scribbles…hopefully, they’ll all be on paper and not the actual wall.
I saw some kale and spinach bites in the freezer section at Trader Joe’s a few weeks ago and thought I could try to make my own for Kumquat. I looked up a few recipes and made a few tweaks of my own.
I started with onion sweating in butter and olive oil. I bought frozen spinach and kale (1/2 bag each) because I didn’t know when I would have the time/energy to make these.
The spinach and kale went into the pan and I cooked it until all the frozen veggies were warm and soft.
In the meantime, I shredded some parmagiano reggiano (~1/2 cup) and then set it aside in a bowl. 
I also found some leftover rotisserie chicken in the fridge, so I chopped some up and put them in the food processor.
The cooked spinach and kale went in with the chicken and I added some green onion.
It was all pulsed together to shred and mix everything together.
In the bowl that had the shredded cheese, I added the veggie/chicken mixture along with an egg and 2/3 cups of panko bread crumbs.
It all got mixed together and some salt and pepper went in to season it all.
Then I rolled the mixture into a ball and flattened it into a patty. It got rolled in more panko bread crumbs and placed on a cookie sheet.
Here they are before going into the 325-degree oven. They can sit close to each other since they won’t be expanding or anything.
When it was all done, the bread crumbs didn’t really brown but it was a little crispy on the outside and tender inside. It stays together enough to use a fork for the small pieces and Kumquat really liked it! I froze the remaining 12 and stored them for later meals. Mission accomplished.
Tonight I made up a new recipe. Went to Safeway to pick up some ground turkey and ricotta. Had some pasta, kale, and leftover shredded cheese and tomato sauce at home. I cooked up the ground turkey, added the tomato sauce, and then mixed in chopped kale until it wilted.
At the same time, I boiled some wheel pasta and when it was done, I scooped some into the turkey mixture.
While it was still hot, I folded in some bread crumbs and ricotta (about 3 heaping scoops). It all went into the trusty muffin tin and got a sprinkling of mozzarella cheese.
They turned out quite well and has a flavor and texture similar to lasagna. You can barely taste and feel the kale so it’s an easy way to packed in the vitamins and iron too!
This is how they looked after they cooled and placed in a ziploc for the freezer. I set aside one of the cups for Kumquat’s lunch tomorrow. Hope she likes it!
This was a really easy toddler recipe that I put together last night. I prepared two boxes of Annie’s Organic Shells and Cheddar and added some frozen peas and corn. After making a bowl for Kumquat’s dinner and packing away a portion for her lunch the next day, I still had plenty to store. I sprayed a muffin tin and scooped the pasta into the wells. Then I covered the tray with foil and put it in the freezer. This morning, I took out the tray and wiggled the cups out. They all went into a Ziploc bag and they’re ready to eat another day. Aren’t they cute?!
I bought this basil plant from Trader Joe’s for $2.99. It had grown so big and bushy that I was able to harvest some basil to make caprese salad and pesto a month ago. I took such good care of it that it kept growing to a point where I could harvest more leaves a second time. This is what the plant looked like AFTER I had harvested the leaves. Woot. I’m definitely getting my money’s worth (and more) out of this plant.
Look at how much I got from a second harvest!
So, I made some pesto. Notice the baby food processor? It’s great for more than just baby food! This is what it looked like when I put the leaves, garlic cloves, and some pine nuts in the machine.
Then I added some shredded parmigiano reggiano and olive oil to make it nice and smooth. Once I seasoned it with salt and pepper, it was ready to go! 
We made pasta with chicken tonight for dinner. The bowl is all wrong for this photo but you get the point. So, we had enough pesto for dinner tonight and a little bit reserved for Kumquat to eat later this week with her pasta wheels. Yippee!
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