Month: December 2014

Four Months of Blogging

| Hope

As I was poking around my blog, I discovered a “year in review” report for 2014 from “The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys”. I’ve been blogging for three months now, starting September 30, and so far I’m loving it. I love having a way to share my thoughts, to brag on our garden, to ask advice, to write — something that I’ve left out of my life for far too long. Thank you to all who have read, liked, commented, and tolerated the drowning of my Facebook page in blog posts.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 4,000 times in 2014. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 3 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Frost Flowers

| Hope

Yesterday I went for a bright, cold walk with Niko, Sofia, and the puppy, Cody. Usually I carry Sofia in my Ergo carrier, but this time I thought I’d save my back and push her in our big rough-terrain stroller. I’m glad I did, because it turns out I can see a lot more when she’s not strapped to my chest.

We walked across our big lawn, past the row of cypresses, down the hill to the little creek that runs across the bottom of our property in the winter. Cody promptly made a dash for the creek; Niko tried to ford the creek, too, at its widest part, but I threatened him with immediate return to the house if he fell into the creek, and he prudently took the bridge instead. (Later he found a stone ford that I’d been hoping he wouldn’t notice, and I relented and let him cross there. What’s the point of a creek if you can’t at least cross it?)

I was about to follow him when I noticed something odd. A patch of ground near the creek was covered with curving, shining ice crystals pushing up out of the ground. I’d never seen anything like it. I snapped a couple of photos and kept walking — and kept finding more. At first I wondered if the patches of ice were the tops of a mole’s sleeping chamber, but there were just too many of them. It turns out they’re something called crystallofolia, which translates as frost leaves — commonly called frost flowers. When certain plants freeze in previously unfrozen ground, the water inside the stems comes fountaining out in the form of ice crystals. They can get a lot more complex than the ones I saw, but mine were still pretty amazing.

Crystallofolia, or frost flower.
Crystallofolia, or frost flower.
Crystallofolia, or frost flower.
Crystallofolia, or frost flower.
Crystallofolia, or frost flower.

Just for good measure, here are a few pictures of our walk:

Little Miss Toasty-Warm!
Cody is a ridiculously handsome dog.
Nothing beats playing with your puppy on a sunny patch of lawn next to a creek.
Joy.
Don’t fall in don’t fall in don’t fall in…
My strong little helper. (Oh relax, it was empty.)

All I Want For Christmas…

| Hope

Christmas felt different this year. This year, at the age of four, Niko was more aware of the onset of Christmas than previous years yet. For one thing, he understands time a bit better, and the anticipation was agonizing. Grandma and Grandpa’s visit seemed unbearably far away, and, when wrapped gifts finally appeared under the tree, he inquired every day when it would be time to open them. The excitement, the longing, the anticipation — all were new.

This was the first time our son really thought about Christmas in terms of gifts. It was difficult for me, in a way, to see how much space gifts occupied in his mind. My family and my church didn’t celebrate Christmas at all as I was growing up, and I was raised to believe that one of the vices brought by Christmas is the avarice and materialism displayed by overindulgent gift giving. I’ve moved past that particular part of my upbringing, and I love Christmas now — lights, ornaments, gifts, and all. But despite my current embracing of the holiday, I cringed a bit at Niko’s obvious desire and worry that he might not be getting what he wanted. Since he saw some of his baby sister Sofie’s gifts but none of his ahead of time, the accumulation of Sofia’s gifts seemed to far outweigh his, and he was desperately worried that we had forgotten to get him any. On the other hand, his little Christmas list remained modest and consistent. I asked him some time ago what he wanted. His response was prompt and clear: “I want an Olaf snowman and an Olaf book and a toy dog.” Each time afterwards that we asked him for his Christmas list, he repeated the same items with only minimal variation. As anxious as he was over the gifts, he really had only three simple items that he desired.

But it wasn’t all about the anxiety of anticipation. He rejoiced in the colored lights, thrilled at the responsibility of plugging in the tree lights each morning, and delighted in learning Christmas songs at preschool. Opening the doors of the Advent calendar each night (well, many nights — I wasn’t that great at remembering to do it) was a ritual that he loved. In fact, he loves everything about the holiday. He loves the sparkling candles, the colorful ornaments, the hope of snow.

One day Niko, Sofia, and I went shopping at an outdoor mall we’d never visited before, and there was a giant lit tree in the center square with two lovely snow fairies posing for photos with passersby. His eyes lit up with amazement: “FAIRIES! Those are REAL fairies! Can we take a picture of them for Dad?” (His dad travels often, so Niko thinks in terms of taking pictures so Dad can see whatever it is we’re excited about.) He was absolutely amazed, and even more excited when he got to stand by them and have a picture taken. I’m pretty sure that was a highlight of his Christmas.

We saw Santa numerous times over the holiday, and Niko was never quite convinced that it was a person wearing a costume; he hasn’t really accepted our story of a kind man named Nicholas who lived long ago, whom we now remember as Santa Claus. He’s pretty sure Santa is real, and Mom and Dad just haven’t caught on yet. Every time he spied Santa his face would beam with pleasure. “There’s Santa!”

So it wasn’t all about the presents. Not even close. I’ll admit, though, I worried a little that Niko would be so overwhelmed by all the gifts we and his grandparents had gotten for him that he would forget gratitude, that he would become numb to the joy of finding something new in each package. But Niko is the master of being amazed, and he was thrilled with each and every gift.

To my delight,one of his favorite gifts was a fox face cut from an old shirt of his, that I sewed into a pillow and that he’s slept with every night since Christmas. It was inexpertly sewed, but still, the fox was a highlight. About a year ago, that shirt had been almost new. He’d sneaked away with his scissors one day and snipped all over the front of it. When I saw what he’d done, I was upset, and so was he, because he hadn’t realized how destructive the scissors were. He thought he’d never see that fox again. On Christmas Day, when he pulled the fox- shaped pillow out of his stocking, he recognized it right away. He smiled with his entire body as he hugged the little pillow. I guess the reason his pleasure over that pillow delighted me, too, is that it shows he isn’t entirely captivated by shiny new THINGS. He understood the value of the fox pillow immediately; realized that I’d taken something he’d destroyed, and lovingly transformed it into a huggable bedtime cuddle friend.  He understood that the pillow represented time spent, and hard work, and thoughtfulness, and he responded accordingly. His understanding and gratitude are now one of my favorite Christmas memories.

As it turns out, all I really wanted was to see genuine joy on my son’s face. I saw that, and suddenly all my worries about materialism and avarice evaporated. Watching open his Christmas presents was the most fun I can think of!

Here are some of Niko’s amazed faces:

I realize he doesn’t look thrilled here. That’s because he really wanted to hug the pillow, not hold it up for a picture. He was a good sport, though.
Neither of these was a Christmas gift for Niko. But he was as excited by Sofia’s lamb rocker as he was by any of his own gifts. He immediately rushed to his room and hauled out his rocking horse so they could ride together.
So thrilled by his ukulele!
Tractor-shaped tire swing: Best. Gift. Ever.
This card arrived today from his former babysitter, who lives in Alaska. Pure joy!

Birthday Banner

| Hope

Sofia just had her first birthday, and we celebrated by dressing her in a tutu and smashing a cake. Of course I needed pictures, so I set up a sheet for a plain background. We’ve done this before, for Niko’s one-year-old cake smash and for family photos, and it’s seemed fine. But this time, as I looked at the white sheet draped against the fireplace, it just looked…inadequate.

I was feeling a bit doubtful about the photo shoot, anyway. I’d made Sofie a pretty blue-and-silver tutu and had considered making a matching blue polka-dot cake, but I let Aaron talk me into doing a more girly peach and green cake. I wasn’t sure how the photos would look with two completely different color schemes.

The cake, covered with peach-colored whipped cream.
Green polka dots inside!
Sofia’s slice.

And then, inspiration hit — during my two hours home during Niko’s preschool morning, of course, on the morning of the day I planned to take Sofia’s pictures. There’s nothing quite like a deadline to inspire. What I needed was, of course, a sweet birthday banner pulling three of the colors together. Out came my big pad of  12×12 scrapbook paper. I found three pages that were just right — a soft peachy orange stripe, and two subtly patterned pages in a pretty blue and mossy green.

Then I went to the computer and found a font that could easily be converted to an outline — Marker Felt. I enlarged it to 250 point, changed it from black to empty outline, and printed it out: “ONE YEAR OLD.” If I’d had my craft stuff properly organized, I’d have done this on my Cricut cutter. But printing it and then cutting out the letters worked just fine. After I cut the letters, I cut triangles from the colored paper. I made sure they were identical by folding the paper into quarters, then cutting diagonally. With the font size I chose, this made just the right size of triangles.

Settings in Word for the letters
Printed letters
Cut-out letters on the colored paper
Cutting diagonally across folded paper
Letters on triangles

Next, I glued the cut-out letters to the triangles, using stick glue so the letters didn’t get bubbles or become warped. I got some pale green narrow satin ribbon out of my box of crazily tangled ribbons (pausing to re-skein and sort them), and measured it against the fireplace wall to make sure I had enough length. I carefully glued the triangles along the ribbon, spaced to make two swags. Then I hung it across the white backdrop. It took a few tries to get it balanced just right, but I managed it… just in time, too, because 11:00 came just as I was tying it off, and I had to leave to go bring Niko home from preschool. The whole project took exactly an hour and a half, and that included nursing Sofie, changing her diaper, and rescuing ribbons and paper triangles repeatedly from her curious fingers.

When I sat Sofie in front of the backdrop with her cake, I felt an exquisite relief: The birthday banner accomplished its hoped-for task of pulling together the disparate colors. It made a bright, cheerful setting for the first-birthday photos. Success!

Birthday banner on a plain white sheet.
Birthday girl! Yum yum.

What They Don’t Tell You

| Hope

Last week we took a morning to do some last-minute Christmas shopping. At the mall, Aaron took Niko one direction while I took Sofia elsewhere, so I could check off my list for Aaron and get Niko some books.

We’d been shopping about half an hour when I got a text from Aaron: “Niko just did the craziest thing!” Turns out Niko’s bottom had started itching. Right there in the middle of Nordstrom, he shed pants and underwear to get at the itch. Aaron glanced down and was horrified — “What are you DOING?”

“I had an itch,” Niko explained. “That’s what I do when my bottom itches.”

No one tells you to anticipate this sort of thing when you start parenting. I’m sure the parents of one of Niko’s friends didn’t expect to have a conversation with her teacher after school about how she lifted her dress to show Niko her pretty undies. You don’t really think ahead about what you’ll respond should your child shout, upon seeing a pretty Filipino lady, “That lady is BROWN like my friend Jonah!” (“We don’t use people’s skin color to describe them,” you hiss, sinking as low into your seat as possible.)

Nobody tells you to be prepared to have your hand covered in slimy yellow poop while holding your munchkin as you peruse the clearance rack in an upscale department store. No one warns you that you may walk out of a mall bathroom holding the hand of a toddler wearing too-short pants and navel-baring shirt because he peed himself thirty minutes after your last potty stop.

I could continue, ad nauseam, listing all the surprising things about parenting. However, it occurs to me that a) it’s been done before — repeatedly — and, b) many of these “things no one tells you” are actually things that people DO tell you. Read a few articles on a parenting site and you’ll be so overwhelmed by all the “things” that you’ll decide to never have a child…unless it’s too late for you, as it is for me.

No, I’m realizing that there’s no secretive society of parents, all refusing to tell of their embarrassing, disgusting, even hilarious stories. Get us talking, and we won’t shut up. It’s more a matter of listening and applying the stories to oneself — both important factors. The childless listener thinks, “But I have a degree in child development and a background in education. MY children will never push a container of bouncy balls to the ground in a rage and then fling themselves on top of the rolling balls while shrieking ‘I WANT A BLUE BALL!’ My children will always appear well-groomed and happy, and their faces will always be clean, because how hard is it really to manage a child or two for an hour or two in a store?”

Here is what no one wants to believe before having children: Every child is an autonomous being. You can train, you can discipline, you can practice, but you can not control. Children aren’t robots. Trust me. Your child WILL embarrass you. If no one has told you this yet, it’s only because — as my mother told me — this is a universal truth, and those of us who’ve gone through it believe it’s obvious. We can’t tell you the specifics of how this embarrassment will happen, because children are unpredictable, but it will occur. It’s only a question of how.

IMG_1553.JPG

Niko’s Princess

| Hope

Early last week, as I was dropping Niko off for a morning of preschool, a dark-haired little girl rushed up to us and stood in front of Niko, swishing her long purple princess costume dress back and forth. “Hi, Niko!” she gushed. “Do you think I look pretty? I feel soooooo pretty!”

The little girl was familiar to me. I knew her due to her adoring Niko so much that she’d once tackled him to the ground for a hug. I’d noticed that she’d been wearing the same princess costume the last four times we’d seen her — that’s over a week, since we do preschool just three times a week. The first time, Niko was upset because she’d worn the dress “with just underwear!”

“You’re supposed to wear clothes FIRST,” he’d told her. I could tell this was a serious infraction in his mind.

“I have clothes,” she insisted. “I have UNDERWEAR.” This did not satisfy, even when she demonstrated the presence of the underwear, at which point their teacher hastily intervened.

That day, as she swished her dress in front of Niko, she held out one leg. “Look, Niko,” she said. “I’m wearing pants with my costume.”

“Oh,” said Niko, a little flatly. “You look so sparkly.” He seemed a bit puzzled by the whole thing, but willing to admire anyway.

After the two walked away, his teacher, laughing, whispered to me that the child’s mother had explained the reason for the princess costume. “She dresses herself every day. She wears that costume for Niko! She calls herself Niko’s princess.“

I laughed too, shaking my head. But even though it was funny, it bothered me a little. Not the insistence on one particular garment — we’ve been fortunate enough to escape that battle so far, but I understand it. No, what triggers a little alert light in my mind is the idea that she’s choosing her clothes based on what Niko likes… or what she thinks he likes, anyway. It’s a little worrying to see a small child so fixated on another person that she adapts her clothing choices to suit his preferences.

I somehow feel that I’d like to blame society or the media or a faulty family model for this willing sacrifice of a girl’s preference for a boy’s. I feel strongly about a woman’s right to her own body, including what she puts onto it. It’s possible that this little girl may be witnessing a situation in which an adult in her life is modeling some kind of self-imposed personality smothering, or being actively smothered. Or maybe she sees it on some grown-up TV show. It ruffles my quietly feminist feathers to see this tiny girl already changing her entire approach to clothing based on what she believes a little boy likes. If I were more committed to social justice, or a more aggressive champion of women’s rights, I might find myself writing an impassioned plea to society to free our little girls from the burdens of male expectations.

However, while such scenarios are entirely possible,  life is rarely so easily categorized. It’s not always feminists against the world, no matter what it sometimes feels like. An equally likely explanation for her extreme behavior is that maybe she just really, really likes Niko and wants his attention. In her little mind, wearing what he likes could be a perfectly logical method of attracting and holding his typically fleeting interest. After all, her mom seems like a confident, self-possessed woman, not a timid, self-effacing mouse; it’s doubtful that she is modeling being stifled by the patriarchy.

In fact, despite my puzzlement over her daughter’s obsession with my son, I sympathize with her mom and feel that we might have a bit in common. I’m holding to a tiny bit of hope that she might be my very first preschool parent friend. Unfortunately, this may have been jeopardized by Niko’s reaction to his friend’s attire last time we saw them. The two were being dropped off at the same time, and Niko and I walked in to see her dressed in a charming outfit featuring sparkly leopard print — the first non-princess clothing in, I believe, three weeks. I recognized the gargantuan effort the mom must have expended to get her into a different garment. It was apparent that a pinnacle in parental persuasion had just been reached; I knew I was looking at a milestone of mothering achievement. My mouth opened to compliment the little girl on her pretty outfit, reinforcing her mom’s triumph, but Niko was too fast. His eyes widened in outrage as he demanded indignantly, “WHY AREN’T YOU WEARING YOUR PRINCESS COSTUME?” Little girl’s head and mom’s shoulders drooped simultaneously, and though the teacher and I both rushed in with positive reinforcement, I fear the damage was done.

I can hardly wait to see what Niko’s princess is wearing today.

 

(The featured photo is not mine, but since I grabbed it from an anonymous eBay posting, I don’t know who to credit for it. Sorry.)

 

Ladybug Morning

| Hope

Saturday morning, I put Sofia’s playpen on the porch and started in to some long-put-off cutting back of dead peonies and ferns while Niko and Cody the puppy chased each other over the lawn. It was such a good feeling to enjoy the fresh air without a heavier-by-the-day one-year-old bouncing up and down on my back. (She refuses to bounce in her bouncy seat, but on my back? Upanddownandupanddown, over and over. Owwwww.)

As I cut the last of the brown fern leaves, I saw a flash of bright red. I leaned in for a closer look. A ladybug!

Cold ladybug
Cold ladybug

I’d always assumed ladybugs just died in the winter, or something, but here was this little guy, perched on a leaf. When I lifted the leaf for a closer look, he rolled across the leaf, tiny legs folded in against his body, too cold to move. I breathed on him, and in a few seconds his legs came out and he started crawling. I gently set his leaf on the trunk of the maple tree in the sunlight. Maybe the sun will warm him enough for him to find a safer spot before my red-breasted sapsucker returns for a snack.

Since I’m a compulsive questioner, I was then forced to do some quick online searches, where I found both facts and photos much better than mine. The National Geographic page was my favorite. It has a whole gallery of ladybug photos, some of which are really beautiful. It also informed me that a ladybug can live 2-3 years.

Feathers and Sprouts

| Hope

A couple of days ago, I saw a new bird through my kitchen window. He wasn’t at the feeder; instead, he was perched on the broad trunk of the maple tree that grows by our front porch and shades the koi pond. After doing some searching, I concluded that he MIGHT be a red-breasted sapsucker.

Red-breasted sapsucker... probably
Red-breasted sapsucker… probably

Anyway, I carefully crept out onto the porch to get a picture — after snapping a few through the kitchen window, just to be safe — and I got one good one before he flew away. As I turned back to the house, I saw something startling on the hydrangea next to the front door: green buds and emerging leaves! Last year, this plant didn’t put out a single leaf until, if I remember correctly, late May or even June. Perhaps coincidentally, it had also been cut back almost to ground level the previous year. And it had barely flowered. We decided that this year we just wouldn’t cut it at all, since some hydrangeas bloom from second-year canes. So that could be the reason it’s leafing out so early — maybe hydrangeas always do this, and last year the cutting back damaged it? The previous owners also mentioned that last winter had some especially hard freezes that could have slowed growth, too.

Leaf buds on a hydrangea... in December!
Leaf buds on a hydrangea… in December!

Of course I squelched barefoot off the porch to get a picture of the miraculous leaf buds, and as I did, I noticed suspiciously anenome-shaped leaves swaying in the breeze next to the marker labeled “Anenome” that I’d pushed into the soil where I’d planted bulbs. Glancing along the front garden, I saw more green. The kids were inside without me, eating lunch, so I couldn’t prowl around with the camera as much as I wanted to. That had to wait till Friday morning, when Niko was in school and Sofia was napping. I wandered around and found more and more new growth. One that particularly surprised me was the raised bed of chrysanthemums. Last year, the bed was empty until early summer, when the dead-looking roots I’d been refraining from disturbing finally started sending up shoots. I was glad I’d left them, of course. I figured I’d just have to deal with a long bed filled with nothing until midsummer every year. But this year we have green in December. Who knows, maybe they’ll flower in April this year!

Fresh leaves on the big bread poppy
New leaves coming from the base of the chrysanthemums
Tulips pushing up
Grape hyacinths twice the size they were when I last checked
Anenome!
Baby poppies that sprouted early and survived the frosts so far
Possibly a tulip. It’s lacking a marker.
Violet!

And all of this is happening before Christmas. It’s not even midwinter yet. I’m not sure what to think. Do I need to be worried about frost damage? Is this normal? I want to be excited, but as this is my first year gardening in Oregon, I’m reserving judgement.

Mini Meatloaves

| Hope

When I cook meals that traditionally tend to be large, I like to find ways to make them more manageable for a small family. Meatloaf is a good example of that. I love a good meatloaf, but once Aaron and I have had a serving and Niko and Sofia have nibbled a bit, we still have to deal with the rest of the loaf. It ends up sitting in the fridge for a week, at which point Aaron decides it’s probably contaminated with botulism or invisible mold and throws it away. On the other hand, meatloaf is one of those meals that’s just as easy to make in a large quantity as a small batch, and it seems like a waste of energy to spend that time making just a little bit.

So I compromise. I make a full batch, turn half of it into individual cupcake-sized servings, and freeze the other half for later. It’s really nice to be able to just grab it out of the freezer and have a hearty meal forty-five minutes later… and still be able to claim it as home-cooked. The cupcakes cook quickly, store easily and make an easy-to-grab quick bite later. If you’re cooking for a larger group, you could just use two cupcake pans, or you could put the whole batch into a loaf pan. You really can’t do a half batch in a loaf pan – unless you use tinfoil to partition off half of the pan, and put the meat into one half while the other stays empty. That works fairly well, if you’re absolutely committed to the traditional meatloaf shape. It’s hard to keep it moist if you use the whole pan to do a half batch – it’s just too thin of a layer.

I’ve used the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook’s recipe as a gauge for proportions for some time now. Unfortunately, that meatloaf recipe is as bland as vanilla pudding when you’ve run out of vanilla. So I always tweak it a bit, add my own seasonings, spice it up. Nothing fancy. Just enough to make it taste like meatloaf instead of like some ground beef someone tossed into a pan and cooked for an hour. I also increased the amounts proportionately from the original recipe, because the Better Homes and Gardens version never fills my loaf pan as full as I’d like.

A few notes:

  • The recipe asks for milk – if you’re avoiding dairy, don’t just leave it out, or the meatloaf will be miserably dry. Use almond or coconut milk. Almond has a milder flavor, but this recipe uses a small enough amount that even coconut milk won’t change the flavor.
  • For the onion, I use a chopper I bought years ago at a Pampered Chef party. I like my onion chopped really fine so it doesn’t disrupt the texture of the meatloaf. A quick pulse or two in a food processor should give similar results.
  • Herbs: For this recipe, I just use dried herbs. If you want to use fresh, just use about two to three times the amount and make sure they’re chopped very fine.
  • Bread crumbs: You can make your own, but if what you need is dry crumbs like I use in this recipe, it’s easiest to just buy them. Otherwise you have to go through the tedious process of cubing bread, drying it slowly in the oven, using the blender to turn it to crumbs, and then realizing you drastically misjudged how much you’d get out of the slice of bread you used, and have to start the process all over again because you’re a tablespoon short. Not that that’s happened to me, of course. It’s just a thought I had.

For the loaf, you will need:

  • 2 ½ pounds ground beef
  • ¼ cup dry bread crumbs
  • 3 eggs
  • ¾ cup of milk
  • ¼ cup finely chopped onions
  • 1-2 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
  • 2 teaspoons dry mustard powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon white pepper
  • ½ teaspoon sage
  • ½ teaspoon basil
  • ½ teaspoon oregano
  • ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
  • ⅛ teaspoon cayenne

For sauce for a half batch of meatloaf, you will need:

  • 1/3 cup ketchup, 3 T brown sugar
  • 1/8 cup prepared mustard
  • ½ T Worcestershire sauce

In a largish bowl, dump all the ingredients for the loaf. You might have a slightly easier outcome if you beat the eggs first and combine the seasonings before adding them; I never bother, and mine turns out just fine. Use your hands to mix everything. This is one of those things for which, unfortunately, hands are just the best tool. I say unfortunately because I detest the sensation of cold meat and slimy eggs. It is my biggest deterrent to making this meal.

Spoon half the meat into a lightly oiled cupcake pan. Put the rest of the meat into a freezer bag, label it, and freeze it for later. Each one should be pretty full, since the meat will shrink as it cooks. Use the end of a wooden spoon, or your finger, or a chopstick…something cylindrical and blunt…to make a little well in each cupcake, making sure it doesn’t go right down to the bottom of the pan. If you’re using a loaf pan, make enough indentations that each slice will have one or two.

Divide the batch in half.
Freeze half for another day.
Make an indentation in each loaf.
Fill the center with sauce.

Spoon sauce into each indentation. Don’t cover the tops with sauce just yet; only fill the little wells.

Bake them at 350° for about 12 minutes, and then take the pan out of the oven and drain the fat from the loaves. The easiest way to do this is to lift the mini loaves out of the pans and set them onto a plate, then carefully tip the pan over a container for disposal. Replace the loaves, spread them with the rest of the sauce, and bake for another five minutes or so, until the sauce has thickened and browned a bit.

Lift the loaves onto a plate.
Drain the fat away.
Replace the loaves and top with sauce.
Delicious!

Two loaves makes a good serving for an adult. Niko, who is four, is stuffed after one, though one-year-old Sofia – who is a carnivore – can make it through nearly a whole one on her own, even with just two teeth.

Enjoy!

Mini Meatloaves 2