what I wore // botanical gardens

vegan Moroccan-spiced red lentil, chick pea and kale soup

This soup was simply delicious and definitely something I will make again! 

Ingredients

3 tablespoons olive oil (coconut oil or avocado oil will work too)

1 large onion, diced

4 carrots, peeled and chopped

1 tablespoon turmeric

1 tablespoon cumin

1 teaspoon sea salt or more to taste

1 can coconut cream

1 cup red lentils, rinsed

4 cups chick peas (I used canned) 

2 large tomatoes, diced

4 or 5 cups vegetable stock, or according to your preference

2 cups roughly chopped lecanto kale

Instructions

In a large stock pot, sauté onion in oil. Add chopped carrots and spices and cook 5 minutes over medium low heat. Add vegetable stock all other remaining ingredients except the kale. Bring to a boil, then turn down the heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Stir in kale and continue simmering for another 5 minutes or until kale is barely tender. Remove from heat and serve. 

our Canadian adventure, part II: Jasper

our Canadian adventure, part I: Banff

Montessori style color mixing

Lately little A has been fascinated with transferring water between containers, so I came up with this project to let her practice transferring and mixing colors at the same time...and I loved how it turned out to be a colorful flower! 

You will need:

3 small bowls

Red, blue and yellow food coloring

Flower shaped tray (I got ours from Hobby Lobby for $2)

An eye dropper 

Water

What to do:

Put some water in each of the three small bowls and add 2-3 drops of food coloring to each one. Encourage your child to mix the colors using the eye dropper and make each petal a different color. 

This project kept my 3 1/2 year old busy for at least 40 minutes, we would dump one "flower" out and she would fill them again and again with different variations of each color. We added in some plain water at one point to make a more pastel looking flower. Have fun! 

Fab Etsy Finds

Some of the lovely handmade goodies I've stumbled upon as of late:

face pot by GusandRami

on to our next adventure tote by WinterCabin

tiny book ladder by BrookeWay

bird king ring by RockCakes

Goodnight cushion by studiomeez

book washi tape by danika58

bits and pieces

Since I've started homeschooling little A, I've found less time for blogging, but I'm hoping to still pop in from time to time to share updates and recipes, etc. Here are a few pics from the last few weeks: