mrsjenpeters

by popular demand

2009-11-08T14:07:00.005-06:00

whilst in atlanta, i had a number of people request i post links to the food i talk about in my facebook statuses. today's list is too long for a facebook status, so - egads! - i'm updating my blog. and i completely admit i am taking the easy way out by only posting in regards to today's projects, entirely ignoring the past 2 months of food, events, and the atlanta trip. deal with it.

bryan started the day by making one of his lovely chicken stocks. for those not in the know, we almost exclusively use homemade chicken stock. because it is so easy. after we have a roast chicken, we toss the carcass in a freezer bag, along with vegetable scraps - the ends of onions, carrots, celery, whatever. after we have a few carcasses, we make stock. which consists of peeling the frozen hunks of chicken and veg bits out of their bags, covering with water, and slowly simmering for a few hours. once the mix has reduced nicely, we cool, strain, and freeze off in 1, 2, and 4 cup measurements. couldn't be easier. and it tastes roughly 400 million times better than store bought. cooking all day, leaching the bones of all nutrients leads to an incredibly rich stock - at room temperature, it is solid, like jelly. i call it chicken jello. appetizing, no?

i finally decided to tackle some of the giant cuts of pork we have in our freezer from our whole pig. i started with the easy route - wet curing 3 huge ham steaks. after a week or 2 in the brine, i will bake one as is, and slow smoke the other 2. i was reading my Charcuterie book, which started getting me very, very excited for doing more. i plan on doing a dry cured (salted and hung) ham, as well as a blackstrap molasses country ham. this excites me. it's practically naughty.

i also prepared a sirloin tip roast for roast beef with yorkshire pudding, which we'll have monday or tuesday. i seasoned the roast with salt and pepper, and rubbed it with olive oil, garlic, rosemary, and thyme. it smelled heavenly. i am planning rocky road bars for dessert, because only chocolate and red wine can follow beef like that.

bryan is working on a potato and leek soup for consumption and freezing sometime this week.

and we're not even eating any of that today.

tonight we're having chicken fried steak and celery root and squash gratin with walnut-thyme streusel, a dish which sounds fancy and time consuming, but is a breeze to make.

enjoy!

robot corn

2009-10-21T13:55:00.003-05:00

Greenpeace protests genetically modified corn in Mexico

"Mexico saw the first public protests this weekend over the government's decision to allow cultivation of the first genetically modified corn, which environmentalists and others say could ruin the nation's native crop."

i'll admit, i am at once thrilled, jealous, perplexed, amused, and saddened by this article.

i am thrilled that someone, somewhere cares to this extent, even if it's not here in the u.s. and i'm jealous for the same reason. i desperately wish we had this level of education, passion, and involvement regarding these issues here in our country.

i'm perplexed, amused, and saddened as well. the u.s. has been using genetically engineered corn for nearly 20 years. no where does this article mention this, however. and we haven't heard this kind of outcry yet here.

this is especially bad for mexico, where the majority of the diet is based on unrefined corn (we beat them in the consumption of refined corn products, however, but that's an entirely different debate), and where there are, essentially, heirloom varieties of corn that have been around for centuries, if not longer. replacing these varieties with genetically engineered ones impact not only the environment and the health of mexico's people, but also erases an important part of their culture.

read more:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/corn/index.cfm
http://www.gmfoodnews.com/gmwrong.html
http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/gmfood/overview.php

eat food. not too much. mostly plants.

2009-10-03T20:58:00.002-05:00

thursday before last, i traveled to madison to see michael pollan speak. he was giving a lecture as part of uw-madison's go big read program, for which they are doing in defense of food this year.

i've read that book, and others of his, and of course the topic is a passionate one for me, so i was really excited to see him speak. i thought his lecture was very good, and his response during the q&a very thoughtful.

there were others there, though, who are not as enamored with pollan as i am. there was some controversy, and even some protesters there (very peaceful though). the protesters were farmers, and were speaking to people about how their animals/crops are raised, and even invited people to come see their farms.

the point i think they miss is not that pollan believes all farmers are irresponsible, but that the great number of them supplying the main food supply are. and he is not against these farmers - he is for them. he wants them to sell directly to the consumers, thus earning 100% of their profits (as opposed to the 10% they get now).

and i think the invitation to visit the farms is hollow proof - corn raised with fertilizer and pesticides, and cows raised with antibiotics, hormones, and indigestible corn don't look sickly, or evil. they look like corn, and cows. but that doesn't mean they're good for us, or the earth.

overall, i was very pleased i had the opportunity to hear him speak, and i hope the 7000 other people there were as well. i strongly recommend picking up one of his books and learning more.

down on the farm

2009-09-19T13:57:00.013-05:00

today was the day: we drove out to solar harvest farm and picked up our whole pig and half cow.

after overshooting our destination some (what is it with wisconsin and not properly marking street names?!), we made it. we parked in a field near the house and barn, and the first thing we saw were the chickens grazing in the pasture. oh, the joy and happiness of things done right. bryan went to check in and pay and get things figured out while oliver and i waded through the grass to check out the chickens.

of course, he wanted to pet them, but being the nervous city girl i am (not to mention mean mommy), i wouldn't let him. we watched them peck happily for a bit, then made our way back across the pasture to see how daddy was doing. i noticed there were pigs penned by the barn, so we asked if we could look at them, and the farmers told us "of course!"

as we were approaching the barn, 5 tiny, tiny kittens came running up! the look of sheer joy on oliver's face was priceless. one ran right up to him and without a moment's hesitation, he scooped it up in his arms! absolutely precious. except he was holding it upside down. though the cat didn't seem to mind, i asked him to put it down, thinking, of course, that he would set it on the ground. silly me. he opened his arms and let it fall - but the cat proved the old adage to be true, and landed gracefully on it's feet.

oliver was telling me he wanted to touch the pigs, though when we got close enough, i think he was a little too scared (they were rather large). he did enjoy standing about 18 inches from their pen and just gazing at them in awe, though the kittens were far more entertaining. oliver had fun chasing the kittens around and petting them nicely until bryan came to round us up.

the jeep was neatly packed with meat (and bones, fat, and organs). i was surprised at how compact it all was - though it was neatly packed into boxes, so that made sense. we jetted home, all the while discussing our freezer organization ideas.

once home, bryan unloaded the truck, and began loading up the freezers while i took an inventory. at the end, bryan remarked how it seemed like we got more pig than cow, which was odd, considering there should have been about 60 more pounds cow than pig. we had 3 boxes of pork and 2 of cow. then we realized we were missing cow parts we had been expecting: cheeks, sweet breads, liver, heart, tongue, oxtail, rib steaks, sirloin tip, cube steaks, and tenderloin. the cut sheet had also marked that there should be been 3 boxes. i went to call the farm, and they had already left me a message, having realized the mistake. they have promised to deliver the missing box, which is great! good thing we have roughly a BILLION pounds of meat to get us through until it arrives.

more pictures in the gallery.

tonight, in honor of the delicious livestock, we'll be having steak au poivre. i'm not 100% sure what we'll be serving with it; i can't seem to think past the delicious, freshly cut steaks.

tomorrow's plan was tongue tacos, but as the tongue is in the missing box, i'm not confident that will happen. perhaps we'll have one of the 24 or so pork steaks we have.

i'm really quite interested to sort through the bags of pork fat to find the caul fat, which i'll be using to wrap around our american bronze heritage turkey for thanksgiving this year. me thinks with that kind of application on that fine a turkey, and the bird will need little else. i plan on keeping the rest of the menu rather simplistic as well: diana kennedy's corn budin (a fixure on our thanksgivings, no matter what), a traditional stuffing (more than likely with sausage i will make using the new pork), green beans (with garlic?), baked sweet potatoes, my apple & fennel pie (using an antique variety of apple from weston's apples). maybe some tart cranberry bread (and seeing that cranberries are native to wisconsin, i wonder if i can find some nice local ones??). mom's yeast rolls, of course. maybe shannon will do her gluten free pecan pie again. i do owe bryan homemade ice cream, so i'll do my vanilla bean ice cream to go with dessert.

dinner's at 6.

featured recipe: dirty rice

2009-08-27T08:10:00.009-05:00

so this is new: the featured recipe. this will allow me to go into a little more detail on a meal, without overwhelming you, dear reader, with the many details of all our fabulous meals. in the future, i'd like to include multiple pictures of the meal prep, but for this one, you are lucky to be left with only the finished product. bet you didn't know i could make a short post?

why do this now? bryan and i saw julie & julia last week (cute movie!), and i've found myself reading the original julie/julia blog. besides making me want to eat things in butter and cream and wondering if i've been using far too little vermouth all my life, it's made me want to cook from our cookbooks more, and share it. no one may care, but i'll have fun.

i haven't quite decided on the rules of engagement yet. i'm not sure how often a featured recipe will appear here. but i do know that i am going to strive to only cook from our massive collection of cookbooks. oh, and while i'm at it, i suppose i should give a little review/note on the book itself. we've made quite an investment in them, and i usually find myself using recipes online. not that that's a bad thing - there are plenty good ones out there - and i'm sure i'll use some occasionally, when i come across one too good to pass up. oh, and i'll probably allow recipes from our magazine subscriptions (saveur and martha stewart living). but i'm going to try really hard to actually use all those books. there is something very satisfying to me about poring through the pages of a pile of cookbooks.

today's featured recipe is dirty rice, a cajun delight whose name derives from the dirty look the chicken livers give the rice (shannon, you did know you were eating chicken liver, right??).

the recipe i decided to use is one from marvin wood's cookbook The New Low-Country Cooking: 125 Recipes for Coastal Southern Cooking with Innovative Style, of which we own an autographed copy (he gave a cooking demonstration at a festival in decatur one year). the recipe itself is very simple, and i made a few liberal changes, namely including andouille and shrimp.

we've found this cookbook to be rather basic. which isn't all bad - if you've never cooked cajun before or don't plan to a lot, this is a great book for you. it is a little simple for us, but, as evidenced below, gives us a good base to build on. we'd like to pick up a more thorough, involved cajun cookbook at some point, so this isn't our end all, be all, but it doesn't suck either.

the andouille is where the recipe started. while shopping at the outpost, we asked our super awesome butcher (i think i'm going to get him a christmas gift, is that weird?) what was fresh and good. he offered up the andouille he had just made. oh hello, dirty rice with andouille.

below is the recipe from the cookbook, annotated with my changes in italics.

Dirty Rice

2 1/2 cups water
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups long-grain white rice - i used medium grain, as that's what we had
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup finely chopped red onion - i used yellow onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups chicken or turkey livers - i used closer to 1 cup, finely chopped
1 tablespoon Marv Spice (see below)
2 1/4 cups Chicken Stock
1 bay leaf
2 small green bell peppers, chopped (the original recipe didn't call for bell peppers - but i'm smart and know this is part of the cajun trinity so made a trip out to our garden to 'fix' the recipe)
2 andouille sausage, diced
1/2 pound shrimp, cleaned and deveined
4 tablespoons butter
4 - 5 cloves garlic, crushed

Marv Spice
1 tablespoon ground nutmeg
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper - i omitted this in order to make it toddler friendly
1 tablespoon celery salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
i also added some crushed dried thyme

In a large saucepan, combine the water, salt, and rice and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer until the rice is tender, 10 - 12 minutes. Drain and rinse under hot running water to remove the excess starch. Place the rice back in the pan, off the heat, and cover to keep warm.

here, i deviated from the recipe by cooking the sausage in a large saute pan. i removed the sausage, leaving the rendered fat in the pan, and added a small amount of vegetable oil before proceeding.

Heat oil in a large heavy-bottom skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and bell pepper and cook, stirring continuously, until softened but not colored, about 5 minutes. Add the chicken livers and Marv Spice, and cook, stirring frequently, until the livers turn brown, about 8 minutes.

Pour the stock over the rice, set the pan over medium heat, and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and stir in the chicken liver mixture and bay leaf. here, i returned the sausage to the pan as well. Cook over low heat, stirring continuously, until the rice is soft and tender, 10 to 15 minutes.

for the shrimp, i slow melted butter in a sauce pan, and added 4 or 5 crushed garlic cloves, and just let that sit over very low heat until i was ready to use it (30 minutes or so). the result was an intensely garlicky butter that i very nearly just sopped up with bread and ate right then. instead, selfless as i am, i turned up the heat a little and popped in the shrimps, turning once, until just done, and served them on top of the rice.

the finished product?

it was quite good. i should have served it with a little louisiana hot sauce, though the anouille had a little spice to it. the shrimp had sucked in that garlic flavor, and were good enough shannon had one and didn't hate it, and she hates shrimp. the rice could have been a little less sticky (i think this was mostly due to using medium grain instead of long grain rice), but tasted very good.

i hope it would have made my new orleans friend mandy proud!

you asked for it

2009-08-26T19:45:00.021-05:00

so, i do have to finally do this post, which i have been dreading, due to the sheer volume of STUFF to write about. no one to blame but myself, though.

we've had a very busy summer, as usual. it has been going well, albeit cold. once again, wisconsin missed the memo about the change in weather, so we haven't had a lot of summery days. lots of gorgeous autumn days, but not much summer heat. which, surprisingly, has been very disappointing to me. i generally am not a lover of the heat, but i guess my 8 or so years in atlanta tempered me some. and, really, the summer is all of 2 1/2 months here, then after a brief and usually perfectly gorgeous fall, it's back to 7 straight months of cold. so i can handle a month or so of heat. the sad part is, part of me is still really, really excited for fall. i LOVE fall - the gorgeous weather, the turning of the trees, the smell of the air. and, while i'm not sick of fresh vegetables, i am also looking forward to the change of pace in cooking - braised dishes, stewed meats, squashes and red wines and ciders. and i hate that, because we hardly had a summer - but i just love fall so much.

we've had father's day, hannah's visit, the 4th of july, family and friends visiting, bryan's birthday, a family reunion, and, of course, running all over town to see the sights. so let's just dive in, shall we?

betty brinn children's museum
we became members of the betty brinn children's museum, an absolute wonderland of music, science, and imagination. oliver loves it there. they have tons of hands on activities for kids of all ages. it's a great place to bring oliver and let him expend some energy and exercise his mind. it's right down on the lakefront, and i keep wanting to stay downtown for awhile to walk along the lake, but it just doesn't seem to work out with our schedule. i guess that's what happens when you're a total nazi about naps.

hannah's visit

hannah arrived at the end of june, and stayed through the end of july. we had a blast, as usual, and though we tried to take it relatively easy, it was still a very tiring month. some highlights:

oliver appropriated hannah's gameboy the moment she arrived. it ended up being quite useful, though now we're not sure where it is. (6/26/09)

my dad built a playset in his backyard, complete with climbing wall, tire swing, and bumpy slide. hannah and oliver had a blast playing there every time we went! (6/27/09)

greek fest (6/28/09)
greek fest is held at the state fair park by our house. it's always been one of our favorites, and the weather was beautiful, so we headed out.
the spit roasted chickens were a sight to behold, but between the food lines and the $$$, we decided in the end to skip eating there.
instead, we hit up the rides. bryan and hannah braved the zipper, which seems to be bryan's favorite ride, and hannah's worst nightmare - but every time we're at a festival, she rides it with him. will the girl ever learn? oliver was desperate to join them. being the mean mommy that i am, i would not let him, and so he cried. he actually kept pointing to all the rides and saying "THAT!" but i didn't let him go on any of the big kid ones, much to his (loud) disatisfaction.
after bryan and hannah survived flying and flipping through the air on that contraption, hannah talked me into riding some flying ride with her. it wasn't scary, and could even be considered fun, but being strapped into a mock hang glider was not exactly comfortable.
oliver finally got his turn, and i took him on the kiddie train, which apparently was exciting enough that he forgot all about the other rides. he does love trains, so i guess that's why. he was pretty upset when the train stopped, though (gosh, i just love being that mother with the full on yelling/crying child!). i guess we owe him a train ride at the zoo.

after the rides, we decided to get the heck outta dodge. hannah would have been content to ride rides all day, but unless she was paying, the fun was over.

fourth of july parade (7/2/09)
i presume west allis has problems getting people to come to their 4th of july parade on a weekend, so instead they have it on a thursday evening. bryan was out with his friend dirk, so hannah, oliver, and i were on our own.
holy cow, we had a good time.
to start, the weather was fantastic. a perfect evening - not too warm, not too cool. we were able to park close to the block the parade was on, so didn't have far to walk. we sat in front of city hall, so hannah and oliver ran around while we waited for the parade to begin. and oliver only fell once.
before the parade started, there were lots of interesting characters walking around.

one group (i don't even recall who; i think maybe a church?) was walking around giving out free ice pops. i don't usually allow oliver to have sweets, but since it was a special occasion and i wanted him to sit nicely in his stroller for a bit, i let him have one. oh boy, that was one happy kid. "popsicle" is now a permanent part of his lexicon (though, at home, i make homemade popsicles with just blended fruit - so he only thinks he's getting a treat, when in reality he's getting a serving of fruit! score 1 for mom!).
one of the first things in the parade was a firetruck, which delighted oliver beyond words. the kid loves trucks! i thought perhaps the siren and horn would be too loud for him, but he didn't have any problem with it (nor with any other loud noise, including a pack of harley davidsons).
oliver also loved the marching bands - he was dancing to every single one of them, having hannah and i in stitches watching him.
hannah managed to amass a good collection of candy from the floats, and we worked hard to keep it hidden from oliver (though i did let him have a sucker, i'm such a softie!).
we had *such* a great time - i couldn't have asked for better weather, or better behaved kids. and we were even home in time for bedtime.

fourth of july
then there was the actual 4th of july! the weather turned out to be kind of horrible - not quite 80 degrees, and overcast most of the day. JULY, WISCONSIN, IT WAS JULY. my aunt and uncle had a pool party. they cranked the heat up on the pool to about 89 degrees, so we were actually able to swim a little bit.
hannah is a fish, so of course loved it, and oliver did as well, though it took him a minute to get comfortable in the water and feel safe. then he proceeded to run up
the ladder and launch himself off the deck to jump into the water, always with me waiting to catch him (though, a few times, it was close, as he was so excited he'd run right from the top of the ladder over the edge of the pool and there was barely enough time for me to get from the ladder to the side of the pool!).

the zoo (7/5/09)
of course, we dragged hannah and oliver to the zoo. actually, it's more like we went, and dragged oliver out of the zoo - he really loves the zoo. we let him pet the goats for the first time, and after the initial shock of being so close to the animals wore off, he was chasing them all around, just like the dogs at home.
we also ran around the playgrounds for awhile, something i think hannah is finding less enjoyable the older she gets (stop growing up, hannah).

camping (7/10/09 - 7/11/09)
we had unanimously decided that our family summer vacation this year would be camping. i was feeling nostalgic for the camping trips of my childhood. bryan used to camp often, as well. and hannah had never been camping, so was completely excited to go. oliver had no say, but i figured a weekend in the woods with dirt and bugs? score! mom and dad sold their camper, and gave us a bunch of their gear, and we borrowed some more. we bought a tent, sleeping bags, and a few other essentials. i settled on a campground at richard bong recreation area, as it had wooded sites, kids' activities (including a nature center, guided nature hikes, playgrounds, and the like), swimming, AND flush toilets and showers. our plans had us driving out on a friday after oliver's nap, and returning sunday morning before naptime. with the car packed to the gills, we picked oliver up from day care and hit the road. we made it there just fine, and before we even got out of the car, the death squad of mosquitoes attached us. lesson # 1: pack the bug spray within easy reach. in fact, don't pack it at all - have it in the car console, ready for action. hannah and
bryan got the tent set up, while oliver helped me unpack the car, and i chased him around. he had a blast. it took him a few hours, but he finally figured out we were outside to stay, and there was no need to rush around like a madman, and that he could touch all the trees he wanted without having to ask. he then happily played in the dirt with one of his trucks and some rocks.
hannah posted a lovely sign she made at the entrance to our campsite.
sadly, the mosquitoes were ungodly - even coated in bug spray, they were trying to attack us. trying to sweep them away with your hand earned you a handful of bugs. ew. oliver and i used an organic, deet free bug spray, while hannah and bryan opted for the strong stuff (deep woods off). the bugs didn't seem to be bothering oliver too badly, but maybe that was because they were all on me. the campfire helped a little, but not much.

luckily, oliver went to sleep without as much of a fuss as i was expecting. after he fell asleep, hannah, bryan, and i relaxed around the fire (much to hannah's disappointment, that's all you do at camp at night!). we had a small scare with a rather courageous racoon, but after locking up the trash and flashing lights in his eyes multiple times, he went away.

shortly after we went to bed, oliver woke up and was more than a little freaked out - i think he had no idea where he was. after some time, a few songs, and a cup of milk, he managed to calm down - but then wasn't all that tired. and he was convinced there was a monkey outside of our tent. i spent about 20 minutes convincing there there was NO monkey outside the tent. then he happily conked out between bryan and i (coincidentally taking up most of my mat).

not too long after that, a major thunderstorm moved through. oliver managed to sleep through that, but it scared hannah pretty good. being outside during a thunderstorm can be pretty crazy - the wind and rain shaking the tent, the thunder and lightening RIGHT THERE. that finally ended, and i was finally able to get a few hours of sleep before oliver woke up.

of course, due to the rain, our campsite was a right mud pit the next morning, and the mosquitoes multiplied 10 fold. oliver and i stepped outside of the tent to begin on breakfast, and quickly changed our minds. bryan and i briefly debated sticking it out, and leaving camp until, hopefully, things dried out and the mosquitoes died down, but decided it wasn't worth it, at least not with an un-deet-able toddler in tow, and our only other options being finding the lake (mosquitoes), the playground by the lake (mosquitoes), or hiking (more mosquitoes). we did our best to pack up camp as quickly as possible, attempting to placate oliver with a pop tart and promises of fun at home, and tore the heck outta there.

we made it one night, so that was something, at least. bryan and i may attempt another night yet this year. i'd like to get oliver broken in to the idea of camping.

i think hannah was most disappointed that we didn't get to go hiking or have pudgy pies for dinner, so on sunday we went out to minooka park to hike (where i still feel like i could run a 5k with my eyes shut), and cooked pudgy pies for dinner at mom and dads.

camping trip COMPLETE.

the park
of course we spent lots of time playing at the park while hannah was here. have i mentioned how much i love having a park around the corner?

the big bike ride (7/14/09)

cat & the kids come to visit (7/15/09 - 7/18/09)
our friend cat from atlanta, and her two kids, tyler and madison, came to visit us for a few days. we hadn't seen them since our spring trip to atlanta last year, so we were very excited to finally see them again! sadly, the weather sucked (coldest july on record), but we managed to have fun anyways.

hannah and madison made us
breakfast - bacon, eggs, and toast. this put them into a cooking mood, and they made us some really awesome homemade soft pretzels to snack on as well.

they were so good, hannah had to make more a few days later.

we took them to the betty brinn children's museum, where even the mature kids (hannah and madison, in case you didn't know), had fun.

we also took them to the zoo, cold weather be damned.

hannah and oliver were NOT impressed with the smell in the bird house. oliver did want to run around and chase the birds, though.

cat and i took the kids (minus oliver) to sprecher brewery for their tour. sprecher makes both beer and soda, including hannah's most favorite root beer of all time, so she was pretty excited about the tour. tyler took an immediate liking to our tour guide (i think he was mostly happy about the male companionship, after being trapped in our house with lots of girls for a few days). the tour was fun, and the tasting was even more fun.

hannah sitting atop a pallet of root beer.

the "cold room" was no joke.

cute girls drinking beer!

the bartenders told our little soda tasters that some kids like to mix all the sodas together at once. you can imagine how that turned out.

we of course hit up the domes. although this place is oh so old and hasn't been updated much since it was built (except for the lobby, which has had quite a makeover; sadly the fountain is gone), everyone loved it. and oliver even got to run around willy nilly without a stroller, which is one of his favorite things to do.

hannah took some really cool, artsy photos while we were there. this one is my favorite.

and with that, their visit was over. they headed up to the dells, waterpark capital of the world, where sadly it was too cold to actually swim. we had a great time with them, and can't wait to see them again!

the boys get mohawks (7/19/09)
bryan had been after me to let him and oliver get matching mohawks, so finally we went to have it done. we settled on faux hawks, since there was no way i was taking oliver in weekly to have his head shaved. when his stylist was finishing up, and putting junk in his hair to make it stand up, he got the HUGEST grin - he loves the hawk!

bryan's 40th birthday!
(zomg, he's old, i know, right?!)
bryan's dad flew in to spend bryan's birthday weekend with us, and hannah and i planned a birthday luau. since there were various other extended family activities that weekend, we decided to have his party on a friday. fridays being days i generally work. i woke up that morning, and thought to myself, "self, what the HECK were you thinking?!" i did go into work, which i immediately regretted. i left early, swung home to pick up hannah, and away we went to find luau party supplies. first we hit up the dollar store and - score! - got a bunch of stuff for $12. we were very impressed with ourselves. we headed over to factory card outlet, and spend $45 on more stuff. we were a lot less impressed with ourselves at this point. a quick run through the grocery store for soda and beer, and it was back home to decorate. meanwhile, the poor birthday boy was slaving over dinner: guava glazed ribs, a jicama slaw, and corn on the cob. i made cornbread, and mom brought fruit salad. hannah made a pineapple cake with cream cheese frosting, which was supposed to be a carrot pineapple cake with pineapple orange cream cheese frosting, but neither she nor bryan looked at my email, and thus plans changed. but pineapple still went with the theme, of course, and the cake was good, so all was forgiven.

among the supplies purchased by hannah and i were party poppers - those thingys that make noise and shoot ribbons of paper around. the kids had a blast playing with those! oliver desperately wanted to do one on his own, but alas, did not have the strength. he had to settle with pretending.

madison farmer's market
hannah, bryan, and bill made a trip out to the madison farmer's market on capitol square. oliver and i stayed home, because i'm not crazy. i love the market, but trying to keep a near two year old who wants nothing more than to run and explore happy in his stroller instead while trying to navigate a sea of people AND enjoy looking at the booths is not exactly high on my list. but the trip afforded hannah a chance to see the capitol, which she found rather impressive. and they brought me delicious veggies.

instead, oliver and i hit up toys r us, as i decided he needed some new toys. he's a growing boy, after all. he was fairly overwhelmed with joy that i would let him run around the store. he was actually very well behaved - presumably because no matter where i told him to go, there were toys.

the final days
the last few days of hannah's visit, we mainly stayed close to home. shannon and david were in town, so we met out for a sunday breakfast at the original pancake house. my spinach crepes left plenty to be desired, but the dutch babies were SPOT ON.

we made one final family outing to the park, and aside from a bumped flight (for bill), our july came to a breathless close.

state fair

hannah missed the state fair by a mere day, but bryan, oliver, and i attended and had a blast! due to very poor set up at the ticket counters, it took some doing to get in, but once we were in, our little wide eyed munchkin was swinging his head from side to side as fast as he could, trying to take it all in.

our first item on the agenda was finding food. bryan had been talking about corn dogs for days, so we got one for him and another for oliver. then we stopped at the lion's club for my favorite - roasted corn. i almost didn't get oliver his own, but man am i glad he did - he gobbled it right up!! everyone thought he was just the cutest thing in the world eating that ear of corn (and who would we be to argue?).

next on the list were the cows, one of oliver's very favorite animals. rows upon rows of cows, much to oliver's delight.

oliver also had the opportunity to pet a rabbit, and pet and feed a horse. i thought he'd just about die from pure happiness.

he also got to see ducks, geese, pigs, sheep, a crocodile, a snake, and a robot up close - but he didn't get to pet any of them. it was a lot of fun, and i can't wait to take oliver again next year. then again, i'll probably need to take out a small loan to feed him - he ate: 1 whole corn dog, 1 whole ear of corn, some beef jerky, a fruit snack... and then when we got home, he was also eating MY pasta dinner. apparently we brought a little piggie home with us.

cream city music fest
the first annual cream city music festival was this month. i had really wanted to catch sam roberts band, but alas we did not. still, we had fun. the fest was downtown in the 3rd ward at a little park. oliver had a blast running all over the place and flirting with everyone. we only caught one band before bryan and i were tired out from chasing oliver around, but it was a nice afternoon distraction.

date night
yes, bryan and i went on an actual date. point brewery hosts fish fry & a flick downtown on the waterfront at discovery world. we headed down, got our fish fry from paul bartolotta's catering, and found a perfect (if uncomfortable) spot on the wooden bleacher type area, to watch pulp fiction. it was a late night (the movie didn't even start until almost 9pm and let's face it - that's my bedtime), but man, it was fun! absolutely the kind of thing we love to do. the food, sadly, left something to be desired. but, now we know to bring a picnic next time. we plan on returning for night of the living dead - IN 3-D.

the zoo train experience
weekend before last (see, i'm almost caught up!), we took oliver to the zoo and hit up the zoo train. he hasn't been on the train in quite some time, and loves trains, so this was tantamount to mecca for him. he would get all excited, and settle himself into the "ready" position - hands in lap and all. then, about 2 seconds later, unable to contain his excitement, he'd start flapping his hands, looking out the window, and telling us all about the train. every time they would blow the whistle or the steam, he would freak out. it was just about the cutest thing we've ever seen.

hot weather, hallelujah!
the weather FINALLY got hot for a bit this month. we swam in the pool in the backyard some, and hit up the wading pool over at the park too, which oliver LOVES. he was a little unsure of the water the first time, but in shortly he was running straight into the "deep" end (which comes about up to his waist), laying and "swimming", jumping off the ledge into the water, and even dipping his face some. talk about cheap entertainment!

we also set up the sprinkler in the yard one evening, and hilarity ensued. once he got over the wetness in the face, he was running, jumping, and drinking.

holy crap, i *think* that's all we did.

a special shout out to carrie - thanks for the roller skates! oliver loves them, just as you predicted. the kid wouldn't take them off his feet. (i have since gotten them off, and they are now hidden.) i am sure they will bring much fun in the years to come! hilarious video of oliver in skates: HERE (warning - may not play in i.e.).

and, of course, there's my cute children

like father, like son (6/7/09)

eating green strawberries off my plant (6/7/09)

um, why can't i play with the hose, mom? (6/7/09)

reading bedtime stories (6/20/09)

superstah! (6/28/09)

laugh all you want, but this is probably the best picture i have of oliver and hannah together from this summer. he's actually sitting relatively still. all the others are hannah smiling beautifully while oliver attempts to escape her death grip. i still have no idea what he saw to be making a face like that. (6/30/09)

oliver *loves* corn (7/3/09)

watermelon/strawberry popsicles as a pre-walk snack (7/3/09)

oliver enjoying pancakes with strawberry sauce for breakfast (and wishing i'd get out of the way of the darn t.v.!) (7/5/09)

oliver thoroughly enjoys bbq (7/10/09)

biker boy (7/11/09)

chapless cowboy (7/17/09)

a new meaning to ride 'em cowboy! (7/18/09)

enjoying some peanut butter (7/25/09)

happiness is... a homemade pretzel, a helium balloon, and sitting on the couch with dad (7/25/09)

i swear i won't fall, ma (7/25/09)

look what i did! (8/1/09)

helping mama make doughnuts (8/2/09)

bond, james bond (8/2/09)

blowing wishies at the park with mom (8/2/09)

rockin' out with grandpa and nana! (8/2/09)

right click on 'my computer' . . . (8/20/09)

playing hide & seek (8/20/09)

protection from the alien mind meld (8/21/09)

do i leave you wanting more? (i'm sure you're asking me to please stop posting at this point.) lots more pictures be be found in the june, july, and august galleries. there's also the video gallery. be sure to check out this one of oliver giving his monkey a piggy back ride!

summer eats

2009-08-10T10:37:00.022-05:00

well folks, i hope you have a pot of coffee and got lots of sleep last night, because we have more than a few things to catch up on. i hardly have the time and energy in the same moment to update here, and then the longer i wait the more i have to write, which just discourages me more, and . . . well, you can see where this is going. it's a vicious cycle. i've decided to just post the food things; everything else will come in a separate post. hang in there, though - it's still a good deal. and keep refilling that coffee.

june

thursday, june 4th: puffy tacos with beef brisket and avocado.
i had stumbled across a recipe in saveur for puffy tacos, and a martha stewart recipe for beef brisket, and we had an avocado waiting to be used, and so this meal was born. we didn't really follow the puffy taco recipe - we utilized the idea for the puffy shells. bryan made their fresh corn tortilla dough, and fried puffy taco shells. we seasoned and roasted the beef brisket, and we filled in taco fillings from there - lettuce, tomato, green onions, jack cheese, pickled red onions, pickled jalapenos, sour cream. oh. my. god. best tacos EVER - hands down. unfortunately for him, i never want to go back to anything store bought - this is it, my friends.

friday, june 5th: pork cutlets with spaghetti collins and glazed carrots.
another saveur inspiration. i thought the spaghetti sounded good - like a slightly upscale diner dish. and so breaded pork cutlets seemed like the perfect thing to serve along with it.

sunday, june 7th: fondue.
while we were dating, bryan took me to dante's down the hatch, a fondue restaurant in atlanta. we had so
much fun, we visited there a few more times, and bought our own fondue set. we hadn't used it in a few years, so we dragged it out and had mom and dad over for fondue. we did a fairly standard cheese fondue, with cheddar and gruyere. for the meat, we did an au vin style. we had bread, broccoli, mushrooms, chicken, pork, and steak, along with 4 dipping sauces (teryaki, horseradish, mustard, and bbq). a good time was had by all.

monday, june 8th: herbed hamburgers with arugula, sweet potato fries, and salad with champagne vinaigrette, sunflower seeds, and sprouts.
since these were upscale burgers, we went for french bread instead of rolls. i wish the hamburgers were a little more herby, but hey, you live and you learn.

tuesday, june 9th: panko crusted fish sticks with herb dipping sauce and veggie pasta salad.
this was a pretty big hit with everyone. and it involved a martha recipe, which always pleases bryan. the pasta salad we made up on the spot: asparagus, broccoli, mushrooms, onions, a little parm.

wednesday, june 10th: summer squash sloppy joes on sprouted wheat buns, and cheddar herb potato chips.
a little different take on sloppy joes, with built in veg. also, a perfect excuse to have chips with dinner (something oliver is down with, for sure).

thursday, june 11th: pork chops with cilantro rice, plantains, and mango.
a little nod to cuba, and a delicious one, indeed. i love plantains. it always feels like you're eating dessert for dinner.

friday, june 12th: big fat rib eyes with corn, salad, and three philosophers beer.
our wonderful butcher at the outpost either loves us dearly, or can clearly see the targets on our foreheads, because he's always quick to point out something so delicious we can't pass it up. that weekend, it was incredibly thick rib eye steaks (or as i like to call them, further proof vegetarians are nuts). we decided they would be lonely without a nice beer, and that they needed little else other than some simple sides. we were right again.

sunday, june 14th: banana muffins with brown sugar crumble, and bacon.
we started the day off right. we had a couple of overripe bananas, so i made muffins for breakfast. and bacon, of course. the day continued to get better, of course.
for lunch, i made one of our favorites - bean tostadas. this is a quick and oh so satisfying lunch favorite of ours. i fry corn tortillas for the tostadas. i make refried beans by cooking pintos with spices (garlic, pepper, cumin), and smashing them onto the tortillas. i drizzle a generous amount of hot sauce on top of the beans. you can add taco toppings (lettuce, tomatoes, lettuce, cheese), but our favorite is just raw onion, and perhaps a little sour cream to help offset the hot sauce. we went a little luxe here with some cheese.
for dinner, we had savory onion shortcake biscuits with smoked pork and red onion jam, and sweet potato hash. the idea for this meal started with the biscuits - i liked the idea of the savory biscuit, and thought they would pair nicely with smoked pork (very few things don't). i decided it needed something to tie it together - and hence the onion jam.

monday, june 15th: mini meatloaf with sour cream and parmesan mashed potatoes, and broccoli.
i got the idea for the potatoes from my friend danielle, whose awesome husband mike makes these potatoes. they were good. bryan made mini meatloaves in muffin tins, making meatloaf a quick weeknight meal. and would you believe broccoli is one of oliver's favorite vegetables?

saturday, june 20th: grilled chicken and lemon with garden salad and corn bread.
simple summer meal. the salad was courtesy of our csa - sweet peas, cucumbers, radishes, and green onions bolstered the lettuce nicely. for dessert, strawberry (from our csa) / rhubarb (from our garden) shortcakes. even oliver got some dessert.

sunday, june 21st: grilled steaks with charro beans and spinach salad with hot bacon dressing.
our father's day meal for dad and bryan. bryan actually did most of the cooking here, which i think is ok on father's day when the meal is grilled steaks. we all stuffed ourselves silly, but still managed to find room for some gluten free lemon cake mom made, with chocolate ice cream.

monday, june 22nd: mix grill stir fry over baby lettuce.

tuesday, june 23rd: smoked salmon croque monsieur with caesar salad.
eric ripert, oh, eric ripert - how i love thee. bryan saw him on a tv show, demonstrating how to make this dish of his (which is on his menu), and requested it be on our menu. we did forget to pick up the caviar, so we forewent that, but i did make homemade lemon confit (one of my new favorite things, by the way), so i think that counts for something. paired with a simple and classic caesar salad, this was a deceptively lush meal.

friday, june 26th: pizza hand pies and sweet peas.
i had found this recipe for fried neopolitan pizzas, which i interpreted into hand pies, or mini calzones, which we baked, not fried. i started with sauce and cheese, then made multiple variations on the filling with olives, onions, pepperoni, and sausage. oliver enjoyed having his own little mini pizza.

saturday, june 26th: pesto lasagna with garlic bread and salad.
shannon was in town, and had us over to mom and dad's for dinner. i requested lasagna, as i had been thinking of it for days. we gave her some of our pesto, made with basil from our garden, which she used to make the impossibly rich, utterly delicious lasagna.

monday, june 29th: greens calzone.
loosely based on a favorite recipe for beet green calzone, we used various greens from our own garden.

tuesday, june 30th: roast vegetable napoleons.
delicate, rich, filling - i love this meal. bryan roasted various vegetables from our csa and co-op - carrots, onions, zucchini, eggplant, and topped with a bit of cream and parmesan.

july

wednesday, july 1st: flatbread pizza with fresh mozzarella, feta, sausage, caramelized onions, tomatoes, and lemon confit.
the idea for this was backtracked from the lemon confit. i wanted to find another use for it, since i do love lemons so, and wondering if i could work it into a pizza. sausage and feta immediately came to mind, and i decided on caramelized onions to offset the tartness of the lemons, and the fresh mozz to add some mellowness to all the strong flavors. i rubbed the flatbread with olive oil and diced garlic, and tossed fresh oregano from the garden on as well. everyone loved it.

friday, july 3rd: grilled pork chops, corn, and pasta salad with sweet peas, garlic scapes, and feta.

sunday, july 5th:
hannah and bryan made multiple trips out to jenehr farms, who we get our csa from, for strawbery upick. this meant i had a LOT of strawberries. i made some loose strawberry preserves, and canned them so we have preserves and sauce all winter. bryan loves preserves with his yogurt each morning, so i guess it's a good thing we have lots. we did use some immediately on pancakes.

thursday, july 9th: liver and onions, tater tots, and sweet peas.
cue the horror movie music. bryan has always loved liver and onions, but since it wasn't something my palate found agreeable, he only made it when i wasn't home for dinner (which is not often). so he decided hannah, oliver, and i finally had to be subjected to it. it wasn't nearly as bad as i had expected - far less liver-y than i had imagined (presumably the 24 hour soak in milk helped). it did, however, taste a lot like iron. i'm not sure we'll be making it again soon, but it's definitely not off the list forever.

friday, july 10th: hamburgers with watermelon pickles and campfire baked beans.
our camping dinner! i made the watermelon pickles, and since we figured pepper jelly is great on burgers, why not watermelon pickles? there's no reason why not - it's delicious. the pickles were a mega hit with oliver, who proceeded to polish off the jar. the pot of beans fell into the fire, but we managed to salvage some.

saturday, july 11th: cheddar & jalapeno brats with grilled potatoes and green bean & scallion salad.

monday, july 13th: penne rigate with lacinato kale, sausage, cheddar, and mozzarella, topped with parmesan breadcrumbs (a.k.a., macaroni pie).
a few years back, when i asked hannah what she wanted for her birthday dinner, she requested macaroni pie. she had never had macaroni pie before, and didn't know what should go in the macaroni pie, and knew it was slightly different than macaroni and cheese, and that's about all i had to go on. taking a slight inspiration from the movie big night, i made a kid friendly timpano
of sorts: a deep dish, baked macaroni, with salami and lots of cheese. she loved it, and from then on, it's always a request from her. i don't think i've ever made it the same twice, but i've never heard any complaints. this one was made with kale from our garden. you have never seen two kids scarfing up kale as willingly and happily as oliver and hannah that night. for dessert, we had ice cream topped with a homemade bing cherry sauce i made.

thursday, july 16th: pecan crusted catfish with tabasco buerre blanc, sweet potato hash, and green beans.
we made this for cat and the kids while they were in town, and i think it made cat want to move in. this is a total favorite of ours. the season 5 winner of top chef made it, and as soon as i saw it on tv, i knew i wanted it in my belly (as usually is the case for meals where i can employ bryan's homemade hot sauce). if you want the recipe, you'll have to email me, because it's no longer on the website. and believe me, you want this recipe.

monday, july 20th: cheese stuffed potatoes with yogurt spice paste and sesame crust, tilapia with honey-curry glaze, and kholrabi.
dirk joined us for dinner before he and bryan headed out to a sonic youth show. everything was just really, really good. the potatoes were so flavorful, and a little spicy - but so good hannah and oliver didn't mind the spice at all. the fish was joined by onions and peppers, and the kohlrabi was simply blanched, a nice and simple counterpoint to the other flavors in the meal. oliver couldn't get enough of the kohlrabi. i am looking forward to making these potatoes again.

tuesday, july 21st: braised chicken with paprika onions, couscous, and date relish; paired simply with green beans.
i have never liked dates, but i loved this. this meal was definitely in the top 5 of all time. and, as so many braised dishes are, this was even better a few days later for leftovers - the flavors really sang, and bryan and i were both raving about it again. this will definitely become a cool weather staple in our house. as soon as the weather cools down wherever you are, go, buy these ingredients. make this.

wednesday, july 22nd: farfalle with garlic scape pesto.
bryan used some of the garlic scapes from our csa to make a pesto. pestos of all kinds are a perfect weeknight meal for us - quick and easy. toss with pasta, add cheese and frozen peas, and you're good to go.

friday, july 24th: guava glazed ribs, jicama and red cabbage slaw, cornbread, corn, and fruit salad.
bryan's 40th birthday luau dinner. i worked for most of the day, so bryan ended having to cook most of the meal (good planning on my part, hey?). hannah made a pineapple cake with cream cheese frosting for dessert. there wasn't much food leftover.

monday, july 27th: the schlow burger, with salad.
epicurious.com featured a burger article, and this burger stood out to me (and hannah and bryan, looking on over my shoulder). the article described it as "crowned with melted Cheddar, slathered with horseradish sauce, and piled high with crispy fried onions." cue the saliva. after a little bit of digging to find out a little bit more about the restaurant that makes the burger (boston's radius), i found the actual recipe. definitely one of the best burgers i've ever had. ever. i am getting hungry just thinking about it. you want this for dinner. tonight. go. i'm serious.

tuesday, july 28th: summer squash and greens casserole with provolone.
this was devised out of necessity - summer squash from the csa, zucchini and greens from the garden. i layered roasted slices of the squashes on the bottom of a casserole, topped with crumbled sausage, then with creamed greens, sliced provolone, and bread crumbs. a very comforting meal using delicious, fresh summer vegetables.

wednesday, july 29th: coconut curry braised pork ribs with zucchini, green peppers, and kohlrabi over brown rice.

friday, july 31st: roast chicken and mango salad with yogurt.
we happened to have everything for this recipe (except nigella seeds, which oddly enough we saw at the spice house the next day, so we used cumin seeds instead), and added a purple bell pepper from our garden. this was so, so good. a new favorite salad. (and i know i say that all. the. time. but i swear i mean it.)

august

sunday, august 2nd: long johns with maple glaze and bacon. right. on. top.
my uncle tom had told us about this at bryan's birthday dinner, and obviously we were intrigued. so of course, i had to make them from scratch. obviously they were delicious (i mean, they're homemade doughnuts, after all). i made quite a large batch so we could share some with mom and freeze some for a rainy day. or tomorrow, as the case may be.
dinner that night was nothing special (roast chicken with homemade fries), but for dessert i made snickers fudge, essentially homemade snickers bars. i did make my own marshmallow creme, but i also cheated and bought caramels. i also used semi sweet chocolate instead of milk chocolate, since mixing the chocolate with butterscotch chips and peanut butter makes it that much sweeter (and i think milk chocolate is too sweet to begin with), and next time i'd probably use bittersweet, but even still - big fat hit, this one.

monday, august 3rd: pimiento cheeseburgers and roast beets.
ok, so perhaps we like cheeseburgers a lot. and before you scoff at the thought of pimiento cheese, i implore you to make your own. i promise it will be good. (the leftovers make good grilled cheese, too, fyi.)

there are a few other meals we had which i can't find the pictures for. i guess that's what happens when i take a million pictures and wait two months to do anything with them. they included:

hot dogs with dal and red-onion raita, sweet potato fries, grilled veg, and coconut-lime bars with hazelnut shortbread crust.

sticky balsamic ribs.

WHEW. well, if you made it through that, you deserve a prize of some kind. but i'm too tired to give you one.

cooking matters

2009-08-03T13:47:00.003-05:00

go read this article on the correlation between the immense popularity of cooking on tv and the public's willingness to actually cook anything in the home. michael pollan, always brilliant, delivers yet another insightful look into the american psyche. let it inspire you to actually cook food!

so what did you do this may?

2009-06-02T20:11:00.079-05:00

tuesday, may 5th: cheese enchiladas with green sauce, rice, beans, and beer.
perfect for cinco de mayo, no? i thought it was rather delicious, but i am a sucker for cheese enchiladas. i thought oliver would love it, too, but he was more keen on the rice and beans. that kid just likes to keep me on my toes.

wednesday, may 6th: avocado bacon burgers.
essentially just an excuse to eat avocado and bacon together for dinner. (another good excuse is avocado blts, in case you're looking for excuses too.) oliver loves burgers ("buhguhs!") so this was a hit for him too.

thursday, may 7th: chicken and rice casserole.
borrowed the idea, made up the flavors. we used a wild rice blend, and incorporated the leftover mustard cream sauce from the previous sunday's chicken.

sunday, may 10th: mustard crusted salmon, roasted sweet potato spears with bacon vinaigrette, and cucumber salad with mustard dressing.
we also started with a balsamic white bean dip with veggies, and for dessert i made lemon cajun sweet dough pies with whipped cream. this was my mother's day dinner for mom, who loves salmon, dill, and lemons. i love them all too, so that was a bonus. i didn't hear a single complaint from anyone else, either.
wednesday, may 13th: swedish meatballs with kale and rye bread.
bryan's request. i had wanted creamed kale, but bryan didn't mind the meal plan, and instead of using the swedish meatball recipe i had found, he decided to wing it, and instead made a meatball stroganoff of sorts. it didn't suck, though, so all was forgiven.

friday, may 15th: spiced lamb kebabs, stewed white beans, and grilled eggplant.
i'll be honest, i was prepared to hate this meal. i'm not a giant fan of lamb, especially something as fatty as ground lamb. but this was awesome. i probably liked it because it was spicy enough to cover any hint of lamb flavor. and oliver liked the grilled eggplant, go figure!

saturday, may 16th: boston baked bean sandwiches, salt and vinegar potato chips, and fresh strawberries.
this was actually lunch that day. i had come across the recipe in one of our saveurs, and bookmarked the online version, and forgot about it. re-discovered it while meal planning, and knew my boys loved beans, so we had to try it. i'm not too hip on baked beans, but still enjoyed it. and i do love salt and vinegar potato chips, as does oliver (the kid loves the weirdest things!).

sunday, may 17th: chicken with plum glaze, ginger scallion fragrant rice, broccoli radish slaw, and sauteed zucchini.
i omitted the horseradish called for in the chicken recipe, since i wanted to make sure oliver liked it (he did). i left the chicken whole; roasted it, and brushed it with the glaze in the last 30 minutes or so of cooking. i think this would be better applied to chicken pieces, and perhaps done on the stove in more of a simmer style - the chicken would pick up more of the glaze, and the plum flavor would concentrate. still delicious, though. mom, dad, and shannon joined us for dinner. shannon made a gluten free / dairy free lemon cake with chocolate frosting and berry glaze for dessert.

tuesday, may 19th: fish fry with smoked paprika mayo and peas with horseradish and mustard.
fish fries are a milwaukee tradition and thus an integral part of my nostalgia, and since bryan doesn't complain either, we have fish fries a few times a year at home.

wednesday, may 20th: mini fried chicken, potato salad, carrots, grapes, and pickles.
we decided to take a picnic at the zoo, and mini fried chicken sounded like the perfect portable meal. sadly for us, i didn't check the zoo hours, and they were closed when we arrived. FAIL. ever quick to think on our feet, we headed to the park by our house, and ate our picnic there. it turned out bryan made the best potato salad EVER, so i was no longer unhappy about missing out on the zoo. after dinner, we went and played on the playground for awhile, letting oliver run all over and tire himself out (or nearly).

friday, may 22nd: chicken fried rib eye steaks, yellow squash, and mac n cheese.
chicken fried rib eyes are a way to remind yourself god loves us. really, give it a try sometime. i doubt you'll disagree.

sunday, may 24th: oyster mushroom risotto and asparagus.
on our weekend trip to the dane county farmer's market on capitol square in madison, we picked up, among other things, asparagus and oyster mushrooms. the mushrooms were begging to be put into a risotto, which turned out beautifully. though the asparagus was the star of the meal - absolutely perfect, the sweetest asparagus we had ever tasted.

monday, may 25th: garden herb omlette with a single, ripe strawberry from our garden.
the strawberry plant experiment has been a great success! i didn't think i'd get any fruit from it, but it's been sprouting berries like crazy.

tuesday, may 26th: szechuan ahi tuna, spring greens salad with asian dressing, and rice.
our butcher (whom we love) at the outpost tried a new spice rub on some lovely ahi tuna. it worked!

friday, may 29th: shake and bake style chicken, broccoli cheddar rice, and salad.
we went all american with this one (i even went for the thousand island for my salad, and bryan, the buttermilk ranch, because when we do it, we do it right). of course this wasn't actual shake and bake chicken - i made my own mix of homemade breadcrumbs, panko, and herbs, and baked the chicken. we had a ton of leftover rice from thai take out over the weekend, and this was the perfect use for that rice.

saturday, may 30th: grilled flatbreads with caramelized onions, sausage, and manchego Cheese, and spinach sauteed with garlic.
oh. my. goodness. this was very good. i added some fresh mozzarella to the pizzas, because that's the way we roll. the only way to make it better? add dessert. i made tarte au fromage with lemon cream and blueberry compote, from the sunday suppers at lucques cookbook. i accidentally picked up half and half and not heavy cream (the cream i bought was from a local dairy, and the glass bottles themselves not clearly labeled), so i didn't have whipped cream to fold into the lemon curd, but we ate it anyways.

sunday, may 31st:
BREAKFAST: caramelized red onion and fresh mozzarella omelette with bacon.
have i mentioned how great an omelette bryan makes? he used the leftover onions from the night before.

DINNER: grilled chicken, caesar potato salad with sugar snap peas and radishes, and jamie oliver's baked onions with bacon and rosemary.
a great summer meal. mom joined us. oliver loves bbq sauce, so after eating a little of his chicken, he kept asking "sauss peas," and licking sauce from his chicken bone. for dessert, i macerated strawberries in balsamic vinegar and basil, and topped them with sweetened mascarpone. it turns out i might be good at this food thing.

tuesday, june 2nd: seared pork tenderloin with bread and green bean salad with radishes.
a quick weeknight meal. oliver wasn't all that impressed by the pork (though i thought it was tender and delicious), but once i added some of his beloved bbq sauce, he was shoving it in his mouth (score 1 for mom!). which reminds me, i should probably stock up on bbq sauce.

wednesday, june 3rd: salt & pepper tofu, rice stick noodle salad, and broccoli slaw.
the concept of this tofu dish is to mimic salt and pepper squid, and bryan and i both really liked it (oliver had a tofu pup). i omitted the shrimp called for in the noodle salad, just to have a thai inspired side dish. for the broccoli slaw, i thinly sliced broccoli stems, and tossed them with sunflower oil, rice wine vinegar, a dash of sugar, and sunflower seeds. all in all, a great and relatively quick meal. very light, fresh, and vibrant tasting - reminded me why i love thai and vietnamese food so much.

WFD tomorrow: puffy tacos with smokey beef brisket. my plan for the tacos is really to steal the puffy shell idea - add the brisket and normal taco toppings, and proceed with the eating. remember what i said about tacos? yea, i can't wait for dinner tomorrow night.

wow, i really need to get on here more often. if i were smarter, i would update each night with notes from dinner. that way i could include multiple pictures for each meal without making the world's longest blog posts. problem is, by the time oliver is in bed, i have 90 minutes before i will inevitably crash in bed, and all i really want to do is sit on my bottom for that time, not do more activities.

which brings me to something i ponder quite often, and probably will for the rest of my life: i would really like, somehow, to simplify my life. i feel like we are always running around, and by the end of the day saturday, i'm exhausted, and come sunday night, i wonder where all the weekend went to. but it's not like we do all that much - it's mostly errands, laundry, things we can't give up (how else would all these delicious little groceries find their way into my fridge?). and it dawned on me weekend before last, that even if we're not running around, i'm still scrambling to find activities at home. part of it is just who i am - i'm at my best when i'm multi tasking. if i sit idle i feel as though i am wasting time. and there are always a million organizational-type projects to do when one owns a home. the other part of it is having a small child - if we're not at the zoo/park/nana's house/etc., i have to find something to amuse him with at home, be it toys, books, playing outside, or the dreaded t.v. (don't tell oliver's pediatrician, shhh). so i'd rather be at the zoo/park/nana's house, because even though that means loading up the diaper bag, snacks, and the stroller and zooming around the city, it's not only an easier way to entertain oliver, but it's enjoying doing these family activities we enjoy so much. it's why we wanted to have a family. so while at the end of the weekend i feel far from relaxed, i guess that's just parental/adult life. and i'm ok with that. i think i just need to give myself a break every once in awhile and ignore the laundry to take a nap, or indulge myself with not cooking, and get takeout instead - and not stress about it. i've been trying to do that a little more lately (even though it kills the ~~anal retentive~~ detail oriented person inside of me). i just need to get better at it.

so what are some of these things that have kept us oh-so-busy?

mother's day
bryan did good for mother's day (which in turn was good for him, because otherwise i may have kicked him in the nether regions - hard). he and oliver bought me a beautiful necklace and earrings set with my birthstone and pearls in it, some gorgeous flowers, and cards with very sweet notes written in them (oliver even signed his - with a marker).
as mom was having a brunch that day, i cut a bunch of rhubarb from our garden to make rhubarb almond bars. oliver enjoying biting the rhubarb, which is odd, because raw and without sugar, it's not the tastiest stuff. but again, i think he likes to confuse me, so i shouldn't be surprised. once at mom's house, oliver had fun terrorizing the cats, as usual. they can't hate it too much, though - the one cat, juliet, never hides and is always asking oliver to play (as much as a cat ever asks - i think by making herself available to him, walking up to him, and playing hide and seek, she's asking for it). the other cat, aurora, has even stopped hiding. so i hope she knows what she has coming.

i attempted to be Laid Back Mom, and not feel the need to chase behind oliver the entire time we were there. after all, he was surrounded by family, in a familiar and safe place, what could possibly happen? WELL. oliver and my cousin's 3 year old boy locked themselves in the bathroom where they proceeded to pull out all of the cleaning products, and sprinkle themselves and the entire bathroom with comet cleanser. oh yea, that was neat. i about had a heart attack when i found them, and of course was worried for the next 48 hours or so that oliver was going to die suddenly from some crazy brain defect because of inhaling god knows how much comet dust. to make things even better, i was Confident Mom that morning and said, oh no, we don't need an entire change of clothes just to have lunch at nana's! so i had nothing to change him into. he ran around the rest of the afternoon in only his onsie, which didn't seem to bother him in the slightest. still, the afternoon on the whole was enjoyable, and it was great getting to hang out with all the aunts and gram, and eat some very delicious food. everyone brought a dish, and mom made some really fantastic salads, so we stuffed ourselves. oliver's favorite were these little phyllo-egg-cheese-bacon cups my aunt made - he must have had 4 or 5! and that reminds me to add phyllo to the shopping list...

i had planned on making dinner for mom that day, so we had plans to have her and dad over for dinner. adrianne had called earlier in the week to say she would be passing through milwaukee on her way back from an event in minneapolis, and could i help her surprise mom? of course! so i casually mentioned to mom and dad that they should come over a little early, so we could take a walk to the park, and dad immediately thought something was up. mom was pretty surprised adrianne was there when they came over, and so, so happy. we had a great evening together.

outside time
we had quite a few spurts of really gorgeous weather over the last month (though it's chilly again now, WTF MOTHER NATURE?!), so that meant lots of reason to play outside. playing outside and taking walks may be oliver's most favorite thing in the world. it's not unusual for him to finish breakfast, and either run to the back door and ask, with such hope it's hard to resist, "'side?", or point out the window and ask "walk?" we've been going to the park, and he loves playing on the toddler sized playground there, though he gets a little intimidated when there are lots of kids there. when it's just him, though, he is king of the slides! we had bought that outdoor cube/slide thing, and while he still likes it, i think the slide is already too short for him (and he did figure out how to climb up the BIG slide at day care all by himself). i bought him some outdoor chalk, which is a hit, and he also loves blowing bubbles - though i do most of the blowing (he just wants to rub the wand on his lips). we have one wand that makes big bubbles, and he gets a total kick out of running through them, chasing them around. talk about CUTE. i'm pretty sure he would spend every single waking moment outside, if he could. and on the weekends, when we're not running errands, we pretty much do.

dane county farmer's market in madison
we had been wanting to go to madison to visit the renowned farmer's market there since we moved here. the first summer, what with being pregnant, moving a few times, buying a house, working on said house, and whathaveyou, we did not make it to the market. and last summer, with oliver so young and me being a total nap nazi (which i still am, by the way), we didn't go. so we finally did in may. our friend dirk lives in madison, so he met us at the market. the market is large, and pretty amazing - filled with everything and then some. since it's still early in the season, there were lots of spring greens and asparagus. there were also lots of mushrooms, as it was a good time for foraging. lots of plants, as well; we picked up quite a few things to plant, including a tomatillo, brussel sprouts, a giant blue hosta, and some wild grasses. there were multiple places with cheese, a number with meat and fish, and some with oils, herbs, and vinegars (i picked up a locally made, cold pressed sunflower oil). however, the place is always packed - which isn't a super bunch of fun with a stroller. of course no one wants to let the lady with the stroller through, either - even though mostly i just wanted to get to the outside of traffic and move faster than everyone else. it's also the reason i have no pics from the market itself, navigating a full size stroller through a sea of people while simultaneously trying to look at all the booths AND keep an eye on my husband pretty much left no room for picture taking.

we had additionally made plans to meet one of the moms from my message board, tammy, and her daughter, alli, for lunch. they live in madison and though we'd been "talking" online for over a year, had never met in person (i know, we're slackers, aren't we?). so after the market, we met them at texas tubbs for lunch. the tacos were good (and those of you who know me know i am a total sucker for tacos), though the kids were more interested in running all around the restaurant. alli wanted to play with oliver, though he started off a little shy, then turned into a big ham, showing off and being a silly goof. oh, i know, i could hardly believe it either.

surprisingly, oliver did relatively well on the drive both ways (about an hour drive each way). he no longer takes a morning nap (unless he wakes up before 6), but the lull of the car on the way out there did make him pretty sleepy. he refused, however, to fall asleep, which just kind of made him cranky. so he did fuss and whine most of the way out there, but it wasn't a total meltdown, so i'll call it a draw (better than a fail!). about 10 minutes from the market, he managed to get his water cup open, and drench himself. this time, though, i was Smart Mommy, and had a full set of clothes to change him into (and used a diaper on his seat so his butt wouldn't get wet again - genius, right?). on the way home, we were trying to beat the naptime clock. i was hoping he would stay away and take a real nap at home, otherwise he'd just sleep the hour in the car and buck his nap at home. again, he got VERY tired, but fought sleep and took a good nap once we got home. WIN.

talking, talking, talking
oliver, lately, has been repeating EVERYTHING. the kid is turning into a proper parrot. he definitely still babbles a lot, but he has been increasing his vocabulary daily, and it's clear he's storing up even more words. words i didn't think he knew will come popping out, in their proper usage, and take me by total surprise. his fake phone calls have taken on a new life, as he babbles away with the occasional word tossed in. this also means we have to watch our language very closely; we're not potty mouths, but he hears EVERYTHING, so NO SWEARING (bryan). at target the other day, i forgot something on my list from a few aisles back, so i said "oh, shoot!" guess who kept repeating that one?

goofing around
of course, we've just been hanging out, having a grand old time. oliver is SO SILLY, he is just a riot. he plays pranks and jokes around. he'll do something he'll think is hilarious, and crack up. it's hard not to be infected by his giggles, and that mischievous little grin of his. though his favorite game is "Give Mommy a Heart Attack." whether it's not listening and thinking that is just so freaking funny, or being a serious daredevil, the kid is giving me gray hairs faster than old age is. i'm not sure which of those games he enjoys more.

shannon was in town for a week, so oliver got to show his godmother just how goofy is has become. she is spending the summer in minneapolis but came for a quick visit after school and before work / her internship started. we had a great visit with her and saw her lots.

of course there are many more cute pictures (and videos!) of my goofy child in the may and june galleries.

our 7 year wedding anniversary
last thursday, while getting ready in the morning, bryan and i suddenly realized that the coming monday was our anniversary. at least we *both* forgot. bryan bought me 7 long stem red roses, something he does every year, as well as chocolates and a bottle of bourbon (does the man know me or what?). mom offered to babysit so we could go out. bryan really wanted a nice steak dinner, but i was uneasy about spending $200 on a meal, so after much thinking and searching, we settled on speed queen bbq. we had been hearing about the place and wanted to try it out and i had been wanting some smoked pork butt, so we headed downtown. oh. my. jesus. it was so good. real bbq, right here in milwaukee. it reminded me so much of many, many great meals at places like daddy d'z and rolling bones in atlanta. bbq means jesus loves you. and the speed queen should settle the whole religious debate - there is a jesus, and he's downtown smoking pork butts.

and then there's the part where i'm a zealot . . .
food is my religion. my food sources, the ethical treatment of animals (not in a crazy P.E.T.A. way, but in a let's keep 'em healthy and happy and not ruin the earth while raising them, then grill 'em & eat 'em kind of way), the preservation of our earth, my local economy - all these things are extremely important to me. i spend a lot of time and energy reading as much as i can about current commercial practices, how politics affect our food supply, what new research is finding about food (especially health and environmental impacts) - on and on; getting the whole view. i am beyond passionate about it, and i think if people KNEW what was going on, they would be sickened too. believe it or not, i am quite a bit quieter about all this than i could be. i speak about it sometimes here, but rarely in actual person to person conversations, unless the topic is invited. (seriously. just ask me sometime, and i'll talk. you'll be sorry, but grateful for how little i usually talk about it.) but there are several bills which have been introduced into congress which threaten everything i believe in. passage of these bills would shut down small farms, organic farms, farmer's markets, and c.s.a.'s. i implore you to PLEASE read about these bills and speak out! whether or not you buy organic, these bills WILL negatively impact your health, and it will contribute greatly to a worsening of our already fragile environment.

the introduction of these bills stands against everything america claims to be. they will destroy small farms, and our local, organic food sources. doing so not only ruins our standard of living, it will greatly affect the health of both the human population as well as of the earth. removing the ability for small farms to operate ensures the growth of large industrial farms, which then promises only commercial agricultural products will be available. the farming practices on these farms are destroying our ecosystem through the rampant use of fertilizers and pesticides, and the monoculture practiced on these farms is destroying our soil. the animal waste generated through such places and handled through improper practices, such as "manure lagoons" on commercial beef feedlots, is also affecting our environment negatively. these things are destroying our health through not only pollution, but also contamination (note that all recent outbreaks of contamination occurred in large, commercial facilities, not small farms), and via the hormones and antibiotics used in the animals and passed to our systems upon consumption. this bill is not progress, it will move us back 35 years. please read between the lines of this bill. support our right to a healthy environment, and our own physical health.

these bills pose under the guise of doing the public good by creating new "food safety" regulations. the problem is that these new regulations will not be able to be conformed to by smaller producers. the congressmen (and women) introducing these bills are playing on peoples' fears about the recent rash of food outbreaks. there are already regulations in place to protect us from these types of things - they are simply not being enforced (did you know that the peanut butter salmonella outbreak occurred because the CEO of the company KNEW about the contamination, but shipped the product anyways? and that federal agencies had cited the facility with failure to comply to safety regulations but did nothing about it?). why would any new legislation be enforced? follow the money, because that's what this is truly about.

regulation of food safety is NOT a bad thing. but what these bills promise to do in the name of food safety IS.

H.R. 814: TRACE Act of 2009
aims to " . . . establish a traceability system for all stages of manufacturing, processing, packaging, and distribution of food." any " . . . cattle, sheep, swine, goats, horses, mules and other equines, and poultry presented for slaughter for human consumption . . . " present traceability " . . . to any location at which the animal was held at any time before slaughter; and (2) each carcass or part of a carcass and food product forward from slaughter through processing and distribution to the ultimate consumer." eggs also fall under this bill. essentially, all meat and eggs will need to wear gps tracking devices, and all farmers (i use that term rather loosely, as i'd hardly call those who work on commercial feed lots "farmers") will be required to maintain records for each and every animal and egg.

S. 425: Food Safety and Tracking Improvement Act
this goes hand in hand with the above bill, requiring " . . the Secretary of Health and Human Services to establish a traceability system for all stages of manufacturing, processing, packaging, and distribution of food through which the Secretary can retrieve the history, use, and location of each article of food shipped in interstate commerce." essentially, that the information obtained via the tracking required by the above law be entered in and made available via, say, a computer system.

H.R. 759: Food and Drug Administration Globalization Act of 2009
this law requires from ". . . each food facility: (1) a hazard analysis of facilities that manufacture, process, pack, transport, or hold food for consumption in the United States; (2) identification and implementation of preventive controls; and (3) a written food safety plan." it also includes " . . an accreditation system for food facilities . . . " and " . . . an active surveillance system for food."

H.R. 875: Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009
removes the FDA from food related laws, and renames the Secretary of Health and Human Services as the authority. (the FDA would be re-named the Federal Drug and Device Administration.) names the secretary as the responsible party for implementing and enforcing the above laws. makes special provisions for " . . . a DNA matching system and epidemiological system for foodborne illness identification, outbreaks, and containment."

H.R. 1332: Safe FEAST Act of 2009
additional regulations related to all the above laws. (only the full text is available, please follow the link)

so PLEASE... help stop these heinous acts which will only benefit big businesses, at the expense of our health and that of the earth! SPEAK OUT. call your local representatives, sign petitions, GET THE WORD OUT. and then i promise to shut up about it.

follow these links for further action:

information on each of the bills, and where to go for additional information, and who to contact regarding them.

This special one click action page . . . will submit your personal message on the issue above to your local daily newspaper as a Letter to the Editor as determined by your address, as well as to both of your senators and your house representative if you like all at once. You can even select exactly who you want your message to go to.

spring may have sprung *

2009-05-04T13:31:00.042-05:00

monday, april 20th: steak roulade with peppers and parmesan, grilled sweet potatoes, artichokes with balsamic vinegar, and grilled endive, also with balsamic. the steak were on sale at the outpost, already stuffed with red and yellow bell peppers and parmesan cheese, and rolled. the draw of being able to simply toss these on the grill (and them looking so yummy) won out over my normal rule of not buying prepared foods (besides, they were handmade with all natural / organic meat, veg, and cheese, so i wasn't breaking the rule too bad).

tuesday, april 21st: soy glazed flank steak, rice, and broccolini with sesame oil. i wanted to do something a little different with flank steak, since we normally go the tacos/fajitas route for a quick dinner. this worked.

wednesday, april 22nd: chipotle shrimp tacos with avocado. i had been thinking about shrimp, and i'm always looking for an excuse to eat avocados, and i'm not one to turn down tacos... so i loved this. the recipe calls for tomatillos, but we didn't find any, so we just skipped that part. another slightly different, delicious meal. we used bryan's homemade chipotles en adobo.

friday, april 24th: cheeseburgers and cold pasta salad with a sparkling rose wine. martha had been telling bryan how wonderful roses are, so he decided we should try them. the sparkling wine was rather refreshing with the burger, though it was still a little too far on the white end of the spectrum for me. the pasta salad is something my mother used to make often during the summer - pasta, tuna, mayo, peas, onions. i've adapted it to add dijon mustard, lemon juice, and italian parsley. it will forever remind me of summer.

sunday, april 26th: for lunch, i made myself a cuban and a salad with garlic vinaigrette. bryan had gone to chicago with his friend dirk to see throbbing gristle. when they left on saturday, i made them cubans (and toasted almond chocolate chip cookies, holla!) to take on the road. i had mine sunday for lunch, and can i just say, go me?! they were the good stuff. bryan was home that night in time for dinner, and i made a new england style fish casserole, based on some recipes in the cookbook recipes from a very small island. i poached some orange roughy, and mixed that with potatoes, carrots, broccoli, green beans, and cauliflower in a cream sauce with tomatoes, worcestershire, horseradish, and sherry, topped with breadcrumbs and parmesan, and baked. it was the perfect one dish meal for a rainy sunday evening.

monday, april 27th: hot dogs with mango chutney and red onion relish, fries, and our old standby, peas. we had some mango chutney leftover from our curried beef potpie, and this was a nice way to use it in a different way. a delicious way. a very delicious way. as you can see, my eyes were bigger than my stomach. i did not make it through that second hot dog.

tuesday, april 28th: japanese chicken-scallion rice bowls with zucchini. oliver, as usual, ate mostly rice.

wednesday, april 29th: whole wheat pasta with italian sausage, spinach, tomatoes, and fresh mozzarella cheese. this was a request from bryan. he really likes the whole wheat pasta, and easy weeknight meals (fair, since he does all the cooking during the week). i think oliver ate more of this than i did.
saturday, may 2nd: having eaten far too much crap in the prior 48 hours, i was determined to eat nothing but vegetables for dinner saturday. alas, the outpost conspired against me, having some lovely little eberly game hens available. i couldn't resist picking them up, but i'm so glad i did. these hens were the best tasting poultry i have ever had. so flavorful, without even a hint of gaminess. i simply seasoned them with salt and pepper, and grilled. while i'm sure they're wonderful in a sauce, they don't need any. i served them atop a salad of spinach with grilled tomato and roasted garlic vinaigrette, alongside grilled radicchio with balsamic, and grilled rustico french bread. i started feeling better before the meal was even over. bryan could not stop talking about how good the meal was. i totally won the good wife award.

sunday, may 3rd: roast chicken with mustard cream and chives, arugula with roasted garlic vinaigrette, and roasted potatoes and asparagus with parmesan. i didn't think i could outdo the meal from the night before, but i think i did with this one. i made a compound butter with cracked black pepper, thyme, marjarom, lemon zest, garlic, and white wine, and stuffed it under the skin of the chicken. want to know the secret to keeping your roast chicken moist? stuff a stick of butter under the skin. (and don't even talk to me about fat until you've read omnivore's dilemma or in defense of food or real food or... well, you get the idea.) i also put quite a bit of chicken stock and white wine in the roasting pan. the mustard cream, since i did not cook the chicken in the same pan as the cream, i did slightly different - i sauteed chopped shallot in butter, then added the stock, cream, and mustard. i also finished the sauce with a healthy portion of chives from our garden, since they were ready to be snipped. i think the asparagus could have been better; the recipe has you roast them for the same amount of time as the potatoes. the cook in my head said, wait, asparagues roasts far quicker than potatoes, but the other part of me head said, well, that's what the recipe says, so we'll do it. guess who i should have listened to? oh well, no complaints. the arugula was perfect with the roasted garlic vinaigrette, and even better when slightly wilted under the warm mustard cream. for dessert, i made a strawberry rhubarb (from our garden) crumble. mom and dad joined us for dinner. there is no chicken left, that's all i can say.

WFD tonight: crockpot chicken makhani (indian butter chicken) with rice and broccoli. this time, i'm using boneless, skinless chicken (which the recipe calls for, but for which i only had normal chicken legs last time). which should be much nicer - no fishing bones and skin out prior to eating.

not a lot of other news from us...

oliver turned 18 months, and now officially weighs 28 lbs (like a 2 year old) and is 34" tall (like a 3 year old). that kid is sturdy. i think he's getting one of his eye teeth - it so very much looks like it wants to pop through, but just isn't quite there yet. he's been suffering from some cold (no, not H1N1!), but is taking it in stride, since he's such a great kid (i say that now, right?).

last week, oliver busted his face pretty good at day care. he was climbing on a chair (a kids size chair - she has a table and chairs set for the kids in the kitchen) and managed to flip over the back. he face never really bruised, just had these red and purple streaks. he recovered in no time (emotionally). i just keep telling myself - it's only going to get worse. the older he gets, the higher he's going to climb. danger boy.

the weather here has FINALLY gotten nice, so we try to spend as much time outside as possible. this past weekend, if ollie wasn't napping and we weren't eating, we were outside! it was so nice being in warm weather. bryan got cracking on his raised beds for the garden, and oliver did his best to help. mostly he ran all over the yard, up and down the deck, dragging the rake, hose, or his bike with him, and generally tiring himself out (ahh, perfection).

a look back and the past few weeks:

monday, april 20th: taking a ride and makin' some calls

monday, april 20th: trying to figure out why this balloon was on the ceiling yesterday, but on the floor today

friday, april 24th: blue skies (and oliver sliding off the deck)

friday, april 24th: playing in the bushes (or: a harbinger of things to come)

friday, april 24th: oh, you found me, mom!

saturday, april 25th: helping dad with the shovel in the yard... and DIRT

... and ROCKS!

sunday, april 26th: playing let's steal things i shouldn't have and hide in my tent

tuesday, april 28th: feeding myself with my hands...

...and my bowl...

...and my spoon!

saturday, may 2nd: one shoe on and the other shoe off

goofing around with mom before breakfast

sunday, may 3rd: playing on the deck

ahh, the joy of being outside

sunday, may 3rd: a boy and his phone

our tulip bed, with herbs planted (basil, thyme, oregano, cilantro, and parsley)

bryan working on the raised vegetable beds

my new strawberry plant (and our chives)

and of course, there are far more pictures (and cute video) in the april and new may galleries.

_{* and i would just like to point out for all you non-wisconsinites, that while spring may have indeed sprung, we still have no leaves on our trees, and the last average frost happens around may 10th. so we're not exactly in the clear yet.}

18 months

2009-04-30T14:34:00.006-05:00

today oliver is 18 months old (or is it tomorrow? since he was born on the 31st, i never know... i figure we've lost or gained a bunch of days in the last year and a half, so whatever). i can't believe he's 18 months already, and that in another 6, he'll be 2 - an official kid.

what's oliver like at 18 months?

he's a total goof; always joking around, being silly, and wanting to play games that make everyone laugh. he can be so sweet, giving hugs, kisses, and cuddling. he LOVES being outside, playing in the dirt. he loves climbing and running, and bugs. he is an absolute boy. he's an absolute sass, too - that child is always testing his limits and doing (or just almost doing) things he knows he's not supposed to in order to get a rise out of me. that, i think, is probably his favorite game. but he's also such a good listener, and helper. he always amazes me when he so clearly understands what we say and follows directions to the letter.

in terms of communication, the last two weeks or so have shown a huge explosion in communication from him. he's started saying more words more consistently, attempting to use a word for everything. he's also started repeating everything we say, so he's picking up new words every day. he can identify letters; not which letters are which, but that letters are indeed letters, so that's a little ahead of the curve, right? when he sees letters, he'll start repeating whatever letters he knows: "eeeeeee, eeeeeee, x!" he likes repeating the alphabet after me, too, which is pretty darn cute.

here's a list of the words he uses (and by uses, i mean daily - not the words he's said once or twice and then never again; since mommyhood can in fact make you crazy and hear things, those don't count):
airplane ("pane")
all done
apple ("bapple")
baby
ball
bath
bike
bird
blankey ("key")
blue
boat
book
bounce
box ("bots")
brush
bubble ("bubboh")
bug
bush
butterfly ("buy")
bye
cat / kitty cat (and he has on occasion identified "meow meow" as the sound they make)
cereal (i actually can't tell if he says cereal or cheerios, since it comes out "seeroh", and we always have cheerios for him, so it could be either)
chair
cheese
choo choo (which is the sound every train, bus, and truck makes, according to him)
cookie
cow (and he knows a cow moos)
cracker ("cackuh")
cup
daddy
dinosaur ("dinesooh")
doggy / dog / puppy
(he'll also occasionally call ally and moose by name, as well as the neighbor's dog, max - "mats")
down
duck (and he knows a duck quacks - "cack! cack!")
eat
ew
eye
fish
grandpa ("gappa")
hair
hat
head
help ("hep")
hi / hello
i see you (a variation on the peekaboo game)
juice
keys
kiss
light
mama
maria & ruthie ("meea" and "rooty", the girls at day care)
mine
more
mouth
nana (both for nana and banana)
night
no
(he doesn't say yes yet, really, but he will shake his head yes)
oh no!
ouch
outside ("side")
peas (his favorite vegetable)
please (which pretty much sounds like "peas" too - it's all about context)
sleep (and then he'll pretend to sleep by laying down and pretending to snore)
slide
snack ("nack")
soup
star
stair
straw
trash ("tash")
tree
truck
uh-oh
up
water

...and when he sees a bear, lion, tiger, or dinosaur, he will growl. he knows an owl says "hoooo hoooo" (though he hasn't used the word "owl" in a few months), and that a rooster says "cock-a-doodle-doo" ("ca-doooooo!").

not a bad list, once i sit down and think about it. genius child, obviously.

he hasn't started combining too may words yet, but we've been working on "help please" and "more please". i have a feeling that the next 6 months will be amazing in this department. by the time he's 2, i'm sure he'll have all sorts of phrases.

he definitely understands far more than he can say. he will answer questions with a shake of the head no or yes, so it's been fun asking him if he wants such and such for a snack, or if he wants to play whatever game, and have him make a decision and communicate it. he seems absolutely thrilled to be making decisions for himself, though when i turn him down, he can turn on a tantrum like nobody's business (he has perfected his "spaghetti legs" move). i try not to laugh, but the kid can be such a faker sometimes it's all i can do. once he finds all the words he needs, i imagine all sorts of amazing, funny, and frustrating/sassy things will come flying out of that tiny little mouth of his.

being a mom to an 18 month old is joyous, tiring, and frustrating. he is so amazing to watch grow, i can just sit and watch him. he never stops moving, and his morning wake up time is generally far earlier than we would like, so it is exhausting trying to keep up with him. he has, at least, FINALLY taken to sleeping pretty well more often than not (though you know i just jinxed us majorly by saying that out loud). he gets frustrated at not being able to communicate well all the time, and also at not always getting his way, and it's frustrating on our end for some of the same reasons - and for those award winning tantrums that accompany his frustration and unhappiness. lucky for him, he's cute, so we've decided to keep him.

slacker, i am

2009-04-20T08:31:00.032-05:00

ok, not really. work has been INSANELY busy lately. we are pushing to meet a deadline, and on top of that we found some issue which need resolution asap - and brilliant me offered to do that. sometimes, being an overachiever really bites you in the ass.

monday, april 6th: penne with sausage, mushrooms, cognac, and spinach. this was quick and easy to make (always a plus for a weeknight meal in our home), and everyone loved it - so, double bonus.

wednesday, april 8th: mushroom moussaka and sauteed zucchini. i was really looking forward to this, and it did not disappoint. oliver, on the other hand, decided to throw a fit and not eat any of it (seems to be a common theme with 18 month olds - even when it's over something they actually like).

thursday, april 9th: coq au vin, green beans sauteed with almonds, marmalade glazed carrots, and wild rice. it was absolutely as good as it sounds. even oliver abandoned the idea of throwing a fit just for fun, as he couldn't resist eating lots of chicken.

friday, april 10th: meatloaf, smoked cheddar macaroni and cheese, and acorn squash with butter and maple. definite comfort food. oliver usually won't eat squash, but drowning in butter and maple, he was a big fan (so much like his mommy).

sunday, april 12th: easter! we had dinner at my uncle larry and aunt debbie's house, but we all bring a dish, and my contribution was homemade pierogies. having made my own pasta, including ravioli and tortellini, a number of times, i expected this to be more difficult than it was. it took about 2 hours to make about 50, from start (making the filling), to finish (boiling the pierogies). and they were good. i really ought to make a large batch and freeze some, so we have some on hand.

monday, april 13th: chicken paprikash with sour cream, wild rice blend, and sweet peas. the recipe is actually a crock pot recipe, but bryan made it in the cast iron on and in the stove instead. this was another well received meal. even though the sauce was slightly spicy from the hot paprika, oliver ate a good deal. the kid doesn't seem to mind things that are a little spicy. he must have that same spicy food gene his aunt katie does.

wednesday, april 15th: potato kurma and garlic ginger lamb burgers. another stab at an indian dish, since bryan wanted one with potatoes. i thought the kurma sounded simple and delicious (i was right), and thought lamb would pair nicely. bryan coated the lamb burgers with a ginger/garlic/tumeric paste and seared them. i wasn't sure how oliver would like the lamb, it being a stronger flavored meat, especially coated in ginger and garlic, but he loved it. he ate a bunch of lamb (far more than the potatoes). the kid never ceases to amaze me.

thursday, april 16th: jamaican jerk burgers with orange chipotle mayo on sprouted wheat buns. my oh my, this may be my new favorite burger. something a little different, and *two* sauces (i do like it saucy). i made oliver a bbq cheeseburger instead, as i thought the jerk sauce and chipotle mayo would be too spicy, and although he liked his bbq burger, i needn't have worried - he liked both sauces just fine as well.

friday, april 17th: curried beef potpie with mango chutney. the recipe calls for puff pastry, but bryan made pie dough; the recipe also calls for mixing the chutney into the pie, but we served it alongside. rather than use powdered yellow curry, we used some leftover masala curry. the indian dish we made earlier this month had plenty of sauce (and eggplant) leftover, so we froze it. this was the perfect application for the leftovers. shannon had made this before and we loved it. friday turned out to be a rather warm day, so not exactly pot pie weather, but it was good nonetheless.

saturday, april 18th: bacon wrapped scallops, grilled asparagus with olive oil, grilled radicchio with balsamic vinegar and fresh mozzarella, and grilled potatoes with butter and onions. spring, oh spring! the weather was perfectly gorgeous on saturday, and i was overcome with the urge to eat a bunch of delicious vegetables, and so i bought many while grocery shopping. the scallops were on sale and bryan and i had been wanting some, so i snatched them up. while we had planned a simple dinner of tacos, we decided the scallops and veggies would be better fresh that day. bryan broiled the scallops (which is the recommended cooking, versus grilling, to ensure cooking the bacon fully but keeping the scallops medium-rare). for the asparagus, i simply tossed them with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and grilled. i had wanted to finish with some lemon zest, but we had no lemons. for the radicchio, i quartered one head, and drenched liberally with a marinade of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, thyme, and crushed red pepper, then grilled, finishing the grilling with a slice of fresh mozzarella atop each piece. the potatoes are something mom made often when we grilled out: a foil packet with sliced potatoes, onions, salt, pepper, and butter (or olive oil); i usually add garlic as well. the potatoes and onions get soft, and the ones on the bottom carmelize and crisp. it's literally the easiest side dish to serve with grilled food - stick everything in the foil, toss it on the top rack of the grill, and forget about it. 20 or 30 minutes later, you have potatoes. this was the perfect meal to welcome spring with.

WFD tonight: steak roulade (steak rolled with red and yellow peppers, onions, and parmesan cheese), grilled endive with balsamic vinegar, and artichokes (preparation yet unknown). we'll see if i can sweet talk bryan into making a homemade garlic aioli to dip the artichoke leaves into.

what else have we been up to? why, the usual of course (yes, we're pretty boring).

the saturday before easter, we headed way out to slinger to have dinner with a friend from work, kelli, and her family. they have two boys, aged 5 and 7, who were so excited to meet oliver. oliver was impressed with the large number of toys they have, and had such a blast playing with both the boys as well as kelli and steve, her husband. we had a lot of fun getting out of the house and having some adult conversation as well! i forgot the camera, though (oops!), so unfortunately no cute pics from that adventure.

easter sunday, we headed to mom and dad's house after church for brunch with gram and gramps. mom made a spring vegetable frittata, bacon, polish sausage, and i don't even recall what else - i think my memory is blotted out by the delicious sugar treats there as well: gram brought hot cross buns, and mom made a lamb cake. my grandma (dad's mom) used to make one each easter - white cake in the shape of a lamb, with coconut frosting, and jelly beans for the eyes and nose. it was pretty delightful having one for easter again. oliver had fun walking around the house, chasing the cats and dog, and generally being a goof and showing off for everyone.

easter dinner was at my uncle larry and aunt debbie's house. oliver had a royal blast running around the house like a madman with my cousin andy's 4 year old daughter jakita, and picking on (to my horror) his 18 month old son ryan. jakita seemed intent on getting him super riled up, and oliver was all too happy to oblige. all in all, they had a great time.

the kids, hanging out. oliver has stolen ryan's sippy cup, while also holding onto his own. (ryan later had oliver's, so i guess it all evened out in the end.)

jakita could not pose for enough pictures. oliver wanted to be right there too!

oliver and jakita invented a game wherein they would give each other a big hug, then yell as loud as they could and push each other down. nice, right? at least they both wanted to be doing it, and it seemed to be very fun (for them).

oliver did his first solo somersault! he and bryan play a game where oliver gets up into the tripod position and bryan will flip him over, and while we were sitting around on easter, oliver up and did one perfectly, all by himself. i guess that was the one good thing to come out of his craziness.

oliver and ryan sharing the couch (and, later, their bread).

oliver had fun being crazy, but after awhile we packed him up and took him home (which he was not thrilled about). the good news is he was pretty spent, and conked out very quickly that night.

this past weekend was as usual busy but good. i worked friday night and saturday morning, but was able to get all the critical stuff out of the way early saturday so we could enjoy our weekend. the weather was beyond perfect on saturday, though it was chilly rainy yesterday. we ran our usual errands - the outpost, the grocery store, target, home depot, and trader joe's. got some very delicious things to eat. have i ever mentioned how happy a well stocked fridge and pantry make me?? yesterday, after oliver's nap, we headed to my aunt maureen and uncle tom's house for my cousin jesse's birthday party. oliver was a little shy at first, but soon got over that when he realized that all the people there just made a larger audience. my cousin's child james, who is 3 years old but smaller than oliver (he had a heart defect as a baby), wanted very much to play with oliver and show him what to do. oliver, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with that. another cousin brought his 7 week old baby, who oliver was so cute with - gently giving him kisses and calling him baby.

oh yes - and remember the thing i mentioned last time about oliver being deathly terrified of baths? well, we seem to have resolved that - through the help of my 10 year old stepdaughter, no less. my mother (with 4 kids), her mother (with 12 kids), and even the child psychologist who lives next to my mother couldn't think of a solution, but leave it to hannah! we talked to her saturday and she suggested trying bubble bath. so we picked some up, and it intrigued oliver enough that he didn't have a complete meltdown when i put him in the tub. he still freaked out when i washed his hair (from the water in his face), but then he was so thrilled with the bubbles, he happily played just like old times (and kept joyously exclaiming "bubble! bubble!"). had hannah been there, i would have kissed her (then taken her out for ice cream).

and today i received the BEST NEWS EVER. my friend cat and her kids are coming to visit us this summer! she is booking the tickets today! i haven't seen her since february of last year, the last time we were in atlanta. we had planned on going down there again last fall (which didn't happen) and were hoping to this spring (which isn't going to happen), so i am SO EXCITED that they're coming to visit us!! they will be here while hannah is here, so she's pretty much going to pee her pants when she finds out.

this coming weekend, bryan is traveling to chicago with his friend dirk to see throbbing gristle. it's their first u.s. tour in something like close to 30 years, so they're both pretty excited. it not being exactly my type of music, i will be staying home with ollie. i am very much looking forward to an evening with a book, a glass of wine, and an early bedtime.

a few more random cute child pictures:

oliver practicing his manly recline (thursday, april 9th)

the face of a troublemaker (thursday, april 9th)

practicing his puzzle skillz (monday, april 13th)

on a walk with daddy (saturday, april 17th)

quite a few more pictures, especially from easter, in the gallery.

in like a lion . . .

2009-04-06T19:56:00.056-05:00

moroccan vegetable stew with couscous: i don't recall which date we had this one, and since we had the date/time set incorrectly on the camera, i can't tell by the picture. tomatoes, chickpeas, carrots, zucchini, celery, lima beans, and potatoes in a broth. the recipe calls for the stew to be served over couscous; we used an israeli couscous, orzo, and split pea blend. we also served it which chicken, since bryan needs his protein.

croque monsieurs with french fries. another one i don't have the date for. this was a quick, off the cuff meal - and everyone loved it.

saturday, march 28th: pan fried sole with lemon, pasta, caesar salad. this was so, so good. the fish was so delicate, so tender, so delicious with all the lemon (which is easily one of my favorite foods).

sunday, march 29th: pepperoni calzones. this was my clever way to have bryan essentially make me his kick ass pizza, without asking for pizza yet again. bryan made a giant calzone for us to split (and have plenty over for lunches). we, of course, did the right thing and ate the calzone with beer. oliver got his own personal size cheese pizza, since he's not too big on the pepperoni. i cut the pizza into slices, which he then happily devoured. the boy can be such a good eater!

monday, march 30th: chili nachos. when we had chili a few weeks ago, we froze the leftovers in anticipation of NACHOS. we loaded chips with the chili, pinto beans, diced tomato, green onion, and cheese, finished with sour cream, and put a hurtin' on the pile. they were decidedly good. we gave oliver the same, minus the chili. he was a huge fan of the sour cream, happily dipping his chips into the sour cream. needless to say, we all stuffed ourselves.

tuesday, march 31st: sweet and sour pork with sweet peas, green pepper, pineapple, and rice. oliver couldn't get enough rice, as usual. this really hit the spot.

thursday, april 2nd: cordon bleu brats (i.e., containing ham and swiss cheese) from rupenas, with grilled onions, on pretzel rolls, sauteed peas and carrots, and tater tots. oliver couldn't stuff enough tater tots into his mouth, which was both amusing and slightly dangerous. luckily, he didn't choke - every time he opened his mouth to add another, one would fall out and make room.

friday, april 3rd: roast chicken, spaghetti squash, and roast sweet potatoes with bacon.

saturday, april 4th: we used the leftover roast chicken from the night before to make a southwestern style caesar salad for lunch, by adding one of bryan's (homemade) chipotles en adobo to his (homemade) caesar dressing, along with, of course, his (homemade) croutons.

for dinner, we had our neighbors bill & eileen over. i made a garlic and herb stuffed roast pork, potato pancakes, marmalade glazed carrots, and rye bread. for dessert, we had black & white brownies. everyone was very pleased, and very, very full.

sunday, april 5th: i took on a very big project, and decided to cook an authentic indian meal. a friend from work, amulya, loves to cook, so we trade tips. she sent me a great website with indian recipes, so i planned to attempt baby brinjals in masala sauce. amulya brought me the ingredients i didn't have: chana dal, urad dal, and curry leaves. she also brought me some bay leaves as big as my hand, from india. i toasted and ground the initial mixture, which i think was supposed to come out as a powder, but became a paste for me. i was having problems grinding it in the food processor, and ended up needing to add extra tamarind concentrate and water. i also added chicken thighs and legs, to make it a full meal. i seared the chicken and added onions before adding the eggplant and proceeding with the recipe. i wasn't able to find the baby or thai eggplant i was hoping to, so i used some smaller eggplant instead, which i cubed. i was a little disappointed that the curry tasted like yellow curry; i was expecting something different. however, it was still very interesting to see how to make that curry totally from scratch, and definitely made me appreciate the flavors even more - and the flavor was good, very good. everyone loved it, even oliver! i served the curry with fragrant rice, which i made by sauteeing the rice in peanut oil along with ginger garlic paste (simply grated ginger, garlic, a pinch of tumeric, and an even smaller pinch of salt), a cinnamon stick, corriander seeds, curry leaves, saffron, and mustard seeds. i placed the entire mixture into the rice cooker, and cooked as normal. the rice was absolutely fantastic this way. i think the rice was everyone's favorite part of the meal. bryan and i generally aren't huge on rice, but i think fragrant rice will become a staple in our repertoire. we also had some afghani flatbread with sesame seeds that was outstanding - soft and pillowly, it was the perfect thing to wipe every last bit of sauce off the plate. overall, a very good meal (even though i'm not sure i did it quite right!); definitely worth the effort.

monday, april 6th: pasta with sausage, mushrooms, and cognac, with spinach. by adding spinach at the end, we made this a one pot meal, and a very delicious one at that. so tasty, oliver even ate his spinach without any complaints.

WFD tomorrow: aunt mo & uncle tom are coming over so bryan can help them determine which new tvs to buy, and they're bringing pizza. holla!

and the other things...

we've been up to the normal recently - working, running errands, trying to relax and failing miserably. oliver actually had some tummy troubles week before last, so we had a long 4 day weekend wherein we pretty much stayed home, and bryan and i agreed that even with the tummy issues, it was a GREAT weekend, doing nothing. we'll have to try that again sometime.

oliver has been doing well lately, getting bigger and bigger, learning more and more - perfecting his temper tantrums, talking, and climbing, mostly. the boy has NO FEAR.

even though it's been a little chilly, we set up oliver's new (to us) climbing cube/slide toy. he loves it - he can get himself up on the ledge and down the slide by himself, and has begun to figure out how to climb all over it (much to his mother's dismay).

the boy loves to be outside. since the weather has been relatively mild, we try to play outside every evening before or after dinner. the cold never quite seems to bother him. he loves using his slide, playing basketball, dragging around bryan's rake, and generally running around the yard. he's actually started counting to 3, i think just in repetition of us throwing the basketball at the hoop on the count of 3. still, it's pretty cute.

it snowed here, again, saturday before last. we took oliver out in the snow for a little while, though he still wasn't sure what to do with it, and wasn't a big fan. he enjoyed holding a snowball - until he tried to eat it. then it wasn't as fun. they've actually been predicting more snow, but we have yet to see any (thank goodness). seriously, WHEN is spring going to arrive?

i also got him a rocking horse recently, a fancy model that looks like a stuffed horse (and which will make noise, and move it's tail and head, if we ever decide to put batteries in it). i had stopped to check out a local consignment shop, and when i found it, i just knew oliver had to have it. it's pretty adorable, my little cowboy and his horse!

(he's actually a well traveled cowboy - he takes safaris too!)

a few other random playtime pics:

ahhh, my adorable little munchkin. the kid can be crazy (apparently the insane crazy tantrums start at 18 months - not to mention he has inexplicably become literally terrified of baths overnight), but what a sweet, cute little boy - usually.

of course, there are more pictures in the gallery. apparently, i've already taken over 400 pictures with the new camera. what can i say, my child is cute!

baby jane

2009-03-25T09:54:00.013-05:00

our NEW camera arrived on monday! i have not yet decided on a name for it, although everyone's favorite so far appears to be nell carter (yea, thanks carrie! ;)

so far, i *LOVE* the camera. it handles low light amazingly. i have yet to read the manual (ugh - not looking forward to that), so i'm anxious to figure out some of the features. i need to play with the mode/isos in order to find the optimum shutter speed - the auto/basic settings need your subject to be sitting rather still. oliver, it turns out, does not comply. he's a bouncy little boy, ever on the move.

i'm still rather happy with the quality - MUCH better than our old camera! you can check out all the pics i've been taking here (including a few videos of oliver being a dancing fool to the beastie boys) and here, but here's a small sample. these were all taken indoors, in the evening, sans flash.

and as long as i'm here...

sunday, march 22nd: cognac shrimp bisque, salad with homemade caesar dressing and croutons. this was very good. light and subtly complex. we added a little hot sauce to the soup at the table. i expected the bisque to be more shellfish-y, as it was made with shrimp stock, but was pleasantly surprised when it was not.

tuesday, march 24th: 16 bean soup and corndog muffins (that's right, we white trashed it up!). the soup was a crockpot recipe, and was intended for monday's dinner, but the beans weren't fully cooked by dinnertime. the recipe does not have you soaking the beans the night before, normally a prerequisite for cooking with dried beans. we figured it would be ok since they were in the crockpot all day. i think the problem, though, was that the chicken stock we added was frozen, so it probably took an hour or two to defrost, thereby giving the beans less time to cook. we finished cooking it and reheated it on the stove for dinner last night. the recipe suggests serving them with the corndog muffins, and i had some hot dogs to use up, so i figured why not? well, other than the obvious reason, of course. i made my favorite cornbread recipe, mixed in chopped hot dog, and baked as muffins. they weren't bad, and oliver certainly loved them. i did rename them white trash muffins, though, because hey - why lie?

i've become rather addicted to craigslist this week. we've used to before, both to buy and sell things. i decided i really wanted to have a bunch of outdoor toys so oliver and i can spend as much time outdoors in the nice weather as possible, and instead of buying new, that we would buy used. it made so much more sense, especially since those toys can get so expensive! now, however, i am afraid i am addicted (not that i much care, though bryan may have something else to say about it). there's just so many great deals - so far, i've gotten a ride on "bike" style toy (like a tricycle without wheels - in the pictures above) for $5, the sit and spin zebra also pictured above for $20 (which are $55 new), and one of those climbing cubes with a slide (similar to this one) for $55 (which run about $120 new). i keep combing the site for more deals every day, too. not that oliver is spoiled, or anything.

WFD: moroccan vegetable stew with couscous. includes leeks, tomatoes, carrots, zucchini, potatoes, celery, and chickpeas. bryan will also serve with chicken legs, since the man needs his meat, and i kind of cheated him on that last night. yum.

oops

2009-03-21T19:42:00.036-05:00

so, i had lost our camera last weekend. adrianne and shannon were in town, and i had taken some great pictures with them. we had gone to the history museum with mom and adrianne on saturday, and had used it there, but i knew we had the camera when we were home because i took pictures of lunch. but then sunday, we couldn't find it. we had gone out to dinner with mom and adrianne that night, but hadn't brought the camera. it had simply disappeared. we had to figure it had fallen out of my purse somewhere, or oliver had "put it away" at some point. we looked EVERYWHERE (or so we thought). so, not wanting to go too long without a camera, and since we wanted to buy a nicer one at some point this year anyways, we went ahead and ordered this one from fuji. i had wanted a dslr, but bryan did not (he didn't want to mess with lenses), and even though he doesn't actually take any of our pictures, he won. apparently, however, this camera performs just like a dslr, but you cannot change the lens. i am very excited to get the new camera. i was just upset at the cute pictures we lost.

HOWEVER.

guess what i found today? yep, our camera. it was in one of the compartments of the stroller. i forgot that last saturday, after oliver's nap but before going out for dinner, we had gone on a walk. DAMN. since the new camera not only already shipped, but is in this state ready for delivery, we will just now have two cameras.

oops.

so let's get down to business.

wednesday, march 4th: thick cut pork chops, feta wheatberry salad, and whole wheat rolls with salt. mom dropped off some rolls that day, and we thought they would go perfectly with this meal (they did!). i think the feta wheatberry salad will become a favorite summer dish. it was so good, and so easy. bryan and i both love a greek salad of cucumber, red onion, roasted red pepper, parsley, and feta in a red wine vinaigrette, and the simple addition of the wheatberries made it to die for.

thursday, march 5th: pizza and beer, a classic combination. bryan's infamous pizza crust always makes me swoon. schlitz beer has made a comeback, and bryan has decided to switch his everyday beer to that brand. support the home team, and all. it's pretty good. though be sure to get the bottles, not the cans - apparently the bottles is the good, old '60s formula, while the cans is the crappy '80s formula. or something. i don't know about the details of the beer, just the part where it goes well with pizza.

friday, march 6th: pecan crusted catfish with sweet potato hash and tabasco beurre blanc, sweet peas. this had been a dish on this season's top chef, and while we weren't huge fans of the chef that made it (although he did end up winning), the dish itself sounded very attractive to me. it helps that i love hot sauce, i guess. this was fabulous. we almost didn't make the sweet potato hash; i hadn't planned on it, but bryan wanted to make it. and i'm SO glad we did, because it was amazing. of course, it was sweet potatoes fried in bacon fat, how could it not be? we didn't use tabasco brand hot sauce, and we decided not to use bryan's homemade hot sauce either, since it would have been too hot and overpowering (having been made with habaneros). it was scrumptious (and not quite as day-glo orange as it appears in the picture).

sunday, march 8th: roast chicken with pan sauce, homemade french fries, and artichokes with homemade garlic aioli. need i say more? oh, only that i made a compound butter with lemon zest, parsley, and rosemary to stuff liberally under the skin of the chicken. mom and dad joined us for dinner, and there wasn't much left over (the fries were devoured the fastest, i believe). although we are not huge fans of poultry, this meal may be the epitome, to me, of simple, easy, honest, and perfectly delicious home cooking.

monday, march 9th: chicken enchiladas. using bryan's homemade chile paste. one of the dishes that he used to woo me early in our relationship. turns out, it still works.

tuesday, march 10th: shepherd’s-style rigatoni with ricotta and irish country sausage, roasted cauliflower. a very simple dish that everyone loved. keeper!

thursday, march 12th: sweet potato and black bean burritos with brown rice and tomatillo salsa. bryan roasted the sweet potatoes, and we threw everything else together in whole wheat flax seed tortillas, topped with cilantro, and dug in. adrianne was in town and ate dinner with us. not our usual combination, but good enough to become one.

saturday, march 14th: for lunch, i made tomato soup and grilled cheese for us, mom, and adrianne. the soup recipe calls for cream cheese at the end, but since we were having grilled cheese, i skipped it completely. a very delicious lunch. it turns out oliver loves tomato soup!

and now, since we did not have our camera the following week, text only, sadly:

monday, march 16th: chinese lemon chicken with rice, snow peas, and bell pepper. bryan used a crockpot recipe as the idea, but of course used real lemon rather than lemonade concentrate. oliver loves asian food and rice, so this was a hit with him. i love lemons, so it was a hit with me as well.

tuesday, march 17th: beef stew with whole wheat molasses bread. mom, dad, and shannon came over to celebrate st. patrick's day with us. the weather turned out to be in the 70s, so not the best day for stew, but it was delicious anyways, especially with the bread. can you believe i didn't even have a beer, though?

thursday, march 18th: thai tofu butternut squash with asian vegetables and rice noodles. bryan and oliver were over the moon with this one.

friday, march 20th: mascarpone chicken with pasta, and spinach with red pepper and garlic. we again used a crockpot recipe as the inspiration, but did it on the stove and changed a few things. bryan made his homemade cream of mushroom soup to use, and i bought mascarpone instead of cream cheese. bryan seared the chicken breasts, simmered them in the soup, and added the mascarpone. simple as that. when i told oliver there was cheese (mascarpone), he got very excited for dinner, and kept saying "cheese! cheese!" until we put him in his chair and gave him some.

saturday, march 21st: bbq buffalo with cornbread. bryan had wanted me to make something with buffalo, and include my cornbread. i decided to go bbq style, and browned the meat along with onion, then added diced yellow squash, diced sweet potatoes, and green beans, and mixed in some annie's bbq sauce. topped with the cornbread batter, and baked. this took literally no time to put together, and was very good.

and what else?

oliver had a bit of a woopsie last week monday. when i picked him up from day care, they had just gotten back from their walk. we took him out of his stroller and let him walk up the driveway with everyone while rachel and i chatted. i carried him over a puddle, and when i set him down, he either tripped over his own feet or thought i was still holding on, and went forehead first into the driveway. ouch. he got a pretty nasty scratch on his forehead, but was over it pretty quickly. i was just glad it wasn't his nose or mouth.

last week thursday, adrianne showed up to spend some of her spring break with us. as i mentioned, she joined us for dinner that evening, and oliver had quite a fun time showing off for her.

last week friday, shannon came to spend her spring break here as well. i had a party after work, which i stopped into for a short time before heading over to mom and dad's house so we could all have dinner together. they grilled chicken, ribs, salmon, and asparagus. oliver very much enjoyed having multiple grilled meats at his disposal.

the next morning, we headed down to the museum with mom and adrianne. i think oliver's favorite part is the butterfly room. he recently picked up the word butterfly ("buy"), so it was pretty fun watching him run around yelling "buy! buy! buy!" although, the butterflies are a little too inured to the presence of humans, which is unfortunate around a 16 month old. we had to do a lot of very active policing of him and his fingers!

we had a blast running all around the museum all morning. i think mom and adrianne wanted to actually look at exhibits, which is hard to do with an active 16 month old in tow. still, we all had fun.

after the museum, we all headed back to our house for lunch and then a nap. after nap time, we went on that walk (whereby the camera was "lost"). the weather was so beautiful, we couldn't resist walking through the park. after a quick run through target (i swear, we can't stop moving), we headed off to margarita paradise to meet mom and adrianne for mexican food (and margaritas - though i ended up having a mojito).

this past week, shannon offered to babysit for us, so we jumped on the chance and met my cousin jamie for pizza at wells brothers. we had read about the place as being one of the top 10 pizza places in the world, and in talking to people who had gone, knew we just had to go. so we left oliver with shannon, hopped in the car, and took a 50 minute drive - for pizza. about halfway there, bryan asked where the heck we were going? haha. :) but - it was worth it. the pizza was outstanding. super thin crust, which i'm not normally a fan of, but this was soft and delicious, and the edges were caramelized. we sat at the bar, and the bartender was very friendly and knowledgeable about the history of the place (opened 1921, making pizza using the same recipe since the 1940s), AND he was able to deal with bryan's silly questions. so, although it was a long drive, we'll be sure to go back. we had a lot of fun hanging out with my cousin, eating after 5pm, and being out after dark (though we were still home around 9:30). i had a few beers to make up for missing out on st. patrick's day.

our weekend is shaping up nicely. bryan wanted to check out some garden statues, so after oliver's morning nap (necessitated by a 5:45am wake up, grr) we headed out to waukesha to check out a place i had found in the yellow pages. um, turns out they just had headstones. oops. so we grabbed some coffee/tea instead, and went to visit our friends maggie and enrique. it had been forever since we had seen them, so it was really nice getting to visit. they are dog-sitting for a friend's miniature cocka-poo, and oliver got a total kick out of seeing a tiny dog! we stopped at culver's for lunch, checked out the new menards (a local hardware store) - 2 stories, including a ridable cart escalator, similar to the one at ikea, which had oliver so excited (he kept calling it a "choo choo"). then home for a nap (for everyone). after nap time, we headed out to get bryan and oliver hair cuts. oliver usually does very well, but started to freak out a little when she sprayed water on his head (he, like his father, has a very weird fear of water in his face - although he will dunk his face in water) SO he ended up getting a sucker so he would sit still. his first taste of candy, and he was not disappointed. back home for dinner, and then a walk through the park (and finding the camera). gorgeous weather, fun, fun day.

tomorrow morning, we're meeting mom, dad, and shannon for breakfast. then, oliver and bryan will spend the day together while i get the day to myself. i plan on hitting up macy's, going to the library, and just generally hoping both my boys are alive when i get home in the evening.

check out more pictures in the march gallery.

hopefully monday i'll have a new post with pictures using the new camera!

conflict of interest

2009-03-05T10:41:00.003-06:00

my tongue is [figuratively] bleeding, from biting it so hard.

the website where my message board resides has many boards, and i am a casual member of a few. on multiple, there are always threads regarding "how do i decrease my grocery bill?" families of 3, 4, 5, SIX wanting a grocery bill under $200/month. how one can do that and still eat food, is simply beyond me (and i mean food, not pre-packaged food products... you know, similar to cheese product - substances which resemble food but whose molecular makeup is based very little on food - and i think it has been determined that corn doesn't count, due to it's gross bastardization resulting in a total lack of nutritional value, as well as an over prevalence).

we, as americans, value quantity over quality. we want as much as we can get for as little as we can get, and the actual value of whatever we are purchasing is secondary. and why why WHY do we have to strive so hard to spend so little on something so important? food is not a luxury, it is a necessity to survive. why is it that we (and i mean the general "we", of course) elect to cut our food budget before we cut, for example, our entertainment or eating out budget? these same people who just must spend less on groceries are quite often at the same time spending $200/month on "entertainment/recreation" and just as much on "dining out." americans spend less on food than any other industrialized country in the world.

why oh why oh why?

but i do not get involved in these conversations, as my arguments will fall on deaf ears.

i am sad more people do not take the matter of nutrition - and i mean nature and common sense nutrition, not scientists' claims - more seriously. i am sad that it simply does cost more to buy fresh, whole foods rather than a box of something made in a lab.

we now have many more resources available to us, allowing us to take an active role in what we are eating. within the last 30 years, food revolutions have been taking slow hold. slow food chapters, farmer's markets, c.s.a.'s, co-ops, all sorts of local resources are popping up. and it gives me hope that as more people learn, more people will utilize these resources.

however, i think the mainstream american diet will continue to sway with whatever latest winds are blowing, telling us this is now bad for us, that is now good for us. other countries (especially the french) will continue to laugh at us. and as more and more research comes out about the real nutritional value and long term effects of not only the products available to us but also of those nutritional diet fads, it will become more clear that only one thing, really is good for us.

food. just food, plain and simple.

memo

2009-03-04T09:46:00.002-06:00

working on finding a new layout... i know exactly what i want but haven't found it yet, so please bear with me.

eating well

2009-03-02T12:04:00.030-06:00

friday, february 20th: chili dogs. not sure what placed the idea in my head, but i wanted chili dogs. which is kind of funny to me, seeing as how i've had them all of probably once before in my life. bryan made a slightly spicy chili using the Red Gold diced tomatoes with green chiles. they added a little bit of kick, but overall weren't very hot. still, spicy enough that oliver didn't get any.

sunday, february 22nd: mom and dad joined us for dinner. i made country style pork ribs in an egg lemon sauce with mashed potatoes and celeriac. the meat recipe was from Lobel's Meat and Wine. it was very, very good, and combined two of my favorite things - pork and lemon. for dessert, i made a flourless chocolate torte, which i served with fresh blackberries. i used a new torte recipe, which didn't set quite right, so it was a little more pudding like. no one had any complaints, though - just second helpings.

tuesday, february 24th: crockpot mongolian beef with udon noodles and asian vegetables. this didn't turn out tasting quite like i thought it would, but pretty close to mongolian beef, and still very good either way. oliver really loved it as well, especially the noodles coated in the sauce. he really seems to like asian flavored dishes!

wednesday, february 25th: with bryan too sick to eat, i was able to make a meatless dish for ollie and i, so i decided to throw together a quick pasta primavera style dish. i sauteed a can of Red Gold tomatoes with onions and garlic, added some white wine, oregano, and vegetables (peas, carrots, and beans), heavy cream, and parmesan, and tossed all that with pasta. it turned out even better than i expected, and it was a huge hit with oliver as well.

saturday, february 28th: winter greens lasagne, to which i added some sweet italian sausage made at the outpost, and served just with some garlic bread. this is one of my favorite pasta dishes, and everyone else liked it as well (though oliver wouldn't eat the greens this time, whereas last time he gobbled them up just fine). for dessert, i made some butterscotch chip cookies, which i then used to make ice cream sandwiches, along with some brown sugar ice cream. oliver was not allowed to partake in dessert, being the mean mommy that i am. they were good, though i am assured the cookies were the best part. bryan and his dad, who was staying with us, continued to nibble on the leftover cookies.

sunday, march 1st: shannon had emailed a pancake recipe which she swore was absolutely delicious. it involved buttermilk, wheat germ (which she substituted flax seed for), and no sugar (just honey). mom had some extra flax seed she gave me, and i endeavored to try the recipe for sunday breakfast. the recipe also calls for whole wheat pastry flour, which i didn't think i had (but it turns out i did) so i used regular unbleached all-purpose flour. shannon didn't lie - these were very good. oliver ate 2; actually taking the last half of his second to the museum with bryan and bill, refusing to let it go, and snacking on it all while they were there. i had lunch waiting for them when they arrived home: tofu coconut curry. bryan had wanted to use up the small amount of brown rice we had left, so i made that and made up the rest. using the wok, i sauteed green onions and garlic, then the red pepper, snow peas, and tofu; added coconut milk, red curry, and lime. topped the brown rice with the curry, and a sprinkling of cilantro leaves. oliver, who normally is a huge fan of peas, wasn't too keen on the snow peas, but he loved the tofu in the coconut curry! for bill's last night in town, we decided on a lamb dinner: mustard crusted pork chops, mustard greens with walnuts and lemon, giant lima beans with onions, lemon zest, and parsley, and pita bread. bryan and bill, the resident lamb lovers, were very, very happy. for dessert, i made cottage pudding, which is a cake with warm lemon sauce. this is definitely one of my favorite desserts, and a strong childhood memory. my mom made it, and her mom before, and her mom before that... needless to say, this recipe has been in my family for some time.

monday, march 2nd: anasazi enchiladas. i already knew i liked this recipe a lot, and bryan and ollie became big fans, too. i used feta instead of ricotta, and topped with a local raw milk jack cheese instead of monterry jack and cheddar. oliver loves beans and tortillas, and i'm sure the sweet sauce didn't hurt anything. bryan liked it so much he forgave me the abuse of serving him a meatless meal.

tuesday, march 3rd: chicken gratin with onion sauce and gruyere, wild rice, and roast squash. the chicken recipe was also from the Lobel's cookbook, and i loved it. the sauce was onions, dijon, and creme fraiche, and the addition of a lovely local, aged gruyere didn't hurt anything either. oliver loved the wild rice, as he loves all things rice, but wasn't a big fan of the chicken (silly boy). i am contemplating ice cream for dessert.

WFD tomorrow: thick cut pork chops and feta wheatberry salad.

we have some delicious meals planned over the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned! also trying to find good uses for those Red Gold tomatoes.

we haven't been up to much lately. oliver has had a string of colds (hello, winter in wisconsin!) with some pretty serious coughing (though the pediatrician assures us it's just a cold). bryan was near his death bed with some flu-like symptoms recently as well. keeping busy with housework, errands, and playing with oliver, mostly.

bryan's dad, bill, flew in this past saturday for a quick weekend visit, leaving us yesterday. it was nice getting to see him, and having him see how much ollie has grown since he saw him last fall. we didn't do a ton while he was here: he accompanied us to the outpost to do our shopping saturday, and sunday, he and bryan took oliver to the museum while i had some alone time (during which, instead of lounging and reading as i had planned, i did more laundry, baked a cake, made the marinade for the lamb, vacuumed, and folded yet more laundry).

this weekend, bryan is taking me out on a date to the the watchmen. we both very much enjoy the superhero movies they have been making as of late, so we're both looking forward to seeing this. plus, i never thought going to the movies would be so darn exciting. see what having a baby does to you? mom has agreed to tend to little oliver.

and now for the cute baby pictures:

the disaster zone (monday, february 23rd)

my little musical prodigy (tuesday, february 24th)

i swear the cabinet's not empty yet, dad (tuesday, february 24th)

and some museum pics from sunday:

learning about indians with grandpa bill

and dinosaurs too

posing with dad

be sure to check out the additional pictures in the february and march galleries, especially the videos of oliver dancing to lucinda williams here and here!

free stuff

2009-02-19T19:29:00.063-06:00

as usual, i have a TON to catch up on, but before that... i have some free schwag to give away!

a PR rep for Red Gold Tomatoes contacted me. he stumbled across my blog, and offered me some free product and merch for my readers (you lucky dogs, you). i've got a cutting board, a T shirt, some key chains, a hat, and some other stuff, so email me if you're interested. they sent a recipe book along with various cans of their tomatoes, so i'll be trying out some meals from there and reporting back to you.

the tomatoes are all natural, to some degree (no preservatives), though as they are not organic, from what i can tell, they still use fertilizers and pesticides. red gold does not have their own fields; they have farmers growing the tomatoes for them. however, the tomatoes are grown in actual fields, not hot houses, thus during actual growing seasons (not year round as a hot house would allow). so that's a plus. i've used them a few times in the past, but my normal brand is Muir Glen, so i'll be sure to let you know how they size up!

and on to everything else...

wednesday, january 28th: homemade black bean burgers topped with cheddar, lettuce, and a scallion lime aioli; sweet potato fries. bryan and i aren't generally fans of black beans, but he made some pretty kick ass burgers, and i made a pretty kick ass aioli, if i may say so myself.

thursday, january 29th: sausages with red onions, stewed lentils, and roasted acorn squash. oliver loves sausage, so it was no surprise that he ate his without any problem. what was a little bit more of the surprise was how much he loved the lentils - he had about 3 helpings.

friday, january 30th: vin santo pot roast with polenta and raisins; glazed carrots (recipe from: La Mia Cucina Toscana, by Pino Luongo). this was really quite delicious.

saturday, january 31st: while doing our grocery shopping at the outpost the previous day, friday, bryan asked our fantastic produce guys what was good. he immediately directed us to the fresh blueberries. which was lucky for bryan and oliver, since i then had fresh blueberries on hand saturday morning in order to make blueberry pancakes. this was a new recipe, using yogurt and seltzer water. it did not disappoint.

the produce guy also recommended the avocados. we decided to pick up a bunch, and utilize one with dinner saturday night. we selected a whole red snapper, which bryan poached with onions, garlic, and lime. we also had garlic lime shrimp, roasted delicata squash, and our standby of saffron rice with peas. the fish was rather sublime with the avocado. we stuffed ourselves.

sunday, february 1st: bryan made posole for lunch. using homemade chipotle peppers. he loves me, it's true.

that afternoon, as it was super bowl sunday, bryan prepped some snacks. he fried some homemade corn tortilla chips, and made a perfect guacamole with more of those avocados. it was a shame for him that i was home, because i hit the guac pretty hard. i love that stuff.

but, lucky for him, i paid him back and made 5 - count 'em, *5* - snack mixes for him to enjoy over the coming weeks:

buttermilk ranch (which oliver loved SO much he actually started saying a new word - MORE),

spicy (using bryan's homemade hot sauce),

maple honey oat raisin,

chili garlic,

and chocolate peanut butter.

i think i won the good wife award that weekend.

monday, february 2nd: ficelle picarde - crêpes filled with ham and mushroom duxelles; sweet peas. oliver, as usual surprised me, and loved the mushrooms.

tuesday, february 3rd: crockpot chicken parmesan, spinach, rolls. as expected, the breading on the chicken didn't crisp, as it was in a crockpot. the cheese also finished a little too quickly. but, for a super easy and pretty tasty weeknight meal, this hit that mark.

wednesday, february 4th: chicken carbonara.

friday, february 6th: roasted butternut squash enchiladas, suizas style. since this was a meatless dish, and bryan needs a little bit of bulk with dinner, we used sprouted wheat tortillas, which added a nice bite (as in toothiness) to the dish. bryan cubed and roasted butternut squash, which i then mixed with corn, cumin, and oregano. i stuffed the tortillas with this mixture and monterrey jack cheese, placed them on top of diced tomatoes (from our garden, which we had froze), topped with a jack cheese sauce, and baked. would you believe, these worked?

sunday, february 8th: i had a special request - bone marrow risotto. we were able to obtain some rather large beef bones from the outpost, which bryan had to use a hacksaw to shorten in order to remove the marrow. since this was a very rich dish, we simply served it with roasted spaghetti squash.

wednesday, february 11th: back around 1/20, i had made pizza casserole, which wasn't spectacular, but i wasn't ready to give up on it. this time around, i re-dubbed it pizza mac. i used pizza spiced pork sausage with the pasta and red sauce, topped it with mozzarella cheese, and then with pepperoni. by placing the pepperoni on top, the fat rendered and crisped. this time around, it was much better.

friday, february 13th: chorizo and saffron baked mac and cheese. this one sums itself up.

saturday, february 14th: ahhh, valentine's day. bryan and i hadn't come up with any plans for our semi romantic dinner (i say semi, as i had a 15 month old rubbing food up and down my left arm). while shopping at the outpost that morning, they had some very lovely whole rainbow trout, so i picked two of those up. bryan broiled the trout and made a white wine lemon dill cream sauce, hashed browns, and sweet peas. i think i've mentioned this before, but i love this sauce. the fish was very good; the whole meal was. for dessert, i made homemade chocolate pudding with a graham cracker topping. i think this dessert made him fall in love with me all over again, so it was perfect for valentine's day. and i must admit, the pudding was pretty damn delicious. bryan now wants it on a regular basis.

sunday, february 15th: on recommendation from my friend (and oliver's godfather) chris, i took the leftover hash browns, mixed them with sour cream, milk, and cheese, and left them in the fridge overnight. sunday morning, i topped them with more cheese, sliced green onions, and baked them. that, along with niman ranch bacon and an egg white omelette with cheddar and tomatillo salsa (we had some extra egg whites leftover, the yolks used in the pudding). everyone was very happy that sunday morning.

monday, february 16th: crockpot tofu in peanut sauce, with spinach. oliver wasn't a giant fan of the tofu, but rice and spinach in a peanut butter based sauce? yes, please! the sauce was a little thick and peanut butter-y, so i think it could stand a little change, but overall, not too bad.

thursday, february 19th: crockpot chicken makhani (indian butter chicken), with peas and rice. this was a big, giant hit with everyone. the chicken was falling off the bone tender. i omitted the cayenne, so that oliver would eat it, and eat it he did - 2 helpings. one taste and he couldn't get it into his mouth fast enough. i think next time, i would use more spices to get a more intense indian flavor, but it has been requested to be on the permanent menu nonetheless.

at the end of january, oliver had his 15 month appointment. 26.4 pounds. he's a GIANT.

and, of course, some random cute child pics:

oliver lounging in his crib, waiting for mom or dad to get up. (sunday, february 1st)

some bath time pictures from that morning (necessitated by allowing him to feed himself oatmeal for breakfast):

(yes, he is saying MOO here)

lovin' up the dogs

reading a book about seurat with dad

the weekend before last (saturday, the 7th), the weather was phenomenal - not only was it above freezing, it was nearly 50 degrees. we headed to the zoo for the day, which was perfect. the weather couldn't have been better for this time of year, and oliver had an absolute blast looking at the animals.

our first stop was the dairy barn. oliver was so incredibly thrilled to see cows, which are easily one of his favorite animals. he was so happy, it was so cute. he kept yelling "MOO! MOO!" at them. we probably could have stayed there all afternoon.

hitchin' a ride with dad

checking out the monkeys

big huge lizard

oliver very much enjoyed running from aquarium to aquarium in the reptile house. he did much better at actually checking out the animal before running off to see the next one.

snacking, growling, and climbing things is hunger inducing (sunday, february 8th)

helping dad make dinner (thursday, february 12th)

friday the 13th, mom came over to put oliver to bed and hang out while bryan took me to the imax to see a special valentine's day presentation - a romantic tour through the stars. we agreed it was kind of cheesy, but it was cute, and a nice little date. mom teased us for being such party animals, and making it home by 9:30 pm.

on valentine's day, i got up with oliver in the morning, and bryan had placed a card from him, a card from oliver, and chocolates out for me to find. (he had gotten me red tulips the day before.) it was a very sweet thing to wake up to.

monkey see,

monkey do (sunday, february 15th)

oliver enjoying his indian butter chicken and rice (thursday, february 19th)

oliver has been sick lately. the never ending cold has had a chest wracking, phlegm-y cough added to it. he seems to be on the mend now, though. he's also been working on that last molar. for a few short weeks there, he was sleeping a solid 12 hours through the night. it was heaven. the cough and tooth ended all that, though. someday, i swear, he will sleep all night, every night. right?!

of course, there are tons more pictures in the january and february galleries.

struggles

2009-01-27T09:39:00.005-06:00

i'm feeling a little hormonal or something today, so please excuse the following rantings and ravings and perhaps over indulgent pontifications. feel free to roll your eyes.

as our nation turns towards washington, whether each individual is expecting great things or disaster, one of the issues on the forefront of most of our minds is the economy. i don't know that anyone can argue that it's not a mess, and i think things are tight for a lot of us.

on my message board, we had a discussion regarding incomes and relativity. how $100,000 affords varying levels of financial comfort across different states, for example. a mid-level 4 bedroom house that could cost $1,000,000 in california might cost $400,000 in another state, or $200,000 in another. it's really kind of an interesting concept to think through, cost of living. it is something that, aside from our choice of locale (when possible), we don't have any direct control over.

then there are the things we do have direct control over - our monthly expenses. some things are required (such as a mortgage or rent, electricity, water), and some things, no matter how adamantly we say we can't live without them, are luxuries (such as cable tv). still, in both categories, we make decisions (to our varying levels of financial ability) on how much to spend.

could our mortgage be smaller? sure. we could have bought a smaller house (though the 4 rooms are filling up fast). we could have bought a house that needed work. or, we could be renting. there is a finite range we can operate in, but it is a range that offers us choices.

what our struggle right now is the way we buy food. we spend more than your average american on food each month. it is a conscious decision we made, in order to lead a lifestyle we think is important for our family, and for the earth. local and natural (not necessarily organic) is essential to us. we could probably nearly halve our monthly expenses on food if we shopped at the supermarket, and if we returned to buying processed foods, easily halve the bill.

before we were married, we began doing all our grocery shopping at atlanta's dekalb farmer's market, a place i still miss dearly. the ydfm is the mecca of food shopping in atlanta - they have everything, from all over the world. they are a literal warehouse. they have dry goods from everywhere, every nationality. their spice selection a dream (in both the actual selection and the price). they have produce you've never seen before. after shopping there, a supermarket's produce section is positively embarrassing; a pathetic display of sad looking produce, and a measly selection at that. the seafood, the meats, the cheeses. i miss our saturday mornings there. and we took full advantage of every department, spending quite possibly more at times than we do even now. but we could afford to (speaking just numbers): we shared a rented house with 3 other renters, so all our bills were fractions of a whole. looking back, i do wish we had worked harder to save more, but don't you always?

i remember when we were first married, we were serious pros at grocery shopping. we were renting our own house, our bills increased; we were trying to spend less. we would, on average, save 30-40% off our bill: spend $150, save $100. i meal planned by buying almost only things that were on sale, and more often than not, on sale AND with a coupon. but what products have coupons? things in boxes, packages. we bought lots of those frozen boxes of vegetables "with sauce", for example. we would still go to the farmer's market sometimes, we would still buy some things fresh. bryan was also working nights at the time, so we only ate dinner together a few days a week, which made cooking a lesser priority. was it healthy to eat those processed foods? no. but it was economical.

we moved, we got raises, bryan began working days: whatever the reason, we bettered our standard of living. we began shopping at the farmer's market again, and discovered the buford farmer's market as well. we had dinner parties. we only ate bell & evans chickens. my wine rack was always stocked. hannah, 4 years old at the time, had something click in her cute little head, and decided she no longer wanted kraft macaroni and cheese or chef boyardee - she wisely decided that whatever we were having was fine. we spent more than the average american on food. we were refining our lifestyle to that of a yuppie couple. but, it was more than that - food was our hobby. that's what we wanted.

and so it continued. when we moved to milwaukee, we struggled to find the same types of places to shop. there were no giant, indoor, year round "farmer's" markets (and if i'm wrong, please let me know!). last spring, we joined a csa with a farm we love (and have signed up with again for this year). bryan planted a garden, which will have more focus and, i'm guessing, productivity, this summer. but we didn't have the same resources. so we shopped at the "better" of the supermarkets, buying natural and/or organic where we could.

last summer, i read The United States of Arugula: The Sun Dried, Cold Pressed, Dark Roasted, Extra Virgin Story of the American Food Revolution. while i knew some of the information presented by the book, and had an inkling about others, i had no idea about some of the details. it was by reading this book that it cemented in my mind that we had to do what we knew was right all along: buy local, buy natural, be conscious of the commercial machine. we joined the outpost, a local co-op linked into local resources, supplying with non-local products when local was not feasible (or economical, to a certain degree). all their products are natural (which, contrary to popular belief, is sometimes a stricter standard than organic). we didn't go into this blind. we knew it would cost us more. and we saw our food bill begin to rise.

but in now reading michael pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, which goes into far more detail (and so if you don't want to know, then i highly suggest you don't read it, because once you do, you cannot forget, or look at some food products in the same way again), i know we have to do this. there are a lot of reasons why we make this commitment, and i won't go into them here, because that's not the reason for this post. suffice to say i realize 100% that this is our decision, our commitment, and that not everyone shares the same view. and i don't have any opinion on that one way or another; i certainly don't think less of anyone because they don't have the same opinion as me. and yes, i do realize that outside of eating only what we ourselves prepare at home, not all the "bad" things can be avoided. and that's fine. we just do our best, we control what we can.

my most immediate struggle is orange soda. silly, right? i love orange soda. when bryan and i were on isla mujeres, in mexico, it was the most popular drink on the island. so we ended up drinking a lot of it during our stay. when we got home, we found we had developed a taste for it, so continued to buy orange soda. we developed an affection for the sunkist brand, and so continued to buy it. i realized only the other week that while i desire to avoid HFCS (again, for possibly non-obvious reasons that i won't enumerate here), sunkist orange soda is loaded with it. which i wouldn't mind so much if it were an occasional treat. but, i like to bring an orange soda to work with me. it's something to look forward to with lunch. and i'll have a few on the weekends as well. i may be drinking less soda than the average american, but by drinking it every day, it was not an occasional indulgence. the problem is that buying orange soda made with actual sugar is over twice as expensive as buying one with HFCS. how can i justify spending over $7 for 12 cans of soda made with cane sugar, when HFCS soda is $3 for the same amount? it's a dilemna i haven't yet solved.

the fact of the matter is, it costs more to buy local/natural/organic. and that sucks, plain and simple. the decision to do this was in part simple, but also based on a complex set of details, but the immediate effect is quite simple - you pay more, and that sucks. i quite often hear a little nagging voice in my head, telling me how much we could save (literally right into our savings account) by not shopping this way. i could go back to the supermarket and get everything under one roof. i could try to not care about all the details. it's the longer reaching effects that aren't so simple to see, and it's those things i have to remind myself to consider at those times. not only is it our hobby and thus the thing we want to invest in, buy "only the best" for. but it's also so important to us, we believe, for both our personal health as well as the health of the earth. so it's a struggle, constantly. we are lucky enough (and i say luck, but we also worked hard to get where we are) to be in a position to mostly be able to afford to do so. but not everyone has the same opportunity or ability. we'll continue to limp along and make it a priority, and hope that the economy gets better, and things get easier. our garden will grow, we'll become more familiar with what we can attain locally on our own. we'll find new places and new ways to shop.

some people think i get crazy about all this stuff, and i guess i kind of do. i am very, very passionate about it. food is my religion. food is tied to the world population, her economy and politics, and the world itself - terra firma (and not so firma; water and air, too). in my mind, it's all part of the same whole and thus inseparable from my beliefs, spiritual and otherwise. whether you believe in god, allah, mother nature, or no one, whatever created this earth - divine or scientific - should be respected. it is the earth that nourishes us. and if you've ever had sugar snap peas directly from the vine and still warm from the sun, or fresh baked bread direct from the oven and slathered in sweet cream butter, or seen that guy at your local korean population's favorite noodle place literally beat and twist and cut noodle dough in a way that looks like magic, or listened the the abuela teach someone how to make a mole with all 38 ingredients and their measurements remembered solely in her head, or eaten bryan's chile paste or chicken jello or hot sauce or tamales - all grown and made and handled and shared with the intent of pure love - then maybe you understand me a little.

too tired for cleverness

2009-01-26T09:49:00.012-06:00

so i realized i forgot to mention oliver's little mishap. two fridays ago, day care called right as bryan was leaving to pick oliver up to say that oliver had fallen. he was walking around with a duplo block in his mouth, and fell on his face. she said he bled a good bit and was quite upset, but that the bleeding had slowed and he seemed to be doing better. he was in a fine mood when he got home, but when we sat down to dinner, he cried when trying to eat anything or drink from his sippy. he was too upset to let me look in his mouth, and was eventually able to eat alright, although he still had problems with the cup. after his bath, while getting him dressed, he wanted his cup but started bawling. i took a look and sure enough - one of his front teeth was knocked backwards. i couldn't wiggle it, but of course touching it started it bleeding again. i gave him some motrin and we drove over to children's hospital urgent care. since we were there right at bedtime, i thought oliver was going to be a monster, but by then the motrin had kicked in and he seemed fine - smiling and playing and charming everyone (the doctor even said he made her night, being the only smiley patient she had). the doctor said, yep, he knocked his tooth back, but it's hardly loose and he should be ok, just keep giving him motrin and it should tighten up in a few days. of course, as we were there chatting with the doc (who we really loved, by the way!), he was walking around with a tongue depressor in his mouth (she gave it to him to play with while she checked him out) - and HE FELL. mother of the year, right here. luckily it was more of a stumble, and wasn't on his face, and the doctor has twin 2 year olds so she "gets" it. yikes. by the next morning, he was doing just fine (though i cringed every time a utensil or cup hit the tooth), and it seemed to tighten up very quickly. it's still pushed a tiny bit back, but he recovered just fine. and it turns out that as the mother of a daredevil little boy, i need to grow much thicker skin. i realized on the way to the hospital that it was the first in a presumably long line of trips to the hospital with this little boy. good thing children's is only a few minutes away, and the regular hospital is literally behind our house.

so let's get to the delicious things!

saturday, bryan and i made what he dubbed the perfect winter meal: lemon braised beef shanks with beer and bacon macaroni and cheese and sauteed lacinto kale. i made the shanks in a dutch oven on top of the stove rather than the crockpot. since we were planning on making the kale and pasta, i skipped the mushrooms, carrots, and potatoes the recipe called for. i also used 2 onions instead of 1. and since our shanks were bone-in, i skipped the flour, knowing the marrow would help thicken the sauce. i let it simmer for about 3 hours, and it was delicious. so, so delicious. and who can argue with beer and bacon mac and cheese?? for dessert, i made crockpot 5 layer brownies. the recipe calls for a boxed brownie mix, but i made my own (duh), and included chocolate chips. i don't have a small crockpot, so instead i layered the ingredients in a deep sided casserole dish, and placed that inside the corckpot, turned it on low, and let it cook for 5 hours. i loved them, though they were a little moist and rich for bryan. they were very fudgey, due to all the chocolate chips as well as the sweetened condensed milk, and i think they could have cooked a little longer. all and all, though, it was such a great meal.

for dinner last night, bryan proved how much he loves me, and made tamales. saturday, he boiled a pork butt with cinnamon, then yesterday, cubed it, roasted it, shredded it, and added a homemade ranchero sauce. we served those with more ranchero sauce, cilantro, sliced avocado, and homemade queso fresco (which i swear is ridiculously easy - just DON'T use a whisk like the recipe suggests, use a wooden spoon instead). bryan also made braised collard greens. oh, be still my heart. sooooooooooooo good. mom joined us for dinner, and was pretty darn happy she did. i managed to limit myself to only 2 tamales, in order to save room for dessert - mom brought banana cake with chocolate fudge frosting. the cake was so good, it nearly beat out the tamales. mom left the entire sheet cake with us, and based on the way bryan and i couldn't stop ourselves from picking at it last night, it will be gone in no time.

oliver has been having a bit of a rough go lately. he's getting his molars in. i've been waiting for and wanting this for some time, since it will make it easier for him to chew things (most notably meat), but why oh why does it have to take SO LONG?? and be so painful? saturday, i think was the worst yet for him. he had a whole body fever, and was positively miserable. he barely ate anything for lunch, and if that kid isn't eating, something is definitely wrong. as bryan finished dinner, oliver was sitting in my lap, leaning pathetically against my arm, and just crying quietly. he crashed at bed time, woke up around 3am, and bryan gave him more motrin. he woke again at 4, and i gave him a warm cup of milk and rocked him for a bit. he fell back asleep around 4:45 and slept until 9am, only waking because we went in there to rouse him from his dead sleep!!! that is insane - the kid has never done anything like that before (though i'm not complaining about getting to stay in bed until 8:30am). but no fever yesterday, and he seemed to be a little bit better. last night, starting around 12:30am, he was up every hour. ugh. COME ON TEETH!!

he was helping us cook last night. so cute. he was hanging out in his chef's hat, stirring some imagined creation in a sauce pan. he would pause and pretend to taste it - it was so adorable!! then he wanted bryan and i to try as well. doesn't get any cuter than that!

a few more pics in the january gallery.

WFD: tuna & artichoke casserole, from one of bryan's martha stewart living magazines. kinda excited.

thank you, and goodnight

2009-01-21T19:43:00.005-06:00

yesterday, the 44th president of the united states of america was sworn into office. a black man. a momentous occasion. a big note in the history books; and, hopefully, a big chapter. i still choke up thinking about the change america wants, the choice her people made, and the hope we can have for the future. i have to remind myself to be patient, but i am very excited. i haven't been proud to be red, white, and blue in a very long time, but watching the inauguration and seeing all the american flags, i have never been more proud.

another momentous occasion, to me if no one else, is that i stopped breastfeeding last weekend. thursday, january 15th was the last night i nursed oliver. it being nearly 15 months (next week saturday), i decided it was time. it was no longer necessary nourishment for him; i was only nursing him before bed (he gets cow milk the rest of the day), and he wasn't getting that much anymore. it was more for comfort. and i knew the longer we performed that ritual, the more attached to the comfort he would be, and the harder it would be to wean him. so, starting last friday night, instead of nursing for 30 minutes before bed, i gave him some [cow's] milk in his sippy, rocked and read him a story, and placed him in his crib. he wasn't very happy, but he wasn't nearly as upset as i expected him to be. he talked, fussed, moaned, and cried for awhile (close to 45 minutes), but went to sleep just fine after a visit from bryan and the magic water cup. last night and tonight, he didn't even cry when i put him in bed (he didn't go to sleep immediately, but i think him allowing me to put him into bed without nursing or a meltdown is a pretty major achievement). what i didn't expect was how hard stopping would be on me. i was ready to have my body back, ready to have those 30 minutes back, ready for oliver to go to bed on his own. but i wasn't necessarily ready to give up the 30 minutes of my day where oliver lays calmly in my lap, cuddled up tight to me, dozing off; or when he is done nursing, and breathing quietly on my shoulder. it's another milestone, yet another step to him becoming a toddler. so it's definitely bittersweet for me.

we haven't been up to much interesting. it's been nice to take it easy. this past weekend, we did have fun grocery shopping: we hit trader joe's for our staples (such as beans, bread, frozen peas, etc.), since their organic stuff is generally cheaper than at the co op; then we headed to el rey, a local mexican market; and finished the day off at the outpost. it was our first visit to el rey, and we went mainly for meats (why is it skirt steak is $12.99/lb at the supermarket and $4.99/lb at the mexican markets?), and to pick up some lunch out of their hot case/deli (pork enchiladas, bean and pork tostada, and tamales). overall, we weren't too impressed. i'm sure we'll be back to explore the dry goods some more, and possibly to get some meats, and certainly for the manteca (they do have it in giant buckets, after all), but i don't think we'll make it a regular stop. the hot foods weren't all that impressive, and they sure were happy to completely ignore us waiting to order and help their spanish speaking customers first. maybe we were just spoiled by atlanta's buford farmer's market.

this past monday i had the day off for martin luther king day. i hadn't known i had a free day until the friday before, so it was a rather pleasant surprise. i still sent oliver off to day care, and spent the day doing things i wanted to do: i cleaned the house, went to macy's, took a long soak in the jacuzzi tub, and worked on hannah's scrapbook. a few more hours in the day would have been nice, but beggars can't be choosers.

but surely, you say, even in all that boringness, you ate something good jen? of course we did, my friends. of course we did.

wednesday, january 7th: teriyaki chicken legs with rice noodles and bok choy. oliver was an immense fan of the rice noodles with teriyaki sauce, and i admit, they were quite delicious.

friday, january 9th: spanish tortilla, boring ol' buttered cauliflower (one of my and oliver's favorite vegetables).

sunday, january 11th: ropa vieja with caperberries, saffron rice, and peas.

monday, january 12th: fish tacos with horseradish sour cream slaw and a remoulade inspired sauce; pinto beans. this is my new favorite preparation for fish tacos.

wednesday, january 14th: andouille sausage with the leftover horseradish sour cream slaw on sprouted wheat buns, homemade steak fries with a gremolata style dry herb spice.

friday, january 16th: rib eye steaks (holla!) with baked potatoes and braised fennel with whole mustard seeds.

sunday, january 18th: chicken and israeli couscous with tomato and lemon, sauteed zucchini and sunburst squash. the chicken and couscous recipe was from the martha stewart living magazine, and was scrumptious. oliver gobbled up plenty as his bedtime snack.

monday, january 19th: garlic stuffed pork roast with braised red cabbage and potato pancakes. oliver, true to his roots, stuffed some serious pork into his belly. and i can't say bryan and i didn't do the same. this meal was very, very good. the potato pancake recipe we use is from milwaukee's historic turner hall; the recipe was printed in a saveur featuring milwaukee fish fries. (for those of you who don't know, the friday fish fry is big in milwaukee. if you are a restaurant and don't do friday fish fry, you might not last.)

wednesday, january 21st: big boy burgers with pasta salad and chocolate shakes. we were out of potatoes (how did that happen?), so no fries as usual. instead, i made up a pasta salad with elbow macaroni, mayo, sour cream, peas, celery, red onion, and a few shakes of downer avenue seasoning from the spice house. it worked. oliver had *2* helpings along with his cheeseburger. no chocolate shake for him, though. yes, i am a mean, mean mommy.

tomorrow? i'm thinking brats on pretzel rolls with the leftover braised red cabbage. yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees?

and, not wanting to break a good tradition, here's your round of cute baby pics (a few more are in the january 2009 gallery):

fee fi fo fum, i smell the blood of an englishman (oliver sucking a chicken bone clean)

me llamo senor crankypants (oliver throws a fit)

now which alien movie was that again??

a series of baby blue eyes shots:

bathing booty

that's all from me, folks. i'm off to fall asleep in bed while watching this season's crappy top chef cheftestants put out uninspiring food that, at worst, i can make far better at home, and at best, i can make as well at home. is it so wrong to expect brilliance? i don't want to watch someone cook what i could cook better. le sigh. have a nice weekend!