spring may have sprung *

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.}

oops

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!