sweet things

last week friday was a pretty awesome day. i skipped out of work at 12:30, along with a bunch of other coworkers, and drove up to cedarburg for a bike ride along the interurban trail. we rode from downtown cedarburg, to port washington, ending quite literally on lake michigan. it was about a 25 mile ride there and back, and we couldn't have asked for more beautiful weather. i was worried that i wouldn't make the whole ride, since it's been a long time, but the group i rode with was, shall we say, a little slower than i normally push myself. so i did fine (and was dying to go faster!). i'm looking forward to trying to squeeze in a few more rides before the real cold weather hits.

i headed home through rush hour traffic (which included some slowing due to rubber necking - apparently traffic on 43N was shut down due to a truck with animal parts falling over on the highway, and no, i sadly don't have any more details on that). bryan and oliver met me at home, where we played, ate, and i got ready to go see cirque du soleil with mom. mom and dad had bought tickets, but as dad was running a marathon sunday and decided not to stay out late, mom took me instead. we saw saltimbanco. i've seen 2 other cirque shows, but this was mom's first. this was a little different from the others in that they performed inside the bradley center arena, rather than the tents. since the arena is huge and they didn't sell out, we were able to get closer seats for free, score! mom and i really enjoyed the show. now mom is spoiled and will never think a normal circus is all that great ever again. an added bonus of the evening was that bryan had to put oliver to bed. which, given ollie's dependency on me, i wasn't sure was possible - but they did great! i think he went down even faster than he does for me, the little punk.

saturday, bryan headed out to madison to do computer whatever with dirk. oliver and i hit up the outpost to get our grocery shopping done. as usual, i had a blast, and oliver flirted with everyone. everyone thinks he is just the cutest, happiest, most well behaved baby they've ever seen. i invite any of them to come spend an afternoon with him.

bryan arrived home shortly before oliver woke up from his afternoon nap, and we all headed to the mall together to get oliver some new clothes for fall and winter. seriously, they make the *cutest* stuff for kids!! we picked up some really adorable stuff, and had fun bumming around the mall together.

that night, we made taco trash for dinner. the meal was inspired by danielle, one of the moms from my message board. i can't resist tacos, and taco trash sounded like too much fun. in short, it was tortilla chips piled with ground beef, green onions, my bread and butter pickled jalapenos, corn, pinto beans, gold tomatoes, and a cheese sauce bryan made with provolone and muenster. i forgot the sour cream. but it was very tasty! bryan had the leftovers for lunch yesterday, and said it was even better when he mixed all the toppings up before putting it on top of the chips.

sunday, i canned a bunch of beets. we had some golden super sweet beets from our csa, and a bunch of beets in our garden. so i canned some plain to have over the winter, and pickled some others. i made 1 large jar of champagne vinegar pickled beets, 2 small jars of cider vinegar pickled beets, and 3 small jars of your plain ol' white vinegar pickled beets. we'll see how they turn out!

oliver and i went to kohls to do some more shopping while bryan stayed home to watch football. i was disappointed kohls didn't have as much boy baby clothes as i had hoped, but we still managed to get a few things. including a winter jacket and snow pants! he looks freakishly adorable in the entire get up - like a big, blue, puffy marshmallow! i'm not sure how much we'll take him out in the snow this year, but at least once to try out the snow suit!

that night, mom and dad came over for dinner. bryan made an amazing timballo, a baked pasta dish inspired by the timpano dish in the food movie big night. we used italian sausage from the co op. i hadn't picked up swiss chard, thinking we had some, but we didn't - so bryan used beet green from our garden as well. we made a non dairy, gluten free version for dad using quinoa pasta. we served it with a delicious salad of iceberg and red leaf lettuce (from the csa), yellow/white and purple carrots (also from the the csa), radish (from the csa), tomatoes, and cucumber (both from our garden). the yellow/white carrots were SO sweet! the purple carrots were gorgeous. for dessert, i made individual blackberry clafoutis in my mini enameled cast iron dutch ovens. i had never made clafoutis before but had always wanted to. turns out they are a super simple dessert to make, and really hit the spot! seeing as how you can use any fruit in them, i can see myself whipping these up quite often. i had originally wanted to watch the movie while we chatted and ate, but mom had already seen it, so she got the connection with dinner. plus, blue's clues won out instead, yet again. (i dare you to try arguing with my [almost] 1 year old on that one!)

yesterday, it was back to the grind. bryan made meatloaf for dinner. YUM, i love meatloaf. he shredded a bunch of carrots into ours, which gave it a nice sweetness. we don't baste ours with ketchup (since we're opposed to ketchup for adults as a general rule) or bbq sauce, so the carrots took the place of that. bryan blanched the remaining yellow/white and orange carrots, sauteed the rest of the radishes in butter, and made a turnips and cabbage dish that grew out of confusion over whether we were having bubble and squeak or neeps and tatties. it worked, though.

this morning, bryan flew off to detriot for a work trip, so oliver and i are flying solo for a few days (and even scarier - nights). oliver slept through the night last night, so pray or do a rain dance or whatever it is you do in hopes he continues to. i plan on having early nights and lots of pasta this week.

due to the late spring and early cold (damn you, wisconsin), the majority of our tomatoes are still green. not wanting to waste any, we decided to try pickled green tomatoes. i'm hoping to get those canned tonight.

day care has friday off, so i'll be working from home to baby wrangle. i'm even flirting with the idea of taking the day, or half the day, off. we'll see how my work load is come friday.

my plan for this weekend is to hopefully pickle some escabeche, a mexican pepper and vegetable pickle. we have lots of peppers and carrots from our garden, a huge cauliflower from our csa, and lots of small green tomatoes we'd like to try including.

other than that, nothing else is on the schedule for the weekend. i need to get to the printer, and send off oliver's birthday party invites! i used my favorite website to create them, and boy are they cute!!!

speaking of, oliver got his first 1st birthday present yesterday! brent and jessica sent oliver some new books. he loooooves books. he was slightly confused by the whole gift wrap concept, but caught on pretty quickly. he definitely has a new favorite book, about a bunny's birthday! we must have read it 15 times already.


new october gallery is up!