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.}

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!

fried green tomatoes (and other southern specialities)

last we left our brave (and hungry) heroine, she was eating:

tuesday 9/9: grilled pork chops with whipped maple and thyme glaze; smoked cheddar orzo with chives; and broccoli. we picked up the whipped maple from a local maple farmer and the family farm weekend at the zoo, the previous weekend. the chives were from our garden, and the broccoli from the csa. oh, and did i mention the pork was local (from the outpost)?

wednesday 9/10: smoked pork ribs (again, local) with onion mop; corn, with plenty of butter; collard greens with bacon; biscuits. i slathered my ribs with sauce, since i like a saucy rib. it was so good i would have told myself to shut up, but my mouth was full of pork.

thursday 9/11 was csa day. bryan picked up our bounty, which included more tomatoes (which is fine until our estimated 975 tomatoes ripen), eggplant, lettuce, basil (which we really don't need, considering the 18 foot basil tree in our garden), beets (so many beets!), cauliflower, lettuce, swiss chard, garlic, and radishes (which are just calling out to be lightly warmed in butter).


friday 9/12: bryan picked some unripe and thus green tomatoes from our garden, dredged them in cornmeal and breadcrumbs, and fried them up. he also made cornmeal fried chicken, and linguine with basil pesto. he didn't hear me complaining. the fried green tomatoes were a new one for me, and were pretty tasty. i can see how they would be great with a pan gravy. or remoulade (and why not shrimp?). or in a toasted cheese and bacon sandwich. or in a salad with tender baby greens, toasted pecans, and a soft cheese (take that, alice waters). let's just say i see a few fried green tomatoes in my future.


and our pièce de résistance: last night's meal. grilled lamb chops (local), with a garlic and herb marinade, which doubled as the sauce. bryan also made a traditional greek tomato and cucumber salad, with feta, onions, and a red wine vinegar dressing. he made a chickpea rice, which may seem like an unnecessary amount of grains, but let me tell you, it's not. omfg. best. lamb. ever. the lamb was from the outpost and thus local. it was SO tender, and tasted nothing like what i have always thought lamb tastes like. i hate to admit it, but i think i love lamb. i just wanted to nibble it's tiny little bones clean. the marinade/sauce double agent was made of greek oregano (from our garden), mint, dill (also from our garden), garlic, spinach (the recipe called for watercress, which we weren't able to find), parsley, lemon, red wine vinegar, and, of course, olive oil. bryan used tomatoes from our csa bounty, as well as the black uglies from our garden, as a base for the salad. he included cucumber, onions, and i made sure to add plenty of feta cheese. the chickpea rice was moist and flavorful, with cassia, hot paprika (the recipe called for aleppo pepper), marjoram (the recipe called for bay, which we oddly didn't have); salt, stock, and plenty of onion. i can see how a little more time in the oven would create a lovely crust, the kind you pick off the pan at the table, even when you're full. oh, and warm pita bread, did i mention? perfect for making sure none of the sauce escaped. for dessert, i made a cornmeal cake, which we topped with quenelles of greek yogurt, mini kiwis, and drizzled with a raw, local honey. we win! i think next time i would add vanilla and cognac to the yogurt. just sayin'.

the mini kiwis were a great find. at the outpost yesterday morning, i noticed them but had no idea what they were - they looked like little, soft, sort of oblong green cherries. the produce hippie guy saw me pondering over them, and came running out, insisting that i try one right then and there. to my happy surprise, they were sweet little kiwis! they are not fuzzy like your normal kiwi, but have thin green skins you can eat. to our even greater delight, they are grown locally by a guy in mukwonago, wi (about 20 minutes from here). he has a very small farm, and the store gets maybe 60 pints in a year. we decided right then and there that they would made a perfect dessert, with greek yogurt and honey. i had wanted to make a ravani (greek semolina cake) to go with it, but forgot to pick up semolina, and hence the cornmeal cake. nobody was mad. ;)

and here ends my culinary tales (but not my culinary day dreams... we have so much rice left over, and i had noticed the other day just how many grape leaves dad has on the vine... and did you know that rice goes very well in a grape leaf? which i think sounds wonderful with the whole trout we have, perhaps grilled...).

friday, i worked from home, since i was feeling pretty lousy. half the people here at work are sick as well, so i figured i'd be better off resting at home. oliver still toddled off to day care, though, so i could get stuff done. his allergies/sinuses have been pretty bad off as well, and he seems to be teething.

the rest of the weekend was fairly normal. it was rainy all weekend, so we were stuck indoors. i think we watched the mechanics episode of blues clues ummmm 18 times. saturday morning we generally hung around the house. oliver was being a total ham and he and i were having fun playing hide and seek and "tickle me mommy!". he's started giving this super cheesy grin, where he shows all his teeth and squints his eyes closed. the picture does not do it justice.

he did manage to do pretty good with his naps, teething, stuffy nose, and all. which was good, because we had maggie's wedding saturday afternoon! mom came over and worked on school work while he napped, and bryan and i attended the ceremony (and forgot our camera, ack!). it was *beautiful*. maggie looked absolutely gorgeous. her colors were pink and orange, very festive. enrique, the groom, is mexican, so the programs were printed in both english and spanish, one reading was in english and the other in spanish, and the music was provided by an acoustic trio who sang in spanish. the music was amazing; bryan wants to hire them for his next birthday party so we can do a fieta authentica. after the ceremony, we zipped home to find oliver still napping, wonder of wonders. once he awoke, we all headed to the reception (and forgot our camera AGAIN, grr), held at the rotary building on the fox river. oliver charmed everyone he could, of course. the meal was catered by maggie & enrique's favorite mexican restuarant, casa del rio. mexican = bryan's favorite food, so he was trilled. we ate a *ton* - even oliver. we were home shortly after 7, boring married people with a kid that we are. it was a great time.

sunday, we did our outpost run, and bryan did some work around the kitchen, including prep'ing for that fab lamb dinner. ihad been hoping to start canning, but as the tomatoes are not ready and i wasn't about to attempt to do all the beets we have in 2 hours, i held off. oliver's godfather chris was in town, so he and his girl charity came over for dinner. oliver flirted mightily with charity, and was enthralled with chris' beard. i think that oliver very much enjoyed having someone else other than mom and dad to play with.

oliver's sleeping has been off, what with being sick and this teething business. i am very much looking forward to him feeling better, and me feeling better as well. fall seems to have arrived, and i really want to enjoy this gorgeous weather before we're knee deep in snow (evil, evil, evil). sigh.

WFD: pasta with chorizo and chipotle pesto cream sauce. and maybe something green, like swiss chard. that would work. and beer. doesn't beer sound good? ahh, if only i could quit my job and do FOOD all the time...