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.}

baby jane

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.

5 christmases

christmas has come and gone, and with it, lots of full bellies and fun times. christmas is my favorite holiday, and was especially wonderful this year having oliver to celebrate with. having a child makes you see the world through new eyes, the holidays being very special. oliver was positively enchanted with all the christmas lights everywhere. it delighted me just to watch his little blue eyes go wide as we drove home from day care in the dark. i am so excited for christmas this year, when he'll understand the concept even more.

christmas eve, we made our traditional dinner of shrimp and grits with bacon and sherry, as well as some carmelized brussel sprouts. since oliver is but a babe, he had fish sticks instead (they were organic, so does that count for something?). he did help me finish my grits, though; a true southern gentleman.

after dinner, we opened one present each. bryan, eager as always, likes opening a gift on christmas eve. i prefer to do them all on christmas day. i buy the family new pjs every year, so our compromise is to open those on christmas eve. i sent hannah hers in the mail, so we could all wear our new pjs on chritmas eve. oliver wasn't entirely clear on what to do with the gift, so we helped him open it. we all got changed into our new cozy pjs, and cuddled up to read some bedtime stories.

after oliver went down, bryan and i set up all the presents (just a few, you know). then we crawled into bed to wait for santa.

christmas morning, oliver woke up around 6 as usual, and took a little time to wake up fully. i had bought him a stuffed blue from blues clues, his most favorite show, and he was throwing a hissy fit sitting about a foot and a half from it. he finally saw it, stopped crying, got a big grin on his face, walked up to blue, squeezed her, and said "boooooooooo." CUTEST. THING. EVER. that pretty much made christmas morning. then he walked around the house for awhile, dragging blue, and saying "boo, boo, boo!" we got him interested in opening presents, and by the 3rd gift, he had it down pat (and once he made it through his presents, he proceeded to help us with ours, then go after hannah's).






after we got through all our presents, we sat down to breakfast - pork pie and sour cream twists, courtesy of mom. this is the traditional christmas breakfast from my childhood. true to form, oliver gobbled up the pork pie. i'm pretty sure he has a genetic predisposition to love pork.

we spent the day playing with oliver's new toys. he received an adorable chef's outfit, and wandered around the house in the full getup for awhile, which was pretty much ridiculously cute. at some point, he lost the hat, mits, and apron, converted the spoon to a sword, and picked up the lid to our hamper and used it much like a shield - it was sir oliver in action! he even chased the dogs around for awhile. i couldn't tell if they were his trusty steeds, or the dragons.

after oliver's afternoon nap, we loaded everyone up in the car (including the dogs) and headed to mom and dad's house for christmas dinner and even more presents.




christmas dinner was perfect. mom made glazed ham and her rolls, and we helped shannon with roasted asparagus and roasted green beans. shannon made mashed potatoes and butterflied fresh polish sausage sauteed in butter with onions (yes, it's as good as it sounds). bryan and i agreed it was the perfect amount of food - usually for holidays, there are so many options, you eat but a tablespoon of everything. this was the perfect amount of variety, resulting in a true meal. for dessert, shannon made a flourless chocolate cake with pomegranate gelato and a warm chocolate sauce, topped with fresh pomegranate seeds. it was positively divine, and so we all found room to have a hearty helping.

after dinner, there were more presents with dad's family, playing with toys, drinking wine, and chatting. oliver was fascinated with my cousin's son, ryan, who is 2 weeks older than him. although oliver has 6 young children to play with at day care, they are older than him, so i think kids his size are an exciting thing. at one point oliver was petting ryan and giggling wildly. cute kids!



the next morning, hannah arrived! while she was prepared for how much oliver has grown since she last saw him in august, we were not prepared for how much she had grown in the same amount of time! the girl had a serious growth spurt. she's going to be a tall lady. i can't believe she'll be double digits in august. we came straight home to open presents.

that night, we had mom, dad, and shannon over for dinner. at hannah's request, i made her favorite macaroni pie, a baked pasta dish with ham, peas, and plenty of cheese. i even made a dairy free version of a cream sauce for dad, using lactaid milk and a cornstarch slurry. it was a big hit with everyone. after dinner, hannah got her presents from mom and dad.



we spent the weekend hanging out. shannon had us over for dinner that saturday night, to make pizza (another request from hannah). shannon makes a macaroni and cheese pizza, which sounds like carb overkill, but it's really just very scrumptious. shannon, ftw.

sunday was mom's family christmas party. hannah had a blast running around with all the cousins (they spent a lot of time outside even though it was about 10 degrees), and oliver had a blast cruising around the party, trying to make friends with the older boys (and their toys) and generally charming everyone. some of the aunties even slipped him some chocolate treats, much to my chagrin. i had a lot of fun chatting with my cousins.

i had taken the week off of work, but monday bryan took oliver to day care since i had to get a few things done for work, including a 2 hour afternoon conference call. first, though, hannah and i made our own homemade marshmallows. they are very easy to make, and infinitely better than store bought ones. where store bought marshmallows are dry and spongy, these are rich and creamy. i'm pretty sure that i will never again buy marshmallows. the toughest part was cutting them into cubes ones they had set, as they are very, very, very sticky. a quick roll in confectioner's sugar helps deal with that for storing. i finally got around to trying some with hot chocolate just yesterday, and they puff up and melt into a delicious goo all across the top of the drink. jen, ftw.

monday evening, hannah got sick. my cousin jamie was also sick so we think they picked something up at the party on sunday. poor girl was up most of the night. luckily, it was a 24 hour thing, and passed relatively quickly.

the following day, tuesday, mom came to babysit oliver while bryan, hannah, and i went downtown to the history museum to check out the titanic exhibit. while some of the things they had were pretty neat to see, and we read some interesting facts, i was very glad that as members we paid a discounted admission price to the exhibit, because if we had paid the $60 or so it would have cost us full price, i would have been very disappointed. hannah got to touch a large piece of ice simulating a glacier, though, so she was thrilled.

after the museum, we headed to glorioso bros. italian deli. this is the kind of store bryan and i love. meats, cheese, wines, dry goods - all sorts of things to get excited about. it's the kind of place where we have to constantly remind ourselves not to get too carried away in. we bought some aged provolone, coppa, calabrese, dry salami, prosciutto, olives, octopus salad, and a red table wine for our new year's eve meal.

i also went to the greek deli around the corner, and picked up some freshly baked pita bread, feta, grape leaves (which bryan stuffed with rice), tzatski, and kasseri cheese and ouzo, for bryan to make a saganaki with.

for dinner that night, we had homemade chicken fingers with homemade honey mustard, homemade thick cut french fries (i'm noticing a pattern here), and spaghetti squash, another of hannah's favorites. turns out oliver is a fan, too. and yes, i eat my fries with mayo.

hannah helped give oliver a bath after dinner, and he finally got the mohawk bryan's been begging me to let him have:





the following day was new year's eve. mom, dad, shannon, and her boyfriend david joined us for dinner. in addition to the aforementioned goodies, we had some dried fruits and nuts, an italian pickled vegetable salad, roasted red peppers, and hummus. mom made rosemary foccacia and ciabatta breads. everyone stuffed themselves. for dessert, mom brought a gluten free berry pie, to celebrate dad's birthday. we gave him a frame with pictures of me and oliver, and poems about being a dad and grandfather. no one made it until midnight. hannah crashed around 9:30, and i think we were in bed, asleep, by 10:30. what can i say, we're boring.

the next morning, we celebrated by having french toast casserole for breakfast, at hannah's request, along with sparkling grape juice and bacon. i made a blackberry sauce (instead of raspberry, as called for in the recipe). we all liked it, but i think i can make it better. i have the distinct feeling that bryan won't mind me practicing. once again, oliver delighted in his bacon. really, who in their right mind doesn't delight in their bacon??




for dinner, we had our traditional new year's day meal, to bring luck: corned beef (homemade), greens (mustard this year), black eyed peas, and sauerkraut (also homemade). shannon and david joined us, and brought the makings for blackbery mojitos. they can come over whenever they like.

friday, we headed back to the museum, this time with oliver in tow, to check out the normal exhibits. we got to check out the hebior mammoth, a pretty cool local find with some serious historical significance. we let oliver out of his stroller to run free for awhile, and run free he did. he had a blast running up to each display case to peer in for about 3/4 of a second, then run off to the next one. bryan likes to take his time in museums, and thinks i'm fast. oliver put me to shame. we also went into the butterfly room again, where one landed on hannah and two landed on oliver (presumably they didn't know he is a 14 month old boy with a penchant for exploring things in detail). he had a LOT of fun running around the room trying to catch them all - again, very, very cute!








as it was shannon, david, and hannah's last night in town, we went to mom and dad's for dinner, where shannon made her most awesome pesto lasagna, using some of bryan's pesto (made with basil from our garden). cheesy goodness, that's about all i can say. so good. oliver scarfed down a whole piece himself. he had fun chasing the cats around both before and after dinner (in his super cool new rock star pjs).




hannah's flight left early the next morning without a hitch. as always, we were sad to see her go - she is fun to have around, and such a BIG help with oliver!

that night for dinner, i made a taco soup. i had gotten the idea from a crockpot recipe, originally intending it for an easy weeknight meal, but since i was making it on a weekend, i changed it some. i did the entire thing on the stovetop, and instead of using ground beef i used a chuck roast, which was cubed and coated in a seasoned flour before browning (the better to thicken the soup with, my dear). i also added a can of beer. i omitted the kidney beans called for in the recipe, since that seems more like a chili ingredient to me. the pinto beans broke down and helped thicken the soup as well. so it turned out close to a chili anyways. the chiles lent a good kick to it, but some sour cream, cheese, and lime-y tortilla chips helped with that.

yesteday, our friend dirk drove in from madison and gave us both massages. i really can't think of a better way to spend a sunday afternoon. i have a feeling that we may need to hire him on full time.

many more pictures in the december and january galleries, of course.

well that took me roughly FOREVER to post. i need to do this more often i guess. someone make an extra day in the week for me to do that, k?

i'll leave you, as usual, with some cute baby pictures. happy new year, everyone!