What we ate

I spend a lot of my time planning, making, eating, cleaning up and shopping for food.  A LOT.  I make three meals a day nearly every day of the year, and we are now re-entering the stage of baby food, so ... yeah.  Lots of food.

(Random aside - Patrick found an article somewhere that talked about the differences between cooks and bakers, and I found that I am neither, apparently, just a person who spends tons of time making food for other people to eat.)

I often find myself feeling uninspired and burned out when I sit down to plan our meals for the week, and sometimes we get into ruts of eating the same meals (especially at lunch!) over and over.  Lately, I've been glad for Pinterest and new recipes to try out and add to my giant recipe binder.  Some of the recipes have been great (we LOVE these chicken taquitos), and many have been pretty good, once we've tweaked them to suit us.  Once in a while we have a total bomb, but you'll have that with new recipes.  I hate it when dinner fails, but I guess the risk of trying new things is worth a few fails.

Anyway, last night we had a Pinterest dinner.  I made Rotisserie-style chicken in the crock-pot, and this broccoli.  The chicken was really good, and it was an easy way to make a whole chicken.  Now that I know that it makes good juices, I will make it with rice and use the juices to make gravy.   We have plenty of leftover meat and I am making stock today - I love making whole chickens because it provides so much good food!  The broccoli ... was not the best broccoli of my life.   I like broccoli - it is one of my favorite vegetables - but this was way too lemony and sour.  The kids and I really struggled to eat it.  {Three of us were eating with our faces all twisted up in a super-sour squinty-face, and Patrick just calmly ate the whole pan.}  We'll try it once more with half the lemon juice and see if it is any better.  It seems like it might be great just straight out of the oven without the additions afterward.  We'll see.  Now I've gotta go start on tonight's dinner.  Anyone have any new recipes that they love?

Our morning

Today we are having a quiet day at home.  The kids have a cold - Molly has been a giant snotty mess for a week now, and although Elijah has been fighting it off pretty well, he was just totally worn out when we picked him up at school yesterday.  I decided that he needed a day off, too.  Finn has been a little congested and a little extra fussy, but he's eating and sleeping pretty well anyway.  Thank goodness!

Finn woke up at 7 and I fed him and changed him and we got the big kids up. It was nice to take it easy and not have to run around in hurry to get ready for school.  In that way, today is not at all typical!  The kids played a little, and I made baked oatmeal.  While it was baking, Finn went down for his first nap, and the big kids colored some pictures to send out in the mail with some photos we need to send to grandparents and aunts & uncles.  As usual, Molly lasted a lot longer than Elijah, but they both did a nice job. =)

For breakfast, we had baked oatmeal with blueberries and milk, and they both had apple juice (their favorite perk of being sick).

Molly calls this hairstyle "hello kitty" because of the one bow -
I call it "desperately keeping her hair out of her snot."

Molly did some more coloring after breakfast while Elijah played.  Then we gathered pillows and quilts and they settled down for a sick day movie - A Bug's Life, which they hadn't seen before.

yep, lots of laundry!

I fed Finn and changed his diaper (a huge poopy blow-out!) and then his clothes.  Finn and I talked and smiled together for a bit, and I put away some laundry. I didn't get as much done as I hoped, since Finn was feeling a little fussy. But I got most of it done once he got back to sleep.

all clean again!

The big kids had some more time to play (build more train tracks) while I made lunch.  They had ham & cheese pinwheels with green peppers and carrots, and tomatoes for Elijah of course.  I fed and changed Finn again while they ate.

After lunch we had the regular flurry of sending everyone to different bathrooms and getting Molly into her training pants for nap, and then it was time to read.  Molly and I read Oh My, Oh My, Oh Dinosaurs! and then she got to read to herself for a few minutes while I read a chapter of Farmer Boy to Elijah.  Finn enjoys the nap time reading, too. =)  After I got both the big kids settled in, Finn and I rocked for a bit until he did that slow, sleepy blink that says he's ready to lay down.

I forgot to take any more pictures of the rest of our day.  I got a little more spray painting done - we had two nice sunny days in a row!   But I also spent some time holding Finn so he could sleep.  We tried a new recipe of creamy chicken enchiladas for dinner and they were good.  Patrick said he liked them almost as well as his new favorite dinner - baked chicken taquitos - yum!

Labor Day, and a recipe to share

We got to spend Labor Day with Jackie and Luke in Connecticut this year. We had a good time just hanging out - the kids played, the adults talked, we ate good food and played a fun game.

We tried actually taking some pictures, since we never do. Mostly, it didn't work out too well.

Molly was not going to sit there.

So, we tried to get just the older three. This is the best one.

But we did get this one - thanks, Luke!

While we were there, Jackie and I were talking and she asked me for this recipe. I thought I would put it up here, so everyone can try it! I've made this a couple of times, and we love it. It's pretty mild (and we like it that way), but using hot salsa instead of mild and adding Tabasco or a jalapeno would heat it up if you like it spicier. I prefer to use leftover chicken, or to marinate and then bake or grill it - I think it is less dry and more tasty that way. Of course, this way is very quick and easy! I don't think I let it simmer for that long, either, but it always turns out great.


Chicken Tortilla Soup

2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts (or leftover cooked chicken)

1/2 teaspoon olive oil

1/2 teaspoon minced garlic

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

2 (14.5 ounce) cans chicken broth

1 cup frozen corn kernels

1 cup chopped onion

1/2 teaspoon chili powder

1 tablespoon lemon (or lime) juice

1 cup chunky salsa

1 cup milk

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1 can black beans, drained (optional)

tortilla chips

sour cream

In a large pot over medium heat, sauté the chicken in the oil for 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cumin and mix well. Then add the broth, corn, onion, chili powder, lemon juice, salsa, and beans. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 20 minutes. Add the cheese and the milk; bring just to a boil, and remove from heat.

Break up some tortilla chips into individual bowls and pour soup over chips. Top with a little sour cream.

Yum!

Chicken soup

I made some baby chicken soup this week for Elijah and Molly. Molly loved it! She has really been eating lots of new and different foods lately. She still prefers things to be pretty soft, but she is eating lots of finger foods and is trying lots of things. (We did learn that she doesn't like rice yet, unless it's been through the grinder - she carefully took each individual grain out of her mouth and put it back on the tray.) We are using the baby food grinder so that she can eat more of what we're eating, too.

Here's a long, but sometimes funny, video of Miss Molly eating her soup. Enjoy!





For the soup, I made some adjustments to a couple of Rachel Ray chicken soup recipes that we like (like this one) to make it suitable for baby food. This time, I knew I was going to be putting Molly's into the blender, but soon I'll stop blending it and start dicing the chicken and veggies super small. Right now, I just do a fine chop, small enough for Elijah to get several different things in his spoon. =) Here's my version:


Baby Chicken Noodle Soup

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, 1 turn of the pan

1/2 medium onion, finely chopped

1 rib celery, finely chopped

1 carrot, peeled and diced

[When Molly gets a little older, I'll start adding a half a bay leaf and a little poultry seasoning.]

1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

3 cups low sodium chicken or vegetable stock

leftover chicken, diced

[When Molly's older and I'm not putting hers in the blender, I'll add some frozen peas, too.]

Heat a medium soup pot or sauce pan over medium high heat. Add olive oil. Add the onions, celery and carrots, adding them to the pot as you chop them. [Add bay leaf and season with salt, pepper and poultry seasoning], cook 5 to 6 minutes to soften them a bit. Add flour and cook another minute then whisk in 1/2 cup stock and cook off a minute more. Add remaining stock and put a lid on the pan or pot and raise heat to bring to a quick boil. Add chicken [and peas].

I cooked about a cup of tiny pasta shapes [I use either ditalini or the tiny stars or alphabet pasta I found in the Mexican food aisle - I wish I could find some tiny pasta somewhere that was whole wheat, but no luck yet] separately, then added about half of the pasta to the soup. I divided the soup in half - half for Molly and half for Elijah. I added the remaining pasta to Elijah's half, and it was ready. Molly's half I put in the blender on a low setting just until most of the chunks were gone. Then I made some pastina and added it to the blended soup. Done!

It sounds kinda long and involved, but it was actually pretty easy. This recipe made 2 servings of soup for Elijah and 4 for Molly. If you were making it for just one baby you could freeze some for later.

A recipe and other randomness

The other night we made Chicken a la Queen (recipe courtesy Rachel Ray) for the second time. We really like it! I think the combination of red bell peppers and asparagus is fun and different (although it can be hard to find both of them for a good price). Elijah loved it too! We used Pepperidge Farm puff pastry and the ratio of puff pastry (3 servings) to Chicken a la Queen (4 large Patrick-sized servings) didn't come out quite right, but Elijah and I had the leftovers for lunch today with toast instead and that was good too - in fact, Elijah preferred it that way. (Although to be fair, he is completely obsessed with toast right now and would eat it with anything.) He had a lot of fun dunking his toast in the soup (or whatever you want to classify this as) and slurping it off.

Yesterday my cousin Melissa referred me to a blog that I think is awesome - The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks. The blog is great, and only serves to encourage my rather strange passion about correct punctuation. At least I know that I am not alone. (I first found this out when a friend recommended the hilarious book, Eats, Shoots & Leaves.) Now I want to start a blog of misplaced apostrophes! By the way, friends, please do not freak out that I am over-analyzing your blogs, emails, etc for incorrect punctuation - it only really makes me crazy when people publish it. I know I am a horrible speller and even tend to be rather informal and liberal with dashes when writing for fun, so I can't judge. But if I were printing a huge billboard, I would have someone proofread it first!

Flag Cake

This weekend we went to two picnics and celebrated two bithdays and Memorial Day. There was a lot of celebration and fun, so we went all out and made a fun new dessert - Festive Flag Cake. I substituted strawberries for the raspberries since raspberries are gross and it is strawberry season. It turned out to be a much bigger project than I anticipated, but WOW! What a great cake! I baked and assembled the cake and Patrick put it together for me (and stayed home while Elijah finished his nap so I could go to the picnic on time - what a great husband!) and once again, our tag-team baking was (eventually) a success. If anyone tries the recipe - I think the recipe for the sheet cake actually is enough for both layers - not the single that the recipe says. It is way too much batter for one layer! Anyway, people loved it, so maybe we will make it again, and hopefully it will be easier and less of a mess the second time.

Happy Birthday Stuart and Eric, and welcome home Cameron!