Rose, Sid and I ventured out into the Arctic tundra tonight, in search of grilled cheeses and hummus plates, and found them just a block away. Despite the snow, the cafe was hoppin.’ We Espresso 77 patrons aren’t daunted by snow!
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Valentine’s Day
It was just me and the kids for Valentine’s Day dinner tonight. Shane was out drinking beer and whiskey. I don’t mind, neither of us has ever really gone for the romantic stuff.
Usually we have a red dinner, it’s a family tradition. Since everyone’s a bit pasta-weary, we had heart shaped quesadillas instead. The quesadillas made Rose’s day (well, that plus all the chocolate).
Lots of love to you all.
Bare cupboard + internet = dinner
The cupboard was relatively bare tonight. All we had on hand was pasta, anchovies, and some peppers my Auntie Gail brought over. Fortunately, we also have the internet. Hello Bucatini with Anchovies and Peppers!
If you like anchovies, garlic and red bell peppers, you’ll like this recipe. It is a quickie, 20 minutes start to finish (assuming your kids aren’t having simultaneous meltdowns).
Risotto & bacon
I intended to make a frittata tonight, something like this one but with zucchini and/or leek instead of broccolini. At 6:30, I happened to notice we were out of eggs. Enter Lidia’s risotto, and bacon because Rose always complains about risotto.
In case you were wondering, this is how blog these days (as you can see, it takes priority over putting away laundry):
The tiniest birthday cake
When Rose asked if we could make a birthday cake for her Beanie Boo, Ice Cube, I said yes. Not because I have an excess of free time on my hands (or free hands on my hands, for that matter) but because I still had the pink half of my gender reveal cake and some frosting in the freezer. The cake just needed a bit of cutting and assembly.
Collecting and having parties for Beanie Boos is one of the ways we’re allowing ourselves to indulge Rose, as she adjusts to getting only half of our attention. We did our best to get behind her birthday plan, which involved buying even more Boos (with her own quarters) to give to the birthday Boo.
Dinner was store bought meatballs (which no one liked), in homemade sauce (which they liked) over spaghetti. And roasted broccoli. Since Shane is still doing physical therapy until 8:30 two nights a week, I can’t be bothered with attempting a nice looking table. A table with edible food on it will suffice.
Happy Birthday Ice Cube!
Bacon wrapped chicken
According to my extremely fickle 6 year old, good old Parmesan Chicken Goujons are not so good anymore. She does this from time to time, rejects something that was once her favorite. Forsaking the poor dish, sometimes for years, sometimes indefinitely.
If you ask Shane, he’ll tell you that Parmesan Chicken Goujons are just as delicious as always.
This turn of events, sent me in search of a new easy-to-prep-ahead-and-also-quick-cooking chicken dish, for those weeknights when Rose doesn’t get home until after 8:00.
Good old Martha Stewart had the answer, bacon wrapped chicken cutlets that cook quickly in the broiler on the same baking sheet as the sweet potatoes. The recipe is in this month’s Martha Stewart Living magazine, on one of those 4 perforated cards she so kindly provides. I’ll type it up for you when I make it again.
Martha’s recipe calls for a watercress salad. I made a funny little endive and radicchio salad with capers and dijon instead. It was lovely on top of the sweet potatoes.
Blast from the past
Tonight we had good old Parmesan Chicken Goujons. I was going to make a new kind of oven fries, which are even easier than my usual recipe. Actually, they’re not really easier, just easier to do while baby wearing.
Anyhow, I got to nursing the baby while the potatoes were par-boiling, and next thing I knew they were too soft to make oven fries with. So I made mashed potatoes. Wasabi mashed potatoes! Remember those?
I don’t have a recipe. I just mashed the spuds with a few squirts of the wasabi that comes in a tube, butter and heavy cream. I highly recommend that you too do this, tasting as you go, until it tastes just right.
You’ll know you’ve got it right, when the flavor brings you right back to the late 1990’s (or possibly the early aughts)*. Back when, if you’re my age, it’s possible you were out on a date with someone who may or may not have turned out to be your spouse. Back when you most definitely didn’t have kids!
Yeah. That’s about as good as it gets around here these days.
*If you’re too young to know what I’m talking about, just add wasabi till it tastes good.
I could learn to like trucks
I wrote rather publicly (here and here) about my anxiety over having a second child, and a boy child to boot. It seems like a follow-up is in order, now that the little guy is here.
My second pregnancy was not the comfortable, wonder-filled event that my first was. I tried to get excited, to envision this little baby who I knew I would (and did!) fall madly in love with, but I just couldn’t get there.
It’s possible that I’m just one of those people, who can’t really get excited about something until it happens. It’s also possible that a whole lot of crazy circumstances prevented me from getting on board with having a bun in my oven.
About a month after I found out I was expecting, my husband Shane, was hit by a car while cycling home. Over the next several months he underwent three surgeries, two to his shoulder and one to his back. The back surgery was just over a month before my due date.
Don’t they say to avoid stress while pregnant?
Things weren’t going so smoothly on my end either. After the morning sickness passed, I developed a common but not oft-spoken-of condition that made me feel like I’d been whacked in the groin with a two by four. All the time. The condition only got more painful as my pregnancy progressed. (Ladies, if you have this problem feel free to contact me for some sympathy).
Maybe if circumstances had been different, it would have been easier to find the joy in expecting a baby. It made me sad that I couldn’t find a way to relish what was sure to be my last pregnancy. I felt guilty for not feeling the way I thought I should, and I worried.
I worried about having a boy, and not liking stereotypical boy stuff, like trucks, superheroes and primary color combinations. I worried about how to care for a penis. I worried that my daughter would not be able to handle the transition from only child to sibling. I worried about not being able to afford a second child. I worried about the lack of sleep.
And then he arrived.
There’s a video from when they plopped him on my chest after a ruthless, un-medicated labor. I looked at him and said: “Hi, hi. It’s okay. It’s all going to be okay because it’s over now.” And then, as if it just dawned on me: “It’s a baby! Look, Shane! It’s a baby!” He won our hearts, just like that. He didn’t even have a name yet.
All of my anxiety evaporated with his arrival, and many of my concerns turned out to be unwarranted.
I no longer worry about the fact that he’s a boy, because he’s not really a boy yet. I mean, he is of course, but for now he’s just a sweet, little, totally adorable baby. He doesn’t run around screaming and banging on things with sticks, he hasn’t shown a preference for garish color combinations, he didn’t come out with a truck in his tiny hand.
By the time he develops an interest in all those “boy things” that I was so worked up about, I don’t think I’ll care, because I’m already madly in love with him. By that time, I might even find that I’ve learned to like trucks.
Oh, and baby penises? Totally easy to care for. Aside from the occasional spray, they require very little effort, and are simpler than baby vaginas.
Not everything has been as easy as the boy stuff though. My concerns about lack of sleep, and the transition from only child to sibling, turned out to be warranted. Anyone who tells you newborns are easy, is either crazy or a much more capable person than I. Probably the latter.
The same goes for the transition from one kid to two. It can be pretty heartbreaking when you have to choose between getting food on the table, and giving either of your kids only half the attention you feel they deserve.
It hasn’t been easy, but it’s been not-easy with a big fat side of joy and love. And it’s the joy and the love that I cling to, when I add another poop and barf stained item of clothing to a pile of similarly soiled items, and realize that dinner should have been ready an hour ago.
Pancakes… and salad
Some nights, a batch of pancakes is the best one can do. I think that if you add a simple salad, this counts as a balanced and relatively healthy (albeit sugary) meal.
I use the Basic Pancakes recipe from the New York Times Cookbook. The recipe can be found here, and the recipe for a small batch (for 2 or 3 people) is here.
Those of you who read this blog regularly, or know me personally, know that I’m a dairy addict. I think that cheese and butter can solve most problems. So, you might be astonished to hear that the pancakes pictured above are dairy-free. Oh, except for the blob of butter on top.
I’ve had to cut down on dairy, due to the baby having a sensitivity. I haven’t been able to cut it out completely (I’m an addict, after all), but I have cut down significantly.
I made tonight’s pancakes with almond milk in place of cow’s milk and canola oil in place of melted butter. And guess what? They tasted darn good. Rose and Shane didn’t even notice a difference.
Good morning! I mean, good night.
A twofer
It’s been unbelievably hard to find time to post these days, but our family dinners have been going strong. Even the baby joins us while we eat, either nursing, napping, screaming his head off, or some combination of the three.
I know I haven’t been giving you much lately, so today (unless he wakes up right now), you’re getting a twofer. Both dinner and dessert. For dinner, Penne with Cherry Tomatoes, Anchovies and Garlic, and for dessert Lena’s Shortbread, with a bonus vegan option!
Suffice it to say both recipes are really quick and easy, and can be made with a baby strapped to your chest.
• Penne with Cherry Tomatoes, Anchovies and Garlic •
from my dad
1/2 lb penne
1 tablespoon butter
3 tablespoons olive oil
6 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
6-10 anchovy filets (depending on how satly/anchovy-y you want it)
1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
salt
Bring a pot of salted water to boil for the pasta. Melt the butter and oil in a medium to large skillet. Add the garlic and anchovies and cook, stirring frequently, until the anchovies are melted (this might take a bit of mushing with a wooden spoon). Add the cherry tomatoes and cook for about 5 minutes until they begin to soften.
Cook pasta until al-dente then drain and add to skillet with the tomato anchovy sauce. Alternatively, you can use one of those sieve-like spoons and scoop the pasta out of the water and directly into the skillet*, a little of the pasta cooking water won’t hurt the dish.
Turn heat to high and stir for a minute or two, until pasta and sauce are combined. Serve right away.
Zucchini sauteed in butter and/or olive oil and topped with slivered basil is a nice accompaniment.
*I recommend this method if you have a baby strapped to your chest. I do not recommend draining a big pot of pasta while baby-wearing.
• Lena’s Shortbread •
an old family recipe – possibly the easiest dessert you’ll ever make from scratch
1/2 lb (two sticks) softened butter, or for a vegan/non-dairy option use 1 cup coconut oil
2/3 cups sugar
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
Heat oven to 300 degrees. Cream the butter, add the sugar and mix to combine. Add the flour and mix to combine. Press the dough into an un-greased 8″ square pan. You can use another pan of the approximate size if you don’t have an 8″ square, this recipe is forgiving.
Bake for 45 minutes. Cut into squares or fingers while hot, cutting from the edge in. Remove fingers from pan once cool.
Here’s the copy of the recipe that I’ve been using for years:
