7 Quick Takes

one

One of the reasons I haven't posted much lately, apart from work and a baby who doesn't like napping, is because I've been trying hard to come up with a post topic that isn't baby-centric.  And I honestly haven't been able to.  I promise, I'm still my own person, but it seems like everything I do, with the exception of going to work, centers around Elijah.  Not that that's a bad thing.

two

 Earlier this week, my laptop's hard drive crashed, taking all of our pictures and all of my writing with it.  Nathan rushed it to his good friend A., who is very handy with things like that, and I was told the information is still there, it is just inaccessible at this point.  For a day or two Nathan and I shared his computer, which is never a good idea, trust me, there's a reason we have two computers.  A. took the bad hard drive out and installed a fresh clean one and sent the computer back.  So, we have to look into finding a data recovery service that isn't horribly expensive.

three

  I'm never any good at cooking in the summer time.  I like heavy rich foods, and I'm not overly fond of vegetables.  I can never come up with any light recipes that sound good.  I usually just resort to making the heavier foods in the crock pot so I don't overheat the house.

four

Elijah's first real baby food was carrots.  He was undecided about them at first, but eventually got to the point where I couldn't get the spoon to his mouth fast enough.  Today we started him on peas.  He had no problems with peas, which was surprising to me, I have always thought of peas as an acquired taste.

five

My brother and sisters and their families are coming home this weekend!  Unfortunately, I won't get to see Elizabeth because she's only going to be at the big family gathering tomorrow, which I have to miss.  But Nate and his family and Anne are both going to be in town for several days!  I'm very excited about this.  Mom even has some free passes to the Shedd Aquarium so Anne and I are going to take Elijah downtown on one of my days off.

Six

    We only have one month left to go before the adoption should be finalized!  I'm sure we'll have some kind of party.

Seven

I know I talk about Elijah not napping, but I took this picture earlier this week during one of our morning naps, which have been getting shorter and shorter. It's one of my new favorite pictures.

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7 Quick Takes (Vol. 3)

-one-

I haven't figured out how to live in more than one room with an infant.  We set his swing up in our sun room, so that is where Elijah and I live during the day.  I set my laptop up in there and we literally don't leave that room until Nathan comes home unless we are running errands or Elijah is sleeping and I'm doing some small chores.

-two-

The laptop sits on the coffee table and I have actually gotten really good at maneuvering around the Internet with my foot.  Not kidding.  I can't type or anything crazy like that, but the mouse is a touch pad and while I sit on the couch and hold Elijah, I can move the cursor around with my foot and click on things.  Usually it's just to change the Pandora station.

-three-

The season finale of Downton Abbey broke my heart.  Poor Bates!  I hope it all blows over early next season.

-four-

Elijah absolutely refuses to nap in the pack and play that we use for a bassinet.  He will nap just fine if I hold him for a while and then put him down in the swing.  But if I try to put him down in the pack and play, he will wake up within 5 to 10 minutes screaming.  He's too little yet for me to feel comfortable letting him cry it out.  At least he's napping somewhere.

-five-

This week I have discovered two blogs I really enjoy.  One is brand new.  It's called Dough Boy, and is run by my brilliant sister and brother-in-law.  Yes, this is a shameless plug.  Eric and Elizabeth are foodie extraordinaires, in that they make a lot of what they eat from scratch.  They make their own sandwich bread (without a bread maker), crackers, and pizza dough.  Eric has also tried his hand at curing  bacon, and making cheese (against Elizabeth's wishes).  He brews beer and she has made dog biscuits for their beloved French Bulldog, Buddah.  I'd just like to mention that I wouldn't mind being a guinea pig for a test batch of homemade marshmallows, or more bacon.

The other blog is called Catholic Cuisine.  It's filled with ideas for recipes and meals to make to celebrate or honor feast days and specific liturgical seasons.  There are some really neat ideas that I want to try when Elijah gets older.

-six-

We have quite a collection of Disney movies.   And lately, I have come into more respect for Hunchback of Notre Dame, previously one of my least favorites.  It's a very dark story and must have been hard to adapt.  I love that they let it  be a little darker than their other movies.  They didn't try to take away all its character.  Plus, the music is great.  Observe:

-seven-

 At four weeks, Elijah is following objects with his head and focusing more clearly.  He can hold his head up for longer periods of time and is pushing with his legs.  His eyes are very slowly getting lighter and his hair is a very pretty gold-red color.  He eats 3-4 oz at a time and has started staying awake longer.  He is wonderful!

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Me and the Meatloaf

When I was a child we ate meatloaf a total of 1 (one) time.  My mother made it one night and the only person who even remotely liked it, was Elizabeth.  Mom was never one of those mothers who made whatever she wanted and then forced everyone else to eat it.  So, by popluar concensus, the meatloaf never made a repeat appearance on the family dinner table.

And since then, I've only had it one time.  About a year and a half ago I was visiting my very good friend Bonnie and she prepared meatloaf for lunch.  I have to say, I enjoyed it quite a bit.  Much more than I remembered liking it as a child.

These days I'm trying to plan meals for us, cook different things and take shopping lists when I go buy groceries.  I got adventurous when I was planning our last week and set one night aside for meatloaf.  When the night arrived, I pulled out my Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook flipped open to the meatloaf recipe and set to work.

It wasn't as bad as I was fearing, but then it wasn't nearly as good as Bonnie's.  I blame the brown sugar in the sauce.  I have a very strong feeling about the flavors of sauces.  If it is supposed to go on a meat, it should be salty, not sweet.  Sweet is reserved for deserts and drinks only.

Does anyone have a meatloaf recipe they would be willing to share that maybe has a sauce that is sans brown sugar?

Also, meatloaf proved much better as leftovers.

Grocery Shopping

Usually, I shop at Aldi because they have cheap off-brand food.  But I'm beginning to wonder if this is the best way to do the shopping.  I tend to like to do my grocery shopping every 2 to 3 weeks.  And even with shopping at Aldi, I easily spend $100 for just Nathan and I for those 2 weeks. 

We have a Jewel card because we lived really close to one in Tinley Park and it was easy to run to Jewel for small things.  I only shopped there once or twice, because, while they are my favorite place to shop, they are much more expensive.  I have never been a coupon-shopper but I'm starting to think if I maintain a list and take coupons and use our prefered card Jewel might be cheaper.  Or even Wal-Mart.

Any thoughts?

Little Cups of Heaven

I come from a meat and potatoes family and I just generally love food. That being said, a few years ago, when I went to study in England for a semester, I felt like I was going to be right at home in a meat and potatoes culture.

But the highlight of my British culinary experience was by far Yorkshire Puddings. They are basically a little cup of batter for putting gravy into and are served traditionally with roast beef and vegetables. I developed a deep and abiding love of them. When I returned home I thought about them with a twinge of longing from time to time, but would then have a slice of pizza or some spaghetti and feel better.

Not so this year. I began an all-out quest to find them in the "international foods" sections of one of the many stories I shop at. They are harder to find than I would have thought. In England you can buy them frozen and just heat them up, I could not even find that anywhere. So I located a recipe and tried making them. The recipe I had advised using popover cups, which I do not have, so I thought a muffin tin would work just as well...turns out, not so much.

But as it happens, my family loves me and wants me to be happy. For Christmas I received not only the requisite popover cup pan, but also, direct from England and special ordered for me by my sister Anne, two little boxes of Yorkshire Pudding mix. The sound I made when I opened the package was something akin to a song bird being throttled.


This is what they look like in the pan...I was so happy when I pulled this out of the oven and they looked right.


And that golden brown cylinder of deliciousness is what it looks like on the plate. It was amazing.

Thanks, Anne!

It's a tooth...well, I tried...

My mom is a great cook, don't ever let her tell you otherwise. Between tuna casserole, green pizza crusts on St. Patrick's Day, and that one time we ever ate meat loaf, I did not have a culinarily deprived childhood.

However...since I met Nathan, I have learned the value of festive and decorative foods. My mother-in-law, Pam, is the queen of making the right food for the right occasion, even if it is just switching jello colors to match the season.

The first Christmas Nathan and I dated, I learned about cornflake wreaths. My life has never been the same.

It's not a complicated recipe at all...but I think it might be family secret. Suffice it to say it involves a lot of cornflakes, a lot of marshmallows and food coloring...but not too much.

The second year Nathan and I were dating I made a cornflake wreath for my family. They all became believers, too, especially Elizabeth.

It is only this year that I am beginning to understand and explore the vast world of cornflake art beyond the Christmas wreath. This year I experienced the cornflake Valentine heart, the cornflake shamrock, and the cornflake "50" in honor of my mother's fiftieth birthday. (I was advised by my father-in-law, Craig, however, that it included bran flakes because, in his words, "she's fifty now, after all." Really it was just because they didn't have enough corn flakes.

Almost universally, these confections are tinged with green food coloring, the only exception I've ever seen is the Valentine heart and that was consumed before I got too close a look at it.

Well, Elizabeth has been having a lousy week, and seeing as it's only Tuesday, I thought I needed to do something to cheer her up. So, I obtained the requisite cornflakes, marshmallows, and food coloring. In honor of her first semester of dental school, which will be starting this August, I attempted to create a blue cornflake tooth. Blue because I thought red would look bloody, green would look gangrenous, and yellow doesn't really show up.

I think it turned out much more like an "M" than a tooth, but Elizabeth says she saw the tooth, and I guess that's all that matters. It's kind of hard to see in this picture...sorry.

Food and "Little Traditionalists"

My father attests that that's what my siblings and I are, "The worst bunch of little traditionalists I've ever known." Just because we insist that every Christmas the stockings are hung on the mantle every year and on trips up to Ely, Minnesota we stop at the same Denny's and Hardee's doesn't make us that bad...does it?

Anyway, usually that extends to food, however, even we get tired of the same things the same ways eventually. To that end, I have adapted my favorite meal. Please to enjoy.

Tuna Casserole
3/4 bag egg noodles
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can tuna
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
1 cup mozzarella cheese
2 cups mushrooms, chopped
1 teaspoon minced garlic
vegetable oil

Set oven 350 degrees. Boil noodles until tender and in the meantime mix soup, tuna, and mayo. Heat oil in frying pan over medium heat, add mushrooms and garlic. Sautee mushrooms. Add half mushrooms to mayonnaise mixture. Add noodles and mix well. Top with remaining mushrooms and mozzarella. Bake until cheese golden brown and bubbly.

Usually it doesn't have the mushrooms and is topped with crumbled potato chips.

On an entirely unrelated note: I made scones from scratch last night, one batch plain and the second batch I stole a friend's suggestion of adding craisins and sprinkling with sugar. I don't usually bake, so the fact that these went over well at work was really cool.