Unemployed Lawyer Mom

Jaded in the postpartum wing is my new favorite

2012-02-17T14:02:00.000-06:00

I'm pretty sure the only thing that's more of a drag than counting calories is reading about someone else's efforts to count calories, so...I feel for you guys, is what I'm saying. But I think the time has come for me to stop attempting to re-gain all of my baby weight.

Don't worry, my first entry in this regard (Greek pasta salad) isn't even terribly healthy, other than having a lot of veggies in it. It's even LESS terribly healthy if you, like I, interpret the instruction to add "as much of the dressing as you like" to mean "every last drop of the dressing."

She also shouldn't have included "or more to taste" in the step where cheese is added. Recipe error.

Wait, wait, we should back up and discuss the Valentine's bacchanalia that helped necessitate this (surprisingly cheese-heavy) diet.

First, I found another way to use the ridiculous amount of rosemary simple syrup left over from previous sun-drenched cocktails: mix it with lemon juice and prosecco.

Then call it a "sparkler" because that is highly festive.

Next up: steak tenderloin in a pink peppercorn sauce, sour cream mashed potatoes, "salad" consisting mostly of walnuts and blue cheese. I should note that I did not follow the instructions for cooking the steak as written in the recipe, because Jen made a fortuitous comment about cooking steaks in the oven right as I was getting everything prepped, and it was MUCH BETTER than the chewy disaster of badly cooked cow I usually end up with. Anyway. Sear then roast, I am a convert.

Saturated fats are for lovers.

And THEN there were deep dark chocolate cookies (good, good, good idea) and raspberry-buttermilk ice cream. I have to admit that I did not do a very good job with this ice cream, it was more icy than creamy and just didn't come together right. Probably because Jen didn't miraculously show up on Twitter an hour before I was going to make it to advise me on the proper technique.

So, her bad.

We did finally bribe Anna into a cheery Valentine mood with candles and a pre-dinner chocolate cookie.

Or a "this was her dinner" chocolate cookie, I don't know, semantics.

In other good news, my friend Emily had her baaaaaaybeeeee finally! I know people have babies all the time, but I'm pretty sure Emily has been pregnant for a science-defying four years, so it's very special. We went to visit them in this hospital this morning, because what welcome (to the world) wagon would be complete without this face?

Scarlett's older brother is excited about her arrival, so Anna just wanted to offer another perspective.

She's probably off planning her Easter wardrobe

2012-02-14T12:48:00.001-06:00

Happy Valentine's Day from the Enthusiasm Twins!

They find the whole thing kind of tacky, considering what the man went through.

Oh, well. What we lack in holiday spirit, we make up in red velvet pancakes. Generally, if it's an occasion, there are pancakes.

I can see you from here, Shrove Tuesday!

I'm starting to suspect that I just enjoy typing the word "loaf." Not sure how else to explain smushing a bunch of lentils together in this form.

Lentils, loafing.

Sorry guys, I was going to try to wrangle Anna into some more V-day themed poses, but I can't seem to find her anywhere.

Top Chef: Sweatpants

2012-02-10T13:20:00.000-06:00

Oh, man. We have been pretty fancy up in here this week.

Apple-dressed lentils with new potatoes and crunchy salad

Red pear, blue cheese, and walnut pizza

Maple and mustard-glazed salmon with roasted brussels sprouts

Such refinement! Such class! You'd never guess how much spit-up I have caked in my hair. Or how often I stepped in PUDDLES OF IT while preparing these very elegant dishes. Or exactly HOW unwashed I am willing to let my hair become (so very, very unwashed).

Anna knows that the first rule of eating well is staying hydrated.

And slightly ornery.

And I'm not sure whether Ivy is jealous of all these delicious solid foods or just attempting to gnaw her way to freedom.

I do not blame her either way.

Don't worry Anna, I'll delete this blog long before you're a teenager

2012-02-07T12:08:00.000-06:00

The thing about meatloaf is that even when you make fancy, delicious, Homesick Texan-y, filled-with-CRUSHSED-TORTILLA-CHIPS meatloaf, it ultimately remains a loaf. Of meat.

Not a combination that photographs well.

Fortunately for all of us, I stuck with Homesick Texan for the next meal and her tortilla soup is as lovely as it is spicy and wonderful.

Every time I make soup I wonder why I bother making anything besides soup.

Hey Ivy, you're three months old now!

The disillusionment gene runs deep, you guys.

In other news, sleep training is going well.

In her defense, he probably had some pretty important intelligence

2012-02-03T12:49:00.000-06:00

I've mentioned before the truthiness involved in my "healthy recipes" designations, and now that I have a public Healthy Recipes board on Pinterest, everyone can see first hand that I consider these blackened catfish fajitas healthy, because...fish? Despite the fact that they are drowning in butter.

Take my healthy recipes with a ~~grain of salt~~ dram of butter, is what I'm saying.

I'm not sure what infraction Pooh committed to incur this gruesome punishment.

But I do know that Anna ran the gamut of emotions in exacting it. (Warning: the ending is, while perhaps foreseeable, rather disturbing.)

From glee...

...to concern...

...to hesitation...

...to despair...


...to experimentation...

...to shock...

...to possible psychopathy.

Have to publish this so I can go look at Pinterest

2012-01-31T12:13:00.000-06:00

Okay. It's time to talk about Pinterest.

If you don't know what that is, it's a sort of social networking-ish site based on creating pin-boards of various appealing things from around the internet. And if you have ever heard it described as anything other than "a gigantic time-suck," I feel you have been mislead. I mean, I'll grant that maybe that isn't universally true--maybe some people hate looking at beautiful pictures specifically tailored to their personal interests and spend as little time as possible doing it. They would probably rather being reading books and exercising and doing charitable works. Meanwhile I am very busy looking at pictures of cake.

And to be fair, some people do actually seem to use Pinterest productively--for travel planning or home decorating or organizing gift lists, but my boards may as well be called "Melted Cheese," "The Fine Art of Putting an Egg on It," and "Various Uses for Nutella."

All of which is to say that it's Pinterest's fault that I made and then ate four of these chocolate donuts over the weekend.

There were 12 of them and 3 of us. Math.

Not to mention some tasty Blood Orange Gin Sparklers. Whats more, I'm pretty sure Dan's sudden attack of Dramatically Artsy Photographer Syndrome was Pinterest-inspired as well.

This rosemary is just reaching out to give you little herby kisses.

And seriously, have you ever seen a lovelier portrait of brutalized citrus?

This is definitely what our evening cocktails look like every day. Now you know.

Anyway, we were talking about eggs?

Might have to change my motto to "Put an egg on it and then put some goat cheese and roasted red pepper sauce on top of THAT." Yes. It's snappy.

Some good, easy, vegetabley things come out of it too. This Italian white bean soup was fine and dandy.

This grilled vegetable and hummus tart would also have been fine and dandy if I hadn't thought it was a good idea to make the hummus myself, starting in the morning with dried chickpeas. That is too many steps for me to be happy at the end of the day. So, you see? Pinterest doesn't JUST make me want to eat cake.

It also makes me want to do ambitious things and then reward myself by eating cake.

Anna's just been, you know, hanging out. Experimenting with winter fashion.

And...doing The Robot?

I did insist that she wear pants for her shift as Cheese Inspector.

She claims pants compromise her palate. That's why she's having to focus extra hard.

Hey, did you guys know that Ivy has RED HAIR OH MY GOODNESS.

That, or her skull is on fire.

And that's why you should be wary of my dinner invitations

2012-01-27T15:21:00.000-06:00

So, swiss chard and caramelized onion tacos somehow sounded pretty classy and great, but limited selection at the grocery store forced me to substitute kale and here we are. It's not like I'm not proud of these, I did make the tortillas and the salsa myself (mostly--see below), but it occurred to me later that I had invited a friend over for dinner by saying that we were "having tacos."

I guess I thought the "consisting of kale" was implied.

At least I found a way to focus Anna's brute strength into a productive activity.

If she's going to be resigned to any task, it may as well be making my dinner.

I was not specific as to the quality of the puns

2012-01-24T13:54:00.000-06:00

Left to his own devices in the kitchen, Dan will produce delicious breakfasty things almost every time. I wouldn't say it's my primary reason for staying married to him, but I don't not take it into consideration.

Sourdough French toast gets you to a 10th anniversary, easy.

That was a nice sweet way to start our weekend, so why not keep the party going? Cake seems like a good idea! This thing is one crazy slab of molasses and I like it. What? It's not like I didn't have a reason to bake a cake.

Wanting there to be a cake in the fridge is a reason.

Um...at least the pizza is on whole wheat crust?

And there's broccoli on it! It's almost a salad.

Here's an exciting behind-the-scenes peek at the process for you guys. We learn two things in this photograph, 1) I've recently come to prefer the flavor of Oaxacan melting cheese in recipes that call for mozzarella and 2) I eat pretzels while preparing pizza.

That's because having diabetes taught me NOTHING. High five, Paula!

I find that Anna's mood is more positive when we make sure she has plenty of physical activity, such as her daily balletsketball drills, pictured here.

You should see her plié-ups. (I TOLD YOU.)

I worry though that Ivy is right there, picking up the attitude slack.

Or just expressing concern at her January sleevelessness.

See? She smiles sometimes.

2012-01-20T15:21:00.000-06:00

I returned to my already-beloved Homesick Texan cookbook to further counteract some of early January's nutritionally responsible leanings. Really, though, this Jalapeño Mustard Roasted Chicken with cabbage and radish slaw doesn't rate too high on the Sin Meter.

It did set off the Awesome Chicken alarm, though.

This left me with an inordinate amount of cabbage, so the next night I improvised a chopped salad. I grouped the ingredients like a restaurant would because, while less practical and actually a little bit annoying to eat, it looks a lot better than a fully integrated pile of bits.

Dan is used to sacrificing for my art by now.

Lest you think I've abandoned my dietary Jiminy Cricket, though, I did make a stack of these quinoa patties for breakfast and snacking.

You can top them with, uh, anything you like.

The holidays may be over, but that doesn't mean Anna can't still help me with some baking from time to time.

She's just taking a moment to reflect on how much fun she's having.

She also wanted everyone to know that she can color-code and line things up even in her ~~sleep~~ zombie-esque state of reanimation.

I'm guessing no one will be surprised when we eventually recover a tidy line of brains in her closet.

So this is cute, right? Anna calls it her "astronaut" hat.

I call it her "please don't alert CPS, I promise this was well-supervised" hat.

She likes them french fried potaters

2012-01-17T12:42:00.000-06:00

Well, with all due respect to Heidi and her good intentions toward my arteries, I felt like it was time for some winter comfort food this weekend, so I went with sausage and peppers over mashed potatoes. (The potatoes have buttermilk in them.) (And sour cream.) No cheese, though! (There's cheese in the sausage.)

This is where 3-D blogging technology would really come in handy. Chicken sausage UP IN YOUR FACE.

Also, it had been several hours since I put a poached egg on something, and miso soup seemed as good a candidate as any.

I bought dried kelp and weird fish flakes, so this is extremely authentic except for the part with the egg.

We've had a pretty good stretch with Anna. She's actually eating:

Only in character as The Fonz, but that's probably a passing phase.

She's accepting her manual labor responsibilities with admirable stoicism:

That bell ain't gonna ring itself, kid.

She is also still executing her gardening duties with aplomb:

Although in this case...

...she stays in character...

...as Sling Blade.

Haven't been to preschool since the 80s, maybe teaching methods have changed

2012-01-13T13:39:00.000-06:00

On Wednesday night we had pot roast with carrots. This is entirely unremarkable aside from the fact that it 1) came out of a jar 2) where my mother had placed it 3) and given it to us as a Christmas gift 4) because that is how we roll in my family.

Right under the tree, y'all.

Then we returned to Super Natural Every Day yet again for some split peas and pesto with salad greens. You guys know that expression, "Cheeseburger and fries for lunch, guilt and green mush for dinner" right?

I have it in cross stitch.

If you've been following along at home, you already know exactly what I had for lunch today.

I feel bad for cookbook authors when I think about my natural gift for improving their recipes 300%.

As I mentioned, Anna has started going to school for two days a week. It was really heartbreaking to see how sad she was about leaving her beloved mother.

Nope.

It's hard to tell what she's learning so far, since her answer to the question "What did you do at school today?" is "Mama and baby sister IN THE CAR!" because she does not like to dwell in the past, you guys. I can say that her yogurt-eating and lining-up-of-things skills seem intact.

And this is probably a coincidence, but all week she has been trying to eat things with her feet, by which I mean proving surprisingly competent at eating things with her feet. Not on the curriculum, but she never did that before, I'm just saying.

Ivy's laying low.

If you're not making enough hilariously terrible decisions, try sleeping less

2012-01-10T17:03:00.000-06:00

More healthy vegetarian dinners, welcome to (the first half of) January!

Cabbage and white beans

Miso-curry squash with tofu and greens

Both from Super Natural Every Day. Don't worry, there aren't actually enough recipes in there to do it every day, and also I am getting bored of health and also my refrigerator broke again and ALSO my two-year-old started "school" today and I am very distracted still quite tired. So I predict...steak fingers soon. Or something with gravy. Just gravy? Yeah, maybe so. Let's just cover the entire second half of January in gravy.

If anyone is in the market for a doctor and/or horror movie villain, I think Anna has you covered.

Dr. AAAAUGH OH HELP NOOO

Also, I 100% do not want any more children, yet a source who shall remain nameless but completely linked to made me second-guess myself, because, seriously, tiny alienbabyfeet.

I PROBABLY DEFINITELY NEED MORE SLEEP, IS WHAT I THINK.

I think she's running the long con

2012-01-06T14:40:00.000-06:00

Time to play with new cookbooks! I figured the best place to start with The Homesick Texan Cookbook was with the cover recipe, so here is my version of Guajillo-Chile Fish Tacos:

They look pretty good, right? I wish I could give an accurate report as to their flavor, but that night we had a dinnertime meltdown and sometimes my fugue state deadens all the senses, not just sight and hearing. So to me these tasted like "please just let it end, let it end, let it end" and I probably won't make them again. Sorry, perfectly good recipe!

Fortunately, the cauliflower soup from Super Natural Every Day was eaten during peacetime, so I can say with confidence that it was delicious.

This week in Anna's Fashion Corner...I just...I really just need more sleep, you guys.

At two months, Ivy is quickly emerging as the happy-to-pose one.

"Just keep it on my good side, Ma."

Although sometimes I get a weird feeling that Anna has just been messing with me this whole time.

"No one will ever believe you."

2011 Wrap Up

2012-01-03T10:48:00.000-06:00

Here is a sampling of the tortillas/flatbreads I ate in 2011:

Tuna and cabbage salad in wheat flatbread, pulled pork tacos, potato tacos, hot veggie wrap, egg and veggie tacos, braised pork and tomatillo salsa tacos, zucchini and red pepper enchilada....stack, barbecued lentil tacos, enchiladas suizas, soooooo much Tacodeli, chicken gyros, quesadillas stuffed with greens and feta, spinach enchiladas with chili gravy, pork tacos again, the INFAMOUS turkey burritos from Prevention Magazine, the follow-up edible veggie burritos by me.

Haha, GET IT? 2012 is the year of the pun, suckers! Get on board!

Anyway, yesterday was the start of a whole new year (observed), so obviously I had a garden wrap at Galaxy Cafe and then made these chickpea wraps from my new Heidi Swanson cookbook:

Heidi Swanson make me want to throw out everything in my pantry except dried beans and brown rice and ancient grains (as in "Quinoa" not as in "This bread is getting moldy").

Anna was immediately ready to attack some New Year's resolutions, starting with clearing out the garden.

Battle mode.

ATTACK.

Sorry about how I sucked at everything this year

2011-12-30T16:15:00.000-06:00

So, I have been seriously off my game lately, everyone. Things keep breaking and the house keeps getting dirtier and I started out with this new baby all, "It's not so bad! Second babies FTW!" and then remembered that lack of sleep has a CUMULATIVE EFFECT, OH LORD HELP ME AM I TIRED. Which means I did a terrible job at 1) The Holidays and 2) documenting The Holidays.

For example, there were tamales. There were cinnamon rolls. There were delicious yeast waffles with champagne. My parents made something that they were calling "bread pudding" that was actually a bowl of butter so concentrated as to be scientifically improbable. Yet there are no pictures of these things.

I also failed to point out that Anna is still only interested in dog toys.

Or that the monkey brains exacted their revenge at long last.

Anyway, Anna has definitely noticed and is trying to pick up my slack. She put her foraging hat on and everything.

Hedgeapple stew, a seasonal favorite!

My resolution is to stop touching electronics

2011-12-26T17:44:00.000-06:00

Merry Boxing Day, everyone! Since our refrigerator was repaired I've been feeling a little restless, so I BROKE OUR CAMERA, HAHA, NOT LIKE I WAS USING IT RIGHT NOW.

It's okay, though. Anna is helping me figure out how to use to use the camera on my phone.

We've almost got it.

We're also making her live on candy canes and gumdrops

2011-12-20T10:13:00.000-06:00

I haven't cooked anything since Friday because my fridge and freezer STOPPED FUNCTIONING ENTIRELY and I couldn't summon the energy to get all frontier-style with it. So, no food pictures because we have mostly been eating things like cheese sandwiches, not that there's anything wrong with that.

I considered writing more extensively about the refrigerator situation when it first happened, but I didn't feel like boring the internet with tales of appliance woe when I'm supposed to be boring it with pictures of my kid. I also remembered that when our washing machine freaked out, I covered that in excruciating detail until it decided to magically heal itself just to make me look like an idiot. Having tried both methods, you'd better believe that I'm going the feeling-stupid-but-having-a-working-household route from now on.

So that's something for you to look forward to.

Anna managed to sneak back into the house by disguising herself as one of Santa's (angry) little elves.

Of course, in order to keep up the ruse, she's having to sleep with the wrapping paper.

I really admire her commitment.

As long as she was back and acting relatively human (or elvish, close enough for me) I decided we could manage a birthday party at the children's museum on Saturday. Generally our trips there are far more amusing for me than her, but this time she became completely obsessed with watching the little train go by every few minutes, so we sat in one place for over an hour. She was so into it!

Sometimes Anna expresses "joy" as "deep concern." It's probably just an unsettling feeling for her.

It's for the good of the household

2011-12-16T16:30:00.000-06:00

Putting a sandwich together for dinner probably doesn't seem very impressive, but bear with me: this is a muffaletta. Made with olive salad that I canned all by myself back in March, when I made it for my Mardi Gras-themed Bunko.

See? I was impressive once, ten months ago.

I also roasted some Brussels sprouts to go with yet another dip into the freezer-pot-roast pool.

I'm enjoying this system where I eat leftover pot roast every few days.

So, I'm not going to lie, you guys. It has not been a good week around here. Anna has embarked on an ambitious study of the bounds of human endurance re: ridiculous tantrums. The length and volume and epic scope of these tantrums have basically left me a hollow shell of my former vivacious self, forever alternating between the verge of tears and a sort of shriek-induced fugue state. She has caused me to use the term "harrowing" without exaggeration.

And then, this morning, she BROKE THE WAFFLE IRON.

So you'll understand why we've asked her to pack her things and go.

This family needs to come up with some different nighttime activities

2011-12-13T11:51:00.000-06:00

I don't know why I've never posted about this pork tenderloin with olive mustard tapenade before, since it's a go-to recipe for me. I also don't know why I dumped it on top of a bunch of salad greens. I DO know why I added some fingerling potatoes, and that is because potatoes make salad awesome.

Okay, this is clearly one of the grosser-looking things I've ever put together. But olives taste good.

I wouldn't say this game of Naked Toddler Hides Under A Chair To Avoid Diapering was fun exactly, but it was a big improvement over the previous round of Naked Toddler Hides Under A Chair To Avoid Diapering While Wailing Like A Banshee.

Also the subsequent game of Screaming Toddler Seems To Think That Going To Bed Involves Waterboarding Or Something.

Anyway. Here are some Christmas card outtakes for you.

Note: every single picture is an outtake.

Extra note: if you're expecting a card from us and don't get one it's just because I didn't actually bother putting them together because these might actually be the two best pictures.

And some behind-the-scenes antics.

I guess if I were going to plug my baby into something it would probably be via her ear...not much to critique here.

You know I had nothing to work with when I go heavy on the Matt Foley style

2011-12-09T13:34:00.001-06:00

Confronted with both kale and butternut squash in the Local Box this week, I again attempted to turn these winter challenges into "lasagna," because that's what everyone thinks when they see a massive pile of greens, right? Looks like lasagna! Or when you see any foodstuff? Guys? Just me?

LOOKS LIKE LASAGNA, I SAY.

Anyway, we recovered with some pot roast from the freezer.

I didn't even try to turn these vegetables into anything.

So, Anna has been doing this thing where she "eats actual food"

...and "doesn't look miserable throughout fun activities"

...and "gives positive attention to her baby sister."

I don't know, I'm a little weirded out.

It's probably just a phase.

Sulk and cookies

2011-12-06T11:17:00.001-06:00

It's cold outside! Soup for dinner! My favorite thing about 101 Cookbooks is that the recipes always seem virtuous, even when they contain half a stick of butter.

Red Lentil Soup with Lemon (AND BUTTER)

Speaking of nutritional virtue, I have invited an old frenemy back into the house.

Just getting warmed up for January, the traditional season of health-torture.

On the other end of the food spectrum, I guess Anna got tired of waiting for me to start the holiday baking and decided to do it herself. One gets the sense that she was feeling rather put-upon.

"I have to do every freaking thing around here."

"Seriously."

It's been a long time since we had an Anna's Fashion Corner update! Today, holiday gift bags as unique seasonal footwear.

I feel like you need the air of defiance to really sell this look.

In other-daughter news, Ivy is also totally surprised that she's already been here an entire month.

She'll be sullenly making gingerbread men in no time!

I barely made a chicken salad, I think Christmas crafts are out this year

2011-12-02T08:43:00.001-06:00

I had a little burst of ambition the other day and decided it was time to actually put a meal together all by myself while dealing with both girls. I went with Chicken Salad with Tahini-Yogurt Dressing, and it was good! So that was a success.

Ignore where the recipe says "active time 30 minutes," though. I found it to be about four hours.

We've recently had a run of camera-avoidance in these parts.

She's employing some impressive tactics. Camoflage:

Sur La Table's packaging is strangely giggly.

And bribery:

Sorry honey, it's going to take more than the $8 in my wallet.

Anyway, I will persist at least until Ivy starts making more interesting faces.

Several of the people I follow have posted Christmas plans/Advent activities, and I was starting to get inspired to the point of almost considering maybe buying an Advent calendar and stealing some of their ideas for it, and then my friend Lauren posted a picture of the Advent calendar she made and I gave up on ever accomplishing anything, because, seriously:

I'm just going to print out a picture of this and tape things to the back of it.

Plastic happiness

2011-11-29T10:29:00.001-06:00

More from the I Totally Planned Ahead For This Baby Files: ratatouille (with huge gobs of brie, on toast) and lasagna.

I find that tomatoes need a great deal of salt and saturated fat to reach their full potential.

Just like me!

If any of you remember the live (/evil) Christmas tree saga of last December, you know that all of that effort and grief and actual physical pain is about to pay off, because we totally have an eco-friendly tree all ready to go another year! Let's go check on our investment.

Whooooooooops!

Um. What about the heaviest pot in the universe? Aww. It's like the empty chair where Tiny Tim used to sit.

In the dark reboot of the franchise where Tiny Tim is really pointy and vindictive.

So, yeah, we bought a fake tree this year. It's soft and symmetrical and a normally-strengthed human can move it from one place to another and it's covered in pine cones, which Anna calls "pine tones." (Or, rather, "PINETONES!!!") I love my fake tree. I'm sorry, earth.

Despite the tree's artificial nature, Anna remembers how important it is to check for squirrels.

Make sure you really get in there.

Can't be too careful.

Hey, remember when I got diabetes? So weird.

2011-11-25T07:04:00.001-06:00

Everybody ate a disgusting amount yesterday, right? The extra weight won't count if we're all in it together. This year was exciting for me because for once there was a gap in the dessert menu so I got to experiment with some seasonal recipes (read: things I bookmarked during my cardboard period with a single tear in my eye).

Pumpkin gingerbread: win.

Apple cider cream pie: mega win.

Pumpkin spice rice krispie treats: fail. Super soggy.

I still ate four of them.

So, anyone who has (very kindly) told me that I don't look like I just had a baby, don't worry:

By Christmas I definitely will.

So will Dan.

I joke about the downside of overindulgence, but the important thing is that everyone really savor and appreciate such a bounty when it's available.

IT'S JUST GINGERBREAD HONEY, DON'T OVER-THINK IT.

Maybe she was just getting a glimpse of her future, wherein we dressed her as a pioneer pilgrim flapper.

Festive!

Almost saved this one for the Christmas card

2011-11-24T07:40:00.001-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours! Hope you're enjoying this special time of togetherness as much as we are.

The long-awaited return of tortillas to my diet

2011-11-22T11:27:00.001-06:00

After multiple (2) days without tortillas in the house I broke down and made some with my recently ignored but still-magnificent tortilla press. It helped that my brother was in town, since he's always up for a food project and is pretty handy around the kitchen. Look at this lovely plate he assembled:

Pretty colors! Toasted seeds! He is straight up gourmet, you guys.

Technically we were trying to make Zucchini and Red Pepper Enchiladas, but we substituted the cheese and halved the oil and used a grill pan and...decided not to bother rolling them into enchiladas. So, you're never going to believe this, but what we ended up making was...piles. Happy ones, though. Fancy ones. (Fancy Piles will be my upscale gastropub.)

I also made him braise some cabbage.

My culinary whims are mysterious indeed.

Normally, dinnertime with Anna consists of her kicking her chair away from the table and repeatedly declaring "Want-need crackers! WANT-NEED CRACKERS!" (I'm giving her the linguistic benefit of the doubt with that hyphen, I'm actually pretty sure she thinks "want" and "need" are one compound demand.) She generally whimpers a lot. Sometimes she throws things. It's pretty great, all around.

BUT there seems to be a chance that she has inherited her mother's slavish devotion to observing holidays as thoroughly as possible, because being at her grandparents' house for Thanksgiving week has awakened her dormant eater.

"This is for the pilgrims."

No strand left behind.

Don't know why we never thought to set her to "Food: DESTROY" mode before now.

Like a true American.

Now I'm going to spend all day thinking of a motto for my new venture

2011-11-18T07:55:00.001-06:00

Having run out of tortillas, we have recently moved on to eating eggs at every meal. Remember when I warned you this might happen?

Random Stuff From the Fridge Omelet

Random Stuff From the Fridge Frittata

I guess when we run out of eggs I'll just form the Random Stuff From the Fridge into sad piles. Incidentally, a quick peek at the archives indicates that if I ever write a cookbook, "Sad Piles" will probably be the subtitle at the very least. (Fast-casual restaurant chain? Hey, did America's Next Great Restaurant get canceled or what? I'd like to make this happen. Someone please forward this to Bobby Flay. You know, the blog. Forward the whole blog.) (I think I might need an assistant.)

Anyway, as happy as I am to sit in my house and eat eggs (very happy), we were starting to get a little stir crazy so we ventured out to Black Star last night to check up on our investment.

I went to a restaurant and ordered beer like a grown up because I'm not pregnant anymore yaaaaaaaaay!

I also had a big bowl of chicken curry that I didn't have to cook double-yaaaaaaaaay!

The curry was perfect for the fairly chilly weather we're having here at the moment. It's one of those exciting times when the temperature actually lines up with the calendar. If only I could figure out how Anna feels about the cold...

Inscrutable as always.

Once we got her jacketed, she regained her strength and started commanding airplanes to come HERE.

I don't think she's messing around, airplane.

Happy Due Date, little Ivy! It was all bonus time up until now, but today you're officially on the clock.

Ready set FULL TERM GO!

I'm just glad she has someone to talk to

2011-11-15T11:20:00.001-06:00

Time to dip into the freezer stock! We repurposed some braised pork with tomatillo salsa to make a lovely taco dinner. I know, we're hitting the tacos pretty hard around here. So unusual for us!

I probably rank "wrap it in a tortilla" somewhere between "put an egg on it" and "add kale for no reason."

We've also revisited zucchini garlic soup and tomato broccoli pasta casserole. So far, everything is holding up. Excellent nesting, me!

In "food I couldn't eat for three months which makes it even more awesome now" news, the banana pancakes that Dan made the other morning were good enough to induce family-wide breakfast-food-trance-state.

I'm starting to wonder if Anna had a falling out with creepy robot dog, because she is absolutely having some sort of special relationship with her ball popper right now.

Dan specifically requested that I post a "normal adorable baby picture."

Check the archives, dude. Not my style.

Okay, JUST THIS ONCE.

At least the destruction is still confined to inanimate things

2011-11-11T13:29:00.001-06:00

I can tell Dan was (justfiably!) proud of the egg and veggie tacos he put together for us because he photographed them himself.

The compulsion to take pictures of your food: contagious, apparently.

Also, I just wanted to let you know that this cookie has a huge pile of frosting on top of it.

If your cookies don't have huge piles of frosting on top of them, you are kind of missing out.

Anna has finally started interacting with Ivy a little bit more!

Pretty sure she's checking for the return label.

When Ivy received a gift in the mail yesterday, Anna even took care of the tissue paper it was wrapped in.

Definitely no signs of sublimated rage here!

I love it when melted cheese arrives at my door

2011-11-08T15:25:00.000-06:00

Now that I have a tiny bundle of reasons to avoid cooking, I'm going to do that for as long as possible (aiming for June or so). But that doesn't mean you can't be jealous of the awesome things that other people are bringing me! Thank you thank you, other people! Drool away, everyone:

Also! In the last few days I have followed up my burger and shake with pizza, barbecue, cookies, and small amounts of coffee. I can only assume that by tomorrow morning I'll be having tequila and cigarettes for breakfast.

Anna, as you can imagine, is so excited about ~~being a big sister~~ watching more Curious George than normal!

She's such a good little helper, she even assisted us in filling out Ivy's newborn vital signs chart.

Seriously though, I think she's handling it pretty well.

Anna finally has someone to share the burden of Blog Model

2011-11-06T07:07:00.000-06:00

Okay, so, a Big Thing happened the other day and obviously I am going to mention it, calm down, but it seems like a shame to ignore the fact that I made some perfectly respectable-looking plates of food last week just because SOMEBODY showed up two weeks before her due date. Right?

Chicken and cashew stir-fry. Another excellent recipe from Gourmet, and it made perfect leftovers for post-Big Thing recovery.

Quinoa con queso from Simply Recipes. It probably goes without saying that any recipe involving the words "con queso" gets an automatic bookmark from me.

I mean, would you really have wanted me to skip over this pork chop saltimbocca? It's pork that's stuffed with more pork! And also cheese! And then there's a butter sauce, but don't worry, the sautéed spinach on the side makes it all healthy!

A perfect meal.

And then look what happened on Friday:

JUNK FOOD!

Okay, sorry, before that: IVY!

Note that the milkshake is very, very close at hand.

Welcome, Ivy Elisabeth! You'll probably want to work on that scowl if you want to fit in around here.

So close.

There's my girl.

The littlest duck with the terriblest ennui

2011-11-01T11:49:00.000-05:00

Last Christmas my dear brother gave me six years' worth of Gourmet back issues and I have just now finished turning them into a usable recipe notebook, so I figured it was time to celebrate my ten months of very hard work by trying it out. Why not start fancy-ish? Sesame tuna burgers with fried shoestring zucchini!

This dish uses its height to intimidate other, lesser plates of food.

But that was pretty exhausting, so I quickly reverted back to my default "bowl of soup for dinner" state.

At least it's full of cheese.

Long-time readers will agree that Anna's reaction shots are fairly predictable at this point. This entire blog is basically a testament to her capacity for irritation and boredom in the face of fun activities.

Halloween costume:

Watching Daddy's band play a rare gig:

Delicious tacos:

Okay, taco trance is entirely appropriate. Actually, it's like looking in a mirror.

Arrival of eight-year-old boy who lives next door....whoa, wait a minute.

Uh oh.

Also, yesterday at our play date I wouldn't let Anna turn the hose on, so she took matters into her own hands.

Having a two-year-old is like constantly realizing that the raptors have figured out how to open doors.

Sort of.

For the record, she was definitely the aggressor

2011-10-28T14:49:00.000-05:00

I realize that I JUST made this summer squash with baked eggs recipe, but it was delicious and this picture turned out better so you have to deal with some reruns. Lookit, it's so cheerful!

And be grateful that you're not just looking at a different picture of an egg every single night because that is a thing that could easily happen.

Pretty sure there's no need to justify or explain baked chicken with roasted tomatillo cream sauce.

Because, roasted tomatillo cream sauce.

This one, however, was a use-stuff-up meal based on this chickpea pizza scramble. It actually tasted really good, but I spent a lot of dinner considering how fortunate I am to have a husband who doesn't even blink an eye at being served a bowl full of chickpeas for dinner.

You really, really never know what you're going to get coming home to me. "Eggs" is a fairly safe bet though.

What's Anna been up to, you ask? Um...nothing. I don't know. Pretty much nothing. Definitely not trying to make out with her creepy robot-dog.

That would be weird.

A series of tiny rebellions

2011-10-25T11:10:00.000-05:00

If it seems like I've been making far too much food for two adults and one strictly cracker-subsisting toddler lately, it's because nesting has kicked in pretty hard and I'm cramming my freezer with 1/2 casseroles. Also, stop monitoring my food intake, creepster! Can't a girl who weirdly insists on displaying all of her meals for the public get some privacy? Anyway. Tomato broccoli pasta casserole.

Anna ate some of this! With a fork! I'll probably make a note in her baby book. Haha, no, I've never done that for anything.

You know how I keep making gazpacho and keep being surprised that it's just a way to eat salsa for dinner? Well, I managed to find a black-eyed pea soup that is the eating-bean-dip-for-dinner equivalent of that.

FINALLY.

I don't have very much to say about this salmon in mustard sauce because that sinister green mound of pickled greens in the background dominated the plate to such an extent that I can STILL smell vinegar wafting off of the photo. Where did this abomination come from?? Ooooooh, one of my "productive" days. Must make an effort to limit those.

Anyway, pickled greens are clearly meant to be an accent piece, not a terrifying, tear-inducing pile.

Anna's two-year-old stubbornness has been taking a lot of strange and subtle forms lately.

Staunch (and surprisingly aggressive) refusal to put head on pillow:

Joke's on her, she can sleep upside down in the broom closet for all I care.

Going wide with the yogurt spoon, purposefully and repeatedly:

Actual quote: "Yogurt in hair. Need wash it. WHY YOU DO DAT?"

Moving the parade of sea life magnets so that they are upside down and on the floor.

Like some sort of land-worshiping cult.

Also, for most of the time I've been writing this, she has been beating on her own head with a maraca. I hear that three is the "tough" age, so I assume she's just ramping up slowly. Stay tuned for true bizarreness in nine months!

Lessons from The Blathering

2011-10-23T22:33:00.000-05:00

Non-conference: attended!

ROOM FULL O'LADIES

CRAZY ADORABLE LADY THINGS

1. I can survive an entire weekend around strangers without drinking or stress-eating.
1. (a) With difficulty.
1. (b) And awkwardness.

2. Easy access to migas and queso is a privilege that should not be taken for granted. I know most of my readers are Austinites, so I really want you to think about this before you go to sleep tonight.

3. I'm a little nervous that years from now when I look back at this I will only remember not being able to eat a cupcake.
3. (a) Or seven cupcakes.

I regret that I didn't get to know you guys better.

4. Meeting your husband online? Not that weird!

5. My blog is super ugly. I mean, no one said that to me, I figured it out on my own after looking at so many blogs that are not super ugly. There's a chance I'll actually do something about this at some point.
5. (a) Not a great chance.

6. Raspberry + mint leaf + cute straw = bottled water that is slightly less sad.

Slightly. Okay, I don't know, maybe it's even worse.

7. Apparently an enormous round belly can elevate your Target/Old Navy sale-rack wardrobe and make it seem very cute. Most effective/pain-in-the-ass accessory EVER.

8. I seem to think that being early to things will somehow earn me extra credit.
8. (a) It totally does!
8. (b) In the form of standing around nervously.

9. My comfort zone is tiny. Being outside of it is stressful.
9. (a) I want to go back next year.

I only keep plates around to make the cabinet look normal

2011-10-20T11:46:00.000-05:00

I didn't notice until I got all the pictures lined up that everything I've cooked in the past week has been bowl food. No regrets! Bowl food is the best food. Ice cream. Queso. Skittles. I know you're thinking, "But Erica, what about fresh baked bread?" Not so fast! The truly committed know to fashion bread INTO a bowl and fill it with other types of deliciousness (Skittles). Case closed.

Crunchy red swiss chard falafel on spinach.

Black bean "chili" (sorry Dad).

Mustard-glazed red cabbage with apple, sausage.

Slow-cooker braised pork with salsa over couscous.

KALE! and roasted vegetable soup. I must be back in the swing of things if I'm forcing kale on myself.

Anna and I spent some more time practicing the concept of "cheese."

Yikes.

Maybe she'll do better in an actual field test. Anna, look excited about Baby Sister!

Um...I'm going to go practice my excited face too.

Blathering

2011-10-18T09:57:00.000-05:00

This weekend I am attending a blogging "non-conference" called The Blathering because my doppleblogger Erica suggested it and because it's in Austin so I have no good excuse not to and because way back in March when I signed up it seemed possible/likely that by now I would have grown an entirely new personality that was suited to this sort of social gathering instead of still being a crazy hermit lady. So, bad call on that last thing, but it's too late now.

Anyway, I've been desperately trying to familiarize myself with the other FIFTY attendees and their blogs, bar-exam-cram style. I made a spreadsheet. It won't help, but the activity is distracting enough that it keeps the anxiety to a low-level nausea instead of a full panic. Anyway, it seems possible that at least a couple of other Blatheringers are also checking out this blog, so I'm going to do a brief section just for them.

Hi, other Blatheringer! I'm Erica. If I have a weird expression on my face when we meet, it's because I'm terrified of you. And I might be attempting to employ some sort of mnemonic device to remember what I wrote about you on my creepy-stalker-spreadsheet. Also, I've noticed a lot of talk about pre-Blathering haircuts, and I feel like I need to justify the fact that my hair is currently in a disastrous growing-out stage because I need it to be ponytail-compliant by the time my second baby is born next month. It was really cute about four months ago, though.

I'm not going to do an accent vlog because I am lazy and self-conscious, and also because I have about 15 regular readers and 14 of them know me IRL so it would be sort of pointless. I'll just tell you that I have a mild Texas accent that increases with proximity to my hometown. (Current distance 180 miles, Twang Level moderate.) All you really need to know is that I use the word "y'all" without irony.

I'm currently saddled with both an almost-done baby AND gestational diabetes, so you won't get to see my true beer-and-queso-champ colors this year.

It should be obvious that I mostly write about food and my daughter Anna. Running themes: she likes to line things up; I have some issues with kale. I think that about covers it. See you guys Friday!

I would have guessed hunger and exhaustion would have sharpened that edge, actually

2011-10-14T10:51:00.000-05:00

The other day I was told that my blog has been lacking its normal sarcastic edge of late, leading me to believe that snark is in fact fueled by carbohydrates, just like BRAINS and HAPPINESS and EVERYTHING IMPORTANT. So if any scientific journals want to discuss this significant breakthrough with me, hit me up in the comments.

In the meantime, I tried to redeem my recent undercooked tian with a tian made almost entirely of cheese and oil.

Much better! All part of my plan to edge out the diabetes with some good old-fashioned heart disease.

Also, Smitten Kitchen has basically never failed me in the past, and applying this recipe to a chuck roast turned out just fine. And I guess the green onion slaw wasn't a failure exactly, but whoa is she lying about two serrano chiles not being too spicy because mother of mercy was it too spicy.

Why are you so angry at my mouth, pile of cabbage?

These five-spice turkey and lettuce wraps are only notable for being the first example of ground turkey that Anna has ever voluntarily eaten.

She just wanted Chinese five-spice powder. It's so obvious in retrospect.

Anna was actually so excited about decorating for autumn that she did her best impression of a "human smile."

It's getting better, but I think you can detect the lack of practice.

That effort was pretty exhausting though, and she quickly retreated.

Maybe we can lure her out again with Christmas decorations in a couple of months.

Walden 2: The Reckoning

2011-10-11T14:43:00.000-05:00

Well, I had yet another weekend of being fed by someone else (thanks Mom!), so my only recent attempt at low-sugar, not-too-meaty, tastes-like-food meal is Friday night's bean and veggie burritos. "You can't go wrong with burritos, unless you are Prevention magazine" --me, all the time.

Seriously, I'm not sure I could make them not-tasty without carefully following their recipe.

It was also another weekend of grandparent-fun-times for Anna. Hey Anna, it's finally nice and cool outside and you have acres of land to frolic about! Yay!

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

She did eventually get into the spirit, ~~beating the crap out of~~ communing with nature for a while.

Nothing says communing can't be violent, I looked it up.

When we got home, Anna indicated that she was ready for me to start decorating for Halloween.

And yes, I only put that outfit on her ironically.

Pretty sure the best thing for lack of sleep is a huge amount of sugar

2011-10-07T12:38:00.000-05:00

It has occurred to me that there are plenty of people out there in the world who avoid caffeine, alcohol, and refined sugar voluntarily and it's not exactly the worst fate that could befall a person, but come on, it IS KIND OF. Plus there's a difference between being happy and smug about what a disciplined, well-oiled machine you are and being an achy, waddling mess whose only current desire in life (entire gallon of ice cream) is being thwarted by the threat of birthing a 12 lb DisasterBaby. Also, when I spend too much time thinking about how few things I have to genuinely complain about, it completely takes the wind out of my sails. No fun!

For example, I consulted my big green Mark Bittman and managed to have a significantly less meat-heavy week.

Chickpea and spinach soup.

Salad with pear, walnuts, gorgonzola, and tofu croutons.

Spicy autumn vegetable burgers with squash in parchment.

Those veggie burgers weren't bad, but when I heated one up for lunch the next day I couldn't help but think there was an element missing.

There it is.

And this, my one meat dish of the week, which also happens to be part of my Sometimes Delicious Things Look Like Gross Mush series.

Slow cooker chicken, spinach, broccoli and pasta. Hey, remember when I attempted this very simple dish last year?

Anyway, my diet has now progressed from "I'm Not Sure This Food is Actually Food" to "Okay This Tastes Fine But Ow My Arteries" to "This Is All Reasonably Well Balanced And Edible." So what am I supposed to complain about for the next six weeks? This is a serious negativity crisis OH WAIT I HAVE SOMETHING.

My toddler has become even more ridiculous than normal about sleeping. I think she's trying to prove that she will dominate the new baby in every category, including sleep interruption and unaccountable wailing.

This happened at 5:30 pm, after I had spent a full three hours attempting to get her to nap in any of the various beds in our house.

So, serious question, 2-year-olds can survive on broccoli, yogurt, sullen glares, and four hours of sleep a night, right?

Asking for a friend.

I'm totally bored of my blood sugar too, I swear

2011-10-04T10:22:00.000-05:00

We were out and about all weekend, so I had to rely on others to accommodate my tiresome dietary restrictions. Everyone did a bang-up job, aside from their failure to dramatically jump in between me and that english muffin on Sunday morning. Seriously, where's the support? I might need to hire a full-time carbohydrate bodyguard. Anyway, big thank you to my mother-in-law and also the fine folks at Kerbey Lane. Blood sugar = stable. This pregnancy = taking forever, I'm not even kidding.

Speaking of, welcome to yet another Sober October! Here's hoping I can make it through this eighth month in a row! Who's with me? Yeah, I know, no one. It's Texas Wine Month and there's pumpkin ale everywhere and hard cider and Oktoberfest and football is on. It's generally a ridiculous time for sobriety. The good news is, October might be my favorite month of the year, so the fact that it will go by ridiculously slowly is sort of a bonus? Silver lining. Look how much my mood improves when I stuff myself with almond butter before posting!

Anyway, Anna had a great time at Grandma and Grandpa's house this weekend. She spent a lot of time playing with blocks, really honing her signature architectural style.

It does not lack focus.

Interestingly, she applies the same principles to her meal planning.

This should get us to noon.

Carnivore blues

2011-09-30T14:57:00.000-05:00

The good news is, Bon Appétit continues to provide recipes for food that is actually edible.

Lamb tagine with tomatoes and caramelized sweet onions.

Spice-rubbed steak with white beans and cherry tomatoes.

The bad news is, I am suuuuuuuuuper tired of eating meat. Even nice-tasting meat. I'm a little concerned that seven more weeks of this will cause me to emerge on the other side as a vegetarian, which I am also not really in the mood for. I know it seems like there's no pleasing me, but I'm pretty sure that's because all this protein is making me SUPER CRANKY AND MAYBE ALSO SORT OF AGGRESSIVE, AT LEAST WHEN IT COMES TO TYPING. I'm going to go lie down and think about the days when I ate sugar and was happy.

In the meantime, Anna has requested the day off from her job as jokey-caption subject.

Fine, but you're clocking in that much earlier Monday morning.

The dinosaur whisperer

2011-09-27T15:17:00.000-05:00

Operation: Eat Real Food Again is going pretty well. Turns out my blood sugar does not run wild at the first sign of food that doesn't taste like wallpaper paste (just used wallpaper paste for the first time a couple of weeks ago, I know what I'm talking about). This is fortunate, since my food-fantasy daydreams (That's a thing, right? Totally normal.) had gotten pretty pitiful. Like...small, unadorned bowls of multigrain cereal pitiful.

Anyway, I really mangled this Jacques Pepin recipe for stuffed pork tenderloin, but it still tasted like food intended for humans, so it was a winner.

Even very small portions of any Homesick Texan recipe are worthwhile, this King Ranch chicken casserole (slightly fancy-pants version) included.

Seriously, four bites of this with a huge spinach salad is so much better than Sadness Burritos.

I went to the Bon Appétit recipe clipping vault for this pasta carbonara, and then I smiled for like an hour, because: pasta.

This is as close as I'm going to get to a bowl of ice cream until about 2012.

Saturday was Austin Museum Day, so we went to the Children's Museum to take advantage of the lack of admission and presence of dinosaurs. Anna loves dinosaurs, so naturally I was prepared for her to find this experience miserable, or at least exceedingly tedious. But it wasn't so bad this time around!

First, communication:

"Talk to me, small dinosaur. Tell me your secrets."

Then, domination:

"You are mine now. This way, to the tunnel slide."

Of course, she wasn't really happy until she found something to line up.

After the chaos of the dinosaurs, she needed about half an hour of ORDER.

And then eggs saved my sanity. Again.

2011-09-23T13:52:00.000-05:00

Feel those cool autumn breezes? (High of 93 today! Don't, uh...don't look at the forecast for the next few days. SUMMER IS OVER, THE CALENDAR SAYS SO.) Anyway, I think they have snapped me out of my Prevention-magazine-spproved-neutral-flavored-food-paste trance. I realized that I am still facing eight weeks of pregnancy, which translates to over 50 meals (What? How do you mark the passage of time?), and something had to be done.

Step 1: Eggs for dinner. How could I not have thought of this before? I must've been in quite a state of shock to forget that putting an egg on it fixes everything.

Also: salt.

Step 2: Potatoes in a salad.

Like a regular salad, but more tuber-y.

Step 3: Any form of chili.

Sorry purists, if it's a stew with chili powder in it I'm going to approve.

So maybe I'm starting to have a handle on things and won't be reduced to slowly going crazy until I am just eating the actual pages of the Prevention cookbook because it doesn't make any difference in terms of flavor. Especially good since it's an electronic copy.

Hey, looks like those autumn breezes have had a similarly invigorating effect on Anna!

Her games of Blanket Pile have gotten a lot more lively.

See if you can tell that World War Z is on my nightstand

2011-09-20T11:38:00.000-05:00

So, of chicken tenders with sweet bean dipping sauce and steamed broccoli, which element would you guess the two-year-old would go for?

(Review: NEEDS SALT. And ice cream.)

Haha, suckers!

If I can get her to do this with cauliflower, she's totally going as a zombie this Halloween.

I finally ventured away from Prevention magazine and their hatred of taste buds to see if I could manage my own balanced meal. Look how pretty this vegetable tian is!

Unfortunately, I think obsessively stable blood sugar is having a negative effect on my cooking ability, because these veggies were both undercooked and underseasoned. It's like Prevention has gotten into my head and zombie-chomped the part of my brain that believes in food having flavor.

On Sunday Anna had her very first trip to the zoo. She spends a lot of time talking about animals, so we were pretty sure it was going to be a hit. I mean, what are the chances that she would react to this fun-for-all-toddlers-everywhere experience with the same skepticism that she has reacted to every other fun event in her life so far? Pretty low, I bet!

I think the reptile house was her favorite.

But posing on the elephant was a close second. Don't know if I can fit in a zombie joke here, I'm guessing they don't have this capacity for bored annoyance.

Anyway, another exciting childhood rite of passage endured! Good job, everyone!

Only 4,216,967 days to go

2011-09-16T14:03:00.000-05:00

Prevention Magazine presents Cooking with Cardboard: Day 1,473. Wait, I meant 7. Day 7. Let's see what Prevention can do with the concept of "burritos."

Oh, terrible cardboardy things. Cool.

This salmon with white beans and citrus was actually the best thing so far, probably because it wasn't attempting to be anything other than a pile of health. I guess the lesson is that I should stay away from "burritos" and "burgers" and "pizzas" in the diabetic category.

I totally won't though. I could really go for a "burger" right now.

There are exciting things afoot around here, though. We finished Anna's big girl room, complete with escapable big girl bed. Let's see, she's been quiet in there for a while, maybe we should just sneak a peek...

Naptime: a portrait.

It's also World Series of Poker season on ESPN 2, which Dan and I completely seriously watch every week, so we've been trying to interest Anna in the game. So far she seems pretty focused on chip flair.

Most exciting of all, it's currently 86 degrees in the middle of the afternoon. Time for a warm and cozy duck suit!

Gotta keep those autumn winds at bay.

You don't even want to know what would happen if I looked directly at a bagel

2011-09-13T12:54:00.000-05:00

Okay, Prevention magazine cookbook. Time for you to earn your four and a half stars on Amazon. What further delights do you have in store?

Barley salad with black beans and butternut squash. I took some initiative on this one and added grilled chicken, broccoli, and roasted red peppers. My parts tasted good.

Scallop-asparagus linguine.

Southwest chicken salad.

These were all ooooooookay. I think this cookbook is for people who don't understand the instruction veggies + carbs + protein and need it laid out in the simplest form. Maybe that's me, though! I experimented with some oatmeal this morning and it was a failure, so I will probably continue to go by the book until I can be trusted in the presence of carbohydrates. Man, this is a sad situation you guys. My small plain bowl of oatmeal was a wild, unrepeatable binge. Let's all try so hard not to get diabetes, is my advice.

Anyway, I took Anna to the playground this morning. It was great! She ran around with other kids and got lots of fresh air and exercise. Haha, just kidding, she sat in one place and poured rocks on herself.

Goodbye, ice cream. I think I'll miss you most of all.

2011-09-09T14:12:00.000-05:00

Hey, terrible news! I mean, only for me. Not for you. Unless you enjoy looking at pictures of food that tastes good, then it's also terrible news for you. It seems I have a sliiiiiiiiiiiiiight case of gestational diabetes. It's approximately as sucky as it sounds. The specialist told me that it's a hormonal issue and it isn't my fault, but I think you and I and the empty spot in my freezer where a bag of brownies used to be know that she was just being nice. SUGAR IS DEATH YOU GUYS, FOR REAL. Anyway, in the interest of not having a 12 pound diabetic baby, I bought a brand new cookbook and I'm ready to roll, controlled-blood-sugar-style.

I figured that since Prevention Magazine was the institution responsible for convincing me that even looking at can of tomatoes would mutate every cell in my body, they could probably handle keeping me on the straight and narrow for the next ten weeks. Here are some boring things that I have eaten in the past week.

Spinach salad with almond-encrusted chicken.

Roasted vegetable sandwiches with green split pea soup.

Chicken and asparagus stir fry.

I guess this shouldn't surprise me, but Prevention seems to have some sort of policy against "seasoning food at all," so in the future I'm probably going to have to do some slight tweaking. For now though, it's definitely helping me control my portion size by excluding flavor.

In the meantime, Anna continues to hate and fear bouncy castles.

I also get the feeling that she sort of misses me making beets every week.

The heat demon takes a different tack

2011-09-06T12:40:00.000-05:00

Now that beets are out of season, the Local Box is treating me pretty well. I'm finally getting groups of vegetables that I can prepare without using recipes or attempting to cram them into a dessert, although I do think there is a market for a cookbook that consists solely of turning your CSA box into various cakes. Help me out, chefs! Anyway, we had some spinach and squash and farmer's market sausage and a little bit of non-local goat cheese just to prevent any total hippie smugness.

This meal is certified 95% smug.

So the temperature literally dropped 45 degrees to become pleasant outside for the first time in about five months, which is an unbelievable relief except OOPS the wind and rain-starved conditions have caused the entire center of Texas to catch fire. Having a pretty tough summer in these parts. Anyway, despite having a Labor Day that seemed perfect for grilling, we decided that going outside to set another fire probably wasn't a good idea, so we were confined to the grill pan, which means I was too busy being sullen about how poorly our ~~birdhouse~~ vent works to take any pictures of the very nice kebabs.

In general, we tried to be productive with our holiday weekend. Anna painted her new big girl room:

I know that edge is kind of a mess, but she's only two you guys.

We checked out the deeply depressing post-apocalyptic aridness that is our local landscape:

Anna only knows what rain is because she has books about the Time Before.

We also kicked back with a little black-market Four Loko:

Her painting is iffy, but she throws a mean house party.

Also, at one point the other day I said "I love you Anna" and she said "I love you lamp" and I absolutely swear she's never seen Anchorman, so it's possible that she's some sort of comedy savant.

It's a two-way street, Bruce

2011-09-02T23:09:00.000-05:00

Still no interesting cooking this week, unless you consider frittata-as-leftovers-dump interesting. (If you do, stop. It isn't.) I do see that the food-rehash discussion thread has gotten pretty heated, as I feared it might. I'm thinking I'll probably have to hire a full time comment moderator, if anyone is interested.

Anyway, all I have to leave you with over the weekend is this series of Anna's attempts to communicate with temporary houseguest Bruce the Dog.

In two days it will be September and everything will be okay

2011-08-30T12:14:00.000-05:00

No cooking this week, I'm attempting to clear out old leftovers from the freezer so I can restock for the arrival of Number Two. I could take pictures of my reheating efforts, but it's probably more exciting for you to click through the backlogs and guess at which meals are making an encore appearance. Post your theories in the comments! I know it's a hot topic, try to keep it civil!

This weekend we ventured out to Wimberly for cousin Levi's third birthday party.

Party face.

When she had all the fun she could stand indoors, Anna went outside to stare down the bubble machine.

This was seriously a prolonged stand-off. I think we called it a draw when both humans and machines alike finally collapsed due to the 110 degree heat.

The expression on my face was much cheerier, due to the presence of enchiladas.

Anyway, happy birthday again, big guy! You can use all your cool new fire fighter equipment to deal with any spontaneous-combustion grass fires that pop up, since the earth is just setting itself on fire now apparently.

On the homefront, Anna seems to be displaying some increased maturity in a few key areas. First, she has decided that reasonless tantrums require privacy.

A positive step.

It's also nice that she's finally old enough for me to hand her something to eat and know that she'll deal with it appropriately.

See? Not smeared into the furniture! My proper little lady.

Pulling back the curtain

2011-08-26T07:36:00.001-05:00

Now that I'm in my third trimester, I thought I'd revisit my sadly underused Well-Rounded Pregnancy Cookbook while I still can.

First up: balsamic roasted chicken with Asian-style broccoli.

You know, when you just look at official dinner pictures, my diet looks pretty balanced.

Next: grilled asparagus and steak salad with cherries, pistachios, and chevre.

It's because I didn't take any pictures of the batch of brownies that I ate four of and then hid from myself in the freezer or the graham crackers that Anna gets one of for every five I eat or the two bags of beef jerky that I "shared" with Dan.

Finally: Tilapia Veracruzana with herb roasted potatoes.

Or the entire loaf of banana bread.

I think the last time we visited the playground at Central Market was almost a year ago. At the time, I was disappointed to see that her only interest was playing in the dirt, even though she was well over a year old and walking around on her own. Yesterday we had a break from "demonically blazing heat" for a pleasant day of "what the rest of the country would still consider blazing heat" so we took to the playground once again.

I feel like the use of implements is a definite sign of evolution.

Meanwhile, Anna continues to construct ever more effective sun-shielding ensembles.

Difficult times let her resourcefulness shine through.

Now I'm only cooking healthy things as decoration

2011-08-23T09:20:00.000-05:00

I finally made the cold soba salad on Saturday and immediately put it in the fridge.

I still haven't tried it.

It looks nice, though, doesn't it? I guess the "cool and refreshing" thing has run its course and it's time to return to the heat-monster embrace. The forecast for this week has a high of 108. More than once. So, yeah, Anna has retreated to her blanket and I don't blame her.

"You'll never find me in here, SUN."

She has also abandoned her booster seat.

Much as I have abandoned vegetables.

And thrown myself into the loving arms of salt and fat.

We'll probably start wearing clothes again in October or so

2011-08-19T08:49:00.001-05:00

I've managed to stick with cool and refreshing dinners all this week, although I'm finding it difficult to make "cold dinner" that doesn't look exactly like "lunch." These chicken salad sandwiches, for example, are straight-up brown bag. This doesn't really bother me, since I would gladly eat lunch three times a day (with the understanding that lunch sometimes involves a poached egg). But it doesn't make for very exciting pictures.

I did turn on the stove to fry the potato chips, so THUS FAR heat/laziness has not yet resulted in me serving a pile of raw potato slices. Updates to follow.

Every summer I make gazpacho and every summer I realize that it is like eating salsa for dinner.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing.

I had another cold recipe lined up for last night, but then I got too busy sitting on the couch and ended up having a chicken salad sandwich instead. Maybe the weekend will bring a time when cold noodles sound like a good idea.

Anna and I didn't have anywhere to go yesterday, so we 1) eschewed getting dressed and 2) decided it was time to potty train Monkey and Elmo.

Probably about time, the way Elmo eats.

Some of it was fruit flavored

2011-08-16T08:01:00.000-05:00

National Farmer's Market Week really seems like the sort of thing that I should both remember and fully invest in every year, doesn't it? What with my CSA issues and my theme addiction and all. But didn't I totally blow it last year? Let me check. Yeah, see, that was pitiful. Well, don't worry, this past weekend we ventured out to celebrate a bounty of local cuisine.

I'm sorry, farmers. Again.

It's okay! What the Ice Cream Festival lacked in nutritive value, it completely made up for in scintillating and educational activities.

I think tub-of-water-and-popsicle-sticks is a traditional Montessori exercise.

We capped that off with some furniture-assembly, under the exasperated gaze of our forewoman.

Best weekend ever!

Bolstered by our streak-ending 97 degree high the other day, I've now completely regained the energy to attempt staying cool, or at least not so hot that Number Two will be seriously brain damaged, as evidenced by this lovely Greek salad.

I halved the oil and doubled the cheese. Oh, the many secrets of Erica's kitchen!

We should probably pay more attention to what she's watching on Netflix

2011-08-12T10:18:00.001-05:00

I've definitely made use of the oven and stove over the past few days, but I have to admit there haven't been any hours-long maniacal heat-binges. I'm not sure whether this means that I'm regaining my strength and will to fight back against the demon sun or that I've sunk to an entirely new level of defeat wherein I slowly stop putting effort into anything until one day I just lie down on the sidewalk and become a giant piece of human jerky. So that'll be fun to keep an eye on! Let's examine the evidence.

Spinach baked eggs. Twenty-three minutes in the oven at 350; a decent amount of kitchen fire but definitely not a full commitment. The fact that I am serving a recipe classified as "brunch" for dinner with an egg as the centerpiece seems like a good sign of recovery.

Eggs for dinner indicate that I have not fully lost my lust for life.

Roasted red pepper potato soup. Points for using both the oven and the stove, but again it doesn't quite match the excess we've seen recently. I also strongly considered cooking it early enough in the that I could serve it cold, but was too lazy to make that happen, so I think those two impulses cancel out.

It may not offer any clear indication of my mental state, but this soup is delicious.

Vegetable lo mein. I really feel like stir fry is just full-on seasonally appropriate.

When I eat all the leftovers standing in front of the open refrigerator door we'll know that my rehabilitation is complete!

I thought we were seeing some rare nurturing from Anna as she fed Cheerios to her Elmo doll the other morning.

The aftermath, however, is on the unsettling side.

It's like the gluttony scene from Se7en.

Maybe I only noticed this because she had very recently used her kitchen stove to Fatal Attraction her sheep.

As long as the new baby isn't a stuffed animal, things will almost definitely be fine.

Braising in August, totally normal

2011-08-09T13:09:00.000-05:00

I know you guys thought I was kidding about Croatian Victory Day, because I was kidding about that at the time. But I decided to actually celebrate it anyway, since I've never had Croatian food and it looked to involve a lot of braising, which fits in nicely with my current devotion to heat-worship. Also, I have no idea what people drink in Croatia, so I didn't feel too bereft in having to abstain. I decided to go with braised lamb over spaetzle and some red cabbage stew.

Tasted great and made the house very, very hot.

Celebrating Croatia was sort of a lot of effort, so yesterday I just made a bowl of Things From the Fridge. My specialty! Chicken, red pepper, spinach, chickpeas, pasta. And bacon, which makes most of the previous list unnecessary.

Minus ten points for short cooking time.

I also had some spare time and ingredients and an intense ~~death wish~~ sugar craving, so we made cookies. Don't worry, I had Anna test the flour for purity.

I still stand by my "put her in the tent and let her sweat it out" strategy

2011-08-05T15:05:00.000-05:00

Mid-week theme: tortillas and cheese. I mean, if I'm being honest, that's really more of a lifelong motif. At any rate, it recently reared its delicious gooey head.

Spinach Pie Quesadilla

Enchiladas Suizas

Good thing we were so fortified this morning, since we had to make our first ever non-routine-check-up trip to the doctor after Anna woke up breathing like Darth Vader.

"Okay, Western medicine. Let's see what you've got."

Horrifying fish and/or dinosaur themed torture devices...

...and cool stickers. Pretty much a wash.

See you again in two years or so, Dr. Spencer!

A heat-related breakdown, in pictures

2011-08-02T16:59:00.000-05:00

It's Always Hot And It Will Never Rain Again: Day 8,354. Time for more hot, slow-cooked beans! Black bean soup with toasted cumin crema--even the cool, soothing cream aspect of this recipe involves the stove, that's how committed I am to the full-heat lifestyle right now. I also threw in some Greek-style Potato Skins leftover from Sunday night's book club. FULLY REHEATED.

Dan noted three different times that this soup could probably be served cold.

At least I'm no longer alone in my delirium, since I think it's safe to say that the heat has finally gotten to Anna.

Casper

Mary

Lady Macbeth

Collapse

My brain melted, so I made pasta

2011-07-29T15:12:00.000-05:00

I have a question for everyone: is farro a thing that exists? Like, in the real, material universe that we live in? I keep finding and bookmarking and intending to cook recipes that involve this mysterious fairygrain from the netherworld, but it does not seem to be available in any of our human grocery stores. Consequently, I keep eating barley.

Apple, almond, and smoked mozzarella ~~farro~~ barley salad.

I find that the best antidote to barley is steak fingers. This is based on years of painstaking research.

The jalapeño cream gravy is just a nice added bonus because Homesick Texan is an evil genius.

Yesterday was the 44th 100 degree day of the year here in Austin! That plus the 12 inches below average rainfall has finally broken me, I think. I GIVE UP, WEATHER! I EMBRACE THE HEAT! Let's celebrate my collapse with something described as a "cozy winter recipe."

Pasta e fagioli at the end of July: like staring into the mouth of madness.

Anna, who is younger and more resilient and hasn't yet succumbed to the heat-crazies, has chosen the more reasonable "damp kitchen towel on the head" route.

Still fighting the good fight. Just two or three more months until we see the 70s again!

I think she has also been working on her impression of me.

Very droll.

How long until she can use it to fetch me things from the store?

2011-07-26T12:16:00.000-05:00

First some housekeeping: eagle-eyed reader "My Own Mother" pointed out that I neglected to observe and document very important holiday Belgian Independence Day this year. Yes. Thank you for noticing. I have many excuses for this lapse, including the fact that beer-centric celebrations are rather sad endeavors for me right now, I am pregnant and tired, I have been busy, I have been a little bit sick, and the sun was in my eyes. NEVERTHELESS, I feel that I have failed to respect the mission of this blog, which is to seek out obscure reasons for thematic food and drink and display pictures of my daughter looking surly. I promise that moving forward I will try to attend my duties more conscientiously. Looks like we have some Croatian Victory Day festivities to look forward to!

Anyway. Grandma and Grandpa Huff came up this weekend to give Anna her birthday present, a (mostly) big-girl tricycle.

Like her mother, Anna believes that instructions and proper assembly are overrated when you're ready to go.

I'm trying to make the helmet an "all waking hours" sort of thing. One part safety, five parts my own amusement.

On Sunday morning we went to the park so that Daddy and daughter could express their mutual distaste for nature.

"Well this is disappointing."

I also took a stab at healthy cooking because, hey, it's been a while. I don't think this Salmon with Roasted Cherry Tomatoes recipe really needs to exist, since it consists of "put both of those things in the oven," but there you go anyway.

Just heat it all up, seriously.

Then I suggest you follow my lead and hit UNDO on that nutritionally responsible misstep with some Lemon and Lime Icebox Pie.

Sweetened condensed milk will fix it.

Friday afternoon. Effort level = 16%.

2011-07-22T15:40:00.000-05:00

I think I may have posted this recipe for Chicken, Potato, and Chipotle Salad on here before, but I can neither remember nor summon the motivation to look it up. I'm thinking that's going to be the case...always, so let's go ahead and establish that the repeated-recipe policy for this blog is me not caring at all. Anyway, you may have noticed that I tend to be drawn to things that can best be described as "improbably good," and this fits in that category.

When Rick Bayless tells you to put cooked potato in your salad, don't fight it. Just let it happen.

I think the part of this Grilled Pork Tenderloin with Mustard Dill Sauce and Quick-Pickled Zucchini that caught my eye was "pickled." Here I am well into my second trimester and I've hardly done any stereotypical pregnant-lady eating. Time's a wastin'! Better have a giant pile of pickles as a side dish.

I'm sending Dan out for ice cream tonight too, watch me.

Anna finally emerged from her vision quest, or whatever was happening in that tent, to stand in a basket while wearing a hat.

I like that every picture in the vicinity of the tent makes her look like Big Foot.

I don't know if I can classify it as an Anna's Fashion Corner entry, but this wasn't without precedent.

So I'm thinking that's it's pretty well established to be the Thing of Midsummer '11 now. Wearing a hat in a container: catch the fever!

The year of the sheep

2011-07-19T08:34:00.000-05:00

Time for another birthday cake! I decided to go a different direction this year.

That direction is "normal and appropriate." Don't get used to it.

I also kept the food pretty simple, focusing on qualities such as "round" and "made of bread." Just trying to make my birthday girl ~~not throw a screaming fit~~ happy on her special day.

Pizza rolls !

Muffins! It is not an exaggeration to say that she ate three of these for every year of her life so far. I was very close to making a similar attempt.

She got some pretty sweet presents this year, too. Check out this play kitchen from her YaYa and PaPa.

"Practice making coffee," we commanded repeatedly.

She also got a pop-up play tent from the Loontjers, which she disappeared into pretty much immediately.

We haven't seen her since.

Happy birthday, everyone else who lives here!

2011-07-14T14:36:00.000-05:00

Well, it's birthday week here at Casa Huff, and you know what that means...

A visit to the Twisty Wire-and-Wood Toy of Good Health.

Aaaaaand pancakes!

The good health is holding up, 70th percentile for height and 30th for weight. I mean, I'm making the pancakes. I'm doing all I can. I guess we don't care how big her head is any more? That was always my favorite part.

The pancakes actually served as Dan's birthday cake, since I'm not making two birthday cakes in one week. I guess I'll make him a cake again in 17 years, unless Anna is home from college or the mines or whatever concert tour she is following around the country. Or when she becomes a militantly anti-sugar vegan at age 7. See, honey? There's hope!

Birthday week seems like a good time to eat things out of bowls. Most weeks do. First: sausage, spinach, and purple hull peas over brown rice.

As far as I can tell, purple hull peas are exactly like black eyed peas except that they're called "purple hull peas."

Second: ratatouille! Yay! My mushy-gushy summertime favorite.

This batch wasn't beset by medical drama. Note that it has a less tragic nature than last year's.

It looks like Anna has decided to spend her special day in the traditional manner: festively wringing the life out of any balloons in the house.

As she is now a Big Girl and not a baby, her destructive wrath is marked by an increase in fine motor skills.

It's still a vacation if you don't relax at all, right?

2011-07-11T11:52:00.000-05:00

This weekend was Anna's first trip to the beach! She spent a lot of time studiously ignoring the ocean.

To be fair, she did have a pretty spectacular view of the seaweed from here.

"I don't hear any waves, la la la la la la."

Eventually I think she noticed that enjoyment of the beach was somehow related to having a grip on a beer koozie. After that she sort of got into the spirit of things.

"Oh, sand and water. I get it."

She even seemed ready to pilot her wagon right out to sea.

It's sad to think of the many adventures we quashed by interceding here.

We didn't exactly "sleep much" or "enjoy any meals" or "avoid the emergency room," but it was only four adults up against two toddlers, so we were pretty well outnumbered. We'll definitely be going back, in 15 or 20 years.

I continue to be thankful for my independence from pants that button

2011-07-04T22:50:00.000-05:00

Hey, you know who loves America? The Original Pancake House. I know we've long suspected this, but I finally have definitive proof!

Called it.

Anna loves America too, obviously. She also loves Cheetos.

I actually can't think of anything more American than loving Cheetos.

This morning she was so overcome with feelings of patriotism that she dove right into the pool with all her clothes on. Because that is how true Americans party, and she is precocious regarding these matters.

She's probably out cow-tipping right now.

We ate American food today. I mean, the hot dog and potato salad are pretty German I guess, and that back corner is straight up Italian, but you know what I'm saying.

A terrorist would definitely never eat this.

I lazily en-holidayed a Lemon Layer Cake.

A terrorist...might eat this. It's pretty good.

Anna, again displaying an amazing grasp of our fine national culture, chose to eat her hot dog on the move.

She and Sheep have, like, four parties to get to today.

She did have a little trouble getting into the playhouse with Joseph and Cash.

"Hey, guys! What's up?"

"Hey, hi! Hi guys!"

Unfortunately, it did devolve into stick-wielding threats.

Kind of resourceful.

Seems like it worked out, though.

AMERICA.

Maybe we'll name her Rose*

2011-07-01T11:08:00.000-05:00

Barbecued Lentil tacos seems like one of those things that sounds sort of hippie and weird but I actually like a lot, and yet...I did not like these. They were too sweet and too vinegary, and I LOVE vinegar, so who knows how that happened. I think maybe the balsamic vinegar we have sucks. My tortillas were good, though. Plus, making tortillas continues to fill me with an inappropriately high sense of accomplishment despite the fact that it is very easy to do.

Basically, making tortillas is the opposite of dealing with a two year old. I make a lot of tortillas.

Yesterday the ultrasound tech said, in essence, "I can't tell. But I'm guessing it's a girl." So, okay! We'll go with that, then. Here's the thing, though, guys--how am I ever going to come up with the resources to clothe a female child?

I personally purchased three of these outfits.

*As Baby Two's future aunt Kristy pointed out, one benefit of having girls is a higher likelihood that they will tolerate and/or embrace my obsession with musicals.

Next time I'll just bring a bowl of sugar and spoons

2011-06-29T08:33:00.000-05:00

I had a book club meeting Saturday night, so I whipped up a "Revelatory" Caramel Cake. I dunno. It sort of seemed like a waste of the absurd amount of sugar it involved.

My only revelations were, "My candy thermometer is broken," and "Caramel cake is sort of dry and bland."

A much better use of sugar? The whole cup of hoisin sauce in these Pork Lettuce Wraps. They were fine indeed. Probably because the lettuce completely negates any deleterious effects of the sweet sauce.

Like if I had served the caramel cake on a bed of kale.

Last night I made this Poached Egg over Polenta with Olive-Herb Pesto. Usually I feel like I don't really "get" polenta, but I found that by scooping it up with what is basically a giant crouton, I started to make sense of things. Also, I had never tried putting a poached egg on top, which is clearly the first move I should have made. My bad!

I see where you're coming from now, polenta. We cool.

Anna didn't eat any of it, but she was much cheerier than usual in her refusal.

Maybe because she's reached some sort of zen state with her newest toy, an ~~OCD-reinforcer~~ abacus.

It's so orderly.

She's been exploring her maternal side as well, notably the field of discipline.

At least, that's what I assume is going on here.

Please direct all gifts c/o me

2011-06-25T10:49:00.000-05:00

Oh hey, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BLOG! A whole entire year of...um, this. I have to say, I'm pretty impressed. At the outset of this thing I only gave you a few weeks, tops. Here, have a piece of coffee cake! You earned it.

Yes, I made "Blueberry Overload Coffee Cake" with no blueberries. Raspberry Overload is just as legit.

Speaking of birthdays, on Thursday I took advantage of my birthday present from the Loontjers, which was: A Perfect Day.

Step 1: Empty house.

It's so adorable when it's sleeping.

Step 2: Awesome destinations.

Occasionally throughout the past month I would just take these out of the card and look at them and smile.

Turns out Step 1 was really hard to abandon in favor of Step 2. Probably because I have actually fit a few tacos and bookstore trips into the past two years, but having the house to myself was pretty novel. And great. Eventually, though, I got hungry and remembered something important: tacos are also great.

Especially the Mojo Fish and Heather tacos from Tacodeli.

After lunch, I basically went nuts and bought everything at Barnes and Noble.

I blame the decaf.

Then, a healthy snack to get me through a matinee of Bridesmaids.

Made of fruit!

It was, obviously, an exceptionally good day. So good that I thought, "Maybe I should also abandon my child for an entire day tomorrow." And I did. It was ladies-in-law joint-birthday day, so I left Anna with Dan and headed to San Antonio for female activities.

I did leave him tons of these things for sustenance:

He ate other stuff instead.

I didn't take any pictures of Girl's Day Out, but it involved massages and queso and me sort of getting called out by a Chico's employee for making fun of one of their hats, so basically a success.

From what I understand, in the two days I was gone, Anna was both happily social and active.

Noted.

It's about time we had some warm weather around here

2011-06-21T13:41:00.000-05:00

Hey, it's the first day of summer! I know I speak for all Austinites when I say that we couldn't possibly be MORE READY for summertime, as we have been practicing our 100 degree days for over a month now. I think we're really going to ace this season, guys!

Obviously, I am celebrating the solstice with some hot soup. Specifically, Homesick Texan's Sopa de Lima. Between this and the Tex-Mex Chicken and Dumplings, I'm starting to think that lady really knows her way around a bowl of chicken soup. The next time you find yourself in possession of a whole chicken and a couple of hours, I suggest you consult Homesick Texan for further instructions.

Winter solstice menu: popsicles.

Anna greeted this fine new season by briefly, maniacally emerging from Her Box.

"HEY SUMMER WHAT'S UP"

Ready to go on a "cleanse," where "cleanse" means "trying not to eat pizza for one calendar week"

2011-06-17T16:26:00.000-05:00

Well, I hope everyone's Flag Day festivities went well--not too wild, right guys? It's pretty easy for those things to get out of control. Personally, I decided on an all-American meat and potatoes theme, making the extremely delicious Southwestern Pulled Brisket from Smitten Kitchen. Plus potatoes. Also, that was all a lie, I forgot it was Flag Day until the brisket had already been cooking for about 10 hours, but I'm not afraid to shoehorn things into a theme. Not afraid in the least.

You just have to trust me that there was a flag on the table. It was like a miniature Original Pancake House up in here.

Anna has been a little bit sick, and I'm still recovering from last weekend's bonding, so it's been pretty low-key around here for the most part. Yet I just couldn't shake the feeling that there was something...missing. Just a nagging sort of...yes. I know. I hadn't eaten enough pizza yet this week.

Pretty sure Baby Two is going to come out a little doughy.

I guess the problem wasn't lack of pizza per se. It was that the three previous nights of pizza had involved such appallingly traditional toppings, which is not something we generally abide around here. Ratatouille pizza set things right again. It also reminded me that it's ratatouille season. Mmmmmm tomato goo....

Last night was a triumph of refrigerator scraps: omelets with zucchini, red pepper, turkey, and goat cheese. Look how planned it looks. How intentional. Brilliant.

I love Scraps Night.

Anna seems to be taking Fashion Corner in a bold new direction, ditching "clothes" entirely in favor of a diaper and a cloth-bag-hat.

"It's the Summer of the Cloth-Bag-Hat," she insists.

Four days without Daddy

2011-06-13T12:44:00.000-05:00

For those of you who don't know, Dan is only a mild-mannered engineer by day. By night and the occasional very long weekend, he is actually the mild-mannered bass player in a band. This past weekend happened to be one of those rare (yet very long) band escapades, so it was time for some good Mommy-daughter bonding around here!

Day One: We have to leave a playgroup early due to excessive fussiness. Anna decides she would rather claw her own face off than take a nap.

Bold choice. You sort of have to respect it.

Despite healthy and economical leftovers in the fridge, I order pizza for dinner.

Also extra dipping sauce, one tub for each bloody ravine across Anna's face.

Day Two: From sunrise to sunset, we line things up.

I have leftover pizza for dinner (see above).

Day Three: There is near-constant whining regarding every activity I attempt.

We eat yogurt. With gusto.

I have leftover pizza for dinner (see above).

Day Four: Defenses are down. The pizza is gone. The theme to Dinosaur Train pounds in my head. Anna attempts her first sincere parking lot dash and responds to capture with inhuman howling.

She also reorganizes The Container Store.

Hubris.

Dan has predicted that they will return around 8 tonight, which means they will probably be here by midnight. I predict that I will eat ice cream for dinner.

Grocery roulette

2011-06-10T13:17:00.000-05:00

Thing I learned this week: you can pile chicken, leeks, and olives on top of spaghetti and somehow it transforms into a proper dinner. I'm starting to think I never actually need to follow any recipes, I can just rotate (random group of foods) + pasta, rice, sandwich bread, or pizza dough. Especially pizza dough. I can hear my cookbooks starting to grumble sadly about abandonment, though, and soon enough there will be stirrings of revolution and they'll recruit other seldom-used appliances (cookie press, waffle iron) and then my entire kitchen will be in upheaval. So I guess I won't go that route.

Also, what if this had been gross? It totally could have been gross.

Except for...here. This is basically a (+ sandwich bread) application. The combination is less random, though, I actually gave it 30 seconds of consideration. Bison burgers with onions, spinach, blue cheese, and sautéed squash on the side.

I will return to you soon, recipes. Please don't foment anything.

And now, Anna's Fashion Corner: Accessories Edition.

Because you're never fully dressed without a stern gaze, and also some pipe cleaners.

I also want to make fun of the movie, but I can't because I like it

2011-06-07T10:12:00.000-05:00

I don't generally do much frying around here, unless it is suggested to me as a stunt, but over the weekend we had a little fish fry. This was due entirely to the fact that this week's Local Box included green tomatoes, and I have no idea what one does with green tomatoes other than fry them, so after almost zero minutes of research on the subject, that's what I decided to do.

I now see that my only other option was to make a relish. Lack of previous effort vindicated!

Since they never look like much, I wish that I could take a picture of what the red beans and rice smell like.

You'd all say, "Erica, that weird smelly picture you posted was so great."

Anna has been dedicating a lot of her time to her favorite hobby/compulsion of lining things up in a row.

Raisins!

Magnets!

Uh...massage train?

With all this OCD-ness I sometimes worry that she and I don't have very much in common, but then she double-fists a quesadilla and I know she's mine.

It makes my heart all warm and gooey! (My heart is made of cheese.)

Only humanely raised, grass-fed vegetables from now on just to be safe

2011-06-03T13:00:00.000-05:00

I feel like this skirt steak with radishes in mustard sauce was pretty good when I ate it the other day, but I've read some Michael Pollan since then so now I'm sort of grossed out by this picture. People are just constantly trying to ruin food for me.

All I can see are the antibiotics. And the carrots in the background. They're really orange.

The piece I read didn't mention chickens, so I'm still cool with this Roasted Chicken Salad sandwich with baked potato chips. I know it seems like I've been making a lot of sandwiches for dinner lately, but I have a really good reason, and it is: laziness.

I've said it before, but CSA/Local Box items are super easy to use as long as they're potatoes.

I'd be tempted to say that Anna is just using Cash for his awesome hat...

But I really believe she enjoys having someone to share her active lifestyle with.

I kind of want to go back on July 4th just to see what happens

2011-05-31T13:19:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure how to feel about the fact that this is not the first time I've had roasted beet sandwiches for dinner. How did my life get to such a place? It probably won't be the last, either, since "put it in a sandwich" is my go-to technique for foods about which I am ambivalent and I can't stop ordering "local boxes" and they can't stop including beets. It's just the way things are going to be. At least this one was on some nice oatmeal bread.

I guess I can cross "folate deficiency" off the list of probable reasons for my demise.

Did I tell you that we're currently running a small-scale pepper farm in our backyard? Sometimes when you send your husband to buy plants for the garden without very specific instructions you end up with a packet of squash seeds and sixteen pepper plants. This will be your own fault for saying "I would like some peppers this summer" without remembering to include "but I imagine sixteen plants is in excess of what two people will want to consume."

My own spicy little tribbles.

Anyway, if you live anywhere in the vicinity of my house, please do not purchase any jalapeños or banana peppers this summer. Take them. Take them from me. Help.

Monday morning we met Andy at World's Most Flag-Adorned Restaurant Original Pancake House.

Just thoroughly Sousa-fied, the whole place.

"Mmmm.....patriotism."

We also had a very nice Memorial day lunch with the Loontjers and went to a fun party next door, but I apparently enjoyed those activities too much to photograph them so you'll have to use your imagination. Just know that I am back on the cheese-eating horse and more cheese-consumptive than ever. At the top of my cheese game, even. All lactose trembles in fear before me.

Anyone who believes that two year olds lack focus has probably never seen Anna watch a show about trains while simultaneously reading a book about trains.

And muttering "traaaaaaaaaaaaains," zombie-like, under her breath.

She has been pursing other interests as well. She likes the extremely educational marine magnets we got her at the Seattle aquarium.

Lesson #26: The Verticality of Sea Life.

I am so close to making this blog a pizza and ice cream review site

2011-05-26T13:46:00.000-05:00

Despite being safely in my second trimester and no longer besieged by constant nausea, I still do a great deal more "unhappy yet determined choking down" of various healthy things than I prefer. Here are some perfectly nice-looking, nutritious things that I practically had to force down my own throat by massaging it with my hand, like giving a vitamin to a cat.

First, Buttermilk Farro Salad from 101 Cookbooks. It's basically covered with homemade ranch dressing, and still no. I actually only picked this recipe because I was looking for a way to use up the fennel that I thought I was getting in my Local Box but didn't. So there's no fennel. And no reason for this salad's existence in my life.

Hey, that was a really compelling story, about the fennel. You're still thinking about it, huh?

Then we have fish. Fish with salad and steamed edamame.

The fish pictures just never look interesting.

This one was much less arduous, overall: Sweet Potato-Peanut Bisque with salad (slightly arduous) and buttermilk biscuits. The biscuits were only because I had buttermilk leftover from earlier in the week.

Dan is going to weep when he reads this, but we were thisclose to having soup and pancakes instead.

Once she had her fill of the tissue paper surrounding it (or we threw it all away when she was napping, whatever), Anna really got into the drum set Kay brought over for her.

"I have found my calling, and--perhaps unsurprisingly--it is beating things with sticks."