And so much changes in eight months!
Well, when you're 5-13 months old, anyway.
The Girl is laughing, WALKING, eating people food and chasing the dog (slowly, but Sheila doesn't like it). Her vocabulary is pretty limited, but she totally knows exactly what's going on all the time. She answers questions, and the other day we even had a CONVERSATION.
Girl: Air ee-ah?
Me: I don't know. Let's go find Sheila.
Girl: yeahyeahyeah
and then she chased the dog for a few minutes.
Anthony and I are still at Fort Campbell, and the New Year has brought some fun changes for me!
I've been actually exercising and not just saying I wish I had time to exercise. I'm also using the MyFitnessPal and Pacer Apps to track stuff, and it's actually super rewarding to have the information in front of me at all times. Even though I haven't seen any actual weight come off yet, I do know that my body is stronger and my stamina is higher. MyFitnessPal is helping me keep track of calories (as opposed to my previous method of "Maybe it isn't so bad...?") and when I have leftover 'points' at the end of the day it is kind of an awesome feeling. Another one of my goals was to drink enough water every day. I'm only posting all this information on the internet so I feel accountable to the internet and not just to myself. Starting a Facebook group with some like-minded healthy-hopefuls has been fun and entertaining, as well as uplifting and I thought it might be even more uplifting and exciting and whatever to share on While She's Asleep.
So. That's why I posted all that navel-gazing mess.
Here are Ten Things I Enjoyed The Last Eight Months:
The Pioneer Woman's Chicken Noodle Soup it is a huge batch for the two of us, so we had some in the freezer for months. It was awesome!
Tommee Tippee's Easi-Mat The Girl figured out how to pick it up pretty quickly, but it still helps once she gets distracted by all the yummy food on her plate!
Sassy's Grow Up Cup because, seriously. It is really cool, man.
MyFitnessPal to keep me in check and help me pay attention to what I'm doing
Wellness Mama for recipes for lotions, and tips on crunchy, natural living stuff. We make our own diaper cream, so Wellness Mama was a great starting point.
Brad Meltzer Books We have three of them. LOVE THEM. The link takes you to the newest "Ordinary People Change the World" book, which is about Jackie Robinson. We have Einstein, Lincoln, and Amelia Earhart.
Green Toys They are all so cool. And, even though we don't have any yet, Green Toys makes some trucks and airplanes and boats that are in girly colors. I just like that.
Snapea Crisps I just love them, and I feel like it's better to eat them than potato chips (which I also love). Please don't tell me if it isn't.
Yummly another app, but for recipes! You put in what you're kinda looking for (I usually enter what I have when I need to make dinner and didn't plan appropriately) and it gives you dozens of recipes from all over the internet. I usually trust Martha Stewart, but I learned about Smitten Kitchen, Kath Eats Real Food, and a few other new favorites from Yummly.
and finally:
The fact that my desk is no longer in the freezing cold or steaming hot (depending on the season) den and I have a space for writing that is comfortable and feels like it's part of my house. This blog began when Scarlett was sleeping on me and I had the laptop beside me, and the accidental hiatus began when the laptop went back to my desk.
You guys, I could actually write while The Girl played behind me in the dining room. I might actually be posting more often! I mean, don't hold me to it, I have exercise and calorie counting to do, but STILL.
And now, to check on The Girl, who is sleeping very fitfully tonight. Until next time!
-Tara
Sunday, January 11, 2015
Thursday, March 6, 2014
Best Budget Blog Series: Intro and Week 1 Meal Plan
The next few posts will be a series on my mission to cut our grocery bill. Last week, we spent more than $150 on groceries for just the two of us. I had been justifying what felt like an outrageous amount of money before The Girl was born as a casualty of pregnancy and living in Hawaii, where the cost of living is about 150% what it is in the southern US. Since her birth, I've considered it a casualty of breastfeeding. I can't do that anymore-- it just doesn't make sense to this Cheapskate to spend more on anything than absolutely necessary!
As with many of my blog entries, the first few steps of my writing process were unrelated to the eventual result: I sang You are my Sunshine and few times, changed a diaper, and laid my baby down for a nap.
Then I walked into my kitchen to quietly take inventory. I think the best way to get started here is to use what I have and discover what meals I can make with what we have now, to see what we actually enjoy eating. I decided not to include the price of those items in a grocery bill, because they're kind of just what everyone has some of at all times. When I run out of any of these things, I will absolutely include the cost of replacing it (a bag of rice, for example) when the time comes.
My Inventory:
Beans and Grains
brown rice
white rice
quinoa
egg noodles (1/2 bag)
elbow noodles (1/2 box)
mini farfalle (1/2 box)
oats
black beans (dry, 1 pound)
lentils (1/4 bag, about 1 cup, dried)
kidney beans (1 can)
small bag of raw almonds
small box of mixed nuts
Canned
corn (1 can)
coconut milk (1 can)
soup (3 cans)
green beans (4 cans)
pizza sauce
Misc (that will still be edible next week)
ground beef (1 pound)
Italian sausage (1/2 pound)
pizza dough (for 1 pizza)
tomato sauce (2 mason jars)
chicken stock (2 mason jars and 3 packets that make 8 cups each)
frozen broccoli
frozen broccoli, carrot, cauliflower mix
a few cups of flour
4.5 lbs sugar
oils and sauces needed for many Asian dishes
standard oils and vinegars
standard spices/dry goods for baking and cooking
standard condiments
garlic
Finally, I'm getting a mixed basket of produce that I spent $34.50 on, and it will absolutely last the entire week.
Doing inventory showed me that I buy canned veggies pasta and forget about them. Noted!
I also have +/-9 meals in my freezer, but I'm not 100% certain they're all still good (though my intentions were!) so I'm not going to include them. I'm just going to save them for lazy nights.
Without even really thinking about it I can see a few meals there. Red beans and rice, black beans and rice, pasta with tomato sauce and Italian sausage, tomato soup and grilled cheese, and super-easy soup night. That's all before the produce even gets here! After I get my Bountiful Basket, I'll have everything I need for yellow curry, fried rice, and a vegetarian stir fry.
I just listed eight dinners I can make without going to the grocery store at all. My lunches will mostly consist of produce, a quinoa salad I plan to make this weekend and turkey-and-cheese sandwiches. Anthony will eat leftovers from the previous night's dinners.
My biggest concerns going into this are the astronomical amounts of fat and protein that breastfeeding women need. My husband can benefit from the same amount of protein that I require, but his carbohydrate needs exceed my own. I'm trying to make sure I don't "waste calories" by eating many things without much nutritional value, so this budgeting effort is going to force us to eat better. That's always a good thing!
Compulsive Planner that I am, I put together this Meal Plan for the upcoming week. If there's one thing I have learned from previous budgeting endeavors, it is very powerful to have a plan from which you refuse to deviate. Another really helpful thing is accountability, which is one of the many reasons I'm going to blog about this.
We do our grocery shopping on Saturdays, so my plans always start with Saturday's dinner. An asterisk will denote something I have to buy, and I will make a complete list below.
Saturday
Breakfast: bacon, eggs, toast*
Lunch: sandwiches, veggies
Snacks: veggies w/ hummus, cheese, nuts
Dinner: pizza*
Sunday
Breakfast: pancakes
Lunch: salads
Snacks: veggies w/ hummus, cheese, nuts
Dinner: stir fry (meat optional!*)
For the rest of the week, breakfast, snacks and lunch will be the same every day. We will have fruit and muffins/something baked for breakfast. Lunch will be leftovers for Anthony and a salad or sandwich with veggies for me. Snacks will be the same as they were on the weekends!
Monday
Red beans and rice (meat optional!*)
Tuesday
Pasta w/ Italian sausage and tomato sauce with a side salad
Wednesday
Tomato soup and grilled cheese
Thursday
Curry (meat optional!*)
Friday
Pasta with garlic and olive oil, a not-green veggie and a side salad
I try to set myself up for success by making easier dinners during the week and the more complicated ones on the weekend. That way, Anthony can do the majority of the cooking and let me play sous chef while I hang out with The Girl. The "meat optional" asterisks are all honest. Curry, red beans and rice, and stir fry can all be wonderful without chicken, sausage, beef, whatever. We are including meat because of Anthony's protein needs for daily physical training and my protein needs to feed the little one.
All that said, here is my grocery list:
My staples:
flour (usually every other week, but I'll get the biggest bag I can buy within my budget this time!)
milk
eggs
hummus (which is technically cheaper to make at home, but for the purposes of this experiment I'm not going to buy tahini and the olive oil I'd need to make up what I'd use on hummus alone. Also, my food processor kind of really sucks a lot.)
For dinners:
mozzarella cheese (for pizza)
1 package of chicken (for curry)
and if I manage to make it under budget I will also get
1 package of some kind of steak (for stir fry)
1 package Andouille sausage (for red beans and rice)
1 can of peas (for stir fry)
Depending what's in our produce basket, I might end up buying carrots and onions.
Since we've already spent $34.50, it is my goal to purchase the 8 items on my grocery list for under $40.50. If I succeed, we will have spent less than 50% of what we spent last week!
This weekend, I'll post about what we get in our Bountiful Basket and what I spend at the grocery store. Honestly, I have high hopes.
If you have any questions, see any glaring nutritional deficits in my meal plans, would like a specific recipe or just want to cheer us on, please comment below!
Admittedly, this series was inspired by a very sudden $1500 cost. While we can do some money-shifting to make it happen, the plans we had for those bucks aren't something I'm willing to sacrifice altogether. Instead, those plans are just on hold until we save $1250 in groceries. My hope is to save that much in 4 months.
As with many of my blog entries, the first few steps of my writing process were unrelated to the eventual result: I sang You are my Sunshine and few times, changed a diaper, and laid my baby down for a nap.
Then I walked into my kitchen to quietly take inventory. I think the best way to get started here is to use what I have and discover what meals I can make with what we have now, to see what we actually enjoy eating. I decided not to include the price of those items in a grocery bill, because they're kind of just what everyone has some of at all times. When I run out of any of these things, I will absolutely include the cost of replacing it (a bag of rice, for example) when the time comes.
My Inventory:
Beans and Grains
brown rice
white rice
quinoa
egg noodles (1/2 bag)
elbow noodles (1/2 box)
mini farfalle (1/2 box)
oats
black beans (dry, 1 pound)
lentils (1/4 bag, about 1 cup, dried)
kidney beans (1 can)
small bag of raw almonds
small box of mixed nuts
Canned
corn (1 can)
coconut milk (1 can)
soup (3 cans)
green beans (4 cans)
pizza sauce
Misc (that will still be edible next week)
ground beef (1 pound)
Italian sausage (1/2 pound)
pizza dough (for 1 pizza)
tomato sauce (2 mason jars)
chicken stock (2 mason jars and 3 packets that make 8 cups each)
frozen broccoli
frozen broccoli, carrot, cauliflower mix
a few cups of flour
4.5 lbs sugar
oils and sauces needed for many Asian dishes
standard oils and vinegars
standard spices/dry goods for baking and cooking
standard condiments
garlic
Finally, I'm getting a mixed basket of produce that I spent $34.50 on, and it will absolutely last the entire week.
Doing inventory showed me that I buy canned veggies pasta and forget about them. Noted!
I also have +/-9 meals in my freezer, but I'm not 100% certain they're all still good (though my intentions were!) so I'm not going to include them. I'm just going to save them for lazy nights.
Without even really thinking about it I can see a few meals there. Red beans and rice, black beans and rice, pasta with tomato sauce and Italian sausage, tomato soup and grilled cheese, and super-easy soup night. That's all before the produce even gets here! After I get my Bountiful Basket, I'll have everything I need for yellow curry, fried rice, and a vegetarian stir fry.
I just listed eight dinners I can make without going to the grocery store at all. My lunches will mostly consist of produce, a quinoa salad I plan to make this weekend and turkey-and-cheese sandwiches. Anthony will eat leftovers from the previous night's dinners.
My biggest concerns going into this are the astronomical amounts of fat and protein that breastfeeding women need. My husband can benefit from the same amount of protein that I require, but his carbohydrate needs exceed my own. I'm trying to make sure I don't "waste calories" by eating many things without much nutritional value, so this budgeting effort is going to force us to eat better. That's always a good thing!
Compulsive Planner that I am, I put together this Meal Plan for the upcoming week. If there's one thing I have learned from previous budgeting endeavors, it is very powerful to have a plan from which you refuse to deviate. Another really helpful thing is accountability, which is one of the many reasons I'm going to blog about this.
We do our grocery shopping on Saturdays, so my plans always start with Saturday's dinner. An asterisk will denote something I have to buy, and I will make a complete list below.
Saturday
Breakfast: bacon, eggs, toast*
Lunch: sandwiches, veggies
Snacks: veggies w/ hummus, cheese, nuts
Dinner: pizza*
Sunday
Breakfast: pancakes
Lunch: salads
Snacks: veggies w/ hummus, cheese, nuts
Dinner: stir fry (meat optional!*)
For the rest of the week, breakfast, snacks and lunch will be the same every day. We will have fruit and muffins/something baked for breakfast. Lunch will be leftovers for Anthony and a salad or sandwich with veggies for me. Snacks will be the same as they were on the weekends!
Monday
Red beans and rice (meat optional!*)
Tuesday
Pasta w/ Italian sausage and tomato sauce with a side salad
Wednesday
Tomato soup and grilled cheese
Thursday
Curry (meat optional!*)
Friday
Pasta with garlic and olive oil, a not-green veggie and a side salad
I try to set myself up for success by making easier dinners during the week and the more complicated ones on the weekend. That way, Anthony can do the majority of the cooking and let me play sous chef while I hang out with The Girl. The "meat optional" asterisks are all honest. Curry, red beans and rice, and stir fry can all be wonderful without chicken, sausage, beef, whatever. We are including meat because of Anthony's protein needs for daily physical training and my protein needs to feed the little one.
All that said, here is my grocery list:
My staples:
flour (usually every other week, but I'll get the biggest bag I can buy within my budget this time!)
milk
eggs
hummus (which is technically cheaper to make at home, but for the purposes of this experiment I'm not going to buy tahini and the olive oil I'd need to make up what I'd use on hummus alone. Also, my food processor kind of really sucks a lot.)
For dinners:
mozzarella cheese (for pizza)
1 package of chicken (for curry)
and if I manage to make it under budget I will also get
1 package of some kind of steak (for stir fry)
1 package Andouille sausage (for red beans and rice)
1 can of peas (for stir fry)
Depending what's in our produce basket, I might end up buying carrots and onions.
Since we've already spent $34.50, it is my goal to purchase the 8 items on my grocery list for under $40.50. If I succeed, we will have spent less than 50% of what we spent last week!
This weekend, I'll post about what we get in our Bountiful Basket and what I spend at the grocery store. Honestly, I have high hopes.
If you have any questions, see any glaring nutritional deficits in my meal plans, would like a specific recipe or just want to cheer us on, please comment below!
Admittedly, this series was inspired by a very sudden $1500 cost. While we can do some money-shifting to make it happen, the plans we had for those bucks aren't something I'm willing to sacrifice altogether. Instead, those plans are just on hold until we save $1250 in groceries. My hope is to save that much in 4 months.
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Best Black Bean Burgers
One of the better-known vegetarian foods companies makes black bean burgers one can keep in the freezer and heat at-will. I am the kind of person who enjoys something frozen a lot more if I ate it fresh, too. I just feel like I 'get' the food in a deeper way. I understand its off-color jokes. I can figure out why it seems uncomfortable in social situations. There's also the fact that the store-bought black bean burgers have 700mg of sodium, and when you make them at home you can control how much salt you put into the mix. I put in a 'dash.' In my culinary travels I have decided a dash is a 1/4 teaspoon. So, 155mg sodium. Just sayin'.
The recipe I'm sharing is enough for 6-8 burgers, so in my house (where only two people have teeth) that was a meal and two more frozen meals.
Let's do this.
You'll need:
1lb bag dry black beans
1 cup brown rice (when uncooked it'll measure a cup)
Directions: cook 'em.
Pause. You can totally get canned beans. Two cans would do it. But, like I said, we're controlling what goes into our food here and you are not the boss of what's in those cans. So, if you do get dry black beans, just follow the directions on the package to cook them. For me, it was something like 8 cups of cold water to soak in the night before, then a rinse, bringing them to a boil in 8 different cups of water, then simmering for 2 hours. And you cook rice the way the bag says, too.
Then mash the black beans so they'll stick together, but it's okay if they're still pretty chunky. And mix the rice in.
Then add:
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tbsp paprika
1.5 tsp black pepper
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp cayenne
1 tsp parsley flakes
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup breadcrumbs
And stir all that, and then taste it. If you want to, you can add more salt. Twice what I suggested is still only 310mg. In the whole recipe. Instead of 700mg in one burger. In fact, you could use an entire teaspoon of salt and there'd still be less than 300mg of sodium per burger, which means two teaspoons is still only 580mg, and you're still winning.
Next, do whatever you want with it. Everything is cooked, so you're just forming the burgers to either freeze or eat them. If you're going to eat them at this point, I suggest either a frying pan with a teensy bit of olive oil (ahem, bacongreasemasonjarkitchenwindowsill) until there is a crisp shellish on them, or grilling. Yep, grill your vegetarian burger. WHY THE HELL NOT?
Try these things on your burger: meunster or swiss cheese, avocado (mashed with some pepper), guacamole (find your own recipe. What do you want, blood?) a fried egg, spinach, sauteed onions.
OR ALL OF THAT AT ONCE. I mean, guac and avocado is a bit redundant, but it's your life.
It seems there are no appropriate places for process photos in this post. As a result, I will put all the photos here, at the end!
The recipe I'm sharing is enough for 6-8 burgers, so in my house (where only two people have teeth) that was a meal and two more frozen meals.
Let's do this.
You'll need:
1lb bag dry black beans
1 cup brown rice (when uncooked it'll measure a cup)
Directions: cook 'em.
Pause. You can totally get canned beans. Two cans would do it. But, like I said, we're controlling what goes into our food here and you are not the boss of what's in those cans. So, if you do get dry black beans, just follow the directions on the package to cook them. For me, it was something like 8 cups of cold water to soak in the night before, then a rinse, bringing them to a boil in 8 different cups of water, then simmering for 2 hours. And you cook rice the way the bag says, too.
Then mash the black beans so they'll stick together, but it's okay if they're still pretty chunky. And mix the rice in.
Then add:
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tbsp paprika
1.5 tsp black pepper
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp cayenne
1 tsp parsley flakes
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup breadcrumbs
And stir all that, and then taste it. If you want to, you can add more salt. Twice what I suggested is still only 310mg. In the whole recipe. Instead of 700mg in one burger. In fact, you could use an entire teaspoon of salt and there'd still be less than 300mg of sodium per burger, which means two teaspoons is still only 580mg, and you're still winning.
Next, do whatever you want with it. Everything is cooked, so you're just forming the burgers to either freeze or eat them. If you're going to eat them at this point, I suggest either a frying pan with a teensy bit of olive oil (ahem, bacongreasemasonjarkitchenwindowsill) until there is a crisp shellish on them, or grilling. Yep, grill your vegetarian burger. WHY THE HELL NOT?
Try these things on your burger: meunster or swiss cheese, avocado (mashed with some pepper), guacamole (find your own recipe. What do you want, blood?) a fried egg, spinach, sauteed onions.
OR ALL OF THAT AT ONCE. I mean, guac and avocado is a bit redundant, but it's your life.
It seems there are no appropriate places for process photos in this post. As a result, I will put all the photos here, at the end!
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
A Look Back on the First 12 Weeks
My first baby is three months old on Sunday. WHAT?! I seriously don't know how that happened. I'm fairly certain when The Girl is thirty she'll reveal a time machine she's finally finished and let me know that her first journey was to the first few months of her life.
"You were really doing a super job, Mom, but you were so tired. I decided to just fast forward so you and Dad could get some rest."
"Thanks, kiddo. I'm glad I raised you to be thoughtful and a genius."
These three months have been crazy, educational, enlightening, exhausting and beautiful. It's rewarding to be the one person who, with a special swivel of the hips when sauntering a precise speed down the hallway, can make a frightened, tired, or angry little person quit yelling for a minute and take a breath. On the other side of the coin, there is nothing more frustrating than the first time your tried-and-true method doesn't work. In the middle of the night. When the baby has gas. Next is the moment you remember you ate broccoli with dinner, and the guilt of something so trivial pierces your heart like an ice pick.
I feel like we brought our teeny little baby home from the hospital last week, terrified we'd do an awful job. It's as if her first doctor's appointment, where I was sure they'd tell me she wasn't growing enough or pooping enough, was a few days ago. Like those first shots were yesterday.
Rumor has it time will pass this way for the rest of my life. "The years have seemed short, but the days were long." I love the long days-- the afternoons that stretch on forever.
Bathtime isn't as terrifying anymore because she seems a little hardier without that stupid flimsy baby neck. Her baby acne (don't worry, honey, nobody you know will remember I said anything) and cradle cap are finally gone, and the diaper rash I thought was going to kill everyone in my house--yes, even Sheila-- has been a memory for weeks. We get increasingly more comfortable with one another every day, and it's starting to seem she has less of an instinct and more of a desire to cuddle. And she discovers a thousand new things every day.
Last night, when Anthony came home from work, he found us in the nursery during a diaper change. Without thinking, he put his ice-cold hand on The Girl's naked belly. She gasped, looked at her tummy and a huge smile overtook her face, eyes wide with wonder. Daddy is full of silly tricks, Scout.
This morning, I was doing squats beside the bed while she was waking up. She'd watch as I dipped below her line of sight, furrowing her brow and pursing her lips. She greeted me with a wiggle and a grin every time I returned to view. Mama will always come back, Scuttlebug.
The Girl loves the ABC's and You Are My Sunshine, and falls asleep best to Dream a Little Dream of Me, a song my mother sang to me when I was a baby. Her favorite animal in Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? is the green frog. Her favorite toy is a crinkly, yellow giraffe a friend brought over as a gift. I can't wait to see what her favorites are next week!
It's still scary to wake up alone in her bassinet, but much easier to fall asleep there now. She's clearly a morning person, starting each day with a long stretch and a squirmy dance. She opens those little blue eyes and smiles to greet her sleepy Mama with the new day streaming in through the blinds beside our bed.
The sun only rises because my daughter welcomes it with such joy.
It's been lovely (there is really no other word) to watch a tenderness develop in my ARMY STRONG husband. He is a caring father, even though he has unmatched skill when it comes to sleeping through a rough night. You can see his pride and hope for our child in his eyes each time he sees her. It melts me.
Our lives began when hers did.
"You were really doing a super job, Mom, but you were so tired. I decided to just fast forward so you and Dad could get some rest."
"Thanks, kiddo. I'm glad I raised you to be thoughtful and a genius."
These three months have been crazy, educational, enlightening, exhausting and beautiful. It's rewarding to be the one person who, with a special swivel of the hips when sauntering a precise speed down the hallway, can make a frightened, tired, or angry little person quit yelling for a minute and take a breath. On the other side of the coin, there is nothing more frustrating than the first time your tried-and-true method doesn't work. In the middle of the night. When the baby has gas. Next is the moment you remember you ate broccoli with dinner, and the guilt of something so trivial pierces your heart like an ice pick.
I feel like we brought our teeny little baby home from the hospital last week, terrified we'd do an awful job. It's as if her first doctor's appointment, where I was sure they'd tell me she wasn't growing enough or pooping enough, was a few days ago. Like those first shots were yesterday.
Rumor has it time will pass this way for the rest of my life. "The years have seemed short, but the days were long." I love the long days-- the afternoons that stretch on forever.
Bathtime isn't as terrifying anymore because she seems a little hardier without that stupid flimsy baby neck. Her baby acne (don't worry, honey, nobody you know will remember I said anything) and cradle cap are finally gone, and the diaper rash I thought was going to kill everyone in my house--yes, even Sheila-- has been a memory for weeks. We get increasingly more comfortable with one another every day, and it's starting to seem she has less of an instinct and more of a desire to cuddle. And she discovers a thousand new things every day.
Last night, when Anthony came home from work, he found us in the nursery during a diaper change. Without thinking, he put his ice-cold hand on The Girl's naked belly. She gasped, looked at her tummy and a huge smile overtook her face, eyes wide with wonder. Daddy is full of silly tricks, Scout.
This morning, I was doing squats beside the bed while she was waking up. She'd watch as I dipped below her line of sight, furrowing her brow and pursing her lips. She greeted me with a wiggle and a grin every time I returned to view. Mama will always come back, Scuttlebug.
The Girl loves the ABC's and You Are My Sunshine, and falls asleep best to Dream a Little Dream of Me, a song my mother sang to me when I was a baby. Her favorite animal in Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? is the green frog. Her favorite toy is a crinkly, yellow giraffe a friend brought over as a gift. I can't wait to see what her favorites are next week!
It's still scary to wake up alone in her bassinet, but much easier to fall asleep there now. She's clearly a morning person, starting each day with a long stretch and a squirmy dance. She opens those little blue eyes and smiles to greet her sleepy Mama with the new day streaming in through the blinds beside our bed.
The sun only rises because my daughter welcomes it with such joy.
It's been lovely (there is really no other word) to watch a tenderness develop in my ARMY STRONG husband. He is a caring father, even though he has unmatched skill when it comes to sleeping through a rough night. You can see his pride and hope for our child in his eyes each time he sees her. It melts me.
Our lives began when hers did.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Acorn Squash Bread: An Experiment
Hello!
Those of you who are friends with me on Facebook know I got a Bountiful Basket this week. This is a food co-op in many US states from which you order a weekly basket of produce (or, in the winter, bi-weekly). For our first basket, Anthony and I chose the basic (non-organic) one, and added on an Asian Pack. You can also order breads, large quantities of one fruit or vegetable (I think those options were carrots and strawberries this time around), and other "Packs," such as the Lunchbox Pack for fruit that goes with your kids' lunches, or the California Pack which looked like it was mostly carrots, cauliflower and broccoli. The basic basket was $15, plus a $3 first-timer fee (so they could buy the basket) and we paid an extra $15 or so for the Asian Pack.
Click here to see if you can get a Bountiful Basket where you live!
We got lots of fruits and veggies I found familiar. In the basic basket there were two bunches of spinach, two heads of romaine, fresh cilantro and basil, sweet peppers, heirloom tomatoes, lots of apples, oranges and pears, a bunch of bananas and (dramatic reverb)...
Yeah, proper nouns for mystery veggies.
I liked the look of him immediately. And then I realized I had no idea what Acorn Squash is for, and decided I would bake it. How? I didn't decide that until this morning, when The Girl was napping and I was googlin' about this gigantic thing on my counter.
I read that cinnamon went well with acorn squash, and an idea was born:
Pan bread. Specifically, an adaptation of my Best Banana Bread, a recipe I shared here.
You guys, I think it worked out kind of amazingly well.
First, at the advice of about.com, I pierced the skin in a few places and microwaved the squash for 2 minutes to make it easier to cut in half. I didn't attempt to halve it before I zapped it. I took the recommendation as reason enough not to try.
Then, I sliced it in half, scooped out the seeds and fibers, and took a notch out of the back so it would stand up on its own and not weeble-wobble. (Because it probably would have fallen down, and I only had one.)
For some reason, I was inspired to salt it before I put it in the oven. I don't know why, but everything turned out okay, so maybe that was a good call.
I roasted the squash at 400F for 60 minutes. This happened to be exactly how long The Girl stayed asleep. As a result, the squash cooled completely before I peeled the skin off and mashed it up in a mixing bowl.
Now the fun begins! You'll need:
6 tablespoons butter, melted*
1/2 acorn squash, roasted and mashed
2/3 cup brown sugar (I used light, but dark would have been better)
1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp nutmeg (this increase is because we particularly enjoy nutmeg in my house)
1tbs cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
1.5 cup flour
* (or use some other kind of liquefied fat/oil, if you're making bread out of squash to be healthy and not out of necessity)
Here's where it starts to sound familiar. Preheat the oven to 350F. Mix the mashed squash, butter and sugar together (both kinds) until they're completely combined.
Then, add in all the spices, and mix them in. Baking soda isn't a spice, but add it, too. And the vanilla.
I should have just typed "everything else but the flour." No regrets.
Finally, add the flour.
Mix everything completely together and then pour it all into a greased loaf pan. For my weirdo 9.25x5.25 pan, 50 minutes was the perfect baking time at 350F.
And it's actually good! Reminds me of Autumn and that just feels right when it's still thirty-five degrees outside.
If I could do it all again, I might use a teensy bit less nutmeg or more cinnamon. There was too much of the former and not enough of the latter, but just barely. If you used 1/4 tsp of nutmeg instead of going all meth-addict for it, you likely wouldn't have a problem.
Oh, and I buttered the enormous slice I ate because it's bread and that's what you do to bread. You butter it.
The texture when it was warm was exactly what you'd expect from a pan bread, and that means I succeeded.
Enjoy eating a strangely shaped winter squash as a sweet morning bread! It tastes even better to me because I improvised a baking recipe!
Pro tip: Both this recipe and my banana bread recipe (there will be a link over to the side for that post!) can be made into perfectly soft and wonderful muffins if you bake them for 27 minutes at the same temperature.
Those of you who are friends with me on Facebook know I got a Bountiful Basket this week. This is a food co-op in many US states from which you order a weekly basket of produce (or, in the winter, bi-weekly). For our first basket, Anthony and I chose the basic (non-organic) one, and added on an Asian Pack. You can also order breads, large quantities of one fruit or vegetable (I think those options were carrots and strawberries this time around), and other "Packs," such as the Lunchbox Pack for fruit that goes with your kids' lunches, or the California Pack which looked like it was mostly carrots, cauliflower and broccoli. The basic basket was $15, plus a $3 first-timer fee (so they could buy the basket) and we paid an extra $15 or so for the Asian Pack.
Click here to see if you can get a Bountiful Basket where you live!
An Acorn Squash.
I liked the look of him immediately. And then I realized I had no idea what Acorn Squash is for, and decided I would bake it. How? I didn't decide that until this morning, when The Girl was napping and I was googlin' about this gigantic thing on my counter.
I read that cinnamon went well with acorn squash, and an idea was born:
Pan bread. Specifically, an adaptation of my Best Banana Bread, a recipe I shared here.
You guys, I think it worked out kind of amazingly well.
First, at the advice of about.com, I pierced the skin in a few places and microwaved the squash for 2 minutes to make it easier to cut in half. I didn't attempt to halve it before I zapped it. I took the recommendation as reason enough not to try.
Then, I sliced it in half, scooped out the seeds and fibers, and took a notch out of the back so it would stand up on its own and not weeble-wobble. (Because it probably would have fallen down, and I only had one.)
I roasted the squash at 400F for 60 minutes. This happened to be exactly how long The Girl stayed asleep. As a result, the squash cooled completely before I peeled the skin off and mashed it up in a mixing bowl.
Now the fun begins! You'll need:
6 tablespoons butter, melted*
1/2 acorn squash, roasted and mashed
2/3 cup brown sugar (I used light, but dark would have been better)
1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp nutmeg (this increase is because we particularly enjoy nutmeg in my house)
1tbs cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
1.5 cup flour
* (or use some other kind of liquefied fat/oil, if you're making bread out of squash to be healthy and not out of necessity)
Here's where it starts to sound familiar. Preheat the oven to 350F. Mix the mashed squash, butter and sugar together (both kinds) until they're completely combined.
Then, add in all the spices, and mix them in. Baking soda isn't a spice, but add it, too. And the vanilla.
I should have just typed "everything else but the flour." No regrets.
Finally, add the flour.
Mix everything completely together and then pour it all into a greased loaf pan. For my weirdo 9.25x5.25 pan, 50 minutes was the perfect baking time at 350F.
And it's actually good! Reminds me of Autumn and that just feels right when it's still thirty-five degrees outside.
If I could do it all again, I might use a teensy bit less nutmeg or more cinnamon. There was too much of the former and not enough of the latter, but just barely. If you used 1/4 tsp of nutmeg instead of going all meth-addict for it, you likely wouldn't have a problem.
Oh, and I buttered the enormous slice I ate because it's bread and that's what you do to bread. You butter it.
The texture when it was warm was exactly what you'd expect from a pan bread, and that means I succeeded.
Enjoy eating a strangely shaped winter squash as a sweet morning bread! It tastes even better to me because I improvised a baking recipe!
Pro tip: Both this recipe and my banana bread recipe (there will be a link over to the side for that post!) can be made into perfectly soft and wonderful muffins if you bake them for 27 minutes at the same temperature.
Friday, February 21, 2014
On Nursing
It seems there is growing support for breastfeeding in medicine as well as in society. That's awesome! You won't get arrested for "exposing yourself" in public. Lovely. You won't be asked to leave a business for wanting to feed your baby there. Great!
That doesn't make breastfeeding fun.
For me, there was a definite moment during my pregnancy when I really wanted to grab a legal pad and do the ol' Pros vs. Cons list. And, as a first-timer, all I thought of were cons.
My daughter is almost eleven weeks old (where does the time go?!) and I am so glad I decided to breastfeed her. All said, the biggest deciding factor was the World Health Organization's recommendation that all babies be breastfed for eighteen months. The World Health Organization is a credible, trustworthy source of advice. It is important to us that The Girl get the best possible start in life, and if breastfeeding her is the way to do so, we are on board!
But there are still cons, and I don't want to ignore them.
I want to address them.
Then I'll address the pros I could never have seen coming.
I am the only person who can feed my baby.
Yes, we could give her expressed breastmilk in a bottle, but I would still have to express said breastmilk. If The Girl is eating, I'm producing. There are ways around this inconvenience, such as pumping a bottle of milk before bed so your partner can feed the baby in the middle of the night and you can get a little more sleep. My child doesn't drink from a bottle. She probably would if we'd introduced it earlier, but we didn't and that's our 'cross to bear.' (Note the quotations: we didn't introduce a bottle earlier because I wanted to feed my child at the breast. But that's a Pro. I will get to that!)
As a result of our decision not to feed The Girl from bottles, sometimes I feel kind of like a cow. She clusterfeeds almost every day from 5pm to 8pm, eating every hour or so. There are times when she is literally (no, not figuratively) on the breast for two, three hours at a stretch. It can be hard to get things done when you're constantly nursing.
Also because she doesn't eat from a bottle, her sleep schedule is kind of my problem. There is no sense in waking my husband when I feed the baby in the middle of the night, because she's going to go right back to sleep and he needs his rest as much as I do. If The Girl is up at 3am, it's because she's hungry. And I am the only person who can fix that, so I fix it. There was resentment (mostly caused by sleep deprivation) for a few weeks, early on, but some of those Pros are a lot easier to see once the baby starts sleeping for longer than two hours at a time.
Hey, pregnant person trying to decide whether to breastfeed your baby-to-be? You may have heard that breastfeeding hurts. I'm here to tell you that is true. No, it doesn't hurt for everyone. But holy hell did it hurt me. For the first month or so, it was not uncommon to see my eyes fill with tears as I looked away when The Girl latched on, hoping she wouldn't see breastfeeding as a negative time for Mommy. It definitely gets better. Use the nipple cream everyone tells you to use. They're right! It helps! Just don't use straight-up lanolin, because it feels like rubbing half-dried rubber cement onto your sore, cracked nipples. And that isn't so nice.
So, cons: you might feel like a cow, your kid might not like bottles and if she doesn't, the sleep schedule is your problem. And breastfeeding hurts for a while.
This might just be me, but the last con I want to mention is a really interesting kind of embarrassment. You know that feeling when you're embarrassed of yourself? Not because someone saw what you were doing, or because someone called you out or anything. Just.. you feel truly silly, and it sucks, even if nobody ever knows about it? It's the same feeling when you leak onto your sheets if you start your period in the middle of night, because damn it, you're twenty-five years old how do you not know to be prepared for that?! That's how I feel when my boobs leak. And I produce enough milk to feed a preschool, so they leak a lot. I'm here to say: that's dumb. Stop forgetting to wear breastpads to bed, Tara.
Now, those are some serious cons, if you ask me. Those, all alone, are solid and sound reasons not to breastfeed. But, oh the Pros. You guys. The Pros.
YOU are the ONLY ONE who can feed your baby! Don't worry, I'm not about to employ junior-high journalism and turn every con on its ear and wave the "Aha!" wand so it's a pro. But this one? Think about it. You're her only mom. Your body, which built her and nourished her for those 40 weeks is still nourishing her for as long as you nurse. Whether you think this is silly or not, New Mom, you're going to feel like a freakin' wizard when your milk comes in. (So many references to magic. I cannot explain that. Moving on.)
You know in movies, when a new baby is just screaming at the top of his lungs for hours on end? You get a break from the noise if you pop your boob in that kid's mouth. No, I'm not saying to equate food with comfort, I'm saying to equate Mama with comfort. That's a message I love to send to my daughter.
No two ways about it: breastmilk is best for babies. I'm sharing my immune system with The Girl until she develops one of her own, and she's exposed to all the same illnesses and allergens as I am. Her father is a medic. She is going to get sick, but I cannot tell you the viruses she would have caught this winter alone if she hadn't been getting antibodies from me. (Actually, no one can. Not even scientists, but I sure bet she would have been sick by now, with everything my husband says is infecting those guys!) There's also the perfect amount of fat, of nutrition, of water in breastmilk for babies as they age. Breast is just best.
My cloth-diapered, breastfed baby is the most portable baby in the world. As far as diapers, I don't need a trashcan, but since she's nursed, I don't need a bottle, formula, running water, or somewhere to put her while I struggle to get her milk mixed at the right temperature or whatever.
Oh, yeah. There's also the way breastmilk is free, and anything you buy that relates to breastfeeding is tax-deductible.
And now we get to the touchy-feely ones:
In the days following my delivery, I felt useless. My body had never been so spent, my mind had never been so overwhelmed, and I was just so tired. I didn't sleep longer than an hour at a time for the first two days after I gave birth, and it was just horrible. To make things worse, I had a lot of trouble walking for the first night of my daughter's life and everyone knows pacing helps babies sleep. I couldn't help her sleep. My hormones were so out of whack and flowing so intensely, if I attempted to sing my brand new perfect little baby to sleep, I would just start sobbing and the melody was lost and it was useless. I felt utterly useless.
But, every 1-3 hours, I was the only person who could soothe that baby. If we'd been formula feeding, I wouldn't have connected with my baby until my husband went back to work almost six weeks after her birth, because she wouldn't have needed anything Anthony couldn't give her. Call me selfish. Call me ridiculous. But the truth is that I only bonded with the little girl who now has my whole heart because I could solve a problem for her that no one else could solve.
There were a few weeks of The Girl's life between my mom leaving and my mother-in-law coming that almost broke me in half. I felt lost, terrified, consumed and alone. No one could have fixed me, or changed how I was experiencing my first few weeks of motherhood, and I was so angry. I felt like I was missing it. It was so frustrating to want to love being a mom, to want to remember my first few weeks with my first baby as a beautiful time full of love and hope and excitement. I worried my memories would be of hearing her scream, of watching her face turn red, of yelling at my husband who I knew, even then, was only trying to help.
But every few hours, I saved the day. And that's what I remember. Because of nursing my baby at 5am, I remember watching the sun rise on her pink little face. From feeding her at 2am, in the dead of night, I remember how warm she was against my chest in the middle of December, and how she snuggled into me and not into the blanket I wrapped around us. Instead of my memory being full of nights I was roused by screaming and sent her father for a bottle, my heart is full of times I made my child feel better when she didn't understand the world and all the empty, lonely space around her.
When they could be of darkness, of screaming, of hopelessness, my memories are of the sun rising and setting with a happy, milk-drunk baby in my arms.
I have nursing to thank for avoiding an intense and life-shattering depression, one I could feel nipping at my heels every single day and every single night, until I lifted my daughter from her bed and helped her in the way only her mommy could. Making my daughter feel better made me feel better.
Once we got used to nursing and figured out the kinks (The Girl still hates the football hold, and wouldn't nurse in any position other than cross-cradle for about six weeks), it was just such a special time for us. There are facial expressions her father never saw because they were only ever used in response to the first few glugs of mama's milk. He never saw the grinchy little smile while she panted, catching her breath for round two. He never saw her eyes open, her tears stop, and her face unscrew when she smelled my skin so close. And he never will. Those things are just for me and my baby.
These eleven weeks have gone by so fast. I'm blown away by their quickness. If you think pregnancy is quick, you're going to be shocked by how soon your baby smiles and starts cooing, and grabbing toys and kicking things you hold within the reach of those chubby little legs.
But my baby won't outgrow needing to eat. It's kind of scary, watching her develop and move past little things like waking up a million times a night just because she has so much space in the world so suddenly. When The Girl started actually using toys, my mind's eye saw her using other things: cups for water or juice, tables to pull up on, shoes for walking. And it hurt my heart. It feels too fast. At the same time, I'm so excited to have a toddler in nine months that are sure to fly by. I'm excited to hear her say Mama, and I'm excited to watch her learn. And I'm really glad that I'll be nursing her through most of it, and that we will have these quiet moments where she's still my teeny little baby... even if she kind of isn't.
I'll close with this photo, and a poem I wrote when The Girl was about five weeks old.
From deep sleep, she calls for me:
the only one who can fulfill her need.
I smooth her fuzzy, dark hair
and bring her heart to mine,
returning her tired gaze
and sharing a sleepy smile.
In these midnight moments,
we are one again.
That doesn't make breastfeeding fun.
For me, there was a definite moment during my pregnancy when I really wanted to grab a legal pad and do the ol' Pros vs. Cons list. And, as a first-timer, all I thought of were cons.
My daughter is almost eleven weeks old (where does the time go?!) and I am so glad I decided to breastfeed her. All said, the biggest deciding factor was the World Health Organization's recommendation that all babies be breastfed for eighteen months. The World Health Organization is a credible, trustworthy source of advice. It is important to us that The Girl get the best possible start in life, and if breastfeeding her is the way to do so, we are on board!
But there are still cons, and I don't want to ignore them.
I want to address them.
Then I'll address the pros I could never have seen coming.
I am the only person who can feed my baby.
Yes, we could give her expressed breastmilk in a bottle, but I would still have to express said breastmilk. If The Girl is eating, I'm producing. There are ways around this inconvenience, such as pumping a bottle of milk before bed so your partner can feed the baby in the middle of the night and you can get a little more sleep. My child doesn't drink from a bottle. She probably would if we'd introduced it earlier, but we didn't and that's our 'cross to bear.' (Note the quotations: we didn't introduce a bottle earlier because I wanted to feed my child at the breast. But that's a Pro. I will get to that!)
As a result of our decision not to feed The Girl from bottles, sometimes I feel kind of like a cow. She clusterfeeds almost every day from 5pm to 8pm, eating every hour or so. There are times when she is literally (no, not figuratively) on the breast for two, three hours at a stretch. It can be hard to get things done when you're constantly nursing.
Also because she doesn't eat from a bottle, her sleep schedule is kind of my problem. There is no sense in waking my husband when I feed the baby in the middle of the night, because she's going to go right back to sleep and he needs his rest as much as I do. If The Girl is up at 3am, it's because she's hungry. And I am the only person who can fix that, so I fix it. There was resentment (mostly caused by sleep deprivation) for a few weeks, early on, but some of those Pros are a lot easier to see once the baby starts sleeping for longer than two hours at a time.
Hey, pregnant person trying to decide whether to breastfeed your baby-to-be? You may have heard that breastfeeding hurts. I'm here to tell you that is true. No, it doesn't hurt for everyone. But holy hell did it hurt me. For the first month or so, it was not uncommon to see my eyes fill with tears as I looked away when The Girl latched on, hoping she wouldn't see breastfeeding as a negative time for Mommy. It definitely gets better. Use the nipple cream everyone tells you to use. They're right! It helps! Just don't use straight-up lanolin, because it feels like rubbing half-dried rubber cement onto your sore, cracked nipples. And that isn't so nice.
So, cons: you might feel like a cow, your kid might not like bottles and if she doesn't, the sleep schedule is your problem. And breastfeeding hurts for a while.
This might just be me, but the last con I want to mention is a really interesting kind of embarrassment. You know that feeling when you're embarrassed of yourself? Not because someone saw what you were doing, or because someone called you out or anything. Just.. you feel truly silly, and it sucks, even if nobody ever knows about it? It's the same feeling when you leak onto your sheets if you start your period in the middle of night, because damn it, you're twenty-five years old how do you not know to be prepared for that?! That's how I feel when my boobs leak. And I produce enough milk to feed a preschool, so they leak a lot. I'm here to say: that's dumb. Stop forgetting to wear breastpads to bed, Tara.
Now, those are some serious cons, if you ask me. Those, all alone, are solid and sound reasons not to breastfeed. But, oh the Pros. You guys. The Pros.
YOU are the ONLY ONE who can feed your baby! Don't worry, I'm not about to employ junior-high journalism and turn every con on its ear and wave the "Aha!" wand so it's a pro. But this one? Think about it. You're her only mom. Your body, which built her and nourished her for those 40 weeks is still nourishing her for as long as you nurse. Whether you think this is silly or not, New Mom, you're going to feel like a freakin' wizard when your milk comes in. (So many references to magic. I cannot explain that. Moving on.)
You know in movies, when a new baby is just screaming at the top of his lungs for hours on end? You get a break from the noise if you pop your boob in that kid's mouth. No, I'm not saying to equate food with comfort, I'm saying to equate Mama with comfort. That's a message I love to send to my daughter.
No two ways about it: breastmilk is best for babies. I'm sharing my immune system with The Girl until she develops one of her own, and she's exposed to all the same illnesses and allergens as I am. Her father is a medic. She is going to get sick, but I cannot tell you the viruses she would have caught this winter alone if she hadn't been getting antibodies from me. (Actually, no one can. Not even scientists, but I sure bet she would have been sick by now, with everything my husband says is infecting those guys!) There's also the perfect amount of fat, of nutrition, of water in breastmilk for babies as they age. Breast is just best.
My cloth-diapered, breastfed baby is the most portable baby in the world. As far as diapers, I don't need a trashcan, but since she's nursed, I don't need a bottle, formula, running water, or somewhere to put her while I struggle to get her milk mixed at the right temperature or whatever.
Oh, yeah. There's also the way breastmilk is free, and anything you buy that relates to breastfeeding is tax-deductible.
And now we get to the touchy-feely ones:
In the days following my delivery, I felt useless. My body had never been so spent, my mind had never been so overwhelmed, and I was just so tired. I didn't sleep longer than an hour at a time for the first two days after I gave birth, and it was just horrible. To make things worse, I had a lot of trouble walking for the first night of my daughter's life and everyone knows pacing helps babies sleep. I couldn't help her sleep. My hormones were so out of whack and flowing so intensely, if I attempted to sing my brand new perfect little baby to sleep, I would just start sobbing and the melody was lost and it was useless. I felt utterly useless.
But, every 1-3 hours, I was the only person who could soothe that baby. If we'd been formula feeding, I wouldn't have connected with my baby until my husband went back to work almost six weeks after her birth, because she wouldn't have needed anything Anthony couldn't give her. Call me selfish. Call me ridiculous. But the truth is that I only bonded with the little girl who now has my whole heart because I could solve a problem for her that no one else could solve.
There were a few weeks of The Girl's life between my mom leaving and my mother-in-law coming that almost broke me in half. I felt lost, terrified, consumed and alone. No one could have fixed me, or changed how I was experiencing my first few weeks of motherhood, and I was so angry. I felt like I was missing it. It was so frustrating to want to love being a mom, to want to remember my first few weeks with my first baby as a beautiful time full of love and hope and excitement. I worried my memories would be of hearing her scream, of watching her face turn red, of yelling at my husband who I knew, even then, was only trying to help.
But every few hours, I saved the day. And that's what I remember. Because of nursing my baby at 5am, I remember watching the sun rise on her pink little face. From feeding her at 2am, in the dead of night, I remember how warm she was against my chest in the middle of December, and how she snuggled into me and not into the blanket I wrapped around us. Instead of my memory being full of nights I was roused by screaming and sent her father for a bottle, my heart is full of times I made my child feel better when she didn't understand the world and all the empty, lonely space around her.
When they could be of darkness, of screaming, of hopelessness, my memories are of the sun rising and setting with a happy, milk-drunk baby in my arms.
I have nursing to thank for avoiding an intense and life-shattering depression, one I could feel nipping at my heels every single day and every single night, until I lifted my daughter from her bed and helped her in the way only her mommy could. Making my daughter feel better made me feel better.
Once we got used to nursing and figured out the kinks (The Girl still hates the football hold, and wouldn't nurse in any position other than cross-cradle for about six weeks), it was just such a special time for us. There are facial expressions her father never saw because they were only ever used in response to the first few glugs of mama's milk. He never saw the grinchy little smile while she panted, catching her breath for round two. He never saw her eyes open, her tears stop, and her face unscrew when she smelled my skin so close. And he never will. Those things are just for me and my baby.
These eleven weeks have gone by so fast. I'm blown away by their quickness. If you think pregnancy is quick, you're going to be shocked by how soon your baby smiles and starts cooing, and grabbing toys and kicking things you hold within the reach of those chubby little legs.
But my baby won't outgrow needing to eat. It's kind of scary, watching her develop and move past little things like waking up a million times a night just because she has so much space in the world so suddenly. When The Girl started actually using toys, my mind's eye saw her using other things: cups for water or juice, tables to pull up on, shoes for walking. And it hurt my heart. It feels too fast. At the same time, I'm so excited to have a toddler in nine months that are sure to fly by. I'm excited to hear her say Mama, and I'm excited to watch her learn. And I'm really glad that I'll be nursing her through most of it, and that we will have these quiet moments where she's still my teeny little baby... even if she kind of isn't.
I'll close with this photo, and a poem I wrote when The Girl was about five weeks old.
From deep sleep, she calls for me:
the only one who can fulfill her need.
I smooth her fuzzy, dark hair
and bring her heart to mine,
returning her tired gaze
and sharing a sleepy smile.
In these midnight moments,
we are one again.
Thursday, February 20, 2014
My Mom's Homemade Mac and Cheese
It is so good, y'all. I add chicken and a few other goodies so that I don't have to cook anything else to justify eating only mac and cheese for a meal, but without the amazing cheese sauce recipe there would be no desire to fill up on 'just a side item.'
Make sure to read to the end, as this is kind of a "Choose Your Own Adventure" sort of recipe.
I'm going to jump right in-- my mom's mac and cheese doesn't need much of an introduction.
For the macaroni:
a box o' sauce-bearing pasta
you know... water
Boil some water. Pour in the pasta. When the pasta is ALMOST how well-cooked you want it, when you think it needs two more minutes to be perfect, take it off the heat and strain it! You're going to bake the whole shebang later, and you don't need your pasta to be overdone and weird-textured. That's not good for anyone.
Once you've strained your pasta, leave it in a bowl until your sauce is done. To prevent filmy, gummy weirdness, you can put some plastic wrap over it and press it onto the pasta. I learned that trick from pudding!
(It seems I am very concerned about pasta being 'weird.' You're welcome, as now you don't have to worry. I got you.)
For the chicken:
2-3 cups shredded, boiled chicken
4 sundried tomatoes (the kind kept in a jar with oil)
parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons olive oil (or bacon grease, but I know not everyone keeps a mason jar full of bacon grease on her kitchen windowsill. What I don't know is why not.)
If your chicken isn't cooked, take care of that. The macaroni isn't going to bake long enough to cook meat!
Now, put your olive oil (or bacon grease, which I encourage you to save in a mason jar on your kitchen windowsill) in a skillet with well-shredded chicken. You could also chop the chicken, if you'd prefer bigger chunks of meat in your bites. Dice the sundried tomates, and throw them in the skillet. Sprinkle as much parmesan cheese as you fancy onto the top. Move everything around so it heats evenly. Once it's warmed through, remove it from the skillet and set it aside. I usually take the plastic wrap off my pasta, throw the chicken into that bowl, and put the plastic wrap back on. I do this because I am not a huge fan of generating a thousand dirty dishes.
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup flour
2 and 1/2 cups milk
1 egg, scrambled
2 heaping teaspoons mustard powder
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon seasoned salt (there is a cajun one, and one that rhymes with Mowry's)
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1 tablespoon black pepper
*the photos in this post are from a time when I used 1/4 lb of monterrey jack, 1/4 cup parmesan, and 1/2 pound of medium cheddar. You should always use at least half cheddar, because tradition dictates that you must.
Pro Tip: get all of your stuff out and measured before you get to work on the sauce. It's a quick process, and if you stop to measure stuff you might as well start over.
Do you know what a roux (pronounced roo) is? You should. It's the easiest, best thickener for liquids there ever was. I used some in a curry the other day because I was frustrated with how thin it was. SOLVED THE PROBLEM. I really wasn't even sure it would. My husband and I argue about whether roux is meant to be made with butter or oil, and I'm right. It's butter. Anyhow...
Make a peanut butter roux with your butter and flour over medium heat. (Melt the butter completely, sprinkle in the flour and whisk continuously until it is the color of peanut butter. Recipes will usually tell you what color the roux needs to be. If it just called for 'light roux,' I would go for the color of a latte. If it calls for dark, I go for milk chocolate.)
Once your roux is finished, add in the milk, whisking while you pour it in so that it doesn't scald. After you're confident you've totally mixed your roux and milk together, you can stir just frequently instead of constantly. I have found that, although sauce recipes tell you to stir constantly at this stage, that makes your sauce take seventy-four years to thicken and, well, ain't nobody got time for that.
So, frequently it is! In about five minutes (still on medium heat), you should notice significant thickening. At this point, add in your mustard powder and garlic powder. When they're fully incorporated, temper the egg and then pour that into the saucepan. Stir it in pretty fast, just in case it threatens to cook separately. Avoid egg chunks in your sauce. (Just in case: to temper, take a little bit of the hot milk and mix it with the egg, stirring as the milk makes contact with the egg. You're raising the temperature of the egg so it isn't shocked when it is added to a hot saucepan.)
Now, add cheese a small handful at a time. As you add each handful, whisk until the cheese melts before you add more.
Lookit those spirit fingers!
Once all your cheese is added and melted, throw in your seasoned salt, table salt, and pepper.
Now. Here's the "Choose Your Own Adventure" part of this recipe. There are three ways to finish up:
1) Pour cheese sauce over everything now, call it a day. My only suggestion here is that you cook your pasta until it's really done, because it won't finish in the oven if you don't ever put it in the oven.
2) Pour pasta and chicken into a 9x13 dish, cover with sauce. Stir sauce around so every noodle is cheesy, and top with about 1/2 cup of shredded cheddar. You can save cheese meant for the sauce for this or add more. Suggestion: save some energy (yours and the stove's), and just add that chicken in cold. The oven will do the work. No oil or grease, though! Bake at 350F for 20-25 minutes, until the cheese on top looks how you want it to. This is what I did.
If you don't cook a few slices of bacon and crumble them on top of either of these versions, I don't understand what you're doing with your life.
and the third option:
3) Don't add chicken at all and use it as a side dish.
Make sure to read to the end, as this is kind of a "Choose Your Own Adventure" sort of recipe.
I'm going to jump right in-- my mom's mac and cheese doesn't need much of an introduction.
For the macaroni:
a box o' sauce-bearing pasta
you know... water
Boil some water. Pour in the pasta. When the pasta is ALMOST how well-cooked you want it, when you think it needs two more minutes to be perfect, take it off the heat and strain it! You're going to bake the whole shebang later, and you don't need your pasta to be overdone and weird-textured. That's not good for anyone.
Once you've strained your pasta, leave it in a bowl until your sauce is done. To prevent filmy, gummy weirdness, you can put some plastic wrap over it and press it onto the pasta. I learned that trick from pudding!
(It seems I am very concerned about pasta being 'weird.' You're welcome, as now you don't have to worry. I got you.)
For the chicken:
2-3 cups shredded, boiled chicken
4 sundried tomatoes (the kind kept in a jar with oil)
parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons olive oil (or bacon grease, but I know not everyone keeps a mason jar full of bacon grease on her kitchen windowsill. What I don't know is why not.)
If your chicken isn't cooked, take care of that. The macaroni isn't going to bake long enough to cook meat!
Now, put your olive oil (or bacon grease, which I encourage you to save in a mason jar on your kitchen windowsill) in a skillet with well-shredded chicken. You could also chop the chicken, if you'd prefer bigger chunks of meat in your bites. Dice the sundried tomates, and throw them in the skillet. Sprinkle as much parmesan cheese as you fancy onto the top. Move everything around so it heats evenly. Once it's warmed through, remove it from the skillet and set it aside. I usually take the plastic wrap off my pasta, throw the chicken into that bowl, and put the plastic wrap back on. I do this because I am not a huge fan of generating a thousand dirty dishes.
For the best cheese sauce I have ever tasted:
*a pound of grated cheese1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup flour
2 and 1/2 cups milk
1 egg, scrambled
2 heaping teaspoons mustard powder
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon seasoned salt (there is a cajun one, and one that rhymes with Mowry's)
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1 tablespoon black pepper
*the photos in this post are from a time when I used 1/4 lb of monterrey jack, 1/4 cup parmesan, and 1/2 pound of medium cheddar. You should always use at least half cheddar, because tradition dictates that you must.
Pro Tip: get all of your stuff out and measured before you get to work on the sauce. It's a quick process, and if you stop to measure stuff you might as well start over.
Do you know what a roux (pronounced roo) is? You should. It's the easiest, best thickener for liquids there ever was. I used some in a curry the other day because I was frustrated with how thin it was. SOLVED THE PROBLEM. I really wasn't even sure it would. My husband and I argue about whether roux is meant to be made with butter or oil, and I'm right. It's butter. Anyhow...
Make a peanut butter roux with your butter and flour over medium heat. (Melt the butter completely, sprinkle in the flour and whisk continuously until it is the color of peanut butter. Recipes will usually tell you what color the roux needs to be. If it just called for 'light roux,' I would go for the color of a latte. If it calls for dark, I go for milk chocolate.)
Lookit those spirit fingers!
Once all your cheese is added and melted, throw in your seasoned salt, table salt, and pepper.
Finished!
1) Pour cheese sauce over everything now, call it a day. My only suggestion here is that you cook your pasta until it's really done, because it won't finish in the oven if you don't ever put it in the oven.
2) Pour pasta and chicken into a 9x13 dish, cover with sauce. Stir sauce around so every noodle is cheesy, and top with about 1/2 cup of shredded cheddar. You can save cheese meant for the sauce for this or add more. Suggestion: save some energy (yours and the stove's), and just add that chicken in cold. The oven will do the work. No oil or grease, though! Bake at 350F for 20-25 minutes, until the cheese on top looks how you want it to. This is what I did.
If you don't cook a few slices of bacon and crumble them on top of either of these versions, I don't understand what you're doing with your life.
and the third option:
3) Don't add chicken at all and use it as a side dish.
Serve, enjoy, and think of my beautiful mother.
If you don't know my mother, think of yours. And then call her. I'm learning that this mothering stuff is pretty serious business, and you should call and thank yours for doing it.
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