Category: another day in the life

That kind of weekend.

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My Hellebore is glorious this year.   It only took 4 years to do so.  Gardening requires such patience that I really don’t have with anything else, but when I see things like this, it makes it all worthwhile.  If only I could apply that to other parts of my life.
It was the kind of gloriously beautiful spring weekend where everyone in the neighborhood was outside and puttering on projects or just visiting.   Edie had a few friends over and they wandered through the back yards to play in Brian’s yard. 
How awesome is it that we live in a neighborhood where the kids can do that.  I’d want to go play in that yard too, wouldn’t you?
And lastly, it was the kind of weekend where neighbors wandered over after wrapping up their project to check on your project and we had gin & tonics to celebrate such a lovely, productive day.  I’m so happy it’s the time of year for those kinds of weekends again.  I missed them.

The highlights.

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I have been cooking up a storm here lately.  It seems to be my creative bent these days. 

 
 

Roasted butternut squash, black bean, spinach, jack & goat cheese quesadillas with roasted tomatillo salsa and sour cream. (Squash & tomatillos from last summers garden!)
Fried tofu po-boys with homemade lemon tartar sauce.

French toast for breakfast from Irish Soda Bread.  Seriously good salads.  Jambalaya.  This weekend I’m thinking about rolling out a new brunch recipe I picked up recently. 
 
That’s the highlights from around here.   It keeps raining, winter is slowly fading into spring and none of my seeds have popped up in the 4 days they’ve been in dirt.  It seems like the only thing interesting to do around here is cook.

This is what they mean about making lemonade when life hands you lemons.

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One night last week I sadly discovered the oven was not going to turn on. And the end result was the best thing I’ve stumbled upon in a long time.
When Edie came home from school that day, I asked for input on dinner and she wanted pizza.  Homemade pizza.  As she was having a friend over for a playdate and they didn’t want to run up to Mono Lisa Pasta to grab a doughball with me despite my attempts to bribe them with a stop at one of the nearby stores for a treat, I caved to her demands of making my own dough.  (She really is a demanding foodie princess, isn’t she?).  So, I started the dough and as the afternoon progressed, she & said friend wandered down to the friend’s house to play.  I went ahead and made two pizza’s – a plain cheese for her and my favorite, mushroom & onion – so that we could each have what we wanted for dinner, plus leftovers for lunch tomorrow, because we have brought her around to the fact that cold pizza really does rock.  (Even if she’s not on board with it as a breakfast option.) and had them ready to go in the oven.  Also, every recipe for pizza dough that I have makes 2 pizzas and I was too lazy to do the math to cut it in half. 
It was 7:00 by the time we had it together to put them in the oven and that’s when I discovered the oven wasn’t turning on.  And unlike Christmas Eve, there was no fixing it this time.
I was able to cram one of the pizzas into the toaster oven to cook and the other one I just shoved in the freezer, right there on the tray.  The next morning, I wrapped the frozen pizza up and put it in the downstairs freezer and was quite proud of myself for such quick thinking.
And then, Edie & I spent the weekend down and out with the flu.  Last night, we were feeling slightly better and up for something more solid than miso soup and man oh man was I happy to realize we had a frozen, homemade pizza in the freezer.  Actually, Pat may have been happier than I was.  So, we grabbed that pizza and popped it in the oven and voila.  Dinner.

I so totally loved having a homemade pizza to pop in the oven from the freezer.  And it was so easy – I made it, slid the whole thing into the freezer for a few hours, wrapped it up and voila.  And while I was thinking how I need to do this again, Pat asked if couldn’t I do this again please.  I love when great minds think alike.

The best part of the oven breaking is that I realized I could make my own frozen pizza.  How and why have I not thought of this before?!?!?

Mixing it up.

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I’m a total music geek.  I’m not alone – our house has some sort of music playing device in every room but one bathroom.  We have CD’s stacked in well, a good number of rooms.  I listen to music at work all day, something that took the people I work with some time to get used to I think.  I must have a soundtrack at all times. 

I drove the same car for over 15 years.  At one point, the cassette player bit it and the radio antenna came unattached, so it was a bit of a black hole, musically.  For Mother’s Day one year, my dear husband got me a macdaddy car stereo that was worth more than the car.  It played mp3 discs, I could hook a thumb drive straight into it and not even bother with burning a cd.  My musical choices when I drove suddenly exploded.  This was good.  And then, last fall, my beloved 1995 Honda Civic needed too much money to keep it on the road.  It just wasn’t worth it anymore.  The new car is a 2001 and has a nice Bosch stereo, with a cassette player and a cd player that doesn’t played burned cd’s, so it’s a wee bit outdated (but nice.  and in good shape).  So while the new car is nice and runs well and has things like working air conditioning, I miss my old stereo. 

Over the years, there are certain albums that have become my personal soundtrack.  I have a tendency to listen to the same album over and over, day in and day out.  There is always a current favorite (right now it’s Jenny & Johnny’s I’m Having Fun Now), but then there are the go-to’s, like Nothing’s Shocking.  Green. The Caution Horses, among others.  Those 3 albums listed I’ve worn out several copies of.  I just burn a new copy and go on with myself.  Not to mention the shows I’ve been to that I like to listen to – Pat went through my ticket stubs and got me every Dead show I ever went to, every Wilco show we’ve been to.  Suddenly, I can’t have these on hand, in my car.  I’m slightly freaking out.

I got an iPod for Christmas.  Yes, I’m slow on the technology.  I haven’t seen that much of a need for it frankly.  I’ve got a boombox or stereo in every room, a decent car stereo….oh wait….

So the iPod has become critical for my musical pleasures in the car.  But this means I have to get organized about what I put on there.  And, it means examining what has been my lazy musical attitude for years.  Maybe it’s time to switch up the ‘standard’ car music.  This means taking out some stuff I’ve kept in the car since high school.  Yes, that long ago.  My dear husband has pledged to help me by telling me if I tell him what I need to have loaded into iTunes so that it can go on my iPod, he’s willing to do it.  However, I’ve realized my iTunes is a mess too.  We had a major computer crash about this time last year and I lost all my playlists.  I don’t even know what all is loaded on my iTunes these days.  Pat will find some new band he thinks I’ll like and load it up for me to discover.  Over the last few weeks, I’ve been attempting to organize my iTunes.  I found several new artists I didn’t know were there.  I got some listening to do…. and I’m pretty sure Edie will applaud this.  We have mother-daughter music disagreements on a daily basis, since I do spend a little bit of time hauling her around.  Apparently I really burnt her out on Band of Horses and She & Him when they were my daily fare.  She’s burnt me out on Arcade Fire and Gorillaz.  Sometimes we have to just listen to radio because it’s the only thing we agree on. 

All in all, I’m excited about changing my approach to music.  It’ll be good for me. After those few warm winter days where I drove around with the sunroof open and realized I really do need REM’s Green in my car, he totally loaded it onto my iPod for me.  He is such a keeper.

Now that’s a salad.

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I’m not really entirely sure where the idea for this salad came from.  Saturday night, I was given the task of creating a salad for dinner.  There was iceburg lettuce, onions, broccoli, carrots, a bunch of fresh herbs.  I pulled out a few eggs and decided to hard boil them and made some croutons with some french bread.
And then I diced the onions and broccoli into tiny little bits.  I started caramelizing the onion in butter & olive oil and when it looked good, tossed in the broccoli and just cooked it.

 I chopped the lettuce, julienned the carrots, chopped fresh thyme & dill and threw it on top.  I chopped the hard boiled eggs and added them as well.   I added the croutons and the broccoli mix, a wee bit more olive oil and some vinegar – I used some tarragon as well as red wine vinegar – and tossed it all together. 

 It was a lovely salad.  The cooked broccoli & onion gave it a really good flavor and they clung to the lettuce without a whole lot of oil.  I definitely need to experiment with that some more.  Edie got me a salad cookbook for Mother’s Day last year as a hint that I needed to liven up my salads.  I do love a nice, big salad.  I definitely need to give them more thought.

For a quick little dessert, I took some strawberries, cooked them in a wee bit of butter & chambord liquor, with sugar and a touch of balsamic vinegar.  I served them between wedges of the peanut butter cups I made last week with little dollops of whipped cream.  A perfect little sweet bite.

And that’s total amount of cooking I did all weekend.  We went out of town and it was one of those completely deserved, relaxing weekends.  I got quite a few inches of Pat’s sweater knitted and I got to spend Friday night with one of my most favorite people in the universe, just the two of us, no husbands, no kiddos.  Down right glorious.

Pat’s away at a conference this week, so it’s just me & my gal.  I pulled some soup out of the freezer for tonight’s dinner (it was dated and labeled so I do know it’s some vegetable soup I recently made) and am whipping up another salad like Saturday night’s.  This one uses cauliflower and blue cheese, because that’s what I have on hand.  

Clearly, I have come back slightly refreshed  and inspired from my weekend.  Ah, I needed that.

My Valentine.

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Seventeen years ago today, I came home from what was quite possibly, the worst time I’d ever had at Mardi Gras to a blinking light on my answering machine.  And waiting for me was a message from this fellow.  My friend Thomas kept trying to get me to hang out with his friend Patrick.  I had recently graduated from college, was broke and had not a clue what my next step was going to be.  Thomas and his then girlfriend, (now wife) had finally gotten to me hang out with their friend and he was cute and very cool and very nice and we sat up all night talking about art and music, but he was nice and nice boys never lasted long with me. 
And yet here was this boy, calling me to say hi.  On Valentine’s Day.
I ran into him at a party that following weekend.  And the rest, as they say, is history. 

Within a week after hearing that message, I just knew he was THE ONE.  And he’s been that ever since.  So every Valentine’s Day, I consider it to mark the beginning of us.

Happy Valentine’s Day babe.  I think you’ve gotten better looking as time has gone by.  I can’t wait to see what the next 17 years have in store.  And then the next 17 after that…..

Lazy weekend.

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It feels so nice to have a weekend where we get to stay home and do nothing.  We haven’t had one in a while, so this one was much appreciated.  This past week has been, well, rough to put it nicely.   Work had a lovely, unexpected rush of folks who wanted to sign up and volunteer.  Not a problem at all there really, it just kept me on my toes.  On the homefront, there was some Girl Scout drama and some school drama that I really could have done without.  My house pretty much looks like a tornado whipped through and I just don’t care.  I’ve spent a big chunk of the weekend curled up knitting and ignoring the mess and the to-do list.    Pat’s sweater officially got started.  Knitting really is just so relaxing and after a week of go go go, it’s been nice to just sit.  And not get dressed.  Thank goodness I have neighbors who understand I’m liable to wander down for a late morning cup of coffee still in my pj’s on a Sunday and invite me in.

Today I thought I’d whip up a pot of vegetable soup.  I started with the usual onions, garlic, celery and carrots, added some potatoes and cabbage, as well as raided the pantry and freezer for tomatoes, corn, green beans and okra.  Last night, I took some tomatillo salsa to a dinner party that I pulled together from last summer’s harvest that got stashed in a freezer.  I do love my freezers. 
I know there are things I needed to get done this weekend that I just ignored.  I know this week coming up is going to be another busy one.  Pat is headed out of town, so while I’m hopeful I’ll get something done in the evenings, I know better.  Edie has needed a little bit of extra attention this past week and I did spend a good bit of this weekend curled up with her – me, knitting, her reading.  I’m wondering if this is going to continue into the week…..I don’t mind, after all, being a mom is my most favorite thing in the world.  But sometimes my own space is good, you know?
Oh well.  The beauty of knitting is that I can sit and have my hot tea and eat popcorn and actually do something productive while feeling quite lazy.

Coming around again.

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My new favorite soup is this  Northern Italian Spinach and Cornmeal Soup from an old Vegetarian Times cookbook.  This fall, I was looking for a new, quick, easy soup recipe and rediscovered the soup section in that particular cookbook.  It was a hit and quite yummy to boot, so it’s now in the repertoire.  At least until we burn out on it.

I’m not sure if it was the end of the holidays and the return to regular life, or the flat out catharticism of my last post or a combination of the two, but I had the most productive weekend I’ve had in I don’t know how long.  Christmas got taken down.  The house got clean.  I made some super yummy pizza with my own dough.  I cleaned out and purged Christmas decorations that hadn’t made it out in a few years.  The attic corner in which they live in got cleaned out and reorganized.  Edie’s birthday party got planned.  Laundry got caught up.  The “happy corner” got cleaned up and reorganized and I even purged stuff there too.  AND I fixed the torn loop on the laundry bag in our room.  I pulled out all the best stops in my procrastination bag in getting it all done – long, hot baths were had and naps were taken.  The only thing I totally slacked on was Sunday night dinner.  Which is where the spinach & cornmeal soup comes in.  I really wasn’t in the mood to cook, so I made that instead.  I love that there is NO chopping involved in that soup.  Just my handy garlic press that I swear by. 

I started making a list of projects I want to accomplish as well.  I’m slowly but surely crawling out of my head and back into real life.  It feels so good, I can’t even begin to tell you.

Merry it was.

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So much work goes into Christmas. It’s really the ultimate deadline. Being trained in design, I work best under deadline I’ll admit. And Christmas morning simply must be magical. At least it feels that way when you have a wee one (or even not so wee as she’s getting) who cannot wait to see what Santa brings.

Two days before Christmas, neighbors had a party. I’ve struggled with getting into the spirit this year, but the 23rd was my last day at work until the new year and I finally felt I could throw myself into the last of it. The party really did alot to buoy my spirits – we really do live in the greatest neighborhood, at least the greatest one for us. We have a core group of friends here that are more than friends, they are family. Year in and year out, we have various holiday traditions with them – not just Christmas, but birthdays, Halloween, the Fourth of July. We find reasons to celebrate every holiday.

A few of the neighborhood kiddos were across the street and threatened to crash the grown up party (All of our celebrations include the kids, with the exception of this party. We figure we are allowed ONE night to ourselves all year, yes?). They did wander over for some dessert, because Edie knew I had baked one of my fabulous chocolate cakes and she was hell bent on having some, but for the most part, they stayed out of our hair.

There was much joy and merriment and I am blaming that oyster shooter for sending me over the edge of being slightly overserved. Needless to say, I felt the effects of it a teensy little bit the next day, which may have slightly impeded my to-do list until later in the day.

Betty called and invited us down to bake cookies with her Christmas Eve. Baking cookies is something we try to do together every year and so I knew, this was it. So we went down and baked cookies, had some holiday cheer and while we were there, Virginia popped over and by the time it was all said and done, Edie had agreed to go to the 10 pm Christmas Eve service with her.

I did have every intention of going along as well, but when we came home to make our sugar cookies for Santa and dinner and start the cake for tomorrow’s dinner and the dough for the cinnamon rolls for breakfast, we got as far as popping the cookies in the oven when I realized, it wasn’t on. It was 6:30 Christmas eve and I didn’t have an oven.

I calmly tried to not freak out, as Pat ripped apart the entire range. As parts came off, I realized it had been a while since I had really cleaned my oven and stove and so my clean kitchen OCD kicked in and there I was, scrubbing away, mentally rethinking my entire Christmas Eve & Christmas Day menu based on not having an oven. Black Forest Torte became Julia Child’s Chocolate Mousse, Oyster Dressing became Oyster Stew, the cinnamon rolls could become french toast or pancakes. Not as Christmas-y, but hey….I was in crisis mode. The sugar cookies got moved onto a smaller tray and went into the toaster oven while all this was happening.

Finally, inexplicably, the oven turned on. We think maybe the emergency shut off valve got knocked (possibly when Edie, by her own admittance, climbed on it to get the brown sugar out of the upper cabinet for Betty’s chocolate chip cookies earlier in the day). Whatever it was, the oven was now on and bonus, scrubbed clean.

We didn’t sit down for Christmas Eve dinner until after 9. I hadn’t even started my Black Forest Torte, so when Addison came to pick Edie up for church, I had to bow out.

Instead, I got that cake in the oven and then decided to finish scrubbing down the rest of my kitchen. At 10 pm Christmas Eve night.

In my defense, everything was wrapped. I couldn’t put it all out until she came home from church, because she is still a firm believer in Mr. Claus. No way was I going to ruin that simply because she had gone to church this year. I was so tired I really just wanted to crawl into bed, but I had to keep going….and so mopping the kitchen floor it was.

Thankfully, staying out until almost midnight 2 nights in a row made her sleep in Christmas morning until after 8. Delightful. She had a wonderful Christmas, the oven turned on Christmas morning for those cinnamon rolls to bake and all was right in the world.

It was just the 3 of us this year. Years past, we invite anyone we know who is going to spend Christmas away from their family. Edie was quite disappointed it was just the three of us this year, but Pat explained, it’s a good thing. It means we don’t know anyone who needs to spend the day with us, everyone is with loved ones.

Up until Christmas Eve, I couldn’t narrow it down to what I wanted to make for Christmas dinner. I couldn’t find a local ham, I don’t like beef all that much, and Pat suggested fish. Christmas Eve, I ran down to the local seafood shop and got some nice fish, some trout actually. That was our main course, with some of Smiley’s oysters in a nice oyster stew as our first course. Because of course I have to know where our food comes from at all times, well, with a few small exceptions here & there. And while Pat spent an hour Christmas Eve pulling my range apart, some of those mental menu reworkings stuck.

Last Christmas, I was recovering from stomach surgery. Not only was I limited on what I could eat, I had zero energy. I was forced to scale back. This year, I realized, that was not a bad way to be. We had mimosas, Betty came by for our traditional mid-day cheer and exchange of gifts, but otherwise, we didn’t bother to get dressed until dinner and we just lounged all day. I followed the lesson from last year and dinner was easy but good. I put all my effort into dessert, because quite frankly, I can bake some chocolate cake to knock your socks off and I love chocolate cake. This years may have been the best yet. I remembered to undercook it and avoided those crispy edges. (I still could have pulled it out sooner and will make the note on the recipe.)

So, our Christmas was cozy and really sort of perfect. I love spending our day with just us. It makes it so relaxing, and with the snow off and on all day, it was quite conducive to not getting dressed.

The magic really is in what Santa Claus brings. Everything else is the cherry on top for her. It didn’t matter the only present I made her was an photo album from a website. Santa ‘set up’ her Itunes under her profile on our main family computer and loaded it with music she requested. So what if some of that music makes us cringe. The fact that she has her own musical opinion and taste is what matters. And now she knows how to load her own music onto her mp3 player.
And her belief in Santa is strong, at least until next year.

And all that work? Worth it.

Thinking Ahead.

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Last August, when it was so hot and dry, but yet the pole beans were doing fabulously production wise, I spent alot of time canning. And harvesting seeds. Yes, I was putting things away for next summer’s garden as well as for the coming winter months. While I was at it, I was thinking about Christmas gifts.

I hate the consumerism of the season. Hate buying a bunch of stuff. Hate receiving it too actually. The year I got a new crock pot for Christmas I was ecstatic, because I love getting everyday things I can use. Part of me feels old and boring with this, but I suppose that’s what happens when you are married with kids at a certain age. I got alot of handmade gifts growing up. My Aunt Loretta gave me the most wonderful handmade gifts. I still have alot of them, like the paper bead necklace, the ornaments she made me, the story she wrote for me and best of all, the recipe for the cherry cheesecake she would make me some years. She would bake gifts for everyone – there would be a pie or cake for every member of the household. I’m still in awe of the amount of baking that woman could pull off at Christmas every year. I aspire to bake like her, but even the years I do 25 dozen cookies and 3 cakes, I’m not sure I come close. That woman baked.

In that tradition, I give handmade gifts. I used to sew everything, some years I still do alot of sewing, but I have come to figure out things I can work on all year long. Which makes me feel slightly uptight and way too on top of things, but right about now, when I’m starting to get overwhelmed thinking about everything that has to happen between now and the big day……..I really start loving myself. Sort of like the years I get Pat’s January Birthday peach pie in the freezer in August, so after all that holiday and Edie birthday baking, I can pull something out of the freezer and have it be homemade and good. And last year, when I was out flat recovering from surgery, I was giddy to discover a stash of things I had already knit for Pat & Edie throughout the year, so they still got a hand-made mommy gift. I know I wasn’t that good this year (admittedly, I’ve been working on the same pair of fingerless gloves since last winter’s swim lessons), but I do have some good garden treats ready to go. If I learned anything from last Christmas, it was that my little bit of planning ahead is a very good thing.