I've been slacking so today is a three-fer. I don't have any excuse for why I missed the last three days. Wait, I lied. I missed Friday because I'd posted a blog but not a recipe. It just didn't seem right to add a recipe to the blog and I completely meant to come back but, as you can tell by my current rambling, I get sidetracked really easily.

So before I go off on anymore rabbit trails...

Dried Fruit. Specifically pineapple. I got the idea and the basics on how to oven-dry fruit here http://joyinmykitchen.blogspot.com/2009/03/dried-fruit.html and then ran with it. I've never before read anything from that blog but I am so glad I found the one about dried fruit! Dried pineapple is seriously addictive and it's sweet enough to replace candy.
I did a few things differently. First, I used fresh fruit and a mandolin slicer set to slice paper-thin. Second, I skipped the parchment paper, used a non-stick cookie sheet and dried on the top shelf only. Mostly because I recently ran out of parchment paper and have not been back to the store to buy more of it. Paper-thin slices of fruit take about an hour to dry, flipping the slices 3/4 of the way through the dry-time to keep them from baking to the pan (this is where the parchment paper would have come super handy. Oh, and being able to use both oven racks).
My husband isn't a huge fan of dried fruit. He usually sticks with prunes and complaining because he can never find bags of dried pears (only) at the store. His least favorite has always been pineapple... Until now. I feel quite accomplished. Since dried pineapple has always been my favorite, I'm pleased with this news.

Honey-mustard. I know, I know. Mix honey and mustard, BAM! Honey-mustard. Buuuuuuuut if you really think it's that simple, you haven't met my husband. This bottle is too sweet, that one is too spicy, there's too much honey, too much mustard, it doesn't taste like Dijon... The list goes on and on and on. So I started making honey-mustard sauce at home. I managed to come up with the perfect balance of sweet, dijony heat for his picky palate.
1/4 cup Dijon Mustard (for the hubs, it must be Grey Poupon)
3 TBS honey
1/2 tsp garlic powder
A few cracks of fresh pepper
Whisk it all together and voila! Sweet heat honey dijon. It doesn't look like much but I don't like honey mustard and I'll eat this. Or dip some chicken in it, coat in bread crumbs and bake it up nice and crispy.                             


If you receive Rachael Ray's magazine (and read it religiously like I do), you probably would have seen the Antipasto Pasta recipe that I saw (found here: http://www.rachaelraymag.com/recipe/antipasto-pasta/) If you saw that and then saw me post a recipe, you'd probably assume I took inspiration from the recipe in the magazine. I'd be a liar if I told you I didn't. I have a problem. My problem is in following recipes as they are written. I love to use them for inspiration but I'm a bit of a rebel so something almost always changes. Are you curious yet?

Antipasto Pasta Salad
1/2 lb Orzo pasta (or your choice of pasta)
3/4 cup of cubed mozzarella cheese (I cubed mine up teeny-tiny to give more bites)
10 pepperoncini sliced thin
1/2 cup kalamata olives, halved
3 sundried tomato halves, minced
1 (14.5 oz) can artichoke hearts, drained
5 slices sandwich pepperoni, cut into pieces
5 slices Genoa salami, cut into pieces
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
2-3 TBS extra virgin olive oil
2-3 TBS red wine vinegar
1 tsp Italian seasoning blend
A few cracks fresh ground pepper
Cook the orzo according to package instructions. Cool by running under cold water. Toss first 8 ingredients with pasta in a large bowl. Drizzle with oil and vinegar and sprinkle with herb blend and pepper. Toss to coat well.

What You Can't Understand Until You've Lived It

This morning in a group I am part of the question was asked, "How long do you wait after finding out you're pregnant before buying anything." Having been through that hell and back, how do you put into words the need for something to hold on to when that need doesn't come until so far later? If I had made any baby purchases with our first pregnancies, all of the stuff I might have purchased would have been boxed away when the pregnancies were cut short. There's no way I could have gotten rid of it but there's also no way I could have seen it. I may have been angry with myself for buying it all. Then again, I may not have been. It wasn't until long after the last due date that the longing kicked in. What I would have done for something to hold on to! With each pregnancy, I made it far enough along for an ultrasound but clinic policies don't do ultrasounds until hCG levels hit certain numbers. My pregnancies never progressed like they were supposed to, even from the very beginning. Numbers didn't double because my hormones didn't increase like they should have. I never even had an ultrasound picture. I had nothing. What so many people don't understand is that a miscarriage is a legitimate loss. You may not have met your little person and you may not have ever seen that little person but the hopes, dreams and love is there from the minute that first test comes back positive (in cases where the pregnancy is wanted and welcomed). The pain of loss is not something that goes away with time. With time, you learn to live with it and you learn to find the silver lining and positive aspects of having been pregnant but the knowledge that your baby existed, even if for just a few weeks, and the knowledge that your baby died and the hurt of the baby that passed on will never go away. It was around the 2nd anniversary of the first baby's due date (what could have been the 1st birthday) that I started wanting something tangible, something to show each baby was here but I had no idea that's what was making it hurt so bad. Luke was deployed and I was going through it alone that time. I'd be a liar if I told you I didn't wallow in self-pity for any length of time while the hurt burned a new hole in my heart where the old one had started to heal. A good friend and her mom, noticing the sudden change in mood, bought me teddy bears and a Willow Tree figurine. That was when I realized how badly I wanted something to prove my babies were mine and were real because, after time passes, you realize everyone else forgets but you; you don't forget and you never will. But how badly still I wish I had just bought a book or a soothie blanket or a teddy bear when I was pregnant. The bears are not my babies' bears, they're my babies replacement. They're a huge comfort and I still snuggle those bears when I feel lonely (yes, even with K, I long for them terribly) but they're my bears. It's not the same. It's so completely not the same that I'm beginning to see the bears as K's bears; the explanation, the tangible toys, she can hold to help her understand that she is not the first though she is the oldest.

But, you see, it's too hard to explain that until you've come as far as I have. You cannot explain the loss to someone who has never felt it and you can't explain the desire to someone who is still angry and hurt. Don't wait until 12 weeks or a heartbeat to buy your baby something! Just a book is enough. K has a book, Oh Baby, Go Baby! by Dr. Seuss, that I bought as soon as I found out I was pregnant. I wrote a letter to her on the inside cover explaining how much I love her, my dreams for her future and how happy I was to know she was there no matter what the outcome. By the time K was in our lives, I knew I would want her book one day and I knew if I would get the chance to hold her happy, wiggling self, I would have a beautiful love note from Mommy to baby that she could hold forever. Don't throw away the teddy bear or onesie or book you bought just because baby didn't make it. One day, that item may be the one thing you have left when you long for something to hold tight. My replacement bears grounded me. They were my anchor at night when I felt like the hurt caused by the date on the calendar would tear me to pieces by the time the sun rose. One day, they will be the toys K squeezes when she is old enough to know. They'll be her anchor when she longs for the older siblings she'll have to wait to meet.

Baby Boxing and Zucchini

The week before K was born, while I had still been procrastinating on the coming home outfit, a friend stopped by with a baby gift. One of the items in the bag was the most adorable NB size onesie with a fluffy black tutu. There was no question about it, that was going to be part of K's coming home ensemble. She outgrew the onesie about 5 months ago (after wearing it as often as I could wash it) but I haven't been able to bring myself to pack it up and put it away. I've been planning for some time now to make a shadow box so I can display it with the rest of the little things I want to keep from the hospital but shadow boxes are so expensive! Yesterday, we took a trip to Michael's so I could get a hot glue gun to start creating the decorations for a certain friend's July baby shower when I just happened to walk by the shadow box section in search of the hot glue gun aisle. I'm so glad I did! The store had a pretty decent selection of clearance shadow boxes. $6.99 instead of $36.99? SOLD! Two napping babies this morning (I'm babysitting today) gave me enough time to create my shadow box and blog about it. I am one happy camper today. We've decided to turn the wall along the stairs leading to the third floor into "K's Wall." By the end of the year, I'm sure it will be covered in far too many pictures to hold any more. I'm obsessed with my child and I can admit it. The plan is to have all different styles and colors of frames so when I saw a mahogany shadow box with a black background, I was quite pleased. I do most of my frame shopping at the Dollar Tree and I haven't seen any frames in anything close to mahogany. The shadow box didn't take long to create, either, which is a huge plus. I'm debating whether to change the onesie so the arms are crossed across the front or to place the headband that she wore home on a diagonal across the front of the onesie. Until I make that decision, which may never happen, I'll just display it how it is.

Yesterday, I mentioned the zucchini that inspired the homemade pasta sauce. I halfed and hollowed out that sucker, stuffed it up and baked it for dinner last night. The hubs had never had stuffed zucchini before but he was quite pleased with it. It's pretty easy to make, the only really time consuming part is carving out the inside of the zucchini. I suppose you could use a melon baller but, because I don't have one, I just use a spoon. I also suppose you could stuff it any old way you want. I think it would be quite delicious with taco meat, onions, enchilada sauce, chili peppers and cheddar cheese. Use my recipe for dinner or use it for inspiration but definitely try a stuffed zucchini. The best part is that the kiddos can help fill the zucchini and top it with cheese which might make it more interesting for them to try.

Stuffed Zucchini (Italian Style) (Zucchini Boats)

-1 large zucchini

-1 cup pasta sauce

-1 cup ground Italian sausage, cooked (if not using pasta sauce with sausage in it)

-1/2 onion, diced

-1/2 bell pepper, diced

-2 (at least) garlic cloves, minced

-1/2 cup cooked brown rice (or bread crumbs or small pasta like orzo, optional)

-1/2 cup (or more) shredded/grated cheese (I like Parmesan)

-1-2 TBS olive oil

 Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. 

Saute peppers, onion and garlic in olive oil until soft. Stir in pasta sauce, rice and sausage. Cut zucchini in half lengthwise. Hollow out the two halves and fill with sauce mixture. Top with cheese. Bake at 350 degrees with 30-40 minutes for a slightly crisp zucchini or 50-60 minutes for a soft zucchini.

Seven Days of Cookery

I've decided to get back into the swing of writing and keeping my miniscule audience updated, I'll be cooking something, either from scratch or partially from scratch, everyday for the next seven days. It may or may not be my own recipe but, even if it's not a 100% original Deborah Sue, you'll at least get a recipe review out of reading. Oh, and plenty of silly stories about my munchkin.

I'll start with the stories today because my child is far more fascinating than food.

I'm pretty sure it's safe to say we had our first real temper tantrum yesterday. Two of them, actually. I've heard a lot of "babies don't have personalities until they're 6 months old." I call bologna on that one. K has had the exact same personality since Day 1, the only differences between 6 months and 2 months are the fact that she doesn't sleep nearly as much anymore so she has more time to assert her opinion and that she now understands a little better how to let me know what she does or does not want to do.
Example #1 - I know my kid hates peas. The first time I fed them to her, the little drama queen sat there making gagging noises despite the fact that the peas were on her tongue and not in her throat, forced a few coughs and cried. We tried them again last night. She took the first mouthful, projectile spat them back in my face (yes, she SPAT with enough force to land mashed peas all over my face), scowled and screamed with enough force to turn beet red. After letting out her scream, she clamped her little lips shut and sat grunting at me until I switched the spoonful to peaches. I kept trying to switch it out on her but she's too smart for the switcheroo. After one bite of a food she doesn't like, she'll stick her little tongue between her pursed lips to take a tiny taste off the spoon before she'll open for the next bite. Luckily, Mommy is bigger and Mommy is smarter so I was able to get about a 2 oz serving of peas down into her belly before the crocodile-tear-screamfest-meltdown started.
Example #2 - After dinner, she gets a sippy cup with water. Just plain, filtered water, no juice. She loves her newest sippy cup. It's a soft-lip cup and is easier for her to use then the hard plastic tops. She even does better with her sippy cup than she does with a bottle. After letting her food settle, I tried to put her in her jumperoo so I could wash her dishes with both hands. I might be overprotective but I don't allow her to keep her sippy cup if she's in the bouncer. She tries to launch herself out of that thing and she waves and throws her cup around while doing it. I made the mistake of letting her hold her cup up until the point she landed her tush in her jumperoo. When I took it away from her, her entire body went rigid, her face turned red, she started shaking like the Hulk and started screaming and crying. We spent the last weekend in New Jersey visiting my family and I cannot tell you how many times it was commented that "Katie is JUST like her mother was when I was a baby." I'm beginning to see why my Mom and Dad repeatedly told me while I was pregnant that they hope Katie turned out just like I did so I would understand. I've heard said that if the first one's a beast, the second is usually an angel. I really hope that's true because we're in for a world of crazy with this little wildebeest of a baby.

One of my favorite parts about summer and warmer months is the produce. I'm not a big fan of zucchini unless it's at it's peak freshness and stuffed Italian-style or baked into bread. When we went grocery shopping yesterday, I found the zucchini large enough and cheap enough to mean it's coming into peak season and my first thought was immediately to stuff them. Mostly because I didn't feel like creating a menu and a shopping list yesterday so I got to the store and just went off of what I found there. Part of stuffing a zucchini "Italian-style" is having an amazing pasta sauce. I don't use jarred sauce anymore. In the summer when tomatoes are fresh and dirt cheap, I'll use those but right now when they aren't quite in season yet, I have no problem substituting canned tomatoes. Pasta sauce is a labor of love. I suppose you could just throw the ingredients together and let it simmer for 30-60 minutes but it won't taste amazing. I don't settle. When I make pasta sauce, I make enough to freeze because it's an all-day affair.

Fauxmade Pasta Sauce
3 (28 oz) cans of crushed tomatoes*
1 (14.5 oz) can of canned pureed tomatoes or tomato sauce (unflavored, like these
http://www.hunts.com/products/tomatoes/tomato-sauce)*
1 (14.5 oz) can of diced tomatoes*
1 (6 oz) can of tomato paste*
1 large vidalia (or yellow) onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 TBS (or more) basil
1 TBS (or more) oregano
3 tsp (or more) garlic powder
2 tsp (or more) thyme
Fresh cracked black pepper and salt, to taste
2 bay leaves
1-2 TBS white sugar
2 TBS olive oil
2 lbs ground Italian sausage
Crushed red pepper flakes, to taste (optional)
In the bottom of a large stock pot, saute the onion and garlic in olive oil until translucent. Add all canned tomatoes, spices and bay leaves (don't add the sugar yet!). In a separate saute pan, brown Italian sausage. Add to tomato sauce and simmer for at least 1 hour. Stir in sugar. At this point, taste the sauce and add spices if desired, especially if you won't be simmering it for much more than an hour. The longer the sauce simmers, the more flavorful it will be which is why I simmer for anywhere between 3 and 8 hours. If you plan to simmer longer, you can wait longer to start adjusting the flavor of the sauce. Be sure to remove the bay leaves before eating!

*I rarely use name brand tomatoes. As long as the ingredient list on the can is about 2 or 3 ingredients long and the first ingredient is tomatoes, you should be fine. One of my favorites is actually the Walmart brand of no salt added. In my opinion, it's the brand that tastes closest to fresh tomatoes and I'm kind of a tomato snob. It definitely helps that the cans are so cheap, too!

If you plan to use fresh tomatoes instead of canned, your sauce will be amazingly delicious. I use a minimum of 5 lbs and roast them in the oven at 400 degrees like you would roast bell peppers. After allowing them to char in the oven, I put them in a bag to steam so the skin peels easily. Chop them up a bit or just dump them into a stock pot with your onion and seasonings (no bay leaf until after blending). They'll cook down a little soupy at which point a swirl with an immersion blender will give you a cheater-method to a fresh pasta sauce that is absolutely amazing.

YUMS!

I'm just gonna start this off by saying I don't have pictures. The "salsa" recipe will possibly have a picture tomorrow but the cacciatore isn't the prettiest meal out there and I want you to try it so there won't ever be a picture. It's delicious, I just can't imagine how I could get it to photograph nicely. Plus, my camera's battery is almost dead, I can't find the charger and my child does far too many cute things to waste any battery power on a less-than-pretty dinner. I'm just gonna cut to the chase here.

Chicken Cacciatore:
5 bone-in, skin on chicken thighs
2 small onions, large chopped
2 cups sweet peppers, chopped
5 garlic cloves, fine minced
1 14 oz carton of baby portabella mushrooms, quartered
1 28 oz can diced tomatoes, drained
2 14.5 oz cans stewed tomatoes
A few TBS olive oil
1 TBS Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp dried basil
Salt and pepper
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
Flour for dredging

Pat the chicken thighs dry, sprinkle on both sides with salt and pepper and dredge in flour. Fry on each side until lightly browned (about 5 minutes/side) in a large pot with enough olive oil to coat the bottom. Don't overcrowd the bottom! Remove chicken from pot and place on a plate. Add onions, peppers and garlic to the pot and cook, stirring frequently, about 3-5 minutes, just until onion begins to become translucent. Add mushrooms and cook about 2-3 more minutes before adding tomatoes, Worcestershire, garlic powder, onion powder and basil. Return chicken to pot. Bring pot to boil, reduce heat to simmer and cook chicken covered, turning and basting occasionally, until chicken is cooked thoroughly, about 40-45 minutes. I cooked it longer, a little longer than an hour) since we gave the munchkin a bath while it was on the stove. The chicken stayed moist (from all the tomato juice) and just became super tender and delicious. Serve it over rice or pasta and it's amazing.

Grilled Corn Salsa:
6 ears of sweet corn
1 red bell pepper
3 medium avocados, diced
Juice of 2 limes (about 1/4 cup)
Garlic powder, onion powder, salt and pepper to taste

Grill corn and bell pepper until slightly charred. Cut corn off cob and dice the bell pepper. Combine corn, bell pepper and avocado in a large bowl. Add the lime juice and gently mix. Add spices to taste. Serve cooled with tortilla chips (or just be really impatient like me and eat it warm with a spoon straight from the bowl. It's still delicious).

Not So Blue

I'm feeling much better today. I know what I think and I'm positive I've come to the right conclusion.

On a different note, cloth diapering is going pretty well. We had one leak and quickly resolved it when I realized I had the "grow with me" style diaper snapped on buttons that made it too big. We tried cloth diaper overnight the first night but Katie could feel when she was wet and she wasn't having it. That night, we used prefolds and they just weren't cutting it. We switched to disposables overnight for a week and tonight we're trying pocket diapers. Hopefully she doesn't feel the wetness and will sleep through the night. I'm going to have another pocket dipe hanging out ready to go for when she wakes up. If she wakes up too soon, though, it will be back to sposies overnight. Luckily, it's not that I'm trying to save the world by using cloth so we'll just have to keep a pack of sposies around for overnights. Won't be bad, though, since the organic, all naturals come with a little more than 30 in a pack so one pack, in theory should last a few weeks. As for what I think of CD, it's not nearly as gross as I'd always thought. It's actually quite easy to thoroughly clean the diapers and, if you get the right style, you can bleach anything that touches poo. HUGE bonus for me. HUGE. It also helps that Luke has no problem helping to clean the cloth diapers. I know I'm incredibly lucky to have a husband that takes such an active role in baby-related chores...

...Unless it's night time. Break for funny story:
Two nights ago, K farted herself awake in the middle of the night. She'd had HORRENDOUS gas and I swear she had lifted off from her cradle due to the strength of her gaseous emissions. I swore she'd pooped her pants (and probably coated the cradle, too) and was not feeling like moving around in the middle of the night to clean her butt when I'd FINALLY fallen asleep after feeding her. I had noticed Luke had sat up to peek at her when she farted so I knew he was awake. I leaned over and asked him to change her diaper but he just laid there acting like he was sleeping. I figured I'd take the chance and accused him of pretending to sleep. He managed to hold a straight "sleeping" face for a minute but as I droned on about how he claimed to be more than willing to get up and help in the middle of the night, the corners of his mouth started to twitch until, finally, he couldn't hold back his laughter anymore and he admitted he was faking sleep so I'd change her butt. Needless to say, I stayed cozy in bed while he tended to Tater's tush.

K has also started "solid" foods. I put solids in quotes since, really, it's more soup than solid. Just a TBS of rice cereal mixed in with a few ounces of breastmilk. We'd been given the advice to add the rice cereal to a bottle since it's so soupy but she won't touch it if it's in a bottle. If it's spoon fed, on the other hand, she acts like I'm feeding her little nuggets of chocolate gold and she can't possibly get enough. Seriously, the only time rice cereal has hit her bib is when I've dropped it out of the spoon or when she got too greedy, tried to grab the spoon to get it to her mouth faster and succeeding only in knocking the spoon from my hand. My little piggy. It's great to know she likes the stuff, though! I won't have to feel guilty for handing her to a sitter or be away and wonder if she'll take a bottle now (PS - my kid finds bottles to be the most repulsive thing ever). All the sitter needs is a spoon, a bowl, some rice cereal mix and some breastmilk. It's been one week on rice cereal. We have one more week before we change it over to oatmeal cereal. After two weeks of oatmeal cereal, we'll go to veggies. Hopefully, we don't come across any more food allergies.

And, hopefully I'll remember to pick up a new SD card for my camera soon here so I can take videos of all her firsts.

Bubble Gum

Bubble gum chewed up, spat out on the sidewalk and stuck between the pavement and a shoe, at the point where it hasn't yet pulled away from either the shoe or the pavement. The point when it's super sticky between them both and it might stick to one or the other but you aren't yet sure if the bigger glob will be left on the pavement or on your shoe.




Today, I'm the gum. Especially if the gum is like Switzerland and would rather not be pulled or pushed at all because no one wants to see the mess the gum will leave behind when it sticks. Not really anything I want to get into details about. Sorry, I hate cryptic writing but today's my turn to passively discuss my dilemmas with the whole 5 people that read this blog and still not really explain what's crackin in my world.

I'm ready for Luke to get home and make me feel better by listening.