Baby Bites

We are still trying out all kinds of new table foods.  She still loses patience before she can get enough in her tummy so we usually put out a balanced spread of table food and let her work on it until she gets frustrated or bored and then we top her off with some pureed veggies.  

This is still such a fun phase!  To my surprise she really digs beans--not just green beans but black bean and lentils.  What a surprise!  She also really love white fish like cod and tilapia and could and would eat her own weight in green peas.  She also loves holding a chunk of pineapple and working little pieces off with her little teeth.  And running out of potatoes on our tray nearly caused a riot the other night at dinner.  We haven't quiet embraced spaghetti but we like mom's homemade vegetable pasta sauce.  For the most part we cut up what we are eating and she gives it a try.  

Honey garlic grilled chicken, sweet corn and strawberries

Black beans, peas and cheese

Veggie lasagna, avocado, green beans and strawberries  

Peas, cheese, blueberries and white grapes

Stay Date

We are really lucky to have family near by so once or twice a month we are able to get out on a date.  But in between we try to have what we call "stay dates."  We put little miss down, stay in our dress clothes from the day and try to do something special, like cook dinner together or play board games or sometimes grab a Redbox movie. 

This weekend I picked up a few cupcakes from our favorite little place and after eating a very healthy dinner (fish and steamed veggies) we tried a small slice of each one and caught up on each other's week.  It was so fun!  And we have plenty of cupcake left to enjoy or share.  

What kind of things do you do to connect when there's no babysitter?  

Valentines and A Cake

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We had a really great Valentines this week.  In years past we haven't been big on celebrating Valentines Day since it was just the two of us and we could go out on dates any time we wanted and T never left me in short supply of fresh flowers just because.  But this year my sweet sister offered to babysit and since time together is at a premium we jumped on the chance.  Add to that that this is little miss's first Valentines and I wanted to just surround my little family in love.  Even if it is a silly holiday, it's a good time to teach and be reminded about commitments we have as a family everyday, year round.  So we celebrated as a family and then T and I went out.  I tried to do a few things to make this year special for little miss and our family.  And it was great to have a babysitter (thanks, sis!) so T and I could have the chance to hang out just the two of us Valentines Day or not!  

Last weekend I baked a cake on the fly for some friends that were coming over.  It ended up being super dense and moist and just wrong.  Just wrong.  And it really bothered me.  I don't normally make mistakes cooking or baking and what was worse is that I couldn't figure it out.  About three days later I realized what I had done--a simple and silly mistake.  I violated one one of the basic rules of baking when I was in a hurry and my little helper was being less than helpful.  Ah, but no excuses, eh?  And so to test my theory about my mistake I made a second cake for my loves on Valentines Day.  And I was right and the cake was right and all was well and everyone felt loved!

How was your Valentines Day?  

Summer Harvest

The blueberries are looking just lovely lately so I am spending the day freezing them for muffins, coffee cakes and smoothies in the winter.

And surprise of all surprises, my zinnias have hung on in the heat and so I clipped a few to cheer up the house and add a pop of color.

Basil Harvest

I hope next summer to have a raised veggie garden in the back yard, since you know, this spring I was a tad bit busy having a baby.  But when I did the planter make over I did put a little basil plant in amongst the zinnias, margarita flowers and sweet potato vines.  To be honest, the basil didn't look that hot when I planted it and the planters get full sun all day, so I didn't think the basil had a chance in the Texas heat.  But to my surprise, the basil is taking off like crazy.  In fact, so that it doesn't take over the whole planter, I had to do a little mini harvest.

No stranger to big batches of basil, I tried to figure out how to store it.  In the past I have made the basil into a pesto and frozen it in ice cube trays for adding to sauces and pasta dishes in the winter.  Yum.  However, since its only the first of July and I have already had to collect some, I have a feeling there will be enough for pesto later in the summer.  So I thought I would try my hand at drying my own basil for the winter.

Here's how I did it:

First I clipped the basil from the garden.  I had read that in order to totally not shock your plant you need to leave behind about 25% of the plant.  That way it can continue to grow through the rest of the season and you can do a second harvest in August (hello pesto cubes!).  So I clipped the plant back.

Next, I soaked the clippings in cool water.  Now lots of "pros" suggest not doing this step but its a safe, effective way to clean bugs and dirt off them.  And my desired outcome is dried basil, not bugs in the house.  I soaked them for maybe 15 minutes, fully submerged in a bowl of cool water.

Then I removed the clippings (and took the bowl of water out to water my newly shorn basil plant) and aid them out on a towel to air dry.

Once they were air dried I removed any discolored or yucky looking leaves (yes, yucky is a technical term).  Then I took the ends loosely (making sure that air could flow between clippings and leaves and tied the ends together with baker's twine and hung it upsie down somewhere cool and dry and away from the sun (at this point in the process it can loose flavor with too much exposure to UV rays...or so they say).

When they dry I will take them down, remove the leaves and store them in a glass or plastic air tight container, I will store the leaves whole because I have read that it preserves the flavor better if you wait to crush the leaf when you are ready to use it.

On the whole it was really easy.  I can't wait to use it in my veggie, chicken manicotti dish this winter.  If you had an extra stash of basil what dishes would you use it for?

Lunch Lately

I suppose this lunch is barely worth mentioning since its so simple.  But I figure its good to be honest.  I really dig breakfast foods for lunch or anytime.  And this has got protein, grains, and tons of fresh raw fruit so it gives good fuel and is easy to pull together at a moments notice.

What are your too simple to mention but complete healthy meal staples?  

Last Night's Dinner

This is a long over due post, but considering I just pulled out the last pan of this delicious mancotti from the freezer to heat up for the family, I suppose now is as good a time as any to share this tasty recipe. 

I found this recipe in a cookbook one of my girlfriends shared with me back in college called Crazy Plates: Low-Fat Food So Good You'll Swear Its Bad for You which is now discontinued. It has been a major winter staple for many years now.  I usually only make it about twice a year, because it take a while (about 30-45 minutes) to prep and it makes so much that you have enough to freeze and breakout through out the winter.  So even though its a bit of work, its tasty, low fat and does great in the freezer.

Here are the ingredients:

1 clove garlic, minced

1/2 cup finely chopped onions

3 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, cut into small pieces

1 cup each grated carrots, grated zucchini, and finely chopped mushrooms

3 tbsp minced, fresh basil or 1 1/2 tsp dried

1 tbsp minced, fresh oregano or 1 tsp dried

1/4 tsp black pepper

4 oz light cream cheese, cut into cubes

1 cup part-skim ricotta cheese

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

12 manicotti shells or about 20 shells

2 cups of you favorite low-fat, tomato based pasta sauce

1/2 cup shredded, part-skim mozzarella cheese (2 oz)

To make filling:

1. Spray a large, non-stick skillet with non-stick spray.  Add garlic and onions.  Cook and stir over medium heat until softened, about 2-3 minutes.  Be careful not to burn them.

2. Add chicken, increase heat to medium high, and cook until no longer pink. 

3. Add carrots, zucchini, mushrooms, basil, oregano and pepper.  Cook for 3 more minutes. 

4.  Add cream cheese and stir until melted. Remove from heat.  Stir in ricotta and Parmesan cheeses.  transfer filing to large bowl and refrigerate for 20 minutes. (Added tip: after about 10 minutes stir the contents to ensure that the warm inside portion gets turned to the outside of the bowl to cool as well)

Assemblage: 

5 While filling is chilling, cook manicotti according to package directions.  Rinse with cold water and drain well. 

6. Using a teaspoon, stuff shells equally with filling.  (see below)

7.  Spread a thin layer of pasta sauce over the bottom of two baking dishes. Arrange 6 stuffed manacotti (or 8-10 stuffed shells) in each dish. 

8. Pour remaining sauce over manicotti and sprinkle with mozzarella.

9. Cover with foil and bake at 350 for 40 minutes. Let cook for 5 minutes before serving.

Enjoy!

Halloween

I hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!  We had a wonderful evening.  We took a long walk late in the afternoon, then came home and make hot tea and cider, grab our Halloween candy and a book and sat on the front porch until the trick-or-treaters came along.  It was fun too because all of our neighbors did the same thing and we have some cool neighbors.  So we all hung out and talked and oohed and awwwed over the cute little kiddos in thier costumes.

Once it got dark and the trick-or-treating crowd transitioned into teens and adults in street clothes carrying trash sacks, we packed it up and brought our pumpkins inside to carve.  One of the things I will never understand about this holiday is how absurd it looks from a food stand point.  We Americans, set perfectly good food out on our front porches to rot, which encouraging our kids to go door to door collecting items that are basically chemicals and sugar.  Baffles me, but anyhow.  My favorite part of Halloween is gutting all of our pumpkins and pulling the seeds out and roasting them.  Its such a yummy treat we only get once a year!  One year, we went a got a dozen of left over pumpkins the church was just going to toss in the dumpster after the Pumpkin Patch and gutted every single one for the seeds!  This year we just had the ones from our front steps though so we took them into to carve while we watched the Wizard of Oz. 

After we had gutted and carved our largest pumpkins, I had an idea.  I asked T if we could put Ranger in a pumpkin.  T was pretty apprehensive at first and worried Ranger would be mad, but after a little coaxing, he agreed.*  Ranger was actually pretty non-challant about the whole thing.  He just sort of hung out until we were done snapping pics.  And the only thing that got messy were his paws.

Oh, and if you are interested in how we roast our seeds here's the basic idea:

Pumpkins seeds cleaned and patted dry

Melted butter (just enough to coat the seeds very lighly)

Wostishire Sauce (same as butter--just enough to lightly coat)

Preheat oven to 350 lay seeds out in a roasting pan and place in oven.  Roast for about 20 minutes, checking every 10 minutes and turning and moving with a spatula, or until golden brown.

Lay on a towel to cool and salt to preference. 

On the whole it was a great Halloween!  How was your Halloween?

*Basically by "a little bit of coaxing" I explained to T that it was either Ranger this year or the baby the next, but that I needed to get putting the dog and or baby in a carved out fruit or veggitable out of my system after seeing this YouTube video. Hehe!

Lonestar State of Pie

This post is long over due, but I finally uploaded some pics so I thought I would finish it up and get it posted!

So, at the church pie auction a few months back I saw a pie where instead of laying the crust across the top and slitting holes or doing a lattice, they cut dozens of little stars out with a cookie cutter and scattered them across the top of the pie to form the top crust. Brilliant. My mom has a whole collection of tiny cookie cutters she uses for just such occasion but since she lives so far away in the south, I couldn't just hop over and see what she had, so I got to digging through my stash. It was a really hard decision on which one to try but since there's no such thing as Christmas in May (yet) I decided to go with a Texas shaped cookie cutter to make the hubs a Texas apple pie. Here is the results, not too bad if I do say so:

Sorry for the crappy iPhone pic...I am just lucky to snap a pic sometimes!

originally uploaded by Pretty as the Morning