Mmmm, cranberry sauce!

Cranberry sauce is really one of my favorite things about Turkey Day. The jellied straight-from-a-can kind, although I will eat other kids too. But I'm perfectly happy with the canned stuff - even better if you manage to remove it from the can and maintain the can shape, complete with ridges around the circumference that show the actual shape of the can.

I, um, don't really like turkey. Yeah, I'll eat it, particularly if you add some stuffing and gravy (the good kind, not watery crap). But I prefer ham. Honey glazed, spiral cut, please. Mmmm, ham. So many more leftover possibilities with ham, too. So this year my aunt is procuring the meats for the festivities, but maybe I'll manage to sneak away with a hunk o' leftover ham at the end.

Strange how I can be so captivated and enthralled by food while simultaneously feeling terrible morning sickness, all day long. But really - I haven't lost the desire to eat, or the appreciation of tasty foods. I just can't keep stuff down without lots of meds and a helluva lot of willpower. I'm incredibly dangerous at the grocery store, even as I keep careful track of the locations of bathrooms, just in case I am overcome with nausea. I've made two hungry-and-lacking-willpower grocery runs lately, so I'm well stocked with ice cream sandwiches, frozen Italian ices, cocoa, and enough ingredients to make a batch of cookies every day from now until New Year's.

I got these wonderful Heath toffee chocolate baking bits and can't wait to make cookies with them. I actually bought a bag of these last month, too, but Hubs found them and surreptitiously pilfered and snacked until they were gone. I have to watch him. He does this with chocolate chips and butterscotch chips too - and then I get ready to make scotchies (the oatmeal butterscotch cookie recipe on the bag o' butterscotch chips) and find I have no chips.

Did I mention how delicious butterscotch chips are when added to pancakes? I think I like them even better than chocolate chip pancakes.

A series of quick thoughts:

I wish I had the space, setting, and mental energy to grow a garden. Not going to happen this year, but I can dream.

I have too much crap in my house. Every day I find more and more, and I don't need so much of it.

People who don't turn on their headlights when it starts to get dark - particularly the ones who drive dark cars - scare me. I get really unnerved when I realize there's a car there and I can barely see it.

In a related note, I'm sometimes one of those annoying people who will flash her headlights on and off to try to tell approaching cars that they need to turn on their headlights.

My dogs are wrestling on the back deck again. Do they do this all the time, or do they wait until it's quiet enough for me to hear them out there making a racket?

I also wish I had a good spot for a large chest deep freezer, in which I could keep the produce from my imagined garden, along with smaller portions of soups and stews to heat and eat for weeknight meals.

Green/red/yellow bell peppers are over-used in prepared foods, particularly the frozen stuff like skillet meals. They don't taste that good, just strong, plus they make me sick to my stomach. And I hate having to study the ingredients list to see if they're in a product before I buy it. I've learned not to rely upon the picture of the meal on the packaging.

Hubs and I bought a Dyson early in our marriage, and it continues to serve us well (knock on wood). It's parked in this room at present. It's not the special pet-fur model but it still did a decent job with dog fur back when we had indoor dogs.

This colder weather is making me get really dry, itchy skin. Yuck.

My daughter's recent decision not to eat tater tots, french fries, and the like puzzles me. I wondered where she got it from. She used to eat these delicious potato products and love them. Almost as much as her brother, who would subsist on Sonic tater tots and fruit juice alone if permitted.

Hubs got me a label maker for Valentine's Day and I love it. I mentioned this at work today and got some weird looks, but I think it's one of the best gifts he's given me in years.

I wonder what I should start calling Two on this blog after he turns three in April... I could still call him Two, since he's the second in birth order, but would that be confusing?

Speaking of birth order - I've read several studies and articles discussing the impact of birth order on a child's development, and I think it's really interesting. I watch for signs of the influence of birth order in my own kids, and I can definitely see some of it at work in Hubs' family. Alas, I am an only child, but that has its influence as well.

A Most Excellent Day

Hubs got it this year. No boxes of assorted chocolates, which I've never liked that much. A sweet, thoughtful card. A new hand mixer (!) to replace the one that died a couple of months ago. And a label maker. I think the label maker is my favorite. Have I mentioned my love of office supplies? Now I can label my stuff. And the kids' stuff. I'm excited! He did very well this year.

I hope he liked his presents. I made him an appointment for a massage, which he said he really enjoyed, and I got a rolling laundry hamper for our room. And a couple of movies on DVD that he will hopefully enjoy.

Today has been a very low-key day. My sweet Big Girl is still sick, coughing and dripping and miserable, and she has a bad raw area around her nose from a bit of rough treatment with the tissues. I got her the soft ones, but she's a little too fervent in her nose-wiping sometimes. I'm trying to teach her to pay and blow, not wipe so hard, but her little nose is pitiful and raw.

Two may be getting it too. He has coughed a few times - no nose issues yet, knock on wood. The way the two of them play together and love on each other (when not wrestling), they tend to share all of their germs freely. Fortunately they're out of school next week, so there's plenty of time for them to rest and recover.

I made monte cristo sandwiches for dinner, at Hubs' request. They were good. I even used Wonder Bread for him - he purchased a loaf for that purpose, although I would never buy the stuff. I like good, hearty wheat breads. But the results were good, despite the questionable "bread" he required. We also ate well earlier with Hubs' special French toast, so that this day was a steady progression of unhealthy and tasty foods. The kids ate too many tractor snacks and were briefly wild and energized. They're addicted to them, and are also really stocked about the new Wonder Pets snacks, too (have I mentioned that Two can sing the entire Wonder Pets theme song? in addition to childhood classics like Twinkle, Twinkle).

Fudge

This is some sort of conspiracy. I'm trying to be good and eat a minimal amount of junk food, and yet I've received two gifts of fudge - yummy, good, homemade stuff - in the last few days. Can't let good fudge go to waste, can I? I have to try a little bit so I can be truthful when I say how delicious it was in my thank you notes, right?

I can share it with Hubs, Big Girl, and Two, of course, but they've received even more sweets themselves - and Christmas isn't even here yet!

That Hubs - bad influence!

He started a conversation with me early this morning, while I was still in a semi-comatose state, asking if he should go out and get some breakfast for all of us to eat before church. I mumbled in approval. He returned a short time later with a box of Bojangles Cinnamon Sweet Biscuits. These deliciously sinful concoctions are based on a rich, buttery biscuit, which is then smothered in butter, cinnamon, and sweet icing. They are, as Two says, "mmmmm... nummy!" This pronouncement is typically accompanied by the clapping of buttery, sticky fingers and a big sticky smile. Big Girl was also articulate on the subject of breakfast: "Mmmm! Tanks, Daddy!"

So much for my healthy daily breakfast of Special K. It was a very sweet start to the day. Since I was already off the wagon, I tossed a couple of spoonfuls of cocoa mix in my coffee mug for a hot mocha treat.

The Documentary Channel

In one of our regular afternoons of nerdy indulgence, Hubs and I watched a documentary on (ha, ha) The Documentary Channel this afternoon: Sweet Misery - "The artificial sweetener, aspartame, is the bedrock of the diet industry. Found in everything from fizzy drinks to vitamin pills and marketed under a variety of different names, it is difficult to detect and even harder to avoid. But how safe is it' Does it really cause brain tumours, blindness and other serious illnesses' This shocking documentary investigates how the FDA came to approve such a potentially dangerous product."

Hubs has been cautioning me about artificial sweeteners since we started dating. I've gone through periods where I've listened to him, and other periods where I've tuned him out. But this film was quite compelling, and I dumped out the last of my 2-liter of Diet Coke by the end. Diet Coke isn't as good as classic Coke, anyway - and I know my dentist thinks I need to cut back on soda, given the little cavities I've been getting right at the top of my teeth along the gums. I'm very interested to see how I feel after a few days or weeks without Diet Coke and with as little possible of products containing artificial sweeteners. I try not to use too many products with aspartame anyway, but I think the film raised some serious questions about the long-term (and short-term) health implications of aspartame ingestion.

So, this is just another in a long line of developments and revelations regarding food that lead me to think we'd be better off cooking everything from scratch using natural ingredients. I need to investigate options for organic groceries in this area. Finding variety in organics will be tough, but I think I need to try. If we had the room/time/money/land, I'd definitely be more adventurous about growing my own food...

Delicious

Take two slices of fresh, soft bread. Spread crunchy peanut butter on one slice and Nutella on the other slice. Slice up a banana and put it on one coated slice. Put the other slice on top and cut in half. Consume with a tall, cold glass of milk.

Ode to a milkshake

Oh chocolate milkshake, so cold and so sweet,
So delightful on a hot Georgia day!
Thou are deliciously sinful!
Shall I compare thee to a chocolate chip cookie?
Thou art more refreshing and creamier!
Had I but purchased you in a larger size,
Thy chocolatey goodness I would still taste!
But alas, thou art gone. Slurp, slurpppppp!

Delicious summer food

My mom sent me some recipes from the ABC website that sound delicious: Ribs, Slaw, and Coffee Cake from the Deen Brothers (Paula Deen's sons). I could tell the ribs would be delicious when I saw the first ingredient, dark brown sugar. Yummy.

This got me started looking around for yummy recipes, and I found a delicious one from Southern Living for Spinach-Stuffed Squash. We've had a lot of fresh squash lately, courtesy of my aunt's vegetable garden, and I can't wait to try this one. It has three of my favorites: spinach, squash, and onion.

I need to dig around and find the recipe for my (other) aunt's black bean and corn salsa. It's delicious, and I tried to track it down on the Southern Living site for easy linkage, but couldn't find it. I'm pretty sure she got it from the magazine. They must have a limited number of recipes online to keep people buying the magazine. ;)

My eyes aren't awake yet.

We don't have to go anywhere early this morning, and yet my darling Big Girl demanded that I get up at 6:30. After Hubs had already woken me up at 5:30, 5:50, and 6:00 looking for various missing items. He loses things, a lot, and I find myself increasingly unsympathetic. This morning it was his cell phone and something else. I don't remember - the bright overhead light was too strong for me to really pay attention to him.

Big Girl is playing with her crayons while her brother polishes off breakfast. She doesn't just color. Her crayons have personalities and conversations and adventures. She started off coloring a picture to take to her great-grandmother, who is celebrating her birthday today, but it sounds like the crayons are gossiping again now.

Two ate a deliciously unhealthy breakfast this morning. His Bad Mommy served him leftover Papa John's Apple Sweet Treat, which he devoured with great gusto and stickiness. We're out of bread, so I couldn't make him toast, and he's been turning his nose up at yogurt, oatmeal, and most other offerings recently. I knew he would eat this. Big Girl ate a big bowl of cottage cheese, in case you were wondering, and then announced she was full and didn't want anything else. And juice - they're both drinking the beloved juice. Water is met with revulsion and a big tantrum these days. Two wants juice, and he'll tell you, repeatedly and loudly: "Mommeeee! Jooooos!"

Couscous - even better this time...

I made my couscous dish again for today's family dinner/birthday extravaganza, and this time I made a few modifications. I didn't cook the sweet onion first, just chopped it. I used corn, petite diced tomatoes, fresh cilantro, and half of the aforementioned onion, plus I used fresh juice squeezed from two limes. I added all of that to two cups of couscous (precooked measurement), and I served it cold, although I think warm would be delicious as well. And they liked it! I was curious to see what the extended fam said about it, and they all responded well (except my dad, who didn't eat me, but he's not exactly food-adventurous) and asked me how I made it. It may have helped that my mom, aunt, and uncle had tried the couscous at the baseball game on Friday (yes, they sat in swanky seats with ritzy food at the Braves game, courtesy of my dad's work connection - did I mention that we could see them on teevee throughout the game?).

Big Girl's cake turned out well, although the caramel icing was a bit thicker than I had intended. I tried a new recipe using sweetened condensed milk, since I couldn't find that can of evaporated milk that I know I bought a couple of weeks ago. It was very sweet, and kind of like candy - a bit chewy, even. I used my rose Bundt pan but the lovely rose shape was largely obscured due to the thickness of the caramel icing. When I make cupcakes for Big Girl's party, I'll aim for a slightly thinner icing, plus I'll serve the cupcakes upside down, since I'll be using fancy bakeware for those, too, and they'll look like rosebuds on the bottom. It'll go with the whole flower theme.

Mind like a steel trap: she's been talking about planting flowers at her party, even though I only mentioned that once when I ran the idea of a flower party by her. My mom already has some pots, and I'll pick up some plants - probably annuals in six-packs since those will be easy for the girls to manipulate - later this week. I don't want to run the risk of buying a flat of flowers only to have them die before next weekend.

In other news, a friendly random black lab, roaming loose in the 'hood, stole Hubs' brown leather dress shoes off the front porch as we were leaving for church this morning. An amusing scene in which I chased the dog, and said dog ran and encouraged the fun game, ensued. We didn't make it to church on time, but the shoes are now safe and intact. The dog chewed into a bag of potting soil (?) while we were gone, and busted open a jug of windshield washer fluid. Hubs shooed him away around lunch, and he apparently went down the street a couple of houses to see if our neighbors wanted to play, and stuck around their house all afternoon. He had a collar but no tags. We're hoping he just escaped from his yard while his people are out of town for the weekend - I hope he wasn't dumped out because his owners got tired of him, but unfortunately that happens all too often. We would have invited him to stay, but we have more than enough canine companionship at present, in the form of two ravenous blond bums. Hubs would be furious, so I squelched the voice in the back of my mind that thought he was a very sweet puppy who needed someone to love him. But I'm still a bit worried and will keep an eye out for him tomorrow.

Cupcakes, cupcakes

I made cupcakes for Big Girl's end of school party, and they were delicious. Devil's Food cake with buttercream frosting (have I mentioned that I excel at making a simple, delicious buttercream frosting?). The kids really enjoyed them, as did the other parents who came to the party. I used my Williams-Sonoma rosebud cupcake pans, which meant that they looked like roses on the bottom. I iced them on top like typical cupcakes, but didn't use paper liners, so when I told some of the girls to look at the bottom of the cupcakes, they thought it was pretty neat. I used these same pans for Big Girl's first birthday party (they've held up great for over three years now), only I served them upside down with a thin pink-tinted glaze, clustered together like a bouquet. But I've observed that the kids in Big Girl's class are kind of picky, and are very hesitant about trying anything new or different, so I went with a more traditional approach this time (given the cool reception given to the Valentine's cupcakes which had pink frosting and multi-colored candies sprinkled on top - the horrors!).

Big Girl had a great time at the party and was thrilled with the plastic bucket and shovel she got. The teachers used the pails like goodie bags, and put candy and little toys in them, and now Big Girl can use it if we ever go to the beach this summer. Or if we get some sand for her, which is more likely.

Two went to the party with me, and had a grand time playing with some other little boys - interestingly, several of Big Girl's friends have baby brothers close in age to Two, so the boys played together while their big sisters partied. Two also got a cupcake, since I made plenty, and he devoured it in a big, crumby, sticky mess.

Family fun this weekend, which means another cake for Big Girl (this time I may try out one of my new shaped pans - I'm thinking the tractor) and tasty food for all. I think I'll revisit the couscous recipe as my contribution, since I don't feel like going to the store just now.

Mornin', y'all!

We're experiencing another toast shortage here. I'm not sure what got them started on this toast kick, but both Big Girl and Two ask for buttered toast (or sometimes with jelly or jam) for breakfast, with lunch and dinner, and as a snack. So we go through a lot of loaves of bread, and I haven't had the time to track down the bread machine cookbook and bake my own, and the freezer has been thoroughly cleaned of all partial frozen loaves. I could try to pass off a couple of freezer-burned hot dog buns as toast, but the Toastmasters would likely wrinkle their noses in distaste at the off taste. I think I'm going to become fast friends with the woman who runs the bakery outlet in town. At the rate these two consume it, I have no qualms about getting day old bread from the outlet. Plus they have some granola bars and fruit snacks there that are cheap and tasty additions to my friends' dining repertoire.

In other cute gustatory news, Two has developed the charming habit of begging for roasted peanuts, putting them in his mouth to lick off all of the seasonings, and spitting them back out in his hand and presenting them to me. Punk. He doesn't like peanut butter (yes, I know that's strange in a little kid), but he will eat peanuts sometimes, particularly in a snack mix. Big Girl LOVES all kinds of nuts and begs for them at snack time. She kindly shares her nuts with her bro, and then I end up with personally-cleaned peanuts dumped in my lap by an insistent young man. We need to break this habit promptly.

I've been reading lots of fast food books lately - quick, easy reads, mostly sci-fi and fantasy stuff. This really annoys Hubs, because I sit in the den while he watches crap on tv and I read. He goes to great efforts to involve me in his shows, but I keep going back to my book. Drives him up the wall - he gets deeply offended, and I think he's being silly. I make time to talk to him, but I'm not going to watch the same episodes of The Deadliest Catch multiple times just because he falls asleep before the end and forgets that he has seen them. Anyway, the positive point is that I'm really enjoying reading without the pressure of unpacking the symbolism and identifying allusions and all of that. And yes, I will get back to the scholarly stuff soon enough - lots to do on ye olde dissertation. In a wise move yesterday, Big Girl and I also made a trip to the library, to check out more fast food books - I don't need to pay full price to buy copies of books I'll only read once. Plus I haven't used my library card in years, and I'm on the library board now, so I should make an effort to do that, right? I'll post more about the fast food books at some point - the incredibly curious among you can check out my recent reads through goodreads until then (see link on the right side of the blog somewhere).

Food strike!

It's bad when Two acts like enough of a two year old to get my mom annoyed. She got very frustrated with a certain boy who kept throwing peas on the floor and refusing to eat his dinner because he wanted cookies instead. My mother, the saint, kept Two and Big Girl for much of the day today while I got lots of work done on various projects. I think she was exhausted by the time I arrived to take the kids home - and my dad, who wasn't even there for half of the day, was worn out too. Two apparently fussed for cookies and the tractor video repeatedly throughout the day, and his wishes were not always granted. This, understandably, was extremely frustrated, and he just didn't understand why his articulate requests were not granted - so he whined, screamed, turned red, and acted, in general, like a boy who wasn't getting his way. I saw enough of that this morning before I dropped him off, and I was secretly glad I had already arranged for my mother to watch him. She told me that Big Girl was a delight, and helped her tremendously, and that is fortunate indeed. I don't want to dissuade her from future assistance, as she is so good about watching them to let me work on my dissertation and other non-kid-friendly tasks.

I don't think the food strike is really hurting Two. He still has a nice little belly, despite his refusal to eat so many of the foods offered to him. Said belly is extremely funny when I blow raspberries on it - fantastic giggles guaranteed to interrupt even the most outraged fusser and break him out of his funk.

Two things

1. I have found a new slightly-less-sinful food pleasure: cheese quesadillas made with ye ole George Foreman Grill. Yummy. Now with less grease.

2. I have found a new personal hero: Jeff Deck of TEAL. If I were young and wild, I would join them on their cross-country mission.

Easter dinner was divine

We had Easter dinner at my grandmother's house, and it was amazing. I made roasted potatoes with olive oil and herbes de provence. So, so easy, and so good. I peeled the potatoes and cut them up into big chunks, and tossed them in a ziploc bag with some olive oil. Then I put them in a casserole dish (sprayed with olive oil cooking spray) and sprinkled herbes de provence on top, and roasted them for about 15 minutes at 450 degrees, then turned down to 350 until they got nice and tender (another 20 minutes or so). I love herbs de provence - such a nice spice blend.

Other family members brought assorted items, including a honey ham, turkey, dressing, gravy, macaroni and cheese (this awesome Martha Stewart recipe that the kids LOVE), broccoli salad (with a creamy sauce and big pieces of onion and bacon), deviled eggs, fruit salad, cranberry sauce, and Southern-style biscuits. Plus brownies and assorted Easter candy for dessert.

The kids hunted for eggs in the front yard before we ate and had so much fun. They were both in rare form - very entertaining, energetic, not the least bit whiny throughout the visit. I was impressed! Good thing they both had naps before we went there.

Really useful site (wouldn't Sir Topham Hatt be proud?)

My BFF shared a cool item from Lifehacker with me this morning - the site is called Foodsel, and it offers some interesting ways to view the food you're eating. In addition to lots of nice nutrient info, it shows the amount of exercise (of different types, including things like pushing a child in a stroller) required to burn off the calories, and it puts things like fat content in terms of sticks of butter. So we can learn interesting things, like the fact that one of my beloved Chick-fil-a sandwiches contains 40.29 g of fat, equal to about 0.4 butter sticks. Yummy!

So, I think I'll keep referring to this site when I feel the urge to eat chocolate at bedtime, and I'll remember it fondly as I drive past Burger King and fail to stop for a bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit. But then, knowing me, I'll just pull in at the Sonic a few yards down the street and get something just as bad. I guess I should be glad that the Chick-fil-a is on the other side of town or I'd be there more often than I already am.