Baking Again

Tripp and I have been busy in the kitchen again. First, we made some bread. Honey whole wheat bread to be exact. The first loaf we made was a little too dense for our liking so after reading some reviews, I decided to add a little more yeast and then also did 1 cup bread flour and 2 cups whole wheat (instead of all 3 wheat). It was excellent. I might even go as far as making it on a regular basis for our sandwich bread. But that is taking a step towards being Pioneer Woman or something and I am not sure ready for that. Cause then I would have to start growing vegetables in my back yard, give up refined sugar and only buy meat that is from grass fed, free range, daily manicured and pedicured cows. And not that I have anything against that (I really do not, I promise), I just am not there yet. But it does seem like a slippery slope, and making your own bread might just be the beginning of that slope. So in order to take a step back, I decided to make a recipe that I have been thinking about for a while. Oreo stuffed chocolate chip cookies. I now understand why the recipe calls for more flour than normal. But after using the typical amount, we were all out and I did not feel back to the store again.


So I think I will just do some dividing up, get a cold glass of milk, and enjoy a cookie inside a cookie.

Strawberry Pizza

Although I am not the biggest fan of fruity desserts, when Aldi has a sale on strawberries for $0.89 for a quart, it is hard to pass up making something fruity (and it was also about time for me to make something with some fruit in it for Nelson cause he loves fruity dessert). So I decided upon a Strawberry Pizza, inspired by one of the desserts my co-worker brought to our dessert potluck a little while back. I couldn't find the exact recipe I was looking for, so I used This one as a starting point and did a little modifying along the way.
Here is the crust:


Then the cream cheese and cool whip layer with strawberries on top:


And finally, the final product, topped with a strawberry glaze:





It's in our fridge cooling, and I'm sure that after an episode of The Good Wife, we will make our way upstairs and enjoy a slice (or two)!

Lots of Cooking

Tripp and I have been busy in the kitchen lately. He really loves being in there, and I love cooking so that means the two of us have been whipping up so tasty things as of late. It's mostly fun for me- sometimes having two extra hands around is hard in our small kitchen, but I am just thankful that he even wants to be around! He has helped me make some tasty dinners, including this Honey Garlic Balsamic Chicken and tonight we made a delicious penne pasta (which actually ended up being a bow tie pasta since I forgot to get penne noodles from the store). He also helped me with the caesar salad, and he was especially concerned about the croutons. He kept reminding me to put them in the salad and in case I was confused as to which thing in the kitchen they were, he reminded me "they're the crunchy things Mommy." He also reminded me "Don't squeeze the bag" since he had to be reminded of that same thing in the grocery store only a few hours earlier.

He is also learning how to set the table, and while it is far from perfect, I am proud of him for putting most things in the right spot. He has even learned to ask Daddy what he wants to drink and will get him whatever drink he asks for. Tonight I let him carry my water glass to the table for the first time, and besides the fact that he drank about half of it before he actually got it to the table, he did a great job.

We also made a fourth of July cake the other day for a "dessert potluck" that we were having at work. Ever since seeing this cake, I knew I had to make it. So one morning, Tripp and I set to baking. We made all the layers and set them out to cool. We had to head out to camp for Tripp and work for me, so I told him that he needed to remind his babysitter, Sally, that they needed to wrap up the cakes as soon as they got home. I fully planned on him forgetting so I texted Sally to let her know. But of course, as she let me know later, in the car on the way home, he reminded her that they needed to wrap up the cakes. He is such the great helper! Then that night, after he was asleep, since I needed full concentration for the assembling part, I put the cake together. Tripp was a little disappointed that I had to take the cake to work the next morning, but I was sure not disappointed when this is what we sat down to at work on the Friday afternoon before a long weekend:

My boss knew how excited I was for my cake and so she made every watch as I cut the first piece. And then we had to take a picture of course!

It is not the best pic, so I was fully intending on taking some pics of the cake when after I got home. But I had to go see a client in the afternoon in the 100 degree weather. I did not think about what this would mean for the icing on my cake so after it sat in the car for two hours, it completely fell apart on the way home. I was a little disappointed to see all our hard work end in such a terrible way, so this morning, Tripp and I took the extra cake (since there is lots of cutting/trimming of layers) and make cake balls! They win no points for style or good looks seeing as a two year old helped me roll them into a shape that somewhat resembles a ball but more closely resembles a blob. They also turned a rather strange color of pink/purple because we were mixing layers of red, white and blue cake. But they win lots of points on taste, which I guess is all that really matters.

I am pretty sure we made banana bread sometime this week as well, but just like the milk in this house, it disappeared faster than what seems humanly possible, so it's hard for me to remember if that was this week or last.

So it's been a busy week in the kitchen for us. But that's a good place to be busy.

Papa!

My parents were out of town for a while, then we went out of town, then my dad went back out of town. Tripp had been looking and wondering where his "Papa" was and hoping he would be back soon. Well, this morning when I dropped Tripp off at my parents', my dad stuck around to make sure to see Tripp before leaving for work. He was one happy boy, to say the least.

A Turning Point

I am days away from being 5 months pregnant. In some ways this has been an incredibly fast 5 months, but in others, it has been ridiculously slow. The slow part has to do with the not feeling so good. But ever since we were in Montreat, I have been feeling a lot better. On Friday night, I was watching some kids who happen to have a really old dog who has basically lost control of her bowels (which I did not know going into the situation or I might have all of a sudden become "busy"). After cleaning up a big poopy mess and not throwing up, I figured I was feeling pretty good. So yesterday I decided I would try to not take the anti-nausea medicine and see what happened. I felt pretty good all day. I had a moment or two of weird feelings, but who doesn't have that occasionally, even when not pregnant? I just had a little snack and felt much better. Today was even better than yesterday. I am not ready to flush my pills down the toilet (or whatever you are supposed to do with an unused prescription) but I am so thankful for the fact that I have been feeling much better. I have been feeling the little babe kick lots so that has been really fun too. We haven't exactly told Tripp yet, since his concept of time is not that great. We told him just a few days before leaving for North Carolina that we were going, and I quickly lost count of the number of times he asked when we were going, how long till we got there, where we were going, who would be there....(I think you get the point). I guess it wouldn't be completely fair to not tell him till I go into labor just to avoid answering a bunch of questions, but we at least decided to start talking to him about babies in general. Maybe in the next month or so, when I start to really pop out, we will talk about it more. In the mean time, he just thinks I am funny for changing outfits multiple times in the morning in the mostly futile attempt to find something that looks ok. It is quite assuring though, that when I put on a new outfit, he looks up at me and says "You look so nice Mommy." That sure helps boost my ego.

In this new found state of good health, I seemed to have found my cooking skills again. I whipped up some delicious pasta, if I do say so myself, the other night. It could have been that it was pretty "regular" tasting and that our taste buds have become accustomed to some pretty lame excuses for dinner in the past 5 months, but I really do think it was some delicious pasta. If you don't have the America's Test Kitchen Cookbook, you really need it. I made that pasta the other night, then home made mac 'n cheese last night, a chocolate cake last week and have a few more recipes on the menu for this week. But tonight, I am trying to outdo myself one more time. I am attempting some home made chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwiches. The recipe is from my newest Martha Stewart magazine and it looks delicious. I had a helper this afternoon while I made the cookies. I needed to distract this helper from actually helping me since the first thing he did was pour a very large amount of baking soda into my just perfectly measured flour, so I gave him a snack and some measuring spoons to use to eat the snack.

It worked well and he even got to be my taste tester (except his ability to taste test cookies is about as good as his ability to help me decide which outfit looks best. No matter how the cookie turned out, he proudly announced, "This is so tasty Mommy").

I didn't exactly fill him in on the part about making these cookies into ice cream sandwiches later, but I am pretty sure he is not worse for the wear. Nelson and I however, are about to enjoy some of this:

chocolate chip cookies

plus ganache

plus chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream

equals this

Yum.

Montreat!

We had a great time in Montreat, North Carolina. It went by way too fast even though we did not actually do a lot except hang out (which to me, is that way a vacation is supposed to be). We played at one of the best parks in existence,

took walks,

ate delicious food,

and were just together with the family.

It was great to just spend time together in a truly relaxed environment. I really wish I did not have to work in the summer cause then I might spend a whole month or so there! It really is a great spot!

Marian the Meerkat

Not everyone has a stuffed meerkat. But thanks to my brother and sister-in-law and their recent visit to the San Diego Zoo, Tripp is the proud owner of Marian the Meerkat. When I asked him what the meerkat's name should be, he replied "yeah" which is what he says when he doesn't know the answer to something. So first I suggested "Anna" after his cousin who he took a special liking to on our recent vacation to North Carolina. He didn't like that (sorry Anna) and then he said "Marian!" At first I was so confused, I thought he was saying Mary after his Nana (but I do not think he knows her real first name). I said "Mary?" he said "No, Marian, the other Marian is at the pool!" Then I got it, he named his meerkat Marian after the little girl at the pool. If only she knew that a little boy named his stuffed meerkat after her. So now he has three special animals- Blue Dog, Charlie Dog, and now Marian the Meerkat. You can see the name progression there too. As he gets older, his naming convention gets a little more sophisticated. Blue Dog was his first special friend and was aptly name after his color, Charlie Dog was his next special friend, named after his favorite babysitter's brother (who came over to play one day), and now Marian, named after the other (emphasis added by him, every time he says it) Marian, the girl at the pool.