Cooking and Screaming

Fair Food

2010-09-25T18:17:00.001-07:00

In spite of all the noise I make about organic, unprocessed, healthy food, I have a serious weakness for Street Fair food. I could eat funnel cake until I barf; and I think a fair without Italian Sausage is no kind of fair at all.

We visited the Greater Lauraville Fair today. C has been really off and on with her napping, and while a day with two kids and no nap is REALLY long, I am excited about not having to return home halfway through the day anymore. Some of my favorite people live in and around Lauraville, a neighborhood in Northeast Baltimore, and one of J's current obsessions lives there, so off we went.

C enjoyed the lemon sticks, J ate his weight in Kettle Korn, and I, of course, had an Italian Sausage with peppers and onions.

In fact, one of the reasons I am so hyper-controlling about food at my house is because I know I can't control it everywhere else. And I'm ok with that. If I know my family is eating well 75% of the time, I think we are doing pretty well. A drive through McDonald's ice cream now and then, or some nuggets at the zoo, or funnel cake, isn't the end of the world when it's not an everyday thing. And I am NEVER one to turn down food offered to me. I love anything I don't have to cook.

I try very, very hard to stay away from corn syrup, too (not just HFCS, but all corn syrup) for the same reasons we have restrictions on TV. No, it is not going to kill us if a little sneaks in. But it just isn't NECESSARY. Why chose the less healthy option if there's a better one out there?

I also totally get that I am part of the privileged middle class who can afford to choose organic most of the time; who has access to several well-stocked grocery stores, and not just a selection of fast food places and the over-priced corner store and their one moldy apple. I also know that I have the benefit of time to prepare food, which not everyone has. But I think we are all just trying to do the best we can with the resources and knowledge that we have. And today, that meant sausage and popcorn for lunch. And dinner.

Thanks for reading,
-Anne

Manners

2010-09-16T19:45:00.000-07:00

We don't go out to eat much. Between my husband's schedule, the diet restrictions, and the fact that almost anything I like to eat I can cook faster and better than in a restaurant, there's not a lot of motivation to head to a restaurant.

We live in a neighborhood with plenty of food choices. Lots of bar food, some Asian and Asian-inspired, and of course plenty of seafood. We could eat out every night for a month and not go to the same place twice.

But the main reason we don't go out is the nightmare my children become when seated (and I use that word lightly) in a restaurant. Just thinking about what it might be like makes me tired.

The 2 year old just wants to run at top speed in circles and zig zags all the time, everywhere she goes. She's also fond of physically pushing her brother all over the place, crashing them both into things. The six-year-old is patient enough, but he's got a 20 minute limit at a restaurant until he really wants to get up and walk around, or climb under the table. Add hunger and overstimulation to the list, and I don't really know why ANYONE goes out to eat with kids.

I feel like I'm missing some important piece of knowledge about how to make my kids sit down and be still for an hour and a half that every other parent knows. I know a few families who go out with their kids all the time, and the kids sit there and doodle and eat for like, 30 minutes straight. If my kids are at the table at home for ten minutes, I consider that a successful meal.

It's not even a case of the kids not being able to sit still, at least the older one. Today, he kept himself entertained with a maze book and a microscope outside his sister's music class for an hour, quiet as a mouse. He pays attention quite well in his classes and co-ops, so that's not a problem for us either.

At home, we eat dinner as a family whenever we are all there. Even when H is gone, I sit down and eat with the kids, so we have that "family dinner" experience almost every night. We do all the right things, like keeping the TV off, using real napkins and real dishes, have polite conversation, don't allow toys at the table, and generally enjoy each others company. But it's still really QUICK. We aren't in a hurry, but we all sort of eat and then move on. The kids take their own dishes to the counter and we move on to the next thing.

The set-up of the house contributes to this, I think. It's all one room downstairs, so if you want to go draw or read after dinner, we're all still together, chatting and playing. No one is scurrying off to the bedroom and hiding. No one is left alone to clean up.

I know someday I'd like to go out to dinner, all of us. But I'm not sure how to make the leap from the seven-minute dinner to a leisurely long meal with appetizers and entrees and desserts. And someone else doing the cooking and cleaning up. If you have a kid who can sit for a long time at the table, what's your secret?

Thanks for reading,
Anne

PortSchooling

2010-09-09T10:44:00.000-07:00

We're homeschoolers. Not the strict school-at-home type, not the completely unschooling type, but somewhere in between, like almost every other homeschooler I know.

Today has been an excellent example of how it works for us.

We woke fairly early, at 6:30 instead of the usual 8am. The weather forecast was set to AMAZING. A little cool, a little breezy, everyone in pants and sleeves.

After walking the dog, and returning her home, J, C and I went to the coffee shop where the kids shared a gluten-free muffin and I had a gigantic coffee. J said, "It's such a nice day, can we walk around our neighborhood?" The extreme heat and humidity of this summer had really put a damper on our favorite activity, and he was clearly excited to be outside without being miserable.

He asked to go see the "Fred Head," the giant hollow head of Frederick Douglas, on display outside of the Frederick Douglas Issac Meyers Maritime Park and Museum on the opposite end of the Point. On the way there, he asked, "Who was Frederick Douglas anyway?" So we talked about slavery, both historic and modern, about racism, and about how important it was to stand up for human rights.

The Maritime Park also has a shipbuilding shop, and we took a peek. We'd been inside a few years ago, but it's not toddler-friendly, so we'll go back when it's just the two of us sometime.

When went back home, kitted up with water and snacks, and went to Irvine Nature Center . The displays there are great for all ages, and the grounds are just beautiful. We built a fairy house, talked about snakes, and took lots of pictures in the woods, like of the PigTree above.

After lunch, J will go to a yoga class he attends twice a week at a local private school, and then we'll come home, and maybe throw in a worksheet for fun. Or not, considering C had a ten minute nap in the car and will probably be a screaming hellion by the time 5pm rolls around.

Not every day is as wonderful as this one, but if I had to say what a perfect day was for us, this would be it.

Thanks for reading,
Anne

Pizza -sort of

2010-07-12T18:41:00.000-07:00

Alright, this is the second time I've tried a mix from this company that has turned into paste, not dough. I wonder what I'm doing wrong?
I made blueberry pie for Father's day, and instead of rolling out the pastry dough, it was so sticky that I had to sort of mash little chunks into the pie plate until it was all covered. It came out too thick, and even though we ate some, I don't think I'll be going that route again.

Tonight we tried the pizza/ french bread mix. I let in rise in the oven, following my neighbor's instructions of lots of pans of water and low heat. It is super hard to get anything to rise in my house at all, and I was pleased how well this worked. But when I took it out to put on the pan, it was all sticky again. I managed to mush out slightly larger discs, and pat them down, by covering my hands in rice flower. I put olive oil on the pan and Borsari seasoning on the prepared dough, whch was bland, bland, bland.
I used the Cabernet marinara my son likes on his pasta, made by Muir Glen. I use them because they're one of the very few companies I've found who have an organic sauce with no soybean oil. Then I only had Mexican mix shredded cheese, and no mozzarella in the house, so I added Parmesan to the cheese to Italian it up.

We were all starved, so we ate most of it, but again, the dough was just too thick. Thank goodness a good sauce and tons of cheese can cover for a dough fail.

I'll keep looking for a GF dough that feels like dough. My favorite part of making pizza with the kids is kneading, and there's none of that with this kind.

Not just beets

2010-07-07T19:37:00.000-07:00

I love beets.

I love the way they feel, heavy and dull in my hands. Their dirty skin, all lumpy and coarse and hairy. I especially love how my hands stain when I peel them after they've roasted.

Beet-stained hands make my think of my mother-in-law, and the ease with which she cooks everything so well. I think before her, I hadn't ever eaten beets that weren't from a can, and I'd had no idea how good they could be. On top of just the cooking, her hands are always busy. Preparing food, working with the children, moving the family business forward, creating amazing works of art, and generally keeping everything flowing smoothly in her life and everyone else's around her.

I remember when I first started to ask her about food, she'd start her descriptions with, "Oh, it's so easy!" Then she'd rattle off the recipe, from memory, complete with quantities and cooking times and temps and variations. I'd get lost after the second step and grab a pen. Then I'd ask her to repeat it very slowly so I could write it down. Then I'd still have to call her when I was in the middle of things and get clarifications about what certain terms meant, like braising, or what a rolling boil actually meant.

A few years ago, I had a friend ask me about something I was cooking, and I started off by saying, "Oh, it's so easy!". Then I rattled off a fifteen-step recipe while my friend's eyes glazed over. That moment, I understood something about cooking, and maybe even more than that. You just have to do the thing you need to do. Eventually, everything will just be so easy if you do it long enough.

Without my mother-in-law, I wouldn't even know how much I liked beets. Or parsnips, or lamb, or whatever that magic salad dressing is that she makes. I'm grateful for what she's taught her son, what she's taught my son and daughter, and what she's taught me.

Taco Truck

2010-06-19T20:39:00.000-07:00

Obviously, I don't cook EVERY meal, but I do try and make good decisions about where we get our take-out.

Around the corner from J's gymnastics is a Taco truck that I absolutely love. Peek through the window and you can see the fistfulls of fresh cilantro, the limes, and best of all, the stockpile of Coca Cola, Fanta and other carbonated beverages made with actual SUGAR and not corn syrup. They're imported from Mexico, where the government doesn't dump huge subsidies on corn, so they have no need to make up ways to shove corn in everything. They also come in glass bottles, which are biodegradable, and are only 355ml (12 ounces), so you're not guzzling a gigantic tub of Coke.

I usually only stop by for the soda, but James said he wanted tamales for lunch, and since he's so picky, of COURSE I said yes. We got two pork and two chicken. They were both delicious, although the kids thought the pork was a little too spicy.

And then for dinner we had crabs. Better eat them while they're still around.

Thanks for reading,
Anne

How To Cook

2010-06-14T17:44:00.001-07:00

I've been talking about this off and on with a few friends lately, so I thought I'd share some of it here.

I didn't grow up in a home where food was important, other than just trying to have enough. Powdered milk and government cheese, and that awful black-and-white "Value Checked" box of cornflakes were standard. Fruit was so precious that it was ingrained in me to only eat one piece a day, a habit which I only broke about a year ago.
Although I'm sure I had favorite foods, I only recall eating as being a massive inconvenience. Mealtimes were stressful, and I don't remember eating many things I actually liked, much less looked forward to. It was mostly a problem of resources, but overall, I didn't really have a positive experience with food.

I didn't cook much more than pasta until I was in my early 20's. I think the first thing I baked was chocolate chip cookies, from the recipe on the Nestles package, and I was surprised at how much better they were than any packaged cookies I'd had. From there I branched off into pies and cakes. I'd always bring desserts to potlucks, telling people that while a chicken dish might be delicious, EVERYONE remembers cheesecake.

I didn't start seriously cooking until my son was a toddler. Being responsible for his nutrition really inspired me to cook more, and better foods. I read books about food, watched TV shows about it, and talked to people who cooked a lot. I learned to listen to my body and how it felt after eating certain foods, and not surprisingly, I preferred fruits, veggies and sea creatures to cheese, red meat, and bread.

So I started cooking. I made lots of dishes, lots of mistakes, and kept cooking. Just like with so many other things, if I just kept at it, it got easier.

One of the most common obstacles people have to cooking is time. I share Anthony Bourdain's aversion to the Rachael Ray style of cooking. I think he said something like, if you're buying chopped up onions, you're not cooking.
Oh wait, here it is...

"We KNOW she can’t cook. She shrewdly tells us so. So…what is she selling us? Really? She’s selling us satisfaction, the smug reassurance that mediocrity is quite enough. She’s a friendly, familiar face who appears regularly on our screens to tell us that “Even your dumb, lazy ass can cook this!” Wallowing in your own crapulence on your Cheeto-littered couch you watch her and think, “Hell…I could do that. I ain’t gonna…but I could–if I wanted! Now where’s my damn jug a Diet Pepsi?” Where the saintly Julia Child sought to raise expectations, to enlighten us, make us better–teach us–and in fact, did, Rachael uses her strange and terrible powers to narcotize her public with her hypnotic mantra of Yummo and Evoo and Sammys. “You’re doing just fine. You don’t even have to chop an onion–you can buy it already chopped. Aspire to nothing…Just sit there. Have another Triscuit..Sleep…sleep…” "

From a guest blog post on Michael Ruhlman's blog from Feb 8, 2007.
http://blog.ruhlman.com/2007/02/guest_blogging_.html

I think if buying chopped up onions gets you in the kitchen instead of passing out the Lunchables, then that's great, but don't STAY there. You're only going to get better at it by doing it. That's kind of my mantra. For everything.

A meal that used to take me 2 hours to get on the table now only takes about 30 minutes. Practice, practice, and more practice is the way to go.

Start with a good, basic cookbook. I'm partial to Joy of Cooking, because it teaches you about the food, and uses ingredients and kitchen tools you probably already have.

Just keep cooking.

And thanks for reading.

Oh, I also like what Bourdain said about Paula Dean in the same blog post, mostly for the John Waters reference.

Plantains

2010-06-11T08:52:00.000-07:00

There's a grocery store a few blocks from my home that carries lots of Hispanic food to meet the tastes of the primarily Latino neighbors. We don't go there often, but I always try something new when we do.

Last week, C insisted on plantains instead of bananas, so we picked up a few. I read about them in my Joy of Cooking, my all-time favorite cook book, and decided to wait until they were ripe enough to fry outside the peel.

A few days after the purchase, we made pancakes in the morning, using Pamela's Gluten-Free Pancake and Baking Mix. Since there was already butter in the pan, I peeled a plantain, sliced it a few different ways, and fried it up. This was my first time eating them, and both C and I found them so delicious, I bought more at the store last week. I can't wait for them to ripen so I can eat them again!

Ten Minutes

2010-01-01T18:27:00.000-08:00

Now that it's winter, I'm cooking again. I made a weird chicken stew the other day that was so unremarkable, I didn't eat it. It's hard to have interesting food on a budget. Everyone else liked it, but I think I am just sick to DEATH of chicken. I could live on sea creatures the rest of my life. Unfortunately, the mercury would probably shorten that somehow. Isn't there ANYTHING we can eat without worrying about it poisoning us?

J is doing well on his gluten-free diet, and has healed enough to actually have an appetite again. I got so used to not really having to feed him much that its taken a while to get back in the habit, but we're doing much better.

C is walking, and helping out, and a teency bit better in the car. She still outshines her brother in the sleep area, but being my child, is by no means one of those babies you read about. I keep meaning to nightwean, but she'll get sick, or a holiday pops up, or the dreaded 18-month developmental spurt/sleep regression that it keep getting pushed further away.

I nightweaned J when he was about 21 months. He had finally gotten all his teeth, and spontaneously slept 5 hour stretches on his own for several nights, so I figured he was ready. It only took three days, but he still woke up twice a night or so for another year. Blegh. I'm guessing I'll wait that long for C, also, since that's when the 18 month thing usually is over.

I promise the next post will be more coherent. And maybe even about food!
Thanks for reading,
Anne

Work Week

2009-08-28T16:06:00.000-07:00

H was away this week, and I had all these grand plans of straightening up the house and whatnot. Guess how much of that actually happened? I did manage to recycle some unused books and clear off a table, but now the dining room table is a ll cluttered again.

If I haven't mentioned it before, we live in a tiny, 650 square foot house. It's great for having small children, because you are all in the same room all the time, and it's quick to clean up when you need. The biggest problem I have is having a place to put things while I clean other things. I'm constantly shifting stuff around. I told someone once it was like living in a rubik's cube.

Still no big cooking news, except I made a peanut-butter cake with chocolate peanut butter frosting. This was on Cooks.com The recipe is at the end. I decided to add chocolate chips to it, which worked out, and learned that next tie I should grease the pans, and make at least twice as much frosting. It was a practice cake for J's 5th birthday coming up, and boy am I glad it was only practice. Because I didn't grease the pan, it was basically a big pile of crumbs held together by frosting. But everyone ate it anyway.

By the way, a three layer cake is HUGE.

Thanks for reading!

CHOCOLATE - PEANUT BUTTER CAKE

3 1/4 c. all-purpose flour
2 1/4 c. sugar
1 tbsp. plus 1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. butter, softened
1/2 c. creamy peanut butter
1 1/2 c. milk
3 eggs
1 1/3 c. unsalted roasted peanuts, finely chopped (optional)
Chocolate-peanut butter frosting
1 (6 oz.) pkg. semi-sweet chocolate morsels (optional)
2 to 4 tbsp. unsalted roasted peanuts, chopped (optional)

Combine first 4 ingredients in a large mixing bowl; mix well. Add butter, peanut butter, and milk; beat 2 minutes on medium speed of electric mixer. Add eggs; beat 2 minutes on medium speed. Fold in 1 1/3 cups chopped peanuts. Pour batter into 3 greased and floured 9- inch cake pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean (do not over bake). Cool in pans 10 minutes; remove layers from pans, and cool completely.

Spread Chocolate-Peanut Butter Frosting between layers and on top and sides of cake; chill 1 hour or until firm. Melt chocolate morsels in top of a double boiler over hot water. Drizzle around top edge and down sides of cake. Sprinkle 2 to 4 tablespoons chopped peanuts on top. Chill until ready to serve. Yield: one 3-layer cake.

CHOCOLATE - PEANUT BUTTER FROSTING:

1 (6 oz.) pkg. semi-sweet chocolate morsels
1/2 c. butter, softened
1/2 c. powdered sugar, sifted
1 1/3 c. creamy peanut butter

Melt chocolate morsels in top of a double boiler over hot water; set aside. Combine remaining ingredients in a small mixing bowl; beat on medium speed of electric mixer until smooth. Add melted chocolate to peanut butter mixture; beat until smooth. Chill 15 minutes or until spreading consistency. Yield: enough frosting for one 3-layer cake.

Hot Stuff!

2009-08-10T19:21:00.000-07:00

I had a birthday yesterday, and spent most of my child-free hours at bookstores. I picked up a cookbook on quick and easy Indian Food and a food memoir. I'm not really doing much cooking right now because it's summertime and I'd rather be at the playground in the afternoon with the kids than spending 90 minutes cooking. They would, too. I am looking forward to cooking new stuff more once the weather cools down.

Also, it's difficult right now because C is a very short napper, like either 2 30-minute naps or one 60 minute nap, and I don;t have a heck of a lot of time to do anything without her. She's finally at an age where I can give her food prep to do, like mixing and dumping and playing in the sink, I just haven't gotten back in the habit.

But other than that, things are good. J learned to swim this summer, although I'm still a little freaked out by it. Hes sort of abrupt in the water, and today he had to cry "help!" twice before i got to him because I'm so used to him yelling in the water that I sort of blocked it out. I still want to cry just thinking about it.

OK, bed. Thanks for reading.

My oh, my!

2009-08-05T20:07:00.000-07:00

It HAS been a while, hasn't it?

Things are going well. J's most recent test for celiac (6 months ago) showed the gluten-free diet healed all the changes, so even though we have a normal diet this year, after February he'll be gluten-free forever.

I'm ok with it now, although it is a bit of a bummer for him that he can't go to birthday parties or pizza places and just eat whatever he wants.

C is 12 months now, and still an amazing child. She can't walk yet, but can stand without holding onto to something. She gets very angry when she isn't eating EXATLY what we are.

And she's waking up.
Nice to see you again!

Tanks for reading,
Anne

Cheese for everything

2008-11-26T17:34:00.001-08:00

So, a while back I posted a cheese sauce recipe, but in my search for the perfect easy mac and cheese , I've discovered the obvious.

Take shredded cheese and mix it in hot noodles. Ta-da! Mac and cheese. I can't believe I've never thought of this before.

That's really it right now. I'm going to make some pasta. With gluten. Just for me.
Thanks for reading,
Anne

Little Updates

2008-11-08T18:49:00.000-08:00

As our Year of Gluten Free Living draws to a close, I am getting increasingly paranoid that we haven't been gluten-free ENOUGH, and that some kind of microscopic crumbs that touch his food here and there will seriously skew the results. J will be having another upper endoscopy come February, and I just really want things to be definitive. I don't want my precious little boy to have to suffer through an ounce more of medical intervention than he absolutely means, especially because of some sort of failure on my part.

For example, we don't use a separate toaster for his bread. Over the year, he's probably had 6 bagels toasted in the coffee shop's toaster, too.

I'm also not hyper-vigilant about cross contamination as far as processing facilities. All the anecdotal research I've done on this said that you just have to find out what your tolerance is as far as gluten. The problem with that is, he's basically non-symptomatic. As I may have mentioned before, he's never had any GI symptoms related to gluten, and no behavioral symptoms either. The only way the possible celiac was discovered was through blood tests and biopsies sprouting from the bloody stool. And remember, it was a polyp which was causing the bloody stool, not celiac.

So let's all hope I don't screw it up for the boy.

Thanks for reading,
Anne

Feels like Fall

2008-10-19T17:33:00.000-07:00

We've been having beautiful weather the past few days here in Baltimore, and so we spent most of the day outside today.

j has been playing that he's Batman ever since he got his cape in the mail. He finds the cape too cumbersome to wear all day, but I've been calling him Batman allweek, and he refers to me as "Mighty Mouse", as I am providing the voice for the superhero version of his imaginary friend, Mousey.

Mousey is a palentologist, rocket scientist, and every other wonderful thing J wants him to be. He's the perfect imaginary friend, as I'm not required to set a place at the table for him, and J doesn't blame things on him. Sometimes James plays with Mousey, sometimes he IS Mousey. He's very versatile.

C is mastering coordinating her hands. She fights with toys when she's sitting up, trying to get the best parts in her mouth. She's very focused and determined, as all babies this age agre. She also shows no signs of rolling over early, which I'm happy about. Once she starts getting mobile, things are going to get tricky.

So that's it for today. Thanks for reading.
-Anne

I Heart the Chart

2008-10-16T18:38:00.000-07:00

Recently, I've pulled back from society in an effort to stop being so grumpy. We've been so busy that I felt like I was always in a hurry to go somewhere, or come home, or something like that, and I was snapping at J. A whole lot.

Luckily, my plan has worked, and things are going a lot smoother. C screams like she's burning to death every time we're in the car, so cutting back on driving has helped my attitude, too.

Today I made a chart for our day. We had one last year while we were overseas, and it was very beneficial for us. No times, just an order of events. J actually asked me about a week ago if we could have another chart, and since I feel like the insane chaos of the newborn stage has passed, I can at least attempt to put the rythym back in our days. Until she starts teething, of course.

On the cooking front, I decided that parsnips are not worth the effort. You have to take out the woody center in order to cook them, and it either takes forever, or you waste a whole bunch of the flesh. They're tasty, but I'll just stick to eating them at my mother-in-laws house. They taste better there anyway.

Thanks for reading,
-Anne

October at the beach

2008-10-15T18:19:00.001-07:00

I took the kids to the beach today, taking advantage of the awesome wether. We met another family there and had a wonderful time.

The only bad thing is that C HATES the car. She's basically either screaming or sleeping when she's in it. I usually end up stopping at least once to double check that she's not hungry, poopy, or being blinded by the sun. Our best bet is to try and coordinate long drives with her sleeping times. Going somewhere close, however, just plain stinks.

J said, while we were leaving the beach, "I had fun at the beach, but this part isn't much fun." He meant the baby yelling herself purple. I agree.

J had gymnastics this afternoon, and he did really well staying with the group. He won't go on the trampoline, or the balance beam, but I've told him he had to stauy with the group. I am so proud of him. He's so charming and lovely and friendly. He's constany meeting new children and asking to go to their house and stuff. This keeps us very, very busy.

Ok, back to the debate. Thanks for reading,
-Anne

Howdy strangers

2008-10-14T18:28:00.000-07:00

So, I had the baby. She is beautiful, and a joy, and I love her to peices.

I had a scheduled c-section July 11, and everything went really smoothly. All in all, a much easier start than with my son, and things have been pretty easy ever since.

I have not been cooking much inthe three months since her birth, as dinnertime coincides with baby fussy time. Also, H has been working most nights, and J never protests to a dinner of yogurt and bananas.

I learned that our best bet is to have the big, healthy meal in the early aftenoon, and that way we can stay late at the playground and just have a snack-type diner. It also helps that he's well fortified for all the social interaction.

J has really made huge leaps in the social area, easily maknjgn new friends and playing elaborate group games. Sometimes he's the leader, sometimes he's in the follower group, and he doesn't seem to mind switching back and forth.

So much has happened since the last time I posted, that I couldn't possibly list it all, so I'll just talk about today.
I made beets to take to the beach today.

Take 4 medium beets. Stick them in glass pan with an inch of water and cover with foil. Put them in a 375 oven for 90 minutes. Poke with fork. If they give easily, take them out. If not, give them another 30 minutes.

Let them cool a bit in a bowl on the counter, then slip the skins off. J likes this part, and today proceeded to paint his face in beet juice like war paint. Good thing, too, becasue there was some serious friction at the playground later.

Cut them into eights, and put half a chopped red onion, a tablespoon each of balsalmic vinegar, olive oil, sugar, and lemon juice, and stir. Sprinkle with dill and salt to taste. Good cold or at room temperature.

Don't be alarmed when you pee purple later. It's the beets.

Thanks for reading,
-Anne

Sprouted squash

2008-04-28T17:45:00.003-07:00

Sprouted squash
Originally uploaded by jumjum15

I have mentioned before my extreme love for roasted squash. I can only eat it pureed, however, or in soups, not chunks.

In case I didn't mention it, here's what you do.

Wash a whole squash. Stab it deeply five or six times. Very satisfying. Set it in a roasting pan that's only a little bigger than the squash, if you can, and cook for at least an hour at 375. Larger squash takes longer, and I think I once had to go 2 hours.

The nice thing is, if it's undercooked when you cut it open to check, you can just toss it back in the oven until it's done. This happens to me almost every time.

I bought this one and let it sit on the shelf about a week before I cooked it, and when I opened it up, I saw the seeds had sprouted. I called my Mother-in-law, ho would know about these things, and asked her if the sprouting would poison me and the boy. She said it probably was picked in the fall, and here we are 6 months later, so that's why it had sprouted. But no poison.

We did the usual scrape, fork-mash, drown in butter treatment, which is the best. I've also used olive oil, and occasionally maple syrup, but butter is best. Massive doses of iron and vitamin A, all good things.

I attribute butternut squash to my son's awesome non-anemic state. I swear all the other kids his age are anemic. He likes meats, too though, so maybe that's it.

So yeah, eat seasonally, or your food might look like it's infested with worms. Still tasty, though!

Thanks for reading,
-Anne

Set the Table

2008-04-12T20:13:00.001-07:00

set the table.jpg
Originally uploaded by jumjum15

I tried this about a month ago and it didn't take, so I'll try again.

J likes to (usually) set the table. Here is the diagram I made for him. Yes, I KNOW the fork is technically in the wrong spot, but when I made a new one, and tried to switch it, he wouldn't let it go. And really, it's about continuity with a three-year-old, isn't it?

I don't really believe in chores for kids this young, or really ever, in a normal "stars n the chart, stuff you have to do every day/week whatever" sense. We have sort of general household rules, where we clean up after ourselves, but almost always with help, and take care of our things, but there's never any real negative consequence. He just can't play with something new until whatever he's finished with gets put away. It's mostly about space, because if there's Legos everywhere, there's no ROOM for the castle! So he's really good about putting things away. Of course, there's exceptions for massive block structures and works in progress.

Anyway, I think children are far more capable than most people give them credit for. Up until very, very recently, my kid was the only one of his peer group who drank from a regular glass and used regular, although slightly smaller, silverware. He also eats only at the table, with a special "popcorn on the couch" exception, and takes his dishes to the counter when he's done. He's obsessive about using his napkin, although gets upset when all the cloth ones are dirty and has to use paper.

The table-setting began as a way to have him occupied while I was cooking, at those times he can't help due to splattering grease or tight time constraints. I felt he was old enough that he didn't need the TV anymore to keep him busy, and also he's always been a helpful guy.

Now, if he's playing in the yard or in the middle of some project, i don't stop him and make him set the table. The whole point is to help him improve his focus, which is phenomenal anyway, so stopping him in the middle of something to do a non-essential chore would be counter-productive.

So give your kid something useful to do! You might be surprised how capable they are.

As a bonus, it will be extra handy when his sister shows up in July. At which time, he'll of course cease to be helpful, and I'll be extra thankful for Little Bear again.

Thanks for reading,
-Anne

Wheat is the enemy! And Barley, and rye, and non-Irish Oats

2008-02-14T18:02:00.000-08:00

So, by the way, due to two genetic blood markers and a duodenal biopsy that showed "moderate to marked" changes, we are gluten-free for at least a year. Celiac is apparently back on the table for my kid, who other than those two bits, has NO symptoms. And is huge.

I'm so frustrated. However, no gluten is world's easier than no dairy eggs fish or nuts. And, I finally learned to make my own cheese sauce. Great for noodles or broccoli.

Cheese Sauce!

2 TB Butter
2 tsp rice flour
1/2 c milk
1 cup (or more, to taste) shredded cheese. I just use extra sharp cheddar, but gouda or paremsan in there is good too
Salt and pepper to taste.

Melt the butter on medium, add the rice flour to, and whisk until thick, probably no more than two minutes. Then add the milk, keep whisking. Add shredded cheese. Whisk some more. Ta-daa! cheese sauce!

Thanks for reading,
-Anne

Buddha hand lemon

2008-02-07T17:06:00.001-08:00

Buddha hand lemon
Originally uploaded by jumjum15

Ok, here it is. And now that I have my phone photo flikr stream and my blog all tied up tidy, my life will be easier! And new baby due in July, so I've been really, really, lazy. Ta!

I Hate Leftovers

2008-01-04T12:35:00.000-08:00

Holy crap I hate leftovers. I'm usually pretty good about just making exactly what we will eat, but then I roast a chicken.

I tell myself,"Oh, I'll just make a sandwhich, or some soup, or ooooh, hash!" And then half a chicken will sit in a ziplock bag for two weeks until I btoss the gooey mess into the trash in a cleaning frenzy.

I won't even eat leftover pizza. Just the garlic sauce.

And this is why I'm having another child. So someone will eat the rest of the food.

CURED!

2007-11-09T17:29:00.000-08:00

Big news.
J went to a REAL doctor, at Hopkins.

It is not food. It is most likely polyps. He is eating everything now and there are no ill effects from it. We are all thrilled.

I have even been cooking again. Here is a stew from the"A new Way to Cook' book.

2 cans chickpeas drained, 2 chopped onions, two med. Butternut squashes, peeled and cut in to half-inch cubes. 3/4 cup water or apple cider.
Salt, pepper, cilantro

Cook onions on really low in some olive oil for about 20 minutes. Throw in everything else but the cilantro and cook until the squash is soft, but not completely mushy. Throw in cilantro and eat.

Oh my yumminess. And filling.
Thanks for reading,
-Anne

Power Tooth

2007-10-14T19:14:00.000-07:00

J amazes me with his maturity and intellect every day. Now 3 years old, he went to get his second filling just the other day. he had one at 20 months by the most evil dentist in the world, who didn't let me go back with him, and didn't bother to tell me ahead of time. New Dentist is far superior, and even let J sit in my lap for the procedure. J was nervous, and quiet, and even started to cry a little. But he kept his mouth open, and listened, and was very, very brave. He was still and followed the dentists instructions very well. And at the end, he got a little plastic car, and that somehow made it all better.

He is also getting one cold after another. I suspect it's from Gerstung gymnastics class, as I'm sure they're not washing all that padding between every class. Also, he definitely spends much more time playing with other children than ever before in his life, so I guess he was going to eventually get sick. The only downside is I'm not sure if tonight's GI mess (no blood, though), was from illness or an unknown food source. The only different thing he had was red pepper hummus, but he's been ok with that before, and I read the ingredients first. He didn't even eat that much of it, so I'm putting my money on illness.

Here's counting down one more week until his GI specialist appointment. Can't wait!

Thanks for reading,
-Anne

How NOT to cook a fish

2007-09-18T19:14:00.000-07:00

Last year, I found a recipe in a summer issue of Bon Appetit for whole fish cooked in salt. We used Rockfish, one of my favorites, and it was not only delicious, but provided an excellent photo opportunity of my little one helping me cook.

The basic idea is you mix about 5 lbs of kosher salt with 5 or 6 egg whites, then put the salt in an oven dish, lay in the fish, who are gutted and scaled, and then cover it completely with the rest of the salt. It cooks at 400F for 20 minutes, then after ten minutes you bash the salt off with a hammer and take the amazing fish out.

I love cooking things whole, and was pleased to find such an easy recipe that seemed fancy. You stuff the cavity with a lemon slice or two, some thyme and parsley before you cook it. Fabu.

This week, I tried it again, only two REALLY important things were different. The most important is I only had two eggs. I add water and olive oil to create a more pasty feel, but as I ended up making the salt mixture in two batches, there was NO egg in the top layer of salt. It didn't crust up, so the fish was just covered in salt, instead of breaking neatly away. Secondly, I have no idea what kind of fish I had. The store said "Sea Bass" which is a close relative of, or possibly the same thing as, a Rockfish, but I think either I picked the wrong ones, or they lied. It was gross and undercooked, although my poor starving husband ate some. J helped make it, and really like the salt, but wisely wouldn't touch the fish.

Next time, I will follow the directions. Sometimes I can fudge it, but apparently, this was not one of those times.

Yikes. Thanks for reading,
-Anne

Fruit Strike!

2007-09-04T16:30:00.000-07:00

I swear my next post will be about food, not poop. Bear with me.

This kid is on an all-out fruit strike. He'll eat bananas, but that's it. I have been giving him "Naked" juice that's like a smoothie with the seeds remved (no dairy, of course). He won't drink homemade smoothie anymore. He also refused homemade popsicle. Too dang smart.

Other than that, he's been fairly healthy, not counting the birthday-cake episode a week ago. I let him have a small peice, and an hour later The Mess was backl. He recovered pretty quickly, though, and had has these miraculously poop-shaped poops.

I've been adding flax seeds to his sandwiches, becasue I am sneaky. I've also discovered he likes baby broccoli, and there's always squash and sweet potatos. I am so looking forward to getting the answers to his puzzle. I'm no good at waiting for results, but then again, who is?

More when the mood strikes me,
-Anne

A New road

2007-08-23T16:07:00.000-07:00

Pardon my absence. I had an outpatient procedure Monday that has left me basically useless for a week. I'm fine, however, and have been enjoying my husband waiting on us hand and foot.

In other news, I got the results of J's bloodwork, and he has 2 mrkers for celiac, whatever that means. The parasite tests aren't done yet, but he now has to see a pediatric GI, and then get MORE blood tests, and then a gluten-free diet, and then more tests to see if the gluten-free diet made a differnence.

So, I'm really glad we switched peds, and really glad that we're going to find SOMETHING out about all this. He's been doing pretty well, removed from the dairy, egg, nuts, fish and most soy and corn for about three weeks now. But still with a little of the mess.

So that's all the news. Hopefully my brain will work soon and I'll tell you all about our adventures in unschooling. Like how J got an agricultural/ nutrition lesson last night by shucking corn with Daddy. If I took a picture, it would have been a documented "class". Yay!

Thanks for reading,
-Anne

The Dig

2007-08-15T18:55:00.000-07:00

Our new pediatrician is great.

He's very laid back, but with exactly the appropriate amount of concern. Everyone in the office is wonderful.

We went on Tuesday, and began a round of tests to rule out everything. Three Serocult cards (poo smear), two parasite bottles (poo dig), and three tubes of blood later, all we have to do now is wait. I've never been so excited to pick through J's poo. It was a little difficult, because the bloody bits are important to include, yet they like to slip off the stick. All this while the boy is hopping around next to me, saying, "I can't see! I can't see!"

He was a trooper with the bloodwork, and cried while they did it, but didn't fight. Afterwards, he was very upset that his band-aid only stayed on for a while.

We went to the mall to find green sneakers for him, a request he had made this morning, and found NOTHING. So, after two hours of searching online, all we could find were these.

I think they're pretty cute, even though they have a Boston Celtics logo on them. I really wanted low-top Chucks in Kelly Green, but alas, they are not available in Toddler 8 (unless YOU have a secret shoe store you want to share.) Ss now he can clash his Mexico soccer ball (green) with his Celtics shoes.

I think a little boy who has been to the doctor twice in two days deserves all the green sneakers his little heart desires, don't you?

Cheers,
-Anne

Miracle milk

2007-08-10T17:01:00.000-07:00

Greetings, oh forgotten ones.

I have been experimenting with different milks for J, and have settled on Oat Milk. It's LOADED with fiber, which helps counteract the low-fat diet he has due to the no dairy y thing, and tastes great even without vanilla flavoring. I decided to take him off soymilk, partially because of the whole phytoestrogen debate, and also because I heard it was hard to digest. I wanted to give his little tummy a chance to heal, so I've been giving him really easy food.

I also think he's feeling the need for a simple diet, too, because all he wants to eat are cheerios, bananas, and sandwiches. I switched from almond butter to sunflower butter today, thinking maybe to avoid the whole nut family for a while. I think it tastes much closer to "nutty" than the almond stuff is, and is a little cheaper, too, which is nice.

I tried hemp milk for a few days, but was just too weirded out by the extreme greasiness of it. It tasted pretty good, but crazy expensive, like 4 bucks a box.

On top of that, we finally got a new pediatrician! Hooray! I had a terrible time contacting our old one while overseas, mostly because all hone calls go to an off-site answering center. I need a pediatrician's office where they can see the guy. The old one was a good ped, but his office SUCKED. I had SO many problems with them, that in the end, it wasn't worth it.

That's about it for now. We go to the new guy on Tuesday, so I'll give an update after the visit.

Thanks for reading,
Anne

Just keep nursing

2007-08-04T17:13:00.000-07:00

There a few notes I'd like to share about those early weeks. As educated and informed as I was, there were still a few things about nursing a newborn that I wish I'd known.

The very first, and the first thing I share with other new mothers or mothers-to-be, is that it is PERFECTLY NORMAL for your newborn (and I mean up to 3 months) to want to nurse almost constantly. This does not mean something is wrong with your supply. Is the baby peeing? Then he's fine, and your supply is fine. Just keep nursing. Your breasts are not just food for him. They are warmth and comfort. They help him get all that sleep his tiny baby body needs. They relax him. They are his center in a freaky, freaky world where he spends more than half his time, on average, physically separated from his mother, whom he hasn't realized is a separate person.

Physiologically, he has a teensy tummy, and a liquid diet processes quite quickly through it, as it should. And he is growing at an astonishing rate, so of course he wants to eat all the time. That "every three hours" crap is for formula-fed babies, who are trying to digest cows/soy milk, which their tummies are not designed to accept. Just keep nursing

Physiologically for the mother, your boobs have to figure out how much this critter needs. That takes almost two months to get into a flow (ha ha). Give yourself and your baby a break. Just keep nursing.

Second, sometimes your baby is just thirsty. Breast milk starts with a thinner flow, then after a few minutes of nursing changes to a thicker, more fatty liquid. He might just need a tasty beverage. Get yourself one, too.

And third, you cannot overfeed a baby. He'll just barf it back up if he needs to, or refuse the breast. You're not going to make him overweight. I actually knew this, but thought it was important enough to share here.

Cosleeping is tremendously helpful to the nursing relationship. I wish I hadn't been so afraid to sleep with my boy when he was small. Check out DrSears.com for tips on cosleeping safely. If you're really nervous, buy a cosleeper. I can't believe I got up, went and got the baby, sat up, nursed, then put him back, often unsuccessfully, and stumbled back to bed. TOTALLY not going through all that next time.

I think those were my important notes for the early weeks. Thanks again for reading,
-Anne

Hooray For Boobies! Part 2

2007-08-01T16:45:00.000-07:00

So where were we?

I brought my giant baby home from the hospital, with post-caesarian instructions not to walk up stairs of carry more than ten pounds. They handed me a ten-pound baby while saying this. In my home, the bathroom was on the second floor, and there was NO WAY I could live in a bedroom for a month.

But back to the nursing. This kid was a fantastic nurser. Even in the early weeks, he would actually unlatch if his latch wasn't right, and try again. During the day, we nursed so constantly, there were only about 30 minute breaks from the end of one to the start of another. Each time he did both sides, about 15 minutes each side, but I stopped counting and trusted him after the first week or so. Sometimes it was 20 minutes, and he'd have a three-boober, left, right, left. Sometimes only three minutes a side and then done. The forty-minutes session was always the norm for us.

Nights were a little tougher, trying to get him to stay awake long enough to have a complete meal. There was certainly NO problem waking him at first, as he slept in 90-minute sections all night long, but he would fall asleep after the first side, and I would change his diaper to get him woken up enough for the second side. My big "startle the baby' trick was to spit in his ear. Gross, I know, but required very little energy from me, and I had very little energy for almost two years.

The first six weeks, it stung every time he latched on, which is well within the range of normal. This is one reason so many women give up so quickly. The nerves are getting used to the sensation and need time to adjust. That's why they tell you to switch the position the baby is nursing in every time. I did that for about two weeks, then figured we'd nurse in the most comfortable position for both of us, the cradle hold. The "football hold", where baby's feet are behind you (can you say, awkward) is apparently for women who have a lot of abdominal pain after the c-section. Mine hurt, but not enough to change the baby's position. That’s' what the Boppy was for. I think the doctor's advice had not caught up with the wonderful nursing pillows out there, or I'm just super tough.

He nursed, and nursed, and I ate and ate. People would say, "Oh, is he eating again?" And I'd say, "No, he's still eating." It was all one big meal for him.

We nursed everywhere. The Water Taxi, in front of the coffee shop almost every day, on airplanes, at friend's houses, basically wherever we were. I never tried to cover him with a blanket, even after he got older and got distractible, popping on and off. Once we nursed while walking down the street. He was in his sling, and hadn't taken a nap at all that day.

As far as pumping, I think it's a great thing, and highly recommend it, but I hated it, and did it probably 10 times. It wasn't a supply issue, as my boy just grew and grew, but I just didn’t feel like pumping on top of nursing all the time. I also had no good reason, and not-so-secretly loved having a reason to keep my angel near me at all times.

He had a pumped bottle at 8 weeks, which he had no problem with, but other than those two times in the hospital, formula never crossed his lips. I never felt the need to give him formula so he would sleep better or anything like that, because I knew too much. Formula does not equal sleep, and anyway, what else did I have to do? I wasn't working, had no other children, and meeting his needs is my job, so why not do it? Plus, I think I was too tired to think about it, and it was always easy just to pop a boob in him.

I don’t have any big problem with formula, I just didn’t see the point for us. Plus it's smelly and a hassle. I never minded taking my shirt off in public before, why stop now? We never used a pacifier either, although I tried about three times. He didn't take it at all, and threw up the third time. Again, no point in our family. He was also one of those babies that just eats and eats, and in turn, allowed me to eat and eat.

Overall, things went really well in the breastfeeding area. He didn't sleep, but I always figured he was just too busy.

The next installment will cover the rest of the first year, and the challenges of nursing an acrobat.
Thank for reading,
-Anne

Too hot to write

2007-07-28T16:54:00.000-07:00

It's 90 degrees in Baltimore, and the hottest space in the house is in front of the computer. I think it's time to start lobbying for my own laptop. We have one that 7 years old, but it's slow and heavy and wants to burn your legs off. Plus it seems to be full. I figure between the homeschooling, food research, and my celebrity news addiction, there's no way we can survive much longer on one and a half Macs. Am I being ridiculous? I don’t think so. Throw in the pinched nerve in my back and I think we've got a winner.

I've been getting REALLY good at making J's food before we go out. It usually takes about half an hour, but it's worth it to know exactly what’s going in him. Now, if I could figure out what exactly is making him sick, we'd be ok. I brought champagne grapes, cooked carrots and broccoli, and safe graham crackers today to SalsaPolkaPalooza at the Creative Alliance in Highlandtown, and the boy ended up eating a blue snoball, a lollipop, and a donut (I Know, SUPER bad, but I was wearing down). He had a loose poo about 30 minute after the donut, but he'd had one this morning, too, so was it the donut? Who knows? I think it really is time to go elimination for a few weeks. I'll stop talking about it now, and just do it. I think I've been feeling like going on the ED is really admitting he has a problem with food, and that it's serious. I love food so much, I can barely stand the thought of not having huge portions of it in my life.

Speaking of which, time for the "after J is asleep" meal. Chococake!

Thanks for reading,
-Anne

It never ends

2007-07-26T16:29:00.000-07:00

We had gone for almost a week without any food reactions, but one showed up again today. He's been egg, dairy and peanut-free since we got home, so I'm hoping it's just residual. They say it can take up to three weeks for the body to clear the reactions, and he didn't go yesterday, so maybe the extra stress made something happen.

I get so tired of chasing this stuff down, that I feel like I'm not feeding a child, I'm managing his poop. I might have said that here before; I'll have to check. I sometimes wonder if it''s even worth it trying to narrow stuff down. It's not an allergy, so it won't kill him to have this stuff, but it sure is disturbing to see blood where it isn't suppossed to be. It also seems to be random sometimes, like when he had pizza and was totally fine.

I may need to go for the Top Eight Elimination diet, removing soy, milk, corn, wheat, fish, peanuts, treenuts, and eggs, and then build from there. I'm pretty confident that he's OK with wheat, just because he eats Cheerios all the time and bread and stuff, but the others are still open for discussion, I suppose. I'll have to try it out.

We ate out tonight, at The Wharf Rat, a pub around the corner. They have good fries there, and a jukebox that James really likes. They're totally empty when we go in usually, so he can wander around and dance undisturbed. There's also a phone booth from England, and he likes to go inside and pretend it's his house. I had the oysters, and then remembered they're out of season. You're only suppossed to eat oysters in months that have an "r" in them. May through August are the off season. I'm not sure if it's a holdover form the days befroe refrigeration, or something to do with replenishing the stock, but I usually stick to it.

Now, I must attend to the bath, and scrub the dirt from my kid's toes. He's singing, "It's raining, it's pouring" which means all the water is about to end up on the floor.

Thanks for reading,
Anne

Snack time!

2007-07-24T16:54:00.000-07:00

We are back in Baltimore! Even the sun shines brighter here.

Of course I went to Whole Foods twice the first week, but we're still living mainly on the food leftover from the people who stayed here. Lots of frozen turkey burgers and pasta with marinara.

No big cooking news yet, although I made sausage tonight, which neither of us ate. I'm guessing it was not the best thing to cook in 90-degree weather.

J is doing GREAT foodwise. No reactions for almost a week now. I'm purifying my child. Myself, however, I'm on a bit of a food frenzy.

After the boy goes to sleep, I always want to snack, even if I'm not hungry. I want pizza and chocolate and all kinds of dairy products. I bought some frozen chocolate pudding cakes from Trader Joe's, and I'm currently eating Nana's Cocina Tortilla Chips. Yummers.

We bought a Tripp Trapp for the boy, and I was really excited about it. I read all these reviews that say how their child will sit for an hour in it, they eat more, etc. So far, I've had it two days, and that's not quite the case in our house yet. I've noticed he doesn't spend the entire meal kicking the table, so at least there's that. I'm still trying to adjust the footrest to the right height, though. He seems to like putting his legs under him, instead of flat on the footrest, which makes it tricky. He also wants to sit sideways in the chair, which freaks me out because there's no armrest, and the seatbelt is basicaly worthless. My sister in law has it for her 6 month old, who is sitting by herself just fine, and she says the baby is held in fine by the support bar, which is sold seperately. I removed the beslt, and managed to destroy one of the componets while doing so. Oops.

I never bought a highchair for J, mostly due to space issues. We had a clip-on chair from about 7 months until he was a little over a year, and then one of those "tushie cooshie" boosters. They're soft, and don't need to be strapped on to the table or the child. It worked ok, but I like that the Tripp Trapp can be adjusted so specifically. He's at the right height of the table now, instead of having to eat with his elbows flared out like he's trying to do the chicken dance. I think he'll get used to it in a few days.

I'm giving in to the Papa John's urge now, and going downstairs to order pizza.

Thanks for reading,
-Anne

Hiatus

2007-07-14T08:10:00.000-07:00

We are flying out tomorrow, a good 20 hours of travel door to door, so it will be a few days before I'm back again. Look for the overexcited post about organic, sugar-free, nitrate-free turkey slices.

Thanks for reading,
-Anne

Pizza time!

2007-07-12T21:22:00.000-07:00

Now, in the last few days of my stay here, I finally got around to making pizza.

I even used the brick yeast, that previously frightened me, and now I think I'll never use dried yeast again. This stuff was amazing.

I brought from Baltimore a simple dough recipe from Bon Appetit Magazine, one of the two cooking magazines I subscribe to. I get Gourmet, too, but that was an accident. The same publisher puts out gourmet and Bon Appetit, and I got confused when ordering my subscription. However, for $24 USD for 2 years, it's worth it to have a little fanciness.

Anyway, the recipe called for a food processor, I have no idea why, but of course I just used my hands. Who mixes salt, sugar and flour with a food processor?

The yeast came in a 100-gram block, about the size of half a deck of cards. I put half the brick in some hot tap water, about 110 degrees, and mushed it and stirred it a little then let it dissolve while I mixed the dry stuff. I started with 2 cups of flour, one teaspoon salt and one teaspoon sugar. I added 3 tablespoons olive oil. I mushed/dissolved the last bit of yeast, and started adding the mixture. It became quickly apparent that I had WAY too much liquid for the dough, and I ended up adding about another cup of flour, but didn't change any of the other ingredients.

And then the magic happened. I swear the dough started to rise while I was kneading it. J didn't feel like kneading right then, having been mesmerized by BBC children's TV. I worked the dough for about 5 minutes, and then set in a glass bowl. The bowl was speared in olive oil, and I pout a plastic bag smeared with oil over top of it. You can use plastic wrap, of course, but I like to recycle.

At home I have a special ceramic bowl from my mother-in-law that I use. I usually set the bowl in the sink in some warm water, but I was pretty sure I didn't need the extra rising help.

This thing grew massive. After half an hour, I had to take it out and put it in my roasting pan to give it more room. It was crazy. 30 minutes later, it had at least tripled in size, so we punched it down, J's favorite part, and wrapped in the oil-smeared bag. Then we put it in a plastic box with a lid, although not an airtight one, and put it in the fridge. When I opened the fridge a little later, it was STILL rising, and had popped the lid off the box. I continued to punch it throughout the day to keep it from taking over the kitchen.

I took a few pieces off and cooked them, just to see if it could work, and while they didn’t taste like anything to me, they rose in the oven, and seemed promising.

At about 6 pm, we took the dough out of the fridge, and unwrapped it on the counter. We split it in half, and J helped me roll it out. This was after "driving" the rolling pin all over the floor for ten minutes, chasing me with the steamroller. I guess I should have washed it off. Oops.

I realized there was no way H would have the time or energy to prepare another pizza with the leftover dough, so I told one of his coworkers to preheat their oven so we could make two.

We rolled out the dough pretty thin, then put it on an oiled piece of aluminum foil on the thick oven tray. J poked most o the holes in the crust with a fork, and spread around the sauce. Instead of making the sauce, like I planned, I experimented with a canned sauce by an Italian company called Muzzi. It was great. Not too salty, not too garlicky. J sprinkled the cheese from a bag labeled "pizza cheese". H had used this product to improve frozen pizzas before, and found it acceptable.

We put "Vikingas" salami on it, and added a few sprinkles of Parmesan to the top. Then into the oven it went. I thin it was at about 200C, but our oven is so wacky here, who really knows? It took about 12 minutes to cook, and was wonderful. H said, "You made real pizza!" He was pretty happy.

I let J eat some, and luckily he didn't want to eat eight pieces, so hopefully he'll be able to process it ok. He had a cheese stick two days ago, and I haven’t seen a reaction from that yet. He also seems OK with Parmesan and sometimes cheddar. We'll see.

The co-worker put olives and onions on his, and had to stick it back in our oven to cook it a little more, just to crispy up the crust. He had grated mozzarella on it, and added garlic too. I liked ours better, but everyone was happy.

This went so well, that I think I prefer it to frozen pizza. We usually get Freschetta Brick Oven at home, but this really didn't take that much longer to make. And it's about a million times healthier, with no additives and whatnot. I also didn't get that "too salty" feeling that I usually get from pizza.

Here's to a homemade pizza that tastes good. Huzzah!
Thanks for reading,
-Anne

Roast beef - I think

2007-07-10T21:41:00.000-07:00

I continue to use my undependable oven, and it continues to amaze me.

Last night J and I had some ghetto minestrone, basically tomato soup with pasta and a can of corn thrown in. The tomato soup was awful, and so the whole meal was ruined. He ate some of it, but I only had two bites. Luckily, I knew I was trying roast beef, again, for H later.

It seems the oven is just completely lying about the temperature, so I put it at 225C, hoping that would do the trick. It cooked for about an hour, and there was enough edible parts t it for both H and I to have dinner, along with sandwich leftovers. I didn't even try to do anything with it, just put olive oil in the pan, and sprinkled salt on it. I added some tiny potatoes around the edges. These soaked in a little olive oil and salt, unpeeled and uncut, for about 15 minutes before I put them in the pan. Everything turned out ok.

Be careful when prepping roast vegetables, as too much olive oil will make your food soggy, not crispy. I use the olive oil and salt combo for almost every vegetable I roast. Carrots, potatoes, sweet potato "fries."

Oh! I found sweet potatoes! There were only five of them, but I bought two for my last week here. I am so excited. I am making fries with them tonight.

We're supposed to go to the Ambassador's house again, but I'm not sure if I'm up to it. I'd have to go to the bank machine for cab money, J has been saying his tummy hurts, and it's all crappy and I don't want to. Plus, I know we'll be stuck inside, which doesn't usually work out too well for me, as I'm never sure what to do with myself. Clearly I'm looking for excuses.

Also, we made friends with a Bulgarian family 2 doors down in the hotel, and they have three little boys, and I don't have to get cab fare. I'm so awful and disloyal.

This post is full of random disconnected thoughts. I tried to post yesterday, but it was even more scattered than this one. It's just not in me today, and I apologize.

I made some undercooked beets the other day, but they worked wonderfully as stamps for J. He made a beet and blueberry piece. Lots of fun with food. I was afraid it would start to smell rotten if I kept it, but my mother in law says she used to use veggies at the Montessori preschool for art and it was never a problem.

I am always proud of myself when I can reuse things for art, like cardboard tubes (we made a forest!) or colorful plastic bags and sticks (streamers!). J is so swamped with toys, that I worry about his ability to imagine things will go away. He seems OK so far, though.

I will stop torturing you with bad writing now. Thanks for slogging through.
-Anne

Hooray for Boobies! Part 1

2007-07-08T00:19:00.000-07:00

Howdy doo. Since nothing exciting is happening on the culinary front, I thought I'd chat about our nursing experience, as I alluded to in a previous post.

Before I had J, I knew I wanted to breastfeed. I was more concerned about that aspect of early motherhood than anything else, including labor. I had heard so much about how it was awful; and painful and all the bad things, but very little about the good things. Still, it just seemed more convenient for the baby, and me and of course, better for him health wise. I was determined to do everything I could to make it work.

As his due date closed in on us, I had decided I would nurse for about 18 months, if that worked out for us. When people asked how long we would nurse, I would say, "Until he can ask for it", which I figured was at least a year. I took the breastfeeding course, which consisted of me and the teacher and a stuffed version of a breast that she could flip inside out. It was a revelation that the milk comes out of many tiny holes, not just one. Everything else I had read about somewhere.

I left the class with a "breastfeeding checklist" which consisted of a list of about 50 things that could go wrong while nursing. I wondered how I was supposed to remember all that while sleep deprived. I realized later it was more of a troubleshooting guide, rather than a checklist, and that made me feel better.

One thing we talked about was pumping a bottle for a night feeding. She explained the reality of the "daddy feeds the baby in the middle of the night" scenario. He would not wake up when the baby cried; I would have to wake him. Then I would already be awake, and listening to the baby scream while daddy bumbled around in the kitchen, warming up the bottle, finding the right pieces, etc. So not only would I be awake anyway, but my boobs would have been responding to the baby, and getting engorged, so I might as well nurse him anyway. This may sound pushy, but I think she sensed that the only reason I had the whole "bottle for daddy" idea was because I thought there would be something wrong with me if I didn't give him a bottle, so she said just what I needed to hear.

One of the great myths about nursing is that it's so natural that you and your baby will figure it out on your own. That is a load of crap. Witness the history of the midwife and duola. They were not only concerned with labor and childbirth, but also breastfeeding and infant care. It takes a village, from the beginning. It's a shame that so many women don't seek help at the FIRST sign of trouble, and just wait until they're so miserable they give up, and feel like failures for being unable to properly execute a natural function. A real shame for both mothers and babies.

I had J by emergency c-section, as he just got stuck due to his enormousness, and the first thing the people at the hospital did was give him a bottle of formula. They said his blood sugar was low. No kidding, I hadn't eaten in 24 hours. I was a little upset, but I was also having trouble. I had a fever and my heart rate wouldn't come down for a while, so I think they were trying to do the best for both of us. Anyway, they brought him to me, and I think it took 24 hours for him to nurse well. This is typical, as they're not really up to speed yet. Some people rail against medically assisted births for the sleepy babies they produce, but I loved me the epidural. I would have had it in my 7th month if they would have let me.

A lactation consultant came and manhandled me, showing me the "mash the burger" technique for getting it into the bay's mouth, and basically made me feel like an idiot. I complained to the staff, and they sent the lovely CO, the lactation consultant who taught my class, and she made everything all better. It wasn't her words, it was her manner. When I told her the baby had given me a blister (!) on one side, she was genuinely sympathetic, and showed me how to adjust his latch. I never got a blister again after that first day.

Once J got alert (and never slept again), he nursed CONSTANTLY. So much, in fact, that after the second day, and another three-hour session because my milk hadn't come in, I let him go to the nursery. They gave him a bottle, which they said he sucked right down, and I got a few hours rest for the first time in three days. I told them to bring him back when he was hungry again. Wouldn't you know it, by the time they brought him back, my milk had come in. We were much happier after that. It seems a little rest what all we needed.

Four days after he was born, I took my 10lb baby home. He had gained 10 ounces in the hospital, even after losing almost a pound the first day. That sounds like a lot, but a ten percent drop is normal, and with a baby that's 9lbs 6 ounces, that's well within the normal range.

The next installment will cover the first 8 weeks or so of our nursing relationship. Stay tuned, and thanks for reading.
-Anne

Back on the grid

2007-07-06T22:13:00.000-07:00

It's amazing how crippled I feel without Internet access. Our hotel changed servers, and we're just now getting back on. It's been three or four days, and we still can't get the wireless to work. Someone's looking at it later today, so maybe I'll be off the cord soon.

Not too much exciting going on. I think I'm psychologically home already, and have given up trying to live here. We get on the plane in 7 days, and I can't wait! We are sad about leaving H behind, but not enough to stay longer. J has been wonderful this past week, making new friends with the Belgian boys who are going to be two apartments down from us starting tomorrow. The family has a 3.5-year-old, 2.5-year-old, and 5-month-old, all boys. I'm impressed, simply because the mother isn't a raving lunatic.

I wanted to have a baby sooner than it looks like we're going to, and so did H. I wanted them to be about 3 years apart, but certain health considerations are delaying our next baby. I wanted them to be old enough to play together, but not so close together that I was a lunatic. Hopefully, J and phantom baby will still be emotionally close; it will just be a different dynamic than I have with my brother, who is 2.5 years older than me.

I actually speak to my brother's wife more than my brother, mostly because of the whole mommy thing, but also because she's just home more. I think I feel differently about my brother, who I always adored, because now I see him as a husband and father, and not just the bossy guy in my house. He's more human to me as an adult, and has lost his mythic status. Now I can laugh with him about the children, and other things.

That's all for now. It's day three of torrential downpours, so we are going to the big grocery store for excitement. We walked around in the rain the first day, but I'm kind of over it now. Bleach.

Thanks for reading,
-Anne

Socialization!

2007-07-01T10:37:00.001-07:00

Howdy all,
Another whole weekend for H, so less time to blog. I missed you all, I swear.

We've had a fabulous few days, so I feel pretty good about everything going on in our lives. Friday we went again to the Ambassador's house, and both her sons were there, a 5-year-old and a 3-year-old. The boys were charming and friendly, and another child, a 4-year-old girl, was delightful, too. It was so lovely, we ended up staying for four hours. I meant to leave after two, as I'm pretty sure I haven't been to a friend's house for that long in years, but the other mother said she'd give us a ride home, and the children were playing so well, that we just stayed.

The day began in the basement/playroom, but after about an hour, we all moved outside, to their giant yard, which I've mentioned before. For most of the time, the other three children played in a group, with J doing his own thing, occasionally checking in with the other children or one of the mothers. The older boy was very kind to J, making him a Lego train when we first got there, and encouraging him to play with them. The other children managed to get out a small pool and fill it with warm tap water, as it was too cold for the hose. They had a plastic slide and had water slide fun for about 30 minutes, while J collected leaves in a wheelbarrow.

He finally decided he wanted to slide too, but went once and proclaimed it too cold. I was shivering in a sweater, but the other three naked children seemed impervious to cold. After everyone dried off and dressed, we all ate lunch together. The children ate at a separate table, which was so nice, as the mothers got to eat with BOTH hands! Then the kids played an imprisonment game, with J, and they all 4 built a fire from the woodpile. No real flames of course.

The children went back downstairs and played by themselves for another hour after this, which was just amazing to me. No screaming, no fights, no yelling for mommy. We stayed in the kitchen and had coffee. The Ambassador's wife said sometimes it just takes a longer stretch of time for the kids to get used to each other, something I'm definitely going to pass on to my friends at home. Also, I think that there were 4 of them, all of slightly different ages, might have made a difference, too. All in all, a success.

The next day, Saturday, J and I went to the park at the bottom of the hill and played in the grass for four hours. About half of that he did his own thing while I laid down and read. I'm re-reading "Perfect Madness; Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety" which I'm really enjoying. She is kind of down on extended breastfeeding, but it's possible she just never met anyone who enjoyed nursing a child older than 3 months old. I think most of the women she met thought their child would be ruined for life if they didn't nurse them for at least a year. We just nursed until we didn’t need it anymore, but more on that some other time.

Anyway, very nice to see my boy entertained by other children, and by himself and some sticks. I love watching him become who he is.
Thanks for reading,
-Anne

Dirt Box

2007-06-28T09:22:00.000-07:00

Before I get started, I'd like to announce that I will now be spell checking my posts. i know you're excited, because I am. I already went back and fixed two of them, but it's kind of tedious, so I suppose we'll leave the earlier ones as proof that my writing has evolved.

Now on to bigger things.

I am torn, as J gets older, about the idea of him playing by himself. I've never been one of those mothers who thinks I have to "enrich" her child's day with stimulating activities. In fact, the first year of his life we basically just walked around the neighborhood. I miss the slingin' days. We went to a Waldorf Class when he was about a year old, but it was a huge disaster. The class was two hours long, and he inevitably would either want to nurse the whole time, or start to freak out towards the end as it was interfering with his sleepy time. Note I did not say nap time, because the boy did not nap predictably until he was 14 months old, but I digress. Anyway, it was bad times all around.

Then we had a little music class at about the 2 year mark, because he was getting really interested in music and singing, and that didn’t work out too well either. It would be a battle to keep him awake for the 25-minute drive to class, and he would DEFINITELY fall asleep on the way home. Unfortunately, until VERY recently, like the last month, I've never been able to have a successful transfer while asleep. So lots of sitting in the car reading 30-year-old National Geographics. You know, magazines no one would break in to my car to steal.

Also, the class was run by the Peabody institute, and for the zillion dollars and prestige, I thought I would at least get a teacher who got dressed before coming to work. I'm so awful and judgemental about these things sometimes, but she seriously looked like she rolled out of bed and straight into the classroom. And she did that weird goofy clown thing that some people think kids like. My kid ran from her, and I couldn't stand her either. And she couldn’t hold a tune. To cinch it, J wanted to just run around the classroom the whole time. The room was pretty big, and we all know dogs and children react to the size of the space they're in. So with three weeks left in the class, we never went back.

He had a nice time there, but it just wasn't worth it for me. I'm also not concerned about preparing him for school, as I'm planning on unschooling/ homeschooling. And, if that falls through, and he has to go to school, it’s not going to take him that long to learn to raise his hand and stand in line for the bathroom. This kid is WAY used to standing in lines forever. Airport, anyone?

Back in Baltimore, we're in a wonderful parent-child Montessori class, 90 minutes, one day a week, and it is perfect for J. They don't make the kids share, and his type of intense concentration is respected. Next session he'll be one of the older kids there, but I think it will be a good thing for him.

As far as the whole playing by himself thing, which is where I got started, he's actually been really good about it since he was about two. It literally happened overnight. One day he was screaming at the top of his lungs if I went to pee, the next, 90 minutes of action-packed car races on the couch, complete with mechanics and birds and rockets and airplanes.

Since we've been here, it's not going as well. I assume it's partly the weirdness of being away, partly the lonliness, and partly my guilt over his lack of suitable playmates. SO when he asks for me to play cars and trucks with him, if I'm genuinely not doing anything that can't wait, then I play with him. If he's already playing, I always leave him alone. It's so much fun to listen to his stories, and also I like to encourage his concentration. That's one of the things I like about Montessori.

Lately I've been saying no to do computer stuff, or house stuff, or even read or lay down, and I’m always surprised that he whines a bit and then descends into his little world. Which always involves rockets and friendly bears. He played on the balcony with a box of dirt and some treasure for 90 minutes the other day.

It's not that I don’t like playing, but it's really hard for me to focus on the millionth game of, "cars and trucks" when we're in the house and there's other stuff I could be doing. Or sometimes it's just plain boring playing with a preschooler all day.

He is fantastic about helping with the laundry and dishes and cooking, and I think that stuff is just as important as "playing" with him. I read somewhere, I think a Waldorf handout, that it's helpful not to think, "Oh, I have all this STUFF to do and THEN I can play with my child," because really, it's not the toys your kid likes, it's being with you. Also, if you present housework as a big boring chore, you end up with battles the rest of your life over cleaning and such. This may happen anyway, but my kid really enjoys being a crane picking up the small things. And crayons are rockets, and the cars vroom into the garage at night.

I find an activity, like art or building things with Legos, is easier for me than open-ended stuff, but I wish I could be better at that sometimes, because I don't want him to think I don't like being with him. I'll even tell him that I like being with him, and that he's fun to be around, because he really is. I hope my actions show it, too. Today he said his toots were not him, but majic butt aliens. How funny is that?

So I guess he's getting older, and I, like every other mother in the world, am just trying to keep up.

That's it for now. Thanks for reading,
-Anne

The Oven Hates Me

2007-06-26T22:38:00.000-07:00

An attempt at biscuits this morning leads me to believe that it's not me, it's the oven. AGAIN with the weird gluey center. I even used real milk, because I like to live on the edge, and it made no difference.

I think it might be the water. The water here is chock full of minerals. It leaves white powder on everything it touches, so maybe it's hard to cook with rock water.

Or maybe it's the margarine versus butter. I'm just trying to keep the dairy to a minimum. I think I will do the next batch with real butter and see if that makes a difference. Our bread turned out OK, though, so maybe it's something else entirely.

We made plain biscuits, no buttermilk. Two cups flour, four teaspoons baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, finger mixed with 3 tablespoons of butter, like you would with pastry. Then add 3/4 cup of milk, roll out to an inch thick, and cook at 350 for 15 minutes.

The weird biscuits are still edible, however, thanks to the blueberry jam we made at the same time. They have wild blueberries here, and they're perfect for making jam. They're really tiny and sweet, and even blue on the inside. All we did was boil equal parts sugar and blueberries, and viola! Jam! It's actually a little runny, so is behaving more like syrup, but I'm not hearing any complaints from the naked biscuit-eater on the couch. This was my first time making jam, and I think I should have let it cook longer before transferring it into jars, but it's still delicious. I highly recommend making your own jam, if it's this easy. I'm guessing it won't keep for 10 years in a jar, but we are eating the heck out of some jam these days.

In other news, J has been sleeping until 6 again, so maybe he's over the 3am thing. Hooray! I've learned not to get too used to good sleep, though. He seems to do better with no nap, although the afternoons require a little more management. Last night he slept from 6:30pm to 5:45 am, so that's pretty good. He did get in with me for a while, but then went back to his own mattress after some head rubbing.

We are going home in 2 1/2 weeks, which is very exciting for both of us. I really REALLY miss my dog. This morning, I was thinking about things I need to do, mostly people I want to visit when I get back, and couldn’t figure out how to see them all. I had FORGOTTEN that I have a car. Sheesh.

Strangely, when I realized the other day that it was three more weeks, not four, I got hysterical, because I'm going to miss my husband so much. He'll be here another month before coming home, and then home for a month before heading off on another job. Luckily, his next job is on an island where they speak English, so he’ll have a very nice time. It will almost be like a vacation for him.

Speaking of his work, we are going to visit him on set today, and pick our very own wild blueberries and strawberries. So hopefully I'll get some pictures from that.

That's it for now. Not too much exciting, but thanks for reading anyway,
-Anne

Storming the Castle

2007-06-24T07:46:00.000-07:00

Roly Mo, what a long day!

I had been planning all week to take J to Trakai, a city with a giant old castle about 30 km from Vilnius. Sunday, was H's only day off, and I like to get J and I out on adventures on his days off so he can sleep. I was planning to take the train both ways, after a successful train ride to Kaunas for the zoo, and was really looking forward to it. Here's a picture of it from their tourism website.

What is it they say, life is what happens when you're making other plans?

To begin with, J woke at three am for the second day in a row. I have no idea what this is about, but I'm guessing it's either an intellectual growth spurt, or the whole nighttime peeing thing still. I don't really care, but I'm kind of tired of it.

Then, I checked the weather and it called for Thunderstorms all day. I figured, thunderstorms pass quickly, and the weather forecast is always wrong over here, so I packed our things. I checked the train schedule, and our choices were to leave at 8 am and be ther 90 minutes before the castle even opened, or wait until 1:30 and deal with a crabby kid and being rushed in the afternoon. I couldn't even get the bus schedule to load online, but the receptionist at our hotel/apartments called some unknown bus gurus, and wrote the outbound schedule down, which was roughly every 20 minutes from the station.

So at 9:30, stroller raincover and handwritten schedule in hand, J and I went to the bus station. We tried to buy tickets for Trakai, and the ticket lady said we had to go to information. Information said it was a holiday, apprently for summer solstice, and the next bus was in an hour. She said I had to wait two minutes to buy the ticket. I was confused until I realized I was really waiting for the ticket-selling girl to come back. The ticket girl started to sell me a ticket for an earlier bus, and I was worried about getting confused, but after much conversation between info girl and ticket girl, it was decided I could take the earlier bus. Apparently, the reason info girl didn't offer it to me as a choice is I had to buy the ticket on the bus. Why would that even matter?

J was very excited to get on the bus, never having been on one, and we got decent seats by an open window in the back, and the Quinny Zapp stowed nicely under the seats. We even had Americans sitting in front of us, although I didn't talk to them until later.

Things went pretty smoothly, and for the low price of about 50 cents USD, we were on our way. The bus stopped a few times picking up people, and the only truly smelly person near us at least only rode for about 20 minutes. A man got on with a rolled up carpet and sat right behind us. I quickly realized the carpet was soaked in cat pee. Yum. And then he had a sneezing fit, which sprayed all over my neck. Now, I'm not a huge germophobe, but I don't share drinks and I use a paper towel to open public restroom doors on my way out. So being sneezed on by Cat Pee Man made me shudder.

J fell asleep and had a nice 40-minute nap on the way there, and the American women in fron of me helped me get all our stuff out. It was a 2km walk to the castles, and we had fun stopping along the way to throw rocks in the water. We also saw a swan family. Swans are gigantic. I had no idea.

We toured the castle, and J was mostly excited by the cannons and rocks in the courtyard. I thought he barely noticed the castle, but at bedtime he told H all about the different things we saw. H had filmed there a few years ago, and I had visited set, so I took a few shots of J in some of the locations. Like, "Daddy assassinated a monk here!"

We tried to get a sailboat , with a skipper of course, to go out on the lake, but even though I offered to pay the full group rate, the guy in charge refused to let us go out. I have no idea why, since the entire time I was there not a single one of his boats was rented. Maybe it's a front for Russian Mafia money.

We had lunch by the lake, and J was very friendly with the other children around us, just picking up things and naming them. "Apple! Baby! Fork!" He was trying to teach them English. How cute.

I planned on taking the train back, to avoid any rush hour traffic, but right as we got to the bus station, to walk past it, a HUGE downpour started and I thought we'd better stick to the bus. Like I said, it was a holiday, and I didn't want to walk the ten minutes to the train station in a thunderstorm, have there be no train, and then have to walk back and have missed the bus.

The bus came a few minutes later, packed full of people, and I realized we would have to stand all the way home, about an hour's drive in a bus. So we got in a cab, while J screamed "I want to take the bus!" intending to just go to the train station. We ended up taking it all the way home, but it was so worth it.

The taxi driver told us he had a brother who lived in Florida, and then put in a disco 80's DVD for us to watch. Very entertaining. They have these driver's on-board DVD players here, and I'm not sure if it's for the driver to watch or the passengers, but it's always entertaining.

Overall a great day, and J slept until 6 this morning, so I'm feeling like an entirely new person. Now it's time to shower while J watches Bits and Bobs.

Thanks for reading,
Anne

Bread Success

2007-06-21T06:14:00.001-07:00

Remember the flat bread? Well, we made another loaf from the dry mix I mentioned. And guess what? It worked! We only did one rise, and it was nice and chewey and good.

We ate the entire loaf in one day. This was partially due to my son's three-day sandwich binge. He's over it now, but it seemed every time I turned around, I was making him another sandwich. Luckily, as I may have mentioned before, meat with jam makes a pretty good sandwich, and I used the leftover chicken from Milk Chicken night in his sandwiches. I will write about Milk Chicken as soon as I find the fancy picture I took of some of the ingredients. It may be in my home computer, so that could be a while.

Other than the Eating Machine, things have been pretty quiet. J and I had a discussion about pushing after we went to the zoo and another kid finally pushed him back. I told him instead of pushing, he can wait for his turn, or go do something else. We were at the playground the day after that, and he started to get upset that other children were climbing on the slide he used. He started to go up to them, but then caught himself and sid, "I will wait my turn."

That worked for a few minutes, but then he got impatient as the iother kids kept sliding, and J is not quite as fast as other kids his age. He went up to a younger child and put his arms on eiothre side of the kid, without touching him, and made his frustrated, "grrrrrr" noise. It was pretty funny, and overall, I think he did well. It's nice to know he is listening about that kind of stuff.

We've been doing lots of painting and drawing, and yesterday, he drew this.

He says it's his butt. Obviously, we've been a little butt-centric lately. Now he wants me to read to him every time he goes, specifically "Toot and Puddle: Top of the World". On the last page it says, "Are you getting pooped?" which is, of course, hysterical.

Now I must return to the leftover chicken, sizzling in Marks and SPencer BBQ marinade. That and sweet corn. Mmmmmm.
Thanks for reading,
Anne

No Whole Foods for Miles

2007-06-18T20:50:00.000-07:00

I actually let my child eat canned ham the other day. On purpose.

I don't rememeber if I've ever had it, but H was really excited about it when he saw it in Marks and Spencer, so I picked up a can. For some reason, I thought he was excited becase it was good food. Apparently not. I forgot that he loves ChefBoyArDee and bacon sandwhiches. I like salad. I opened the can to make James a sandwich,a nd nearly threw up at the gelatinous glob reveled before me. I scraped off most of the goo and made a sandwich anyway, becasue hey, it's protein, and we've got to balance the Cheerios somehow.

I cannot wait to get back to Baltimore and go to Whole Foods. It's not so much that there's no decent food here, as far as meat, but the cuts are so different that it's a crapshoot whenever you buy it. Even my mother-in-law, who is a great cook, said she made some lamb the other night and it wasthe worst thing she had ever made, due to the unrecognizable cut, or some other x factor. So it's not just me.

The other problems with food here are the substandard refrigeration and the scattered nature of the groceries. They're real big on saving energy here, which is good, but the grocery store smells like nearly rotted meat whenever you step to the back. They don't have the refrigeration cranked nearly as high as American supermarkets. The hotel refrigerator is pretty lousy too. The milk often goes bad before it's even opened. I gave a friend a homemade popsicle, and it molded IN THE FREEZER. What's that all about?

We have to walk everywhere, or take a taxi, and the food H likes is scattered across the city. The tea he likes in in one place, the store with a good bread selection in another, the good dairy in yet another. Having to go to the store every day with a toddler makes it a challenge, but certainly having a babysitter has relieved some of that burden. I still have to buy milk every single day. Luckily, I can usually squeeze that in after a trip to the playground.

OK, J is screaming for juice. I have to go help him rememeber how to say, "please", which he of course says to everyone but me.
Thanks for reading,
Anne

British Ambasador Mint

2007-06-14T11:24:00.000-07:00

J and I went to the British AMbassador's house for a playdate with his son, who is about 2 months older, and the usual 4 inches shorter. They had a huge house, their own policeman, and a gigantic herb garden which was overgrown with mint. As I am a helpful person, and also needed mint for my father-in-law's mint julep maker, I offered to take some off her hands.

Why do they call these things playdates? At this age, it's still both mothers trying to manage the children half the time, and playing with them the other half. There were perhaps 5 minutes in 90 where the children played together, or just weren't begging us to play with them or fighting.

It's no big secret that we mothers do this so we can hang out with each other, not the kids, and I suppose as they get older, and break through the "parrallel play" stage, it will take me less than four days to have one conversation.

The hardest thing for me about J's social interactions is that because he is so verbal and focused, when a child DOES want to play with him, he yells at them to go away, or asks me to "grab him out of here away from me." I am inclined to let him fight his own battles, and don't really mind if the kids push each other and scream a bit, but it's so hard to gauge how another mother will take it.

Luckily, J defers to me, although he has begun pushing the other children and taking things from them. I actually think this is sort of a good thing. He is developing the independence to stand up for himself, and not just immediately turn to me. When he pushes or grabs, I "reset" the situation, remind him to talk to the other child, and work through it that way. I try to give him the words that will help him, stuff like,"You really want to play with that toy, but E is using it right now. What else could you play with?", but this of course doesn't always go smoothly. Sometimes he tries to ask the other child for the toy, but unfortunately, the other kids don't have the verbal skills he does, and he tends to get blank stares.

I do not force my boy to share if at all possible. I tell him if he wants to bring toys, he has to share the,m, but he if he thinks he can't share, he needs to leave them at home. Often, he'll say, "I'd better bring two cars for sharing, " but usually opts to go to the playground empty-handed. I just don't think it's a reasonable expectation for an almost 3 year-old, but he tends to share with children he's known for a while, just not new kids. This makes perfect sense to me. And he shares fine with adults.

But back to the food. I took the giant mint home and gave half of it to my inlaws. Then I made a marinade for pork chops which turned out delicious, so I am back on the horse after the steak disaster. To make a mint marinade for pork chops, take half a cup of fresh mint, 8 tablespoons of olive oil, 1 tablespoon of red wine vinegar, one peeled garlic clove, a teaspoon of sugar, and a half teaspoon salt, and process. Then marinade the chops in the fridge for up to four hours.

Cook the chops on medium high for about 5 or 6 minutes each side, depending on the thickness. I served this with a quick salad of lettuce, tomatos, onions and cucumbers. Good food for a hot night, and H was very happy with it.

I feel like I'm beginning to figure out the tricks to the cooking environment here. For example, I bought the chops bone-in, but cut off the fat and the bone so they would fit in the cooking area of the pan.

I miss my stove.

Tonight J and I had Marks and Spencer Minestrone, and H and I had prociutto and cheesesticks. I didn't eat any cheesesticks, but had WAY too much prociutto, so now I feel ill and dehydrated. If I drink anything, though, I'll be up all night peeing, and I'm already pooped. J was up for three hours in the middle of the night, after waking to pee and not being able to get back to sleep. When will THAT end..

That's it for now. Thanks for reading.
-Anne

I Heart Soup

2007-06-12T00:03:00.000-07:00

My goodness it's hard to write while having a conversation with the two-year-old in the next room about the diving fireman in the sink. You try it.

Last night we made a soup, which is one of my favorite things to eat. I like cream soups in the winter, and broth-based soups in the summer. I am a big fan of bullion as an quick flavor enhancer, but I don't think it's always necessary. My personal secret to soup is to add some olive oil, and then parmesan cheese once it's served. I see my mother-in-law do this, and everything she cooks is amazing, so why not copy her. If I know I'm making enough soup that some will get frozen, I keep the olive oil out of it until it's served. I actually don't know if this makes a difference, but I figure since I add it when it's reheated, I don't need extra.

To start nearly any soup, vegetable, chicken, beef, bean, I sautee some chopped onions and celery and carrotts in olive oil for about 5 minutes. Not very much, like half of each vegetable, finely diced. Last night we made a bean and vegetable soup. We soaked the beans all day, some red kidney beans and navy beans, and cut up the vegetables while the beans were cooking. I used chicken bullion for flavoring, and actually didn't do the onion sautee thing, as I felt like a bland soup last night.

J cut the zuchinni and some broccoli, and we added potatos and carrotts too. The whole thing cooked for about an hour, maybe a little more. We added the carrotts first, then the potatos, then broccoli, and zuchinni about three minutes before serving. Apprently, I made some kind of horrible timing mistake, where the beans were undercooked and the vegetables were overcooked. Luckily, J likes his food mushy, and he actually ate some broccoli. He spit out the one red bean he tasted, though, but I understood. It was a bit yucky.

I turned the burned back on to try and save it, so now the beans are cooked, and the veggies have completely disintigrated. I'm going to let J take the potato masher and mash it up, then I'm going to try to find a way to bread and fry the resulting sludge, but I'm not sure it will work. At least he'll have fun mashing. I tried to get him to use the masher on our homemade playdoh, but it's too stiff. The soup disaster will be just right. After all, it's halfway there.

That's about it for today. Here's the fish bouquet I promised, of smoked fish in the Maxima. Thanks for reading.
-Anne

Squash and Squishing

2007-06-09T10:53:00.000-07:00

There's been no real cooking after the steak disaster, but we have been sort of drained by the heat, I think. Plus I haven't been to the store recently to get more than cucumbers and milk. I like my cucumbers with lemon, dill and nothing else. I think I just really like lemon. In college, I would sit in front of the tv with a cut up head of iceberg lettuce and a lemon and eat it like chips so I could have a snack. I like lemon on my fish, in my water, and in most things I cook. Yay for citrus in general around here.

But tonight, I shall tell you about squash. I mentioned before there was no good squash here, beyond yellow and green summere squash, but one appeared at the store last time I went.

My favorite is butternut squash in all it's many forms, but especially in soup. I haven't made the soup myself yet, but I'm never dissapointed when I get it in a restaurant. Here, they do not have butternut, but they do have this beauty, which I made for J and I recently.

I think it's a small pumpkin, but whatever it is, the taste runs more to sweet than squashy, adn I add honey and margarine for J when he eats it and it's wonderful.

To roast a medium squash for mashing or soups, you simply wash the outside, stab it good five or six times in the side facing up, and then put in in a 375 oven for about and hour. After it cools, cut it in half, scoop out the seeds, and spoon the flesh into a bowl for mashing. If you find an hour isn't enough, you can out the halves back in the oven flesh side up until it suits your needs. I have to do this about half the time. It's really easy, absolutely packed with nutrients and vitamins and stuff, and easy to freeze half the mash for later use.

I've tried to roast the seeds, but I found it tedius. It's definitely one of those things best left to the David's people. I've always liked the taste of Pumpkin seeds, and will continue to roast them on Halloween, but any other time, or maybe just any other squash, it's just not worth it. Also, in my old age I've developed TMJ, so crunching seeds is no longer an every day activity for me.

J's still struggling with the potty sensations, but at least it's going in the potty, which I STILL need to break. He's now waking in the night to pee, and it just sings and sings "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" until you wash and dry it. And the Baby Bjorn people, makers of an OK carrier, but the world's best potty (The Big Potty), have come out with a green model, which I will be purchasing for J as soon as we arrive in the states. He loves green.

I hope you're all having a fun weekend. We certainly are. We're going to the HyperMaxima tomorrow, and I promise to take a picture of the smoked Fish Bouquets. Stay tuned.
Thanks for reading,
Anne

Vinegar Beef

2007-06-08T06:43:00.000-07:00

So I didn't set out to make Vinegar Beef, but it sure did end up that way. I found arecognizable cut of meat, a T-Bone, at the MAxima, which is Lithuanian Wal-Mart, including the smell, and brought two of them home yesterday morning. I was looking for a quick marinade that involved cabernet, as I have a bottle of it just for cooking. I found a recipe that was a marinade for grilled steaks, but I figured, hey, a marinade is a marinade, how different could it be?

My first clue that this might not have been such a good idea was it called for a cup of cabernet. In the states, I use burgundy as my red cooking wine and pinot grigio as my standard white. Here, my choice was the Bulgarian or Californian wine sold at the Rimi, a 7-eleven type near the apartments. I figured I'd go with what I knew. Everything I've cooked with this wine has been substandard, but I honestly don't know if it's the other ingredients, the manner of cooking, or what. I'm pretty confident now that it's the wine. It stinks like old vinegar, and after 2 hours in this marinade, there was no going back on the pickling if the t-bones.

I had to cut the bones out before marinading them, because even though I have a large enough pan for two t-bones, the heating element on the stove is so small that you have to cycle the meat or whatever through the center of the pan to get it to heat. This makes for the worst possible reduced sauces, as the center will be boiling, and the ousides will be lukewarm, but I like a challenge. Plus I think someone told me once that a strip steak, my favorite part, is just a t-bone without the T. I should look that up.

So into the marinade, from Food Network recipe for grilled steak and mushrooms. Cup of cabernet, 1/4 cup each of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, some basil and oregano, and smashed garlic and finely chopped onions. Sounds like a winner, right? SImeple, easy, and stuff you probably already have in the house. But turned out very nasty.

It also didn't help that the steak was overcooked. I have a fear of the meat here, as my father-in-law got ill from an "already cooked" chicken the first week or so he was here, so while I usually take the steaks off after about 7 min each side on medium heat, or a 6 out of 9, these were in a smidge longer. plus the weird having to scoot them around constantly probably changed things, too, as I had to turn down the heat to make sure I didn't burn the stuff not directly over the burner.

I do have a good pan here, a Bratpfanne enamelled cast iron, but I think nothing can help this stove.

Anyway, H ate it, and I just stuck to the mushrooms. I saved the leftovers, just to torture myself, and am pondering throwing them in with some beans to make a stew. I think I'll just stick to oven dishes for the meats from now on. Except Pork Chops, which seem to work out OK.

And J is feeling better, although he says he doesn't want to do #2 because it feels weird. I agree.
Thanks for reading,
Anne

Encopresis

2007-06-06T11:36:00.000-07:00

Do you know what this is? Because I sure do now. Go ahead and google it.
J has been a champ with the potty, giving warning for pees, holding it until the appropriate time, all that good stuff. Maybe he felt that the pressure was off or something, I don't know. Mr. Perfectionist, however, got himself good and blocked up from holding the poo in. He wants so badly to get it right, even though there's NO pressure from us. He spent two days running to the potty every 30 minutes for poo. Nothing was coming out, and on the second day, the screaming began. He'd be all hunched over, saying, "I'm afraid!" and crying. He stained 6 pairs of underwear, all due to leakage, not missed signals. The poor guy told H , "Sometimes I don;t know what to do about pooping and peeing."

I wish I could get him to relax about it. I think, though, the worst is over, but I did buy baby food stewed prunes to put on his pancakes tomorrow just in case. And he's going to have straight soymilk, no more rice milk, from now on. They have it in powdered form here, all vitamin-fortified and stuff. There was no staining or BM today, so I'm glad his body got a rest.
Other than that, he's slept poorly the last few days, so I'm not exactly flowing with ideas. He woke up at 3 am to go pee, which is great, but then never got back to sleep. I think I'll disable the little song his potty plays, to help keep it nice and quiet for him when he pees at night.

So I'm off to break the potty, and then bed.
More when I'm rested, thanks for hanging in there.
-Anne

Eating out in Lithuania

2007-06-04T10:52:00.003-07:00

It's only been three days , but I feel like it's been an eternity since I wrote. H had both days off this weekend, so I didn't have an opportunity to write. We all had some fun together, and an actual good restarant experience Saturday night.

O and A, both players, came over Saturday night to watch J so H and I could go out. J has had his Nana put him to bed before, no problem, but these girls, being all young and not having children, were unsuccessful, and said whenever they told him it was time to read a book he cried. I talked to him on the phone and told him to read with them until I got home. They spent the time making him an intricate Lego playground, though, so it was a good time for all.

He said he was afraid if he went to sleep I wouldn't come back. When we got home, he pushed past his father to get to me, and as soon as the girls left, he said, "Let's go in my room so I can go to sleep." I'm sure he was a little confused becasue A usually comes in the daytime, but it was no big deal. H only has two whole weekends off per month, and the alternate weeks he only gets Sunday off, so it's not like it's something that would happen every week. I think next time we'll go out earlier and come home earlier, though. I was totally bored by 8:30, not to mention my feet still hurt from the crazy boots I wore.

As far as our dinner, we went to a marginally reccommended Indian restaurant, and I was quite pleased with the meal, although the speed was on par with other restaurants around here. It's completely noraml here to be the only people in the restaurant and have it take and hour for the food to come from the time you ordered it. In that hour, you will have to be satisfied with your tiny, room temperature mineral water that tastes like dirty hair to keep you from starving. Because the waitress will not check on you. Ever. The food will also be cold when it gets there, and you will have exactly one cocktail napkin with which to clean yourself and your food-snorgling toddler.

If you are lucky, the food will be what you ordered, but have no resemblance to the picture on the menu, or to previous dishes of the same name that you have had in a real country. See my earlier post about pizza. And they will bring your child's food 10 minutes after they bring yours. Who does that? Not to mention their national dish, Cepelinai, which is pork in some kind of boiled potato dumpling, looks like this, and tastes just like it looks.

At the restaurant, Sue's Indian, I had the tomato mushroom soup, cooked with a lamb base, I beleive. It was well balanced, expertly spiced, and delicious. The chicken kabob I ordered was perfectly cooked. The waiter asked us if we wanted ice, and didn't even have to write down our orders. So hooray for comparatively good service.

Even in the States, we don't eat out much. I've found that I can cook food that tastes better at home, and if I have some time to myself or just with mu husband, I often don't want to waste the time on a marginal meal. I'm a big fan of the Whole Foods salad bar when I'm out by myself. I'm also at a point wheer I can taste what's wrong with the food, like a freezerburnt fish I once had at a place called blu, or the perrenial favorite, overcooked, gluey pasta with wilted, overcooked vegetables. Available everywhere.

But with all that, we had a nice time, and it was fun to get out. J even had a good time with his team, and I'm sure thay appreciated the opportunity for more cash.
That's it for now. Thanks for reading.
-Anne

Popcorn for dinner

2007-05-31T10:30:00.000-07:00

I saved the culinary energy for H tonight tonight, so that instead of handing him a plate while he sits in front of the computer, we could actually eat together. At home, he's very good at sitting down and not reading or anythign and being with us, although I admit I had to train him not to bring magazines to the table. Nothing says, "I don't want to be here," more than watching TV or reading at the table. I think it's acceptable at breakfast, and sometimes lunch, but that's just us.

So J and I had crushed FinnCrisp Sesame Rounds on the couch while watching Polish TV, and microwave popcorn at the dinner table. He asked for chopsticks, because we always eat popcorn with chopsticks at home. It keeps the grease from getting all over your fingers. Works well for chips and such, too. We actually learned this froma Make-Up girl ( I know, I'm sexist) that H worked with a few years back. It's pretty cool to see a two year old gain chopstick proficiency, although I'm sure millions of Chinese children do it, too.

H and I had a green salad of iceberg, tomatos, cucumbers, onions, and a vinagarette, and pork chops with an orange/soy sauce on them. The chops and sauce were loosely based on a recipe from "The Working Stiff Cookbook".

I can't get about half the ingredients, but the basic idea is to mix a half cup OJ with two tablespoons oil, sesame in the book, olive here, and add one tablespoon soy sauce, then reduce it after you've cooked the chops. You also add ginger, which I could get but forgot, and something else, but I don't remember.

To cook the chops, you have to start with nice thick ones, at least an inch, but thicker is better, and then brown them for one minute on each side on high heat. Then you flip them again, turn the heat to meduim (although I prefer more of a medium low) and cover. Cook four or five more minutes on each side, and let rest on a plate. The book says to then drain the extra grease, but that's up to you, as I find there's really not that much grease, and if you're cooking with cast iron or enameled cast iron, or even heavy gauge stainless, this is a bit awkward, and somewhat dangerous.

Anyway, turn the heat to high, pour the premixed sauce in, and let it reduce, which usually happens very quickly. I double the sauce recipie, because it gives me more time to keep it from turning instantly to glue. As usual, I don't really do much exact measuring with this, but go with what feels comfortable to you. This is one of my husband's favorites, and he is always happy to have pork chop night.

I quite like this cookbook, and it was the first cookbook I bought for myself. I got it becasue it had good, easy, and quick recipies for two people, and a few for four. The Thai fish recipe is disgusting, don't even try. But I did get my first good rosemary potatos from this, although now I prefer a lavender/rosemary mixture instead of just rosemary and salt.

As a side note, J has decided he wants to wear underwear all the time, but still poos in them. Good thing he's got lots. He'll take my hand and say, "We have to go do something in the bathroom," and take me there. Then he says, "Get the wipes".

Thanks for reading,
Anne

Where do we pee?

2007-05-29T09:41:00.001-07:00

After a good five weeks or so of potty attempts, my frustration level has exceeded J's ability to use the potty, so I think I'm going to tone it back down. He still has no problem going, he just won't stop what he's doing to do it, or admit it. I realized I was getting frustrated not becasue he wasn't going, but because I was feeling like a failure. He, of course, doesn't really care, and I certainly don't want him to think that the potty is all I care about. So from now on, I will ask him at his diaper changes if he wants a diaper or underpants, and we'll go from there.

I think it's complicated by his overall maturity in other areas, especially language. He has the verbal skills of a five year old, and he's also kind of a big kid. Not huge, but about 38 inches and 31 pounds, and so sometimes I expect too much out of him. He is only 2 and a half, after all. And why do I even care about when he potty trains? He's not going to day care or preschool or any place which requires potty training, so why do I care? I think I feel like, as a stay-at-home mother, my child should be more advanced in everything to justify my time with him. I don't get this message from H, but I think in general I am a defensive person, even before I am questioned about anything, and this is one way it comes out.

I need to focus on what he CAN do. For example, as of this morning, he can cut all the way through a small peice of paper with scissors, he can peel and stick his own stickers, and he can trace lines pretty decently. He also has amazing narrative abilities, and remembers absolutely everything we tell him, including me saying "your stupid train". He thought that was it's proper name, and called it, "My stupid train" all day. Great.

He can also remember about 20 different songs, about 20 nursery ryhmes, and can crack an egg without getting any shell in the bowl. He can identify several different kinds of birds and maybe 10 different flowers, and is generally the most amazing person I've ever met. He can wear diapers forever if he wants. Soon enough he'll be able to change them himself.

And he can type his first name on the computer. Sweet.
Thanks for reading,
-Anne

Marinara time

2007-05-27T20:43:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, I promised this about a week ago. But it's worth the wait, really.

I never had any real desire to make my own pasta sauce, being perfectly happy with what came in jars. Newman's Own Bombolina was the winner in our house, mostly becasue H preferred it. I'm partial to a sauce with mushrooms, but he doesn't like mushrooms. I'd rather not hear about it than fight for mushrooms, so I probably haven't had sauce with mushrooms in years.

Back to the sauce-making. So we were fine with jarred, but the last time we were in Eastern Europe, we discovered they have a completely different idea of what should go on noodles and pizza. The sauce is somehow both sweeter and more peppery than we're used to. They also are still figuring out pizza, often throwing things like corn and ham and sardines and goat cheese together, so I was motivated to make a pizza that tasted good.

The recipe I am using is somewhat based on the one in "A New Way To Cook"

I tend to triple this recipe, then freeze it in one meal-portions for later use.

Get your big pot out. Put 2 tablespoons olive oil in it and turn the heat to a medium lowish. Chop up a medium red onion and a few cloves of garlic. I only use two, but some people might like more. Fry them in the hot oil for about six minutes.

Open one 28 oz can of peeled plum tomatos, then seed and chop them. I use my hands to seed them. I don't even know of any other way. Empty one 28 oz can of tomato puree, and half a can of tomato paste into the pot, along with the seeded chopped tomatos. Stir. Then I add a few teaspoons basil, a few of oregano, two teaspoons sugar, and about half a cup of red wine. A cabernet or a burgundy works just fine for this. Add one teaspoon of salt, and then just simmer at a low heat until dinnertime. I often adjust the spices as I'm cooking, so I apologize for not having exact measurements.

I did make this completely from scratch one time, peeling and seeding my own plum tomatos, no puree or anything. It took FOREVER to reduce the tomatos to a sauce, and just was not worth it to me.The above will taste delightful in about 30 minutes of simmering.

One nice thing I've noticed from this is I don't get the swollen tounge from the tomatos when I make my own sauce. Eating fresh tomatos swells my tounge and makes it even bleed sometimes, and so did eating jarred sauce. Even though I'm using canned tomatos and canned puree, I don't have this efffect with the homemade stuff.

Make sure you use Italian Plum tomatos grown in Italy. And your puree should have one or two ingredients, tomatos and salt. If you can find it without salt, even better. I can't remember if that's possible, because I've been here too long, but I'll find out when I get home.

Eggs and NotEggs

2007-05-25T21:52:00.000-07:00

I'm fairly confident that J has an intolerance to eggs as well as dairy. I tested him a few days ago, and sure enough, he reacted. He seems to be ok with the tiny amounts in baked goods, however, but I wasn't sure of this until this week, so we had been putting other things in our recipies.
We had egg-free-dairy free pancakes a few times, which were very, very dense, but that can be remedied with additional rice milk. I actually prefer my pancakes thinner than most, so I'm used to adding milk as I cook them. I'm a huge fan of crepes, but since they have to sit for 30 minutes before you cook them, I don't make them too much for me and the boy. He has a hard enough time waiting for food to cook and cool down, so extra waiting is out of the question.

Anyway, while we were egg-free, I found a list of things that could subsitute for eggs ina recipie. As they don't have the pacakged egg-subs here, I chose half a mashed banana and a half teaspoon of baking powder as our sub in a zucchinni muffin recipie. It mixed ok, poured ok, but then it never really cooked. They were in the oven for an HOUR before they even came close to setting. It was like glue muffins. They never browned, and I was going to let them cool and then throw them away. J, however, saw me taking them out of the muffin tin (which is actually silicone), and asked to eat one. I checked the inside, and they had finally set, sort of, so I let him have one. He ate it, and had two more over the next two days, until I finally threw them away. Weird.

We're going to make zuchinni-oat muffins today, and we'll be using real egg. He had three chocolate chip cookies, made with real egg and dark chocolate, but rice milk not cow, and he was fine, so I think a muffin here or there with 1/12th of an egg in it might be OK. I'll keep an eye on it, though, and let you know.

UPDATE; So the oat zucchinni muffins have baked, taking ten minutes longer than the recipe said, but I think it's something to do with the super-havy-duty baking sheet that has to sit under the silicone muffin tin. They still seem REALLY sturdy to me, but taste pretty good. ANd easy to make, so here's the recipe.

One cup oats, instant is fine. One and a half cups flour, 2 and a half teaspoons baking powder, half teaspoon salt, half cup sugar. Mix all that together. In a seperate bowl, mix one lightly beaten egg, one cup milk of your choosing, one quarter cup melted margarine. Then mix the two bowls together gently, adding a half to one cup shredded, skin on, squeezed zucchini. BAke at 425 for about 20 minutes. Done when a knife or toothpick comes out clean.

A note about margarine: In the states, this would never be allowed in my house, but as there is no almond butter here, it's filling a calorie niche for J. I always prefer to cook with real butter, becasue even though it's full of fat, it tastes better and doesn't have trans fats. My father-in-law tells me they make margarine without trans fats now, but I hope I can avoid it all together. As alwasy, I prefer to eat food, not chemicals. The margarine I'm using, Rama, has no trans fats, so that's good.

J eats it with bread and jam, and of course on his muffins. I'll get soy butter when we get back to the states, or I may try a little butter, and see how he does.

O the Player

2007-05-24T05:41:00.001-07:00

J has had a fever for two days, so pardon the break. We didn't get much sleep Tuesday night, and I think I'm still tired from it. However, the babysitter is here, so I will take advantage of her last half hour to write to all my adoring fans.

At home, I am with J full time. It's awesome. I feel like I've been waiting my whole life to be with him, and he amazes me every day with who he is.He's a thoughtful, kind, bossy little boy, and the most fun I have ever had. He occasionally stays an hour or two with the neighbors, or with H or the in-laws if I have something to do, but nothing regular. It was, however, very exciting the first time he went to bed for someone else, sometime in February. We stopped nursing to sleep in January, when he was 2 years, 4 months, and so, Date Night arrived! Anyway, I don't have any regular help at home, but I get what I need when I need it as far as time to myself.

Here, a different story. H and the inlaws are working all the time, and I don't know many people, and those I do can't speak much English. So, five weeks into a three-month stay, I got O. One of H's friends was mugged and knocked out in the street, and O was one of the three girls who picked him up and got him to the hospital. She's also an out-of-work preschool teacher, although here they call it kindergarten, and speaks more English than I do Lithuanian. This is her second time, and she's brought a friend each time with better English. J is having great fun, telling me to go away while they play, and climbing all over her. When I told him about her coming over, and how she would play with him and take him for his stroller walk ( I dare not call it a nap walk), he decided she was "O the player". And she is.

In the states, I could never afford this much help. It's about a third the cost here. I would prefer she not have the TV on the entire time they're in the house, but it's only 7 more weeks, and besides, the shows they watch are 30-year-old Russian cartoons, so hey, he's getting even MORE international flavor in his life. As it is, I don't really care that much. The shows are all little forest creatures and stop-action puppets, so it's the opposite of cartoon network, which he is not allowed to watch.

I'm not as much a stickler for TV as some of my friends. He usually watches about 2 hours total a day at home, usually less, sometimes more, depending, but that's what Noggin's for. He also will ask to turn it off, or say, "I'm done watching my show," a lot, so I'm not concerned.

So that's it for today. I almost have a nanny. I feel so middle-class.

-Anne

Canned food

2007-05-21T22:45:00.002-07:00

At home, I'm not real big on canned food, beyond a few fruits, as I've mentioned before. Too much excess sugar, fat and salt, and I can generally make the same thing, only better tasting. I haven't been able to stomach canned soup in years. It just tastes like salty glue to me. However, here I have discovered the joy that is Marks and Spencer, a clothing store that has branched off into prepared foods.

Not having any desire to cook two dinners a night, I have been buying food for my husband there, in the back of a clothing store. I stumbled onto it through a book I was reading, "The River House", and investigated the shop which is about a mile from our apartment. H is fond of the chicken tikka masala, and if you get a can of that, plus one bag of microwave rice, it's the perfect instant meal for him, with no leftovers to worry about. There's also chicken korma, and I got him spaghetti and meatballs, too. I'd still rather eat food I've made, but since H has no hangups about poisoning himself through canned food, he's happy, I'm happy, and I don't have to worry about what to feed him.

Another nice thing is the Marks and Spencer canned food has far fewer unidentified additives and no corn syrup and such, as it is from England, where they don't put corn syrup in EVERYTHING, like they do in the states. So it's not quite the drek that Chef BoyArDee is.

Anyway, J is watching his favorite show, Big Cook Little Cook, another fine English import, and it willl be over soon, so I must go.

Thanks for reading,
-Anne

Poop in the potty!

2007-05-20T21:28:00.000-07:00

Obviously, we won't be discussing a recipe today.

Since we've been overseas, about a month, we have been doing some light potty training, mostly out of boredom. J is 32 months, and pretty good at holding it and has no problem going outdoors or in public toilets. He particularly enjoys peeing in the river at the bottom of the hill. However, he seems completely oblivious to noticing the urge, and will often come up to me and say, "look what happened," and ask why his pants are wet. It's still all me bringing him to the potty. We weren't even attempting poo, and I would just stick him in a diaper every other afternoon. He's quite predictable that way.

Yesterday when I was laying down for a minute while his dad was home, he started to go in his underpants. he always comes up and says, "Can I have a few minutes" before pooing. H asked him if J could try and make it go in the potty, and J said OK. H left him alone on the potty and he finished there. Hooray!

Earlier that day, while he was peeing, J said, "hey, some poops are coming out," and did a teency one in the potty.
We were happy for him, but never really have made a big deal out of it, and don't do stickers or m&m's or shaming or anything. i figured we'd just go all the time and talk about listening to your body and he'd figure it out.

The next step is getting som kind of warning from him BEFORE he starts, but hey, one thing at a time. I'm just glad he's not afraid of the potty. I also know a lot of kids go back and forth with this kind of thing, so I'm not claiming sucess by any stretch of the imagination. It's just nice to know there's hope.

And he looks super cute in the tiny European boy undies.

Sweet and Sour chicken

2007-05-19T22:07:00.000-07:00

Dinner last night was a hit. We had my father-in-law over, and he really enjoyed it. The last two times, I tried new things, and they were just this side of poison. The first time, I had cooked some mystery fish filets, and forgotten to take the giant broiler sheet out of the oven. It took so long to cook that R left before he could eat anything. The second time, I cooked a cut of meat I THOUGHT was pork tenderloin. It came in the same kind of packaging, with a picture of a dancing pig on it, and seemed to be the same cut. The striations looked a little off to me after it cooked, and after five minutes of thinking it was the worst, toughest pork tenderloin in the world, we all realized it was roast beef. By then the slices had been cut too thick, so we couldn't really eat it. I also made the mistake of using my immersion blender to try and make mashed potatos. Did you know you could make industrial adhesive out of potatos? Becasue apparently that's what happens when you immersion blend it to death, like I did.

So last night, Jamie Oliver's Sweet and Sour Chicken from his book, Happy Days With The Naked Chef.

Take some bell peppers, two each of red, orange and yellow, two red onions, and chop them into quarters, the onion into eighths. Throw in a giant bowl with a chunked pineapple, three good chunks of ginger, grated with the skin on, garlic cloves peeled but not chopped, and olive oil and sea or kosher salt. Swirl all the veg together to marinate while you prep the chicken. Do the usual chicken stuff, wash, pat dry and rub with a bit of olive oil and salt. Dump the veg into a big, deep oven-safe pot. At home I use my 7.5 quart LeCruset orange dutch oven, which I probably use 4 times a week. Worth every penny.Put the chiken on toop of the veg, and roast at 375 according to weight of the chicken. Baste if you want to. Since I put mine in breast side down, if I forget to baste it's not that big a deal. If you have it breast side up, I'd def. reccommend basting. I tend to throw some white wine in the pot too, to make basting easier.

After it's cooked, you can serve half of the roasted vegetables, and then process, not puree, the rest, minus any liquid which might be in the pan, with two tablespoons of sugar and 6 tablespoons balsalmic vinegar. I process all the vegetables, then freeze the leftovers in three quart containers so I can just roast a chicken and have the sauce already made. It's so good, I eat it on toast. This is one of my favorite Naked Chef recipes. There are other good ones too, so you should buy his book.

A few notes.
When I say olive oil, I am referring to extra virgen olive oil. I prefer Spanish for cooking and Greek for salad dressings and such.

As always, fresh is better than canned, but chopping a pineapple can be a hassle, and the taste isn't really affected.

Last night, due to lack of resources and a smaller pan, I only chopped one red and one yellow pepper, and used two small white onions instead of red. It was still delicious. You can get red onions here, but the one we had was molded all the way through, so hey, subsitution time!

Really Flat Bread

2007-05-18T05:08:00.000-07:00

I had to invent a bread recipe the other day, so J and I could make biscuits. I'm not completely sure what's in all the bread here, so it's best to make our own. Plus, J really likes to bake, and kneading the dough is one of his favorite things. He puches it down with his little hands, and folds and turns it like a pro. Then he usually makes a face in it, paying special attention to the ears.

The yeast situation threw me. I couldn't find any Red Star, and had to explain yeast by miming bread rising. Go ahead, try it. The women in the shops would tell me either they didn't have such a thing, or would hand me baking powder. I finally just pointed to the word I thought was yeast on a bread package, and they gave me a brown brick from the refrigerator.

It was a yeast paste, and I had NO idea how to measure that out, or mix it in. In the States, you put the contents of the yeast packet in warm water and let it dissolve and foam before proceeding with your recipe. I finally randomly found some dried yeast, but it called for mixing it directly with 1Kg of flour, no dissolving necessary. I had to buy a whole new bag of flour for this, as I had no way to measure out 1Kg, and decided to wing the rest of it. I mixed the yeast and flour, then added about 1/2 cup of sugar, some salt, and then took half of the dry mixture and threw it into the freezer. Hopefully it will keep. Then we added very warm water until the dough looked like dough, then kneaded the heck out of it. It was really stiff, but we managed it. We let it rise, which it did, thankfully, then I made a HUGE mistake and tried to add honey, which of course
meant we couldn't get the dough to stick together any more. So we made weird shapes with half the dough, and put the
other half in the fridge in a bag. We stuck the biscuits in a cast iron pan to rise again. They rose fine, and we cooked them, and they were pretty good. They were like rocks the next day, though. I think we'll add some melted margarine
next time, as I've heard it helps the bread keep.

The next day, yesterday, I tried to pull of hunks of the dough in the fridge, but they wouldn't rise, so I pulled the dough sort of flat and made a sweet pizza -like shape. It was good for about 90 minutes, then became homemade duck food.

So yeah, don't add honey after the first rise.

I'll try to do some more with about half of what's in the freezer, then report back.

Dairy Free

2007-05-15T09:15:00.000-07:00

Tonight, J and I had honey and jam sandwiches for dinner. It would be peanut butter, but we're still sorting out a food intolerance that has recently appeared. It seems to be mostly milk, but there's something else lurking that hits him every few days, and honestly, I don't have the resources to do a healthy elimination diet over here, so we're doing the best we can.

It's a little frustrating becasue I did all the things you're suppossed to do to keep this from happening. Breastfed 2+ years, no formula, no whole milk or peanuts until he was 2, and then out of nowhere in March he starts pooing blood and mucous. Three DR visits, including one ER later, it's not bacteria, it's food, and a child who lives off of cheese and yogurt can no longer have them. In the states it's not so bad, as there's readily available, soy/rice/almond milk, almond butter, and other delicious things he'll eat, but here it's a bit of a hassle to get to the stores with the rice milk, which comes in tiny tiny boxes. Last time I went to the store I bought 16 boxes. That will last us about a week, I think. There's also no sweet potatos or winter squash, which I find surprising in a country that puts regular potatos in everything. How hard can it be to grow a squash? Those were my two go-to, high nutrition, peace of mind foods for him.

Of course, this coincides with him being in the throes of toddler food refusal. The only vegetables he'll eat are avacado and carrotts, and the only fruits are peaches and bananas. He'll eat chicken, turkey slices made to look like sails, meatballs (straight ground beef in balls), cheerios, oatmeal, honey, jam, bread, plain muffins, and of course rice milk.

Now that I wrote that down, it doesn't seem too awful. I'm just bummed about the vegetable thing. He used to eat peas by the fistful, and blueberries constantly, but not now. The other day he asked for blueberry mufifns, and we made them (dairy free, of course), and he picked the blueberries out. Ugh. I'll make zuchinni muffins next time. That'l show him...

I am thankful it's intolerance and not allergy, so if he does sneak ice cream he won't die. It is alwasy disturbing to see blood issuing from your child, though, don't you think? ANd it's a good thing I did most of the cooking from scratch already, or this would be much harder for us.
Alright, gotta run. Tomorrow, I'll tell you all about marinara sauce.

Taco time

2007-05-13T21:59:00.000-07:00

One thing I like about this country is it is just assumed that babies and small children will nap in their strollers outside. In the States, it seems if your child is not sleeping by themselves flat on their backs in a crib, you must be some kind of failure of a parent. J has always preferred motion for sleep, especially as a baby, and even now, at 2.5, he's napping in the stroller again. It's usually only about 40 minutes, but yesterday it was 2 hours. He's got a bit of a cold, so he needed the extra sleep. Here's a shot of him passed out on the balcony of our apartment.

I got this monster stroller, a Huack, threee weeks after we got here, as the Quinny Zapp, while a fine, compact umbrella stroller, was not well sutied to napping or long walks on the bumpy streets and cobblestones. J even said one afternoon, after a long walk, "I'm tired of all the bumpies." He loves the new one. Even thought it's massive, it's perfect for the nap, an essential part of our day. Full recline, footrest, and all that other stuff.

We had tacos for dinner last night, with the leftover hamburger meat. J didn't touch it, preferring instead to fill himself up with some unidentified Italian biscuits. I meant to just get shells and sauce, but accidentally picked up the "taco kit". It wasn't bad, but it wasn't NEARLY enough food, and I ended up eating a rice cake afterwards. My husband had a supplemental bowl of cereal.

Tonight we make the chicken! Hooray for fail-safe food.
Thanks for reading,
-Anne

Where's the beef come from?

2007-05-12T07:09:00.000-07:00

It's almost time for dinner, and I'll be making plain penne for J and I, then hamburgers for my husband when he gets home later. The burgers here are quite tasty, although you can't get a decent one in a restaurant. They do all sorts of tradional dishes with ground beef, but in the 1,000 years since this country's existed, it seems no one thought to smash the meat together and cook it that way.
I think it tastes better because of the way the cattle are raised. I'm sure they have their version of factory-type farms, but since this area doesn't have the grossly subsidized corn surplus that America does, the ruminants are allowed to ruminate. As usual, animals allowed to be what they are, and eat what they are suppossed to, taste better and are better for you.
If you're interested in this kind of stuff, namely, where your food comes from, read this book.
It's The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. It's great. When I read this, I was already going down the path to eating more whole foods. I kept the boxed, bagged food to a minimum, although I do admit to a love for canned peaches, organic and in juice, of course. One of the biggest points I took away was about the eating habits of animals, and it's eventual effect on us, and the planet. My favorite example is that cows should eat grasses. In American Factory Farms, where we get the vast majority of our meat, cows are forced to eat corn, which makes them so sick they need antibiotics just to stay alive long enough so we can kill them and eat them. Makes a lot of sense, right? So the next time you want beef, get grass fed. The difference in taste is unbeleivable. I can tell now when I have factory beef, although it's not often. If I can't at least get "naturally raised", I'll just get something else for dinner.
Speaking of which, it's time. J has already pulled his chair up to the counter, and is trying to get the pot out. Cheers!

-Anne

Chicken Dance

2007-05-11T10:48:00.000-07:00

My family and I are currently overseas for my husband's work. We're in one of the Baltic States, and I find the food situation to be less then desirable, but I enjoy the challenge. I remember the first time, back at home, I was able to roast a chicken without lookng at a recipe, I called Mumzel and told her because I was so proud of myself. As a full-time Domestic Engineer for almost three years, I'm finally getting to the point where I feel like I know what I'm doing, housewise. The boy is another story, but we stomp our way through.
So here's how you roast a chicken, from memory.
Take a nice chicken, preferrable organic, prefferably fresh, preferrably cage-free (although that can be a bit of a misnomer). These things make a difference, and not just in chickens. It should not necessarily be a "vegetarian" chicken, as chickens were made to eat bugs, and should be allowed to stuff themselves silly with beetles and worms. Or at least something abit meaty.
Wash the chicken, adding a little dance for your children's sake. Your kids ARE cooking with you, right? If they are small, you need one of these.

I have no idea who this kid is, but she's cute.
It's the Learning Tower, and it's usually about $149.00 USD with free shipping from most websites. Worth every penny, even in a tiny house like ours where I must move it to the counter every time we use it. It's heavy, and can hold two kids, although my son is really possesive about his. A chair or librarian's stool also works just fine.
So where were we? After the chicken dances, rub it with olive oil or butter, then Sea Salt , or Kosher, depending on what you're going for, and freshly ground black pepper. Smear some under the skin if you can. Then, have your kid shove a a multi-pierced whole lemon in it's butt, or whatever that hole is. Lightly brown it on all sides in your dutch oven, or cast iron pan, whichever pan you have that can do stovetop and oven. Then, put it, BREAST SIDE DOWN in the 375 oven and add some white wine, like a cup or so. Baste every 20 minutes. It takes about an hour for a 3.5 lb chicken, and about 1.25 hours for a 4.5 pound chicken, but you know what your oven can do.
To make it a one-pot dinner, peel and cut up some carrotts and potatos, toss them in a teency bit of olive oil, and throw them in the pot, too. It doesn't really seem to make more than 5 or ten minute difference in the cooking time.

Three notes:
I originally put the chicken breast side down by accident. I didn't know which side was which. It turns out, breast meat cooks faster than dark, so the combination of breast side down (tee hee) and basting actually keeps the breast meat moist.

Let the chicken sit for about 10 minutes after it comes out of the oven. This helps the juices reabsorb back into the chicken, so you don't have a "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" moment. Well, maybe not quite that dramatic.

Make sure your oven is preheated and your pan is prewarmed, and oiled before browning the chicken. This keeps the food from sticking. If you're using Teflon, don't tell me. I will be sad.

That's all for now! Let me know how it works out.
-Anne

Starting Over

2007-05-11T10:31:00.000-07:00

The boy finally sleeps.
I am happy to say things are predictable enough in my life that I am going to try again at this blogging thing. I'd like to get on my soapbox an amaze you all with the finer points of my culinary and child-rearing adventures. I tell my son that every day is an adventure, but perhaps I'm simplifying things too much. However, I find life to be easier when things are simple, so on with the adventures! And thanks for stopping by.