After playing in the snow today, had to get a picture I was so proud I still fit into my old snow suit!
What makes me think it could be a girl: I'm carrying a bit higher than last time (as evidenced by comparing measurements from the first pregnancy to the second), and I had nausea and fatigue like I never had the first time. What make me think it's a boy: I have pregnancy acne again like with Z and I'm told a higher heart rate is indicative of a boy too and it was just as high as Z's was. Any thoughts on this? I ask my mother-in-law and she says, "It's definitely a baby."
I have lots of new pics and stuff to post, but blogger isn't wanting to upload more than one photo at a time today, so it'll have to wait. Come back soon!
Perhaps it's the heightened sense of smell that accompanies pregnancy, whatever it is, I've been in love with food lately. Have you noticed from my recent posts? Well, this is no exception. Everything in this post is completely and utterly about FOOD, and my observations of it. Hope you enjoy!
Growing food inside of food! I found this super cute idea from the mag, "Wonder Time." Basically, if you don't have starters going yet, their idea is to use an egg shell (use a spoon to crack just the top off) to grow starters. Rinse the egg out with soap and water, use a pin to poke a hole in the bottom. Fill with dirt (I used dirt from my garden and a baby spoon), then poke your seeds in and pat down! They said to spray with a spray bottle to water. I've been using drips from my faucet. The best part about this is that you can plant the eggs directly in the ground! You can use an egg carton to hold them all. Another super cute idea they had is to draw a face on the egg, then plant, say, grass seed and it'll grow hair! My friend, Melissa, suggested using a candle holder to hold the egg too. All sorts of ideas! I've got spinach growing in mine. Can't wait!
Soup du jour I've been on a soup kick for lunches. The above are actually all duds but the last one. The peas were too dry and hard in the green split pea soup, the garden vegetable was salvageable with some Pappy's seasoning, but it took some work, same with their minestrone. Who needs garbanzo beans in their minestrone? Who needs garbanzo beans ever? The Campbells minestrone gets two thumbs up! Didn't even need Pappy's seasoning. Also, not pictured (recycling must have taken it already), Campbell's Italian Wedding soup. Very good! I'm usually not a fan of canned meats, but that wasn't half bad. All the Chunky meat soups I tried were awful.
Pizza Dough knead off! This is pizza dough for tonight's supper. On Valentine's Day I made two different elaborate pizza doughs by hand and we had a taste test to see which we liked more. I had googled, "Papa John's pizza dough recipe" to get the two recipes I tried. We're big fans of their crust. Honestly, neither dough ended up flakey like theirs, but to their credit they were both very good in their own right. The first one was so totally poofy it grew huge, Ben said it was the lightest crust he'd ever tasted, but he didn't like working with it. I make the dough, he makes the pizza. So, that one was out. The second was slightly more dense and super easy for him to work with. So, today I made it again plus the seasonings it called for. We did not cook it at 550 degrees for five minutes like the weirdo said to. Honestly, I made the yeast mixture ahead of time, threw all the dry ingredients together in the above bowl, added the yeast mixture and kneaded it in the bowl until it looked good and mixed. Then I covered it with a towel and it's risen twice like the above picture and probably will again before we make it. Much easier than all that he said to do.
Do the Mu-shu! ...er, well, maybe don't. What we do is make stir fry vegetables, rice in a rice maker and top it with one of the above sauces. Teriyaki is probably better as a marinade, General Tso's gets an A+ for best stir fry topper (has a little kick so watch out Grandma and Grandpa!), Mu-Shu gets a C-, Sweet and Sour is totally mild and fabulous (this is our favorite brand), finally, this is the soy sauce we buy from our Oriental Food store in Canton, Ohio. The owner recommended it to me and as you can see I use it on everything I can! I just bought another bottle for $3. It's so perfect as my mom likes to say, "you could just drink it!" Since you can't read the bottle very well, let me tell you that it says, "Sempio Soy Sauce" on the front and "Soy Sauce Jin Gold" on the back. Sempio is the brand. The best part? No msg!
Ooooh, I almost forgot amidst all the saucey fun, to mention my new favorite veggie combination for stir fry! I read on this fabulous vegetable website a recipe for plain old sauteed asparagus and leeks. Well, I wanted to make an actual dinner, not just a side, so I steamed leeks, asparagus, and broccoli together, then fried them a bit in some oil with some cubed chicken. [slight diversion...I buy chicken in bulk from my local butcher (all natural!), grill it, cube it, freeze it in baggies so I can make a quick chicken stir fry (frozen veggies make my easy meal!), or burritos, or chicken casserole.] So, anyways, back to my dish, I had this wonderful asparagus, broccoli, leeks and chicken stir fry served over Jasmine rice and Ben said it was as good as a restaurant! We both agreed the General Tso's sauce was just divine on it.
......sooooo, tonight my ex-foster daughter, Kim, and my cousin who used to live with me, Jamie, arrive for the weekend! I'm so excited. I let them pick any meal they wanted for us to have while they were here and they chose my Korean dish, "Bulgogi." There are probably people out there who make their own bulgogi sauce and slice their own beef, but I cheat and buy all of it from the aforementioned Oriental Food store. We marinate the beef in the sauce for 24 hours, then Ben grills it, then stir fries it with lots of yummy veggies, then we serve over rice. Also on the menu, English oranges (oranges marinated in a yummy syrup!). For dessert, Indian Kheer (rice pudding with coconut milk and real cream), and all American chocolate macaroons. I'm so excited! I'll definitely take pictures and share!
I'm sure this food craze is just a phase, but at least my cooking skills are improving from it! I didn't know how to make anything when we got married 10 and a half years ago!
This is the story of a little boy and two apples. One morning the mother of the little boy found him with two very nice apples. Everywhere he went, the apples did as well. The apples were quite helpful in keeping the little boy entertained as he watched his mother go about her business in the kitchen and as he got his diaper changed. Well, except when managing two apples in the air as he laid on his back became a little too much and one fell on his face and made him cry. But, mostly, he rolled the apples down his slide and pretended to feed them to his toy dog.
As the day wore on and the little boy got sleepier he seemed to cling to the apples even more and had some difficulty getting dressed for bed with two apples in his hands. He was able to hold both apples with his left arm and hand so he could put his right arm through the sleeve, but he couldn't switch the apples over to the right side and cried when they fell.
When his bedtime came, the little boy took the apples with him and his Daddy rocked them all to sleep. Unfortunately, the story doesn't end there. In trying to lay the little boy and his apples down, the apples woke the boy up! What's worse is he refused to let go of those apples that kept him awake and cried if anyone touched them!
His Mommy heard his cries and came to help. Thankfully, the little boy had found a way to get comfortable with the apples by using one as a pillow and cuddling with the other, so he was very ready to go to sleep when he heard his favorite bedtime story and Bible verse.
The Mommy was very careful to wait until the little boy was sound asleep to move the apples so they didn't wake him up again. She put them in a safe place so he could wake up and find them again and take them where ever he should go. The End.
(The above was written in the journal I keep of Z and his adventures)
I've been feeling creative in the kitchen lately and can't say that I endorse the above recipe 100%...unless, that is, you LOVE bacon, broccoli AND gnocchi (potato dumpling like pasta). That's pretty much all there is to this (plus some onions, I used leeks) and it's really rather unusual for a dinner at least around here. Indian food, Korean food all par for the course, but this? When I went to Italy I ordered gnocchi at a fancy restaurant, and it was marvellous, as was this gnocchi I bought in a vacuum pack from the grocery store. Interestingly, they served it plain. I never know what to put with gnocchi (not red sauce!), and I go to Italy and they serve it plain. So, this recipe helped me dress it up a bit and share it with my husband. He liked the dumpling texture of the gnocchi and all the bacon, but we had to giggle when we talked about who would eat the leftovers (seen above) for dinner the next night. I got that privilege and me thinks once was enough.
Randomness
I've been setting off the alarms at Kohls almost everytime I go for a long time now (specifically, since my parents bought it for me at Kohls last FALL!). It made me not want to go there, even though the associates didn't seem to care and usually waved me through. Once, they told me it was my cell phone. That didn't make sense because ONCE I had my cell phone and it didn't go off. The one time the alarm didn't go off. Finally this week, I asked a sales associate, one that I thought looked like she knew what she was doing, "Why do I set the alarms off everytime I come here?" "Oh," she says, "it's probably a tag in your coat, you can cut it out." I said, "What?" and took my coat off, "show me!" And she did! There in my coat was a little tag that looked like a tag they'd put, "Dry clean only" on, that really said, "Remove this tag." The lady offered to cut it for me and I said, "Yes, yes! Do it!" And my problem came to a sudden end.
We have earned $17.67 now on our Discover card. Just $2.33 more and we can have that as cold hard cash!
Hotdogs on a stick (previously from a corndog) make them oh such a treat to my son, who likes to dip anything in ketchup. Let me just say Hebrew National Hotdogs are a family favorite. Nothing says, "I love you" like processed kosher meat.
I have begun to add labels to my 75 previous posts. It's a work in progress, needless to say, and I should have been labeling all along. But I didn't. So, for your added convenience, you can see a growing list of my labels on the side bar, click on recipes or topics you like and find them more easily. Yay!
What makes me think it could be a girl: I'm carrying a bit higher than last time (as evidenced by comparing measurements from the first pregnancy to the second), and I had nausea and fatigue like I never had the first time. What make me think it's a boy: I have pregnancy acne again like with Z and I'm told a higher heart rate is indicative of a boy too and it was just as high as Z's was. Any thoughts on this? I ask my mother-in-law and she says, "It's definitely a baby."
