Cazadora Ranch

This past weekend Erik, Laine, Alicia and I all drove 5 hours to a friends ranch and had three wonderful days of doing whatever we wanted. Most of it included naps and food and playing on the playground but some of it included the ranch itself. We rode the property on the golf cart a few times, we fed the horses and had moments with a goat who wanted to eat my baby.
Friday, Erik, Alicia and I were all able to get the day off of work so we were able to be on the road by 9:30 after I dropped off the cake balls to the WOMAN WHO MADE THE FIRST EVER ORDER OF CAKE BALLS! That was exciting. We met and exchanged cake for money in a gas station parking lot. It felt like a drug deal, I totally got an adrenalin rush. Once we got on the road Laine fell asleep and I was able to concentrate of some barrettes for about two hours, then she woke up and we stopped at a burger king when she started getting rowdy. After a bellyful of food and some running around we piled back in the car and made it to the ranch just after 3:00. That’s some pretty dang good time for driving with a toddler. Once we got to the ranch we got the tour of the most wonderful most beautiful place in the world. I mean it’s amazing. It’s peaceful and quiet and there are no people around and no traffic and no smells or sights besides that which God planted and I LOVED IT! There were no people! It was heaven for me.
We piled into a golf cart (all 6 of us) and drove around the property for about a half an hour, taking photos of things that probably won't interest me again but totally fascinated me there. We saw rabbits and roadrunners and eagles and red-winged blackbirds and turtles and otters and deer and hogs and trees that have been around longer than my family name! There was so much to see and at the same time absolutely nothing to distract you from the beautiful place we were in.
We got back to the house and unpacked our bags, I traded in my sandals for boots and we got started on dinner, steak and potatoes of course. However when I say steak and potatoes there is no way for you to understand the amazingness of that meal unless you’ve eaten with my family. If you have you know, if you haven’t you haven’t ever really eaten.
After dinner we played with Laine on the playground that was right in front of the house; a huge wonderful playground with a slide and swings and amazing happy rays of sunshine sprouting out from it in all directions totally intoxicating my daughter with laughter and bubbly giggles for the entirety of the trip. I love that playground.
Bed time came around 9:30 for Laine and me, even Erik crashed earlier than usual. Being outdoors eating mad amounts of good food and drinking very cold beer can wear you out if you aren’t used to such wonderful conditions. My city body had to adjust to the easy life of the country.
Daddy woke Erik up around midnight to go out hunting and while they were gone Laine woke up, of course flipping out, in a strange place in a strange bed and it was super dark and she couldn’t see me so it took me a while to calm her down, but after I told her “It’s okay, we're sleeping in DonDon’s bed” it made her a lot more curious than afraid of where she was. And that started the next two days worth or “It’s DonDon’s bed? It’s DonDon’s chair? It’s DonDon’s house? It’s DonDon’s? It’s DonDon’s? It’s DonDon’s?”
It’s really cute is what it is.
Saturday morning Laine and I were up at 7:00 for breakfast and cartoons for a few hours before everyone else got up and started moving around. We spent the morning with coffee and campfires and good company a hammock and some music. A beach vacation with pina colada’s delivered to me by ethnically handsome young men can’t even touch a morning like we had in the hot and dry side of Nowhere, Texas.
We went for another ride around the property, took some more photo’s and enjoyed the cool breeze that was missing the day before. We played with Laine on the playground and had conversations usually reserved for Sundays. We prepared then ate more food and took naps. TOOK NAPS. Sorry, didn’t know if you saw that. I TOOK A NAP. Yeah I did.
We slept until around 2:00 and then waited for everyone else to wake up form their naps, we sat around the fire again and played at the playground again and we fed the horses some apples and we made the acquaintance of a very mean very ugly goat that literally kept trying to eat my child’s feet.
Yeah, I snatched her up and ran away.
Yeah, my dad laughed at me.
Oh and how my dad laughed! All weekend, all day and night and day and night again. He laughed and when he wasn’t laughing he was smiling. The place we were in was amazing enough on it’s own but to have the music of my dad’s laughter covering it all was like all the beautiful things you can think of wrapped up in all the beautiful things you can’t think of and smooshed together with all the beautiful things God hasn't made yet. It’s was so nice. I really, really hated to leave.
I’ll have photo’s tomorrow.

mmmm...Update.

Gluten free brownies with sugar free chocolate icing in a not sugar free but
super yummy vanilla candy shell with silver rock candy sprinkles, yeah!

Vanilla Spice cake balls with a vanilla candy shell,
 before decorating drizzle.

After the decorating drizzle of pink vanilla candy.
 I think these two are cute together.

Gluten free Devils Food cake with sugar free chocolate icing in a not sugar free but
super yummy chocolate candy shell with a pink vanilla drizzle.

I got my first Mother's Day card of the year
from Levi and Sydney, yay!

Happy Mother's Day weekend to all the mothers reading this.
But mainly mine.



Happy Birthday Daddy

Hello Sister: Basketti.

You said you were tired of all the chicken and rice and rice and rice you and Levi were eating so I thought maybe I’d give you something to play with. This is a spaghetti sauce that Erik asks me to make on a fairly regular basis. We had it for dinner last night, I took photos because not enough cook books show you step by step how things are supposed to look. It’s easier for me to follow this way. Hope you like it; it doesn’t have rice in it!

Things you’ll need:

o A big pot, a stove and a spoon.
o Olive oil
o One medium yellow onion (only yellow, red and white are gross)
o Two Zucchini
o Two Yellow Squash
o A big handful of sliced mushrooms (half a bucket’s worth)
o One pound ground meat (chicken turkey beef or pork, I’ve used every kind and it all works, this time I used a mild Italian sausage)
o One large can of petit diced tomatoes
o Two cans of tomato paste
o ¼ cup red wine
o 1 cup water
o Black pepper and salt and garlic (fresh ground pepper and kosher salt is what I use but whatever you have is fine, if it’s fresh cracked pepper and kosher salt though it sounds fancier with you tell folks about it)
o Red Pepper flakes
o Whatever other seasoning you like (with chicken try thyme, with beef use oregano and basil, with pork I like a little fennel and rosemary, it’s all up to you though. Use your own judgment, but I totally know what I’m talking about so just do like I say and get creative later if you don’t like it.)
Start by heating up the oil in the pot, not to the point of smoking and not really for any reason in particular, I just love hearing the sizzle when I throw the onions in. I tend to cackle and say “die my pretties” as I stir, but you can do whatever. I add the pepper and salt (fresh cracked and kosher) here so that I can do just one more thing the opposite of everyone else. Last night I got it just right and didn’t need extra salt at the end but not everyone is the salting savant I am, so go easy on yourself if you find you need more later.

This is what the onion should look like once it’s
seasoned and cooked for about ten minutes

Once the onion has cooked and looks a little slimy that’s when I add the meat. Cook the meat all they way until it’s totally done. Then, if you want, drain the juices. I keep all the juices because it tastes better when you do, just make sure the meat you are using is lean and there won’t be an abundance of fat left. 

I didn’t drain the meat last night and you can see there wasn’t much juice left. (Also the onions do soak up some while cooking.) At this point, add the red pepper flakes, or cayenne or Tabasco, whatever you have on hand.

I don’t cut up my veggies until this part because I like the meat and onions to sit in the pepper for a while. Well, that and also I usually forget. So cut it all up and add the zucchini and squash and give it a good mix.

I add in ¼ cup of red wine. It’s not enough to really do much of anything except add a tiny bit of flavor. Also it seems to make the veggies cook a little faster than with just the water we add in later. The wine will soak up fast and you’ll want to add more, I’d say not to but go for it, no reason you shouldn’t. Just don’t drown it, save some to drink with dinner.

Mushrooms next, because you can’t add all the veggies at once, because I say so and because I forgot the mushrooms and because we are going in order of the pictures I took.

Next add a cup of water and a big spoonful of garlic. I use the kind that comes in a jar because when you use as much as I do it's just so much simpler, and cheaper.

Pour in the can of tomatoes, juice and all. Stand back when you do this. I've ruined so many shirts by splashing myself with tomato juice. That crap doesn't come out easy.

After you stir all of it together it should look like this.

Put the lid on the pot and set your timer to 30 minutes. Clean your kitchen turn the stove on for your bread and prep the dough for baking.

Periodically stirring the pot.

After thirty minutes put your bread into the oven and start your noodles cooking. By the time your bread is done and cooling your noodles should be almost done. Add two cans of tomato paste and stir it in well.

You’re sauce should be the consistency of ketchup or a little thinner.

Drain your noodles and make a bowl.

This stuff doesn’t freeze too well so eat it all within the week. By day seven give it to the dog.

I hope it was as good for you as it was for me.

Resolution Update

So I’m coming along quite nicely on my resolutions this last week. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I made interesting dinners with things I’ve never used before. Monday I tried a Turkey Veggie loaf. It was really good, there was about a 50/50 ratio of meat to veggies and you couldn’t tell there wasn’t any beef in it. I’m thinking I really just got lucky with the seasoning, Erik like it anyway. Tuesday I made a chicken dinner with couscous, something I’ve never cooked with before, it was way easy and totally a taste I can get used to. Wednesday I cooked a London broil, a good hunk of beef that cooks quickly and tender, it was the best meal of the week by far. Thursday I didn’t cook, we ate leftovers. But Momma gave me three tins of crescent rolls and I have strawberries that are going soft so I made homemade pop tarts. No complaints from the person or my man but I may put some icing on it next time. By next time I mean tonight. I have more strawberries and some blueberries. It’s going to be epic. I’ll tell you all about it later.
This whole week I have only worn jeans to work today, that's four days of no jeans, no t-shirts, no flip flops; and not because of the cold either, I’ve worn a skirt one day, my nice black pants (that are actually pajama’s but don’t tell anyone that) one day, and long shirts with leggings two days.
Today I’m wearing my jeggings (ha) and a sweater with my boots. Yes my jean/leggings are tucked in my boots. I’m what you might call stylish. It’s true, I’m chic and trendy. Tastefully modish.
I’m totally being sarcastic. Do you know how hard it is for me to not immediately grab my jeans in the morning? You know how most people get their comfy pajamas on a cold night and snuggle down with their honey or next to a fire and all they care about is being comfortable, not attractive, well that’s how I get dressed in the morning. So this week has been hard for me. But the end overall wasn’t so bad, I’m forcing myself to put thought into how I look, not that I care but I know that other people do, and when they care I feel better about myself. And blah blah blah.

Now on to what I want to talk about really. I’m getting crafty! Both Evil Scientist-y and artsy just like I wanted! My Evil Scientist comes in with Erik. I haven’t called him in two days but he has called me both times. So. I’m winning. And my artsy is coming in with the dolls I decided yesterday to make. I went and bought material and thread and felt and I printed the pattern and got a lot of it cut out. I’m going back to Hobby Lobby today to get the stuffing and I hope to be finished with at least one today. I have enough stuff to make 10 dolls, now I just need to find 10 girls to give them to. I’ve already started naming them; Adeline, Beatrice, Claudette, Dorothée, Éloise, Florence, Gwyneth, Héloise, Isabeau, Jenette and so on.
(Now I need to find a pattern for boys, since I already have Adam, Benjaminm, Caleb, Daniel, Ephraim, Frankincense and Gideon... right mom?)

Last Night

Laine and I had a pretty great night last night. I picked her up from daycare around 5:45 and Miss Danielle told me she’d been just perfect all day. She’d taken an extra long nap and gotten a little cranky near the end of the day but she’d eaten well and played well with no fevers or coughing. So that was really good to hear.

I had called Erik on my way home to see if he was going to be wanting any dinner last night and he didn’t know if he was going to be home in time to eat with me and Laine or not so I was going to just do leftovers again but I got home and looked in the fridge and saw the carrots and broccoli and mushrooms hanging out like little stoners on the couch and I had to snatch them up by the hair and tell them to get outside and mow that grass… I mean I got the out and cooked them. I chopped up a ton of vegetables, carrots, broccoli, mushrooms, bell pepper and onion before I even looked in my cookbook to see which meal I was going to make. Lucky for me all those veggies go in the turkey veggie meatloaf so that’s what I made. It took me over an hour and a half to get the veggies cut up and cooked because Laine started getting super needy after she finished her dinner of berries and oranges. I usually put her up on the counter while I cook but I wasn’t done chopping yet and I didn’t want her to get curious at the same time I got distracted an lop off a finger so I had to pause what I was doing to get down on the floor with her and draw or make animal noises or something to entertain her and still be close enough to cuddle when she wanted it, every five minutes. This is me totally not minding it too. I love when she just needs me to hug her, it’s such a change from the “pick me up pick me up pick me up I need to see things from up high!!!!!” now it’s very much a “pick me up pick me up pick me up HUG!!!!!!!!” and I really really love it. It’s going to suck so bad to go back to the old ways when she’s feeling 100% again.

Then when I was finally done with the meatloaf and it was in the oven and all my dishes were washed or in the dishwasher and my counters were wiped down and all Laine’s toys were picked up I turned to find her and she was gone! Not underfoot, or right behind me so when I turn around I almost trip on her little feet, so I went looking and she’d pulled herself up onto the couch and snuggled down with her blanket just sucking her thumb and staring at the TV, that wasn’t’ on. She heard me creeping in with the camera and popped up so I missed it but I thought it was adorable, if I had left her to herself she probably would have put herself to sleep there. So I lay down next to her and snuggled for the 45 minutes it took for the meatloaf to bake, and Erik got home 5 minutes before that was done so he did make it home in time. We got the green beans steamed really quick and sat to eat. Laine at a ton of green beans like normal and mostly played with the meatloaf but she did eat some of it. Then she asked for a bottle and before too long after the house was put to bed it was 10:00 and she was still awake. So she and I marched upstairs and she passed out quick AND slept all night! She woke up right at 5:20 which made me really glad I’d taken my shower the night before, its tough to take a shower once she’s awake in the mornings without making her get in with me and Laine isn’t really awake enough for bath time until at least 45 minutes after waking up. Putting her in water at before that is exactly the same as trying to blow dry a cat. Really twisty screamy and you’ll get scratched up for trying.

That’s it. I have a video of Laine last night during one of her quiet times, you’ll see it only lasts a few seconds before it’s back to the whiney voice and there’s a photo of the one time I didn’t get to her fast enough and took too long getting my phone’s camera to boot up.

Wish me luck for tonight, I feel like it may be difficult. I don’t’ know why, mother’s wackadoodleness I would guess, but I feel like something is going to be very hard for me tonight. I’ll take anything at all as long as Laine is happy. Of course I say that now…

Weekend Update

The weekend is over and I’m actually thankful. It seems that Laine only gets sick on the weekends, only Sunday’s really; I’d like to blame her frequent ickyness on the daycare but it looks like my home may be the cause. Five days a week she’s in that daycare all day long and she is perfect but two full days in the house and she gets fevers and colds and coughs. Not cool, yo.

Friday I got off work close to 3:30, a lot later than usual on Fridays. I picked Laine up close to 4:15 and she and I went to hang out at the house for just a few minutes before going to Momma and Daddy’s house for an hour before they went to lunch. Once in for the night Laine helped me set some beans to soak for the next night’s dinner. She and I relaxed in the living room until bedtime which came a little earlier than normal, around 7:30 and since I have to sleep when she does I went down early too. Erik didn’t come home until after 11:30 so I didn’t see him until the morning.

Saturday Laine and I were up at butt crack, or more like right at the top of the panty line of dawn. 6ish. But it was a good morning Laine was in a playful but not spastic mood. She ate a good amount for breakfast and then she and I sat at the living room table a drew on every piece of blank paper in the house, that’s not really all that much apparently because when she was done with the blank papers she started finding my papers; shopping lists and receipts and pieces of Christmas wrapping paper under the couch, I just started following her around the house and after a while she’d found every spec of dirt I’d missed from the last time I cleaned. So I gave her a rag and let her dust every surface she could reach and when she’d finished with that I let her sweep the entry way, because believe it of not, she really enjoys cleaning. I love that she loves to help me out right now. I’m sure I won’t get much more time with her being this helpful in the years to come.

After I’d finished the laundry and dishes from breakfast Laine and I went upstairs to take a shower. She wasn’t into playing in the water for the first time in her life and just wanted to be held so that’s what I did and I found out you really only need one hand in the shower anyway. Laine helped me wash my hair and face and as worried as I got about my shampoo being in her hands she didn’t get any in her eyes. When we got out and dried off it took me a while to catch Laine and hold her down long enough to get a diaper on her and by the time I got her dressed I was very nearly exhausted. Erik picked this time to tumble down the stairs and grace us with his radiating morning glory; boy howdy, did we feel blessed. At 9:45 we left the house and headed out to Friendswood to watch Jacob play basketball. He stole the ball and took it up for a basket; he’s so much more fun to watch this season. Last year he got a little confused with the sport, instead of dribbling the ball there was a lot of sliding into home. It was fun to watch that too, but I’m glad he’s finally gotten the hang of the game. Laine, for the most part was a good sport, she wanted to be in Nanny's lap, then Pawpaw’s then Daddy’s then Nanny’s but not mine and that’s okay because she more than made up for it by Sunday.

After the basketball game Momma me Erik and the kids went to Luna’s for lunch, Laine slept for the first twenty minutes or so until the food got there and didn’t seem too interested in the food, but she ate a little bit. When we got home I wanted Laine to take another longer nap but she wasn’t up for it so I brought her downstairs and let her help me get dinner started while Erik went upstairs to once again do battle with the squirrel. He blocked their exit and went hunting with his pellet gun, but didn’t get anything other than a tail or two. He has officially asked for my father’s help, which will come in the form of a six pack and a couple lawn chairs set up in the attic, it may take all day but they’ll kill ‘em, then probably expect me to skin, clean and cook them just for ceremonial reasons, Erik may even buy the innards in the back yard in respect for their spirit. Two years is a LONG time to be at war. Be it between countries, states or attic space.

When Erik came back downstairs, deflated, defeated, beaten… looking trounced, crushed, vanquished… I laughed. I can’t believe how undeniably subjugated he’s become to this rodent family. He is utterly dominated. And yes I laugh. Not outright or to his face, much. Mostly I chuckle and pair it with a good hug and a “poor little bunny”.
He took Laine outstide to ride her new bike to make himself feel better, if you look closely you can see the sadness in his eyes.

I told Erik to check in with his sisters to see if maybe we could get a babysitter and go see a movie, just to get him out and away from the monsters he’s fighting and after a sort-of ordeal we got Jennifer to come over around 6:30. I’d made red beans and needed to have it stirred every once in a while and I was more concerned with that happening than I was in Laine’s care, Jenn’s an amazing babysitter, I’ve got nothing negative to say about the way she takes care of Laine for me, she’s one of the best caretakers we’ve got.
So, Erik and I went out and saw Tron at the AMC30 on IMAX in 3D. All I can say is really? Seriously? That’s the story? That’s retarded. But it looks good. So there’s that.
Home again at 10:00 and Laine is out, thankfully. Jennifer read her to sleep; something I’ve never been able to do, and usually she only let you get a page into it before taking it away and reading it herself, or tearing pages out to draw on.
Laine was up before daylight again though and I know that I said that I’m being strict about Laine not sleeping in my bed but I need to put a caveat on my rule: when it’s thundering and lightning-ing outside then its okay to snuggle with mom. I’m drew my line but then put a little bridge over it. If she’s scared of something like thunder that’s going to stick around for a while then snuggle time it is, but if it’s a nightmare then I’ll go into her room and snuggle time is on there. I don’t think that’s going to hurt my habit forming plans with her. The thing that is really great about letting her sleep in my bed is that she sleeps later than normal. She slept all the way until 8:30 in the morning. I actually had to wake her up for once. Getting ready for church was easy enough, I got Laine up and we played for a while and I had to clean up the explody-ness that she made of the living room in the 30 seconds my back was turned making coffee, then we went upstairs for our shower, this time all she wanted to do was play in the water coming out of the faucet and she got mad at me for turning the shower head on for myself. Erik came in right as I was getting dried off, and he jumped in right behind me so that Laine could stay and play longer in the water, but as soon as he turned the shower head back on for himself we ran out of hot water. Haha! I grabbed Laine and Erik had to do the peepee dance while he washed his hair and made little girl noises while rising off. I just stood there watching and laughing. To his face this time. After the shower Erik ran back to bed and crawled under the covers while I took Laine downstairs and fed her and got her dressed and ready to go, except for some reason she didn’t want to be put down at all so I had to get ready one handed, and unlike taking showers, putting on a face does require more than one hand. So she was a little pissy with me after a while of jostling her from hip to hip, trying to get myself dressed. Around 9:20 I started screeching upstairs for Erik to get his butt in gear. I had to threaten to come up stairs before I heard the bed squeak and him get up. Lazy baby. We all got out the door and to church on time surprisingly, but when we got there Laine wasn’t looking so hot. Her eyes were all of a sudden glassy and she felt hot to the touch. Erik kept a hold of her for a while as he worked the check in desk but after a while he put her in her class. I worked in the nursery so I wasn’t able to check on her at all, and Erik had to come help me because we actually had 5 babies this Sunday. That’s a lot for us. 3 of the 5 felt like Sundays are be held by stranger days and wouldn’t let us put them down, but I don’t think any of us really minded. I got Samuel, the newbie, the perfectly perfect little newbie, so I was beyond happy rocking the little one. I totally got my baby fix for the week.
After the service was over and all the babies were gone I went to go get Laine, but she’d fallen asleep in a bean bag chair. I changed her diaper and let her lay there for a while longer. Our church had lunch catered for everyone from Carraba’s this Sunday and it was amazing to have that much awesome food for free. I could smell it as it was right outside Laine’s classroom, Erik was going to go eat then come back and watch Laine as I ate, but after a while I got the sneaking feeling that he forgot, and sure enough he did. My mom was finished and came to take her and went back to the nursery to rock her while I made my plate. Well, first I went to Erik and gave him my best “Oh, I thought you were going to come help me when you were done, oh no, please don’t get up, I know you’re probably tired from snuggling in the bed all warm this morning while I was up doing stuff, so you just sit there, do you need a piece of pie? No, no, no, I’ll get it for you dear, there are no more seats left in the room and I don’t want anyone to steal yours, like maybe your wife, who’d like a seat, NO! Please, don’t get up. Don’t strain yourself. Love you!” then I went and sat in the hallway with mom and Laine. It’s whatever. Verbally punching him in the kidney makes me feel better sometimes.
After Lunch we had our E5 training which is basically an update on procedures and rules and scheduling for all the volunteers at the church. Laine stayed with mom in the prayer group and Erik and I went to the preschool table to get our news from Sam, who did a great job of being in charge and knowing stuff. After the meeting Erik went to show a new volunteer how to work the check in system on the computer and I went to check on Laine with mom. Laine was still asleep and still feeling like she was running a fever so mom asked if it was okay with me if she had the prayer team pray for Laine, like I’d ever say someone couldn’t pray for my child. I’d actually prefer if everyone I know was praying ceaselessly for my children, that includes all of you. So I really wouldn’t mind if you just went ahead and got on that. Now. Thanks.
After Church we headed to CVS to grab some children’s Tylenol and some sort of cold medication because the one we have at the house is crap. I ended up getting some homeopathic 100% natural thing that said it wouldn't make her spastic, it’s rare to find a decongestant that isn’t a stimulant, but I guess the natural kind isn’t so there we go. Anyway, when I got back to the car from being inside CVS Laine was finally awake and was talking to Erik, he kept trying to get her to repeat what she’d just said. She’d told Erik as soon as she woke up that “Nanny did it, bobo gone, bobo all gone!” I’m pretty sure that’s about the weirdest thing ever. For one thing she was asleep when mom prayed over her and two, her fever was broken and three, my kid just said her Nanny made her sickness go away, like she understood that prayer worked to heal her. THAT’S BEYOND ALL THINGS COOL!!!! I’m just saying.
We got home and gave her the medication for her congestion and she passed out on the couch around 4:00 and from then on except for one little scare with the fever again and another prayer she’s been fine. She kept waking up but not really, just when my phone would alert me to a text message, she'd pop her head up, eye's wide and go "PAWPAW?!?!" then collapse back to sleep. So, she’s slept since 4:00 and she was still asleep when I dropped her off at daycare, I told them to let her sleep as long as she wanted until the lesson plans needed to be started. So she’s all better, Go Team God!

Barefoot Tuesday on Wednesday

No photo of the food today, I didn’t take any and I don’t feel like googling anyone else’s photo because without a doubt my Roasted Cauliflower looked so much prettier than any photo I could find. And it was YUMMY too. So yummy.
I also made the Warm French Lentils again to go on the side of the chicken I pan friend for Erik. He said he really liked it, we’ll see if he liked it enough to take the leftovers to work with him today. I kind of hope not, I wouldn’t mind eating it myself for dinner tonight.

Barefoot Week

Now onto more update-y things, I’ll catch you up on my recent Barefoot-ed-ness from this last week. It all began the Monday before last when I got the crazy beetle up my butt to cook something from my new cookbook. And I did cook, every day for five days. I know, if my arms weren’t so rotund I’d be able to reach to pat my back, as it is however I was just able to pat the top of my shoulder, good enough.

~Monday night I made a Rich Beefy Barley Soup. Now remember resolution number two? Well this recipe is what gave me the idea for it, this soup needed oxtail. Do you know what oxtail is? I didn’t. I still don’t think I do. It’s in the beef section so if it’s beef but called ox I don’t know, also if you look at it too long you can start getting some seriously disgusting ideas about what part of the animal it comes from, I thought tail which is far too close to the butt for my comfort so I just cooked it and stopped looking at it. This first recipe got me way out of my comfort zone, I had to use barley which I’ve never cooked with before and since I didn’t even know what a leek was I used mushrooms instead as a filler (now I know what a leek is, that comes in on Thursday so wait). Momma and Daddy came over and helped us eat the pot of Butt Appendage Stew, which is totally what it’s called now, and they liked it. I would have done a back flip if not or the rotund and bad back things I’ve got.

~Tuesday night I made Chicken with Shallots and some Roasted Butternut Squash on the side. It was all a very big hit with Laine and Erik. I only got a half a plate of food with both of them snatching bites off my plate. I was afraid Erik wouldn’t like the butternut squash since he has such an awesome hatred for sweet potatoes and they tastes similar, but he loved it and promised to try some sweet potatoes next time I make some, just in case his taste buds have changed. Sweet man.

~Wednesday night I made Spicy Turkey Meatballs & Spaghetti. This was the meal that I was totally disappointed in. I wasn’t let down with the flavor, that was great, it was perfect really it’s just the fact that it calls for meats and cheeses that were way pricy and I don’t think it needed all that money in it to make it taste as good as they did. I may be completely wrong but I think I can use regular bacon next time instead of pancetta and I can defiantly use a cheaper cheese. I don’t think the Asiago really made that much of a difference. However, it was a very nice meal and Erik’s favorite of the week hands down.

~Thursday was leftover night for Erik since he was working late and I decided to make something I figured he wouldn’t like (I was WAY wrong) just for me and Laine. I made Warm French Lentils that are supposed to be a side dish but I made it a meal. This is the recipe where I figured out what a leek was and I also found out I don’t mind leeks, I even used them again during the weekend. I really am looking forward to making this again, but it’s defiantly one of those meals that you have to shop for every time, I don’t usually keep leeks and turnips in the house. Well who knows, maybe now I’ll start.

~Friday night I made Tuscan White Beans at Erik’s parents house. With Kate’s room being remodeled and Jenifer moving back into the house there was too much going on and not enough people around to make it happen so Erik went to help move, I went to make dinner and Laine was there for cookie consumption, background noise and consternation. The child excels, you can borrow her if you need that particular combination. This meal was kind of an ordeal for me since I was making it with dried beans and it took me over three hours to fast soak and cook them. I also cooked the rice at home and chopped all the veggies and put them in baggies for the trip. I took my new Dutch oven, which I’ve cooked every meal in this week so far, just so I could show them how awesome it was.

~Saturday was New Year’s Day and we went to do the Black-eyed Pea, Cabbage and Ham thing at Erik’s uncle’s house, I don’t get it at all but I don’t judge either. Yes, yes I do but I did it quietly and with James Jeffrey backing me up at every turn. I do love that man. No, you can’t know who he is, I’m keeping him to myself.
When I got home from lunch I was starving since I can’t eat black-eyed peas due to the insane amount of grossness they carry and I couldn’t eat the cabbage because I think it was stewed and it may have had things growing in it. I didn’t look close enough to see. I tried but my nose melted off and I got scared. So I ate the appetizers and let Laine eat my food and it looked like I ate a whole plate, see, I was nice and didn’t hurt anyone’s feeling, unless they saw me feeding Laine under the table… or are reading this. Hiiii...
So back to starving at home, I was looking at the leftovers from all this week and nothing was really calling out to me and I saw that all my veggie drawers were still kind of full and I figured I’d better do something with all that fresh food before it went bad, so I cut up everything and threw it in a pot. And that’s what I’ve been eating for the last three days. It’s yummy.