Hippie Chick Salad with Garlic & Feta Vinaigrette

I whipped this up for dinner last night and I have to say, it was totally groovy.

If you are pressed for time, or if you have leftovers in your refrigerator that you want to use up, this is the go-to dinner you have been searching for.
You can use any vegetables and grains that you have on hand.  Last night, I happened to use brown rice, but white rice, quinoa, bulgar or barley would all be great, too.

Here's what you need:

For The Salad
1 cup uncooked brown rice (or any grain)
1 head cooked broccoli
2 Tb olive oil
1/2 large sweet potato, cut into small cubes
1 tsp turmeric
salt to taste
1/4 roasted sunflower seeds

Bring two cups of water to a boil and add uncooked rice.  Let boil for 2 minutes, reduce heat to a simmer and cover.  Let cook for about 45 minutes or until rice is tender.
While the rice is cooking, heat 2 Tb olive oil in a dutch oven.  Add sweet potato.  Cook, stirring occasionally to keep from sticking to the bottom of the pan.  After about 10 minutes it should start to soften.  Sprinkle with salt and turmeric and cook 1 minute more.  Remove from heat.
Combine broccoli, sweet potato cubes, sunflower seeds and rice together in a large bowl.


For the Vinaigrette
1/2 cup good quality olive oil
3 Tb white wine vinegar
1 garlic clove
1/4 cup feta cheese
2 Tb flax seeds
salt and pepper

Roughly chop garlic clove and add the first 5 ingredients together in a food processor.
Whiz until everything starts to emulsify.
Taste and season with salt and pepper.

Pour vinaigrette over the rice and vegetables. Stir to make sure everything is coated evenly.
Serve at room temperature.

Like I said earlier, anything works in this salad.  Get creative and have fun!

Catch You Later,
Lana

Coffee or Tea?

Today I didn't make our normal morning pot of coffee.
Jim had already left for school, and the idea of making a whole pot of delicious coffee for myself seemed wasteful.
So I made tea.
Jasmine green tea, to be exact.

And you know what? I love tea, but it just doesn't hold a match to coffee for that good ole caffeinated kick in the ass I need most mornings.
Not only that, tea doesn't smell like coffee.
Sigh.
I love the smell of coffee.  Some people say it's the best part of waking up.
Sipping a Cup of Bloody Tea,
(In my best British Accent, of course!)
Lana

Are You Ready for the Oscars?

I have a confession:
I don't enjoy football.
It just takes forever and, frankly, it bores me.

What I do enjoy is any event that involves food, family and cocktails.
For many American families, the nearest upcoming event in which this gorgeous trifecta will take place is the Superbowl.
For me, it's the Oscars.

Oh, just the name makes my heart sing!
OSCAR!  OSCAR!  OSCAR!


My little sister and I have a sick obsession with watching The Red Carpet.
We also have a sick obsession with the menu for the night.
Often, it includes copious amounts of cheese and wines and perhaps some kind of sweets, just to round the whole "meal" out.
(There will be more on this menu at a later date.)

My sister watches The Oscars for the fashion.
She shouts out names of designers as movie stars stroll across the screen wearing gorgeous gowns.
I have no idea who designs what, and most of the time I can't imagine stuffing myself into a dress that fancy.
I would much rather be wearing leggings if had to sit for four hours.
Plus, what happens if you spill Wolfgang Puck's Tuna Tartar on a gown that costs more than my annual salary?
Obviously, fashion is lost on me.

I watch The Oscars because I love movies.
Oh, and because I have a sick fascination with Angelina and Jennifer.
There, I said it and yes, I know it's lame.
But seriously, I still feel bad for Jen!
And I want to hate Angelina, but she's so darn mesmerizing.
I like to imagine the tension between the two of them as they pass each other in the fancy bathroom at The Kodak Theater and frankly, I find it more fascinating than half the movies nominated for Best Picture.

Speaking of Best Picture, while I doubt it's possible, I do wish "Midnight in Paris" could somehow take the cake and go home with Oscar.
It was just a lovely film and it made me very happy to watch it.
Also, couldn't you just kind of see Luke Wilson doing something crazy and memorable if they announced the movie as the winner?  Perhaps he would jump on a chair and blow kisses to the stars a la Roberto Benigni!
           
Isn't it impossible not to feel joy when you see this man celebrating his win?        
Admit it, this is so much better than football.

Printing Play-at-Home Oscar Ballots,
Lana

Ripple

A funny thing happened to me on my way to becoming a vegetarian:
I started to notice more things.

For instance, I noticed for the first time how much meat was in the grocery store.
Sure, when you are shopping for it, you see it, but have you ever really noticed it?
Have you ever just stood back, stared at the meat and thought,
"Damn, that's a lot of meat."
Have you ever wondered what they do with it all?
Because they can't possibly sell all of it before it expires, right?
Have you ever looked at the chicken legs and seen actual chicken legs?
Try it.  It's a weird Aha! moment.

While it may seem to be, I promise that this post is not a rant about vegetarianism.
I promise I'm not going to ask you to place your hand over your heart and solemnly swear to never eat meat again.
What I am going to ask you to do, is to become more aware.

Becoming "aware" is what inadvertently happened to me when I gave up eating meat.
I started reading more labels.
I started shopping the perimeter of the store.
I started wondering why on earth I was paying so much for "prepared" foods when the "whole" foods were so much cheaper.
I started buying bags of flour to make my own biscuits and gave up the "whack the tube on the counter until it pops" variety.
I started buying local and organic.
I stocked up on dried beans, lentils and rice and I even made my own stock.

In a nutshell, by becoming a vegetarian, I also stopped eating processed foods.

In doing this, I started to learn how to actually cook things that I sort of forgot were once made from scratch.
Come on, really, when is the last time you didn't use a cake mix to whip up a birthday cake?
Up until recently, my answer to this question was never.  Never!
Somewhere a little old lady just rolled over in her grave.

There are things I became fascinated with perfecting.
Pizza, pancakes, crepes, cakes, and biscuits were at the top of my carbohydrate addicts list.

I have this fantasy about making huge, buttery, light biscuits that people will talk about long after I'm gone.
Is that weird?
Does it make you wonder why you read this blog?
I hope not.
Because that fantasy is what prompted me to make these:

Yes, they were buttery.
Yes, they were light.
Yes, they were huge.
Yes, I ate three of them.

Perfect Biscuits
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
6 Tb chilled unsalted butter
3/4 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Sift four, baking powder, baking soda and salt together in a large bowl.
Cut in the butter with a pastry blender.
Make a well in the center and add the buttermilk.
Using your hand, stir the dough until it just starts to pull away from the side of the bowl, then turn it onto a lightly floured surface.
Roll out the dough with a lightly floured rolling pin and then, using a biscuit cutter, cut the dough into circles.
Place biscuits on ungreased baking sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes.

Note: I find the less you handle the dough, the lighter and more buttery your biscuits will be.

With love from my carbohydrate induced coma,
Lana




Recipe adapted from The Joy of Cooking.

Loads to Talk About

Grace and I just got back from spending three fun-filled days visiting my family.
I consumed too much food, had a impromptu shopping spree with my sisters and celebrated a monumental birthday party.
It was so fun and totally exhausting.
I promise I have lots to write and lots to talk with you about.
However, piles of laundry are stacking up and threatening to bury me alive if I stop moving for one minute.
Once everything is caught up and Grace is napping, I'll sit down so we can chat.
Sorting Socks,
Lana

Gettin' the Boot

I am one of those people who, in the middle of a snow or rainstorm, will decide that I need a good pair of boots, and I will head out into the cold in search of them.
I do this, because up until yesterday, I didn't have any good "element" boots.
I have fashion boots, I have sneakers, I have lots of flip flops and a fair share of high heels.
But when it comes to a boot that has any sort of functionality in cold, wet, weather...I had none.

The problem is that I hate most boots that are" in style".
I feel like I am in the age gap where Ugg boots are "too young" and galoshes are "too old".
I needed something timeless and something fashionable.
In my mind's eye, I knew exactly what this boot looked like, but much to my dismay, most stores didn't carry my visionary sole mate.
I always ended up going home empty handed, with wet, cold feet.

Yesterday morning, prompted by a sale advertisement I saw for Macy's, I decided to go out in search for the perfect pair of boots.
Here is what I found!


They are exactly the boots that I have been searching for!
Aren't they perfect?
They were the first pair I spotted and it was as if the heavens opened and a beam of light shone down upon them.
I swear I heard violins playing in the distance.

These boots are made for walkin'
And for jumpin' in rain puddles.
And for sloshin' through snow.
And for keepin' my feet warm and dry.
And for wearin' with a cute pair of jeggins when there is no sort of precipitation in the forecast whatsoever.

I love em.
Most of all, I love that I'll never again will I  come home with wet, cold feet.

All my heart and sole,
Lana
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Once You Pop!

In honor of National Popcorn Day, I thought I would share a few of Monday's Nugget Rules for the Best Popcorn Ever:


1.  If you truly want exceptional popcorn, close the door to the microwave and put down the bag of chemical coated crud.
That yellow goop that you scrape off the sides of the bag and chew out from underneath your finger nails is not butter.  It might be yellow and salty and good, but it is NOT butter.
2.  Now, turn around and get reacquainted with your stove. Stove-popped popcorn is the best, no question about it, so let the stove do it's glorious job.
3.  When making stove-popped popcorn, use an oil that has a fairly high smoke point.  Corn, vegetable and canola oils are all good choices.  Olive oil?  Not so much.  It will work, though, if that is all you have on hand.
4. Choose a large pot with a sturdy lid for cooking popcorn in.  After all, no one wants to lose an eye from trajectory kernels!
5. Heat about a quarter cup of oil in the pan over medium high heat and then add enough kernels to cover the bottom of the pot in a single layer.
6.  And my very last tip is this: salt the oil and the unpopped kernels, not the finished product. Most people wait until after the popcorn is done popping to salt it, but all that leaves you with is bland popcorn and a pile of salt at the bottom of your bowl.  Salting before the kernels pop allows the salt to adhere to the kernel and flavor each beautiful, fluffy, white piece. I have no scientific proof of this, but I swear it's true.


Warning: Using the stove-top method will result in massive consumption of popcorn.
Be warned, that if you choose to drizzle the popcorn with real melted butter, oregano, garlic salt, and fresh grated Parmesan, you will become an addict.
And so far, I have not been able to find a Popcorn Eater's Anonymous.

No Peek Boston Baked Beans and Parslied Cornbread

I don't know if it was due to the drastic dip in temperature yesterday, or the fact that I have been spending every evening before I go to bed reading "Little House on the Prairie", but yesterday I was craving some good Pioneer food.  Something hearty, that would stick to our bones. Something that would require me to turn the oven on and walk away from it for hours Something that would make me think about sittin' round a campfire, singing old cowboy songs, and drinking gritty coffee from a tin cup.

I wanted something to warm my home, not only with the oven's heat, but also with the smells of good, down-home food.I wanted homemade Boston Baked Beans. No, not the kind from a can where you dump extra goodies into them to "spiff" them up, but real homemade baked beans. The kind that start with dry beans and end with someone asking for a third helping.

I also wanted cornbread. Golden, crumbly, buttery cornbread. And I wanted a butter churn, so that just like Ma, I could make a butter worthy of the being slathered onto the hot, cornbread.
Oh, well.
We can't have everything.
But we can come pretty darn close!

Monday's No Peek Boston Baked Beans

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 large onion, chopped

1 garlic clove, minced

1/4 cup tomato paste

1/2-3/4 pound dry navy beans

1 tsp liquid smoke

1 pinch red pepper flakes

3/4 cup molasses

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 tsp dry mustard

salt and pepper

• Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
• In dutch oven, heat the oil over medium heat until hot and add onion.  Cook until onion starts to soften, about 5 minutes, and add the garlic.  Cook for 1 minute and then add tomato paste.  Cook for 2 minutes, letting the paste deepen in color.
• Stir in 5 cups of water, beans, liquid smoke, red pepper flakes, molasses, brown sugar and mustard.
• Cover and bake for 2 hours. Do not peek at the beans for the entire time!
• Remove beans from oven, stir, and bake for another 30 minutes.
• Season with salt and pepper and more molasses if you want.
• Turn oven temp to 425 and bake for another 25 minutes.
• (I tossed the cornbread in for this last stretch of cooking.)

Parslied Cornbread
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup flour
4 Tb unrefined sugar (You can use white sugar.  It'll work just fine.)
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup buttermilk
1 large egg
1/4 cup  vegetable oil
Crisco for greasing skillet
(Gasp! I know, I know.  Crisco?  Folks, nothing beats it when it comes to keeping things from sticking to a skillet. Nothing.  Feel free to use something healthier, though, if you want to spend the evening scrubbing the heck out of your skillet.)

• In a large bowl combine dry ingredients.
• Add buttermilk, egg, oil and parsley.
• Beat until smooth.
• Pour the batter into a well-greased cast iron skillet.
• Bake 25 minutes at 425 degrees.

I hope you love these as much as we did, because the whole darn meal was just delicious.
If you have never had baked beans from scratch, you have really gotta make this.

Rootin and Tootin,
Lana

A Side of Friendship

Last night, I made what I like to call "A Lazy Dinner".
It consisted of a box of Rigatoni noodles, a jar of store bought pasta sauce and a thrown together salad.
The only thing that was homemade was the green-goddess dressing, that we ate not only on the salad, but by the spoonful, too.
So gross, I know...
To me, when you have pasta of any kind, you have to serve salad alongside it.
My best friend, Alissa, would disagree.

When Alissa and I were young, we worked at a bank drive-through together. When we weren't cashing checks, making deposits, or hand-rolling sacks of coin, we talked aimlessly about all the things 18 year old girls talk about.  You learn a lot about a person when you work side-by-side with them every single day, and I absolutely adored having her next to me.

Alissa is my complete opposite in so many ways.
For instance, I am a flip-flop girl, but I have never seen Alissa in anything other than beautiful high-heels. Her make-up is always stunning and her nails are always perfectly manicured.  She has that golden, tan skin that every girl would kill for, and if she weren't so darn awesome, I would probably be insanely jealous of her.
My favorite thing about Alissa, though, isn't her stunning good looks.  It's making her laugh until she cries. She'll daintily dab away the tears that are threatening to cause her mascara to run while her whole body shakes with laughter.

Sitting in that drive-through, night after night, not only offered Alissa and I the chance to talk about our favorite shade of nail polish and our favorite favorite 90's T.V show, we also talked about our families. Even then, long before I ever had a kitchen of my very own to cook in, I was fascinated by the meals that families ate together.
I cannot remember how it came about, (I would like to think it was the nightly phone calls we each made to our mothers asking what was for dinner) but somehow, in that tiny drive-through, Alissa mentioned to me that when her family ate spaghetti for dinner, they always had green beans as a side.
I sat stunned.
Then I started to laugh.

"Green beans with spaghetti?
What?!
Salad goes with spaghetti!  (Maybe garlic bread!!)
 But beans?  That are green?
No, no, no..."

To this day, we still joke about the green beans.

I don't see Alissa nearly as much as I would like, in fact, instead of our nightly conversations, we only get the chance to talk every few months. In the years that have passed, there have been deaths, marriages, and babies born. Needless to say, a lot has changed in our lives.

But sometimes, out of the blue, I will get a text from her saying, "I'm making spaghetti tonight!", and I will smile because I know that hundreds of miles away, green beans are being served on her table, too.


Green Goddess Dressing Recipe
1/2 cup mayonnaise
2 garlic cloves
1 Tb anchovy paste
1/4 cup sour cream
1/2 cup minced green onions
1/2 cup parsley
1 Tb fresh tarragon
1 Tb lemon juice
1/2 tsp salt
fresh ground black pepper to taste

Whiz everything together in a food processor until smooth.  Refrigerate for an hour before use!

Picket Fence Dreams

In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, I thought that I would share a book that most likely would not be on my bookshelf, if it were not for him and his magnificent dream.



If you have never read this book, you really should.
It is raw with sex, spirituality and emotion.
More importantly, it is completely impossible to put down.
And isn't that what we all look for in a book?
Something to totally submerge ourselves in?

By chance, I bought it in the bargain bin at a local bookstore years ago.
I had no idea the impact it would have on my life.

Being a white girl from a white neighborhood, I was (and still am) unfamiliar with other cultures.  That does not mean that they do not fascinate me, or that I do not find ways to sneak peeks into other worlds through any window that presents itself. I remember crying and laughing my way through chapters, and rooting for Michael Datcher, the author, to fulfill his dream of finding not the perfect partner, "but a coworker to build his picket fence".

Anyone who has ever felt that the cards were stacked against you, or that a happy ending isn't your fate, this is the life changing book for you.
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A Day in the Life

Do you want to know what the scariest thing about Friday the 13th is?
Having a toddler.

Before I go any further with this post, let me just say for the record that Grace is the best thing that ever happened to me.  She is awesome in absolutely every single way and I love the dickens out of her, whatever that means.

But man, oh man.  What is up with 19 months?


As soon as she wakes up, she hits the ground running.  Not only does she run, she tears through rooms like a tiny Tasmanian devil, leaving piles of debris in her wake.
In less than 10 minutes, she can have two whole rooms of the house demolished.  As I stoop over to clean up one pile of debris, she is climbing up another one to reach for a hot cup of coffee or some other dangerous object that is just out of her normal reach.
My morning shower has become a wrestling match between me, Grace and the shower curtain. Covered in soap I try desperately to keep the curtain in the tub while she tries desperately to pull it out of the tub.  In doing this, water is sloshed all over the bathroom floor and saturates her clothes that I just spent twenty minutes wrangling her into.  In lieu of all of these shenanigans, I have opted to try and take my shower at night, instead.
So all day long, while I am cleaning up and running in circles, I push greasy hair out of my face.  It is awesome.

Did I mention that almost every single day I wear sweatpants?  Nothing makes a gal feel prettier than sweats. Especially when she hasn't had a morning shower.  Mmmm Hmmm!

We wrestle our day through mid-morning and sometimes, if I am super lucky, I can get her to chill out long enough to let me divide the dirty laundry into piles.  This down time lasts until I start putting the first of the piles into the washer.
I like to refer to this period as the calm before the storm.
Some days, while I am bent over shoving clothes into the front load, she is taking handfuls of birdseed from the 25 pound bag we have sitting next to the back door and throwing them up into the air like she's at a wedding.  Other days, she is carting bottles of laundry soap and detergent out into the living room and lining them up across the floor.  But on the best days, I will walk out of the laundry room to find her standing in the middle of our kitchen table.  When she sees me, her face lights up into a huge smile and she does a little hopping jig that leaves me scared to death she is going to fall off of the table.

Lunch is hit or miss, but mostly a miss.
Do 19 month old children actually ever eat?
Because ours does not.

Then we have a few hours of madness until she falls asleep for her nap.
Naptime is the time that I use to check my email, my Facebook, write on this blog, clean, and figure out what I am going to make for dinner.  It always makes me laugh when people refer to the time Grace is asleep as "Lana Time".  I haven't had "Lana Time" since May 30, 2010, the day before Grace was born.

The funniest part of all of this, is that while she is sleeping, I miss her.  I sneak in often to just look at her and marvel at how beautiful she is.
Seriously, is there anything more angelic than a sleeping baby?
When she does wake up, I love hearing her quietly talking to Elmo in her crib.  She carries on whole conversations with him, and as I peek around the corner my heart melts.  When she sees me looking in at her, she jumps up and squeals with delight. She's missed me just as much as I have missed her.
I kiss her disheveled hair and her cheeks that are warm and pink from a good, long nap

In those few minutes, right before her little bare feet hit the ground,  I somehow manage to forget that the madness is about to start all over again.

Slave to the Babe and (despite a few gripes) Totally Loving It,
Lana
XOXO
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Homemade Cream Crackers

Because I refuse to believe that we are the only household that uses an entire sleeve of crackers for two bowls of soup.

Because I believe crackers smothered in any kind of cheese, butter or jelly is the perfect snack.

Because I believe that when something is so easy to make at home, you should opt to do just that. Not only do you save money, you save your family from being exposed to all sorts of ingredients I can't pronounce. 

Homemade Cream Crackers

1 cup flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 unsalted butter

1/4 cream or milk

Coarse salt for sprinkling

Heat oven to 400 degrees and place a baking stone or a floured cookie sheet into the oven.
In a food processor, pulse flour, salt and butter until combined.
Add the cream, and steadily run the food processor until the dough holds together but is not sticky.
Roll the dough out on a floured surface until it is 1/4 inch or less thick.
Punch out circles of dough using a small, round biscuit cutter.
Poke each circle a few times with the tines of fork, sprinkle with coarse salt,  and using a spatula, place the crackers on the hot prepared stone.

Bake for 10 minutes or until they start to brown around the edges.
Let cool on a wire rack and store in a well-sealed container.

Play-Dough!

Or as Homer Simpson would say, "Play-DOH!"

Grace, like every other child on the face of the planet, loves this stuff.
She likes to roll her teeny-tiny pink rolling pin over it and then smash teeny-tiny cookie cutters into it.
She also like to squish it between her hands.
Oh, and she likes to eat it.
Come on!
Like you never ate Play-Dough and reveled in the saltiness of it.
Confession: when I was little, I once ate dried up, old Play-Dough off of the carpet. I have no idea how long it was there, but it was green and crusty and it did not taste salty.
On second thought, maybe that wasn't Play-Dough...

Anyway, because Grace does have a tendency to sneak in a bite here and there, I make my own. I feel like it's safer.
Plus, there is a perk to making your own Play-Dough: when you take it out of the pot, it's all warm and soft.  I like to knead it for a few minutes while it's warm, because I find that kneading warm dough really relaxes me.
I know, that's weird.
But heck, I'm weird.
I ate old, crusty dough off the floor for God's sake.

Perfect Play-Dough
1 cup flour
1/2 C salt
1 Tb vegetable oil
2 Tb cream of tarter
1 C water
food coloring (Or not. Colored Play-Dough stains furniture. Don't learn that the hard way, like I did.)

Mix all the ingredients together in a pot, adding food coloring last.  Cook over medium heat until the dough forms a pliable ball.  Cool until little chubby fingers can safely handle.

Child's Play

Yesterday morning, right after her doctors appointment, Grace and I went out back to fill up the bird feeders and get some fresh air.  When it is 60 degrees and sunny in the middle of January, you have to take advantage of the warm weather.  You have to get outside and shake the stink off, and that is just what we did.

As I was standing on tiptoe, filling our window feeder with sunflower seeds, Grace took off across our yard.  As she marched across the driveway, I was forced to abandon the seed and follow her; she was on a mission.
She was headed to our neighbor's house.

We are so blessed in the neighbor department, and she knows it.
She knows that if she heads over to Jean's house,she might catch a glimpse of a cat.
Mostly, the cats run and hide when they see her come tottering through the door, but on rare occasions their curiosity gets the best of them and suddenly a pair of round, green eyes will peer around the corner, causing Grace is squeal with delight.

Jean also has treasures.  To the adult eye these treasures appear just to be jars of marbles and decorative glass, but to Grace, they are something totally different.
They are gems. Beautiful, shiny, magical gems, and she loves them.

She carries the jars full of marbles all around with her and dumps them out on Jean's porch, letting them roll in a million different directions. While Jean and I sit and talk she amuses herself by dumping them out and picking them up over and over again.  She is lost in a colorful world where she needs nothing but her own thoughts to keep her company.
She stomps through Jean's yard, over the mounds of gumballs that have fallen from the trees, and suddenly she will lay her jar of marbles on the ground. Quietly, she will lie down beside it and gaze up at the sky.  She lets the sun shine down on her and warm her chubby cheeks while the wind blows through her fine, blonde hair. She just lies there, soaking up sunshine and life, and she loves every second of it.

Sometimes, I miss being a child and having the ability to see beauty in the simplest things.

Grace has taught me how to slow down and bask in the sun.
She has taught me the importance of seeing beauty in the smallest things, and I love her more than I ever thought it was humanly possible to love someone.
She keeps me centered and she keeps me from losing my marbles.

It's a Miracle!

In yesterday's post, I mentioned that on Sunday, I ran some errands while Jim and Grace hung out at home putting plastic up on our windows.

I had a whole list of things to do, and one of them was to find a miracle medicine for Grace. 

At the pharmacy, I spent an hour searching aisle after aisle until I found this:

It's as close to a miracle as you are ever going to get, kiddos.

Believe me, I had my doubts, but they disappeared almost immediately after plugging this baby in.

Slowly, Grace's room filled with a soothing menthol smell- sort of like Vicks, but not as strong- and while she did cough and cry out a few times that night, she was able to fall back to sleep on her own.

I love it!

The only downside is that is doubles as a night light and the light was way too bright.

Also, it was a freakish blue color.

Thankfully, Jim is a super dad and he slapped some Duck Tape over it, blocking the light out completely.

Problem solved.

Team Mommy & Daddy  1

Team Cold  0

Geraniums and Sugar

Something I'm loving right now:

Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day Geranium Scented Dryer Sheets

They smell just like springtime and they are biodegradable!  

Double Love!

Something I'm not loving right now?

Grace got into the sugar canister while I was smelling dryer sheets. 

I mean while I was doing laundry. 

Sweeping up sugar,
Lana

Weekend Update

Argh, this weekend flew by.
I think that is partly because I look forward to them so much, and partly because Grace was sick and we were all walking around in the fog of sleep deprivation.

Friday was pretty low key.  Jim stayed home later than usual so that he could finish up a brief he was working on, and Grace did everything in her power to climb into his lap and scribble on his legal pads.  She also stuck her chubby fingers into his cold coffee a few times, but luckily there was no major spill that would have threatened the outcome of the case.
I finished up the work that I was doing around the house and decided to take advantage of the 60 degree weather.  I tossed a  lunch of olives, cheese and cherry tomatoes into a sack, stuffed them into a bag along with the awesome picnic blanket my mom got us, and Grace and I headed out the door to the park.

How is my baby this big already?
She is such a daredevil and yes, she is actually in a tree.
This is not a trick photo.
Every time she does something like this, my heart catches in my throat.
The Mommy side of me wants to grab her and tell her that she could fall down, but the tomboy side of me remembers the joy of tree climbing, and I stop myself.
Being in this tree made her day, and I love making her day.

Notice the cotton stuck in her ears? That sums up Saturday.
Sunday was filled with errands.
Jim stayed at home with Grace and covered our windows in plastic to block out the cold drafts that whip through the house during the winter.  While they were doing that, I went shopping and then to the international market for corn tortillas.  Migas is on our list of weeknight dinners, and I refuse to buy my tortillas anywhere else.
Dinner was quick and delicious.
I made homemade egg drop soup and fried rice, and while Grace still doesn't have much of an appetite, she did drink a few slurps of soup off of my spoon, so that made me happy.
There is something magical in that yolk-filled, golden broth.
I'm not sure what it is. It must be an ancient Chinese secret.

Egg Drop Soup

4 cups vegetable broth

1 garlic clove, smashed

4 scallions, sliced

1/8 tsp fresh grated ginger

salt and pepper

2 Tb flour

couple shakes of Bragg's Liquid Amino or Soy Sauce

2 whole eggs plus1 egg yolk, whisked thoroughly 

Cilantro for garnish

Whisk together 3/4 C broth and 2 Tb flour and set aside. In a medium pot, bring remaining broth, scallions, ginger, garlic & Bragg's to a boil.  Reduce heat and add the flour and broth mixture to thicken the soup, whisking constantly.  Once it starts to thicken, slowly add eggs.  They should form thin, feathery ribbons, not clumps. Season with salt and pepper and ladle into soup bowls.  Garnish with a sprinkling of cilantro.

How was your weekend?  Hope it was as great as ours, sick babe and all!
Love, L
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Flapjacks

It's Sunday and my baby is still sick.
Last night was brutal, and we ended up spending a few hours sleeping in the good ole rocker...again.

Do you remember a few years ago, there was a commercial on TV where a sick woman stood before and a man with a thick New York accent? He shoved a giant hoagie sandwich towards her miserable face and yelled,
"What you need to do is FEED a cold!"

The woman looked away in disgust, but I nodded in agreement.
I have never been one of those people that are "too sick to eat".
Instead, I set out on a quest to eat something that makes me feel better.
Hot soup works.
So does honey laden tea.
Also, saltines.

This morning, because my little darling's little eyes looked so sleepy and sad, I thought she might feel better if I made her a pancake.
Don't you think pancakes are kind of like the champion of comfort?
It's kind of like getting a big, warm, syrupy hug and a buttery kiss.
As I was mixing up the batter, Jim leaned over my shoulder and cringed.
"Ugh...buckwheat?  I guess I'll just have an egg."
You see, Jim likes his pancakes made with white flour only.
I like buckwheat.
Grace likes whatever I plop down on her plate, as long as it's swimming in syrup.

How do you like your pancakes?

Sickville - Population 1

Grace is sick.
Her nose is runny, she is tugging at her ears and she has a hacking cough.
At 3:30 this morning, I brought her out into the living room and sat in the rocking chair.  I wrapped us both up in our favorite fluffy blanket and  we sleepily held on to one another as I hummed lullabies into her ear.
Slowly, her little eyelids started to droop and she would nod off, only to be awakened moments later by a cough that shook her entire little body. I held her close to me and propped her body against mine so that she was sitting completely upright. I had hopes that this position would keep the drainage that kept choking her from pooling in the back of her throat.

I don't think there is anything worse than having a sick baby.
It breaks my heart to watch as she swipes her shirt sleeve across her constantly runny nose, and how she can't drink from a cup without having to pause to catch her breath.
We have been rubbing her chest with Vicks, giving her warm honey & lemon water, and lots of snuggles.  They all seems to be working a little, but this cold is getting the best of her.

On a positive note, she has learned how to get a Kleenex out of the box and blow her own nose.
On a not so positive note, we just realized that instead of throwing her used tissue into the trash can, she has been stuffing them right back into the box.
Oh, well, one life lesson at a time, right?



Covered in snot and germs,
Lana

Date Night

When Grace was a teeny-tiny nugget, I asked every mother I knew for advice.  Together, we covered  breast feeding to diaper changes and everything in between.
We laughed and joked about how damn hard being a new mom is, and the one piece of advice that kept being shared with me was the importance of date night.
No matter whom I talked with, all of these women agreed on one thing: Carving out alone time with your partner is crucial to the survival of your relationship.  New babies are wonderful and it is so easy to put all of your love into them and unintentionally block out one another.

Each time I heard this, my heart sank.
You see, not only had we just had a new baby and had I quit my job to be a stay-at-home-mom, but  Jim was also beginning the first semester of law school.
We would have no extra time and we would have no extra cash.
I voiced my concerns about this to Jim, but he didn't share my fear of us drifting apart.
Or if he did, he never let on.
Instead, he would hug me and kiss my forehead and tell me we were going to be fine.
I wanted to believe him, but I also knew that women don't share that kind advice for the hell of it.

Nineteen months later we are still going strong.
We have managed to have date night once a week, with the exception of when "Parenthood" is on hiatus.
I'm sorry, did I forget to mention that we stay at home for our date?
Once a week, after we put Grace to bed for the night, I pop popcorn on the stove while Jim slices up extra-sharp cheddar cheese and we sit in front of the laptop to watch Parenthood.

For almost a year and half, I have lived in fear that no one else was watching this wonderful show and that it was going to get canceled. So, you can imagine my delight when one of my girlfriends mentioned on her Facebook how much she loved it. My happiness only grew as I started reading the comments that people were making on her page about the show.  Apparently, they loved it, too!  We were not the only people watching! (Although, a few more viewers never hurt any show!)
Some women said they tuned in for their "alone time" and others watched with their partner.  I didn't care how they were watching, just as long as they were watching!

We just finished watching an episode right before I sat down to write this, and just like always, we sat and talked for a long time afterwards.  We agreed on the importance of telling your family that you love them each and every day, and how sad it is that people stop doing that.  We talked about how "I love you's" turn into quick, meaningless sign offs after a weekly or monthly phone call, instead of the heartfelt words they are meant to be.
We talked about how there may be a time when Grace thinks we are total squares and wants nothing to do with us, and how crucial those three little words will be then.

I can't explain why this show touches my heart the way it does.  Maybe it's because it revolves around a lovable, imperfect family or maybe it's because I'm thankful that it offered an opportunity for me and Jim to have some time to just be us. It gave us some time to laugh, cry, talk and unwind.
Of course, we don't need a television show to do these things, but some weeks, it really helps.

If you have never watched Parenthood or if you have fallen behind on episodes, I beg you to tune in.
Not only could you be saving the show, you could be saving Date Night.


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Winter Corn Chowder

Or as my grandparents call it, "chowdah".
They are from New England, and after 50 years of living in the Midwest, they still can't seem to put an "r" on the end of certain words.
I don't notice their accents, but I do love when new friends will turn to me and excitedly exclaim, "You never told me your grandparent's have accents!"

I suppose I have to give my grandma credit for bringing chowdah into my life.
When I was a small child, and every other kid I knew was eating chicken noodle soup, I was being served piping bowls of Campbell's New England Clam Chowder with oyster crackers.

I loved the creamy, briny taste.
Heck, I even loved the small grain of mandatory sand that came in each can.
The sudden crunch of it between my teeth would always make my chewing screech to a halt. Slowly, I would remind myself that what I was eating was from a faraway, sandy, place.  Instead of letting myself get grossed out, I would remind myself of the stories my grandfather told me of living close to the beach and his long days spent on the shore.


He and his "gang" would steal a large kettle from one of their mother's kitchens and as many potatoes as they could carry. Then, they would set off towards the beach and begin their day by filling the large kettle with ocean water. They would place it over a fire that they had built with drift wood, and into that fire they would toss the potatoes. As the water slowly started to boil, they would set out on a hunt for periwrinkles. Yes, I know they are periwinkles, but that is not how my grandpa pronounces it.  He says periwrinkle, so periwrinkle it is!
Plunging their thumbs into the wet sand would cause the periwrinkles to pop up. As soon as each boy had dug up a good amount, they would toss them into the boiling, salty, sea water, and head out into the waves to swim the day away and work up an appetite.
Once hunger had gotten the best of them, they would sit around the fire and break apart their charred potatoes, exposing the white, fluffy, insides. They would dip them into the salty broth, and use them to scoop up heaps of chowda, which, I am certain, had lots of gritty grains of sand in it.
Grandpa never talks about the sand, though. He only talks about how that was the best meal in the whole wide world.

Because my family doesn't like clams, (or periwrinkles) I opt for corn chowder these days.
It's almost as good as clam chowdah, and there isn't ever a hint of grit in it.

Lana's Winter Corn Chowder
3 cups frozen corn
2 medium baking potatoes, peeled and diced into 1 inch chunks
1 medium yellow onion, diced
1 Tb sugar
2 Tb butter
1/4 cup flour
3 cups half & half
3 cups vegetable broth
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and arrange the corn in a single layer on a large baking sheet.
Roast, stirring occasionally, until the kernels begin to darken or about 20 minutes.
Remove from oven and set aside.
In a large soup pot, melt the butter over medium heat and add the onion and sugar.
Cook, until the onion softens.
Add flour, stirring constantly for 5 min.
Next, add potato, corn, half & half and broth.
Season with salt and pepper and bring to a boil
Once boiling, reduce heat and let simmer until potatoes are tender.
Adjust seasonings to taste and serve in giant bowls.

Suggested topping: sliced green onions, roasted red pepper, lots of cracked black pepper, grated extra sharp cheddar cheese.
Sides: biscuits n butter, of course!
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