girlfiend

The house is pretty well organized. I’ve been doing my best to keep things picked up and in their proper places so it won’t be too much of a mess when I actually go into labor. Things have been dusted in the past week and I’ve been vacuuming fairly regularly. The kitchen is cleaned daily so that’s not an issue and I’ve been on top of the laundry. The bathroom, while certainly not as clean as I’d like, is clean enough to not be too much of an embarrassment. My bedroom is a wreck, but I blame that on Boyfiend since all of his clean, folded laundry is sitting on top of an old trunk we moved out of the storage room upstairs. If he’d put his shit away (just a subtle hint) it wouldn’t look quite so bad in there.

I really need a cleaning service. It would really improve the quality of my life. Instead of hiring a service I ordered another dyson.

I’ve been cooking like crazy so I won’t have to worry about eating well later.  I’ve made a bunch of dinners and some one-handed breakfasts. In the freezer I have:

• 1 9”x 13” pan of eggplant parmesan
• 3/4 of a large baked ziti in three portions
• 2 8-cup containers vegetable soup
• 1 3-quart and 1 4-cup container of beef stew
• 1 9″x13″ pan of rotini with goat cheese, spinach and red pepper sauce divided into individual servings
• 6 bean and sausage enchiladas (1 dinner and leftovers if Boyfiend doesn’t gorge himself)
• 1 tray (3 meals) chicken enchiladas
• 2 8-cup containers of chicken soup
• half a batch of chocolate chip cookie dough
• 6 cranberry muffins
• 6 strawberry mango muffins
• 18 blueberry pancakes

I’ve also got a bunch of chocolate ricotta muffins I baked tonight that still need to be wrapped and frozen. Tomorrow or Friday I’ll probably end up baking a few loaves of zucchini bread with the last of my freezer stash from last year’s CSA.

The next meat delivery from the farm is scheduled for my due date and I ordered plenty of beef so Boyfiend could cook dinner (burgers and steaks, of course) with confidence. Shortly after my due date is the start of my CSA for the summer,  so I won’t have to worry too much about grocery shopping for a while.

Now I just want this baby out.

I’m lazy and double posting from my food blog.

Last night I picked up the turkey, did the grocery shopping and spent a good three and half hours in the kitchen accomplishing… Well, I don’t even know what I accomplished. It doesn’t seem like a whole lot.

I cleaned out the refrigerator and discarded all of the expired condiments. We somehow had a fridge full of salad dressings I’d never buy since I make all of my own. I guess my mother-in-law must have brought them here for some meal or another and forgotten them. I also discarded an ancient jar of mayonnaise. Mayonnaise is one of those things I won’t touch unless I’ve made it myself (well, I’ll eat some restaurant aioli, but only sometimes.)

So the refrigerator is cleaned out, the shelves are clean (except for the two drawers that I just didn’t have the energy to deal with) and some of the prep work is done.  I still need to figure out how to make the green beans and I haven’t decided if I want to make multigrain dinner rolls or buttermilk biscuits. I bought the stuff for both. I was pleased to see that the turkey (unlike the chickens I’ve bought from the farm) was pretty well cleaned. The giblets and neck were actually detached and stuffed inside the cavity and I didn’t have to scrape out any nasty, gooey innards. Nothing like fresh from the farm animal goo.

The menu:
roasted butternut squash and garlic bisque
turkey
extra stuffing (aunt bea)*
mashed potatoes (aunt bea)*
cranberry sauce (aunt bea)*
roasted potatoes (I have close to five pounds. Will people eat two kinds of white potatoes?)
candied sweet potatoes
green beans
balsamic glazed carrots
rolls or biscuits
cheesecake (mom)
apple pie
chocolate chip oatmeal pecan cookies

*I wanted to tell her no when she offered because I have 5 lbs of potatoes left over from the CSA and I make awesome mashed potatoes, but I didn’t want to offend. So she’s bringing stuff that would be easy for me to make. I’ll just try and be thankful that it’s three fewer items I have to worry about.

Completed prep:
Butternut squash and veggies roasted and pureed
Stock made for soup and stuffing
Onions and celery chopped for stuffing and gravy
Turkey ready to be brined
Giblets removed and liver discarded
Green beans trimmed
Sweet potatoes scrubbed
Refrigerator cleaned
Cookies baked

Today
1.    Prepare brine
2.    start bread dough? Biscuit dough?
3.    make pie dough
4.    make sweet potatoes
5.    blanch green beans
6.    cut herbs from the garden: thyme, chives, rosemary
7.    clean up
8.    bake bread
9.    make herb butter for turkey

Thursday:
1.    rinse and dry turkey
2.    make stuffing
3.    stuff turkey,  and start roasting
4.    start gravy
5.    assemble pie
6.    make carrots
7.    reheat sweet potatoes and bread
8.    finish green beans

I know I’m missing plenty from the lists. I have to set the table at some point and get all of my serving dishes labeled and ready to go. I don’t know if I’ll do that today or tomorrow though.

And I must go to water aerobics. I need a good splash with the old ladies.

Last night’s dinner was awesome.

Brisket

Honey Mustard Chicken

Green beans

Roasted Cauliflower

Corn, Tomato and Basil Salad

Braised Carrots and Onions

Challah

I also made Baba Ganoush and fresh tomato bruschetta for appetizers with crackers and bread and served pesto I’d made and froze last summer.
For dessert my aunt brought chocolate cake and key lime pie from Trader Joe’s, Mix brought schnecken and rugalach, and my mom brought chocolate covered strawberries

We dipped apples in honey for sweet year, drank lots of wine and Manhattans, and there were as many Catholics as Jews (if not more, I haven’t officially done a count) in attendance. I love when holidays are good and not surrounded by insanity.

Even though I worked all day while my mother babysat things worked out well. I did almost all of the cooking the day before so I only had to reheat. Mix came over to help me set up so I wouldn’t have to deal with my mother solo. Boyfiend made it home from work early so he could help keep me and my mother separate. It’s not that I don’t love her. It’s just that she’s crazy. Really, really crazy.
I overheard bits of a conversation from upstairs where Mix said he bought an alarm system for a new house. My mom said it was stupid. Mix told her he got an insurance discount. She told Boyfiend we should get an alarm system for our house.

My aunt told me how amazing it was that I worked all day, cooked enough food for 15 people, set up the house and had a wonderful little boy. She said she didn’t know how I did it. My mother responded that I couldn’t have done it without her. I didn’t reply that my mother wiped down all of the dishes with a dirty, greasy rag and Boyfiend and I had to clean them all over again. I also didn’t mention that when my mom told me she’d vacuum what she really meant was that she’d sprinkle baking soda on the rug so I could vacuum when I got home from work.

More crazy, you ask? After the second time I came home and saw him drinking an entire bottle of undiluted juice I asked her not to give the Fiendling juice at all. He’s underweight and needs to drink water or drinks that at least contain fat and calcium like the yogurt drinks I specifically bought. She bought him juice boxes and HID THEM FROM ME!  Way to drive me fucking crazy.

Enough about my mother. It was a great night.

Happy 5768. May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year.

There is currently a watermelon in my refrigerator that is not absorbing the vodka I would like it to absorb. I tried The Naked Chef’s recipe first and it didn’t seem to be going anywhere so I tried this one which didn’t seem to be going anywhere either. So I cut a bigger hole in the top, encompassing the two holes I’d previously cut and the vodka is currently sitting there.

I want to drink it with a straw but I will refrain from doing so (at least until tomorrow morning) so I can see if any of the vodka eventually gets absorbed.

Any words of wisdom from professional vodka watermelon makers?

I don’t vacation like most people. I’m on vacation right now, I just finished a Tae Bo workout, and I just wrote a blog post about the four cooler’s worth of food I brought on vacation at Farm to Philly. Here’s a full list (as opposed to my abridged list of local foods) of all of the food I packed.

Fruit

2 quarts of Peaches
Cantaloupe
Pint of apricots
quart of cherries
Quart of blueberries
Two bananas
12 limes

Vegetables

Beets
Bunch of kale
3 zucchini
4 green peppers
bunch walla walla onions
half pint of sun gold cherry tomatoes
garlic
quart of green beans
quart of wax beans
pint of new potatoes
bunch of swiss chard
bunch of carrots
one shallot
6 ears of corn

Fresh herbs from my garden

Rosemary
Basil
Tarragon
Parsley (not from my garden)
thyme

Meat
2 lbs hamburger
2 filet mignon
4 new york strip steaks
1 whole chicken
lb bacon
short ribs
spare ribs
4 smoked sausage links

dairy
cheddar
Jack
Raw milk Colby dill
Raw millk herbed jack
Herbed goat cheese
Parmesan
Amish butter- both salted and unsalted
half and half from pastured cows

Miscellaneous

Tofurkey Italian sausage
Morningstar grillers (veggie burgers)
whole wheat pasta (2 bags)
whole grain brown rice
whole wheat hamburger buns
whole wheat hot dog buns
peanut butter Puffins
blueberry cereal bars (from Trader Joes)
salt and pepper kettle chips
lightly salted chips
peanut butter
2 jars bruschetta (from Trader Joes)
newman os
2lbs coffee
sugar
olive oil
peanut oil
seasoned salt
garlic salt
red pepper flakes
pepper grinder
kosher salt
pizza seasoning
spicy seasoning
nutmeg
balsamic vinegar
ketchup
mustard

And I forgot the Cheddar Bunnies. I was forced to buy Goldfish.

If you think the food list is nuts, you’d never believe the packing/to do list. All four pages of it.  Perhaps I’ll scan it in all of it’s glory upon my return home. Until then, I may or may not write again. I am on vacation. Many adorable Fiendling at the beach photos are on flickr.

Boyfiend’s sister and her boyfriend bought a house a few blocks from us and Boyfiend’s been over there non-stop all week leaving me alone with the baby. He’s been home to put the Fiendling to sleep and he’s been around in the mornings, but he’s very conveniently missing the fussy late afternoon/early evenings.

Yesterday the temperature was in the 90s and the Fiendling refused to nap. I tried for more than an hour to get him to sleep indoors because it was way too hot for him to sleep in the stroller or the car. Then I walked him around in the stroller forever, trying to get him to sleep. He never fell asleep and by the time Boyfiend got home at 8 to put him down I really wanted a drink. I’d cooked dinner, but I was way too hot to eat it so I made a margarita. Then another. Then one more. I may have eaten something at some point, but I have no recollection of it if I did.

By the time Boyfiend got home at midnight I was passed out on the floor. He shook me awake and I told him how to properly prepare beets. Then, after seeing if I’d be up for some drunk sex and realizing I was way too drunk for that kind of activity, he tried to get me to bed and failed. He said he slept on the floor with me until 3. I woke up around 5 to the the sound of sad baby. I brought the Fiendling into bed with me and we slept until just after 8.

Surprisingly , I’m not too hungover. Standing and walking is a bit difficult, but I don’t have a headache or feel sick. Boyfiend brought me coffee and a bagel so I’ve got some food in my system. I’m hoping the nap strike is over so I can have a nap this afternoon.

The Perfect, Potent Margarita

3 oz Tequila

2 oz triple sec

1 oz fresh squeezed lime juice

1 teaspoon powdered sugar

shake with ice until the shaker is frosty. Serve in a glass with a salted rim with wedge of lime.

I recommend drinking these on a full stomach with some chips and guacamole.

If you ever decide to make a labor intensive Moroccan recipe using phyllo dough, don’t pick the easier recipe. Go directly to the complex, more authentic one. I made a b’stilla again last night, and oh my god, it was delicious.

Chicken simmered with onion, garlic, ginger, pepper and ras el hanout is shredded and combined with egg, parsley(fresh from Junkiegirl’s garden), cilantro (fresh from my garden) and lemon juice and layered with almond sugar then baked in phyllo dough. It was amazing. Even the Fiendling ate it.

I didn’t sleep well last night. I fell asleep around 11.30, but it was a light sleep, the kind where you’re not quite sure if you’re thinking or dreaming. Then the Fiendling woke up at 1.30 and I went in to nurse him and fell asleep in the glider, not waking up until 3. I slept for real after that but he was up again at 6.30 for the day leaving me exhausted. By the time we left the playground around 1.30 this afternoon I just wanted to go to the Mexican place nearby for a veggie burger with cheese fajita style and a very large margarita. Instead I went home and made hummus and falafel, swept and mopped the kitchen floor, and weeded the front garden.
After his nap and a snack and after we picked up the first box from our farm share, the Fiendling helped me spin the salad greens for a bit. Out of nowhere he decided he was hungry and he became inconsolable. I wrestled him into his booster chair and offered him a variety of foods which he promptly rejected through his wails. Eventually he calmed down when the cheddar bunnies appeared. I opened the fridge to get him something real to eat and he thought he wanted everything he saw but really wanted nothing. For dinner he ate a handful of noodles with mixed veggies and tomato sauce. Then he threw what was left and indicated he wanted the noodles with mixed veggies with no tomato sauce. Then he threw that on the floor. He pointed to the falafel and was outraged when I told him I had to cook it first. He thought he wanted the red Thai curry but after a few bites of broccoli realized he didn’t. He made it through one and half strawberries before deciding they weren’t what he wanted. The falafel, once cooked, appeased him momentarily but soon joined the rest of the rejected food items on the floor. At this point I made myself a margarita.

Margarita in hand I gave him a bowl of baby food (Earth’s best plums, bananas and rice) and a spoon and he was happy. He ate most of it with his hands and cried for more. I tried to spoon more into the bowl but he just wanted the jar so I gave it to him and cleaned up a bit while he ate out of the tiny jar with his tiny hands. To buy some more time to finish my drink I gave him a chunk of carrot cake which he covered in baby food before eating. Eventually I cleaned up everything but the floor around him, cleared his tray of all projectiles, wiped him down, shook him out over the sink, and occupied him with his shape sorter while I cleaned the floor as best I could in the few minutes I had.

He’s now bathed and asleep and I’m showered and exhausted and instead of going to bed I’m writing this. Boyfiend’s still not home and I’m debating mixing another margarita. But I think I’ll just go to sleep.

Because I’m obsessive and he’s only nursing twice a day which means he’s getting the bulk of his nutrition through real food I made a list of all of the foods the Fiendling eats and categorized them into things he loves, things he eats regularly, things he eats on occasion, and things that have passed his lips voluntarily on one occasion only. I won’t bore you with the whole list but I’ll tell you that Cheddar Bunnies and cookies fall into the first category,  Hot and Sour soup and hamburger fall into the last category, various fruits, vegetables, breads, pastas and rices fall into the middle categories. It’s a pretty long list, but considering that in a given day he mostly just eats string cheese, crackers and bananas and throws everything else to the floor it’s no wonder that I’ve become a mother who obsesses over what her son eats.

I probably wouldn’t be so obsessed if his iron levels were higher. They were low enough that he needs to take a supplement twice daily for three months which is pretty common- that’s why they test for it- but makes me feel like a failure nonetheless. I want to blame it on the six month appointment. Our regular pediatrician wasn’t in and we had to see a different one. She didn’t tell me to give him the multi-vitamin with iron so I assumed I didn’t have to even though I’d read that breastfed babies often need iron supplements. No one told me. But I should have asked our regular doctor at the nine month appointment which basically makes it my fault.

The iron supplements taste like ass.  Actually, they don’t. They taste like you’d expect them to- like metal - and they leave a nasty metallic tasting residue on sippy cups and hands. The drops also temporarily stain teeth. Charming, right? The Fiendling hates them and I don’t blame him. This is where the food obsession comes into play. To avoid the drops I’ve been attempting to slip iron into his diet through food. I’ve been cooking in cast iron, I’ve made farina stix and the recipe for farina muffins on the box (which are absolutely vile- do not even attempt them), I’ve mixed the drops into orange juice, I’ve tried mixing rice cereal into other foods and I’ve even tried giving him red meat a few times.

I’ve been foiled at every attempt. The kid is smarter than I am and won’t touch anything that will boost his iron naturally. So twice a day, carefully timed because dairy interferes with absorption and he can’t have dairy less than an hour before or less than two hours after taking the drops, I force the dropper to the back of his mouth and hope he doesn’t spit out too much of it. It sucks.

Finally, thanks to the help of the super-fantastic posthipchick,  I made something he’ll eat- Full-Meal Muffins. They’re vegan and smell terrible uncooked, but they’re surprisingly tasty once baked. Most importantly they’re healthy and full of iron. And amazingly he’s eaten them two days in a row.

Since I’m talking about food I should admit that since I’ve been on this mostly vegetarian diet I’ve gained 3 or 4 pounds. Awesome, right? I eat healthier and GAIN weight.