Recipe Review

Here's a look at some of the new recipes we tried last week.

From a recent issue of Cooking Light, I made Cheesy Meatloaf Minis.

As with every meatloaf I've tried from Cooking Light, this one was a hit. The recipe calls for white cheddar, which is perfect, because I had some Beecher's cheese from that I needed to use up. It was delicious. I even tried to stay true to the suggested side dish and served salad instead of mashed potatoes.

Also from Cooking Light, I made a Bacon Pierogi Bake.

Pierogis are relatively new to us and previously I'd only prepared them with a meat sauce, so this was a nice change in my opinion. The pierogis are baked in a simple cream cheese sauce and then topped with cheddar cheese, bacon, and tomato. Yum!

Later in the week we had a breakfast for dinner night and I made a BLT Frittata.

This is a Rachael Ray recipe, so as usual, I had to cut the quantity in half in order for it to be a practical size for our family. I used frozen spinach instead of arugula and fresh tomatoes instead of canned, but otherwise followed the recipe. I thought it tasted great and was much easier than making a quiche.

To go along with the frittata, I also made half a batch of blueberry muffins. The recipe is from America's Test Kitchen, and let me tell you what, they know what they're doing! These were absolutely the best blueberry muffins I've ever made. I'm sure I'll be making them again in the summer when blueberries aren't so expensive and hard to come by.

Blueberry Breakfast

While I was at the library last week, I picked up a new children's cookbook for Tyler. It's a breakfast cookbook that's from a series called Kids Dish. Each book in the series focuses on a different theme and they have super cute illustrations, so I was excited to give this one a try.

This morning Tyler decided to make the Blueberry Breakfast Pancake. It's baked in the oven in a pie dish or cake pan as a single unit, which sounded a whole lot easier than standing at the stove flipping a bunch of individual pancakes. I was in.

Except that the recipe called for every last one of my precious blueberries. Ahhh, what am I going to put in my cereal tomorrow?

The batter was easy to whip up in the blender and pour over the blueberry lined cake pan. The hardest part was waiting the 30 minutes while the pancake baked in the oven.

When it came out, I'm not going to lie, it looked kind of freaky. But after a few minutes it deflated and began to look somewhat normal. After prying it out of the pan, we sliced it into wedges and served it with maple syrup and sausage. As for the taste.....meh. It just wasn't what I was expecting. The texture was dense and kind of eggy....like a custard or maybe a bread pudding. Certainly not the 'light and fluffy' I prefer when it comes to pancakes.

16 weeks

If anyone's keeping track, I'm about 16-1/2 weeks along in this pregnancy. That means I've got another week and a half before I'm done with this month and on to month 5. I'm still wearing regular clothes, but at this point, I only have 3 pairs of jeans that I can button anymore.

From the front it just looks like my pants are a little tight or maybe my shirt is kind of small, but I don't think it would be obvious to a stranger that I'm pregnant.

From the side I can tell that my stomach has grown noticeably in the past month, but still not much of a bump. In terms of weight, I've gained 6 lbs so far, which according to what I've read, is right on target. I gained 3 lbs in the first trimester and 1 additional pound per week, thus far.

At any rate, I figured it was time to pull out the old maternity clothes I've been storing in the closet.

I saved practically everything I had from my previous pregnancy, but now that I look at it, there's one problem.....it's all for the wrong season! All of the smaller clothes are short sleeved shirts and capris and the bigger clothes that I bought towards the end of the pregnancy are mostly pants and long sleeved shirts....exactly the opposite of what I'm going to need this time around.

 Looks like I need to hit the stores....and fast! *Sigh* The only thing worse than shopping for maternity clothes, is shopping for pants in general or bathing suits. Nightmare.

Love Day Goods

Here's a look at how our Valentine's Day went down.

Tyler brought home a heap of cards and candy from his classroom exchange, plus one of his own robots. (What part of: we only made enough valentine's for the other kids, not including you, so make sure not to give yourself one okay, did he not understand) With only one other student making handmade cards, I think our robots stood out as something special. Yay! I hope we can think of something just as fun next year.

Rick got me some roses...or should I say he sent me some roses. Yeah, they came via UPS....in a box. That's when I became an instant florist and had to figure out how to prepare and arrange the blasted things. I didn't do so bad. What do you think?

Tyler gave me a card. Over the weekend he had gone to Lowe's with Rick to make a music box, but they had run out of kits by the time the boys made it over there. So then it was on to plan B. They went to Joann's and did a make-and-take valentine. I think it came out great!

But wait, you haven't seen the inside yet.

As a gift from Rick, I got a box of cookies. But not just any cookies....these are my favorite shortbread cookies from Hawaii. Mmmm mmm mmm!

For dinner I made Chipotle Chicken Taco Salad. On Sunday I made the more traditional Valentine's meal of steak and potatoes. I grilled up some New York strip steaks and served them up with mashed red potatoes. I thought it was a nice fancy sort of meal, but it gave Rick a wicked case of heartburn, so I guess it's a good thing I didn't make it on Valentine's Day after all.

Weekend Bakers

Over the weekend, the boys took over the kitchen for a fun Valentine's Day themed baking project. They had the idea of making and decorating cupcakes, so they went out and bought some strawberry cake mix, sparkly decorating gel, and some bright pink food dye.

Of course a standard box of cake mix makes about 24 cupcakes, but since I only have one 12-cup muffin tin, they had to improvise a little bit.  After browsing through my cake pan drawer, they decided to make a single layer heart shaped cake and 12 cupcakes.

After the cakes were out of the oven and cooled, it was time to decorate. They went with a homemade frosting recipe, but poor Rick didn't know to add the milk gradually, so they ended up with more of a soupy glaze than a spreadable frosting.

I don't know....maybe the boys are on to something. It took way less time to pour the frosting over the cakes, then to spread it on with a knife. Only it was a lot more messy!

And there you have it, the finished cake.

And cupcakes too.

Assembly Line

Valentine's Day is coming up right around the corner.

You see where I'm going with this?

Tyler's class is having a Valentine exchange next Monday and I thought it would be nice to make something rather than hand out those store bought cards. Last year we made heart shaped rice krispy treats, but this year I wanted to stay out of the kitchen and do something with candy instead.

As luck would have it, I came across the cutest idea in a scrapbooking magazine to make little robots out of miniature hershey's bars. The best part is that I already had everything on hand, except for the chocolates, so I picked some up over the weekend. Then we were ready to get started.

The project seemed easy enough, but with all the pieces involved, I went ahead and pre-cut all the paper down to size and then assembled the robot faces and wrapped the chocolates, making things a little easier for Tyler.

We need a total of 16 Valentines, so with our goal of making 5 per night, we'll be done in a few more days. They're coming out so cute, I can hardly stand it!

In The Kitchen

Now that I've been feeling better and I'm not as disgusted by food (as long as it doesn't involve pork or seafood), I've been able to get back in the kitchen and try out some new recipes.

Earlier in the week I made meatballs for meatball sandwiches.

This actually isn't anything new....I've made these several times before. We had some sandwich rolls in the freezer that I wanted to use up and I thought this would be a welcome change from the roast beef sandwiches Tyler and I have been eating so much of lately.

But when I served them up for dinner, all he had to said was "Ewwww". I couldn't believe it. Tyler is the biggest meat eater ever.....what's not to like about a meatball sandwich? What ever happened to, you get what you get and you don't throw a fit.

Next I made Gemelli with Fennel and Hot Sausage, a recipe from Rachael Ray's magazine.

This was a huge gamble because I'd never cooked with fennel or hot sausage before, but it looked good in the picture, so I thought I'd give it a try. Turns out fennel is pretty tasty and hot sausage isn't so bad either. Surprisingly, Tyler liked the fennel, but not the sausage. And Rick, he wouldn't even try the fennel. He just piled the pieces up and shoved them off his plate as if they were poisoned onions. Huh, that's funny. I don't remember doing anything like that when he served his Velveeta shells and cheese with hot dogs. As I remember, I ate the food without complaint.

Then I made a recipe out of a BHG Mexican cookbook called, Sopa Seca.

It's a rice dish with shredded chicken, tomato, and peas, seasoned simply with chili powder. I thought it was alright, but I wouldn't have minded a bit more seasoning. Maybe some coriander or cumin?

Now let's move on to the sweet stuff, shall we?

I found a recipe for a small batch of vanilla cupcakes, which was supposed to yield 6, but we came out with 8. We put a few drops of red food coloring in the cake batter to make them pink and pretty for Valentine's Day. They turned out really good! One of the best cake recipes I've tried.

Then on another blog I came across a recipe for Peanut Butter Pecan Biscotti. You know me. I ♥ biscotti. It's practically the only cookie I can bake with any success. These are delicious! And now I feel like having a cup of coffee.

Breakfast For Two

This morning I thought it'd be fun and might hurry Tyler out the door a little faster, if we went out to eat breakfast. We almost never go out for breakfast, especially on a school day, but when we do, we always end up at McDonald's. A: because it's practically next door to the school and B: I usually have coupons for free food.

My plan worked like a charm and we were out the door in a jiffy.

I had a coupon for a free fruit and maple oatmeal, so that's what Tyler had.....that and a juice box, of course. I sampled a bite or two and thought it tasted pretty good. It tasted less sweet than those instant packets, which are way too sweet for my taste. But sitting across from him, I noticed the nutrition facts and almost choked on the fact that the container of oatmeal has more sugar than a serving of orange crush! Yikes!

I went with a simple egg muffin sandwich and a coffee. Something about it though, didn't quite hit the spot. I think I was missing the taste of the whole wheat english muffins that we use at home. The whole grain muffin really makes for a much heartier and filling sandwich. Too bad healthier options like that aren't offered at fast food places.

Time Lapse: 1 week

Last week I was making Caprese Chicken for dinner, a dish that requires fresh basil. While at the store, I debated between getting the little clamshell case that has about 5 basil leaves inside, or one of those 'living basil' plants. The living plant cost twice as much as the smaller clamshell, but I figured that the live plant would last longer, therefore allowing me to get my money's worth.

So here's what the plant looked like last Wednesday.....and that's after I'd already pulled off the basil I needed for the chicken on Tuesday night. The plant itself comes with its roots immersed in some kind of floral foam, and according to the directions, you're just supposed to keep it moist. Sounded easy enough. I put the plant in a mug for stability and just barely put any water in the bottom.

Fast forward one week:

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm doing something wrong. My poor plant is almost completely dead! Either I've been giving it too much or too little water, or the dang thing was never meant to live for more than a week. I'm not sure, but next time I think I'll just stick with the pre-cut basil in the clamshell case.

Peek-a-Boo

I see you!

It seems like it took forever, but I finally made it into the doctor's office this morning for my first prenatal exam. It was quick and to the point. They weighed me, gave me an ultrasound, and then sent me off for some blood work.

Up to this point, I've been fairly non-emotional about the whole thing, but apparently, nothing makes me cry quicker than seeing a live view of the tiny passenger in my belly. I cried, I couldn't help it. And when I wasn't crying, I was holding my breath. And when I remembered to breathe again, I laughed, making the picture on the screen fade out. You really can't take me anywhere....it's embarrassing. Luckily I'm not due back for another 4 weeks, so I have plenty of time to pull myself back together.