It was a beautiful day today… up until about 4pm or just about the time we walked up to Starbucks for a treat. Chase was nice and dry under the rain cover. I, on the other hand, had droplets of water running off the end of my nose. You want to know how long the rain lasted? About as long as a summer rain shower always lasts on a late Maryland afternoon, about as long as our walk home. I have video of Teenie freaking out. I only wish I had video of Ben chasing her with a towel kinda like he was chasing a chicken for our supper, trying to throw the towel out over her in a futile attempt to stop her.
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Archive for April, 2007
Thursday, April 12th, 2007
Crazy Dog: It’s Instant, Just Add Water and Stir
Thursday, April 12th, 2007
Raw and Uncut: Steph Goes Into Labor
Or, Labor: An Allegory.
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Thursday, April 12th, 2007
Because I Love Tony
I never miss.. well I don’t like to miss his show. Check out what he has to say about Food Network.
http://blog.ruhlman.com/2007/02/guest_blogging_.html
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Tuesday, April 10th, 2007
Crisp Recipe
Because we are the most disorganized people in the world… we have to run out and buy TurboTax. Talk about last minute. Before we go, here it is. On deck this week are white chicken chili for the crockpot and a recipe from Chelsea for a chicken stew that will help me use up some of the thousands of pounds of red potatoes I have in the fridge.
Individual Berry Crisps- From Alton Brown 2005
I cut and pasted in the whole recipe but I only use the topping recipe because I don’t actually do anything to the fruit as it suggests in the original recipe. I mix an equal amount of the topping in with the fruit in the baking dish as goes on top as crisp topping. The flour in the topping that gets mixed in with the fruit helps to thicken the juices. I think that’s the biggest problem with crisps. If the juices are too thin it’s not even worth putting in the energy to lift the spoon to eat it. I did this with frozen peaches from the supermarket last night and it was really really good. I made one batch of topping and it’s probably made about 6 individual servings to far. It will probably make another two or so. I always bake the crisp in a custard cup. Whatever fruit fits in the cup gets mixed with probably about 1/4 c of topping and then another 1/4 c or whatever will stay put goes on top. Also, I don’t remember putting cookies in it. However, I probably did. My best guess is that I used Italian amaretti cookies.
12 ounces frozen berries (blueberries or raspberries)
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/2 cup plus 2 cups crisp topping, recipe followsPreheat oven to 350 degrees F.Place the frozen berries, sugar, cornstarch and 1/2 cup of the crisp topping into a medium mixing bowl and stir to combine. Divide the mixture evenly between 4 (7 to 8-ounce) ramekins. Top each ramekin with 1/2 cup of the remaining crisp topping. Place the ramekins on a sheet pan and bake on the middle rack of the oven for 30 to 35 minutes or until the fruit is bubbling and the topping is browned. Allow the crisps to cool for 15 minutes before serving. Crisp Topping:
5 ounces all-purpose flour, approximately 1 cup
2/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups chopped nuts such as; walnuts, pecans, or almonds
1 1/2 cups crushed crackers, gingersnaps or cereal
4 ounces unsalted butter, cubed and chilledPlace the flour, sugar, nuts and crackers into a large mixing bowl and combine. Work the butter into the dry ingredients with your hands until it is crumbly. Store in the refrigerator for up to a week. Use as topping for crisps, cobblers or grunts.Yield: 4 1/2 cups
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Tuesday, April 10th, 2007
Tummy Time
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Monday, April 9th, 2007
Yet Another Successful Experiment
So as it turns out, you can also have a hot, fresh dessert every night. If you mix up a crisp topping and store it in the freezer you can always have dessert on hand provided you have some fruit either fresh or frozen. This is the third time I’ve tried this overall but the first time I’ve tried it with frozen peaches. It worked like a charm straight out of the freezer and into the toaster oven (love that thing). In the past, I’ve tried it with blackberries and pears… separately that is. I’ll see if I can rustle up the recipe.
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Monday, April 9th, 2007
I Wanted a Private Viewing Salon, But They Put Me In the Main Hall
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Monday, April 9th, 2007
I Had Not Come to Hollywood to Fight With a Man Dressed As Hitler.
I struggled between this as a title and just plain I heart Mark Wahlberg. We watched a bunch of movies this weekend. In a futile attempt to keep up with our netflix queue we finally watched Borat, Invincible, and the Departed. They were all good. Maybe someone who has seen the departed can answer this for me. The guy at the end in the elevator who shot Leo… who was he? Was the other SIU guy? That was the only part I was a little lost on, so if there was a connection to be made back to some earlier scene… like how we were supposed to know he was connected to Jack Nicholson, I didn’t get it.
I think I posted earlier how Chase is in size three diapers… between the diapers the hospital sent us home with and all of the diapers we got at Thanksgiving this is really the first set of diapers that we bought ourselves. How come it seems like you use so many more when they’re not free? We’re burning through these ones at breakneck speed.
Today was a good day. I have a busy night ahead of me though. Since we watched all of those movies and then were out of town yesterday I’m still in paper hell. Ever since Sarah coined that phrase it’s been plaguing me, mocking me even. I truly am in paper hell. I have 3 weeks to write and research this bad boy. I managed to only read 2 paragraphs in the car yesterday. Chase had at least one nap today I could have used to read but I frittered away that time doing something useless. On a positive note, I did manage to make tasty enchiladas for dinner so I feel a small sense of accomplishment and that’s important :).
We went to Babies R Us today to buy a gift. Of course the computers were down so they couldn’t track registry purchases so I went all the way out there for nothing. I’ll have to go back again some time this week. This could mean bad things for people’s registries they should have some kind of a back up plan. Meanwhile, someone might buy what I wanted to buy and that’s just not right!
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Sunday, April 8th, 2007
Easter
So we’re back. We drove to Philly to spend Easter with Ben’s parents and his brother. First we met up with Danielle for coffee and to buy some Penn gear at the bookstore. I can’t wait to get my muffin into this stuff. Unfortunately, I didn’t remember to take any pictures of Chase in her easter dress so all you’re going to get it her in her Eagles gear…(I mean we were in the city after all). I’m so tired right now, I can’t think of anything to write but I didn’t want to keep you hanging any longer. I’ll post some pictures to tide you over until tomorrow.
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Friday, April 6th, 2007
TGIF, No Really…, TGIF
So Chase wakes up at 9 today which ordinarily I would think is fabulous except I told my boss I’d go in to the office today. So I get us both up and dressed and out the door. I realize about halfway there that I have forgotten both my wallet AND my cell phone at home. Thankfully, I had a great scone experiment scone and a cup of tea to sustain me or I never would have made it. We get to the office and Chase’s diaper promptly leaks all over everything including the carseat. Do I have a change of clothes? No, of course not because I took it out of her bag last night to wash and never put it back. So now, she’s wearing a cardigan and a diaper, fantastic. I try to work, but my normally happy baby is fussy and I’m freakin’ hungry by this point and losing patience. It felt terrible. I stuck it out til about 130 and then headed home.
Thinking about this past week, while being able to bring Chase into the office with me is a nice perk, if I had to go in 3 times a week I would rather go alone. Neither of us are very happy with us both in the office I don’t think and I don’t get much of anything accomplished. I met the girls at Xando and finally had lunch around 3 (I caved and ordered another mango mania, but cut me some slack I needed comfort food). It was a great way to decompress. By the time we got home, Chase had had a nap and was ready to play again. I put her in her exersaucer yesterday for the first time and she was like what… is… this?? She didn’t know what to do so I put her hand on one of the toys and she was like oooohhhhh. So when I put her in it today, she was like oh, that toy, I remember and went right for it.
Lastly, I have to comment on that Gwen Stefani song featuring Akon that they’re playing on the radio right now. I want to say that I have never been a fan of hers but Ben got this last album what feels like a year ago (is it that old?) and I’ve been listening to is and it’s ok, I would even go so far as to say I like most of the songs on it. BUT, I caught the video for this song on tv the other day and I was like… oh… maybe I don’t like it. It’s like the difference between reading the book and seeing the movie. I was totally turned off by the visual representation of the song. Not only that, but I totally dated myself sitting there and squinting at the screen and wondering when Mekhi Phifer broke onto the music scene. This dates me because 1) my eyesight is obviously failing 2) now you all know I’m one of those ER die hards 3) I’m the only person that not only can’t visually recognize Akon but can’t identify his voice either.