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Tales from the Burbs

Our cops are much more fit and intelligent looking.

I did not make it to the gym yesterday morning. But I have a good reason … no really! I lost 2+ hours of precious sleep in the middle of the night thanks to some strange things afoot in our ‘hood. I woke up from what I presume was a pretty dead-sleep around 2 AM thinking I heard someone open and/or close our front door. I asked Matt if he’d heard anything and he said no and noted that the alarm panel wasn’t registering an open door. I was fine with going back to bed, but for some reason, he decided to go check things out.

So he headed downstairs and as he was coming downstairs, someone started knocking loudly and repeatedly at our door. Matt whistled for our trusty hound and Loki came running, bark at the ready. At some point in time the guy rang the doorbell and I heard a lot of barking from Loki. Whether it was just because he wasn’t getting a response or because of Loki’s barking, he went next door to our neighbor’s house. He was on their porch for a while and we thought maybe our neighbors were talking to him, but we found out later they didn’t open their door either.

I’m a bit fuzzy on the sequence of events, but when he was done with our neighbors’ house, he ran off down the street towards the (entirely closed) commercial section of our little enclave (home of a yoga studio, pizza shop, salon, dentist’s office, vet, martial arts studio, and coffee shop). Matt called over to our neighbors to check on things and he was glad he had because her husband was out of town and he let her know that he was next door if she needed anything. Soon he saw a police cruiser coming through our ‘hood and he flagged them down and let them know what was up. About that time the guy came running down the street again (not sure where he’d been) and the cops were on him in an instant.

We watched the rest of it unfold from Ben’s room – both kids slept through the whole thing – using the binoculars to get a better view. We still don’t know what was up, but he sat on the ground obviously agitated while the officers talked to him. By the time the whole thing was over, probably heading towards an hour after they first detained him, we had four cruisers on the scene. We joked that if he was just having a bad day he picked the worst place … our city has a surplus of very bored cops. Eventually, an ambulance showed up and hauled him off.

Curious as heck, but also concerned about possible threats in the ‘hood, Matt called the police department and talked to the officer who responded. He indicated that the guy was very very drunk and quite lost. He was looking for his friend’s house … a friend who lives in a completely different neighborhood. That’s pretty darn drunk.

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Po’ Boy Sandwiches

We have been having a great time trying out the recipes from Moosewood Simple Suppers. This one was one I probably wouldn’t have tried on my own, but a friend from work who I first pointed towards Moosewood cookbooks, tried this one out and was raving, so I gave it a go. It was like so many things Moosewood. Simple, but so so tasty.

Po’ Boy Sandwiches

  • 4-6 filets of firm white fish (we used tilapia)
  • 1/4 C corn meal
  • 1 T butter or olive oil
  • 1 tsp old bay or other seafood seasoning
  • 4-6 rolls
  • mayo and ketchup or tartar sauce
  • lettuce and tomatoes
  • thinly sliced onions

Directions

Mix together the cornmeal and seasoning. Pat dry the fish fillets and dredge them in the cornmeal mixture. Heat the butter or olive oil over medium high heat in a large skillet. Place the fish in the skillet in a single layer and cook for about three minutes per side flipping only once, until cooked through and flaking when piereced with a fork.

Serve the fish on the rolls spread with tartar sauce or a mixture of mayo and ketchup. Garnish with lettuce, tomatoes and onions. We had our homemade pickles on the side and these would be great with some potato chips or something similar.

Everyone in the family loved this, though only Matt and I ate these as sandwiches. The kids just dug into the fillets and the two extra I’d made for leftovers wound up in happy little bellies.

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Chicken Caesar Chalupas

We had such a nice weekend. It is rare that our weekends aren’t jam-packed with crap we must get done, but this one just had a handful of little events planned with longer stretches of nothingness going on in between. Friday I took the kids to the Zoo with my mom. It was a beautiful day and we had a wonderful time. Afterward, we went downtown and had lunch at Euclid Hall with my sister.

Saturday morning I got up and went running with my pal J … we pounded out 9 miles on Clear Creek and got good and caught up – we hadn’t seen each other in a long while. Matt was supposed to have come along as well, but unfortunately Ben woke up in the wee smalls throwing up everywhere. I hate it for him – he just got over a cold only to have this icky tummy bug hit him. He seemed mostly recovered yesterday, but had it on the other end all day today and was generally a bit lethargic.

Today was even more low key. We went to a birthday party in the morning, hit the grocery store on the way home, had naps and worked around the house a bit. The start of Dayligh Savings is kind of messing with our heads and when we suddenly looked at the clock and it was almost 6:30 we knew why our stomachs were grumbling.

We whipped out the ingredients for Iowa Girl Eats’ Chicken Caesar Chalupas (found via Pinterest) and had them ready in a flash. We let the Sunday Dinner be a bit more low key and ate at the coffee table while we watched old episodes of Scooby Doo. Everyone enjoyed them, except Ben who is confined to BRAT until he recovers some more. They were very tasty and a good format for many meals, very similar to the tortilla pizzas we make routinely. We used ingredients on the healthier side of things (low carb tortillas, 2% cheese, lite salad dressing) to keep them on the lighter side.

Chicken Caesar Chalupas

  • tortillas
  • chicken breasts, chopped into bite-sized pieces
  • lemon pepper + salt
  • cooking spray
  • Caesar salad dressing
  • shredded mozzarella
  • romaine lettuce, chopped
  • tomatoes chopped

Directions

Heat oven to 400. Spray baking sheet with cooking spray. Spray skillet with cooking spray and heat on medium high. Season both sides of chicken with lemon pepper and salt. Brown chicken in skillet until done. Cut tortillas into wedges (scissors work great!) and place on cooking sheet. Spray tops with cooking spray and bake for a couple of minutes until toasty. Top tortillas with a bit of dressing, chopped chicken and mozzarella. Return to oven and bake a couple more minutes to melt cheese. Serve with romaine and tomatoes for scooping.

Nannersp
Check out all the other great Pinteractive Projects on Nannette’s site!
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Water Color Resistance

One of the things we got Tabby for Christmas was a nicer set of watercolors … not extravagantly nice, but a good student-grade set. I’d read an article at some point in time about getting kids GOOD art supplies with the reasoning that it is more fun with them if the outcome is better and predictable. One specific example they cited was water colors and it hit home with me because I remember smashing my brush into those solid water colors you get in art class, trying and trying to get vivid colors and barely coming up with anything darker than dishwater. Grrrrr …

Since she got them we’ve used them a few times. They are definitely fun to play with and produce everything from nice vivid colors to beautifully pale colors depending on how much water you add. Anyhow, as is our tradition, following birthdays, we write thank you notes to those who sent gifts. We generally skate by on the notes for those who were present, though with some people, like my Grandma, Tabby wanted to write a note anyhow, so we did. Gratitude should never be discouraged, right?

The standard format is to cut 8.5×11″ cardstock in half and then fold the halves to make quarter-page sized notes. We have a box of envelopes that will probably last until the kids are in their teens that neatly hold this size card. Then we decorate. We’ve done everything from Tabby coloring printed images of Tinkerbell and Minnie mouse to thumbprint cards to stickers. And this year, I proposed we do water colors. I sent Tabby away and then I wrote THANK YOU! on a card with a white crayon and then brought her back in told her to water color the heck out of it. She did so and was delighted to see my written message appear. After that she directed what we write on the cards and requested “fancy writing” on the next one.

At some point in time, Ben came in and wanted to get in on the action, so I drew him a ton of sqiggles on a half page and he went at it in his 2-year-old way, mixing colors with abandon and cross-contaminating our paints. The result (below) was rather beautiful, but I had to get him out of there (Maaaaaatt!) so we could finish. He was about done anyhow.

Tabby decided she loved the squiggles so much that she had to do her own card with them. It was one of her favorites.

I loved doing this project with the kids and one of the things that I loved best about it was that just before we started, they’d been watching TV (something we don’t often allow in the evenings). Tabby instantly abandoned the TV when she heard we were going to create and Ben followed shortly after. Tabby cannot wait to watercolor again. She wants to play with some other techniques I mentioned like putting salt on the damp watercolors and blotting them with textured things. I look forward to it too.

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Banana Cupcakes

For Tabby’s birthday dessert she wanted Dirt Dessert. With all of the processed this and that, it is not something I would normally condone, but what the heck? You only turn five once, so that is what we made. But she also got to bring a treat to school to share with her friends during snack time, so I gently steered her toward a couple of dessert choices from Moosewood Simple suppers. Of the options available, she chose Banana Cupcakes. That broke my heart. Err … not.

These cupcakes are some of the best I’ve ever had. They are quite a bit like banana bread and very moist. They would be excellent without the frosting, but we added just a touch for presentation’s sake and it didn’t detract either. The kids in Tabby’s class were raving fans as well, I’m told. Continue reading “Banana Cupcakes”

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Spinach Cheese Burritos and March Cookbook

So I’m already three recipes into the March cookbook, Moosewood’s Simple Suppers and as expected, I’m finding it delightful. Moosewood, for the uninitiated is a fairly famous co-op restaurant in Ithaca, NY. Basically a group of hippies came together to make awesome, tasty, whole food that is frequently vegetarian, though they do use fish here and there. The restaurant pioneered a lot of creative vegetarian cooking. Though I did not grow up vegetarian, some of our extended family is vegetarian or pescetarian and we were exposed to these recipes through them and my mom owned and sometimes cooked from the original Moosewood cookbook. When Matt and I were married, I received Moosewood New Classics from my mom’s cousin and when everything I tackled from it from it turned out awesome, I bought the original (with hand-drawn illustrations) and some others. Just a few years ago my sister gave me the latest in the series, Simple Suppers. But of course I’ve been busy and internet recipes are distracting, so this is a prime opportunity for checking out all of the whole food goodness Moosewood has to offer.

The first recipe I tried was Spinach Cheese Burritos. This little gem went from prep (including chopping) to oven in exactly 20 minutes – I timed it. The original recipe has a hot sauce that you can make in the blender, but I am such a fan of the organic salsa we buy at Costco, that I served it with that instead. I also used low-carb tortillas because that’s how we roll. This is one I dare anyone not to like. It is creamy, cheesy and delicious. The kids were a bit suspicious of the green stuff, but both ate about half their burrito which is not bad in my book!

Spinach Cheese Burritos

  • 8-10 flour tortillas
  • 3 cups monterey jack or cheddar cheese (pepper jack would be awesome here too), shredded
  • 1/3 C cream cheese (3 oz)
  • 10 oz fresh baby spinach
  • 1 bunch scallions, chopped
  • 1 T cooking oil
  • 3 cloves garlic, chopped
  • 1 tsp ground coriander
  • 1 pinch nutmeg
  • salsa of your choice for serving

Directions

Heat oven to 350. Lightly oil a 9×13″ baking dish. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, cook scallions and garlic in oil for 2-3 minutes. Add in the spinach and cook until the leaves have wilted and there isn’t water left in the bottom of the pan. Remove from the heat and stir in cheese and spices thoroughly, using the residual heat to melt everything together.

Place a good bit of filling on the edge of each tortilla and roll, then place in the pan seam-side down. Cover with foil and bake for about 20 minutes. Serve immediately with generous quantities of salsa.

Along with this little gem, there are seven other recipes from this cookbook I’m testing out. A preview of what’s (hopefully) to come:

  1. Spinach Cheese Burritos
  2. Banana Cupcakes (we made these for Tabby’s class on Monday night – mmmmmm)
  3. Po’ Boys (had these last night – awesome!!)
  4. Winter Squash Pie
  5. Mexican Polenta Stuffed Peppers
  6. Creamy Lemon Pasta
  7. Shrimp Curry with Snow Peas
  8. Baked Tofu
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Refrigerator Pickles

Have I mentioned how big a deal dill pickles are at our house?? Everyone LOVES them. Except Matt because he’s weird. They are a favorite snack and we even have a specially made vintage Tupperware Pickle container for them that lives in the fridge, filled with mini gherkin goodness.

Since doing some canning last year, I’ve thought a couple of times about drying to make our own pickles. With the acidity level of pickles being pretty high (thanks to the vinegar) they would not require a pressure canner, but just a water-bath canning method. Anyhoo, as far as things to do, it’s pretty far down on the list, but then I saw a recipe on Pinterest for refrigerator pickles! They only last for a couple of weeks, but the way we go through pickles, that is NO problem. So we gave them a shot.

Super easy, super tasty, a TOTAL hit. Here’s how we dunit.

Refrigerator Dill Pickles

Ingredients

  • 2 lbs cucumbers (recipe called for “kirby” cucumbers – I used the grocery store standard, sliced 1/4 inch thick
  • 1.5 cups distilled white vinegar
  • 4t kosher salt
  • 1/3 C sugar
  • 1 t mustard seeds
  • 1 t coriander seeds (we could not find this and instead used ground coriander instead)
  • 3/4 t dill seeds
  • 3/4 C chopped fresh dill
  • 3 cloves garlic coarsely chopped

Directions

Combine vinegar, salt, sugar, mustard seeds, coriander seeds and dill seeds in a bowl and mix to combine. Cover with two cups hot water and stir until salt and sugar have dissolved and liquid is clear. Let cool to room temperature.

Toss together cucumbers, dill and garlic. A note on the cucumbers: the recipe did not say whether to peel or not, so we did two cucumbers peeled and one not peeled. They both seemed equally tasty and the peel provides a nice color and presumably some fiber, so I’d not bother with peeling next go-around. Pour the brine over the cucumber mixture and place a plate or similar on top to keep the cucumbers submerged in the brine.

Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight, stirring once or twice if you happen to think of it (we didn’t, they were delicious anyhow). Transfer to a jar the next day and enjoy for the next two weeks – if they last that long!

 

Nannersp
Check out the other great Pinteractive Projects on Nannette’s Site
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Five Years … Where did it go??

Oh where oh where has the time gone? Five years. Seemingly so long, but in a blink it has gone by. She isn’t the tiny baby we brought home, but such a big, capable girl. I’d be lying if I said I wish her baby days back. I don’t. She was lovely then, so small and cuddly, but she’s so much fun now. I love the questions she asks (all 392,281 of them) and the thoughts and ideas she has. I love the way she hams for the camera; the way she asserts herself; the way she plays with her brother; the way she eagerly helps and learns new things; the way she considers others; the way she loves to read; the way she loves to dance. Never  a day goes by when she doesn’t make me smile. She is such a delight. We couldn’t be prouder to get to parent this amazing little being. And though we miss the baby she was, we’re so incredibly happy to witness the sweet girl she’s growing into.

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The Haps

  • It has been the longest short week ever. The kids have been over tired, sick and generally grumpy. The courses of antibiotics are just about over with and I think they’re on the mend, but the sleep has been sketchy and patchy and we’re all pretty over-tired.
  • At Christmas we ordered Tabby a bike. It was damaged when we tried to assemble it on Christmas Eve and we ended up giving her a scooter we’d picked up during a Christmas sale instead (or Santa did? I can’t remember now). We decided to save the replacement bike for her birthday. Unfortunately, when Matt went to assemble it yesterday (yea, I know, procrastination!), it was no better than the first one. Continue reading “The Haps”