I made bread today (thank you thank you honey oatmeal sandwich bread from King Arthur Flour’s Whole Grain Baking!) I know people talk about how good bread makes store bread seem even more horrible, but holy CR@P! I am hoping we become less susceptible to its filthy wiles, because of the 2 loaves I made… only 1.33333333 are left several hours later.
For dinner: Ham, eg, and cheese sandwiches on this bread, toasted. The ham was from a local family that raises their own pigs (although not entirely free of all the stuff I would like). Ben sizzled the ham in our cast iron skillet and then we made a thin omelette. Add a little fresh minced roasemary… and we can’t stop drooling.
I think I am a yuppie.
Lately, it seems like a lot of the people I know in my specific demographic fit a profile (and I thought I was being all new-wave and stuff). Here are a few of the things on my checklist:
- Baby? Check.
- Baby carrier/sling (probably in various versions and types, including but not limited to the Ergo, Moby Wrap, and/or Mai Tei)? Check.
- Homemade quilt(s)/knits/slings? Check.
- Bread making? Check.
- Obsessive research into safety/plastics (bottles, sippy cups, pacifiers, teethers)? Check.
- Cloth diapering? Check.
- Breastfeeding? Check.
- Diamond engagement ring, yet eco-minded and socially conscious? Check.
- Learning to sign with baby? Check.
- Making homemade organic baby food? Check.
- Trying to have only wooden toys (although I am not doing so hot on this one)? Check.
All in all, these are good things. Healthy things! I think it’s very interesting that this, at least for a small but significant percentage of this group, is the norm. It still makes me laugh, though, because lately all of these things combined make me feel a bit like a hipster or something. Go figure.
We had our Thanksgiving yesterday, a day after, because Ben’s family arrived at 4:30 on Thursday. Our first holiday season in the new house with the new baby, and it wasn’t bad! We had turkey, green beans, sausage/cranberry/cornbread stuffing with pecans, homemade cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and apple pie. It was ll very good, and Jack woke up from his nap in time to join us.
I’ll post pictures soon, but we’re off to get our Christmas tree this afternoon after the morning nap finishes. It’s tradition in my family to get the tree the day after Thanksgiving, but the cut-your-own tree farmwe wanted to go to doesn’t open until today. Ben has decided this is the place to go because Santa parachutes in at 2:00 this afternoon. I guess Santa needs some mad skillz these days.
As I was reading a post on muffins, I had to go running to my fridge in horror….
So. A recipe calls or 1/2 cup of melted butter, right? How many sticks is that?
Well, I can tell you that it is NOT two sticks. Which I have been using for the last few recipes. because in my haste to bake stuff with a cranky kiddo in the background, I read “1 stick = 8 Tbsp = 1/4 lb = 1/2 cup” as “1 stick = 8 Tbsp = 1/4 cup = 1/2 lb”. GAAAAHHHH!
We’re gearing up for our very first Thanksgiving holiday in our very first house as a family, Baby, me and my fella makes three. Plus his parents. And sister. So I guess that’s really six. And the cats, so eight. We usually travel to one set of parents or the other (alternating TG and Christmas each year), but this year it is kind of nice to be able to be in our own place. As much as I miss the traditions with my parents of which there are many, I am looking forward to being in our own home with our own baby making our own food. I am getting such deep satisfaction from cooking these days, and from doing the best I can to eat healthy/organically/freshly/locally foods!
I am contemplating getting another freezer to store food that I have prepared, either leftovers or stuff I made extra of just to have (encouraged by this post at Living Small). Our current freezer is very long and thin, and I had to actually remove a shelf to get a 13 lb turkey into it. I have been daydreaming recently of moving out further into the country and having a large enough garden to feed the three of us with enough to can, but for the moment I will have to be satisfied to support our local Farmer’s Market. I also want to get a pig, after reading Wooly Pigs. Not sure how much I would have been able to get done with a new baby, either!
In any case, I will be taking pics of our preparations. I don’t think we’ll be doing anything super out of the ordinary food-wise, but hey, it’s our first! Maybe one of our traditions will be to make something new and different each year.
How funny is this… I am putting links up on my blogroll of people I love to read, and inwardly I am thinking “geez, I hope they don’t follow these back think I am totally uncool and don’t want me linking to them.” These thoughts are relics, I think, of the wanting-to-belong-but-feel-like-an-outsider feelings from when I was a kid. Let it go, kiddo!
It’s a good thing I didn’t sign up for that month-of-writing-posts thing. I haven’t done much writing lately, even though I have a ton of stuff to talk about! I made some really good cranberry hazelnut muffins yesterday (thanks Ina Garten!), and documented some of the process. I think I need to be better about taking pictures of the things I do, especially when it’s new to me.
For instance, I have never shelled and skinned hazelnuts before, and I had to do that to get the hazelnuts for the mix (you just crack ‘em open, and bake at 325 for about 10-5 minutes, then dump a handful at a time into a kitchen towl and rubrubrub and the skins come right off! very cool. and tasty.)
Jack kept looking at the muffins and reaching for my coffee this morning, so I guess he likes the way both smell.
Also, I made spinach pesto last night from scratch. I don’t know why I ever thought pesto was hard. It was one of the simpler meals I have made. With some roast chicken cut up on top of the whole wheat pasta/pesto, it was yummy. Too bad jack has learned how to scream in sch a way that every mommy-nerve I have is put on edge! He sounds completely hysterical, but there’s nothing wrong with him as far as I can tell. I need to see if he’s teething.
You’re 5 months old, and we think you’re the greatest thing in the world. I sometimes feel like you aren’t ours, because who would have thought we could make something so completely wonderful and unique? You’re your own person, and it’s so amazing to watch as your personality develops. I think you’ll be inclined to laugh, to be happy, to be loving. I can see it now in our everyday interactions, and I hope we continue to help you nurture those things as you get older.
