mandalei

I remember when I was teaching the last few years that the month before Spring Break was always a tough one.  February, the shortest month of the year, seemed to drag on forever: there were no long weekends, it was the coldest month of the year and darkest, and most people had colds or other nasty bugs.  The time passed so slowly, waiting for that break.

I didn’t really think that it would be the same once I was at home full time, but the month of February truly sucked, and for all the same reasons.  This time around, though, I didn’t have the large support group of other teachers who were also dragging their feet through the mire to get to the hallowed ground of Break.

Seriously.  Winter needs to be over!  It’s March, and there’s still over a foot of snow on our lawn, which probably won’t melt until May.  Coming back from warm, sunny South Carolina, this seems like a cruel joke, sometimes.  Oh well… the summers here are awesome, so it all evens out in the end.

We owe great thanks to Ms. V for this awesome sweater!  Jack wore it the day he turned 9 months, and it has been worn pretty much every day since.

Hey y’all, just got back from Edisto Island, SC, where we’ve been for a week.  Lots to tell, but am way too zonked right now since we’ve all been up since about 3 this morning.  Suuuuuuuck.

Nice to be home, though, even though we came back to 30 degrees, snow on the ground, and we miss the beautiful coast and weather.

that Wordpress supported goodreads. Then I could be lazy and not have to write a post here about the book I just finished, Born Standing Up. Loved it. I’ve had a girl-crush on Steve Martin since I was about 3, I think.

Also, just started reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, given my recent interest in food, making food, were food comes from, and lusting after a home with acreage where I could grow my own. Our own. Whatever. Looking forward to reading Michael Pollan’s stuff, too, as soon as it ever gets returned to our library!

At first, I didn’t think I would like goodreads.  I signed up for it, used it once to add a bunch of stuff, and then forgot about it.  Let’s face it… a list of books I have read and want to read?  I can right that sh!t down!

Except I never did and always forgot what I wanted to read in the future.  In the last few days, combined with my superhero-like powers of going ot the library and getting a card, I have managed to check out and start reading the things that I had forgotten about–like Steve Martin’s autobiography Born Standing Up.  Maybe someday I will write about my sincere crush on this man.

But anyway, if you like reading, want to see what your firends are reading (and get ideas for things you might want to read next from their lists), goodreads is the way to go.  After feeling as if there has been a dearth of new and desirable reading material lately, I now feel that here is a functional way to be introduced to new work and possibly winnow the wheat from the chaff in the process.  Maybe I can stop reading the same books I enjoy over and over.  And over.

Pssst… I am going to tell you some very important hints to help your kid pass his 9 month checkup.  You will be tested on whether your baby plays pattycake.  If you don’t play pattycake with your child and he doesn’t know what the hell your doctor is doing, you’ve failed.  If you speak to your baby in the same hoots and vowels he uses and neglect to constantly repeat “mamamamamaaaaa” until he gets it and can do it back to you this is known as an “epic fail”.  If he’s not crawling around like a madman, but yet pulls himself up (even though crawling isn’t a milestone for kids because not all babies do it), then it’s a fail.

Oh yeah… and the slight heart murmur which will be re-examined on April 2, is also a bit of a stressful part of the exam.  At least we didn’t have any shots today.

When you go to a doctor and tell them you just had a baby, and they look at you and say “so, did you have gestational diabetes?” nodding like you did, and you say, brightly “nope!  totally fine.”   And they look at you like you’re nuts, because you’re obviously just a bit overweight, and somehow the GD fairy must have screwed up because, seriously, how could you not have gestational diabetes?

OK, so here are two recipes of things I made in the last couple of days.

Shrimp and arugula pasta

Enough shrimp for you and your best beloved(s)
Pasta of choice
Parmesan
Pecorino
Small onion, diced
Garlic, minced
One whole lemon, for juicing
Salt/Pepper
Red pepper flakes
Arugula

Start water boiling, cook pasta to desired state. In the meantime, saute onion until translucent. Add garlic at end, so it doesn’t burn. Add shrimp that have been seasoned with salt and pepper. Add red pepper flake to your liking. When all is cooked together, add juice of entire lemon. Have best beloved grating cheese while you cook–about 1 cup of parm and 1 cup of pecorino. Add cooked pasta to pan with shrimp stuff, dump cheese on top, and add about 1/2 cup to 1 cup of pasta water to make a sauce. Toss in a couple handfuls of arugula at the end so that it stays crunchy. Serve it up.

Combo Casserole

Meat Mix**
Ground Turkey, 1 lb
Bag of frozen stuff (peas, peas/carrots… whatever you have on hand that you like)
medium onion, chopped
enough garlic, chopped
salt/pepper
mushrooms, sliced

Cook this like you normally would.  Onions first, then mushrooms, then garlic is how I do it… add turkey and brown it, breaking it up into chunks.  add frozen stuff.  Cook until warmed through.  Pasta of your choice should be cooking now.  We used half a box of linguine busted in half, then half a box of medium shells.  It was what was open in our pantry.

Sauce
3 or 4 Tbsp butter
1/3 cup AP flour
3 cups milk (I confess… we had whole milk, and I used 1 cup whole milk and 1 cup water. The total 2 cups made a very dense casserole that didn’t have a ton of sauce. If you want it really saucy, like a pubescent 8th grader, by all means, make the sauce with 4 cups of liquid, although make your thickener a little more thick in the beginning)
Cheddar and Moz  (about 1 cup grated each?  Depends on how cheesy you want your sauce)
Sage and Rosemary, chopped.
Melt butter over medium heat, add flour and cook for about 2-3 minutes, until it begins to bubble and smell good (not raw).  Add milk (or milk and water) whisking in about 1/2 cup at a time.  Let simmer, whisking occasionally, until sauce thickens up.  Add chopped rosemary and sage to steep in the mix for about 2-3 minutes (I suppose this can be done whenever you want).  Add cheese, reserving a little for the crust.  Whisk until smooth.

Drain pasta, dump on meat mix, dump sauce on top of that.  Stir to combine.  Taste for seasoning, and then dump all of it into a 9×13 casserole.  bake at 375 for 20 minutes, then add remaining shredded cheese and breadcrumbs (if you like) to top, baking for another 10-15 until crispy.

**The meat mixture (ugh,that sounds awful) makes enough for two casseroles, so freeze the rest of it up after it’s cooled off in your fridge.

Jack has had some great leaps forward in the bath the last few days.  Today, he crawled forward to reach the drain.  He hasn’t really crawled yet, otherwise.  He also managed to move from a crawling position to a seated position, and, even more significantly, he pulled himself to a standing position twice.

But, I think for Jack, the most important flash of insight came two days before.  Yes, my friends and dear family… Jack has discovered his pen!s and now eagerly awaits every bath where he can be free of the cumbersome cloth diaper and get his hands on it in all its glory.  Of course, he looks up at us, with his hands reaching around the tremendous bulk of his belly to disappear down below, and seems to ask with uplifted brow, “holy crap, what do I do now?”  Ben just reminded me that this will be on the interwebs forever, so I am going to stop here.

It’s been a whirlwind last few weeks: my grandfather (mom’s dad) had a heart attack and has been in the hospital for almost two weeks; we’ve had the good fortune to have friends come to visit us for 3 weekends in February; we’re going on vacation soon.  We had eye exams today (yay for dilation), and Jack has been in a mood.  When it came time for dinner, the fridge was kind of empty of fresh things, and I hadn’t planned anything

This is where I feel on top of things.  With stuff we had on hand (pasta, frozen ground turkey, garlic, frozen peas/carrots, mushrooms, cheddar, moz, parm, bread crumbs), I managed to pull together a casserole, especially with Ben manning the chopping station.  I made the bechamel sauce, sauteed all the other stuff, and combined the half-boxes of linguine and medium shells we had on hand.  It’s in the oven right now, and smells divine.

I also made two loaves of bread for our week.  I’m feeling very goo about being handy in the kitchen right now.