Another installment of...Look what I did this week!

It's Sunday night, and I remembered, so it's time for another (non-chronological) installment of (drumroll, please...)

(1) I actually stuck to my resolution and picked another cookbook to cook from this week. This time I cheated a smidge and picked one I know I like, but from which I've still only cooked a couple things. This week's winner is:

Sorry about the crappy picture. I grabbed it from a website and am too lazy to get a better one.

I cooked lentil soup, a cheese souffle, and country captain (which is a chicken curry dish). They were all excellent. I'd make any of them again. I only took pics of the souffle, though, because lentil soup always looks like dog food no matter how good it tastes, and I just forgot on country captain night.

I'm so pretty!

I deflated. I guess that's what we souffles do. Wah wah.

(2) On Wednesday, I took Asher to Mommy & Me Day at Raley Field (which, for those of you not from these parts, is where the Rivercats play.) (The Rivercats, for those of you again, are the Oakland A's AAA minor league team.) He was kind of in a funk, which is too bad, since he usually loves this event, but we still managed to have fun.

(3) At M&M day, we scored a free lawn seat for today's Rivercats game, so we went (I'm a sucker for free). We love going to the games and camping out in the lawn. The weather was lovely, so lovely that I took a nap on our blanket and missed half an inning (hey, I'm pregnant, ok?). The only thing that rained on our parade was that security wouldn't let us play ball on the lawn, which was ok last year but is apparently ix-nayed this year.

My husband making his "whatever, guy" face right after the security guard pooped on his game of ball with Ash. Is it bad that I think he looks hot when annoyed?

After the game, the kids got to run the bases. I didn't think Ash would do it since parents weren't allowed on the field, but he did. I was very proud of him.

He's looks so little on that big ol' field.

Crossing home

(5) Hubby & I seem to have an affinity for buying houses with useless fruit trees, the kind that bear truckloads of fruit you'd only want to eat in small quantities, if at all. Lemons, limes, oranges? No. Figs and persimmons? That's what our last house had. The current house has kumquats. Don't get me wrong, I actually quite like kumquats, but they're like sourpatch kids: you need to limit your intake unless you want your tongue to feel like it's covered in battery acid. And unfortunately, the tree bears all its fruit at once, so it's hard to space out your kumquat consumption. This is just what I didn't let fall on the ground this year:

This container is bigger than your average shoebox. Mr. Squirrel approves.

I did learn an interesting, if totally impractical fun fact while harvesting: the number of kumquats I can fit in my sports bra is at least 19. (I learned this at one point when I had a handful of fruit and realized my basket was just out of reach, so I improvised.) I also harvested the peas I grew. The peas have already been blanched and frozen. The kumquats are waiting to be made into marmalade and candied in wine. Hopefully I'll be posting pics of that in a few days.

(6) I think I've mentioned here before that we have a great yard with a lot of potential that just needs love. Yesterday, hubby and I combined to put 10 total (wo)man hours of love in the backyard. I actually kind of adore yard work. Hubby hates it. We (he) amended the soil, worked in the amendments by hand (because we can't till due to tree root situations), dug holes in our hard clay soil, planted a bunch of new plants, and transplanted a bunch of others. I looks soooo much better now.

 

Hopefully by next year this will be all filled in and lush looking. We really only need to plant one more azalea and wait. Oh, and do about 20 more feet of refurbing that rock river, mulch around the trees, weed the lawn... And then there's all the veggie garden stuff. Hmmm.

See you on the flip side.

Updates

Update #1: Cookbook challenge

For April and May, I set myself the challenge of using my cookbooks in order to expand my cooking repertoire. A secondary goal is to use all the food in my fridge every week to reduce food waste. The first choice:

Pillsbury: The Best of Classic Cookbooks

So how did I do?

Resolution fail. Well, maybe that's a little harsh. Resolution C-. I made three different meals out of the cookbook (a stir fry, a hungarian beef, and a ratatouille). They were all acceptable but not amazing. Nothing I'd want to make again necessarily. I was thwarted several times by not checking the freshness of the ingredients of my fridge before dinner time. I took pics but am not enthusiastic enough about the food to post them. Here's one to prove that I did it:

You have failed me, Pillsbury. I'm debating whether to give you one more try or banish you to Goodwill.

I'll pick a new cookbook to start with on Monday. I have to worry about hubby's birthday weekend first (it's a big one).

Update #2: Sleep training

We get an A here! Little man is so good at going to bed now, only occasionally being annoying when we let him get overtired. He still wakes up once per night, but I can deal. We do let him come into our bed after 6 a.m., and my next project has GOT to be to figure out how to keep his hand out of my damn shirt. Seriously, this kid is OBSESSED with trying to put his hand down my shirt. It's a comfort thing for him. He does it CONSTANTLY when he is in that just-waking-up-but-still-mostly-asleep stage. It makes me want to do something evil to him. I know one answer is to just not let him in my bed, but it buys me an extra hour of sleep in the morning. It's starting not to be a good trade-off, though...

Update #3: Where I've been

I totally failed at participating in Kim's Grab a Beer challenge. I have a decent excuse: I was traveling to Michigan to see my fam, including meeting my sweet new nephew. This gave me a great excuse to play with my camera.

Ash was sooooo super sweet with his cousins. He especially loved helping take care of the baby. It made me feel super optimistic about when his baby brother arrives.

Don't mess with this baby

They're kissing cousins. I'm sure they'll love this pic in ten years.

Sitting in the recliner, watching National Geographic. Just like Grandpa.

Aww.

 

 

 

I also got to see beloved old friends.

Omg, we are all old enough to have kids. My baby sister has TWO. We got ready for eighth grade dance in this living room.

It was such a great visit! But now I'm homebound, as I enter the third trimester next week, so no more flying. Next time I get on an airplane, I'll be lugging TWO kids. Crazy!!

The terrible threes

Subtitled: The post in which I jinx the hell out of myself

The twos were really not terrible in our house, so I was mentally prepared (if ever one can be) for the threes to suck. And as predicted by many of my friends who have already gone through the threes with their kids, on the day of his third birthday, the wee one became the wee terrorist. I blogged about it here. For the next month, I was pulling my hair out; and then, it just...stopped. 

I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, but for the last two months, he has been the loveliest, most affectionate, most entertaining little kid. I think in the last month we've done one time out. Yesterday he asked me, "Mommy, why are you the best Mommy ever?" (I'm not.) Today he looked lovingly up at me as we ate lunch at Costco (parenting win!) and said, "Mommy, I love spending time with you." And then later he said, "Mommy, I like you so much." Huh?

Is it possible, just possible, that that one month was our "terrible" phase? Or, is he luring me into a trap, which he will spring in the middle of July when his little brother arrives? If you love me, or even like me just a little, you'll send good mojo for the former.

April/May resolution

Subtitled: Who says resolutions are only for January 1?

We have the following conversation a LOT in our house:

   "What do you want for dinner?"

   "I don't know, what do you want?"

   "I don't know. Nothing sounds good."

   "Yeah, me neither."

   <Collective sigh>

This is especially true since Jake started eating paleo ( = no pasta, no rice, no couscous = there goes a lot of my ideas). I have come to realize that even though I theoretically enjoy cooking, my repertoire is extremely limited. Besides a few standbys (fish tacos, chicken & veggie stir fry, standard soups, pizzas, mixed veggie salads with some sort of meat), I rarely cook anymore. 

So I decided in April and May to try something new: each week I'm going to pick a cookbook off the shelf and select four or five recipes to try throughout the week. The only rules are that I haven't made the recipe before and that I make an effort to follow the recipe exactly (which I don't usually do unless I'm baking). This will be easy, since although I love cookbooks and have many, I almost never actually use them after I've had them for a couple weeks (I have some I've never used at all). I enjoy reading the recipes and looking at the pictures, but when it comes time to actually cook, I think of something I want and google a recipe, hence the lack of variety. I'm giving myself bonus points (prize tbd) for using ingredients I already have in the house, since I hate wasting food.

This week's selection: Pillsbury's The Best of Classic Cookbooks

I like this one because I can imagine that I'm a 1950s housewife, a favorite pretending game of mine (minus the smoking and ennui, but with all the afternoon drinking)(when I'm not pregnant, of course). Also, most of the appetizer recipes, predictably but also hilariously to me, involve crescent rolls. My goal for the week is to use up the perishables that are in the fridge before I head to Michigan next week to meet my new nephew. 

Progress report later.