Sweet Yet Sour

Dinner with Friends

Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 | Cooking, The Daily Special | 2 Comments

We Munhalls needed a break and a nice evening with friends and we got that on Saturday night.  Nate and Laura came over, we had a great time and we had some good food too.

Once they arrived, Mike and Nate went off to buy supplies for Mike’s latest hobby, home brewing beer.  I’m sure I’ll be posting later about the smell that this produces in our house, but for the moment Mike and Nate are really excited about sharing this fun.  And since Nate has recently won an award for his home brewing efforts, I’m sure he’s the best person for Mike to ask when he needs advice.

While Mike and Nate were gone, Laura and I went through the four bins of maternity clothes I had for her to look through.  Anna helped by pulling things out of the storage bins or sitting in the empty bins while we packed clothes around her.  By the way, it’s not like I really had all those maternity clothes, two of the bins belong to my sister; I wanted Laura to have the full benefit of plenty of clothes to borrow.  It’s silly to buy clothes for a fairly short period of life when you will wear and look good in maternity clothes.

Before Anna went to bed I started the pizza crust for dinner; my plan was to simply make pizza crust and have every possible pizza topping (except anchovies) available for us to put on the pizzas.  The pizza crust is really simple to do and is made quickly in the food processor.  It really doesn’t take that long to rise, only an hour to an hour and a half.  Here is the recipe:

Food Processor Pizza Dough:

In a small bowl let sit until the yeast blooms:

1 Tablespoon yeast, 3/4 cup warm water and a pinch of sugar (this works best when you put the sugar on top of the dry yeast and then add the water)

In a food processor mix together:

2 1/2 cups flour and 1 tsp salt

Once this is mixed, add while the food processor is going:

3 Tablespoons olive oil, the yeast/water mixture and cold water.  The tricky part here is to add the water 1 Tablespoon at a time, slowly, until the mixture begins to form a ball.  Add the water, let the mixture whirl around and then add another tablespoon of water if it hasn’t formed a ball.  The amount will depend on how moist the air is, etc., so it’s hard to judge how much you will need to put it in the processor.

Once the ball has been formed, take it out and put it into an oiled bowl (this is best done by pouring a little olive oil in a bowl and then swirling it around or spreading it with a paper towel).  Let it rise until double.  Roll out and put onto a greased pan and bake at 350 for 7-8 minutes and then top.

In addition to pizza we made a salad to get some veggies to balance out all that cheese we were having on the pizza (along with the pepperoni, etc.)  Nate and Laura really liked the honey-mustard dressing that I had made, so I’m including that recipe as well.  This is good as a salad dressing as well as a dip for chicken nuggets, etc.

Honey-Mustard Dressing:

Mix together: 1/2 cup mayonnaise, 1/2 cup prepared mustard, 1/2 cup honey and a dash of worchestire

Dinner at my house is not complete without dessert.  I really feel like I am best at dessert and every once in a while I think if we win the lottery I’d open some sort of dessert or pastry business.  I like experimenting with new dessert ideas when people come over and Saturday was no exception.

I made my chocolate sourdough cake in two 9″ layers (sorry, I’m not going to include the recipe since you need sourdough start for this) and then once they were cooled, I cut them in half.  In between the two halves I spread Nutella (chocolate hazelnut spread) and in the middle I spread apricot all fruit spread.  So from the bottom the cake went: cake layer, Nutella, cake layer, apricot spread, cake layer, Nutella, cake layer.  To top it all off I frosted it with ganache.  Ganache is an easy and yet pretty way to top off a cake, and after all that work with the cake layers, I went the lazy way with the ganache.  I got this from the Joy of Cooking and it’s the best:

Chocolate Ganache:

Warm in a heavy sauce pan on medium heat until just boiling: 3/4 cup heavy cream.

Once the cream is boiling, remove the pan from the heat and add: 8 oz semi-sweet or bitter-sweet chocolate chopped into small pieces (chocolate chips will do just fine). Stir until the chocolate is melted and the mixture is a smooth and shiny.  Let it sit out or in the fridge for a few minutes to allow it to be spreadable, otherwise, it will simply be to liquidy to use as frosting.

Here is what was left of the cake after Nate and Laura left:

Yummy cake

We sent them home with both cake and pizza, but there was obviously plenty of cake left for us to devour.  I just finished the last piece while I watched The Biggest Loser. If that doesn’t say anything about my motivation to lose weight (almost nil), I don’t know what does.  I don’t think I’ll make this cake a lot, not because it wasn’t good, but because it was so good that I couldn’t resist the temptation.

After a long evening, especially for the poor pregnant Laura, who really should have been in bed by 8, we shipped them off with clothes, pizza and cake.  It was a lovely evening!

Anna’s New Sleep Quilt

Friday, January 23rd, 2009 | Anna | No Comments

My camera battery needs to recharge after four days of taking pictures of Anna and offloading them onto the computer every night.  While we experience this brief lull in the action, I’ll complete a post that I’ve been meaning to do about Anna’s new sleep quilt.

As I said in an earlier post, my mom decided to make two quilts for Anna.  One, the colorful wall hanging and the second a quilt that she can sleep under.  Not knowing the sex of the baby my mom opted for a gender neutral blue and yellow quilt.  She finished it just before Christmas and Anna has been sleeping under it ever since.

Here’s a large view of the quilt:

Blue and Yellow Quilt

And here is a detail shot of the carrots and the bunny that are on the quilt:

Quilt Detail

Originally the pattern for the quilt had just a plain, sort of ugly bunny, but mom and I opted to put Peter the Rabbit on there instead.

Here is Anna laying on the quilt, but mostly playing with a toy:

Anna on the Quilt

Anna isn’t much of a “lay around” kind of girl though, so right after this, she headed off to do other things:

I'm out of here!

The quilt has a nice satin binding on the edge (babies like satin binding) and is nice and warm.  Granted, every time I put it over Anna when I am putting her down she joyfully kicks it off, but that’s my kid, always moving.  Someday maybe she’ll stay still, but I remain doubtful.

Anna’s Wednesday

Wednesday, January 21st, 2009 | Anna | 1 Comment

One more day until Mike comes home! I suppose I could keep doing this daily blog even after he comes home, we’ll see how that goes…

As always Anna and I started out the day with a nice breakfast…of plastic:

All this plastic is mine!

Anna likes to drop to the right, so after breakfast the floor to the right of the high chair looked like this:

Breakfast Aftermath

And this is what she looked like after I washed her face:

Yucky Facewash

Did I mention she hates to have her face washed?  Can you tell?

After breakfast there was lots of climbing up on various toys:

Anna and the Activity Walker

Anna climbs the jumper

After that we moved upstairs where Anna could play with the empty laundry hamper:

Anna in the hamper

And after that Anna played one her most favorite games – pull the books off the shelf! Yippee!

Down with the books

After nap we headed down to Colorado Springs to see Nana and Grandpa.  Here is Anna not looking at the camera when I need her to while my mom keeps the poodle from eating Anna:

Anna, Nana and Duncan

Since I was in the Springs it was absolutely, totally necessary to have Conway’s Red Top (sorry Mike, but this makes us even for the one you had while building the compost):

Yummy and not at all fattening!

Anna tried some french fries, which she seemed to like (who wouldn’t?):

Anna and her fry

After lunch Anna and Grandpa looked at stuff in the trashcan, which Anna found to be really interesting:

What is in your trash Grandpa?

I took it as a sign that Anna wanted to go when she tried to get into her carseat on her own (either that or she was looking for the snacks in the bottom):

Where did I put that snack?

On our way home we stopped at Aunt Rhiannon’s to drop off some stuff from Nana and Anna took the opportunity to try out her stairs:

Anna tries out Rhiannon's stairs

When we got home though, Anna was really glad to see her own stairs:

Yippee! My own stairs!

Anna climbed all the way up the stairs after dinner.  What awaited her (to her joy) was another basket of clean laundry.  She promptly attempted to stand up on the side of the laundry basket, but alas, it was not to be:

The great laundry disaster

Since we had such a busy day, visiting so many relatives (and spending way to much time in the carseat) Anna was in bed by 7 p.m. and I hope to be in bed by 9 p.m.  This single mom stuff is tiring! Come home Mike!

A Tuesday in the Life of Anna

Tuesday, January 20th, 2009 | Anna | 1 Comment

Today Anna and I had a busy day.  We missed Mike, but we kept on moving; or rather, Anna kept moving and I chased after her.

This morning for breakfast we had…

Breakfast

pears, cottage cheese, toast and mess!

After breakfast we did some stair stepping exercises:

Stair exercises

And when I said, “Hey Anna, be careful.”

What?

Anna said, “Eat my dust mom!”

For lunch Anna had…

Lunch

peas, chicken, cheese, green beans, dehydrated fruit, a little yawning and a lot of mess!

After lunch, we burned some more calories:

After lunch workout

Following the afternoon nap we walked Cash. Mostly Anna walked Cash:

Walking Cash

After the walk Anna played with her other pet, who really didn’t want anything to do with her:

Simon and Anna

Simon had enough right after this because Anna grabbed at his whiskers.  He’s patient, but not that patient!

After dinner, which I failed to take pictures of (sorry), it was bath night (it was clearly needed after the breakfast and lunch messes).  Anna played with bubbles, her duckies and her froggies in her little rainforest bath (thanks Andrea and Dan!) until she figured out how to lean over and grab the shower curtain.  I decided once she started chewing on the shower curtain it was time to end the night and head to bed.  Wow! What a day in the life of Anna!

Anna’s Latest Activities

Monday, January 19th, 2009 | Anna | 4 Comments

This post is mostly for Mike, since he’s gone this week and not here to witness what Anna is up to these days.

Yesterday, Anna helped me with the folding of the laundry.  By “helped” I mean “took everything out of the basket” for me.  As shown here:

Laundry Helper

Anna is showcasing her newly acquired ability to pull herself up to stand.  She pulled up on the laundry basket and proceeded to take all items out of the basket for me and dump them on the floor.  Except this one, which she “helped” me with by chewing on:

My "helper"

Sometimes she tried out standing on her own without the laundry basket.  And then she fell down:

More laundry help

Eventually she took all of the items out of the basket.  While I was frantically folding them she was crawling around undoing my folding.  I gave up and folded everything after she went down for her nap.

Today, we went to The Hornet for lunch with Aunt Jen.  I put Anna in a nice dress and she managed to get a sweet potato snack mashed into it just prior to the picture taking.  It’s a talent:

Lunch with Aunt Jen

I spent most of lunch retrieving items that Anna dropped (most of them purposefully) on the floor.  There was a 3-foot wide span of dropped chicken, cheese, sweet potato fries and other snacks on the floor around her.  I dutifully cleaned it all up, but as soon as I would sit down, another gravitational “test” would occur.  Anna must have heard about Newton’s law of gravity at playgroup and decided to see it in action for herself.

Later on today I was talking to Mike on the phone when I turned to see Anna on the second stair up to the second floor.  She was rapidly making progress up the stairs.  She’s never done this before, but was able to move pretty quickly up to the landing while I crawled behind holding the phone and my hand behind her butt in case she fell.  We’ve already put one baby gate up at the top of the stairs, but it looks like one needs to go in at the bottom too. I have no pictures of this because she was moving way too fast and I was holding the phone.  I’m sure even when I have both hands free the pictures will only be of Anna’s butt getting farther and farther away.

Yet again, my mother laughs at the glory of the fact that I have indeed gotten a kid that moves as quickly as I did.  Karma is apparently laughing at me as well…

Keystone Trip Wrap-up

Tuesday, January 13th, 2009 | The Daily Special | 4 Comments

We have returned relatively unscathed from our trip to Keystone.  But as soon as we all got home, everyone took a nap…

We were invited up for the weekend by Nate and Laura with the purpose of Nate and Mike going to the Vail Beer Festival together on Saturday.  Meanwhile, Laura, Anna and I were going to have a relaxing time hanging around Keystone. Laura is so kind, she made it sound like Anna was such a good girl. It’s a bit of a stretch of the truth…

Traveling with an infant is never exactly what you expect and Anna certainly played her part in this follie.  Here are some of the items that must be taken when traveling with an infant: Playpen and all associated bedtime items, including play pen sheet, baby quilt, bear, silkie, and bedtime books; breastfeeding pillow, travel highchair, rice cereal, oatmeal, formula (for mixing with the cereal), several jars of baby food, bowls, spoons, bibs, washcloths, finger foods, including sweet potato puffs, organic cheerios, and saltines, along with several toys, enough diapers to get through three days, wipes, butt paste, infant Motrin, sippy cup, and at least five outfits.  We also took our cooler with Anna’s yogurt, the fruit that she is eating, and the things we needed for breakfast Saturday and Sunday.  Oh, and then Mike and I took some clothes and underwear…

With the car packed to a hilt we headed off on Friday with the hope that Anna would sleep in the car.  She slept for 1/2 an hour of the almost 2 hour trip.  When we arrived we let Anna play for a little and then I put her down for a nap.  Instead, Anna screamed/cried for an hour while Mike and I prayed that no one was in the condo next door.  After an hour we gave up, and headed out for an early dinner.

This is what my kid looks like when she hasn’t napped and is trying saltines (without salt on the top) for the first time:

No nap!

She’s still cute, but looks a little sleepy.

The first night in the playpen Anna discovered that mom and dad were in the same room and cried when she saw us, cried when we turned over and cried when we breathed heavily.  I’m sure she figured if we were in the room we should be playing with her and not sleeping. Mike and I spent much of the night trying not to make a sound. She had a good nap on Saturday morning, followed by no nap on Saturday afternoon, an early bedtime followed by 3 hours of crying on Saturday night.

Fortunately, Nate and Laura sleep through almost anything and missed most of the crying.

On Saturday Mike and Nate had a great time at the beer festival and Nate won a silver medal for one of his beers.  As expected though, they drank a lot.  Mike and Nate and both nice drunks though.  Nate just talks loudly and then passes out.  Mike told me he loved me a lot more than he normally does and that’s really fine with me.  I have some incriminating pictures of drunk Mike and Nate, but I’ll resist posting them on the web. I have them backed up in case I need to black mail either of them later.

I’m glad Nate was drunk on Saturday night,  (he would have probably slept through a snow plow going through the room) since Anna cried for so long. I think Laura used the time to catch up on her reading.

Mike did take a picture of me in my new glasses on Friday night that looks pretty good.  As an explanation, I have not worn glasses since 8th grade when I was allowed to get contacts, until now.  A few months ago my eye doctor and I determined that the hormones from nursing Anna were causing my eyes to be so dry that I can no longer wear my contacts.  At least if I have to wear glasses, I can try to look hip:

New glasses

All in all, this trip was a good learning experience as a pre-cursor to our trip to Dallas in February.  I think mostly we learned that our days of sleep deprivation are not entirely over, but that we can all nap when we get home.

Anna’s New Disguise

Monday, January 12th, 2009 | Anna | 3 Comments

You asked to see the camo baby bunting and well, ask and ye shall receive…

Camo baby

Doesn’t she look like one of those Secret Service people who talk into their hands?  “Roger eagle eye, I’ve put on the camo suit and now I blend into the couch.  No one will be able to find me here.  Now I won’t have to go down for my afternoon nap!”

The Little Christmas Baby

Monday, January 5th, 2009 | Anna | 3 Comments

First, Anna is 9 months old today – I have no idea how that happened – it seemed like such a long time away when we made the 9 month check up appointment (which is scheduled for Wednesday).

One of the things that I have decided I don’t like about being a parent of a baby is that I don’t get to buy sweet little outfits for Anna.  Other people cannot resist buying frilly dresses (sometimes these are dry clean only!) and outfits for her, so it’s left to me to buy the outfits that she can actually play in and get messy with rice cereal.  It’s a bit of a bummer.

So far in Anna’s life all major holidays have had at least one, if not many, outfits purchased for her by relatives including the 4th of July, Halloween and Christmas.  Christmas was by far the most outfits – one provided by Mike’s mother, two provided by my Aunt Diane and one, stupidly, purchased by me for $0.99 at Goodwill, when I wasn’t remembering that I needn’t buy such a thing.

All of the outfits purchased for her need to be put on her, pictures taken and then “Thank-you” notes written including the pictures.  Anna is unfortunately not at a point where she really likes it when you take her clothes on and off, so it’s necessary to spread the outfit changes out in order not to have a pissy baby – which does not look good in pictures.

Here is the first of the Christmas outfits purchased by my Aunt Diane (the doll was included with outfits):

Christmas Outfit Number 1

It says “Baby’s First Christmas” on it if you can’t read it and the doll’s outfit says, “Merry Christmas”.  Anna herself said, “I have places to go here mom, get me out of the chair.”

Here is the second Christmas outfit purchased by my Aunt Diane:

Christmas Outfit Number 2

This was a little corduroy dress with white snowflakes on the bottom of it that came complete with white tights with red snowflakes and weirdly, butt ruffles. I tried to put a hat on her too, but Anna was having none of it:

That's a "no" on the hat

And here is the Christmas outfit purchased by Mike’s mother:

Christmas Outfit Number 3

Yep, that’s a sheet draped over our couch – Mike is all about creating a scene when he takes pictures; he gets it from his portrait photographer father.

All of the Christmas outfits are up on Flickr here, so feel free to take a look at my struggles to get a good picture for the “thank-you” notes…

Generally the outfits that are bought for Anna are cute and she can wear them for about 20 minutes before she gets them dirty or starts to suck on the bottom of the dress.

I say that they are “generally” cute, because I have received for Christmas from my grandmother (who ONLY shops from the Cabela’s catalog) a camo baby bunting.  I’m including the link here for the picture of it from the Cabela’s website because I am frankly unwilling to put it on my child at this point.  At some point I will have to put her in it and take a picture because if I don’t write a “thank-you” note for it there will be hell to pay.  My grandmother is a world-class grudge holder who does not stand for me not sending a note.  I am so not looking forward to that photo session…