Naturally Optimistic

Today Steve was really jazzed about making dinner. Stop the presses! I was so excited. He wanted to make something with a creamy sauce. Sign me up! Visions of dinner that I didn't cook danced in my head. But then we discovered we didn't have any chicken. Or any meat, really. Except tuna and neither one of us was feeling that. I did unearth some meatballs - so we're having Swedish meatballs which will be great. But I will be cooking them & mashing the potatoes, etc. *sigh* So close and yet so far....

Although our little family is only a smidge Irish (well, apparently Steve's Mom is 1/2 Irish so he'd be a quarter? Is that how it works? Dalhia & August would be an 1/8? + whatever is on my side...?) Anyway...we love to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. The menu was corned beef & cabbage (of course), potatoes, carrots & Irish soda bread...the bread was "authentic" alright & a bit tough but it tasted pretty good. Maybe I'll get better at making it next year. Dahlia & I made some decorations & hung up some of her artwork from school. She loved decorating the Shamrocks. We listened to the Celtic Traditional Pandora station & feasted with Steve's Mom Carolyn & Roger. The kids were *mostly* good & it was a fun evening. I even made some green spritz shamrock cookies. Oh and there was Bailey's (or 'Merry's' rather) for dessert. Yum!

So I've been corresponding quite a bit with Steve's cousin's wife Michelle (hi Michelle!) via Facebook lately. We have children of similar ages & she's about to have her 2nd baby in June...so we have a fair amount in common right there. Plus I think she's smart & funny & cool & I enjoy getting to know her more (okay, now I sound like a complete weirdo but, ah well...most of you probably knew that already). Anyway -a couple weeks ago she said that she & David would like to have dinner brought in for us so our sleep-deprived brains could take a night off - at least from cooking! What they delivered was amazing! First of all, they managed to find one of our favorite local restaurants - At Sara's Table/Chester Creek Cafe. The menu was incredible... We had: Some delicious garlicky mushrooms & smoked salmon with veggies as an appetizer. Two entrees - a lamb/bison burger with sweet potato fries (super yum)... ...Roaster duck with some shredded...

Being of primarily German & Swedish descent in our household, one might find it strange for us to celebrate St. Patrick's Day - BUT - really, I'm just looking for any kind of excuse to make an ordinary day of the week into something special. I love 'special' days, always have - and I'm excited to do fun special things with & for my family. We had guests, thankfully, help us consume the rather large corned beef brisket I purchased (it was the smallest I could find) & I put my new crockpot to good use. Onions, potatoes, carrots, garlic, cabbage and of course the meat. All making my house smell delicious while I was away at work! I love the crockpot! For dessert the pistachio "Watergate" recipe...Light, fluffy & most importantly, green. Miss Dahlia LOVED being the center of attention & put on quite a show during & after dinner. She was also remarkably well behaved...even though she had a bath & went to bed LATE. Needless to say I *...

Well, I finally did it. I started that food/recipe blog. I needed to make a list of all the recipes we eat on a regular basis, was considering doing that in excel, and then when Anonymous suggested a food blog, it all clicked. I can have all my favorite recipes in one place. That way when Steve and I are disgruntled about dinner, at least we have a list we can consult. So I present to you: What's Carrie Cooking? Soon to be filled with more recipes for main courses, beverages, desserts, etc...but I'm just getting started so don't be too harsh on me yet. If I use a recipe you've posted on your site, I will credit you. If I don't, please let me know so I can rectify the situation! Bon Appetit!

Last night the sleeping didn't go much better...a little but I gave into the bottle MUCH quicker now that I know it's the only thing that'll get her back to sleep. So, up for a half hour or so then, then she was crying again a couple hours later but she settled herself down pretty quickly. This morning Steve got up with her around...7 ? (I don't know...) and fed her then took her downstairs and I slept for another 45 minutes or so. That is HEAVEN. He doesn't realize this but those minutes are like precious GIFTS from heaven and score huge points. We went for a family hike this morning - although it was chilly Ms. Bundled Up did great and slept through most of the hike. It was cold and windy but on the trail in Chester we were nicely isolated from most of that and it wasn't too bad. This afternoon Dahlia played, I puttered around the house and Steve puttered around outside the house. We're still prepping the room for painting (so much patching, filling, sandi...

I always offer to bring dessert to my MIL's because it's what I *make best* (IMHO)and she's a great cook...and I suck at salads. This Easter was no different. So I pulled out the Martha Stewart Baking Handbook to pick a recipe for Easter Sunday. I thought lemon would be springy and picked the Lemon Curd Cake. Read through - sounded easy! I'll be done in a snap! Um, yeah. I spent 5 hours on Saturday making this cake. Well, more specifically the lemon CURD. This cake took forever. It also took more eggs, butter & sugar than I thought possible (16 yokes just for the curd!!!!!). By time I finished the cake I didn't have time to frost the thing. So I made the frosting and refrigerated it for the night. Well, long story short, when I went to frost the cake yesterday - the frosting separated (even though I followed the directions on how to get it back to a spreadable consistency), then I could get the paper cornet w/decorating tip to stay together to put the decora...

I'm having dinner out tonight with Julie who I went to college with but we have been quite terrible about getting together over the past 4 years or so. She visited me during the dark days of January when I was trying to adjust to having a newborn and I appreciated it so much. So, tonight we're going to have dinner and a glass of wine or two sans wee ones and it will be fun. Luckily the nausea from last night has abated but I am still experiencing TERRIBLE hair. Something I must remedy before the California trip (3 weeks - whohoo!)

I've done pretty good this week on the whole cooking front - at least that's something. I'm trying to make things that have a lot of leftovers that freeze well so I can stock my freezer up for the following weeks. I have a feeling that I won't feel much like cooking then. So we've had chili, creamy italian chicken (not so much for the freezing), lasagna and tonight split pea soup. I'm thinking of turkey meat loaf for tomorrow and then I'm trying to convince Steve to take me on a date (pizza & a movie) on Saturday. And then another week starts and I have to think of new things again. *sigh* Sometimes it is tough - especially when I can't resort to my early-20's when "white rice" or "noodles" was sufficient to call a MEAL.

Meigan was kind enough to send me some diabetic recipes to try out and because I'm getting sick of a slab of meat + a measly 1/2 cup of carbs I thought - why not! I love making soups and was excited to try the Ginger Carrot Soup. Plus I would get to use my oh-so-neglected food processor. It's so fun to use but I just don't have use for it that much. Martha always uses hers for everything...but I haven't been very "Martha-ish" lately. So, I got home after running some errands, chopped everything, used some turkey broth that I had been saving in my freezer for base (I'm always excited to get to use that too), threw it all in a pot and let it cook for about an hour. It smelled delish. By the time an hour was up I was starving. I cut up some crusty bread (mmmm....) and called Steve to the table. However, I didn't FINISH the recipe! DUH. I served my husband this: Yes, that's right - it looks like carrots and peeled tomatoes in a watery broth. We ate it...

I made chicken curry last night for dinner. Steve had been requesting it so I finally acquiesed. I'm not a huge curry fan (I'm more of a bland girl) but decided to give it a shot. I used a crock pot recipe. It turned out - okay. It had sweet potatoes in it which I really liked but Steve didn't care for. He really liked the chicken, but I thought it was dry and too spicy (figures). There was also not much sauce...and when I tried to make more (ala water & corn starch) it got too corn starchy and had that icky texture. Then Steve re-heated & added more water to make it more saucy and less starchy but then it lost it's "good" flavor. I think we were both kind of 'eh' about it. I do love jasmine rice and probably ate too much (even though I only had 2 1/2 cup servings which fit into my meal for the night). I ended up way over on my BG levels which leads me to believe I will be on insulin before dinner before too long. *sigh* And I smelled like curr...

Last night I made another new recipe. It's from Raesha's site and she got it from Dawn whom I don't know but I thought the recipe sounded good so we went with it! Steve loved it and I thought it was pretty good. I'm not a huge salsa fan (ie: I don't like peppers -YUCK) but I'm trying REALLY HARD to make things that are more interesting for dinner and not just to my bland taste buds. Plus I'd like to expand my palate a bit - even if it's one little onion flake at a time. I made homemade corn bread to accompany and we added our tortilla chips & cheese just before eating it (so it was crunchy!) instead of cooking for a couple minutes after the chips were added. We also used some sour cream on the side and it was a very good dinner. Another new recipe for the rotation - whohooo!

Here is the recipe for the pumpkin lasagne from earlier this week. It's from www.foodandwine.com - but when I searched there again, it came up with nothing...go figure... Ingredients: 2 Tablespoons olive oil 2 onions, chopped (I used about 3/4 of one onion....I'm not a HUGE fan...) 2 lbs Swiss Chard, tough stems removed, leaves washed well & chopped (I couldn't find Swiss Chard at my Cub so instead I used Spinach. It worked just fine) 2 1/4 teaspoons salt 1 teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper 1 teaspoon dried sage 1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg (I used the kind from my spice rack) 3 cups canned pumpkin puree 1 1/2 cups heavy cream 1 1/2 cups grated Parmesan 1/2 cup milk 9 no-boil lasagna noodles 1 tablespoon butter 1. In a large nonstick frying pan, heat the oil over moderately low heat. Add the onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until translucent, about 5 minutes. Increase the heat to moderately high and add the chard (or spinach), 1 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon pepper...

This week we're trying menu planning. I am so sick to death of the dreaded question "So what do you feel like for dinner tonight?" I could scream. I can't take it any more! I also can't take going to the grocery store 3 or 4 times a week because we can't decide what we want for dinner until RIGHT before we eat. So....I made a menu: Sunday - Sammy's Pizza (I was craving it!) Monday - Pumpkin Lasagne Tuesday - leftovers Wednesday - Taco Torilla dish (from Raesha's website) Thursday - leftovers Friday - I'm gone so....dinner on our own I know this is pretty simple because we can have leftovers for 2 dinners and we're eating out one, but I feel good. It's a start. Tonight's dinner - pumpkin lasagne - was quite good. Steve really liked it and I think I did too. I pretty much love pumpkin ANYTHING so...there ya go. Hopefully we'll be able to have more variety in our meals and less running to the store last minute. God, I hope so.