Dinner Last Night: Vegetarian Chili Verde

This might be my favorite new dinner - Giada's Vegetarian Chili Verde from her latest book, Giada's Feel Good Food.  I've made this chili three times thus far; and concluded it is definitely a go-to recipe for Winter months.  It's a simple, with fresh, colorful ingredients, and the end result has been delicious every time!  A few minor changes I've made: Giada suggests using poblano chiles and fresh tomatillos.  Well…my local Safeway doesn't carry poblano chiles, so I omitted this ingredient.  Second, rather than fresh tomatillos, I opted for 2 cans of whole tomatillos, pulsed for about 15 seconds in the Nutribullet - same desired effect in half the time!   

This past Sunday night, feeling especially ambitious, I decided to make the suggested side of buttermilk-sour cream cornbread.  It was superb!  Now I'm not a cornbread aficionado in the slightest, but my husband is a fiend for the stuff, and he heartily approved.  Of course I adjusted this recipe as well - because really - who EVER has buttermilk on hand?  I imagine only farmers who actually milk their own cows for dairy ever actually keep buttermilk readily available in their fridge!   This has to be one of my least favorite ingredients ever, as I feel it's such a waste to buy a whole carton for the tiniest smidge a recipe calls for!  I didn't have sour cream, so I subbed in plain Greek yogurt instead, and just topped off what I would've included in buttermilk with more Greek yogurt.  To-may-toe, to-ma-to…it worked!

Thank you Giada, once again, for a fresh, healthy dinner that reheats excellent for lunch the next two days.  

image/kahakaikitchen

10 Reasons Why I Love You

{4 months}

1. You have the cutest little dimple just above your elbow.  Finally, you’ve gathered enough fat to create those adorable, pudgy, baby rolls, albeit only in your arms and legs.  I could eat them up!

2. You love touching our faces.  You palm our cheeks, cup our chins (and attempt to bite with gusto), tug at our hair, all the while sharing your sweeter than sweet gummy smile.

3.  You’ve discovered your feet.  On the changing table (which for the record, is still your favorite place IN the world!) you lift your feet up in the air, grabbing them toward your face - usually mid diaper change, and roll back and forth boasting your flexibility with bravado.

4. You are growing so fast - already wearing 9 month, even 12-month clothes and you're only 4 months!  While the clothes hang around your mid-section, your lengthy physique causes the need for the bigger size, you are one long little babe.

5. Your hair is growing in! You have a tuft of long, dark hair atop your head that curls across your forehead in a wisp of straight bangs.  Of course, countering that, is a patchy bald spot centered on the back of your head where your hair has rubbed away from laying on your back.  When your dad and I look back through pictures of you from birth until now, we’re amazed at your full head of hair and how quickly it has grown.

6. You are a giggler!  You love to laugh, giggle, coo, and blow raspberries much to your delight and our own.  We love hearing your sweet chortle, it’s the sweetest music my ears have ever heard.  I could listen to you giggle all day long.

7. You definitely enjoy your naked time.  At the end of the day, just before bath time, we turn up the heat and allow you to indulge in a little naked time, letting you wiggle, roll, kick, and play in the buff.  You love every minute of it!

8. You have grippy little toes, just like mommy.  I've been able to pick up items with my toes since I was young, and I’m predicting you’ll bestow the same talents.  When I kiss your toes, you can grip my lip with a single foot, which makes you giggle as your grip is steadfast.

9. You continue to play with your hair as a self soothing technique.  While eating, you extend your fingers, and palm your face, running your fingers back and forth from your eyebrow, across your forehead, to the nape of your neck, and back. It's the sweetest thing.

10. Sometimes, when you're tired, you'll lay your head gently upon my shoulder, tucked in the nook between my chin and shoulder, and exhale a deep sigh.  I enjoy these quiet little moments of closeness together more than you'll ever know.

Dinner Last Night: Pork Fried Rice

Hey there, remember me?  I used to blog?  Well in case you're wondering why I've been so M.I.A., I went back to work full time on January 6th.  Yep, I'm a working mom, and man, is it tough!  Time has now become my most precious commodity, and I now more than ever, I am determined to make every second count!  Mad props to all you out there who juggle a career, child, and more.  

As such, I've had to sacrifice a few things for the sake of spare time; blogging being one of them.  My home is to crank out a bunch of posts one weekend when I'm feeling energized and relaxed…we'll see. In the meantime, one thing I am excited about is our new plan for advanced meal planning.  I wish I could outline the entire program today, but it's a Wednesday, and I'm utilizing this narrow window between a cat nap, cooking dinner, and a bed time routine to crank out this post.

One of our solutions is finding relatively simple, yet nutritional dinners, including this fab find via Dinner: A Love Story - pork fried rice.  After an internet search of "quick weeknight dinners" this post was near the top of the list.  Initially I thought, "pork fried rice," are you kidding me?  How is that easy?  OMG…it is!  Trader Joe's frozen rice will save your life - I am a convert!  Plus, it reheats well for leftovers.  CHA-CHING!  

More quick and easy dinners + my awesome new meal plan routine to follow.  Stay tuned…

image & recipe/dinneralovestory

What Are You Reading?

It's been a while since I've read a book - a real book - that didn't relate to the topics of parenting, breastfeeding, or sleep schedules.  What are you reading these days?  Do tell…  I've love a recommendation or two! 

image/freckled-free

10 Reasons Why I Love You

I'm falling behind on my posts...

{3 months}

1. You’ve discovered your hands!  While you’ve already been captivated by your thumb, you’ve made the recent discovery of your hands.  You hold one over the other, knitting them together in your grasp as if to say a tiny prayer.   This hand holding alternates pretty steadily with tucking them in your mouth, your whole fist sometimes!

2. You still adore your changing pad, especially around the bewitching hours of 5-6 o’clock.  We place you on there, lock eyes with us, and there’s this spark in your pupils as you begin your kicking, reaching, “flailing” routine, it’s like an above water swim or something.  Both Daddy and I can recognize that spark in your eyes, it’s as if you’re showing off your mad skills.  We look forward to this every night.

3. You’ve begun to grasp at everything!  The toys hanging from your play mat, the tassles on mommy’s hoodie, my hair, and may I say you’ve got quite a grip!  It’s amazing how the world is coming alive to you, things you used to just look at are now becoming objects you can touch and connect with.  It’s amazing to see you grow and interact with your world.

4. Since about 6 or 7 weeks, you’ve been quite the talker, but you save your true personality for mom and dad.  It’s funny, because others will try to cajole a smile out of you, and while you often oblige, it’s as if you’re saving your true colors for us.  Your laugh, giggles, sweet smile, and wiggles, we love to make you smile, it melts our hearts every time.

5. You’ve almost rolled over!  You’re more interested in rolling back to front than front to pack.  Your latest move: lay on your back, arch your back and twist, thus propelling your body on its side.  Just one little elbow tucked underneath stands in your way from a full body roll over.  It’s bound to happen soon!

6. You’re such a happy girl!  You light up whenever your dad comes home.  When we hear the keys turn in the door, and his footsteps in the hall, you look up and around, and reward him with a big gummy smile when he walks in the room. It’s priceless!

7. Your noises have multiplied!  From cries to “cat calls” to chirps and gargles, your range of sounds and vocals has quadrupled.  We love hearing you talk, babble, and communicate with us.

8. You’re a copy cat!  One of your favorite things to mimic is sticking out your tongue!  We stick our tongue out at you, and instantly you’re mesmerized; intently studying and watching, before you try this “trick” yourself.  Another move you enjoy mimicking is when we roll our “R’s” and you gargle back, that and blowing raspberries…you love to copy us blowing your lips together to make us laugh.  

9. Sitting up!  The Bumbo is your new best friend, although it’s a tight squeeze with a cloth diaper on (haha).  You enjoy sitting up on the counter, giving you the best vantage point in town as we make dinner.  

10. You have the cutest way of crossing your feet as you lay on your back.  You rest one foot atop the other, and often switching back and forth as you wiggle and play.  At night, in you snooze in your crib, we can see the two little feet, nestled across each other in the bottom of your sleep sack.  

6 Years of Blogging

This blog is 6 years old today.  SIX!  Where has the time gone?!  While my posting frequency has lagged in the last year(s), I still love blogging and hope to continue it indefinitely, even if my posts do become fewer and far between.  Blogging for me began as a hobby, a creative outlet to write, share, ask, and express.  But this blog has evolved into so much more for me, and become a time capsule, preserving moments of my life in time.  Now look back on and reread snippets of my thought process from the most important moments from my life with nostalgia...meeting my husband, falling in love, getting married, my pregnancy...it's a gift to read these feelings preserved in time.  

Here's to 6 more years of blogging...and BEYOND!

image/etellstales

Quote of the Week

I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. If you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it full speed ahead. Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it and above all become passionate about it. Lukewarm is no good. Hot is no good, either. White hot and passionate is the only thing to be.

~ Roald Dahl

*thanks for the inspiring quote Heather!

image/bbb