Hot Times in the Kitchen

Recently, I have been attempting to expand my prowess in the kitchen. The reasons for this are many.

1. I like good food.
2. It stimulates the domestic goddess within me. 
3. Broke.
4. Hungry.
5. Trying to lose weight.

Am I the only one who sort of dies a little bit every time I need to spend money at the grocery store? I mean, I do love to eat delicious food (see #1, above), but damn if it doesn't seem just a little bit sad to watch money going away that I won't even have anything to show for in a couple of days. At least when I part with money in exchange for a new purse or boxed set of fantasy novels, I've got something tangible that I can enjoy forever after. Once food is in my belly, well, that's the end of it. 

On top of which, I've been doing my darnedest lately to turn over a new leaf where my finances are concerned. There are just too many things I want and want to do to allow multiple weekly $30 trips to Safeway, when at the end of the week, my cupboards, somehow, are still bare. So to that end, I've lately been trying to get creative with the things I do have on hand, and to be smarter about stocking up on staples that will go a long way.

Plus, after busting my hump at the gym during the day, I'm really a bit loath to stuff my face with frozen pizza or other pre-made entrees, however economical they might be. 

Witness tonight's culinary genius.

As I've learned, the first step in all this is to start pondering dinner just after lunch.What do I have in my cupboard? What can I do with it? Do I need any small items to make a full meal out of it? This afternoon, I remembered I had frozen chicken breasts, two zucchini, a head of broccoli, leftover chopped onions from the turkey chili we'd had a night or two before, plus some butter and olive oil and parmesan, which are staples I always keep on hand. 

Let me take a moment here and sing the praises of a bag of frozen chicken breasts. A package of regular chicken breasts will run you something like $8 or $9, and you get 4 good sized breasts in there, enough for one meal for two, and leftovers for lunch. The Safeway brand 3lbs bag of frozen chicken breasts cost about $10, and while each individual breast is a bit smaller than what comes in the fresh pack, this bag is enough to last me for a least a week's worth of dinners, they defrost in the microwave in less than 10 minutes, and they make eating healthy a breeze.

Infomercial over.

After the baby was fed, I defrosted my chicken, cut up my veggies, and dumped the lot into a casserole dish. I drizzled on the olive oil, and added my personal favorite spice, garlic powder, in a relatively generous portion (because I love it), and a tiny dash of cayenne for heat. I drizzled a bit more oil on top, and three thin pats of butter to help crisp up the veggies as they baked. Plus a little pinch of salt.

I baked for 40 minutes altogether at 375 degrees.

Let me tell you, it smelled delicious.

The veggies were perfectly done, the dish as a whole had the perfect amount of flavor, and I topped mine off with some Parmesan cheese, which has like, 25 calories in a tbsp and is amazing on just about everything.

It was glorious. 

And I'm telling you, the more I just play around with ingredients, or cook from a recipe, I start doing more things like tonight, just sort of throwing a bunch of stuff in a dish and putting it in the oven and hope for the best. Which is good, because after I've done it once, it seems easy, and I begin to have fewer and fewer excuses for picking up drive-thru or falling back on the cheap and fattening option, because I know how little time and effort something better takes, and how much better I feel afterwards. Winner!

The Harvest Festival

Much as I dislike crowds and waiting in lines, I really wanted to take Violet to the Harvest Festival at Ardenwood Farm this year. This second round of the holiday season with her is going to be so much more fun, because she's so much more aware of everything than she was at this time last year, so I was excited for the pumpkin patch and the petting zoo, etc.

And I think she did have fun. What I realized, though, is that I should have brought my stroller, first of all, and second of all, that we probably could have gone to a park for free and she would have had just as much fun. But, mommy and daddy wanted photo ops. Hehe. 

Piggy!

Piggy!

We started out at the animals. Bunnies and cows are animals she's seen in her books, but never up close. She kept calling all of them piggy, though. Ironic that we didn't see any actual pigs.

Piggy!

   

We did some wandering about and eventually met up with two of my mommy friends and their little ones, both of whom seemed better equipped to handle a full day at the farm -- a 9 year old and a baby in a stroller. I felt very unprepared. I finally put Violet on my shoulders, which seemed to keep her happy for the longest amount of time. She really just wanted to run loose and get in everyone's way. In theory, I didn't mind, but it was just crazy busy and there was all kinds of farm equipment and stuff laying around. And she's too full of energy to want to be constrained for very long.

So we soon parted ways with out friends again and headed over to the pumpkin patch, again, largely for the photo op, since we didn't want to take a pumpkin home just yet. Charmingly, her first instinct was to try to pick up the biggest pumpkin she could find. 

This one looks good!

I'll just sit here for a minute.

We did have to convince her to sit on one, and because I was following behind her and daddy, I kept only getting pictures of her back. Oh well, it's still cute.

The haystack was a big hit. She loves climbing things. Going up was relatively easy, though Daddy did have to help her get her footing on the less-than-stable hay. Going down was a bit more dangerous, and definitely required help.

Going up...

Trying to take the down step at a run, note the look of panic on Daddy's face.

She had such a fun time picking up rocks and sticks and falling in the dirt that Shawn and I were both commenting on what a little tom-boy she was. But she kept holding out her hand for me to brush off the dirt, so, clearly still a princess after all.

Dirty. Clean me, please.

On Milestones and so forth

After a long absence, a milestone has urged me to post once again. And you'll no doubt be gratified to know that I've roundly scolded myself for not posting in an age. Cardinal sin of blogging, really.

Milestone -- 18 months. 

I don't know quite why that's a milestone in my brain, other than that it's the next size up in baby clothes? From 12 months to 18 months. The next will be the big 24 -- or 2 years old. But also, I've started referring to her as being "a year and a half," rather than how many months old, and that's different. Soon she'll be two. Gulp.

*sob*

We're already seeing signs of the feisty little 2-year-old she is going to grow into. "No" is a common word in our house already. She gets little attitudes when she doesn't get her way, when Calliou isn't on for long enough, etc. (Sidebar -- much as I try to interest her in Doctor Who, Torchwood, Sherlock Holmes, et al., she stubbornly refuses anything but cartoons.)

But she's also more and more her own person, and that's a fun thing to watch and be a part of. She's learning new words by the day, picking up new skills like climbing onto laundry baskets and unlocking my iphone. Which has got me thinking about getting her enrolled in classes of some kind, baby tumbling or even just taking her to a play place to interact with other kids. She's so much more outgoing than I ever was as a child, eager to make friends with everyone and check out all the new stuff. I was the shy kid who wanted to stay in my room and read books. So I want to foster that spirit in her, get her out into all kinds of different activities, sports, music, girly stuff and tom-boy stuff, and wait to see what sticks. So whether I'll be a (hot) soccer mom or a (hot) gymnastics mom or a (hot) piano recital mom, or all three, remains to be seen.

But seriously, I'm in no rush to find out. All this growing and getting bigger business really needs to stop.

With Grandma

Watching Calliou, one of her favorite pastimes

Already sneaking into Mama's wallet

Such a big girl, eating at the table