Sleeping Son

I just put Silas to bed about 15 minutes ago. Even though I was struggling to stay awake I couldn't help but look at that perfect little face of his and think of how incredibly blessed I am. Thank you, Lord, for these sweet times with my baby. I know that he will grow up someday and we won't have times like this anymore. Makes them all-the-sweeter now! Even when it's after 1:00 in the morning!

Goodnight!

Donations and Chicken Burritos

My resolution for 2010 was to organize our home. The ENTIRE house. I plan on doing a little bit everyday so that by the end of the 2010 there will be "a place for everything and everything in its place." Dan and I recently tackled our clothes. What an undertaking that was! Dan was done in a couple of hours but mine stretched out over the course of several days. With taking care of Silas, cooking, general house cleaning, the occasional shower... I finally finished the job! I feel so liberated! I went through my clothes for winter, summer, maternity and everything in between. The result was a bit insane.

NINE bags! Eight of them were mine. And those are the forceflex bags too!

We were planning to take them to Goodwill but I decided to ask the local shelter for domestic abuse victims if they took donations. The women on the phone excitedly responded, "YES!" In fact, whatever they are unable to use they end up donating to Goodwill. Goodwill in turn weighs the donated items and gives the shelter in-store credit for the amount weighed! How awesome is that? The shelter is not in a top secret location or anything but they don't have their address and phone number listed in the phone book. If you would like to make a donation to the shelter (located in New Albany) let me know and I will pass along their contact info!


I had some leftover oven-roasted chicken and was in the mood for Mexican food. I shredded the chicken and simmered it with a can of ro*tel, a can of pinto beans, cumin, red pepper flakes, salt, pepper and a little lemon juice.

It made for some really great burritos with some sour cream and shredded monterey jack cheese. I even went back for seconds. No beans for the surprised little dude below.

Vegetarian No More (or how to flat roast a chicken)

Silas tried his first bite of chicken a couple of weeks ago. And then he tried another bite and another bite... He loved it! As of about a month ago (really even before then) he became VERY bored with anything pureed. Not that he didn't care for the taste but rather the fact that mommy was feeding it to him with a spoon. Silas is still too young to master the skill of feeding himself with a utensil of any sort so I had to get creative with finger foods. Ripe pear, cantaloupe, bananas. Bits of toast. Cheerios. Carrots, peas (popped out from their hulls), green bean, sweet potatoes, zucchini. I started adding the tiniest bit of seasoned salt to some of veggies since he was starting to get bored with them as well. He gobbles them up now! You have to be careful to not add much sodium to your baby's food. It can make their organs work overtime to process it and we don't want that!

Back to meat. Dan has been working in a lot of chicken processing facilities recently so seeing a whole, roasted chicken is usually a less-then-appetizing sight for him. I recently bought a whole chicken from the store and decided to try a new recipe while he was out of town. Not only was it a new recipe but a whole new method of chicken roasting too! Brace yourselves. Here we go...

SPATCHCOCK! Weird name but a great method for roasting a chicken quickly. I felt pretty fancy cutting out the backbone with my super sharp kitchen shears and then popping the breastbone down with the palm of my hand to flatten the chicken. Here's the recipe that I used (in my own words because the book is in the kitchen and I'm not. And well, I'm comfy on the couch). This is an adaptation from the recipe for Flat Roast Chicken in the book Mad Hungry - Feeding Men and Boys by Lucinda Scala Quinn.

1 3-4 lb roasting chicken (also sometimes referred to as a fryer chicken)

2 Tablespoons of butter

1 Tablespoon of olive oil

Salt

Pepper

1 Tablespoon of lemon juice

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Remove the backbone from the chicken. Rinse and pat dry with paper towels (you don't want all of the extra water in the pan). Season the chicken on both sides with salt and pepper to taste. Heat a large cast iron skillet (mine is either 12" or 14") on medium high heat. Once hot, add the tablespoon of oil and ONE tablespoon of butter. Swirl to coat the pan. Add the chicken to the skillet skin side down. It will be crazy loud but resist the temptation to flip it! If you move it too soon you will tear the skin. Let the chicken be for about 3 minutes so the skin can get nicely crisp and brown. Remove from heat, flip the bird over in the pan (careful so you don't tear the skin too much!) and put the whole thing into the oven. Roast for about 45* minutes or until the bird is evenly browned and has an internal temperature of 165 degrees. Remove from oven and transfer bird to cutting board or platter to rest for 10 minutes. Swirl remaining tablespoon of butter and lemon juice into the pan juices to create a simple but tasty sauce for the chicken. Carve, spoon on the pan juices and serve. DELICIOUS! So simple and SO good.

*My bird took about an hour because it was slightly larger then 3-4 lbs.

Now if that isn't a look of satisfaction, I don't know what is!

"Here, Mom. Want some?"

Guilty Pleasure Confession

I don't know if it's the fact that I grew up watching old musicals that made me fond of this particular artist or what but I really have a soft spot for the vocal talents of Anthony Newley. I hadn't even remembered Mr. Newley from my musical days gone by until my dad started singing one of his songs while walking around the house recently. That led to looking up youtube videos which led us to reading up on his bio which led to the discovery that he wrote the song Feelin' Good! Consequently that song in particular has been a huge hit for Michael Buble' but I don't know if Newley ever actually recorded it himself. If anyone knows, please enlighten me because I would LOVE to hear it.

Anthony Newley had a very unusual style for his time. Flamboyant is the word that comes to mind although he was as straight as an arrow. He has been sighted as being a HUGE influence (vocally) for an artist that is now wildly famous. I will give you a hint. His real name is David Robert Jones.

Here is a video of a young Newley performing Who Can I Turn To from the Broadway musical The Roar of the Greasepaint - The Smell of the Crowd (which I have never seen). Let me know what you think!

Basement - The FLOOD and the renovation part 1

What a mess! Our basement flooded BIG TIME this past Sunday. Both family rooms downstairs (which are both carpeted) were saturated with water. After spending the whole morning and afternoon sucking up the water with shop-vacs and steam cleaners we realized that our sump pump wasn't plugged in. Oh my. No wonder the water kept rolling in! My father-in-law kept track of the amount of water he was sucking up and he called it a day somewhere around 150-200 gallons. I won't bore you with all of the details but let's just say that we have a lot of work to do to get things back to normal. Some mold has been discovered and it will take some doin' to get rid of it (cutting out and replacing drywall, etc).

An extreme before and after renovation was featured on design*sponge today. It motivated me to really beautify my home and encouraged me that we will have a nice finished basement some day! Here is the link to this incredible makeover.

How about you? Any renovations in your future? Big or small, a renovation/makeover can be very satisfying. Even if you're just cutting some old jeans off to be a new pair of summer shorts.

Peach Jam from Dove Farms

Well, maybe the word "farm" is used a bit loosely. Dove is referring to the name of our street. Regardless! When we were taking our first tour of our soon to be first home, we were shown the lovely little tree in the middle of the back yard. We were told that it was a peach tree and it actually produced a decent amount of peaches! We were quickly told that we wouldn't get any of the peaches because the squirrels would get them first. A month or so after we bought our home I noticed that the peaches were starting to grow. When they began to reach near ripeness the squirrels, as promised, began to snack away. What wasteful little guys they were too! After witnessing a squirrel pick a peach off of the tree, take ONE little bite and throw it down on the ground I decided to take over. Out we went determined to pick EVERY peach off of the tree. We did have a tiny bit of sympathy for our wasteful friends and left one peach waaaaay up in the tree for them. There we had it! A giant bowl full of small, semi-ripe, white peaches. We let them ripen on the counter for a couple of days and then my mom helped me can them for peach jam.

It turned out so delicious! We took this past summer off from any extra-curricular canning activities seeing as I was expecting this little sugar plum smack dab in the middle of peach season. I am sure that Silas will thoroughly enjoy some white peaches from his very own backyard this summer. Maybe even a peach inspired 1st birthday cake?

Pictures of the April Foolery

Here are just a few pictures of how I spent the evening before April Fool's Day. You can see the excitement on Silas' face. :)