Kitchen Dance Party

On Wednesday afternoon while Jesse was at the allergist getting a new year's worth of antihistamine (marriage drugs), Miles and I headed into the kitchen to prepare some food for the week. I decided to make a giant batch of bolognese and prepped some mashed pears and steamed peas for Miles. I feel pretty lucky that he's so into green things. Of course that may change, but for now I'm going to take full advantage of his non-discriminating taste buds.

This week we've been dealing with Miles' teething woes. Poor little guy is having a rough bout with those two suckers on the bottom that are bulging and aching, but just won't come out. I try to keep him distracted during the day, but have resorted to giving him a good dose of ibuprofen at night, because it's just too much. He was getting a little fussy while I was cooking, so I set my iPod on shuffle and cranked up the volume. Gwen Stefani was one of the first artists to pop up and Miles smiled and immediately started bobbing to the music. I'm pretty sure Jesse is pretty bummed about his love of such pop nonsense, but our little kitchen dance party did the trick until it was time for bedtime relief. I'm thinking Miles' afternoons with dad will definitely include soul music appreciation dance parties.

Monday Monday

J and I had a pretty good weekend. The weather was decent for noticeable periods of time and we got to take a few walks outside during this time of year when the first daffodils spring to life, the birds begin to tweet, and J sneezes his way through eight boxes of tissues. Yes, the extra time in the great outdoors confirmed that J's cold was in fact compounded by his seasonal allergies. Let me rephrase, it's that time of year when I wake up one morning bleary-eyed, wringing my hands (after the sneezing, snorting, and snoring all night) and threaten to kick him out of the house if he doesn't go-to-the-damn-allergist-already. The doctor's office opens in one hour. I am counting the minutes. 

As for M, for the past few days, he has been noticeably less social. I think it's due in part to the fact that he's not been sleeping well from his stuffy nose, but also is working on popping out a tooth on the bottom. Poor little guy seems to be in a good deal of discomfort. That didn't stop him from exploring this weekend though at our friends' house. He took the time to explore all of their nooks, but liked the space under their sink the most.

Today, I'm feeling a bit like M, wishing that I had a nice cozy nook to crawl into. I was hoping Monday might shape up to be as productive as the weekend, but I've already hit a few roadblocks. I was up at 5am (for reasons I'm still not sure of) and found out that DEQ is closed. Seriously? On a Monday? Renewing our car registration was the major tasks for the day. In addition, the weather channel is predicting a 70% chance of rain and misery and as I type, M is bearing down to take the largest poo of his life in the nice fresh cloth diaper. Like I said, still hopeful that this Monday will turn out alright.

How is it Only Wednesday?

I'm starting to feel better, but my cold is still lingering. It's disrupted my sleep as well as Little's, so neither of us were at our best this morning. Actually, my son was being super annoying -- refusing to nap, eat, or do anything on his own and then squirmed and twisted when I tried cuddle. At one point I just sat him on the floor surrounded by all of his toys and let him have a good short cry. He finally got over it, crawled over to my leg and gnawed on my kneecap. I guess he was making amends. Then, the cycle started all over again. 

So, I decided that I needed to eat something more hearty than oatmeal for breakfast in order to deal with Crankster McGee. I hauled his highchair into the kitchen and gave him a spoon while he complained at the top of his lungs. Eventually, he realized that the spoon was really cool, especially when used to hit things. While Little was working out his frustration with a spoon, I made a giant pan of scrambled eggs for J and me, which provided the main protein for breakfast tacos (liberally sauced with sweet sweet Cholula). Black-eyed peas are a very non-traditional addition to tacos, but believe me, they tasted awesome. 

Once I finished breakfast, I fed Little a second round of solids while roasting a few sweet potatoes and some red bell peppers for his afternoon snack. What was on the menu for Sir Cranky Pants' breakfast? Steamed carrots mixed with pear, a dollop of oatmeal, and some cottage cheese. I normally wouldn't doll up carrots, but they were a pretty mediocre bag and quite honestly tasted like dirt -- I try not to feed him things that I wouldn't eat myself. Luckily, pear cures most food imperfections and he gobbled it up. After breakfast we played for a while, but a tumble onto the floor sent him into a downward spiral. It was finally nap time for real and he slept for an hour. Finally!

Let's hope this day is just an anomaly and tomorrow we'll both wake up refreshed.

Sick Days

J was pretty sick last week with a cold. Mid-week while still symptomless, I proclaimed smugly on Wednesday evening "wow, looks like we dodged that bullet" (see pictured smugness). Then BAM! Sore throat and stuffy nose followed by a fever last night that had me in bed sleeping approximately three seconds after Little went down for the night. Luckily, he only woke up once to eat and when he was bright-eyed at 6am, I was ready to face the day as well. The fever has run its course, but we're both still stuffy. Little is handling it very well, actually he's running (crawling) circles around me with all of his energy. It's kind of driving me nuts. He's also learned that mom's shirt and pants make lovely tissues. My wardrobe has turned into a collection of installation art pieces with a tiny master painter at the helm. 

Despite his cold, little developed a new trick yesterday: nearly cramming his entire pacifier, handle, nipple and plastic piece, in his mouth. If given a little more time, a quick twist would have securely wedged it between is palate and lower jaw. He was very proud of his (near) accomplishment and giggled when I gasped in horror at the thought of it getting stuck in there. I immediately removed the lot from his reach and, despite my cold, hopped in the car in search of a new brand that would be too big to fit in his mouth. For those of you who are wondering, bedtime without the pacifier would be a hellish nightmare that I'm not ready to approach at this time.

Sir Little is very particular about the shape -- the likes the angled orthodontic variety -- so my search wasn't easy. Soothies have been a joke for a while, MAMs make him gag, and I haven't bothered with any other of the shapes, because it seems that he's stuck on Nuk. I was pretty shocked to find that many companies, Nuk especially, make pacifiers in sizes with larger nipple to fit the mouth, but do not scale up the outside piece accordingly. Haven't they hung out with tenacious six-month-old babies who are determined to cram as many things in their mouths as possible? And with our son, as soon as he learns a trick, he masterfully practices his skills until perfected. I don't think I'm overreacting when I say that it's a serious industry oversight that shouldn't be taken lightly. 

Anyway, my friend Serena suggested a brand that her son likes and it seemed a little bigger than the ones that Little has been using. Little is still warming up to his new pacifiers, not that he has a choice in the matter, and I'm secretly hoping that he just decides he doesn't want them. Then, we won't have to worry about weaning later. Ha! Wishful thinking!

Fresh Cheese

I've been meaning to jump on the homemade yogurt bandwagon for a while. Since we go through gallons of yogurt every month, it seems like something I should at least try once. While researching how to make yogurt, fresh ricotta came up in a number of postings, as well as in my go-to cookbook for things like this, How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman. I ambitiously purchased all the ingredients for yogurt and fresh cheese earlier this week, but never found the time to actually try it until today. Since the yogurt required a bit more attention, I decided to start out with the ricotta* first and move on to yogurt this weekend.

The recipe is incredibly simple: 1/2 gallon of milk, 1 quart buttermilk, and a couple pinches of salt. Bring milk to a slow boil, pour in buttermilk and stir until the curds separate from the whey. The whole thing was a bit like a science experiment, but in this case you end up with something tasty rather than a table full of suds or shattered beakers. And really, the hardest part is tending the boiling milk so it doesn't scorch. With that said, I made the fresh cheese while also entertaining/feeding Miles. In other words, you don't have to watch it that closely. 

After the curds separate, you dump the whole thing into a colander lined with a triple layer of cheese cloth. I was a little less than careful while pouring, so I managed to get splashes of curds all over my jacket. You then just gather up the cheesecloth ends and twist so the curds gather into a ball. It's pretty hot, so I had to run the ball under cold water until it was cool enough to handle. Then, just squeeze the crap out of it until a good deal of the liquid is gone. My technique for pressing was to twist the top and use my other hand to press from the bottom to keep the nice round shape. 

It took a few minutes, but eventually I felt that it was firm enough to let set. Basically, you just leave it tied up for an hour or so and it hardens a little more.

I've also read that you can use the reserved whey to make bread or soak grains. I'm going to look into this further since I have at least a half gallon of leftover from this project.

So the verdict? Well, the overall taste was sort of meh. I think it needs a lot more salt. Next time I'll probably put a tablespoon or two. The texture is pretty good though, resembling a sort of queso fresco that you'd buy at the grocery store. It can be cut in slices or crumbled. Mark Bittman suggests that you can take the fresh cheese and brine it, which is what I think I'll do with this batch since it's a little too bland to add much to a dish. You can also add a number of things to it before pressing, like pesto, roasted peppers, various herbs, or fresh ground black pepper. I'm definitely going to play around with the ingredients and perfect my technique techniques. It's a fun, quick project that has a lot of potential!

*What I made is actually not ricotta, which uses considerably less buttermilk. It's just termed fresh cheese, which apparently is also the recipe for cottage cheese -- you just let the curds stand in the cheesecloth rather than pressing them into a ball.