Preparation: Food

Sorry if my absence yesterday had some of you wondering if we had made an early trip to the hospital to welcome a new little guy. Nope. Not yet. This mama just took a little break, well, from blogging, at least. Jason spent the day home from work, under the weather and slightly concerned about the onset of some major backaches I've been having this week. I busied myself with a run to the pharmacy, which inspired some grocery shopping (the grocery store being connected to the pharmacy), which inspired a day of future food preparation.

Last month, I picked up The Best Make-Ahead Recipe cookbook by the editors of Cook's Illustrated. I had read about it online, and ran into the bookstore one day in a rush to nab the book to devour its pages later, with intentions of making the included recipes to devour later as well. I took advantage of Jason's time off for Thanksgiving to start preparing and creating a little freezer meal stash. Yesterday, with Jason home on the couch and Audrey wanting to snuggle against his legs and watch a movie, I decided to add to the stash.

Winds gusting at 30-50 miles per hour outside, and my All-American boy huddled on the couch inside, the All-American Beef Chili seemed in order. I halved the recipe and we still had enough for dinner and a quart-sized ziplock to throw in the freezer for later. I have never seen chili quite so thick, so I whipped up some rice, put it in our bowls first and served the chili on top. A side of our favorite corn muffins (recipe here) and I was on to another make-ahead recipe.

More muffins. The cookbook has a recipe for Anytime Muffins, including Apricot-Almond, Cranberry-Orange, Lemon-Poppy Seed, Banana-Pecan, and Blueberry variations. We had everything on-hand for the blueberry ones. You whip up the batter, pour it into muffin tins (or they suggest paper-lined muffin tins for easy freezing), wrap in vegetable-oiled plastic wrap and pop the tin in the freezer for 6 hours. After frozen, the muffins can be popped out of the tin and stored in plastic freezer bags. To bake, just pop them back in the tin and put them frozen into the oven. Easy peezy. Who knew? Want to try them? Jean at The Artful Parent has an abbreviated recipe here.

The muffins and chili got added to our freezer stash of other make-ahead recipes from the book: Creamy Chicken and Rice Casserole with Peas, Carrots, and Cheddar and Chicken Enchiladas, along with some of my lasagna and a couple quarts of our favorite vegetable soup (recipe here - we love it with the corn muffins mentioned above). I was hoping to build more of a stash, but we'll have to see what time allows (my daydreams are always more ambitious that reality seems to allow).

A couple notes on the cookbook, for those of you thinking of running out to get a copy. Once home studying the recipes, I noticed that this project was going to be a bit of a time absorber (the kind of project you wish you had a six-burner stove for - we have a two-burner stove). Many of the recipes call for long cook times (the chili was an hour and 45 minutes, which is enough to give my former commitment-phobe self a bit of pause). But most of the recipes serve 6-8 people. When I made the casseroles, I was able to make one for dinner that night and one to freeze. So it may not save you as much time on the front-end of the food prep as it will on the back-end. Also, several of the casserole recipes call for heavy cream. We tend to cook a little on the lighter side here. In the future I may play around with some of the heavier ingredients and see how the recipes turn out, but for now, I just stuck to the cookbook. So our meals post-baby, while a little less stress-filled, might be a bit more fat-filled. We might put on twenty pounds.

Today, Jason is back at work, and while we tried to clean up from my cooking excursion, a sink load of dishes awaits. I would love to say that everything is going to be spic-and-span in a matter of minutes, but I have 4 dozen cookies and some banana bread to bake for tomorrow (luckily the cookie dough is already frozen in the fridge). And as much as my instinct tells me to order pizza tonight, the fresh layer of snow on the ground, sinus-pressure-filled husband, and little aches that send me searching for comfort nag at me that this is a chicken noodle soup sort of day. Hopefully, my little helper feels like donning an apron today. But right now all she wants is to have me read a book about giving a cat a cupcake. Duty calls.

Handy Hand-Me-Downs

Several months ago a friend gave me a hand-me-down food dehydrator. Finding a cranberry sale, I decided it was time to take it out for a spin. We go through dried cranberries in bulk at our house. Jason and Audrey pop them individually as snacks, while I eat them everyday on my oatmeal with a shake of cinnamon and brown sugar.

With Audrey's help, I rinsed the cranberries and prepared them for dehydration. Audrey enjoyed taking them out of the colander and laying them out on the cutting board for me, sometimes counting them and other times arranging them in patterns. I liked the festive crimson outer flesh (so Christmas) and the shocking white contrast of their firm insides.



Using the dehydrator was simple enough: we rinsed the berries, sliced them, and let them boil in water for 2 minutes before laying them out flat in the dehydrator trays, setting the temperature and leaving the dehydrator to do its work. But the berries, well, they look just about right. I just had one slight oversight. Why I didn't think to include sugar (the only other ingredient listed on our dried cranberry packages in CAPITOL letters) in the berry preparation somehow, I don't know. I suppose I have too many other sweet little things on my mind these days. Hmm...this could take some fine-tuning.

Preparation Week 2: The Soaker Stash

You could say we've shifted into baby mode. Not that the whole weekend was baby-related, there was plenty of Christmas, family fun, and football to go around, but the subtle (and sometimes, not so subtle) aches in my back and the daily movement of the candy cane marker on Audrey's 24 Days til Christmas Calendar are constant reminders that this baby's arrival is just around the corner. So, I spent a couple pockets of time this weekend creating a soaker stash.

We used disposable diapers with Audrey. She ended up being in diapers for longer than I expected she would be. And, well, I'm tired of buying diapers. I'm tired of the late day drives to the store solely for diapers after realizing we've just run out. I've over the diaper trash. I'm ready to get tired of something new. After we had Audrey, a couple friends began using cloth diapers. They became big advocates. They've given a little advice. I've decided to take the plunge. Jason is a bit nervous. I can't blame him. He thinks it's only a matter of time before I grow tired of washing diapers. He's got a point.

But, there is something so sweet about the little soaker stash above that gives me hope that this whole cloth diaper thing will feel just as cozy. I've ordered a small pile of Chinese prefold diapers from Toasty Baby that should arrive on my doorstep today. They are your basic run-of-the-mill, no bells or whistles, need to be secured with safety pins or snappis (also arriving on my doorstep today) cloth diapers. (I also have a couple all-in-one diapers - read: more bells and whistles, look like disposable diapers -arriving, with hopes that those helping out with our little guy who are a bit cloth-shy will feel a little more comfortable taking a turn with those). The Chinese prefolds require a cover to go over them as an extra layer of protection. Hence, the wool soakers. I found a free soaker pattern here. The pattern uses an old wool sweater (I grabbed one from Goodwill and gave it a thorough cleaning) to make the soaker. My sweater (a medium women's) was big enough to make 3, with a sleeve and part of the sweater's body leftover, which means I paid around $1.33 per diaper cover. Add $1.50 for the prefold, and $2.83 doesn't sound bad for a diaper you use again and again. Let's just hope the laundry part isn't too bad, either. In the meantime, I can't help but smile each time I imagine our little boy with a sweater on his bum. Really, what says snuggly winter baby more than that?

For Posterity's Sake: Week in Review 48

Our weekends, while usually family-focused, have seemed even more so in the past weeks. Even our quiet, solitary moments tend to be spent on projects for our current and changing family: Jason assembling baby furniture or installing the infant car seat and me finishing up projects, Christmas and otherwise. While we eagerly look forward to our holidays and family to come, there is something extra special about the things that Audrey does or says that keep us anchored in the right here, right now. Here are some of our favorite moments from the past week:





While getting dressed on Monday, Audrey said, "I want my baby."

"What baby?" I asked.

"I want my baby. I want my brother."





Audrey woke up early on Wednesday morning while it was still too dark to see your hands in front of your face. She stood hovering in her doorway, not making a sound. Jason opened our bedroom door to hear, "Dad, this is your pancake!"





That night we had planned on letting Audrey watch a Christmas movie if she was ready for bed early. Following dinner, I said, "Why don't you start picking up the puzzles so you have a better shot at watching a movie once you take a bath."

"I don't want a shot!" she yelled, jumping from her seat and ducking to hide under the table.

"Sorry, let me rephrase that..."





During bath time, I was sitting just outside the door (but still in clear view of the tub) so I could quickly (and discretely) order a Christmas gift online. Audrey, lying on her belly, was using her toes and hands to push off the sides of the tub and propel herself from one end to the other. The water splashed higher as she gained momentum.

"Are you splashing outside the tub?" I asked.

"No, I'm just swimming fast like a shark."

"Okay, just make sure you don't splash too hard."

"Okay, thanks for understanding," she said.





Thursday night as Jason got Audrey dressed for bed, she asked, "Why do you have arms?"

"I don't know. Why do you have arms?" he asked.

"To put shirts on," she said.

"Why do you have legs?" he asked.

"To put pants on," she said.

"Why do you have feet?" he asked.

"To put shoes on."

"Why do you have a head?" he asked.

"To put hats on," she said.

"Why do you have eyes?" he asked.

"To twinkle," she said.

Gotta love preschooler logic.





Saturday morning Audrey ran downstairs and made a beeline to her toy basket.

"I'm going to get out a bunch of stuff. Woo-hoo!" she yelled.





After "getting out a bunch of stuff," she and Jason played. He bounced her on his legs, spun her in the air, and spotted her as she did "flips" until he had gotten more of an arm and leg workout than he's had in weeks. Tired, he sprawled out on the floor. Audrey asked to flip some more. Jason told her he needed a break. She lay down beside him and wrapped her arms around his head. "I'm just going to hold you, okay?"





The weeks always seem to speed up the nearer we get to holidays or life-changing events. But somehow, we've been blessed with these pockets of time where things seem to slow down. We take the time to listen to one another, to laugh or marvel at the things we hear. We take time to play, to spin, to splash lightly. And, always, as often as we can, we just hold on, squeezing our little one and the moments she gives us for as long as we can.

The Stockings Were Hung...

On our Christmas cards with care.
With hopes they'll get sent out before St. Nick gets here.
As Audrey sat nestled all snug in her chair;
Play-doh flying from her hands into her hair;
I cut and adhered and then cut out some more.
But who knows how many we still have in store?
I think it was eighty we sent out last year.
But that's too much stamping and taping, I fear.
A baby is coming, there's much to prepare.
And free time is growing exceedingly rare.
But I love to send out our holiday cheer.
To our friends, young and old, the far and the near.
So I cut, and I paste, and I stamp in a rush.
And Audrey sits watching, no longer a hush.
"It looks like a lot of work," says my daughter.
I laugh. You know, you sound just like your father.


*For those of you wondering, yes, she actually said that. And yes, her father agrees. :)

Lights, Camera, Christmas

So, we're not just focused on preparing for our garden or spring as my last post might imply. We're actually very firmly planted in December and the happenings going on right here, right now. The house is blooming in a way that it does only come December. It starts out slow, boxes pulled from storage, their contents rummaged through, plans hashed out. And then it begins. The planting of bulbs: on the fence and shrubs outside, in the branches of the tree now residing in our family room, trellised up the stair banister, even bordering the windows and walls of Audrey's playroom (we have an overachieving Daddy who is good at seeing the potential of the world, or playroom, through a child's eyes). And then the bulbs bloom with the help of energy, turning each room into something a little more special, a little less everyday - causing us to bring out other things that aren't of the everyday: ornaments, ribbons, and holiday garland.

Of course, Audrey finds her own approach, taking the everyday and adding it to the not-so-ordinary. Teething rings (dug out from storage to prepare for the baby) and Legos get thrown into the mix of holiday decor. She might just be onto something. Everything is special when seen in the right light. Yes, Christmas preparations are underway.

My New Garbage Bowl

If we could shorthand the last two weeks to the catchphrase "gratitude," then the next couple weeks could just as easily be termed "preparation". It's become our focus: preparation for the holidays, preparation for the change in weather, preparation for the newest member of our family. But with all of this preparing and the list-writing that typically ensues from such an idea, I'm trying to keep things simple, in the spirit of not rushing (or at least tricking oneself into feeling not rushed). To achieve this, I try to pick things from the list to work on that I feel inspired to work on that day (with the exception of doing those few tasks that have to be completed for that day or the next). I leave the rest for another day, when hopefully, those jobs will seem like the ones that will energize me rather than wear me down.

In true recovering (or not-so-recovering) procrastinator fashion, this leads to some interesting tasks being pulled from the list first, which is how I came to acquire my new garbage bowl.





You may be familiar with the "garbage bowl", made infamous by Racheal Ray. She sets a bowl on the counter as she cooks, whose sole reason for being is to dump her food scraps and trash so she doesn't have to make trips to the garbage can during meal preparation. I have been known to drag out the entire garbage can and place it at the end of the counter to shove food scraps into as I work, therefore omitting the step of carrying or cleaning a garbage bowl. But, for the last two years, following the onset of our adventures in gardening, I've been pining for a compost bin. It just seems silly to keep buying dirt I could make myself. Finding myself with some nice weather last week, and finding this tutorial on a DIY compost bin, I decided it was time to stop pining and start composting.





Now, buying a Rubbermaid container to house our compost might not seem like the most eco-friendly option we could find, but the $7 for a first composting effort beat the heftier prices of already-made compost bins that I've been eyeing for years. I drilled some holes for aeration, and Audrey and I began to layer our compost: shredded newspapers; dried leaves; dirt mixed in with yard waste; food scraps; and more newspaper.





We stirred our waste lasagna, drilled some holes in the Rubbermaid container lid, and popped it in place. Then I found an airtight container (pictured in the first photo). It spends its days under our kitchen sink until I begin preparing meals. Then, like any garbage bowl worth its salt, it takes its place on the counter to catch all the food scraps that can be composted. Every few days I take it out to dump it into the compost bin with more shredded newspapers, dried leaves, or torn-up cardboard toilet paper rolls. Only time will tell how well our compost bin will provide, but as our weather drops down to the forties and I find myself shivering, it's nice to think we're preparing in some small way for the spring to come.

*I also found this pint-sized book, Composting: An Easy Household Guide, by Nicky Scott to be a helpful reference as we built and layered our bin.

(And now back to my list, to see what needs to be done in, ahem, December).