Easter 2012

This was our first year to decorate eggs with Miranda.  She took this responsibility VERY seriously.

On Easter, Miranda opened her package of fun from her grandparents Cooey-Nichols.

And then we had lunch with Grandma Carol and Granny.  Unfortunately I got better pictures of the food than the people, so here you go ...

Pork shoulder braised in a combination of hard and soft apple ciders with ....

Spinach wilted with onions and maple bacon, and ....

Roasted root vegetables (carrots, turnips and parsnips), and finally ....

A diabetic friendly apple crisp with ....

Home-whipped whipped-cream.

After a big lunch and a brief nap, Miranda hunted some plastic eggs in the back yard that were filled with treasures and trinkets.  This year I cheated and put in little treasures that she really already had (birthday party favors, prizes for good behavior at school).  Don't judge, we've been busy and we have a lot of that crap.  I think next year she'll be on to me so I'll actually have to come up with something new.  I'm thinking pocket change.

Ouch!

I know you all really come to this blog to read about Miranda, but my name is in the title, so indulge me for a moment. 

I started playing co-ed soccer again after a four year hiatus.  The last time I physically exerted myself was walking a 5K in November.  Last night was our first game.  Ouch.

To make matters worse, I was off all day with Miranda since it was President's day.  I decided with all this free time I would make Spinach Enchiladas.  I used this recipe and added some shredded chicken to the filling.  Some highlights of this recipe ...

4 cups of cheese

2 cups of half & half

1 cup of heavy cream

1 stick of butter

And this is what I ate before playing my first soccer game in four years, at 8pm.  Ouch.

CSA - Week 2

I'm sure you have all been waiting with hungry bellies to see what veggies we got with this week's CSA.  Illustration provided below. 

Saturday night I did steam last week's broccoli and saved a serving for Miranda to eat with dinner and froze the rest.  I melted a couple tablespoons of butter in some olive oil and pan fried some pounded and seasoned chicken breasts for about three minutes on each side.  Once the chicken was cooked I added the radishes, thinly sliced, and zest of one lemon to cook for five minutes or so, then added 1/3 cup of white wine.  Once that cooked down I threw in equal parts of chopped basil and flat leaf parsley.  In retrospect, it was a little too much parsley since I couldn't taste the basil.  Next time I'd go 2 to 1 with the basil.  I poured the final product over the chicken breasts and served with a salad of last week's green leaf lettuce, raspberries, carrots, almonds, and goat cheese with a raspberry vinaigrette. 

Last night I made another asian stir fry with the pac choi.  I'll post more details and pictures later.  If we continue to get pac choi, I'm going to need some suggestions on what to do with it that is not asian stir fry, because that's all I'm coming up with on my internet searches.  We (I mean Ben) also ate some of the broccoli with dip during the football game.  I've got to make time to cook Thursday evening if there is any hope of getting through the majority of these veggies by the time we pick up the next share this Saturday. 

Soup is good

Doesn't that soup look good?  To use the kale from this week's CSA share, I made Turkey, Kale and Brown Rice Soup.  I pretty much stuck with the recipe as published this time.  Giada, I noticed there was no picture of this recipe on the Food Network website.  If you want to use mine, just message me and I'm sure we can work something out.  

Well, we have another crop of veggie to pick up tomorrow but I still have a full head of lettuce and a full head of broccoli that remain untouched (I'm sure you all are real shocked about that second one).  It sure would be handy if we still had bunnies to help us out with some of these greens.  If we get more broccoli tomorrow I may blanch and freeze one head for later in the year.  Stay tuned to see what comes this weekend.

Salmon with Pepper and Pac Choi Saute

Last night I tackled the pac choi, which after googling I found out is really just another name for bok choy.  As you can see here, I baked some salmon, seasoned with Emeril's Asian spice.  To accompany that, I started with this recipe, but of course I modified it more for our family tastes.  Like, instead of mincing one teaspoon each of ginger and garlic, I julienned a two inch piece of ginger and sliced 5 large cloves of garlic.  I also added about a cup of sliced shiitake mushrooms and two of my monster green onions julienned to the pan at the same time as the garlic and ginger.  I used the entire bunch of pack choi and I dashed a little more of Emeril's Asian spice into the veggies when I added the soy sauce.  Voila, dinner.

And yes Jennifer, I ate an entire serving of those vegetables without picking anything out.  Miranda only ate the peppers.

CSA! CSA! CSA!

Several years ago when all of our friends joined CSA's, I looked into it, but there was only one farm near us and the drop-off locations and times were not particularly convenient.  Oh yeah, and I don't love vegetables.  Last spring, one of my employees offered up her share to anyone in our unit willing to drive all the way over to Alamo Heights to pick it up.  Wait ... What?!?!  That's where I live.  So in the intervening years, that one farm has grown and expanded and there is now a Saturday morning drop-off less than a mile from our house.  We joined in the summer and walked most weekends to pick up our crops.  It went well enough.  I learned that I just can prepare eggplant in a way that any of us will eat it, except in cake form (think zucchini bread).  We also had okra coming out of our ears in the end.  This weekend was our first pick-up of winter crops.  This week's share includes Green Leaf Lettuce, Rainbow Chard, Green Shallots, a Kale mix, a Pac Choi and a head of Broccoli.



My first meal with the veggies was a Swiss Chard Lasagna.  I required an additional two noodles because I was using a larger lasagna pan, and when I had to soak those additional noodles, I decided to improvise further and brown about 8oz of ground turkey and add that before the second layer of noodles.  And I probably used more like 5oz of mozzarella cheese on top.  It was quite yummy and Miranda sort-of ate it.  Even though her favorite veggies are green peas and green beans, she still has a problem with "green stuff" that is mixed in with other food. 

Tonight I'm going to make something with the pac choi and some of the green onions.  I'll let you know how it turns out.

Happy Court Day!

Today was the second anniversary of our court day in Kazakhstan. To celebrate we made a special meal of manti and Margarita pizza. This is the meal Ben and I ate regularly for lunch at a little restaurant next to our apartment during our month in Kazakhstan.

Miranda enjoyed helping to make the manti, but unfortunately didn't love eating them. I used the recipe I found here and had to modify the filing slightly since it is impossible to find pumpkin this time of year that is not pie filing. I used butternut squash instead and it appeared to be an acceptable substitute.


The dough, on the other hand was an issue. First, I had to more than double the water in the recipe. The dough was extremely stiff and I had a hard time getting it thin enough, so the resulting dumplings were extremely bready. But the filing was perfect! It tasted just like we remembered.

Miranda also helped make the pizza. She was more interested in eating the tomatoes than using them to top the pizza, but she mostly topped the pizza all on her own.

The finished products!

Easter Fun

Last year we arrived home from Kazakhstan with Miranda the day before Easter, so we didn't really do anything bunny or egg related. This year we stayed low-key and stayed home.

Miranda checking out her Easter basket after breakfast.

We didn't do an egg hunt, but Miranda did have fun running around the yard with her basket full of plastic eggs. She would drop some, then pick them up, and then drop some more.

I toyed briefly with the idea of torturing our bunny Dana to get a picture of Miranda with a real live bunny. But then I came to my senses since poor Dana is over ten years old which is over 100 in bunny years. I decided that a picture of Miranda in bunny ears would have to suffice.

For dinner I made Lagman, which is a traditional Kazakh/Uzbek lamb stew. I even made the noodles myself, by hand. Miranda LOVED the Lagman which made me really happy since she's been a picky toddler lately. Of course, this stew has lots of tomatoes, red bell peppers and pasta which are currently her three favorite foods. I think she would eat nothing but tomatoes if we let her.

Little Cook

On Sunday, I decided to teach Miranda how to make blackberry cobbler. Knowing how to make tasty vittles is practically a required skill in my family, so I'm teaching her all my secrets now. She really enjoyed the experience, mostly because I have a set of plastic measuring spoons for her to chew on and wave around. I forgot to get a picture of the cobbler and it has long since been eaten, but Ben did snap this pic of Miranda and I cooking.