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.

Nauryz 2011

Today is the Kazakh new year holiday of Nauryz. Like last year, we prepared by doing some spring cleaning. This weekend we filled the back of my car with donations for goodwill. We also went bigger and better with this year's Nauryz flowers.

This year's Nauryz bouquet (more on this in a future blog post).

For dinner tonight I made Plov, another traditional Kazakh meal. I borrowed this recipe from one of my online friends from the Kazakh adoptive community. Maureen has two beautiful boys from Kazakhstan.

Plov

3 Tbsp Olive oil
2 carrots grated or diced
1 onion chopped
2 large chicken breast cubed
1 ½ c basmati rice
6-8 cloves minced garlic
2 c chicken stock
1/2 c water

Sauté carrot and onion in olive oil. Add chicken and a lot of pepper and brown. Wash and drain rice. Layer rice over mixture. Add stock and water over rice. Bring to boil. Set to lowest heat. Cover and cook about 30 minutes. Spread garlic over top and steam 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Rest 5 minutes. Stir in garlic. Salt if needed.

Happy Nauryz!

I'm can't wait until Nauryz falls on a weekend so we can do something a little more elaborate. Another fellow Kazakh mommy blogger has a ton of great recipes and craft ideas, a real Martha Stewart. I would need a week to prepare for her Nauryz feast.

Halloween

Earlier this month Miranda went to a pumpkin patch with her preschool and it has been the highlight of her month. Everyday she tells us some tidbit about her trip to the "pumpin patch." The most common tidbit is that Miss Kimberly drove the tractor ride to the pumpkin patch. She has also relayed that she had to scoot over so Ava could sit next to her, Tierney sat on the other side, Adrian sat across from her and also had to scoot over so Claire could sit next to him. And Emmy held her hand. That night in her crib she told her stuffed Cookie Monster "Pumpin patch, Tookie, pumpin patch!" So cute. We took her to another pumpkin patch Sunday afternoon since we didn't have any pictures to accompany her original adventure.

After our pumpkin patch trip, Miranda got all dressed up in her pumpkin fairy costume, the same one her friend Emma wore last year.

Grandma Carol came over to help us hand out candy and take Miranda trick-o-treating to a few houses on our street.

Miranda in action. She was great practicing her "trick or treat" and "thank you" at the curb, but once we got up to the houses she got shy again, but still managed to eek them out.

We have now switched out most of her candy healthier treats like graham crackers and animal crackers, but we did let her keep the skittles since she gets those at potty training incentives at school. Monday afternoon she was sorting through her bucket and didn't seem to notice (or mind) the switch. She did start naming off the days of the week when I told her she could only have one treat a day, after dinner. I think the little smarty pants was trying to figure out how far out her treats would last.

Here's why

For all of you family members who were shocked that I waited so long to let Miranda have ice cream, here's why. Because every night after dinner, during dinner, sometimes before dinner, and once at breakfast, this is what I get.

"Ice, Please!"

Never go grocery shopping hungry...

Apparently this adage holds true for two-year olds as well as the adult purchaser of groceries. Today Miranda accompanied me to the grocery store while Ben mowed the lawn. We hit the produce section first and Miranda's little hand immediately latched onto a large red bell pepper...which she then proceeded to bite into like an apple. And eat, all through the grocery store. Of course I failed to foresee this scenario when I put her is a white tee shirt this morning. I did actually give her a snack of raisins, dried bananas and dried strawberries before we left for the store, but I guess little Miss M was still hungry. So this red pepper, along with a whole plum she also insisted I buy turned into Miranda's healthy lunch.

"I helping Mommy"

The Damage

"I messed" ... yes, yes you did.

Bluegrass Girl

Twin Sisters, a local eatery we like to frequent, has live music every Friday night. That was actually a deterrent for Ben and I for a while since the quality of the music was hit or miss. But their food is tasty and much healthier than your standard fare when eating out.

For some odd reason, I seem to be frequently delayed at work on Friday afternoons. This means I'm late to pick up Miranda, I'm late getting home, and there is little or no time to cook dinner. So, we eat out. And on one such occasion we did go to Twin Sisters and the band that night was Tennessee Vally Authority, a local but well known bluegrass band.

Miranda loves bluegrass. We have eaten at Twin Sisters three times now when TVA has played and she loves this band. Visually she is most attracted to the large upright base. Audibly she is most attracted to the banjo. Tonight was one of these nights and she started saying "yea!" and clapping her hands when they brought in the instruments. In the past, we have bribed her to finish eating her dinner by threatening to leave if she did not take another bite. She "dances" to the songs and likes to be bounced to the rhythm. It is just one of those parenting moments that makes me and Ben physically happier just by seeing how happy and excited she gets.

Of course, since we are always in a hurry on these nights, we never think to bring a camera to document all this happiness and cuteness. So you just have to take my word for it, Miranda LOVES bluegrass.

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.

Happy Nauryz!

March 22nd is the Kazakh holiday Nauryz, which is a celebration of spring and also corresponds with the Persian New Year. We celebrated over the last three days with more of the Persian traditions than the Kazakh traditions since many of the Kazakh traditions are a little more difficult to do with a toddler -- horse races and tree planting will have to wait a few years. However, we inadvertently achieved a key part of this holiday Saturday when our cleaning lady came over -- Spring Cleaning. Sunday we performed some more intentional observations of this holiday which included purchasing tulips and hyacinth and shopping for new clothes to wear in the new year. It just so happens that Miranda's 18month winter clothes needed to be upgraded to 24month summer clothes. We also feasted with a french toast breakfast. We continued the feast today with a traditional dish of Sabzi Polo Mahi.

Hopefully we will be able to work in more of the Kazakh traditions of this holiday next year, but it was a successful first Nauryz.

Cutie Pie

I know you are all dying for some recent pictures of Miranda so here is one from last weekend.

She's getting pretty proficient in eating with a spoon, but still not so good with a fork. She has a new picture book which she loves to turn to the food page. First she points at the big orange pumpkin and wants you to say "pumpkin." Then she points at the basket of blueberries, does the baby sign for "more," leads you over to the fridge and tries to open it. Lather, rinse, repeat until you actually open the fridge and give her blueberries.

We got Miranda's potty in place last weekend and have started lots of potty talk but no actual training. Right now we're working on little things like don't pick up and move the potty, don't put your toys in the potty, and don't step in the potty. We're also practicing sitting down and getting up from the potty.

I promise to eventually post some cute pictures of Miranda and animals we took at the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo (she LOVED it). Also, we have a Bugs Bunny moment, Witte Museum, Art Class results and more One Year Ago posts coming in the near future, not necessarily in that order.

Happy New Year!

We had a fun and festive holiday season this year. Miranda opened presents for four days in a row and was a little overwhelmed by the last day. Now she is just enjoying all her new toys and Ben and I are trying to get the house back in shape.

What can't I be Santa Claus?

Are you sure I'm supposed to put them on? I want to take them off!

Reading in our Christmas PJs

What's this hot chocolate? I don't think so!

Helping Mama with the blueberry scones.

Farm Animals!

Sunday, Part 2

Leaving the preserve, I remarked to Ben that Miranda's toes were almost to the tip of the sandals Miranda currently had on her feet. Ben suggested a quick run to Target since the park was a bust and we still had limited time until lunch, followed by nap. Miranda had other plans and promptly fell asleep in the car. So, what do you do when this happens? Drive! Yup, no way are we waking up this kid before she gets a good nap because she may not go down again which will result in a very cranky rest of the day.

We headed north on 281 since that was the direction we were already headed. We made it all the way up to Blanco, TX and were about to turn around and head back home when Miranda woke up from her nap. And it was way past her lunch time. We looked right, we looked left, and there was Riley's Bar-B-Q. Miranda had some chicken, potato salad, and of course, beans. Ben and I both had brisket hoagies. It was some pretty good eats. After, we walked the square and visited the couple of open antique shops (being Sunday, most were closed). We then wandered around a little park next to the square since Miranda was tired of being strapped into the stroller.

It was a nice little impromptu trip which we have no pictures of since, you know, we were originally going to Target. We did finally make it to Target on the way back into town, and then Miranda decided to go for nap #2, so we rounded out the trip by driving around loop 410. Ah, lazy Sunday.

Little Vegan

We've been calling Miranda our little vegan lately, which is completely inaccurate since she probably drinks more milk than she should, and prefers the refried beans cooked in lard to the 98% fat free kind, but our point is ... this girl loves her veggies! Carrots and peas have always been at the top of her list. She also loves red bell peppers and green beans. If we cook it soft enough, she eats broccoli, asparagus, and corn. She likes sweet potatoes, and depending on how it's prepared she will eat squash. If I make a pasta and veggie meal, she eats the veggies first and maybe eats a little pasta.

She also likes fruit including bananas, blueberries, grapes, mandarin oranges, peaches, pineapple, papaya, kiwi, and sometimes cantaloupe and honey dew. She will sometime eat meat, chicken being the most frequent. I'd have to say pork chops are second, but who doesn't love pork chops and applesauce? She also gets a lot of her protein from beans. She loves my crock pot black beans which surprised me a little since they have a little spice to them. She eats lima beans, refried beans, country beans, baked beans ... I could go into a Forest Gump style list here on all the ways Miranda likes beans, but I won't. She still only has 5 teeth, but I think more are coming based on the increased amount of chewing and drool we've noticed over the last week.

Big Girl Breakfast

Miranda is moving closer to independence from "jar food". She's mostly been eating only table food at day care (which has been the cause of some hungy nights when the food wasn't quite Miranda appropriate enough). This morning she had a grown up breakfast of scrambled egg, english muffin with grape fruit spread, 2.5oz of berry yogurt, a handful of rice chex and some milk. I do think she preferred the egg once she had transfered some of the grape fruit spread from the english muffin to the egg.

Finger Foods

Friday marked Miranda becoming 11 months old. Like our friend Miss Emma, Miranda still has no teeth, and it really doesn't look like they are coming any time soon. But we're not letting this hold us back from eating more and more table food. We have now master "appetizers" such as Cheerios, rice chex, and graham crackers. Of course we love the sweet fruits as well, bananas, mandarin oranges, pineapple, peaches. She also eats mac n cheese, bean & cheese tacos (we tear it up for her), mashed potatoes, sweet potato fries, green beans, and carrots. She really hasn't turned much of anything down except for some turkey meatballs that I made, and some roasted potatoes, although she ate those the first time they were offered and when we tried again she was not interested. This weekend I am trying to plan meals for the week, but it is still a bit tricky making something that Ben and I will both eat that Miranda can eat as well since she still needs her food much mushier than either of us can stand. But apparently spaghetti works.

Week 1 Recap

So after a not so great transition week, Miranda started day care full time this week since I am back at work. Ben gets up with Miranda in the morning, gives her a bottle, breakfast, a little bit of play time, then gets her dressed and off to day care. I pick her up after work and when we get home, we eat dinner, followed by more play time, bath, bottle and bedtime. Ben usually gets home in time for dinner as well.

Miranda did not cry most of the week when Ben dropped her off at day care and the teachers say that she is doing well during the day. I had intended on visiting Miranda at lunch time but the one day I tried she was napping. It's probably for the best because she would probably be very mad if I came to see her and left without her.

Wednesday is water play day at day care, so Ben takes Miranda to school in her swim suit. He got a couple of pictures, but Miranda now makes a move for the camera as soon as she sees it, so it's getting difficult to get "baby in her natural state" pictures.






Thursday I got my first call from day care ... Miranda is fine, but I fed her spaghetti and you didn't circle spaghetti on the menu, but she ate it and liked it, but you hadn't circled it on the menu ... I hadn't circled spaghetti because I was told to circle the table foods that Miranda had already been eating at home, and we just hadn't done spaghetti yet. I reassured the teacher that if Miranda wanted to try new food, it was OK as long as we knew what she was trying in case of a reaction later.

Friday I got my second call from day care ... Miranda was pulling up and lost her balance and hit her forehead on the edge of the table. There was a red mark and she cried for a while, but she was OK now ... There is a small mark, but you kind of have to look for it. It was nice of the teacher to call and let me know, but it made me think it was more serious than it actually was.

So for now it looks like Miranda is adjusting well to day care.