Thursday, March 14, 2013

Nutella Spoon Bread



Fact: There are going to be days (exponentially more of them if you are a mom, "room mom," stay/work at home person w/ a busy spouse, Girl Scout leader and/or serial over-volunteer-er)...

There are going to be days when you disappoint.

Repeat as necessary: "I need not be every thing to every one."

It is also a fact that on these days, it is best to realize as much. It is best to stare down your mounting ineptitude and its ensuing guilt. It is best to flip that guilt the bird. (Go ahead - your kids aren't looking.)

Repeat: "I am doing my best." If at all possible, turn off the computer, silence your phone and go for a run/walk, repeating this phrase like a mantra, in time with your steps. Soon, you won't feel so bad. You will feel a lot lighter without all of that guilt.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Ruby Red Roast Chicken w/ Rosemary

Who doesn't love an alliterative supper? You'll remember, I told you to "stay tuned" for the candied carrots w/ roast chicken that are so good I fight the children for them... Well, I ended up going a little off-script for this recipe. However, the secret to those awesomely charred and caramelized, yummy-delicious roast carrots is contained herein, so bear with me.

Grapefruits have been good this year. Really good. Really grapefruit-y.

...who am I kidding. You want to know what? I don't actually care for grapefruit much. (GASP!) Yup. I said it. I know. I'm from Texas, where probably the best grapefruit in the world is grown :). And I don't really like it all that much.

Well, to be honest, I do like grapefruit flavor imparted on other things. Like a gin & tonic.

And also chicken, it turns out! Here's what I did:

(Warning: This is more a rambling food journal post than a recipe, but you can probably follow along and end up with a tasty meal of some sort.)

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Dear Reader,

Yeah, so Hi. It's been a month. (Requisite opening line.) Only this time it's more like a month and a half. I was going to write a sweet & lovely navel-gaze-y post about what's been keeping us all so busy, but unless you're related to me, you probably don't care.

Actually, if you're reading this blog, you probably are related to me. So, here goes...

...shoot. There's nothing keeping us busy that doesn't keep every family of five too busy to write. School, volunteering at said school, activities, birthday parties, obsessive late-night knitting.

I'll just keep to the interesting stuff, then... aw hell.  Life is happening, folks. And I'm grateful for that, though it's definitely happening WAY too fast. Maybe you're wondering, Why does she keep a blog? Does she even cook anymore? Does she just feed her kids girl scout cookies and noodle soup every night?

Okay. Well, I can't promise it's interesting, but here's a little tidbit from each of the lives of our family of 5.3 (yes, I'm assigning each of our animals a tenth of a human point. So sue me.)

Here goes for real: Joshua is in the planning stages of a very exciting business venture. Intrigued? Well, sorry. It's a bit beyond the scope of my little food blog. Next! Ingrid is an 8 year old. She will start horseback riding lessons next week. She's officially left me in the dust with our whole "let's learn violin together" idea from a while back. She's amazing. Malcolm learned how to knit and is now teaching his kindergarten class this valuable life-coping skill. Beatrix is still the boss, but as her second year wanes, she is becoming somewhat of a more benevolent dictator. I will give her that. Canines: Hutch has some sort of endocrine disease that makes him drink a lot and get fat and anxious. (There but for the grace of God, am I right?) Young Rose gets yelled at less and less as her second year wanes. She's a pretty good dog. The cat still bites.

As for me, I will share that I'm no longer employed on the weekends, but am still working part-time from home on this and that for my awesome local yarn shop. I am also as-of-now renewing my vow to blog more consistently. (Btw, I did not so much stick to the plan outlined in the previous post. Are you surprised? It's girl scout cookie season, people.)

Lastly, I'm roasting a chicken tonight. I'm going to steal Josh's secret for making the carrots roasted with the chicken taste like candy. So much so that the kids actually fight over the carrots! And I have to settle the fight by eating all of them. (The carrots, not the kids.) Stay tuned!