Author: Amy

So It Turns Out I’m Not a Cooking Goddess

Posted on by Amy
Damn. I was really hoping that I would be able to transform pickled herring into something delicious. If I’m honest, I was fairly confident in the plan I had come up with for using the herring, sweet pickles, and bran cereal for this week’s home “Chopped” challenge. Unfortunately the plan was no match for pickled herring. Who knew that its taste was so strong? So persistent? So… pickley? Part of the problem was probably that I didn’t even taste the herring until I was getting ready to cook it tonight. Remember how I said I wouldn’t even be able to come up with a plan for it until I tasted it, since I had no idea what the taste and texture would be like? Well, I threw that out the window and came up with a plan, sans tasting, to make a Bran-Cereal Crusted Pickled Herring Po’ Boy with Sweet Pickle and Onion Puree. I’m going to spare you the recipe, because it’s not worth typing out, but here’s what happened:
I was so confident in my plan. I thought for sure if I rinsed off the herring to get some of the pickled flavor off, and then coated it with crushed brand cereal seasoned with some strong flavors (I used chili powder and a bit of cayenne pepper), and then pan fried it to give it a nice crispy crust it would be fabulous on a nice baguette with a caramelized sweet pickle and onion puree sauce. Unfortunately, this plan was based on my expectation that the herring would be salty and maybe a little sour, rather than sweet. Imagine my surprise when I tasted it and discovered the herring tasted like sweet-pickle fish! I had sweet-pickle fish and sweet pickles to put in one dish. This gave me pause, but I decided to push ahead with my original plan and make a few seasoning changes rather than taking the time to change things entirely (two small children fussing for dinner helped with this decision).
Like I said, I pulverized the bran cereal and added chili powder and cayenne pepper, rinsed and patted the herring dry, then coated the herring in the bran powder and put it in a hot pan with some oil to get crispy. For some reason instead of getting crispy, the bran “crust” just fell off in the pan. A few pieces did get a little crunch to them where the crust stayed on, but most just ended up kind of soggy. I’m not really sure where I went wrong here. Maybe my pan wasn’t hot enough or I had a little too much oil. Maybe I should have used some egg to dip the fish into first to get the crust to stick better? If I had any desire to try this recipe again ever, I’d try that next time. . .
The sauce ended up okay. I did the usual, sliced the onions and put them in the pan with the chopped sweet pickles to get soft and caramelize a bit. I used a little bit of wine to get all the crust from the fish off the bottom of the pan. I added a diced ancho chile to try to cut the sweetness of the pickle. Then I pureed it. It was tasty by itself, but added to the still-sweet-pickley tasting herring, it was too much. Oh yeah, and I didn’t have a chance to get a nice crusty baguette for my po’ boys so I ended up using regular hot dog buns, which I didn’t even remember to toast a little. Mush on top of mush on top of mush. . . It wasn’t pretty (served with roasted Brussels sprouts).

I did have a small victory though. My husband actually ate all of his po’ boy, as did I. It wasn’t super delicious, but it wasn’t awful either, and he did say that my pickled herring was more palatable than any other he has ever had. That’s saying something, right? Right?

Live at Lunch

Posted on by Amy
My husband and I have taken some fun photos of the girls over the last several days. I love my camera more and more every time I use it. I feel like I’m starting to take better photos, but I still have so much to learn. Fortunately, I have the best subjects in the world to practice on.
I love that this photo seems to have captured the activity of my two girls right now just perfectly.

No words needed for this shot, taken by my husband.

This is one of my favorite Lass poses. She puts her arm up to her face and makes a sucking motion with her mouth when she’s tired. She does this when I’m rocking her to sleep. She holds the pose when I put her in her bed. Sometimes, like here, she does it to let us know she’s sleepy. It’s her comfort move.
Busted!
Look closely at the photo below. It’s a little bit hard to tell, but she is not holding on to anything to keep her balance. She does this a lot now and for pretty long periods of time. She’s going to be walking before I know it. How can that be??
Today we went to a weekly event they have in our town all summer long called “Live at Lunch,” and I actually remembered to take along my camera. Each week in this little grassy area downtown they have a restaurant selling food and a musician playing music and people come out and eat and listen and bask in the sun. Kids dance or run in the grass or climb on the monuments. People eat and drink and laugh. There was a long line for the food today.
Standing in it seemed like the thing to do, even though the food at the end was just a cold hotdog on a too-dense bun with chips, and there were other restaurants around where we could have gone in and probably gotten better food faster. It was about the experience though. We stood in the line. We danced and sang while standing in line. Miss nearly lost it, but we managed to get to the front of the line just in the nick of time. I almost lost our hotdog and did drop our chips more than once while trying to maneuver the stroller and balance the food while finding the perfect spot for our picnic. But we made it of course, and it was worth it.

Miss danced, and danced, and danced.


I couldn’t help but love the fact that a few tables of elderly people were watching Miss dance and play and smiling at her. A woman actually came up to me afterward and commented on what a “bright” and “enchanting” little girl she is. That just warmed me to my toes.

Home Run

Posted on by Amy
Raisins and cherry tomatoes were my at-home-“Chopped” ingredients this week. I thought and thought for a week about what to do with them. Initially I was going to cook them with some onions and broth and spices and then puree them into a sauce for some pork tenderloin medallions. Then I realized that the skin and seeds of the tomatoes would probably not work well in a pureed sauce, so I scratched that idea. I finally settled on making a pan sauce for pork tenderloin using the raisins and then doing a side dish by caramelizing some fennel bulb (my new favorite vegetable since I learned how to cook it in my cooking class) with some raisins and then adding in the tomatoes. I wanted to use caramelized onions and raisins in a sauce (topping might be a better word than sauce, because the raisins and onion made it chunky) for the pork but add in just a bit of heat to compliment, brighten, and balance the sweetness of these ingredients. Similarly, I thought the tomatoes would balance the sweetness of the caramelized fennel and raisins in the side dish. Yeah. I hit a home run with this one. Here are both of the recipes.
Pork Tenderloin with Spicy Raisins and Onions
1 Pork Tenderloin (about 1 lb)
Salt and Pepper
1 Tbsp Vegetable oil
1 Onion, halved and sliced thinly
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup white wine
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 cup chicken broth
3 Tbsp unsalted butter, cold and cut into 1 Tbsp pieces
Trim fat and silvery skin from the tenderloin. Slice it into 1-inch-thick medallions. Season with S&P on both sides. Then press the tenderloins (with your hands or the flat side of a knife) until it’s about 3/4 inch thick. Heat your pan over medium high heat. Put in the oil. When the oil is shimmering, add half of the pork pieces. Sear them on one side for 2 minutes, then flip them using tongs and sear the other side for about 2 minutes more (they should be firm around the sides). Remove to plate and cover with foil. Repeat with the rest of the pork. Add the onion and cook until it starts to get soft, stirring occasionally. Add the raisins. Let the onions and raisins cook together for a while so the onions get nicely caramelized. Add wine, cayenne and paprika. If you don’t like spicy, you can reduce the amounts of these, but I would recommend still adding them, maybe at about 1/2 of the amount I used. Let the wine reduce by about half. Pour in the chicken broth and any juice from the tenderloin pieces that has accumulated on the plate and continue to simmer for a few minutes longer. Off the heat, add the butter, 1 Tbsp at a time, swirling each Tbsp piece around until it melts. Serve the sauce over the pork medallions.
Fennel with Raisins and Cherry Tomatoes
1 tsp Vegetable oil
2 Fennel bulbs, julienned
1 Tbsp sugar
1/4 cup raisins, chopped
1 pint cherry tomatoes, quartered
Sprinkle of salt
Heat a pan over medium high heat. Add oil, then fennel. Stir fennel to coat with oil and add sugar. Stir, then add raisins. Cook for several minutes, stirring occasionally, to let the fennel soften and start to caramelize. I can’t remember how long this took, but the fennel will start to darken and get soft, but still have a little bit of bite to it. Add the tomatoes and stir them in. cook for a few more minutes to let the tomatoes start to soften, but don’t let them get too mushy. Sprinkle a little salt on, stir, serve.

I was so happy with the way these dishes turned out. Lots of flavor and great textures. The only thing I might have done differently would be to add more wine, chicken broth and butter to the pan sauce to have more of the liquid part of the sauce. It was yummy.
We have already decided to go to 3 ingredients this next week and I drew them from our spreadsheet. I do it like the old game Battleship, picking coordinates that my husband matches up the the spaces on his spreadsheet. The one way that we limit what comes up is that he makes sure at least one of the ingredients is a protein. So, next week? Sweet pickles. Bran cereal. And Pickled Herring. Yes, you read that right. Pickled Herring. My husband told me this and then said, “I hate pickled herring.” What?! This freaked me out a little, because I thought I was doomed from the start if he hates it (I’ve never had it, so I have no idea, though I can imagine, how vile it is). I was prepared to go ahead with it, but I think he felt bad for including such a horrendous ingredient on his list. He suggested we draw a different protein, and we did. The next one that came up was Canned tuna. But after thinking about it for a bit, I told him that I wanted to go ahead with the herring. That’s the challenge, right? Taking something crazy, and potentially kind of gross, and making it fabulous? *gulp* Hubby did point out that it’s actually a win-win situation for me though. If the dish I make is horrible, I can blame it on the herring. If it’s delicious, I become a cooking goddess. Score. I told him I can’t even begin to plan what I’m going to make though until I go to the store and get some herring and taste it. I have no idea what it’s texture or consistency or taste is like, so I can’t figure out what I’ll do until I know that. Wish me luck!!
In other exciting news from the weekend (and to get on to the cute pics), we got our swing set delivered on Friday! The Hubby and I started putting it together during nap time yesterday.

Naturally we couldn’t get it all done while the girls were sleeping, so they joined us outside while we continued to work on it.




We had to put in some more time this morning, though it was mostly the hubby getting it done today because the girls were awake the whole time. Finished product:
We have to trim up the landscaping and the dead stuff underneath a bit and put down some soft mulch, but the girls didn’t care about that. They went right to it after they woke from naps.






This one continues to amaze me with her climbing. My mom says she gets it from me.



And no, she didn’t actually climb all the way onto the platform by herself, but she did climb the ladder all the way to the top, until her hands reached the platform and she wasn’t sure what to do with them to keep climbing. I don’t have photos of that part of her performance, because I was hovering around her as spotter just in case. She never even faltered though!
I love this swing set and I know the girls will get so much fun out of it. According to my husband, who had to deal with most of the inevitable frustrations of putting such a contraption together, they’d better!
As a last note, please excuse the status of my header right now. I thought it was about time to change up the photos, but for some reason could not get the far left photo to fit in the header correctly. Also, some of the photos in this post have a bit of a foggy look to them. It’s because my camera lens fogged up when I took it from inside the air conditioning to the muggy outside. Sorry!

Full

Posted on by Amy

Starting swimming lessons and gymnastics class and three forensic cases to do and trying to get in my 20 days of exercise this month and watching Chopped last night. . . and this week is quickly getting away from me. So I realized, “What happened to my Independence Day post?” Well, it got combined with my Wednesday July 6th post, that’s what. Here you go!
As I predicted, our 4th of July celebration consisted of more of the same festivities that filled the rest of our holiday weekend.

Well hello there Hunk.


Celebrating the birth of our country with my sunscreened babies, splashing and loving the water. Cherishing family. Perfect.


That and great outdoor food. We had grilled kielbasa, veggie kabobs, potato salad, the works. Even ice cream!
Miss loves her “Chocolate ice cream on a stick” – otherwise known as a Dove Bar.
And this little one had her first taste of the sweet stuff.
The brat making continued. Here’s my hubby making sausage.
My hubby after I pointed out to him that he’s wearing his “Wiener Shop” T Shirt.
Wieners.
We ate some for dinner tonight. Fantastic. There’s nothing like fresh, homemade sausage. He also made chorizo, which I love to cook with. I can’t wait to try out a new recipe using it.
Speaking of new recipes, my “Chopped” ingredients this week are cherry tomatoes and raisins. I wasn’t able to get to the grocery store until today, but I got my ingredients and have something of a plan for my dish. I need to refine it in my head before I dive in to make it, so it’ll be Friday or so before I do it. Stay tuned.
I think I’ve written about how I have ordered some new big girl outdoor toys for Miss so that the push-behind lion can be passed down to Lass now. We are still waiting for her trike, but her roller skates arrived yesterday. And so did these:
We had to try them on today to make sure they fit. I ordered them with the intention that they would fit her now and also be gear she can grow into, so they look a little big but they do fit. Naturally she didn’t want to take them off and had to dance around in them until I had to nearly pry them off her for nap time.

Soon to come will be photos of this ensemble, outside, with little Barbie roller skates. I love it.
Right now we’re busy in a great way. Miss loves her gymnastics class and seems to be enjoying her new swimming class so far. We’re having play dates.
I’m enjoying work. Being a professional. Sorting out the intricacies of psychiatric diagnosis when a case is a little unusual. It helps me to be well-rounded. To be challenged and stretch my brain in a different grown up way. Then I come home and get back to my real job. And it’s good. My life is full. In the best possible way.

A Daddy Weekend

Posted on by Amy
I can’t really even put into words how much I love having a weekend when all the stars are aligned and 1. we are not traveling, 2. the weather is nice, and 3. my husband isn’t working. Oh, it’s wonderful. Fortunately, I do not need to rely solely on words to describe this happy time. I have photo documentation.
Daddy has been making lots of forts and Little Sister has been able to join in the fun. The girl loves to roll around on a blanket.



“Can I come in?”

This one lights up at the sight of her Daddy.
This morning we baked our banana chocolate chip muffins for Daddy.
This is the face she makes when she says, “Cheese!”
“They’re puffing up!” She kept calling the muffins “mushrooms.” This kid cracks me up.
After they baked, she “painted” honey on top of them.
She was so proud of herself!
She said, “I eat a bwownie out of the mushwoom!” when she picked a chocolate chip out of the muffin.
Sharing a special snack with Daddy.
And can I just gush for a moment about how ridiculously easy it is to take the girls to the pool when I have another pair of hands along??
I was even able to take photos for once!


Lass is happy when she can play with a ball. Or two.


Easy, easy, easy. I’m gushing here.

Did I mention this one loves to play with a ball?


We’ve been playing very hard this weekend.
And even after all this playing, Daddy is making bratwurst tonight. I can’t wait to eat them. Homemade bratwurst are the best.
I’m listening to fireworks outside right now. I tried to get Miss out of her bed (she’s not asleep yet) and take her out to see, but she didn’t like the sound. She wrapped herself around me, clung on for dear life, and said, “I want to go in my bed and go to sweep.” So she’s missing the fireworks tonight, but tomorrow we will celebrate the 4th of July. Mostly our day will consist of more of what you see here. Family. Love. Fun. Eating. Pool. Mix in some patriotism and perhaps a sparkler or two, and you have a celebration. Happy 4th of July.

CSN Post

Posted on by Amy
Finding a New Use for Old Things

I love the process of finding cool old stuff. Sifting through antique stores, junk shops, flea markets, yard sales. Finding that one special thing that can really make a statement. I love taking something that is a piece of trash and making it shine. I love the challenge of taking something that was used in one way and making it work in a new or better way. I just love old things, period. Antique items all have a story. Some of the things in my home have a story I’m somewhat familiar with, as they are family pieces passed down through generations. Some the finds I’ve made over the years are just old, but I can imagine where they’ve been and like to wonder what their story might be. Some of my things aren’t all that old, but their story comes after I purchased them. Like the old coffee table I bought for $3 at a yard sale before moving into my first house in college, and then refinished using glue to make a crackle effect on top before moving into my first by-myself-apartment in graduate school. Or the armchair I got at a flea market for $20 that had a hideous, torn royal blue floral print upholstery. My mom reupholstered it for me and it was a great addition to the waiting room of my first private practice office. Some of my favorite things are both old and have been tweaked by me in some way.
For example, one type of item I especially love because of its endless possibilities and inherent artistic appeal is an old window. I have scored lots of cool old windows over the years at great prices. Most as low as $5, some even free. One person’s trash, and all that…
Old windows have so many great uses. I have lots of them that I love using for wall art. I’ve collected them over the years. I have done work on some of them, and some I pretty much just kept as they were when I found them. Here are some of the ways I’ve used them for wall art:
With this old screen I didn’t do anything but turn it sideways and add the hooks to the top.

I didn’t do anything to the top leaded window in this photo. I added the flower stencil to the glass on the bottom one. I just love the shapes of these windows and the textures of the old cracked paint and wavy glass.
I love the elongated shape, crackly paint, and great old hardware on this window. When I bought it, it was missing one pane of glass. Rather than adding more glass, I thought it would be more interesting to cut and punch a piece of tin to fit. The tin was brand new, so I rubbed a little brown paint on it to take off the shine.
I’m a total sucker for a basic mullioned window. We had windows similar to these in the house where I grew up. This one was a boring brown, so I did a paint finish on it to make it more interesting and so it would coordinate better with the other windows in my wall decor. I have used it as a photo frame, but for now I’m enjoying it’s simplicity just as is.

This window was free (yes, in this case that means I picked it out of someone’s trash). I didn’t do anything to it but scrub it up and add the pieces of a very old and tattered quilt in the openings.
This window is one of my favorites. It still has its original paint finish, turning lock at the top and handle at the bottom. I screwed the old door-molding-corner-piece-things in from the back to give it some more interest and a little function too. Initially I used the little shelves for pillar candles. Now, with the window in the entryway of my home, they hold mini framed photos of my girls or provide a place for guests to drop keys or hang hats, coats, or bags.
This is the first view one gets when coming in my front door.
The space below the window is empty. I’m still looking for a fabulous foyer table to round out the space. Maybe something old. Maybe a yard sale trash to treasure piece. Maybe even a new table with a funky old look or a piece of naked furniture I can put a great old-looking paint finish on. The possibilities are endless. Happy junking.

Playing Catch Up

Posted on by Amy
I have my computer back finally! Still don’t have my old photos recovered, but I did get to finally upload and look at the pics I’ve been taking for the past week. Naturally, I have lots of photos of fun times with the girls.




These two are really starting to play together so well. I love to watch them. Miss gets such a kick out of making Lass smile or laugh or clap.

Lass idolizes Miss. Tonight when I was cooking dinner, Miss kept Lass entertained the whole time by dancing around and tickling her while Lass was in her jumper. It’s a good thing too, because Lass doesn’t really love being in the jumper so much anymore. Now that she can roam all over the place, she’s not so into being in any contraption that restricts her movement. But, she’s into everything, so I have to keep her in the jumper or her highchair any time I’m cooking. She climbs on top of everything she can and seems to be trying to climb on top of all sorts of things she can’t (like the window sill in my bedroom, the table under our TV, etc).
The other day she climbed up on the fireplace hearth like it was nothing. And I have made more than one diving catch to keep her from falling back on her head when she turned herself to sit after climbing up on our suitcase (the suitcase that sat on the floor of our bedroom waiting to be unpacked for way too long).
Miss is so fun to watch as she develops more and more skill in so many areas. Gluing, sticker-ing, and coloring among them.


Cow paper bag puppet! She’s crafty.

She is starting to really try to color inside the lines (without even being prompted to do so by me). She got this Hello Kitty coloring book and went through all the pages trying to precisly color Kitty’s nose again and again.


Tonight the Daddy made a fort with the couch cushions.


Miss had to take all her friends in with her.
She thought the fort was the coolest thing ever. No wonder Daddy is her favorite these days. . .
Today is the last day of the month. On the first of the month I wrote this post about exercising and stated my goal to exercise at least 15 out of 30 days this month. I am proud to say that, even with a week of vacation thrown in the mix, I did meet my goal, hitting 15 days yesterday. I thought I would go one better and get in a workout tonight, but I couldn’t drag myself away from my much missed computer. However, I do intend to do even better this next month. In July, I’m going for at least 20 days.
Another goal for July is to get Miss’s new swing set put together. After weeks of looking for one that will be fun for her for many years to come, will be safe and sturdy, but won’t break the bank, I finally found one and ordered it earlier this week. I’m hoping it will be here tomorrow so it can be a project for the holiday weekend. Wish us luck with that!
In addition to putting together a swing set, we’ll be spending time at the pool, eating ice cream, baking banana chocolate chip muffins (Miss picked the recipe), and celebrating the 4th at home.

Can’t beat that.

Shrimp and Grits

Posted on by Amy
Ingredients for this week’s “Chopped” Challenge: Shrimp and Cheddar Cheese
My mind automatically went to Shrimp and Grits as the dish to make. I don’t really know why. I’ve only eaten one bite of shrimp and grits ever. It was at a restaurant in Charleston. My husband ordered it. I would never order such a thing. Surprisingly it was delicious. My version? Read on and see.
So okay, to be perfectly honest, I’m not even sure if traditional Shrimp and Grits has cheese in it, or if I’m confusing “Cheese Grits” and “Shrimp and Grits.” Either way, I made Shrimp and Grits and it had cheese in it. Here’s the recipe:
Shrimp and Grits
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
14 oz Andouille sausage sliced about 1/2 inch thick (you can use a bit less or more, this is just what size package I found at our clearly un-Southern grocery store)
1 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 cloves garlic, pressed or finely minced
3/4 cup quick grits
1/2 tsp salt
1 12-oz can 2% evaporated milk
2 cups water
1-2 cups sharp cheddar cheese, shredded (I didn’t measure but I think I used closer to 2 cups)
1 tsp cornstarch
1/2 cup more water
2 tsp Paprika
1/4 tsp Cayenne pepper
Salt and pepper to taste
Heat a large non stick pan with a lid over medium high heat. When the pan is hot, add the oil and heat until shimmering. Add sausage and brown on both sides. While sausage is cooking pat shrimp dry and season with S&P. When the sausage is browned, remove it from the pan and place on paper-towel-lined plate. Drain all but about 1 Tbsp of sausage drippings from pan. Add shrimp to pan in batches and brown on both sides. Only cook a minute or two on each side and just until the shrimp is opaque to avoid over cooking. Remove shrimp as it is cooked to another paper-towel-lined plate. If all the fat is taken out of the pan, add a bit more oil and let it get hot. Add garlic and stir until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Then add grits and stir to coat with oil and brown a bit. After a few minutes, add 1 cup of the condensed milk (reserve the remaining 1/2 cup in can) and two cups of water to grits, stir, scraping browned bits from sausage and shrimp from the bottom of the pan, bring to a boil and cover, cooking for about 5 minutes. While grits are cooking, add 1/2 cup water to the remaining 1/2 cup evaporated milk and whisk in the cornstarch. When grits are done, add cheese in handfuls, stirring to melt and alternating with adding the water/evaporated milk/cornstarch mixture. When the cornstarch liquid and cheese are added to your liking (you’ll probably need to add a bit of water to keep it from getting too thick, see note below), add in the paprika, cayenne pepper, shrimp, and sausage. Add S&P to taste. Cover and cook for a few minutes to let the shrimp and the sausage get warm again. Serve.

So, I stirred the shrimp and sausage into the grits to get them warmed up again, and the result was an extremely ugly dish of food. I probably should have tented the sausage and shrimp with foil, or perhaps placed them in a 200 degree oven to keep them warm, so I could just put them on top of the grits instead of needing to stir them in to warm them up again. Appearances aside, the dish had good flavor but it was too thick for my taste. I would either lessen the amount of cornstarch in the slurry or add more water or milk to adjust the consistency after all the slurry and cheese were added. I did manage to get the grits cooked better this time, as they were not “gritty.” In all honesty, this was not my favorite of the “Chopped” dishes I’ve done so far. Perhaps I shouldn’t have gone with the first dish that came to mind. I could have been a bit more creative. Maybe I could have done a chowder or some sort of play on a tuna melt or a Po’Boy. Whatev. The dish was good, but not delicious. I’ll do better next time!
We were supposed to have storms today. They missed us.
We were glad.
It was a good day.

Summer Lovin’

Posted on by Amy
I love the smell of my babies in the summer. Sunscreen mixed with chlorine, a little bit of dirt and little girl sweat. . . Heaven. We have been busy here living summer. That’s what people do here in the North Country. After such a long winter this year we are trying to wring every last drop of summer-ness out of the few days of beautiful weather we have had so far. This weekend has been packed with the farmer’s market, two trips to the pool, and making the most of life outside – grilling and eating and lots of playing.
Tonight we had a jam session on the front stoop.

Miss had been collecting rocks from our front landscaping and asking my husband and I which ones were our “faybwits” (favorites). We were sorting and admiring rocks so much my hubby decided to grab his guitar and make up a song about Miss and her favorite rock. Notice in the photo above, his favorite rock sitting on his knee. She requested the song over and over, even after he had moved on to more well-known tunes.
These days are magical. Funny sayings from Miss. First assisted steps from Lass using the lion walker (featured here). Getting soaked at the water table. Miss dancing the most adorable wiggle to her daddy’s guitar music. Exchanging glances and laughs with my husband as we watch our amazing girls. When I stop and soak it in it makes my nose tickle and my eyes tingle and my heart squeeze with happiness. I love summer and the opportunities it brings for moments like these with my girls and their Daddy.
Note – My computer is “in the shop” again, because I am having trouble accessing all the photos I restored after my hard drive was replaced. Hence, my lack of blogging. Hopefully I will be back in full swing again very soon.
And I’d like to note that the recent lack of posts about our “Chopped” adventures has been due to my husband’s work in creating a list of ingredients to draw from, as I will now be doing two surprise ingredients each week. The list is now completed enough to pick from it (though it is a work in progress), the ingredients have been drawn, and my next challenge is to use shrimp and cheddar cheese. Immediately what came to my mind was Shrimp and Grits, so I’m going with that. I’ll post the recipe and let you know how it goes later this week. What would you make??

Grab Bag

Posted on by Amy
Tonight for dinner, I tried deep frying for the first time. It was totally easy and delish. Picture it: warm tortillas smeared with chipotle mayo and topped with shredded cabbage, diced tomatoes and deep-fried beer-battered fish. Fish tacos baby. Yum.
I have always shied away from deep frying. For some reason I thought it was difficult. Today my Southern roots came through, and I deep fried that beer-battered fish like I’d been doing it my whole life. I love it when I make a yummy dinner that my hubby loves. Usually I try to make a bit more healthful food, but everyone needs a little bit of deep fat frying from time to time, right?
This time of year is when I feel the need to pull out the macro lens for my camera. I am a sucker for a good, close up flower photo.


I have a lot to learn about photography and editing, but I love these photos.
So simple.
I also love listening to Miss speak. From her adorable two-year-old pronunciations (like “Faiwy Godmuddah”) to her funny little play conversations, I could listen to her all day. Her imagination is really taking off, and one thing she is really into these days is acting out conversations between “characters.” Sometimes she uses her special “fwiends,” which are the toys she sleeps with, Elmo, Bear, Teddy Bear, Big Baby, Big Momma Bear, Owl Pillow, Bear Pillow, and Ariel. Sometimes she takes totally random objects, like a bunch of gourds (or “vegetables” as she calls them) in a bowl at The Farm or a few empty shaving cream cans in my shower, and turns them into a complete family, acting out all sorts of different family dramas between them.
She will have entire conversations between these characters, changing her voice inflection just slightly to indicate that she is doing the voice of a different one. It is so fun while getting ready for the day to listen to her and quietly giggle and smile to myself at the funny things she says.

Randomness for a Tuesday. Hope you’re having a great week.