Recipes

I found a really cool blog this morning. It's called A Year of CrockPotting, and it's got a bunch of really great recipe ideas. I love using the slow cooker because that way dinner is actually ready on time.

Last night I made a butternut squash soup, and it turned out really well. We ate it with some homemade wheat bread, and they went really well together. Here's the recipe:

Butternut Squash Soup

Ingredients

• 1 butternut squash, peeled
• Nutmeg
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• Salt and pepper
• 1 onion, chopped
• 6 cups chicken stock

Directions

Cut squash into 1-inch chunks. In large pot melt butter. Add onion and cook until translucent, about 8 minutes. Add squash and stock. Bring to a simmer and cook until squash is tender. Remove squash chunks with slotted spoon and place in a blender and puree. Return blended squash to pot. Stir and season with nutmeg, salt, and pepper. Serve.

In the comments section, someone mentioned that you should use about 4 lbs of squash for this recipe. I also added a gala apple with the squash, and I liked the flavor that gave it. The only thing I would do differently is that I wouldn't add the pureed squash to all of the chicken broth at the end. It was too thin, so I would recommend putting your puree in a different bowl, and then adding enough chicken broth to reach the desired consistency rather than dumping it all in together. Oh, and I also pureed the onions with the squash because I didn't feel like spending the time separating them from the squash. :-)

Kaiana's doctor visit

Kaiana had her 6 month old checkup this week. She handled the shots pretty well. She was mad when she got them, but as we were walking out of the exam room, she calmed down pretty quickly. She's still pretty tiny, though. She weighs 14 lbs and is 24 1/8 in long. The nurse commented that she's on the small side (which I already realized) so I decided to look up her percentiles on the World Health Organization website.

For length for age, she is under the 3rd percentile. For weight for age, she is around the 15th percentile. Pretty crazy, huh? But then for weight for length, she is in the 85th percentile. She looks pretty proportional, so that doesn't really surprise me. She's actually grown a lot lately, she's much bigger than she used to be, but it's weird to think that she still weighs so little! The nurse asked me about her activity level and how many diapers she wets per day (for those of you who don't know, that's the main way that they gauge if a baby is eating enough) and decided that she's just little, not unhealthy. I already knew that, of course. :-)

In other news, she started really crawling yesterday. I didn't see it, but she was trying to get to the bathroom and Daniel caught her actually crawling rather than just scooting around on her tummy. She certainly wants to be on the move!

French Toast

If all of the little stories about my kids get boring, sorry. I haven't had time to work on scrapbooks in forever, so I'm making sure to write the stories here so that I have a record of them for later. ;-)

I made french toast for breakfast this morning. Caleb came and and asked, "What's that?" I said, "It's french toast." He yelled, "Aaaah! It's French!" and ran away.

Flying Kites and Steak Sauce

We went to play at the park yesterday, and it was beautiful! Lindy and Christopher came along and brought kites. The wind was kind of sporadic so they were hard to fly, but the boys had fun anyway.
Here is Christopher trying to get the kite off of the ground.


Don't ask me why Caleb wore his helmet. He didn't take it off the entire time we were at the park. Kaiana had fun too. I had to keep putting her back on the blanket because as soon as she got off of it, she'd start eating grass. I don't know whether I'd rather she ate grass or Daniel's shoes...

Caleb's been a big help lately. He loves setting the table, and the last few days he's been doing dishes, too. He's only broken one dish so far.

Kaiana got to try two new foods tonight. Daniel was eating some of the leftover steak, and decided to let Kaiana try his steak sauce. She didn't really know what to think of it, but she did go back for more! He thinks that I need to add steak sauce next time I give her potatoes and then she'll be willing to eat them.

Thought for the Day

A bookstore is one of the only evidences we have that people are still thinking.

Jerry Seinfeld

Big eater!

Caleb has been eating a ton lately! It's a refreshing change from his old attitude of "You give me cereal or I'll starve!" (I'm a mean mom and made him go without if he wouldn't eat. ;-D) Last night I marinated some chicken and a chuck steak (chicken for me, beef for Daniel), baked some potatoes and made a nice salad. Caleb wanted to help me so he washed dishes the whole time I cooked dinner. He wanted to help me chop vegetables too, but I vetoed that idea. He really liked the idea of eating Larry the cucumber and Bob the tomato, though.

Caleb ate three whole servings of chicken! They were each about the size of the palm of his hand. He also at his entire salad (with ranch dressing, of course) and licked the butter and sour cream off of his baked potato (well, you win some, you lose some... :-P) Kaiana felt the same way about the potato. I mushed some up for her and she pulled the most awful faces! I'm actually a little offended, because she loves to chew on her daddy's boots and newspaper, and yet she's too finicky for my potatoes!

Daniel enjoyed his potato, though. He said it was the best baked potato I've ever made. To be honest, that's not saying much. For some reason I am completely inept at baking potatoes in the oven. I've tried them many different ways, and they never get soft. However, I've done them in our toaster oven a few times, and they cook well in there. I wish I knew what was wrong with my ability to cook them in a standard oven, butI figure compromising with the toaster oven will do until I have too many kids to fit them all in there.

Kaiana can scoot forward now. She doesn't really crawl, but she can get where she's going so she's satisfied. Her favorite place to play is beneath our stairs.

In case you're interested, here's the recipe for my steak/chicken marinade. Since I cook both at the same time, I like to cut the chicken into strips so that it will cook as quickly as the steak.

3/4 c. soy sauce
1/2 c. white vinegar
3 T. worcestershire sauce
1/4 c. brown sugar
2 T. salad oil
1 t. ground ginger
1 (2 1/2 to 3 lb) chuck steak or chicken

About 5 hours ahead: in a 9x13 glass pan, combine all ingredients. Add chuck stead and turn to coat. Cover and let meat marinate, turning occasionally.

About 30 minutes before serving, prefeat broiler. Place steak (or chicken) on rack in broiling pan, reserving marinade. Broil steak until done, brushing frequently with marinade and turning once.

6 months old!

Friday was my dad's birthday, and Kaiana's half birthday. (Yes, of course we planned it that way! :-D) She got her first taste of solid food this afternoon. It was just rice, so not very exciting, but she seemed pretty happy about it! She kind of pulled a funny face at the first bite, but went on to eat most of it, so I guess it was a hit.


















Kaiana's working hard at crawling. She can scoot forward a little bit, and she gets up on her hands and knees and rocks back and forth, so we think she's getting close. I tried to get some pictures of her doing it, but she wouldn't perform for the camera.















Daniel says that I need to have pictures of myself on the blog (we have very few of them in general because I'm the photographer of the family :-D) so here's one of me with the kids. :-)