Feeding Our Kid

Despite his refusal to drink anything but water (not even chocolate milk or juice), Connor eats an amazing amount and array of food. His day starts with sliced banana and Cheerios, then a big bowl of plain whole milk yogurt mixed with a few tablespoons of wheat germ and a heaping spoonful of almond butter. Some days he will even have scrambled eggs after all that! He feeds himself with the spoon now, with a little assistance. He has a new fascination with dipping Cheerios into the yogurt and then eating them. After that lumberjack breakfast, he is pretty good till lunch on most days, though I do offer him a snack mid-morning.


Lunch typically is a tray of cut-up fruits, veggies, protein and always a slice of whole wheat toast at the end of the meal. Today he had cherry tomatoes, blueberries, avocado and a salmon/herb patty. Lately I've been having some fun with his food and making things like turkey-wrapped avocado chunks or strawberry and peanut butter sandwich bites. He seems to appreciate the creativity :) I found the other day that pizza is a hit with him as we had leftovers from the night before. I just cut it up into cubes and he ate it, eggplant, onions and all. After his nap he'll have a slice of cheese, which we have tremendous fun cutting into pieces and stacking together before he eats, and a peach (how he loves peaches!) or grapes.


Dinner is a lot like lunch, usually a mix of leftover stuff we had the night before (bbq chicken thighs, fish, tofu, or turkey burgers, plus spinach or other veggies, and fruit like melon, strawberries, oranges). He has a second big bowl of yogurt at night, this time mixed with eggplant hummus and ground flax seeds.

A lot of my day is preparing and cleaning up food for Connor, but I wouldn't have it any other way. It's a lot of fun now that he eats all the same stuff we do, and so neat to see him appreciate a variety of healthy foods. I know people say that kids shape their eating habits around this age, and I'm so excited for the life of good food he has ahead of him!

Calhoun St. Reunion / BBQ Rib Dinner

Last night we had a rare reunion of college housemates - with Tom and Darcy both in town and available to meet up. We decided to make three racks of ribs on our new grill, and everyone came over around 6:30pm. For the ribs, we made a spiced apple cider mop which we used to baste the ribs throughout the 3.5 hour long indirect heat cooking process. The mop consisted of apple cider, shallots, jalapenos, brown sugar, ketchup, white wine vinegar, tomato paste, salt & pepper. The ribs needed a longer cooking time than our recipe led us to believe, but they came out awesome! We made corn bread and coleslaw to go with the ribs, and for an app, a plate of prosciutto wrapped melon bites and cheese & crackers. We used the cocktail forks that Gram got in Brazil in the early 1980's and gave to me for my birthday this year:


It was so much fun to have Tom & Darcy together in one room and to reminisce about old times. Hard to believe these old times happened almost 10 years ago now!

Succulent Garden

Yesterday was a kick-off to summer on our back deck. We assembled the new grill, deep-cleaned the deck and redid our little table-top garden, this time with succulents. We have had spotty luck for the past few months with growing potted plants there, and wanted something very low-maintenance. When we lived on Gravilla Place, we planted a couple of tiny cacti in back, and over the four year period (where we basically ignored them completely), they grew massive and impressive and were very happy. Hopefully our new little garden is a success too.

First Meal on the New Grill

Last night we took our newly assembled Weber Spirit grill for a test run and cooked the whole dinner outside. We got filet steaks at Trader Joes and marinated them in Worchestershire and sriracha for a couple of hours. When cook time was close, we coined up the zucchini from CSA and put them in a bowl with olive oil, garlic & lemon juice. Next, everything went on the grill, the Peachy Canyon zin was poured, and maybe ten minutes later we were eating. Yum! And almost no dishes to do after dinner. Thanks dad, we love our joint b-day present!!!

Car-less for 8 Days

Regular readers of this blog and friends/family who are in close touch know that we have had some pretty bad car trouble over the past week. It started last Friday night when Dylan was driving to poker night and the car overheated. We took it into the shop and found out that a massive coolant leak had destroyed a ton of parts and hoses, requiring a laundry list of parts and eight hours of labor to fix. Not a good thing! We got the car (and the steep bill) on Tuesday afternoon only to find that the A/C was not working. It worked fine before we dropped the car off at the shop. Turns out the compressor and valve both needed to be completely replaced. There was some back and forth about whether or not the first repairs in any way caused the second problem, and the shop ended up giving us the parts at cost and charging us for one hour of labor on the five hour job. We just picked the car back up, and despite having dropped a lot of dough and being car-less for eight days, we and the car are doing great and happy to be reunited.

So, this brings me to the experience of not having a car for over a week in a household where two adults and a one-year old typically share a vehicle. Surprisingly it was not a problem, and I actually enjoyed the (small) challenge it presented! We have a unique situation that allows us to live easily without a car, and here are some of the reasons why:

- We live right next to great shopping street with supermarket, hardware store, drugstore, and everything else you would need for everyday life.

- Our house is next to a bus stop that can take Dylan downtown to his office.

- I am a stay-at-home mom and so don't need to commute into work, and have plenty of time during the day for errands to take as long as they need to. I always say that I am rich with time at this part of my life right now and so we don't need to rush. This is something I am extremely grateful for every single day.

- Dylan and I both LOVE to bike and walk. Dylan rides to work a few days / week and I can throw Connor into his little bike seat and go anyplace.

- Our life is centered around this local area. Connor has activities and playgroups, but they are all walking or biking distance from our house. Along with the typical weekly walks and bike rides, we added in a few extras for things that we normally drive to, but it was totally fun! The best was riding my bike 25 min to take a 1 hr spin class, then riding another 25 min home. I'll just say that I was pretty excited for dinner that night :)

Having no car made me appreciate what a luxury it is to normally have one sitting there whenever we need it. It was neat to realize that we can do without it, but I am very excited to hit Trader Joes once Connor wakes up from his nap and do a big, family shopping run. Feeling appreciative of having wheels!!

BBQ Chicken Thighs & Kale

Last night we used up the last of the CSA produce in our fridge, and pulled a few chicken thighs out of the freezer to create a great dinner. The chicken was broiled with a mixture of bbq sauce and sriracha (ground chili and garlic sauce). For the kale we used some leftover onion and shitake mushrooms from earlier in the week and just stir-fried them all together.


Good thing there is room in the fridge now, because we are about to go out and buy all the fixings for two racks of ribs slow-cooked on our new grill tomorrow night with coleslaw and cornbread. Tom and Darcy, my college housemates are both coming to town for a rare Calhoun St. reunion and I am so excited to have us all together and for Darcy to meet Connor! And to fire up the new grill!!

Pizza Night!

Last night we declared a pizza night. I won't go into the long story, but the short of it is that between Dylan's work and my work, and ongoing car troubles (A/C now broken = another $500 we spend on our beloved Jetta) we realized that it just wasn't going be a sesame crusted yellowtail kind of a night. Lucky for us that we have a relationship with Pizza Pronto that dates way back to 2003, and they deliver. Our relationship is special because we have coined our own signature pizza (the Vaughn Deluxe) that we order every time and they know it by heart now. A large pizza with both pesto sauce and tomato sauce, eggplant, red onions and chicken. Also, their greek salad dressing is so great that I order a few containers of it even if we don't get a salad. I like to dip the pizza in it, and also use it on salads that we make later in the week. Sometimes I am tempted to drink it straight - it is that good.


Of course we couldn't let a night go by without using our CSA produce. As we waited for the pizza, we made and ate a salad that consisted of our spring greens mix, baby radishes, green tops from our onions, shaved romano and a yummy orange / champagne vinegar dressing.


Dylan made extra dressing and left me a plastic baggie of extra onion and radishes so I could recreate the salad for Melissa & Alden who came over for brunch today. I added roasted beets to this one and it was a great accompaniment to the leftover brioche.

Sesame Crusted Yellowtail & Kale

We've outdone ourselves tonight. Dinner wasn't served until 9:30pm because Dylan rode his bike home, and then I had to log on and do a bit of work, so we got a late start in the kitchen. But it was well worth the wait. We made a sesame crusted yellowtail (locally caught here in SD!) that involved dredging the fish in plain flour, egg wash, then a black & white sesame seed mixture, browning the fish in a pan, then finishing in the oven. Meanwhile, on the stove top we had kale with spring onions and white wine going, along with the sauce for the fish: garlic, ginger, shitake mushrooms, white wine, chicken broth, soy sauce, honey, scallions and butter.


The kale and spring onions were from our CSA. This meal was insanely delicious.

Turkey Burgers & Asian Coleslaw

This dinner was Dylan's creation and was ready to eat when I got home from spin class tonight. The Asian coleslaw was chopped up cabbage, carrots, green onions, cilantro, ginger, garlic plus a dressing with rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, brown sugar, peanut butter and vegetable oil. It came out totally awesome and a great complement to the turkey burger.

Yes, I do realize how lucky I am to have a gifted culinary genius for a husband! There is nothing like coming home to a meal this good after an intense workout.

CSA Dinner

Recently we joined the Be Wise Ranch CSA program - and today I picked up our second box of locally-grown, organic produce. This week's box contained avocados, beets, blueberries, blackberries, carrots, kale, grapefruit, parsnips, spring onions, oranges, pluots, radishes, spring greens and zucchini. Last week we made some amazing dinners with our produce, and it looks like this week we are on track to do the same. Tonight's dinner was pan-fried, locally caught sea bass (that I picked out with Connor this morning at our fish market). I made a soy/maple/orange glaze reduction to drizzle on top. We served this next to roasted carrots, parsnips and spring onions from the CSA, with a sprinkle of cilantro on top. Another awesome meal!


In other news, Connor is cruising along furniture! He is doing this very cautiously just like he does everything, and he is still figuring out how to get down. But he is definitely standing up all the time now, and it seems like walking won't be too far away for our mellow kiddo.

Brioche / Father's Day

We have gotten back into baking. Yesterday we made spinach, pine nut, shallot and cheese filled brioche in preparation for a Father's Day brunch today with a few friends. This is a recipe that we have made several times before and it is always a good one.


As the brioche came out of the oven, Dylan was feeding Connor his dinner. Connor saw the puffy, golden pastries and started reaching his chubby little hands toward them saying "Bawahbahawa", which is a frantic nonsense expression he uses when he really, really wants something. He ate a brioche for dessert.

Today, Father's Day, was a great day. Patrick & Marcelle (and 10-month old Addie) came over for brunch and we ate the brioche, mimosas, peach/tomato/feta salad with peaches from their tree, and a leafy green salad. Food and company both were amazing. This afternoon we took a walk and just goofed around with Connor before his dinner and bubble bath. It is pretty funny that we always cram into the tiny bathroom to be all together for the bath...Connor in the tub, one of us on the stool bathing him, the other perched on the (closed) toilet making goofy faces and asking "what does a cat say?". But being all together is the way we like it! And Connor now answers that question with a confident "Maauuww".