Advent Day Eight: Make Christmas Cookies

We spent yesterday morning and afternoon catching up on our Advent activities from earlier this week, including coloring Christmas pictures (see "Don't Color Christmas Pictures").  We drew some Christmas pictures and made a few Christmas presents in the process.  I'm dying to post pictures of these gifts, but I don't want to give away the surprise.  So I'll leave you in suspense until Christmas!

While Hank was taking his nap, Elvis, Lydia, and I worked on Christmas cookies.  It took me about 20 minutes to locate Granny's Christmas cookie cutters, but after digging past the twenty varieties of cooking oil and multiple bags of brown sugar, there they were, behind the ice box.  :)  I love spelunking in Granny's pantry.  You never know what you'll find, for instance, not one but TWO jars of imitation banana flavoring.

Anyway, the kids and I cutout gingerbread cookies for yesterday's advent activity.  Sorry for the delay posting, for those of you sitting on the edge of your seat day-by-day waiting for the next Wells family advent update. *Crickets*  Wait, no one is anxiously anticipating my daily updates?  What?!

Last night, I spent several hours with my mom and dad decorating their *new* Christmas tree that I got to pick out as a surprise for Mom.  We discovered as we were setting up the old one that half the lights were out, so I went out to get more lights and came back with a "life-like" tree.  Can we just call it what it is: a fake tree? 

We also watched I Don't Know How She Does It with Sarah Jessica Parker, which was like watching my life, without the high-paying investment job and trips to New York.  It was entertaining.  I really enjoyed the time with my parents. 

Tonight's advent activity should be fun.  I'll update later!

Apples to Apples

A few weeks ago I decided to try my hand at making homemade applesauce. Unfortunately for my pot, I forgot that the apples were boiling down on the stove, and I burnt the bottom - both inside and out, since I'd allowed the darn thing to boil over.  For ninety minutes.  The pot might be done.

In spite of the burnt bottom, the applesauce still turned out great, so I can't imagine how a batch I don't burn turns out.  I have a 10 lb. bag of locally grown apples waiting for me start peeling and slicing.  Let's see if I can ruin another pot.

A week or two ago, I started trying to feed Henry rice cereal.  This posed a small challenge, because Henry won't drink formula, and I'm sorry, I just won't pump breastmilk to mix with rice cereal only for him to eat a teaspoon of it.  I love my kid and all, but that's too much work for too little reward.  So for starters, I mixed the rice cereal with water.  I'm a little surprised to report that he actually ate it. 

Now that we have the hang of the spoon and the opening and closing of the mouth, I wanted to find something to mix in with the rice cereal to give it a little bit more flavor.  I don't know why I'm so apprehensive about these things, or why I rely so heavily on the internet to grant me permission to try new stuff, but anyway, I sat down and googled "introducing new foods to baby" and discovered a wealth of information on when and how to introduce fruits and veggies, etc.

Now with Lydia and Elvis, as soon as they started eating solid foods, we might as well have bought stock in Gerber.  It might be the culture we're raised in, being inundated with ads and coupons and convenience every five seconds, but up until a few days ago, the thought of making my own baby food sounded prehistoric (see "a whole lot of work for little reward" above).  When someone tells me they make their own baby food, I picture dozens of glass jars lined up on the counter, three pots stewing various vegetables and fruits, mysterious preservatives and canning equipment, aprons, house dresses, and tidy little buns.  I'm intimidated.

But lo and behold, "making baby food" is not that complicated (all you crunchy moms out there can start "I-told-you-so"-ing now)!  First of all, how much solid food does a five-month-old baby need, even my gigantic five-month-old baby?  A few spoonfuls?  Yep.  And guess what?  You can prepare baby food at the same time you're making lunch for the rest of the family!  Hello, mashed banana.  Hello, applesauce.  Hello, real people food.  If you can puree it, you can make it happen.  Why, WHY did I think that the only acceptable food to put into my baby's mouth needed to come pre-packaged and with another cute little baby face on it?

I'm really excited about this for some reason.  Maybe because I bought three containers of Gerber baby food today for convenience/travel sake, and they each cost around a buck, when I can use one-half a banana and cover Henry's solid food consumption for the day. 

It isn't the cost-savings that has me motivated, though.  When I peeled, cored, and sliced the apples a few weeks ago, allowing them to boil down in my (now-burnt) pot, eating something I prepared, with my hands, from a local farmer added something intangible to my burnt applesauce.  Mixed in with the mashed apples and cinnamon was satisfaction, delicious and palatable.  Yes, baby Henry, your mama just mashed up this here banana into sweet creaminess.  I get the same satisfaction from breastfeeding--I am making something valuable and nutritious for my little man and he can only get it from me.  You can substitute formula and bottle-feeding, and I have with Lydia and Elvis, and get similar warm-fuzzies from holding that cute little person as they guzzle down their bottle, but nothing compares with that tug and pull, that quieted-down, instant gratification of mama and her milk.  Oh how I'll miss it when it's time to stop breastfeeding.  (These are words I never thought I'd utter.  "Utter" makes me think of "Udder".  Ha. Ha. Ha.)

This growing baby is really excited about his bananas, and I bet he'll like the applesauce, too.  And when we're on the run, Gerber and its pre-packaged goodness will do just fine, too.

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner

It's been a while since I made a casserole.

My default meals involve lots of dairy.  I am the queen of stuffing and cheese.  Chicken, stuffing, and cheese.  Broccoli, stuffing, and cheese.  Rice, chicken, and cheese.  Beef, sour cream, and noodles.  Chicken, sour cream, and noodles.  Bottom line: what can we mix together with sour cream and/or cheese that will bake in an hour or less?

This would be just fine if my husband wasn't lactose intolerant and if my son would eat combination foods (i.e., anything mixed with anything else... broccoli? fine. cheese? fine. broccoli and cheese and stuffing? not fine).  And, believe it or not, eating all that dairy isn't the healthiest way to go.  I have to admit boredom with these recipes, too.  Mostly, I want to be able to feed my family things that won't make them sick (husband) and things that they might eat (son).  Lydia and I, well, we'll eat anything.

I grew up meat and potatoes, all-American, spaghetti and marinara sauce, pizza on Fridays.  It isn't a bad way to eat.  I've always been intimidated by cooking outside of this box-- there's too many unknowns!  How do you cook this?  How do you saute?  How do you broil?  What's a julienned carrot?  Help! 

Allrecipes.com has changed the way I cook.  It has added variety to our evening meals.  It has lessened the amount of produce I throw out.  It has significantly decreased the number of frozen and packaged foods I buy.  Stuffing-based casseroles have fallen off the Wells menu, and in its place-- honey-glazed carrots, steamed broccoli, garlic butter pasta.  Did you know there are more ways to cook pork chops than in a frying pan?

One of the best features of the website is the ingredient search.  I grew a whole row of cilantro this summer, and I love cilantro, but there's only so much corn salsa one can make.  So I punched in "cilantro" and, wham -- cilantro lime chicken. Black beans a la Olla (mmmm).  Cilantro lime rice (mmmm).  Variety! 

Time is always of the essence.  I get off of work at 5 p.m., and we need to eat between 6 and 6:30 in order to be ready for baths by 7 and bedtime routine by 7:30, bed by 8 p.m.  There's no time for lengthy food prep.  However, there are dozens, maybe hundreds, of fresh and healthy food combinations that can be prepared in an hour or less.  All it takes is a little multi-tasking, and you can have a pot of rice steaming, broccoli steaming, and salmon baking, timed out so that everything is ready almost simultaneously. 

The other thing I've learned is the value and beauty of herbs and spices.  There's so much more to life than salt and pepper!  Nothing satisfies like a fresh, healthy meal that tastes good AND didn't take forever to cook.  Yay food!