Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Dinner Last Night

I am sick of eating horrible food. For the past several months, I have been dieting wildly, trying to lose the last ten stubborn pounds of baby weight. Somehow this meant that I should only eat 800 calories a day of Lean Cuisines and soup...And then I would break my diet and pig out. I plead with Clancy not to cook, because I knew that I would eat too much because it is always so good. So I finally gave up. I have lost in the end probably 5-6 pounds. Not too many to go.

I have been cooking all week, which has not just benefited me but P. and even M. as well. And, I have been able to cook delicious things really fast, which is a requirement for me since I work all day. It is amazing what you can do in 20 minutes, and a simple home cooked meal makes everyone in my house happy.

Here is what we had last night:

PORK CHOPS WITH A GINGER CHERRY GLAZE

Use any variety of fruit preserves if you don't have cherry on hand. Serve with egg noodles tossed with chopped fresh parsley.

Ingredients
1 teaspoon dark sesame oil
4 (4-ounce) center-cut boneless pork chops, trimmed
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup cherry preserves
2 teaspoons low-sodium soy sauce
1 teaspoon bottled ground fresh ginger (such as Spice World)
1 teaspoon seasoned rice vinegar


Preparation
Heat oil in a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Sprinkle pork with salt and pepper; add to pan. Cook 4 minutes on each side; remove pork from pan.
Combine preserves and remaining ingredients in a small bowl. Add preserves mixture to pan; reduce heat, and cook 2 minutes or until slightly thickened, stirring constantly. Return pork to pan; cook 2 minutes or until thoroughly heated.

Yield
4 servings (serving size: 1 pork chop and 2 tablespoons sauce)

Nutritional Information
CALORIES 275(26% from fat); FAT 7.8g (sat 2.6g,mono 3.4g,poly 1g); PROTEIN 23.5g; CHOLESTEROL 67mg; CALCIUM 19mg; SODIUM 453mg; FIBER 0.1g; IRON 1mg; CARBOHYDRATE 26.8g



David Bonom , Cooking Light, MAY 2006

I cooked up some couscous instead of egg noodles (although I do passionately love egg noodles) and made a simple green salad and it was done. For the salad dressing, I added a splash of the delicious chimichurri my brother and his fiancee brought back to us from Argentina and the salad was totally transformed from something ordinary into something extraordinary.

Monday, February 25, 2008

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

My Etsy Purchases


M. & P.'s Room Redecoration

We recently painted M. and P.'s room pink and hung a pretty little chandelier. Now, I have to figure out if I should take the time to wallpaper the back of their closet door. (It will look cute, but our landlord won't like it, which leads to the point that we rent, and do not own our apartment...which makes me feel so torn about wallpapering my own closet, for the same reasons.)

And I have this horrible storage problem on my hands. Why do small children have so much stuff? And, because of my horrible internet shopping hesitations, I can't find a good solution. So, for the moment all of their stuff is living in Z.'s room. Why is it that I can't make internet purchases?

On the other hand, I made my first purchases from Etsy, so wish me luck! Etsy has all kinds of wonderful handmade things. I ordered some lovely art and a pair of unicorn bookends.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Fun in Austin

Clancy and I had a long weekend in Austin, and I had a great time. I reconnected with my good friend Ted, who had Clancy and I over for a delicious dinner at his and his boyfriend Joel's amazing house, went antique shopping all over town and drank too much several nights in a row. Plus I fit in a trip to Neiman Marcus Last Call where I bought some new adorable True Religion jeans that are already falling apart.
I purchased a lovely danish mid century candleabra, I will post pictures later.

I really missed my babies, though. P. split her lip open yesterday. We were shopping later, and I looked at her, and she looked so sweet and sad. She was cradling a baby doll, and her fingernails were all caked with dirt, and then she had a river of snot falling down her nose, and a gigantic fat lip. I don't know if she will ever look like such a toddler again.

Back to Austin, I think if you visit, you ought to eat as much Tex Mex as possible. I ate twice at my favorite taqueria Chango's where they make the flour tortillas right before your eyes and douse the burrito with lots of delicious homemade salsa. And I had margaritas at Guero's where they make the best margarita in the world. I don't know exactly how they do it, but the lime juice is somehow not too tart and the tequila is not overpowering, and the cocktail has no real sweetness.

Clancy and I also went to Zoot, where we had our first date, but I was so drunk that I can't properly review it, however I was not all that impressed with the food. I faintly remember some only half good rabbit sausage. It tasted kind of like they were competent sausage makers but you could tell that they did not make sausage for a living.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

The Many Fears of M.

M. is a fearful child, I guess terrified is the more appropriate word. Clancy and I had to throw away the book Mommy Doesn't Know My Name, because on one page, Hannah, the heroine, appears to be a chickadee. M. is quite terrified of chickens because, she insists, of their pointy beaks. Sometimes when I read to her, I will look at her, and she will be covering her face with her little hands. The book The Monster at the End of the Book really just about sent her over the deep end. (Straight to the garbage).

She is also terrified of skeletons and skulls, so the current trend of skull decorated clothing has presented numerous problems. Once she even told me that she was scared of the food at the grocery store. I think only Clancy and I could have produced such a fearful little thing. I have always been extremely scared of all kinds of things, when I was young I bordered on total OCD, I thought that my fears wouldn't materialize SO LONG AS I took five steps to get to my bed, had five pillows in my bed, kept my silverware pointing towards myself at all meals, and spelled words out in my head in complicated patterns all related to the number five. I am better now, perhaps due to the extremely large dose of Zoloft that I take every day.

And Clancy is no better, he has fears related to supernatural phenomenon, while my fears are more along the lines of scary thoughts about murderers. And the two of us have very regular, unreasonable anxiety related to fears about our careers and lives.

The worst part about all of this is that when I was a little girl, I can remember admiring my parents and thinking about how fearless they seemed. They weren't afraid that my dolls were going to watch me and kill me when I fell asleep. I couldn't wait to grow up so that my fears would dissolve like theirs seemed to have. But now that I have grown up, unfortunately I am just as scared of aliens (my one predominant supernatural type fear) as I was when I was a little girl.

Poor M. I really wish that she hadn't inherited this unfortunate quality from us.

Monday, February 4, 2008

Jack the Wolf by Yvonne Jagtenberg


This book is a good read for someone who is just about to, or has just started preschool. Jack, the main character is very shy and scared when he arrives on the first day at his new school, particularly because everybody else already knows each other and has the hang of things. But, then Jack gets to pretend he is a wolf, and all of the children are scared of Jack. Jack is thrilled by this turn of events, and wants another turn at playing the wolf.

I think that this book speaks to a very human feeling. When you are hurt by someone, you want them to know what it feels like, and so you try to hurt them back. I think it is particularly a feeling that small children can relate to--see previous post. When M. grabs something from P., P.'s instinct is to bite, unfortunately for M. And it is more than mere self defense, P. wants to make M. in the same way that M. angered her.

Or when Clancy and I fight, so many of our remarks, once we are in the heat of the argument are just intended to cause reciprocal pain.

Jack feels the same way when he puts the wolf mask on. He is finally able to reciprocate the intimidation that he felt from the other children. I like how the author doesn't make any moral judgments about the pleasure Jack takes in scaring the other children. It is successful because children can relate to it. M. makes me read this one every night.

M & P

Little M. and P. have been fighting like cats and dogs all weekend. M. gave P. a totally unprovoked bite, and ceaseless scratching and screaming has plagued my house.

And another Monday morning. Two tiny girls screaming in my ears when I was trying to leave the house this morning. It was totally brutal.