Halloween 2014

Halloween with a 3 year old is now starting to resemble what I remember Halloween being from my childhood.  Being enthusiastic about dressing up, being ALL about the candy and how much we could collect, and this year - he was saying "trick or treat" to everyone he saw, followed by "thank you so much"!  Adorable!

After work on Friday, the three of us dressed up as construction workers and headed to downtown Bothell.  Main Street was shut down, firemen and policemen where handing out candy, and all of the businesses were handing out candy, too.  It was so fun!

Afterwards, we went home to have dinner and finished the night off by trick or treating around our neighborhood.  I'm already looking forward to next year and can't wait to see what Ben wants to be :)

Meal Planning: Week of November 3rd

Review from last week:

I really enjoyed all of the Blue Apron dinners this week!  All three of them felt new and contained flavors I don't typically cook with.  My favorite was the dish from Top Chef - Congee with caramelized pork:

The salmon over farro was also great, but the brussels sprouts and beet salad that went with it was my favorite part!  (Also, Guinness Blonde is my new favorite beer right now).

Rachel and Raleigh came over to pick up a few items for Rachel's Halloween Costume, and since Greg was at the dentist, she got to enjoy the Greek Style Braised Chicken Thighs with me.  

I currently have our favorite Tomato Basil Soup started in the crock pot, and last night I baked a loaf of homemade bread to make grilled cheese to go with it tonight to have after trick or treating!!

Tomorrow, since I actually (surprisingly) don't have a bunch of vegetables to use up, I'm going to make Lasagna Stuffed Spaghetti Squash.....OR we will pick up Indian food take out, because CRAVINGS.

Plan for next week:
I'm taking advantage of an introductory trial from Plated (Blue Apron's competition), just to see what they are all about.

Monday: Left over Italian Wedding Soup (from last week's meal plan) or meatball naan pizza (working through our always-over-stuffed freezer)!

Tuesday: Trader Joe's Quinoa Superfood Pilaf (found in the frozen section) with pan-seared chicken breasts.

Wednesday: Plated - Pork Chops with Cider Gravy and Roasted Fennel Apple Salad

Thursday: Plated - Beef and Brussels Sprouts Stir-Fry over Brown Rice

Photo Update

We had such a wonderful time with Marcia over the past 2 weeks.  Ben is really going to miss his constant playmate!  I'm really going to have to step up my game to compensate!

Making cookies!

Took a trip to Ivar's in Mukilteo for dinner.  The second Ben was finished eating, I had to take him outside to get the wiggles out.

Greg and I had another dinner/movie date and spent all afternoon/evening in Seattle!  It was amazing.  We can now check 2 Ethan Stowell restaurants off our list - this time we visited Tavolata!  It was just as amazing as we expected it to be.

Lisa and Evan joined us!

Potato Gnocchi with pork cheek, wild mushroom, swiss chard and Pecorino; Pork chop with delicata squash, escarole, and hazelnuts; Pappardelle with veal bolognese bianco, rosemary and parmesean.  I have to say, Greg's Pappardelle was the BEST.

Watching Frozen.  You can't tell much from this picture, but we think Ben got pink eye over the weekend.  The thing is, it was here and gone within 48 hours or so...which almost leads me to believe it was something else.  Either way, it was gross, and we are happy to have avoided getting it ourselves!

Swimming!  He is getting SO big.

A night out with Erica, Rachel and Maureen!  And because our dinner plans fell on the same week as mine and Rachel's birthdays, we got balloons, flowers and cupcakes :)  Love you three!!  XOXO

I have TWO Grandmas!!

For weeks before Marcia arrived to visit us, we had been telling Ben that Grandma was coming to stay for a few weeks. He was excited and totally seemed to understand what was going to happen - we started referring to the spare room as "Grandma's room" and talked about all the fun we were going to have.

When Greg and Marcia showed up after she arrived in Seattle, Ben and I were inside yelling "Grandma is here!!!"....but when Marcia got out of the car, Ben was TOTALLY CONFUSED, haha!  He adjusted in about 10 seconds, but I could tell that he had been expecting my mom to get out of the car.  (The last time Marcia was here to visit, Ben was not quite 2 years old - I'm absolutely confident that the memory of her visit this year will stick and there will be no more confusion in the future) :)

That night, I heard Greg explaining to Ben in the shower that he had TWO grandmas, and now every time we ask him to, he will count and say "I have 1, 2 Grandmas"!  How lucky is he :)

Caught in the Act - ABC's!

Meal Planning: Week of October 27th

After an amazing 2 weeks of Marcia's home cooking of all of our favorite meals that she makes, I'm back to actually thinking about what to plan for dinner.  I have 2 goals for myself:

1) SOUP SUNDAYS - There is absolutely nothing better than leftover soup for lunch.  My goal for the upcoming weeks will be to make soup for dinner on Sundays that we can enjoy for a few more days following.

2) Incorporate 1 day/week where we use up extra ingredients from the week in some way.  I'm TIRED of vegetables going bad and other items being overlooked, and I think this will force me to dig through the fridge and freezer a little more.  I'm thinking something like this would be a great way to use up whatever might be hanging out in the back of our fridge.

But here is a little taste of what we have been eating:

Our go to tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for the night Marcia arrived:

Filet, creamed spinach and baked potatoes on my birthday:

Spaghetti and meatballs:

King crab legs, grilled scallops, roasted asparagus and filet oscar with buerre blanc sauce - so decadent for a Tuesday!

Lasagna and fresh baked bread.  I made this loaf with 1/2 regular flour and 1/2 whole wheat flower and it came out great.  Side note - the last couple loafs of bread I had made felt like bricks coming out of the oven.  I'm told they still tasted good....but with this loaf, it occurred to me to use a fresh packet of the rapid rise yeast the recipe calls for instead of the package I had been keeping in a ziplocked bag I had been using for....maybe a year?  (Oops).  It came out much lighter and bigger, so I'm assuming that was my mistake.  Learning every day.

Plan for next week:

Monday: On Marcia's last night (sob), we are planning to grab dinner at Ivar's because she lovvvvvvvvves their Crab Bisque.  (As do I).

Tuesday: Blue Apron!  And how fun, they teamed up with Top Chef and one of the recipes is the winning dish from the season premiere!  Congee & Caramelized Pork with Crispy Shallots and and Black Garlic.  Very eager to try it :)  

Wednesday: Pan-Seared Salmon with Arugula, Candy Stripe Beets, & Horseradish Sour Cream.

Thursday: Greek-Style Brasied Chicken Thighs with Fingerling Potatoes.

Friday: Halloween!  Planning to make dough the night before to bake a fresh loaf of bread to have with our favorite tomato basil soup so we can warm up after trick-or-treating! :)

Saturday: Fridge clean out night!

Sunday:  Being that it's one of our favorite kinds of soup from a can, I thought it would be fun to try and find a recipe for Italian Wedding Soup that I could make from scratch.  This will be our first recipe attempt.

We've Been Busy

Grandma Ingle is here, so we have been busy eating, playing, and shopping.  I turned 33, Ben continues to be a chatterbox, Greg and I have reverted back into our lazy, couch potato ways - it's been glorious, really!

We will be back to our regularly scheduled blogging next week :)

Cars and Bacon

On the morning of our anniversary, Greg let me sleep in while he and Ben made breakfast for me :)  At one point, Ben wandered into our bedroom (with the encouragement of Greg) and started singing "Happy Birthday to you" (he is a little confused about birthdays vs. anniversaries.  He then proceeded to tell me about what they had been doing all morning and I'm so happy I caught some of it on video.

Vacation Week and Food Review

What a fabulous week off!!!  While we were a little sad not to be on the beaches of Cabo, I think everyone should take a staycation when they need a little break, too.  We managed to get a lot of random things done - cleaned out the garage a bit, Greg spent an entire day smoking pork shoulder, I did a little cleaning out of our closets, cleaned a few over stuffed drawers, and rearranged our pots/pans so everything kind of fits.  I still have a long list of other things I'd like to accomplish (potty-training, some yard work, putting away outdoor furniture, and a few more drawers/closets that need organizing) but I feel good about what I was able to accomplish :)

In addition to spending a few days in Canada, we also:

Made breakfast!  A lot!  There is nothing like whipping up some pumpkin pancakes, bacon and eggs and enjoying several cups of coffee over a lingering meal.

I left the boys at home so I could enjoy meeting/holding baby Emmett and visiting with Becca!  He is perfect and they are now an adorable and happy family of four! 

Greg chopped down a tree that he has been detesting ever since we moved in :)  And Ben watched.

We went on a few walks:

We went to the park.

We picked up some flowers and brought them to Grandma at work.  And we got a balloon for being such a good boy.

We played trucks.

We had Myles (and family) over for dinner:

I think this was the week before last, but Lisa came up and we made cookies:

The boys watched a few Steeler games (while I escaped to yoga classes) :)

And we OBVIOUSLY cooked and drank wine :)

I'm trying to get a little better about using up what might be leftover in the fridge from another meal.  The book I'm reading suggested throwing any about to go bad vegetables or cheese on top of a flatbread, cracking an egg on top and making a pizza, or throwing the vegetables into a pot with some chicken stock and making soup, or sauteeing it all up and making a scramble of some kind (all strategies I plan to try in the upcoming weeks).  But when we returned from Canada and wanted to make something, I was SO pleased to discover that I had everything leftover that was needed to make Pan-Seared Chicken with Bulgur. 

Since we were away on vacation we didn't do much of a meal plan, but this is a bit of what we cooked up last week:

The Tilapia over rice was great with vegetables was pretty good.  Jade rice is something new to me - and I liked it.

The turkey meatballs over linguine was great, although it's hard to beat the Italian meatballs you can buy frozen from Costco.  (So easy)!  But I've been wanting to incorporate turkey instead of beef once in awhile and this was a delicious way to do it. 

The cuban sandwiches with kale/plantain salad were amazing - my only critique would be to use a panini press instead of using oil in a pan to get the bread crispy.  We made a variation of this with smoked pork this past weekend and it was much less greasy using the panini press.

I made Lagered Turkey Soup (which I had thought was LAYERED Turkey Soup the first several times I made it) and it was great.  I could eat this chili every week.

No meal planning for the next couple weeks because Greg's mom arrives on Tuesday and I'll be happily handing over the kitchen to her!  (I'll be her sous chef) :)