Friday Round Up 12/21/18 - CTA Hoilday Train, Neighbor Help, Neighborhood Caroling Party, 1st Ever Mom's Group Dinner Club, Christmas Family Time

Happy Holidays........Happy Holidays....... they are officially here!! I've been doing a great job of taking my time with this holiday season - and then this week the stomach bug came & made me feel like I needed to amp up my pace to Nth degree to keep up with all the germ killing!! Oh well, that's life, right? Sometimes family members get sick at what feel like the worst times. Knocking on wood here- but so far only 3 people have gotten it, so I'm desperately hoping the rest of us are in the clear!

1. CTA Holiday Train

This time of year is so fun - every institution seems to have something special going on to celebrate Christmas or the holidays generally. The CTA is no exception! They've been rocking the Holiday Train (or Santa Train) for years! We had friends come over to ride the train together & have dinner. As a grown up, I love the fun of the train - lights - music- decorations outside & inside, special seats, CTA workers in costume passing out candy canes, impromptu singing on board, all the things. The train was 40 minutes late so we played at the park as long as we could - then went to a coffee shop for hot chocolates :) 'Tis the season, right?? Despite being packed in super tight, we had a great time on the "choo choo" as Lulu calls trains of any sort.

We had our friends over for pizza after the train, which is always so fun! Its also a little bonkers when there are 6 kiddos running around our modestly sized house :) I do my level best to relax & embrace the chaos! What helps is Lulu's excitement about all the playmates in the house! She's the littlest one in the group, but loves to have everyone over. She must've ridden down our slide 40 times throughout the night - it was hilarious to see her doing her laps amongst all the other littles. She so clearly is a mix of Chris & me personality wise - and these moments where I watch her jump right into the mix of a group of big kids- remind me of me. I love a good party. I love to be surrounded by friends and family. I'm still learning the art that more is not more when it comes to parties - but still :) It is nice to see her little sense of self developing and watching her figure out how to navigate a room full of people.

2. Neighbor Help

Sometimes your dog gets away from you unexpectedly & "runs away" - quotes because he doesn't actually want to leave your family, but because he's running after a squirrel. Sometimes you spend an hour & a half looking for him, the panic rising with the passing minutes. Sometimes you realize you can't find the dog alone, so you send the SOS out to your neighbors & community. Sometimes your neighbors & friends turn out in wonderfully helpful numbers to search for the dog. Sometimes it is your sweet neighbor girl who finds the dog, 20 yards from where you lost him, stuck behind a fence designed to keep people (& animals?!?!) off of the CTA tracks. Sometimes your husband, who had headed home to put your human baby down for a nap, passes off said human to a wonderful neighbor to sprint back to you. Sometimes you have to climb a fence, avoid the barbed wire & lift your shaking and crying dog over a 6 foot high concrete wall (no barbed wire there - thank goodness) and hand him to your husband.  Whoosh. Owenn puppy. Keeping us all on our toes. Majorly keeping us on our toes. Not the most holly jolly Saturday morning I've ever had!

3. Neighborhood Caroling Party

Last year I was recovering from the flu when our neighborhood caroling party happened :( I went outside to see the kiddos singing - but didn't go to the cookie exchange/craft creation party at our local American Legion Hall :)

This year we were able to go to the cookie + warm up the vocal cords part of the fun - but not the outdoor part. I love that we live in a neighborhood filled with families that want to hang out together. It is a great place to live and I adore the fact that Lulu has so many "big kid" neighbors who seem to look out for her.

4. 1st Ever Mom's Group Dinner Club

I cooked up the idea for a dinner club based on what my parents have been doing for 20+ years with a group of their good friends. They call it Gourmet Club, but everyone shares in the hosting and cooking duties- and you cook a themed menu once a month or every other month, whatever. I love to share dinner with friends- but at this stage of my life - its not joyful to prepare the entire menu myself. It feels much more like work than fun, So this type of elevated potluck speaks to me! I went to my mom's group to see if there was any interest - and indeed there was! We squeezed a meeting in just before the wild & crazy Christmas season got into full swing - and it was a relaxing, fun evening in!

Our theme was Smitten Kitchen......which isn't really a theme - but everyone had to select a recipe from the Smitten Kitchen blog or cookbooks. Everything came together quite well from a flavor standpoint - it felt and tasted like a cohesive meal, even though 8 people prepared it!

Lots of good conversation around the dinner table, delicious food, good wine, what's not to love? Already looking forward to the next one!

5. Pre-Christmas Family Time

Just remember girls - it doesn't have to be fun to be fun!

Despite the fact that a stomach bug is taking out family members, we are still finding ways to enjoy each others' company. In between bouts of Clorox wiping, hand sanitizing, hand washing & Lysol-ing that is.

That's the bitch about the holidays, isn't it? By the time they come around - you've been running ragged for weeks, parties, cooking, shopping, errands, decorating, wrapping, gifting. So your body gives you the middle finger & forces you to slow the F down. Enter the stomach bug. This is not our first Christmas that involved a stomach bug, but of course its felled my Dad & my Bug. My brother was out for a day but bounced back well. Fingers crossed that all the cleaning helps the rest of us avoid it!! Ho Ho Ho!

Friday Round Up 9/7/18 - Trolls, Help from Neighbors, Anne is 4, Moroccan Chicken Recipe

TGIF! Hooray for Fridays! Yipppppppeeeeee!

1. Troll Hunting at the Morton Arboretum

Why is it so easy to miss the things that are an hour from home?!?!? I've lived in this area my entire life & had never stepped foot on the grounds of the Morton Arboretum! It was amazing. It is HUGE, full of fun stuff for Lulu & an all around awesome spot. It is within 15 minutes of both the Bolingbrook IKEA and the home of some of our great friends. Which is to say, we will certainly be back!

We went to go on a troll hunt, they have this incredible art installation (which was created on site) of 20-30 foot wooden trolls spread throughout the space. We had 4 kids under 4 in our group, so we only "found" 2 of the 6! We move a bit slowly ;)

It had been a horribly rainy morning but cleared to a hot, humid, sunny afternoon for our adventure. What a treat it was.

2. Help from Neighbors

In order to go on our troll hunting adventure - we needed to have someone feed Owenn dinner & let him out.......of course I didn't think of this until Saturday morning & our dog walker wasn't available on such short notice. Ugh. Enter our amazing neighbor Megan & her adorable family!! Megan was willing to take the Owenn pup on a walk & feed him dinner & generally be amazing. When the neighbor kids wanted to "help" so also entertained them! I am so grateful! She even sent us this photo of their dog walking adventure!! Honestly, how would I get through life without the people on our block?!?

Later this week I was booking one of our fabulous neighbor girls to babysit Lulu so I could have a bit of time to prepare for Chris' parents' arrival for their first visit to Evanston. In the context of the text conversation (which includes the neighbor girl's mom to cross check schedules, etc) my neighbor Phuong offered to nap sit Lulu so I could get a couple things done. This is a buy mom of 5 of her own kiddos - but found the space to offer to lend me a hand. It was so helpful to knock out a bunch of niggling errands both without Lulu & before my in laws arrived.

Great neighbors are a Godsend. Honestly. I paid them back in baked goods (duh) but I don't know if that was enough. I hope so. I am incredibly lucky to be surrounded by such generous people.

3. Anne is FOUR

Our niece Anne turned 4 this week! We celebrated her over the weekend at the Lake & Lulu & I popped in to see her on her actual birthday this week. I love this little lady & the big girl she is quickly turning into.

4. Moroccan Chicken Recipe

Found a delicious slow cooker recipe on the world wide webs this week, made it & it was really good! I should've added a cup or 1.5 cups of chicken stock to the slow cooker - there was not enough sauciness for my liking. We served it over quinoa with naan (the delicious frozen garlic naan from Trader Joe's. If you've never had it - please do yourself a favor & it. You won't be sad that you did!!) I wish it had more sauce for dipping said delicious naan into....

Changes I made to the recipe are as follows:

~Subbed in chopped apricots & prunes for the raisins in recipe

~Subbed capers for the olives. Both just preferences but I would recommend both swaps :) 

~Ignored the recipe spice mix in favor of this jarred mix I have in my spice drawer

~Also - my chicken was done in 3 hours........probably before 3 - mine might have been overcooked at 3 hours. So if your slow cooker is on the larger size.......check your food after 2 hours of cooking on low!!

~Didn't do it,  but will do it next time - add 1-1.5 cups chicken broth to the cooker to amp up the sauce factor

Happy Friday to you & yours! I hope you try the chicken recipe - its incredibly delicious. Happy cooking & happy weekend & happy September!!

Friday Recap 8/31/18 - Road trip funnies, Skunked, Garden love, The Bug

I can't believe August is coming to a close. Most of my nieces and nephews are back to school, all of the neighborhood kiddos are, we've had a couple of cool nights (admittedly that was last week....but still) with the windows open, Lulu & I are starting to see leaves fall from trees- insane that it feels like Fall is around the corner.

1. Road trip funnies

The Fun Park

We drove to Columbus, OH for one of my college roommate's weddings last weekend. Road trips are always interesting - especially when they involve a 16 month old ;)

We drove from 7pm-2am on the way there. Somehow - more than once- we encountered stopped traffic on the highway. Just jammed traffic. Summer time is construction season & that'll do it I guess. You have to laugh about these things to avoid screaming!!

The Fun Park

On the way home we took it a little easier since Lulu would be awake for some of the drive. Or so we thought. Lulu was awake for almost the entire drive! We stopped at "the fun park" (I should've taken a photo of the sign - the playground was literally called "The Fun Park" it was awesome) to let Lulu run around & burn some energy & to break up the drive a bit. 

Corn field detour

We needed to get gas - so did that too. And then got on the highway going the wrong way. 10 miles to the next exit toward Columbus....10 miles after we got turned around.....and a detour through the cornfields because the overpass was demolished. Oh man. Tough wrong turn!! Very pretty detour though!







2. Getting skunked
Its funny now.........not so much Monday morning at 530 when Owenn & I were out running & it happened.

The funny part is really the fact that when Owenn did a 180 & pulled like a maniac the opposite direction we were going, I let him. Then I noticed what he was running for: (in the dark, without my glasses on) a small potted plant in the green space between the sidewalk & street. "Well," I think to myself "if Owenn wants to pee on a potted plant that is inexplicably in the greenway, so be it". You may have already guessed that it was not, in fact, a potted plant. It was a Goddamned skunk. Owenn chomped on it and was shaking it around, which is how I ended up with a drop of skunk spray in my MOUTH. Which again, funny now. Not funny as it happened. 

After 2 baths in hydrogen peroxide, baking soda & dish soap (followed by dog shampoo) & one treatment of this Nature's Miracle product (lent to us by our most FANTASTIC neighbors) - Owenn was back to smelling fresh a daisy. Or at least back to his eau de dead raccoon smell he always seems to rock. Not funny, but we were able to loan the Nature's Miracle product to different friends/neighbors later this week because their poor pup got skunked too :(

Keeping us on our toes Owenn is.

3. Garden love

Not sure what this plant is, but it is thriving & making me very happy by doing so! Anyone have any idea? Pretty sure I bought it at a native plant sale 2 summers ago........no clue what it is though!

4. This face

Almost always brings a smile to my face! 

Friday Round Up 8/24/18- NYT opinion piece, Cinnamon Roll Delivery, Baking with the Bug, Zen Sunrise Moment

Happy Friday morning! We are in Ohio to celebrate the nuptials of one of my college roommates! Hope you have fabulous plans for the weekend! So I wrote that last week thinking I'd have my act together to publish on Friday...........I didn't & now its Tuesday. Again. Ah well. Someday I'll be timely, just not today!

1. The Absolute Necessity of the New Mom Friend
One of the members of my moms group shared this to our social media page & it resonated with many of us. Unlike the author - I new I wanted (didn't know I needed) new mom friends. I didn't know how to make them.....so I started a group for babies born the same year as the Bug & have been fortunate enough that other mamas wanted the same kind of connection I did. It for me felt like an "if you build it, they will come" scenario. I didn't actually "build" anything - just made a Facebook page, but the sentiment is there. It was a great reminder that I can create things I need if I don't see them in the world.

2. Cinnamon Roll Delivery
We have gotten to know some of our neighbors up at the lake pretty well over the years. Maybe it is natural  - it feels natural! They are (as neighbors should be) a random motely crew of folks in a great way.
Saturday morning 2 of the neighbor boys (whose ages align closely with my eldest 2 nephews) came over to deliver cinnamon rolls to Liam & Kane. It was such a cute thing to do & made me feel like we live in a small town (which, coincidentally  - we do up there). Apparently it was a favor returned as the boys shared Bobo's delicious chocolate chip cookies on Friday! 

Cinnamon roll o'clock on the deck

I feel like these gestures stitch together communities in amazing ways. Suddenly everyone feels happier, more at ease, more known somehow. Are you close with your neighbors? What types of neighborly gestures have you offered in your neighborhood? Have you been offered any sweet gestures?
It made my Saturday morning - it was just perfect the boys tromping a few doors down with paper plates of cinnamon rolls fresh out of the oven. Weekend bliss.

3. Baking with the Bug

Always messy. Always entertaining. Warms my heart every time.

4. Zen Sunrise Moments

I hope you all are having a great week!

Friday Recap 7/20/18 - Empty beach, milkweed in bloom, strawberry tantrums, Pearce's corn, help from our neighbor

Yahoo for a Friday that initially was forecasted to be rainy all day...........and didn't get rainy until after 3pm! Made for a perfect beach day!

1. Empty Beach

You can see our bike trailer on the boardwalk.....and a lifeguard by the water. No one else!!

See above re: horrible forecast to understand why literally no one else was at the beach today! Admittedly when the Bug & I arrived it was drizzling a bit, but we were planning to swim - so who cares?!? Our friend drove in from the far western burbs with her 3 kiddos and we had an absolute blast. The only bummer? I didn't take near enough photos! 

3 of the 4 kiddos rocking out

Lulu was headed out a bit prematurely :)

We had pizza delivered, played in the water, on the sand & on the playground - did it all really! Made it home safely well before the rain started too!

Literally no one else in sight! Amazing!

2. Milkweed in bloom

We bought this swamp milkweed plant at a native plant sale hosted by the Evanston Garden Club 2 years ago. It is so pretty in bloom! Theoretically it would be a nice place for monarch butterflies to lay eggs, but so far we haven't seen any caterpillars :( It is currently infested with aphids - I'm working on an aggressive removal campaign......more on that next week!

3. Strawberry tantrum
So Lulu loves our strawberry plant. She loves eating the strawberries straight from teh plant. She does NOT love waiting for the fruit to mature and ripen on the plant. 

Just did the sign for "please" - strawberry plant is out of the frame on the left

She uses the baby sign for "please" and stands by the pot and it makes me realize I have no idea how to teach patience to my little bug. I say a lot of "they're not ready yet", "they'll be ready soon", "growing strawberries takes a long time" but she has no idea what time is yet!! So I just go into the house to get some out of the fridge to appeal to her desire for instant gratification. See below for how that tends to go over. Spoiler alert, not well.

Trying to appease her with a store bought strawberry. Going really well as you can see.

4. Iced Coffee

Coffee+almond milk+a teaspoon of simple syrup = heaven

Because summer.

5. Lulu's first ears of Pearce's corn

Pictured with my sweet niece, Anne, who is a little horrified by how Lulu eats :)

Holy moly Lulu loves corn on the cob! Like a lot. A lot A LOT. So much so that her first dive into Pearce's corn turned into 1.5 ears........because she ate most of mine too!! 

We've been going to Pearce's for as long as I can remember & it is really fun to pass their deliciousness on to the Bug. They have grown and expanded so much in the past decade - we love them all the more :) The thought of Fall at Pearce's makes me so excited.......Lulu will be big enough to play on the fort/climbing structure they construct out of hay bales, there is kettle corn, pumpkins as far as the eye can see, and delicious donuts. For now I will settle for the delightful produce they grow on their land & that that they buy from other farms. It is after all the best time for produce, right??

My mom & dad brought it down so we technically ate it in IL, but the WI flavor was there :)

6. Help from a neighbor/friend
I've blogged many times about how much I love our neighborhood. It is a supportive place, safe, friendly, welcoming. Well, it is full of amazing people - that is really the best part about our neighborhood! So when I went to take HondaPants to the shop on Tuesday and she was dead as a door nail I knew why. Rewind to Saturday, I got home from a solo Costco run & started unloading a ridiculous amount of food into the house. A month or so ago, our 14 year old HondaPants lost her first important function as a car......the "ding ding ding" that alerts you to your headlights being left on when you take the keys out of the ignition stopped "ding ding dinging". Which probably wouldn't have been a big deal a year ago. But my brain is packed with a lot more than it used to be & for the 2nd time in ONE WEEK I left my lights on. A couple hours later our neighbor a few doors down, Jack, knocked on the door to ask me if I knew my lights were on- which of course I didn't know. I was in the middle of something, so I didn't even bother to see if the car would start. I guess I didn't need to use it until Tuesday when our mechanic told me I could bring it in..........oops. Long story all to say I texted both of our next door neighbors & they both responded right away that yes they have jumper cables & yes they have a car with which to jump HondaPants. The 2 non neighbor friends that I texted responded the same way :) 

Blueberry goo explosion!

I sometimes struggle with keeping all the balls in the air. After all, adulting is hard, there is no way around that. I am actively working on being kinder to myself in those moments of difficulty - there is really no value in beating myself up over mistakes I make - I need to work on fixing them, not ruminating in the mess I made. Kristin Neff's book Self Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself came highly recommended to me and I started reading it this week. It seems like a valuable read for me so far :) Part of fixing my mistake was thanking my neighbor for her help........with food, duh! So I used some of my remaining 10 pound box of blueberries and made blueberry scones. Yum. 

7. Salad Spinning Bug

I dream of the days when Lulu has the interest and capacity to help me in the kitchen. I so hope she is interested in food & cooking because some of my fondest memories throughout my life really are working in the kitchen with my mom. We made a lot of chocolate chip cookies when I was little, so much so that I had the recipe memorized as a munchkin! Lulu was so interested in the salad spinner this week, so I let her work with it (while sketchily standing up in her chair that attaches to the counter.....see above re: adulting being hard! I can't win them all). It made me abundantly happy to see her take interest in a kitchen task. Plus she's just so damn cute. Added bonus!

8. Why the delay?
So my Friday recap is coming on Saturday morning. Why? Because on the way home from a local playground last night (where I met a delightful new mom friend!) Owenn stopped to play with his dog neighbor Bear. Our human neighbors kindly invited us to come over for a glass of wine! They've been hosting Friday night porch nights for years & years. Far longer than we have been in the neighborhood. Rare are the Fridays that we can stop over, but I am mindful of the fact that an invitation that is never accepted will, in all likelihood, stop being extended! We adore these neighbors & were thankful for the chance to have a delicious glass of wine and visit. But when we got home, put the Bug to bed, ate PB&J on the couch for dinner, I was zonked and not in a place to finish this post! So, I'm late is posting for a great reason - was hanging with some neighbors who we are so lucky to have.

S'mores Brownies

Lizzard Loves s'mores.

The kind you make over an outdoor fire (camping, in our backyard, in a friend's backyard), the kind you make over your kitchen's gas stove, even the kind you make in the microwave ;) I love the S'mores Pie from Hoosier Mama Pie Company, and the Golden Grahams based s'mores crispy treats you can buy at Chicago Bagel Authority (or at least you could buy them there 5 years ago.....admittedly its been awhile!). I love to make a copy cat version of the S'mores crispy bars at home. I just love s'mores, mmmmkay?

So imagine my delight when I saw an Instagram post from one of my favorite food bloggers, Joy the Baker featuring Thick S'mores Brownies! What a ridiculously great idea, right??? I love thick & chewy brownies so this recipe intrigued me on more than one front.

I doubled the recipe, because, duh. When a recipe tells me it will yield a measly 9 servings, I know we can do better than that! I also don't have a 9x9 baking dish, let alone 2, so I divided my ridiculous quantity of batter between 1 8x8 dish and 1 9x11 dish, I'm no math magician, but I figured this would work out OK. I also didn't have big marshmallows - I had minis- so we went with those. 

I wasn't kidding - they COMPLETELY filled the pans

Despite some challenges (they took FOREVER to bake, likely 1.5 times as long as is listed on the recipe, they nearly overflowed my pans, the marshmallows browned waaaaaaay before the brownies were baked through) they are amazing. They are ridiculously tall (or thick), rich, chewy, and all around wonderful. Despite baking mine as long as I did, I still worried they were underbaked in the center so I stored them in the fridge to ensure I could do a decent job slicing them. The fridge is a magical place for these brownies! It helped mine stay firm enough to cut (& eat) without them falling apart. I don't typically recommend baked goods of any sort being stored in the fridge - this is a notable exception!

I love to bake, but I don't love to gain 300lbs by eating a double batch of S'mores brownies that called for 1lb of butter, 10 eggs and an insane quantity of sugar & chocolate. I love giving unexpected gifts, so this was a perfect solution to my problem!

I cut the brownies MUCH smaller than the recipe called for, my yield for the double batch far exceeded 18 - likely exceeded 36!! But as I mentioned above - they are insanely thick & rich - so I think I made the right call slicing them into relatively small pieces. I packaged some in mason jars and some in cellophane gift bags and wrote Valentine's messages on gift tags. I happily distributed to some family, friends & neighbors including  porch drop off to a friend whose baby caught this year's flu. Ugh the flu. That I do not love, particularly not this year. Do you find a huge happiness boost when you give unexpected gifts? People tend to receive them gladly without any stress because I have zero expectation that the gift would be reciprocated! And I suppose only a crazy person would frown when gifted a home baked treat ;)

I hope you try this recipe at home - I hope you binge on some brownies & gift some too! According to the recipe, these freeze quite well, so you could do that & give your future self a gift!! 

New Year, New Friday Plan + Lentil Soup Recipe

Lizzard Loves plans!

I love lists, New Year's resolutions, goals, big ideas, schedules.........there's a major part of me that is type A ;)

My plan for 2018 (going forward anyway..........because I just cooked up this plan this week.........) is to do a weekly post on Friday with a few things that I'm grateful for, or happy about, or made me laugh. Just some goodness to head into the weekend thinking about! I hope it is a plan I can stick to, I used to keep a grateful journal, but have fallen out of the habit. In many ways this is an appealing new take on my old habit! Please always feel free to tell me in the comments what is making you happy, has you laughing, or has you thanking your lucky stars. I find the more goodness that I put out into the world, the more it comes back to me too!

So here goes!

1. Best friend dinner parties

I am so grateful that I have 2 best friends who I've known since birth (they are a year older/wiser/cooler than me). Our Moms are friends, our siblings grew up together & we are as thick as thieves even now that we are theoretically all grown up. Last night they came over with their plus ones (who are both simply wonderful people too, I suppose not shockingly) and we had a simple meal of soup, salad & bread. We had candles burning, wine open, a fire in the fireplace & so many laughs. Cody brought appetizers & sweets, Stacey brought a million yummy beers, and we all talked and ate and relaxed until almost midnight. You know that I don't stay up late if you've been reading my blog at all. I am a morning person through & through. In this case though, I had no idea it had gotten so late - we were having such a great time. So, insert happy grateful sigh here. What a fun night we had.

2. Lentil Soup (recipe at the end of the post)

I have been on a MAJOR soup kick since the start of 2018. I've made 5 different soups and the Lentil I've made 3 times! Last night I made a giant triple batch of it.........we really like this soup! It is simple, doesn't require crazy ingredients, is vegan, gluten free, nut free if you've got people in your life who need those things (though I am hard pressed to think of a soup that has nuts........hm). This recipe was generously shared by my neighbor - I texted her asking for it & she made a copy from the cookbook & dropped it in my mailbox without ringing the bell in case the Lulu bug was napping! My neighbors make me happy all the time, their generosity, thoughtfulness & kindness seems limitless. I've adapted the recipe to meet my tastes/preferences - I hope you try it & love it as much as we do!

3. Baby Led Weaning

She loves oranges :)

So random, I get it. But we shifted the way we were feeding our little one solids from the traditional spoon fed purees to Baby Led Weaning (more info here on Wikipedia). Why did we switch? Lulu seemed completely disinterested in food/didn't enjoy mealtime/rejected the spoon & whatever was on it. The only times she seemed happy at mealtimes were when I'd let her gum a segment of clementine or suck on an apple I was eating. I had only loosely heard of BLW so obviously did what you do........Googled it! 

Hehehe, black beans were fun to feed!

The premise is to give your 6 month or older baby soft foods in spear shapes so they can grab the food & eat what they want. They learn to chew (in our case anyway) before they have teeth, they make a mess & generally have a ball. Its not for everyone - as your baby learns to eat, they gag & cough to keep food out of their airway. Others have told me they couldn't handle that part of the puzzle. I found reading up on it to be reassuring & helpful - gagging is good! They are learning how much food they can handle & how far back in their mouth it can go! Choking is, on the other hand, bad (duh). Thankfully we have not had any issues with the silent terror that is choking since Lulu started eating this way. This is all a REALLLLLLLLLLLLY long way of telling you that I am SO happy with this way of feeding our daughter. She likes meal time, she reaches for food, she enjoys it. I LOVE FEEDING HER. Again, if you've read my blog at all, you know how much I love food & cooking, so I was really looking forward to starting solid food with our firstborn. It was such a disappointment for me (& her I think!). Needless to say, this continues to make great sense for our family & I'm so glad I tried it.

4. Homemade mochas

Because winter. Because coffee all day. Because chocolate!

5. Smitten Kitchen's Salted Chocolate Chunk Cookie dough in my freezer

Because I can bake cookies for a mom friend whose nanny quit with zero notice. Because she needs something to smile about.

So much chocolate.So much salt. Swoon.

6. Dinner dropped off

Another neighbor dropped off dinner last Friday. Why? Because we had a baby 9 months ago. It was amazing. Both the gesture & the food itself. Not only dinner, but also a gift for Lulu. This is a woman who I know because we see each other out on the sidewalk walking our dogs. She is always friendly & was quite kind to me during my pregnancy. She wanted to apologize for the dinner being so late, as she put it "I know Lulu is about to go to college" :) But honestly - it was almost more appreciated coming when it did!! We didn't have any expectation that we were in line for anymore delicious neighbor provided meals - it came as a complete, total & welcome surprise! Bottom line; if you are considering making a friend/neighbor/coworker/family member dinner for any occasion - do it. The recipient will love it no matter when it comes.

7. Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good.

I am making this my theme of 2018. I will have fun and make plans and get together with friends and invite people over despite nothing being perfect or finished! There will always be laundry, dirty dishes, dust bunnies (who are we kidding, dust monsters), a barking dog & general messes everywhere. That doesn't mean I have to stay home to deal with them - or can't invite people over to hang in spite of them! Things are not going to be perfect in 2018 - but they are absolutely going to be good - likely even great :)

Lentil Soup Recipe
Adapted from "The Vegetarian Feast"
Serves 4 (easily doubled or tripled so you have some for your freezer!)
Ingredients
1-2 T Olive Oil (a heavy glug to coat the bottom of your soup pot)
1 onion, diced
2 carrots, diced
3 ribs celery, diced
4-5 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
1/2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp ground cumin
2 c dried lentils, washed (I used organic green ones from the bulk bins at Whole Foods)
2 bay leaves
2 quarts vegetable or chicken stock (obviously not vegan if you use chicken stock)
2-3 tsp sea salt or kosher salt (or more to taste - if your stock is not labeled low sodium, you probably want to start out with 1 tsp and add more at the end if you need it!)
1-2 tsp black pepper (or more to taste)
Directions
1. Heat the oil in a large heavy bottomed soup pot or cast iron dutch oven over medium heat
2. Add the onion, carrots & celery and saute 5-6 minutes, until the veggies begin to soften
3. Add 1/2 of the garlic and the dried spices and cook another 3-5 minutes until the veggies are soft and the onions are translucent
4. Stir in the lentils, stock, & bay leaves
5. Bring the mixture to a boil, reduce to the heat to low, cover the pot and simmer 30 minutes
6. Add the salt & the remaining garlic and continue simmering another 30 minutes-1 hour until the lentils are tender
7. Remove the bay leaves and discard
8. Carefully remove approximately 1/2 of the soup from the pot (I use a large bowl & scoop out the soup) and set aside
9. Using an immersion blender (if you have one) blitz the soup in the pot until no veggies or lentils are visible. This step ensures a thick & creamy soup - if you skip this step, you soup will be more brothy....not my preference! If you don't have an immersion blender, let the soup cool & carefully pour into the pitcher of a regular blender. Please please please don't do this with piping hot soup. You are asking for a soup explosion in your kitchen and a burnt face!! 
10. Return the un-blended soup to the pot (& the blended soup if you used a regular blender), taste & add more salt & pepper as needed. If the soup seems to thin, boil it for a few minutes uncovered to allow some liquid to evaporate. Just make sure to stir it frequently so it doesn't scorch on the bottom.
11. Enjoy with crusty bread (maybe Belle Plaine Bread)& friends & wine!  

Blueberry Pie (that turned out to be cobbler)

Lizzard Loves blueberry pie, or blueberry cobbler, or really most any kind of fruit pie/crumble/buckle/cake that she's come across!

I particularly love it when I am invited to join our neighbors' dinner party for dessert because (according to our neighbor) "you guys have been over here working so hard and we've just been being loud!" Chris & I truly won the neighbor lottery. Who rewards their neighbors for doing yard work on a Sunday night? Apparently our neighbors do! They reward us with lovely company, a homemade blueberry dessert that I think would qualify as a cobbler because it had a ginger biscuit topping rather than a crust. Oh &  it was served with about a cup & a half of fresh whipped cream which threw the whole thing straight over the top!! Their dessert became our dinner!! 

I also love that they had no issue with us coming over literally dirty from working in our muddy backyard. We looked worse for the wear to be sure & our neighbors were still willing to include us in their evening.

Bottom line: seems like we bought and moved into the right neighborhood for us. Very little pretense and people who share their desserts. Winning.

Just because it seems prudent; here is a recipe I found for a similar cobbler - this one calls for blackberries; though I think blueberries would be divine. Ice cream, whipped cream, whatever suits your fancy will compliment this dessert just fine!

Food for thought: invite your neighbors over, even if just for dessert. I can nearly guarantee they will be grateful!