Saturday, January 17, 2009

Fell off the bandwagen, eh?

It's been a long time since I blogged. Like when I got pregnant with Mary long time. And she's almost 10 months old. Yikes, when did that happen. But here I am. And now I have no idea what to say.

It's been a good day. We went swimming this morning. The kids are like little fish. They LOVE to go to the wellness center. We swim in the therapy pool where it's 80 degrees-heaven! They have some tub toy stuff that they use for swim lessons and today we "adopted" 2 squirty dinosaurs and each kid had one and they had a ball with them. Robert loves to jump off the edge of the pool, he climbs up the side and then we count "1,2,3" and he jumps in. Well at some point he had both dinosaurs on the edge of the pool and he was counting "1,2,3" and "they" were jumping in. It was hilarious.

Then Robert took a good nap (yeah for post pool naps) and I baked some bread and made a bunch of lasagnas for the freezer. Except 2 of them are actually outside freezing since it's as cold outside as my freezer, lol. Wesley went to walmart for groceries (literally I think the first time he has ever done a weeks shopping on his own-and he volunteered). Mary spent most of the day doing her thing-crawling, pulling up, playing etc. She's still pulling on her ears-in fact more so than she had-so she may be headed back to the doctor on monday-sigh. Today was her last day of antibiotics. I've had one of them on antibiotics since Jan 2nd. I'm tired of this! And the amoxicillan is really tearing up her stomach which is tearing up her bottom-it is so red it's almost bleeding. :(

Maybe I'll make this partly a recipe blog. Here are today's recipes. Well I made the bread dough yesterday to go with the chili but I'll stick it here too :) Lunch was chicken tenders (frozen from a freezer session last week with french fries from Burger King).

European Peasant Bread (Artisan bread in 5 min a day)

makes 4, 1 lb loaves

3 c water
1.5 T granulated yeast
1.5 T salt (use less if you are using table salt-this is supposed to be kosher)
1/2 c rye flour
1/2 c whole wheat flour
5.5 c all purpose flour

-mix the water, yeast, salt in a food processor or heavy duty stand mixer with dough hooks. Add the flours and just mix through (do not knead)
-leave out for 2 hours
-cover and stick in the fridge for up to 2 weeks
-whenever you are ready to eat it
-dust dough with flour
-cut off 1/4 of it, shape it into a ball by stretching the surface of the dough around. Allow it to rest for 40 min.
-preheat the oven to 450. Place a broiler tray on the lower shelf and a baking stone on the other shelf.
-Sprinkle the dough with flour and cut scalops, cross etc into it.
-place the dough on teh stone. Pour 1 c hot tap water onto the broiler tray and close the door. Bake for 35 min or until the top crust is deeply browned and very firm. Allow to cool before slicing/eating.

Lazy Day Lasagna-makes 1 9x13 or 2 8x8 pans (I tripled this recipe which made 4 8x8 pans and one strange oblong 8x11 maybe? (adapted from the freezer cooking manual)

15 oz ricotta cheese
2 c mozzarella cheese
2 eggs
1/3 c chopped parsley
1 t onion powder
1/2 t pasta sprinkle
1/8 t pepper
1 can spaghetti sauce
lasagna noodles-uncooked

mix ricotta, mozzarella, eggs, spices together.
put enough spaghetti sauce on the bottom of the pan(s) to cover.
layer noodles, cheese mixture, spag sauce, noodles, cheese, spag sauce, noodles, sauce. Once it is assembled pour 1/2 c water around the edges. Freeze. I freeze until firm then put them in a sink of hot water until the edges unmold and slide the lasagnas into a large freezer ziplock labeled with which pan it goes back into. Before baking sprinkle with cheddar and Parmesan cheese Bake covered from frozen for 2 hours or thawed for 1 hour, uncovering for the last 15 min if possible. I usually bake it from frozen-this is a staple Sunday lunch for us!

No comments: