"Just" a housewife

Dear William...

Okay so this isn't food or home maintenance related, but my husband said I should share it...I wrote this for William's pre-school. They asked us to write a letter to our child about their first day of school.

Dear William, 

It’s almost 10 months since you arrived in this world and already you’re going to “play school.” I still call it play school even though I should call it pre-school ;-)

It had been raining heavily for many days, but given that Little Wonders is near our house, I wanted us to walk to your new school. I bundled us up and left in plenty of time. However, just to remind me that I am rubbish with your sleep schedule, you took 10 minutes of the 15 minute walk to fall asleep. I kept walking for another 10 minutes so that a) we’d arrive on time (not too early and not too late) and b) you’d have at least 15 minutes of sleep before your big day.

I constantly marvel at you William. Your first day at Little Wonders was no exception. Having just woken up, and with no real afternoon nap to speak of, you looked around with excitement. I carefully put my prepared Ziploc bag with your spare diaper, my phone and wallet in the space provided. I placed my water bottle and your sippy cup, both clearly labeled with our names, on the bookcase. I handed in our paperwork and photos so they could be mounted with your other class mates. We were prepared!

We sat down with some familiar and not so familiar faces. Straight away you started crawling and exploring. Circle time, songs and introductions took up some time. You listened intently to the songs. When teacher Susan asked what other songs we could sing, I boldly shouted out, “Wheels on the Bus.” It’s one of your favorites and since it’s familiar to you I thought it would help you know that this new adventure is going to be a good one.

I had brought our camera and video camera. I wanted to video the introductions so that I’d remember all the new friends, but I know we’ll learn everyone’s names soon enough. I started taking lots of photos, I wanted to document this special occasion!

We tried to play with many children, not just those few we knew. You’re so social and you smiled at everyone. You were, on the whole very gentle, however, with one little girl you got a bit too excited and wanted to touch her face. Your touch was a little rough and I was worried it was more of a scratch. I probably over reacted, shouting “no” and I apologized profusely to the mummy. She was a second time mum and was much more laid back about your “affection.”

As with many of the children, you liked playing on the loft. It has stairs on one side and a slide on the other. Despite the fact that we don’t have stairs in our house, you loved climbing up the loft. Again you surprised me by how deftly you reached the top. I was behind you every step of the way. A little boy named Saxon was playing with you too and you both had a great time climbing side by side. At one point it looked like you were racing each other to the top. Oh no…you’ve inherited mummy’s competitive streak!

At the top you played with a toy along with Saxon. You put your arm around Saxon. Although I’d like to think it was a reassuring hug, I think it was your way of carefully edging him to the left so you could get a better position!

Teacher Mirielle encouraged you to slide down the slide and you weren’t sure about that…maybe climbing was enough for the first day.

Towards the end of the class, you and many others were playing with dolls and musical instruments. At one point you placed your mouth over the nose and mouth of a baby doll. A fellow mother laughed and said that she was going to keep her daughter away from you, but again I’d like to think that you were practicing your CPR skills versus trying to get a romantic connection going at this early age!

We closed with the goodbye song and I had to pull you away from the toys to go home.

With emails exchanged during the next few days, moms spoke of their babies sleeping well that night after their exhausting first pre-school day. William, yet again, you proved yourself unique; you slept no better!

With all my love,

Mummy

Tonight's "Chicken" dinner and a few others...

1) This evening, half way through dinner, David asked me how I'd prepared the chicken tonight. Clearly my cooking ability still has a way to go. Tonight's dinner was in fact Salmon.

2) This afternoon I made Betty Crocker cupcakes from a box. I've said it before and I'll say it again, most of the time, when cupcakes turn out that well from a box and 3 other ingredients, there's no point in baking from scratch.

3) I'd promised to make an apple crisp/strudel dessert for a few weeks. Tonight I finally got round to it. After devouring it, David asked me if next time I could make a sherry trifle. Sherry trifle falls into the same category for me as Tiramisu. I hate them both. I believe the exact words I said were, "I will never make you a trifle or a Tira-f**king-misu, if you don't like that you can divorce me."  

Diets

This weekend, David and I entertained two lots of friends that were long over due an invite round at Chez McCulloch. These people posed me a slight cooking challenge. My good friend Eileen came round on Saturday with her husband, Dan and she cannot eat any diary right now. And my former HP colleague came round with his lovely family on Sunday evening. They are all vegetarian.

On both occasions I cooked recipes that I've made only once before. On Saturday evening I cooked Turkey Ossa Buco (from a Today Show recipe that now I can no longer find online!) and Sunday I cooked Garden Style Eggplant. Both dishes turned out well and our guest said they were great, but for me, the Turkey Ossa Buco was a fantastic dinner party meal. I put it all together about 2 hours before our guests arrived, put it in the oven for 1 hour 45 mins and forgot about it - ahhh - stress free cooking.

The Garden Style Eggplant however, required a lot of work; slices of eggplant baked on one side, flipped, baked on the other side, then grilled on one side, grilled on the other...by the time the guests arrived I was exhausted! Anyway, so for me a classic lesson learned...choose less involved dishes when entertaining!

Farfalle with Salsa Cruda - David's favorite

I bought a huge packet of prosciutto from Costco because it was super cheap. But unless you use all of it, it's not exactly value for money, is it? David used prosciutto on his sandwiches and I made a "chicken wrapped in Prosciutto" dish. I also bought it because it's the main ingredient for one of David's favorite mid-week dinners.

Farfalle with Salsa Cruda is a fancy name for just a pasta dish. It has quite a few ingredients for a mid-week dinner, but it's worth it. One of the main ingredients, tomatoes, needs to be chopped coarsely (or diced). For 1.5 lbs of tomatoes cutting takes a long time. 

As I've said before here, I like to cut time, and someone once bought me a Williams-Sonoma vegetable chopper. I don't normally buy over-priced bits of plastic to clutter up the kitchen, but I LOVE THIS! It's awesome. You just cut your tomato in two and place it in the device. Shut the lid and you instantly have diced tomatoes. It's so cool! 

Here's the recipe;

Tomatoes, 1.5 lbs cored and diced

Garlic, 2 cloves, minced

Fresh Basil, 1/2 a cup, slivered

Olive Oil, 1/2 cup

Balsamic Vinegar, 3 tablespoons

Red Pepper flakes, 1/2 teaspoon

Mozzarella cheese, 1/2 lb cubed

Pine nuts, 1/4 cup

Salt & Pepper

Farfalle, 1 lb

Prosciutto, 2 oz, chopped

1. In a large bowl combine the tomatoes, garlic, basil, oil, vinegar, and red pepper flakes. Stir well and let stand at room temperature for about 15 minutes to blend the flavors. Stir in the mozzarella and let stand for about 10 minutes longer.  

2. Meanwhile, in a small, dry frying pan over a medium-high heat, toast the pine nuts, stirring often, until fragrant and pale golden, 1-2 minutes. Transfer to a plate and set aside. (Be careful - I often burn them!)

3. At the same time cook the pasta as per directions on the packet! Drain well and add the pasta to the sauce, along with the prosciutto and pine nuts. Toss to combine and slightly soften the cheese. Season with salt and pepper. Serve.

Cooking versus Baking

I think I am a decent cook. I am beginning to think however, that I'm not a decent baker. I can make a very good Betty Crocker cake (mix in a box and you add eggs, oil and water!) and ice it to look pretty. But that's simple and cheating just a little bit! 

I can make a good dinner from a recipe; even with more than 20 ingredients. 

But I'm not sure I can bake.

I made Banoffee cupcakes and vanilla cupcakes on Friday and I was not happy with either! I mean...you follow instructions, but they didn't come out light and fluffy they come out a little bit too "dense." What am I doing wrong? I made the vanilla cupcakes before, and while they were better this time, they weren't as fluffy and light as I expect cupcakes to be. 

It's so infuriating; I don't know why! Maybe I'll just stick to Betty Crocker mix cakes!

Yummy Pork Chops

As many people do, we buy in bulk from Costco to try and save some pennies! But when you buy 12 Pork chops, you have to be a bit creative in how you cook them to make them a little bit interesting! 

I was fortunate to get a Real Simple magazine subscription last year for Christmas and I love it. They often have recipes for "weeknight" meals. Good simple meals that take about 25 minutes.

Well here's a good one...

Spiced Pork Chops With Red Cabbage and Raisins

Scared of the unknown? Just do it!

This new year, I am trying to have renewed confidence about my cooking and home DYI projects. I am often scared to try complicated recipes or big projects around the house. Sure, I'll do a bit of painting or cook simple recipes, but decorate a cake or undertake a mini-remodel...no way!

But this year, I am determined to make William's birthday cake. Not only make it, but decorate it. Not just with a bit of icing and store bought decorations, but home made decorations...I don't want to give too much away (for fear of failing!!!) but I'll post the picture of the cake here in mid-April.

Another example; our shower doors. You see, we only have one bath in our house. For the first nine months of William's life we've bathed him in a "baby" bath on our kitchen counter. However, as he started to stand up in it, we thought it was time we used our big bath. The problem was we had double shower doors on the bath tub. We could slide the doors to one side, but you were not only restricted, but you had a painful metal track sticking in your ribs as you bent over the bath! 

One night we just decided to remove the shower doors. As David picked up the screw drivers, I went for my power screw driver. You should have seen the look on David's face. Very quickly he decided he wouldn't waste his energy and he left me to do it! We removed the screws and pried the metal vertical and horizontal tracks off the bath surround. It was tricky because the tracks had been sealed to the surround with a clear rubber-type sealant. However, after carefully scraping off the sealant, we now have a lovely bath made for baby bathing!

Just yesterday we went to Home Depot to price 'half' shower doors on a hinge. We thought we could replace the fixed double doors with a much more flexible option that would swing out. Quickly we discarded that idea. They cost $1000! Instead we bought a $40 curtain rod. So family and friends, if you stay over at our place now, you'll have to put up with shower curtain...tough!

Trying something new

As I said the other day, I need to plan my meals. I planned to cook yogurt-mint marinated chicken for dinner last night. Only one problem! You need to leave it to marinate for 24 hours. So today I will prepare it to have on Sunday night. Today I need to buy the mint!

Tonight's meal will involve Quinoa. I got the recipe from Shape magazine; the above recipe links to the website for Shape.com where you'll find the yogurt-mint recipe. You see that's my recent revelation...there are thousands of recipes for free on the web.

My favorites are shape.com and also Williams-Sonoma. I use Williams-Sonoma recipes for dinner parties. They tend to be richer and they are not careful with the calories, but they are pretty darn good. I've also recently got A LOT of recipe books from the library. I mark recipes I like with post-it notes. If I mark 5 or more recipes from one book, then I know I should get the book. If there's only one or two I like, I'll just copy the recipes before taking the book back.

I also got a Jamie Oliver book for Christmas from my sister...I'll have to start making some of those recipes. 

Cooking alone...

Cooking alone is not much fun. For starters I have to dump William in front of Baby Einstein in his high chair with a rusk. And secondly I don't have a lovely appreciative person to dine with.

But as I said, I'm really trying to eat super healthily so instead of making what I wanted to (8 minutes - Mac & Cheese out of a packet) I made Fettuccine with Chicken and Broccoli Rabe. Just 339 calories!

However, as I am now finding, the more I cook, the more confidence I gain and each time I cook a recipe I can tweak it to make it easier, cheaper, etc. For instance, today's recipe calls for you to saute the chicken on both sides in olive oil. However, this makes the pan very dirty and if like me you use plump chicken breasts, it takes much longer than the suggested 4-5 minutes per side! Something you'll know about me is I hate washing up and if I can cut down on time cooking, I will.

So next time, I won't saute the chicken I'll poach it. I poached a chicken breast the other night when I made Oriental Chicken Salad (which was fantastic and only 279 calories!) and it was delicious. Very moist, not dry at all, and took only about 6-8 minutes! Just place a chicken breast in a deep skillet and add chicken broth, bring to a simmer and cook covered for 6-8 mins until it's cooked. See simple! 

Anyway, apart from the washing up of the pans, tonight's dinner wasn't bad ;-)

Planning...

To cook like I cook, you need to plan. I am not one of these amazingly talented people that can go into a cupboard and create something wonderful from what's in! I have to follow a recipe. I have to follow instructions.

A few weeks ago David asked me how I always cook rice to perfection. I simply responded, "I follow the directions on the packet."

So this morning, first things first I am planning the next few days meals. Lunch and dinners...then it's off to Safeway to buy the ingredients.