Spring Break

Friday was our trip to Chicago. Well, when I went to get Hudson out of bed Friday morning he was running a fever. I tried to get him to eat some breakfast but he was not interested, very unlike Hudson! I then noticed he had a red pimply rash all over his body. Not good! We decide to take him to Urgent Care on our way out of town. The dr swabbed his throat and he was diagnosed with Strep. Ick! Hudson sure likes to get sick whenever Ryan and I are planning some time alone. We stopped by Target and got his antibiotic and headed on to Ryan's parent's house. Hudson slept most of the way there and seemed to be feeling better when we got there so we headed up to Chicago. Thankfully, Hudson ended up taking a 4 hour nap that afternoon and then started feeling pretty normal.

Ryan and I had a great time in Chicago. We stayed at the Palmer House (gotta love Priceline!). Friday night we ate dinner at Frontera Grill. They don't take reservations, so we got in line 2o minutes before they opened. We were third in line so we didn't have to wait for a table when they opened. The food was amazing. Easily one of the best meals we have had. Rick Bayless was even in the kitchen! We then went to Wicked. Our seats were good and the performance was excellent. I liked it more than I thought I would. Saturday we went to the North side, walked around and then had lunch at El Tinajon, our favorite Guatemalan restaurant outside of Guatemala.

The boys had a fun time at Gangy and Pop Pop's house, as evidenced below.

Recipe of the week

I made this for dinner last night. The best part is, it makes enough for 2 pans so you can eat one and freeze the other. I also added 3 cloves of garlic to mine.

Baked Ziti

2 lbs ground beef
1 onion, chopped
2 jars pasta sauce (26 oz size)
3 cups mozzarella cheese, shredded
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
16 oz ziti, cooked and drained

1. Brown the ground beef and onion together, drain fat.
2. Mix together beef/onion mixture, pasta sauce, pasta, and 2 cups mozzarella.
3. Pour into 2 13x9 pans.
4. Top with remaining cheeses.
5. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.
6. If you are choosing to freeze one pan, skip the baking and place in the freezer. When you are ready to bake this pan, bake at 350 for 1 hour.

Going to Guatemala

It's official! Mom and I are going to Guatemala! I just purchased the airline tickets for June 14-22. We are traveling with Orphan Outreach on a mission trip. We will be working with orphanages and preschools in the Guatemala City area(where Brooks was born). I am soooo excited to be traveling back to Guatemala and to be taking my Mom with me! I found an awesome price for airfare through Taca airline. Brooks likes to call it Taco airline.

Ryan is on spring break this week so I took today and tomorrow off. We went out for breakfast this morning (something we never do). I took Brooks to get his haircut by Brooke at the beauty school. He thought that was pretty funny, Brooke cutting Brooks' hair. Later in the afternoon we went to the Y for open swim. Brooks is such a fish! He did a great job swimming around with his float belt on. I'm excited for him to start the "real" swim lessons when he turns 3. I'm glad we have the employee discount. Hudson had fun splashing around and liked jumping into the pool.

Fun in the kitchen

I have made homemade peanut butter eggs for Easter the past few years. I thought Brooks would like to help me this year. I was out of cream cheese, so I decided to try this recipe for Chocolate Easter Eggs. Brooks has had this chef outfit for awhile, but has never wanted to wear it. He happily obliged this time.



Here's the eggs ready to go into the fridge to setup. I will dip them in chocolate tonight. I'm thinking about taking them to Brooks' classmates at preschool. His preschool does not publicly celebrate holidays (due to the diversity of the students), but we could give these to his classmates to take home. Brooks spent about 45 minutes playing with his piece of filling before he was finally done.

So my other kitchen "experiment" this week has been from the book "Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a day". The basic concept of this book is you make up a simple bread dough (flour, water, salt, and yeast), just mix it until it's all incorporated, put it in a container with a loose lid to rise on the counter for a couple hours and stick it in the fridge until you're ready to make some bread. You then take off a grapefruit size chunk, shape it into a boule and let rise for 40 minutes. Then you bake it on a stone for 30 minutes. I've made 2 loaves so far and they have been excellent. It's so simple and the bread has a great texture to it. When you place the bread in the oven, you have a broiler pan at the bottom that you pour a cup of hot water into to create steam which gives you that great artisan crust. I've only done the basic recipe so far, but am looking forward to trying some others. I was happy that our fabulous library had this book in circulation.
Hudson has been dairy free for a week now. He loves the soy milk. We've had to make up the lack of fat (soy milk only has 4 grams a serving where whole milk has 8 grams) in other ways. Fortunately he loves avocados so one of those a day can do the trick. I also got him some Sunbutter, which is like peanut butter but made with sunflower seeds. He likes to eat the Sunbutter off first and then eat whatever I put it on, so I would say he thinks it is yummy. I had also purchased some Veggie Slices, which is cheese made with soy. I got the American cheese style (thanks to a Manager's Special at Payless). He's not to sure of it. He had never had processed cheese before, we only use "real" cheese. I think he'll like it as a grilled cheese so I'll try that.

Hudson had a nice fall into the fireplace yesterday evening, you can see the result on his forehead.

Pictures from the past week

Some random pictures from the past week...

Riding rollercoasters soon?

Hudson had his 15 month checkup this morning. He weighed in at 21 lbs and is 31 inches tall. We discussed his multiple ear infections and we are going to try taking Hudson dairy-free to see if that helps. His ears looked great today and his Eustachian tubes are performing well. She agreed that trying no dairy would be a good option, especially since I had a dairy allergy as a child. This should be a fun adventure (not!). He sooo loves his milk and cheese. Hopefully he will enjoy soy milk and cheese.

Hudson has a ton of words now: Mama, Dada, itty (kitty), ball, balloon, car, milk, more, window, tuba (just picked this one up on Monday, how cute!), cracker... It's pretty obvious he doesn't have a hearing problem from all those ear infections.

When I dropped Hudson off at Maggie's house, they were all outside enjoying the sunshine and nicer weather. Brooks was wearing a nice pink hat of Maggie's since I forgot to bring his along. It's supposed to be nice here the next few days, we all hope to be able to enjoy some of it!

Funny Brooksism: If you ask Brooks who he wants to be president he says Barack Obama. I have no idea where he picked this up, ok I have some idea. We listen to talk radio a lot so maybe there? I didn't know he actually listened to it. It's better than him saying Hillary! And I guess to a toddler wouldn't Barack Obama be a fun word to say?

Mmmmm Donut

Recipe of the week

I made this for dinner last night. It was all good! The rolls were great, except next time I would use 4 cups of flour because the dough was a little sticky. They had a nice crusty exterior and were tender inside. They would make great buns for sandwiches. I picked this soup recipe because I had all the ingredients, except celery, so I added another cup of carrots. I also added some cayenne pepper for a little heat and omitted the parsley and cream. I immersion blended it a little. The boys liked the soup, Hudson usually just eats the "chunks" out of the soup, but he gobbled up the liquid too. Of course the recipes are from Recipezaar.

Bacon and Potato Soup

Ingredients

1 cup raw bacon, diced

1 cup onions, diced

1-2 cup carrots, diced

1 cup celery, diced

2 tablespoons flour (optional)

3-4 cups stock or water

3 cups potatoes, diced

2-3 cups milk

1 cup cream (optional)

1 tablespoon cajun seasoning (optional)

salt and pepper

3 tablespoons choppedparsley

Directions

1. In your soup pot, saute the onion and bacon on medium heat until the onion is soft and the bacon is becoming crispy.
2. Drain off excess fat, if necessary, leaving 2 T. behind.

3. Add carrots and celery and saute for 2 minutes on medium heat.

4. If using, add flour and stir to coat vegetables.
5. Turn heat to medium high for 1 minute then add 1 cup of stock, stirring to get brown bits off bottom of pan.
6. Add the rest of the stock and potatoes and bring to a boil.
7. When potatoes are soft, add milk/cream and heat until the soup is warm again.
8. If desired, use a potato masher to break down the potatoes to your desired texture or simply continue to cook until the soup is as thick as you like.
9. If using, add cajun seasoning.
10. Add salt and pepper to taste.
11. Before serving add chopped parsley.

Prize-Winning Crusty Rolls

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups warm water

1 egg white

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 tablespoon sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

3-3 1/4 cups bread flour

2 teaspoons fast rising yeastor quick-rising yeast

Directions

1. Place ingredients in bread machine pan as suggested by manufacturer.

2. Choose dough cycle and start machine.
3. Upon completion of the dough cycle, remove dough.
4. Form rolls, place on a greased baking sheet.
5. Cover with a towel and let rise in a warm, draft-free location for 30 to 40 minutes.
6. Bake in a preheated 400 degree oven for 12-15 minutes.

Weekend update

As the last evidence of the snowman shows, we had some warm weather today. Ryan was so happy to be able to wash the cars. They both had nasty layers of winter grime all over them. Brooks had a great time helping him. Hudson had fun walking back and forth on the sidewalk.

Hudson was back at the Dr on Friday for another ear infection. He's going to see a ENT specialist on Tuesday, so we'll see what he has to say. I'm not for sure about tubes, but then we don't like giving him all these antibiotics either. I checked out a book from the library about natural cures for ear infections that I need to read before then.

Recipe of the week

We made calzones for the first time tonight. They were sooooooo good and easy! Our pizza stone broke a few months ago so we hadn't made homemade pizza for awhile and thought this might do the trick. The other fun thing I made this weekend was homemade bagels. They had a great texture to them. I made the dough, boiled them and then baked them for the authentic texture.

Bread Machine Calzone

1 1/4 cups water
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 1/2 tablespoons white sugar
3 cups bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon powdered milk
3/4 cup sliced Italian sausage
3/4 cup pizza sauce
1 1/4 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
2 tablespoons butter, melted

To Make Dough: Place water, yeast, sugar, flour, salt and powdered milk in the pan of the bread machine, in the order suggested by the manufacturer. Select Dough cycle. After cycle is completed, roll out dough on a lightly floured surface. Meanwhile, brown sausage for about 8 to 10 minutes in a large skillet over medium heat. Drain excess fat and reserve. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Shape dough into a 16 inch by 10 inch rectangle. Transfer to a lightly greased cookie sheet, and spoon pizza sauce lengthwise down the center of the dough, followed by the browned sausage and the cheese. Make diagonal cuts 1 1/2 inches apart down each long side of the dough rectangle, cutting to within 1/2 inch of the filling. Criss-cross cut strips of dough over the filling and seal edges with water. Brush top of calzone with melted butter. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 35 to 45 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from oven and cool for 5 minutes, then slice and serve.