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Tuna with Everything-but-the-Kitchen-Sink, Hold-the-Mayo, Stuffed Bread was easy enough for an evening meal, but seemed a bit labour-intensive for a sandwich. The filling was made with tinned tuna (in oil), capers, olives, sun-dried tomatoes, artichoke hearts, red onion, spinach, basil, parsley, lemon zest and juice, mixed with olive oil and black pepper. The baguette was warmed and crisped in the oven, then split and hollowed out a little. An unexpected bonus for the sandwich maker is getting to eat the removed pillowy bread from the baguette. The filling was piled up on the bread, the top of the bread replaced, and the sandwich squished. To avoid spillage, one end of each sandwich was wrapped in a paper towel.

This is a reasonably sandwich; it is rather upscale, a fare cry from tuna with mayonnaise and sweetcorn. The lemon zest and juice made for a very strong citrus flavour, one which dominated virtually everything else. The sun-dried tomatoes added a pleasant sweetness to an otherwise salty zesty meal. The olives, capers and artichoke hearts all became a bit much of a salty muchness, and the subtleties of the herbs were overpowered by the lemon. In fairness though, I did use a pretty enormous lemon. Having said all that, overall this was a good sandwich, but maybe more of a special occasion type of snack. Too much chopping by far for a quick bite.

I am cutting this short to spend some time with our prisoners visitors, as finally the kids seem on good form again and the adults are all awake after 10pm. Tomorrow we will be having Chopped Antipasto Stuffed Bread. Lunch please.

Yesterday Baby N was really fussy and out of sorts after her injections. She normally sleeps really well at night, but yesterday she started screaming within ten minutes of being put down, no matter how soundly asleep she seemed. My night involved nursing and or rocking to sleep, putting her down, creeping to bed, lying down, thinking about going to sleep then getting up to attend to the crying baby. And repeat. I must have got into bed for 5-10 minutes about 5 times, before I just gave up and just sat with the baby in the chair in her room. Then we both slept the rest of the night. She seemed pretty rested this morning, I felt like I’d fallen asleep drunk in a chair. I had the headache, the grumpiness, the achiness and the excruciating exhaustion; once again I was just missing the alcohol. I had a nap this afternoon on the sofa while Little A was coughing her way through her nap upstairs, just to continue the slept but not rested theme for the rest of the day.

This afternoon I made a second batch of mince pies with Little A, using up the remainder of the pastry from yesterday. She loves baking, calling it “making” or “bacon”. I have a feeling we’ll be doing a lot pf cooking once she comes out of daycare. I thought we might make homemade playdoh tomorrow, another thing I swore I’d never do when I was a kid. Homemade playdoh was as abhorent to me as the clothes that my mother used to make. I wanted nothing more than to have the same stuff as my friends when I first started school. What goes around comes around I suppose; I wish I had the time and inclination to make more clothes for the kids. Little A has had plenty of summer clothes that I sewed and I knit a lot of garments for her when she was a baby. Baby N has half a hat that I started to knit about a week or so before she was born; it may never be finished…

Anyway, this evening we made Crispy Horseradish-Battered Fried Fish with Watercress-Cucumber Tartar Sauce, which was supposed to rival English fish and chips. We would have to beg to differ on that one, but the meal was certainly reasonable.The cod was seasoned with salt and pepper, then dipped in dry pancake mix. It was then dragged around in pancake mix reconstituted with water, with some prepared horseradish mixed in and dropped into a pan of hot oil and fried. The sauce was made with mayonnaise, dill, watercress, cucmber, pickle relish, pickle, lemon juice, salt and pepper and hot sauce. The fish and sauce were served with chips fries.

This meal was pretty good, although neither of us were convinced by the pancake-mix batter. Surely it would not be too much more difficult to make the batter out of flour, water and salt, and sodium bicarbonate if necessary. Then it would not taste sweet, which is an odd flavour element when mixed with fish. It tasted more like fishcakes, which was not ideal. The accompanying sauce was pretty good, even though I am not normally a fan of mayonnaise-based things. The watercress, dill and pickles added a piquancy and bitterness which contrasted well with the creamy white stuff. The fries were oven fries, which are nothing particularly special.

Overall, it was nice to eat fish again, and the batter was so thick that it did just peel away so eating it was not compulsory. The sauce is good- some chopping, but easy and quick and it has a very distinctive taste. Tomorrow we will be having Pork Chops in a Sweet Chili and Onion Sauce with Creamy Cilantro Potato Salad. Tomorrow is also the day that Rachael Ray is in town. I think I might go along with the very well-thumbed book, but no conversation.

One of my old student flatmates  was devastated to hear that the song Perfect Day may not be a testament to enduring romance, but rather an ode to heroin addiction. I can’t say for sure, but I think I may have had similar emotions when I read this evening’s recipe for Sweet Lemon Salmon with Mini Carrots and Dill…

1 18-ounce bag of “baby” carrots (really, these are big carrots cut by machine into baby carrots)

What? How did I not know this? How can it be allowed? Gutted I am, gutted. What a con. Anyway, now that my illusions have been shattered, and Oz revealed himself to be a fraud, we must pick up the pieces of my dreams and find a way to carry on.

Speaking of carrying on, this post was just interrupted by some projectile eruptions from the baby, followed by a bath for both of us. She is now sleeping in her own bed, where she will hopefully have a great night’s sleep. After saying she slept 6 hours in a row the previous night, last night was far less peaceful, but onward and upward. Today we got her a soother thing for her crib with music and lights. The one we bought for Little A was absolutely tremendous in helping to get the baby to sleep by herself without using me as a prop. Even now, Little A loves that machine, it’s the only thing that we have which regularly needs new batteries. She plays it every night and often through the night, and she’ll happily be entertained by it for quite a while in the morning. The one she has also projects onto the ceiling, and we thought we’d just by the same one for Baby N. We figured we should try and avoid the ‘unable to get self to sleep’ crisis, if at all possible by starting as we mean to go on. This was thwarted somewhat when we discovered that the soother we were after is now discontinued and retails for almost $90 on Amazon. What? How many of these must there be in the world? Hundreds of thousands. Pah! Anyway, Little N now has a non-projecting non twittering Rainforest soother which cost us considerably less and still works. Behold, the baby is asleep! (OK, let’s just reason that jinxes don’t exist, full stop.) I might write a book, praying on all new parents and their anxieties, “get your child to sleep at night for $30″. It’s bound to be a runaway success. I know I read at least 4 sleep related books with Little A, until the paediatrician told us to put her to bed at 7pm and go in again at 7am. Nightmare. Worked a charm after 3 hellish days, but I digress.

Anyway, earlier the kitchen smelled of salmon, but now it is filled with the delicious aroma of chocolate cake (recipe, courtesy of Nigella Lawson, baking, my mum). I am so excited to eat some home-baked cake, I have been craving it for months days. But, the dinner. We made a lemon-sugar topping for the salmon by dissolving sugar in a little water and the juice of a lemon over a low heat. The salmon was seasoned with salt, pepper and lemon zest, then placed in a hot oiled pan. When the first side was cooked, we turned the salmon, and drizzled the lemon sugar mixture over the top. The salmon was supposed to be finished in the oven, but we just kept it in the pan and put a lid on it. The fraudulent baby carrots were cooked in a bit of water, drained, then drenched in butter (we used less than a tablespoon rather than the called for two tablespoons), seasoned with salt and pepper and tossed with chopped dill.

Dinner was ridiculously quick and easy and it tasted really good. And it turned out so very, very orange. It was an incredibly light meal, leaving me with plenty of room for the chocolate cake, which has just come out of the oven (a lucky escape after mum set the timer for an extra 5 hours rather than 5 minutes). The salmon was tangy, firm and very tasty. I would absolutely use this recipe again. The carrots were good, we all agreed that the dill was surprisingly successful on the vegetable rather than the fish. My only addition would be a few boiled potatoes to round out the meal. Tomorrow, we will be hitting the chicken once more with Mediterranean Chicken and Saffron Couscous.

Incidentally, our domain name, oneyearproject.com, is up for renewal, and we have decided to keep it. We are discussing what we are going to do next year. We don’t know yet, I guess we have a month to decide, but we will be doing something. For a year, amazingly enough, well if we stick it out that is. One Year Project: The Sequel is officially in the works. Let’s hope it’s not a complete dud as so many sequels are. Speaking of duds, my sleep book will have to omit the fact that the method doesn’t actually work particularly well; we have one wide awake baby once more, and it’s only 11.30pm.

This evening we made Chili-Spiced Grilled Halibut with Grilled-Corn Saucy Salsa which was pretty straightforward, perhaps because my mother did all the chopping and dull preparation. The recipe calls for corn on the cob which you char in a grill pan then shuck. As we couldn’t find fresh corn in the stores, we used frozen corn which I briefly defrosted by pouring boiling water on it from the kettle. I dried it on paper towels then added it to a very hot skillet with some oil. I was surprised to see that it actually charred quite nicely- I thought that it would be too soggy somehow. Anyway, The garlic, red onion, red pepper and jalapeño (ready chopped, how very convenient) were fried in a little olive oil for a few minutes with brown sugar and salt and pepper, then joined by chicken stock. A few minutes later the charred corn, the juice of two limes and some cilantro went into the pan. Meanwhile, the halibut was seasoned with a mixture of oil and chilli powder, then cooked on the grill pan for a few minutes on each side. The fish was served with the salsa on top.

Upon first taste, the lime juice seemed to overpower everything, however the more one ate of the dish, the more balanced it seemed. The ratio of brown sugar (1 tablespoon) to lime juice (the contents of two limes) seemed a little low, but the sugar definitely took the edge off the lime. The salsa was fresh and crisp and appealing, if a little acidic. The fish was beautifully cooked, firm and yet delicate. The chilli rub was an excellent simple method of preparation. We all agreed that the fish was good, yet there were differences of opinion on the salsa and the amount of lime juice. Overall though, this meal was certainly pleasant, and a good way to eat fish.

Tomorrow we will be kicking off our twelfth and final month of this cooking shenanigans with Chicken Topped with Caponata and Mozzarella.

In 1996 I came to the US with my two best friends from University. Under the guise of research and spending a travel grant, we planned to spend six weeks looking at contemporary American art. What really happened is that we spent two weeks in New York where it was too hot to go to many galleries, then two weeks traveling across country in an old Greyhound bus (no galleries in the Grand Canyon that we found. Having said that we had such dodgy stomachs by then that we didn’t stray far from the Portaloo’s so we didn’t even see all that much of the Canyon) then two weeks in fabulous San Francisco where we maybe went to three galleries, tops. It was an excellent fantastic holiday although the extreme August heat plus living in a bus for two weeks with a bunch of other “travelers” rendered us all a little grumpy at times. But, every now and then in a quiet moment one of us would look at the others and say “I’m having a perfect moment”. What a fantastic feeling.

By the time we got to San Francisco we were all excruciatingly broke. Fortunately we were staying in a hostel in Chinatown so we could get mountains of food for very little money, although we often had no idea what we had ordered or what we were eating. Our days were filled with an enormous amount of walking and partaking in a variety of free activities. Like walking. And looking. We happened to be at a record store listening to music on the communal headphones one day when we realised that Suzanne Vega would be performing later in the week to promote her upcoming album, Nine Objects of Desire. Two of us were excited, the other sadly not at all. On the day we went to the store, watched the great acoustic set (Unimpressed Friend was listening to the new George Michael album on headphones in the back of the store) then lined up to get copies of Suzanne Vega’s CD signed. Unimpressed Friend was particularly unimpressed when we asked/ pleaded/ instructed her to queue with us to get an extra signed copy. The closer we got to the front of the line, the more nervous I became. I am somewhat socially inept in a shy/ sweaty hands kind of fashion, plus I have an inability to say my name (2 syllables, very easy) in a way that other people can understand (I learned this in my telemarketing days, oh the glamour;

Me: Hi my name is H____ and I’m calling on behalf of FDS Market Research…
Random Person: What’s your name?
Me: H____
Random Person: What?
Me: H____
Random Person: Kelly?
Me: No, H____
Random Person: Claire?
Me: No, H____
Random Person: Ellen?
Me: No

). Anyway, I liked Suzanne Vega but I would not say I was an enormous fan. When it was finally our turn to meet her, I sweatily stammered, “Hi, er. great set. Er, really good. Thanks. Er, can you sign this ‘To H____’ please” “What name?” “H____” “Kelly?” “Er, no…” And so on until eventually she understood and I got a signed album, and on we went, Unimpressed Friend being staggeringly unimpressed. Rather than treasuring my signed album, I find it to be more of an awkward reminder of my social ineptitude plus my starstruck awe at speaking to someone famous. Cool, I am not.

The point of such rambling being twofold. This evening, after bathing Little A and listening to L read her bedtime stories while I fed Baby N in the next room I thought, for the first time in years, “I’m having a perfect moment.” Having two kids is great, exhaustion and craziness and unrelenting chaos aside. This is beautiful. (Having said that I think I may be going crazy- I just asked L where he’d put Baby N down and if she was asleep- and she is laying here on my lap as I type. I got hardly any sleep last night, I’m obviously unhinged). But the second part of this epic entry is to say this. Today at the Mall of America we met friends in Barnes & Noble for coffee and toddler train set time (except virtually all the trains were mysteriously absent. Probably recalled) and noticed an enormous poster advertising an upcoming book signing. Rachael Ray will be right here, right now on December 17th. Part of me wants to go and say hi and tell her what we’re doing, but 99.99999% of me believes that would just be the most excruciatingly embarrassing thing ever. As we have mentioned mainly in the comments, we are neither fans nor foes of Rachael Ray. I admire her drive and energy and commitment and success, but I am ambivalent towards her as a person. But knowing me, I’d still be all stammery and uncomfortable to meet her in person. Plus, we’d have to queue all day- and with L at work and with 2 kids to entertain, it is more than unlikely that I’d get there.

So, tonight we made Sweet Sea Scallops in a Caper-Raisin Sauce. The capers were pan fried in olive oil at a high heat, and simply seasoned with salt and pepper.They were served in a simple sauce made by frying shallots with salt and pepper, adding parsley and capers and white wine with a sprinkling of golden raisins and a splash of lemon juice. The scallops and sauce were served with a green salad and crusty bread. The scallops were beautiful; this method of cooking them is the simplest, and best, that we have come across. The sauce was very caper-heavy, caper-centric in fact. It was not until I had eaten a few forkfulls that I remembered that there were raisins in the meal. The sauce is good, but if you didn’t like capers I would stay very far away from this recipe. If we made this again, I would add more sweetness, to counteract the sharpness of the capers. More raisins or perhaps a wee squirt of honey would probably do the trick. The delicacy of the scallops with the tangy sauce could have been paired a little better; we both felt that some boiled new potatoes and maybe some green beans or asparagus would have been a better fit than salad and bread. The dish could benefit from a bit of bland stodginess to cleanse the palate. Overall though, this was a very pleasant dinner- it was particularly nice to have fresh (by which I mean previously frozen) rather than frozen scallops.

Tomorrow we will be having Veal, Chicken, or Fish Francese with Lemon and Wine. We are yet to purchase our protein source, who knows what it’ll be. The choice, it is bewildering. I bet we’ll end up with more chicken.

This evening we had Pancetta-Wrapped Shrimp Supper Salad, which was undoubtedly the best meal that we have had for ages. Like a good restaurant meal, this was the perfect balance of taste, texture and sophistication. The jumbo shrimp were seasoned, a sage leaf was placed down the back of the shrimp, the pancetta was wrapped around like a stripper stripe on a (barber) pole, and the little morsels were pan fried in olive oil. The salad was very similar to what we had yesterday, except that the balsamic vinegar was replaced by lemon juice. So we made greens, tomatoes and artichoke hearts tossed in a mustard-oil-lemon juice-shallot dressing. Bread, olives and caper berries were served on the side.

The shrimp were plump and firm, perfectly cooked with an extra level of delicious saltiness provided by the pancetta. The combination was much better than bacon-wrapped shrimp; less fatty and a richer flavour. The salad was excellent again, and the side dishes rounded the meal out perfectly. Five out of five on our star rating system. Yummo. How nice to be as satisfied with a meal as anticipated by the title. Winner!

Tomorrow we will be having Lamb and Scallion Burgers with Fried Asparagus. It sounds pretty good, let’s hope it’s another excellent dinner. Tomorrow is the last day of L’s paternity leave. We should do something monumental, or at least clean the house. Who am I trying to kid- cleaning the house would be about as monumental as things could be. We will probably be getting a visit from a heating repair person- they were supposed to come at 2pm today, and we’ve been waiting since then. Apparently he may still come this evening, but it is almost 9pm- I can’t imagine that he would be overly keen to stay long enough to work out the problem if he decided to turn up, which seems unlikely. We are having issues with the heat and the thermostat. These problems are manifesting themselves in freezing bedrooms and sometimes freezing everything. The minivan is back though, the dealership have had it for the last few days repairing the dings and scratches on the doors. Now it looks like a brand new vehicle. Oh the dream, it is indeed awesome.

This evening we made Lemon and Artichoke Risotto with Shrimp [recipe] which is, as you may have guessed, another risotto recipe, again a variation of the dog food risotto. What can I say about this dinner? Well, it was a risotto with artichoke hearts and shrimp and lemon zest. And there were peas in it, hallelujah. It was perhaps the best risotto that we’ve had this week, in as much as the peas were supposed to be there, rather than added by me to make the food more appealing. The artichokes gave the meal a bit of a zing, which was very welcome, but even that couldn’t cut across the bland same-yness of this meal. Too stodgy by far. It was nice to have shrimp though; it’s been a while. All in all, yet another meal that will not be appearing in this house again anytime soon, er, ever.

In other news we are the family of lurgy. Everyone now has something to complain about in the cold/ sore throat/ cough stakes. So really my other news is that there is no news. Tomorrow we will be making Cream Risotto with White Asparagus and Andouille. And because these risotto meals aren’t white enough already, let’s add a freaky looking white vegetable. Great plan.

Last night kicked my ass. I was up with Baby N four times, which doesn’t sound so bad, except that the first time lasted from bedtime until 4.40am. And the following three times all took place before A woke up at 7am. Fun times. N can feed well, but she is having enormous problems latching on since my milk came in. For her it must be like trying to feed from a watermelon; for us it would be like trying to drink from the side of this. So we were locked in an endless cycle of rooting, screaming, failing to latch, screaming, eventually latching, feeding, falling asleep, (pooping optional). Every time I went to change her or tried to put her in bed, she would wake up rooting, swiftly move to screaming etc etc. And repeat. All the hysteria must be tiring because she would repeatedly fall asleep soon after latching on, and thus always be hungry. Needless to say I was no bundle of laughs today.

A, however, was on great form today, and seemed pretty interested in her (obviously peacefully sleeping; it was daytime after all) little sister. Things should hopefully settle down pretty quickly, provided the baby confines all her screaming to the night time hours. I, however, may be certifiably insane pretty soon, but that’s a small price to pay in the grand scheme of things. On the plus side, a friend came round with cupcakes and coffee, which can do an enormous amount of good for the morale. All hail to thee, sugar and caffeine, long may you reign supreme.

This evening L made Lemon and Brown Butter Fish Fillets with Seared Red and Yellow Grape Tomatoes while I rejoined the great boob battle of 2007. He was in the kitchen under 15 minutes, and emerged with an extremely good dinner, which left us both wishing he had made much more food. The tomatoes (we could only find red ones) were seared in olive oil for a couple of minutes, then the parsley was added to the pan, everything cooked for a little longer then taken off the heat and kept warm in a bowl. The pan was wiped clean with more olive oil added. The flour-dredged, salt and pepper seasoned tilapia fillet was fried, and then set aside to keep warm. Finally the butter was heated in the same pan until browned, parsley was added, and food was served. Lemon juice was sprinkled on the top, and crusty bread served alongside.

For a meal with so little preparation, so little clean up and such straightforward methodology, this meal is an absolute winner. And all in one pan. The fish and tomatoes were bursting with flavour, the textures were complementary and the overall meal was rich without being overbearing. Excellent.

Tomorrow we will be having Chicken No. 14,752- Chicken in Mustard Sauce, the first of five chicken variations. Can’t wait, no really. I will also be attempting to do even one of the things on my to-do list over the weekend. Maybe emailing friends to let them know we’ve had a baby might be a good start…

This morning L and I went to see the doctor, who has booked me in to the hospital to be induced on Thursday morning, should this baby still not have made an entrance. She also did a remarkably painful stripping of my membranes, in the hope of kick-starting labour. That worked last time, so maybe it’ll do the trick this time. I have to say I am certainly having regular contractions now, every few minutes, although I can still talk through them so we’re not leaving for the hospital just yet.

This evening we made Lime-and-Honey Glazed Salmon with Warm Black Bean and Corn Salad [recipe] which was fortunately relatively straightforward. The salmon was marinated in honey, lime juice, chili powder and salt and pepper, then fried in olive oil over a medium high heat. The onion, garlic, red pepper flakes, cumin and salt and pepper were fried for a while, then joined by the red pepper, frozen corn and chicken stock. Once cooked, the pan was removed from the heat with the lime juice, cilantro and baby spinach stirred through the mixture. The salmon was served on top of the salad.

Unfortunately the camera battery needed to be charged, so we had to wait a while before eating, which is always annoying. However, the fish was worth the wait as it was truly delicious. It was sweet and tangy and a little spicy, and all the flavours worked in perfect harmony. I would certainly prepare salmon like that again, no question. The salad we were not so taken by, although it was not unpleasant. It was neither one thing nor another; not salad, not salsa, not stir fry, just a weird combination of flavours. It was fine, but nothing wildly exciting.

Ok, I am going to cut this short to try and figure out the ideal balance between not getting to the hospital hours or days in advance, and not leaving it too late. Tomorrow someone will be cooking Sage and Balsamic Pork Chops with Creamy Pumpkin Polenta. I would so much like time off for good behaviour, just so I can get out of eating polenta for a night, come on out baby, the time is nigh. Just before I sign off I feel the need to apologise in advance if the contractions fade away and there is no baby until Friday. But! There will be a baby this week, wowser, that’s a little scary.

On this most ridiculously hot October day, we set about making Pasta with a Lot of Mussel, for which we had very high hopes. Five star rating hopes, if truth be told. We fried sliced chorizo (omitting the called for oil) then added chopped garlic, red onion, carrot, celery and thyme, with some salt and pepper. White wine and fire roasted tomatoes were added, simmered for a while, then joined by the scrubbed mussels. Once the mussels opened, they were removed from the pan and put under a foil blanket to keep warm, while the cooked spaghetti was tossed in the sauce with a handful of parsley. The mussels were served on top of the pasta, with crusty bread on the side.

The mussels were good and the chorizo was excellent. Spaghetti is always a winner. The pasta sauce, whilst pleasant enough, was pretty disappointing. It tasted very much like a soup or stew base before the interesting bits are added. I think the carrots and celery were responsible for that. If we made this again, I would certainly add some red pepper flakes and probably omit the carrot and celery. Some roasted red peppers would have been a nice addition.

We had a minor celebration for A’s birthday tomorrow with our Sunday morning playdate friends. Things were going well until A had a complete and utter meltdown when we wouldn’t let her eat an entire plate of cupcakes. They weren’t even piggy cupcakes, but they did have sprinkles and pink icing, both of which she seemed pretty happy with, much more so than the cake, really. I may as well have used a packet mix or just bought them ready-made. Nevertheless, tonight I will be making the piggy cupcakes for her to take to daycare in the morning. Last night, having trecked round every shop in our neighbourhood looking for pink marshmallows or similar, it was too late to make three batches of cakes and ice them, so I better get me back in the 90? kitchen and sweat some more. Tomorrow we will be having Big Bistro Burgers with Caramelized Shallots on Grilled Bread with Beet and Goat Cheese Salad, and hopefully one day soon after we’ll be having a baby. Whilst in no way ready for a newborn, I am so done with being pregnant. It’s been fun, well aside from the almost 5 months of puking, but now I am ready to be able to walk upstairs without having contractions or being out of breath. Baby, please.