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This evening L made Lamb and Scallion Burgers with Fried Asparagus while I attended to a rather fussy Baby N. Now L is attending to N while I type; he is trying to do the put the sleepy baby down maneuver, without her waking up to resume her scream fest. It is hard to believe that our little baby is one month old today, where does the time go? On the one hand it feels like she’s always been part of our little family, and on the other hand it seems like seconds ago that I was sitting here blogging with contractions 4 minutes apart. We are really lucky to have such an easy little girl (fingers crossed, touch wood), but like the rest of us she is full of cold and somewhat out of sorts. (For a second there it looked like the move was successful, but the baby just woke up again, and so L is once more doing the jiggle up and down slightly with the grumpy baby dance. Hopefully she’ll settle down again soon…)

Anyway, dinner this evening was very good indeed, perhaps not as great as the pancetta shrimp yesterday, but still very tasty. The lamb and scallion burgers also featured thyme, garlic, lemon zest, salt and pepper and olive oil. Served with Dijon, greens and crusty bread this was about as classy as burgers get. The asparagus recipe called for the thick woody spears- for once all we could find was the extremely thin spindly spears. The thicker spears were supposed to be cut in half and then sliced lengthwise. As ours were so spindly, L did not cut them. The spears were dredged in flour, fried in olive oil, then seasoned with salt.

The lamb burgers tasted strongly of the unmistakable rich grassy taste of lamb, with a pungent sharp note of lemon and scallions underlining the meatiness. Very tasty, I am in fact contemplating going to eat the remaining burger sitting in the pan. But that would be greedy. And I should save some room for cake or something nice. The asparagus was crispy and salty and good- no complaints here.

So as L’s paternity leave drew to a close this afternoon, we made a trip to Ikea to see if we could resolve our countertop issue- amazingly Ikea are going to cover the costs of the installation of a new concrete counter, we just need to arrange for the removal of the existing counters. In other fascinating house-update news, the heating guy was all set to come round at 9.30pm last night, but we postponed until this afternoon. He spent an enormously long time bleeding the air out of the radiators, some of which have evidently not been bled in many many years. Suddenly the whole house was very very hot, for the first time since August.

Ok, sad baby beckons, so I will sign off on this fascinating insight into our crazy rock and roll lifestyle. Tomorrow we will be making Sweet Sea Scallops in a Caper-Raisin Sauce.

This evening after a last minute grocery-store revisit, we set about making Lamb and Feta Rolls with Cucumber- Mint- Yogurt Dipping Sauce. We had quite high hopes for this combination of flavours, being lamb fans, but alas we were less than impressed with the final result. The process was very similar to that of the last two days- a huge chunk of meat and cheese and chili spice (in this case lamb, feta and jalapeño) is wrapped inside layers of phyllo pastry/ butter/ salt and pepper. The giant roll is oven baked until firm to the touch.

The dipping sauce is a variation on tzatziki; plain yogurt, grated cucumber and onion, chopped garlic and mint are mixed together to make a pistachio coloured dip. The dip was very pleasant; the lamb rolls not so much. Unfortunately the slab of meat proved to be too dense and overpowering. The higher fat content in the meat meant that all but the very top layer of the very top of the pastry was wet and slimy- not such a good turnout. The overall impression that this meal left is one of greasiness, which was not anticipated. I have to say that neither of us ate more than a taste of the roll, although we did both have plenty of the dip with lettuce. I’m not sure what exactly should be used to dilute the extreme meatiness of these rolls, but certainly some vegetable matter would help, as would reducing the size and girth. Tomorrow we make Wingless Buffalo Chicken Rolls with Blue Cheese Dip which we are hoping beyond hope may be pleasantly surprising.

Today was another action-packed, fun-filled Sunday. We kicked it off by going to Ikea to complain that one of our countertops is starting to split. The oak butcherblock has split along one of the glue lines by about 4 inches. Every day the crack gets a little longer, and it has begun to follow the grain of the wood, rather than the glue line. Our contractor, one of the recommended Ikea kitchen installers, said that he’s never seen that happen before- but of course if it were going to happen, it would happen to us. He seems increasingly convinced that this house has some sort of jinx upon it.

This afternoon we visited with friends and a lovely time was had by all, until A stepped backwards, tripped over Baby N who was on the floor being changed, and sat on the baby’s head. Everyone is fine but the sibling screaming in stereo was less than pleasant, although admittedly utterly spectacular. Interestingly, both of our babies stopped crying when food was offered. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree after all. Tomorrow morning the fun continues when we take them both in for a joint doctor’s appointment, to check they are both eating and growing well. I have a feeling they are both doing just fine in that regard at least. As life starts to settle into some sort of normality (albeit a crazy sleep-deprived normality) as a family of four, we are finding that having two kids is sort of kicking our collective large ass. It is great, obviously, and A is starting to be really sweet and considerate towards her little sister, but we are suddenly that family. Yesterday I was that harried looking stressed out mum with a child on each hip, both crying. I never even knew that I could carry two kids at once. It really feels like we are a family (a dysfunctional one probably), as opposed to a couple with a kid. It really can be just a matter of getting through each minute, each hour and each day. I am not exactly eagerly awaiting L returning to work, shall we say. I have the utmost respect and awe for people who successfully do this parenting thing alone.

Filled with the panic of a full hard-drive on my computer, I am currently wrestling with a new external drive that is of course primarily aimed for PC users, the only drawback to being a Mac fan. Also, if truth be told, I am eagerly awaiting the beginning of my new all-time favourite TV show. So this will be very brief.

This evening we made Broiled Lamb Chops with Sweet Pea and Spinach Couscous. Essentially the lamb is broiled with salt and pepper, the couscous is cooked in chicken stock and olive oil, and a pan of onion, garlic, frozen peas, spinach, basil and mint is prepared then added to the cooked couscous. The meal is certainly easy, and it looked quite pretty. The lamb was fine, the recipe called for 3 chops per person, we each ate almost one so even after halving the called for meat quota, we still have some leftovers. The couscous was tasty enough, in a delicate sort of way, but we are not big fans of the texture at all. Had this been rice or pasta we may have been more enthusiastic. Tomorrow we begin a trio of chicken tribute dishes, beginning with For Neil Diamond: Tangy Cherry Chicken.OK, TV calls…

This evening we made Lamb “Stew” (Wink, Wink) which is basically a stew made in a frying pan, with grilled lamb chops served on top. The first thing that struck me about this recipe, aside from the ridiculous title, is that it calls for three lamb chops per person. That is an almighty amount of meat, and would make this into like a $30 meal for two. We bought a three-pack of pork chops, and there was still one left over. Anyway, this meal is very simple to make; onions, garlic, potatoes, thyme and a bay leaf are sautéed in olive oil until the onions brown. Carrots, tomato paste and celery are added to the pan, followed by flour, then red wine, then chicken stock. The whole lot then simmers until the potatoes are cooked, and parsley is added just before serving. Meanwhile the chops are seasoned with salt and pepper then grilled.

The only drawback to this meal is that it is really difficult to eat lamb chops in a bowl of stew. Trying to cut around the fiddly bone to free the meat tended to result in a spray of sauce and some very mashed potato. Other than that, this meal is very good. The stew tastes richer and more substantial than you would imagine, given the short cooking time. It went beautifully with the lamb, although it would have been equally good as a vegetarian stew, made with vegetable stock of course. It was a welcome change to eat potatoes again, and also to lay off the mushrooms for a day or two.

Tomorrow we will be having Veal Chops and Balsamic-Thyme Roasted Tomatoes and Mushrooms. Maybe the mushroom break will be for one day only.

OK, two sentences on the state of the house address, and no more. The offending radiator has been removed and so we are heat-free again. The roof probably has storm damage, it will be repaired tomorrow at our expense. That’s it, enough of the drama, moving on.

…Rainbows, unicorns, little fluffy clouds. Winning the lottery, chocolate, ice cream, sleeping babies…

This evening we made Warm and Cold Bordeaux Salad, Lamb Loins with Red Wine, and Sweet Carrots and White Beans. I’m not sure which parts of the meal were supposed to be warm and which, other than the lettuce, cold, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the title is a disclaimer of sorts. There is so much going on with this dish in the 30 minute time frame (more like an hour) that it was impossible to get everything to be ready at the same time. I’m concerned that writing about the process may take me as long as the actual cooking, so I will try and be very brief.

Lamb-

Seared in olive oil, roasted in oven with some garlic in skins.

Removed from oven, left to rest for ten minutes, garlic placed in bowl

Red wine added to pan, deglazed, butter added

Lamb seasoned with salt, pepper and thyme, served with red wine reduction

Side Dish #1-

Carrots and shallots sautéed in olive oil for ten minutes

White beans added to pan, everything seasoned

Chicken stock added, everything simmered

Serve alongside the lamb

Side Dish #2-

Bacon and whole clove of garlic (skin removed) fried (not in olive oil, despite directions)

Excess fat drained

Cooked cauliflower and sliced radishes added to pan, everything seasoned

Contents of pan served on top of chopped frisée lettuce

White wine vinegar added to pan, deglazed

Heat turned off, olive oil mixed in, pour over side dish as salad dressing

Well that only took forever, I am pretty slow at typing. The meal is good, we sat down at the dining table tonight for the first time since we moved it in from the garage. The table is full of assorted tools, toys, bills, manuals and such but that didn’t stop us, it was all very grown up. The lamb was beautiful, as it almost always is, but it is such a special occasion meat. It’s expensive and fiddly, but that grassy taste is a good one, and the red wine reduction was a good addition, even using appalling cooking wine. The cauliflower, bacon and radish dish was surprisingly successful. I never would have thought of putting those ingredients together, but they actually worked well. I think I may finally be becoming a cauliflower fan in my old age, although it has to be said that bacon makes pretty much everything taste better. And radishes that are slightly cooked become a pleasing bite of crunchy, rather than their weirdy raw counterpart. The beans, carrots and shallots dish was fine, it was a bit like blandish comfort food. It could have done with something to spice it up, maybe some bacon. We both thought that you could merge the two side dishes and you wouldn’t lose anything, except some additional washing up.

Tomorrow we will be having Columbus’s Pork Chops, which I believe may feature mushed up strawberries. Sounds good. I am taking A to her first real birthday party tomorrow, other than the small gathering we had for her first birthday. She is extremely excited about birthdays in general, often talking about her own birthday. Provided I am not in labour, I have a recipe to make something like this for her birthday. She is obsessed by piggies and by cake, that’s my girl. We may have an impromptu party if the baby is not yet here. A will be two on October 8th, and Baby #2 is due on the 11th. Might be a busy week. I really should check out what we are supposed to be cooking around that time.

Tomorrow we will become house owners once more, and renters of our currently owned condo. It all seems so very messed up. We had our final walk through in the new place today, which was bizarre to say the least. It was great to see the place without furniture- the bedrooms don’t seem so pokey, and the living area is a little more spacious than it seemed. However, we did discover that some of the “built-ins”, the wardrobe in one of the bedrooms and shelves and cupboards around the front window in the lounge, feature some of the shoddiest workmanship ever. They are worse than useless, so we have more things to add to the list of things to rip out. In better news, we found out that the hardwood floors upstairs, currently buried under assorted vile carpets, seem to be in very good condition, so that’s a relief. On the downside, there was a particularly sinister smell emanating from the kitchen sink. And we appear to have a number of giant spiders in the basement. Nice.

Och well, tomorrow we will get to hang around there all day and perhaps regret our decision to move at our leisure. We do both believe that moving is the right thing to do, and living in a house will be so much easier once we have two kids, but it is going to be so hard to leave our condo. Oh gloriously high, very smooth ceilings, we will certainly miss you. Our kitchen parts do appear to have arrived from Ikea which is fabulous news, so on the plus side we will soon (ha!) have a beautiful new kitchen where all the cupboard doors will close properly. We hope. In the meantime we all have to be up and out of the house before 7.30am, leaving behind a cleanish condo so the new owners can come through and check for holes in the walls and the like. That in itself should be quite a challenge.

This evening we messed up our newly clean kitchen to make Olive-Butter-Slathered Broiled Lamb Chops with Caramelized Zucchini Orzo, which actually sounds much fancier and more impressive than it actually was. We did find lamb at Target which saved us from trecking all over town; we bought 3 little chops for $10 or so. The recipe calls for 12 lamb chops for 4 people, that’s 3 each. That’s insane, not just greed wise but also it would mean that this meal would be phenomenally expensive. Anyway, we had 3 chops between 2 of us, and that was still quite alot of meat. If they had comes in packs of 2 that would have been even better. The lamb was grilled with salt and pepper, with a squeeze of lemon juice and a dollop of olive tapenade mixed with butter smeared on top just before serving. The cooked orzo was mixed with garlic, onion and zucchini which had been fried in olive oil until browned. The recipe said that the zucchini should be caramelized, but as there was no sugar added to the pan, they were merely slightly burnt. Lemon zest, parsley and Parmigiano cheese were added just before serving.

The lamb was pretty nice, although the tapenade was pretty disappointing. Of all the ways that we have had lamb, this was one of our least favourite. Whereas a mint sauce or black cherry-red wine reduction complement the lamb and bring out its meaty flavour, the strength of the tapenade overpowered the lamb itself. The meat could equally therefore have been something much cheaper like chicken, although then the meal would be even duller. The lamb was certainly pleasant, it always is, but this was nothing spectacular. On the other hand, the orzo as a side dish could have been absolutely anything. The flavours were so meek and mild that this dish was somehow reminiscent of the food we used to make for Baby A when she was just starting on solids. Nothing was noteable, it was really a whole plate of blah.

Tomorrow we try again, this time with beef in the form of Olive and Anchovy-Slathered Beef Tenderloin Steaks with Caramelized Onion Orzo and Sliced Tomatoes. Will it be any more exciting? We shall see.

This evening, L and I made Lamb Chops and Early Spring Salad [recipe, minus the great sounding mashed potatoes] and the house now smells tremendously meaty. Eating lamb seemed a little wrong after singing the “Baa Baa song” from the “Baa Baa book” to Baby A while she clutched her little farmyard lamb toy only minutes earlier.

The lamb chops were cut from a rack of lamb, making this a particularly pricey meal. The meat was simply seasoned with salt and pepper and broiled on all sides.The salad features fennel, celery, radishes, radicchio, romaine lettuce, scallions, mint, parsley and essence of garlic. The dressing was made with lemon juice and zest, olive oil and salt and pepper. Ricotta salata was sprinkled on top. The salad and lamb were accompanied by crusty bread.

The lamb was beautiful; succulent and tasty and cooked to perfection. The salad was adequate. It was fine, it would have been a good side dish. The meal really lacked a decent accompaniment to the meat. Serving an $8 chop with a green salad seemed to be on the unbalanced side. Some fresh vegetables and new potatoes and a sauce of some sort would have been perfect. Mint sauce or a black cherry/ onion glaze would have been beautiful, and would have complemented the lamb very well. The bread and salad seemed to belong with a different meal. But, the lamb was beautiful, albeit extremely extravagant for such a little piece of meat.

Moving on, tomorrow we will be having London Broil with Mushroom Vinaigrette. I haven’t yet checked to see if we get a decent side dish with the meat. First thing in the morning we are meeting our realtor to look at two offers on our condo. The people who said they would like to buy all our furniture put an offer in yesterday. It was unfortunately for considerably less than we had hoped, particularly as we already lowered our asking price considerably. Fortunately another couple, including she who shares Baby A’s name, are planning to put in an offer. They are going to think about it overnight and call it in to the office at 8.30am. The first party also have the option to revise their offer in light of the competition. We have been walking on eggshells today waiting for news, but we will have to wait another 12 hours or so. We have all fingers and toes crossed that someone offers us an amount we’d be happy with so we can move on to the next phase of our life. And if we accept an offer, I can’t wait to not have to clean the kitchen every five minutes, or to have to leave with a few moments notice.

We had a really good quote from a moving company today; they would do all the packing and moving for about $100 more than we have been quoted for just the move. Given that I’ll be 7 1/2 months pregnant when we move and it already feels like it is a million degrees inside and out, I am very keen to outsource the move. Actually we don’t have that much “stuff” at all in the grand scheme of things, but what we do have is heavy- mainly books. This would be the first move that we haven’t done ourself, except for moving overseas; how very grown up.

This evening we made Lamb Patties with Garlic and Mint over Mediterranean Chopped Salad. These patties are essentially the same as the ones we made a couple of weeks ago, although the onion element in this version is shallot rather than white onion. Arguably, this isn’t really a new recipe, but they’re pretty tasty so we won’t go down that path. The only strange things about these patties was that an enormous amount of fat came from them. There was a splash of olive oil in the mixture and no more fat was added to the pan, but by the time the patties were cooked, there was about a centimeter of fat in the bottom of the skillet; not so nice. I don’t remember that happening last time we cooked these patties, so maybe the lamb we bought was just generally less lean.

The patties were served with pita bread and a Mediterranean chopped salad. The salad, which really did need a fair amount of chopping, consisted of tomatoes, olives, peppers, parsley, red onion, cucumber and feta cheese, dressed in olive oil and lemon juice. It’s a good salad with strong flavours, crisp texture and great colour. I’m not a big raw onion fan, so I picked a bit, and L doesn’t like feta crumbles, so he picked a bit, but between us we cleared up.

Tomorrow, we will be eating Grilled Turkey Cutlets with Warm Cranberry Salsa and Sautéed Sweet Potatoes, which seems to be some sort of reinterpretation of Thanksgiving dinner. At least as far as I understand Thanksgiving dinner, given that we don’t participate in the day yet. We figure we will, as our little American child gets older, but for now it’s as good a day as any for takeaway.

L’s family arrived from Denmark this evening to visit for a week, and had the dubious joy of watching us cook Garlic and Mint Lamb Patties on Lentil Salad. This seemed to be a pretty convoluted recipe to follow, but in fairness that could have been because we were having an animated discussion regarding the different levels of water in toilet systems in America versus Denmark.

The lentil salad was made with radishes, shallots, garlic, lemon juice, cumin, red wine vinegar, parsley and of course lentils. L thought that it tasted of swamp, I didn’t eat more than a taste, but the in-laws thought that it was pretty good and tasty. Perhaps they were just being polite, or maybe we’re just particularly negative. I think it may be our collective lentil aversion shining through. The lamb patties were made with onion, mint, parsley and olive oil. They were actually pretty nice; delicately flavoured and a nice small size relative to the enormous burgers we have been making recently. The whole meal was served with flatbreads.

Overall, this meal was a little labour-intensive for the result. Tomorrow, we will be making Sardine and Bread Crumb Pasta with Puttanesca Salad with both sardines and anchovies. I am not so happy with this option, although the Danish majority seem pretty content.

We still can’t get our images to upload, despite ranting on the phone once again to customer support to Netfirms, our webhost. Apparently there is no one that I can speak to about this until Monday, although obviously they are working tirelessly to repair the problem. If this goes on much longer, we may have to move to another host, so apologies in advance for any downtime. Surely they’ll resolve the issue soon, I have to believe.

Lamb chops are not terribly easy to find in this city, by which I really mean they don’t sell them in Target or our nearest grocery stores. This afternoon we bundled Baby A into the car and braved the Friday afternoon traffic, on a mission to find lamb chops. Our first stop was out of stock so we went to a fancy grocery store, which fortunately had plenty. At around $6 per chop, we decided that two small ones would be fine, rather than the somewhat gratuitous two chops per person that the recipe calls for.

The meal we cooked tonight, Spiced Lamb Chops on Sauteed Peppers and Onions with Garlic and Mint Couscous [recipe], was without a doubt the best meal we have made so far this year. The onions, peppers, tomatoes and parsley cooked in olive oil were light, tasty and colourful. The couscous was cooked with chicken stock rather than water and was actually really good. We never cook couscous so never consider making it, if that makes sense. I have to say this meal may have just shattered all my preconceptions about it- it was neither bland nor grainy. The lamb chops were great. We are big lamb fans in this house, we maybe have it once a month, and we always enjoy it. The lamb tonight was outstanding. We normally buy frozen and this was fresh, which probably makes a huge difference, and the spice rub was a very quick and easy method of preparation. Overall, this was like a restaurant meal, a really good restaurant meal. The restaurant could be a bit tidier and we could have dressed a bit fancier, and maybe sitting on the floor in front of the TV to eat was less than classy, but the food was mighty fine.

This is the first time that we’ve really been conscious of the cost of preparing meals in the Rachael Ray stylee. Prior to this we’ve had most things in stock or they’ve been reasonably cheap, like pasta and cheese for example. On Sunday night we are having t-bone steak which is $18.99 a pound in the fancy grocery store we were at today. Sunday is my birthday though, so I suppose I’m worth it, probably quite a cheap date, all things considered. At least we are slowly emptying the freezer which is great as some stuff has been in there probably for years, who knows?

Dinner tomorrow will be barbeque chicken sandwiches with the chicken braised in Mexican beer? Nice cold Corona anyone?