oneyearproject.com

L is one of the most rational/ cynical people that I have ever met, and yet he is convinced that this house has a jinx on it. Despite being an avowed nonbeliever in all things mystical or superstitious, he thinks the fact that our brand new freezer is broken is proof that we definitely have something supernatural in our midst. We noticed yesterday that the food in the freezer seemed to be thawing alarmingly fast, despite the fact that the freezer appeared to be functioning. The technician came out this morning and confirmed that the freezer panel has a leak, and that basically the appliance is in the midst of its death throes. So tomorrow, we will get a new fridge freezer installed. I am trying to look on the bright side- at least they have another one in stock and we won’t have to clean the fridge before my mum comes to visit.

Today I remembered exactly what it was like to be at home with an infant. I think I had cast a rose-coloured hue over A’s infancy, imagining it to be relatively calm as compared to the non-stop nature of toddlerhood. I had so many things that I wanted to get done today- not ambitious things, just dull things like vacuuming and having a nap. Instead, the only thing that I achieved was to empty out the clean laundry onto our bed with the intention of sorting it and putting it away. Instead, I put it back in the basket, unsorted, maybe a couple of hours later. Baby N is starting to wake up a little; she is coming out of the delicious first couple of weeks of life where she really did just sleep. It’s not that she’s fussy, exactly, she’s just becoming a little more demanding. And by a little more, I really mean quite a lot more demanding.

This afternoon A was dressed as a little piggy at daycare. She was ridiculously cute, but we aren’t taking her trick or treating. It’s not really our thing, and as she has no concept of what Halloween is we figured we could skip this years activities at least. Bah humbug. Instead, we made Zucchini and Bow Ties, which was an incredibly easy dish. Garlic is sautéed in olive oil, joined by matchstick-cut zucchini, seasoned with salt and pepper, moistened with a splash of cooking water from the pasta, tossed with the cooked bowtie pasta and parmesan cheese, then sprinkled with basil.

We hoped that this might be a toddler-approved meal, but A seemed more interested in saying “zucchini” than eating it. We enjoyed it well enough, although it seemed more like a side dish than a dinner. There could certainly have been more zucchini; the vegetable was a little few and far between. Thankfully L put in plenty of garlic so the dish wasn’t bland, but it could have done with an extra kick; perhaps some red pepper flakes would have taken the flavour up a notch. Tomorrow, we will be having Springtime Bows with Asparagus, Ham, and Peas, which sounds good. Hopefully A will be as interested in eating asparagus as she may be in saying the word. Personally, I am only interested in obsessed with the thought of cake, at all times. I’m blaming nursing, but oh my I want some sugar…

This evening we made London Broil with Buttered Potatoes and Caramelized Zucchini and Mushrooms which was a good, satisfying, solid meal. Our enormous slab of meat was marinated briefly in hot sauce, Worcestershire sauce and red wine vinegar, seasoned with pepper and cooked, left to stand, and sliced thinly on an angle. Baby potatoes were boiled, drained, tossed in butter, seasoned with salt and pepper and sprinkled with parsley. Mushrooms sliced in half were browned in olive oil, then joined by garlic, red pepper flakes and zucchini. The contents of the pan were sautéed until browned, or caramelized as the recipe states.

The meal was almost restaurant quality- potatoes should always be tossed in butter, in an ideal world, the beef was succulent and tasty, and the vegetable mix was pleasantly unexpected. We both enjoyed it, although admittedly we cooked far too much meat. Tomorrow we will be making Zucchini and Bow Ties; it’ll be interesting to see whether A will eat it or not. Some days she’ll eat anything pasta, and other days she resolutely refuses pasta unless it has pesto on it. It must be really hard to be two. While she’s doing a great job of being a big sister, she is obviously having a tough time at the moment, as judged by the ongoing tears and tantrums. It breaks my heart a little.

This evening we made Wingless Buffalo Chicken Rolls with Blue Cheese Dip, which was thankfully the fourth and final variation on the phyllo pastry rolls of the last year few days. The rolls are made with ground chicken, hot sauce, scallions and garlic, seasoned with salt and pepper, wrapped in layers of phyllo pastry, rolled, buttered and baked in the oven. The dip was a simple sour cream and blue cheese mixture. The rolls were served on a bed of lettuce, with celery sticks on the side.

The meal is supposed to recreate the flavours of chicken wings. If you have a craving for buffalo wings, we would strongly advise that you skip this recipe and go in search of the real thing. The chicken rolls were dry and stodgy. Just because the ground chicken was mixed with hot sauce did not mean that they were in any way reminiscent of chicken wings. Realistically, they are more like a vaguely spicy distant relation of the sausage roll. We were not impressed and will not be revisiting this dish.

To use up the remainder of the phyllo pastry, we did however make up some spinach and goat cheese filling, as inspired by Recipe 291, Spinach and Goat Cheese Chicken Rolls in a Pan Sauce. We made much smaller rolls, less than an inch in diameter, and they were in all honesty the best rolls we have had this week. In future I would make them with puff pastry for it’s satisfying puffiness, rather than phyllo pastry with it’s dangerous, potentially throat- ripping, shards.

We took the girls for N’s 2 week and A’s 2 year check-up at the doctor today. They did great, both are growing well. N seems to be headed into the first of many growth spurts; she’s been nursing almost continuously all day, I am hoping beyond hope that she doesn’t want to do so all night. L, A and I got flu shots today- A was very brave- now L and I are certainly suffering from that dead arm feeling. We kept A out of daycare today, we took the day off with the intention of enjoying the sunshine. We spent most of the morning in Starbucks so that I could feed N; it was a branch with a play area, which is like gold dust around here. Of all the things that you don’t appreciate pre-kids, a box of toys in a secluded-ish area with access to good caffeinated beverages may be at the top of the list. After A’s gloriously long nap, we spent most of the afternoon in Target; oh yes we were really getting the most out of the beautiful autumn weather. We briefly debated whether to take the new fancy double stroller + one shopping trolley (cart) or take two shopping trolleys. The discussion was prematurely halted when we discovered the monster trolley, the minivan of shopping trolleys. I can’t find a picture online, but it was the enormous trolley plus the double seats in between the pusher and the cart. Trying to steer that thing was a challenge of epic proportions; suddenly we felt that we had very much super-sized our family. Speaking of which, I installed the infant car seat in my car and discovered that there is no longer room for me in there. When A was little, the car seat was positioned in the center of the back row, and everyone was happy. Now the seat is behind the driver’s seat, and I have to move my seat so far forward to accommodate it that my keyring gets jammed between my knees and the dashboard, and my face is practically pressed against the windscreen. I may have come home and started looking online for used minivans…

Anyway, tomorrow we will be eating London Broil with Buttered Potatoes and Caramelized Zucchini and Mushrooms. We are very pleased that our pastry-wrangling days are behind us.

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.

Where did the year go? Seriously, 5 minutes ago we were celebrating the new year through the medium of Scramblewiches. And this evening we heralded the final stretch of the year with Turkey and Sage Rolls with Cranberry Dipping Sauce. The process is almost identical to the chicken rolls we made yesterday, with the turkey and sage filling taking center stage. Although a laborious process, at least this part of the meal made sense. The dipping sauce threw us both for a loop. A dollop of tinned cranberry sauce (lots of lovely high fructose corn syrup disguised as a fruit product) is mixed with three times the amount of mayonnaise, and some lime juice. Cranberry sauce and mayonnaise is a particularly weird combination. To me it smelled of fruity tuna salad. We were both a little repulsed by the mayonnaise- sour cream or yogurt would be a less peculiar choice. The rolls would have been better with a good tangy cranberry sauce, one with a little bite to it, and a bucket-load less sugar product. If you want to make this meal and don’t have the ingredients on hand to make the dipping sauce, you could always add some vinegar and egg to a carton of strawberry yogurt.

Overall, this meal had the stodginess and flavours of a seasonal winter meal, but it left us both feeling a little cheated. Like yesterday, this was ridiculously hefty-tasting meal, but ultimately it failed to excite in any way. Tomorrow we make Lamb and Feta Rolls with Cucumber-Mint-Yogurt Dipping Sauce, which sounds much more appealing.

This evening we made Chipotle Chicken Rolls with Avocado Dipping Sauce which took pretty much an hour to make. When we first started this project, we anticipated that quite a few meals would take longer to make than 30 minutes, but actually there has been surprisingly few long-haul dinners. Most nights we cook for 25-35 minutes which is more than reasonable. Unfortunately this meal also left us with an enormous amount of clean-up to deal with, which is never a pleasure, always a chore. And on top of that, the results were just above average, which means that it was a disappointing meal given all the preparation and clean up.

The chipotle chicken filling was made with ground chicken, chipotle (either in adobo or in a chipotle salsa), scallions, grated strong cheddar, garlic and scallions. The mixture was mixed together then put into a freezer bag. The corner is cut of the bag so the chicken mixture can be squeezed through the hole, as if you were icing a cake. I’m not going to explain what the process looked like, suffice to say it was not pretty. The long brown chicken sausage was squeezed on to a bed of phyllo pastry. The extremely thin sheets of pastry were layered 3 deep with melted butter and salt and pepper on each layer. The chicken was rolled up, the pastry ends were tucked in, the roll was brushed with melted butter, then put in the oven to bake for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, it was time to make the dipping sauce. Generally we half the quantities called for to make two servings rather than four. Unless we’re making burgers, in which case one serving easily feeds both of us. Sometimes the quantities have to be approximated a little, and sometimes we make the executive decision to round amounts up or down. The dipping sauce tonight called for one large avocado and the juice of three limes. We had a smallish avocado so went with the juice of one lime. The avocado, lime juice, a splash of water, some olive oil and salt were mixed together. The chicken roll was served on a bed of lettuce with the dipping sauce on the side.

The chicken rolls were not bad, they were spicy and very filling. They were very dense in a meat-tastic sort of way. With the cheese and the butter they were a little on the stodgy side, but as an occasional meal that isn’t necessarily disastrous. The sauce is so acidic it could burn a whole in your stomach lining, or at least bleach any unwanted facial hair. Even with a reduced amount of lime juice, this sauce is seriously unbalanced towards the acidic. With the chicken rolls it sort of tasted ok, but be warned not to try the sauce by itself without some serious stodge to absorb the acid. All things considered, this was like a nice appetiser, but not a great dinner. If we made them again, we would make individual rolls, slightly smaller than a spring roll. Tomorrow we will be making Christmas Dinner Lite with Turkey and Sage Rolls with Cranberry Dipping Sauce.

We should try and remember to start cooking earlier. Speaking of early, I have to go to bed. This beautiful little new baby of ours seems to like the hours of 3am to 7am so very very much. Interestingly enough, as soon as A wakes up at 7ish, Baby N is happy to go back to sleep. They’re already overpowering us with their formation of Team Sleep Deprivation. Maybe tonight will be better, we can only hope.

Todays (admittedly modest) plans were thwarted when L had to make an emergency visit to the dentist for acute toothache as a result of losing a filling somewhere along the way. We began calling the dental office at 8am (after a glorious 2 hours and 50 minutes sleep on my part) and when no one had answered and no voicemail message played an hour and a half later, we called our insurance company. We were told that we could go to any dentist as an emergency visit, but that the maximum payout for treatment would be $50. In dental terms we figured that might buy some Ibuprofen, or a sample of toothpaste, but it probably wouldn’t cover the cost of a new filling. So we decided to drive out to the dentist, on the off chance that their phone was just being temperamental. When we got there we discovered that the office had relocated so we set about tracking down the new location. Our old dentist was already 20 minutes drive from us, but the new office seemed to be somewhere out in the woods of Wisconsin. When we got there we discovered that our old dentist had just moved his practice, but now he had actually retired. The good news was that L could be seen immediately by one of the other dentists in the practice, and he had his cavity filled. The bad news was that despite not being informed of any of the changes, and despite the fact that the insurance company also had no idea about the changes, it seemed to be apparent that we no longer had dental insurance because we hadn’t filed for a change in provider. Obviously we didn’t file to change dentist because we didn’t know that in the last month, ours had stopped working. And then we found out that the only dentist that we can go to who is covered by our insurance is our old dentist back in the town where L works. 65 miles from where we live. That man was locally known as “the laughing dentist” because of his unnerving high pitched laugh which punctuated every word he uttered. The man was kind of terrifying in the same way that clowns are scary. We won’t be going back there. Anyway, so it seemed that L would have to pay out of pocket for the treatment but then a truly nice thing happened. The people at the dentist felt so bad about the situation that they absorbed almost $250 worth of charges, leaving us to pay $23. That was so nice, and so very unexpected.

I am now wading through health plan information to figure out what we need to change to find a dentist that we can actually visit. Getting motivated to go to the dentist is hard enough, but a 130 mile round trip with two wee ones is just never going to happen. It would almost make sense if we lived somewhere ridiculously rural, but we live in one of the two cities in the “Twin Cities”. That’s two cities side by side. That’s a lot of dentists.

Anyway, moving on as I’m boring even myself writing about that, this evening we made Grilled Steak Sandwich… I Mean Salad- No! Sandwich! Awful name aside, this is an excellent meal. It’s quick, easy, tasty, rich and requires minimal preparation or clean up. The steak is briefly marinated in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, rosemary, salt and pepper, then grilled. The salad is simply tomatoes, basil, mozzarella and red onions with cubes of bread. The bread was supposed to be day-old bread, soaked in water then squeezed dry. In fairness we still haven’t tried the wet-then-dry-the-bread methodology, as we can’t work out why you would do that. Our bread was well-moistened simply by the salad dressing of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper.

The salad was excellent; it was very fresh and substantial without being stodgy. Unlike many salads, this didn’t feel like a side-dish or a space-filler; it was the highlight of the meal with the steak as a bonus topping. This meal we would definitely make again, or certainly the salad element. The steak was tasty, the marinade was pleasant, but the steak overall was pretty standard. Good but not exceptional. Altogether though, this was a very good meal, and a most welcome break from chicken.

Tomorrow we start a run of 4 versions of various “rolls” which I believe are made in Phyllo/ Filo pastry. They sound interesting, or at least the versions seem very different, which is never a bad thing. First off will be Chipotle Chicken Rolls with Avocado Dipping Sauce. My main ambition between now and then is to get like 6 hours sleep at least. It’s the little things.

Well, maybe we should have, ermm, let me see now. What have we had for the last four days? Oh that would be chicken in a variety (kind of) of mustard sauces. So, I wonder what would be good tonight? I know, let’s make chicken in mustard sauce again. But this time let’s make a “light” version with plain yogurt rather than sour cream. Mmm, that sounds delicious, what a fabulous idea, I can’t wait.

Imagine how pleased we were to make this dinner all over again, what a treat! What can I say about it? Well, Chicken No. 14,756- Chicken in “Lighter” Mustard and Lemon Sauce was the same meal as we’ve been having all week, but with yogurt rather than sour cream, and with parsley and lemon zest added to the sauce. And it was served on couscous. I added far too much parsley, but at least this meant that the photograph wasn’t just a study in beige and cream. We ate this meal under duress, and whilst it wasn’t awful, it wasn’t great either. A big problem is that we are not big fans of couscous by any stretch of the imagination. I think I may have just put my finger on why I don’t like it; it tastes like something that someone else has already chewed. There’s no flavour and the texture is just plain weird. Anyway, chicken, couscous, mustard. Been there, done that, got the extreme chicken fatigue.

Tomorrow we get a whole day off chicken with Grilled Steak Sandwich… I Mean Salad- No! Sandwich! Terrible name aside, I can hardly wait. Other than that, nothing much to report here. N slept through from midnight to 4am, which was fantastic, but we were still up when A woke up at 7am, which was not so fine. Speaking of which, I have a very small, very hungry little girl to attend to.

This evening we may have broken down and had two dinners. I’m not saying we did or anything, but we may have had the lasagna, salad and breadsticks (which our neighbours brought round yesterday) for dinner with A, and then cooked some chicken later. Not that there’s any reason why we would want to take a break from chicken, nor any reason why we felt like avoiding having an “I don’t like chicken”-type tantrum once again. I mean, this is only version four out of five of the chicken breast in mustard sauce meals. We’re not rocking backwards and forwards at the thought of cooking yet another version tomorrow, no no, not at all.

In fairness, this version, Chicken No. 14,755- Chicken in Mustard-Tarragon Sauce, is slightly different to the other meals for a few reasons:

• The chicken is served on asparagus
• The chicken is sliced before serving
• The sauce includes flour and shallots
• The sour cream is replaced with heavy cream

Obviously there is tarragon in the sauce too. But other than that, this meal is remarkably similar to all the others. The taste is perhaps a little more complex, a little more sophisticated. It doesn’t taste just of cream and mustard, it tastes pretty rich and yet subtle. So it is a reasonable meal, I just think that we would have enjoyed it more if it had been interspersed into a series of pasta dishes, or a mammoth run of burgers. Tomorrow, we will be using yogurt instead of sour cream, to create the marvelous, the magnificent, the tantalising-sounding Chicken No. 14,756- Chicken in “Lighter” Mustard and Lemon Sauce.

Today is N’s one week birthday, which is unbelievable in itself. A did kiss her little sister goodnight for the first time, which was particularly sweet. N may be suffering a little from second-child syndrome, with the lack of belly photos documenting the pregnancy, the lack of new clothes, and the lack of a finished bedroom. But, she will be able to say that she was in the Mall of America when she was only seven days old. A, however, was a whole eight days old before she was taken there. It’s like living life in a loop, a very small repetitive loop. But I have a new pair of jeans that almost fit, which is nice. They are remarkably similar to the ones I bought after A was born two years ago, except in a different size. We’re nothing if not predictable. We know what we’re going to eat every night for the rest of the year; it doesn’t get much more predictable than that.

This evening we made Chicken No. 14,754- Chicken Bustard (in Basil-Mustard Sauce) which was a much better meal than Chicken No. 14,753 [recipe, via Oprah]. We cooked early and sat down to eat with A who pretty much only ate a piece of bread, but L and I enjoyed the chicken (even over the “I want jam” tantrum. Mind you that was a minor tantrum compared to this morning’s effort involving furious jumping up and down because the toothpaste on the brush was wrong in some way. The shear dramatic energy involved in that episode made for a hilarious meltdown, in all honesty). The recipe is very similar to the previous ones, with the addition of onion, garlic, pesto and fresh basil in the sauce. I made a much more generous serving of sauce today, as a half serving has proved to be a little scant the last couple of days.

The sauce is extremely rich and thick and creamy. We never would have conceived of combining mustard with pesto, but it was an exceedingly successful partnership. The flavours offset the sharpness of each, if that makes sense; the pesto was less pesto-y, and the mustard was less mustard-y, and the combination was both tangy and smooth. A seemed particularly betrayed that this “pesto” was not the one that she was looking for, and she kept asking for some of my pasta pesto, as if we somehow had the real thing and she’d been given a lame imitation.

We served the chicken with some spinach salad and crusty bread. This dish would have worked really well on a bed of wild rice or a potato dish with salad on the side. Tomorrow we will be feasting on Chicken No. 14,755- Chicken in Mustard-Tarragon Sauce, although we may well have that at lunchtime. Some of our neighbours just brought round the most enormous lasagna that I have ever seen, complete with salad and breadsticks, which I am guessing will be a most welcome break from chicken. We haven’t had lasagna all year. That is a long time to be lasagna-free. I am officially excited.

It seems unbelievable that this time last week we were just about to leave for the hospital. I can’t fathom how Baby N has only been in our life for almost a week; in some ways it seems that she’s always been here. Talking about her and A this evening, I called them “the girls” for the first time and it warmed my heart. If there was a checklist of clichés, we are marking them off one by one. It is amazing how much easier things have been second time round from delivery to recovery to just getting on with life. Which is not to say that there haven’t been moments of hormone-fueled craziness, but overall things are going so much better than I dared to hope. Maybe one of these days we’ll even manage to get some stuff done during the day, but for now, it’s good to just keep on falling in love.