Contemplations and Concoctions

Ok, not really but I need to lose almost the equivalent of their weight in order for me to be back to what I was before them.  I don’t think I’ll ever get down to the low 100’s again so I’ve set a new goal of 125 lbs put more important a 25” waist.  Should be doable as I use to have a 23” waist before kids. :P  We’ll see what happens. 

So…  26 lbs to go and 6 inches on my waist.  Having kids is fabulous and I wouldn’t trade them for anything but they have turned me into a frumpy Mommy with no figure.  I also have no clothes that don’t have some combination of breast milk/baby puke/poo or toddler gunge.  So my goal is to lose about 12 lbs before mid-October.  If I can get on track and make it I will go out and buy myself some new clothes (for the first time in a LONG long time). 

In my effort to stay more on track with my eating which is what I will work on first (portion control and eating healthy-ish) I am going to try and post a log of what I eat.  Hopefully when I have to tell my twenty or so readers how much I eat maybe I’ll eat less!  :) 

So about two weeks about now I decided I would do a Thai inspired dinner for Riley, Tim and I.  I love Thai and we go for it occasionally.  Now let me tell you I have a new appreciation for the person in the kitchen at that place because I tried to make salad rolls and what the hell is up with them being so sticky that they are just like balls of goo that you can’t spread out because they are so hot and you are now missing the tips of your fingers from dipping them in the broth.

Just thought I would share that with you.  I made salad rolls and Pho one night for dinner.  I thought both of them turned out fairly well.  I will make the salad rolls again and hopefully remember that the broth doesn’t have to be boiling just below it.  The Pho was my first attempt and I did pretty good although I did not make the broth from bones or any of that other stuff I read about.  It was really just a bowl of noodles with seared beef, carrots, green onions, bean sprouts, and cilantro (or coriander, depending on what you want to call it).  Here are some pictures of it…  I think it looks quite pretty. 

I’m here, I’m here!!!  Don’t forget me!!!  Ok, so I really fucked up and missed the deadline by about almost 5 days.  Whoops is all I can say.  I could tell you my excuses (ranging from my children needing a lot of attention to it’s been way to  hot here to cook cookies) but I won’t.  I missed the deadline my fellow daring bakers…  is there any way you can forgive me?  I’ll stop rambling now and save that for another post, on to the cookies!

The July Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network.

The June Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart... er... pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800's in England.

I’d never made a bakewell tart before.  I had heard of it from Heston Blumenthal and Jamie Oliver but never made one or really even thought about making one.  I’d have to say though it was a great success!  I made it for Father’s day dinner and boy did my Father in-law-love it!  He was thrilled with it and even continued to finish it off when he came over to help Tim with the garage fir the next two days!  I’d make this again although I think I would try different jams.  Nothing wrong with homemade strawberry but just to jazz it up a little I might try marmalade or blueberry just for something different.  Great challenge! 

Okay, I’ll admit it.  I’m jealous of my next door neighbors.  No, not the fact they play thumpy music and it drives me insane or that the tree in the front yard is completely dead.  I’m jealous of the fact that my very nice next door neighbor's mother comes over to look after their little boy.  He’s a year older than Riley and is quite cute.  Grandma is there almost everyday to take care of him and when she’s there the smells that come from their house.  Oh my, they are wonderful.  I wish she would chase me around the yard with some freshly cooked spring rolls just like she does to the laughing and smiling from ear to ear pre-schooler.  But alas, she hasn’t and probably won’t… ever.  That would just be strange.  Anyways you could imagine my glee and excitement when I saw that this month’s daring cooks challenge was dumplings.  Dumplings!!!  Yippee!!!  One of my favorite foods!  When I go to Edo I make Tim get the bento box just so I can eat his dumplings with my Udon chicken soup.  Yes, I know it’s not real Asian food and that it probably is not

The May Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks. They chose Apple Strudel from the recipe book Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague by Rick Rodgers.

I’d actually never heard of Ricotta Gnocchi till I saw it on the daring cooks message board.  But now that I’m a daring cook I have to be up to try anything, right?!  So in the true spirit of being daring I thought I would make the cheese as well.  Which I thought was really easy and worked great!  It made some of the richest ricotta cheese I’ve ever had.  I don’t know if that worked against me though when I was making the Gnocchi.  It was so rich I couldn’t eat a lot of it so we had it more as an appetizer before a birthday party rather than for dinner as I had planned.  Overall I thought it was nice and would  be a great appetizer but definitely not a meal.  I made a light tomato sauce to go with it to try and cut the richness.

For Mother’s Day I wanted to be able to try some recipes that I’d been looking at for a long time and finally got the chance!  Tim and I started off by making some of the most delicious pretzels I’d ever had.  Smitten Kitchen has the best recipe and I recommend trying it if you ever have a craving or just want to give it a try!

We went from this...

to this...

to this happy boy in about a 3 minutes flat.  I love my son dearly but sometimes he's a little over dramatic.  He must get that from his father!