Little Italy....in my Kitchen!

About a year ago I discovered the deliciousness that is Publix pizza dough. Since that time I have been experimenting with different recipes. In the past I would have been as happy as the next gal to just order a pizza from the local pizza joint, but lately I have started to really enjoy making these homemade pizzas and I am starting to really love the results! :)

Some of my favorites have included barbeque chicken (chicken breast, onion and bacon with a BBQ sauce) and Mexican (ground beef, taco seasoning, onion and cheddar cheese with a mixture of pizza sauce and salsa), but I have now found my all-time favorite...and it's just a simple margherita pizza. How is it that in my 29+ years I have never bought creamy, fresh mozzarella or sweet basil leaves at the store?? I know, it's a crime! For my latest pizza, I topped it with these items along with some crushed tomatoes. Three simple things atop that wonderfully yummy crust, but the taste was incredible! It really was like something you would get at a nice pizzeria. This was definitely not Papa John's, Pizza Hut, Domino's or Little Caesar's. This was gooooood pizza.

I also experimented with the dough to make breadsticks. I just rolled the dough out, scored the shape of the sticks with my pizza cutter, baked it, then while it was still hot and fresh out of the oven, spread some butter over it along with some parmesan seasoning. Delish!!!

My 'Lil Pumpkin

Whew! We have been very busy this month. I'm not sure what I'll blog about come November!? haha.

This past Sunday we made our first visit to a pumpkin patch! We picked Uncle Bob's Pumpkin Patch in Newnan, mostly because our friends, the Richards family, were going and we thought it would be fun to join them. :) Their son, Aiden, was born 3 weeks before Ethan and it has been great getting together with them so that they boys can "play" together. Oh who am I kidding, it's just nice to have grown up conversation with Tanya! The fact that the boys will someday play together is an added bonus. ;)

We started the trip with a visit to the "petting zoo". They had quite a few goats, sheep, chickens, turkeys and pigs. Ethan loved it! The goats didn't seem to mind him, but the sheep were enjoying running away from poor Ethan. :(

Wow, you are soft!

Hey, Mr. Goat! What's up?

Thanks for letting me pet you! :)

We attempted to get a good family pic of the three of us at this point, but Ethan would have none of it. :( Getting that boy to sit still for more than 3 seconds is a challenge right now. None of the close up pics turned out very well, but this pic from the side that Brian took turned out pretty neat.

After trying to get a pic, we learned about bees and watched them make honey. Apparently that made Ethan hungry, because it was then time for a snack. He was a very cranky boy...his shirt said it all!

We finished up with the snack, then took a hayride around the farm. Apparently Ethan was unsure about this at first, but he warmed up to the idea as we started to make our way around the corn fields. :) We returned from the hayride and collected some pumpkins and apple cider to purchase. Hopefully we'll get those carved this week and ready for Halloween!

For more pics from the trip, check out my FB album by clicking here! :)

No Better Time for Squash!

A few weeks ago I bought my first ever butternut squash. I really had no idea what I wanted to do with it at the time, but I wanted to try something. So I started looking at recipes. I decided I was going to make soup because that sounded tasty. I found what appeared to be a fairly "healthy" recipe. It called for one 2-3 lb squash (roasted) and 2 cups chicken broth (pureed together), then heated on the stove, with 1 cup of milk to be added. I made the recipe as directed. It wasn't a bad soup, but after trying some of the roasted squash, I fell in love with the nutty flavor and smooth texture that the squash offered. I felt that the chicken broth overpowered this flavor and I was disappointed by this. I would need to try another recipe.

The following week I picked up another squash at my favorite local Publix store. This time I wanted to roast it and add the puree to my ground turkey to make burgers. See my previous post to see how this turned out. :)

This week I once again bought a squash. Hopefully Ethan and Josh aren't getting sick of squash yet. ;) I also picked up some heavy cream. It seems that every really good soup requires heavy cream. I tossed out my hopes of creating a super healthy soup. This time I just wanted something that would taste great! I read through some recipes and decided to just wing it with my own creation. Let me tell you, I am so happy with the results!! Once again I roasted my squash. I know some people boil theirs to cook it, but boiling veggies removes a lot of the nutrients and to me, ruins the flavor. So, roasting it was once again! When my squash was done, I let it cool for a bit before adding it to the food processor. While it was cooling, I diced up half of a white onion. I added this to my saucepan with a little bit of butter to brown the onion. I then added the squash to the food processor and pureed it. After that, I added 1/2 cup chicken broth to the squash and mixed this in well. I then added this mixture to the onions in the saucepan. I let this simmer for a bit then added 1 cup of heavy cream, keeping the heat low to not burn the soup. I let this heat up, then served it up, complete with a little shredded parmesan on top. :) Soooo tasty!! It was definitely a heavy soup, so next time I may try using half and half instead of the cream to lighten it up a bit. ;)

On the side, I made grilled cheese sandwiches with Publix's White Mountain bread and slices of mozzarella and asiago cheeses fresh from the deli. I think next time I would like to try adding some slices of tomato and fresh basil too. Sounds super yummy! Here is a shot of dinner. Delicious!

Under the Sea

Last Sunday (10.10.10) we packed up and made our way to Atlanta. Zoo Atlanta was having a Walmart Sunday Funday, which meant $5 tickets! This is a great savings considering they normally overcharge their patrons with $19.99 tickets! What!?! You may not think that is a bad price, but I visited the zoo a few weeks ago, and let's just say I am glad I went with a friend who had a pass to get me in for free (little man was still little enough to be free, of course). Maybe it comes from being spoiled by growing up with the Cincinnati and Columbus Zoos (both rated in the top 10 in the country), which were definitely both way better zoos. Coincidently, tickets for the Cincinnati Zoo are only $14 and just $12.99 for the Columbus Zoo! As we approached the Zoo, we noticed that the street parking was slim to none and the Zoo lot was closed because it was full. :( First bad sign. We finally circled a few times and noticed a van pulling out from their spot. We quickly swooped in, unloaded the stroller, and started making our way in. Ugh. The line to get in was nearly half a football field long and 6 to 8 lines wide! It appeared we would be waiting hours just to get in. Apparently $5 tickets sounded like a great idea to everyone in the ATL metro area! :( We quickly decided that little man was not going to last that long as it was already almost noon and he would probably be needing a nap no later than 2 or 3. So, back to the car we went. We loaded up and decided that since we were already in Atlanta, we needed to do something, so off to the Georgia Aquarium we went! Fortunately it was not nearly as packed as the Zoo, so we bought our tickets and entered, all within 10 minutes! :)

Yep. We bought the picture package. I am such a sucker! $30, but at least we got a cute magnet for the fridge. ;) Oh well. It is hard to get a pic of the 3 of us with everyone looking and no one blinking or throwing a tantrum (yeah, Josh is pretty hard to control, haha). So we had a great time making our way around the aquarium and seeing all of the exhibits. Here are a few pics from the day. If you want to see more, you can view them in my facebook album by clicking here.

Here are Ethan and Josh at the entrance, checking out the big fish.

Ethan had the best seat in the house!

Checking out the sharks in the tunnel!!

His favorite part was definitely getting to pet the fish!

Look at that grin!! :) Definitely made the trip worth it!

We finished up at the aquarium and made our way to IKEA from there. Nothing like a little shopping and a warm cinnamon roll to end a great day! :)

Adventures in Turkey Burgers

In an attempt to make this blog more interesting to read (in the event that someday someone actually reads it besides my cousin - thanks Jenny!), I am going to try to include some posts about things aside from my darling little son. You know, so I can be one of those moms who does more than just talk about her kids? ;) haha. Remember, I said try.....

So...a couple weeks ago I decided to revisit the idea of making turkey burgers for dinner. This is something I had tried a few years ago, and dear hubby was not a fan, to say the least. If it's not a beef burger, he really didn't want to eat it. :( I am attempting to improve our diet and instill in my son a love of all different kinds of food (unlike myself growing up), so I thought I would give it a go again. Hubby was not so thrilled to see the ground turkey package sitting there on the counter, waiting to be formed into burgers. I had told him that morning that burgers were on the menu for dinner, so I guess he had gotten his hopes up? Poor guy. He would have to suffer through my attempts at making an edible turkey burger. I had some ideas of what I wanted to do to make it even healthier, but it would be purely experimental since I had no recipe to follow. My plan was to add some oats and to make a carrot puree and add some of that too. Unfortunately, I didn't plan enough ahead of time and I didn't have time to make the puree, so I just added some oats, some egg whites, and some yummy spices. The end result was not bad! The flavor was good, but I'm not going to lie, it was kind of dry, like stick to the roof of your mouth kind of dry. :( I guess I would have to call this a failed attempt. It just couldn't stack up to a real beef burger.

Fortunately, I have perseverance. Unfortunately for my hubby that meant he would be eating turkey burgers again. ;) I tried again this past week. I gathered all of my ingredients: my ground turkey, my egg whites, my oats, and some butternut squash that I had just finished roasting.

The week before I had made roasted butternut squash soup for the first time and it was fabulous!! The nutty flavor of the squash was excellent and so good that I decided I would make more and use the puree in the turkey burgers! So, forget the carrots, squash was my new secret ingredient to give those burgers the moistness that they were so desperately lacking.

I still did not use a recipe when I attempted to make the burgers again. Perhaps that is where I am going wrong. I added the squash to the food processor, pureeing until it was pretty much the consistency of baby food (which I have now decided I will be doing for baby number two - making lots of homemade baby food!!) I then added 6 heaping spoonfuls of it to the 1.25 pounds of ground turkey that I had. I threw in about 1/2 to 1 cup of oats and a generous splash of egg whites. I mixed it all up and also added some garlic salt, pepper, chili powder and ground red pepper for more flavor. I started to form my burgers and realized that the mixture was very moist, so moist that it was indeed difficult to form a shape. But, I did it. I probably should have added more oats at that point, in an attempt to decrease the moisture, but unfortunately, I didn't. Hindsight is always 20/20!

Hubby grilled the burgers and we topped them with a slice of sharp cheddar and a slice of fresh tomato on a whole wheat bun. Served on the side was Ethan and I's favorite, baked sweet potato fries. This time, lack of moistness was certainly not an issue. The burgers were super moist and as I feared, a little too moist. Too moist for my preference that is. Again, the flavor was good. Still not the same as eating a beef burger, don't get me wrong, but definitely something I could get used to eating if I had to. So, I guess I will be attempting the turkey burgers one more time. I am determined to perfect them! Next time, less puree, more oats. I'll let you know how it goes! Sorry for the lack of a finished product picture. I think we were super hungry and in our attempt to quickly scarf the burgers down, I forgot to take a pic!

Long Time, No Write

So I am very disappointed in myself. I haven't blogged since January!! Obviously much has changed in the past 10 months.

Ethan celebrated his 1st birthday in March. We had a small party at the house for mostly family. It was a nice weekend and we had a great time seeing everyone.

At the end of April we took a trip to Port St. Joe, FL with my parents, my sister and her husband and two children. We rented a house near Cape Sans Blas and it was gorgeous! Unfortunately the ocean was still a little cool, but luckily the heated pool at the house was great! We enjoyed time on the beach and time at the pool. Little man had a super sleepy week, but we made the most of the time he spent awake that week! The great part of the trip was that Cape Sans Blas is dog-friendly, so Daisy made the trip with us and discovered that she LOVED the beach!

Here's a video of Daisy and Ethan digging a hole together! :)

We had a very hot summer here in Georgia, which limited the time that we spent outside. In May and September, we made Ohio trips again this year to beat the heat and see the family! While we were there in September, we made a trip to the Cincinnati Zoo for Ethan's first zoo trip. He loved seeing the animals!

So this was just a small sampling of what we have been up to this year. I am going to try to get better about making more frequent postings again so that this can become more of a journal and a better aid for us in the future when trying to remember our journey!

A Day in the Life of Ethan

For the past few months, Ethan has finally settled into a routine. I am getting ready to change it up a bit next week and add a 3rd meal in, but here is what his day looks like right now:

9:00 - 9:15 am Wake up, nurse, get dressed

9:15 - 10:30 am Play with toys

10:30 - 10:45 am Eat breakfast (oatmeal or waffle and fruit)

10:45 - 11:30 am Take a walk with Daisy and mommy

11:30 am - 12:00 pm Play with toys or watch Sesame Street

12:00 - 2:00 pm Nurse and nap time

2:00 - 3:00 pm Play with toys

3:00 - 5:00 pm Nurse, then run errands with mommy (or play with toys if no errands)!

5:00 - 5:30 pm Nap time

5:30 - 6:00 pm Play with toys

6:00 - 7:30 pm Nurse, then play with toys

7:30 - 8:00 pm Eat dinner (rice or mixed grain cereal, veggie and banana)

8:00 - 9:00 pm Play with daddy!

9:00 pm Nurse, get jammies on, then bed time!

What a life! :) It is nice to have him on a routine. He is a good eater and sleeper and a generally good-natured boy, which I think is in part attributed to that fact that we stick to a good schedule. :)

Nine Months Old

Ethan turned nine months old already a couple weeks ago! I have been crazy busy with making Christmas cards the last few weeks, so I need to get caught up! He had an appointment with his pediatrician this month, so I know the measurements are correct this month. J I must have been wrong on the weight last month as little man weighed in at just 18 pounds, 1 ounce this month, which is down to the 10th to 25th percentile. He didn't grow at all, so he is still measuring up at 28.5 inches this month, which is down to the 50th to 75th percentile. He is in the 10th percentile for height to weight ratio. Head growth has gone up this time to 46.5 cm, which is up to the 75th to 90th percentile. We’re hoping that means his brain is getting really big, haha. J

New foods tried this month:

• Meat in a jar (be sure to check out the funny video of this one! haha)
• Real sweet potatoes and bananas
• Gerber Puffs (he is feeding them to himself! Yay!)
• Blueberry pancakes
• Pumpkin cookies
• A whole feast at Thanksgiving! Turkey, corn casserole, mashed potatoes, rolls, cranberry jello salad and bread!

It is truly amazing the amounts of food this boy can put away! He was able to eat an entire pancake, all by himself, followed up by an entire banana! I have started making some foods for him, like baking sweet potatoes and freezing individual containers for him to eat, and the pancakes, of course. I also made a bunch of pumpkin cookies for Thanksgiving, that he thoroughly enjoyed! We want him to work on starting feeding himself, so we started Puffs, which he quickly figured out how to get into his own mouth! J

We did have a moment of insanity where we, for some reason, felt that mashed up meat in a jar would be a good idea. Boy, were we wrong! As you can see in the video, Ethan felt gagging and throwing it back up were appropriate things to do when given this disgusting food, haha. J I feel bad that we found humor in this event, but you have to admit it is a little funny! J

Being able to eat real food now, Thanksgiving was an especially yummy time for Ethan. He had a whole feast by himself, even showing up all of the other kids with how much he could eat! haha

New accomplishments this month:

• First steps by himself (on December 2nd, just before turning 9 months)
• When food is coming at his mouth, he spits out the pacifier – he is ready to eat! haha
• His first cold L (we came back from Thanksgiving and had managed to get colds while we were there)

We are STILL waiting for those highly anticipated first words! It definitely sounded like he said “mama” at his doctor’s appointment, but he hasn’t said it again, so we think it may be a fluke. L

Since last month he hasn’t gotten any more teeth. He doesn’t appear to be having any close to coming in, either.

He is working on his balance and doing more walking, because for now, he has just taken a few wobbly steps. But it is promising!

Below is a pic of Ethan at nine months, once again wearing a 12-month onesie. Of course he is still my little cutie pie with his funny faces! J He is such a ham!!

Eight Months Old

Ethan turned eight months old a couple weeks ago. I can’t seem to keep up here! Since last month, the little man gained over a pound to weigh in at around 18.5 lbs, which is still in the 25th percentile. He also grew about a half of an inch to measure up at 28.5 inches this month, which is down to the 75th percentile. He is up to the 25th percentile for height to weight ratio. Head growth is again staying right on target at 45 cm, dead on the 50th percentile again.

New foods tried this month:

• Nada

Nothing exciting going on in the food department right now. Just sticking with the routine of oatmeal and a fruit for breakfast and rice or mixed grain cereal and a veggie for dinner.

New accomplishments this month:

• First playdate with his new buddy, Aiden, on Oct. 8th
• First doctor’s visit on Oct. 13th (for something besides a well checkup)
• Climbed the stairs on Oct. 26th
• Saying “ba, ba, ba”
• Appearance of second tooth

So I found another mom in a nearby town with a son that is Ethan’s age. We have a lot in common (they also recently moved to GA) and we are looking forward to getting out of the house for playdates with them now! J

Ethan started what I thought was wheezing one day when he got excited or upset and after a few days of it, I began to worry, as most new mothers do, and set up an appointment to see his doctor. Turns out she thinks he had laryngomalacia, which is basically just swelling around the larynx, or the voicebox. It is apparently common in infants and they usually grow out of it. She gave him a steroid to use for three days and this appeared to get rid of it! So, I can’t complain seeing as this is the only problem he has had in all of his eight months, especially with all the illness going around right now!

He also has started to test his limits, haha! We were downstairs one day and he normally just crawls around, usually trying to get into Daisy’s food, but on this particular day, he began to climb the stairs! He was up to the third one before I caught him! He is a fast little booger! J

We are still waiting for those highly anticipated first words! Hoping it will be anytime now, but so far, he is just sticking to “ba, ba, ba.” Not sure that means anything or not. J You can tell he is trying to mimic what we are doing with our mouths to form a word, but he just doesn’t quite have it yet!

Ethan now has two teeth in. It has been a hard battle. It took awhile to cut the second one and we went for a whole month of Ethan waking at night. Hoping to break this habit soon!

Ethan celebrated his first Halloween. He dressed up as a dinosaur to match his big sister, Daisy. J They were super cute together, even though the day itself was kind of a bust. It was rainy, so the costume contests downtown on the square were cancelled and we didn’t get any trick-or-treaters at the house either! L Oh well. They still looked good!

Below is a pic of Ethan at eight months, once again wearing a 12-month onesie. Still my little cutie pie with his funny faces! J

Seven Months Old

Ethan turned seven months old a little over a week ago. I am still kind of behind here! Since last month, the skinny little guy is still keeping his slim figure, and has gained only about half of a pound to weigh in at around 17 lbs, which is down to the 25th percentile. He also grew just a quarter of an inch to measure up at 28 inches this month, which is down to the 75th-90th percentile. He is still only in the 3rd-10th percentile for height to weight ratio. Head growth is again staying right on target at a little over 44 cm, dead on the 50th percentile again.

New foods tried this month:

• Bananas
• Peaches
• Pears
• Prunes
• Mixed grain cereal
• Many Stage 2 foods (with the exception of anything containing carrots or squash)

The introduction of all of these foods went well as it usually does. I stated last time that I thought he had a food allergy to carrots and squash. I should have stated that he probably has an intolerance to them, not an allergy. The reaction is not severe enough to qualify as an allergy at this point. Nonetheless, we are still avoiding them! He appears to like the addition of fruits to his diet. We started doing oatmeal and a fruit for breakfast/lunch and rice or mixed grain cereal and a veggie for dinner. I had added a 3rd meal in at one point, but this decreased his nursing too much, so I have since deleted that meal to encourage him to nurse better. We want to keep it up for at least a year to be sure he gets the best nutrition and immunities possible! He is still my good little eater and it’s so cute to watch him eat. He’s like a baby bird, sitting there, mouth wide open, waiting for momma to shovel the food in! I need to get a video. J

New accomplishments this month:

• He placed 2nd in a baby crawling contest held at the Fredericktown Tomato Show at the beginning of September
• Sits up by himself all the time now
• Pulls himself up on stationary objects, like the couches or coffee table
• Stands unassisted briefly (before face planting, haha)
• Got his first tooth on Sept. 21st (it has since broke the surface completely and is growing in!)
• Started crawling correctly on Sept. 27th
• Started walking around holding onto the furniture on Oct. 1st

So, we don’t want to brag, but Ethan was actually too young to enter the crawling contest. It was supposed to be for 7 to 8 month-olds (the division he was in), but they let him enter at just over 6 months. And he did great! Granted he did his inch worm routine (see the video below), it worked and he crossed the line second! He was definitely more interested in the other kids and parents than his momma, haha, oh well!

We are definitely glad that we have baby-proofed the house now. The little man is all over the place and in record time! He has figured out how to stand up on objects, but the getting down part is not so easy, so he usually just lets himself fall over, which usually results in a nice face plant to the ground. It’s pretty funny, I must admit, but luckily it doesn’t bother him! haha

So we have now experienced the joys of teething. I must admit, I think he handled this first one pretty well and with a better disposition than most. I guess we are lucky to have such a good-natured (most of the time) child! Someone upstairs is looking out for me! J

Below is a pic of Ethan at seven months, once again wearing a 12-month onesie. This is still not an easy task by any means, even with two of us trying to get a pic of him! I have decided he is just an ornery booger, haha. J