Thank Goodness for My Blender!

I've added more detailed pictures to my Kitchen Renovation post, so go check it out!  You can ogle my crazy pantry!

I'm not sure where my mind has been, but I've been completely baffled on how to get Josh to eat green vegetables.  Now that he likes to feed himself, he will very deliberately pick out only the things he wants out of his dish, and basically leaves all but any sort of pasta behind.  I figured he had a hard time chewing the green leafy stuff, you know, without molars and all, but they're coming in now, so it's high time to get started on the leafy greens.  I made bok choy the other night, and he ate the crunchy stems, but if there was a hint of a leaf, he spat it out.  We've been making do with the little squeezee packs from Plum Organic and Happy Baby, where there's some sort of fruit and vegetable combination in semi-solid form.  Beats me why I didn't think of just making it myself.  Serious loss of brain capability there.

Anyways, a friend told me her trick of making smoothies with spinach in it and feeding it to her son as a drink.  My first reaction was "gross!  spinach and banana?!  are you kidding me?!", but I bought spinach the other day, just in case.  Then I saw the idea again on a linky party today, and thought maybe I'm being hit over the head with this concept, so I made my first banana-spinach smoothie tonight....and WHAT A HIT!  Josh drank an entire cup, and got rewarded with pizza for dinner :-)

I don't have quantities for a recipe, since I had no idea what I was doing and really just hoped for the best, but here's my best guess:

1 banana

1 pear

2 cup of milk

1 handful of spinach leaves

1 tablespoon of honey

Blend well.  BOOM, you're done.  Add more liquid if you, like me, intend on feeding it to a picky eater through a straw.  The best part is, you can't taste the spinach!  It looks funky, but it tastes like a banana-honey milkshake!  

After a while, Josh decided that playing with the straw was more fun than drinking from the straw, so I hacked together a "straw sippy cup" with Press n Seal and a rubberband.

This is probably not a combination I'm going to mess with though.  I can't quite imagine it going well with strawberries or swiss chard, but you better believe I'll be on the lookout for other green veggie smoothies to trick my kid into drinking!

Kitchen Renovation

Update!  I've added more detailed pictures!

My kitchen was in a rare state of pristine cleanliness on Sunday (probably because there was nothing left in the fridge, and we were all too queasy to eat), so I took advantage and grabbed a couple of shots of the clear countertops to show you the transformation of this space from what it was when Drew first moved in.  

There's Josh doing his happy morning dance

Ok, so Drew bought the house first, and I moved in later after we were married, but re-doing the kitchen had always been pretty high on his, and then our, list.  Of course, we hemmed and hawed and thought about how much money this was going to cost us, and procrastinated some more.  About a year after we were married, he heard a rumor that Ikea had all their cabinets and appliances on sale, so we embarked on an intense 3 months of design and renovation.  We wanted:

a big stove

a big fridge

a big sink

a pantry

to use every inch of space in this small room - which is Ikea's specialty, isn't it?

Using Ikea's kitchen planner, and arguing about the space for a month, we finally agreed to a plan.  If you've never built a kitchen from Ikea before, let me tell you, it is quite the endeavor!  There is probably no way I would go through it again.  We had to count and recount every bolt, handle, hinge, door, back piece, side piece, front piece and every little accessory.  Then we spent about 8 hours (8 HOURS!!  I love Ikea but geez) at the local Ikea watching the sales lady type everything in, waiting for every little piece to be counted and recounted, and then loading the pieces we were allowed to take home.  The rest of the boxes were delivered, and then we had an Ikea explosion sitting in our garage.

We started the pantry first, since I wanted to keep a working sink for as long as possible, and I had the lofty goal of having a new pantry for Thanksgiving.  The wallpaper was removed, the plaster was filled in, and the weird felt material under the old cabinets had to be slowly scraped off.  

We finished the pantry 2 days before having 12 people over for Thanksgiving dinner.  That gave us an interesting advantage - since the new pantry held our new big fridge, we actually had 2 fridges in use for Thanksgiving.  One held the 5 gallon bucket in which we brined our turkey; the other held everything else.

I think we waited until after Christmas to begin on the main kitchen.  We did the side without the sink first, and found that the walls were not in terrible shape.  The first sight of those glass cabinets gave us an incredible feeling of accomplishment!  Then, the sink finally came out, and I hated those days of living on paper plates and washing utensils in the utility sink in the basement.  I thought eating out was going to be fun, until we've eaten at every place in town.  That was some serious motivation to get this thing done as quickly as possible!

In the end, we had someone install our granite countertops, and a guy had to come and secure the gas connection to our stove.  Drew's dad taught us how to install the glass tile backsplash.  Otherwise, everything else was done ourselves.  The big new quiet appliances were from Sears, the sink and cabinets were from Ikea and the glass tile was from Waterworks in CT.  Funny story that:  I had bought a couple sheets of the glass tile at the Waterworks warehouse sale one year for $3 (!!), on the thought that I might redo the small counter by the back door.  That never happened, and we ended up wanting to use it in the kitchen.  But we were several sheets short, so we had to buy them retail directly from Waterworks, at around $40 per sheet.  The tile only goes right below where the stove hits the wall, since at $40 per sheet, I wasn't going to put glass all the way to the floor. 

I love love love this kitchen, with my 5 burner stove and ginormous fridge, my hidden garbage can and farmhouse sink, and super duper compartmentalization.  It is a reason I may never want to leave this house!

Update:  

Here are some photos of the inner workings of the cabinets, thanks to the organizational masterminds at Ikea.  Please ignore the crap inside my cabinets - after all, this is the fully working kitchen of a crazy family!

We attached a drawer kit to a bottom cabinet door panel to create a pull out space for our garbage can.  The setup was a bit shaky, so we added 2 internal drawers at the top for pot holders and random sink stuff, like wire brushes and sponges.  

This is the lazy susan for the bottom cabinet.  It's 2 tiers, and is a full half circle that stores stuff all the way in the back corner where daylight never shines.

Another shot of the darkness beyond.

This is the lazy susan for the top cabinet.  It's like a chinese restaurant banquet table, x2!  The heights are also adjustable.  At this point, Ikea should be paying me for the advertising...

We installed drawers for the pots and pans instead of cabinets, so I didn't have to crawl into one to pick out the right pan.

You can buy compartmentalization kits to go with your drawer kits, and they're all adjustable.

The shining star of my kitchen, other than the glass tile, and the stove, and the fridge... is this pseudo pantry. Basically, I walked through the showroom, saw this setup, and said "I want THIS".  It's a huge cabinet with pull out metal drawers for all the crap you want to hide (which I'm now showing the whole wide world).  Of course, the heights are all adjustable.  

All of our drawers are full depth pull outs, and we installed little piston spring things on all the cabinets so they can't be slammed.  You can get angry and push really hard, and they all stop within about 1 inch from closing, then close with a quiet whoosh.  Like I said, they're geniuses over there at Ikea.

Mac and Cheese, but Fancy

I feel like I have finally been truly initiated into the club of motherhood, after having been "baptized" by Josh's projectile vomit last night.  Surprisingly, this is the first time in his life he's thrown up.  Unsurprisingly, it seems like we've caught the bug that's been going around.  When I was baptized as a Christian, it was in front of other people, and so was this particular event - at our local TJMaxx.  Another mother stopped and handed us her grape smelling saline wipes (saying "Ohhh, I've been there"), so after stripping down (as our coats and shirts all got stained), we drove home in a super-heated car smelling of pizza goldfish, vomit and that grape fluoride you get at the dentist's.

After a day of bread, saltine crackers and Pedialyte, we made the only dinner Josh really devours, no matter how full he is - Mac and Cheese.  Unfortunately, the little guy still isn't quite right and didn't eat dinner, but here is the recipe, and I hope you enjoy it more than he did.

This recipe is adapted from the Betty Crocker Cookbook.  I don't normally like Mac and Cheese, but in the spirit of the Lobster Mac and Cheese that we are seeing in trendy restaurants, we added some extras of our own.

Ingredients:

A box of pasta

1 big onion, diced

1 ham steak, diced

1/2 C flour

1 stick of butter 

3 C milk 

2 teaspoons of Worchestershire sauce

2 to 3 C shredded cheese

We use the Barilla pasta with the vegetables built-in, since Josh is not a big vegetable fan, so we try to sneak it in anywhere, anytime.  Our cheese was a smoked Gouda; we have also tried it with Jarlsberg Swiss, which was also very good.

Cook the pasta according to the directions on the package.

Meanwhile, melt the butter in a pot.  Add the onions and let it sweat for a few minutes. Then add the flour and stir to make a roue.  The mixture should be a fairly smooth paste and a bit bubbly.  Add the milk, the ham and the shredded cheese.  Stir well to make sure the cheese is melted and that there are no remaining flour lumps.  Throw in a dash of Worchestershire sauce, and season to taste.

When the pasta is done, drain, and add to the cheese mixture.  Stir to integrate the pasta with the sauce.  Check the seasoning one last time (I like a lot of black pepper).  Serve warm.

Now only if the Lobster Mac and Cheese we've ordered had as much lobster in it as we have ham and onion in ours!

And You Thought You Were Crafty...

I just had to share this link that Drew shared with me - a Japanese mom built her son a replica of the Red Bull Formula 1 car.  I was so proud that I made Josh an owl and a book, and dinner...most nights, but now, well, I have nothing else left to say.  Happy Crafting everyone!

Source

Bumming Around

Two posts in 1 day?  Crazy.

But here I am, sitting in the office waiting for a late volunteer meeting, working hard/hardly working.  

Thought I'd share some photos that make me smile.

I know, the quality of this photo sucks, and eww, you can see our gross dog-paw-wiping towel in the background, but I just can't resist this smile!

Beggar dog.

A Bag in a Bag, Where the Idea is Better Than the Execution

I have a reusable grocery bag made out of rip-stop nylon that folds into its own little carry case, making it easily portable in any normal sized purse.  I have seen a couple of tutorials on making a bag out of old t-shirts.  I have old t-shirts hanging around.  Hence, I thought I'd try to make my own little pouch grocery bag.  Wasn't there a children's toy revolving around this concept of flipping a toy out of a pouch?  Hold on while I google.

Ok.  Popples: a series of stuffed animals with pouchs on their backs that you can flip them into and out of.   

Anyways, it's that concept, except with a bag made out of a t-shirt, and crochet.  Because I have to add a twist somehow.  Now that I'm done though, I'm not sure the twist was a good idea.

First, I crocheted a strawberry drawstring bag.  Let me know if you'd like the pattern - I have a mess of notes written down someplace.

Then I took a tank top, because I thought this would be easier to turn into a bag than a t-shirt.  I mean, it already looks like a bag.  All I had to do was sew up the bottom and turn it inside out.  Turns out, the fact that the tank top looks like a bag cuts both ways - my bag looks an awful lot like a tank top!  

Next, I sewed my strawberry to my tank top/bag.  The strawberry pouch has to be inside out, and in the same orientation as the shirt bag.  I added a small row of SC on the strawberry so I could more easily sew the seams of the strawberry to the inside seam of the shirt bag.  Oh, the shirt bag also has to be inside out.

Basically, that's it.  You flip the strawberry right side out and as you do so, you stuff the shirt bag in the strawberry!  

I love the concept of having a cute little bag that pops open into a much larger, more useful carry-all, but I think the vision of it in my head was more glamorous than my implementation.  The t-shirt bag seemed flimsy, and the strawberry seemed too bulky to really carry around in a purse all the time (unless your purse is the size of a Birkin bag or a large LLBean tote)

In future attempts, I may actually buy rip-stop nylon (but then it wouldn't really be recycling), or sew together a pouch out of normal, cute quilt fabric instead of using yarn, which ended up being too bulky.  Maybe I'll try a different shirt, or actually spend some quality time on the t-shirt bag to make it look more bag-like instead of having it scream "HELLO!  I'm an old t-shirt".

What do you think?

I Won A Giveaway?!

I received a great little surprise in the mail on Saturday!  It happened like this: my husband throws me a package while I sat on the sofa, saying "Hey, I think this is yours, maybe from one of your bloggy girl friends?"  Thanks honey.  Anyways, it was a necklace from Alecia of Chicken Scratch - I won it in her giveaway!  I normally never win anything, but I'm so glad I won this, because it's so beautiful!

It's her "No, I do not appreciate random people touching me" Dragonfly necklace.  Want to know more?  Check out her blog, she's an upstate NYer, like me, and has chickens and turkeys and cows (unlike me)!  Thanks Alecia!

Oh, and if you've been a reader of mine for a while or know me in person, you'll notice that there's no hair distracting from the necklace in the photo above.  That's because I finally got sick of the dry winter weather and the dry winter hair making my face itch, and had it chopped off.  I think my stylist was a little more apprehensive than I was, and gave me a fairly top-heavy helmet bob when I had asked for "something between a short bob and a pixie".  After washing out the helmet head and styling it myself, I found enough courage to go back and tell her I didn't like it, and got it cut again, for free!  This time, I LOVE IT!  So, yay! for standing up for what you want!  

Drew took this picture while we were rushing out the door, so it's probably not the best angle, nor did I bother styling with any effort, since it was a Sunday, but you get the idea.  It's SHORT.  And carefree.  And I use a whole lot less shampoo!  And I shed less!  (Well, I shed the same, but it looks less, and that's what counts.)

There's my house, my mailbox, and the ugly sedge grasses that we haven't bothered to cut down from last summer.

I have a project ready to show off, but I'm not quite sure I WANT to show it off yet, so I'm going to tweak it a bit more.  I'm still trying to decide if it's a fail or not.  Stay tuned!