First Photoshoot

When BB was just 7 days old we asked photographer Brittany Pugh of Brittany Lee Photography to do an infant shoot for us. The photos turned out AMAZING and we are so glad we did it!






Here they are in action! BB was a pro model. He IS MY son after all. The key is to make sure your baby is well fed and crank that heat up in your house if you're going to strip him down for the bare bootie shot.

Here are some teasers:

Our Proudest Home Improvement of all

Before




After




Time spent: 10 months
Cost: Priceless

39 weeks Just the Two (or four) of us!

Enjoying my last week of pregnancy. (technically)



Me and the boys at the dog park


Pumpkin picking


Cinnamon donut eating


Ed and LeighAnne's Wedding








Sporting some hand me down "maternity" clothes.


My boys

More Freezer Meals

So I did another one of my cooking relays where I bought certain ingredients and used what I call a "tag team" method where I use one ingredient in more than 1 of the meals and while cooking one thing, I am prepping the next. I think this is just how you have to do it to save on time.

Here's a summary of what I cooked today: (I'll go into details in a later post)

• 4 meals - Pot Roast w/egg noodles
• 3 meals - Lemon Chicken thighs w/rice or w/veg
• 2 meals - Turkey Meatloaf with sun-dried tom & feta w/veg
• 2 meals - Chicken Enchilads w/black beans & cheese
• 10 individually wrapped sausage, egg & cheese wraps
• 1 pot of chicken stock - Chicken & Rice soup and Chicken Noodle soup
• 4 frozen chicken breasts

Because pot roast in a crock pot is a set it and forget it meal, I prepped that first. Whether you make a small batch or a big batch, it still takes hours and you still have to buy a BAG of carrots and BAG of potatoes. Utilize your time wisely and cook the vegs while they are fresh by making a large batch. Yes, that parsley is from my garden! Normally I buy baby carrots so there is no prep but today, the whole carrots were on sale and the larger carrots tend to be sweeter anyway especially when I knew I'd be using them for various meals.


Then I moved onto the chicken stock. I bought a whole roaster for $6, cut the breasts off and froze them for future use. Cut the legs off for Chicken Enchiladas, but boiled them in the stock to avoid dirtying another pot. Remove excess fat and skin and discard before cooking. Added a potato and carrot (from pot roast ingredients) for flavor.


I'll go into details later, but using the chicken drumsticks and thighs from the whole roaster (see above), I turned it into Chicken Enchiladas. Take the meat off the bones, combine with taco seasoning, cheese, black beans (leftovers) and tortilla wraps. Arrange and freeze. I put the beans on the outside on one half of the dish because I'm not sure whether they will sit well with me when I'm nursing. We had 2 enchiladas for lunch today as well.

Lemon chicken thighs - I read this recipe on Simple Recipes. I love lemon chicken and Keith is a big fan of chicken thighs. Dark meat is always an economical choice too. This package was $4 and makes 3 meals (for the 2 of us). I removed the skin because it's too fatty. I threw in the rest of my bag of carrots from the Pot Roast that I couldn't use up. Roasted carrots are nice and sweet and nutty. While that baked, I moved on and had lunch.


Straining the chicken stock. You could simmer it a lot longer and after straining, dump everything (the chicken bones and other ingredients). I stopped because I was tired of cooking and I wanted to salvage some of the meat. This was my favorite part as a kid. My mom would let me go to town on the carcass and I'd dip the meat in a mixture of soy sauce, hot sauce and seasame oil.

Back to those Lemon Chicken Thighs - Some of the thighs were much larger than others. The large ones I put in one container with some uncooked, sliced zucchini assuming when I go to reheat the chicken, the zucchini will cook. The smaller ones, I put in a container with some leftover rice I had and diced tomatoes. The moisture from the toms will recook the rice in the oven nicely. The zucchini provides a vegetable which completes the meal.

On a different note, I wanted to make meat loaf and this Turkey Meat Loaf from Giada is to die for! I had feta cheese leftover from a salad I made and sun dried tomatoes left as well which I wanted to use up. A little over a pound of turkey $3. I baked it in a shallow aluminum tray. Allow to cool. There's enough for 2 meals, so I cut it down the middle and put it in another tray. Sliced it for easy reheat and added frozen peas into the tray. That will make for one complete meal as well. I like rice with everything so I'll probably cook some rice in the rice cooker if the meat loaf by itself isn't enough.

More to come...

Laundry Day

With 5 weeks to go, I began washing BB's new clothes and getting ready for his arrival. He's due 2 weeks before Halloween and this little hand me down I received would be perfect! I couldn't help myself and bought the little socks at Marshall's.

This is just 1/3 of what I ended up throwing into the wash. I separated things by color for the first wash in case the colors bleed. With the new clothes, all I did was wash it with cold water with 2 rinse cycles to get the chemicals out that are in new fabric. Everything is so adorable that I can't wait to use them and I'm afraid we have so much that I won't even remember to use it before he grows too big for them.

I counted 30 bibs, 12 blankets, and 25 burp cloths (cloth diapers). He's definitely his father's son - more clothes than anyone I know. We were advised not to take the tags off of everything because he may never get around to wearing them especially the newborn stuff. But I have no plans to return anything and I'd rather not bother thinking about the "what ifs" because WHAT IF I do need them.

Our New Family Photo

My friend Mariko took some maternity and family photos for us and I absolutely love love love this photo of the four of us. I quickly sent it to have an enlarged print made before time got away with me and framed it for our living room. I'm looking forward to our little one arriving, so we can't stop framing pictures of just the two of us or our dogs.

Freezer Meals: Beef Stroganoff and Chicken Cacciatore

I made two "new" meals for the freezer this week. Keith loves beef stroganoff and just his luck, steak was on sale this week. I was surprised how far this went. I must have had 10-12 servings in the end.

Egg noodles, creamy mushrooms and steak. What could be better?

Recipe here if you need one. You know me - I rarely follow recipes to the T. I didn't use any sour cream because it really makes my stomach upset. Instead of fresh sliced mushrooms, Keith told me he prefers canned when he cooks it. He was right because they go farther and don't have that smell that button mushrooms have when they cook.

Here we are - enough for freezing, dinner and 2 lunches.

Yum!

Chicken Cacciatore - Recipe from Giada Delaurentis. I have made this before and it looked totally different using canned tomato. I didn't have any canned tomato on hand so I used 5 or so heirloom tomatoes from the garden. It's a lot soupier too because I didn't use flour but I like it that way especially since I plan on freezing and reheating it, the sauce will cook down.

Next up: Sausage, kale and potato soup

Freezer Meals: Chicken Spaghetti

Pioneer Woman's Chicken Spaghetti - recipe here

Simultaneously, I boiled the chicken as per the recipe while I did the pork prep. I used two whole legs instead of a cut up chicken. I followed the portion sizes roughly (using half a large onion and pepper and the other half went into the pulled pork from earlier).

It looked so good while I was making it that I just wanted to put my face in it! I tasted it and the baby gave me a hard, swift kick. I think it's fetus approved!

I used this trick that I read online where you line a baking pan with aluminum foil, scoop the food in, freeze a little so it maintains its shape, pop it out, wrap tightly in more foil and a ziplock bag, then pop it into the freezer for the long haul.

These are 8x8 pans and 2-3" deep. There was plenty here to feed a family. I'd say there is plenty to take to lunch the next day but it's so yum that you might end up eating it all at once.

In the recipe, you have to set aside a cup of chicken broth that you used to cook your chicken...I saved a little more than a cup....more to come on that.

Freezer Meals: Ice Cream Sandwiches, Chicken Satay, Uncooked Pork, Pulled Pork

(I can't get my pictures to adjust so forgive me. I'm pregnant and super crunched on time, so I don't feel like bothering to figure out what's wrong.)

After a little research on "once a month cooking" and "freezer meals" I set forth to do what many have been doing successfully. Shop when things are sale, cook for hours and then have meals for several days. I started off small. This week at Shop Rite, pork loin was on sale for $1.99/lb. So I just did a little mental planning on what I could do with a hunk of pork - Korean pork, noodles & pork, pork stir fry with pickled cabbage, pulled pork, baked pork loin...before deciding on purchasing so much of it. Chicken legs were also on sale for .67c/lb. I bought two packages for $4 & $3 which for us is good enough for 4 meals. We love dark meat and I could always use legs for BBQ, soup, baked, stir fry, etc.

Time: 1 hour

Cost: $16 Pork, $7 Chicken, $1 Onion, $2 Pepper

Chicken Satay

We had company so I made oven baked chicken satay. We planned on putting it on the grill, but then I got lazy and put it in the oven instead. Cook for 1 hour at 350 degrees. This was enough for 4 people and everyone had seconds.

Pork Prep

The pork loin came whole in a long package. This one was $16. Usually, I spend about $5/package of pork loins that are pre-sliced (6 slices at 1/2" thick), so by comparison the $16 was a great deal. I brought over to the butcher and asked him to slice them up into 1" thick slices and leave the end whole so I can roast it or put it into the crockpot. He did just that. No work on my part!

I divided the pork into portion sizes for one meal for the two of us. I do this anyway, but this time I seasoned it before popping them into the freezer. Since the slices are 1" thick, 1 slice should be enough for dinner (along with rice and a side vegetable) and the 3rd and 4th slices will be packed for lunch the next day. If they were sliced thinner they would cook faster, but I don't want them to be dry and I imagine I'll be walking away from the oven/stove often with baby in hand.

Then I packaged each portion in saran wrap and made sure it was nicely sealed and got all the air out of it. I labeled each one with exactly what I marinated/seasoned it with. I put labels on both sides of the package. I made 3 meals (4 slices each) of pork loin with 3 different marinades/seasonings.

I set aside 2 portions for stir fry. Each portion utilized 3 slices of pork loin. 1-2 slices would have been enough for a family of 4 if we ate like a true Chinese household where there are at least 3-4 dishes, rice and a soup. Since I only cook one dish as our main dinner, we need a bit more and then some to have enough for lunch the following day. My mom freezes ginger so I thought I'd give it a try and included it in the package, so it's one less thing I need to prep.

With the tail end of the pork loin (8" worth), I hacked it up into large chunks. I could have/should have left it whole, but I dunno...I never made pulled pork before so this was a first attempt. Line the bottom of the pot with onions and peppers. Add some water, salt, sugar and BBQ sauce. See my junk bag over there to the left (from the peppers). I do that when I'm cooking so I don't have to keep running to the garbage can. Yeah, Rachel Ray and her junk bowl has nothin' on me. My mom and I have been doing this for decades.

This is what it looks like with the sauce.

Put it on high for 20 mins and then cook it on low for 10 hours (based on a recipe I read). I love my old ass crock pot that was a hand me down from a neighbor. I love the character.

As you can see in the freezer, I have everything lined and stacked up. To the right in the foil are ice cream sandwiches I made from a large container of cookies I had and a container of cookie dough ice cream. They are soooooo good! Just assemble, wrap individually and freeze. Although frozen, the cookies are just softened enough by the ice-cream.

At the same time, I was boiling chicken for Pioneer Woman's chicken spaghetti...Up next!

Freezer Meals

Over the weekend, I spent some time making meals for freezing, so that we have homemade meals during my "confinement" (post-pregnancy). After I did a few google searches on "freezer meals" and "foods that freeze and reheat well", I found this whole other universe of moms who do this regularly (1x/month). It saves time and some money by shopping in bulk when things are on sale. In the past, I have made meat sauce with my tomatoes from the garden and throughout the winter I can defrost a container on Fridays when I don't feel like cooking. It saves so much time and it's just as delicious as the day I cooked it.

I bought square 8x8 containers at shop rite ($3.50/6 containers). It's just the right size for 4 servings. Since it's shallow and small, it will reheat more quickly than say a loaf pan. Notice there is a HOLE in the Shepard's pie. I made the hole so it would reheat more quickly and not a frozen center.

Baked ziti - I didn't melt the cheese. I figure that will happen when I go to reheat it. I used 85% lean ground beef and drained the fat after I cooked it before adding it to the sauce and pasta. I want these to be complete and somewhat healthy meals (especially since I'll be nursing), so I didn't add any onions or "fillers".

Allow the food to completely cool before wrapping them up and sticking them into the freezer. using masking tape, I labeled each tray on the top side as well as the side facing out. The number on the label is approximately how many servings there are. You can alter that depending on the size of your family and whether you take leftovers to work.

I'm lactose intolerant and since the pregnancy I have a condition called GERD, so when I research recipes to make freezer meals, I avoid "casserole" like dishes that involve a lot of cheese or biscuits or butter or acidity. Also, I have to consider that this is fuel for both me (nursing) and my husband who works all day. I don't want to fill up on carb rich foods that will only make us go into "food coma". Something like these Lemon Chicken thighs are more up our alley. We are going to do our best anyway and find a sweet compromise between what is good for us and what is yummy.

From Southern Living, here is a list of freezer storage times. I'm 9 weeks to my due date, so this is a good time to start cooking and freezing.

• Combination dishes (such as rice and spaghetti dishes, lasagna, stuffed pepper meat pies, casseroles): 4 to 6 months
• Ground beef, cooked and uncooked: 2 to 3 months
• Chicken (whole, breasts, pieces), uncooked: 6 months
• Meatloaf, baked or unbaked: 3 to 4 months
• Smoked sausage: 1 to 2 months (Note: Freezing sausage may alter flavor.)
• Beef steaks: 6 to 12 months
• Pork chops: 3 to 6 months
• Ham and other cured meats: Not recommended for freezing; may lose color when frozen and become rancid more quickly than other meats

Sources: Clemson University and University of Missouri-Columbia Cooperative Extension Service

Update on my "Apartment"

It's been a very long time since we've done anything with this room, so let's revisit shall we? The last time I was in my apartment, it was pre-pregnancy. This room is intended to my personal space for crafting, reading and watching movies. Now with the reality of a baby, this room is not only MY space, but it has to be a guest room, storage, and family room.

We rearranged the hand me down furniture and left the middle of the floor wide open assuming a baby will be crawling around here. I opened up my table so it was large enough for writing thank you notes on one side and sewing on the other side. That or Keith and I can share it. Since he no longer has an "office" in the house, we haven't had a place to hang out hat, put the bills somewhere or lay our laptop down. Then there is the sofa turned daybed. It's quite comfortable but it's not complete yet. I need to sew covers for the pillows (not shown).

I'm undecided as to how much I want to invest into this room since it will likely change in a few short years. I may get some new blinds and curtains from IKEA. I have always pictured two tall white bookshelves in here, but I don't want to fill it with furniture yet.

I wish I had the kind of personal space that Sara at Russett Street Reno has. I may repaint 3 of the walls in this room to gray like Sara's dressing room. The all yellow walls in my apartment just isn't working for me in terms of decorating. I especially like how Sara lays her outfits out on the wall. I really need to do this especially after I go back to work after my maternity leave. I feel like my life will definitely be busier and I'll need all the organizing help I can get.