After 6 days

When the NBA went on strike we got to enjoy Steve a little bit more than usual.  December was family-time galore and we enjoyed every minute of it.  Now that January is upon us not only are we finally getting the feeling of winter, we are remembering the reality of a six day sports television work week.  Steve and I pass in the dark.  Him, climbing into bed at ungodly hours and me rising out of bed at the opposite end of ungodly hours.  We see each other via texts and rushed phone calls between all that goes on in a normal day.  The kids and I stumble through dinners of cheese and crackers, pizza, pasta….whatever is easy and it is almost always uninspired.  Steve enjoys a couple good dinners out but for the sake of our bank account often he is eating cheap, also uninspired press room food.  So…after six days it was time for something good!

Say it with me…Roast Beef.  Yup.  Juicy, melt in your mouth, meaty goodness.  Cause this good face deserves such good food.  It’s true.

To be honest, I have never made roast beef before.  Ever.  And in fact I, rarely eat it.  Maybe at a wedding.  Never when I go out to eat.  But for some reason this is what I wanted to make and Steve sitting, watching me prepare the meal exclaimed “I never eat roast beef?!”  In the same huh, why don’t I do that, cause I think like roast beef kind of way I was thinking all day long.

The recipe was an easy one pan meal.  Simple, subtle flavors.  The smell that fills your house is worth every penny and bit of effort it takes to make this meal.  Which isn’t a lot so basically you are robbing roast beef blind.  Total prep and cooking time is about an hour and a half.  A perfect amount of time to enjoy a little bit of bourbon and a couple fried cheesy rice balls from Trader Joe’s, dipped in marinara sauce.

And when all is said and done you will feel so awesome when you cut into that hunk of meat…I am not talking about Steve…and it looks like this….

You will feel like a professional something!

Rosemary-garlic roast beef and potatoes with horseradish sauce

From Everyday Food

• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/2 cup finely chopped fresh rosemary leaves
• 6 garlic cloves minced
• 1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
• coarse salt and pepper
• 1 top round beef roast (3 lbs), trimmed and tied
• 2 lbs small potatoes, halved or quartered if large
• Horseradish Sauce

1.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  In a small bowl, stir together 3 tablespoons oil, rosemary, garlic, and lemon zest; season with salt and pepper.  In a large ovenproof skillet, heat 1 tablespoon oil over medium-high heat.  Pat beef dry and add to skillet.  Increase to high and cook, turning with tongs, until beef is browned on all sides, about 10 minutes.

2.  Brush or spoon rosemary mixture over roast and place in oven.  Roast 20 minutes,.  Remove from oven and place potatoes around roast, tossing in pan juices.  Roast until potatoes are tender and roast is medium rare, 30-35 minutes.  Transfer roast to a cutting board, loosely tent with foil for 10 minutes.  Serve with potatoes and horseradish sauce.

Horseradish Sauce

In a medium bowl, combine 1 cup plain nonfat Greek yogurt, 1/4 cup chopped fresh chives, 2 tablespoons prepared horseradish, and 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice; season with coarse salt and ground pepper.  YUM!

Eat and enjoy at your smaller kitchen table because the dining room one is covered with Legos and has little girls hiding underneath it…

Winter is finally here!

I went to hug and love Molly in bed last night and she presented me with this:

It is her wish for a snow day.  I love that she is hanging out of the window.  Such excitement for the first winter snow and snow day.

And so far…

It has had all the makings….

For a perfect snow day!

Off to make chocolate chip cookies.

Nervous and excited

They were in their soccer clothes at 1:30 because they were so excited.  I did their hair at 2:00 for a 5:30 game because they were so excited.  They let me take their picture and they looked like this because they were so excited.

In the car on the way to the first indoor soccer game with girls they don’t know and a coach they don’t know in a place they don’t know they admitted they were nervous and excited. And I admitted so was I…a little and they laughed at me.  They put in earphones and shared Ella’s Ipod.  Ella sang out loud and Steve and I cringed and smiled at what we have coming over the next years.

They played their hearts out and had so much fun.   In the car after the game, they both said they couldn’t wait until next Sunday.

 

How things come out

At about 4:30 yesterday, I had this great moment where I believed that I had the kitchen to myself for an extended period of time.  Steve was at work, Molly went out with a friend, and Ella had Natalie over for the night, but they were up in her room.  I gathered everything I would need to make some herb bread and some banana bread.  Just as I had set the herb bread to rise and started my banana bread, so dig it…right in the middle of two different tasks….Ella and Natalie came in to ask about dinner.

And all of the sudden there were chicken nuggets in the oven and the girls were doing this….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because why shouldn’t we make the biggest mess in the kitchen we can possibly make.  Let’s make Lip Balm.  Dinner.  Bread.  All at once. Side note about this pic-as soon as Natalie got to our house they went upstairs and switched shirts. So they are wearing the other’s shirt in this pic.  It cracks me up.  They have done that since they were 4.

So how things came out…

The lip balm was a huge hit.  I am wearing some on my lips right now.  They put glitter in it and dyed it blue.  The kit we used had all the containers and ingredients.  Very fun, messy, but quick project with a great product at the end.  Check out Kiss Naturals.

My breads. Well, one of the principles taught at my how to have a successful bakery class was to have consistent, quality product.  I may have product that tastes good, but how can the loaves look SOOOO different?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The loaf on the left is squat and long and the one on the right is Tall and really a beautiful looking loaf of bread. The one on the left is totally the one on the right’s crazy, inappropriate uncle.  I do love this bread.  Herb and parmesan cheese bread.  My sister may come up today and I offered to give her a loaf.  I will probably give her the crazy, uncle one with a slice missing.  I am not really a nice person.

Dear Blog

Dear Blog,

I have been thinking a lot about you lately.  We have been apart for so long that I don’t even recognize you and all your new bells and whistles. Have you gotten too sophisticated for me?  Have we grown so far apart that we can’t ever get the magic back that we had before?  I will say for me-I hope not.  I want you back.  I want to be with you, spend time with you…sharing my most special moments.

I don’t really know what happened to be honest.  I had new ideas.  I thought I needed something different.  But what I have come to realize is that I never felt comfortable with the new blog.  This is where I have kept our memories and times as a family and when I look back at all them I feel shame for having turned my back on you.

Can we try again?  As a peace offering, I give you our 2011 Family Video.  Hold on to it.  Protect it.  Be a place for us to come to and see where we have been.  Thank you for that.  I make a promise to be better and be back to write.

She is good…

Lots of evenings spent in Portsmouth while Ella rehearses for the play. Not always what Molly wants to do…but she doesn’t complain and Steve and I have had a chance to spend one on one with her and it has been so fun. She is wild, sweet, imaginative, and full of soooooo much love. She is good.

Tired

I didn’t sleep well last night and in my effort to lose the four pounds I gained, I have gotten back to my waking up in the morning for the gym. So 4:30 felt really early this morning with a few hours of sleep. A new workout schedule of weights and running is making my muscles sore and that feels so good. So it was worth it! I got home after a trip to Augusta for a conference with colleagues, grabbed the girls from school and we all went home for a quiet night. I took the dog for a walk across the road. The air, the walk, the scene. It was good.



Molly and Ella met me outside for some fairy house building and soccer with the dog. I found a wood fairy while we were out there…

I am tired. Dessert and Cosby Show and then bed for us all. Vacation get here quick.

Spring is here! For the most part…

I spent some of this morning cleaning our room with the window wide open letting beautiful spring air in. In New England, as the season shifts from winter to spring there is a collective, definite and palpable air of relief and energy. Today’s 60+ sunny weather and the promise of more days like today than days like yesterday makes us wear t-shirts when we really probably still need a sweater. I love it. After some cleaning and errands, I promised the girls a trip to the beach with some friends. Sadly as we all tumbled out of our cars with empty buckets to fill with treasures and leggings with sandals and vests over thin long sleeves we were met with winter. Cold wind blowing off the ocean drove us off the beach and right back into the warmth of our cars and too the less (but not much) windy playground. We are almost there. And to think the girls wanted to wear their bathing suits.

The rest of the weekend is Steve-ful. Two Red Sox/Yankee games but he is home early tonight and no game for him tomorrow. Three books to look through after he and the kids are in bed. Finding a new recipe to try for dinner tomorrow night from Ellie Krieger’s cookbook. I loved her show in Food Network when we had fancy cable. Going to look for a new bread to try from King Arthur and try to figure where we can put some fence to grow some raspberries on…
Love this time of year.

Do you think it is too much to pull up carpet, lay new flooring, empty our house into a dumpster, tile my backsplash, play with friends, coach tennis, do play practice, garden and clean yard, bake, sew, take swimming lessons etc…in a one week vacation? I hope not.

Art Show

Ella’s third year having a piece in the district art show and Molly’s first year! Yahoo! Another fun night seeing their art work on the walls of the high school surrounded by other great pieces from kids across the district and live music from the high school jazz band. What a fun event. Molly got very dressed up, but you can’t tell because I didn’t take a picture of her like a good mother would. Ella looked very cool, but again you can’t tell because I didn’t take a picture. But I got the most important part of the evening.

On not giving up

I kill plants. I don’t want to. I don’t feel good about it. But I do. I imagine every greenhouse has heard of me…the plants talk. When I pick up a pot I imagine the little roots clinging desperately to the wood below it trying desperately to avoid being taken home by the plant killer lady. Every spring I have the same good intentions and every fall there are the bones of my victims littering my lawn and yarn. It isn’t pretty.
This geranium though…there is something to this geranium. It is a plucky little plant. I have tried to kill this for years! Last fall it was down to two brown stubs with a couple withered leaves. Pathetic. For some reason (I am lazy and never throw anything out) I brought that plant inside and put it on the window sill and watered it. Not all the time. Once a month (maybe). And the most incredible thing started happening. It grew. Little green sprouts started to appear, leaves followed, and then the other day I found the most amazing thing…a bud. My geranium is going to have a flower.

I have not worked out regularly in about two months. I have gained four pounds. I have spent a lot of time wandering around my house searching for clothes, toys, books, flashlights, meaning only to have found laundry to fold. I have found myself in the midst of being surrounded by good stuff crying because of something I just haven’t found….yet. I blame the weather, the darkness, the schedule, but really it is just life. And this flower that is coming on my plant presented itself to me at just the right time. I find hope there. I find excitement and promise.
My friend once told me the story of a flower that she had that grew right along with her pregnancy with her daughter. She had the flower on her window of her bedroom. She watched it grow taller and stronger just like the amazing little girl inside her and on the day her daughter was born that flower bloomed. Beautiful Red Strong. I love that story.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I made whoopie pies for a great friend’s birthday.

This song! Put it on your running mix toward the end of your run. It’s perfect.