Feeling inspired

The morning started off really well with a workout. I'm part of a Biggest Loser Challenge with a group of lovely other new mums and one who has a home trainer business offered us a complimentary workout. I jumped on it, so this morning at 9:30am we were ready to go. It was painful at times, and I know I will feel it tomorrow, especially when I pick up X-man in the morning, but it felt/feels good. On top of it all, he got to spend quality 1 on 1 time with his papa which to be honest has only happened a couple of times in his 5 1/2 months.
As a result, and not to ruin the work I put in I decided to veggie it up at dinner. I had bought 2 cauliflowers last week because of a sale and decided to cook 'em up today before they started to go bad.
Therefore, tonight's dinner was steak with cauliflower and zucchini (+ a small baked potato for my husband).


Ingredients


- 5 small onions, sliced
- 5 cloves garlic, sliced
- 2 small-ish cauliflower
- 2 zucchini, sliced
-  4 steaks
- 1 pack white mushrooms, sliced
- parmesan cheese
- bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Drizzle oil in ceramic baking pan. Distribute 3 onions and all the garlic all over the pan. I know, lots of garlic and onion, but they're so good for you and taste so good! Layer zucchini first, then cauliflower chunks. Sprinkle some cheese and bread crumbs. Cover with aluminum foil.  In it goes to the oven for 25-ish minutes. But, about 10 minutes in, pour in a cup of water. Timing depends how cooked you want your veggies.


Mushrooms and 2 onions go into pan with a bit of oil once hot. Season steaks with your choice of spices and throw into pan. Fry to desired degree.
Plate, serve and enjoy!

Great day, great food

X-man and I had a wonderful day today. We spent time together at the library where we read a few books, played, got me some books and I paid my $20 fine. I know! How do you get a $20 fine at the library? That's what happens when you take out 15 books at a time and don't return them on time!
Lunch was very yummy. Omelette with goat cheese and red pepper and pita bread.
Then the baby took a 2.5 hour nap next to me in bed which allowed me to start and finish the book, In Search of Sleep by Bonny Reichert. It talks about different sleep solutions for babies and toddlers with lots of quotes from fellow mothers, including the author who is one and also used to work at a parenting magazine. I felt really good after reading the book, and it helped me re-affirm my decision that the cry it out method is not for me. Co-sleeping feels right and is what I want to do. It's natural and most cultures actually do it. It's here in North America where mothers are made to feel like it's not right. As I was reading, I got a feeling of "Yes, this is what I want. This is how I want to do things for now." When I am ready, or should the baby show signs of readiness, I will transition him. I will still try to see if he'll stay in his crib, but I will not force it. That is that.
Feeling good led to wanting to cook. Imagine that! With all the vegetables we have I decided to make a chicken stir fry.


Ingredients


- 2 chicken breast, cut into pieces
- 2 huge carrots, sliced
- 2 zuchinnis, sliced
- 1 large onion, chopped
- 5 cloves of garlic, chopped
- 1 bok choy, chopped
- 2 packets of udon noodles
- teriyaki sauce, as much as you want


Place noodles in boiling water. Boil for 3 minutes. Drain. Set aside.
Heat up oil in wok (or whatever you will be using). Once ready, throw in garlic and onion. Add chicken. When chicken is ready, throw in vegetables. Pour teriyaki sauce on top and mix well. Add noodles when vegetables are how you like them, be it more al dente or more well done.
Plate, serve with chopsticks and enjoy! 

Baby in the way

After a difficult afternoon/evening with X-man, dinner was finally ready, however eating it was another story. I eventually managed while holding the baby in my lap, his fingers smacking at my quinoa...it was wonderful.
Alrighty, this evening's menu was pork chop with dates and apples, quinoa with tangerine and raisin and spinach salad with cherry tomatoes, green onion and goat cheese.


Ingredients:


- pork chops, salted
- 1 apple, chopped
- dates, chopped in half (as many as you want)
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 cup quinoa
- 1 1/4 cup water
- 1 can of mandarin pieces, or if you can't locate it like me, just use a couple of tangerines
- raisins, as many as you want
- baby spinach leaves, boxed, bagged
- cherry tomatoes, as many as you want
- goat cheese, as much as you want


Pork chops


Boil dates and apples a couple of minutes. Drain. Fry chops in a bit of oil. Once almost cooked, add fruit mixture and mix in with pork chops.

   

Quinoa


Boil quinoa in water until water is sucked up by the grains. Mix tangerine/mandarin pieces in a bowl. Combine and serve.

Salad


Mix spinach, cherry tomatoes, green onion and goat cheese in a bowl. Drizzle lemon juice all over.

Voilà, your dinner.

Continued lightness into the evening

X-man was very fussy at times and wanted to be held a lot today. Once evening came he got some cereal and then played in his highchair so I spent some time reading some of my favourite blogs and whipping up a quick and easy dinner. I didn't actually do much. My mum had brought over some wax beans yesterday and decided to cook them in tomato sauce right away for fear that I would forget about them in the fridge and they'd go bad. I hadn't defrosted any meat by 5pm so as I scoured the freezer I located a bag of ravioli I had just bought. Boiled that up, threw it in the pot with the beans and voilà! Of course, had a salad on the side as well, this time spinach with some other veggies.

I know, it looks like worms.

Feeling lighter

Of the mind and of the spirit.
X-man and I have been busy entertaining ourselves since his great grandma left and we're doing just fine. We have no routine whatsoever, it's fantastic! He never rises earlier than 8am so that works for moi.
However, after that one attempt with letting him cry it out, I haven't had the guts to try again. I know that you don't see adults sleeping in their parents' beds, but I get NOTHING done because it seems to be extending to also when he is awake sometimes. He'll spend max 10 minutes in his exersaucer, so far doesn't like the Jolly Jumper, his mats on the ground are a guess from day to day, more recently he starts to cry within minutes of being put down, my only saving grace that lets me run a load of laundry or get the dishes done is his high chair. This just means constantly picking up the toys he pitches on the ground, which is fine. However, I don't want him spending all his time in a sitting position in there. 
He scoffs at shushing and patting him when he is upset, he basically tells me to f-off when I try that. So, I think it's going to have be tough love with this guy, my own fault. My mum told me from the beginning to lay him in his crib to sleep, but I didn't want to be apart, and couldn't get up out of bed anyway for the first week and I loved so much being with him that I resisted. Now I and he are paying the price. I just keep thinking that we will be going away in a couple of months and he will have to sleep separate from me so I have to start at some point...

Who could resist spending every minute of the day with this squishy face?!

On a healthy note, eating is more or less going in a positive direction. As opposed to indulging in the Hershey Kisses that I have already bought for Valentine's Day (why so early you ask...I have no idea), I had some yummy cherries that my maman brought me yesterday. 

Also made a huge pot of tomato and veggies soup with lentils. Just had some now for the first time and it's not too bad.

Sunday late lunch: Tabouleh burgers, salad, tzaziki

Today I tried something I've never made before. Saw a friend's post on Facebook about couscous burgers and although I didn't have plain couscous, I used tabouleh instead. This is actually couscous with dried parsley, garlic and a couple of other things so in a sense it's better than straight up couscous. 

Although I would have loved to have some fries or yam fries, I was hesitant because I had to use more oil than I would have liked to to avoid burning the "patties". So I relied on my trusted friend, the salad to get us through the meal.

Ingredients:

Serves 6

- 3/4 cup tabouleh

- 1/2 cup water  

- 2 tbsp lemon juice

- 2-3 cloves of garlic, crushed

- 1 can of chick peas

- 2 tbsp flour

- bread crumbs (optional)

- multi grain sandwich buns 

- salad greens

- cherry tomatoes

- goat cheese

- radishes, sliced

- cucumbers, chopped

- 1 cup non-fat plain yoghurt

Tabouleh burger

In a bowl, combine water, lemon juice and tabouleh. Let sit until water has been soaked up.

Place chick peas and garlic in food processor and pulse until smooth. 

Mix together chick peas with tabouleh. Add flour. (I ended up adding more cause mixture was still too liquidy.) At this point you can choose to roll patties in bread crumbs if desired. 

Make pattie sized formations. Place oil in pan, let it get very hot and place patties in pan.

Toast the buns and pop pattie in the middle.

Extra: my husband added hot peppers and hot sauce to his, perhaps you like your food spicy too?

Salad

Mix together greens, radishes, cherry tomato. Squeeze lime juice on top.

Tzaziki

Mix together cucumbers, yoghurt, dill. Chill until meal is ready. Can be used either on burger or as salad dressing.

Plate, serve and enjoy!

Tonight's menu

 I went to Bulk Barn on the weekend and got a few things, among which was red quinoa and decided that today would be the day to showcase it at dinner.

On the menu for this evening was:
Turkey sausage
Red quinoa
Goat cheese salad


Ingredients:


- turkey sausage
- canola high
- 1 cup red quinoa
- 2 cups water (for soaking)
- 1 1/2 cup water (for cooking)
- 4 green onions, chopped
- 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
- mixed greens
- handful of cherry tomatoes
- 6 almonds, chopped
- 1 lime
- 2 tbsp goat cheese
- radishes, slices
- salt


Directions:


Quinoa
Soak quinoa in a bowl in water for 15 minutes. Rinse. Place quinoa small pot in water and bring to a boil. Cover with a lid, and turn the heat down to simmer. Cook for 15 minutes. Remove quinoa from heat and allow to sit five minutes with the lid on. Put quinoa in strainer to drain water. Place a few drops of oil in the pot, throw in garlic and onion. Add quinoa back and mix when onion and garlic have reached state you are happy with.


Turkey sausage
Make a few slits in turkey on a diagonal. Place a few drops of oil in pan. Fry sausages for approximately 10 minutes.


Salad
Wash all veggies. Mix together greens, cherry tomatoes, almonds and radishes. Sprinkle on goat cheese. Squeeze lime onto salad and mix everything up.


Serve and enjoy!

Day after grandma's departure

Today is the first day we've been without my grandma knowing that she isn't just spending a few nights at my parents' house and the first day my husband went to work before I could get him to watch the baby while I shower. So, I did what most mum's do and brought a bouncy chair into the bathroom, strapped the baby in and hopped in the shower. He amused himself very much with the the toys on the chair and didn't say a word until I was already dressed. The rest of the morning went as per usual. However...

I have embarked on a journey I am really not enjoying. I am trying to get X-man to sleep in his crib. His reaction: What the f*%$!!

The crying has been going on for 20 minutes now, I even attempted to pick him up and soothe him and he reacted as if I was the devil, and that is what I feel like right now. I know he won't hate me or remember this when he is older, I know that he will most likely eventually learn to sleep on his own, but with a holiday on the horizon in the near future, I need him to learn to sleep apart from me because we will not have the facility to sleep together. The cat definitely isn't enjoying hearing him cry, and my heart is breaking. Why do it then? Because, other than when he falls asleep in his car sear on the road, he is always in someone's arms. Now, that my grandma is gone, I can't afford to always have him in my arms, so I have to do something about it. I figured I'd blog and read other blogs while he screams and that would keep me busy.

Another 10 minutes later:

Ok, I gave in. I couldn't take it. I've taken him out of his crib. How am I going to do this?

MAJOR FAIL

Bit of a rough evening

I am not an emotional person. Bottom line. But in this moment I am feeling somewhat teary about my grandmother's departure tomorrow. Not because I won't have help on a day to day basis, but I see how much my son enjoys being around her. The biggest smile spreads across his face when she walks into the room. It's her voice that has always been able to soothe him every since we brought him home from the hospital. Every night she would come in to my room and say that if I needed her help with the baby that she'd be in her room, not sleeping, and to come and get her. We had a rough couple of weeks around the 2nd month where X-man would cry during the witching hour and she would come to the rescue. The baby would just go to sleep in her arms.

Right now, less than 24 hours prior to her departure, I've let her sit and hold him in her arms while he sleeps rather than go relieve her for the evening. When I went in to see if she was ok with him, she told me to come back at 10:00pm so she could have more time with him.

What makes me sad is that she lives so far away. It's not like I can just hop on a plane for a couple of hours, or even for 5 hours. This is a transatlantic flight with a stopover, many hours. Not that we're never going to go visit, but it saddens me that I can't just drop in or that X-man will see her in the recent future. He just loves being with her and in a way I'm glad that he won't remember this time so that he doesn't feel her absence.

I am thankful that she is healthy enough to have been able to come and that she was able to be present for his birth, and for the first 5 months of his life. We were able to take a holiday to Mexico all together and we have many pictures of X-man with her and tons of video that I have shot so that he never forgets that his great-grandma was there for him in the beginning, spilling over with love for him. This time with my grandmother is something that I really wanted and I will forever be thankful for.

To do list

Some of the tasks I'd like to get movin' and shakin' are:

1) Sign up for my French course. Deadline is the 21st, but also need to fax something to the Board of Education first.

2) Choose one sewing/craft, go buy the necessary items and make it.

3) Now that grandma is going, make a meal schedule so I know what to make and when. Soup is a given on a daily basis so just figure out which ones I'm going to make weekly.

4) Wash all of X-man's big boy clothes, even though some are years away from being worn. Just want to pack everything away smelling laundry fresh.

5) Return those library books that I keep renewing and get new ones. Some good ol' trashy novels and some real literature to vary it up. Keep a list of the books I read.

6) Research daycares in the area. This is no fun, the one I wanted doesn't accept anyone under 2 years old.

7) Go see 'someone' to talk to about being angry all the time. For someone who has a pretty darn good life, I am way too angry all the time, and I don't really have any good reasons for it. Something must be done!

In an attempt to eat some tuna...

here is a recipe I invented (not to say that it may not already exist though). I forgot to take a picture of the actual final dish, although truthfully, it didn't look very appetizing to me.

Ingredients:
- 1 can flaked tuna
- 3 tablespoons cream cheese
- 3/4 red pepper
- 3/4 yellow pepper
- flax seed bread (or crackers, or anything else you want to spread it on)

Throw everything in the food processor and pulse to your desired degree of mushiness. Spread on bread.

That's it, it was that simple. Now I can't say that I really like tuna now, but it's a start. My grandma recommended that I squeeze in some lemon juice. That was probably her way of saying that it didn't taste very good so she added lemon so she could eat it and not throw it out!! No, but she did actually say that she enjoyed it.

Too slow

Well, that was not a good start. The procrastinator came out in full swing there!

So, let's start again.

There are a few things going on which is probably the reason why I haven't stopped to write. In a nutshell:

1) my grandmother, who has been here since just before X-man's birth, is leaving in a couple of days, so we are trying to spend as much time as possible with her. I let her have the baby as much as she wants, change all the poopy diaper she wants, you know, all the good stuff.

2) I am part of a Biggest Loser Challenge, I know, I know, the whole new year, weight loss crap. It's not my new year resolution so I'm not doing it because of that. I finally feel like I have a sort of routine with the baby, am comfortable with our day to day, then again, that will change a bit now that grandma is leaving, but also I can't stand how I look in pictures. Was totally unimpressed with the family Christmas pictures we took. And most of all, I want to try for another baby in a few months and I don't want my weight to have a negative impact on that project! The cherry on top is that there is $$$ involved at the end of the rainbow, so that is a bit of a motivator at the end of the day if nothing else works.

3) I've decided to stop procrastinating the various projects I had/have in mind for this year off. They are just little silly things, but sometimes my lazy butt takes a long time to get into gear. I would very much like to attempt to sew some clothes I've seen on some of my favourite blogs. I'd also like to make some toys I've seen on those blogs as well. I admire those moms who take care of their kids and do all of these creative things on the side.

4) Have been trying to make sense of all these recipes I keep putting in my favourites folder. So as I go through them I will attempt to, when necessary, health-ify them and share them.

*Note to self: don't stick your foot in your mouth by saying you will do all this stuff if you're not really going to.*