Happy Friday tidbits

1. I'm so thrilled it's Friday! It's been a stressful week for both Chris' and I and we are in need of a fun Friday night! which is why we are headed to Claim 52 a new local brewery for beer. 
2. I will especially be in need of beer tonight because today I am moderating a debate at our City Club. This will be my first time moderating a debate and it will include a large attendance plus over 4000 people listening on the radio. EEKK! I would be lying if I didn't say I was a little nervous.
3. The forecast today is 78 degrees!
4. We bought Margot a bike seat to attach to my bike so we can start taking her on bike rides--can't wait I think she will love it!
5. I'm listening to the just released music for Great Gatsby, you can hear it here. I couldn't be more excited for this movie to come out!!!!
6. I am finally reading 50 Shades of Grey, actually I'm now on 50 Shades Darker. All I can say is Oh My!!! I don't know if I've ever blushed so much while reading a book...
7. Next weekend we are going to the coast for Mother's Day. I'm hoping the good weather continues so we can take Margot to the beach to play.
8. Our 5th wedding anniversary is this summer, June 21. We've booked an awesome hotel in Portland for the weekend and it will be our first weekend going away sans Margot.
9. I started my herb garden this week. It is so lovely to have an assortment of fresh herbs outside your back door when you are cooking.
10. HAPPY HAPPY WEEKEND!!!!

Spring suppers

The weather is changing and so are my menus. In fall and winter I crave brothy soups, braised short ribs, and lots of warm comforting saucy braised chicken over rice. But now that the weather is nicer and the sun is out later it's all about light and fresh flavors in my kitchen. This spring two of my favorite dinners have been warm potato salad and quiche. Both of these dinners are great because they are quick and simple and work with many variations.

Warm Potato Salad: I like to use Yukon gold potatoes. While the potatoes boil I make a homemade vinaigrette and toss potatoes with dressing while still hot.  I usually add a can of albacore tuna, some capers and maybe chopped boiled egg and serve it on spring salad greens. Last week I cooked some ground lamb and served the warm potato salad over greens topped with the ground lamb--delicious!

Quiche: I used to dislike quiche until a friend made me crust-less quiche. now I'm obsessed. It's a great dinner, breakfast or lunch. And without the crust it's light and silky. I think the trick to quiche is not too many additions and always use cream! For dinner I like to serve quiche with some roasted potatoes or root veggies and salad. My favorite combinations are cheddar, bacon and jalapeno, Swiss chard and Parmesan and spinach and mushroom. My basic recipe is so simple. Place your additions in the bottom of a pie plate whether it's sauteed spinach and garlic or bacon and jalapeno. Add some grated cheese if you are adding cheese and top with 3 eggs whipped up with 1 cup cream. Season with salt and pepper and bake 35 minutes at 350. Nothing could be simpler!

What are your go to Spring meals? What are you craving as the season changes?

Dear blog,

How I have neglected you. I am sorry. What can I say. Work has been crazy, I loath the legislature and I have a toddler. But I have super exciting news.

I FINALLY joined the land of the living and got an iPhone!!!!! I know could there be anything more exciting! I foresee much more blogging now that I have easy access to blogger from my phone, the much coveted iPhone camera and instagram. So without further ado some snap shots of the past week:

My little helper at the Market, so big and 17 months old TODAY.

Goodbye 9 inches of hair, hello my new hair cut!



Our little hipster baby...so cute, no?



And lastly I just finished the second season of Downton Abbey and holy batman do I love that show!!! Love Love Love perhaps even more than Gossip Girl and maybe even equal to Dawson's Creek. Can't wait for season 3 to come in the mail.

Sorry for the recent neglect dear blog I will try to do better--



a tragic situation, beer and potatoes, the end

So this weekend I had a bit of a...err...situation which could have, but didn't, resulted in me burning my house down. I swear sometimes I wonder how in the world I am an adult. I put my lovely turquoise tea kettle on to boil and took a very dirty egg yolk covered Margot into the other room to change her. Then I discovered globs of egg yolk in her hair and determined that a bath was necessary so we bathed and played and ran naked, and played with clothes and got dressed and played with shoes and put some shoes on and low and behold 45 minutes later....Complete destruction of my tea kettle!!!! I had black molten splotches all over, the handle attachments were melting and flopped over, there was smoke and the kettle itself had started to melt onto the burner coil on the stove. Chris was of course at his office and so I did what every mature adult does in these situations. I turned off the burner, put my child down for a nap and called my Mother. 

Long story short. Tea kettle and burner coil are toast, I got to trek to glenwood to an appliance parts store for a new coil and I am now mourning the loss of my perfect tea kettle. This was it.

See perfect. The color matches all the accents in my kitchen including my vintage turquoise canister set. And the shape is lovely. And there is no cheep ugly plastic. But I am finding that this particular tea kettle is a one of a kind which they no longer make and everything else is just depressing. I would have been in complete despair if it hadn't been for Dublin coddle. Have you had Dublin coddle??? It's freaking amazing. It's basically a giant steaming pot of meat, potatoes and lovely broth. The ultimate comfort food and so easy to make. It only has 6 ingredients. Here’s the recipe:

Dublin Coddle*

4 slices thick cut bacon

6 English banger sausages (meat counter market of choice)

4-5 Yukon gold potatoes, peeled, thinly sliced

4-5 carrots, peeled thinly slices

2 onions thinly sliced

One can chicken broth or two cups homemade chicken stock

In med. Non stick skillet fry bacon medium heat, set aside. Brown sausages in same skillet in bacon grease, set aside. Pour out most of grease, leaving about 1 Tb, cook onions until they begin to brown, about 10 minutes.

In Dutch oven or oven safe pot with lid, assemble. First spread half of onions on bottom, season with salt and pepper, layer half potatoes on top of onions and season with salt and pepper. Lay bacon over potatoes and sausage over bacon. Cover with second half of onions, season with salt and pepper, carrots, season with salt and pepper and finally remaining potatoes, season with salt and pepper. Pour broth over the top. Cover and bake at 375 for two hours.

*This recipe is my own adaption of several online versions which all claim to be from someones Irish grandmother

Eat with crusty bread and drink lots of new castle brown ale and you will feel so happy you will almost forget the tragedy of your broken tea kettle until morning when there is no longer English ale and potatoes to console you. The end.

The Art of Self expression

I have lots and lots of fun dressing Margot. I was telling someone recently that besides cooking I feel like my only other hobbies these days are dressing myself and dressing Margot. But as much fun and I have picking out her little outfits I am starting to love watching her pick things out herself. And let me tell you that child already has some opinions. She loves to pick her own shoes and I mostly let her. She also likes to pick her dress for church. I usually get 3-5 weather appropriate options and then let her choose one. And there are days where she is not wearing the item I have selected and so we pick something else. But this weekend...this weekend was the dawn of a new era my friends. The era that I imagine will become known as the tutu era.

Earlier last week I got Margot this tutu skirt at a baby consignment sale. Margot went crazy for it. And as long as she sees it she wants to wear it...end of discussion. She is also very partial to this funny purple and green hand knit sweater. And those ballet pink shoes are another favorite.

Sure she looks rather ridiculous in this get up but she was so proud of it and she walked proudly all of the neighborhood enjoying the sun, the outdoors and I imagine the beaming joy of dressing herself. And after all isn't this an important part of ever childhood.

Food Notes

1. I'm basking in a wonderfully delicious and comforting dinner of garlicky, buttery, herby, sauteed shrimp, with green rice, and sauteed broccoli with garlic and red pepper.

2. Margot LOVED this dinner. She started her meal by polishing off 5 whole shrimps in 2 minutes followed by an adult size portion of broccoli. This child loves food and I couldn't be happier. She eats whatever we eat including Indian food, Thai curry, fish, kale, spinach, brown rice, buckwheat noodles and so on. The only thing I have found her to not like is avocado and raw tomatoes. I think it helps that both my Mom and I feed her a great variety of good flavorful food. We feed her whatever we are eating and if she doesn't like something we don't force it but we also don't give her an alternative and we simply try the food again several days later. Usually after a few tries she will embrace it.

 3. Have you all heard of the Frugal Gourmet? I recently picked up on of his books, The Frugal Gourmet cooks American, at St Vincent de Paul's and I'm in love with it. From what I can tell he had a cooking show in the 80's. I'd love to find a DVD of it.

4. My favorite wine is Malbec, it's a hearty red wine from south America. It's great with strong flavors which made it the perfect pair for my garlicky spicy dinner.

5. The farmers Market opens in two weeks. We can't wait. We have missed our saturday mornings at the farmer's market so much. And our CSA starts back up in just a few months. Despite today's blustery rain spring is coming....and with it so much good food. Hello spicy mustard greens, fresh young asparagus, leeks, salad greens and fresh peas!!!!

Time Passes with lots and lots of joy

We all know time goes by so quickly. One minute we have a screaming newborn and the next we have a jabbering toddler who is drinking milk from a real cup!!! The constant growth of our little girl aside I realized last week that I have been back at work full time for just over a year now, 13 months to be exact. For some reason this milestone really struck me.

When I went back to work I thought it was the hardest thing EVER. Sure it was hard to leave Margot, but what was really hard was juggling it all. I went back to work at my 40-50 hours a week from the beginning. Starting with week one I returned to lots of 7am meetings, 5pm networking events and city council meetings from 7pm-10pm. But this isn't designed to be a post about how hard being a working Mom is. On the contrary. Sure Margot and I had a challenging adjustment at times. Two weeks after returning I had my first day where I practically didn't see her at all. Pumping sucked and sucked and then it sucked some more. For the first 6 weeks I was back at work Margot woke up every single freaking hour to nurse all night long! I was a walking zombie for the first few months. But we got through it. Each week it got a little bit easier. We got better at juggling our time, we changed our expectations of how we ran the house, we streamlined dinners and we started to find balances.

I don't like the term work-life balance. I think it creates a misconception that there is a perfect balance out there that we should all be able to achieve. I think we just do what we need to do. This can be a challenging time in our lives. For us, and for many of our friends, we are young and new to our careers. We are still trying to pay off loans and build up our financial stability and we are trying to be the best parents, spouses and friends we can be.

Chris and I have an admittedly crazy life. And I know that many people think we work too much and take on too much. To some extent that's true. I have found a lot of joy in being a working Mom. I love my job and I love working. I enjoying getting dressed up every morning and being out in the community working with interesting people and on interesting issues. I love the crazy rush of an issue campaign, the energy, the ideas, the off hours meetings over beer and of course, the win! I also love the time Margot and I have together. Because I'm away from her all day I feel like our time together is so precious. When we are together it's all about playing, reading, snuggling and enjoying our time. And I love our reunions each day, the head tilt smile from her, the REAL hug and the jabbering all the way home.

I think, for me, working makes me a happier person and that makes me a better wife and mother. The truth is that I dreaded returning to work after Margot was born but I was so wrong. Returning to work has turned out to be a wonderful thing for me and I'm so grateful to have that part of my life and to have my funny Margot.

Margot and I a few weeks ago before Church. She is wearing a wool dress coat and matching bonnet that was mine as a baby.