Give Us Your Opinion...

We are so excited about having a little girl in August. Of course now that we know it's a girl we need to start to think about how to decorate the nursery. We both really want to have a wallpaper border wrap around the middle of the room. We have narrowed down our options from 1,000's of wallpaper borders. We love the two borders below, but we just can't decide which one. So, we thought we could use the advice of those that check in with our blog. Give us a vote on which wallpaper border you like the best and be a part of decorating for our baby girl!

Both borders repeat this same image over and over..

Dancing Animals


Animals on a shelf (obviously the advertisement on the bottom wouldn't be there)

St. Patty's Day Celebration!

This year we had two St. Patrick Day celebrations. Personally I'm a believer in the more corned beef the better. Jason was a great sport and I think that a bit of my Irish is rubbing off on him. On Sunday we went to my Dad's house for a feast. This year he brined his corned beef for about 3 weeks, delicious! We also had pork and sausage to spice up the flavor. For veggies we had all the great basics
to a boiled dinner: potato, turnip, parsnip, cabbage, pearl onions, and carrots.
When St. Patty's Day rolled around on Tuesday Bella was all ready in her green gear. She looked so cute with her bandanna and her "Bark If You're Irish" bone. Since my mom is in town this week, we put together a great, traditional meal. Grant and his brother Brady came over to join in on the celebration. Dinner was delicious! The weather has been so nice here that we even were able to have it outside on the back porch.

Even though I wasn't able to enjoy a Guinness this year, I think the baby is already excited about having a wee bit o' Irish in him/her.

Reese's Pookies

Jason is so much of a cookie monster that I have to hide the cookies in the evening so he wont eat them for breakfast. This is our favorite cookie recipe, which we call Reeces's Pookies, it is basically chocolate chip cookies with Reese's pieces. The peanut butter is not as overwhelming as in traditional peanut butter cookies, plus it retains all the soft gooeyness of grandma's secret, chocolate chip cookies recipe.

Makes about 36 cookies

preheat oven to 375
grease or line 2 cookie sheets

whisk together;
one cup plus 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
half teaspoon baking soda

beat in a large bowl until well blended;
half a cup (one stick) unsalted butter, softened
half a cup of sugar
half a cup of packed light brown sugar

add and beat until well combined;
one large egg
one fourth teaspoon salt
one and a half teaspoons vanilla

stir in the flour mixture until well blended and smooth;
stir in one cup of Reece's Peanut butter chips

drop the dough by heaping tablespoons about two inches apart on the cookie sheets
bake until slightly brown on top and edges eight to ten minutes

let stand briefly then remove to a rack and cool

Enjoy

Baby's Got Moves

I have gotten into the habit of holding the baby as I fall asleep. Since baby is still in Julia's womb, this consists of laying my hand on her tummy as we doze off. This past Saturday, as sleep was fast approaching I felt a flutter on her stomach.

This was undoubtedly the baby doing a grande plie. Unless of course baby is a boy, in which case he was practicing his batting swing. Either way, this marked the first time Baby has attempted communicating with me.

Baby started communicating with Julia a few days earlier. I must admit, at first I was skeptical thinking it was just indigestion, but now I am convinced that five and half inch, 20 oz, baby is making itself known.

It is quite the experience feeling the baby for the first time. Up until now, the only sign that Julia was pregnant was the pooch on her belly, which is not at all unlike the pooch on my belly and I am surely not pregnant. Feeling the baby move reminded me that the whole pregnancy was in fact real, and made us all the more excited for his big coming out party!

Breaking up with Bacon

It's with a heavy heart that I write this post. For the past 25 years Bacon has been a great friend of mine. Whether it is Spicing up mediocre dishes or using it as a substitute for butter, bacon was always my faithful, favorite condiment.

Until one sunny day, I met Bacon's bold vivacious cousin Pancetta. At first I was cautious with this flamboyant cured pork. It lacked the weight and fat of bacon and was a huge pain to separate and slice, not to mention the pretense with which it carried itself. With its elegant packaging and small quantities, it arrogantly sits next to the expensive cheeses and Italian cold cuts instead of sandwiched between the hot dogs and the processed cheeses where the working class bacon resides. But unlike most flashy divas, the end result was worth the added drama.

The taste alone is enough to make the switch. Philosophically, I view bacon/pancetta as an ingredient in a dish, instead of superficially as a dish itself. Just as I wouldn't drink a shot of Dijon I don't really eat bacon/pancetta by itself, so I can’t really speak of a heads up comparison. What I do know is that pancetta is by far superior in taste and its harmonizing attitude than bacon. Bacon is an egomaniac. If it’s in a dish, you know because its flavor muscles its way to dominance. We allow this dominance in flavor, because fat taste great. Pancetta, while tasting great, is also a team player, its flavor doesn't need to take center stage, rather it subtlety makes itself known in between and around the other flavors instead of on top and over flavors like the simple minded bacon. My favorite taste profile with pancetta is shallots, thyme, shitake mushrooms, and pancetta. When I cook whole trout I like to sauté these ingredients and stuff them in the trout’s cavity. I used to use bacon instead of pancetta and the difference was as astounding as aloe infused toilet paper and sandpaper. Some things you just deserve!

From a health perspective, weight for weight the two have similar benefits, which is to say none. However, since pancetta's voice is so much stronger and deeper, I find that I use a third as much pancetta as I would use bacon. So in the sense that you eat less, pancetta is healthier than bacon.

We have had a good run bacon. I still think about you time to time on those occasional restless nights, but our relationship will never be the same. I will always hold a special place in my heart for you, but as we mature and go our different ways it is important to remember and appreciate the past we had rather than force and obfuscate a future that won't happen.

Mardi Gras

Even though Mardi Gras was over on Tuesday, we had our celebration on this past Saturday night by having our very own crawfish boil. We picked up 12lbs. of live crawfish in the afternoon in preparation for the festivities. Our guest included our friends Grant, Joe, and Sara. It was a challenge to finish all 12 pounds, however Jason and Joe stuck it out until the last crawdad was eaten.

We discovered Joe was the true Cajun of the group, sucking out the bodies and even eating the claws at times. We look forward to crawfish season every year and try to get in as many boils as possible. This batch was fairly good, however we have yet to see crawdads as good as pre-Hurricane Katrina days.

Although size, color, and vitality of the crawfish is important, the boil is really about just getting friends together with a pile of food and chowing down. We can't wait to show our baby how to tear open a crawfish!