Baking Stone

It looks like this is slowly turning into a food blog, but as anyone who knows me can attest, if I made a "things I love most" list, food would definitely be in the top five.

We have been saying that we aren't allowed to buy any more kitchen gadgets until we move because our kitchen cabinets are already overflowing. However, Kelly expressed an interest in starting to bake bread so I jumped on the bandwagon and decided we needed to buy a baking stone.

Search around the net, and everyone and their brother will tell you to skip the expensive kitchen store stones and go buy "unglazed quarry tile" at home depot instead. Same stuff, but less than a dollar a square foot. $20 in gas later, we realized that nobody sells unglazed quary tile anymore - not Home Depot #1, not Home Depot #2, not Lowes, not "Tiles for Less", and not even the fancy tile place in town. We decided to cut our losses and pick up a nice 14"x16" stone, paying way too much for it.

I am leaving the bread making to Kelly, but I decided to break it in with our favorite garlic chicken pizza recipe. After the hour preheating, the near mishap with the pizza peel, and the 10 minutes of stone-top baking, I definitely have been converted to stone cooked pizzas. You can't argue with the not soggy, not burnt, crispy but not too crispy crust.

Kelly got second turn at the stone today. We spent a good chunk of the day making "The Best Bread Ever" (the actual title of the recipe). We learned something quick - making bread is one of those "you can't really describe it in a recipe, you need someone to show you what to do" sort of kitchen endeavors. Kelly gave it a noble first attempt and the results were quite edible, however it was definitely a learning experience. And in case I am coming across as sounding harsh - I fully admit that Kelly's bread was about a thousand times better than my previous attempt.

Why is this on Audrey's blog? It is a stretch, but Audrey did have her first bites of freshly baked bread tonight and Kelly got two thumbs up from our baby girl. She loved it.

Saturday Swimming

Today was Lil' Bit's first day swimming!

She put on her most comfy swim diapers, her most plastic-y plastic swim shorts, her cute blue swim suit, and took the big plunge. There was about 30 seconds of "I don't know what is going on here," but as soon as she learned that the pool was just one big bathtub (a little splashing helped convince her), all was right with the world again. What followed was a good half-hour of tongue-sticking-out baby glee.

It may not be her most attractive pose (she looked a bit crazy at times), but there's no mistaking the fact that she was having a ball!

Finger Foods

Along with the various recipes Audrey has been enjoying, she also has been having fun with finger foods. Peeled apples and avocado are always good. We are planning on trying green beans and steamed broccoli soon. But yesterday, she had some messy fun with cantaloupe:

Bubbles Monday

"Take a bath? That's not for me. Play with the Bubbles? Well...maybe."

That is a quote from one of Audrey's favorite books, and the inspiration for the pre-bedtime bubble blowing tonight. She really loves the bubbles. Tonight was the first time I tried capturing them on film. It's not so easy!!

Seven Months Old

Today was Audrey's seven month birthday.

We started off the day with an early morning trip to Einstein's Bagels down the street from our house. Mom and Dad had bagels and drinks and Audrey had the whole store wrapped around her finger.

After a very short nap, our next adventure was a family outing up to Snowbird ski resort. Since that is normally a good summer location to escape the heat in the valley, I just wanted to see how much snow was still up there. Answer: a lot. The tram was still open and people were still dawning their ski gear, even though it was definitely t-shirt weather up there.

Next came a very respectable 1.5 hour nap, and then a trip to the park a few blocks over. Audrey has already spent a little time in the swing while I have been away at work, but today was the first time I was able to partake. It took a little strong-arming the baby swing hogs to get Audrey a turn, and she was grateful of our efforts. Even though she barely fits in the thing, she definitely loves it.

We capped off her birthday with her biggest culinary adventure to date. For the last month all of her recipes involved: a) peeling/chopping a fruit/vegetable, b) steaming/boiling/baking said vegetable, c) mashing/blending/food milling the cooked vegetable, d) possibly adding some cooking liquid, e) freezing, f) thawing, and g) eating. Aside from occasionally mixing a little of her rice cereal with her veg, everything has been single ingredients.

Tonight's dinner, however, was "Chicken with Sweet Potato and Apple." Here's the Reader's Digest version of the recipe:

1 Tbsp unsalted butter
1/4 C chopped onion
1/4 lb chicken breast, chopped
1 sweet potato, peeled, chopped
1/2 apple, peeled, cored, chopped
1 C chicken stock

Heat butter in pan, saute onion until soft. Add chicken and cook until opaque. Add remaining ingredients, bring to boil, cover, simmer for 15 minutes, blend, serve.

...and we even made home made chicken stock (add carrots, onion, celery, parsley, pepper, and more chicken to the ingredient list). So, yes, Audrey is eating a lot better than us now. We even tasted it - aside from the whole pureed quality, it was quite delicious!

Next up, "Sweet Potato with Spinach and Peas", followed by "Potato, carrot, and corn". The first is already made and in the freezer.

Happy birthday Audrey!

Beautiful Baby

We had a little photo session this morning. Enjoy...

Dr. Judgemental and Ms. Observant

Obviously we have taken a little bit of time off from the blog. The last few weeks have been busy with work, flights, job interviews, and weddings - so that's my excuse. Also, most of my posts revolve around pictures, and I don't think I have taken a single shot since our last post. Instead, I'll just relate two recent stories - both with a little narcissism, but what else are blogs for?

The first was our wonderful visit to the pediatric ophthalmologist. I didn't realize there was such a specialty until Audrey's pediatrician suggested making a six month appointment when she was only four months old. Apparently they are difficult to get into since the first appointment they had was two and a half months out.

The doctor came off a little cocky and arrogant through the entire appointment, but he sealed the deal at the end when he nicely complemented Audrey, saying she was the cutest baby he had seen in a long time. I responded with, "Oh, Audrey, isn't that nice? But he probably says that to all the babies." Then came this rant:

No, I'm serious. I see a lot of ugly kids here. And, I don't mean just tough to look at, but they have ugly personalities too. You know...I serve all walks of life here, and sometimes I get a dad with dreadlocks, and a mom with piercings. They already have their kid in a Mohawk and you know he is destined to end up down in Draper, shooting hoops behind a chain link fence.

In case you aren't from Utah, the main chain link fence in draper is the local prison. Yeah, that's right - if you have dreadlocks or piercings, your kid will end up in jail. What a nice guy.

Story number two:

We were flying back from Boise and Audrey was dolling it up in the Airport, sitting up tall in her stroller, giving her biggest grin to anyone who looked at her. I don't know why, but as parents, you always enjoy the compliments your kid gets. "She is such a doll"..."Oh thank you. Yes, we worked hard to have the cutest kid we could."

The Southwest gate agent helping us tag our stroller for a gate check took the time to come out and ogle at our darling little girl. It typically goes this way: "Oh, look at you, you are so precious.", "Oh, and look how smiley you are!", "Your baby is so cute." and normally it ends there. But this one continued with: "Oh...you should have been here a few minutes ago. There was the most darling little girl baby here that you would have loved to meet (wink wink)".

All we could come out with was: "Umm...She is a girl baby too".

The gate agent was obviously embarrassed, and started in with "oh, I'm sorry, but she is wearing yellow. It's hard to tell." Yes, Ms. Observant didn't notice the bright pink cutesy Volkswagen beetle car taking up 1/2 of the front of her shirt, or the flowers covering her pants, or the pink socks that said: "love bug".

I know, she's bald, she's little, she's a bit androgynous, but it was the most blatant mistake yet and it was a little irksome. Oh well. At least the other gate agents were laughing at Ms. Observant.