Category Archives: Food

The first tomato and some ‘chokes

I’ve seen tomatoes at the farmers’ market for almost two months now, and I’ve avoided them like the plague (if only I were so good at avoiding the regular daycare plagues courtesy of Sir).  Sure, they’re locally grown, but most of the very early ones grew in tunnels or hothouses, and they lack that perfectly ripe, hot summer weather tomato taste that makes a REAL tomato.

My waiting paid off last week when my MIL presented our first garden tomato of 2012.  In our eagerness to dig in, I neglected to take a picture before slicing it, but rest assured that it was big and beautiful.

We enjoyed it pure and simple, with some salt and a drizzle of olive oil.  It served as the perfect addition to our meal of quinoa salad and . . .

. . . garden-grown artichokes!

Growing artichokes in our zone requires some special tricks, but Matthew managed for the second year in a row.  I didn’t write much about them last year because most of the harvest came in right around the time Gabriel arrived.

We enjoy them steamed and dipped in a olive oil and butter sauce.

Artichokes with dipping sauce

Recipe by Melissa

Ingredients
Whole, fresh artichokes
1 T. olive oil
1 T. butter
1/2 t. lemon juice
salt to taste

Directions
Cut stems off of artichokes (if not already removed) to leave a flat base.  Place artichokes on the bottom of a pot, standing upright.  It helps to choose a pot where you can pack the ‘chokes tightly so they stay upright.

Add water to cover the bottom of the pan, place a lid on the pan, and steam the artichokes until tender, 15-30 minutes, depending on size and freshness.  They are ready to eat when you can easily pull out on of the leaves and/or when you can easily insert a fork in the base.

While they steam, melt the butter and combine with olive oil, lemon juice and salt to make a dipping sauce.

Serve  artichokes whole with dipping sauce.  To eat, pull off outer leaves, dip in sauce, and then scrape the flesh at the inner base of the leaf with your teeth.  As you get closer to the heart, there will be more tender, edible flesh on the leaves.

Once near the heart, use scissors to snip off the top, pointed portion of the remaining leaves.  Dip and enjoy!

Still gotta eat

As would be expected, the move altered our usual cooking and eating patterns a bit.  I cooked on Friday night, but by Saturday it was time to start saying goodbye to our kitchen.

We planned to go out to eat on Saturday with my mom, who came to see Sir and help pack.  Unfortunately, I came down with the latest disease from Typhoid Gabriel and didn’t really feel like eating much of anything, much less leaving the apartment to do so.  We settled on take-out from Pho Grand.  Not the greenest dining option, giving their use of the standard large polystyrene containers, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

We had a decent supply of leftovers in the fridge, so we worked on lightening that load at both lunch and dinner on Sunday.  We enjoyed a “deconstructed” pumpkin lasagna for lunch (yay for frozen homemade pasta) and a Swiss chard and chickpea dish for dinner.

All bets were off on Monday, our actual moving day.  When lunch rolled around, we’d been up packing and moving for hours.  I picked up some sandwiches and deli-case salads at a nice little deli within walking distance of our new place.

Except I didn’t walk (hangs head in shame).  I was heading back to our old apartment to get Matthew and a last car load, and the deli was more-or-less on a direct route anyway, and it was like eleventy-million degrees outside with high-noon sun, and with a second floor to second floor move, I’d already walked up and down more flights of stairs than I cared to count.  So that’s my excuse for choosing inactive, gas-guzzling transportation.

But lunch was good, though, once again, some disposable containers.  Matt’s mom brought us carry-out pizza for dinner.  The pizza box was pretty darn clean, so that at least got recycled.

The good news is that despite the still-crazy state of our apartment, we’ve gotten back into the kitchen the past few nights.  By which I mean Matthew’s gotten back into the kitchen, of course, per our usual weeknight routine.

The garden supplied almost all of the ingredients for Wednesday night’s dinner.  Boiled beets — some cubed for part of the main dish, some thinly sliced for a side with goat cheese.

Potatoes “baked” in the microwave, cubed, and tossed with olive oil and salt to serve as a base for sauteed cabbage with onions [previously] roasted elephant garlic, edamame, and the cubed beet.

The only produce on the plate NOT from the garden was the edamame and the onions (both of which we’re growing but are not ready for harvest yet).

Plum out

I’ve been trying to lighten the load for our move (less than a week away!) by eating through some of the dry goods in our pantry.  While the shelves are by no means bare, they are a bit emptier, and the post-move shopping list on the fridge grows longer every day (I’m afraid this grocery trip may give new meaning to “Whole Paycheck”).

We ran out of raisins a couple of weeks ago, and we have extremely limited quantities of a couple of other dried fruits, so I’ve gotten creative with my morning oatmeal.*

The plum trees at my MIL’s have yielded a bumper crop this year, and, while cutting the flesh away from the pit is a bit of a pain, they contribute to a delicious bowl of oatmeal.

This variety of plum is very tiny, perhaps a bit larger than a big cherry.  Small and delicious!

Sir also finds the plums an acceptable (if messy) addition to meals.

*Raisins are not the only fruit I eat in my oatmeal, but they’ve become a go-to when apples aren’t in-season.  While not local, shipping dried fruit from California is better environmentally than shipping fresh fruit, because of the water weight.

Bicycles and Food Truck Friday

On Friday night, I hauled out the bike trailer for our trip to Food Truck Friday (FTF) in Tower Grove Park (since we’re not quite ready to use our new front seat).

Getting there
Mid-way through our ride to the park, Sir was so ridiculously and awkwardly slumped in the trailer that I pulled over to straighten him out.  By the time we arrived, he had resumed the awkward position.

I suspect that my modification to the baby supporter, which I thought so clever, and which is necessary to fit the harness over Sir’s head without a struggle, may be contributing to the slumping.  Argh, I am so over the trailer!

The food
We’ve been wanting to try the Korean barbeque tacos from Seoul Taco ever since they sold out before we could get them at FTF in October.  Unfortunately the line was ridiculously long, so I headed to Lulu’s Local Eatery, which was also high on my list.

Having experienced the long lines and food selling out issue at a past FTF, I went all-out at Lulu’s, ordering the sweet potato falafel, quinoa bowl, and sweet potato fries (I was bummed that they weren’t serving the soba noodle bowl that night).  Matthew and I enjoyed the food, but Sir was too distracted by his first picnic meal to eat much (we paid for this later, when he was up and crying for over an hour in the middle of the night).

Go by bike
I noticed a dad with a little one in an iBert — but it was as we were getting ready to leave and returning from the Recycling On the Go recycling and composting station, that I spotted something even more exciting — a Yuba Mundo!

After I wiped the drool off of my chin, I chatted briefly with the family and asked if we might be able to meet up sometime to take it for a test ride.  They raved about the bike and were happy to give me their phone number so we might be able to take it for a spin sometime (assuming I didn’t already lose the number).

As we left, we couldn’t help but notice the crazy number of cars cramming the lanes of the park.  To make matters worse, it appears that a car company is somehow sponsoring the event, as we biked by a big, ugly Chevrolet banner.  I think the company reps were handing out “keys” that served as coupons.  Ugh.  Can you say sell-out?

I propose that Food Truck Fridays be a car-free event.  Given the lengthy lines and food sell-out issues, FTF would really benefit from a slightly smaller crowd.  There should be enough attendees within biking and walking distance to sustain the event.

Barring that possibility, anyone who walks or bikes to the event should get a “skip to the front of the line” pass.  Until then, we’ll pack our own picnic dinners and eat in the park on lower-key nights.

Breastmilkin’ it

So, breastfeeding.  I may have mentioned it here in passing, but that doesn’t accurately reflect something that’s been a pretty major part of my life for the past eleven months.  Here we are, and I’ve almost made my goal of breastfeeding for the first twelve months.

In the beginning
Since the Cesarean birth was completely unplanned, I didn’t have much time to worry about the negative effect that it could have on initial breastfeeding.  Gabriel and I has a few minutes of skin-to-skin time in the OR, while I was being sewed, cauterized, and stapled back together, but he did not have the chance to latch on immediately.

When we were reunited in the recovery room an hour later (I’m not really sure how much time passed — I know Matthew was really fighting to get us together immediately), Gabriel snuggled up and latched right on.  With a bit of help from the lactation consultants in the hospital, we were off to a good start, despite our separation while he was in the NICU.

While there was some initial discomfort, I made the transition to breastfeeding fairly easily.  As for Gabriel, well, we never got around to it, but we wanted to make a custom t-shirt with “Born to Suck” printed on it.  Sir liked his mama’s milk.

Back to Work
I headed back to work when Sir was fourteen weeks old.  We intentionally chose a daycare that is literally located right across the street from my office.  With the exception of Monday when he stayed with grandma, I walked across the street and fed him during the day instead of pumping.

I honestly can’t say that I would have continued breastfeeding this long if I was pumping all the time, and my hat is off to those work-outside-the-home mothers who do so (and to those moms who stay home full time, because I don’t think I could do that, either!).

Six months and beyond
We introduced solids, using BabyLed Weaning methods, just after the six month mark.  It was a slow start, but Sir gradually became as enthusiastic about grown-up food as he was about milk.

By the time he was nine months old, we went from five to four milk feeds a day, plus three solid meals, which is where we currently stand.

Bumps in the road
My breastfeeding experience overall has been smooth and positive.  I credit the initial early help from the hospital lactation consultants and the support I received at La Leche League meetings for that.

I have had a few bouts of mastitis.  The first, and probably the worst, prompted a visit to the doctor, where I accepted, and even filled, an antibiotic prescription.  I gave myself twenty-four hours to start feeling better without the antibiotics, and, sure enough, my body cleared the infection on its own.

We’ve also gone through some rough patches with frustrating nursing strikes, mostly due to teething, I suspect.  I was tempted to call it quits during some of these periods, but I’m glad I stuck it out.

Then there was the wondering if my dairy consumption was giving him problems.  My dairy-elimination trials were inconclusive — at this point I would say that either dairy wasn’t the issue, or he outgrew it.

While breastfeeding has been a good thing overall for my mental health, I struggled at times feeling tied down, frustrated with the inability to do anything that took me away from my baby (or my breast pump) for more than three or four hours.

Size Doesn’t Matter
Though I’ve always been a bit self-conscious about my lack of cleavage (“nearly” A-cup, to be specific), I always thought I would have babies and breast feed and never really worried that my small breasts would be a problem.

Turns out, my “too small” breasts produce more than enough milk to adequately nourish a big, healthy baby.

The Future
I remember going through rough patches in the early days, telling myself that I could make it to the six month mark and then reevaluate.

Now that I’ve almost made it the full twelve months (my original, long-term goal), I’m pondering next steps.  While I won’t go cold-turkey at the twelve-month mark, neither do I see myself nursing a five-year-old.

A story from a friend inspired the title of this post.  She found her nephew (who sees her breastfeeding her baby) with a stuffed animal held to his chest.  When asked what he was doing, he replied, “I’m breastmilkin’ it.”