Friday for me

Fridays are my 'Sundays'. I work Saturday-Monday and stay home with the boys Tuesday-Friday. Our main car is in the shop, and I have to drive the truck to work tomorrow. It's a stick shift, which I can handle, but the truck has no power steering, so I'm going to be practicing my strong arm skills a little later on tonight.....

All in all it was a productive day. Fridays are always a little bitter sweet, I really like my job, and I feel like it's good for me to get away for a few days, and make a little extra money, but it always makes me a little sad to not be with the boys during the day.....I mean, look at Hunter, my little den creature! How cute is that face??

Always creeping under the furniture!!

Speaking of the boys, they both have two top teeth and two bottom teeth now, so to celebrate, they had a solids only breakfast! Scrambled eggs and toast! Yay!!

I also made a really delicious dinner tonight! Porchetta with tomatoes, olives, garlic and Marcona almonds w/ rosemary & Kale

Porchetta recipe here: http://pinterest.com/pin/78672324717081185/

For the topping, I toasted the almonds (half cup or so) in a large, rimmed, oiled skillet, then I added the olives (1/3 jar, drained) and the roasted garlic from the porchetta (just squeeze the cloves out of the halved heads right into the skillet) and some rosemary needles. Stir around a min or so until fragrant. Then add tomatoes (do not drain!) some salt and pepper and simmer until most of the liquid has evaporated. At this point, I added a handful of kale and turned the heat off and covered while I prepared the plates and sliced the porchetta. I then put 2-3 slices of porchetta, and topped with a generous amount of the topping.

Topping ingredients

Bon Apitit!

Procrastinating some

Today I had a lot of chores around the house planned, but the boys slept until almost 10, so I took full advantage and slept in too. 

I've been thinking a lot about balance and about how hard it is sometimes to stay motivated to do certain things, even if they're really good for you. I wish I was the kind of person who could rise with the sun, drink a warm lemon water before doing some yoga and making a smoothie while catching up on current events and leading the kids through a mess free art project, all before 11 am, but I not, and, quite frankly, I kind of hope that sort of person doesn't actually exist, it's too much to live up to! However, I did get most of the chores done, rescheduled a few, and actually got the boys dressed before noon ;)

Lazy day

The last two days it was sunny and 60 degrees, definitely not typical for January, however, today, my firs day off of the week, it was overcast and in the 50s, which is still, more like April, but it was a good day for sleeping in, haha, jk, the boys were up at 8:30, seriously though, it was a good day for laying low and lounging around with my two little men.

Today was also the 70th anniversary of the liberation of aushwitz, 

which fed the sort of somber day, I read news reports about it, and contemplated the ways in which I can help be a person working for a better tomorrow, to ensure this sort of thing never happens to the marginalized of society ever again.

We also listened to the radio to help keep the mood calm and not to 'dark', and I downloaded the first episodes of season 4 of Scandal (obsessed!) which I later devoured once Dave got home.

Speaking of devouring, I made a great mustard & leeks chicken recipe, and this awesome beet/green bean recipe too.

Mustard chicken recipe: http://pinterest.com/pin/78672324716961827/

Beet carpaccio with green bean salad recipe: http://pinterest.com/pin/78672324716959332/

Turned out great!!

It's what's for dinner

Hey-o! I've recently been making dinner menus for the week, I'm a list maker, and it helps me to use things up before they go bad! Anywhoozle, tonight I made white pizza with grilled onions and mushrooms, bacon, roasted kobocha squash, and spinach. I've made the white sauce before, and it's so good! Definitely not low fat, but I mean, the best things usually aren't, amirite?

I don't make my own dough, I use the trader joes herb pizza dough already made, you can make your own (obvi) or you could do it with a cauliflower crust if you have a good recipe for that, please share! I've yet to get it just right.....

Back to the pizza, sauté a small yellow onion, sliced into rings, and mushrooms, any you like, (I used shiitake, sliced) with some olive oil, 2-4 Tbsp. Then fry up your bacon, I used 3 strips for 2 pizzas, I had half a kabocha squash roasted, from a previous meal, so I peeled and sliced up half of that (1/4 squash). I also pre grated half a round of hard mozzarella. I put a pizza stone in the oven and preheat to the highest setting. I flatten the dough into a 10-12 in round on a well floured board (I need to get one of those pizza boards, I had a heck of a time getting it off my cutting board and onto the hot pizza stone) then spread the white sauce. Then spread out the onions and mushrooms, then chop up the bacon and sprinkle it around, spread out the squash, then cover everything with mozzarella. Slide it onto the pizza stone and bake for 8-10 min, let it cool 5 min then sprinkle raw spinach on it, let cool 4-5 more min, slice up and serve!

Roasted kabocha squash: http://pinterest.com/pin/502151427173321089/

White pizza: http://pinterest.com/pin/78672324716090222/

 

These two little guys were standing by, no pizza for you, just yet! ;)