Cookin' Up a Baby

Droooool

cookinupababy — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:27:46 +0000

I haven’t posted a recipe in a long time, so here’s one I made about two weeks ago that was delicious. Lillian literally licked the spoon and hummed mmmmmm to herself. She then chased me around for more.

Pan- Seared Pork Tenderloin with Rosemary Balsamic Reduction

Ingredients

6 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon salt
2 teaspoons freshly grated orange zest
2 teaspoons minced fresh rosemary leaves
2 1/2 pounds pork tenderloins (about 2 large), trimmed
Rosemary Balsamic and Orange Pan Sauce*
1 large shallot, minced
1/2 cup red wine
1/2 cup low-sodium chicken broth or stock
3 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon minced fresh rosemary leaves
1 teaspoon freshly grated orange zest
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Pan Sauce

2 to 3 tablespoons minced shallot
1/2 cup wine
1/2 cup low-sodium broth or stock

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Mix 3 tablespoons olive oil, freshly ground black pepper, salt, orange zest, and minced rosemary in a small bowl. Rub the oil mixture all over the trimmed pork tenderloins and place them in a large baking dish. Cover and let the pork marinate 20 minutes.

Heat the remaining 3 tablespoons oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the pork and sear, cooking until browned on all sides. Remove the pork tenderloins from the skillet and place into an oven-safe dish; cover. Roast the pork until a meat thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the meat reads about 145 degrees F, about 15 minutes.

For the pan sauce: Pour off the majority of the cooking fat leaving any browned bits in the pan. Heat the pan over medium-high heat and add the shallot and the wine. Continue cooking until most of the wine has cooked off, scraping the browned bits off the bottom of the pan.

Add the broth and continue cooking until the sauce has reduced by half. Remove from the heat. Stir in the butter, one piece at a time, until fully incorporated.

Stir in the balsamic vinegar, rosemary, orange zest, salt, and pepper, to taste. Let the pork rest for 10 minutes before slicing. Drizzle the pork with the balsamic pan sauce.

To make pan sauce:
After searing the pork tenderloins, pour off the majority of the cooking fat leaving any browned bits. Heat the pan over medium-high heat and add the shallots and wine. Continue cooking until most of the wine has cooked off, scraping the bits off the bottom of the pan.

Add the broth or stock and continue cooking until the sauce has reduced by half. Remove the pan from the heat. Stir in the butter, 1 tablespoon at a time, until fully incorporated.

Add the vinegar, fresh herbs, salt, and pepper, to taste. Spoon the sauce over the pork or meat and serve.

** I cannot take credit for this recipe as my own. I saw it on the Cooking Channel. Here’s the original recipe with some variation suggestions for the sauce.

New Year, New Routine

cookinupababy — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:20:26 +0000

Life has been busy but exciting, as I mentioned last time. I am going to try to post more, but if I don’t here is one of my reasons/excuses:

I am exhausted.

I was recently accepted into a national weight-loss/healthy living program through The Mommies Network and have been linked with a personal trainer/nutritionist in my area. We have been working on developing an exercise routine that works for my life and schedule, which means that I am getting up at 4:30 a.m. to go to the gym before work. I am really enjoying it, but man, by 9pm, I am collapsing on the couch!

I am hoping to post on here as things move along, but so far I can tell you that I am loving the circuit training and hoping to add some core strengthening exercises in as well (pilates in my living room, anyone!? Yes please!).

In addition to the new changes with my routines, Lillian seems to be growing and changing every day. Language is a constantly and rapidly evolving adventure and we are learning that she is a parrot (the other day she yelled crap, right after I did. Mama fail!). She is doing a great job of verbalizing her wants and desires which helps us eliminate some tantrums stemming from those frustrations. Now the tantrums from just being grumpy… oh they are there still, don’t worry!

All in all things are great. Here are some recent pictures to make your morning bright:

We’re here, I swear!

cookinupababy — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:40:35 +0000

Oh my goodness. What a gap in writing.

We are here and we are all doing well. Just busy.

Lillian is almost 16 months old and she is a chatterbox. She says mama, mommy, dog, cat, hat, hot, yogurt, panda, touchdown and baby just to name a few. She also will tell you the animal sounds for cow, sheep, chicken, pig, dog, lion, alligator (claps her hands really wide) and giraffe (makes a chomping sound like she’s eating leaves). She is communicating very well with us and it is so cool to see. Last night she signed more, and I asked her what she wanted more of and she shouted “YOGURT!” Clearly she understood my question.

She is also very active (she runs around like crazy) and outrageously funny. Last night, I went downstairs to start laundry and she always waits behind the gate at the top of the stairs for me. So when I start going upstairs, she heard me coming, then I heard her running and laughing. She had hidden in the kitchen and when i came up she jumped out from behind the wall with her arms in the air and yelled BOO! We all cracked up.

Lillian is also big on body parts and knows her eyes, nose, ears, hair, head, feet and belly button. She will also show you her tongue if you ask. She can also say belly button which is pretty funny and super cute.

I am going to try to post more but between having a crazy toddler, a busy house and busy work, it has been hard to remember to do it.

Tired and Inspired

cookinupababy — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 18:55:34 +0000

So there was no post yesterday. No excuses. Just didn’t get to it. I have been exhausted I thought about it a lot. I knew what I wanted to write about and how I wanted it to sound, but it just didn’t happen. My apologies.

But I do have a lot to say today and it is all centered around inspiration.

Here’s the backstory to my inspiration: I work for a nonprofit that provides addiction treatment services for people throughout Maryland. One of the special populations we serve is pregnant and parenting mothers who come into residential treatment with us and bring their kids (this eliminates the barrier of women not coming into treatment because they don’t know who will take care of their kids for 5 – 7 months).

So, with the holidays coming up, we are always looking for people to help us with our small holiday party for the women and children’s program by donating gifts and “adopting” the kids for the holidays. The participation and excitement varies from year to year, but we always try to make it a very special holiday for the kids, many of whom are spending their first holiday with their moms in a healthy state.

In searching for a way to boost participation this year and help make sure all of the kids were taken care of, I sent my email out to a bunch of business colleagues. A few spectacular folks responded immediately and signed up to help, but a few days later I still had more than 15 openings. So, being a youthful, techphilic young mama, I did what I do anytime I am looking for assistance, advice, etc: I turned to Facebook. I posted the information and asked people to let me know if they were interested. And you know what…

Within 49 minutes, all but 4 kids were adopted!

I was amazed, inspired and sincerely touched by all of the fast responses and enthusiastic people who gleefully signed up to adopt one or more kids this holiday season. Everytime I got another answer, I shed another tear.

And it got me thinking.

I have been very lucky in my life. There have been times that haven’t been easy, months where our spending has been lean or limited, but overall, I have had so many wonderful experiences and opportunities, and I am not in need of anything. If I want a new coat, or new tennis shoes or to go out to dinner with friends, I may have to shift some funds or cut spending in one area, but I can do it eventually. Many, many people can’t.

And so, this year I am starting what I hope to be an annual tradition: My No-Giftmas.

That’s right. I don’t want anything. Nothing. I don’t need anything.

But you’re my secret santa/mom/grandma/friend and you really wanted to get me something? Ok…

Give me the gift of giving back to one of these amazing charities:

Recycled Love (outstanding animal rescue group in Baltimore): http://recycledlove.org/home.html

or their other rescue branch: http://www.jasmineshouse.org/home.htm which serves those amazing pitt bulls that we love so much in our house.

This is another wonderful organization, founded by Sonja Sohn, one of the stars of HBOs hit series, The Wire. They do great things in Baltimore: http://rewiredforchange.org/

and lastly, The Family Tree is a great group that we accepted donations for in lieu of gifts at Lillian’s 1st birthday party: http://www.familytreemd.org/ They work with preventing child abuse and neglect.

Holiday Cheer in the Making

cookinupababy — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 13:43:04 +0000

This year, we decided we want to MAKE holiday gifts for people since we think they mean so much more when they are from the heart and the home and not some big box store.

So about 2 weeks ago we started our first project and yes, we needed to start then because it takes 6 – 8 weeks to properly make… homemade vanilla extract (if you read this blog and then receive a bottle, you MUST act surprised ).

So here are two pictures of our work in progress (week one and then week two):

Tsk Tsk, Bad Blogger

cookinupababy — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 00:39:53 +0000

I missed my post-of-the-day yesterday and I am so disappointed.

But… I have a good reason…

Lillian is dropping a nap and going from two to one nap per day. So I was busy saving my sanity yesterday and sitting around like a big pile of mush when she was asleep last night.

We are trying to move her morning nap back a little bit so that it is closer to noon to make her well rested and not a little cranky creature at 5:30 pm. It is easier to do on the weekends than when my mom is here watching her during the day, but all in all it is hard on everyone. Cause, I mean, who really wants to hang out with a sleepy toddler while trying to hold her off for another hour until a nap?…

So, I missed my post yesterday and I am sorry, but I am hoping that these links to some amazing recipes we have made recently will help you all forgive me

http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/001525.html

http://glorioustreats.blogspot.com/2011/09/pumpkin-pecan-dessert-in-jar.html

http://life-as-a-lofthouse.blogspot.com/2010/09/baked-sweet-and-sour-chicken-with-fried.html

http://sixsistersstuff.blogspot.com/2011/09/slow-cooker-orange-chicken.html

So Much Junk!

cookinupababy — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 21:18:58 +0000

Lauren and I decided that we needed to tackle our bit-of-a-mess basement to try to declutter and reorganize. Now, we did this while I was pregnant, but most of it involved me sitting on the couch and putting things in bins since I was gigantic and sluggish.

So today, during Lillian’s morning nap we started our great basement project. The hour and a half that we had down there went MUCH better than I thought and we cleared out two trash bags of trash and a huge box of recycling. We also condensed a lot of things and started utilizing our crawl space under the stairs a bit better.

Our goal tonight is to clean out our monster of a desk so we can take a photo of it and try to sell it on Craigslist. Who knew that we would be getting rid of our great desk that served as our undergraduate and graduate school paper-writing-station to make room for a play kitchen and some rid on toys.

Ah, kids, the infiltrate your life and force you to rearrange your house every few months to make more room for things that beep, blink and sing.

Whew! Brush those teeth, girl!

cookinupababy — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 00:12:19 +0000

I never knew that Lillian would have stinky breath at just 13 months old, but man… whew.

I suppose it could be attributed to the garlic and brussel sprouts we fed her for dinner, but oh my goodness it is terrible. Thankfully we recently bought her some Tom’s of Maine toothpaste for kids that she likes so at least she has a garlicy-strawberry odor coming from her mouth… it makes it a little more tolerable.

Say It Ain’t So!

cookinupababy — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 00:58:56 +0000

Sometimes I foolishly think that Lillian will forever be spared of things such as sleep regression, temper tantrums and learning to walk. I assume that she will always remain small and will never go through the things that all the books tell you about. Most of the time I am quickly shown that I am wrong.

My most recent “I was wrong” moment centers around the shift from two naps to one. I really thought I had another 6 months or more until our glorious two napper decided to drop one — afterall, she is still tiny, right?

Well she has a different plan in mind.

During the past few days, we have been struggling to get in a second nap, with her most stable and consistent nap of the day occurring from about 10:00 a.m. until 11:30 or so. And that’s it!

Yesterday she played in her crib for over an hour before she finally passed out for 30 minutes, and today my mom said she didn’t sleep a wink after 75 minutes. Ugh! Thankfully she is still pretty pleasant (pleasant enough to take her out to have sushi last night, and god knows we wouldn’t take a monster out in public). I just hope that the pleasantness continues and the one nap per day transition is kind on all of us.

I guess it’s true that the only thing that is constant is change.

But it doesn’t mean that I have to like it.

I Did It!

cookinupababy — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 12:23:23 +0000

I think part of it was the pressure to do what I said I was going to do and part of it was finally just being sick and tired of being inactive and ready for a change… but I did it.

My alarm went off at 4:10 a.m. this morning (although I started tossing and turning around 3:45 a.m.) and I was at the gym by 4:30. I did 45 minutes on the treadmill at varying speeds and inclines, which isn’t a ton, but it is better than what I was doing (nothing).

I was surprised to find that sooooooo many moms were there at that time. I guess a lot of people go very early in the morning before their kids get up and they have to go to work (whether in or out of the home).

I plan on going at least a few times a week and will definitely keep everyone updated on progress