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July 27, 2006

Bed

Most of the time these days Ethan goes to sleep in his own bed, though he still joins us during the night or in the morning. It's a good arrangement. For a long time the four of us were sharing the bed, which fortunately is a king, but still. An almost-4-year-old takes up a lot more room than you'd expect. He's gotten so tall. I don't know where all that leg suddenly appeared from. A 6-foot-7 husband, on the other hand, takes up exactly how much room you'd expect. So it gets crowded, especially because Ethan tends to gravitate towards me during the night, and I usually have Linna next to me so if she wakes up I can just nurse her (usually only once a night).

Right now Jeff's away, so it was just the three of us in the bed. Plenty of room, right? Even so, by morning I was completely hemmed in, being squished on one side by a lightly snoring baby, and on the other by a warm little boy. Periodically I moved him away from me, but he always rolled back.

Posted by ktingey at 05:11 PM | Comments (6)

July 13, 2006

Soup success!

I've been scoring pretty well lately with my cooking experiments. Let's see... last weekend I made a half-assed version of chicken makhani. I sort of followed a recipe for chicken skewers, in that I marinated them overnight, but I made up the marinade a little bit, and cheated by using a spice mix we have as one ingredient. Yogurt, ginger, garlic too. I cooked it in the oven on our maximum temperature - 550 degrees - and then did in fact follow the recipe for the sauce for chicken makhani. I didn't make it spicy, though, for Ethan's sake. Lately he hasn't been much into chicken, but he REALLY liked this, which was great. Snuck some tomatoes into him that way - well, tomato paste - and then spinach in the raita, which he can always be counted on to eat. He didn't like the dhosas, sadly. They didn't turn out as well as the last time I made them - last time I was just trying to remember how Shivy made them, and that was better. This time I was halfway following a recipe, and they weren't quite as good.

Then one weeknight this week I made quick black bean soup, and Jeff actually said he loved it and wouldn't change a thing. You have to understand that he's a total soup snob, and there's ALWAYS something he wants to change. He often complains that soups taste "thin" or "have no middle." He should be a food critic, don't you think? But maybe not in my kitchen. :) Anyway, this one he liked. Probably because I put a little bacon and ham in, cooked with onions and carrots, plus a wee bit of chipotle in adobo sauce. I added cumin and some fresh tomatoes, then canned beans with all their liquid. Am I forgetting something? A little salt... I pureed it because otherwise I know Ethan wouldn't have touched it with the tomatoes and the onions. For condiments we had hard-boiled eggs, cheddar cheese, cilantro, salsa... can't remember if there was anything else. Ethan liked it as "bean dip" on his chips.

Finally, last night we had some of the neighborhood folks over for dinner. Karla offered to bring tabbouleh, so I kinda built the menu around that since I didn't have any other ideas. I made chicken and lamb skewers for Jeff to grill. Based partly on my chicken makhani marinade, I did the chicken in lemon juice, onion, garlic, a little yogurt, and fresh cilantro. The lamb had lemon juice, onion, garlic, yogurt, cumin, turmeric, and bay leaf. Both turned out very nice. Then I made a rice dish: just a little onion (the leftovers from the marinades) sauted in butter, then I sauted the rice for a bit. Added a combination of chicken broth, white wine, and water, plus a cinnamon stick, some cloves, and a pinch of saffron. I also toasted pine nuts and almonds to mix in at the end, and threw in some raisins when the rice was almost cooked.

Posted by ktingey at 06:59 PM | Comments (9)