crab cupcake toppers

Argh. Ben just got a look at the marzipan cupcake toppers I was gonna make for this birthday this weekend and freaked out. And not in a good way. Crabs are sort of a joke between us. We have a lot of ocean life books and little plastic crabs he plays with and at least once a day we'll snap our fingers like crab pincers. But he wigged out when I showed him these candies. Blerg. Five days to go and I need some new ideas!

big growth spurt

Nothing food related today (though I did manage to feed B. some scrambled eggs with cheese for breakfast, which is a major score for mommy) but he's having a major cognitive surge this week. He literally just started adding articles to his sentences yesterday. (Something like "Foofa likes to grow flowers.") Every other sentence is "What's that?" And he's watched "Tangled" twice this week (his first full length movie) and keeps asking to watch it again. It's so weird. He's becoming even easier to understand but he's growing up so fast that it's freaking me out. The good news is watching a little TV and eating A LOT of carbs doesn't seem to be affecting his intelligence.

tonight's dinner

I grilled some marinated beef satays I got from Whole Foods in Venice (for the guys in the house). I'm no meat eater but that store takes its meat seriously. There are more sausages, brochettes, smoked meats, etc. than I've ever seen outside a butcher shop. The marinade was a honey terriyaki so I figure some sort of Asian noodle might work. I grated fresh ginger (via microplane) with a little oil, soy sauce, garlic and miso then steamed some edamame and tossed the whole thing with pasta. (It's just getting too boring to point out that I'm the only one who actually ate anything.) This is the first time I've used ginger and it made the sauce so zingy. I wish I had started using sooner. The Australian side of my family uses it all the time but I tend more toward Mediterranean style food which doesn't call for so much ginger. But consider me a convert.

breakfast for dinner

Yesterday started with a turkey meatball and ended with scrambled eggs. And then there was one day when B. asked for oatmeal for dinner. This kid loves breakfast for dinner. I'm not super pleased about making him something different for dinner but, for purely selfish reasons, I also don't want him waking up hungry in the middle of the night. The things we will do for sleep...

when we go grocery shopping

I feel the need to write this down because I know I'll forget and soon I won't even be able to bribe B. to come to Whole Foods with me but for now I can get him there with the promise of watching Yo Gabba Gabba when we get home. Obviously I could wrestle him into the car but it's so much easier when he's compliant. And then there's the snacking. Usually he asks for pizza when we pass the brick oven and most employees are happy to give a sample slice. You get the odd stink eye but since passing out pizza will give me more time to shop it's in the store's best interest to keep my kid fed and happy. But today he wanted a banana (Yay! Bananas have been on the "no like" list for about a week now) and a slice of pita bread. And then some woman in line was praising B. for how well he ate and talking about how it's a challenge to get her kids to eat anything. Which was nice but I also knew this meant B. probably wouldn't eat the pasta dinner I was planning for tonight so there was no smug joy in seeing him stuff his face at four o'clock in the afternoon.

second birthday rolling around

I can't believe I'm planning B.'s second birthday. Where did this year go? We're doing the beach again but a morning party so I'm trying to think of breakfasty foods that'll make the grownups and the kids happy. This is gonna make me seem so out of touch but I just discovered you can buy kid-friendly yogurt in tubes. Wild stuff, I know. B. is obviously refusing to try it but I think if I stick the tubes in a pail with some crushed ice it would be a fun snack for the little ones. I also decided to cut down on the manual labor required and swap out fruit salad for buying those pureed fruit pouches. I already know I'm gonna be icing cupcakes into the wee hours the night before his party, no need to be chopping fruit as well. Frankly I'm just happy there's a really good excuse to serve a couple of those traveler boxes of coffee, 'cause what parent doesn't need a little extra caffeine on a Saturday morning?

lasagna was served

My previously rejected bolognese sauce and creamed spinach were finally hauled out of the freezer and put to good use. My friend J. came over for dinner and we both had seconds it was so good. Only I kept a couple of lasagna noodles aside and dressed those with sauce (no spinach this time around) to feed Ben. It took two days and some bribing (he took his first bite in exchange for a bottle of milk) and he finally realized I wasn't trying to poison him. It's such a bummer. I really want him to eat vegetables in their original form. Take your pick: because I love them, because I want a foodie baby, because we visit a kick-ass farmer's market every single weekend and it makes no sense to me why he rejects produce. But it looks like that's not meant to be. So I steamed and pureed some cauliflower last week that I could slip it into his mac and cheese and I'm this close to breaking down and buying Jessica Seinfeld's Deceptively Delicious. I'm so against the idea of "hidden" veggies, especially in any type of chocolate dessert, but if you can't beat 'em...

almost done!

It's my last day of work for two weeks and I'm itching to finish. Lunch and dinner has been a sad and sorry carb fest of pizza, pasta, quesedillas and pita and hummus since I've had very little time to plot out elaborate and/or nutritional dinner menus. I was a vegetarian for about 15 years so the carbs always come easier to me than planning around a protein. This afternoon's grocery bill at Whole Foods is gonna be insane since I have to stock up on all the stuff I skipped while working...meatballs, grilled chicken, etc.
I also accepted two new assignments for next month so I need to make sure I'm better prepared next time. I probably would have said no to the extra work because I've been living on coffee to keep me going but they're both social media jobs, which IMHO are tons of fun. There's nothing like tweeting when you're getting paid for it. And I think the 140 character count was designed with busy moms in mind. We've no time to focus and everything said needs to be short and sweet--which might as well describe social media management and/or parenting toddlers.
PS. Got the new babysitter a Starbucks card this morning because she's a keeper and I basically want to buy her loyalty. At which time Ben asked for a bagel. I should have bought the whole wheat but without thinking I went with the white flour bagel. I felt guilty before he finished the first bite. I'm sure there are worse things kids could have for breakfast but this looked like it had all the (lack of) flavor and nutrients of a piece of white bread. Yuck.

picky eaters suck!

Dinner Tuesday: Steak & pasta w/ zucchini parmesan sauce. Rejected by B. and DH (who said he only wants meat cooked on the grill, not in a frying pan. Scuse me!)
Dinner Wednesday: Leftover steak, rice and peas. Rejected by B. who "no like" peas and wants beans and avocado with his rice. DH never made it home for dinner.
Dinner Thursday: Thai lettuce wraps @ the Cheesecake Factory for me and DH. Spaghetti w/ meat sauce for B. He wouldn't touch a strand. No idea why.
Seriously considering hooking mac and cheese IV up to B.'s arm and not unhooking till he leaves for college.

it's been a long week...

Most of SATC2 sucked but there was one moment when Charlotte freaked out and locked herself in the pantry to get away from the kids. I watched the movie on a flight from L.A. to NYC and teared up while watching her meltdown - thanks god no one was paying any attention to my blubbering over such a crap movie with this one redeeming motherhood moment. Anyway, I had that moment today. Only instead of locking myself away I started hacking at a 3-pound Valrhona chocolate slab we have in the baking cupboard, (which was inevitable since we don't have any other kind of dessert in the house right now and we're out of liquor and/or wine).
Part of the frustration is I made some healthy-ish oatmeal cookies with B. earlier today (recipe below). He loves oatmeal so the idea behind this was to make a portable snack, sort of like a homemade granola bar, that he could enjoy. And he was totally into helping me add and stir ingredients. Only he refused to try the cookies once they were baked. So take that all you parenting books and blogs that say kids will try anything they've had a hand in making. Not true!
And then dinner (chicken sausages, pizza bread, which is basically homemade focaccia, and roasted brussel sprouts) went totally unappreciated by all dudes in the house--sidebar: I wasn't expecting anyone but me to enjoy the brussel sprouts--until I literally threw a piece of sausage in B.'s mouth while he was yawning (he was otherwise gritting his teeth) and then he loved it and ate a bunch. Except instead of being grateful that he was finally eating and enjoying the sausage, all I could think was, "You little mother effer, I knew you'd like it. Why couldn't you just trust me and eat it in the first place." Like I said, it's been a long week. So after chomping down on a bunch of Valrhona, I hacked up some more chocolate and added the chunks to the leftover oatmeal cookie dough. Somehow seems like a fortuitous salvage of the neglected cookies and my Friday night.