And Here's Another One

My little guy finally ate real food yesterday evening after more than 48 hours of not eating, to everyone's relief. (Particularly his. He kept walking around saying, "My tummy is so happy!" Except with all the trauma to his mouth, it came out "My nummy ish show happy!")

What did he eat, you might ask? Cheese rice.

Yes, cheese rice. I cannot tell you how many people I have said this to in response to their concerned questions, and they stare at me blankly. What is cheese rice? they ask.

Um.

It's rice.

With cheese on it.

A common delicacy in this Savannah household, and yet a mysterious and foreign dish to so many. So here's the recipe.

1) Cook some rice. I like good old-fashioned Uncle Ben's long grain white rice. I also slightly overcook it when serving it to my kids so it has a little bit softer texture.
2) Add shredded cheddar cheese.
3) Stir.
4) Eat.

Starch and cheese. Really, you can't go wrong.

Yes. An Actual Recipe.

Atlanta Mom, perhaps noticing that not a single blog post this month has actually contained a recipe, sent me this over the weekend to post. Y'all enjoy.
***
Once the weather is warm, our recipe options dwindle to very few. We are always looking for more light, cool dishes as opposed to the hearty heavy ones that we enjoy during the colder months. This is a new one I've discovered (Editor's note: from Ina Garten! Yay Ina!), and I've made it twice in 2 weeks already. For 2 adults or a family of 4 where the 2 younger members won't eat much, halve the recipe--not only it is plenty, but there will be a small-tupperware's worth of leftovers for lunch the next day.

Couscous with Teasted Pine Nuts
Serves 6 to 8

4 T. unsalted butter
2 cups chopped yellow onions
3 cups chicken stock
1 1/2 t. kosher salt (I always use less when cooking from Ina's recipes)
1/2 t. black pepper
2 cups couscous
1/2 cup pine nuts, toasted
1/2 cup minced fresh parsley

Melt butter in large saucepan. Add the chopped onions and cook over medium-low heat for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally until tender but not browned. Add the chicken stock, salt, and pepper and bring to a full boil (I usu. have the stock hot in a separate small saucepan). Stir in the couscous, turn off the heat, cover, and allow to steam for 10 minutes. Fluff with a fork, stir in the pine nuts and parsley, and serve hot.

**She has a make-ahead note that says to cook onions and add the stock, salt, and pepper, then set aside. Before dinner, heat to boiling, add the couscous, and wait 10 minutes for a delicious side dish with no stress.**

The Whole Tooth

If I needed confirmation that none of you are really paying attention to what I am saying, I got it with the complete lack of ridiculing e-mails, pointing out the utter idiocy of a statement I made 2 blog posts ago: "Readers, I will return when the chaos departs. Hopefully in a day or two. Stay tuned." Um, hello? I have two little boys. The chaos never departs. It just fluctuates.

DH and I finally, finally recovered from our colds and had planned a delicious Easter dinner. (And by that I mean I had planned a delicious Easter dinner. DH plans dinner about as often as I fly to the moon.)

But alas, our little one had other plans. He took a spill at the pool, and I learned the following lessons. (1) Mouths bleed. A lot. (2) Teeth are surprisingly fragile. (3) Doctors, dentists, and orthodontists on-call over Easter weekend are all happy to just see you in their house if you call them 15 minutes before they're about to eat their own Easter dinner, and it turns out you live in the same neighborhood. A whole new twist on house calls.

But as usual, I digress. My entire point, I think, is this: perhaps I am not cut out to be a food blogger. Our dinners tonight were entirely built upon what our neighbors and friends brought us: pizza for DH and our oldest, yogurt smoothies and chicken broth for the little one, and Matzo ball soup for me (OMG is there any better comfort food in the world? No.) All the blogging advice I've read says "blog every day" to build readership, but Lordy knows. It just ain't happening around here.

Time to get ready for the tooth fairy.

Standoff

My refrigerator and I are in midst of a cold war at the moment (ha! pun totally intended!). It is full of fabulous items from our farm box delivery, like fresh carrots, peas, mushrooms, baby lettuces, cabbage, oranges, and little vidalia onions. I, on the other hand, am still full of snot. Which makes all vegetables, and most fruit, completely unappetizing. I don't know why it is that whenever I feel the slightest bit sick, vegetables lose all of their appeal. When I was pregnant with our youngest, just seeing a salad would make me vomit. Does this ever happen to Alice Waters???

So, we are continuing to eat things like pizza-that-gets-delivered-rather-than-grilled, and I feel guilty watching that cabbage slowly shrivel a bit more every day.

With any luck, we'll be back to our healthy ways next week. Have a great weekend.

Three for Three

We are, once again, mired in our family's Trifecta of Chaos: head colds for everyone, plus work travel for me, plus a weekend of working for DH. Why these things always hit at once is beyond my snot-stuffed brain to comprehend, but they have. Thus, for dinner this week we have had: cereal (Monday), scrambled eggs (Tuesday), and take out from our neighborhood clubhouse tonight. The only thing remarkable in all of this was when I looked up from my soggy chicken quesadilla tonight, I realized my children were naked. Totally naked. Odd, right? When I asked them why, they said it was naked-dinner-night.

Well, okay. In my exhausted, sudafed-plus-Clariten-plus-Aleve existence, I'm sure that makes sense on some level.

Readers, I will return when the chaos departs. Hopefully in a day or two. Stay tuned.

Whine, Whine, Wine

I can always tell when I go back and read my own posts which ones were written after a glass of wine. Yes, there is a spell check function on blogspot. No, I apparently cannot find it after a toddy.

In with the New

I posted a few weeks ago about our despised chandelier, which is now sitting forlornly on the side of the street, waiting to be picked up tomorrow. Our new one has been delivered and I am so thrilled with it - much simpler and classier. Any day now we'll have to start Dressing For Dinner.

Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez...

...and I'll be rolling right along with them, I ate so much this past weekend. Ugh! Can we please call a halt to the skinny jeans trend and skip straight to the I-ate-my-way-through-vacation-jeans trend?
***
It appears that it is nearly impossible to have a bad meal in New Orleans. I say *nearly* only because, hypothetically speaking, if one is so intent on getting to Saks Fifth Avenue that one passess all the cute bistros on a five mile road and doesn't discover one is starving until one is actually in Saks, one might be forced to eat at "Cafe Sbarro." Hypothetically speaking, of course.
***
I forgot my camera. I could just absolutely kick myself for this, because the architecure and details of New Orleans are truly a feast for the eyes.
***
Here are some food lessons learned in New Orleans:
1) Everything is better with butter and garlic.
2) A perfect meal just might be lamb meatballs served with an eggplant and tomato sauce, topped with fresh provolone and arugula.
3) Or it might be the world's most perfectly prepared scallops.
4) Or red wine and crawfish risotto.
5) Or crawfish crepes (OMG. So frickin' good).
6) Or just about anything there.
7) Except Sbarro.

Beignet, Done Dat

First, some background. Attorney Mom and I are having a reunion in New Orleans. Long time readers may remember that Attorney Mom was my partner in crime in Savannah for ages. Then she had the gall to up and leave me, returning home to Kansas City to raise her children closer to family. Gah. This has been a tragic event in my life. BUT, now we are in New Orleans pretty much eating our way through the French Quarter and beyond.
***
The first order of business, naturellement, has been to discover the city's best beignets. We take this endeavor very seriously. After three well considered taste testings in approximately 13 hours, we have a winner. Cafe Beignet, on Royal (just in case you're in the neighborhood) is the clear winner. Cafe du Monde, surly waiter and all (note to future diners - asking for coffee to be decaf AND served with milk is one request too many), gets all the fanfare, but the beignets were average. However, here's the interesting discovery: after Attorney Mom's apparently too high maintenance request for milk, I was scared to ask for sugar for my coffee. Turns out powdered sugar shaken off a beignet does just fine.

April Food Day

Some very clever bloggers, far more clever than I, have designated April 1st as "April Food Day," a day to help fight hunger in our communities. If you have not made a contribution to your local food bank in a while, either of food, money, or time, today would be a good day to do it.
***
My iPad automatically corrects "blogger" into "booger." I find this funnier than I should. Having little boys is clearly rubbing off on me.