Final Supper

... of 2009. We decided to take the year out in style and went for ... can't stand the tension.... drum roll please.... Pizza! (shouted like the greek "Opa"). Yeah to put this year to bed it seemed like the obvious choice. We also had veggies and dip. Finger food or snacky food as the wife likes to call it. The kids enjoyed their final feast while watching a film. Notice the lack of eye contact with the camera.I got some hot chorizo sausage for the adult pizza tonight but the flavour didn't really come through. That said, the green peppers, mushrooms, olives and red onions brought a flavour tsunami crashing into this meal. So the meat was extraneous. Although it does add a nice touch to the picture.
Here is the Mrs. eating her dinner. Note the veggies and dip, a little runny this evening. I would love to add two or three tablespoons of sour cream to the dip but then you have most of a tub of sour cream left and it seems like it would go to waste.

On a blogging note it has been a pretty week couple of months here. Just haven't had the routine going. Weird nights and minimal motivation. I am pretty conflicted of how I will proceed with the blog in the new year. Haven't spent a lot of time thinking about possible options but I have definitely lost the thread on posting about dinner.

Well things are falling apart behind me. I have two kids in tears. As mom used to say, having to watch your kids fight is definitely the worst.

Happy 2010.

Daily Assorted.

Well we had a sort of dinner mash up this evening. In front we have the salmon brussel sprout and corn stew from a few nights back. At the top we have some pan fried carrots and potatoes. To the left we have a cheese, onion and chicken omellette. I have used my mustard liberally to add a little more yellow to my palette. For dessert we all had a gingerbread cookie. The son and I had the cookies that were covered in jelly beans and smarties. The daughter ate the one she had made as an effigy of herself. The wife had a modestly decorated one. Says a lot about who we all are.

Here below is the family forging on with their feast.
It was a busy day around the homestead. What with calling and singing happy birthday into the phone every ten minutes there was barely time to get anything done. However the bedrooms have been rearranged and now all three kids beds (that includes the crib) are in the small bedroom. And that is it. No toys, no book shelves, no dressers. It is a place of sleep period. There is a comfortable chair for feedings and bed time book readings but that is it. All the toys have been moved down stairs and it really feels like we are gearing up for the big fixer upper/mover outer. Still a long way to go but it feels like it has begun.

So 2008

Well we went back to the well. I thought the singing was a cute touch. Funny how the novelty isn't anywhere near the same a year later. Oh how quickly we become jaded.

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Spirit Arrives

Well the holidays have commenced. It was make cookies day here and the cookies are legion. Amazingly the toppings managed to last. At the start it looked like we wouldn't have enough but once everyone stopped snacking and we started rationing the number you could put on a cookie everything worked out. Not that I did any of the decorating or baking. I was more of a support staff.

I would have had dinner pictures but we didn't really have dinner. We had perogies, mccains mini pizzas, leftovers, guacamole, salasa, salad and chips. Not to mention treats, cookies and other assorted snacks. Very happy with the fact that I got a run in today. Hoping not to let the last eight months of staying fit all go to waste over the next two weeks. It will be hard.The boy continues to get more interesting every day.

Santa Sunday

Well here is us hanging with Mr Claus. The kids all got scored some loot and got to watch "Cloudy with Meatballs" as part of the bargain. They had all seen the movie once or twice but still stayed in their seats enjoying it the whole time. I think they may have been giving away plot points to the patrons around them but I was at the back with the wife and baby so I can't say for sure. In any case it was a pretty special day as usual.

For dinner we had chicken strips with rice and veggies and dip. The Mrs. had to actually scold the son for not eating his chicken strips. He just wouldn't stop putting back the veggies. The Mrs. also made a version of humus only we added cilantro and probably didn't add very much salt. It was great with the veggies as well. With one week till winter vacation I am just trying to keep my nose above water. I think I can, I think I can.

Birthday Wishes.

Well we had a birthday today so we were busy all day with getting ready. It started with some serious stirring as we tried our hand at making a castella. The hand whipping has us promising to get a hand blender by the fall of 2011. We also talked about getting a good mixer. Yes we are planning to seriously settle down. After that was done the kidlets and I went out shopping. We got some prezzies for mom and some fixins for dinner. Upon arriving back home the Mrs. took an afternoon off for herself. Her last directions as she left were to bake the loaves at 325 for 50 minutes starting at 3:15. So at 3:30 I turned the temp gauge to 325 and set the timer for 50 minutes. What I didn't do was turn on the stove. So at 4:20 I looked in the oven to see some seriously deflated loaves. That were still moist. After barking at the kids for turning the oven off I realised I was the bad guy and turned it on. The loaves pictured below would have easily blocked all views of the little shelf behind them if they had been baked properly. It was a body blow for the wife when she returned to these shrunken sad looking loaves. They still taste good but I messed that one up good.

Trying to recover from the bread debacle I had stuffed the pork roast with an apple, celery, onion, garlic, and cilantro stuffing. There were other spices, salt and pepper and bread combs added as well. This was then roasted with yams and onion slices for about 2 hours. It was delicious but really really late. Once again the extra hour for bread put everything behind schedule.
At seven when we finally sat down to eat the kids had already polished off a whole round of brie and crackers. They had also had some sparkling blueberry drink and an "almost" greek salad, perked up with a bunch of cilantro. It was a long eating up and down evening but I think the birthday girl would give it more thumbs up then thumbs down. Although she lives and dies with her bread. Well I have the rest of my life to make it up to her and probably will spend most of it trying. Here is the kids helping me bake bread, stuff a roast and decorate cupcakes while their mother is out for the afternoon.

Steak Stir Crazy

Well we managed to pull out an old stand by that hasn't been around for a while. The stir fry. I feel like I make a really good stir fry and I whip them up quick and hot. This evening it was a teriyaki steak number. I cooked the meat in a fry pan first and then did the veggies in the wok separately. Right at the end I throw in the meat and mix it all up and then serve. The Mrs. had some noodles that she had leftover and that is what the stir fry was served on. We then watched Mr. Magoriums Wonder Emporium. It was good. The kids will probably watch it three times tomorrow. Life is good.

Winter Show 2009

Well first off lets talk dinner. We had wraps this evening. They consisted of rice, bean and cauliflower sauce, fresh mozzarella, spinach and salsa. Quite a lovely mixture if I do say so myself. After dinner it was right out the door.
Because it is that Christmas season again and we were fortunate enough to have our daughter get a solo in her pageant at school. The video link is at the bottom. In the show she played Cupid. Here she is with the make up and antlers on. I think it works.Here is the full effect with brother doing his best to steal the scene.The best part of the night was right after being told not to take off her make up from the dress rehearsal this afternoon she walks back into the dining room with her face pristine. Apparently she wanted to get made up again. We put some fear into her that they weren't going to redo her make-up and even she was hard pressed to explain why she had cleaned her face when she was going right back out to do the show this evening. But in the end she got her make up done and had a great performance. The performance can be seen here. Along with some video of the boys playing at home.

Gratuitous Baby shot.

Staying in Saturday.

Well it was another pizza night at the local homestead. Bought fresh mozzarella which did not want to be grated however ripped into chunks it did great service covering the pizza. Two kids and two adult pizzas were made. The daughter was on the road at a birthday party so there is lots of kid leftovers for tomorrow. The adults had some pepper salami eventhough I had made the decision to only use the gypsy salami after the last pizza session. However, the pepper salami was great. We made the pizzas in the regular oven tonight for a change. We used the pizza pans and it was pretty good. This is in anticipation of making pizza during the christmas holidays.
Up next is cupid's costume for the christmas production at the elementary school. I bought some iron on interface and then only ironed the hearts onto the interface. So when I sewed them onto the shirts they ended up kind of puffy. I was supposed to iron them together and then sew them, right? Well this was another in a long series of learning events. Second costume in less than a month. I have a weird feeling I want to invest in a good sewing machine. Very weird. Finally it is boys night here. We let mom stay at home. She is pretty important to us.

A new Arm

Food and Family

Well a weeks worth of food and I only have two shots to show for it. On thursday night we had chili dogs. Wicked good chili dogs. The dogs were actually the good breakfast sausages and it was more like a thick bean stew/sauce but whatever the ingredients it was an awesome way to get the weekend started. Then here on Sunday evening I whipped up a vegetarian lasagna. The brown beans in sauce were a little sweet but the overall effect was nice.

We did up a double shepherd's pie last night, one topped with mashed potatoes and the other topped with mashed yam. It was so tasty we had to have some friends over for dinner. I just didn't get around to the camera so your imaginations will have to provide the rest.

Now compared to the spartan visual fare that our dinners provided this week we have a lavish spread of family photos courtesy of the two oldest kids. The batteries on the camera are now low again but that is the cost of doing business. And it ain't that steep. Instant noise makers. Yes they worked very very well.

Possible Christmas Card Candidates

So the Mrs. heads for bed but the boy isn't quite ready. So he is out in the living room with his dad who is enjoying a cold one at the end of the weekend. After crawling here and trying to stand there where does his head come to rest. Right on top of Santa.

Typical Dinner

Afternoon movie equals dinner time nap.

Frustration

Every have those technology troubles. You know, your browser won't connect. You keep getting those "should we send and error report" messages for some program that won't run. Tonight it is Youtube that won't upload my video. It is a minute 14 MB but no can't be having any of that. I keep getting these error messages. It is so freaking frustrating. All I want to do is share my creative work with the world. However, the internet is not cooperating. So I shall now try my blog and see if good old blogger is better than youtube. Fingers crossed.

As blogger doesn't have a status bar I have no idea who is currently winning. Youtube is at 7% after about 7 minutes. Yeah it seems like a long time to me too.

Oh a quick jump to 13% for you tube. At 16% and I am now not going to check Youtube for 3 minutes and see how far we get. So seen any good movies lately. Man there is really nothing worse to watch then a computer processing. Some day people will say, "A watched computer never loads," rather than, "a watched pot never boils." 2 minutes to go. Okay 3 minutes and 26%. That is 3.3 percent a minute. With 75% left that is 25 minutes to go. I have my money on blogger here.

I'm going to get a book to read. 10 minutes later and we are at 43%. Yup we are gonna be here all night.


So it is now 5:30 am and I have woken up from my couch nap to find the video ready to go.
Here is the overdubbed version with the kids voices.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEz7sD823F0&feature=channel

Hope you liked it.

Friday Night Pizza

Doesn't she look pleased. It must be the pizza. Once again 2 to 1 for white to whole wheat flour in the crust. Standard amounts. Sauce on first, then in the oven, then topped while sitting on the stone. The kids had crushed pineapple tonight. It was harder to put on but I think it still went well. The adults had olives, red pepper, mushrooms, onions and gypsy salami. I think we are going with gypsy salami as our featured processed topping. It has the heat, doesn't have that greasy oily salami feel which I don't like. Not to dry. It feels just about right.
The littlest kid is definitely a going concern. Getting around, eating anything he can find on the floor. He also likes to pull himself up and see what is going on at the higher elevations.As for me I had a pretty full and very satisfying day. Ate breakfast, marked tests, did yoga, ate lunch, went for run, had a dentist visit and made pizza. We are now going to watch the movie, "Caroline." No idea what it is about but the daughter has seen part of it and wants to see the rest. Lots of pizza leftovers. You'll need to be here before lunch to have a shot at them. Breakfast would probably be safer.

TGIT

Well I made it. I think I am way way over tired because I am currently nursing one of my every other year, non hangover head aches. I even did a little yoga this morning but I just think the lack of sleep and long days has caught up with me. However, I have arrived at the beginning of my three day weekend so I should be all caught up by Sunday. As for dinner it was smokies and yam fries tonight. The Mrs. chipped in with a pasta salad. I am now thoroughly stuffed and other than pining for some beers life is good. I hope to be in bed and asleep by 8:00. Rots of ruck.

Mother and Child

Nope, no family picks. Just some Oyako-don (chicken and egg stew over rice). Both kids started off pre dinner with an unwarranted yuck. Mom was quite disheartened however in the end both bowls were quickly quaffed and all was right with the world. The oyako don was made with some lovely chunks of carrot. I had a lot of broth in mine and it was lovely and warming on this blustery fall day.In other events the daughter had her second filling (first was two weeks ago) and then had to go to dance class. Dancing with a numb face. It still went okay. Tonight was the parents come and watch evening. We had our whole crew there and though the boys were quite restless we made it through. When the daughter wasn't trying to talk with her family and was actually paying attention she looked pretty good. Well it is brush teeth book time here. One more day of work this week... I think I can.

Back to Back to basics

Yes, this is a second meal in two nights. Similar in colour pallette but quite different in taste. This evening we were regaled with haru-maki, stir fried cabbage and rice. I used a little bit of sweet chilli sauce on the haru-maki and it was perfect. Feeling a little beat tonight and the rest of the family is too. Except for the middle boy who had a three hour nap this afternoon and is now running around the house like a mad man. The daughter had a tough time getting through her home reading after a long day at school and a skating practice. However, with some food in her she is slowly coming back to life. Just in time for bed, one might notice.

I had an interesting chat with my mom last night. I was talking about my kid getting a lead role in the school's christmas pageant and how that feels like it kind of flies right in the face of my whole socialist tendancy. It was a pretty good conversation and really forced me to look deeper into my own beliefs. Is there room for excellence and striving to reach the top in a system which is trying to create greater equality for all? I think possibly my competitive tendancies been beaten down by the system I work in where everyone has to be special and no one should be the best. Just to clarify, I am not throwing over all of my values here but I am definitely having a bit of a rethink. If I find any answers you may hear about it.

Recommitment

So its sunday night. Below is a picture of Sunday dinner. Yes I am going to try and get back on the bus.
The daughter was the inspiration behind this evenings main course. With the son and I off for an afternoon jaunt to work she and the Mrs. put together the fabulous meal. The pasta dish was done in a light cream sauce notably adding her favourite feta cheese to the mix. This sauce was added to some nicely sauteed chicken, onions and carrots. The final product was then mixed with spaghetti noodles. It was very lightly seasoned and the kids both gobbled it up.

The salad was green and a veritable flavour explosion. The soup was also quite nice. Squash and turkey if I do not miss my guess. The Mrs. has already retired for the evening so I cannot verify this.

Post dinner we had a lighting fast bath time so that the kids could watch the Empire Strikes Back. Oh Luke just lost his hand. I then went for a run. With the craziness of late I just have not been able to get the exercise in. But tonight I went for a modest run and I am going to get back to it. It may snow and get crappy but I am determined to make it happen through this winter.

Winter Arrives

So we got our first taste of winter today. So of course we came home from school and started making a snow man.
Rumour has it that the man got crashed down and we now have a snow dog. I have yet to investigate but judging by how wet these kids were when they came back in there was definitely some serious snow play afoot.


Here is the littlest practicing standing. Walking can't be far away now. Then nothing will be safe.They say that when kids start crawling it has a big impact on brain development. Something about the right arm left leg coordination that brings things along. Well we have definitely noted a huge change in the littlest. When ever you change activity he totally reacts. For example if I am holding him and put him down he freaks out. However, if I sit with him and play for a bit then he gets into playing and everything is okay.
And finally we have dinner. Remember, this is a blog about dinner. The Mrs. went with finger food this evening and it worked. I shaked and baked some chicken. We got some home fries with yams. The Mrs. got brie cheese and crackers. Some kids salsa and nacho chips. A little green salad.

A lovely end to the week.