and for my final act...

...a little bathing beauty cuteness.

it's the natural progression to the "self feeding" post, don't you think?

selvedge

yesterday one of our printer reps came in and brought some samples (presents!) with her. amongst the different publications was an issue of selvedge (which i've seen on other blogs but hadn't located in our local bookstore -- and even if i did, the cover price of $25 per issue is a little prohibitive with my budget). so it was super exciting to get to keep one to drool over for free.

the eye candy is pretty much what i'd expected -- lovely things to drool over and feed the imagination (and make me wish i had more time on my hands to work on all kinds of things i don't really have time for anyway).

self feeding

sam's been feeding himself with his hands for a long time, so he thought it was about time he graduated to utensils. we've had mixed success with bananas on a fork. usually i stab the banana, he takes the fork in one hand, takes off the banana with the other, and shoves it in his mouth. today we tried our luck with spoonfuls of yogurt. sam thought he was doing so well, he'd try it hands free.

silly boy.

my new soup buddy

i always keep lentils in my pantry, but i normally buy the brown ones. so when my recipe for moroccan lentil soup called for red ones, i had to do a little more searching around our supermarket, and i happened on these little lovlies. these split red lentils (masoor dal -- found in the middle eastern isle) seem to cook a lot faster than whole brown ones, so are great to drop into my tomato soup when i'm in a hurry and want some more protein (with no fat and really low in calories - what more could you ask for?) awesome.

what say you?

i was thinking about trying to design something for a valentine give-away on one of my favorite blogs (of course, i haven't actually contacted the blogger yet, so i'd have to do that...). i pulled some sketches out and came up with these little luvbugs. would you want to win a dozen notecards with these little guys? even if they're laser printed and not letterpress? what say you?

update: i emailed the blogger and her giveaways are full. ah well...

my new fav

roasting has become my new favorite way to cook veggies, especially winter veggies, and i've been trying different variations. tonight was a simple combo of butternut squash, red onions, and carrots with olive oil, rosemary, oregano, a little garlic powder, salt and pepper. i just cook them until they get soft and then the edges get crispy and yummy. easy peasy and super delish. i highly recommend giving it a try.

food experiment #3

so i know you've all been on the edges of your seats waiting to hear about my third food experiment for the year. sorry about that. a little bit of life got in the way. but here it is, the story of my minestrone massacre:

on sunday i tried to make my own minestrone soup. not that i've never had minestrone soup before. i have. lots of times. but it's always been out of a can. (oh lovely can of soup. so convenient to heat and eat when the boy will not be put down. and labeled vegetarian, so as not to confuse those of us who would prefer not to eat mystery broth). so i thought, "why not try to make my own from scratch? i've made soup before. how hard can it be?"

i looked up a metric ton of recipes (okay, it was more like three or four) and none of them had the same combination of veggies and such that were in my favorite canned variety, so i decided that i would simply look at the can, read the ingredients, and make it up from there.

so i did. and it wasn't a collosal failure, but it just wasn't the same as from a can. and i've really cozied up to that canned soup (any foodies out there, feel free to string up your bows and take your shots). my soup ended up looking a bit more stew than soup (too much stuff, not enough room in the pot for more broth), and it also didn't freeze particularly well. the potatoes got squarshy, the noodles got mangled, it was not pretty (and since i forgot to photograph the debut night, and the repeats looked terrible, i decided we could live without the visual).

however, i think even a mangled minstrone would be improved by one of these bowls, don't you?