Distractions

We've finally finished the last cake made from a mix here at the A&R Household. Last, uh, spring we made a boxed carrot cake, and the carrot-flavored pieces drove us to swear off cake mixes. As I was making a batch of cookies this morning, I pondered the popularity of cake mixes. Cakes aren't any harder to make than cookies, but cake mixes are clearly much more popular (just look at the aisle space devoted to them). My mom would never have thought to use a cookie mix, but we never made cakes from scratch at home. R was able to make a cake from scratch when I was too busy dealing with a fussy baby, and he is inexperienced (but competent) in the kitchen, so clearly there is just a collective mental block against making cakes.

I just realized that, while I mentioned that my writing energy of late has been going towards writing articles, I never provided a link. Mind you, they're aimed at a slightly less technically-savvy crowd (unless you want to compare calendar applications. That article is... thorough), so the articles may seem a little basic to those of you here reading this. Still, people need to know. People like my mom. Actually, these articles are probably a bit above her computer skill level. Anyway, here:

"Cooking and the web"
"Game playing on Facebook"
"Calendars for everyday use"
"Steaming media on a home network"
"Putting your videos on YouTube"
"Building your own YouTube channel"

Of bikes and diapers

Recently got to go mountain biking for the first time in... oh, about a year and a half. The ascent totally kicked my ass, as I haven't done anything more vigorous than a brisk walk since my last bike ride, but the ride was so much fun! From the top of the hill we could see the ocean to the west and various hills to the southeast (some of which we've also ridden to the top of). The descent was long and rolling, which is definitely the best kind. Makes all the work to get to the top seem worth it when you've got a fun descent.

We followed that ride up with a second the following weekend. With all the gear we had to pack, for ourselves and for the baby, it was probably inevitable that we would forget something. This time, it was the diaper bag. D'oh! A quick run over to the grocery store for disposables solved that problem.

I think I felt slightly less silly buying the diapers since, just recently, we switched to disposables at night. We'd only used cloth since using up the initial pack of diapers the hospital gave us. It was amazing how the smell of the disposables brought back memories of that time. Back then, she was such a teeny little thing, a tiny baby burrito, who just ate and slept. Now she's this mobile, babbling creature. Who just removed two of my earrings.

Wha?

Had an odd inversion of the parent-child dynamic today. I was on the phone with my mom and she casually mentioned that she's been packing and getting her house ready to rent. Apparently she's moving in with her boyfriend. Though I didn't voice my sentiments, I'm sure I was mentally echoing the parents of adult children everywhere in thinking, I know it's her decision, but it would have been nice if she's told me she was planning on doing this.

Of course, for an even more hilarious role reversal, I'll need to call her up in about 6 months and ask her why she isn't just getting married.

TMI

I'd been noticing an oddly familiar smell coming from the trash bin in the nursery of late. After several days of thought, I realized that the smell was yogurt-like. Why would the baby's poop smell like yogurt? Oh, right. Brought her with me to Pinkberry and consequently had to share my frozen yogurt. I've colonized her intestines with probiotics.

We were all headed to bed a couple of night ago, when R got the hiccups. The baby was up having a meal, but she stopped and started laughing hysterically ever time R hiccuped. That, in turn, made us laugh and made it all the more difficult for R to control his hiccups.

Recent cooking
Honey oatmeal bread - Didn't rise nicely like the loaf in the picture. I don't know why I make whole wheat bread, as R isn't a fan. Still, I've been enjoying it for breakfast.
Moroccan chicken stew with sweet potatoes - R was expecting it to be worse, I was hoping it would be better. Not bad, but I was expecting a little stronger flavor.
Chipotle chocolate chunk brownie bites - Admittedly, I did substitute chocolate chips for unsweetened chocolate, but I was hoping these would be more chocolaty and spicy. They mostly tasted of cinnamon.
Chana masala - Tasty, easy to make, healthy, and inexpensive, so of course they make me smell bad. No luck!

April fools?

I suppose posting is practically an April Fools' Day prank, as it has been so long. Most of the writing energy (and procrastination) last month was spent writing an article for the familial computer magazine. The baby has also learned that the keyboard is a fun toy, which my mom insists is only fair, as she remembers me at 2 years old, reaching up my little hands over my head and pushing any keys I could find, yelling "'Puter! 'Puter!" Cute, but known to make one's computer do odd things.

Recent cooking
Chicken with forty cloves of garlic - Two things wrong with this recipe. One, the chicken winds up rather plain. Not at all garlicky. Two, it results in delicious roast garlic cloves, which I can't resist eating, causing me to stink for several days.
Braised pork with pears and chiles - I'm sorry to say, but the pork turns out kind of plain. The pears are delicious, so if I was feeling industrious perhaps I'd try tinkering with the recipe. Maybe a spice rub to get a little of that chili flavor into the pork.
Wasabi egg salad - Very nice. I haven't had too many egg salad sandwiches, so I hadn't realized that they're basically deviled egg sandwiches. Mmmm. Deviled eggs.
Yogurt-marinated chicken kebabs with Israeli couscous - We did the kebabs in the broiler, but they probably would have been better if we had a grill to grill them on. Still, they were tasy. The yogurt-feta sauce was too oniony for our taste.
Creamy dreamy clam chowder - Not as creamy as one would expect from the name (or the picture), this was still the tastiest homemade clam chowder I've had.
Magical butter sauce - We made ours with pepper jelly and it turned out quite nice over mahi-mahi.
Cara cara orange curd - I used a couple of exceptionally juicy tangerines and had to stop myself from eating the whole batch warm out of the pot. So good! Totally kicked the ass of the jarred lemon curd I inherited when my in-laws moved.