From BSP to UFO - Making Progress

Last moth I posted about a my first jelly role of fabric ... and while I expected to have made a lot more progress than I have, I am pleased to report on all of the work I've done!

Shortly after my post I brought all of my squares downstairs to show Ryan ... and to sort of "mock up" the quilt top.  Since the squares are all placed "on point," the quilt is assembled diagonally from the top left corner to the bottom right corner as opposed to being put together from top to bottom.  Typically, people will use a design wall  (for example), to lay out their quilts, and then the pieces can be removed as you need them, or you can easily change out sections of your quilt with out worrying about messing things up ... I ... well ... I chose to lay my quilt out on the floor in a main thorough-way of our apartment ... and then tape all of the pieces together with masking tape in the strips in which they would be assembled, labeling each strip with a number and an arrow indicating which direction was "up" ...

This strategy worked well until it came time to move all 17 strips upstairs to my sewing area ... and then came the question of how on earth to store the strips in our limited space ... so I immediately began sewing strips together ... I spent about 2 days sewing at almost every opportunity ... running up and down the steps, bringing up 2-3 strips at a time ... and sewing them together ...

This got tiring.

Very tiring.

Not to mention every now and then Otto would break the barrier and accidentally stomp on a few strips, which chose to stick to his rough paws rather than their neighbor ... regardless of the masking tape ...

So I finally caved in to gently stacking the strips on top of one another and carrying them upstairs ... laying them out on Otto's crate ... removing them one at a time, or in sections ... laying it across the bed while I worked ... amazingly only flipping about 10 of the 300 squares during assembly.  <thumbs up>  Would i do it this way again? No chance.  Did it work? Yep!

Well ..  am proud to say that I am about halfway done with the quilt top!  It is absolutely beautiful.  I had to make an extra trip to Erica's to buy more of the tone-on-tone border fabric because of a bad cut that wasted about 7-inches of my fabric ... grr ... but I received the fabric free of charge, so I can't really complain.  I have the rest of my sashing triangles cut and ready to go!  Assembly at this point has been simple and quick, with pressing taking the most work ... but I am honestly doing my best pressing ever ... and for that I am proud.

I think I am going to give this quilt away as a "Pay it Forward" 2012 gift to a certain someone that I owe a quilt ... <3




(**BSP - Barely Started Project  /  UFO - Un-Finished Object)

Bo Ssam / Baby Bibs / Lactation Station

 Ryan and I were perusing the grocery last week when we stumbled across pork shoulders at Martins .. for a whopping $.99 / pound.  One word obviously echoed through both of our minds at the exact time ... you could read it across our pupils as we gazed longingly into each others eyes for a brief second ... that word?

Bo Ssam

... in the shot glasses? warm sake. yep. yumm ..!

Please by all means check out my drool-worthy blog post about our first encounter with Bo Ssam ... Some improvements we made this time around?  We let our pork sit in it's salty-sugary-dry-briny deliciousness for about 36+ hours .. and we rinsed it before baking.  It was so much better because it was not overpoweringly salty .. just .. perfectly .. deliciously .. salty.  We also made a trip to the Oriental Market a few blocks from our house and picked up a few <ahem> necessities ... to any Asian meal ... Yes. Pocky is a necessity, as much so as chop sticks. Helloo!

What a wonderful trip to the Oriental Market!

Thanks for the pet gate, Mom! It made a world
of difference during dinner tonight ...
No begging, just a peaceful
family dinner!

Either way .. we had a wonderful dinner together .. with Thomas harnessed into his high chair .. enjoying a varied meal, himself - including peas, sweet potato and toast sticks, Bo Ssam pork (the inner, not-so-salty meat), and an occasional bight of rice from yours truly. ;-)  It is so fun to share meals with him - I tell Ryan .... I think he was born to split bananas with me! Hahah  It's my favorite part of the morning .. wake up .. make coffee .. crack open a banana and give half to my son.  Perfect, right?


One recent highlight to our meal-sharing are these awesome trough-ed-bibs we've been using ... They are fabulous.  We received them as a gift while I was pregnant and I remember thinking, "O.k. these are so bizarre .. really?? Are they all that great??  And yes. As a Mom of an 8-Month-Old ... I have a fabulously new appreciation for them!!  Thomas has quickly learned (as in within 24 hours) to look for dropped bits of his favorite foods in the little trough .. if he wants toast and there is no more on his tray, he looks down to his trough and picks it out, leaving what he doesn't want ... hahah  It is ingenious.  He also stays significantly cleaner while he eats.  Mmm. I recommend them. To everyone.


In other news, Thomas and I visited the Women's Expo today .. it was a pretty last-minute visit .. but we were fueled by a blog post by out La Leche League Mamas ..  You can read their entry here, but to quickly summarize .. the Nurse Lactation Consultant (LC) said she was getting some grief about the appropriateness of having a Lactation Station at a public event like .. the Women's Expo .. O.k. Hello? Really?  <sigh>

"What'd I drop in here? Toast? Sweet Potato? Pork?"

The first question we asked after being admitted ... Where can we find the Lactation Station? I really need to nurse my baby and I was looking forward to finding a cozy spot to do so ... The woman I asked just sort of stared at me ... her partner eagerly pulled out a map, explained where the Memorial Hospital section was, and roughly where I could find the spot I was looking for.  Once we arrived we were able to talk weaning and solid foods with a Nurse LC, revealing an amazing feat of breast milk - it can adapt to fill the holes of solid-food-nutrition based on what baby eats ensuring a well balanced diet. Hellooo amazing!  And finally, toward the end of our visit, we settled into the over-sized wooden rocker and I nursed my sleepy-serious little guy ... it was so peaceful and quiet, I swear we both could have fallen asleep.  I was so impressed with the cozy nursing nook .. I was sure to thank the Memorial staff outside for providing us with a cozy spot to relax for a few minutes and nurse cover-up free. <3

Mom wanted me to wear this cabbage leaf ...

I really hope my aunties will explain this whole
"Cabbage Head" thing to me one day ...

Feelin' Fishy

When Ryan and I are home in Minnesota .. all we want to do is eat.  We want to eat ethnic food.  We want authentic ethnic food. We want American-ized ethnic food. Baja Sol. Leeann Chin. Big Bowl. Red Ginger. Acapulco's. Taste of Thailand.  That little Korean place 1 block north of where we lived in Shoreview .... the list could go on forever.  South Bend just "didn't" have what we wanted for so long .. that we quit looking!  At least for awhile .. we have found a few decent places in town that I've blogged/bragged about .. but that is beside the point.

We go home and we want good food!  With out cooking it ourselves! Hahah   One of our biggest cravings are fish tacos. Good fish tacos. Baja Sol fish tacos.  Sounds scary, huh?  They aren't. They are fabulous.  Ryan and I agreed tonight - Who doesn't like fish tacos? Someone who has never had GOOD ... fish tacos!

What with it being Lent and all .. we planned our dinner very strategically .. we were going to have fish tacos for dinner.  We picked up the Gordon's fish sticks at the grocery, extra tortillas from when we had enchiladas earlier this week, and conveniently, we forgot the cabbage.  This turned out for the better, though, because I had a diet-turn-of-conscience and asked Ryan to also grab me some non-breaded-and-fried Tilapia fillets for my beautiful fish tacos.  I'm sure weight watchers frowns upon Gordon's fish sticks. =P

What we put together was wonderful ... Ryan's fish-stick-tacos for the cod-flavored, breaded-crispy deliciousness, and my pan-fried-fresh Tilapia for its flaky, spicy, slightly crisp (thank you Panko) texture.

Here is our Method -

Ryan's Fish-Stick Tacos

First we thawed my fish, preheated the oven for Ryan's fish sticks and threw together my fishy marinade - Here is what I used, straight from the Penzey's label -

Splash of Olive Oil  /  Squeeze of 1/2 lime  /  Dash(es) of Penzey's Jerk Spice

We let my fish swim around in this meager marinade for about 15 minutes while we put together our mayonnaise-based sauce.

I found a recipe here .. and it was o.k.  I don't keep plain yogurt in the fridge like I used to, so we went with about 1/3-1/2 c. of mayonnaise and kept the spices about the same, sans jalopeno, though, because we didn't have any fresh (several rings of banana peppers jarred from the fridge, minced, 1/2 lime squeezed (a bit less), 1t. minced capers - rinsed, 1/2 t. each of oregano, dill weed and cumin, 1 t. cayenne - start with 1/2 t. cayenne .. taste it .. and add more if you want!! it will be spicy.).  Once it's all mixed together,

My Tilapia Tacos

Once Ryan's fish was about half-way done baking, we prepped my fish to be pan fried.  We sprinkled a little more Penzey's jerk onto my fish, patted some Panko bread crumbs on top, flipped, repeated, and dropped it into a non-stick pan and about 1t. olive oil for about 5 minutes, flipped, then 3-4 minutes more.

We warmed our corn tortillas in the non-stick pan .. with a pinch of oil .. and assembled our tacos -

Corn tortilla, fish, dollop of sauce, pinch of finely shredded cabbage, squeeze of lime ... some yellow rice (rice + water + chicken stock) ... tortillas if you are still hungry after tacos + rice ... and we had a fabulous fishy feast. ;-) YUMM!



Aside from the fish taco aspect .. My Lenten bible study has been going o.k.  I am the oldest person in attendance ... if not by a few months ... and definitely the only person in attendance with a CHILD. Hahah  It is such a kick-back conversing with the undergraduate students at Notre Dame, and also a fun moment of reflection ... thinking back to when Ryan and I were undergrads.  I've enjoyed digging deeper into the bible as well as engaging in such thoughtful reflection ... I've missed flexing my brain around literature ..!!  The best part, though, is coming home and discussing what we read or discussed in bible study with Ryan.  I've also been enjoying Nouwen's work before bed from time to time.  I'll have to post about one of my favorites so far ... I've been a bit lazy about blog posts lately ;-)  My apologies!

Veggie Loaded Meatballs

I took no pictures*. And I am a little sad, because I am so excited about these meatballs.  I hope they taste as terrific as I hope!

Veggie Loaded Meatballs -

Combine in a food processor (I used our beaba babycooks ;-) hahah) -
1 carrot
1 stalk celery
1 small onion
1 small handful of mushrooms
** I roughly chopped my veggies and grated the carrot to make sure they would blend up well in the beaba .. since it is spectacular, but small!

Throw veggies together in a bowl ... add ground beef (I think I used about 2/3 lb) ... Mom likes to use 2 parts ground beef to 1 part ground pork sausage (unflavored).

Add 2 eggs,  any spices you'd like, and lastly 1/2 - 1 c. panko bread crumbs.  I used pinches of dried oregano and basil as well as some garlic powder.  Mom says you can flavor with ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, bbq sauce, ... so it's pretty open ended to the flavor "profile" you're looking for.  Mom will even whip them together and add the flavor separately ... and freeze them in batches so you can have meatballs on hand for bbq, spaghetti, whatev.

I mixed mine by hand.  Mom likes to use a food processor and whip 'em together until the meat-wad "rolls" in the bowl.  She makes the best meatballs, so I totally recommend this method ... I lack a food processor, so hand-mixing was my best and first choice. ;-)

Form by hand or use a cookie-scooper.  Mom bakes them on a 4-sided cookie sheet ... I put mine on a wire rack above my foil-lined 9x13 glass pan since I do not own a 4-sided cookie sheet.

Hope Ryan likes 'em!  I don't plan on telling him about the veggies until it's too late. Muahahah!

Can I say I Manwiched my Meatballs? A hidden serving of veggies in every err ... handful of meatballs.  Weight Watchers folks? 1 point per meatball. Not bad!

* I took a picture after they came out of the oven ... they smell FABULOUS. I can't wait to try them <3

Guess Who's Crawling?

Guess who decided to crawl over and attempt to have a beer this morning? ;-)

First he pops a tooth.

Then he decides he'd like nothing more than to have a beer after breakfast?! <sigh>

ps. we reference Auntie Margaret because her first question via telephone for a long time was ... "Is T crawling yet??" ;-)

Tuna Salad of a Different Variety

Isn't it cute how the tuna steak looks like a heart?

So with Lent comes meatless Fridays.  We have a heap of meatless recipes that we love, ranging from lemon basil salmon to beer battered tilapia to tofu stir fry ... but for some reason all we think about on Fridays is the best place in town to get Fish n Chips .. sure we can make our own .. but it's time consuming, imperfect and semi-unpredictable .. and a lot of oil-waste! ... this week Ryan offered to take us all out to Fiddler's Hearth for thee best fish n chips .. all wrapped up in newspaper ... but considering it's the first Friday of Lent ... I'm sure that place is a zoo ..!!

So .. instead .. we attempted to recreate another meatless fishy restaurant favorite - the Nicoise Salad from Uptown Kitchen!  I ran to the grocery this afternoon picking up various produce items for our salad, including a  mixed pack of 3 types of lettuces grown on family farms, all organic and beautiful .. conveniently on sale .. Yumm!  It reminded me of the lettuces we grew in our garden 2 summers ago .. I also grabbed cherry tomatoes, Kalmata olives, and Annie's Green Garlic salad dressing - the closest comparison I could find to the tart, lemony dressing they serve at Uptown ..


Come time to shop for Tuna I was a little price conscious ... the Sashimi grade tuna steaks were  nearly $12 / pound and gigantic .. way out of our price range, as well as our eating capacity .. so I went the frozen route, finding an organic, wild-caught, renewable-fishing-friendly variety that was on sale (Huzzah! Thank you Lent! Hahah) ..!  The tuna that comes atop the Nicoise salad is that gorgeous seared ahi tuna - beautifully crisp on the outside and bright pink in the middle?  The sadness that came alongside our frozen tuna - no pink middle =(  That was o.k. though ... we survived the visual let down ;-)  After reviewing a few recipes I found online, we decided to dust our tuna with ... Montreal Steak of all things!! Hahah - it was very good - the lemon-salty-peppery-ness of it wen well to the salad.

All-in-all, our salads were fabulous .. and despite the hard boiled egg (my least favorite part), we would definitely revisit this recipe!  Ryan was awesome enough to whip up some homemade french bread for us.  It will last the weekend and lend itself nicely toward other recipes we have in mind for the week - Dinner of the Month (Italian-something yumm - you can see the dipping oil we got this month in our picture - it was delicious with a little bit of salt added), Spaghetti Pie, Oo and we've both been craving Chicken Parmesan ;-)

Lenten Reflection -

About a week ago I was deciding internally what to "give up" for lent .. which is usually something Ryan and I decide on together, so we can be supportive to one another when we experience deep cravings and desires ..! Hahah =)  But this year, as we are planning Thomas' baptism, I found myself wondering about the why and the so what? of giving up something as trivial as Starbucks and how it relates to Christ and his suffering ... often thinking of my sister Margaret's words, "Yeah .. O.k. That craving for candy and coffee is supposed to bring you closer to God?!" ... with her words echoing in my head I decided to do some Lenten reflection and reading.

Choosing a book became a huge task for me .. I asked a few friends. I asked my dad. I asked my mom. I browsed the shelves of Barnes & Noble and dug into some "Top Religious Non-Fiction of 20xx" lists.  I talked to my husband ... the challenge for me was putting in to words what I wanted to discover and learn through reading.  I wanted to embrace the values and heart of Christianity - not just Catholicism.  I didn't want to read something too deep, negative, holy, etc. I wanted something written by a person I could relate to (Not the Pope, necessarily...).  Dad kept saying, "Well, pick up the bible!!"  Then it was Mom who recommended a bible study.

Perfect!

... now to find one within our church or close to home.  Google was pretty miserable - there are a lot of churches in our area.  Would they welcome a "stranger" ..?  Finally I turned to Campus Ministries at Notre Dame.  Ryan and I did our Pre Cana through Notre Dame and had a wonderful experience that we oftentimes reflect upon ... as it has shaped our communication, relationship, commitment, and understanding of marriage and the dynamic of our selves within our family.  Additionally, Campus Ministries is helping us with Thomas' baptism ... so contacting them should have been a "duh" move by me once I initially had questions ...

Either way.  I discovered a bible study offered during the Spring semester, and within 12 hours of e-mailing the coordinator, I was invited to his office not 12 hours later. Sweet! A meeting within 24 hours!  I met with John Paul Lachon who was a great resource, inviting me to attend an RCIA Lenten bible study that will meet on Thursday nights.  Even though I am not an RCIA candidate, I am still welcome to attend, and Ryan and Thomas could come, as well!

After having a great talk with him, and expressing some of my desires, ideas, needs ... we got back onto the topic of recommended reading.  After disclosing that I wanted to read about love, compassion, community, warmth ... he pulled a book from his shelf entitled The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom, by Henri J. M. Nouwen.  After admitting that it is a book that he typically recommends to people who are grieving, he said he felt it could possibly be a great start on my journey, recommending other titles by Nouwen, both for their easy reading and approach-ability.  The book is broken up into many "vignettes," as Ryan described them, meant to be read and digested over a longer period of time.  Each of Nouwen's "spiritual imperatives," as he describes them, "are meant to be like salt for the meal of your life. Too much salt might spoil it, but a little at a time can make it tasty!"

I was also handed another title on our visit, My Life with the Saints, by James Martin, SJ.  This book is more of a memoir, having won a few awards and making it to the Publisher's Weekly best book list.

On top of digging into Christianity, attending a Lenten bible study, and reflecting upon my own spirituality ... I also plan on ditching out on my Starbucks addiction ... which is going to be challenging on a cold, rainy day like today ... where I would typically grab a coffee on my way out of the house, to say, a bible study ;-)