Tilapia with Leeks and Bacon

First let me show you some pictures of my girls enjoying our asparagus soup from a few nights ago:

Tilapia with Leeks and Bacon

Tilapia is a mild, white fish that's very versatile and a good place to start if you're not sure how to prepare fish, or if you think you don't like fish.  Leeks are a mild green onion, like a giant scallion.  They can be a little frustrating because they do require some preparation and a lot of the veggie goes to waste, but they're great in sauces and soups.  Bacon, well....who are we kidding, bacon is good on everything.

This sauce is taken from an original recipe by Rachael Ray, called Super-Herbed Sauteed Salmon with Creamy Leeks and Bacon.  I find the flavor of Salmon to be a little strong for the sauce, so I prefer to use Tilapia, and I just season it lightly instead of "super-herbing" it.

You'll need 3 to 4 medium-sized leeks.  Pick out leeks with the largest portion of light-green on the stalk.  You can't eat the white part or the thick leafy green part, so cut those parts off and slice the rest of it in half down the length of it.  Then slice the leeks into half-moon shapes.  See all those layers in the leek?  The leeks grow up, from the root of the plant up through the dirt, and the dirt gets trapped in between all those layers.  You don't want to eat the dirt; so you need to rinse the leeks.  Put your sliced leeks in a bowl of cold water.  The leeks will float, but the dirt will sink to the bottom.  Swish them around in the water for a few minutes, or just let them sit while you make the bacon.  When you fish them out, you should see a fair amount of dirt in the bottom of the bowl.  Place them on a clean, dry dish towel and pat them completely dry.

Chop half a pound of bacon and crisp it up on the stove, preferably in a non-stick skillet.  You want it as crispy as you can get it without burning it.  Remove the bacon to a paper-towel lined plate.  Pour most of the grease out of the pan (into whatever receptacle you usually dispose of bacon grease) but save one or two tablespoons and put the pan back on the heat.

In a separate skillet, melt two tablespoons of butter and add the leeks, then start your fish (below).  When the leeks are softened and turning translucent, add 3/4 cup of dry white wine and bring to a boil.  Reduce it by half, then add about a half of cup of cream, or up to a cup.  Reduce it again by about half, then taste and season as desired.

Season both sides of 3 or 4 tilapia fillets with salt, pepper, and thyme.  You can also use cayenne pepper if you think you'd like it a little spicy.  Add the fillets to the hot pan with the bacon grease in it (the burner should be at about medium to medium-high now) and brown both sides of the fish.  I say to use a non-stick pan for fish because fish is very likely to stick to the bottom of another style pan, and you want to be able to flip it gracefully and without leaving chunks of fish in the bottom of your skillet.  To flip the fish you will need to use two spatulas.  Turn it over gently so as not to break the fish.  This should take about 3 or 4 minutes per side, and it should also be cooked through by this time.  If your sauce isn't quite done, turn the heat off of the fish a little early to let it finish cooking more slowly.

The original recipe calls for the bacon to be stirred into the sauce at the last minute, but my husband likes it to remain as crispy as possible, so we sprinkle it on top at the table.  Serve the fish on top of a scoop of white rice (made well ahead of time in my handy-dandy rice cooker), then top with the sauce and the bacon.  Enjoy!!

Remember if you'd like the sauce a little thicker, you can make a roux and use it to thicken the sauce as much as you'd like.  You can also serve another vegetable alongside the main dish if the leeks won't be enough for you.  And if you're really opposed to cooking with animal fat, feel free to omit the bacon and bacon grease altogether; the fish will be fine cooked in butter (still animal fat) or olive oil.

Asparagus Soup - Must Taste!!

We're eating asparagus two nights in a row because it goes bad quickly.  That, and we love asparagus.  I think it goes best with salmon so on the rare occasion we have salmon in the house (it can be expensive) I always make asparagus to go with it.  Tonight I decided on asparagus soup.  It's one of our all-time favorite recipes; it is so, so yummy.  It's pretty involved, so if it looks too complicated for you, just try to do it on a night when your husband can keep a close eye on the kids, or make it for lunch while they're napping, or while your husband has them at the gym or something.  Hire a babysitter if you have to, the soup is that.  Good.  I got this recipe from a vegetarian cookbook, credited to "Consulting editor Nicola Graimes."  This is a great recipe to try if you've never had asparagus, or if you think you don't like asparagus, because its mild flavors will be a gentle introduction to the loveliness that is asparagus.

You'll need:
a pound of asparagus (I like the skinny green kind)
6 small-medium shallots or 3 to 4 giant shallots
lemon juice
butter
1 cup milk (I use whole, but whatever you have is okay)
1/2 cup light cream (I could only find regular and it was fine)
3 cups vegetable or chicken stock ( vegetable cubes are hard to find, so I've done it with chicken and it turns out just as good.)

a sieve
two soup pots
a blender or food processor

This recipe requires you to slice asparagus, which is unusual; but you do it just like you would a carrot.  After trimming them (with your toddler, see previous blog), line them up and slice them into tiny round discs.  Set them aside and slice the shallots.  My grocery store carries humongous shallots and I find that 4 is sufficient, but use your best judgement.  They have a mild onion flavor that is fantastic in soups and sauces.

Sautee the shallots in butter until they're slightly softened, then add the asparagus.  Cook for about 5 minutes, season with salt and pepper, and add the broth and the lemon juice.  The recipe calls for a tablespoon of lemon juice; I probably use a little more than that.  Save your lemon; you'll use it for the salmon later.  Bring the soup to a boil, half-cover it, then reduce the heat and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes until the asparagus are very tender.

Take the soup off the heat and allow to cool slightly before pouring into your blender.  Puree the soup.  Set up your sieve in such a way that it can rest on top of your other (clean) soup pot.  Pour the soup into the sieve so that it falls through into the clean soup pot.  Stir and scrape along the sieve, like you're sifting powdered sugar, so that you get the maximum yield out of your puree.  When it turns into a pulp, add the milk to the sieve and sort of rinse it out to get a little more out of it.  Put your dirty sieve in the sink and put the soup pot, now full of soup, back on the stove.  Heat it gently (you don't want to scorch or boil the milk) and slowly stir in the cream.  Give it a taste, season as desired, and you're all done.  You can serve this a first course while your main dish is cooking, or eat it as a light lunch.  It's not a soup that eats like a meal, so I wouldn't make it the main course for dinner. 

Salmon is my favorite fish because it has such a wonderful flavor all by itself, and this is also the reason some people don't like it.  It's probably the only fish that is popular raw, cold smoked, heat smoked, baked, sauteed, broiled, ground into burgers, and even pureed into cheese spreads.  The french serve it tartare.  It tastes great any way you slice it, and is popular among nutritionists for its concentration of good fats.  All this flavor is yet another reason it is perfect to serve with asparagus soup, because you really don't have to do anything to it.

If you're unsure how to pick out fresh salmon, you can buy it frozen.  Your best bet is to find a fish market in your area.  They can tell you when and where it was caught, how to store it, how to cook it, whether you can eat it raw, and how long to hold onto it before cooking or eating.  The general rule of thumb is to smell the fish.  It should not smell like anything, especially not fish.  Fresh fish shoud smell like nothing, but it can be hard to detect 'nothing' when you're in a fish market, because they can be smelly in general.  If it smells a little fishy because you're getting it from a grocery store and they have no idea where it came from, it will probably still be okay once you cook it completely, as long as the smell is not strong or offensive.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; this will ensure easy clean-up.  Lay your salmon fillets (about one per person, but it's good leftover too) on the parchment paper and season both sides with salt and pepper.  Squirt some lemon juice on top.  I used one half a lemon for the soup and the asparagus, total.  Stick in a 350 degree oven for about 25 minutes and enjoy!  If you want it done at the same time as your soup, put it in the oven towards the middle of the soup-boiling stage.

I served this with plain white rice, which I made ahead of time in my handy-dandy rice cooker.  It's one of my favorite kitchen appliances.  Alton Brown will tell you not to buy one unless you eat a ton of rice, but we do eat a ton of rice, and it has saved my life on multiple occasions.  It stays good, and warm, in there for days, so it's great for early pregnancy and stomach viruses!  When you're all down for the count with a nasty stomach bug, and all you're supposed to eat is rice anyway, it's so nice to have it already made and warm, waiting for you in the kitchen. 

So you see, it's okay to make something a little complicated like asparagus soup when you have easy things to go with it like baked salmon and white rice :)  Just don't make it the same day you make risotto or you might have your hands full.

First Trimester and Feeding the ... Frogs?

We are active members of a local playgroup, and we love it.  It gets us out of the house at least twice a week to do new things and meet new people.  Activities are posted on the website's calendar and you pick and choose which ones look appropriate for you and your child.  My oldest loves to feed the horses at the retired horse farm, feed the ducks at the hospital duck pond, and feed the fish in the koi pond at the Japanese restaurant.  Recently an acitivity called "Feed a Frog Friday" was posted on the calendar and we immediately signed up.  I'm not much for amphibians, or the bugs they eat, but my husband was available to join us and it sounded like fun for my tomboy.  So we get there, and they ask all the children to sit down in a room full of folding chairs with tanks of creepy animals all around the room and a stuffed hawk hanging from the ceiling.  The lady starts talking about frogs.  She continues to talk about frogs.  Audrey wants to stand on a stool to see the animals in the back of the room.  She is told to sit down.  "I'm sorry.....it's pretty unreasonable to ask three-year-olds to sit still for this,"  I point out.  "If she can't move around we're going to have to leave.  And I was under the impression we would be feeding frogs...?"  "Oh, you will!  I just don't want her to fall!"  Okay fine.  Lady at the front takes a giant toad out of the tank and holds it up for the kids to see.  She reads a story about frogs.  She takes a snake out of a tank.  "Now we don't want to scare the snake," she says.  "So be sure not to make any sudden movements."  I'm starting to wonder if she realizes her audience is made up of 20 three-to-six year olds.  By this point my husband has taken the screaming baby out for a walk, and I have to be the one restraining the squirming toddler while she PETS A SNAKE.  *Shudders*.  After they pet the snake, it goes back in the tank, and she pulls out a dead mouse to feed to the snake.  I assume it ate the mouse, that was not something I was about to watch.  Around minute forty, Audrey is saying, "I want to feed the frogs I want to feed the frogs I want to feed the frogs I want to feed the frogs," and I have to tell her I don't think it's going to be happening.  And then we were thanked for coming and asked to bring a friend next time.  Fat chance.  Why they call it feed-a-frog-fridays, I will never understand.  There was no frog-feeding involved.  Luckily my somewhat disappointed toddler was calmed with a granola bar and a long drive home, during which she conked out.  Long lectures are exhausting.

Today my hematologist said having three children is like making a milkshake with the lid off of your blender.  It works, but it can get messy.  And yes, I have been battling the symptoms of the first trimester of my third pregnancy, which explains to you why I haven't been blogging about cooking, if you've ever been pregnant.  Cooking is not something you want to do when you're newly pregnant.  Every odor is enhanced during cooking and that is bad for nausea.  I have literally been leaving the house when my husband cooks, so I don't have to smell it (or him).  But I'm at week 13 now and it has been getting better, so I actually cooked last night!  Whoo-hoo.  I made a menu, and went grocery shopping and everything.  The menu helps keep me accountable.  I wrote on there, "Thursday, Chicken with Mushroom sauce, Sauteed Asparagus, and couscous,"  so I have to do it, right?  Usually :)

Today I actually did NOT want fried food for lunch and went to two different places to get myself something healthy instead of ordering what I got for the kids.  I also did not eat breakfast AND had blood drawn and was totally fine until lunch at 1.  Hello, trimester 2.  You're my favorite.

And all this feeling better might have something to do with the fact that we finally had a date night the other night for the first time since before my inlaws were here just before Thanksgiving.  Over the holidays we were trying to save money, and with babysitters charging what they do, and me wanting to throw up everywhere we went, we weren't doing much.  But we finally went out for sushi (hold on a sec before you realize I shouldn't be eating raw fish) and frozen yogurt and a movie.  The sushi restaurant is one of the best places in town and they have a lot of delicious, cooked, pregnancy-friendly selections.  I had a delightful baked salmon roll and a smoked eel roll; and was soooo thoroughly ecstatic and satisfied to be eating sushi, OUT, with my husband and no kids.  The Mochi is conveniently located right next door and we couldn't resist.  Their almond yogurt is to die for, and I could eat those little mochi balls non-stop.  I'm into royalty (see Halloween blog) so we went to see the King's Speech and it was excellent.  Colin Firth, Helena Bonham Carter, Geoffrey Rush, and multiple other Harry Potter cameos; you can't go wrong.  It was lovely to see something focused on one of the kings of the twentieth century as well; Elizabeth II is so prominent a figure but people don't always look to her immediate predecessors for storytelling.

We did not order drinks while we were out, and we did not order anything at the theater, and with a sitter it still cost us a hundred bucks.  Once a month, maybe.....

And on to last night's dinner.  This is my very own, made-up recipe.  There aren't many of them, but they're good.  It's a pretty standard white wine and cream sauce, a little similar to Chicken Marsala or Chicken Divan, but made with the stuff I already have in my house.

Chicken with Mushroom Sauce

Season chicken cutlets with salt and pepper, and thyme if you like it.  Saute them in olive oil until they're browned on both sides.  Remove from the pan and cover with foil or a lid.  Add some butter, and the (sliced white) mushrooms to the hot pan.  I use an 8oz package of mushrooms.  When they're getting soft, scoot them to one side of the pan and make a roux on the other side.  This is done by melting a few tablespoons of butter and then whisking in about a tablespoon of flour.  Cook it for a minute, then stir it into the mushrooms.  This will prevent your sauce (gravy, as it really is; most gravies are made this way) from getting lumpy, because the flour is already dissolved into the butter and will disperse itself evenly through the liquid you're about to add.  Pour in about a cup of dry white wine (I keep a cheap box of chardonnay in the fridge for cooking.  You're supposed to cook with good wine, but good wine doesn't last that long in my house).  Use a whisk to scrape up all the goodness in the bottom of the pan, all that buttery chickeny mushroomy flavor, as well as to incorporate the roux into the wine.  Boil the sauce for a few minutes; the wine will reduce (evaporate, thicken and concentrate) by about half and then you can add the cream.  Use half a cup to a cup of whatever fat concentration you prefer, whatever looks good, and then cook it some more until it reduces again.  Give it a taste, season it with salt and pepper if you like, and add the chicken back in.  Reduce the heat, cover the pan, and simmer until the chicken is cooked all the way through.  If you have really thin cutlets, the initial sautee may have done the trick, but they usually need a little more than that, so just check on them after about three minutes and you should be good to go.  Remove the chicken onto your plates, whisk and taste the sauce again, and pour the sauce over the chicken.

You can really go to town with the sauce; add all kinds of herbs, try it with a different wine or a different veggie; try dredging the chicken in flour before sauteeing instead of making the roux, etc etc.  Try it with heavy cream, light cream, or broth instead of wine.  Rachael Ray likes to add a little high-quality dijon mustard to her pan sauces to act as a quick emulsifier (it's what they put in mayonnaise to make the oil 'stick' to the vinegar) so her sauce doesn't separate.  It works that way in homemade salad dressing too.

Sauteed asparagus:

Asparagus is a great veggie to make with your toddler, because you can prepare it without a knife.  The whitish stems break off (to then be discarded) and the rest of the stalk will again break in half, leaving the perfect size for sauteeing.  My 3-year-old puts on her princess apron, climbs up on the kitchen bench, and breaks asparagus with me.  Not only does this occupy her for a whole five minutes, it also makes her MORE LIKELY TO EAT THE ASPARAGUS.  It's miraculous. 

Sautee the asparagus with a little olive oil, salt and pepper, until it is tenderized but still slightly crunchy.  If you want soggy asparagus, buy it canned.  Serve it alongside the chicken.

Couscous is one of my favorite things to keep in the house.  The kids love it, we love it, it comes in various flavors, it goes with everything, and it cooks in five minutes with no attention from me.  You bring some water to a boil, add the couscous, put the lid on, take it off the heat, and literally five minutes later you have couscous.  Serve it underneath or alongside your chicken.

And there you have it.  Don't miss my next post; I'm making Asparagus Soup and it is Heavenly.

Orange Chicken and Lemon Tilapia

The Orange Chicken didn't turn out exactly how I'd imagined, but it was yummy :)  I found a Japanese blend of frozen veggies, I had some oranges on hand from Thanksgiving, and I went to town.
one or two oranges
a pound of diced chicken
soy sauce
stir-fry veggies - bean sprouts, onion, cauliflower, carrots, mushrooms, whatever.
a jar of baby food
prepared white rice - I do mine in a rice cooker.

Saute the veggies in some vegetable oil.  When most of the liquid has evaporated, add one or two tablespoons of soy sauce, cook for a minute and set aside.

Season the chicken with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and orange zest.  Saute in vegetable oil until completely cooked through, then add the juice of one orange.  Cook for a minute and add some soy sauce.  Just use your own judgement for the measurements; you know what you like.  The chicken should be a pretty brown color now, and should taste slightly sweet and salty.

Put a scoop of rice on a plate, top with veggies, and then with chicken.  Serve with a slice of orange.


The next night's meal was also good and very different.  I had some frozen spinach and fish fillets on hand, but not a lot of time because my husband was going to be home late so I had the girls under my feet.  In times like these it's better to use the oven.  Lemon Butter Tilapia:

4 tilapia fillets
one lemon
three tablespoons butter
one bag or box frozen spinach (if it's in a box, you'll need to defrost and drain first)
couscous, any flavor.  I use Near East brand.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and preheat your oven to 350.  Season one side of the fish with salt and pepper and place the fish on the paper, seasoned side down.  Season the other side with salt, pepper, and lemon zest, then squirt lemon juice all over the fillets.  Just try not to wash off all the seasoning.  Divide half a tablespoon of butter into four pieces and place the pieces on top of one fillet so they will melt evenly over the fish.  Do the same for each fillet, using 2 tablespoons total.  When your oven is hot, put the fish in it.  It should take about ten minutes, and then it will slide right off the parchment paper.  White fish should be white all the way through and a little flaky when fully cooked, but not dry.

Prepare the couscous as directed:  Bring 1 1/4 cups of water to a boil.  Add the couscous and seasoning packet, cover and remove from heat.  Let sit five minutes, then fluff with a fork.

Melt the remaining tablespoon of butter in a skillet and add the spinach.  Sautee until warm and season with salt and pepper.

Put a scoop of couscous in the middle of a dinner plate.  Top with a scoop of spinach, and then a fillet of fish.  Super yummy :)  We like a lot of lemon and a lot of pepper, but of course you can use less according to your tastes.

Much-Needed Chicken Noodle Soup

Pardon me for not blogging recently; I had family in town and you know how that is.  I would be totally back into the swing of things if we weren't all sick.  This cold weather does not agree with the Marks girls.  Last night we were all in need of a nice warm healing soup.  Soups are one of the easiest things to make.  They're cheap and they go a long way to feed a family.  I have suggestions for a thicker version if you need a heartier stew-like consistency to satisfy you.  This is my Chicken Noodle Recipe:

a pound of diced raw chicken (any part of the bird you happen to have)
half a pound of pasta, any shape
12 cups vegetable or chicken broth (or water plus bouillion cubes)
a can of kidney beans, drained and rinsed
a bag of frozen veggies - "seasoning blend" OR two fresh diced carrots, two fresh diced stalks of celery, one diced red bell pepper, and one diced onion.
two jars of baby food - mixed veggie, carrots, or peas.
any of the following:  parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, basil, garlic powder, dill, bay leaves.

Honestly you could throw all of this in the pot, turn it on high and eat in fifteen minutes.  You don't need any oil if you do it this way and it will reduce the fat content.  But I like to babysit my cooking so this is what I do:

Sautee the veggies and the herbs and spices in olive oil for two to three minutes.  Add the baby food and four cups of broth, bring to a boil, and add the chicken.  Boil for a minute, add four more cups of broth and return to a boil.  Add the pasta and the beans, then cook for ten minutes or until the pasta is done.  Keep an eye on it and add more broth to your desired consistency.  I like really brothy soup so I use all twelve cups.  The pasta will absorb more water as it sits, so if you're eating it again the next day you will need to add more liquid anyway. Serve and enjoy!  Just don't eat the bay leaves.

My 3 year old loves soup and my one year old loves pasta so this recipe made the whole family happy, and will for several days.  It's extremely healthy, especially if you leave out the olive oil and use whole-wheat pasta.  There are so many veggies in here it's not even funny.

If you like a thicker soup, use a little less water and add a can of crushed tomatoes to give it a heartier consistency and flavor.  You could also add more baby food, or leave it out altogether if you don't have any on hand.

Another great thing about soups is they are so versatile and flexible.  If you don't have carrots, add mushrooms instead.  If you don't have chicken, add lentils for some protein.  Throw all your going-bad-ingredients in the pot and let it go.

A word on bouillion cubes if you're not familiar:  They are cheaper than prepared broth and take up a lot less space.  A jar of bouillion cubes makes like a truckload of prepared broth and that would not be pretty on your countertop.  I also like them because I don't have to know exactly how much broth I need before making the dish.  I can just keep adding water to the soup, and then add the appropriate number of bouillion cubes.  One cube in one cup of water makes one cup of broth.  I frequently drink straight broth for lunch, and can add more or less water to achieve the flavor I'm looking for.  If you make a lot of soups they are the better option in my opinion.

Sushi and Stuffed Peppers

Last Thursday we had some friends over for sushi.  If you have access to good fish, it's really easy.  Wrap a sushi rolling mat with plastic wrap and lay it flat on a work surface.  Lay a sheet of Nori (sushi seaweed) on top of it.  Cover the nori with cooked white rice mixed with rice vinegar and sugar (you'll want to look up an exact recipe for this part; I don't have one because my husband does it).  If you want the rice on the outside of the roll, you'll need to flip it over.  Then lay your desired ingredients in a line on the edge of the mat, closest to you.  We like salmon, tuna, cream cheese, scallions, avocado, roe (fish eggs), wasabi, and cucumber.  Slice it up and serve it with soy sauce and sake.

Now listen, you can't just stroll into Winn-Dixie and buy fish if you want to eat it raw.  Go to a fish market and ask them if they have anything sushi-grade.  If they don't know what you're talking about, walk right back out of the door.  They should tell you what they have, when it came in, and how much you need for your guest list.  They should have salmon, tuna, and grouper, and they might have some others as well.  They can suggest other accoutrements and should have a variety of sauces, as well as things like wasabi and roe.  They can even slice it up for you length-wise, if you're going to be rolling it.  It's expensive, about 16 dollars a pound, but if you roll it up with other stuff, it's very filling and a little bit goes a long way.  We bought two pounds for seven people.  We ate it all, but we were stuffed.  For just the two of us, we eat it chopped up over rice with soy sauce.

Tonight we had stuffed red peppers.  I've been wanting to try some, having never eaten them before, so I looked up a random recipe.  This one calls for tomatoes, ground beef, olives, and couscous.  Cut the top off of four red bell peppers and scoop out the insides.  Stand them up in a baking dish. 

You may need to fashion a wedge out of the top of the pepper to stick under it so it will stay upright.  Heat some olive oil in a skillet and add a can of diced tomatoes, 1/2 cup chopped pimento-stuffed olives, and half a pound of ground beef.  When the beef is browned, add the couscous (Near East brand), its seasoning packet, and 1/2 cup of water.  (If you were me, you'd add a jar of baby food at this point.  Just saying.)

  Take it off the heat, put a lid on it, and let it sit for five minutes.  Fill the peppers with the couscous mixture and top with shredded italian cheese. 

Cover loosely with foil and bake at 350 for 20 minutes.  The foil should keep the cheese from burning.  Remove the foil and bake for another ten minutes.

My husband LOVED this.  For me, it was just okay.  Audrey wouldn't touch it :

but Ayla enjoyed the couscous we fed her:

  I think I would like it with some sauteed onions and mushrooms in the filling.  I think they would complement the red pepper nicely.

Ayla's first birthday party is this weekend so I have been shopping and party planning.  WalMart, as much as I love to hate it, has the best deals anywhere.  I bought all our party favors and favor boxes there.  I should have bought my plates and napkins there, too, but it's far away and I had already been to the party store for that stuff.  Everything is pink, pink, pink, and I'm super excited to see how it turns out.  I'm hoping to make pink pasta salad and pink spinach dip to go with our pink cupcakes and pink cookies, which will spell out Happy Birthday Ayla.  I think it will be fun to do with Audrey. 

Ghouls, Goblins and Greeks

We live in a large college town (40,000+ students, 3 recent, major national championships) so the Sororities put on a trick-or-treating event for the kids on the Thursday before Halloween.  The houses are all within 2 blocks of each other and are decorated to the nines, each in a different theme.  My favorite was the Princess and the Frog house.  They had their front walk decorated like a river with lily pads, a frog jumping game, and a real Princess Tiana, whom Audrey loves.  The sorority girls go crazy swooning over the cute kids and shower them with attention, as well as candy.  We're talking kiddie pools full of candy.  It was kind of ridiculous.

We went early, fifteen minutes before official start time, and I was very glad of this for multiple reasons:
1) We parked without any trouble
2) We got "extras"; extra attention, extra candy, extra stuff in our goody bags.
3) A reporter with a deadline took our picture and asked us a few questions, and we made the front page!!
4) We were done JUST as it started to get crowded.  It took us an hour and we had a blast. 

I was thoroughly impressed, and I would do just that one event for trick-or-treating as long as I could get away with it, but I don't think we'll be living here much longer.

When we got home at 6:30, I let Audrey pig out while I made dinner (below).  This has always been my halloween strategy and I'm generally prepared to deal with the consequences.  She went totally crazy, with a screamfest, and it was difficult to get her to bed, even after keeping her up later than usual.  She also usually gets a piece of candy for going potty, but she was getting too much sugar in her diet, so on Sunday we started a new strategy.  (We also already had plans to go Trick-or-Treating with friends or we would have skipped it.)  Every time she does a good job, she gets a ball in a jar.  When she misbehaves, she gets a ball taken out of the jar.  When she has five balls in the jar, she can have a piece of candy and a sheet of stickers.  So far it's happened once.  I'm hoping to lessen the number of tantrums, spankings, timeouts, and treats in my house.  Sunday night we went trick-or-treating in a nicer neighborhood than our own and had a barrel of laughs; the girls had so much fun.  She went to bed at ten (yikes) , with one piece of candy, without much of a fuss!

You know my coconut chicken with mango salsa......I made it Thursday night with some baby peaches thrown in.  It made the salsa a little more like a sauce to pour over the chicken, and it didn't affect the taste at all.  Win :)  I started the menus for Ayla's birthday party, Thanksgiving, and my in-laws' visit.  I'm pretty excited about all the entertaining I get to do this month.  Tonight we're just doing risotto....whatchacanfind.  Probably onions, carrots, peas, white wine, and baby food.  And Thursday I'm hoping to have some friends over for sushi which I will absolutely blog about.  We've done it a lot in the past and it might interest somebody out there.

We had our book club meeting on Friday and there were some adorable food items.  We read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (eh), so it was High Tea and Zombie-themed.  Octopus chicken pot pies, brain cupcakes, homemade scones with lemon curd, and my all-time favorite, cucumber sandwiches. 

Spread some cream cheese on your favorite thin-sliced white bread and sprinkle with dill.  Place some peeled cucumber slices on the bread, cover with another slice already spread with cream cheese, cut the crusts off, and enjoy :)

Today we went to a playdate and made leaf rubbings, which I've just realized is ingenious this time of year....the leaves are all over the freaking place.......I'm totally doing it with the kids at Ayla's party!  It will be perfect for their age group.

And now I'm hoping to clean up my house a little bit before my husband gets home.  It has to be done at the last possible second so he notices; otherwise he thinks I didn't do it.  Sound familiar?