Little Lentil Lover Soup

ButterBean has become increasingly hard to feed. What happened to The Baby Who Eats Everything? He has turned into The Baby Who Spits Out Everything! Most of the food offered to him get chewed for a second and then promptly spit out onto the table, floor, or into his mother's loving hand (disgusting!). He will actually sometimes wait to spit something out and just gag on it until I put my hand out. Nice.

You expect me to eat THAT?

His one true food love right now is Lentil Soup. My mom discovered this when she fed him some Trader Joe's. He will eat and eat and eat lentil soup. The downfall of this (besides the obvious: extreme flatulence) is atrocious garlic breath. I could not believe how awful his breath would be for a full 24 hours after consuming that soup. So, today I set out to make him a homemade lentil soup for three reasons
1) cheap
2) not from a can - I have a mild can phobia and the BPH that lines them
3) less garlic = better breath
I used this recipe that I found on Pinterest, from The History Kitchen blog, which uses ingredients that come straight out of the Bible. I had to tweak it though, because I didn't have all of the ingredients, and I had extra stuff lying around the house. And I recently made some yummy chicken stock that I was itching to use up.
Here's what I did:

• 3 carrots, chopped
• 3 celery stalks, including leaves, chopped
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 clove garlic minced (I cheat and use the jarred stuff)
• 2 cups dry red lentils
• 1/2 cup pearl barley
• 2 small potatoes, peeled and diced
• 2 qts. chicken stock (homemade preferred)
• 1/2 cup fresh chopped cilantro
• 1 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp dried parsley
• 1 bay leaf
• Salt and pepper to taste

Heat olive oil in medium soup pot and add diced onion. Saute until translucent. Add carrot, celery, and garlic and saute for another couple of minutes until the veggies start to get a wee bit softened.
Add red lentils, barley, potatoes, and chicken stock. Stir. 
Bring to boil, add cumin, cilantro, parsley, and bay leaf then reduce to simmer. 
Cover and simmer for 1.2 - 2 hours stirring often. I left it for a half hour and it was sticking to the bottom. 
Remove bay leaf. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with more fresh cilantro!

Good to the last spoonful!

...And he gobbled it up! Laaahhh! That would be heavenly angels singing. This soup has a nice mild flavor - great for little folks! And, it can easily be spiced up with spices like cajun spice, more cumin or garlic, perhaps a little curry powder. Also, it gets a little thick after you refrigerate it, so you made need to thin it with some water or broth.

All gone!!

Farmer at the Fair

This was a few weeks ago, but we went to the Minnesota State Fair! This year ButterBean could actually participate more in the fair experience. We had perfect weather! Some of his favorite things were listening to a Marimba band, looking at dogs in the pet area, and chowing down on some grub. Neither he nor Gatsby joined me in trying "lamb fries" aka: lamb testicles! Not bad, I must say. 
We had a fun time at the miniature pretend farm where kids get a bucket, "plant" corn in the dirt, move hay with their tractors, pick pretend apples, gather eggs etc... 

My little farmer

Mini donuts were a new treat for the ButterBean. Yum!!

Another successful State Fair! 

24 hour lunch

One of my tactics for spending as much time as possible with ButterBean is to clump my clinical hours together so that I have longer chunks of time at home. Therefore, I subject myself to the 24 hour shift. Dum dum dummm! A 24 hour shift in the operating room can either be easy or insanely exhausting (like my last one...skull fracture, ruptured aortic aneurysm, C-sections, thoracoscopy, ectopic pregnancy, femur fracture ... to name a few). Besides the challenge of sleep deprivation with high adrenaline and caffeine overload, comes the challenge of eating healthy. It's high stress, you're tired, feel like you should get an award for your hard work, and the food options are extremely limited if you don't bring your own!

Today I am pre-making a few items for my 24-hour-packed-lunch instead of shoving all sorts of random pieces of food in my bag tomorrow.

Breakfast: Raw Bars - recipe courtesy of one of my beautiful college roommates, who has a passion for healthy living

Lunch: Homemade Hummus with carrots and celery. Maybe some leftover couscous and African kale stew from yesterday

From humble dried garbanzo beans to glorious creamy hummus!

Snacks/Shovel in my mouth between cases:

Apple

Peach

Almonds

Dinner: "Symphony" Salad 

My Dad calls any salad with multiple components a symphony salad. In honor of Fathers Day tomorrow I'll bring a symphony salad. It will look something like this:

and be composed of local/organic spinach, kale, chard, and arugula blend, strawberries, blueberries, walnuts, goji berries, and bleu cheese. If I had an avocado it would be going in there too, but I don't. For dressing I just bring olive oil and balsamic vinegar with cracked black pepper. This is one of my all time favorite salads!!

Mother's Day

I had a marvelous Mother's Day! My own little bundle can't do much for his mama yet, but I know one day he is going to bring me home a droopy marigold that he planted himself in a little pot at school and I'm going to gush over it like is was the finest rose! This Mother's Day was more about my own mom! It happened to be her birthday this Mother's Day. She has done a superb job raising me and my sisters and I will always look up to her!

Soooo, I made her a birthday cake of course: Martha Stewart's Lemon Cake! It's so rich, it's almost like a pound cake. It calls for lemon zest, so I definitely used organic lemons for this cake. I've made it a couple of other times and it always turns our delicious. (This is actually a picture from another time that I made it.)

And I made all of us a nice little brunchy breakfast. My favorite were the rhubarb scones that I made with rhubarb from my mom's backyard. Yummm. 

I have more rhubarb in my fridge and I plan to make these again! I recommend them good with a cup of tea, like all good baked goods should be enjoyed!

We also went over to celebrate Gatsby's mother and got to relax some more in the sun! Perfect weather for the cousins to romp in the backyard! ButterBean had a "hair-raising" experience: learning to drive! We all got a good laugh at his static style!

The pictures don't do justice to the amount of hair that was sticking up!

he was very frustrated that he couldn't stand in the car

ButterBean had a very in depth conversation with his godfather. It sounded pretty serious!

Mother's day was a perfect example of balancing school and family. I had a big test on Monday, but there was no way I was missing this amazing family time. I was able to completely forget about the test for a few hours and enjoy good food, good weather, and good company! I got in a couple hours of studying between celebrations while ButterBean and Gatsby napped. For anyone considering anesthesia school, believe me, you're world will be utterly consumed with studying! Take a break sometimes and forget about it! You don't (and you won't) ace every test! And that's ok! Happy Mother's Day to all the overly busy mom's out there!

Healthy Eater

I try to feed ButterBean nutritious, organic food whenever possible and have tossed around the idea of not feeding him meat. To test it out, a few weeks ago I made him some "tofu fingers" minus the cayenne pepper the recipe called for.

I was ButterBean was so hungry that I didn't snap a picture of the tofu fingers until our second helping. He gobbled them up so fast I hardly got a bite during our first round! Since this time he has also surprised me with his willingness to eat cooked kale! He has always like cooked spinach, especially with eggs, but I was expecting a gag or two when I gave him kale. I made this African Kale Stew, which sounded weird, but was good! I added black beans to up the protein factor for ButterBean. He passed up a banana (a tried and true favorite) for more kale! I've been blessed with a very NOT picky eater. He's just not a big fan of plain cheese. Other than that every texture, flavor, spice, and food group is fair game for him. I attribute some of this to my own diverse eating habits both while he was in the womb and while I was breast feeding him. And like his mama, he won't turn down dark chocolate!

African-Style Stewed Kale
adapated from Bon Appetit

Heat 2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil in a large saute pan. Add 1 chopped onion and 3 minced garlic cloves and saute until soft. Stir in 1 Tbsp. ground cumin and 1 Tbsp. ground coriander, then 1 28-oz. can of crushed tomatoes and chopped stemmed leaves from 2 heads of kale. Cover and cook until kale is just tender, about 15 minutes. Add one can of black beans. Stir in 1/2 cup peanut butter and 1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves or 3-4 cubes of frozen Dorot cilantro and simmer for 10 minutes; season with hot pepper sauce, if desired. Serve plain or over couscous.

Easter cuteness

I cannot get enough of this picture of ButterBean from Easter!!! Does this make me vain in an indirect way? Oh well!! Little boys that look like miniature men are a weakness of mine. Melts my little heart! I'm lucky to have gotten a picture with his hat on. Last year I was able to get his Easter hat picture because he wasn't big enough to pull it off yet.

2011- his first Easter

We had a very nice Easter with family. We attended mass on Easter morning where ButterBean behaved the whole time - an Easter miracle!! Then we had a delicious brunch of eggs, cinnamon rolls (made by yours truly!), and fruit with my family.  ButterBean doesn't quite get the concept of looking for eggs yet, but neither did his aunties. They think egg hunting is a contact sport. 

Tackle

Run

Payback

He got a shovel from GrampyJ and GrammyEm, which was a favorite. He also got some fun books, carrots, green beans and crackers (thanks for the healthy Easter basket!)

After an afternoon nap we went over to Gatsby's parents and had a great time chatting and letting the cousins play outside. I think this was the first Easter I didn't stuff my face with so much candy I got a gut ache. Maybe that means I'm an adult now ;)

Happy Easter 2012

Eating Real Food

ButterBean is almost 5 months old, and although it is recommended to introduce solids at 6 months, I think this little guy is ready. Before his first "meal" we wanted to get a high chair. When I should be studying I am very good at wasting time by researching things! I kind of knew that I wanted a wooden highchair because they look nicer. I read plenty of reviews on high chairs and debated for a while about getting the Stokke TrippTrapp, which is rather expensivo! Total when you get all the baby accessories for when they are just learning to sit up is close to $400. The chair is adjustable for all ages, so it lasts, but that's still a lot of moolah!
After more research I came across the Keekaroo high chair. Same concept as the Stokke, in so much as it adjusts from infant to adult, but half the price! I actually like the design better too. The Keekaroo has a dishwasher safe tray, which the Stokke does not.  I found a local store (the Pacifier - great store!) that carried the Keekaroo and we picked up this cute chair:

There are different fun color inserts for the baby seat, but they were back ordered at the Pacifier, and I had no patience, so we ended up with brown.

So far I like it!

And ButterBean does well in it. The first feeding of rice cereal was met with squunched up faces and little enthusiasm, but he is doing much better now! He looooves sweet potatoes - boy after my own heart!

                                                                           Not so sure about this cereal stuff
                                                                                                            

 Getting the hang of eating...kind of!