Night owls and early birds

I love springtime here in the South. The flowers are out, the days are longer, and the weather is warm enough to forgo the jacket yet cool enough to enjoy being outdoors. Well, it's a bit warm this spring, but still better than I'm sure it'll be this summer.

And when the weather is pleasant like it has been, it means we can open our windows at night. In California we used to sleep with the windows open almost every night of the year, but not here. It's usually too warm or too cold for that, so I love these few weeks where I can indulge in fresh air all night long.

Of course, when the window is open, we hear everything going on outside. And I'm not sure if I've mentioned previously, but we have a lot of birds around. Normally I enjoy watching them peck for worms and strawberries early in the morning, and hearing them singing from the trees during the day. But now with the windows open at night, I've discovered that one of our lovely songbirds likes to stay up way past her bedtime (and mine).

Many times this week and last, I've woken up in the middle of the night and can hear a bird singing along in the darkness. So after several nights of this, I finally did some research. Apparently there are 3 birds who sing at night - the whippoorwill, the nightingale, and the mockingbird.

Playing catch in the backyard
with Great Grandma Bernie

So, I believe that we have a mockingbird. I'm not entirely sure, but have ruled out the whippoorwill due to its distinct call. I'd love to think that we have a nightingale - how cool would that be - but it's probably more likely that we have a mockingbird instead. Thankfully I don't find the song annoying like most reports describe it (nor do I find it gorgeous and moving like they describe the nightingale song).

I may never know. But the pleasantly cool nights won't last for long. Pretty soon the weather will be too warm to keep the windows open at night, and then it won't matter who our nighttime feathered friend is. Until then, I will just enjoy the lullaby whenever I am awake to hear it.

And as the weather is really heating up, I've been trying creative dinners that have low oven usage in attempts to keep the house cooler. Last night I made my own recreation of the Santa Barbara Brewing Company blackened salmon salad. It may not have been exactly the same, but I think it came close.



Blackened Salmon Salad
1 Tbsp cayenne pepper

At the Botanical Gardens with Great Grandma Bernie

1 Tbsp paprika pepper
1 Tbsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp basil
1/4 tsp oregano
1/4 tsp ground thyme
1/4 melted butter
2 salmon filets
feta cheese
spinach leaves
avocado, sliced and peeled
1 tomato, sliced into wedges
1/2 cucumber, peeled and sliced

1. Heat a skillet on medium high heat. Mix seasonings in a small bowl. Combine tomato, cucumber, feta and spinach. Add avocado slices to top of each serving.

2. Rinse filets and pat dry. Brush with melted butter and rub with seasoning mix. Lay in skillet. Cook 2 - 5 minutes per side.

3. When done, brush top side of fish with more melted butter and put on top of salad. Dress with balsamic vinegar dressing. Enjoy!

Homebody Creatures

It's amazing that we moved clear across the country in the last 18 months, yet have barely ventured from our doorstep since (I'm not counting visits back home to see friends and family). It's true - we have only gone on 1 real out-of-town adventure, and that was almost a year ago. Of course, in that year and a half we've had a baby, bought a house, and begun tackling the ever-growing list of things to do (ie. I finally finished making curtains for the nursery, and I'm super excited about how they turned out!).

I'd say that our lack of adventure is partly due to being busy with other things, and partly because Huntsville really has so much to offer that we don't need to go anywhere. But we're here in the South, and it's about time to start checking out our surroundings. So last weekend our trip to the Birmingham Zoo was a pretty big deal. Not to mention the fact that Addison seems to have an affinity to Zoo related books at the moment.

As part of our "Parents of Young Children" group at our church, we drove down to Birmingham with another family to check out the Zoo last Saturday. And since we've been having Summer in March this year, it was in the high 80s and very sunny. About as hot as I could stand while walking around on paved trails amidst the animals. And the weather brought out tons of people, of course. They were still streaming in when we were done for the day.

We had a great time - even Addison. It was a lot of fun to see her laugh and cry out each time she spotted an animal. And I learned a lot about perspective; zoo viewing areas seem to be designed for taller children and adults - down at her level (stroller level, that is), you mostly see fence posts. But thankfully the giraffes came pretty close, and some of the inside viewing windows were low enough for her to spot things. We managed to spend about 4 hours at the Zoo, which definitely exceeded my expectations. And we even left a few things for our next visit.

Now what kind of recipe could possibly relate to a post about the Zoo? How about a slightly exotic twist on a classic favorite that's easy to pack up for a picnic lunch?

Ginger Coconut Fried Chicken
3 Chicken breasts, sliced into 4 pieces each (you can also use thigh meat or anything else boneless)
1 Egg
1/2 Cup cream (or substitute another egg for no cream)
Breadcrumbs
2 Tbsp fresh ginger, grated (or use powdered version)
1/2 Cup shredded coconut
Oil for frying

1. Slice your chicken into pieces so they can be eaten with fingers.

2. Mix egg and cream together in pie dish or other somewhat flat container

3. Combine ginger, coconut, and approx 1 cup breadcrumbs. Put in another pie dish or flat container.

4. Dredge chicken pieces in breadcrumbs, then in egg, then again in breadcrumbs until fully coated. Set on plate to fry.

5. When oil is hot (you know it's ready when you stick the end of a wooden spoon in the oil and it sizzles and bubbles), lay chicken pieces in oil. Make sure pieces are not touching.

6. Fry until golden brown and then turn (only once). Once done, put on roasting pan and store in warm oven (200 degrees) until all are done. Enjoy!

American Pi

An engineer already!

Happy Pi Day! Yes, it's uber geeky, but today's date is 3.14, which is also the value of the variable known as Pi. So in honor of our littlest Spadaro Engineer, happy Pi day! And in appreciation of such a random day, I'm going to share a recipe for homemade pizza (pie) dough. It's actually much easier than I thought it was going to be.

In other news, Alabama just had its primary elections yesterday. It isn't a secret that there are a lot of republicans around, but did you know that when we registered to vote they didn't even ask us what party we wanted to be registered as? I guess they just assume that everyone is republican. Ha!


 Because of this, it means that yesterday was an open primary. And I was excited that although not being a republican, I could still vote and be part of the process. So as soon as Derek got home from work, we jumped in the car and headed to the polls - I don't think that Alabama has absentee ballots, and certainly isn't like Oregon where they've completely done away with polls entirely. And the experience of physically voting at the ballot box really made me reminiscent of my childhood. I remember going into a curtained off stall (in my memory it's like an all-black shower stall complete with curtain) with my mother and watching her vote. Oh how things have changed.

When we got to the polls, I was a bit saddened to find that they asked me if I wanted to vote republican or democrat. I had a momentary identity crisis (do I say republican so I can vote in the republican primary or do I give the honest answer that I'm a democrat?). I ended up deciding that I couldn't say republican without feeling guilty, so I took the democratic ballot and headed to my cubbyhole.

Needless to say, I was one of a very small number of people who voted democrat in this primary (I signed in on line 18 one hour before the polls closed). But, I did get to cast my vote for Obama. Hahaha. Not only was I not able to vote for one of the republican candidates, but all of the local primaries were also republicans and therefore my ballot was about as short as it could be.

Oh well. It was a fun experience nonetheless. Now time to enjoy some pizza pi!

This is a spin-off of a recipe from the Joy of Cooking. Feel free to modify it with your own favorite spices and seasonings.

Homemade Pizza Dough
4 Cups flour
1 Tbsp garlic (fresh or powder)
1 Packet yeast
1 1/3 Cups warm water (approx 85 degrees)
2 Tbsp olive oil (I used Extra Virgin)
1 tsp salt

1. Make sure your water is warm to the touch, but not hot. If it is too hot, the yeast will die. Pour the yeast into the water and allow to dissolve (takes approx 5 minutes). If you don't see foam beginning to form after 5 minutes, sprinkle with 1/2 teaspoon of sugar or less. That should do the trick.

2. Mix olive oil with yeast. Combine flour, salt, and garlic powder.

Addison loves Italian food. It's in her blood!

3. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and mix. You may want to use your hands and thoroughly knead the mix together. Knead dough for 10 minutes until thoroughly mixed and a bit elastic feeling.

4. Put dough in a bowl and cover with saran wrap or a damp cloth for 3 hours. Dough should appear 2x in size.

5. Punch down dough, divide into 2 parts. Stretch dough into desired shape (feel free to try throwing, but make sure to stay away from the ceiling fan when you do).

6. Put down a sprinkle of corn meal on pizza pan or pizza stone. Lay dough on cooking surface. Brush top with olive oil, then dress with whatever sauce and toppings you want. Bake for approx 25 minutes at 400 degrees.

Moments of rest

One year olds are exhausting!

I realize that I am one of the fortunate few out there who have a husband who likes to cook. Not only does he enjoy cooking, he's rather good at it, and he has agreed to do it on a semi-consistent basis. Yay! So, two days a week he rushes home from work to cook dinner for the family. This is wonderful and amazing.... However, it creates a problem of its own. If he is cooking dinner, who is watching the baby?

On the nights that Derek cooks, the responsibility of entertaining Addison before dinnertime falls on my shoulders. Now this may not seem like a very challenging task - I have no problem taking care of her all day, so what's different about the 45 minutes before dinner? There is a difference, let me tell you.

It may be difficult to understand, but my mental clock for the day revolves around Derek's schedule. At about 4:30pm, I find myself calculating how many minutes until he gets home. And although this is certainly in part due to my excitement to see him, it is also about getting a reprieve from my motherly duties. I love spending my days with Addison, but unlike an office job, I don't have business hours. The clock never stops. So, the times when someone else is watching out for her so I can focus more than 50% of my attention of something else are precious. Even if that something else is dinner.

Addie and I relaxing together

So, Derek and I are still trying to find that balance between him helping with the household duties (cooking, cleaning, bathtime, etc) and me finding a chance to take a breath and de-mommy before bedtime. I'm not sure we've figured it out yet, but I have the confidence that we'll get there. And talking to other friends of mine who are mothers, it seems that this is not a unique struggle; just one that everyone has to go through themselves since each solution is unique.

So in honor of those precious moments of relaxation - whether they come first thing in the morning, or just before bed, I want to share my recipe for banana bread. It's pretty easy to do, and the results are very yummy. Something to enjoy when you have a quiet moment to sit and take a breath...

Mommy's helper in the kitchen

Banana Bread
1/2 cup butter, soft but not melted
1 cup sugar
3 ripe bananas, broken or sliced into pieces
2 eggs
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

1. Cream the butter and the sugar until they are well blended together

2. Add in bananas and mix

3. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing in between.

4. In a separate bowl, add baking soda and salt to the flour and blend well

5. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients

6. Pour into a greased bread loaf pan and bake at 350 degrees for approximately 1 hour (until a toothpick or knife inserted in the center comes out clean).

Fish Taco Friday

Ash Wednesday was last week, which marks the beginning of Lent (the 40 days before Easter). Fat Tuesday is always the day before Ash Wednesday, and has been a day of partying and excess for centuries. Because traditionally people give up things for Lent, they used Fat Tuesday as the day to eat all of their eggs, butter, sweets, alcohol, and anything else that they wouldn't be eating again until Easter. Hence how Mardi Gras began (Mardi Gras means "Fat Tuesday" in French).

All decked out for Mardi Gras!

Now we didn't go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, but we did mark the beginning of Lent. Although I wouldn't describe ourselves as ultra-religious, we did go to church on Ash Wednesday, and Derek is giving something up for Lent this year. I haven't chosen to give anything up, but I've given myself the challenge of no-meat Fridays.

Typically a Catholic tradition, eating fish on Fridays is an interesting culinary challenge for me. We enjoy fish on occasion, but it isn't completely in my comfort zone of cooking (that mostly falls in the dessert category). So for the first Friday of Lent, rather than just cook a potentially boring filet of white fish, I decided to push my limits and attempt fish tacos. I'm happy to say that the results were pretty good.

To cook the fish, I took a couple of filets of tilapia and marinated them in olive oil, lemon juice, and freshly minced garlic for approximately 20 minutes. I then cooked them in a skillet over medium heat for about 3 minutes per side. Since I was going to flake the fish up for the tacos anyway, I could test whether the fish was done by testing the flakiness with a fork right there in the pan. So it was done when my fork easily flaked the fish into pieces.

Addison loves the park,
more than fish tacos

Starting with two soft corn tortillas, I put down a small bed of lettuce (you can also use cabbage). I put the flaked fish onto the lettuce and then added a homemade pico de gallo (freshly diced onions, green bell peppers, tomatoes, with lemon juice and garlic). I topped the whole thing with a great fish taco sauce that I found here (I've repeated the recipe below, and am super excited to try more recipes from her blog). A little bit of fresh chopped cilantro and some sliced avocado on the side, and th dish was complete! Overall, I would say that the entire dish was pretty easy to make and turned out very tasty. I'd recommend it to anyone; especially that fish taco sauce.

Fish Taco Sauce
1/2 cup Greek yogurt (you can also use sour cream)
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 lime, cut in half
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon dried dill weed
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon ground paprika (you can also use chipotle chili powder, but I didn't have any on hand)
1/2 teaspoon capers, minced
1 jalapeño, seeded and diced
1 tablespoon fresh cilantro, chopped

1. In a small bowl, whisk the yogurt and mayonnaise until well blended.

2. Squeeze the juice from one lime half into the mayo mixture, then whisk thoroughly. You’ll want the consistency of a pourable, creamy salad dressing. If still too thick, add more lime juice from the other half. If too runny, add more yogurt.

3. Add all of the spices, whisking to mix thoroughly. Add the capers, minced jalapeño and cilantro, and whisk thoroughly.

4. Cover the bowl with wrap and refrigerate the sauce for at least one hour — the longer the better.

5. Serve chilled. Spoon white sauce over fish tacos, or add into taco salads or rice bowls.

Bottles and Drapes and Sniffles... Oh My!

Well, it's flu season, and with a little one around who puts everything in her mouth, it's amazing we haven't gotten sick more. But taking care of a 13-month old while feeling under the weather, even if it was just a bad cold, is a lot of work. I am thankful that I'm lucky enough to stay home so I don't have to deal with calling in sick to work, but it's still tough to work up energy to play with Addison when all I really want to do is sleep.

Thankfully, Addison has been in a great mood lately. Let's hope she doesn't get sick too! Unfortunately the weather hasn't been quite so nice, so we've been inside more. But that means that the house is coming together - the drapes I've sewn are up along the front windows, and paint samples are on multiple walls. I can't wait to say goodbye to the faded olive green walls in the living room, dining room, hallway, and master suite. I know it will be slow going (painting is a one-person job while the other plays "corral the kid"), but it will make such a difference once we get it all done.

And Derek has even found time to brew some beer. Slowly the beer laws in Alabama (or Huntsville specifically) are changing, and that means that new breweries and brewpubs are cropping up. We're very excited to be part of this budding culture, and Derek has taken the chance to jump in himself. Last weekend we had friends over and bottled the Irish Red that Derek brewed a few weeks ago. It was fun to watch and will be even more fun to drink. They say that it has to be in the bottles for a week or two before it is done. I think we may open a bottle tonight to see if it's ready - crossing my fingers!

In the spirit of all our projects and adventures in trying new things, I'm posting a salad recipe that Derek found somewhere. Now I'm not a big fan of blue cheese, but this salad is delicious!

Bread Salad
1 cup French bread cubes
1 cup cubed tomatoes
1/3 cup blue cheese crumbles
1/3 cup pine nuts < Extra virgin olive oil
balsamic vinegar
fresh basil

Toast the pine nuts until golden brown. Toast bread cubes as well. Combine homemade breadcrumbs with pine nuts, blue cheese, tomatoes and mix. Cut basil into ribbons and add to salad. Toss with olive oil and vinegar to taste. Enjoy!

Superbowl shmuperbowl

You might already know this, but around here football is more than just something to watch on a rainy Sunday afternoon. It's almost a way of life. People have extremely strong feelings about their team of choice, letting everyone know through their car color, license plates, flags on their houses, not to mention clothes and hats and stickers. I can't count how many times I've been asked who my team is.
                                     

Oh, did I mention that this fervent love of football applies to college ball only? Perhaps it's because there are no professional football teams in the state of Alabama (nor is there a pro basketball or baseball team either), or it's just a regional thing, I'm not sure. Regardless of the why, the fact is that pro football is not that big a deal around here. So, the Superbowl was not a huge event either.

Now we aren't huge football fanatics (although I almost won my fantasy league this year), but I enjoy the tradition of eating junk food and watching the commercials. So after a day of doing non-football related things like going to church, playing at the park, visiting with friends, etc, we ate dinner and settled down to watch the Superbowl from our nice new TV on our nice new couch. Yes, thanks to being in the central time zone, kickoff wasn't until around 6pm. With our DVR starting slightly before us, we had a chance to eat some homemade buffalo wings beforehand (the recipe is below). Even Addison got to watch the beginning, although she by far preferred playing in the den to watching what was on the TV screen. (I caught one photo of her watching the TV though).

Overall, I thought we had a great Superbowl Sunday, and I am pretty proud of how the wings turned out considering I've never tried to cook wings before. Sure, there are almost as many wings places around here as there are barbeque places, but it's still nice to be able to make them yourself. And it doesn't hurt that Star Market in Five Points is supposedly the best butcher counter in town. So here is the recipe if you're feeling up for trying out wings.


Buffalo Wings
12 whole chicken wings
flour
paprika
salt
Oil for frying
6 Tbsp butter, melted
1 or 2 cloves garlic, minced
1/8 to 1/4 cup hot sauce

Heat approx 1/2 inch of oil in a skillet on medium heat. Using chicken shears or a sharp knife, trim the wing tips off your chicken wings and separate the drum sticks from the wings. Mix flour with paprika and salt to taste. Dredge the drumsticks and wings in the flour mixture and then put in skillet. Fry until golden brown, then flip (approx 5 minutes). Once outer shell is golden brown, set on roasting pan in a cookie sheet and put in oven set to 350 degrees to finish cooking.
Meanwhile, melt the butter, and whisk in minced garlic. Add hot sauce to taste. Put mixture in a large bowl, and add wings. Toss to cover. Serve. Enjoy!