Mendolonium

It’s time for cake, the monsters shout.
Hurry blow your candles out.

-From Sandra Boynton’s “Birthday Monsters”

It’s been all about getting ready for and enjoying my 30th birthday here this week. Jeff spent all of his free time readying the backyard to throw me a great birthday party on Sunday afternoon. He really set himself a challenge and, with the help of his dad, installed sprinklers (digging the trenches by hand in true Jeff style), laid 400 sq ft of sod, and set up for the party over the course of about 30 hours on Saturday and Sunday. Thanks to Jeff and the help of his parents I had a very relaxing birthday weekend centered around food. I spent Saturday morning at a cooking class on frozen desserts at the California School of Culinary Arts. We made a chocolate semi-freddo, buttermilk sherbet, and a grapefruit-orange sorbet. The buttermilk sherbet was simply amazing and I will certainly be making more at home. I spent the rest of Saturday and Sunday making food for the party. A tradition of buying an ice cream cake for my birthday came to an end this year with Thomas’ allergies. I started a new tradition of making and decorating my own birthday cake which was great fun. Next year I think I’ll make the cake and the ice cream. The party was a great success: the weather was perfect, the food was good and plentiful, the kids played well together, and it was so nice to get a chance to relax and spend time with everyone who came. It was especially enjoyable to see our previously uninhabitable backyard full of life: both plants and people. Thirty has certainly started off well and I am looking forward to the next decade of life. Amongst all the chaos this week here’s what we’ve been eating:

Thursday

• Dinner at the Farmer’s Market

Friday

• Veggie and Tofu Asian Stir-Fry over Rice

Saturday

• Ended up getting take-out after working hard all day with Jeff’s parents installing sprinklers and laying sod.

Sunday

• Birthday Party!
• Black Bean Burgers
• Tortilla Chips and Guacomole
• Pasta and Summer Vegetable Salad
• Berry Salad
• Watermelon
• Birthday Cake: One chocolate with chocolate buttercream and one vanilla-coconut with vanilla buttercream.
• Vanilla Ice Cream

Monday

• Gina’s 30th Birthday!
• Fresh Bread
• A Selection of American Cheeses
• Fresh Seasonal Fruit
• Tomatoes and Basil

Tuesday

• Veggie Fajitas

Wednesday

• Three Cheese, Roasted Bell Pepper, and Basil Pizza

Better late than never here’s our menu for the week:

Thursday

• Got pupusas and lemonade at the farmer’s market.

Friday

• Got grilled cheeses, fries, and shakes at In-N-Out.
• Very much not perfect, but very tasty.

Saturday:

• Veggie fajitas
• Tomatoes from our garden! We have reached the point where we don’t have to buy tomatoes any more. Very cool.

Sunday

• Took Jeff’s mom out for her birthday
• Made her a chocolate birthday cake.

Monday

• Baked falafel with pita, feta, tomatoes, lettuce, cucumber, and sour cream on the side.
• Tomatoes, lettuce, and parseley (for the falafel) from our garden.

Tuesday

• Sloppy lentils (a vegetarian version of sloppy joes) from 125 Best Vegetarian Slow Cooker Recipes.

Wednesday:

• Three cheese and basil pizza.
• Apple, blue cheese, and carmelized walnut pizza.

Before I get to the coming weeks menu, I want to share some recipes with you that I developed for last week’s dinners. From Saturday night we have:

Layered Vegetable Enchiladas and Enchilada Sauce

And from Tuesday night we have:

Shahi Paneer

Another aside before we get to this week’s menu…remember the book,
Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, that I mentioned last week might change my life? Well, I baked four loaves of bread this week and I honestly think that after the initial prep of making the dough (which is done once every two weeks – and only takes about 10 minutes) I only spent about two minutes dealing with each loaf (excluding baking time). I calculated that using the recipes in this book I can make a boule of organic bread for about $1.45 each; compared to buying a similar boule of organic bread at Whole Foods which will set you back at least $4.00. This coming week I going to try experimenting with using other flours in this bread (as opposed to the traditional wheat) such as spelt, rye, and kamut. Now onto this week’s menu (with appearances by the magic bread, of course.

Thursday: Eat dinner at the farmer’s market. As much as I enjoy them, I am getting a bit tired of pupusas. I might just eat fresh fruit, French fries and lemonade or something childish like that.

Friday: 4th of July! Black bean burgers, pasta salad, and an ice cream bombe (mint chocolate chip and cookies & cream ice cream)

Saturday: Our 7th wedding anniversary! Cheese fondue, with artisan bread, broccoli, carrots, potatoes, and apples for dipping

Sunday: Butternut squash and leek phyllo triangles

Monday: Baked potatoes with steamed broccoli, green onions, sour cream, butter, and cheddar

Tuesday: Sweet corn and squash soup, mixed greens, Gorgonzola, and walnut salad, bread

Wednesday: Jeff cooks

Happy 4th of July to everyone!

Menu for the coming week:

Thursday:

• Continuing our summer laziness tradition and picking up pupusas and lemonade at the farmer’s market

Friday:

• Veggie and feta pasta salad

Saturday:

• Layered vegetable and black bean enchiladas
• This is going to be my first attempt at making enchilada sauce from scratch.

Sunday:

• BBQ in appreciation of the dads
• Black bean burgers, corn on the cob, seasonal fruit, cherry crisp

Monday:

• Build-your-own sandwiches on homemade ciabatta

Tuesday:

• Shahi paneer, brown rice, nann

Wednesday:

• Jeff cooks.  This past week Jeff did build-your-own burritos.

And now three random snippets from our life as a bonus:

A Scene From The Neighboorhood Park

The Setting: Our neighborhood park, about 6:00 pm. Jeff and I are watching Thomas as he climbs on the play structure. Nearby, several bulldozers (being used for the construction of new park restrooms) sit idle. A four year old boy gazes longingly at the bulldozers. His father stands nearby.

Boy: Look at those!

Me: Yes, bulldozers!

Boy: Like Bob the Builder

Me: Sure, like Bob the Builder. (I have never seen Bob the Builder but with a name like that I assume that Bob knows something about bulldozers.)

Boy: Yeah.

Me: I’ll bet they are fun to drive.

Boy: Yeah!

Me: Maybe someday when you grow up you could drive a bulldozer.

Boy’s Father: Or he could tell the guys driving the bulldozer what to do.

Me: Driving the bulldozer sounds like more fun.

Boy’s father says nothing and glares at me.

Clearly, some people have issues with their socioeconomic status.

Thomas is a Delightful Little Crazy Man

Thomas is doing a bang-up job of job of being a toddler by being adorable one moment and relentlessly testing our rules the next.  He enjoys drawing and is quite fond of testing our rule of “only drawing on paper” by coloring on the table, the floor, and this morning Jeff’s chair.  When he does so, I stop his drawing, reprimand him, and clean up the crayon with the Mr. Clean magic eraser.  I now have to stop cleaning up the crayon in front of him because I realized that he is purposefully drawing off of the paper so that I will take out the eraser and we can pronounce the offended surface “all clean”.  He likes cleaning so much that the reward of watching me clean is worth the consequence of having to stop drawing.  What a delightful little weirdo.

Wealth Isn’t Having Money In the Bank, It’s Having Bread In the Oven

I bake nearly all of our bread except for pita and hamburger buns.  The bread is good, however, I have become a bit bored with my standard recipe.  I was lamenting my boredom whilst Jeff ordered a computer part from Amazon.  He needed to spend a couple more dollars in order to get free super saver shipping so I told him to add the book Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, a book I had heard about on another blog, to his order.  The book arrived yesterday.  I stayed up until 12:30 am last night reading it cover to cover.  I think that this book might change my life.   Stay tuned for updates.