Lots of activity around the kitchen

I’m on a cooking kick. The hubster approves! Like I’ve mentioned before, I love trying new recipes. So far, this week I’ve made Betty Crocker’s Slow Cooker Beef Stroganoff and SkinnyTaste’s Crock Pot Chicken a la Criolla. They were both delicious! These two will for sure be added to our dinner rotation. But there’s one little detail… I need to organize my recipes. I’m guilty of loving a new recipe to later not be able to find it online/in a magazine or cookbook. At first, I was using my Food & Drinks Pinterest board to organize recipes but quickly found that it’s better used to keep my “To try” recipes. I was doing some research and just yesterday found a system that I believe will work for my family. It was created by Megan from The Homes I Have Made and featured on iHeart Organizing. Go over and take a look! I think it is super cool. It uses a magnetic dry erase calendar to plan a whole month’s meals. This will work perfectly for me because I can plan the whole month in advance, but I can still change things around since I do groceries every Sunday. I already started a list with our go to recipes (although I’ll probably end up printing magnets with protein and sides categories only… we try new things often enough) and picked colors for the magnets. I will be printing and clipping recipes/putting them on a binder next. I gotta run to Target to get the board and hopefully I’ll find the magnetic paper there as well. This is the kind of project that makes me all giddy and happy inside. I’ll show pictures when I’m done (sorry for the lack of pictures on this post)!

We *heart* homemade baby food!

Today I’ll show you how easy it is to make baby food. Pure goodness, no additives. And it is sooo tasty… I know because I taste everything.

1. Prep the vegetables/fruit. In this instance I was making sweet potato puree. I peeled the sweet potato and cut it in small cubes (to shorten cooking time).

2. Set up the steamer. I got a silicone steaming tray at the grocery store and it works perfectly. Steam the vegetables/fruit.

3. Using a food processor (adding water to obtain your preferred consistency) puree your vegetable/fruit.

4. Freeze the puree. I use these silicone ice cube trays and I love how well they work. Each cube is 1 ounce, so it’s really easy to tell how much baby is eating.

5. Pop frozen puree cubes out of silicone trays and store in freezer bags (remember to label your bags with content and date). They stack really well, so they don’t take a lot of freezer space.

See? Easy! I do the same for butternut squash, carrots, peas, green beans, apples and pears. Soon, we’ll be introducing new foods and mixed foods. So exciting!

Organizing the “Tupperware” cabinet

I was going to write about something else, but tonight I decided that it was as good a time as any to organize my “precious” collection of plastic containers. I didn’t even thought of taking a before picture. Didn’t want to embarrass my mom!

I have a theory… I think that plastic containers reproduce at a crazy rate and they don’t even care to produce even numbers of containers to lids that match.

I’ve always complained about the messy state of that area in my kitchen, so I went for it… I organized it! It looks like this now!

And it only took me 5 minutes! No excuses for having a mess of plastic containers anymore. Now I can find what I need. And look at all that extra room… now I can fit more kitchen stuff!

Lots of R&R

This past week was Spring break for my husband and we decided to go visit our friends that live in the DC area. Always fun! The baby was an angel and slept most of the way there and back home. Our vacationing style tends to be super relaxed (the hubster has enough to do on a daily basis… I don’t want him to be rushing/busy during vacation) doing whatever at a very leisurely pace.

This time around we decided to go to the Smithsonian Zoo. It was a beautiful day to walk around the zoo with the baby. It is a beautiful place… but I left disappointed. I wanted a hot dog and when we went to buy it the place was closed. So sad! (I’m doing Weight Watchers and some other day I’ll tell you how awesome this program is… but that day I wanted a treat!) but then today we made our homemade version of Foggy Bottom hot dogs (the elusive hot dog). They have sauerkraut, Swiss cheese and Russian dressing (we used thousand island dressing… still have to double check that they’re the same thing). That combination is delicious and will be added to our go to recipes for the summer.

So, yes, our vacation was awesome! But, like always, we wanted to stay one more day.

Out and About – Easter Sunday

We were treated to a beautiful Easter Sunday. It was just a gorgeous sunny day. So, out we went! First, we wanted to take some pictures of Antonio in his Easter outfit (tweedy pants, long sleeve shirt, suspenders, bowtie and hat… he looked so super handsome thanks to the best godparents ever!). But, when we got to the place he was napping. Taking him out of the car woke him up, but he was not happy and not in the mood for pictures either. It was a good thing that I took a few pictures at home. In any case, the photo shoot outing was not very successful.

By then, it was time for lunch. We tried 4 restaurants before we found Piranha Sushi Bar open. It was our first time there, the staff was friendly and the sushi delicious! Our favorite (from what we tasted) was the Maui Wowie (tuna, mango, avocado, topped with eel sauce, as described on their menu). This sushi roll deserves an OMG! The combination of flavors is oh, so good! Sorry, no food pictures… I forgot.

We also went to Target (forgot that it was closed)… I should have known better (after all, I worked there for a while). But saw one of the funniest things ever. There are no cars on the parking lot. This girl parks, gets out of her car, walks to the door, it doesn’t move, she looks inside, looks at the store schedule, and walks back to her car very confused. To top it all off, this guy drives by her and asks if the store is closed! HA! Watching that was worth the unsuccessful trip to Target.

Hope you had a happy Easter!

I’m not afraid of gluten-free products!

Like I said yesterday, I love to cook and try new recipes. I love entertaining and use my friends as guinea pigs (sorry guys!) . Don’t worry, I’ll never serve something that doesn’t pass the hubster’s taste test. I try to make something new every time we get together or have our game-get-togethers/potlucks. We have a couple of friends that are gluten intolerant and I feel strongly about accommodating for them (because they’re not trying to be picky eaters… they get really sick when they consume gluten… I take it seriously). Sooo, I had found a Gluten-free asparagus quiche recipe (from Joy the Baker) on Pinterest and wanted to make it for my friend and knew that we would enjoy it too.

I couldn’t find the brand of gluten-free flour Joy the Baker used on her recipe, but I did find Bob’s Red Mill GF All Purpose Baking Flour on my local grocery store (which I love, by the way). I saw people commented how GF flours vary from brand to brand. I’m not going to lie… I was a little worried. When I made my dough, it didn’t look like Joy the Baker’s dough. It was a little on the dry side. I decided to proceed. It was a little difficult to roll out because it was crumbly but I manage to put it on the pie plate on one piece. The quiche baked beautifully. Wanna see?

Love those golden edges. I didn’t get enough dough to make a fancy edge but I’m ok with that. Then, the moment of truth… I called my “official” taste tester over and I guess he approved because he ate the whole piece I served him. The quiche filling was delicious and very creamy. Oh, but that crust won us over. It was crisp, flavorful, so very delicious and it didn’t taste any different than “regular” pie crust. The kind of crust that you can eat by itself. We got a winner… we’re definitely adding this recipe to our rotation… maybe changing the filling a bit and we have some ideas already.

To round up my gluten-free offerings, I made cream cheese flan (someday I’ll share my mom’s recipe) and almojabanas. Delicious food to share with awesome friends.

In the kitchen

Most people that know me know that I love to cook and I love to try different recipes. I also have a husband that loves to eat what I make (*gotta love that*)! He had mentioned a while back that he loved almojabanas and how he would love to have some because there was this place where he would get them and it was only at this place that he had seen them before and… and… and… You get the idea. So being the *awesome wife* that I am (at least I think so!) I found a recipe on Saveur magazine (this was years after the long sad story was told) and got the ingredients. If you don’t know, almojabanas are fritters (popular in Puerto Rico) with a rice flour-based dough and some cheese. They look like this after frying…

Well, let me tell you that they were easy to make and so super delicious! They are soft on the inside and crispy on the outside… and they have melty cheese! What’s not to like?! The recipe made a ton, so I spooned the leftover dough onto a baking sheet lined with wax paper (the dough is a bit sticky) and put them in the fridge for tomorrow. I’m assuming that they will keep well for a day. Fingers crossed… I guess we’ll know tomorrow.

They would be great for a party; the almojabanas fry super fast because all the ingredients are cooked while you make the dough. I will definitely be making these again!

Painting Eggs

I won’t even try to make an egg pun. I know… you’re welcome.

Today I colored eggs with friends. I had tried it once before, but today it turned out to be pretty relaxing.

I made a pseudo-Charlie Brown egg.

The usual colored eggs in pretty jewel tones.

Shrink-wrapped eggs were super fun. Put the egg inside the plastic sleeve, dunk it in hot water and watch the plastic shrink!

And a smiley face egg!

Quite fun! Next year, Antonio will be able to do it too! While we colored eggs, he tried to pull the table cover and then napped. =D

In the Making goes LIVE!

Hello there! =D

Blogging is my answer to not wanting to spend time on Facebook anymore but still wanting to share what I’m up to (family life, motherhood, crafting, cooking, etc). Facebook is a major time-suck for me and I’d rather waste my time on Pinterest (*love Pinterest*) getting inspiration than reading drama status updates and stuff that doesn’t matter for the most part. If anything, this move will help me focus on documenting life, taking even more pictures/videos of this growing baby of mine and being productive.

So there you have it! More coming soon.