One Big, Fat Pregnant Lady's Plea

If any of you have ever had to endure comments from strangers about your size and weight when you were pregnant, come on over to the Chicago Mom's Blog to commiserate with me.

(I just found out that this post was selected as part of a syndication agreement with the McClatchy Tribune Company so that people all over the country could possibly be reading about my enormous belly! Exciting! Embarrassing!)

Preparations

I have been running around my garden, preparing for the less lovely weather that is coming (or has already arrived? Gosh, that was fast).

Everything seems so bountiful and green now, but I know that will not be the case in a few weeks. Work to do. Work to do.

I have invested so much time and energy into my garden that and I want to make the most of it before it withers away.

Here is my rough plan:

I simply cannot keep up with my tomatoes, so I have begun oven-drying them for later use in salads, crostinis, etc. (So easy . . . .slice tomatoes into rings, season with salt and pepper, and bake for about six hours at 200 degrees on a cookies sheet rubbed with a little olive oil).

My basil is beautiful -- but not for long (temperatures are expected to drop into the forties one night this week). So I am plucking leaf after leaf and making pesto to freeze for a "summer" treat in the depths of winter. This process takes about five minutes. Toss two cups of basil leaves, 1/3 cup of olive oil, 3 tablespoons or pine nuts, two small garlic cloves (chopped small) and a big pinch of salt into the food processor and mash it all up. Store each batch in a freezer bag. After I defrost it to use, I will add in about 3/4 cups of grated parmigiano-reggiano and 3 tablespoons on softened butter before serving.

I cut back my lavender and am in the process of drying it to create aromatic eye pillows for Ellie and Brendan (feeling calm, very calm).

I think my carrots have done what they are going to do so we have begun to pull them up as well. And my Swiss chard has about two servings left before it bids us farewell.

When a decent amount of my big boy tomatoes come ripe in a week or two (stay away cold!), I am going to make some simple tomato sauce to freeze.

And I am looking for tips on how to best preserve my other herbs (Italian parsley, sage, thyme, rosemary). Any advice for me? I suppose I could always transplant them into pots to bring indoors for a few weeks longer.

I am not sure that you can really take summer with you -- but I am trying.

A Lesson Learned From A Trout

Last night in a selfish parenting move, we fed the kiddos macaroni and cheese, plums, and turkey and cheese roll ups for dinner around 6:15.

Then, around 7:30, Mom and Dad feasted on grilled whole trout with a salsa verde and sauteed peppers and squash. Delicious.

On weekends, we generally try to prepare meals that we can eat together, but this lovely fish really called out to me at the fish monger. I had to take him home to try. And neither of my kids have been willing to try even a nibble of fish -- ever.

Eleanor was predictably skeptical about the entire fish situation. My future vegetarian asked, "Doesn't that hurt the fish to go on the grill?"

But Brendan was very interested in the whole project. When dinner was being served, he grabbed his own plate and declared, "I need some of that trout." He proceeded to eat heartily (salsa verde and veggies included).

Those little buggers do surprise you when you least expect it, don't they?

There She Goes Again

My big girl headed off to conquer her second year of preschool today. The house is kind of lonely without her.

Brendan finds me positively boring and has asked three times, "When Yiyee get home, Mommy?"

Time goes by too fast. This day doesn't seem so far away at all.

Green Lunches (and a Giveaway!)

Back-to-school means back to packing those school lunches!

Check out my post on Being Savvy: Chicago about packing a "greener" lunch and enter to win a Wrap-n-Mat (and ditch those plastic baggies for good!).

Seriously, go ahead and enter. Who knows? You might even win and then you can feel smug about it everytime you pack up those sandwiches!

Holding on Tight

I cannot stop buying summer produce (no doubt because I am trying to stave off the inevitable end of summer). I have gotten myself in such an "over buy" situation that I can't even figure out how we are going to eat all of this good stuff.

I still have yukon gold potatoes, zucchini and summer squash left over from my trip to the Wicker Park Farmer's Market last Sunday. Today, I bought eight peaches at the Green City Market (why eight -- what am I going to do with all of these?). We couldn't pass up the golden raspberries for snacking (those shouldn't be around for long). We helped harvest tomatoes at the Edible Garden and we ended up taking some of those home with us. We added them to the already overflowing bowl of tomatoes from our backyard. I am not going to even get into the blueberry situation.

Tonight, we pick up our CSA box which will bring melons, apples, broccoli, celery, herbs, patty pan squash, plums, and onions.

The bottom line is we have some serious eating to do. I am going to make zucchini bread while it rains this afternoon. Then roast chicken, sauteed squash and caprese salad for dinner. Maybe followed by a peach cobbler of some sort? Yikes.

Fall Lettuce

It has been weeks since we had backyard lettuce. I think lettuce is a near-perfect crop to grow with kids because they can do it all from start to finish -- from spreading seeds to picking tiny leaves for salad.

Now that the temperatures are going to start cooling off, we thought we would make a second planting. Ellie and Brendan each planted a pot. Hopefully, we will be eating these leaves by the end of September.