Boxing Day Baking

My son won't eat vegetables. I mean, he'll eat baby carrots or the occasional broccoli floret under duress (or promise of ice cream). But, generally speaking we can't make the kid eat veggies. And, yes - he will sit at the table all night, forgo all sorts of dinner and treats in lieu of eating the smallest bite of asparagus. Seriously.

But, he loved my brother-in-law's zucchini bread, so we JUMPED on the chance to make more - considering that he didn't realize that he was in fact, consuming a vegetable (squash is a vegetable, right) disguised in bread.

Yes - I am counting zucchini bread as vegetable consumption at this point. It was an easy recipe for zucchini bread which I found at the Food Network. It's a Paula Dean recipe, and is NOT low fat ... but is also not particularly unhealthy, either. Now that we've made it once, I will play with adding zucchini and nuts to up the nutritional value, mix white with whole wheat flour (instead of using all white as the recipe calls for) and may add baby turkey to it - oh yeah, I just said that. It sounds nasty, but put it in pancakes. You'll be surprised - moist and delicious, and you can't taste the turkey (really) at all (much).

Of life and chicken pot pie ...

Item #1 - My friend Laura (whom I can attest is an excellent cook) starting blogging about food - whitefluffyicing.blogspot.com. Check her out.

Item #2 - Two (made from scratch) chicken pot pies that are boiling over in the oven. I got up from the computer to make sure that this is in fact the source of the burning smell and smoke coming from the kitchen (and not a towel left on a burner destined to burn down my new kitchen). A wise person would have put something underneath them - even after the initial boil over. I am not that person.  I will smell the burning and deal w/ the mess later. Or, pay someone to clean my oven. Yeah ... that might be the best route.

Item #3 - Did you read item #2? I made TWO homemade, from scratch (the chicken did come cleaned and featherless) chicken pot pies. Oh yeah - I did. I did that after working 9 hours today (including eating at my desk). Oh yeah, I did. A good blogger would post pictures of my beautiful pot pies - but I am not that person either. And, give me a break. Did I mention I made them from scratch after working all day? I'm super mom.

Item #4 - We watch too much TV. We do. I admit it. Hello, my name is Katie and I love television a little too much. So does The Man. So does The Boy. We strictly limit what  The Boy is allowed to watch (limited PBS Kids) - and that kid LOVES Clifford the Big Red (effing) Dog. The DVR just began replaying the same episode of Clifford again ...while The Man puts The Boy to bed. I am not concerned enough to get up and turn it off (no wonder the mess in the oven is staying there). But the song does make me want to claw my eyeballs out.

More on TV. I finished Season 3 of Dexter last night. Love that show. I wasn't thrilled about Season 2, I didn't like Leila. I hated Leila actually. I was glad her character was murdered at the end of the season.

I also finished Buffy Season 3 over the weekend. On to Buffy Season 4 and Angel Season 1. I can't say I adore Buffy like many do - but I get the attraction, and really enjoy it. It's fun. Supposedly I haven't even gotten to the best singular episodes yet (e.g. Hush in Season 3). And, Buffy is a GREAT knitting show. Dexter is harder cause I have to pay closer attention and end up riveted by whatever is going on. Buffy - entertaining, not riveting (okay, Angel -David Boreanaz) can be riveting, but I can generally multi-task.

Sidebar: Pies are out of the oven. Mess isn't as bad as originally thought. Pictures forthcoming. They look way too good not to photograph.

Speaking of David Boreanaz, Bones has a GREAT cast. The stories are fine. The case, specifically Bones and Booth are the modern-day Scully and Mulder. I don't say that lightly, by the way. There are few character chemistries that are as good as Scully and Mulder were ... Bones and Booth come darn close. If we could take the stories from Fringe and the characters from Bones - it would be like The X-Files v.2. And that would be wonderful.

The Man is watching Sons of Anarchy - I want to like the show, but I just can't get into it. There are not many television shows we enjoy watching together (White Collar is a candidate after the pilot last week).

Item #5 - Focusing a LOT of work on Yarn Love, which you'd never know at this point. It still has a LONG way to go -but I'm getting there. There is a new logo (same colors) and some updated functionality on its way. I will be excited to roll it out. The new platform allows me to better serve my customers and will take less time to manage on the back end. I just have to get there.

Item #6 - For Christmas last year I purchased (at Michael's) el cheapo, plastic lap desks for both The Boy and his best friend and cousin, Saylor. I stenciled a princess motif on hers and a space/rocket ship motif on his. Painted w/  paint pens. The Boy's hasn't fared super well. He uses the heck out of it, but the paint pens haven't worn as well as I had hoped. A moment ago, I get up from the couch where I've been eating my (AWESOME) chicken pot pie and noticed that there was some sort of coloring on the couch. After some concentration and head tilting I realize it's a reverse transfer of the paint design from the tray. Why was the tray placed upside down on my (nearly white) beige, brand effing new couch?

If you know me, you know the number of curse words I deleted from Item #6. I am inventing curse words. That's how I feel about (REALLY UGLY CURSE WORDS) paint on my couch.

I ripped off the cover and promptly placed the slipcover (thank GOODNESS I went w/ slip covers) into the washing machine. THAT PAINT BETTER COME OUT. ARGH. Seriously? Don't I earn some sort of I-made-homemade-chicken-pot-pie universal karma? NO! Now there is laundry to contend with. Seriously?

Item #7 - Artisan Bread - yeah, I made that, too. Here's loaf #3 resting before going into the oven in a bit. Now that I'm convinced (after one batch/ three loaves) that this is something I can do on a regular basis - make homemade bread, I'm going to invest in some baking stones. The 100% Whole  Wheat dough below would be better loafy rather than baking more free-form on the baking sheet as I did it.