My kitchen musings!

Sorry, again, fellow followers for my absence. After our fun week with Amee we thought things would go back to normal. “Normal”. Due to bad timing, last week found Gabriela and me alone for 8 days. For those who don’t know, my father lives with us which is a HUGE help for the day-to-day things that I (try) to get done. And Gabi loves her afternoon naps with him so I can get dinner together. AND the husband was out of town for two weeks for work. Yikes.

Now I know thousands of women and men are single stay at home parents and this is something that is done everyday but when you are used to having that extra set of hands everyday, not having it really does make me appreciate all that my father does. We run 3 days a week and bike twice and while I get Gabi ready my father would get the stroller and/or her bike trailer and our bikes ready to go and on the Monte. Without him here, it’s all on me and let me tell you, I don’t know what is harder: actually doing the running or bike or getting the gear loaded! Whew!

Needless to say, our schedule has a been out of whack in terms of the baby sleeping, cooking, and just regular everyday things. So blogging has been furthest from my mind. Sorry gang!

I did, however, knock out a few batch cookings earlier in the week that included bolognese sauce (which i just sorta threw together with grated carrots and zucchini for some extra veggies) and quinoa and zucchini bites from Littlegrazers.com . I was really surprised by how yummy the quinoa bites turned out! And extra bonus: Gabriela (and Amee, the best friend) LOVED them! And they are a great source for protein so extra WIN! And then the week went down hill from there ending in getting dinner from our local pizza joint.

Speaking of pizza, as I am writing this (and Gabi is napping beautifully!!), I am prepping pizza for tonight. To begin, I have a variety of different tomatoes slow roasting in the oven. I try to start these as early as possible in the day because the longer you roast them (on the lowest oven setting possible) the natural sugars caramelize and you get a more deep and flavorful tomato bite. I wish I could say these came from my garden, but alas, only four of them did. This weather has been brutal on my veggies and I’m actually just waiting for the rest to dry and die off so I can plant again as we near winter cooler weather. Did I mention we’re reaching almost 90 degrees today with 75% humidity!!??!! NOTE: do not roast your tomatoes on aluminum foil as the acid interacts with the foil and you’ll get a tinny (is that a word? tin-ny) flavor. Instead, use parchment paper.

 

   
I’m trying to perfect my crust so I have dedicated myself to just using one master recipe (from Tuscan Gun) and tweaking that rather than using different ones. If you have any tips on how to get a great, crunchy yet chewy flavorful crust, please drop me a line! I’ll update how the pizza turned out tomorrow on my “I wonder wednesday” post.

So everything is sorta falling back to normal: the husband has returned home but the father is still out of town so it’s gabi and me time during the day and then daddy takes over (as he pours me a cocktail). Gabi has been trying to roll with things but she ended up having some tummy troubles earlier this week that is really unlike her. We have been blessed with no issues at all for almost 15 months so I figure we were due. Thankfully, she is all good now and back to her bubbly, REGULAR self! 

 

 
I am freaking out though because I have the Mujer Brava 25 mile bike race and 10k running race on October 10th and training alone has not been my strongest suit, especially pushing a 20 pound baby and a 20 (?) pound jogging stroller. But that’s ok– I’m committed and looking forward to it!

Please check back as for more posts as I get back my groove back and please check me out on Facebook!

Cheers!

Ps- check out my fellow blogger friend  over at GoingDad who just got back from a stay-at-home-DAD’s convention! How cool is that!? And just so you know, dad’s don’t babysit! 😉