Soak It, Spice It, Smoke It, Slice It

So what do you do if you have five pounds of corned beef, but only need four pounds for your St. Patty's Day dinner? Make pastrami!! Oh, and you'd better bake a loaf of traditional rye bread too:

St. Patrick's Week

Since St. Patty's day falls on a Wednesday this year, we'll be busy at church, and unable to manage a big meal. So instead, we invited friends over for dinner tonight, and cooked up a traditional American St. Patty's Day feast.

Dinner in the City, Movie in the Suburbs

For a very delayed Valentine's day celebration, Cori and I braved the St. Patrick's Day parade traffic and headed into Chicago to visit Rick Bayless's new restaurant, Xoco, for lunch today. Xoco serves Mexican fare in a "street food" style. For lunch, their primary offering are tortas, wood-fire roasted sandwiches.

Brightening the Dreary Winter Months

A little secret: I love snow. Give me a great big storm with a foot of snow, so I can't do anything but stay home and cook and play games...I'm a happy camper. No wait, I'd be a miserable camper, I'm a happy homer. D'oh! You get the idea. I suspect the only reason I look forward to these events is because I'm blessed to live in a city where it only takes a few hours for the plow crews to clear the roads, so we're never homebound long enough to get cabin fever. Plus, when the storm blows itself out, we can take Elly SLEDDING!

Had Ourselves a Merry Little Christmas

Ok, so I got behind again on posting Elly photos, and it's time to catch up. When we left off, it was Elly's birthday...the week before Christmas.

As with most families, I suppose, Christmas is a very busy time. We have two families to visit, multiple church services, choir, and we almost never do our present wrapping until Christmas Eve. Toss in a one-year-old, and the week starts to feel a little like this:

...and then she was one.

On Saturday, we celebrated Elly's first birthday. Both sets of grandparents, and her aunt Becky, uncle Justin, and cousin Nathan came to party. Everyone was greeted at the door by that same giggling cloud of balloons, which had by now become completely entangled around her leg.

Elly, 11 months old.

Elly is now in full-tilt toddler mode. She constantly keeps us on our toes, as she literally runs from one thing to the next. She has also developed her own little (or rather, big) personality.

Turkey and Turkeys

Cori, Elly and I hosted Thanksgiving dinner for the first time, this year. It was also my first time making turkey. Both were a smashing success, if I do say so myself. But with eight "grown-ups", two almost-"grown-ups", and two babies crammed in our little place, things may have gotten a little silly.

A giraffe and a half

We had a blast at the Brookfield Zoo today. Cori dressed Elly in her giraffe costume (gotta get our money's worth). We asked the guy at the gate if he would let us in free, since we were bringing our own animal, but we had to pay full price...bummer.



I was pretty surprised at how much Elly got out of it. I didn't really figure she'd be interested in (or even notice) the animals very much, but she had a blast.

Elly, 10 months old

Yesterday, Elly passed the 11 month mark. Time to upload the photos of a 10 month old Elly...but first...it appears there was a batch of pics from 9 months that I missed. So to begin, here are a few from right before she turned 10 months old.

Piggy and Me

After Elly was born, Cori took a "Mommy and Me" class at the hospital, where she became friends with a group of women who all had babies around the same time. Over the past year, we (mommies, babies AND the dads) have gathered every few months for reunions. The most recent was this past Saturday, when we met at our church. Now that the kids are getting more mobile, we figured we'd need a bit more space than someone's living room, and the activity room at the school seemed like a great place. We met at lunchtime, and I voluneetered to provide the main course; everyone else brought sides/drinks/dessert. I had been waiting for another excuse to make pulled pork.

Will work for food

We had a fun, but exhausting day on Saturday.

Earlier in the week, I saw a posting on Facebook from a friend asking for help winterizing one of her greenhouses. She promised brunch as an incentive to come help. So bright and early Saturday morning, I headed over to lend a hand. Not only did I get a nice bite to eat, but she also gave me a few fresh eggs, courtesy of her hens (of course it was her hens; if she said her rooster had laid them, I would've been concerned).

After running a few more errands, I headed home to make lunch for our guests. Cori's sister Judi and Judi's husband Herschel and their son Dylan were visiting this weekend, and burgers were on the menu for lunch. When I saw those fresh eggs I had been given earlier in the morning, I had an epiphany: burgers with bacon, a fried egg and avocado. Outstanding!

Happy Birthday Cori

Yesterday was Cori's birthday, and I surprised her with a dish that we had at our anniversary dinner a few months ago. For our anniversary, we had gone to Topolobampo in Chicago. All the dishes were outstanding, but the Sopa Azteca (a traditional Mexican tortilla soup) was truly eye-opening. Thankfully, Rick Bayless has made the recipe available on his website. So I decided to give it a shot for Cori's birthday.

I have a MOLE?!

No, not that kind of mole (but the first person who can name that film gets an invitation to dinner at my place). The sauce...mole...rhymes with frijole. Sounds like a pig-latin word. Mo-lay.

My first taste of mole sauce was during our anniversary dinner this year at Topolobampo, Rick Bayless' restaurant just north of the loop. My entree was roasted lamb with black mole (or mole negro), the same mole sauce that a few weeks later won him the championship on Top Chef Masters. Mole sauce is a classic mexican sauce that comes in many varieties; red mole, green mole, peanut mole, mole poblano...each with it's own traditional ingredients and infinite personal variations. They are generally characterized by rich, complex flavor due to the large number of ingredients. Mole negro is the most complex and difficult to prepare (it can contain 30 or more ingredients).

A pot of chili, a loaf of bread, and thou.

Ok, so it turned out to be two pots of chili, because "thou" doesn't like beans...and Fred came over for dinner, so I guess it should be: Two pots of chili, a loaf of bread, Fred, and thou...
...but first! Elly had her first non-baby-food food. And of course, it was pizza, bbq chicken pizza...and of course, she loved it.



On to the chili...

Elly, months 8 and 9

...and just when I got caught up, I didn't post for six weeks and got behind again. Ok, catching up again. Here are months eight and nine.

Elly, Months 6 and 7

Alright! We're getting caught up with the Elly photos. This group are of Elly at ages 6 months and 7 months. Since she's 8 months old now, I guess we're caught up.

Here's our big girl, right around her 6 month birthday. She wasn't really standing independently at this point, but stayed there long enough for Cori to snap a quick photo.

First day of September

September, day one. Cori and I stepped out our front door to take a walk with Elly and were greeted by this sight. Summer is waning.



We didn't let it keep us from having a good time, though.

July 4, 2009

This summer I took a couple days off to extend the Fourth of July weekend. We packed up the car and drove up to Racine, WI to spend some time with Cori's family. As always, we had a blast spending time on the boat and hanging out with the family.

Elly at 5 months

When Elly turned 5 months old, we started her on cereal. Here she is with her first bites.