Stir Fry

MOM and Dad have been doing a lot of stir fry lately. But Dad doesn't like the texture of vegetables "fried" in oil. So he got the idea to bake them in the convection oven. The onions and peppers turned out great. They were not oily at all. However, the broccoli florets, water chestnuts, snow peas, and baby corn were not improved. That may be because the onions and peppers were fresh, while the remaining stir fry vegetables were previously frozen and packaged together in a stir fry kit.

Bell peppers awaiting oven space.

Dad used to like green bell peppers. He recalls enjoying them as a kid, both raw and cooked for stuffed bell peppers. But he has not enjoyed them as an adult and wonders if he changed, or if the peppers have changed. While the yellow, red, and orange ones above turned out great, the green ones were slightly bitter and were discarded.

"Sat?" "Sat?" "Sat?"

THE Twin's are putting phrases together. Buggy's most oft used is a question for what is that. This comes out as "Sat?" She points to objects and issues the question often in groups of three.

Dad is working on getting on video. Hopefully it'll be available soon.

"Get Down!"

RECENTLY, Dad found Buggy out of her crib when he went to check on her in their room. He had left her in the crib. This has happened before. She is fairly adept at climbing into it too.

So Dad decided to catch her on camera. What came of it was hilarious. His command to, "get down," was not met with swift enough action by her for his liking, so he repeated it. She hastened her response, but both Twin's responded promptly to the second order.

In the background, EJ interpreted it as, "lay down," and flung himself to the mattress.

Buggy's Apron

Its actually a dress for a smaller girl. But it suits her as an apron. 

Buggy atop EJ

THE shrieks of joy brought Dad down the hall to investigate. This is what he found.

Helping to Clean? Not.

FEEDING toddlers makes cleaning floors a multiple times per day experience, so Dad purchased a lightweight vacuum just for that purpose.

They like to imitate Dad, but turn the vacuum on and try to get them to do something productive with it, and they run away and hide.

Work, it is a four letter word.

Playing in a Box

BOXES are the best source of fun for young imaginations!

Ethan James

Lasagna

A long time ago, Ruth M. shared a recipe for lasagna with New Family Grandma. Grandma shared it with Dad and he has made it many times since varying several components of the recipe.

If there ever were an inspiration that got him interested in cooking, that recipe was it.

The traditional recipe requires a good deal of time and about $40 worth of ingredients (priced at full retail and in 2004 dollars). Dad wanted to make something quickly using ingredients on hand.

A jar of Classico pasta sauce went in to the blender with dried oregano and basil. A half stick of butter was melted with powdered garlic and salt. Dad has learned to heat the garlic and salt in a little bit of water first to suspend the solids in solution. Ruth shared the technique of melting the butter before applying it to the bread first,

 Then he mops the entire loaf with garlic butter, wraps it up in aluminum and bakes it.

Instead of traditional lasagna noodles, he used whole wheat rotini noodles. 

A salad spinner dewaters the pasta well. 

Not all ingredients were on hand. Mom had to buy the sausage. Above Dad is browning it. 

Dad laid a base layer of rotini noodles, then spread a layer of oregano and basil infused ricotta cheese. He recalls that there was an egg mixed in as well. 

The blended pasta sauce with sausage mixed in went over top the ricotta. 

Shredded whole milk mozzarella was next.

Provolone followed.

Then into the convection oven until the cheese was golden brown and delicious.

The convection oven needs a good cleaning. Above the result of a dirty oven was uneven browning.

Finally the garlic bread went in where it was steamed by the water in the butter.

Dad has had the thought, but not yet tried, of clarifying the butter and using only the solids on the bread.

No, its not low carb. But this is, at most, a twice a year dish. So that makes it all the more dee-lish!

A subsequent iteration of the dish appears above. They needed to get the rest of the ingredients used up. Yes that is peperoni on top!