Soundtrack to cook to: Number 1's by Marvin Gaye. Feel good music for the soul. Love it.
Now that William's older, it's been a lot of fun to see what foods he likes. I started making some tuna fish salad for lunch the other day and found that I didn't have any celery. I still wanted a crunch to my salad, so I decided to chop up a bunch of cucumber. While I was chopping, I gave Alexander some cucumber sticks to snack on, and went ahead and gave William one, too. He LOVED it!
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| William and Alexander, snacking on cucumbers |
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| William was quite proud of himself. |
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| The little guy, grinning and gumming the cucumber. |
-2 cans of tuna in water
-4 small cucumbers, diced
-1 red pepper, diced
-3 green onions, sliced
-2 tbsp relish
-4 tbsp Greek yogurt
-1 tbsp sesame seeds
-Salt and pepper
*Normally, I would add 2, seeded jalapeno peppers (but they're too spicy for the kids) and 1/2 medium onion as well.
My view while I was prepping the meal - they looked like they were up to no good. :)
Towards the end of William's 8th month, he started to pull himself up onto his feet and started cruising.
I found an awesome and promising recipe on pinterest and decided to give it a go. I saw this beautiful picture for grilled honey lime chicken. Since we had had chicken recently, I decided to try this marinade out with pork tenderloin. It was very easy to throw together while the boys were napping. I even had time to take a nap myself! Boo yah!
I let the pork marinate for 7 hours and then we put it on a rack under the broiler. We broiled it on high for about 15 minutes per side (or until the pork was cooked through).
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| Finely dice the cucumbers - if you have extra time, allow these to drain over some paper towel because they will add a lot of water to the tuna fish salad. |
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| Toss in the red peppers and green onions (I used green onions because I ran out of yellow onions and had to improvise). |
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| Mix in the tuna fish, relish, sesame seeds (if you like), salt and pepper. Then dollop some of this in between two pieces of bread with a slice of cheese in the middle and you've got a deliciously yummy and crunchy tuna fish salad melt! It's a quick and easy lunch to throw together and you'll always have enough for leftovers the next day or for snacks on top of crackers later on. :) |
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| Here they come!! |
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| William was SO proud of himself for pulling himself up to the standing position. Here's Alexander, pretending to pull himself up next to William as well. |
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| Look at how excited and proud this little guy is of himself! |
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| There he goes! Pulling himself up onto his jumparoo. You can't put him in it anymore because he puts up a huge fuss. However, you can let him pull himself up to standing on it and he plays with the toys that way. What a ham! |
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| Again....so proud of himself! :) |
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| Another day, but he still has the same prideful look on his face. :) |
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| I love that grin! |
In a medium mixing bowl, mix together the following ingredients:
- 1/4 cup fresh lime juice
- 2 tsp lime zest
- 1/4 cup honey
- 2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 Tbsp soy sauce
- 1 Tbsp packed light-brown sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
- 1/4 tsp onion powder
- 1 clove finely minced garlic
Then pour over 2 lbs of pork tenderloin and marinade in a Ziploc bag.
While the pork was marinating, we woke up from our naps and got the first harvest from our little garden! We harvested 3 grape tomatoes (2 of which I handed to Alexander and asked him to bring them in the house so we could wash them). I held the last one in my hand, walked into the house, stepped up to the sink and asked Alexander to hand me the other two tomatoes. Alexander looked at me with a blank look. I then asked him, "Alex, where are the other tomatoes?" To which he replied, "I ate them, mommy! They were goooooood!"
HA! That little stinker. Oh well, at least he liked them. :) Joseph and I halved the one that we had left, and yeah, they were actually pretty tasty! Hooray for our first little harvest!
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| Alexander, posing with our lone tomato that he hadn't eaten. I had to quickly take the picture and then snatch it back from him so that Joseph and I could try this one. Little stinker :) |
This recipe was OK. I think if the recipe had extra soy sauce, lime juice, and possibly some ground ginger, that it would be better. Plus, I would totally marinate it overnight to make the marinade really seep in. It definitely has promise, but could definitely use a little something else.
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| Here's the honey lime pork tenderloin that I served alongside some veggies (we needed to go grocery shopping the next day), and mashed potatoes that I made with some of the leftover buttermilk from the fried green tomatoes. They were substantially better, had more flavor, and were more smooth and creamy than when I make them with sour cream and milk. I'll totally be making my mashed potatoes with buttermilk from now on. |
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| Alexander liked the meal that evening! :) |
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| Happy 9 month birthday, William Billiam!! Statistics: Height: 29.75 inches Head Circumference: 19.5 inches (off the charts!) Weight: 22 lbs 12 oz Abilities: He upgraded to size 4 diapers, just began eating level 3 solids (he's not a fan of the more chunky food), has 4 teeth on the bottom with one tooth peeking from the top right, says "Mama," loves to eat cheddar puffs, fruity puffs, and yogurt drops, has perfected his pincer grasp, feeds himself puffs, pulls himself up to standing position, crawls, and understands the word, "No!" *Fun(ny) fact: As soon as I put William down in our bedroom, he immediately crawls to our bathroom pulls himself up and flushes the toilet. It's his favorite thing to do. He's a naughty little guy. |
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| One more cute picture :) |
It was inventory reduction night at our house. We still had some pork leftover from the previous night, so all I had to do was throw together a veggie dish for the evening. I went to the pantry, garden, and refrigerator to whip up the following DELICIOUS side dish:
Creamy Cannellini, Basil, and Lemon Spread:
-1 can cannellini beans
-1 cup fresh basil leaves
-Juice of 2 lemons
-1 clove garlic
-2 tbsp neufchatel cheese
-Salt and pepper
*Blend all of the ingredients in a blender until smooth.
I literally threw that recipe together in my head and it turned out to be absolutely heavenly! Joseph was looking around for extras of the bean spread later on because he wanted to use it as a dip. This spread would be excellent to serve along with baby carrots, red pepper sticks, or pita chips. It takes absolutely NO time whatsoever to put together. Delish!
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| I put the delicious bean spread onto portobello mushroom caps. |
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| Then I sauteed the following: 1/2 yellow onion, diced 1/2 red pepper, diced The stems that I chopped up from the portobello caps (YES! You can use those!) 2 green onions, sliced Salt and pepper Garlic powder |
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| I then put the sauteed vegetables on top of the mushrooms with the bean spread. Then, I grated a little bit of romano cheese to make a nice crust on the top. I put these babies in the oven at 400 degrees F for 20 minutes. |
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| Voila!! A creamy, juicy, and meaty side dish that will have you going back for seconds. I don't like to toot my own horn, but, *TOOT! TOOT!!* This was delish! |
If you couldn't tell, I LOVE to pick my own fruit. It was an overcast day and I had both boys home with me, so we made a morning of it! We traveled to Lookout Farms (one of our favorites) to pick peaches, red dandy apples, and divine apples.
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| William and Alexander on the train |
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| Grapevines line the train's pathway to the orchards |
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| The beautiful orchards |
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| Alexander picked his own divine apple and took a big bite! |
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| He much rather prefers to pick big apples than small blueberries. (I suppose because you don't have to pick so many in order to fill up the bag.) |
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| While we were picking, I looked back at William to find that he was cracking up! What a funny little guy. |
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| Alexander loves fresh fruit. |
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| There he goes again! I wish I knew what was so funny. |
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| Red dandy apples |
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| Since William saw the both of us chomping away on apples, I decided to give him one to try as well. He loved it!! He only has four bottom teeth at the moment (with one peeking out from the top), so he was only able to make a few dents in the apple. |
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| He was still very pleased with himself, though. |
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| Both boys, chomping (or gumming) away! |
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| Alexander on the caterpillar train in the play area. He has to hold both steering wheels while the train is running. He takes his job very seriously. |
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| Alexander posing in the peach orchards. |
Love and kisses,
Nikki
Lol! Noooo problem! We can make them together next time you come over. :)
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