Soup to Dutts

Welp, remember that cold I mentioned my daughter having last week? She passed it on to Tom over the weekend, and now it's my turn. My throat feels like it's covered with fire ants, and my nose is like a leaky faucet. Man...when's that motherly immunity going to kick in? When I was growing up, my mom almost never got sick. Everyone else in the house could have been coughing up a lung or sneezing their brains out, and Mom wouldn't even get the sniffles. Actually, come to think of it, now that I'm a mom myself, I wonder if she really did get sick but just never told anyone. That's kinda what I've been trying to do... Speaking of my mom, I've been thinking about her a lot since yesterday, when I first started feeling cold symptoms. She always did so much to take care of me when I wasn't feeling well. I especially remember the food and drink she'd give me; there were certain things I could always count on eating and drinking whenever I was si...

In honor of Tom's birthday, here's an A-to-Z list of things about him! Ambitious . He's not afraid to dream big and go after those dreams. Books. He loves to read and always has a long list of books in his reading queue. Cute. Well, he is. Disciplined. There is just no better word for someone who can juggle all of his responsibilities and do all of them as well as he does. The disciplined way in which he manages his time never ceases to amaze me. Eggs . I think he would agree that, between the two of us, I'm the cook in our home, but his scrambled eggs always turn out better than mine. Friend. He's a good friend to a lot of people, and he's still my best friend after all these years. Guinea pig. He's the fearless taste-tester of all of my crazy recipes. Hugs. He always gives me a hug when we wake up in the morning. And before he leaves for work. And after he gets home. And pretty much all the time. Integrity. H...

Earlier this week, we took a family day trip up to Cincinnati! We desperately needed to replace our sofa, so we went to IKEA. Every time I go there, I'm amazed at the simple but clever design of their products. It's like, forehead-smacking, "that-makes-so-much-sense," "how-come-no-one's-ever-thought-of-that-before" clever. The Swedish, man. They're geniuses. And today I want to rave about another amazing product that hails from Sweden: the NoseFrida. Just before I left my office job to become a full-time mommy, I was showered with tons of baby gifts, including a NoseFrida from my coworker, Stephanie. She gave it to me with the disclaimer that the concept might sound kinda gross, but that I would love it. See, it's an infant nasal aspirator that's designed to be more effective and sanitary than a bulb syringe when it comes to clearing stuffy noses. As you can see from the picture on the box, the pointy end of the blue tube goes in...

I've been on a bit of a lemon kick lately. I've been adding lemon essential oil to my drinking water, and yesterday I attempted to make lemon bars for the first time. I made them for my community group meeting which was later that evening, but the bars didn't get eaten because we all decided to meet up for dinner at Chick-fil-A instead. Knowing I wasn't going to get my lemon fix for the day in the way that I'd planned, I decided to finally try CFA's new frosted lemonade, a blend of their yummy lemonade and their also-yummy soft-serve (a.k.a. Icedream ® ). (image from  Chick-fil-A ) I've often thought that Icedream would be great mixed with some other beverage; it's a little more watery than other soft-serves, which made me think that it would blend more smoothly and make the finished product easier to drink. Well, I was right about that! It was fabulous, texture-wise...in other words, I didn't have to make a fish face to drink it through a ...

I love butternut squash. I think it might be my favorite vegetable. So, when someone left a big butternut squash in the break room at work a few weeks ago, I was all over it. I was craving pasta last week and decided to attempt making a lasagna, since I'd bought most of the non-perishable ingredients before Christmas and had never gotten around to making it. But instead of making the traditional red-sauce version, I made a sauce out of this wonderful squash and Italian sausage. It was delicious! I didn't use a ton of cheese since the squash was slightly creamy, so that made the dish a lot lighter, and it still made 12 hefty portions. I'm definitely adding this to the regular rotation of dinners at our house! I hope someone out there will give it a try and let me know what they think! Don't be overwhelmed by the ingredients list...most of the ingredients are pretty inexpensive and easy to find, and you may even have a lot of them already on hand! Butte...

I'll be honest: I'm not a huge fan of combining chocolate and fruit. I don't know what it is, but something about it just doesn't taste right to me. Unless that fruit is a banana. Bananas are creamier than most other fruits, so I guess it meshes better in my mind, I dunno. So, this week we happened to have some very ripe bananas, which pretty much automatically means banana bread is on the way. And we also happened to have some leftover chocolate chips (from a fantastic chocolate mousse that Tom made on Valentine's Day). So I found a recipe that looked like it could be easily tweaked to add chocolate chips, and the result was an oat-y banana bread that had just a touch of sweetness. It's also relatively low-fat, thanks to the use of applesauce instead of oil or butter. And I should mention, it comes with a lot less drama than that disaster of a banana chocolate chip pound cake I attempted last year... So, it didn't rise as much as other banana bread...

Spring is here! I've always preferred colder weather, but the warm seasons are really starting to grow on me. One of the reasons is that I feel like we eat "lighter" meals in spring and summer, like this Greek pasta salad I threw together last week! I had an almost-full box of whole-wheat rotini and an almost-empty box of whole-wheat penne, so I just combined them, but any short pasta will do. Tri-color pasta would be fun! While the pasta was cooling, I made the dressing: olive oil, red wine vinegar, basil, garlic powder, salt and pepper. (Don't you love my cute little whisk? It's perfect for things like this. Thanks, Mom!) Speaking of my mom, chopping the veggies for this reminded me of a conversation she and I had a few weeks ago. I was talking about how much I hate chopping vegetables, and she said that was her favorite part of cooking! Well, the solution seems obvious: she and I should just always cook together; I'll do everything else if s...