On Food and Passion...and food.

I can't stop cooking. The above two pictures are from yesterday...potatoes au gratin and garlic thyme cast iron chicken. Not pictured is the tomato basil soup that I concocted for dinner out of pantry ingredients or the roasted potato leek soup that is sitting on the stove now, which is dinner tonight. I am out of control. Reading about cooking, scouring food blogs and watching Food Network has become a giant part of my life. Three years ago, I didn't cook ANYTHING. Now it consumes me and I would seriously consider it a passion. I have always loved eating...finding amazing food is probably one of my favorite pastimes...but I never made it myself until I left work. It is strange how life happens and sends you in different directions. I have been toying with the idea of writing my own food blog...something along the lines of me being an ordinary mom trying out recipes I find during all of my digging around and then posting about how they turn out, if I recommend them and how easy they are to accomplish with a toddler in tow. I am on the fence about it because there are a LOT of food blogs out there. Not to mention that taking pictures of food is a lot harder than it looks (those pictures are horrible) and I really need a good camera if I plan to get serious about a real blog. I plan to think on it. Writing, food and making people happy are my favorite things in the world...I wonder if it is possible to combine all of that into something. We shall see.

The soup frenzy is thanks to my husband, who purchased me a lovely handheld immersion blender a few days ago. I have no idea why I did not have one before...it is HEAVEN. It turns making homemade soup into the easiest thing in the world and the results are to die for. I have made several soups before, but they are few and far between because they involve me hefting out the big blender to puree and that is a giant pain. This little handheld is very powerful and it is far and away my favorite new toy. Jer had a late night last night and grabbed a bowl of the tomato soup when he got home. As he was raving about it, he looked over at me very seriously and said "Potato Leek". It was hysterical! Dinner tonight was born. I am pretty sure the only reason that I am blogging now is because I am trying to keep busy in order not to eat it all!

Our Day

FINALLY, some warmth! Our high today is back in the 50's and thankfully we got to spend some quality time outdoors. Colin and I spent the morning playing t-ball in the backyard courtesy of his Christmas present from his Aunt Alieson. It has been too cold for words since Christmas, so it was nice to get out and have some fresh air fun. Colin thinks the t-ball set is the greatest thing in the world and has gotten really good at hitting the ball properly off the little stand. It makes him look like such a big boy standing there swinging his bat!

After our impromptu ball game, we headed out for errands. We made our weekly library trip (Colin now announces "There's the library!" when we turn onto the street the library is on!) and picked up new movies and books. They have a fun collection of children's movies and I noticed they had "Fraggle Rock" today and grabbed the season one disc without Colin's knowledge. Once we got to the car, I stuck it in the DVD player, only to hear Colin quickly denounce from the backseat "Mommy, I don't want THIS movie! YUCK!". HA! So much for reliving my youth! I made him sit through the theme song just so that I could enjoy it myself. :-) He is a huge library fan, which brings me a lot of joy. There is nothing that I love more than reading and I hope to pass that along to him. We both get really excited for our library visits and that makes me so happy...it is like we share this little bond over picking out books. There were not many folks there today, so I sat down indian style in one of the aisles and Colin sat in my lap. We pulled book after book off the shelf in front of us and read together. We picked out four to take home after much discussion.

We shared lunch at McDonald's, as we always do on library day. Colin always picks out our table, which is usually a booth, and shows me where to sit. He picks the booth because he likes to move to my lap about halfway through lunch, which I love. As we cuddled today in our seat, I felt a familiar tug at my heart reminding me to etch the moment into my memory. I know that I will blink and the days of sitting in my lap feeding me french fries will be long over. For now, I am loving every minute of it! After a grocery store run, we are home and feeling great after a day filled with something other than the inside of this house! :-)