Loving my Instant Pot!

My parents recommended getting an Instant Pot during the holidays. Apparently, the thing is all the rage and my parents had had an asian branded version for years and just kept it in storage. One my mom's friends said they should break it out and try it and since then, my parents have never put it away.

So I got my own. I love that you can do so much with it. It's mainly a pressure cooker, but you can saute in it and use it as a slow cooker. I have only started to use it for a couple of months and still not regularly, but even with my limited experience, I am very please with it. Here are a list of things I've done with it:

Hard boiled eggs. I will never cook hard boiled eggs in any other way again! The shells are SO easy to peel off!

Spaghetti squash. I stick the squash in whole with some water and set it to 30 minutes and make the sauce in the meantime. After that, just cut the softened squash open, scoop out the strands and mix with the sauce. Easy peasy!

Braised beef. Get some nice, fatty beef and saute it in some sugar until caramelized. Then add some sauces and cook until tender, for us it was about an hour. I used ingredients to make a red-cooked beef: http://redcook.net/2008/04/28/red-cooked-beef/

I also used the braised beef to make beef noodle soup. Just add noodles in and cook for about half the recommended noodle cooking time.

I've also cooked steamed veggies in it. We were having Jamie Oliver's milk chicken and I dumped a couple of packets of steaming veggies with sauce into the Instant Pot and within a few minutes of cooking time, they were ready!

The last thing I made were salmon and asparagus packets. Basically salmon over asparagus drizzled with a tiny bit of olive oil, sprinkled with salt and pepper and wrapped in foil. I cooked the packets  for 15 minutes and everything came out fairly perfectly!

Going forward, I am itching to try out some pasta recipes and the yogurt function. It supposedly can also make jiu niang, which is this fermented glutinous rice dish that is wonderful in the winter with a poached egg.

Yay for my Instant Pot!

Pothos

I am a killer of plants. I have killed so many plants, it's impossible to say how many I've killed. I do not have a green thumb, but I keep trying anyways! There is one plant that I have yet failed to kill and that is my pothos plant.

It has survived in my bedroom despite low light conditions and severe neglect. I have forgotten to water it for a month or so, often forgot to open the shades to give it light and basically ignored it for a good long while. The leaves got droopy, but it is still alive! I finally got around to watering it recently.

So I just want to say that if you have got a black thumb like it do, give the golden pothos a try! It's otherwise known as Devil's Ivy.

Not been cooking regularly

Since having the baby, I've not cooked regularly. At times, I have the time, but no energy. My parents brought a lot of food the first month and pretty regularly after that, but it's still not like we were getting a home-cooked meal every night and day. So the hubby and I ate a lot of delivery. We are lucky that the delivery places in our neighborhood are so varied and delicious! Even so, after a while, you get tired of it.

So I've been slowly trying to get back into the habit of cooking more regularly. I even tried this food delivery service, Plated.com, for a while. The company creates weekly recipes and you can choose which ones you want and they will deliver the ingredients, pre-portioned, to your door. What I realized was that the cook times are a bit deceptive. It doesn't include food prep time. So if you don't have knife skills and are trying to mince the garlic and ginger, the start to finish time may be longer than the stated time in the recipe. Same with the whole washing of the veggies. Still, the cook times are pretty accurate and the recipes have been very enjoyable so far. I still don't think I can manage to cook every night, but I would like to cook at least twice a week. The nicest thing about this service is that it allows me to try using ingredients I don't normally use. It has a fairly wide variety of recipes and we have enjoyed eating most of the dishes so far.

Cooking just twice a week is a rather low bar considering there are seven days in a week. However, that makes it easy to exceed expectations. I have been enjoying cooking when I can, and trying not to beat myself up too much when I can't. It's a work in progress and I just have to keep working at it.

Since time and energy has been an issue, that means that the recipes I'm willing to make are limited. Anything that's fast, easy and uses up a limited amount of dishes becomes very, very appealing. I also don't want to make anything that requires a lot of prepping. The best kinds of recipes are the kind where I just dump everything into a pot and it's ready to serve in 30 minutes.

A recent favorite is baked fish over veggies. Just line a baking sheet with some vegetables and put a fillet of fish on top. Salt and pepper everything and drizzle everything with some olive oil and bake at 350 degrees F. until the fish is done. Depending on the thickness of the fish, this can take anywhere between 15 minutes to 30 minutes. Ta da! Dinner is served!

One pot pastas are also a recently loved discovery. Just dump everything into a big pot and stir and stir until the pasta is done. There are plenty of recipes online, but just make sure to get the amount of water to pasta correct. It is also important to stir almost constantly to keep the pasta from sticking.

Well, I hope other parents of young children have had better luck than us on this front. Best of luck and happy cooking!

Some things I learned with my first baby

The first year with my baby was grueling. There were many things I had to learn and expectations to let go of. There were times when I felt like I was tested way beyond my capacity, stretched far too thin, and yet I am still here. I have survived thus far.

Depression is no joke. It was very hard for me to deal with everything and all the changes at once. I needed help - and I don't mean just counseling. I mean I really needed solid help around the house and the baby, which I wasn't getting at first. Spending hours scouring the internet for advice also didn't help.

So the first thing I had to come to terms with was the state of the house. The place was going to get messy and disorganized. Things I had planned on reorganizing or fixing up were probably not going to get done and I need to learn to just leave it alone indefinitely, for when I finally do have the time and energy.

The next thing was that just because there is time to do something, doesn't mean I have the energy to do it, or that I should do it. Yes, there is laundry to fold and yes, there is food to cook. However, giving birth and taking care of a baby all day and night, every day, took a lot out of me. I had to learn to be okay with just grabbing clothing from the clean pile and folding them whenever I got around to it and my husband and I ended up ordering out way more often than I'd like to admit.

I also need to think of myself. This is something I still struggle with. Whenever my husband would force me out of the house to get a break, I would spend my time shopping for the baby or I would rush back to check on the baby. That is not a break. That is me unable to let go of the guilt I felt for wanting a life outside of my child. It's not healthy and I still find it hard to think of myself without feeling some bit of guilt. I need to learn that taking care of myself doesn't mean I'm not taking care of anybody else. I need to really learn to understand that taking care of myself means I can better care for others, and that making sure that I'm mentally and emotionally healthy doesn't mean that I'm taking something away from my family wellbeing. I can say all of this logically, but I don't feel it, so that is something I need to continue to work on.

Then there's the baby. She cried a lot. She cried so much that I felt like there was almost never a time when I wasn't hearing her cry. In fact, she would be fast asleep according to the baby monitor and I would be in the basement trying to not hear her noises and I would still be imagining that I can hear her screaming. It was horrible. I heard her even when I wasn't hearing her. I still do that at times, but it is getting better. My biggest issue with depression was that she cried so much, and it was one of my triggers. I can't stand hearing her scream or cry, which babies do a lot.

The thing is, she wasn't colic. She just had a lot of opinions and objections. She was easily over-stimulated, and she'd cry if she felt like she wasn't entertained enough or getting enough constant attention. She felt that she needed to be held and rocked ALL THE TIME! The clinginess was truly horrible. Our initial mistake was giving in to her all the time. In retrospect, we may have encouraged some bad habits that didn't encourage independent play, but I feel that we have since worked to correct that... at least a little bit. She can play by herself now as long as either I or my husband is close by.

She is fun to be with now. She is no longer some creature that only takes and never gives back. She is interactive now. She giggles and smiles and teases us back. She lays her head on us and blows us kisses. She toddles around babbling happily and loves trying to steal my smartphone. She is, so far, well-behaved in restaurants and loves getting attention from strangers. She is still annoying sometimes, but I feel much more connected to her now than when she was first born. I feel like after her first birthday, she has really blossomed into a person I can relate to.

I am still exhausted all the time, but not nearly as exhausted as when I had to wake up every hour or two to feed her. I feel like I desperately need a vacation where all I do is sleep all day and be left alone. "Alone time" is hard to come by, if at all. That is another thing I have had to learn to live without. However, I plan to get this one back eventually.

Goals for the new year

As per tradition, people like to make resolutions when the new year begins. I am no exception, and like many people, I often don't follow through. However, the new year is a time of optimism and there is nothing wrong with beginning a year with optimism. So here are my resolutions for this coming year.

- Lose 10 pounds

- Cook more than twice a week regularly

- Do something for myself, by myself at least once every two weeks

- Feel better enough to stop therapy

- Exercise at least 15 minutes each day

- Get baby to be okay with playing alone in a room for extended periods of time

- Get baby socialized by enrolling in more classes

- Learn to cook more of my mother's dishes

That's all I got for now.

Things have been "crap-tastic"

It's been over a year since I gave birth and I am still suffering from depression and fatigue. It is definitely easier now, but I'm still tired a lot and finding decent, reliable, part-time help has been really, really grueling and difficult. My depression has gotten better, but it's still there. The fatigue is also better, but still there.

I talk to my husband about the prospect of a second child and honestly, I just don't think it's wise. Considering how hard this past year has been and considering how hard I am still finding it, I just don't see how I can handle all this a second time. Plus, I'll be forty when we can start trying again - not a nice-sounding prospect.

On the upside, we finally have some reliable, consistent help and was able to have a date night. I am also seeing a therapist for the depression and the baby is now a toddler. I still feel like I don't know what I'm doing as a parent and am often confused by all the conflicting advice that I'm getting from friends, family and online. It's been very difficult to figure out how to handle certain situations and behaviors with my child, but at least we seem to have a good pediatrician who has offered us a lot of solid suggestions and advice.

What I miss most these days is alone time for myself and quality time with my husband. Right now, I can't wait for the baby to get old enough for us to send her off to sleepovers! However, I know that that is not likely to happen for many years to come. 

Cucumber salad

Cucumbers are refreshing and delicious in the summer. You can eat them just as they are, like a banana, unpeeled, or you can get a little fancy and toss them into salads. I like them slightly pickled and I think they make a great addition to any BBQed meat you happen to be having that day.

My mother used to just slice them thin and add salt and vinegar and let them marinate for a few hours before serving. My mother-in-law does the same, but drains them and adds sour cream and dill, and maybe some mayonnaise. I find that it's good with all their additions as well as with some prepared horseradish.

If having guests over, I like making cucumber sandwiches. Eyeballing everything, I mix sour cream, cream cheese, mayonnaise, Worcestershire sauce, prepared horseradish, white pepper and some salt. Then I mix in diced cucumbers and spread it nice and thickly between two slices of white bread with the crusts cut off. This is my version of the cucumber tea sandwich.

As you can see, given all the fatty condiments listed above, I don't make these very often. So it's a nice treat every time I put it on the table. Or you can just keep it simple like my mother did with the vinegar and salt. Not very fattening there, but still delicious!

The Complete I Hate To Cook Book

When my family moved to our second house, the previous owners left a stack of books behind. In the collection was The Complete I Hate To Cook Book by Peg Bracken. I was only 10 at the time, so I didn't have much interest in cooking or in cook books. Still, after browsing through it, I found the writing and illustrations witty and fun. I have never found another cook book quite like it. Sadly, all of Peg Bracken's books are now out of print, except for the 50th Anniversary edition of the I Hate To Cook Book.

As a teenager, I went through the whole book and bookmarked recipes that I thought would be within my abilities to try. I found some real beauties that I continue to use to this day and still get rave reviews. One of my all-time favorite recipes is the 6-Minute Cheesecake, which is both very simple and very creamy. Another favorite is the Maui Bread, a fantastic banana bread recipe I always turn to when I have overripe bananas.

Now that I'm even older, I decided to revisit the book. I still love the humor and the funny illustrations, but I found the recipes dated and much of it uses processed foods. The original book was published in the 50s, which would account for why the recipes are what they are. The author certainly didn't take into account how many calories, cholesterol, sodium or preservatives are in her recipes, but I'm sure they're probably pretty good when that's all you've got in the house and you really want to put something on the table.

After revisiting the book, I found some more recipes I'd like to try, some with alterations:
Hellzapoppin Cheese Rice
Curried Spread
Florida Dip
Your Basic Meat Mix or the 4-Way Meatloaf
Dr. Martin's Mix
Hurry Curry
Cheese and Wine Bake
Sole Survivor
Let 'Er Buck
The Neitzel Grinder
Danish Almond Sheet
Eddy's Oyster Loaves
Really Southern Corn Bread
Tomatoes Provencal
Armenian Sandwiches
Riviera Sole
Fake Hollandaise
Blender Hollandaise
Simple Beans
Sour Cream Cabbage
Guest Chokes
Tomartichokes
Shakel Egg Supper!

Any recipe that calls for soup mix, bouillon, condensed soup and processed cheese, I'll be making adjustments. 

Pasta Primavera is easy

I love pasta primavera. It's also pretty easy. I like to start the pasta cooking while I start cooking the veggies in my wok. I use whatever veggies I have on hand and add garlic. Once the pasta is mostly cooked, but still firm, I drain and dump it into the wok and toss with lots of grated parmesan, adding salt and pepper to taste. Serve after everything is cooked through. Easy, right?

Return of the Sun Oven fun!

Now that the weather is warmer and the sun is once again trailing across my back yard, I broke out the sun oven. I've been able to use for two days before it started raining for the next 3. The first day was very sunny and the second was on and off cloudy.

On the partly cloudy day, the temperature in the oven would rise quickly when it was sunny and would cool to about 200 degrees when it got cloudy. I was able to get water boiling hot and cook diced potatoes, carrots and hard boil some eggs. I could have roasted them dry like last year, but I actually prefer the texture of them boiled in water. They came out very nicely, in fact. I also sauteed some onions and garlic in butter and tried to make a frittata, but it was too late in the day to finish. I had to finish the frittata in the toaster oven. Still came out wonderfully! The boiled items took all day to cook since there was no consistent amount of sun.

On the sunny day, the temperature easily broke 300 degrees. I was able to quickly reheat some leftover pasta for lunch, and defrost and heat up some frozen cabbage soup for dinner. For the cabbage soup, I tried something a little different. I aimed the oven for the afternoon sun and didn't readjust after that. I left the oven out until 7PM to see if the soup was still hot. As it turned out, the soup was still warm, but not hot. I had read online that you can leave the sun oven aimed towards the midday sun in the morning before work, go to work, come home and dinner would still be warm and ready. My guess is that you'd have to make it home earlier than 7PM and your dinner would be warm, but not piping hot. Maybe the oven would keep the temperature longer if the weather was hotter. That day, the temperatures were mostly in the 40s. Also, the temperature may have dipped in the afternoon due to condensation building up on the inside the oven glass.

The problem with condensation is that it prevents the sunlight from reaching the cooking chamber and lowers the temperature. Apparently, others have also encountered this problem and I found a post online that offers 3 different solutions. I have yet to try them out, but I plan to the next time we have a sunny day.

Actually happy to be cooking again

Since I got pregnant, I admit that I've been lazy. Either that or I've been too tired to do anything. Seriously, the fatigue was pretty rough. I'd find it almost impossible to stay awake at times. Now that I've been feeling better, I've been more active around the house, taking walks with my hubby on nice sunny weekends and cooking again.

Honestly, I didn't think I would get out of the rut of not cooking, but I've been enjoying it. Last night, I made a fantastic creamed spinach recipe I found online. I spread it over toast and topped with tender scrambled eggs. The recipe is posted here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/07/creamed-spinach-recipe_n_4911268.html

Originally, I just cooked the spinach in milk or cream, but the above recipe is soooooo much better! In the past, I also liked added mustard to the creamed spinach before putting it on the bread, but this time, I wanted to try it without the mustard. Maybe I'll add it next time.

Been on hiatus

I've been on hiatus due to repeated miscarriages and now I'm pregnant again, but this time, it seems to be sticking around! I'm currently nearing the end of my fourth month. The previous 3 were torturous, with constant fatigue and constant nausea. Needless to say, I had no appetite and lost a few pounds. I am happy to say that I am much more comfortable now and am simply thankful to be able to enjoy eating again. :-)

It's strange to me that I still feel like it's early on in my pregnancy, but already a linea nigra just appeared on my belly and I am already wearing maternity clothes. Speaking of maternity clothes, I'm so glad I made the switch. I was wearing a belly band before that, but have now found that maternity clothes are much more comfortable. I haven't gained back the pounds I lost and yet my belly keeps sticking out more and more.

So now, I'm researching cord blood banking, doulas and birthing classes. I am also thinking about enrolling in a cloth diaper service and starting to think about what things the baby will need. My mother has collected some hand-me-downs from friends who've given birth before me and I hope to be able to use some of that.

15 Major Retailers That Haven’t Signed the Bangladesh Safety Agreement

Some on the list are not surprising. Have a look:
http://www.ecouterre.com/15-major-retailers-that-havent-signed-the-bangladesh-safety-agreement/

People vandalizing national parks

Seriously, what the heck is wrong with people?!
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/05/us/as-vandals-take-to-national-parks-some-point-to-social-media.html?src=me&ref=general&_r=0

Great idea for dealing with irresponsible dog owners

We have a fair amount of dog owners in our neighborhoods. Although most are good about picking up after their dogs, some are regularly bad about it. What's terrible about owners that don't pick up after their dog, is that their leaving the sh*t in front of someone else's house to deal with and that's just not cool. We've even had one time when someone tossed the bag of dog poop into our recycling bin after the garbage people had finished with their pickups. So we were left to deal with it until the next pickup. Because of irresponsible dog owners, we now use plastic bags to put our garbage and recyclables out. I would love to be able to put out our bins instead of bags, but we often come hope to people tossing disgusting things in random bins, like chewing gum and dog poop. I don't own a dog and I assume that not owning a dog means I don't have to pick up dog poop.

Anyways, it appears NYC is not the only place that have irresponsible dog owners who don't pick up poop. Check out how one town is dealing with the problem:
http://www.opposingviews.com/i/society/animal-rights/town-mails-dog-defecation-pet-owners-who-dont-clean

10 ways to breeze through laundry

I don't know why, but laundry is one of my least favorite chores. Anything that will make laundry faster and easier is a good thing! Check out this article here:
http://lifehacker.com/5993006/top-10-ways-to-breeze-through-laundry-like-a-boss

I particularly like the folding methods. My favorite is folding a T-shirt in 2 seconds. Hubby goes through a lot of T-shirts and a lot of socks. This makes me think the sock bankruptcy idea might be a good one.

Cable Companies Can Now Force You to Rent Set-Top Boxes

How aggravating is this?
http://lifehacker.com/5994508/cable-companies-can-now-force-you-to-rent-set+top-boxes-here-are-your-alternatives

How to tuck a shirt

Supposedly, this method of tucking a shirt will keep the shirt tucked. I can't tell you how many times my shirt has become untucked as I move around throughout the day. A nice blouse or shirt coming out of my suit pants or skirt is not a nice look!
http://agoodman.com.au/how-to-tuck-in-a-shirt-so-that-it-stays-tucked/

Gunk remover

I tried this out on my toaster oven, which was quite overdue for a deep clean and it worked very well!
http://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/2013/03/2-ingredient-homemade-kitchen-cabinet-gunk-remover.html

How to hang a sweater

If you have more hanging space than dresser space, this might a useful link:
http://snapguide.com/guides/hang-a-sweater/