Expensive carriers suck!

I'm a carrier afficiando. I love them, always have. Slings, soft structured carriers, pouches, oh I'm in heaven! I've often stopped moms in malls and corrected bad usage on bad carriers (Baby Bjorns, Infantinos, Snuglis, ALL SUCK!) It doesn't make them all that much better, but if it gets a kid out of their bucket seats and some contact with mom, I'm all for it. I want that experience to be a comfortable one so that mom won't chuck the carrier in the closet and forget about it's back tiring experience.

That said, there are a lot of craptastic slings that are way overpriced. Here's one for example:





First of all, let's start with the price. Last I saw, it was on sale for $60 from $100, but still, this is a carrier you can only use for 3 months. That's ridiculous! Add that to the bucket carseat price (which really isn't necessary, you can use a convertible carseat for a baby!**) and no wonder people think kids are super expensive!

Second of all, look at the people in the picture. Yes, I know they're models, but still, that woman has a look on her face like, "I'm trying not to look uncomfortable, put on a happy face!" Also, it seems she feels unsure because she has a hand behind the baby's head to support it (in spite of that huge head rest) and a cautious hand on her hip, ready to catch a falling baby. To me the baby looks uncomfortable, and a little lost in all that crap (could it have more buckles?)

Third of all, what's with the design of it? Crossing guard chic anyone? Is this to show that moms can have a career and bring baby with? It is so ugly.


** I realize that some babies are small and require infant carseats, but some, like my 2 girls, didn't, they were on the big side at 7 lbs 15 oz and 9 lbs 13 oz.

Ergo Carrier - LOVE IT!

I'm in love with a great many carriers, but if I had to pick just one out of my stash, this would be the one. I have a bad back from some car accidents when I was younger, and once my kids got to be a little weighty I required 2 shoulder carriers for longer trips (quick trip into the store for milk was ok with just a sling, but anything much longer needed 2 shoulders). I got the Ergo when I was pregnant with my youngest, pulled a muscle in my belly carrying my then 2 1/2 year old oldest, and my husband needed something to carry the oldest in (the mei tai I was using didn't fit him.) We bought the Ergo and it works great, I've stolen it for myself :)

One thing that's great about it is it's ergonomical, so those with bad backs can rock out in the carrier for a long time. We used this at Disney World with my 28 lbs 19 month old for a week and while my knees hurt from all the walking, my back was great (and the little one didn't want to be in the stroller AT ALL, so it's not like I got much of a break during that time.)

It's fairly easy to nurse in, check this pic out:



If you're not in a nursing top (or have a cardigan) you get a little side boob showing, but that's it.

You can pop the kid on your back or hip if you want, very easily. Only 2 buckles to worry about!

Here's their website for more info:
http://www.ergobabycarrier.com/

Chocolate Milk

My oldest loves chocolate milk (as I'm sure every child does), and I was recently looking at single serving chocolate milks for her to have as a treat. I looked at the ingredients on Nesquik and saw high fructose corn syrup, so I went off in search of a suitable alternative.

Inexpensive: Great Value is cheaper than Nesquik and has no HFCS.

Organic Cow Milk: Organic Valley and Horizon Organic both have organic vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry milks that contain no HFCS.

Soy: Silk and Kirkland brands have single serving flavored soy milks that contain no HFCS. Zen Soy is another brand that has single serving flavored soy milks, but this brand has a screw top (no more squirting soy milk all over the place when they're walking around!)

Fancy: If you can find it, flavored (and unflavored) almond and rice milks (I've yet to find single serving sizes, although my 4 year old swears the big cartons ARE single serving sizes) are very delicious and contain no HFCS. I hear that Whole Foods sells single serving sizes of rice milk, not sure about almond milk though.

Whipped Cream

Whipped cream makes everything better, whether it's ice cream, pie, or even a simple cup of coffee. The last thing I want in my whipped cream are oils or corn syrup. You can easily make whipped cream at home with heavy whipping cream, a little powdered sugar (you get to decide how sweet it is that way!) and a mixer, but sometimes I just want to put a dollop, or give a little squirt on top, and not have it be a Martha Stewart day!

Cool Whip has both hydrogenated oils AND high fructose corn syrup, so it's doubly on my no-no list (I don't understand why it needs to have 2 kinds of corn syrup and oil as the third ingredient!) There's not even any cream in it!

Reddi Wip, on the other hand, has cream, no hydrogenated oils, and no high fructose corn syrup. It comes in regular and chocolate flavorings, so my coffee in the morning has endless possibilities!

Snazzy new clothes for Dinosaur

I went to a resale shop recently, looking for preemie boy clothes to make Emily's roughly 13" newborn Cabbage Patch doll named Dinosaur (it was mine, and the new ones are a totally different size, so it's not like I can just go out and grab an outfit from Walmart!) I saw a tutorial on youtube about how to convert baby clothes into doll clothing and thought it was awesome! I made an outfit for Emily's 18" (not American Girl) doll named Zoe out of newborn clothes, and they turned out pretty well (I also made Zoe a pair of pajamas from the American Girl Molly pattern set I found for free online, so now she has 2 outfits and a pair of pajamas!) The resale shop wanted $10 an outfit for preemie clothes, and that just wasn't good enough of a deal to turn my head. We ended up going to an outlet mall yesterday and I looked in Carters at their clearance stuff. They had the cutest dinosaur themed preemie outfit set (2 onesies, pajamas, pants, and a bib... honestly, a bib for a preemie? WTF?) for $8.

Anyway, I got to work last night, resizing it. It was a challenging one, the sleeves had those fold over things (to protect baby's face), and I wanted to preserve the function of them, so I had to shorten the sleeves from the shoulder, without shortening the neckline. I made a couple mistakes that *I* know are there, but Emily does not. I cut the bottom off the onesie, hemmed the neckline, and it wasn't the hardest part. The hardest were the pants! They have these cute little dinosaur footies, and I didn't want to just cut those off. I thinned the legs out, and tried to shorten from the waist down, but the fabric was pulling and I didn't want to completely scrap the elastic that came with the pants, so I decided that Dinosaur could just pull his pants up really high like a grandpa. Emily's cool with that. Here are some pics:





I still need to work on the other onesie (cute dino print), pajamas (same dino print as the other onesie), but right now Emily is content with what he has on.

Here's a pic of the outfit I made for Zoe:



Baby clothes are a great way to make inexpensive clothing for dolls that are hard to find clothing for, or financially prohibitive. American Girl doll clothing is expensive, unless bought secondhand. Here's a link to the American Girl doll clothing patterns I mentioned before. The patterns are a little small according to sites I've seen, so add a seam allowance, and the instructions aren't the most complete, but you'll figure it out!

http://agplaythings.com//AG%20Patterns/DollDressPatterns.html

I love that they have period specific ones, especially Kirsten now that she's been retired!

Odd smells abound

So, tonight I decided to make zucchini bread because the attempt at getting the girls to eat zucchini didn't go so well. I gave them grated raw, a slice of raw, and a quarter slice of steamed with garlic. They tried it, but didn't opt for more, so I guess that's a good start! I also am on a soup making kick, and really digging my Whole Foods for the Whole Family cookbook, so I'm making Overnight Onion Soup in the crockpot for Friday. The house smells like cinnamon and onions, which is oddly good. The smells are coming from different parts of the kitchen, so they don't blend too much, and now that the bread is cooling, the cinnamon is making way to slow cooked onion smell.

Here's the recipe for zucchini bread:

Zucchini or carrot bread

1 1/2 c whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 c oil
1/2 c honey
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 c grated zucchini (or carrot)
1/2 c chopped walnuts (I omitted these because I didn't have any walnuts on hand, I'm also not a big fan of nuts in baked goods)

Optional:
1/2 c raisins
1/2 tsp nutmeg

Sift dry ingredients together. Beat oil and honey in large bowl. Add eggs, vanilla, and zucchini. Stir in sifted dry ingredients; fold in walnuts. Pour into greased 5x9-inch loaf pan. Bake at 350 for 45 to 60 minutes or until loaf tests done. Cool in pan for 10 minutes; invert onto wire rack to cool completely. Wrap and chill or freeze. May substitute melted butter for oil, brown sugar or molasses for honey and 1 1/2 c grated carrots for zucchini, or use half of each. Yield: 12 servings.

Approx per serving: Cal 224; Prot 4g; Carbo 25g; Fiber 3g; T Fat 13g; 51% Calories from Fat; Chol 35mg; Sod 150mg.

Carrot-Walnut Bread: Use 1 1/2 c ground walnuts in place of 1/2 c chopped walnuts.

I think to get the fat down you could use apple sauce instead of oil as well, but it's a tasty delicious treat the kids couldn't wait to eat (unfortunately they were getting cranky and sent to bed before it cooled fully. They'll have some in the morning!) I don't have a loaf pan, so I used my 8x8 pan and it was done in 45 minutes. It might have benefited from a little less time, but it wasn't burned.

Here's a picture

Fresh from the oven. The edges are a little browner than they should be, but that's ok!


Cooling, I can't wait to taste it!


You might not be able to see the green in it, but it's there! Hopefully the kids won't notice.

It was tasty!

Here's the recipe for overnight onion soup, it's super easy!

4 large onions, thinly sliced
8 c chicken stock
1 small bay leaf (optional)
8 thick slices whole grain bread
1 cup shredded Swiss cheese

Place onions, stock, and bay leaf in slow-cooker. Cook, covered, on Low for 24 hours. Ladle into individual ovenproof soup bowls. Top each slice of bread with cheese. Broil until cheese melts. Float a slice of cheese toast in each bowl. May substitute beef stock for chicken stock or Parmesan cheese for Swiss cheese. Yield: 8 servings.

Approx Per Serving: Cal 196; Prot 13g; Carbo 22g; Fiber 3g; T Fat 7g; 30% calories from fat; Chol 12 mg; Sod 997 mg.

I used organic vegetable stock instead of chicken stock, I cut the onions in varying sizes, first small, but as my eyes began to water and it became increasingly hard to see, the chunks got bigger. I'm sure the sodium is so high simply because it calls for using canned stock, I think if you made your own you could get it down MUCH lower. We're going to be having vegetarian French onion soup on Friday for lunch! (Most French onion soup starts with a beef stock or broth, so if you're thinking of going veg, don't get this in cafes!)

Will post on Friday to let y'all know how it went!

Yummy Lenten meal

I grew up Catholic, and while I don't go to church at the moment, old habits die hard. I find myself very focused on no meat on Fridays. If you go out to eat, especially in the Midwest, it's very common to see fish fries as the Friday special, most are all you can eat. I love a good grilled salmon fillet, or nice piece of rare-ish tuna (if it's of good quality) most of the time, but I found myself looking for inspiration this Friday for something that didn't cost too much to make. I had a bag of shrimp in my freezer, so I thawed that and tossed it with elbow macaroni in a parsley pesto recipe that I got from 30 Minute Meals' "Pop-sta Bar" episode. Having used this recipe before, I was pretty sure it was going to be good.

For the most part, parsley is very inexpensive, certainly much less expensive than basil (unless you grow your own.) Leaving out the pine nuts makes it even less expensive, and more allergen friendly. You can drizzle this sauce over chicken, fish, it's a great way to make a different kind of garlic bread (spread on the bread and bake until crispy), it's very versatile. It also whips up in a snap, so if you're pressed for time and want to wow someone with something a little more difficult than opening up a can or ordering take out, this is just the thing! Here's the recipe:

Parsley Pesto

2 cups parsley
3 oz jar or 1/4 c pignoli nuts (again, I leave these out)
1 clove garlic, cracked away from skin (I generally use 2, we love garlic in our house!)
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 tsp black pepper
1 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

Combine parsley, pignoli nuts, and garlic in food processor or blender. Process and stream in about 1/4 cup of the olive oil. Remove paste to a large serving bowl, stir in pepper and grated cheese. Add the rest of the olive oil, stir to combine.


Super easy! Now, there have been times that I've just dumped everything into the blender and it's turned out great, so don't worry so much about the steps, this is really a fuss free dish. It's done in the time it takes to boil the water for the noodles (unless you have a fancy induction cook top, in which case, it's done before the noodles are al dente!)



That's a shrimp there on the left. If you have a restaurant nearby called Noodles & Company, they have a dish called Pesto Cavatappi that can be easily replicated with this recipe, adding a little cream, some mushrooms, and tomato with cavatappi noodles. Personally, I'd leave out the cream, and any addition of veggies can only make it healthier.

Sorry for the unglamorous photo, it was a rushed dinner prep and I didn't get the chance to photo it before we ate, these are the leftovers. I'm surprised that little shrimpy made it for the leftovers ;)