What's been going on in my house? Lots of train track building. Not so much meal planning! Which around here, looks like lots of Moe's, if we're honest.

This has been a terrible season of things breaking. My beloved new camera (bought just before Christmas) stopped working. It's under warranty, but not just "take it back to the store" warranty. I've mailed it in, and I'm waiting to hear from the factory. Ugh.

So, in the meanwhile, I am taking videos of my boys, and I'm trying to memorize their little faces for the months when I don't have pictures.

Hopefully the camera will be fixed, and I'll be back blogging regularly very quickly.

Meals for after a new baby

my youngest as a sweet newborn

I was talking recently to someone about how I've arranged meals after my babies, and I thought it deserved a blog post of its own. This is the tactic I took after babies 2 and 3, and it worked well for us. With number 1, I was a hungry, crying mess. I knew something had to change the next time, and so it did. The next two times, we were all well fed, and while there might have been tears, at least we weren't hungry!

First, I figured out my main goals for feeding my family. Mine is that I want to serve healthy foods, on a budget, that taste good. The budget thing is number one, unfortunately. But, staying on a budget in this area is what makes everything else run smoothly, so ultimately, it's worth it. If I'm being honest, I'll say that I'd love to throw caution to the wind, get take out for every meal, and spend $2000 on food that first month. Ahem.

When I'm newly postpartum, healthy is relative. There is not time to hand grind wheat. Nor do I cook every single thing from scratch every single meal. But I don't want to eat or serve poptarts every day, either, so there is a balance.

Also, I love stuff that tastes good and has a nice variety. I'm willing to sacrifice some of this for easy when I have a new baby, but it's still nice to have.

I use my freezer a lot to prepare for a new baby. I have complete meals, parts of meals, and meal-starters in there. Now, here's the deal. I don't love, love, love frozen food. I don't think to myself, "oh, boy! It's been in the freezer a month--let me at it!" I don't do once a month cooking (but do keep one casserole/soup in the freezer most of the time). But when it comes to cooking fresh with a 2 week old baby or eating freezer food, well, the freezer food wins out. Almost every time.

So, all that said, I started out with a list of things we already ate that I thought would freeze well. Suppers mostly, but also breakfasts and lunches for that first and second week home. I started looking at sales, and when a major part of the meals I wanted went on sale, then I bought it and stockpiled it. Around 35ish weeks, I took stock of what I had, then I'd make 3-5 meals at a time and freeze them. I did this a couple of times a week, as the urge and energy hit. When I was close to 40 weeks, I had about 30 meals in the freezer.

With baby 3, we were blessed with several meals from friends. What a treat and blessing!! So, between those meals and the stuff in the freezer, I didn't really have to cook for about 6 weeks. It was wonderful. Really, really wonderful. I highly recommend doing some cooking ahead while pregnant so that you can spare yourself from the 5:00 rush those first few weeks.

A couple of my friends used to get together to do massive bulk once a month freezer sessions with 4 of them. They got a variety of food, plus they didn't cook it all. Win/win. They shared some of their freezing tips. Freeze any food possible in ziplocs. Then, lay on a cookie sheet in the freezer until hard. It'll make a flat package that can be stacked, stood upright, and takes up much less space.

Also, for things that are in individual pieces (chicken nuggets, etc), place them on a cookie sheet in the freezer, freeze until solid, then store in a ziploc. It means you can take out however many you need without having to thaw the whole shebang.

Things that we liked frozen:
gumbo (I add a can of tomatoes)
Italian wedding soup
chicken noodle soup (add the noodles when reheating)
chicken and dumplings (add the dumplings when reheating)
ground beef vegetable soup
tortilla soup
taco soup
vegetable soup with ham and okra
spaghetti sauce
sloppy joe sauce
turkey tettrazini (no peas!)
mashed potatoes (made on the stiff side; frozen in ice cream scoop blobs)
hamburger patties
cheese sauce for macaroni and cheese (make the noodles fresh)
red chili
white chicken chili
chicken wings (my husband loves this!)--just reheat in the oven, and they are as good as fresh
meatloaf (frozen raw)
enchiladas
chicken nuggets
taco meat
pinto beans (for tacos or for eating with rice)
red beans (just make the rice fresh)
black beans (seeing a pattern?)


The one thing I really hate frozen is rice. The texture is off. And it's easy enough to make a pot of rice that I don't worry about that one.

For breakfasts: muffins (these freeze really well and just thaw on the counter in about 15 minutes), pancakes, waffles, french toast

For lunches: this is a time I splurge on lunch meat. Also, the muffins, some sort of fruit (even in a can), and I freeze ahead some quesadillas. I know, I know. Quesadillas are dead easy. But, they are even easier if they are already made! I even did some individual pizzas on english muffins. Same deal--easy enough, but even easier premade. I also did some individual servings of soup. Perfect for those days when you need something heartier for lunch, but your kids are happy with peanut butter. Again.

Freezing food ahead is a bit of work, but it's work that really, really pays off on the back side. Definitely worth every minute!

Taco Soup

This has become my go-to meal for taking to families with new babies. Easy, relatively cheap, and it feeds a ton of people. Remember the old school recipe with taco seasoning and ranch dressing mix? This was inspired by that, but I'm way too cheap to buy ranch dressing just for soup, so inspired is used loosely. Because of the ranch ingredient, I used dried parsley and garlic in this, which I think work well.

Taco Soup
loosely inspired by the retro ranch-dressing-including taco soup

1 pound ground beef or turkey
1 onion, diced
1 jalapeno, seeded and diced
4 cups pinto beans
16 oz frozen corn
4 oz canned green chiles
3-14 oz cans diced tomatoes (for this batch, I did fire roasted, whole, and diced plain)
4 cups water
1 t salt
2 t cumin
2 t coriander
1 T chili powder
1 t pepper
1 T dried parsley flakes (there's my nod to the ranch)
2 t garlic powder

toppings: chopped cilantro, lime wedges, diced jalapeno, sliced radishes, chips, sour cream, cheese

Cook the ground beef and onion together until beef is browned and onion is translucent. Drain if needed. Add all other ingredients, and allow to simmer for 1 hour for flavors to blend. Serve with assorted toppings (the fun part!).

The Great Gallery Wall Move

Last year, I made a gallery wall in my living room that I've enjoyed over the last year. But, you know...time passes, and I was ready for a change. During the same period, I was also a little tired of our bedroom and ready for something new.

Lucky for me (ha!), we've battled moisture and mildew this year, so we made the decision to flip-flop our bedroom with that of our boys', and I was forced to find a new home for everything on the walls and rethink a few things.

When I think of my bedroom, I aim for cozy. We honeymooned at a run0down family motel on the edge of the earth (the Outer Banks of North Carolina...it really is the edge of the earth!). The place had mis-matched sheets, curtains from the 70s, and the furniture was all different. In a word, it was cozy. You knew that that room had stories to tell. Stories to tell of vacationing families, of fishing trips, of hurricanes and nor'easters survived. And, so, when I decorate, sometimes I want my rooms to feel like they have the same stories to tell. Stories of life and love and history and hope of a great future.

In a word, gallery walls are just my thing.

A few things extended down onto the dresser.

As well as a bowl of buckeyes from a fun camping trip we took back in the days before kids.

And along with the room and gallery wall moves, I got new bedding. I'd had the same floral duvet for almost 11 years. It was a wedding present that I loved at the time and still do, but I was just ready for something lighter. So, I went with this off-white matelasse that I borrowed/stole from my mom. I found the comforter at the end of the bed thrifting. It's king size and very heavy, so just perfect for when the nights are cold.

And there you go. Cozy.