Baked Potatoes with chedder, broccoli, bacon, and plain yogurt. Easy and good.

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. This recipe is from Better Homes and Gardens’ cookbook. I made the whole wheat variation. Good texture, but a little sweet.

I love my new vacuum! This was a birthday present from Ben (and to make sure the present wasn’t interpreted offensively, he promised to vacuum for a few weeks before my birthday-he hates to vacuum, so this really was special).

Our old vacuum was very cheap and used bags. I emptied the bag a few times a year and changed it maybe once since we got married. It never seemed to get full, so why change it?

This red baby sucks so much more than the old one. It’s the cheapest bagless model, but oh, the satisfaction I get from the sediment layers it forms. I have to empty it every three times I use it (I only vacuum weekly, I know, I suck). Pictured here is what I collect after vacuuming twice. Ew and Mmmm.

I’m so addicted to Volfied. I’ve gotten through 13 of 16 levels. There’s no saves or passwords. It’s an old arcade game recently released as part of the Taito collection for PS2. I don’t get to play it as much as I’d like, so Sunday I indulged and set a new high score for myself.

What a nerd.

Yes, those are stretch pants.

But really, I caught up on a lot on Sunday: listened to General Conference (which I think should be held once a month), cooked, choreographed, and sewed (Check out my webpage for an updated crafts section!)

The weekend was fun in general, with Friday dance class, an Indian buffet lunch Saturday and the last of our Colorado Ballet season tickets at night.

Dinner today was chicken pot pie redux with roasted beets. I’m so lazy about making pastry that I make biscuit topping instead. At least it was from scratch with buttermilk 🙂 And the filling was condensed soup-free, with chicken I roasted last week.

I got some paparazzi style pics of Molly exploring the great unknown. She’s graduated to letting me close the screen door behind her. What a wild girl 😉

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Chicken enchiladas, no recipe, just thrown together!

These were divine cookies. Fairly healthy too: whole wheat flour, wheat bran, hardly any butter, low sugar, and homemade peach jam filling. Well, the would be healthy if I could eat less than 6 a day. They tasted similar to a Nutrigrain bar, but better.

Shepard’s Pie. Pork filling with a sweet tomato sauce, peas, and carrots. The topping is mashed potatoes as well as the leftover vegetables from our Irish dinner: carrots, parsnips, and turnips. So the topping was slightly sweet and surprisingly cheesy, but there wasn’t any cheese in it!

Balsamic chicken with rosemary, garlic roasted fingerling potatoes, and steamed broccoli. Ben went nuts for Colorado potatoes, so we’ve been eating a lot of them.

Strawberry rhubarb pie – Spring is here!

Tamale Pie. Eh, too much polenta, not enough filling. But really this was just using up odds and ends, so not bad considering.

Roasted a chicken this week (sorry, no picture) and then made stock! I love homemade stock. I tripled strained this one. Should contribute a nice clear broth to soup for next week.

Decadent Peanut Butter Cups really lived up to their name. My grocery store started carrying Guittard chocolate chips. Heavenly.

Added butter changed the texture dramatically. It surprised me.

The cup.

Classic potato salad. This is maybe just the third potato salad I’ve ever made. I liked the peas, Ben and Brian thought it was weird.

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Busy weekend! I’ve been working on choreography and rehearsals for the spring recital. I’m feeling stressed out for some reason, I really shouldn’t though. It’s all volunteer, and I genuinely enjoy working on the recital. But I’m missing all my leisure time. I’m also not cooking as much adventurous food as I used to. Still cooking though, and maybe I’ll post some pictures soon. In fact, I made a strawberry rhubarb pie this weekend. Not much else to say. Saw a couple movies, cleaned the house, life goes on.

I’ve been enjoying the work of Riva Sweetrocket during the past month. Her collection of pastels have been on display at Arvada Center, in the gallery where I stretch before class. I am disappointed to read her notes on her website. What really struck me, besides the vibrant colors, was how absurd they are. I think they’re better when taken randomly. Reading the explanation is like dissecting a joke. If you browse her website, try not the read the fine print.

A Duck Hunt competition

Brian and the elusive Bruce.

Friday I cooked and cleaned and sewed, just like a real wife! 😉 Here’s one of my recipes and my future skirt. This fabric is a dream to work with.

The party! Brian turned 25 this week, so we had an Irish dinner celebration last night. Ben bought him a GI Joe gun, which is targeting the meat in this picture. Notice my lovely soda bread! I should have made two, it was tasty, hearty, and quickly devoured.

The whole meal: Corned beef, boiled cabbage, soda bread slathered in butter, and assorted root vegetables – parsnips (“what’s that?”) carrots, turnips, and potatoes.

And for dessert I attempted the Norwegian Birthday Cake, a tradition in Ben’s family. It’s an angelfood cake with strawberry cream between three layers, coated in sweeted whipped cream, and topped with fresh strawberries.

Molly discovered milk.