recent loveliness

I have made several tasty things to eat over the course of the last few weeks. A few of them are:

• Creamy macaroni and cheese
• No-Knead bread with lemon and rosemary
• Wontons
• Dipping sauce for wontons, if they are panfried and served more as potstickers

Our Easter meal was comprised of:

• Marmalade glazed ham
• Buttermilk biscuits
• Scalloped potatoes
• Roasted asparagus
• Ricotta cake
• Shaved fennel salad with arugula and a meyer lemon vinaigrette
• two beautiful salads my mom made

Looking back....we relied too heavily on Martha, perhaps, but I'm saving these recipes because everything was beautiful and delicious and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Also, there was some Scharffenberger champagne involved. That helped.

Right, I also made the lemon-rosemary bread for Easter. We've been eating that bread almost constantly since we tried the recipe a couple weeks ago. I was going to whip up another batch of it today, but the day got away from me...tomorrow I'll try again.

AAAK! also: @#$%%&$#@ and such like

Hey! Guess what! We're still sick! Ha ha ha! So much fun! Next weekend I'm going to learn how to juggle chainsaws and hypodermic needles! I'm really looking forward to that!

....sssnnnooooooorre...

Hey! Guess what else! We got to take Dearest Husband to the ER on Thursday night! Weeeeeeeee! Kelsey thought he'd been exposed to a neuro-toxin while cleaning his fish tank which was experiencing a massive die-off because....this is boring. Suffice it to say that while Kelsey was in the ER, the kids were alternately nodding off or listening to Jim Broadbent reading Winnie the Pooh while I was puking out the car door in the parking lot ( I know! Classy!) and shaking with the chills. When we got home Peanut puked, I collapsed in bed and Kelsey took some codeine cough syrup. He's got pneumonia. Apparently the doctor cheerfully told him that if he had truly been exposed to the toxin he thought he had been, he'd be dead.

So...that's good news.

Kelsey has basically holed up in our bedroom with these items:

• 1 bottle liquid happiness
• 1 bottle antibiotics
• 1 Wii
• several pillows
• snacks
• possibly a shot gun to keep the rest of us the hell out of there, "so help me God, I will get better dammit! Stop making me sick you bastards! (cough, cough...grrrrr.....)"

If he does actually get better, it will be entirely because of the delicious wontons I made last night. So tasty. Recipe will follow.

Why do we continue having crappy birthdays? and new chickens.

Bean had a birthday. We were sick, to greater or lesser degrees. He had a nice day, Dad brought him a bike, there was much merriment. He decided he wanted a bento box for dinner, so we went out to sushi because truly, it does not take much arm twisting. "Bento box, you say? I'm on it!" Husband and I enjoyed the most delicious raw fish while the little people enjoyed their beef teriyaki and california rolls and such. The Sprout loves oshinko maki. Who knew?

During dinner the Bean was tired. We couldn't even stay for our mochi ice cream, and if you can't stay for your mochi ice cream, you know something's amiss. We brought it home, stuck a candle in it, sang a song, ate our ice cream, collapsed in bed.

It was....perhaps not the most memorable birthday ever, but they hardly ever are. I made a lovely chocolate cake for his preschool class, and per his request, Dad made cinnamon rolls for his breakfast. Oh my holy GOD they were delicious. Husband used a recipe from the Fanny Farmer Baking Book and made them with a potato dough. They were beyond rocking, but unfortunately I didn't think to take any pictures.

Later in the week, we had a semi-scalping involving the Sprout, his hairline and an angry CPU with the sharpest damned air vents known to man. Yesterday we brought home two chickens to our brand-new chicken coop that Husband built over the last couple weekends. One is an Australorp and the other a silver-laced Wyandotte. Their names are Penny and Princess and next week we'll bring home some chicks that will move in with them when they're big enough. Pictures to come. The kids are in love and want to check on them constantly. The chickens themselves seem to be adapting fairly well, but the dog is being a pain. I guess I shouldn't have expected anything different from a creature bred to be a farm dog.

Sprout is healing, the chickens are neeping, spring is springing all around us. It's torture to be inside, except for being sick and all, Easter is creeping up faster than I thought it possibly could...it's overwhelming and perfect.