New Blog!

This blog is set to my old email address, and I am not allowed to change it! So, I have created a new blog: www.myclusterofjams.blogspot.com. I hope you will read it :)

Hello World

This is our daughter, Maple Beth Parsons. Her sweet little face came into this world on April 11, a little after 3:00 pm. She was born a week early, at The Birth Center, all natural, after just 14 hours of labor. It was the most insane experience of my life. If you want more details, feel free to ask, I love talking about it. I feel so blessed to have had such an amazing experience, and am so grateful for Jesse, my mom, and Bess, who were all there to support me as we waited for Maple. She is a really good baby, and we love her so much.
She is breastfed, sleeps in bed with us, and I wear her on me a good deal of the time. Some people might call this attachment parenting, we call it, what works for us. I fell like I am an advocate for things like these, but I realize that everyone has their own way of doing things. Maple is only two months old (which is crazy!), but I already know how important it is to not force your opinions on other people, no matter how strongly you feel about them. With that said, I feel like the methods we use, help me to be the best mama that I can be. Being a parent is hard! Being a parent is also amazing. Her little body is sleeping on me right now, and right now there is no where else I would rather be, and nothing else I would rather be doing. Notice that I say, right now. Later tonight, or tomorrow, or next week, I might not feel the same way. It is hard losing your independence. Sometimes I want free hands, so I can cook a nice dinner for my husband, or water my plants, or practice my hula hooping skills (yes, Jesse and I just bought a hula hoop). Anyway, we are adjusting, and it is totally worth it. I feel like there is so much more to say, but my brain is not functioning at fully capacity yet.

Baby Baby

So obviously I am already failing at my food journal. Such is life. Jesse is back to work this week. I am relieved, but reminding myself that he works for crazy people, so anything can change at anytime. For now, things are back to normal.
Our housemate John is moving out this weekend, to make room for the baby! I am so excited to start fixing up the room. I have had an amazing pregnancy, and love being pregnant, but nine months is so long to wait for something so exciting!

Lemon Olive Oil Cake

Good Lord! This cake turned out beautifully. It is a chiffon cake, and the recipe can be found at www.epicurious.com. I topped it with some sweetened sour cream, sour cream with a little bit of agave nectar, and it was perfect.

Breakfast for dinner

What do you do when you do not feel like cooking dinner? Make breakfast! Scrambled eggs, roasted potatoes, sauteed kale, and whole wheat toast (I made that bread!).

Seitan Pot Pie

This was dinner from one night last week. It was an experiment, that I would say was successful. I sauteed some onion, garlic, and carrot. Once it was soft I sprinkled a spoonful on flour over it, to create a roux. I stirred in some veggie stock, and a little bit of milk. Then I added in the seitan, frozen peas, salt, pepper, and thyme. I did not feel like making a crust for it, so I made biscuits instead. I used one of Mark Bittman's recipes from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, which I had used before, and loved. The seitan mixture goes into a casserole dish, and the raw biscuits go on top. I baked it for as long as the biscuit recipe called for, which was around ten minutes. Oh I just remembered that I wanted potatoes in there at the last minute, so I cut some small yukon golds into quarters, boiled them, and then added them to the mixture.

I love yerba matte.

Tuesday......
Breakfast: steel cut oats with maple syrup, toasted walnuts, and sliced banana
Snack: scone
Lunch: leftover udon noodle stuff
Snack: crackers and cheese
Dinner: seitan pot pie (pictures and recipe coming soon)
Dessert: chocolate tart

Wednesday.......
Breakfast: eggs and toast
Snack: carrots and hummus
Late Lunch/Early Dinner: Nodding Head! french dip and spanish fries
Dessert: chocolate ice cream with peanut butter and crushed homemade graham crackers (pictures and recipe coming soon, these are totally worth making from scratch)

Jesse's mom gave us some hope last night. She is a school bus driver, therefore has three months off every summer when school is not in session, and is able to collect unemployment during that time. Did you know that you do not have to get laid off in order to collect unemployment?! If you are available to work, and your job is not providing you with work, you can collect. So guess what? We are going to take advantage of this system that we have been paying into for years. The first week is a "waiting period", but after that you can collect. So starting next week, we should be getting something. If Jesse's job provides him with work again, great, he will work. Anytime from here on out, if they do not provide him with work, he can immediately start collecting again. You can start and stop it whenever you need to, and only have to deal with the one week "waiting period" once a year. It is a weird thing for us to have to do, but we are so grateful that we are able to.