34/52 - Olympic Baby

One of the benefits of Oskar arriving when he did is that we had an excuse to just sit and watch the Olympics! Starting about 5 years ago, we became "cord cutters" when we dropped all TV service in favor of Netflix on a Roku. So it took a little investigation to figure out how we could even watch the Olympics online. We subscribed to a streaming service (SlingTV) for the sole purpose of watching the Olympics, but none of the online-only options include the main NBC network. So we could only watch the "off brand" events that didn't make the cut for primetime NBC viewing: team handball, water polo, badminton, table tennis, soccer, etc. Nevertheless, it was pretty engaging and impressive to watch athletes at the top of their sport.

Anders was enraptured by the Olympics in general, regardless of the sport. For each event he watched, he had to choose which "side" he would root for, then he would act as if he had been rooting for that person/team all of his life. One day he looked at the event schedule and saw kayaking and canoeing for 5am the following day. He immediately decided that he would get up to watch it! And to our great surprise, he actually did. (This is the kid who has slept until 11am on Christmas morning and who struggles to get up by 7am to catch the school bus.) On that day, he watched the Olympics for 13 hours straight. Hey - it's the Olympics!

Anders and Grandma Donna made cheese crackers, since everyone knows that watching sports on TV is better with salty snacks.

I think this was the first time that Anders was exposed to television commercials. Since most of what he has watched previously was educational programming of some sort, he interpreted them all as public service announcements. "We should get a Pizza Hut Big Flavor Dipper pizza. It comes with 4 sauces!" "Did you know that ExxonMobil makes cars go further with less?"

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We had another full week of doctor appointments, including the 2 week checkups for both Oskar and Corinne. Both passed with flying colors. Oskar made it back up to his birth weight at just about the two week mark.

Oskar and his "life-size" sock monkey, courtesy of Aunt 'Nita

While in Portland, we couldn't pass up another stop at Salt & Straw. I guess it's not every day that a newborn waits in the S&S line, so Oskar garnered quite a bit of attention. One boy asked if he was real. (We sometimes wondered that ourselves.)

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After a week of Anders being able to spend time with Oskar, he is more excited about his little brother than he was before he was born.

Anytime he is around, he tries to give his brother kisses and tells him how cute he is. If we had any doubts about how Anders would handle no longer being the only child, they have now been thoroughly dispelled.

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Since Oskar was born early, we had a bonus 0th birthday party for him on his official due date! Anders insisted. And since Anders also had a 0th birthday party, it seemed only fair. Plus, cake.

Anders made the decorations. Unfortunately for Oskar, he can only appreciate the cake second-hand.

Happy 0th Birthday, Oskar!

- Mike, Corinne, Anders, and Oskar

40/52 - Cake, School Bus, Gummies

After making/carving Anders's birthday cake, we had some leftover cake pieces and excess frosting that we had put aside for later. We decided to give Anders a chance to do some cake decorating on his own.

Nice job, Anders! Tasted delicious.

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Here is a "day in the life" at the school bus stop.

In the morning, the whole family walks down the driveway to meet the bus.

In the afternoon, Corinne and I walk back down to meet him when he gets off the bus.

He says hi (sometimes) then walks past us toward the house. Rarely is he wearing his coat/sweatshirt from the morning. Thankfully, it is usually in his backpack (and not in the lost-and-found at school).

Most of the time, he runs away from us toward the house. He finds this hilarious. (Us, less so.)

On rare occasions, we manage to convince him to walk with us.

On days when we join him for lunch at the school, we get a glimpse of his lunch routine. On one of these days, we discovered his favorite concoction from the salad bar:

Peas, olives, cheddar cheese, and peaches

Nutritionally speaking, it's not too bad. The flavor profile, however, ... well, as long as he likes it.

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For his birthday, Anders received a small RC quad-coptor from Grandpa Reidar. Anders calls it the "Extreme F-Two-Two".

Watch this video on YouTube
or in the original post

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Another item on Anders's birthday wish list was a kit to make gummies. Rather than buy a pre-made kit (with its paltry and overpriced collection of ingredients), Corinne found gummy-making instructions and made her own kit. It doesn't take much more than flavored gelatin, corn syrup, and some silicone molds.

...and voila! Who doesn't love gummy LEGO minifigs?

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

8/52 - Birthday Cake, School Lunch, and Alton Brown

We've been long-time fans of Alton Brown, even hosting our own Alton Brown Dinner Parties over the years. So we jumped at the opportunity to see his Alton Brown Live tour.

He used the same crazy props and weird camera angles that were a signature feature of Good Eats.

His live show featured all of the things that he couldn't do on television. As one example, his Food Network censors required that his yeast puppets (see above) emitted 7 burps for each 1 fart. (Who knew?) So for his live show, he reversed the ratio. He made ice cream in 10 seconds with a CO² fire extinguisher, and cooked pizza in a 54,000W, 1 million lumen Mega Bake Oven made from stage lighting, his adult homage to the Easy Bake Oven. The show was great fun.

Sometime between when we bought the tickets (last year) and the night of the show, we started watching Good Eats episodes with Anders. Since we have the episodes from all 14 seasons, we would have Anders choose a food or cooking topic and then consult the Good Eats Fan Page to find a relevant episode to watch. Anders is now also a big fan and thinks Alton is hilarious. Anders kept asking why we didn't buy him a ticket, but we didn't know he was going to be such a big fan! We will be sure to make it an all family outing the next time he comes around.

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Happy Birthday, Grandma Donna! To celebrate, we baked a chocolate cake with coconut butter cream frosting and decorated the top to remind us that spring is on its way.

For her birthday, we gave Grandma Donna a cool picture frame for housing Anders' artwork. The day before the celebration, she and Anders had this conversation:

A: We have a birthday present for you.
GD: What is it?
A: I can't tell you! It's a surprise! ... but the first word is picture and the second word starts with an f.

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Anders's school is small; each grade is only about 12-20 students, and everyone is in the same building from K-12. They didn't have a "hot lunch" program in the school until about two years ago. They have some of the school lunch standards, like hot dogs, fish and chips and the like, but they have worked hard to make their menus more interesting than the average school. For example, currently they have an "International Tuesday" theme featuring different cuisines.

On one Tuesday in February, they featured Thai Chicken and Rice:

A few weeks later, Indian Butter Chicken and Dal:

Parents are welcome to join the students for lunch, so we jumped at the chance.

It's the only place in Trout Lake to get ethnic foods! Besides the school, there are only two other places to eat in town. And at a cost of $3.25 per adult, it's the best meal deal going. I'm sure we will be back.

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

Best Recipes of 2014

2014 was a good cooking year, and we have lots of favorites to share! You can access previous years' favorite recipes from the recipes tag.

The Whole Bowl
Source: The Whole Bowl, PDX (deconstructed by Sweet Phi)

If I had to pick the "dish of the year", this would be it. There's a food truck turned restaurant in Portland called The Whole Bowl, and all they do is a veggie bowl. It is delicious. If I lived closer, I would go there frequently. Instead, I was excited to try to reproduce it at home. Thankfully, someone had already done the hard work of recreating the magical Tali sauce for me. Feel free to add whatever other ingredients you like to this base; I have added various leftover roasted veggies (broccoli, romanesco, etc.) and it always turns out great.

Sweet Potatoes with Warm Black Bean Salad
Source: Eating Well

Just a few ingredients, no complicated instructions. Yet somehow it comes together into something incredibly delicious.

Healthier Shepherd's Pie
Source: Iowa Girl Eats

I have always liked Shepherd's Pie, despite it's "mystery meat" reputation. This one adds cauliflower to the potato, and no one is the wiser.

Authentic Chicken Tikka Masala
Source: AllRecipes

We're usually skeptical of recipes with "authentic" in the title. Thankfully, this one holds up to scrutiny. The chicken is baked in the oven (after marinating), to mimic the clay tandoor cooking method. The sauce comes together quickly and doesn't require anything but standard kitchen ingredients. (I'm assuming that your kitchen has garam masala, of course.)

Loaded Twice Baked Potatoes
Source: Eating Well

Broccoli, ground beef and cheese in a twice baked potato. Anders called this one "mashed potato salad", and he loved it.

Chopped Tandoori Chicken Salad
Source: Eating Well

This is a nice combination of chicken salad and greens, with some Indian flavors thrown in. It's mostly pantry staples and standard grocery fare, so it works any time of year.

Sesame Noodles with Chicken
Source: Food Network

This is just a nice, simple noodle in a peanut sauce.

Creamy Mexican Kale Salad
Source: iFoodReal

I was drawn in by the beautiful colors in this one. Oh, and we had a bunch of kale that I didn't know what to do with. We made it in the summer when the requisite produce was in season.

Here's to more great cooking in 2015!

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

12/52 - Science, Engineering, and Dessert

For Saint Patrick's Day, we continued an Ilvedson tradition: Blarney Stones. They are blocks of yellow cake frosted with vanilla frosting and coated in chopped peanuts. They didn't look much like stones to me; there must be something lost in translation.

Three generations making stones

Here is a recent exchange with Anders:

Anders: The boys had to use the girls bathroom at school today.
Mike: Did it look different?
Anders: Yes.
Mike: How was it different?
Anders: It was prettier.

I guess this aspect of male/female differences starts earlier than I thought. Before we know it, the girls' bathroom will have couches.

In the 'not so fun' category, one of the stairs to our bedroom collapsed underneath us a couple weeks ago. The screws holding up the bracket just sheared off. Oops. Thankfully, it was the fourth stair from the bottom, so we didn't have far to fall.

Since then, we removed all of the stairs (one at a time, of course) to check and replace the hardware. If one failed, how many more were ready to go? The second stair that I replaced had only one remaining screw holding up one side. Overall, just under 12% of the supporting screws were either missing or broken. (Of course we kept track!) The old screws were not only undersized but actually the wrong kind: sheet metal screws. Now that all of the screws have been replaced, we can walk a little easier. As an added bonus, the stairs are also much quieter.

As you might imagine, a 5 year old changes his mind many times about what he wants to be when he grows up. (Even now, are any of us really sure?) For the first part of the year, Anders wanted to be an artist when he grew up, very likely inspired by his Uncle Leif. But now he has changed his aspirations to science. He spent part of the weekend re-conducting some of his preschool science experiments with Grandma Donna.

While technically that last photo isn't a controlled science experiment - he's smashing a coconut with a hammer - he did learn what the inside of a rotten coconut looks like. And he's wearing safety glasses, so that totally counts.

Anders and I took a stroll through some of the earliest trees that we planted after we moved to River Ford Farm. These trees have established themselves pretty well and are now really starting to take off. This one is now more than twice as tall as Anders, and they are roughly the same age.

The leader - the main stem above the last ring of branches - is at least 2' feet tall and grew in a single year. Thankfully, Anders doesn't quite grow that fast.

Oh, and Happy Birthday to me! I am now officially the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything. You're welcome.

My birthday pudding (chocolate)

I also had birthday Key Lime Pie and Banana Cake with Chocolate Sour Cream Frosting. So you can have your blarney stones; I'll take my pudding, pie, and cake, thank you very much. :)

- Mike, Corinne and Anders

2/52

This past week we discovered that the Elementary School in White Salmon has roller skating in the gymnasium in the winter. It lasts for an hour on Thursday nights and they provide skates and music. Anders has never been skating before - either ice or roller - but this was a good way to get him started.

By about 5 minutes in, the gymnasium was full of kids spinning and falling. Anders really had no idea how to handle skates. We took turns basically holding him up while he floundered around.

Such form!

He took a few spills but he continued in good spirits.

This one didn't end well.

Being there with his friends Lauren and Bridger definitely kept him more engaged and motivated through the spills and frustrations.

By the end of the hour, Anders was still very unstable but had made some progress and didn't need quite as much support.

On the drive home, Anders surprised us both with his optimistic view of roller skating.

I'm going to learn how to do tricks. On my roller skates!

Then, a little later:

We should also buy some ramps, so that I can do tricks. Then we can make a whole show!

Looks like there may be more roller skating in our future. Hopefully his balance and control will get better with practice, because his parents are still sore from leaning over and holding him up for an hour!

Sometime in the past year or so, Anders has decided that his favorite food is cheese pizza. (It's a far cry from what he had previously declared: "green beans.") It was time for Anders to help make it himself.

We have made dough with him several times recently. I try to keep it educational and still interesting with little bits of wisdom along the way. I don't think he will ever forget that "the holes in bread are caused by yeast tooting."

He also learned several other important lessons:
1. He likes pepperoni, despite his protestations to the contrary prior to tasting it.
2. Pepperoni pizza is just cheese pizza with pepperoni on it.

Another milestone was passed this week: Anders watched his first complete movie that was made in the last 50 years. He is a sensitive person and has a particularly hard time with mean people in movies. Prior to this weekend, the only movies¹ that Anders has watched in their entirety were: It's A Pleasure (1945), Royal Wedding (1951), and White Christmas (1954). We have attempted several others - Mary Poppins, Aristocats, Cars - but all required some skipping ahead or, in the case of the last one, having to stop entirely after only the first 5 minutes.

We can now happily report that we all thoroughly enjoyed Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, all the way through. Not only was the movie made in the last 50 years, it was made this century!

This was a big week of athletic firsts for Anders. In addition to roller skating, he also went to his first youth basketball event at the Trout Lake School. Anders has never played basketball before, but he was really excited to go. For an hour and a half, a group of about 20 kids around his age learned how to pass, dribble, and shoot. Or at least they received some instruction on those topics.

Anders has undoubtedly seen people play basketball before, but I guess he wasn't paying very close attention. When he was asked to dribble the ball, he dropped it to the floor and kicked it around just like he learned at soccer camp this past summer.

Shooting came relatively easily to him. He made his first shot attempt and had pretty reasonable form.

His dribbling, passing and catching skills, on the other hand, could use more practice.

Believe it or not, he actually did catch this one.

Between roller skating and basketball, Anders is going to get a good workout over the next few months!

- Mike, Corinne and Anders

¹ Technically, we also all watched Follow That Bird, but that hardly counts as a real movie.

Best Recipes of 2013

Here we are at the beginning of another year, so it's time for the 2013 edition of our best new recipes! You can now access all previous years' recipes through the recipes tag.

Spinach Salad with Chicken, Avocado and Goat Cheese
Source: RecipeGirl.com

This was a good year for salads for us. While salads aren't particularly difficult from a preparation perspective, for some reason we have had a difficult time making really good ones. This one is. Of course, anything with goat cheese and avocado is probably delicious.

Greek Quinoa and Avocado Salad
Source: Recipe.com

Delicious, particularly when cherry tomatoes are in season. We have made it with brown rice when we didn't have the specified quinoa on hand. The quinoa has a firmer texture, but the brown rice still works. (Oh, and see previous comment about avocado and goat cheese.)

Southwestern Salad with Black Beans
Source: EatingWell.com

This salad can be made mostly from pantry staples, with the addition of whatever tomatoes and greens are available and fresh at the time. Using fresh corn is, of course, also allowed.

Tex-Mex Summer Squash Casserole
Source: EatingWell.com

When August comes and the summer squash onslaught has begun, it helps to have as many squash recipes on hand as possible. This is a simple casserole that can be adjusted or altered as you like. We like to add some black and refried beans for more texture variation.

Chile Rellenos Casserole
Source: AllRecipes.com

Who needs to spend time stuffing individual peppers? The prep time to flavor ratio is much more reasonable in this recipe.

Italian Cream Soda
Source: AllRecipes.com

Okay, so this is barely a recipe. We had our SodaStream carbonator for about a year before we realized that we could make Italian sodas at home. It is now our go to summer refreshment. The cream is a nice addition.

Happy Eating!

- Mike, Corinne and Anders

Best Recipes of 2012

Here it is: our annual Favorite Recipes edition for 2012. We didn't do a great good job of keeping track of new recipes in 2012, but we're going to bend the rules a little bit to make it more interesting.

Quick-Fried Zucchini with Toasted Garlic and Lime
Source: Rick Bayless
This is a delicious vegetarian taco filling that was passed to us by our friends Simon and Lindsey. Great use of summer squash!

Sweet Potato-Peanut Bisque
Source: Eating Well
I really like the peanut and squash flavor combinations from West-Africa. This soup is easy and freezes well.

In lieu of new recipes that we discovered this year, here are some of our longtime favorites that we returned to this year.

White Chicken Chili
Source: Adapted from Trim Kids
This is a quick, weeknight-friendly and hearty soup/stew that our friends Malinda & Jean turned us on to. It's made mostly from pantry or freezer staples. If you don't have leftover chicken, poaching is quick and easy. (Or you can pick up a rotisserie chicken, if you are so inclined. I am not.)

Sauteed Green Beans with Smoked Paprika and Almonds
Source: Cook's Illustrated, November 2008
This is our favorite way to have green beans, hands down.

Spicy Sichuan Noodles (Dan Dan Mian)
Source: Cook's Illustrated, May 2001
Cook's Illustrated is not exactly known for their ethic foods, but this one is a real winner. We love udon noodles. While the recipe mentions the possibility of a substitution to a thick spaghetti, thankfully we have never been forced to make that substitution.

Stir-Fried Beef and Broccoli with Oyster Sauce
Source: Cook's Illustrated, September 2003
Oddly enough, here is another Cook's Illustrated non-American dish that has been in our regular rotation. It may not be authentic - we actually have no idea - but it is certainly reliable and delicious.

You can check out the recipes from other years through the recipes tag.

Happy Eating!

- Mike, Corinne and Anders

Favorite Recipes of 2011

It's time for the 2011 edition of our Best Recipes of the Year!

#1: Sweet Potato & Chile Hash with Egg
Source: Fine Cooking
This one is at the top of our year's finds. Just the right combination of spicy and sour, and vegetarian/gluten-free/dairy-free to boot! This became a frequent brunch favorite.

#2: Spicy Tuna Wraps
Source: Eating Well
Inspired by sushi, this is a different take on canned tuna. You can pretty much use whatever greens you want in this.

#3: Sweet Zucchini Relish
Source: AllRecipes.com
Who isn't on the lookout for a way to use summer squash? Well, this is a good one. Really good. Before we made this relish, we didn't really even eat relish.

#4: Blueberry Zucchini Bread
Source: AllRecipes.com
Still have some zucchini left after the recipe above? Try this variation on zucchini bread. Don't overmix or overbake!

#5: Pear and Vanilla Freezer Jam
Source: MyRecipes.com
We got some amazingly flavorful pears from a friend and experimented with a few different flavor combinations inspired by some online recipes. We used the less-sugar pectin, 3c of sugar per 5c of pear and then roughly followed this recipe. (We used limes and a friend used lemons. The lime version was the favorite.) The recipe is definitely a winner, although undoubtedly starting with really ripe and flavorful pears always helps.

#6: Spinach Basil Pesto
Source: AllRecipes.com
This one hardly needs a recipe. Basically, use your favorite pesto recipe but substitute spinach for about 2/3 of the basil. It has a bit less 'bite' than basil-only pesto, which we think makes it a bit more flexible. Spinach is also easier to come by in large volume.

#7: Beef Tacos de Lengua
Source: SimplyRecipes.com
We had a cow tongue in the freezer from a quarter share that we bought a couple years earlier, so we figured "what the heck?" There is no mistaking that it was a giant tongue. And when it came to peeling off the skin... well, I will freely admit that this was the hardest thing I've ever done in the kitchen. Thankfully, once you are done it no longer looks like a tongue.

Happy eating!

- Mike, Corinne and Anders

The End of Summer Tomatoes

Thanks to a long summer, our garden was still producing prolifically into October. When it looked like the first frost was coming, we harvested whatever was left: tomatoes, tomatillos, boxes of squash, and piles of herbs. We spent most of a weekend cooking and canning: Zucchini Dill Pickles, Chile Verde Sauce, and a wonderful Tomato and Sage Sauce. All made from garden ingredients! (Thanks to Debbie for some of her garden plum tomatoes.)

The blender technique to this particular recipe was a bit unusual for a tomato sauce. But with so many different varieties and colors, the process was beautiful.

Onions, garlic, sage, and chili pepper

Ready for jars

One last bit of summer tucked away, just enough to remember it by.

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

2 October 2011