Wednesday Cooking Edition With A Dash of Baby :-)

Happy Wednesday! Let’s talk food — a tale of a success and failure :-)

So I’m not a good cook. I’m an okay cook and perfectly capable of keeping people alive via cooking :-). I’m a better baker in case anyone thinks I’m just being modest or something. But I have more time and resources these days to try things. So I tried two things:

My success: Balsamic Grilled Flank Steak Caprese (title is hyperlinked if you’d like to see the recipe). I made this last Friday and it was a hit! We loved it. Now I think I’m going to make it to take it to the new parents this weekend. That’s a bit of a test because my daughter in law is an excellent cook. She has both the skills and the instincts that really good cooks have to turn a solid recipe into amazing meals. So I’ll be interested in her thoughts.

My failure: Was not a total failure but I was not happy. That was a stew recipe I’m not going to link it here. I normally make a shortcut stew that is fine for me and Wizard. But I wanted to make something better and healthier and take half of it to my daughter in law and son when I went to visit them yesterday. And I chose it because it wasn’t too spicy, too complicated and only had some wine it in to deglaze the pan that I could cooked off (nursing mom!). It should have been great, but it was bland and sad. But you know what? To my surprise, my daughter in law ate it anyway. This excellent cook who I know is particular about what she eats, ate it anyway. She said bland was better for her now, so she didn’t lie about the stew, she just accepted it as my effort and ate it. I was to touched. So my failure…wasn’t too bad, and it certainly made me appreciate my daughter in law all the more. And Wizard and I are going to eat it tonight (which is last night — the time-paradox of writing a blog and setting it to post the next day). But I’m still mad about the stew. It’s probably fine, I just wanted it to be really good.

Also, Baby Girl is amazing! I canNOT believe how strong this tiny girl is. She’s doing things she shouldn’t be able to do like turn herself from one side when she’s sleeping to the other side. In case you all think I’m biased (which I am!), others are noticing this too. She’s so active, alert, curious and sweet. She’s also giving her parents sleepless nights and the usual baby drama. But of course, when I come over to help, she turns into a little angel just to prove her parents wrong. Man, I remember my kids doing that! I’m sure I’ll get to witness one of her “witching hour specials” soon enough :-)

And being a Grandma, I can’t talk about one grandkid without mentioning the other: Here’s a picture of Turbo getting a hit in baseball: