Friday, October 13, 2006

Baby Radar

How is it that Charlie can be sleeping peacefully until the exact moment that I try to do a task?

At night, we'll have finished nursing, he will be completely out, I put him in his cradle, observe for a minute or two, coax his father to coherence and enlist him to rock the cradle and then finally get to go pee. Within 15 seconds, he's crying.

In the afternoon, I will put him in his swing and he will gaciously allow me to pee (what a gentleman!) after a minute or two he falls asleep. He will sleep through the dogs barking at a squirrel and a marching band on tv but as soon as I lay down on the couch to catch a nap, wailing comences.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Crock Pot Pork Roast

So, I have discovered that the only hope in hell I have of cooking dinner these days is to do all the prep at night while my husband can keep an eye on Charlie and then cook via crock pot. He was particuarly enamored with the dish last night so I thought I would record it here both to share with any interested parties and so that I could remember what I did. Sadly, it was one of those recipes that I did no measuring for but I'll do my best...

I'm not totally sure what size the pork roast was but I'm guessing a pound so, we'll go with that.

Peel, core and roughly chop 3 granny smith apples (1 per serving of roast).

Sear/ brown (I'm not sure which would be the correct term) the roast in a hot cast iron skillet.

Put pork and apples into crock pot with 1/4 cup brown sugar, dash ground clove, 2 shakes of allspice, 1 tablespoonish of ground ginger (1-2 inches chopped fresh is better but we didn't have any) and 2 tablespoonsish of apple cider vinegar.

Cook on low for about 9 hours (longer for a bigger roast). Mash the apples up about halfway through the cooking or when you get a chance- spoon a good hunk of them on top of the roast.

In other news, life with Charlie marches on. I have now managed to get out almost all of the baby announcements. I made my own and they weren't actually designed to be mass produced after the arrival of the baby and we sent out more than 120. Happily, the Christmas card I designed was designed with baby in mind so, we have some hope of getting those out before New Year's. I suspect that the annual Christmas cookie baking spree might not happen this year though. I haven't had the heart to break it to my friends yet.