During the past two nights, we’ve experienced something strange.  For the first time in almost two years (23 months to be exact), no child has disturbed our slumber.

I KNOW, RIGHT?!

It feels pretty good.

So, how did we do it?  How did we finally get Benjamin to fall asleep on his own?  Well, I can tell you what we did, but I can’t tell you that it’s because of anything we did.  It could be that he just finally (finally!) reached the maturity level necessary to be able to fall asleep without someone snuggling next to him.

The process started with night-weaning last June.  But even after he was fully night-weaned, he was still waking during the night and needing Mommy.  He’s my cuddler.  He also wasn’t going to sleep by himself; I was still nursing him to sleep.  He was unable and unwilling to fall asleep without either a Mommy or Daddy holding him tight.

And we tried.

Somewhere before the holidays, he stopped falling asleep while nursing.  So our bedtime routine was in need of some change.  I tried nursing him, then putting him in his crib.  Which resulted in a lot of crying.  He literally would not stop crying.  The longest we let him go was two hours.  Even typing that now makes me cringe.  Did we really let him cry that long?!  We did.  Once.  And after that, we realized just how determined he was, just how scared he was, and just how needy he was.  And we didn’t try again.

So he sat up with us at watched Hulu shows until we finally just brought him to bed with us.  Sometimes he would fall asleep during a show, but mostly he was awake as long as we were.  Which really isn’t the healthiest thing for a marriage – to be apart all day, and then have no waking alone time.

Every now and then we would try putting him down with Olivia.  They went through the same routine at the same time: brush teeth, read books, cuddles with Mommy and/or Daddy, off to their own beds.

Except that one would then proceed to fall asleep while the other stood in his crib and cried until someone rescued him.

Over the holidays, while we were away from home, normalcy, and routine for a good month, we didn’t try once to get him to sleep on his own.  We did, however, successfully wean him.  With, I should say, much less screaming, crying, and general protesting than the whole sleep-on-your-own-thing.

So when we returned home again, I rededicated my efforts during the day to get him to go down for naps on his own.  (Because, and I think I forgot to mention this, he didn’t fall asleep during naptimes on his own either.)  And this is how I did naptimes:

We had just reorganized our toy room, so that there was a big shelve system stacked with toy-filled Rubbermaid containers.  There were car containers, Barbie containers, train containers, Potato Head containers, Happy Meal toy containers, dollhouse toys containers, etc.  When I announce Quiet Time (Olivia balked at the word “nap,” but was okay with “Quiet Time” and the explanation that she doesn’t have to nap, just be quiet and stay on her bed.) the kids are allowed to pick out one Rubbermaid container to bring to their beds.  They also get a sippy with water and a book.  What more could a kid ask for?!

But Benjamin didn’t like it.  He wouldn’t even touch the toys.  But I tried everyday, leaving him in there for at least half an hour before rescuing him.  (And the plus side – after half an hour of crying, he went down for naps pretty quickly after I rescued him!)

And then, one day, he stopped crying.  I nearly had a heart attack, standing outside the door, making myself paranoid by picturing everything in there that he could have potentially found and choked on.  But when I finally opened the door, I found him face-up, chest rising, breathing those deep, even, heavy breaths that only the sleeping know.

It wasn’t the end of the fits, right then and there.  He must have just been more exhuasted than normal.  But I made sure to praise him when he woke up.  And keep trying, day after day.  He finally came to realize that there were TOYS in his crib.  And he had a SISTER he could talk to and trade toys/books through  his crib slats.

And, at last, we came to the point where we are now – I have to go in and remind them it’s QUIET time, please, let’s keep the laughing and squealing to a minimum.

And then we started working on bedtime routines.

We brushed both sets of teeth (while watching a clip from a favorite movie – a spoonful of Disney helps the mouth open wide!), sent them both in to pick out one book each, and then, as a family, we went to the big bed to read books, and then cuddle.  We set the timer and explained to them that after ten minutes, they were going to go to their own beds.

And he cried at first.  We’d let him cry for half an hour, just like how the naptime routine started.  We watched a Hulu show to keep our minds off the sound of our upset little boy.  Then we’d go get him and cuddle him to sleep.  Then, one night, halfway through Heroes, I looked up suddenly at Josh.  I muted the computer.  Silence.  He smiled at me.

And now he rarely fusses when we lay him down.  He does, however, call out for a different book every now and then.    Reading by the light of his night-light.  We comply.  It’s better than screaming!

We have our nights back!  For three more months! 

I sat down today and tried to list where we’ve been every weekend for the past two months.  I can only remember back to July 12.  It was kind of a memorable day.  But not in a good way.

The weekend after that, we were home and packing.

Because the weekend after that we moved.

The weekend after that, we were out of town, visiting with Josh’s friends from college.

The weekend after that, we were out of town, visiting with my friends from college.

(Okay, we went to the same college.  We had the same friends.  There were more boys at the first one, and so I made the distinction.)

The weekend after that, Josh was gone studying for the QE.

(Yes, I know several of you have asked how it went.  I got your emails.  I just don’t want to talk about it yet.  Let’s wait until the scores come back.  Let’s see if my husband’s pessimism is factually based.  And that’s all I’m saying for now.)

The weekend after that we left the state to reshingle a roof.  (I stayed on the ground.  And took pictures.)

Next weekend (as in, just a few short days from now), we’ll be leaving the state again (in a different direction this time) to visit my mom.

The weekend after that is my birthday. (No plans yet.  Just wanted to make sure you knew.)

So if I added that all up correctly (and there’s a good chance I did not), that’s eight weeks.  We’ve stayed home three of those eight weekends.  And all three of those weekends were stressful.

So I’m just going to go ahead and announce the Recipe Swap is postponed until things settle down here.  I should have done that weeks ago.

In the meantime, send me any and all thematic ideas you have floating around in your brains for recipes.  And I’ll try not to disqualify them just because I’ve never, say, made an entire meal out of beans.  Because I’m looking to stretch my horizons here.

And we’ll meet back here in a few weeks when I have time to cook, let alone share a recipe or two.

(Don’t think I won’t be blogging during this time.  I just don’t want the deadlines.  It’s too crazy for deadlines.)

(Though, for the sake of family, I will try my darnedest to keep Meet-and-Greet Monday on schedule throughout the craziness.)

That is all.

This is my absolute favorite cereal.  And it makes a good snack as well.  With your average boxed cereal, I’m hungry again by 10am.  With this in my belly, however, I’ve been known to forget to feed the kids until 1pm.  But they don’t mind.  Because they ate it, too!

Our typical consumption method is plain with milk poured over it (like normal cereal), but we’ve been know to mix it with cheerios to make it last longer.

(And this is from Tammy’s Recipes, by the way – a phenomenal recipe site for those who like cooking from scratch/whole food recipes.)

Cinnamon Crunch Granola

Ingredients:

8 cups rolled oats
2 tablespoons cinnamon
2 cups flaked unsweetened coconut
1/2 cup (raw) sesame seeds (I use raw sunflower seeds for a nuttier flavor)
1/2 cup golden flax seed
1/4 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup raw wheat germ
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup water
1 cup oil
2 teaspoons vanilla

1. In a large bowl, combine first seven ingredients.
2. In a small saucepan, dump your brown sugar and pour water on top of it.  Get your kids to watch – the brown sugar just melts under the water.  Intrigues me every time.  Stir, put on medium heat, bring to a boil.  Then reduce heat to low and stir one minute longer.  Remove from heat and add oil and vanilla.
3. Pour brown sugar mixture over dry ingredients, mix well.
4. Pour wet granola onto two greased 10×15 jelly roll pans (I only have one – I use a large stoneware bar pan (which is actually smaller than the jelly roll pan) with it).  Spread granola evenly, but do not press down.
5. Bake at 275 degrees for 60-70 minutes, until lightly browned and toasted.
6. Cool in pans for 10 minutes, flip granola in large chunks with spatula, then continue to cool thoroughly in pans.  Store in an airtight container.

(Again, credit for this awesome recipe goes to Tammy!)

What’s your favorite breakfast recipe?  Or any recipe, really – I won’t be picky.  Post your linky below!

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This post is a contribution to The Ultimate Recipe Swap.

Sorry this is a bit late – and it’s the first in a stretch of recipe silence, but we have family in town (in our apartment!) helping us pack. So I’m just going to throw this up, give you my quickest recipe, and hope you find it useful. I sure do!

Smoothie Recipe:

Ingredients:

1 c plain yogurt
1 medium banana
1/2 c strawberries
1/2 c raspberries/blackberries/blueberries/anyotherkindofberries

I also wanted to try milled flaxseed to try and add some extra protein, but alas, the moths had found it and claimed it as their own. I didn’t want it back.

I’m loving my smoothie recipe, but I’m ready to branch out.

What’s your favorite smoothie?

I had tried smoothies that included ice cubes, but my previous blender struggled and whined and created a very useless clump of smoothie that ended up in the trash. However, I recently this at a moving sale for $18, and since it actually had a setting for “ice crush”, I couldn’t pass it up.

I did try to get it for $10, but it didn’t fly. So $18 it was. They were Indians selling all their worldly possessions so they could go back home after finally completing their American education (*sigh*, what does that feel like?), so I didn’t push it too hard.

And we’re no longer talking about smoothies here.

So, all that to say, “I can crush ice now!” So please send your smoothie recipes my way. Thanksomuch.

And leave your own recipe links, quick or lengthy, smoothie or non-smoothie below.

I found a new recipe last week for chicken pot pie; it was my first attempt, and it went over WELL. The crust was so tender and flaky, the filling was rich and creamy, and the vegetables were the perfect consistency and size. And the flavor? Cream, butter, chicken, vegetables… it doesn’t even need spices!

Ingredients

1 c potatoes, chopped
1 c chopped onions
1 c celery, chopped
1 c chopped carrots
I increased the carrots by 1/2-3/4c – Benjamin LOVES carrots.)
1/3 c butter
1/2 c flour
2 c chicken broth
(I used the broth I made from my crock pot chicken, it was VERY well seasoned…)
1 c half and half
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
4 c chopped cooked chicken
2 pie crusts (I used the crusts from this recipe, minus the milk and sugar coating at the end.)

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Saute onion, celery, carrots, and potatoes in butter for 10 minutes.
3. Add flour to sauteed mixture, stirring well. Cook one minute stirring constantly.
4. Combine broth and half and half and gradually stir into vegetable mixture.
5. Cook over medium heat stirring constantly until thickened and bubbly.
6. Stir in salt and pepper; add chicken and stir well.
7. Place one pie crust in the bottom of a shallow 2 qt casserole dish, pour mixture in, and top with remaining pie crust. Seal edges like you would with an apple pie (I ended up not having much wiggle room and was in a hurry, so I used a fork to seal. It was decorative!).
8. Cut slits in top crust to allow steam to escape.
9. Bake for 40-50 minutes or until pastry is golden brown and filling is bubbly and cooked through.

I think the reason this new recipe went so well for me is because it was very similar to the tuna noodle casserole I make: chop, saute, add flour/milk/broth/what-have-you, stir until thick and bubbly. And, of course, I’ve made enough pies to know what I’m doing with a crust, as well.

So, bottom line, the more you cook and stretch your boundaries, the more you can surprise yourself with yummy successes in the kitchen!

What recipe do you want to share with us today? Make sure you tell us the recipe title in Mr. Linky, and please link to your recipe post, not your blog’s homepage. Thanks for sharing!

Cannot use oven – stove-top/microwave/grill/sidewalk/hood-of-car all okay.

Extra points for a cool, refreshing dish.

My dish earns me no extra points for the cool/refreshing factor. But! It’s roast chicken! In a Crock Pot!

I’ve been cooking Tammy’s recipe for roast chicken for months now. Love it. It’s the easiest (no chopping ANYTHING) and it’s just lip-smacking good. And her idea to cover it in the oven, and place the chicken breast-side down makes for the juiciest roast you’ll ever taste. Okay, so maybe, if you prefer the crunchy skin of a traditionally roasted chicken, you may be in for a disappointment. But, you can always broil the thing for a few minutes at the end to get that result. We take the skin off anyway, so doesn’t matter to us what texture it is!

However, as the heat of the summer closed in around us, I felt less and less inclined to leave the oven on for the 2.5-3 hours required in the late afternoon/early evening. And I was heart-broken. Because this chicken is SO easy, SO tasty, AND produced the leftovers to make another two meals later that week! Oh, and forgot to mention CHEAP. Whole chickens are $0.79/lb at Aldi, and next week, at Marsh Supermarkets, they’re $0.58/lb. If I only had a separate freezer…

So, I had to work around this little oven-problem. This little heat-problem. Because this chicken is very necessary to our family. And I found my solution in the ever-handy Crock Pot!

Roast Chicken – Summer-Style

Ingredients:

Whole chicken
Garlic salt
Seasoned Salt
Lemon Pepper

1. Rinse chicken, and remove neck and giblets from cavity.
2. With chicken laying breast-side up in the sink, sprinkle liberally with seasonings.
3. Flip bird over and into a 5-6 qt crock pot (I forget what size it is – I just know it’s “the bigger one.”
4. Sprinkle liberally again (this should be the backside of the chicken).
5. Set Crock Pot on high for 4 hours or low for 8 hours. Every Crock Pot is different, so be sure your chicken is done (juice runs clear) and not over-done (dry breast meat is none-too-appealing). And adapt time accordingly for next time.

I know some people prefer to put foil balls under the chicken so it’s not resting in it’s own juices, but honestly that’s what I LOVE about this recipe. I’m disgusting like that, I guess.

The finished product:

(Note how the meat is just falling off the bones.)

What’s your solution for cooking in the summertime heat? Add the link to your individual post (not blog front page) to Mr. Linky below.

And we’re going to take next week off from Recipe Swap, as I will be out of town. And most likely hardly cooking. But most assuredly over-eating. I’ll tell you when we get back what I’ve decided the theme for the following week shall be. And if YOU want to make any contributions to the schedule, please let me know.

(But I can rarely find it at $0.79/lb like I can chicken.)

(So I will always have more chicken recipes than fish.)

(But it would be nice to have more than two.)

Ingredients:

1 lb fresh or frozen skinless cod, orange roughy, or catfish fillets (I used frozen talapia. It was on sale. And I don’t know the difference.)
1/4 c milk
1/3 c all-purpose flour
1/3 c fine dry bread crumbs
1/4 c grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp dried dill
1/8 tsp black pepper
2 tbs butter, melted

1. Thaw fish, if frozen. Place milk in a shallow dish. Place four in another shallow dish. n a third shallow dish, combine bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, dill, and pepper. Add melted butter; stir until combined.
2. Dip fish in the milk; coat with flour. Dip again in the milk, then in the bread crumb mixture. (I find this works best if you have one fork and spoon per “shallow dish”. Otherwise the whole thing will be 20 times messier.) Place fish on a greased baking sheet.Bake, uncovered in a 450 degree oven for 4-6 minutes per 1/2-inch thickness or until fish flakes easily when tested with a fork.

To add your seafood recipe, please deposit the link to your recipe post into the allotted slot below.

Next week on Recipe Swap: Dinners – Summer Edition. It’s starting to get hot. And I’m refusing to turn on the AC. So we need some stove-top, grilled, or crock-potted meals here. Or maybe something served cold. On a bed of baby spinach leaves. Ooooh, that sounds really good to me right now.

Bonus: Is served cold

Extra, extra credit: Is low-fat. (Swimsuit season. Meh.)

My contributions (yes! two!) both follow the requirement and the bonus. But I’m not getting any extra credit.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Squares (Originally from Tammy’s Recipes)

Ingredients

1/2 c butter
2 c creamy peanut butter
1 1/2 c graham cracker crumbs
3 c powdered sugar
1/2 c butter (yep, that’s a second stick.)
12 oz (2 c) semi-sweet chocolate chips

1. Melt 1/2 cup butter in medium saucepan over low heat. Remove from heat and stir in peanut butter, powdered sugar, and graham cracker crumbs.
2. Spread dough in a lightly greased 9×13″ dish. Press down evenly.
3. Melt remaining 1/2 c butter over low heat. Add chocolate chips and keep heat very low. When chocolate is soft, stir gently. Continue heating until lumps are all melted. Stir, and then spread this mixture over the peanut butter layer.
4. Refrigerate for 30 minutes, then cut into squares. Store in the refrigerator.

And about the whole “stir constantly, never stop stirring, the whole recipe depends on your ability to stay on task here” thing: I am SO glad I have thick, top o’the line cookware. Because I have started the melting of chocolate chips, changed a diaper, REMEMBERED the melting of chocolate chips, sprinted back, only to find everything is, *sigh*, just fine.

(But don’t try this at home. Unless you also scored some free Pampered Chef cookware. Because that stuff’s da bomb.)

On to recipe numero dos!

This one is SO easy. You’re gonna love it. Ready?

Lemonade Pie

Ingredients

1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk
1 can (6 oz) frozen lemonade (thawed)
1 carton (8 oz) cool whip
1 pre-made graham cracker pie crust

Combine first three ingredients. Do not beat. Place in crust. Freeze.

Now, if you WANT to make it harder, you can. First you can make your own sweetened condensed milk with evaporated milk, sugar, and water. Then squeeze your own lemons (after plucking them from the tree in your backyard), add sugar and water (not too much, it’s supposed to be concentrated.) Now get some more evaporated milk, water, sugar, and vanilla and beat to soft peak stage. Have you toddlers stomp on graham crackers, scoop them up, combine with sugar and butter, and mash into a pie plate. Bake crust, combine ingredients, put ingredients into cooled crust. Freeze.

I’d work harder to find you the exact recipes for sweetened condensed milk, homemade lemonade, cool whip, and graham cracker crusts, BUT, it’s late and I suspect none of you will use that version anyway. If you really want to know, tell me. I’ll post an addendum.

Is that the proper use of the word addendum?

G’night all.

Oh, and next week, on Recipe Swap: Seafood. This topic was recommended to me. Otherwise, I would not presume to tackle it. My two seafood recipes are as follows: tuna noodle casserole and baked fish.

So, um, guess which one you’re getting next week? Because, I already shared my tuna noodle recipe, remember?

I hope my lack of seafood experience doesn’t deter you. Because I really do need to broaden my horizons in this area. Be sure to come back next week and help me out!

And I can’t sign off without reminding you: please link your recipe post NOT your blog’s homepage, to Mr. Linky. That way we can find your recipe later. Thankssomuch.

Recipe Swap:  Backwards Edition

This is the edition where you confess your culinary catastrophes (cannot… control… alliteration…) in hopes someone out there can set you straight.

Simply blog your desperate plea, link it below to Mr. Linky and hopefully someone will google “Paws : Noitide Sdrawkcab,” find your plight, and come to your rescue.

So.  My confession.  Here it is.  For the whole blogging world.  I’ll just spit it right out there.  No stalling.  None whatsoever.

Ahem.

I… cannot… make… meatloaf.

I love meatloaf.  It seems easy enough.  (Except for the fondling of raw meat.) 

(But I can get past that.  Because meatloaf is so tasty!)

Just not mine.  Mine always ends up swimming in a pool of grease (and, yes, I’ve tried lean beef; to no avail).  It doesn’t have the right consistency.  And it’s swimming in a pool of grease.  And it’s greasy.  And it falls apart because, well, of all the grease.

To be fair, I haven’t tried this dish in a few years.  Because I’m not fond of throwing out food that a) I spent time on and b) I spent money on.

So what I need right now from you is your fool-proof, fail-safe meatloaf recipe.  Something you’ve made a thousand times – perfectly every time.  AND you have the recipe written down in explicitly detailed form.  So that I cannot mess this up in any way.  It must be impossible to goof.  This is the only way I can gather enough courage to try this meal again.

Because my meatloaf confidence is shattered.  I have low meatloaf-esteem. 

Please help. 

(You can either leave your recipe in the comments, or blog it and link it in the comments. But please don’t link it in Mr. Linky.  Please reserve that for other requests for recipe help.)

Next week on Recipe Swap – Desserts: Summer Edition.  I need me some dessert recipes that don’t call for a 350 degree kitchen, thankyouverymuch.  See you then!

I think I’m a misplaced Southerner.  Really.  I remember reading somewhere that the warmer the climate, the more relaxed a person usually is about deadlines, schedules, and appointments.  I belong somewhere on the equator.  With palm trees.

SPEAKING OF COMFORT…

This weeks recipe topic is Casseroles and I hope, despite my lateness, hundreds of people participate in this.  Because one cannot have too many casserole recipes.

I’m going to go ahead and guess that most of the readers out there have made tuna noodle casserole before.  But I’m going to post my recipe anyway.  Just in case you haven’t.  Or in case you use CONDENSED CREAM SOUP rather than BUTTER AND FRESH CELERY.  Because such an act is surely as treacherous as they come.

 Tuna Noodle Casserole (Olde-School Style)

Ingredients
3 cups medium noodles or 1 cup elbow macaroni
1/2 cup soft bread crumbs*
1 Tbs butter <s>or margarine</s>, melted
1 c chopped celery
1/4 c chopped onion
1/4 c butter <s>or margarine</s>
1/4 c all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dry mustard
1/4 tsp black pepper
2 c milk
2 6 oz cans tuna
1 c cheddar cheese cubes
1/4 c chopped roasted red sweet pepper or pimiento (I omit this to make the meal a bit more frugal.  This saddens my husband.)

1. Cook noddles according to package directions.  Drain and set aside.  Meanwhile, combine bread crumbs* and the 1 tbs melted butter; set aside.
2. For sauce, in a medium saucepan cook celery and onion in the 1/4 cup butter until tender.  Stir in flour, salt, dry mustard, and black pepper.  Add milk all at once; cook and stir until slightly thickened and bubbly.  combine sauce, tuna, cheese, roasted sweet pepper, and cooked noodles.  Transfer to a 1 1/2 quart casserole.  Sprinkle with crumb mixture.  Bake, uncovered, in a 375° oven for 20-25 minutes or until bubbly and crumb topping is golden.

*See tip for bread crumbs here (scroll allllllllllll the way down).

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What is your favorite casserole? Share your recipe with us! Link to your recipe post, NOT your homepage, and be sure to include a brief descriptionafter your name on Mr. Linky! (So I can find you later when I’m looking for something new for dinner.) And thanks, all, for keeping it family friendly!

Next week on Recipe Swap, its… Paws Epicer: Noitide Sdrawkcab!  (That’s the backwards edition, in case you couldn’t tell.)  Is there a meal you’ve tried and tried and just can’t get right?  For me, it’s meatloaf; I just can’t figure it out!  So next week, I’ll be posting a request for YOU to tell ME your recipe!  You can type it up on the comments or blog it and link it in the comments.

Also,  that post will be the central hub for you to leave your requests for recipe help.  Post your desperate pleas on your blog, link it in my Mr. Linky, and then go visit the other links to help them out, too!

I hope that’s not too confusing.  First trimester exhaustion is setting in and I think 8:30 might be my new bedtime!