This year we decided to try container gardening. We have a double-decker porch, and we hardly ever use the top deck (and we don’t really let the kids up there because we’re worried about them climbing). We bought a bunch of large plastic containers from Home Depot (they were cheaper than the terracotta ones), tons of potting soil, and gave it a whirl. So far the plants are doing great up there. They get a full day’s worth of direct sunlight, we’ve had a lot of rain lately, and they are just thriving!

The garden:

Two kinds of tomatoes (started from seedling), yellow squash (seedling) and sweet peas (started from seeds we got for free!) The sweet peas took off and yesterday Roman and I constructed a lattice using garden rope and some 1×2′s for the peas to climb. It’s an okay solution, but next year I would use something more sturdy (we had to tie the ends of it to the porch railings to support it!)

A third type of tomato plant and zucchini, both started from seedlings:

View of the kids running in the field from the top deck:

Based on my internet research, the only thing you can’t grow in a container is cucumbers, and we love our cuc’s. Roman and I planted 10 cucumber plants from seeds in the in-ground garden, and 8 of them are doing well. The seedlings have come up, and I’ve noticed them getting a little bigger in the last few days. We will have to build a trellis for these, as well as some sort of critter protection system! The back two sections of the garden are empty right now. I’m thinking about planting wildflowers in them since Harper loves to pick bouquets for me – maybe it will keep her out of my flower beds!

The last thing we planted (and I don’t have photos) is herbs – tons of them. I love growing fresh herbs, and it’s so easy. Portman mounted four 24-inch window boxes along the lower porch railing in direct sunlight. I planted mint (it gets its own box since it is highly invasive), parsley and rosemary, 2 sweet basil plants, 2 cilantro plants, Thai basil and thyme. The mint, parsley and rosemary all survive the winter and come back every year. I suspect that thyme will as well, but this is the first year I have planted it. Basil, cilantro and Thai basil all have to be replanted every year. Most of the herbs are doing great and growing like trees. The basil likes warmer weather and hasn’t taken off yet, but I’ve never had a problem growing it!

I tried to get out of bed, but evidently everyone heard me, and the kids rushed up the stairs demanding that I get back in! A few minutes later they came in with breakfast, and much to my surprise, a new laptop!!! I was long, long overdue for a new computer. Having a husband who is a software engineer means that we don’t usually buy our own hardware – every computer in our house is a hand-me-down or gift from work. The only other one we purchased was my old laptop, bought over 5 years ago, and the L, K, comma and 8 keys no longer worked. Made for some creative typing (and copying and pasting). Needless to say, I am absolutely LOVING this thing. Oh, and dude, it’s a DELL.

After a lazy morning in bed reading to the kids (and forcing them to watch videos of themselves on my new computer!), Daddy packed up the bikes in record time, and we went over to Burke Lake Park for a ride around the lake. The park was absolutely packed today, but it’s huge and the trail wasn’t crowded at all. This was our first time biking around Burke Lake and we were so impressed with the trail. It’s about 5 miles around, but packed dirt and very wide, so we had no trouble at all with the bike trailer. It’s also shaded the whole way around, so it made for a really beautiful, cool ride.

Ada was hysterical in her little bike seat! One benefit of being so tiny: she still fits very comfortably in the front mounted seat. She was non-stop talk the entire ride, saying “hi” and waving to everyone we passed, yelling “hi, Daddy!” loud enough that Portman could hear her, and commenting on absolutely everything. “Pretty lake! Pretty ducks! Pretty mommy!” were repeated over and over again. My favorite comment was when Harper held one of her baby dolls onto the roof of the trailer (yes, she brought babies with her) and Ada yelled out “No, Barper, baby IN!” We were so surprised at how good she was on the ride – she’s usually our temper-tantrum kid in all situations, but she was really happy up there! I was also surprised that she kept her helmet on the entire time without complaint. This is a kid who refuses to wear shoes (she was shoe-less on the ride, but wore a helmet – what gives?)

The big kids were pretty squished in the trailer, but had great attitudes about it. They are definitely getting too big to share it, so we need to look into other options (probably a tandem bike pulled behind me that they take turns on and Ada rides in the trailer.) Harper brought two babies with her, and they pretended that they were the babies’ “mom and dad” the whole time. Portman said they were in character for the whole ride – not surprising at all!

Getting ready to ride (sun was in the big kids’ face, sorry kids):

I made it around the lake toting 1 1/2 babies! And as two of my neighbors so nicely put it (on separate occasions), at almost 7 months I’m “as big as a house.” Tact, people, learn some.

We ended the ride right back at the carousel. Since the kids had spent the first part of the ride waving to the choo-choo, we had to give it a whirl. Harper insisted on riding with Ada by herself (we sat behind them for safety reasons, duh!) She was SO adorable and protective, and kept her arm around Ada the whole time. She made sure that Ada waved at everyone, and there were a lot of people to wave at today!

We capped off the day with cones (and in Ada’s case, some BBQ chips – she was not into the cones.) Today was the perfect family day!

I picked up a cheap-o dry-erase meal calendar at Target. It isn’t perfect, but I crossed out some of the pre-printed titles and made it more usable. Eventually I’d like to make one that really fits our needs, but this was $7 and works for now.

This is my second week using it, and it’s actually really helpful. I make sure to write everything down when I get back from the store so that I remember what meals I bought for! This week we have a few social events, so I won’t be doing a ton of cooking. Also the meals I’m making do make leftovers, so at least the adults will have those a few nights. I found that last week I didn’t necessarily cook things on the day I said I would (a trip to the ER messed up the schedule!), but by the end of the week I had cooked everything on the calendar and the fridge was downright barren. I have columns for mom & dad, kids, and to the right I just put down “extras” that I plan to make at some point. We always have smoothies once or twice during the week (usually as part of a “leftover” dinner), and this week I’m also making cinnamon-streusel muffins. 

In conjunction with my menu planning, Portman finally got around to helping me fix up the recipe page on this blog. It still needs some work (moving the posts into meal-type categories rather than chronological), but it’s progress. If you visit that page regularly, you will notice that each recipe now has a photo. Some of the older ones don’t have photos because I didn’t take one at the time, so I’m using this opportunity to cook some of my older recipes so that I can take a picture! Let me reiterate that I am not a chef and I am not trying to become a food blogger, I just don’t do well with recipe books and I’m trying to preserve some of the recipes that we enjoy as a family!

If you’re at all interested, here’s what’s cooking this week:

• Parmesan chicken tenders with lemon risotto
• Spinach quiche
• Tortellini with tomato sauce
• Cinnamon muffins

This is what the baby’s room currently looks like. It’s a huge mess. The changing table is in there, and we are using that for Ada’s diapers for now. This weekend we (and by “we” I mean Portman) put together the girls’ new Ikea dresser, and we moved the big dresser/hutch into the baby’s room. That room doesn’t have a closet, so it needs a lot of storage! Miraculously, the crib, changing table, rocker and dresser/hutch all fit. Since we don’t know the gender, we’re sticking with the green walls, and for now I’ll use the gender-neutralish bedding that my mom made for us when we had Harper. I need to procure some curtains to match (ehem, mom…), but other than that we have everything we need. It’s not urgent, and we still have a few months to figure it out!

Chocolate Chip Bundt Cake

• 1 box Golden Butter Cake mix
• 1 3 oz box instant vanilla pudding
• 8 oz sour cream
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 4 eggs, slightly beaten
• 5 oz Hershey’s Syrup
• 6 oz chocolate chips

Mix the first 5 ingredients (through eggs) well. Divide into 2/3 and 1/3 portions in separate bowls. Add the chocolate syrup and chocolate chips into the smaller portion.

In a well greased (seriously, use a ton of Pam!) bundt pan, alternate layers of the mixtures, starting and ending with the plain mixture. With the edge of a knife, gently swirl the layers to marble.

Bake at 350 for 50 to 55 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely and remove from pan.

Drizzle with chocolate icing if desired (take a little store-bought chocolate icing and mix with water until it is soft enough to drizzle).

We were in a hurry by the time I got this thing made, and the combination of not greasing the pan enough and trying to remove it before it was cool enough made the cake split in half! I was able to piece it back together, but generally it looks prettier than this:

I never thought to make baked ziti until we had dinner at our friends’ Ryan and Rebecca’s house and discovered that the kids LOVE it. I’ve changed Rebecca’s recipe a bit, mostly to scale down the casserole size. We don’t typically finish leftovers, for whatever reason, so I wanted to make it more of a one to one-and-a-half dinner sized casserole. I also prefer to use fresh herbs since I grow a ton of them, so I made a few changes there. Here’s my take on it – it is a huge hit with my family! (Side note: Rebecca makes this with gluten-free pasta, so you could easily make this a gluten-free dish if necessary!)

Baked Ziti

• 8 ounces (1/2 box) Rigatoni pasta or other tubular pasta
• 1 cup ricotta cheese
• 2 handfuls fresh herbs (1 fresh basil, 1 fresh parsley), chopped
• 1 large garlic clove, minced
• 1 egg, lightly scrambled
• 2 cups mozzarella, divided
• 1/4 cup parmesan cheese
• 1 1/2 cups tomato sauce (fresh or jarred)
• salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 375.

Cook pasta in salted water for 2-3 minutes less than it says on the box (the pasta will continue cooking in the oven, so you want to leave it very al dente so that it doesn’t end up mushy).

While pasta is cooking, mix in a large bowl: ricotta, chopped herbs, garlic, egg, 1 cup mozzarella cheese, parmesan and 1/2 cup tomato sauce. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Add hot pasta to the cheese mixture, and mix well (I spoon it directly from the cooking water into the cheese mixture using a spider spoon).

Spread 1/2 cup tomato sauce in the bottom of a greased 9-inch square baking dish (grease that sucker well because the cheese sticks like crazy!) Spread the pasta mixture evenly on top, then top with another 1/2 cup of tomato sauce. Spread the remaining 1 cup of mozzarella on top, and sprinkle with parmesan cheese.

Cover with foil and bake at 375 for about 20 minutes, then remove foil and bake for another 10-15 minutes until brown and bubbly on top.

Fried Avocados

• 2 large spoonfuls of flour
• Kosher salt & fresh ground pepper
• 1 egg, scrambled
• Panko
• 1 avocado halved, then sliced into 1/2 inch pieces
• Canola oil for frying

Put flour in a small bowl and mix with a pinch of salt and fresh ground pepper. Put egg in another bowl and scramble, then panko in a third bowl. Slice the avocado in half, remove the pit, then carefully scoop out the two halves. Slice each half into 1/2 inch pieces or smaller (just make sure they are uniform in size).

While you’re preparing the avocado, heat Canola oil in a large frying pan over high heat. I used my trusty shallow Dutch oven, and my oil was about 1/4 inch deep, maybe a little more. While I usually prefer olive oil, it isn’t great for this type of frying since the smoking point is too low.

Coat each avocado slice in flour mixture, shake off flour, coat in egg, then coat in panko. Put them on a plate until you’re ready to fry. Fry them quickly on each side – 1-2 minutes per side until golden brown.

Transfer to double-paper towels to drain off excess oil, and sprinkle with Kosher salt. You can keep them warm in the oven if desired, but it didn’t take long to fry them all up and I didn’t find this necessary.

Variations: while this is awesome as-is, I thought of some things to spice it up. Add minced ginger or garlic to the panko, or add cumin and/or cayenne pepper to the flour mixture. You could also make a sour cream or mayo-based dipping sauce using some of those flavors. But, we were very happy with them plain! Portman also noted that Austin Grill serves fried avocados in a taco with a homemade slaw and dressing, if you want to get fancy.

The recipe made a ton of salad, so I portioned off some for last night’s dinner, and refrigerated the rest of it undressed so that it would keep for another dinner tonight. It refrigerated perfectly.

Changes that I would make for next time: (1) you need to at least triple the dressing. There wasn’t nearly enough. I made more for tonight’s repeat meal. (2) add way more mint and cilantro. I love fresh herbs, and could have used a lot more. (3) use a green leafy lettuce in place of the napa cabbage. The cabbage was very good, but I think straight-up Romaine would have brought out the flavors a little more! Green or red leaf lettuces, shredded, would have worked well too. (4) use a lot more noodles. It didn’t seem like a good balance of noodles to salad. Next time I would use the whole 6 oz package of Pad Thai noodles.

Overall, an A+++ recipe that I will be making again soon!

Salad prep. Cabbage was easy to shred with a knife. The watercress was supposed to be “torn,” which I assume means torn from the stem. I took the easy way out and just knifed off the leaves.

I had TJ’s sweet chili sauce on hand – the stuff makes an awesome dip, most recently for those tofu-edamame nuggets!

Ada ate her dinner at the counter while I made this for Mommy and Daddy. The big kids were at the Ikea kid-zone with Daddy while he returned something. His description of their trip: “that place is like Disneyworld for furniture!” The big kids just love it. Ada is jealous because you have to be potty trained.

What we enjoyed once the kids were in bed: YUM!