4 Ingredient Fix for Too-Fishy Fish

Nobody follows this blog for the recipes.  In fact, I'm pretty sure all my followers like me, not really my sad little attempt at blogging, but I'm getting better, right?

This recipe is actually one I found on Our Best Bites (a blog that you really should follow for the recipes - they're amazing!), but it's designed to go on pork chops, not fish.

I occasionally experiment by buying a kind of fish that we haven't had before, and sometimes I do well (Steelhead Trout = yum!) and sometimes I do really badly (Tipalia = yuck!), and sometimes it turns out somewhere in the middle.  Basa is somewhere in the middle.  I didn't think it was too bad, but Arvid thought it was too fishy.  So on went this sauce.  It's bold, super flavourful, and really easy.  You don't want to put this on a fish you like the taste of (read: Salmon), as it will completely hide it's flavour.  But it's great when you just need to use up that jumbo bag of basa fillets that you got for $2.99 that hubby doesn't love.

Ingredients:

Fishy fish of your choosing. About 4 servings worth.

Sauce:
1 1/2 TBSP Dijon or whole-grained Mustard
1 1/2 TBSP Honey
1 clove Garlic, minced or pressed
Splash Liquid Smoke











Yes, the glob in the bowl is honey.  I don't buy honey in cute little photogenic bear-shaped bottles.  In fact I don't buy honey at all.  I ask for it for Christmas and it usually arrives in large food storage buckets.  I love honey in big buckets.  It makes me feel safe.  Like huge packs of toilet paper.  But I think that's another post...


Method:

1 - Mix all the sauce ingredients together in a small bowl.

 2 - Place fish in a greased oven safe pan or dish. And season with salt and pepper.  I forgot to do this.  Don't forget.

3 - Spread sauce on fish.


4 - Broil for about 10 minutes per inch of fillet thickness, or until fish flesh is opaque and flakes with a fork.

  5 - Eat.

We had ours with beets.  And bread.  But the bread wasn't entertaining.  The pink teeth were.

Panora Close Park

We chose this park today because it's closer to cousin Catie's house, and since her mommy just had a new baby, we wanted to make it easy on her. It's a really nice park, nicer than anything we find in our neighborhood. Clean grounds, no peeling paint. No shade though, and only a couple of benches. My favorite thing about this park is this smallish structure, just right for my kids.  Henrik only fell off once!

As I sit here, watching Henrik:
There are two little girls, older than Bryn, who obviously live close. They've just invited Bryn to play Frisbee with them. I can't hear what they're saying, but they're clapping, and smiling and holding Bryn's hand. I was about to pack the kids up to go home, but this is just too cute! We'll go home in a little while.

Huntmeadow Playground

Last week we found a new park just by wandering around our neighborhood (by car). It's small, which is great. I don't have to worry so much about Henrik falling off big stuff. It was a little dirty - litter and branches from the most recent hail storm. But it's remote, with no busy streets around it, and it has shade to sit in. Because it's so close to home, I think this is my new favorite.

Bryn has recently discovered see-saws.  She loves them!

4 days in the 'Wack

In Chilliwack I wanted to do stuff that we just can't do in Calgary.  I really wanted to make some memories with Bryn that she would love and would never forget.  To a certain degree, I think we succeeded. We spent one day at the waterpark, and another at the beach, both things that we don't have here in Calgary.  Bryn hated the slides, refusing to go on any but the baby ones.  And she hated the beach, refusing to go near the water. Sigh.  My nervous little girl!  I do hope that she grows out of it someday, at least most of it.

Bryn and I did make a sand castle. A very sad little sand castle.  What can I say?  I'm very much a city girl!  She had fun doing that.  And she liked our picnic lunch.  She always likes lunch.

 Henrik, however, LOVED the beach. He liked the water, walked all over the sand barefoot, and picked up everything.  He and Arvid had a great time.

I am not a fly.

We went on our annual family vacation to British Columbia this year.  My parents have a cabin at the Shuswap Lake, and are very generous in sharing it with all us kids!  Arvid's parents live in the Fraser Valley, and we try to visit them there each summer, too.  This year, we combined the two trips, spending 4 days at the cabin, then driving on for 4 days with Arvid's family.

I had every intention of doing several vacation posts, or at least writing down a few things each day to share, but it was a really low-key vacation, so I didn't make many notes.  The most eventful day was the first day.  The kids were great for the 8 or so hours in the car, with only a few fights.  Henrik growls.  Bryn doesn't like Henrik to growl.  So she screams at him to stop, then continues to cry and scream when he doesn't stop.  It was a lovely half hour, but in all the trip was surprisingly calm.

Then we arrived at the cabin.  The first thing Henrik did was fall halfway down the main stairs.  They're carpeted, with good padding underneath, so he wasn't really harmed.  A few minutes after he calmed down from that fright,  he ran head-long into the edge of a door.  A very solid door.  This is the result. The good thing is that he got most of his injuries out of the way on that first day, and did pretty well until the last full day there, when he managed to topple the high-chair over backwards!  What am I going to do when this boy starts really climbing on things!



Bryn loved the lake.  Well, not the lake so much.  The weather wasn't super hot, so we didn't spend much time in the water.  But she loved the toys and playing outside on the deckm especially with Grandpops.  On that first day, Grandpops  found a tiny frog outside and asked Bryn if she wanted to see it.  Bryn's response: "Yeah! The frog won't lick me because I am not a fly!"  Yeah, she has some pretty serious critter phobias, but at least she looked at the frog with Grandpops!

Robots

One of the few good moments of Monday. It was a tough day. Broken glass. Cuts and lots of blood. Hail. Soaking Mommy trying to save the plants. Poopy nickers. Butterfly decals peeled from the walls. DVDs taken from their boxes. Boys who won't sleep. A tough day. But we danced like robots. We survived after all.

Car Seat Tray Revamp

I got this carseat tray at a consignment shop in Airdrie, Grow With Us.  I had been planning on making something like it for Bryn for our Lake trip this year, since I had no idea where to find one.  I'm so glad I found it, 'cause it saved me a lot of time and effort.

I did want it to have a magnetic top so that Bryn could play with her Melissa and Doug dress-up doll clothes.  So I bought some sheet metal (try the stuff in the ducting isle at Home Depot - it's much thinner).  I took out the liner that the tray came with traced it on the metal, and cut it out with tin snips.  I covered the edge with electrical tape, which was much easier than I thought it would be.

I wanted to give her a second game to play on the tray, so I printed some shapes on a printable magnet sheet that I had laying around, and coloured them in with crayons (I never use my colour printer, so the ink has all gone dry).  I cut them out (in front of NCIS reruns), drew corresponding shapes on the metal, and she'll have a fun little matching game that should keep her busy for a chunk of the trip.  Now, if only I could figure out how to keep Henrik busy for 6 hours!

By the way, Grow With Us is probably the best second-hand kids store I've been to in the Calgary area. Not that I've been to all that many, but this one was really great.  Room for the stroller, well organized clothes and toys, and I found everything I went for (and a few more things).

Harvest Glen Park

We've decided to embark on a search for the perfect playground.  After Henrik's morning nap, we get in the car, and wander the neighbourhoods looking for a new go-to place to play.

Here's what we thought of the one we found today.


 It's a little too open to the street, but that street is not super busy. There are four swings, two of each kind, which is great if there is more than just my two little ones.





There is some shade, but it felt too far away from the play structures for me to install myself there on a blanket, so we sat in the sun.





My favourite feature was this great little mini structure that both kids liked a lot. It was the perfect size for Henrik.
 


But in the end, Bryn said that she didn't like it, and that she wanted to try a different park next time.  So the search continues! 

Keeping House

My sister-in-law Laura just posted her housekeeping confessions.  I have to admit, I've never once stepped into her house and thought "This woman needs to clean her house!"  But I get it.  I get through each day, kids alive, but house a mess.  It's not that I don't have time or energy, I just never think about those little things I can do each day to keep the house tidy.  So, following Laura's lead, I've put together a cleaning list to help me remember.

 

Using her list as a template, I made up my own list.  I hate doing the same cleaning task for a long period of time, like more than 10 minutes, so I broke tasks down into little things.  You'll notice I do bathroom mirrors on one day, and toilets on another.  That's the kind of cleaning that works for me.  I used Excel and Publisher to put a pretty graphic behind the list, then mounted it in a dollar store frame.  I can then use a dry erase marker to check off what I've done.  I'd love to take credit for all that, but Laura's the genius.

Bryn loved it so much that she kept asking me what tasks she could do so she could check them off.  So, while she napped this afternoon, I made a list just for her and put it in a 5x7 frame I had already..  I included the stuff she fights me on every morning, like getting dressed and eating breakfast.  Cute, eh?

A Great Article on Mommyhood!

OK, so this post is mostly so that I can find this blog post again, but you all should read this!  I think all Mom's suffer from this a little, but I'm guessing it's especially true for those of us with PPD.  I remember people saying things like 'Isn't being a Mom wonderful!?' just after Bryn was born.  And I want to say 'No, it stinks.  I hate every minute of it.'  But you just can't say that to people.  It's just not done.  Anyway, I can say it now (maybe not quite so bluntly), but it still doesn't feel any better.

Had a bad day yesterday.  Not much yelling, but I just felt grumpy all day.  It didn't help that something's bugging Henrik so he spent a lot of time screaming yesterday.  I just have such a hard time with the screaming.  Any ideas for dealing with that?

Here are some recent cute pics of the kiddies.  Bryn says to me (way too often, it seems): 'Even when you're mad, you're still my Mommy!'  And she's right.  Even when I'm not at my best, I still love my beautiful little ones!

Merry Christmas to All...

So, I've obviously dropped the ball on the 'Learning Happiness' experiment.  Not that I don't think I would have learned lots from Laura's blog series, but I decided it was time to get some real help for my postpartum depression.  So hubby and I went to the doctor and got me some drugs.  Not what I expected out of motherhood, but I'm relieved to finally be doing something concrete to help lift the gloom.

Strangely enough, this Christmas season has been one of the least stressful of my adult life.  We remembered to budget for Christmas this year (we completely forgot last year), so there was money for presents, decorating, and baking.  I also decided that I wanted to be done the present shopping by the end of November.  I didn't quite make it, but it made for a pretty relaxing December. I highly recommend that goal:  I'll be doing it again next year.



















In December I did a lot of baking with Bryn, who is a really good helper. She's awesome at cutting out sugar cookies, and loves to stir anything. We made fudge (3 batches, one of which was so bad we had to throw it away), 4 pans of Nanaimo bars, 3 batches of sugar cookies, shortbread, and peanut brittle bowls. Plus we made cookies for Santa with Bryn's cousins.  I love Christmas baking.  I should have taken more pictures - maybe next year.  And next year, an Aunty Jo's Fabulous Nanaimo Bar tutorial!

But for this year, I'm ready for Christmas.  My kiddies are all tucked into their beds.  They won't stay asleep all night - at least Henrik won't.  He never does.  But they're asleep for now, and that is wonderful.  In fact, as I've been writing, he's woken up and put himself back to sleep.  For the third time in the last 2 hours.  Ugh.

We followed a tradition from my family, giving each of the kids Pajammies (as Bryn sometimes calls them) for Christmas, having them open those gifts tonight before going to bed so they can wear their special PJ's to bed tonight.  Arvid picked Bryn's out - he did a great job!

Merry Christmas to all!

Week 2 - Learning Happiness

So, I think, mostly by default, that this will be a weekly series instead of the planned daily.  I just don't have the energy to write at the end of every day. And I'm guessing that many of Laura's happiness ideas will require longer than a day to try.

This week, Laura talks about life commandments.  That kids aren't born knowing how to find real happiness, that we as parents have to teach them.  Life commandments like:

• giving to others makes us feel happy too
• thinking about another person’s feelings will help you too, when they decide to consider your feelings in return
• that your conscience will keep you safe when mommy can’t
• that family bonds are strong and super valuable 

Since this experiment is not only about helping my kids to be happy, but learning to be happy myself, I should be thinking about what life commandments I want to live by, beyond the stuff we learn at church.  I'll admit, I haven't done a very good job of thinking through that this week.  I'll try to incorporate that this next week, I guess.

As for what life commandments I'm teaching my kids, I think there's a gap between what I want them to be learning and what I'm actually teaching them.  I want them to be patient, but I don't show much patience.  I want them to be loving and kind, but I'm not really very nice to them sometimes.  There are things I do OK at:  I want them to be generous with the good things God has given them, and I think I'm a decent example of that.  I want them to love each other, and somehow they've learned that - they are so sweet to each other!  

I think maybe I'm too focused on obedience, and not enough on love.  I'll have to work on that.

Next week: "Invite a Friend"

Day #1 (let's be honest - week #1) of the learning happiness experiment

So, my daily blog post just didn't happen this week.  We were all sick with a nasty cold this week - coughs, plugged noses, pink eye, the works! Any extra time I had this week I spent sleeping - not blogging.  But we're on the mend, and my Henrik even slept through the night last night - 12 full, blissful hours - for the first time in his 7 months.  Needless to say I had an unusual amount of energy today.

On to the experiment...

The first day of Laura's series is all about telling our kids what to expect because:

"It’s human nature -- typically, we don’t like surprises. Little people, who are still learning the ropes and are easily overwhelmed, are even more afraid of the unknown, generally. So -- it’s only fair that we clue them in, have little chats about what they can expect, and let them know what we expect."

The challenge with this one is that's it's already something I do with my Bryn, so this wasn't something new.  But I do find that sometimes, when I give her a few warnings that something she's not fond of (bedtime, leaving her cousins' houses, etc) is going to happen soon, sometimes she responds better - no kicking and screaming fights and tantrums.  Sometimes.  I do think it's worth it.  When she responds badly anyway, I can forgive my mean mommy response ('I'll pick you up and take you out anyway') if I've given her fair warning.  

And the more often I can forgive myself the better. 

Tomorrow: Life Commandments 

I'm coming out...

I have postpartum depression.

It's not something I like to talk about much - in fact I've only told one person outside my family.  It's mild and pretty manageable; most days I function just fine. But my emotions range from pretty grumpy to downright angry most days.  A good day means I'm just blah.

I've been trying to find something - anything almost to take the edge off my constant grumpiness.  I'm nursing my boy  (the absolute best part of motherhood for me), so I can't take anti-depressants or even St. John's Wort.  And I didn't hear about the great mood-lifting properties of placenta pills until it was way too late!  I already eat pretty well, and I get as much sleep as I can with a 7 month old that hasn't learned to sleep through the night, so that leaves, well, not much.  I came across this blog series  - "31 Days to Happier Children" and decided that I could give it a shot.  I want my kids to believe that they had a happy mommy, even if it is a bit of an act.

So here's the deal. Each evening I'm going to read one post about Laura's ideas on learning happiness.  The next day I'm going to try the idea.  That evening I will blog about my experience and read about tomorrow's idea.  Simple, eh?  Well, I've never written a daily blog.  And life is crazy, so I may not actually succeed.  But I'm going to try.

Tomorrow - Day #1: What to Expect

My cute girl...

Bryn does this cute thing where she sucks in her tummy and says 'Skinny Belly!', then pushes it out and 'Round Belly!', back and forth, over and over..  We'll video it sometime and I'll post it.  But the other day I was helping her get dressed and she points at my middle and says 'Round Belly!'.  All I could do was laugh - how was she to know it's rude to call one's mother fat?

Arse, Arse!

So Bryn is really into dogs - as long as they don't come anywhere near her. She's always used 'oof, oof' as what a puppy says, but today, we learned that puppies can say 'arf, arf' as well.  Only Bryn hasn't figured out the 'f' sound yet.  So in our house, puppies now say 'Arse, Arse'!

The Puke!

So, Bryn is 19 months old now (well, she will be in a few days) and today she puked for the very first time.  She was never much of a spitter as a baby, for which I was very grateful! Are you listening, Baby in my Tummy?  Anyway this afternoon, we went to A&W for lunch (we had coupons) and Bryn ate lots of fries and ketchup, along with the sandwich we brought for her (she doesn't like hamburgers).  After that, we took a little nap/rest, then had a tickle fest.  She giggled, and giggled, saying 'More' over and over, so Arvid and I kept tickling.  We then proceeded downstairs to make start dinner and I heard Bryn gagging!?  I looked over and there it was, puke!  Thank goodness it happened in the kitchen and not on the carpeted floor of the bedroom!  I have a really big problem with vomit, so I'm really glad Arvid was home.  I had been hoping that I'd be able to handle my own kids' puke, but no such luck.  I'm in trouble.  Sorry no pictures for this one!

I just realized...

I just realized that I haven't posted any pictures of Bryn.  So here are a few of my recent favourites.







Most of Bryn's best pictures relate to food. There is a reason she's chubby - and not just 'cause she's mine!

Look Mommy, Mato!

No, Bryn isn't talking so clearly yet.  It's my niece, Gwen.  I've been watching her for my sister Lisa a couple of days a week while she figures out a more permanent child care solution.  Last Thursday we were waiting for Lisa to arrive at the end of the day, playing in the front yard, when I noticed that Bryn had a couple of crab apples in her hands (we have a tree in the back yard).  I didn't really think much of it - she loves to pick up the fallen apples.  By the time Lisa got here, Gwen had one of the apples.  She went up to her Mommy and said (something like), 'Look Mommy, Mato!'  Lisa said, 'Oh, have you got an apple?' (again, I'm paraphrasing).  And Gwen responded 'No, Mommy, Mato!'  We took a closer look and sure enough, it was a little green tomato.  My Bryn had thieved two tomatoes from my plant in the front garden!  I'll have to watch her more closely if I want to have a harvest this year!

So, all of a sudden...

So, all of a sudden, Bryn likes grapes.  She's always hated them.  When I started her on solid foods, they (canned ones at that point) were the only thing she would spit out!  And now, today, she can't get enough of them.  She sees them on my lunch plate and keeps signing 'more, more', pointing at them. Cool!