SPOTTED DICK

Have you ever had some?

My dear friend Kiki and I haven't been able to make a new food every month. But we did get the chance to try a new food.

Who knew that Heinz was in the business of dick?

Let me tell you......suet pudding studded with raisins is disgusting. But I'm glad I had the chance to try it.

Who knows what Kiki and I will make/try next?

ONE OF THEM WILL STARVE AS AN ADULT...YOU GUESS

For some odd reason, Leroy and Izzy decided they both wanted to make up their own recipe including the main ingredient.....mashed potatoes. Here's Leroy's recipe:

You take some mashed potatoes and form them in to a mountain shape with your hands. You put a toothpick flag on top. For a side dish, you take a hot dog and cut it in to the shape of an Octopus.

Here's Izzy's recipe:

After mashing the potatoes, in a small pan add the zest of 1 lemon & 1 lime. Add a lot of white wine and some brown sugar. Cook until it boils and it is thick. Pour over the mashed potatoes and top with tater tots and pieces of butter. Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

You be the judge.

A NEW PROFESSION?

Although Izzy has not abandoned his plight to be the youngest chef in the world to fix you scrambled eggs with white truffles, Izzy has found yet another interesting hobby.

Photography.

Here I show you two of his first works of art......

1. Izzy proudly displaying his first lost tooth. A happiness so intense that Izzy couldn't contain himself and snapped pictures of his beaming face as if he were the paparazzi.

2. Taking a birthday picture of me and Bubby before we left for our "date day".

Izzy now says he wants to cook food and then take pictures of it. Who knew?

OINK

What does one do when one is in a funk?

Eat piggy ice-cream of course! (Compliments of Izzy)

CULINARY EXPERIMENT #2

Life's been totally kicking my ass lately. So I will instead, keep a positive attitude and post some pictures of my dear friend Kiki and our latest experiment......

RAVIOLIS

It was great fun and the ravioli's were delicious. We had fillings like pork and pesto and various cheeses and roasted red peppers and mushrooms.


Rolling out the dough is fun and this is a great project to do with your kids!



We didn't perfect this process though so I'm sure Kiki and I will be trying it again with our new-found knowledge.

Next food experiment......SPRING ROLLS!

CULINARY MASTERPIECES

I try really hard to introduce my children to good food. The majority of it is what you would consider gourmet. Christian loves capers, Izzy will eat any seafood or blue cheese...even adob0 sauce. Tori is not picky at all and is a lover of food. Leroy, um......he's in a refried beans stage and pretty much denies everything else.
But my efforts are pretty much blown out of the water when Bubby fixes a meal.

Really. What could top a plate of Pigs in a Blanket stacked up in to a pyramid? Bubby was a hit and the kids may never eat Risotto with fresh rosemary again.

I hate that man.

A NEW YEAR A NEW RESOLUTION

My New Year's Resolutions always suck.....or maybe I suck....I'm not sure. All I know is every year I become overzealous in my aspirations for a slate wiped clean, and then become disappointed when I can't live up to those standards.

My dear friend Kiki next door came up with a lovely New Year's Resolution that involves moi:

Each month we will try out some new food that we have always wanted to master. It may just be Kiki and I, or it may be a few other foodies that love drinking wine and getting together enjoying comfort and the art of food.

I think I will document each month with the recipe along with pictures of us fumbling through our cooking and get the whole thing bound through Shutterfly.

Doesn't it sound fabulous?

Our first month.......TAMALES!

This photo is a little wonky...Izzy snapped this shot!

FOODIE AT FOUR AND OTHER F WORDS

Izzy's fascination with food and eating out-of-the-ordinary foods is borderline psychotic.

I know the child loves food, learning about food, cooking food and talking about food. Today, (since we are learning about the letter F and the only word that he can consistently say that starts with the letter F is f*ck) we chose to make Fudge. I figure that if I can instill the word Fudge in to his F dictionary, maybe he won't use the word f*ck when they ask him at preschool what words start with the letter F.

Here are some of the strange sentences/conversations that occurred at the grocery store this morning while shopping for fudge ingredients:

Izzy: "Mom? Can we buy some pine nuts or pistachios?"
Me: "Yes, why?"

Izzy: "I want to toast them and put them on top of ice cream."

Izzy: "Mom? What are we having for lunch today?"

Me: "I don't know....what would you like?"

Izzy: "Smoked salmon and peanut butter sandwiches. I think that would be a great combination don't you?"

Me: "How about peanut butter and honey instead. I don't think we will purchase any smoked salmon today."

Izzy: "Only if I can have the white honey from Hawaii on it. I like it better than the other honey."

Izzy: "Does Giada de Laurentis shop here?"

Izzy: "Mom, they don't have any blood oranges. I want to share them with my class."

Me: "What about the peaches that MeMa bought us? We could take some of them to school."

Izzy: "Are they the white flesh peaches Mom? I only like peaches with white flesh."

Izzy: "Are we out of avocados and goat cheese? Tomorrow I want avocados sprinkled with sea salt and some goat cheese on the side I can dip crackers in to."

Good Lord! Couldn't he just be happy with a handful of fish crackers?

And I leave you with this picture of us on vacation. Izzy happily eating Mussels. Tearing apart each one and enjoying its contents and then dipping his bread into the wine/mussel broth. You see all of the red stuff? Hot pepper flakes. He loves them.

Twenty years from now when Izzy is some famous Chef on the Food Network channel, you can say that you used to see naked pictures of him on his Mother's blog.