okay, i know that it’s been a year since i started this blog & i haven’t really documented things this year like i intended to, but i’m fixing to do better.
here’s a start…

molly got a fabulous cook book from santa. it’s the dk children’s quick & easy cook book. j & i love the dk cook books ’cause they have lots of pictures. b decided to try out the chicken nuggets & funky fries as her maiden voyage with the book. she & dada really turned it out.

here’s the finished product. it was so good. the fries were exceptional.

as we were coming home from molly’s school the other day, we were talking about our dogs (dan, marge, and grady). molly told me, “grady looks like a fine dining waiter. he seems like he’d have a rose in his jacket.”
and, you know, she’s right.

if i’ve got time enough to mess around on there, i could pick up any new habit, or pick back up an old habit (knitting, playing the guitar, etc.). i should really do something about my poor time management skills.

i can’t help it, the siren song of facebook is too strong. i’m up in there all the time these days. but i’ll bet it will go the way of myspace–or my poor unkept blog–something that is just an occasional diversion. it can’t go on owning me.

while i’m here:

sunday: turkey sandwiches, beer cheese soup

monday: pan roasted salmon with tomatoes & white beans, salad, baked cheese grits

tuesday: chicken stir-fry with zucchini and mushrooms, jasmine rice, egg rolls

wednesday: swiss steak and mashed potatoes

thursday: pork chops in mustard sauce, sauteed greens, roasted sweet potatoes

friday: mr. t’s and cold beverages

last weekend j and i revisited the “scene of the crime” (or opposite, i guess– we were actually making it legal). anyway, we went back to where we got married.

it was really nice. we stayed in stephen’s cottage
the weather was perfect & we have vowed to go there at least once a year from now on.

without further ado, here are a few pictures from molly’s 4th birthday party…sadly, i didn’t get a lot of pictures since i was so stressed (jerad was on the couch with pneumonia ((sp?)), so i was trying to fly solo with party prep–thank jebus for the kindness of stacie, gigi & papaw, the ormsbys, and g-mama & aunt sarah).

though nothing can compete with the outstanding work of ms. jackson (her work can be seen in the photos from last year’s party), jackson bakery did us right on the cake & addictive thumbprint cookies!

molly & her running crew

molly & her bff, finn.

only one year ago…

and what seems like yesterday…

great–now i’ve gone & gotten myself teared up. why do they have to grow up so fast? excuse me while i go find a tissue & a drink

dang, y’all…2 lbs. of okra must be a shit ton! my measly little 8 oz. ended up being just right. i only recently realized the glory that is okra. i say this at the risk of being denied at the next sand mountain family get together. my mema makes a sublime okra salad–a big part of my okra conversion. To think that i had access to all the best in homegrown produce growing up, and i shunned it all for the fatty deliciousiousity of french fries, grilled cheese sandwiches, chicken fingers, etc.

so, i think i’m altering my recipe to “a mess of okra.” like a mess of greens or what have you. what ever looks right. if anyone is interested in the recipe, let me know. it’s really–to my & my babydaddy’s way of thinking–a really foolproof chicken recipe. with homegrown okra & homegrown tomatoes, it’s ridiculous. even with bi-lo shite okra, it ain’t bad for a back-to-school monday night.

update: i ain’t gonna get those pictures on this weekend, but since the football cheerleading season is over, i have a respite for a week or two until the basketball insanity starts (never. again.), i’ll still try to get some stuff on here. the pictures from b’s party are pretty good, and i just realized that i never posted any of the downer family va-cay to mountain lakes resort (our favorite version of a redneck riviera). we had a huge time down there–molly caught her first “lawge-moweth bayus.”  i love that little county girl.

anyway, i digress. the chatt. market had NO okra–or that’s what jerad would have me believe. he had to go instead of the whole fam because moll started to complain of a tummy ache, so we scraped all our plans for the day. we hated to miss harper’s #1 b-day party, and we had to cancel plans to meet up with rob & kelly, plus we’d scheduled a spider hike this morning.  i don’t know why we even pretend to be able to plan things with any degree of certainty–it’s always a crap shoot (sometimes literally) when you have a young’un. she snapped out of it by this evening until she realized it’s a school night; then she “remembered” that her stomach hurt & thought it was probably not a good idea for her to go to school tomorrow. whatever, faker.

i don’t know what the okra crisis of ‘08 will mean for my creole chicken. i hate it when the best laid plans are all for naught.

at least it’s dexter night.

i realize that my neglect of the blog has resulted in not recording the culinary exploits of the brewers for far too long now. as visitors to my kitchen are aware (in a “omg, stephanie’s a freakin’ lunatic” kind of way), i’ve taken to printing out monthly calendars (both ‘lunch’ and ‘dinner’ versions) & keeping it on a clipboard that sits atop the kitchen water cooler. alas, my black printer cartridge has been out of ink for a good long while, and rather than drop it off at bi-lo to get it refilled, i’ve just been making random notations in various & sundry notebooks about what we might like to eat on any given week. that’s no way to live!

to try to get back to some kind of organized record keeping of the good (scotch eggs..yum…), the bad (the chili-marinated stir fried pork that looked great on paper, but ended up bland as hell), and the ugly (again, scotch eggs–so yummy, yet so reminiscent of big meaty fists), i’m gonna give another shot at recording menus here.

this week was a lovely week off for me, so i got pretty ambitious in the kitchen. along with having a pretty labor-intensive recipes, i also tried to go low-budg as much as possible. we had pecan-crusted salmon and roasted vegetables (salmon was on sale this week), which a couple of nights later were reworked into really good salmon croquettes that we had with perfect silver queen corn that b & i picked up at the chattanooga market. one night we did grilled steak with a dry rub that was originally used for fish, but turned out to be pretty steak-friendly. the leftover steak made some totally bad-ass cheesesteaks a couple of nights later (we used more chattanooga mkt. produce–red peppers that were sent from the gods via a walker county, ga. farmer). round that out with the aforementioned pork “didn’t we almost have it all” stir fry & there you have it.

last night we dined at chez ormsby & were dazzled by their mad steak salad skills. tonight we’re going with the old stand-by of smack & cheese and a salad along with bread & butter. sometimes the simple ways are best. sometimes you just feel like you don’t want to go to the store & a dinner of found objects is required.

tomorrow we will stock up on provisions for the week. again, we’re trying to go low & lean. it is such a rough adjustment getting used to both jerad & me being paid once a month–both on the same day, i might add. for the “fiscally-challenged” folks like us, it’s really hard to not pretend we’re rich the first week of each month, then suffer through the inevitable “raman noodle fest” the last week of the month when we’re trying not to bounce checks until we both get paid again.

this week bi-lo has flounder on sale along with chicken breasts and bratwurst. tomorrow evening we’ll probably do emeril’s recipe for beer brats with cabbage. monday’s looking a lot like creole chicken & okra (the okra at the market last week looked really good–i hope they have it tomorrow…); tuesday is the screamin’ deal down at sweeny’s bbq on broad street, so we’ll hit that along with the leftover mac & cheese from tonight. wednesday will be chicken & rice soup with corn muffins, followed by stuffed flounder (alton brown’s recipe–it’s a new one, but alton usually does us right). friday, generally speaking, is pizza & beer night unless something better comes along, so we’ll see.

i’m really going to try to get caught up with some pictures on here tomorrow…

i’ve been meaning to catch the old blog up over fall break, but, what with all the fall breakin’ to be done, well, you know…

we’ve had a late summer/early fall, for real tho’. i’ll try to get pictures posted soon of some big time milestone shit. molly got her first charm bracelet for b-day 4; her pony party was tons of fun despite the lack of a pinky pie pinata (a future therapy topic, i’m sure); we had a fun mommy/daughter adventure day today–the creative discovery museum>lulu’s for a new ‘do.

who knows what we’ll get into this weekend…  word on the screet is that tomorrow is free day at the chattanooga zoo. the laundry is caught up & the house is relatively clean, so the world (or at the least the tri-state area) is our oyster.

i’ve been doing some painting over the break this week. nothing too thrilling–just doors & stupid trim. i’m toying with the notion of having the outside painted. anyone who has seen it would agree that our front porch needs attention. it’s all southern gothic/ghetto. any color ideas for the house would be appreciated. most discussed this week: gray or taupe-ish (martha stewart “homespun”-y, you feel me?).

anyhoo, i was just checking in to try to be a better half-ass blogger. i started this incarnation of my blog at new years to try to do a better job of keeping up with events in the lives of the family b. i haven’t been nearly as diligent as i pretended to think i’d be, but, what you gonna do?

so one more weekend till back to the work-a-day life of the public school teacher. you will never convince me that students enjoy breaks from school more than teachers.

hope all’s well with all y’all.

sdb