Catching up…

My past six months of blog posts all seem to start with some sort of “Wow- has it really been a month since I last managed to write?!” sort of introduction. In this case, nearly two months, actually, and I’m not entirely sure that I have a proper recipe to post. There’s been a whole lot of cooking in the house, but my urges to document it all have fallen by the wayside, I’m afraid. Along with that, I’ve been moving away from my long list of favorite food blogs a bit, finding that the ones that mix in a little more lifestyle, if you will, are more compelling to me these days. So a bit of Superspark life before we move on to culinary matters…

There are lots of things keeping us busy these days, chez Superspark, not the least of which is our little Madeleine who is fast approaching two years old.  She’s actually much less of a handful than in her “youth”, though no doubt that pendulum will swing again soon.  So we can’t blame her for our busy-ness this time.

Nor can we blame the newest little Superspark, due to arrive in early September.  That’s right, Maddie is going to have a little brother- eek! We’re all very excited, of course, but I’ll be the first to admit that this baby is already missing the constant excited vigilance of a count down to his arrival.  I don’t think I’ve cracked a pregnancy book once this time and what will be the nursery is still primarily a resting place for old yearbooks, unhung art, and various other home goods without a home.  He’s -11 weeks old and already suffering from second child syndrome.

It’s just life in general that has us busy these days…building a monumental vegetable garden in the yard (complete with 8-foot fence to keep out deer!), finishing Dylan’s first year of residency (thank goodness!), trying to keep up with the joys of homeownership (mowing, cleaning, bills, etc…), and of course my own job, where we’ve managed to pull in an epic amount of NIH grant money recently, making news of each success both a blessing and a curse (in that there’s just that much more work to do now).  So all in all, things are good.

But on to the food! My favorite part of cooking these days is still the planning- culling through my recipes to find two or three to make in the upcoming week.  And thanks to the internet, there are all sorts of fun menu planning/shopping list tools to feed my love of obsessive planning.  Here’s the one I’ve been using recently– my favorite one is no longer on the interwebs, but this suits my needs pretty well, if not perfectly. So fun! And what sort of menus have I planned in the past few weeks?

There was this exceptionally yummy posh variant on mac and cheese. Posted on The Bitten Word, I made it for a potluck only to have my social plans thwarted by a sick baby. Keeping my chin up, I bravely managed to eat the whole delicious thing myself for the rest of the week…

What else? I’ve been making mini-muffins every couple of weeks and then freezing them for quick snacks.  Because when else, other than pregnancy, can you justify a couple of mini strawberry muffins on any given morning, just because? Thanks to Pink of Perfection for that tasty recipe.

And how about one more winner, amid a fair number of also-rans? Yeah, I know, Rachael Ray bugs me, too.  But the leftovers of this spring noodle stir-fry made multiple co-workers come ask me for the recipe as I was microwaving.  Plus it features some of the best in spring veggies- sugar snap peas and asparagus.  I ramped up the amount of pasta to make it more filling, but beyond that, stuck more or less to Ray-Ray’s vision.  Turns out the garbage bowl, a big bowl in which to put your scraps as you prep a meal (rather than wasting time running back and forth to the garbage can), is not her only idea worth keeping.

So that’s it for updates around here…no food pictures, I’m afraid, but were we to wait for those, it might be a very, very long time.  Enjoy the rest of June and fingers crossed that I managed to write something before the month is out!