It's a Great Day for Gazpacho!

This morning, little PJ and I loaded up the car and headed to Zilker Park for a run around Lady Bird Lake and some spectating at the Capital of Texas Triathlon. At a tender two months, Piercy Joye is a seasoned race spectator, as she watched her Daddy finish the inaugural Ironman Texas triathlon last weekend in The Woodlands.  Today we were hoping that, even with our late start, we would get a glimpse of stunningly athletic Gramma Annie, my mother. Mama never really trains for any race, she's simply always in great shape and has long been my inspiration for a lifetime of fitness. I am always so proud to be her daughter, and had a great time indulging in post-race sno-cones with the three generations of Huddle/Flanagan/Browne gals!

PJ and me spectating at Ironman Texas last weekend

Needless to say, when Piercy Joye and I got home, we were both hot, covered in Auditorium Shores dustiness, and hungry! PJ ate first, and then Greg and I mowed down last night's leftovers: catfish with a side of beet and grapefruit salad. This deliciousness was only in our fridge because I've recently gone back to weekly menu planning.  When I was unemployed after the big crash a couple of summers ago I took up meal planning as a way to stretch the grocery budget. Since April 6th I've taken a job with a new boss that doesn't pay me in anything except poopy diapers and the cutest smiles you've ever seen in all your life. This, along with a jelly-filled midsection I'm trying to rid myself of, has inspired me to get back to my meal planning roots.   Every Wednesday, when the weekly grocery deals come out in the newspaper, I sit at the kitchen table with my girl and we plan a week's worth of Browne family dinners. We usually get one or two days off during the week: my Grandmother, Joye Flanagan ("Angel"), has a full family dinner at her home on Wednesdays, and Mom and Daddy like to have us over to their house many weekends.  The grocery list is devised, the menu then gets taped to the fridge, and we work through it, and move things around as we please. On this HOT Memorial Day in Austin, nothing sounded better than "Thursday's" steak, gazpacho, and bulgur salad:

Please note my disgruntled husband's request for after-dinner treats... sparse in this season of attempted postnatal weight loss...



 As soon as lunch went down the hatch, PJ was overcome by a miracle... the Miracle Blanket! This little gem was hidden in the box of clothes from our friends, and we are ever so thankful. It is the ultimate straight jacket of swaddling blankets for the Houdini-wannabies of babies, of which Piercy Joye commonly considers herself.

Piercy indulging in a delicious nap

While Baby Girl was snoozing, I got elbow deep in veggies and turned out a batch of delicious Gazpacho! Nothing says summer to me like a cold bowl of this delectable soup.  I think I ate a gallon of it last July before I realized I was preggers with PJ, so we know she digs it too. I love a recipe from one of our favorite cook books that we received as a wedding gift, Bride and Groom: First and Forever Cookbook  by sisters Mary Corpening Barber and Sara Corpening Whiteford.

This cook book is a must-have for all cooks, newlywed or not!

 My meal planning techniques usually include making a comprehensive grocery list so that I can avoid any last-minute trips to the grocery store, but I'd forgotten to grab a red bell pepper last week. Greg went to the store to get one for me while he was running out for beer and sunflower seeds, tools of the master gardener who spent his day working in the yard. All of these vegetables just make my mouth water for that delicious gazpacho!

We'll be excited to use tomatoes from our garden in a few short weeks!

 This recipe calls for red wine vinegar and hot pepper sauce or Tabasco.  I love Colavita white wine vinegar (a recommendation from my favorite cooking journal, Cooks Illustrated). Last week when I noticed we were running low on red wine vinegar, I purchased this bottle of Colavita, but I'm still deciding if I like it very much. Anyhow, it's what we have so I'll use it until it's gone.  Instead of Tabasco, I finished off our bottle of D'Elidas Habenero hot sauce, my very favorite. We discovered this sauce as a gift from Greg's pilot friend, Pam Perdue, who flies for Continental Airlines and picked some up for us in Peru.  I did some research and found out where I can order more... mmmm! 


"Secret" Ingredients

 That little bottle on the far right is a new try for this recipe, but I couldn't resist! That flask of tiny orange balls is homemade chile petin vinegar, courtesy of my Aunt Debi and Uncle Tim Flanagan who made everyone in the family a batch of this super spicy vinegar for Christmas last year from their homegrown chile petins!  Apparently, it's just good ol' white vinegar and a LOT of the spicy chiles. We've been working through ours slowly... Yowza, it'll getchya!

Greg's putting on steaks this evening that have been marinading since last night, and I'll round out our table with a little bulgur salad from another fantastic go-to book:

I'm sorry, Cooking Light, but that cheescake cannot be healthy! Must. Resist. The. Urge.

 I love me some tabouleh, and I found this awesome bulgur salad recipe in Cooking Light with cucumber, Red Onion, garbanzo beans, dill, feta cheese (I always use regular goat instead) and lemon. Delish.  I can't wait until dinner tonight!

Bulgur salad!

Meal planning has been a great way for us to put delicious meals on our table, reduce wasted food, and keep some moolah in the ol' pocket book.  By doing a couple hours of planning and shopping once a week, I've also been able to add to my cooking repertoire without too much thought on a daily basis.  Plus, it seems to leave me with more time to do things I love!

Lastly: On this Memorial Day, thank you to all of those who have served in the military, and whose family members have served in the military.  Your sacrifices do not go unnoticed. God Bless America!

Paging Doctor Herman...

Here we are, at long last!

Six days after Piercy Joye's ("zero-th") birthday, a sweet swimmer friend from college days who has two beautiful children herself, sent me a message encouraging me to start blogging. A mere 45 days later, I'm finally writing my first post! The hold up? My blog title: Lame excuse, I know. Endless days of little sleep, fewer showers, and preoccupation with my beautiful new daughter and changing her diapers left my creativity in the ditch. At the beginning of the week, I wrote Leah a note telling her I'd given myself a deadline of the end of the week, and here we are mid-Friday (typical of last-minute me).

The lesson: All pregnant first time mothers-to-be even considering the outside chance of starting a blog postpartum should create and set up their blog during pregnancy so that it's waiting after baby arrives! Duh! I was too busy eating corn dogs and half-gallon buckets of Blue Bell ice cream to bother myself with setting up a blog.

Alas, these are the things I would have posted about in the last seven weeks, abbreviated for your pleasure:

1.) Beginning with labor, parenting seems to be teaching me that I'm less in control of my life than I ever knew.

Putting on waterproof mascara pre-induction... Typical.

Without boring you with my "birth story," just know that I planned on carrying our baby from 40-41 weeks, having a non-medicated birth wearing a hospital gown I'd sewn of beautiful fabric, and that in the last weeks of my pregnancy, I had an inkling that our "wait-til-it's-born-to-find-out-the-gender" baby was a strapping young boy.  In short, I was induced at 38.5 weeks for Pregnancy Induced Hypertension (aka preeclampsia, which my mother also had with my brother, her first child); I went into labor with a sunburn I magically got while on "bed rest;" I had a 14+ hour long labor, the first four hours of which were unmedicated and had me envisioning my death; I managed to receive not one but two epidurals, all while not wearing the beautiful hospital gown I had started but planned on finishing in my last two weeks of pregnancy.

Oh yeah, and "It's a Girl!"  Which, by the way, is awesome, and waiting to find out her gender til the bitter end was magical.

Piercy Joye and daddy holding hands

2.) Breastfeeding is really hard. No, really. It's HARD.

I am still currently breastfeeding Piercy, but for a while it was touch and go.  Yes, I took a class. Yes, I requested a lactation consultant visit us in the hospital after her birth. Yes, I paid a different lactation consultant after my milk came in to help us. It's still hard for Mom and baby to learn, and it's also hard for Dad to stand by listening to his baby scream and not be able to help. And I completely respect why many women (especially women who have to/choose to go back to work) don't breastfeed.  It. Is. Very. Very. Hard. And I certainly don't think I would have had the wherewithal to continue if I was headed to an office every morning.

3.) Baby clothes are expensive, and we have rockin' friends.

Virtually right after our friends and family found out that we had a girl, we were inundated with beautiful brand new pink duds. Wow. Dresses, jumpers, sparkly shoes, sweet onesies, bows, swimsuits.  Even yesterday At seven weeks, I got another package with two beautiful outfits from Greg's sweet Aunt.  Still, one of the most touching gifts we received arrived a week after PJ's birth: two huge Rubbermaid tubs packed to the brim with already-loved Newborn and 0-3 Month girl clothes. A few families we know, all with daughters older than Piercy, have been adding to these (and successive the boxes) that circulate as the girls grow. Genius. We are so thankful to have been included!

4.) I've never loved my parents, nor appreciated their love for me more than I do now.

My heart has changed forever.

5.) It really does go by quickly.

And no, I still haven't put Piercy Joye's footprints in her baby book.  I'll get on that this week.  Our tiny little baby has only just now started to out-grow a couple teeny things we got her when we brought her home and she was simply swimming in every newborn outfit we had. Wah! She'll be going to college, like NEXT WEEK!

6.) Sorry ladies, but Piercy Joye and I've already snagged #1.

Seriously, I have a better man than I could have ever dreamed of having.  It should be known that having a child will stress your marriage, mostly due to lack of sleep and raging hormones. People who have babies to fix their relationship are in for a rude awakening because even folks whose marriage stands on solid ground are in for a rude awakening. At the end of the day, I'm really proud to have somehow tricked Greg into marrying me.  He's patient beyond words, and loves me even when I'm mean and sleep deprived, smell, am 30 pounds overweight, and haven't had makeup on in a week. That, dear friends, is good love.

The Brownes at home at last in Bryker Woods

And for my parting thoughts, thank you to Leah Roy for your encouragement.  Now go check out Gordy Quist's (of the Band of Heathens) "Green and Blue." With a green-eyed Daddy and a blue-eyed Mommy, little Miss Thang is still trying to figure of which way she'll go.