Monday, February 13, 2012

Venting, booze, and bananas

Hello, all!  Kerry here...feeling very ashamed for letting the blog go for so long.  I'm going to vent a bit about what's been going on in my life over the past couple of weeks, not to spread drama, but because I need to get it out somewhere.

One of my sisters and her husband are divorcing.  They have children that we are very close to-I actually watch them after school every day.  It's been hard to watch a relationship between two people I love fall apart.  I understand the reasons why, and I support them, but I do feel badly for them all.  Especially the girls-they have been remarkably strong and positive through all of this, but occasionally one of them will crack, and you can see the pain and fear when that happens.  It breaks my heart.  There isn't much we can do for any of them besides be there, and we're doing the best we can.  We have an open door policy for them, and as a result, we have house guests more often than usual.  That makes me happy, because I can make sure everyone is in a safe, loving place, even if it's just for a little while.  It does worry me, but I try to keep it to myself, or simply share it with Jeff (I've never felt right calling him Big Dude, so that's done!).  They are family to us, no matter what, and we want to be there for them.

In other news, we're getting ready for Little Dude's birthday party this weekend.  He's three tomorrow!  Where has my baby gone?  He'll also be starting preschool on the 21st, where he'll be able to receive more challenging therapy along with the socialization and normal activities that a preschool brings.  We went today to see his classroom and meet his teacher.  LD seemed happy with it all.  So Bannon is going to be my support group next week and go with me to take him on his first day of preschool.  She's such an amazing friend!

Now that things are a bit calmer here, let me get caught up on my promised, very late posts.  This one will focus on the 52 Weeks of Cooking challenge.  I still owe recipes for the beer/wine/spirits challenge, and the Brazilian challenge.  To save a bit of time, I'm going to link to the first recipe.  I made the Pioneer Woman's Perfect Pot Roast.  The only changes I made were to use more red wine than she called for in the deglazing step, and I used a spice mix from North Market Spices called English Rub instead of the herbs PW used.  It was very tasty and tender, and I'm getting hungry just thinking about it!  Go check out the recipe-Ree Drummond is my blogger/cooking heroine, and I think everyone should know about her!

The recipe for Brazilian week was simple, but oh-so-good...Banana Frita com Canela e Acucar, also known as fried bananas with cinnamon sugar.  Simply peel your bananas (one per person is a good guess) and slice them in half lengthwise.  Fry them in 1-2T of butter (depending on how many you're making), browning first one side, then the other.  Once they are golden brown, sprinkle them with cinnamon sugar and serve them hot.  A side of vanilla ice cream isn't really authentic, but it's good!

Now that I'm getting back on track, next post will be the Oxy Clean and craft for January, then we'll be ready for this week's cooking challenge-a love inspired dish!

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