My favorite dish

I'm going to wax poetical about one of my favorite dishes on earth.

Risotto.

If you're not familiar, risotto is a simple rice dish of Italian origin. At the heart of the recipe, all you really need is some medium grain rice, a bit of olive oil or butter, broth (water is ok too), Parmesan and a pan and spoon. What emerges after about 20 minutes of adding liquid, stirring, adding more liquid, etc. is a creamy, delicious, inexpensive (1 cup rice produces enough for 4) and filling dish. The stirring releases the starch from the rice, creating a saucy consistency.

There are endless variations and techniques. One of our favorites is made with sun-dried tomatoes. Another favorite is made with sausage.

The texture is probably the hardest thing to figure out, especially if you've never had it before. You want it somewhere between a liquid and a solid. I prefer mine on the more liquid side, with just a bit of the starchy, golden liquid to pool around the edges. Soft enough that you have to eat it with a spoon. Others like theirs more on the dry side... its just something you need to figure out for yourself with experience.

To me, risotto is the ultimate comfort food. Replacing things like mashed potatoes or grilled cheese sandwiches. I can't think of anything I'd rather eat.

Leftover risotto is a pleasure in itself if you make it into arancini, a popular street food in Italy. Leftover risotto is rolled into a ball (ranging in size from an orange to a walnut) and something special is tucked inside. Mozzarella cheese, a meat filling, sometimes just a bit of tomato sauce. Then the ball of rice is rolled in flour or breadcrumbs and fried. The outside is crispy and golden, the inside is hot and molten, containing just a little of that filling to add to the enjoyment. Truly delicious!

Anyway, I'm not sure why I had the urge to share this love of mine except that so few people make risotto and are missing out :) I also haven't blogged about food in awhile and after making risotto last night, I was inspired.

Here are my very few pics from Christmas. I think there might be some on the other camera... I'll check that one later.

Waiting for everyone to arrive.



















You can still see how sleepy Ethan was!



















Just for fun, our Toby-dog














Gwen trying, unsuccessfully, to hop on her uninflated ball



















I put in this poor picture of myself only because it shows the doll house. This picture doesn't include the attic and roof. Its huge.














Someone inflated the ball for Gwen and she was able to hop correctly :)

Sooooooo tired.

Mom and Jenni came by today and helped us. Jenni watched the kids, Jason (and I in parts) painted the rest of Gwen's room, while Mom and I tackled the sewing room. If anyone needs organizational help, hire my mother. She's fast and good and not sentimental. I didn't think we'd finish the room today, but we not only finished it, but took down all the furniture, moved in the stuff that needed to go in the closet, vacuumed, taped, and painted. Its about 1/3 done. Gwen's room is entirely done. Now I just have to finish painting Ethan's room, wait for their light blocking curtains to arrive, install, and then this move will be done!

Every muscle in my body aches and creaks at present. Bed is sounding mighty nice... but still an hour to go.

Thanks Mom and Jen, this would have taken us 100x longer without you!

I forgot to mention the other stuff about the ultrasound.

Baby girl was measuring 19 weeks, 1 day. As you can see from my ticker over there, I'm just over 18 weeks. The discrepancy is because no one can agree on my due date. The midwives are using the latest possible date, but the radiology department is using the one they established based on the ultrasound.There is about a week difference between the two. They also estimated her size at 9 oz.

It was interesting because my placenta is anterior (meaning on my stomach side instead of the back side) and you could see it really well on the ultrasound pics. Its big! It made it hard for the ultrasound tech to get good pictures because baby tends to smoosh against it.

Jason wanted me to blog about something I did today. While the kids were napping I ran some errands. During one of those errands, I managed to somehow slam my leg in the door and get a nasty scrape which will likely bruise badly. Jason thinks this is bizarre and kinda funny. I don't think its funny at all, but I agree with the bizarreness of it as the car door isn't set up for easy leg entrapment. Just another incident to add to the list of strange things Kristi is doing while pregnant :)

We had our ultrasound today and did decide to find out the gender.

Ethan and Gwen will be getting a.... little sister!

Ethan isn't happy about it. In fact, when the tech told us he started crying and said he wanted a boy. We had a talk about how God decided to give us a girl this time around and maybe if we had another baby it would be a boy. This seems to have helped.

If I was a good blogger, there would be pictures from Christmas up. But I'm a very bad blogger and am lazy.

You know what is really bothering me lately? That I just can't pick a home improvement project and start it and finish it to completion by myself in a reasonable time frame. I have to rely on someone to come and watch the kids, or wait until they nap. Napping isn't that great either... it only gives me a few hours and I can't just run to the store and get what I need and come back. I get so frustrated by that, I can't even tell you. I hate starting to paint and then having to stop an hour later, then repeat the next day. I'd rather have it all done in a 4 hour stretch.

Anyway, its making me feel really irate.

This is just a quick post... one with pics will be coming later.

We had a wonderful (if exhausting) holiday. On Sunday, Grandpa Les and Grandma Karen stopped by for a visit. The kids opened their gifts and loved them! Unfortunately, we didn't get to visit long before they had to leave, but we so appreciated them coming way up to our neck of the woods for a visit.

Monday we went over to my Mom's around 12, put the kids down for nap and visited until later in the day when (great) Grandma Betty and my cousins Shawn and Charlie showed up. I'd not seen any of them in AGES. Its strange to see my cousins grown up. I suppose because I still see myself as a kid its a shocker to see that my dear ones are adults now. Weird :) We had a good dinner, a good visit, and a good time. We left around 7pm so that we could get home and do Santa stuff before bed.

There was a shadow cast over our night though. Mom's neighbor called with some sad news. Phil, the guy who hosts the enormous 4th of July parties we go to almost every year and lives just up the driveway from my parents, and who has helped many in our family with free roofing and other assistance, had died suddenly of a heart attack. It was completely unexpected. He was a close friend of my Dad's and a kind and generous man. To recount all he'd done for his friends and family and neighbors and family of his neighbors would take more room than I have here. I didn't know him well, but was greatly saddened at his passing.

The kids left out cookies, a mandarin orange and some chocolate milk, along with a note. We got in our jammies and read "The Night Before Christmas", twice (thanks for that book Grammy!).

In the morning, Santa left crumbs, an orange peel and an empty glass. He wrote a little note back thanking them for the cookies and milk and said that Rudolph really loved the orange. The kids thought that was pretty awesome.

We were up early for Christmas and the kids loved the doll house! Its so much bigger now that its downstairs. Gwen can't even reach the attic! We opened our stockings... candy, books, and popcorn for the kids, and the same for Daddy and I, except Santa snuck an extra present in mine. A Canon PowerShot camera! Its the size of a credit card and only about 1 1/2 inches thick. I LOVE it and it was a total surprise.

Ethan got a Matchbox car racing track and some Geo-Track parts. Gwen got a teddy bear that she can color on and a V-Tech thingy that does colors, shapes and foods. Its shaped like a refrigerator and, as you can imagine, a favorite in this house already :)

I got Jason a really cool toy he's wanted for a long time. A Lego Mindstorm. Its basically an advanced Lego set for building robots. It comes with a computer program and everything. He's already built two robots and is anxious to try more. I also got him a Rubix cube (inside joke!).

He got me the camera, and a Thermapen, which I've been wanting for an age.

At around 10am, the family started arriving. Becki, Jenni, Mom, Dad, Michael, his girlfriend Melissa, and Grandma Betty. The kids were anxious to do presents, so we started right away. The kids got hop balls, really nice pajamas, Marble Run, personalized tote bags and each got a plush horse (Gwennie named hers Cream and Ethan named his Cocoa), and I feel like there is more but I'm forgetting something :)

Becki drew my name this year and went our spending limit, I'm sure. She got me a really nice study Bible and "Rhett Butler's People". Both things I'd wanted badly! My Dad gave Jason a new computer game and then played it most the day himself :) I don't have the time or memory to recount what everyone got, but there were two huge black bags of garbage when we were done.

Michelle and Grammy both called and it was nice to hear from them. Dinner went well and was delicious... Rib Roast with red Wine, roasted garlic and thyme sauce, mashed potatoes, corn and rolls. Becki made a very rich and delicious brownie desert. Everyone left around 5, thoroughly stuffed and tired. Kids went down at 7 and me not long after. What a day!

Whew, grocery shopping is exhausting. Ok, maybe just grocery shopping two days before Christmas is exhausting.

I stopped at Safeway to pick up the rib roast for Christmas dinner. They had hardly any out and the ones they did have were far too small for what I needed. There was a group of maybe 5-7 people milling about the roast area picking over what they had and waiting for more to come out. As I was walking towards the butcher to ask if I could get a larger peice, the door swings open and out comes a guy pushing a rack stacked with rib roasts. I stop, conveniently, right in front of him so he can't move and ask, "Can I please grab one right off your rack? Those people over there are vultures and I need a big roast!". He told me I could, then said that they couldn't put these roasts out fast enough... Rather pleased with myself for grabbing the biggest one before anyone else, I sauntered over to the veggies. I returned past the beef area a few minutes later to find all the roasts gone again. That guy was not kidding!

After getting out of the store (and it was more crowded than I've ever seen any grocery store), I couldn't find the car. It was a little embarrassing. I had parked on the espresso side of the store, but when I came out I thought I'd parked on the produce side. So I splosh through the puddles and drenching rain to the other end of the parking lot... and of course don't find my car. I think, "Shoot, I'm such a fool, I must have parked on the other side" so I splash back to the espresso side, but still can't find the car. Now starting to worry that if I call Jason I'll be admitted to a hospital for mental issues and that people might be wondering why a pregnant lady is absently wandering the parking lot in the middle of a rainstorm, I panic. Out loud I say to myself, "Why can I NOT find the Explorer?". Well, saying it out loud must have given my brain a little jump start and I realized that I'd been looking for a car I don't own. I don't drive an Explorer, and haven't since September. Maybe I do need to be admitted for mental instability.

Don't worry, I did find the car (amazing how simple it is when you look for a car you drove in) and get home without further issue.

Here is the video from Ethan's Christmas program on Thursday. This version would be ideal for those who have a high speed connection. Jason is making one for dial-up that I'll upload later. Its about 5 minutes long. Ethan is the one on the far left, in the stripes.