Instagram Book 2013

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Okay, so I'm an Instagram addict these days.  I'm sure this is a phase like so many others before it (looking at you, swing music and water guns!), but I love it.  What makes Instagram especially fun for me lately is that I can capture our everyday moments quickly and easily, and then I can import them into a photo book on Shutterfly.  (By the way, I'm not getting paid to say this, I'm just bananas for these photo books.)  I don't know of the other photo sites allow you to do this, but it's supes easy.  So start posting on Instagram more!  And then make a photo book!  And check this one out, too, because I think it's way fun.  

More later. Miss your faces.

Mother F's Angry Chicken

First things first: I know what I want Charlie and Matilda to call me.  Mother F.  I think it's beautiful and formal and just, well, perfect.  I tried to convince Matt's mom to go by Grandmother F, but she declined.  I guess she has no appreciation of true beauty.

Second things second: today has been an un-fun day with babies.  And I don't want to be too complainy or anything (though I did pat myself on the back like 60 times for finally getting that IUD--no more of these creatures shall be entering our house), but geesh.  Matt said it well when he told Charlie (who seems to be possessed by some demon or something lately), "I just love you so much, little boy.  You know how much I love you?  I love you so much that I still love you today, that's how much I love you."  Anyway, it seemed like a fitting day to introduce you to one of the few new recipes we've made since little Matilda entered our lives.

I can't remember when we first made this, but I do remember that it was an equally un-fun day with two babies and it was before my doctor had so generously prescribed me a healthy dose of anti-depressants.  By the end of the day, I was fried.  Exhausted and cranky, I was wishing for a month-long getaway with just me and my furry firstborn.  And I was so miserable that I didn't even want to eat*, but Matt was all, "What are we going to have for dinner?" and blah blah I have to eat something and here's this recipe for something that's delicious and also buttloads of work to make.  And I didn't even want to eat anyway!  And I got really pissed about basically everything in the whole world, and Matt was wanting us to cook dinner and I kind of hated him for it.**

So I went into the kitchen to try to escape from all of the other humans in my house and I felt like I had to make something, and I did things like slam the cutting board on the counter and close cabinet doors too loudly, just so that Matt could know how mad I was.  And in the end, I created this, mostly because it allowed me to get rid of some of my aggression and also because it was pretty simple.  And then Matt did most of the cooking part while I pouted on the couch with the dog, and when it was done he brought me a plate.  We started eating it and were both kind of surprised that something that was made with such contempt could be so tasty!  And Matt goes, "Wow, this angry chicken is really good!"

And angry chicken was born.  It's not fancy or extraordinary, but it's simple and good and relatively good for you.

Mother F's Angry Chicken

Note: Part of what makes the panko stick is squeezing the shit out of the chicken strips with handfuls of panko.  It's gross because raw chicken is gross, but it also feels kind of good and crunchy and you can pretend it's something you hate.  Maybe make this on a day you're frustrated or angry?

Ingredients
1-1 1/2 cups of panko
2-3 chicken breasts
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
olive oil

In a bowl, mix together the panko, salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper.  Preheat the oven to 450.  Cut the chicken into thin strips and toss in the panko.  Then squeeze the shit out of the chicken with the panko in your hand, giving each strip a relatively thick coat of panko.

In a large oven-safe skillet, heat up a few glugs of olive oil and cook the chicken in the pan.  Cook for 3-4 minutes on one side, enough to brown the panko, and then flip it, cook it for a couple minutes and then put the skillet in the oven until you feel like the chicken's done.  Probably 10 minutes or so, but this will vary depending on the thickness of your chicken.

Serve with some sauce.  Honey mustard, BBQ, ketchup, whatevs.


*Funny thing about me, actually.  When I'm unhappy, I do not eat or get terribly hungry.  I think that my current size is a testament to having had a happy 32 years.

**Also, I'm totally misrepresenting Matt here.  He was being patient and wonderful and everything, but I hated the whole world on this particular evening and he was the one I blamed for our current state of affairs.  Also, I'm the crazy one in this relationship.

Quiet

You know how it's good when nothing's going on because that means that nothing bad is going on, but then it's boring because it means you don't really have much to talk about?  Yeah, that's what it's like here right now.  Things are quiet and we're still figuring out how to be a family of 5.  Charlie's hilarious and a lunatic and the sweetest little buddy.  Matilda's sweet and cute and starting to do more stuff like grab and coo and smile all the time, so that's fun.  Mitch is still dream dog.  We made bacon fried rice for lunch yesterday, and it was amazeballs.  

I'm also way more interested in finding out if Kate and Will have had their baby yet than a person should be.  It's kind of embarrassing.

Oh, and I've solved the world's drought crisis.  Here's what I'll do.  I'll just move to parts of the world that are suffering from drought, and then I'll clean the shit out of my floors.  Within hours of my cleaning the floors, then, it will start to pour down rain.  Works every time.  Supes annoying.  

Okay, check out these little babes.  I'm a fan.

June

Well, well.  Would you look at what the cat dragged in?

 (True fact: when I was little we had a cat named Ninny who was a hard core hunter and also a hard core slut, apparently, because she had kittens like every month or something.  Ninny would go off and kill squirrels and other rodents and stuff and eat their heads off and then either leave them on the front porch as a gift to us or try to bring them inside to her babies.  It was gross and also awesome.  True fact: Ninny went to live at a farm with about 600 of her babies.)

June was a pretty busy month for our little family.  Here's what we did: I went back to work for five days, made some cakes for coworkers who were moving on, watched students graduate (Lots of teachers hate graduation--I am not one of those teachers.  I love it!  And it makes me cry every time.), read two whole books (that's basically a record for me, the worst reader of all time), cleaned the kitchen one bazillion times, did infinity loads of laundry, bitched about how disorganized our house was, packed like crazy for trip to Virginia, drove to Virginia with two babies and a dog (spoiler alert: it was NOT a fun drive), visited friends and family in the Commonwealth, attended AP training so that I can teach AP Language next year (!!!!), played poker and won some cash money (Matt, not me), came home, organized the bejeezus out of the house because I just couldn't take it anymore, ran a buttload of errands, and tried to settle back into our new normal of life with two babies.

And throughout the month, I was struggling with/trying not to admit the fact that I, again, have postpartum depression.  Boooooo.  That shit's no joke.  Mother effing PPD getting me down, man!  But I finally accepted it and addressed it and am definitely on the upswing.  More on that later.

Babies are supes cute, still.  Dog is dreamy.  Husband is patient and wonderful.  I've got one more month before I have to report back to school, and I'm determined to make it awesome.

What have you been up to?