Chicken Stew

Hello everyone! I apologize (again) for yet another long absence. I am now the proud mother of a two-and-a-half-month-old baby boy. I had all these grand visions of trying great recipes and blogging away after maternity leave started but before the baby came, but instead I mostly nested and tried to sleep. Since the baby came, life has been more hectic (but in the best possible way) so there hasn't been much time for blogging, hence the absence of recent posts.

Now that things are starting to settle into more of a routine (though I probably just jinxed myself), I'm hoping I will have more time to get back to blogging again. I want to try out more recipes involving short cooking times and/or my slow cooker, since most of the time whatever I am doing gets sidelined by a crying baby. It would be great to be able to just toss things into a pot and let it simmer away rather than making something that requires a lot of preparation time or having to stick close by the stove and hoping that the baby stays asleep until dinner is ready, because that doesn't work most of the time.

Blueberry Banana Muffins

It's always nice to have something that I can bring to work to have for breakfast, especially since I've always been a bit lazy about breakfast. If I have something quick and easy to eat though, I have less of an excuse to skip breakfast. Now that blueberries are in season, I thought it would be nice to make a tasty blueberry muffin, but I wanted to make sure that it would come out nice and moist. I hate dry, crumbly muffins!

A Blog Comment PSA

I love receiving comments, and I think most (if not all) bloggers would agree. However, Blogger has a feature that just drives me absolutely bonkers and makes me want to leave the page before trying to comment, and that is the word verification feature.

If you've visited your fair share of Blogger blogs, you've probably come across this feature. It's the terribly annoying thing that makes you type out two (usually fake) words before you can post your comment. It sounds simple enough, but they've managed to make this into the most aggravating exercise possible! Usually the word is a completely illegible squiggle. Plus, now they make you type in two words. At least now one of the two words is an image so it's usually more or less legible, but still. What a pain.

Greek Chicken Wraps

Our weekends have been really hectic lately. We have been preparing for the baby, who is due in about a month and a half, so our weekends have been taken up with things like prenatal class and shopping for baby stuff. As fun as it has been, it's also been pretty tiring, so cooking has fallen by the wayside a bit. You can probably tell from the decline in recipes that I've posted lately!

This past weekend, we still had some errands to run, but it wasn't nearly as busy. It was nice to have some downtime, which also meant that we were able to cook a delicious dinner instead of just popping a frozen pizza in the oven or boiling pasta to have with some simple sauce.

Tomato and Herb Quinoa Salad

I'm a big fan of quinoa. It's a grain that is apparently quite high in protein. I find it similar to couscous. It's great to make as a side because it's quick to prepare and is tasty served hot like rice, or cold like pasta salad. I recently made a simple version with cherry tomatoes, herbs and garlic. It was fresh and delicious - perfect for summertime!