at home with ann

I make these recipes for Colin, but grown up people might like them too! Colin was never big into baby food purees.  I fed him one jar of food back when he first started eating solids, mostly so that I could have the cute mini jar to use for lotion.  I think those "complete meals in a jar" are kind of creepy.  Chicken dinner puree?  No, thanks.  For the most part he has eaten fruits and vegetables, either raw, steamed, roasted or sauteed.  A few things have been big hits and I use them as staples: broccoli and roasted sweet potatoes.  He's big in picking things up himself.  We can get into ruts, however, one of which resulted in his eating an entire roasted butternut squash over a two week period. He likes to help in the kitchen, which means he wants to see everything that's going on and touch it.  Cooking with one hand while holding him with the other can be a bit of a challenge.  Sometimes I can convince him that the view from his c...

This was one of the dishes from Colin's First Birthday Party , and it was delicious!  Perfect for entertaining, it's best if you make it the night before, and then pop it in the oven in the morning.  I did a trial run a few weeks ago (always a good idea when testing a new recipe for a party), and cut the bread into all these little cute triangles and stood them up in the dish.  It was kind of a disaster, because not enough bread was down in the bottom to soak up the custard and the tops of the toast were all dried and overly crispy.  Lesson learned, though, and this batch was great.  Cinnamon French Toast Casserole inspired by Smitten Kitchen 1 loaf of cinnamon swirl bread butter 6 large eggs 3 cups milk 1/4 teaspoon salt 2 teaspoons vanilla extract Generously butter a 9x13 baking dish. Cut the slices of cinnamon bread in half lengthwise and arrange in two layers in the dish.  I slightly overlapped each piece so I used 6 full slices (12 halves)...

This was, by far, the best year of my life.  Every single day I woke up (sometimes quite early) to a smiling face, and felt my heart get a little fuller.  I feel truly blessed and lucky to spend all my time with my amazing baby.  To celebrate Colin's first birthday, we had a little family party.  After considering several options, I decided to go with a "C" themed birthday brunch.  Thanks to the generosity of our family, we are now well-stocked with new toys! The menu (I will admit a few of these were a bit of a stretch...): C innamon French Toast C asserole C rustless Spinach and C heddar Quiche C ream C heese, Bagels and Smoked Salmon C arved Ham and Rolls C hicken Salad Wraps C ut Fruit Salad C heese and C rackers C ider C hampagne and Orange Juice or C ranberry Juice C arrot C ake C upcakes with C ream C heese Frosting I'll be sharing the recipes for the Cinnamon French Toast Casserole and Carrot Cake Cupcakes soon, bit in the meantime, ...