Mommy was busy!

Today I had an amazing burst of energy! I was so excited. I give much thanks to my hubby for letting me sleep late. It's amazing what the right amount of sleep can do. It's been so long since I've had that much sleep...it was great. I got up around 11:45 (I know...late! But GREAT!), got dressed, got the kids dressed (yes, they were still in their jammies, too) and I got lunch going. I had lots of fresh veggies in the fridge because I wanted to finally use my Deceptively Delicious cookbook. Every recipe calls for some type of vegetable or fruit puree. Plus I wanted to do some homemade baby food for Isaac. I get the stuff out and get going. I was pumped. I had cauliflower, beets, butternut squash, and sweet potatoes. The cookbook is so great...it tells you how to prepare the vegetables for pureeing. I needed to roast some and I wanted to steam some, too. I have a steamer that I have never used (crazy!) that I got as a wedding gift. My thought was that it would take too long to steam stuff, so why do it? Well, I got it out today (I actually found the manual, too) and tried it. Ok....I LOVE IT! Even though it takes a while, you can get it going while you're doing other things and it doesn't seem long at all. I steamed cauliflower and enjoyed that, so I got some carrots out and steamed them for supper...and they were great! That was pretty exciting. So I got my veggies done and started pureeing in the blender. I bagged and labeled my purees in half cup servings and put some in ice cube trays for baby food. I'll pop those out later and put them in baggies. After getting all that done, I boiled some potatoes and cauliflower together with two garlic cloves. When the potatoes are soft, the cauliflower will be done, too. I drained them, put them in a bowl, added a little butter, salt, pepper, and milk and started mashing them with my hand mixer. They were great...Sophie loved them! We had that with the steamed carrots, some grilled pork chops that I picked up at the butcher down the street, and some Hawaiian rolls (they're awesome!). I also made a healthy chocolate cake from Deceptively Delicious. It has a special ingredient...beet puree! The cake isn't as sweet as your typical cakes, but it's tasty. I made it in a loaf pan. After it came out and cooled, I cut it in half, put some icing in the middle, then iced the outside. It's a cream cheese icing. It's good, but it's one of those that satifies your desire for chocolate, but you don't really want to eat a lot. That's good! Plus it's got the added bonus of a vegetable...you can't even taste it! After I did all that cooking, got the kitchen cleaned up, I sat down and did a mini scrapbook of our summer vacation. I can't believe all that I got done! I hope tomorrow is just as productive. As you look at the pictures, go from the bottom up. I first have the veggies out in the pan, then they're roasted, the cauliflower is steaming, all done with the pureeing and have them in the baggies/trays, and then the cake is at the top. Hope you have a blessed weekend!