v.2

Monday I finally took the time to make homemade pizza dough! I bought fresh mozzarella from the bakery and that is a very important ingredient for homemade pizza. I got the recipe from the Reader’s Digest Homemade book. It wasn’t very hard at all but with a slight Wii injury from playing yesterday, my right hand wasn’t the strongest for kneading. Overall the dough tasted ok. It probably would have tasted better if I put more salt but with my blood pressure, I always put a little less salt than recipes call for. Most of the time, it doesn’t make a difference but I guess since dough only has about 5 ingredients, it can make a difference. For the sauce, I used Trader Joe’s no salt added marinara sauce (which I love! better stock up!) and toppings were whatever we had left in the frig. this included meatballs, mushrooms, goat cheese, red onion and black olives. I had trouble rolling it into a perfect circle but I guess that takes practice. I decided to make personal sized pizzas so it would be easier for the toppings. Sienna seemed to enjoy it! I had extra dough after making 3 mini pizzas so made a little calzone too!

The dough

Rolling the dough

Circularly challenged pizza and a calzone

Ready for the oven!

Looks edible!

What is this Father? (photo by Yves)

I think Sienna likes it! (photos by Yves)

Comments(1)

Pete came over on Sunday to help us do a test run of the first ghetto BBQ pool party sans pool. We weren’t sure how well it would be since there isn’t any grass (hence the ‘ghetto’ term) but we got a nice shade umbrella and 2 fold up chairs with canopies. It’s been awhile since we had a BBQ but I think it turned out well! We kept it simple and just grilled hamburgers and I made potato salad and blueberry crumble! The potato salad required bacon and apples so I was a little leary of that combo but it was delicious! The blueberry crumble was actually a blackberry crumble recipe from Everyday Food but I didn’t have blackberries. It was so good I made it again later that week.

Waiting for Pete!

Checking out our canopy chair.

The Master at work.

The “enough with the pictures and gimme more food” face!

Pete also brought his Wii with him.

I would say the first ghetto BBQ of the summer was a success and it was a great day!

Comments(1)

Saturday we got Banh Mi sandwiches and summer rolls and had a picnic at Sunset Park. We haven’t done that with Sienna since last July, when she was just a little baby! 🙂 Hasn’t she changed?!

She will always try whatever you give her to eat. Even if she spits it out afterwards, she will still take it the next time. After the 3rd spit out of the summer roll, we figured she didn’t care much for it or at least for the texture of the rice paper.

There was no spitting out of Yves’ Banh Mi sandwich! He always gets the original and I always get the grilled chicken. Sienna really liked the original although she didn’t turn down my sandwich either!

Sienna smudging the camera lens.

It was a little chillier than expected and she managed to keep this hat on for just a little bit!

A little stroll with daddy!

Comments(0)

Saturday my youngest cousin, Peter, got married and I went to the banquet, held at East in Flushing. I was procrastinating writing about it because I did not really want to go. I’m not close with my family at all and I was predicting an evening of awkwardness and idle chit chat. Which was exactly how it turned out. But I thought showing up was the only proper thing to do (Yves stayed home with Sienna, I went with my parents) and figured I had the food to look forward to. I love banquet food. But the food turned out to be disappointing! Most of the dishes were overcooked, the fish being the worst of it. It started out promising with the roast pig platter. Crispy pig skin and baby octopus that was not chewy at all. Then my all time favorite, shrimp with walnuts and broccoli that comes in a creamy mayonnaise sauce. It wasn’t terrible but the shrimp was a little overcooked. And then it went downhill from there. The upside of the evening was the 2 babies sitting at the 2 adjoining tables to us. They were born right around the same time as Sienna. And although it made me miss my little one, it was fun playing peek-a-boo with them.

Roast Pig platter

Shrimp with walnuts and broccoli (walnuts not shown)

Pineapple Filet Mignon (was good actually)

Shark Fin soup (banquet tradition)

Abalone with bok choy

Lobster

Fish

Fried chicken with shrimp chips

Noodles

Fried Rice

Dessert (startiing from lower right-fresh fruit, cookies, sweet red bean soup and the wedding cake)

Comments(0)

Saturday we took my parents out for dim sum for Mother’s Day. Sunday is normally a busy dim sum day so I can imagine how crazy it would be for Mother’s Day. We tried a new place in Brooklyn, which I failed to notice the name. It’s on 65th Street and 8th Avenue. Their dim sum wasn’t bad, wasn’t fantastic, but wasn’t bad. They had some dishes I never saw before, which I appreciate. And Sienna tried everything we gave her!

The carb lover in me enjoyed these noodles. I don’t recall seeing this before at other places.


All finished! Sienna claps at the end of the meal and really seemed to like the steamed roast pork bun!

Then on Sunday for Mother’s Day, we decided to stay in the neighborhood since I had a hankering for Mexican food. We went to La Villita for lunch, a truly authentic Mexican place with delicious food!

Sienna eating some chips.

She really loved the fried plantains!

I also bought myself a resin necklace from stoopidgerl on Etsy. I’ve been admiring her stuff for awhile and when I saw this latest necklace, I had to get it! I hope to one day make some resin stuff of the same quality as hers!

Comments(3)

I think we take Sienna out to eat a good amount of time. Besides a little bit of food throwing, she is really well behaved. She’ll be a foodie before we know it! Last Saturday we went to our old neighborhood, Bay Ridge, and went to have Indian food at India Passage for lunch. The prices stung a little bit knowing how cheap we can get Indian food in the East Village. But I can just imagine Sienna in one of those restaurants. She’ll have pulled off all the lights in less than 5 minutes! I can’t even imagine fitting a hi-chair in one of those cramped restaurants. Anyway, Yves got chicken tikka masala and I got chicken tikka saag. She seems to really like both of them!

Having a bit of my saag.

Yeah so she still talks with her mouth full. LOL

Here we are sharing mango ice cream that they gave us after lunch.

Mango Ice Cream from Lisa on Vimeo.

Then last night we ordered Thai food for dinner and she seemed to really like that too! That’s when I thought she is truly an international baby! My parents made fried rice for lunch and last week she had mediterranean with the Gunns and brick oven pizza another day! So far there is nothing she won’t try. Just like her mom!

Having some of her dad’s Pad Thai

Comments(0)

Last Wednesday me and Sienna went over to Trader Joe’s to do some shopping. Instead of rushing home for lunch, I asked my friend Tammy for some good dining options for me and Sienna. She gave me an awesome brick oven pizza place and an awesome old fashioned ice cream parlor all on the same block as Joe’s! Who would have known? I was torn between which place to go but the ice cream parlor made that decision for me by not being open! They were so super nice at the pizza place! It was my first time eating out with Sienna in a hi-chair. We would usually stop off at more casual places for lunch and she would stay in her stroller. It wasn’t bad and she was so good when we went to the bathroom together! I forgot to take a picture of the pizza but here is Sienna enjoying a snack while we wait (which wasn’t much of a wait since it came out super fast!)

And since the ice cream parlor was just a few blocks away, we decided to check on it. It was open! Yay! I shared a banana ice cream cone with her. The ice cream was delicious and home made! YUM! This may have to be a regular stop after going to Joe’s! (please leave a comment or e-mail me for password)

Banana Ice Cream from Lisa on Vimeo.
Her very first taste of this ice cream yielded a face 5x as funny as the one in this video.

Comments(1)

Look at that tongue! That’s my child alright! Showing tongue for the camera just like her mom. HAHA. Here she is drinking water from my glass for the first time. A bit messy but she did pretty well. Here is a video (leave a comment or e-mail me for the password)

Drinks from glass from Lisa on Vimeo.

For the past week or two, she has been crying in the middle of the night. Most of the time it won’t last but a few minutes but sometimes it will go on for a bit where she would cry, then stop, then cry again within the space of an hour. Last Saturday night we actually got up and tried to soothe her. We’ve only got up once before in the week she’s been doing this, most of the time we wait it out and hope she goes back to sleep. She would basically stop crying once you pick her up but start up again when you try to put her down. I tried the rubbing her back while she was in her bed with the lights out. That seemed to work for maybe half an hour. Then I gave her teething drops. Half an hour or an hour down. Then I fed her a bottle. An hour down. Then I gave her tylenol. Good for the rest of the night. Needless to say, I was so tired on Sunday. I really wish I was one of those people that can function on just a few hours sleep.

I’m not sure if this is the 55 week regression but we’ll just have to wait it out and hope it doesn’t continue too long. It would be so much more bearable if we just knew why she was doing this. Such a mystery!

Comments(0)

Sunday we met up with Tommy and Maureen for lunch at First Oasis. I am ashamed to say that we haven’t seen them since the baby shower last year!! I’m sure we won’t let another year pass before getting together again. I have been friends with Tommy for quite a long time and he went to our wedding in Vegas in 2001. And speaking of wedding, they got engaged in December 2007! Yay!!

Well, sorry there aren’t any pictures of the food. I tend to forget when Sienna is around but I managed to get the waiter, Rami, to take our picture after the meal. Sienna liked Rami. Sienna tends to be leary of waitstaff, more specifically female waitstaff and then they become scared of getting too close to her. Well, I think Rami was the first male waiter we had. Sienna kept looking at him and waving at him and smiling at him. It was cute. For now. 🙂 Rami was very nice too. We started off with the vegetarian combination on the advice of Rami. It was good! Stuffed grape leaves, hummus, babaganuj, falafel and salad. I know Tommy is not a fan of non-meat but Rami was so nice, I wanted to take him up on his advice. I got the mousakka, Yves got the chicken kafta kebab and Tommy and Maureen got the Roasted Spring Chicken. It seems like everyone enjoyed their food and Sienna tried some rice, hummus, falafel and pickled radish (which she seemed to like) and gasp tomato (which she also seemed to like!) and she was picking from my plate.

And they were so super sweet to give Sienna a birthday present! Lots of cute clothes from The Children’s Place!

Here’s a video of Sienna and Yves walking from the car on the way to meeting Tommy and Maureen for lunch. If you need the password, please leave a comment or e-mail me and I will send it to you!

Street Walk with Dad from Lisa on Vimeo.

Comments(0)

I told Yves I predicted that Sienna will walk on April 12 solely because when people ask I can simply answer, 1 month after her birthday. And technically, she might have actually took a few steps on her own during that week, it was really Saturday the 12th that she took quite a few steps on her own! And I got it on video the Monday after. (Please leave a comment if you don’t have the password)

Walking Alone! from Lisa on Vimeo.

This past Saturday, we met up with Peter, Nate and Mari at Raymund’s in Williamsburg for pierogies. YUM! Here’s a picture of her eating her first pierogie. I think she liked it! And of course she prefers the potato and cheese one over the meat one.

And while we were leaving, we grabbed the bread that came with Mari’s borscht and gave Sienna a piece, which she promptly chomped on and ate the whole thing. I then decided to take all the bread. LOL. I was surprised she ate it because it was just plain bread. Hmmm, good to know!

And more walking! And no, the similiar outfits between Yves and Sienna were not planned!

After lunch we walked around a little bit since it was so absolutely beautiful outside! We walked over to Peter Pan donuts so Pete can finally compare those donuts with the ones in our ‘hood. He agrees with Yves in that the one in our hood is better.

Comments(2)