A New Addition to Our Family

Meet the kitten. Brent's new favorite baby.

He's been hinting of his desire for his very own kitten for a while now, ever since he determined that my cat, P-Dub, will simply never have the kind of relationship with him that P-Dub has with me. Unless I'm not home, Brent's will never be P-Dub's first choice of lap to sit on, and even when I'm away it's iffy. P-Dub will never act happy when Brent picks him up and strokes him (even though his purring gives him away).

Brent wants a kitten, a GIRL kitten, that will fall in love with him and choose him FIRST as a snuggly bed. So I got one for him, for Christmas.

I know it's early for Christmas presents, even early Christmas presents, but the first day I did research on available kittens I found one that I thought might just be perfect. A visit to meet her the next day confirmed my suspicion, so I snatched her up as quickly as I could. The Burbank Animal Shelter and it's pet adoption program made everything so easy (and extremely easy on the wallet)!

Coming home from work last night to a new baby kitten was a bit of a surprise for Brent. Although he knew that I was getting him a kitten for Christmas, I had led him to believe that I was going to be a stickler to the old-fashioned notion of giving Christmas presents to their receivers on Christmas DAY (I usually am). But when God made this kitten available to me so early, I just couldn't wait. So after I picked her up from the animal shelter I took her home and sat with her in the bathroom until Brent got home about an hour and a half later.

The doll baby spent about ten minutes exploring every nook and cranny of our little bathroom before she climbed up onto my lap and got all cozy to fall asleep. Eventually I had to get up to prepare for Brent's arrival, and when I was finished I discovered P-Dub and the kitten having a very awkward moment of introduction from opposite sides of the bathroom door.

Then Brent came home.

Brent fell in love with her right away, and over the course of the evening melted away into nothingness. We spent the remainder of the evening crooning over our new baby girl and loving her easy going nature and her uninhibited habit of crawling into comfy looking and available laps.

P-Dub and the kitten did eventually meet face to face. We let P-Dub into the bathroom while the kitten was curled contentedly on Brent's lap. P-Dub charged right past Brent and the baby and spent about ten minutes "looking" for the kitten, even though we all knew HE knew exactly where she was. He played dumb, though, searching empty corners, mirrors and perfume bottles for her, and then finally ended up again next to Brent and the kitten. (Brent and I think he didn't WANT to find the kitten...he was SO in total denial.) When P-Dub finally allowed himself to lock eyes on our girlie, you could see the severe hatred in his eyes. He hissed gallons of tuna breath with all of the might of his body toward her, leaving Brent quite faint and kitty extremely dazed and confused. (Our kitty has spent all of her young life in the home of a nice woman who had two full-grown cats, a medium-sized dog and another foster kitten her age...all animals that loved our girl to pieces and probably never hissed at her once.) Not quite the introduction I was hoping for.

After that introduction, and a whack to the face from a livid P-Dub that sent her flying, our kitty didn't want to be anywhere in our house except for on one of our bodies or hidden away in some dark alcove. At least she feels safe in our arms. :) Nothing worse than a cat who stays away from people at all costs.

This is the most CUDDLY girl you have ever seen. She has a playful side, I know because it was the only side I saw of her the day that I visited her in her foster parent's home. But I think because of the trauma of yesterday, all she wants to do is stay safe and close to one of our warm bodies. As I write, she lies inside my zip-up sweatshirt in a deep sleep, making suckling noises; she's pooped after having a playful session of poking her head out of my sweatshirt at my neck and trying with all her might to snatch the string of my hoodie. Aw. :)

Can't wait for my love to get home from work tonight so that we can get back to enjoying her TOGETHER.

And in case you were wondering, a name is in the works.

I haven't been blogging about food lately.

You can blame Starbucks for that. Since I've been working I just haven't been cooking as much, and when I do get the chance to make a home cooked meal for Brent, we're not always eager to try a new recipe. I have been doing some experimenting, though, so here are some recipes that we've tried in the last several months.

Grilled Chicken with Lemon Basil Pasta

This is a Pioneer Woman recipe. Looks delicious, huh? It could have been extremely delicious, had my husband not bought me a juicer only a couple of days before I made this. The recipe calls for three whole lemons, juiced, and because of the novelty of my new toy I went a little juicer-happy and sent three whole lemons, rind, peel and all, through the juicing machine. The result was, I think, not what our dear friend Pioneer Woman had in mind when she asked for "3 whole lemons, juiced." I may as well have added a quarter cup of dishwashing detergent to my pasta sauce...it wasn't pleasant.

The chicken was good though!

So good in fact, that when Brent and I had managed as much of the sour pasta down our throats as we could, I dug around through the rest and salvaged the chicken to use in a later meal.

We will definitely be trying this dish again, with "3 whole lemons, juiced" with our hands...throwing away the rind, peel and seeds.

Pasta with Pancetta and Leeks

This was an extremely easy meal to prepare. It was satisfying but not too rich, and had that unique flavor of leeks sauteed in butter. I really like leeks. Unfortunately my Brent does not. So although I would recommend this recipe to those who like leeks, I will not be making this again.

Hmmm...except maybe I should try it with green onion. Oh my. Yes. That would be tasty.

Baked Creamy Chicken Taquitos with Cilantro-Lime Dressing

This is a recipe that my sis introduced to me when I was up helping her out earlier this Fall. She and Matt had already tried it and knew it was good, so she requested that I make it while I was up there. I did, fell in love, and made it for Brent soon after I returned home. He fell in love at first morsel as I did.

I love this recipe because not only is it incredibly easy (ESPECIALLY if you use a rotisserie chicken), but it also accommodates various food intolerance diets. It is, of course, gluten free, as the tortillas are made out of corn. The taquitos are also delicious when you omit the pepperjack and the cream cheese...I know, I made them for my brother who avoids dairy like the plague and he ate 12 in one sitting, plus or minus a couple.

The cilantro lime dressing is tricky if you're dairy free...I almost got away with dairy-less products until I double checked the ingredients list of the Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing packet and saw that it has buttermilk derivatives or something like that. My brother ended up eating the taquitos dry, dipping them in *gulp* Italian dressing when he wanted to (that sounds disgusting), guacamole or pico de gallo. And he loved 'em that way.

Avacado Tomato Salad

This is a recipe my grandparents stumbled upon in their town's newspaper. They tried it and instantly became addicted, making it two or three times a week. Eventually they decided to share their treasure with friends and family and emailed the recipe to us. I was wary of it at first because one of the main ingredients is cottage cheese...I'm pretty hit or miss with cottage cheese and I know plenty of people who gag at the thought of it.

But my intrigue won over my fright and we tried it. I LOVE it, I could eat it every day for the rest of my life and grow deeper every moment in my affections for it. Ok, so that's an overstatement. A huge one. But the point is, this is WAY better than you think it's going to be and is actually quite delicious! I'm serving it up again tonight!

Brent is one of those people who is not merely "hit or miss" with cottage cheese, he just plain doesn't like it. So, his judgement on whether or not he likes the salad is an undecided one...but it's not NO.

Try it..you never know. This may be your new afternoon snack.

The recipe: 4 large ripe avocados, cut into 1-inch cubes ,4 large tomatoes, cut into 1-inch pieces, 1-cup cottage cheese, 2-3 teaspoons of garlic salt. Combine all the ingredients, serve after refrigerating one hour.

Since you asked...

...here are the duds.

These are duds because the frosting isn't smooth enough, there's a smudge on the bat, and the spider web is discolored in some places. But this is basically what the cookies looked like.

Who Knew?

Minnie Mouse works at Starbucks!!!

At least she did last night.

That's right. I closed at Starbucks last night and all three of us closers wore costumes. Minnie Mouse, a basketball player and Mother Nature were all present.

By the way, Halloween was THE SLOWEST night at Starbucks I have ever seen. We went from 8:30 to 9 without a single customer in the store. I never want to work a Halloween again.

I really enjoyed playing my part. Can you tell?

Oh, and up until I left to go to work, Brent and I spent yesterday afternoon carving pumpkins. Brent's is the cannibalistic pumpkin, mine is the redneck one.

I heard a funny joke once: "You know you're redneck when your jack-o-lantern has more teeth than your wife does."

Happy (Belated) Halloween.