Shaved Brussels Sprout Salad

My friend Casey brought this salad over for dinner recently and I had to have the recipe. This type of salad is my absolute favorite and I was thrilled to find an easy enough copycat recipe that is just as good as the restaurant versions I crave. She found it on the Pinch of Yum blog and shared it with me, so I must share it with you.

We added it to dinner as a side but it can easily be a full meal for either dinner or lunch.

Ingredients:
Yields 4 servings for a side

For Salad:

• 20-25 brussels sprouts (makes about 3 cups shredded)
• 3 slices of bacon
• 1/2 cup pomegranate arils
• 1/4 cup slivered almonds
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano

For Dressing:

• 1 shallot, chopped
• Juice of 1 orange
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 tbsp. honey (I added an additional tbsp to thicken)
• 2 tbsp. Greek yogurt
• 1 tbsp. Dijon mustard (I added this ingredient because after tasting it the first time without, I felt it needed something. This gave it another savory flavor and another dimension.)
• 1/3 cup olive oil

Start by frying the bacon over low heat until crispy. Remove and set aside to dry on paper towels. Crumble and set aside.

The shredding of the brussels sprouts is probably the most time consuming part of this, but using a box cheese greater makes it go by quickly. I always chop off the end of the sprout, then peel back the top layer leaves that are often discolored. Using the slicing blade on the cheese grater (located on the side), shred the sprout. You can gently massage them to help separate the sprouts from one another and fluff a bit.

Toss the shaved sprouts, bacon crumbles, pomegranate arils, almonds and the grated cheese together.

Place all the dressing ingredients in the food processor and pulse until creamy. This made a lot of dressing, I used about 1/4 cup of it and kept the rest for salad use later this week. 

Toss the salad with dressing and serve.

For Better or For Worse

December 8, 2012 

I, Katie, take you Max.

To be my lawfully, wedded husband.

To have and to hold, from this day forward.

For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer,

in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, 'till death do us part.

This is to be my solemn vow.

Three years ago, I said these words with a shaky voice and tear-filled eyes. Looking at him, I pictured our life together. Buying our first house, traveling the world, having babies, raising a family, retiring, growing old together and all the wonderful moments in between. 

You don't stand there picturing the pain and heartache that life can bring.

When I stood at that alter as his bride, I never thought that the for worse part of our vows would be put to the test so early into our forever after. I didn't envision that we'd gather at the same church, just two and a half years later, with at least a third of that sanctuary who watched as we exchanged our wedding vows now joining to mourn with us after the death of our first baby. Music speaks to me and for our wedding ceremony, we used a family favorite hymn Be Thou My Vision during the seating of the families. That hymn was chosen because of the way our parents and grandparents shaped us to be who we have become, they had been our vision when we couldn't always see. It was the first song played in the wedding ceremony procession and chosen as the first song we sung at Hudson's funeral.

While I couldn't ever imagine this type of pain, I did anticipate sorrow at some point because that is life. I will tell you that everything does not happen for a reason until I am blue in the face, but I do believe that every good and perfect thing comes from Him (James 1:17) and my husband is at the very top of that list. Therefore, I knew that under any circumstance, this is the man chosen for me to go through life with. I've spent some time this week looking at our wedding pictures. I see the look of sheer joy and happiness. I see the love between us, the love that is somehow even stronger in my heart today than it was three years ago. It is that love that sustains us, an unconditional love to carry us through both the for better and the for worse. 

 

Last year we clinked glasses of ice water as we toasted to our 8 week sonogram and two years of wedded bliss, anticipating the joy of starting our family with our first little one on the way. Our third year of marriage did not turn out the way we had planned for it to, a year later, it is still just the two of us with a lot of heartache and sorrow. However, the love has grown exponentially. This year I toast my husband, a man who has the integrity and fortitude of my father, as well as the compassion and resilience of my grandfather. I am thankful to have him as my partner and best friend, that this is the man I get to celebrate the for better with and battle the for worse alongside of. This year as we celebrate, we are both a little broken, but together we are whole. He has carried me through the last six months during times I could not stand. Then there are times I've stood a bit taller when he's needed to lean on me to get by. Our life looks different than we thought it would, but as long as I have him by my side, it's the life I want to have. Together, we can weather any storm.

To have and to hold.
Forever and always.

Short Rib Pot Pie

Next time you find yourself making this Butternut Short Rib Ragu, this too can be yours. After making the ragu for a girls holiday dinner, I found myself with leftovers and wanting to reinvent it for a new meal. I had been playing with another idea for a Cajun Chicken Pot Pie - I'll get to that, maybe around Mardi Gras - and that's when it occured to me that this little hybrid could be prettay, prettay good. 

All you need is the recipe for the short rib, some crescent rolls, a muffin pan and then you are set.

Each crescent roll tube will make 4 servings, so plan accordingly. Instead of ripping them apart in the triangles, leave them as one big rectangle. Set that into a large muffin slot on the tin, pressing down to create a small pie-like base. Fill with 1 large or 2 small scoops, then fold the sides over top.

Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.

Chicken Curry and Veggies

 Going on the ninth consecutive night of cooking dinner at home, we were a little bored and having a hard time coming up with something inspiring. We sat there at lunch asking, "so what do you want for dinner?" "I don't know, what do you want for dinner?" Over and over...and over. We sounded like the vultures from the Jungle Book (please tell me you know what I'm talking about). Max finally had an a-ha moment and remembered one of the first dishes we made together, one of his favorites that we used to make a lot, then kind of forgot about as we continued to try new recipes.

This is a great low calorie, low fat, high protein dinner solution that takes all of 30 minutes to make if you grab pre-chopped veggies at your local grocery store. Both Whole Foods and Central Market have pre-chopped onions and sweet potatoes, as well as cubed chicken, so all you'd have to chop is the bell pepper.

Ingredients:
Yields 4-5 servings

• 1 lb. chicken, cubed
• 1/4 cup + 1 tbsp. Soy-Ginger Sauce, divided (I have the 365 brand)
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 red bell pepper, diced
• 2 cups sweet potato, cubed
• 3 tsp. curry powder
• 2 tsp. cumin
• 1 tsp. chili powder
• dash of cayenne
• 3/4 cup low fat, unsweetened coconut milk 
• Base of choice (rice, quinoa)

Boil the cubed sweet potatoes until, softened and you are able to pierce with a fork. Drain and set aside. While those are cooking, marinate the cubed chicken in the soy-ginger sauce.

In a wok, add the chicken and cook on medium-high heat for 10-12 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through. Remove from the wok and set aside.

Add the onion and bell pepper to the wok, allowing them to soften. Once the onion is translucent, add the sweet potato to the wok and turn up the heat. Cook the vegetables until lightly browned, then return the chicken to the wok to join the veggies.

In a small bowl, combine 1 tbsp. of the Soy-Ginger sauce and the coconut milk.

Sprinkle the spices over top the veggies and chicken, coating well, then pour in the coconut milk mixture. Take a taste and then add your desired amount of cayenne pepper to give it the right amount of kick for your taste. 

I used a brown rice/quinoa blend as a base and ladeled the curry over top. 

Six Months

 Give thanks in all circumstances...

I Thessalonians 5:18

Dear Hudson,

Sweet baby, six months have come and gone. It has now been half a year without you. Some days it feels so far away but the pain is still so raw, I close my eyes and suddenly it feels like it was yesterday. 

Six months. What would we be doing with you right now? What milestones would we be experiencing? Who would you be? What would you look like?

Yesterday was Thanksgiving. 

Last Thanksgiving, I was 6 weeks pregnant with you, trying to keep it from everyone. I remember looking around the room of Camp Dickson, with the secret of you in my head, thinking about how the next year would be so fun with you there. This year, we had to do things differently, I needed change. I thought different would help. Your Daddy and I stayed busy, we cooked a full meal and hosted Thanksgiving for the first time with your Grandparents, your MaMaw and Uncles, Michael and Patrick. I had a place for you at the table, next to me. I imagined you in the high chair that would sit to my right. Maybe we would have introduced some solid foods by this point, like sweet potatoes, bananas or peas. Maybe I would have tried to make my own puree, a little something special for your first Thanksgiving. You'd make a mess, we'd laugh, I'd clean you up with your Grandma and MaMaw helping because they just want to touch those cheeks and chubby hands. I'd rub our twin noses together and then your Daddy would get up from the table, lift you high above his head and blow a raspberry on your tummy, he'd walk around with you to relax you. Your Uncles would take turns playing with you but ultimately, you would end up in your Granddaddy's arms as we all watched football while you drifted off to sleep. We'd feel so complete.

Over the next few weeks I'll be picturing the life we should have had together, the joy we would be experiencing. We would be celebrating three years of marriage with you in tow. Celebrating your baptism with friends and family, which I had planned to do the weekend after our anniversary. Would you have been the baby Jesus at the church's Lessons and Carols? Would we be doing pictures for our first Christmas card as a little family this weekend? The other day we ran to the mall and while walking through, I saw the Santa Workshop. I envisioned us taking you to sit on Santa's lap and we'd laugh as you either loved it or hated it. Can you believe that mall Santa is the same one that was there when I was little? I have your Christmas stocking, I got an extra one last year when picking them for your Daddy and I because I was too excited about the thought of you. I never imagined it wouldn't turn out the way I had pictured.

Hudson, I had so many ideas and plans for us, especially for the holidays. The traditions we would start together, the way we would celebrate as a family. I wish you were here to do that with, to experience it all with. So I'll picture it in my mind, live it with you in this parallel universe. I will have to patiently wait for the day to come when you have a little brother or sister that will join our family and we can experience these things with them, finding special ways for your memory to be part of it, but I'll always envision you there among us. My dark, curly haired boy with chubby cheeks and brown eyes. I imagine you with brown eyes like your Daddy.

Some days it is really hard to be thankful, but I am, even in this sadness. Know this, I am so thankful for you Hudson. I am thankful that you made me a mother. I am so thankful to have my faith and know that I will see you again.

I love you. I miss you. I am always thankful for you.

Mommy

Buttermilk Pecan Pie

 

Growing up, buttermilk chess pie was a treasured favorite for both my dad and myself. A month ago I went to a luncheon at the Dallas Women's Club with speaker P. Allen Smith, gardener extraordinaire and overall, ultimate renaissance man. I was in awe of his Arkansas plantation and everything he does with it, check it out.

For lunch, they used a few of his recipes including this buttermilk pecan pie. I was skeptical because I do not love pecans. Yes, I am southern and do not care for pecans. There, I said it. However, I tried it because I couldn't resist the buttermilk pie aspect and ended up very pleasantly surprised by the combination. We each received recipe cards and I told my dad I was going to kick his hiney at our buttermilk pie bake off.

Quick funny story: the recipe card had a typo on it. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, please direct your attention to the highlighted portion of the document below.

 

Notice how it calls for 14 cup of flour. I couldn't comprehend how in the world a pie would call for 14 cups of anything, never the less, a thickening agent like flour. I then noticed the cup was not plural. I googled Mr. Smith and his pie to discover it called for 1/4 cup. If I had been on autopilot mode, I would have tried to do 14 cups of flour. Like the time I tried to make oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and didn't pay attention to the fact that I was using a 4 cup measuring glass and the recipe was, well, doubled with just oats by accident. This is why I don't bake y'all. Cooking allows me to just do ma' thing and add as I go to taste, baking requires me to pay attention and be precise.

For a non-baker like myself, this was easy as... well, pie. I used a store-bought crust and had this in the oven in just under 30 minutes. Candying the pecans taking up most of the prep time. This was so good, and I can't wait to serve it tomorrow. I'm having a personal victory of baking something from scratch that worked on the first time. So, if I can do it you can do it too. Do make sure you get a deep dish crust, my first pie was more shallow and didn't fit all of the filling. My second pie was a deep dish crust and it was perfect.

Enjoy! I may or may not be enjoying a slice as I finish typing.

Ingredients:
Serves 8

For the filling:

• 8 tablespoons (1 stick of butter, melted)
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 easy pie crust, unbaked

For the Candied Pecans:

• 1 cup pecan halves, plain
• 1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
• 1/4 cup dark corn syrup

Start with making the pecans first. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a jelly-roll pan with aluminum foil, and lightly grease the foil. In a small mixing bowl, combine the pecan halves and brown sugar, stirring in the corn syrup until well coated. Spread the mixture out on the pan and bake, stirring every 4 minutes as the glaze thickens, for 12 minutes.

Remove the pan from the oven and spread the pecans in a single layer on wax paper. Let the pecans cool completely (I put them in the fridge to assist with this).

Now heat the oven to 325 degrees. Combine all the filling ingredients in a mixing bowl and pour the mixture into the unbaked pie shell. Scatter the chopped glazed pecans evenly on top of the pie filling.

Bake for 1 hour or until set. Let the pie cool on a wire baking rack. Chill until ready to serve, then let it sit out to serve at room temperature.

 

Thanksgrieving

Thanksgiving used to be my favorite family holiday get together. I have an extended family of individuals who love to cook so it was wonderful to create a meal together, with all the laughter and fun the day would bring. We'd relish in a delicious meal, enjoying the company, then watch football, maybe take a little nap, finally, we'd start the annual viewing of Christmas Vacation to kick off the season, drinking egg nog (or wine, I definitely drank wine) out of moose mugs.

This Thanksgiving is different. This year, it's called Thanksgrieving.

For those who have experienced loss, it is just hard to find thankfulness and joy in a time that you feel there is a big blinking arrow pointing to where the one who is missing should be. You need change, you need different because it can be too hard to be in the same setting where that person was or where they were anticipated to be.

Figuring out the holidays has definitely been a struggle. Because I write this as a healing method for my heart and soul, and because I've connected with individuals who have found my posts, individuals that are also on a journey of loss or grief, I'm going to remain candid with you. I know there are scrolling eyes in need of sharing a similar path as well. I had hoped to be entering this Thanksgiving pregnant again. In a time of joy to the rest of the world, I had hoped to put one foot back on that side of the dividing line with a new pregnancy to begin the holiday season to ease the pain, soften the heart, have hope and promise with a new life.

I'm an individual that looks really hard into everything. Always have, always will. I over-analyze and create symbolic meaning for things. For example, numbers. Our house number is 819. It was perfect because 8 is my lucky number and then 9-1 equals 8. Double eights. Or, it's 8 (the day of the month of my birthday and our wedding anniversary) and 1+9 equals 10 (Max's birthday). Therefore, a perfect house number for us. Or when I turned 24 and my birthday that year was 8/8/08 which equaled 24. I've always done things like that, for as long as I can remember. The cycle of my chemical pregnancy, I thought it was so symbolic that I would have a positive test that time because the due date would be 4/4. My birthday is 8/8, my brother's is 7/7, my dad's is 12/12. How symbolic and perfect to have my Rainbow Baby with the same pattern. That was not the case. So this time, doing the calculations based on this last fertile window, it would have put my due date the same as Hudson's original date. My doctor has said that for all of my future pregnancies, I will be induced at 38 weeks. Monday, July 18 would have been the start of the 38th week. In my heart, I saw that as some kind of beautiful symbol of the struggle of losing Hudson and the new life that would have come from it. I wouldn't look at that date as a sad milestone of a missed due date, it would have held a new purpose, a special purpose. Instead of mourning that date again, it could be celebrated with new life and Hudson's May 27 birthday would be his day and July 18 would be the date this baby would share as another bond with his big brother and guardian angel. 

Well, as of Tuesday morning of this week, that is not the case. After five tries, my doctor is treating me for what she calls secondary infertility, when it was easy to conceive the first time and then not the next time. The past three of five tries have involved ovulation tests, terms I've learned like TTC (Trying To Conceive), DPO (Days Past Ovulation), CD (Cycle Day), BFN (Big Fat Negative), BFP (Big Fat Positive), PAL (Pregnancy After Loss), women wishing other women to have "baby dust" sprinkled on them this time. I know many women are instructed 8 months to a year, my doctor typically has a six month TTC rule, but she told me I more than likely will not feel "normal" until we have conceived again and she wants me back to that point as soon as my heart can bear it. My head and heart are there, though I know PAL will bring it's own new set of trials, fears and yes, even still sadness. But it's a step in the direction we need to be in, a direction we need to get back to.

So this Thanksgiving, instead of taking a pregnancy test like my fertility app had me set up to do, I will start my first round of Clomid, followed by Estrace. I will continue ovulation testing every morning, every evening, tracking the lines to look for the surge of LH (Luteinizing Hormone) to indicate ovulation. On CD21, I will go in for blood work to check my levels and know if an egg truly did release. My doctor said that though I've seen positive ovulation tests, I could produce LH but the egg may not be actually releasing. Clomid should force that, then if fertilized, Estrace will help implantation stick. In a perfect situation.

So back to Thanksgiving. A time of thanks and joy. No, it's Thanksgrieving. My child was taken from me and my womb is still bare. I have to seek out thanks and joy because it isn't occurring naturally over here.

While most of me wanted to run screaming for the hills this Thanksgiving, we are focusing on distraction and keeping busy. Cooking makes us happy, it's what we love to do together, so we are hosting just my immediate family members for dinner. Then, our door is open to any friends who are orphaned without a place to go or have finished with their own families and want to come over and watch football, have dessert and play games in the evening. We are going to surround ourselves with family and friends, with distraction, in our own home so that I can escape if I need to, and there won't be any little ones or expecting parents to trigger an unsightly reaction. I know, it's kind of awful of me to still feel that way. I can't wait to be on the other side of that.

So, we cook. We bake. We get the house ready to entertain. I have the centerpiece done, the china out. I've mapped out a list of what needs to start cooking when, how it will stay warm until we serve, and where it will be placed in a serving line. We will cook our big Thanksgiving feast, but no Parade on the TV this year because of all the reminders of the child I should have such as the Wiggles, Sesame Street and of course, Santa. 

If you are a prayerful individual, my prayer request is this: while of course I want this next cycle to be successful, for this solution to be the little nudge my body may have needed, I ask that you continue to pray for peace and comfort in our hearts. Every time there is a negative test or my cycle starts, it results in waves of my grief all over again, crashing down. It is so defeating and gut wrenching. I mourn losing Hudson all over again, I mourn the life we don't have with him, and there is an intense sadness that it is not yet time for our Rainbow Baby to bring us out of the storm. The next time I will be eligible for a pregnancy test? Christmas Day. Fantastic.

I pray for this next HJS (Harrison James? Hadleigh Jane?) baby. I pray for the continued healthy development of the Rainbow Babies I know that still have a little ways to go and the parents fearfully, yet hopefully, awaiting their arrivals.

I pray for the Parents of Loss whether they are facing their first or twelfth holiday season without their precious child. I pray for those who are missing a loved one no longer at the table this year. I pray for any person struggling with infertility and long to hold a child of their own. I pray for all of these hearts during this holiday season, a time when it is so apparent as to what is missing.

I pray to see the incredible gifts that have been bestowed on us, though grief can make you blind to them.

I recite Psalm 136:1 over and over as a mantra to my heart.

I am thankful for the man chosen to be my husband, the home we have built together, the pup that helps heal us and fill a void of someone to take care of. I am thankful for our families. I am thankful for our health, our family's health, and our friends' health. I am thankful for food on the table. I am thankful for a support system that continues to lift us. I am thankful to be Hudson's mommy.