So-Kool or Not Kool? Quiche

So-Kool or Not Kool?  KOOL
Picky Eater's Opinion?  KIND OF KOOL... See Comments Below

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I like eggs in theory... however, when it comes to finishing a dish involving eggs, I often give up mid meal because I never liked them as much as I thought I would.  That leads me to the Quiche.  

I have to give my husband major props here as he helped me cook(and by helped me I mean prepared most of) this dish.  We were at the cabin with my parents and we have a tiny (and I do mean tiny) kitchen at the cabin.  It holds 1 cook comfortably, but if you have 2 cooks in the kitchen, there is a lot of bumping into each other as you move around.  So, we did a lot of the prep work the night before.  We diced the onions, cooked the bacon, cut the mushrooms and shredded the cheese the day before.  She said you could make the entire mix the day before and store it in the fridge, but we just did the chopping (and by we, I mean my sweet husband).

As if doing the prep work was not enough, my husband got up early the next morning (mostly because HAS consistently wakes up at 5:30 AM) and cooked the ingredients that needed to be cooked and let me sleep.  He almost wins Husband of the Year for that part alone.  I am NOT a person who likes to be woken up in the morning.  He did get me up when it was time to put it all together.  I did not make a pie crust because I had one that I had a refrigerated crust that needed to be used.  I had purchased this before my new found desire to learn to cook well.  PW says this will fill two regular pie crusts, but we only made one VERY FULL quiche.

Right after it came out of the oven... still puffy

15 minutes later when the puff settled... Notice, I even managed to make refrigerated crust look deformed...  I'm not known for my ability to beautify food

I found this quiche to be delightful and not very "eggy."  I was nervous when I started to take a bite out of this, but again, I was pleasantly surprised.  I didn't mind the artichoke or any of it.  I thought next time it might be better with sausage instead of bacon, just because the amount of spice you can get from sausage.  My picky husband enjoyed it as well and thought it would be better with half the amount of artichoke and if the artichoke was cut into smaller pieces.  This is a man who NEVER ate any vegetables before we were married 6 short years ago.  He suggested adding spinach, and maybe even broccoli.  My has he come a long way.  My family still struggles with getting a huge number of vegetables in a meal, but we are continually trying to improve that.  I was so pleased that he ate it, however, none of the kids did.  Now, JMS, my human garbage disposal was not at the cabin with us, but I am most certain he would have really liked it.  My dad suggested more onions, although he suggests that for every dish... that and garlic.  The great part about this dish is that it could easily be made for vegetarians or for carnivores.  We are very likely to make this again, but to tweak it just a little bit.

Should Be, Would Be, Could Be...

We have a great little cabin that we frequently get away to in the mountains of North Carolina.  We are 1/3 owners, along with my parents and sister's family.  The boys love going because they get to play with their grandparents and cousins and traipse through the woods and just be boys.  We were planning on leaving Saturday morning, but luckily David got off early (which never happens) on Friday night, so we got to leave then.  I'm so excited because every night there with my family is just memories in the making.  This time, I put the little two down for bed at 5:15, because neither of them had a nap.  We will wake them up at 8:30 when we get on the road.  I'm crossing my fingers that they go back to sleep, but I'm not banking on it.   Although it was cold, we had a wonderful time visiting with my family.  I even brought them into my new culinary experience :) 

Cabin Nightmare

Proud Grandparents... Poppy and Grams

We love going to the cabin and when we started traveling up there with Hunter it was easy, because HAS was an easy baby. LPS is still suffering from reflux. The biggest problem we had was it was so dark that we couldn't see to change Logan without some light, which in turn woke up HAS who kept saying "Mommy... Daddy... Mommy... Daddy..." He wasn't mad, just talking so he ended up awake, just like LPS did. LPS wouldn't go back to sleep, so I put on the baby Bjorn and bounced him to sleep until I fell asleep on the futon in the living room. It also didn't help that I left HAS;s blanket at home and he is definitely a creature of habit and struggled to sleep without it. JMS slept in Kerri and Patrick's room and never noticed that anything was going on. He slept great :)

A lesson learned...

We had some friends up to the cabin for the weekend and they have 11 month old twins who tend not to be great sleepers. As the adults were chatting, we were talking about what a great sleeper HAS was... let that be a lesson to us. That night, we went to bed around 1:00 AM and he woke up at 2:30. We changed him and got him some milk and put him back down. He wanted no part in that. We tried to lay him with us (which we had never done before this day) and all he wanted to do was crawl all over us. That didn't work either... David sent me to sleep with JMS in the other room, so the pregnant lady could get a little sleep. HAS stayed awake until 4:00. He fell back asleep until 5:30 but then was up for the day. If you took his worst 10 days of sleep ever (including when he was a newborn) they were not as bad together as this one night. The good news is he was shockingly pleasant the whole next day. No one could have guessed he had only gotten about 5 hours of sleep. Note to self... don't brag about how great of a sleeper he is... Lesson Learned.

Fire's Creek

There is this small creek with mountain water near the cabin called Fire's Creek. We go there frequently for picnics and to frolic in the water. There is a small area where the kids can tube down the creek and JMS loves it. Words, however, can't describe exactly how cold this water is. I was wearing a long sleeve shirt and shorts and I was still really cold. It didn't seem to bother him at all.

HAS is a little to small to tube down the creek, but he loves the water and he loves to throw rocks into the creek. He picks up handfuls at a time to throw them. He will even sit down in the freezing water. We had to take him out earlier than JMS due to his lips turning blue. He didn't care, but mommy did.

HAS and David walk in the creek. He loves his daddy.

Our home away from home

David and I love going to the cabin. It is a peaceful place where you can sleep in late and nobody cares. Time just seems to move slower up there away from all the craziness of the city of Atlanta. We (mainly Dad with some help from David and Patrick) just finished the rock on the lower half and I can't believe how amazing it looks. We try to get up there once or twice a month. We have been fortunate during the summer, because we don't have to worry about when David's off days fall when I am already off. It doesn't matter because we can go up there whenever.

My little Ham

When we were up at the cabin, HAS found this straw hat to put on and play with. He is such a little ham and he always reacts to how people respond to him. It's hard to believe he is almost 18 months old. Where has the last year and a half of my life gone?!?!?

Looks like he's doing a little bit of a dance. He runs all over the place and doesn't know what it's like to stand still. I'd love to say he gets that from David, but I just don't think I could say it with a straight face. I love his energy and that I can see myself reflected in this tiny little person.

I love being pregnant

I love being pregnant and what is even better about this time is my closest cousin is due about two weeks before me. We are both having boys in Septemberish. While this is certainly not a flattering picture of either of us, we did have a great time together at the cabin.

Our other two are 5 months apart. Her daughter was born almost exactly 5 months after HAS. JMS is an awesome brother and loves any young children. He loved playing and holding the baby as if she was her own. We tried to get Lisa to give her up, as we know that no Sokols will ever have a girl, but she wasn't having it. Oh, well... What can you do?!?!?

We did realize that HAS is a little jealous and doesn't like Mommy to hold and love on Babies, but hopefully that will change when the new Sokol baby gets here in September. He didn't mind being the one that gave Her the love, just as long as mommy wasn't doing it.

Bats Galore

At the cabin, we had a friendly bat who was hanging out under our covered porch all day. At dusk, he went out to find food. We didn't think anything about it. Later that night, we were all in bed for the evening when David woke me up because he was laughing. I went out into the family room where mom, dad, and David were all standing there laughing. We had a bat that came in through a small hole in the cabin wall (as best we can figure) and was hanging out in the cabin. Dad had heard it while they were trying to sleep. These creatures are much tinier than you can imagine. I, however, have a very healthy fear of bats... I hate bats. We were standing around trying to figure out the best way to get the bat out because he was behind a huge beam that was less than 2 inches from the wall. Dad had some strange idea about using tape, mom suggested insect spray to stun him, and David mentioned using his taser. We finally decided to try mom's insect spray approach. Dad isn't really crazy about bats either and David assumed the position of video taping the "bat incident." Once sprayed, he fell to the ground and we were able to get him outside. He crawled over to the edge of the deck and flew away. It was a very strange night.