Archive for April, 2012

Nariah says… #76

Posted: April 24, 2012 in Comedy, Family, Love, Nariah
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Some of you may have heard Nariah and I were in a car accident this past Friday. We are ok, as I am here typing this blog. I’m suffering a bit of pain and going through PT, but by grace of God Nariah wasn’t injured. Instead of focusing on the frightening aspects of the accident, I wanted to share a lighter moment of the day which further solidifies how wonderful I think my daughter is.

I have just been transported to the examination room in the ER via ambulance. Toya had arrived at the scene and brought the family to meet me there. As we’re sitting in the room and the Dr is checking my spleen and other organs I may or may not have known I have for damages, Nariah is over to the side looking fearful and concerned as ever. Shortly, the Dr leaves to fill out the prescription info.

Nariah comes over to me. “Daddy… are you ok? I don’t want anything to happen to you”
“I’m going to be ok baby, I’ll be up in no time to chase you around the house ok?”
“Well, daddy…, you might want to get another Dr, or have her look at you some more.”
“Why’s that?”
“Look at your leg daddy, I think the accident made one of  your legs shorter than the other, they need to fix that or you’re gonna be walking funny. We need to tell the Dr when she comes back!”

I laughed but then had to stop because it hurt my side to laugh. She definitely has my good intentions in mind! To make me feel better later on that evening, she dumped some strawberry applesauce into a tupperware bowl and brought that with a small box of nerds candy to my bed to help me feel better and read me 2 bedtime stories. Now I definitely have to make I get this leg straightened out!

 

Grilling shrimp… with baby food?

Posted: April 15, 2012 in Food, Main course, On the grill
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Those of you that have infants, or had them at one time, I’m sure you’ve at some point tasted the baby food before feeding them to your kids. Well as a foodie, some of these flavors stood out as really tasty and my “Food Creation Gears” in my mind started churning. My wife is already plotting on a salsa using some baby food mango. The dish I prepared tonight used Gerber’s Pineapple Pear. I must say… the end result was amazing!  I’m not really much of a measurer the first time I try something, but I’ll do my best to come up with some amounts.

Southern Comfort Pineapple Pear Shrimp

Extra large shrimp, shelled and deveined (I used about 25 for this serving.)
Old Bay seasoning (about 1/4-1/2 cup, depending on your spice level)
Garlic powder (about 1/4-1/2 cup, depending on your garlic level, lol)
Brown sugar (about 1 cup to 1 1/2 cup)
Southern Comfort (I used a lot, probably close to the 2 cup range)
Gerber pineapple pear baby food (2 jar (really they were like plastic rectangle containers))
Crushed pineapple (I used 2 of those self serve plastic cups of tidbits, and then used a chopper to blend them up)
Pineapple juice (about 3/4 cup)
Nutmeg (about 3 shakes)

Prepare your grill for direct grilling to be used over medium coals. Heat all ingredients except for shrimp in a sauce pan over medium heat, stirring often. While the sauce is thickening and filling your nose with wonderful aromas, thread the shrimp on the kabobs. I personally endorse Fire Wire, grill safe kabob wire that you can bend and curve around your grill and in between other foods. Click on the link for more info. Brush the grates on the grill with olive oil. Place shrimp on the grill, dab on your sauce, and cover. After a minute, turn shrimp, dab more sauce, and cover. Repeat until the shrimp turns opaque and you get a nice auburn looking glaze.
This glaze works great on chicken as well. The chicken in the pictures below was tested upon and my daughter got indigestion from eating a sandwich made from it way too fast. I think she liked it, LOL.

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Nariah says… #75

Posted: April 15, 2012 in Comedy, Nariah
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This one probably could be an “Nariah does…” posting.
During spring break, Nariah came home with some candy filled Easter eggs from school that she decided to wait until the Easter bunny came before opening them up. When its time to open them, they have these candy eggs (about twice the size of jelly beans) in them, of assorted colors. She grabs one and excitedly gets ready to bite into it.
“Wait a second… Daddy, do you think these have chocolate inside them?”
“Hmmm, good question, they do look like jelly beans, but you never know”
“Ok, here daddy, bite it!”
“Nariah…”
“Oh yeah, mommy can eat chocolate, lets get her to bite it”

So mommy bites it and sure enough its a peanut, covered in chocolate, covered with a candy coating.
“Awwww man… why does it have to be  chocolate?!?!”

A few minutes later we notice Nariah out the corner of our eyes being very “busy” in the kitchen going back and forth from the bathroom holding something.
“Nariah… what are you doing?”
“I’m getting it”
“Getting what?”
“Getting the peanut!”
Nariah comes over to us with a dirty looking paper towel. She opens it up and it’s the wet peanut.

“I thought I told you to throw it away? It has chocolate on it.”
“I know mommy, that’s why I was washing it off, Its clean now. Now I can eat it.”

To be honest, I took a whole lot not to laugh uncontrollably in front of Nariah, especially after Toya looked at me with the “Is she serious?” look. Nariah was happy to get through that chocolate and get her peanut. I imagined in her mind she was saying “Oh, I waited 3 days to see what was in these eggs and they are gonna all be chocolate??? I am gonna eat something! Shooooooooot. Hmmmm, I bet if I use enough water and paper towels, I can get to that peanut!”

I can definitely tell she’s my blood. Growing up in the 80s, there weren’t many non-chocolate candy bars. At the YMCA after school program I was in, they would give anyone who found a four leaf clover during “outside time” a candy bar. That candy bar was ALWAYS snickers. I was the king in finding four leaf clovers, but instead of letting the snickers go to waste, I would break them in half, and use my pinky or a fork to dig out what little caramel I could get, and eat it. It was like plucking honeysuckle flowers and getting that one teeny tiny little drop of “dew”. But I was happy, and so was Nariah.

Nariah says… #74

Posted: April 6, 2012 in Comedy, Nariah
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Its Thursday… first day of Nariah’s spring break from daycare (why is there spring break at daycare again?). She doesn’t have school til next Tuesday. After a nice funfilled day of Cici’s Pizza, the park, a Barbie mermaid movie, and ice cream, we’re starting to wind down.

Over the last couple of days or so, she’s had an convenient intermittent tummy ache.  Now when I say intermittent, I mean when fun things are going on, there’s no sign of tummy ache, but bedtime, or time to go to school, then the tummy ache is here. But since there was a stomach bug going around daycare you try to err on the side of caution.

So after dinner, she has another occurrence, which seemed to have a little bit of validity to it since she wanted to eat a snack of cheese and crackers but was frustrated that she couldn’t because of her discomfort. We try to get the symptoms diagnosed and I come up with maybe that it might just be gas, since its “moving” around. I give her some warm ginger ale and say lets go try the BPPs. What is a BPP you ask? Burp, Poot, Poop.

As she walks out the room with this pitiful slothlike gait, she says something that reveals that she is either
A.)  Very very smart
B.)   Really sick and the tummy is talking, or
C.)   Is making Toya and I feel bamboozled and run amuck. Led astray even… Don’t know if we landed on Plymouth Rock, or if Plymouth Rock landed on us….

“Oooowwwwww, man my tummy really hurts…. I don’t feel so well…. I don’t think I’ll be able to go to school on Tuesday….”

(In case you were wondering, yes… this happened on Thursday, with 4 days to go until Tuesday shows up, LOL)

Nariah says… #73

Posted: April 5, 2012 in Comedy, Nariah
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Nariah is on spring break. I’m working from home in the AM and then taking off the afternoon to hang out with her.  As we head out to lunch and to the park, I notice its a bit chilly outside. I pick out a sweat suit outfit for her to wear since we’ll be playing outside.
“Daddy…. I don’t like wearing these! I get hot in them”
“Baby, its colder outside today than it has been, you will be ok, you won’t get all sweaty”
“Ugghhhh, oooooooooookaaaaaaaaaaaay”

So we head to Cici’s pizza and then to this big adventure land park afterwards. The sun has come out a little bit and it is now approaching the upper 50s. Out of the blue, Nariah runs up to me from the giant castle :

“Daddy daddy….*huff huff*…. Look at this…. See…. I’m sweating!  And you promised me I wouldn’t sweat today… I tried to tell you!”

And then she runs off, not even skipping a beat, to play on the next piece of playground equipment.

Nariah says… #72

Posted: April 4, 2012 in Breakfast, Comedy, Food, Nariah
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Kitchen Wars : Strawberry Banana Pancakes

Last night I didn’t know what to do for dinner and we didn’t take out any meat before work to have thawed out.  Light bulb! Never can go wrong with breakfast food right?  “Nariah… what do you think about breakfast food for dinner?”
“OK daddy! Can I help you make it?”
“Now why would you ask a silly question like that? Why would I say no? You are my lil chef!”

“OK, lets see, do you want pancakes or French Toast? I heard about this Cap’n Crunch French Toast, it sounds like it could be good.”
“Ummm, lets do the French Toast next time daddy, I want pancakes”
“OK, pancakes. Hashbrowns? Eggs?”
“Yeah!”
“Bacon?”
“YEAH!”
“Whooops, we’re out of bacon… Sausage instead?”
*sigh* “Oooooooooooooooookaaaaaaaaaaay”

“OK, are we going normal or experimental? Do you feel like something new?”
“Ummmmm, how about strawberry banana pancakes?”
“Lets do it!”

Nariah literally picks out everything from the fridge to make the pancakes. This child picked out an egg, the oil, the tablespoon, the measuring cup and the milk and would not let me help. “Its OK daddy, I know how much goes in it.”
Here I am reading the steps on the box of pancake mix and she’s a step ahead of me, already mixing in the right ingredients. Next we chopped up 6 strawberries and half a banana and blended that.  Added some banana flavoring for good measure and she’s mixing it up. Nariah also cast me aside while she used the grater to shred the potatoes and then counted out the sausage links.

Fast forward to eating at the table. Mommy is home now and is oohing and aahing over how good everything is and how she didn’t expect to like the pancakes because she doesn’t really care for banana flavored foods that much. “These are really fluffy and moist!”
“Thanks mommy, we are the bomb cooks”
“No I’m the bomb cook daddy”
“Huh? I thought we were a team? We didn’t do this together?”
*sigh* “We did do some of it together, but all you did was the stuff on the stove, I did all the real cooking!”

“I guess she told you!”

I’ve created a monster! LOL