Breakfast of Champions

Her Bad Mother recently posted about her daughter being a picky-eater, and how she's coping with it. I like HBM's philosphy: live and let live. That's pretty much what we try to do with the Juban Princeling. I don't believe in forcing him to eat things he doesn't want to eat. He's not going to let himself starve, it's true, but he's also inhumanly willful and stubborn and WILL go to bed hungry if we let him. (And then he'll wake up every hour thereafter until we give him something he'll eat.)

When he first started on solids just over a year ago, he ate anything and everything he could cram into his piehole. Lately, though, he will only eat most fruits, but especially grapes and bananas, a few veggies like green beans, peanut butter crackers, peanut butter sandwiches, and the occasional organic cheese bunny. And popcorn. And you know what? I'm fine with that. Because now and then he'll pick some food off our plates or try something new. He scarfed down half my edamame at a local Japanese place a few weeks ago, and ate some spaghetti off my fork the other night. (The night before I was diagnosed with strep. Hooray for awesome parenting!) So, you know, he's getting there. I honestly feel like this will not hurt him as he grows up. I'm confident that he's not going to turn 30 eating only grapes and peanut butter. So if he really doesn't want to eat Sunday night's leftover butternut squash and plantain mash that my husband made from scratch, that's OK with me. Someday he will. I can wait.

Keeping a Fresh Fruit Bowl Makes Me Feel Like Martha Stewart

The apples and pear are from yesterday's farmer's market at Grand Army Plaza. The citrus (limes, lemon and oranges) are from the supermarket. I like keeping our freshly bought fruit in a big bowl on our dining table. It makes me feel wholesome and good.

Ropa Vieja

Last night I made my first ropa vieja, or Cuban pulled steak hash. I have to say - it came out quite delish. For a blancita such as myself, I do cook up some rather tasty Cuban food if I do say so. (And Husband confirms.) We have so many wonderful cookbooks at home, and as we are a family on a budget and trying to be healthy(ish), I don't often take advantage of all the delicious recipes I have laying around. With that in mind, I pulled out my copy of Mary Urrutia Randelman's "Memories of a Cuban Kitchen," and made some ropa last night. I bought the book years ago, back when my Cuban-American Husband was still just my Cuban-American Boyfriend, in order to impress him with my mad Cuban cooking skills, yo.

My first photo of the ropa was taken with the Hipstamatic app for iPhone, which all my friends have been downloading and posting photos all over Facebook with. I wanted to capture that authentic, old-fashioned Cuban feel, as if this was a ropa made during the Revolution. But Husband said the Hipstamtic just made the food look green and gross. So I took another with the regular camera feature on my iPhone.


Soylent Ropa is people...it's people!!!!


Ropa even Jose Marti would love.