Dear Joey,

Well, it’s happened. One of our children has finally spit on my face.

It didn’t happen on purpose (I don’t think), but the other night while we were in the throes of a dinner time battle of wills, a chewed up medley of tortellini with chicken and zucchini came flying out of Addie’s mouth as she raged against my request for her to swallow.

It all started a few weeks ago when she started flat out refusing to eat vegetables. Fruit came next, and shortly after that pretty much anything other than bananas, crackers, and yogurt or cheese went out the window. This frustrated me to no end, as this was our little foodie, the girl who would eat anything put in front of her with only two exceptions: green beans and Velveeta (which I can’t say I’m too torn up about).

I should have known this day was coming. For months and months I would toss vegetables in with her favorite foods, flavoring them well and making them taste (in my humble opinion) amazing. But not so long ago, she started picking her favorite foods out of her dinner, eating the chicken and noodles and leaving the broccoli, peas, or zucchini on her plate. A dinner like the one we had the other night would have been a major hit just six short months ago. But last week, it was a disaster.

I cut up zucchini into little pieces, no more than 1/4 inch square, and sautéed it with minced onion and garlic powder. Then I added pre-cooked pieces of chicken and cheese tortellini and tossed it all together with parmesan cheese (a simple, quick dinner I would ordinarily recommend to anyone with toddlers). After tasting it myself, I knew I’d hit on something flavorful and yummy, something Addie would be sold on once (and if) I could get her to take a bite of it.

I was wrong.

I put a bit of it on her favorite plate (the pink one) and gave her the Minnie Mouse fork. After putting the plate down in front of her, I encouraged her to take a bite and held my breath. She took one look at it and announced (without tasting it), “I don’t like it.”

Meanwhile, Mia was chowing down. She had two helpings, plus peas. And carrots. And corn. And green beans. But Addie sat in silence, refusing to take a bite, insisting she didn’t like it. I left her alone, as sometimes she gets brave and slyly tries to take a bite when she doesn’t think I’m watching. But she didn’t take a bite this time. She just sat there, full plate left untouched, stubborn as can be. After calmly trying to explain that she didn’t know she didn’t like it because she hadn’t tasted it yet, I finally (somehow) got her to take a bite. And then another. And another. And then, out of nowhere, she stopped eating. And she got very, very quiet – the sort of quiet that has come to mean that she is now holding a bite of food in her mouth and is refusing to either swallow it or spit it out.

And so, I let her keep that bite in her mouth. She asked (full mouth and all) if she could have frozen yogurt stick, and I told her that she could if she swallowed that bite and chewed and swallowed another three bites. But, I warned, if she spit that bite out, or any bites she took after that one, she would not get to enjoy the frozen yogurt, nor would she get to have anything else to eat before bedtime.

There we sat, neither willing to give in to the other. And then, after holding that food in her mouth for at least ten minutes, she started crying, the kind of crying that litters her forehead with red splotches and turns her voice into a high pitched screech. At this point in the game, I knew that she would not swallow, nor would she spit it out. She was hanging on to that food for dear life because she understood that to spit it out is to relinquish her claim on the frozen yogurt she wanted so badly.

Not being willing to let her scream like that for an hour, only to finally have her swallow and then reward her with frozen yogurt, I took control of the situation and made it clear to her that I was going to help her spit it out. She protested, screaming louder, and it was at this point that the chewed up food came flying out of her mouth and landed on my cheek.

I am proud to say I stayed calm. I quietly walked away, gingerly wiped the goop from my face, and returned with a cool cloth to wipe Addie’s face too. And then I lifted her out of her chair, walked over to the nearby armchair, nestled her onto my lap and let her calm down, stroking her hair and waiting in silence as she did.

Eventually, she calmed down. She didn’t get to eat her beloved frozen yogurt, but she did get a bit of one-on-one cuddle time with me. And it made me wonder if it’s true: perhaps this battle is less about the vegetables than it is about attention. With so much attention focused on her baby sister for almost a year now, perhaps she has finally found a way to get the sort of focused attention (negative as it may be) that she lost the day she gained a sister.

And so, instead of feeling defeated and angry, I’m learning to do my best to stay calm and pay attention to what her needs really are over and above her food preferences. And I’ve decided to be more intentional about giving her focused attention in between meals. Offer more encouragement and less bargaining. Get better at hiding vegetables, but let her watch me eat and enjoy the kinds of foods that she refuses to eat. Limit crackers, offer more fruit. Be ok with letting her “go hungry” until the next meal. Bottom line: I’m not going to push too hard or worry too much about it because the truth is, she’ll eat the food she’s offered when she’s hungry enough, just like she’ll come snuggle with me when she needs a hug or ask me for water when she’s thirsty. And that’s a good thing, I think. Learning to recognize what she needs and being able to give it a voice. Differentiating between what she wants and what she needs. Learning how to stand her ground and let things go, all with grace and a bit of humility. I pray that as we teach her these essential life skills, she’ll learn how to do it with a lot more grace than I have, and I pray that in the process we become even better at it ourselves.

Love, Scratch

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Dear Joey,

I am very, very lucky that you clean and even luckier that you actually like to clean. This is not to say that I don’t clean. I do clean. I’m not sure I’ll ever experience the same satisfaction or enjoyment you experience when you clean. And I know I give you a bad time when you re-do something I’ve just done (especially when I know I did it well the first time), but it’s only because this subconscious,  somewhat neurotic tendency makes me insecure about my not-so-great housecleaning skills. But again, the truth is, I am very lucky that you have any sort of interest in making and maintaining a clean house.

You know how I hate to go to bed before the kitchen is clean? It’s not because I derive a single ounce of joy from washing dishes or scrubbing counters. There is nothing that can ruin a beautiful morning than stumbling into a messy kitchen with leftover, stinky dishes from the night before. I don’t stay up late washing dishes because I enjoy it; truth be told I hate washing dishes, mainly because there is no end to it. An empty, clean sink doesn’t stay that way for long, and the moment another dirty dish finds its way into a clean sink, which it inevitably does, defeat sweeps over me and I get a little bit depressed. Splatters on the stove, a dirty microwave, and the grunge on the kitchen floor all make me uninspired to get into the kitchen and cook again, but I’ve made my peace with the fact that these chores are the price one must pay to have a clean kitchen. The endless amount of work a kitchen demands makes it hard for me to get on top of other household chores, and the truth is that vacuuming and dusting and laundry often get passed over for clean counters and frying pans and sippy cups.

To make matters worse, moving in with my family made the task bigger, more formidable, and far more difficult to keep up with. When everyone is going in a thousand different directions while I am at home with a toddler and an infant, getting (and staying) on top of all the messes on my own was impossible. A source of many meltdowns that have occurred in the past few months. We all tried to do what we could when we could, you included, but the house just never seemed to get really clean. Picked up, yes. Clean? No. In a moment of genius (or mercy), we decided to hire outside help for this season that we’re all here together. As much as I appreciate everyone’s willingness to chip in for it, what I appreciate most of all was one of the sweetest, most thoughtful things you’ve ever said to me: “Why don’t we plan to get take out on cleaning days?”

You have no idea how much my heart swooned when you uttered those words.

Before we got married, I read about women whose idea of romance involved her husband doing the dishes or folding laundry without being asked to do so. I admit that there was a very real part of me that was sad for these women that that is what their definition of romance had (in my mind) devolved to. But part of me was a little nervous that someday I would become one of them, and that I would eventually become one of those women whose definition of romance would involve her husband loading the dishwasher while I sat with my feet propped up after a long day.

I get it now though, how having a break from the unpleasant but necessary drudgery of housekeeping is romantic for a woman. It makes a woman feel important, well cared for, valued. I understand why women’s hearts swoon when their husband makes taking out the garbage, changing bedsheets or pitching in with dinner dishes part of his routine. It isn’t so much about the wife not doing the task; it is about what the husband’s act communicates to his wife. When a husband does these things, he tells her this:

To me, the suggestion for take out was your way of telling me that you understand how much I need a break – mentally, emotionally, and physically. You see my needs, and by doing something to meet them, you are telling me that I matter. You are telling me that you are with me on this because we are in this together.

So even though I passed on take out this week, opting instead to clean out the fridge of some of the things that needed to be used up, please know that I will gladly take you up on your offer in weeks to come. In fact, I know in the months to come I will eagerly await it, both because it’s very much like a mini-vacation, and also because it is a very real, practical way you show me you love me.

Love, Scratch

Seven Layer Dip

It’s true: I passed up an opportunity for some truly yummy take out in favor of having this dip for dinner. The problem was, we had most of these ingredients in the refrigerator, and they really needed to be eaten up. When looking at them, disparate as they were, a sudden burst of inspiration hit me as I realized  7-Layer Dip could use everything up at once with minimal cleanup. Plus, eating bean dip for dinner reminds me of our earliest days of marriage when we could raid our fairly sparse pantry late at night and almost always come up with bean dip and chips for dinner. This version uses sweet bell peppers instead of tomatoes, a happy discovery born out of the fact that we were out of tomatoes. As it turns out, I like this version much better than the version with tomatoes. If you don’t like bell peppers, add tomatoes instead. If you don’t have tomatoes, leave them out. This dip is ever so forgiving.

Ingredients:
About 4-5 cups refried beans
1 pint sour cream
Taco sauce & hot sauce
1 sweet bell pepper (red, orange or yellow), diced
Sharp cheddar cheese, grated
Black olives, sliced
Green onions, sliced
Tortillas (whole wheat, corn, or flour–whatever you prefer or have on hand)

Method:
Spread the refried beans in the base of a shallow 9 x 13 pan. Spread the taco sauce on top of that (in whatever thickness you like–more will yield a sloppier finished product, but that might just be tastier in your opinion). Sprinkle hot sauce on top of that, if you like your dip spicy. Then, sprinkle the sweet bell peppers evenly, covering the whole pan. Next is the hard part: spread the sour cream evenly on top of the bell peppers. I did it by first stirring the sour cream a bit to loosen it up and then dolloping a good bit of it every few inches over the bell peppers. Then, using a spatula, I played connect-the-dots between each dollop, eventually making it easier to spread the sour cream evenly over the top. (Please note that it will not look pretty, and that’s ok. If some taco sauce peeks out between dollops, so be it. No one will know.) Cover the sour cream with the remaining ingredients: first the cheese, then the black olives, and finally the green onions. Refrigerate for an hour or so, or until the dip has time to firm up a bit.

To really cut down on dishes, eat the dip with chips right out of the pan. We won’t judge you if you do.

Dear Joey,

Do you ever notice how much of our lives is improvised? Really, I feel I go about life with little-to-no definite plan of action, and the truth is that most of the time I’m just winging it.

I thumb through books and skim over blogs and pick the brains of people who have gone before me all in an attempt at gracefully dealing with whatever situation I find myself facing, like sleep training babies and disciplining toddlers and making my life both orderly and functional as well as creative and meaningful. As much as I try to pretend, the truth is I haven’t the slightest idea how to actually make some of these things happen.

And so I live my life wavering between a constant state of panic that I’m not doing things exactly as they should be done and learning to lighten up and go with the flow. It’s a dance that I’m getting pretty used to, if not good at. Example: I have gotten used to the idea that our now-11 month old will never learn how to drink from a bottle (despite our best efforts to teach her), and that letting our two year old skip a nap is far preferable than trying to force her to take one anywhere other than her own bed. Also (and no less important) I’ve learned that making classic pot roast in a crock pot is simple to do once you know the basics. 

I admit, I started out the day a little nervous at the prospect of making this classic. I have made fancy roast beef in the oven, and I have made pork roast in the crock pot, but I could not remember the last time I had made classic pot roast with carrots and potatoes in a crock pot (or if I have ever done it at all). This realization confused me a bit because this used to be the meal in my house, the one that got me almost more excited to eat dinner than anything else.

Oh, the joy of coming home from school to the aroma of a big roast cooking in the crock pot, encircled by potatoes and carrots. It was a staple in our house when I was growing up, the kind of thing that never ever ever got old, even though we had for dinner fairly often. We would shred the meat and drizzle it with its own juices, a dash of Worcestershire sauce, and nice dollop of ketchup on the side, and enjoy every bite of those meaty potatoes and carrots.

Having made this dinner over and over during my childhood, my mom was the first person I thought to ask for instructions on how to make it, but she couldn’t remember how she did it, exactly. She couldn’t give really specific instructions at least, which is what I was after. Alas. To the computer I went, and as it turns out, everyone has an opinion for how to make pot roast, stemming from a combination of how their own mothers used to make it and their own trial and error.

Two dozen recipes later, I realized a simple truth: I was wasting my time because I already knew what to do: I would improvise. The general consensus of all of these recipes was the same: put the roast in the crock pot, make sure to season it, add a little liquid and let the heat do the rest. Armed with that information, I headed into the kitchen and just did my thing.

That is perhaps why I like the kitchen so much: it is a place where I am free to make mistakes because most of the time, the mistake yields a delicious discovery. (Unless, of course, you add one cup of salt to a batch of chocolate chip cookie dough instead of one teaspoon. Speaking from experience.) In the kitchen, imperfectly perfect is beautiful. In the kitchen, there is room for interpretation and for improvising. For taking what you do know and applying it to the situation in which you find yourself.

Believe it or not, this mode of thinking helps me as a mom. Despite all the best parenting advice I have ever read, no one has raised these kids before, with a mix of quirks and personalities all their own. And so, the best I can do is apply whatever knowledge I have gleaned along the way to the choices I make every day as their mother, never forgetting that I am their mother, and I know a thing or two about them. I envision the sort of people I hope they become, and I’m doing the best I can to nurture them toward that without putting unrealistic expectations on them or on myself. And I do it, for the most part, simply by doing.

I think that’s the best any of us can do sometimes. Envision the outcome we hope for, do some research to help us figure out how to make it happen, and then jump right in and start doing the work it will take to meet our goal. I am pretty sure that deep down, we actually know a lot more than we think we know, and if we follow our instincts (and say a lot of prayers in the process), we will probably do better than we ever thought we could.

Love, Scratch

Classic Pot Roast (in the Crock Pot)In my mind, basic is nearly synonymous with classic, so maybe this should be called “Basic Pot Roast (in the Crock Pot).” It is, after all, a very basic dish, one that could be dressed up with a variety of additional ingredients. Garlic, rosemary, thyme, mushrooms, red wine, or any other number of lovely flavors could be added to make it a fancier dish, but this, in my mind, is the classic, the one to start with to learn how to do it. After you do, follow your instincts and try something new. You might make a beautiful, delicious mistake.

Ingredients:
1 chuck roast (4-5 pounds)
4 medium russet potatoes, peeled and sliced
8 large carrots (peeled or unpeeled), cut into thirds
1 large yellow onion, peeled, halved and sliced
1/2 cup beef broth
kosher salt
black pepper
olive oil

Method:
First, wash and dry the roast and cover it in kosher salt and pepper (you almost couldn’t over do this). Then, over medium high heat, sear the meat on all four sides. The darker the color, the more flavor it will yield.

Meanwhile, peel the onion and cut it into about 1/2″ slices. Lay them in the bottom of the crock pot. Peel and cut the potatoes and carrots and set aside.

When the meat is seared on all sides, lay it on top of the sliced onions. Pour 1/2 cup beef broth into the base of the crock pot. Put on the lid and turn the heat onto low. Cook for about 5 hours.

At the 5 hour mark, add the carrots and potatoes, layering them around the roast in the crock pot. Cover and let continue to cook another 3 hours or so.

When about ready to serve, you have a few choices. Remove everything and serve along with some of the juices (and Worcestershire sauce and Ketchup, if you’re like my family), or remove the potatoes and carrots, set them aside, and thicken the juices in the crock pot while the roast continues cooking a little longer (add 1 tsp of cornstarch to a little bit of the cooking liquid and then stir in and re-cover; let simmer until it thickens a bit). You could even remove everything, strain the juice, and make a gravy out of it (cook on the stove and add butter, flour, etc.), but that’s a little more involved than I would get for this dish. The point is, do whatever your family would enjoy most. I am pretty convinced there are a great many “right” ways to make this classic, and very few (if any) wrong ones.

Dear Joey,

I’m big on traditions. I will likely make a big deal about them in the years ahead, so I’m warning you now.

Things like chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast on birthdays, or going to the Niles Christmas parade the day after Thanksgiving. Opening stockings before presents on Christmas morning. Writing in your Birthday Book every year. Being surprised and delighted by flowers on our anniversary.

Traditions give me something to look forward to, something to count on every year. On the surface,  traditions may seem boring or tiresome. I admit, some certainly can be, but they also offer a bit of stability in this volatile world we live in. At their best, traditions connect. Traditions carry a rich history of where we’ve been, culturally and personally, and they offer the promise of where we will go, if only we keep them alive. For us, traditions connect my years to yours, and ours to the girls’,  shaping them into a lovely picture of our life.

When I was growing up, my family kept many traditions. Some were small (like checking beneath Grandpa Teague’s recliner for loose, lost change) and some were big, so big that if my parents had ever missed them, it would signify for my brothers and I that the world was, in fact, coming to an end. Like pajamas on the night before Christmas. Every year, like clockwork, my parents would act as if they were having mercy on our anxious hearts by letting us open just one present before going to bed on Christmas Eve. And every year, the present was a new pair of pajamas. (My brothers and I always acted surprised.) One of my favorites, though, was choosing our birthday dinner and eating it off of a cherry red porcelain plate that said, “You Are Special Today.”

And really, that’s what traditions tell us: something about today is special. 

At the heart of Valentine’s Day is something very good: it’s a day to let the people we love know how much we care. Sure, it’s overly commercialized and sentimentalized and sensualized and blah blah blah, but I will never stop making it a point to tell you I love you on Valentine’s Day. You are my forever Valentine.

Last year for Valentine’s Day, I made Red Velvet Cookies. I made them again this year. You can count on the fact that I’ll make them next year, too.

Love,

Scratch

Red Velvet Chocolate Chip Cookies

 
These cookies are soft and chewy, thanks in large part to corn starch. Omit the red food coloring altogether if you rather (and I wouldn’t blame you if you did), but I use it to make it festive. I figure if I’m only making this recipe once a year, I can make an exception and use it. Swap butter for vegan buttery spread and all purpose flour for gluten free flour 1:1 if desired. Perfect results every time.

Ingredients:
1 cup Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Spread, softened
1 cup pure cane sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 teaspoons red food coloring
2/3 cup cocoa powder
3 cups all purpose gluten free flour
4 teaspoons corn starch
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 cup Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips (or other allergy friendly brand)

Preheat the oven to 375. Cream together the softened butter and both sugars. Add eggs and vanilla and beat until smooth. Carefully add the food coloring (it splashes easily!). Stir in the cocoa powder, then add the flour cornstarch, salt, and baking soda. Mix until everything is combined. It will be sticky. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Scoop out onto ungreased baking sheets, making dough balls about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. (I suggest using a mini ice cream scoop to minimized the mess, as the dough is very sticky.)

Bake for 10 minutes; let rest on the sheet pan for 30 seconds or so, and then let cool on a wire rack completely.

Yields about 3 1/2 dozen

Dear Joey,

I’m big on traditions. I will likely make a big deal about them in the years ahead, so I’m warning you now.

Things like chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast on birthdays, or going to the Niles Christmas parade the day after Thanksgiving. Opening stockings before presents on Christmas morning. Writing in your Birthday Book every year. Being surprised and delighted by flowers on our anniversary.

Traditions give me something to look forward to, something to count on every year. On the surface,  traditions may seem boring or tiresome. I admit, some certainly can be, but they also offer a bit of stability in this volatile world we live in. At their best, traditions connect. Traditions carry a rich history of where we’ve been, culturally and personally, and they offer the promise of where we will go, if only we keep them alive. For us, traditions connect my years to yours, and ours to the girls’,  shaping them into a lovely picture of our life.

When I was growing up, my family kept many traditions. Some were small (like checking beneath Grandpa Teague’s recliner for loose, lost change) and some were big, so big that if my parents had ever missed them, it would signify for my brothers and I that the world was, in fact, coming to an end. Like pajamas on the night before Christmas. Every year, like clockwork, my parents would act as if they were having mercy on our anxious hearts by letting us open just one present before going to bed on Christmas Eve. And every year, the present was a new pair of pajamas. (My brothers and I always acted surprised.) One of my favorites, though, was choosing our birthday dinner and eating it off of a cherry red porcelain plate that said, “You Are Special Today.”

And really, that’s what traditions tell us: something about today is special. 

At the heart of Valentine’s Day is something very good: it’s a day to let the people we love know how much we care. Sure, it’s overly commercialized and sentimentalized and sensualized and blah blah blah, but I will never stop making it a point to tell you I love you on Valentine’s Day. You are my forever Valentine.

Last year for Valentine’s Day, I made Red Velvet Cookies. I made them again this year. You can count on the fact that I’ll make them next year, too.

Love,

Scratch

Red Velvet Chocolate Chip Cookies

 
These cookies are soft and chewy, thanks in large part to corn starch. Omit the red food coloring altogether if you rather (and I wouldn’t blame you if you did), but I use it to make it festive. I figure if I’m only making this recipe once a year, I can make an exception and use it. Swap butter for vegan buttery spread and all purpose flour for gluten free flour 1:1 if desired. Perfect results every time.

Ingredients:
1 cup Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Spread, softened
1 cup pure cane sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 teaspoons red food coloring
2/3 cup cocoa powder
3 cups all purpose gluten free flour
4 teaspoons corn starch
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 cup Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips (or other allergy friendly brand)

Preheat the oven to 375. Cream together the softened butter and both sugars. Add eggs and vanilla and beat until smooth. Carefully add the food coloring (it splashes easily!). Stir in the cocoa powder, then add the flour cornstarch, salt, and baking soda. Mix until everything is combined. It will be sticky. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Scoop out onto ungreased baking sheets, making dough balls about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. (I suggest using a mini ice cream scoop to minimized the mess, as the dough is very sticky.)

Bake for 10 minutes; let rest on the sheet pan for 30 seconds or so, and then let cool on a wire rack completely.

Yields about 3 1/2 dozen

Dear Joey,

Months ago we talked about starting at-home preschool curriculum with Addie, and this week, finally, we’ve started Learn Your Letters, Learn to Serve. We’ve talked about the letter A, the sounds it makes, words that start with A, and found and circled A’s in her name. We’ve talked about all kinds of animals (including alligators) and the Ark that Noah built. We have eaten apples and practiced and memorized what you do for work (Daddy’s a PA! He works on arms! That starts with A!) We’re even working on memorizing our address. And as of today, all I have to say is Addie is a genius.

Now to be fair, I knew A would be easy for her. She has known the alphabet for quite some time now, she can recognize the letter A on her own, knows the sounds it makes, and even knows a few words that start with the letter A (like Adeline, Amelia, apple . . .). She can find and circle A’s in words easily and is even pretty good at writing an A herself (although at the moment it looks more like a big H). And really, I’m fairly certain she’ll do nearly as well with the other letters in the coming weeks. What I’m most excited about with this curriculum is teaching her what it means to think of others above herself and how to go out of her way to serve someone else.

Teaching a self-centered two year old how to serve someone isn’t exactly easy. I think for this age, teaching a child to serve has more to do with modeling than it does instructing. Lucky for me Addie is very observant and eager to help, so into the kitchen we went, Addie donning her apron to make dip for apples. (And if you look closely, you’ll even see Ariel hanging out with us. Addie gave her a prime spot to watch the action–on top of the milk jug.)
 

 

When we talked about who to give the apples and dip to, I thought perhaps she wouldn’t understand completely, or that she would say “Adeline” (since clearly, she thoroughly enjoys this dip…). But after narrowing it down to two people, she chose Auntie Pam.  

Not just that, but she seemed genuinely excited to pack up the apples, dip and a note for Auntie Pam, and when it came time to hand off the basket, she was shyly smiling and seemed to be genuinely happy to share what she had made with someone else.

Perhaps I underestimated her: perhaps she has a servant’s heart that has been waiting to be given the opportunity to shine, or perhaps she was responding to my prompting and saw that giving something away could be fun for her as well. (But maybe, just maybe the dip was just that good that somewhere deep down inside of her, she just had to share.) 

Peanut Butter Dip
This dip is smooth and creamy with a hint of tartness from the yogurt and is delicious with any number of dippers (like strawberries, bananas, or graham crackers), but our favorite is sliced apples. Make sure to use Greek yogurt so that the dip has a thick, rich consistency. Also, I used Stevia powder, but you could use any sweetener you like (including sugar). Quantities will differ, of course, but with a little trial and error, you’ll strike a balance you like.

3/4 c smooth natural peanut butter
3/4 c Greek  yogurt (we used nonfat, but any would work–make sure it’s Greek!)
1/2 c milk
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
3/4 T powdered stevia, plus more to taste

Measure all ingredients together and mix (either whisking by hand or using an electric mixer) until smooth. Chill for an hour or two until the mixture has firmed up a bit and the flavors have melded together.

Dear Joey,

Last night you told me you looked up Rachel in the dictionary and it said, “perseverance.” This is me, today, persevering.  I’m choosing to do what I have purposely avoided for nearly four months.

In the time since moving across the hills, back to this place, has been and continues to be both a blessing and a burden. At first, it was easy to see the blessing. We were optimistic and thankful most of the time, choosing to focus on the good that would come out of moving back in with my family.

These days I feel burdened most of the time. It’s as if I’ve been walking around in a fog, feeling completely unlike myself, disconnected from the person I had become, the one I actually liked, the one that I was when we first met – the one you fell in love with.

Not even spending time in the kitchen has helped.  Losing myself in the rhythms of the kitchen: knives chopping, spoons stirring, hands kneading – usually that’s what helps me sort through things, but for awhile, it has felt more like a chore than anything else.  Perhaps it was me feeling displaced, not in my own kitchen anymore, working with a stove and pantry and tools that weren’t my own. I’ve been uninspired to do much more than just get something edible on the plate.

But I realize now that the foods I choose to cook are inextricably entwined in my story. There was a reason, after all, that I made Baked Chicken Parmesan a couple months ago, why Blueberry Stuffed French Toast is my new vote for Christmas morning breakfasts, and why I came up with Sweet Potato Dumplings (with or without chicken) last week. But it was this picture, taken today, that made me realize that the story behind these recipes are actually more valuable than the recipes themselves. There is a story behind this moment, one that involves a recipe for that Peanut Butter Dip we love so much. A story that I promise to tell in another post.

For now, let me say this:  I’m sorry I stopped writing. You once asked me never to stop writing, and I did, on purpose, for the past several months. But I’m back at it, because it is both a blessing and a burden, and as it turns out, sometimes the burden is the most valuable part.

Love, Scratch