Blue Christmas

I love the Christmas season; or more, precisely, I love Advent: the candles, the dark stillness, the anticipation, the carols on the radio, the lights on houses. But starting about 5 or 6 years ago, Christmas Day started losing some of its sparkle. With friends married and having babies, I felt "too old" for Christmas, which is, as Kenny Rogers sings, for kids. That feeling seemed even worse this year, whether because we're closing on in the two-year mark of infertility or because the pregnancy/baby announcements seem to be coming fast and furious. I couldn't even drag myself to church on Christmas Eve. Though the midnight service is not designed for children, there are always infants dressed in Santa outfits or other furry wear. I couldn't face it. Fortunately, Christmas morning brought a flight to Kauai, where I was able to escape from it all. But the blues have lingered. I had thought I might spend part of this vacation working on a "Dear Birth Mother" letter, but I seem frozen and unable to start it. I did spend a few hours on rainbowkids.com and found the cutest little Korean girl with a hearing impairment. I'd bring her home tomorrow if I could!

How sweet it is

It sounded weird, but it was oh-so-good: sauteed chicken with a sweet potato-spinach salad, from the February 2009 issue of Real Simple.

Real simple comfort food

The February 2009 issue of Real Simple was full of goodness. First, we had chicken pot pie:

Then pasta, with roasted broccoli and walnuts:

Then, from Cooking Light: brown-butter gnocchi with wilted spinach:

Cooking Light in 2009

Brent received the Cooking Light 2009 recipe collection. It's helpfully organized by month, so we can always stay in season. The January-February recipes include lots of dried fruit, which we paired with broccoli and sauteed spinach. Brent has just finished In Defense of Food and informs me that we need to branch out from eating brussel sprouts every night. We started with pork with orange-apricot sauce:

Rather than buy an entire pork tenderloin for the two of us, I substituted thin-sliced pork loin, which worked great. We then had Moroccan chicken with fruit and olives. I served it with pine nut couscous and spinach, which I sauteed with leftover onion and garlic from the chicken.

We'll be returning to this cookbook all year.

Winter feasts

We headed to the grocery store in advance of our first storm of the season in search of inspiration. We found lamb chops, which we grilled and served with roasted brussel sprouts and creamy goat cheese polenta. It wasn't quite my dinner at Tonto, but it was pretty close, at a small fraction of the price.

Then we pulled some whole wheat pizza dough out of the freezer and topped it with our favorites: roasted sweet potato, caramelized onions, cranberries and goat cheese. We used herbed goat cheese, rather than spending a fortune on fresh herbs. It worked great.

Second Christmas dinner

Pork stuffed with cranberries and apples, along with Trader Joe's stuffing. The basic pork recipe is from the Whole Foods website, although I used the Cook's Illustrated instructions for roasting. Real Simple Magazine picked TJ's as the best store-bought stuffing.