Roasted Broccoli

I've always been a fan of broccoli but I've just discovered a great new way to prepare it: roasting. We have roasted vegetables a lot but until I saw this recipe I never thought you could roast broccoli. But apparently "a spoon full of sugar helps the broccoli go down."

1 large head broccoli (about 1 3/4 pounds)
3 tablespoons extra-virgin oil
2 large shallots, halved and sliced thin lengthwise
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
Ground black pepper
Lemon wedges for serving

1. Adjust oven rack to lowest position, place large rimmed baking sheet on rack, and heat oven to 500 degrees. Cut broccoli at juncture of florets and stems; remove outer peel from stalk. Cut stalk into 2- to 3-inch lengths and each length into 1/2-inch-thick pieces (see picture). Place broccoli in large bowl with shallots; drizzle with oil and toss well until evenly coated. Sprinkle with salt, sugar, and pepper to taste and toss to combine.

2. Working quickly, remove baking sheet from oven. Carefully transfer broccoli to baking sheet and spread into even layer, placing flat sides down. Return baking sheet to oven and roast until stalks are well browned and tender and florets are lightly browned, 9 to 11 minutes. Serve with fresh lemon wedges.

Call for Easter Traditions

Yesterday Scott and I were talking about how we can improve our Easter holiday traditions. We felt like there is really two holiday's being celebrated here. One involves the Easter Bunny, colored eggs, and a general euphoria about the arrival of spring. The other holiday is the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
In order to separate the two we've been doing the spring holiday on Saturday and the religious holiday on Sunday. We've pulled a lot of traditions from my family with regards to the Saturday festivities primarily being that the Easter Bunny hiding a pair of everyone's shoes filled with treats (see Eve's shoe above) but we feel like we need get some more traditions for the religious side of Easter.
As it is, Sunday involves new Sunday clothes for everyone and (new this year) a middle-eastern dinner (see falafel sandwiches below). We would like to have a special breakfast Easter morning but couldn't think of anything. Do any of you have suggestions for us, either for an Easter breakfast or other traditions that your families do?

The Eve Show

Scott put this up on my family's website yesterday.

I was feeling a little blue last night, but then Eve ran up and started giggling and yelling "Joan Baez, Joan Baez!" over and over as fast as she could while ramming the couch with her face. I am really grateful for her, though I'm not sure how two people as normal as Rebekah and me could have produced such a silly child. A few other highlights:

Eve the hippie: In addition to Joan Baez, Eve has a real thing for Bob Dylan. Lately she has been requesting "Bobba-dylan-song" whenever we get in the car. She's also started singing random lyrics--her favorite lines to shout-sing are "Don't block up the hall" (from The Times They Are A'Changin') and "Don't think twice, it's alright". We try to pepper her with a few Primary songs when we can, but for some reason she doesn't find them to be as catchy as 60's folk-rock.

Eve the tattooed lady: Eve has been sneaking off by herself and then covering her body with pen drawings. Mostly she draws spirals and "snakes". She has also tattooed Rody (her inflatable horse).

Eve, big sister in training: Eve has a baby doll that was given to her for Christmas in preparation for the arrival of baby brother. She has dubbed her doll "Baby Jesus", which I find to be very sweet and also borderline sacriligeous. Especially when the baby acts up. For example, sometimes Eve hurls the poor child headlong across the room and then exclaims "Baby Jesus is jumping!" And I'm never quite sure what to say when "Baby Jesus is going stinkies!".

Eve the Crocodile Hunter: Eve is fascinated by all kinds of not-so-cute animals. She especially loves grizzly bears, snakes, and spiders.

Eve the sun worshipper: Ever since the sun made its surprise appearance last week, Eve has been treating it like some kind of divine being. Her worship takes the form of vocal praise ("Good morning, sun! I missed you!" or simply "Yay sun!") and granola-offerings (holding a spoonful up to a beam of sunshine and exclaiming "Sun loves granola!")

Eve the beanie: Ever since hearing the story of Jack and the beanstalk, Eve loves eating "magic beans". It can only go downhill from here.

Eve the imitator: Eve is constantly changing personalities a la Chrissie,* although there are less princesses and more varieties of dinosaurs in our cast. A particularly choice exchange occurred last week when she pointed to herself and said "Marta", then to Rebekah "Cindy", and to me "Joshua"**. Of course I'm always pretending that I'm Joshua anyway, so I just got to do so a little more openly for once.

Whatever role she is playing, Eve is pure entertainment. It's hard to stay discouraged for long with a two-year-old around.

* Chrissie is my 3 year-old niece that lives in Phoenix.
** Marta is the 2 year-0ld daughter of my sister (Cindy) and her husband Joshua. They live in Pittsburgh.

I love marshes in the springtime...

This last weekend we had absolutely beautiful weather and Scott and I did all we could to take full advantage. In the two hours we had between Conference Sessions we went had a picnic lunch, fed ducks and played in the sand. Saturday night while Scott was having a bratwurst BBQ with the young men in the ward and their dads and then all went in the church to watch the Priesthood Session, Eve and I got together with a couple of other young men's leaders' wives and their kids. We had a potluck dinner and then went on a walk to this nature reserve down by Lake Washington that I had never been to before.

The accessibility of nature is one of the things that I love most about Seattle. This place was so awesome. We saw turtles, geese, otters, bald eagles and all kids of water fowl. Not to mention great views of the lake and Mount Rainier. Eve apparently loved it to because I had to carry her, screaming and kicking, across my shoulders all the way back. Bring on the contractions!

Despite the unfortunate exodus, I really liked this park so Sunday after the afternoon session I convinced Scott to go there instead of our usual nature escape, the Arboretum. The weather was even more beautiful than the day before and this time I had my camera. Plus Scott did all the heavy Eve-duty stuff (see below) so that was a nice change for me.

Feeding the goose

Trying to hug the goose

Scott saving the goose

We've been reading Winnie-the-Pooh to Eve lately and so when we saw some dog tracks in the mud we of course called them "paw marks" and spent the next 15 minutes being called Piglet as Eve tracked the Woozle.

Our Little Bambino

So we're under two months to zero hour now and we are still struggling with names for our soon to be arriving man-child. Eve is such a religious name we thought we would go with a literary name this time round. We actually have one name that we like but ideally we would go to the hospital having two or three solid names to choose from. That's where you come in. William and Thomas(in) have already been used by my sisters so they're out. Other than that we would love to hear what all of you suggest.

Roasted Tomato and Asparagus Pasta

Before
&
After

A version of this pasta is what made Scott fall in love with me. Last week I took advantage of asparagus being cheap(er); here's the recipe if you're interested:

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
3 good sized garlic cloves; minced
salt
fresh ground pepper
1 large handful fresh basil; leaves rolled up together then cut into thin strips
1 lb cherry or grape tomatoes (kept whole)
1 bunch asparagus; end snapped off then snapped/cut into 2 to 3 inch segments

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Put all the following, in order, into a large mixing bowl. Toss until the veggies are well coated. Spread out onto a cookie sheet and roast in the oven for 45 minutes or everything starts to look a little burned.

15 minutes before the veggies are due to be done, cook your pasta. Shorter pasta shapes work better for this one.

Scrape it all (including all the oily juices) onto the cooked pasta and toss. Freshly grated Parmesan on top always helps. This pasta is good hot and at room temperature.

We Like to Party

Saturday morning we had a little birthday party with some of Eve's best friends. The theme was dinosaurs and involved party hats, stickers, "dinosaur eggs" (yogurt-covered almonds) and carrot cake cupcakes.

Our main activity was a exploring our apartment looking for hidden dinosaurs.

Not all the kids realized what was going on.

Everyone knew what to do with the cupcakes however.

... even the dinosaurs.

Thanks to everyone for coming!