fried eggplant

I gave my friend Annie and eggplant last night and decided I should post what we do with our eggplant so she knows what to do with hers. I also want to recognize that the last recipe I posted was fried green tomatoes. Which is basically the exact same everything as this "recipe." This may make it seem like we fry all of our vegetables! We don't, I promise. But I will say that my kids both ate two egg plant rounds for lunch yesterday and LOVED them, which felt like a win. Mostly this is just the only way I have found and loved to eat eggplant.

So here's the step by step:
1. Cut your eggplant into 1/2 inch rounds. Salt both sides to take as much moisture out as possible. Some let this sit for 30 minutes, but I'm hopeful lunch will be over in 30 minutes, so they only have as much "sweat time" as it takes me to set everything else up.

2. Take three wide and shallow bowls (the cereal bowls pictured above were annoying), fill them with the ingredients listed above. Add some shakes of any sort of seasoning salt to the flour and the bread crumbs.

3. Coat the bottom of your fry pan with oil, plus a little more.

4. Using a paper towel wipe down an eggplant round, taking out as much moisture as possible, and then using a fork coat the round on both sides in the 1) flour 2)egg and 3) panko.

5. The oil needs to be hot enough to sizzle the egg plant, but not burn it. I've noticed my oil starts to dance a bit...I've heard if the end of a wooden spoon sends out bubbles it's ready. Usually I just try putting a bit of a prepared egg plant in and can tell if it's going to fry or if the oil needs more time to heat up, or needs to cool down.

6. Repeat step 4 for all eggplant rounds and add to the skillet.

7. Check them and flip them when they look golden.

8. When they're done they'll be a bit softer, mostly the color will tell you when they're done. Place them on a plate with a paper towel to drain.

9. Top with fresh mozzarella and Marinara Sauce. Some eat it over spaghetti (I don't). And then eat your heart out. I love these so much!

a week-in-the-life revamp

I started documenting A Week in the Life for our family this weekend. Basically it means I am bringing the big camera with us everywhere we go. I'm trying to capture the actual life events in hopes to remember our normal every day.

Rory took this picture above and told me one way to capture our normal every day would be to get a shot of me coming out of every bathroom I frequent throughout the day. Because at 34 weeks, this is a very huge part of my normal every day. I heard the camera and saw him take this shot and laughed so hard.

I took pictures on Saturday and Sunday and I'm already needing to revamp my goals for this project because here's the thing. My baby is really, really low. And life is quite uncomfortable lately. And I've been put on sort of a modified bed rest, two hours up followed by one hour laying on my left hand side. The goal is to keep this baby growing inside of me as long as possible. The goal is to make it to 40 weeks.

I decided to do A Week in the Life before I started feeling all of these very-pregnant symptoms. I worked hard yesterday going to church and the fair (all for two hours at a time, rest time in between) and today I am totally wiped out. And I haven't taken a single picture, mostly because there isn't much to document from my bed. I've seen lots of awesome pictures throughout the day, but just don't have the additional energy to run ahead of the kids to get the shot or even get up from my chair to grab the camera.

So this might be more of a wordy week-in-the-life. I have spent a lot of my time listening to my kids' conversations, without them knowing. And that feels like it's own special treasure of memories to document. This week might be a bit more wordy than full of pictures, and a bit more sleepy than active. But that's okay. That's our actual, honest-to-goodness week-in-the-life here in the middle of August 2015.

celebrating marriage and daily life

I told her, "Now Elsie, mom and dad need 15 minutes to get ready, and I don't want you to get dirty." She told me, "Okay. I'll just go play with the kitties." Oh dear.

We got all gussied up for the night and drove to Art House North where we had a fancy dinner for Rory's folks, Marlene and Madison, to celebrate their 50th Wedding Anniversary. It was such a special night, and hopefully I'll have pictures to post of the whole night for another post. There was a photographer there and I'm so excited to see the shots she got.

Until then, I just read this post on Ann Voskamp's blog and thought it was so good. It's a guest author who wrote a post titled, "How quiet marriages may be the most exciting marriages of all." Please go read it. Especially after a night like last night that celebrated 50 years of two people who devoted themselves to each other. There is nothing more powerful and inspiring and beautiful to see. I left feeling encouraged and excited to keep pouring into my own marriage.

***

In other news, I'm going to do A Week in the Life next week. Anyone want to join me?!! The whole purpose is to take seven normal days and to document the ordinary. To take pictures at the grocery store, to get pictures of your house not totally tidy, your kids in church nursery, or any of the other "normals" that don't ever really get documented. Most of the time we have our camera out to document special events, or events out of the ordinary. But the point of this week is to make sort of a time capsule of what life looked like in August 2015. For us it will document life with just two kids, just before the third joins the family. I have watched Ali Edwards do this on her blog for probably five years and have never joined in, but this year I realized how much I would love a slice in time like this even from before we had kids! So I'm jumping in with both feet. Expect lots of pictures next week.

(I ordered the scrapbook, but you truly wouldn't have to. In fact, I'm not sure it will totally work with my style, but I'm wanting to do something creative like traditional scrapbooking so I got it. Ali starts on Monday morning, but I think I may jump start this weekend. I'm feeling especially inspired.)

But now, before you forget, go and read that article on marriage. It was so good! Happy Weekend!

Lanesboro!

We're six weeks from our due date, which made me think it was high time we head out on a Babymoon. For a few weeks we talked about going up to the North Shore, but we only had two nights and between the four hour drive back and forth and the cost to stay up there, we started thinking of other destinations.

I have heard about Lanesboro and Harmony for a long, long time. So I told Rory we would consider this trip a scouting trip more than anything, scouting out where we would like to stay next time, discovering our favorite places to eat, jotting down the things we'd like to do on future visits.  We dropped off the kids with Mimi and Papa on Thursday afternoon and went to see Mission Impossible, eat at Buffalo Wild Wings and then went home to sleep, saving us a night's lodging. On Friday we got up and were out the door by 8:30 heading to Lanesboro, just under two hours away.

A few things to note: the countryside in this part of Minnesota is stunning. Like jaw dropping. It felt like we were driving through some lush and bluffy picture that I've seen on a jigsaw puzzle. Of course it is early August, and probably the most green and stunning time of the year. But I'd love to come back in the fall...and spring...and winter. I didn't get a single picture of the countryside, which is so odd, but I think it's because I was taking it in. Which is good.

When we arrived, we drove to find a place my cousin Sarah had told me about. Her friends were fantastically helpful in letting us know some great destinations (I'll write about their tip for caramel rolls below) including the Lanesboro livestock auction place. (Can't really remember the formal name...) Rory and I arrived and it was incredible. There was so much to take in. The bidding was serious, but the cows lightened the mood. And I sat next to the nicest retired farmer ever. He talked to me the whole time, knows everything about every kind of cow, told me which cows out there had pneumonia, where each breed originated from and how cows have been bred to be so big and huge but he, "likes the cows that are the way God intended." I liked him so much and in the end we swapped contact info and he invited us to his farm to see his calves in the spring.

The town of Lanesboro is adorable. It boasts that it is "the bed and breakfast capital of the world" and was clearly designed to be a little get-away destination. There are great bike paths, tubing companies that will shuttle you down the river, fun shops, good restaurants, a reputable live theater and even a Hawaiian shaved ice stand. It feels very vacation-y.

This is the bed and breakfast I would try to stay at next time:

The Bed and Breakfast we stayed at was fine, nice and clean. But on the whole I have issues with Bed and Breakfasts. They're really hit or miss. And I sort of don't love the colors mauve and forest green and I don't love doilies, and that seems to be problematic. B and B's also can have some awkward breakfasts in the morning, sitting with strangers, trying to make early morning small talk. And I sort of always wonder whose room I'm actually sleeping in...was it their daughter's room who is now at college? Or their grandma's before she passed away? All this to say, I put off making a reservation at any B&B because I was waiting to stumble upon an AmericInn or something. But we didn't so when we arrived we quickly grabbed the last room in town at a nice B&B that had a nice room, right next to the owners room. It was clean, and comfortable and had cable tv, so we were pretty set. And then we closed the door and discovered this clock:

Iowa Hospice. Love in Action. We laughed so hard. And then wondered who it was who had died in the bed we were about to sleep in, hoping she was a lovely grandma, filled with peace and sweet things. 

The town is charming and we did a lot of reading, napping, eating and exploring. It's so exciting to discover a new part of your state that is so awesome. We will be back. And when we go we will again frequent the Lanesboro Pastry Shoppe...a shop that has not been remodeled since the day it opened, apparently, and has also never strayed from its original caramel roll recipe. Which is a good thing. I had one each morning followed by massive sugar crashes. But man, those caramel rolls were so good!

Ivar art

Rory's folks graciously took our kids for the weekend so we could enjoy a bit of a babymoon. We went to Lansboro and I have much to report. It was a great overnight. While Ivar was at Mimi and Papa's, he drew this awesome picture of his dad and the barn. Pretty great, isn't it?

And then he drew this portrait of pregnant me:

That's about right.