We love Italian dishes over here in Casa Bagley. I think Dan and I sort of wish we were Italian and we could be besties with Giada DeLaurentiis and be invited to all her fun family gatherings that always seem to involve mountains of parmesan cheese and a rolicking good time.

Sadly, I am pretty sure neither of us come from Italian roots. But that does not mean we can’t pretend! We can eat pasta with the best of them!

When I ran across this Italian Bow Tie Supper meal, I knew we had to try it. Plus, it cooks in a Crock Pot – my favorite way of making dinner. I am kind of a lazy chef. Plus, Kate usually has a vice grip around my calf shrieking at me to hold her while I try to read and comprehend directions. So the fewer steps, the better.

This turned out delicious. And, it is Kate friendly, a double win. Don’t we look Italian to you? Giada, call me!

When Kate first started on solid foods, I steamed and baked and pureed her various meals. But now that she is nine-months-old and has pretty much ate her way through the rainbow of fruits and veggies and dabbled in meat, now I just feed her whatever we are having for dinner. This is so much easier. No more separate meals. Unless the meal is super spicy, I give Kate whatever we are having, just cut up into tiny bits.

So when I ran across this Lattice Chicken PotPie recipe, I knew we had another dinner winner. Chicken, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, peas, cheese – well, those are some of Kate’s favorites. And our favorites, too. Potpie always seemed too complicated – and about zero nutrional value. But this recipe with the lattice crust instead of crust on bottom and on top, tons of veggies (P.S. – I added peas to mine), and only one can of condensed soup (I bought the low fat), turned out to be easy and more healthy than the traditional recipe.

And it is so yummy and comforting. And kid friendly. Kate gobbled it up like eating was going out of style.

Have any other kid-friendly recipes? Do share.

When Dan and I honeymooned in Italy, we ate our weight in mozzarella. Nothing can or ever will compare to the mozzarella atop the numerous pizzas and pastas and salads we ate in Capri and Rome. I would go back this instant for a Caprese salad. Sadly, a spir of the moment trip to Capri is not in the cards for me this week. But, that does not mean we cannot create our own slice of Italy right here in Northern Virginia.

As you know, Dan and I have been searching for new, easy, delicious, and reliable dinners. So when I happened upon this Chicken Caprese, I knew we had a winner. For the filling, I bought a tub of marinated mozzarella balls at Costco, tossed them with cherry tomatoes, and mixed it all together with Italian seasoning and olive oil. Rolling up the chicken proved a little challenging – probably because I overloaded each chicken breast with a bunch of mozzarella/tomato mixer – but I just kind of rolled and restuffed the chicken with whatever filling fell out and pinned it all together with a toothpick.

Super easy. So delicious. And – almost – makes us feel like we are back in Capri.

PS – I wrote a guest post over at My Boss is Teething. Go check it out!

So. What is the deal with sourdough?

I like making bread from scratch. It is fun and makes me feel all pioneer like. You know, as I knead my dough and tweet about it at the same time. Super pioneer. Well, anyway, I wanted to try my hand at sourdough because it looked kind of challenging and it also happens to be my dear husband’s favorite bread. Since I am not all that awesome at being a housewife, I thought I would try to make sourdough for him. Also making the starter seemed weird and science like, so that looked like fun.

So I dumped one cup of water and one cup of four in a gladware container and stirred. No yeast. I thought it would be fun to cultivate my own as that is how these sourdough diehards on the Internet do it. I left the container out on my counter for a couple days with the lid slightly popped. Each day I added another cup of water and another cup of flour and stirred. Like the sourdough police said on the Internet, it should bubble. And bubble it did. After a few days, it started to smell, well, sour. So I thought, okay, it should be done by now after four days of “feeding” this thing. Seriously, as if I do not have enough things to feed over here.

Anyway, I decided to give it the old college try and use the starter to make a sourdough loaf. I got sort of annoyed in preparation because everywhere I Googled, someone had a different opinion about how to go about making the loaf. First, some sourdough enthusiasts claimed that since I did not refrigerate my starter, it would not work. And others said the lid must remain firmly on. While others said that the lid must be cracked because the gasses or whatever-food-science-thing was going on it there would cause the container to explode. Well, I could not have any more explosions happening over here. Do you not remember last week and the non-stop diarrhea here in Casa Bagley? Well, anyway, I felt defeated before I even made the darn loaf because apparently there are competing beliefs about sourdough.

I had no idea water and flour could cause so many disagreements.

Whatever, I decided what’s done is done, and I just wanted to try this thing. So I poured a cup and a half of the starter into my Kitchenaid mixer along with flour, water, and salt. And I mixed. And it came together nicely. I was thinking I had this inthe bag. That I was going to be some sort of sourdough champion. That all my hard work of feeding that science experiment would be oh, so worth it when I pulled a golden crusted giant sourdough loaf out of the oven.

Triumphantly, I set the dough in a bowl to rise for an hour. And…nothing. So I gave it another 30 minutes…and nothing. Subconciously, I knew this was going to be a disaster. But I decided to be optimistic and convinced myself it rose at least a centimeter or two. I plopped it on a baking sheet and covered it with a tea towel for the second rise. And, much like the first rise…nothing. Just a blob of dough.

No matter, I decided to bake this thing anyway. What did I have to loose at this point? I only slaved over this darn thing for almost a week and tweeted about it and talked about it with Dan for days on end. So I baked that dough. And I ended up with…a sourdough brick.

Okay, so, really, it is edible. And it does taste like sourdough. At least sort of. But it definitely does not look so hot. So disappointing! I had planned to get good at this and bake some for my friends. Because it was my understanding that one continues feeding this beastly sourdough starter indefinitely. No way I could bring my gal pals this sad looking dough thing. Not unless they wanted to give it to their kids to use as a hockey puck.

Wah.

Okay, so what should I do? I kept the starter and put it in the fridge with the lid cracked. Anyone have any recommendations? Or a good website with easy directions? And I do mean easy. I cannot even do basic math over here. Eventhough I usually quit after failures like these, I want to try again. Also I want to stop wasting bags and bags of flour. Suggestions welcome!