…And We’re Back!

It’s been a while friend. How have you been? I’ve missed you. Motherhood, career change, travel, renovations…these are the things that have kept me away. But I am back, hopefully better! I tried to reorganize the blog. But then it took me too long to do what I wanted to do, so I guess I will do it little by little while its still live.

At home, we’ve redone my kitchen space. Expanded the main floor to dining, and moved our living space up to the loft so I have more room to play (thank you to my loving supporting husband). We’ve opened up the kitchen bar, so I could have guests watch me cook, or maybe even start a youtube channel! How I will fit that in with a baby, full time job, cookbook writing and blogging, who knows!
Since I’ve been eating out a lot (because I wasn’t cooking as much as I should) there will be lots of restaurant posts, but eating out has refreshed my motivation for cooking. There will be more recipes for you to try with me! I’m also attempting to use a big girl camera instead of my iPhone so hopefully my images will be better too. Wish me luck!

As always, thank you for coming by, your comments, your time, your emails and your support! You know where to find me, hello {at} miemonster {dot} net!

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Breakfast Sandwiches

I had egg mcmuffins every day for 2 weeks straight. Well 2 work weeks. I’m ashamed. But I’m making breast milk and I need to eat. And often. I can’t seem to keep the calories on. McDonald’s is conveniently on the way to work after I drop off the baby in the morning. Every time I eat it I feel guilty. I probably could just make these for the week and bring it to work instead. So I did.

Egg McMuffins are literally egg. muffin. cheese. canadian bacon. And that is the recipe. Let’s call them Egg MieMoffins.

Assembly line. Cook all the eggs. Slice the muffins in half. Lay down the cheese. Stack.

So easy, and not really that time consuming to make. Wrap in parchment paper, stick it in a ziplock and then thrown them in the freezer. Why didn’t I think of this before? Husband likes biscuits instead. Going to do those next time.  The possibilities are endless. I could do bacon, or sausage patties. I wonder if I save money in the long run though. But at least I know what’s in it!

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Salted Caramel Apple Mini Pies

I like to joke that my dog went apple picking and brought home apples…but it’s sort of true.

Bawse stayed with friends while we were in Pittsburgh, and they took him and his “girlfriend” on an apple picking adventure. When they dropped him off, along with him were lots of apples… have apples, make apple pie!  

And because I love salted caramels, and happened to have some one hand, why not?

Chop the apples into cubes.

1 tsp of cinnamon

1/4 cup of sugar

2 tbsp of all purpose flour

Stir stir stir. THEN DONE. Isn’t that crazy easy? I couldn’t believe it either. I never made apple pie filling before. I thought it would be more complicated.

Store bought pie dough, because I have a baby and “ain’t nobody got time for that”. Cut into circles and made these cute mini pies.

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They are super cute…but the crust to filling ratio is off. I love more crust than pie, but this was just too much. I’ve decided my new favorite way, is to just make them like pizza slices!

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I used Freutcake’s Recipe for these, but just cut the dough the way I wanted. Enjoy!

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Phipps Conservatory

Since we are doing a big west coast trip soon, we decided to do a couple small trips with baby, to see how she would do. We went to Pittsburgh, for her to visit her great grandparents, and then explored Phipps Conservatory & Botanical Gardens.

This place is beautiful! And it’s nice and mellow for a little 4 month old. She liked seeing all the vegetation. It was quiet and indoor/outdoor so we got to enjoy the sunshine. What I really liked about this place is that they grow and harvest ingredients for their “green” cafe. They encourage and recycle all that they can!

This would be a good place when the little one is older too. They have lots of interactive stations for kids, like building a fort, planting things, a mini fresh market where they can play “store” and other learning type activities.

Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens
One Schenley Park
Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3830

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Roasted Shrimp Orzo

I’ve been in a cooking rut. But because I’m nursing I need to eat. A lot. I’m literally withering away because I’m producing milk and it’s taking all my calories and turning it into fatty milk for my baby. We are still using Blue Apron for dinner.  But I miss picking out my own meals, and eating what I WANT to eat versus what I have to eat. However, in order to not waste food, I need to create my own meal plans before I cancel or skip orders.

My friend Rosie came by with lunch one weekend and it was delicious. So tasty, healthy and yet so simple. I decided to go ahead and make it myself for our dinner and lunches one week. It’s filled with fresh herbs, which gives it great flavor and without the extra sodium.

This roasted shrimp orzo pasta is delicious. Lemony, bright and eaten cold makes it a perfect lunch.  Shrimp is roasted in the oven with just a little salt and pepper.

Dressing is salt, pepper, olive oil and lemon juice.

Red onions and cucumbers add a crunchy texture.

Salt and pepper, easy peasy.

Stir in some feta and voila! She used Ina Garten’s recipe and its perfect the way it is!

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Curry Crabs

I’m back! Thank you for waiting patiently. After being hacked again I did not want to go through the trouble of putting my site back up for it to get hacked a third time. Hopefully this is it!

Even though work is demanding, and baby is demanding, and my house is a mess…I still get chances to cook. To close out the summer (What? I know, its fall) I was stuck with almost half a bushel of cooked blue crabs. I used it as a chance to work on my cookbook (based off my maman’s recipes).

What. Haven’t heard about that thing in awhile right? Well now that I actually have a child, it’s even more important to keep that kitchen legacy alive. Before I was writing it for my future children.. and here I am 4 years later with one. Oh wow. It’s been 4 years since I started and I still have made 0 progress. Okay that’s a lie, I’ve got a few recipes written. Lao food is complicated and takes me awhile to write and test over and over!

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Would any of you be interested in being my help kitchen? I would email you the recipes I’m working on, and you tell me if you can understand how its written, and if the directions make sense? Leave a comment or email me! miemo {at} miemonster {dot} net!

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Taylor Swift 1989 World Tour

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Finally. Of all the years of being a Taylor Swift fan, I FINALLY was able to go to a concert. Reasons before? Friends didn’t like Taylor Swift enough to spend the money on tickets to go with me. If they did go with me, I’d have to buy the tickets. For my 30th birthday, my husband (along with a surprise party) got us tickets to see Tay Tay! He happened to like her new album and was willing to sit through it with me. <3

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She is amazing. She even played a couple of her older songs, updated to her new sound. She makes everyone feel like we are all her best friends (which is probably why her squad is so big) and I love her even more. The concert was outdoors at Nats Stadium, and it rained all day. Her stage, which lifted up from the ground, got stuck in the air, and she handled it with grace until they were able to fix it.

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Everyone was given a LED wristband, we weren’t sure what it was for, until she came out on stage. THEY LIT UP. She basically controlled all of us during the show. It lit up multiple colors, blinked to the beat and was just all in all a ridiculously fun and awesome show. I totally understand now why my cousin goes to her concert EVERY time. She is a true performer. The stadium sat about 45,000 people and she SOLD THEM OUT. For TWO NIGHTS IN A ROW.

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She also has a surprise guest every night, and our night was Lorde. They sang Royals together. Her set, her costumes, everything was fun and sparkly.

It was hard to leave our newborn at Nana’s but I had a great time. Now that I found out some of my mommy friends like Taylor too, I would definitely go again and leave the babies with their daddies 😉 Even though my husband seemed to enjoy the concert too!

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Where Have I Been?

…not sleeping and trying to figure out parenthood. The only thing I’m making is breast milk. We have been eating what neighbors and friends bring us, and the hubs has been cooking Blue Apron meals.

But my mini bun has finally arrived! You can read my birth story over at my mama blog. Yep. I have two. I figured not everyone wants to read a mama blog so I’ve decided to keep this one life and food. Though there’s not much happening right now because well first time parents. Lol.

The days are such a blur right now. Stick with me, I’ll figure it out.

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Blogging and Privacy

{Drawing by Tu Gribouilles}

I am torn. I love blogging. I love to share snippets of my life, and products that I like and hope could be beneficial to you. I like telling stories and hope that people can relate. That is all fine and dandy for my food blog. I keep people anonymous when they want to be. But when it comes to my unborn child I am torn. I know everything she does is going to be adorable, and I will have a million pictures of her. But do I want to share them? Do I want digital copies of my kid’s face floating on the internet?

For the most part the internet has been good to me. I haven’t run into anything detrimental. I try to keep tabs of what I share and consider those in my lives when sharing. However, there are still times where I come across people stealing my pictures and using it as theirs, or even have my face as their face! I do not want that for my mini bun. I don’t even want to use her name in a public space. But can I really be an effective mommy blogger (MamaMiemo.com), if I won’t even share pictures of my kid? I honestly don’t even wanna put stuff up on my personal facebook!

I love looking at the cute kids when I’m reading through parental blogs. But the internet is a big scary place, for a tiny baby. How do you guys feel about it?

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Kikki K Personal Planner

Ugh. I know. Miemo, ANOTHER planner? How many planners does one woman need, as my cousin Cece would say. Well at one point I had 3. Erin Condren for my life, Poppin for my blogs, and freelance clients, and a Sugar Paper LA one for my office and work tasks. As I get bigger and more off balance, I’ve decided that I need just ONE planner to put everything in (except work/office, that stays there).

After making a list of what I want I want to schedule in this planner, and what I want it to do, I then made a list of places that sells them. I knew for sure that I wanted something that I could reuse from years to come, and not have to order one every year. I wanted ample note pages and pockets and customize able.

After scouring blogs, watching youtube reviews, and pinterest, I finally decided. I bit the bullet and went with the one recommended by Michelle from Hey Love Designs. I got the Kikki Large Personal Planner.

Pros:

  • Big enough for me to fold papers and stick in there until I can deal with them
  • Has a clasp
  • Soft leather, looks so cute, love the colors
  • Refillable, just buy a new set of weekly calendar every year or use perpetual that comes with it (I prefer predated pages)
  • Compatible with filofax A5 stuff so I’m not limited to Kikki K stuff
  • Tabs to organize all the things I need to manage, social, personal, projects, blogs etc.
  • Week starts on a Monday, and the weekend days are kept together at the end
  • Being a hole punched system it’s easy for me to move sheets and notes around

Cons:

  • Big. I carry a big purse but I can see how this could be an issue when I don’t
  • The preprinted calendars are based on the Australian calendar, so I have to write in American holidays
  • Paper is thinner than I’d like
  • No notes section for weekly tasks at each week for the planner section (I just added lined post its)
  • There’s no monthly outlook prior to the weekly pages starting. They are in the beginning,  but I feel I could probably find a refill that’s more my style

…also, yes I know its in the middle of the year, but guess what, their planners start in JUNE so just in time for me!

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