Almost Meatless Potluck

Welcome to the Almost Meatless potluck dinner at House Chapin: Spinach and Chickpea Pouch edition! If you don't know what the heck this hullabaloo is all about, read about the project at Tara's blog.

If you've spent any amount of time with Erika or me over the past few months you have assuredly heard of us talk about our new favorite cookbook: Almost Meatless. Of course, we're a bit biased as our friend Tara is one of the co-authors. We might have also tested some of the recipes that made it into the book. That said, we've put quite a culinary dent in this little tome and have yet to run across anything resembling a letdown.

Recently Tara asked us to make a recipe and document the outcome. We had our choice of a couple different recipes. We chose the Spinach and Chickpea Pouches because it was something we wouldn't typically make. I've not used filo dough very often. It's one of those "ingredients" that I don't put to much thought toward, but whenever I use it I'm pleased with the outcome. It makes the finished product look like you've put a lot more time into it than you actually did.

This recipe serves 6 and uses only 8 ounces of ground beef. The filling also contains spinach, garlic, fresh oregano, roasted red bell pepper, chickpeas and feta. It calls for a 1/4t of dried chile flakes, but that ingredient was vetoed by my heat-intolerant assistant. We roasted a fresh red pepper about an hour prior to beginning this dish - I cannot recommend this enough. A fresh roasted pepper is a few worlds better than the jarred stuff. It's like comparing fresh herbs to dried. There's just no comparison. I highly suggest that if you choose to make this that you take the extra 5 minutes to make the tzatziki - so easy and so good!

Making this took about 30 minutes of actual prep time including roasting the pepper. It's a complete dinner, but is also good served with a simple green salad. Anyway, here's the finished product:

Reprinted with permission from Ten Speed Press and the authors.

The Last Ultrasound

Yes, this is Deacon!

I've seen these sonogram images before. Usually I'm looking at them, trying to make out what it is I'm looking at exactly and scrambling for something meaningful to say, but all I can think about are things like, "Hmmm...is 'The Office' new tonight, or is it a rerun?" They all kind of look the same, but after getting them done for us...they still don't look very different than any sonogram image you can Google search. I don't think I'd be able to pick our sonogram out of a bulletin board full of other people's sonograms. Still, it's a pretty cool experience and we're kind of bummed that the 20 week ultrasound is our last. Of course I like to point out that our baby is so advanced that we had its 20 week ultrasound at 18 weeks. We're at the appointment for our ultrasound and the midwife came into the room and asked what we were doing so early for our ultrasound. Erika kind of looked back at her with a sort of "you made the appointment, expert" look and then everything worked out. All the femurs and hearts and pancreases and brain halves showed up just fine. I would seriously go with Erika to these appointments every week if they let us. But this is it...the last time we see our kid with or without the help of sound waves until Octoberish.

As Promised

First of all, I'm going to start using "he" and "she" interchangeably because I feel kind of weird calling our baby "it." We are still not finding out the sex, at least, not on purpose. Our friends Lauren and Brandon, though, just had an ultrasound at about Week 20 and said it was kind of obvious. If we have a notion one way or the other, don't worry, we're not going to guard that information like a top secret cryptogram.

There are a multitude of these websites and books that tell you essentially how far your baby is in its development. "It's Week 6, your baby is beginning to develop the top half of a small intestine" or "it's Week 9, your baby now has a gall bladder!" Well, we are currently in the throes of Week 15. What does that mean? Apparently not a lot goes on in Week 15, actually. Let's see...our baby is developing taste buds and he or she can sense light. The latter development is kind of useless information, considering our baby's current environment. Pretty dark in there, I suspect. Not sure I want to even learn how we came to the conclusion that at Week 15 a baby can sense light. This week is apple week, by the way. They have these other websites that tell you how big your baby is and they usually use fruit as examples. This one website did use a shrimp as an example a week or two ago, which was kind of weird. Are we talking a curled up shrimp? One stretched out? We talking 31/50 count shrimp? Or maybe U8 shrimp - those are pretty big. Anyway, we seem to refer to each week as "apple week" or "lime week" rather than what number we're on. This seems to confuse the people at the OB/GYN.

This image is from a couple of weeks ago. We went in for that triple screen test, which we debated getting for awhile but now are glad we did. The tipping point in the decision to get it or not was, I think, the "free" sonogram. It was a pretty lengthy sonogram, too, because they had a new technician who hadn't used that particular type of equipment before. Unfortunately, they only gave us 2 images, and one was either a hand or a foot - we really couldn't tell which - so I'm not posting it. This time we saw legs and arms flailing about, the baby was rolling around...it was pretty amazing. Yeah, it looks like every other sonogram I've ever seen...but it's ours!

Another Project Completed

A half bathroom is usually the smallest room in one's house, and our former travesty of a half bathroom was no exception. This room was as depressing as it was tiny. It really needed to be put out of its misery. This was one of those rooms that, when we first saw it thought, "well, at least it's clean." To call it an embarrassment would be like saying GM is "financially challenged." To say that it was outdated would have been like Erika going to work in a hoop skirt and bodice. Let's take a look at what we had to work with:

Three things kind of stick out. First, I don't even know what kind of floor this is. Is it supposed to look like cracked marble? Like little dingy interlocking stones? I have literally no clue, but it appeared perpetually dirty, no matter how much it was scrubbed, mopped or wiped down. Next, the tile on the wall was that classic 1970s harvest gold. It might have been a touch lighter than that, but you get the general idea. Here's a confession, though: I actually thought we could leave this tile and paint the walls a bright orange. Erika pointed out that this might cause either seizures or flashbacks by anyone confined to our bathroom for more than 2 minutes. So we took the tile down. Finally, you can kind of see the wallpaper, but you'll have to take our word for it when we say that all 3 layers were completely unpalatable.

Ah, there's a better shot of some of that wallpaper. Whoever patented that design must have made a fortune because I've seen that crap everywhere. There was actually an additional, hidden layer under the mirror that was a kind of neon green paisley - which I am sure actually did cause someone at some time at least a mild seizure. The mirror/medicine cabinet/lighting combo is one that we see elsewhere in our house. My theory is that the contractor either had a relative working at the store where these were purchased, or he got some sort of 3-for-2 deal on them. If you like them, let me know quick, because the remaining 2 in our house are not long for this world.

The vanity is another piece that we have more of in our house. It's made, I think, of cardboard. And while your eyes might be telling you that the counter is carved from a single piece of creamy yellow marble, joke's on you! It's not! Actually, I don't know what it is made from, but I think some sort of polymer was involved in its creation. And while it's in the picture, has anyone else taken up a toilet? I thought there would be some intricate, secure connection between the toilet and the pipe that takes stuff to wherever. Yeah, the toilet just kind of sits on this hole. All that stands between a dry floor and utter, awful disaster is a relative thin ring of wax. Luckily my father was able to walk me through the proper removal and reinstallation of this thing.

So there you have it: the before shots. Now to the after!

Obviously we needed to repaint, adding to the current tally of repainted surface in our house. Instead of tile we put up beadboard or wainscoting (heard it called both and I use both terms interchangeably). The tile is, well, tile. I think it's marble but I honestly don't know.

Little bit of an aesthetic upgrade in the vanity/sink department. Although I feel a little hypocritical because we got a very similar vanity for our master bathroom, just as the original vanities in our house seemed to be from the same litter. No medicine cabinet because it's a half bathroom and it seemed superfluous. The granite is this really cool (in our opinion, anyway) piece that looks like a cross section of a fossilized river bed. We spotted it in our original stone safari when we were looking for a surface for our kitchen but didn't think it looked right in that kind of setting.

So that's it. We did everything ourselves except for the floor. I'm sure at some point I'll learn to cut tile, but until then we have no problem paying someone to do it. Sure, it took a little while, but it came out pretty darn good. Only two rooms to go now! Still...Dad, if you're reading this, I'll probably need just a little help on those toilets, too!

We're Positive! Now with FAQ!

The Latest Chapin

Yes, this is a sonogram from our first visit to the OB-GYN back on March 18th and I'm sure a lot of you have many, many interesting and insightful questions. So we are going to anticipate some of the more popular and intelligent questions and answer them for you right here, right now!

What the hell is that, a blurry gummi bear?
That's a picture of our latest creation: a child! After some practice we figured things out and managed to create some new life. It totally looks like a blurry gummi bear though.

Don't you have a newer, better sonogram picture?
Why yes, we do. But we want you to revisit our blog in order to get more and more "unique daily visitors" so that we can implement Google ads on our blog and pay for our child's college education. Unless our child masters the French horn, in which case we're all set. So revisit the blog at a later date and we'll have fresh, new sonogram pictures that look like an actual person.

So, are you going to find out whether it's a boy or a girl?
Yeah, no we aren't.

Any names picked out?
If it is a boy it's Samuel Robert. If it's a girl...we actually have no idea what we'll name it if it's a girl. We're currently taking suggestions.

How's everything going so far?
Surprisingly well, especially given some of the 1st trimester stories we've been hearing. Erika has been doing really, really well. No nausea, no getting sick, no weird cravings. There was a 4 week stretch where she was napping within approximately 35 seconds upon returning home from work. There was also a time at Hopkins where for a few minutes she didn't feel 100%, but then she felt better...

So are you guys ready?
Not at all! We have a nursery ready to fill up with stuff, but so far we're still researching cribs, car seats, changing tables, playpens, diapers, child care, baby monitors, books, glider rockers, mobiles, bouncy seats, onesies, twosies, pacifiers...all that stuff.

What's up with those pirates in Somalia?
Weird, right? Who knew that there were still pirates in the 21st century. Yarrrr!

So Erika's doing well...how's the baby?
So far, so good! We've taken a a couple tests and screenings and so far everything looks great!

OK, when's this baby arriving?
We have a tentative due date of October 24th, but since we are usually late for essentially everything, and assuming tardiness is genetic, it might be early November...

Worried about the Red Sox?
No, and while you're asking, we're probably not going to name our kid "J.D." However "Drew" is on our list of girl names, but the loose association with the current Boston right fielder did cost that proposed name a few points. "Dustin" on the other hand...

Late October...aren't you two school counselors? And isn't that a busy time?
Yes and yes. What's funny is that we thought we could plan for a July delivery but obviously that didn't happen. Apparently these types of things don't quite operate on a schedule.

How excited is cousin Emma about all this?
Funny you should ask. We had the chance to sit down with Emma this past weekend and she had this to say:

"I am quite excited about meeting my cousin and anticipate the two of us having quite a bit of fun together. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Uncle Deacon and Aunt Erika on the new addition to their family."

Anything else?
We have never been more excited about anything. We are so thankful for each other and our families and their love and support. The pregnancy has been really wonderful so far and we are cautiously optimistic that it will continue to be. We can't wait for October!!!

Spoke Too Soon.

As we were sitting down to a lovely dinner together, Erika and I decided that our bathrooms are horrible. They're straight out of 1972. I feel like they should be decorated with a disco ball, a "Keep On Truckin'" mural-poster, a lava lamp and bright, fluorescent green paisley wallpaper. So we are redoing them. Totally. Gutted to bare walls and rebuilt from the ground up like in that show with the million dollar man. We have pics, including, ironically, bright fluorescent green paisley wallpaper.

Done with Painting?

I think we're almost hesitant to declare that we are done painting stuff in our house. We recently thought about it, and we have literally painted every square inch of this place. Actually the banister in this picture is perhaps the last bastion of the characteristic dark wood that used to permeate our home. No more!

These stairs were it. Although we'll be wiping down shiny white kickboards for the remainder of our ownership days here, they needed to be painted. Also, we had a little Satin Impervo leftover and really needed to use it. Finally, the appearance of these stairs were giving Erika flashbacks to the house in the Berkshires where she's been known to fall down a flight twice in a 2 day stretch.


It had been awhile since I'd worked with oil-based paint. I was sort of careful while painting - I mean, I used tape - but some paint did drip from time to time and I neglected to wipe it up. No worries, I figured, I can go back later and clean it with paint thinner. Did you know that paint thinner does a great job of cleaning up dried oil-based paint and floor finish too? It's true! So after trying to clean up one or two "errors" I realized my folly. We still haven't resolved this minor detail, and the end results really do look sharp.