The Anna Articles

This week is Birth Trauma Awareness Week so I thought I'd share the story of LeRoy's early arrival, as writing it down and sharing is helpful in processing it. His delivery was certainly not what I expected going into pregnancy and even right up until it happened.  He's a somewhat small 3 month old now, but a generally happy one First, some background on my pregnancy:  On our five year anniversary I found out I was pregnant. We couldn't do our normal anniversary dinner out due to covid and instead went for a hike nearby while cautiously (it was super early, the line on the test was faint but there) talking about the pregnancy and potentially taking our kid hiking some day.  I was pretty grateful to be working from home as the first trimester required daily naps for a period. We were "team green" - not finding out the sex prior to delivery. Mike couldn't come to any ultrasounds until the 3rd trimester due to the fall covid surge, though he was able to vide...

It's coming up on nearly a year of owning our Victorian house and we're making decent progress on the list of projects we had when we put the offer in.  Our biggest project is (was, now) the owner's suite. Having one was on our list of "must haves" for house hunting and while this house didn't have one when we bought it, we saw it had the space for it. Our conversation with contractors started as soon as we closed on the house, meeting 6 in the span of a week. After we considered whether to start at all during a pandemic and with us both working from home, we eventually got going on construction in June and wrapped up in November.  Before  This was the "master bedroom" or just the biggest bedroom. You can see some built-in cabinets in a hallway that led to the family room to the right, and off camera to the right was a small closet. To the left is the old chimney chaise. We tore out the wall between the back of the closet and the family room and con...

 Two days away from the election and I'm trying to distract myself from the anxiety with food. It's not working all that well, but at least the food is good.  This recipe is perfect for any meal; I always make it for dinner but it seems particularly well suited for brunch, too. It's actually vegetarian, a rarity for me, but I love how the veggies are celebrated here.  Over the past couple of years I've taken a liking to leeks, and they shine here with a couple other standard fall veggies - potatoes and carrots. The original recipe just calls for potatoes and leeks, and you could do that. But, I really feel the carrots add another dimension to this dish and they make it just a bit more filling (and pretty).  Potato Leek & Carrot Frittata Adapted from  Uproot Kitchen Servings:  4-6 Time:  1 hour Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Ingredients: 1 large Russet potato 2 large leeks 1-2 large carrots (I used 2 above) 2 T olive oil 6 eggs 1/4 t garlic powd...

AgraCulture, a local fast casual chain, has a curried chicken salad sandwich I love and used to order all the time when I worked in Uptown and we had free "healthy lunches" once a week. (I have to give a bit of side eye to AgraCulture's "food ethos" with its reference to the Dirty Dozen, but I appreciate their focus on quality ingredients and they always had Organic Valley milk available.) I haven't worked near an AgraCulture in years but that sandwich stuck with me. Last year, I discovered a recipe that seemed similar and set out to create a version that was perfect for me. This curried chicken salad is a great lunch meal prep, and usually makes just more than enough for a week of lunches so would be good to prep for two as well. If you already have cooked chicken on hand, this is a great recipe to quickly put together Sunday night (or hey, Monday lunch time during #wfh) and then you just have to serve it the rest of the week. I serve it in half of a p...

As we're spending nearly all of our time at home now due to COVID-19, we're taking the time to explore our yard and learn about the plants we now have. It's been a really great yard to have during quarantine with so many birds and plants to keep us - or me at least - entertained. We're treating this year as a maintenance year while we figure it out. As the new neighbor says, if we don't like anything we can always take it out (though, probably next year). Plant giveaways and trades are popular in the neighborhood email listserv, which seems even more active than Nextdoor here.  That neighbor - and Google Lens - has been super helpful as she helped the previous owner plant much of the garden here (and apparently did the same for other neighbors) so she was able to help us identify a lot of the plants. The previous owner also kindly responded to our email when we were certain one plant was dead and couldn't figure out why Google Lens told me we had a bunch of baby...

This is not a fancy, or colorful, recipe; it seems classically German to me. Well, probably Polish really, with the kluski and kielbasa. I associate this dish with my hometown, though, and my ancestors from there emigrated from Bavaria or "West Prussia."  Growing up I ate a lot of sauerkraut as my Mom would make kraut with my Grandma using the lettuce from the garden and it was a staple of church dinners. My Mom made a variety of dishes, but I think I remember her kluski kraut well at least partially because the name is so fun to say. A couple years ago I decided to make it from memory after a trip to Kramarczuk's that yielded the 3 main ingredients: kluski noodles, kielbasa and sauerkraut. My recent trip was via curbside pickup, as one does "in these times."  I recently confirmed my Mom's steps and turns out I wasn't too far off. I made just slight variations and tried to capture measurements, though this is really one of those "to taste" reci...

I first made these muffins a little over a year ago as I was getting ready to make the big change from agency life back to corporate. Turns out they are just as good stored in the fridge or freezer and reheated, as I found out when I got slightly concerned about their impact on my upcoming drug test for said move to corporate life and therefore stored most of them away that first time. These muffins have been on my mind for weeks and I finally got the lemons I needed for them (I thought I had 2 lemons when I first wanted to make them but it was only one...). They are a perfect spring - or really, any time - muffin. Light and fluffy, yet filling. Such a great texture, which I believe comes from the large amount of baking powder, and the citrus is refreshing. I like to make muffins on a weekend and have 1-2 for breakfast all week. If you make muffins frequently, I highly recommend this silicone muffin pan . I used rigid ones for years and was getting sick of how hard they were to cle...