You Are What You Eat. I Guess That Makes Me Sweet.

Here's the goss: prior to becoming pregnant, I was not much of a dessert eater, much to the chagrin of my sweet-toothed husband. Not much as in one square of dark chocolate was enough dessert to last me a week. Or two.

Then this baby girl came to town. And now I am a sugar-craving machine. I do what I can to control myself, but seriously, I fantasize about cookies and cake and pie and scones and french toast and sea salted chocolate - the list is frighteningly lengthy, so I will just stop there - all day long. 

I also used to prefer desserts that were barely sweet at all (see: dark chocolate squares). Yet, last night I found myself unable to quit eating homemade salted caramel sauce straight from the pan. Ah, pregnancy. Totally awesome. And totally bizarre. Safe to say, Hugh loves this new side of me. If only because it means that there is always something sweet to eat at our house right now.

On that note, I feel like by January 9th you have been virtuous enough in the new year to deserve a little prize. So here are some sweet treats that have been showing up in our kitchen these days:

Vanilla Buttermilk Cake with Lemon Curd, Strawberries, and Cream Cheese Icing - If a best friend comes to visit you and her birthday was the day before, what do you do? Why, you bake her a birthday cake, of course. You also blow up some balloons. And while you are doing these things, you quietly feel sentimental about how this is the nineteenth of her birthdays you have celebrated together and about how very lucky that makes you. Note: this is our go to vanilla cake at the White Hot house.

Hello Dolly Bars - The birthday girl brought her sweet husband with her to visit. While Lofton and I were chatting, he mentioned this was his favorite dessert. Lucky for him, it's almost identical to Hugh's favorite dessert - Magic Bars. Also lucky for him, I am highly suggestible right now when it comes to what I eat (see: I am no longer allowed to watch Food Network around dinnertime, lest we abandon our home-cooked dinner plans for a date night of thin crust pizza and Greek salad again) and once I looked at the recipe, I was in the car in less than ten minutes driving to the grocery to buy the ingredients. The four of us ate all but one tiny square of these before the night was done.

Cranberry Lemon Scones - Hugh and I made these for Christmas morning. They were delicious. I would recommend popping them back in the fridge for thirty minutes prior to baking to ensure the butter is extra cold and they don't spread all over the pan (but if they do, they will still be delicious). Also, I used regular lemons. Because there is no way I am paying $2 for one lemon at Publix.

Rolo Pretzel Delights - After we mashed the pecans onto these, we also sprinkled them with sea salt. And then we ate them all. And then we died and went to heaven, because seriously, they are addictively good. And they take less than ten minutes to make from start to finish. This is my number one sweet treat recommendation from this list. But don't make them if you are low on the self control for sweet and salty snacks (are you listening, self?).

Bread Pudding with Salted Caramel Sauce - Holy cow, this is so good. In my previous life, I was not a big proponent of Cooking Light desserts. I figured I was eating dessert once in a blue moon, so when I did, I would eat whatever I wanted. Well, now I am eating dessert twice a week, so I am singing a different tune. Also, this bread pudding was just how bread pudding should be, and the sauce is a total revelation. If you don't like bread pudding, just make the sauce and eat it with a spoon.

Pumpkin Gingersnap Cookies - What might just be the perfect chewy gingersnap cookie recipe. Lucky for me, the other members of my family are not huge gingersnap fans, so I got these all to myself.

Grapefruit Creamsicle - I already told you all about this. Now I'm just being pushy. Make it already, okay?

Well, that about covers the sweets we've consumed. In the last three weeks. Anything we're missing? Please, just tell me. I can be at the grocery in less than ten minutes...

Portrait of a Marriage

Since I got pregnant, I have been taking weekly photos to keep track of how the belly grows. I take them in front of a chalkboard wall in our office using the tripod and the self-timer and they look like this:

First weekly photo, three days after we found out as I was pregnant. Yes, I knew the baby was the size of a poppy seed and there wasn't much to see. Too bad I wasn't happy about it at all...

Lately, as I'm really growing, Hugh has been taking the photos for me, which usually ensures me a little pep talk while we document my expanding waistline. 

Now, let me preface this with the fact that Hugh and I don't always see eye-to-eye on my fashion decisions. Lately I've been partial to leggings and v-neck t-shirts, topped with some version of those drapey, bulky cardigans that women love and men hate. 

So, this week, Hugh was teasing me during our photo (for which I was wearing one of my beloved sweaters) and my raging hormones were making me a little bit snappy. Every picture he took left me feeling less and less cute, and he kept right on joking away. These were the kind of facial expressions I was making at this point in our little photo session:

Ah, marriage. They get you at your best. And at your worst. 

Finally, I snapped that if he had any pointers, I was all ears. 

Hugh responded, "Sure, I do. Don't wear your bathrobe to take your weekly photo."

Touche, Hugh, touche.

But I still love that sweater. 

Post Script: Just to prove I don't only look cranky and blobbish these days, here's a photo I took the next day to send to my Mom. Baby girl's getting huge in there:

A Grapefruit Creamsicle

I'm going to go ahead and get it out of the way first thing in this post: I really don't think there is anything Hugh can't do. It borders on ridiculousness, honestly. Fortunately, I am the beneficiary of his overall awesomeness, so you will hear nary a complaint from me. 

Hugh loves ice cream. He also loves projects. And I love Hugh. So for his birthday this year, I bought him an ice cream maker. Due to our busy schedules and my (extreme) particularities about what I will and will not eat over the last three months, he didn't have an opportunity to give it a spin until our holiday break. 

Then came the lengthy endeavor of deciding what to make first. Finally he settled on a recipe from December's Bon Appetit for Grapefruit "Creamsicle." The gist of the recipe is you make grapefruit sorbet and put it in a pan beside store-bought vanilla ice cream, then when you scoop them out together they taste like a creamsicle. 

Except, if you've ever met Hugh, you can guess that there would be no store-bought vanilla ice cream in this equation. If he was taking the time to make the sorbet, he would take the time to make the ice cream, too. What can I say? We like processes around the White Hot house. 

 Grapefruit Sorbet whirling away in the ice cream maker. 

Now, knowing vanilla ice cream has a custard base and that custard can be a bit tricky if you've never made it before, I was giving preemptive pep talks that he shouldn't be too worried about it and it might take a few tries to get it just right. You know, making sure his ego didn't take too big of a hit if it didn't turn out. 

Oh, Catherine, when will you learn? Hugh's dessert was complete perfection. Seriously, the vanilla ice cream was the best I have ever had, the sorbet was wonderful, and, side-by-side, they were like a little revelation of tart and creamy deliciousness. 

So, moral of the story, ice cream making is not going to be the thing at which Hugh does not excel*. Also, you should make this dessert, stat. It's worth the space an ice cream maker will occupy in your cabinet. 

Grapefruit "Creamsicle"

Adapted from Bon Appetit

Grapefruit Sorbet

makes 1 quart

1 1/8 cup sugar

1 tablespoon finely grated grapefruit zest

1 3/4 cups fresh ruby red grapefruit juice

Bring sugar and 1 cup water to boil in small saucepan. Stir just until sugar is dissolved and remove from heat. Stir in grapefruit zest and juice. Cover and chill for at least 1 hour, until cold (Hugh started the vanilla ice cream while this was chilling). 

Process mixture in ice cream make according to manufacturer's instructions. Freeze until firm, about 2 hours.

Spread sorbet into half of 8x4x2 1/2" loaf pan. Spread 1 quart vanilla ice cream (recipe below) to fill the other half of pan. Cover and freeze until firm, about 2 hours. This is how it looks:

Note: we found this dessert was even better the second day. 

Vanilla Ice Cream

From David Lebovitz

makes approximately 1 quart

1 cup whole milk

Pinch of salt

3/4 cup sugar

1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise

2 cups heavy cream

6 large egg yolks

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Heat whole milk, salt, and sugar in a saucepan. Scrape seeds from vanilla bean using a paring knife. Add seeds and vanilla bean pod to milk mixture. Whisk to make sure sugar has dissolved, then cover and remove from heat. Let mixture steep for 1 hour.

Set up an ice bath by placing a 2 quart bowl in a larger bowl partially filled with ice and water. Set a strainer over the smaller bowl and add cream to smaller bowl. 

In a separate bowl, whisk egg yolks together. Whisk in some of the warm milk and vanilla mixture, stirring constantly. Add warmed yolks and milk mixture back to the small saucepan. 

Cook over low heat, constantly stirring and scraping bottom of pan, until the custard is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Do not let boil. 

Strain the warm custard into the heavy cream. Stir mixture over the ice until mixture is cool. Add vanilla extract. Chill thoroughly, at least 2 hours. 

Remove vanilla bean pod and freeze mixture in ice cream maker according to manufacturers instructions. 

Eat it up!

*Mandy and I are always jokingly (kind of) trying to come up with things that Hugh won't be good at. In five years we have come up with nothing. Nothing. Wtf, frinternets?

The Beginning of Something Wonderful.

Happy 2012! Not to be a blogging cliche, but I love the fresh start of a new year. New planner, new goals, another chance to do it all right. I have a sneaking suspicion 2012 is going to be pretty fantastic - not in small part due to the little girlie kicking away in my belly, protesting that we are out of bed approximately two hours too early today. 

2011 was simultaneously wonderful and pretty awful. We clinked champagne flutes at midnight last year already ten months into the process of trying to have a baby. And, as much as I tried to focus on everything else I had going on and count all of the things I had to be grateful for, infertility has a way of occupying every single thought in your head. 

The first eight months of last year, we were trucking through a lot of dark days. Every new page of the calendar was staring me in the face as another month failed, on top of the fact that I was pumped up on medicines that made me feel and act like a crazy person. At the time, the only bright spot I could find was that Hugh and I cleaved together during those days rather than being driven apart.

But, just as my peach of a husband would promise me over and over again as a sort of mantra, we got there. On August 15th at 6:45am, our whole life changed with one little test (that I almost threw in the trash before I realized it was positive). I spent the next four months completely overwhelmed with excitement, but also feeling like I was floating along in a fog. A fog of hormones and shock that we were finally having a baby and joy so huge it was honestly a little bit scary, and, let's not forget, the paralyzing fear that something was going to happen to take it all away. 

It's funny how much can change in just twelve months - last year we spent part of our holiday break deciding on fertility medicines and a strategy with my doctor. This year, we spent our time off painting a nursery and hanging up baby clothes and putting together a crib. Oh, life, so tricky sometimes.

And now here we are. Back from the holiday that we both needed much more than we realized, and eager to welcome all that the year ahead promises. I am refreshed and ready to go. Which brings me to my 2012 resolutions. Last year, I had a three page list of things I wanted to do differently, ways I wanted to be better. It wasn't my most effective year of resolutions, let's just put it that way. In hindsight, it is easy for me see I was grasping at straws, trying to get control over something since I couldn't control the one thing I really wanted. 

This year, I've decided on a simpler plan for my resolutions. Over the last eighteen days I have spent much of my time off reflecting on what I want the year to look like, on how I want to feel when we're toasting its end in twelve sure-to-fly-by months, and I have decided that my 2012 will be driven my a word:

Intentional. 

I want to be intentional with my energy, my time, my diet, my money, my relationships. Coming off of a year during which I feel like a bobbed along in the current and, for the most part, let my life happen, I am ready to be living with intent again.

Let's do this, 2012. 

The Most Wonderful Time of the Most Wonderful Year.

We're on a little White Hot vacation, my friends.

A vacation that involves staying home, knocking out nursery projects like it's our job, checking off pre-baby to do list items, staying in bed until 10am every morning drinking coffee, and staying up late making delicious dinners and talking and planning and imagining this turn our life is going to take in a few short months. 

This is our last official time off together, other than a weekend here and there, before baby girl comes. And while we are focused on the one million things to do and on all that we have to celebrate, I'm focused on soaking it up, too.

As we are past the halfway point now - 22 weeks and counting - I know our days as just Cassie and Hugh are drawing to a close. And while I'm over the moon for the new adventure we are embarking on, I want to make sure I savor the days that are left where it is only us. After all, it has been only us for the last seven years, and they have been the most wonderful times of my life.

So, from our little family to yours, happiest of holidays. I hope you are spending your days with your very favorite person, reveling in everything you have to celebrate.

Our 2012 Christmas card photo. I can't get the actual card to upload, and after the disaster that has been using Tiny Prints this year, I'm just going to let it go. But I will leave you with the fact that it was 45 degrees and windy outside when we took this photo using the tripod and the self-timer. Mad skills, my friends, if I do say so myself.

 

See you in 2012!

The White Hot Life in Photos (and Words).

Happy Monday, my frinternets. Normally this post is a little weekend update, but seeing as I haven't updated you on our weekends in approximately 3 months, you're getting an update of the latest and greatest from our White Hot life as of late.

Here's what it's looked like:

My favorite husband had a birthday (two months ago). We're now co-members of the twenty-eight club. At that point I was two months into growing this baby and, subsequently, two months into not cooking a damn thing. So, I felt it was only fair to indulge my favorite birthday boy with his favorite meal:

Why yes, yes, I did cook an entire Thanksgiving dinner for Hugh on October 6th. I've told you I love that guy.

Boston Cream Pie birthday cake!

One of my very dearest friends is having a baby (like, any day now). Her husband is a year ahead of Hugh in med school, and we met at the first Wives' Club event three years ago. And I have said about one thousand times since then that I don't know what I would do without her. Suffice to say we have a lot in common. Anyway, I had the honor of co-hosting a little baby shower for her. All of the photos of the people are blurry, but this is a little peak at the details:

 

The spread.

 Vanilla Buttermilk Cake with Strawberries, Lemon Curd, and Cream Cheese Icing. And, she's having a baby girl!

Hugh carved a pumpkin that looked like Fletcher. Because he's awesome:

Cooked and ate some really, really good food. Because even though the food-blogging has been nonexistent, the food-eating has been pretty nonstop:

 Meatball Pizza.

 Pizza with Figs, Roasted Garlic, Pancetta, Caramelized Onions, and Blue Cheese. Nirvana.

Chili bowl. Crazy delicious. Crazy heartburn. Oh, pregnancy.

Waffles and Blueberry Compote.

Started decking our halls:

A snazzed-up mantle.

Our pets are still a mess.

We've stayed really busy with work and school, but decided to make it better by working and studying curled up in bed with our very spoiled babies:

 

I mean, really.

 

Henry is determined to be the first of the boys to feel baby girl move. He fell asleep waiting.

Henry stuck his face in a bowl of sour cream:

 This is his I'm-in-trouble expression. 

And Fletcher just continued to humor us, patient boy that he is:

Oh, and last but certainly not least, we've made it to the halfway point:

20 weeks. And she's kicking up a storm. Safe to say being pregnant with this baby girl of ours is more than exceeding my expectations. We are just loving life right now. But more on that later this week.

And, with that, you are basically caught up on life at the White Hot house. We missed you around here.

Hope your week feels like the end of the countdown to a two-week Christmas vacation!

It's a...

I want to preface this post by saying I had absolutely no preference on a boy or girl going into our appointment. Not because I "just want a healthy baby." I do want a healthy baby, of course, but I don't think the sex and the health are really at all related, and certainly not mutually exclusive. Rather, I didn't have a preference because it took us a long time to get to here, to this pregnant point. And when you're dealing with the waiting game, I think all you really want is a baby. Whether that baby was a boy or a girl didn't really matter at all.

Now, getting to the good part. I was sixteen weeks when we went in for our ultrasound on Friday. I knew that was on the early side to be finding out, so I had worked hard at not getting my hopes up that they'd be able to tell us. Really, I was just excited to get to watch our sweet baby on the screen for an hour.

Since I met Hugh, I've always felt like we would have all boys. I don't know why, but I have always just pictured myself as the Mom of three boys. Maybe because our pets are all boys?

Anyway, when I finally got pregnant, I didn't really have a feeling one way or the other. Until week 7. When I woke up clear as day feeling like this baby was a girl. Try as I might to remain neutral, I could only picture the baby being a girl. When Hugh was stressed about our boy name options, because you know we've been discussing names since 2005, I couldn't even get worked up about it.

So, there we are at the ultrasound. I think girl. Hugh thinks boy. My Mom thinks boy. Every single one of our friends thinks girl. And then two minutes into our ultrasound, the tech proclaimed, it's a...

GIRL!

I thought it was a girl and I was still shocked. I sat straight up on the table and shouted, "Are you serious?!" She was. And then there were lots of happy tears and hugging and hand-squeezing from these elated parents. 

Really, it's so fun just to know. And it doesn't hurt that we think she's just the cutest thing we ever saw:

Sweetest little profile.

I, for one, cannot even handle those little crossed legs.

So, there you have it. A healthy, perfect White Hot baby girl. And if you thought I was counting down to April 26th before...

Post Script: I'm back into my regular life, cooking and working and maintaining this little house and staying awake for more than three hours at a time, so stay tuned for some non-baby related posts. And, let's be honest, probably some more baby-related posts too. Happy Monday, frinternets.