{"id":227,"date":"2007-12-07T07:01:05","date_gmt":"2007-12-07T07:01:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.feedyourkids.com\/blog\/?p=227"},"modified":"2007-12-07T07:01:05","modified_gmt":"2007-12-07T07:01:05","slug":"a-few-setbacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.feedyourkids.com\/blog\/?p=227","title":{"rendered":"A few setbacks&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"IMG_3985.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.feedyourkids.com\/IMG_3985.jpg\" width=\"320\" height=\"225\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Well, we reached a roadblock with the cats:  when we tried to move forward from &#8220;a little litter in the bowl&#8221; to &#8220;a little water in the bowl&#8221;, they rebelled.  Or, more specifically, one of them rebelled, we&#8217;re not positive which one, but probably this one:<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"IMG_3955.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.feedyourkids.com\/IMG_3955.jpg\" width=\"320\" height=\"248\" \/><br \/>\n<strong>Queenie, Persnickety Girl<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Apparently, our bed was a much more appealing toilet than the water-filled bowl and we when we adjourned to the bedroom night-before-last, we were met with a really disgusting sight and I was up a few more hours than I planned, doing the resulting laundry.  That was fun.  <Sigh.><\/p>\n<p>So, the cats are now quarantined in our bathroom, without access to anything appealing to eliminate in except for the toilet set-up.  Don&#8217;t worry &#8211; our bathroom is very large (we moved the piano in there during a recent remodel, so that the kids could still practice) and their food and water are in there; they&#8217;ll be fine.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been wanting to try this whole toilet-training thing for a long time and this was precisely my fear:  that two of them would take to it beautifully and there would be one holdout (I even predicted which one it would be) that wouldn&#8217;t figure it out and would require a litterbox.  If we have a litterbox in the house, of course, the other two will want to use that, as well, and will no longer opt for the toilet.  So, if Miss Priss doesn&#8217;t get the hang of this soon, we&#8217;re back at Square 1.  <Sigh.><\/p>\n<p>Dinner was also a dismal failure last night.  <Sigh.> I made (attempted?  botched?) <a href=\"http:\/\/find.myrecipes.com\/recipes\/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&#038;recipe_id=630090\">this<\/a> Cooking Light recipe and it was AWFUL.  I think that it was more of an execution error on my part than a true recipe defect, but it was definitely a team effort.  The duck didn&#8217;t have much flavor on its own (was just sprinkled with salt and pepper) and the sauce really wasn&#8217;t distinguishable from a regular wine reduction.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"IMG_3986.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.feedyourkids.com\/IMG_3986.jpg\" width=\"320\" height=\"269\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I expected some more flavor payoff from the semi-exotic ingredients (who keeps rhubarb around?  ginger preserves?  star anise?), but they just didn&#8217;t add much punch to the sauce.  I seared the duck beautifully on the outside and the skin was beautifully crispy, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foodandwine.com\/articles\/the-power-of-touch\">but I could tell that it was still undercooked in the middle<\/a>, so I tried to pop it into the microwave (Gross &#8211; I know, I know, but desperate times call for desperate measures&#8230;) for just a few seconds to catch the middle up with the lovely outside, and of course, I turned it into a chewy, overcooked, rubbery, disgusting mess.  The polenta was fine, but I added a little parmesan to it, which didn&#8217;t complement the sweet-ish sauce at all.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"IMG_3989.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.feedyourkids.com\/IMG_3989.jpg\" width=\"320\" height=\"270\" \/><br \/>\nKid&#8217;s plate, with shaved parmesan on the polenta.<br \/>\n(The kids aren&#8217;t into having their foods all mixed together and didn&#8217;t want to try the sauce.)<\/p>\n<p>The broccoli (frozen, but organic) was the best thing on the plate.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"IMG_3988.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.feedyourkids.com\/IMG_3988.jpg\" width=\"295\" height=\"320\" \/><br \/>\n<Sigh.>  It was a pretty plate (except for the gray-colored duck), but it tasted dreadful.  <Sigh.><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Well, we reached a roadblock with the cats: when we tried to move forward from &#8220;a little litter in the bowl&#8221; to &#8220;a little water in the bowl&#8221;, they rebelled. Or, more specifically, one of them rebelled, we&#8217;re not positive which one, but probably this one: Queenie, Persnickety Girl Apparently, our bed was a much &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.feedyourkids.com\/blog\/?p=227\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;A few setbacks&#8230;&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cats","category-misc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.feedyourkids.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.feedyourkids.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.feedyourkids.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.feedyourkids.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.feedyourkids.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.feedyourkids.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.feedyourkids.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.feedyourkids.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.feedyourkids.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}