Playground and Pad Thai

Our nearest playground is small, but that doesn't stop Jackson and Olivia from having a blast. (After all, they are small, too.) Jackson loves the dinosaurs.

Livi will go down the slide over and over...and over.

After wearing the kids out, I made the Cheater Pad Thai from the Happy Herbivore cookbook, which I received for Christmas.  It's called that because it isn't completely fat-free like most of the recipes in the book. But it's still under 300 calories per serving. That appeals to me because I ate a lot over the past few weeks. I could definitely stand to cut back as the new year begins.

This was the fastest pad thai ever. While the noodles cook, you make your sauce and crush some peanuts, and you're good to go. The recipe called for topping the noodles with bean sprouts, but my supermarket was sold out of them. Weird. So that I wasn't just eating noodles for dinner, I roasted a crown of broccoli with a ton of minced garlic and served that on the side.

Besides the cookbook, I got to break in another of my Christmas presents -- a kitchen scale! I've wanted one for awhile because so many recipes give amounts in terms of weight, and I feel like my approximations are sometimes way off.  It was cool to be able to weigh out precisely 4 oz. of noodles.

What was your favorite present this year? Or did you get any new kitchen gadgets that you are trying out?