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I feel like I’m in a bit of a slump with making meals. So please, would you mind sharing one of your favorite recipes or meal ideas? Preferably something easy and quick, as once the babe comes, our hands and time will be significantly restricted! Thanks!

Here’s what we are having for dinner tonight. It’s one of our newest favorites and gets Omega-3’s to our baby, too.

Barbecued Salmon with Grilled Romaine and Citrus Vinaigrette
Recipe courtesy Rachael Ray
Show: 30 Minute Meals

Barbecue glaze:
1/2 small red onion, finely chopped
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 cup dark amber maple syrup
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon curry powder
1/8 teaspoon liquid smoke flavoring
1 teaspoon coarse black pepper

Vegetable cooking spray
4 salmon fillets or salmon steaks, 6 to 8 ounces each
Coarse salt
1 small navel orange, zested and juiced
1 small lemon, zested and juiced
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon leaves
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil, eyeball it
2 large hearts romaine lettuce
3 scallions, chopped

Prepare grill or preheat grill pan.

On your stove top or on your outdoor grill, place a small sauce pot over moderate heat and cook onion in oil for 3 minutes. Add vinegar and reduce by half. Add syrup, tomato paste, Worcestershire, curry, smoke flavoring and pepper. Bring to a bubble and simmer.

Spray salmon with cooking spray and season with salt. Grill for 3 minutes, turn and baste liberally with glaze. Turn again, glaze opposite side. If you care for salmon pink at center, remove after 6 minutes. For opaque salmon, grill 5 minutes on each side.

Whisk citrus with garlic, mustard, tarragon and salt. Stream in oil to combine.

Spray romaine hearts with cooking spray and place on grill 2 minutes, charring the outside leaves. Remove and cut each heart in half lengthwise, using tongs to help hold on to the charred lettuce. Cut away core at stem. Cut each half heart in half again lengthwise. Place 2 quarters of charred romaine on each dinner plate. Drizzle with dressing, working back and fourth, strapping the lettuce with dressing. Set salmon on top of the salad. Garnish with chopped scallions and serve.

If you’d like to take a guess about when Baby Hales will be arriving, enter our game. We’ll try to come up with a prize for the winner!

UPDATE: Feel free to guess the name, if you’re so inclined, in the comments section.

We just had our 35-week appointment today and as it’s the 23rd, we’re at the one-month countdown. Our doctor said that generally first-time moms tend to deliver late but that he had just delivered a 35-week old baby this morning and so to try to get projects finished up. My weight and blood pressure are all fine and I’m not having too many Braxton Hicks contractions — at least they’re not painful. Our lovely little boy was also still head-down and his heartbeat was very loud and fast (around 150 bpm). When I woke up this morning he seemed like he wasn’t in his normal head-down position, so I resorted to the ironing board in case he was breech. I didn’t feel him move between then and the appointment, so he must’ve simply been turned a slightly different way or perhaps is beginning to get more comfy in my pelvis.

We don’t have too much of interest to look forward to in terms of our doctor appointments. I simply get to pee in a cup, get weighed, take my blood pressure, hear the heartbeat and ask questions of the doctor. I imagine I’ll be tested for Group B Strep next appointment and we’ll probably have an ultrasound to check the baby’s position sometime. Other than that, it’s probably more of the same. Today we went over our birth plan and he was supportive of all of it, which is absolutely wonderful. He also thought we’d have an “average-sized” baby, about 7.5 pounds or so. That sounds just peachy.

We finished up our Bradley childbirth classes last night and it was kind of sad. We’ve been with the same group of people for 10 weeks every Sunday night and now we’re sort of being shuffled off into the great unknown and have to put all that we’ve learned into practice. We did get to practice some contractions again and some pushing positions and it makes me feel much more comfortable for the real deal. Now Bryce and I will need to commit to practicing regularly so that we know all the positions available and pain-coping techniques.

For those not in the know, the Bradley method is a childbirth method that advocates natural childbirth (i.e., drug free). So, yes, we’ll be declining the epidural and narcotics and pitocin and plan to birth like women have for centuries. I’m nervous of course but really excited to see what my body can do and how Bryce and I will work together as a team to bring our child into the world.

Bryce took last week off and we spent a number of days down in Laguna Beach at his parents’ house. It was lovely to relax and be with family. Bryce’s sister and mom also threw me a family baby shower luncheon. It was great to hang out with immediate and extended family; plus, our baby received some great clothes, books and even a car seat!

Saturday after the shower we noticed Francis, our beagle, gnawing on his leather leash. Lo and behold I go to check him literally a few minutes later and there is only about 2 feet left of his 6-foot leash! We were shocked. He must’ve thought it was like rawhide or something. We thought of inducing vomiting but considered that that much leash that quickly could be dangerous. So Bryce and his dad rushed Francis off to emergency care. They x-rayed him and saw all the leash in his little belly and tried to give him laxatives and an IV so that it would pass naturally. However, by Sunday morning his tummy was balling up the leash so we knew it wouldn’t be able to go through his intestines.

We stopped by to see him and speak to the vet after church on Sunday and saw his latest x-ray. He seemed a bit frightened and kept trying to remove his IV from his arm. He whined when he saw us and it was hard to see him uncomfortable and to leave him to undergo surgery. Surgery really was the only option so on Sunday late afternoon our little guy had to go under to get 25 pieces of leather leash removed from his stomach. We drove back up to Pasadena to go to our childbirth class and then drove back down to Orange County on Monday night to pick him up.

He seemed a bit confused — he was doped up on pain meds — but slept most of the way home. Besides a few eerie yelps when he was in pain on Monday, he seems to be doing much better today. He is on several meds and so sleeping most of the day. He doesn’t quite seem like our chipper little guy, but his nose is still really active. He gets to go back to the doctor next week and the following week to have his stitches removed. I guess we get a lesson in parenting a bit early!

I’ll have Bryce take some pictures of him so you can see how he’s doing. He did get one of those funny cones but we hardly make him wear it, only when he’s in his crate for the night so he doesn’t lick his stitches.

A baby update for those who are interested:
My very obedient son has decided to be head down. We had our 33 week appointment today and the doctor found baby’s heartbeat down low, so that confirms that he’s shifted position. As long as he continues to get comfy in my pelvis, he shouldn’t be going back to breech, which means I can have a normal birth and am not at risk for a c-section. Phew!

Things look good — he’s active and my uterus is growing right on schedule. Weight gain isn’t awful and I’m trying not to really worry about the numbers going up each visit. My blood pressure was high upon first reading but then was good and low after my appointment. I think I might have just been nervous about the baby’s position.

We have our next appointment in two weeks and we’ll take along our birth plan for the doctor at that point. After that we’ll be going every week until the little guy makes his appearance!

Craig Dunham is currently researching what 20- and 30-somethings who are in the PCA have to say about politics. If you’d like to contribute and you fit the above categories, go find out more here and here. It looks like an interesting discussion. His article will be published in the PCA’s magazine, byFaith.

Check out a pretty sobering article here.