**Taking a semi-break from food talk today. If you’re here for the recipes only, please stop back on Wednesday!**

I’m now 16 weeks along! According to TheBump.com, our little Pumpkin (our nickname for the baby since he/she is due in late October) is the size of an avocado.

I’ve had a much easier time eating lately, and when I get hungry, boy do I get hungry! I polished off a QDoba Craft2 (two tacos plus a smaller serving of Grilled Chicken Mango Salad) for lunch the other day, and polished off an entire foot-long cheesesteak plus a side of onion rings for dinner the next night.

For Mother’s Day, Dave took me out for brunch at Cuba Libre, a Cuban-themed tapas-style restaurant. Liam was sick, and stayed home with his grandparents. I’d been there once before, for my sister-in-law’s bachelorette party, but never for brunch before.

The restaurant is designed to make you feel like you’re at a Cuban restaurant, with large ceiling fans, and palm trees outside the “windows” inside the restaurant. Their are two floors, and the center of the lower floor is meant to resemble an outdoor patio.

Tapas-style means that the restaurant serves a smaller portion on each plate, and encourages you to order 3 t0 4 plates for your meal. Cuba Libre offers an “unlimited tapas” option, which means for the average cost of four plates, you can order as many of the dishes as you can eat. That was we opted to do.

We started off with cappuccinos and a “Latin breakfast bread basket,” which included a churro, a chocolate muffin, a slice of banana bread, a coconut-berry muffin, and a breakfast pastry called a “hojaldre”, which is triangle-shaped like a scone, with lots of layers like a croissant, and filled with guava jam and cream cheese, accompanied by 3 condiments: cinnamon-mango butter, guava marmalade and dulce de leche.

My first dish was the Churros con chocolate. Churros are similar to donuts, but they are straight sticks, rather than round. These were crispy, and coated in cinnamon sugar, and served with chocolate sauce for dipping. YUMMY!

Dave started off with the Crab Cake Benedict Croqueta (not surprisingly — eggs Benedict is one of his favorite dishes!). This consisted of a crab cake atop a potato cake, topped with a poached egg and tomato Hollandaise sauce.

For my next dish, I went a little adventurous, and tried the “sweet omelet”: a two-egg omelet topped with a lemon-crème fraîche custard, with warm cinnamon-dusted tomatoes on the side. It was . . . odd. I couldn’t say that I liked it; yet, I didn’t dislike it.

Dave had the chorizo and potato omelet, which I tasted, and enjoyed more than my omelet. Wasn’t surprised by that, since I love chorizo. I didn’t get a picture of his omelet.

Then I had the French toast a la Cubana, a very thick slice of brioche bread, topped with sweet plantains, whipped cream and maple syrup. It was delicious, but RICH.

Dave had the Cuban Sandwich spring rolls (sorry, no picture), which were essentially Cuban sandwiches — marinated pork, salami, ham, Provolone and Swiss cheese — in spring roll form, served with a spicy mustard sauce.

Then I got spinach and manchego cheese puffs, served with a goat cheese-ranch dipping sauce.  I expected to like them more than I actually did, though they were by no means bad. Just different.

And my last dish was the Croquetas: smoked bacon and apple croquettes topped with an onion-cilantro salad and Pimenton vinaigrette. This was my least favorite of all my dishes. I didn’t taste any apple or bacon at all in the croquettes.

Dave’s last two dishes were the Yuca frites and the Crispy Pork Belly Skewers.

Yuca is a starchy root vegetable. Yuca frites are prepared like French fries. Cuba Libre serves them with a cilantro-caper aioli dipping sauce. I remember eating the Yuca frites are my sister-in-law’s bachelorette party, and enjoying them, but not so much at this visit. I didn’t care much for the dipping sauce.

The Crispy Pork Belly Skewers? HOLY YUM!!! That was my favorite dish of the day. It’s a very fatty cut of meat, so it’s totally unhealthy, but, SO delicious.

There were still other dishes we wanted to taste, but by that point, you practically had to roll us out of the restaurant. We were STUFFED.

And now, it’s back to work. In a couple of weeks, it’ll be time to celebrate Memorial Day, and then I’ll have another prenatal appointment, and Liam will have his 18-month checkup.

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Monday again already, huh?

Time to give some attention to my poor, neglected blog.

I’m currently 15 weeks along in my pregnancy. I’m just starting to get the smallest hint of a bump.

Okay, fine. It looks like I indulged in one too many slices of pizza for dinner. Which I may or may not have actually done recently.

According to TheBump.com, Baby is the size of a navel orange. We don’t know yet if Baby is a boy or a girl. My anatomy scan is scheduled for mid-June, so if Baby cooperates, we’ll find out then.

We had a scare last week, which resulted in spending about 5 hours in the emergency room. I was having some abdominal pain at work, and later discovered I was bleeding. But the ER doctor did an ultrasound, which showed the baby happily kicking away, with a strong heartbeat. I was diagnosed with a “threatened miscarriage,” which is the generic term for any unexplained bleeding during pregnancy.

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My morning sickness has mostly eased, but I still get the occasional bout of morning sickness. Since I’d lost weight from one appointment to the next, my doctor gave me an anti-nausea medication, Reglan, to help fight it. I’m still nursing Liam, who is now 17 months old, so I need to be eating even more calories than other pregnant women to 1) help maintain my milk supply, and 2) help the baby grow.

Speaking of eating, I found a new snack that I just LOVE — Brookside’s Chocolate-Covered Pomegranate Seeds.

My mom picked up a bag for me from Sam’s Club, and nearly one quarter of the bag was gone about fifteen minutes after she gave it to me! The company also makes chocolate-covered açai with blueberries, and chocolate-covered goji berries with raspberries. YUM!

Other recipes we’ve enjoyed lately, but I haven’t blogged about:

• BBQ Chicken-Stuffed Baked Sweet Potatoes from The Foodie Bride: I made ours with Trader Joe’s BBQ sauce instead of the Whole30 diet BBQ sauce, and used chives instead of green onions for serving. But wow, were these good. And filling!
• Guacamole from Elly Says Opa!: I omitted the jalapeño, and added a splash of lemon juice along with the lime juice, and served it tortilla chips on Cinco de Mayo.
• Gnocchi in Tomato Broth from Smitten Kitchen: I cheated and used store-bought gnocchi. Yes, she says feather-light homemade gnocchi is doable, and I believe her. But it’s also time-consuming. Store-bought or homemade, this was insanely delicious.
• Broccoli and Cauliflower Omelets from the Breakfast for Dinner cookbook by Lindsay Landis and Taylor Hackbarth of the Love & Olive Oil blog.

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As for Liam, he has adjusted quite well to daycare. He no longer cries during drop-off or pick-up. I love being able to log-in to the webcam, and see him sitting in a circle with the other children, listening to a story, playing with blocks, finger-painting, or eating a snack.

He chatters away most of the day, though he still only says about ten “words,” the rest is still just babbling, but he’s using intonation, so I can tell when he’s asking a question, or trying to get my attention.

His appetite seems to be back, though he’s still picky about what he’ll eat. He refuses most meat unless it’s in meatball form, or breaded “fingers” (chicken nuggets, fish sticks, etc). He still loves almost all kinds of fruit, but refuses most vegetables, so he gets a fruit/veggie combo puree pouch every once in a while. Sometimes he’ll finish one and ask for another. We use Plum Organics and Earth’s Best, depending on what’s on sale at Target.

The other day, I handed him a cup of yogurt and a spoon to see what would happen.

I’d say he successfully ate 3/4 of the yogurt on his own. I don’t know if they’ve been teaching utensil use at daycare, or if he just figured it out on his own.

Daycare also works with the kid on sign language, so Liam signs “More,” “Eat,” and “Drink” at home. We get a sheet each day detailing their activities, so I know they are also working on “Please,” “Thank You” and “Sorry.”

That’s it for now, enjoy your week!

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