busy like a bee

wow. blogging seems to be just one of those things that has fallen off the table. this whole parenting thing sure takes a lot of time and energy. sheesh.

hannah turned one! ohmygosh, i am the mother of a toddler now. the original plan was to make a little cake for her to smash on her birthday, and then get a cake for her party a few days later. sam's club does small (6-inch?) cakes with "matching" cupcakes, which i thought was awesome because i wouldn't have to cut and serve cake. then - on the day of her birthday, good planning, mom! - i decided to see if i could manage cake decorating. as in, fancy cake decorating. as in, buttercream and piping (well, not much) and fondant and gum paste.

please note: i have never. ever. EVER. decorated a cake before.

but... there are bigger idiots than me who decorate cakes, right? (exhibit a: cake wrecks. i couldn't do much worse than that, right?) i mean, i'm a reasonably intelligent person and relatively crafty.

in the end it was actually surprisingly easy. (see, bigger idiots than me can do it too!) i did cheat and used store-bought fondant and gum paste mix (and i actually even cheated and used a buttercream icing mix so that i didn't have to make a separate trip to the grocery store). i picked everything up at joann's (though i hear this stuff is cheaper at wal-mart) as well as gel color and a small set of cookie cutters.

i was kind of scared to use fondant, but it was easy. maybe it gets a bad reputation because it is difficult to make? you just roll it out like pie dough, roll it over the cake (which gets pre-frosted with buttercream so the fondant will stick), and smooth it down and trim off the excess. the only problem i had was smoothing it down at the base of the cake, which is why there are small gathers... which i kind of think looks cute anyways.


the flowers, butterflies, and leaves are made of gum paste. after i made the mix, i just kneaded in a little bit of gel color and then rolled it out flat like cookie dough. i used the flower and butterfly cookie cutters to stamp out those shapes and cut the leaves with a knife. i used the end of a toothpick to make the veins in the leaves and the little slashes on the petals. i molded the flowers around a large rounded frosting tip and set them to dry on the tips of a bottle drying rack, and twisted and molded the leaves and set them on the counter to dry. the butterflies i just bent in half and set them over an accordion-pleated piece of cardstock to dry.


i piped a little bit of green buttercream frosting around the bottom edge in a squiggle to cover up my messy trimming job and to give the flowers and such a place to stick. when the gum paste decorations were dry, i used a little buttercream to "glue" them in place, piping in the "centers" of the flowers, and piped the writing on the top. i think i need to practice my writing a bit.

now that i know better, i should have used royal icing to glue on the decorations. apparently the fat in buttercream makes the gum paste soften. it wasn't so bad with the flowers, but by the next day the butterfly on the top had fallen flat. oh, well.

i was so impressed with myself that i decided hannah was not allowed to touch the cake until her party. that way i didn't have to buy a cake, and we just baked cupcakes to go with them.


for the cupcakes, i just made a bunch of extra gum paste decorations. i filled a frosting bag up with buttercream and cut the tip off so there was a relatively generous hole and piped it on in a spiral. it was really easy to do. then i stuck the decorations on. the night before, i had also piped a bunch of little buttercream flowers for the butterfly cupcakes. i piped them onto a wax-paper-lined cookie sheet and let them dry, then "glued" them on with buttercream.

brian's birthday is next month, so i am planning to try my hand at cake decorating again. this was pretty easy and fun and i was very happy with the results, so hopefully brian's cake will be fabulous too!

what have you been up to lately?

fake mousse yummy thing

i have no idea what this is called and unfortunately i don't have a photo of it, but trust me when i say it is a bowl of delicious goodness. it is a dessert, kind of like a mousse, but fruity and so easy as to be cheating. has anyone made this and know what it is called? i got the recipe from a girlfriend, who referred to it as "that jello-pudding-fruit yummy thing."

1 package vanilla cook-and-serve pudding mix
1 package sugar-free fruit jell-o (flavor is your choice)
1 tub light cool-whip
chopped or sliced fruit

the pudding mix and jell-o packages need to be the same size. if you use a small package of each, you would use the small (8 oz.) tub of cool-whip. if you use a large package of pudding and jall-o, you would use the larger (16 oz.) tub of cool whip. i used one 12 oz. package of frozen berries when i made this with the large packages of pudding and jell-o, but i think in the future i'd use two. there was not enough fruit in it. you can also use canned fruit, but be sure to drain it first.

substitute water for milk (amount is according to pudding mix) and bring to a boil. stir in the pudding mix and the jell-o mix, remove from heat, and allow to cool but not set. fold in cool-whip, and then fold in fruit. chill.

i made mine with mixed berries and raspberry jell-o; i had it originally with strawberry jell-o and sliced strawberries. my girlfriend makes hers usually with lime jell-o and canned pineapple. it really is fabulous. i can't stop eating it.

2010 to-do list: in progress

i have been a bad blogger lately. i'm sorry. often i feel that there is not much interesting going on around here. we have been getting our farm boxes, and i love them still. and i am trying to make some very positive changes in my life.

one of the biggest changes i am trying to make is to be more disciplined. since that is kind of a vague goal, i defined it somewhat in my 2010 to-do list (aka new year's resolutions). specifically, i said i wanted to create and maintain a household management schedule and plan meals weekly and keep our grocery bill down. (i know "down" sounds kind of nebulous too, but trust me, there is a dollar amount attached to it as well.) so far i have been succeeding at both though i am hesitant to cross them off the list as "done" just yet. it's still early in the year.

my household management schedule was pretty simple. i am basically an overgrown five-year-old, and i like getting gold stars when i do things. so i made myself a chore chart and broke it down by day. this is what my week looks like:

monday: indoor chores
- wash sheets
- sweep tile
- mop tile
- vacuum
- clean toilets
- clean bathroom sinks
- clean upstairs shower (the others get used very rarely)
- dust
- bring in garbage cans
- water plants

tuesday: outdoor chores
- mow lawns
- trim roses
- pull weeds
- edge lawns
- sweep front porch
- sweep garage
- spa chemicals

wednesday:
- laundry
- iron brian's work shirts
- menu-planning/grocery list
- pick up csa box

thursday:
- grocery shopping

it became a lot more manageable when i realized that "running" the house is really just a lot of little tiny chores. cleaning the house is this huge big thing and where do you even start, but how long does scrubbing a toilet really take. i pull a bucketful of weeds each week, and they stay under control and i don't break my back. this way i also have three days "off" at the end of the week, when my chores are all done, though lately i've been doing my grocery shopping on wednesdays while we're out getting the csa box, so i've been getting four off days, which came in handy when the lawn was too wet to mow last tuesday.

getting the csa box is also forcing me to be more disciplined. we are eating healthier and i am forced to plan meals and shop with a grocery list, which is keeping our grocery bill down. it's still not under my target budget, but i'm working on that. i feel guilty letting all that good food go to waste (although we have gotten butternut squash four weeks in a row and while i like it, i'm getting kind of tired of it), so i have to plan for it. otherwise what would i have done with the turnips that were in last week's box, because we don't eat turnips on a regular basis. i have to plan for something to do with them.

so that is how i am doing on my new year's resolutions, so far. one of my other resolutions, to plant a garden, is coming along quite nicely and i will have pictures to share soon. i'm pretty excited about it. how are your new year's resolutions panning out?

yumyumgeekyum

i think i'm kind of geeking out on the whole farm box thing. i love it more than words can say. it's kind of ridiculous. wednesdays are now one of my favorite days of the week, because we go get the farm box that day. tuesdays are also exciting because i get to find out what will be in the farm box that day. kind of lame, i know, but that's me.


this week we got collard greens, dumpling squash, broccoli, leeks, potatoes, a celery root, and navel oranges. we were also supposed to get some cayenne peppers, but there were none in our box. i looked in one of the other boxes and they were in a small bag, so i guess i could have taken a different box and gotten some, but i am a total wuss don't eat spicy stuff so it wasn't really a loss to me. i wouldn't really know what to do with them anyway, because apparently according to the scoville scale they're pretty hot, only a step or two down from habaneros, and what do you do with a pepper that hot?

the collards got braised with bacon and were so. good. i just love collards, and pretty much any green. (i have not yet developed a taste for kale though i have tried hard because i know it is so good for you, sigh.) there is also potato-leek soup in our future, of course. i'm such a foodie, i know. it's ridiculous.

in other news, i got all my chores done this week, every single last one of them! crazy, but this is an accomplishment for me. generally there are one or two things i let go until the next week, or the week after that, or... . this week, i did everything. this is part of my goals for this year. it's kind of silly how i made myself do it, i'll yap about that later, but the important thing is I DID IT. i'm going to go give myself a treat now.

today's farm box

i am so deliciously excited for what we got today:


carrots, red leaf lettuce, two heads of cabbage, three oranges, green garlic, a butternut squash, red chard, and a large bunch of arugula. we were in san diego last week visiting family and my mother sent me home with another butternut squash, so now there is one for hannah and one for us, which means we are all lucky.

i'm pretty sure i'm getting my $17 worth each week. (plus, i just paid in advance for three months instead of paying monthly, which brings my weekly cost down to $16.50. hooray!) and this week, we did not even get lost. we had a bit of an adventure picking up our first box two weeks ago, but this week i was an old pro and got us there just fine. it even stopped raining long enough for us to get the box no problem.

as jenny mentioned a while back, one of my hopes in joining a csa is that we would be putting a bit more variety onto our dinner table. one thing we got in our last box that i never buy is a celery root (celeriac). i used it once before in a root vegetable soup. i brought it down to san diego with me and my mother, uncle, and i all sampled it raw. we jokingly called it a "celery carrot" because it tastes like celery, but has the texture of a carrot. we ended up dicing it, steaming it, and then sauteing it with other vegetables and tossing it with pasta, olive oil, and cheese. yum!

fresh from the farm

we joined a csa, and got our first box today! if you don't know already, csa stands for community-supported agriculture. we pay a fee each [week, in our case] to the farm and in return get a box of seasonal produce. the one we joined is called full belly farm, which i just love. this is what we got for our first box:


carrots, broccoli, beets, onions, celery root, and mandarins. the mandarins were THE BEST i have ever tasted. ohmyheaven they were good. yes, they are gone now. there was also a good-sized butternut squash that i forgot to put in the picture.

we have a recipe (two actually) from the farm for a couple yummy soups that use the celery root. i am looking forward to that. the beets though... i'm a bit perplexed there. good thing there are only three. i am not particularly fond of beets. i did find a recipe for roasted pesto beets, so we'll see.

yum.

hopefully hannah will be like me and love fruit desserts and such, because i made this blueberry pudding cake for breakfast on new year's day and would like it to become a tradition. brian is not big on fruit stuff. on the other hand, even if she doesn't, it just means more for me, and it is not difficult for me to eat the entire thing all by myself. over the course of a couple days, obviously, what kind of glutton do you take me for?


this is so insanely delicious and easy too. and the best part is, it is all stuff i always have in my house. well, not the whole milk, but i just use 1%. i usually have frozen blueberries on hand for smoothies, and that is pretty much the only "strange" ingredient. i found this recipe a couple years ago in an issue of gourmet magazine, i think, and oh my heavens is it ever good. yum yum yum.

blueberry pudding cake
serves 6-8 (breakfast or dessert)

1/3 c. plus ½ c. sugar
¼ c. water
1 T. lemon juice
1 tsp. cornstarch
10 oz. blueberries (2 c.)
1 c. flour
1¾ tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 egg
½ c. whole milk
1 stick (½ c.) butter, melted
1 tsp. vanilla

preheat oven to 375º and butter a 9-inch square baking pan. in a saucepan, stir together 1/3 c. sugar with water, lemon juice, and cornstarch, then stir in blueberries. bring to a simmer, then simmer 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. remove from heat. whisk together egg, milk, butter, and vanilla in a large bowl. whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, and remaining ½ c. sugar, then stir into the wet ingredients, whisking until just combined. spoon batter into the baking pan, spreading evenly. pour blueberry mixture evenly over batter; berries will sink. bake until a knife inserted into the center of the cake portion comes out clean, about 25-30 minutes. cool 5 minutes.

* my note: i might cut the sugar in the cake portion down to 1/3 c. in the future. it seems a bit sweet to me, almost overwhelmingly so, but not really in a bad way.

meal planning

i'm sitting on my sofa with my five favorite cookbooks spread out around me, planning our meals for the week so i can plan my grocery list for this afternoon's shopping. i had not previously been a huge meal-planner, and i'm not quite sure why. i'm making the effort now in order to save us money on our grocery bill, and i really like knowing that when i come home from work, i don't have to rack my brain trying to figure out what to make for dinner (baked chicken again? with rice or pasta?) or whether or not we have the ingredients for it.

the other thing i'm really enjoying about meal-planning is that it is encouraging me (and brian, by extension) to try new recipes that we may have otherwise overlooked. i have a bit of a cookbook obsession - there's forty-five of them on my kitchen shelves. FORTY-FIVE COOKBOOKS. no, i am not kidding. would you believe that i want more? there's a couple that i am currently coveting, but when you already have FORTY-FIVE COOKBOOKS you try to hold off on indulging that particular obsession because your husband might throw you and your cookbooks out if you bring another one home.

FORTY-FIVE COOKBOOKS. that does not include my five binders full of recipes handed down from family and friends and torn out of magazines. so, there are a lot of yummy recipes to try each week. of course, there are a few trusted standbys. joy of cooking, of course - i refer to it as the kitchen bible. rachael ray's 2, 4, 6, 8, because everything in there is pretty much guaranteed to get dinner on the table quickly, with a minimum of fuss, and the larger recipes are easy to adapt to two people. any of my cooking light cookbooks - i especially like this one - for guilt-free cooking that still tastes good. i love julia child's french chef cookbook though most of her recipes are "weekend" food, not weeknight cooking. williams-sonoma puts out beautiful cookbooks with gorgeous photos and delicious recipes. the chicken cookbook and the pasta cookbook are definite go-tos in my house. and my all-time favorite dessert cookbook, butter sugar flour eggs - just the book itself is so beautiful as to be lust-inducing.

what are your favorite cookbooks? what should i be looking to purchase next? do tell!

cannot live without my sewing machine.

it's been a busy week or so over here at our house. fortunately it's also been rather warm, so i don't feel guilty sitting inside and sewing instead of being out and enjoying all that sunshine. imho it's hard to enjoy a nice day when you're standing in a puddle of sweat.

the keema alu i made last week was WONDERFUL. so delicious and quite simple and cheap. i think brian was less than impressed however, and definitely less than impressed with my dal. nor did he want to go out for indian food when it was suggested as a possible activity at some point in the future. well, oh well. we might anyways, because sometimes we do things i want to do too. i took a picture of the whole delicious dinner but i can't find it now, sorry.

my package arrived and oh, how i love getting packages in the mail and new toys to play with. i was very surprised, the zorb is like felt. i am not sure what i was expecting, but. the diapermaker lining jersey reminded me of sports jerseys, only not mesh. i also got a half yard of organic french terry, which was a super splurge and i must say i'm not sure i'm thrilled with french terry. i used all of this to make washable soakers for the kiddo's diapers and i L.O.V.E. them. i used two layers of zorb (i think even three might be better) sandwiched between a layer of lining jersey and a layer of french terry; the jersey goes against her bottom, of course, to wick away the moisture. even though it is like felt, the zorb is not stiff, which was the problem with using only terrycloth - i had to use three or four layers to make it absorbent enough, and then the soakers were so stiff it was like putting a mattress between my baby's legs. no thanks. a walking foot (which i have since purchased) would have made making the soakers so much easier, but oh well, she's only going to pee on them. i got 13 out of $23 worth of fabric which comes out to $1.79 each. w00t!

i've also been sewing up a storm, sort of for the new etsy shop. alice's sexy kitchen set was a huge hit at the bridal shower and with the bride herself, and one of her friends asked me if i would be willing to make her some aprons and potholders to give as gifts. i said yes on the condition that i could use the pictures to start the etsy shop, and lo, she ordered four sets! the aprons are all finished as are half of the potholders; the other half are waiting on insul-brite which the fabric store has been out of lately. i am ridiculously excited about the etsy shop and really hoping this takes off, if only to support my sewing/fabric habit. also, my sewing machine? is my mother's old elna, which she received as a high-school graduation gift. 42 years ago. it has been in pretty much continuous, daily use since the day she got it. it's a wonderful machine... but it's old. she had to have the foot pedal replaced a couple years ago, and her repairman told her that it was getting harder and harder to find parts for it and there would come a point where he would not be able to repair it. currently the clutch is slipping a little, but it's only mildly annoying and not preventing me from working. but... brian has been informed that when the elna dies, we will need to buy a new sewing machine, and with the way i sew, a $100 singer from target is not going to cut it. (no offense to anyone who owns a $100 singer from target.) this will be a MAJOR purchase, on the order of $1500-3000, and not something that can be delayed for long after the elna dies. so if the etsy shop takes off, it will help ease the financial pain of buying a new machine, which means i will [hopefully] be able to get a more fun machine that does lots of fancy stitches and embroidery.

also, if the etsy shop takes off? i am SO getting one of these. and then one of these, because making bias tape? is the bane of my existence.

keema alu

my job situation is a little funky at the moment, so i did some recon in our freezer before going to the grocery store today. we have a very full freezer and really, i ought to be using that stuff before buying more food anyway. i guess i have this kind of depression mentality passed down from my grandmother via my mother... grandma and mom always had VERY full pantries, so it feels strange to me when ours gets "low," which really isn't low by any normal person's standards. like, there is nothing to eat because we only have 8 cans of tomatoes and 4 cans of corn and a bunch of pasta but no sauce and NO OLIVES, ohmygod what are we going to do without olives.

anyway, i found some ground beef and wondered what in the world i could do with it besides the usual: burritos, meatloaf, tamale pie, jury-rigged stroganoff. i looked through joy of cooking and found this recipe, and MAN if it doesn't ever sound good, and i generally have all these ingredients on hand anyway. apparently, it is traditionally served with dal, raita, and pita bread. YUM. we're definitely having this tomorrow night for dinner (tonight is ham with black-eyed peas and collard greens, yum!) so i'll let you know how it turned out.

keema alu (ground beef with potatoes and spices)
serves 4

3 T. vegetable oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 tsp. minced garlic
2 tsp. grated peeled fresh ginger
2 tsp. ground cumin
2 tsp. ground coriander
1 tsp. turmeric
¼ tsp. ground red pepper, or to taste
1 lb. ground beed or turkey
½ c. chopped canned tomatoes, drained, plus 1 T. juice
¾ tsp. salt
12 oz. boiling potatoes, peeled and cut into ½-inch cubes
1 c. water
2 T. chopped fresh cilantro
1 fresh serrano or jalapeño pepper, seeded and cut into thin strips (optional)

heat oil over medium-high heat in a large heavy skillet; cook onion until golden brown, 5-7 minutes. add garlic, ginger, cumin, coriander, turmeric, and ground red pepper, and cook quickly, stirring just until well mixed. stir in beef, tomatoes, and salt; cook until meat is no logner pink and liquid is all evaporated, leaving the meat to sizzle in the oil, 8-10 minutes. stir in potatoes and cook for 2 minutes. add water. cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer until the potatoes are tender, 15-20 minutes. uncover, increase heat, and cook until all the water is evaporated. taste and adjust seasonings. sprinkle with cilantro and pepper strips, if desired. serve with pita bread, dal, and raita.

vanilla crème with fresh berry jam

don't forget to enter my green birthday giveaway! you have until 8pm pdt on wednesday, april 29, 2009. it's awesome, and who doesn't like free?

this week i am thankful for:

1. my husband, who is not only completely awesome but also totally random. he makes my life happy.

2. a break from the heat we've been having.

3. this awesome deliciousness:


what are those beautiful things, you ask? only A LITTLE PIECE OF HEAVEN especially on a hot day. it's vanilla crème with fresh berry jam, so insanely easy to make and so fabulous. i know, i'm such a foodie. did i mention how good it is?

i had leftover rhubarb and strawberries (how do i always end up overbuying produce?) so i made a compote, fully intending to freeze it for spooning on ice cream later in the summer. instead it got spooned over the crème. to make the compote i just mixed about 4 cups of chopped rhubarb and strawberries (total) with about ½ cup of sugar and let it stand about 15 minutes, until the juices started to run out of the rhubarb. i brought it to a boil and simmered it on the stove for about 10-15 minutes, then let it cool and chilled it in the fridge. yum.

this dessert (or lunch, or dinner, or midnight snack, or, or, or) is delicious with any kind of berries. last summer i made it with mixed berries. SO GOOD. why do i not make this more often? brian is not hugely into fruit desserts so i get to eat all of these. HECK YEAH BABY.

wherein we work our butts off but have a lot to show for it

i must be seriously nesting because i've been quite productive lately. for starters, we got knobs for the dresser, YAY FINALLY OMG IT'S ABOUT TIME. brian drove me up a wall with these stupid knobs as he hated every single option i presented him with. in the end we decided to get plain wooden ones and paint them ourselves:


i love them so much. i love them even more on the dresser, which we hauled upstairs into her room. thank heavens it was very light with the drawers removed because we are quite a pair right now, me pregnant and brian with his bad back (he re-injured it last week).


it's the hemnes dresser from ikea, only custom-made shorter for us. the ikea one would be fine for brian but is too tall for me to use as a changing table. these are the things you have to think about when your husband is twelve inches taller than you are.

i also made a delicious easy dinner and dessert sunday evening. i try to make something a little special at least once on the weekend because i have the extra time. i am always trying to come up with something interesting to do with chicken breasts as they are usually pretty inexpensive, easy to freeze for later, and easy to bake on a weeknight. this weekend i found an easy baked chicken recipe, and it was quite delicious with roasted potato wedges:


there really is a chicken breast under all those onions, i promise.

baked chicken with onions, garlic, and rosemary

chicken breasts or parts
salt and pepper to taste
1½ onions per breast half (or equivalent weight in parts), sliced into rings
6 cloves garlic per breast half, thinly sliced
olive oil
2 tsp. fresh minced rosemary or 2 T. crumbled dried rosemary per breast half

preheat oven to 400°. rinse chicken and pat dry; season liberally with salt and pepper. toss together onions, garlic, and rosemary with a few drizzles of olive oil. spread half the onions across the bottom of a shallow baking pan large enough to fit all the chicken pieces in one layer. arrange chicken pieces on top of the onions and then cover chicken with the remaining onions. bake 45-55 minutes or until chicken tests done.

roasted potato wedges

red potatoes
olive oil
kosher salt
pepper
chopped fresh garlic
ground cumin

preheat oven to 400°. scrub potatoes and slice into wedges. toss together with olive oil and spices to taste. arrange on a baking sheet and bake 20 minutes or until golden brown.

and then we had strawberry-rhubarb pie for dessert. !!! i love springtime and i love rhubarb and i love pie, so when i saw rhubarb at the store on friday i HAD to get some.


according to joy of cooking, the juices are supposed to bubble through the lattice like that. i had never made a lattice top before and now i know why: because i am just as lazy of a cook as i am a seamstress. it looks pretty but that was more work than i care to do. i like pie so much because it is easy and delicious, and lattice on top just is not so easy. or maybe i am missing something? i made extra crust dough to freeze, because it is always nice to have homemade pie dough on hand for quiche or when i get the hankering for pie, and pie crust is so easy. and brian actually liked this pie! he is not very big on fruit desserts (if it doesn't have chocolate, what's the point?) so this was huge to me.

basic pie crust (makes 2 crusts)

2½ c. flour
1 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
½ c. (½ stick) frozen shortening
½ c. (1 stick) cold butter
ice water

mix together dry ingredients. cut in shortening and butter with a pastry cutter, two knives, or short pulses in a food processor. continue cutting/pulsing while drizzling in a small amount of ice water, until dough just begins to stick together. gather into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap, and chill at least ½ hour before rolling out.

strawberry-rhubarb filling

2½ c. chopped rhubarb (pink or red stalks only)
2½ c. sliced strawberries
1 c. sugar
¼ c. cornstarch
¼ tsp. salt
2 T. butter

preheat oven to 450°. combine rhubarb, strawberries, sugar, cornstarch, and salt in a large bowl until fruit is well coated; let stand 15 minutes. pour into prepared pie crust and dot with butter; cover and vent. bake 30 minutes, then turn oven down to 350°, place a cookie tray under pie dish, and bake another 25-30 minutes or until top is golden brown and thick juices bubble up through vents.

oh, and i did this all on what was quite possibly the hottest day of the year thus far. what was i thinking? that pie was worth it, but.

i thought, this will either be really good, or really awful.

and it turned out pretty darn good. we (okay, i) often have two breakfasts at my house on at least one weekend day. cold cereal and coffee when i get up, because i get up earlier than brian, and then usually something yummy a bit later after he summons the will to live and comes downstairs to steal the paper from me. this weekend we had some extra bananas lying around that were starting to turn brown so of course i thought, banana bread! i was quite surprised that none of my recipes for banana bread had any kind of spices in them. and then i discovered that i didn't have any walnuts. what?! banana bread with no walnuts? sacrilege. so i improvised and souped up my recipe.


while looking for walnuts i discovered some crystallized ginger. i love crystallized ginger. i also added slivered almonds instead of the walnuts because that's what was in the pantry. it came out very good albeit a bit gingery. i think in the future i would go a little lighter on the ginger (i put in about 1/3 cup) and put in another banana (i used 1 cup mashed). and of course, a little bit of spice never hurt anyone.

i also squeezed some fresh orange juice from some oranges we had sitting around that needed to be dealt with. i don't really like eating oranges but i love orange juice. how come fresh-squeezed tastes so much better than from a carton? these were not even from a tree, just from the store. if anyone has a surplus of oranges that they would like to share, a good home for them can be found in my kitchen.

happy easter, everyone!

spiced banana bread (the way i would make it, not the actual way i did it)

¼ c. softened butter
1 c. sugar
1 egg
1¼ c. mashed bananas (about 4)
½ c. milk
2 T. orange or lemon zest
2¼ c. flour
¼ c. whole wheat flour
3 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
¼ c. chopped crystallized ginger
½ c. slivered almonds
¼ tsp. nutmeg
¼ tsp. cinnamon

preheat oven to 350º. cream together butter, sugar, and egg. add mashed bananas, milk, and zest and mix well. add flours, baking powder, salt, ginger, almonds, and spices and mix well. pour into a greased 9x5x3 loaf pan and bake for one hour or until done. cool in pan 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack to cool.

yummy leek "tart"

here is the recipe for that leek "tart" that i mentioned yesterday. it was easy and delicious and got a hearty b-man stamp of approval. i keep putting "tart" in quotes because it was supposed to be made in an 11" tart pan, but i don't have one of those so i cut the recipe down and made it in a 9" pie pan, more like a quiche. so, i don't know if it would really be considered a tart or a quiche or something else (maybe like a timbale?), but it is in that same family of yummy french egg-based dinner pies. not quite as custardy as a quiche but not crustless like a timbale. whatever you call it, it was really good. so good that it was gone after only a day and a half, quiche doesn't even go that quick at my house and quiche lorraine is a dinner standby. way better than the recipe in joy of cooking. this one i got from an old copy of mil's more magazine that she left at my house last time she visited.

loire valley leek tart

1 pie crust
1½ lbs. leeks, white part only
6 oz. sliced bacon
2¼ T. butter
2¼ T. flour
1½ c. milk, room temperature
½ tsp. kosher salt
¼ tsp. pepper
2 eggs, lightly beaten
¾ c. shredded gruyere (or swiss) cheese

preheat oven to 350°. line a 9" pie pan with crust; refrigerate while preparing filling.

slice leeks in half lengthwise and wash thoroughly; slice each piece again lengthwise and then crosswise into ½-inch pieces. microwave in a large bowl on high for 6-8 minutes until soft, stirring twice so they won't scorch. remove with a slotted spoon and discard any liquid. cook bacon until crisp; drain, let cool, and crumble.

in a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt butter; add flour and cook 1 minute while stirring. slowly whisk in milk and continue whisking 3-5 minutes until thick and smooth. add salt and pepper and cool slightly. add leeks, bacon, eggs, and cheese to flour mixture. pour into pastry-lined pan. bake 25-30 minutes until puffed and golden brown. serve warm with dry white wine.

* for an 11" tart pan, the original amounts were:
1 pie crust
2 lb. leeks
½ lb. sliced bacon
3 T. butter
3 T. flour
2 c. milk
½ tsp. salt
¼ tsp. pepper
2 large eggs
1 c. shredded gruyere cheese

i had a good title for this post, but i forgot it.

i would say it has been a quiet week but it has actually been rather busy. nothing blog-worthy though unless you count doctor's appointments and chores and running endless errands. kiddo is still happy and healthy as far as anyone can tell which is good news. we replaced the overhead light fixtures in the museum and the kiddo's room, but they are pretty basic and not blog-worthy except that they give off more/better light than the old ones which completely sucked. nothing else to do in the nursery until the dresser is built which is wreaking havoc with my nesting instinct but i am trying to be patient. in the meantime, this week i am thankful for:

1. my boys, brian and woody, who were snoring in counterpoint when i woke up the other night and it made me almost laugh out loud. at 3 am. and brian would have woken up and killed me so it is a good thing i didn't.

2. actually getting things accomplished. even though it has been an exhausting week chock-full of all kinds of fun things like interviewing daycare providers (which rips a hole in my heart to begin with, i don't know what i am going to do when i actually have to leave her with one), it is nice to get that stuff checked off my list.

3. these delicious waffles which we (i) have been eating every weekend for the past few weeks. the recipe is basically the one from joy of cooking with just a couple tiny tweaks. it is chock full of butter so not terribly healthy but damn they are so good that i just don't care. joc says lots of butter is necessary to tenderize the waffles and keep them from sticking to the iron, and more butter makes a crunchy golden pancake. the recipe calls for anywhere from ½ to 2 sticks of butter and i make it with the full 2 sticks. i also tossed in some whole wheat flour for good measure and somewhere, i don't know where, i saw vanilla which is not even in the recipe but makes them taste like candy. i could eat an entire batch all by myself and that is not just because i am pregnant.

basic buttermilk waffles

1½ c. flour
¼ c. whole wheat flour
1 T. baking powder
¼ tsp. baking soda
1 T. sugar
½ tsp. salt
3 eggs, lightly beaten
½ - 2 sticks butter, melted
1½ c. buttermilk
1 tsp. vanilla

combine dry ingredients. combine wet ingredients. make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour the wet ingredients into the well and mix well to combine. batter will be slightly lumpy. or combine the wet and dry ingredients in a food processor which is what i do. one waffle uses approximately ½ cup of batter.

again with the pears.

i was going to make cobbler from the leftover pear pie filling but i decided on muffins thinking brian would like that better. turns out he apparently "only" likes blueberry muffins. too bad for him because they turned out delicious. more for me i guess.

i adapted the double blueberry muffin recipe from butter sugar flour eggs. it is my absolute favorite dessert cookbook and probably the most beautiful cookbook i own. maybe the most beautiful cookbook in the world. in case you don't have your own leftover pear pie filling, here is how you make it:

½ c. golden raisins
2 T. minced crystallized ginger
2 c. diced ripe pears
1 T. melted butter
1 tsp. lemon juice
¾ tsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp. nutmeg

combine raisins and ginger in a small saucepan with enough water to just cover. simmer until liquid is completely absorbed, about 15 minutes. combine raisin mixture with pears, butter, lemon juice, cinnamon, and nutmeg, stirring to coat evenly.

muffins:
8 T. butter
1 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
3 c. pear pie filling (above)
1½ c. flour
½ c. whole wheat flour
½ c. milk
½ tsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp. nutmeg
1/8 tsp. ginger

preheat oven to 375º. cream butter until smooth. add sugar and mix. add eggs, vanilla, baking powder, and salt, and mix together.

in a shallow bowl, mash about ¾ cup of the pear mixture with the back of a fork. add to the batter and mix well. with the mixer running at low speed, add 1 cup of flour and half the milk, mixing well. add the remaining ½ cup of flour, whole wheat flour, remaining milk, and spices, and mix well. fold in remaining pear mixture by hand.

spoon mixture into muffin tins, about ¾ full. bake until golden brown and risen, about 25 to 30 minutes. makes about 20 muffins.


they did not rise very much and i don't know why, maybe the whole wheat flour and the pears were just too much for the baking powder? i may have to play with the recipe. they taste heavenly, especially warm. nicely spiced but not too overdone. cakey and crumbly but not too sweet. just the way i like my muffins. yum.

pear pie

this week i am thankful for:

1. my husband, still, for being patient with me even as i am a cranky, hormonal bitch to him.

2. good friends who make me laugh and listen with understanding and without condemnation.

3. flexible recipes that still taste good even when i forget ingredients. i made this last night and forgot the sugar in the filling and overdid it on the pears, so it was un-sweet and the flavors were somewhat diluted. i love pie. i love how easy it is to make and how flexible it is to create. i love that even though i forgot the sugar, it still tasted delicious. like breakfast instead of dessert. i may start forgetting the sugar all the time.

gingered pear pie with golden raisins

crust:
2½ c. flour
2 T. sugar
1 tsp. salt
½ c. chilled butter, diced
½ c. chilled shortening
¼ c. plus 2 T. buttermilk

filling:
¾ c. golden raisins
¼ c. plus 2 T. minced crystallized ginger (about 2½ oz.)
3 lb. ripe medium pears (about 7), peeled, cored, and sliced into ½-inch dice
½ c. sugar
3 T. melted butter
2 T. quick-cooking tapioca (i used cornstarch)
1 T. lemon juice
1¼ tsp. cinnamon
¼ tsp. nutmeg

glaze:
1 egg
2 T. milk

combine flour, sugar, and salt in a large bowl. cut in butter and shortening until mixture resembles coarse meal. drizzle buttermilk over mixture and stir until moist clumps form. gather and divide into two balls, pressing flat into disks. wrap separately and chill one our. let stand at room temperature to soften slightly before rolling.

combine raisins and ginger in a small saucepan. add enough water to just cover and simmer over low heat until liquid is absorbed, about 15 minutes.

preheat oven to 400°. combine pears, sugar, melted butter, tapioca, lemon juice, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a large bowl; stir in raisin/gigner mixture. roll out one pie crust disk and transfer to pie plate. trim edges and fill with pear mixture. roll out second pie crust disk and cover pie, crimping edges to seal and slashing to vent. glaze top or sprinkle with sugar.

bake until crust is golden brown and juices bubble up through slashes, about 1 hour. cover edges with foil if browning too quickly. serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

apparently i need to step it up a notch.

brian recently told me he did not want to eat meat anymore for dinner, which leaves me scratching my head a bit to come up with meals. i tend not to be a very creative cook, much like other parts of my life. (see especially: sewing.) i'm a very good copycat and great at putting my own spin on things but atrocious at coming up with them on my own. i'm content that this is my creative lot in life and i make the best of it but it sure does suck when it comes to thinking of what to make for a man who once told me that souplantation was a restaurant full of appetizers and where was the real food?

so i got some scallops and some tilapia at the store the other night and made scallop crostini caprese, a little recipe card that i picked up at the store. super easy. basically bruschetta with a scallop on top. brian's comment (besides that it looked delicious) was that it looked so nice!

the tilapia i just broiled in the oven and served with a lemon-rosemary vinaigrette, basmati rice, and broccoli. also super easy, another supermarket recipe card. we have two huge rosemary bushes in our front yard so i thought i'd get fancy and snipped a sprig of rosemary to garnish his fish and twisted a lemon on the side. he asked what the green stuff was, was he supposed to eat it?

* update: the point was not so much my lack of creativity in cooking but my lack of creativity in presentation. brian was alternately thrilled and confused at how "fancy" things looked on the plate, because though i love to cook i generally do not run a gourmet restaurant at dinnertime and do not do frilly things like drizzle balsamic vinegar or garnish with "weeds" (his term).

marriage and tamale pie

yesterday was kind of a bad day and being thankful was unfortunately not the first thing on my mind. so belatedly, i am thankful for:

1. my husband, who is - without a doubt - the absolute most patient, loving, accepting man on the planet. possibly that ever existed. when i doubt myself or us, he is there with the strength to support us both. when i think our marriage is falling apart, he is there to give me a hug and remind me that he loves me and is here for the long haul. he is my rock, my safe place, my comfort, the quiet place i can rest. i don't give him enough credit for the amazing man he is and continues to be. honey, i love you and appreciate you more than you could ever know.

2. baby spot, whom God is using to make my marriage stronger, even and especially when i think the world is falling apart around me.

3. comfort food. when i am upset (and often when i'm not) i gravitate to the kinds of things my mom made when i was a kid, things like meatloaf and stew and soup. i don't actually remember her making tamale pie ever for dinner but she must have, because i remember her teaching me how to make it. it's yummy and relatively little work, and (at least at my house) made of things i generally have on hand:

tamale pie

1 lb. ground beef
1 medium onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 small can black olives
1 (14 oz.) can corn niblets
2 (6 oz.) cans tomato paste
2-3 T. chili powder
8 oz. (2 c.) cheddar or mexican blend shredded cheese

2 c. water
1 T. butter
1 tsp. salt
3/4 c. cornmeal

preheat oven to 350'.

brown ground beef in a large skillet. add onion and sauté; add green pepper and sauté. stir in olives, corn, tomato paste, and chili powder until well blended. cover and simmer 10 minutes. pour into a large casserole dish and stir in cheese.

bring water and butter to a boil in a small saucepot. stir in salt and cornmeal, reduce heat, and cook until water is gone and mixture is about the consistency of paste. spread over meat mixture in casserole dish. bake in oven for about 45 minutes or until cornmeal mixture is golden brown.

note: i also dump in a can of cut green beans. what's that, you say? green beans don't go in tamales? well, whatever, i think they're good. also, i sometimes substitute an 8 oz. can of tomato sauce for one of the cans of tomato paste. the meat mixture will not stick together as firmly and it will be a little bubblier when you take it out of the oven, though.

asian pot roast

omg this is so delicious, and this is what i am having for dinner tonight:


it's called chinese-style stove-top pot roast with noodles, and it is so flipping good. i call it asian pot roast; brian loves it and begs for "that stuff with the bok choy." it's a bit more work than i think pot roast ought to be, though i probably have a skewed version of how much work it ought to be (none). also, i make it in my crockpot even though the recipe says to do it in a dutch oven on the stove. i did it like that once which was fine, but i don't want to leave the stove on all day, so crockpot it is.

due to copyright restrictions i don't want to post the recipe here in case i unwittingly run afoul of some strange law that i don't know about. it was in the october 2006 issue of cooking light magazine. if you don't subscribe to cooking light (you ought to) or you don't save your back issues obsessively like i do, they have a recipe search option on the homepage. i suppose you could type in the recipe name; i just typed in "pot roast star anise bok choy" (some of the ingredients in the recipe) and it came up. it's relatively cheap to make too, once you buy the star anise and the chinese five-spice (spices being the most expensive part of a recipe anyways as well as the part you don't always have to buy). if you make it please let me know how you liked it!

pssssst: it's not really that much work. i'm just a lazy cook and a complainer, kind of like how i'm a lazy seamstress. i did all the prep work this morning and when i went home at lunch i put the meat in the crockpot and turned it on. when i come home tonight, viola! dinner will be done, mostly. there is still some cooking to be done, but it's really easy stuff. the noodles take all of like 5 minutes to cook, if that, and the mushroom/carrot sauté only takes about 5 minutes too.