Sushi and Cookies....Mmmmmm.....

This has been the first week of the holidays for both of my older children and, like every other parent of school-aged children, I have been trying to keep the girls busy to keep myself sane until January 4th rolls around and they go back to school.  This week, we took a little sojourn to Japan, as my oldest daughter wanted to make sushi.  (These were really California rolls, as they both turned up their noses at raw fish.  No sashimi for me.  Boo.)  We filled nori wraps with sticky and seasoned sushi rice, slices of cucumber, avocado, carrot and the pressed fish product that my husband refers to as, "K-R-A-B".  My younger daughter did not really care for the Krab, so she resolutely picked it out of every roll she consumed.  The activity lasted for the better part of an hour and gave us a pretty good sized little tray of sushi for dinner, so I would call it a resounding success (especially because EVERYONE actually ate it).

Our second activity this week was baking and decorating sugar cookies, ostensibly for Santa to consume on Christmas Eve.  We don't do this every Christmas, but my oldest daughter has gotten it in her head that we do, in fact, so I decided to keep up the "tradition" again this year.  (Honestly, I think we have decorated cookies, specifically for the St. Nick purpose perhaps once in her eight years.)  Again, this was a good activity for them to do and was so successful at eating up such a large chunk of time that I am starting to wonder if I should begin a "New Year's Eve" cookie decorating tradition. Nah....that just makes my New Year's Resolution to stop eating so many freaking cookies that much harder.  Anyway.....we actually had a couple of play dates during the cookie making and decorating processes, occurring on two separate days, so I was able to pawn at least a dozen cookies off on other kids (and their extremely grateful parents, I am sure.  My sister just wrote me a message the other day, asking, "why has someone not invented a sarcasm font?"  I know, right?!?  I sure could use it in this little passage right here!).  Seriously, there is nothing like homemade sugar cookies and there is nothing like the sugar high induced by said cookies, covered in globs of powdered sugar glaze, and crusted with every kind of sprinkle imaginable.  You are welcome, Santa.  (My insulin levels are shuddering as I type.....in a "wink-wink" kind of code in case my daughters somehow happen upon this post.  Just go with it.) 

So, from our house to yours, Merry Christmas and, in case I don't get a chance to post something next week because I have lost my mind screaming at my kids to stop beating each other because they are bored out of their minds, Happy New Year!

My new favorite icing (and the cake that went with it)!

Since it has been more than a month since I last posted on here (and since I have less than 10 minutes to write this morning), I will jot down a few quick thoughts about the cake I made yesterday for my mom's birthday.  I have recently been inspired to experiment with making cakes from scratch and so, I decided to inflict my aspirations on my mother, my sister and of course, my husband and my children.  I whipped out my Professional Baking tome, one of the few textbooks that I felt compelled to save from my culinary school days, found a recipe for devil's food cake and Italian buttercream icing and went to town!  The cake was relatively easy to make, though I discovered that I need a digital scale to create from scratch confections on a more regular basis (and for my paying customers), as I just have a scale that measures to the ounce (not very accurate, if you are dealing with measurements below that increment).  It came out of the oven risen, but almost perfectly flat on the top (if you have ever baked a box cake, you know about the evils of "doming"), and when I torted it (I am not sure about the spelling there, but I am in a hurry, so I don't really care), I found it to be dense and with a rather nice, sturdy crumb texture.  Success achieved on the cake front.  The Italian buttercream was very interesting to make, to say the very least.  You start by whipping egg whites and drizzling in a hot simple syrup (to which I added orange zest, scenting the sugar syrup and candying the citrus peel), whip until it is cool and then begin whipping in massive amounts of softened butter.  (I think I used something like 14 tablespoons to make just enough icing to cover an 8 inch cake.)  Using all of that fat made me think that the icing would be heavy and oppressively rich, but it was really just the opposite: it was light and airy, sweet without being cloying and had just enough of the orange flavor to brighten it considerably.  I LOVED it!  I also loved cleaning it up - anyone who has ever made a shortening based icing (and I make A LOT of it) can tell you that it is a bear to clean anything that touches said icing.  Seriously.  Anyway, the buttercream went on like a dream, held its shape and texture (i.e. didn't melt at all - love the stabilizers of the egg whites and sugar syrup!) and melted on command (i.e. putting it in your mouth to eat and also by adding hot water to clean all of my tools).  I was dubious about it at first just because it didn't come together completely until I whipped the bejesus out of it (that is a technical culinary term, of course).  I became dubious again when I refrigerated it while the cake was cooling.  It completely solidified (as butter does, of course), so I decided to just whip it to bring it back to room temp.  What I ended up doing was breaking it completely, so I actually had big clods of fat attached to my whip which, when they hit the side of the mixer bowl, sent up sprays of what I assume was actually buttermilk.  After some thought, I put the bowl over a double boiler, heated it slightly and tried whipping it again.  Finally: success achieved with the icing!  The end result is shown above - the cake's flavor and texture left a little to be desired as it was quite dry, but my success certainly gave me the confidence to continue with my experiments.  I intend to find a chocolate cake recipe that is relatively easy to make and produces results with more chocolate flavor and less chemical flavor than the boxes.  Don't get me wrong - I like the box mixes and I can count on them every time, but I want to see if I can do it all by myself.  I believe I can! 

So Much Going On.....

I guess it is just getting to be that time of year....you know, right before the holidays, when everything goes to hell in a hand-basket?  I have been crazy busy the past week or so.....I restarted my cake business and it has been booming!  That is great news, but it has not allowed me time to write and I really intended to blog at least once a week.  Ah, well.  What are you going to do, right?  Anyway, we have had a lot of stuff going on, in addition to all of my cakes.  The baby has been trying new foods right and left and has moved to eating three meals a day.  We are working on texture with him right now, which he is not particularly fond of, but I think it will come in time.  As far as "real human food", as my five year old calls it, goes, he has tried potatoes, scrambled eggs and mashed bananas.  The eggs were moderately successful, but he tried really hard to gag himself on both the potatoes and the bananas.  It was not a pretty sight. We have been moving through the second foods pretty rapidly as he has also increased the amount that he eats at any given meal.  Right now, he seems to be enjoying the green vegetables the most (usually an odd combination of green veg and fruit, actually), but he has also shown an affinity for the pumpkin and banana combo, as well as a lovely pinkish bananas, beets and blueberries that he tried yesterday and today.  I plan to get him some teething biscuits at the store in the next couple of days and hopefully, we can start giving him food from the table pretty soon as well.

Probably the most interesting thing I cooked in the past couple of weeks was our German dinner a week or so ago.  I did a roasted pork tenderloin, served with red cabbage and sauteed spaetzle and mushrooms.  The spaetzle was by far the most interesting thing on the table, particularly because we grew the mushrooms!  My sister gave my husband a "grow your own mushrooms" kit for his birthday and we decided to try it out.  Lo and behold, we successfully grew about 1/2  pound of oyster mushrooms!  I harvested them, cleaned them and sauteed them with the spaetzle for a twist on our "normal" spaetzle combo of onions, mushrooms and swiss cheese.  Yum.  I missed the cheese in the revised dish, but it was still pretty delicious.  The mushrooms added a nice earthy quality and, since I did actually saute them in the drippings from the pork tenderloin, which I seared before roasting it in the oven, they picked up quite a bit of the pork flavor as well.  In any case, it was pretty tasty, which makes me more than a little disappointed that we have not had any success (yet) growing mushrooms again from the kit.  (You are supposed to be able to grow between 2 and 4 crops of mushrooms.  We are only on our second.)  The weather changed recently, bringing colder temps, so that might have something to do with it.  Ah well, maybe we will still get some more delicious mushrooms that I can play with in another dish.  Until next time, folks!  Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Slacking

I really don't have much of anything to write about today, but this is pretty much the only time that I have this week to blog, so I guess those of you who actually read my ramblings will just have to put up with it for this week at least.  As far as the baby foods go, we have not started anything new with him yet this week.  I did, however, buy A LOT of new foods to start (after we finish our stash of first foods that I have in the pantry).  I think the one that I am most excited for him to try is the Pumpkin and Banana 2nd foods from the Plum Baby Organics line.  I don't know why that sounds good to me, but it does.  I also bought a couple of foods from the Happy Baby Organics line (Pear, Peas and Broccoli, I think), so that will be interesting as well.  We are going to try mangoes, spinach and eventually beets, blueberries, zucchini, summer squash and lentils (as well as about a million other things that I can't even think of right now).  I am actually really excited about having him try all of this stuff.  The baby could kind of care less right now - he hasn't been all that interested in eating his fruit and cereal in the mornings lately.  I can get about two bites down the hatch before he starts fussing and turning away, so down the garbage disposal it usually goes.  Dinner time seems to go a bit better, but that may be because he is eating veggies rather than fruit.  Who knows? 

On another note, I called this post "Slacking" because I have been doing just that in the kitchen in general.  I was sick last week with a particularly nasty cold, which knocked me clear on my ass for the better part of the week, so I did pretty much anything I could to avoid cooking.  I did, however, make homemade chicken noodle soup early in the week, which was delicious and satisfying, but did almost nothing to make my cold symptoms disappear.  Home remedy my foot.  Anyway, the rest of the week was all sandwiches, runs to the....gasp!.....local fast food joint, etc.  This week, I am feeling better and am planning to cook dinners all week long.  Last night, we had something dubbed "American Ghoul-ash" by Michael Symon of The Chew talk show.  It was ok - not spectacular, but relatively inexpensive and very easy to make.  Let me take a quick detour here and state my personal opinion about the show itself.  I feel like I should like this kind of talk show....I mean it has famous chefs, who make lots of tasty looking food, as well as decorating, home improvement and entertaining tips. All right up my alley.  I keep turning it on (mostly by accident as the noon hour is about the only time I have to sit down and watch TV, as I scarf my lunch before the baby gets up from his mid-day nap) and I keep HATING it.  I haven't yet figured out why I dislike the show so much.....maybe it is because I find Mario Batali beyond pretentious or maybe it is because I generally find the women (who I don't even know their names) insipidly obnoxious.....I don't know.  I do kind of like the aforementioned Michael Symon and I obviously liked the recipe idea enough to try it myself.  I don't think it will be repeated because the kids ate it only begrudgingly, but I could probably do a riff on it myself at some point.  Back to the topic at hand.....I will probably have some more interesting things to post about in the next couple of days (or next week, rather).  We have some German food on the menu for this week, complete with homegrown oyster mushrooms (that is definitely another post altogether), as well as lentil soup, which, oddly enough, always goes over well in our house.  Until then, Happy Dia De Los Muertos to you all!  Hasta luego!

First Foods are Finished!

We have finally made it through all of the baby's first foods!  Just in the nick of time, too, as he will be 6 months old in a couple of weeks.  I don't know that the 6 month mark is necessarily much of a distinction as far as the foods go, but the baby food packages all have "6 months and up" printed on the second foods.  (I am nothing if not a consummate rule-follower.)  I am so excited for him to start the new food combos - he can have stuff like quinoa, green beans, spinach, mangoes....the list just goes on and on!  Although I have not made any food for him yet, I am actually pretty excited to be able to do that as well.....my hope is, once produce starts showing up again at my favorite farmer's markets, that I will be able to get some fresh veggies, bring them home and cook them for the whole family (baby included) that day.  We will see - for those of you who may read my blog and are outside of my immediate area, my home state is stuck in the middle of an epic drought which has pretty much scorched everything grown outdoors.  Lovely.  Anyway, and regardless, he should be able to try lots of new foods very soon.  We actually bought him a multi grain cereal yesterday, so I can soon add spelt and millet to the list of foods that he has tried.  As of last week, he has enjoyed sweet potatoes and bananas, in addition to his other favorites.  I was a little surprised that he took so well to the bananas because he has not shown a strong affinity to any fruits (save prunes - he is such a little old man).  Honestly, I was a little put off by the bananas (from the Sprout line) because of their bizarre color - pink.  Seriously, I was a little concerned until I noticed that the jarred bananas are the same color.  I don't know if the color comes from the fact that bananas suffer from oxidative browning or what, but the baby food purees are all a really pretty shade of pink.  (At first, I was going to blame it on Tyler Florence's affinity for roasting fruits.....yes, the bananas are also roasted.....but, based on the comparison at the store yesterday, I don't think that was the cause.  You lucked out this time, Tyler!)  My husband is really excited about a feeding gadget that he found at the baby store yesterday: it is a spoon that will attach to a baby food package that has a spout on the end.  I don't know how to describe it other than that - it is literally a spout that you uncap and squeeze the food out of.  The packaging is actually really cool and my husband was pretty excited about being able to travel with food slightly easier.  (Saturday night, we found out the hard way how hard it is to feed the baby in the middle of a child's birthday party.  It took both of us to get the baby fed while our older kids were running amok.) 

I think the only other "new" food related issue is my continuing effort to go dairy free....I don't think it is having an effect on the baby's skin issues and I am seriously missing cheese and chocolate these days.  I am going to give it another couple of weeks to see if we notice any improvement, but, as of right now, I am not convinced the problem is the dairy.  On the plus side, I think I have actually dropped some weight - I had not realized just how often I was consuming cheese, yogurt, milk and other assorted dairy products.  Let's just say....A LOT (side note: this was totally necessary during my pregnancy, for obvious reasons).  So, to wrap up, I should have some new baby foods to document in the next couple of weeks and I am looking forward to the weather cooling off, so that we can all enjoy some of my favorite winter dishes (which I also plan to share on here).  Until next time, have a great week and Happy Halloween!

More Fruits and Veggies (for all of us)!

So, the food count for the baby is now: apples, pears, peaches, prunes, oatmeal, rice, squash, carrots and peas.  Of those, he has definitely shown a preference for the veggies, but, as a surprise twist, enjoyed the heck out of the prunes!  (My sister has started calling him a "little old man".)  Last night was our first go round with peas, and as par for the veggie course, he loved them!  I did not have a chance to make them myself yet, as we were eating out last night, but we did experiment with a new baby food brand: Nurture Me.  These are basically packets of freeze dried (?) fruits and vegetables that can be reconstituted with the liquid of your choice (mine was plain old tap water).  The nice things about this brand are: they are very portable, you can add liquid to make the consistency you prefer, and the peas were a gorgeous, bright green color.  (Which my mother said looked weird.  I asked her if she had ever seen an actual pea before - you know, of the not-canned variety.  I am pretty sure she refrained from calling me a smart-ass only because my older children were hanging around.)  Anyway, it was interesting mixing the peas up and I really liked that they maintained that verdant hue, rather than dulling to the standard (canned) olive green of oxidized/overcooked green vegetables.  The baby agreed with me and scarfed his oatmeal-pea gruel down.  After he finished eating (probably should have been before, but what are you going to do?), I tasted the peas.  They had a wonderful, fresh flavor.....but a really weird, chalky texture.  My sister, who also braved the baby food taste test, said that they reminded her of peas that had been left in the freezer for too long.  I agree - it is probably the effect of the processing, plus the starchiness of the peas themselves.  No matter, as I plan to make my own batch tomorrow - have to finish the other half of the packet first today. 

So, as the post title indicates, we are all enjoying more fresh produce.  A friend of mine is currently training a group of us in CrossFit workouts and is doing a cleanse-type diet called Whole30.  I read through all of the nutritional information (which was a lot and very comprehensive) and ultimately decided that the whole Whole30 was not for me, based on the fact that I am still breastfeeding and plan to continue to do so until the baby is at least a year old.  Anyway, the basic tenets of this diet are eating whole foods, specifically fruits, vegetables and clean meats (with which, I am totally on board).  They eschew eating grains, legumes and dairy products for various reasons.  (Side note: I have actually given up dairy to see if that helps with the baby's health issues - he has reflux and eczema.  It is a bit of an experiment, but it is a place to start.)  I decided that my take-away from the Whole30 would be to introduce more fruits and vegetables into our diet, and, if possible, to substitute them for certain white potato and grain based side dishes, upon which I have come to rely.  Hence, when I made Shepherd's Pie last night for my family (and extended family of my mother, sister and aunt), I used grass-fed, organic ground beef, organic carrots, organic spinach, onions, garlic, tomato paste and.......wait for it......instead of topping it with mashed potatoes, I used cooked, mashed cauliflower!  It was a hit!  Everyone ate it, including my two daughters, and my aunt thought that the topping was actually potatoes for half the meal!   Anyway, I consider it to be a win - it was homey, delicious and very satisfying! 

Bread Making: First Run

I am going to try to finish the post that I started (and thought I lost, but apparently not) yesterday.  As the picture included (sort of) indicates, my husband and I have decided to take up bread making.  This was a loaf of whole wheat bread that we made last week and I honestly think it turned out pretty good.  The recipe came from America's Test Kitchen's Healthy Family cookbook, which I generally love.  Some of the recipes (I am looking at you "Easy Cinnamon Rolls") really suck, which is surprising, considering that ATK tests the bejesus out of everything. The bread recipe, actually called "Rustic Boule" was generally pretty good.  I had to add quite a bit more flour to the dough than the recipe actually called for, but it rose well and baked up with a nice texture and fairly dense crumb.  (Which, in case anyone was wondering, is just how I like good bread).  We started with a "starter", which we allowed to ferment overnight.  (I could not remember if it was a "biga" or a "poolish" preparation....if my baking professor reads this, she can be properly horrified that I can not remember my baking terms correctly.)  Anyway, the starter gives it some added lift and a LOT more flavor, so we decided to keep that extra step in our prep.  (You can delete it, if you are in a hurry to make bread.  "A hurry" is defined by only being willing to wait like 6 hours instead of 24 + hours for your homemade bread.)  The next day, we made the actual dough, added the starter and put the dough in the fridge to kind of slow the rising process so that I could finish it the next day when I woke up.  (This was all done after the kids went to bed, mind you, so I didn't really want to wait up for several hours to finish the bread.)  I took the dough out the next morning, let it come to room temp, punched it down and then shaped it into a round, boule shaped loaf, and let it rise again before baking it.  The recipe called for a baking stone to be placed in the oven at 500 degrees for no longer than one hour before baking.  Once you slide the loaf onto the stone, you reduce the temperature to 425 and bake it until the internal temperature registers 210 degrees.  I tried to follow the instructions, but my pizza stone started smoking and, oddly, produced a fair amount of some kind of moisture in the center, while it was heating.  I opted to remove the smoldering, weeping stone before I caused some kind of bizarre brimstone laden fire and place the loaf in the oven on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.  Honestly, I think it turned out just as good as if I had done it the way the recipe was written.  Once it was finished baking, I let it cool completely and we enjoyed it for dinner that evening.  It was just the right amount of chewy with a really crisp exterior with which I was really impressed. That was good, but having leftovers for breakfast the next morning was pure bliss....I am a sucker for really good, toasted bread, spread with a little peanut or almond butter, served with some fruit and a spicy mug of Chai tea.  So, for our first go round with bread making, I think it was a success.  We are going to try our hands at rye bread sometime this week.  As a matter of fact, I need to stop writing and locate a recipe for that.  Until next time!