On English Muffins

 During pregnancy, I generally try to follow the Brewer pregnancy diet, because it's much easier than trying to count grams of protein, calcium and iron!  One of the diet's recommendations is that I eat two eggs each day . . . easy, I love eggs!  Still, five months of only a few different preparations can get a little bit old.  So, I decided that poached eggs on English muffins sounded scrumptious, and set about learning how to make my own English muffins and poach my own eggs!  I've seen my mother do both years ago, but until a few days ago I had never tried either myself.  

So, I found recipes for English muffins in both Joy of Cooking and More With Less Cookbook and ended up following the latter, which was easier to understand.  I did add part whole-wheat flour, though, and I think I was a tad short on yeast.  They came out ok for my first try, but I think I need to keep working on them!  They still don't have all those delightful nooks and crannies like the ones you can buy at the store!

And yesterday morning, I turned to Betty Crocker for help with poaching eggs for the first time.  I thought they were quite delicious (my sweetie thought they were somewhat better than Mushroom Moussaka, but still toward that end of the spectrum!).  Since we have so many homemade English muffins now, I ate poached eggs again today for lunch, and will probably continue doing so for a while!  

While we're talking about muffins, perhaps you'd like a recent picture of our little baking muffin . . . 

22 weeks!

Birthday Party #1!

Yesterday was Pearl Harbor Day, which meant that our little one was turning 1!  Though we plan to have a party with all the grandparents closer to Christmas, a week ago, we decided to throw together a little party on her actual birthday, and I'm so glad that we did. 

I started by taking some pictures of Gemma outside and designing an invitation to e-mail to her little friends. 

With some input, we planned a simple lunch menu of potato soup, almond-butter sandwiches cut into Christmas tree shapes, carrot sticks for the big people and fruit purees for the little people, hot cranberry cider (from Trader Joe's) . . .

 . . . And, of course, cupcakes! 

 I wanted to be a little healthy, so I made carrot cupcakes (from the Moosewood Cookbook) and topped each one with cream cheese frosting and a blackberry. 

If you squint, you can see the candle impaled through the blackberry in the cupcake on the right!

We also decorated a little bit.  :)

 

Grammy Reid found Gemma this perfect little bib second-hand somewhere!

The birthday girl herself was all ready in her tutu leggings, a top from Aunt Heidi, and pigtails.  :)

 Let the party begin!  More tomorrow!

"O" is for Overalls

  . . . and "o" is for orange-colored mums . . .

 . . . and "o" is for oatmeal bread . . . 

 

 . . . and "o" is for our overtired baby, who likes to take one half hour nap a day lately . . . 

 . . . but of course we still love her lots!

Anniversary Pie

Source: evilchefmom.com via Gretchen on Pinterest

Last week's anniversary post was getting a bit long, so I thought I'd save my comments on the pie for another day!

My pie doesn't quite look like the one above! I skipped the garnishes and made my own crust from 2 cups of crushed store-brand "oreos" and 1/4 cup of butter. But I liked this version because it called for actual heavy cream instead of Cool Whip.

I had my doubts about the recipe when I was folding the whipped cream into the peanut butter mixture. It was more globby than uniform. However, once it was chilled, it wasn't globby at all!

I also used a substitution for the semi-sweet chocolate required for the topping. 3 tablespoons of cocoa + 1 tablespoon of cooking oil is roughly equivalent to one ounce of unsweetened chocolate, and much more convenient since I don't keeping Baker's chocolate in the house. The only problem was that I forgot that the recipe called for semi-sweet, not unsweetened chocolate, so I threw in some confectioner's sugar with the chocolate. The topping was on the less-sweet side as a result, but I thought it nicely balanced the very sweet crust and filling. I also added a touch of vanilla extract to both the filling and the topping, because vanilla is just splendid. :)

This is definitely not a low-calorie dessert! But it was very rich and tasty, and a nice treat for my chocolate-and-peanut-butter-loving husband. :) It was also quite quick to make, and being an "ice box" pie, it was an energy-smart choice for the summer months. I do think it was set better after chilling overnight.

Since I had picked up two boxes of cream cheese by accident, by the end of the week I had nearly enough ingredients to make another! So I did, except that I had to take a chance and substitute half and half for the cream base in the topping. The result was not noticeably different, so I would recommend that change, as well as the use of reduced-fat cream cheese, for the cholesterol-conscious cook.

Overall, excellent recipe! Thanks to pinterest, and to "evilmomchef," whoever you are . . . I don't care for the way you present your pie recipe (language, etc.), but the product is great.

Doggie Biscuits!

Aren't they adorable? We made them recently. Aanndd, Harvey loves them. ;-)

Being Domestic Lately

To be frank, I've taken a lot of household shortcuts during this pregnancy. For example, I've been buying jarred spaghetti sauce instead of making my own (but Target's Market Pantry brand does taste good, and has no preservatives!) and buying our bread. But recently I made our bread again, possibly for the first time this entire pregnancy!

And I made some yummy granola, using this recipe . . . .


And on Saturday, I baked that beautiful Cinderella pumpkin. It produced over 17 cups of wonderful pulp! So much more than the pumpkin I baked last year, though it also took much longer since it wouldn't all fit in the oven at once! Still, it was a good way to warm up the house since we hadn't turned our heat on yet. And I made one delicious pie with the fresh pumpkin pulp before freezing the rest.

*sigh*

Apple Oven Pancake

By request.  :-)  This is the recipe from Williams-Sonoma's Essentials of Baking.  (Hopefully that's not a violation of copyright or anything.)  I left out the weight measurements for the ingredients and some other parenthetical remarks (e.g. metric measurements), because I'm not that fancy of a baker. 

4 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 cups diced peeled tart apples, such as Granny Smith (3 medium)
2 tablespoons firmly packed golden brown sugar
Juice of 1/2 lemon, strained
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup whole milk
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
Confectioners' sugar for dusting

Position a rack in the lower third of the oven, and preheat to 425F.  

In a large frying pan over medium-high heat, melt 2 tablespoons of the butter.  Add the apples and saute, turning as needed, just until tender, 5-7 minutes.  Sprinkle with the brown sugar, lemon juice and cinnamon and stir to combine.  Remove from the heat.

Place a baking dish 12 inches in diameter or 9 by 13 inches in the oven to heat for 5 minutes.  Remove the baking dish from the oven, add the remaining 2 tablespoons butter to it, and tilt the dish to coat the bottom and sides with the butter.  Spoon the sauteed apples over the bottom of the dish to make an even layer.  

by hand:  In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, flour, vanilla and salt, just until blended
by food processor:  Combine the eggs, milk, flour, vanilla and salt.  Pulse 2 or 3 times, just until blended.

Carefully pour the batter over the hot fruit.  Bake until puffed and golden brown, 20-25 minutes.  Remove from the oven and, using a fine-mesh sieve, dust the top with confectioners' sugar.  Serve immediately.   

There you go.  :-)  My comments:  I never bake anything at 425 . . . maybe I should, but 375 worked just fine, too.  I'm pretty sure my mother never used lemon juice, and I didn't have any on hand the other day, either.  She used to do the sauteeing and baking all in her lovely large cast-iron pan, but I used a frying pan and baking dish like the recipe called for since I don't own the cast-iron.  The apples get all syrupy in the butter and brown sugar, and then the egg-mixture puffs up beautifully high . . . ahh.  Since our pancake is long-gone (2 breakfasts and 1 lunch for me, though it says it serves 6!), I don't have a picture of my own, so I'll share a picture of the pumpkin I bought the other day.

It's a Cinderella pumpkin from Trader Joe's, and isn't it beautiful?  :-)  There should be many pumpkin pies when I decide it's finished decorating the kitchen!

Welcome, Autumn

Now that it's starting to get cool here, it actually feels like autumn, which is wonderful.  I love when the seasons change. 

This morning, I made an oven apple pancake for my breakfast.  John had waffles from yesterday's leftover batter, because he's my waffle-man.  And, as I suspected, he eyed the apple pancake with strong suspicion bordering on contempt.  ;-)  My family grew up with giant/oven/German/Dutch apple pancake being a big treat.  Sometimes Mom even made it for dinner!  So, the question is . . . am I the only one?  Or does anyone else share my love of the stuff? 

Blueberry-Lemon Bread Pudding

Bread pudding.  It's so delightfully English, isn't it?  Thanks to the lemon and blueberries, this version has a delicate flavor which is just right for spring.  It comes from Southern Living's 2001 Annual Recipes book.  I love it.

Bread Pudding

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups sugar

4 large eggs

2 cups whipping cream [I used half and half]

1 tablespoon grated lemon rind

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 (16-ounce) loaf stale French bread, cut into 2-inch cubes

1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

Method:

Beat sugar and eggs at medium speed with an electric mixer until fluffy.  Add whipping cream and next 4 ingredients, beating until blended.  Fold in bread cubes and blueberries, and pour into a lightly greased 13- x 9- inch pan.  Let stand 10 minutes [or longer].

Bake at 375F for 40 to 45 minutes.  Cool in pan on a wire rack 5 minutes.  Serve with Blueberry-Lemon Sauce and, if desired, whipped cream.  Yield:  8 servings

Blueberry-Lemon Sauce

Ingredients:

1 teaspoon grated lemon rind

1/3 cup fresh lemon juice

1/2 cup sugar

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries

Method:

Bring first four ingredients to a boil in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly.  Reduce heat; add blueberries and simmer, stirring constantly, 3-5 minutes or until thickened.  Yield:  1 1/2 cups.

On Desserts

My husband loves Klondike Bars, Reese's Klondike Bars, to be exact.  Recently, though, as a part of my on-going effort to be healthy, frugal and green, I decided to start making more of my own desserts, hoping both to save some money and to satisfy my sweetie's sweet-tooth with a little more nutritional value.  I've always loved baking, anyway, and this is the time of my life when I have the most time!

So, we started with shoo-fly pie from More with Less.  Its virtue lay in its molasses and brown sugar instead of white.  But I knew that it would probably taste funny to someone who wasn't used to it, and it did.

The next week was gingerbread, pictured above.  I chose the recipe in Joy of Cooking because of its large molasses-white sugar ratio.  It rose beautifully tall, but even I thought it wasn't very sweet.  With warm vanilla cream sauce, it was delightful, but it was just no substitute for a Reese's Klondike Bar to John.

Blueberry-lemon bread pudding was next, serving as a use for a loaf of stale bread in my freezer and a way to get so-healthy blueberries into my husband.  (I plan to share the recipe for this soon!)  Once again, I thought it was delightful and John thought it was weird.

[These "failures" have come to mean that I'll chip away at the home-made dessert for about a week unless we've had company!  At least I'm not eating the Klondike Bars!]

In the mean-time, I've made a peanut-butter pie, which John liked, and a lemon meringue pie, which he would choose over a Klondike Bar any day!  But neither of them is particularly healthy in my mind.  The quest continues . . .

Food Failures . . . and what would I do without my mom?

I probably should have tried the yellow curry sauce I found at Trader Joe's before posting about it.  :-)  It turned out yummy, but it was no replacement for the wonderful yellow curry we occasionally order out.  That's how good the stuff we order out is.

Speaking of food failures, last night's chicken noodle soup (or "bone soup" if you're my mom!) failed somewhat.  I put the carrots and celery in an hour or two before the noodles and thought I could leave it in the crock pot while we were at rehearsal, but when we got home, the noodles were soggier than soggy and the carrots and celery were still crunchy.  Ah.

Last week, I tried to make granola using a recipe from one of my mom's Moosewood Cookbooks.  It was called "dry roast granola" and sounded so easy and healthy!  Well, it was easy, and it was probably healthy, but I was hoping for crunchy chunks of granola!  The recipe said to roast it in a skillet with no oil whatsoever, and when it was done, it just seemed like toasted oats, what germ, etc. mixed together.

And this is all to say nothing of the black beans I tried to make for my father-in-law when he was visiting.  That story is still to painful to tell . . . ;-)

So today, at my mom's suggestion, I tried a granola recipe from More with Less with much greater success.  :-)

Grandma Smith's Chocolate Cake

On Friday night, John was coming home from a week in Minneapolis.  I surely am glad that he doesn't have to travel often.  I made him a special welcome-home dinner with some help from my mom, who was here for a visit.

 

The dinner table ready

For dessert, we made a chocolate cake using my Great-Grandma Smith's recipe.  I never met her, but I hear marvelous things about her.  Her name was Flossie and, naturally, she was my Grandma Smith's mother-in-law.  I know what it is to be blessed with a great mother-in-law.  

I love moist cakes, and this one is very moist, very easy, and very chocolaty.  

 

Deep Black Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

2 c. flour 

2 c. sugar

1 c. cocoa

2 tsp. baking soda

2 tsp. baking powder  

1 tsp. salt

2/3 c. shortening (I used 1 stick of softened butter)

2 eggs

2 c. boiling water

Method

Mix all ingredients and add boiling water.  Bake in greased [and floured] pan at 350F for 25-30 minutes. 

I chose to frost it with Rich Chocolate Buttercream from my Southern Living cookbook, which, after I'd made some substitutions, also had an entire cup of cocoa in it!  Rich, chocolaty, yummy . . .

Our table after dinner and dessert

One thing I did learn was that it's not the best idea to serve a hungry man spicy Indian food and deep black chocolate cake around midnight and right before bed.  My poor husband had reflux for over a day!

Embroidery and Rice Custard

A Christmas project for a special four-year-old niece of ours, whom I'm assuming isn't old enough to be reading my blog.  ;-)

Comfort food.  :-)

Our Gingerbread Cottage

O Christmas Cookies!

Saturday was the day, finally, for some Christmas baking.  I had the motivation of an assignment to make cookies for the monthly luncheon that a group from our church hosts for the international students at our local university.  But I already knew what kinds I wanted to make!  I've had Grandma Reid's gingersnaps on the brain for probably over a week, when I realized I'd have to get some molasses before trying them.  Somehow hers always seemed rounder and puffier, even though I followed her recipe exactly.  Maybe I'll try my own mother's trick of the trade next time and cut the butter in half.  (And maybe I'll actually use butter . . . I did use shortning this time, against my better instincts, but wishing to produce a genuine Grandma Reid gingersnap!) 

We received a pizzelle maker as a wedding gift from a wonderful pizzelle baker at our old home church and this seemed like a great chance to try it!  I could hardly believe that the recipe called for 3 teaspoons of vanilla!  My mother doesn't have a pizzelle maker, so this was a true experiment, but thankfully our instructions were very detailed - just a teaspoon of batter on each half of the iron, clamped shut for 30 seconds, and then gently lifted off and left to harden.  They came out well and tasted yummy. 

John even had rose-tinted plastic wrap in the drawer!  I think it's more likely that it was in the house when we moved here than that he bought it himself.  :-)

And ALL my cookies got eaten at the luncheon, which is a dream come true for every potluck-contributor.  :-) 

The Life of a Pumpkin

This week has been busy and full with some tutoring and gingerbread-house-making (no pictures yet!), hence there hasn't been time for much blogging.  But I did cook my very first pumpkin. 

Perhaps the following series should be titled "The Death of a Pumpkin" or, less morbidly, "The Life of a Pumpkin Pie" . . .

It started with a small, cheerful pie pumpkin from Walmart.  He made our kitchen more festive for a number of weeks, but the time had come for "the chop" (reference Chicken Run).

In retrospect, the entire process of baking a pumpkin pie from scratch was extremely easy.  The hardest part (physically, not emotionally, I assure you!), was chopping it in two.  But it was at length done,

cleaned, and baked for about an hour under some foil.

Now, what to do with the seeds?  I decided to go to the "trouble" of roasting them.  But for today, I just let them dry. 

I pressed the pumpkin through a colander in an effort to rid it of stringiness, yielding this lovely golden pulp.

Day 2:  Time to mix up the goodness in my beautiful mixing bowl from the beautiful Sarah Brackbill.  :-D

It's just enough for one pie.

Delicious!

The seeds came out ok, too.

Recent Kitchen-Doings

Monster Cookies

They used to make Monster Cookies (I think they called them "Montana Monster Cookies," am I correct?)  at Grove City and they were AWESOME!  I thought they would be fun to try for Heidi's birthday, and wouldn't you know, Southern Living had a recipe for them!  Even more exciting, they don't actually have any flour in them, but they do have an entire (16 oz.) jar of peanut butter and several cups of oats.  And M&M's, obviously.  :-)  The KitchenAid did most of the work for me, but I didn't want to overdo it, so I ended up doing some of the final mixing with my hands!

Looking up Southern Living on amazon.com just now made me realize even more how blessed I am.  During the summer of 2008, John and I were not engaged yet, but I knew that I loved him and was probably going to marry him.  This led me to do some "serious" thinking.  That means I'll be moving to a different state.  I'll get to cook all the time.  I won't have Mom's Southern Living cookbook anymore!  So, I went online and found it barely used for less than $3, plus something like $4 shipping.  And it was a hardcover copy!  At the moment, there appears to be nothing posted so low!

Anyway, here's the next pic. 

Guacamole!

And thanks, Derek, for going to Costa Rica and teaching us how to make it!  I don't think this came out as good as yours, though.  Can you tell I left the pits in like you taught us?  :-)

Last night, I also packed up our Operation Christmas Child box, bringing back more sweet memories from Grove City days.   

Happy Birthday, Sis!

Blessings and Bread

When the doorbell rang on Friday morning, I immediately thought it was going to be a package! We don't get many visitors, especially drop-in visitors during the day, but we have gotten several packages since we've been married, and the doorbell rings every time! (Hopefully I won't go Pavlovian and start drooling when it happens!)


It was indeed a very large package. It was too large to be the latest book I requested from paperbackswap.com (Lasting Love by Allistair Beg). And I didn't think that John had ordered anything recently.

Inside was this lovely thing:

 

It's a rice cooker from my dear cousins and aunt and uncle in Albania, as confirmed by a facebook message which shortly followed.  I had to add it to the list of thank you notes still to write, and as I did, I was reminded of how spoiled/blessed we are. 

 

I don't really like using the word "spoiled," because literally it means, well, ruined!  The word "blessed" is better because every good thing is a gift from the hand of our merciful God, but it almost doesn't cover it, because often blessings aren't exciting, new, or material.  Sometimes they're disguised in trials.  Surely, I'm not going to say that John and I are more blessed than my parents were as newlyweds, even though they only had $17 a week to spend on groceries and never dreamed of owning a kitchenaid or a rice cooker or going on a honeymoon in Italy.  In comparison, we seem spoiled.  And why?  Why is it that life is so easy for us right now?  Surely, surely more difficult times will come.  Hopefully, in the face of future trials, our joy together, with each other, will never once waver.  But I don't want to become complacent, expecting God to continue to bless me with worldly things when He has already blessed me so abundantly with His Son, and now with John. 

 

"Keep deception and lies far from me, Give me neither poverty nor riches; Feed me with the food that is my portion,

That I not be full and deny You and say, "Who is the LORD ?" Or that I not be in want and steal, And profane the name of my God."  Proverbs 30:8-9
 
On another note, I made bread yesterday!  It's Ezekiel bread, from a recipe in Taste of Home.  I thought it was sooo beautiful . . . .
 

But then, when I cut one load open to freeze half of it, I discovered this: 

Does anyone know what would make bread do this?  

Besides that, it's quite delicious, and according to my calculations, approximately $1.83 a loaf, until I can start finding wheat germ, honey, etc. at better prices.  And John likes it too, yay!