Strawberry Jam or Bust

It was almost a bust. My very first canning experience, with strawberry jam and I was working against the clock and against Baby's naptime. In the canning directions, they constantly emphasize that you need to move *quickly* italicized, which raised my blood pressure because even the letters look like they're running! It was pretty fun, not as complicated and serious as the instructions made it seem, and I was feeling confident until my jars came out of the water bath. Those of you have canned before know that the true measure of success is the popping sound you hear once they come out of the water to let you know the jars have sealed properly. The first jar popped after about a minute, and I thought jars 2, 3, and 4 might be a loss, but no, after about 10 more minutes I heard a second pop, while I was nursing Baby and got so excited that he stopped eating to look at me with big eyes like I was losing it! (Sorry, run-on sentence...) Then he started laughing at silly Mommy. In the end, all four sealed properly, and we've already gone through almost a pint of strawberry jam, yum! What a fun experience, and I am looking forward to canning tomato sauce in the fall, and of teaching Baby about canning science in years to come. If anyone has some great recipes you use for canning, pass them on to me please!

Green Goodness

I've become fond of various shades of green this year; in my garden and my fiber choices. This lovely peppermint green yarn, Koigu KPM from Loop Yarn in Philly, is destined to be Glee, designed by Zephyr Style. It's a top down knit, with a small gauge, and the yarn is luscious, and such a treat to knit with.


My basil, a little darker green, but still with a hint of spring about it, became a very simple pesto, for pairing with pastas and salads throughout the summer. I'm quite pleased with my harvest so far, and doing my best to keep all the shades of green in my garden from going brown!

Smoothies and Scones

This was a baking weekend. There are few things I can actually do from start to finish these days in between baby feedings and cryings, but baking is one of them. On Friday I made the bread in the last post from the recipe in this book, and Saturday morning I made white whole wheat scones with oats and currants.

They turned out pretty well, but next time I plan to make some changes. In my favorite scone recipe, it calls for several tablespoons butter, a little milk, and one egg. In this recipe, there is no butter but it makes up for it with the richness of cream and two eggs. Unfortunately, the missing butter really seemed to make a difference, and they turned out pretty dense and dry. On the next go, I will use my recipe, and substitute the white whole wheat flour for the all-purpose flour to make mine a little healthier.

In spite of all this bread-y and dough-y goodness, I'm back to severely limiting my sugars and starches. For about 8 months last year, I went completely sugar free. This includes all the obvious sweets and desserts, but also bread, potatoes, pasta, rice, sugary vegetables (carrots, beets) and many fruits. I never felt so good in my life; once I got pregnant though, my willpower died and I succumbed to the sugar monster. Now I'm back to limiting my sugars and starches, and these smoothies serve as my treats. I have a smoothie with my lunch and it is so tasty! If you're used to sweet smoothies, it takes a little while to appreciate this one, because its only sweetness comes from the lactose in the milk.


Simple Strawberry Smoothie
Pour one cup of milk into the blender. Add a handful of frozen strawberries. Blend until smooth. Serve in a tall glass with a straw!

Kneaded

Making bread yesterday, I contemplated how much I am needed these days. My little one needs me for everything (a very beautiful and rewarding experience, albeit a little tiring at times), and DH needs me, not for his basic survival, but for other things. And the dog needs me (and chooses the most inopportune times to be demanding, like when I'm nursing!).

It made me think about the purpose of kneading bread: to develop the gluten in the loaf, which is what holds it together. Kneading also helps to create a loaf of bread that is light and flavorful.

Perhaps this is my role in our family; to hold everyone together by caring for them, and to make our home and family "flavorful," with love, variety, and beauty. Although the bread gets a bit of a workout with all this kneading, and can get a little tired at times, the end result is delicious and worth it all! Such are my hopes for our family.




(Am I pushing this analogy too far?)

Valentine's Day, How I Love You

Ever since I was a child, my family has celebrated Valentine's Day together. My dad would cook dinner (veal saltimbocca), and we would exchange cards and gifts. One Valentine's morning as a little girl I awoke to my Samantha doll dressed in a new nightgown, fresh off the sewing machine of my mother. Another year, as a hopeful teenage artist, my dad gave me two Windsor and Newton watercolor brushes. I know this sounds like I'm all about the presents, but I look back on our family celebrations with great joy, and those memories have made all my Valentine's days happy, even ones when I was single.

So this year, with our new family, I wanted to start our tradition off right. With the newborn, my time is a little limited, but I did manage to cook one of DH's favorite meals, homemade pizza (I use the term "homemade" loosely: the pizza consisted of Trader Joe's dough and sauce:). And....


I cut the ham into heart shapes, because I want to be one of those cool moms that makes food look like something. We finished off with a lemon yogurt cake (which I tinted pink; I couldn't help myself). For his part, DH surprised me with beautiful deep red roses; he is the best.


All in all, it was a success. Next year, Baby and I will be doing some art projects for Daddy, but for this year, I needed to keep it simple.

How do you celebrate Valentine's with your loved ones?

The Classics

After the domestic disasters of Saturday, I needed to redeem myself. I went for a couple of classics to help me out: chocolate and luxury fiber (as in alpaca, not oat bran or flax). The little scarflet is for our across the street neighbor who is graciously looking after doggy when we go in hospital; a similar one is on the needles for her daughter. You can't get neighbors better than this family.


And the chocolate cake? For my uber-hormonal body. The hope is the baby will come before we finish it:)

My new go-to dessert

This pumpkin pound cake was made for the calligraphy guild I am a part of; and boy, was it good! I've made it before, but never got to eat any, so I wasn't sure how it would turn out. It has become my standard dessert for taking to parties, it is SO good. You can eat it plain (it is very nice for breakfast:), or with the delicious praline-esque sauce. Definitely not a healthful dessert, but, c'mon, what is?

Pumpkin Pound Cake with Walnut Sauce

2 3/4 c. sugar
1 1/2 c. butter, softened
1 t. vanilla
6 eggs (!)
3 c. flour
1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
3/4 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. ground ginger
1/4 t. ground cloves
1 c. canned pumpkin

Sauce:

1 c. brown sugar
1/4 c. dark corn syrup
1/2 c. whipping cream
2 T. butter
1/2 t. vanilla
1/2 c. chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 Farenheit. Grease and flour a 12 cup Bundt pan. In a large bowl, cream the sugar and butter. Ad the vanilla and eggs, beating well until blended. Add the remaining ingredients and blend well. Pour into prepared pan, and bakc for 60-70 minutes. Cool for 15 minutes, then invert onto plate.

For the sauce, in a medium saucepan, combine the brown sugar, corn syrup, cream, 2 T. butter, and a dash of salt. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture boils. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Add the vanilla and walnuts and stir to combine. Serve walnut sauce with the cake.

Yum!

More with Less...

This is the title of a new cookbook I've been gifted, and my new focus for meal planning these days. I received it from my mom who is trying to help along my endeavor to save money on groceries and still cook wholesome meals. The book came out in the 1970's when there was a lot of attention given to fears of over-population and future scarcity of food resources. Put together my Mennonites, it tries to encourage the mindful use of food in our cooking, which sounds good to me! We have recently cut back on our meat consumption, and I can now stretch one package (what used to be one meals worth), to several meals.

This picture is of the first recipe I made from the book, Wheat Germ Balls, which turned out O.K., but they really need to be slathered with peanut butter to make them really delicious! Which is totally acceptable if you want a sweet, high-protein snack. DH is just very suspicious of anything with "wheat germ" in the name, so I had to make chocolate chip cookies the next day:)




I think you can buy this book on Amazon, it has lots of good nutritional information, and I look forward to trying some more casseroles to stock the freezer for Baby's arrival. I'll let you know how it goes.

Peach Gobbler

This is the peach cobbler (or gobbler!) I made with those beautiful fruit farm peaches a couple of weeks ago. I used the Cook's Illustrated New Best Recipe formula, and it was worth the extra effort. My beef with Cook's recipes are that they use so. many. dishes. So my goal, whenever using their recipes, is to reduce the amount of dishes, preferably to one bowl or pan. Maybe it's the artist in me, but I don't mind missing ingredients and usually just try to substitute something similar:) I'm not sure that would make the Cook's people proud!

A Two Pie Day

Today we had the faintest hint of the brisk air of fall, so I had to make an apple pie. Hopefully we will pick our own apples in the next few weeks, my favorite fall activity, but for now, store-bought apples in homemade apple pie will suffice. Last year we missed apple picking because a hard frost around Easter blighted the apple crop. I have high hopes for this year though.

This is my favorite pie recipe of all time, Swedish Apple Pie; it is so delicious, and so easy.

Take 5-6 large apples, slice them, and arrange in a pie plate. Sprinkle with 1 Tablespoon each of cinnamon and sugar. Then, mix 3/4 cup melted butter, with 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 egg, a dash of salt, and a spritz of vanilla. Mix well, and spoon over the apples. Bake at 35o degrees Farenheit for about 45 minutes, until golden brown. And serve with vanilla ice cream.

The second pie of the day is my favorite quiche, also easy, and so good. Buy a pre-made pie crust, layer 2 cups of shredded mozzarella in the botton of the crust, along with any other goodies, like chopped pre-cooked ham, tomatoes, or other veggies. Then, mix 5 large eggs with a little bit of milk, until its a nice pastel yellow color, and pour over the crust. Season with salt and pepper and bake for about 40 minutes at 350, until the eggs are set. This is yummy served with a green salad and fruit for a light dinner, or a lovely brunch.

It Really is the Best

The best granola that is. I was pretty skeptical at first, but after eating it for breakfast, mid-morning snack, mid-afternoon snack, and before-bedtime snack, I'm convinced. The recipe is Andy's Fairfield Granola, from the "Feast" cookbook by Nigella Lawson. DH loves it too, and diminishes my supply rapidly by large handfuls. Today's batch is really for him, because he's been working so hard; we may go through the whole supply in front of the tube watching the Olympics!
The granola, as one of my new favorites, is destined for Christmas presents this year. Now, I just need to start collecting some pretty little containers to wrap it in.

Really, do try it, it will become a habit.

I'm taking a little break from bookbinding while I finish up this quarter's Masters classes, so I'm enjoying some extra cooking and knitting in my breaks. What I should really be enjoying is some extra cleaning...oh well!