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!

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:)

Baking Day

Yesterday, I joined my baker-extraordinaire aunt, grandma and cousin for some Christmas cookie baking. A good time was had by all, with much sampling and taste-testing. You know how it is so very hard to cleanly frost sugar cookies? Well, my aunt taught me a great technique which completely avoids messiness; it's called Flooding.

Here's what you do: make your white royal icing-like frosting, and decide which colors you want. Divide the frosting and mix your colors; then, for each color, divide it in half. Now, add a little water to one half of the mix to make it a little thinner, so that it's easily pourable. Put it into a squirt bottle. Put the thicker frosting into a pastry tube for piping. You're ready to frost: pipe around the edges of the cookie with the thicker colored frosting, then, using the thinner mix, pour some into the center of the cookie. In other words, "flood" the middle of the cookie, and, using a toothpick, spread it out to your piped barrier. It is really so cool.

If you want to add more piped decorations on top, wait for the frosting to dry. You can tell it's dry when the surface turns from shiny to matte-looking. Have fun!

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.

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.