Tag Archive for 'food'

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Time Together

Published on February 8, 2009 in family, food and recipes. 2 Comments Tags: breakfast, cooking with Iz, food, recipes.

We’ve been pretty busy around here. School, work, school, work, then finally the weekend! Since I’ve started my full time job, we spend less time together as a family. I love having my new job, I love the work, the people, it’s great. Then there’s the mom-tug, and I can’t help but wonder what this means for my family. My mind races back and forth, rests for a while on how good this is for all of us, all the while hoping Iz is happy with the arrangement too.

I’m pretty sure she is. We’ve had a week or two of trantrums as soon as I would walk in the door, but they’ve seem to have subsided. She’s pretty independent and fully confident. She knows that I’m here for her and love her. Makes me realize that starting her at preschool when she was 2 was the right thing (even though I lost sleep / was nauseous over us being apart, and wondering HOW IS SHE GOING TO MAKE IT WITHOUT ME – but maybe it was how am I going to make it without her?). She can totally handle herself in so many different situations, and she’s confident to know what to do when I’m not around. It’s all good.

So, now what to do. It’s quality, not quantity, right? You might have noticed, but we have a thing for food around here. Food that we make. Nice slow food. Food that we grow. Healthy, complete food. So we’ve been spending time cooking and we are having SO MUCH FUN!

Since I can’t start dinner at 3:45, and have maybe, 30mins to really make something before we fall on the floor when we get home, we’re making quite a bit on the weekends for the week.

Saturday morning, we made German Pancakes.

They are so easy to make, fun to watch and take less time to cook than our trad pancakes. Izzy LOVED watching them puff up in the oven. Iz has been a fantastic kitchen helper for as long as I can remember. Now that she’s 4, I’m just blown away by her cooking ability. She’s an excellent pourer, stirrer, cutter, and a super taster (except when there’s raw egg…).

The pancake was a hit, super yummy, and Iz and I even whipped up some whip cream, sliced up the strawberries and piled them on the pancake.

Here’s the recipe. Enjoy!

1/4 cup butter

1 cup all-purpose whole wheat flour

1 cup milk

6 eggs, lightly beaten

1/8 teaspoon salt

Nutmeg, Cinnamon, Vanilla Extract – all to taste. If you like sweet, you can add 1/4 -1/2 cup sugar. We don’t want sweet, so the nutmeg, cinnamon and vanilla was perfect for us.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Melt butter in a medium/large baking dish. Keep an eye on it, you don’t want it to burn.

In a medium bowl, mix flour, milk, eggs and salt. Pour the mixture into the prepared baking dish.

Bake on center rack in the preheated oven for 30 to 40 minutes, until golden brown. These can puff up pretty high, so definitely cook these in the center and remove the rack above it. And, if your dish is shallow, put it on a cookie sheet so it doesn’t fall to the floor of your oven.

To make the whipped cream, chill a medium mixing bowl in the fridge for 20 mins. I use Heavy Whipping Cream, pour a pint in the chilled bowl, using your hand mixer, mix at the highest setting until you like the consitency. We don’t add sugar, but if you want it sweeter, add a bit of powdered sugar to your liking.

* I think this would be really yummy if you added crushed apples or mashed bananas too it. You could even add a mashed butternut squash, YUM! The possibilities are endless.

Flourless Chocolate Cupcakes

Published on February 2, 2009 in food and recipes. 4 Comments Tags: chocolate, cupcakes, food, recipes.

I remember going to vegan restaurants and having flourless chocolate cake, the first time, not sure what I was going to get, I mean how good could cake be without flour. REAL GOOD! Yep, amazing. If you’ve never had it before, make sure you try a taste somewhere, it’s a bite of amazing deliciousness.

I thought these would be a good idea for Iz’s birthday party, with some attendees not able to tolerate wheat. And of course as usual, I like to experiment on unsuspecting guests, so I was a little nervous. So, the day before Iz and I made a batch. Izzy poured in all the ingredients, stirred together the melting chocolate and butter and kept asking when she could eat them.

I decided on a mini muffin pan. The cakes would be rich, and while we could all certainly CHOW DOWN on these scrumptious bites, we didn’t need to, a taste is all we really needed. (But I’ll be making another batch any day now…).

These are a happy treat. No fat or calories because I made them in the mini muffin tin, super easy to make, and puts a smile on everyones face. Along with a bit of chocolate. Enjoy!

This is a great recipe. Most of the recipes for Flourless Chocolate Cake calls for coffee. No good for little kids, unless you are crazy.

Flourless Chocolate Cupcakes from Bakers Bites.

14 tbsp butter (2 sticks minus 2 tbsp)

7 oz bittersweet/dark chocolate (65 or 70%), chopped

1 cup sugar

4 eggs, room temperature

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tbsp cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 350F.

Lightly grease a cupcake pan or set 12 foil molds on a baking sheet.

In the microwave, working in 30-second increments, melt together the butter and chocolate in a large bowl, stirring after each time increment.

When melted, stir in the sugar and let the mixture cool for a few minutes before whisking in the eggs one at a time.

Once all the eggs have been incorporated, whisk in the cocoa powder and vanilla extract.

Pour batter evenly into prepared pan(s) and bake for 10 minutes.

Turn off oven and let cakes sit inside for an additional 10 minutes. Remove pan to a wire cooling rack and cool completely.

Use a spatula to gently turn out the cakes before serving.

Store any leftovers in an airtight container.

Makes 12.

** My notes:

I melted the chocolate and butter on the stove.
I filled each cupcake only 1/2 way. If they overflow too much, the tops break off. Which is ok, because someone has to eat the messed up ones, right?
I doubled the recipe, and made 12 regular sized muffins and 48 mini muffins. We liked the outside cooked a bit longer, the sugar carmelizes and makes the outside a bit crunchy/chewy. I’m still getting used to our oven, so I burned a few that were way back in the oven, and they were still delicous!
I started the day before, with a test batch. These totally leak through paper cupcake holders, if you want to use something, use foil. I cooked the mini ones without a holder (too much waste).
The batter held up great in the fridge overnight. I took it out 2 hours before making them for the party. I made them during the party so they’d be hot, it was easy, and I still got to talk to everyone.
Laminate this recipe and share it with all your friends, it’s AWESOME!!!!

Izzy 4.0 and a Birthday Quiche

Published on February 2, 2009 in food, Iz and recipes. 0 Comments Tags: food, HappyBirthday, Iz, Quiche, reci.

It was pretty exciting. Surrounded by family and friends, making, then eating really yummy food, opening thoughtful and exciting gifts. It was a busy day. But so much fun.

Flourless chocolate cupcakes. Yes, let me repeat that FLOURLESS CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES. Yum. Oh, and the candles. Totally cute, she blew and blew and blew, then finally aimed at the candles.

It was a special day. Amazing for me too. I can’t believe Izzy is 4 years old! I mean, how did that happen? Wasn’t it just a few days ago we were in the birthing center? It’s been amazing to watch Izzy grow up to 4. She’s an incredible human being, my very best friend, and totally inspires me. I am continually amazed at her thoughts, stories and even jokes.

We have a lot of fun together. Izzy and I made the above quiche. You see we LOVE quiche. (In case you weren’t sure.).

Izzy’s Birthday Quiche:

Pie shell – room temperature(I sometimes make them from scratch, but this one was ready made from the store, it’s ok, you can do that.)

6 eggs (1 separated, keep the whites in a separate bowl)

Tomatoes – we used 2/3 pint of grape tomatoes – halved or sliced

Fresh Basil – 2-3 springs, de-stemmed and finely chopped

1-2 cups grated cheese, we used cheddar, but mozarella would be yummy too!

8oz or 1 cup heavy whipping cream – you could use any milk product here, non fat, low fat, half & half. I like whipping cream, it makes the quiche fluffy!

Salt & Pepper

These are great served hot, warm, room temp or cold. ENJOY!

Preheat oven to 350ºF.

I use a 10″ tart pan for a 9″ pie crust. It fits, and there is no pastry shell waste. Smooth pie shell into tart/pie pan.

Pour egg white in, paint (we use a brush, but I’ve used my fingers in a pinch) the entire pastry shell with the egg white. (this is so it doesn’t turn to mush once you pour the egg mixture in)

Place tomatoes in first. I like pretty layers, and so does Iz – see above.

Then sprinkle the chopped basil evenly over the tomatoes.

Sprinkle the grated cheese even over entire quiche.

In a separate bowl, mix all the eggs together, pour in the cream, mix well, add pepper and salt.

Pour well mixed mixture over quiche.

Place in the center of your oven. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until the center doesn’t wiggle like jelly.

Oh, The Things You Can Do With Butternut Squash

Published on October 11, 2008 in food and recipes. 1 Comment Tags: butternut squash, cooking, food, gluten-free, recipes.

Ok, get your mind out of the gutter! Puhleaze…. I’m talking about cooking here, nothing else… seriously…

It is squash season, and I don’t think I’ve ever met a squash I haven’t fallen head-over-heals in love with. I’ve got a bunch in the kitchen, some acorn, some delicata, a spaghetti squash and a few butternut. I love them all for different reasons.

We are trying a bit of gluten-free and dairy-free at our house these days, I really wanted to make a gluten-free zucchini bread, but the zucchini didn’t look so good at the grocery store, and I couldn’t make it to the farmers market, so I decided to use the butternut squash. I like that it’s sweet, and I thought the kids would just love it.

And they did, the above picture is of the last bite. It went so fast and is so delicious I can’t even begin to tell you how good that makes me feel! I don’t consider my self and “expert” baker/cook. It’s something I love to do, but I feel that I just don’t know enough about the science of cooking to really, fully experiment successfully. HA! I did it. I totally came up with the recipe, and it worked!

You should make it too. If you don’t want to do gluten-free, you could totally use wheat flour, it would be yummy!

Butternut Squash Bread (Gluten-Free)

1-1/2 cups Butternut Squash shredded (I cut my squash in half, put face down in a casserole dish, fill with about a 1/4″ of water and put in the oven at 450ºF for about 20 minutes. This softens it so you can peel it then run it through the shredder easily)

1 egg

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1-1/2 cup gluten-free baking mix*

1-1/2 tsp xantham gum*

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp ground cinnamon

Zest from 1 lemon

In one bowl, combine squash, vegetable oil, sugar and egg, mix until blended.

In another bowl sift together, flour, xantham gum, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and lemon zest. Mix well.

Pour flour mixture into squash mixture, and stir together until well mixed and moist.

Pour mixture into greased loaf pan.

Cook at 325ºF for about 45-50 minutes until golden brown and fork comes out clean. (Make sure you check your time based on your pan. This is not my forté, so stay close to the oven if you are not sure, burnt squash bread would be such a bummer! – in fact if anyone has a guide for cooking times based on pan sizes, i.e. – how to cook muffins instead of a loaf, please share!)

* You could totally use whole wheat flour for this as well, just eliminate the xantham gum.

I think what makes this bread is the lemon. I’ll be making it with other veggies, but the lemon will always remain.

I had a bunch of shredded butternut squash left over, I made Elana’s Butternut Squash Latkes.

OH MY GOODNESS! These were so delicious! Another fabulous gluten-free recipe where you could sub in so many different veggies and get incredible results. These absolutely melted in our mouths, went so quickly I couldn’t even get a shot on the plate! We were eating them as they came off the stove. This dish is so perfect for fall (any season actually), and we could eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The mix of onion and squash was ideal, and we liked the cispier ones with burnt edges. We ate them with apple sauce. I’m thinking that this is the dish I’ll be making for the holiday family gatherings coming up, 1 little squash makes a lot of food.

Cooking Wish List

Published on September 30, 2008 in favorites, food and recipes. 3 Comments Tags: cooking, favorites, food, recipes.

So I haven’t had the time to sew. I did buy some embroidery tools, but my ideas are still brewing about where to dive in (and I’m still filling my sketchbook). But I have been cooking. Experimenting. Reading tons of food blogs.

I bought a fabulous bunch of kale from the farmers market and made kale crisps from The Cleaner Plate Club. It was absolutely wonderful, what we didn’t eat that afternoon, I put into a gluten free quiche. It was not my most successful quiche. I made a rice flour crust and cooked the heck out of it. Plus I added sugar and probably shouldn’t have for a quiche. So more experimenting. If anyone has a fabulous gluten free pastry shell recipe, please send it my way.

I have been bookmarking food recipes like mad. Here are a few that I am dying to make:

Warm and Nutty Cinnamon Quinoa from 101 Cookbooks (Her cookbooks are on my wishlist in case anybody is interested in that sort of thing.)

Bourbon Peach Handpies from SmittenKitchen. I made something similar with the kids, using some apples and they were great, but this recipe sounds YUMMY! PS – this is totally fun to make with kids. They make the cutest pies! I didn’t take pics, I was too involved with the little hands and pie fixins, but they are a HUGE hit and a great way to involve kiddies in the kitchen.

Crispy Roasted Chickpeas from Kalyn’s Kitchen. I don’t see these lasting too long at our house.

Grandma’s Grain Recipe from 101 Cookbooks. When I introduced food to Iz I started with the Cereal recipe from Super Baby Food, and it was such a great cereal, I might try it again as well, but the book is in a box in storage!!!. This recipe is perfect, just the way I like to cook, a handful of this, a handful of that. It looks so yummy.

Herbed Summer Squash and Tomato Torte from SmittenKitchen. I made something like this a few weeks ago, and I wasn’t as careful as I should have been preparing everything, so it didn’t turn out how I thought it would, but it was still delish. I want to try again after another visit to the farmers market.

Summer Vegetable Pancakes with Basil Chive Cream from Eggs on Sunday. I love veggie pancakes. Comfort food, and perfect after a trip to, you know, the farmers market.

Quinoa and MushroomStuffed Zucchini from The Kitchn. I love to try new things, and I have not yet toasted quinoa, I think Iz would love to eat this.

Enchilada Lasagne from Happy Herbivore. I’ve been looking at a bunch of recipes for this and like this because of the no cheese factor (although I love cheese, I really want to cut back on the dairy at our house). I love the ideas of layering food for cooking, especially when we have leftovers for lunch!

Cheddar Corn Spoon Bread from Cafe Johnsonia. I love corn bread and this looks so warm and yummy.

What are you making? If you have a fave dish or recipe, I’d love to try it!

Hello Fall…

Published on September 22, 2008 in about me, fall and Iz. 1 Comment Tags: fall, food, Iz, school.

The air is a bit chilly and very fresh. It was a grey day for the first day of fall. The hydrangeas are changing.

The leaves on the classroom tree are starting to change too. Last week they were all green.

There were gourds and pumpkins (oooh it’s Halloween time!) on the table.

Then the kids painted them. Iz put hers in the frame.

After school was spent under the tree in the swing.

The day ended with the most delicious spinach and sausage ravioli. And a cosmopolitan. Well 2 actually. But who’s counting?

Quiche Makes Me Happy

Published on September 10, 2008 in blogs I read, Creating, food and recipes. 1 Comment Tags: cooking, food, recipes.

There is something wonderfully satisfying about quiches for me. I find it hard to believe that before a year ago (or so) I had never made a quiche before. Daunting task I suppose, until I tried it. They are so freakin’ easy and quick and pretty much always delicious. This one was fresh garlic, Walla Walla Sweet Onions, fresh spinach, cheddar cheese, eggs and some half and half. I was a little worried that it wouldn’t work so well after pouring in the egg/half and half mixture and it disappeared. But I wasn’t about to add another egg. Oh, and I coat my pastry shells (yes, this one was from the store…I know I know), with egg white. I bake them at 350F for about 40 minutes, but always check after 25mins and decide how much longer it needs to stay in the oven.

I am not a fan of leftovers, they are almost always hard for me to eat (except the foods that get better the next day…pizza, lasagne, quiche….), so sometimes, I toss my leftovers into a quiche and you’ll never know that they were leftovers. I’ve done it with salsa and beans YUM! lasagne filling, Indian food, almost anything. And they are always a treat!

I think you might remember that I’m a big fan of Mark Bittman and his NYT blog Bitten. Well he posted this lovely recipe for Chickpea Salad with Ginger. It made my mouth water! I learned something new: toasting cumin seeds to bring out the flavor. WOWZA that’s all I have to say. After toasting the cumin seeds, I crushed them with a rolling pin as I am sans spice grinder. I didn’t have any ginger and I can see how it would totally add to the dish, but it was absolutely yummy without it. And the best part. For those of you counting – 0 points on Weight Watchers. I think it has just a bit too much flavor for Iz, the cumin is perhaps a bit to “sweet” for her. But I can’t get enough of it. The recipe makes a big batch, so we’ve been eating it for 3 days so far and I’m not tired of eating it.

I think the one thing that I’ve really learned over the past 6 months is to enjoy food. Enjoy finding it, whether it be growing it myself, picking it up at the local farm, the farmer’s market or even the produce section. Taking the time to make things from scratch as much as possible. Sometimes it’s just not possible (although I’m learning everyday…so it could be possible). I take my time preparing and cooking the way needed, then once it’s on the plate, really, really enjoying each and every bite. The other big thing I’ve learned is that if it doesn’t taste good, don’t eat it. I’m off to make lunches…

The Best Pancakes EVER!!!

Published on August 25, 2008 in about me, family and food. 1 Comment Tags: family, food, pancakes.

I have many food memories growing up. Other than the “you must eat the liver” memory (ugh – do you have one like that too?), probably the next biggest would be our pancakes. Every weekend, Dad would make us pancakes using his mother’s recipe. They were of course, delish, and would come in the shape of the letters of our names. They were so much fun to eat. And, we could make them together. There was ingredient getting, measuring, mixing, pouring, the butter and cooking. Oh, and let’s not forget the eating. YUM! Dad would pile his pancakes up high on his plate, biggest pancake on the bottom to the smallest pancake on top. He’d ever-so-carefully place a small pad of butter on top of each pancake then drizzle maple syrup over the whole stack.

It’s been a long time since I’ve had those pancakes, but lucky me has moved to Seattle and spent a weekend with the family that has kept this little recipe alive. I had forgotten how delicious they really are.

At our house we’ve been eating pancakes with the lovely mix from Trader Joes, and it’s really yummy. But I think I’m going to just make these now….

They are amazingly light (much lighter than the TJ’s mix) and just sweet enough but not sugary.

I didn’t leave the table with that “oh, that pancake just SANK to the bottom of my stomach” feeling. And now, of course, I can’t stop thinking about these pancakes! Thanks Aunt Debbie!

A Little Family Reunion

Published on July 13, 2008 in about me, family, food and Uncategorized. 7 Comments Tags: cousins, family, family reunion, food.

Since we’ve moved to our house in Western Ma 2.5 years ago, I’ve been daydreaming of having a big family party. And now that we are moving, everyone came to visit. Most of the visitors stayed for 10 days and over the weekend of July 4, we had 22 people! It was fantastic. Do you know that saying, something like, “Visitors are like fish, after 3 days, they go bad”. Well, my little family is proof that it’s not always that way. Everyone got along, was pleasant, quite appreciative, and a wonderful help.

Here are a few of the highlights:

I got to meet my brother’s youngest for the first time ever. He’s 5. (They live in South Korea.)

Dad chased his oldest grandson around and ripped up his knee, spent his entire visit on crutches, but was a good sport.

My brother gave up Diet Coke. This is a big deal. He drinks something like 3 cases of it a day. (Is Diet Coke bad for you? – you do the research.)

We went to the 61st Annual Chesterfield 4th of July parade. Animals pooped, and well, that was certainly the highlight for the cousins.

We ate SO MUCH FOOD. For our family picnic, we (I mean GREG Thanks Greg – you rock) grilled pizzas. If you haven’t tried this yet, you really, really must. They are SO DELISH! I used whole wheat dough from Trader Joe’s and for one pizza I carmelized fennel and red onion and added Feta cheese. The other pizzas were topped with mozzarella, basil pesto and tomatoes. YUM!!!

That very night, we had visitors. Bears came and toppled our compost. They must have played for a while, there were lots of paths created on the hill. Everyone got a little nervous, but they didn’t come back. Mom fell asleep watching TV, and woke up hearing growling the next night. She tried to wake her husband (he slept through the excitement), and after a few minutes of heart-in-throat, she realized it was the lion on the MGM bit of the movie she was watching.

My super wonderful sister-in-law made us “kimbop” (I am spelling this phonetically… but it’s Korean for hot dog – so I’m told). We call them sushi rolls, or California rolls. They were so AMAZING. We stopped at the Korean grocery store and I learned about a few new things that we’ll be adding to our Friday night roll making ritual. They were perfectly rolled and absolutely delicious.

Seeing my daughter and her cousins play together was just priceless. I only wish we could do it every weekend.

It was 10 days. It was wonderful. As everyone left I couldn’t stop thinking about the pictures, did I get enough? (ok, I took over 500…) Did I get the right ones? I don’t want to forget our wonderful time together, and I want Iz to be able to look through the photos and remember too.

Summer Love

Published on May 30, 2008 in favorites. 0 Comments Tags: food, heart, love, summer, watermelon.

Tag Archive for 'food'

Page 2 of 3

Time Together

Flourless Chocolate Cupcakes

Izzy 4.0 and a Birthday Quiche

Oh, The Things You Can Do With Butternut Squash

Cooking Wish List

Hello Fall…

Quiche Makes Me Happy

The Best Pancakes EVER!!!

A Little Family Reunion

Summer Love

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