Whole Grain Applesauce Cake

This cake was lovely. This glaze was unbelievable. If I make it again (and I'm pretty sure I will), I would use half whole wheat flour and half all-purpose flour, so as to increase the cohesiveness of the cake. But the taste was great.

I'm still working on my glazing technique. Mine was messy but delicious. 

The glaze was much easier to make than I would have thought a glaze to be. It has an ungodly amount of powdered sugar that I don't want to talk about. All I want to say is that it tasted to good, I couldn't believe I'd actually made it.  

Happy Birthday, Julia!

Whole Grain Applesauce Cake from Chocolate & Carrots (that's a blog name; there is no chocolate or carrot in this cake) and from Texanerin.

Ingredients:

Cake:
2 1/4 cups whole wheat or whole spelt flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon allspice
3 large eggs
3/4 cup olive oil – I used extra-virgin
1 cup unrefined or brown sugar
1 3/4 cups unsweetened applesauce
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Cinnamon sugar:
3 tablespoons unrefined or granulated sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon

Caramel glaze:
4 tablespoons butter, cut into pieces
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup heavy cream
2/3 – 1 cup powdered sugar, sifted (unless yours is already lump free)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger and allspice.

2. In a separate medium bowl, whisk the eggs a little. Add the olive oil and sugar and mix. Then add the applesauce and vanilla extract.

3. Add the dry mix to the wet mix and stir. But just until combined!

4. Spray a 12 cup / 10″ bundt pan with cooking spray. Be sure to spray it very well. Then mix the sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl and sprinkle the mix in the pan. Bake for 45 – 55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean. This recipe can also be halved and baked in a 6 cup bundt pan, which is what I always do. If using a 6 cup bundt pan, bake for about 27 – 30 minutes.

5. Let the cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes, and then turn it out onto a rack and let it cool completely before glazing.

6. For the glaze: Put the butter, brown sugar, cream and salt in a saucepan at medium heat. Stirring constantly, bring it to a full rolling boil. Let it boil for one minute and then take it off the heat and let it cool for 5 minutes. Gradually add the powdered sugar and beat it until it’s very smooth and  there are no lumps. Pour over the cake.

Source: cake from Erin from Texanerin Baking; the caramel glaze recipe came from The Runaway Spoon.

Julia's 2nd Birthday

Julia turned 2 last Wednesday! The night before her birthday we said, "Julia, do you know what tomorrow is?" And she replied, "Juia's burday!" When we went in to get her on the morning of she immediately said, "It my burday!" She was thrilled and talked about her birthday for days. 

Julia - 2 yrs on Sept 19; Clara - 1 mo on Sept 17

We went low key for this year's party. So low key, especially compared to last year's when we had a theme and a ton of food and oodles of decorations and we invited everyone we knew. Last year we didn't have a newborn, of course. 

3 balloons, 24 pictures, some gifts

So when we were "planning" (by which I mean scrambling at the last minute because we had been too overwhelmed to "plan"), we decided to focus just on what Julia would love most, leaving out all the extraneous stuff that parents do that often goes unnoticed by the child. We knew she'd love her cousins and her aunt and uncles, and we figured she'd go for some cake. I bought balloons (for the kids) and put up Julia's monthly milestone pictures (for the adults); she opened presents, played with her cousins, ate some cake, and was on cloud 9 the whole time.

 Whole Wheat Applesauce Cake with Caramel Glaze and a big 2 on top

"wed nitten" (red kitchen)

Our big gift to her was this fantastic red kitchen that we stayed up until 1 AM assembling the night before. Wish I could have captured the look of pure delight on her face when she saw it.

My new theory: it's not a party without balloons! 

All that was on Wednesday night, on her actual birthday, but we didn't stop there. With a visit from Honey, Papa, Ling and Minli on the horizon, we decided to have a second party on Saturday so they could celebrate with us - this one at the park and also super simple. More balloons this time, some snacks, a playground, more cousins to play with, and incredible weather. Julia had a blast.

Clara at the park with Honey

And I had so much fun that I nearly felt like it was my own birthday. I enjoy Julia every single minute of every single day and most of the time I just can't believe how awesome she is.

Julia Minerva: 27.2 lbs and 33 inches of awesome 

I'm so glad she had a happy Birthday.

My Second Birth Story

On August 17 at 5:24 PM, I delivered an 8-pound, 2-ounce baby girl: Clara Sofia.

Clara Sofia

It seems like I had to wait a really long time for Clara. I didn't; she was only 4 days late and still within my due "week" (rather than due date). But I had been so weary with the pregnancy (more accurately, the sciatica) and so worried that this baby would be problematically late, that I had grown impatient. I was ready to have that "Baby C," as we had been calling it, and I was pretty confident that Baby C was ready to be had. The baby was so low that it had felt for a couple of weeks like I'd been carrying around a bocce ball between my thighs. I was tired.

I think it didn't help any that my first baby had been one week early, so even though I tried not to have any expectations, I think I subconsciously did. My due date was a Monday and all week long after I'd missed that date, I'd been researching natural induction methods. On Thursday afternoon, the midwife told me not to worry about doing anything extreme until the following week; even so I was still thinking of how to induce labor Thursday night. So that when I went down to the basement to clean Julia's crayon markings off the wall, I joked that if scrubbing crayon off basement walls were an induction method I'd have hit the jackpot.

And so, perhaps, I did hit the jackpot. The next morning I woke up around 7:30 with some funny feelings. For about a week I'd been feeling what I was describing as Braxton Hicks contractions but on the inside; my Braxton Hicks contractions had always felt like they were on the outside, on my belly - but these new ones were deep inside. Turns out these were prodromal labor and come Friday morning, the real labor was hitting pretty hard and pretty fast.

But I was in denial that it was real labor. I wanted it to be, but I didn't want to get my hopes up that I was actually - finally! - going to have this baby! So I tried to be "realistic" and went about getting ready for work. I showered and tried to get dressed, but couldn't even do that. Before I knew it I was calling my parents and texting my co-workers, and curling up on the bed to ride out each contraction and wondering how long will it take this time? Sergio took Julia to school and came right back home; he called the midwife, drew me a bath, downloaded a contraction-tracking application on my phone, and started tracking. We were surprised to find that the contractions were coming so quickly. I was surprised at how intense they were so soon. Nothing like the long stretch of "easy" contractions that I had with Julia. For this one I skipped ahead to the hard stuff right away.

I ended up laboring at home for only about 3 hours, which, when viewed through my frame of reference of a 28-hour labor the first time, seemed like only 5 minutes. We packed up and went to the hospital at around 11:00 am. All I could think about was how bright it was outside - how painfully bright it was - and how if this baby turns out to be Clara, how appropriate that she be born on such a clear, bright day. That was and is a charming notion, but truth be told, it was that brightness that really threw me off for the rest of the day.

And here is where the comparisons begin (I promise, Julia and Clara, we won't always be comparing you to each other like this!): when I went to the hospital with Julia, it was dark and stormy and late at night and I'd already been laboring so long (15 hours) and we had to enter through the ER entrance at the back of the hospital and not many people were there ...  but with Clara, when I went to the hospital it was bright and clear and lovely and everything was happening fast and I'd hardly been in labor at all (3 hours) and we went in through the hustling, bustling front door and there were so many people everywhere. With Julia I spent so much time in labor, and it was so dark and dim in that room in the middle of the night, that I went into a trance without even trying (very helpful for pain management in natural childbirth!); with Clara, labor progressed so quickly and the room was so bright with all that sunlight managing to push through the drawn curtains that I never got deep enough and never fully made it to "Planet Birth."

So this meant I was way more "with it" than I had expected to be. And my brain went into overdrive instead of going into autopilot like it had with Julia. I tried to focus on what I needed to do but tried also to distract myself from the pain. I hung out in the big jacuzzi tub for a while, but couldn't get comfortable because of baby's little bocce ball head sitting so low. I hung out in the shower with lots of warm water pouring on me while I sat on the exercise ball and rolled around through each contraction. I danced and squatted around the room per the midwife's instructions, trying to get Baby C to move its head a little; the baby had its hand underneath its chin which was tilting its head at the wrong angle and we couldn't proceed until it had sorted itself out.

Sergio was right beside me for every contraction, and whereas with my first labor I was eventually so far gone that I didn't know who was in the room or who was holding my hand, with this labor I was far more aware of my surroundings and was highly dependent on Sergio. He helped me breathe properly, he encouraged me with a quote from a card we'd seen at the midwive's office - "the contractions can't be stronger than you because they are you" - he reminded me that each contraction brought us closer to meeting our mystery Baby C and to smelling that sweet new born smell and to finding out if it's a boy or a girl, he told me that each contraction was working, that it was progress, and eventually when I just kept saying "no, no, no, no, no" he'd help me to embrace each contraction by reminding me to say "yes, yes, yes, yes, yes" instead. I truly could not have had this baby without his help.

After almost 10 hours of labor, it was time to push - although if you'd asked me it had been time to push since morning. Since this baby and its little bocce ball head had been so low, I had been wanting to push all day. (This is another totally different experience than Julia's labor, when I never once felt the urge to push.) I only had to push a few times this time - I think it was 3 - before Baby C made its debut and Sergio called out, "We have a Clara!" and I moaned my ridiculous "just-gave-birth" moan (the same strange noise I made the moment I first saw Julia). They hoisted Baby C up onto my chest. She sneezed, she cried; I wailed, Sergio beamed - and everything was perfect.

"We have a Clara!"

my little burrito baby with a bocce ball head

I had been so anxious to have this baby on or before its due date, but I was actually really happy with her arrival date - August 17, 2012 is my parents' 50th wedding anniversary. And thanks to Clara's unfavorable head tilt, the labor was delayed long enough that my parents had time to arrive from OKC. Both of my parents and Sergio's mom - who had traveled from Mexico only two days before - were all three there when Clara made her entrance. I couldn't have articulated this at the time, but I was so glad that I went into labor "late" enough and that my labor lasted long enough that they could all be there.

And this trio of grandparents were so helpful in the days following Clara's birth: taking care of Julia, taking care of Clara so Sergio and I - zombies from sleep deprivation - could catch a few zs, preparing us food, cleaning our floors, doing small projects around the house. My mother cooked all my CSA vegetables for me, bought me just the right new clothes, even gave me a pedicure. I can't begin to express my gratitude.

Clara and I were released from the hospital in no time at all, which was also a totally different experience than when I had Julia. With Julia, I chose to stay at the hospital with her until she was released from the NICU five days after birth. And the day we left was a clear, bright, beautiful Friday morning - a stark contrast to the dark, rainy Saturday night we'd had when we entered the hospital earlier in the week. With Clara there was no NICU stay, she and I were both fit as fiddles, so they released us both the day after she was born. Which means we entered the hospital on a clear, bright, beautiful Friday morning and left the hospital late on a dark, rainy Saturday night.

We continue to marvel at how different the two girls look, in the same way that the two births were so different. When Julia was born her skin tone was pale and she had (and has) crystal clear blue eyes and hardly any hair at all and what little was there was very light brown and now that it's grown in her hair is all curly. But then Clara - Clara's skin tone is darker and she even has those purple spots on her lower back and she has glossy black/brown eyes and a full head of long black hair that's straight as a board. They are so distinctly different and unique and it will be so fun to see how their little personalities develop, too.

Julia holding Baby C for the first time

Julia has taken so well to her new baby sister. We continue to call Clara "Baby C" to help Julia with the transition (since that's what all three of us called the baby in utero), but Julia has already started calling her Clara - or rather "Baby Dara." She is interested in her and asks about her always and runs to see her and kiss her and hug her when she comes home from school. She offers to help change diapers and to wipe. And though Julia is too young to actually execute many of the tasks she offers to help with, we are just so delighted that she's interested. She is going to be a good big sister; I can tell already.

It has now been three weeks since Clara's long-awaited birth and even as she still feels so little and new, it also feels like she was always here. Maybe that's just my way of interpreting the "meant to be" feeling. It's amazing how quickly that feeling takes hold. Not three weeks but three minutes - dare I say three seconds? - after her birth I felt like she was always a Clara and she was always ours and she was always meant to be. I feel like we're a complete set now. I can't imagine it any other way.

all here

Eggplant Begins With An E

It's a good thing my hair dresser was running a few minutes late the other day because if she hadn't been, I might not have picked up the Real Simple magazine while I waited and I might not have found this recipe for Eggplant Parmesan Rollatini.

We are kind of a one-trick pony when it comes to eggplant. Or, I guess two tricks. Either Sergio makes his Eggplant Parmesan or I make a pizza. I made a pizza a couple of weeks ago with our skinny CSA eggplants, so I wanted to try something else. Sergio is the one that always makes Eggplant Parmesan and as is common in the patterns of a relationship, that task has fallen exclusively to him, even though I probably could figure out how to make it myself were I so inclined. 

But I wasn't so inclined, I wanted something new. Luckily I found this. The heirloom eggplant at Badseed on Friday night were the absolute perfect size for this and they were gorgeous. If only I could find my camera - still packed away somewhere - I'd have taken a proper photo of them. At any rate - here is this.

And here is the recipe. "Rollatini," by the way, is not some clever descriptor devised by the editorial staff at Real Simple. It is also not a real Italian word. The real Italian name for this dish is "Involtini de Melanzane." Which I think is much more fun to say.

A couple of tips...
• the article suggests that this casserole can be made up to 4 hours in advance but no more than that lest the ricotta mixture separate, but I made mine 6 hours ahead of time and encountered no problems.
• the article also suggests it serves 8; ours, served with pasta, served 5.
• next time I make it I'll likely double the marinara sauce - especially if I serve it on pasta again.
• the hands-on time of 25 minutes does not include toddler wrangling, which will likely double that prep time. 

The New House

We have been in the new house for about a month now. There are still boxes lying about and there is very little hanging on walls and we have yet to purchase a few key pieces of furniture and I will still spin around in confusion in the kitchen trying to find things and I don't know where my camera is but you know what? Most days it feels like we have lived here all along.

The home was up and running and functional in no time at all - thanks entirely to my family who came to help us move, unpack, and get settled quickly. Mom and Tyler helped me through the difficult process of making a million little decisions, which I find even more exhausting than the physical strain of unpacking. Ling and Minli helped with all the toddler wrangling; indeed they are pros. Dad has given us valuable crash courses in lawn care. We are off to a really good start.

Julia had so much fun with her cousins.

And the three of us are adapting well. Sergio has taken ownership of the lawn with amazing alacrity and skill - watering, cleaning up leaves, etc. Which is such a relief because I don't think I could handle being outside in this heat with this giant belly.

Julia loves to talk about our new house, and - though she quit for about a week - she continues to talk about our realtor. Although at this point I think she has just renamed our new house "minee new house." Even though we have explained to her that Mindy doesn't live here, she still asks "minee new house?" when we pick her up from school and head home.

During the first week we had what Sergio dubbed our "hazing" - a brown recluse spider showed up in the laundry room and we had our first false alarm on the security system. Because there must be some kind of murphy's law in effect, these are, of course, two of the things we were most frightened about when transitioning from the bug-free, super-safe condominium. I am pleased to say we survived the hazing and in some respects I'm glad we've gotten it out of the way.

Julia is learning some new words and phrases as a result of the new house such as "upstairs," "downstairs," "basement," and "daddy put water?" And she is doing so well with the stairs, learning to ascend and descend them slowly and with care. She asks for help with the sweetest, sing-song "Hold my hand!" And sometimes she just declares "big step! big step!" with each step she takes. And I resist the urge to tell her - "yes, Julia, moving into this house is a big step and we are all doing so well."

The Last Week

This is our last week in our apartment. Tomorrow we close on our new house; this weekend we move. Everything is so surreal at this stage. I'm so excited about the house and so ready to leave the apartment; or I'm so sad about leaving this apartment and I'm so nervous about the house. It's a roller coaster in my heart. 


How strange this whole house hunting process has been - like dating I think, but now that we have bought the house it feels more like an arranged marriage or perhaps a rushed marriage. Deep down you believe that this is the one but you still have to admit to yourself that the actual house itself may not live up to the version of the house in your head. And like a lover you may have turned a blind eye now to things you'll come to hate later and you've over emphasized the things you love now. There will be a reality you can't entirely predict. But hey, every good relationship takes hard work, right? And is totally worth it in the end.


And so it's happening. Our home is at last being dismantled - piles of our belongings ready to pack or already packed away in the big corner stash of our hodgepodge, mismatched moving boxes. Things are in upheaval though some normalcy continues. I picked up our CSA share yesterday and came home wanting to eat a tomato - the first of the season! So I absentmindedly open the big drawer to absentmindedly grab the tomato knife from the place where it always is and - oops! That big drawer is totally empty. The tomato knife is deep in the boxes somewhere. 


Dismantling is weird, even if it's only to rebuild it a day or week later in a new but familiar place, a part of town that you know or that you think you know, just like you thought you knew this part of town when you moved in here 7 years ago.


And packing is slow - so slow. Now only does it take a long time because there is always more stuff than I think and because, in my case, gestational sciatica limits my stamina. But on top of all that, I am prone to fits of nostalgia, so I can't just pack. I have to ponder my memories while I pack them away. As if moving weren't emotional enough already.

I have summoned my best powers of organization for this move. Even so I think we'll be the people the movers complain about - too many boxes with too many books (heavy!) or weak second-hand boxes with compromised integrity stuffed with things marked fragile (note the extra duct tape at the bottom of the box pile in the above pic). And I've ended up with funny labels "pictures and pillows" or "hangers and a shoe." So far just one "mystery box" - something Sergio taped up before I could label it and now it's anyone's guess what is in there. 


So this is the last week - the last week of watching cars drive by from our high rise window, looking at the picture perfect church across the street. The last week of our tiny, intimate and contained apartment. The last week of Julia saying "Bye, Craig" every morning and "Hi, Kathleen!" in the evening when we pass the concierge desk in the lobby.  


On the other hand, there's Julia who, despite my assertions to the contrary, thinks that packing is fun. And who keeps saying "Minee?" (our realtor's name) "New house?" Not sure she quite understands what's happening here. Perhaps none of us fully do.

PS: Not to worry: Julia will be riding to the new house in a car seat - not a moving box. 

Sage Cake

File this in the What To Do With All Those Herbs category. I'm always buying herbs and then - unless it's parsley - struggling to figure out what to do with the last of it. Lots of rosemary? You can only eat so many roasted potatoes. So I always use my remainder rosemary to make this Rosemary Remembrance Cake.

Not to mention, I have a penchant for savory/sweet cross over applications - like rosemary in a cake or a creme brûlée, salt on my watermelon, balsamic vinegar on vanilla ice cream, etc.

Along those same lines I had an excess of sage. In the spring, no less, and I usually can't figure out what to do with sage when I don't have any winter squashes around. But now I have this - Rustic Sage Cake.

I have made it twice now (which means I have eight eggs whites in the freezer; if I make this cake one more time, I'll have enough discarded egg whites to make an angel food cake! Can I make an angel food cake with frozen egg whites? Hmmm...) and I can confirm that it is both easy to make and delicious.

You can use olive oil or butter for this - I've only tried the olive oil method. The butter would be better for sourcing local (Shatto!). But I also enjoy the idea (and taste) of olive oil in a cake.

The source for this recipe recommends ice cream as a companion which I'm sure is delicious, but at Sergio's suggestion, we ate ours with drizzles of honey. Very nice indeed.

Rustic Sage Cake
Adapted from this recipe at How Stuff Works

Helpful Tip: Since this recipe calls for egg yolks only, freeze the individual whites in an ice cube tray, then transfer them to a Ziploc bag for easy storage. Next time you want to make a recipe that calls for whites you’ll already have some on hand!

• 14 fresh sage leaves (7 large leaves for steeping and 7 baby leaves for decoration)
• 2/3 cup whole milk
• 4 egg yolks
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups cake flour
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 8 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9-inch round, springform cake pan with PAM or another baking spray.

In small saucer combine the milk and 7 large sage leaves, torn into thirds. Warm over medium heat until the milk is very hot. Set aside to steep for 15 minutes.

While the milk is steeping, sift the cake flour and baking powder into a large mixing bowl. Add the salt, mixing well with a whisk.

In a small bowl combine the yolks, sugar, olive oil and vanilla.

Strain the milk through a fine mesh sieve, then add half of the milk, and the yolk mixture, to the bowl with the cake flour, stirring to combine. Add the remaining milk, mixing well.

Pour the batter into the prepared springform pan and decoratively arrange seven small sage leaves on top of the batter. Bake for about 30 minutes, until the cake is lightly golden and starts to pull away from the edges of the pan.

Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then run a butter knife around the edges and remove the sides of the pan. Serve warm or at room temperature, with vanilla ice cream if you like.

Julia 20 months

Our fuzzy-headed, super sweet, very chatty (mostly intelligible) Julia at 20 months. 

 Absolutely delightful.

Braised (gasp!) Lettuce

transplants - before becoming full heads of lettuce and before getting cooked

I have cooked lettuce. It feels almost sacrilegious to have done so. Like a desecration of all that is sacred about spring and early harvests and newness and freshness and rawness. Perhaps. But alas, I have done it. Only one week into our CSA season and I'm cooking lettuce. Blasphemy!

But here's my rationale: There was a LOT of beautiful lettuce at Badseed on Friday. But I'd already gotten two beautiful heads from my CSA share last week. So even if I eat a salad every day - sometimes twice a day - I can only consume so much raw lettuce at a time. But (I thought) if I find a recipe for cooking lettuce then I can justify buying even more of it at the farmers market!

And that's just what I did.

The sweet little heads of lettuce at Badseed seemed like they'd be perfect for cooking as they reminded me somewhat of the "little gems" I saw Nigella Lawson cook in her Forever Summer series (Best Cooking Show Ever, BTW, IMHO). So I snatched up three of them to cook knowing that I'd have plenty of lettuce from Fair Share Farm - and "spice on spice" mix from The Herb'n Gardener (arugula and tiny mustard greens and sometimes kale) - to give me salad all week.

I found a version of Nigella's Little Gems recipe but opted instead for this Braised Lettuce and Peas recipe. And I'm pleased to report that it was delicious.


Braised Lettuce and Peas
Ingredients
• 1 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil
• 3 medium shallots, halved and thinly sliced - I used skinny little leeks from the CSA share
• 1 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
• 2 medium heads butter lettuce, washed, core removed, leaves halved and thinly sliced crosswise (Boston or bibb) - I used two small heads of heirloom lettuce from Badseed - can't remember the variety name
• 2 cups frozen baby peas
• 3 tablespoons greek yogurt or sour cream (optional)

Directions
Heat oil in a medium frying pan over medium-high heat. When it shimmers, add shallots, season with salt and freshly ground black pepper, and cook until golden brown, about 2 minutes. Sprinkle flour over the top and cook until raw taste is gone, about 30 seconds. Add stock and bring to a boil. Stir in lettuce and peas, reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until lettuce and peas are tender, about 5 minutes. Stir in yogurt or sour cream, if using. Taste, adjust seasoning as desired, and serve.

Spring = Asparagus

The market season has barely begun, but spring has long since sprung. It's easy to appreciate the early crops that this nice weather have brought us (even though it's hard to ignore the fact that such unusual temperatures may mean stranger things as the season progresses). This year, early spring means asparagus in April. Our farmers at Fair Share Farm have a good crop of asparagus growing already and I had the good fortune to snag 3 pounds of it. 3 lovely pounds already and supposedly more to come in our first CSA share in just a few weeks.

asparagus keeps best in a glass of water in the fridge - or an unsightly tupperware of water in the fridge

Usually the first thing I do with asparagus is make this dish - Lemon Orzo with Roasted Asparagus. But I didn't have a lot of time this week, or lemon for that matter, so I started with a simple batch of steamed asparagus with salt and pepper. I ate it hot one night and then cold on a salad the next day. 

The OED defines asparagus in this charming, poetic way: "a plant cultivated for the sake of its vernal shoots, which form a well-known delicacy of the table."

Finally this weekend I had time for something more involved. And I had leeks, another spring treat. So I made this Asparagus and Leek Frittata, a recipe from my farmers at Fair Share Farm.

Asparagus and Leek Frittata - scrambled, sort of

I vary my method ever so slightly, which sometimes results in a very scrambled frittata. Scrambled or not, it is delicious. Especially with a side of spring greens.


Asparagus and Leek Frittata
Frittatas are a wholesome and easy dish, and are at their best when made with lots of vegetables. Essentially a quiche without the crust, they turn eggs into a main course.

This recipe calls for 2 cups of grated cheese. We use 1 cup of parmesan and 1 cup of Goatsbeard Farms Walloon aged cheese. Frittatas are a great way to take a high quality cheese like Goatsbeard's and spread its flavor over an entire dish. 

1 medium bunch of aparagus
1 medium leek
1 stalk green garlic (optional)
6 eggs
1/4 cup milk
2 cups grated cheese
1-1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
1/2 tsp salt

Clean and chop the leeks, green garlic and asparagus. Saute the leeks and garlic in the olive oil and butter for 5 minutes over medium heat in an oven-proof pan. Add the salt and aspargus and cook 3 more minutes.

Beat the eggs and milk. Add half the cheese to the eggs, stir, and then pour into the pan with the leeks. Cook over medium heat for 3 minutes. The eggs should be cooked around the edges of the pan, and the center will still be soft.

Sprinkle the remaining cheese over the top and place in the broiler for 3 minutes, or until golden brown. Let cool for 5 minutes. Serve warm. Emily's variation instead of the broiler part: when the eggs are mostly cooked and only a little big wiggly in the center, turn the frittata upside down into another pan on the stove top. Spray the pan with oil first! With this method you get the nice browning on top and bottom. You may also get a little scrambling, depending on how quickly you can flip. 

Julia 19 months

Julia at 19 months with special guest, Papa! 

Easter

lilacs from the Eat Local Expo

tulips from the Expo with Daddy and Julia in back playing with eggs

 

los tres primos 

our little family

 Christy's rabbit cake

 the aftermath

my Easter gift from mom

Pre Christmas in Kansas City

I am proud to report that I got my Christmas "tree" up early this year - the weekend after Thanksgiving! I have been enjoying it so much. Of course, it's not a tree - it's a garland. I decided that this year I didn't have the energy to fight "Scroogio" (who, by the way, has been replaced by a non-Christmas-hating Sergio this year!) over it and to have to make my case for why the Christmas tree is worth all the trouble. I just didn't have it in me this year. Not to mention - a tree would have been the perfect height for Julia to get into and I like to get those native, invasive Eastern Red Cedars that are prickly and I can only imagine what kind of trouble Julia would have gotten into with that. 

garland and three tiny stockings - one for each of us

So I went with our trusty old back up garland. And even though it's artificial and even though it's not a tree, I love it. 

new ornament this year - Julia's hand print cut out and decorated like Santa (from Nina's school party)

With all my cards sent and my gifts purchased, wrapped and shipped, I was ready, this week, to do some long awaited holiday baking. I have yet to figure out why the winter (even a mild winter like what we're having) makes me feel like baking. But it does. So I hunkered down in the kitchen a couple of nights this week and baked two kinds of cookies - Nutmeg Maple Butter Cookies (from Smitten Kitchen), which turned out to be fantastic; and Gingerbread Folk (as I like to call them, since "Gingerbread Men" is so limiting). We bundled these up and distributed them to co-workers and to the concierge staff at our building. Oh, and we kept a few for ourselves. They were all delicious and well worth the hours of rolling and cutting out. 

I make sure my icing is super messy, that way people who receive my cookies know without a doubt that they are home made and not store bought. 

Now, it feels like the night before Christmas because we leave for Mexico tomorrow. The bags are packed; we have wrapped up our Christmas in Kansas City just in time to fly out for the next, big Christmases. (One in Mexico; one in Oklahoma.)

And since my garland is artificial, I'm leaving up until I get home. No reason not to enjoy it a few days into the new year. 

"Frosted Ginger Cut Outs" (or "Gingerbread Folk")

COOKIES

1 cup shortening or butter

1 cup molasses

3 cups all purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ginger

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon cloves

In large bowl, combine shortening and molasses; blend well. Add flour and remaining cookie ingredients to molasses mixture; mis well. Cover with plastic wrap; refrigerate at least 2 hours for easier handling. 

Heat oven to 350 degrees F. On well-floured surface, roll dough to 1/4 inch thickness; cut with floured cookie cutter. Place 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes or until set. Cool completely. 

FROSTING (Emily's Easy Icing)

a lot of powdered sugar

a little milk

To make the icing, mix a tiny bit of milk with a whole lot of powdered sugar. You just have to eye ball it until you get the consistency you want - whatever you need to ooze appropriately from your piping bag without pouring out and without getting stuck. You be the judge. 

VARIATIONS

GINGERBREAD MEN (or WOMEN!): Roll dough 1/4-inch thick for soft cookies or 1/8 inch thick for crisp cookies. Cut dough with floured gingerbread person cookie cutter. Bake as directed above. To decorate, pipe frosting on cooled cookies. 

(My recommendations on the Gingerbread People - go with 1/4 inch thickness to achieve a softer cookie, and shoot for the shorter end of the 8-10 minute baking time suggestion.)

ThanksVegan #8

just some of our standards - Brussels sprouts, mashed potatoes and gravy, wilted spinach salad, and butternut squash soup (the Teany recipe)

The tradition continues! Our friends, Jon and Erin, traveled to KC last weekend for our 8th Annual ThanksVegan. Each year on the day of our TV meal, we four toil in the kitchen and slave over a hot stove and chop and chop and stir and saute and blend and bake and mash and mix for many hours in a row. It's all good fun and it never feels like hours when we look back on it because Jon often condenses our marathon kitchen stint into an 8-minute video, which, not unlike Food Network programming, makes everything look like a piece of cake - a piece of vegan cake, that is. 

But this year, Jon and Erin had the brilliant idea to prep some food in advance and to buy the main course (instead of making it) to reduce our cook/prep time and to allow for extra time for just enjoying each other's company. This was a particularly prescient move on their part because - as horrible luck would have it - poor Jon came down with a 24-hour bug on Saturday. Had Jon and Erin not prepped so much in advance, and had we not bought a pre-made main course, I think our ThanksVegan would have been severely cramped. 

Gardein (I can't believe it's not turkey!) in the foreground; Julia (who was old enough to join us at the table this year) in the background.

Instead, we were able to get in a full evening of relaxed fun and fellowship before the bug hit - then we all weathered through it on Saturday and since Jon is lucky enough to be married to a doctor, he had professional medical advice at the ready. By Sunday morning he was good as new (phew!) and TV8 commenced without a hitch! 

blueberry hand pies

And it was delicious. This was the year of the pies as Erin made two kinds before they arrived on Friday night. We waited until Sunday morning (such a long wait!) to eat the Blueberry Hand Pies, which we had for breakfast while we were prepping the big meal. They were superb, whether eaten with a fork or a hand. Then for desert we had Pecan Pie (sprinkled with a bit of salt) - it was perfect - all mapley and praline-like. 

Pecan Pie while Julia spends some QT with Uncle Jon, the baby whisperer.  

Before we knew it, the pies and the weekend were coming to an all-to-fast close. So we vowed to get together again soon - much sooner than next fall - to make up for lost time. We are already looking forward to it.

Commemorative ornaments - usually we do corks from beer bottles - this year we decided to embrace the memory of the minor inconvenience of the stomach bug. 

Thanksgiving and The Flu. And Pink Eye.

Thanksgiving really is my favorite holiday. Such a simple premise - gratitude! - yet one so difficult to master throughout the rest of the year. I love a day meant to emphasize it. (And I love that we do so with food, although, this year, I didn't have the extra hands to snap photos of my Fair Share Farm vegetables or my delicious Badseed goods or that fennel and leek au gratin dish I made two years ago which is ugly in photos anyway, but that was just as tasty as I remembered it being).

Christy and her family used their hand prints for this adorable toilet paper roll pilgrim turkey

This year I geared up for Thanksgiving by watching a couple of holiday-themed shows on the Food Network at my parents house the week before. On those shows, chefs with poise and fervor made masterpieces in record time and wowed judges with their ability to be both innovative and traditional. Fast forward a week and my own version is a little more crazed. I spent Thanksgiving day in my kitchen making a pie completely from scratch (having never done so before!) as well as making ALL the vegetables for our meal (beets, potatoes, fennel, chard, salad). Sergio spent the day getting the flu. Which left him less able to help out than I had expected. Which left me performing the gymnastic stunts required to accommodate a 14 month old underfoot who is busying herself with pots and pans on the floor near her mama while her daddy fever-sleeps unexpectedly in the next room. How come they never show that on the Food Network?

"Primitos de Rayas" - Nina the witch princess (with striped leggings), Emilio the pirate, and Julia the coincidentally, impromptu pirate. Costumes at Thanksgiving: a new tradition? 

Poor Sergio. He made it through our decidedly delicious meal at Christy and Armando's that night; we all had a great time, even him with his fever. The next morning he went to urgent care and came home with a flu diagnosis and something to help with the pain. Then he slept for the next 48 hours. He missed the "recalentado" at Christy's on Friday (it's worth it to spend so much time in the kitchen cooking if the food you make lasts two days!), he missed the lighting of the mayor's Christmas tree at Crown Center, and he was about to miss small business Saturday when, late in the day, he mustered enough strength to go out and buy a few records. Then he came and slept for another day.

Julia and Mommy, missing Daddy, at the Mayor's Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony

By Sunday night he was starting to come out of it. And I was just showing my first signs. I was lucky though. The flu that knocked him flat on his back and sent him down for the count, just sent me stumbling. I was feverish and very tired, but all in all it only lasted a couple of days. (His lasted 5.) I was brazenly bidding the defeated flu "good-bye" and "good riddance" on Tuesday night - perhaps too brazenly, reveling in my victory. Because I woke up Wednesday morning with flu-induced pink eye. Spoke too soon I guess.

We are finally - just today - feeling like we're getting back to normal (although I won't really feel "normal" until my eye clears up and I can put my contacts back in). We're both back at work and we're going about our business and even though it felt like a big wallop, us both being sick like that, it occurs to me that a couple of cases of flu and a spot of conjunctivitis are actually wonderful problems to have in the grand scheme of things. And what's more? Julia has managed to avoid it all (knock on wood).

a happy Thanksgiving indeed

We are fully aware of how fortunate we are and I for one feel very, very grateful.