Christmas

We had a quiet, but happy Christmas. Although we were feeling very festive, we only put up a couple of strings of lights and a jingle bell wreath on the door. I was sure if we did the usual amount of decorating, the baby would come early and there would be a new baby and decorations to take down all at the same time. I didn't want to risk having decorations up until March or something!

Jeff and I didn't do surprise gifts for each other, but I did get him a new video game (Uncharted 3) to play during his vacation and we had a few surprise presents to open from family. I got some Cascade Pacific yarn for baby knits from my mother. There were a few more things for the baby too, like a touch and feel farm animals book.

Christmas afternoon, I cast on with the new yarn for the newborn sized Easy Baby Cardigan and knit most of the body portion. Yesterday evening and today, I was able to finish up the body, complete the sleeves, seam the hood and weave in the ends. I may make ties to hold the front together as shown in the original, but first I am going to check some stores for other kinds of closures. I keep thinking snaps might be nice. It is such a good pattern that I might make the 12 month old size as well. I have plenty of the same yarn for that too. I might add buttonholes for that or possibly sew in a zipper.

Front view of the Easy Baby Cardigan.

Back view showing the cute, pointy hood.

I haven't gone out shopping the day after Christmas in years, but planned on it this year. I had a $20 coupon to spend at Williams Sonoma (from spending $100 on presents there before Christmas), so I was excited to pick something out for the kitchen. I got a fun cake pan in the shape of a tree stump. It is a different take on the yule log. It is quite adorable decorated for Christmas with meringue or marzipan mushrooms, mice or other woodland things. I think it could be fun other times of year too! At Easter, I could decorate it with chocolate bunnies and a chocolate/coconut bird's nest and jelly bean or Cadbury eggs. For kids, I could make it with some gummy worms or bugs, LOL! We also got some hot chocolate which I may wait to open until February/Valentine's Day. I can make it up in the Breville Milk Cafe I got last year. And, we got a box of Peppermint Bark. That may not make it past New Year's as it is so moreish. Everything was at least half price before the coupon was even rung in! If only one could always do that much shopping for under $20 at Williams Sonoma!

We saw lots of good sales, but the only other shopping we did was at Baby Gap and Carter's. We found 3 of the cutest onesies at Gap marked down to $2.99!! We got 9 outfits at Carter's where everything we picked was between 40 and 70% off and then we were surprised with an additional 20% taken off at the checkout.

We topped off the day with lunch out at Chipotle and later had lattes too! I think I might be back into the habit of shopping on the 26th ;)

Well, next year should be our most exciting Christmas ever, the first with our son. I can't wait to start celebrating holidays with him!

Mini Quiches

I love these mini quiches for any meal. There are a number of recipes out there, but you really can just improvise with these and add any fillings you like. I butter a non stick muffin pan just to be sure they will be easy to remove. I spoon some fillings into each cup, in this case, sauteed turkey sausage, cooked broccoli, sauteed onion and grated cheddar cheese. Then, I ladle over the egg mixture. I find that 8 eggs beaten with 3/4 of a cup of skim milk works about right. They bake at 325 F for 35 minutes.

I enjoy mine with a few dots of Cholula hot sauce on top.

They keep well overnight in the fridge if you make them for dinner and want to reheat the leftovers for breakfast. Otherwise, you can freeze them.

Yummy Eating

We really enjoyed the recent batch of molasses and buttermilk bread and ate it all up. I plan to make more sometime. It was especially good for egg salad or chicken salad sandwiches.

Today, I made an improvised bread with mostly rye and whole wheat and a little bit of white bread flour. I used up 2 cups of buttermilk I had in the fridge, then used water for the remaining liquid. I also added in a tablespoon of honey and a tablespoon of melted butter. It came out really well! We had it sliced with soup for dinner, but it will make good sandwiches too.

As the storm blew in last Saturday, I made a big pot of chili using the Jamie Oliver Food Revolution recipe. I used cilantro, peppers, tomato puree and peeled whole tomatoes from the garden.

The hoop house did a great job of protecting our plants during the storm, so we can continue picking things like the cilantro. I'm so excited the hoop house survived the first test of winter, both keeping the plants protected and withstanding the wind without any bracing. It didn't appear to budge a bit, even in the big gusts!

I also topped the chili with mixed cheddar cheeses and sour cream. It's perfect food for the cold weather. The first batch lasted for 3 dinners and I'm going to make another later this week or weekend.

Molasses and Buttermilk Bread

We have not turned the heat on yet this year and it was a challenge to make bread in a cool house today. It took such a long time to rise! I wasn't sure it was going to come out, but I find that bread is pretty forgiving.

It has great flavor from rye flour as well as the molasses and buttermilk.

This is another recipe from Sweet and Savory Swedish Baking by Leila Lindholm.

Chicken Korma

This is one I've cooked and blogged before, but it's so good I have to share again! The recipe is from Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. I so enjoy the process of cooking a curry--it is a real sensory experience! It's visually pretty, smells amazing and sometimes I like getting immersed in methodical slicing or dicing.

I picked the green chile and cilantro from the garden. The chilies are going by in the colder weather, but the cilantro is thriving in the hoop house.

Although the recipe calls for green chilies, I just had to use this red mariachi from the garden too! It was perfect!

Chicken Korma simmering on the stove top.

I also picked a few radishes from the hoop house for a crunchy, tasty garnish.

It is exciting when dinner time finally arrives and all the toppings are arrayed in preparation.

All ready to eat! Yum!!!

Breakfast Bars

It's not on purpose, but I've baked another item beginning with the letter B--seems to be an accidental theme for October, so far!

This treat is from Nigella Express, but is also posted on her website. The bars are truly "express" to make, though they do spend an hour in the oven. They are a little sticky to prepare, but you'll enjoy the smell of the coconut and other ingredients while you evenly distribute and then press them into the pan. You could substitute any of your favorite nuts and seeds.

They are a little tricky to cut. I found it easiest to use the point of my large kitchen knife rather than trying to slice down with the whole blade.

In linking to the recipe, I saw that Nigella has a new book coming out in 2012! I'm already looking forward to it, not that I've even come close to running out of recipes to try from her other books =)

Brownies

The nursery is still under destruction...umm, I mean, construction...so fuel is needed for the weekend ahead! What could be better than about 10,000 calories of brownies?!

This weekend's project will be drywalling a ceiling. Just what every pregnant woman wants to be helping with at about 27 weeks, LOL!

This was another new to me recipe from One More Slice by Leila Lindholm. (I love when a cookbook makes me want to try all the recipes in it.) I skipped the frosting as we need to have energy, not a sugar coma.

It is very rich and chocolaty. I used Bensdorp cocoa powder in it which has been a favorite of mine for awhile now. Of course, we cut into it while it was still warm from the oven.

I'll have to freeze most of it!

The baguettes, from my last post, have been so good. I had slices topped with cream cheese today. Jeff took one loaf to work where it was eaten up! I still have two halves in the freezer to thaw and warm over the next few days.

I'm wondering, does anyone know the best way to store french bread overnight to preserve the crunchiness of the crust? I usually just bag it and let the crust go chewy which is nice too, but I'm wondering if wrapping it in a tea towel is a better option? Or some other idea...?

The baking gods must be smiling on me lately as I've been having wonderful success in the kitchen with some new recipes. Also, I entered a King Arthur Flour Company drawing on Facebook and won a coupon for a free 5 pound bag of their All Purpose Flour!

Baguettes

This was a first for me! I'd never tried making baguettes before, though I kept meaning to.

I started with a pre-ferment stage which made a bubbly blob! I'm not sure whether this is a Biga or a Poolish, as I read definitions for each and this one is sort of a combination...drier like the Biga, but fermented for the shorter time of the Poolish. The recipe book just calls it a starter dough, so maybe I'll just go with that! This is what a bit of yeast, water and bread flour looked like after about 4 hours.

I then made a second dough incorporating the starter into it and let it rise before turning it out on a floured board to divide and shape.

I shaped the dough and arranged it on a sheet pan. I would like to get a proper baguette pan soon. I clearly need some practice with shaping! I think the shaped pan will help too, as I'll know just what size I'm aiming for. Also, I was worried they would rise and stick together arranged like this, in fact, I moved two to a second pan just after the photo as they were getting too close. I think the actual baguette pans are longer, so your loaves are longer and thinner too.

Just before putting them in the oven, I brushed them with water and sprinkled two with everything topping and two with sesame seeds.

I followed a recipe from One More Slice by Leila Lindholm. You can see a clip of her making chocolate baguettes here. That recipe calls for the same starter dough, so you can see how it's used.

So yummy!!!

Blueberry Buckle

I've really been in the mood for blueberries! Could it be a pregnancy craving? Or perhaps I'm just craving the butter, sugar and cinnamon so often accompanying blueberries! Today, I made Blueberry Buckle from the The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion. It has lots of sweet streusel topping.

I had a piece still hot from the oven and it was so lovely. I broke it apart to cool a little before greedily eating! It was a perfect tea-time pick me up to tide me over to a late dinner.

It is going to be great with coffee in the morning too. Jeff's already planning to take a rather large amount to work.

Blueberry Muffins

The lemon poppy seed cake didn't quite make it to Sunday, so I made blueberry muffins. Jeff is doing a lot of work on the nursery that I can't help with, so I'm keeping him well fed!

These are made following a recipe in Sweet and Savory Swedish Baking by Leila Lindholm, though I substituted vanilla paste for vanilla sugar and confused the temperature/cooking time for the size muffin tin I had. I wasn't quite awake enough to follow directions yet, but it all worked out anyway!

Edited to add: Here is the video of Leila Lindholm making the muffins.

Madeira Cake

One of my favorite, fast coffee or tea cakes is Madeira Cake by Nigella Lawson. This one has the optional poppy seeds which go so well with the lemon.


I've baked it on a Friday afternoon with the hopes it will be around long enough to be enjoyed with coffee for breakfast on Saturday and Sunday!

Fresh Baked Bread

I am in the mood for baking and am hoping the weather turns fall-like soon, so it's enjoyable to have the oven on. Between the summery temps and my 'incubating' condition, the heat has been too much for me to contemplate turning the oven on very often. But, I have made some pizzas and mac and cheese in the past couple of weeks.

Today, I made yummy 'white toast bread' from Sweet and Savory Swedish Baking by Leila Lindholm. I love the taste and texture from poppy seeds on the sides and bottom and the Malden salt flakes on the top!

I ate 3 hot slices with softened butter right out of the oven. I can do that as I'm eating for two! Well...not all the time ;)

I am such a fan of Leila Lindholm. I hope to see her latest book published in English sometime soon. It's called Hello Cupcake and, if you click that link, you'll see that the preview pictures are gorgeous. In the meantime, however, I still have a lot of cooking to do from her two books that I already have!

Pizza Night!

I recently got a lovely new cookbook by Leila Lindholm called One More Slice and reading it gave me such a craving for pizza! Tonight, I tried her basic crust and it came out beautifully. It is my favorite sort of pizza crust--with some durum wheat mixed in.

I made the tomato sauce from our garden puree and topped it with mozzarella and parm. Yes, I do like rather a lot of fresh, black pepper too ;)

The only trouble was the heat! It is still too hot here to comfortably run a 500 F oven. I am looking forward to some fall weather.

Habanero Hot Sauce

Today, I tried making Bob's Habanero Hot Sauce, a seemingly very popular online recipe. I went ahead and made it pretty much as written with the full amount of peppers since reviewers seemed to think that worked well. The only changes I made were to strain the liquid off the peaches to avoid making the sauce too runny, I reduced the mustard to 2 tablespoons, I reduced the black pepper to a half tablespoon as I used some pretty strong, fresh grounds and I reduced the salt to just 1 teaspoon.

It is VERY, VERY hot! Really too hot for anyone pregnant, like me! It does seem tasty as far as I could tell before my tongue felt no sensation other than burning. So, I'm going to try this again using just a couple of peppers and see if I can make something I can enjoy even while pregnant and use in greater quantity in general.

It seems like it will be a good 'jerk' style marinade for chicken.

Jeff will use some of this batch in tiny amounts and he'll take some to work for the hot pepper lovers there!

Pickled Hot Pepper Rings

With too much to do today, I changed my mind about which canning recipe to do next. I used a different book than yesterday called Put 'Em Up! to make a very simple batch of Pickled Chile Peppers. This recipe involves no spices and is flavored only by a sweet-sour brine.

I think they will be especially nice for adding to sandwiches, but one can use this sort of pickled pepper on salads, pizzas or Mexican style food too.

I picked a bowl of yellow Mariachi peppers from the garden thinking their fruity heat would make a nice pickle.

I stemmed and cored them and cut them into rings. This is about 10 cups, not packed tightly.

The rings were packed into hot, sterilized pint jars and covered with boiling brine. Then, they were capped and processed in a boiling water bath. 5 pints in all.

They did float a bit, but it's hard to avoid, especially with cold packing.

Hot Pepper Relish and Sauce

I'm working on some new to me recipes from a book called The Joy of Pickling 250 Flavor-Packed Recipes for Vegetables and More from Garden or Market (Revised Edition) by Linda Ziedrich.

Today, I picked our Cherry Bomb peppers to make the Southeast Asian Chile-Garlic Relish. I minced 2 heads of garlic--which is a sneeze inducing amount!

The relish is so simple, but so tasty! It keeps in the fridge for a long time and can be a condiment or added into all kinds of recipes. Later, I put it into quart jars for easier storage.

Another recipe in the book uses some of the relish and some of that minced garlic to make an amazing stir-fry type sauce called Sweet Chile-Garlic Sauce. It is prettier in real life with the light streaming through it. I wish you could have a taste! I really enjoyed licking out the pot after bottling it. Again, this keeps in the fridge for a long time without need for canning. (However, I wish there were directions for canning it as I would love to share it with family and friends!)

I have to get some chicken or pork and make up a stir-fry soon with some of our sweet peppers too.

I highly recommend both of these recipes. Over the next few days, I'm going to try a couple more recipes from the book and will let you know how they work for me.

Enjoying Summer's Bounty

Today, after the Red Hot Sauce that was leftover from canning yesterday had had a chance to cool down in the fridge, I tried it on some chips. It's not quite what I was after, but it's interesting and tasty. I don't eat shrimp, but I keep thinking it might be a nice cocktail sauce for shrimp. I sent the remaining leftover sauce to work with Jeff and it was eaten right up!

Because I had tomatoes all washed and taking up space on the counter, I skinned some and bagged them for the freezer. I did 8 bags of just plums, about 5 tomatoes per bag.

Then, I did some mix bags with yellow, orange and red varieties.

I just froze them in small amounts as I anticipate adding them into dishes that need a little tomato texture. They will be good in my chicken chasseur and vindaloo, for example. I don't really mind some seeds, so I left them in.

The end is in sight for the tomato harvest. I'm going to start pulling out some plants. I may do a few more small batches of sauce or skinned tomatoes, but mostly we will just eat the cherry tomatoes and a few others.

We don't seem to tire of Eggplant Parm! I made another batch for dinner tonight. Each time it is a little different.

Lately, my tomato sauce has a lot of sweet bell peppers, both green and yellow.

All ready for eating!

Red Hot Sauce

We had some cool, rainy weather today, so what did I do? Canned--and heated the house right back up again!

In torrential rain, I picked plum tomatoes and Cherry Bomb peppers.

I washed and chopped them and started cooking them in vinegar until softened.

Then, I ran them through the food mill, added salt, sugar, spices and boiled them some more. After about a half hour, I added more vinegar before boiling it for the last half hour until it was the right consistency. The vapors really cleared my head, LOL!

At last, I filled jars and put them in the boiling water bath. The recipe made 4 half pints plus a little leftover to put in the fridge to use right away.

This recipe is from the Ball Blue Book (1999 edition) and it was the first time I'd tried making it. It's kind of like a spicy ketchup, though not as thick as a ketchup. It would shake out of a typical hot sauce bottle very nicely, but I can't can in those. It should be very good on eggs! Next time, I might reduce the amount of salt a bit.