AnotherPurl :: a knitter's life

Continuing adventures in baby-led weaning

This week's 10 for Tuesday is about cars. As I just earned my license last week, I am not really qualified to write about cars I have owned. Instead, I want to write about baby-led weaning. I cannot remember where I first heard about baby-led weaning, but one of my earlier recollections was the subsite that Smitten Kitchen had where she made her own foods for Jacob.

Do you remember this picture from May?

Our little boy is nearly 1 year old, and has been eating solids since March. At this point he is a seasoned hand at the whole food game, though that doesn't mean it is less messy... or at least not by much.

We started off a little slow. Occasional solid meals, but after a month or two, Q was interested enough that he pretty much ate a solid meal when we were eating a solid meal. Most of those meals were exactly what we were eating, because I don't tend to use a lot of salt in my cooking. He's had Indian, Israeli, Middle Eastern, Japanese, Italian and Chinese, and probably others that I simply cannot recall.

I bought the Baby Led Weaning cookbook as an ebook, and quickly branched away from it as our own adventures in eating progressed. It was great, but the food was bland for our tastes and soon that was true for all of us. While I wouldn't say that Q eats all of his vegetables, he had no problems with the mushroom and spinach lasagna on Friday with carrots. He eats his zucchini muffins like a champ. He loves most fruits, many carbs, and is the king of the lentil patch. 

One of my hopes for the upcoming year is that he stays a good eater. I love to cook, and while I don't expect that he will like everything I make it is more fun to cook something that will be eaten with joy and gusto than it is to make something that will be just thrown on the floor. 

One of our more recent successes was Shakshuka, specifically the version from Smitten Kitchen. I used jalapenos and a huge bag of cherry tomatoes brought in by one of my coworkers cooked in my giant cast iron skillet. It was hugely flavorful and while I still miss over easy eggs, Q has no problems with the eggs being cooked all the way through.

His face was covered in tomato and the tray was a bit of a mess, but when we lifted him out of the high chair to clean everything up after breakfast there was nothing in the chair and no food dropped on the floor. For a baby, that is a ringing endorsement!

Now, Q's birthday is in 7 days, and over the weekend I made a test cake. I brought in the leftovers on Monday and they were gone by 10. Tasty, but it needs a frosting that is closer to buttercream than what I had (I had whipped cream with apple cider caramel).

I'm hoping that his birthday and his birthday party are a lot of fun. I expect that this like many things is mostly for us at this point. We want to celebrate his life. He'll be happy for food and snuggles and the opportunity to rip some packaging to shreds and put paper in his mouth. That is as it should be. But throughout it all, there will something tasty that can be shared, because food for me is an expression of love, and I love our little boy.

Time management (for parents?)

Time management is for everybody. Intellectually I know that, but now that I am a parent I feel like I have to be even more careful to get things done when the opportunities present themselves. When I first met Abby Glassenberg that was one of the themes of her blog: using the time while she naps and being efficient and on the ball in the time available. The interstices between when I am needed by our little boy are opportunities to get everything else done. It is time for me to study, because I'm going back to school. However, in the past few days before classes start, it is time for me to cook, clean, and knit.

Or bake.

I've had Booze cakes : confections spiked with spirits, wine, and beer out for most of the past two months. I keep renewing the book, because I hadn't found the time to actually try any of the recipes.

The book is more than a few years old at this point, but the recipes are still good (better than the recipes in Once a Month Cooking. The library copy is from the early 90s and the recipes show their 1970s and 1980s roots). However, there are a few flaws with the recipe I tried.

Pumpkin Martini Cakes. Sounds delicious.

The recipe comes out well, a moist cake with a tender crumb. However, the recipe lists a number of servings without giving you an idea of how many pans you will need or their size. Twelve servings. Individual cake pans or mini muffin pans. 

Well, I can tell you that I made 12 full size cupcakes and filled a 6-cavity regular donut pan with the batter from a single recipe batch. 

With the cake recipe comes a spiked maple glaze and a spiked cream cheese frosting. Last night's dessert was a donut drizzled with glaze and then filled in the center with a tiny scoop of frosting. Delicious!

This is what I did when I had an afternoon off while Q was at day care. While Chris was handling bedtime, I was a whirlwind in the kitchen, cleaning up after dinner and making both the glaze and the frosting, as well as walking the dog. Before Q was born, I might have made dinner clean up, a dog walk and a small amount of cooking take all evening, but now it is imperative to be efficient, so I can maximize my time to relax or my time to study. There is time to do everything, though maybe not everyday, as long as some careful time management is employed.

Spork! Shall be my battle cry!

So, this is how far behind I am.

While my in-laws were in town, we all went to the Melting Pot. None of us had never been there and I had no idea exactly how fancy it would be (and for my tastes, it is OMG fancy).

The server was very personable and asked a lot of questions. When we decided on a dessert, we found out why. A custom plate with a sweet message on it came with our dessert and a baby-laden spork!

The baby spork went home with my MIL, and we left with happily full (but not overfull) bellies. 

That was back at week 38. Of course, now I am a bit further along and am just in that waiting period. It's OK to come baby! We won't let the dog and the cat lick you.... much. 

I have tomorrow off from work, so hopefully I'll even manage another blog post. Of course, it might be about curtains... curtains for you!

[10 Tuesday] the joys of a long weekend

This week's 10 for Tuesday is what we did this weekend. In the United States, this past weekend was Memorial Day weekend. In the past, it is a weekend where I ran a half marathon, but those days are at least temporarily behind me.

This weekend instead of running involved almost a trifecta.

1. We tried to see the Sox play on Friday, but while the game itself wasn't rained out, I was. It was wet and cold and I took my pregnant body home rather than see how long I could hack it. I guess that means I couldn't hack it very long.

2. Replaced my Fuel Band. I love my Fuel Band, but I was getting an 802 error. So, Friday I walked to the Nike Store and dripped on their floor while they replaced it for me. I love the replacement policy on these little devices. Of course, mine is set to 3000, which for someone who wears it all day long is a little low. Even one moderate length dog walk gets me a third of the way there.

3. Walk the dog. Even when it was raining it still needed to happen and so out I went.

4. Knitting. It was the Knitter's Brunch at Gather Here, and I found my gift certificate and bought fabric for a class at Squam and a single 50 gram skein of sock yarn to help finish my Breezy Cardigan. I got a fair amount of knitting done, and by the end of the long weekend had finished my second sleeve.

5. Made cookies. Specifically spicy olive oil chocolate chip cookies.

6. Made barbeque flavored vegetable burgers (is it me or does it sound pretentious to spell out vegetable in this context instead of using veggie). I base mine on the recipe in Angry Chicken. The latest batch was a little vegetable light and so it made 8 burgers. I am planning to make another batch using some more of the great northern beans I cooked up.

7. Went to a barbeque. I brought the veggie burgers and 10 of the cookies and almost all of the cookies went. So, apparently 1 tablespoon of ghost chili olive oil wasn't too much after all.

8. Researched recipes. I made this fluffy white cake today, but I spent a decent chunk of the weekend looking for a recipe. Just a note. If you try to make the entire recipe in a deep 9" pan, then expect it to take at least 50 minutes before you need to check it. I started checking at 30 minutes, and then again every 5 minutes. I eventually got tired of that and instead checked it every 10 minutes. I estimate that I finally pulled it out at about 65 minutes.

9. Cleaned. What? We thought for a while that we were having an open house this weekend, so cleaning was definitely on the list of things to do.

10. Ate ice cream. My friend made this amazing rocky road (not chocolate based) ice cream that she will be sharing next month. Of course, this makes me want to make the Nutella Rocky Road ice cream again. I have all of the ingredients for it, though after tonight's cake making I also have 7 egg yolks to use up.

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Mexicana Chocolate Chip Cookies

0300 hours

Month of the Author

Apparently December is month of the author, because I went to Eat Boutique last week to get a book signed, and two additional food bloggers (recipe creators, food stylists, etc.) were there. Now, I didn't pick up Aran's book, Small Plates and Sweet Treats, because I don't need to cook gluten free very often. Her book is beautifully styled, which really should be no surprise to those who follow her blog, Cannelle et Vanille. Instead I picked up Joy the Baker's new cookbook, which has the great little addendum A Celebration of Butter and Sugar.

And it is.

I've already made two things from the cookbook, though one is not quite ready for prime time pictures: Nutella Grilled Cheese sandwiches and the Strawberry Cookie Dough Ice Cream.

Om nom nom.

The Nutella sandwiches were a not healthy, but delicious dinner that used up the last one packet of cream cheese.

The ice cream?

Well, I might be an expert at ice cream at this point, or at least as reasonably as one would expect from a home cook. The base is delicious, but only the extra time in the freezer will prove whether it is a good recipe or a great recipe. I'll have a full review when I finally eat more than the leavings from the dasher. What? You don't like the dasher and the spatula when you're done?

I don't remember when I started following Joy, but I do know what recipe I've made the most often. The Bread. This bread is magic in a Dutch oven. A very friendly and forgiving recipe. I've made it with hot peppers (ghost chilis), fresh herbs, dried herbs, lots of garlic, modest garlic, and extra lots of garlic and it is delicious each and every time.

This is bread two from Sunday. I let the Dutch oven sit with the bread in it on top of the stove while the oven was preheating. It gave a little extra oomph to the rise, creating this glorious open bread that you can literally just tear pieces off of like monkey bread.

This is the bread that I will be making a special spicy version of if we ever get hell night planned out. I have the ghost chili olive oil already prepped, and a test batch has been run. I know it is a bread that is delicious with a bit of a kick. Or at least as much kick as a loaf of bread can have with all of that flour saving your tongue from delicious, delicious doom.

This is also the bread my husband requested for his work holiday party on Monday. No ghost chilis, but definitely a bread for work. I'll be making it on Tuesday for a work party as well. It really is that good.

I'm Smitten!

Last night I went to see Deb Perelman, the person behind smittenkitchen.com and her new mostly self titled cookbook, The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook. Like many people I had neglected to acquire tickets in advance to a sold out event, but thankfully one woman in the ticket line had extra tickets so I was able to get in without the drama of the standby line.

It was a bit of a cold wait with my cookbooks, my knitting, and the cookies I made Tuesday night, knowing that I wanted to offer something that she could enjoy when she was in a hotel after the signing. I was the proverbial bag lady.

Deb is as full of warm, self-deprecating humor in person as she is online. Affable, and friendly, she gave maybe a 20 minute talk and then turned it over to questions, which ran the gamut. Where did she get her dress (something from 2007 or so that she got altered), to how does she write her recipes (type it up, and then make notes, alter and repeat until perfect), to how many hits does she get on her site (about 10M a month). (Oh, and for the blurry pictures, you have my apologies.)

After the talk, we all trooped over to the Brookline Booksmith to stand in what might have been an interminable line except for making new friends. The woman ahead of me, Elizabeth, was a recent transplant from New York, so we talked about her family, law, books, food, etc. Pretty much everything under the sun as we made our way through the line that snaked through the store.

Sometime after 10 we finally made it to the front of the line (our fault: those closest to the front of the theater were definitely in the back end of the line). One of the women ahead of us brought her yellow KitchenAid stand mixer to be signed. An awesome idea, and if I didn't go to work and had a rolling suitcase, and if my KitchenAid was spotless from the last batch of cookies... well, I might have done the same thing!

I loved meeting with Deb. I was pretty wiped, so I feel like I kind of stumbled over my words and probably came across as a bit fannish (and not in the good way. More like in the 12 year old boy with a crush way. *sigh*). And I gave her the cookies. Which I made from her site, modified of course.

Our Favorite Chocolate Chip cookies, lightly modified

The original cookies are mix of finely chopped and toasted nuts (pecans), and chocolate bound together in the smallest amount of dough possible. It makes for cookies that don't spread too much, and have a delicious treat in every bite. Mine are much the same, except a few lazing tricks. Now I did everything with the digital scale, so no actual cup measurements (though you can go to the original recipe for the cup versions).

Ingredients
100g granulated sugar
120g light brown sugar
1 stick unsalted butter, brought to room temperature
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp baking soda
175g all purpose flour
130g almond flour
1/2 tsp smoked sea salt
205g peppermint bark, chopped (mine comes from Au Chocolat, an awesome store in DT Boston)

Preheat the oven to 300°F. Line your baking pans with parchment paper or Silpats. I could have gotten away with 2 pans, but I did end up using Deb's recommended 3 pans (2 cookie sheets and a pizza pan).

Cream the granulated sugar, brown sugar and butter until it is light and fluffy. Scrape it down and add the egg and vanilla extract.

In a separate bowl measure out the baking soda, all purpose flour, almond flour and sea salt. Add to the egg mixture and stir till well combined. Add the chopped peppermint bark.

Pull out an ice cream scoop, and make flat scoops of dough (aka, even with the top of the scoop). I put 6 per cookie sheet approximately 4 finger widths apart. Plop them in the oven for 30 minutes (start checking them at 25 minutes). When they indent but don't sink when touched, they are done. They should be golden brown. Maybe my awesome husband will take a picture of one of the cookies when he gets home... just a little hint! I got 14 cookies out of this dough by making some of the cookies just a smidge smaller.

A little note: I could have easily used the entire package of peppermint bark. Because I used almond flour rather than chopped nuts, it is more of a dough component rather than a dough and add-in component and offers more room for chocolate! The entire package of peppermint bark would have been about 350 grams at my best estimate. But hey, we ate the rest of the bark!

Halloween is for brains

My husband has a work party later this week provided that the Frankenstorm doesn't work itself up into more of a tizzy. He wanted brains. Specifically he wanted brains that oozed a greenish (or very green) substance.

The last time I used the brain mold was last year for homemade marzipan. Now, these molds are huge. They are meant for large ice cubes and were definitely ridiculously large for the marzipan.

I made lime curd following the recipe from Martha Stewart for Key Lime Curd. The shell is candy melts in white, pink and brown. The result is definitely an oozing liquid center.

The tops after the first batch were double layered with candy melt, because the shell was initially thin enough that the brains were easy to break. I made two batches of curd, but the rest of the brains are going to be filled with homemade red currant jam. What, you don't want bleeding brains? It is a great tradition!

I submitted this photo to Thinkgeek for their customer action shots, and decided that meant I should decorate the image with my character from Kingdom of Loathing, where I am slowly making my way to level 30 Zombie Master.I don't know if they can take a picture with that much of a reference to another game/company, but I think it was cute.

Of course, this wasn't the only brain photo my husband took and that I then doctored. Heck, Kingdom of Loathing isn't the only game I play that lately involves zombies.

Yup. Plants vs. Zombies.

I think it almost looks like the balloon zombie is about to take a bite.

Happy Halloween!

Oh, and for using candy melts or chocolate in a mold, I used Chocoley's tip page. It worked pretty well!

Chicago Stuffed Pizza

A little over a week ago my husband and some of his friends had pizza delivered parcooked and frozen from Chicago. It was stuffed pizza from Giordano's. My husband loves deep dish and stuffed pizzas, and I have always wanted to be able to make a pizza that fits his requirements.

So, finding a recipe for a Chicago-style stuffed pizza dough is surprisingly difficult. I based my dough on a couple of different recipes. I paid particular attention to the comment in the Cookstr recipe, and made the following pizza dough. The pizza dough has passed the hubby test, so hopefully this is a good start for other people who cannot easily get Chicago-stuffed pizza.

Now that Cookstr recipe implied that it made a 9-inch stuffed pizza, which is a bit erroneous. More on that later.

Chicago Style Stuffed Pizza (dough)

Ingredients
2.25 tsp active dry yeast
1 tsp sugar
1.5 cups water (around 110° F)
3.5 cups all purpose flour (18 ounces), plus extra for kneeding
1 tsp salt
0.125 (1/8) tsp cream of tartar
0.25 cup unsalted butter, melted
0.25 cup canola oil

So, here is a little tip I have for getting water to the perfect temperature for proofing yeast. Set a pot of water to boil on the stove. Once it is hot, add about a cup of water to a measuring cup and add a candy thermometer. Add cold water until you have the temperature between 110° and 115° F. Remove the thermometer and then pour off any excess water (I usually have about a quarter cup extra).

Take the water, sugar and yeast and put in the bottom of a stand mixture and let it proof for about five minutes. In a separate bowl mix the flour, salt and cream of tartar. In a liquid measuring cup, melt the butter in the microwave and then add canola oil until the just over the 0.5 mark.

Add the flour mixture to the yeast at once and with the normal beater, mix for 1 minute. Switch to the dough hook and continue to mix for 2 minutes while adding the butter/oil mixture in a slow steady stream. The oil will not appear to be fully incorporated.

Flour a clean surface and kneed the dough for another minute or so. I used about a half cup of flour. Place the dough in a oiled or buttered bowl and covered with plastic wrap and a warm damp towel. The dough should rise until doubled, about 2 hours. You can also have a long slow rise in the refrigerator. If you rise in the fridge, then let it come to room temperature for about an hour. Preheat the oven to 450° F.

Divide the dough into two sections: 2/3 will be the main crust. Press the dough into a deep cake pan, at least 9 inches across. Raise the dough up the sides one last time before parbaking for 4 minutes.

Filling Ingredients:
3 broccoli crowns
1 large handful of spinach
olive oil and balsamic vinegar
1-2 cups pizza cheese blend
tomato sauce
parmesan cheese

Layer the cheese on the bottom crust. Top with the other filling ingredients. I topped with filling with tomato sauce, though that doesn't appear to be traditional. Stretch or roll the remaining dough over the toppings and cover with tomato sauce and parmesan. Bake at 450° F for 40-45 minutes.

One thing to keep in mind. You really need a cake pan ideally bigger than I used. Try for 10- to 12-inch pan that is at least 2 inches deep. The top crust should cover the topings but still meet up with the outer crust like a plan. It is delicious and filled most of Chris's criteria. To see the rest of the pizza pictures, go to Flickr.

gluten free cookies

I made these cookies over the past few days. I made a gluten free version of the batter, doubled, on Tuesday and let it sit covered with plastic wrap in the fridge until Thursday.

Thursday night I baked cookies.

I used my smallest cookie scoop, and baked them at 325°F for 12 minutes. They spread a bit, but not too much. I wonder if they would have spread less if I had the temperature at the stated 300.

It doesn't matter. So much of these cookies were an exercise in winging it. King Arthur gluten free flour instead of all purpose. 3/4 teaspoon xanthan gum to give it a bit more structure. No chocolate chips, so just chopped vahlrona. Unknown quantity of pistachio nuts (about 6 ounces) roughly chopped.

They still are glorious. My husband and I ate one each last night, and I left him with 3 cookies before taking the rest off with me to work (for an afterwork gathering... I didn't exactly share).

Tomorrow morning I make this pie. Thank goodness for Google Translate!

Cake!

Pinterest is almost (but not quite) an addiction. For me, Pinterest is like my Ravelry queue only not just knitting. Other crafts, food, interesting clothing that might work as a DIY project populate the vast majority of my boards. But food, mostly food, and of the foods, mostly sweets. I'm nothing if not consistent.

One of the latest cakes I pinned was this Black Forest Cake. The blogger posted this cake from Sky High: Irresistible Triple-Layer Cakes, a book that I have to wonder why I don't own (I'm sure it is because I'm too lazy to go to the bookstore). Over the weekend, I bought cherries, cherry brandy and even more chocolate. This cake is easy and fairly forgiving as long as you love the parchment paper.

Now, I'm lazy, so I did separate out additional cherries for decoration, but I decided chocolate curls were enough decoration.

Whipped cream is an issue though. I love whipped cream, and it is very easy to spread. However, I wish I had either made more whipped cream (like 3 cups wasn't enough) or had at least made stabilized whipped cream (or this for gelatin-free methods). I just couldn't envision piping the whipped cream into pretty swirls to hold the reserved cherries.

So, as a vegetarian I don't really approve of gelatin. I use it every once in a while, because gelatin does things that cannot easily be duplicated with other normal household ingredients. This cake has normal whipped cream only, because the sponge cake is designed to absorb liquid. Having not made a true sponge cake before, I was amazed by how much liquid the cake could absorb without a great alteration in appearance.

That might mean there is too much brandy in this cake, if such a thing is possible.

(Oh, and I am still trying to get pictures of a dress I made. When my husband got the photos off the camera for some reason they were all marked as 0 kb and that does me no good. Hopefully I'll have them tomorrow.)