Random Thoughts Thursday

Now that the park service has cleared out the thorns on the bike trail near our house, we've been taking family bike rides to a nearby park in the evenings. This is as close to nirvana as my life gets. It is beautiful!

Why can't I write two lines without getting interrupted by children? Oh, yes I'm a mom.

No one seems to comment on my recipe posts. I don't know why this is.

I am one of the crazy few looking forward to fall. I'm a little tired of the super-hot temperatures that keep us in-doors. I love the crisp autumn air, the still-comfortable temperatures, the changing leaves, and the idea of cooking all sorts of comfort food in my kitchen!


I have three princesses running around my house today. One keeps telling me detailed descriptions about their adventures then quizzes me later. I'd better pay better attention.

I'm looking for a good book to read, any ideas?

School starts in a few weeks. I'm getting excited to teach again.

"Cleaning a house while children are growing is like shoveling your driveway while it is still snowing." This has been my mantra for the week. I'm snowed in.

I have all the ingredients for Orange Chocolate Fallen Cakes sitting in my pantry. Hmmmmm......


Russ is on a business trip. I miss him.

 (From our visit to the National Arboretum.)

Yummy Food!

We watch a bit of PBS kids at our house. Among the many positive messages that they try to teach kids is that they should eat healthy foods, and that there are a lot of healthy foods that are delicious.  I think that these are good messages to teach kids and I try to do that in my home as well.

Problem. I love chocolate. I love custard, and I love cream.

As I'm sure you've notices from many of the recipes I post. I like plenty of food that is unhealthy. And man is it delicious. I try to tell myself that because it is made from scratch and doesn't have all the preservatives of preprocessed food that it is better for us but I know that if true (which I honestly have no idea) it is only to a certain point. Cream has calories baby.

We have many discussions in our home about food that is unhealthy, but yummy and food that is both healthy and yummy. (Strawberries come instantly to mind!) The problems is this, while we all crave savory solid food and healthy food and would get sick of sugar if we ate it all the time, there are just some foods that are more delish than others - and they tend to not be as healthy.  We don't fix them all the time, but they do crop up occasionally.

So without further adieu the recipes from the last few weeks.


Double Chocolate Pudding

2 tbsp cocoa
2 tabsp cornstarch
2/3 cup sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1 cup light cream
3 egg yolks
2 cups whole milk
6 oz bitttersweet chocolate melted
1 tbsp butter
2tsp vanilla

Sift together dry ingredients into a sauce pan .Whisk in cream and yolks, then milk. Stir in the melted chocolate. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium high heat and stirring constantly whisk. Reduce the eat to medium an cook stirring gently but constantly with a wooden spoon until it constancy coats the spoon very thickly. Pass the pudding through a fine-mesh strainer. Stir in butter and vanilla. Press plastic wrap directly on the surface and refrigerate until cold and set, at least three hours.

Enjoy!

 Gourmet Pizza - This is not a kid friendly pizza but this is amazingly fantastic for adults. I got the recipe from my brother and his girlfriend and there was nothing left either time we've made it. 



1 Pizza Dough recipe of choice
1 lb asparagus
1 onion
1/3 cup brown sugar.
1 small package of goat cheese, sliced.
Mozzarella

 Prepare dough as per recipe. Meanwhile. Broil asparagus covered in olive oil, salt, and pepper for about 6-8 minutes until crisp. Slice into bite sized pieces. Slice onion and saute until it begins to soften then add brown sugar stir until sugar starts to carmelize and onions are completely soft. Top pizza with asparagus, onions, and goat cheese, and mozzarella/.



Creme Caramel (Yes it is that good.) 

This recipe was surprisingly easy for how amazingly cool it turns out. It is the dish on the cover of the New Best Recipe book and I've been craving it since I bought the book - and since I had Hagaan Das Dulce de Leche ice cream awhile ago. This recipe calls for individual custard dishes called ramekins. These are definitely worth having in your kitchen.

Caramel

1 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
2 tabspoons light corn syrup
1/4 tsp juice from one lemon

Custard
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1 1/2 cups light cream (The stuff I bought just says cream, as opposed to heavy cream.)
3 eggs
2 egg yolks
2/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

For Caramel - Bring all caramel ingredients to a simmer  continue to cook until the sury turns from clear to golden about 8 minutes. Swirl gently and constantly until large bubbles appear and it turns honey -caramel color.  4-5 minutes longer. Remove from heat quickly (and carefully) pour even portions of the caramel into eight 6-7oz oven proof ramekins.

For - Custard - Preheat to 350. Heat milk and cream in sauce pan until steam appears about 6-8 minutes. Remove from heat. Meanwhile whisk eggs, yolks, and sugar in a bowl until combined. Gently whisk the warm milke mixture, vanilla and and salt into the eggs until combined. Strain mixture through a fine-mesh sieve. Pour mixture into each of the ramekins. Put two towels in two 9x 13 pans and put ramekins on top. Then pour boiling water in the pan until it reaches halfway up the sides of the ramekins.  Cover loosely with aluminum foil. Bake 35-40 minutes until an inserted knife comes out clean. Cool to room temperature. To unmold slide a parring knife around the perimeter of each ramekin Hold a plate over the top and invert. Shake until the custard releases.

You've got to be kidding me!

Last week was Girls Camp. This is what I learned about teenage girls. They are 100%. They don't do things by halves. If they are mad, they are 100% mad. If they are spiritual than it is 100%. The mood and the emotion change rapidly but whatever they are feeling at the moment it is completely encompassing.

But that is not why I'm writing today.

Today, I made an easy Sunday dinner of tortilini and sauce. I've had a busy week and needed something that didn't require much effort. I was excited because in a house of picky eaters pasta is always a winner.


But not today.

Savannah wouldn't touch it. At all. We tried sauce, not sauce, warm, cold, big bite, little bite, time out, animal bites, time out again, and again and again. I was tempted to shove a fork down her mouth.

It would be one thing if she tried a bite and hated it. It would be another if I didn't know that normally when I serve any pasta dish she is covered in both pasta and sauce within the first five minutes. I could not believe her complete refusal to eat something that I am still confident she would have loved if she had tried it.

We finally settled on no ice cream at grandma's because she didn't eat her dinner. She was disappointed but only mildly until she was distracted by the toys.

Sigh.

Three in DC

Flying across the country with a four-year-old and a two-year-old is not for the faint of heat - it is also not for one who doesn't have portable DVD player. 

     Last Tuesday we went to see my friend Tara in Washington DC. Abbie and Tara's daughter Hazel were poised to be BFF when Tara's work took her to DC and will be taking her to China this winter (Cruel, cruel world.) So in order to see that our friendship is passed along to the next generation despite being half a world a part, we undertook this visit. Savannah is broken-hearted to be away from her sister for more than a few minutes so it was decided that she should come a long for a wonderful girls week!

    Our first day in DC reminded me why no one wanted to build the nation's capital just outside of Virginia. It was hot and humid. Sweat dripped from everywhere after doing nothing for three minutes. We had planned a trip to the National Arboretum, which turned out to be a little dull for all in the party under the age of five - until we found this amazing Children's Garden with musical instruments made out of wood and sand.  Thankfully joy was restored and all was right with the world. After the arboretum, being gluttons for punishment, we decided to to the National Mall, because pushing a stroller in 110% humidity in DC means we are patriotic. We went to the Natural History Museum and learned a great deal about the affects of air conditioning on mood. We also saw many animals that Abbie took great pains to inform us were not alive. Clear favorites in the group were the dinosaurs bones and the giant mammoth fossil in the entry.

On Thursday in order to escape what was expected to be the hottest day in DC of the summer on top of already  life-sucking humidity, we escaped to the beach. It was perfect. The water was cool - a pleasant contrast to the hot air and sand. The girls didn't take long to become completely comfortable in the soft tide. We did see a jelly fish and maybe got stung (matching weird rashes on Abbie & Hazel, don't know....). There was a dragon at the beach that chased princesses out of the water, but as soon as the girls decided they were pirates and not princesses they made a truce with the dragon and they all decided to go in search of buried treasure.  We build sand castles and were delighted by the chefs making the best the sand had to offer. The day was perfect, married only by being stuck for two hours in a tunnel at the end of a long car ride home.

Friday we stayed home and had Princess Day! The girls dressed up as princesses, had their nails done, and proceeded to become princess artists for the day. Tara's neighbor had given them the mother-of-all-princess craft sets and we let the girls go to town. I don't think the carpet in her living room will ever be the same again (sorry taxpayers) but it gave us time to chat and relax. The evening was supposed to end with a chocolate cake tea party. See results here.

Saturday the weather had tempered and the humidity had abated so we took another stroll along the mall to see the monuments. The girls were thrilled to tough the Washington Monument or "Big Pencil" and liked to stick their feet in the water at the World War II Monument. They saw the Lincoln memorial... but were more excited by the police horses outside. I think they were just excited to be somewhere they could run around and play. We ended the day with a quick stop at the Air and Space Museum only to realize that every tourist with children under 10 was doing the same thing and left quickly.

Sunday was a nice relaxing day at church and home and we left early Monday morning.
Unfortunately we had to meet our plane at 6:45a.m. Also unfortunately there was an unlisted layover not mentioned on the itinerary (Apparently if the plane stops somewhere but you continue on to somewhere else on the same plane they don't have to tell you about the stop.) Also unfortunately they lost our stroller at this unmentioned stop.  Also unfortunately our last plane was supper small and I couldn't sit next the my girls. This means that after about nine hours of flying and being in airports when Savannah dropped her coloring book and couldn't pick it up, and I was too far away to help her - she screamed her guts out for about 10 minutes (but it felt like forever.) Truthfully though, all things considered I think the girls traveled very well!

Recipe Catch- up

Clearly I've done a terrible job at blogging about my new recipes but I want you to know I've been trying them every week. So here is my attempt to catch up .

Last Week

Last week I was in DC with a friend and we decided to make what she told me was the best chocolate cake on the planet. A chocolate hazelnut cake. The cake has a tbsp of coffee powder in it. We, knowing nothing about coffee, bought the smallest container possible (Like we'll need it again!) and I set to work. I should note that we also splurged and bought gourmet dark chocolate and milk chocolate for this recipe.

While putting everything together I thought everything smelled strongly of coffee, but I assumed it was because I don't drink coffee, don't have it around, and wasn't used to the aroma. After I put the batter in the pan I licked it. Coffee flavor no hint of chocolate. (Which, in my book, is disgusting. ) I had my friend take a lick and she agreed, but we both hoped it would be better after baking. We baked it, cooled it, added amazing milk chocolate frosting and  a semisweet glaze. This cake looked beautiful. Then we took a bite. COFFEE! It turns out that the little container of coffee we bought .........was extra concentrated!

The Week Before That

Spicy Roasted Red Pepper Quesadillas


This recipe was a hit!!  I served it with rice as a vegetarian main dish for dinner and it worked really well but it is also a good appetizer. One change though, the actual recipe calls for one small canned chipotle chile in adobo sauce. I used about a teaspoon of the sauce and that brought more than enough fire to the dish. Adjust for your own level of chile tolerance.


8 ounces jarred roasted red peppers, minced (Side note - roasted red peppers have become one of my favorite ingredients in just about anything. Sandwiches, pasta, quesadillas. Yum!)
1 tsp of adobo sauce from small can of chipotle chile with adobo sauce
1/2 clove garlic minced
2 tablespoons minced fresh cilantro
Salt and Pepper
Flour Tortillas
4 oz Monterey Jack Cheese
2 tbsp vegetable oil


Combine red peppers chipotle sauce, garlic and cilantro in a small bowl and season with salt and pepper. Spread half the mixture over flour tortilla leaving one inch border. Sprinkle with cheese. Place the second tortilla on top. Repeat until ingredients are gone. Heat non-stick skillet to medium. Brush tortilla with oil and place in heated pan. Cook for 3-4 minutes and flip. Cook three minutes more. Repeat with all tortillas.

The Week Before That

Curried Apple Pasta. See here. :(


The Week Before That


Chocolate Sheet Cake

A hit! I made this for Savannah's birthday, and it is honestly the best 9 x 13 cake I have ever had. The New Best Recipe Book calls a sheet cake, "like a two-layer cake with training wheels, it is hard to fall off." I have to say though that their recipe for it is so good I've made it two more times since then. (During the most recent - again in DC, hoping to make a decent cake after the first fiasco - I put whipped cream on top, but the cake was still hot and the cream melted into the cake. While very sticky, it was still delicious.)

If you need to make a cake for a church thing, birthday, or just for kicks this is the cake to make! One note, just like with everything the higher quality ingredients you use, the better the flavor, but I did use chocolate chips for the semisweet chocolate and it still turned out amazing!

3/4 cup cocoa
1 1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
8 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped
12 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 large eggs
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup buttermilk (You can use 1 tbsp lemon juice and then fill the rest of the cup with milk and wait 10 minutes if you don't have butter milk.)

Preheat oven to 325. Grease the bottom and sides of a 9 x 13 pan. Sift together cocoa flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl.Heat the chocolate and butter in a microwave safe bowl covered with plastic wrap for 2 minutes at 50% power; stir until smooth. (Repeat in microwave if necessary.) Whisk together the eggs, sugar, and vanilla in a medium blow. Whisk in the buttermilk until smooth. Whisk the chocolate mixture into the egg mixture until combined. Whisk in the dry ingredients until the batter is smooth and glossy. Pour the batter into the prepared pan; bake until firm in the center when lightly pressed, about 40 minutes. Cool on a wire rake until room temperature - at least an hour. Frost if desired.