Category: Cooking

Seven Quick Takes: Friday, January 31

1. My dad is home from the hospital! And by home I mean at his home in St. Louis. I wish I could be there again to help out and just see him, but I am pretty sure that three kids running around the small ranch house my parents own would not be helpful for a tired man recovering from a major surgery. So, I will have to settle for the occasional Skype conversation where all three girls chatter away at him for five minutes and tire him out. It was great to see him looking so well yesterday!

2. I have discovered how I am going to survive the rest of the Winter. I have a plan. I did not realize when we bought this house how wonderful it would be to have South facing windows all Winter. You see, even though we have at least 24″ of snow currently on the ground, and it is crazy cold out all the time, it is sunny most days. Yesterday we woke up to a snow storm that brought us 6 new inches of snow, but as soon as the snow stopped the sun came out. I have sunshine in my kitchen nook from sunrise until 2pm everyday, and then it passes into the dining room, and finally into the living room. I am going to get to sit in the sun everyday for most of the Winter! And the cheery Winter sunshine if much more pleasant than the harsh, hot Summer sunshine.

3. Heavy cream is my children’s new favorite ingredient in food. I made cream of mushroom soup the other night for dinner, and all through the meal my kids were saying: “Mmmmm, Mom, this is sooooo good! This is the best thing I have every had!” And I thought, yes it is a pretty good soup (thank you Julia Child). Then a few days later I made a quiche for dinner, and realized that it also called for heavy cream. Normally I use the highest fat milk we have around, and everyone likes it, but Wednesday I used cream. Oh my goodness, it was the creamiest quiche that I have ever had! G declared to me, “This is my favorite food ever! It is soooooo creamy!” And L said that she liked it even better than macaroni and cheese, which is the biggest compliment on food that one could ever receive from her.

4. I had a girls’ craft night at my house last night. One of my friends from church organized it, and since M was going to be out late at a work dinner, I decided to host it this month (after I got the kids in bed). We had a really nice time, so nice that it was 10:45 PM before anyone realized it, and that is late for a bunch of moms who have husbands who work and children who need help sleeping. I took it as a good thing, that we were having such good conversation that we lost track of the time. Thanks for a nice evening ladies!

5. The difference between a Buffalo and a Minnesota winter is that in Buffalo you get lots of snow but you usually get a thaw about once a month or so, but in Minnesota the snow just piles and piles and stays frozen. Here is a comparison of our yard from the summer and what it looks like after yesterday’s snow:

We are waiting to have a sledding hill that is taller than the fence…
The garden with a 20″ fence around it.
Where is the garden now?

The parting of the Red Sea, the Grand Canyon, or our front walk, whichever you prefer…

6. A favorite active indoor activity of my kids is sliding down the (carpeted) stairs belly-down, feet first. They were demonstrating this to my brother and sister on Skype yesterday when my brother reminded me that we had done that in sleeping bags all the time growing up. I can’t believe that I had forgotten about it! I mean now that I remember, I have memories of countless hours flying down stairs into piles of cushions. I am not sure we are willing to sacrifice our nice camping sleeping bag to the sliding on the stairs, but maybe when the kids get their first sleeping bags I will throw that idea our there…

7. I have run out of things about this week. It is hard to think of much when the whole week spent inside soaking in the sunshine in the comfort of my heated home. I’ll just say that F (almost 15 months) refuses to walk, but loves to climb on tables and up and down stairs. However, she has really good balance on high surfaces so I am not too concerned…

Linking up with Jen at Conversion Diary. Head on over for more Quick Takes.

Seven Quick Takes–Saturday, November 23

1. And it is the weekend again already! The days just fly by with the kids and keeping house. I am really thankful for my Monday resolution, which I might need to alter to include email. I missed a few important emails during the day this week, so I think I need to allow myself a quick email check. Facebook, however, can wait until the kids are in bed.

2. G (4.5) picked out a book at the library last week about a little girl and her grandma. At the end of the book the grandma dies, and the girl discusses death and how she misses her grandma. Out of the stack of 13 books, this is her favorite to have read to her. She has not yet known anyone who has passed away, but she will someday. I don’t really know if literature can prepare a little child for such a loss, but maybe it will help her understand what has happened better when she encounters it in her own life. Maybe I will follow up on the book by discussing praying for the souls of the dead.

3. I am cooking my own Thanksgiving turkey this year for the first time in my life! Our first three married Thanksgivings we were traveling, and last year our aunt and uncle cooked dinner for us in our home since I was three weeks post-partum at the time. This year my in-laws are coming to visit, and my mother-in-law and I planned the meal earlier this week. Everything but the turkey and L’s birthday request of mac and cheese is going to be vegan for the benefit of M’s youngest sister. However, this meal should be no problem compared to the Pate de Canard en Croute that I made Wednesday and Thursday.

4. We bought a treadmill last weekend, and it is a good thing we waited until we bought house to get something so huge and heavy! We got it safely down into the basement study with the help of M’s colleague. Many thanks to him for his help! It is just in time for today’s high of 18°F. If I was cool and had a smartphone I would post a screen shot of the weather forecast here. 

5. In case you are wondering, I am still working my way through Crime and Punishment. I am over halfway now. Maybe I should have a two week deadline for myself. I will try to have it done by St. Nicholas day. Speaking of St. Nicholas day, when one emphasizes that with kids instead of Santa, one hears things like this from one’s 4.5 year old, upon seeing Christmas displays with candy:

“Look, Mom! They are getting ready for St. Nicholas day!” 

 

Photo by Brian Behrend. This is not the dog we saw.


6. The world from the perspective of a nearly three year old gets pretty interesting. Today I found L looking out the front window at a lady walking her dog. She said to me, “That dog broke his poor little body!” I took a closer look at the dog. He was wearing a sweater. I almost did not want to explain to her that he was not in a full body cast, because it was so cute that she thought this.

7. Please take a moment to pray for a friend’s (from grad school) wife and newborn baby. She just had an emergency c-section and apparently the baby is not doing well. 

Linking up with Jen’s Conversion Diary. Head on over for more quick takes.

Pate De Canard en Croute: Boned Stuffed Duck Baked in a Pastry Crust

I first really learned about Julia Child two years ago when we saw that recent movie about her, and I was intrigued. Cooking has always been a love of mine, and French cooking was a natural next step. I used some gift money to purchase her cookbook, and tried a few recipes. I try them from time to time, when I feel up to cooking for hours on end. M has been asking for me to try the “boned duck” recipe for awhile, and I have been viewing it as something I should try to test my abilities. I saw duck for sale at Aldi about a month ago and the need to fit a turkey in the freezer meant that it was time…

“The memory of a good French pate can haunt you for years.” –Mastering the Art of French Cooking

 The poor five pound duck, did not know what was coming. I am not a huge fan of taking apart poultry raw or cooked. So, this step was not exactly the most pleasant for me. Julia Child said to count on it taking 45 minutes. This is where I was after 45 minutes…

 G started snapping photographs and caught me up to my wrists in duck goop…

 Here I am with the legs and wings left to bone about 90 minutes in. If this picture looks like it was taken by a child, that is because it was.

 The skin in all its glory. At this point I chopped up the meat and mixed it with cognac and spices and wrapped it in the filling to make the pate.

Here is the pate of ground pork, ground turkey (poor man’s veal?), ground pork fat, spices, sauted onions, cooked down cognac, and diced duck sewn up in the duck skin. It reminds me a a slug.

Now it looks like a weird little alien browning in my massive cast iron skillet. I stopped for the night at this point, after five hours of labor. I made the pastry dough and we watched a Downton before calling it a night.

The next morning I discovered my true delight in all things baking related and it took me about 45 minutes to roll out the dough, wrap the pate and decorate it to this point:

  Then it went into the oven for 2 hours.

 F watched it closely a good amount of that time.

 Once it reached 180°F, it was finished. I took it out of the oven to cool.

Hot and fresh. It had to cool for hours before it was ready to be cracked open.

 This part made me extremely nervous. I was not sure how the shell would hold out. We removed the trussings and got it safely back into the crust.

 The main course is served.

 The inside view.

Some after thoughts: Pate is not my favorite. I was not exactly sure what to expect, but think a gourmet, large hot dog made with actually good meat and wrapped in bird skin. Plus, a fancy handmade bun. The taste-testers (dinner guests) all gave it high praise, and M even had seconds. I am not sure I would do it again. I think I would rather have a really nice steak…

From Market to Purée: How to Prepare Pumpkin

 
I purchased this pumpkin back in October, and the poor neglected squash sat on the back console table for nearly a month. Fortunately for me, winter squash have a great shelf life. I finally got to roasting it.

How to Roast a Winter Squash:
-Preheat oven to 400°F

-Cut squash into quarters and remove all strings, seeds, and hard stems

-Prick fleshy side all over with a fork
-Brush with olive oil

-Sprinkle with a little salt

-Place fleshy side down on rimmed cookie sheets 
-Roast in oven for 50 minutes or until fork pricks through easily (for me it got so soft that the squash lost all structural integrity)
-Set aside until cool
Making the Purée:
-Skin the cooled squash pieces and cut into small chunks
Chunks O Squash

-Purée in food processor (or blender if you are holding out to buy a food processor until you can splurge on the Kitchen Aid Brand)

The pureeing in this 5 year old blender took me an hour.

-Measure into 15 oz. portions and put into a freezer bag

15 oz is the amount you can buy canned to make one pumpkin pie.

 -Stack and freeze:

I spent $4.00 and 3 hours of labor on my pumpkin squash for 7 cans worth of potential pumpkin.

Blueberry Buckle for Our Lady

We were explaining to G (4) about how it was almost the Feast of the Assumption. Her eyes lit up and she asked me excitedly, “Are we going to make blueberry buckle?” I had not planned on it, but lately I have been keeping blueberries in the freezer for my current favorite breakfast of granola, homemade yoghurt, and blueberries. I said, “Sure, we can do that!” And mentally planned when we would have an hour to bake the dessert and be able to eat it before the girls’ bedtime.

I first had blueberry buckle when a friend made it for a ladies prayer group when we lived in Buffalo, NY. It was really delicious and I found a recipe for blueberry and peach buckle in one of my cookbooks. I adapted it to make with just blueberries. Then one year on the Queenship of Mary, I was thinking of a way to honor Our Lady. I thought of the blueberry buckle as a really neat way to honor her, especially since my friend made her’s in a pie dish, resembling a crown shape. It was perfect. Since then I have been making it on other Marian feast days, and now for the kids it has become a family tradition. We will continue to make blueberry buckle for Our Lady.

Blueberry Buckle (Adapted from The Joy of Cooking)

Position a rack in the lower third of the oven. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter and flour a pie pan.

The Topping:
Blend until crumbly:
-1/3 cup sugar
-2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
-2 tablespoons unsalted butter 
Add:
-1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon

The Buckle:
Have ready:
-2 cups blueberries (frozen or fresh, the frozen will take longer to cook)

Whisk together:
-1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
-2 teaspoons baking powder
-1/2 teaspoon salt
Combine in another bowl and beat until slightly fluffy:
-1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, softened
-1 cup sugar
-1 large egg
Gradually beat in:
-1/2 cup milk

Blue for Mary!

Add the dry ingredients and stir until they are just moistened and the batter is smooth. Carefully fold
in the blueberries. Put into the prepared pie dish and spread evenly. Sprinkle the topping over the batter.

Bake for 50-55 minutes (or 60-65 if using frozen berries), until the top springs back when touched and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool 20 minutes on a rack before serving.

Enjoy!

______________
I am joining a group of Catholic Bloggers doing monthly themed posts. This month is for Mary. Please check out the other blogs and posts!

Catholic Bloggers Collective


Poached Eggs on Toast, Why do You Quiver?

For my final post of the seven posts in seven days challenge (follow the link to find more bloggers who did this) I give you my Sunday brunch-lunch: eggs benedict with homemade English muffin bread and hollandaise sauce (using the recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking).

The making of the sauce. I whisk too fast for the camera. I was aided by my second giant mug of coffee of the day which can be seen photo bombing this picture.

As a girl I always wanted fast whisking skills and admired my mother’s ability to whisk.

Sunday brunch. 🙂 M and I have mastered the art of poaching eggs for the sake of eggs benedict.

Delicious!

What 20 lbs of Strawberries looks like…

I took G and L strawberry picking today. These are the best strawberries I have had in a long time. Fresh out of the field in rural Minnesota. We drove out 30 minutes to find these. I did the bulk of the picking, but the girls limited themselves (by listening to me for once) to about half a pound in the field. I have some jam canning to do… I guess this is one way to cope with a soggy basement. Now I have to brave it to get the canner out and see if I have any pectin.

Seven Quick Takes Friday-May 17

One of the things I am really looking forward to after we move is getting back to a normal schedule, and that means blogging beyond Quick Takes. If it weren’t for this link-up at Jen’s blog, my blog would be utterly deserted these days. It is a bit insane what we are attempting to do with three kids four and under, but we are managing somehow…and here come the Quick Takes:

1. My parents and sister came to visit Sunday night through Thursday morning, and it is incredible how much can get accomplished with so many adults around. The house is about ready for us to move in! There is another mornings worth of odd jobs and then we will be set.

2. I am going to have to learn how to use the power drill if I am going to get my curtain rods up. I am a bit nervous to try, but I need to do it. Is it allowable to hang curtain rods with a baby in a sling? Maybe we could get the on-the-back position down and then it would be safe…

3. Remember my yellow console table? I did not get it, but I am planning on painting my current free-standing cupboard yellow and taking off the doors and putting in a shoe basket. I also still need to paint the girl’s ($20 antique store find) dresser white so it looks presentable. It has been living and being used in their closet this past year, but the new house closet is not big enough. I am saving the painting projects for July. I have a vision of the baby happily napping all morning for several days and the big girls playing nicely in the yard while I paint…uh huh…

4. There is some packing accomplished now, no thanks to me. M did the family room bookshelves, and my sister and mom did started in on the living room and kitchen. Now for the rest… We have a week until the move.

5. Did I mention our new oven? In the many unexpected things about our new house, one of them was several gas leaks in the oven that came with it. It was not caught by the inspection. So rather than repair the oven, we decided to tap into savings and by a new one:

I am for serious. This baby is a gas double oven, with five burners including a middle one for a skillet and two super boil burners. I am really excited to cook with it! It also makes my kitchen three steps closer to my dream kitchen.

What my oven will look like next Thanksgiving. The top has cake because it will be L’s birthday.

The catch is that it will not ship until two days after we move in, so this means we will have to do crockpot, foreman grill, charcoal grill, toaster oven cooking for a week or so…

6. We had a fun Mother’s Day. M’s uncle, aunt, and cousins live on a farm about two hours away in Wisconsin, and we spent the day at their farm. We got to see the new kids, kittens, and chicks and some pregnant cows. The kids had a blast and I got to sit around and eat all day. The best part of the food were grilled veggies made in one of these:

I could eat only veggies for dinner if the were always cooked like that. The were amazing. I am pretty sure the vegetables were zucchini, yellow squash, mushrooms, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, and asparagus. These veggies are a reason to move the gas grill to top of the “extras” list or I will need to figure out how to make the charcoal grill easier for me to use…

7. You know how I said that we were doing well with home schooling lately? Well I think preschool was having a week long vacation due to family visiting. I know the structure helps the kids stay happy, so even though we are packing all next week I am going to try to get some preschool back into our schedule. We did do a little today, however, when we talked about the M-E-N-A-R-D-S on the first store we went to today and the T-A-R-G-E-T on another. “Mommy, Target has two Ts in it!” We did some color work when I sent her to find brown sugar. I am pretty sure picking dandelions and running around the yard count for science and gym class. So maybe we did well with home schooling preschool this week…

Seven Quicktakes Friday-March 15

1. Beware the Ides of March! G is four today (yesterday)! I have been a mother of an out of the womb child for four years. Can you believe it?

2. We went out for dinner on Sunday to celebrate the new house (which appraised properly and now we just have to wait for closing, yay!). M and I both ordered drinks, and we got carded. Us with our three kids got carded. I guess we still look young. Yay!

3. Yesterday (Thursday) was M’s birthday. This is the dinner he requested. He may or may not have eaten all of that pasta. That was the serving dish, but there was more in the pot and he had seconds… That is goat cheese. G says that she likes goat cheese because it is “soooo creamy.”

4. I also made this cake for M.

It has dark chocolate and coffee in it.


And almond crust with chocolate ganache on top.


And tofu. It was really good and almost vegan, except I used real butter and milk. It goes really well with breakfast, as breakfast, or as second breakfast. 

5. M said I could get this for the new house. 

From http://www.amazon.com/BISSELL-Natural-Sweep-Sweeper-92N0A/dp/B001GL1NXU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363376536&sr=8-1&keywords=bissell+natural+sweep+dual+brush+sweeper

I bet I could convince G to use it and her help would actually be effective.

6. My mom is in town and is coloring with G. G is having my mom draw Noah’s Ark. 

G: “Draw people drowning!”
Mom: “It has been raining for so long there aren’t any other people around.”
L: “Draw people drowning!!!!”

My kids are entirely normal. I promise.

7. I am throwing a birthday party with friends for G. I think it is going to be pretty lame from the kids perspective. There is no theme or decorations. M is at the store right now getting a few balloons, but no helium. There has been speculation that Fr. Z does birthday parties among our friends in St. Paul, but we forgot to invite him. 

Head over to Jen’s for more Quick Takes.

Random Tuesday Post Because I Have Time to Blog

I like to write nice, neat, and tidy blog posts and I have been sitting at the computer for an hour waiting for the baby to be ready for her nap so that I can put her to bed and write something. She is almost ready and I have accomplished commenting on and checking Facebook a billion times, reading a few short emails, and finally getting L to stay in her bed and go to sleep…

Now I will entertain myself by writing a narrative:

G comes out of her quiet time a few minutes after L has fallen asleep telling me that she has to go to the bathroom. I send her in and tell her to be quiet and not wake her sister who is on the other side of the wall from the bathroom. About 10 seconds later I hear a huge crash and G start to yell/cry (not exactly quiet, huh?). I rush to the bathroom, primarily to get her silent, secondarily to find out what is wrong. She had fallen into the bathtub while climbing on the toliet. I really don’t want to know exactly how it came about and work on calming her down, praying that L is not woken up. G asks me why I came running into her when she fell, and I explain that I love her and that she is my precious child and I don’t want her to be hurting. I have been trying to emphasize to the children how they are loved lately since I realized that when I am stressed I forget to do that. She appreciates what I say and gives me a hug. We get her off the toliet and I carry her back downstairs.

After I come back up I start to write this and the baby is finally ready to go to sleep. It is great when I just be patient and wait for her nap to overtake her because then I can get her sound asleep within 10 minutes as opposed to 45 minutes. I pick her up to go to the bedroom, but pause a moment to watch the college student from the house next door attempt to drive is little blue Mini Cooper down our unplowed-8inches-deep-in-snow street. I leave him with his wheels spinning. I change the baby, rock her, and nurse her. She is out like a light. I lay her down and slip out of the room. G comes up to ask how much longer she has of quiet time. I tell her and then come back to my seat on the couch. The Mini Cooper is gone; I guess he made it. Maybe I will have 45 minutes of silence or so. It is golden I tell you.

Tonight I am making a new recipe. We are meatless again this Lent. I think I am going to combine this and this one. I hope it will be enough food though. M shoveled snow and is walking to and from school up hill both ways in snow from work today (1.5 miles each way). He is going to be hungry! I am trying to think of a way of supplementing the meal from the empty refrigerator. I am supposed to go to the store tomorrow. The snow-plow just ineffectively went barreling down our street. I really wonder why they don’t plow this city and still have school when most of the other schools cancel. I am really hoping that we get that house in West St. Paul we put an offer on yesterday. I am trying not to give up on finding a good house. The first one we offered on was not right for us after the inspection made us realize we know nothing about houses. The second offer was outbid, and this one has not been responded to for longer than a normal offer is out. At any rate, hopefully we will know soon. No response is better than a negative one right? Anyway, I will tell you all about the house we finally settle on once there is an offer, acceptance, and positive inspection…

I think I have said enough for today. Have a happy Tuesday. 🙂