Blog-O! (Posts about food)

Awesome First Day of March Break

Amy Brown — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 02:01:19 GMT

Today started early for me - I was awake at around 6:30. Awake of my own voilition! No-one jumped on me. I lay in bed, too hot because we haven't adjusted our bedding to account for spring (why is it that even though the thermostat always says 18, it's way colder in January than in March?) and listened to an unexpected chattering noise from somewhere in the house. It wasn't music or the radio... I couldn't place it, and then I realized it was Delphine reading to Cordelia. I stayed in bed for as long as I could stand the heat, and finally got up at 6:45. The girls and I headed downstairs for breakfast, with a brief detour to jump on Daddy (well, for the kids).

For first breakfast we had cereal, and then Delphine logged on to play her daily complement of video games (she likes Diego games lately) and I hied myself upstairs to clean the bathroom and take a shower. Once clean and dressed I went downstairs again to put brunch in the oven, for we were expecting company! Then I vacuumed and tidied and cleaned and dusted like a mad woman, in time for everything to be ready at 10, when our friends were to arrive.

Then we waited! And cleaned. And waited! And puttered. Waited! Put some coffee on. Waited! Arranged coffee mugs and cream and sugar artfully on the counter. Waited! Sent children outside to greet company. And then finally they arrived! They were probably only ten minutes late but when you've busted your ass to be ready in time and you're all set, it's so anti-climactic to have an empty house for even a couple of minutes.

Brunch was a delightful French toast/bread pudding. I got the recipe from Kat, who got it from her friend's mother (I think). I reproduce it here in full because it's that good:

French Toast Bread Pudding (Fread Pudding, of course)

1 loaf challah (although we used raisin bread this time and it was sublime)
7 eggs
2.5 C milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 C butter
1 C brown sugar
splash of maple syrup if you have any

Cut up the bread into cubes. Beat the eggs and milk and vanilla together, then mix the bread in. Put it in the fridge overnight.

Next morning butter a lasagna pan, and put the bread mixture in it. Melt the butter and mix in the brown sugar, and then pour the butter mixture over the bread.

Bake the whole thing in the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit (see, I can spell it!) for 40 to 45 minutes. I usually broil it for a minute or two for crunchiness. Let it cool for a few minutes and serve.

We had great company - two other couples with two kids each, so we had one baby, an almost-two, Cordelia who is three, Evan who is four, and Delphine and Ursa who are five. They all had a great time with only bits of crying. Otis in particular was a trooper despite having lost a fingernail in a horrific toilet lid accident earlier in the day.

After we stuffed ourselves silly with fread pudding, bacon, croissants, strawberries, and coffee the children dragged us slowly to the park where they ran around for an hour, or maybe two, while we grownups talked to each other. Lovely! And Blake got a sunburn.

Oh that's right! I didn't mention how perfectly perfect the weather was! It seems we have passed that season of purgatory wherein if it is sunny it must be cold, and if it is warm it must be gloomy. Now we can have both at the same time!

So Blake has a charming sunburn on one side of his forehead. I said we have to go back to the park tomorrow and stand on the other side of the playground, so he matches.

After the girls had run their fill (almost - I don't think they have ever actually exhausted the charms of the park on their own terms, I always have to drag them away, but the dragging was easier than usual today) and I had investigated a rather charming little creek born from the runoff from giant snow mountains dumped at the top of the park throughout winter, we headed east, to Bayview. I bought the girls their ceremonial First Ice Cream of the Season (lemon for Delphine and chocolate mint for Cordelia), and I had my first Frappuccino of the year.

And finally we circled back to home, which was still tidy and clean from my hard work of the morning. The girls did some drawing, and before we knew it, Baba and Zaida were here for family dinner. Zaida picked up sushi, so we didn't have to cook or dirty up the kitchen, and it was delicious. The girls played outside for a little longer, and then headed to bed without all that much fuss. (Especially since I didn't have to put them there - Blake and Zaida did bedtime while I worked on the cryptic with Baba.)

It was one of those lovely, chilled out, sunny, fun days with lots of good friends (good, smart friends!) and family, cute kids and yummy food. Food and company - I think those are my favourite things. At least for today.

Conversations with Kindergarteners

Amy Brown — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 19:43:31 GMT

The other day I went with Delphine's class on a field trip to the Toronto Botanical Gardens. I was put in charge of Delphine; Annie, with long blonde hair in a messy ponytail and huge blue Cindy Loo Who eyes; and Alyssa, tiny and cheerful and not particularly inclined to stay with the group.

After all the festivities of looking at leaves and planting garlic cloves and holding compost worms, we all stopped for a snack. The children got granola bars, but I had packed myself an apple because I knew I would be hungry too. (I eat like a little kid, lots of snacks.) Alyssa asked what kind of apple it was.

"It’s a Honeycrisp. I haven't tried them before but I really like it; it's crispy and juicy and sweet. We usually get Royal Gala."

"We get Honeycrisp," said Alyssa. "I like them."

"We get Golden Russet," said Annie. I asked if she liked them and she said she did. "They're brown and the skin is kind of rough."

I said I would try them next time I bought apples, but they didn't have any at the grocery store yesterday.

Isn't that a weird conversation to have with four and five year-olds? I guess that's when you get when you live in a neighbourhood of foodies.

God's Own Chocolate Cake

Amy Brown — Wed, 09 May 2007 21:28:58 GMT

This is the world's best chocolate cake recipe -- it's really easy, it always comes out moist and rich and delicious, and best of all it calls for cocoa powder, which I always have in the house, not unsweetened chocolate, which I never have. Use the leftover buttermilk to make pancakes.

Cocoa Fudge Cake
from the Betty Crocker Cookbook, 1969 Edition

1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1½ cups sugar
2/3 cup cocoa
1½ teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1½ cups buttermilk
½ cup shortening
2 eggs (1/3 to ½ cup)
1 teaspoon vanilla

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour baking pan, 13x9x2 inches, or 2 round layer pans, 8 or 9x1½ inches.

Measure all ingredients into large mixer bowl. Blend ½ minute on low speed, scraping bowl constantly. Beat 3 minutes high speed, scraping bowl occasionally. Pour into pan(s).

Bake oblong 35 to 40 minutes, layers 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in centre comes out clean. Cool.

If desired (!), frost cake.

Cocoa Butter Frosting
from the Betty Crocker Cookbook, 1969 Edition

Here's a frosting recipe I've used, with similarly excellent results.

1/3 cup soft butter
1/3 cup cocoa
2 cups confectioner's sugar
1½ teaspoons vanilla
About 2 tablespoons milk

Mix thoroughly butter and cocoa. Blend in sugar. Stir in vanilla and milk; beat until frosting is smooth and of spreading consistency.

Fills and frosts two 8- or 9-inch layers or frosts a 13x9 inch cake.

Lazy Man's Homemade Ice Cream

Amy Brown — Wed, 09 May 2007 21:28:58 GMT

Put some frozen blueberries in a bowl. (I like Europe's Best if you can get them.) Pour in just enough whipping cream to almost cover the berries. Wait a few seconds and the berries will freeze the cream -- voila, quick frosty goodness that's almost good for you!

How To Feed Your Baby (When You Can Barely Feed Yourself): Six Month Edition

Amy Brown — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 02:04:00 GMT

Once upon a time, a long time ago, when Delphine was still a baby, some friends wondered how a person who can barely manage to feed themselves without a takeout menu can manage to feed a child. I used to think I would be able to answer that question, but the fact is I have become very domestic in the last few years; I have a kitchen that is almost always clean enough to cook in, I have multiple pans and knives, I have a working dishwasher, I have enough staples on hand to cook a dinner or bake a cake. I even have a chest freezer.

One day this could be you (well, maybe not the chest freezer). The journey from urban restaurant forager to urban chef has been one of many steps, and one of them was having a child who needed good food, not just leftover pizza (although they still get that sometimes). So it may be that having to feed your child properly is exactly the kick in the pants you need to learn how to feed yourself properly too.

But that is neither here nor there -- what you need to know right now, with your hungry six month old on your knee, mouth agape, is how and what do I feed her now?

Your first and best friend in this task is the boxed baby cereal. The one I always get is Heinz -- look for one with as few extraneous ingredients as possible, especially without milk or added formula. Lots of baby cereals have milk in them; those cereals are for formula-fed babies who have already been exposed to the hard-to-digest foreign proteins in cow's milk -- if your baby is exclusively breastfed there is no need to expose her to those proteins until she is ready for them, in a couple of months. So look for cereal that just has grain, and probably a couple of vitamins, in the ingredient list. Get used to reading ingredient lists -- you will be doing it a lot.

Start with rice cereal -- rice is the easiest grain to digest. If you're a champion pumper you can mix it with breastmilk, otherwise use water. You're supposed to use boiled, cooled water -- I just used whatever's in the bottom of the kettle from my last cup of tea, which was never very long ago. If you trust your municipal water supply, after a while you will just use tap water if you're lazy like me.

A little bit of cereal a couple of times a day is fine to start off with. Remember, real food is just recreational for now -- your baby gets all her nutrition from breastmilk (or formula) at this stage, and will until she is a year old.

Do rice for a week, then try barley and oatmeal -- these are also very easy to digest. If you are brave enough to try them, you will find that the tastiest of the cereals is barley, despite being the unappetizing grey colour of papier mache.

You're supposed to wait four days or so between introducing new foods -- Cordelia is almost eight months old as I write this, and I am introducing new foods at a manic pace of one a day or so. You might be more conservative if you have any concerns about allergies or if your baby is sensitive to new tastes and takes a while to get used to them, or if you're just nervous. Whatever works for you.

After you have your baby nicely warmed up on cereal, you can introduce fruits and veg. My doctor suggested doing orange, then yellow, then green, but I think this whole process is complicated enough without bringing the rainbow into it. Just introduce whatever you think would be fun. (See the chart I posted for ideas.)

Jarred Food or Homemade?

Both. Jarred food is convenient, and you can get good stuff. You can even get organic if it's important to you. Just, again, read the labels and don't buy anything with added sugar or starch. If the jar says "Sweet Potato" the ingredient list should say "sweet potato" and nothing else. Use your good sense.

Two things to avoid: jarred banana tastes weird because it's cooked, so it actually has that fake banana taste, and also, how hard is it to mash up a banana with a fork? Buying jarred banana is just embarrassing. And jarred green beans are sour and horrible -- homemade green beans aren't nice either; they just don't puree well. Green beans can wait until your baby has learned how to chew.

But homemade baby food is nice, too -- there are lots of fruits and vegetables that you can't get jarred -- okra? asparagus? mango? And there's a warm, fuzzy feeling to feeding your baby something you have made with your own hands.

How to make homemade baby food? This is the easiest way:

open a bag of frozen peas
dump some in the beaker that came with your hand blender (You do have a hand blender, don't you? How do you make milkshakes?)
Pour in just enough water to cover the peas
put a saucer over the top of the beaker
stick it in the microwave for a few minutes, until the water boils and the peas get a little bit soft
drain off the water
blend the peas into mush

Put some in a bowl, wait until it cools, serve. Put the rest into those little one-cup or half-cup Gladware containers and freeze. (Everyone says to use ice cube trays, but they are a pain in the ass, and my kid easily eats a quarter-cup at a sitting, which is way more than one ice cube.)

You can do the same with other frozen vegetables, or frozen or canned fruit (you don't have to microwave the fruit, obviously). If the resulting puree is too runny, add some of the dry baby cereal to thicken it.

If you have a clean knife and cutting board kicking around, you can do much the same thing with any fresh vegetable or fruit (with the exception of berries and tomatoes, which can be allergenic). If you prefer, cook it in a pan on the stove, if you have a clean pan and your stove works.

Get someone else to clean up, you have done enough.

New Food Chart

Amy Brown — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 02:04:00 GMT

Here's a chart I made up for myself, based mainly on information from the book Better Baby Food. I stuck it up on my bulletin board in the kitchen and I have been using it as a checklist to figure out what Cordelia has tried so far, and what she's ready for next.

6 months	rice barley oats carrots sweet potato peaches squash potato	apples bananas pears beets plums avocadoes peas broccoli
7 months	wheat chicken pork tuna salmon beef beans egg yolk	tofu yogurt cottage cheese pasta lentils chickpeas toast crackers
9 months	milk
1 year	berries tomatoes egg white honey

Three Food Things

Amy Brown — Fri, 14 Apr 2006 19:17:00 GMT

1. Square Meatballs.

I got this from Better Baby Food, which is my favourite cookbook these days. In the book it's a recipe but here I will just describe the idea: square meatballs. Instead of making little round meatballs, which involves lots of time spent with your hands coated in raw meat (not so good when the baby gets into the Choking Hazards), you pat your meatball mixture in a thin layer (three-quarters of an inch?) in a baking dish, and then bake them for twenty minutes at 350F. Yes, it's basically a thin meatloaf.

After they are done, use a sharp knife to cut them into little squares for the kids and bigger squares for the grown-ups. Genius!

2. Thing

My in-laws make a dish called Zucchini Thing, which is really so unlike anything else that the only possible name for it is Thing. I have the recipe, but I am loathe to make anything that calls for Bisquick. To my delight, though, I found a recipe in a magazine for the very same thing, except without Bisquick:

3 C grated zucchini
1 small onion, chopped
1 C all-purpose flour
1 C grated provolone cheese
3 eggs, beaten
1/4 C vegetable oil
4 T grated Parmesan
2 t chopped fresh basil
1 t baking powder
1 t salt
1/2 t black pepper

Mix it all together, slap it in a greased pie plate, cook it at 350F for 45 to 50 minutes or until golden brown, let it cool for 10 minutes, and voila! Thing!

The nice thing about Thing, though, is that it is forgiving. Substitute some other pureed vegetable for the zucchini (provided it is about as moist as grated zucchini, which is pretty moist). Stick some other kind of cheese in! And best of all, kids love it and it has three (3) food groups. Cut it into little squares and let 'em pick it up in their fingers.

3. Chocolate charoset

I just made this up today. I was making charoset for Passover dinner tonight (I know, we're late) and I did it Sephardic style, in little balls rolled in cinnamon. After I had done a few I thought they looked like truffles, and my mind wandered to truffles coated in cocoa. "Hm." I thought. "I wonder..." So I tried it, and they're really tasty. Dessert charoset!

Holiday Eating

Amy Brown — Mon, 12 Apr 2004 01:29:00 GMT

Today we had Morgan and Erik over for a Passover/Easter feast. Morgan made saucy chicken and chopped liver, and I made fruit kugel and Passover brownies and roasted asparagus. (The asparagus was an afterthought when I realized we didn't have any vegetables.) We also had Easter eggs with the brownies for dessert.

The recipes for Morgan's saucy chicken and my kugel both came out of the yellow book and they both turned out really well. The Passover brownies were made from my mother-in-law's recipe. They didn't turn out so well because they didn't cook through; I didn't realize until this morning when I tried to turn them out of the pan. I glued the whole mess together with Glossy Chocolate Frosting made from a recipe in my old Betty Crocker book, and it worked really well. I thought the whole meal turned out great, considering all the recipes we used were new to us.

We all ate and ate until we couldn't move, and then squeezed in a little more, and now I'm so tired. It was good; I love holiday food.

Two-thousand Calories

Amy Brown — Thu, 25 Mar 2004 03:45:00 GMT

A while ago I said I was going to cut down to 2000 calories a day, but I've been having a hard time doing so. It seems so lame, when you consider that there are so many people on 1200 and 1600 cpd diets, that I can't even cut down to a still-excessive 2000 cpd. The difference for me is that when you're on a diet, you know it's a temporary thing, that even if you can't have the cookie or the chocolate today, one day when you're not on the diet anymore you'll be able to. Since my diet isn't a temporary change, I am reluctant to give things up because I know it's forever.

My ultimate goal is to eat an average of 1800 calories per day. You need to take in about 1600 calories per day to get all the nutrients you need; that's 1600 calories of real food, leafy vegetables and whole grains and lean meat and fruit. At 1800 calories a day that only leaves 200 calories free for "fun" food. That's less than a chocolate bar. That's just two cookies. I'm sure there are plenty of people in this world who live without having fun food every day, but I'm not sure I want to be one of them.

This resistance to giving up treats is what has made it so hard to break the 2000 calorie barrier. I've been hovering around 2050 for the last few days, but yesterday I decided if I can be under 2000 every day this week, I will reward myself with some tacky makeup or something on the weekend.

I have a couple of strategies I'm working on. One is to have a big breakfast with lots of protein and fruit, to keep me going without hunger until lunchtime. Then theoretically I'll be able to have a smallish lunch.

Another strategy is to keep digestive cookies in the house. It sounds counter-intuitive to diet by keeping cookies in the house, but digestives are pretty low calorie*, and a couple of them plus a cup of tea are enough to satisfy my desire for a treat in the afternoon. If I don't have them around, I'm likely to go to Starbucks and get a 200 calorie mocha and a 500 calorie scone. I think of them as a pressure valve.

[*Actually digestives are still pretty high calorie -- around 75 calories each. I think next time I will buy social tea biscuits or something, which are only around 22 calories each. That way I can have six of them!]

Anyway, having said that, I weighed myself at the doctor's office this morning and I have lost another 5 lbs to bring me down to 190, with a BMI of 30.7. That's only 0.7... um.... BMI units? away from being merely "overweight", not "obese". How exciting!

I'm curious to see if I plateau at 185, since I have never been able to diet down past 185. I think that might be my adult low, actually. (I don't know what I weighed in high school, although I do know I was wearing size 36 Levi 501s. I should go try on a pair and see if I fit into them.)

I've lost a total of 42 lbs from my pre-pregnancy weight, but I don't feel 42 lbs smaller, and I don't think I look it. I get the odd comment, but not the barrage of compliments that you'd hope for when you've lost almost 20% of yourself. Part of the problem is that I haven't bought many new clothes, so I'm still wearing my 230 lb wardrobe; my look now is "baggy". And of course there's the fact that for so long I've been so militantly happy to be fat that most of my friends know better than to say "You've lost weight!" as a compliment. Still, it would be nice to know that my shrinkage is perceptible to others.

I read an article by a woman, my height, who described herself as plump and unattractive. Then she said she needed to lose 20 lbs to feel desirable -- she was 155 lbs and wanted to be 135. Twenty pounds is the difference between unattractive and desirable, and I've lost twice that! Before, I felt like me, and now, I feel like me. I guess it's good that I don't invest my weight with so much meaning, but the flip side of that coin is that when I lose weight I don't get the big irrational ego boost. Humph.

28 Year Checkup

Amy Brown — Tue, 09 Mar 2004 16:22:00 GMT

I went to the doctor today for my annual physical. I always enjoy physicals because I'm generally healthy, and when else do I get to spend forty five minutes talking with someone all about me! me! me!?

Everything's good; she gave me the go-ahead to work on another baby, which is great if academic since I'm still amenorrheic due to nursing. Apparently most women start ovulating while they are still nursing. Also the average age difference between children when birth control is not used is 22 to 28 months, and pregnancies started before that are more likely to miscarry, although they're not sure why. Interesting facts which all basically mean we will let nature take its course, and also that I will start taking folic acid now so I'm all ready to go whenever my body is.

I also talked a bit about the arthritis that's developing in my hips. There's not a whole lot they can do about that, which is a bit of a pisser. She said if there's a lot of pain, or I'm anticipating some activity which will cause pain (like tennis, she said. That'll be the day.) I could take a prophylactic ibuprofen to inhibit the inflammation which causes more joint damage. Also, losing weight is a great idea, she said.

And hooray, I'm down to 195 lbs! I haven't seen this side of 200 lbs lo these many years. (I'm also down to a size 18, another numeric milestone.) I'm quite pleased that I'm still losing even though I've been sitting at 2100 calories per day for quite a while now. The doctor suggested I should go down to around 1800 calories a day, so I've changed my goal in Fitday to 2000 cpd, and I'll work my way down.

The challenge is going to be eating properly; I have a tendency to skip real food in order to save calories for treats like pastries and ice cream. Such a bad idea. I'm going to try watching my food groups, making sure I get 5 to 10 fruit and veg, 6 to 12 grain, etc etc. I have to be in good nutritional shape to make another beautiful healthy baby. I think it will be easier now that spring is coming; fruit and salads always seem more palatable in warm weather. In winter I just want large piles of meat and potatoes.