Strawberry Musings

One of the great things about living in a rural agricultural area is the availability of truly fresh produce. Yesterday, my husband and I took the kids to a nearby farm to pick strawberries. The berries were just perfect...deep red, perfectly shaped and out of this world sweet! There is nothing better than biting into a strawberry that is still warm from the sun. There were times when I actually had strawberry juice dripping from my chin...they were that juicy! And you should have seen my children. They were covered in splotches of pink. My son, somehow, managed to get strawberry juice on his forehead!

I love berry picking...any kind. In fact, there is something about picking berries that makes me philosophical and yesterday was no different. I am a Christian and I just can't help but think of God when I bite into such a luscious piece of fruit. I think, "There is a God that must love me a lot." He didn't have to create such decadent things for me to eat. It could have all tasted like cardboard...and we would have never known the difference. But He wanted us to have these wonderfully sweet little treats. I could go on and on about the glories of nature, because, for me, God is so incredibly present in nature. There are so many ways that He provided abundance for us when it really wasn't necessary for any other reason than our pleasure and enjoyment.

But with all the news of the world food crisis on the news, I couldn't help but think about all the folks in the world who don't experience the same kind of abundance that I do. And that makes you ask some tough questions. Why should I get to watch my giggling children stuff themselves with strawberries, when there are mothers in the world who are watching their children suffer and starve? I can't answer that question! While I may question, it doesn't wound my faith in God. All I know is that God is who He is and He does what He does. And that in my miserable human state, I can't possibly hope to understand it all. But, I am certain that God, through His son, Jesus Christ, provides hope for those who suffer. And that one day, all this suffering will end and that the highest places in Heaven have been prepared for those who have suffered and never lost faith! Oh that am I sure!

I suppose I should put my philosophical musings aside, after all, this is a cooking blog and I should provide you folks with some recipes. For dinner, I made chicken salad sandwiches and a salad. The salad was just simply mixed greens, sliced strawberries, feta cheese and balsamic vinaigrette dressing. For dessert, I baked a pound cake in which we mounded tons of sliced strawberries. Believe it or not, this was the first real pound cake I have ever made and it turned out beautifully.

Today is the last day for T-Ball and I have to bring a sweet treat for the Royal Raiders and the Yellow Jackets. I have decided to bring a pan of brownies with cream cheese frosting and, you guessed it, topped with strawberries! And I am not at all ashamed to admit that I have never yet found a brownie recipe that is any better than a box brownie. I usually spruce them up a bit, but scratch brownies are never that much better than box. (Unless, some of you folks out there have a tried and true recipe you are willing to share.)

Crunchy Avocado Chicken Salad Sandwiches

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cooked and shredded

2 ripe avocados peeled and diced

1 cup salted cashews, chopped

2 TBS fresh dill

1/2 cup prepared ranch dressing

salt and pepper to taste

4 slices Swiss cheese

8 slices of cooked bacon

4 sandwich rolls

Combine the first 6 ingredients to make the chicken salad. Chill for at least one hour. Melt the cheese onto the roll and top the melted cheese with the bacon. Scoop the chicken salad onto the other side of the roll. This goes great with a mixed greed salad topped with strawberries, feta cheese and balsamic vinaigrette dressing.

Old Fashioned Pound Cake

3 cups sugar

3 sticks of butter, softened

6 eggs, room temperature

3 cups cake flour, sifted

1/2 pint heavy whipping cream

1/2 tsp vanilla

DO NOT pre-heat oven. In a large bowl combine sugar and butter until creamy. Add eggs one at a time. When well mixed, add flour and whipping cream alternately. Then add vanilla. Pour into a well greased tube pan. Bake at 300 degrees for 1 1/2 hours. Cool completely.

Cheesecake "Pop"ular!: April's Daring Bakers Challenge

Let's see...cheesecake, chocolate, sprinkles, and toffee bits...on a stick...it doesn't get much better than that! On top of just tasting, oh, so yummy, Cheesecake Pops are fun to make and gaze upon! And, am I fooling myself when I say, "They've got to be better for you than a whole piece of cheesecake?" Well, I suppose that would be true if you didn't eat 10 of them...which I may have done, but I didn't count! Denial is such a wonderful thing!

The tiny town in which I live may be small, but we have some of the greatest community wide events! We have the Striped Bass Festival...and let me just tell you if you haven't celebrated the the life of the "land locked Striped Bass" you haven't lived! We have the annual Habitat for Humanity Author Luncheon. This is the event in which I am involved. Each year we find a cookbook author and invite them to speak at the luncheon. The menu consists of recipes from the authors cookbook. Last year, we hosted Matt Lee and Ted Lee. This year, we will be hosting Lucy Ann Buffett (She's Jimmy Buffett's sister). I've gone through all of these events just to introduce my favorite one of all...the event I look forward to all year...The Taste of Clarendon. It's like a giant community wide cover dish dinner. Everyone makes their best treats and the guys outside pull out the grills and fryers. Everyone dresses up and then pigs out!

I usually cook a few things for the Taste and this year was no different. Usually, my 10 Layer Caramel Cake (If you check out my very first post...the only one in January... you can now see pictures of this cake.) steals the show, but this year the Cheesecake Pops where the big hit. They were gone in a flash! Some of them I rolled in toffee and milk chocolate bits (not so pretty) but very tasty. The rest of the pops I rolled in sprinkles. I preferred the looks of the sprinkled ones best and that is the way I will make them in the future. In fact, this is going to be my "go to" recipe for all parties! They are just so festive, fun and versatile. By the way, the recipe for the cheesecake,itself, is great. I'll be using this recipe for my standard cheesecake, not on a stick, recipe, in the future.

Cheesecake Pops

Makes 30 – 40 Pops

5 8-oz. packages cream cheese at room temperature

2 cups sugar

¼ cup all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon salt

5 large eggs

2 egg yolks

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

¼ cup heavy cream

Boiling water as needed

Thirty to forty 8-inch lollipop sticks

1 pound chocolate, finely chopped – you can use all one kind or half and half of dark, milk, or white (Alternately, you can use 1 pound of flavored coatings, also known as summer coating, confectionery coating or wafer chocolate – candy supply stores carry colors, as well as the three kinds of chocolate.)

2 tablespoons vegetable shortening(Note: White chocolate is harder to use this way, but not impossible)

Assorted decorations such as chopped nuts, colored jimmies, crushed peppermints, mini chocolate chips, sanding sugars, dragees)

- Optional: Position oven rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 325 degrees F. Set some water to boil.In a large bowl, beat together the cream cheese, sugar, flour, and salt until smooth. If using a mixer, mix on low speed. Add the whole eggs and the egg yolks, one at a time, beating well (but still at low speed) after each addition. Beat in the vanilla and cream.Grease a 10-inch cake pan (not a springform pan), and pour the batter into the cake pan. Place the pan in a larger roasting pan. Fill the roasting pan with the boiling water until it reaches halfway up the sides of the cake pan. Bake until the cheesecake is firm and slightly golden on top, 35 to 45 minutes.Remove the cheesecake from the water bath and cool to room temperature. Cover the cheesecake with plastic wrap and refrigerate until very cold, at least 3 hours or up to overnight.When the cheesecake is cold and very firm, scoop the cheesecake into 2-ounce balls and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Carefully insert a lollipop stick into each cheesecake ball. Freeze the cheesecake pops, uncovered, until very hard, at least 1 – 2 hours.When the cheesecake pops are frozen and ready for dipping, prepare the chocolate. In the top of a double boiler, set over simmering water, or in a heatproof bowl set over a pot of simmering water, heat half the chocolate and half the shortening, stirring often, until chocolate is melted and chocolate and shortening are combined. Stir until completely smooth. Do not heat the chocolate too much or your chocolate will lose it’s shine after it has dried. Save the rest of the chocolate and shortening for later dipping, or use another type of chocolate for variety.Alternately, you can microwave the same amount of chocolate coating pieces on high at 30 second intervals, stirring until smooth.Quickly dip a frozen cheesecake pop in the melted chocolate, swirling quickly to coat it completely. Shake off any excess into the melted chocolate. If you like, you can now roll the pops quickly in optional decorations. You can also drizzle them with a contrasting color of melted chocolate (dark chocolate drizzled over milk chocolate or white chocolate over dark chocolate, etc.) Place the pop on a clean parchment paper-lined baking sheet to set. Repeat with remaining pops, melting more chocolate and shortening (or confectionery chocolate pieces) as needed.Refrigerate the pops for up to 24 hours, until ready to serve.

You "KNEAD" this No-Knead Bread Recipe

As I flipped through my William-Sonoma catalogue this month I came across a recipe for Rosemary-Lemon No-Knead Bread. The recipe comes from the Sullivan Street Bakery in Mannhattan. I was intrigued by the recipe because of it's apparent ease and by the fact that the bread was baked in a pre-heated, covered dutch oven. I finally got around to baking it and let me just tell you there is "NO KNEAD" to ever be without fresh baked bread in the house again. This was the easiest thing I've ever made...and I am not exaggerating one bit. Despite the ease, the results were OUTSTANDING. I dare say, just as flavorful and lovely as the French Bread I joyfully slaved over. The loaf was beautiful to gaze upon, filled the house with a glorious perfume of fresh baked bread tinged with lemons and rosemary (I only wish I could have bottled it...I would happily dab a bit of that behind my ears!), it tasted fabulous and had the perfect texture...crusty and chewy!

There was a New York Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/08mini.html?_r=1&oref=slogin) written about this style of bread and the bakery that exclusively makes their bread in this fashion. The author of the article said that any ambitious 8 year old could make bakery quality bread using this recipe and I wholeheartedly agree! Now I know that none of my Daring Baker cohorts are afraid of bread baking anymore...Julia Child herself ran that monster out from under the bed,...but if there is anyone else out there who is fearful of bread baking, take heart. This is the recipe for you. All you "knead" is a wooden spoon, a bowl, a floured dish towel and a dutch oven. All the work is done by the 12 -18 hours that you let the dough rise. Also, all you Daring Bakers will remember the lengths we went to simulate a steam injected oven. Well, apparently baking the bread in the dutch oven solves that problem. The pot itself acts an oven inside an oven and because you cover it with the lid, the loaf is constantly surrounded by steam. Vwhala...steam oven!

Below I will post the recipe I used, but you will also find the Sullivan Street Bakery "formula" (which I found by visiting http://www.sullivanstreetbakery.com/). The formula recipe is just simply a blank canvas. From that recipe you can make anything...and I mean anything! Enjoy!

Rosemary-Lemon No Knead Bread

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 5/8 cups water (it's just a tad over 1 1/2 cups)

1/4 tsp active dry yeast (yes..that tiny amount is correct)

1 3/4 tsp salt

2 tsp fresh chopped rosemary

2 tsp chopped lemon zest

cornmeal as needed

In a large bowl, combine flour, yeast, salt, rosemary and zest. Add the water and stir until blended (dough will be shaggy and sticky...you wouldn't be able to knead it if you wanted to). Cover with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at warm room temperature, 70 degrees , until the surface is dotted with bubbles, 12 -18 hours. After the resting period is complete, place dough on a lightly floured surface. Sprinkle dough with flour; fold dough over onto itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap; let rest 15 minutes.

Using very little flour, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat smooth cotton towel with cornmeal or flour. Put dough, seam side down, on towel, dust with more flour or cornmeal. Cover with another towel; let rise until dough is more than double in size and does not readily spring back when poked with a finger, about 2 hours.

At least 30 minutes before dough is ready, put a 2 3/4 qt. cast-iron pot (I used some stoneware) in oven; preheat oven to 450 degrees. Remove pot from oven when it has been heated. Slide hand under towel; turn dough over, seam side up, into pot; it's okay if it looks messy. Cover with lid, bake 30 minutes. Uncover; bake until loaf is browned, 15 - 30 minutes more. Set pot on wire rack; cool 10 minutes. Using oven mitts, turn pot on side; gently turn bread. It will release easily. Makes one 1 1/2 pound loaf.

No-Knead Bread Formula

3 cups flour

1 1/2 cups water

1/4 tsp dry active yeast

1 1/4 salt

olive oil for coating

extra flour, wheat bran or cornmeal for dusting

Mix all of the dry ingredients into a medium bowl. Add water and incorporate by hand or with a wooden spoon or spatula for 30 seconds to 1 minute. Lightly coat the inside of a second medium bowl with olive oil and place dough in the bowl and cover with plastic wrap and let dough rest 12-18 hours at room temperature.

Remove the dough from the bowl and fold once or twice. Let the dough rest 15 minutes in the bowl or on the work surface. Next, shape the dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel with flour or cornmeal; place dough seam side down on the towel and dust with flour. Cover the dough with a cotton towel and let rise 1-2 hours at room temperature, until more than doubled in size.

Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees. Place the pot in the oven at least 30 minutes prior to baking to preheat. Once the dough has more than doubled in volume, remove the pot from the oven and place the dough in the pot seam side up. Cover with the lid and bake 30 minutes. Uncover and bake an additional 15 - 30 minutes until the loaf is nicely browned.

Please Throw Me in a Vat of Buttercreme and Let me Eat My Way Out!

Let me just start off by saying sorry to all those Daring Bakers out there. I am woefully late in my posting but I do have a pretty good excuse! As some of you already know, my little one (9 month old, Harmon) has not been sleeping well and has been sick with what I thought was allergies. Well we found out last week-end what was causing all the problems...he had swallowed a penny over a month ago and it has been lodged in his throat for all that time. It's a rather long story...so I won't go into all the details. After multiple trips to the doctor and finally an ER visit, we finally discovered what was causing all the problems. Finally, the penny had to be surgically removed over the week-end. He's a totally different child now...he's sleeping...he's happy...and can breathe! We are just EXTREMELY blessed to still have the little fellow around.

Despite all that excitement, I did find time this month to make Dorie Greenspan's Perfect Party Cake. I just haven't gotten around to posting until today. I made the cake for Easter and was thrilled by the way it turned out. This was really the perfect challenge for the Easter season. The cake part was delicious, but it paled in comparison to the cooked buttercreme frosting. Now, I've made your standard, run of the mill buttercreme frosting before, but I now hesitate to call it buttercreme frosting. What I licked off the beaters, the spoons, the bowl and my fingers, before spreading it all over that perfectly beautiful white cake, in no way resembled that other stuff! Dorie's buttercreme frosting recipe was DIVINE! It had all the lightness of a whipped frosting, but with the heft and flavor of butter. Each time I walked through my kitchen and glanced at the finished cake, I discovered another spot where my middle child (3 year old, Teige) had run his finger through the frosting! The boy risked life and limb to get to that cake and I don't blame him one bit!

Oh, and don't forget the lemon...lemons in the cake...lemons in the frosting! I love lemon anything...so this entire cake was right up my alley! (When I was pregnant with my first child I would literally drink lemon juice and eat lemons like oranges!)

I followed the recipe exactly as written...raspberry jam between the layers and all. The only thing I did a bit differently was that I did put it in the fridge. My husband and I had a slice before the fridge and after and we both preferred the chilled version of the cake better. My husband said that the chill brought out the flavors more.

I will be making this cake again and again. And as for the frosting...I don't think I'll ever make the other stuff again.

Dorie Greenspan's Perfect Party Cake

For the Cake

2 1/4 cups cake flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 ¼ cups whole milk or buttermilk (I prefer buttermilk with the lemon)

4 large egg whites

1 ½ cups sugar

2 teaspoons grated lemon zest

1 stick (8 tablespoons or 4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature

½ teaspoon pure lemon extract

For the Buttercream

1 cup sugar

4 large egg whites

3 sticks (12 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature

¼ cup fresh lemon juice(from 2 large lemons)

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For Finishing

2/3 cup seedless raspberry preserves stirred vigorously or warmed gently until spreadable

About 1 ½ cups sweetened shredded coconut

Getting Ready

Centre a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter two 9 x 2 inch round cake pans and line the bottom of each pan with a round of buttered parchment or wax paper. Put the pans on a baking sheet.To Make the CakeSift together the flour, baking powder and salt.Whisk together the milk and egg whites in a medium bowl.Put the sugar and lemon zest in a mixer bowl or another large bowl and rub them together with your fingers until the sugar is moist and fragrant. Add the butter and working with the paddle or whisk attachment, or with a hand mixer, beat at medium speed for a full 3 minutes, until the butter and sugar are very light.Beat in the extract, then add one third of the flour mixture, still beating on medium speed. Beat in half of the milk-egg mixture, then beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients until incorporated. Add the rest of the milk and eggs beating until the batter is homogeneous, then add the last of the dry ingredients. Finally, give the batter a good 2- minute beating to ensure that it is thoroughly mixed and well aerated. Divide the batter between the two pans and smooth the tops with a rubber spatula.Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the cakes are well risen and springy to the touch – a thin knife inserted into the centers should come out cleanTransfer the cakes to cooling racks and cool for about 5 minutes, then run a knife around the sides of the cakes, unfold them and peel off the paper liners.Invert and cool to room temperature, right side up (the cooled cake layers can be wrapped airtight and stored at room temperature overnight or frozen for up to two months).

To Make the Buttercream

Put the sugar and egg whites in a mixer bowl or another large heatproof bowl, fit the bowl over a plan of simmering water and whisk constantly, keeping the mixture over the heat, until it feels hot to the touch, about 3 minutes. The sugar should be dissolved, and the mixture will look like shiny marshmallow cream.Remove the bowl from the heat.Working with the whisk attachment or with a hand mixer, beat the meringue on medium speed until it is cool, about 5 minutes.Switch to the paddle attachment if you have one, and add the butter a stick at a time, beating until smooth.Once all the butter is in, beat in the buttercream on medium-high speed until it is thick and very smooth, 6-10 minutes.During this time the buttercream may curdle or separate – just keep beating and it will come together again.On medium speed, gradually beat in the lemon juice, waiting until each addition is absorbed before adding more, and then the vanilla. You should have a shiny smooth, velvety, pristine white buttercream. Press a piece of plastic against the surface of the buttercream and set aside briefly.To Assemble the CakeUsing a sharp serrated knife and a gentle sawing motion, slice each layer horizontally in half. Put one layer cut side up on a cardboard cake round or a cake plate protected by strips of wax or parchment paper.Spread it with one third of the preserves.Cover the jam evenly with about one quarter of the buttercream.Top with another layer, spread with preserves and buttercream and then do the same with a third layer (you’ll have used all the jam and have buttercream leftover).Place the last layer cut side down on top of the cake and use the remaining buttercream to frost the sides and top. Press the coconut into the frosting, patting it gently all over the sides and top.

Madeleine's

For years, my daughter Emmeline and I had Cookie Sunday. Every Sunday afternoon we would bake a batch of cookies together...eat a couple a piece and then load up the wagon and distribute them over our neighborhood. Well, we added more children to our family and moved and that ended our Cookie Sundays. This past Sunday, we decided to start up the old tradition again. We didn't exactly make cookies, but we did make something I've been itching to try...madeleines...those wonderful little French Tea Cakes. I found a couple of madeleine pans in a clearance bin and I've been dying to try them out.





I found a great recipe at http://www.101cookbooks.com/ , but since it's short, I'll post the recipe here too.

Madeleines

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter

2 TBS softened unsalted butter (for greasing pan)

3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

4 large eggs

a pinch fine-grain sea salt

2/3 cups sugar

zest of one large lemon

1 tsp vanilla extract

powdered sugar

a bit of extra flour for dusting baking pan

* You need to have a madeleine baking pan, regular or small, metal or silicone.

1. Preheat oven ot 350 degrees Fahrenheit

2. Melt the 1 1/2 sticks of butter in small pot over medium heat until it's brown and gives off a deliciously nutty aroma, roughly 20 minutes. Strain (using a paper towel) - you want to leave the solids behind. Cool the butter to room temperature. By doing the butter first you can complete the rest of the steps while it is cooling

3. While the melted butter is cooling, use the remaining 2 TBS of butter to grease the madeleine molds-get in there and make sure you get in all the ridges. Dust with flour and invert the pan tapping out any excess flour. I used Bakers Joy to simplify this part and it worked great.

4. Put the eggs with the salt in the bowl of an electric mixer with a whisk attachment. Whip on high speed until thick - you are looking for the eggs to roughly double or triple in volume - apporximately 3 minutes. Continue to mix on high speed, slowly add the sugar in a steady, but slow stream. Whip for 2 minutes or until mixture is thick and ribbony. Now with a spatula fold in the lemon zest and vanilla (just until mixed)

5. Sprinkle the flour on top of the egg batter and gently fold in. Now fold in the butter. Only stirring enough to bring everything together.

6. Spoon the batter into the molds, filling each mold 2/3 - 3/4 full.

7. Bake the madeleines for 12 -14 minutes or until the edges of the madeleines are golden brown. Remove from oven and unmold immediately. Cool on racks and dust with powdered sugar.

*Makes 2 -3 dozen regualar madeleines (I made 32 with this recipe)

You might have noticed that you have to clarify the butter in this recipe. I had never clarified butter before, but I am so glad that I did! And I was absolutely dumbfounded at the amount of solids that were left behind. I never new there was that much solid stuff in butter. And it really did have a wonderfully nutty aroma and flavor. For that matter. I've always been afraid of clarfying butter, but if Julia Child's French Bread did nothing else for me, it made me brave...and I dare say... DARING! Although, now that I've done it, it's not that daring to clarify butter.

After making the batter, we popped the first batch in the oven and in no time we were munching on still hot from the oven madeleines. They were wonderful! They were so light and airy...so delightfully flavored...just a touch of sweet and just a touch of lemon. My kids ate the entire first batch in a matter of minutes. We didn't even have enough left to deliver around the neighborhood. These will become a new staple in my house. Next Sunday...I think we are going to try chocolate ones!

My Pucker is Sealed...Finally!

I am so glad that I joined the Daring Bakers when I did! I love to bake and I love a challenge, but had I flipped through the 14 pages of Julia Child's recipe for French Bread on my own I would have kept on flipping! (You can find the recipe here breadchick.com/?p:336 . If the mere length of the recipe wouldn't have scared me off the phrases "flip the dough over and seal the pucker" or "coagulated gluten cloak" would have surely sent me running. But I hitched up my britches, gathered some reinforcements (My sister) and like a lunatic, planned a French dinner for 12...to go along with my bread!

Lori and I started on our bread about 1 pm on Sunday. We started out working the dough in my 7 quart Viking Stand Mixer (Girls...I sobbed like a baby when my husband gave it to me for Christmas a few years ago! If he had gotten down on one knee to give it to me it would have looked like a surprise proposal!). Anyway, we decided to knead the dough by hand. Lori and I both took our turns kneading the dough and then a friend of mine stopped by and she got her hands into it too! Once the kneading was complete, the dough went upstairs to the laundry room to rise. Then for 3 hours we chatted with friends, drank French wine, and began to prepare the Asiago and Pear Pork Loin. About 2 hours into that first rise we began to realize that we may not be having French Bread with our dinner...but we remained hopeful.

We deflated our beautifully risen dough and took it back upstaris. Lori then began working on a Gateau from Dori Greenspan's Dessert Cookbook. And I began preparing our Rosemary-Dijon Roasted Potatoes and snapping quite a bit of fresh green beans. We were having Green Beans with Mushrooms and Balsamic Vinegar.

After a few more glasses of wine..our guests started to arrive...just in time to watch us form our loaves. We decided to split the dough in half and make two medium sized oval loaves. So, we each took a pile of dough and our brother took the the 14 pages of recipe and he began to read outloud the steps for forming the loaves. Our sister-in-law watched on and made sure each of us was still on the same step and had turned our dough clockwise the proper number of times. All this time we were carefully watching our coagulated gluten cloak. And then the time came to turn our loaves over to seal our pucker. Then I uttered the words that will be repeated in our family many times..."but my pucker is already sealed." Finally we wrapped our loaves in ripped and floured hot pink sheets. And took them back to the laundry room.

By this time, we knew we would not be having French Bread for dinner, but we had had enough wine not to care that much! We had a lovely dinner and can I just say that Lori's Gateau stole the show!



After dinner and the washing of most of the dishes, it was time to unmold our loaves. This was by far the hardest part of the entire process. Lori unmolded her's first and in her zeal partially deflated my loaf. It took Lori, myself and our brother to get Lori's unmolded and placed on the hot pizza stone. We squirted the loaf down with my multipurpose water bottle. (I use it to spritz the clothes that I am ironing, wet my daughters hair when I'm trying to fix it and now make French Bread.). We also placed a cookie sheet in the bottom of the oven and sprayed it with water to create some steam. Lori's loaf took no where near 25 minutes to bake. In fact, it wasn't even in the oven 20 minutes. Same the was true for mine...which by the time I cooked it looked just fine.


By 10 o'clock that evening my husband and I finally each ate a slice (or two) and declared it worth all the effort! My husband, who frequently travels to Paris, declared it just as good as the bread he eats in his favorite Bistro.

I've learned something through the process...I shouldn't be afraid of lengthy recipes or complicated phrases. This bread was fun and not all that difficult. In fact, I'll be making this again and again! In fact, I've insisted that my husband bring home some French flour the next time he goes. I'll keep you posted on how that turns out!

I'm anxiously awaiting the next challenge....BRING IT ON!

Baby Food & Mama Food

This is Harmon...the baby who never sleeps...EVER! Despite the fact that this little turkey keeps me chronically sleep deprived, I spent a large chunk of my drowsy day, preparing food for him. First, I made one of his favorites, avocado and banana baby food. In my food processor, I puree equal amounts of bananas and avocados. In today's case, three of each. I then add a bit of infant formula to get it the consistency that I like. Then I smooth it into an ice cube tray and freeze it for later use. My other two children really liked the combination of pineapple/avocado and mango/avocado. Avocados, I've read, are the only food that human beings can live off of exclusively. Plus, they are full of Omega 9 fatty acids...brain food! After making baby food, I made a batch of infant cereal cookies. They are not as hard as teething biscuits, but I felt comfortable giving them to my 7 month old. And since they are not all that sweet, the other kids turned up their noses...and I'm not all that tempted by them either! Harmon loved them, but you can tell by looking at him that he just loves food...I not even sure that taste matters to him.

Infant Cereal Cookies

1/4 cup molassas

1/4 cup butter

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

2 cups infant cereal, dry (rice, oatmeal, etc)

3 TBS whole milk, breast milk or formula

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Lightly grease cookie sheet

3. Cream butter and molassas, mix in egg and vanilla

4. Sift dry ingredients and add to butter mixture

5. Mix in milk.

6. Roll dough into balls and then flatten with hand or bottom of a greased glass.

7. Place on prepared cookie sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes. Cool on wire rack. Makes about 2 dozen.

After doing all this baby baking, I decided to whip up something yummy for my dinner tonight as well. For Christmas I got one of those Aerogardens (I love it!). I currently have a beautiful crop of fresh herbs growing on my kitchen counter. So, I decided to pair some of my favorite flavors together and stuff it in a chicken breast. I took feta cheese, lemon zest and homegrown basil and stuffed it into a pocket I cut into a chicken breast. Then I salted and peppered the chicken and browned it in olive oil over medium-high heat. I then placed it in a 350 degree oven to cook the rest of the way. Right before the chicken was ready to come out of the oven, I wilted a bag a baby spinach in the same pan I browned the chicken in...that gave the spinach great flavor. I served the stuffed chicken breast on top of a bed of wilted spinach. Yummy! But now that my belly is full...I my eyelids are getting heavy. I am hoping that Harmon will be nice to his mommy tonight. Afterall, they say that the way to a man's heart is through is stomach...he is just a tiny little man!