Just so I don't get kicked off blogger

Don't kick me off until I manage to save all this stuff or print it or something!

Archives of the Recipe of the Week

Cinnamon Butter
This is a great way to include the little ones so they can contribute to the enjoyment of homemade bread: CINNAMON BUTTER 1/4 cup organic unsalted butter 2 tbsp organic sugar 1 tbsp organic brown sugar 1 tbsp ground cinnamon Soften unsalted butter to room temperature. Combine the softened butter and other ingredients together until they are completely blended. Place the compound butter in a container. Or, shape butter in logs and wrap in parchment paper, then cut into 1/4- to 1/2-inch discs. Chill for a at least 1 hour and preferably one day. NOTE: Compound butters can be store under refrigeration for up to 5 days or up to 6 months in the freezer

		Strawberry Bread Adapted from allrecipes.com (Ellen Rainey) 3 cups of fresh strawberries, smashed 3 cups all-purpose unbleached flour 1/8 cup wheat flour 2 cups white sugar 1/2 tablespoon ground cinnamon 1 tablespoon vanilla 1tsp salt 1tsp baking soda 1 1/4 cup vegetable oil 4 eggs, beaten Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour two 9x5 inch loaf pans Sprinkle smashed berries with some of the sugar. Combine flour, sugar, cinnamon, salt and baking soda in large bowl and mix. Blend oil and eggs into strawberries. Add strawberry mixture to flour mixture, until just moistened. Divide batter in half into pans. Bake 45 to 50 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes on wire rack. Turn loaves out and cool completely.	4/15/08 11:03 AM
		Open a ziploc bag. Place several drops of food coloring inside the bag. Add one tablespoon of white vinegar to the bag. Place two cups of rice into the bag. Seal the bag and squish the rice around the bag until all the grains are colored. Pour the rice on a cookie sheetl, spreading it out into a single layer of grains. Bake on 200 degrees for 30 minutes.

I have moved - check out my new blog over at Typepad!

When I first started blogging, I did some research and heard a lot of good things about Typepad but since I wasn't sure I would actually stick with the blogging, the practical part of me decided it would be best to start with a free host. Even though I have not been blogging as frequently in the last month because of work and sick kiddos, I have decided that blogging is for me. So come check out my new site! I am still trying to learn how to work Typepad so things will get better over time, children willing. :)

http://mmmtasty.typepad.com/

-n

Phew!

So I bet you have been on the edge of your seats wondering why I haven't been blogging, huh?
(Or not - cuz you have your own life and are only mildly amused by mine.)

Anyhow, I got deployed to Las Vegas to help with the Hepatitis/syringe reuse thing that resulted in a notification of 40, 000 patients in southern Nevada.

Good times.

The last time I was deployed was during the SARS outbreak. After I had Sizzles, I cut my hours way back and now only work part-time. Going out to the field when I am used to working only a couple days of week was a big adjustment for me and my girls. But their super-fly daddy kept the home fires burning and even managed to avoid ordering pizza every night. (He did order "Shrimp with Lobster Sauce" but that was only after the children had burned through all the food I crammed into the fridge the day I left for Vegas).

In five days, my little foodies ate 8 bananas, 2 quarts of strawberries, a 2lb bag of grapes, an 8 snack cups of applesauce and half a box of Kidz cliff bars. Did I mention the chicken shish kabobs, loaf of pumpkin bread, box of Nature's Own Cheese crackers and 2.5 pounds of oranges? :)

These girls can EAT. (They clearly have their father's metabolism.)

I haven't had a spare second to run to Whole Foods, so the food supply is virtually non-existent. Thank God my parents arrived last night from Ft. Lauderdale! They swooped in and made a MASSIVE pot of spaghetti sauce studded with Italian sausage and meatballs.

Re-entry into regular life is harder than I remember but gobbling up spaghetti by the forkful is making it a little bit easier.

Mmm Tasty!

Making Food the Old Fashioned Way - Growing It

On a blustery Saturday, during the last days of the month of February, we planted seeds.

Sizzles and I had gone to the Hastings earlier in the week and picked them out. She chose seed packets of tomatoes, corn, basil, thyme, and sunflowers. Here we are planting the seedlings of the herbs only.

We struggled a lot with the prepackaged pellets that came with the seedling contraption. In hindsight we should have just used regular old dirt but seeing that we were amateurs and didn't know any better we attempted to make our lives easier by spending a good 30 minutes trying to use the short-cut pellets. LOL.

Live and Learn!

One Word Wednesday

So, Brian says to Sizzles: "Your sister is having some grapes, do you want some?

To which she responds: "BACON!"

Her daddy is SO proud. He wants to get her these. Actually, I suspect he wants them for himself.

How Dare I?

I paced. I wrung my hands. I pleaded with God.
I considered pleading with the head of The Daring Baker's Blogroll herself, that this recipe was, well, too DARING.
Then I took a deep breath and flung myself off the cliff, accepting that I would attempt (with a 3.5 year old and 1 year old underfoot and only one successful attempt to make a loaf of bread ) to make a French Batard. All, so I could publicly parade myself about as a Daring Baker.

Come along on my journey: Mission 1:
1) First I decided I needed to attempt one more bread making excursion before embarking upon the Mount Everest of the bread-making world - a French Baguette. I decided to make Julia's Country Bread. Without closely reading the instructions, I presumed that since it was called Country Bread that it would be simple as surely people living on a farm (in the country) didn't have too much time to muck about with the necessary task of making bread. I never reread the instructions and simply began the process. During that process I learned (not until I came upon each broken bridge in my journey) that: a) this bread requires 3 different rises b) it required a baking stone of which I had none c) stabbing your bread with a large chef's knife is NOT the same as slashing your bread with a razor blade, d) spraying mists of water across the back of your gas oven could cause it to sputter and screw up its temperature gauging mechanism and e) pulling bread out early and then deciding it wasn't completely finished cooking and then putting it back in the oven while the cold oven climbed back to 400 degrees F does not produce edible bread.Status of mission: FAILURE

2) Next I thought I should read, re-read, and read again the instructions for making the French Batard (a short stubby version of the French Baguette) in hopes that I would be less likely to make a mistake. On about the third read through and 236th interruption by Sizzles and Sticky-Butt, I noticed that the recipe called for compressed yeast, also known as fresh yeast. I do not, nor have I ever, owned fresh yeast. I went to Whole Foods and found no fresh yeast. I went to the Dekalb Farmer's Market and found no fresh yeast. I called the Cooks Warehouse and found no fresh yeast. I called the critically acclaimed Alon's Bakery and was SHOCKED when I found no fresh yeast. Their head baker told me to call the head baker at Dekalb Farmer's Market (and tell her she told me to call her) and see if they might have some in the back. I still found no fresh yeast. She called her distributor and they don't sell fresh yeast anywhere in Atlanta.

Status of mission: FAILURE

3) Regardless, I soldiered on and knew I had to figure out how to substitute dried yeast for fresh yeast. Luckily, there are plenty of resources on the Internet that pointed out that one package of dried yeast is equivalent to a .6 oz cake of fresh yeast.

4) Make the bread. I was moving along nicely for about 15 minutes. Then I realized the appearance of my dough was not in step with Julia Child's description of the her dough. It was because I essentially added an extra cup of water and a tablespoon of sugar into the original recipe when I proofed the dried yeast, according to rough attempt at translating the package's instructions. So I figure I would wing it and toss in an extra 3/4 cup of flour.

Note to reader: Winging it while baking is NOT recommended.

5) I commenced with making the bread and had a heck of a time understanding the instructions, while keeping my children entertained. The small bowls of food I was putting on the floor for Sticky Butt, as if she were the cat, only bought me about five minutes at a time. Eventually, I started grabbing off hunks of dough and adding those to the piles of purple, blue and yellow bowls all across the kitchen floor. I even got desperate enough to let the girls play with a bowl of flour and measuring spoons. (My kitchen will never recover, somehow even the coffee maker ended up caked with flour). At some point during all this, I decided that I am a visual learner and googled away to find out if PBS had archival footage of this particular episode of Baking with Julia. AND THEY DID! Once I saw that, I got a clue as to the kneading and seam work required to make the batard.

6) Bake the bread. The first loaf was a bust. It turns out something is wrong with my oven (not a surprise as my 2 year old snazzy Kitchenaid has been nothing but a pain in my booty). I switched to the gas convection option and baked the remaining two to perfection.

Mission Status: THEY WERE GREAT!

So, I am officially a daring baker!