Cake

So, you wanna hear a funny story about how I was making a cake and dropped an eggshell in the mixer while it was running?

You do??

So I was making a cake and dropped an eggshell in the mixer.  While it was running.

Good story, huh?  Guess what?  It's true.

Last night on a whim I decided to make a cake.  I usually make muffins.  Every day.  Maybe it wasn't a whim.  Maybe it was three days of Noah asking me if he could have cake.  And then two nights ago Blair asked for cake.  Lankford apparently needed cake.

So I made one.  And dropped in an eggshell while the mixer was running.  I managed to dig most of it out.  

Most of it...

I made the Golden Layer Cake from my 1953 Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook, and frosted it with the Caramel Frosting found just a few pages later.  It's delicious.  Next time I'll try making it without the added eggshell.

A New Cooky Recipe

When your baby is asleep and your three-year-old needs something fun and messy to do, where do you turn?  The kitchen, of course!  If you're going to make a mess it might as well taste good, amiright??  Not to mention the close vicinity to a sink and lots of towels.

Well, the other night that's exactly where I found myself.  In the kitchen looking for a new cookie recipe to try.  I only had one egg and was short on a couple of other ingredients, so I decided to try my hand at creating my own cookie.  Now, I am no cookie-making extraodinaire like my mother is.  (As a side note:  If you haven't been over to her blog, go.  Now.  Order cookies.  They are gorgeous and delicious.)  However, I have made a cookie or two in my day, so I just started pulling out some of the basics.  Here's what I settled on.  I call them Nutty Chocolate Cooky Bars.  Noah calls them tasty.  Either way, they turned out great.

Nutty Chocolate Cooky Bars

1/3 c shortening

2/3 c butter

1/2 c granulated (white) sugar

1/2 c light brown sugar

1 egg

1 c white flour

1/2 c whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 c cocoa powder

2 c chopped nuts (I used pecans)

Preheat oven to 375*.  Combine shortening and butter in a mixer.  Blend.  Add egg, mix until combined.  Add dry ingredients except for nuts.  Mix until well combined.  Stir in nuts.  Press into large bar pan lined with parchment paper.  Bake for 20 minutes or until set.  Let cool and slice.  Enjoy with a glass of milk.

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And wouldn't ya just know that they make the perfect make-ahead mix for the cabinet?

If you decide to make these, please leave a comment for me so I'll know what you think of them!

Kitchen Storage

Yesterday, I was inspired by this post, written by my sister-in-law, to tidy up my kitchen cabinets.  I've found myself being rather lazy with them over the last few weeks (probably due to the fact that newborns are exhausting and when given the choice to either vacuum or organize, I'm going to pick the floors). 

Blair and I are making the switch from plastic to glass storage in our kitchen.  We're doing this little by little due to the fact that glass storage is more expensive than plastic.  We already have many, many glass quart and pint jars, and since I can't use a pressure cooker on my stove, I store dried goods and mixes in them.  Why keep the jars and bags of beans in the cabinet separately when you can combine them and save on space?

Dried beans and lentils are easily distinguishable in the jars, but biscuit mix and pancake mix look very much the same.  I used to label the flats of the lids with a Sharpie (because that's how my mother does it), but Sharpie doesn't come off.  About a year ago, I ordered a chalk pen from Amazon.  Originally, I just used it on my chalkboards, but I discovered that it doesn't erase well.  I noticed on the package that it can be used on glass, so I started labeling the tops of my lids with it.  It wipes off easily with a little rubbing, and I can use it on the jars and containers I store in the freezer.  

I keep the soaking and cooking directions for beans and lentils written in this cookbook my Mimi bought me as a child.  By doing this, I don't have to keep the packages.  Less clutter.

For items like couscous and quinoa, which are tiny little pellets (and I make a huge mess with every time), instead of using a canning ring and flat I use...

The green lids from parmesan cheese containers!  I save them.  All of them.  You never know when they might come in handy.  From quinoa to letting your three-year-old put pipe cleaners through them, they are great to have around.

Simple.  Glass.  Storage.

Organization achieved.

Let's Cook Supper

I made cheesy quinoa, baked potatoes, fried okra, and peas.

Noah made a mess.

It was a lot of fun.

Comfort in a Bowl

Also known as:  Homemade Soup

I love love love soup in the winter, and homemade soup just can't be beat.  Soup is the perfect quick meal when you need one, and I love to pair it with either my mama's cornbread or my mama's quick muffins.  If you think about it in time, soup can be put in the crockpot (to be smelled all day!) or it can be quickly boiled on the stove.  Now, while I do keep a couple of cans of chicken noodle on hand for those rare times when Blair and myself are both sick enough to not feel like cooking, I really really prefer homemade.  

Homemade soup does take a little more of your time, but it is so good.  It's easier if you keep these ingredients on hand like we do (no trip to the store), but if you plan in advance you can pick things up with your weekly groceries.  Here's what I threw together last week on a whim (meaning I forgot about planning for supper until the last hour). 

Whatcha Got Noodle Soup

3-4 cups chicken (vegetable) broth this depends on how soupy you like your soup.  Also, I pull mine from the freezer because I refuse to buy broth, but Swanson does still work.

1 (large) carrot stick, peeled and thinly sliced scrapings and end pieces go into a bag in the freezer to use in making more broth (because I deplete my supply rather quickly in the winter).

1 celery stalk, thinly sliced the ends of this also get frozen for later stock-making

3 ears of corn already cooked and cut off cob Leftovers from Sunday lunch.  This came from my parents' garden, but you could also use a couple of cans of corn

1 1/2 cups (?) of zipper peas these were also leftovers (and from our garden), no idea how much I used.  Any kind of pea or bean would work

2 finely chopped dried tomatoes store-bought ones work, too, if you don't have any in the freezer.  Oven-drying tomatoes is actually a great way to easily preserve that excess of tomatoes you may have in the summer.

1 TBS dried parsley

Dash of salt

However much pepper you want

About 1 TBS bacon grease totally optional.  This was saved from the last time I cooked bacon.  I keep it in a Mason jar in the fridge.  I promise it's not gross.

Pasta  this is up to you.  Whatever kind you want.  However much you want.  I used spaghetti.  I used about as much as when I make spaghetti for two people, but broke it into two-inch pieces.  

Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer.  Leave alone for about an hour, or until the carrots and celery are tender.   (Or, put it all in your crockpot and let cook all day.)  At some point during this process, cook your pasta.  When your veggies are done, drain the pasta and add it to the soup.  Bring back to a boil, turn off burner, and let sit for about 10 minutes.  Now, enjoy your comfort in a bowl.  

This is easily customizable for whatever you have on hand or like to eat.  

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Quick Muffins

Makes 6

1 c All Purpose Flour

1/2 TBS baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 c. milk

1/4 c. mayo

Preheat oven to 425.  Stir all ingredients until smooth.  Pour into greased muffin pan.  Bake for 20-25 minutes or until tops are golden brown.  

** You can use self rising flour for this, just leave out the baking powder and salt if you do.  You can also double the recipe for 12.**

A Day in the Kitchen

Yesterday was a very busy day, and today I'm:

Enjoying those graham crackers with Noah.

Munching on maple popcorn.

Having homemade blackberry gelatine for breakfast.

Loving the smell of cooking apple butter.

Looking forward to the cheese crackers and marshmallows I have planned and in the making.

I hope you all have a lovely day full of the things you love!

Baking Day

Now, I think most of you know I really like to bake.  And while I don't bake all of our bread, I do bake a good bit of it.  Before Noah was born and I was working, Saturday was designated as baking day.  Now, I just bake whenever I need to.  I try to do it all on one day so I only have to heat up the house once.

Yesterday saw the making of Peanut Butter Granola and French Bread.  Although I don't bake all of our bread, I do make all of our cereal.  We don't buy boxed cereal.  It's granola (or muffins) for us.  Every now and then when I'm feeling spiffy I'll make a coffee cake, but I've found that with only two of us eating it, the cake tends to linger on and on and on until it dries out.  So, I stick mostly with granola.  It's so much better for you (and tasting) than what you buy in the store, you know exactly what's in it, and it only takes about five minutes to throw together and stick in the oven.

The French bread is a relatively new recipe to us, and we love it!  It's very easy to make (Noah helps), and the end result is lovely.  I actually took it and divided it into two round loaves yesterday.  When I bake bread, immediately after removing it from the oven I take a wet cloth and wipe the top of the loaf with it (and it is cloth because we have a paper-free kitchen).  This keeps the crust nice and soft.  The one on the left was only brushed with water after baking.  The one on the right was brushed with butter.  Huge difference.  

Blair got me a copy of The Homemade Pantry:  101 Foods You Can Stop Buying and Start Making for my birthday, and even though most of what we eat is made at home already, I can't wait to start making many of those recipes.  Ricotta!  Graham crackers!  Lentil soup!  Be prepared to read about several of them over the coming weeks.  I'm actually headed to the grocery store in the morning to pick up some ingredients.  

A New Season

"This is the day that the LORD hath made; I will rejoice and be glad in it!"  Psalm 118:24

Butternut Squash

Kale

Apple trees

The start of my new raised beds!

While I don't believe it's here to stay just yet, the cooler weather is supposed to hang around for the next couple of weeks which is just long enough for me to begin to feel Autumn settling in.  I roasted a chicken last week and made 2 quarts of stock over the weekend from the leftover bones.  We've been eating apple pie and starchier foods.  There's football to watch and knitting in the house, and the autumn garden is coming along nicely outside.  The bees seem to know winter is coming, and Blair is doing a great job building my three new raised beds for next year's garden (that was all I wanted for my birthday this year).  If you happen to drive by the house, you'll see I've put my fall wreath on the front door (but don't look too closely, or you'll see that the landscaping fairy has skipped our house for the last couple of months).  The windows are open, the breeze is blowing, and hopefully the weeds in the front flower beds will begin to die soon.  Ah, Autumn, how I have missed you!

Home Cooking

Apparently, I have food on the brain lately.  I promise it's not the only thing happening in our house.  For instance, yesterday I vacuumed up a harmonica.  However, Blair and I have been reading through the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and so much of that series revolves around good food!  I first started reading these books as a five-year-old.  I've read them all at least once a year (sometimes more!) for the last 22 years.  I adore them.  I have much of them memorized.  Blair, however, has never read a single one.  I was almost offended.  However, rather than taking the offended, emotional route, I took the educational high road and handed him Farmer Boy.  He loves it.  He hasn't finished it yet, because he is a very busy man (much like the male characters in the series), but he reads a little of it every evening. I'm pretty sure if there was a farm house for sale in our county, we would be buying it and raising livestock.  Tomorrow.  Instead of falling into financial ruin by buying a house and animals we can't afford, I have been channeling that homesteading energy into the kitchen.  Last night I baked parmesan crusted chicken (locally raised, organic, and free range), creamed potatoes and peas (both garden fresh, though the potatoes were from a friend), corn on the cob from my parents' garden, risotto, my Mama's Biscuits, and chocolate peanut butter cookies.  I probably went a little overboard, but I shouldn't have to cook for the next couple of days.  I don't have a single photograph to show you, but, despite Garth Williams' amazing illustrations, neither do the Little House books.  I shall just let you use your imaginations.  Now, go read a book and bake something!

Sunday Lunch

Sunday lunch was typically a very nice meal in my home growing up.  At least, that's how I remember it (a roast with carrots and potatoes comes to mind).  The food wasn't always fancy, but we ate from nice dishes, used my mom's special green stemware, and the food was put into pretty serving bowls.  My mom had two sets of "nice dishes".  One pattern was of little blue flowers with scalloped edges, and the other was rimmed with a design of honey-colored wheat.  The blue flowers were my favorite, but I preferred the wheat dishes on Sundays because they matched the glasses better.  

I try to do the same thing in our home on Sundays.  We typically don't eat out even during the week, but it's particularly important to us to be home together in the (relative) peace of our house on the Lord's Day.  Blair has a chance to wind down from leading worship and spend a few moments with Noah.  I try to have as much prepared the night before as possible, leaving minimal work in the kitchen once we get home (after all, I have a two-year-old used to eating at noon).  We sing the Doxology as our blessing and wait to see just how long Noah will last at the table before it's time to excuse him to his play.

Yesterday, I served mac and cheese (homemade, of course), peas (my mother would have served green beans), yellow squash, potato salad (with homemade pickles), and rolls.  There were leftover apple cinnamon muffins from breakfast for anyone in need of a sweet (Mr. Noah), and plenty of leftovers to send with my darling to work for his lunch today.  There was something about the dried onion in the mac and cheese that made me think of Grandma Cook, although she would have put them on green beans, and I found myself wishing I'd made mashed potatoes and deviled eggs in place of the potato salad.  Potato salad is just too summery, and yesterday felt like Autumn (I'll enjoy it while it lasts).  

Sunday lunch is a tradition dear to me (and to Blair), and I hope that one day it will come to mean as much to my little ones as they grow up as it did to me in childhood.

My Love Had a Birthday

Noah and I spent the week making decorations and a card.

A simple meal of meatloaf and fresh garden veggies.

And a homemade apple pie.  The crust and filling recipes are both from the 1954 Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book.  My favorite. 

Despite the fact that he did not get any extravagant gift, Blair declared it his "best birthday yet."

Apples, Apples Everywhere

And quite a few to eat!  I remember as a little girl going to my grandmother's house around this time of year to help out with apple picking.  She only had one tree, but it usually produced a large number of apples.  The only thing I ever remember her making with the apples was applesauce.  Lots and lots of applesauce, usually stored in the dozens upon dozens of empty butter tubs she saved.  Grandma Cook would sit in the kitchen paring, slicing, and cooking while we worked to pick all of those apples under and in the tree.  My dad would use an apple picker of my grandfather's making, which was little more than an old shovel (or other tool's) handle with an old coffee can nailed to the end, while Matt and I worked on the ground and from the few branches we could reach.  

I've done my own fair share of paring, slicing, and cooking over the last two apple seasons.  I'm not quite good enough to peel the entire apple while keeping the skin intact, but I'm determined to get there.  We have two apple trees of our own in the backyard that aren't yet old enough to produce fruit, but when they are, I'll be ready.  I like to call these "real apples."  Apples that look the way they are supposed to.  They're not shiny and gleaming and perfect.  But they taste so much better than those farmed-for-the-store apples.

Noah prefers his apples lined up in a row.

Making some applesauce of my own.

This is about 1/3 of the apples in our house.  We have very generous friends.

Apples sliced to be frozen, bagged, and used in pies later in the year. 

I have several ideas in the works for these apples, and hopefully over the next couple of days I'll have a few more to share with you.  For now, I shall go have a snack.  An apple, of course.

Weekending

We had one of those rare and glorious weekends where Daddy was home with us for longer than a few hours.  Noah helped me make a loaf of bread (and if you've never tried a fermented bread, I highly recommend it), but mostly we just laid around watching the Olympic Games.  I did also make tomato soup, and there's just something so delectable about making something from scratch with ingredients you plucked from your own backyard (or you already had on hand).

Tomato Soup

2TBS butter

2 TBS olive oil

3 cloves of garlic, minced

2 stalks celery, finely sliced

1 small yellow onion chopped

1 quart homemade tomato sauce

2 cups homemade chicken or turkey stock (or water)

3/4 cup heavy cream

salt

pepper

basil

Melt the butter and oil in a large soup pot.  Add garlic, celery, and onion.  Cook for 15 minutes or until vegetables are soft.  Add tomato sauce and stock.  Simmer for 15 minutes.  Using an immersion blender (or small batches in a regular blender), blend until smooth.  Slowly add cream.  Season to taste.  

**I also added a packet of slow-roasted tomatoes that I made and froze last year.  To make these, slice tomatoes into halves or quarters depending on the size, drizzle with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and bake at 200 for 3 or 4 hours on a foil lined baking sheet.  If you're in a hurry, you can increase the oven temp and decrease the time.  They just won't be quite as sweet.

If you want to make this in larger batches to freeze, simply complete all of the steps except adding the cream.  Add the cream once you've thawed the soup and are ready to serve it.  

Good Food

And fun at the table!  Not that Mr. Noah is an adventurous eater, but he does enjoy begging for and then refusing to eat everything on my plate.  He just enjoys being together at the table, and I think that's something so many families in this country miss out on.  Meals together at the table.

Lately for lunch, I've simply been eating a cheese and mayo sandwich with tomatoes fresh from the garden.  Today, I enjoyed that with my homemade pickles.

Supper has been anything from popcorn to homemade pizza to vegetarian spaghetti (which was absolutely delicious).  

Of course, I'm a little biased, but the homemade tomato sauce going on everything sure does taste great!

So, turn off the TV, clear your table, and sit down for some good food and conversation with those you love.

Sometimes It's Necessary

...to have popcorn for supper.  Really.  I promise.  It is.  Now, you won't find this little bit of information in my diatribe post on motherhood, but sometimes those days (and nights) simply exist. 

Add a little melted butter and parmesan, and you're good to go!

A Father's Day Treat

I'm not going to waste words.  After a wonderful morning at church, we went home and took three hour naps.  And then.  Oh, and then.  We made ice cream.  We made brownies.  They were great!  The ice cream was the easiest ice cream recipe we've ever tried, though it probably would be better with real vanilla instead of imitation, but it sure is tasty!

Vanilla Ice Cream (here's the link to the original recipe)

2 c powdered sugar

1 c whipping cream

3 tbsp vanilla

2 qt half and half

Combine powdered sugar, whipping cream, and vanilla; stir until smooth. Add half & half. Pour into freeze can of a 1 gallon hand turned or electric freezer. Freeze according to manufacturer's instructions. Yield: 1 gallon.

Delicious!  And here is where I wrote about the brownies a while back.  Give it a try!

A Summertime Treat

Little Man has been helping me in the kitchen lately.  He mostly just cuts up his plastic food and plays in the dish water, but it is a start.

With all of the heat and high temps lately, I've been wanting to keep food light, simple, and cool.  

One easy (and tasty) way to do this is with frozen fruit and yogurt pops.  You can really make these any way you choose, but I put in 1 banana, 3 or 4 sliced strawberries, some Smooth and Creamy Strawberry Yogurt, and unsweetened applesauce.  Mash it all up until it is relatively smooth and pour into freezer pop molds.  They work great as a dessert or even for breakfast.  I am a firm believer that once it is above 90 degrees outside, one should quit eating oatmeal.  At least quit eating it every morning.