Are you looking for a great gift for a recent college grad? Our long-time babysitter is graduating this weekend with a joint degree in pharmacy and business. She’ll be moving to North Carolina this summer for a one year pharmaceutical internship. We have known Cindy since she was twelve – she started babysitting for our two year old daughter after we moved to Sauganash in 2000. Now, Cindy is 24, our baby is almost 15 and our family has grown to include a few more lovely children. All of them adore Cindy. I wanted to get her a special gift to help her start her official life as an adult. I settled on a beautiful, heavy skillet and a Wustof chef knife. I didn’t think most young adults would splurge on good cookware and, while you certainly don’t need beautiful equipment to cook delicious food, it can help.
The lovely Carolyn Barr had my little one over for a playdate this morning. My daughter adores this women and could not wait to spend the morning the Mrs. Barr, playing with her pets, jumping on the trampoline and being spoiled by all of that attention for an hour before preschool. I filled up my bonus time by doing my favorite thing. So far this morning, I've baked up a batch of chocolate chip cookies for my son's soccer pals from dough I'd stashed in the freezer, assembled the ingredients for arugula-radish crostini with fresh ricotta (I made the cheese yesterday) and made Martha Stewart's New York Crumb Cake for my daughter's Saturday morning meeting. Next up? Prepping for Saturday's crock pot pulled pork (the pork shoulder sits overnight in a fabulous spicy dry rub) and prepping the homemade pizzas and kale chips for tonight's kid dinner (I can't just give the soccer kids cookies before the big game).
I was catching up on my email this morning and noticed the Julie Morley game my blog a nice shout out in her weekly Elizabeth Ministry message. I just finished updating this recipe for the Sauganash Sounds (it will be published on May 18th). One of the biggest changes is using grapeseed oil instead of olive oil, a tip I learned at an Elizabeth Ministry seminar. I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as my family does!
I’d love to tell you that my passion for cooking has led me to raise four healthy kids who will eat anything I put in front of them. It would be nice to write about how my children are eager to try to any recipe and that they rush through the door excited to try to latest stew full of spices and vegetables.
This is a fun, slightly different take on your regular chocolate chip cookie bar. Crushed pretzels are added to the batter along with chocolates. When I make them with kids, I’ll usually seal the pretzels in a Ziploc bag and let them crush them lightly with a rolling pin. Don’t let them pulverize the pretzels into a powder; you want to have pieces in your bars. I’ve always made these with regular Nestles chocolate chips, but somehow my Costco sized bag of chips ran out this weekend. I substituted half a milk chocolate Pound Plus bar from Trader Joes, chopped into small pieces.
My little one and I went shopping at TJ Maxx over the weekend and she was captivated by a cupcake making kit.
It came with a cupcake core, two squeeze bottles for filling the cupcakes and a cute little spatula. I caved and bought it. The weekend was crazy busy, but somehow she persuaded me to bake a batch of cupcakes today. I have been fooling around with my chocolate cupcake recipe and this was the perfect excuse to try it again. In the original version, the tops of the cupcakes tend to spread across the pan. The cakes are delicious but they are difficult to remove from the pan. I substituted sour cream for the buttermilk and a stick of butter for the vegetable oil. The cupcakes rose with perfect rounded little tops.
Last summer, I was lucky enough to take a weeklong class at The French Pastry School and to share a workstation with Vanessa Druckman, mother of four, food blogger at chefdruck.com and co-founder of The Chicago Food Swap. Recently, both Vanessa and Toni of Food.(Just Sayin') (another Food Swap connection), posted recipes for homemade ricotta from Homemade with Love, a new cookbook by Jennifer Perillo. My book should be arriving soon and I can’t wait to try more of her recipes because this ricotta was flat out delicious.
Last week, my oldest went to a Model UN conference with her
high school. She was gone for three
nights and I felt a care package was in order.
First, I made chocolate chip cookies.
She asked for the standard cookie – no white chocolate, cocoa powder or
bacon, please mom. Fine, fine,
fine. But I felt the need to experiment
with some kind of baked good, so I decided to try my hand at caramel brownies.
You probably already have everything you need to make a homemade vinaigrette. In addition to oil and vinegar, I like to use
mustard to help emulsify the dressing and a bit of sugar to cut the acidity of
the vinegar. This vinaigrette adds just
the right touch to a simple spinach salad with cherry tomatoes and shaved
parmesan. It tastes better, is much less expensive and doesn't contain any strange ingredients to prolong shelf life that you might find in store bought dressing. Go ahead - check your pantry. I'll bet you have what you need to make it.
I wasn't able to attend last Sunday's Chicago Food Swap at Local Goods Chicago as a swapper, but I did drop by to take a few pictures for The Sounds, our neighborhood newspaper. As usual, this swap had a tempting variety of homemade items. Laura from Local Goods did an amazing job arranging her charming store to accommodate all of the eager participants. I was more than alittle jealous that I was only there as a spectator! This article will be published in the April 20th issue of The Sounds. For additional recaps and to learn more about The Chicago Food Swap, please visit their Facebook page or website.
By the way, I'll be taking the Canning for Newbiesclass from The Scrumptious Pantry that will be held at Local Goods Chicago on Thursday 4/18. Anyone care to join me?
As I test my recipes, I am frequently left with a few extra
ingredients. Since I don’t like to waste
food, I try to find creative ways to use them.
My Coconut Cream Pie only uses egg yolks, so I created this Chocolate
Hazelnut Angel Food cake recipe with the leftover egg whites. It has a lovely, light Nutella flavor thanks to the
addition of hazelnut flour (purchased for my macarons) and a bit of cocoa. The whole family loved it.
If I could, I'd spend the day in the kitchen whipping up treats (many healthy but all delicious) for my family. With four kids, time is at a premium and necessity dictates that I squeeze my cooking in where I can. I hope some of what I do will help give you ideas to help feed your own busy family!
