Kara decides to go for another two milestones in a day

Today, Kara learned how to go up a small flight of stairs unassisted (I was sitting on the second step to help her if she needed it).

Also, today's the first day that — for no reason in particular — she decided to forgo a nap altogether. She even made it to bedtime. Before this, she'd only ever accomplished a feat of stamina of this magnitude on the day of my birthday gathering, and she ended up crashing an hour before her usual bedtime.

I'm considerably less excited about the second development than I am about the first.

Trying out a new chocolate chip cookie recipe



When I made my "go-to" chocolate chip cookies last week — modifying the way I measure the flour by simply scooping it from the bag (rather than spooning it into my measuring cup, then levelling) — I was unimpressed with the result. It wasn't a bad cookie, but it was more cake-y than cookie-like. I decided to try something new this week. This, then, is my variation on Martha Stewart's Soft and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe. This recipe is in the previously blogged Martha Stewart's Cookies.

I took a tip from The Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe and have refrigerated most of the batch overnight to allow the caramel flavour to develop. Even still, the few that I baked off yesterday had a great caramel quality to the taste. I can hardly wait to see how the rest turn out today!

Another milestone in the life of Kara

It would seem that the week-and-a-half of miserable night sleeps is due to the fact that Kara has cut another tooth.

Another excuse for cake? This looks like a job for...




...Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World!

It's Matt's birthday, so I made up another batch of Simple Vanilla and Agave Nectar Cupcakes, this time I paired it with the book's recipe for Thick Chocolate Fudgey Frostin'.

The good news is that I made sure to take photos while I still could. The bad(?) news is that they won't last through tomorrow.

Long weekend cook-a-thon



First up, Saturday's previously blogged spanakopita, an adaptation of eco-natural.com's recipe. My modifications include using two packages of frozen spinach (boiled and drained instead of fresh), using about half the recipe's amounts of parsley and dill in dried form, using crumbled tofu in place of the feta, substituting the ghee for olive oil and adding in about a tablespoon of lemon juice.

Yesterday, I got around to using half a basket of fresh, underripe, Ontario Bartlett pears in a made-from-scratch tart. The tart's pear mixture is comprised of 8 small, sliced Bartlett's, a little less than ¼ cup of sugar, about a tablespoon of tapioca flour (in lieu of cornstarch, which I didn't have on-hand) and about a tablespoon and a half of lemon juice. I ought to have used slightly less lemon juice, but I'm really happy with how the tart turned out! My go-to pie crust recipe is from The Complete Guide to Cooking Techniques. This is easily the most-opened cookbook in my inventory.

Today, I'm trying a new pizza dough recipe in my quest for a thinner crust. I'll know tonight how it turned out.

A bit of shame, a lot of satisfaction

So, you know how I was just talking about how optimistic I am about the vegan cupcake recipe book I recently purchased?

Yeah. So, when I made up a batch of their agave nectar cupcakes yesterday, I had every intention of taking photos. Unfortunately, that plan went awry when I and my family ate all of them by end of dinner today.

Technically, one fell on the floor and didn't get eaten. That makes us less pig-ish, right? And I can blame the baby for eating four of them. Yes, really.

It's of some small consolation that I didn't ice them.