I am hungry again...

2012-01-26T18:57:00.005-05:00

Another loaf of homemade bread

This iteration was based on the same recipe consulted for last week's iteration. I was all out of whole wheat bread flour, so this version uses organic, all-purpose flour. I used flax oil for the vegetable oil called for — mostly because I should use up the flax oil I've been keeping in the fridge. I should probably also mention that the eggs we keep in stock at home are always organic because I find that the non-organic kind irritate my stomach.

This is the best bread I've ever made, so it's fairly safe to say I'm going to make it again.

2012-01-22T19:26:00.002-05:00

Tourtière double-whammy

After the wild success of my last foray into tourtière-making, I thought it would be a nice comfort food to make for dinners this week. One will be frozen for future use.

2012-01-21T14:07:00.006-05:00

Continuing adventures in the land of homemade bread

It would appear that the secret to an excellently-proofed (risen) bread is sugar in the dough mixture. The recipe I consulted calls for ¼ cup of sugar (far more than the usual lack of sugar in the yeast dough recipes I've worked with). I cringed while I added it to the dry ingredients, but it made a huge difference in the final result. Consider me schooled.

2012-01-14T20:16:00.003-05:00

Today's breakfast

Chocolate Chip Pancakes. Yum.

2012-01-07T14:28:00.002-05:00

Walk off the Earth - Somebody That I Used to Know

Cover of the Gotye song. For those who haven't seen it yet.

2011-12-25T21:23:00.002-05:00

And then there's this...

Just before anyone goes thinking that I am some infallible domestic goddess (those who've tried my burned and salty chili can attest to the fact that I am not), this is what happened when I tried to make old-fashioned chocolate fudge. The fudge was setting as I was pouring it out of the pan. The butter fudge I made earlier behaved similarly, but not to this extreme.

I'm either going to have to never use this recipe again, or figure out what I was doing "wrong".

2011-12-19T13:29:00.003-05:00

Dairy-free fudge!

Ah, fudge. How I've missed the unapologetically sweet, lightly salted, creamy, crusty fantastic-ness that it provides. Since becoming lactose-intolerant, it was relegated to the realm of Guilty Pleasure With Lactaid — a realm that I dare not visit often.

Having discovered that others have created (damned appealing-looking) vegan fudge with success, I decided to take a crack at substituting the dairy out of a traditional fudge recipe. In this case, I made "butter" fudge by substituting soy milk for the milk, vegan margarine for the butter and Lyle's Golden Syrup for the corn syrup.

As it turns out, the substitutions I made makes this fudge vegan. Whatever its "status" is, I'm thrilled that I've made a damn good fudge and I can eat it, too!

2011-12-10T14:31:00.008-05:00

Why I've been quiet...

...I seem to have been bitten by the knitting-bug. Hard. I've knit more pieces in the past few months than I have — in total — for the past several years.

Years ago, I did a simple Fair Isle swatch in two colours. The swatches pictured above are my first crack at complex colourwork. These swatches use both Fair Isle and Intarsia knitting techniques.

I developed the colour charts myself (not that making a chart of 8-bit sprites is that hard) and am working on them to practice for a commission I've taken on. My plan is to complete all six FFI Before Class Change Party Sprites before I start the commissioned sweater.

I don't know how I could possibly make this any more nerdy than it already is.

2011-11-13T17:05:00.003-05:00

Another wrinkle of experience for Kara's brain

Apparently, running around all day, every day, without any regard for whether or not one is tired leaves one open to developing a case of Pneumonia. Who'da thunk?

It's been a fun weekend around here (and at North York General Hospital).

2011-10-30T13:40:00.003-04:00

Another baking-intensive weekend

As alluded to previously, I ended up bringing cupcakes to last night's Hallowe'en gathering. I thought it'd be fun to play into the theme by bringing pumpkin cupcakes with vegan cream cheese icing. I also decided to make up a batch of chocolate cupcakes — also with cream cheese icing — to ensure that everyone who wanted a cupcake got to have one.

The recipes I used are — unsurprisingly — from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. The only recipe I didn't follow faithfully was the pumpkin version. Their recipe suggests adding chocolate chips to the batter, but the idea of chocolate chips with pumpkin doesn't really appeal to me. I also added some freshly-grated nutmeg to the batter.

Also, I was able to ice these a little more prettily than I have been by using my recently-acquired Ateco pastry tip in size 809 and piping bag. I'm going to have to buy another piping bag for my smaller, standard-size tips, but I think I've gotten the hang of using the larger one!

2011-10-15T13:19:00.004-04:00

More cupcake adventures!

Sadly, the batch of vegan Golden Vanilla Cupcakes I made today aren't very photogenic. I think that my vegan margarine was still too cold when I started beating it with the sugar. As a result, they sank after coming out of the oven.

That said, they taste incredible. Much nomming has been — and will be — had.

2011-10-10T22:51:00.003-04:00

Busy weekend for our oven

I meant to get around to doing paint touch-ups around the house today, but those plans were backburned when I realized that we were almost out of bread on a statutory holiday Monday. The allure of fresh-baked bread was just too strong to ignore.

The recipe I based this on is one which I've blogged about previously. As per my last batch of homemade bread (made over a year and a half ago!), I used a 1:1 ratio of organic, unbleached white flour to whole wheat "hard"/bread flour. I accidentally omitted the shortening called for in the recipe, so this bread is noticeably drier than my previous attempts, but it's still really good!

Looks like Kara and I will have toast and eggs tomorrow morning.

2011-10-09T13:34:00.004-04:00

Good news for those who will be at the same Hallowe'en party as I

These turned out really nicely. That wasn't a surprise, given how fantastically the other two recipes I've taken from my cupcake reference book have turned out.

This — while it may not look terribly appetizing right now — also turned out damn well. I'd heard mixed reviews about this recipe, so I'm happy that it's a success.

The only thing I'm disappointed about is that there will be an even six people at Thanksgiving dinner tonight — allowing for two cupcakes per person. I can't "sample" these before we go!

2011-09-27T19:42:00.004-04:00

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.

2011-09-25T10:43:00.002-04:00

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!

2011-09-17T23:06:00.001-04:00

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.

2011-09-11T20:24:00.005-04:00

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.

2011-09-05T13:25:00.017-04:00

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.

2011-09-02T19:49:00.003-04:00

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.

2011-08-27T20:06:00.004-04:00

Now is time for cake

After the success of my most recent foray into cake-making, I decided to purchase the e-book from which that recipe came, Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World. The way I see it, it doesn't hurt to have an entire baked-goodies cookbook which makes a point of avoiding dairy. I don't currently have all the supplies I need for a true foray into cupcake-making, but I do have the basics for cake-making.

Mom's birthday, this past Thursday, seemed the perfect ~~excuse~~ reason to try out a recipe or two from the book.

I'd heard so many good things about Red Velvet Cake and was hoping its allure was less about its often-vibrant colouring and more about the balance of flavours involved. I decided to try my hand at adapting a dairy-free version.

In the end, extracting natural food colouring from beets or raspberries was a bit too intimidating at this early stage in my development as a baker, so I opted to do a simpler "Velvet Cake", omitting any extra colouring — thus using the exact same recipe I paired with the raspberry buttercream last time — and going with the vegan cookbook's cream cheese icing.

I doubled the cake batter to fill two cake pans and also doubled the icing recipe to be certain to make enough to frost a cake.

The cake, as a whole, was the best damn cake I've ever eaten in my life. The icing didn't overpower the chocolate cake (although I would have liked a bit more cream cheese "tang" to the finished product) and wasn't too sweet, 'though certainly sweet enough. The cake itself was unbelievably moist without being dense. It was fantastic!

2011-08-27T10:04:00.001-04:00

I'm sittin' on a goldmine!

Well, $559,628 any way.

2011-08-23T15:44:00.005-04:00

Hey, know what's fun?

Trying not to sound passive-aggressive when you're so hormonal, massively underslept and fed-up with the fact that your mother just holds up clothing up to your baby to make sure it looks "pretty" on her in the midst of a North American bedbug infestation that you finally send out an email to your immediate family to tell them to cut that shit out.

2011-08-06T14:33:00.012-04:00

Well, it's not going to win any Prettiest Cake awards...

...but this is a much better cake than the last one I made.

I had some leftover raspberry buttercream in the freezer following the making of Kara's birthday cake and knew from experience that pairing lemon cake with it again would be a mistake, so I decided to look into chocolate cake recipes. I was able to find a recipe for vegan chocolate cupcakes which I made the batter for and poured into a cake pan. After the resultant cake cooled, I halved it vertically, frosted the bottom half, then added the top half and finished frosting. The cake itself is really good (and I don't like cake); it's not too chocolaty, not too sweet and it's moist without being dense. The frosting is much better with this cake than with the lemon cake. I think it's because having the two tart flavours paired makes everything come across as too sweet, whereas having the tart frosting paired with the slightly bitter chocolate flavour balances out nicely.

I will not make this icing again (I think I'll experiment further with the mock whipped cream recipe in my Friendly Food cookbook). If I make the cake again, I'll try to remember to double the recipe and bake two layers to slice — having a top layer made from the domed top portion of a cake makes it less visually impressive than it tastes.

Looks like I'll have me-friendly birthday cake this year!

2011-07-31T13:20:00.006-04:00

Oh, homemade pizza, it's been too long...

A quick search through my blog entries for pizza indicates that the last time I had homemade pizza was on March 22, 2010. I'm sad to say that that seems accurate.

So it's with much fanfare that I report that today marks my first post-Kara venture into the marvelous world of homemade pizza! I ended up making a double-batch of Wolfgang Puck's pizza dough which was featured on Food Wishes. I used up the hard whole wheat flour I had from when I was regularly making pizza dough from scratch and blended it with hard unbleached flour, rather than using the all-purpose flour called for in the original recipe. I made a pizza for lunch, set aside a portion of dough for Matt's dinner and froze the remaining six portions.

This iteration uses olive oil, pre-made bruschetta topping, sliced cremini mushrooms, black olives and chopped prosciutto. It's so good to be able to have homemade pizza again.

I think I'm going to look into other dough recipes in the coming months. This one is really quite good, but I think I'd like to find a good thin crust recipe, too.

2011-07-25T20:31:00.001-04:00

THePETEBOX - Where Is My Mind (Cover)

Give it a chance.

2011-07-16T22:20:00.008-04:00

Bánh mì with authentic chả lụa and do chua!

I seem to be steadily building upon my bánh mì-making skills by adding something new and authentic to the repertoire every time I crave one. This time, I made the daikon and carrot slaw, do chua, from scratch.

I picked up soft buns from Nino D'Aversa Bakery, used Commensal Veggie Paté and Kewpie Mayonnaise as my spreads, added pan-fried chả lụa in sesame oil, a fried egg, a dash of soy sauce, some fresh cilantro and freshly-made do chua to this iteration.

It turned out fantastically. I think I'll make variations on this sandwich all week. The only bad part is that all I have left to make for a "true" bánh mì experience is homemade baguettes, and I have no idea when I'll have the time to work on that.

2011-07-07T20:31:00.002-04:00

And then, there's this...

Viva Vox Choir - Du Hast (A Capella)

2011-07-07T19:25:00.003-04:00

Homemade biscuits

I've discovered that there are only so many ads for buttermilk biscuit breakfast sandwiches a person can be inundated with before succumbing. I found a recipe for Southern Buttermilk Biscuits, made a buttermilk substitute and got to baking.

These are damn fantastic.

2011-06-29T20:18:00.002-04:00

Chocolate chunk cookies!

This recipe has become my "go-to" recipe for chocolate chip cookies. I ran out of chocolate chips, so I opted to use some chopped dark chocolate in their place. The cookies turned out well. :)

2011-06-20T19:59:00.010-04:00

When it comes to milestones, my kid doesn't mess around

While Kara and I took a moment to relax on the couch this morning, she grabbed my finger, opened her mouth and stuck it inside. This is a behaviour which she used to engage in considerably in the past, but which recently subsided. She stuck my finger into the back of her mouth, presumably to massage a spot for her. It was only when I started feeling around that I noticed a hard protrusion at the lower-front and left of her gumline. A quick peek showed that what I felt was — in fact — Kara's long-awaited first tooth!

Then, as we were finishing up dinner, she decided to do some of this:

I hear that this sort of thing is a pretty big deal a video by flickr.ghanima on Flickr.

2011-06-05T21:02:00.002-04:00

Vegan chocolate chip cookies!

Many thanks to Emma for first providing me with a sample of, then sending me a link to the recipe for, Go Dairy Free's"Can't Miss" Chocolate Chip Cookie. It's yummy.

2011-06-04T20:34:00.002-04:00

Milestone-time!

When I looked down from what I was reading at the dinner table at where Kara was, on the floor, she was standing up unassisted.

When I got kinda squealy about it, she thought I was upset with her and hid under my chair for a while. I had to clap my hands and give her a hug to get the message across. Silly baby. :)

2011-05-28T12:20:00.003-04:00

Strawberry custard tart

The newest President's Choice Insider's Report features amongst its offerings a Patisserie-Style Strawberry Tart. As is often the case with commercially-available desserts, this offering contains dairy products, which means it's a no-no for me. Still, I was intrigued by the concept and decided to try my hand at making something similar.

A trip to Cayne's yesterday provided me with a tart pan, something which I never had a need for before I could make decent pie dough.

I sliced and macerated the strawberries yesterday, made the pie dough today, baked it blind, spread strawberry jam (this is what we had on-hand, I'd rather we had something without "glucose-fructose" in it), poured in a basic custard made of 5 eggs and a "lunch box mini" carton of unsweetened soy milk and added the strawberries. I sprinkled a little bit of sugar on the tart and baked it at 350° until the custard was set. Now I'm waiting for it to cool before I try it.

2011-05-18T15:55:00.002-04:00

Longest stretch yet

Kara just spent a little under 9 consecutive hours awake — her longest stint yet. Fortunately for me, this was during a day in which I took her out in her stroller for about an hour and a half early on, then had a visit from my parents. Undoubtedly, her show of stamina can be attributed to all of the excitement today, but still, damn.

2011-05-05T07:47:00.002-04:00

Someone's been feeding my baby methamphetamines

I have no other way to explain the fact that she can go to sleep a little after 8 pm, wake at 2 am for a half-hour, then again at 4:30 am, then wake for the day at 6:30 am.

When I find that guy, I'm gonna kill him.

2011-05-03T20:18:00.000-04:00

Radiohead - How Can You Be Sure

2011-05-01T12:47:00.004-04:00

A taste of (delicious, delicious) victory!

What's that expression about when you fall off the horse?

A conversation with Matt early last week had me deciding that I was going to look into tourtière recipes. A brief research-session showed that there was no such thing as a quintessential tourtiere. I decided to go to my favourite Western-food recipe site and chose this highly-rated recipe for tourtiere out of the lot — it's a good sign when a "grandma" recipe gets rave reviews.

The original recipe makes eight(!) pies, so I scaled it down to a more-manageable two. Four pounds of ground meat is just the right amount to fit my largest pan with enough room to stir. A trip to the supermarket proved that my options — as far as "liquid chicken seasoning" were concerned — were, unfortunately, chock-full of preservatives. I went with the lesser of several evils and settled on Knorr's Homestyle Chicken Stock. I might try to use homemade chicken stock next time.

I have yet to taste the pie itself, but the filling was perfect. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the spices don't much alter the flavour of the meat, whereas the chicken seasoning is what makes the pie taste authentically tourtiere-like.

After the "crushing" defeat I suffered at the hands of the latest batch of vegan crumb cake, it's not to score a victory again.

2011-04-30T13:45:00.003-04:00

Disappointing

I still haven't managed to kick this cold. I've gone through one "family-size" jug and two large cartons of orange juice this week. I hate juice. I've had uncountably many large cups of ginger tea. I've gone to bed early every single night. I'm still snotty and prone to dehydration. I'm hoping this phase is its death-throes.

Also, the double-batch of the vegan crumb cake I just made had a depressingly sandy crumb topping — that was not what I was going for. I'm going to have to consider making just the cake itself in the future.

In good news, Kara (and I) really enjoyed getting into the sunshine today, socializing with random people in our townhouse complex and exploring the smatterings of nature I allowed her to handle freely.

2011-04-24T19:31:00.003-04:00

Sick like dog

Mental note: the next time my body tells me it has enough energy to make pancakes, pie crust dough, 2 quiches, 4 homemade hamburgers, a rack of ribs and roast potatoes, I must really be preparing for a dirty, rotten, completely-exhausting cold.

The good news is that Matt was able to take on enough of the baby-watching duties over the long weekend that I was able to get 2 extra naps per day, both today and yesterday. I'm hoping that I'm over the worst of it, 'cause feeling like this as Kara's sole caretaker wouldn't go well.

2011-04-17T18:01:00.007-04:00

I might just be on a vegan "kick"...

I have no idea how I originally found this tantalizing-looking Vegan Crumb Cake recipe, but am I ever glad I did!

I don't have any 8" x 8" cake pans, so I used my copper tamago pan to bake it in. I have used this pan for baked goods in the past, most notably my homemade blondies.

The cake turned out nice and tender, not overly sweet, while the crumb topping has a nice, firm consistency to each "crumb" — completely unlike the crumbly, streusel-like topping I was expecting. This is definitely going to be made again.

2011-04-15T17:21:00.009-04:00

Vegan White Chocolate!

The Martha Stewart's Cookies cookbook (which I blogged about previously), contains a recipe for a vanilla sandwich cookie with a raspberry-white chocolate filling — something which caught my interest immediately. Unfortunately, white chocolate, by definition, contains milk ingredients. I've been keeping an eye out for a dairy-free substitute, but have come up empty-handed. The lack of choice as far as vegan white chocolate is concerned is known within the vegan community.

In light of the fact that I haven't found any commercially-available white chocolate substitutes, I decided to look around for recipes for vegan white chocolate instead. It was during my search that I stumbled upon BitterSweet's recipe for vegan white chocolate. Subsequent searching for an edible cocoa butter yielded the discovery that NOW Foods produces a food-grade cocoa butter. I use their shea butter as a moisturizer, and recognized that Ambrosia carries both!

A trip to Ambrosia provided me with the cocoa butter and soy milk powder I needed for the recipe, and I made my white chocolate yesterday. It is, of course, all gone now. :)

The cocoa butter doesn't set up as smoothly as I would like (which I suspect is partly due to the graininess of the vanilla bean flecks and mostly due to the lack of emulsifiers), but — after years and years of being unable to eat white chocolate — I was happy to find the flavour and texture of the vegan version remarkably accurate! I have little doubt that I'll be making batches for further baking adventures in the near future.

2011-04-11T21:54:00.004-04:00

A year in review

Today is Kara's first birthday!

In all honesty, it's been the most physically and emotionally stressful, challenging and full-on exhausting year of my life. As little as a half-year ago, all I could think about was getting to this milestone in Kara's existence. I didn't start to feel like I was achieving some tiny semblance of my own life until Kara was 15 weeks old.

From there, it wasn't until Kara was about 8 months old that I felt like I could count on my day-to-day life to be consistently good. It's only been a little more than a month since anybody in this household could count on getting more than 5 hours of sleep at a stretch. I still don't feel like my brain has fully recovered from the beating it took for those 11 months — my memory is still shot, most of the time.

So, while I would have liked to have had a sibling for Kara, I still don't feel that I'll be capable of forgetting the "bad times" enough to be able to have more children.

All that said: Kara is still the most delightful person I've ever had in my life. It really is a joy to be with her daily. Having a child is the most dichotomous thing I can imagine anyone experiencing.

Super-cool milestone(s) update

On Saturday morning, Kara came with me up to our bedroom for her morning feeding and waved at me following it. I greeted her with a, "Hello,", which was met with a, "Halla,". Kara spoke her first word!

The next morning, she addressed her daddy, "Dada,", which beats the, "A-da," she was calling him for months. At dinner yesterday, she mimicked my, "All done," by saying, "Alda".

Kara has been signing the words "Milk," and "More," for weeks now, so I didn't think much of it when she signed "More," on Sunday morning. Still, I started singing and signing, "The More We Get Together". This was met with her signing, "More," "Together," and "Happier" along with me! She also signed "All done" during the dinnertime in which she spoke that phrase (which Caty pointed out, she probably thinks is one word).

So, we've had something of a flurry of communication around here for the past few days!

Kara's not walking yet, but happily uses the dining chairs as walkers. She doesn't stand unassisted unless she isn't paying attention — she's strong enough and has the balance to do so, but isn't confident enough to try it. For now, she's still zipping along by crawling her odd one-knee-up-in-the-air crawl, which she's gotten adept at and greatly enjoys doing.

*Credits to Caty for the photo*

2011-04-09T20:46:00.005-04:00

Kara's first birthday (party)!

I made an unexpectedly dense lemon sponge cake and frosted it with an unusually sweet raspberry buttercream. I suspect that the cake and pastry flour I've been using is responsible for the "flatness" of my cakes. I'm going to have to go with a conventional, highly-refined cake and pastry flour in future endeavours. The recipe for the cake yields a nice, lemony cake which I'd make again. The buttercream is probably never going to make another appearance in this house; it's not bad, it's just not especially good, either.

Also, I had the time to be able to make a homemade toy for Kara!

2011-04-04T20:03:00.004-04:00

More yummies!

Yesterday was the sort of day in which I try to get as much cooking done as possible, an effort which yielded the duck-fat french fries pictured above and the chicken pot pie pictured below. The fries weren't as crispy as I'd have liked; I was inspired by this recipe, but didn't follow it (I should have). Still, the duck fat is a great high-temperature frying fat and it didn't lend as much of a duck flavour to the final result as I would have thought it would — I'd use it again. As for the pie, it could have used a bit more salt in the filling, but I wanted to keep things low-sodium. Parents are told to keep baby's "table food" relatively unsalted. Kara seems to approve, as evinced by the fact that she ate most of a slice for dinner tonight.

2011-03-16T17:33:00.002-04:00

Also

You can make a damn good dairy-free spanakopita by using crumbled tofu in place of the feta.

2011-03-16T17:27:00.005-04:00

For the record

The Sugar Cookie Cutouts recipe in Martha Stewart's Cookies cookbook are fantastic, even with Earth Balance margarine in place of unsalted butter. I'll try to take pictures of some from the second batch — the first batch is almost already gone.

Update: now with photo!

2011-03-11T22:10:00.004-05:00

Kara's 11-month "birthday"

Kara turned 11 months old today, an event which kick-started my mandatory process of retrospection. So much has gone on that trying to summarize it all would involve accounting far more information than anybody would be willing to read, myself included. In a nutshell: I still don't feel I'm up for doing this again, ever. Despite that, Kara's a delightful little girl; when I'm with her, I'm happier than I've probably ever been. The process of raising a child is every bit as challenging and rewarding as it's made out to be, and I realize I'm saying this from the standpoint of someone who had it much, much easier than most.

What's new: following Emma and Logan's visit on Tuesday, Kara napped horribly. That is part of an ongoing trend towards losing any daytime naps whatsoever. Consequently, she was testing us more than usual that evening. This resulted in an early, crib-bound bedtime for her. The backstory: Kara had been bed-sharing at nights with Matt and I until that point, and for the brief stint with sleep-training when she was 6 months old. With her waking only an average of 2 times a night recently, I just couldn't bring myself to put her in a crib in another room, one floor down, only to have to stumble into it, sleep-deprived and bleary-eyed, twice a night. Incorporating a piece of advice from a sleep-training book a friend lent me, I mandated that Kara should feel up to crying for 10 minutes before Matt or I were to respond. The result is that she slept from 8pm to midnight (when I chose to breastfeed her), then slept without waking from midnight to 7am! The same occurred last night.

As for a night like tonight — when I have support from Matt during the day all tomorrow — I've decided to allow Kara to dictate the breastfeeding schedule (if there is to be one), following the 10-minute rule. With any luck, she pushes straight through to 7am, and we can kiss the nights of shitty sleep goodbye. Whatever the outcome, I feel a lot better knowing that I can probably manage one decent night's worth of sleep per night.

2011-02-19T13:56:00.003-05:00

Kara sure does know how to throw us for a loop

After two weeks of absolutely miserable sleep habits, Kara decided to go for 8-hours of mostly uninterrupted sleep last night! She woke briefly around 4am and again about an hour later, but allowed herself to be reassured back to sleep. Sadly, it came about following a previous night of about 8 hours of nighttime sleep, followed by a stunningly horrible half-hour of nap time during the day, so there are no guarantees that she'll be able to do this consistently. Ah well.

2011-02-08T18:57:00.004-05:00

Another cassoulet!

I love making variations on a traditional cassoulet. This one used duck confit, merguez sausage, white beans, and organic garlic, onion, carrots and canned, crushed tomatoes.

Sadly, the confit didn't end up turning out as well as I'd have liked; I followed this recipe for duck confit again (I've made it about three times now) and can say — definitively — that it cures the meat before it's cooked. The end result is a surprisingly tough — not meltingly smooth — meat. I'm probably going to use up the duck fat reserves I've been keeping on-hand on things like potatoes, instead.

The good news is that the beans and carrots are perfectly cooked: tender, not-underdone, but not mushy. The sausage adds a headier "aroma" to this dish than usual, but I like it.

Overall, this is a good, hearty casserole for mid-winter, but I haven't quite perfected it yet.

2011-02-02T10:47:00.002-05:00

Meringues!

Since egg yolks are an acceptable protein source for infants of Kara's age, I've found myself up to my eyeballs in egg whites. I decided to use up the surplus by making meringues. These are light with the chewy interior that one gets in a Pavlova. I've already eaten more than half the batch!

A big thanks to Caty for using part of her post-birthday week off to keep an eye on Kara while I got these made.

2011-01-22T20:17:00.002-05:00

Stjepan Hauser and Luka Sulic - Smooth Criminal

A must-watch for the ladies. Seriously. Hell, some of the fellas might find it strangely arousing too. :)

Thanks, Roy!

2011-01-09T15:58:00.010-05:00

Mac and Chezz!

After years of being largely dissatisfied with my dairy-free cheese options (excluding some truly convincing cream chezz), I'm pleased to add my review to the pre-existing accolades for Daiya Vegan Cheese.

I first heard about it when a walk through the neighbourhood took me to the nearby Vegan Danish Bakery. They sell Daiya — a tapioca-based cheese substitute — and extolled its virtues to me. I purchased one 8 oz. bag each of the cheddar style shreds and the mozzarella style shreds and started experimenting by making grilled chezz sandwiches. Several quesadillas and grilled chezz sandwiches later, I knew I was dealing with a genuinely melting, authentic-tasting dairy-free cheese substitute!

The cheddar style shreds taste much like a sharp cheddar when in their unmelted form, and startlingly like American cheese when melted. The mozzarella style shreds aren't quite mild or sweet enough to be convincingly mozzarella-like, but they are sweeter and less sharp than the cheddar version.

I decided to taste the melt-ability of the shreds in a chezz sauce, based on the Betty Crocker recipe for Cheese Sauce, using vegan margarine and soy milk in place of their dairy counterparts. Using Food Wishes recipe for Mac n' Cheese as a place to start, I added some salt, cracked black pepper, Dijon mustard and fresh-grated nutmeg in the sauce. I also followed his suggestion of using panko as a topping for the mac and cheese.

I was pleased at how well the sauce came together when the shreds were added, and the flavour was spot-on. Sadly, once the sauce was added to the pasta and the dish was baked, the result was surprisingly bland. I may have to refrain from baking future attempts at this comfort food, perhaps using Food Wishes No-Bake Macaroni and Cheese recipe as a starting-off point. Still, the result was encouraging enough that I'd like to attempt it again.

2011-01-02T11:49:00.004-05:00

A new milestone for Kara!

Do I sound unusually chipper today? You bet I do!

After two nights worth of a rocky start to the evening (missing her 9pm sleep-time to stay up an extra hour-and-a-half each night), Kara slept for 5 unbroken hours during the night between New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, then for 6 unbroken hours of sleep last night! This is unprecedented for her.

That means one solitary night-feeding!

I was even able to sleep for a full five hours of it!

If history has shown me anything with regards to Kara's sleep patterns, I shouldn't expect this to become a regular occurrence any time soon. Still, I'm so happy to have had this one bright spot.

2011-01-01T10:26:00.002-05:00

Happy New Year!

All the best to you and your families in the coming year.

Kara gifted me with a four-hour chunk of sleep last night, followed by a three-hour chunk. Believe it or not, that meant we had a good night. Here's to hoping that the new year brings us very large unbroken chunks of sleep.

2010-12-28T12:15:00.007-05:00

Flourless chocolate cakes

My multiple food sensitivities result in me feeling like something of a hypocrite if I don't try to accommodate other people's dietary needs when they visit. As a result, my food-sensitive friends tend to find that I've whipped up a dessert for their sakes when they pop in. Case in point: today's gluten-intolerant guest will find that I have given Martha Stewart's Flourless Chocolate Cake recipe a second go.

This time, I baked the cakes (soufflés, really) in ramekins and added about ¼ teaspoon of salt to the egg whites before whipping them. I would have liked for the chocolate flavour to be more prominent, so I'm going to have to remember to add espresso to the chocolate the next time I bake these. I'm otherwise very happy to be able to serve them and hope our guest will be as pleased with them as I am.

2010-12-14T14:31:00.011-05:00

Homemade blondies!

Matt's in the unfortunate position of being stuck at home today due to car troubles, but I'm taking the opportunity to make up some dairy-free baked goods!

This is a blondie recipe which I adapted and have been using for years. I found the original recipe overly sweet and have probably only ever added the walnuts once (I don't care for the slight bitterness that they add).

This time around, I replaced the butter with vegan margarine, used half of the recommended chocolate chips and substituted about ¼ cup of all-purpose flour for the equivalent amount of coconut flour. The resulting blondies were a bit more "cake-y" than usual, but were still fantastic. It was also a saltier blondie than I usually make — undoubtedly a result of the fact that I sprinkled the batter with sea salt before baking, but I like them!

I should have doubled the recipe to allow for the fact that I baked these in my tamago pan, and wouldn't add quite as much salt next time, but these certainly aren't going to go to waste!

P.S. I also got the chance to make homemade breakfast sausage this weekend (loosely based on this recipe), with organic pork belly and a mortar-and-pestle-crushed blend of fennel, sea salt, Tellicherry peppercorn, roasted garlic seasoning and paprika. It's easily the best sausage I've ever eaten.

2010-12-06T10:13:00.003-05:00

Our first collaborative kitchen effort

I present Matt's and my first "kick at the can" at a beef and mushroom pie. Matt made the filling (with advice on food substitutions — i.e., ketchup for tomato paste — coming from me), and I made the puff pastry topping (with Matt providing me with enough baby-free time to do so).

We find out tonight how it turned out.

6:19 pm update: Awesome.

2010-11-14T12:28:00.012-05:00

Bánh mì with authentic chả lụa!

Matt was able to buy me enough free time yesterday that I was able to start prep-work on Raveneous Couple's recipe for chả lụa. The only exception I made was to use Bob's Red Mill's Baking Powder rather than Alsa baking powder (which I'd never even heard of before researching chả lụa, never mind seen). T&T Supermarket at The Promenade Shopping Centre proved fruitful in the search for banana leaves — all I had to do was check the freezer cases in the Filipino food section.

Today I steamed the chả lụa in four banana leaf packets for a little over a ½ hour, then pan-fried thin slices to place on my second go-around at bánh mì! As before, the bread is an ACE Bakery demi-baguette with kewpie (Q.P.) mayonnaise and a canola oil/light soy sauce/fish sauce blend. I used fresh cilantro as before. This time, I omitted the vegan margarine, actually used the medium shredding disk on my food processor (rather than my vegetable peeler) for the daikon and carrot slaw, and Commensal Veggie Paté in place of the liver spread.

I'm glad to say that this attempt at the sandwich was definitely more authentic than my previous attempt. I was able to find a small portion of foie gras the farmer's market earlier this week, but I wanted to have truly fresh bread to spread that on, rather than the day-old baguette I had this time. I'm thinking I might have the quintessential homemade bánh mì next weekend.

2010-11-13T00:13:00.002-05:00

It's not all sunshine and roses, you know

Sometimes, being a mom really sucks. I'm finding that the sleep issue is a massive hurdle which just refuses to be overcome. Kara's taken well to solids, but even during a day like yesterday, in which she ate heartily at all three meals (dinner was something like 8 tablespoons of solid food), she woke less than 3 hours after having fallen asleep for a feeding. Of course, the insomnia I've been getting just makes it so that I can't get back to sleep no matter how much I may want or need to. Tonight, rather than lie in bed awake, wondering when I'll finally be able to get to sleep, I decided to (quite literally) "cool off" in the office until I'm feeling wiped enough to get back to bed.

2010-11-10T14:52:00.004-05:00

I actually got to cook something new!

It took splitting tasks up into 3-day chunks to do it in, but I was able to make Japanese-style curry at home! On Sunday, I chopped carrots into "coins"; on Monday, I pan-fried steak; yesterday, I chopped and assembled everything else that went into the curry. The ingredients I used are:

S&B Foods Golden Curry Sauce Mix Mild in the Jumbo size
(and half the package of curry mix)
one clove of minced organic garlic
one chopped organic yellow onion
chopped steak
one finely chopped, peeled potato
the aforementioned carrots
sliced organic (whatever that means in this case) mushrooms
frozen organic peas
one seeded, chopped sweet bell pepper

It was served over organic brown basmati rice. I'm pleased to say that I found it less sweet than the Japanese curry I've had in Toronto's equivalent of a Japanese homestyle eatery. I'd gladly make this again; this is good, because I've still got a half-package of curry mix left.

2010-11-05T16:58:00.003-04:00

On disciplining a baby

When one's baby is prone to skipping naps — getting increasingly cranky during the course of the day — sometimes all you can do is place her in her crib to tell her that she's going to be pleasant while she's around, or she will nap until she's pleasant.

2010-11-03T16:21:00.003-04:00

Fingers crossed

Kara went 5 hours between feedings last night. The only time she's ever done that in the past is when she was a newborn and still seemed to need hardcore sleeps. Here's to hoping that this isn't a sign of an impending growth spurt, and is instead an indication that she's going to start sleeping longer.

2010-10-23T13:27:00.011-04:00

Soy butter cookies with chocolate squares

A trip to Ambrosia last weekend provided two samples of Safe4School WowButter, a product which I initially thought would be similar to the vegan margarine I use. What I discovered instead was a product which is a substitute for peanut butter — one which doesn't have the heady initial impact of peanut butter, but which finishes exactly like peanut butter. In other words, a very interesting prospect to someone who uses peanut butter sparingly. Matt pointed out that I could make "peanut butter" cookies, a suggestion which I was glad to discover that others have also considered.

Allrecipes.com has a recipe for Classic Peanut Butter Cookies. Reviews of the recipe suggested increasing the flour and peanut butter content by ½ cup each, and adding a teaspoon of vanilla in with the eggs. The ingredients I used, then, are as follows:

1 cup vegan margarine
1 ½ cup soy butter
1 cup organic white sugar
1 cup packed organic brown sugar
2 large, organic eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups organic, all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
(due to the margarine being unavailable in unsalted)
1 ½ teaspoons baking soda

After flattening out each cookie, I added a dark chocolate square to each indent since the "test cookies" I baked proved somewhat lacking in sweetness.

The end result is a cookie which doesn't have the strong peanut butter flavour of real peanut butter cookies, but which is a pretty good approximation, and certainly worth doing if you have peanut sensitivities. I'd probably make this again, but I'm more likely to attempt making No-Bake WOWBUTTER Squares first, since I've been craving the peanut butter squares at Eve's Temptations in
St. Lawrence Market for well over a year now, which I swore off while I was pregnant.

2010-10-21T13:05:00.007-04:00

In further baby- and food-related news

Kara waited until she was a full 6 months of age before really committing to eating solids. She was on Day 2 of the introduction of blueberries when — to our surprise — she ate an entire ice cube-sized serving worth of them, then went on to eat another.

While I'm introducing relatively benign foods (i.e., ones which I've never had the slightest allergic reaction to, nor has anyone else I've heard of), I'm only waiting 3 days before introducing a new food in earnest. This is less than the sometimes-recommended waiting period of 7 days to await signs of an allergic reaction. As a result, in the short time during which she's been eating solids, Kara has eaten:

bison
organic brown "Basmati" rice (in breast milk)*
organic pear
blueberries
Ontario peas
organic carrot
organic sweet potatoes*
organic chicken

*Kara's response to these foods has been lukewarm so far

Kara has also had "tastes" of banana, fig and prune, which I allowed her to try while I was eating them, and hope to introduce to her at a later date.

For now, I'm really excited about the fact that Kara's been exposed to fairly high quality foods (local and/or pesticide-/hormone-free when possible) and the fact that she's had a wide enough variety of foods she's been exposed to that I can make something resembling a meal for her at each feeding time.

2010-10-09T22:35:00.003-04:00

Kara's managed to "cry it out"

About 30 minutes ago, Kara was able to put herself to sleep. It's Day 2 of using a makeshift Ferber Method in the hopes of getting her to learn how to put herself to sleep. Yes, that means that we've had to soothe her to sleep every time she's slept for the past 6-months-minus-2-days. Additionally, Kara has decided that she's just so happy to be alive that she doesn't want to miss a minute of daytime, so she goes some days in which she catches one 45 minute nap, and otherwise doesn't nap for longer than 2¼ hours in total, even when she's sick.

This morning, she didn't end up sleeping until she drifted off following her 7am feeding. She spent the hour previous to that crying in a manner similar to the one she used to use when she hated her car seat — a place where she will contentedly nap now. I took that as a sign that she was realizing that she was going to have to figure out how to relax on her own.

Kara napped briefly during a 10am walk that Matt took her on, then following her 2pm feeding for 2 hours with me, and another short nap again around 7pm, following a feeding. After her 9:30pm feeding (a little later than her usual 8:30pm feeding due to the fact that today was washroom-cleaning day), I put her down to co-sleep and she started fussing almost immediately, which prompted me to bring her downstairs to her crib (my approach: try to go easy on her first, then get progressively "harder" on her to show her I'm not rewarding bad behaviour). Her cries following the first 15 minutes became the familiar I-did-this-with-the-carseat cries, so I told myself to wait for 20 minutes instead. She was able to put herself to sleep, woke a few times, whimpering progressively less each time, then finally fell properly to sleep around 10:30pm. She woke briefly a few minutes ago and Matt was able to calm her back to sleep by shushing her and rubbing her chest.

I'm telling myself not to feed her until 12:30am at the earliest, so hopefully she learns that she can wake for feedings and no other reason. With any luck, she'll also start to normalize her feeding schedule, as she is usually a snacker (my "fault", but motivated by bad advice). Today's feeding times sorted themselves out quite nicely as a result of last night's hard-line approach, so maybe I'm actually hitting two birds with one stone this way.

Once this hurdle has been jumped, I'm hoping she'll sort out a longer feeding schedule on her own, rather than requiring me to "push" her. As always, I'm cautiously optimistic regarding Kara's progress in this arena. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this is the last time I have anything to say about the Cry It Out method.

2010-10-09T03:22:00.003-04:00

Fuck.

I never thought I'd be the type of parent to attempt allowing my baby to "cry herself to sleep" (checking up on her periodically, of course), but after several nights worth of waking every hour or two to give Kara pathetically small feedings before she drifted back off to sleep (she wasn't even allowing herself to be soothed back to sleep), I've placed her in her crib to allow her to cry. I'll still offer to feed her, but that time is a long 35 minutes away.

Update (for Em's benefit, really): She cried regularly (except for when I'd check in on her) until I fed her at 4am, then kept crying in that manner until about 5am, when Matt and I tried to get her to settle down on her own while co-sleeping with her. That didn't work, so we put her in her bassinet. It wasn't until about 6am that she started trying to get herself to sleep, and then she was waking fairly frequently after it appeared that she was startling awake. She fell asleep after her 7am feeding and woke around 8:15. Since then, she's had one nap and is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I'm hoping another solution presents itself today/tonight or she catches on quickly.

2010-10-03T14:08:00.002-04:00

Hells, yeah!

Kara had a 4¼-hour sleep last night between feedings. I was able to catch all but the first ½-hour of it. The night before also yielded a four-hour sleep between feedings.

2010-09-30T16:07:00.005-04:00

OMG! It's a food- and baby-related post!

Given that I tend to have low iron stores, I've been considering starting Kara on an iron-rich red meat as her first food (a pretty drastic break from the North American tradition of fortified rice cereal). A lot of what I've been seeing regarding the bio-availability of various nutrients spurred me on — research seems to indicate that various vitamins, types of fat and the like are best ingested from the plants and animals which actually produce them, as opposed to in "purified" forms like capsules or tablets.

My preliminary research suggests that the reason to introduce solids to babies at the 6-month mark is mostly due the fact that they tend to become iron-deficient after that age and that they also require the extra zinc that meat provides. Premature and low birth weight infants are said to benefit most from meat as a first food.

The first meat anyone thinks of when the term "red meat" comes to mind is — of course — beef, but I have found that bison is much easier to digest (and, as it turns out, is often higher in iron than beef). My plan then, was to go to White House Meats in St. Lawrence Market as Kara approached 6 months of age. It was a pleasant surprise to discover, then, that the Stuart Carroll in Thornhill Market Gardens had a portion of frozen, vacuum-packed bison sirloin available a few weeks ago. Needless to say, I snapped it up.

Further research showed that the "best" way to introduce meat to babies is to bake, then purée the meat in question, adding water or stock afterwards.

Yesterday, after weeks of keeping an eye out for the "signs" that she was ready, Kara finally "opened her mouth when she saw food coming her way."

Today I seared, then broiled the bison, chopped, then puréed it, made a stock with the pan juices, added it to the bison and fed Kara. It seems that all my dedicated research (guffaw!) and hard work paid off; Kara seemed delighted by the new method of ingestion, and ate heartily. So, I've got at least another 2 days of feeding Kara bison twice a day (to make sure she isn't developing any allergic reactions), and then I'm likely to try brown rice flour in breastmilk next.

So, Kara has started solids just 11 days before her 6-month "birthday" and with any luck whatsoever, she'll sleep longer at nights as a result.

2010-09-24T15:26:00.002-04:00

Triple dammit.

Yes, really. Kara's now on her second cold. At least this time she seems to realize that getting a lot of rest will help.

2010-09-14T16:36:00.004-04:00

Kara at a little older than 5 months

Following Kara's first cold, she seemed to have come down with a stomach bug which took another week to shake. Yesterday, the poor girl had to have another catheter at Sick Kids to determine if her previous urinary tract infection was an isolated incident or the symptom of a larger problem. I'm not sure when we get the results back, but the fact that she hasn't had a recurring infection is apparently a good sign.

The fact that she's "bitten" me the past two nights seems a pretty strong indicator that she's starting to teethe. Last night's dose of Tempra looked like it alleviated what discomfort she appeared to be experiencing and resulted in a downright luxurious (and unprecedented) 5-1/2 hour sleep for her (4-1/2 hours for me)! This was a welcome relief from the no-longer-than-3-consecutive-hours sleep we get each night. It's been downright brutal to cope with sleep-deprivation this intense for this long and I'll be honest and say that I'm disheartened that the reprieve came about strictly because we resorted to drugging her. I keep trying to be optimistic, 'though, and hope that she sleeps more soundly at night once we introduce solids (no later than a month from now).

I honestly never guessed that I'd have a baby as high-maintenance as Kara is (and, really, there are parents in far worse situations than we're in). Still, when I think back on what life was like for our family for the first 3 months or so of Kara's life, I'm grateful that she's come along as far as she has.

I can finally say that I've got a happy, outgoing, trusting, fun-loving baby, and if having that means that I feel considerably more underslept than I did when that baby was a newborn, then that's a trade-off I'm quite happy to make.

Update: The results have come in and Kara does not have anything biologically wrong with her urinary tract. Yay!

2010-08-28T14:42:00.002-04:00

Double dammit.

Kara's just finishing up her first cold. Clearly, this blows out of the water any hopes I had of not having an infected baby before she learned to understand English.

We took her to the Emergency Room at North York General Hospital (again) early Friday morning after the mucous build-up she was experiencing caused her to gag, then vomit (profusely) late on Thursday night. The doctor who diagnosed her last time got to see Kara again and delivered the news that she had a simple cold virus and that — if she didn't develop a fever, become lethargic or produce pea-green vomit — there was nothing to worry about and little we could do to help.

So we returned home, cranked up the humidifier and I took to nursing her 'til she was near-unconscious as a method of getting her to sleep. Yesterday, she didn't really experience a respite from the mucus, but it seems to have cleared some time between her 12:30 am feeding and her 3:00 am feeding. I think her speedy recovery may have been helped by the fact that I'm probably responsible for passing the cold on to her in the first place, as I was experiencing full-blown symptoms of a throat-sinus cold from early Tuesday morning until around when we took Kara in to the ER. So, apparently breastmilk is made up of unicorn kisses.

2010-08-20T12:00:00.002-04:00

Hee.

Kara's in the room next to the office, newly-awake, blowing raspberries to herself.

2010-08-01T12:40:00.009-04:00

It's actually another food post!

Since Kara was born, I've been so obsessed with the food selection downtown (which I no longer have convenient access to) that I've actually had dreams about it. The dreams are most often of the variety of places on The PATH, although the eateries there are probably my least-missed spots due to the fact that there are next-to-no independent food services.

On the independent-front, although Craft Burger is fantastic, at least Golden Star is within walking distance from our place and an excellent substitute. Corned Beef House has really good sandwiches, but their offerings tend towards overly-salty, so I don't miss them too greatly. I'm sad to say that my last excursion to Mother's Dumplings proved the food to be lacklustre at best.

Mostly, I find that I miss the chip truck in front of City Hall which I used to frequent, Burrito Boyz' halibut taco and the bánh mì place just North of Dundas on Spadina Avenue, Bánh Mì & Chè Cali (just South of the other bánh mì place).

My jonesing for a good bánh mì had gotten so strong that I finally decided to research "recipes" for the sandwich. I ended up settling on this recipe as a reference. I consulted a recipe for chả lụa as well, but ended up deciding it a bit overly-ambitious to attempt while I'm primarily responsible for a baby. In the coming months, however, I suspect that I'll find it much more manageable.

My bánh mì, then, is on an Ace Bakery demi-baguette, with vegan margarine, kewpie (Q.P.) mayonnaise and a canola oil/light soy sauce/fish sauce blend spread on the two halves. I also created a slaw of daikon radish and carrots by using my vegetable peeler to peel off strips, then soaking those in a seasoned rice vinegar and sugar mixture. I generously applied fresh cilantro. Finally, I heated a Chinese sausage (in lieu of chả lụa) and used that as the meat for the sandwich. Surprisingly, the sausage was the least-impressive component of the sandwich.

Eventually, I'd like to try making a variation which uses foie gras as a substitute for the liver spread, and perhaps that homemade chả lụa. In the meantime, this is a great, quick way to meet my need for a good Vietnamese sandwich.

2010-07-24T15:43:00.008-04:00

Kara at 15 weeks

Tomorrow, Kara will be 15 weeks old. For those who — like me — always thought that stating a baby's age in weeks over-complicates things, that's 3-1/2 months. Now I realize why a baby's age is stated so specifically. One week can make all the difference between a baby who does or doesn't have colic, or a urinary tract infection, is high needs, or experiences The (dreaded) Witching Hour. True to the "symptoms" of The Witching Hour (which will forever be capitalized whenever I refer to it), Kara's still overly-fussy in the evenings, but having late-evening walks with her calms her down immensely.

On a related note, thank God for the man who developed the Baby Björn carrier.

I've had quite a few friends and family members say that I seem to have adjusted to motherhood with aplomb and I wish I could say that I agree with them. The fact is that I experienced what was probably low-grade post-partum depression, a truth which I wanted to make clear, in the hopes of taking away some small part of the stigma attached to it. As I've discussed with Roy (thanks for being "my rock" yet again, babe!), I think the only thing that saved me from experiencing severe PPD is the fact that I was able to remain fairly objective about everything I was thinking and feeling. That isn't to say that I didn't have days in which I honestly hated my life, but I was able to operate under the belief that — if I could just get through another day, or week, or month — that things would have to improve.

Matt, for his part, has done a fantastic job of being supportive by taking on all kinds of tasks and chores around the house in lieu of me feeling I have time to do any of it myself, taking Kara off my hands when I need him to and — most importantly — being positive when I couldn't be. I'd also like to send big, appreciative shout-outs to Caty, who's been an awesome aunt and a damn great kid sister; to Miriam who has made time for us when she could; to Stacy and to Lisa for sharing their experiences as first- and second-time moms with me; to Emma for having a kid concurrently and therefore being able to spend time hanging out with me and talking about all the previously-lame-o Things Moms Talk About; and to Laura and Andrew for offering to be around whenever I need it.

Thanks also to everyone who's emailed to see how things are going. Just having the odd bits of adult interaction when you spend all day trying to think of things to say/sing to/do with a baby is a Godsend.

I can't say that my life has returned to the normal I experienced before Kara was born, I honestly don't think it ever will. When I think about it, I realize that that life wasn't really all that great, any way. What I can say is that every week brings with it a new set of rewards (like Kara practicing her laugh!) and a clearer path towards the new day-to-day, or week-to-week, or month-to-month life that my family and I are going to have.

So, here's to good friends, good family and a good life.

P.S. A little tidbit of information I didn't know before having a baby: babies don't know how to fall asleep on their own. They have to be "helped" to sleep until they can learn to do it for themselves. I really wish someone had told me that before I gave birth.

2010-07-13T13:26:00.006-04:00

OMG! It's a food-related post!

Since Kara's been born, I'm afraid I haven't had much time to devote to being in the kitchen.

My culinary excursions have been limited to a single batch of these cookies, a few iterations of pizza bread (usually featuring President's Choice pre-packaged, pre-sliced chorizo, rather than bacon), and a few portions of fish, including the cornmeal-crusted, pan-seared halibut featured above. Fish has been kind of ideal as a food while I'm breastfeeding: it cooks quickly, is high in protein, usually low in fat, and the fat it does contain is correlated to improved brain function — something I'm hoping to pass on to Kara.

In related news, Matt's been doing a great job of doing the cooking while I've been taking care of our daughter during the days. He's learned how to roast chicken (quite successfully), roast pork tenderloin (also excellent), make a meatloaf (which was tasty), make a shepherd's pie (which was fantastic) and is going to be roasting beef tenderloin tonight. Unfortunately, he has no interest in starting up a food blog, so those of you who are actually keen to find out what's cooking in our kitchen will probably have to wait another handful of months, until Kara's old enough to allow me to be in the kitchen while she amuses herself.

2010-07-11T13:07:00.001-04:00

A pic for her devoted fans

Just thought I'd share this photo of Kara in her sweater.

2010-07-08T12:59:00.007-04:00

They grow so fast...
...and thank God for that!

It's a disappointing setback to have Kara develop a urinary tract infection so early in her young life. The antibiotics seem to be giving her a case of diarrhea — a fact I'm trying to mitigate by giving her probiotics). As a result, the initial discomfort she seemed to be experiencing due to the antibiotics has abated.

Kara no longer experiences colic or colic-like behaviour. I can't say exactly when her last episode was, but it was probably mid-day for a few minutes. It always seemed to precede a big poop or burp, so I'm going to back up the countless parents' claim that colic is due to gas. I'm glad that chapter of her existence seems to have ended.

Still, 8:00 pm 'til 11:00 pm is a time during which we can consistently count on her to show us how she earned the nickname, "Polly Pissy Pants". During that time, she constantly fusses: she seems hungry, but quickly refuses the breast, then has a big burp, then seems upset that we haven't been feeding her, a slightly wet diaper seems to bother her far more than during the day. The one time she didn't exhibit this fussiness was during a day in which her morning and afternoon naps were interrupted by a grocery trip and visitors, respectively, resulting in a long late-afternoon nap. Unfortunately, sacrificing daytime sleep in the hopes of having her take a nap later in the day is probably ill-advised. Once this behaviour passes, I'll feel like we've cleared the last hurdle which her newborn-self had difficulty with.

Of course, then she'll probably start teething.

In the meantime, the hard work of addressing her need to be held during the first 9-and-some weeks of her existence seems to have paid off. She's quite comfortable with being on her own for stretches of time, sleeps soundly and for increasingly-longer stretches (there tends to be a 4-hour chunk per night now), and she's taken so well to her crib that she's capable of falling asleep in it on her own with minor coaxing.

Her head control is excellent and she's already working at sitting (she can "sit" by leaning forward onto her hands for short periods of time) and standing (she's insisted on putting weight on her legs while being held upright, and seems to really enjoy being in the standing position — probably so that she can have a better look around).

Yes, she's growing quickly, but — for right now, at least — this is a fact I'm quite happy about. Seeing her independence flourish is genuinely delightful.

2010-06-30T20:09:00.004-04:00

Dammit.

I was hoping that Kara wouldn't get her first cold until after she at least understood English enough to know that we were doing all we could for her. The fact that this is a fever just sucks.

Update: A visit to North York General Hospital's Emergency Room last night for diagnosis confirmed that our girl has a urinary tract infection. She'll be on antibiotics until her 3-month birthday, and we have a follow-up appointment to go to tomorrow.

2010-06-29T14:39:00.003-04:00

Me and my white, white baby

The running gag around here is that the Filipino nanny is a little too familiar with that adorable little girl's daddy.

In other news, Kara fell asleep in her swinging chair yesterday, and completely on her own — fuss-free — after a feeding today!

2010-06-24T16:24:00.005-04:00

Settling down

For almost 10 weeks, it was tough-going: any time Kara wasn't being held by someone — asleep or awake — she started crying almost instantly. As the weeks went by, she became capable of lying on any of her change mats for long enough to have her diaper changed. Otherwise, she would cry until she was picked up again and soothed. This resulted in an elaborate routine between Matt and I of spelling one another off to do our various required tasks for the day.

When Matt returned to work just after Kara turned 3 weeks of age, simple things like having to go pee became a choice between accomplishing a minor — if necessary — task or having the baby have her emotional needs met. I just had to learn to resign myself to the fact that Kara was going to cry inconsolably for several periods during the day so that I could find time to brush my teeth, eat, use the washroom and wash my hands. Obviously, this wasn't an easy choice for a first-time mom to make.

I'm pleased to say now, however, that as of last Friday, Kara has taken to being able to sit in her bouncy chair, her swinging chair, or lie in her crib for long enough to be able to let me do these menial tasks. As of yesterday afternoon, Kara has even been capable of staying asleep in her crib! Yesterday, Kara took a two-hour nap in her crib and awoke calmly. She's currently on her second crib-nap for the day. For now, I've chosen to reinforce the positive attitude she's taken to being on her own by picking her up again just as she begins to fuss, rather than waiting for her to get upset. Still, this is obviously a drastic improvement when compared to her level of independence until now and I can't help but do a little victory dance (or type blog entries) when I put her in her crib.

While I still consider Kara a fussy baby, this recent change in her disposition will no doubt result in a drastic change to our lives around the house, I'm pleased to say. Also, for as much of a frustrating experience as figuring one another out can be, there's no denying that — with each change we share towards her growth — this is the most rewarding experience I've ever undertaken.

2010-06-08T12:32:00.003-04:00

Life as a mom

Kara will be two months old this Friday and I've got to say that becoming a parent is the most difficult and stressful thing I've ever undertaken. Everyone who says that nothing can prepare you for it is also right.

Physically, I've been having what I can only assume is an average experience for someone who's given birth (although — joy of joys — my body seems to have made the oddball choice of resuming a light menstruation cycle despite the fact that I'm breastfeeding). It's been exhausting. I have no idea how the women who develop complications during the healing process manage to find the energy to feed the child, never mind do anything else.

Emotionally, I've run the gamut from being excited that I finally have the baby I've wanted for as long as I can remember, to wondering why it is that I'm taking care of a nondescript lump of flesh that looks disturbingly like my husband, and back to eagerly anticipating the person she'll be in ten years, or two, or tomorrow.

Mentally, this has been incredibly difficult. Knowing that my emotional state has been hugely influenced by rapidly changing hormones makes me suspect that any negativity I feel is simply biologically-induced. I've been dismayed at how comparatively little support I've gotten in relation to what support I thought I'd have, then adamant about pulling through any way. I've been disheartened at how weak the communication between Matt and I can be (especially when we're this sleep-deprived), then grateful for the ways he takes on responsibilities to make things less stressful for me.

Overall, it seems to all be a completely normal experience as a new mother. Still, I am currently completely mystified as to how anyone does this more than once. I can only assume that, as things get easier, they get much easier. Regardless, two months (and counting!) is a long time for me to be in a sleep-deprived and emotionally unstable place. I think I'll probably have to do a great deal of mulling things through before I decide whether or not to have more children.

2010-05-21T18:15:00.009-04:00

Hopefully, the start of an improvement

In a nutshell: I seem to have found a remedy (although not necessarily a cure) for my baby's colic! I caution against anyone else attempting this, especially with a newborn. Sadly, this only worked because I had spent weeks learning my baby's signals.

Kara was considered a Low Gestational Weight baby, so when her weight had dropped just over 10% by the third day of her life, the Lactation Consultant we met with was alarmed. It hadn't occurred to either Matt or I that the advice we received from her at that, and the following visit, was skewed towards getting Kara's weight back up to — and over — her birth weight as quickly as possible. It seems that the metric for determining how healthy one's baby is is based almost entirely by how quickly she gains weight. I also now realize that a breastfeeding consultant, who has met with a baby who develops a dangerously low weight, probably doesn't get too great a reputation.

When Kara went from being a very calm and contented newborn to an almost-newborn, prone to consistent, inconsolable crying fits, it didn't occur to us that this wasn't necessarily normal. Matt and I thought it was all just part of the territory of having a new baby in one's life. A pattern began to emerge, one in which the worst bout of crying tended to occur around 8pm each night, the culmination of a day's worth of progressively irritable behaviour. It wasn't until the 4^th week of Kara's existence that we began to realize that what she was experiencing was a near-textbook case of colic.

Matt and I had long since linked her crying to gas, since she tended to be able to calm down following a bowel movement. Some quick browsing online seemed to indicate that imposing a feeding schedule upon a baby could alleviate the symptoms of colic, so I opted to start watching Kara like a hawk in the hour leading up to her usual fit. It seemed that the 8pm fit could be attributed to the need to feed, be changed, and be put to sleep all at once, while also needing to pass gas or a bowel movement. I started working on meeting each need as it arose, but was still puzzled by how to help with the problem of what we could only assume was gas. The result seemed to be an easier time for her, but one in which she was still clearly uncomfortable and unable to be soothed for at least some of the time.

Then, I stumbled upon this:

"One reason that the !Kung San spend so much time holding their babies is that they feed them almost continuously, approximately four times per hour, four minutes per feeding. Researchers speculate that this approach to feeding may be partly responsible for the reduced crying of the !Kung San infants."

I decided to let Kara — whom I'd been "listening" to as far as her diaper change and napping schedules were concerned — dictate when and how often to eat, too. I also decided, rather than to take an aggressive approach to feeding her (i.e., offering her more to eat after she had already decided to "break the latch"), that I would burp her after she had decided she'd had enough, then offer her more if she burped or was otherwise showing signs of hunger. I found that she usually wasn't interested in eating more — that she simply ended up going to sleep while I was patting her on the back. The result is that her mood drastically improved on the first day and she didn't exhibit colic-like symptoms at all during her usual time on the second day (she only did, briefly, just before a bowel movement in the early afternoon). Yesterday, however, the new strategy didn't work entirely — Kara was still experiencing colic-like behaviour for an hour from 10pm to 11pm.

Today is the fourth day after having adopted the new feeding strategy and while I can't claim that the results are definitive or fool-proof, I'd say that this small change has made a big difference in Kara's mood. She awakens happy and ready to play, feeds, often burps, then goes back to sleep. I'm hopeful that keeping this up will mean that her episodes are at least less severe.

Otherwise, it seems we have to concern ourselves with if Kara's now somehow going to be underfed by dictating when she's hungry. Matt and I have educated ourselves of the signs of an underfed baby and are keeping an eye out, but so far things are looking good.

2010-05-13T15:34:00.003-04:00

MYGAWD

Finding enough time to respond to emails in my inbox, with a one-month-old having a growth spurt, is hard!

2010-05-08T22:00:00.004-04:00

Life with a newborn...
...before you know it, becomes life with a 4-week-old

The time really does go faster. For that reason, I doubt this is going to be a food-related blog for a while.

On the one hand, I find that I look forward to milestones like when Kara will be able to talk — if for no more complicated a reason than that I'll finally be able to understand how to soothe her when she's upset — on the other hand, I see that she's already a month into changing into the person she's going to become, instead of staying the person she was.

There really is no way to understand how completely overwhelming the whole process is until you undertake it for yourself. You're sleep-deprived, relying on anyone and everyone who's offered to help (whether or not you feel you ought to, just to get the chance to rest for a while), and the most profound thought you have occurs when you realize that one little mistake could completely destroy this life you've already worked so hard to help along.

2010-04-17T02:01:00.007-04:00

A better picture of Kara

Having a contented nap in the car seat on the way to yesterday's appointment to the Breastfeeding Clinic.

Update: for those who are interested, I've started a Flickr photo- and video-set of Kara.

2010-04-13T22:52:00.007-04:00

A belated Happy Birthday

Kara Grace Lloyd
born April 11, 2010 at 5:29 am,
5 lbs. 10.9 oz (2.579 kg)
18.5 in. (47 cm)

In a nutshell: false labour for twenty hours starting at around 2:00 am on Saturday, April 9th, real(!) labour begins around 10:00 pm, head to hospital where it's determined that I'm dilated 5cm, choose to forgo the epidural since — in my mind, any way — I'm "halfway there already", the approximately 100m walk from the Birthing Assessment Room to the Birthing Suite around 4:30 am dilates me from 7.5cm to the full 10cm (and was I ever ready to push!), had to forgo the "jacuzzi" experience since meconium was present when my water broke (around 4:40 am), an hour later Kara arrived.

P.S. Everything anyone's ever told you about how it hurts had it right.

P.P.S. Wouldn't trade it for the world.

2010-04-06T14:09:00.006-04:00

On "the bun in the oven"

Until recently, I've been feeling overwhelmed with household projects to get to while I still have enough mobility to do so — or, otherwise, before the baby arrives — that I haven't had much time to think about the things that still need to be taken care of to be "prepared" for the impending arrival. For instance, it wasn't until about a month ago that I found myself unable to comfortably bend/recline enough to be able to apply painter's tape to the baseboards. Once I hit that stage, 'though, I knew that my days as a home reno/fixer-upper geek were drawing to a close.

So, I found myself with lots of spare time on my hands and even more to plan for. Again, I'm in a position in which I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed, but am grateful for the fact that I have entire days worth of time to devote to researching my options and generally feeling like I'm making informed decisions. The baby's room (thanks, entirely, to Matt's hard work on it) is painted and ready to receive its future occupant. We've got a car seat/stroller combination that we both think will work out well. I ordered the majority of the components of a (cloth) diapering system yesterday, and that ought to ship within the next day or two. Thanks to our families, the baby isn't lacking in much, at this point. Clothes, for instance, seem like they'll be in generous supply until the baby is at least a year old.

Still, I wanted to be able to provide the baby with a gift that was just from her mom. So it came to be that — months after I had initially intended to resume my fibrecraft hobby — I finally put my knitting skills to use, and made a newborn-sized baby sweater. I had intended to sew the buttons on yesterday, and found I had no thread on hand that came close to matching the green I had chosen for the colour. A quick trip to the local Fabricland remedied that situation, so I sewed the buttons on today, as the very first thing I did. It's hard to believe that I'm soon going to be giving birth to something so tiny!

2010-04-01T15:12:00.003-04:00

Yummy. Homemade burritos.

Made with:

homemade Chewy Flour Tortillas
(I used lukewarm water instead of lukewarm milk)
reheated, refried beans
fried (in an olive oil and vegan margarine blend) organic brown basmati rice
taco seasoning-rubbed, pan-seared, sirloin steak, sliced
sliced, sautéed organic yellow onion
sliced, sautéed yellow and red bell pepper
sliced organic grape tomatoes
chopped chives
Garden Fresh Gourmet's Mild Gourmet Guacamole

2010-03-31T13:42:00.007-04:00

Homemade crêpes with chocolate spread and fresh strawberries!

While I haven't had a lot of unusual cravings during my pregnancy, there have been a few food items which I've just felt I needed to have. I can tell these are pregnancy cravings because of either the frequency with which I crave the food in question (such as potatoes), or by how much I dislike the food when I'm not pregnant (like fresh tomatoes, or, in this case, pancakes).

I grew up with a disdain for pancakes. I don't know how it developed. When Lola used to babysit my sister and I, she made hotcakes for us fairly frequently. These were usually topped with butter or margarine and a sprinkling of granulated sugar. Mostly, I appreciated them as a butter-sugar delivery system than as a standalone food item.

As years passed, mom got into the habit of making pancakes for breakfast on weekends. I never really did develop a taste for them during this phase. While the rest of my family happily gobbled them up with butter and syrup, I'd often end up making myself an egg sandwich or — on rare occasions — would spread jam and butter on a pancake or two if I wasn't feeling up to cooking something I knew I'd prefer.

So it was a surprise to me that I started really wanting pancakes a few months ago. I tried to quell the craving by making a batch of popovers and a Dutch baby, but despite the fact that the ingredients are almost identical to those in pancakes, I found I wasn't satisfied.

Still, the prospect of pouring syrup, spreading jam, or sprinkling sugar on a batch of pancakes simply wasn't appealing to me. I was craving pancakes, and wanted nothing to do with their standard toppings.

During my latest foray to Ambrosia, I found just the thing to inspire me. One of my many allergies and food sensitivities is to hazelnuts. This doesn't usually cause me any difficulty — there are a lot of nuts I can eat — but then there are hazelnut-based foods which it's near-impossible to find a substitute for, like Nutella. Again, this isn't usually an issue for me, but it means that foods — like crêpes — which didn't really have a presence in Toronto until after my allergy developed are foods which I've never had the pleasure of even trying. So I was downright ecstatic to discover a vegan chocolate spread (Rapunzel's Choco chocolate spread, which doesn't contain hazelnuts)!

Of course, this meant that I could make myself a batch of crêpes with a chocolate spread and fresh strawberries. I love that this means I've "killed two birds with one stone": my craving for pancakes has finally been sated, and I also got to try one of the classic crêpe-variations. My verdict: there's a reason this is a classic crêpe-variation. I'm glad I got the chance to try it.

2010-03-22T20:54:00.004-04:00

Homemade veggie pizza

Well, after a much-unwelcome hiatus from eating substantial food for the past week (read: I started having massively bad digestive problems last Tuesday), I finally got the chance to re-introduce produce into my diet today.

I decided to go all-out and make a veggie pizza with as many pizza-suitable toppings as I could cram onto it. To that end, the picture above features:

a homemade pizza crust, sealed with olive oil
pre-made bruschetta topping
organic baby spinach
fresh mushrooms
(which I had to slice and freeze last week when I realized I wasn't going to be able to get to them before they went bad)
hand-pitted organic black olives
(which, by the way, are the best black olives I've ever had)
sliced, organic grape tomatoes
roasted, organic yellow pepper
cracked black pepper
sea salt

The result was a bit more acidic than I was expecting, but was a satisfying change of pace from the barely-protein/high-carb diet I've endured for the past several days.

2010-03-14T22:14:00.005-04:00

Chorizo and sweet pea risotto

Breaking with my decision to avoid nitrates and nitrites (barring the occasional purchase of a pre-made deli sandwich or hot dog cart sausage), I decided to treat myself to a chorizo dish — in this case, a chorizo and sweet pea risotto.

The stock was an organic vegetable broth into which I added the last of a bottle of Smoke'in Apple wine and some saffron strands. A trip downtown last Thursday to the Fresh & Wild yielded their last box of carnaroli rice (looks like I'm going to have to go to St. Lawrence Market for my next bag of carnaroli). I chopped and sautéed an organic yellow onion and set it aside, then chopped and cooked pieces of chorizo (about a third of the total amount of sausage in a package) and set that aside. I cooked the risotto in the usual manner. Once the risotto was almost al denté, I added frozen peas, then the onion and chorizo and continued cooking until the texture was right.

I didn't add any salt since the broth and sausage seemed to have provided just the right amount. The risotto is lightly spicy and mildly acidic (probably due to the chorizo itself), but primarily showcases the sweetness of the peas. I was trying for the peas to really be the star of the dish, and not be overpowered by the sausage, so I'm pleased with the way it turned out!

2010-03-02T01:57:00.007-05:00

Arroz (y habas) con pollo

In my second Throwdown with Bobby Flay-inspired culinary adventure, the Arroz con Pollo episode I recently watched made me realize how much I've been craving Latin food lately.

After researching a reference recipe, I decided to break from the traditional Puerto Rican method of preparation, and add some elements that I've been craving. This was a very time-consuming recipe, but I'm very pleased with the results. I only hope I remember everything that I did to prepare it all:

For the chicken:

approx. 5 lbs. PC Free From Whole Chicken, cut into sections
Marinated overnight in:
PC Premium Aged Balsamic Vinegar
two heads of organic garlic, oven-roasted
Jelly Boys' Ginger, Lime & Cilantro Jelly
a little filtered water
sea salt
fresh cracked black pepper

I used the chicken back and some sea salt to make a simple chicken stock. I also boiled some organic red kidney beans, then soaked them overnight to soften them. The chicken was lightly rinsed and patted dry the following day, then pan-seared in the chicken fat I skimmed off the chicken stock. The chicken was set aside until the rice and beans were cooked.

For the rice and beans:

1 chopped yellow onion, sautéed in the remaining chicken fat
drained kidney beans
frozen, organic tri-colour peppers
organic, brown basmati rice
chicken stock

Once the rice mixture had simmered until most of the liquid had evaporated, the chicken was added on top and the whole pan went into a 350° oven for about 45 minutes.

To serve, the rice gets treated as a side dish to the chicken and I add salsa verde to taste.

2010-02-25T16:13:00.009-05:00

Sadly, not brought to you in Smell-o-Vision

I hope my reading audience will forgive the slight blurriness of the picture, in light of the content of said picture. :)

I've wanted to bake up a batch of dairy-free chocolate chip cookies since Monday — which is unsurprisingly when I realized I had no dairy-free desserts in the house. I must have been influenced by the mouth-watering chocolate chip cookies episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay. Levain Bakery's cookies look just fantastic. Don't take my word for it, see for yourself.

I researched many copycat recipes online and found myself overwhelmed by the choices. In the end, I settled on a non-copycat recipe, referred to simply (and not humbly) as The Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie.

I made a double-batch of dough, replacing the butter for my vegan margarine and substituting in half trans-fat-free shortening as well, to prevent the dough from spreading too much while baking. The sugars, eggs and flour I used are organic. I doubled the amount of salt as I find most cookie recipes under-salted. I also omitted the nuts and didn't quite have enough chocolate chips to fully double their quantity — I came closer to having 5-1/2 cups of chocolate chips than 6 cups. The chocolate chips I use are still PC The Decadent Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips, a non-dairy semi-sweet chocolate chip.

Rather than follow the recommendation to allow the entire batch of dough balls to "rest" for at least 6 hours, I baked off a half-dozen cookies immediately. The author is right, not allowing the dough to rest results in "just regular chocolate chip cookies". Still, I managed to get my craving out of the way and tomorrow I'm going to have what promises to be a little over four dozen durn good cookies to nibble on.

2010-02-23T18:33:00.006-05:00

The latest culinary effort...
...green split pea soup

Featuring:

organic split green peas
one whole yellow onion, chopped and caramelized in
rendered nitrate- and nitrite-free bacon fat
chopped prosciutto
filtered water
Herbamare Provencale seasoning
fresh cracked black pepper
truffle salt

2010-02-22T20:23:00.002-05:00

Another homemade pizza success!

Given the highly satisfying results of my last attempt at making pizza, I decided to make a double batch of pizza dough today, this time going with a one-to-one ratio of unbleached white bread flour and whole wheat bread flour. My first pizza with this dough was topped with: organic, sautéed mushroom; organic, sliced grape tomatoes; nitrate- and nitrite-free bacon; pre-made bruschetta topping; truffle salt, fresh cracked pepper and kewpie (Q.P.) mayonnaise.

I've set aside the extra portions of crust in the fridge for their second proof, to be used over the course of the next day or two. I think I might just have to make a grocery run to find some more inspirational toppings.

2010-02-21T20:07:00.004-05:00

Yesterday's brunch

A wilted spinach, sautéed mushroom, crisped prosciutto and sliced grape tomato frittata on whole wheat flax seed toast.

2010-02-18T18:28:00.003-05:00

Homemade whole wheat and flaxseed meal bread!

Today, I thought I'd start experimenting with variations on the white bread recipe I worked on a few weeks ago. To that end, I made two loaves of whole wheat bread by halving the amount of unbleached white bread flour in the recipe, and replacing it with whole wheat bread flour. I also added about 5 tablespoons of the flax seed meal I've had in my fridge for some time now (which is great for adding fibre and omega-3 to muffins and brownies, amongst other baked goods).

I have to admit that fresh white bread has a much more satisfying texture, but this is a much more fibre-rich, lower GI alternative that is still far superior to commercially-available loaves. Overall, I'm really pleased with the result!

2010-02-15T18:52:00.009-05:00

Beef stew

I appear to have posted previously about a beef stew (and ungraciously ignored a comment from Michelle — sorry, Michelle! There's a response there now).

Beef stew is one of those dishes that tastes fantastic, but tends to look just horrible in pictures, which is probably why I didn't post any photos last time. I can't say this is the most photogenic food picture I've ever taken, but I think it's not a bad photo, and I'm trying to include pictures of all the foods I blog about lately.

Yesterday's trip to the grocery store yielded about 3 lbs. of beef in roast form, at 30% off, so I thought I'd make a helluva lot of beef stew. The ingredients this time were slightly different since the last posted recipe, so I've included a list below:

approx. 3 lbs. of beef
filtered water
dehydrated, minced onion
(I didn't have any fresh onions around!)
granulated, roasted garlic seasoning
approx. 2-1/2 lbs. of roughly-chopped yellow potatoes
frozen baby carrots
frozen peas
truffle salt
fresh cracked black pepper

So it was a good stew yesterday, and I'm very much looking forward to having some for dinner tonight.

2010-02-08T12:35:00.004-05:00

OMG. This is awesome.

This is the best thing I've seen so far this year.

2010-01-28T14:15:00.005-05:00

Homemade (mostly) white bread!

Well, readers, I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that I had never made white bread, ever — before today, that is.

Consulting my Betty Crocker cookbook this morning, I came across a generic version of this White Bread Recipe and decided to try my hand at making it. I used up about 3/4 of a cup of whole wheat bread flour, which is why I'm stating that these are mostly white bread loaves.

The result is fantastic. I had no idea that fresh-baked white bread tasted so different from the commercial kind. The texture is completely different too. While I find commercial white bread overly sweet and dense, homemade produces a lighter crumb with a slightly more yeasty, less sugary flavour. Also, I used (trans-fat free) shortening to brush the loaves with, rather than margarine, and that made the crust delicately crispy — it's surprisingly my favourite part of the loaf!

Now, if only there were some way to get access to some buffalo mozzarella, I'd be in grilled cheese Heaven.