Homemade Playdough

Now that Liam is capable of playing with toys without putting them in his mouth I thought I'd whip him up a quick batch of playdough. The recipe (which I found online) was excellent and extremely simple and did not call for cream of tartar, so I thought I'd share it.

In a medium saucepan whisk together
1 cup of all-purpose flour
1/4 cup of salt.

Over low heat, add
1/2 cup water.
Whisk until the mixture is smooth.

Then, whisk in
3 tsp. white vinegar
2 Tbsp. olive oil.


Swap your whisk for a rubber spatula and stir the mixture until it reaches the consistency of playdough. This step should only take a minute or two. Remove the saucepan from the heat.

The dough will be warm to the touch for a bit, but once it's cool enough to handle you can knead in the food coloring.

Paradise Lost: A Reflection

Is this what Adam looked like when he was banished from Eden?

I'm re-reading Milton's great epic at a very interesting time in my life and finding my new experiences bringing something unexpected to the table. I'm very briefly covering the work in my Western Humanities II class, treating three major themes in roughly two hours and forty-five minutes: the Fall, theodicy, and salvation. Needless to say it's an incredible undertaking--cramming so much into so little--but at least my students seem receptive and up for the challenge.

Last Thursday we covered the Fall.

The interestingly unexpected experience greeting me at the door? I'm also beginning to notice Liam using a term very closely resembling "NO" in tone and delivery. It's early enough that he'll still use it while playfully babbling in his crib, trying to master the syllable and experiment with the force, but I can sense impending disobedience and I'm confronted with the challenge of responding to it. And I'm feeling a bit like God probably did when he saw the Devil flying toward His newly created world with the intention of tricking Man into deliberate disobedience: panicked, yet resolved. It's the apex of conflict in a film whose ending is known.

My boy is going to start exercising his will against mine.

I've come to the conclusion that the story of the Fall is universal, whether you believe in the doctrine of Original Sin or not. It's the story of a relationship that holds between creator and created, parent and child, the one that grows by growing apart, and the love that, sometimes painfully, binds each generation together. For Milton, it's a story about freedom and consequences. And love and forgiveness. It's a story about how hard it can be to be a parent, how to love so freely and yet to such great depths all while knowing that at least once, your child will break your heart. All this nothing more than a simple consequence of our freedom.

I never could have come to this in high school, but I'm glad David Lyons suggested I read it.

Short and Sweet

Summer officially ends on Tuesday when Fall 2011 classes begin. I never planted a garden, never learned how to knit, never made jam, and never canned anything. Still, it was Liam's first active summer and we had a great time swimming, splashing, swinging, grilling, making new friends, and visiting with family. Of course every end is also a bittersweet beginning so there are always new things around the corner. And lucky for us it stays relatively warm in Chattanooga until Christmas.

I am currently working diligently on completing a project I should have finished long ago. I'll keep you posted.

Summer Muffins

It's been summer here in Chattanooga for at least 8 weeks already. With temperatures in the 90's one might hesitate to turn on the oven but I've been making mini muffins for Liam for a while now. These ones are perfect for using up your extra zucchini and sneaking some extra veggies into baby's diet.

Summer Muffins (makes 48 mini muffins or 24 mini muffins and one 8" loaf)
Preheat oven to 350 F.

You'll need
2 cups grated zucchini (about 2 medium)
1 cup grated carrots (I used about a dozen baby carrots)

Let veggies drain on paper towel for about 30 minutes.

In a medium sized bowl whisk together:
 2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground clove
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

In a separate bowl whisk to combine:
1 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
2/3 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Add 4 large eggs (room temperature) one at a time until combined.
Fold in your zucchini and carrots.

Add the dry ingredients all at once and gently fold together just until the batter is moist.
If you like raisins, here's where you'd add about 1/2 cup. I love raisins so I used 3/4 cup.

Divide the batter evenly among your muffin cups, which should either be lined or sprayed with cooking spray (I did the latter), and bake at 350 F until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 13-15 minutes. If you're making the loaf too, grease the bottom of the loaf pan with shortening and increase the baking time to about 50 minutes.

I did it!

I've been working on something: the perfect banana bread.

I have tried dozens of recipes for banana bread in hopes of achieving that a bread that is dense, dark, moist, and banana-y. Most of the time I get a light, yellowish bread with a very nice outer crust with what seems to be only a touch of the banana's flavor. I think these breads have their time and place, but not now and not here.

You know you want my bread. So here's how to do it:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit. Lightly grease your 9 x 5 loaf pan with shortening and line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper.

Peel and mash 3 or 4 very ripe bananas. Set aside.
In the oven (as it preheats), toast 1/2 cup of pecan halves. Let them cool while you bring the batter together. 

Sift together

1 and 2/3 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 - 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt.

With either a hand or stand mixer whisk until fluffy

1 cup + 2 Tbsp. granulated sugar 
2 room temperature eggs.

With mixer on low, drizzle

1/2 cup melted and cooled butter.

Stir in the mashed bananas with a spatula or paddle attachment followed by

2 Tbsp. sour cream
1 tsp. vanilla extract.

Gently fold in the dry ingredients just until mixed. Finely chop the toasted, cooled pecans in a food processor and gently fold them into the batter.

Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool completely on a wire rack before removing the bread from the pan.

Enjoy!

Win/Fail

This has been my culinary theme song for the last couple weeks.

I've made some variation of slow cooker beef stew three times, each time has been a wonderful success. Last week I made perfectly perfect chocolate chip cookies, to die for. And we tried Ellie Krieger's recipe for Portobello Lasagna Rollups, super delicious, filling, healthy. We're going to be trying her Curried Butternut Squash Soup this weekend, Liam too.

But, I failed at banana bread. And broke even with two attempts at 1001's Seven Minute Chocolate Cookies. Which, I must admit, take nowhere near seven minutes. I suggest a baking time no less than eight minutes (but no more than ten). Also, as I discovered during the do-over, they're really much, much better once they're cooled completely, stored in a ziplock bag, and left to sit overnight.

Alright. I'm going to bed.

Porotos Granados

Several years ago, Lane and I invited some friends over for Moosewood's Chilean Bean Stew from this lovely little collection of recipes. It was quite delicious, but for some strange reason I haven't made it since. I recommended it to Lane's parents over the holiday and promised to email them the recipe, instead I thought I might just post it here and recommend it in general. I'll be cooking some myself this weekend.

Moosewood Restaurant Chilean Bean Stew

Ingredients
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
2 C. chopped onion
4 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1.5 tsp. salt
0.5 tsp. ground black pepper
0.25 tsp. cayenne (this can be adjusted to taste)
3 C. water
4 C. (about 3 lbs.) butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cubed
3 C. fresh or frozen corn
2 15 oz. cans of red pinto beans, drained and rinsed
.5 C. chopped, fresh basil

Heat the oil in a large soup pot. Saute the onion, garlic, salt, pepper, and cayenne over medium heat for about 5 minutes. Add the water and the squash, cover, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer for 10 minutes. Stir in 1 cup of the corn, the beans, and the basil. Cover and continue simmering until the squash is soft (another 5 to 10 minutes).

Ladle 2 cups of the broth from the stew into a blender with the remaining corn. Puree until smooth. Stir the pureed corn back into the stew. Serve warm with freshly baked cornbread. Serves 4 to 6. Refrigerates and reheats very well.

Snow Day Number Three...

That's right, folks! This is our third consecutive snow day. I baked banana bread with toasted pecans and golden raisins, and Lane and I took turns napping with Liam. Even though I am thoroughly enjoying the extra time off, I much prefer warm and sunny to these gloomy gray snowy days.

Having spent most of my life in Michigan, I am no stranger to the cold toes and runny noses of Winter. My mom jokes about how quickly my skin thinned after having only been in Chattanooga for a little over a year. And yes, I must admit I really am already day-dreaming big plans for Spring and Summer, and wishing I could bear the bitter wind to go outside.

What are her big plans? you wonder...

Well, I am totally motivated to expand my current set of domestic skills both in and beyond the kitchen. I'm hoping to put a potted herb garden on the screened-in porch, and a variety of flowers in the yard. I also want to grow a sauce and salsa garden (also potted) and grow winter squash, cucumber, pickles, and berries. Most of this is old hat, but I'm planning on canning, which is something I've never done before. I've already read the chapter on canning in the Joy, and will take a trip to the public library for more how-to books. I'd like to make my own jams and sauces from the stuff in my own garden, and I'd like to be able to taste the fruits of Spring and Summer during next year's snow days. I'd also like to learn to knit--although my experiences with Stitch and Bitch were neither successful nor pleasant--so that I can knit warm fuzzies for my whole family.

Sound like fun? Well, stick around to see just how much I'll be able to accomplish while chasing around a toddler, as Baby Liam turns 1 in May.

Snow Daze

Sunday night and early Monday morning, nearly eight inches of snow fell on Chattanooga. With the university closed and many local roads almost impassable there simply is no better excuse for spending time baking homemade cookies and snuggling up with my boys. So, after great success with a slow-cooked beef stew recipe involving butternut squash, I decided I'd try a couple more cookie recipes from 1001 Ways to Cook Southern.

I'm impressed with both recipes.

The first was a peanut butter cookie prepared without butter or flour. Surprised? I was. But, I was even more surprised by the simplicity of the recipe and overall lack of ingredients in general (only four total). The final product is a chewy, rich, peanut-buttery cookie that pairs perfectly with a glass of milk. Best to let them cool completely before indulging, as they will crumble to pieces if you try to eat them straight from the oven.

The second was giant oatmeal-spice cookie, and man did this cookie knock my socks off. With rolled oats, toasted pecans, golden raisins, a wide variety of spices (including clove), and more dark brown sugar than I have ever used in one cookie recipe, this one beats every other oatmeal cookie I have ever made. I didn't make drop the batter by the quarter-cup full as the recipe suggested, instead I made slightly smaller scooped slightly smaller portions for a higher yield. Doing so has allowed me to freeze some of the dough so that I can bake more fresh and delicious cookies later, without creating another pile of dirty dishes.

Now to figure out what to make for dinner.

Not for Me

I simply do not have the patience for cookie cutters.

I can't remember when my love affair with baking began. It's a bit of a hobby, and I much prefer homemade cakes and cookies and pies to anything you can purchase in a store (with the exception of the exceptional, of course). There's something about the love that goes into my goodies that makes them extra tasty, and I'm not the only one that thinks so. But, until today I have never owned a set of cookie cutters, and now I know why.

I decided to try a deceptive little recipe for Lemon Butter Cookies from a cookbook I received as a Christmas gift. The recipe looks extremely simple, with only a few ingredients to name: butter, lemon zest, powdered sugar, flour, salt, and parchment for lining the cookie sheet. The dough is to be shaped into a disc and rolled to 1/4" thick and then cut into cutsie little heart shapes and placed onto the baking sheet. The cookies bake at 325 degrees until lightly browned on the edges and cool for about 25 minutes. Sounds easy-peasy, so I buy some cookie cutters and attempt to use them. I opt for a square shape with scalloped edges, too intimidated by the heart-shape to use it first. I manage to get eleven cut cookies to the sheet and lose my cool as I am trying to reshape the leftover dough into a new disc to begin cutting again.

I'm a silly girl, and I worry about over-developed gluten from the flour being overworked. I worry about dried out cookies from the reshaping and re-rolling on a lightly floured surface with my lightly floured rolling pin. I believe I'm part Dutch, so I can't bring myself to just discard the leftover dough as waste. As I'm starting to roll out the disc of partially reused dough, I'm already cursing the cutter and wishing I would have gone for the more rustic, less sophisticated method I usually employ with recipes like this one: cutting random shapes into the dough with a paring knife. I am not Martha Stewart. I like my cookies and shortbread to look like pieces carved from a map of the United States. And I firmly believe that Delicious trumps Beautiful any day of the week.