So remember we celebrated my daughter’s half birthday on New Year’s Day.  You’ll also recall I froze the extra cupcakes for my son’s half birthday which is just 2 weeks later.  I of course made new frosting, this time chocolate.  I’m happy to report the unfrozen cupcakes were delicious.  But for some reason my son wanted his frozen.  He asked me to frost his and put it back in the freezer.  O.K.  This meant my daughter wanted to do the same thing. O.K.

What’s next…heated ice cream?

If you have a recent preschooler, you know this tune.  Happy Hannukah to those celebrating this first night.  While we do not celebrate Hannukah (my son figured this out after a year or two), we do like to partake in food traditions – no matter what the holiday or religion.  Food is a great way to learn about cultures, religion, beliefs and geography.

In the past I made my own latkes (see past recipe), however this year my kids and I discovered and sampled (and purchased) Trader Joe’s frozen latkes.  I’m sure this is probably sacriligious.  However they are tasty and came in handy today as our schedule was so hectic.  It also worked out well with our meatless Monday ritual.  I topped them with apple sauce, creme fraiche, lox and capers.

A View of My Countertops

Since I like to cook and everyone likes to eat, I like to make food gifts for the holidays.  They’re always the right size, never go out of style and can be made non-denominational.  So everyone can be pleased – from neighbors, to friends, to teachers, to family, etc.

Because my oven is still working, even though never “fixed”, I’m kind of scared to turn it off.  O.K. not really.  But it seems like it’s been on and I’ve been baking for 2 weeks solid.  I’m not complaining, although I need more counter space.  I’ve made a few usual favorite cookies such as Molasses Sugar Cookies.  But this year I opened my December Sunset magazine and was inspired to try their cookie contest winners.   The White Christmas Dream Drops  (click for recipe) are chewy and refreshing (and easier to make than say the name), and I can see why they won first place (Good going, Dustin and Erin Beutin of Tustin, CA).  They were my son’s choice for his school party.  While the Chai Spiced Shortbread cookies are more subtle.  I love them with tea and can’t wait to experiment with different types of tea bags for the dough.  They were a runner up (Congrats Anissa Shea from Walnut Creek, CA).  I made a variety to give to neighbors and our contractors (yes, we’re in the middle of some construction to make the holiday a bit more hectic).

crushing candy canes

White Christmas Dream Drops

chai spiced shortbread

For those who may receive lots of sweets at the holidays, I make a cookie mix jar.  This way you are giving a fun treat for the recipient to make anytime they have a craving (whether it’s January or July).  They are festive looking and the jars are quicker to measure and assemble, than make than the actual cookies.  Plus the 1 quart reusable jar has lots of recycle uses (we use them for shells and eraser collections at my house).  To present them, I found some good sturdy reusable bags with peace signs at Whole Foods that are cute.  This year my kids asked “How come we never make those cookies, just the jars?”  A good question.  So I made a batch for us, no jar necessary.  They are yummy!  Good thing, since we made them and gave them to teachers and friends.

cookie mix jar

cocoa chocolate chip cookies from jar mix

Finally, this year I also gave a mulled wine kit.  I picked up a copy of A Greener Christmas by Sheherazade Goldsmith, which has lots of DIY ideas for gift giving.  I wish I had it earlier in the season.  Filled with fun crafts for kids too.  This recipe was easy and something different from the usual wine hostess gift.

mulled wine bouquet

Mulled Wine Kit

1 cinnamon stick, break into 3 pieces

6 cardamon pods, lightly crushed

fresh nutmeg, grated

12 cloves

1 square cheesecloth (7 x 7)

1 pinch ground ginger

length of twine

1 bottle red wine (I used a french red table wine)

All the spices go into the center of the cheesecloth.  Carefully sprinkle the ground herbs over the whole.  (Because some may come out the cheesecloth, I wrapped the spice bouquet in plastic wrap before attchin to the wine bottle.  Gather cheesecloth and tie into a bouquet.  Tie around wine bottle with instruction card.

Instructions for Mulling Wine:

Put the wine, spice bouquet and 1/2 cup water and 6 tablespoons raw sugar into t pan.  Heat gently until sugar has dissolved, but don’t allow wine to come to a boil.  If you’d like optional ingredients include:

slices of oranges and lemons

juice of 1 orange

splash of port or brandy

Last year we got the flu just before Thanksgiving.  This year it was literally on the drive home from my parents.  Thanksgiving dinner was great as was the visit, but the drive home made us not want to think about doing it for a very long time.  Long story short my poor son got sick in the car and we ended up having to stay in a motel on I5 just outside the Grapevine where he was up all night with the flu.  The next day we were finally able to drive home – my son sleeping most of the way.

It would be two days later when my daughter got it (although a milder version).  And now my husband and I both have colds.  There is one thing that seems to be soothing whether healthy or sick during these cooler months for all ages and that is tea.  You know about my love of iced tea, but hot’s great too.  My kids love tea with a touch of honey.  My pediatrician’s nurse actually suggested it as a remedy for coughs rather than medicine. (But never for those under 1 year.).  This time of year we stock up on peppermint tea which you can only get in winter.  But we also have a large variety of everything from cammomile to ginger to mint to chai to fit everyone’s mood and illness.  Tea is the most popular drink in the world – so there must be something there.

Mint Chamomile Tea

A cup of chamomile tea can be soothing for a child on a cold day or with a cold inside. The added mint syrup lends a bit of sweet and spice. Most children don’t like drinks and food too hot. Keep temperature on warm or lukewarm.

Makes 1 cup

1 cup water

1 bag chamomile tea

2 teaspoons Mint Syrup (see below)

Bring water to a boil
in a saucepan. Add tea bag and let steep for 3 to 5 minutes. Carefully squeeze
tea bag and discard. Add syrup and stir.

Mint Syrup

The symbol of hospitality, mint has been used for scores of culinary and medicinal purposes over the centuries. This simple mint syrup can be added as a sweetener to hot
and cold teas, as well as lemonade and plain water.

Makes 2 cups syrup

¾ cup turbinado sugar

2 cups water

2 cups fresh mint (1 bunch), torn into 2-inch pieces

In a small saucepan, combine sugar, water, and mint. Bring to a boil over medium heat and cook until sugar has dissolved, about 1 minute. Remove from heat and let stand for at least 30 minutes.

Pour though a fine mesh strainer set over a bowl or pitcher and discard mint.

Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 month.

Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah is here. It is a tradition in the Jewish culture to dip apples in honey for a sweet New Year.  It doesn’t matter what time of year or what your culture, apples are the most popular fruit in the world.  And really who needs an excuse to dip them in honey?  Yum!

Here’s a link to my friend Lisa’s Velick’s blog who writes about all things gluten free and always gives me a lesson on the Jewish holidays and celebrations.

This time every year I am faced with lots of stress over cakes and cupcakes.  This year has been no exception and there’s only been one birthday so far.  You see the summer is full of birthdays in my family.  This year we added a preschool graduation into the mix too.  I’m not sure what got into me, but I thought I was going to make cake for my daughter’s graduation when I first signed up.  Until I was told there would be 150 cupcakes needed or two half sheet cakes.  Oops!

So I bought them at the suggested bakery near the school.  They are quite popular (and $$) and use fresh ingredients, but somehow I wasn’t impressed.  Though most of the 125+ people were happy and the cakes were eaten.  They were somehow bland and dense.  They were super cute though right?  And was I going to bake cake for that many people?  Nope.

However I spent two days (and more time and agony) perfecting 24 cupcakes for my daughter’s birthday party the following day.  Months ago my daughter picked out a cupcake photo she wanted me to make for her birthday.  It was an adorable cupcake decorated with sugar jewels out of our favorite cupcake cookbook (see previous review).  Turns out these are not so easy to find except for online and quite expensive ($1 per jewel).

Edible Diamonds

I went to CakeArt, an amazing cake decorating and baking supply store (they also have classes) in San Rafael for help on the jewels.  I thought if I can’t buy them, I can make them with molds.  Turns out they had a few “diamonds”, but the owner warned me they are made from isomalt and not good on many people’s stomache’s if eaten (and you know kids would try them).  Well, my daughter quickly understood this was not a good idea.  Luckily there were so many other lovely decorations she moved on and chose others.  This was still a few weeks before her party.

She still couldn’t decide on cupcake flavor.  One day she carried the cupcake book everywhere and reviewed it all during my son’s baseball game.  First she wanted lavender vanilla and I bought lavender.  Then it was strawberry milkshake, and I shopped for strawberry extract (couldn’t find).  It was too overwhelming that she could choose any flavor cupcake and frosting and mix and match with her chosen decoration.  Three days before she decided chocolate cake and vanilla buttercream frosting.  Hooray, I thought the hard part was over.

test batch

Since she had been so indecisive, yet so obsessive, I made a few test cupcakes for her reviewa few days before the party.  Then she says “Of course I’m going to like any of them…it’s a cupcake.”  Oh glad I wasn’t worried.  But glad I did the test.  I learned two valuable things from this recipe.  Do not spray with cooking oil as directed.  See above how the papers fall away?  And next, filling 1/2 to 2/3 full wasn’t enough.  I was also able to convince my daughter that the white frosting looked the best (her ideas of striped and colors were tried above).

test #2

Filling 3/4 cull and skipping the spray worked much better.

looking good and practicing my piping

Making the buttercream ahead for the test, I thought I’d just re-whip the next day when it was time to make a whole batch.  Well, this didn’t turn out so well.  The morning of the party, I frosted half of them and realized the butter cream was separating and kind of melting after a bit.  Yikes!

buttercream starting to separate

I quickly made another fresh batch of frosting and the second dozen looked far superior.  My daughter came in and said “Are these a diffrent kind?”  Having about one hour (still needing to shower and get dressed myself and pack the car with other food and ice chest) I scraped the frosting off the first dozen and refrosted them.  I felt much better.  O.K. first she was obsessed, and now I was.  As you can see, it all turned out fine…we made it to the party (at a gymnastics studio), everyone had fun, and the cupcakes were a hit.  Big kudos to the cupcake carrier too.  (Purchased at Target)  Great invention to protect your creations when on the go.

scraping off the melting frosting

fresh frosting fixed everything

the birthday girl adding the finishing touches

off to the party!

In thinking about this year’s Santa plate, my son decided that Santa would like brownies.  My daughter said she didn’t want to have dark chocolate (this is always a debate at our house).  I settled the score with making both brownies and blondies.  Nevermind that I had been baking gingerbread, sugar cookies, candy cane cookies, etc.  We needed to make more.

Luckily I also have a stack of cookbooks to review.  Two are really fun and I know I’ll be using them a lot throughout the year.  The first is Chewy, Gooey, Crispy, Crunchy, Melt in Your Mouth Cookies by Alice Medrich.  The second is Food Fest 365! : The Official Fun Food Holiday Cookbook by Yvan D. Lemoine. 

Chewy Gooey is great for those with a sweet tooth who need more ideas and inspiration (pictures are mouth watering).  I like that the cookies are divided by mouth feel and texture.  Each recipe even has a suggestion to make “upgrades” to create variations and new flavors.  There’s also a veriety of diets and allergies in mind with an index of dairy free, wheat free and low fat recipes.  I made the blondies from this book.  And yes, they were chewy and gooey - my daughter had her first blondie and it’s become a fast favorite.  Next time we make them we’ll try one of the updgrades.  But which one?  Nutmeg, cinnamon or peanut butter blondies?  Perhaps a tasting of all three.

Food Fest 365! is a bit different, but very fun.  It celebrates all the quirky food days established by politicians over the years.  Did you know March 16th is artichoke hearts day?  Of course I love the idea of celebrating the everyday.  The tough part about this book is the arrangement and order is by the calendar.  So if you’re menu planning, you’ll need to consult the index to find what you’re searching for.  Of course it’s also just fun to look up dates and see what food day it is.  For instance my birthday is Cheese Sacrifice Purchase Day (after the Mayans of course) with a recipe for Sundried Tomato Cheese.  I can see someone going through a la the movie Julie and Julia and blogging about making each day’s recipe.  You’ll find everything from Hot Toddy Day to Lobster Day to Angel Food Cake Day, with hundreds in between.  December 8th is where I found Chocolate Brownie Day.  My son was very pleased with the gooey, rich flavor and they were quick and easy, like a brownie should be.

So what did Santa like?  Well Santa (I believe) was so tired since one of the children at our house stayed up to try to see him (and made it to 2:30 a.m.), that he broke off an equal piece of each and then left crumbs on the fireplace. (Note.  Besides the blondies and brownies and milk for Santa, there were of course carrots for the reindeer.  Plus my daughter also made a beaded collar for Rudolph – see photo above)

lettuce cups

Of course the grand finale of our Chinese New Year celebration was the actual parade.  This year as the past three, was a spectacle of sights and sounds of dancing dragons, decorative floats, music and firecrackers.

Like year’s past, we arrived early and walked the streest of Chinatown; snacking on a pork bun, buying poppers and sparklers, visiting the pet shop, stopping at the fortune cookie factory and people watching. 

A dried fish stand

I paid 50 cents to take this photo of the factory

Before the parade we had a great dinner of dim sum and seafood.  One of the dishes was a seafood nest.  The nest was potato strings all weaved together like a nest (th seafood sat inside).  I had wanted to take a photo to show you, however the waiter was so quick to break (oh gasp!) and serve the dish, I wasn’t quick enough. 

Ellery and her carrot flower

The evening ended for us a bit early (the parade wasn’t quite over) as the crowd was getting a bit rowdy (more than I remember in the past).  There were many more fireworks and smokebombs in the crowd.  Our ears had heard enough, our bellies were full (we had a custard cup on the walk back to the car) and we were happy to help usher in the year of the tiger.

Yum!

Beef-Filled Lettuce Cups

Lettuce cups are a fun excuse for kids to eat with their hands. If you’re looking for the flavor without the mess, you can simply have children eat the beef mixture out of a bowl with a spoon or fork. This also works as a salad when entertaining by shredding the lettuce and mixing with the beef to be enjoyed with chop sticks out of individual Chinese take-out boxes. For vegetarians substitute diced firm tofu for the beef.

Makes 3 cups beef mixture or 16 to 18 filled lettuce cups

2 teaspoons expeller-pressed canola oil

2 tablespoons minced organic red bell pepper

1 tablespoon minced shallot

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1 pound organic lean beef

¼ cup fresh organic mushrooms (portobello, crimini or shiitake), chopped

3 tablespoons minced fresh cilantro leaves

2 teaspoons organic low-sodium tamari

1½ teaspoons ground allspice

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lime juice

16 to 18 organic butter lettuce leaves

2 tablespoons prepared plum sauce (optional)

In a large frying pan or wok, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add bell pepper, shallot, and garlic and stir-fry for 1 minute. Add beef, breaking apart and stirring, until starting to brown, about 5 minutes. Drain off excess fat and liquid from mixture.

            Stir in the mushrooms, cilantro, tamari, allspice, ginger, and lime juice and cook until beef is cooked and mushrooms are tender, about 2 minutes.

            Serve beef mixture in a large bowl alongside lettuce leaves. To eat, spoon beef mixture into leaves then top with ½ teaspoon plum sauce (if using).

Pack Perfectly. To pack and take to a family dinner or pot luck, put beef mixture in one container and layer cold, crisp lettuce leaves in another.

This year I did the treats for both kids’ classes.  So I wasn’t busy blogging about heart shaped goodies, but I was busy making them.  Here are some pics…

These heart sandwiches were for my daughter’s class.  These were super simple and festive to make.  Here’s what I did:

1. Using a small 1 1/2 – 2 inch heart cutter, cut out hearts from slice of sandwich bread. (carefully cutting you’ll get 4 out of each slice).

2. Put bread hearts into pairs for sandwiches.

3. Spread one side of bread hearts with cream cheese

4. Spread another side of bread hearts with strawberry or raspberry fruit spread

5. Put together. Ta dah! 

Heart shaped graham crackers along with lovely organic, Oxnard, CA. grown strawberries for my son’s kindergarten class.  These were pretty and easy to pass out, nestled in recycled paper muffin cups.

Then, as we were hurrying to make and eat dinner before another evening school event (and the cookie cutter was still out) we make some simple heart shaped cheese toast.

The cookie cutters really come in handy for all kinds of things: from tortillas to cookies to sandwiches to cheese, etc. there’s lots of ways to create fun shapes all year long.  It’s also a fun activity that can involve your kids.  For now I’ve left my heart in the basket with the other 100+ cutters I own (yes, it’s a bit of an obsession), but look out you never know what shape will be chosen tomorrow.  St. Patrick’s Day is just around the corner.  Then there’s baseball season, Easter, May Day, first day of summer…..

Don't call it baby food

I don’t like the words “baby food”.  It automatically conjures up bland, boring, stinky jarred food.  While commercial baby food has come a long way – there’s still great strides to be made.  I prefer to make food for people and babies just happen to be people who need a smoother creamier texture to begin their eating experience.  Thus purees.

Not having babies of my own, I don’t make purees as often as I used to.  I still do demonstrations for new parents, but lately with being focused on school aged snacks and lunches for my kids, I  forget how much purees come in handy.  Take for instance soup.  All great vegetable soups start with a homemade vegetable purees.  And fruit purees make wonderful butters on toast, and topping over ice cream and swirled into plain yogurt.

A friend of mine had her third child and he’s almost ready for solids.  This of course is exciting for me to hear.  So when we came to their house for the older siblings to play with my kids, my daughter (her taste testing the puree in photo above) and I made and brought a puree for the baby.  He may not be ready to eat this for a few weeks, so I froze the puree into cubes and popped them in a freezer safe container, so mom is ready when the time is right.  I chose asian pear because of a few things:

1. it’s in season

2. it’s mild and sweet

3. you can’t find it in a jar

4. it’s Chinese New Year

Here’s the recipe and steps of photos.

Asian Pear Puree (from The Petit Appetit Cookbook)

Asian pears look more like an apple than a pear.  They are round and yellow with a brown speckled skin.  Inside they are sweet and juicy and very refreshing.

Makes 16 – 18, one ounce baby servings.

 3 Asian pears, washed, quartered and cored just before cooking

 Steamer Method:

Place prepared pears in steamer basket set in a pot filled with a small amount (about 1 – 2 inches, but not to touch fruit) of lightly boiling water.  Cover tightly for best nutrient retention and steam for 10 – 12 minutes or until pears are tender.  Pears should pierce easily with a toothpick.  Set pears and cooking liquid aside to cool.  Scrape pears for skin and puree in a food processor with a steel blade.  Add tablespoons of reserved cooking liquid to puree to make smoother and adjust consistency.

Freeze puree in ice cuber tray or individual molds.  Pop out cubes and store in freezer safe container for up to 3 months.

Cut asian pears, ready for steaming

Steamed and peeled pears ready for pureeing

Pureed asian pears

Ready for freezing