Mike, Music and Michaela

If you know me, you know I love Indian food.  Mike’s not such a huge fan, but I keep trying to convert him.  I’ve been working hard to introduce Michaela to it so she’ll grow up loving it, too.  I also am a big fan of my Crockpot (especially after an excellent customer service experience a few years ago).

Do you see where I’m going with this?

When I saw The Indian Slow Cooker: 50 Healthy, Easy, Authentic Recipes, I was intrigued.  I added it to my Amazon wishlist and then let it sit there for months, if not longer.  Thursday, I was ordering some other stuff and decided to take the plunge; thanks to Amazon Prime, the book was in my hot little hands the next day.  Of course I had to make one of the recipes today, Saturday!

My favorite dish is aloo gobi- potatoes and cauliflower- and I was pleasantly surprised to see a Crockpot recipe for it.  I have to say, the dish was really easy to make and very delicious.  I especially liked that unlike other aloo gobi recipes I’ve made, this one didn’t use a ton of oil.  Michaela scarfed it down, and even Mike had seconds.  I paired it with a slightly modified version of these quick curried chick peas (I added channa masala in addition to the curry powder) and rice.  We have a lot of leftovers, so I’ll be able to indulge my love of this cuisine for the next several days.  Next up: palak paneer (spinach and cheese) and a TBD dal (lentil) dish.  And some kheer (a dessert).

Spiced Cauliflower and Potatoes

1 large cauliflower, washed and cut into 1-inch pieces

1 large potato (russet or yellow), peeled and diced

1 medium yellow or red onion, peeled and coarsely chopped

1 (2-inch) piece ginger, peeled and grated

3 cloves garlic, peelinged and chopped, minced or grated

3-4 serrano chiles, stems removed, chopped or sliced lengthwise

1 tablespoon cumin seeds

1 tablespoon red chile powder

1 tablespoon garam masala

1 tablespoon salt

1 teaspoon tumeric powder

3 tablespoons vegetable or canola oil

1 heaping tablespoon fresh cilantro, chopped

Put all ingredients except the cilantro in the slow cooker.  Mix well.

Cook on low for 3 hours.  Mix once or twice during cooking, especially int he beginning.  Eventually the cauliflower will release enough liquid to prevent anything from sticking to the sides of the slow cooker.

Add cilantro.  Mix well but gently so as not to break up the cauliflower.

Sometimes, when she’s tired but not quite ready for bed, Michaela will ask to “‘nuggle.”  It’s the sweetest thing ever.  She mostly says it to Mike, since he usually (98%) does the bedtime ritual, but every once in a while, she says it to me.  Tonight was one of those nights.  I put Michaela to bed, so after we put on her jammies, we settled in the dark in the rocking chair in her room.  She asked me to sing (“Zing, Mommy”), so I sang her a selection of tunes that included “Jingle Bells,” “How Soon is Now,” “Alone Again Or,” and “Away in a Manger.”  She put her head down against my shoulder and we sat for a while before she raised her head and put her nose against mine.  I’ve taught her how to give “Eskimo kisses,” and that’s what she was doing; giving me a sweet little Eskimo kiss.  She drew back a bit and put her fingers up to my eyes to see if they were open; when she found they were, she looked me right in the eye and smiled.  It melted my heart.

Note: if you’re reading this in Google Reader, the punctuation comes through and you’re probably wondering what I’m talking about.  If that’s the case, ignore the rest of the post.

In case anyone was wondering, I do know the rules of punctuation, and I try very hard to follow them.  For some reason, the WordPress theme we use for this blog doesn’t display certain characters titles, so “On New Year’s Eve,” for example, displays on the blog as “On New Years Eve” (missing the apostrophe that makes “year” possessive).  I’m probably the only one who noticed, but wanted to throw it out there, just in case.

There’s something about the concept of New Year’s Resolutions that I strongly dislike. It’s sort of like my distaste for the hype of new year’s eve.  Making something a New Year’s Resolution puts all this extra pressure on it that can only lead to disappointment.  So I try not to make resolutions.

A friend of mine does a personal development plan for herself each year and outlines goals for herself, like read X parenting books over the course of the year or take X courses for continuing education credits.  That’s maybe a bit… formal… for me.  That being said, I like the idea of taking time– at whatever point during a year– to think about where you are and where you want to be.

Using the dawning of 2012 as the impetus for self assessment, I’ve come up with the following goals (not in priority order!) for myself for the year:

• Start doing yoga again (I fell off after my streak in October)
• Finish the APR process
• Go to Mexico for a week to get my Spanish back up to snuff
• Spend more quality time with Mike and Michaela

Any more than that, and I think I run the risk of being unsuccessful.  So I’m sticking with these four and we’ll see how it goes.

Did you make any resolutions or set any goals for yourself?

I just finished designing thank you cards to send to our generous friends and families who bought us Christmas gifts.  I did it through Shutterfly– cute templates, easy to use site, reasonable prices–and can’t wait to receive the cards so I can write notes in them and send them out. 

(Here’s a sneak peek. If you’re sent us a gift, I guess you won’t be surprised when the mail comes, but that’s okay. You’ll still have the joy of waiting for your card to arrive in the mail, and the pleasure of putting this up on your fridge or wherever you’re going to display the card.)

3×5 Folded Card

View the entire collection of cards.

That being said, am I the only one who writes thank you notes anymore?  I feel like it’s very rare that I ever get one, and even thank you emails seem to be few and far between.  It’s too bad, really.  Maybe I’m a dinosaur, but I’m going to keep writing them and look forward to teaching Michaela the importance of a handwritten thank you note.

In middle school and high school, I often spent New Year’s Eve at home, listening to the radio.  The alternative rock station in town always did a countdown of the “Top 100 Songs of (whatever year),” and as a big music fan, I loved hearing the year’s songs and thinking about the order they chose and feeling the build up to the final 10 songs.  Kind of nerdy, I know, but that’s me.

Once I got older, I sometimes went to NYE parties.  One year I went to Vegas with some friends.  But I’ve always hated the hype of the night, of the feeling that you HAVE to do something, that it needs to be BIG, needs to be SPECIAL.  After all, anywhere you go will be cheaper and less crowded the night before or the night after, and you won’t be surrounded by people trying to avoid the line from “How Soon is Now” that has always struck me: “There’s a club if you’d like to go/you could meet somebody who really loves you/so you go and you stand on your own/and you leave on your own/and you go home and you cry and you want to die.”

That’s why even now I have fonder memories of listening to the “Top 100 Songs of 1994″ than of New Year’s Eve on the Strip.  That’s why the NYE Mike and I spent alone playing backgammon and cards on the living room floor, and the NYE we hung out with friends and played Uno all night, are more precious to me than any of the parties I’ve attended on that night.

Last night, we went to our friends’ house for a child-friendly gathering.  It was five couples including us, three of which had kids and two of which were expecting.  The kids played, ate too much candy and stayed up way past their bedtimes while the adults talked and ate and drank.  We toasted the new year at 10 p.m. (Central time!), downed our champagne, and made our way home.  I was in bed before midnight, woke up to 2012, and wouldn’t have it any other way.

I like to go through my magazines and cut out recipes, which I then put in a binder organized by type (desserts, pasta, casseroles, etc.).  I saw this recipe in an ad for Pillsbury baking mix and cut it out immediately, because what’s better than coffee cake?  I’m happy to say it was really easy and absolutely delicious.  I had to make two batches because we ate the first one and the whole reason I was making it was to take (along with Easy Rocky Road Fudge) to a holiday gathering.

Sour Cream Coffee Cake

1 1/2 cups baking mix (could be Pillsbury, Bisquick, Trader Joe’s…whatever you have on hand)

1/2 cup sugar

2 tablespoons margarine or butter, softened

1 egg

3/4 cup sour cream

1 teaspoon vanilla

Streusel for topping (below)

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Grease square pan, 8 x 8 x 2 inches. Mix all ingredients except streusel; beat vigorously 1 minute. Spread in pan; sprinkle with streusel. Bake until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean, about 35 minutes. Cool 10 minutes before cutting, makes 9 servings.

We had a lovely Christmas (how could we not, with a menu like this?), full of family (including my brother, who is almost never able to join us for holiday meals) and friends and presents and fun.  We opened presents after brunch with my family, then Skyped and opened more presents with Mike’s dad, stepmom and sister-in-law, then we opened more presents just the three of us.  The three of us took a long nap, then opened more presents before a light lunch and a trip to my grandmother’s to wish her a merry Christmas.  Once we got home, Michaela had dinner and went to bed and Mike and I enjoyed a dinner in shorts and t-shirts in 70+ degree weather on our patio.  It was low key and absolutely perfect.

Christmas brunch, I’m happy to say, was a success.  The Cranberry Lemon Tea Cake elicited a “It tastes…healthy” response from my brother, which wasn’t the biggest rave, but otherwise, everyone seemed to like everything.  I have to say, though, my two favorites were the baked oatmeal (really yummy and easy to make; I’ve been sharing the leftovers with Michaela, who also seems to love it) and the “quiche.” I put that in quotation marks because I didn’t make a crust, but rather used a recipe that used Bisquick so the bread-y part of the quiche is incorporated into it.  I combined several different recipes and made mine in muffin tins so they’d be small and cute.

I used spinach, onions, mushrooms, and bacon in my quiche, but obviously you could use whatever filling you want.  This made 24 mini quiches.

Music’s Mini Blender Quiche

8 oz mushrooms (diced into small pieces if you’re using a muffin pan)

10 oz spinach (also cut into small pieces)

1 medium onion (diced into small pieces)

8 slices of cooked bacon (diced into small pieces)

6 eggs*

1 cup Bisquick (or other baking mix)*

1 teaspoon salt*

1 tablespoon garlic powder (use more or less depending on how much you like garlic)*

3 cups milk*

2/3 cup olive oil*

1 cup shredded cheese

* I ended up doubling the wet ingredients to produce enough egg mixture to make all my quiches.  So the amounts above represent the total you’ll need, though you’ll actually work with half of them at a time, twice.  (Does that make sense?  This is why I’m not a cookbook author)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.  Generously grease your muffin tins.

2. In a pan, sautee the mushrooms and onions until they’re soft (I used a little bacon grease, but you could use a little butter or olive oil).  Scoop about a tablespoon of that mixture into each muffin cup, then cover with a tablespoon of spinach and a pinch of cheese.

3. In a blender, combine half of the starred ingredients (e.g., 3 eggs, 1/2 cup Bisquick, etc.) EXCEPT the olive oil.  Once those ingredients are blended smooth, add half (1/3 cup) the olive oil.  Blend until combined, pour over the mushroom/spinach/onion/bacon mixture into 12 muffin tins.

4. Repeat step 3, pouring over the remaining 12 muffin tins.

5. Sprinkle with a pinch more cheese.

6. Bake for 23-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and the tops of the quiches are golden brown.

7. Let cool for 5 minutes before attempting to remove.  (Otherwise the quiches will crumble and you’ll just have fancy scrambled eggs.  Believe me, for I speak from experience.)

I didn’t take pictures of the mini-quiches all laid out on the serving platter, but I wish I did, because they looked beautiful and tasted great.  This is a really easy way to make something that seems sort of fancy, and they also reheat really well.  We’ve been eating them for breakfast for the last couple of days, warmed in the microwave for about a minute; I would consider making some in advance next time we’re having people over and just warming them when it’s time to eat.

Enjoy!

I really enjoy food blogs, and am constantly bookmarking (on the Internet) or clipping (out of magazines) recipes I want to try someday.  Sometimes I’m good about making them, other times they just sit there, sounding delicious but unmade.  I have several biscotti recipes bookmarked, and it seems like everywhere I’ve seen them, the recipe is accompanied by a note talking about how easy biscotti is to make and how you would have to be a fool to ever buy it when you could make it.  I remembered that this morning, while planning a menu for our Christmas breakfast, so I decided I’d make some.  My mom loves biscotti, and people often like coffee with/after their meals, so it seemed like a nice addition to the menu.  I immediately turned to Budget Bytes, one of my favorite (if not my absolutely favorite) food blogs for a simple version.

I was really nervous when I started making the Cinnamon Spice Biscotti.  It called for things I didn’t have, like brown sugar (I made my own with white sugar and maple syrup since we didn’t have any molasses) and for actions I’m not really familiar with, like creaming butter.  I’ve seen Mike do it, using our Kitchen Aid stand mixer, but I didn’t feel like hauling that heavy thing out.  The butter needed to be soft, but not too soft.  How does one know when the butter is right?  Then, I needed to combine the butter with other wet ingredients, until it had a creamy texture.  But my batter mixture was kind of lumpy when I was done with that step…  I plunged ahead, though, and added my dry ingredients (note: I’m MUCH better at combining dry ingredients).  In the end, I had dough, but I wasn’t sure if it was “a soft dough,” as the recipe stated.

The recipe then called for using dusted hands to form two logs, about 3 inches wide and 14 inches long.  This is where I started to really doubt myself.  First of all, I am terrible at spatial reasoning, so “3 inches wide and 14 inches long” doesn’t mean much to me.  Secondly, I dusted my hands with flour, but I had no idea how much flour to use.  I knew I didn’t want so much that my dough got all floury, but I also know it’s important to use the right amount at first so you don’t overhandle the dough, which is bad.  I made my best guess, stuck my hands in my bowl, and a profanity that starts with the letter “F” immediately came to mind.

The dough was REALLY sticky.  Really, really sticky.  I decided I’d focus less at first on the dimensions of my logs and more on making two evenly-sized balls of dough.  I’d gotten some flour on the counter when I was combining my dry ingredients, so I plopped a handful of dough onto the granite, then scooped another handful out into another ball.  Then I was stuck-literally!  The dough was sticking to my hands and I couldn’t get any more of it to drop onto my dough balls.  And my hands were covered in dough, so it’s not like I could just dip them into the flour container to flour them some more.  I ended up scraping as much dough as I could off my hands with a rubber spatula, then washing my hands, then grabbing a spoon and dumping some flour onto my hands, then going back at the dough.  That actually worked pretty nicely, though I mourned the amount of dough I washed off my hands.  I re-floured until I had two dough balls, then dropped the dough on my parchment paper-lined baking sheet.

I found myself with two sad trails of dough.  At that point I decided I’d gone this far, I’d just keep muddling through the recipe and if I needed to throw it out, I would.  I also mentally shook my fist at the Internet and all the bloggers who claimed biscotti is soooooooo easy to make.  Lying Internet!

Fine.  I put some more flour on my hands and shaped the dough into long rectangles.  (Side note: I have no idea how the lady behind Budget Bytes manages to take pictures while she’s making the recipes, because my workspace and I were a total mess.)  It didn’t look exactly like the picture, but it got at the general idea.  I popped the tray into the over, muttered to Mike about Internet hoaxes (sort of like people saying pregnancy is nine months.  It’s 10 months, people!), and, a few minutes later, started salivating at the delicious smell coming out of my oven.

I turned the light on in the oven and peered at my biscotti.  It looked… well, like it might be good.  Once the timer went off and it was time to gently cut the loaves into pieces and sprinkle them with a cinnamon sugar mix, I knew I- like my biscotti- was golden.  Back into the oven for five more minutes, then flipped it over, sprinkled more goodness on, back for five more minutes, then out to cool.  Meanwhile, I posted a link to the recipe on Facebook and started dreaming about all the other varieties I could make (with chocolate chips and nuts!  Dipped in melted chocolate!  with dried fruit!).

Once the biscotti cooled, I put it in a bag and it’s now ready to make its debut at tomorrow morning’s breakfast.  Now that I’ve gone through the process once, I can honestly say it really is easy to make… so long as you amply flour your hands!