Rhubarby Sweetness

Hi Guys. It's been challenging to sneak away from life and blog. I'm sorry I've neglected this space, because I love it. It's my very own space with no work, no teething baby, no bills or other stuff that clogs up my brain and drives me to consider anxiety medication. As Virginia Woolf said, every woman needs a room of her own, even if it's a virtual room.
Anyway.
Let's talk about rhubarb now.

Behold the humble rhubarb!

Rhubarb grows like weeds around here, and it's usually plentiful at the farmer's market. I don't remember ever seeing it in California. I'm not sure if it doesn't grow down there, or if I just never noticed it. I'm certainly more interested in and aware of local foods now then I was ten years ago.
Regardless, I bought some rhubarb a few weeks ago, and later that afternoon I strolled around our lot and discovered a huge thatch of it. Oh well.

Strawberry and baby.

This is a terrible picture but I swear this is delicious

Strawberry Rhubarb Bread Pudding

Adapted from Bon Appetite

ingredient

3 cups 1/2-inch-wide pieces fresh rhubarb (cut from about 1 pound)

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 1-pint container fresh strawberries, hulled, halved
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint
• 
  
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
• Butter (for dish)
• 8 (or more) 1/2-inch-thick slices brioche or egg bread (each about 5 x 4 inches), cut lengthwise in half

• Make Compote

Combine rhubarb, sugar, and 1/4 cup water in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Bring to simmer, stirring occasionally, until sugar dissolves, about 3 minutes. Simmer gently until rhubarb is tender but not falling apart, stirring occasionally, about 7 minutes. Remove from heat. Stir in strawberries. Transfer to bowl and stir in mint.


Make Pudding

Preheat oven to 350°F. Whisk sugar and eggs in medium bowl. Place milk and cream in heavy medium saucepan. Scrape in seeds from vanilla bean. Bring to simmer over medium heat. Gradually add hot cream mixture to egg mixture, whisking custard to blend.

Butter 13 x 9 x 2-inch oval baking dish. Arrange enough bread slices in dish to cover bottom (some spaces will remain between slices). Spoon half of rhubarb evenly over. Repeat with bread and rhubarb. Pour custard over. Place baking dish in roasting pan. Add enough hot water to pan to come halfway up sides of dish.

Bake pudding until just set in center, about 50 minutes. Remove from oven. Let stand in water bath 30 minutes; remove.

Flexibility

A conversation regarding Ceci between my friend J. and her son, L.
L: Mommy, she's kinda fat.
J: She's not fat sweetie, she's a baby.
L: But, her face.

I ask you friends, are fat people flexible enough to get their feet in their mouth? Riddle me that. They are not. Bam. Case closed.

In birthday cake news, viola!

I ended up making lovely LL a birthday cake from Smitten Kitchen. After Matthew's birthday cake success I decided to give the website another whirl, and the cake turned out pretty yummy.

It's a classic buttermilk cake with sour cream chocolate frosting. Yum. I love that little bit of tang in the frosting. I dig it when my food bites me back. My only quibble is that the frosting recipe asks you to add espresso powder to the chocolate before melting it in the double boiler, thus insuring that the damn chips will take FOREVER to melt. In fact, I'm not sure if they ever would have melted at all if chef husband hadn't stepped in and saved the day. All's well that ends well. I got to eat cake for dinner two nights in a row and my last day at Sucky Job is Thursday! Cheers. 

On Toys and Other Drugs

A friend of Matthew's recently gifted Ceci with this vintage Fisher Price airplane complete with a few passengers.

Isn't that adorable? Matthew says the guy in orange is Gordon, from Sesame Street. I'm not sure if that's the case. I remember Gordon having a mustache, not a goatee, and I'm pretty sure he had arms, and was made of human flesh. Bad jokes aside, it's a very cute gift, no? Unfortunately, Matthew's friend is unaware that giving me my daughter this toy is like giving a drug addict just one little taste of smack.
I say this because I've been fighting a vintage Fisher Price obsession since I birthed my little critter, and that may seem harmless, but in truth it's dangerous because of (A) my tendency towards hoarding, and (B) the potential cost involved.
I think it started when I saw this record player at the antique store I frequent. It had all four records, was fully functioning, and was in beautiful shape for a toy older than I am. It was $30, which isn't terrible, but I ran out of that shop like my hair was on fire. The problem is this- once I have the record player I'll want the TV. Once I have the TV I'll want the little camera. Then the telephone, then the whirly ball push-thing, then the pull- along duck thing. I will become obsessed with collecting all of the Fisher Price toys I remember from my childhood and then I will most likely lock myself in a room to coo lovingly to them while I polish them with moist towelettes. I may or may not consume too much wine while I deplete my bank account on ebay while in pursuit of my new collection.
Soooooo. Now, through no fault of my own, there is a toy in my home acting as a trigger for me. Should I go for it, or do I find a self- help group?

Also- here's that recipe for plum cake Missy. Enjoy.

Return of the Pavlova

Pavlova (food)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Colloquially referred to as "pav", it is a cake similar to meringue with a crispy crust and soft, light inner.

Pavlova is a meringue-based dessert named after the Russian ballet dancer Ánna Pávlova.

The name is pronounced /pævˈloʊvə/ or /pɑːvˈloʊvə/, unlike the name of the dancer, which was /ˈpɑːvləvə/ 

or /ˈpævləvə/. The dessert is believed to have been created in honour of the dancer either during or after 

one of her tours to Australia and New Zealand in the 1920s. The nationality of its creator has been a source of 

argument between the two nations for many years, but formal research indicates New Zealand as the more 

probable source.

The dessert is a popular dish and an important part of 

the national cuisine of both countries, and is frequently 

served during celebratory and holiday meals.

It goes against all my instincts to post a cooking story that was not a smashing success, but I will anyway because I'm not a food blogger or a chef, just a glutton who happens to have a blog.
Besides, as you will see, this pavlova recipe is a problem wrapped in a riddle inside a conundrum, with just a little dash of cultural misunderstanding to boot.
As some of you may remember, the pavlova was supposed to be my Valentine's day sweet for my sweetie, but after several hours of egg white angst, Fahrenheit vs. Celsius confusion, and fatigue (all set against the backdrop of whiny baby), the cake went into the trashcan. It was hard on my ego because I am generally quite a good baker. My obsessive compulsive need to check and recheck proportions over and over again usually result in a fine baked product.
Not this time. The first time I attempted it I was baffled by the metric measurements of the Australian recipe, but I made do with a online conversion chart. The one thing I forgot to convert was Celsius to Fahrenheit. Disaster. Even if I hadn't made that fatal flaw the cake would have failed, because I put the cake on parchment paper, not waxed paper. So the whole thing stuck to the parchment like hard little Frisbees. There were other problems. Apparently letting egg whites sit while you puzzle out conversions and try to draw perfect circles is bad. Taking egg white cakes out of the oven for a while and then putting them back in, also bad. Drinking a few glasses of wine while you do all this- fun, but it doesn't make it any easier.
The cake I made last night is an amalgam of the original recipe, some tips from my Kiwi friend, and a Epicurious recipe.
Here is the result.

Hmmm. It doesn't really look like the beautiful Pavlova pictured above, does it? It might even look a little bit like a cow flop, no? It did look a little better sliced.

A little better, right? Or does it look like a cow flop that grew a mouth and is choking something up? It does, doesn't it?

It tasted delicious though, and that's what really matters. It was creamy meringuey chocolaty goodness. It was what a unicorn would eat at a unicorn tea party. 

If you decide to try it, Go with God my friend. Buy an extra carton of eggs.

How to be a Hippie

OK people. I'll be honest. I'm suffering tonight because the Oscars are on and I can't watch them. Why not, you say? Well folks, it's because I went and cancelled the goddamn cable.
And why would I do something so incredibly anti-American? Well, because I had a real problem with the TV. Especially reality TV. If you put Bret Michaels, a posse of strippers, Dr. Drew, and Tyra in a blender and hit "puree" there you would have my fantasy show.
Before I had Ceci I watched an embarrassing amount of TV. Matthew and I went through a phase where we were parked next to one another on the couch, surfing channels and the Internet all night long.
I grew up watching TV. My parents both worked full time when I was a kid. Laverne and Shirley were my babysitters. And guess what? I turned out fine. I can read. I play nicely with others. I share. I make it through the day without behavior modifying medications ( I'm secretly very proud of this).
I cancelled cable because I like it too much. I can easily fall into a trance watching the tube and lose four or five hours at a time.
I started to worry, before Ceci came, that I was leading a digital life. I blogged. I facebooked. I watched TV. I spent a lot of time looking at screens, thinking about other people's lives, instead of living my own.
These days, we read cookbooks and novels and magazines. We clean. We cook. We talk. Sometimes we watch Netflix movies. Overall, I'm glad we watch less TV. I feel more awake.
There are a lot of anti- TV hippie enthusiasts in our town, and I'm not really a part of that camp yet. I'm bummed I'm missing the Oscars. But until I can control my intake, I'm going to avoid cable. No TV until I crave Masterpiece Theater instead of I Love Money. I naturally gravitate toward the tacky and the trashy, so that day may never come.
Anyway, tomorrow I will re-attempt the Pavlova cake. Wish me luck!

Ceci feigning interest in a toy.

Martha, You Sassy Wench

If you told me ten years ago I would be reading Martha Stewart's website and cooking her recipes, I would have laughed hard enough to choke on my bong. But here I am, thirty-four years old, happily cooking Martha's food while my husband tickles the baby in the next room. And this sausage tomato risotto is good. Like, really really good. It's good enough that Matthew reluctantly admitted that Martha has some tricks up her sleeve.

Frankly, I'm not sure why he has a grudge against Martha, because I cooked Martha- inspired fish tacos for him on our second date, and he loved that shit. I just tried to find that recipe on her site, but it wasn't there so here's my copy-

And yes, it is written on a beer-stained bar coaster. So what.
I like Martha, she inspires people who don't craft or cook to craft and cook, and that is cool. Maybe someday there will be a "Julie and Julia" type movie about her. Except it would have to be a bit freaky just like Martha. And I'm not talking about tax evasion or whatever. I read an article about her after she was released from prison, and she told the reporter that everything in her country house is black and white, including her animals. She admitted that she never let her black horses out in the light of day, because the sun might bleach their coats to red, and then THEY WOULD NOT MATCH HER HOUSE. Holy Moses. It's hard not to picture wine-drunk Martha, riding her horse through the dark Connecticut night, laughing as her mom hair blows in the wind.

Working Girl

Well, now that I am just getting the hang of taking care of a tiny human it's back to work for me. Today is the last day of my maternity leave. Why I can't be paid a generous salary for blogging, surfing the Internet, raising Ceci, and drinking coffee all day is beyond me. I'm good at all those things. But the universe sees fit to throw me back into the workforce instead of blessing me with incredible wealth. And because I like to complain (another thing I'm pretty good at), I'd like to mention how lame it is that Washington state, unlike my homeland, does not offer women the opportunity to file for state disability benefits while on maternity leave. Thanks Washington, for being unsupportive of women and families.
On the bright side, my parents are here for a whole month to help out with the baby. Of course, pessimist that I am, I have gruesome fantasies of them accidentally scalding her with their coffee, sitting on her, dropping her, putting her out with the recycling, forgetting to feed her, or forcing her to listen to Garrison Keillor all day. Her little brain would wither.
Logic tells me that none of these things will happen. After all, my parents managed to raise me to adulthood without any fatal snafus. I just love my girl and I don't want to miss out on anything. Sigh.
I'm sure I'll feel better by the end of the week when I see that Ceci is still in one piece and she still knows who I am. And I'll be thrilled to see an actual paycheck again.
I'll leave you with an awesome healthy cookie recipe that actually tastes good and relieves some of that post-holiday binge eating guilt. Adieu for now, the next time you hear from me I'll be a working girl.

Home Alone

Matthew took the baby out today for a few hours, and while I puttered around the house a revelation  struck me- I was home alone for the first time since Ceci was born! What a luxury. What silence, what peace, no one hanging off my boob or pooping on my bed (this could be the cat or the baby). The leisurely opportunity to sip tea and paint my toenails. I also tried on all my favorite jeans, and no amount of elbow grease, prayers, or expletives would make them fit over my flabby postpartum pooch.
Still, those few hours were my very own Christmas miracle.
I finally found the time to make this chai pumpkin bread, and it is delicious even though my sleep-deprived brain left out all of the spices except the cardamom, which I tripled.

I also pulled this little gem out of my creepy picture collection.

Don't worry, I've already faxed a copy of this to the FBI. Obviously, this is not just a photo of a creepy man dressed as Santa. This is photo evidence of a vile, soul-sucking Golum wearing a man suit that is in turn wearing a Santa suit. Clever no? I can see right through it. Look at the dead eyes. The child looks happy though, which is another Christmas miracle. Every photo I've ever seen of a human baby with Santa involves lots of tears. I can, and have stared at this picture for hours. 

Meatball Madness

I've made this Italian wedding soup twice in the last week and I am totally hooked. My affection for meatballs in soup or just about any other vehicle extends back decades, but I forgot how much I like them until I made this delicious, soul-warming soup. I am now newly obsessed with meatballs. I love them. Rolling meatballs between my fingers, eating them, reading meatball recipes- I've barely hide time to tend to my child since I rediscovered my passion for them.

That being said, I do think the soup would translate well to a vegetarian recipe. Just use veg stock and veggie sausage instead of meatballs. The fennel seed in the meatballs is what makes them brilliant, so if that could be incorporated into a veggie meatball it would be perfect.

I also made a few modifications to make the soup more to my liking. I omitted the celery and used lots of parsnip, left out the pasta, and used ground lamb instead of beef. Oh my God, lamb meatballs. I'll never be the same.

Happy Birthday, You Turkey

Happy birthday to Matthew and hooray for birthday cake! Sometimes I wish I could put candles in every meal, or at least every dessert. They make everything so festive, and the resulting lighting totally smooths out my wrinkles. 

I went ahead and made the chocolate Guinness cake I've been obsessing over and it was delicious. We have been grazing on it all day and I'm wondering why we don't have chocolate cake laying around the house all the time. It's almost impossible to be ungrateful or cranky when you have a chocolate cake in your kitchen, even when you are deeply sleep deprived with sore boobs. 

And Megan- I've got your pavlova recipe in my pocket for another night- but why must you taunt me with your fancy metric measuring system! You must know I am a lazy American and conversions make my brain hurt. 

Love and Happiness

In case you're wondering, not only has the snow NOT melted, but it has increased. It's been snowing all day.

It's really cold

Frozen herb garden

Anyway, it is Thanksgiving and I've got a lot to be thankful for. 

a beautiful and healthy baby

an awesome husband 

Robert Downey Jr. 

a loving and supportive family

a Buick Le Sabre with airbags 

a strong and healthy body

a mostly level head

and lots of other stuff.

Happy Thanksgiving!