Strawberry Season and Getting Ready for Baby McGee

Today was the sort of day to make those darned Mormon lifestyle bloggers jealous, and not just because of P's glass of red wine and our breakfast coffees. Two of our oldest and dearest friends came down for the weekend, and then left on noon at Sunday. Such considerate guests to leave us one whole weekend day to get all the things done that need doing! We are now totally set for newborn and 0-3 month clothes for our littlest bun, and our brand-spanking new gigantic IKEA bookshelf holds her clean clothes admirably well until we can find a new dresser for H to move into.

An adorable thrift store find to round out H's week of finding great deals on baby stuff. Owl long sleeved onesie for a quarter!

 E shows off the first days of the third trimester (28 weeks!) and her amaaaazing pie creation.

    P got an awesome little hibachi grill for his birthday, so we decided to grill sweet corn and chicken sausages for dinner tonight. I made a 'lishy' (H's word, isn't it great?) salad from the spoils from our  first farmer's market of the year, and we ate like royalty.

     This afternoon we drove out to the strawberry patch and brought back a lovely crop of strawberries. Our first treat is Strawberry Pie with a coconut streusel crust.
 


 

All recipes from Bittman's How to Cook Everything, Tenth Anniversary Edition

Sweet Tart Crust + Streusel Topping + Fresh Strawberry Pie

Sweet Tart Crust:
11/4 cups flour, plus more for rolling
pinch salt
2 T sugar
1 1/4 sticks frozen or cold unsalted butter, cut into chunks
1 egg yolk
3 T ice water

1. Combine flour, salt, sugar in food processor, and pulse. Add butter all at once, process about 10 seconds, until the mixture is uniform (don't overdo it). Add egg yolk and pulse a few more seconds. Now you'll have small crumbs.
2. Put the mixture in a bowl, add 3 T ice water; mix with your hands until you can form the dough into a ball, adding 1 - 2 T more ice water if needed. Form into a ball, and freeze for 10-15 minutes. (If you cover it in plastic wrap, you can refrigerate for a couple of days, or freeze, well wrapped for a couple of weeks.)
3. Sprinkle counter top with flour, and add pastry ball. I found that kneading the pastry like bread dough to incorporate some of the flour made for a perfect consistency. Roll out into a circle about 2 inches larger than your pie pan.
4. Loosen the dough with a scraper, and drape it gingerly over your rolling pin to transfer into the pie pan or tart shell. Press the dough into all the nooks and crannies in the pan, and cut the edges flush with the pan edge. Refrigerate for 1 hour or freeze for 30 minutes before filling.

Streusel Topping:
1 stick unsalted butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup shredded coconut (unsweetened, or reduce sugar)
1 T lemon juice
pinch of cinnamon
1/2 cup whole wheat, 1/2 all-purpose flour

1. Cream butter and sugar in the food processor. Add the rest of the ingredients and pulse until  combined and crumbly; but less uniform than a dough.
2. Crumble the mixture over the top of a fruit pie, crisp, quick bread, or muffins.

Strawberry Pie Filling:
5 cups hulled strawberries, whole or halved
1/2 - 1 cup sugar, depending on sweetness of berries
3 T corn starch
pinch salt
1/4 cinnamon
pinch of allspice

1. Heat oven to 450 F. Toss berries with sugar, thickener, salt, and spices. Pile into the chilled pie crust.
2. Bake at 450 for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and add streusel topping. Bake for another 40-50 minutes at reduced heat of 350 F until pie is golden brown. Cool for at least 20 minutes before slicing. 

Crafty Projects and Amazing Rice

It's once again my favorite time of the year, the time that final exams are done and summer is just beginning. And once again, P has been busy crafting. Here's a nice 45 minute project for a kid's room.
We found inspiration for it on Pinterest, and then did it ourselves!

Art Hanger

Cost: zero dollars + 45 minutes of effort

 Supplies: 2 pieces of wood from drawer pulls from our freecycled Dresser.
                Bicycle Brake Cable
                Screws and Screw Wallmounts
                Screwdriver + Drill
                Masking Tape + Pencil
                Clothespins
1. Drill holes in center of drawer pulls for screws to mount in the wall.
2. Drill a second narrow hole through the diameter of the drawer pull to thread the wire through.
3. Decide where you'd like to mount the art hanger, and test-mount it with masking tape. Mark the ends for the drawer pulls.
4. Drill holes in the wall, add screw wallmounts.
5. Screw drawer pulls into wall.
6. Add wire, threading through the holes in the drawer pulls, tugging to the desired tightness. Trim off any remaining wire.
7. Add clothespins and art!

Here are a couple of other home decoration projects we've been up to as well. We found two giant very firm pillows for the guest room so we can have a cozier movie area. Here, H demonstrates that the pillows are great for a reading nook too!





 
I've been slowly redecorating our couch and living room, and we finally got all new throw pillow covers for the couch. Now we have two lovely green ones and the birdie pillow cover on our nice grey couch cover.

Finally, I promised amazing rice. Here it is! It doesn't photograph particularly well, so it's just the recipe.

Coconut, Raisin, and Orange Rice
2 T butter
1 onion, finely diced
1 cup white rice, or parboiled brown rice
1 1/4 cups water
 salt
1 tsp popped cumin seeds
1/3 cup shredded coconut
1/4 cup raisins
1/2 tsp cardamom
3 T orange juice

1. Melt 1 T butter over medium heat. Add onion and saute until tender.
2. Stir in the rice and cook 1 minute, stirring continuously, then add water and salt. Raise the heat to high, cover the pan, and bring contents to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer, cover, and cook for 14-20 minutes.
3. In a skillet over medium heat, melt butter. Pop cumin seeds by roasting a bit. Stir in almond and saute until almonds brown faintly. Add coconut, and cardamom, and cook until coconut faintly browns. Remove from heat.
4. When rice is cooked, gently stir in almond mixture and orange juice. Remove from heat, cover, and let steam for 10-14 minutes.

Roast Chicken with Herbed Olive Oil

We promised chicken, so here's our first!
We had a small (3 - 3 1/2 lb) organic chicken to roast, and I have to say, this was the *most* delicious roast chicken P's ever made. I don't know if it was the recipe or the bird, but it was delicious! The most important parts, according to P, are flipping the bird from breast side down to breast side up, basting, and reducing the heat midway through cooking.

Roast Chicken with Herb Oil,
from Bittman's How to Cook Everything

1/4 cup olive oil
2 tsp pestled rosemary and a bit of thyme
salt and pepper
1 whole chicken (3-4 lbs)
1/2 cup water, plus more if needed

1) Heat oven to 450. Mix herbs into olive oil. With your fingers, loosen the skin of the chicken wherever you can and massage oil under skin. Put a bit into the chicken cavity, and remaining on outside of the skin. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
2) Put 2-3 T butter in a cast-iron skillet. Melt butter and add water and 1 smashed garlic clove (if desired). Put chicken, breast side down, in the cast iron pan. Roast for 20 minutes, spooning some of the butter mixture up over it, then flip bird over onto its wings and thighs. Baste again, then after 10 minutes; at this point, the breast should be browning. Turn heat down to 325, baste again, and roast until the thickest part of the thigh is at least 155-165.
3) when the bird is roasted, transfer to a platter and rest at least 5 minutes before carving.

We served our chicken with whole wheat bread, and truly wonderful carrots. This recipe is sooo simple, and so delicious. Even H ate 1/3 of it, which I'm certain is a new record for volume of vegetables consumed at one meal. Between the chicken breast and the carrots, she really feasted, and so did her Big Baby, who sat in H's high chair and got fed alternate bites.

Moroccan-Style Carrots,
modified from the Gourmet Cookbook, edited by Ruth Reichl

1/2 lb baby carrots, cut into thirds if large
garlic powder, a generous sprinkle
1 T olive oil
a small sprinkle of cinnamon
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp turbinado sugar (a spoonful of sugar makes the veg-tables go down in the most delightful way!)
a healthy squirt of lemon juice
salt and pepper

Steam carrots in the microwave, covered with some water for 8 minutes on high (in our microwave).
Heat oil with spices, garlic powder, cinnamon, cumin seeds, and sugar for 2-3 minutes (or more) until spices are lightly toasted and it smells delicious. Stir in carrots and steaming water and cook, until carrots are well coated, about 2 minutes. Stir in lemon juice, and salt and pepper.

A proposal, and a winter's dinner

Now that it's the depths of winter in MN, and that winter is on the way out in RVA, we propose an idea. We have Bittman's How to Cook Everything and it is just chock full of delicious chicken recipes. So, we here in RVA think it would be fun to try one new chicken dish every week or two and post about it. Are you all game?
Our first post will be a mock-chicken salad and cream of pea soup with avacado.



This tofu salad is a great favorite at our house, and it doesn't contain any noxious onions or garlic that must be avoided by E at this juncture. It does contain delicious curry powder, raisins, and carrots.

1/2 lb firm tofu
3 T mayonnaise
1 tsp curry powder
1 rib celery, run through a mandoline
1 carrot, run through a mandoline
1 large hand full of raisins
salt and pepper

1. Wrap the tofu block in a CLEAN cotton/linen kitchen towel and gently wring much of the moisture out of the tofu over the sink (really, a clean one. This will not be cooked). Drop tofu into bowl and crumble into course bread crumb size.
2. Stir in all remaining ingredients and chill at least 1 hour, covered to let flavors develop.

We made a green soup to go with our white and orange sandwich spread, and it turned out deliciously.



Cream of Pea and Avacado Soup

3-4 celery ribs, chopped finely
1 T butter
3-4 cups of chicken broth
3 cups of frozen peas
1 tsp dried dill
salt to taste (check it before salting, packaged broth is SUPER salty)
1/4 (or more) avacado
1/2 -1 cup whole milk

Soup is pretty forgiving, but here's how we made it.
1. Saute the celery in the butter for c. 10 minutes.
2. Add the chicken broth, and taste for saltiness. Bring to a full boil.
3. Add frozen peas, continue to boil on lower heat for 5 minutes. Add dill.
4. Take off the heat and add avacado and puree until smooth. Stir in milk to lighten the color.

fast father-daughter food

This evening, Dad and I were left on our own for dinner, only instructed to use up the shrimp, eat some asparagus, and to finish the spinach. We noticed an open box of chicken broth in the fridge, and decided to make soup. We boiled the broth and added some spaghetti, then tossed in the shrimp, asparagus, and spinach as the pasta got close to done. We only used one pot for all our cooking, and the cooking process was fast and easy. The final result was tasty, but could have used a bit more seasoning.

Picture!

Happy New Year!

Yesterday we updated our New Year's Eve tradition by making out own pizza instead of ordering out. Mom took care of the dough in her new Cuisinart while I prepared olives, onions, sausage, cheese, and other toppings. Then, while the dough rose, I made some olivata using this recipe, and it turned out pretty good.

Mom made a large pizza with tomato sauce, mozzarella, sausage, basil, spinach, onions, and red pepper. I made a smaller one with olives but sans sausage and red pepper. Steve made himself a small sausage pizza, and I made a dessert pizza with strawberry jam, mozzarella, and a tiny bit of experimental olivata on one corner. It was surprisingly good. I think we might have a new tradition for New Year's Eve.