On A Stormy Day When I Didn’t Want To Leave My House…
Apr 12, 2013 What's Going On
Jennifer and Julia, the cure for my rainy-day blues.
This morning I woke up reluctantly. My son wakes me up around 6am on his way downstairs, and I make him breakfast and get him out the door. I’d stayed up late last night. The house was cold. (Wasn’t it just a few days ago when we didn’t even have to turn the heat on?) And unlike most days, when I get the kids off to school and then can do my own thing, I had to actually leave my house. And not in my usual workout gear or ill-fitting jeans, but looking half-way decent to meet two friends for breakfast.
I’m not in any way agoraphobic, I just really like being home. My house is comfortable. It’s very “me.” There are many days when I leave only for short walks to Fiona’s school – usually only in the afternoon, since the best neighbor in the world takes her to school most mornings. I don’t get restless or antsy when I’m home alone all day. I like being alone.
But I also like being with my friends, and since they won’t just come to my house, I have to go to them.
I dragged myself out of bed. Got Jake fed and out the door. Did not climb back into bed as I often do, but instead got a shower and found something decent to wear, muttering “Only for Jennifer and Julia.” I had some extra time so I even contemplated doing something with my hair, but then I looked out of the window and saw that the wind was already whipping along.
When it was time to leave I couldn’t find a singe umbrella. I mean, I own about a dozen. They were all hiding. I didn’t want to be late, so I just left. It wasn’t raining too hard yet.
The trains were ridiculously crowded, and everybody smelled like wet dog.
By the time I got out of the subway in Union Square, though, it was pouring. I headed for a newsstand and grabbed an umbrella. Then I realized that I had no cash (I never have cash!) and got some money out of an ATM, and handed the newsstand guy a crisp $20.
It took him a long time to get me my change. He was fumbling around behind the counter. I don’t think I was giving him any attitude, I wasn’t late and I was staying relatively dry under the overhang. But he apologized to me, three or four times. Finally, he handed me a wad of bills, none of them remotely flat. And then he held up his other hand and said sorry again. His other hand was deformed, in a claw shape. He said he couldn’t use it and that getting lots of bills was hard one-handed (stupid ATM $20 bills!).
I told him not to worry. He said “It’s hard when your hand doesn’t work.” I smiled and said, “At least you are.” I didn’t know what else to say. But my mood was instantly brightened. By someone who was out working and wanting to do a good job instead of feeling sorry for himself. By someone who actually cared that he was holding me up a little bit. By the fact that there were umbrellas being sold within fifty feet of where I got off of the subway in the pouring rain. By the fact that I can just get money out of an ATM without having to think about it too much.
I’m spoiled in many, many ways, I know that. I’m spoiled in that comfortable, middle class, non-breadwinner-with-kids-in-school way that allows you to get to the point where having to actually leave your house in more than sweats seems like a burden, where some bad weather actually makes you wish you hadn’t made plans with dear friends. Where the most difficult thing you’ll have to do all day is put on a little make-up and maybe get wet, and it seems like such an effort.
But of course in the end I was glad I’d gone out. As much of a loner as I am, I do love my friends. We had a spectacular breakfast at Maialino. Afterwards, Julia and I stopped at Bedford Cheese, where I spent another good chunk of the gift certificate my friends had given me for my birthday. And as Julia left the W Hotel for the train station, she asked the doorman to give me a nice umbrella, since my brand new $5 newsstand one was already falling apart.
When I got home, before I lost my momentum, I changed my clothes, put my cell phone in a baggie, and headed back out into the rain for a jog.
It had turned out to be one of the most fun days I’d had in a while, despite the fact that I got soaked – twice. And it isn’t even over yet, because my whole family will be home for dinner tonight – a not very common treat.
All of this on a day when I really didn’t want to get out of bed, and definitely didn’t want to leave the house.
Reading over this post I’m not really sure what the point is. Keep things in perspective? There’s a lot of suffering out there, so count your blessings? Friends are the tonic for ugly, stormy days? Newsstand umbrellas are designed to break within two blocks of leaving the newsstand?
I don’t know. This is my blog, I’m not sure I need to have a point. What I do know is that I’m very lucky, and very happy.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Easy And Delicious From Homemade With Love
Apr 10, 2013 Food
I’ve already written about the lovely launch party I went to last week for my friend Jennifer’s new cookbook Homemade With Love. And the baking lesson I took Fiona to and the wonderful cheese crackers the kids and I made. It was all fun and delicious.
But here’s a little confession: as fun as it can be to bake with my kids, what I really love is to be in my kitchen all alone. It’s my happy place. The TV is on in the background playing something I’ve seen a million times and don’t have to pay much attention to, like an old sitcom (no Maddow or Daily Show or Colbert – I don’t want to get angry while I cook!). All of my ingredients and tools are lined up and waiting. By the time I’m done the place is usually a disaster, but I like to start with things neat and clean.
I started Saturday night by putting together the Baked French Toast. I’m always looking for breakfast recipes that I can make the night before – so much easier when company is coming over, or relatives are staying at my house. This one was really simple to put together. The hardest part is always finding room in my fridge for a 13×9 pan. :-)
A note about using vanilla beans: Do it! I’d never used one until a couple of weeks ago when I was making this banana pudding with pistachio topping. The first time I make any recipe, I always try to make it EXACTLY as written. The recipe said vanilla beans, so I bought vanilla beans. They are very easy to work with: just cut them in half lengthwise, scrape out the seeds with a spoon, add the seeds to your recipe, and enjoy the wonderful smell on your fingers!
The next morning all I had to do was put it in the oven, and serve. It was a hit!
I prefer my French toast a little drier, so I casually suggested that I might reduce the liquid a bit next time or bake it a little longer, and my husband agreed. Fiona said no way, it should be even moister! Then Jake chimed in with “Don’t change anything, it’s perfect.” Now, I don’t want to discount the opinions of my husband and daughter – I want them to like what I make and I’m thrilled when they do. But when my cooking pleases Jake, well, that gives me a special thrill, because he’s the pickiest in the house. Score! I think I’ll keep everything the same for next time.
I then moved on to making Creamy Homemade Ricotta. If you’ve never had fresh ricotta spread on a little piece of crusty bread, go do it now. I’ll wait.
Divine, right?
Making ricotta isn’t like making a solid cheese, which can be difficult and involves all sorts of equipment and exact temperatures. Ricotta is easy-peasy. There’s lots of room for error. And here’s a little cheat for you: if for some reason you’re just not getting curds, add a tablespoon or two of white vinegar. Fixed!
I wanted a dryer ricotta. The longer you drain it for, the dryer it will be. After draining for about thirty minutes, it looked like this:
I was making the ricotta to use in the Crispy Spinach-Ricotta Latkes. I love just about anything potato based, but have never made latkes, so I was dying to try this recipe. It has very few ingredients, and I was able to throw it together quickly. I used frozen spinach, and was able to microwave and drain that and shred the Parmesan while the potato water was resting.
They were perfect! Unfortunately I only got to eat two of them. :-/ Fiona and my husband gobbled up most of the rest, and then Fiona claimed the leftovers for the next day’s school lunch before I could get to them. Darn it! Next time, double recipe.
Crispy Spinach-Ricotta Latkes
(Reprinted with permission from Jennifer Perillo and Running Press)
Makes 10 to 12 latkes
Ingredients:
1 large russet potato, peeled
1/2 cup (95 grams) packed, very well-drained steamed spinach, chopped
1/2 cup (100 grams) Creamy Homemade Ricotta, well-drained (see page 32 in Jennifer’s book)
1 large egg, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons (14 grams) freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Canola oil, for frying
Directions:
Fill a large bowl with ice water. Shred the potato into the bowl of ice water. When done, use a strainer or slotted spoon to transfer the shredded potato onto a kitchen towel – do not discard the water in the bowl. Gently squeeze the towel around the potatoes to absorb ay excess water. Let the reserved liquid sit undisturbed in the bowl for 10 minutes so the starch can settle to the bottom.
Meanwhile, mix together the spinach, ricotta, egg, and Parmesan in a deep bowl. Add the nutmeg, and season with the salt and pepper to taste. Carefully pour out the water from the reserved liquid bowl, making sure to save the starch that has collected at the bottom. Spoon the starch into the bowl with the spinach mixture. Add the shredded potatoes and give it a good stir to combine.
Fill a skillet with 1/4 inch (0.75 cm) of canola oil and heat over a medium flame. Drop generous tablespoonfuls of the spinach-potato mixture into the heated oil. Cook until golden, about 4 to 5 minutes, then flip and cook for another 4 to 5 minutes until golden on the other side. Transfer to a parchment or paper towel-lined baking sheet to drain. Sprinkle with a bit of sea salt immediately, if desired. Serve warm.
Make Ahead: These also reheat with delicious results in a preheated 350 degree F (180 degree C) oven for about 6 minutes. Just flip them over halfway through. If you really want to plan ahead, make a double batch and freeze the cooled leftovers in a sip-top plastic bag. I’d also suggest these for brunch parties instead of roasted potatoes or home fries, since they’re an easy dish to prep in advance.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: cooking, Food, Homemade With Love
Baking With My Kids From Homemade With Love
Apr 8, 2013 Food
On Saturday I took Fiona to a great event celebrating my good friend Jennifer Perillo’s new cookbook, Homemade With Love. It was hosted by KidzVuz, an amazing video review site for tweens and young teens owned by two other good friends of mine (do I have the most amazing friends, or what?). Fiona and I headed up to 92nd street to an adorable kids’ cooking space, Chef Toni’s Cooking Adventures.
Jennifer is adamant that cooking from scratch is not complicated, and Saturday proved that it’s so easy, even kids can do it. The group started out making a basic baking mix that Jennifer keeps on hand to speed up her scratch cooking. Then the kids got to decide what to turn that in to: cupcakes, waffles, or pancakes. Fiona and Isabella (her cooking partner and Jennifer’s older daughter) chose to make Deep Chocolate Cupcakes.
The great thing about cupcakes is that they’re quick. Most of my favorite cookie doughs have to rest in the fridge for at least an hour. In fact, my favorite cookie recipe happens to be one of Jennifer’s, and that one has to rest at least overnight – torture! Cakes and quick breads don’t have to rest before baking, but they take a lot longer in the oven.
Cupcakes, however, are perfect for kids because they can go from ingredients to mouths in under an hour. Plus, they’re so much fun to decorate!
Fiona and Isabella
Fiona munching on her cupcakes
Fiona didn’t expect anything out of the event other than a cooking lesson, so she was thrilled when Jennifer gave her a cookbook to take home! She wants to make every single thing in it.
On Sunday while Fiona was at a friend’s house, I mentioned to Jake that I was going to make Homemade Cheese Crackers. Now, Fiona loves to cook with me, but Jake hardly ever wants to. I knew he’d want to eat the crackers – he’s addicted to Cheez-Its – but I was floored when he begged to make them! Of course I said yes, and we got to work.
Actually, Jake got to work. First, he shredded the cheese and the butter. And yes, he’s wearing my cut-resistant glove. I have a tendency to shred my fingertips, and no recipe needs that.
When we were gathering the ingredients, Jake crinkled his nose at the paprika and dry mustard. He said he didn’t think he would like something with those in it. I told him to go look at the ingredients on the Cheez-It box, where he found paprika, plus several things he couldn’t pronounce. “Oh” he said. “OK.” A simple, but important, revelation for my picky son: lots of flavors go into the things you think just taste like one thing. And this time, you know every single thing that’s going in. (He did not, however, notice that the flour was whole-grain, and I did not point it out.)
After mixing everything up in the food processor, Jake rolled out the dough, then cut it with a pizza slicer. Thanks to Jennifer’s excellent directions, the cracker dough came off of the parchment paper with absolutely no trouble.
Jake even decided to make some “mutant” crackers:
Luckily, Fiona got home before all of the dough was rolled out and was able to do some too (after getting over me baking with Jake instead of her – seriously, she was pissed when she walked in and saw us!).
I can’t even tell you how many crackers we produced, because a lot of them were eaten straight from the pans and many, many more were grabbed while they were cooling.
By the time they were all cooled and put away I think we only had about a third left of what we’d made. Seriously addictive!
Jake has declared these crackers better than Cheez-Its, and told me that if I’m willing to keep making them, I don’t have to buy Cheez-Its anymore. These were so easy to make, I think that’s a deal. And I bet if I got him more comfortable with using the food processor (this was his first time), he could make these start-to-finish by himself. They’re that easy!
Many thanks to Rebecca and Nancy from KidzVuz for hosting the event on Saturday, Chef Toni for providing the space, and of course to Jennifer for providing us with these wonderful recipes and experiences!
Homemade Cheese Crackers
(Reprinted with permission from Jennifer Perillo and Running Press)
Makes 11 to 12 dozen
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups (216 grams) whole wheat pastry flour, plus more for sprinkling
1/2 teaspoon (3 grams) fine sea salt
1/4 teaspoon (1 gram) sweet paprika
1/4 teaspoon (1 gram) dry mustard powder
2 cups (170 grams) shredded Cheddar cheese
1 stick (112 grams) very cold unsalted butter, shredded using a box grater
2 tablespoons (15 ml) cold seltzer
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees (200 degrees C). Line two 9-inch x 13-inch (22-cm x 33-cm) baking sheets with parchment paper.
Add the flour, salt, paprika, and mustard powder to the bowl of a food processor. Pulse once or twice to blend. Add the cheese and butter. Pulse until the mixture forms a sandy texture. Pour in the seltzer and pulse a few more times, just until a ball of dough forms.
Divide the dough into two equal pieces. Place half between two sheets of parchment paper and set the other half aside. Roll out to an 1/8-inch (0.31-cm) thickness. Lift one side of the parchment, and sprinkle it with a bit of flour. Place the parchment back on top. Flip the dough over, still keeping it between the parchment sheets, and peel off the top layer of paper.
Use a pastry wheel or sharp paring knife to trim the sides to form a square (save the scraps to re-roll). Cut the dough into 1-inch (2.5-cm) squares – you can use a ruler or just cut them free-form. Transfer the cutouts to the prepared baking sheets (they can be placed pretty close to each other since they won’t spread). Use the tip of a metal skewer or toothpick to pierce a hole in the center of each cracker. Bake 9 to 10 minutes until fragrant and the edges are golden. Keep a close eye on them, as they go from done to burnt pretty quickly. Let the crackers cool on the sheet for 2 minutes, then use a small offset spatula to transfer them to a wire rack to finish cooling completely.
Store the crackers in an airtight container for up to 3 days (if they even last that long – Mikey always seemed to eat them quicker than I could make them).
Make ahead: Place the cut-out, unbaked crackers onto a waxed paper-lined baking sheet. Place the sheet in the freezer to let the crackers flash-freeze, about 1 hour. Transfer the frozen crackers into a plastic zip-top bag. Follow the baking instructions as directed in the recipe – surprisingly, you don’t need any extra time to cook the frozen ones.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 1 (Fiona’s cookbook). Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: Food, Homemade With Love, Kids
Food And Friends
Apr 3, 2013 Cooking & Baking
Today I had the huge privilege of going to my favorite kind of work event. It wasn’t about a brand, although two great brands – KitchenAid and Glad – were both sponsors. No, today was more personal: a chance to get together with friends to celebrate one of our own, a blogger and all-around wonderful person who is seeing one of her dreams come true with the publication of her cookbook, Homemade With Love.
My friend Jennifer Perillo has had lows and highs in the past year and a half that I can only imagine. Her cookbook isn’t just about food, it’s also about love and family. Her husband Mikey was her cooking muse, and she lost him in August 2011. Her love for him – and of cooking for him and their daughters – infuses the pages of the book and seeps into the recipes.
The day my book arrived from Amazon I took it to bed with me, thinking I would just read the intro and flip through it. I stayed up for hours reading the entire thing. I lost count of how many times I teared up.
And today, I got to eat a lot of that food. It’s not the first time I’ve eaten Jennifer’s food, but this time was different because every time I tasted something and ooh-ed and aah-ed, I knew I had the recipe waiting for me at home.
Jennifer spent the first part of the event madly cranking out dishes from her tiny kitchen, and when she insisted that we all start eating I wasn’t shy. I started with some creamy homemade ricotta, chickpea salad, homemade cheese crackers, and of course a cupcake.
Then I moved on to the pastas: one with pesto, one with a delicious red sauce and lentil-ricotta meat(less)balls. Everything was wonderful and backed up the book’s premise: good food is not complicated. Start with simple, healthy ingredients, add Jennifer’s techniques and instructions, and the results will be amazing.
The kids and I just got home last night from Spring Break in Buffalo visiting my mom, and now I’m on a plane headed to California for a few days for a work event. By the time I get home I’ll have gone nine days without cooking or baking anything, and will probably be in withdrawal. I already know what I’m going to make first, and I copied the recipes from Jennie’s book last night so that I could put in a grocery order while I was away and have the ingredients ready to go when I get home. I can’t wait. I’ll make sure to report back.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: Food, Homemade With Love
Diary Of A Faster, Day 1
Mar 5, 2013 Weight Loss, What's Going On
Yesterday I started a new eating plan. I looked at everything I’ve done in the past year or so that worked. My most successful weight loss plan was the one where I ate very low carb/low cal two days a week, moderately four days a week, and whatever I wanted one day a week. So if it was so successful, why did I quit? The constant calorie counting. The amount of food was doable, but counting every calorie – especially when cooking a lot – gets old really fast.
But then on Sunday, I read a book that I’d seen on GMA a few days before, The FastDiet (it really did take just part of one day – there isn’t enough in there for a whole book so it’s beefed up with menu plans, calorie lists and testimonials, but the information is good). And I decided to try the two-day-a-week low calorie aspect of what had worked for me, without the low carb part and – most importantly – without counting any calories the other five days.
I’m doing some other small things too (I’ll go into them in a future post), but this is the cornerstone of my new plan: 500 calories on Mondays and Thursdays, whatever on the other days. 500 calories is not a lot. But the way my brain works, I suspect it will be easier to torture myself for two days every week than to try to be moderate and keep track the majority of the time. We’ll see. Because finding a way to lose weight is pretty easy – I’ve found probably half a dozen that worked for me. But if they’re not sustainable, they’re pretty pointless.
So, how did my first “fast day” go? Inspired by Stimey’s quest to give up Diet Coke, I kept a diary. (But don’t expect me to give up Diet Dr Pepper any time soon – as you can see, it’s pretty much the only thing that got me through the fast day!) I’m restricting my eating on the fast days to between noon and 8pm – again, I’ll go into why in a future blog post.
6:05am: Jake wakes me up. My first thought is “Damn, I can’t just start eating when I get downstairs.” I am sad.
6:15am: Make Jake’s lunch. Wonder why the hell I made fresh bread last night knowing I couldn’t have any this morning. It smells sooooooo good. Stupid stupid stupid. Do not lick the knife after making Jake’s peanut butter sandwich. Harder than child birth. Drink a Diet Dr Pepper.
6:45am: Send Jake off to school and climb under the covers for another hour of sleep. Growling stomach keeps me awake. WTF, stomach? Half the time I don’t eat breakfast before eating with Fiona at 8, so are you just doing this because you know it’s a fast day? Not fair!
8am: Have The Ass take my fasting blood glucose level with a little thing that stabs your finger. It takes him THREE freaking tries. Immediately want to eat a bag of salt and vinegar potato chips.
8:45am: Drop Fiona off at school and go to the store for apples, strawberries, and hummus. Nix the white bean hummus because it’s 20 calories more per serving. When you only have 500 calories to work with, every one counts. Thank God I only have to worry about this twice a week.
9:29am: Finish my second Diet Dr Pepper of the day. Wish I could say that it’s because of the fasting, but this is normal. Tell myself I’ll have water next.
9:32am: Open a third Diet Dr Pepper.
9:40am: Open fridge and stare longingly at the cottage cheese. Not the leftover baked ziti, not the giant hunk of blue cheese, but the cottage cheese. Probably because I know I can have some later, as opposed to the other foods which will have to wait until tomorrow. So, not total torture. Just a delay.
9:45am: Boil a couple of eggs in case I want them later. Thinking egg salad maybe.
10am: Drink a glass of water. Wonder why the hell I don’t like water infused with lemon or rose petals or whatever other stupid things people are always telling me to put in water.
10:02am: Stare at the cottage cheese again.
10:28am: Look through the freezer for what I’m going to eat for dinner, so that I can figure out what to have before that. Decide on an Amy’s Spinach Pocket, at 280 calories. Usually eat those as a snack, not a meal.
11:32am: Tweet this
I get to eat in 28 minutes. Not that I’m obsessing or anything.
— SelfishMom (@SelfishMom) March 4, 2013
11:53am: Start washing strawberries in anticipation of noon.
12pm: Start eating strawberries the moment the clock changes to noon. Ponder the fact that it wasn’t exactly hunger that made the morning seem so long, but just the thought of food.
12:08pm: Finish eating a hard-boiled egg. Lick every grain of salt from my fingers. Still hungry. Take a Fucothin, drink a glass of water, and open another Diet Dr Pepper.
12:15pm: Realize I’m not really hungry anymore, and yet I still want to eat ALL OF THE THINGS!!!
1:07pm: Stomach just growled – hungry again already. Told it to shut up. If I eat more now I’ll regret it later.
1:30pm: Weigh an apple. Realize I can’t fit one in today unless I give something else up. Also can’t eat the hummus. Basically went to the store this morning for the five strawberries I ate at noon.
1:35pm: Consider swapping out the cottage cheese for the apple, but remember how happy dairy makes me.
1:59pm: Figure out the exact combination of light dressing and green leaf lettuce that will allow me to have a 33 calorie salad. Kill me now.
2:09pm: Mistakenly think I accidentally deleted 50 videos from my hard drive. Want pasta. Drink another Diet Dr Pepper.
2:10pm: Remember we have baby dill pickles in the fridge. Low cal, tangy, delicious pickles. Search fridge for five minutes before remembering that I finished them last month and forgot to put them on the shopping list. Idiot.
2:16pm: Add pickles to Fresh Direct order.
2:20pm: Remember that pickles are loaded with sodium and might not really be 5 calories per serving and take them off of Fresh Direct order and OMG, why is my mouth watering?
2:30pm: Remind myself that I did not get chubby eating pickles even if the calorie count is wrong and add them back to the order.
2:38pm: Tidy up kitchen. Find plastic bag that used to have garlic bread in it. Stick my head in and take a giant whiff before throwing it out.
2:45pm: Start to reconsider spinach pocket for dinner. Think about the GIANT salad – with croutons – that I could have for 280 calories. But Amy’s Spinach Pockets are soooo good.
2:50pm: Pick my daughter up from school. Don’t think about food the entire time I’m out of the house. Occurs to me that perhaps five feet from my kitchen is not the best place to work on fast days.
3:30pm: Eat my 33 calorie salad. Wonder how rabbits live like this, then remind myself that they don’t even get the two teaspoons of dressing that I have. Being a rabbit must suck ass. Take a Fucothin and drink a glass of water.
3:40pm: Feel physically full, but still want all of the food.
4:15pm: Take my daughter to dance class. Little boy sitting next to me starts to eat a baguette sandwich. I start daydreaming about what would happen if I just leaned over and took a bite.
6:04pm: Back home. Wondering if I will really make it until 7:30 when we usually have dinner. Wondering if it even makes sense to wait that long. Contemplate eating my dinner an hour before the kids eat theirs.
6:21pm: As the clock ticks closer to my last meal of the day I feel pretty good. I mean, I’m hungry, and I would eat an entire pizza if it were set in front of me. But physically, I don’t feel like I’ve only had 220 calories so far today. No lightheadedness or dizziness, not feeling sleepy, and my stomach hasn’t grumbled for hours. For some reason it gets easier as the day goes on, not harder. Or maybe I’m just delirious.
6:34pm: Open a jar of peanut butter and breath deeply for about 15 seconds.
6:42pm: Reach into freezer, take out dinner, put it back, drink a glass of water.
7:18pm: Eat the spinach pocket (actually manage to eat it slowly and enjoy it). It’s the tastiest thing EVER. Want to eat twenty. Take a Fucothin and drink a glass of water.
7:20pm: Start making the kids’ grilled cheeses. Curse them for being young and thin.
7:25pm: While putting the spinach pocket package in the recycling notice that it actually contains 260 calories, not 280. Feel like a death row inmate who has just gotten a call from the governor. Do some middle school math to figure out how many chocolate chips make up twenty calories.
7:28pm: Eat eight chocolate chips and open up a Diet Dr Pepper.
7:45pm: Clean up dinner table. Smell the leftover grilled cheese. Offer it to my husband, because grilled cheese should NEVER BE THROWN OUT! He doesn’t want it. I put it down the garbage disposal immediately. Something inside of me dies.
8:10pm: Climb into bed with my laptop to get some work done. Feel full and, considering I’m not stuffed, rather satisfied. Can still taste chocolate in my teeth. Feels good to be a couple of floors away from the kitchen.
9:51pm: Go to bed. Will get eight glorious hours of sleep tonight. A little hungry, but no more so than on a normal night when I don’t snack after dinner. Look forward to eating tomorrow.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: Food, The FastDiet, Weight Loss
Cookie Therapy
Feb 5, 2013 What's Going On
So I tend to beat myself up when I think I’m not doing something well for reasons that were preventable. If I’m just not good at something that’s fine, I can live with that. But if I rushed or took a shortcut or did something I had a feeling wasn’t the right thing to do? That’s not OK. Which is basically what I did with these Superbowl cookies.
I don’t think they looked bad, and they were a big hit at the two parties I brought them to. But I could have done much better.
I took a private cookie decorating class with Gail Dosik last week, and was really anxious to try my new skills out. At the lesson Gail taught me as much about icing consistency as time allowed, but we were using icing she had made. Getting the consistency right on my own was a challenge.
On Wednesday I made some plain white icing first and tried it out on some Christmas cookies I had in the freezer. The first couple were rough, but eventually I got the hang of it. Flooding them went well. And they were tasty!
Sometimes pretty cookies just don’t taste that great, and I wanted the best of both worlds. Since Gail is apparently taking her delicious cookie recipe to her grave (ahem), I decided to use the rest of that sugar cookie dough – still in the freezer – to make my football cookies on Thursday – still plenty of time before the Superbowl.
What I hadn’t noticed when I made the snowmen was that the dough had spread. A lot. That’s OK for snowmen, they just got plumper and rounder (much like myself in winter, actually). But when I tried it with my new football cookie cutter, they spread from a football shape to a round blob. Oops. I was tired. I put off making more cookies until the next day.
I usually use Martha Stewart’s cutout cookie recipe, and while it’s good, it’s not spectacular. So I decided to try two new recipes on Friday. And they both completely sucked ass. But the one part of flooding cookies that you really have to pay attention to is drying time, and I was running out of time. So I settled on the cookies that sucked less, and on Saturday got to work making brown icing.
Now, it seemed reasonable to me that if I wanted brown icing I should simply add brown food coloring. But it was more like tan, very un-football like. And no matter how much brown I added, it just wasn’t getting any darker. So I added some black. And some more black. Nothing. So I looked online, and some people said they made their brown icing using red and green food coloring. So I dumped that in too. What I had was a slightly orange light mud color that was just about the least appetizing thing I’d ever seen. And the texture was all wrong. I piped it onto a cookie and it looked like a skinny turd, all pock-mocked and uneven and dry looking.
By this point – Saturday night – a friend was over, and he called his mom, who is an amazing baker. She gave me a recipe that used cocoa powder for the coloring. So, starting over, I mixed that up. It looked good. The consistency was good. I got the cookies outlined, and then flooded, and went to bed very satisfied.
However, when I woke up on Sunday I was not happy. There were now weird light spots on some of the cookies, and the edges were cracking. But with the Superbowl eight hours away, there was no turning back.
I mixed up some more white icing and started outlining the white parts of the cookies and adding the laces. Now, after just one cookie I could tell that the consistency was all wrong. It was too thick. And this is where I could kick myself for not taking it out of the piping bag and making it right. Instead, I plowed ahead, piping broken lines and messy laces. Everything was late and I just wanted to get it done so that it would have time to dry.
I’m not saying they looked terrible. I’m saying that if I had been a bit more careful and not tried to just get it done as fast as possible, they could have been so much better. If that had been the best I could do I would be satisfied. But like with so many other things, as I got toward the end of the project I just wanted it to be done, even if that meant sacrificing quality. This it NOT how pretty cookies get decorated.
So, in the end, the cookies looked cute (although not professional), and tasted OK (not great – chocolate royal icing is nowhere near as good as white, and the cookies tasted floury, even though I don’t roll them out with flour). I told Gail what had happened, and it sounds like I was trying to color too much icing at once. She said to start with a small amount and let the color sit for a while – it will get darker (again, I hadn’t left myself enough time for that).
I have problems with time management. I have problems seeing things through to the end. And I have problems not stopping and correcting course when I have the chance. I think decorating cookies might just be the kind of behavior modification therapy I need.
Or I could just try to be like Fiona. She didn’t want to know how to do it the “right” way, she just made them pretty, and was completely satisfied.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: baking, Food, One Tough Cookie
My Awesome Cookie Lesson With Gail Dosik
Feb 4, 2013 Around NYC
Last week I had a private cookie decorating lesson with cookie maven Gail Dosik of One Tough Cookie, and it was an awesome day. First of all, her home is one of those gorgeous NYC apartments that, when seen on TV in a fictional show, you snort and say “Those places don’t exist!” Turns out they do.
I even got to meet the cutest, most well-behaved dog in the world, Mitzi.
I’ve been stalking Gail’s blog for a couple of years, and had already learned a lot from her before I ever stepped in to her kitchen. She has the absolute best method for rolling out cookie dough, and tells you how to remove icing creations from parchment without tears. She’s the reason why I throw all of my freshly-baked cakes right into the freezer.
If you want an idea of Gail’s awesome sense of humor, read this and this. And if you’re just looking for a good cry, read this.
But enough of her blog, I had her all to myself – in person!
Gail had warned me that she was a taskmaster, and after going over the basics of royal icing consistency she put me to work, starting with lines, then squares, then the dreaded circles. At times she had an amazing resemblance to Béla Károlyi (in voice only, of course), standing over me yelling “Come on- come on- you got it – stick the landing!”
Gail showed me how it was done with circles…
And I showed her just how hard they actually were.
But she made me keep at it until I had a handle on it – how to grip the icing bag, how high over the paper to hold it, how much pressure to put on it. Once Gail was satisfied, I was allowed to try it on actual cookies.
Then we moved on to the flooding, and Gail taught me some neat techniques for decorating the cookies while they’re still wet.
She even decorated some cookies especially for my kids.
I learned so much in just a couple of hours, I couldn’t wait to get home and try my new skills out, but I made myself wait until the weekend – otherwise I would have gotten nothing done all week. I could have easily just decorated cookies all day.
I’ll write tomorrow about my first solo attempt at decorating them. Getting the icing to the right consistency is the key to the universe of cookie decorating, and that’s a frustrating learning curve, but I can’t wait for my next project!
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: Cookie Decorating, Food, One Tough Cookie
Granola For Non-Health Nuts
Jan 23, 2013 Cooking & Baking
I love granola. I could eat it all day. I have eaten it all day, every time I make it. I like it plain, I like it mixed into vanilla yogurt, I like it with milk, I like it sprinkled on peanut butter and banana.
But what I don’t like are most granola recipes. For one thing, I’m not crazy about honey, and they all seem to use honey. For another, I don’t like dried fruit, and a lot of recipes use that as well. Basically, I like a sweet, crunchy granola that’s mostly oats and coconut with some nuts. So over the years I’ve developed my own recipe. It’s not healthy. It’s a calorie bomb. But it’s so worth it.
A few key things: 1) You have to use rolled oats. These are the old-fashioned, not quick-cooking kind of oats. 2) You have to resist the urge to overcook the granola. It will not be totally crunchy when you take it out of the oven, but it will get completely crunchy as it cools. 3) If you substitute honey, reduce the oil, add dried fruit, or do anything else to make this recipe healthier, I don’t want to hear about it. :-)
Ingredients:
- 3 cups rolled oats
- 1/2 cup coarsely chopped pecans
- 1/2 cup coarsely chopped raw almonds
- 1/2 cup shredded coconut
- 3 tablespoons brown sugar (packed)
- 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon table salt
- 6 tablespoons maple syrup
- 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 300 degrees and line a couple of rimmed cookie sheets with parchment paper (I use these reusable sheets – they can be cut to the size of your pans!)
- Put all of the dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix well, making sure to break up any lumps of sugar
- Heat the maple syrup, vegetable oil, and vanilla in a small saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture is thin (only takes a couple of minutes)
- Add syrup mixture to oat mixture and mix well until all of the oat mixture is moist
- Spread mixture onto the cookie sheets and put in oven
- After fifteen minutes, carefully stir granola and switch the pans to the opposite oven racks, so that the one that was on the top is on the bottom and vice versa
- Bake for another fifteen minutes, for a total of thirty minutes. Granola should be starting to brown.
- Remove granola from oven and put cookie sheets on cooling racks, stirring every ten minutes or so while the granola cools
- Once the granola is completely cool, store in an airtight container; keeps for about a week
