Grab a beer...

Happy mother's day, y'all! I love being a mom, and one of the reasons I love it is because I've made so many wonderful, funny, caring, real friends through my moms groups. My life is enriched 1000x over by these people. Love you guys!!

Ok, smushiness done, it's time for...

(1) I learned something new about myself this week, which is that much like some people (like me) treat their birthdays as week-long affairs, I apparently feel that mother's day actually lasts the whole week leading up to Sunday. All week I was flooded with thoughts like, "I shouldn't have to empty the dishwasher, it's mother's day" (on Monday) or "I shouldn't have to pick up dog poop, it's mother's day" (on Wednesday). I know this isn't realistic or reasonable, but I'm definitely going to try  to enforce this next year.

(2) I did my cookbook challenge again this week, this time selecting

I never liked Ina Garten when I tried to watch her show, but her recipes are amazing. I've  only made one recipe out of this book before (spinach gratin, which is a holiday staple in my house). Now I wish I'd been using this cookbook all along. Everything I made this week was scrumpulescent! We had:

(a) Caesar salad. Boring, you say? Not at all. This one had homemade dressing, 

pancetta (yum!), and roasted cherry tomatoes. 

I am now a roasted cherry tomato devotee. 

Olive oil, salt & pepper, roast at 400 for 15-20 minutes = gourmet.

(b) Pesto peas. They were supposed to be put into pasta salad, but I had them over 

leftover brown rice because I needed to eat it up.

Yummo!! Shown here with curry chicken salad not from Ina (from epicurious.com, here).

When the weather gets hot like it did this week, we love eating a variety of salads for dinner.

(c) Chinese chicken salad (sensing a theme here?) with asparagus and red peppers. 

Hubby thought it could use a little heat, but it was delicious nonetheless.

(d) Shrimp salad (no pic)

Everything was awesome! This cookbook stays on the shelf for sure.

(3) Had my 28 week doctor prenatal appointment. At this appointment last pregnancy I had gained 11 pounds in 4 weeks, so I was a little apprehensive. The damage was 7 pounds this time. I guess it's all about perspective, because I was actually happy with that number. Then we did our hospital tour on Friday, since we'll be delivering at a different hospital than the one we used last time. The layout of this hospital makes it unlikely baby2 will be born in a bathroom. The car is still a real possibility.

(4) Of course there were mother's day festivities to be had: mani/pedi, afternoon tea with Jake's grandmother, brunch this morning. Hubby got me exactly what I wanted: he reloaded my starbucks card. What a great man!

Next week we're taking Asher on a little trip, a last hoorah before the baby is born. It'll be a good chance to play with my camera and new flash and lenses. Lots of pics next time.

Peace out.

Kumquat overload

Welcome to my kumquat heaven hell chronicles!

When I was in college, I went to the North Carolina state fair with my roommate (hi, Molly, if you’re reading this). She wanted to look at the canned foods exhibit (I mean home canning, so jars, not aluminum cans – that would be weird), and I was like, really, chick? We’re looking at jelly? For fun? And now, when my family goes to the California state fair, I’m totally that chick, and my husband is the one going really?!? What can I say? Jelly is so pretty!

Whenever I have a surplus of produce, I get all filled with enthusiasm. My inner pioneer woman screams, “I could can that!!” Like everything else I do, of course, my motivation is higher when the idea is abstract than when it comes time to actually do the deed, as it were, which is really quite time consuming. But this time I actually got out all my supplies and did it. Proof:

Yes, this could just be a lot of pots, but I swear it's canning!

After picking the kumquats off the DWARF kumquat tree, I ended up with two full colanders of kumquats. I’m talking big colanders, like the kind that would hold enough pasta to feed a small army. 

I don't know if you can see that, but that is a 5.5 quart colander, which means I had ELEVEN quarts of kumquats.

What to do, what to do? As with everything, the answer was found through google. (Aside: Word does not recognize “google” as a word. Hmm, a little geek warfare?) I decided to make the following:

(I) Kumquat vanilla marmalade

I found multiple similar recipes for kumquat marmalade, but I ended up mostly going with this recipe from Lelo in Nopo, also flipping over here for comparison.

Of course I didn’t follow either exactly, so here is what I did:

INGREDIENTS:

·        8 cups kumquats

·        8 cups water

·        4 cups sugar

·        1 vanilla bean

DIRECTIONS:

(1)   Slice kumquats in half and seed. Keep the seeds in a small dish as you go. 

(2)   Further slice the kumquats into slivers. I couldn’t figure out if I was supposed to cut them the long way or the short way, so I did half of each. I don’t think it really matters. You will encounter more seeds as you go. Save these in your little dish too.

Note: This takes forever. Literally, these first two steps took an hour. 

 

(3)   Place the kumquat slices and the water in a large glass or ceramic bowl. Put the seeds in a cheesecloth bag and throw them in, too. Apparently this is to release pectin from the seeds (pectin makes the marmalade jell). It seems unnecessary, but I will say that on an early batch that I ruined, I soaked half my kumquats with seeds and half without, and the half with seeds did seem to jell better. But then I burned it (see my tip below).

(4)   Cover with a clean dish towel and soak overnight. I soaked for 24 hours. 

(5)   The next day, dump the bowl into a big pan and boil for 10 minutes.

(6)   Remove cheesecloth bag and add the sugar. Cut a slit the length of your vanilla bean and use your knife to scrape out all the sticky insides. Stir into pan. 

(7)   Cook at a gentle boil. Make sure you’re stirring regularly to keep it from burning to the bottom of the pan. The longer it cooks and the thicker it gets, the more I stir it to be safe. It’s done when it has jelled, which basically means it is getting pretty thick and gooey. You can test this by putting a spoonful of the liquid in the freezer for a couple minutes to bring it to room temp. Once the liquid stops being runny (you can turn the spoon without it immediately pouring out, and you can dip your finger in it, and it won’t drip off your finger), it’s ready. It’s kind of a matter of personal taste how thick you want it. It took me about an hour and 45 minutes to boil down. I ended up with about ¼ of what I started with in terms of volume.

Note: I only used half the sugar recommended by the other blog I was referencing (which recommended a 1:1 fruit to sugar ratio). For me this was plenty. You should taste your mixture after a bit of boiling to see how you like it. But do not, I repeat DO NOT, put a spoonful straight from the pan to your mouth. Boiling sugar mixtures are approximately the same temperature as the surface of the sun. Let the spoonful rest on the counter for a minute or two before tasting. Trust me.

TIP: If at any point during the cooking your child decides to have a total meltdown, turn off the stove entirely. Don’t think that you can just turn it down to low while you deal with the meltdown. If you do that, when the meltdown is over, you might notice that your house smells a lot like burned caramel, and then you might spend the next two days scrubbing a pan. I’m just saying.

ANOTHER TIP: If you are going to seal your jars in a water bath, get your water boiling after you start this step. A big boiler can take a long time to come to a boil, and you will need time to sterilize your jars. If you have no idea what I'm talking about but you are interested in canning, I suggest you start here, the mecca of home food preservation.

ANOTHER TIP: When sterilizing your jars, be careful as you add them to the boiling water. You want to lower them in SLOWLY and ON AN ANGLE so that the water gradually fills them and weighs them down. If you aren’t paying attention and lower them straight in, when the rim hits the water it will send a volcano of boiling water over your hand, and it will really really hurt. If you let them drop too quickly, you also risk splashing yourself with boiling water.

(8)   Once it’s ready, ladle the mixture into your hot sterilized jars (good name for a band?), leaving ¼ inch of headspace. Wipe the rims clean with a damp cloth and put the lid on. Remember that the jars were hot to start with, and then you ladled lava-hot marmalade into them, so use an oven mitt or a towel to hold them while you tighten the lids. (Just hand tighten if you’re sealing them, don’t get all aggro on them.)

(9)   If you are sealing them, process them in a hot water bath for 5 minutes, per the instructions here (unless you live at a higher altitude than I do, in which case you need more time).

And voila, only 27 hours later, you’ve got 4 jars of marmalade!!

(II) Candied kumquats in wine

Here I followed this recipe I found on the website for Kumquat Growers Inc. (Who knew?) I followed the recipe exactly as written, so I won’t bother to rewrite it here. The only thing I did differently was double it and use three buck chuck cabernet instead of merlot (if you don't know what that is, you don't live near a Trader Joe's, so you are terribly deprived). Oh, and I added a step and processed them in a hot water bath for 5 minutes to seal the jars at the end.

The kumquats come out super yummy and are delicious mashed up and eaten with soft cheese and crackers. Mmm mmm.

After I was done canning them, I still had some cooking liquid left over, so I experimented a little. I took 4 cups of kumquats and cut a slit in them the long way (about a third of the way through). Then I squeezed them gently and used the tip of my knife to pop out any seeds that appeared, and soaked them for one hour. 

After that, I simmered 1 cup of the reserved cooking liquid, 1 cup of 100% cranberry juice (the tart stuff), and 2 cups of sugar for about 10 minutes, added the kumquats and cooked for 10 minutes more. Finally, I processed for 5 minutes in a hot water bath. I haven’t tried these yet, but I’m sure they’re also quite yummy.

My final take:

Look at those beautiful jars! (Sorry, I’m not a food photographer, and my tile counter does not a very lovely backdrop make.) There are actually a few more in my fridge I forget to fish out. Even with those, it's a lot of work for not that much at the end, I know, but my inner pioneer woman is happy nonetheless.

And guess what? I STILL have about 2/3 of a colander filled with kumquats. After all that. Sigh.

Next up: kumquat bread. Report at 11.

Another installment of...Look what I did this week!

It's Sunday night, and I remembered, so it's time for another (non-chronological) installment of (drumroll, please...)

(1) I actually stuck to my resolution and picked another cookbook to cook from this week. This time I cheated a smidge and picked one I know I like, but from which I've still only cooked a couple things. This week's winner is:

Sorry about the crappy picture. I grabbed it from a website and am too lazy to get a better one.

I cooked lentil soup, a cheese souffle, and country captain (which is a chicken curry dish). They were all excellent. I'd make any of them again. I only took pics of the souffle, though, because lentil soup always looks like dog food no matter how good it tastes, and I just forgot on country captain night.

I'm so pretty!

I deflated. I guess that's what we souffles do. Wah wah.

(2) On Wednesday, I took Asher to Mommy & Me Day at Raley Field (which, for those of you not from these parts, is where the Rivercats play.) (The Rivercats, for those of you again, are the Oakland A's AAA minor league team.) He was kind of in a funk, which is too bad, since he usually loves this event, but we still managed to have fun.

(3) At M&M day, we scored a free lawn seat for today's Rivercats game, so we went (I'm a sucker for free). We love going to the games and camping out in the lawn. The weather was lovely, so lovely that I took a nap on our blanket and missed half an inning (hey, I'm pregnant, ok?). The only thing that rained on our parade was that security wouldn't let us play ball on the lawn, which was ok last year but is apparently ix-nayed this year.

My husband making his "whatever, guy" face right after the security guard pooped on his game of ball with Ash. Is it bad that I think he looks hot when annoyed?

After the game, the kids got to run the bases. I didn't think Ash would do it since parents weren't allowed on the field, but he did. I was very proud of him.

He's looks so little on that big ol' field.

Crossing home

(5) Hubby & I seem to have an affinity for buying houses with useless fruit trees, the kind that bear truckloads of fruit you'd only want to eat in small quantities, if at all. Lemons, limes, oranges? No. Figs and persimmons? That's what our last house had. The current house has kumquats. Don't get me wrong, I actually quite like kumquats, but they're like sourpatch kids: you need to limit your intake unless you want your tongue to feel like it's covered in battery acid. And unfortunately, the tree bears all its fruit at once, so it's hard to space out your kumquat consumption. This is just what I didn't let fall on the ground this year:

This container is bigger than your average shoebox. Mr. Squirrel approves.

I did learn an interesting, if totally impractical fun fact while harvesting: the number of kumquats I can fit in my sports bra is at least 19. (I learned this at one point when I had a handful of fruit and realized my basket was just out of reach, so I improvised.) I also harvested the peas I grew. The peas have already been blanched and frozen. The kumquats are waiting to be made into marmalade and candied in wine. Hopefully I'll be posting pics of that in a few days.

(6) I think I've mentioned here before that we have a great yard with a lot of potential that just needs love. Yesterday, hubby and I combined to put 10 total (wo)man hours of love in the backyard. I actually kind of adore yard work. Hubby hates it. We (he) amended the soil, worked in the amendments by hand (because we can't till due to tree root situations), dug holes in our hard clay soil, planted a bunch of new plants, and transplanted a bunch of others. I looks soooo much better now.

 

Hopefully by next year this will be all filled in and lush looking. We really only need to plant one more azalea and wait. Oh, and do about 20 more feet of refurbing that rock river, mulch around the trees, weed the lawn... And then there's all the veggie garden stuff. Hmmm.

See you on the flip side.

Updates

Update #1: Cookbook challenge

For April and May, I set myself the challenge of using my cookbooks in order to expand my cooking repertoire. A secondary goal is to use all the food in my fridge every week to reduce food waste. The first choice:

Pillsbury: The Best of Classic Cookbooks

So how did I do?

Resolution fail. Well, maybe that's a little harsh. Resolution C-. I made three different meals out of the cookbook (a stir fry, a hungarian beef, and a ratatouille). They were all acceptable but not amazing. Nothing I'd want to make again necessarily. I was thwarted several times by not checking the freshness of the ingredients of my fridge before dinner time. I took pics but am not enthusiastic enough about the food to post them. Here's one to prove that I did it:

You have failed me, Pillsbury. I'm debating whether to give you one more try or banish you to Goodwill.

I'll pick a new cookbook to start with on Monday. I have to worry about hubby's birthday weekend first (it's a big one).

Update #2: Sleep training

We get an A here! Little man is so good at going to bed now, only occasionally being annoying when we let him get overtired. He still wakes up once per night, but I can deal. We do let him come into our bed after 6 a.m., and my next project has GOT to be to figure out how to keep his hand out of my damn shirt. Seriously, this kid is OBSESSED with trying to put his hand down my shirt. It's a comfort thing for him. He does it CONSTANTLY when he is in that just-waking-up-but-still-mostly-asleep stage. It makes me want to do something evil to him. I know one answer is to just not let him in my bed, but it buys me an extra hour of sleep in the morning. It's starting not to be a good trade-off, though...

Update #3: Where I've been

I totally failed at participating in Kim's Grab a Beer challenge. I have a decent excuse: I was traveling to Michigan to see my fam, including meeting my sweet new nephew. This gave me a great excuse to play with my camera.

Ash was sooooo super sweet with his cousins. He especially loved helping take care of the baby. It made me feel super optimistic about when his baby brother arrives.

Don't mess with this baby

They're kissing cousins. I'm sure they'll love this pic in ten years.

Sitting in the recliner, watching National Geographic. Just like Grandpa.

Aww.

 

 

 

I also got to see beloved old friends.

Omg, we are all old enough to have kids. My baby sister has TWO. We got ready for eighth grade dance in this living room.

It was such a great visit! But now I'm homebound, as I enter the third trimester next week, so no more flying. Next time I get on an airplane, I'll be lugging TWO kids. Crazy!!

The terrible threes

Subtitled: The post in which I jinx the hell out of myself

The twos were really not terrible in our house, so I was mentally prepared (if ever one can be) for the threes to suck. And as predicted by many of my friends who have already gone through the threes with their kids, on the day of his third birthday, the wee one became the wee terrorist. I blogged about it here. For the next month, I was pulling my hair out; and then, it just...stopped. 

I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, but for the last two months, he has been the loveliest, most affectionate, most entertaining little kid. I think in the last month we've done one time out. Yesterday he asked me, "Mommy, why are you the best Mommy ever?" (I'm not.) Today he looked lovingly up at me as we ate lunch at Costco (parenting win!) and said, "Mommy, I love spending time with you." And then later he said, "Mommy, I like you so much." Huh?

Is it possible, just possible, that that one month was our "terrible" phase? Or, is he luring me into a trap, which he will spring in the middle of July when his little brother arrives? If you love me, or even like me just a little, you'll send good mojo for the former.

April/May resolution

Subtitled: Who says resolutions are only for January 1?

We have the following conversation a LOT in our house:

   "What do you want for dinner?"

   "I don't know, what do you want?"

   "I don't know. Nothing sounds good."

   "Yeah, me neither."

   <Collective sigh>

This is especially true since Jake started eating paleo ( = no pasta, no rice, no couscous = there goes a lot of my ideas). I have come to realize that even though I theoretically enjoy cooking, my repertoire is extremely limited. Besides a few standbys (fish tacos, chicken & veggie stir fry, standard soups, pizzas, mixed veggie salads with some sort of meat), I rarely cook anymore. 

So I decided in April and May to try something new: each week I'm going to pick a cookbook off the shelf and select four or five recipes to try throughout the week. The only rules are that I haven't made the recipe before and that I make an effort to follow the recipe exactly (which I don't usually do unless I'm baking). This will be easy, since although I love cookbooks and have many, I almost never actually use them after I've had them for a couple weeks (I have some I've never used at all). I enjoy reading the recipes and looking at the pictures, but when it comes time to actually cook, I think of something I want and google a recipe, hence the lack of variety. I'm giving myself bonus points (prize tbd) for using ingredients I already have in the house, since I hate wasting food.

This week's selection: Pillsbury's The Best of Classic Cookbooks

I like this one because I can imagine that I'm a 1950s housewife, a favorite pretending game of mine (minus the smoking and ennui, but with all the afternoon drinking)(when I'm not pregnant, of course). Also, most of the appetizer recipes, predictably but also hilariously to me, involve crescent rolls. My goal for the week is to use up the perishables that are in the fridge before I head to Michigan next week to meet my new nephew. 

Progress report later.

Look what I did this week!

My friend Kim, blogger extraordinaire, over at Yep, they are all mine has a new thing called "Grab a beer and look what I did last week." In the spirit of blogging, friendship, and friendly blogging, I'm participating, even though I think it's really selfish of Kim to start a tradition involving beer when I'm going to be pregnant for four more long months. But I digress. Here we go.




Everybody, grab a beer raspberry leaf tea and look what I did last week!

The weather this week was incredibly disgusting. It was rainy and windy, the kind of rainy and windy where your umbrella turns inside out and your pants get soaked. I spent much of the week hunkered down inside; understandably, there are no pictures of that. Here's what was worth documenting from this gray, soggy week:

(1) We celebrated Asher's friend Lilli's birthday at Bouncetown in El Dorado Hills. Omg, this place is sooo much better than Bounceopolis in Folsom. Why did I not know about this sooner? Asher spent the whole time going down the big slides. I am fascinated by how he can be so fearful about things that seem innocuous and then so brave about things that I would think he'd be scared of, like these slides.

Then it was back to Lilli's house for pizza and cupcakes. No surprise, my kid loves cupcakes.

 

 We tried to get a nice group shot of the kids. This was the best we could do.

Declined to be photographed: Liam

(2) A serious need for retail therapy, plus the fact that all my boots just bit the dust, got me out in the rain to Nordstrom Rack, the best place ever for shopping for anything you'd ever need. I came away with boots, cardigans, dish towels, tights, a cake server, and cocktail napkins.

Rain boots and fancy cowboy boots? Yes, please.

(3) Pedis and cocktails (or mocktails in my case) with some of the hot mamas. I hadn't had a pedicure since October, and the toe situation was getting pretty dire.

Much better!

As an aside, are the flowers on the toes a California thing or just a thing that has popped up in the last several years? I don't recall ever seeing flowers on the toes of anyone when I lived in Michigan or North Carolina. Midwesterners, I need answers here!

(4) I made these cookies, which I swear were the best cookies I have ever made!! I substituted milk chocolate toffee pieces (available next to the chocolate chips in the baking aisle) for the chocolate chips, and OH MY GOODNESS!! Sorry there aren't pics; I didn't know they would be anything special, and now, 24 hours later, there is only one left. I am going to try every combination of toffee chips, chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, and nuts in this recipe.

(5) I like to clean house on Sunday afternoon and Monday morning to start the week out (sort of) fresh. Things have usually been neglected on Friday and Saturday, so I need to swoop in on Sunday before we get nominated for Hoarders or something. Seriously, how does a house go from fine to wrecked in, like, a nanosecond??

I swear this kitchen was JUST clean!!

This too!

Oh what a glamorous life I lead!!