Birthday Peeps!

 Birthday revelry by torchlight

The forces of good from left to right: Little John, Maid Marian, Will Scarlet, Robin Hood (with quiver) and Allin a Dale (also Friar Tuck's backside in hideout)

 Prince John and Sheriff of Nottingham lead a flank of soldiers.

It turns out that knowing Old English is practical--for all your Anglo-Saxon cake decorating needs! 

(translation: Happy Birthday, Owl-Cat!)

The middle owl-cat (seven years old this year!) always requests this chocolate cake for his birthday. And Peeps are a regular feature on his cake. Earlier this year I read Robin Hood to the boys (this wonderful version) and we went to an amazing stage adaptation. So I surprised him with this whimsical setting on his birthday. 

For those of you who, like me, love the idea of dressing Peeps up, you really should see the Washington Post Peeps Show. And then you should try it. 

What I learned:

• Peeps take well to construction-paper clothing. The no-arms thing is very helpful.
• You can stick pins in them--what a dream for a tailor to get that "just right" fit.
• You can cinch a waist out of the bunnies, but good luck doing that for chicks. 

Overnight Whole-grain Waffles

Overnight whole-grain waffles topped with yogurt and rhubarb jam

You want to sleep in. The kids do not. Hold on. This recipe may make that possible.

Alas, I have promised too much. Only time will make that possible. But this recipe is delicious, and when we fit it into our weekend routine, we may get extra sleep. Our routine:

1. Make this recipe Friday night.
2. Set out cereal.
3. Remind our children of the lovely lives hobbits lead and how they too can be hobbitish by eating first breakfast and second breakfast.
4. Try to sleep through the clanging of cereal bowls and spoons and slurping of milk.
5. Finally admit that there is no more sleep to be had with hobbits around, and get up.
6. Fire up the waffle irons and enjoy second breakfast (hoping that no dwarves show up).

Overnight Whole-grain Waffles

Adapted from "Overnight Waffles" by Mark Bittman in How to Cook Everything

Dry stuff:

1/2 teaspoon yeast

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour (*see note below)

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

Wet stuff:

2 cups milk

2 tablespoons butter, melted (or more, up to 8, as your conscience allows)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

The next morning stuff:

2 eggs

1. Mix the dry stuff.

2. Mix the wet stuff.

3. Add the wet stuff to the dry stuff. This will be a thin batter.

4. Cover bowl and leave it out overnight at room temperature. (The milk will not go sour, but if you are a microbiology major your conscience may force you to refrigerate this. I understand. Add another 1/2 teaspoon of yeast and sleep well.)

5. The next morning, brush your waffle iron lightly with oil and then heat it.

6. Separate eggs. Plop yolks into batter and stir. Beat egg whites to soft peak stage. Fold them into the batter. A bit of egg white will still be visible.

7. Bake waffles. My waffle iron requires 1 cup of batter and 2 minutes. 

8. Enjoy. 

*Note on whole wheat pastry flour: This is amazing flour and worth getting, in my opinion, from your local health food store (or, as we do--grind soft white wheat in our wheat grinder). You could also use all-purpose flour or 1 cup all purpose, 1 cup whole wheat. I also really enjoy replacing 1/2 cup of the flour with 1/2 cup cornmeal. Experiment! Enjoy!

Fruit mix

Note from Cat: The oldest owl-cat wrote this recipe when he was five. We made it as an experiment, served it over yogurt, and it became a family favorite! It is a healthy--and beautiful--dessert. We have adjusted the recipe. What follows is the owl-cat's (age 9) post.

Here is the adjusted recipe:

Sauce:

1 or 2 large strawberry per person

Put strawberry(s) in food processor.  Blend until smooth.

Fruit on top:

1 small banana every 2 people
1 large strawberry per person

Cut up strawberry(s) and banana(s) into even slices.

Eat with yogurt.  We do plain, but vanilla would be good too.

Weekday vegetarian feast: chana masala

Owl holding his dinner so patiently. He quotes Parks and Rec, more or less: "Tom is a foodie, which apparently means he takes pictures of his food instead of eating it."

Sometimes you just need to celebrate Wednesdays.

We did.

• Chana masala (Indian chickpea curry)
• Brown rice
• Cabbage salad--this one (with apple cider vinegar and a bit of stone ground mustard in the dressing) because I didn't have time for this one, which looks amazing
• Naan
• And frozen peas for the little one

What we thought: Can we eat like this every night? The owl-cats stuffed the chana masala in their naan, and I almost did a jig right there. My kids are eating chickpeas! Hallelujah!

Happy Lunes de Aguas! Caterpillar bread

Once upon a time Owl lived as a missionary in Salamanca, where the Monday after Easter week finds the city picnicking on the banks of the River Tormes. The reasons for doing so are long past (thank goodness), but we have adopted this lovely tradition of a spring picnic by water. Owl remembers walking with the rest of the town down to the river, past university buildings and farms. Everyone eats hornazo, a bready meat pie with an ornate top crust. We usually make calzones, an Italian relative of hornazo, and a convenient individual-sized picnic food.

This year we found this recipe for caterpillar bread, elegant long stuffed breads that resemble caterpillars. We used the dough and shaping instructions, but filled it with mozzarella, tomato sauce, and ground beef (because that is what we had). The dough is easy and fun to work with. I was tempted to default to my regular pizza dough, but I am glad I did not. I doubled the recipe. I don't know if I miscalculated, but I had to add more flour (1 cup for the doubled recipe) than it called for to get it to the right consistency.

Dough recipe

Our improvised filling (for 10 caterpillar breads, or double the dough recipe):
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2-3 cloves garlic
1 glug olive oil
1 14-oz can crushed tomatoes
1 lb. ground beef
spices to taste: basil, oregano, salt, pepper
ground caterpillars (just kidding)

Saute onion in olive oil until tender. Add garlic and cook until fragrant. (23 seconds) Add tomatoes and spices. Simmer until reduced by half at least. You want this fairly dry or it will split the dough when cooking.

In separate pan, brown the ground beef. Add it to tomato sauce.

Use these excellent instructions to roll, fill, and shape.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

What we thought: Delicious--and fun to eat. It is easy to segment these breads, like an orange. The owl-cats devoured them. The almost-two-year-old loved that it was caterpillar bread. Next time we may lessen the elegance by decorating with sliced olives for eyes. We will also read The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Gluten-free banana waffles

The oldest owl-cat's friend is allergic to tree nuts, gluten, and dairy and possibly more--his siblings have additional allergies. He told my son about the banana waffles: for each person eating, mix 1 mashed ripe banana and 2 eggs. That caught my son's imagination and we tried a variation on that theme, which we found here. I didn't have arrowroot powder, so I substituted cornstarch. The coconut oil on the waffle iron added a nice flavor. The cinnamon was nice--I also added vanilla. 

I tripled this recipe for the five of us, so it looked like this:

3 ripe bananas

9 eggs

3 tablespoons cornstarch

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

See the recipe for directions. They took about 2 minutes to cook in my waffle iron. I would think that a non Belgian-waffle iron is the best approach (which is what the linked recipe used as well).

We enjoyed them with powdered sugar and cinnamon.

What we thought: Owl was skeptical at first when he saw the recipe, but we all really enjoyed them--even the littlest owl-cat (22 months old) who refuses to eat eggs (but adores bananas). We will make these again!

The owl-cats clamored for more, so I had to appease them with toast. So, it may be better to think 1 recipe per person if you cook for unusually hearty appetites. 

Food memories from World War II

A few years ago I showed this book to Owl's grandma, who was 13 years old when Pearl Harbor was bombed. After she looked through the book, she said that they didn't have many of the ingredients listed in the recipes. In rural Utah, those items weren't rationed--they weren't available.

Her dad was the game warden, and she said they often had trout for breakfast.

She also remembered eating

• beef heart with stuffing
• cakes with a jam center that were steamed in cups
• sausage gravy
• her dad's baking powder biscuits with cracklings
• sweet soup made by a Swedish neighbor--a soup with large tapioca, prunes, and raisins

My mother was 5 years old when Pearl Harbor was bombed. She lived on a fruit farm. They saved most of their rationed sugar for canning and preserving fruit, so she remembers longing for anything sweet. I grew up with dessert nightly (often fruit), and I think that tradition came out of her deprivation as a child.

My father was 9 years old when Pearl Harbor was bombed. I'm not sure if this was during the war or not, but he remembers his family buying shredded wheat cereal for the first time (the big shredded wheat; not "mini" shredded wheat cereal). They couldn't figure out how best to eat it so they tried boiling it. I don't think any of them were impressed.

Bountiful Basket Review

This is the first time we have ordered a basket, and we found it to be quite bountiful. I noticed a few other sites reviewed their experience--here is one more review.

Advantages:

• It was very fast to order and pick up.
• I had to stop by my regular grocery store after, and I did a quick price comparison. We saved at least $6--and my grocery store has amazing produce prices.
• The rye bread (sourdough with a hint of rye and caraway) was good. We have no good rye bread available in this area unless we make it.
• The quality of the produce was good. The bananas were especially good. The zucchini was perfect. The pineapple was underripe, so I can't comment on quality yet.

Disadvantages

• I would have made different choices from the store. I rarely buy tomatoes in the winter. I like to pick my produce.
• I would be interested to know what is in the basket each week before I buy it--or at least know what has been in past baskets to get an idea of the variety.
• This is not a CSA, and my guess is that the choices are quite basic (no kohlrabi here). But then again, there were comice pears in the basket, and my local store never carries that pear.

I will order again, but I like to shop for produce, so I probably will not be a weekly customer.

Easter menu--mostly gluten free

Here is what we ate for Easter. It was mostly gluten free for the Owl's sister. She made an amazing gluten-free lemon cake, but I don't have that recipe yet. We love baked goods so much that Celiac has always been the stuff of nightmares, but it doesn't look so bad now.

We enjoyed the food so much, we did not even think to take pictures, so here is our lovely apricot tree in blossom. Three cheers for spring!

Appetizers:
Deviled eggs
Hot corn dip and chips
Brazilian lemonade (wow!)

Roasted boneless leg of lamb
Quinoa tabbouleh
Roasted zucchini
Spinach strawberry salad with poppy seed dressing
Hot cross buns (for a gluten free option, I want to try this roll recipe--it looks amazing)

Flourless chocolate cake

Notes for next time:

Lamb

• let the roast sit at room temperature an hour before cooking
• watch at the higher temperature to make sure it doesn't burn
• use a lower temperature than 400 (325-375)

Quinoa

• use these instructions for cooking quinoa.
• I toasted the rinsed quinoa in a tablespoon of olive oil with a teaspoon of garlic.
• I used some lemon juice and broth for the water. I really liked how these steps added flavor to the quinoa itself.
• Use more lemon juice and less oil than the recipe calls for--more like 1/3 cup lemon juice to 1/4 cup olive oil. Taste to be sure you like that ratio.
• If you don't have fresh mint, don't let that stop you. If you wait until you have everything, you'll drive yourself crazy.

Flourless cake

• I used America's test kitchen recipe, but this looks close. ATK did not use any sugar, and I liked that.
• I used a combination of guittard 60% chocolate chips and special dark chocolate. It was a good balance of budget-friendliness and tastiness.