Testing a new tumblr app on my phone…but would you look at this boy wearing a backpack, post preschool last week?
I’m so, so tired. Work is crazy. I was so focused on making it through today, I hardly know where to start tomorrow. But, I’ve made it through and will figure that out come tomorrow morning. For now I’ll watch the 5-week-old Mad Men, because all the breathless chatter about this week’s episode has me eager to catch up. I’ll eat a couple of the world’s best salted chocolate covered caramels (all Fran’s all the time), and I’ll post this quick recipe to remind myself of what I love - cooking warm meals for my dear family.
This recipe was a huge, huge hit (Ryan had 3 bowls each night), very healthful, and vegan if you skip the addition of feta sprinkled on top.
Roasted eggplant soup
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen
2 medium eggplants, halved
3 medium tomatoes, halved
1 small onion, peeled and halved
6 large garlic cloves
4 cups vegetable stock (low-sodium if store bought)
1 teaspoon cumin
1 cup dried chickpeas cooked, or 1 can drained
2 zucchinni, sliced
1 cup feta
Preheat oven to 400, place eggplant, garlic, tomatoes, onion on a lined and rimmed baking sheet. Roast for 25 minutes, remove the garlic, and return to the oven for 25 more minutes.
Once cooled enough to handle, scoop the eggplant flesh into a stockpot, discarding the peel. Add the tomatoes, garlic, onion, cumin and stock. Bring to a boil then simmer for an hour, until onion is really tender. Meanwhile, saute the zuchinni in a separate pan. Puree the soup either in batches in a blender, or right in the pot with an immersion blender (have I mentioned how much I love mine?). Add the cooked beans and zuchinni, season and serve sprinkled with feta.
I haven’t told you all about Ryan’s new prized possession - his scooter. He had been begging for a skateboard, maybe when he turns 3, no I’m big enough now, I want a skateboard, or maybe a scooter. Thinking a skateboard would be a little tough for him to master, even at 3, Steve and I started rooting for a scooter. He gave into the idea and we decided to buy one for him now, rather than waiting for his October birthday, to get some use out of it this spring and summer.
But, we’re trying very hard not to raise a person who thinks they get whatever they want. So we needed to craft a reason. We wrapped it in blue paper on Friday evening, and when Ryan came downstairs we told him we had a Good Listener present for him. He had been on awfully good behavior the week before and it seemed good enough justification.
He tore into the paper to reveal the scooter - as he suspected from the telltale shape - and was so, so excited. It’s blue! And orange! And has an R for Ryan (or Razor, but he couldn’t read past the R). Every sunny day since, we take the scooter to various parks around town, or just down the street.
He’s like a real life kid! Between the scooter and his bike, he can ride for 30 minutes without needing anything from me. I just stand there in an empty parking lot or an open plaza and watch him glide along.
Our farmers’ market opened this past weekend, making for the first of menu farmers’ market dinners. Like most visits, we went without a list. I lowered my expectations, remembering the typical early spring mix of potatoes, turnips and asparagus from years past (not that I don’t love all of those things, but I crave color!). Much to my delight, among the leafy greens and tubers were a crop of real Oregon strawberries.
Ryan insisted - and I mean insisted over and over - on two bunches of kale. And I insisted on strawberries. We made a very easy dinner together that night, and had leftovers tonight. We ate the strawberries the only sensible way - straight up. We finished the pint of them around the dinner table that night after our pasta.
Kale and walnut pasta (serves 4-6)
2 bunches kale, leaves torn from stems and stems discarded
12 oz spaghetti
1/4 cup olive oil
1 cup walnuts
4 cloves garlic
eggs, optional
Bring a large pot of water to boil, salt, add kale and cook 4-5 minutes until tender. Drain and rinse with cool water to stop the cooking. Once cool, squeeze excess water and chop coarsely.
In the same pot if you’d like, bring to boil water, salt, add pasta and cook according until al dente. Scoop out 1 cup of cooking liquid.
Drain pasta in collander. In the large pot, add olive oil and heat for a minute, add walnuts and fry to toast them for a few minutes, turning often, until golden brown. Add the garlic and kale, stir for a minute, add the pasta and toss.
If desired, in separate pot poach eggs. You’ll want to bring the water to a simmer as you’re boiling your pasta, and add the eggs a minute or so after adding the walnuts to the oil.
*Your kale to pasta ratio will be higher than what’s pictured. This was the first plate I served and you know how the good stuff always falls to the bottom…tonight it was mor elike 50/50!
One more for the night. It was nearly 80 degrees, we sat outside and taught Ryan to shell peanuts while waiting for dinner to arrive. It’s only May, and it already feels like we’re doing summer right (sweatshirt addiction aside).
I have so, so much to be grateful for, but it’s hard to stand still, be perfectly satisfied. I’ve been doing a little too much of this lately, I think. It’s time to focus on what I have instead of what I want. Especially when the two have so much in common.
We’ve been pretending it’s summer. The past several weekends, really since March, have been amazing. Today the rain came, but I have a good feeling about this year. I don’t think it’ll last.
Almond frangipane and dark chocolate braids
Can we take a moment to appreciate the extreme deliciousness? Imagine the filling from an almond croissant mashed up with big chunks of chocolate, all enclosed by a rich, almost brioche-like dough. And it’s pretty! And seriously, I swear, easy! Way easier than I expected. Dough recipe from Smitten Kitchen, though hers included sweetened cream cheese and lemon curd (next time, next time!).
Dough recipe lifted from Smitten Kitchen, filling is mine
Sponge
6 tablespoons (3 ounces) warm water
1 teaspoon sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast
1/4 cup (1 ounce) unbleached all-purpose flour
Dough
Sponge (above)
6 tablespoons (3 ounces) sour cream or yogurt
1/4 cup (4 tablespoons or 2 ounces) unsalted butter, softened
2 large eggs, 1 beaten for dough, 1 beaten with 1 teaspoon water for brushing bread
1/4 cup (1 3/4 ounces) sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups (10 5/8 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar for sprinkling
Filling
1 cup whole almonds, toasted
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 tablespoons butter, softened
pinch salt
8 oz dark chocolate, chopped coarsely
Make sponge: In a small bowl, combine the sponge ingredients. Stir well to combine, loosely cover with plastic wrap, and set aside to proof for 10 to 15 minutes.
Make dough in a stand mixer: Combine the sponge, sour cream, butter, egg, sugar, salt and vanilla in the bowl of a stand mixer. Add flour and mix with the paddle attachment until the dough is a rough, shaggy mass. Switch to the dough hook and knead on until a soft, smooth dough forms, about 5 to 6 minutes. ??Place the kneaded dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and allow to rise for 60 to 90 minutes, until quite puffy and nearly doubled.
Make dough by hand: Whisk together sour cream, butter, egg, sugar and vanilla in a large, wide bowl. Stir in sponge. Add the flour and mix with a wooden spoon as best as you can; you may need to get your hands in there to form it into a shaggy ball. Turn ball of dough and any incorporated scraps onto a counter and knead until a smooth, soft dough forms, about 5 to 10 minutes. Place the kneaded dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and allow to rise for 60 to 90 minutes, until quite puffy and nearly doubled.
Make filling: Process nuts for a couple of minutes in food processor until coarsely chopped. Add sugar, eggs, butter and salt and pulse until almonds finely chopped and mixture smooth.
Prepare bread: Gently deflate the dough and roll it out on a very well floured counter to a 10″ x 15″ rectangle. Transfer rectangle to a large piece of parchment paper, please; I did not and it led to all sorts of trouble. With the side of your hand, lightly press two lines down the dough lengthwise, dividing it into three equal columns. Spread the frangipane down the center section, leaving the top and bottom two inches free of filling. (Like so.) Sprinkle the chocolate over the frangipane.
To form the mock braid, cut crosswise strips one inch apart down the length of the outer columns of you dough (the parts without filling). Make sure you have an equal amount of 1-inch strips down the right and left sides. Be careful not to cut your parchment paper; if you have a bench scraper, this is a great time to use it. Remove the four corner segments. (Like so.) To “braid”, begin by folding top flap down and bottom flap up over the filling. Lift the top dough strip and gently bring it diagonally across the filling. Repeat on the right side, and continue down the entire braid, alternating strips (like so) until you are out. You can tuck the last couple that hand off decoratively under the end of the braid.
Carefully transfer the dough and the parchment paper to a baking sheet. Cover loosely with plastic and set it aside to rise for 45 to 50 minutes, until quite puffy.
Bake bread: Preheat the oven to 375°F. Brush the loaves with egg wash, and sprinkle with coarse sparkling sugar. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the loaves are golden brown and your apartment smells like a doughnut factory. Remove from the oven and cool for 15 to 20 minutes before serving.
Do ahead: When working with bread dough, you can refrigerate it or freeze it at almost any point in the process (before the first rise, after you deflate it, etc.). When you’re ready to work with it again, you bring it back to room temperature and let it resume rising from where it left off. This can take a few hours since it is cold. For this braid, my favorite way to approach it is to assemble the whole thing, braided and filled, put it on its baking sheet, loosely cover it with plastic and either refrigerate it overnight or up to a day, or freeze it for up to a week (wrapped better once frozen, of course). When you’re ready to use it, take it out, bring it back to room temperature and let it complete its second rise before you brush and bake it.
Those sweet red cheeks, warm from the hot breeze and endless bike riding. In the second picture, I’m lying in the grass in the shade, Ryan smiling down at me from my lap. Love, love, love sunny outside snuggles.
Two years ago I celebrated my first Mother’s Day with a sunny afternoon in our favorite park. At the time I thought squirmy babies were hard to get in a good picture. Today, we went to that same park twice. With the temperature in the high 80s, I had a red-cheeked, slightly uncomfortable, yet rambunctious boy on my hands. I tried to convince him to pose with me on one of those same benches. No such luck, he just wanted to climb and ride his bike and run.
And yet isn’t that the point? I love his spirit, his energy, his desire to go, see, do. This little guy made my dreams come true by coming into this world and making me a mom. It was something we thought might never happen for us. Being Ryan’s mother is one of the greatest things to ever happen to me.
