Driven by the fear of being “that mom” who rains on every party and won’t let kids enjoy their sugar fix and makes others feel guilty or annoyed by my holier-than-thou eating habits…and because my son asked very nicely to have a special treat…for Leandro’s birthday celebration at school, we made cupcakes. Chocolate Cupcakes. With Buttercream Frosting. Go big, or go home.

Mini-muffin before frosting

In my feeble defense, I also made fruit kebabs (which went over as well as, if not better than, the cupcakes) and we actually went little, making mini-cupcakes so that they were  a tiny treat rather than an exercise in excess, but BE IT KNOWN: I am not immune to peer pressure and I am not a complete whole food Nazi.

Mind you, making it all homemade is also a form of penitence for sins of sugar and spice. I put a lot of time and effort into it and was not always thinking gracious thoughts. Particularly about the moms who just pick up a box of Dunkin’ Munchkins for class celebrations and call it a day and don’t give that much thought to what children consume or what maniacs like myself choose to do with our precious time, but who are not going to waste their precious time making desserts for five-and-six year olds, when kids are just as happy with a Dunkin’ drive-by.

That buttercream frosting is NAUGHTY! and nice….

It’s that same grim satisfaction some of us get from pointedly and conscientiously using our directional when driving, as if anyone would care to learn from our example, or as if there was some direct HOV lane to heaven for courteous and law-abiding drivers. Underneath it all, I know no one gives a rat’s posterior. But the girl can’t help it.

Fruit kebab with marshmallow left over from s’mores on our latest camping trip

However, the birthday boy and I were very pleased with our little Martha Stewart selves (and in fact, I adapted the cupcake recipe from a Martha publication). The kids asked for seconds on fruit and enjoyed the intense chocolatey-ness of the mini-cupcakes. Most importantly, my son felt very happy and proud that he had made the cupcakes himself (pretty much) and that his birthday celebration was The Best.

Pretty fruit kebabs!

So kindergarten ends on a relatively satisfactory note. I have not effected change over the school’s eating habits as I sometimes  fantasize about doing, but my little guy has eaten well all year and liked it. And we both survived. Cave canem.

Am I or am I not “a dab hand” at frosting? You make the call,

Chocolate Cupcakes (adapted from Everyday Food)

makes 48 mini-cupcakes or 12 standard cupcakes

¾ Cup unsweetened cocoa powder

¾ Cup unbleached white flour or all-purpose flour

½ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

¾ Cup (1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 Cup granulated sugar

3 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla

½ Cup sour cream

Butter Cream frosting (recipe below)

Preheat oven to 350 °F. Line four mini-muffin trays with paper liners (this totals 48 mini-muffins. If using standard muffins, prepare a 12-cup standard muffin tin)

Sift together cocoa powder, flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl and set aside.

Cut room temperature butter into small squares, then beat with a wooden spoon until relatively smooth. Add sugar and with a fork, smush sugar into butter. Then beat again until light and fluffy (you can also use electric beaters on medium for this last bit). The butter should be twice its original volume. Stop when it gets shiny.

Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each. Beat in vanilla. Add half the flour and beat in (on low if using mixer). Add the sour cream and beat in. Then add the rest of the flour mixture and beat in.

Spoon batter into cups filling to ¾. Bake until a toothpick stuck through the center comes out clean, about 13 minutes for mini-muffins and 20-25 minutes for standard cupcakes.

Cool in pan 5 minutes, then remove muffins from pan to a wire rack to cool completely. Spread with buttercream frosting, using a table knife or angled spatula. Top with sprinkles if desired.

Easy Buttercream Frosting

(makes about twice as much as you need for this recipe. Refrigerate for up to a week or freeze the rest)

1 stick butter (4 oz) at room temperature

1 lb. confectioner’s sugar

1 Tbs vanilla

3-4 Tbs milk to thin

Cream the butter until smooth (cutting stick into small squares first) in a medium bowl. Add sugar and vanilla and beat until smooth, adding milk to thin as desired.

Summer fruit reminds me of piles of precious gems!

Last weekend I found a new way to love up ripe berries. We had our Single Mothers By Choice monthly meet-up. These are families I have known and grown with since before Leandro was born, so it is a support structure we really cherish.  On this occasion, in the middle of the kid chaos and seven simultaneous conversations pinballing around the moms, we celebrated several kids’ birthdays all at once. The hostess made cupcakes for the kids, and I made berry crisp for the grown-ups, we sang, blew out candles, and got back to the chaos.

Crunch on the top, syrup underneath

This dessert is perfect for this kind of occasion. It is decidedly unfussy, but combines sweet, tart, syrupy, and crunchy (plus rich and creamy if you top it with whipped cream; it is so easy to make homemade!) which makes it pretty perfect in my book. It is simple to prepare, but looks so enticing! The original recipe is from one of my favorite cookbooks, Food to Live By: The Earthbound Farm Organic Cookbook, by Myra Goodman (shout-out to Sean and P.J. Goralski for giving it to me years ago!) and I tweaked it ever so slightly to add more cinnamon and less clove flavor.

Finish with a dollop of homemade whipped cream!

Berry Crisp

Filling

1.5 quarts fresh berries (mix em up! We did 1 qt strawberries and 1 pint blueberries) Halve the strawberries, if using.

Grated zest of one orange

Grated zest of one lemon

1 Tbs fresh lemon juice

½ Cup granulated sugar

2 Tbs cornstarch

Topping

½ Cup unbleached all-purpose flour

¼ Cup whole wheat flour

¼ tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp nutmeg

¼ tsp allspice

½ Cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed

2 Tbs granulated sugar

7 Tbs unsalted butter

½ Cup old-fashioned rolled oats (or quick cook oats, but not instant)

Bonus

Home-made Whipped Cream

Preheat the oven to 375°F with a rack in the center.

In a large bowl mix the berries, orange and lemon zest, and lemon juice and set aside.

In a small bowl, whisk the cornstarch and sugar together until combined. Toss with berry mixture and then transfer to a 2-quart or 8×8 baking dish. (A shallow 2 qt. is better, but the 8×8 is what fits in my toaster oven, so I adjust)

To make the topping, place the flour, spices, salt, brown sugar, granulated sugar, and butter in a medium bowl and blend the butter with your fingertips until it is in pea-size crumbs. Add the rolled oats and stir to combine. Try to get the oats a bit wet.

Sprinkle the topping evenly over the berries. Don’t pack it down. Bake until bubbly and golden 30-35 minutes (add five minutes for a glass dish).

Let set for 10-15 minutes before serving. Top with homemade whipped cream.

Maple Snow

But a few scoops of fresh snow(center cut) and some drizzles of maple syrup later, Leandro and the neighbors had real ices, Little House on the Prairie style…or in more modern parlance Maple Nemo Sno-Cones…..

Are postal workers wishing that no-delivery Saturdays had started now, rather than August?

Stay warm and cozy folks.

I was supposed to take Leandro and his buddy, Scott, to the gym with me for their regular weekly play date, where they could scramble in the habitrail (like McDonald’s Play Places without the Happy Meals), watch movies, draw, or just run like the demented maniacs they are after a day cooped up in school. Meanwhile I would do a virtuous hour on the treadmill, go home and make dinner.

It started so innocently…making trail mix!

But between one thing and another, we did not go. I attempted to recuperate from said setback by having the boys make their own trail mix for snack. Craisins, walnuts, sunflower seeds and…semi-sweet chocolate chips. Just enough virtue. But mischief was lurking…

I thought we were onto something with the homemade trail mix!

Leandro was keen, but  Scott, once he had put together a bowl, said, “But I thought we were going to bake with this!”

“No, it’s trail mix. You eat it like that.”

“I don’t want it like this. I thought we were baking.”

I don’t know about you, but when a kid tells me they want to cook, I say, “Bring it on!” And so, instead of burning calories at the gym, we three spent the afternoon piling calories into a bowl, smushing butter, measuring sugar, sniffing vanilla, cracking eggs and talking about the effects of temperature on substances like butter and water.

In your face chocolate chips (why did I have them on hand anyway, if I wasn’t planning some mischief?)

And then we ate cookies! And have plenty left over to weather the colossal blizzard headed our way. So it wasn’t the path of virtue, but it’s righteous. Very righteous.

Stay warm everyone.

Piles of homey goodness (and sneaky science lessons)

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

(note: these are more crispy than chewy, but have nice tenderness in the centers)

1.5 Cups packed light brown sugar

14 Tbs (1.3 Cups) unsalted butter, softened

1 tsp vanilla

1 egg

2 Cups quick-cooking oats

1.5 Cups whole wheat flour (stone-ground is fine)

1 tsp baking soda

¼ tsp salt

1 Cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

(optional)½-1 Cup mixed dried cranberries (sweetened)/raisins/chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350°F.

In large bowl, stir brown sugar and butter until well blended. Stir in vanilla and egg until light and fluffy. Stir in oats, flour, baking soda and salt, followed by chocolate and optional nuts and dried fruit.

Drop dough (it will be fairly thick and sticky) by rounded tablespoons onto an ungreased baking sheet (on foil is fine) about 2 inches apart. Bake about 15 minutes or until tops are golden brown (start checking at about 10 minutes). Cool for a minute and then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

To store: once they are completely cooled, you can seal them in a plastic container and store at room temperature for about a week. Can also be frozen in a sealed plastic container. Get as much air out as possible!

Yes this much butter, this much cream cheese. Get your jaw off the floor and get cooking!

For the last I don’t know how many years — since my neighbor Teresa brought some over for us one holiday season and was kind enough to give me the recipe — Marianne and family and I (and now Leandro) have included this recipe in our Christmas cookie baking extravaganza although  think last year we did Walnut Toffee Triangles instead. When we went to do the cups this year, I went straight to my own blog and was horrified (or perhaps I should say gobsmacked, simply because I can) to find I had never shared this with you!

Little balls of yumminess

They are not difficult to do (although somewhat time-consuming) and the result is magazine-beautiful little cups that are like bite-sized pecan pies with a cream cheese crust. Rich and just a little bit sticky…they are worth the pain-in-the-neck it can be to wash up the mini-muffin tins.

Making the shell

Fill up 3/4 of the way (a bit less than this; we had a bit of a mess to clean)

So, pardon the oversight, buy yourself some walnuts and cream cheese and try these this holiday season. I am sure they will become part of your holiday baking too!

Happy Holidays!

Walnut Cups

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Crust

Mini-muffin trays (this recipe yields 48 mini-muffins)

8 oz cream cheese

2 sticks butter

2 Cups flour

In a bowl, cream butter and cream cheese, then mix in flour. Roll into small balls and press into muffin shells so that crust is even on all sides.

Filling

1 Cup dark brown sugar

1 Cup light brown sugar

2 Cups chopped walnuts

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

2 Tbs butter

(confectioner’s sugar for post-baking)

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl and then use to fill shells. Fill only to ¾ as they will bubble up and make a mess.

Put in oven for 35 minutes (less if your oven is powerful. When the crusts just begin to turn golden and the filling is bubbling a bit, they are ready. Remove from oven, cool, and sprinkle with confectioner’s sugar.

I have never frozen them, but neighbor Teresa does and says they keep very well.

The texture is much more velvety than store-bought and it doesn’t bring extra additives.

Whipped!

Leandro and I made an apple crisp for Thanksgiving, but we didn’t actually start eating it until a couple of days later because we were so full! Instead of ice cream, we made our very own whipped cream.

It is so simple – takes five minutes! – and the results are so satisfying.

With warm apple crisp

Whipped Cream

Before you start: put the bowl and whisk or beaters in the freezer so they are ice cold when you are ready to use. Another note – whisking can take awhile, especially when you have eager little helpers. We use a hand beater instead of a whisk, which Leandro could manage quite well (as long as he kept the beaters in the cream) and then got to lick after!

Ingredients

1 Cup heavy cream (whipping cream is actually not the best choice!)

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 Tbs confectioner’s sugar

How-To

In a large bowl, whip cream until you begin to get thick waves that threaten to peak. Beat in vanilla and sugar until peaks form. Stop there! Don’t overbeat it into buttery lumps.

You can store by lining a sieve with culinary cloth, putting the whipped cream in and then setting the sieve over a bowl, but it never lasts that long around here. You can also freeze it apparently, but I have yet to try! This makes about 16 generous tablespoons worth.

Reblogged from Miss Marzipan:

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Technically, I wasn't inspired to make this recipe from seeing it on Pinterest (in fact, it was right here on WordPress), but Project Pinterest has come to embrace much more than creating things inspired by lovely thumbnails on my virtual pin-up boards. It now really encompasses all of the things that I feel inspired to do... things I could just keep putting off indefinitely if I didn't give myself a boost of motivation.

Read more… 404 more words

I am not lucky, as in: “You are lucky your son eats so well.”

Planting garlic (photo by Marianne Goralski)

In the food department, my son does eat quite well, but my “luck” is — as much of what we call luck is — the result of a lot of effort.

It’s not just that I cook and that I come from a family that has always cooked and eaten well. There are a number of things I do to get Leandro involved in the kitchen and in the food he eats; it doesn’t always lead to direct consumption of say, raw carrots, but over time it has made him a kid who knows where his food comes from and who is willing to give things a try. So I thought I’d share a few with you!

Out here in the fields, I fight for my meals; I put my back into my living…(photo by Marianne Goralski)

1. Spin Cycle

My kids still won’t eat raw vegetables or salad stuff, but he does love the salad spinner. Can your little person have a go at the spinner? Eventually he/she will try the contents.

2. Smash Hits

Channeling energy into freezer pesto

Channel a little boy’s desire to destroy stuff and put a pestle in his hand. Leandro loves to make pesto by hand, or smash the seasonings for a spice rub or paste in our mortar and pestle. Important point: our mortar and pestle is made of heavy Italian marble, so it is not going to slide around.

Also, why not let your child pound chicken breasts for cutlets or chicken tenders? I put a layer or two of wax paper between the kitchen mallet and the chicken and let him have at it. It keeps him busy while I am cooking and actually helps me get things done faster.

3. PlayDoh

Who needs play-doh when you have edible toys?

What is ground beef but Play-Doh with a purpose?

It is never too early to teach a kid to cook.

Leandro makes the meatballs around here these days. Great for the fine motor skills, great for togetherness, great for kitchen efficiency. They may not all end up the same size, but does that really matter?

4. Grow Together

Look what I grew!

There is nothing, nothing, nothing, like digging in the dirt with your child and pulling up vegetables.

Learning to get the nectar from a honeysuckle at Restoration Farm.

Between the community-supported agriculture gardens that we have belonged to since before he was born (I can still remember the period of time that I was trying to get pregnant, sitting quietly in the garden farm, pulling weeds, and thinking fertile thoughts), and the increasing numbers of vegetables we are growing in our backyard, my son really knows where food comes from. And thanks to this, even though there are still loads of fresh vegetables he won’t eat, he WILL eat peas off the vine, kale, spinach, chard, as a direct result of being on the farm. This weekend we helped plant garlic at Restoration Farm; this time, ironically enough, I was helping little Ada plant her row; big Leandro didn’t need me because he was planting bulbs all by his farmer-boy self with the big people.

Know thy dinner: Leandro learns about the food chain firsthand.

He has also gotten to know chickens on the farm. Funnily enough, he will make friends with the laying hens, but won’t even talk to the chickens that will be eaten. The fact that he is going to eat them doesn’t bother him otherwise, though. He is very comfortable at the top of the food chain.

5. Aw Shucks

Discoveries with corn

Shucking corn is an easy job and loads of fun. Corn silk is inherently messy (I try to have the kids do it outside), so they can’t be blamed when it gets everywhere. And once they’ve shucked their own, it is very likely that they will eat it, without the need to smother it in butter.

Everyone has responsibilities when it comes to a proper BBQ

6. Tips for baking

To make a revolution, you have to break some eggs…

Baking with kids is a pretty obvious thing to do. Kids love the results and they are willing to work for them. So a few tips for making it successful.

a. Stick to recipes that don’t have loads of ingredients in small amounts. You might like Blueberry Muffins, Blueberry Pound Cake,  or Banana Bread.

b. Set out all the ingredients before you call them to the workspace (pre-measure for younger kids). Do not mess yourself up by not having everything set out and ready to go. Bad things can happen when you turn your back on children with cups of sugar and flour at their disposal.

The handy apple peeler makes short, exciting work of an apple crisp. And kids come to our house and request apples so they can use the peeler.

c. Let them break eggs. I keep it under control by holding the egg in my hand and letting him smack it with the side of a fork. Then I finish splitting the shell and getting the yolk and white into the bowl with minimal shell bits and mess.

d. Use heavy bowls that won’t slide and short mixing spoons so they can keep better control.

e. Be patient. Remember that it is supposed to be a fun introduction to the kitchen, not culinary school.

I am sure many readers have other ways they get kids involved in the kitchen. I would love to hear them.

Peel Away Peeler, Corer, and Slicer, courtesy Hatti Langsford.

And I got numerous responses, most of them correct! The hair removal comment was pretty funny! (Thanks Conor from One Man’s Meat)

It is indeed an apple corer, which can be set to peel and slice as well. Want one? Click here to shop around….

My dear friend from college (The New School, if you’d like to know), Hatti Langsford, whose recent “sustainable” wedding  to Chris Moratz, was covered in these pages, gave it to Leandro when we were visiting them in the New Paltz area last fall. It has since traveled, not just home to us, but to Leandro’s school during Apple Week last year! The kids (and teachers) loved it! And it is a terrific way to get kids eating fruit and involved in the kitchen!

It is a marvelous contraption, that Hatti wants me to remind you can also be used for peeling potatoes, and it can be used for pears as well. It came in particularly handy for this simple apple crisp recipe, as the spiral slice was the perfect thickness for the dish (1/4 inch); all I had to do was slice each apple once in half from top to bottom after Ashley and Leandro had peeled, cored and spiral sliced them.

Make sure the butter is well-distributed through the dry ingredients or you’ll have dry patches. I eliminated the dry patches by covering with foil; the heat finished the topping!

I made it in two 8×8 baking dishes so that I had one to take to this month’s Single Mother’s By Choice meet-up (where it met with general approval and most people took seconds), and one to keep! You could also do one large baking dish.

Yum!

Apple Crisp (adapted very slightly from Betty Crocker!)

10 small-medium cooking apples (we used Gala this time), cored and sliced (peeling is optional)

1.5 Cups mixed brown and white sugar, packed

1 Cup all-purpose flour

1 Cup quick-cooking oats (old-fashioned can also be used)

2/3 Cups butter, softened

1.5 tsp ground cinnamon

1.5 tsp ground nutmeg

Whipped cream or ice cream, if desired

Heat oven to 375°F. Grease bottom and sides of two 8×8 or one 8×13 rimmed baking dish with shortening.

Spread apple slices in pan(s). In a large bowl, stir remaining ingredients except cream, wetting thoroughly with the butter. Spread over the apples.

Bake 30 minutes (add five minutes for glass baking dish), or until top is golden and apples are fork-tender. Serve warm with cream.

Leandro and I were experimenting with a new muffin recipe on the eve of the spring semester and I had laid out all the ingredients beforehand (a critical strategic move when baking with a four-year-old boy and a secret pleasure because I pretend I am on my own prepped and pretty cooking show).

Then the “1/2 Cup milk,” bit, which I swear was not there when I was playing next Food Network Star in my own head five minutes previous, suddenly loomed into view. Milk!?! I hate milk! Leandro hates milk! Ick! We never have milk in!

And baking? Well I suddenly hated baking too, because it is so precise, so unforgiving, so anal, so not me….

But, Leandro and I do like yogurt and we always have plain nonfat organic on hand for my breakfast and his dip for apple slices. So, seeing as we were well into the process of these muffins (which started with a recipe from Dairy Hollow House Soup and Bread by — I kid you not — Crescent Dragonwagon, an Arkansas chef and innkeeper), I bunged in 1/2 Cup of yogurt instead and hoped for the best.

The result was some really fun mini-scones. They were nubbly and attractive, studded with ruby cranberries. Instead of my usual muffin sponginess, the texture had that dense fluffiness that makes scones so lovely with tea or coffee, punctuated with nutty bits. The craisins took on an orange-y candied peel flavor that was perfect for a winter day.

Leandro did not like them at all. “I told you not to put that smelly powder (nutmeg) in,” was his shrugging response.

My colleagues, however, were a different story. I brought them in for a first-day-of-school snack for our kitchen and they moved quickly and got lots of compliments. So….as they used to say in hockey “kick, save, and a beauty!” I guess I like baking again.

Here’s the recipe…enjoy!

Cranberry-Nut Mini-Muffin-Scones

1 ¼ Cup unbleached all purpose flour

½ Cup sugar

2 ½ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

¼ tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 Cup nonfat plain yogurt

½ Cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1 large egg, lightly beaten

1 tsp vanilla extract

¾ Cup dried craisins (sweetened dried cranberries)

½ cup coarsely chopped walnuts (you may sub 1/4 cup walnuts with ¼ cup unsalted sunflower seeds)

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Grease or line with paper cups 48 mini-muffin tins.

In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar to taste, baking powder, salt and nutmeg. In a second bowl, whisk together milk, butter, egg and vanilla. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and combine gently into a soft dough (crumbly is fine) with as little handling as possible. Gently fold in cranberries and nuts.

Use a spoon or fingers to fill muffin cups a half to two-thirds full. Bake until lightly golden, 12-15 minutes. Cool for a minute, remove and then cool completely on a wire rack. Will keep three days in an airtight container; no refrigeration.