Culinary Adventures: baby food

I have pretty much made every veggie I can think of for Anneliese. I have even braved chicken. I need some new ideas to keep her interested. I tried beets and brussel sprouts last week , that was a big fail. Thinking of adding some coconut and curry to some chicken peas and potatoes for her, sounds tasty to me. Also, a big thumbs up to the Tyler Florence baby food cookbook. I have made the broccoli and a few other things and they have been fabulous.

Going mobile!

So, this is just a test post because I just got a new Android phone and I can now blog on the go. Hoping that I can keep more current with posts. I will leave you with a picture of Anneliese in her jumperoo.

Trying new food

So, I decided after tasting my sister's quinoa salad I would make one of my own. I was browsing foodgawker for my daily fix of eye candy (I live vicariously through the pictures of delicious food) and came upon this recipe: Mango, Blueberry, Q​uinoa salad with Lemon Bas​il Dressing . I decided to add some protein in the form of chicken but you could make this a vegan recipe if you follow it exactly. I used a blood orange olive oil I got in Portsmouth, which was AMAZING but if you can't get something like that, regular old extra virgin olive oil is fine. The only thing I would tweak is a little less basil and definitely let it sit and soak in the dressing in the fridge for a few hours. A little cheese, feta maybe wouldn't hurt at all. I imagine if A was eating food with a little more texture, this would be perfect for her so we'll have to make it again. The colors in the salad are amazing and the mango was just a great flavor with the blueberries and chicken and the quinoa balanced everything out. Great as a side or main dish which is what we used it for.

Changes

Well, since I have given birth to another human being and she has become 99% of my life, I decided on a new title and face lift for the blog. Don't worry, I will still post about food related things. However, I will now be "allowed" to discuss baby things too, hence the name change. Having morning sickness last Spring/Summer cut down on the food adventures I was able to have so I hope to keep this more up to date. Currently, I am into making baby food which has been very rewarding. We decided to go in on a CSA this year too so it will be fun looking for recipes to make with the odd things we get like Kohlrabi. Thanks as always for reading!

Spring has Sprung!

I am really looking forward to this weekend of nice weather, so much so I took the day off tomorrow. We're planning on doing some grilling Saturday with some friends and enjoying some home brew and probably some sangria.

I was thinking about some of my favorite restaurants as I was talking to a friend today about Bern's Steakhouse in Tampa. Literally, an experience of a lifetime! If you get the chance to go, do it. 118 page wine list, dry aged steak cut and grilled to order. Their dessert room is equally impressive with secluded booths that contain a phone, not for phone calls but to call in requests to the piano player and speakers that pipe in your choice of music.

I am going to make a list of must see restaurants, but not until we get back from Napa next month because I assume many will be on there. We're planning some fantastic trips that I will detail when we get back!

MIA

I have had a few tough weeks, injuries, flat tires, pet injuries you name it. It kind of started the night I got out of class on a Thursday a few weeks ago. It was 9pm and there was a dead pigeon right outside of my drivers side door. It definitely wasn't there when I went to class and I had to straddle it to get into the car. How does a pigeon just drop dead between 6 and 9 pm?? I am thinking it was a bad omen. Thus, I have been a little out of the loop and felt the need to post a little about what I have been up to.



Anyway, I did get to do some croissants about a week and a half ago during a snow storm we had. Something about snowstorms makes me wanna bake!!! I used the Julia Child Method (actually Esther McManus )coupled with a recipe from Epicurious. Yes, the times add up to over one full day, but I was able to start them at 10am and finished at about 8pm with baked, flaky, buttery morsels of heaven. Croissants are something I feel are challenging for me because I am not patient when it comes to cooking, and even with this recipe I can't seem to plan enough to do it 100% according to the recipe. I baked about 10 and put the rest of the formed raw ones in the freezer. When you are ready to bake them, just thaw over night and you can pop them in the oven in the morning. My only regret, I didn't make any chocolate ones!

Brew Update

Saturday we brewed some more. We did a Rogue Chocolate Stout clone. Excited to see how that turns out since we've mostly been doing IPA's lately. You kind of tend to make what you enjoy. Not that we don't enjoy a stout, but it will be a little difficult to kick 5 gallons of stout.


We have our 90 minute in the kegerator getting some Co2 lovin' since we had a leak somewhere and the Co2 never quite made it to the beer.

Next up is the Avery Maharajah clone. There were like 2 lbs of hops that came with the kit, I am really excited for that one. We do need to get some space in the kegerator first before we attempt to brew that one.