paint cut paste

last week, we did a little holiday baking around here. we made our usual recipe-off-the-marshmallow-fluff-jar fudge. then i had to dig up a new sugar cookie recipe because of the whole pesky gluten-intolerance thing. i ended up finding an awesome recipe that you honestly would not know is gluten-free! we got down to business, mixing the 6,502 types of flours together.

we had an awesome time cutting the cookies…

and decorating the cookies.

and admiring the cookies and eventually eating the cookies! (and gifting some)

the next day when N was playing alone in her room, she asked for scissors and paper. i knew she was coloring, and she was being sort of sneaky about it, but we granted her the items (regardless of my fear that she will someday soon attempt to cut her own hair.) after almost an hour of total quiet in there, she emerged with “cookies!”

she had been cutting and decorating lots of “cookies” on her own, and was quite proud of them. i just love child-originated art projects!

(angry gingerman shown for scale? or just because we were about to munch on him... which is probably why he was angry)

the other day we had our third annual halloween gingerbread cookie baking bonanza at home! only this year, our cookies are gluten-free (GF). (i discovered my own, and possibly N’s, gluten intolerance this summer.) they turned out quite festive and yummy!

each year when we’ve made these, N has had the best time. witness our halloween baking (with gluten flour) in 2008:

and in 2009 (yup, still ignorant about the effects of gluten here, and eating it):

so this year, i searched the internet for GF gingerbread recipes, and there are tons out there. true to GF form, each one requires 700 different types of flours, but we settled on one that seemed most simple and healthy from veganchef.com, and what’s cool about them is that they’re vegan, so if your child has dairy or gluten allergies, these are a-okay! (i’ve posted the recipe at the bottom of this blog for your convenience.)

luckily, i had prepped the dough the night before and put it in the fridge. usually i make dough with N, but these GF cookies require a lot of my concentration to put together all of the random ingredients, so i opted to fly solo in advance on that one. i think my brain was on overload this week, so it was just easier this way.

well, i didn’t fly totally solo. be sure you have a sneaky halloween cat on top of your fridge to supervise.

the following afternoon, N, craig (daddy), and i got to work on our halloween baking! we were witchin’ in the kitchen!

the master decorator got to work with the sprinkles (and some raisins as ghost and jack-o-lantern eyes)

she was a patient, yet watchful, witch.

it only takes 6 minutes in the oven, but it's a long 6 minutes when you're three.

like most GF baked goods, these cookies can be quite crumbly, so pour yourself a tall glass of milk to go with them, or if you’re dairy intolerant along with the pesky gluten intolerance (they seem to go hand in hand) so delicious makes a tasty coconut milk!

here’s whatcha need:

who wants a good reason to go to the dentist? who wants to get those pesky baby teeth outta your 3-year-old’s head a couple years early*? we do! we do! we do… apparently. woah, i think my memory of caramel apples is either way off base or caramel apples have gotten stickier over the past few decades. anyway, i bought a gross kit of caramel apple circle thingies at a gross grocery store (aka: a random one by my house that’s not whole foods) because i thought i’d be a fun, festive, fall momma if i did that. WRONG! (<–said in charlie murphy voice.)

it seemed so idyllic at the time of purchase… autumn breezes blowing (um, it’s 95 degrees today in the bay area, but whatever,) fall leaves falling (or dandelion weeds sprouting in my yard,) and delicious organic apples coated in yummy sugary goodness (unpronounceable chemicals.) my intentions were good. i brought the kit home and hyped it up to N.

we followed the easy instructions on the package (this would have been so much more blog-worthy if i’d made caramel myself, huh? oh well.) and stretched the small circle of sugar over our gorgeous fuji apple.

well, getting sticky was fun

then we baked it in a 200 degree oven for 5 minutes, and cooled it in the fridge. it looked delish.

with a gluten-free graham cracker on the side

we decided to share just one apple (thankfully.) i started it for us, and immediately locked my teeth together on the caramel. i figured i must have gotten a particularly heavy bite. i found a less caramel-saturated spot and invited N to bite it there. she was obviously grappling with the same sticky caramel issue. i had to dislodge it from the roof of her mouth with my finger. for some reason, we kept taking bites, thinking it’d get better.

it didn’t get better. so much for that. we had a teeth-brushing party together immediately after this. sigh. i think we’ll stick to (no pun intended) plain ol’ apples over here.

*no baby teeth were actually lost in the creation of this blog.

is your mouth watering already? on a spring trip to harley farms in pescadero, ca, i tried the tastiest goat cheese i’ve ever had in my life – lavender honey goat cheese. this got me thinking that i should look into making some lavender honey ice cream in my ice cream maker at home. so we did.

we grow organic lavender in our backyard… the same lavender we have been using for lavender wands. it’s not technically culinary lavender (which i think you can get in a box at wholefoods?) but i figured it’s good enough. we grew it, we do not spray our yard, it’s organic. N helped me to harvest the lavender as it is beginning to dry out, while we dodged the bees the entire time.

we hung a bit to dry in our kitchen for several days while i researched recipes. i found one on epicurious.com that seems to be quite universal, as it is repeated on so many other web sites exactly the same way. so we tried it out. here tiz:

ingredients:

• 1 cup heavy cream
• 2 cups half-and-half
• 2 tablespoons dried edible lavender flowers
• 1/2 cup light honey
• 2 egg yolks
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

method:
cook the half-and-half and cream on medium heat until warm, do not let it come to a boil. turn off the heat, add the lavender to the pot, cover and let steep for half an hour.

after flowers have steeped, strain the liquid and discard the flowers. add to the liquid the honey and heat on medium low until honey has dissolved. again, do not let liquid come to a boil!

beat the egg yolks with the vanilla, lemon juice, lemon zest and salt. stir into the eggs 1/2 cup of the warm liquid and then add the entire egg mixture back to the pot.

heat this on medium low for five minutes or until it gets slightly thick. you’ll know it’s ready when it coats the back of your spoon. (honestly, mine got a little curdy and didn’t stick to the spoon even after a long time heating, but i proceeded anyway.) cool in the refrigerator for four hours. freeze and churn according to your ice-cream maker’s instructions.

this makes a quart of ice cream… though i thought it tasted more like a custard than an ice cream. some people find the lavender taste to be kind of soap-like or incense-esque. admittedly, it is quite strong, but i enjoyed the super-rich treat! to be fancy, you can serve it with a drizzle of warm honey and a sprig of lavender. yum!

someone loved it... down to the last drop!

one of our favorite summertime rituals is making homemade popsicles. this week we made our first of the season – kid-friendly piña colada style! i saw the recipe on babble.com’s family kitchen and they had me at “coconut milk.” i also loved that no cooking was involved in these whatsoever (while some fruity popsicles require cooking the fruit and sugar to make syrup first.) so i gathered up some ingredients – all organic, of course.

you’ll need:

• 1/2 fresh pineapple
• 6 tablespoons 100% white grape juice concentrate (i used regular white grape juice & it was fine)
• 1/4 cup coconut milk
• 1 cup plain yogurt

then i threw it all into a blender and pureed.

poured it into one of our many popsicle mold sets… (or you could use ice cube trays and toothpicks or paper cups and popsicle sticks.)

we let them freeze for 6 hours (or overnight) and then we totally enjoyed them on an afternoon playdate.

mommy and daddy even got to have a summery little treat by adding malibu rum to the leftover blended popsicle liquid…mmmmm!

here’s to summer, and many more homemade popsicles to come – check out this link for over 50 of them!

we are anxiously awaiting WARM WEATHER over here in the sf bay area, and all of the fun things it entails… but i just could not wait any longer to make fresh squeezed lemonade with my little lady. i must forewarn you that this is a photo-heavy entry… lemons just provide so much eye-candy (and other senses, too!)

it was super-easy and fun to do! here’s whatcha need:

• 2 cups fresh squeezed lemon juice (we did this with 12 lemons)
• whatever tools you wanna use to squeeze lemons dry
• 1.5 cups raw sugar  (we used organic raw turbinado sugar, so ours looked more like tea)
• 1 cup hot water
• 1 gallon cold water
• one sliced lemon & fresh springs of mint leaves for garnish

let your little one take sticker off of and wash each lemon.

have fun squeezing all of the lemons to get the juice out any way you can!

enjoy all of the sensory experiences that come along with lemons!

scent

taste

in a 1 gallon container or pitcher, place the sugar and hot water and stir until sugar dissolves. add the fresh lemon juice and cold water to fill the remainder of the container or pitcher.

we cut some peppermint sprigs for garnish. (note the cute plant tag!)

chill the lemonade and serve over ice (uh, but we don’t make ice in our house, so we just had to chill it longer.)

nope, it's not tea. that's the color of the raw sugar.

i had a hard time parting with the lemon rinds, so i put them in some water with cinnamon sticks and cloves and simmered it on the stove to make the house smell awesome for the day.

then N was inspired to make lemonade art…

i think we’re all set for a lemonade stand… if the weather would ever get outta the 60s and the sun would come out around here… come on memorial day weekend, bring it!

i was at the dentist office last week, and i was naughty and ripped a page out of their kiwi magazine on cooking with kids: making homemade pizza, april/may 2010 issue. (the iphone pic of the page wasn’t gonna cut it with the small text.) as evidenced by N’s pure joy when we made homemade pretzels recently, i knew she’d be into anything involving creating dough and then eating it. so we embarked on the art of a pizza adventure!

here’s whatcha need: (i love to visit the bulk bins at wholefoods for the flours)

for dough:

• 1.5 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 3/4 cup warm water
• pinch of sugar
• 1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 cup unbleached wheat flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp olive oil (plus more for brushing)

for the toppings: (this is their recipe, but we altered it because i’m not a ricotta fan)

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp coarse cornmeal
• 2 cups sliced mushrooms (as local and wild as possible)
• 2 cups sliced asparagus (we didn’t do this part)
• 1 clove of garlic (i used 6 – we’re garlic people)
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 cup part-skim ricotta cheese (i used a bunch of shredded mozzarella and also some sliced fresh mozzarella instead)
• i topped ours with parm, too

then here’s whatcha do… (words almost verbatim from kiwi magazine – i couldn’t find it online so i retyped it for you all. whew! hopefully this karmically makes up for the fact that i tore the page out of my dentist office’s magazine.)

parent & child: in a small bowl, ask your child to combine yeast, 1/4 cup warm water, and the sugar. set aside for 5-10 minutes.

parent: in a food processor, pulse to combine the flours and salt. add yeast mixure, remaining water, and olive oil, then pulse until shaggy dough forms

parent & child: knead the dough on a floured surface for 5 minuts, until smooth and elastic. we had so much fun doing this together. during it, N said, “we’re cooking together! now i can find out what it’ll be like when i’m a mommy!”

child: lightly brush the bottom and sides of a large metal bowl with olive oil. place dough inside, cover with dish towel, and set is aside in a warm place for one hour, while it doubles in size.

parent: preheat oven to 500 degrees

child: brush unlined baking sheet with olive oil and dust with cornmeal

parent: on medium heat, saute mushrooms and garlic (minced or sliced) until soft (5 min) then add asparagus (if you’re using it,) thyme, salt, and pepper. saute 5 more minutes and then set aside.

parent & child: on lightly floured surface, roll the pizza dough out from the center into a 12 inch circle. transfer to baking sheet and bake 10 minutes.

parent: remove crust from oven and let stand until cool to touch (just under 10 min)

parent & child: spread ricotta cheese (or whatever cheese you’re using) onto crust leaving a half inch border, then brush the border with olive oil. scatter on the rest of your toppings (or arrange into a face or get creative with the arrangement… we just scattered ours though.)

parent: put pizza back into the oven until cheese and veggies are heated through, about 5 minutes. then dinner is served! (sure, it’s labor-intensive, but it’s lotsa creative fun, too!)

this feeds about 4 people and is very filling and yummy! we paired it with a simple romaine salad (with sauted garlic, olive oil, and lemon on it… tho it didn’t make it into this shot for some reason. N just had a bowl of green peppers and carrots on the side, as she dislikes the texture of lettuce… white wine for the parents, organic OJ for the little one.)

enjoy your artful dinner! we did, and N was so proud, “i cooked dinner for you!”