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Currently viewing the category:
"Homemaker"
I made the mistake of auto-updating my theme, and now everything’s messed up with Mantra, and I’m stuck with this generic theme. 
sigh….. it’s one of those days.
naughty Nino under the table, his mouth full with peppermint marshmallow
…. I just found out, is now available at Amazon!
Here’s my original post on it, 5 years ago when it was younger : Utensibility Meme
I was just going to post something about this workhorse of mine. The past three weeks it has made two batches of peppermint marshmallows, six batches of macarons (one a complete flop, but that was my fault), 2 fruitcakes, a batch of Food for the Gods, sugar cookies and gingerbread, a batch of ensaimada, plus rainbow cookies and shortbread…. all without complaint. It is my most steadfast companion in the kitchen (besides my loving dh who volunteers to wash dishes and pots and pans and baking sheets often!)…. so faithful, so reliable. It just finished mixing 3 pannetone recipes and 3 batches of Cinnabon rolls. I don’t know what I’d do without it. Thank you, Electrolux!!
I also found the Amazon review that said this was rated low by Cook’s Illustrated. I discovered that review a couple of years ago and thought of writing the folks at CI (whom I respect and admire a lot! except for THAT review). All I can say is, they don’t know what they’re missing. When I first started working with macarons, I worried that the mixer bowl would be too big to handle 90 grams of egg whites, but NO problem at all. After five years of baking with this machine, it still works like a dream.
… at fertilization. That’s the plain truth.
I know I’ve already got a Lentil Soup with Kale on here, but this one’s a bit different. More of a Middle Eastern take. It’s excellent as a fall soup, particularly when the leaves start falling and there’s a definite chill to the air. Serve over brown rice, or some homemade pita. Or not, since there are potatoes here. (Incidentally, since I last wrote about lentil soup, there’s been a welcome change. Paco, mentioned in that previous post, is now 14 — and LOVES bean and pulse soups. Can we say *progress*?
2 cups Lentilles de Puy, or other lentil
1 large onion, chopped
10 cups chicken stock, vegetable stock, water or a combination
salt to taste
2 Yukon Gold potatoes, cubed
1 bunch kale, trimmed and chopped
freshly ground black pepper to taste
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons minced garlic
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 cup freshly-squeezed lemon juice
1/2 lemon, sliced thin (thin-skinned are best but I only had the thick-skinned ones)
chopped green olives for topping
Pick through lentils carefully. Rinse and drain. Bring to a boil in a casserole with onions and stock. Cook over medium heat 30 minutes, discarding any scum that may rise to surface. Add salt and potatoes and cook 15 minutes, covered, stirring occasionally. Stir in kale and additional salt (if needed) plus black pepper to taste. Cook 15 minutes more or until everything is cooked through.
While lentils are cooking, heat olive oil in a skillet. Add garlic and spices and keep over low heat for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Stir in garlic mixture to soup and simmer 10 minutes. Add lemon juice and stir again. Serve hot, garnished with the lemon slices and chopped green olives (which I reserve for myself as the kids are not big olive fans unless in some unrecognizable puree). They content themselves with a sprinkling of some sea salt if necessary. Another salty topping you can use to contrast with the tang of the lemon is — what else — crumbled feta. I used a saltier-than-usual sheep’s milk feta from Israel.
I finally found *the* one…. and realized just how visual I am.
at Folded Space — a png file
It’s tempting to do a post on “GTD for Homeschoolers”… except I wouldn’t know where to begin. 
I’ve been meaning to do this for a while. We’ve made butter often enough in our DLX, but I’ve been wanting to try making it with Snowville Creamery’s heavy whipping cream (*not* ultra-pasteurized) since it became available at Whole Foods. The other — also important — reason for making butter is that I’m in love with Kerrygold’s Cultured Irish Butter…. and don’t mind paying a higher price at Costco for their 24-oz box… BUT I also would prefer to buy local when at all possible to support the farmers around us. The savings in cost, it turns out, isn’t anything to sneeze at either.
Two cups of the half-gallon of heavy whipping cream went with the strawberry shortcake I mentioned in an earlier post, so I had 6 cups left to work with. I added 1/3 + 1/6 cup of Seven Stars Farm Yogurt (my favorite store bought variety when I’m not making my own) and left it for about 13 hours in a bowl (whisked first of course!), covered with plastic wrap, at room temperature. After the overnight stay outside, I put it in the fridge to chill for a few hours. I’d have preferred to culture it a bit longer, but decided to make the butter in between lunch and dinner, since I figured by the time I got dinner started I’d be too tired to make it, and will have to put it off ’til tomorrow, which does me no good since I’m making our favorite loaf tomorrow, and it will not do to not have that butter ready!
So anyway, into the DLX mixer it went. And yes, some people don’t like making butter with anything plastic but my DLX has served me well all these years and has made me so much butter that it just tends to laugh off the criticism. What’s great about making butter in the DLX is that I can just plop a piece of plastic wrap over the top of the machine and I can observe what’s going on without getting all splattered. It’s almost like having an old fashioned glass butter churn, except this is for lazy people like me.
Just whirrrrr, whirrrrrr, whirrrrr….. it will thicken and turn into butter rather quickly. You’ll know because liquid (the buttermilk) will start splattering the plastic wrap. Let this go on for a bit, say, a minute, to get all that good buttermilk out (yum… for pancakes, dressing, any other recipe you like that calls for buttermilk!). Pour out the buttermilk (I used a plastic sieve but didn’t really need it much since the butter stayed put in the mixer bowl. Added (filtered) water, whirred again on high so that the butter leaves the beaters and gets slapped back to the sides of the bowl before coming together in the center again. Pour out the water and discard. Do this several times until the water runs clear. This is another reason I love the DLX! The washing part is a breeze!
The hardest part was squeezing out all that water at the end. I’m still not done. I’ve wrapped mine in plastic, parchment, foil, freezer paper, etc. Parchment is best but I’m out, so right now I’ve got it in a log-shape (kinda like those Amish butter logs) in paper towel and foil.
All in all, great results. I got about 2 1/2 cups of buttermilk, and 28 oz of cultured butter. (Not bad at all. I think the Kerrygold is $8(?) at Costco (sorry I forget the price)… the half-gallon of cream was $7.99, and I only used 3/4 of it. I love European butter, but I love my local farmers more.
That foamy stuff? Buttermilk!
Sunday evening, preparing food for the week….
Monday:
- Dried figs
- Raw almonds
- Green and Black’s Maya Gold Dark Chocolate
- Spanakopita (Costco)
- Edamame tossed with tamari, sesame oil and sesame seeds
- Glazed carrots
- Pineapple Fried Rice with Prosciutto and Shrimp
Tuesday:
- Baked Meatballs with Honey-Ketchup-Mustard-Soy Glaze
- Potato Salad
- Carrot and Celery Sticks with Ranch Dressing
- Light Wheat Bread (BBA)
- Pan-Roasted Broccoli with Garlic and Olives
- Apple and Cranberry Crisp
Wednesday:
- Grilled Scallops (marinated in Worcestershire sauce, olive oil, agave nectar)
- Corn, Red Pepper and Black Bean Salad (suggested by dd-19)
- Baked Sweet Potato Fries
- Microgreens (from the garden!) + Raspberry Vinaigrette
Thursday:
- Salsa Chicken, in wrap for Aisa, with brown rice for Bong
I’ll add more as I finish preparing the food. The list will go on the fridge so packers [ I’m packing the lunches the day before so that I’m sure they get a bit of everything. Makes for a more balanced meal. 
] can pick and choose if I don’t manage to get up early enough in the morning.
Friday Update:
Two kids fell sick this week… cooking halted yesterday and we had leftovers and ramen noodles for dinner. Cooking commenced today but I’m filling in requests from the sickies — namely Filipino arroz caldo and spaghetti with Bolognese sauce. College kid brought home a package of plantain bananas from the kitchens at school, so I’m baking several with their skins on. I *may* stir-fry some surimi crab sticks with asparagus if they need more food tonight . If you’re reading this, please pray that no more kids get struck down by this icky virus. Thanks!
Just so thrilled to find out that the Senior Product Designer at Vera Bradley is Elit Hoover who’s Filipina. There’s a brief interview featuring her in the latest (Spring 2010) Vera Bradley catalog.
Because I tended to lose things, I wasn’t a bag person until Vera. I put off buying a pretty bag for so long, even though the designs were lovely, because I was afraid I’d just lose it. Once I left a shoulder bag at a wedding reception and we were already on the way home and had to turn back to retrieve it! Guess I wasn’t wise enough to figure out that a bag could actually be the solution instead of the problem. So when I got my Vera it had to be a Vera — the biggest one, not easily forgotten. Since then I’ve used it as diaper bag, as book bag, as hide-things-before-a-party bag, etc. I *love* its many many pockets. What would make it perfect would be LABELS on the pockets!!! So I don’t have to check each one to find out what’s in it. What would be even more perfect is a zippable-on-the-sides Vera. So that if I do apply labels they wouldn’t be hard to see in the dark interior. Or maybe I can just bring a flashlight since it would fit .
Dd-18 wishes there was a sturdy Vera Bradley backpack she can use for all her books. The backpacks are all pretty, but there doesn’t seem to be one that would fit the bill, unless I got her a pullman (!). Her books are HEAVY. Maybe she should write Elit Hoover.
Luxury for Mom:
Started off the early morning with 1/4 cup of Mariebelle Aztec Hot Chocolate… just enough for me to handle in the dark hours of the dawn…
Out of the Mouths of Babes
Yena’s Quote of the Month: “Mom, what’s the name of that movie, Princess Diarrhea?” (Princess Diaries)… oh my child, so blessedly out of the loop.
Tip for Slow Food Lovers in Wintry Weather:
Take some oxtails from your favorite grass fed beef farmer, put in water in a large heavy pot, bring to a boil, then simmer overnight on LOW LOW LOW. Wake up in the morning to falling-off-the-bone tenderness. Take out meat pieces with slotted spoon, leave pot with stock outside in the cold (32 degrees F here right now), covered. In the early evening an hour before dinner, take pot inside. Scoop out solidified beef fat (could probably use this for a birdseed feeder?), bring stock to a boil, season with salt and add yummy things like peeled quartered potatoes, lots of onions, whole black peppercorns, green beans and cabbage leaves. Return meat to pot and simmer just until all warmed up. Perfect for fall.
Prayer to Saint John Bosco for our Young Driver
O glorious Saint John Bosco, who in order to lead young people to the feet of the divine Master and to mould them in the light of faith and Christian morality didst heroically sacrifice thyself to the very end of thy life and didst set up a proper religious Institute destined to endure and to bring to the farthest boundaries of the earth thy glorious work, obtain also for us from Our Lord a holy love for young people who are exposed to so many seductions in order that we may generously spend ourselves in supporting them against the snares of the devil, in keeping them safe from the dangers of the world, and in guiding them, pure and holy, in the path that leads to God. Amen.
Keep her safe from irate drivers who are impatient to get to where they’re going…
On my to-do-list today:
- David Lebovitz’ Ginger Ice Cream
- Ginger Molasses Cookies from King Arthur
- a fruitcake, perhaps this one from Traveler’s Lunchbox
- If I have time to spare, make oven mitts kinda like these for Christmas presents — using the material we have right now, including the Insul-Bright and cotton batting I got from Over the Rainbow, we could make 15 of these!!
- Request Advent books (yeah, a tad late) — to pick up on Friday after Thanksgiving. Might post links and book suggestions later, we’ll see.
- Go shopping with hubby for our artist-in-training, soon-to-be-10-year-old’s put-together art box: tackle box filled with goodies like Prismacolors in his favorite hues, a new sketchbook or two, and other goodies from Michaels
- If not too tired, shopping for stocking stuffers also for St. Nick‘s Day on the 6th.
- Return shoes to Zappos, my very own shoe store in the living room.
- Print out Bible verses and fill advent calendar.
Off to do my 15-minute-each-room tasks, so I can check them off Toodledo, THE (so-far) perfect online spot to help me accomplish tasks according to GTD principles. Still working on a paper-based organizational tool, but haven’t perfected *my* system yet.
No point to this post really, except that
I don’t think I can warm up to this idea, green or not.
Really. It reminds me of these: Fireplace DVDs
No warmth, no aroma, just the visual and audio (how exactly does that work when it’s 19 degrees outside?).
What is the world coming to?
Ooh, ooh!!!! I will actually go for this
since we don’t have any pretty fish. The only fish that seem to survive our TLC are the ugly ones, like these.
I’m helping my daughter to iron a gown that she’s wearing for her senior shots. We lost the tag that tells us what fabric it is, so I’m researching… it’s sheer, but I have little experience sewing with sheer fabric so I can’t really tell if it’s georgette, or chiffon, or whatever. I looked up “fabric identification” and the first link goes to a “burn test” that will help me determine the fabric. Haha. I don’t think she wants me to burn this gorgeous red gown just to see what material it is.
I’m bothering.
I’ve made too many excuses too many times. I’ve said “my family comes first” over and over, and yet this Lent I was painfully made aware that while I have made them priority over other projects (like online jobs and writing cookbooks), they’re still not #1. You know what was? CLUTTER. The endless rearranging and cleaning and shuffling… and it became increasingly clear that if I didn’t have so much stuff, I would NOT have to declutter. So the goal right now is SPARTAN. I have a monastery room in my head — I don’t think we’ll get there right away, but it sure is feeling more spacious around here. And my head is definitely clearer too, as is my heart.
