Long time, no post!

Hey!  Remember me!?

It's been a long time.

Presumably, anyone who doesn't know me outside of this blog will assume I had my baby.  You would be correct.  Rosemary Inez arrived on March 6th in a big ol' hurry, weighing in at a teensy 6 lbs 13 oz.  She is adorable and Charlie is a lovely big bro and there is a lot of happiness in our home right now.

I also really have no excuse for not updating here.  She is now 3 months old. She sleeps through the night and is a happy little sweetheart.  She nurses often so I'm always sitting in front of my computer. 

But I am unmotivated on the best of days, so blogging just never happened.  I hope to make up for that now that I'm getting back into photography and cooking.  I have been keeping up with Let's Do 52 so I'll try to update those as well.

Until then, a few photos of a cute babe:

Banana Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting. Partial fail.

Last week, Sobey's had their baking bananas on sale for 29 cents a pound, so I stocked up. I saw this recipe on Pinterest (yes, I'm addicted to that website) and thought it looked delicious. I mean, it's bananas. Cake. CREAM CHEESE. Bring it on!

Here's the thing - I am generally one of those obnoxious people who choose a recipe, realize I don't have x, y, or z for it, substitute a, b, and c for said ingredients, and so on, and so forth. This time I was determined to make this exactly the way it should be. Here is the recipe:

http://www.bakeorbreak.com/2011/12/banana-cake-with-cream-cheese-frosting/

The only thing I ended up changing was adding more icing sugar to the icing, because it was very runny.

However, I balked a bit at the oven temp - 375 for a cake...? I should have listened to my gut, because the cake ended up overdone on the edges and slightly underdone in the middle. Grrr. So if you decide to try this recipe, drop your oven temp to a maximum of 350 and try that.

HOWEVER! Despite not baking up perfectly, the taste is really, really wonderful. We all really like this cake and I'll be trying it again. And! It's easy-peasy!

Whisk the flour, salt, and baking powder in a small bowl and set aside.



Four tablespoons of butter at room temp is next:


Put the butter and 3/4 cup white sugar in your bowl/mixer and cream them together.

Next you'll need three eggs - two of them whole, and one requires just the white.


Beat them in one at a time, and 1 teaspoon of vanilla as well. You're almost done!

Grab four very ripe bananas:


Mash them up and mix with 1/4 cup of milk. Doesn't that look lovely?


Blend half of the flour into the butter/sugar mixture.


Chuck in all of the bananas:


Blend that, then add the rest of the flour. Blend and you're DONE.

Pour into a greased 8x8 pan and chuck it in the oven. A cooler oven. For at least 40 minutes.


I am not one of those moms who is concerned about cake batter, so here you go, kid:


The icing is easy-peasy, too! All it takes is 1/2 a block of cream cheese at room temp, a splash of vanilla, and a few cups of icing sugar.


Ignore my cracked bowl. It has been well used.

Result? Yummy, yummy banana cake. Even if it's a tad underdone.



I also made lasagna for supper last night. Excuse my bragging, but I make absolutely fantastic lasagna. Needless to say, by the time we were done the lasagna and cake, we were all stuffed to the point of misery. And I had a very happy husband, who adores both lasagna and cake. I'm not normally a cake person, but this appealed to me because it is dense and moist; I don't like fluffy cakes as a rule because they remind me of cake mix cakes, and I vastly prefer homemade.

Anyway, give it a try! It's a lovely cake, easy, tasty, and appeals to everyone. Except my dad, who hates bananas. But I bet he loves my lasagna.

SLACKER!

Well, my goal of trying 50 new recipes in 2012 is - uh - not going well. I'd like to think that, at 38 weeks pregnant and with crippling pelvic pain, I have a good excuse for this. I miss it, though - there is nothing quite like trying something new. I've tried a few things, but usually do not have the gumption to pivot all over the kitchen with my camera, snapping shots.

However.

You must try roasting kale.

This is not new to me; I tried it last year. However, I've been addicted to this stuff since the new year. Addicted! I mean, look at those crispy green leaves! Delicious.

It's so easy. Buy some kale. Tear off the leaves (not the stalks; they're tough). Wash and dry (I use a salad spinner). On a baking sheet, toss kale with oil and whatever you like for seasonings. I usually use a bit of oil and some cooking spray to cut down on the fat, and all I put on mine is salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Stick it in a 350 oven for 10-15 minutes or until they're crispy. SO GOOD. Seriously - the texture of them is this delightful crumbly, crispy wonderfulness.

You can do the same thing with broccoli with equally delicious results. I toss fresh broccoli florets with oil, salt, pepper, and garlic, roast them, and then toss them in a bowl with a splash of lemon juice and some parmesan cheese. Oh, so good. They will go into my meal rotation along with roasted harvest vegetables, which I get addicted to every fall.

I've also been slack on posting my "Let's Do 52" photos, so let's recap:

Week 4 was all about perspective. I took this shot of some wintry berries clinging to a branch, and I took it from right beneath it, looking up to the sky through the rest of the branches.



Week 5 was "self-portrait with a loved one". This was a quick-and-dirty shot; I put my camera on top of my entertainment unit, smoothed my hair down, clicked on the timer, and got into position. Yeah, not a lot of thought, but I liked it anyway.



Week 6 was "linear". Pretty self-explanatory:


Week 7 was "pretty ugly", or finding beauty in unexpected places. I loved this one and the different entries. Luckily for me, we had a gorgeous hoar frost last Thursday that lasted all morning, so I took some photos of dead leaves and bare branches that actually looked totally transformed with that thick layer of spiky frost. I also made the group's "Pick of the Week" for this shot:


Finally, week 8 was "simplicity". Here are some decorations I put up: $1 crepe paper from the dollar store. My kid and I were celebrating one of his stuffed puppy's many birthdays. Amazing how something so simple can make a kid so happy.


I am hoping it won't be long before I am posting photos of another family member!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a pan of roasted kale waiting for me in the oven.

Hearty Bean and Quinoa Soup

I seem to start a lot of my posts with photos of onions. Which probably isn't good if you don't like 'em.

I made this soup for the first time last fall. I remember it fondly because it was the same day we climbed Bald Peak. I think I posted a photo of the soup around that time, and a link to the recipe, but I've made it at least 7-8 times since then, so I thought I'd do a proper recipe post.

This is the easiest soup ever. And healthy! And cheap! And tasty! How can you go wrong? The recipe can be found on Chatelaine, but I've adapted it slightly (tweaking it over the course of a couple of months will do that to a person) and so I'm posting how I do it.

As you can see above, you need a big ol' onion, chopped up. Throw it in a large pot with a tablespoon of oil and cook, stirring occasionally so they don't burn, for 6-7 minutes over medium heat. Meanwhile, chop up a couple of carrots...



...and mince two cloves of garlic:


You also need about 1/2 a cup of quinoa. If you don't know what quinoa is (or how it's pronounced), do check it out! It's very high in protein and it's healthy and delish.


Throw the carrots, garlic, and quinoa in with the onions and cook for 1-2 minutes, stirring often.


Next, dump in a carton of vegetable broth and a cup of water. Seriously - you are pretty much done.


Let that simmer for about 20 minutes. Open a can of these:


Rinse them, and put them in the soup. Grab several handfuls of spinach (I like lots) and throw it in, too. No need to chop it up. It wilts to the perfect size.


Let it simmer for a few more minutes until heated through and the spinach is wilted. This is what my kid was doing while I was making soup: saying grace for his lunch at his makeshift table.

Sadly, it's not a favourite soup of either Charlie or my husband. Wait - why am I sad? MORE FOR ME!!!!

So, your soup is done. That's it. Nothing else needed. Just onions, garlic, carrots, quinoa, broth, beans, and spinach.

I mean, look at this stuff:



Oh, so good. SO GOOD.

Enjoy! Let's Do 52 post coming soon.

Braised chicken and onions and garlic and YUM.

Mmmm, butter.

Sorry, got distracted there.

I hesitated when putting up this post because I made this recipe two days ago, late in the afternoon, and the light was atrocious for photo-taking. I am not trying to be humble; the photos are not good. However, the food was delish, so here I go anyway. Ignore the sub-par photography.

I bought some chicken on Monday with the intention of braising it. My husband asked me what kind of chicken I was making, and I told him (some tomato-based thing I found on Pinterest) and his disappointment was palpable. I think he gets tired of my obsession with tomato-based foods. So I hunted around and found this:

http://www.thekitchn.com/dinner-recipe-french-onion-chi-144744

Braised French Onion Chicken with Gruyere.

Onions. Garlic. Chicken. How can you go wrong? I'll eat almost anything with onions.

So you take a few tablespoons of butter and melt it in a large pan (I used our cast iron pan) until it foams. Next, you need:

All kinds of onions, cut into thinly sliced half-moons. Toss them in with the butter, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. You are going to cook them for quite a while, until they caramelize. Your house will smell delicious. You're welcome.



You're also going to need a couple of cloves of garlic, sliced up like so:


Once the onions have reached a caramel-y colour (you can't tell from the lighting here, but they are getting brown), toss in the garlic, along with some rosemary and thyme. Now your house will smell even more wonderful!



Cook that a few minutes, then add a cup of broth (I used beef) and simmer until it reduces by half, about five minutes.



At the same time, heat up another pan and brown skinless chicken thighs on both sides over medium-high heat.


Aaaaand I forgot to take a photo of the next step, because my husband arrived home from somewhere and had a long story to tell me, so I was attempting to be a good listener while also muttering to myself about the lighting and the recipe and whatnot. Put the onions in a large baking dish/dutch oven, then place the chicken on top of that. In the pan you cooked the chicken in, add a cup of broth and some balsamic vinegar and dijon mustard. Simmer until reduced by half. Pour it over the chicken and stick it in a 325 oven for about 30 minutes. Turn your oven to broil, sprinkle the cheese on top of the chicken, and stick it back in for a few minutes.

Honestly - and this is coming from a cheese lover - it would have been just a delicious without the cheese.




Oh so good. We served it with rice and green beans, and smothered the rice with the onion-garlic-sauce mixture. My husband was extremely glad I didn't bother doing the tomato recipe. This was a huge hit and I'll certainly be making it again.

I am hoping to do something sweet for my next recipe. I got a KitchenAid mixer for Christmas and have not had the chance to use it yet as we've been eating up sweets/chocolates from Christmas. Stay tuned!

In other photography schtuff, I am doing another one-photo-a-week thing this year: Let's Do 52. I'm hoping to keep up a bit more with posting these on my blog. I absolutely love doing this project and I encourage anyone interested in photography to do something like this. You are given a new theme each week and you take a photo for said theme. It's challenging and forces you to get out there and shoot, which is important for me even in the dead of winter. Here are my first three submissions:

Week 1: Natural



Week 2: Responsibility



Week 3: Negative Space

Why I am not doing a recipe post.

I had big plans to cook up something lovely this afternoon and post it tonight. BIG plans. They were thwarted.

Here's what you need to know:
I live 35 minutes from town.
I am 8 months pregnant and in pure misery.
It's icy out there.

I left for town at 10am. Objective: to buy groceries, and to go to Walmart to buy my husband a filter for the truck and some motor oil. I hoped to walk through a portion of the mall, too.

My day started out fantastically. I stopped at Value Village on a whim, and turns out, if you signed up for their free Super Savers card, you saved 50% on clothing/shoes/etc. So I scored a coat, a dress, a top, a nursing tank, jeans for the kiddo, and shoes for baby, all for about $20. Pretty good trade-off for another card in my wallet.

Next stop: Superstore. Scored myself a Stork Parking spot for the first time. The lot was icy and I didn't want to walk. Went in, got my stuff done (I love grocery shopping, so my day was still going well at this point), aaaand on to the mall.

I decided to park at Sears since it was noonhour now and I figured I'd have to park a mile away from Walmart and then pick my way over the icy lot. Grabbed my lunch, waddled through the mall (thinking, "Yikes, better head to Walmart - this HURTS"), went to Walmart. Went all the way back to automotive. Realized the motor oil was in a huge jug, and also, I forgot - had to get windshield wash and toilet paper. Considered crying, but instead, I sucked it up and waddled back to the front for a mother of a cart. Waddled BACK to automotive, grabbed stuff quickly.

Paid for my stuff. How the heck could all of that be $80!? Oh, right, because I got the WRONG JUG OF MOTOR OIL. So then I got to stand in line to return the $44 jug and go back and get the nearly identical $24 jug. ALL THE WAY TO THE BACK, and back to the front. Also: I grabbed a Lindt bar because, darnit, I deserved some chocolate.

Then - THEN - I had the privilege of waddling back through the mall, all the way to Sears, pushing a massive Walmart cart with Heavy Things in it. By the time I got to my car, I was panting like I'd just run a freakin' marathon, and the bones in my pelvis were grinding, and I hurt from my hip bones to my thighs, and my back throbbed, and I was nauseated, and I wanted to die. Chucked the stuff in the car, climbed in, and tore into my chocolate bar with wild abandon.

What's this - this CHEWY thing...!? Why, it's raisins. Raisins don't belong in a chocolate bar. They just don't. Hazelnuts do, which were also in it, and which is what I saw on the front of the package. Raisins? NO. Now my husband has a lovely Lindt bar to eat.

Drove home, told my tale of woe to my husband...

...and find out I still got the wrong motor oil.

I was in no mood to do any fancy cooking and photographing, so we had chili while I silently fumed my way through dinner.

So, hopefully tomorrow I'll have something pretty and yummy posted here. For now, I am just trying not to move very much.

Roasted Tomato Soup

I'm going to start out my 2012 recipes by being that obnoxious person who takes a recipe and changes have of the stuff in it, then complains about it. ;)

I decided to make Roasted Tomato Soup with Grilled Cheese Croutons (link at end of post). I love tomato-y things, and I make another roasted tomato soup that we all love, so I decided to give it a whirl.

It called for three pints of grape tomatoes. We-ell, grape tomatoes are expensive. And I only had one pint of grape tomatoes. Sooo--

Canned tomatoes! I didn't have whole ones on hand so I used just under two cans of diced. Toss 'em on a baking sheet with the grape tomatoes, drizzle with extra-virgin olive oil, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Stick them in the oven at 400 F and roast for a while.

Next, you need to toss two tablespoons of butter into a pot with a cup of chopped onion, two cloves of garlic (minced), and a tablespoon of olive oil:



Cook those bad boys until soft, then add a can of diced tomatoes and 3-4 cups of broth. I used vegetable because I nearly always use vegetable. Simmer while waiting for the other tomatoes to finish roasting.



Take out the roasted tomatoes:


..and put them in the pot with the rest of the soup ingredients. Simmer a bit longer. In the meantime, make up a grilled cheese sandwich. I highly recommend using homemade bread and real cheddar.

You're almost done! Grill the sandwich and set it aside. Puree the soup in batches in a food processor or use an immersion blender.

Now here's the part I reeeeally skimped on. The recipe then calls for a CUP of heavy cream. I admit I am always hesitant to dump that much fat into something otherwise healthy. I mean, I love me some heavy cream - to whip, to use in ganache, etc. But I decided against it for soup. Instead, I added some coffee cream and milk. Result: eh. It wasn't as creamy as I'd hoped. But it was still good. So, yes, add the cream/milk and heat through without boiling.



Cut the sandwich into "croutons":



And drop them in your soup. The croutons were fantastic and tasted really great with the soup. The soup was decent, but next time I'll try to follow the recipe to a T. ;)


Recipe: http://familyfun.go.com/recipes/roasted-tomato-soup-699298/

I plan to do more new recipes this year, although this one came a bit later than I had anticipated starting. Blame it on bronchitis, rib injury, and crippling pelvic pain as I get huger and huger with child. ;) I also did not bother editing the photos, but will put more effort into this in the future. I promise! Happy eats. :)