Cyprian tries rice cereal

Cyprian has been grabbing at our food with excited vocalizations and facial expressions for a couple of weeks. I was going to wait until he turned 6 months old to have him try food (beyond an occasional lick of apple, etc.), but we decided to let him go for it at 5 and a half months old.

For convenience's sake, I fed Teresa boxed cereals and jarred purees her first few months of eating. This time I'm more committed to making baby food at home. It helps tremendously that my friend loaned me her Baby Bullet. Yes, it's gimmicky (a regular blender or food processor could probably do everything it does) but it's also very helpful. Making baby food with it is straightforward and easy thanks to its guide book.

First I ground organic brown rice to a powder, cooked up a batch of cereal, and froze it in tiny portions. I put a smidge in a little jar, watered it down, and gave some to Cyprian last night.

As you can see in the video, he seemed excited and pleased by the experience. We're not sure whether he liked the cereal so much as the spoon and the jar. I don't remember Teresa guiding the spoon to her own mouth right away. Cyprian WANTED THAT SPOON! But he consistently let go of it so I could put more cereal on it.

About an hour after the eating adventure, Cyprian spit up about as much as he seemed to have taken in. We'll see how it goes tonight!

Garden to table

In the last month and a half of nursing Cyprian, I've gone through 20 or more magazines, effectively clearing out my backlog. I've enjoyed reading about children, parenting, money, faith, and food (I receive quite an assortment of periodicals, including Cooking Light thanks to David's sister Jenny). The July Cooking Light contained an appealing recipe for which I already had most of the ingredients, so I tore it out to try.

Baked Ziti and Summer Veggies calls for fresh yellow squash, zucchini, tomatoes, basil, and oregano, all of which I had ready from my very own garden!


Someday I might also grow the onion and garlic the recipe calls for (this lovely head of garlic came from my friend Hunter's garden). And years from now I hope to get eggs from our very own backyard chickens (I will wait to pursue this when I have a child old enough and interested in tending them herself).

I followed the recipe except for two alterations: I used fun, colorful Wacky Mac pasta and omitted the ricotta (just subbed in a bit more mozzarella). The resulting casserole was delicious!


The real test was whether Teresa and David would eat it, too. I served Teresa a small portion. At first she pushed it around with her spoon and declared, "This yucky. No can try it." But she did try it and ate a few bites herself. When I helped her eat some more, she received it gladly and even said, "This very good!" She finished her portion!

David ate all of his serving, too, although he did feel it had too many veggies and not enough seasoning. I think I'll be making this again!

Putting up my green beans

I wanted to make a record of how I prepare my green beans for freezing so that I can easily reference it when this time comes around again next year. Perhaps it might also help someone else, so here goes:

This is my second harvest of green beans (and a few wax beans to add a fun color variation, although I do not like their taste as much). The first harvest (from 3 days prior) waited in my refrigerator, unwashed in a plastic grocery bag loosely tied.


First I wash the beans and snap off their pointy ends (and any stem ends that make it into my basket - I usually snap the bean right off its stem end when I pick it) and put those in the compost container. Then I cut the beans into bite-sized pieces, usually 3 or 4 segments per bean.


Next I put the cut beans in a steamer basket (enough to cover the basket but not too thick - I did three rounds this time) and steam them, covered, for about 3 minutes.


Then I use a hot pad to dump the blanched beans from the steamer basket into a bowl of ice water. I leave them in for a couple minutes and swish them around with my hand until they are tepid. Then I use my hand to pick up the beans and lay them out on a clean dishtowel to dry a bit.


Next I shake the beans in the dishtowel and dump them onto a cookie sheet. I spread them out and put the tray in the freezer for a couple hours. This allows the beans to freeze separately so they'll come out of the bag nicely later (rather than clumping together, which they might do if frozen directly in a bag).


Here they are in a zip-top bag, ready to go back in the freezer. I dole out beans for recipes as needed (they're great in soups, stir fries, casseroles, and as side dishes).


I'll repeat this process another time or two before my beans are done for this season. I prefer to plant all my bean seeds at once so I have big harvests to put up in the freezer for future use (rather than planting a few seeds every few weeks for a more continuous harvest for fresh use).

This year I have one row of green bean plants (bush variety), so about 12 ft by 1 ft of space. Next year I might devote more space to the beans because we enjoy them so much (and I go through my frozen beans within a couple of months).

One thing I learned this year: Teresa loves green beans cooked, raw, or blanched. She'll eat them right out of my basket, off the towel as the blanched beans are drying, or as a plain side dish served at meals. Hooray!

A big thank you to baby Cyprian for sleeping for hours midday so I could put up the beans! :)

Recent harvests

Okay, even I'm tired of salads now. But my lettuce is still producing abundantly, so I give it away as often as I can. For a recent potluck, I picked some buttercrunch lettuce and pulled up a few carrots, too:


A few days later I picked lots of green and wax beans (and a zucchini, too). Yesterday I tried blanching the green beans for freezing. It seemed to work well, but I won't really know until I pull them out to eat in a couple months! Sliced zucchini, coated with olive oil and garlic powder and then broiled, continues to be my favorite way to eat these yummy veggies. But zucchini bread is a close second!

Pantry pickup?

I found out via a Charlotte mom's blog that our local healthy food store, EarthFare, is currently offering a "Pantry Makeover" to people who want to try to eliminate high fructose corn syrup (HFC) from their diet. I signed up on their website and printed out my voucher. Then I raided our fridge and pantry for some items to exchange.

I went in with:
1 jar of Welch's grape jam (with about a tablespoon of jam left in it - David makes his PB&Js with this)
1 bottle of A & W root beer (with about a cup of soda left in it)
1 bottle of Wishbone salad dressing (expired...and I had two of them!)

I came out with:
1 jar of EarthFare organic blueberry conserves
1 bottle of EarthFare vitamin-enhanced water (lemon lime flavor)
1 bottle of EarthFare organic salad dressing (Sesame Goddess)

= $9 worth of products, free!

Although I was disappointed about the vitamin water (I thought we'd be able to get a non-HFC soda, like Hansen's Root Beer, which I had once before and loved!), I am THRILLED about my conserves and salad dressing!!! I have "blueberry preserves" on my personal wish list because I quickly finished the jar my mother-in-law gave me when she returned from a vacation in the NC mountains last year - it was absolutely delicious on my waffles! But they're expensive - the EF jar is normally $6 - so I held off on getting them for myself. What a treat to get them for free!

And the Sesame Goddess organic salad dressing (made with tahini and lemon juice) will be a nice way to add some healthy, tasty fat to my diet. Yay!

Dairy-free, soy-free treats

I have a sweet tooth. I love desserts, especially chocolate ones. Since I've had to forgo foods containing dairy and soy for Teresa's sake, I've discovered just how prevalent those ingredients are, especially in boxed mixes. So many desserts - even those made from scratch - contain dairy...I challenge anyone to find a restaurant that serves a dairy-free dessert. Thankfully, I've found a few sweet treats that I can enjoy these days:

1. Enjoy Life chocolate bars

My friend Jennifer found these at Whole Foods: dairy-free, soy-free, and nut-free chocolate bars. She got me two different flavors: dark and rice milk. Both are excellent!! I've tried 2 other dairy-free, soy-free dark chocolate bars (by Dagoba and Green & Black's - both organic) and both were very bitter. But Enjoy Life's is not. Yum yum!


2. Purely Decadent "ice cream" made with coconut milk

During my mom's recent visit she treated me to a pint from Harris Teeter. I got the chocolate flavor and it was absolutely delicious. I like coconut milk in recipes, so the flavor in my "ice cream" doesn't bother me at all.

3. Made from scratch chocolate cake

I have a recipe clipped from an old magazine that doesn't call for dairy or eggs. It's so easy to put together and the results are moist and delicious. David spreads frosting on his pieces, but I don't think it's necessary. Here's the recipe:

Cinnamon-Chocolate Cake (12 servings)

2 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 3/4 cup sugar
6 T cocoa powder
2 t cinnamon
2 t baking soda
3/4 cup oil
2 T white vinegar
2 t vanilla
2 cups water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Combine flour, sugar, cocoa, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt in large bowl. Stir in oil, vinegar, vanilla, and water until well-blended. Frances tip: Grease a 13 x 9" baking pan with the excess oil from your measuring cup. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 25-30 minutes until cake pulls away from side of pan. If desired, sprinkle with powdered sugar.

----

In putting together this post, I discovered that Enjoy Life also makes chocolate chips, so I may have to purchase a bag to try in our pancakes (made with rice milk). I've missed chocolate chip pancakes!! Now the only thing I need is to find a decent dairy-free brownie recipe. I've tried a couple and they weren't any good at all.

Customer appreciation II

One month ago I wrote a post about contacting companies whose products you love. Sometimes they will mail you coupons and other stuff just because you asked them to! Here's a list of the companies I've since contacted who have responded positively (with links to their contact webpages):

Jif (Smuckers) - 2 35 cents off coupons
Amy's Kitchen (organic)- brochure and coupons (3 x $1 off, 5 x .75 off, 1 x .50 off)
Eggland's Best - frequently asked questions brochure, Mr. Food cooking booklet and a coupon for a free dozen Eggland's Best eggs
CedarLane (all natural frozen foods) - 2 55 cents off coupons
WestSoy (Hain Celestial Group - they make the only rice milk without soy that I could find) - 3 55 cents off coupons
Born Free Eggs (Radlo Foods) - 1 35 cents off coupon
Thai Kitchen - 1 free Thai Kitchen product coupon, 1 free Simply Asia product coupon, 1 50 cents off Thai Kitchen product coupon, 1 50 cents off Simply Asia product coupon, and a Rice Noodle Recipes and Cooking Tips booklet

General Mills and Kellogg's both denied my requests for coupons via form emails. :( It appears the biggest brands that regularly offer coupons in the newspaper circulars and online do not mail customers coupons directly.

Thanks again, Sarah, for the tips on Amy's and Eggland's Best. Also, Carrie received free product samples when she contacted Lansinoh. Does anyone else have stories to share?

Play Date

My friend Lindsay and I got together today for a picnic and walk at Freedom Park. Because I am still off dairy, soy, gluten, and peanuts, we had to be creative and careful about our picnic fare. Lindsay made a delicious chicken salad (with canola mayo - most mayo has soybean oil), which we enjoyed in lettuce wraps. I brought tortilla chips, hummus, salsa, strawberries, cantaloupe, and grapes. We ate well and the girls (her Adelaide is just one week younger than Teresa) were in good spirits. They enjoyed sucking their fists together:


Then they took turns sucking their fists:



It was a beautiful day for a walk on the paved paths through the woods and around the big pond. The girls decided they were hungry at the same time (or maybe one prompted the other) and they cried in unison while we searched for an open bench:

Lindsay and I look forward to the day when Teresa and Adelaide will play together, but for now we enjoy opportunities to get out of our homes and talk.

Elimination Diet

I request your prayers for our little family. Teresa's symptoms of food allergy have continued, even though I have been dairy-free for 2 weeks and off soymilk and chocolate for 1 week. This weekend she exhibited 6 of the 11 signs of dairy sensitivity listed here: extreme fussiness, congestion, a pin dot rash (or widespread acne) on her face, frequent spitting up, gassiness, and green, mucousy, bloody stools. It's the last one that's most alarming: two diapers with some blood in them. Obviously, I'm still eating something that's bothering her poor little digestive system.

Food allergies are so difficult to determine! She might be intolerant of any of the multitude of ingredients I've consumed. I've started keeping a food log. With David's assistance and encouragement, I will take the plunge and stop eating anything containing gluten (wheat, oats, and barley) or soy. We've made a bare bones menu plan for the next 7-10 days, and then we'll decide how to proceed.

Giving up dairy was tough. At least I can eat my cereal with soymilk and dark chocolate for dessert, I thought. Then those were forbidden as well. I managed. But now all soy and wheat? I've shed many a tear at the thought of it: What a joyless life! What CAN I eat? Will I waste away? I'm already too thin! Will Teresa still get enough nutrients? Is this really worth it, or should I just stop breastfeeding? That would be a humiliating defeat. You get the idea.

So I ask your prayers: that Teresa would be healthy and grow and know comfort and happiness. That I would embrace this sacrifice/challenge with peace and hope. And that David would continue to be the patient and loving husband and father that he has proven himself to be thus far. Thank you.

Solidarity & our daily bread

"Give us this day our daily bread..." we pray in the Our Father. And God provides...through the work of countless people we will never know.

I was reminded of this truth this evening as I read the Fall/Winter 2008 issue of Sacred Ground, the magazine of Christian Foundation for Children and Aging (CFCA). I've written about CFCA and my sponsorship of a young Filipino named Manuelito before, and I continue to encourage anyone interested in sponsoring a poor child (or aging person) to consider CFCA because it is a stellar organization founded on Catholic principles.

For example, solidarity is part of the CFCA mission statement because it is an essential part of Catholic social teaching. I think this story, shared in the article "Solidarity: A Walk of Love," illustrates solidarity well:

"Every morning when CFCA sponsor and board chairman Scott Wasserman gets dressed, he checks his shirt label to see where his garment was made. He then spends a moment thinking of the person who made it, most likely a woman.

'I pray for her and her family while I hold the shirt she made for me,' Wasserman said. 'The entire spiritual exercise takes only a few moments. But done consistently every day over the years, it leads to solidarity with the poor, and that leads to action such as sponsorship with CFCA.'"

As I pondered this idea my gaze fell to my dinner plate. Because David was at church training altar servers for the Latin Mass, I was reading Sacred Ground while enjoying the London broil he'd made in the crock pot, along with some sweet potato casserole. In times past I have tried to bring to mind and pray for many of the people involved in getting us the food we eat - to not take them and the hard work they do (or my dependence upon it) for granted. For example, I should thank the Lord for...

• The rancher that raised the cow
• The butcher that prepared the cut of meat
• The packager who wrapped it up
• The truck driver who transported it to my grocery store
• The farmer who cultivated and harvested those sweet potatoes
• The stocker who laid them out in the store
• The cashier who rang up my purchases (and all those coupons)
  
• The creative minds behind the development, packaging, and advertising of all the other ingredients we used in our meal
• The cooks who created the recipes we used (I really like MoneySavingMom's sweet potato casserole, with marshmallows for topping)
  
• The web gurus who keep sites like Allrecipes.com going so we can quickly find out how to make London broil (this was our first time)

I could go on, because the contributions don't end there. People all over the place had a hand in my meal. These are my brothers and sisters, doing their daily work, and I hope they know that someone appreciates their good service!

I pray that the Lord will help me to be even more mindful of how much I need others, far and near, to live as I am blessed to live. I am grateful for God's Providence - and for the role He allows me to play in providing for others.

I can only imagine how this insight will deepen when Teresa comes and I *get* to take care of her, with others' help. Already we have been so blessed by the generosity of friends and family - and those unknown people who donate used clothing and baby supplies to thrift stores. Deo gratias!

Experimenting with foil

In preparation for Thanksgiving, I decided to roast my sweet potatoes this morning (9 lbs!). Remembering that the potatoes tend to drip while roasting and not wanting to put them on cookie sheets (I thought those might prevent even roasting), I decided to try using foil to line the bottom of the oven.

Success: beautifully roasted potatoes that slipped right out of their peels and mashed easily (I portioned them into plastic bags and froze them)

Lesson learned: if you're going to use foil to line your oven, be sure to put it UNDER the bottom heating element. ;)



Oops! Thankfully, the foil came right up and I was able to vacuum up all the little flecks left on heating element.

This experience reminds me of the turkey lessons I learned a few months ago. Yes, we're roasting our bird in a bag next week!

Turkey cupcakes

My mother-in-law just dropped off these cuties, made by a local bakery. Yum!

Eatin' Zucchini

I recently took David with me to the Farmer's Market so he could experience it himself. He picked out four little zucchini. David definitely prefers vegetables raw, while I generally prefer them cooked (at least a little). Since we've been married David has probably eaten more cooked veggies than he ever wanted to, and I have slowly but surely been learning to buy, store, and serve raw veggies.

I've crunched through my fair share of carrots and celery over the years, but I can only remember eating raw zucchini once before this past week: in a delicious avocado/zucchini salad with lime juice and cilantro. When David sliced up a zuke (people call cucumbers cukes, so why can't we call zucchini zukes?) and served it with dip, I tried it . . . and liked it!

I'm getting so used to the idea that, when I was looking for a snack last night, I grabbed a zuke out of the fridge, poured myself a little dab of ranch dressing, and went to town. Why bother slicing?

Watermelon Shark

Do you see it?

Turkey Lessons

A few weeks ago I bought a frozen turkey on an impulse. I love Thanksgiving dinner (my college dining hall served it every month, mmm) and a single turkey can make many meals for David and I (we freeze some of the cooked meat and make broth with the bones). I first attempted to roast a turkey by myself for Thanksgiving 2006, when David and I were engaged. I used a roasting bag and everything came out wonderfully. Here's me preparing the stock pot to boil while we ate:


And here's the spread:


Well, I decided to try again this past weekend. What resulted can be summed up in two words: learning experience.

1. If ice forms in the pickle jar in the back of your fridge, you probably need to turn the fridge's temperature up. If you don't, your turkey will not be thawed all the way through even after almost 5 days in the fridge.

2. When you reach inside the turkey to pull out the giblets, etc, and you find that it is still frozen inside, A) make sure you reach all the way inside and remove EVERYTHING, even though your hand is very cold, and B) run water through or something to try to defrost it, otherwise cooking time will lengthen drastically and the turkey will not cook evenly.

3. When you decide to roast the turkey in your new roasting pan (not in a bag), special considerations are necessary. Do not cover the exposed breast with tinfoil too early or it will not reach the desired temperature before the drumsticks are done (half an hour is too early).

4. Turkey is traditional fare for winter holidays because roasting them in your oven generates a lot of heat for an extended time. If you choose to roast a turkey in 90 degree weather, your air conditioner will run continuously and still not get your home very cool. You might not sleep well that night because of the remaining heat.

But I also learned something else: my husband is very patient, understanding, and dutiful (to the point of slicing and pulling as much not-quite-done meat off of the bones as possible after I was quite frustrated with said turkey). We turned off the oven and vowed to microwave the meat very well later. Needless to say, this is not the most moist and flavorful turkey we've ever eaten. But we're trying not to let it go to waste. At my mom's suggestion, I even put the carcass in the crock pot and made stock.

When we finally sat down to eat and thought through the experience, I declared that I would be roasting all future turkeys in those slightly expensive but oh-so-helpful roasting bags. But my dear husband came back with a very good question: do they leach plastic into the turkey during roasting? We're trying to avoid cooking in plastics, so we need to do a little research into this one.

Now THAT'S customer service!

These past two weeks have been a bit stressful for me as I transitioned out of my Library job and prepared for my new Saint Benedict Press job. One would think that all my years of moving to new states, new homes, new schools, new relationships would have prepared me well for changes like this...and one would be right, to a certain extent. I can settle in fairly quickly, make new friends, and hit the ground running with my work. But I still stress a great deal in anticipation of it all!

My PLCMC coworkers did a fabulous job of reassuring me that, though I will be missed, I am doing the right thing. I almost felt like I floated out of the building on a cloud of well wishes and encouragement today. Everyone has a lot more confidence in me than I do in myself, it seems! Anyway, one of the loveliest things my supervisor did for me was organize a farewell luncheon with twelve of my coworkers for Wednesday. They took me to a nice little restaurant Uptown called Feast, where they serve food in a French-Moroccan style. I'd love the opportunity to try most of their menu choices, but I opted for the chicken satay on this visit and was delighted by the moist, flavorful chicken with avocado and carrot salad over rice. YUM!

We were fortunate to have the restaurant manager as our waiter that day. In addition to his warm welcome and attentive service, he provided two especially generous treats that I want to share with you. First, he came to visit our table while we waited for our food. While my coworkers responded "fine" or "good" to his "how are you all doing?", I burst out with a candid "I'm hungry!" and a smile. He slipped away quietly and, not five minutes later, bestowed on me a plate of fresh fruit, including the most delicious strawberries I've eaten yet this year. "On the house," he assured me, noting his special privilege as the manager to attend to his customers' needs this way.

Later in the meal one of my coworkers found a bug in her salad. The manager apologized and offered her a replacement, which she declined without hard feelings. He then explained that the organic greens they use are more prone to intruders than the pesticide-laced salads we might eat elsewhere. Makes sense! But he would not let the incident remain at that - near the end of our meal he set a silver platter of chocolate-covered strawberries with whipped cream at my coworkers' place and invited her to share it with everyone - again, on the house. The strawberries were even more delicious under chocolate!

Now that I am no longer working Uptown I don't know if I'll ever have the opportunity to eat at Feast again. But if I do, I definitely will!

Photo credit: Joits

Veggie water

In this edition of Works for Me Wednesday I want to share with you one way I try to prevent food nutrient waste. We know that boiling and even steaming vegetables draws some vitamins and minerals out of the vegetables and into the water. Short of drinking the water, how can we utilize those nutrients?

First, I let the veggie water cool in the pot I used to boil/steam (usually it sits on the table or stove while we eat our meal). Then I pull my designated "veggie juice" container (lately I'm using a Cool Whip container) out of the freezer and pour in the new juice (veggie bits and all). Then I return it to the freezer.

Whenever I am making rice or soup, I pull out the veggie water to use. If I think ahead, I set it on the counter to thaw. If I remember last minute, I bend the container until the chunk of frozen veggie juice pops out into my big measuring cup and microwave it. Then I add water or broth until I have the amount called for and pour it into my cooking pot. The rice soaks up the nutritious water while cooking. Or it becomes part of the soup's broth.

These pictures show the water left from collard greens - it probably tastes strongly by itself, but when mixed with the water from other veggies (broccoli, corn, spinach, etc.) it isn't noticeable.

Deo Gratias: Butternut Squash

I love me some butternut squash. It looks and tastes delicious in its natural state - cooked, of course, but with nothing added. And it's so easy to make!

Here are a couple of squash I've had sitting on my counter for a couple of weeks. They keep amazingly well! I use the big knife to slice them down the middle. Then I scrape out the seeds and stringy flesh with a spoon.

I lay the halves face up in a glass baking dish (some recipes say lay them face down - it probably doesn't matter). Then I put about a half inch of water in the bottom of the dish and cover (with either a lid or tin foil, depending which dish I use).

I set the oven to 350 or 400 degrees and let the squash steam itself for an hour or so - more if the halves are very thick. You can see the spoon marks where I tested doneness - the spoon should meet no resistance.

Finally, I scoop the flesh right into bowls to enjoy all week. Sometimes I sprinkle a little cinnamon or cinnamon/sugar on top, but it's not really necessary.

Do you like butternut squash? How do you serve it?

Banana Nut Muffins

We like muffins for their size, nutrition, portability, and freezability. We keep some in the freezer at all times as grab-and-go snacks. They're one of my favorite mid-morning energizers for work. I whipped up a batch yesterday, so I thought I'd share the recipe with you today.

Banana Nut Muffins
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter or margarine (1 stick; use wrapper to grease muffin cups)
3/4 cup brown sugar (though regular will work if you don't have brown)
2 eggs
2 big bananas, mashed (I almost always use defrosted bananas from my freezer)
1 cup chopped walnuts (I use our food processor to give them a whirl)

I just mix everything together in a big bowl, in any order. I use an ice cream scoop to portion the muffin batter into 12 cups.

20 minutes at 350 degrees.

Ready to bake.

I ate one. Yum!