Partying: Cupcakes fit for a lumberjack

It all started when I saw this picture:

Source: paintcutpaste.com via Erin on Pinterest

I loved the toadstool-forest spread.  I felt that it fit in with a lumberjack without being too literal, and since I had some stumps from Clara's birthday, I thought it wouldn't be too difficult to pull off.

Did you read the "I thought"s up there?  Well, I thought wrong. 

***

Don't maple-bacon cupcakes sound amazing for a lumberjack party?  I thought so.  Manly bacon, naturally sweet maple.  I found a recipe online.  But they didn't rise very much.  They wouldn't work for the toadstool idea unless I had another (bigger) top piece.

So, then I thought: I'll do a red velvet "cap."  I won't have to make frosting for the cupcakes (since they will already be red), and red velvet is a southern tradition.  I found a recipe online.

  Lesson 1: don't blindly assume all internet recipes are tasty or tested.

While in theory, the bacon-maple cupcakes were perfect, they didn't taste great.  They reminded me of cracklin' bread.  If you've never had that, it's not exactly what I'd call birthday cake.  The red velvet caps were all right.  A little bland, but aesthetically cracked on top and not nearly as red as they needed to be.  I was basically back to square one.

This must be what a Cook's Magazine chef feels like.

Then I made a double batch of cupcake batter using a recipe out of my Cooking Light magazine.  I made the first half of the batter plain vanilla (which I would use for the bottoms) and then make the second half of the batter red velvet for the mushroom caps.  This recipe was far superior taste-wise.  The red velvet was a great crimson color, too.  However, the recipe called for a large amount of eggs to give the cupcakes their structure.  By the time I stirred the red food coloring into the second half of the batter, my eggs had sunk and left me with some red velvet pancakes.

Still at square one.

So I was now moving on to my fourth try.  I whipped up a batch of devil's food cake whoopie pies from my King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking cook book.  I love that cookbook.  (Thanks, Keri!)  I figured that red velvet is essentially devil's food with red food coloring.

     Lesson 2: red velvet is not just devil's food with lots of red food coloring in it.

If it was, my cupcakes would look red instead of looking like devil's food cake.  I made only tops, thinking that some of the cupcakes from earlier tries would be salvageable for bottoms. 

But then I saw this:

Source: cupcakesandcashmere.com via Erin on Pinterest

Meringue?  Isn't that a lot of work?  Maybe, but I was sure that with my stand mixer it would not be that bad.  I just had to wait until very close to party time to make them because I didn't want my meringues to become soft.

I didn't abandon my cupcakes completely for meringue mushrooms.  I made meringue bases for the cupcake tops, holding up my wannabe red velvet devil's food mushroom "caps."  I also made some of the cute little meringue mushrooms too.  But not without doing the whole thing at least twice.

   Lesson 3: Do not make meringues with pasteurized egg whites.
   Lesson 3b: If it warns you against it on the label, you should probably take heed.

So after trying the recipe with the pasteurized egg whites, against the recommendation of "All Whites,"  I made another meringue recipe separating whole eggs with much greater success.

Now came the fun of putting it all together.  Bamboo skewers were necessary to hold everything together, along with a little bit of cream cheese icing.  A dust of cocoa powder or a few dots of frosting added to the mushroom-ness of it all.

That was so much work for such a non-exciting product.  Oh, and the moss that I thought I had I couldn't find, so my green foam was exposed for the display (but at this point I didn't care, nor did I have time to find new moss.)  But yes, this is the kind of crazy mom I am.   It did receive a nice response from my family members, but it was not worth it.  I think back on this experience and cringe about the amount of time that went into those stupid cupcakes.  I could have just make regular cupcakes, frosted them red, and been done with it.  Why did I have to make separate caps and bases?  Why?

    Lesson 4: Sometimes it is well-worth it to enlist a professional bakery.

It would have been cheaper than going through all those trials.  I will remember these lessons (especially #4) as Clara's 3rd birthday comes around.

Recipe: Ann's Banana Smoothie

I meant to post this, oh, a month ago or more.  While this is still delicious, it is more delicious when it is 90 degrees or more outside.  I think I have a month or so before the weather makes this post irrelevant.

***

Oh, this is so delicious on a hot summer day. The best part? It's actually good for you with no extra sweeteners. Clara and Paul drink this stuff up!

Somehow when banana and milk combine it is sweeter than their sweetness together.  Like 2+2=6 or something.  Am I talking crazy?


The amounts are not hard-and-fast, add more or less milk and ice to suit you.

2 Bananas, peeled (obviously) and broken in pieces
A handful of ice cubes
Enough milk to cover banana pieces and ice (1 cup?)

Put ingredients in blender (I use my immersion blender as in the picture below); blend to taste.  Makes 2-3 servings. Yum!

We first drank this recipe (or a slight variation there of) at Pat's sister Ann's house, hence "Ann's Banana Smoothie."  Her house doesn't have A/C, so she is an expert in alternative ways to feel refreshed!

Enjoy!!

Cooking: Routine

I am seeing little things that tell me that I'm getting older.  Things that tell me I'm turning into my mother.  Please tell me you do too.

For instance, last Tuesday I made "Tuna Noodle Casserole" and was happy about it.

Recently, I've made another - I'm-turning-into-my-mother decision: I've decided I need to get into a RUT.  (No, that doesn't stand for anything; I'm just emphasizing.)

Life with two lovely littles is chaotic, and to help reduce that chaos, a rut is in order.

So, what's my rut?

Dinner. (Or lunch if you live anywhere besides the south.)

You see, my mother cooks burgers every Wednesday.  Wednesday night = burger night in the O'Brian house.  And like my mom, I'm going to give myself a framework for every day of the week so that I can plan better and think less when it comes to cooking.

I haven't completely figured out my entire rut, so I'm open to suggestions.  Bonus points for alliteration.  Here's what I have so far:

Mexican Mondays: We've had a skillet nacho recipe and an enchilada casserole (pictured below) thus far. 

Tuna Tuesdays: We've had Tuna Noodle Casserole (as previously mentioned), tuna salad, and tuna melts.

I really don't have any other days planned out with catchy names.  So like I said, I need suggestions.

Probably a chicken day is in order, an italian-pasta-type day, and maybe a vegetarian day?  Here's a picture of my butternut squash and kale risotto (below).

A Southern Cooking Day would be fun, too, but I don't have catchy names to help me remember!

We had homemade mac and cheese with hot dogs today (Wednesday).  What fun name could that be?

Please help me get in a rut!

 

 (Here's a few gratuitous Clara and Paul photos thrown in for good measure.)

PS - As I re-read this, I'm laughing to myself, thinking of my friend D, who will probably read this, laugh under her breath, and say, "That's it?  Mexican Mondays and Tuna Tuesdays?  Oh, Erin you do need help."

Progress

I'm in week 10, and I'm learning more and more about pregnancy as I go. Websites are the most helpful. Parents.com has a great pregnancy portion of its website and has been useful for both physical and personal changes to expect.

At 10 weeks, my baby has graduated to a "fetus" and is about 1 1/4" from the crown of its head to end of its tushy or "crown-to-rump" as parents.com calls it. My next doctor's appointment isn't until the beginning of July, but at that time I should be able to hear the baby's heartbeat (which beats at about 150 bpm).

I had not planned to know the baby's sex ahead of time, but I think I will now. I've heard ultrasounds are now so clear that you can tell the gender just from looking at them. My ultrasound image (25 years ago) was a fuzzy black and white blur that resembled the image of the Loch Ness Monster that was "fact" for so many years. I suppose its no surprise that technology has improved so much in this amount of time. I really want to see the ultrasound; I don't think I could look away from the ultrasound image just for the surprise at the end. And I'm convincing myself at the practicalities of knowing boy/girl ahead of time.

I'm considering buying a book I saw advertised called "Feed the Belly." It was written by a nutritionist that recently had her first child. The nutritionist highlighted the need for whole foods vs processed (common sense). She mentioned lemonade as a solution for morning sickness. (By the way, the ginger ale and crackers that I was so high on have not been as successful as they were in the beginning.) However, I wonder how much she will tell me that isn't common sense.

I came across an old wives tale that said if you crave meat you will have a boy and if you crave citrus, a girl. Hmm... since being pregnant, I have stopped and bought a pack of chicken nuggets at Wendy's (Pre-pregnancy, I ate 95% of my meals vegetarian and the rest fish). I also had a chicken finger at a family picnic. So, Baby Boy? Confusingly, yesterday, I really wanted an orange. So much for that theory. I guess I'll know soon enough when the ultrasound comes around at 20 weeks.

The Miracle Worker

After 2 straight days of nausea, I decided to look up morning sickness remedies. While the reported remedies range from acupressure wrist bands to sucking on a lemon wedge, the remedy that I decided to try was ginger ale and saltines -- the trusty standby I remember from being sick as a child. Within minutes, I felt extremely better -- from a 3 out of 10 to a 9 out of 10 on the feel-good meter, and I've stayed feeling good since.

Yesterday my husband and I went for our first doctors appointment to the OB/GYN. As expected, they extracted various types of bodily fluids for testing from me. Everything seemed to be normal when talking with the doctor, which was encouraging. They gave me a due date: January 18, 2009, which they figure from the first day of your last period. This means I'm 7 weeks along in my pregnancy, further than I realized.

Really? Garlic Bread?

So for the past 2 days, the majority of my diet has been garlic bread. While a widely-regarded delicious treat, at the moment garlic bread is about the only thing in the house that doesn’t make my stomach turn just thinking about it. Fortunately, we just happen to have 2 full loaves (or right now, 1 ½ loaves) of its delicious, buttery goodness just lying around the house. As far as I can tell, this food selectivity is a mild form of morning sickness. Other than that, I’ve been feeling normal. So, it’s been garlic bread for breakfast and garlic bread for lunch. Hmm, what should I have for dinner? Thank goodness for that high-quality enriched wheat flour, with its B vitamin and iron supplements! I normally have such a healthy diet with lots of whole grains that this recent change is disappointing; however, I suppose I should be grateful that I feel like eating and am not truly sick each day.