The bread

I regularly made yeast bread for a few years early in our marriage when I was working from home part of the week and didn't yet have kids.  One day I stopped and I never picked it up again.  I still have my tattered copy of my beloved honey wheat bread recipe that I'd often make but when I decided to make bread again last week, it was with a much easier method.  So easy, in fact, that I was pretty skeptical about how it would turn out.  I found the recipe on Pinterest which made me doubly skeptical.

But, it was amazing!  I've thought about it since and I'm making myself refrain from making it every day because my big ol' belly (and big ol' everything else) doesn't need all that white flour-y goodness every day.  Even if bread intimidates you (and even if you're gone from the house a lot), you can make this.  You don't need to knead, punch it down, or attend to it hardly at all.  You just need an hour and a half or so on the day you're going to serve it to heat your oven and bake it.

The easiest bread ever (yields one round loaf)
from this post  (good photos of each step)

3 cups of flour
1 cup of water
3/4 teaspoon yeast
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 T chopped rosemary and zest of one lemon (optional)

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, salt and yeast.  Add water (and rosemary & lemon if you're using it) and mix until a shaggy mixture forms.  Cover bowl with plastic wrap and set aside for 12 - 18 hours.  Overnight works great.  

Heat oven to 450 degrees.  When the oven has reached 450 degrees place a cast iron pot with a lid in the oven and heat the pot for 30 minutes.  Meanwhile, pour dough onto a heavily floured surface and shape into a ball.  Cover with plastic wrap and let set while the pot is heating.  Remove hot pot from the oven and drop in the dough.  Cover and return to oven for 30 minutes.  

After 30 minutes remove the lid and bake an additional 15 minutes.  Remove bread from oven and place on a cooling rack to cool. 

On the blog where the original recipe is posted, she has other flavor combinations (rosemary & gruyere, sharp cheddar, etc).  It seems really versatile and you stir your additions in when you add the water.  Next time, I'd probably leave out the lemon and just go with the rosemary.  My friend was suggesting cranberry and orange or olive with the rosemary - yum!

The baby is . . . .

A girl!  

The ultrasound tech had a good sense of humor and was stringing us along quite a bit as we looked at the baby but finally said he was 90% sure it was a girl.  We're really excited to welcome another baby sister in March.

There were 4 (out of 14) guesses for a baby girl in my contest.  I used a "Random Number Generator" online and the winner was #3 - Nicole!  I can mail your "fall baking" prize to you or we can hang out sometime :)

Barley & Lentil Soup with Swiss Chard

Play the game!  Guess if we're having a boy or girl in the comments to this post and you could win a prize!  The game ends on Friday morning when we have our ultrasound.

I went to download the photo of this recipe and discovered that Big had been using my digital camera.  She's really not a bad photographer.  There's this plant in our backyard that she's in love with - she plays with the flowers all the time and it attracts butterflies so she's always watching the butterflies in the yard.  Apparently, this plant and her little sister were her major inspirations. 

Thanks for indulging me in sharing her pictures - it's fun to see a glimpse of how things look through her eyes.  She tells me all the time "Mom, take a picture" of something she sees or likes.  

On to the food.  I love soup and I'm so happy it's cool enough to actually serve to my family!  This is a pretty basic recipe but I liked the combination of the cumin with the sprinkle of dill at the end.  You could double the lentils (put them all in when you would put the barley in and cook for about 30-40 minutes or until tender) if you're GF and you could easily use another dark leafy green (kale or spinach?) if you don't have chard.  And, the perfect thing to serve with soup is bread.  I made my first homemade bread in years but I'll save all that for another post!

Barley & Lentil Soup with Swiss Chard (serves 4)
adapted from Gourmet 2/05

1 T olive oil
3/4 c. chopped onion
3/4 c. chopped peeled carrots
3/4 c. chopped celery
2 garlic cloves, minced
1.5 tsp. ground cumin
5 cups (or more) low-sodium vegetable broth
1/3 cup pearl barley
1 cup diced tomatoes in juice
1/3 cup dried lentils
2 packed cups coarsely chopped Swiss Chard
2 T fresh dill

Heat oil in a large pot over medium high heat.  Saute the onion, carrots, and celery unit the onions are golden brown, about 10 minutes.  Add the garlic and cumin and stir for about a minute.  Add the vegetable broth and barley.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to a simmer and cook for about 25 minutes.

Stir in the tomatoes and lentils.  Cover and simmer for about 30 minutes.  Add chard to soup.  Cover and simmer about 5 minutes, until the chard is tender.  Season with dill, salt, and pepper.  Thin with more broth (or water) if necessary.

Rice Krispy Treats

Today is my husband's birthday.  We've been married for eleven years and I love him so much.  I'm not telling this story to poke fun at all, I just love how it's a typical interaction in our family and it conjured an image of my very early cooking experiences living at home.

It is a Monday evening after dinner.  I walk into the kitchen to find my husband standing in front of the cupboard wishing there was some "good" junk food but instead, settling for eating a stale marshmallow from a bag.

Him:  You should make Rice Krispy Treats or something out of these

Me:  I know - I've been meaning to make something or throw them out.

Tuesday evening after dinner.  He's standing in the same spot, this time not only eating the marshmallows but also feeding them to Little because she finished her dinner.

Him:  You should make Rice Krispy Treats or something out of these.

Me:  I know but I haven't been to the grocery store since you told me that yesterday.

Him:  I didn't tell you yesterday; I told you  on Monday.

Me:  Today is Tuesday.

Him:  Oh.

Wednesday afternoon after gymnastics

Me:  Hey [Big]!  Let's make some Rice Krispy Treats.

Big:  What's that?

Me:  You know, those marshmallow crispy bars.

Big:  We can make those at home?

We make a big pan.  It's gone in about 3 days and I'm not sure if my husband actually ate any of it.

When I was young, my cooking repertoire consisted of Rice Krispy Treats and Kraft Mac & Cheese.  After not making Rice Krispy Treats for a decade, here are my reflections:  Why aren't there more desserts like this that you don't have to bake?  Can you imagine how many chocolate chip cookies we'd eat if they were that fast?  I mean, I know you can burn the roof of your mouth really badly if you don't wait for Rice Krispy Treats to cool, but this is the easiest cooking method ever.  Did the marshmallows always stick so badly to the pot and is there a trick to cleaning them up?  Isn't it amazing that a 9x13 pan can hold so much goodness that has absolutely zero nutritional value?  How many marshmallows did my kids actually eat before I took their picture and took them away?

If you need a recipe for making these, it's on the back of even the generic rice crispy cereals at the grocery store.  Or here.

Pumpkin Zucchini Bread

Fall baking is in full swing!  I made this for a visit with an old friend last week and it was yummy.  Big didn't like it that she could see the flecks of zucchini in the bread (picky!) but Little ate it up.  I think if I had put in some mini chocolate chips, she could have been persuaded, but oh well - more for the rest of us!  It made a little more than 4 small loaf pans but you could do two large or even make muffins (not sure how many . . . probably 18?).

Pumpkin Zucchini Bread (2 large loaves or 4 small loaves)
Adapted - original recipe here

3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 cup applesauce
1/2 cup oil
1 T vanilla extract
3 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. cloves
1 cup shredded zucchini

In a bowl, combine eggs and sugar.  Add pumpkin, vanilla, oil and applesauce and stir well.  In another bowl, combine dry ingredients.  Gradually add to pumpkin mixture and mix well.  Stir in zucchini.  Pour into two greased and floured 9x5 in. loaf pans (or 4 small ones or muffin tins).  Bake at 350 degrees until bread tests done (my small loaves took about 20 minutes.  Original recipe says 45-55 for big loaf pans).  Cool in pans 10 minutes.  Remove to a wire rack.

Pear Spice Cake

It looks like we're heading into some fall weather this week!  I have some lentil & barley soup on this week's menu and homemade bread.  I made this Bundt cake for church potluck last week and it turned out really good.  The pear flavor was noticeable and the spice cake was moist and well-balanced.  I made a simple powdered sugar icing but a browned butter or praline topping would be good too.  You could probably also easily replace the pear with apple or persimmons.  Bake something with fall spices - your house will smell awesome and it will put you in a good mood!

Don't forget to play the game on my last post - I bought a cute prize for the winner!

Pear Spice Cake (makes 1 Bundt cake)
adapted from Joy the Baker

2 cups all purpose flour
1.5 tsp cinnamon
1.5 tsp ground allspice
1.5 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup unsalted butter, softened (2 sticks)
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup buttermilk
4 small pears, peeled and grated

Butter and flour your Bundt pan or spray it with baking spray.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a bowl.  In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg at medium high speed until fluffy (about 3 minutes in a stand mixer). Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition and then beat in the vanilla.

Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture and buttermilk alternately in batches, mixing well after each addition.  Gently fold in the grated pear.  Spoon batter into pan, smoothing on top and bake until a tester comes out clean, about 40 minutes.  Cool cake in pan 10 minutes and then turn out into a wire rack to cool completely.

Icing:
Put 2 cups of powdered sugar in a bowl.  Add milk, a couple teaspoons at a time until it's the consistency you want.  Drizzle over the cooled cake.

Big, Middle & Little

Big sister

Middle Sister

Little Sibling

Coming soon . . . March 2013!  We're hoping to find out the sex of the new baby on October 19th.  If you want to play along, leave your guess as to whether baby #3 is a boy or girl in the comments.  I'll randomly pick someone from among the winning guesses and send you a prize . . . probably something related to fall baking (Pear Spice Cake recipe coming next).