It's a Girl!

Introducing Adeline Rose

Born October 21, 2009

9:39 pm

7 lbs. 10 oz.

21 inches long

Our sweet Adeline is almost 1 month old now. I still can't believe she's here! She is so precious and wonderful and we are having so much fun with her. I started writing this post when she was a week old, but as you can see I have been on baby time and everything takes longer! We are so lucky to have a healthy baby (and Mama too). My recovery has been surprisingly easy and Addy has been a good baby from day one. Hopefully I can find the time and inspiration to do a little more blogging than I was doing before...but we'll see ;)

Addy - 1 week old

Ginger-Carrot Muffins

This recipe comes from the August 2007 issue of Cooking Light magazine. I made a few small changes, using fat free milk instead of 1% and raisins instead of currants. Also I only had 3 carrots which turned into 2 cups when grated and you can see they are definitely full of carrots, so don't give up if you don't have enough for the full three cups. The recipe still made 18 muffins even without the extra cup of grated carrot. When I make these again I would like to add some fresh grated ginger for even more ginger flavor. They were still delicious and they freeze well.

Ginger-Carrot Muffins

Makes 18 Muffins

2 cups all-purpose flour (about 9 oz.)

1/2 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup fat free sour cream

1/4 cup canola oil

1/4 cup 1% lowfat milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 large egg whites

1 large egg

3 cups grated carrot (about 6 medium)

1/2 cup dried currants

1/4 cup chopped pecans, toasted

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Place 18 paper muffin cup liners in muffin cups and coat liners with cooking spray.
• Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour and next 4 ingredients (through salt) in a large bowl, stirring with a whisk. Make a well in the center of mixture. Combine sour cream and next 5 ingredients (through egg), stirring well with a whisk; add to flour mixture, stirring just until moist. Add carrot, currants, and pecans; stir just until combined.
• Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes or until muffins spring back when touched lightly in the center. Remove muffins from pans immediately and place on a wire rack to cool.

These are 143 calories each according to Cooking Light. If you make them exactly as I did, they turn out to be 135 calories per muffin.

In other news, Baby Cookie is coming along just fine. I feel great most days and most of the time all I can think about is when I'll finally get to hold my sweet little baby. Only 8 weeks until my due date! I'm starting to feel the pressure of really needing to get things done. About every other week I spend a couple days cleaning and organizing like a maniac, then I get tired and have to take a break from it for a while. I have this fear that I'll have to bring the baby home to a dirty/disorganized house and then I'll never get ahead (most people think my house is always clean but I can be a little OCD at times)! At least now I'm at the point where there isn't really much left I can organize and I just have to keep up with the routine cleaning and laundry. I've started making a list of foods I can make and freeze for later. It won't take much to fill up my dinky little freezer, but my goal is to have enough food on hand that requires minimal preparation so it won't be necessary to cook or shop for food for at least two weeks after the baby is born. Today I made a double batch of banana bread from a new recipe I'll have to share later. I hope everyone is having a great summer! It seems like time is just flying by for me.

Soap Nuts Giveaway

Lindsay over at Passionate Homemaking is having a giveaway of soap nuts, and there will be 20 winners! I know this is a departure from my usual food related posts, but I'm always interested in finding ways to save money around the house and I was fascinated to learn from Lindsay's recent post about natural detergents that they are actually much cheaper than conventional detergents. That, combined with my sensitive skin problems with fragrance, has inspired me to try some new ways to wash my clothes. I've never tried soap nuts myself, but I really like the idea. If I don't win, I will buy myself a sample and let you know how well they work for me. Hurry on over and check this out, the deadline is 5PM PST, so there's not much time left. Go here to read Lindsay's review of natural laundry detergent options, or here for her post on natural dishwasher detergent.

Pimento Cheese Spread

I've always had a weakness for pimento cheese sandwiches. They remind me of summer time when I was a kid. More recently, I rediscovered them for our 4th of July family get together (last summer). I found this recipe on the Martha Stewart recipe and modified it to make it lighter and I'm very pleased with how it turned out. The original recipe called for all full fat ingredients. I don't know what the calories and fat content would have been in the original version, but mine works out to be about 37 calories and 2.5 grams of fat per tablespoon. I like to use a 1/4 cup for a sandwich made with lightly toasted whole wheat bread. It's also great for spreading on crackers.

Pimento Cheese Spread, adapted from Martha Stewart

Makes 2 1/4 cups

12 ounces 1/3 less fat cream cheese

4 ounces sharp cheddar cheese made from 2% milk (grated, about 1 1/2 cups)

1 4 ounce jar pimentos, drained

1/8 t0 1/4 teaspoon Tabasco sauce

Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

• Process cream cheese, cheddar, pimentos and Tabasco in a food processor until pureed to your desired consistency. Transfer to serving bowl and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Enjoy!

What I've Been Doing Lately

     So I'm sure that those of you who haven't yet completely lost interest in my blog are wondering what I've been up to lately.  Well, here it is!  Baby Cookie's first picture.  We found out for sure a week after Valentine's Day.  Since then I've been doing all kinds of things...not much cooking going on though.  Fortunately I only suffered a little nausea in my first trimester but I was not in the mood to do much cooking or baking because making a baby can sure make you tired and I had some food aversions there for a while.  I did manage to squeeze in a ski trip to Jackson Hole, WY at the end of February and a trip to Hawaii in April.  My husband and I enjoyed both very much and we're trying to make the most of the time we have left with just the two of us.  

     I'm so excited about the baby though, its hard to think about anything else sometimes.  I'll be 19 weeks tomorrow and next week is the big ultrasound where we can find out the sex of the baby if we want to...only we aren't going to!  We want it to be a surprise, but I'm still excited about seeing the baby again.  I'm feeling much better these days so I'm going to start posting more regularly.  The focus will probably change a little bit towards nutrition during pregnancy and there will be no coffee and fewer cookies, but you can still expect some great healthy recipes and the occasional baby related post.  

     I'm going to take a break from Daring Bakers for a while, although I'll miss it, I'm trying to focus on good nutrition for baby and something like a whole cheesecake sitting around is just too tempting!  So I apologize for those of you who have come by looking for the Daring Baker's challenge posts.  The last one I completed was February and I will post that at some point so you can check it out.

Sunset on Maui

A Special Valentine's Dinner

I hope everyone had a good Valentine's weekend.  I know mine was special.  On Friday afternoon my husband brought me these beautiful flowers.  Gerbera daisies are special to me because they are the first flowers my husband ever gave me (on our very first date).   Friday night I made a special dinner for just my husband and I.  He took me out to my favorite restaurant for lunch on Saturday.  He also bought me a new digital camera, a Canon PowerShot SD 880 IS, which I am very excited about.  Everyone should be as lucky as I am to have such a wonderful sweetheart!  

For our Friday night dinner, I tried a new recipe from Cooking Light for Pumpkin Ravioli with Gorgonzola Sauce.  We also had a spinach salad with toasted walnuts, strawberries, a little 

Gorgonzola cheese, and a raspberry vinaigrette.  Then there was some garlic bread to top it off.  I will post about the delicious dessert another day.

Pumpkin Ravioli with Gorgonzola Sauce

1 1/4 cups canned pumpkin

2 tablespoons dry breadcrumbs

2 tablespoons fresh grated Parmesan cheese

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon minced fresh sage

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

30 round wonton wrappers

1 tablespoon cornstarch

Cooking spray

1 cup fat free milk

1 tablespoon all purpose flour

1 1/2 tablespoons butter

1/2 cup (2 oz.) crumbled Gorgonzola cheese

3 tablespoons chopped hazelnuts, toasted ( I used toasted walnuts)

• Spoon pumpkin onto several layers of heavy duty paper towels, spread to 1/2-inch thickness and cover with more paper towels.  Let stand 5  minutes.  Scrape pumpkin into a medium bowl using a rubber spatula and stir in breadcrumbs, Parmesan, salt, minced sage, pepper, and nutmeg.
• Working with 1 wonton wrapper at a time, spoon 2 teaspoons pumpkin mixture into the center of wrapper.  Brush edges of wrapper with water and fold in half, pressing edges firmly to seal.  Place on a large baking sheet sprinkled with cornstarch.  Repeat with remaining wonton wrappers and pumpkin mixture.
• Fill a large Dutch oven with water and bring to a simmer.  Add half the ravioli to the pot.  Cook ravioli for 4 minutes (do not boil), or until done, stirring gently.  They should float when perfectly cooked.  Remove ravioli with a slotted spoon, lightly coat with cooking spray and keep warm.  Repeat with remaining ravioli.  
• Combine milk and flour in a saucepan, stirring with a whisk.  Bring to a boil and cook for 1 minute or until thick, stirring constantly.  Remove from heat.  Add butter, stirring until butter melts, then gently stir in Gorgonzola.
• Serves 6 - 5 ravioli, 3 tablespoons Gorgonzola sauce, and 1 1/2 teaspoons of nuts per serving.  Serve immediately.

This is the first time I've made ravioli and I thought this recipe was delicious.  I did half it since I was making it just for two and it was the perfect amount.  I also couldn't find fresh sage and I had to substitute dried sage.  I think it would have been even better with the fresh sage.

The salad is something my mom made for me a while back when she was trying to recreate a salad she had at a restaurant.  The recipe is my own approximation of how I make it and you can adjust the amounts to suit your own taste.

For each single serving salad:

2 cups baby spinach

1/2 cup sliced strawberries

2 tablespoons crumbled Gorgonzola cheese

2 tablespoons toasted walnuts

2 tablespoons raspberry vinaigrette (I like Annie's Naturals)

This is a very simple salad to make, yet it seems a little fancy and special to me.  Yummy too!

I apologize for the poor quality of the last three pictures.  They were taken in a hurry and in low light with my old camera.  The picture of the flowers at the top was taken with my new Canon and wow what a difference!

Vegan Creamy Tomato Soup

I found this recipe on Notes from the Vegan Feast Kitchen.  I have made it many times now and it is delicious and very easy.  I've also made a few changes to suit my taste - decreasing the oil and leaving out the onions.  You can also make this soup using wheat bread or whatever you have on hand and it is just as good in my opinion.  You can even throw in the crusts unless you are using bread that has a very chewy or crispy crust than won't break down during cooking.  

Vegan Creamy Tomato Soup

2 TBS extra virgin olive oil 

1 medium onion, chopped (optional)

3 medium garlic cloves, minced 

1 bay leaf 

1 (28-ounce) can good quality whole peeled plum tomatoes packed in juice (unsalted) 

2 tablespoons brown sugar (or to taste-- it depends on your tomatoes)

3 large slices commercial Italian bread, crusts removed, torn into 1-inch pieces 

2 cups chicken-style veggie broth

1 teaspoon salt (less if you use salted tomatoes, in which case, salt to taste) 
freshly-ground black pepper to taste 

• Heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a heavy pot over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add onion, garlic, and bay leaf. Cook, stirring frequently, until the onion is translucent, 3 to 5 minutes (less if not using the onion).
• Stir in the tomatoes and their juice. Using a potato masher, mash the tomatoes until no pieces bigger than 2 inches remain. Stir in the sugar and bread and bring the mixture to boil. Reduce heat to medium and cook, stirring occasionally, until bread is completely saturated and starts to break down, which takes about 5 minutes. Remove and discard the bay leaf. 
• Transfer the mixture to blender (or use an immersion blender like I did). Process until the mixture is smooth and creamy, 2 to 3 minutes. Rise out the pot and return the blended mixture to the pot. Stir in the broth. If using an immersion blender you may add the broth to the pot before blending.  Reheat soup to your liking, add salt, and season to taste with freshly ground black pepper. Serve soup in individual bowls.  Yield: about 4 1/2 cups