Fall Tomatoes

I didn't plant any tomatoes this year, since the past few years I've tried but had little success.  Amazingly, I had two volunteer tomato plants come up in random parts of my garden, and they made more tomatoes than any of my past attempts!  The tomatoes took their time to ripen, and are now finally ready to eat... now that it's October.

So now that I have a bunch of tomatoes, I tried making gazpacho!  I've had a craving for it lately, and the store bought stuff just doesn't do it for me.  So here's the (delicious) version I made up last night :)

Liz's Awesome Gazpacho

• 1 English cucumber
• 1/2 yellow pepper
• 1/4 onion
• 4 or 5 medium tomatoes
• 1 medium clove garlic
• Juice of 1 lime
• ~1/4 cup parsley
• ~2 cups mint leaves
• ~ 1/4 cup olive oil
• Salt & pepper
• 1 cup of warm (softened) cooked white rice

Roughly chop everything and add to a food processor or blender.  I used a giant food processor, you could work in batches in a smaller blender or food processor and combine pured veggies in a big mixing bowl.  Add salt and pepper to taste, I probably used around 1 tsp of salt, but if you want flavor with less salt I bet you could substitute some lime zest.

Serve cold, and enjoy!

I cooked something that wasn't chicken!!

Woohoo!  I cooked something that wasn't chicken, score!

As I've mentioned before, I have a myriad of food rules at the moment, no gluten for myself, and no milk, eggs, peanuts or soy for the baby (via breastmilk).  I added goat milk into my diet a few weeks ago (apparently it's usually cow's milk that causes trouble), and so far so good.  And SO GOOD!!  It's amazing what you can find in a grocery store these days!  So far, I have found:

• Goat milk
• Goat milk yogurt
• Goat milk drinkable yogurt (milk/yogurt hybrid)
• Goat cheese (normal)
• Goat milk cheddar
• Goat milk brie
• Goat milk hard cheese
• Goat milk feta
• Goat milk BUTTER!!!

After months of no dairy, these finds have opened up a whole new world!!  Obviously some of these taste more like substitutions than the real thing (for example, goat milk cheddar doesn't really taste like cheddar), but some of them are DELICIOUS!!  For example, one of the yogurts I tried this past week was one of the best yogurts I've ever had, ever.  It was only flavored with honey, and it was light and creamy and delightful!

Another interesting find that I'm very happy with is goat milk butter.  It's expensive, and it doesn't quite taste like butter, but so far it's been great for cooking dinner!  I've used it to cook a few different  things, and it lends a buttery flavor I've been missing for so long, while at the same time infusing the meal with a slight goat cheesy flavor.  So in other words, if it's a meal that would taste good with goat cheese added, you get a two-for-one!  Here are two easy meals I threw together earlier this week -  I realize they're both seafood - but butter and cheese go well with these mild fish/shellfish!  And they were both delicious!

Liz's Scampi-ish Shrimp with Goat butter
Ingredients

• Goat butter (1 or 2 tbsp)
• White Wine (1/2 cup?)
• Juice of 1/2 lemon
• Zest of 1 lemon
• Fresh Parsley, chopped (1 tbsp?)
• Fresh Dill, chopped (1/2 tbsp?)
• 1 carrot, shredded or grated
• 1 medium zuchinni, shredded or grated
• garlic, minced, 1 or 2 tbsp (i used 4 smallish cloves)
• Shrimp - I used about 1/2 pound (of frozen pre-cleaned split shell, I removed shells)
• Olive oil
• Salt and Pepper
• Rice or pasta (optional)

Instructions

1. Mince/grate/chop/shell your goods, and open your wine.
2. Add butter and garlic to large pan over medium heat, and have a swig of wine.
3. When garlic is fragrant, add carrots and cook over medium/low heat until carrots begin to soften.
4. Add wine if things seem dry. 
5. Add zuchinni, shrimp, and remainder of wine.
6. When shrimp are beginning to turn pink, add parsley, dill, lemon juice, and zest, and a turn or two of olive oil, stirring well to combine.
7. When shrimp are curled, pink, and opaque, season with salt an pepper to taste, and serve.

We ate this over white rice, and it was delicious.  However, the shredded vegetables are somewhat noodle-like, and it would be ok without any rice or pasta for anyone eating low-carb. There weren't many leftovers, but the small amount remaining was delicious the next day too!


Here's an even easier recipe, that highlights more of the goat butter flavor:

Liz's Baked Cod with Goat Butter
Ingredients

• Juice of one lemon
• 2 tbsp goat butter
• 3/4 lbs of fresh cod 
• fresh herbs (optional) such as parsley and dill
• salt and pepper

Instructions

1. Melt the butter, and combine with the lemon juice.
2. Place the cod filet(s) in a glass baking dish, and pour half of the butter/lemon mixture over the fish.  Flip the fish over, and pour the remaining butter/lemon over the fish.
3. Bake at 350 for 30-45 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fish.  Fish is done when it comes apart easily with a fork, and is opaque.  Garnish with chopped fresh herbs, and serve.  We had this with sauteed asparagus and beet greens, over white rice.

baby food is gross

My poor baby, I'm making her eat such gross things!  There's so much advice out there about what to feed your baby and when, and somehow it got all muddled up and really she's just stuck eating things that don't taste good!

We started with sweet potatoes, since they're super healthy and a carb, but not a grain.  I cooked them myself, and they were pretty gross.  I don't like sweet potatoes all that much, and it appears that neither does my baby.  Then she didn't go to the bathroom for over a week!  So that was the end of sweet potatoes, and the beginning of prunes, haha.

Prunes, she seems to like, hooray!  But you can't just eat prunes all day every day... so we added in some green beans.  I like green beans, but not steamed and pureed, blech!  She likes them mixed with prunes... i guess perspective is everything - i think it's gross, but she's got nothing but milk and sweet potatoes for comparison!

Now she's eating some avocado (or as i like to say, aguacate!  It's spanish but sounds japonese!), which she seems to love, hooray!  I like it too, so when she doesn't finish it, i do, haha.  Today we're going to start eating pears, which I'm excited about because then i think i'll finally stop feeling guilty about making her eat gross things... pears are nice!

But the best part of all about my baby girl eating some real food, is that I've been given the ok to add some questionable foods back into my diet - like goat milk!  Sounds strange, but when you haven't had any cheese or yogurt since december, goat milk is FABULOUS!!!  And the fancy grocery stores have all kind of goodies, like goat milk cheddar and feta!  I'm so happy, and it opens up a whole new world in the kitchen!  Soon I'm going to add back in eggs as well, and all will be right with the world.  It will still be gluten free, but baby steps.  Also, king arthur's chocolate cake is so incredible all the men (and women) in my family loved it and couldn't tell it was gluten free - my mom even made it with fake eggs!  Hooray chocolate cake!

I did it!

I finally found the time to make a baby blanket for my OWN baby!  It started out as a way to use up some silly yarn my mom gave me, but it turned out really nice, in fact I'm really proud of it!  I made up the crochet pattern using a stitch I saw gain popularity recently on Pinterest (the bobble stitch), and I think it will be a great texture for the baby to explore.

My baby's new blanket!

 I used a combination of single crochet and bobble stitches in gray and rainbow, and I finished the project by working around the edges once with the rainbow yarn in single crochet.  If it weren't so fluffy I would have done used half-double crochet stitches, but with this boucle yarn I didn't need to.  I used Lion Brand Boucle yarn (which has apparently been discontinued) and Red Heart Grey (not sure which shade exactly).

Pattern I made up (roughly, I've never tried to write a pattern before)

Grey stripe:

• foundation single crochet in multiples of 4+2, chain 1, 
• single crochet 6 (?) rows
• skip first stitch, *bobble stitch, single crochet in next 3 stitches* until end, chain 1
• single crochet 7 (?) rows
• change colors, chain 1

Color Stripe:

• skip first stitch, single crochet in next 2 stitches, *bobble stitch, single crochet in next 3* until end, chain 1
• single crochet 1 row
• skip first stitch, *bobble stitch, single crochet 3* until end, 
• single crochet 1 row
• change colors, chain 1

Repeat until desired length. 

To finish:
Working with colored yarn, single crochet all the way around the blanket.  Work in ends, wash & dry as allowed by yarn type (I put in washing machine and dryer), voila!  No blocking necessary.

Paella!

I made Paella last night, mmmm!!!!

Paella used to scare me.  It looks like it's hard to make, and I don't like shellfish.  But then one year for Christmas, my mom said she wanted a Paella pan (inspired by my recent trip to Spain), so I got her one.  And she got me one!  So ready or not, I felt obliged to at least try cooking Paella. Our first attempt was New Years Dinner 2012, a mix of chicken, seafood, and vegetable paellas.  We tried cooking two at once, which was a little overwhelming to say the least!  They were decent, but I was a little worn out from trying and decided to just stick to my crockpot risotto for a while.

Paella New Years Eve 2011-2012

Then one day a few months ago, my sister came to visit and we felt adventurous!  After browsing through my Paella cookbooks, we selected a recipe for Chorizo and Olive Paella from this cookbook.  I love chorizo!  And it turns out I love this Paella!  I made it again last night, though I skipped the addition of fancy (or any) ham, because all I had were some slices of maple ham from the deli, and I wasn't sure they'd go well with chorizo and olives!

Last night's Chorizo Paella!

Making Paella is actually very simple, and it's ok if you don't have a fancy pan.  Any wide shallow pan that is oven safe would work, and this enormous specialty pan I have makes enough for 6 or 7 people - you don't need that much!  It's similar to making risotto, but less labor intensive, almost as easy as my rice cooker risotto but much more delicious!

I don't feel it would be appropriate to post the recipe I used since I didn't write it, however, I feel that Paella recipes are likely to be very forgiving, as long as you get the rice/liquid recipe right.   This recipe that made a looooot of food used 3 cups of Arroz Bomba (fancy spanish version of arborio rice, arborio rice is fine to use for this) and 6-7 cups of broth (I say 6-7 is because the recipe calls for 6, but I put 7 cups on to boil since I knew some would evaporate).

The basic methodology is: 

• chop all your ingredients (garlic and lots of parsley are key),
• saute the meat and flavors (garlic, etc) in lots of oil, 
• stir in the rice to coat it all in flavor, 
• pour in hot broth (bring to a boil separately), 
• cook over one or two burners rotating pan and stirring occasionally until the liquid is mostly absorbed (in other words, until the risk of spilling while transferring to the oven is minimal), 
• add in any soft vegetables (snow peas in this case)
• cook in a hot oven for 10 minutes, and 
• rest under foil for 10 minutes.

Don't be afraid!  It looks scarier than it is!