Happy Hanukkah!

Dear friends, I tried my hand at making latkes for the second time tonight -- this was the first time. My mom reminded me of how my grandma used to make them -- real fast, she said - 1, 2, 3 and they were ready to eat.

Well, I tried. I can't say they remind me of my grandmother's cooking, but maybe nothing really comes close to that...

But they're greasy and vegan and yummy, so cheers to that, and have a Happy Hanukkah.

Thanksgiving 2010

Shakespeare's Pizza in Columbia, Mo.

We are so grateful for our family, walks in the woods, food on the table, and storytelling.

Among many other things.

Here are a few photos from the past few days:

Pumpkin Bread

In two days my family and I are driving to the Lake of the Ozarks to have Thanksgiving meal at the Lodge of Four Seasons. We rent cabins and do very little for a couple of days. Jake and I started this tradition last year. This year I hope to get in a jog or a hike (despite the cold weather) and I'm taking a book too. I also baked some pumpkin bread for us to munch on during the car ride - our baby's first longish car ride -- wish us luck!

Here's the recipe:

3 and 1/3 cup flour
2 t baking soda
1 1/2 t salt
1 t cinnamon
1 t nutmeg
1 and 1/2 cup sugar
3 eggs (Note: You could make this a vegan recipe if you used 2 cups of applesauce and no eggs)
1 and 1/4 c applesauce
1 1/2 c canned pumpkin
2/3 c water

First I blended the dry ingredients, then added the wet ingredients and then put the mixture in two lightly oiled loaf pans and popped them in our at 350 for 1 hour and 15 minutes (we have a slow oven). It's delicious.

Black Bean Soup

I forgot to take a photo of my last meal, but bean soup isn't that pretty to look at anyway.

For those of you who might not know, the Women's Bean Project gives women employment opportunities in a safe environment -- a store in the U. City loop called Plowsharing Crafts sells their tasty packages of beans and spices to make bean soup.

In addition to the packet of beans and spices, you only need vegetable stock, 1/4 cup olive oil, 1 large diced onion, 2 cloves of minced garlic, 1 large chopped green pepper, a 6 oz. can of tomato paste, 3 T wine vinegar, and 1 bay leaf to make the soup.

First you wash and drain beans and then either soak them overnight or microwave them covered with water in a partially covered container for 15 minutes on high. Then you drain and rinse them and put them in a pot with the vegetable stock. Bring it to a boil and then let it simmer covered for two hours. Then you will add a mixture of sauted veggies: the onion, garlic, green pepper and spices. Also add the tomato paste and vinegar at this time -- it's delicious and lasts for several meals:)

Vegetarian Chili

Mmm...

With a little bit of time on my side this morning as Jake attempted to put a very darling though fussy baby down for an early morning nap, I cooked! Since the weather is now getting colder and I only had 20 minutes, I made a batch of chili:

First I threw in about 1/4 of a cup of diced red pepper, 1/4 c diced green pepper, and 1/4 c diced yellow onion in a pot with a bit of olive oil. Then I added two chopped carrots, a can of diced tomatoes, a can of kidney beans, a can of black beans, half a can of corn, 1/2 cup of Morningstar crumbles, and a dash or three of chili powder and some shredded cheddar cheese (this would be a vegan dish without the cheese). A friend of mine adds a T of brown sugar to her chili -- but it's also just as tasty without...

Yum, healthy and easy to make. It will likely last two night as well - I should really do this more often. While Jake likes to put his chili on a baked potato, I eat mine in a bowl - perhaps with a cracker or two.

Apple Cake Victory Dance

My daughter napped again for the second day in a row, and I am a new woman.

Oh, it's not like she never naps. She naps often, about 20-30 minutes at a time. In my arms. And then as soon as I go to put her down her eyes snap open and she either smiles or cries. It's quite devastating. And we're back to the drawing board, me trying to coax out another nap another 45 minutes or hour later.

And then yesterday happened. I had low expectations of you, Monday. I put our little swaddled Rebecca on my shoulder, played with my iPod, rocked in our glider and let her cry a bit and then doze on my damp from drool, cramped-from-holding-it-still-and-upright shoulder for 35 minutes. Then I turned off the iPod. Stood up. Tiptoed ever so quietly to put her down, and of course, as always, her hazel-blue eyes popped open. I nearly ducked, as to not make eye contact. But then, to my complete shock, her eyes closed, her face a vision of peace and repose.

Oh, the joy of having the next two hours (Two! hours!) to myself. I answered emails to colleagues and friends. Called people back. Did a bit of work. Contemplated my dissertation. Sat on the couch and closed my eyes. It was beautiful.

And again, today. She went down from 11:45-2. I may have never known such happiness. I'm sort of kidding. After answering some obligatory emails and prepping for class, I asked myself, what would I like to do? Jake was home for a spell and he asked if I wanted to go for a run. No, not really. It's not that a breastfeeding woman can't run; of course she can. However, a couple times I had an enormous struggle getting Becca to nurse after my workouts. I felt like we were wrestling; she was so fussy. Isn't fussy such a very polite word for "screaming her head off"? I called a local breastfeeding support group and learned a bit about lactic acid buildup changing the flavor of breast milk. Who knew? So I'd rather not ever go through that again. Now I try to run right after she nurses on Saturday and Sunday mornings; otherwise it's nearly impossible.

So with some time on my side, I made a cake. Chopped, stirred, and tasted a luscious, fall-esque apple cake. Again (I made it a few weeks ago).

We have plenty of apples after we went to Eckert's apple orchard in Belleville for apple-picking a week ago on an unseasonably warm fall day. Jake and Rebecca strolled through the orchard together. She screamed most of the time due to the heat and most likely being overtired (see above), but I suppose it didn't matter. I remember last fall when just Jake and I drove out to Illinois to pick apples three days after I took a pregnancy test. We felt so giddy and kept hugging. Jake had eaten his first apple (really), and I made a cake afterward too.

Cheers to fall, and to making traditions. It's finally starting to feel less like summer.

Apple Cake

baked potato - yum

beautiful apple cake

After Jake came home today, he went in the nursery to put down the baby (which often takes more than an hour) and then I couldn't decide what to do with myself: Should I go for a jog? Give myself a manicure? Run an errand? Work on my dissertation? No, no, no. So I baked a potato for lunch and made Smitten Kitchen's lovely apple cake.

My dad had brought us some Fuji apples -- a ton of them, so I wanted to use some up in a recipe. Apple cake always reminds me of my grandma, a wonderful baker, the kind of woman who didn't need recipes in the kitchen. I miss her.

Not Cooking...

I am sitting at a coffee shop not far from home while our wonderful nanny is with my baby. I've spent about 90 minutes on work, so now I thought I'd stop by this site before heading home.

How I miss blogging! And cooking! Yet...I don't have it in me at the end of the day. Perhaps in another month, when Becca can sit in a Bumbo in the kitchen and watch me chop vegetables or saute something.

It's beautiful in St. Louis today. Because I'm currently teaching an undergraduate course on women and happiness, I've been thinking more about my own happiness lately. I've found that the things that made me happy when I was a kid (art, pie, friends) still make me happy, in addition to the wonder/awe I feel around Rebecca every single day.

And here is the food that I haven't cooked that makes me happy lately:

-Neopolitan ice cream
- Decaf coffee
-Nectarines (how I would like to DO THIS with fruit)
- Steamed broccoli (we've had this the past two nights - sprinkled with salt and pepper...so easy)
-My mother's amazing chili (I'll get a recipe)

That's all folks. Just wanted to say hi.

Honey cake

Well, our baby is 11 weeks today and she is a real joy to hang out with during her (many) waking hours. She coos and smiles and "talks" to us, kicks her little legs, gets mad during "tummy time," and likes to accompany us on long walks through the neighborhood. Her eyes are wide as I babble on and on to her about the squirrels, motorcycles, construction workers, birds and flowers we walk by. I so love the many faces she makes, her wide grins, and the time we spend together. Even the shortest bouts of time we spend apart are difficult, I must admit.

In other news, the school year has started and I am teaching once again, and continuing wor on a third dissertation chapter. Work takes extraordinary effort these days, but I am also glad to have it.

The weather is beautiful here -- this kind of weather always transports me back to my college days (so long ago!). I so remember the lovely summer-to-fall transition at Mizzou, the changing leaves on East campus, and the long walks and runs I used to take.

These days I take much shorter walks and runs -- but at least I am back in motion. I'm jogging a few miles a week again, and it's wonderful. I am not as fast or strong as I once was, but it's always this way after not having run for a while. I've been running since I was 16, and I feel like, well, like myself when I jog.

Yesterday Jake played with the baby (and sang her old cowboy songs) while I jogged, took a bath, made a honey cake, and read a magazine (Vogue).

Here is the honeycake recipe, a repeat but a worthy repeat. Happy New Year to all my Jewish friends and family!

Life with Baby (I'm not Cookin' These Days)

Meet Rebecca.

She is a joy to know. I've spent the last six weeks getting to know her, and she is a sweet, angelic, smiley, fiery, engaged little person. She has my mouth, Jake's hair, and a personality all her own. We love her so much.

Needless to say, I'm not cooking much these days. Let's see...I made egg salad once. I toast bagels. I pour milk. And that's really about it.

Perhaps in the fall I will come back to the kitchen and play with ingredients again. Perhaps this blog with morph into my musings about babydom. We'll see...