Whole Wheat Tagliolini and Ice Cream Cake

Last weekend I felt ambitious in the kitchen and made this healthy, fresh, time-consuming recipe, Whole Wheat Tagliolini from Cooking Light.

We've also been making this very, very easy ice cream cake recipe from Real Simple. Both dishes go quickly in this household.

In other news, while I haven't been good about taking photos of food lately, my friends and I are pretty good at capturing my daughter in action. So here are a few photos of our summer:

Cranberry Chocolate Chip Cookies

C is for...cookie salad!

I miss baking, and since friends from out of town are staying with us this week, what better excuse? So tonight I made this recipe, and the cookies are both pretty and plentiful. I so love hanging out in the kitchen with a book (well done JSF), a computer, and cookie batter.

I've also really enjoyed reading this series this past week, so much that I feel even more reflective than usual about life with our 1-year old (walking!) girl these days.

The one whose laughter is (pretty much) worth all the tears.

And as we increase the number of hours we need childcare, I can relate more than ever to the moms trying to squeeze in work while caring for a tot. I've given a lot of thought to "finding balance" but in the end I agree with those who say there is no achieving balance -- sometimes you do X very well, other times you do Y. Just a thought.

By the way, even though I don't cook or bake too often these days, I still fantasize about cooking complicated curry dishes and French country cooking. I would love to make cake pops or peach muffins or even an arugula salad, but for now most of my energy is utterly zapped by the time I get around to dinner. So cheers to daydreaming. Until next time xo

Frozen fruit salad and vegan cupcakes

Wow, I haven't posted in forever!

I guess the day-to-day juggling act of working and caring for a young tot has made it hard to remember to post when I cook -- and that's not exactly too often these days! We've mostly been living off Amy's vegetarian and vegan pizzas, baked potatoes with broccoli, and pasta/salad/soup dishes. I also haven't baked in forever - until today.

Anyway, we're not vegan, but I've been more interested in vegan baking lately, so this afternoon I made these pretty cupcakes:

http://www.lovintheoven.com/2007/11/peanut-butter-cupcakes-vegan-style.html

I eyeball/measured the frosting, mixing powdered sugar, cocoa powder, vanilla extract, soymilk, and olive oil.

Then I also made this fruit salad that my mother always used to make for the Fourth of July -- so very sweet!

Frozen Fruit Salad:

Ingredients:
1 and 1/2 c sugar
Frozen orange juice
Large can of fruit cocktail
3 bananas, sliced
10 oz bag of sliced strawberries
Small can of pineapple (or use frozen)
Small can of peaches (frozen is fine too).

1. Boil 3 cups of water with your sugar, then remove from heat. Add orange juice and all fruits.
2. Pour into 9 x 13 pan or large tupperware and freeze overnight.

And too bad I couldn't capture photos of these items - they were gone baby, gone, before I could snap a few!

In other news, our precious girl is now 1! Some days I can't believe she has grown so fast, but I also remember trying to capture each moment in my mind, knowing it would soon pass. A friend of mine recently asked, "what did 6 months look like? what about 8 months?" and I can honestly recall vivid images of my daughter at each stage. At 6 months she had just learned to sit up, and at 8 months she had just learned to crawl. At 10 months she learned to sleep through the night. And at 1 year she abruptly decided she was done with nursing. She is consistently her own person, making her own decisions about her likes and dislikes. May we all be so lucky~xo