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homemade

Because I have Nothing Better to Do

November 21, 2009 · 1 comment

Does the world really need another tutorial showing you how to make your own baby food?

No.

It does not.

There’s a million fabulous ones online already. Complete with recipes. Though it’s a little beyond me why you need a recipe to make a single ingredient dish.

But then again there are people like the rich women from Chicago who used to ask me how to cook noodles when I worked at the Amish noodle factory in Shipshewana the summer before college. They honestly didn’t know you just put them in boiling water.

The Amish noodle factory in Shipshewana is a whole other story. Perhaps I will tell it one day. And no I am not, nor have I ever been Amish, or even Mennonite for that matter.

But I’m curious. If you’ve heard of or been to Shipshewana, IN, tell me in the comments. It’s quiet possibly the most famous little town in the world.

Back to baby food.

I just thought I’d tell you what I spent an afternoon doing. I’m a little proud of the fact that I shun jarred baby food, and make my own.

Yes, pride goeth before a fall, but this is where I make up my guilt over not breastfeeding.

So just let me have this, m’ kay?

Just in case you really have no idea how to go about making baby food, here are the directions.

Get some veggies. Since this is for baby I prefer organic. Fresh is best, but for out of season veg, frozen is just fine. Do not used canned. Please.

Steam them on the stove. Not the microwave. The microwave, for reasons I do not fully understand, removes all the nutrients. Boiling removes a lot of them.

O.K. Now, I am going to show you how to rig up your own steamer if you don’t have the real thing. It’s simple, and you’ve got to have something in your kitchen you can use.

I use my large stock put and two ceramic casserole dishes, one slightly larger that the other. In the stock place the large casserole on the the bottom, upside down.

upsidedowncassrole

Place the smaller casserole right side up on top of the larger one.

peasinpot

Pour a few inches of water in the bottom of the stock pot. Dump your veggies in the small casserole. If you’re cooking something hard like carrots, cut them into small chunks first. They’ll cook faster. Put the lid on the pot.

stockpot

Bring water to a boil, then reduce to a simmer.

I can not take credit for this cobbled together steamer. I saw Alton Brown do it on Good Eats.

Veggies are ready when they are fork tender or squish easily. Different veggies need different cooking times, so check for doneness.

So once the veg is cooked, take it out and pulverize it.

foodprocessor

It’s easiest done in a food processor, but if you don’t have one a food mill, ricer or even a vigorous workout with a potato masher will do the trick on most foods.

The key is make a lot so that you’re not steaming a small portion for every meal. When the veg is all mashed, dish it out into ice cube trays. Cover with plastic wrap and freeze. Each cubby in the average ice cube tray holds about an ounce which is equal to one serving size of baby food.

carrotsintray

Once the cubes of food are frozen solid you can take them out of the trays and store them in little freezer bags or in a large container separated with some wax paper so they don’t stick together.

When baby is ready to eat, grab a cube out of the fridge. You can employ the microwave to defrost since it’s not in there long enough to remove the nutrients. About 30 seconds on the regular setting in my microwave leaves the food at room temperature, just right for little ones to eat.

Of course you can cook hard fruits like pears and apples this way too.

Making your own baby food is really a no brainer. And it doesn’t take that much time. It’s also economical.

I paid $1.59 for a bag of organic carrots. It made 21 servings. Purchasing 21 jars of the least expensive baby food I could find in my local stores would have cost me 7.14. So I think it was worth the small effort.

And It’s kind of fun. At least for me since I like to cook.

Unfortunately there’s no guarantee baby will like your cooking.

Just look at Wade’s face after his first bite of carrot.

1stcarrots

His expression says everything.

It seems carrots are not a favorite of his.

He did however like the peas.

And in that he does not take after his mother.

At 34, I still don’t eat my peas.

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Tutorial: Time to Make the Doughnuts

September 24, 2008 · 2 comments

One of my favorite fall traditions is visiting a local apple orchard that serves up fresh, hot doughnuts and cider. But you don’t have to leave home to enjoy this autumn snack. It’s easy and fun to make doughnuts at home. If you have older kids, it’s something the whole family can do together.

The ingredients you need for your doughnuts are:

2 eggs

2 tbs shortening

3/4 cup milk

3 1/2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp cinnamon

2 – 3 cups vegetable oil

Additional white sugar or powdered sugar to coat the doughnuts

To start, you need a deep, heavy-bottomed pot and a candy thermometer that clips on the side of your pot.

Fill the pot with two to three cups of vegetable oil. You want to bring the temperature of the oil up to 375 degrees over medium heat, and maintain it there. Too hot and your doughnuts will burn. Too cool and your doughnuts will soak up the oil while they cook and be soggy.

While the oil heats stir up the batter. It should be mixed by hand, not with an electric mixer. Start by beating the eggs slightly with a fork in a large bowl. Add sugar, shortening and milk. Stir. Mix in flour, baking powder, soda and salt. Stir the nutmeg and cinnamon together in a separate bowl then add to the rest of the mixture. Dough will be slightly sticky and moist. I think it resembles biscuit dough.

Now you can turn the dough out on to a floured surface, roll and cut into rounds with a doughnut cutter. But it’s faster to just make doughnut holes by dropping rounded teaspoonfuls of dough into the oil. I like to use a small scoop.

So when the oil hits 375 degrees go ahead and drop your batter in. You can do three or four doughnut holes at a time depending on the size of your pot. Watch the temperature and adjust your burner as needed to maintain 375 degrees.

While your first doughnuts are cooking you can get two plates and fill one with white sugar and one with powdered sugar for rolling the finished doughnuts in.

The doughnut will float to the top when it’s ready to be turned. Flip and cook an additional 2-3 minutes on the other side. The doughnut should be a deep golden brown. Watch that they don’t start to burn.

Use a slotted spoon to remove the cooked doughnuts to paper towel to drain.

When the doughnuts are cool enough to handle, roll them in the white sugar or powdered sugar. Personally, I prefer the white sugar or no sugar at all.

Then enjoy while still fresh and warm!

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Summer Chillers: Chunky Chocolate Cherry Ice Cream

August 19, 2008 · 0 comments

I had cherries and whipping cream left over from last week’s Summer Chiller. I’ve made ice cream a few times this summer, and I thought I’d try making it with cherries. Nothing goes better with cherries than chocolate, so I threw in some milk chocolate chips. I actually cobbled together a few different recipes to come up with this. I also used a no-cook, eggless ice cream base this time.

Chunky Chocolate Cherry Ice Cream

2 cups milk

1 cup sugar

2 cups whipping cream or half and half

2 tbs almond extract

1 cup pitted and chopped cherries macerated in 1/4 cup of sugar

1 cup of milk chocolate chips

Pit and chop cherries. Stir in 1/4 a cup of sugar. Refrigerate for one hour.

Combine milk, cream, sugar and almond extract. Stir briskly, about two minutes until sugar is dissolved. (Undissolved sugar crystals may be a cause of large ice crystal formation.)  Pour into a 1-gallon ice cream freezer, and freeze according to manufacturer’s directions. When ice cream is partially frozen, add in cherry mixture and chocolate chips. (Again make sure all the sugar in the cherry mixture is dissolved.) Finish freezing. Put in a covered container and place in the freezer several hours to harden.

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Summer Chiller: Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream with Blueberry Sauce

July 9, 2008 · 2 comments

I guess I’ve been on summer vacation for a few days. I never did get around to doing last Thursday’s Girl Talk. And I didn’t plan ahead for this week’s Summer Chiller. When I finally decided I should make something last night, I had to make due with ingredients on hand. I had all the things to make vanilla ice cream.

A lot of vanilla ice cream recipes call for raw eggs. I don’t want to give my family salmonella, so I found a recipe with a cooked egg base which technically makes this a frozen custard.

Vanilla Ice Cream (Frozen Custard) Recipe

6 eggs
2 cups milk
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups whipping cream
1 tablespoon vanilla
crushed ice (if required by manufacturer for your ice cream freezer)
rock salt (if required by manufacturer for your ice cream freezer)

1. In medium saucepan, beat together eggs, milk, sugar and salt. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture is thick enough to coat a metal spoon with a thin film and reaches at least 160 degrees F.

2. Cool quickly by setting pan in ice or cold water and stirring for a few minutes.

3. Cover and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled, at least one hour.

4. When ready to freeze, pour chilled custard, whipping cream and vanilla into 1-gallon ice cream freezer can.

Freeze according to manufacturer’s directions using six parts ice to one part rock salt. Transfer to freezer containers and freeze until firm.

From the UNL Extension

I got this all cooked and cooled then realized I’d made an oversight. I have an electric ice cream maker that uses a frozen bowl instead of ice and rock salt to freeze the ice cream. The bowl is supposed to go in the freezer for 12 hours before making the ice cream. So although I had every intention of finishing this last night, I had to wait until this morning.

It took almost as long to find the other pieces to my ice cream maker, as it did for the ice cream to freeze. It was scattered all over the kitchen in different cupboards. But I finally got it put together. About 45 minutes later it was thick and creamy. It’s still pretty soft at this point, so it’s best to let it harden in the freezer for a few hours or overnight. But you can eat it right away too.

While the ice cream was churning, I made blueberry sauce for it.

Blueberry Sauce Recipe

1 C water

1 C sugar

1 C blueberries

Stir sugar and water together in a heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat until sugar is dissolved. Add blueberries. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until liquid thickens to a thin syrup. If you get distracted like I did, and the sauce gets too thick, just add some water back in.

Now if you have the time and an ice cream maker, this is one food that if you make it yourself, you can definitely save money. A premium gallon of ice cream in the store can be over $5 these days. It only cost about $2.50 cents to make this. And if you’re worried about what’s in your food, you can control that too by using organic ingredients, and this of course has no preservatives in it. You could even make it sugar-free by substituting Splenda.

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