Day 20: Random Acts of Kindness

Tomorrow is a fun family day! DH is driving my sister to the airport at 5 AM (eek!) and then we're headed off to the Thanksgiving parade downtown. Sophia's been talking asking all week if we could move the parade to today. So cute.

I can't believe Thanksgiving is next week. I love cooking for Thanksgiving. I've been drooling over the recipes over at Pioneer Woman. If you've never been to her blog, it's a must read. She's hilarious! Larry is in charge of the turkey. He brines it and it's the best, juiciest turkey I've ever eaten. Usually I take care of all the sides. My favorite part of Thanksgiving is the leftover turkey carcass. I make turkey gumbo with it. I love a good gumbo. I don't make it very often, as it's time intensive. Now that we're getting teased with snow flurries, a nice hot bowl of gumbo will warm us up!

I've been thinking about hosting a cookie swap. It sounds like a lot of fun. Have you ever been to one? I'm still debating if people are too busy this time of the year to bake and swap cookies. It sounds so Suzie Homemaker.

I totally flaked on soul coaching's Day 19, but I won't beat myself up over it. I'll just move on. Do you practice RAKs? Random acts of kindness? Today's assignment is about making an effort to practice RAKs. I don't consciously do it everyday, but I think I should. Sometimes I'll bring cupcakes to "school" (the Parent Resource Center). I'll open doors for moms with strollers struggling when I'm out, or letting the person behind me in line at the store who only has 1 or 2 items skip ahead. It doesn't make my day any more difficult.

What was your random act of kindness?

Don't forget about the giveaways!

Day 15: Facing your fears & Pumpkin bread

Fire week began today. It's all about waking up the spirit, so you need to move your body too. Today's assignment feels too personal to share. I'm not ready to list my fears for the whole world to see. Eeek! But it's scary to sit down and write down your fears. I know I do have a fear of failure--I think that's the wannabe perfectionist in me.

Sometimes I get this great craft/art project in my mind. It slowly simmers in my head. I go through the supply list, the steps and techniques needed to make it. All in my head. But that's as far as I get. If I can't get it out of my head, I'll write it all out in my sketchbook. I might even buy or gather the supplies. Yet I never get started. It's that flaw of mine: perfectionism. What if it won't come out the way I imagined it? Or worse yet, I start making it and I'm not very good at it. I don't know why I let these things drive me beserk!

Very in tune with fire week, Sophia and I baked spiced pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting. Yum! It's a recipe from Everyday Food, which coincidentally was featured in today's episode of the PBS show of the same name. Meant to be ? It's also a great magazine. The recipes in it are simple and perfect for a busy mom.

So after we walked to the grocery store to buy more flour and some yummy clementines. This baked while we ate lunch.
While it cooled, of course we had to make the honey cream cheese icing. There was a request for pink frosting and I had no reason to deny Sophia's small pleasure.


We frosted the cake when she woke up from her nap. Who cares if there's frosting all over the plate edges and the cake? It was moist and perfect for the blustery gray day! It went perfectly with my cranberry tea. I love fall flavors. It's so comforting when we are deep in autumn, winding our way into winter.

Welcome Fall!

Okay I love fall, but I felt like a total wimp this weekend! October has been unseasonably warm until this weekend (Last week it was in the 80s!). It was in the mid-50s today and windy. That didn't stop us from going to the pumpkin patch at our local Heyser Farms. They also have an apple orchard there.

It definitely wasn't the apple picking experience we had when we lived in Central New York. No hayride out to the orchard, filled with 10+ varieties of apples. Nope these were all picked for you. A nice guy there let me taste their patent variety of apples, the Spencerville apple. It was crisp, and slightly tart. I bought a peck. I have no idea what a peck is exactly, but now we have a lot of apples. The apple crisp has already been half eaten as I write this. Next on my list are caramel apples or apple dumplings.

While I made dinner and the apple crisp, Sophia and Larry carved her first pumpkin. She picked out this cute little pumpkin. Hubby of course picked out a large pumpkin that ended up costing 2x as much as the local grocery store. It's one heavy pumpkin!

Being at the apple orchard, we had to buy some fresh apple cider. It tastes like you're drinking a fresh apple! If you live in Silver Spring, you have to go right away and pick up some. This cider would taste great mulled.

What are you doing to usher in fall?

What's with the whole grains?

Photo via Jill - Glossy Veneer via flickr

Looking back a couple of years ago, I would have never believed that I'd be baking my own bread every couple of weeks. We only buy sandwich bread from the store if I'm super short on time. We started the switch to whole grains gradually. First bread, then brown rice, barley, even quinoa. It's still hard to give up white rice, since I'm Vietnamese-American, and we at white rice almost everyday. Kind of like how some people ketchup on everything.

Since I do most of the cooking in our home, it wasn't hard to convince hubby to switch. He doesn't really enjoy cooking (he does make a mean meatloaf), so he had to eat it. And you know what? Whole grains are really good! You just have to experiment with different flavorings and cuisines to find out how you like your quinoa and barley. My high school friend has adapted whole grains along with me. She even has a great blog called Not Exactly Bento. She's making lunch fun again!

Baking your own whole wheat bread doesn't have to be difficult, especially when you have a bread maker. I scored mine from Freecycle. Here's the recipe I've adapted and made my own. I love it! It makes a great 100% whole wheat bread--soft, not too dense, and yummy of course! My daughter will just eat the slices plain. So try it out and let me know what you think.

This bread makes a great peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Kim's Easy Whole Wheat Bread

You don't need a bread maker for this, but I let the bread maker do all the work up until the second rising.

I put the wet ingredients first because that's what my machine likes. So just follow your bread maker's suggestions. This calls for whole wheat, but white whole wheat makes a lighter bread. I check while it's kneading to make sure it's not too wet or dry (depends on your humidity). The dough should be slightly sticky to touch. If it's too dry, just add a bit of water as it kneads; wait, and add more if needed. Same with more flour if it's too wet.

1 1/3c water
2-3 teaspoons of oil (veggie, canola, or olive oil)
1/4c. of honey

3 to 3 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour
2 tsp of salt
1/4c of whole flax seeds (or sunflower seeds is good too but this is optional)
2 tsp of yeast (1 pkt I think)

Add to ingredients to bread maker. Set it to small or medium loaf and voila!

BUT if you want a lighter bread, use Dough Cycle It'll beep after the first rise is complete. For second rise, butter loaf pan (butter is the best, i used oil and the bread stuck horribly). Shape into loaf shape, put ugly side down into loaf pan. oil top of dough. Cover with plastic wrap. Let rise for 45 minutes to 1 hour (until the bread has risen about 3/4" over top of pan).

Bake 35-40 minutes at 350 degrees. If you want a soft top, butter it (I just run a stick of butter over it). Cool completely before slicing (hardest part). I think that redistributes the steam inside to give you a more moist loaf.

Have fun and let me know if you make some!

It's not a party unless you have fried chicken

I have no idea what I was thinking when I offered to bake a cake for my friend's birthday party/wine tasting party for her upcoming wedding reception. All I knew was that I was in a baking mood. And of course, I'm not just going to make any old cake. It had to be cool. It had to be cute. It has to look better than store bought. Thank goodness for Martha Stewart! I decided that icing cupcakes were easier than an actual layer cake (I've been on a cupcake thing). Sophia can actually help make cupcakes too. Her favorite job is licking the bowls and spoons after we put the cupcakes in the oven.

Aren't these cool? My friend G is getting married in a few weeks. As they're serving friend chicken at the reception, they decided to buy a bunch (like a case) of wine and invite people over to eat fried chicken and taste the wines. Let me tell you, after the third or four bottle of wine was open, I was feel pretty darn good! (Thank goodness I wasn't the only one). Clever me, found this awesome recipe on Martha. Too bad the video clip doesn't show the chicken (but I almost--almost--succumbed to the peas and carrots cupcakes). They were so easy to make. Vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting. The "crispy skin" are crushed cornflakes and the bone is some really yummy dark chocolate. I did find the batter a little dry (even in my wine haze) however, the icing was excellent. The vanilla frosting took forever for me to make--take my word that you want to use a stand mixer for it (Mother's Day gift, anyone?). It was worth almost burning up my hand mixer--that icing was so light and tasty! It calls for 5 egg whites, so thanks to Alton Brown's tip, I bought pastuerized egg whites (no sense wasting real eggs).

The cupcakes were a hit! I felt bad I only brought a dozen cupcakes. It was defintely fun and yummy! (Yes, I know the bone looks a little, um, phallic. I realized that as I drew them out of chocolate--but that's what Martha told me to do!)

Tags: Cucpcakes, baking, fried chicken

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It's Mardi Gras!

Happy Mardi Gras! Being transplants from Louisiana, we sometimes forget it's even Mardi Gras until the actual day. Well this week is full of holidays for our household. Mardi Gras today, MIL's birthday tomorrow, and Vietnamese Tet on Thursday. Whew!

I decided to make king cakes this year. I used my bread machine to make the dough--thank goodness because I would going nuts by the kneading and waiting the rise. I'm not too patient when it comes to baking that involves yeast. I used this recipe (slightly modified). Just a warning--it rises BIG! It almost overflowed out of my bread machine. I should have taken of picture of it. The dough is enough for a very large cake or 2 small-ish king cake. They're filled with a cinnamon brown sugar mixture and its icing has a hint of lime. And of course the obligatory gold, green, and purple sugar. Usually there's a hidden plastic baby in the cake. The person who eats the piece in it either has good luck or has to bring the next king cake! My cake is baby-less. DH took one of the cakes to work and it was a HUGE hit. I'm not usually a fan of these cakes because they're so sweet, but of course I had to have one piece of my creation.

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It's too hot to bake. . .

but I did anyway! I don't know why, but I always feel like baking when it's 90 degrees outside. We had taken Sophia blueberry picking in June so I had all of these beautiful blueberries in my freezer. They were just calling my name, "Kim, we are lonely in the freezer. Kimmmmmm bake with us!" LOL. After making blueberry pancakes on Saturday, I definitely needed something more adventurous.

So I found an awesome recipe for Blueberry Corn Muffins with a hint of cinnamon. I had a small issue with my muffin tin. I was out of those cupcake liners--but good thing, else I would have missed out on that crispy cornmeal crust. Even though I greased my muffin tin, they stuck where the yummy blueberry goodness had burst during baking. Of course the casualties of war had to be eat first! I would have taken a picture but I ate the last one an hour ago. So I'll just have to leave you with the recipe (adapted from Epicurious):

ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 tablespoon double-acting baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 large egg
1/3 cup maple syrup
1/3 cup sugar
3/4 cup milk
2 cups picked over blueberries (I used frozen)

In a bowl whisk together the flour, the cornmeal, the baking powder, the salt, and the cinnamon. In a small bowl whisk together the butter, the egg, the maple syrup, the sugar, and the milk, stir the butter mixture into the flour mixture, stirring until the batter is just combined, and fold in the blueberries. Divide the batter among 12 buttered 1/2-cup muffin tins, bake the muffins in the middle of a preheated 425°F. oven for 15 to 20 minutes, or until they are golden and a tester comes out clean, and turn them out onto a rack.

Bon Appetit!

Rubber Ducky, You're the One!

Last Sunday, we celebrated Sophia's 1st birthday. As you can tell, we had a rubber ducky theme. The cake was a comedy of errors! I was going to make a round cake and make it look like a wooden bath tub with rubber ducks floating in it. But when I was in the cake decoration aisle at Michaels, I was completely overwhelmed. That is, until I saw the 3-D duck cake pan! "It's so simple!" I thought. Little did I know. . .

So I thought ahead and baked the cake the night before. How this do-hickey works is that you fill up 1/2 all the way to the top with batter, then you clip on the other half of the mold (it lays on it side). In theory, when it bakes, the cake will rise all the way to the top. Well, it didn't. BUT, I thought I was so smart, I bought 2 boxes of cake mix, just case. I thought, hmm, I'll just bake 2 cakes, cut the ducks in half and assemble them. Well, I didn't account for the mirror images thing--the pan only sits 1 way. It was quite a feat to put the 2 pieces together.

I took pics of the duck on its good side and it's bad side. Well, I'll never forget Sophia's first birthday, that's for sure. At least the cake and buttercream icing was yummy.