Baby Food

So the baby food making venture is going well, except for a few unexpected setbacks. Number one, Mason jars that are only 8 oz. cost $7 for a mere set of 4 at Walmart. Not planning on buying those again! I got some freezer jars as well, but I'll probably just have to start filling larger canning jars. I was hoping to avoid that, as I don't know for sure how long a larger jar will last once it's been opened, but I guess we'll have to see.

Yesterday I peeled and chopped 4 large carrots and boiled them with 1/4 cup of water in the Crock Pot for about 5 hours. Once I removed them to the blender, the mix ended up needing another 1/4 cup of water, but after that it was able to get mostly pureed. Just boiled carrots and water. Here's the kicker though: 4 carrots filled ONE 8 oz. mason jar. That's it! So I bought a huge bag of carrots at the grocery store today and I'll be working on canning more all week. I started on a bag of frozen green beans once I got home. I threw the whole (2 pound) bag into the 4-quart Crock Pot with 1/2 cup of water and it's cooking now.

This is a long and slow process, but will be worth it once the baby starts eating real food in a few months. She's just on rice cereal and breast milk now, but soon enough she'll be on real foods. I know I'm definitely saving a ton of money by doing this myself.
Once you fill a jar (almost to the top), just drop it gently into a pot of boiling water (letting the water cover over the top of the lid) and leave it there for 5-6 minutes, then take it out and set it on a paper towel to dry. The lid will seal itself within minutes.

Crispy Roast Lamb with Rosemary Vegetables

My husband's work schedule is going to be changing soon to the point where most of my dinners will likely be made in the Crock Pot while the baby looks on. Tonight, however, I had him available and so he kept an eye on the little one while I tried something new on the lamb roast we love to eat.

Ingredients for the lamb:

2 lb. boneless leg of lamb roast
1/2 cup flour
1 Tbsp rosemary
1/4 tsp garlic pepper
pinch of seasoned salt and ground black pepper
1/4 cup olive oil
2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

Watch the terrible chunk of video my husband took of me doing this part:

Mix the flour and herbs together in a large bowl while the oil heats up in a large pot/skillet/dutch oven on the stove top (low-medium heat). Rinse off the lamb then drop into bowl and coat generously with flour mixture. Place carefully into dutch oven on the stove and brown on each side for about 5-6 minutes.

Spray olive oil into bottom of roasting pan to grease it and place lamb in center of pan. Gently pour balsamic vinegar over lamb, coating as best as you can.

Ingredients for the potato mixture:

5 red potatoes, rinsed and cubed
1/4 cup olive oil
1 Tbsp rosemary
pinch of ground black pepper
2 cloves garlic, chopped finely

Mix all together in a bowl, coating the potatoes well. Drop into roasting pan, spreading out to surround the lamb.

Vegetables:
1 lb. bag of baby carrots
2 shallots, sliced vertically
1/2 large sweet onion, sliced vertically
1 Tbsp seasoned salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper

Spread rest of vegetables in pan and mix up with potatoes. Shake the seasoned salt and pepper over all.

Roast uncovered in oven at 325 F for 1 hr. and 30-40 minutes or until cooked well on outside and pink in the middle. All in all, this took about 30 minutes to prepare.

This turned out great! We like our lamb a little on the rare side. Don't worry, moms; I'll be changing up the pace to cheaper foods very soon!

German Night

Tonight was particularly hectic; within a the same 15 minute time span I was frying up beer brats, making spaetzles from scratch, making sure the bottle my husband was giving to the baby was warm enough, and selling my old TV to a guy from craigslist. PHEW! Thank goodness my husband was home to help out a little bit! I ended up in a dirty apron mixing spaetzle batter when the guy showed up on our doorstep, and I was still in the apron when I sat down to eat. Oh well, the food tasted great! Too bad we ate dinner while watching the god-awful GI Joe movie after the baby went down for a nap.

The only original food tonight really was the spaetzels, but I will make the other ingredients into links for your researching pleasure.



Johnsonville Beer Brats
1 12 oz. bottle of Guinness
Place these in a large frying pan together and cook on medium-low for about 30 minutes, flipping the brats frequently. Cut open with a knife to make sure they're no longer pink inside and are well cooked before you eat them. Add more water to the pan if the beer evaporates and the bratwurst still aren't done. Serve with a dip of Whole Grain Sweet and Spicy Mustard

Gundelsheim Red Cabbage
1 jar, poured into a small pot, heated on medium-low and stirred until heated through.

Spaetzle Recipe:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
3/4 cup milk

Stir together flour and salt. Combine eggs and milk then stir into the flour mixture, making a soft, wet dough. Either use a spaetzle maker or a kitchen utensil (spoon, spatula, etc.) that has round holes in it, and push the dough through the holes by rounded spoonful into a pot of boiling water. In another small bowl microwave 2 Tbsp of butter til melted. Let them cook 2-3 minutes or until floating at the top, then remove to butter bowl. You will need to do this process a few times, because you will overload the pot of water if you do all the dough at once. Once all the spatzle is done, mix with a wooden spoon to coat all in the melted butter. Add a few shakes of table salt if desired.

It was only the two of us eating this so we had plenty of leftovers; this makes enough to feed 4-5 people about a 3/4 cup serving of spaetzle.

This meal, although mostly store-bought, was freakin' delicious! And as long as you start frying the brats and making the spaetzle at about the same time, it all finishes together.
Extra bonus: you can see my daughter's head in the bottom photo. Since my husband had to help me watch the brats and reheat the cabbage while I was making the spaetzle, we just put her in the Baby Bjorn bouncer (which rocks her socks, by the way) and let her watch us cook. Babies LOVE watching you do something interesting!

Egg and Sausage Breakfast a la Early

Yawn! Waking up before 7am with a baby can be tiring. I've been going to bed at the same time as her though, so between 9pm and 6:30am I usually only have to wake up a couple of times for feedings and have been getting 8 hours of sleep. Hooray! My husband had today off so I got up and made him breakfast while he played with the baby. The sausages were store-bought Jimmy Dean links, just thrown into a greased frying pan and browned well on all sides. The scrambled eggs are a throwback to my Dad's own recipe. They're pretty much the same every time, but you don't mess with tasty! Incidentally, since I made so much food the last couple of days we are going to eat leftovers tonight. I don't like being wasteful!

This morning's ingredients were:

5 eggs
1/4 cup milk
seasoned salt
pepper
1 tsp. parsley flakes
garlic powder
onion powder

Put all the egg stuff together in a bowl (I just use dashes, or 1/8 tsp. or so of the spices) and whisk together until frothy. Pour into a heated, greased frying pan on low-medium heat and continue stirring/scraping with a spatula so eggs get nice and fluffy.
I still have the bad habit of putting ketchup on my eggs no matter how good they taste, but my husband assures me my eggs are delicious.

Introduction... a.k.a. The Beginning

My friends and family all tell me I'm a great cook, and the fact that my husband has gained about 40 pounds since we've been together only supports that assumption. I have my mother to thank for most of it, but I've gotten cooking hints from my father and both grandmothers as well over the years.
Now that I've had my baby and am home most of the time, making dinner for myself and mu husband is hectic enough. Heaven forbid anyone decides to join us! It is especially difficult to cook with a three month old girl in the house, as her attention span for watching me cook dinner from a bouncer seat is limited and she is very demanding of your attention. I once had to chop vegetables for a beef stew while trying to see around her as I wore her on my chest in the baby carrier.

At any rate, I decided that during her naptime and around my other writing projects, I would share some of my recipes. I do work out of several cookbooks, which I will credit if need be, but most of the time I make the recipes my own by removing or adding ingredients, and sometimes I just make up the recipe as I go with whatever substitutes I have in the house. My not working has put us on a budget where our only real luxury is a decent meal in the evening.
We have a rack of lamb ribs in the fridge right now that Jason (my husband) got as a birthday gift two days ago, which is probably going to be our dinner tonight. I'll share whatever recipe I come up with tomorrow, so each day's blog will be about dinner the night before. Until then, I'll leave you with the recipe for Bourbon Balls I made this past weekend and my helpful hint for trussing a turkey that I came up with at this year's Thanksgiving.

Bourbon Balls

Trussing a Turkey with Needle and Thread

P.S. Go ahead and skim through my eHow profile to see a few other choice recipes in articles I've written