The Dirty Business

A few months the kid was born, I had it in my head that we would do cloth diapers. They’re endlessly discussed – better for the environment, better for the baby, etc. Then I started reading up on diaper services versus buying diapers and it got confusing. If you buy directly, you have to wash ‘em (I am admittedly squeamish), but it looked like diaper services – with their professional grade chemical laundering and hot water usage – were closer to disposables on the environmental side of things. Then I learned that Toronto’s compost program allows composting of disposables. Then I remembered that I was a lovely combination of busy (I’m not doing classic mat leave, but working part time flex – mostly online, though here and there in the office – while hanging out at home with the babe), lazy (I did not want to do multiple loads of daily laundry), and grody-averse (I don’t even like yucky words).

So with that, we decided to figure out what was the best disposable we could find. And with that, we discovered Nature Babycare – they’re a Swedish company that makes what are apparently the most environmentally friendly disposables around. Chlorine-free and made of biodegradable materials, the diapers and wipes are compostable and friendly to the earth – so I started the hunt for where to get them in Toronto. No dice – not a single retailer here carries them at this pont.

So I hunted down the company on Twitter and they directed me to some online shops through which I could buy the product – the closest one was Clothworks based in Milton. They don’t carry the entire Naty line of products (which, on that note, look amazing) but they do carry all the key stuff – we invested in diapers, wipes, travel wipes, and disposal bags.

Et voila – the Nature Babycare stuff gets a thumbs up here. My very-waste-averse husband doesn’t feel guilty, and I don’t have to figure out how to store a tiny boy’s dirty business between washings. Success!

Soup’s On

There is nothing quite so cozy and delicious as a good homemade chicken soup, yet somehow – confession! – I have never actually made one straight-from-scratch. Over the holidays, however, the husband’s mum brought us a batch of her best, and I fell in love. Not only does it have the snuggled-up-on-the-sofa feeling of your mum taking care of you when you’re sick, but it’s the kind of filling that doesn’t turn it into a side dish. Perfect!

This is the kind of recipe that is pretty easy to make fully organic – I went fully so aside from the coconut milk, because I couldn’t find an organic version. Doing so makes this hearty little number as healthy as possible. Now that I’m eating meat again, I am thrilled to be shopping once more at my friendly neighbourhood organic meat market, The Healthy Butcher.

Patti’s Homemade Chicken Soup

• 1 roasting chicken
• 2-3 containers chicken broth
• 1 bag of carrots
• 2 cooking onions
• 1 bag of celery
• 1 large handful parsley
• Liquid Knorr if desired (I skipped it)
• Jamaican Coq spice to taste (if desired, I didn’t have any so I skipped it)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1/4-1 can coconut milk (I went with a light variety but you can use full fat if desired!)
• 1/2 bag acini di pepe

Wash the chicken inside and out, then put it in a big heavy pot – I had to borrow my mother-in-law’s as I somehow have made it this far in life without a huge soup pot. (Aha, perfect use for the holiday gift card to William-Sonoma that’s burning a hole in my pocket!) Add between two and three containers of chicken broth – enough to cover the chicken. (Note that mine wouldn’t cover my chicken completely – ack! – but I just went to the top of the pot and it was fine.) Throw in one peeled onion, one scrubbed carrot, and one stalk of celery and you’re ready to run. Put the whole thing on high ’til it comes to a boil, then simmer for 45-60 minutes or so ’til the chicken is cooked.

While you’re waiting around for this to happen, you have a few things to prep for the next phase. Scrub the rest of your bag of carrots, chop off the ends, and cut in two – no need to peel! Clean and chop up your celery along with the leaves, then dice it nice and small. Additionally, clean and finely chop one onion and a big handful of parsley.

Back to the stock! Once the chicken is cooked, remove it to a plate to cool. (Tip: use tongs for this – stick one tong inside where the bird’s guts used to be, and the other on top. So easy!) Remove the onion, carrot, and celery and discard. Add in your chopped carrots and get the stock back to a light boil, then add your freshly chopped celery, onion, and parsley. At the same time, boil water and throw in the acini di pepe for seven or eight minutes, then rinse.

After 15-20 minutes, your carrots will be fully cooked – test them with a fork if you’re not sure – at which point you should remove them and mash them a bit. By now, your chicken should be cooled off, so take this opportunity to cut it into bite-sized pieces. Add both the chopped chicken and mashed carrots back into the stock.

Taste the broth – see how much salt and pepper need to be added, and consider adding liquid Knorr if it doesn’t taste chicken-y enough (I skipped this step as I couldn’t find the stuff) and Coq if you want some spice. Add your coconut milk now – anywhere between a quarter of a can to an entire one, dependent on how you like it – and your acini di pepe.

Note that this recipe comes along best if you have two devoted assistants. The wee one slept in his Baby Bjorn Air chair in the kitchen for the couple of hours that it took to make this batch, and the pup kept a close eye on his new little master. So much adorableness in one room made for a perfect soup kitchen!

Going Granola

So pretty much the world’s greatest gift for couples with a brand new babe who’s taken over their lives is food. The incredible Jen is thus the queen of gift giving, as we were home from the hospital for less than 24 hours when she arrived with bags – we’re talking five reusable grocery store bags, and those babies are not small! – of snacks and meals for the very, very grateful new parents. We’ve been dining and nibbling on the goodies ever since, and now that I’ve sampled all of it, I have to confirm that my favourite of all the deliverables was her homemade granola bars. So nutritious, so filling, and so yummy! Of course, given the tastiness factor, I had to ask for the recipe, knowing full well I likely wouldn’t be able to make it any time soon.

The babe hits his three week birthday tomorrow, and I’ve done no baking in the first weeks of his life – between feeding the voracious little hunger machine, doing endless laundry, and figuring out which cries mean what, it’s been a hectic time! (Though I must be clear – I’m not doing this on my own by any means. My super amazing husband is every bit as engrossed by this process as I am and I couldn’t ask for a better partner in this wee venture!) In any case, other than a few batches of holiday-coloured rice krispie squares (don’t mock!), there have been no treats crafted by these hands in some time. Thus, when the babe crashed for his morning nap today, I suspected it was time to hop back on the bandwagon and make these yummy granola treats my first foray back into deliciousness!

Jen But Never Jenn’s Homemade Granola Bars

• 2.5C rolled oats (edit: the second time I made this, I used the Quaker large flake variety – perfect!)
• 1/2C brown sugar
• 1/3C flax seeds (she recommends ground ones, but I didn’t have any in the house – edit: 15 seconds in the blender is perfect!)
• 1t cinnamon
• 1/2C white flour
• 1/2C whole wheat flour
• 3/4t sea salt
• 1C raisins (can also make part of this dried cranberries or other chopped dried fruit – edit: remember to soak these in hot water for five minutes as well to plump them up)
• 1/4C pumpkin seeds (she uses sunflower seeds, but I again didn’t have any in the house – she says hemp seeds are also good)
• 1/4C unsweetened coconut
• 1/2C chopped raw almonds (I used a combination of almonds, cashews, and walnuts – edit: Jen says to soak ‘em first for supreme healthiness)
• 1/3C semi-sweet chocolate chips (Jen uses the organic ones as they’re smaller, but again – I didn’t have any in the house so I used regular this time)
• 1/2C honey
• 1 egg, beaten (see my replacement note below)
• 1/2C sunflower oil (Jen says you can substitute applesauce for this if you want something healthier with more fibre, or you can go with canola oil or even peanut oil for a peanut buttery flavour)
• 2t vanilla extract

I just wrote out the entire baking instruction and, since I’d been running around taking care of the babes for a while, I’d inadvertently been logged out and they disappeared! In any case… preheat the oven to 350F and butter up a 9×13″ pan.

Mix together everything from oats to salt (I just realized I’d inadvertently dropped the salt, but it made no difference in the taste, so whatevs), then toss in the tasty stuff from raisins to chocolate chips. Make a little well in the middle of the dry ingredients and pour in the wet stuff. I realized, however, at the final moment that my eggs expired on December 21. Oopsie. I substituted 2T arrowroot powder and a little extra honey and it was just fine.

At this point, the granola goes into the buttered pan and gets pressed down maniacally with a buttered spatula, making it as firm as humanly possible so it bakes solidly. Toss it in the oven for 25-30 minutes, and keep an eye on it during the last minutes to ensure the edges don’t get too dark, which implies the bars are going to be dry. The tiny one began his demands for food during the baking stage, however, so the husband was in charge of taking the bars out. Jen had warned me to cut them after they were out for five minutes as they could otherwise become too hard to cut, but even half an hour later, they were still okay, but I wouldn’t have left them much longer!

Going granola for 2010? Yum!

Our Plus One

So I can’t even go through the extended version of how this kid made his entrance into the world, as it’s like having war flashbacks, hah. The good thing, however, was when it (finally) ended and they threw this particularly sweet creature onto my chest (yes, literally threw!) I was able to entirely block it out, because that boy is the best thing in the whole world.

I won’t go on and on, but in short? He’s a week old tomorrow, and has spent much of his first days being as sweet as can be, sleeping and eating like a champ, and is easily the number one favourite of his two totally gushy parents.

So there! Best Christmas gift evah.

The Induction

So tomorrow is the induction day. I have nothing of interest to share here, but that we have determined a few things for certain.

1. Even if you start having daily contractions at less than 37 weeks, you can still require an induction five weeks later.
2. No amount of red raspberry leaf tea, evening primrose oil, S&S procedures, walking, yoga ball bouncing, or anything in between can force out a kid who simply likes things as they are.
3. If this kid doesn’t begin an exit of his own volition in the next twelve-ish hours (which I’m pretty confident that he won’t), I’m destined for Motherboy conferences in jaunty sailor suits with our very own answer to Buster Bluth in the future.

Here’s to meeting this kid before the weekend is through!

Holidazed

Okay, so yesterday I watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas in an attempt to force this kid out. (Kids like Christmas, right?) And then I decided to put up the tree.

My love of Christmas knows no bounds. I go truly bananas when it comes to holiday season fun – I frigging love it. The lights, the glowiness, the happiness, the music, the baking… there is no down side, I tell you! In any case, I decorated said tree tonight and am totally loving it!

Somebody else loves it too. (Darby is clearly managing sleigh operations this year – she’s worked really hard and I’m pretty sure beat out that ridiculous drunk Blitzen for the gig.)

Eeee!

A Tale of One Old Hallway

So I know hallways seem like small reno jobs, but this one was a huge amount of work, thus leaves me filled with (labour-inducing?) giddiness. To date, we’ve finished the glorious bathroom and the master bedroom, and the kid room is 80% finished… meaning the second floor of our house was nearly done. That crafty husband of mine still has to add trim to this hallway, but by some miracle, it is now basically finished before the arrival of this (admittedly late) kid!

Three shots – hideous when we bought it, totally gutted, then under construction…

And now… basically done! (Shot from the other side of the hall with my cruddy camera instead of his good one like the other shots, but you get the idea.)

That banister alone is a work of art, as far as I’m concerned. I swear, this man I married was a celebrated craftsman in another life. He managed to save the original handrail and shoerail and totally stripped them, did the glorious black and white, had to rebuild and reangle the entire thing to make it structurally solid and so very pretty… I am in love with it! And I have no clue where he learned to do this kind of thing!

He will also be doing the staircase to the third floor – of which I showed you in-progress shots a little while ago, and are now long done! – to have black treads and white risers to match that banister, and we’ll be doing the same again with the stairs you see in that second shot (the ones from the first to second floor) in the new year.

Ah, renovations – how I love thee!

Coffee Talk

So recently, with this kid about to pop (seriously, when will that be?) my mother-in-law has been delivering lots of meals for freezing. Since she’s taken the real-food part of our future newborn-infused lives, I have taken charge of the sweet stuff.

Last week, she included three pints of blueberries with her delivery, thinking that it might inspire something fun! Indeed, it did – my friend Marianne directed me to a favourite recipe of hers and thus my variation on this delicious simple cake was born!

Blueberry Coffee Cake

• 1C white flour
• 1C whole wheat flour
• 1.5C sugar
• 1/2C butter
• 1t baking powder
• 2 eggs
• 1C milk
• 1t vanilla
• 2 pints blueberries

Set the oven to 350F and get this party started.

Sift together the flours and sugar, then cut in your room temperature butter with a pastry cutter. Save 3/4C of the mixture in a separate bowl. Add your baking powder, milk, and vanilla to the remaining mixture and then pop in the yolks of your two eggs, saving the whites. (You know, the ability to yolk an egg using only the shell is still one that fills me with delight – my mum used to use a separate tool for this step and I am still thrilled that I don’t need that tool anymore. Ridiculous!)

Whisk your whites ’til they form soft peaks, then fold ‘em directly into the batter, which you can now pour into a greased 9″x13″ pan. Clean your berries and remove both stems and grody ones, sprinkle over the top of the cake, then sprinkle the remaining flour/sugar/butter crumble mix from the first step. Bake for an hour.

This is the first time I’ve ever made a cake in a 9″x13″ pan and had it come out of the pan without sticking anywhere, quelle miracle! That said, flipping it right side up after putting it on the cooling rack was a bit of a challenge, given its size, so I had to cut it in half. In any case, I sure hope this freezes well, because it’s otherwise in danger of being entirely consumed in 24 hours. Deliciousness!

This Shit is Bananas

For the last twenty years – at least! – I have eaten a minimum of one banana every day. I freaking love the things. I thus also love anything that tastes like banana – from muffins straight through to medicine. Naturally, as a banana aficionado, I’m always on the lookout for the best banana bread recipes.

When my friend Colleen, thus, had a Banana Bread Bakeoff Bonanza with some friends, I was intrigued. I was even more so when her loaf was crowned the winner, and she shared the award-winning recipe!

Colleen’s Bonanza Banana Bread

• 1C mashed bananas (this amounts to about 4-5 average sized fruit)
• 1C white sugar
• 3/16C oil
• 1/2C light sour cream (she vows that it must be light – not sure why, but despite my aversion to low-fat/calorie anything, I obeyed!)
• 2 eggs
• 1t vanilla
• 1.5C all purpose flour
• 1t baking powder
• 1t baking soda
• 1/2t salt
• 1/2C walnuts/pecans/chocolate chips

Set your oven to 325F and generously grease a loaf pan. Combine everything from bananas through vanilla in a delicious bowl of wet-ingredient goodness, and combine your dry goods separately. Mix ‘em all together – the whole process takes no more than five minutes, I swear.

Add the nuts or chocolate chips last – I personally find that chocolate ruins a perfectly heavenly banana bread, so I opt for nuts every time. I would’ve chosen pecans, but I only had walnuts in the house. (An edit: in my second batch of this, I tried to use 1C whole wheat flour and 1/2C white flour and I can’t figure out if it was that or the fact that maybe I put too much banana, instead relying on a quick fruit count, but it was less perfect than the first. The middle never really cooked, despite the fact that I put it in for an extra forty minutes. Bah!)

Bake for 45-60 minutes (my oven required 55). The top will crack lightly when it’s done. Eat or freeze – and beware doing the former entirely before the latter can happen!

Buttercream Ratios

So for some reason, I have never made a perfect buttercream frosting. It agitates me – it seems like such a simple thing, but I never get the butter/milk ratio quite right. My perfectionism wants the ideal ratio!

My friend Melissa (whose amazing-looking chocolate mint cupcakes are featured above) vows that this is the premium combination, thus I am storing the information for future reference. She actually uses milk, but another friend just pointed out to me that it’s cream that makes a perfect buttercream (um, how on earth has this never occurred to me?) so I’ve modified slightly for my records.

• 1C butter, beaten (ooh, another thing I’ve never done!)
• 4C powdered sugar
• 1/4C heavy cream
• Vanilla/other extract to taste

I’ll test this out in the next round of baking that requires frosty deliciousness!