Kidget Review: Peanut Butter Mixer

Today I received the Grandpa Witmer's Old Fashioned Peanut Butter Mixer, which I ordered after seeing it in a magazine. We eat natural peanut butter (well, sun butter and peanut butter) at home, which tends to separate, which drives me nuts, especially when I try to stir it and it comes out the top and the oil gets everywhere. This tool seems to combat that problem.

You screw the supplied top on your jar of peanut butter and insert the mixer tip. Then you crank around until your peanut butter is all mixed up. Remove the lid and mixer and put the original lid back on; now you are good to go.

It was not clear when I ordered, but there are different sizes: #100 Crank Mixer for 16oz jar with 77mm lid, #200 Twist Knob Mixer for 16oz jar with 77mm lid, #300 Crank Mixer for 16 oz jar with 70mm lid, #400 Crank Mixer for 26oz jar with 83mm lid, #500 Twist Knob Mixer for 26oz jar with 83mm lid, and #600 Twist Knob Mixer for 36oz jar with 99mm lid. I probably should have ordered the #300, but the #100 works, without completely attaching to my peanut butter jar.

In any case, I would recommend this tool for anyone looking to make the process of mixing natural peanut butters!

Kidget = Kitchen Gadget

Tamale making update

For my zillions of readers who have been worrying themselves sick over my post from Thursday, I wanted to provide a follow up after my Cookie Exchange and Tamale Making Party. In short, it went great. Here are the details....

Yesterday and this morning, I worked pretty hard. I had a great experience at Chavez Market, where I was able to pick up the masa, corn husks, pork and chicken, as well as some great Mexican crema, fresh salsa and queso fresco. I also visited Trader Joes and Safeway for a couple other things, and got home about 11am. Then I got to cookin'.

I roasted three butternut squashes from my CSA, Two Small Farms (it is not really my CSA, I am just a happy subscriber). To this, I added the queso and white cheddar cheese. I also boiled the crap out of a chicken and once it was cooked, shredded the meat and added some roasted tomatillo salsa that I made this summer (tomatillos also from Two Small Farms).

While this was working, I mixed my cookie dough - I made two different cookies from one master dough, from the One Dough, Fifty Cookies book. The two I chose were Lebkuchen Biscotti and Rugelach Spirals. Last year, I made Walnut Maple Syrup Cookies and Chocolate Dipped Coconut Sticks. All of these have been excellent, I love this book. I would recommend it, you should buy it!

Yesterday afternoon, after The Big Guy returned from his chess tournament (5th place among all 2nd graders!), we went to see the open studio for Mitchell Johnson, an artist friend of ours. While the kids ran around, we viewed his newer pieces from Italy and work he did this fall back east. It was nice to have a break and view someone else's creative work. On the way home, DH suggested a quick stop by the Toyota dealership to check out the colors of the 2008 Prius. Tee hee!

Last night, we had a quick dinner of soup and Hatch Green Chili Bread (from Trader Joes, DH is sooo happy!), and then got to tree decorating. DH did the lights, the kids did the bulk of the ornament hanging and I decorated a separate 3 foot tree with ornaments from my Great Aunt Marie. She sent me her collection last year after she decided she was done having Christmas trees and it is great to be able to display them on a special tree.

This morning, after coffee and newspaper in bed (Sunday morning routine), I got up and got going again. Little A helped me package the cookies into little holiday bags. DH helped me with the Quince Tarte Tatin. I finished cooking the Posole Soup and got the salad ready to go. Also mashed the avocados for guacamole and put the chips out. Then a quick wipe of the counters and I was ready to go.

My guests arrived, I poured Gruet and Italian Sodas while we snacked on the guac and chips. Lunch was nice and relaxed, with great conversation. After our lunch, we proceeded to assemble the tamales which went a little quicker than I thought. Everyone seemed to get into it and many tamales were produced. I steamed mine tonight and we will eat them tomorrow. The one I sampled was pretty tasty!

Four rounds of cleaning the kitchen, and two loads of dishes in the dishwasher, everything is finally cleaned up. We tasted all the cookies tonight and DH and I have picked our favorites (which means they will be squirreled away out of sight of the kids!). Tomorrow I will take all the extras from my baking to work to share the joy. Gosh, I love this party and all the work was worth it, I will continue the tradition next year.....

Pie Making

Tonight, we decided to make 2 more pumpkin pies (we did not seem to get enough at Thanksgiving). In a rare turn of events, I found the patience to make them with the kids, even letting them help with the pie crusts. Little A demonstrates her pricking technique while the Big Guy shows what a good crimper he is.

The pies turned out well (with all this help, how could they be bad?!). In fact, we might even have breakfast pie tomorrow. Our kids are good pie eaters, for which my husband is happy and thankful. In his family, pumpkin pie slivering is an art that is passed down through the generations!

Salad days and The Stack O'Catalogs

Every once in a while, I have a great lunch day. Three days a week, I work from home, and sometimes all the stars are in alignment for a great lunch. Today was one of those days. From last night's dinner, I had saved leftover salad (without dressing), along with organic red bell pepper and black beans. This lunchtime, I added an organic avocado and a firm Fuyu persimmon. I whipped up a Dijon vinaigrette and voila! A salad was born!


Also, in the mail today came another huge stack of holiday catalogs. I have decided to start measuring the stack and will find out how many (inches, feet) of catalogs I will receive this season. I am starting today (November 15), with yesterday's bunch added in, and will go until December 25th. So far, I am up to three inches. My husband suggests that I list all the catalogs I receive, which I might do at the end. I bet it is the same 10 companies that are filling my mailbox. No way to know unless I save them all and catalog the catalogs!

More fun with tomatoes

Last weekend, I posted about Daylight Savings and Tomato Canning. This week, my chef friend sent me a new recipe to preserve roasted tomatoes:

Sprinkle tomato halves with sugar and kosher salt and olive oil and roast in a slow oven 200' for a long time or even over night. Once they are dehydrated completely, layer them in clean jars or plastic container with olive oil on top to make a seal. Keep them in the fridge or in a really cool, dry place. When you go to use them, use a stainless steel utensil.

She is also the friend who taught me how to make puff pastry, so my plan will be to roast and preserve the tomatoes and then make them into little roasted tomato tarts in December. I love plan-ahead cooking!

Experimenting with Quince

For some reason, I am super fascinated with the fruit called Quince. They are lumpy, bumpy and when ripe, smell intoxicating. A neighbor has a tree in her backyard and was gracious enough to share many, many with me. The beautiful scent made my kitchen smell wonderful, but this week, it was clear I needed to start doing something with them.

When I think of quince, the first thing that comes to mind is Membrillo, or quince paste. Typically served with Manchego cheese, I thought it might make good holiday gifts (especially if I keep with the homemade theme I wrote about last night). I followed a recipe from Epicurious that seemed simple enough - it involved baking the quince until soft, then peeling and pureeing and cooking with sugar. I think this is where I went wrong, as I should have cooked the quince paste much longer. Since I did not, I ended up with something closer to a quince jam, which actually is not that bad. We had it with some tasty cheeses, Patacabra (goat) and Ombra (sheep), both from Spain.

I also made Poached Quince, using a recipe from Sacatomato. These look pretty in the jars I canned them in, and I plan to give them as gifts, perhaps with some pound cake. All that in a pretty basket will be a nice gift for my busy friends during the holidays.

I also decided to cook my quince into Quince Compote, which interestingly enough, is almost exactly like the recipe above, with the main difference being the size of the quince pieces. On Epicurious, this recipe is paired with a Mascarpone Cheesecake, which I plan to make for the holidays - maybe Christmas dinner!

These cooking projects used about 13.5 pounds of my stash, so I have another 10 pounds to go. Since my first attempt at paste is more like a jam, I would like to try making that again. I will use the mistakes from the first batch for Stilton and Quince Jam Puff Pastries, which seem like a nice appetizer for Thanksgiving. For Thanksgiving dessert, I am considering the Quince Tart Tatin or Five-Spice Apple Quince Pie. And then maybe some Cranberry Quince Sauce. Nami-Nami has a recipe for Apple and Flowering Quince Jam, Elle at Feeding My Enthusiasms has a nice recipe for Quince Jelly (with pictures!), and over at Cook & Eat, a great recipe from Pure Dessert, Sesame Cake with Poached Quince (from eggbeater). Ooh, I cannot wait to work through my Quince stash!

Wordless Wednesday

Hamburger and Hotdog cupcakes from my son's 7th birthday party
July 2007

Environmental Awareness, One Water Bottle at a Time

In honor of Blog Action Day, I thought I would write about single serving drink containers. Last week, Jennifer over at Tree Hugging Family posted about using refillable soap dispensers. In my comment to the post, I also suggested that we avoid using single serving drink containers and buy in bulk. At our house we have purchased CamelBak plastic bottles and use them daily in backpacks for water. In their reusable lunch boxes from Laptop Lunches, the kids also have smaller bottles that we use for chocolate milk. When bring snack to soccer games, we try to remember to bring large containers of juice with cups to recyclable cups to pour into and avoid the juice boxes altogether.

Fortunately, recycling has been part of our lives since before the kids were born, and after seeing the movie Arctic Tale, the importance is much easier to explain, especially when Queen Latifah showed us how our choices will help their new favorite animal friends Seela, the walrus pup, and Nanu, the polar bear cub.

Get Boo'd

On Tuesday, we were Boo'd, sometime early in the morning by a very clever person. This is one of my favorite Halloween/October traditions - in the dark of night, or early morning hours, you go around to three houses in your neighborhood and leave them a bag of treats and a cute little note. All anonymous, and very fun.

Melissa Summers at AlphaMom put together a great piece on how she super-craftily decorated their bags, with additional links to more ideas.

Last year, I took this tradition to work, with some moderate success. This year, I suggested to my Dad that he Boo his friends at his retirement place. The whole thing is fun and in our family, makes Halloween last longer than a day.

Quote of the Day

seen on a delivery truck this morning while biking to work:

“A good cook is like a sorceress who dispenses happiness.” Elsa Schiaparelli, 1896-1973

Chocolate, Parisian-style

We are going to Paris next year, I can hardly wait! I told my French friend Thierry about my trip today, and he asked what our plans were. I told him I had nothing much in mind, except, that every day I would eat a chocolate croissant. He thought this was a fine plan and sent me a couple suggestions:

Clotilde Dusoulier from Chocolate & Zucchini wrote about L'Etoile d'Or. Her account made me breathless with anticipation. Can you imagine a shop keeper in France inviting you to come back any time and stay as long as you want? I only hope that is true when I show up with my 5 and 7 year olds!

Thierry also sent two recommendations for shops with lovely confections and cakes and pastries. Laduree has beautiful Millefeuille and Saint Honore cakes. These are the kind that I would definitely want to squirrel away from my kids and eat alone! Lenotre seems to be in several different culinary arenas - bakeries and confectioneries, gourmet stores, prepared foods, champagne and wine, etc. The website is all in French, but they include pictures which helps a lot. Yumm, salivating already!

Cooking together

Little Miss A and I are cooking together. Several things happened today to make this possible:

1. I have two heads of cabbage from our CSA that have been in the veggie bin since last week
2. I listened to a podcast of Kitchen Wisdom from NPR and they featured a risotto recipe with cabbage

Bada-bing, bada-boom, we are in business. This risotto recipe is made in the microwave, so it is pretty fast. While we are waiting for the boys to get home, we are whipping up this dish.

Eat Local Challenge

September 2007 is Eat Local Month, according to Locavores (and many other foodie sites), and the idea is simple. For one month, try to eat what is local in your area. The challenge can take on many aspects, I guess it depends on how intense you want to get, but I liked the first two suggestions of Katherine Gray at Dish To Dirt, namely:

1. Eat local whenever possible
2. If I cannot eat local, buy from a local company

In addition, I pledge to:

3. Preserve as much as I can
4. Limit driving, and work on integrating transportation alternatives into our lives
5. Start caring where things are made and see if I can find manufactured items 1) locally, 2) in California, 3) in the Western US, and/or 4) in the US, before going overseas.
6. Try to not sound holier-than-thou when talking about eating local

One week into the challenge, this is where I stand
-- On Monday, I spent 4 hours in the stupifying heat, canning local tomatoes for winter soups and stews. Not as hard as it sounds, although I occasionally feel as though I am channeling my grandmother, or the author of Little Heathens.

- On Tuesday, the kids and I rode our bikes to school. Fortunately, we live around the corner, so the ride is not that tedious. Thank goodness the challenge is in September and not January, I find myself to be a fair weather cyclist.

- On Wednesday, I went to Whole Foods for 5 items. It took me nearly 30 minutes to shop because I was reading the labels so thoroughly. Fortunately, the chicken was local, from Petaluma. So was the goat cheese, from the coast. But the organic peas had a confusing pedigree and I had to buy soy butter from Illinois for lunches, since peanuts are not allowed at my kids' school. And I needed nonfat milk - the local stuff was twice as expensive as the house brand, but hey, at least it comes in a shwanky, retro glass bottle. That should justify the additional $4 a gallon.

- On Thursday, I took a break. All this sourcing has me exhausted and fortunately, we had enough leftovers for dinner!

- thank goodness for Friday - we get most of our veggies through a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Two Small Farms, from Watsonville and Hollister. If I buy nothing else, I can feel very confident that at least today I am doing something right!

So, at the end of our first week of participation, I would say that our results are mixed. Thank goodness the kids are in school (for a good three hours), otherwise I am not sure where I would find the time to source our local food. Join me on the challenge, I would love to hear other folk's stories!

Trader Joes: My top 10 list

Here is my top 10 list from Trader Joes. In true Letterman style, I will start with #10:

10. Frozen Turkey Meatballs
9. Goat cheese - the 3 pack of different flavors
8. Kashi Go Lean Crunch
7. Pecans and Walnuts, either halves or chopped
6. Frozen Brown Rice (you just nuke it for 3 minutes, and it is tasty!)
5. Goat Milk Yogurt
4. Airborne Pink Grapefruit
3. Trader Joes Sunscreen (I am a little fuzzy on the product details)
2. Basil in the clamshell - just the right amount for a recipe of pesto

and my number 1 favorite thing at Trader Joes:

anything in the Dark Chocolate family. I was doing to try to limit it to one item, but I don't think that is fair. I like the Dark Chocolate covered almonds, the plain bars of Dark Chocolate (72% +) and even the chocolate soy milk. If it has dark chocolate, there is a good chance I will like it....

So, what are your favorites?

Eating out with Kids? Are we nuts?

In the last 10 days, we have taken our two kids, age 5.5 and almost 4, out to eat at two unexpectedly kid-friendly restaurants. Not that our kids are obnoxious, or ill-behaved, but because these restaurants actually welcomed them!

The first is Kabul in San Carlos - while that is a bit of a hike for most of us in Menlo Park/Palo Alto, it is worth the drive to this Afghan restaurant located in an obscure strip-mall off El Camino. This is the second time we have visited with the kids, and both times have been excellent. First off, there are always lots of other families in there when we are dining. Second of all, my kids are loopy about their lentil soup. So, we always start with that, and then we order kebabs (lamb and salmon are awesome!) and an side or entree of these beautiful pillow like pastas, filled with either ground lamb or leeks and cheese. There is a yogurt sauce over the top that brings the whole dish together. With our entrees, bread is served, which the kids also inhale. Also a salad, which my son likes to poach the tomatoes and cucumbers from. And, with wine by the glass, we are all set.

Our second recommendation is Cafe Silan in Menlo Park. We just finished eating at this Kurdish restaurant tonight - it has been about a year since we had been there last. Once again, the lentil soup was a big hit with the kids, and the server brought milk for both in pretty glasses with straws. Our entrees were two house specials - Mast U Gost and another pasta pillows dish with feta and spinach (can you tell what I like?). Tastes as though the management revamped the menu, with great results. The service was friendly and quick and they brought out food for the kids early without asking. And the house bread was great, with a yogurt dill dipping sauce.

Both places will be part of our regular restaurant rotation - the best part will be telling my in-laws from Iowa that my kids enjoy Afghan and Kurdish cuisine! Priceless!