The Gift of Food

Esther gave Nathan a birthday present. Knowing that he loves cooking, she gave him an oven mitt. But not just any oven mitt. It is a Snoopy oven mitt with ears and everything. Basically, it is a puppet that belongs in the kitchen. And Nathan is definitely enjoying his gift! Today he broke Snoopy in by making orange creamsicle cookies. He also used a gift one of his friends gave him for Christmas, some vanilla bean paste. So, he had the fancy vanilla and the fun oven mitt and created some fabulous cookies using gifts from his family and friends. And he had fun doing it! And if all those who know him well are very fortunate, he will feed them!

Birthday Bao

Nathan’s birthday is on Wednesday and by way of celebrating his big day, he decided to make bao. Today was a holiday which meant no work for him, so it was designated as bao day. He invited Daniel, Tawni, and Marissa, one of their neighbors, to join in his culinary creations, and they were all excited to participate. I suspect part of that is the “Little Red Hen” bit, the whole “if you help make it you get to help eat it” part, but I also think that there is some interest in learning to make the foods of our culture. Which I love. I also love that Nathan sees cooking as a way to treat himself! 

The end result was a little rough looking, although first timer Marissa created the cutest little bao that steamed up so pretty that I’m a little jealous. 😜 However, all those involved assure me that they tasted marvelous, Marissa stating that her “belly was very happy.” And I definitely believe the rave reviews. There is never any leftover bao, even when they are lacking in the looks department! These people who have been fed the goodness of homemade bao are likely forever ruined where the frozen kind you get at the store are concerned. 

A Need to Knead

Nathan has had a hankering for homemade bread. But since he no longer lives at home and therefore can’t enjoy the breads of my labors, he decided to make his own. He has been talking about it for weeks now, asking questions in advance like he does when he is planning to try something new on his own. I knew today was his breadmaking day, so I was ready for any questions that came up.

Nathan Facetimed me to make sure he was mixing and kneading it right (which he was) and had to borrow bread pans from his neighbors, but those were really the only signs that he was a first-time solo bread maker. He was mostly pleased with his results, only having a sliver of dissatisfaction in the fact that his loaves cracked, but it provided an opportunity for him to up his bread making game next time when I taught him that loaves crack in the oven when they are not given enough rising time before baking. I always rise by the bread and not by the clock, something he will be more attentive to next time. However, those cracks in no way diminished the wonderful aroma that permeated his apartment and the lovely taste that he has been craving.

I hope his roommates and neighbors, with whom he generally shares the results of his cooking and baking endeavors, realize how lucky they are. 

P is for Pudding

P is also for purple which leads to some awesome alliteration because there was definitely purple pudding at our house this evening. Let me explain. Malia had a hankering for some pudding. Remember her deconstructed pie a few days back? She decided to up her not-pie game and wanted pudding as the newest vehicle for bananas. I don’t keep boxed pudding around as I rarely use it, so I taught her to make pudding from scratch. It’s not hard. She does mac and cheese, and pudding really isn’t any more complicated than that if you have a couple basic skills under your belt. Dairy and egg free pudding is even easier than standard pudding and since that is what works for Matthew, that is what we usually make. The one downside to going Matthew friendly is that without egg yolks or butter, vanilla pudding doesn’t have the traditional color of normal pudding. It doesn’t affect the flavor at all, but just for aesthetics, I usually put in a drop of yellow food coloring. Malia, being the free spirit that she is (or more likely just because she is my kid and I have a fondness for food coloring) decided yellow was boring and opted to tint her pudding purple. It ended up looking a little weird, but it was tasty, and she enjoyed the results of her first endeavor into pudding making. 

She assures me that there will be more pudding in the future.

Gastronomical Benefits

As I’ve mentioned before, Nathan likes to cook. He likes to bake as well. And his roommates, including his brother, have occasion to benefit from his enjoyment of said tasks. Tonight, it was banana bread from his roomies’ overripe bananas. I can practically smell it from here…yum!

Just Peachy

I love fresh peaches. Bottled and canned are alright, but fresh peaches are a delight. Due to their delicate nature though, they are only available around here when they are in season. It is peach season right now and my family and I have been enjoying it wholeheartedly. Kevin stopped in Brigham City and bought a bushel and we have eaten all of them. We have enjoyed pancakes, cobbler, and muffins as well as many bowls of simply peeled and sliced peaches. As we neared the end of the bushel, a neighbor arrived with peaches from their tree as they had more than they could eat. We consumed all those as well. And since I was still peach hungry, another box was purchased so we could continue to enjoy the bounty for as long as the peaches are available. Honestly, it has been heavenly.

Nathan has also been enjoying peach season. As a Logan resident, he is much closer to Brigham City than we are, and he has taken advantage of that. He split a box of peaches with some friends and has been baking up a peach flavored storm of his very own. His version of peach muffins was a hit, and he has peach baked oatmeal nestled into the freezer to be eaten as a quick breakfast on busy school mornings. Nathan enjoys cooking and he loves peaches nearly as much as I do, so he has been having a great time. And Daniel, who cooks so he won’t starve to death and not because he enjoys it like Nathan does (and therefore has a tendency to make meals that require little effort) has been lucky enough to sample Nathan’s creations. I suspect he is going to benefit from Nathan’s culinary enjoyment often.

As peach season winds down, I am already looking forward to next year. We have tucked some bags of peaches in the freezer to enjoy in the meantime, but as mentioned before, they just aren’t quite the same as fresh, unprocessed peaches.

College Cooks

My cousin Shirleen lives in Logan. Her kids are all grown and no longer living at home, but she and her hubby, Greg, have welcomed Daniel and Nathan and my nephew Josh to Sunday dinner at her house on numerous occasions over this past year. These boys have also attended dinners with Shirlene and her parents, my Uncle Pat and Aunt Betty, at their care home. Daniel and Nathan will be homeless for about five days at the end of the semester since there is a gap between when they have to move out of on campus housing and when they can move into their off-campus apartment and while she can’t house them for the gap (Her own kids will all be in town so her house will be full. Otherwise, she would welcome them for a few days.), she is ever so kindly allowing Nathan to store his frozen food in her freezer, which means he doesn’t have to haul it down here and then drive it back up the following week.  I’m so grateful for the support my extended family has given these college boys, and they are grateful as well. They expressed their thanks by turning the tables and cooking Sunday dinner for Greg and Shirlene this evening. They are good boys.

Gobble, Gobble

I just need to brag for a minute. Many moms have missionaries who live on pizza and pop tarts for two years. I have one that successfully roasted a full-size turkey all by himself!

He and his companion will be eating well this week!

Anticipation

Tomorrow is a big night for us. It is our evening to see “Wicked.” As such, we are planning to go out to a fancy dinner before the show. Because dinner and a show is how it goes, right? Anyway, Matthew doesn’t get to really participate in that due to all his allergies and will have to bring his own dinner. But it’s still a big night so we took some time today to make some super fancy, allergy friendly tarts for dessert. And they are all his.

Don’t they look delicious?

I've Created a Cookie Monster

A few months ago we had a family home evening lesson of service. As part of the lesson, I had each family member write down one act of service that they would commit to doing. Nathan decided he was going to make cookies for his piano teacher so a few days later he pulled out the cookbook and I walked him through the recipe. He did a great job and discovered that he really enjoyed the process.

Since then, he has started leafing through the cookbook and making cookies whenever the fancy strikes him. He is keeping us well fed with chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, Chinese almond cookies, and he even discovered an oatmeal white chocolate cranberry cookie recipe I haven’t made in years because I have never been able to find dairy free white chips, Matthew was too young to understand that he couldn’t have the normal white chips, Daniel and Nathan were too inexperienced to know that they needed to keep the cookies away from Matthew and I was not experienced enough to figure out how to work around that. With some input from me based on the past seven years of experience, Nathan worked around it nicely, baking a tray for Matthew before adding the white chips for the rest of us. I think it is great that he is getting confident enough to just pull up a recipe and go for it. And I haven’t heard any complaints from the other kids. :-)

This morning he moved on to muffins…

Bon Appetit!

With Matthew in school all day, I’ve lost my most reliable kitchen helper. But never fear. There is another apprentice ready to step into his shoes. Malia has decided that helping in the kitchen is fun. She will run into her room and grab her apron and oven mitts and then join me in the kitchen.

A little background on the matching aprons: my mother-in-law made me this apron as a gift on the occasion of the arrival of my new stove a year after we moved into our house. When Malia was a baby she was completely intrigued by the ladybug print fabric. She would stare and stare, grab the fabric, she was really entranced. So I got online and found the same fabric, purchasing most of a bolt so I could use it to decorate her room. Her curtains are made from the same fabric and she loves them to. There was still lots of fabric left over so I made her an apron and matching oven mitts for Christmas. Now she dons her matching apron (although hers is still bright and new and mine is quite faded from many washes) and we work together in the kitchen. The hardest part is convincing her that she really is only two and isn’t old enough to handle a knife or the hand mixer alone…

Luckily for us, I happen to have what we call "the wiggly cutter." It cuts veggies in a nice design and is much easier to handle than an actual knife. All my kids have used this handy little device as they began to acquire their kitchen skills. It was worth every penny. And it makes the veggies pretty. :-)