While I got started cooking, the kids played quietly at the kitchen table before a quick trip out with their daddy to pick up our fresh milk for the week. We’ve had the kid version of a table top Zen sand box for a long time, and we have always pulled it out when we needed a little time to cook. It works best if it disappears for a while before its miraculous rediscovery. Unfortunately, now that I have two kids who are interested in playing with it, there is usually a bit of disagreement about who plays with what. I suppose I could buy another, but we don’t really need two taking up space in the already crowded craft nook. Instead, we’ve been using a casserole dish, rice, rocks from our rock collection, and small cars and trucks that we already have around as an extra. They share the tiny shovel and rake from the original sand box with minimal bickering. Smiley Face loves the imposter so much that he cried when dinner was ready and the rice tray had to go even though dinner included pancakes. That’s what I call a distraction!

After everyone was happy again, we had one of our favorite dinners. Who has time to make a big breakfast with any regularity? I know we don’t, particularly since our kids wake up starving frequently before the sun is even up. I’m in no shape to do much more than hand the kids bananas and make myself coffee at that point, so every once in a while we cook a lovely breakfast for dinner. I think the family’s favorite part is the bacon from a local farmer, but since that’s fairly hard to replicate without getting to know Farmer Dave of River Ridge Farm, which you should definitely do so that you can try all of his delicious offerings, I’ll share the the recipe for my favorite part, the whole wheat pancakes.

•  1 cup whole wheat (the more freshly ground the better)
• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 milk (buttermilk if you have it)
• 2 tbsp melted butter
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 mashed banana
• 

Not enough sour cream? No problem. Replace half of the missing amount with whipping cream and half with juice squeezed from the orange used for zest. Not enough dried cranberries? No problem. Replace half of the missing cranberries with dried cherries. Not enough flour? No problem. Replace half with the hubby’s bread flour. Feeling adventurous? Chop up those four kumquats you bought to expose your kid to something new and toss them into the mix. What’s one more alteration in an already mixed up recipe?
What’s the worst thing that could happen? No one will eat them? So what? You gave it your best, last minute try, right?

I’m here to tell you that that is actually not the worst thing that can happen. The very worst thing that can happen when you mix and match a recipe without really measuring much because you’re a super-star recipe maverick is that everyone will love it. It will be the best ever. Multiple grandmothers will pull you aside and ask for the recipe. Your favorite brother-in-law, the one who is a good cook, will love it. Your sister will talk about it days later with longing.

Why is this so bad? Because you’ll never make it exactly that way again. You didn’t really measure much of anything. Shame on you.

Here is my best approximation of my best ever scones:

New-and-improved Orange Cranberry Scone Recipe:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour (half all purpose, half bread flour)
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, frozen
• 1/4 cup dried cranberries
• 1/4 cup dried cherries, chopped
• 4 chopped kumquats
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 1/8 cup whipping cream
• 1/8 cup fresh squeezed oj
• 1 tbsp orange zest
• 1 large egg

Directions:

1. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. In a medium bowl, mix flour, 1/3 cup sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Grate butter into flour mixture on the large holes of a box grater; use your fingers to work in butter and zest (mixture should resemble coarse meal), then stir in raisins.
3. In a small bowl, whisk sour cream, cream, oj and egg until smooth.
4. Using a fork, stir sour cream mixture into flour mixture until large dough clumps form. Use your hands to press the dough against the bowl into a ball. (The dough will be sticky in places, and there may not seem to be enough liquid at first, but as you press, the dough will come together.)
5. Place on a lightly floured surface and pat into a 7- to 8-inch circle about 3/4-inch thick. Sprinkle with remaining 1 tsp. of sugar. Use a sharp knife to cut into 8 triangles; place on a cookie sheet (preferably lined with parchment paper), about 1 inch apart. Bake until golden, about 15 to 17 minutes. Cool for 5 minutes and serve warm or at room temperature.

So far, I’ve been very pleased. Mr. B. is so hard to shop for that I frequently despair, but he has given every indication that this cook book was a hit, reading it pretty much cover-to-cover and baking from it repeatedly.

Here’s one of my favorite breads so far–a brioche. He made it again tonight, but he decided to go with regular old loaf pans instead of the fancy snowman in the traditional brioche pan.

I call it a cook book, but it’s far more than a collection of recipes. It goes into a great deal of detail on the science behind bread baking. My guy’s a sucker for that sort of thing, and I’m a sucker for the smell that is winding its way up to my room from the kitchen where his current loaf is baking. As much as I love the bread itself, it’s also very nice to learn little tidbits such as the fact that cutting into hot bread isn’t a good thing because it is still cooking inside and even more fun that the crust is actually caramelized sugars from the wheat. Who knew?

We’re a month out from his birthday, and every weekend, he bakes some new and wonderful treat for our family. I just heard the oven timer go off, but since I’ve been taught that with bread patience is always a virtue, I’m not going to run downstairs right now and start begging.

We continue to love our very simple sugar cookie and icing recipes, so I’ll share. You have to make it for Valentine’s Day; it even rolls out into a heart.

Sugar Cookies:

• 1 cup butter
• I cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3 3/4 cups flour (plus plenty for rolling with)
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 cup cream (I usually use milk.)

Steps:

1. Beat butter and sugar.
2. Add eggs and vanilla, beat until fluffy.
3. Sift together flour and baking powder.
4. Add flour and baking powder mixture and milk, half at a time.
5. Roll and cut cookies before baking on 350 degrees for 9-12 minutes or until golden.

Sugar Cookie Frosting:

• 4 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 1/2 cup butter
• 5 tablespoons milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Steps:

1. Cream sugar and butter.
2. Mix in the vanilla and milk.

Now that we have trailed cookie crumbs all over, we need to win this vacuum in a contest at this site.

We unloaded the kids on two of my sisters and my brother-in-law, and started with dinner out. We were going to go to Stir Fry Cafe because we felt like something Asian but weren’t dying for Taste of Thai, our typical destination, but we were passing by the new place I had seen a sign advertising. We decided to give it a try.

I have to admit that I am a slight restaurant cleanliness snob. I’m not a fan of greasy spoons, and certainly not its ethnic food cousin, so going to a restaurant in an old, run-down shopping center that can’t even hang on to a Food City has kept me from trying Lemon Grass before. I just figured that anyone opening a restaurant there would have a shoe-string budget and thus a grubby restaurant. I was wrong. The place was fresh as a daisy.

I can’t recall ever having had better service. The server was unobtrusive, but she appeared with our entrees the very moment I put my soup spoon down. It was obvious she had been watching from the wings to time things perfectly. My only complaint is that I’m not a big fan of having someone else put my napkin in my lap, but that’s fairly trivial, and it’s obviously an individual preference for more personal space. I’m willing to overlook this for the food at Lemon Grass.

I had the Tom Kha-Kai, a long-time favorite that I have given up because my regular Thai place doesn’t make a good one, but at Lemon Grass it is wonderful. Next time I’ll ask for it to be spicier, but it was otherwise the best I’ve had. My husband had the vegetable soup, and it was amazing. It was full of broccoli and tofu among other tasty tidbits. I can’t even describe how delicate the flavors were.

Delicate was a descriptor that came up again and again. The yellow curry? Light and delicate. How, I ask, does one make a coconut curry that isn’t at all heavy? The pad Thai was great, but the yellow curry was so amazing that I was a little jealous.

Who wants to take me out to lunch?

After class we stopped at Payless, which is apparently where one goes to purchase ballet slippers and tap shoes for the pre-school set. I found some must have footless tights. I can already see that dressing a little girl for dance class is going to be fun.

When we got home, Smiley was sleeping, and Tulip and I wanted a snack, so we tried out a scone recipe. It was our second in a week, and I definitely liked this one better. We altered it a bit by replacing two tablespoons of sour cream with orange marmalade and adding a half cup of cranberries instead of raisins, and it was delicious, even better after we spread some more marmalade over the finished product. I think we have a winner. Now we just need a pretty tea set, and we’ll be set for a lovely tea party. Who am I kidding? We just go ahead and have not-so-lovely tea parties whenever we can get Smiley to nap without snuggling me, which happens once or twice per week. We’ve tea partied our way through an entire box of mint tea within the last month. (Note to the daddy: Put tea on the shopping list!)

In other recipe-testing news, we prepared for our (newly) annual Super Bowl party by testing out a new wings recipe last night. I caught a Throw Down with Bobby Flay that was about wings the other day, so our chef (the daddy) made the winner for dinner last night. They were very good, but I like the more traditional wings we had last year as well. I think we’ll half and half the wings this year and take notes for next year’s bash based on the left overs. As if there are ever leftovers when a certain portion (you know which ones you are) of our regular guests are in attendance.

Simple Scone Recipe:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, frozen
• 1/2 cup raisins (or dried currants)
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 large egg

Directions:

1. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. In a medium bowl, mix flour, 1/3 cup sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Grate butter into flour mixture on the large holes of a box grater; use your fingers to work in butter (mixture should resemble coarse meal), then stir in raisins.
3. In a small bowl, whisk sour cream and egg until smooth.
4. Using a fork, stir sour cream mixture into flour mixture until large dough clumps form. Use your hands to press the dough against the bowl into a ball. (The dough will be sticky in places, and there may not seem to be enough liquid at first, but as you press, the dough will come together.)
5. Place on a lightly floured surface and pat into a 7- to 8-inch circle about 3/4-inch thick. Sprinkle with remaining 1 tsp. of sugar. Use a sharp knife to cut into 8 triangles; place on a cookie sheet (preferably lined with parchment paper), about 1 inch apart. Bake until golden, about 15 to 17 minutes. Cool for 5 minutes and serve warm or at room temperature.

Cranberry-Orange Scones

Follow the recipe for Simple Scones, adding a generous teaspoon of finely grated orange rind (zest) to the dry ingredients and substituting dried cranberries for the raisins.

Tulip is a snacker. She asks for at least two per day, so we try to keep snacks around that add value.

We really like Annie’s Homegrown products. My good friend who was supposed to share this blog with me (hint, hint) can’t wait until the new Bunny Love cereal shows up in a store near us. Tulip loves the mac ‘n’ cheese, the cheddar bunnies, but most of all the graham bunnies. I love that they don’t have any hydrogenated oils, corn syrup, trans or saturated fats and that they are a good source of calcium, but still, when it’s all said and done, they are cookies.

A few cookies in a kid’s life are a good thing, but Tulip periodically goes on protein strikes, when anything that I’ve put on her plate to provide protein is declared “poo-ey” and is given the “talk to the hand” gesture. As a result, I’m always on the lookout for a new way to make protein appealing. Here’s our latest winner:

Ingredients:

• Graham Bunnies (though I’m wanting some Cinnamon ones, yummmy)
• All natural peanut butter
• squirt of honey
• ramekin

For Tulip it’s all about the ramekin. She loves tiny bowls. They thrill her. I put the peanut butter and honey into the ramekin and nuke the mixture for 10-15 seconds to make it warm and gooey.

Edited to add: We finally had some of the cereal, and I’ve got to say I’m disappointed. The snack bunnies, both sweet and cheese varieties, are so good that I expected more of the cereal. It was alright, but nothing special.

At 9:30 this morning, Tulip announced that she would like some caterpillars to eat.

She’s a big fan of Roald Dahl’s Cookbooks, makes me read them like story books. The idea is that kids will eat anything they get to help with and/or anything given a disgusting name. Our first use of the two cookbooks Tulip received for Christmas last year was the now famous (at our house at least) Stink Bug Egg. It’s basically a dyed egg, but before you dye it, you crack the shell all over the place so the food coloring can stain the egg. Tulip loves them. She loved the idea so much that we started thinking of gross names for everything, and rotini are now caterpillars at our house.

Our rotini has plenty of protein, and Tulip loves to have caterpillar eggs (peas) sprinkled into the mix, so I’m happy to fix some for her whenever, but this morning, we also tossed a big spoon full of Just Veggies into the still-damp noodle and pea mixture and called it caterpillar food. She ate a huge bowl as her second breakfast, and between mouthfuls and all of the “Mmmming,” she announced that it was the “bestest” food she had ever eaten.

I’d love to pretend that I cook, but to be honest, I’ve pretty much given it up. It’s not that I’m a terrible cook; it’s just that my husband took over at some point, and I’m enjoying the fruits of his labor. Last night he made Navajo Stew from Moosewood Restaurant’s Simple Suppers cookbook. Oh my goodness, was it delicious. I was tempted to lick the bowl when I was done. I definitely recommend the recipe and the entire book.

Ingredients:

• 2 medium sweet potatoes
• 2 red bell peppers
• 1 large onion
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 tablespoons vegatable oil
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 15-ounce can of tomatoes
• 1 tablespoon canned chipotles in adobo sauce
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• 1 15-ounce can of black beans, drained
• flatbread
• plain yogurt or sour cream