New addition

The kennel is expanding. We now have a cat! Her name is pookie and we adopted her from Twin Cities Pet Rescue. Her lineage is Siamese mix. You'd never know she was Siamese except for her slender frame and extra long tail. She's so sweet and tolerant. She allows our 2 year old to carry her everywhere. She's full of antics and can purr at 85 decibels (partial exaggeration).

A is for Apple Pie!

My first ever competition apple pie has been submitted at the Minnesota State Fair. It's been a long process. I've been working on my pie crust for years now. Anyone who's ever tackled pie crust knows that it's not something you master on the first attempt.
I tried different processes, including blending the fats into the flour using a pastry blender, food processor and finally, have settled on just using my hands.
I've varied the fats I use, starting with shortening, then lard, then butter and shortening and finally settling on a lard and butter blend.
The filling for this pie was not my ideal choice. If I had my druthers it would have been filled with New York State Macintosh or Cortland apples, but alas, finding those in Minnesota isn't easy. I settled on a blend of Pink Lady (Organic from Chile), Golden Delicious (from Washington State) and due to the aroma alone, some Tentation Apples (from New Zealand). It's a worldly pie.
I made 2 pies, one as a backup just in case something went wrong.
Some things went wrong.
1. Just as I was getting ready to make my first pie, I reread the contest regulations. Good thing I did. Only disposable pans were permitted for entering. Ack! "Honey! I need you to run to the store!" I had him pick up some more organic flour as well. While there, he was such a sweety and bought me some organic butter. It has a darker color and richer aroma than the plain stuff. (And it costs twice as much. Wow.) I had already made the crust for one pie, so the second one was made using the organic butter. The moisture content of the dough made using the traditional vs. organic butter was a huge difference. I usually require 4-5 Tbsp of water for each batch. the organic butter batch required only 3 Tbsp, and even that felt like a lot.
2. It might be time to push potty training. My little girl was watching a movie (My neighbor Totoro) and when the movie was done she was playing with the dogs under the dining room table. I looked over for a moment to watch what she was doing and noticed that she had a bare bottom under her skirt. Uh oh. I tracked down the diaper which was in front of the sofa. The pee spot was all over the new leather sofa. I went right to the basement door and yelled, "Honey, I need a hand!" I threw the girl into the tub for her bath and he scrubbed the sofa.
3. I went to pull the kitchen scale out of the upper cabinet to see which dough half weighed more in each batch, and therefore would be used for the bottom half of the pie crust. I dropped it. It broke into several pieces. I nearly sobbed. Hubby heard the racket and for the third time this evening stepped in to help out, but I was beyond helping. I just moved forward without it.
4. Higher moisture content means shorter cooking time. There is some unpleasant browning around the very edges of the pie. I lost sleep trying to figure out which pie to enter, the uncharred crust with lesser quality ingredients, or the slightly overdone, higher quality pie. In the end I went with the better quality ingredients. I used to work as a tech in manufacturing, and the old, "S#!$ in, s#!$ out" policy kept ringing through my mind. It's a crude way of saying that the quality of your finished product is only as good as your inputs, so use the best inputs you can.

And then, to finish off the evening on a happy note, the pies were cooling on the windowsills of my nearly finished kitchen. It was such a joyful sight to see, that I had to capture it.

Cloth diapers

This blog entry is more in line with the ideals we have here at the Kitchen Kennel. I've been trying for quite some time to use cloth diapers on our little girl, with unsatisfactory results. From infancy onward, there have been several setbacks.

At first, the prefold cloth diapers were too big for her. I'd put them on her, put her down in her crib and her bottom would be elevated with her feet unable to touch the bed.

Later I tried some Kushies brand All-in-one diapers. They held wetness well enough and were very easy to handle and change on her. The downside was they took at least three dryer cycles to completely dry. I'd use them one day and spend half the next day cleaning them.

Then, another element I couldn't deal with was the water quality at the apartment we were renting. Even with the use of bleach, OxiClean or other brightening laundry agents, our whites would come out dingy every time. I stopped wearing white shirts. All my dish towels looked like muddy rags after a few weeks. I didn't want my little girl to wear something that close to her bottom which was dingy and contaminated with who-knows-what.

I just gave up. Pampers were good enough. 

With moving into our new house, my husband and I decided we needed to get back on track with trying cloth diapers. We have good clean well water here, as well as new washer and dryer. I wanted to get back to my ideals of not adding to the landfills. My husband didn't want the new house to start smelling like a diaper pail. We both like to lower our living expenses whenever possible, and most importantly, our little girl was getting tired of disposable diapers. She was getting irritated at the waist and legs by her Pampers and started pulling them down,sometimes completely off and occasionally leaving a wet spot on the rug. Time to get serious about cloth diapers!

Finally I found gDiapers at our nearest Babies-R-Us store. They're a great introduction to cloth diapering. They have a comfy cloth exterior, a snap-in vinyl liner and then you place either a flushable liner, cloth liner or any absorbing material of your choice for catching the messes. I started with the flushable inserts rather than cloth. When those went very well, I made the leap and tried using my prefolds. (I had quite a supply from my baby shower, I might as well put them to use.) I had to set up a wet bucket for holding the messy prefolds until I had enough to wash. I found a medium sized, snap lid (and cute looking -very important) tote at Target. I bought matching smaller totes for the prefolds and liners, but that's just me being silly. I place the wet prefolds in the tote in a water and Borax solution and they can sit for about 24 hours without stinking, until I have enough for a small load of wash. 

Granted, there is the drawback of occasionally getting your hands dirty. It's not pleasant, but for an ex-farmgirl and an EMT, these things don't phase us one bit.

The sun helps blanch out any colors from messy diaper stains and our Carbon Footprint and diaper expense has lowered dramatically. Plus, she looks so cute in her little gPants. Happy Mommy!

Getting back to cooking

This photo sums things up quite well. Baby D isn't a baby anymore. She's a full fledged toddler and eager to help and learn everything in every way.
This is my new kitchen. It's not finished but it's workable. You'll notice there are no drawers or window trim, but this is minor. I'm bound and determined to start getting back to my love of cooking. On Friday I went all out and made pasta noodles and a meat sauce. I always use my food processor to make the noodles and then my hand crank pasta roller machine. Unfortunately, the crank was missing. It's either packed in an odd box, or was moved by my helpful toddler. I found out just how labor intensive rolling out pasta with a simple rolling pin can be. Time to start dropping hints to the hubby that I'd like a Kitchenaid pasta maker attachment.

Meat sauce:

• 1 lb Ground Italian sausage (or pork, or beef, whichever you'd prefer)
• 1 Tbsp Olive oil
• 1 Onion diced fine
• 2 cloves garlic minced
• 2 14oz cans diced tomatoes (or use fresh if they are in season)
• 1 Tbsp Tomato Paste
• pinch cinnamon
• 1 tsp dried Oregano
• 1 tsp dried Basil
• 1 tsp Sugar
• 1/4 Cup Dry Red Wine

Heat oil in large pot. Add onions and garlic and sweat until softened. Add ground meat and brown over medium heat. Add tomatoes, tomato paste, cinnamon, oregano, basil, and red wine. Stir and cook for 5 minutes. Add sugar, stir and reduce heat to medium low. Simmer covered for 30 minutes or longer.

Just a thought

It's pretty obvious that I haven't cooked anything interesting or worth blogging about in while. I've fallen back on my old standby recipes, lots of chicken chili or jambalaya. Recently I decided to just throw in the towel and make prepackaged meals for the last week. First night was Shake-N-Bake chicken with Stove Top stuffing and instant potatoes. Baby D liked it, which kind of stung a little. The next few nights weren't much better. Dinner took a fraction of the time it usually takes to cook, and flavor was sacrificed enormously on the Swedish meatball night. One curious side effect was that my blood sugar levels went completely wonky. I felt weird cravings for sugar and fat and couldn't stop consuming copious amounts of sugar. It was kind of scary. This isn't like me. I haven't been this bad in over 10 years. That's about the same time I started slowing down and eating better quality food.
I'm not saying there's a direct relationship, but in my case, I think something happened. I can't wait until we're in the new house and I can cook in a kitchen where I don't have to worry about my daughter burning her hands on the oven door. Not to mention it would be nice to spend some time with my husband.

Ginger bread house cookies

Things have been so crazy around here for several months. More like the last 2 years actually. I've only just now gotten a free moment to blog about some awesome Christmas cookies we made. I found the instructions here.

They turned out both delicious and entertaining. They were a little time consuming to make, but many hands make light work!

Baked Tofu

I know baked tofu isn't a typical American mealtime staple, but I wanted to give it a try. I made a simple marinade out of soy sauce, ginger, garlic and sesame oil, then baked the slices.

Baby D approves.

An absence from cooking

Here's what my new kitchen looks like. There will be a stove between the 2 skinny windows and a peninsula will divide the kitchen from the dining room. I cannot wait for it to be finished for several reasons. Our temporary housing has a tiny kitchen with an oven whose door gets so hot it burns little hands, so no baking. Hubby is doing all the work on the new house so he is home for 10 minutes after work and then he's gone until midnight. Anything I cook has to able to either withstand reheating or stay warm. There are only so many times you can blog about chili.
The new kitchen will be so nice when it's finished. I can't wait to sit down as a family for a meal and have a conversation with my husband. Baby D isn't talking yet, so our chats are kind of one-sided.