Just Beet It

I hate beets.

I loathe them.

Thankfully, so does Todd!  We're pretty much on the same page when it comes to our likes and dislikes with food.  Except he doesn't like yellow mustard and I don't know what planet he comes from. 

Beets, ESPECIALLY the pickled kind, are gross!  Blood mixed in dirt.  That is what I feel I may as well be eating when I taste a beet - which does not happen often.

What I do like is Red Velvet Cake.  I just don't like the red food coloring in it.  For a long, long time I have contemplated using a recipe for Red Velvet Cake that calls for beets as the coloring.  I have been very hesitant because the thought of chocolatey tasting beets is even more gross than a regular beet; but last week I took the bull by the horns. 

Since it was Valentine's Day last week, it was the perfect excuse for baking up Red Velvet Cake.  I wanted to make cupcakes for Rosie to take to daycare for their little party.  

I opened up the recipe for an all natural Red Velvet Cake I had pinned.  

I bought beets.  

This was only the second time I have ever bought them.  The first time was at a farmers market because I wanted to see if I liked the greens roasted and tossed with blue cheese, a recipe I found in a magazine some time ago.

I do not.  

The only redeeming thing beets have going for them is their color.  It is gorgeous.  

I roasted the beets per the recipe, then pureed them and mixed them up.  

THIS is what happened to the batter!

It's perfectly red!  I was completely thrilled!

Now, the batter did have a very slight essence of beet, but it wasn't super terrible.  I wonder if I noticed it because I knew it was in there?  

Interestingly, the baked cupcake had even less of a beet essence, but it was still there.  In the finished cupcake, the cream cheese frosting largely masked it, but I could still taste it and I decided, after going back and forth between liking them and not liking them, that I didn't like them.

Todd tasted the frosted cupcake and said he really couldn't taste it until the end.  That confirmed my  decision to keep searching for a natural Red Velvet Cake recipe.  Who wants the finishing taste of a bite of cake to be beet-ish?

All in all, I am impressed with the color and how magically red it was.  It was perfect.  

I'm sure most people may not mind the taste, but I ultimately couldn't hack it.  It's not BAD.  Just not to MY liking.  I would recommend the cake to others who aren't as grossed out by beets as I am.  

   

Everything But the Hummingbird

My friend Jonna got me this fun cookbook called "sugar, sugar" where every recipe has a story.

They are all old fashioned recipes - things your grandma would make to take to a church picnic or fix when company was coming.

I haven't made many things from it yet, but there is one cake I've made twice - and will likely keep making given the response I've received from it.

It's called Hummingbird Cake.  Nobody seems to know how it came to be called that, but the Joy of Baking online speculates, "it does seem plausible that it may have something to do with how sugary rich this cake is - just like the nectar that Hummingbirds love to feed on."

Sugary rich is the best way to describe it.  It's too much for me to have more than a bite, but it has received rave reviews from others who have eaten one or more large slices.  My friend Linda all but cussed me out at church once after I gave her family half of the cake, of which she swears she ate most of and accused me of ruining her diet. haha!  On top of that, I just recently had a total stranger at a BB-Q tell me it was the best cake he's ever had!

This is what's left after the BB-Q.  It makes one three-layer cake.  It's quite the looker (though not quite so much anymore after being hacked into at a BB-Q)!

CAKE (ingredients only slightly altered to reflect Bakerella's recipe)
3 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla
8 oz. can of crushed pineapple, liquid included
2 cups chopped ripe bananas
2 cups  pecans, chopped and toasted (I omit these because I don't like nuts in sweet things.)

FROSTING
16 oz cream cheese
1 cup butter
2 teaspoons vanilla
32 oz.  confectioner's sugar

Instructions
To make the cake: Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease and flour 3 9-inch cake pans.

If using nuts: Prepare toasted pecans. Chop pecans in small pieces and place on a parchment covered baking sheet. Bake for 5 minutes and keeping your eye on them so they don't burn. Set aside and let cool.

Whisk together flour, soda, salt, sugar and cinnamon in a large bowl.

Place the sugar and oil in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.  Mix on low speed for about 1 minute, until blended.

Add eggs, one at a time, on low speed, blending well before the next egg.

Add the vanilla and blend.

Add the flour mixture one half at a time, mixing on low speed until the dry ingredients are moistened.

Add the pineapple, nuts (optional), and the bananas and stir with a spatula or wooden spoon until just combined.

Spread batter evenly among cake pans and bake for 22-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Remove and let cool.

For the frosting: In a mixer, beat butter and cream cheese until smooth and creamy. Add vanilla and beat until incorporated. Add confectioner's sugar. Scrape down the sides of the mixer bowl often.

To assemble: Place first layer rounded-side down and spread frosting on top with an offset spatula. Continue with the remaining two layers and then frost the sides. Store in fridge.

Hidden horrors exposed

Before I was a mom, I used to look at the highchairs of friends' children in bewilderment.

It looked mostly clean, but there were always dried bits of food clinging to the pad and crumbs jammed in the nooks and crannies.  It looked like a slightly less than appetizing, let alone healthy, place to eat.  

"I don't understand!" I would cry internally.  "These are clean people!  How is that chair not clean??"    

Now that I have my own little solid-food eater, I get it. 

It is just not possible - or reasonable - to wash that pad after each feeding.  What it is, is inevitable that the pad is going to get dirty.  Really dirty.

We wash her tray clean after each meal and that's what really counts.  That's what food meant for her mouth is going to touch before going in, so I take care to wash it well.  

The crumbs on the seat will get brushed off, but likely not until the end of the day.  This means I only have to do that activity once versus three times a day.  

My old before-motherhood self would ask, how hard is it to brush crumbs off after each meal?  You wouldn't think too difficult, right?  But consider: Rosie eats, then gets cleaned up in the chair, then gets picked up out of the chair (which means my hands are full) and taken to play or many times to go down for a nap.  At that point I get back to my full-time job, or if it's the weekend, to the 1.1 million things I have on my to do list.  

Brushing off crumbs is low on the totem pole until the end of the day when I'm finishing tidying up.

So, I get it now.  And I apologize to all my friend and family moms who I silently judged for not having a sparkling place for their kids to eat.  

   

So much

So much, soooooo much has happened since my last post!

Here's a synopsis:

We went to my old stomping grounds, Washington, D.C.!  Here are some highlights:

My favorite monument...

Sitting with mama in her old chair.  Might we have a future press secretary in the works...?

Sitting in my old boss, Sen. Enzi's chair...

On a tour of the Capitol building.  Here we are in the Rotunda...

Highlight number 2?  We bought a new couch!  FINALLY!  The couch I bought after moving back from D.C., was in pretty shabby shape.  I hadn't anticipated a husband, two black labs and a baby when I purchased it.  Now we have the couch we want: leather, nail heads, sophisticated, not shabby...

Doesn't it look like it's always belonged here?  I was sad to see the old couch go, I admit.  It was a sleeper and I firmly believe we need one of those with the visitors we get.  But Todd didn't want to try to jam it downstairs, and let's face it, it was in poor condition, so to the dump it went.

We went to Wisconsin!  And Rosie and her cousins in Omaha got to meet for the first time!

But first, we hung out with Great Grandma Kittel and Grandma Kittel...

Rosie ate in a high chair at a restaurant for the first time...

We ate lunch with Paul Bunyon and Babe...

Met Great Aunt Barbara...

And second cousin Kim...

Then on to the cousins!  Tess, Owen and Judd meeting Rosie for the first time...

Hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa Sears...

We cheered Raymond on at his all-star baseball game...

All the cousins together!

There's more, but this gives you a pretty good idea.

Sunshine and sunbonnets

We have been sooooo cooped up...

But no more!  Nice weather is here and I think it's here to stay!

What a gorgeous weekend we had!  Finally, finally, we have been able to spend some real, solid time outside.  Sure, there have been walks, runs, a handful of nice days here and there, but this weekend was the start to some serious outdoor time.

I made sure Rosie spent basically as much time outside as I did.  Since her arrival in November, I can pretty confidently say she knows exactly what each of the rooms in our house is like.  She's seen it all!  It's time she started learning about the great outdoors.

I found her a couple cute new sun hats over the weekend and Saturday afternoon she donned one of them and helped me plant some flowers...

Are you familiar with Sunbonnet Sue?  The old quilt pattern?  I have a Sunbonnet Sue quilt from when I was a little girl.  I think Rosie looks like a Sunbonnet Sue in the photo above.  Compare Rosie to the pattern here...

I also think it's quite appropriate that Rosie is playing with her giant ladybug while helping her mama garden!

Here she is modeling her new, cute hat...

We didn't spend as much time outside today.  She did, however, get some experience with lying in the grass.  She seemed to really love it.  She stayed very still and relaxed for quite some time.  I love how loung-y she looks...

Her legs, which are ALWAYS moving, were still - for several minutes...

Todd said I needed to move her around so she could mow the yard...

The poor dogs have been particularly cooped up.  They've done a number on our yard - brown spots, dead spots, bald spots - and Todd has worked hard to try to fix it.  This means the dogs have been quarantined to the house or the back "yard" which they hate.  Yard is in quotes because in its current state it can hardly be considered a yard.  It's just concrete.  No wonder they hate going back there and love to lounge like this instead.  Oh, Lulu...

Not to be outdone, here's Rigby posing for his lounge lizard shot...

Everyone is enjoying our nice weather!