Daring Cook.

I recently completed my second Daring Cook challenge. The 2010 March Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Eleanor of MelbournefoodGeek and Jess of Jessthebaker. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make risotto. The various components of their challenge recipe are based on input from the Australian Masterchef cookbook and the cookbook Moorish by Greg Malouf.


This was super fun and super timely, as I wanted to learn how to make my own stock anyway so I don't have to give Nick canned stock. The stock took a little while but wasn't a lot of work - just chopping and some watching. It smelled really good as it was "brewing!" I did the stock on Friday night and made the risotto on Sunday. I made the lemon risotto. I think I got the consistency right and it tasted nice and lemony, but maybe I'm just not a fan of lemon risotto in general. I plan to try other flavors soon!

My stock brewing.

Adding the butter - the butter made it really rich and creamy.

Daring Baker.

I joined The Daring Kitchen (the main reason why I started this blog!) and recently completed my first challenge.



The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and www.nanaimo.ca. The Nanaimo bar recipe is here.

This was a really fun challenge. I never thought I could make my own crackers! I am excited to make regular graham crackers for Nick someday. These bars were ok - they were actually a little too sweet to me (too sweet?? wha . . . ??) and also, the buttercream layer really just tasted like butter. It was super fun though and I look forward to may more Daring Kitchen challenges!

Homemade Yogurt.

I am trying to give my son the healthiest food possible. As such, I decided to read labels and not give him anything I couldn't pronounce or find in the store to add to food myself. This really limits me :) So when I decided to give him yogurt, I started reading labels. Yikes! Not only do I need to avoid cow's milk products with him for now, but try finding completely natural flavorless yogurt! I wanted to give him coconut milk yogurt, but it's pretty expensive, so I decided to make it. Google brought me to one of my favorite blogs, A Year of Slow Cooking (the 365 crockpot blog), with a recipe for crockpot yogurt. http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/10/you-can-make-yogurt-in-your-crockpot.html

So of course I had to try it.

The ingredients were just coconut milk and premade yogurt with active live cultures. You can also use a powdered yogurt starter (available at Whole Foods or some health food stores) but I didn't have any of that at the time.

Measure out eight (8) cups of coconut milk (or whole cow's milk or soy milk or goat milk) and put it in your crockpot on low for 2.5 hours. You're trying to get the milk up to 185 degrees to kill any potential bacteria.
Then turn the crockpot off and let the milk cool down for about 3 hours - down to 105-120 degrees. Then take a cup of warm milk out and whisk in 1 half cup of premade yogurt.

Mix that back in to the crockpot and wrap the crockpot in thick towels or blankets. You need the crockpot contents to stay between 105 and 120 for 4-10 hours to properly "yogue."

If you set this out overnight, when you wake up in the morning - you'll have fresh homemade yogurt!

I am sorry to say my first batch didn't turn out. I am not precisely sure why - I've read several blogs where the first batch didn't turn out but every subsequent batch did. I'm thinking I didn't maintain the temperature, or I used light coconut milk rather than full fat coconut milk, or my yogurt starter wasn't fresh enough or active enough. So for now, Nick is eating plain whole goat milk yogurt and I will keep trying with the homemade stuff!

Donor Milk.

For the past few months, I've been part of a group of "milk mamas" in the Northville/Ann Arbor area. We collect our extra breastmilk to donate to a foster baby in north Oakland County. I'm the drop-off point for our area. The baby was born with numerous other medical conditions. For whatever reason she was put in foster care. Her amazing foster mom tried every kind of formula but nothing was working. Finally they started giving her breastmilk - and it was like a miracle! She can see, she can hear, she has her color back and is growing - albeit slowly.

Anyway, today, for the first time, I personally took the milk I've collected out to her. I got to hold her and chat with her foster parents. She has the softest hair, and she loves to touch faces, and she has cute little pink glasses that she won't keep on for more than two seconds. They told me they just received bad news - it turns out the baby was born without a pancreas. So our breastmilk is literally keeping her alive! Just holding her reinspired me to pump a little extra when I pump, but finding out that I am literally helping keep her alive put me over the edge. They have no idea when she'll stop needing breastmilk - probably long past her first birthday. I hope to help her as long as I can! I plan to stop pumping at work once Nick turns 1, but I'll try to keep pumping at home, for Nick and for the foster baby.

First Entry.

I never had a blog of my own, because I didn't think I had anything interesting to blog about. So this year I've decided to make sure I have interesting things to blog about! I don't want this blog to basically be an online diary. I plan to blog about things we do and make and see - things other people might *actually* be interested in reading about!

I will also keep up with Nick's blog - www.nicklundberg.com. And maybe start a new blog for a second child . . . ? Stay tuned!