Crescent Moon

Sep. 22, 2008

Happy First Day of Fall ! (My Autumn Lunch Post)

Posted in Food

You can almost tell that it's Fall here (almost). The temperature has been below 90 and the water grasses around the lake have started turning brown.
We've been talking about eating more meals outside at the picnic table, since it's now the time of year when that won't cause heat stroke.
I've been doing some Fall themed cooking, too. Here are the Autumn Bento lunches I've come up with:

The base for this one is left over mashed potatoes (including the blue sky). The tree is luncheon meat and the owl is peanut butter ball.

As you can see, I'm trying to get my money's worth out of those Fall themed mini cookie cutters and the muffin pans I got from Jo-Ann Fabrics.
The main part of this lunch was a mini quiche surrounded by pie crust leaves. The salad has acorns made from the left over pie crust mixed with a little shredded cheese.

This is my lunch for today, "Harvest Moon". The owl was an experiment, but it turned out very well. Nika was making bean burritos for dinner last night and had left over beans, so I took a couple scoops and put them in the owl candy molds, which I then stuck in the freezer over night. This morning I had perfect owl shapes made out of refried beans.

The rest of my lunch is homemade trail mix ( craisins, dried blueberries, peanuts, and pumpkin seeds),
Citrus Slaw (I'll post the recipe tomorrow), Colby-Jack Cheese on a tortilla, lettuce, and some muffin tops from the blue corn muffins I made Saturday.

This is the lunch Blaze is taking to school today. The leaf shaped sandwiches are made from regular yellow corn bread and blue corn bread. This was the first time I had tried baking with blue corn meal and it didn't turn out a very attractive color. It would make good edible rocks, since it came out looking like gray granite). The pumpkin is one of the Harvest Muffins (recipe to follow) that I made yesterday, and the chips are these:

The chips are a bit pricier that I usually get, but the colors are so pretty and Fall-like.

Harvest Muffins

2 Cups unbleached white flour

1/3 Cup sugar

3 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup chopped fresh apple

1/2 cup dried cranberries (craisins)

1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Mix all the above ingredients in a large mixing bowl.
Then in a smaller mixing bowl or large measuring cup mix the following:

1 egg

3/4 Cup Milk

1/2 Cup vegetable oil

1 cup canned pumpkin

Stir well Pour the liquid mixture into the large mixing bowl with the dry mixture. Mix until all is combined.

Fill muffin pans 3/4 full and bake at 350 degrees F. for 30-40 minutes.

If I haven't mentioned in the past couple days how much I love my new silicon bakeware, let me say it now. I love this silicon stuff!!!

These muffins, even with all of their ridges, popped right out of the pan and hardly left a crumb.

For the ones on the right, I sprinkled a little cinnamon sugar in the bottom of the pan before putting the muffin batter in. The ones on the left were left plain.

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Sep. 19, 2008

WOW! My first write-up on another website

Posted in Food

My bento lunch pictures are being featured on a cooking website called "Mommy What's For Dinner". Head on over and check it out. They have lots of great recipes there.

Mommy, What's For Dinner?

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Aug. 30, 2008

Ula's going away Cakes

Posted in Food

After the not-so-positive food post yesterday, I decided I needed to post pretty food today, to cleanse my mental pallet.

These are the lemon cakes I made for Ula, the night before she left for college. She is allergic to egg yolks and yellow food coloring, but really likes lemon flavored cake. These were made with a white cake mix, which only called for egg whites, and I substituted lemon juice for 1/3 cup of the water.
The glaze is just 2 Tablespoons of melted butter, a splash of lemon juice, and enough powdered sugar to make it the right consistency for spooning over the cakes. The raspberries really made them look elegant!

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Jul. 29, 2008

Bento on a Budget

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Bento on a Budget

With the job situation around here being what it is, I can't spend a lot of money on a new hobby, but it turns out that supplies for making creative lunches for children don't have to cost very much at all and can be found in some unexpected places.

On a trip to the Dollar Tree this past week, I found silicone bake wear that could also double as holders for snacks inside the bento box. I had never used silicone to bake with before, but I used the star shaped baking cup and the moon shaped one to bake little pizzas and was very impressed with how easy the pizzas popped out of the cup and how easy clean up was afterwards. They also come in heart, teddy bear, and loaf shape. ( the silicone baking cups are oven safe up to 383 degrees F.)

Here is the "movie night" bento I made using the little star pizza:

I also purchased a set of 3 small sand molds (beach toys) with a Finding Nemo theme that worked great as rice molds. All three came together for a dollar and there was also a set with a Little Mermaid theme.

I lightly oiled the molds with olive oil before packing in the sticky rice, then to add a little color to the turtle shell, I just brushed on a little bit of nutritional yeast with my finger.

Target is another great place to look for lunch box supplies right now. The $1 area when you first enter the store has ice packs, plastic sandwich boxes, water bottles, and decorated ziplock baggies. They have them in Spider Man, Cars, Hello Kitty, and Disney Princess designs.
Blaze loves the movie and Playstation II game of Cars, so we got him the Cars sandwich box and the ice pack. He thought the ice pack was a fun way to cool down at the park after he had finished his lunch.

    As mentioned in a previous post, resale shops are also a great source of inexpensive supplies.


     If you are becoming as bento obsessed as I am and wish to see some fun designs that other people are making, check out this site:

Bento Challenge

   It's a weekly contest of themed bento making.

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Jun. 20, 2008

Happy First Day of Summer!

Posted in Food

Even thought the count down on the top of my blog says otherwise, Summer actually begins tonight at 7:59 here on the East Coast of the U.S.A.
We have two things to celebrate today and tomorrow, the beginning of Summer and DH will be done with field school and coming home to stay.

To celebrate both events, I'm planning to make a nice dinner that involves very little cooking, so I don't have to heat up the kitchen.
Here is one of our favorite hot weather foods:

Bruschetta

8 Roma tomatoes, finely diced
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
5 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 Tablespoons Balsamic vinegar
3 Tablespoons fresh basil, finely chopped
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 baguette

Cut baguette into about 20 slices and toast lightly on a cookie sheet in a 350 degree oven.
Mix all the other ingredients in a large bowl. Let it sit at room temperature for 30 minutes.
Top each slice of bread with a heaping teaspoon of the tomato mixture and serve.

     I'm getting the fresh basil from our garden. The basil and all the vining plants are doing great!
     It's been so hot and sticky here that I can only work in the garden early in the morning or just before dark. I went out in the middle of the day yesterday to plant a row of okra plants and ended up with my first bad sunburn of the year. Ula has been helping a lot with the garden too, and she also has a sunburn, even though she's been wearing that broad brimmed straw hat I gave her for her birthday.
   I took Blaze to the library yesterday afternoon and we checked out a movie about the four seasons and two different productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

So, we can watch one tonight and one tomorrow and compare them.

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Jun. 8, 2008

Ula's 19th birthday garden party and Chocolate-orange cake recipe

Posted in Food

Yesterday, we celebrated Ula's 19th birthday with a garden party. Her real birthday isn't until this coming Tuesday, but we wanted to have her party while DH was home for the weekend ( yesterday was the only full day at home he was going to have for 2 weeks, since next weekend is a public open house at the archeology field school, so he won't be able to come home). I built a small table out of bamboo in the morning and then spent all day cooking.

Ula wanted a Chocolate-Orange cake and she is allergic to eggs, so here is what I came up with ( it turned out very good! ).

Chocolate-Orange Cake

3 Cups unbleached white flour
2 Cups sugar
2/3 cup dark cocoa powder
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking soda
3/4 Cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 Cups orange juice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. Then add the liquids and blend well. split the batter between 2 round, greased and floured cake pans. Bake for 35-45 minutes.

We ended up with tomato stars, stuffed mushrooms, banana bread, pesto rolls, Chex mix, cucumber finger sandwiches, garlic potato puffs, strawberry lemonade, and the cake.

Ula received a wireless mouse for her laptop and a pirate themed computer game. She also got another wireless internet card from her dad, but that arrived a few days ago.

For once I was not behind to the camera, since Nika likes playing with my camera and took this picture of me.

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Dec. 18, 2007

Oh, Fudge!

Posted in Food

We made two different kinds of fudge, one is a new recipe that I was trying for the first time, the other was the one my mother always made. If I can keep DH from eating them all, they will be a good addition to our Christmas goody display.

First we made the new recipe:

Eggnog Fudge

2 Cups of Sugar
1 Cup refrigerated eggnog
2 Tablespoons butter
2 Tablespoons light corn syrup
1/2 Cup slivered almonds, toasted and chopped
1/4 Cup chopped red candied cherries
1/4 Cup chopped green candied cherries
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Heavily butter a glass loaf dish and set aside.
Mix the first 4 ingredients in a 4-quart heavy saucepan.

Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it comes to a boil. Scrape the sides of the pan while you stir.

Continue cooking until a candy thermometer, inserted into the mixture, reads 238F. Remove from heat and cool without stirring for 15-20 minutes.
Add nuts, cherries, and vanilla. Beat with a spoon until the fudge thickens ( about 5 to 8 minutes). Pour the fudge into the loaf dish, cover with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator until it is fully cooled.

Cut into squares. A pancake turner worked well for removing squares from the pan.

DH said that before this was cut up into squares, it looked like congealing gravy, but he really likes it and was just standing behind me eating some. It smells wonderful while it's boiling!

The second kind we made was the traditional

Chocolate Fudge:

2 Cups of sugar
2/3 Cup milk
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate or 1/3 Cup cocoa powder
2 Tablespoons light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla

Butter a glass loaf dish and set aside.
Mix the first 5 ingredients in a heavy sauce pan and bring to a boil while stirring constantly.

Continue cooking, stirring occasionally until it reaches 234 degrees F. Remove from heat and add butter.

Cool without stirring for 15-20 minutes. Add vanilla and stir for 5-10 minutes, until it thickens. Pour into the loaf dish and spread it smooth.

Cover and cool in the refrigerator. Cut into square to serve.

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