Potato Latkes

So this year, Arielle is 4 years old and very aware of the differences and similarities in life and more specifically her family. She has in the past addressed color.. skin color that is and now has expressed an interest in learning about religion, in this case Catholicism and Judaism. Since she had been attending the Montessori school in our town, she has become more curious and very  opinionated about issues, it kind of scares me sometimes when I see how thorough her thought process is and the way she qualifies and differentiates things, its quite sophisticated. Anyway, we decide that's its no longer acceptable to be "nothing" and have decided to instead teach her background, her black, white, Judaism and Catholicism. She was Baptized over a year ago at the age of 2 1/2 but she really just thought it was like a birthday party! This year we included Santa, the Reindeer's and his counterpart Rosie the elf, lit a Menorah,  ate Latkes, baked holiday cookies, stayed up past midnight to open gift (tradition from my childhood) and had a big Christmas dinner. Although it has been a whirlwind its been good and I love it. I wish we could have included more of the husbands family for Arielle's sake but I have no control over what others chose to do. All in all, I think everyone came out happier and a few pounds heavier! The recipe is from the husband so please reserve your comments..they were good though!

Ingredients
1-1/2 pounds russet potatoes peeled
1/4 cup finely chopped shallots ( or yellow onion)
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons flour (or more) or matzo meal (during Passover)
1 1/2 teaspoons salt and freshly ground black pepper
Vegetable oil for frying

1. Grate the potatoes in a food processor or using a manual grater.
2.  Line a sieve with cheesecloth and transfer potatoes to the sieve. Set sieve over a bowl, twist cheesecloth into a pouch, squeezing out some moisture. 
3. Add shallots (or onion), eggs, flour, 1-1/2 teaspoons of salt and freshly ground pepper. 
4. Return drained potatoes to this mixture and toss to combine.
5. Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Line a baking pan with paper towels. 
6. In a large skillet heat 1/4 inch of oil over medium high heat until hot. 
7. Drop heaping tablespoonfuls of potato mixture and cook for 3 to 4 minutes a side; latkes should be golden and crisp on both sides. 
8. Eat right away or keep warm in oven. 
9. Serve with applesauce.

Holiday Cheer

Since moving to our current home, we have joined in the tradition of holiday gift giving to the neighbors (some of which have become our friends) but last year I didn't give anything because I was tired and in a funk (and 3 months pregnant). This year, I decided to do the customary cookie gift but thought I would try to make it an elegant cookie gift. I fell for these birch wood boxes at Crate and Barrel and immediately ordered a few of them to hold the cookies. We spent half the day on Christmas eve making four kinds of cookies to put into theses gift boxes. After a few tries and some burning, tossing batter out and buying new ingredients, they came out quite well. Actually even after burning a few batches and some very flat chocolate cookies as well I was happy with the outcome and my baking skills. I had originally planned to make sugar cookies (easy) and Almond chocolate cookies (because I don't really fancy chocolate chip) but after four failed tries at the Almond chocolate, I got nervous. They were too chocolatey and melting into chewy pancakes in my oven. I realized after a few tries that I really needed more flour to give some substance and once I added an additional cup of flour they began to come out better.

As expected the sugar cookies came out great but I felt we had wasted so much of the chocolate batter that we wouldn't have enough cookies to fill the six boxes. Since I had way too many chocolate chips, I decided to add brown sugar chocolate chip cookies to the boxes, figured the kids would like them. As I was skimming through the Food Network 12 days of Cookies recipes, I saw a Shortbread recipe with 4 variations, one of which was the Chai tea shortbread and since I love Shortbread and I had tons of butter, I decided to attempt making them too. I have made shortbread before using a different recipe but they came out horribly but I really wanted to try again.
I actually think what really happened was I got so delirious I just couldn't stop myself from making more and more cookies...I lined the gift boxes with a Mara-mi specialty tissue I found which coincidentally had a red wood grain pattern printed on it, call me crazy but I thought it was very cool..wood box..wood grain tissue..get it?..No..ok!
Anyway, I was a bit surprised when I started putting them together, because I ended having more than enough cookies. All the chaos turned into what I really wanted which was a nice sampler of homemade cookies.
Don't get me wrong, it was fun but this isn't going to become an everyday occurrence because baking is a crazy sport..you can't become distracted for one minute or else something burns and you must be extremely precise while simultaneously being able to improvise and having enough knowledge about your ovens nuances to keep things under control. Between rotating the pan, watching for the slight browning of the edges to develop and taking them out immediately, you must be on top of it. One thing I found though was how inaccurate the cooking times were on the food network recipes, for example, I had to cut the cooking time in half for the brown sugar chocolate chip cooies because they kept burning! 

Modern Family// Christmas and Chanukah

Being the "modern family" that we are..(thats my attempt to be funny), we decided that this year it was time to embrace the goodness and really try to educate the kids about the differences between myself and my husband (besides the obvious..I'm Catholic and he's Jewish) and try to get them excited about them. So last week, he bought a Menorah, candles and started the first night of Chanukah off with some Potato Latkes and a prayer. Arielle was very interested and asked a lot of questions about it, coincidentally, we had been to a rather large Bar Mitzvah the weekend before so she had just been surrounded with hundreds of friends and family to celebrate her second cousin ( who was our ringbearer..)becoming a man!

Anyway, I was pleased with her level of dedication (and that of her dad) and very satisfied anytime the man cooks something..thats tasty. 

Anyway, we had our tree up early in December and as Christmas fast approaches, its filled with lovely wrapped silver presents delivered directly from the North Pole by the Elf who lives on our shelf and a lot of other places these days. I decided to jump on the elf bandwagon because I knew if I hadn't I would revert to just letting sleeping dogs lie and what fun is Christmas without a littlle anticipation, some terror over this elf watching your every move and some discipline on the side. So all in all, we're good with our modern traditions this year!

5 Months Old

So my little booboos is 5 months and funnier than ever. She's got a great sense of humor (and a temper..occasionally!). She laughs and plays like a kid not a baby anymore. She now more than ever expressing her preference for being upright, she only wants to sit up and is infact lunging forward as if she wants to crawl! AHHHHH..anyway, she just rolled over out of the blue yesterday..so thats awesome!

This month, Evalie is also faced with adjusting to a nanny who started with her last week for three days a week. Unfortunately, she is still protesting the bottle but has been making it through the day on a few spoons of solids ( we've done squash, carrots, sweet potato and now sweet peas..). She also detests her cereal which I find a bit strange because its rather bland and mixed with expressed milk. The nanny seems to be good so far except for Evalie not eating all day.

We've been to a few holiday functions and she's been absolutely excellent even through the "wedding-like" Bar mitzvah went to last weekend. We also drove to Virginia on Saturday morning and returned on Sunday night and she was great for the most part, not really phased by all that time in the car or sleeping in a new place! At this point, I am realizing that I love her more everyday and am conflicted because I am so anxious to see her older but at the same time want her to slow down! I love this little girl so much that I think the only person who ight love her more is her sister! I hope they remain best friends forever! I love you both Arielle and Evalie. Be safe.

Italy Series: Rome: Pantheon

 

The Pantheon is a building in Rome, Italy, commissioned by Marcus Agrippa as a temple to all the gods of Ancient Rome, and rebuilt by Emperor Hadrian in about 126 AD

I still remember the moment I first saw this building..it was amazing. All we could say to each other was.."wow". Everything about it, its scale, materials, detailing and phenomenal effects is just fantastic. Once we settled into a routine in Roma, we actually walked through Piazza della Rotonda and by the Pantheon several times a week going to and from our Italian class (yes, ..we took Italian with the students!) Imagine that commute everyday, meandering through the tight cobblestone streets, watching the ever-so stylish Italian women walk gracefully while I try not to lose me heels, seeing amazing structures along the way.. I'll trade NYC any day for that walk to work.

From Trastevere, we approached the Pantheon from the back and it appears to be completely unassuming, I think we initially started taking pictures of this statue in a smaller Piazza just before you reach it and the husband then noticed the back of the building and says "I think that might be the Pantheon.."..imagine that! We walked up and sure enough, there it was..we gazed at it in amazement then realized we were about to be late for Italian class so we rushed off. For the next four months, we would visit the Pantheon on our own, with family when they visited and of course walked by it almost everyday. Good morning Pantheon..hah.

The building is circular with a portico of large granite Corinthian columns (eight in the first rank and two groups of four behind) under a pediment. A rectangular vestibule links the porch to the rotunda, which is under a coffered, concrete dome, with a central opening (oculus) to the sky. Almost two thousand years after it was built, the Pantheon's dome is still the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome. The height to the oculus and the diameter of the interior circle are the same, 43.3 metres (142 ft).

It is one of the best-preserved of all Roman buildings. It has been in continuous use throughout its history, and since the 7th century, the Pantheon has been used as a Roman Catholic church dedicated to "St. Mary and the Martyrs" but informally known as "Santa Maria della Rotonda." (..via)

On the inside, the Oculus provides an intense amount of natural light and the scale of the coffered dome becomes apparent. The ornate detail is beautiful and even though the space is filled with people at any given time, the acoustics of the Dome made it feel almost like we were alone. 

details on the columns

Underside of the exterior Portico

base of column

  

I love Beaba..

Just before Thanksgiving, Evalie's doctor suggested I start her on solids and so I thought this might be a great chance to get her used to others ways of getting nutrients besides her preferred method..which is...ME. Since I had already bought quite a few acorn squash for the holiday dinner, we started her with that. I had was steaming them in the oven so I just scooped one out for Evalie before I glazed the rest. Just as I was about to begin manually mushing it, I remembered I been given this Beaba Babycook as a shower gift. so I took it out and tried it! i loved it, in seconds I had perfectly mushed baby food!  

Now we're onto food number two ,carrots and I figured I should take advantage of all its capabilities so I steamed a few carrots in its cooking basket and then once it was done, poured the carrots right into the blending basket and immediately was able to puree them into this wonderfully fresh, smooth, bright orange baby food. It requires nothing else just a bit of water for a steaming. So I'm in love with it and am very excited to make more food. Apparently, you can make chicken, rice and more in it too...can't wait to make her something crazy like curry chicken in there..just kidding. Anyway, this may not be new to anyone but I remember trying this with a different food mill when Arielle was born and gave up very quickly because it was cumber some. 

Now, I take the pureed vegetable and put equal amounts in little baby storage cube and pop them in the fridge for dinner each night. tonight I'll be making sweet potatoes.

I am not being paid for this post..maybe I should be but I just really like the item!

Battling the bottle

Evalie is a few days shy of 5 months old ( can't believe it!) and is a great baby, right on track with everything..she sits up ( never rolled over..though), is vocal, reaches for things, does her tummy time, etc. She smiles, plays is so alert ( as every stranger who meets her reminds me!) BUT she absolutely detests that bottle.

Its the worst thing you could do to her in her little baby existence..nothing else makes her as mad and unsettled as the feeling of an artificial nipple in her mouth. She puts other things in her mouth..her fingers, my fingers, stuffed birds, burp cloths and more but when you attempt to feed her from a bottle the battle begins! She screams, cries, throws her head back and thrusts her feet forward as if she's trying to escape from the arms of who ever is feeding her. She won't stand for it! Its really making a bit of a problem for me because, I cannot be away from her for more than a couple of hours. We have been trying her at the bottle for several months actually, and have tried many bottles/nipples to no avail. I initially wanted to use glass bottles, so I bought four LifeFactory bottles before she came and just assumed when it was time, she'd take it..I was wrong. Its got a cool looking sillicone sleeve but, the nipple was hard and seemed to be choking her because its long so I went in search of a different bottle. We tried the bottles which her sister Arielle willingly took, the Playtex premium nurser and although it solved the choking problem and has a softer nipple shaped more like a natural nipple, she didn't like this one either. I then decided to try the bottle a few moms suggested was closest to natural, the Tommee Tippee and was pretty excited about it but she still would not latch on. My mother bought the NUK bottle which has a sculpted asymmetrical nipple and tried it on her and we began to make progess. She was willing to play with it and wasn't so mad during the feeding even though she still didn't actually latch on. We have since continued to feed her daily from that bottle but it become too stressful for the husband..coming home from work and having to be the bad guy (they advise having someone else feed her..not mommy) and deal with an extremely annoyed baby after missing her all day.

So a few days ago I had to go to a meeting and left at 10am and wouldn't return until 8pm, my husband took the day off to be on baby duty because we couldn't bear to leave her with anyone especially for the first time. He was nervous, I was nervous but we had to do it. I fed her before I left ( about 8:30am) and didn't come home until 7:45pm and she only took 1/4 of an ounce of milk from the bottle ( daddy had to squirt it in her mouth)..ALL DAY!
So now I ask, any suggestions people?..innovative ideas needed because I have tried it all. I will be returning to work in a few weeks and she will be with a nanny from 8:30 to 6:30 so she has to take the bottle, right? If you read this blog and have never commented, today is the day to start please because I am terrified to leave her if she plans on starving herself and clearly she does! Don't let those cheeks fool you!