Delving back into the baking

I'm not sure if this is how my "nesting" instincts are kicking in (I mean, who would be surprised? Really?) but I suddenly have the desire to bake EVERYTHING. And by everything, I mean bake my way through Good to the Grain, by Kim Boyce, which I've owned for four years and have only cracked open a couple times.

Yes, I pulled that off Amazon, no, I don't have an affiliate link. And, in fact, I didn't buy this book from Amazon. I bought it at one of the very best bookstores in the world, Omnivore Books on Food in San Francisco. (I would title it the very best bookstore in the world but I visited Book Larder in Seattle this past spring. They are equal in awesomeness.)

I threw myself into baking a couple years ago when I had the small gluten-free baked good business at a farmer's market, but then in the midst of recovering from that, getting engaged, planning a wedding and cooking dinner most nights, I let the baking go by the wayside. I've had coworkers ask why my baked goods don't show up in the office kitchen anymore. Minus a stint at Christmas where I was buying two packages of butter every week or dessert for Sunday night dinner, my focus has been on the savory side. But now, especially with the heat wave over, baking is at the forefront of my consciousness, and with good timing too. You see, Brian plays some sports thing having to do with frisbee every Tuesday night. Early in my pregnancy that was a nice time to lay on the couch for long, uninterrupted hours but now, with my energy back, I have declared Tuesday to be Baking Night!

Last week I made the first recipe in Good to the Grain, Whole-Wheat Chocolate Cookies. I was surprised by the fact that Boyce doesn't soften the butter for these cookies, instead you blend the butter cold, like a pastry dough. I wish I had taken a picture because it turned out to be one of the most beautiful cookie dough's I've made. I edited the recipe a teensy bit and substituted 1 cup of whole wheat flour for AP, mostly to save my whole wheat flour stash. But I believe that an all-whole wheat cookie would still be outside. These cookies made the trip to the lake this weekend and were gone, gone, gone by Saturday morning.

On our trip to the Amish community I picked up a bag of graham flour for a song at their country store. (All bulk items! Lit by skylights! I put my phone number on my check like they might call me! Dumb). So the graham flour recipes are up next. I promise to take pictures tonight.

Weekend in the Country/Week 17

This past weekend will go down as one of the best of the summer. Our friends' parents have a lake house a couple hours into the country and we were invited to hang out with them for a weekend. Our friends, their parents, Grandma, their toddler-aged daughter and us made the best of an unusually cool weekend. We didn't get into the lake at all, choosing fires and 'smores, a trip to the fish hatchery and an Amish community, mornings and evenings playing with Jane. We relaxed, read, ate good food and soaked up the scenery. I've never been to an Amish community, so getting to see their country store, woodworking shop and farmland was marvelous. I would have taken a few pictures, but the Amish are shy about photos and I didn't want to offend anyone. Brian and I dream of eventually living on a few acres with space for a woodworking shop for him and a huge vegetable garden for me.

Brian "reading" to Jane. She currently sits still for about 8.2 seconds. Also, he's going to make the most amazing Dad ever. This picture makes my heart in a million ways. I can't wait.

In the meantime, before our farmhouse dreams appear, we have a baby coming to our two bedroom apartment, so we lingered over the gliders and cribs in the furniture shop. I'm 17 weeks pregnant today, the baby is apparently the size of an onion. (And they didn't even specify what size onion. I mean, onions come in a range of sizes. Just yesterday I bought pearl onions and sweet onions.) But I do know the baby is doubling in size between now and my ultrasound in three weeks and I can tell. As is, my belly is always a little sore or pained from all the growing that is happening right now. My jeans officially don't button anymore, as of last week, so I'll have to go maternity shopping sooner rather than later.

The skirts I bought a couple weeks are coming in handy, though. This one still has room and isn't a maternity piece.

Our first official harvest! A cucumber, a beefsteak tomato, a couple Juliets and a Sungold.

Our garden, week 17. Now the squash (still no fruit) has climbed off the end of the planter. Frankly, I'm not sure what we're doing with it now.

Another cucumber! 

The first eggplant! This is the long Japanese eggplant. I'm so excited. I had to fight with the Brussels Sprouts leaves to get this shot.

And I will sing Hallelujah

Like many other new parents-to-be, Brian and I have been learning about pregnancy and birth and babies as we go. Every pain sends us running for the book that came with my first doctor's appointment. Mostly because I say "it's normal" and Brian looks at me and says "are you sure?" which means "I'd prefer to call the doctor and ask her" but I don't want to call the doctor, so I look it up in the book. There it is, random aches and pains, right under month four, exactly where I am. I've had a sincerely easy pregnancy so far, so everything unusual seems heightened.

I decided we should get a little more acquainted with the birth process, seeing as how our current plan is "seeing how it goes." I had seen The Business of Being Born (TBBB) before, when one of my best friends was training to be a doula, and I knew our best friends up here, our parents gurus, had watched it. It's a pretty hippie-leaning documentary (and I think that's a kind description). I purposely had us wait to watch it until we had met our doctor and seen the hospital. She's awesome, the hospital is awesome, the maternity ward feels very calm and serene. Exactly where you want to have a baby. But TBBB focuses on how doctors (as a sweeping generalization) don't understand natural birth, hospitals are money makers (true) looking at the bottom line, we should all have our babies in our living room, hooray! 

I'm the last person to knock home birth. I, and my little sister, were successfully born in my parents' first house, with the help of a CS nurse, a midwife, and a doctor who showed up at the end. But it's not right for us. We watched TBBB to help learn what questions to ask, and they're some good ones: How long can I labor before my doctor orders Pitocin? What, exactly, will constituent needing a c-section? Can I labor in the tub awhile? Should we talk to the doulas who practice at the hospital? 

How am I getting from here to Hallelujah? 

Brian noted that the TBBB focus seemed to be on control. They say that in the hospital, the parents have no control. At home, the birthing mother (going through her "rite of womanhood," sorry, I'm not that hippie) has all the control. Our first thought was "we're not experienced in having a baby, we're going to let the doctor be in control." And then we remembered that Dr. K had said "the baby's going to have its own plan and that's the plan we'll follow." So, the baby's in control, right? 

Wrong. The baby's not in control, Dr. K isn't in control and I'm not in control. It struck me as I was making dinner, singing along to my worship music, my own small version of kitchen church: God is in control. God is in control today, week 16, 5 days. God is in control in month 9, and God is in control in the delivery. Just as I sing His praises in my kitchen, I will also sing His praises in the hospital, as He brings new life in our world.

Amen. 

16 weeks

Sixteen weeks pregnant, and it feels like a lull. Minimal symptoms, teensy bump that's not apparent in most outfits, not really feeling the baby yet. I thought I was last week, but now I'm thinking that was mostly tummy feelings. However, I won't complain. Sleeping through the night sometimes is nice and I know once I start feeling the baby move, it won't stop and then it'll start kicking me in the ribs. I'm grateful our short Midwest heat wave is over. My pale Welsh skin and body temperament doesn't play well with 90 degree heat, especially while pregnant. I spent two evenings at my parents' house last week, because one, I truly enjoy seeing my parents, but two, they have central a/c. And snacks. And I am ALL about the snacks right now.

Tiny bump. Apparent to those who know I'm pregnant. I'm sure everyone else thinks I eat a dozen doughnuts for breakfast or something.

The garden exploded this week, too, thanks to the heat and the fertilizer we put down. 

Unlike the baby, our garden is having fertility issues. We finally figured out that the cucumber and squash aren't getting pollinated. We looked up videos on how to self-pollinate and marched out, determined to get our cucumbers laid, only find out that we don't have any boy cucumber flowers! And our squash seems to be producing only boy flowers, no female plants with veggies attached. It's frustrating seeing as how we only have so much real estate in our little garden...

Peppers! These are Johnny Nardellos, an heirloom sweet red pepper.

15 weeks pregnant

I'm 15 weeks pregnant and here's what's happening in our house:

Dinner last night
Brian, watching me poke at my half-eaten plate of grilled veggies and couscous, "Are you done already?"
Me: "I think so. I don't really want anymore. I don't know what's going on! I think the baby is messing with my cooking."
Brian: "The baby is messing with your eating, your cooking is fine. This is delicious! If you could have anything, what do you want?"
Me: "Bleeeeeech. No food. The yogurt from Starbucks, maybe."
Brian: "You're fine. You're probably just not hungry. Let it go. Remember, don't compare yourself to me. Not many people can eat like your husband." He grins and gets a second helping.

And there went dinner. Of course, I ate three scoops of homemade Strawberry Sorbet for dessert, because, hello. It was delicious.

Saturday night chicken and veggie kabobs, which I also didn't feel like eating.

#BeatTheHeat. Went to my parents' neighborhood pool. It was glorious and FREE. We will be returning.

The garden, at 15 weeks. Things are slowly, slowly growing.

This picture is for posterity's sake. I want to see if the slugs stop eating my brussels sprouts.

Heirloom peppers. Maybe they'll be ripe before the first frost.

The "bulge." It's still not truly a bump and everybody exclaims, you don't look pregnant at all! 

Week 14 Update

Apparently our baby is the size of a lemon. I find these fruit sizes kinda silly. I mean, a lemon is an entirely different shape than a peach. And a meyer lemon is smaller than a regular non-fancy lemon. To sum up, I have no idea how big our baby is. BUT, we did get some communication late last week at Dr. K's office when we heard the heartbeat again. The heartbeat came up on the monitor immediately, loud and strong.

Still no real baby bump. Still not complaining. I KNOW the weight's gonna come eventually.

Garden is growing. These picture were taken on Monday and I feel like that eggplant is already bigger.

Butternut squash flower!

The other fun bit of this week was making flight and hotel reservations for our "babymoon" to Washington DC! We're going to see L, my college roommate and hopefully A, my best friend from Chicago, and hopefully some other friends in the area. I can't wait!

Peachy-keen baby

This week Baby C is the size of a peach. Basically, that means nothing to me, except that I guess I have a strange peach-sized thing in my belly. People ask me how the baby is and I don't know what to say. Fine, I guess? I heard its heartbeat four weeks ago, but since then the communication has been minimal. Take up texting, Baby, even your grandparents have.

This is about twelve pounds of strawberries. Picked in about an hour by Brian and I, at $1.60 a pound, totally worth it.

Over the weekend we picked and canned pounds upon pounds of strawberries with friends. There was Strawberry Jam, Strawberry Vanilla Jam, Strawberry Margarita Preserves and Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Filling. I learned the hard way that plain jam, without pectin, takes FOREVER to cook. Sorry grandmas of the yesteryears, I'll only be making that mistake once. We came away with over the 12 pints, and still didn't go through all the strawberries we picked. The final few will go in the freezer tonight. After five hours of canning yesterday I few onto the couch in a stupor, with a slight headache. A viewing of the Bourne Ultimatum, complete with commercial naps and four cups of water cured the headache. I seem to notice dehydration faster, so I drink lots and lots of water now.

Me, 13 weeks pregnant. I kinda refuse to believe that's a baby bump. I'm thinking it's a "hooray carbs and boo gym" bump, but we can go with baby.

This week I'm grateful for good friends, amazing summer weather, decent healthcare, and my incredible husband who waters the garden, grocery shops, does the dishes, pays our bills, takes out the trash and does other ordinary yet amazing acts of love for his wife. (That's quite a list. I'd say I help too, but I'm pretty sure I've slacked off in the helping department recently.) I'm grateful for a three day work-week and a long weekend to relax and spend time with my family. I'm grateful for our church family, who sent the sweetest card this past week. 

The garden, 13 weeks pregnant. Much like me, it looks the same as last week.

Tiny cucumber. Congrats, Baby C, you're officially bigger than sometime else we're growing.

Roasted Peach ice cream with Strawberry-Vanilla jam topping

A free hour resulted in a game of Dominos. I usually kick Brian's butt, but he managed to beat me this time.