Fish Tacos

For Chelsea.  Because no one better understands a pregnancy craving than a pregnant lady.

I love fish tacos.  Easy, healthy, inexpensive, and delicious, these are a huge hit in my kitchen.  This seems to feed 4 adults, so adjust as necessary.

You'll need:
1 lb fish.  I use thawed formerly frozen tilapia, but any fish will work.
2-3 cups of finely shredded cabbage
Diced tomatoes
Salsa
Cilantro
Corn tortillas

For the sauce:
1 cup plain yogurt
1/3 cup mayo
1 tsp lime juice
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp dried dill
1/2 tsp oregano
1 tsp minced capers

Lay fish fillets on a cookie sheet, sprinkle both sides with a few drop of lime juice, and a little cumin, chili powder, and salt.  Bake at 375 until done.  Tilapia only takes 12-15 minutes.  You can find recipes to batter and fry your fish, but I'm just as happy with the easy baked version, so that's what I do.  While the fish is baking, mix up the sauce and make the slaw.

To make the sauce, mix together sauce ingredients.  You can use more or less yogurt or mayo, and can always substitute sour cream if needed.  The capers aren't essential, but add a nice little undertone.  You can also add garlic, cayenne, or salt, depending on your preferences.

To make the slaw, mix about a third of the sauce with the shredded cabbage.  Add a few extra drops of lime juice, and a sprinkle of salt.

After the fish is done baking, use the warm oven to liven up the corn tortillas.  Grab as many as you think will be consumed (10 or so, maybe), and get them thoroughly wet.  Shake off excess water, and pop them in the oven (straight on the rack) for about 60 seconds.

Serve immediately.  I break up chunks of fish onto my tortillas, and then top with a hefty dollop of sauce, then the slaw, tomatoes, salsa and cilantro.  Pairs well with a Corona or margarita.  Enjoy!

Elaina's Birthday Party

We had a very pink first birthday party for Elaina on Saturday evening.  Almost everyone wore something pink, and of course there were pink balloons and pink presents and pink cake.

I made a huge pot of souvlaki, and dozens of pitas, and then my whole family (except Samuel) and Bryan's whole family came to eat dinner and celebrate!

Giving kisses to the birthday girl.

Singing Happy Birthday!

The white cake I made, but I used food coloring to make it a pink ombre.  I made a cream cheese butter cream frosting that turned out pretty well, too.

Elaina just sort of picked at it.  She didn't devour it with delight the same way her big sister did on her first birthday.

Bryan thought to grab my iPhone and get a video.


Everyone in pink!  Or at least, various shades of red.

Opening some presents.

Her first baby doll from her mama and daddy.

Digging into the gift bags.

Curious about her distorted reflection on the birthday card.

The children looking at and playing with all of the new things.

Holding two of my favorite two babies.  They're a lot bigger than they were six months ago. 

It was a fun time.  We are quickly outgrowing our living room.  Maybe we'll have to move into a bigger place at some point.

The next day, Elaina was giving her new baby doll some snuggles. 

I asked my sister to take pictures, so thanks for being my personal photographer, Katie! 
Most photographs taken by Katherine Botkin.

We've Been Domestic

We really have. 

Well technically, I suppose I'm domestic every day.  But changing diapers, reading books, and cooking dinner doesn't usually make it into the glamorous side of domesticity.  It's the extra stuff that gets the attention. 

Last month I bottled up some delicious vanilla vodka.  I was hoping it would be strong enough to use for baking, but it mixes well for sipping too.  The vanilla beans had been marinading in vodka for 14 months.

Then last week I made a cake.  A Gluten-free, Dairy-free, Salted Caramel Coconut Mocha Cake for our church dinner last week.  (Recipe found here.) This was, perhaps, one of the most frustrating culinary experiences of my life.  The cake actually turned out great.  As long as you didn't notice the little clumps of baking powder that didn't mix well.  But the frosting... oh, the miserable frosting.  After almost two hours in the kitchen, I had completely ruined two attempts at making frosting.  The spatula turned out not to be made of silicone, and didn't hold up very well to the heat of the first batch of caramel.  Oops.  And with the second batch, the meringue buttercream ended up more like caramely scrambled eggs.  Double oops.

So I just made the salted coconut caramel and used that.  Not the prettiest cake I've ever made, but it turned out alright in the end.

I've been doing various artsy crafty stuff, too.  I saw a cute idea on Pinterest to make some pretend miniature tea bags out of cloth, but I figured I'd make them a little more realistic.  So a couple of days ago I used a coffee filter, some brown paper, a threaded needle, and a little glue.  Voila.

They fit perfectly into Chloë's tiny porcelain tea cups.

Aaand I made lots of jam. Five batches of it, actually.  I unloaded the bags of frozen berries from my freezer, and got to jammin'.  I know it doesn't look like much, but those pint jars hold a lot of jam! One batch of raspberry, and four batches of cherry raspberry mix. Chloë and Elaina eat a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Thus concludes my domestic post for this month. I'll spare you pictures of the dirty diapers. But don't worry. I really don't have any pictures of dirty diapers. From this month, anyway.

Chocolate Guinness Stout Cake

My family was in town for Isaiah's birthday. He not-so-subtly hinted that he wished someone would make him a chocolate Guinness cake for his birthday. So I took it upon myself to bake him a birthday cake. I had used this recipe from Epicurious before, and it proved itself delectable yet again.  I used the Irish Cream buttercream frosting and the Jameson whiskey gnache from my carbomb cupcakes, and shaved some chocolate one top of the finished product.  I need to work on my frosting skills, but it wasn't too shabby.  Between the cake and the frosting, I used almost two pounds of butter.  Yes, two pounds.  Meaning eight sticks, meaning four cups. Of butter.  The cake was moist, rich, dense, and not overly sweet. 

Everyone loved it.  So much, in fact, that my mother-in-law requested that I make it again the next week for her birthday.

Jessie's Bridal Shower

Christa put together a fabulous not-so-little Bridal Shower for Jessie out at the ol' Alpaca Farm on Saturday. We estimated about 70 ladies showed up.  We had a great introduction hearing a brief version of Jessie and Kaleb's romance.  There was lots of food and fellowship, and of course lots and lots of presents.

 

 

Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes

I kept trying to call them "Guinness Jameson Baileys Cupcakes," but it just didn't have much of a ring to it.

These cupcakes are delectable. They have Guinness in the cake, Jameson whiskey in the ganache center, and Irish cream in the frosting. The Guinness is a very subtle flavor, but the Whiskey and Irish Cream are definitely palatable. They were delicious. And I was finally able to put my new KitchenAid to good use.

Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes

For the Cupcakes:
1 cup Guinness stout
1 cup butter, room temperature
3/4 cup cocoa powder
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
2/3 cup sour cream

For the Ganache Filling:
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
2/3 cup heavy cream
2 tbs butter, room temperature
2 1/2 tsp Irish whiskey

For the Frosting:
1 cup butter, room temperature
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
3 tbs Baileys Irish Cream

To make the cupcakes:
-Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 24 cupcake cups with liners.
-Bring the Guinness and butter to a simmer in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the cocoa powder and whisk until the mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.
-Stir the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt in a large bowl to combine.
-In separate bowl, beat eggs and sour cream on medium speed until combined. Add the Guinness and chocolate mixture to the egg mixture and beat just to combine. Reduce the speed to low, add the flour mixture and beat briefly.
-Divide the batter among the cupcake liners. Bake until a thin knife inserted into the center comes out clean, about 17 minutes. Cool the cupcakes on a rack.

To make the ganache filling:
-In microwave safe bowl, microwave chocolate chips for 2 minutes (stirring every 30 seconds) or until melted. Slowly add the cream, and stir until combined and smooth.
-Add the butter and whiskey and stir until combined. Let the ganache cool until thick.
-Cut the centers out of the cooled cupcakes, going about half way down.
-Spoon ganache into the holes.

To make the frosting:
-Using the whisk attachment of a stand mixer, whip butter on medium-high speed for 5 minutes, scraping the sides of the bowl occasionally.
-Reduce speed to medium-low and gradually add the powdered sugar until all of it is incorporated.
-Add the Irish Cream, increase the speed to medium-high and whip for another 2 minutes, until light and fluffy.
-Using your favorite decorating tip, or an offset spatula, frost the cupcakes.

Enjoy! Store the cupcakes in an airtight container.

Recipe adapted from BrownEyedBaker.

Homemade Samoas

Y'know... like the Girl Scout cookie. These are amazing. I'm not gonna lie, they were a lot of work. But they were so worth it. The coconut caramel topping is the right amount of chewy, the shortbread base has great crunch, and the chocolate just makes them that much more amazing.



Homemade Samoas

For the shortbread:
1 cup butter, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 tbs milk

For the toppings:
3 cups shredded coconut, toasted
15 oz soft caramels (I used a 14 oz. bag of Kraft caramels)
1/4 tsp salt
3 to 4 tbs milk
8 oz semisweet chocolate (I used 1 cup chocolate chips)
8 oz milk chocolate (I broke up a chocolate bar)

To make the shortbread:
-Cream together butter and sugar with a mixer until light and fluffy.
-In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Slowly add to the butter mixture.
-At low speed, add in the milk and vanilla.
-Separate the dough into halves (or thirds) and wrap in plastic or store in tupperware. Refrigerate until the dough is as firm as a stick of butter. (I wrapped my dough in saran wrap and refrigerated overnight.)
-When your dough is firm enough to roll out, preheat the oven to 350. Roll dough on lightly floured surface to 1/8" thickness, and use cookie cutter or biscuit cutter to cut dough into circles.
-Place cookies on cookie sheet, and bake for 8 to 12 minutes, depending on cookie size and thickness. They should be barely golden around the edges. Cool on cooling rack.

To make the Coconut Caramel Topping:
-Place caramels, milk and salt in a microwave safe bowl and microwave until melted; about three minutes, stirring every 45 seconds.
-Stir the toasted coconut into the caramel mixture.
-Using a knife or offset spatula, spread the caramel mixture on top of your cookies. (This is when I realized I needed closer to 4 tablespoons of milk in my mixture.) You may need to reheat the mixture every 10 minutes since it gets difficult to spread as it cools.

Base coat and drizzle with chocolate:
-Place all the chocolate in microwave safe bowl and microwave until melted; about 2 minutes, stirring every 30 seconds.
-Dip the bottoms of the cookies in the chocolate. Or use a spoon or knife and spread the chocolate on. Or put a little dollop of chocolate on the bottom center of the cookie, and slowly squish and turn the cookie on waxed paper until you can see the chocolate peeking under the edges. Whatever your method, place in rows on wax paper.
-Spoon remaining chocolate into piping bag (or a ziplock baggie, and then snip off a tiny corner), and pipe chocolate in rows across the cookies.
-Let chocolate cool completely, then remove from wax paper.
-Enjoy!

Recipe adapted from Instructables.

Artisan Bread

A little over a month ago, I borrowed a book from a friend: Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day. My life will never be the same.

I've made bread a hundred times in the past, and have always had great success. But it always seemed like a big project... exact measurements and temperatures, kneading and multiple rises; it could take all afternoon.

But really, this bread is so easy, I almost feel like I'm somehow cheating. I gave the book back to my friend Hope, but haven't forgotten this super easy recipe:

Find a large bowl. Dump in:
3 cups lukewarm water
1 1/2 tablespoons yeast
1 1/4 tablespoons salt
6 1/4 cups all purpose flour (I usually use a cup of whole wheat flour)

Stir it up for a minute or so, until the flour it all moist. It doesn't matter if it doesn't look perfect. (The canner has nothing to do with the bread. I was just too lazy to move it.)

Cover it with a non-airtight lid. Leave on the counter or somewhere room temperature, and ignore it for two hours. Then it will look like this:

Then cover it, and put it in the fridge, for at least 3 hours, but up to two weeks. Yes really.

When you want a fresh loaf, use a serrated knife, and cut off a quarter of the dough. (Or you can just quarter it up and bake it all at once. If I want larger loafs, I just cut it into thirds and bake it a little longer.) Sprinkle some cornmeal somewhere, and shape the dough, patting it with a little bit of flour when you're done shaping it. Let it "rest" for about 40 minutes. (The book talked about how it was important for the dough to rest, even though it does most of its rising the first few minutes it's in the oven.)

About halfway through the "resting" turn your oven on to 375. If you have a pizza stone, put it in the oven and let it heat up. After the 40 minutes are passed, take the pizza stone out of the oven, and gently transfer your dough. Use a serrated knife and cut some slits in the dough.

Put the stone on the middle rack in your oven, and then put about a cup of water in a pan, and put it on a lower rack in the oven. The evaporating water is part of the magical process.
Then wait 35 minutes.
Then take the bread out, and let cool on a rack. It smells really good.

You can drool a little, if you want.

It slices best if it's almost cool. If you slice it while it's hot, it will still feel a little "dough-y" on the inside. I'm not sure how well it keeps, because we always eat it within a day.

Buy the book. It has dozens of recipes that you can use the basic dough for: all sorts of savory things, and even cinnamon rolls.

So easy. Basically no dishes. And so worth it. Do it.