Love in a loaf pan

Today, being a holiday, Jeremy and I were both at home. Jeremy took Jack to Chicago's Chinatown for an adventure (dim sum at Triple Crown, a very child-friendly restaurant), while I took Jossie to her first-ever class, a music class at Bubbles Academy. I was pleasantly surprised to see we had the same teacher Jack and I had four years ago.  My baby girl was so serious - she quietly watched the other crawlers, their parents and the teacher strumming her guitar. She even sighed at one point. When one little boy got too close, I assured his mother that Jossie would be fine - she has a big brother at home, after all. And...then Jossie dissolved into tears.

But eventually, she got into it, especially when they blasted recorded music from the speakers. She literally shook her diapered booty as she crawled across the carpeted room toward the kiddie maracas. And I know she's mine, but she is a sweetie little charmer, smiling at the other parents and the teacher (the kids have no interest to her, currently).

I ate up the experience. I'm pretty sure I was the only non-first-time mom in the room, and I looked back fondly at my early parenting days there four years ago, with an infant Jack, trying to figure out which end was up...if I needed to be friends with the fellow moms and if Jack was getting out of the class what he needed to learn. Now, it's all good - whatever works. I sang out-of-tune to Jossie, and we played gleefully with toys during the open play time. I laughed with the teacher at the end when she admitted she forgot the words to one of the songs - I don't think anyone - diapered or not - noticed.

I did a supermarket sweep at Whole Foods afterwards. My shopping trips are usually confined to the evenings once the kids are in bed, so it was nice to have Jossie with me. I knew our time was short since Jossie was nearing naptime, so I hustled. Though at one point, I just stopped and looked at my girl. I don't mean to paint her as so serious, but there she sat in her little light-pink, puffy coat zipped up, with her seat belt around her in the grocery cart seat. She was quiet, intently looking at me, her brow furrowed and her arms slightly out because her coat was so puffy. It was a mothering moment - I could have laughed or cried - I love her with every inch of my being.

I love being at home with my kids. I also love knowing that I'll be going to work tomorrow to a job I care about. I put a tired Jossie down for her nap at home, put away the groceries and took over Jack duties from Jeremy, who needed to go into the office. Jack and I baked one of our favorite quick breads - zucchini bread, my hallmark - the stuff of blue ribbons at the Ohio State Fair.

This recipe comes from my mom's beloved Aunt Shirley. My mom made a pretty big tweak to it (adding in the salt) and I added the applesauce. This recipe is why food is so special - it's love on a plate, passed down through the family tree.

Zucchini bread
3 eggs
2 cups sugar
¾ cup vegetable oil
¼ cup applesauce
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups grated zucchini
2 ½ cups flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Grated by hand.

Beat eggs.  Add sugar and blend well. Add oil, applesauce and vanilla.  Add zucchini. Mix together.  Sift together dry ingredients.  Gradually add to wet ingredients.  Stir in nuts.

Bake in 2 greased and floured medium loaf pans at 350 degrees F for 55 to 60 minutes.

If I bake you one of these, it's because I love you
or I want something from you.

When life gives you brown bananas...

...make banana bread. After a night of little sleep, I saw those darn brown bananas on my counter and decided to go for it. (I subscribe to my mother's philosophy that I'll rest when I'm dead.) I already pointed you toward this cooking blog before but just had to repeat her banana bread recipe with some teeny tiny modifications. It's super-easy - all in one bowl with no mixer - even a mom of a preemie can do it, with the help of her toddler son:

Banana bread, adapted from Smitten Kitchen

3 to 4 ripe bananas, smashed
1/3 cup melted unsalted butter
3/4 to 1 cup light brown sugar (depending on the level of sweetness you prefer; I use the smaller amount)
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon bourbon (optional)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
scant 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
Pinch of ground cloves

1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cup of flour

Preheat the oven to 350°F. With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, vanilla and bourbon, then the spices. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last, mix. Pour mixture into a buttered 4×8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 50 minutes to one hour, or until a tester comes out clean. Cool on a rack for about 10 minutes before removing from pan. Slice to serve.

My girlfriend made this for Jeremy and Jack while I was in the hospital for monitoring. They devoured it. And the results were great today too. 

We enjoyed a wonderful visit with long-time friends this afternoon, who we haven't seen in more than a year. They brought their 3-year-old twin boys, and Jack was in heaven. We caught up over Thai food from Penny's (a vestige of our twenty-something days in Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood) while the boys ran amok. And when I say amok, I mean amok: Three little boys yelling, dancing, turning lights on and off - I even caught Jack sitting atop his dresser. As they left, Jack declared, "I had fun with my visitors."

Do you know how amazing the human body is? It's amazing. I'm reading Dr. Sears' The Premature Baby Book, and mama's milk for a preemie is actually a different "formula" from that of a mother of a full-term baby. Can you stand it? Also, we've been doing kangaroo care, and apparently my body will change temperature to accommodate Jossie's body temperature. Crazy! We're doing some kangaroo care in my bed as I type this - no worries, I'm not balancing the laptop on the baby. Jazz is playing, Jeremy's playing Angry Birds on the iPad, and Roscoe the cat is snoozing between my legs. For a second, life is almost normal.

I think I'll go send Jeremy for one last piece of banana bread now. Good night! (I just picked my labels for this post and had to laugh - nothing better than babies, breads and family!)

Overripe bananas, you have met your match

I've been on the search for the perfect banana bread, and, holy moly, have I found it. It includes butter and lots of good spices. I did not add the optional bourbon but I think it would make it even more fantastic. I found said recipe on a great food blog, Smitten Kitchen. It is such a well designed, thoughtful blog. Please continue to read mine too, you promise?

One word to describe this weekend: food

I can't believe it's Monday night; we have survived the weekend! Openlands had a great fundraiser lunch Friday, complete with talks by U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, Bill Kurtis and Donna LaPietra and a wonderfully inspiring talk by Rick Bayless. As Rick said, buy local (food); be happy! We had about 700 guests, which was extremely satisfying, given our economy.


On to the weekend...Friday night, after taking Advil for my aching legs (running in heels all day), I started pulling out my party plates and purple napkins. Our good friends Emily and Steve came in late that night and after Northwestern's Homecoming football game Saturday, we hosted a pre-reunion party at our condo that included grilled lemon chicken skewers, Emily's homemade beef wontons, hummus with fresh vegetables, brie en croute - here's one variation - Emily's included fig jam, walnuts and dried cranberries, garlic and cheese crostini and pumpkin bread.


Pumpkin bread
1 (15 oz.) can of pumpkin puree
¾ cup vegetable oil
¼ cup applesauce
4 eggs
3½ cups all-purpose flour
3 cups white sugar
1½ teaspoons baking soda
1½ teaspoons salt
1½ teaspoons ground allspice
1½ teaspoons nutmeg
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ cup chopped nuts


Blend eggs and sugar. Blend in pumpkin, vegetable oil and applesauce. Sift together dry ingredients (including spices). Combine the two mixtures, blending thoroughly. Stir in nuts. Pour into 2 greased 9” x 5” x 3” loaf pans and bake at 300 degrees F for 1 hour. After removing from the oven, let the breads rest for 10 minutes before removing from the pans.


Sunday night, we went to Bon Soiree in Logan Square. It. was. wonderful. It has changed the way I look at food. The ingredients were seasonal and so fresh - the combinations were eye-opening and intriguing. Jeremy emailed the chef this morning, and he sent Jeremy back a kind note and a list of everything we tasted:

• Salad of shaved cucumbers, sorrel, kombu-tangerine vinaigrette, roasted peach, heirloom tomato
• Rabbit & duck confit motoyaki, torched ponzu aioli
• Kabocha squash soup with tart apples and yuzu citrus, white chocolate and bacon
• Lobster Sous Vide in wasabi duck fat with five styles of eggplant
• Braised Veal Cheek, Duck Breast, Chipotle Jus, Parsnip Potato pure with fines herbs, honey mushrooms and brussel sprouts
• Humboldt Fog, Pomegranate gelee, Thai basil tea puff, malted milk crisps
• Pear Gallette, housemade butterscotch ice cream

It was expensive but they are BYOB (and are committed to elevating the BYOB experience), which helped. I highly recommend! The chef is incredibly accommodating and invited us into his kitchen when we come back, which we surely will.