makin' stuff

There has been quite a lull in posting on this blog....sorry! things have been a bit busy. we welcomed our second child into the fam on April 5th - Christian Theodor Schwarz. Besides that our household has been plagued by infection after infection - nobody went unscathed!! Tomorrow will be a recipe post (promise) - one to help get rid of those potatoes that still might be showing up in the spring veggie boxes or hanging out in cold rooms. until then here are a few pics of the new arrival and the stuff I made for the use what you have group challenge.
cheers!

food entry: eggs

Ok, so here is the first food related entry that actually includes a recipe. This recipe is from a book we have at home called "Kochen mit Pettersson und Findus" - "cooking with pettersson and findus". It is a wonderful kids' cookbook based on food items in the series of Findus and Pettersson books by Sven Nordqvist. These are really wonderful books with great illustrations. I am not sure whether they are available in english, but they are definitely available in German and I would think Swedish as well since the author is from Sweden. The cookbook is a delight and the recipes are split into the four seasons. The recipe below is for "Pfannkuchentorte" (or pancake torte/cake). If you need a recipe that uses a good number of eggs, then this is a good one! Plus, regardless of what time of year you prepare it, the ingredient list has no real "out of season" items in it.

For the Pancakes:
5 eggs
400 mL milk
3 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
250 g flour
100 mL water
2 Tbsp butter

For the Filling:
200 mL heavy cream (for whipping)
Jam (whatever flavor floats your boat!)

Directions:
(1) mix together the eggs, milk, sugar, salt, and flour. Make sure that you mix until smooth (without any lumps)
(2) let the mixture sit for about 15-20 minutes
(3) put some of the butter in a pan. add a bit more butter between each pancake batch
(4) add enough dough to fill the base of the pan
(5)bake pancakes on both sides until golden.
(6) take out of pan and allow time to cool
(7) whip the heavy cream with a mixer until thick
(8) spread jam over one of the pancakes
(9) stack another pancake on top and spread whipped cream on this one
(10) follow pattern of steps 8 & 9, alternating between jam and whipped cream until last pancake is on the stack
(11) put whipped cream on top of last pancake
(12) garnish with fruit that are in season or a bit of maple syrup or almonds or whatever you please
Enjoy!!

and here is a picture of Pettersson and Findus enjoying their Pfannkuchentorte in the garden:

UWYH-button

UWYH-button
Originally uploaded by suzy @ floating world.

I just joined this group on Flickr. I have quite a few baby projects I would like to wrap up before number 2 arrives (which could be any day now) and had been hoping to make everything on the list with supplies that I already have. Hopefully joining this group is the fire under my butt to get the projects finished and also use just what is on hand.

karaoke queen

karaoke queen
Originally uploaded by carschwarz.

I started this blog with the intention to make it somewhat useful and focus on cooking for and with kids from items grown locally and in season (e.g. food from CSA shares). That really is still my goal, although so far I have failed horribly at meeting that goal. I think I started this blog prematurely. In that sense I mean in the middle of big life changes such as finishing up my thesis and defending it and getting ready for the addition of bean number 2 to our family. Even though nobody is really reading this and so perhaps is not seeing me fail horribly at my blog attempt, it still feels like a failure to me at this point. My hope is that by mid april there will be more of the content that I was originally hoping for. the time between now and then will give me a chance to tie up loose ends and do a bit of research/ brainstorming about how to best approach the food+kids topic. If anyone is reading this blog, please bare with me - the proposed content will come. until then, how about a few more pictures?
cheers!

march 06

march 06
Originally uploaded by carschwarz.

The First Challenge

I'm still not sure exactly how this blog is going to function - especially in the the first few months as I will mainly be using this time to explore recipe ideas and also since it's still winter here in central PA and the produce is still not as diverse as it will be in the upcoming months. So, I thought I would just take this time to pick a single product out of the winter share of our veggie box for each week and concentrate on it and possible recipes that (a) involve the help of children in the food preparation and (b) might taste good to kids as well. It seems from past experience that one of the best ways to make a new food item appealing to a child is to make them part of the food preparation process. That said, some days work out better for this than others. My helper, who is now four years old, really loves to spend time in the kitchen and cook and bake with my husband and I, but there are also days where it is the last thing on earth she wants to do. Those days tend to be the ones where she just needs to squiggle and participate in an activity that does not require much concentration. It is best not to push a child to help cook on days they are not interested - otherwise you might end up with a child that never wants to help again because it becomes a chore rather than a fun event.
So now to introduce the challenge of the week: butternut squash.

And of course my helper (with her interesting morning face)!

First Post

Hi! I am probably the only person who will read this test post, so I suppose I am just saying hi to myself.
My hope for this blog is to use it as a journal of sorts for exploring and concocting recipes for locally grown/produced and seasonal foods that are kid friendly. I feel like there have been just too many times that I have looked at the items in our veggie box and just had no idea how I could make that appealing to a four year old. I have found some good sources for preparing the "odd" items for adults, but there really does not seem to be a good source out there for cooking for children from the standard veggie box items.