.happy march.

Does anybody else love new months? I know I do.

And I've decided to take this month to really focus on what I eat. I'm a week away from being 4 months pregnant and, well, I'm starting to get concerned about what goes into my body. Don't get me wrong, I've been eating okay for the last 4 months, avoiding caffeine, raw sushi, and lunch meat and getting lots of fruits and veggies, etc. At the same time though.... well..... you saw that lemon pound cake, right? Yeah. If it's true, you are what you eat, my ass is a lemon pound cake.

Sexy, eh?

Really though, a healthier me will equal a healthier pregnancy, which will equal a healthier wee lil' bebe, which will equal a healthier and happier non-pregnant me, bebe and the man. All very positive things.

It probably helps that a lot of the food blogs I frequent are very health focused, Ms. Smart, Angela, Emily and many others! I'm also pretty lucky in the sense that I enjoy healthy food. I mean, sure, I also like pound cake and pizza but I can get down on vegetables, lean protein, and fruit.

Now, I'm not saying I'll be perfect but I definitely will be making more of an effort to eat things with more nutritional value for me and the baby, and by default, the man. For right now a good bit of this will also be on the vegetarian side. I love meat, and will still eat meat when we eat out, but the thought of raw meat in my kitchen still gets me on the queasy side. Blech.

The fake mirepoix

Tonight (surprise to the man!) I actually got back in the kitchen to make something more than baked goods. Yay! It's a bit of a transition meal though. How is that you ask? Well, it does have a quarter cup of heavy cream in it. Yeah, yeah. I know. But a quarter cup for 6 servings isn't the worst thing in the world. And I had the cream left over from the panna cotta. Eating more nutritiously doesn't mean wasting what's already in the fridge!

Tomato Bisque serves 6
1 1/2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 carrot, diced
1/2 onion, diced
Garlic powder for taste
Salt for taste
3 Tablespoons flour
4 cups chicken stock (or vegetable stock)
2 (14.5 ounce) cans of tomato (fire roasted, diced, doesn't matter)
3 Tablespoons tomato paste
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 green onion for garnish*

Ready to blend!

Heat the oil in a medium saucepan. Add the carrot and onion. The original recipe I found called for celery as well but I didn't have any, if you want to make a true mirepoix add celery. Cook the vegetables until they are soft. Add the garlic powder, salt and sprinkle the flour over the vegetables. Combine until the flour is dissolved. Add the tomatoes, tomato paste and chicken stock. I used one can of plain diced tomatoes and one can of diced tomatoes with basil, garlic and oregano. Simmer for 15 minutes.

Almost done. Just added the cream.

Transfer most of the solids and some of the broth to a blender. Let cool for a few minutes then blend until smooth (be careful blending hot liquids!). Place back in the saucepan and add the cream. Cook until the soup is heated back through.

Place in bowls and garnish with the green onion.

*The green onion is optional but I highly recommend it. I tasted the bisque before serving it and then tasted it with the green onions while we were eating it. They give the flavor a lot of extra zing! Way delicious. I also served it with some ghetto garlic bread which I badly burned under the broiler.... I should apparently not be allowed to broil thing. Oi.

**

**The man went for thirds (thirds! He likes it, he really likes it!) and just threw two pieces of bread in there with the bisque. It was quite good this way as well. He's creative like that.

XO

.daring bakers challenge: february.

Alright! Here it is for real this time.

Ready to be filled!

The February 2011 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Mallory from A Sofa in the Kitchen. She chose to challenge everyone to make Panna Cotta from a Giada De Laurentiis recipe and Nestle Florentine cookies.

Awaiting their chocolate drizzles...

This challenge was so fun. Honestly, both the panna cotta and the cookies were insanely easy. I was so excited to take pictures of them outside on the deck today but it has been dreary and rainy all day long! Bummer!

I did encounter a few issues. The first being, I made my strawberry gelee right after putting my panna cotta in the fridge. Not a smart move on my part. I would recommend waiting a few hours before making a gelee, if you even do, because the panna cotta needs time to set first. So, my gelee just kind of hung out for a bit. I also will probably not even make the gelee if I do panna cotta again, however, as it was a bit too gelled... it tasted a bit rubbery and I wound up eating around it. I might not have added enough fruit. Another issue, my Florentine cookies didn't seem to spread as much as they should have. Not sure what the issue was, but they were still pretty tasty.

I would like to make both of these desserts again. Next time I make the cookies I will probably cut back on the sugar a little bit. They were right on the cusp of being too sweet. The panna cotta, though, was spot on (minus the gelee).

XO

.i'm back.

Did you miss me? I missed you!

Juice and zest for the glaze!

So, I finally seem to be feeling a little bit better and decided I needed to get my self back in the kitchen. My poor husband is a saint. He has subsisted for the last two months on sandwiches, canned soup, take out and frozen pizzas. And he has not complained once. What a man.

Once I started feeling better I thought about what exactly I wanted to start off cooking. I thought I would do something a little bit fun. On thebump.com there is a chart showing you the size of your baby as the pregnancy progresses. For each week they show the new size with a new fruit or vegetable. Very cute, n'est pas? I don't even want to begin to think about week 40 (a watermelon, ZOMG!) but for this last week (week 14) the little nugget was the size of a lemon. I'm going to try to make a new dish each week to correspond with the size of the bebe. This might only last a week, but either way I'll try, haha.

Lemon glaze. And a lemony apron.

I got to thinking, lemons are pretty tasty. You can make a lot of stuff with lemons. This led me to Mrs. Martha Stewart. She has a delicious looking Meyer Lemon Pound Cake recipe that I thought I would scale down. The recipe can be found here. I only made 1/3 of the batter, and that fit perfectly in my loaf pan. I also decreased the cooking time from 1.5 hours to only 1 hour, and that was still too much. The cake was a little bit overcooked. I would recommend checking it at 45 minutes. I also had some issues with my glaze. It was a little bit too runny at first so, I added quite a bit more confectioners sugar and that did the trick.

Overall the recipe was super tasty, very light and lemony. This was my first pound cake and my first time cooking with lemon! It was very successful I would say. 

XO

.dear me.

I am terribly sorry with the lack of posts, folks. No excuse, I just haven't been cooking much. Why you ask? Oh, no reason really..... just a little thing called morning sickness. Bleh!

And actually I don't know if I should even call it that, as I have gotten off quite easy. It's been more like mild-nausea that spikes when I am around food. So yeah, I've generally stayed out of the kitchen lately.

I will be up and at 'em in no time though. And I have been finding some awesome things that I want to try!

I feel like I should end this by telling you I ate Kosher Dill Hot Sauce Flavored pickles, for breakfast. Yeah.

XO