Creamy Potatoes

You might have noticed I've been doing a lot of cooking with potatoes lately.  It's a winter thing for me.  In terms of seasonal produce, potatoes are just about as seasonal as it comes.  Potatoes spend all summer growing and storing up starch, getting as fat as a bear preparing for hibernation.  This growing and storing of starch makes them especially filling when the days are cold and the nights are long.

I love potatoes for thickening soup and stews.  But where I come from, they are a pretty typical side dish.  Thatboy grew up with rice as a side dish for most meals, but we always had baked potatoes, or stuffed potatoes, or oven fries.  

This is a combination of those two things.  These skillet potatoes use the potato's natural starch to create a creamy sauce, thickening the beef broth.  It makes the perfect side, a nice change from your typical oven-cooked potato.  And dicing the potato makes it cook fast enough for a weeknight.  Gotta love surface area to volume ratios.

Creamy Diced Potatoes
1 Tbsp butter
1/2 onion, chopped
3 Yukon gold potatoes, diced
1/4 cup beef broth
salt and pepper

1. Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat. Cook the onion until translucent.
2. Add the potatoes and mix well.
3. Stir in the beef broth and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer, covered for 10-20 minutes, until the potatoes are fork tendered.
4. Season with salt and pepper.

Penne Arrabbi-vodka

I love spicy pasta.  Well, I like spicy food in general, but I especially like spicy pasta.  One of my favorites is arrabbiata sauce.  Arrabbiata is Italian for angry, which is one of my favorite parts of the sauce.  I mean, who doesn't like angry pasta?

The traditional arrabiata sauce is basically tomato, garlic, and red chili pepper cooked in olive oil.  Which is easy.  So easy in fact that I wanted to spice it up a bit.  I decided to improve on an old favorite by playing around with the ingredients.  I decided to make a vodka-arrabiata sauce.  But I've never made a vodka sauce before.  And while searching for a good recipe, I ran across Mary's vodka cream sauce.  I thought the cream would serve as a nice counterpart to the spicy red chili pepper of the arrabbiata sauce.  I did reduce the amount of cream though - it's not the primary aspect of this dish and you don't need a lot to make the sauce creamy. 

The result is an impossibly creamy, spicy sauce.  It's pasta with a kick.  I made it with penne, but in the future I think penne rigate, or even rigatoni would be a better choice as the ridges would catch and hold the sauce a little better.  Although, as you can see, this makes a nice, thick chunky sauce which seems to cling pretty well.

Penne Arrabbi-vodka
1/2 box of penne pasta
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 onion, chopped
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1 sprig oregano
1/3 cup vodka
1 can peeled plum tomatoes, drained
salt and pepper
1/2 cup heavy cream

1. Cook the penne according to directions on box. Preheat oven to 375. Heat the oil in an oven proof pan. Cook the onions until translucent.
2. Add the garlic, red pepper, oregano, and cook just until fragrant - 30 seconds.
3. Add the vodka and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer 20 minutes.
4. Add in the tomatoes, salt and pepper to taste. Cover and place in the oven for 45 minutes. Let cool.
5. Puree the tomato mixture until smooth and return to the pan, reheat. Add the cream and stir.
6. Toss the pasta with the sauce and cook until heated through.

Ready for another cake?

As you may or may not have noticed, this blog has been inundated with sweet recipes.  3 cakes in one month?  Pretty unusual for a girl who claims to be more into savory than sweet.  But the holidays are a time when we all overindulge.  

Now that it's January there are far fewer baked goods in Thathouse.  There's a chocolate chip banana bread in the fridge Thatmom brought up last week, but other than that, nada.  Now we go back to the savory and the only cakes you'll find round these parts are the occasional pancake.  (Although to be fair, I haven't made pancakes in ages.)

But savory cakes I can definitely get behind.  They make great side dishes.  Technically this could be considered a baked mashed potato dish, because really, that's all that is.  Mashed potatoes, formed into a cake, and then baked until brown.  The eggs serve two purposes - the yolks act as a nice binder, and the whites, folded in, give it some rise.  Then you can cut it into slices and serve it just like a cake.  Without the frosting of course. 

Potato Cake
2 baked potatoes
1 Tbsp butter
1 1/2 Tbsp heavy cream
1 egg separated
salt and pepper

1. Preheat oven to 375. Scoop out the inside of the baked potato.
2. Add the butter, cream, egg yolk, salt and pepper to the baked potato guts and beat until smooth.
3. Beat the egg white until stiff.
4. Heat the potato mixture over medium heat, gradually mixing in the egg white.
5. Form the potato mixture into a loafish shape. Place on a baking sheet and bake 10-12 minutes until browned.

As A Dog

2 weeks ago I got some sort of 24 hour virus.  It was a head cold, combined with a fever and chills.  As almost anyone will tell you, the surefire cure for being sick as a dog is warm, comforting, soup.  Which is only fitting, because Branny is once again hosting her Souper Bowl.

It's fitting for two reasons.  The first has to do with the whole "sick as a dog" part because the Souper Bowl follows Branny's commitment to animals.  Her home is overrun with dogs, horses, and a cat.  Her heart is overrrun with kindness.  Put the two together and this is a charity event that couldn't fit her any better.  

The second reason me being sick fits the Souper Bowl is because of the whole "soup" thing.  For every blogger who enters a soup post, Branny is donating $1.00 to the ASPCA.  And we've been doing quite a bit of soup lately.  Hey, it's winter, even if it is California.  I thought I would round them all up into one post, plus they kind of lead into each other.

As I did last year, I'm dedicating this entry to Thatdog, because he's put up with a lot this past month.  What a trooper.  He's such a good big brother and doesn't seem to mind too much that we've completely disrupted his life with a loud, little, screaming thing.

And there's still time for you to enter - You have until January 31st if you'd like to enter some soup of your own!

We'll start with Channukah.  I left this off the menu so I could include it here.  Flipping through my holiday cookbook I found a "vegetable meat soup."  Which is kind of a funny name when you think about it.  I mean, I get vegetable soup, and I get beef soup, but the need to include both in the title would lead one to believe those are the only ingredients.  Really though, this is a fantastic beef and barley soup, loaded with typical soup vegetables like carrots and celery, but also mushrooms, barley, beans, and peas.  It's loaded with just about everything.  It was my favorite part of the meal.

Russian Vegetable Meat Soup (From Joan Nathan's Jewish Holiday Cookbook)
3 carrots
2 potatoes
1 sweet potato
4 quarts water
2 lbs top rib, cut in 1 inch chunks
2 oz dried mushrooms or 1 cup sliced mushrooms
1/2 cup dried lima beans
1/2 cup dried green split peas
1/2 cup barley
1/2 lb string beans, diced
4 ribs celery, diced
salt and pepper

1. Grate the carrots, potatoes, and sweet potatoes.
2. Bring the water to a boil and add all the ingredients. Cover and simmer 2 hours, stirring occasionally.

In fact, I liked it so much that I adapted it into a vegetarian version - a "vegetable soup" if you will.  I added some extra mushrooms after I found a "Monterey Mix" at the store which had some of my favorite mushroom varieties.  And I left out the potatoes which were no more than a thickening agent so it could be a little brothier and added garlic which I felt were missing from the first version.  I'm a fan of barley soups in general, and this one is nice and not too heavy.

Russian Vegetable Soup
1 carrot, diced
5 cups vegetable broth
2 oz dried mushrooms (I used a mushroom mix which included porcini, oyster, shitake, and morels)
1 cup sliced cremini mushrooms
1/2 cup barley
1 rib celery, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
salt and pepper

1. Bring the vegetable broth to a boil. Add all the ingredients.
2. Cover and simmer 40 minutes or until the barley is tender.

As I mentioned, I made baked potatoes for our New Year's Eve feast.  And we had leftovers.  What do YOU do with leftover baked potatoes?  I make soup.  Especially in the winter.  Potato soup is ridiculously easy if you already have baked potatoes.  All you have to do is mash them and add a nice roux.  The potatoes make it thick, the roux makes it even thicker and creamier.  So much so that you don't even have to use cream - I make mine with skim milk.  Which is nice, because then I don't feel so guilty about loading in the cheese!

Baked Potato Soup
2 baked potatoes
2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp flour
3 cups hot milk
1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
salt and pepper

1. Scoop out the insides of the baked potatoes and mash with the back of a fork or a potato ricer, or whatever you use to make mashed potatoes. Make them as smooth or chunky as you like.
2. Melt the butter in a pot. Gradually whisk in the flour until a paste forms. Cook for a minute or two until bubbly.
3. Gradually whisk in the hot milk. Cook until the milk thickens.
4. Add the potatoes, cheddar and salt and pepper to taste. Heat until cooked through.

And this is the soup that should be the star of this post.  Only because this is the soup I made when I was sick and needed to get better quickly.  Once again I used potatoes to thicken this soup so I didn't have to use cream, just vegetable broth.  Although, with the addition of the vegetable broth, the potatoes, and the celery maybe I should call it "Artichoke and vegetable" soup?

Artichoke Soup
1 Tbsp. canola oil
1 potato, peeled and sliced
3 Tbsp onion, sliced
1 rib of celery, diced
1 can artichoke hearts, drained
1 clove garlic, minced
3 cups vegetable broth
1 Tbsp parsley, minced
1 sprig oregano
1 Tbsp basil, chiffonade
salt and pepper

1. Heat oil in skillet over medium heat. Add potatoes, onion, and celery and cook until the potatoes are fork tender. Let cool.
2. Place cooled potatoes, onion, celery, artichokes and garlic in a food processor and pulse until the mixture is smooth.
3. Place the mixture in a pot. Add vegetable broth, parsley, oregano, and basil. Bring to a boil. Cover, lower heat, and simmer 20 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Kitchen Helper

This year for New Year's Eve we headed out of town. Thatmom had suggested a family trip to our timeshare in Palm Desert. Since it was just a quick couple of hours away, we thought it would be a safe first vacation with new baby in tow.

A couple of days before we were to leave, I received this email from Thatmom:

Hello my loved ones,

Next weekend we are dining at Zins in palm springs for dinner on Friday eve, then having breakfast at Cheeky's the next day. On New Years eve, we will cook indoors at the Time Share and if okay with you, I have assignments for dinner.

Thatbrother will do the appetizer (caprese is fine)
UDubb will do a small salad
Thatboy will pick out the wine
Thatgirl will prepare the filet mignon
Thatmom will do the side dishes
Thatbaby will do the desert.

Everyone had a job to do. And it worked out really well for the most part. I ended up making some baked potatoes to go with the filets, and UDubb and Thatbrother ended up bringing the wine. Really Thatboy was the only one who got out of doing anything. Even Thatbaby got in on the action, taking his duty of dessert very seriously.

Because my mocha walnut cake had been such a hit, he thought he should try a Fannie Farmer cake also. He chose a velvet cake - so called because of "velvet texture." The recipe was unlike anything I'd ever seen. It called for 1/2 a cup of cornstarch and 4 tsp of baking powder. And it called for beating the egg whites until stiff before folding them into the batter. I figured the cake would probably float away! Or explode.

I'll have to do some Alton Brown research on those ingredients, but I can tell you that they made this cake perfectly light, crumbly, and buttery. (Well the butter probably made it buttery.) With a simple boiled chocolate frosting, this cake is classic and simple, but a sure fire winner. Thatboy thinks it's the best homemade cake he's ever had. Which I'm sure is partly due to Thatbaby's loving hand in it's creation.

One tip - on New Year's Eve we cut the cake cold from the fridge. It was alright. It wasn't until the next night when we took it out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature that it really shone. So make sure you let it come to room temp before serving.

Velvet Cake (From the Fannie Farmer Cookbook)
1/4 lb butter
1 cup sugar
4 eggs, separated
1 1/2 cups cake flour
1/2 cup cornstarch
1/2 tsp salt
4 tsp baking powder

1. Preheat oven to 350. Spray 2 8-inch cake pans with baking spray. Cream the butter in an electric mixture.
2. Add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy.
3. Beat in the egg yolks, one at a time.
4. Beat in 1/2 cup of cold water.
5. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cornstarch, salt, and baking powder. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients in stages and mix thoroughly.
6. Beat the egg whites until stiff, but not dry. Stir a third of the whites into the batter.
   
7. Fold in the remaining whites and spread the batter into the pans. Bake for about 25 minutes. Coll in pans for 5 minutes before turning onto racks. Cool completely before frosting.

Chocolate Butter Frosting
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg yolk
1/4 lb butter
4 oz semi-sweet chocolate, melted

1. Boil the sugar and 1/4 cup water until the mixture reaches 240 degrees F.
2. While the sugar syrup is cooking, beat the egg yolk well. Pour the syrup over the egg, beating constantly.
   
3. Beat in the butter until it's incorporated.
   
4. Mix in the melted chocolate and continue to beat until the frosting is of spreading consistency.
   

Day Drinkin' - Must be nice

Thatboy took off the week between Christmas and New Years. We decided this would be an excellent time to make the trip out to Temecula to our wine club. Mostly because we are completely out of wine. Some chick who lives in this house seems to be off her 9-month sobriety wagon.

We joined the wine club at Churon Winery for a couple of reasons:
1) We really like the wines.
2) It's only 2 wines every other month.
3) They don't send you random wine. Every other month you can go and pick out whatever 2 you like.
4) You don't have to go pick up every month, they'll hold your wine for you until you do go pick it up.

Since we hadn't been to Churon since May, we had 8 bottles to pick up. As members we get free tastings, so we took advantage to see if there was anything new we wanted to add to our usual suspects.

We packed up a cooler with cheese and crackers, packed up the dog and baby, and headed out.

We sat outside and enjoyed the day and our little picnic. We also got to try an unreleased late harvest tempranillo. Which was amazing. I can't wait to get a bottle at our next pick-up. Thatbaby can't wait either:

Don't worry - he wasn't driving.

We picked up a healthy dose of reds, including Thatboy's favorite port, and a couple of whites, including the new pinot grigio. So far the first bottle we've opened is the Ruby Cabernet, which is a fairly typical Cabernet. Cabs aren't generally our favorite, but we like the tobacco-iness of this one. And it pairs well with a nice heavy winter pasta dish. Like one of my favorite stroganoff recipes.

I like this dish because it's a true one pot meal - the noodles cook in the sauce/broth so you don't even need to dirty a boiling pot. If you find some nice meaty mushrooms, each bite fills your mouth with good, rich flavor.

Christmas at Home

Every year Christmas is a huge, disappointing ordeal. We take time off work and head up to the inlaws where we sit and contemplate our navels for days on end. Everyone there is miserable and they spend the entire time we're there trying to get us to be as miserable as they are. And then the following week Thatboy tries to convince me that if we just moved closer, we could help everyone be less miserable. Which means I get to spend a miserable time there and look forward to some more misery when we get home.

One of the reasons I was aiming for an October baby was because Thatboy agreed with me that if we had a baby in October, there was no way we could trek up to his parents for the holidays. Not with a new baby! We broke the news to the inlaws when we went up for Easter and invited them to come down and spend Thatbaby's first Christmas with us. Even though they TMIL already taken time off work, that week, they declined. They didn't want to come down and see us.

As Christmas approached, Thatboy get more and more glum. He was sad about not going home, sad about not seeing his family. And I spent more and more energy into trying to make the holidays special for him.

Well, not just him. I wanted it to be special for Thatbaby too. A couple years ago I had made a stocking for a friend's baby. And I knew that I wanted to make one for Thatbaby too. I should have started it in November, but I didn't. All of a sudden it was December and I realized that I should probably get on it. Thatboy's grandmother had made him a green stocking with red trim, so he requested Thatbaby's be similar.

After a couple days of nonstop work it was complete!

(The other side has his name embroidered onto it)

Thatmom joined us for both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Which meant she got some good baby holding time while we did fun things like make gingerbread houses.

(I think this is the best one we've ever made)

I let Thatboy pick out whatever he wanted for Christmas Eve dinner. The menu was rack of lamb, roasted broccoli and wild rice. And then the night before I realized I hadn't planned anything for dessert. Luckily, Channukah came before Christmas this year and one of my Channukah presents from Thatmom was Maida Heatter's Cakes. Growing up, Maida Heatter was who Thatmom turned to for desserts - literally. She actually wrote to Maida Heatter. This was, of course, before the internet and blogs where one can pose a quick question to a great baker. I felt sure that we could find an amazing dessert from the book. Thatboy picked out the Farmer's Daughter Cake - a classic: white cake with chocolate frosting. What makes the cake less classic is the fact that it is made without any butter/shortening/oil at all. All the fat content in this cake come from cream, which is why Maida dubs it the Farmer's Daughter cake - surmising that it was probably made on a dairy farm.

The frosting is thick and fudgey, a complement to the sort of plain cake below. While this cake probably would have gone over okay, since it was paired with the mocha walnut cake, it was definitely overshadowed.

Farmer's Daughter Cake (From Maida Heatter's Cakes)

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

1/4 tsp. almond extract

2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

1 cup sugar

1 cup heavy cream

2 cups flour

1. Heat the oven to 350. Spray an 8x8 pan with baking spray. Beat the eggs in an electric mixer.
2. Add the vanilla, almond extract, baking powder and salt.
3. Beat in the sugar.
4. Add the cream.
5. Lower the speed and add the flour, mixing until smooth. Pour the batter into the pan and bake for 35-40 minutes. Cool for 5 minutes, run a sharp knife around the sides and cool another five minutes. Turn out onto a rack and cool completely before frosting.
   

Classic Chocolate Frosting

4 oz. unsweetened chocolate

1/2 cup milk

1 1/3 cup sugar

2 egg yolks

1 TBSP + 1 tsp. butter

1 tsp. vanilla

1. In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt the chocolate with the milk and sugar. Remove from the heat and let stand for a minute.
   
2. Beat the egg yolks a bit and temper it by adding half of the chocolate mixture.
   
3. Pour the egg yolks back into the chocolate. Return to low heat and cook, stirring, for one minute.
   
4. Stir in the butter and vanilla. Let cool to room temperature.
5. Beat the cooled frosting for 10-15 minutes until it becomes thick and spreadable.
   
6. Here comes the "pro tip part." Maida recommends pouring half of the frosting over the top of the cake and letting it cool a bit. Then pour the rest of it over. This way, she says, it won't go crazy running over the sides and pooling at the bottom.
   

More lights!

Christmas lights weren't the only lights to entertain Thatbaby this holiday season. He got to take part in his first Channukah!

(You can see he was really into it.)

Having a new baby during a holiday that begins at sundown meant that everyone came to me this year for celebration. Usually we get together with the family up at Thatmom's house during one of the weekend days of Chanukkah. But Thatbrother and UDubb were heading up to her family the second day, which meant we had to do our celebrating the first night.

Since everyone was coming to me, it only made sense for me to whip up a fantastic dinner.

The brisket was the main attraction. I went with a traditional recipe by Joan Nathan. I've made brisket before, but this was my first time with this recipe and Thatboy's favorite. He claims to have never had a brisket like this before, but he has, he just doesn't remember. It's a recipe that couldn't be easier - combine minimal ingredients, marinate, and then throw in the oven.

For sides there were sauteed bell peppers and a big green salad. The leftover peppers are a great addition to omelets, pizzas, or pastas. The sweetness really works well with the tangy brisket.

No Channukah would be complete without latkes! I've created my own little recipe which is a mix of my dad's recipe and a couple of others. It's a mix of potatoes and onions, an egg, and flour. Pretty basic, but I've found the ratios really do matter. My one egg is less than a lot of recipes and I add a little more flour to give it that nice crispiness. I also grate the potatoes and onions with a large grater, which seems to be another unique variable. I got a new food processor for Channukah that night and it would have made the grating of the potatoes and onions a lot easier.

A typical dessert for Channukah would be something fried - like sufganiyot. I went with cookies instead - almond horns to be exact. Thatmom LOVES almond horns. With a dusting of powdered sugar, they're the perfect winter treat.

Keeping Old Promises

Way back in 2011 I promised you another fabulous recipe involving fennel and I alluded to the fact that we were going to attempt another Santa photo op with Thatbaby. Since it's now 2012 I think it's about time I shared both with you!

San Diego loves to get all dressed up for the holidays. The San Diego Botanic Gardens hosts the "Garden of Lights" in December when the entire garden becomes a winter wonderland - complete with snow. Thatbaby was fascinated by the lights when we took him to his first Santa visit, so we thought this would be a hit.

We were right.

I'm pretty sure if Thatbaby could decorate heaven it would be covered in Christmas lights. He was in awe the entire time we were there. Sure maybe he was a little over stimulated and maybe we messed up his routine by an hour or two, but it was worth it to see him light up as he looked at the world covered in a sparkly glow. He didn't want to sleep for fear of missing a minute.

Watching him watching the lights was entertainment enough, but Thatboy and I also managed to find the corner where they were pouring mulled wine. It was a nice enough evening - as you can tell by Thatboy's "warm winter sweatshirt" but warmed wined in the cooler winter evenings is still appreciated.

Once we were all wined up we headed over to see Santa!

Once again Thatbaby did great - smiling and cooperative. Our family picture actually has all of us looking at the camera and smiling and is one of the best pictures of us so far. See - my baby's not afraid of Santa Clause, he just doesn't like sketchy men touching him. I don't either, so he must have inherited it from me.

We toured through the gardens which are beautiful at night and covered through lights. But they also looked like they would be wonderful during the day and we can't wait to go back.

As we headed over to the snow, we passed the miniature railroad which was elaborate and fascinating. We have a miniature railroad museum here in San Diego but I like the incorporation in the gardens.

The snow areas were divided into two parts - one for free play and the other for sledding. Both were filled with smiling kids. By this time Thatbaby had fallen asleep so we held off on snowplay for another year and headed home.


The other part of my promise was for a good fennel recipe and it seems something warm and filling should fit in right here after tales of snow and Christmas. I mentioned that I've been going through a fennel phase recently and happened to have a bulb on hand when Branny posted the recipe for Lentil, Kielbasa, and Fennel Stew.

Talk about good timing, right? Lucky for me we always have lentils on hand. I use it in so many soups it has become a pantry staple. I changed up the recipe just slightly because I don't love kielbasa. Instead I used garlic chicken sausages. The result was something so delicious we couldn't wait to have leftovers for lunch. It's hearty. It's filling. It's the perfect winter night meal with a nice crusty piece of bread.

Ch-ch-changes

2011 was a year of change. I think there were changes in almost every aspect of my life. The most obvious changes involved Thatbaby.

One thing that didn't change throughout the year was my hair. I think this is the longest it's ever been. I was terrified to cut it though -afraid that pregnancy hormones would have me irrationally in tears as it fell to the floor. I've never been afraid of cutting my hair before, because it will always grow back. And I really like it short. Thatboy usually isn't as much of a fan of my shorter hair, so I comprise and vacillate back and forth between short and long.

After Thatbaby was born it was time to go back to short. So in the beginning of December I lopped it all off.

Sure it may be a "mom do" but I was sporting long hair for years before I was a mom, so for me it's much more of a "Thatgirl do." And this may be one of my favorite haircuts ever. Even Thatboy, who loves neither short hair nor bangs admitted that he really likes my hair.

I pulled another switchup on Thatboy for Christmas Eve. Since it was our first Christmas not visiting his family, I let him dictate the menu for Christmas Eve. There was rack of lamb, roasted broccoli, and wild rice. But neither of us thought about dessert till the night before. I had him pick out a cake from a new cookbook (more on that another time) but ended up changing the dessert last minute to this mocha walnut cake. I'm SO glad I did. Like the hair change, this one went over so much better than expected. The cake itself was great, but I really think it's the frosting that sends this one over the top. Or licking plates. Thatboy described it as a caramel flavor, but after a couple more licks of the plate I decided that the flavor is much more akin to a praline. Since we both have a massive affinity for those southern sweets, it's no surprise that this frosting has become a quick favorite. See? Change is good!

Mocha Walnut Cake (From the Fannie Farmer Cookbook)
3/4 cup milk
3 Tbsp instant coffee
2 tsp vanilla
1/4 lb butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs
2 1/4 cups cake flour
1/4 tsp salt
3 tsp baking powder
1 cup chopped walnuts

1. Preheat oven to 350. Spray an 8x8 pan with baking spray. Heat the milk and stir in the instant coffee until it dissolves.
2. Add the vanilla and let cool.
3. Cream the butter and add the sugar, beating until light and fluffy.
4. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each egg is combined before adding the next.
5. Stir in the coffee mixture.
6. Combine cake flour, salt, and baking powder and add to the wet ingredients.
7. Stir in the walnuts. Spread the batter into the pan. Bake 45 minutes. Let cool in pan for 5 minutes before turning out onto rack. Frost with Penuche frosting.
   

Penuche Frosting (From the Fannie Farmer Cookbook)
1 1/2 cups dark brown sugar
3/4 cup sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk
3 Tbsp butter
1 1/2 Tbsp corn syrup
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

1. Mix all the ingredients except vanilla in a heavy bottomed saucepan. Bring slowly to a boil and boil 1 minute.
2. Cool till lukewarm, add the vanilla, and beat until think enough to spread.

Wow December sure flew by!

I know you've all been missing something as this new year begins. That little piece of Thatgirl that makes your life complete. But almost all my free time in December was dedicated to this little project:

More on that later, but suffice to say I was knitting on a schedule so blogging took a backseat. Which is a shame since we sure did a lot last month. (Which probably only compounded the timing issue.)

Like when Thatboy's best friends came down for the weekend. Our little home was filled to the brim with 5 adults, a toddler and a baby - which made the holidays even warmer. The last time we saw Ace he was 2 weeks old. Now he's a giant!

(picture taken seconds after Ace kissed Thatbaby's head and moments before Ace followed said kiss with a slap. Toddlerhood - it's a learning process.)

Their visit happened to coincide what has quickly become one of my favorite San Diego races - The Jingle Bell run. If you recall, I ran it last year and vowed to make it a regular part of my running schedule. It was just as much fun as I remembered, complete with jingling jingle bells on shoes, marimbas playing Christmas music, and an acapella choir who were singing "Steal my Kisses" for some reason - which I don't associate much with Christmas.

And of course there were the awesome costumes. I didn't get a picture of the guy in a green unitard on a unicycle, but I did capture Santa on Stilts:

The boys in the footie pajamas:

Santa and her sleigh of reindeer (these chicks won for best costume):

And other festive attire:

And we got into the spirit too.

Thatboy and the rest of the crew walked the race while I ran ahead. The nice thing about not being super speedy to begin with is I'm already back to my pre-pregnancy speed. In fact, at 2 months postpartum I actually finished this race 36 seconds faster than when I ran it in 2010!

After I crossed the finish line, I turned around and ran the course backwards to meet up with everyone. Which was fun because I got comments like "Hey - the finish line is the other way!" and I was able to give support to tired runners "The rest of the course is all downhill!" Around the halfway point I met up with these lollygaggers.

And we finished the rest of the race together.

Well, almost together. As we neared the finish line I ran ahead so I could capture Thatbaby finishing his first race. See that car behind us? That was the cleanup crew. We were the absolute last people to finish the race. But it was still a PR for Thatbaby!

Thatboy's favorite part of the race (and the reason he'll run it again next year) was the beer garden hosted by Stone Brewery.

Thatbaby was too young to come in, but we're such good parents, we kept an eye on him while we enjoyed.

While we were having houseguests I of course wanted to serve them up something home-cooked and delicious. Especially since we didn't want to go out the night before the race so we could all get to bed a little earlier.

I wanted to do something that would feed a large crowd but still be easy. I gave Thatboy some choices - roast chicken, lasagna, chili, or enchiladas. Not surprisingly he chose enchiladas. He always chooses enchiladas.

I used Nicole's adaptation for chicken enchiladas with red chile sauce. They were amazing. I really think making your own chile sauce is the key here. They were a big success and Magski even asked for the recipe to make at home once I assured her it was incredibly easy. Served with a nice salad and some Spanish rice it was the perfect way to spend an evening with friends.