"Reading"

She's only just started to learn a couple of letters, but that's not going to keep Cindy Lou from reading. I wish I'd gotten footage of her just before this, when she was "reading" every page. I was afraid to move into a better position and distract her into quitting. Unfortunately the Wizard spotted my attention shift and had lots of things to tell me.

Banana Layer Cake #2

I tried that banana layer cake again (my notes from the first attempt here, with a link to the original recipe. This time I used (per Lindsey's suggestion) four whole eggs instead of seven egg whites. Unfortunately the cake was still (to my taste) too dry and too tender, and not banana-y enough. The ganache turned out a little better, but still not perfect. I used plain diced roasted hazelnuts instead of candied pecans in the filling, and that was a total winner of a choice. To solve the cake issues (and because banana desserts still sound good to me), I've now got my eye on a banana layer cake recipe in The Gourmet Cookbook. It's got less sugar and more banana, no cinnamon (which I was starting to find distracting), and uses cream cheese frosting, with sliced bananas between the layers. Sounds good to me. I'm debating whether I'll try to retain some chocolate and hazelnut elements. What do you think (other than Di who doesn't like bananas)?

Easter Weekend Pics

Saturday morning there was an Easter egg hunt in the Primary President's giant backyard. It was chilly but not too wet, so we went. Unfortunately, because of Newton's swimming lesson, we were late, and so the hostess and cousin Miss Pea went ahead of the two little kids "hiding" eggs for them to find. Grandpa Artsy-Fartsy, who was visiting, helped the Wizard:


And Newton helped Cindy Lou. Wandering around outside + chocolate to drool down the front of her jacket = one of her favorite days ever.


Helpful egg hider Miss Pea.


Between church and changing clothes for lunch, we tried to get a good picture of the kids in their Easter finery. Yeah, right. We had to settle for having three sets of eyes on the camera.


Cindy Lou showed impressive focus and fine-motor skills in carefully peeling the foil off her Lindor eggs. Unlike every kid in my own family of origin, she did not attempt to eat any half-peeled pieces of candy. I am amazed and grateful.


The boys showing off their bunnies (amazingly, mid-week now, still intact).


Easter dinner was at J&J's, and Cindy Lou basically disappeared to play with the "big kids" as soon as we got there. Goodness she's getting more and more independent!


Cindy Lou also had her first day of nursery on Sunday, and had what the nursery leaders would probably term the best first day of nursery ever. She didn't even look up from her puzzle when Mavis left after dropping her off, and as far as we know she didn't give anyone a speck of trouble for the whole nearly two hours she was in their care. Way to go, girlie! She also said her first complete sentence this week: "I don't like it," when I gave her a bite of egg salad (after she spit it out). Grunts, whines and points are dwindling as they are replaced by words. Awesome.

I'm Still Here

Just haven't been blogging, as you can tell. Got into Facebook in January (it's all MWR's fault!!), and then for the last month I was swamped with getting ready for the Enrichment birthday dinner, leaving on a 9-day vacation the next day, and then having a 10-day houseguest shortly after our return. Oy. Just this last weekend, Mavis turned 40 and Cindy Lou turned 18 months, plus it was Easter. Baseball season has started for Newton, and I'm gearing up for a performance next month with the small choir I joined in January. I couldn't be much busier. So food has been of the tried-and-true variety, though I've been trying to incorporate new seasonal stuff from the farmers' market (it opened on March 21!), and last night we had Columbia River spring Chinook salmon!

So, I resolve to post new content soon, and leave you with pictures of the kids from our vacation (captured by my sister the Laundry Queen in my parents' backyard on one of the few non-snowy days of our spring break):

Chocolate Bread Pudding

So, I had a little leftover bread from a dinner a while back, and I purposely let it get stale, really, really stale, to make chocolate bread pudding. I couldn't find one recipe that sounded just right, so I improvised based on a couple of different ones, including the Chocolate-Banana Bread Pudding of last month. The only thing bad about how it turned out is that it is now all gone.

Chocolate Bread Pudding

3 C stale bread, cut or broken into pieces no larger than an inch or so
4 egg yolks (I used four because I needed four more whites for another recipe, but 3 would probably work fine)
2/3 C sugar
pinch salt
1 C heavy cream
4 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped
2 C whole milk

Put bread in souffle dish (mine is a pretty standard size, I think about 8" across). Whisk egg yolks, sugar and salt in stand mixer on medium-high speed until light and fluffy-ish, at least a minute. In the mean time, put chocolate and enough cream to just cover (2/3-3/4 C, depending on shape of bowl) in glass bowl and microwave on high for one minute. Stir until all chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth, then stir in the rest of the cream. With mixer running, add milk to egg yolk-sugar mixture and mix until combined. Scrape sides and bottom of the bowl, then add chocolate-cream mixture and mix until well blended, scraping sides and bottom of bowl as needed.

Pour custard mixture over bread in souffle dish. Press bread down into custard and let soak as long as you can, up to overnight (in the fridge if longer than an hour).

When ready to bake, preheat oven to 325 degrees. Trim a piece of parchment paper to fit in mouth of souffle dish, and lay it right on top of pudding. Cover dish tightly with foil. Bake 40-45 minutes covered, then remove foil and parchment and bake another 40-45 minutes uncovered. Let stand 20 minutes before serving to finish cooking.

As you can see from the picture, I didn't break my bread into small enough pieces. I just whacked its bag on the counter, but I should have taken a mallet to it. I also didn't take enough time for soaking, so there was some unchocolatey bread at the middle of the larger pieces. Not fatal flaws, in any event, but something I will do differently next time.

Baby De Luxe

Cindy Lou is turning into a toddler instead of a baby (though of course she's at least a preschooler in her own mind). She now walks, still a bit unsteadily but with enthusiasm, and she is quite verbal. She's my first kid who has been willing or able to parrot things back (like I remember doing with my younger siblings), and it's great fun. She's mostly sticking to single-syllable words still, but the increasing ease of communication with her is GREAT.

Here are a bunch of recent shots in a couple of my favorite outfits for her (and one shot with her siblings).

Dear Readers

You may have noticed that all the pictures disappeared from my blogs a couple of weeks ago. I've been trying to figure out a way to fix it, to no avail. Google (who could fix everything with a couple of keystrokes, I'm certain) does not have anything remotely resembling actual customer service. A few forays into the help discussion groups hasn't gotten me anywhere other than reposting all my pictures (doable, but a major and time-consuming pain). So, I'll post new material (I remain relatively confident that newly-posted pictures will not disappear), and re-load old stuff as time permits.

Anyone know an easy way to restore the Blogger NavBar? I deleted it originally to make things cleaner, but now I think it would be nice to have a way for my faithful readers to search more easily.