I have perfected yellow cake with chocolate frosting because it is my husband’s absolute favorite cake of all time. When we first started dating he informed me of this and mentioned that Duncan Hines was his preferred mix. I shuddered. A cake from a box? Perish the thought! This classic cake is one of those recipes you should have down pat since it can be used for just about any occasion. This time I made it I even gave it my own special twist, browning the butter at the beginning to infuse the cake with a deeper, nuttier flavor.
The other title of this post could be “What Kelsey makes when she is in charge of her own birthday cake” or “what to bake when you are ready to drown in chocolate.” As some of you know, I bake my birthday cake every year and is it always has a chocolate focus. Don’t feel sorry for me, I love to bake so it is really a bit of a treat. On this special day I know my sweet husband will come through with the great gifts and dinner out, but he doesn’t bake and I certainly don’t expect him to learn just for my benefit. This year my cake was inspired by the flavors of nutella. I was in the mood for something rich and chocolaty, with notes of hazelnut and coffee.
I am a huge fan of birthday celebrations. It is not that I am interested in shouting my age from the roof top, I just like festivities centered around celebrating a special person in your life. Essentially any kind of birthday party should be a fun celebration no matter if you are a kid or adult!
So, this week I am challenging you to plan a birthday celebration for a family member or friend. It can be something small – like bringing cookies to them, or sending them a sweet special note – or something large, like baking a huge cake and planning a blowout party. If you don’t have any birthdays to celebrate this week plan something for a friend in the future and share what you are going to do. Whatever it is, we want to hear how you do it!
How about winning some awesome OXO Mixing Bowls?
To keep this challenge fun I encourage you post pictures of your birthday gesture or tell us of your plans on Twitter (tag @TheNaptimeChef) or by tagging The Naptime Chef Facebook fanpage. If you do this, you’ll get extra enterie to win my Better-Than-Oprah Favorite Things Birthday Giveaway! {official rules below} and will also benefit from your ideas. I also hope you’ll join my group Pinterest Board Titled “Project #2: Birthday Celebrations” and pin up some of your favorite birthday things!
My Favorite Stylish Wax Tote from JMcLaughlin is up for grabs!
If you want to become one of my official blogging sponsors write a post about your favorite birthday recipe and link to this post on your blog. I’ll include a list of sponsors in my daily posts as well as in my weekly newsletter. Last but not least, check out the official rules below and tune back in here every day this week. Yes, I’ll be posting EVERY DAY and you don’t want to miss a single thing. Happy Birthday!
Rules for Birthday Week Favorite Things Giveaway:
1. Leave a comment sharing a tidbit about your favorite birthday celebration.
2. Subscribe to The Naptime Chef newsletter (upper right hand corner) – I’ll check!
7. 6 Extra Entries: Write a blog post between now and next Thursday September 22nd about how you celebrate birthdays in your family and include a recipe for a favorite birthday cake or birthday dish and tell your readers about this post with a link back to it. You will be listed in the post next Friday September 23rd as an official sponsor.
8. Contest will run from September 15th at 7:00am through Saturday, September 24th at 7:00am. Winner will be announced on Sunday September 25th at 7:00am. If the winner does not respond within 48 hours a new winner will be drawn. Winner be selected by random.org.
9. Giveaway items can only be mailed within the continental US.
*Giveaway items generously donated by Andrews McMeel, OXO Good Grips and JMcLaughlin.
Today I am celebrating my birthday Oprah-style. I have collected a whole bunch of my favorite things – both cooking related and otherwise – and am giving them to YOU! That’s right, it is fun to receive presents, but it is more fun to give, I think, which is why this year my birthday is all about sharing some of my absolute favorite items with everyone here.
This giveaway not only marks the “official” launch of the blog redesign, it is also a preview of next weeks Birthday Challenge – the first of many food challenge weeks coming up this year. Next week The Naptime Chef is going to be all about birthday cakes, birthday decorations, birthday party food and just about everything birthday-related under the sun. This challenge is designed to get all of you chiming in the conversation! I am even including awesome birthday tips and recipes from some of the best food bloggers in the biz. You will definitely want to stayed tuned for those.
In the spirit of birthday love this giveaway is going to run all next week along with the daily posts, and the winner will be announced here next Sunday, September 25th. There are multiple ways to win the giveaway, but you’ll have to work for it. I am calling it a birthday challenge for a reason! Come back on Monday for the Birthday Challenge kick-off!
Favorite Things Giveaway!
1. Apples for Jam by Tessa Kiros: I’ve long waxed poetic about my admiration for Tessa Kiros and this is still my favorite book of hers. It contains all kinds of gorgeous savory and sweet family recipes from her Italian kitchen, along with musings on family life and sentimental photographs. I can’t wait for you to read this beautiful book and fall in love with the joyful, colorful pages.
2. OXO Good Grips “Be a Good Cookie” Spatula: September is pediatric cancer awareness month and OXO Good Grips designed this limited edition spatula to support the awesome charity Cookies for Kids’ Cancer, which I’ve written about before. I have the regular OXO Good Grips cookie spatula and I absolutely love it. It is simply the best for lifting warm, delicate cookies off the baking sheet. Now OXO has gone and made it even better by having it support this awesome charity!
3. OXO Good Grips Rubber Bottomed Mixing Bowls: I absolutely adore these mixing bowls. The non-slip bottoms are key when mixing heavy batters and they are fantastic for cooking with kids. My daughter sometimes turns them over and uses them as seats, too!
4. Double Chocolate Espresso Cookies: They are my absolute favorite cookies in the whole world and I want to spread the love by sending the winner a bag of them. Baked by me, during naptime, of course!
5. Harney & Sons Paris Tea: Every morning I wake up with a mug of this fine black tea. I love its accents of fruit and caramel and often make iced tea with it in the summer. Please let me send you a tin so it can keep you warm all fall and winter.
6. JMcLaughlin Wax Tote (in Red): JMcLaughlin is my go-to spot for my everyday Mommy uniform. This awesome waxed everything tote is a brand new addition to their collection this fall and it is PERFECT for taking on the go. It will carry everything from wallets to make-up bags to kids toys and then some. I also love this stylish red color which is what I’ve chosen for you. It gives a great pop to any fall or winter outfit.
Rules for Birthday Week Favorite Things Giveaway:
1. Leave a comment sharing a tidbit about your favorite birthday celebration.
2. Subscribe to The Naptime Chef newsletter (upper right hand corner) – I’ll check!
7. 6 Extra Entries: Write a blog post between now and next Thursday September 22nd about how you celebrate birthdays in your family and include a recipe for a favorite birthday cake or birthday dish and tell your readers about this post with a link back to it. You will be listed in the post next Friday September 23rd as an official sponsor.
8. Contest will run from September 15th at 7:00am through Saturday, September 24th at 7:00am. Winner will be announced on Sunday September 25th at 7:00am. If the winner does not respond within 48 hours a new winner will be drawn. Winner be selected by random.org.
9. Giveaway items can only be mailed within the continental US.
*Giveaway items generously donated by Andrews McMeel, OXO Good Grips and JMcLaughlin.
What’s Going on Today: Regular school day, laundry, school activities sign-up!
School Day Goals: Make Puttanesca sauce, prepare for big birthday announcement tomorrow!
Tonight’s Menu: Puttanesca-esque baked cod over couscous, wine, no dessert in preparation for birthday cake tomorrow!
Eureka, we are back in our school routine! My daughter is back to attending pre-school on a regular schedule and I am back to cooking while she is at school. Most days she comes home and has some quiet time (and often falls asleep) after school, so naptime is still hanging around a bit, though the length of her school day is more than enough time for me to happily cook and work as I want. In fact, I’ve been working a lot on my “official” website launch and the commencement of a huge birthday-themed project will begin tomorrow! In light of setting this up, I decided to turn to a faster dinner recipe this week which is where this delicious, simple baked cod came in.
I don’t mean to imply I am not going to miss my daughter when she is at school, but I am glad school is starting today. It is time. Time for her to get back in a daily routine, me to get settled back into everyday life and my husband to have us home again instead of running off on week-long excursions. One of the things our fall routine requires is a continuous parade of school snacks. Like most schools, my daughter is not allowed to bring peanut butter, but she can bring pretty much anything else that is healthy and easy to eat in her allotted snack time.
Last spring I planted this terrific container garden for our deck and we’ve been enjoying the bounty of herbs all summer long. There is no end to the flavor possibilities with delicious fresh herbs on hand and I, for one, have been adding them to just about all of my dishes. Now that fall is coming it is time for me to start freezing the remaining herbs so I can use them all winter. A lot of people I talk with are surprised that I bother to do this since fresh herbs can be procured at the store year-round. This is true, of course, but I prefer to preserve the herbs I’ve been growing all season because it saves a lot of money and my homegrown herbs simply taste better.
I thought today I’d share how I am freezing herbs for winter in case you are inspired to do the same with yours. I often make this a project when my daughter is at school. It takes about an hour, including drying time, for me to get everything rinsed, dried and in their freezer bags for the whole winter. It is well worth my time, I think, because it ensures wonderfully flavored food all winter long! I try to freeze as much as I can at one time and often do at least two freezing sessions before discarding the bare plants before the first frost. I should note that I am wintering over my rosemary and lemon verbena plants because they are hearty enough to thrive indoors, but I’ve included how they can be frozen below for your reference.
A new webisode! I am not going to write much about this pizza since I talk about it so much in the video. I learned this method for making homemade pizza while at King Arthur Flour. The bakers their suggested I preheat my oven for an hour with the pizza stone in it (!) and then use their pizza flour blend to make an easy pizza crust. Their ideas seemed to smart and manageable that I immediately tried it when I got home and am so glad I did. It worked beautifully! So, without further ado. Our homemade pizza night on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
As I indicated last week, I am a compulsive tomato buyer at the farmer’s market. There is something about their ruby red skin that just lures me in and says “buy me!” It is a little like the way I feel when I am wandering through the Saks shoe department, too, but the tomatoes are a lot cheaper. Right before the hurricane last month we had a spell of gorgeous summer weather and I served tomatoes nearly every night for dinner. I made this particular soup recipe up as I went during naptime. I wanted something that would truly showcase the amazing flavor of our summer tomatoes and could be served warm or chilled.
This summer has been pretty low-key. We’ve been traveling to our usual haunts, trying out new recipes and enjoying the slower pace of the season. Work-wise I’ve been spending a lot of time editing the manuscript, revising the layouts (which look awesome) and getting down to the nitty gritty. It has been a blast and I truly can’t wait until Spring 2012 to show you the final product. In the mean time, next month I have a newly redesigned website so share with you. It contains everything you see here, plus much, much more. You could say this summer I’ve been fine-tuning behind the scenes and everything will roll out this fall and winter.
Since I’ve written about our favorite Northeastern vacation spots before I thought I would share links to old posts and tidbits about what we’ve been up to as a little wrap-up for the season
Lagoon Pond, Martha's Vineyard
Martha’s Vineyard {travel series, here} was our destination for the 4th of July. We ate at our favorite seafood shack, grilled swordfish and had tons of boat picnics. We also ate at Saltwater for date night, it is now our newest favorite island restaurant. Highly recommend!
My sweet neighbor just had a beautiful new baby and I am planning to cook a few meals for her as soon as her mother-in-law leaves. It’s not that I don’t want to feed her mother-in-law, it is just that I want to wait until all of her help has departed so I can swoop in when she really needs an extra hand. I’ve cooked for many of my friends after they’ve had babies and I find that around the four week mark, once the helping hands have gone home, that they need a warm meal and some extra TLC.
As I plan the menu for her family I thought I would share a few simple tips I’ve picked up over the years I’ve been feeding my friend’s with newborns. Do you have any tips for feeding parents with newborns? I would love to hear!
Considerations for Menu Planning:
New Moms often have the same diet restrictions as when they are pregnant since they are usually nursing. Check with the new mom to see what foods she might be avoiding. This list might include raw seafood, blue cheeses and alcohol.
When a mom is nursing nutrients and elements of the food are passed through the breast milk to the baby. Sometimes a baby will react poorly to a specific food or meal that a mom eats. For example, my friend’s daughter got very gassy after her mother ate particularly spicy food. Again, check with the new mom to see what food she is avoiding, or, alternatively, what she is adding in to her diet for extra protein and strength.
Serving: Generally speaking, households with new babies can be quite chaotic and any food that is delivered can be served and reheated with easy. This is not the time to bring anything over that needs to sauced or handled delicately!
Whenever I am in Cooperstown I always make a point of picking up a tub of Painted Goat goat cheese at the Saturday farmer’s market. The locally made cheese is perfectly tangy and smooth and they make all kinds of interesting spreads with their product. This summer I became addicted to the Rosemary Fig Goat Cheese terrine and was beside myself when I ran out of the tub I brought back to Connecticut. I had a dinner to throw and knew it would be the perfect thing to serve as an appetizer before our chilled soup! Since I didn’t have time to do a quick round-trip upstate I decided to do the next best thing, recreate the spread myself.
