Chocolate Therapy

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, but chocolate is my favorite thing. Not only do I love it, but I deeply believe in its ability to alter/better my mood (think Harry Potter and the cure for dementors). In fact, a friend of mine said the other day, after making delicious lemon bars, that when she was a child, she didn’t understand the point of desserts without chocolate. And I said, “and what is the point?” because in general, I still feel that way (though the lemon bars were amazing).

This week, the moms who lunch are celebrating two birthdays, one mom birthday and one baby birthday (I can’t believe we are getting to the point where our babies are turning one?!?! Can time stop PLEASE!).  In honor of both birthdays I decided to bring back to life a recipe I made a long time ago. It was the first major baking (though the oven is not involved) project I did as an adult. It was in an old apartment, long before baby, though not before marriage. It took me all day. And it was worth it. I thought it would be interesting to see, now that I am so experienced in all things baking and cooking (I kid), if it was easier to make now.

Did I mention that said recipe is a Chocolate Cream Pie?!?!?! The main lessons I have learned since I last made this recipe are:

-Read the recipe multiple times before you start and before you go shopping. Attention to detail and not having to check the recipe mid-stir can help immensely.

-Time management in general. I felt much less panicked about how the custard would turn out, how long it would take to cook, etc. Things I account to feeling more prepared and better able to get the ingredients ready ahead of time, which is a big part of time management in my opinion.

This is a wonderful recipe. It is from Saveur magazine (I know I know, I owe you a post about how much I love them). You can find it here. It is a great recipe because it is actually not that hard, especially if you already feel comfortable making custards, and it has such a rich chocolate flavor without being too sweet.

A few notes about the recipe. You will be tempted to skip the sieving step, don’t! It is what makes the custard super velvety and smooth. Also, be sure you follow the amounts in the instructions and not just in the ingredients list. For example, it calls for 16 tablespoons of butter, but half are for the crust and half are for the custard. Same with the sugar and the vanilla. Basically, pay attention and read the recipe a few times (I mentioned that already, didn’t I?). Finally, here is my major shortcut: I don’t make the crust! I buy oreo crust from the grocery store. It was so yummy last time, I’m assuming it doesn’t make that much of a difference. I know, such a cheater. But come on, there is an 11 month old running around. Who has time to make crust?!?!

Enjoy!

The yolks, sugar, and cornstarch. Wow, that is yellow.

The chocolate custard before going into the fridge. Note the open window! It was that warm!

Look at all that whipped cream!

Fancy chocolate shavings

The final product: Messy and delicious

Telling Our Reproductive Stories

I’ve been thinking lately about the importance of sharing our reproductive stories. By reproductive stories I mean how we decided to have children, how we did or did not get pregnant, how our babies came into the world, and how all of that impacts the kind of parents we are.

As queer parents we had to do a lot of planning. I often say to my wife that if everyone had the choice to plan their children as much as we did, the world would be a much better place.  We are lucky enough to have a known donor and were able to do everything at home (more on the joys of having a known donor in a later post). Ari is a true Turkey Baster baby (well…plastic medicine syringe). We then labored and birthed at home with two midwives and a close friend (who also married us) as our doula. We were so lucky to be able to make the choices we made and have them supported.

Now, enter the rest of the world. What do people know about how queer people, specifically two women, have babies? A movie or two? The L Word? There are not a lot of stories out there like ours, or with people like us at all. So what does this lead to? Two major assumptions:

One (most common): Where did we adopt her?

Two (less common): What medical facility did we use to inseminate?

I do not judge people who do either of those things, adopt, use the medical system to get pregnant, etc. However, I have a problem with the assumption that either of those things are our experience.  I realized lately that straight couples can sometimes have a similar experience. Folks assume that they a) gave birth to their babies, and b) that it was an easy process. I recently had an experience where a woman with twins asked me how my wife and I “got” Ari. I started off being pretty defensive and (I’ll admit) braggy about our process. A little while later she said that she had asked because her twins were adopted. I realized that by not talking about our reproductive stories, we isolate ourselves. She was asking not to be aggressive or making assumptions about me, but because she was hoping to find someone with a common experience. And because I assumed that she was being insensitive, I lost the opportunity to find commonality in the fact that we both share “alternative” reproductive stories.

So my new goal is to tell my story truthfully and often and trusting peoples best intentions.

What is your reproductive story?

A loaf you say? Hmmmm

I am someone who, if given the choice, would not normally be excited about a loaf. Being raised a vegetarian I have never had meatloaf and it has taken me a long time to appreciate this particular comfort food. But that is the thing, loaf IS such a good comfort food. It is warm and substantial. So I thought I would make a go at it. I turned to my beloved Mollie Katzen and found this wonderful recipe in The Enchanted Broccoli Forest.  Drop what you are doing and make this right now.

Tofu, Spinach and Walnut Loaf

-Preheat oven to 350. Lightly oil a 9×9 baking dish. (The recipe calls for a loaf pan but there was WAY too much to fit into one loaf pan. I suppose if you are very attached to the loaf shape you could put it into two loaf pans).

-Heat 1 Tbs. of vegetable oil in a deep skillet. Add 2 cups minced onion, ½ lb. minced mushrooms, and 6 gloves of minced garlic. I just blended them all in a food processer. Sauté over medium heat for about 10 minutes.

-Add 1 cup ground walnuts, 2 lbs. fresh spinach (or 20 oz. frozen, defrosted and drained), ¼ cup Worcestershire sauce (I used 3 Tbs. cider vinegar and 1 Tbs. soy sauce as a substitute since Worcestershire sauce has anchovies), and 1 tsp salt. Cook for another 8 minutes, until the spinach is wilted and everything is well combined.

-Stir in 1 Tbs. soy sauce, ½ lb. mashed tofu, 1.5 cups cooked brown rice (you have to plan ahead and cook your rice!), fresh black pepper, and ¼ tsp of nutmeg.

-Spread into the pan and bake for 1 hour (or more, there were some cold spots, and the crisper the outside the better, basically cook it as long as you want without burning it). Let sit for 10 minutes before serving. Serve hot with sauce (below) and a sprinkle of paprika (which I forgot, woops!)

Dilled Horseradish Sauce

-Melt 2 Tbs. butter into a medium saucepan. Whisk in 1-2 Tbs. of flour and cook over low heat, whisking often, for a minute or until the flour is cooked (slightly browned).

-Whisk in 1 ¼ cups of warmed milk and cook over low heat whisking often for another 5 minutes or until it started to thicken. Stir in 1 Tbs. prepared horseradish and ½ tsp of salt and remove from heat. Stir in 1 Tbs. minced fresh dill (or 1 ½ tsp. dried) and black pepper. I used dried and it was fine. Maybe it would be a little brighter with fresh, but then what am I going to do with all that dill!?!?

Boobies!

So as you know by now, the lack of exposure in our culture to breastfeeding is one of my big pet peeves. So I was pleasantly surprised to come across this picture in one of those free parenting magazines:

I love this picture for many reasons. One is that you can see the whole breast, it’s not peeking out from the hole of a nursing bra, it’s not even covered by the top of a shirt, it’s just there. I also love that you can see some of the areola, but not too much. It’s actually a great example of a good latch (and how would women know what a good latch looks like when we never see pictures like this?!?!).  I love the content and peaceful look on the baby’s face. What better argument for breastfeeding than that face, right?

So in relation to this topic, I wanted to comment on two TV shows and their depiction, or lack thereof, of breastfeeding.

One is the show Up All Night. We never really find out whether or not she is breastfeeding (or why), but in a recent episode they travel on an airplane and it is clear that their daughter is taking a bottle. There is some comedy around a mid-security line diaper change as well as some anxiety about running out of bottles (you know what you never run out of on a long trip? breast milk!). Anyway, I think this show missed an opportunity for some comedy, because you know what is hilarious? Trying to breastfeeding standing in a security line. Or, as I recently experienced, nursing a squiggly 10 month old during take-off and holding her feet so she doesn’t kick the person sitting next to you. But you only have one free hand so you have to alternate holding one foot at a time. So she kicks the person next to you with her free foot. And she is having a blast. Comedy. I’m just saying, those writers missed out.

The next show is the L Word. Don’t get me started on the many problematic things about this show. But you know something this show doesn’t lack? Boobies! There are breasts everywhere, all the time, usually for sex. However, when one of the characters has a baby, they refer to breastfeeding but NEVER SHOW HER DOING IT! So we learn that breasts are for sex and that breastfeeding is something to hide. This on a show about lesbians! LESBIANS! Aren’t they supposed to be feminists or something?!?! ARGGG!!!

Does anyone have any good media examples of breastfeeding to share?

 

Best Cookbook EVER

Just a quick note. Our little one is 10 months old today! I can’t believe how quickly it has gone by.

Now to cookbooks. As you may or may not have already figured out, we cook vegetarian and I love the Moosewood cookbooks. However, I have begun paying attention to which Moosewood cookbooks are Mollie Katzen books and which are post-Mollie Katzen (AMK-After Mollie Katzen).

I love her. I love her illustrations. I love her playfulness. I love the commentary on every recipe. She is an inspiration. However, her recipes are often intense, meaning: Many ingredients (most of which we don’t have around the house), lots of chopping, lots of pans and lots of time. So I’m often daunted by her cookbooks. Granted, some of our favorite go to recipes come from her books, both her Moosewood books and post-Moosewood books (Gypsy Soup, Cauliflower Puff, Indonesian Rice Salad) but they take work. And did I mention we have a baby? So yeah, lots of work is not so great right now.

This is where the Moosewood cookbooks AMK come in. The two books we have make all the recipes so easy. Simple Suppers and New Classics are two of my favorite cookbooks. Simple Suppers is great because they define simple in so many ways. Sometimes it means quick; sometimes it means only one pot; sometimes very few ingredients. But whatever it is, the recipes are delicious.

So I recently started exploring Moosewood Restaurant New Classics. It is wonderful. There are a few duds but some of my new favorite recipes are from this book. I will share two of them below. I have already made both of these recipes three times each! The only thing that is lacking from these Moosewood books AMK is a little bit of that character and personality I love so much about Mollie Katzen’s writing. But did I mention the delicious factor?

Enjoy!

Instant Tamale Pie

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly oil an 11-inch casserole dish.

Mash a can of pinto (or black) beans WITH their juice in a large bowl. Add and mix ½ cup of corn, ½ cup of salsa, 1 tsp cumin, ½ tsp oregano, and ¼ tsp salt.

Buy a role of pre-made polenta. The recipe says to use 12 ounces of it, but they come in 18 ounce tubes, so I just use it all. Cut it into ¼ inch thick rounds and layer them on the bottom of your casserole dish, slightly overlapping. Spoon the bean mixture over the polenta.

Sprinkle on 2-3 tablespoons of chopped cilantro on top. Then add 1 cup of grated Cheddar cheese on top of that.

Cover and bake for 15 minutes and then uncover and bake for another 15 minutes, until the beans are bubbling and cheese is browning. Let sit for 10 minutes before serving.

Devour!

Presto! Chocolate Cake

This cake is amazing and so super easy. And you probably have all the ingredients in your kitchen already.

Preheat oven to 350. Grease an 8 or 9 inch square pan. Or make it in a bundt pan, like I did, but make sure you grease really well!

In a large bowl mix 1 cup flour, 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa, ½ tsp baking soda, and ¼ tsp salt.

In your kitchen aid or with an electric mixer combine ½ cup of butter with 1 cup of sugar. When the butter and sugar are combined, add 2 eggs, one at a time, until incorporated.

In a small bowl combine ¾ cup of water with 1 tsp vanilla. Add the flavored water by thirds to the creamed mixture, alternating with the flour mixture and beating after each addition.

Poor into the pan and bake until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean, 30-35 minutes.

When the cake is almost done, make the glaze. It’s so easy! ½ cup of chocolate chips, 1/3 cup of jam (apricot is a nice choice), and 2 tablespoons of milk. Put in a small pan and warm on low heat, stirring constantly until melted.

When the cake is done, pour hot glaze on top (if using a bundt pan, flip out of pan to make right side up on a plate before pouring the glaze on).

Serve warm or at room temperature. Yum yum and yum!

Dream Feeding-My Favorite Feedings

Sorry it has been a million years. Between the holidays and the baby crawling and cruising, blogging has taken a WAY backseat. But here we go.

So my friend, over at frecklesinthefog turned me on to the idea of Dream Feeding way back in September. This is the idea that if the baby goes to bed at 8, she will be up at 12 to eat. And if I don’t go to bed till 10-10:30, this can be difficult. So why not feed her in her sleep when I go to bed at 10pm? The theory is that she will then sleep till maybe 1 or 2am. I haven’t done that this often, since she often wakes up once before we go to bed to eat. But lately she has been sleeping solidly when she goes down around 8. So I’ve begun Dream Feeding her. I’m not sure it works in terms of sleeping longer, but it has become one of my favorite feedings of the day. Here is why. I rarely get to watch her sleep now since she is sensitive to light as she is first falling asleep (either at night or for naps). So with the Dream Feeding, we have a little light on and I can watch her sleeping. She is so peaceful and beautiful, it is truly magically. Secondly, not only do I get to watch her sleeping, I get to watch her nursing. The way she puts her little hand on my breast and snuggles up to me is just precious. I also relish this time as my wife often falls asleep next to us and so I get to look at both of my loves so sweet and peaceful. I am starting to look forward to these feedings, both for the extended sleep, and the ability to see and appreciate my bonding with the baby.

I nurse our daughter down to sleep. For naps, for bedtime, that is the way it is. I have stopped worrying about this and have accepted that it is what is normal for us and that is totally fine. It can be inconvenient if I need to be away, but babies are not meant to be convenient. I recently came across this quote in the Womanly Art of Breastfeeding.

“You may hear the advice that letting you baby fall asleep at the breast creates a ‘bad habit’ because it sets up ‘undesirable sleep associations’ that require you to be there for every nap and bedtime. That’s just not true. The natural design is that babies, nurse, and often they fall asleep at the breast. You don’t ‘teach’ them this, and it’s not a bad habit. It’s just normal” (page 231).

So, that being said, much of our nursing ends up being in the dark as I am trying to get her to go to sleep. Recently I have been offering the breast more during the day (with the fantasy that she will sleep more at night) and to sooth any fussing. This means we have also been doing more “conversational nursing.” This is my other favorite kind of feeding. This is when we talk and play and bond and nurse all at the same time. This can involve her playing with my necklace or my mouth. It often involves me smiling at her playfulness and her stopping nursing for a second to smile up at me. She will often make happy moaning eating noises. These are often short, but wonderful little moments of reconnecting throughout her very busy and social day.

I wanted to share these nursing experiences because I believe these are the kinds of behaviors that mothers often don’t discuss with each other, especially as our babies get older and society believes they should be sleeping through the night and eating mainly solid food. These two nursing experiences are good reminders of the way in which breastfeeding is more than nutrition, it is an important way of connecting.

My hair is shorter than my wife’s hair

So I finally cut my hair short. I have wanted to do this for a long time. I never did the big “I’m a lesbian, I’m going to shave my head like Ani Difranco.” But I have always wanted to cut it all off and I’ve always felt like I somehow missed a queer right of passage by not chopping of all my hair.

Now it is short. It is a pixie cut and still feminine. But the first time it occurred to me what we now look like (2 dykes with short hair with a baby), it made me very happy. Which doesn’t mean long hair makes you less of a dyke, but somehow for me, it felt like it did.

What I am looking for is visibility. Especially now that I am a parent. However, the haircut alone does not a visible queer make.

So I turn to you, dear reader, fellow queer, fashinistas.

How do I become a more visible queer mom?

-Rachel

On the Fourth night of Hanukkah

Good forbid the holidays go by without a food related post. We celebrate both Christmas and Hanukkah in my family, but when Hanukkah is so close and overlapping with Christmas, it often gets over shadowed. So we decided to have our two best friends over (the baby’s aunties) and have a delicious Hanukkah meal. We also had a lot of vegetables that I had bought at Costco that we needed to get rid of. Enter the best roasted vegetable meal ever! There is nothing traditional about this dinner, except for the fact that we also had latkes.

First, back to the topic of tofu. I rediscovered this marinade from Mollie Katzen. It is so delicious (this is the second time we have made this recipe in a week). You can do it baked, just tossed in with a salad, however you want. Make it now!

Amazing Tofu Marinade (Enchanted Broccoli Forest)

First, cube a pound of tofu and boil it in water for 10 minutes. This makes the tofu firm and the texture better.

In a bowl combine:

3-4 Tablespoons of soy sauce

2 tsp of grated fresh ginger

2 minced cloves of garlic

1 Tablespoon of sesame oil

1 Tablespoon of rice vinegar

Pour this over the tofu and let sit for many hours, or over night.

Then we like to bake it at 400 for about 15-20 minutes, or until most of the liquid is gone. Make sure you stir so it doesn’t get stuck to the bottom and burn.

We also made these Roasted Tomatoes and these Roasted Mushrooms. The mushrooms are especially wonderful. The butter sauce that forms in the bottom of the pan is unreal. We forgot to add the basil to the tomatoes but they were still delicious. The onions were so soft and caramelized.

Enjoy and happy holidays!

-Rachel

Masculine and Feminine in a two mom house

I want to talk about gender expression, clothing, and raising a girl in a two mom household. This will be a topic I revisit often and have been thinking about a lot lately.

I am constantly reminded that the way we do or do not identify our own gender is often different from how we are perceived. My wife and I are often read as Butch/Femme when we are out in the world. However, neither of us identify with either of those terms (though I did just come across the expression low-femme (as opposed to high-femme) and I think I might start using it to describe myself).

So, despite how we identify, we are seen as masculine and feminine out in the world, based on how we dress. And our daughter might see us that way. It brings up questions for me about how we present those different gender presentations to her, how we make room for her own gender exploration, and how we value both masculine and feminine, without falling into two traps.

One trap: she is a girl and many feminine/girly/pink/princess things will be pushed on her. She will learn lessons out in the world about what it means to be a girl, many of which are very limiting. However, I want to make sure that we don’t devalue feminine things. Pretty dresses are nice sometimes and tutus are so much fun. So I want to make sure she can explore and play with those things without feeling like she has to.

The other trap is the dichotomy of gender. I don’t want her to think you have to be one or another, and I sometimes worry that even though she has two moms, she will somehow see us as fitting into these two roles, masculine and feminine. Which is enforced even more by the fact that her more feminine looking mom is a stay at home mom who likes to bake. I want her to know she can be anything, and that gender presentation is something to test out, play with, and have fun with.

Future posts:

Hair, gender presentation, and gender play

Butch/Femme: the good, the bad, and the ugly

-Rachel

For more thoughts on butch/femme and amazing queer beautifulness, watch this Ivan Coyote video. It makes me cry.

The stuff we affectionately call Tofu

I have been a vegetarian my whole life (give or take a brief period in high school and after college ,when I ate some chicken every once in awhile). For me, it is about what feels healthy and what I am used to. I’m not so big on the moral righteousness of it. The mainstream animal production industry totally grosses me out, but a lot of what is gross about it applies to how we get our eggs and vegetables, etc, so I can’t really complain. Or I can, but that would be a rant for another post.

Anyway, a big part of being a vegetarian for me has always been eating lots of tofu. I love tofu and ate a lot of it as a child (though not as much as my brother did, who used to eat it raw with ketchup, gross!).  But here are some of the challenges I have with tofu.

It has no flavor. I suppose this is good and bad, given that it means the tofu takes on the flavor of whatever you add to it, but that often takes more work and thoughtfulness.

It ends up as a bowl of mush (along with a comb and a brush… goodnight moon anyone?). Texture is often a big issue with tofu, I have a hard time with tofu scrambles for this reason, because unless it is fried, tofu still often has that mushy texture.

Enter the savior of kitchen appliances: the SLOW COOKER!

I have two tofu slow cooker recipes to share, but first I want to tell you why cooking tofu in the slow cooker is a good idea. It solves both the above problems. It makes the tofu super firm and have a lot of texture because it draws the water out. Also, it infuses the flavor as if you had marinated it for days. Yum. I love how both of these recipes use miso paste, which we had in the house because while I was pregnant I had this idea that I was going to make my own miso soup. I did. Once. It was not good. I don’t even like miso soup. Anyway, I highly recommend both of these, though we are partial to the one with spinach in this house.

Enjoy!

Japanese-Style Braised Tofu (The Gourmet Vegetarian Slow Cooker)

Combine in a bowl with a whisk: 1/4 cup miso paste (recipe calls for white, we had yellow, which worked fine), 1/4 cup soy sauce, 2 tablespoons sesame oil, 2 tablespoons water, 1 tablespoon honey.

Take one pound of firm tofu and cut into 1/2 inch slices, or as I like to call them, tofu steaks. Coat the tofu (both sides) in the sauce and lay into the slow cooker. Pour the rest of the sauce over the top.

Cover and cook on low for 4 hours. We like to turn the tofu a few times because the edges get really crispy and almost burnt.

Just before serving, add 1 pound of washed spinach (the recipe called for 1/2 pound but we found that wasn’t enough). Continue to cook in the slow cooker just long enough for the spinach to get wilted, maybe another 10 minutes.

Remove and put on plates. Garnish with thinly sliced green onion and toasted sesame seeds.

Miso-Braised Tofu and Shallots (Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker)

Thinly slice 3 shallots (we only had one so we substituted with 2 small onions, which worked well). Spread them over the bottom of your lightly oiled slow cooker.

Make your tofu steaks (1 pound cut into 1/2 inch thick slices) and put them on top of the shallots.

In a bowl, combine 2 tablespoons miso paste, 2 tablespoons soy sauce, 1 tablespoon olive oil, and 1 tablespoon water. Pour this over the tofu and shallots.

Cook on low for 4 hours. Delicious!