Weekend Off?
Looking back on this weekend, I think I just had about the closest thing I could possibly expect to a weekend off while staying at home, given that my job is stay-at-home mom. And I didn't even really plan it that way! I had to just now go back and look at my entry from Friday to remember it, but Friday evening went pretty well, although there was some waking of babies after I hit the Post button. Still, I have no complaints.
Some of the highlights:
I managed to take naps with Sophie both yesterday and today while Joe played with Julie. I felt a little guilty about checking out for the second afternoon in a row, but it was so nice to cuddle up with the baby and get the extra sleep that I so desperately needed. I miss being able to do that every day if I needed to like I did with Julie when she was a baby. I'm still in the throes of this nasty cold, too, so I felt like I at least had a bit of an excuse.
I got to go to the grocery store by myself on Saturday morning. I offered to take Julie with me, but she insisted she wanted to stay home with Daddy, and Sophie was sleeping when I left so off I went free as a lark!
I didn't have to cook dinner Saturday night. We went to that birthday party and ate take-out barbecue there. It was good, and we didn't have to clean up the kitchen afterwards either.
I got to go over to the neighbor's house and sit around drinking a beer for a while last night. We do that every so often, and she called me up just as the kids were going to bed, and I just couldn't turn her down. She wants to learn how to knit, but I think we're going to have to do it *before* we start drinking next time.
This morning I made pancakes for breakfast - now that Julie can eat eggs and milk, it's much easier to create something that tastes like a real pancake for the whole family to eat. By the way, she's continuing to do great with the new foods. She's shown no signs of problems at all with eggs and most of the dairy we've tried so far. Butter, cheese and milk cooked in things have been no problem. I did give her some yogurt the other day, and that produced a huge raging rash in the diaper area. At least, the rash showed up a few hours after she ate the yogurt, so I'm assuming they're related. For the mean time, she'll continue drinking rice milk and I'll keep avoiding yogurt and kefir, but that's no big deal.
Tonight I tried a new recipe for dinner, with mixed results. Here's the thing. We have a chain of stores around here called Let's Dish. They're great - you go spend an evening assembling ingredients for eight or twelve meals in ziploc bags and foil pans, which you then take home and put in your freezer. You can take them out one at a time and prepare them with minimal work for an easy, but wholesome dinner. I've used it a couple of times and liked it, and I still get their e-newsletters. I would probably still use sometimes, but most of their menus don't fit our dietary restrictions. Even so, every month when I get the e-mail, I always go check out the menus, and sometimes I get ideas of new things to try. This month, they had some chicken dish with a cream sauce and a cranberry chutney. Sounded great, and now that Julie can eat dairy, cream sauces are an option for us.
So I clicked over to the Food Network's site and found Poached Chicken in Norman Style Cider Cream Sauce and an accompanying Cranberry Chutney recipe. Sounded good. I noticed right away that the chutney recipe, despite claiming to provide only eight servings, was pretty huge. I pared it down to use just one 12-oz bag of cranberries and three apples, and still ended up with at least eight servings' worth. It was sweet, but good. So good that Julie didn't want to eat anything else on her plate at dinner tonight. The poached chicken also turned out okay, although it took longer to cook than I expected from the recipe, and I had a big problem with the cream sauce.
Now, I am no expert on cream sauces. Before the kids, I never made them because I was too busy trying to stay thin to eat something so decadent. Then Julie's allergies came along. Now, I still think cream sauce is pretty decadent, but I'm a little less obsessed about my weight even though I am much heavier than I was before. So I thought we'd give it a try, but I bought half-and-half instead of heavy cream as called for in the recipe. Well, as soon as I poured the cream into the pan with the partially-reduced cider, it curdled. Broken cream sauce is so disappointing, and although I went ahead and reduced it down, it never did get thick or creamy, but remained a watery substance full of lumps. We ate it, but it wasn't very good. Any advice here would be greatly appreciated. Do I need to use the full-fat cream? Do I need to mix a little of the hot cider into the cream seperately to warm it up so it doesn't cook, kind of like you would for a custard? I'm clueless.
I'm off to watch an episode or two of 24 on DVD, eat cheddar bunnies and knit with the blankie for a bit before I head to bed.
Some of the highlights:
I managed to take naps with Sophie both yesterday and today while Joe played with Julie. I felt a little guilty about checking out for the second afternoon in a row, but it was so nice to cuddle up with the baby and get the extra sleep that I so desperately needed. I miss being able to do that every day if I needed to like I did with Julie when she was a baby. I'm still in the throes of this nasty cold, too, so I felt like I at least had a bit of an excuse.
I got to go to the grocery store by myself on Saturday morning. I offered to take Julie with me, but she insisted she wanted to stay home with Daddy, and Sophie was sleeping when I left so off I went free as a lark!
I didn't have to cook dinner Saturday night. We went to that birthday party and ate take-out barbecue there. It was good, and we didn't have to clean up the kitchen afterwards either.
I got to go over to the neighbor's house and sit around drinking a beer for a while last night. We do that every so often, and she called me up just as the kids were going to bed, and I just couldn't turn her down. She wants to learn how to knit, but I think we're going to have to do it *before* we start drinking next time.
This morning I made pancakes for breakfast - now that Julie can eat eggs and milk, it's much easier to create something that tastes like a real pancake for the whole family to eat. By the way, she's continuing to do great with the new foods. She's shown no signs of problems at all with eggs and most of the dairy we've tried so far. Butter, cheese and milk cooked in things have been no problem. I did give her some yogurt the other day, and that produced a huge raging rash in the diaper area. At least, the rash showed up a few hours after she ate the yogurt, so I'm assuming they're related. For the mean time, she'll continue drinking rice milk and I'll keep avoiding yogurt and kefir, but that's no big deal.
Tonight I tried a new recipe for dinner, with mixed results. Here's the thing. We have a chain of stores around here called Let's Dish. They're great - you go spend an evening assembling ingredients for eight or twelve meals in ziploc bags and foil pans, which you then take home and put in your freezer. You can take them out one at a time and prepare them with minimal work for an easy, but wholesome dinner. I've used it a couple of times and liked it, and I still get their e-newsletters. I would probably still use sometimes, but most of their menus don't fit our dietary restrictions. Even so, every month when I get the e-mail, I always go check out the menus, and sometimes I get ideas of new things to try. This month, they had some chicken dish with a cream sauce and a cranberry chutney. Sounded great, and now that Julie can eat dairy, cream sauces are an option for us.
So I clicked over to the Food Network's site and found Poached Chicken in Norman Style Cider Cream Sauce and an accompanying Cranberry Chutney recipe. Sounded good. I noticed right away that the chutney recipe, despite claiming to provide only eight servings, was pretty huge. I pared it down to use just one 12-oz bag of cranberries and three apples, and still ended up with at least eight servings' worth. It was sweet, but good. So good that Julie didn't want to eat anything else on her plate at dinner tonight. The poached chicken also turned out okay, although it took longer to cook than I expected from the recipe, and I had a big problem with the cream sauce.
Now, I am no expert on cream sauces. Before the kids, I never made them because I was too busy trying to stay thin to eat something so decadent. Then Julie's allergies came along. Now, I still think cream sauce is pretty decadent, but I'm a little less obsessed about my weight even though I am much heavier than I was before. So I thought we'd give it a try, but I bought half-and-half instead of heavy cream as called for in the recipe. Well, as soon as I poured the cream into the pan with the partially-reduced cider, it curdled. Broken cream sauce is so disappointing, and although I went ahead and reduced it down, it never did get thick or creamy, but remained a watery substance full of lumps. We ate it, but it wasn't very good. Any advice here would be greatly appreciated. Do I need to use the full-fat cream? Do I need to mix a little of the hot cider into the cream seperately to warm it up so it doesn't cook, kind of like you would for a custard? I'm clueless.
I'm off to watch an episode or two of 24 on DVD, eat cheddar bunnies and knit with the blankie for a bit before I head to bed.
posted by Shelly Kang at 10:03 PM
7 Comments:
Yeah, hot acid and cold cream don't like each other well. You do need to stir a little cider into the cream before adding the cream to the cider. I don't know why recipes don't warn you that curdling is a real possibility when adding to cream to hot wine or cider or citrus etc.
What are Cheddar Bunnies?
It helps to set out the cold cream at the beginning to help raise the temperature a bit before it hits the pan... also more fat makes it less likely to curdle. Be sure not to boil the cream because the high heat will do it everytime.
don't feel guilty for napping when you are sleep deprived and not feeling well. it sounds like your hubby understood your needs, and that is great.
As previously stated, the hot acid and cold cream aren't a good combination. Tempering the cream with some of the cider may have prevented the curdling. I am a big fan of whisks and for smoothing a sauce that wants to be lumpy, the spiral whisk (here is a link to one of my favorites: http://www.cookswares.com/individual.asp?n=RS39).
You should be able to find something similiar for less at KMart or Target. The recipe isn't clear about the temperature of the cider reduction before adding the cream. I would suggest a slow simmer. The fat in the cream is a necessary component in allowing the sauce to thicken. Like adding small amounts of butter slowly to the 'drippings' and bits from a cooked piece of meat into a pan, whisking it into a smooth velvet liquid. Okay this is probably way more than you were looking for, I just hope I have been able to properly explain. You have done such a wonderful tutorials on the blanket.
Me too. What are cheddar bunnies?? Glad you're napping whenever possible. Sleep is a mommy's best friend!
Reading the part where you mentioned being free as a lark while shopping, brought back memories of when my kids were little and I'd get out to the store by myself. Talk about liberating.... just to shop in peace. I would let people cut in front of me in line, just so that I could make the time away from home last just that much longer.
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