EYE OF TOBIA PHOTOGRAPHY BLOG » food

Yup somehow we made it to two.

Tobia — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:18:08 +0000

My baby turned 2 a few days ago. Sniff.
He was thrilled. I can’t believe what a lovely little man he has become. He doesn’t fit on the guitar any more… not that he doesn’t try.

Dunedin was Uberjoyed to help with this cake. We almost had to have chocolate covered fingers on the cake instead of strawberries at the rate they would sneak into her mouth.

Can I just note… this photo came from my Iphone. For a web photo, not so bad!

Grape Jelly Greatness aka Child Labor Laws Sidelined

Tobia — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:34:44 +0000

A few weeks ago we had a crop of concord grapes falling from the vines behind our house. The kids were eating them by the bellyful, seeds and all. (Bellyful: adj. term of measurement equal to or greater than what an average elephant can consume)

My head filled with fears of grape vines growing in their bellies or worse: the next diaper change. I decided to take matters into my own hands and make some grape jelly with the kids. I picked a day off from work and rolled up our sleeves (or by some act of parenting wisdom, I dressed the kids in short sleeves). We picked, we ate, picked, threw them at each other, slipped on them and made a general mess.

At some point we filled a big pot.

Then we had to take them off the stems.

For some reason the kids were less interested in this part of the process, but that is what I get for paying so little for my labor costs. From there, the boiling of the grapes- then the churning, swishing, squeezing of the grapes. Interest peaked again at this point.

But not when I explained squished grapes outside were one thing- Grapes on floor and carpet a different one altogether.
In all, the whole process took almost half a day. The hardest part was telling the kids they would have to wait until the jelly set for a day before we could eat it. That’s not true. The hardest part was the whole caning sterilizing process. For some reason, I figured, how hard can it be to process all these cans in a boiling thing of water without racks? Turns out not as easy as I thought.
It also turns out I should read instructions. My husband tells me this sometimes- he may be on to something (just don’t tell him I said so). Apparently, just because I thought the jelly mixture was sweet enough with the 4 cups of sugar instead of the 7 the recipe requested, it was not the right sugar/gel ratio. Who knew chemistry would be so important in cooking…
Needless to say, I got to do the whole thing again.
Now we have some gifts to start handing out. Unless the kids eat it all first.

Carpet Gnomes too fast again

Tobia — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:15:31 +0000

In an effort to add more variety(read: chocolate) to breakfast in the mornings, I bought some Trader Joes Chocolate Croissants that you leave in the oven overnight to proof, then bake. Holy deliciousness. I would have had a photo to show you of the treat, but my resident Carpet Gnomes were too fast again. Here you can see the effects of chocolate on the general mood of children.

Mmmm mommy-Lobster bisque is my Favorite!

Tobia — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 20:57:16 +0000

With the leftovers from our Buffalo Cousin’s visit I made some lobster bisque. It takes forever to make from scratch. I was looking forward to a nice, fancy-pants meal with the family but Kelby ended up needing to stay late at the office (swine flu hysteria, argh). So, I sat with my 2 children, 2 and under, eating the Lobster Bisque with swiss chard saute and bread from Seven Stars Bakery (yum!) It went over “great-great!” , with rave reviews: “Mommy, lobster bisque is my Favorite!” The kid is likely going to have a difficult time at the playground… sigh.
This is the way it goes with all of the meals I serve to my kids- especially the ones served after forgetting to feed them properly for lunch.

Bison as houseguests

Tobia — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 00:15:18 +0000

D and G’s cousins from Buffalo came to visit with us this week. We had an awesome time with the three calves and their parents. They might have done a little better as a traveling pod of Dolphins with all the rain we had this last week but a trip to the Providence Childrens Museum and New Bedford Whaling Museum did seem to tide them over.
As many traveling herds, they often were in search of food. This being the case, we fed them a New England style feast of Lobster and Steamers followed by a few hand picked delicacies from Federal Hill (the “little Italy” of Providence) We aren’t bad to visit, I swear! As you can see here they could only be contained for a short period of time before heading for the green pastures of NH to visit with more family. (We have a LOT of family)

unboxed lasagna

Tobia — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:25:04 +0000

Pasta making has become a favorite of D’s. And this week with all of our new CSA shares to experiment with, we decided to try making some lasagna from scratch (or from knead, squeeze, pinch, roll, and shape) Pasta is incredibly easy to make. Flour and eggs. That’s it. I tend to be a little wishy-washy when it comes to measurements (why I seem unable to bake) so I included a real pasta recipe from Jamie Oliver

Basically what I do is have D put some flour in a bowl (about 2 cups) and then 2-3 eggs and combine, then kneed. If it is crumbly add a few drops of water, if it is sticky add a bit more flour. Then there is a resting phase. 30 min covered to let the glutens do what glutens may when they are left unsupervised. I don’t ask questions.
After we emptied the dishwasher (love that D still thinks it is a great game-how long can this last?) I split dough up into 4-5 pieces and hand to D to do the rest. She puts it through machine. Cranks it, mushes it back together, repeats until I loose patience and encourage her move on to making it thinner and thinner. Then we cut the pasta it into longish squarish pieces and throw into boiling water to parboil. 2 min and drain. By the time one was done the next was be ready to go in. We laid them out on a plate and started arranging the other ingredients. The greens (spinach and chard) were sauteed with onion and garlic and pinch of salt. D put some layers of cheese on. Then we repeated with more pasta and some mushroomy layers. We luckily had more dough than we needed, so D made it into her favorite activity- play doh. She spent 40 minutes with same little piece and G was working on his train set unencumbered by any meddlesome siblings. This allowed for the rest of dinner to come together quite nicely. This is not the usual scenario in our home for dinner prep.

I made the mushroom layer with a number of dried and fresh mushrooms reduced with wine and tomatoes. The kids liked everything but the greens. I didn’t chop them small enough. But they did eat most of it regardless.

little vampires

Tobia — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 01:50:56 +0000

We walked to pick up our CSA share from Ledge Ends Produce in Providence today. After choosing our shares from the bin Dunedin and Griffin realized that the last stop on the line held Strawberries. Strawberries are spelled with a capitol S in our house. They are pronounced with all caps, but I thought in print, this begins to get redundant. Needless to say we HAD to stop to sample “a w’iddle bit, pwease Mommy? Griffin wants some.”

As we left the CSA pick up area, there really were enough for Daddy to sample some, but when we got home this was all that was left.
Now both the children were strapped in, but both were covered in red dripping goatees when we got home 20 minutes later. Dunedin must have been passing Griffin some up front in the stroller…
I only got one.

the Herb huntress

Tobia — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:00:37 +0000

Dinner time at our house can be a bit chaotic. Dinner time prep even more so. Mouths and emotions are left hanging open. Especially after day care days when the kids have to transition back to home life whilst hungry. But now that Dunedin has been helping in the gardening process she can identify herbs that we can add to our meals. As she spend dinnerprep time begging to ‘help” and Griffin spends the time hording all of the pots and pans needed for the meal, I have been sending D outside in our little enclosed backyard to get the herbs. She was reluctant but very excited at the prospect of going alone. She explained to me that she needed a ‘hunting outfit’ left for 10 minutes to find it and this is what she came up with. It is summer, mind you.

Chick pea salad pictured is with the 6 chive stems she picked.