Full glass jars-Excellent carrot cake-its still snowing
There are some simple things that make me so very happy, one of them is seeing the milk pitcher full of almond milk and opening the cupboard door and seeing no empty glass jars. I got this wonderful glass pitcher on Amazon that is just perfect, it has a wide mouth so none on that trying to stick the scrubbie in with a fork to clean the corners and it has top that seals when you turn it so none of that sloshing milk when you inevitably have to shake the almond milk, and its big so fits over 2 liters of milk. I think I mentioned that I make our almond milk, its a simple enough procedure but its soaking the almonds, making sure I have the container clean and then I have to wash out the cheese cloth, its not a big deal its just one those things I have to do every few days so when I see the pitcher full, I know I have a break for a few days.
Seeing the glass jar cupboard empty means I have all the glass jars full of food in the freezer, which also means I don't have to cook for a few days. The other day I mustered up the courage and figured I might as well get it done, I had my black beans soaking so I put them in the crock pot, fried up my onions and garlic and put them in along with some meat bones I have and then I could just forget about them. I made the vegetable soup which this time came out much better, the last time the color was just awful-the wrong olive green, my husband ate it anyway without complaint but I could not even look at it, this time I put the right ratio of veggies and it came out a decent color and my husband made a few comments on how good it tasted (probably compared to the last fiasco). I also made a chicken stew and froze a few meals of it and left some out for the next day and for dinner. I haven't made that in a while partly because I have a very hard time with cooking chicken in general and also its not Isabellas favorite, then again very few things are these days, but since I have been pregnant I simply cannot as much of a trooper as I try to be, I just cannot even see this other chicken that I would always make so I have to think of other things that do not involve orange and chicken and onions. I made the stew very simple, I roughly chop up the onions and some garlic and fry them up then blend them with some peeled and seeded chopped tomatos, I do this because cutting onions and garlic is also not high on my list right now and its so much easier to not have to worry about a fine chop. I then put the chicken in the pot ( I used the drumsticks) with salt and lightly browned them, not that much really, its almost not worth saying the word brown because I didn't want to be doing any sort of frying with oil etc so I just kind of mixed them in the pot with some salt and put some thyme in there, then I added the blended tomato sauce and chopped up some carrots and left them to cook, I don't add water or much in any case. When the chicken was cooked I did take it out and cut off the meat as its easier for my husband when he has to heat it up in the morning, this part I dread and I have now only bought the skinless and boneless chicken, just while I am pregnant as it makes it a little easier, but I had this chicken that I had to use in the freezer and the bones do help it taste better. At the end I added some peas and that was it, it came out quite good and I felt so happy that I could fill up some more jars and there won't only be one type of bean frozen for him to take for lunch.
Isabella is constantly asking me if she can make cupcakes, again I don't do it often and especially lately I haven't, when I do I usually make my go to carrot cake that I know by heart and she likes, but I asked her if she wanted a different cake this time and she asked for coconut??? Never in her life has she eaten a coconut cake, I'm not sure she even would like it, but I remembered my good friend Sharon had made a carrot coconut cake for her daughters birthday, her food always comes out good but she isn't one to follow a recipe necessarily, I called her anyway and she sent me this recipe, I had to modify it a bit because as you might know I don't use sugar so I replaced that for maple syrup and I didn't have applesauce at home and not enough apples to make any either and I didn't have pineapple, canned or fresh, so I replaced it with a grated apple and tiny bit of orange juice. I heard that her cake came out incredible, very moist and delicious and I believe it because I made and modified it quite a bit and it was the most moist carrot cake I have ever made, hands down. I didn't add the nuts because of course Isabella would have me picking them out and I used some olive oil instead of applesauce, a little less than it called for, but I can imagine with the nuts it would have been much better. I also did not make the frosting however if you like frosting I imagine it would be an excellent cake. I highly recommend it . Here is the link to the recipe:
Spring greeted us with yet another snow storm, it snowed non stop for almost two days, it melted pretty fast over the next days. I keep seeing the trees starting to look like they might start flowering and yesterday was pretty nice, but this morning Isabella looks out the window and says "mommy its starting to snow" I thought yes its probably the leftover snow that she is seeing outside but no there it was snowing away. I saw this picture that I took the same day last year when we were in Virginia and what a difference:
It must have been very hot, I'm always cold so for me to have them dressed like this it must have at least been in the 80's, I can't wait for Spring weather.
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