Morning sickness, you wretched beast

6/14/12 – About 9 weeks pregnant

So was MIA for a while there because right on schedule at 5 weeks pregnant the morning sickness kicked in and I’ve spent most of my time focusing on not vomiting. I’ve worked out a medication regimen that at least takes the edge off. I still can’t be near anything food related until about noon without wanting to die but at least I’m not throwing up constantly. The other day I forgot to take my medicine and promptly threw up multiple times. Lesson learned.

People have asked me if I’ve been craving anything, to which I say HAHAHAHA. NO. DO NOT WANT FOOD EVER AGAIN.

Mostly I eat bland carbs. Cheesy carbs are especially good. I ate one of those awful frozen mac and cheeses the other day and thought I had died and gone to heaven. Bland!  Carb-y! Reminiscent of cheese! Mushy to the point of predigested! Perfect.

I usually eat a pretty healthy diet but for the last month I haven’t been able to look at a vegetable without dry heaving. So I’m eating a very balanced diet of bread and cheese. Good thing they make you take a multivitamin. All the morning sickness info I’ve read basically says look, just eat what you can eat and don’t worry about it. The baby will just steal from your own bodily stores! Great. Thieving, thieving babies…

Here is what the little cupcake looked like when we first checked in, by the way. Good news, honey, we are gestating a gummy bear! 

In other news, told most of the extended family as well the past week or so. Last night we went out to dinner with Joe’s extended family and told them there. Well, Joe told them there. It was extraordinarily loud and half the family was at a different table next to us. So Joe eventually went over to the other table and shouted that I was pregnant, possibly using hand gestures to illustrate his point. And I’m sure everybody swung around to look at me, where I was probably grimacing and poking glumly at some soup. The vision of motherhood! Everybody was like, “Congratulations!!” to which I said, “Thanks. Please stop making sudden movements.”

Joe and I go to California tonight, part vacation and part work so I’m looking forward to that. Except for the Xanax-less plane ride, since Xanax is verboten during pregnancy. Which is a huge bummer for me. And Joe too, since my nails are quite sharp and last time we hit turbulence while flying together I about clawed Joe’s arm off.  The last time I hit turbulence solo I quickly calculated the maximum dosage of Xanax I could consume without causing organ damage and then chugged that back immediately. And then I don’t remember anything after that. AND IT WAS DELIGHTFUL.

In short, I really hate flying and am not at all basking in the joys of pregnancy. Fingers crossed, I should feel better in a couple weeks. Until then, you will find me in a fetal position on my couch, watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and trying not to drool on my pillow too much. 

Sophie's first "Mother's" day

5/13/12

Joe and I decided to gather our immediate family for a mother’s day brunch and tell everybody I’m pregnant then.  We didn’t exactly plan how we were going to announce it, so Joe just said, “So we have some big news…” and then looked pointedly at me. Except at that exact moment I was busily shoving a chocolate tart in my mouth so he was forced to finish the big announcement.

Everybody was happy for us, which was a little weird for me really. I guess I never got over growing up with the message, “DON’T GET PREGNANT!!”  I was like really? You guys aren’t going to disown me?

Still feeling normal except for cravings for a salt lick. My TV snack as of late is a big jar of capers. Also picked up a Costco sized jar of pickles so my blood pressure should be through the roof in no time.

In other news, I made the mistake of telling Joe that they blastocyte is about the size of a poppy seed right now and now he looks at me in terror whenever I make a sudden movement. The does not bode well for the next 8 months.

It's official

5/12/12 – a little over 4 weeks pregnant

Blood tests came back very much positive and my nurse practitioner is pleased with how everything looks. It’s official: I’m pregnant! WHAT?

Joe was in favor of waiting until after the first trimester to tell friends and family so we could make sure everything was truly okay. While I do want to wait to tell the world (meaning Facebook) it’s just not reasonable to wait that long to tell immediate friends and family. We’ve gone to several family dinners in the last week and of course everybody asks if anything is new with Joe and I. And Joe and I look at each other in a panic and go, “HAHA NOTHING NEW WHY WOULD YOU ASK? DEFINITLEY NOTHING LIFE CHANGING. SOPHIE IS DEFINITELY NOT GROWING A BABY.” It’s torture.

Little Baby Mintzensop

5/6/12: 3 weeks pregnant

One thing I’ve learned is that when you’re trying to get pregnant you pee on way more devices than you would care to admit. I also learned that you pay mucho dinero for the privilege of peeing on these little sticks.  I had to resort to buying the less sexy looking ovulation and pregnancy tests in bulk from Amazon so as not to bankrupt myself. My most recent adventures on peeing-on-a-stick have resulted in 2 little lines. Introducing: little baby Mintzensop.

… Or as I like to say to say at this point, the little blastocyte. The blastocyte is the collection of cells that will eventually become an embryo, which then becomes a fetus etc etc. Blastocyte is easier to digest than baby. Denial, maybe? I’m not pregnant; I just have this little collection of cells the size of a poppy seed!  DON’T RUSH ME, BLASTOCYTE.

Another bonus is that “blastocyte” sounds like a Pokemon. Definite plus.

Joe and I recently moved into our own little casa, which meant that for the first time, having a baby would be semi-reasonable. Which is good, because my ovaries have been screaming, "WE CAN HAZ BABY NOW?!" at me for several years. So we talked it over and decided yeah, having a baby now would be as good as a time as ever. And eventually I did indeed get pregnant. Which is kind of dumbfounding and terrifying, though we wanted it very much. I can really only sum it up in the following words: SHIT JUST GOT REAL.

As far as symptoms, I really don’t have anything yet. I was really bloated for a few days but let’s be honest, that was probably just the entire head of broccoli that I ate. Probably more telling is that cottage cheese with Tabasco sounds oddly appealing and everything on Pinterest makes me cry. Mostly I feel like a lame super hero, where my power is the ability to make two lines appear on some overpriced scraps of plastic.

Nothing is official yet. Though I could probably pee on two-dozen pregnancy tests and get all positives, I refuse to believe anything until I get the results of my blood test back. Blood seems like a way more legit form of bodily fluid for some reason. Maybe because I’m a nurse so I’m like pee, whatever. Blood? Now we’re talking!

In the meantime, we are keeping hush-hush about it, which is kind of agonizing. I just want to walk around wearing one of those sandwich boards that reads, “I’M PREGNANT!!” while high fiving strangers. In this fantasy I am also a skilled breakdancer. But we will wait and I will write instead. And watch episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Stay tuned.

Celebratory Cream Puff Tower

(insert message here about my suckage, you can make up your own! interactive blog experience!)

I was excited about last month's Daring Bakers challenge as it was something I actually wanted to make and my family and Joe's family were coming up for graduation so I actually had people to consume it.

And the challenge was... croquembouche! Which is French for... something, I'm sure. It goes like this: make a bunch of cream puffs. Painstakingly assemble cream puffs into pyramid shape with exceedingly hot caramel glue. Decorate with spun sugar, chocolate or the hearts of kittens.

Just checking to see if you were reading.

Blurb-o-the-month:
The May 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake. Cat challenged everyone to make a piece montée, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump’s Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri.

Cream puffs have been something that I've been itching to make for awhile, just to say, "Ah yes, Margarette, I do make a delightful cream puff. Quite! Shall we do the jitter bug whilst wearing our monocles? What? Of course I will not wear a dress that shows my knees, I'm not a harlot like the hussy next door."

I found that making all the components was pretty easy. I'm not sure what I did to the pastry cream recipe we were given but mine didn't thicken at all and I ended up thickening it quite a bit after I put it in a pastry bag and found that my 'cream' was dribbling all over the floor. Probably my fault though and easily fixed.


Two things were harder than I imagined: filling the cream puffs and assembling the tower. I used the special little pipping tip my sister got me that is long and pointy, like an elephant shrew's nose.


Or like something else long and pointy. But I like elephant shrews. So I used the elephant shrew tip to stab the cream puff and fill it with the pastry cream, but I had trouble 1) simultaneously holding the cream puff while pipping the filling 2) telling when the cream puffs were full and 3) not piercing the entire cream puff or exploding the cream puff by trying to fit a cup of filling into the tablespoon sized puffs. It ended up being a lot easier when my dad helped by holding the cream puffs and telling me when the cream puffs felt full by when they expanded in his hand.




Assembling the tower was easy enough but assembling it to look like an actual pyramid and not a blob of cream puffs I put together with my eyes closed was harder. I think it would have looked better if I had made tons of teensy cream puffs but I'm lazy, what can I say. I decided to distract from my pyramid-blob by drizzling chocolate over it and decorating it with the hearts of kittens. I mean, flowers.

It tasted lovely though it still didn't get entirely consumed as we were busy and moving. Not sure I would have a reason to make the whole shebang again but I would definitely make cream puffs again.


I won't post the recipes for the entire process but I will post the choux paste recipe used to make the cream puffs because I liked it and it was quite easy.

Pate a Choux (Yield: About 28)

Ingredients

¾ cup (175 ml.) water
6 Tbsp. (85 g.) unsalted butter
¼ Tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. sugar
1 cup (125 g.) all-purpose flour
4 large eggs

For Egg Wash: 1 egg and pinch of salt

Pre-heat oven to 425◦F/220◦C degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Preparing batter:
Combine water, butter, salt and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil and stir occasionally. At boil, remove from heat and sift in the flour, stirring to combine completely.

Return to heat and cook, stirring constantly until the batter dries slightly and begins to pull away from the sides of the pan.

Transfer to a bowl and stir with a wooden spoon 1 minute to cool slightly.

Add 1 egg. The batter will appear loose and shiny.

As you stir, the batter will become dry-looking like lightly buttered mashed potatoes.

It is at this point that you will add in the next egg. Repeat until you have incorporated all the eggs.

Piping:
Transfer batter to a pastry bag fitted with a large open tip (I piped directly from the bag opening without a tip). Pipe choux about 1 inch-part in the baking sheets. Choux should be about 1 inch high about 1 inch wide.

Using a clean finger dipped in hot water, gently press down on any tips that have formed on the top of choux when piping. You want them to retain their ball shape, but be smoothly curved on top.

Brush tops with egg wash (1 egg lightly beaten with pinch of salt).

Baking:
Bake the choux at 425◦F/220◦C degrees until well-puffed and turning lightly golden in color, about 10 minutes.

Lower the temperature to 350◦F/180◦C degrees and continue baking until well-colored and dry, about 20 minutes more. Remove to a rack and cool.

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BUT WAIT, BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE! Joe and I will be traveling through Europe for the next two months and Joe will be blogging about our adventures here: http://adventuretimesintheoldworld.blogspot.com/

So I expect you all to take note and follow like the good minions that you are.

I plan on taking pictures of delicious things and blogging about them here as well. BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE! I also already completed the Daring Bakers Challenge for this month so watch for that the end of this month. Ta ta!

Communist free baked goods

I'm still alive! I suck, but I'm alive! Unfortunately I will continue my streak as World's Worst Blogger a little longer-- Joe and I just finished moving out of our apartment and are now driving across the country back to Alaska. So there won't be any blogging while Joe and I drive through Canada, unless you're interested in some delicious lichen pie.

Side note: I find lichen jokes hilarious. (For the lichen naive-- poor souls-- think teeny bits of moss that grows in the tundra.) I have fond memories of working at the candy store during Christmas eve where I wore festive reindeer antlers attached to a headband. I was high on Christmas spirit and gummi bears and expressed this by pretending the antlers were transforming me into a reindeer. I would casually mention to my coworkers that I had a hankering for some lichen and pranced about in a way I imagined reindeer would.

So to answer the question: how do you survive serving crazy customers all day? BE CRAZIER THAN THEY ARE.

So anyway. Approximately nine million years ago I made some gluten free baked goods for my nurse preceptor. Basically she taught me how to do her job recovering kids from anesthesia after surgery and then made sure I didn't kill anybody, to which I was very grateful.

I always wanted to bring in baked goods for my coworkers but it felt cruel to bring in cookies or cake that my mentor couldn't eat. Thanks for all your help, here are some delicious baked goods that you are incapable of digesting! So for my last day I decided to bring in gluten-free treats.

Sprinkles: fighting communism since... 19...whatsit.

My first plan was to buy some gluten-free flour and attempt to use a gluten-free recipe. Then I caught Joe's Flu of Death and the thought of moving from the apartment made me want to die. So I had to improvise and make 'accidentally gluten-free' baked goods with ingredients I had on hand. The first thing that came to mind were meringues. Egg whites and sugar. Bake. Viola. Except you should probably whip them first, okay? I did two batches: vanilla and chocolate.



I used a pipping bag for the first time for shaping the meringues and they turned out very pretty. The chocolate ones didn't hold their shape and instead turned into marbled discs but it sort of appeared that I did that on purpose so... win!

Meringue Cookies Recipe:

3 large egg whites (3 ounces or 90 grams)

1/4

tsp cream of tartar

3/4 cup (150 grams) superfine or caster sugar (if you don't have superfine sugar simply take granulated white sugar and process it for about 30 seconds in a food processor) --- I used "regular" sugar

1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 200 degrees F (105 degrees C) and place the rack in the center of the oven. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. You can form the cookies with a pastry bag fitted with a 1/2 inch (1.25 cm) plain tip, or I often just use two spoons to make the cookies.

In the bowl of your mixer

, with the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites on low-medium speed until foamy. Add the cream of tartar and continue to beat the whites until they hold soft peaks. Add the sugar, a little at a time, and continue to beat until the meringue holds very stiff peaks. Beat in the vanilla extract.

Note: The meringue is done when it holds stiff peaks and when you rub a little between your thumb and index finger it does not feel gritty. If it feels gritty the sugar has not fully dissolved so keep beating until it feels smooth between your fingers.

Before placing the cookies on the cookie sheet, place a little of the meringue on the underside of each corner of the parchment paper. This will prevent the paper from sliding. Transfer the meringue to a pastry bag fitted with a 1/2 inch (1.25 cm) tip. Pipe 2 1/2 inch (6 cm) rounds of meringue in rows on the prepared baking sheet. Alternatively, spoon mounds of meringue, using two spoons, onto the prepared sheets. Sprinkle the tops of the cookies with a few shaved almonds, if desired.

Bake the meringues for approximately 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 hours, rotating the baking sheet from front to back (about half way through) to ensure even baking. The meringues are done when they are pale in color and fairly crisp. Turn off the oven, open the door a crack, and leave the meringues in the oven to finish drying overnight.

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I loved the way these tasted, I used homemade vanilla extract in the vanilla meringues and it made a huge difference. The cocoa ones were not as delicious perhaps but regardless I kept finding myself munching on them. I could not put my finger on what they tasted like until it dawned on me that they taste like Cocoa Puffs. Which is not a bad thing at all, who doesn't secretly like Cocoa Puffs? Communists, that's who.

Maybe its the eight hours of driving a day but I'm finding communist jokes HILARIOUS right now.


Since meringues are so easy, I felt obligated to make something else. I remembered making a peanut butter cookie recipe a few years ago that consisted only of peanut butter, eggs and sugar. That's it. They're a bit weird but they work-- they're a bit more like a crisp peanut butter candy but again, does that not sound delicious? I modified the recipe a bit and though they came out a little ugly and I was ashamed of their ugliness, my mentor LOVED them. These would not be my go to peanut butter cookie recipe but it's a good one to have in your baking arsenal: tasty, freakishly easy, and intensely peanut buttery. Who wouldn't like that? COMMUNISTS.

1-2-3 PB cookies

1 cup peanut butter
1 egg
1/4 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup plain sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Mix peanut butter, sugars, and egg together in a large bowl. Add the vanilla and salt and stir until combined. After all the ingredients have been combined, roll the peanut butter mixture into 1 inch balls.

Place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Press down with a fork. Once the oven has pre-heated, put the cookies in the oven for 15 minutes. Let cool completely.

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In the end, my mentor loved everything. Or she is a very good liar. She also ended up bringing me home baked peanut butter cookies on the same day, which I thought was very cute. They were tasty, which is saying something since I still had the Flu of Death and anything other than Gatorade made me dry heave in a corner.

In an awkward conclusion, love you Nancy!

Still navigating through the Canadian arctic/cities/highways, back soon with some lichen pie!

Homemade-reo's.

The other day Katie said, "Hey, remember when you had a blog?" to which I said, "Hey, remember when you shut your face?" Just kidding. But although my camera has mysteriously disappeared, probably to the same place where all my bobby pins go to, I do have some pictures loaded of past baked goods so I really have no good excuse not to update now that I'm finished with class. I guess I can break my Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathon with some pics.

I've been pining to make homemade oreos for awhile now, for no good reason other than my brain latches onto strange things. Which is probably how I ended up with two certifiably insane chinchillas.



One reason I put off making oreos until now was because I didn't think I could achieve the black color oreo cookies have that make them seriously off putting to those with braces. And because I am crazy, I did not want to make them if they were not the appropriate color. But then I did some shopping at the baking store King Arthur with a gift certificate I had (thanks Elrita!) and picked up some of this:

... black cocoa! The stuff is intense, you supplement regular cocoa with this stuff and it makes baked goods extra dark and extra chocolately. Let the oreo party commence.

I used this recipe for the cookies and it worked fine. Because I'm lazy and hate to roll out cookie dough, I rolled the cookie dough into a log, chilled it, and cut off rounds instead. Way easier. For the centers, I used my favorite buttercream recipe and flavored part with vanilla and part with raspberry jam. The only downside of this frosting is that it melts really easily, since it is essentially 99% butter (and 100% delicious because of it). So I kept the cookies refrigerated and would probably consider making a different filling if I were to do it again. But they did taste delicious! The consensus of deliciousness went to the cookies with vanilla filling -- people like tradition.

See? Melty. Whatever, people liked them. I brought them to a bar to share with friends, though it took me about 10 minutes to find them in my purse. My purse is a black hole and recently I lost my phone for an entire week in the depths of it. I wish I was kidding.