Kitchen Cats: Kitchencats 2013

At first it seems hard to believe that we haven't written any kitchencats blogs in a good 18 months. And then you think about how non-stop a 21-month-old boy is, or how non-stop our travels were in 2013, and it's easy to realize that we were just lucky to do some good cooking every so often, let alone write and post nice pictures about it. I will say that my wonderful hubby has really taken the lead on making sure that we have *nice* meals on the table (not just something edible on the table), trying new recipes, and learning this year what our somewhat-choosy toddler will and won't eat.

Since it seems impossible that I'd find time to back-blog every note-worthy dish from this past year, I thought I'd do a "Year in Review," mainly of the food-related photos that I have from 2013.

Here's to more cooking and baking, and to teaching Kiernan more about foods and cooking in 2014!

Birthday Cakes
Every month for the first year of his life, I made Kiernan a month-birthday cake (or pie) on the 21st of the month. A few of the 2013 ones:

Jan 21, 2013 - 10 mo old. Making tres-leches cake!

Kiernan's Tres Leches Cake. Sweetened condensed milk and coolwhip topping. How could a baby not love to play with that!

Feb 21, 2013 - 11 mo old. Made Grits Pie, from Paula Deen. Sort of a sweet custard with a cornmeal texture and taste. Intereresting and not bad.

Pecan pie, for Kiernan's 1st Birthday feast!

K's First Birthday! March 21, 2013
Kiernan's 1st birthday was celebrated with his first trip to the Atlantic coast (Jekyll Island) followed by a 4-grandparent visit and homemade birthday cake. Used the Cooking Light Baking cookbook to make Italian Cream cake -- a light, white cake with a cream cheese and powered sugar frosting. With a little ocean theme to boot.

Kiernan's First Birthday Cake

Touching my cake!

Hawai'i Trip
In May, for our 2nd Anniversary, we took Kiernan (13 months old) on his first trip to Hawaii. Quite the airplane adventure with a baby, traveling ATL to LAX to HNL to OGG (Maui), then later HNL to Seattle then home to ATL. Kiernan got to meet his great-grandmother Okamura in Maui, his Uncle Ken (featured Whole Foods organic farmer!), his Uncle Mark and Aunt Corinne. And a few weeks later, he rounded out the Okamura clan with a trip to Rochester to meet more aunts, uncles, and cousins. On Maui, there's no food to compare to (great)-grandma's food; except maybe the fresh pineapple and strawberries:

Uncle Ken, who grows mainly cabbage, also has an organic farm and sells to the local Whole Foods.

Kiernan loved being held by Uncle Ken!

Pineapple Upside down cake, and a blue crayon. Enjoying an Anniversary lunch at Kula Lodge.

Kiernan helps us devour pineapple cake at Kula Lodge, 2 years after mommy & daddy's wedding rehearsal dinner there!

Kula Strawberry Farms!

May 7, 2013, Kiernan visits Holy Ghost Church in Kula, our wedding chapel!

Haleakala Crater

Pineapple Upside Down Cake!

Yes, we carried a pineapple from Maui to Honolulu to Seattle to Atlanta, to make this delicious cake back home. I believe it was a Cook's Illustrated recipe, although when I've tried to locate the recipe later this year, it has escaped me. The magazine did suggest cutting the pineapple into small chunks (rather than the traditional whole pineapple rings) to get better coverage of the cake.

Celebrations!

Easter: Kiernan's 2nd Easter Cake, with mommy's super-novice first attempts at piping icing. I think you can tell it's a bunny, and those are roses not bunny droppings...

Mommy's Birthday: we went to Murphy's (a nice, grown-up, neighborhood restaurant) with our 15-month old, and he actually kept his voice low enough for us to stay through all of dinner and dessert. That may have been our last truly calm and successful restaurant visit!

4th of July: I ran the Peachtree 10K and was just glad to finish it, in the heat, rain, and relative poor training I have had.

Desserts I have made...

Too many pies and cakes to count.

Cherry Pie in July!

Blueberry Pie in September, in Richmond, VA

Birthday cake for grandma! We visited Richmond for Labor day and my mom's B-day. Can't remember which recipe I used for her birthday cake, but likely the same one that I used for K's 1st birthday cake.

Some ordinary days...
Kiernan's first meal off of a restaurant menu -- Lo Mein with tofu, from Doc Chey's, of course! With it's extremely fast service, kid-friendly patios, and Kiernan's favorite food items (noodles and rice!), this is one of the few (only) restaurants we can bring our toddler to...

Kiernan's very first restaurant meal, April 2013 at Doc Chey's Morningside location

Another Lo Mein meal at Doc Chey's. Kiernan slightly older with a nice summer haircut!

Alton Brown's flaming Shrimp and Grits. My hubby really mastered this one. Fantastic.

Kiernan may have a toddler's appetite, but we can usually rely on breakfast foods to interest him. Eggs, hash browns, rice, and BACON!

San Francisco Trip!
My youngest cousin Jonathan got married in October in Carmel Valley, CA, and we took a week vacation in Northern CA. We originally planned to do Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks until the blasted government "shut-down" (or "tantrum" as we would say if they were all 2-year-olds) prevented that. So we spent some nice days in Monterrey and San Francisco, and had an extra couple days with family!

We had some nice fish in Monterrey, but Kiernan was mainly interested in eating buttered noodles off of a fish-shaped dish.

In Santa Cruz, we went to the famous Marianne's Ice Cream, where I ordered dark chocolate ice cream. Kiernan took it upon himself to help me eat it.

Kiernan's death grip on the ice cream cone.

For 2 days in San Francisco, we had a LOT of walking. Walking Nob Hill, walking with a 21-lb baby in a stroller (sometimes) or in a front ERGO carrier. At the end of day #2, I was spent. I sent hubby out to buy take-out Chinese food and warned him not to return without a really good dessert for me. He did not disappoint!

The government re-opened, and we got to visit Golden Gate Park. It was a stunning day, and worth the trip.

Thanksgiving
After a year full of travel, we got a respite for the holidays. Dan's parents joined us in Atlanta for Thanksgiving. I roasted the turkey (15.99 lbs), made McPherson-family bread stuffing, shaved brussels with cranberries, my whole-berry cranberry sauce, and a blueberry coffee cake. Desserts were traditional too -- I made my standard pumpkin and apple pies (see 2011 blogs for identical recipes). Thanksgiving cooking has usually fallen mostly to me for the past few years, since hubby starts his morning early with the Atlanta Thanksgiving Day half-Marathon every year.

The Thanksgiving spread!

Thanksgiving desserts x3

Pops and Kiernan spending some energy outside before dinner

St. Simon's island, 1 week later, for Pop's birthday trip. No food or kitchen stories here, just had to include one of my favorite photos.

Christmas!
All 4 grandparents traveled to Atlanta for Christmas this year. This holiday, hubby made some big plans to do the meal right. He smoked his first turkey (brined overnight for ~8 hrs in a salt/brown sugar solution, rubbed with Cajun spices, and smoked for 2 hrs 20 min at ~338-degrees). The color and the taste were just fantastic. Other dishes he made were whipped sweet potatoes, green bean casserole (yum), cranberries. I kept my dessert duty and made 3 recipes that I'd never tried before: pecan bars (Cook's Illustrated Holiday issue), a citrus cheesecake with goat cheese and ricotta (The Art & Soul of Baking book), and a cranberry upside down cake (Cooking Light -- cut out recipe, in binder). The verdicts?
- Pecan Bars: Hubby: "I think these may be the best thing you have ever baked."
- Cheesecake: decent. I'm not a huge cheesecake fan, but I think it was what it was supposed to be.
- Cranberry upside down cake: very nice. Light cake, not too sweet.

My in-laws arrived in Atlanta 1-day after returning from a 2-week stay in Hawaii, and they brought too super-sweet Maui pineapples. I used one of the pineapples to repeat Pineapple Upside down cake a few days after Xmas. I couldn't find my old recipe from the summer, so I used the cranberry cake recipe, and it was a good substitute.

The much-hailed pecan bars from Cook's Illustrated. They have a crust of butter/flour/ground pecans, a thin layer of sugar/corn syrup, and toasted pecans on top. A VERY simple and fast recipe, with great results.