at home with ann

Perhaps you are ready for a little post-Christmas detox.  If you are like me, you ate about 200 cookies in the past 2 days.  This soup is low in fat and high in vitamins and fiber.  Just the thing to help you recover.   We had three pumpkins for Fall decorations this year, one for each of us.  Two sugar pumpkins and one mini gourd for our mini guy.  In years past, our pumpkins mysteriously ended up with bite marks in them from the various animals we have prowling around at night out here in the country.  I was pleasantly surprised that this year they made it through the season unscathed, and when December rolled around, I declared it time to bring in the pumpkins and roast them up. Since my lunches are usually spent inhaling my food while trying to keep up with my little - eating/hurling hummus around the room - machine, I like to keep it simple.  A big pot of soup I can eat all week is perfect. I made a roasted butternut soup with apples and ...

Last week I bought tangerines.  I don't know why.  I think they were the first citrus I saw at the market and I got all excited because they were so cute and orange.  The problem with tangerines, though, is that they have about a million seeds in them.  I ate one, bit into a seed, and the rest sat on the counter while I ate clementines instead.  Not wanting to waste them, I decided to whip them into a little treat.  A few quick internet searches for ideas and I came up with this super quick, simple orange bread.  Or tangerine bread, as the case may be.  Orange Bread 2 cups flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon salt 3 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled to room temperature 1 egg 1/2 cup freshly squeezed orange juice 1/2 cup plain yogurt (could use vanilla as well) 2-3 Tablespoons orange zest (tangerines aren't quite as zesty as oranges, so I only had about a tablespoon, more would be better thou...

I started writing this post right after Thanksgiving.  And now we're looking at Christmas.  The shame.  Good thing apple pie is appropriate for all holidays. I've made a lot of apple pies, but this was a bit different.   We went to Friends-giving the weekend before the holiday and regular Thanksgiving, and I brought apple pie to both.  Although pastry crust is easy to make, I didn't want to do it twice, especially since Colin thinks the food processor is an evil demon sent to our house to scare him.  I made one batch of crust and opted for a streusel topping.  It's the best of apple pie and crisp combined.  Even after enduring the torture of the food processor, poor Colin is too young for pie.  I did sneak him a little bite of ice cream, though, and he seemed to forget the offense. Streusel Topped Apple Pie 1/2 batch pate brisee (if you aren't making two pies, you can freeze the other crust) 3/4 cup light brown sugar 2 tsp lemon juic...