Social Media

It’s an all-new and very exclusive list of bloggers!

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Gardening Trophy
Gratuitous trophy!
There’s been a far amount of brouhaha over the last few days about A Mommy Blogger List that was published somewhere on the internet. That happens pretty regularly, because the people in charge of the internet have dictated that readers really, really like lists. That’s why bloggers use them so often. Anyway, this particular list riled up a lot of bloggers because the gist of it was that you can get bloggers to promote your product for you for much less money that it would take to, say, buy a classified ad or a spot during the Superbowl.

Which may be true, if not right, but I didn’t really want to talk about that other list. What I really wanted to do was make my own list, so that I too could create a controversy and draw in lots and lots of clicks and make a billion dollars in ad revenue.

Oh wait. That’s wrong, too. I just wanted to tell you about some blogs I read. And so without further ado, may I present to you:

5 Bloggers Who Blog & Enjoy the Benefits of Breathing Oxygen*

Fadra Nally

I met Fadra in the tasting room at the Biltmore House winery during my first Type-A Conference. She was friendly, smart and outgoing, and she drank all of my wine. (That may or may not have actually happened. But I’m pretty sure it might have.) She writes about her life at the rather appropriately named All Things Fadra. She is just as friendly, smart and outgoing on her website as she is in person.

Fadra does an excellent job weaving her personal narrative and her compensated blog work into a cohesive unit, which isn’t something that just anyone can do. Check out “A basket is not just a basket” and you’ll see what I mean.

Fadra also started Social Dialect, where she writes much more seriously and clearly than I do about “The Problem with Blogger Lists.”

Angela Pudding

I have long suspected that Angela’s last name isn’t really Pudding. I am no stranger to subterfuge, though, so who am I to judge? Fluid Pudding was one of the first blogs I read regularly, and it’s still one of my favorites. She makes me laugh — see: “She’s Come Undone” — and reading her stuff makes me feel like I’m spending time with an old friend. Her blogroll led me to so much excellent writing when I was young and bored and working as a bored young copy editor.

I think of Fluid Pudding as my gateway blog.

Also Angela sent me a box full of stuff from Trader Joe’s earlier this summer, which in no way means she bribed me to get on this exclusive and prestigious list.

(She totally did. Except I only thought about writing this about 20 minutes ago and she sent the box months ago, so she totally could not have unless she’s The Doctor, which she very well could be. She is, after all, capable of knitting a very long scarf.)

Amanda at High Impact Mom

Amanda is yet another person I met through the Type-A Parent Conference. She’s the volunteer coordinator for the conference, and from what I can tell she never stops working. Whether it’s through goofy exchanges on Twitter or her own DIY home repair plans, Amanda inspires me to get up and get stuff done.

Erin at Mother Bird

I went to high school with Erin, and lo these many years later she has a blog and she homeschools. Kindred spirits. Except that she also sews and has a giant garden and could give Ma Ingalls a run for her money. She posts things like “Mother’s Hands” and “On Vacation” and “Ag Boys,” and she writes them all with a stunning and simple lyricism that I envy. I mean, look at this:

Because my mother was always so close to me as I grew up, I never knew how to appreciate her presence. We don’t appreciate the ground. But just try to suddenly be without it.

I will not be even slightly surprised when a publisher finally discovers Erin and begs her to write a book. She’s marvelous.

Jen Anderson

This is where I go lately to gain some perspective. Jen is in her early 30s. She has two small daughters, a loving husband and breast cancer. She is so unfailingly positive, it’s almost impossible to read her words without feeling more hopeful about your own life. She writes things I need to hear, absorb and live out. In “How Do I Do It?” she writes:

What choice do I have? I have landed in a craptastic situation. I can look at the crap, or I can look up. When I look up I see more love than I’ve ever seen before (and I have seen a lot of love in my life). When I look at the crap, well, I can’t look at the crap, I can’t focus on it, I can’t allow it to have power over my thoughts. My eyes are fixed on the prize, and, oh Jesus, the prize is so great. The prize is my girls, my fabulous life, my future. Today, today, is a prize

I can’t even read that without welling up.

There are roughly 206,778 more blogs in my Google Reader, but the people in charge of the internet say that your lists shouldn’t be overly long nor should they feature an even number of items. I would be happy to go through every last blog I read, though, if you’re interested. Are you?

*How presumptuous of me to assume these bloggers enjoy oxygen! I just said that to create controversy and garner more clicks.

baking, recipes

I finally faced my fear of pastry

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The monthly baking challenge at The Daring Kitchen is always announced on the first of the month. The date for participants to post about the challenge is always the 27th of the month, which gives you plenty of time to make the recipe. Or, if you are me, it gives you plenty of time to think about the recipe, be intimidated and decide to put it off until later about four times, until finally it’s the 26th and you realize that you must make the recipe right now or miss doing this month’s challenge all together. And you’ve aways wanted to make cream puffs, so it would be a shame to miss it all together.

Because the August challenge? It’s a filled pate a choux, and that is precisely what a cream puff is.

I’m so glad I didn’t let this challenge entirely intimidate me, because I discovered that pate a choux really isn’t very hard to make. It takes some time and attention and a lot of work from your mixing arm, but it comes together pretty easily. And it’s well worth the trouble.

The recipe we were given included instructions for turning your vanilla creme and pate a choux into adorable little swans. That required a pair of sheet pans, though, and one of my sheet pans appears to have run away. I’d imagine it’s lounging somewhere on a beach in the Keys by now, or it might be trying to get a job on an Alaskan fishing boat. Wherever it is, it left me in a little bit of a lurch yesterday, as I now seem to be down to one sheet pan. So I had to choose between making swan heads or swan bodies. I don’t think swan heads hold much cream filling, so I opted just to make the bodies. Which, without the heads, are really just cream puffs. That’s a scientific fact.

But there is nothing at all wrong with just cream puffs. A cream puff is a beautiful thing.

Vanilla Creme
1 tablespoon unflavored gelatin
1⁄2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
4 large egg yolks, well beaten
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup heavy whipping cream

In a medium saucepan combine gelatin, flour and sugar. Mix very well.

Add milk and egg yolks and turn heat to medium-low. Stir almost constantly until mixture is thick enough to cover the back of your spatula or spoon. This should take about 10 minutes. Once thick, immediately dump into a bowl, staring the mixture if you are concerned about lumps of cooked egg.

Add the vanilla, and mix in well. Cover the surface to prevent a skin from forming and chill for about 45 minutes. You do not want the mixture to set, just to continue thickening.

(Now is a good time to begin your choux paste.)

In a large bowl, beat cream until light peaks form. Carefully fold the vanilla mixture into the whipped cream until the mixture is well-blended and fairly smooth.

Refrigerate mixture if not using immediately.

The vanilla creme recipe makes considerably more filling than I needed for the cream puffs. I piped it directly into the puffs, though. You might use more of it if you cut them in half, plopped on some filling and gave it a top-o-the-puff chapeau.

Pate a choux
1⁄2 cup butter
1 cup water
1⁄4 teaspoon salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
4 large eggs

Line a baking sheets with a silicone mat or parchment paper, or grease pans well. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a small saucepot, combine butter, water and salt. Heat over until butter melts, then remove from stove. Add flour all at once and beat, beat, beat the mixture until the dough pulls away from the sides of the pot. Add one egg, and beat until well combined. Add remaining eggs individually, beating vigorously after each addition. Resulting mixture should be somewhat glossy, very smooth, and somewhat thick.

Using a 1⁄4-inch tip on a pastry bag, pipe out about 12 puffs. Bake about 30 minutes, until golden and puffy. Remove the pastries to a cooling rack, and let cool completely before filling.

For more information about how to make pate a choux and what to do with it once you’ve made it, check out these thoroughly excellent sources:

Kat of The Bobwhites was our August 2012 Daring Baker hostess who inspired us to have fun in creating pate a choux shapes, filled with crème patisserie or Chantilly cream. We were encouraged to create swans or any shape we wanted and to go crazy with filling flavors allowing our creativity to go wild!

menu plan Monday

We’ll most definitely be having garlic bread on Tuesday

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Monday: Breakfast for dinner

I was a little rushed putting together our meal plan for the week, which meant I pretty quickly defaulted to the old eggs & veggie sausages.

Tuesday: Spaghetti & meatballs

I don’t really use a recipe for making meatballs — it’s kind of a throw-it-together affair for me — but the Pioneer Woman’s spaghetti & meatballs recipe looks pretty great. I probably won’t use it on this week’s meatballs, but I might try it next time around.

Wednesday: Ballpark food

We’re going to a minor league baseball game, so it’ll be popcorn, peanuts and Cracker Jacks for us!

Thursday: Tacos

I read about making your own taco seasoning last week, and it reminded me that I haven’t made tacos in awhile. I might just whip up some taco seasoning of my own this week.

Friday: Pizza

So that’s what we’ll be eating this week. And today is the Daring Bakers Challenge reveal day. Don’t miss my pate a choux adventure!