Gourmet 'R' Us

A few choice morsels from the Test Kitchens at AddProb:

• Natalie has been illness-free for almost two weeks and her appetite is finally back to normal (as noted previously). She's a little pickier about textures these days since she's working on molars, but she's fallen in LOVE with hummous. Pita bread doesn't pass the texture test, though, so she prefers eating it directly from a spoon, or her fist, or her face, where she's stashed some away for later.
• After all that hummous, a girl needs a drink.
• Sadly, this one didn't make it onto film, but Natalie has become fascinated with utensils. She's been practicing spoon skills for many months, but she covets any tableware either of the moms are using. She likes to use a fork by picking up a piece of food with her fingers, depositing it on top of the tines, and gleefully manouevering it to her lips (successful insertion of food in mouth rather optional). We were using chopsticks with our stir-fry tonight and she was obsessed with our chopsticks, so we pulled out her* set:
  
  She very carefully grasped a piece of tofu and delicately placed it on the chopsticks, turned them toward her mouth, placing the tofu and the bunny into her mouth.
• A friend very kindly tipped me off to the wonder that is kosher-for-Passover Coca-Cola, made with real sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup, and I managed to snag a couple of bottles. It makes regular Coke seem like cheap, sickly-sweet costume soda. KFP Coke is smooth... mellow... refined. Which is good, because I've decided that as of Natalie's birthday, I'm kicking the habit**. Might as well go out on a good note.
  
• For all you bread lovers, I wanted to share a few updates. We've probably made at least a dozen loaves and have some discoveries and more recipe suggestions. 1) You may need to tinker with the amount of water, decreasing it especially if you are using the rapid rise yeast originally called for in the recipe (1 5/8 cups works fine with active yeast). 2) Adding cheese is excellent! We've tried asiago and cheddar (separate loaves). Mix in a couple of handfuls at the beginning, and then sprinkle some on the towel so you'll get a nice cheese blistered crust. 3) Cinnamon raisin is tasty, although we haven't perfected the recipe (it comes out a bit dense - we called it "Leadbread" last time). I'll share ingredients and proportions once we get them sorted out.

Whether you're celebrating Passover, Easter, National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day, or April Fool's Day, I hope there's good food and fun at your table.

*I bought them when she was 9 months old, but give me some credit! We only got them so we could fill out an order to qualify for free shipping. Besides, I don't expect her to be proficient with them until she's AT LEAST 14 months old....
**At least, I will be giving up drinking it in the house and/or in front of Natalie. I make no promises about other times and locations, though I will try.