Valentine’s Day

Around our house, Valentine’s Day is not a big holiday. By the time it rolls around, it seems as if I have just fully recovered from Christmas. Usually I bake a rich red velvet cake with a delicious icing that starts out like white gravy, but this year I settled on an easy, heart-shaped giant cookie. In fact, it is so easy to make, I put my 8 year-old son on the job while I fiddled with my camera.

I found the pan at Target for a whopping $6, clearanced 50% to $3. Can’t beat that . . . that is unless I went back tomorrow when all the V-day stuff is 75% off.

Now I’m gonna share with you a recipe I’ve been perfecting for a few months. It is has quickly become the favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe in the house.

Start with butter. Real butter. When I make actual cookies, I use half butter, half margarine to keep the cookies from spreading too much. But in my lovely heart pan I don’t have to worry about it, so stick with butter! Pour in your sugars. Cream. No tricks here, I’m sure you all know how to make chocolate chip cookies.

Now add your egg. . . farm fresh please. Oh wait, I used up all my farm fresh eggs, and my supplier (LEIGH!!) has more demand than chickens. So add your plain old, store bought egg. Then add the vanilla. And yes, I use real vanilla. Mix some more.

Next comes fresh-ground-whole-wheat-flour, baking soda, and salt. Don’t reach for white flour. Don’t do it! Fresh-ground-whole-wheat-flour is so much better for you. It has so much more flavor. It tastes nothing like store-bought-sit-on-the-shelf-wheat-flour. I’m saving up for my own grain mill. Until then I grind and buy my flour from Hy-Vee.

Mix again.

Next comes two special ingredients. What do you think this is?

Any guesses?

Instant Coffee. Don’t stress if you don’t like coffee, even if you hate coffee. Your cookies will not taste like coffee. However, they will be richer, yummier, more flaverful. Try it. You’ll like it.

Next add ground flax seed meal. Really. It has a nutty flavor, and is full of all those healthy omega-3 oils. I add ground flax to just about all my baked goods. I’m hooked. I buy mine as the flax seed and then grind it using my magic bullet. A coffee grinder would work too!

Now your ready to add the chips and press it into your pan. I traced the heart pan on parchment paper, then cut out the heart, and lined the pan with it. If you are not using parchment paper with cookies and cakes, please do. Clean up is a snap and it makes your cakes/bar cookies slide out of the pan.

By this time, Jonah has joined in to help.

Finally bake for 12-15 minutes at 350 degrees.

While baking, take pictures of baby.

Once you pull your cookie out of the oven, let it cool, in the pan for about 10 minutes. Then ever-so-carefully, take it out of the pan. I helped at this point, placing a cookie sheet over the top of the pan, flipping it all over together, pulling the pan and parchment paper off (the heart is face-side down on the cookie sheet still), putting the cooling rack against the bottom the cookie, and flipping again. VOILA!

Now cool completely. Usually I stop here, but since it’s Valentine’s Day, I’m going all out. But, I lost my helpers, so I quit taking pictures.

Make an icing using peanut butter (natural, of course!), butter, cream cheese, and powdered sugar. Spread over cookie. FINALLY, I used red-colored choc. pieces from Wilton to drizzle across. Did you know about these? You melt them in a little bag, snip the corner of the bag off, then drizzle away.

Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cup fresh ground, whole wheat flour
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. instant coffee, heaping
1 Tbsp. flax meal
1 cup choc. chip

Icing:
8 oz cream cheese, softened
2 Tbsp natural peanut butter
1 Tbsp butter
2 cups powdered sugar
Cream first 3 ingredients, then add powdered sugar.

Enjoy!

a very belated birth story

I find myself stunned at how quickly these  months has passed. Have I really let my blog sit for so long?  I think about this blog most days, only to have no energy or motivation to share when I finally have time to write.  I’ve got all sorts of ideas spinning in my head. Stories. Recipes. Struggles. Questions.  So to ease myself back into blogging (I can hardly believe I had weeks where I posted every single day.) I want to tell you of Jeremiah’s birth.

Some of you may have read of my desire to have a intervention-free birth here.  I am thrilled to report that I the birth of Jeremiah went exactly as I wanted!

Around 1 a.m. on October 12th, my water broke,  waking me from my sleep.  Fortunately for me (and JD),  I did not have a mess of fluid in our bed, but on the carpet when I stood up.  Jolted from deep sleep, I remember standing there stunned.  Jeremiah was coming on his due date.   Those of you who have had labor start the same way can recall the heart-pounding feeling of knowing that real contractions are imminent.   I woke JD, whose groggy response was, “I knew we were going to have a baby today because you were over-the-top emotional”.  He’s not exaggerating. I had been a mess the day before.  Next I called my dear friend and doula Jill, waking her as well.  Then I showered and finished packing my bag.  And then I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

You get the point. I was expecting contractions, but having none.  JD went back to bed. I walked around the family room, but went back to bed around 5 a.m.

8 a.m.  By now I am having sporadic contractions, fixing the boys breakfast, helping them get ready for church and delaying calling my midwife. I had done a lot of research, so I knew that once your water breaks, the clock is ticking and most health providers want that baby born in under 24 hours.  In case my labor was going to start very slowly, I didn’t want to head to the hospital until something was really starting to happen.  However, I was over-rided by my husband and midwife (once I called her). They were both concerned that things would go very, very fast once labor was going.   Turns out they were right!

9:30 a.m. I have now checked into the hospital, mocha latte in hand–which the nurse made me throw away, but I chugged it down quickly–and am hooked up to all those monitors.  The nurse reports that I am 5 cm dilated.  That was the best news I had heard in a while! I still wasn’t really even contracting much! For the next few hours I walked in my room, down the halls, and around the ward.  The contractions were getting stronger, but were easy to manage. During my last 40 minutes of walking, my midwife urged my to do squats during my contractions.    When I started to feel a bit more uncomfortable, Jill put pressure on my lower backs and hips.  It helped.

12:30 p.m. (or so . . . time had no meaning at this point)  Finally steady, strong contractions! They were not overwhelming me at all.  I was actually surprised at how easy it was for me to breath through them.   My midwife suggests that I spend 40 minutes in the tub, to help me with transition.  I LOVED the tub.  It was warm and soothing.  The bouyancy removed some of my aches and pains.  The first 40 minutes in the tub were still fairly easy.   My midwife checks me again, reporting that I am a ‘good 7cm dilated’.   The next 20-30 minutes were the toughest as I experienced my first, non-medicated transition.  As each contraction hit, I vividly remember making a huge effort to stay relaxed.  Jill was a tremendous help at this time.  She sat at the edge of the tub, speaking in a soothing voice, “Relax your forehead, relax your eyebrows, relax you mouth and jaw”.   We teased JD later because after one contraction I opened my eyes and thought he was about to fall asleep.  He found Jill’s voice soothing too!  All of a sudden I knew the baby was coming. Jill pulled the nurse cord, and the bathroom was immediately filled with people.  They helped me out of the tub and back to the bed–those few steps were so hard.  I really thought the baby was coming out.   Once on the bed, I had a few pushes and Jeremiah arrived, very bruised, but absolutely beautiful.   There had been no time to break the bed down.

It was a beautiful experience. It was so different from my first three.  Jeremiah was so much more alert and responsive.  I really could see a difference in how much easier it was to feed him.  Plus, I did feel a stronger connection with him.   I wrote in an email later that week:

As for a natural birth, I wish I would have done the others natural as well. I wouldn’t say that I feel empowered or an emotional high . . . but you know me, my emotions don’t really swing a lot.  What I would say is that I do feel a stronger connection with Miah. I feel like he is MINE.  I birthed him. I suckled him.  Part of it is probably knowing that he is my last, part of it going through the birthing process. I absolutely loved holding him and nursing him immediately after delivery, instead of waiting 30 minutes or so.  I loved how alert he was . . . there really was a huge difference between him and the other three.

What would I do differently? Not much. I would use Jill more, I think.  I really wasn’t too uncomfortable until transition hit, so I thinking I was waiting to use her bag of tricks when I really needed them.  I’m guess I should be glad that I really didn’t need them too much.

I was surprised at how easy my contractions were.  But pushing was harder and more painful than I expected. I was trying to follow my midwife’s advice and push gentlier, with control.  I tore a bit anyway. Is that too much information?