Pots de Creme

I love vanilla, it's my new favorite flavor. This is an incredibly simple yet versatile dessert. The basic recipe can be updated to add an flavor your craving; chocolate, strawberry or something more creative like lavender honey. Simply add the flavor your desire to the milk and allow it to infuse, follow the rest of the steps and enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs plus 1 yolk
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 2 cups whole milk
• 1 vanilla bean, split open and seeds scraped out

Preheat your oven to 320º

In a pot, pour in the milk and add the vanilla bean and seeds. Bring to a boil, then stop the heat, cover and let infuse for 30 minutes. Filter.

In a bowl, beat the eggs and sugar.

Then add the hot milk slowly, while continuously beating.

Pour the liquid into small ramekins or jars, remove foam from the top. Bake in a water bath for 35 to 40 minutes. The middle of the creams should move a little, they will firm up as they cool down. Cover with plastic wrap and place them in the fridge for a few hours to rest until eating.

Colds and Bradley Classes

I came down with a terrible cold at the beginning of this week. I've spent three days laying bed eating toast, yogurt and chicken soup. My lovely boyfriend is taking me Balthazar tonight to celebrate our time together so I'm refusing to budge from this bed until I have to get ready for the reservation. Since there is no way I'm cooking anything this week (unless if involves defrosting my previously made chicken and rice soup) I thought I would share some of the dietary information I learned about pregnancy in my Bradley Class.

The first thing I learned was that you are NOT eating for two, you only need an additional 150-300 calories. The important thing is what those calories are made up of: fruits, veggies and protein. Protein is extremely important, when you are pregnant you should be consuming at least 80 grams of protein a day. 80 GRAMS!  That's double what you would normally eat. Typically, I don't eat a lot of meat and I definitely don't eat it twice a day, so trying to double my protein intake was little worrisome.

In class we did an exercise where we wrote down what we were eating every day for a week. As it turns out, listening to my cravings for meat and dairy upped my protein intake enough that I was getting over 80 grams. The biggest change I made was eating greek yogurt for breakfast. Greek yogurt has around 20 grams of protein per cup of yogurt, that's a fourth of what you need right there. Greek yogurt is by far my favorite food right now, well other than toast. You can eat it so many different ways: with granola, fruit, honey or add spices and herbs to make a dipping sauce for Sweet Potato Cakes. Yum. I've also been craving meat: chicken, steak, burgers and pulled pork. You name it, I want it, for lunch and dinner. So I guess my theory is, unless you have complications listen to your baby. If the baby wants steak, potatoes and salad for dinner with a milk shake for dessert, go for it. Just try not to eat fries and ice cream everyday, I know you want too but in a few months you will be wishing you hadn't. Personally, I limit my burger and fry eating to once a week.

Overall, I have learned a lot in the Bradley class about nutrition, pregnancy and birth. Being educated about the process is going to help us make better decisions when things start to get a little crazy and I do imagine it will get crazy. Thankfully I have a while until that happens, for now I'm going back to bed. Balthazar here I come!