You've Got to Eat

Nearly as fresh as you can get

2011-07-27T20:58:00.000-04:00

It's been ages since I posted here. I've been busy this summer, though still enjoying my food!

Tonight, I needed to make a quickie dinner. Adam threw some water on for pasta, and I raided the CSA share and our garden. I chopped up:

2 fairytale eggplants (from the garden)
1 onion (from the CSA)
2 cloves of garlic (CSA)
1 tomato (farmer's market)
a bunch of basil and parsley (garden)

and sauteed it in olive oil, salt, and pepper. When the pasta was done, I threw it all together and dinner was done!

I also made some iced tea using loose black tea and mint from the garden, and I made a salad for the side using an itty bitty cabbage, some fennel fronds, a bit of fennel stem, and small yellow tomatoes, all from the CSA. I added salt, pepper & and a commercial dressing (an organic red wine vinaigrette) because I was out of time and we were hungry!

All in all, a nice, quick dinner made almost entirely from fresh & local ingredients! Yay!

2011 CSA, Week 2

2011-06-15T17:58:00.000-04:00

It's week 2 of the PVF CSA, and the shares are getting a bit bigger! This week we were told to choose 7 including at least one herb. We also have an egg share Today, we chose:

1 giant zucchini
a bunch of baby leeks
1 very large fennel bulb with fronds
a bag of lemon basil
a bunch of swiss chard
a bunch of kale
a small box of red & yellow cherry tomatoes

And of course a 1/2 dozen eggs.

We still have a little bit of the salad greens from last week, as well as some of the turnips. This is one thing that I really like about the market style CSA. If we just had a regular mini share, we might have ended up with more turnips or salad greens, which we really don't need right now. We picked items that we did not get last week, with the exception of the chard (which is so universally liked in this house that it only seems right to get more), so we should not find ourselves with too much of one item that we don't necessarily want a lot of. Now, as for the fennel, it's one of my husband's favorite things in the world, so as long as they look good, we'll probably continue getting them.

It was good to see that the number went up this week from 6 items to 7, and I can appreciate that they wanted you to take at least one herb.

We got a recipe for grilled fennel; I think I'll make it later in the week with fish and using the fronds to help season the fish. The kale will likely become chips. The chard, well, we'll see how we're feeling but I'm thinking egg pie :)

Oh and the kids totally went for the tomatoes. I had to grab the box away before they did to the tomatoes what they did to the peas last week!

What to do with Swiss Chard

2011-06-09T11:39:00.000-04:00

If you belong to a vegetable CSA in Northern Virginia, you probably get a lot of swiss chard. I know we do! I am pretty sure we get chard all summer long, in fact.

So what to do with all of that chard? Well, first of all, know how it cooks up: unlike with some other greens, you can eat the stems. They have a similar texture to celery. If you get rainbow chard, you can end up with white, green, red, orange, and yellow stems, which can cook up really beautifully! The leaves are usually green but can be red as well. As with most greens, you can cook them up nicely with garlic & olive oil or butter.

But for something other than a side dish, you can try some Swiss Chard & Chicken Quesadillas for starters.

Or make some Swiss Chard pies! Here's a recipe:

Preheat oven to 350

Make your favorite pie crust. Or look online for a tasty crust and make it. Roll it out to 1/8" and cut into 6" rounds. Or, go get a refrigerated pie crust (not frozen!) and cut that into smaller rounds. Set these aside.

For the filler, you'll need:
1 bunch swiss chard
1 garlic curl or 2 cloves garlic
some onion or spring onion or scallion tops
3 slices of bacon, cooked & crumbled
about 1T maple syrup
about 1T wine or apple cider vinegar
salt/pepper

Chop everything, keeping the chard stems separate from the leaves. Saute the chard stems, onion (or scallion), and garlic (or curls) in a little olive oil until they start to soften. Add the chard leaves, salt & pepper, and saute until everything is wilted. Remove from heat and add in the bacon, syrup, & vinegar.

Now, take your mini pie rounds. Add some of the mix, fold over, and crimp with a fork. Repeat for the rest of the rounds. If you have any leftover mix, refrigerate it for later use. You can always make more pie crust or use it in another recipe. Pierce tops of the pies to release steam. You may want to do an egg wash on these but it's not strictly necessary. Place on a baking stone or cookie sheet and bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Delicious!

If you have leftovers, use them for breakfast! reheat them in a pan in the morning and add some eggs for a tasty omelette. You can use the same mix to go into a quiche or Egg Pie (just remove the squash/onion/garlic curl pesto from that recipe and replace with the mix from this one!)

You can generally use Swiss Chard in any recipe that calls for spinach, just remember that the chard will take a little longer to cook.

Do you have a favorite swiss chard recipe?

2011 CSA, Week 1

2011-06-08T14:29:00.000-04:00

Once again, we decided to do our CSA with Potomac Vegetable Farms, and I have to say, I could not be happier. Well, I could be a little happier if we had had the money to do the regular share this year, but instead we did the mini share, because we were poor in February when we had to pay for it. It's ok though! Because PVF will have a farm stand later in the summer, and they are at the Reston Farmer's Market on Saturdays as well.

This year, they are doing an experiment, having the Wednesday group do a "market style" CSA. They set up the CSA room like a farm stand, and you get to pick your items. You get to choose based on your share size. So today, minis got to take 6 items, regulars got to take 8, and robust shares got to take 12. I took the kids in to the room and it was amazing! We also got eggs again this year because they are the best eggs ever. Micah decided he wanted:

kohlrabi (he picked a purple one). He did not know what it was but I told him it tasted like broccoli stems so he thought that would be a good pick.
salad turnips (it was a pint sized container with small salad turnips)
sugar snap peas
a bag of salad greens
a bunch of garlic curls
a bunch of swiss chard

Plus of course we picked up our eggs. Seeing the other items made me wish we could have had the regular share, because they had zucchini, leeks, spring onions, spring garlic, and a ton of herbs. But we're growing our own herbs this year, and like I said, we can supplement with the farm market this weekend. In fact, I had picked up spring onions and garlic at the market last week, so we actually did have some already.

Hana, who is the woman who runs the CSA, was present in the room when we were picking up, making sure everyone knew what to do since it was the first week. When I told Micah that there was swiss chard, he said, "Oh YES! I love Swiss Chard! It's my FAVORITE!!" She got a big kick out of that, and said "Oh my gosh, then you're with the right CSA!" It's a big joke among PVF people that we start and end very very leafy.

If the amounts of food are anything like last year, we should have more picks as the summer goes on. I'm really looking forward to it!

Oh and by the way, the sugar snap peas are already gone. We ate them for lunch with sandwiches. I got 5 of them and the kids ate all the rest.

Easter Eggs

2011-04-21T21:10:00.000-04:00

Wow, it's been a while since I wrote anything here. Hi!

It's just about Easter, and this year, we decided to try to dye eggs using natural dyes!


Eggs dyed without pellets!

I had tried this many years ago with little luck, but this time, I had the internet! So, to add to the collected knowledge, I am sharing what I did.

Blue Eggs

Hard boil eggs first and set aside
Chop up one head of red cabbage, place in a pot, and cover with 2 quarts of water. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 40 minutes. Strain into a bowl and keep the cabbage for eating (I just added salt & pepper and it was tasty). Add 2T vinegar and 2T salt to the mix and stir.

Add eggs carefully to the bowl and allow to sit overnight. They come out this gorgeous cobolt color. You can take them out sooner and be a lighter shade of blue. Note that the color does scratch so be careful! You can see some places where I scratched mine as I took them out of the dye bath.

Red Eggs

Hard boil eggs first and set aside.
Chop up three large beets or equivalent (peel them first so they will be tasty for eating). Place in a big pot and add 1.5 quarts of water, a big splash of vinegar, and a couple tablespoons of salt. Bring to a boil, then simmer for an hour. Remove Beets. (They will now be partially pickled and you can just add more seasoning to them for a tasty side dish.)

Add a splash more vinegar to the beet water, and add eggs to the water. In about an hour you'll have light pink eggs, and after 5 hours you'll have dark pink eggs like in the picture. Remove carefully. They don't scratch as badly as the blue but they are prone to fingerprints.

Yellow Eggs.

Hard boil eggs first and set aside

OK, so I tried to do this with collard greens and it was a disaster. Don't do that. Instead, boil water and add 2T vinegar, 2T salt, and about 1/4 cup of turmeric. Stir well and cool a bit, then add eggs. In 2 hours they will be a fairly bright yellow.

Orange Eggs

DO NOT BOIL EGGS FIRST!

You will need the papery part of onion skins. I used yellow onions for this. You should probably use muslin or cheese cloth too, but I used viva paper towels. No kidding. But they were perforated and 2 of them broke. So don't do that. Use muslin or cheese cloth.

Lay out a piece of muslin or cheese cloth. Take your raw egg and rub it down with vinegar (thanks for the tip, Martha Stuart!) Lay out a big piece of onion skin and place the egg on top. cover the rest of the egg with onion skin. Too much is OK. Too little is not so OK. Pull up all of the sides of the cloth and tie with a piece of string. place in water in a pan for boiling. When they are all done, start the water and allow to cook for about 20-25 minutes. Remove, cut strings, pull out eggs from the oniony mess. I hope that I get the chance in the future to do these right. Even with doing them wrong, they still came out a lovely shade of orange!

If you do any of these please let me know how they come out!

This post is not about food! It's about Holiday Cards!

2010-12-07T15:06:00.001-05:00

It's true. I am writing about something other than food. Because Shutterfly is offering free photo cards to people who blog about which of their new holiday card styles they like. And since I was going to order cards from them anyway, well, you get the picture! Many thanks to Lady Ozma, who told me about this.

So for those of you who think I'm just spamming about Shutterfly, you, too, can blog about what cards you like and get 50 free ones. Info here: http://blog.shutterfly.com/5358/holiday2010-blog-submission-form/

So here we go. I've actually been using Shutterfly for years. I have 2 Shutterfly share sites to share pictures with my family, and I make books just about every year. I have sent cards from them for birth announcements, Christmas, and birthdays.

I have also made calendars and note cards over the years. One year, I did a calendar of our trip to Hawaii, and gave it to my parents for Christmas (since they love Hawaii too). Another year, I did a calendar of our trip on the San Juan River. Still another year, I had a really cool idea: I got a bunch of blank note cards using photos of flowers I took in Hawaii. I probably had 5 different photos and got 15 of each. Then I put together my own packs of stationery, so everyone got a few of each photo and envelopes to go with them. They made a great extra gift for everyone, and I still receive them occasionally when people use them as thank you notes.

This year, they have a bunch of new Holiday Cards. Here are some of my favorites:

http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/cards-stationery/charming-little-trees-holiday-5x7-folded-card?sortType=1&storeNode=93495
Love this one. First, it's got that handmade card look, without me having to cut out little trees. And it says Happy Holidays, which makes it more universal, especially for my family. And you can have a picture on the inside as well as the outside! Hooray.

http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/cards-stationery/joy-magic-story-christmas-5x7-folded-card?sortType=1&storeNode=93495
Again, we've got season's greetings, which may be a cop-out for those who don't want to send out 6 different kinds of holiday cards. But still, love the places for all of the photos. It's kind of like a combined card and letter. Sweet. I'm also a big fan of the agey scrapbooky look.

http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/cards-stationery/tree-of-hope-american-lung-association-holiday-5x7-folded-card?sortType=1&storeNode=93495
This one gives a donation to the American Lung Association, which is a good thing. It's also simple and elegant.

http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/holiday-cards/midnight-snowflakes-christmas-5x7-folded-card?sortType=1&storeNode=93495
I have a thing for snowflakes, and I love this one. Simple, elegant, and in blue and silver. I am pretty sure I am going to use this one myself, except that the kids are all wearing green in the pictures this year. We'll have to see how it looks.

For a somewhat less expensive option, you can go for the flat cards. I love this one:

http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/cards-stationery/oh-joy-joy-christmas-card?sortType=1&storeNode=93479
It makes me joyful.

If you want the links to the main parts of the site that you'll need, here they are:

Christmas Cards
Christmas Photo Cards
Calendars

Finally, they do still have the old style photo cards, but I do love the new 5x7 cards so much. I absolutely love that you can write whatever you want on the inside, from a one-liner to a short letter. I was planning on just sending off a single photo but now that I have seen these cards, we'll be sending out something much much cooler. So go check it out! And do forgive the trip away from food for a while.

Kitchen Update

2010-11-08T12:05:00.000-05:00

So many people are asking for an update, so here it is.

We had a bit of a regression with the kitchen.

We decided that we really did not like the cabinet above the sink. It was hanging too low, and we could not put in the faucet that we wanted. We finally decided that we are going to take it out and replace it with 2 different cabinets. We went to Ikea yesterday to pick up these new cabinets and return the unusable doors.

We have to modify the over-microwave cabinet, as it is also too low hanging, and we would not be able to put a big pot on the stove (to make, for instance, pasta or beer). So that cabinet needs to come down and be modified. We returned those doors as well and will do a lift-up as we are doing for the modified over-fridge cabinet.

Speaking of the over-fridge cabinet, the hinge solution we had was not working very well. We need to find a new solution for this one as well as the over-microwave cabinet.

We are getting another pull-out spice rack, this time for the 6" space above the other one that we put in. I need to order it.

We found a good solution for the doors for the pull-outs--we will be using 2 6" x 15" drawer fronts. I was hoping to find a 6" x 30" drawer front to use, but Ikea doesn't make it. It's ok. It'll look good (and better than just using filler wood)

Because we have to re-do the over fridge cabinet, we have to wait to attach the cover panel that goes from it to the floor, to the lower cabinet on the other side. Because of that we can't get the granite yet.

So, everything is related to something else. We're getting it done, but there's been some bumps. Meanwhile, these are really end-of-project problems, so we're hoping we can get it all done soon.

Because Monica is my friend

2010-11-04T13:57:00.000-04:00

I will participate in the redefining of Judith Griggs

And if you don't know what I'm talking about, here is an excellent version of the story.

Letter that I just sent to Chipotle

2010-10-26T22:29:00.003-04:00

Good Evening.

Today I went to Chipotle on Sunset Hills in Reston for a take-out order. My family has eaten at Chipotle restaurants before, and we like it because we can control what goes into our meals. My husband is allergic to beans, and we like that we can see our meals being made, and ensure that he is not going to bite into a beef and bean burrito when he has ordered a beef burrito. His allergy is actually quite severe, but we have always felt comfortable eating at Chipotle because of the stated ability to see our food being made and the knowledge that the restaurants use safe food handling practices.

Tonight, as I was standing at the front of the line, the woman behind the counter was making either a phone or fax order--the orderer was not present. After placing rice and beans on the burrito, she placed shredded pork over the beans. Another woman behind the counter told her that it was supposed to be part pork and part beef, so she removed half of the pork (which had been in contact with the beans) and put it back in the bin that it came from.

Not a single person said anything. I told her that she had just cross-contaminated the food, and she looked at me like I had two heads. I obviously was not able to order food for my husband at that point; I had no idea if this had happened before (to the chicken or beef) or if it was only the pork that was contaminated.

In an era of allergies and other health issues, it is vitally important that food preparers be educated to not cross-contaminate food. I cannot imagine that it is the policy of Chipotle to correct incorrect orders by putting food back into their bins after they have already been added to a dish.

Thank you for your time.
Lynne Powell

Update:
Received this message from Chipotle:

Lynne,

Thanks for taking the time to address your concern. I am sorry to hear that your visit to our Reston restaurant yesterday was not impressionable. We shouldn't be depositing food back into their container after they have been incorporated into an order to avoid cross-contamination. Because the health and well-being of our guests is of utmost importance to us, we'll follow-up with our team at this location and make sure that this does not happen again.

We'd like to invite you back for a meal on us, if you'll willing to give us another try. Simply send me your mailing address, and I will send you a couple of free burrito cards shortly. We appreciate you bringing this to our attention so that we can address our team and correct this.

We hope to see you soon!
Sincerely,

Louisa
Louisa Fredrickson | Marketing Consultant
Chipotle Mexican Grill

Responded with:

Louisa,

Thank you so much for your quick reply. I would be willing to give Chipotle another try, but I am concerned about how long I should wait for the follow-up at this location to take place. Should I give it a week? Or will it happen sooner than that?

My mailing address is:

Lynne Powell

Thank you again for your attention to this matter.

-Lynne Powell

Update:

Received this message from Chipotle:

Good morning Lynne,

I heard back from our area manager for Reston and he informed me that this would be addressed immediately with our crew. I will make sure that our team our there is in touch with you to assure you that we have properly followed-up with our team regarding your concerns, and that cross-contamination will not be an issue going forward. I am optimistic that you will hear from them soon.

And I will send the Powell family a Chipotle treat this morning—you should receive the cards next week J Come see us again soon!

-Louisa

And then received this message:

Hi Lynne,

I spoke with Alex (our General Manager at this store) yesterday and he already has addressed this with his managers and crew. I am really sorry you had to experience this. You can trust me in that this is definitely not the norm. You should feel free to try us at any point; as this should have been corrected immediately.

Again I am really sorry this had to happen to you, but I appreciate you taking the time to let us know about this.

Thanks,
Brian

So I thanked them both and am looking forward to my next trip.

Restaurants to which we will not return: Ariake in Reston

2010-10-15T20:41:00.000-04:00

I never intended to post bad reviews here. This was supposed to be a place of love and sharing of food. But it is actually because of a food love affair gone sour that I am posting this today.

Ariake is a sushi restaurant in Reston, on Colt's Neck Road and Glade Drive. We started going there when it opened. This was well before Micah was born, and in fact, it was there that I went for my hush-hush pregnancy sushi. We have been going there for so long that we remember the things that used to be on the menu, that are not anymore, and that the waitresses will always bring for us because they remember us. Our children have always been welcome. We have always been welcome. Until tonight.

Here's a hint to restaurant owners out there: If you don't want children in your restaurant, don't provide high chairs. If a restaurant provides a high chair, I always make the assumption that we are welcome with our kids. In fact, when we entered today, there were two other tables with small children.

We ordered our food: a sushi/sashimi platter for two for Adam and me, another special roll, a cucumber roll for Micah, and agedashi tofu for Lillian. Drinks (beer for the adults and lemonade for Micah) were also ordered. We had, in fact, had a pretty rough week and wanted a nice dinner and a beer to try to make up for it.

Everything was generally fine. Lillian ate through most of her tofu and was working on some sushi. Micah was doing his dawdling thing that he does. Adam and I were gushing over the wonderfulness of the sushi. Lillian didn't get everything to her mouth; she's 14 months old. Too old to be feeding baby food (which we never did anyway), too old to be spoon or fork feeding her (which we also never did). She's a voracious eater who does, in fact, sometimes drop food on the floor. Just about all kids do. In most restaurants, we make an apology and leave a big tip. I usually try to do some cleaning up before we go.

Tonight, she was getting antsy, so I picked her up out of the high chair, and the owner's son came over to our table. As soon as I had her out of the chair, he moved the chair out of the way and started cleaning the dropped food. If that had been the end of it, I would have just assumed he was trying to be nice so I didn't step in tofu. Instead, he said, "I'm going to clean this up because it's grossing out the other customers."

"Excuse me?" I said

"It's grossing out the customers to see food on the floor."

"I see. Which customers are grossed out?" I said. "Is there a specific customer or do you mean to say that you are grossed out?

"um, um"

"I see. So you're grossed out because a BABY dropped food on the floor. And you couldn't keep it to yourself."

"It's gross to have food on the floor."

Then I turned to Adam and told him I was going to take Lillian for a walk outside. When I came back in he had brought the check to the table (we were no where near done with either the food or the drinks). I said that I wanted to talk to him and he told me that he didn't want to discuss it with me. We went back and forth a couple of times and he said we should go. He also, somewhere in there, commented that it was a family place. I'm sure.

One of our favorite waitresses was visibly upset. I commented to her that there are a lot of sushi restaurants in Reston and Herndon, and before I got to finish my statement (that we had been coming here for years now), he overheard and said "well you can go to them then."

I walked out. Adam did pay the bill (I wish he had not) and got a to go box to take the rest of the sushi home. I got in the car with Lillian and pulled up to the front door, then got out to help with Micah. Apparently the manager was also very upset (he knows us as well) because he followed Adam out, and was very insistent that the guy had no say in anything and was just the owner's son.

I said, "Yes but if he were a waiter who treated us that way, he would be fired. You do not use the words "grossed out" in front of people who are eating, especially when referring to their child."

The manager said, "yes"

I said, "But you can't fire him because he's the owner's son. And because he's the owner's son, he does speak for the business whether you say he does or not."

So, we're done with Ariake. DONE. We won't be returning there, except perhaps to drop a copy of this off to the owner.

Why we love Chik Fil A for kids, and one thing we don't love so much.

2010-08-28T21:24:00.000-04:00

We are still eating out and we end up at Chik Fil A a lot, because it is yummy and really very good for kids. Here's what we love about our Chik Fil A. Note that all of the stores are independently owned & operated so your mileage may vary. Ours is the one on Sunset Hills Road in Reston, across from the Target. Anyway, here we are:

Ambiance is pretty cool. There are flowers on the tables!

Kids meals are lovely. You can replace fries with fruit, and the fruit is actual fresh fruit and not canned/syrup stuff. Both kids love the fruit and my bigger one rarely asks for the fries.

The toy that comes in the kids meal is usually not particularly annoying. If you ask for the under 3 toy, it's actually a book. Recently we've gotten some educational stuff. Not too bad.

They have lemonade as an option to drink, and it's real lemonade (I found pits in it last time we were there). It's a nice change of pace from the usual choice of soda or juice.

If you happen to have a baby who is going to be eat off of the table, they give you a plastic table topper to use.

If you walk in with a baby in one arm and a kiddo holding onto your other hand, they will take your food to your table and get a high chair for you, and make sure you're all set up. And, they'll come back and make sure you're ok and ask if you need a drink refill. That's pretty awesome.

They have kid's events all the time. Like, on Monday mornings, you can bring the kids for breakfast and they have entertainment, crafts, story time, etc. And they have Family Night on Tuesdays.

They have a nifty kid's play area.

So all in all, for the kids and me, it's a great place. Here's what we don't like:

They cook in peanut oil.

Which means my husband cannot join us. I'm sure the flavor of everything would change if they changed the oil, but I don't think that it would change all that much, and it would open the place to far more people. It's pretty much my only complaint.

CSA this week!

2010-08-25T17:25:00.000-04:00

I traded weeks with Amy this week, so we got our share two weeks in a row. And boy was it an awesome one!

Tomatoes
Eggplant (SO MUCH EGGPLANT!)
Onions (about 6 of them)
Pole Beans
Peppers
Cherry Tomatoes
Salsa Kit!!!
Chard
Arugula
Thai Basil
Raspberries (YAY!)
Eggs

There were a bunch of eggplants that had been left in the "take or leave" bin, so I got a couple of extra (they were small) in hopes that I can make a whole bunch of eggplant stuff for the freezer. I have offers of kitchen use from a few friends, and with all of the tomatoes and eggplant, I see both eggplant parmagiana and caponata in our near future. Also, if I can find the food processor, that Salsa Kit will be Salsa in no time.

I also think we will have to make some swiss chard empanadas. If I can prep them at a friend's kitchen, they will cook nicely in the toaster oven until I have a real oven again.

So yeah, really excited about this week's share.

Kitchen Update

2010-08-23T12:49:00.001-04:00

The kitchen project turned into a monster that we totally were not expecting, for a few reasons:

underestimating how much help we would have from friends
underestimating the extent of changes that would have to happen to kitchen infrastructure and of course
having to add sub-projects after the start because of things that affected other things.

For instance, taking off the backsplash turned into a drywall/skim coating nightmare because we couldn't get the glue off the walls. Taking out the pantry left a big hole in the floor tiles that required a tile patch job. Deciding to switch from a range to a wall oven and cooktop, and adding a built-in microwave, required pulling another 2 circuits which meant cutting a giant hole in the wall. And then there was the planned removal of the soffit that turned into extending it out and adding lights because it had too much stuff in it.

But things are finally coming to a point where we can hopefully call some parts of the kitchen Actually Done. Here's where things stand:

ceiling is done. This entailed scraping off the texture, sanding, priming, skim coating, sanding, priming, and painting. DONE. Gorgeous. Needs to be a little touched up.
skim coating on the walls is done.
painting is mostly done. Touch ups will be done after cabinet installation, since we expect to have to touch up after the installation anyway.
patching the floor is done.
Lights are installed and beautiful
Wall cabinets on Wall 1 are done.
Base cabinets for Wall 1 are assembled but need backs, cover panels, door hinges, and feet.

OK, so still to be done:

touch up paint
Construct & Install Wall cabinets on Wall 2 (sink wall)
Construct & Install Base cabinets on Wall 2
Construct & Install Wall cabinets on Wall 3 (oven wall)
Construct & Install Base cabinets on Wall 3
Construct & Install Pantry cabinet
Over fridge cabinet, which is a PROJECT because Ikea did not have the right size cabinet. But I now have a PLAN and hope hope hope I really don't screw it up. If it comes out great I am totally going to post it to Ikea Fans.
Install molding over and under cabinets
Install covers under cabinets
Install all doors, drawers, and handles
Install interior fittings (lazy susans, etc)
Install appliances (bring back electrician)
Pick out granite slabs
Get Granite people out here to measure and come back/install granite
Plumbing hookups/stovetop install after granite is in
And then we have a freakin' party because it will be done!

So we're getting there, but there's still a lot to do. Meanwhile, we have a little table that will hold a rice cooker or crock pot, so I can do a little cooking. Someone freecycled a toaster oven to me so I can do a little bit of baking in small batches. I just can't do anything that requires a stove at the moment! Argh!

But really, I never expected I could do as much of this myself as I did! I'm really proud of both me and my husband. We have the best contractor ever for things like pulling electrical and doing plumbing but we really did almost all of the cosmetic work ourselves. And Adam is now a drywalling pro. And he likes my overall plan for upgrading the whole house, and was even looking at bath vanities this weekend! HAHA awesome!

CSA Goodness!

2010-08-18T14:45:00.000-04:00

CSA pickup today and nearly everything can be eaten raw! Yay!

- Tomatoes. It said "take as many as you can eat in a week." Micah decided that was 10.
- Cherry Tomatoes. Because you can never have too many tomatoes
- Peppers. About 6 of them
- Carrots. Lots
- Beets, without the greens this time. Lots (will have to find a way to cook them)
- Lettuce
- cucumbers
- Okra (need to find a way to cook them too)
- sage
- basil. A LOT of Basil. To go with the tomatoes of course
- Eggs

I'm pretty sure I'm going to make some tomato salads. If I can figure out how to get the skins off, I will probably puree and freeze some of the tomatoes, too, since we still have some from last week too.

Plus, there's salad. Yummy yummy salad.

I don't like...

2010-08-05T15:46:00.000-04:00

There are very few foods that we consider to be "food" in the United States, that I will not eat. I don't necessarily love every food there is to eat, but generally speaking, if you put it in front of me, I will eat it. I prefer not to try a few things that I can't wrap my mind around (like tripe or various other types of organ meat) but I've had things that other people I know think is yucky, like squid, octopus, sea urchin, sushi in general, etc, and as I said, for the most part if you put it in front of me I won't turn most foods down. I will turn down peanuts if I'm pregnant or nursing.

And I'll turn down watermelon.

I don't like watermelon. I know this makes me some kind of a freak, because EVERYONE likes watermelon. But I don't. And I'll point out that my mother in law doesn't either, which is something we can kind of bond over. I don't like the flavor. I don't like the texture. I don't like having to eat around seeds. I simply DISLIKE it. And somehow, people get weirdly annoyed at me when I don't want it.

I try it every so often. If they're putting out testers at the farmer's market, and it doesn't have seeds, I'll test out a piece to see if my opinion has changed. So far, it hasn't.

There was a short time during my last pregnancy when I liked watermelon. I think it is because I had it in a salad and it seemed to work as an ingredient better than it does on its own. But I was also pregnant, and you know, I also thought that pineapple and blue cheese tasted good together.

I know it's weird, but I also think that as someone who will eat just about anything, I am entitled to my little watermelon hatred quirk. And the thing is, I'll eat it if it's a matter of being polite, and I'll not enjoy it, and it will ruin an otherwise awesome dinner for me. Just so I can be polite!

There are certain circumstances under which I will eat watermelon and not absolutely abhor it. It has to be completely fresh and not over-ripe or under-ripe. It has to be crispy and not a drop mealy. It has to be nearly seedless or have only edible seeds. It has to be not refrigerated. I almost never come across a piece of watermelon this way.

Yesterday when we picked up our farm share, it included a watermelon. I kept it out of the fridge and cut into it for the kids after dinner. Alas. Seeds. I had a tiny piece that had no seeds, decided it was still not my thing, and gave the rest to the kids. My children ate half of a (small) watermelon on their own, all the while the 4-year-old asking me when I was going to have some. *sigh*.

So that's it. The food I don't like. Considering how many people I know who won't eat fruit or vegetables, I think I can live with the quirk.

We have been Tomatoed! Plus, the Kitchen is Nearly Ready For Cabinets!

2010-08-04T16:03:00.000-04:00

Today when we arrived for our CSA pickup, there were 5 bins of heirloom tomatoes and a scale saying that mini-shareholders should take 2 lbs, Regular shareholders should take 3 lbs, and Robust shareholders should take 4 lbs. Three pounds of tomatoes should keep us going until the next pickup we have in 2 weeks (we are sharing our farm share with a friend this year)

We also have basil and parsley, many many onions, cucumbers, peppers, chives, eggs, cabbage, carrots, and a watermelon. All of which means I need to borrow someone's kitchen to make bruschetta, cucumber salad, and cole slaw. And more hard boiled eggs. My friend Amy was kind enough last week to allow me to boil a bunch of eggs at her house last week, so that all of these wonderful eggs do not go to waste. Here's hoping I can also make some egg salad while I'm at it.

In other Kitchen News, I am now fully baffled at why anyone would ever do a popcorn/textured ceiling. I've been told that it's easier than making the ceiling look nice and smooth. Well, I can tell you that I am an amateur and my ceiling is now Gorgeous. And it was my first one. When I get to the dining and living rooms, it will go much more smoothly, because now I know what I'm doing. Three weeks ago I didn't know what I'm doing. Now I do.

That's one of the reasons I love that we are doing the kitchen ourselves, even if it's a pain in the ass. I learned how to take down a stippled ceiling and make it look gorgeous. I learned how to make a wall made from 7 pieces of drywall look like a wall made from one. Soon I'll learn how to install recessed lights.

I just wish I could cook. But SOON. SOON we will be able to cook.

Grillin'

2010-07-21T09:37:00.000-04:00

We still don't have a kitchen. Over the last few weeks, we have been either eating out, microwaving, or grilling. It did occur to me that we have a few other items to use for cooking, namely a rice cooker (you can also steam veggies in it though I think I lost the steamer attachment) and a crock pot. Also, if I could find my Pampered Chef covered baker I could bake in the microwave, but I am not sure where I put it. But really, summer is a good time to redo your kitchen if you have a grill.

If I had been smart, I would have made some freezer meals that could be heated in the microwave long before the kitchen renovation started. As it is, I do have one freezer meal that fits the bill, so that will be ready to go on a rainy night.

Last night, I adapted my sausage & peppers recipe for the grill. It was easy.

You'll need:

Sausages (Sweet Italian is my favorite but whatever you like)
A large green pepper, cut into chunks
A large onion, cut into chunks
some fresh oregano (or dried if you don't have fresh)
some olive oil
skewers or a grill tray/basket (I have the Pampered Chef grill tray and it rocks)

Place peppers and onions in basket (or skewer), drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle with oregano.

Start the grill and set to medium. Place sausages on one side, cover, and let grill for about 10 minutes.
Turn sausages and place the grill basket/skewers/tray on the other side. Grill for another 5-7 minutes. Remove veggies, and check to make sure the sausages are done. If they are, it's time to eat! If not, leave on for another few minutes until they are done.

Easy peasy. We made a container of Easy Mac as a side dish (remember, the tools we currently have are a Grill, a Microwave, a Crock Pot, and a Rice Cooker, so Easy Mac is an easy and cheap choice for a side dish!) and everyone enjoyed dinner! We have a giant cantaloupe from the Farmer's Market for dessert, and it was delicious too!

Next time I'll remember to take pictures.

Porterhouse

2010-07-05T20:13:00.000-04:00

Dear guy from Fertile Plains:

This is what we did with your porterhouse:

This is what we did TO your porterhouse:

Thank you. That is all.

Sausage and Peppers Revisited, with Calzone leftovers!

2010-06-16T13:48:00.000-04:00

Last summer, I made a delicious meal of Sausage and Peppers from ingredients from our farm share and farmer's market. This year, I did the same, with a few changes, and had left overs, since it was just my kids and me having the food.

I may even call this version better.

For Sausage and Peppers:
1 package of good sweet Italian sausage (we got this from the Pork Guy (Fertile Plains))
2 thin skinned sweet green peppers, sliced thinly
1 bulb of a spring red onion, sliced
1 bulb of a spring garlic (this looks like a garlic with a scallion-like top on it, but when you cut into the head, it has no "skins" separating the cloves), chopped
leaves from 2 stems of fresh oregano
salt/pepper
scant cup of water

Brown sausages on all sides, remove from pan, slice into bite-sized pieces, and return to pan. Add pepper, onions, garlic, salt & pepper (to taste) and oregano, and mix. Add a scant cup of water to the pan and scrape anything there is from the bottom of the pan. Cover tightly with a lid and continue cooking about 10 minutes more. Serve with pasta, or rice, or not :)

We had about half of the dish left over, and I was not sure what to do with it. Then I remembered something from my childhood: Sausage rolls! Of course, I had no idea how to make them. Mine came out more like a calzone but who cares? They were fantastic.

If you have one, go to Trader Joe's and get a pizza crust dough. It's in the refrigerated section near the cheese, and it costs .99. If you don't have a TJ's you'll have to make your own, or find another brand, but I have not had any as good as the TJ's ones. Also pick up a jar of TJ's marinara sauce (if you don't have any at home) and a bag of shredded mozzerella cheese (we used the lower fat version)

Let the dough sit at room temperature for 20 minutes. Break into 2 pieces and work each piece into a round. Place rounds on a pizza stone. working on a 1/2 round, layer sauce, sausage and peppers, more sauce, and cheese. Fold over and crimp the edge, and pierce with a knife or fork to make vents. Bake at 400 for about 20 minutes.

My son had no idea that this was essentially the same dish that we had for dinner last night so YAY for hiding the leftovers!

Kitchen Planning

2010-06-14T11:57:00.000-04:00

Some of you may have been following along with my kitchen saga. Last year, we had a few people come to do estimates, and they all came in around $20,000. This year, after hearing that some of the same people had lowered their prices, they came in at $25,000. Thinking that I was never going to get a new kitchen, I went into a bit of a funk.

Then we learned about Ikea kitchens. And suddenly things started moving very quickly! So I thought I'd share how you go about doing an Ikea kitchen, at least for as far as we've gotten so far.

First, you go to Ikea. You really have to see it all in person to get a real feel for it. Go to Ikea, eat the meatballs, and then go looking. One interesting thing about the Ikea kitchens is that they are not all in one place (like, say, kids stuff or living rooms) but are spread out all over the store. So take your time and wander, and believe me, Something will attract your attention. Pick up a catalog. Go home.

Now go to Ikea online and (if you have a PC) use their kitchen design software. If you don't have a PC, you'll have to do it another way, or bring your information with you to the store. You'll want to measure your kitchen, complete with doors, windows, water, and electrical. If you think you might want to take out or move walls, soffits, etc, this is the time to see if you can (not once you are excited about doing something and then you find out that you can't!)

Put everything into the system and then start playing with cabinets. You don't have to be perfect. Just get your general layout done. You can change stuff later. Now go back to Ikea.

Now you want to go to the kitchen design center. This is where you pick out your cabinet fronts, countertops, handles, and appliances. A design expert will go over your design with you and help you to remember stuff that you might have forgotten. He or she will make sure that you won't have handles knocking handles, and make sure that everything will actually fit. You'll be confused when you're using the software yourself, but that's because you are not an expert. Your design expert will make sure that you have the right kind of cabinet for your microwave, have the fridge that you actually want to order, and have it all in the right colors. Then you can buy it! Or you can wait and sit on it for another 2 weeks like we did. I suggest the latter. It's a big purchase, and you probably want to take your design back home and make sure you have it all right (we made 2 major changes after taking ours home, and one minor one).

And then you can order everything. When you do so, they might have you take some stuff home with you that day. We brought home our new cutting board and 34 door/drawer handles. They also let us take with us one drawer front so that we could pick out paint colors. We should be getting a call soon with our delivery date, and then the real work will begin!

Farmer's Market Eats

2010-06-13T21:10:00.000-04:00

This morning, my husband made breakfast--a fruit salad of cherries, black raspberries, and strawberries, followed by eggs, bacon, and scrapple (scrapple for him, bacon for me). The best part about the whole thing is that every single ingredient with the exception of salt & pepper came from either our farm share or the Reston Farmer's Market. It was a great morning.

For dinner tonight, we had a freezer meal (Pork Chops with good stuff) but on the side, we had a salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, and red spring onions, with dill. Again, all of the fresh/raw ingredients in the salad were from the farmer's market.

I absolutely love summer! This Saturday at the Reston Market, we picked up the aforementioned bacon and scrapple, and black raspberries and cherries, plus goat cheese, the red spring onions, tomatoes, garlic curls, and a whole mess of baby zucchini. We're redoing our kitchen this summer, and I am not at all worried because I can honestly live on raw foods and cheese. As long as I have a fridge, I'm good to go.

It's interesting that the newsletter that we get from our farm share encourages you to go to local farmer's markets in addition to eating what we get from the farm. Although Potomac Vegetable Farms is amazing for their veggies, we don't get a whole lot of fruit at all, until much later in the summer when blackberries and watermelons appear. I don't generally mind, though, because the Reston Farmer's Market is amazing. It's so much more than a bunch of veggie and fruit stands. There are representatives from farms that are much further south and west, so while farms that are right in the area might not yet have, say, tomatoes, some others already do. It also allows you to have a nice fruit overlap when the fruit really gets going. Some stands still had strawberries this week, while others had moved on to cherries and raspberries. Meanwhile, there's one stand that specializes in baby salad greens, while another specializes, later in the summer, in 20 varieties of tomato. There's the Wacky Herb Guy. There's the Honey people. Two or three stands have eggs. There's the two different dairies, and bakers, and the kettle corn people, and let's not, oh please don't forget, the Pork Guy. Plus, there is always some kind of musical entertainment, and just this past week, all of the restaurants from the plaza were out sampling their foods. On the Plaza is the craft market, too. This week, I bought a dress I just couldn't pass up (for Lillian), and if I had had any money left over I would have been buying t-shirts for myself. Walk through the craft fair and you'll hear even more music.

But really, the market is where everyone comes out on a Saturday morning to meet with friends and see their favorite vendors and just be out and about on a summer morning. My son loves going to the market, and loves running into friends and relations, and especially loves the music. We let him help pick out fruits, and he is in charge of our market bags and making sure I don't forget to bring one with me. I bring friends from out of town when they come visit. It's that much of a thing in our area. And it's one of the reasons I love where I live.

CSA Week 1!! YAY!!!!

2010-06-09T19:26:00.000-04:00

Today I picked up our farm share for the first time this summer. We are sharing our farm share with a friend this year, so we only get to pick it up 8 times--every other week. That said, the farm stand should be open soon, and we can supplement from that. It is possible that there will be Autumn shares available, and if there are, we will participate as long as we have the cash to do so.

SO! Today's farm share:

Swiss Chard

lettuce

itty bitty Beets w/ greens

kohlrabi

garlic curls

mint

dill

eggs

Tonight, I had planned to make a freezer meal, but it wasn't defrosted enough when I got home, so I made a stir fry of spring onions (from the farmer's market), garlic curls, kohlrabi, swiss chard, and tofu. I seasoned it with soy sauce, a little rice vinegar, a splash of apple juice, and some garam masala. Don't ask why, I just did, and it tasted great! We made some brown rice on the side, and it was a very delicious, summery, first CSA-meal of the season.

Summertime Eating

2010-06-06T21:58:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I posted here. For one, very soon after reaching Lifetime on Weight Watchers I started feeling nauseated all the time. It's not really conducive to posting in a food blog. Since that has passed (for the most part; I think it's dairy that causes it), I am back to cooking, mostly.

But the fun and wonderful thing is that we have the Farmer's Market, and starting on Wednesday, our CSA!!

So far at our Farmer's Market, we have picked up strawberries, various kinds of greens, bunches of herbs, sweet Italian sausage, Goat Cheese, more strawberries, spring onions, spring garlic, cauliflower, more strawberries, and some pastries. Oh and more strawberries. We all like strawberries a lot. Adam is making a strawberry beer, so this week we picked up 6 quarts of them, and only 2 of them are available for me to eat. Uh, I mean for us to eat. That's right.

We're splitting our farm share this year, so we are only getting 8 weeks worth of vegetables, so I expect that we will be buying more at the farmer's market this year than last.

And so far, that's where we are. Oh and of course, we will be redoing our kitchen this year, so I anticipate many raw meals while we don't have a working kitchen!

Weight Watchers -- Lifetime!

2010-05-03T17:03:00.001-04:00

OK everyone! Here it is.

November 9, 2009 to May 3, 2010, 32.2 pounds lost, and I'm a Weight Watchers Lifetime member! Hooray!

Now I just have to keep on doing it. Forever :) (That's why they call it "Lifetime."

Raspberry Pork Tenderloin and Chipotle Sweet Potatoes

2010-05-01T16:20:00.000-04:00

About a week ago I posted to my facebook status that I had gotten a coupon from Bzz Agent for a free Alexia frozen food product, and that I had bought some Spicy Sweet Potato Fries. My friend Brian suggested I make it with something Pork-like, and it got the wheels spinning in my head. The "spice" in the potatoes was chipotle, and I had in the past made a chipotle raspberry pork tenderloin from Dinner Zen. What if I tried to recreate it, but left out the chipotle in the sauce, since it would be in the fries?

What followed was fantastic. Truly delicious. Here's the recipe:

Raspberry Pork Tenderloin
1 pork tenderloin
1/4 c raspberry jam
1 T apple cider vinegar
salt & pepper
thyme, tarragon, oregano (all dried)
1/2 a small onion, chopped
a little olive oil

Prepare pork tenderloin by rubbing with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, tarragon, thyme, and oregano. Place it in a baking dish and bake at 400 degrees for about 45 minutes, turning once.
While the pork is cooking, saute the chopped onion with a little bit of salt and pepper. When the onions are soft, add the jam and vinegar, and stir until the jam melts, Keep on low until the pork is done. Let pork rest for a few minutes and slice, then pour sauce over the slices.

If you choose to make the Alexia Spicy Sweet Potatoes, you'll want to put them in about 25 minutes before the pork is done. The recipe will say 20 minutes, but you're sharing oven space and you'll need the extra time to make sure they end up crispy like fries, and not soggy, like, um, soggy fries.

Now, for the verdict. The raspberry sauce was spectacular. The pork was delicious. And the seasoning on the fries made the whole dish more reminiscent of the original dish that I had (that had the chipotle peppers in the sauce). The kids loved the pork and the "dip." The three year old thought the fries were too spicy, but he cut the spice by eating a piece of pork dipped in the raspberry dip. The 9 month old actually loved the sweet potatoes as is, and kept screaming for more. The husband and I loved the fries but thought that by the time we got to the end of them, the taste off chipotle was overpowering everything. Still, as sweet potato fries go, they were pretty delicious and much easier than slicing sweet potatoes by myself! One thing that I will caution--the serving size says 3 oz or 30 fries. This is off. If you are measuring for weight-loss purposes, make sure to weigh the fries and don't count on 30 being a serving size, as it was closer to 20-25.

And as for the pork, if you have a BJ's near you, you should check there, because ours had a pack of 4 pork tenderloins for $14 (it looked like 2 in the package but it was really 4!). So I actually prepped two of this meal and stuck one in the freezer, and then prepped another 2 freezer meals with the other two. Great deal, and I'll have the recipe for the other one up here after we taste test it! To prep this recipe for the freezer, do the seasoning and olive oil and stick in a ziploc bag, then saute the onions, and place the sauteed onions, jam, and vinegar in a separate bag, and store together in an outer bag. Defrost before baking.

WW Maintenance Update

2010-04-13T18:41:00.003-04:00

If you have not been paying attention, I am now on maintenance on Weight Watchers, but instead of maintaining I am continuing to lose weight. Even though I am not trying to.

So, last week, I ate all of my points, and all 35 of my flex points, AND all of the exercise points that I earned, and I went 1.5 points in the hole on flex points, too.

I went out to Red Robin at one point and I ate salmon. I mean it. It was Saturday and even with the salmon instead of my favorite Royal Red Robin Burger, I went way over my weekly allowance points so I walked with the baby on my back for 45 minutes on Sunday to earn exercise points to make up for it. I am so mad because I probably could have had a burger. And I could have had fries instead of broccoli. (And everyone who knows me knows about my cheeseburger obsession too)

I weighed in on Monday sure that I had gained weight or at least maintained.

I lost 2.2 pounds.

So now, I am back to eating 10 breast feeding points per day, even though Lillian eats solid foods.

This is the breakdown:

21 points (this is my base, based on weight, occupation, age, etc.)

4 points (this is for maintenance)

10 points (this is for breast feeding)

5 points (this is 35 flex points per week divided by 7 days)

1 point (I generally earn about 7 exercise points per week, divided by 7 days)

Which is 41 points per day.

If you have been on WW before, 41 points per day should look like a completely ridiculous number to you unless you're a 300 pound man, and even then it might seem high. And yet, last week when I ate approximately 38 points per day, I lost 2.2 pounds.

And actually I had weighed in on Wednesday instead of Monday last week so I lost 2.2 lbs in 5 days.

I am starting to wonder what the heck my body is doing. I personally don't mind that I am still losing, but when you're breast feeding they get a little antsy if you lose too much beyond your goal because they worry about your milk production. But eating 41 points per day is ridiculous, and it's not conducive to me continuing to eat in a healthy way. Generally I eat my healthy foods and then have some chocolate to make up the shortfall.

Also, strangely, I didn't lose weight this quickly when I was in weight loss mode. So I am now eating more and losing more than I was before. I lost 25 lbs in about 24 weeks, and now I'm losing more than a pound per week when I am just trying to maintain.

In other news, I have now lost 31.2 lbs on WW, which is way more than I ever intended. Also did you see how I walked 45 minutes with a 17-pound baby on my back? Without having an asthma attack? Yeah I pretty much rock.

(PS--please don't tell me you wish you had this problem. We all have our problems and until recently mine was "getting bigger and bigger by the week, with a family history of heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, and diabetes looming.")

Perfecting the Art of Getting The Freezer Full

2010-04-11T14:08:00.003-04:00

Let's face it. I do too much to take an entire day doing true Once A Month Cooking. Besides, it's exhausting. Even when I spend 2 hours at Dinner Zen, I walk out really tired, and in that case they have done most of the work for me!

Still, an empty freezer loomed. I was down to one tilapia filet from my last trip to DZ, and that is just not acceptable.

But as I said, sometimes doing a whole month of food in a day is daunting.

Well, the state of my freezer two weeks ago was as follows: 1 tilapia filet. 2 frozen chicken breasts. And that's it.

Two weeks later, the state of my freezer is as follows: 1 tilapia filet, 2 frozen chicken breasts, 3 packs of "Pork Chops with Good Stuff," 2 packs of Mango Curry Chicken, 1 pack of Bourbon Chicken (we ate 1 already), 2 packs of Lamb Zucchini Goulash, 3 quarts of Ham, Green Bean, & Potato Soup. Many bags of frozen veggies (thanks to BJ's, which will keep us going until the CSA season starts)

Is it a month's worth of cooking? Not in the least. But can I spend the day working and throw something in the oven or crock pot to reheat? Oh yes. And I did not do it all in one day.

First, chicken was on sale. So I bought the chicken and the couple of ingredients that I didn't have on hand for the 2 chicken dishes, and I went home and made 4 meals. Then a few days later my supermarket had beautiful zucchini. I made a huge pot of goulash and froze 2 meals after eating one. Then we had Easter, and much leftover ham, so that became the soup. 3 quarts in the freezer and 1 quart into our bellies. Finally, pork chops were on sale, so they became a meal to eat and 3 for the freezer.

What I like about building up the freezer, rather than doing it all in one day, is that I can get a meal into the freezer in 1/2 hour or less. I'm not worrying about having to clean every pot in my house three times. And, probably most importantly, I can cook based on what is on sale at the time. If I plan to cook all in one day, I still need to find the meat that I want to use on sale, rather than building my meals around what I have already found.

Now, with 11 new meals in the freezer, I can see myself going to Dinner Zen and doing a small order--maybe 8 half-dishes instead of 12 full ones--to give us some variety. But the truth is that with extra frozen veggies in the house, I can make a simple meal on a weeknight when I am not necessarily working all day, so we get variety anyway.

I also think that this is a cool way to introduce someone to freezer cooking, without the crazy-making of thinking you have to do a whole month's worth of food in a day. That said, if I had my chest freezer (it's coming, really!) I would make more of each individual meal, because I would know that six pork chop dishes will still stay happily frozen and not bore my family to tears. Yeah, let me get on that right now.

Weight Watchers Maintenance, or, help! I can't eat this much food!

2010-04-08T09:53:00.003-04:00

I'm on my third week of Weight Watchers Maintenance, and, well, it's going entirely too well. In that I am not maintaining but continuing to lose weight. This is ok, and generally would not be considered a bad thing (you're allowed to continue to lose on WW after you hit your goal) except that I'm breast feeding and everyone knows I'm breast feeding (because I do so at the meeting when Lillian gets fussy) so the leaders are trying to come up with a good points value for me to eat that will allow me to stop losing weight.

It's not so easy. I'm really used to eating fewer points now. And by fewer points, I don't mean less food. I am probably eating more food than I was eating when I was consistently gaining weight. But I've gotten used to eating healthy foods again, and it's just HARD to add in more points. I'm full after every meal. I don't really care to snack. And I keep losing weight.

When you go onto maintenance, you re-do your points values and generally get to eat about 4 more points than you had on weight-loss mode. That translates to approximately 200 calories, which doesn't sound like much actually. I've been trying to eat them all, and still losing. So this week we added another 2 points. That's another approximately 100 calories, when I didn't really want to eat the ones I already had!

So I picked up some 2-point snacks. I'm not really big into buying the snacks, but the pretzel thins that they sell at the meetings are pretty tasty. I bought a pack and I guess if I eat a pack a day it will be 2 points right there.

But then there's also the flex points--you get 35 of them to use any time of the week. I usually save those points for a trip to the ballpark or night out to dinner. I could not imagine spreading them out over the week because that would be another 5 points PER DAY and I CANNOT eat like that anymore. I mean unless I start eating candy again, and candy is a trigger food that I cannot afford to eat.

I think I need to talk to my leader about this again. I'm really confused because if I do add the extra 2 points per week, and then I do go out to a ballgame and use all of my flex points, what if I then gain? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Has anyone gone through this? Is figuring out your maintenance points supposed to be this hard?

Also if you have not seen them yet, check out these "after" pictures that my friend Jacalyn took of me http://emeraldlens.info/?p=384

OK, I kind of found some pictures

2010-03-22T21:07:00.004-04:00

OK, it's true that there are no pictures of me without a child somehow attached to me. It's true. So here's my before and after pictures, with baby:

Before (Sept 2009):

After (April 2010):

Weight Watchers -- GOAL!!! (26 lbs!)

2010-03-22T16:47:00.003-04:00

I knew that I was close to my goal. I really did. But somehow I didn't feel like it was going to happen this week. In fact, I had been feeling so FULL recently when I ate dinner that I was sure I had made some points calculating mistakes (it turns out I have just been eating more "filling foods"). Wonderful Husband, who knows that Monday is weigh-in day, even bought me asparagus, my sooper sekrit weigh-in food, so that I could pack it in on Sunday night and lose a bit of water and not feel so bad about over-eating this week.

(Asparagus will get rid of any retained water but it's not going to make you lose more than, say, 1/2 lb of water weight overnight! Some people go to the bathroom before weighing in. I eat asparagus, go to the bathroom, and nurse the baby. And hey, I like asparagus, as does everyone else in my family, so it's yummy, too.)

OK, so I went off to WW wearing my new jeans and a light top and I was all ready to be SO close to goal but not there yet. And there was a new leader running the meeting today, though Liz was still there, so she was there for it all. The new leader weighed me in and OMG! Not just goal but beyond goal! 26 pounds lost! OMG!

I screamed so loudly I scared the baby.

So we had our meeting, and I got my information on maintenance, which gives me basically 4 more points per day. So I'm almost back to where I was when I had all 10 of my breast feeding points. Thank you Little Baby, for giving me all those extra points throughout this journey.

Now I get to do 6 weeks of maintenance, and then I will be a life member. Liz, my wonderful leader, asked me if I would apply to be a leader! So I did that today and we will see what happens.

Now, if ANYONE has a picture of me from sometime between July and November, could you please send it to me? I have no "Before" pictures! Jacalyn is coming here later this week, so I'll have her do an "after!"

Chicken with Penne and veggies (yum!)

2010-03-17T12:01:00.003-04:00

I made an absolutely fantastic pasta dish last night, and it is light and delicious and reminds me of spring!

Chicken with Penne and Veggies

1 large boneless skinless chicken breast

1/2 box of penne (about 1/2 lb)

1/2 a head of broccoli, chopped small

1 bell pepper (I used yellow) chopped

1/2 a small onion, chopped

1 can diced tomatoes, drained

1 qt (or a box will probably do) fat free chicken broth

2 big handfuls of baby spinach

salt/pepper/garlic/italian seasoning

I used the Pampered Chef covered baker for this, but you can probably just use any covered baker that can go in the oven and the microwave. OR you can buy a Pampered Chef Covered Baker. Go to http://www.pamperedchef.biz/breannadoyle?page=2ways-order-products and put in Lynne Powell as the hostess. See? Now you supported my Pampered Chef party too!

OK, Here's what you do. Place the chicken in the covered baker and sprinkle your seasonings and cover. If the breast is frozen, microwave on high for about 10 minutes. If it is not frozen, microwave on high for 6 minutes. Chop chicken well and leave in the baker. Add everything else except the spinach, stir well, and put in a 350 degree oven for about 45 minutes. Remove from the oven and add in spinach, stir well, and cover for another 5 minutes. Add more seasonings to taste.

Makes about 6 servings.

Kid Menu Review: Mimi's Cafe

2010-03-16T09:17:00.004-04:00

First of all, my background with Mimi's: for the most part, I only go here with my office for our quarterly sales meeting. I did go with friends one time, but I didn't really pay attention to the kid's menu (since my son just wanted a burger that day)

This past weekend, though, we found ourselves headed to Dulles Town Center (so that I could trade in my size 12 jeans for size 6 ones at the Gap Trade-in Event!!) and I really did not want to eat at the food court. My brain kind of went on auto-pilot while I was driving in to the mall, and I found us headed toward Mimi's. Adam suggested we just eat there, because I had commented that they had some good, lower fat options, and I had also read that it was highly recommended by parents as one of the best chain restaurants for kids.

We got there and were told there was a 20-minute wait, but when I made the "OMG I think we have to leave" face, the hostess noticed the kids and said she would see if she could get us in sooner. She did, and within 10 minutes we were seated. My 3 year old got a kid's menu with crayons, and no one even blinked when I put my 7 month old in a high chair.

The kid's menu was a mix of breakfast and lunch/dinner items, and healthful and not so healthful. Here's the rundown:

Breakfast:

"Mimi Mouse" Pancakes with fruit

Scrambled Eggs w/ Bacon

Chocolate chip pancakes w/ fruit

Lunch or dinner (includes drink, entree, dessert, and choice of side (0g trans fat fries, apple sauce, sliced apples, mashed potatoes, fresh fruit)):

Chicken Fingers

Mimi Burger (with our without cheese)

Mini Corn Dogs

Mac & Cheese

Pepperoni Pizzadillas

Grilled cheese

PB&J

Turkey dinner

Spaghetti

Soup & Salad

Now, as kid's menus go, this has a lot of variety, but a lot of it is a variety of not-so-healthful foods. But let's face it, some kids are so used to the "burger or nuggets" option that not including it might make the place feel less kid-friendly. The addition of the turkey dinner and soup & salad option really saves this menu, as does the option of fruit or vegetables on the side.

That said, my own kid wanted a cheeseburger. With apple slices.

Kids can also choose from soda (ick), whole, 2%, or skim milk, chocolate milk, lemonade, strawberry lemonade (hidden option not on the menu), orange juice, apple juice, or Hi-C (ick). Micah asked for lemonade and was given an option of regular or strawberry lemonade, and he was happy to have the strawberry.

They asked if we needed anything else for the baby, and I asked for some grapes, which they gladly brought to me, along with a plate for each kid containing a small cup of cheerios, some fruit, a wet wipe, and a bib. I was so impressed! Our server asked if it was our first time there, and I told her that it was not mine, but it was our first as a family. She brought us 4 giant muffins to take home! Not so great for the weight watchers, but a very nice thing that this restaurant does for its new customers. (Oh a note about the grapes before the internet starts flailing at me: we did sit and peel the grapes and cut them up for her. The girl loves her grapes.)

As for adults, I have, as I had told Adam, very good luck with Mimi's either finding a healthful choice or creating one. For instance, any omlette can be changed to an egg-beaters omlette, and potatoes on the side can be changed to fruit. And for lunch and dinner, they have a lighter side menu, where the lowest calorie item seems to be around 360 calories. That was the "Just Enough" Citrus Salmon, which came with a 3 oz salmon filet, citrus wedges, and a salad with strawberries and fat free dressing. If you're really hankering for a soup, you can have a naked onion soup, which has all of the oniony goodness and none of the bread and cheese. It was all delicious, and I did not feel like I was depriving myself at all. In fact, I felt downright full on that lunch! And then I got to walk around the mall for some exercise.

As a note, Adam got the turkey sandwich and he said it was a bit dry and needed more mayo. It was HUGE though, and he ate half and took the other half to lunch the next day.

So, my final verdict: great for kids, great for weight watchering, great for people who don't have kids or weight issues too! :)

Oh and by the way: weight watchers count is 19 weeks (16 meetings), -23.2 lbs, 1.6 pounds from goal.

What do you eat on your sandwich thin?

2010-03-02T08:18:00.003-05:00

If you have not learned about these yet, you must know about Arnold Sandwich Thins. They are like a hamburger bun, only thinner. Picture a round piece of bread that has been successfully sliced in half. They are crazy high in fiber, and on WW they are one point. I think that Pepperidge Farms also makes something similar, but I love the Arnold ones.

So I use them for a lot of things, like breakfast sandwiches, lunch sandwiches, snacks, etc. I have a few favorite recipes but could use some more ideas! Here's what I do these days:

Ham & Egg -- Get a small plastic bowl, like the kind you feed cereal to a baby in. Line the bottom with a slice of ham and throw a scrambled egg on top. MIcrowave for 1 minute. Spread 1/2 teaspoon of Smart Balance Light and some salt & pepper on one side of the sandwich thin and add the egg and ham to the sandwich. Tasty! 4.5 points

(Note! If you decide that you really prefer eggs that are not scrambled, you MUST pierce the yolk. If you do not, you can create an air pocket and then when you bite into the sandwich you'll get hot steam exploded on your face and lip, and then you'll be in excruciating pain for most of a week while your lip scabs and peels and you won't be able to eat anything the least bit acidic because ow ow ow ow ow. Guess how I know this.)

Spinach & Egg -- Just like above only start by filling the bowl with spinach, sprinkle with water, and nuke (without the egg) for about 45 seconds. Then do the egg separately. Do the same with the Smart Balance and salt & pepper as above. 3.5 points

Add Cheese -- You can do the same and add 1 T of reduced fat shredded cheese for an extra 1/2 point.

Almond Butter & Banana -- This one comes from my friend Abby. 1 T almond butter and 1/2 a banana. YUM. This one is kind of pointsy at 5 points, but if you use 1/2 T of the almond butter it will come down to 3 points. I think that peanut butter might be fewer points, but you'd have to check as we don't eat peanuts.

Roast Beef -- 2 oz roast beef cold cuts, some mustard, some horseradish. 3 points. My husband adds a slice of cheddar which makes it 6 points. I would do this if I were on maintenance :)

So so far that's it. Anyone else do anything fun with your sandwich thins?

Chicken Mushroom Orzo Soup

2010-02-21T19:59:00.004-05:00

So let's say you are like me and you like roasting a chicken. And let's say you're also like me and your family eats 2 drumsticks, a breast, and maybe a wing or two, and leaves you with lots of thigh meat and a whole chicken breast and maybe a wing, too. And let's just say you're so much like me that when you finish dinner, you pick off all the remaining meat and make a broth out of the carcass.

Well, if you're usually like me, then you have a lot of broth the next day and you make chicken soup.

But today, see, today I decided that I didn't want plain old chicken soup, with veggies and chicken and maybe noodles or rice. In fact, I wanted to take my sister's yummy beef and mushroom and orzo recipe and turn it into a chicken soup.

So I did. Here it is:

Chicken Mushroom Orzo Soup

Dark Meat Leftovers from a roasted chicken, shredded

6 cups chicken broth

1 cup (dry) orzo

1 box mushrooms, sliced

1 small onion

2 cloves garlic

cooking spray

salt/pepper/sage/thyme

Saute onions and garlic in cooking spray until the onions soften. Add mushrooms and cook until they start to give off some liquid. Season with salt, pepper, a little sage, and thyme (don't overdo the sage. a little goes a long way). Add chicken broth and chicken and bring to a boil. Add orzo and cook 9 minutes more. Serve with a nice hearty bread. Delicious.

Weight Watchers -- 10%!!

2010-02-16T16:17:00.002-05:00

As of Sunday, I've hit my 10% mark on Weight Watchers. No chart this time--they're getting too small to see the detail on.

So I've lost a total of 16.8 lbs. I fit very well into size 10 jeans and will pretty soon likely hit a size 8. I think I have about 10 pounds go to, which may or may not happen while I'm still breast feeding. But it feels great to be 16.8 pounds lighter. Oh and by the way, my baby is about 16 pounds, and I really love strapping her on my back and feeling the real difference between what I weighed before and what I weighed now.

If you didn't know, when I was pregnant I was on bedrest. I only gained 15 pounds my whole pregnancy, but what basically happened was I lost a lot of muscle. When I started getting stronger, the muscle weight came back but it became obvious that, had I been not losing muscle weight, I would have put on a lot more weight in this pregnancy. So most of the weight that I gained appeared to come on in the 3 months *after* the baby was born. How's that for weird?

So anyway, there I was at the heaviest I had ever been while not being pregnant. Maternity clothes still fit, but you can't wear them forever. Size 12 clothes did NOT fit. So my options were to buy bigger clothes or lose weight. And I'm really happy to say that WW has fit the bill. If I stayed the way I am, or lost just a couple of more pounds (to get into the WW healthy weight guidelines and reach life member) I would be pretty happy. I do still want to get back into my size 6's but I'm a patient person when it comes to this.

Meanwhile, it's my husband's birthday, and I have lots of weekly flex points to use on a yummy dinner and chocolate cake! Hooray!

Baby-Led Weaning, Week 1

2010-02-06T10:42:00.002-05:00

I can hardly believe it, but I've become a believer in Baby-Led Weaning. I honestly thought it was insane when I first saw my friend doing it with her daughter. (Love you Danielle!) I was a huge believer in the Super Baby Food method, to the extent that I have blogged about it and bought the book for nearly every new mom I know. But in the last week, I've become a complete convert.

Now, that's not to say that Super Baby Food is a bad choice for some babies. My son totally thrived on it. He loved his super porridge. He adored his food cubes turned into baby food. I absolutely loved making food for him. But my daughter? Two weeks into spoon feeding and she still hadn't actually swallowed more than a couple of bites of cereal. She appeared to hate bananas. She appeared to hate everything actually. Even the foods she liked she seemed only to tolerate.

Then I gave her that piece of asparagus and she loved it. And I realized, oh my gosh, that she might eat other things on her own as well. I asked Danielle about BLW, and she pointed me to some resources.

That night, I gave my girl a piece of avocado, about 1/4 of an avocado cut into 2 slices. She eagerly picked up a slice, brought it to her mouth, and nommed on it. The whole thing was gone before the rest of us got to the dinner table! That same night, we were all eating chicken and broccoli. I cooked her broccoli a little longer than ours (we like ours pretty crisp) and gave her some. She ate nearly all of it, leaving over just a stem that she had been holding on to. She didn't eat any chicken, but I think I made the pieces too small. When you are doing BLW, the pieces actually have to be a bit bigger at first, until they get a pincer grasp.

So far, baby girl has tried avocado, asparagus, broccoli, bananas, potatoes, whole wheat pasta, and red peppers, and she has at least tried if not loved all of them. Am I nervous about allergies? Perhaps I should be. I'm being careful that she doesn't eat anything too harsh (we took the potatoes out of the home fry mix before adding the chili powder for ourselves and we don't give her anything too acidic) and she doesn't eat anything in the major allergen groups that affect our families (no berries, shellfish, nuts or legumes for a while, but we don't eat nuts or legumes in the house anyway, and the point is she eats what we eat). With my son I waited 4 days between foods for over a year, and you know what? He wasn't allergic to anything. We did wait until he was 3 to give him some kinds of nuts and legumes, but the only allergic reaction he ever had he grew out of after a few months. Meanwhile, my daughter is enjoying food in a way I've never seen a baby enjoy food, and it's completely thrilling.

Mushroom Soup

2010-02-05T16:42:00.003-05:00

About a year ago, when I was pregnant with my baby girl, I was having a moment of feeling that meat was icky and soup was delicious. My friend Charlotte gave me this lovely recipe for a mushroom soup that feels creamy but has no cream in it. I changed it up a little bit, because I wanted to add onions and remove some of the fat. In all, it's delicious and about a point per serving (based on 6 servings)

cooking spray
1 medium onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 boxes of mushrooms, chopped really well
salt, pepper, sage, thyme, parsley (or, as Charlotte says, "season with stuff you like")
1 box (4 cups) chicken or vegetable broth

Saute onions and garlic in cooking spray. When onions become soft, add mushrooms. Season with stuff you like (my seasonings above). Add one box of fat free chicken or vegetable broth. Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer, and allow to simmer at least 1/2 hour. Blend with an immersion blender until mostly smooth.

I had some fresh parsley, so I served this garnished with a little chopped parsley. Delicious!

13 weeks on Weight Watchers

2010-02-02T10:17:00.008-05:00

It's been about a quarter of a year that I've been on Weight Watchers, so it's time for a real update!

Check out my weight chart. I've lost 15.2 pounds in 13 weeks. Now, on some weight loss plans that would not seem very good (South Beach has you losing that much in the first 2 weeks I think). But gradual is very good, especially when you're breastfeeding, and I am consistently surprised when I weigh in and I have lost another pound. Also, do remember that some of that weight loss happened over Thanksgiving and Christmas! So I'm very happy with it.

Now, I know what happened to me last time I got near goal on weight watchers, and I am doing my best to not do it again. Last time, I was on the Core plan, and after most of a year on the program and losing over 25 pounds, I got a little tired of eating Core foods. I slacked. A lot. And then I got pregnant. This time I am sticking to counting points, which is much easier when you can count them online and using an iPod Touch app.

If all goes well this week I should reach my 10% goal (16.1 lbs lost) next week. After that it's just another 10 pounds to my ultimate goal.

But here's the thing. I know I sound like a commercial, but with the exception of writing everything down, I don't really feel like I'm on a diet. I mostly feel like I'm eating healthy foods and occasionally some unhealthy ones. I am definitely learning the consequences of making a bad choice. For instance, last week I went to Burger King. It probably would have been OK if I had just had the sandwich (Whopper Jr. No Mayo, 6 points) but instead I added in onion rings (10 points) and a sugared drink (3 points), which basically blew most of my points for the entire day. Yesterday, we went to Wendys and I was much more careful, and had a grilled chicken sandwich (7 points), small chili (4 points) and unsweetened iced tea (free). It was still higher in points than a regular lunch I'd have at home, but as eating-out choices went, I did a lot better after the BK debacle of last week. I know I could have had the salad instead of the chili, but I also know that I do get 10 breastfeeding points, and the chili would keep me fuller, which it did.

I've also discovered that I like snacking, but it doesn't really matter what I snack on as long as I can snack. So I buy a giant tub of spinach once a week and eat salads when I get snacky. Last week I also bought a giant head of broccoli and had that to snack on. If I really want something sweet, I have a 1-point bar and it doesn't blow the day away.

So that's it. 13 weeks (only 11 meetings as I missed 2 when we were in Florida) 15 pounds, and about 10 pounds to go. If all goes well I should get my 10% keychain next week. Here's hoping the next quarter is as productive as the first quarter was!

Lemon Caper Chicken

2010-01-31T21:32:00.003-05:00

Years and years ago, back about 10 years ago, I was on an online diet program called eDiets. I ended up quitting because they went from this awesome diet that concentrated on healthy eating habits and a diet based on the American Heart Association's recommendations to a site that let you choose between "traditional eDiets," Atkins, and someone else's diet. I thought they were sellouts and I told them so. Looking at their site now, it looks like they still offer three choices, if not specifically two branded diets.

Anyway, the other reason I quit was that the support was in forums, and since not everyone was on the same plan anymore, the forums got weird and unhelpful. As it was I made a bunch of friends, which was pretty cool. And I got a recipe for Lemon Caper Chicken, which I have evolved over the last 10 years. Last night, about 1/2 hour before dinner time, I realized I had not planned anything, took a quick look in my fridge and freezer, and realized it was Lemon Caper Chicken time. Good thing my brain always makes sure I buy ingredients for it even when I'm not particularly thinking of making it.

2 small boneless skinless chicken breasts, butterflied and then cut into small pieces

2T whole wheat flour

salt/pepper/garlic/paprika

2T capers

juice of 1/2 lemon

1 c fat free chicken broth

cooking spray

Sprinkle spices into the flour and mix well. Spray a nonstick pan with cooking spray and set the heat to medium-high. Pat dry your pieces of chicken and lightly coat the pieces in the flour mixture, and add them to the pan. Cook for a few minutes and turn. Cook a few more minutes on the second side.

Add chicken broth, lemon, and capers to the pan with the chicken and turn heat down to medium-low. Continue cooking until the broth becomes thick and sticks to the chicken.

Serves 2. I ran this through WW's points builder and I cannot believe it but it's 3 points per serving! Serve with brown rice or pasta or whatever you want because it's 3 points!

Baked Chicken with Orzo

2010-01-25T21:46:00.004-05:00

A few trips to Dinner Zen-ago, I made this really yummy dish of baked shrimp with orzo. Today, having nothing really ready to go for dinner, I realized I had orzo, and lemons, and tomatoes, and I could wing the rest of it.

1 cup (uncooked) orzo

2 4-oz chicken breasts

1 15-oz can of diced tomatoes

zest off of 1 lemon

juice of the same lemon

1T dried oregano

salt/pepper

Cook orzo and drain. Cut up chicken into bite-sized pieces. Combine chicken and orzo with diced tomatoes, lemon zest, lemon juice, oregano, salt, and pepper. Pour into a square baking pan and bake covered (with foil) for an hour at 350.

Serves 3, at 6 points per serving. You can add 1/2 cup of feta cheese to the mix for an additional 2 points per serving.

I would say that this would probably freeze well (since the Dinner Zen one was a freezer meal). Make a double or triple batch and press into Gladware bakers to freeze.

Whitney's Beef Mushroom Orzo Soup

2010-01-24T13:30:00.002-05:00

Today, a guest blogger of sorts. Or rather, my sister sent this to me, and I made it today, and it was fabulous:

"I've been making this soup so long I can't remember the actual recipe. So bear with me.

Fry a small chopped onion in a soup pot in little bit of oil until translucent. Add about a pound of very lean ground beef and break up while cooking. Then add some mushrooms--white, baby bella, whatever cheap mushrooms you have. I usually buy a package of already-cut-up mushrooms and use most of it, but it's really to taste. When the mushrooms get small, add about a tsp of sage and a tsp of thyme. Cook until fragrant, a few minutes.

This is where we break off OAMC from dinner tonight. If this is dinner tonight, add about 6 cups of beef broth, bring to a boil, and then add a cup of orzo or other soup pasta. (I used wild rice last time.) Cook until done.

If this is for freezing, cool the mixture and put it into a freezer bag. Add enough beef bullion cubes for 6 cups of broth. (My cubes each do 2 cups, but others do 1 cup each.) Freeze. On the day you want the soup, defrost the bag slightly under warm water, then put the frozen mixture into a pot and add 6 cups of water. When boiling, add the orzo."

I also added some salt and pepper, and I used a whole box of baby bellas for the mushrooms. They were not sliced and I was lazy so I used my Pampered Chef chopper and just chopped the heck out of them. I used Laura's Organic ground beef, which is 93% fat free. At 8 servings, weight watchers calls it 4 points per serving. We had a quart left after making it (we made it for immediate use and not for a freezer meal) so I froze the remainder so that the orzo would stop expanding. This was a quick meal and would be great for a "home late from work" quickie dinner. From the time I walked into the house to the time we were eating, less than 1/2 hour went by.

Adventures in Baby Feeding

2010-01-23T19:26:00.005-05:00

When my son was 7 months old, we started feeding him solid foods. And he went for it. That boy would eat nearly anything you put in front of him. He was truly a champion eater.

So when my nearly-6-month-old daughter started reaching for food on our table, I figured it was time to start her on solids, too.

Day 1 came and she seemed very interested, but the rice cereal ended up mostly on the floor, on the bib, in everyone's hair, etc. Not to be thwarted, we tried the next day and the same thing happened. Then we added bananas because, hey! Everyone likes bananas! Except for my daughter, who spit them out as sure as she had spit out everything else.

So day by day, she'd get mad at us for eating but then not want to eat her food.

Today, I remembered something that we had done with my son. We were sitting down to eat fish and potatoes and asparagus, and Lillian started making those "you horrible people!" noises when we didn't give her any. So I gave her a spear of asparagus to munch on.

She pulverized the thing. I mean, she ate through that spear of asparagus and wanted another. Even my son (who loved to chew on asparagus spears) never consumed a spear with such relish. It was a sight to see. It makes me wonder if baby-led weaning is the way to go.

Now we'll just see how mama likes cloth diapering with baby girl eating asparagus!

Mango Curry Chicken Revisited

2010-01-23T14:14:00.002-05:00

A while ago, I made Mango Curry Chicken. It was great, but we as a family felt that there was not enough liquid and the chicken dried out a bit. In revisiting, I made 3 bags of Mango Curry Chicken for the freezer, and each fed 2 adults and a child. Original recipe from Recipezarr but mine is different enough now that I'm rewriting the whole thing. Remember that this is a freezer recipe so you are intended to make it in a big batch. You'll need three freezer bags.

Spice mix:

2T sugar

2t curry powder

2t ground coriander

1/2t ground cinnamon

1/4t cayenne pepper

1t turmeric

1t salt

1/8t ground cloves

Combine all spices well and divide into the three freezer bags.

Now you'll need:

1 extra large sweet onion, chopped

5 or 6 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces

2 cans diced tomatoes

1 1/2 cups mango chutney (I use Trader Joe's brand but you can get other brands too)

Divide chicken pieces, chopped onions, tomatoes, and chutney into the three freezer bags that the spices already went into. Press out air and seal freezer bags, and mix everything well inside the bag so that chicken is well coated. Freeze.

To cook, defrost and then you can either put it in your crockpot for 4-6 hours or bake in a covered baker for an hour.

5 points per serving. Serve over brown basmati rice for 4 points per cup.

Chicken and Chickpea Stew

2010-01-21T18:42:00.005-05:00

My husband is out of town today, so I got to cook with legumes! On the menu, Crockpot Chicken and Chickpeas, a recipe that I got from the internet here.

I, of course, rearranged the recipe to make it my own. It was fantastic, and enjoyed by both me and the small boy.

Chicken and Couscous Stew

3 four-oz boneless, skinless chicken breasts, trimmed of any fat and cut into bite-sized pieces

2 carrots, sliced

1 large onion, sliced thinly

20 oz can of chick peas, rinsed and drained

15 oz can of diced tomatoes (with liquid)

4 cloves garlic, pressed through a garlic press

1t paprika (I used Hot Hungarian Paprika but you can use sweet if you object or can't get it)

1/2 t ground ginger

1/2 t cinnamon

1/2 t turmeric

1/2 t salt

Throw everything into the crock pot and mix well to distribute spices. Cook on high for 3 hours and low for 1 hour, then on warm until it's time to eat. If you have more time than that you can keep it on low for 6 hours.

I ran this through the weight watchers recipe builder. Based on 4 servings, this comes to a whopping 5 points per serving. One serving was plenty for a hearty dinner when served with whole wheat couscous (1 cup = 3 points) for an 8-point meal.

Although I hate when my husband is out of town, it was a nice chance to try a new recipe and eat something that we can't normally have when he is home! My house smelled amazing while it was cooking, and it was quite tasty, too.

Kid Menu Review: Disney World

2010-01-21T08:23:00.003-05:00

We went back to Disney World for a few days this winter, and went to eat at a few places. When we went last year, my son was not three years old yet, so we did not pay for his food; we either went to a buffet and he got his own plate or we went to a restaurant and shared with him. On rare occasion, we got him his own kid's meal, but we found that for the most part, the option for kids was Hamburger or Chicken Nuggets, and that was no way to eat for a whole week.

Options for children, in general, seem to have improved, or we just went to better places this time. Here's a short review of the kids offerings at the places where we ate.

Mama Melrose's Ristorante Italiano

Hollywood Studios -- backlot area near Muppets 3D

Seemingly less popular than many of the other sit-down places, we were able to get a table without a reservation for lunch during Christmas week. The adult menu was mostly flatbread pizzas and pastas, and the kids menu was mostly the same. A typical kid's meal included an appetizer, main course, and dessert. Micah had minestrone, pizza, and fruit, but he could have had pasta, grilled chicken, or grilled fish as well. Service was great, and this turned out to be one of our most enjoyable meals at Disney this trip.

El Pirata y El Perico Restaurant

Magic Kingdom -- across from Pirates of the Caribbean

This is a counter service restaurant that serves tacos, burritos, taco salads, etc. It's fairly simple for adults--order a taco or taco salad and you get a shell with meat in it. Then there's a toppings bar to make it your own. Kids menu is pretty straightforward--they can have a taco or a quesadilla, both of which work well with the theme of the restaurant. Micah chose the quesadilla, which was perfectly child-sized and came with a side of fruit. Perfect for a quick lunchtime meal at the Magic Kingdom. We were not disappointed.

Teppan Edo

Epcot -- at the Japan Pavilion

This is your American-Style Teppanyaki Restaurant in Epcot. Just so you know, we have gone here before with and without reservations. Without reservations, during Christmas week, it took an hour to get a table, which is absolutely not bad at all. Now, we were seated with another family, and we all talked about how, when we were kids (the parents) and came to Epcot, this restaurant offered more food included in the meal. They used to include soup and fried rice, and now it is just meat and veggies and noodles. That said, it was just enough food and we did not feel like we needed to be rolled out of the restaurant. The kids menu gave the option for nuggets and burgers, but also had the option for a shrimp or chicken teryaki dish. My son chose shrimp, because it is his favorite, and he seemed to get just a marginally smaller version from the adults. Of all the places we have been, we have consistently been happy here.

Flame Tree Barbeque

Animal Kingdom -- Discovery Island

Really? YUM. Eat here, even if the line looks long. It's a great counter service place serving barbeque ribs and chicken. For the kids, hotdog or barbeque chicken, which is perfectly respectable. My son chose hot dog (haha) which was fine with us. It came with carrots and grapes, so there was something healthful in there. As for my husband and I, we eat a lot of barbeque chicken and ribs and we were very very happy.

So that's it. One restaurant at each of four parks, and in general we were happy with all of the options for our son.

Eating Right

2010-01-20T12:47:00.002-05:00

I'm re-learning how to eat right, and as I lose weight, I also lose points on Weight Watchers. Since I'm now in the 140s (OMG! the 140s!) I've lost two whole points per day from when I started. I still have my 10 extra breast feeding points but I'll lose half of them once my girl starts eating more solid foods (as of right now she has a few tastes of food per day, but most does not make it into her stomach yet!)

So I was talking to a friend last night and she wondered how many points she had eaten that day. I did a quick look up for her. For breakfast, she had had 4 donut holes, for a total of 6 points.

I, on the other hand, had an egg, two slices of center cut bacon, an Arnold Whole Wheat Sandwich Thin, and about 1/8 cup of cooked spinach as a sandwich, plus an Honestea once I went out. For a total of 5 points. I'm fairly certain the donut holes tasted yummier (haha) but I'm also pretty sure I stayed fuller longer. As she said, that's a lot of breakfast.

Now, let's face it. I would rather have the donuts. But really, if I'm going to lose more points before reaching my goal (which I will--when I get into the 130s I'll lose another point, and I can't keep the babe from eating solids forever just to keep my nursing points!), I'm going to have to keep up eating well if only for the ability to feel full.

So today, I had the same breakfast without the Honestea (making it 4 points) and had a fantastic salad for lunch for 3.5 points. (Spinach, cut up orange, onions, and light blue cheese dressing, with a weight watchers mini-bar for dessert). At that, I'll have to have some snacks and a nice sized dinner to make my point goal for the day. But I'm sitting here, not hungry, and pretty happy with the fact that I've eaten so well.

Now if I can just stop myself when I tell my husband to go out and get cake, I'll be golden.

Recipe Archive

2010-01-19T15:22:00.002-05:00

It occurred to me that my tagging system isn't working so well to actually help me find a recipe that I wrote up! So my plan now is to, every so often, make a Recipe Archive post with links.

Appetizers & Salads &c.

Strawberry Spinach Salad

Soups

Chicken Broth

Chicken Soup

Ham, Green Bean, and Potato Soup

Butternut Squash & Potato soup

Fresh Corn & Tomato Soup

Cold Cucumber Soup

Main Meals

Orange Chicken with Singapore Seasoning

Acorn Squash Curry

Beef Stew from Leftover Pot Roast

Stuffed Peppers

Herbed Cod with Fresh Vegetables

Swiss Chard & Chicken Quesadillas

Chicken with Cherry Sauce

Pork Chops With "Good Stuff"

Oven Baked Breaded Pork Chops

Chicken & Veggies in Korma Simmer Sauce

Sides

Savory Chinese Long Beans

Mashed Potatoes With Greens

Beets With Beet Greens

Collard Greens

Breakfast

Baked Peach French Toast

Egg Pie

Breakfast Burritos

Desserts

Chocolate Cherry Oatmeal Cookies

Cranberry Meringue Kisses

Strawberry Muffins

Jam Filled Muffins

Chicken Multi-Day Cooking

2010-01-12T17:56:00.003-05:00

When I was in the Safeway the other day, they had giant chickens on sale. So, even though I had just done a Multi-Day Beef Cook, it looked like time to do a Multi-Day Chicken Cook. Lady Ozma calls this "A Week of Chicken."

So, first the chicken--very basic roasted chicken but it's huge! Right? Bake your giant chicken with something citrussy inside of it and some gentle herbs and seasonings on the skin. I used sage, thyme, salt, pepper, and garlic. I didn't use extra fat because I am weight watchering. Bake that baby and serve it up to your family. Use the drippings to make some gravy. Since we are a family of three (who eat), this meant that we ate one wing, one drumstick, and one breast, leaving a great deal of meat left for more food.

Now, for making your one chicken into Many Days of eating!

Dismantling your chicken

Cut off any remaining limbs (oh that sounds bad!), cutting off the wings and legs. Pull off the remaining white meat -- you should be able to get the breast off in one or two pieces. The dark meat may be more difficult but do your best to pick the carcass mostly clean. Store the white and dark meat separately, and plan to send your loved one off to work the next day with a chicken leg in his lunch box :)

Making Broth

It's important that you make the broth before you make additional items because you will need it for your other dishes.

Take your very ugly looking chicken carcass and any extra skin that might be hanging around it, and stick it in the biggest pot you own within reason. I use a pasta pot. Add to that a couple of carrots, cut in half, the leaves off of the celery that you have in the fridge (that's what they're for!), an onion cut in quarters, a couple of tablespoons of peppercorns, 5-6 cloves of garlic, some bay leaves, any poultry-like herbs that you have lying around (sage/parsley/thyme are great. Scarborough Fair was actually a song about making a chicken), and cover the whole thing with water. Set that puppy to high and boil it for an hour, then turn it down to medium and simmer it for 3 or more hours.

Strain all of it and toss away everything you strained out. Really. Don't think about the chicken bits that you see that just got boiled for 4 hours. Not worth it.

Now you have Broth! But what to do with it? Well, first. Put it in the fridge. The next day, you'll see a congealed layer of fat on top. Just scoop it off and throw it away. Or not. The fat will make it taste better, because that's what fat does, but if you take it off your broth is zero points/free food on just about any diet.

Chicken Pot Pie

Now you're ready to make Chicken Pot Pie.

This is the Chicken Pot Pie that I have made in the past and you can certainly use that recipe. Of course, the chicken broth that you are going to use for that recipe will be from the batch you just made. Today I had some left over gravy that I made for the initial chicken dish, so I incorporated that as well. Awesome and DONE!

Now, if your chicken was the size mine was, and your family is the size mine is, you still have plenty of white meat left. Use it to make chicken salad!

Now, I happen to like dark meat, and we still have a bunch left, plus all that broth, so let's make soup!

Chicken Soup

Before you make your soup, check how much broth you have. If it's a ton, which it probably is, pour it by 1-cup measures into some ziploc bags, double bag (put multiple single bag portions into a larger bag), and freeze. It will work great for additional recipes and will be available to you one cup at a time.

Here's my chicken soup recipe:

Cook up some diced onions, celery, and carrots, and maybe a little minced garlic in some cooking spray and add salt and pepper to the mix. When the onion gets a little soft, add about a cup of white wine if you have it. Let that cook for a couple of minutes and add your chicken broth. If you have one, cut up a tomato and throw that in as well, and if you like you can put in a small bag of frozen spinach, which will make it healthier and just as tasty. You can also add a box of mushrooms for something different. When it's just about done, throw in your shredded chicken (white or dark meat is fine) and Eat! It's delicious!

Anything else?

If you have ANY chicken left over after all of that, for the love of all that is holy, put it into a quesadilla or enchilada and freeze it because you've had too much chicken this week and need to diversify!

Ham, Green Bean, and Potato Soup

2010-01-09T15:07:00.003-05:00

It's COLD in Northern Virginia, especially for people who are not used to this kind of cold! My husband asked for SOUP, and how could I deny him? Since we had no soup fixin's in the house, I asked what kind of soup he wanted, and he said, "How about Ham, Green Bean, and Potato?"

An EXCELLENT idea. I went shopping. No good green beans, but frozen ones were on sale. I decided that if I was going to make Ham, Green Bean, and Potato Soup, I was going to make a LOT of it. We had an excellent lunch, and still have a quart of soup in the fridge and 2 quarts in the freezer. Here's your recipe:

Ham, Green Bean, and Potato Soup

About 3 cups of ham--if you have leftovers then that's great, otherwise go buy one of those very small cooked hams and cut it up into about 1/2 inch cubes

3 large potatoes, also diced into 1/2 inch cubes

1 large onion, sliced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 large bag (32 oz) of frozen green beans

2 boxes of chicken broth (32 oz) (I used low sodium because we have the ham; see note on salt in directions)

pepper

salt

1T thyme

garlic powder

1 bay leaf

cooking spray

Saute onion and garlic in cooking spray on medium. When the onion is soft, add ham and green beans and stir until green beans defrost (you can skip that part if you are using fresh) Add potatoes and chicken broth, bay leaf, thyme, pepper to your taste (I like it peppery) and a little garlic powder (think a sprinkle). Wait on the salt! I repeat! Do NOT ADD SALT yet! Your salt addition will depend on how salty your ham was to start, and you can seriously oversalt it if you add too much.

Bring it all to a boil, cover, and reduce to medium. Take a taste of the broth and add some salt if you think it needs it. Continue cooking until potatoes are soft, or longer. Remove bay leaf if you can find it, or warn everyone that there's a bay leaf to not eat :)

Makes a hearty lunch for 2 people, plus 3 additional quarts for later. Serve it with a hearty artisan bread. Fall over yourself over how good it is!

I put this into WW's recipe builder and based on 8 servings (which are NICE sized servings) it is 5 points per serving. If you use lean ham, it is 4 points.

Planning a OAMC day

2010-01-06T18:31:00.003-05:00

It occurred to me that I was planning to go back to Dinner Zen in February, but it THEN occurred to me that we have to pay for our CSA Share in February, so we are going to be a bit short on cash.

So I'm planning to do a good old homestyle Once A Month Cooking day. Why? Because with the time I have to prepare, I think I can probably get a lot of the ingredients inexpensively by looking out for sales. For instance, if I see canned tomatoes on sale, they'll go nicely to both Mango Curry Chicken and Pork Chops with Stuff (that's the technical term). If I happen to see meat on sale that would work for a dish, I can re-assess and decide if I want to make up a batch of four of something (as long as there is room in the freezer, which should be the case at this point).

That said, my plan is to keep good records of what I spend, to see if doing it myself or going to DZ is less expensive. I am thinking that certain meals will be less expensive to do through DZ and others will be less expensive to do on my own.

So, all that said, Do YOU have a favorite OAMC recipe that I should include?

Multi-day Cooking: Beef

2010-01-03T21:25:00.003-05:00

With the exception of making a chicken and having chicken, then chicken salad, enchiladas, and soup, I am not usually one to make one meal and turn it into many meals. I'm more of a "let's freeze the rest" person, or a "let's eat this for lunch" kind of girl.

Yesterday I made a pot roast in the crock pot, and it was delicious. It was from Dinner Zen and it was marinated in, of all things, cranberry sauce and beef broth. Delicious over noodles with broccoli on the side, but it was a whole order (which should feed 6) and we are 3 people, so it looked like it would be dinner again tonight.

Then I read my friend Maggie's Facebook status that said she was turning leftover pot roast into beef stew, and it sounded completely inspired. Here's mine:

1 onion, chopped coarsely

3 carrots, in nice-sized slices

2 potatoes, cut into bite-sized chunks

4 stalks celery, again sliced into nice sized chunks

1/2 a bag of frozen corn

1 boullion packet

2 cups water

left over pot roast, cut up as best you can, or not, because it will fall apart, together with remaining gravy that got made in the pot when you first made it

salt/pepper

your favorite seasoning (I used Pampered Chef Moroccan Seasoning)

splash of apple juice, or not (mine already had cranberry flavor so the apple went well)

1T corn starch in 1/2 c cold water

Spray your pot with cooking spray and start the onions, carrots, and celery. When the onions start to soften, add the rest of the ingredients with the exception of the seasonings. Bring to a boil, then reduce to low. Cook at least an hour. Taste and then season with your salt/pepper and favorite seasoning that will go with whatever you cooked your beef in. Serve with biscuits (I made Bisquik ones but whatever you'd like).

So now, we have enough STEW for another day's worth of eating. My plan is to get some Pillsbury pie crusts and additional frozen vegetables and make pot pie with it! But my plan is to throw it in the freezer and eat it another time. There's only so much beef you can eat in a week, and I've pretty much hit my limit.

So, to recap: Pot Roast -->Beef Stew --> Beef Pot Pie

I'm fairly certain that the Pot Pie will also leave us with left overs, but I'm also fairly certain that they will just get eaten for lunch and not repurposed. I mean, there's only so much repurposing you can do with a single pot roast, right?

Christmas Cookies

2009-12-21T23:32:00.005-05:00

Well, the cookies are done, and packed, and ready to take a trip to Florida or be shipped to Chicago, and I simply hope that they all make it intact. I am worried about the lace ones. They are tasty, but fragile. I couldn't find great cookie tins so they are in boxes. I lined each box with saran wrap, then layered cookies in between paper towels, and then closed up the saran wrap at the top before putting on the lid. I *hope* this serves to keep them fresh as well as cushioned. My husband said it reminded him of his 5th grade project where he had to prep a box such that an egg would survive a fall.

Chocolate Cherry Oatmeal Cookies were by far our favorite of the bunch, so here is the recipe (from WW, with my changes):

3/4 cup all purpose flour

2T unsweetened cocoa (we used Hershey's Dark Cocoa)

1t baking soda

1/4 t ground cinnamon

1/4 t ground nutmeg

1/2 t salt

3/4 c butter at room temperature

1/2 c sugar

3/4 c packed light brown sugar

2 large eggs

2 1/2 c uncooked oatmeal (we used quick oats)

1/2 c dried cherries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Cut any large cherries into 2 or 4 pieces. This is tedious but it will give your cookies a more uniform amount of cherriness.

Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cocoa, and salt in a small bowl and set aside.

Cream butter and sugar in a mixing bowl using a paddle attachment and beat until fluffy. Add brown sugar and beat until incorporated. Scrape down sides of bowl.

Beat in eggs one at a time until incorporated. Slowly add flour mixture and beat until incorporated.

Stir in oatmeal and cherries by hand until incorporated and uniform looking.

Drop rounded teaspoons of dough onto a nonstick pan or silpat but DO NOT USE A BAKING STONE BECAUSE THEY WILL STICK AND YOU WILL CRY.

Bake for 10-12 minutes, but if your oven has been on all day and you are baking lots and lots and lots, then check them after 8 minutes because they will probably bake fast.

Delicious.

(and 2 points per cookie)

Cranberry Madness

2009-12-15T21:25:00.003-05:00

About a day and a half after filling my freezer with fabulous goodness from Dinner Zen, the compressor died on my refrigerator. I noticed because none of my new food was frozen yet, and other things were actively defrosting. After a panicked day, and $350 in repairs later, I have a working fridge and freezer again, but some things were defrosted beyond re-freezing, including a bag of cranberries.

I quickly went to the Weight Watchers web site and looked up cranberry recipes. They had a 1-point recipe for cranberry meringues, and on closer inspection I learned that they were actually 4-for-1-point recipes, and who can really argue with that? It called for egg whites, cream of tartar, cranberry sauce, and dried cranberries. A quick lookup online showed that the cream of tartar could be replaced with some white vinegar in a meringue, and I was on my way.

First the cranberry sauce. Since this was for making cookies, I didn't do anything weird. Just plain cranberry sauce. If you don't know how, here it is:

Plain Cranberry Sauce

1 cup water

1 cup sugar

3 cups cranberries

Bring water and sugar to a boil. Add cranberries. Bring back to a boil. Reduce to low and simmer for 10-12 minutes. Remove from heat and chill. You won't use it all for the cookies, so plan on some turkey or chicken the next day.

I had about 2 cups of cranberries left, so I decided to dry them. I don't have a dehydrator, so I did it in the oven. Just sprinkle cranberries with sugar, place on a baking sheet (best to use parchment paper, which I didn't have, and now I have a mess of a baking sheet!) and bake at 200 degrees for 2 hours.

Once all that was done, I was ready to make my meringues! Here is my version of the recipe, which came out great and which did not change the points value at all:

Cranberry Meringue Kisses

3 egg whites

1/4 t white vinegar

3/4 c sugar

1/4 c cranberry sauce

about 80 dried cranberries (obviously this will work just as well with Craisins as with the homemade kind!)

Preheat oven to 200

Beat egg whites and vinegar until stiff peaks form. You really really really want to do this in a stand mixer. It will take a long time. Also, they transform faster if you start them at room temperature. Once stiff peaks form, add sugar, 1/4 cup at a time, and continue beating until the mix is glossy. Gently fold in cranberry sauce.

You will probably need 2 large cookie sheets. Either line them with parchment or spray with cooking spray. Drop Meringues in teaspoon sized "kisses" and top each one with a dried cranberry. You should have about 80-85 kisses. Bake them at 200 degrees for 2 hours, rotating the cookie sheets after an hour. Allow them to cool completely before removing from the pans, and store them in an airtight container. Try not to eat them all at once.

My Freezer is Now Full

2009-12-12T20:23:00.003-05:00

Dinner Zen trip happened this morning and my freezer is now full! We had a great group of people -- 7 orders and 9 people (2 husbands came!) and some people made a small amount of food and others (like me) made a great amount of food. Jolie, the owner, served scones that were so yummy I prefer to call them cookies, along with coffee and tea for all who attended. We have pretty much all agreed that next time we have to do a private party. If we got 7 orders we can surely get 12! We just need to spread the word a little more.

As it was, I did most of my own meal prep, though Amy only did 8 meals so she made my Chicken Marsala. It was great fun, as usual, and we even remembered to leave something out of the freezer to eat today, this time. We had the shrimp scampi, and boy was it fabulous. YUM. Tomorrow we'll have one of the quiches, too, because although I did some great freezer prep, I actually did run out of room. (I would not have run out of room, but on my way out I checked the Grab and Go freezer, and they had a few fabulous sounding dishes that I could not pass up--so I ended up with 3 additional meals that I was not counting on!

SO!! In the next several weeks, we will be eating:

Big Bleu Chops--a lot of them, because I made 2 full batches

Mexican Lasagna

Raspberry Chipotle Pork Tenderloin

Shrimp Scampi

Sundried Tomato Shrimp Scampi

Chicken "Wellington"

Chicken Marsala

Taco Chicken Tenders

Asian Salmon Cakes

Quiche Florentine

Two Mustard Tilapia

Honey Curry Chicken (picked up out of the Grab and Go Freezer)

Slow Cooked Cranberry Orange Roast Beef (also out of the Grab and Go)

I mean, with options like that, how can you not pick up those extras at the last minute!? I mean, unless you don't check the freezer!

SO... Certain things were surprising to me. I have found that a lot of meal prep items are fairly easy dump recipes, but a lot of these were really work intensive. For example, the Chicken Wellington had us working with puff pastry. The Big Bleu Chops have a cheese stuffing stuffed into pork chops. Not so much just dumping into a bag for those!

I do like, though, that if you are making chicken tenders, for instance, you get a set of chicken tenders ready to pop in the oven or fry. When I got a package of meals from Let's Dish, I had to crumble the tortilla chips and do the dipping into the chip breading at home. I'd rather take the extra time to do it there, even if the freezing method is in a tray rather than in plastic bags.

Every thing I made this time made me excited for dinner. I also commented that every time I go the tilapia filets look bigger than the previous time. Two of them really feeds the three of us, and I have no complaints about that!

So, next time will probably be February, and we're thinking private party. Can we get 12 people to place orders? Who wants to join us next time?

Another Trip to Dinner Zen

2009-12-09T17:46:00.002-05:00

In preparation for my Saturday trip to Dinner Zen, I have been rearranging and eating out of my freezer. Tonight, Micah and I will be sharing the final tilapia filet from my last trip, and after that I have 2 squash wraps left from that trip. They will be fine lunches next week, or maybe even a dinner.

For those of you who are going with me this time (we have a group of 8 and may become 9 soon), here are some freezer tips for getting your freezer ready for a DZ trip:

1) In the future, you'll realize that freezing liquids takes up a lot of room if you freeze them in hard tupperware/rubbermaid containers. Freeze soups, broths, stews, and sauces in freezer bags, packed flat. You can fit a lot more in the freezer that way. If it's too late, it's time to eat or use your soups, stews, and sauces to make room for your meals :)

2) If you have giant bags of frozen foods (like perogies, fish filets, etc), you can re-package them into freezer bags. Package by however many you need for a family meal, and then you can fit them into small spaces left over by your large meals. This is a good way to use the unused door space.

3) Suck the air out of stuff. If you don't have a vacuum sealer (I don't!) then just close your freezer bag nearly to sealed, stick in a straw, and suck out the remaining air before closing the seal. You'll save a lot of space that way.

4) Repackage if you have to. Dinner Zen and a lot of other places have meals prepared into a tin for baking. When you bring your food home, you can pack everything in to over-full, then take out the tins and repackage into freezer bags. Don't let your packaging take up valuable food space! When it's time to make some of these meals, you can get out a reusable/washable pan, and defrost it into that pan.

I'm really looking forward to this trip! They have Big Bleu Chops again, and based on our last experience with them, I ordered 2 full orders of them! Yum.

OK, off to check on dinner.

Orange Chicken with Singapore Seasoning

2009-12-05T19:13:00.004-05:00

I've been branching out and trying my hand at mixing perhaps surprising ingredients. Today, it was a great success! I did use two specialty items, but I'm pretty sure you could replace them if you needed to (that is, I used the Pampered Chef Covered Baker and Penzey's Singapore Seasoning.

Orange Chicken with Singapore Seasoning (serves 2)

2 four-ounce boneless, skinless chicken breasts

one onion, sliced thinly

one navel orange, cleaned well, and sliced thinly

5 cloves garlic, sliced in half.

Penzey's Singapore Seasoning

salt

Pampered Chef Covered Baker

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Line the bottom of the Pampered Chef covered baker with oranges. Place chicken breasts on top of oranges, and sprinkle lightly with salt and liberally with Singapore Seasoning. Place remaining orange slices on top of chicken, top with onions garlic. Cover the baker, and bake for 45-50 minutes. (You can actually leave it in longer if you need to if you use the covered baker; we were in a conversation with a friend and it went over an hour and was still awesome).

Serve chicken breasts topped with oranges, onions, and garlic. We had this with some broccoli on the side and it was lovely.

Aaaaaand.... according to Weight Watchers' Recipe Builder, it's 5 points per serving!

Cranberry Cous-Cous fabulousness

2009-12-02T22:02:00.003-05:00

WW has a recipe for Cranberry-Sage Cous Cous, and it is remarkably good. I was actually planning to make this for Thanksgiving but ended up making stuffing instead.

This is sweet and savory and tart all together, and it's 3 points per 1-cup serving, so I foresee making it again soon. We had it with cider-glazed pork chops and glazed apples. I changed a little bit from the original recipe and my changes are reflected here (they do not change the points values)

Cranberry Sage Couscous.

2 cups fresh cranberries

5 oz whole wheat couscous (Trader Joe's has this)

1 cup fat free chicken broth

3 sage leaves, chopped finely

1/2 an onion, chopped

2 ribs celery, chopped

salt & pepper

1T olive oil

Boil cranberries in water until several have popped, and drain. At the same time, boil the chicken broth and pour it over the couscous.

Saute onion, celery, sage, and salt/pepper in olive oil until onion softens. Add the cranberries and couscous, and mix well. Pour into a baker (spray with a little cooking spray first) and bake at 350 for 3o minutes.

WW says that a serving is a little more than a cup (think a heaping cupful!) It's a lot and it's filling and delicious!

Holidays and Weight Loss

2009-12-01T08:40:00.003-05:00

I lost a pound the week of Thanksgiving, which is, frankly, amazing, as I went 18 points over my weekly allowance points, completely by accident, because I didn't go to a restaurant prepared beforehand.

That said, I did go to Thanksgiving dinners (both of them) prepared for just about anything, and I even offered to make the sweet potatoes and stuffing for the first one so that I could control the ingredients. The stuffing didn't come out so great (I mean, it still tasted great but I would do it differently next time) but here's the sweet potato recipe:

Maple Sweet Potatoes

3 sweet potatoes, scrubbed and cut into bite sized pieces (leave skin on)

1 large onion, sliced thinly

3 T maple syrup

2T olive oil

salt, pepper, and fresh thyme for seasoning

Mix all ingredients, place in a large baking dish, and bake for 1 hour, stirring around the potatoes at least once.

Serves 10 people, 2 points per serving (according to WW's recipe builder), and it's much more interesting than plain glazed sweet potatoes or ones with marshmallows on top!

There are, of course, more holidays coming, and I want to do a mix of enjoying myself while not gaining back all of the weight I lost up to now. We are going to my parents in Florida for Christmas, and that will also, of course, include Disney. Fortunately, there's a lot of walking there to help out on the eating front!

SO here's to the next month being as successful as the last one, and I'll be sharing food ideas as I have them!

WW Week 1 done! In which I eat a lot of food, but lose weight.

2009-11-16T14:47:00.002-05:00

My weigh-in was great, and I was down 3.2 pounds the first week! That probably would have been more if I had not completely gorged myself at the Melting Pot last night. I saved up all 35 of my flex points and had a really light breakfast and no lunch in anticipation of the night out, too. But I did eat so much that I had weird dreams. Still, first night out without kids since the baby was born.

By the way, the Melting Pot is evil. Tasty Tasty Evil. I was trying to figure out WHICH course you could leave out, and Adam said "salad," but even the salad is so tasty that you wouldn't want to drop it out. Of course the least healthy is probably the cheese course. For pure price, you could leave out the main course and go for cheese fondue, salad, and chocolate fondue, but then you wouldn't have tasty tasty meats and sauces. Oh the Evil. Seriously.

Meanwhile, I saved up ALL of my flex points for that meal, and I was sure that I probably gained a ton, but I didn't! Most excellent.

I also found out this week that IHOP has a diet menu and it's pretty awesome if you're going to go out.

So anyway, I went to my meeting while Micah was in school today (since I have plans tonight). We talked about Thanksgiving. We all had to pick from a list of foods what we were planning to eat for Thanksgiving and then add up the points. Mine came to 35 so that sounds to me like just saving my flex points for Thursday next week, but other people talked about cutting back on stuff. I guess I could do that too. Also, I volunteered to make the stuffing so I can control what goes into it. Because I am clever. I shared this tip at the meeting too.

Liz (today's meeting leader) shared her recipe for Liz's Lazy Soup. This is what she does:

Saute onion and garlic in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil (it's for a whole pot and so each individual serving will have less than a point of oil). When it gets clear, throw in 2 bags of broccoli wokkoli. When they turn really green, throw in 2-3 boxes of mushrooms. Add 2 or 3 boxes of vegetable broth. Thow in a whole bag of frozen spinach. Bring to a boil and then reduce and cook for 30 minutes.

Now, you have a lazy 0 point soup. Store it in the fridge. Sometime after you do this, cook up some whole wheat pasta and refrigerate. When you are ready to eat, weigh out 2 points of pasta, scoop on some soup, and microwave it for a 2 point meal.

I think I'll probably do this :) It sounds lazy and easy!

I can't eat this many points

2009-11-13T21:50:00.002-05:00

So...yeah.

I started WW and did my calculations and it came to 24 points, but I'm exclusively breastfeeding, so that means an extra 10 points per day, which is 34 points. THIRTY FOUR POINTS!

I can't eat 34 points per day. I really can't. I mean, I'm sure that I was eating way more than that before joining WW, but now that I'm eating healthy foods, I just can't get enough points. I like too many things that have zero points.

I think it comes from having done Core WW before, because those are the foods I gravitate towards.

So anyway, I got to dinnertime tonight and had 19 points left. I had a 9 point dinner. I swear I started thinking of going to get some ice cream, but instead for dessert I had vanilla granola and a peach yogurt, all of which came to a WHOPPING 7 points.

I really don't want to eat anything else. I had a glass of Gatorade (1 pt) so I'm down to 2 for the day. I guess i could have a piece of cheese. But I really don't want to.

I'm going to be in a lot of trouble when I stop nursing and have to give up those extra 10 points.

Weight Loss Attempt + Acorn Squash

2009-11-10T09:45:00.002-05:00

So I joined Weight Watchers. The baby is 3 months old, and even though I am still nursing, I get an extra 10 points per day while nursing, so it shouldn't be too bad. I suspect my husband won't start losing weight until I am cooking for far fewer points. I get to start with 34 per day! I had an 8 point breakfast and it's an hour later and I'm still full, so that's a really good thing.

I also started putting some of my recipes into WW's recipe builder online, and honestly it's not so bad. I made an acorn squash curry the other night and, without the rice, it was 4 points per serving. AND it was really filling.

Now I just have to stop making pies.

Here's the Acorn Squash Curry recipe:

1 Acorn Squash

1 large onion, diced

1 clove garlic, minced

2 large carrots, sliced

2 T sweet curry powder (I used Penzey's)

2T Crackpot Gourmet curry mix

small amount of beef, trimmed of fat, cubed very small

1c reduced fat sour cream

1 can chopped tomatoes

Microwave the whole squash for 5 minutes. Slice in half, scoop out seeds and discard, and scoop out flesh & chop. Set aside.

Saute onion & garlic in cooking spray until onion is clear. Add squash, carrots, tomatoes, and spices. Continue cooking on medium until carrots start to soften. Add meat and cook until meat looks cooked on the outside. Add sour cream and warm through. Serve with brown basmati rice.

Serves 4. (4 points per serving before rice)

Halloween Market!

2009-10-31T20:11:00.002-04:00

Today was the final farmer's market of the season, and although it was overcast, everyone had a really great time. We visited with all of our favorite vendors and friends, made sure we were signed up for winter drop-offs, gave our hugs, and stocked up for the winter. Brought home:

2 butternut squash

1 acorn squash

1 pumpkin (for eating--we had another for carving)

a whole lot of apples

a bunch of turnips

a big bag of potatoes

2 packs of sweet Italian sausage

2 packs of bacon

1 pack of scrapple

2 jars of jam (blueberry and peach)

2 rounds of goat cheese

1 gallon of cider

I probably would have gotten more but (1) we did not have enough money for more, (2) we found out the pork guy would be setting up on the plaza on Saturdays until Thanksgiving, and (2) the Lamb people and the goat cheese people are doing winter shares/drops so we can actually get some of that in the coming months. In fact, the Virginia Lamb stand did not have any ground lamb today, so I skipped them knowing I could get some in the near future.

Overall the market was fun as usual and it was a little sad to say goodbye. It's really our summer social event of the weekend!

Butternut squash and potato soup

2009-10-20T18:36:00.002-04:00

I was going to make my other version of Butternut Squash soup, and then it morphed into something else entirely! Last week I bought this fabulous chutney-like tomatoey Indian spice mix from the Crackpot Gourmet, and to me it was screaming to be tossed in to something with butternut squash. I was intending to blend the final product but when I tasted it I really loved the texture and flavor as it was so I didn't.

1 roasted butternut squash, cut into small pieces

3 red potatoes, medium sized, diced

1 onion, diced

3 carrots, sliced

2-3 stalks celery, sliced

3 packs of Trader Joe's Condensed chicken broth packets

6 cups of water

1/3 of a container of the Crackpot Gourmet's tomatoey Indian spice mix

sprinkle of salt and pepper

A little bit of butter

Saute the onion, carrot, and celery with salt and pepper in butter until onion is soft. Add the rest of the ingredients, bring to a boil, and then simmer for about an hour. Eat.

I had intended to bring some to Smita at the farmer's market on Saturday but it was raining cats and dogs and I just couldn't bring the kids out to the market in that mess. I even packed it up and was going to have Adam bring it, and then Micah wanted to go with him and then M. fell asleep in the car and they didn't go and well you get the picture. Meanwhile, it was awesome. It fed my family plus a friend very well for dinner as a side dish to a pork roast from Dinner Zen, and I still have a quart of the stuff in the freezer. Fantastic.

Party Planning

2009-10-16T08:37:00.002-04:00

Lillian's Baptism is on Sunday and we are going to have people over for lunch afterward. There should be around 15--maybe a few more--and I realized that I did NOT want to cook. At least not too much.

So we decided to semi-cater it through Dinner Zen! Last night I went and made 2 of the dishes. Then I'll make 2 more and my MIL will bring an appetizer. I ordered a cake from Safeway. So here is the menu:

Sweet meatballs (as Lawrence calls them, "crack balls")--crockpot dish easy peasy.

Spinach artichoke dip -- will pre-make this and re-heat when we get home from church

Veggie platter -- from MIL

Shrimp -- from MIL

Wild Rice and Squash Wraps -- from Dinner Zen. Will need to heat when we get home from church

Bourbon Chicken and Rice -- also from DZ. Will partial-prep and finish when we get home from church.

White cake with strawberry filling and buttercream frosting--need to pick up at 10 on Sunday morning.

I think this was a good way to plan a party without going insane. I hope it all goes well!

Stuffed Peppers

2009-10-12T20:49:00.005-04:00

Sometimes I think that my recipes are informed by my having looked at so many medieval recipes. You know, the ones that say "take thou a measure of meat and throw your spices thereon" and such. I should write down what I do when I do it.

That said, today I made stuffed peppers. I was trying to remember the last time I made them, and I think the answer is "never." I remember my dad making them when I was young, but I never made them myself.

So, I winged it. Here it is:

1 lb ground beef (we use Laura's Organic, which is 94% lean)

about a cup of cooked rice

dried oregano

dried basil

salt

pepper

sugar

1 onion, diced

1 clove garlic, minced

4 peppers

pasta sauce

Saute onion and garlic in cooking spray until onion starts to brown. Mix onion and garlic into rice and beef, and sprinkle on oregano, basil, salt, pepper, and sugar. (Yes, this is where I am being very medieval. I just sprinkled stuff on and didn't measure!) Mix it all in.

Cut off the tops of the peppers fairly close to the stem, and pull out the stem and seeds. Stuff peppers with meat mixture, place in a covered baker, and top with sauce. Bake at 350 for about 45 minutes. Serve with pasta, or not, and extra sauce.

500 years from now some re-enactor is going to be cursing me and my inability to write down amounts of spices. Hey, at least I didn't, without listing any spices, write "and add all the spices and cook until it is done!"

Farmer's Market Saturday

2009-10-10T16:54:00.003-04:00

I was on my own with the kiddos today at the Farmer's Market--actually my mother in law came along to help wrangle them while I attempted to buy food!

We had a nice haul, and I didn't even spend all the money I had--just most of it :)

red peppers

heirloom mini tomatoes

apples--many many apples

raspberries

spinach

broccoli

carrots

turnips w/ greens

butternut squash

goat cheese

a yummy Indian spice paste

I think that this will be lovely for the week. I find it very hard to figure out what vegetables to buy these days. Having had the CSA for so long, I feel like the choice was made for me and I just worked with what I had. This season we are in this strange place where you see tomatoes and zucchini next to winter squash and root vegetables. What to do? As for us, Micah asked for broccoli, and the spinach looked great, and everything else just called to me to buy it.

I am thinking of making turnip and tomato salad, and using the greens for something else. The carrots will probably be eaten raw. The peppers are intended for stuffed peppers. And the squash will likely become soup. I reserve the right to change my mind of course :)

Dinner Zen!

2009-10-06T21:24:00.004-04:00

I just got back from making a TON of food at Dinner Zen. I think that my freezer has never been so full. I may have to double check that the door completely closed.

Anyway, here was my menu:

Turkey Meatloaf with Sun-dried Tomatoes1

Wild Rice & Butternut Squash Wrap1

Wasabi Crusted Chicken1

Tilapia Parmigiano Packets1

Harvest Pork Tenderloin With Herbed Stuffing1

Baked Shrimp & Feta with Orzo1

Bourbon Chicken1

Cider Glazed Pork Chops with NEW! Apple Orzo1

Finger Lickin' Chicken & Sweet Potato Fries1

Pretzel Roll Toastie: Ham & Swiss (Pre-assembled)2

New Orleans BBQ Shrimp & Grits1

Let's go through this and how the evening went. I got to skip the orientation because I had been there before. I stashed my stuff, got my apron, washed my hands, and got my menu.

I started with the wraps because they were the closest to the sink. Easy peasy. They had wild rice, butternut squash, onions, cheese, ham, and some other stuff, and wrapped up like a burrito. They are HUGE. I forsee Micah and me sharing one of these for lunch. For our family, I am going to estimate that this was really 3 meals (6 wraps).

Next I was on to the Finger Lickin' Chicken. This was awesome. The chicken was soaked in buttermilk, hot sauce, and a bunch of spices and then rolled in panko, flour, and spices. It went into 2 trays, each of which will make 1 meal. So 2 meals there. I can't wait for this one.

I moved on to the pork tenderloin. Now, I was pretty sure that this would not be able to be split because it's a tenderloin. But I was wrong! It was two tenderloins! each was dressed with olive oil, garlic, and poultry seasoning and packaged in individual tins with stuffing next to the pork. I'm fairly certain that for my family, each tin will feed us one dinner for all 3 of us plus a lunch for 1 of us, so call this 3 meals.

Keeping with the pork theme, I went onto the cider glazed pork chops. Here I made a mistake and forgot to split the glaze mix, but I split it afterward. I hope it comes out OK. Here, too, there was disappointment, as it did not actually come with apple orzo but rather with cinnamon apples. I think I will probably make some orzo and turn the apples into apple orzo, but as one of the other women there said, "that is not what I signed up for." This was my first and so far only disappointment with Dinner Zen. I'm not sure what happened because there was plenty of orzo on site for the shrimp w/ orzo dish. So, weird. Anyway, this will be 2 meals since Micah really likes pork chops.

Next I went onto Turkey Meatloaf. I wasn't 100% sure of whether I wanted to make this, as I have a great meatloaf recipe myself, and my family likes it. But when I put it together it smelled great, and I think it will be awesome. It's in 2 loaf pans and I foresee leftovers, so call it 3 full meals for my family.

Onto Bourbon Chicken, which doesn't actually contain Bourbon. But we've had it before and we know it's awesome. It's really a dump recipe (chicken in one bag, sauce in another, rice in a third) and really easy to make. I wish i could sneak a picture of the recipe one of these times. It contains apple juice, soy sauce, ketchup, apple cider vinegar, brown sugar, and red pepper flakes. We know this will feed us 2 times and no more because it's SO GOOD.

BBQ Shrimp and Grits--actually I can't for the life of me remember what's in this. I hope it's good. It'll probably feed us 2 times as we love shrimp. And grits.

Wasabi Crusted Chicken--it was like the Finger Lickin Chicken only with an egg wash and panko with wasabi powder. YOW! Can't wait. 2 meals for sure.

Next I did the Shrimp w/ Feta and Orzo. Again I split this into 2 and it will probably feed us just two times, not because of the amount of food but because we love shrimp so much. The majority of this was prepping the Orzo, which included tomatoes, feta, spices, and I don't remember what else. You spread it in a pan and put a ton of shrimp on top. It looks awesome.

The funny thing was that there were about 4 of us there doing major cooking plans and 2 who were there for 1/2 hour and then gone. Of the 4 of us doing the major cooking plans, all 4 of us left our tilapia dishes for last. So I got to the tilapia station and there were already three people there. So I got some coffee and hung out. (actually 2 of the women actually had other dishes to make, but we all got to the tilapia at the same time). Anyway, the packets had a scoop of rice, a GIANT piece of fish, coated in this parmasean paste, sprinkled with panko, sprinkled with salt, and wrapped up. I think it's going to taste pretty good. I also see it feeding us for 3 meals because the fish is so huge.

I didn't have to make my pretzel roll toasties because they were pre-assembled. I got 2 orders because we love them so much. In fact, three sandwiches are in the fridge so we can just make them soon. These are HUGE and so we usually have two among the three of us. Since I have 12 sandwiches, call it 6 meals.

I like to do this add-up because I need to see what the average price per meal is. So total we ordered 12 meals, but for us it comes to 30 meals. At $246 including tax, that's $8.20 per meal. You certainly can't eat out for that, and you can hardly eat out at a fast food place for that. And if you're me, you can't even easily make food at home for it either.

I would say that I now need to just make a few more meals to round out my freezer meals but I literally have NO room in my freezer for anything else. I nearly had to have Adam take his coffee out of the freezer. Haha.

OK all done for now :) Can't wait to eat!

Herbed Cod with Fresh Vegetables

2009-10-04T19:12:00.003-04:00

My husband decided to buy cod today--I wasn't even sure why and I didn't really know how to make it, but I have these recipe cards that I grab from Harris Teeter whenever I'm there, and one of them seemed like a reasonable recipe to use. I modified it, because I did not have many of the ingredients in the recipe, but at least it gave me an idea and I went from there.

Herbed Cod with Fresh Vegetables

1.5 lb cod fillet
Herbes de Provence
Garlic powder
Pepper
1/2 a large onion, sliced thinly
1 roasting pepper, sliced thinly
1 T capers
10 grape tomatoes, cut in half
olive oil
3T water

Cut fish into medium sized pieces and sprinkle pieces with garlic, pepper, and herbes de provence. Coat a large nonstick pan with a small amount of olive oil and heat on high. Place fish pieces in the pan and reduce heat to medium. Combine onion, pepper, capers, and tomatoes in a bowl and toss with olive oil and a little more of the seasonings. Pour vegetable mix over fish, add 3T water, and cover. Cook for 12 minutes on medium-low until fish is flaky. Serve with rice or cous cous.

Not only did this taste incredible but it looked awesome too.

Strawberries in October!

2009-10-04T16:14:00.002-04:00

Remember the Strawberry Madness? From back in June when I was on modified bedrest and before I went on total bedrest? If you don't care to click, the short version is that back in June we bought a flat of strawberry seconds and, after making pie, we processed the remainder of the strawberries and a lot of rhubarb and stuck them in the freezer in packs the right size to make into pie.

Well right now, as I am typing this, there is a Strawberry Rhubarb Pie in my oven! In October!

I can't wait for dessert!

Getting the Itch...

2009-09-27T23:35:00.002-04:00

I'm getting the itch to do a major cooking day to fill my freezer. I want to do Dinner Zen for certain, but that is only 12 meals (well 24 for us). I need to supplement that with additional dinners and some lunches. I'm thinking:

Pork Chops with peppers, onions and tomatoes (stored in a freezer bag), 4 meals

Mango Curry Chicken (dump recipe, stored in freezer bag), at least 2 but probably 4 meals

Some kind of soup or stew (3 bags)

Pot Pies (2 or 3 but no more because they take up a lot of space)

Mexican lasagna (2 or 3 but no more as they also take up space)

That's 5 dishes and about 15 meals. In terms of time, I know I can do the Mango Curry Chicken in about 15 minutes, as it is mostly measuring spices and dumping into bags. The soup or stew can be a crockpot dish. Should take about 3 hours.

Hmm. Maybe next weekend?

Stolen Moments Cooking

2009-09-22T09:38:00.002-04:00

There's a great blog out there called Cooking During Stolen Moments (link in the sidebar on my main blog at http://gottoeat.blogspot.com which I know no one actually goes to because everyone reads the Facebook feed but you should check it out and become a fan and stuff.) Anyway, I love that blog because the woman has a bunch of kids and there is no time to get into the kitchen and just do a meal just before dinner time. Being at home with a toddler and an infant, I find I have the same problem.

So yesterday, my toddler was in school for Four Whole Hours, and the infant fell asleep during that time, and I thought "Excellent! Time to cook!" I headed into the kitchen and made six chicken quesadillas for the freezer. I even took pictures, because Lady Ozma keeps telling me that I need to photoblog (this is a stolen moments blog post so I'm not going to include them here, yet! Baby is asleep but Toddler is running around like a crazy boy.)

Later in the day, when the older one was napping and the baby was napping too, I made zucchini bread. I won't be posting that recipe as I didn't like it very much. I think part of the problem is that it called for nuts and we don't eat nuts in this house (ok, we eat almonds, but I didn't have any so I made it without.) It also called for currants, which I also didn't have, and the baby started crying so I couldn't think about the logical addition of raisins. Yeah, so all in all it's kind of dense and not very sweet and kind of tastes more like bread than cake, only with spices. It's weird. Micah seems to like it though.

Earlier in the week, I spent about 1/2 hour chopping veggies, and then later in the day sauteed them with meat for pasta sauce that I eventually made two days later.

I think that this stolen moments thing--whether I get a freezer meal done or a portion of a meal that can be set aside later--might help me keep up the cooking bug even when I feel like I have no time to do a whole meal. And if I can get some freezer meals done during that time, it should make most of our evenings just a little bit less hectic.

I'm all Tomatoed Out

2009-09-19T17:39:00.003-04:00

The remaining tomatoes have been cooked, with the exception of one box of mini pear tomatoes for salads and one Celebrity that I didn't see so it got to live on as a whole tomato for one more day.

The rest became 2 quarts of Fresh Corn & Tomato Soup and 3+ quarts of Pasta Sauce. This time I made it with meat, mushrooms, garlic & onion, and roasted red peppers. It is quite tasty. I had some Opal Basil to add in and it gave it a certain yummy something. Hooray. It's all chilling in the fridge now and will be frozen once it is cooled.

I mentioned to someone at the farmer's market today that I was all tomatoed out. Seriously? If I don't see another tomato for another month it'll be too soon. It's not that I don't want to eat them. No, actually it is that I don't want to eat them. There is such a thing as too many tomatoes, and I think if I had known how many great tomatoes we would get from our share I would never have even considered getting the extra 25 lbs for sauce. There was plenty for sauce with what we had. At least I'll know for next year.

By the way, the woman to whom I was speaking said she could never have enough tomatoes. I believe that she did not get 10-12 tomatoes per week for the last 5 weeks. I am also peached out but that is my own fault, or rather the fault of the fabulous farm where we get our peaches from. See, they have awesome peaches. And let's say we only want 6. Well, it costs the same to buy 6 as it costs to buy a large basket of them, and well you may as well take the 9 or 10 in the large basket for the same price, right? Fortunately we have had great peach cobbler, peach crisp, peach muffins, and peach pie in the last few weeks. But that's enough. ENOUGH PEACHES. Thank you.

Today at the market, I bought plums, apples, asian pears, zucchini (to augment what I have so that I can make zucchini bread), onions, peppers (for the sauce), grapes, fig jam, lamb stew, and goat cheese. We have no market next week and our farm share is done, but we can go to the farm stand if we need to, and there is another market in Oakton on Saturdays, and another in Herndon on Thursdays. I'm fairly certain we won't be wanting for fruit or veggies before then though.

Salsa Madness

2009-09-18T14:50:00.003-04:00

I can't take credit for the recipe. My CSA had a bunch of Salsa Kits in our shares. All you do is put everything in a food processor, blend it all together, and add vinegar or lime juice and salt. I made up the first kit and it lasted WEEKS. I had 2 more kits in the fridge and just made them up. I'm just posting this so I remember what was in each of the kits:

Roma tomatoes

tomatillos

peppers (early ones had jalapenos, and others had other kinds of peppers)

garlic

onion

Really that was it. And it is fabulous. :-D

More Pasta Sauce

2009-09-17T19:32:00.002-04:00

Truly, if I had known how many tomatoes we would get from our farm share over the course of the summer, I would have skipped the box of tomato seconds and just used the "firsts" to make sauce for the winter.

That said, we still have a ton of tomatoes in the house, so I am plotting a second round of sauce. Not as much this time--7 quarts is a lot of sauce and a LOT of tomatoes.

This batch is going to contain onions, garlic, mushrooms, meat (the last batch was vegetarian) and maybe roasted red peppers, because I also have a bunch of peppers from the farm. Since I'm kind of doing "stolen moments cooking"--cooking when I have a stolen moment here or there--I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to end up doing. Right now I am one handed again, holding a baby in one arm and typing one-handed with the other. But before this particular waking, I cooked up the meat, onions, garlic, and mushrooms, with a bunch of fresh herbs (I have opal basil again this week so that has gone into it). I'm not entirely looking forward to peeling tomatoes on my own, as it is much more fun with company. Adam will be home tomorrow so I might leave it until then.

After cooking up the meat, etc, it all fit into a quart container, so I anticipate this will be at least three quarts when all is done. Since I used up 2 of the 7 quarts of sauce from the last batch, that will give us 8 quarts frozen for the non-tomato season. Excellent.

Swiss Chard and Chicken Quesadillas

2009-09-16T18:48:00.002-04:00

Last week our CSA newsletter came with a recipe for Chard Quesadillas. I made them this weekend and Omnomnom. We thought that if we added chicken it might be very good too.

So I did. And Double Omnomnom mostly because they have a different texture with the chicken. So here's your recipe. I prepped 8, cooked one to share with my kiddo, and froze the rest.

Swiss Chard and Chicken Quesadillas

1 lb bag of shredded mexican cheese

8 large flour tortillas

2 chicken breasts

sazon goya and adobo or whatever you like to season your chicken breasts

1 large bunch of chard

salsa

Chop up chard into small pieces, stems and leaves together. Place in a microwave safe bowl with a lid (or a plate for a lid) and cook for 4 minutes. You shouldn't need to add water if you have washed the chard--whatever water sticks to the leaves is enough to steam it.

Cook chicken breasts, seasoned however you like. I used 1 packet of sazon goya and a sprinkle of adobo. You can cook them however you like to--I used my Pampered Chef covered baker and cooked them from frozen in the microwave in 10 minutes, but if you don't have one, you can boil, broil, pan fry or whatever it takes to get it cooked and seasoned. Then chop the chicken really well.

If you are going to freeze these, prep 8 pieces of aluminum foil large enough to hold an open tortilla. Build your quesadillas by layering ingredients on one side of the tortilla (so you can fold it over). Layer Cheese, Chard, Chicken, Salsa, and more Cheese. Fold over.

If you are freezing them, fold over the foil and wrap it up. If not, spray a pan with cooking spray, place quesadilla on the pan, and spray the top. Bake at 300 degrees for 10 minutes on the first side and another 5 on the other side.

If you are cooking from frozen, spray both sides of the quesadilla with cooking spray and bake at 300 degrees for 15 minutes on the first side and 10 minutes on the second side. (potentially will come back to fix this after baking one from frozen, but quesadillas from Dinner Zen cooked well this way).

This was a HUGE hit with my toddler. I haven't seen him devour anything so quickly in a long time.

CSA Last Week!

2009-09-16T17:50:00.003-04:00

It's with a tear in my eye that I post that this is our last CSA Week! I'm so sad. Next year I think we'll do the Fall share, to keep it going for another 4 weeks.

This week:

Watermelon (from the "everyone take a watermelon" box)
Opal Basil
Some other herb (need to look it up)
peppers
tomatoes
cherry tomatoes
potatoes
onions
zucchini
LOTS of cucumbers
corn
chard (from the "take what you want" pile)

Tonight I'm making chard and chicken quesadillas. We made quesadillas with just chard the other day and OMG they were so good. But I thought they might be nice with some chicken added, too. I made a TON of chard though so I might just make the chicken ones for tonight and prep the chard ones for the freezer.

Will post the recipe if they come out well.

CSA Next to Last Week, With Raspberries!

2009-09-09T13:03:00.003-04:00

Today's pickup was beautiful and bountiful as usual!

Raspberries!

Spaghetti Squash

Swiss Chard

Corn

Tomatoes

Radishes

Chinese Long Beans

Pole Beans

Parsley

Eggs

Surprisingly, there were no potatoes as we have had in the last several weeks! That's OK though--I have plenty PLENTY of potatoes still. Our newsletter came with a recipe for swiss chard quesadillas, and actually it sounds not just pretty good, but potentially freezable as well. We had some pretty tasty chicken quesadillas from Dinner Zen, and they froze beautifully and reheated great. So I'm thinking of doing maybe a swiss chard, corn, and chicken quesadilla and making it more of a dinner than a snack. I'll post if they come out yummy.

Meanwhile, only one week to go! I'm so sad. I was sorely tempted to add the fall share (they had some openings at the East Farm, which is where I go), but I think that instead we will just go to the farm stand and farmer's market for our fall veggies. It's supposed to be very leafy and rooty again, so it will nice to see what they have at the stands. If we like it, then next year we'll add the fall share when we do our initial share purchase. Meanwhile, one more week to go! Hooray!

Adventures with Chinese Long Beans

2009-09-03T08:31:00.003-04:00

They're purple!

No really, Chinese Long Beans are purple! This made me all kinds of happy. But what to do with them? Well, some internet searching and conversing with Smita (who is now my go-to woman for all spice-related questions) led me to doing an experiment last night. And the experiment was universally accepted, even by the toddler. Simplicity was the word of the day, and we had Side Dish Win!

Simple but Savory Chinese Long Beans

1 bunch Chinese Long beans, cut into 1 inch pieces

1 small onion, sliced thinly

1 clove garlic, coarsely chopped

large pinch of salt

Penzey's Singapore Seasoning

1/4 c water

1 T olive oil

In a pan that comes with a lid, heat the olive oil. Add the long beans and onions. Saute for about 4 minutes and add the garlic and a pinch of salt, and then season liberally with the singapore seasoning. Continue sauteing another 5 minutes. Add water and quickly add the lid to the pan, then turn heat down to low. This will steam the beans so that they are done all the way through. Allow to steam for about 10 minutes.

From my internet research, I've learned that Chinese Long Beans are in the same family as green beans, only they are purple, longer, and much more fibrous, which is why they have to steam after they are sauteed. We served this next to one of our gifted freezer meals of chicken and broccoli in a casserole, so it served to bring a little extra spice, kick, and interest to the plates. My toddler ate only this and left the chicken and broccoli on his plate. Next year I will not be so hesitant to make these! It seems we have found some more beans that my husband is not allergic to! (anything in the green bean family is fine for him, and these as well as pole beans are fine! Yay!)

CSA this week-- with Watermelon!

2009-09-02T14:44:00.004-04:00

Holy cow! Watermelon!

My CSA box was crazy heavy today due to the addition of a watermelon. My son is thrilled.

Today's haul:

Watermelon!
Blackberries
Figs
cherry tomatoes
tomatoes
onions
peppers
yet another salsa kit
purslane (looks like a jade plant--you just pick off the leaves and add to a salad)
pole beans
2 eggplants
eggs

I can't see the figs making it beyond today. They are magic figs that jump right out of the box and into my mouth!

Due to having 2 sick kids, my plan for today had been to bake something from the freezer--that is still my plan but I think we will have tomato and onion salad on the side. Too bad there is a basil blight here and most of the basil is no longer good. Sad.

By the way, try carrying all of that plus a baby in an infant seat and wrangle a 3 year old at the same time. I think I need a trip to the chiropractor.

Back when I was on bedrest, some friends brought me a salad from a restaurant that had in it watermelon, onions, blueberries, and some kind of sweet vinaigrette over spinach. I wonder how that would taste with blackberries instead of blueberries. I would try it tonight only I have no spinach. Sad.

Thoughts on Food Ministry/ Thoughts on an idea from Smita

2009-09-02T09:41:00.002-04:00

I was talking with Smita from the Crackpot Gourmet this week at the Reston Farmer's Market, and she suggested I should write a cook book of salads, because I, myself, have crackpot ideas of what would taste good in a salad, and I should share that with everyone and you know, make some money too. It's definitely an idea. But I might have to do maybe soups, salads, and appetizers and make it arranged seasonally around a farm share or farmer's market. Thoughts? The big problem is the pictures. I could write out everything I've done but now that the summer is ending I won't have the ingredients to do them again until next year.

That said, I could write over the winter and test out everything next year.

Anyway, my church has a food ministry for new moms. It's really awesome, and we have been gifted with many many meals since my daughter was born. Some were awesome and some were plain (when you tell people there is an allergy in your family they automatically think "I have to cook bland food" instead of "I have to not use nuts or beans") but all were delicious. Last night we got what I think is our last meal, and the woman who made it really went all out! She stuffed chicken with pepperoni and cheese and baked it with pasta sauce and Omnomnom. Then she included glazed carrots, a bottle of wine, a crusty bread, and cupcakes! We had everything but the wine (with Lillian sick I can't pump and dump because she wants to nurse all the time).

Anyway, all of the meals we got have given me some more cooking ideas, and also told me what kinds of meals would be great to give people when I am doing the cooking. I tend to do a pasta dish but I think in the future I'll do something a bit more exotic. I'm always worried that people will not have the same taste as I do, so I tend to err on the side of caution. But it occurs to me that if everyone does that, you get 5 trays of pasta and a shepherd's pie (haha). I really appreciated the meals that were a bit different! One woman made meatball subs; how cool is that? So maybe in the future I will do my baked pork chops, or mango curry chicken and rice! Why be boring, right?

CSA trip this afternoon. I think we are getting more potatoes. Anyone have a good potato recipe?

CSA This week

2009-08-27T21:34:00.003-04:00

It's hard to believe we are coming to the end of our CSA! We didn't do the full summer and fall, so our last pickup is going to be on September 16th! Crazy!

This week:

blackberries
1/2 dozen eggs
a whole lot of potatoes
carrots!
corn
2 eggplants
yellow mini tomatoes
12 or so heirloom tomatoes
chinese long beans (anyone know what these are? How to cook them?)

The eggplants and many of the tomatoes have already become more caponata. I made about 2 quarts and gave some away to a friend today. We have so many potatoes it's hard to remember to cook them all the time. Today I made some cheesy potatoes to have with dinner and they were kind of a hit. The blackberries were, as usual, fabulous.

Our farmer's market goes until November, so after our share ends we'll still be buying locally grown produce, just from the market instead of from our share. It would have been an extra $100 for our share to include four weeks of autumn veggies, and I think we figured we wouldn't spend that much in that amount of time on things like squash. We'll track our spending though, and see if we do, and if we do, we may opt to take the extra weeks next year. Meanwhile, I'll be sad when it is no longer part of our ritual to go to the farm every Wednesday to get our veggies.

Here's a quickie salad that tasted way better than it probably ought to have tasted. Don't ask me why I thought to do this, but it seemed like a good idea and it was very tasty.

some greens (mostly romaine)
top with blackberries
add some crumbled goat cheese (I used Cherry Glen Monocacy Silver)
drizzle with ranch dressing
drizzle with a little bit of Big Fig Jam from The Crackpot Gourmet
Eat and wonder why it tastes so good.

Pasta Sauce Recipe--of sorts

2009-08-25T12:39:00.003-04:00

In my last post I talked about making pasta sauce.

This isn't really so much a recipe as a "what I did and you can do something like it too." Really, pasta sauce isn't so specific a practice that you need to have a full-on recipe. Just a good sense of what you like.

We started with 25 lbs of tomato seconds from our farm share. The night before the Big Cook, we peeled, seeded, and either chopped or pureed the tomatoes. I chopped about a little less than 1/4 of the tomatoes, then refrigerated everything. (We really had to process them that night as they were very ripe and we didn't want anything to start spoiling.)

The next day (during nap time) I headed to the supermarket for more ingredients. We decided to NOT make meat sauce, as this was going to be our base pasta sauce for several months to come, and we might want to use it with some meatless or chicken dishes.

I came home and started on the cooking. I had a 3 gallon pot which turned out to not be big enough, so if you do this you might want to start with 2 pots and split everything (this may also let you do a meat and a meatless batch)

Chopped up 2 very large onions and minced a head of garlic. Started these in olive oil and added fresh chopped basil, oregano, and flat leaf parsley, as well as salt and pepper. When the onions were soft I added the tomatoes, at which point I realized I had forgotten the 4 boxes of mushrooms that I had purchased.

So I sauteed the mushrooms in olive oil and added them to the sauce. It was fine. But don't be like me. Do the mushrooms with the onions and garlic and you'll be less likely to get splattered with hot oil like I did (I'm ok).

From here I added sugar to the mix and also realized that we needed to split into 2 pots or else the mushrooms would displace enough sauce that we'd overflow. So I got my 2nd largest pot and transferred about 3 quarts of sauce. Note that the sauce in the smaller pot ended up getting thicker than the sauce in the big pot. Not a big deal either, but you might want to re-mix them back together if you want consistent packs of sauce.

From here we just let everything cook, then tasted and adjusted seasonings (I did end up adding a little garlic powder to the bigger pot but not to the smaller one). I also added 3 small cans of tomato paste to the big pot and 1 to the smaller pot, which gave it a bit of a richer flavor. These cooked for several hours, and we actually cooked the bigger pot for longer to get it to thicken more.

When all was done, we had dinner, then went to packaging. We do not do canning, but we do do freezing, so we split out the sauce into quart sized containers to cool. When they were cool enough to freeze, we transferred the sauce into quart sized ziploc bags, pressed out the extra air, and froze flat. We kept one quart in the refrigerator to use this week and had six quarts in the freezer.

All in all, it worked pretty well. The hardest part truly was the peeling/seeding/pureeing (would have been nicer to have a better food processor) and the rest I was able to do during baby naptimes. This is a nice basic sauce that can be adjusted when used to become spicier, sweeter, etc. for different recipes.

I like how much stuff came from our CSA--the tomatoes, onions, garlic, and basil were all from our CSA and the other herbs were fresh herbs from the supermarket. The mushrooms were from the supermarket too.

Now, do I freeze peaches next week?

I'm making pasta sauce

2009-08-22T17:39:00.003-04:00

I really don't have a recipe to share. But we're making pasta sauce. Suffice to say we started with 25 lbs of tomatoes, a bunch of onions and garlic, fresh basil, parsley, and oregano, and 4 boxes of mushrooms. We just went from there.

(My CSA had tomato seconds on sale for $20 for a 25 lb box. We could not pass this up. Adam and I did the peeling/seeding/pureeing late last night when both kiddos were asleep, and I did the cooking during naptime today. One large and one giant pot are on the stove cooking away. My house smells awesome.)

I anticipate we will have much sauce to last us through much of the fall and winter.

CSA Pickup, plus Caponata

2009-08-19T18:24:00.003-04:00

I decided to make Caponata, because I had an eggplant and more tomatoes than you can shake a stick at. I had never made it before so I went online, looked at many recipes, and then did my own thing based on what I remembered from Caponata of my Childhood (tm)

It was fabulous.

Caponata

1 medium eggplant, peeled and diced fairly small (too big and this will get oily)

3 medium sized tomatoes (I used mixed heirloom), diced

1 medium onion, diced

2 T capers, drained

10 (or more) black olives, pitted and chopped well

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 T Italian Seasoning

about 2 T chopped fresh basil

pepper to taste

olive oil

Start with your burner on high. Pour olive oil into a saute pan until it covers the bottom of the pan. It may look like a lot but the eggplant is going to soak it up. Use really good olive oil because of this. When the oil is hot, add the eggplant and stir until all of the eggplant is coated. If you have to add more olive oil, do so. Turn down to medium-high and allow eggplant to cook for about 5 minutes.

Add the onions, garlic, italian seasoning, and basil and cook until onions are soft and beginning to get clear. Add the olives, capers, and tomatoes, and pepper. Stir well and allow to cook until tomatoes start to fall apart.

This is intended to be eaten cold with or without bread, but if you care to, you can also toss some with some pasta and eat it hot, then chill the rest.

Today we picked up our farm share. We did really well yet again!

10 tomatoes

1 box blackberries

1 box figs

4 ears corn

2 yellow squash

1 bunch of some kind of greens. I think these are sweet potato greens.

some kind of herb--maybe thyme?

1/2 dozen eggs

beans

salsa kit

sweet peppers

Yum!

Breakfast Experiment: Baked Peach French Toast

2009-08-17T09:38:00.002-04:00

My friend Heather brought over a giant dinner the other night (thank you Heather!) and included with it was this awesome bread. It was crusty like a french bread but the inside was eggy and it was so so yummy. Adam immediately thought, "hey French Toast!" for the leftovers, and I suddenly had this memory of a baked French Toast with peaches that I had had at a bed & breakfast in Cape Charles probably about 10 years ago. Obviously it stuck with me! So I made something up! Of course, I just dragged this recipe out of my ear so I have no real proportions. Next time I'll figure out how much of everything I used!

Baked Peach French Toast

a 9x13 baking dish, greased on the bottom

Enough bread to cover the bottom of the baking dish. Use a bread like french or some kind of eggy bread, cut into about 1/2 to 2/3 of an inch slices

1 very large peach, or 2 small peaches, peeled and sliced very thinly

2 eggs

an equal volume of milk to the egg volume

1 t of vanilla

1/8 c (or thereabouts) of sugar

a sprinkle of cinnamon

powdered sugar

The night before, Line the bottom of the greased baking dish with bread slices. Cover bread with peach slices.

In a separate bowl, combine eggs, milk, vanilla, sugar, and cinnamon and whisk well. Pour evenly over the bread and peaches. Cover with foil and refrigerate overnight.

The next morning, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake covered for 30 minutes, then uncovered for 10 minutes. Serve with sifted powdered sugar.

Serves 3 people unless you're really hungry, and then it serves 2.

CSA Pickup--Tomatoed again!

2009-08-13T17:00:00.004-04:00

Have I mentioned it's tomato season here?

This week our CSA decided that instead of packing up our tomatoes for us, they would leave out a selection and tell you how many to take, with the caveat that this week it's ok to be greedy and take more. My husband did the pickup and came back with 10 heirloom tomatoes, plus a box of cherry tomatoes that was in our share already and a salsa kit, which is just what it sounds like--take all ingredients from the salsa kit, put in a food processor, and add salt, vinegar, and anything else you want to add (I added a bit of sugar).

I haven't actually looked at everything we got but I'm pretty sure it included:

10 heirloom tomatoes

1 box of cherry tomatoes

1 salsa kit (it had several tomatoes, 3 small tomatillos, garlic, onion, and 2 kinds of peppers)

a giant box of blackberries

2 small heads of garlic

4 ears of corn

a whole lot of potatoes

onions (not sure how many but my son announced that we had onions!)

1/2 dozen eggs

1 medium sized eggplant

handful of basil (they have a box of "take if you want" stuff and the basil came from there. I asked Adam to get me some so that I can use it with the tomatoes and onion)

Not sure if I missed anything. I already made the salsa and it is fantastic. I'm going to try to contain myself and not make more tomato corn soup because I do know how much my son loves corn on the cob. I guess I can always get him more corn at the market.

I am considering what to do with the eggplant. The volume of tomatoes that we have suggests Caponata, but I know most of my friends would suggest Dusted Eggplant instead (and I do have fresh garlic to go with it). I'll have to think on that one.

Fresh Corn & Tomato Soup, Now With a Kick!

2009-08-09T11:40:00.002-04:00

I have been making Fresh Corn and Tomato Soup for YEARS. I mean, so many years that the recipe is actually on my old web site here. But I rarely look at the recipe anymore, and I've found that it has evolved significantly and can use a revisiting.

Yesterday morning I was at the Reston Farmer's Market and talking to The Jam Lady from Crackpot Gourmet. She has recently added a bunch of spice mixes to her inventory, so she is now the Jam and Spice Lady. Anyway, we were talking about cooking and what's in season, and I lamented that there is NO cilantro anywhere this year, because the weather is so hot and muggy that it's all wilting. I was specifically sad because this is one of the few weeks when there are tomatoes and corn and cilantro (usually) and they are all peaking at the same time and therefore make the BEST fresh corn and tomato soup EVER!

Anyway, she agreed. And then she pointed out that she had a spice mix that used a lot of cilantro--her cilantro jalapeno salsa verde. We gave it a taste and decided that it would be the perfect replacement, to both give the soup a cilantro glow but also to give it a bit of a kick!

So here it is. The revised revised and revised again version of Fresh Corn & Tomato Soup, originally from Laurel's Kitchen but now a new and kicky thing! Of course, if you want to make this, try making your own spice mix with cilantro, jalapenos, lime juice, some garlic, salt, sugar, and oil to hold it all together. Or just do the original version, and chop cilantro to mix in at the very end!

Fresh Corn & Tomato Soup, Now with a Kick!

1 onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
3 cloves garlic, pressed
2 T Smart Balance
5 ears of corn
5-7 mixed heirloom tomatoes (think 6 medium and go from there)
1 box of vegetable broth
1/2 - 1 t salt

Cilantro-Jalapeno Salsa Verde (for mixing in at the end)

Saute onion, celery, and garlic in Smart Balance until tender. Strip the corn from the cobs, and chop tomatoes coarsely. Add corn, tomatoes, broth, and salt to the sauteed vegetables, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook covered for 1/2 hour.

Ladle into bowls and top with a dollop of the salsa to be stirred in. Or, stir in cilantro leaves, and it's ready to serve.

Egg Pie

2009-08-09T11:21:00.004-04:00

Not really a quiche, not really a frittata, this Egg Pie is something in between. Again, a CSA/Market recipe.

The general consensus was OMGWTFOmnomnom. In those words exactly :)

Vegetable Egg Pie

1 summer squash (zucchini-like)

1 small onion

6 or so fingerling potatoes (I used the largest fingerlings I had)

4 eggs

splash of milk

handful of shredded parmasean cheese

2 T garlic curl pesto

Some Jane's Krazy Mixed-Up Salt

As usual, you can replace the garlic curls with your seasoning paste/spice mix of choice. Also, Krazy Salt can be replaced with your favorite seasoned salt, of course.

Slice potatoes length-wise into very thin slices--about 4-6 per potato. Microwave on high for about 3 minutes.

While they are microwaving and cooling, slice zucchini and onion into very thin slices and saute in cooking spray.

Mix eggs, milk, garlic curl pesto, cheese, and Krazy Salt in a bowl and whisk well.

Line a 9" (or whatever you have) greased (with cooking spray) pie plate with the potatoes, covering the bottom and coming up the sides as much as you can. Add the sauteed vegetables and spread evenly over the potatoes. Pour egg mixture over all and pat down any cheese that tries to stick up.

Bake at 375 degrees for about 1/2 hour or until the top begins to brown and the egg is completely set.

Slice and eat. Serves about 3 people (increase number of eggs and cooking time to feed more!)

Leftover Chicken

2009-08-08T13:37:00.005-04:00

The other day my husband was on his way home from class, and asked if he should pick up dinner. I suggested a Safeway roasted chicken, and then made some side dishes from our farm share food.

Of course, with a family of 3, we always end up with leftover chicken, usually dark meat. So what to do with it? Since we are in a state of needing quick meals, the answer was either soup or salad, but who makes dark meat chicken salad?

Well, after making THIS dark meat chicken salad, I think the answer is "us."

So here you go, Leftover Chicken Salad (the dark meat version)

Dark meat pulled from leftover roasted chicken

1 T romesco sauce bought from the Crackpot Gourmet

2 small ribs celery, chopped finely

2 shallots, diced

mayonnaise to taste

salt to taste

small amount of fresh parsley

Chop chicken, parsley, celery, and shallots together, and mix in sauce, mayo, and salt. Serve on very good bread with a slice of heirloom tomato, and say YUM a lot.

Coming soon: Fresh Corn and Tomato Soup. Now with a kick!

CSA Week I lost Track! But OMG TOMATOES!

2009-08-06T10:11:00.003-04:00

We have been Tomatoed! Here was our haul this week. There was so much food!

A BAG of mixed heirloom tomatoes

a BOX of Italian tomatoes

1 bunch of rainbow swiss chard

3 onions

1 quart of blackberries

2 small eggplants

4 small summer squash (green)

2 long cucumbers

1/2 dozen eggs

1 big bunch of some kind of very lemony smelling herb (they say this is thai basil but I think it is more like Thai Lemon Basil).

4 ears of corn

1 bag of pole beans

1 bunch of parsley

I have no idea what to do with pole beans.

But it looks like this is the week to make Tomato and Corn Soup. It generally calls for cilantro, but no one locally has any because apparently it is too hot to grow right now. Very sad as I like to get as many of my ingredients locally as possible. I might just make it with parsley instead. I learned my lesson about making it with basil last year--it tasted more like pasta sauce than soup!

Speaking of sauce, I might just have to make some pasta sauce, too. Because I really have no idea what to do with all of these tomatoes. We still have 5 left over from last week! I also think we will have to make the swiss chard pies again, because they have been a hit all around. They reheat out of the freezer really well, and 2 pies seem to make a good lunch (I might just make them bigger this time and then one pie will make a lunch!)

So, any suggestions for what to do with pole beans? And any good recipes that use Thai Lemon Basil?

2009-08-04T20:39:00.003-04:00

To start off, here is a great article by Michael Pollan called "Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch" that is very very long but worth the read. I, too, remember when cooking shows were about teaching you how to cook. Pollan never writes anything short, but if you have an hour for reading a good article about cooking and eating and the evolution of the modern cooking show, take a look at it.

Meanwhile, summer chugs along and Fairytale Eggplant season has arrived. If you have never seen Fairytale eggplant, go do a google image search to see the wee cuteness of them! They are itty bitty and are striped white and purple and are delicious for eating.

Our favorite way to make Fairytale Eggplant is sliced in half lengthwise and simply grilled with olive oil, a little salt and pepper, and some Italian seasoning. If you don't mind turning on the oven, you can also broil it this way and sprinkle with some parmasean cheese for a fabulous side dish.

Fairytale Eggplant just says summer to me.

Even if you don't like eggplant, this is a completely different flavor. Grilling it gives these eggplant a creamy texture, and the skin is thin enough to eat and has no bitter taste like the skin of your everyday regular giant purple eggplant. I highly suggest you give it a try while they are in season!

Swiss Chard Pastries and Garlic Curl Pesto

2009-08-02T21:44:00.004-04:00

One of the things I missed most while on bed rest was the ability to cook! With all of the awesome vegetables coming in every week, I was disappointed that so many recipes never got made.

One of those was a recipe for "Swiss Chard Empanadas" that came in our CSA's newsletter. I was really excited to try to make them, but they seemed kind of labor intensive. Yesterday, though, with the baby asleep and about an hour on my hands, I went to work. I didn't actually use the recipe in the newsletter but kind of put my own spin on it.

Swiss Chard Pastries

1 package refrigerated pie crusts (2 to a pack)

1 bunch swiss chard, separated into leaves and stems

1 onion

3 T garlic curl pesto (recipe below)

2 T Harissa (pre-made--I got mine at the Reston Farmer's Market but it is available elsewhere)

cooking spray

sprinkle of salt

1/4 cup (give or take) of grated parmesean cheese

Clean the swiss chard really well. Dice onions and chop the chard stems. Break the chard leaves into small pieces. Saute onion and chard stems in some cooking spray with a small amount of salt. When the onion begins to soften, add the chard leaves. When they start to wilt, add the garlic curl pesto and Harissa and mix well. Continue cooking until all of the leaves are wilted down and cooked. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Remove from refrigerator and add the cheese.

Take your 2 pie crusts and cut them into 6 even pieces each (12 total). Fill pastries by placing a spoon full of mix onto each crust, folding them over, and crimping them shut. Bake on a stone or cookie sheet at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes or until they begin to brown.

These are delicious hot or at room temperature (as we discovered when I was putting them away and broke one and decided to just eat it). If you don't have the energy or materials to make garlic curl pesto, just add some ground almonds and pressed garlic to the mix.

Garlic Curl Pesto

This one is straight from the farm newsletter, with a small change

1 bunch of garlic curls (also called scapes)

1/4 cup almonds

1/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup parmesean cheese

Process in a food processor. Use as a topping on pasta, as a spread for garlic bread, or in recipes.

CSA--Half way through the summer!

2009-07-22T21:59:00.004-04:00

The last few weeks I have not actually been aware of what was coming in our CSA share, as I have been on bedrest and friends have been picking it up, delivering it, and making it disappear into my fridge. Then my husband makes salad.

But today I was downstairs on the sofa when Kristen and Howard showed up with the share, so I know what we have and boy is it a beauty!

Swiss Chard

Onions--three kinds

Shallots

Fennel

Garlic

Opal Basil (it's Purple!)

Thyme

More fingerling potatoes than you can shake a stick at

Tomatoes!

I have a feeling that tomorrow, I will be eating some sort of tomato, onion, and basil all together. Perhaps on a bagel (my parents are coming into town and they are bagel people) but also perhaps as a salad or just by slicing up tomatoes and putting the onion and basil on top. Who can say? What I do know is that I am having a baby in 4 days and I am not going to let those tomatoes go to waste!

Have not been cooking

2009-07-17T19:07:00.002-04:00

I'm still on bed rest for another 9 days, so I haven't been cooking.

That said, Maggie went to go pick up Pho for dinner tonight while Adam and the kiddo went to a ballgame. Hooray for Pho!

If you have never had it, Pho is Vietnamese Beef Noodle Soup. It comes with very thin noodles, beef cut of your choice (you can be adventurous or not), a delicious broth, and a whole lot of side veggies and spices that you can choose to add or not. I managed to add some of nearly everything--bean sprouts, onions, basil, hot peppers, and spicy sauce (sraracha and hoisin mixed and yum). I over spiced mine but I didn't care because I have been Craving Spice for days now.

Maggie tells me that I need to remind everyone that it is also the world's tastiest laxative.

I can't wait to getting back to cooking, but for now, Pho and other delicious take out items will do just fine!

Chicken with Cherry Sauce, also, My husband, the cooking fiend

2009-07-05T19:25:00.002-04:00

It's Cherry Season!!!

Last year at Cherry Season, my friend Maggie and I invented the Best Cherry Sauce Recipe There Ever Was. This year, I had to ask my husband to make it, based on some very nebulous directions that I had scribbled into my Livejournal. These included directions like "Add a whole lot of Five Spice." Well, he followed my crazy directions but then told me exactly what he did so that we can emulate it in the future. So today, I present Chicken with Cherry Sauce!

Chicken with Cherry Sauce

by Lynne Powell, Maggie Kolb, and formalized by Adam Terio

1 whole roasting chicken

olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika

1 cup sour cherries, pitted

1/2 cup sweet cherries, pitted

1/4 cup Smart Balance

2t salt

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 of a bottle of red wine (estimate here)

1t five spice

1/2t black pepper

splash of apple juice

Coat chicken with olive oil and season with salt, pepper, garlic, paprika. Roast chicken. While chicken is roasting, start the sauce.

Saute sweet and sour cherries in Smart Balance. Add salt and sugar and continue to saute until cherries are coated. Add wine, five spice, black pepper, and a splash of apple juice. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to medium-low. Smash cherries with a fork or potato masher and allow to continue reducing until chicken is ready to eat.

We serve the chicken with the sauce on the side, as if you do have leftovers of both, they reheat better separately. This is traditionally (both times) served with cous cous and corn on the cob.

In other news, my husband has been a cooking fiend today. He started out making breakfast burritos with eggs, cheese and chorizo. On our list of things to cook or prep are this fabulous dinner, a cherry pie (which he made, and we had for dessert), swiss chard empanadas, mint chocolate chip ice cream, and beer. And since I can't stand up, he has been doing everything himself! I did help pit the cherries because I could sit and do it in about 10 minutes now that we have a cherry pitter. I know it's a uni-tasker. But it's probably even more useful than my favorite gadget, the mango pitter, because cherry season lasts longer.

So he's been cooking. The ice cream is cooling before we put it in the ice cream maker, the pie has been partially eaten, the dinner was demolished, and the water for the beer has been boiled. If we don't get to the empanadas, oh well, there's always tomorrow (it's more important that the beer get made actually, based on my due date!) When I met him, my husband knew how to make three things--Boboli pizza, chicken stir fry, and taco salad. (He claims he knew how to make other things but that's all we ever ate at his house unless I cooked!) So after today he has made a believer of me!! He even noticed that he had extra heavy cream from the ice cream, so he made whipped cream for the pie! I'm seriously impressed, and I love him dearly!

Good Friends Who Cook for You

2009-06-27T10:37:00.002-04:00

My friend Melanie came over this week to watch my son while I was doing lab tests, and she not only watched the kiddo but cooked dinner for us too! She knew we had our farm share, and she asked what we had in the house, then brought over some stuff to supplement what we had.

Now I might be biased from all of the hospital food, but what she made was quite likely the best thing I've eaten in ages. :-D

She posted her recipe here http://community.livejournal.com/everydaycooking/75121.html

I'm copying it here though, so I never lose the recipe! Here is her post, and I do hope some of you get to make this considering it *is* zucchini season! She used pork and lamb because it was on sale, and now I don't think I could eat it any other way. Though I could certainly try :) She also lists her alterations that she made for us based on our farm share. Make sure to add the bell pepper because it made it Extra Yummy.

Pop's Zucchini Goulash (Crock pot...or not)
Since we're getting into that season when everyone foolish enough to plant zucchini now has it growing out their ears, I thought i'd post the recipe for tonight's supper. This is one of those "throw whatever you have in the pot" that I remember from my grandfather (the one my new son Robbie is named for). I think his had a bit less meat and a bit more tomato--and he always made it in a big electric frying pan rather than the crock pot, so do what you like-- it is very forgiving.

Ingredients:
2 lbs ground meat (beef, turkey, pork, lamb, or a mix)
1 large can of peeled tomatoes (cut them in half) - don't drain!
1 large can chopped tomatoes
"a whole lot" of zucchini, sliced to about 1/4 to 1/2 inch (I used 4 6 inchers and one 10 inch)
1 medium/large onion, chopped
1 TB chopped garlic
1 TB dried oregano
1 TB dried basil
1 TB paprika
salt & pepper to taste

Procedure:
Sautee the onion and ground meat. Drain and add to the crock pot. Add all remaining ingredients and cook on low 6-8 hours. If you don't want to use the crock, keep everything in one large pot and simmer until the zucchini is tender. Serve as is, or over rice or pasta.

Alterations:
Because I was fortunate enough to have access to a friend's coop farm share, I made some changes: I substituted two large chopped garlic curls for the garlic, I subbed three fresh tomatoes for one of the cans, I used about half a leftover bell pepper, and the basil was fresh--yum!

Hospital Food--it could kill you

2009-06-25T08:57:00.002-04:00

First of all, I have no idea what's in our CSA share this week, as I'm on complete bedrest now. I think there is some bibb lettuce, some zucchini, more garlic curls, and potentially some lemon basil but I haven't seen for myself yet. I guess this week will be a big week of food surprises from my husband.

I spent 2 days in the hospital this week, and who would have thought that my awesome diet would be completely thwarted by hospital food. I mean, I understand that it's institutional food, but must it be so completely bad for you?

While I was still laying in triage, heading into my fifth hour, I begged for some food, and the nurses brought me some snacks from the maternity snack fridge. A banana, some graham crackers, and a ginger ale. All but the banana were sweetened with High Fructose Corn Syrup, which I haven't had any of in months. Boy was that a shock to the system.

After they admitted me, most of the meals were mystery meat smothered in gravy, vegetables that had had the life cooked out of them, and desserts that undoubtedly were again made with HFCS. Even when I started requesting iced tea, what came was some kind of industrial blend of tea-like substance. Even the juices were sweetened with HFCS--as if fruit juice needs to be sweetened at all.

The most remarkable dinner that I had, and by remarkable I do not mean that in a good way, was the "chicken pot pie." I figured, ok, institutional food. TONS of frozen food companies make perfectly decent chicken pot pie. How bad could it be?

What came was what appeared to be semi-condensed cream of chicken soup with a biscuit thrown in the middle. It was mostly broth, about 4 small chunks of chicken, 5 peas, and 2 carrot slices. I kid you not. I had ordered spinach on the side as a choice that was not mashed potatoes, and it was, of course, cooked to death.

It's a recipe for disaster. And constipation. If I'm going to eat this crap, I thought, I may as well let my husband bring me a whopper.

I later remembered the advice a nurse had given to my dad when he was in the hospital ten years ago--always order the sandwich. Haha! It's apparently really hard to mess up a sandwich, and because of health regulations it has to be made much more freshly than, say, a "chicken pot pie." I'll keep this in mind when I am in the hospital next time (I'm not being pessimistic. This baby does in fact have to come out and I will be in the hospital for it!)

Meanwhile, some real food should be had tonight! Yesterday my husband had to go into work and he left me a cooler of food--veggies, fruit, yogurt, a yummy sandwich, and a pitcher of lemonade. Much better :)

CSA Week 3, plus some more CSA & Farm Recipes

2009-06-17T19:25:00.003-04:00

Our share this week is lovely!

1 bag of basil

1 head of lettuce

1 napa cabbage

1 regular cabbage

2 zucchini (one big, one little)

more garlic curls

1 bunch of swiss chard

1/2 dozen eggs

So as it turns out, according to the newsletter, all this rain is playing havoc on the farms around here. Stuff that's already growing seems to be doing well, but stuff that is waiting in the greenhouses can't be planted. It's really sad. But as it is, at least we know that we'll be getting more lettuce, greens, and garlic products for a while!

I'm glad we have basil this week. I want to get some tomatoes at the market (there is place that has good hydroponic ones) so that we can have a fabulous salad of tomatoes, onions, and basil. YUM.

Meanwhile, we had some veggies from the previous 2 weeks to use! Since I am actually on bedrest now, I am not so much cooking as directing. Tonight, my awesome husband was going to make hamburgers and mashed potatoes. He suggested using garlic curls and onion tops in the potatoes, and I suggested adding kale, since we had it. Kale is one of those greens that just keeps growing and growing, and if you have a CSA share around here, you are sure to get a lot of it, so it's good to have some recipes! So here is my recipe for Mashed Potatoes with Greens

Mashed Potatoes with Greens

5 medium potatoes, cut up with skins on

1 bunch of kale, stripped of the hard stems and torn into smallish pieces

3-4 garlic curls, chopped

4 onion or scallion tops, chopped

2 T smart balance

1/4-1/3 cup milk

salt & pepper to taste

Boil potatoes, and at the same time steam the kale with garlic curls and onion tops. When the potatoes are done, remove everything from heat. Chop the kale mixture and mash the potatoes. Add the kale mix to the potatoes, add smart balance and milk (start with less and add more if needed), salt and pepper. Continue mashing until milk is mixed in well, and serve.

We made it without salt because my husband is all about salt but I am on bedrest with high blood pressure. I did end up adding a tiny bit of salt to mine, but it was very little. It was yummy.

For one final recipe, I leave you with the idea that I have to drink a LOT of water these days. Well, water can be boring. But I had some leftover mint from the cold cucumber soup, and so I decided to make Sekanjabin syrup. This is an old old old middle eastern recipe. You make the syrup and it stores for ages, not that it will last that long. Slightly diluted, it makes a fantastic salad dressing. Extra diluted, it makes water taste much more refreshing and minty! Here's the recipe:

Sekanjabin

2 cups sugar

1 and 1/4 cup water

1/2 cup wine vinegar

handful of fresh mint

Bring sugar and water to a boil. When it comes to a boil, add vinegar and reduce heat. Simmer for 1/2 hour. Make sure you are simmering and not boiling or you will get sekanjabin candy! Add mint and cool. Remove mint and transfer to a container to store. It will store well unrefrigerated, but I like to keep mine cold. For a drink, use one part syrup to 10 parts water.

Enjoy!

Time for: Cold Cucumber Soup!

2009-06-14T11:14:00.002-04:00

This is definitively a Farmer's Market recipe!! Just about everything in the recipe was gotten from our CSA share or our local farmer's market! When Dill arrived in our share this week, this is what I thought of.

I have made this recipe before, but I changed it around this time, both to use more local ingredients and because my knowledge has changed somewhat since I first made the recipe. The original is here on my old web site. It is good but came out thin. Since then I have learned about greek style yogurt. The new version is below.

Note that I use Persian Cucumbers. This is because I can get them. If you can't find any, use kirby or any small cucumber with small seeds. I also used garlic curls (also known as scapes), because they are milder than garlic. But if you can't find any, 2 garlic cloves will work just as well)

Cold Cucumber Soup
3 cups Greek Style Yogurt (I get mine at Trader Joe's)
2 cups milk (I use 2%)
4 Persian Cucumbers
2 garlic curls, chopped very finely
2 T finely chopped fresh dill
1T finely chopped fresh mint
2T fresh lemon juice
1/2t salt
fresh ground pepper to taste

Leave the skins on the cucumbers. Finely grate two of the cucumbers, and finely slice the other two (cut the ones you are slicing lengthwise first and then finely slice them. If you are using Persian or kirby cucumbers there is no need to remove the seeds. If you are using a larger cucumber, peel and seed them first)

Whisk the milk into the yogurt until well blended. Add in the cucumbers, garlic curls, dill, mint, lemon, salt, and pepper. Stir well. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours and serve ice cold.

Goodbye Strawberries, Hello Cherries and Blueberries!!

2009-06-14T09:28:00.003-04:00

I was sitting with a quart of strawberries left from the Strawberry Madness, and my friend Ozma sent me this recipe from another blog. I gave it a whirl.

Part way through prepping, I noticed I had no milk!! But I did have sour cream. So I replaced milk with equal parts sour cream, and ended up with the most delicious muffins, maybe ever. WOW. I'm going to reprint the recipe here in case the other blog eventually goes away. Only with my changes :)

1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
2 cups flour
2 tsps baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups chopped strawberries (I measured out 2 cups and then chopped them. I would use more next time)
3 tsps sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Cream butter and sugar. Add egg and mix well.
Sift flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl. Add flour mixture and milk alternately to butter mixture. Add vanilla. Gently stir in strawberries.
Spoon batter into greased muffin pans.
Combine sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over muffins
Bake at 400º for 20-25 minutes.
Makes one dozen muffins.

I was kind of hoping for one more quart of strawberries this week, just to taper myself off, but we got to the market -- not late but not early either -- and there were none left. However, Mt. Olympus Berry Farm had Blueberries! And Glassock's had Cherries! I am in heaven. The first week of any new fruit I usually don't make recipes*, but just eat them fresh and new and YUMMY. Oh my gosh, I am so happy right now.

Enjoy berry season!

*That said, the husband and kiddo made blueberry pancakes today and how can I say no to that?