Good eats and not so good eats

This weekend has been interesting for the eats.

I'll start with the not-so-good.

And I might make some people really annoyed.

Last night, we found ourselves out and in need of food. We had gone to the mall to get me some maternity clothing that fits (not so easy, but we managed and got some great deals). Having recently found ourselves with some extra money, we figured a dinner out might be in order, since it had been so long.  And so we found ourselves at the Cheesecake Factory.

I'm going to say it right here and now and in public for everyone to see. And for me to remember. Because I keep forgetting. Here it is: I DO NOT LIKE THE CHEESECAKE FACTORY.

There, I said it. I keep forgetting and then I think "well, the menu is so big there has to be something I'll like." And I order something and I don't like it. 

But aside from all the food that I don't like, I hate the conspicuous consumption of it all. Do you really need an appetizer to have the amount of food that should be on a main dish? More even? Do you really need for every meal to be two meals' worth of food? I was sickened by the bill--$50 for the three of us to eat, and no one finished. There's no kid's menu, so you have to order an appetizer for the kiddo to eat anything, or share with an adult. And truth be told, neither option is that great (surprisingly, they are awesome with small children, say 6 months to a year, and provide snacks of bananas and bread for those kids, so it's not like it's intended to be completely unfriendly to kids. They just have nothing appropriately kid-sized. That said, they have nothing appropriately adult-sized either). 

When my chicken sandwich came out, I was actually appalled at how much food was on my plate. Trust me, a chicken sandwich does not reheat well, and I knew I would be eating about half of it. 

At least our $50 paid for two nights' worth of crappy food. Even my son, for whom we got the "sliders" appetizer, didn't really like the burgers, and burgers remain one of his favorite meals. I had heartburn last night, have it again tonight. I spent last night sleeping awash in the stench of garlic, which my husband could not rid himself of no matter what he tried (I look forward to a similar experience tonight). And the kiddo ate a half a hamburger tonight, which is completely unlike him. 

All in all, no one had a particularly good meal, and everyone felt compelled to eat the not-particularly-good meal for a second night in a row, because it was so damned expensive.

I will remember. Never again. We're done with that place. I don't even like cheesecake, and we never get around to ordering dessert anyway.

Now, all that said. Some Good Eats.

Yesterday we went to the farmer's market, and we got strawberries. Now, most of the farms at the market have been selling their strawberries for a few weeks, and they are, no doubt, better than any strawberry you can get in a grocery store. 

But this one place, that grew strawberries for the first time this year, had strawberries for the first time ever yesterday. I tasted one from the "tasting" box, and at first I was confused. This did not taste like a strawberry! So I tasted again. And I realized what it tasted like. These strawberries tasted like STRAWBERRY CANDY. No kidding. It was the sweetest, most delicious strawberry I had ever had in my ENTIRE LIFE. They were small--not the giant things that people think are the awesome strawberries. They were probably under an inch across, and completely red all the way through.

We bought two boxes. As soon as I get this heartburn to stop, I am going to have a bowl full of them, because a bowl full of these strawberries can fix any awful dinner. It's true.

That's it for now. This week I look forward to two things, or rather three things: getting more of those strawberries (hope hope), my farm share starting up on Wednesday, and getting to go to Dinner Zen to make a month of freezer food next Saturday. Wish me the best.

Another Husband Travel Week

I tend to dislike Husband Travel Weeks, not just because I'm home with a toddler without a break, but also because cooking is pretty much cooking-for-one-and-a-half. Let's face it, cooking when single wasn't so much fun, and cooking for one plus a toddler isn't much better. 

We did something of a large staple-shop right before he left, so at least I have some options. This week, thanks to the holiday on Monday, he is gone from Tuesday through Friday. That leaves 4 days of breakfast and lunch and 3 days of dinners for me and the kiddo.

Day 1 was pretty easy. Breakfast was fruit and milk. Then we joined a friend for lunch at McD's (I know, so unhealthy but we were out and it was there). For dinner we had leftover salmon fajitas. Done.

Yesterday, repeat breakfast (the kid likes fruit & milk), and we met another friend for pho at lunchtime. So much for saving money, but truthfully, pho and a spring roll is probably as costly as a meal at McD's. Last night, I had planned to make tacos. They are pretty simple to make, after all, but we had already had fajitas two nights in a row. Instead, I got ambitious and made meatballs.

Now you might not think that meatballs are ambitious. But I'm really not supposed to work very hard right now. Browning meat for tacos? Simple. Mixing/rolling/baking meatballs takes a lot more effort. I may not be on bed rest, but I'm also really supposed to be taking it easy. The only reason we were out of the house at all was for doctor appointments. 

We had gotten 2 pounds of ground beef, and since I had it out, I browned 1 lb of the meat with taco seasonings (we'll eat it tonight). With the rest, I made 16 medium-sized meatballs. The good thing is that between the two of us we ate 5, so there are now 11 in the freezer for next time! I'm fairly certain we'll use about 1/3 of the taco meat tonight, so that's even more for saving in the freezer. 

In the end, I was very tired. But our pasta and meatballs were delicious, we have 11 meatballs in the freezer, and we have enough taco meat for 3 meals without the Husband. And tonight I get to not work so hard on dinner, so that's a win.

Also, the meatballs were delicious!

Salmon Fajitas

Salmon was on sale tonight, and we decided to get a couple of filets for dinner. I started thinking about how we were going to end up wrapping Micah's in a tortilla to make an "egg roll" and it occurred to me that Salmon Fajitas might be awesome. I mentioned it to my husband, who was a bit resistant, but who went along with it for the sake of something new.

Not only was it a winner with the kiddo, but it was a winner with us as well. This is officially on our list of favorites. We ended up with way too much salmon for two adults and a toddler, but I will list the full recipe here since a lot of people cook for a larger family anyway. I, for one, am looking forward to left overs tomorrow. Here's the recipe:

Salmon Fajitas (big ones. They're burritos really when it comes to size :-))

2 salmon filets

1 cup sliced peppers (I use frozen sliced tri-colored. If you do this, defrost them)

1/2 of a large onion or 1 small onion, sliced thinly

1T Smart Balance and 1T olive oil, or 2 of either

juice of 1 lemon

chili powder

Jane's Krazy Mixed Up Salt (or plain kosher salt if you don't have it)

Guacamole

Sour Cream

Shredded Mexican Cheese

flour or corn tortillas of your choice. We gave small ones to the kiddo and used large sized ones for the adults. 

Slice salmon filets into 1/2 inch slices, leaving on the skin, and season with chili powder. Melt Smart Balance with the olive oil in a cast iron skillet, and coat the bottom of the skillet with the mixture. Keep heat on high. Place salmon pieces skin side down.  Add peppers and onions to pan and season with a little more chili powder and some Krazy Salt. Add lemon juice over the whole thing.

Once the skin gets crispy, turn salmon pieces and turn heat down to medium. While the salmon is finishing off, microwave tortillas to soften them. 

We served the salmon/peppers/onions in one bowl, guacamole in another, cheese in a third, and sour cream in a fourth. Everyone made up their own fajitas and the consensus was YUM. Even the toddler kept saying "mmmmmm yummy!" 

Yes, it has fat. But with the exception of the cheese and sour cream, it's all good fats. The salmon has Omega 3's, the olive oil and Smart Balance are all good fats, the avocado is yummy monounsaturated fat. We did use reduced fat cheese and sour cream, but we're not fooling ourselves that this was a low-fat meal! I just wanted to point out that as high-fat meals go, this one was pretty darned healthy. And uh, yeah, really tasty too. 

Bonus recipe: Quickie Guacamole

1 avocado, mashed

1 tomato, diced

1 very small onion (we used the white part of a spring onion), diced

1/2 a jalapeno pepper (take out the seeds if you have a toddler), diced

juice of 1 lime

Combine well in a bowl. Yum.

How to cook on Bedrest, also, how not to do the Farmer's Market

So I'm on modified bed rest, which completely stinks to high heaven. I'm probably going to go to Dinner Zen to make 24 freezer meals in 2 hours, which will not involve doing any chopping of anything or prep work other than dumping stuff into ziploc bags. (Supposedly you can make 12 meals for 6 people in 2 hours, and you can split them into 2 if you're a smaller family, which we are, so that's 24 meals for 3 in 2 hours. That's doable.) I'm kind of under orders to not do any house work, etc., and with my husband gone for the next week, that's going to be an issue. I'd really love to do Dinner Zen before he leaves, but I'm too late to get in this weekend. Next week is going to be hard. I'm thinking we'll be eating a lot of pasta.

On another note, if you hit the Reston Farmer's Market at 11:00 AM, most of the vendors will be out of the good stuff. We did manage to get a box of strawberries and some spring onions, and the jam lady had some amazing spice mixes so we took her up on one of those (as well as a jar of blueberry jam). Also, we got a dozen eggs from Potomac Vegetable Farm; we'll start our CSA share from them in another week, so this is our last week buying eggs at the market. Other than that, though, most of the good stuff was gone. 

Oh by the way, the jam lady is awesome. Last week when we were so short on cash, I ended up two dollars short to get a small jar of strawberry jam (not even a big one! Gosh we were broke last week). She let me take a large jar and pay her this week. I was so grateful. 

Anyway. We got there so late because I have a prenatal yoga class in the morning at 9:15. So in the future, I guess we'll have to get up early and hit the market before my class. Oh the horror! The good news is that with our farm share, we'll mostly be looking for fruit, meat, and cheese in the coming weeks. Vegetables and eggs will be taken care of through the CSA. 

Speaking of the CSA, we got our instructions for picking up our shares! Apparently I will have to walk either up or down a hill from the car, which is going to be an issue. I may end up having to send the husband to pick up the shares on the way home from work. It's a shame, because I wanted to take the kiddo to see the farm, but I just can't do all that walking. 

It's going to be an interesting 12 weeks.

The kid likes an egg roll, also, What to Make for Dinner

First of all, the lovely TJ over at In Search of a Minimalist Existence recommends Supercook! and so do I! Like many "what should I make for dinner" sites, you put in the ingredients that you have in the house. Unlike others, it asks you if you also have additional ingredients. A few minutes putting in random spices, meats, and other items into my account brought up over 2000 recipes. (OK, Apples and Cinnamon were on my list so 1/3 of those are desserts!) I'm really happy with how it works so far, and I plan to use it for dinner tonight.

OK, now for the main subject of today's post. How to get the toddler to eat when he decides that everything has to be one thing.

Example. When Micah was about 13 months old, he decided that everything should be a meatball. He didn't expect them to taste like meat, mind you. They just had to be meatball shaped. Of course, at 13 months, he was still mostly eating baby food. So, how to get the baby food into a meatball? We mixed his cereal with veggies, added an egg and some bread crumbs, and made meatballs that we then baked and had ready to go in the freezer. It's all about being creative.

Right now, Micah likes Egg Rolls. They don't have to *taste* like egg rolls. They just have to be some kind of food wrapped in some kind of wrapper. They don't even have to be fried! 

So last night, after going through the refusal-to-eat thing, I suggested that he might want an egg roll. Yes, he wanted an egg roll. Into the fridge I went and returned with a corn tortilla. I wrapped his mango curry chicken in the tortilla and he went to town. 

I don't get it, but it worked. It's worked before. In fact, we've wrapped beef stew, stir fry, and re-wrapped chicken enchiladas that apparently didn't look *enough* like an egg roll for him in the past. 

So I guess when it comes to toddlers, the big idea is to work with the kiddo's crazy ideas and hope that he grows out of them soon!

Turkey Pinwheels = Toddler Lunch WIN

So we're on Day 2 of Turkey Sandwiches for Lunch, and I thought that I might try to make it more exciting for the kiddo.

"Micah, do you want a turkey sandwich?"

"No"

"How about a CIRCLE SANDWICH?"

"I help!"

Score.

Here's how we made Turkey Circle Sandwiches:

1 burrito sized tortilla, microwaved for 15 seconds

some cream cheese

some turkey

1/2 a tomato, sliced really thinly

a few leaves of spinach

I spread the cream cheese over the tortilla and then let the kiddo have at it placing the turkey, tomato, and spinach. Then he watched as I rolled it up and was fascinated as I sliced it into 7 pinwheel pieces. We shared it--he had 3 and I had 4 (I took the ends since they are less pretty). 

Result? a Fabulous meal. He ate 2 and a half pinwheels and gave me the end of the last one (he is into sharing his last bite for some reason these days). He also requested more tomato and some cheese for dessert, which was fine with me. 

I was rooting for turkey and bacon in the pinwheels but he said no to the bacon, so that was ok. Probably healthier. But I think these would be delicious with a slice or 2 of bacon in the mix in the future. We might even grate some carrots in as well for even more color. 

Money, Food, and a Plain Lunch that Still Works

It's pretty amazing, but no matter how much you may plan, things happen in life that can leave you suddenly wondering, "HOW am I going to feed my family this week?"

For us, it was a grand combination: the tax bill, followed by a sick cat with $1500 in vet bills and counting, a broken Air Conditioner on the hottest day of the year so far, a preschool payment due. It's been a long time since I looked at our bank account and wondered how we'd make it to the next paycheck.

Fortunately, we had freezer meals in the freezer. So at least dinners were mostly taken care of. It may be boring (we were down to 3 packs of pork chops with peppers, 3 packs of curry chicken, 2 packs of stew, and 2 packs of butternut squash soup) but at least we can have dinner. For everything else, I've been selling off some Mary Kay discontinued items at half price for some cash flow. We'll be fine next month. Thank goodness. But it's leaving me thinking that we need to get cheaper somehow, learn to eat and live on a tighter budget in case something like this happens again.

Micah, for one, is used to having pretty awesome meals three times a day, or at the very least two times a day. This week has been a bit of a shock for him, but he's adjusting. We did some shopping for staples for breakfast and lunch yesterday, and turkey was on extreme sale. 

So today for lunch, I made turkey sandwiches, something that, I guess, Micah has never actually had. I gladly cut his into squares as requested, and he immediately became adamant that this is NOT what he wanted. 

Now, we've been having some eating issues at dinner time. If, for example, we put in front of him meat, veggie, carb, he will eat the carb and demand more. We've finally gotten to the point where he knows that if he wants more rice, he has to taste something else. 

Since Turkey Sandwich was creating tears, I went to the fridge and found what I hoped would be my big savior: a 1/4 of a yellow pepper. I sliced it up onto the same plate as his sandwich and watched him go at the pepper. Of course, he finished it, and then turned to the sandwich because he knows now, taste the other thing before you can get more of the thing you want.

Fortunately, the next thing I heard was "Mm, it's good."

Oh thank goodness.

So, Micah's lunch was a 1/2 a turkey sandwich (cut into squares) and some yellow peppers, with water. When he was done he asked for dessert, and he got a small bowl of strawberries. Perhaps not gourmet, but if I've just gotten my kid to appreciate a sandwich instead of a gourmet meal for lunch, I may be saving myself some serious money in the long run.

Tonight, by the way, we're having Pork Chops with Peppers (and onions and tomatoes) and probably some kind of rice or pasta on the side. Like I said, it's nice to have the freezer meals, even if we had the same thing a few nights ago. 

And in the coming weeks I am going to learn about coupons, and getting our weekly bills down as much as possible. I know LOTS of people who never pay full price for anything! I just have to figure out what they do!