Karrot Soup

2012-02-17T06:44:00.000-08:00

Carrot soup, whole wheat walnut baguettes.

2012-02-16T08:25:00.001-08:00

Tuna melts and a green salad with my own garden-grown pickled beets and other random leftover veggies.

2012-02-15T08:56:00.001-08:00

Sweet and sour pork. Also "Romeo and Juliet", which is guava paste sliced up with fresh cheese, courtesy of the romantic hubby.

2012-02-14T06:01:00.000-08:00

Pasta with pesto, canned beets, carrot chips. I'd like to get better at the carrot chips so they don't take so long and cook unpredictably, but this is only the second time I've made them and they're so delicious I think I'll keep trying.

2012-02-13T04:10:00.000-08:00

You probably know my weekend routine by now. Pizza, leftovers, Sunday pancakes. But I did also make date-nut muffins on Saturday morning, one of Scott's favorites, and apparently I chopped the dates finely enough that the kids didn't resist. Those muffins disappeared. Yay!

2012-02-10T08:33:00.001-08:00

Tuna Nicoise salad. No leftovers.

2012-02-09T10:21:00.000-08:00

Hamburger stroganoff, carrots, spinach amandine. The stroganoff was actually frozen from another night when our son's MRI took longer than expected and we just brought Boston Market home. But it was ready except for the sour cream, so that should have been an easy meal to pull together last night even though it was Scouts night -- yet somehow I was still rushed and the kids commented a little on the carrots not being cooked enough. Ah well. The nice part was that Scott decided he had had enough at work that day and unexpectedly came home early, so even though it was rushed, it still felt like a really nice family dinner together before we had to go out the door.

2012-02-08T05:28:00.000-08:00

Roasted potato and sweet potato wedges, winter salad (lettuce with sliced mushrooms, craisins, grated cheese, and French's fried onions).

2012-02-07T06:07:00.001-08:00

Greek minestrone. I do love soup.

2012-02-06T05:13:00.000-08:00

Spaghetti on Saturday -- I've just given up on the Stone Soup for this year -- and regular, NON-sourdough pancakes on Sunday. Just for a change.

2012-02-04T10:05:00.001-08:00

We got lucky last night -- there were untouched platters of nice panini sandwiches at work at the end of the day, so Scott crammed a few in his bag and we each got one for dinner. I made a salad, but hooray for not having to cook!

2012-02-03T07:23:00.001-08:00

Groundhog's Day is traditionally our day when we make Stone Soup, but we didn't quite have it together enough, so we ate leftovers instead.

2012-02-02T06:34:00.000-08:00

Well, big fail on dinner last night. I tried a new recipe, and though I was a bit suspicious about the amount of paprika it called for, I trust this particular cookbook author and went ahead. Inedible. It made a huge quantity, too, so I froze it all and am hoping to sneak it in small amounts to other future soups and stews rather than throw it away completely. --Sigh-- But it's better to fail and learn, right? In the meantime, fish sticks were also on the menu (thank heavens) and we had frozen burritos we could pull out of the freezer.

2012-02-01T05:27:00.000-08:00

Sloppy Joes. Homemade buns. Cooked carrots. Oddly enough, one child only ate the carrots, one child only ate the sloppy joe filling. (Both ate the piping-hot fresh roll, of course.)

Picky

2012-01-31T17:05:00.000-08:00

I can’t help but have all sorts of thoughts when I hear about picky kids. I try to keep them inside, but as a few of my close friends can attest, sometimes they come out in rather a tirade. Pickiness is a subject that really frustrates me, as there seems to be an epidemic of pickiness in America these days. I’m trying to wrap my brain around the possible reasons.

I know mothers hate mealtime battles and would love to help their children choose healthier foods, but they never seem to know how. Even some of the best families I know appear to get confused about the difference between offering a child a chance to choose between two options that legitimately exist, and the perceived need to provide or even fabricate a choice for every situation. And then those kids get disappointed -- and unintentionally rude -- when they're not offered a whole range of eating pleasures at once. Sadly, when a mother asks me how we make it work in our home, my answer always elicits some regretful excuse. So I’m a little bit baffled. Here are some of my stories, in the hope that they can inspire a few positive experiences for someone.

First of all, somehow I hit on a brilliant rule early in our parenting, one that has worked wonders. Our rule is, no complaining. It’s that simple. Of course, there’s more to the context of it, but that’s the crux. And the beauty of it is, this rule can adapt to just about any situation I can imagine. The main purpose of it is to NOT have any negative feelings associated with eating food. I don’t want family members carrying those into life, that’s doing them a great disservice, especially in this age of eating disorders. At our table, we appreciate food, or we simply remain silent and/or hungry. I think in the long term, my kids will remember the good food and positive feelings, rather than the few times they were a little hungry because dinner didn't appeal as much. And the immediate effects have been pretty wonderful, too. Overall, my children have learned commendable tastes and attitudes at the table. What seems to characterize them very broadly is a recognition of effort and quality, an appreciation for my conscious choice to feed them from my own hands every day. Here's how it works.

I make what I make, I serve it onto everyone’s plate without exception, and you can eat it or not. Of course, I admit I am pretty strict about food in general -- I put a LOT of thought into my menus and ingredients to balance them, provide whole grains and veggies, stuff like that. We don’t keep easy snacks around, and we stick to regular mealtimes. But all that is possible because I don’t pander. I largely don’t take anyone’s taste into account. I literally cook what I want to eat, and figure that kids throughout history and geography have had much less say and have not been the worse off. My family doesn't expect any choice in what ends up on their plate, so they are sincerely grateful when it’s good, and express that frequently. (Scott has helped prompt them in that habit.) I don’t even realize anymore how wonderful that is until we have other kids eat with us once in a while, and they inevitably say something that brings us all down.

There’s not really any alternative available if you don’t like what I serve, though I do tell my kids generally they can always eat a fresh fruit or vegetable without needing permission. But our practice sends a wonderful message -- it lets people know that I don’t mind if their tastes differ, that everyone has something that they prefer to eat or not, but that we won’t a) force them to eat or b) accept any “ewwww”s or “yuck”s that ruin the enjoyment of someone else’s meal. If they do complain out loud, THEN they are required to try the offending food. There have a been a handful of times when this has been a force issue, but for the most part I tell them they just have to nibble, and even the tiniest nibble willingly done often results in a shrug and a “that’s not too bad” reaction. And if it doesn’t, it still sets the right example for anyone they might have influenced negatively, so nibbles it is. And in fact, my kids have now become the main enforcers for the rule, either for each other or for visitors. They let individuals know that we don't complain here, and tell them they'll have to try the food if they do.

If there is a sticking point that I run across most when this topic comes up among friends, it's nutrition. We're so worried about it for ourselves, and even more for our rapidly growing and developing children, and it seems to loom over everything. But, I’m not afraid of the specter of malnourishment. Cultures and foodways differ very greatly in their nutritional emphases, but basically it comes out that any meals prepared in a traditional kitchen will meet the overarching needs of those who consume them. Truly, a child is not going to become nutritionally deficient in a matter of hours, or days, or even weeks. Months, possibly. But I don’t think our kids are in danger of not eating well for months on end...unless, of course, they learn to rely on sugary gogurts or juice boxes as some kind of nutritional insurance. I don't really care what my family eats at any individual meal, not exactly, but I care a great deal about the lifelong habits they're forming: to accept what's offered with graciousness, whether or not they like it; to be familiar with and eat plenty of fruits and vegetables; to learn to know when they're full.

While my kids could do a LOT more to learn to keep their clothes clean when they eat, not to mention their hands, faces, and the inevitable library book, they are at least bound to make any host feel appreciated. And in the end, I hope they will have a sense of the wholeness of the earth and where their sustenance comes from, and that they will learn how to think about food, prepare it, and pass it along in healthy and harmonious ways.

2012-01-31T04:51:00.000-08:00

Split pea soup. Thanks to my sister over the Christmas break, I have now realized that I should have been putting potatoes in it all these years. Thanks, Kath!

2012-01-30T05:20:00.000-08:00

Friday night, pizza again, with salad. Saturday leftovers, and Sunday night pancakes.

2012-01-27T04:25:00.001-08:00

Mulligatawny stew. Absolutely fab.

2012-01-26T05:01:00.000-08:00

Tuna braid and some frozen butternut squash from last year's garden. (Tuna braid: cheesy biscuit dough braided around a tuna/broccoli/cream cheese filling)

Flourishing Within, or the Lost Art of Meditation

2012-01-25T18:34:00.000-08:00

Meditation is not like falling asleep, or just letting your mind relax, which is a common misconception. It's really just learning how NOT to respond to anything. You are still aware, engaged, awake, but you are letting the normal stimulus-response trigger go. You are yielding.

What I like to do to get into a meditative state is to listen. I close my eyes and try to isolate my sense of hearing. I just want to let the sounds in, to recognize them, but without feeling a need to react to any of them. I begin with the sounds I can hear easily or close by, and as those begin to feel smooth and run-together, I expand that little bubble of awareness as far as I can. I've gone so far as to imagine “listening” to the layers of dirt and rock that must lie beneath me, and to stretch out my conception of hearing all the way up into the clouds, and to try to encompass both and all at once. When you manage to do that, to “hear” the layers of clouds brushing by, the rustle of the leaves of a tree, the tick of a clock, voices or traffic in the distance ebbing and flowing, and the infinitesimal whisper of an ant colony under the earth, and to let them all exist without judging and responding to them, then you are in a mental state ready to yield.

Then, you can begin to ask yourself some simple questions. I have a few cards with simple mental affirmations or starting points for meditation, and I think the one that has brought me the most spiritual experience is this: “If my heart were planted, what would it grow?” It's been fascinating, absolutely moving at times, to see what my mind pictures in answer to this question when it is in a true, yielding state. My mental image has varied more than I might ever expect – apparently my heart is not the constant compass I would have guessed it to be. I don't ever have words at this point, but I would describe my visualization as starting out gently, cupping my heart to plant it, noticing what type of soil it's going down into (rich and brown, or dry?), then waiting to see what appears. It may be a vine, sort of like Jack and the beanstalk, going up and up and up in a spiral-y way; or a poor, shriveled little pair of leaves, quivering with effort and yet failing; an odd albino glowing plant; or, more consistently in the last few years, a large, spreading tree, overshadowing a pale green meadow. Sometimes this question has been more like a prayer than anything, as my heart's truth comes bubbling up, and I see my true self and its needs, strengths, and weaknesses in a way that makes me want more than anything to nourish it, help it, see it grow. Then when I open my eyes, it's always a shock to see the real world again, I had forgotten it so completely. It's always beautiful to see it again, and still with that sense of smoothness, of evenness, of not needing to judge and compare and respond to every last thing around me. It has bright edges, and a wholeness that is very satisfying.

I don't have to get to that deep point every time I meditate to get the benefits, though. As long as I get there every so often, I can dip out of that psychological well just by closing my eyes and starting to listen with intent to yield. Truthfully, I haven't been in consistent practice in a while, since I was often motivated particularly by preparing to have a baby and experience natural labor. I haven't been pregnant in 5 years, so somehow I can always put off a meditation session, and that wonderful grounding and sense of self is farther out of reach. But, when I was really in practice, it was amazing how quickly I could reach a peaceful, secure state if I really needed to. Meditation really is a marvelous tool for rooting and renewing your spirit.

2012-01-25T18:30:00.001-08:00

Navajo tacos. I don't think I've made these since college -- wonderful.

2012-01-24T11:19:00.000-08:00

Chinese New Year's! This is the first year I've bought the potstickers instead of making them all, and it was a nice break. We also had some great fresh-cooked spinach with bacon grease, almonds, and lemon juice, and a bunch of fresh veggies and dip.

2012-01-23T04:56:00.000-08:00

A few pieces of bacon before we scrambled to a "Great to Be Eight" fireside. Then mostly the post-fireside cookies for dinner. A little bit of applesauce, cottage cheese, and pears right before bed to try to round it out.

2012-01-22T10:22:00.000-08:00

Baked potatoes with all the fixings. When I cook chili, I always plan to make a big batch and then serve baked potatoes later in the week with the extra. Easy enough to throw a few potatoes in the oven or crock pot and add some cheese and broccoli at the table along with the chili.

And two nights ago, spaghetti (actually angel hair) with a hurried garden salad.

2012-01-20T07:56:00.000-08:00

Panko-breaded tilapia (Costco), rice and steamed broccoli with a tangy soy-lemon sauce that had the color and consistency of gravy. And was served in a gravy boat, confusing the kids so they weren't quite sure what to think when the sauce wasn't gravy. I'd probably make it again when faced with a time crunch and plain rice and broccoli, but would warn people to go sparingly, it didn't take much of it to pack a punch. Topped with nice sunflower seeds.

2012-01-19T08:58:00.000-08:00

Turkey pot pie. Mmm. With rosemary and a perfect crust. We somehow managed to have enough to eat this two nights in a row, which was delightful.

2012-01-17T05:46:00.000-08:00

Chili and leftover rice. My new secret ingredient for my chili is pumpkin or butternut squash. It's been a hidden hit for the last half-dozen batches!

Sage and Dad made no-bakes for FHE refreshments.

Flourishing, or the Pursuit of Happiness

2012-01-16T15:31:00.000-08:00

I'm going to take as my theme for 2012 the idea of flourishing. It's a wonderful word, luxuriant in its optimism, but I became more interested in it last year as I was listening to a series of lectures on early American history. The topic was especially pointing to the moral and classical underpinnings of some of the Revolutionary ideals. Now, I'll briefly apologize right off that history is not my best subject, but jumping off a deep end with lots of thoughts is. So I'll stick with my strengths.

Here's the crux of what germinated in my mind after listening to these lectures: that flourishing is what we really all seek, what government was hopefully designed to encourage and allow, and that flourishing must specifically include tangible extensions of ourselves, or the process of creating something that will last. You can't truly flourish without leaving something behind. It was even posited as the original idea behind the well-known Pursuit of Happiness we all enthrone. Or as it originally stood, the Pursuit of Property. Many people have lauded the change from property to happiness as the end in mind, but what surprised me was that they were more synonymous (and less greedy) than we may have realized. Property in its strictest and oldest definition was not simply the accumulation of goods; you can't really claim, in a deeper moral sense, that the fancy gizmo you purchased and flash around is "yours". You can use it, yes, even personalize it as our modern fetish would have you, but none of your own moral fiber went into its creation.

On the other hand, a painter truly "owns" their work, even if it has been bought by a gallery or collector. Property accumulation was a slow labor of love, as a farmer worked his land and improved its buildings and groves, passing them on to his children, or as a mother sewed quilts to warm and cheer her family.

In fact, just last night I sat in a meeting at which I heard about some quilts that were made and used just last year in my area. Our stake (basically the whole state of Delaware) had encouraged its Primary-aged children to keep track of their scripture reading in 2011, and each 10 days they read would represent a quilt square. These quilts were real, not figurative, and throughout the year volunteers sewed them as they were "earned" by this spiritual effort. I don't know how many there were at the end (though I know who to ask), but I know there were far, far more than the leaders expected when they proposed the project.

There was a bishop in the neighboring ward who was struggling with pancreatic cancer in 2011, and whose condition became clearly terminal as the year progressed. He wasn't all that old, maybe a very young grandfather, and he passed away sometime in early December. He received one of the first quilts completed by the children in his ward, and reportedly wore it everywhere until he died -- at home, in the hospital, and there were even jokes about him being buried in it. (His family kept it as a memento in the end.)

That is the kind of property, and pursuit of happiness, and flourishing, that I think the founding fathers were trying to express. That quilt didn't just come from a store; it didn't even "just" come from a neighbor's hands, made with care; it was truly consecrated by the love and spirit of those young people that he had known and served in his turn. What a gift, and what a truly lasting creation, both in temporal and spiritual terms. The quilt has an origin, and the children have a stronger spirit and a memory that I think would qualify as flourishing.

As a young adult, I often mocked those who liked handicrafts, and preferred deep, internal, intellectual pursuits. I still like those, but I have come to understand another side of what we crave as humans. This year, I'd like to really understand what I have and will leave behind, and try to consciously pursue those things that are of lovely, and of good report, and praiseworthy, and that reflect my heart and what I've worked to plant there.

Let this blog be a beginning.

2012-01-14T09:11:00.001-08:00

Friday night pizza. Specifically, pepperoni and Hawaiian, with thin hand-rolled wheat crusts. That's how we make 'em. And carrot sticks.

Baby Steps

2012-01-13T06:54:00.000-08:00

Fish chowder last night. Also some fresh bread and almond biscotti, though not all at the same time.

Under Construction

2011-11-20T07:05:00.000-08:00

I've been contemplating rebooting this blog with more topical variety, and so I'm aiming for that for the new year. See you then!

Fresh

2011-04-07T12:43:00.000-07:00

We've gone without freshness during the winter once in an attempt to try to stay "seasonal", but this winter we decided to go ahead full-bore with the salads. (Though I must admit, that one salad-less winter made the first spring lettuce from our garden seem more miraculously wonderful than lettuce has ever been to me before.) I always cringe a little knowing that the lettuce is coming from Arizona or California or somewhere, but what do you do? I haven't figured that one out yet. Feel free to send me hints.

THIS, though, this here is the real deal. I pull some of these green babies out to eat them and they're probably still alive when my teeth crunch down on them. That thought is half creepy, half cool. Definitely wonderful in winter, when legitimately fresh food is hard to come by.

So, I'm just putting this out there for that lack of winter-time fresh greens -- this is our second winter with a sprouter, and it's such a nice thing both to eat and to watch. I know you can sprout just with a mason jar, but I always failed miserably the few times I tried it, so this was a welcome gift a couple Christmases ago.

Anyway. We've been trying valiantly to eat tons of salad lately, because our otherwise healthy diet* was still somehow missing quite ALL the veggies you hear you're supposed to be getting. But salads can get boring quickly. Here are some of the things we've tried putting on or in them during the winter, when I'm more limited because I refuse to buy tomatoes, and try to avoid all those summer-y items that I know aren't really growing in the local fields. I occasionally do break down and get a cuke or a pepper though...

Raddichio, Fennel, Spinach, Celery
Radishes, Sprouts (of course!)
Mushrooms, Sun-dried tomatoes
Green onions, Wild chives, Minced shallots
Broccoli, Grated carrots, Canned beets
Craisins, Raisins
Sunflower seeds, almonds
Croutons, Chow mein noodles
Feta cheese, Grated monterey jack, Cubed cheddar
Hard-boiled egg
Pepperoni, ham, turkey
And I keep meaning to try a Nicoise salad, with potatoes and tuna and green beans.

Craisins, mushrooms, green onions, and grated cheese go particularly well together (with Caesar dressing), as do broccoli, raisins, and sunflower seeds. Beets are probably at the bottom of the list in terms of likeability on a salad, though we eat them just fine if served on their own. I'm also going to tout the Asian Chicken Salad in the sidebar just ONE more time....

And this week's day-to-day menu:

Oatmeal, muesli, cereal, Cream of Wheat, butterscotch oatmeal and cranberry-banana muffins for breakfasts;

Black bean soup, corn chowder, mulligatawny, stir fry, pizza, and hopefully a leftovers night for our dinners. And salads, lots of salads.

*I think I'll just have to post separately about this, but I'm sort of on a thing right now about how do we really know what's healthy? I feel like nobody really knows and what they think they know will change next year anyway, so can't we just stop worrying about this already? Are we locked into having to over-think everything we eat because there are so many choices? Hmm. Anyway, there's my caveat for our "healthy diet" as it's considered in 2011.

Winter Comfort Foods

2011-02-07T07:11:00.000-08:00

Just because I've been thinking of how nice and cozy certain foods are, on these cold winter days that seem to linger forever:

Butterscotch oatmeal
Chicken and dumplings
Homemade hot cocoa with cinnamon and carob
Warm fresh tapioca pudding
And of course, soups of all kinds: chowders and minestrones in all their variations, chili and caldo verde and split pea, tomato, carrot.

In related news, we just checked out one of my favorite comfort books, The Cozy Book by Hoberman/Fraser. It's a delightfully long book, but here's the section on food --

"Scrambled eggs stirred soft and sunny
Melted cheese that's nice and runny
Fresh-baked muffins dripping honey
Chocolate pudding, bread and butter
Fluffy mounds of mashed potatoes
Jelly doughnuts, milk and cookies
Toast and tea when you are sick
Applesauce strained smooth and thick
(Lumpy food is never cozy)
Juicy peaches fat and fuzzy
Sliced bananas, tapioca --
Sliced bananas? Tapioca?
Well, certain people think they're cozy --
You may not
Some don't
Some do
What you like is up to you
(But everyone thinks cocoa's cozy)
Whipped-up frothy orange Jell-O
Chicken soup with spots of yellow
Creamed tomato red and rosy --
Cozy cozy cozy cozy."

And the illustrations are very worthy too.

Pick one of your favorites and eat it soon -- if you can't pick, make this!

2-3 beaten eggs (depending if your taste is to richer or leaner)
4 c. milk
1 c. brown sugar
2 c. oats (quick is better if you're not going to leave them to soak in advance)
Dash of salt, dollop of butter

Cook just until bubbly, no longer. It warms you and fills you like nothing else, not even cocoa.

Money Questions

2011-01-19T14:56:00.000-08:00

According to this government report I ran across, the average person spends $2.70 per meal. I crunched our family's numbers, and for 2010 we spent less than a dollar per person per meal. 97 cents, to be exact, if we pretend that we don't eat any snacks (it just divided out so nicely I left it at that) and presuming equal consumption for each family member (which of course is ridiculous).

I love details, so bear with me: that included any eating out, school/work lunches, extra holiday goodies, AND meals while traveling or on vacation, with the small exception of fancy restaurants on our anniversary or Valentine's Day. It included all food bought both at traditional grocery stores and also the stuff bought at dollar stores, non-super-Walmarts, etc. In addition, it included the price of the seeds for our garden and the cost of the water I used to water it. Yes, I'm an anal record-keeper.

I tend to ignore money stuff on this blog, but it really does fascinate me and I wish I could compare with more people in terms of frugality and not just great recipes. How many of your best, most colorful and mouthwatering recipes are also cheap? And involve little preparation -- ha, a stingy mother's dream, right? I suppose I should also ask what splurges are worth it, too. Is there any interest in the occasional post on food budgeting? I realize I'm talking to, like, 2 or 3 people, one of whom probably hears plenty at the dinner table already.

"This looks wonderful, honey! You feed us so well." (He's always so complimentary, what a husband I snagged. Not to mention it's a good example for the kids...)

"Guess how much it cost to make?!!" Really, he puts up with a lot :)

Anyway, just assessing for the new year. And, ironically, procrastinating making dinner.

New Recipe

2011-01-12T09:05:00.000-08:00

Sadly, my attempt to use others' much more appealing food photos in the previous post seems to have failed. So you're stuck with mine...my tablecloth is always green, my plates are always Corelle white.

But to make up for it, here's one of our recent new recipes that we love, quinoa pilaf. This was last night's dinner: Quinoa Pilaf and Asian Chicken Salad. Assuming you have some chicken (or in this case Thanksgiving turkey) that you thoughtfully diced and froze, they require very little preparation.

QUINOA PILAF

1 c. quinoa

2 c. chicken broth

3 T. butter

3 medium onions, sliced in thin rings or wedges

2 tsp. brown sugar

1 c. craisins

1/2 tsp. orange peel

Saute onions and brown sugar in butter for about 30 minutes or until caramel color (start out on medium heat then reduce to low for most of cooking time). Meanwhile in another pot, bring quinoa and broth to simmer and cook until liquid is absorbed, about 15 minutes. Stir all ingredients together in skillet and serve.

And I keep trying to persuade my friends and neighbors to make this Asian dressing, but I know no one has because they would be calling me and raving. There is some selection of Asian bottled dressings in stores nowadays, but still nothing comes close to this one. The salad in this photo is gone in one night at our house, no one leaves much but a few mandarin oranges (one particular picky kid) which are then snitched by someone else anyway. Check out the top left side-bar for the recipe, where it has -ahem- been languishing for a year or so now in hopes of some love.

Happy eating!

The Musical Fruit

2011-01-09T14:02:00.001-08:00

I realize I'm not going to make any new converts or anything, but I think about beans a lot. I love 'em. I could probably eat them every day and be happy (at least on one end, right?). I also, by chance, really like to make lists. I've been known to make lists of what's in my purse, just for posterity, for example.

So here's my New Year's ode-list to beans:

Hummus

Pork n' beans

Chili

Cuban black beans

Split pea soup

Baked beans

Lentil pottage

Caldo Verde

Black bean soup

Minestrone

Red beans with thyme and sausage

Bean burritos

7-layer dip

Classic white bean soup

Lamb and lentils

Falafel

And here's a general pictorial representation of what we ate this past week. Except for all the bananas.

Chicken cacciatore

Butterscotch oatmeal

Black bean soup

Flounder with lemon-mustard sauce

Cornmeal mush -- 'polenta' -- with real maple syrup

Foe Toes

2010-10-11T09:38:00.001-07:00

I've already shown photos of all our watermelon and zucchini adventures as well as the Redwall Feast, but thought I'd run through the rest of my summer food pictures.

Of course, many of the truly best meals were so mouthwatering we couldn't even stop to get out the camera, but these are still fun.

Welcome to my kitchen.

Tabbouleh

Don't remember exactly, but it looks yum

Pumpkin muffins

Panzanella

Various breads

Just a salad

Wild mushroom-walnut quiche appetizers

From another angle, showing off one of the beautiful wild puffballs used in the quiches

And for our meals this week, we're having:

Muesli (homemade yogurt with raw oats, dried fruit and nuts)

Chili, cornbread, salad

Rice with cinnamon and sugar, eggs, fruit and yogurt smoothie

Moroccan vegetables, couscous

Butterscotch oatmeal, canned fruit

Salmon burgers, frozen Normandy mixed veggies

Polenta, eggs, canned fruit

Baked potatoes, topped with chili, cheese, broccoli

Oatmeal with fresh apples and cinnamon

Pizza, green beans

Bagels, fruit

Leftovers :)

Cold cereal, eggs, fruit

Sourdough pancakes, bacon, applesauce

What's Cookin'

2010-09-20T05:38:00.000-07:00

Back to my more basic blog plan, which was to answer the questions I get about what we eat. This week:

M: Oatmeal with apples, cinnamon, and walnuts

Pottage (fancy name for lentil soup with a green salad and dressing all put in the same bowl), green beans

T: Cracked wheat with real maple syrup, fried eggs, canned pineapple

Pasta salad (with lots of veggies in it, probably some cabbage, green beans, red pepper, peas, etc.)

W: Butterscotch oatmeal, bananas

Pork roast, potatoes, cauliflower au gratin

Th: Cream of Wheat, cottage cheese and canned peaches

Tuna melts, sunshine carrots

F: Muesli (raw oats, yogurt, dried fruit and nuts)

Pizza, salad

S: Bagels (if my ambition holds out, otherwise muffins)

Leftovers

Su: Cold cereal, scrambled eggs, fruit cocktail

Sourdough pancakes, bacon, applesauce

Redwall Feast

2010-09-13T05:41:00.000-07:00

"Friar Hugo bustled his way around the Redwall Abbey kitchens. He was a very busy mouse. A cook's hat wobbled on his head as he mopped at his brow with the dock leaf attached to his tail. Hugo's tubby form appeared and disappeared between ovens and ranges of steaming pans, squeaking out orders to his assistants. There was only one way to do things in the Abbey kitchen -- Friar Hugo's way.

"'Durdlum, scrub that chopping board clean. Sister Pansy, fetch the spring vegetables. There's peeling and chopping to be done, lots of it!'

"Sister Pansy was the prettiest young mouse. She loved cooking and had been around the kitchens since she could first toddle. Pushing a laden trolley of vegetables to the chopping block, Pansy chatted away as she unloaded them. 'Most of these have been picked fresh this morning. Oh, isn't it exciting, Friar? The Springtide Sunfeast!'

"Friar Hugo helped Pansy with the vegetables. He liked the young mouse; she was intelligent and hard-working. 'Springtime was made for good young 'uns like you, Pansy. Tell you what -- I'll teach you how to prepare a Springtide Sunfeast. How would you like that, little Sister?' Pansy's eyes went wide with delight. 'Oh, I'd love that, Friar! Thank you. Just tell me what you need, and I'll try my best to help. What's first?'

"Hugo scanned the menu. 'Hare's Pawspring Vegetable Soup. It's an old recipe from Basil Stag Hare's family. They say it improves their pawspringing powers. I think it must -- have you ever seen a hare leaping about at springtime? Remarkable! Now, here's how it's made. Pay attention.'"

The perfect intersection of family interests -- hares' pawspringing powers and kids willing to try roasted rutabaga sticks (artfully called Bellringer's Reward). I won't tell you how many hours I actually spent in the kitchen peeling said rutabagas and other vegetables, but let's just say our second annual Redwall Feast was a huge hit. Thank you, Brian Jacques!

Watermelon and Beyond

2010-09-09T15:13:00.000-07:00

THIS PLUS THE THREE BIG ONES WE ALREADY ATE...

QUINOA WATERMELON FETA SALAD

WATERMELON JAM

Camping

2010-08-22T10:03:00.000-07:00

Camping menus for a week:

Day 1

Breakfast at home

Pbj's, peaches, and yogurt

Mac n' cheese, hot dogs, canned corn

S'mores

Day 2

Butterscotch oatmeal

Ham and cheese, watermelon

Foil dinners and baked apples

Day 3

Pancakes, applesauce

Pbj's, bananas, chocolate milk

Burritos, zucchini

Day 4

Oatmeal with dates and almonds

Tuna, string cheese, Craisins

Instant rice, baked beans, carrot sticks

S'mores

Day 5

Cereal, canned fruit, hard-boiled eggs

Pbj's, apples, buy ice cream for a treat

Spaghetti, green beans

We'll be camping in Maryland this week for a last hurrah before school begins next week. I eagerly anticipate playing lots of games, reading, hiking, and swimming, all away from the phone and computer. I'm sure the kids will do lots of leaf- and twig-hunting, get very dirty, and talk in their sleep. It'll be great! I've saved my menus over the years and refined them so that everything will fit in the cold box, we'll eat the most perishable stuff first, and I can cook it on a single burner (or fire). It's a fun challenge for me.

We've still got a good garden going, with green beans and tomatoes belatedly beginning to come on, as well as unnumbered watermelon, cantaloupes, and butternut squash to look forward to. If I get a good glut of green beans and can freeze some, I'll have my own organic frozen mixed vegetables, what with the corn and carrots I've already processed.

We've eaten a lot of thrilling dinners in the last little while, but we were too hungry to wait and photograph. You'll just have to use your imagination. We WILL be sure to take pictures of the upcoming, long-awaited Second Annual Redwall Feast which will probably take place on Labor Day.

Summer Feasting, Some New, Some Old

2010-08-12T12:49:00.000-07:00

In other news, we're moving on from zucchini to tomatoes. Not because we have more tomatoes than zucchini as of yet, but we're moving on anyway. Colorful and flavorful has been the name of the game this week. I love summer food!

Cuban black beans ~~ layered rice, garlicky seasoned black beans, shredded cheese and lettuce, chopped tomatoes, salsa, sour cream

Greek pizza ~~ pizza dough baked with homemade hummus, feta cheese, chicken, sliced olives and roasted red peppers, and with fresh cold garden cucumber on the side

Fish tacos ~~ fish marinated in oil, lime juice, cilantro, chili powder, and diced jalapeno, then grilled and topped with pureed tomato salsa, lime-cilantro crema, and cabbage in a corn tortilla

Bruschetta ~~ nice real Tuscan olive oil on homemade whole wheat sourdough baguettes, with garlic, basil and sweet, ripe homegrown tomatoes

Sesame noodles ~~ Thai-inspired tangy peanut butter and sesame oil sauce, on angel hair with shredded carrots and sliced cucumbers

Swiss chard ~~ can anything be simpler or more delicious? Fresh-picked and tender, with a few splashes of lemon juice and bacon bits

Lunch

2010-07-21T10:39:00.000-07:00

Fresh homemade whole wheat bread from wheat I ground just that morning; homemade hummus; cucumbers from the garden. (Plus a little jam, cheese and celery sticks that I didn't make or grow.) Not to pat myself on the back too much, but it feels good to eat that close to the source.

July

2010-07-09T07:42:00.000-07:00

So what do you eat on the Fourth of July if you're overly obsessed with health?

We grilled some of our zucchini surplus, and made a refreshing cucumber-tomato salad. Watermelon, too, and some hot dogs and Italian sausages, though no one had seconds. Also, sweet potato pie and rhubarb pie graced the day as a belated Father's Day celebratory dessert since we were on a plane on the date itself. That night we invited people over to watch fireworks and offered unlimited ice cream cones. It was a yummy day.

When I said we were eating all things zucchini, I wasn't kidding. We were away for 10 days and this was what greeted us on our return. Also a whole bunch of peas and cucumbers...

This week our dinners were:

Red bean soup with a little tomato sauce and thyme, sunshine carrots

Potato salad, a pureed zucchini soup

Stir-fry with rice, leftover hot dogs and sausages from the holiday

Grilled tuna sandwiches and fresh veggies with dip

Pizza and probably zucchini

Leftovers

Pancakes, bacon, applesauce

I also just purchased some carob powder this morning, which I'm going to sneak into our usual peanut butter-banana-chocolate shake and see what people think.

Bagel Success

2010-07-02T11:45:00.000-07:00

I tried years ago in college to make bagels and failed spectacularly, but now I seem to have gotten the hang of it. They were an awesome thing to pack in our airplane carry-on for our recent trip across the country, and I look forward to having them in our Saturday morning muffin rotation.

And in other news, this week we're eating all things zucchini. After a few years of crop failure, I overcompensated and am now faced with 3 or 4 pounds of zucchini per day. I think we'll just pull up the plants soon...but in the meantime, we had an awesome stir-fry last night with the freshest, tenderest pea pods and zucchini I've ever eaten. Bring it on.

Completeness

2010-06-05T03:23:00.000-07:00

I'm going to range a little beyond just food today and wax philosophical. I've been noticing some less obvious effects of our family's positive changes in diet and exercise. We're not just going for weight loss here (good thing, because the higher-fat milk is making it a little harder to keep the scale numbers down), but also a body-spirit integration as we pay attention to what we really need and find ways of enjoying those things that will actually leave us stronger and happier.

I can definitely tell a difference in my mood when I'm eating right. We took a little overnight trip recently and I brought along a box of Pop Tarts that needed to be used up, but I noticed that I had a complete energy crash after I ate one. I thought it was just because travel is tiring, but the next day when I ate a second Pop Tart, the identical thing happened. Not that I never eat junk, but my body at this point is really really unused to white, processed food and I think it wasn't coincidence. I've begun to connect littler changes in my mood and energy with my food choices, too. Relying primarily on high-fiber beans, fruits, vegetables, and whole grains really feels good at this point. Good enough that any temptation to binge on junk is more easily curbed because I know that it will bring me down.

It also has occurred to me that my kids' behavior is probably noticeably better than it would be if they were mostly subsisting on hot dogs and cold cereal, though I don't have an in-house control group to test that theory. But my neighbor and I were discussing it and we both thought it was a reasonable conclusion to draw, that their responsibility and kindness has increased in a way that correlates with our healthy habits. (Of course I have to give a little credit to regular spiritual habits as well...)

Getting realistic, though, I find as we become healthier, my ability to share our ideas with others diminishes. I recently was discussing with a friend possible changes she could make because she really feels the need to "get a grip", as she put it, but she said she doesn't like any vegetables. We didn't really get to go into details, but I was pondering that dilemma and what answers there might be for her. And I ran up against a similar problem when I needed to take dinner to a friend or two who had new babies. What does an almost-vegetarian feed a family that I assume eats meat most nights? What can I offer them that would seem appealing to their young children, who likely have little desire to try unfamiliar foods, without a major compromise of my own habits? I used to just make "traditional" foods for those times when I had to take a meal, but we're actually in the process of cleaning out our freezers of all our industrially-raised meat and mostly only buying meat if and when we can afford some of the "real" stuff.

So I was in a quandary. I think we've stopped short of being so hard-core that no one can relate to us, but at the same time the line that I walk on those occasions of shared food takes a little more thought. My commitment to this happy union of healthy food and healthy moods, though, gets stronger all the time. I really am seeing results and feel a sense of wholeness and wellness in my family that I am intensely grateful for, despite the sometimes grueling task of keeping it all up.

So. If anyone has any great meatless dishes that they think THEIR kids wouldn't say ick to, I'm open to suggestions. I have finally found a side dish for potluck barbecues that has been a consistent winner and that falls in my narrow guidelines for price and health, so that's been a relief. I've relied on seasoned, baked potato and sweet potato wedges a number of times this season already. But how to retrain someone's taste buds from chicken nuggets to spinach? Challenging...and I'm not sure there's any shortcut or much of a success rate.

And this week we'll eat:

Cuban black beans

(Wild) Salmon burgers

Carrot soup

Pizza

Spaghetti pie

...plus lots of homemade breads and salad fresh from the garden

and leftovers and pancakes of course.

Happy eating!

Wake-up Call

2010-04-29T05:46:00.000-07:00

I recently had the chance to do some unofficial but serious nutritional counseling for a friend of mine. She hasn't been able to figure out what to eat since she has diabetes, is close to renal failure, and is taking a heart medication that has certain dietary restrictions that go along with it. She sees a different doctor for each health problem, so she wanted some help combining it all. We had her over to research, talk, and look through my cupboards and fridge to give her a visual sense of what she might be able to do.

It was really scary.

At first I didn't really believe her description of what her doctors have told her to avoid, but I've been researching and it seems like she's right. Right now (and presumably for the rest of her life) she has to avoid all sugar and salt, as well as all whole grains, green leafy vegetables, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, winter squash, fresh peaches, plums, oranges, melons, peas, and legumes. And that's just a short sampling. She can still eat limited amounts of white bread, rice, and pasta, iceberg lettuce, apples, carrots, cauliflower, bell peppers, cucumbers, onions, zucchini, canned fruits, cranberries. And that's about it. A small amount of dairy and meat, and there's an intensive method of acceptably preparing potatoes if she wants a little bit of those.

Basically, she has procrastinated the day of her healthiness until it's everlastingly too late. Her body no longer has the capabilities to digest the foods that would otherwise help her get well; her organs have been taxed to the point of near-failure and now have to be coddled along with medication and a few handfuls of saltless Saltine crackers.

I'm using her as an example, by the way, not because I want to vilify or blame her. She has sincerely done the best she can under some of the least favorable circumstances possible, and I respect her for that. (Plus I plain love her.) It was just very sobering to work on her specific limitations and to realize that many, many others -- millions? -- are facing or will face this same scenario.

As I said before, this scares me.

It also motivates me to continue undaunted in my own kitchen efforts, grateful that my kids are starting out as well as they are. (And my husband wipes his brow with relief that he's switched tracks for his own body, thanks to his intense efforts.) Speaking of him, here's a picture of Sage eating his recent birthday dinner. He requested grilled veggie kabobs so that he could eat as much as he heck wanted. Yum.

And on that note, here's what we're eating this week, including breakfasts:

Monday: Oatmeal with fresh apples, cinnamon, and cream.

"Goulash" for dinner (lentils, alphabet pasta, some split peas, onions, a tad of hamburger, tomato sauce, garlic, carrots, peas, all mishmashed together and served with ketchup).

Tuesday: Hash browns from some leftover baked potatoes, scrambled eggs, mandarin oranges.

Beef and veggie stir-fry over rice.

Wednesday: Muesli -- homemade plain yogurt over raw oats, with dried fruits and nuts and sugar to taste.

Sesame noodles with cucumbers and carrots, green beans.

Thursday: Cracked wheat with real maple syrup, tropical mixed fruit, fried eggs.

Tuna-broccoli-rice casserole, corn.

Friday: Butterscotch oatmeal, dried apricots.

Pizza, salad.

Saturday: Whole wheat pumpkin muffins, milk.

Leftovers.

Sunday: Cold cereal, scrambled eggs, tropical mixed fruit.

Sourdough pancakes, bacon, applesauce.

Four Simple Rules

2010-04-22T07:44:00.001-07:00

Eating habits and preferences are way too complex to really pare down into simple rules, but here are four that I've liked lately:

1. Eat something raw every day.

2. Eat your fruits and veggies first.

3. Eat regular meals.

4. Make your fat count.

Of course I'll have to explain a little, though. "Raw" isn't always what you think it is. (Though I certainly don't have any great desires to eliminate all cooked food!) If it's ever been subjected to high heat and/or pressure, it's not raw -- so for example, cold cereal with milk and a glass of orange juice has nothing raw. Everything there has been pasteurized or cooked in some way, unless you bought the juice oranges and squeezed them yourself. Even raw almonds, apparently, have been pasteurized in our food system. What you're aiming for with raw is not necessarily nutrients, but enzymes. They're not really measuring them yet, but it's a good bet you want them in your body, and they're all knocked out of the picture by heat/pressure. So fresh, obviously, and also dried counts. Get at least a little every day.

Eating fruits and veggies first sounds simple, but it's hard not to rationalize skipping straight to the richer main dish when your stomach is growling. But let me tell you: the difference just in portion allotment when I do or don't follow this rule is amazing. I never regret forcing myself to eat the crunchy stuff first.

Eat regular meals. Assumed: pretty much all at home. I don't really believe in the culture of convenience food, including snacking. And despite headlines about eating little bitty meals all day, there are some data that back me up. Not that I don't snack, but there are no exceptions to eating regular meals at my house.

Fat has been dragged in all sorts of directions in the past few decades, from the biggest evil on the planet to "good" and "bad" fats, to Atkins, you name it. It turns out that the worst fats may be trans fats, and after them, a lot of the polyunsaturated oils. Yup, sunflower oil, etc. They're too long, your body doesn't actually know how to digest them, and so they float around in your lymph system (seriously) until getting spewed back into a vein and then ending up...wherever your body can stash them because it can't use them very well. Sort of like that junk closet/junk drawer/junk desk in your house, you know the one. (I have a secret theory that the increasing prevalence of muffin-top waists on otherwise skinny, fit people is due to this.) OK. So what do you do? If there's anything that you think is good for you (from fish oil to green beans), I understand that good old-fashioned butter makes it all go down easier. Not just to your taste buds, but to your body. They've shown that you don't really get anything out of fish oil unless it's accompanied by saturated fat. And the same goes for a majority of vitamins and minerals, even the water-soluble ones. SO. Don't indulge in ice cream and doughnuts unless for a special occasion, but buy cream and put it on your oatmeal. Buy butter and put it on your brussels sprouts and fish. Put Parmesan and olive oil and butter and cream ALL in your homemade minestrone -- it's the best food ever, my heirloom recipe is in the sidebar.

And, for this week's meals:

Homemade pork n' beans, frozen mixed vegetables, whole wheat biscuits (with our first raw honey ever -- we're not quite sure if we like it).

Chicken cacciatore, salad.

Curried veggies and rice.

Flounder, filled with bread crumb stuffing, broccoli, baked potatoes.

Pizza, salad.

Leftovers.

Sourdough pancakes, bacon, applesauce.

Spring Begins

2010-03-29T05:20:00.001-07:00

Last week we ate:

Minestrone soup, spumoni ice cream

French onion soup, with toasted cheesy sourdough baguettes

Potato and sweet potato wedges (also with one parsnip and one carrot thrown in there too), salad

Tilapia with olives and capers, cornbread mini-loaves, peas

Pizza, brussels sprouts

Leftovers

Sourdough pancakes, bacon, applesauce

We also got our free water ice at Rita's on the first day of spring. Mine was honeydew, with chunks of melon in it. I've never been a huge fan of Rita's, but this one was oh so yum. Have a good Easter week!

Cookbooks and Pi Day

2010-03-14T16:02:00.000-07:00

I've been dipping my toes in a few cookbooks recently, new and old, and wanted to informally review them. Of course there are thousands of published cookbooks out there and hundreds more from everyone's local Relief Societies, but it seems like in the hit-or-miss game I tend to miss. Lately, though, I've had some luck and wanted to share what I found. They're mostly listed in the left sidebar, just FYI.

The first one was Healthy Slow Cooker. I don't go in for a lot of the crock pot cookbooks I find, because the recipes are truthfully just as time-consuming and dish-dirtying as regular recipes. I use my crock pot for beans, soups, and baked potatoes and other things that I tend to burn if I'm not watching, but not for the fancy casseroles. I never remember to get everything in there on time if it's not something simple. With that caveat, though, this was a great cookbook. It had incredible pictures and a really extensive variety of vegetables, spices, and grains that it used in the assorted recipes. We tried some unique and very successful curries, though it called for whole spices (i.e., cumin seeds instead of ground, cinnamon sticks instead of ground) and I found that my ground spices just didn't hold up to the long cooking and everything ended up bland even though it had smelled mouthwatering at first. But it was a cookbook that made me want to try everything there, and I plan on adapting some of its recipes for stovetop. It also had a good balance of meat in the meals, as well as plenty of meatless recipes that were out of the ordinary, which was nice for a crock pot book. Overall, I highly recommend it.

The next book was Nourishing Traditions, which is...well...the most unusual cookbook I think I've ever seen. I haven't tried very many of the recipes, but I've read the entire nutritional primer it begins with and all the sidebar quotes that are in the cookbook portion. Between that and the book Real Food that I read lately, I've had a lot of questions answered and new ones raised, but it's been very interesting. So though I'm not cooking directly from the book (who wants brains omelettes? that was my favorite gross one) I have changed some more of my food habits. Some of you may remember that after reading Real Food I ditched skim milk, margarine and shortening in favor of 2%, butter and lard; after reading this cookbook, I've drastically increased my use of whole wheat and am soaking a majority of my grains. I don't know for sure if I can keep up the soaking, it takes a lot of forethought, but we seem to have -ahem- tons less gas since we've started soaking. We used to do about 1/3 to 1/2 whole wheat, now I'm doing 2/3 to 3/4 whole grains and we're not finding it bad at all.

The last book we haven't actually used yet, but we're all looking forward to it. I'm pretty picky about the cookbooks I see directed at kids -- a lot of them are too heavy on refined flour and sugar, on gimmicky names for normal foods, and on cute ways to "hide" the veggies. I don't believe in that...but this is a children's cookbook that has both me AND my kids excited, so I thought I'd mention it. It's called Batter Up Kids: Sensational Snacks, and the names are a bit gimmicky, but I'm all over the recipes. The cut-out cookies use oat flour (oats in your blender), buttermilk, and honey, and call for you to decorate the tops not with frosting but with coconut, chopped dried fruit, and things like that. They're really cute. There's also a fresh salsa recipe which is just what my daughter has been begging for, without jalapenos but still flavorful and colorful. And then there's homemade pickles, awesome! They're not actually canned, they're just the right level for kids. My kids love pickles, and this will be even better for them than the more heavily processed kind, and fun too. (As a matter of fact, the recipe is right in line with most of the home "lacto-fermented" wacky stuff Nourishing Traditions was all about, but much more accessible and appealing.) So. We'll start on what we can this winter, and then when our garden gets going this summer we'll do more.

Just as an aside, another kids' cookbook that was right up our alley last year was The Redwall Cookbook. My son has been a huge Redwall fan, and this book has some original new material from the Redwall author as well as authentic recipes that might have been served in the chronicles themselves. (And since all the Redwall characters are animals, it's pretty much vegetarian -- my kids tried leeks and turnips and stuff that they never would have tried without the context of their favorite books.) If you have a Redwall-obsessed child, definitely check this one out. My kids have been pestering me for months now about when our next "Redwall Feast" will be.

I haven't planned this week's food yet, but last week we ate:

Bits of lamb in a bean soup, rice, beets, and trifle for dessert.

Carrot soup, whole wheat walnut sourdough baguettes.

Pasta salad.

Fried tilapia, collard greens, corn, leftover bread.

Spaghetti, some kind of vegetable which I've now forgotten. (We were supposed to have salad but my lettuce was rotten.)

Baked potatoes with broccoli, cheese, and chili beans on top.

And, last of all today, the usual pancakes/waffles/bacon/applesauce, PLUS pie because it's Pi Day, 3-14. We had apple, pumpkin, and a strawberry-rhubarb tart. Very yum.

P.S., our favorites of the week (besides the desserts, of course) were the fish and the bean/lamb stew. We couldn't get enough of those.

Little Quiz

2010-02-28T14:14:00.000-08:00

I recently read an old cookbook/nutrition book with a few processed-food ingredient lists in the sidebars throughout, and you were supposed to guess what the actual food was. It was very outdated, over 10 years, but I thought I'd put my own little game together from a few things on my shelves as an opening gambit for the nutrition night I've been asked to teach at Young Women's this week. Since I own very few processed foods, it was a little hard to find ingredient lists, but it was still fun. Here you go, try to guess the names of these foods, and I've posted the answers in the comments:

1. Sugar, high fructose corn syrup, water, natural and artificial flavor, citric acid, preservative (sodium benzoate), color (red 40).

2. Dairy product solids, nonfat milk, cocoa processed with alkali, calcium carbonate, cellulose gum, and less than 2% of vegetable oil (partially hydrogenated canola, and/or partially hydrogenated coconut or palm kernel and hydrogenated soybean), salt, artificial flavor, sodium caseinate, sucralose, sodium phosphate, acesulfame potassium.

3. Corn, whole grain wheat, sugar, whole grain rolled oats, brown sugar, almonds, high oleic vegetable oil (canola or sunflower oil), rice flour, wheat flour, rice, malted barley flour, salt, corn syrup, whey, honey, malted corn and barley syrup, cinnamon, artificial flavor, natural flavor, caramel color, annatto extract (color), reduced iron, niacinamide, vitamin B6, vitamin A palmitate, riboflavin, thiamin mononitrate, zinc oxide, folic acid, vitamin B12, vitamin D.

4. Sugar, enriched flour bleached (wheat flour, niacin, iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), cocoa processed with alkali, corn syrup, partially hydrogenated soybean and/or cottonseed oil, corn starch, salt, carob powder, artificial flavor, nonfat milk.

5. Water, wheat flour, mushrooms, soybean oil, salt, cornstarch, modified cornstarch, cream, whey powder, monosodium glutamate, soy protein concentrate, disodium phosphate, autolyzed yeast extract, spice, garlic powder, citric acid, maltodextrin, onion concentrate.

6. Water, sunflower oil, vegetable glycerin, coconut oil, stearic acid, beeswax, fragrance, glucose, xanthan gum, tocopherol, orange wax, aloe barbadensis leaf extract, sucrose stearate, sodium borate, honey, milk powder, beta carotene and vegetable oil, rosemary leaf oil, glucose oxidase and lactoperoxidase.

If you haven't already gotten some ideas, you may choose from No Sugar Added Hot Cocoa Mix, Cream of Mushroom Soup, Honey Bunches of Oats, Strawberry Syrup, and Fudge Brownie Mix. There's also one extra list in there to throw you off the scent, and it's actually a NON-food item. Take a bonus guess at it for fun.

As for this week's eats, we've been very valiant in eating our way through some mongo leftovers lately, finally leaving me free to cook lots of new stuff. I plan on having:

Caldo Verde, corn, flan for FHE dessert.

Creamy tuna casserole, salad with sprouts.

Curried rice pilaf.

Carrot soup, sourdough baguettes.

Pizza, frozen vegetables.

Whole roast chicken, lentil curry with spinach and winter vegetables.

Sourdough pancakes and waffles, bacon, applesauce.

Breadmaking Contest

2010-02-15T16:25:00.000-08:00

For our seventh day out of ten straight days with all the kids home, I was running out of indoor activities that wouldn't draw complaints of boredom. No one made much of a mad dash for all the snow outside every day, and I refused to allow unlimited screen time, so on Friday I had an inspiration.

When I was eight years old, if I recall correctly, my mother had me a) make bread all by myself and b) memorize the recipe. I figured that my 8- and 9-year-olds should at least be able to do the former, so we tried it. I got out twin sets of mixing bowls and measuring cups, taped the recipe to the microwave above their heads, and set them loose. I tend to want to micromanage this kind of learning, but I made a point to not touch their dough at all so that it truly was their own bread from start to finish.

And they made me (and themselves) so proud! There were some frustrating moments, especially for Ian during the kneading stage, and it was interesting to see how identical recipes under identical weather, etc., looked so different along the way; but in the end, the bread was virtually indistinguishable, and completely delicious. Here's to the future cooks!!

This Week

2010-02-07T17:50:00.000-08:00

First off, I ordered a food processor. When we were married we were given a mini-one that was too small to be worth cleaning, so I gave it away, and I've never had one. Surprising, since people who cook a lot less intensively than I do consider one essential...but yesterday I finally ordered one. I'm very stoked. But until it comes and I break out the new me, here are our menu plans for the week:

Split pea soup, biscuits, spinach sauteed in bacon grease

Stir fry, including fresh sprouts

Pita bread, hummus, carrot and celery sticks (store-bought hummus, since I just don't think the shipping on my new Braun will quite make it by then)

Mulligatawny soup and rice

Spaghetti, butternut squash

Shepherd's pie, green salad

Pancakes, waffles, bacon, applesauce

S. and I are both looking forward to the mulligatawny, but I bet the shepherd's pie and split pea soup nights
win with my kids. We'll see, I'll report back later.

And we celebrated a little Chinese New Year on Sunday with homemade potstickers (including homemade skins), egg drop soup, chopsticks, and a chocolate orange left over from Christmas as a nod to traditional "lucky" oranges.

Sick Food

2010-01-28T05:22:00.001-08:00

Well, I was going to post about the tofu recipe we decided to try and all sorts of desserts to tempt my readers into checking on my 'umble blog -- but two things happened. First, we all got the stomach flu so we were drinking Gatorade and eating fig newtons and French bread (though it was homemade sourdough French bread at least) instead of gourmet tofu and second, our hard drive died and I lost the photo of the chocolate bread pudding that we made and devoured recently. And I hadn't even taken a picture of our homemade cream puffs, but that's just as well since it would be lost anyway. Alas.
So, what do you typically eat when sick? I'm curious. My mom always made us Jello, but I have abandoned that practice because it makes for horribly stain-y throw-up if it doesn't stay down. Anyway, here's to better food days ahead...

New Things

2010-01-09T16:34:00.001-08:00

Orange-Fennel Salad

The cookbook I got this from has no pictures. What a shame...fennel, mint, red onions, oranges, blood oranges, coriander, orange zest, olive oil, orange juice. And happily, it tasted almost as good as it looked. I'm glad I tried fennel. (I occasionally notice it in the grocery store and think, who the heck buys that? Me, now.) When I went out on a limb and bought mustard greens, it did not go as well, but this experiment was a successful one. Hooray for a new year and new things!

New Year

2010-01-03T18:31:00.001-08:00

Ring it in -- with no more margarine, shortening, or skim milk in our house. Going out cold turkey. And with no more ado, what we'll be eating this week Chez Goodwin should you choose to drop in.

Pottage

Rice and lentil stew with bits of lamb, topped with a fresh garden salad, lentil sprouts, and vinaigrette.

Shepherd's Pie

Pastured pork sausage, real mashed potatoes, tomato and green been sauce, served with a side of steamed broccoli.

Sesame Noodles

Angel hair with Thai peanut-sesame sauce, shredded carrots and cucumber.

Potato Wedges

Russet and sweet potato wedges, seasoned and oven-baked till golden and crispy. Side of sauteed baby portobello mushrooms.

Pizza Night

Hand-tossed crust, melted mixed cheeses, all the good stuff. Served with mixed vegetables.

BBQ Chicken, Fennel-Orange Salad

Tender chicken and smoky sauce over half-brown rice, accompanied by a salad of sliced fennel, multi-colored orange segments, and mint accents.

Sourdough Pancakes and Waffles

Cooked in just a little bacon grease and on the table hot, with strips of bacon, applesauce and syrup.

Real Milk

2009-11-29T14:55:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure I can express fully what I'm learning in a new book I picked up, called Real Food, or if it's really time for me to share it before I've finished reading, but as my husband can attest to, I'm full to bursting with astonishing new ideas.

I've only read the first part, which is basically about the true nature of milk. Even with a healthy dash of skepticism it's amazing stuff. I've never seen or tasted "real" milk -- raw milk -- and, unappealing as it sounds to my pasteurized, homogenized soul, I can't throw out all the author's claims since I've only ever seen industrial factory milk, not farm milk. And she does make some really far-out magical claims, but they're so fascinating...

I'll have to let you know how it goes. Two other things about reading this book: I bought my first free-range eggs and sausage (triple the price of regular, I won't be doing that very often), though I haven't tasted them yet; and second, it makes me hungry every single time I read. Very dangerous...

And neither here nor there, I wish I had known years ago how absolutely easy and delicious homemade cranberry sauce was. No more canned ever. The recipe was just written on the package, and I finally bothered to look! Bring 1 cup each water and sugar to boil, add 3 cups fresh (or frozen) cranberries, and simmer for 10 minutes. So easy, and fun to watch the berries pop and mush and turn such a cool neon color as they cook.

End Results: Magic!

2009-11-10T13:03:00.000-08:00

Usually the end results I'm referring to on this blog are directly edible, but today I'm rejoicing in something a little different, the result of a year -- or possibly a year and a half, it's been a while -- of weeding and paring and raking and chopping. Almost all of the vegetable offal of our lives has gone into our compost heap, and today I finished shoveling the huge pile back onto our garden plot.

I often joke to Scott that we're pulling one over on California, stealing all their nutrients to put into our own garden. During the winter, just the rinds of all the oranges we eat would likely fill the wheelbarrow more than once. Of course truthfully, most of what goes into that moldy, rotting pile is probably the weeds I pull from good ol' Delaware soil; yet it still amazes me that most of what Americans don't eat goes into the dump or down the garbage disposal. For his part, Scott is so obsessed with not wasting any organic matter that he brings me home his apple cores from work for the kitchen compost bin.

And it turns into something magical. There's no other word for it. What goes in is smelly, often slimy, and multi-colored; what comes out is rich, luxurious, black dirt. Our pile is "slow", not "hot", meaning that it takes a long time to turn the garbage into dirt and it doesn't heat up and essentially cook all the bad weed seeds and germs and such. So when I finally managed to get the thick plastic unwedged from around its huge bulk, the top third or so was still visibly pine needles and carrot peelings. Once I removed that, though, I got 4 or 5 wheelbarrows so full of dirt I could barely lift them. I succeeded in staggering the few feet over to the weed patch -- oops, I mean garden -- and dumping them.

At our local garden center they sell relatively small bags of something called "Gardener's Gold", which is basically compost soil. I don't remember exactly how much they go for (a fair amount) and don't know how much they hold compared to a wheelbarrow full, but my guesstimate is that we got $100 worth of dirt out of that pile this weekend.

Not bad for a bunch of cantaloupe seeds and cabbage cores.

Sourdough Pancakes

2009-11-04T09:48:00.000-08:00

I promised someone our sourdough pancakes recipe, so here it is:

1 ½ c. flour

1 ½ c. whole wheat flour

Heaping ½ c. powdered milk

¾ c. sourdough starter

3 c. water

3 T. vinegar

3 eggs

3/8 c. oil

3 T. sugar

1 ½ tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt

Combine first six ingredients in medium bowl. Cover and let stand an hour or refrigerate overnight. Combine eggs and oil in smaller bowl. Add to medium bowl and stir till blended. Stir in remaining ingredients and let stand for 5 minutes before cooking. Makes about 3 dozen.

(Note: powdered milk amount is for the fine Church-cannery milk only. You can swap out the powdered milk and water for just 3 c. liquid milk if necessary.)

Lawnmower Soup

2009-11-01T16:42:00.001-08:00

This week we ate:

Caldo Verde (somewhat affectionately known when I was growing up as lawnmower soup, though to be fair it contained much more greens and they were chewier kale rather than spinach);

Chicken-rice bake and carrots (which I burned, unfortunately);

An experimental pork and vegetable curry with cilantro and turmeric, next time not so much turmeric;

Pasta with pesto, along with a marvelous vegetable gratin;

Homemade pizza night (mushrooms, spinach and pepperoni on the grown-ups' pizza);

and a leftover night on Halloween, which basically ended up being Scott and I eating more curry while the kids subsisted on candy. Surprise surprise.

The family votes on best food this week? The caldo verde was the hands-down winner, with NO leftovers and no person declining to eat it. The vegetable gratin came in second, with only one child eating off the herb-cheesy-breadcrumb topping and leaving the cauliflower, broccoli and carrot medley untouched, and most everyone else asking for seconds.

Soup Soon

2009-10-07T10:47:00.000-07:00

Fall and winter have been my favorite seasons for most of my life. In recent years health concerns and discovering the joy of a Virginia spring (compared to a Michigan one) have made me look forward to the cold less, but there is still one thing that brings delight to my soul -- and stomach -- when the days get shorter. Soup!!!! I think I could live on soup every day if I had to, and I probably have enough different soup recipes to go nearly a month without repeating. I have about 13 variations on beans, and I'm sure I have plenty of other beanless ones.

But that's all I'll say about that now.

This week we ate the following for dinner:

Bean soup (red beans with your basic celery/carrots/onions/bay leaf) and homemade biscuits;

Tamale pie;

Ham, cheese and roast beef sandwiches, green beans;

Minestrone soup and homemade sourdough whole wheat walnut baguettes;

Chicken and rice with barbecue sauce, garden salad;

Vegetable stir-fry (no rice this time), lots of birthday cake and ice cream for Lucy.

And to note, for some reason I got more compliments on dinner this week from my kids than I think I ever have before in a given week. It made me feel great.

Oh, and also randomly, whole wheat bagels spread with garden vegetable cream cheese and topped with thin slices of English cucumber is a breakfast delight. I just discovered that in the past week or two as I was trying to think of food to take on a plane trip. mmmmm mmmm.

Breakfast, That Neglected Meal

2009-09-19T16:43:00.001-07:00

I love breakfast. It's possibly my favorite part of the day, what with me being a morning person and also a...well, a foodie, I guess. Most days we just eat regular oatmeal (with options of nuts and dried fruit to mix in), regular rice with some cinnamon and sugar on top, or Cream of Wheat, but here are some of our favorite special breakfasts that never leave leftovers!

Butterscotch oatmeal -- sort of a custard-based oatmeal, cooked with milk, eggs and sugar instead of just water. Creamy and filling and extra-sweet.

Rice pudding -- great for leftover rice, also a custardy milk/eggs/sugar deal, only baked in the oven and with cinnamon and raisins mixed in.

Cornmeal mush with syrup -- strangely enough, this is very popular with my kids. I use part regular cornmeal and part "polenta", a coarser-ground cornmeal that I get from Goya brand in the Hispanic section. I think I basically use 1 part cornmeal to 4 parts boiling water. Pass the syrup!

Muffins -- 2 dozen is almost not enough nowadays for our family, I don't know what I'll do when I need to make more... The 3 varieties that we use most are whole wheat pumpkin, blueberry, and oatmeal chocolate chip.

Pancake-in-the-Oven -- this is quite similar to a German pancake, only it's self-sweetened so you don't eat any fruit on top. German pancake with fruit is probably delicious, but this is what I grew up eating and so it's being passed on and enjoyed by my kids. Puffy, lightly sweet and buttery.

Granola -- I don't buy it, but I occasionally splurge for the ingredients (see sidebar of past recipes) and make a giant homemade batch. Then we all wonder where it went so fast.

Sourdough pancakes -- we technically don't eat these for breakfast ever, they're our Sunday night supper each week, but I had to include them as a delicious breakfast food. I actually prefer "regular" pancakes just every once in a while, but my husband simply lives for the sourdough flavor. A treat you can't get anywhere else anymore!

I keep hearing that breakfast is a meal that shouldn't be skipped, so go ahead and dig in.

School, week 2

2009-09-06T15:47:00.000-07:00

Our camera is inaccessible for the moment, so I can't post the picture I took of last week's featured recipe. But since I never get tired of lists, I'll continue last week's theme and record my upcoming menus (just with less play-by-play).

Monday: Italian sausage with penne and marinara sauce, green beans

Tuesday: Carrot soup*, sourdough bread

Wednesday: Beef stroganoff*, acorn squash

Thursday: Split pea soup, vegetable gratin

Friday: Baked potato wedges, carrot slaw

Saturday: Pizza, zucchini

Sunday: Bacon, pancakes and applesauce

(*yes, I have some sour cream that I HAVE to use up soon or throw out)

Though in terms of menus, I should be explicit that the lack of desserts actually does represent a lack of eating them, with the exception of one Family Home Evening refreshment night per week, usually ice cream or storebought cookies. (I know I have few readers, but at least one of them will be shocked by that word in there, "storebought"...)

Sometime soon I'll probably do breakfasts and trip food. Until then, happy Labor Day!

Menu Planning

2009-08-30T13:18:00.000-07:00

An old-fashioned art, apparently. I should have guessed, things that are old-fashioned seem to be my forte. But menu planning has come up from time to time lately, and I was sincerely surprised to find out that I'm one of the only people I know who consistently do it.

The more I thought about it, though, it explained a lot. I've often wondered how and why most people tend to eat food that is expensive and unhealthy, despite their own better desires, and chalking it all up to "it tastes better" or "it was quicker" didn't seem to ring true to me. Plenty of cheap and delicious food tastes marvelous too, and is quick to prepare, if you just take the time to plan on it. Aha! I've been assuming all along that people take the time to choose their food in advance. And in an additional revelation, which again should not be surprising but was, I found that the few people who bravely try to bridle their busy life into a semblance of menu order use meat as their starting point.

I'm not saying my way is better for everyone -- I'm certainly committed to it, but it takes a ton of time and energy. Still, just as an academic exercise, I thought I'd do this week's menu planning on the blog instead of just in my calendar. So here we go.

I usually sit down Sunday night and look over my calendar for any special needs. For example, we're feeding the missionaries on Monday this week, so I'll have to make sure to plan a meat-based meal, nothing too outlandish. Thursday will be Lucy's first soccer practice and we'll get home about an hour before dinner, so even though that hypothetically gives me plenty of time to cook, I might want to think of a crock pot meal until I see what kind of timing those soccer practice nights are going to have in real life. And lastly, we're camping Friday night, so I have to do a meal on a propane burner.

So a crock pot meal that I've been meaning to do for a while pops into my head, German Crock Pot. That will do nicely for Thursday. And luckily I've kept a word file of my favorite camping menus if I need ideas for that. I think macaroni and cheese with hot dogs and canned corn will be an acceptable one-dish meal, if a little high in starch. Sunday I don't have to plan, my husband cooks pancakes and bacon every week to take some of the chore off of me, for which I am grateful. So that leaves me with four meals, of which one needs meat. I'll probably figure that one out last.

As a side note -- people have asked me if we eat a lot of beans or what else we use as meat substitutes. I don't think of my food in those terms, as either meat or meat substitute. I usually use grain/starch as my organizing principle and try to vary my week around the different kinds, with as many vegetables as I can feasibly cram in. For example, rice, pasta, potatoes, bread, and occasionally cornmeal. I almost always use high-fiber whole grain versions at least half and half, such as brown and white rice mixed together, at least half the potatoes with the skins on, etc. Incidentally, those types of foods contain abundant high-quality proteins (as well as lots of fiber and nutrients), so if you're rotating through those on a regular basis, you're likely getting plenty. Of course, to be doubly sure, you can occasionally add some beans or dairy to make sure you're getting complete proteins.

So back to the menus for this week. For a rice dish, I'd like to have Cuban Black Beans. I kept thinking I'd have garden tomatoes to use up this summer, but I haven't ended up making this yet, so I think it's time. I can't think of anything else off the top of my head, so I'll flip back through my calendar so see what I've made in the past. Curry rice pilaf also sounds good, maybe I'll space the rice meals out for Tuesday and Saturday. I just saw that I haven't made barbecued chicken in a long while, so I'll cook that (maybe on the grill? that would be a rare treat) along with homemade biscuits, salad, and cooked carrots for the missionaries tomorrow. Lastly, I have a cucumber I need to use, so I think I'll have sesame noodles the remaining night.

So that makes bread, rice, pasta, potatoes, pasta, rice, and bread the order of my week. In terms of protein, if you're keeping track, we're having chicken, then beans, a little nuts, a little kielbasa, hot dogs, nuts again, then some bacon.

Now I'll need to go update my shopping list to include a few produce items I don't have on hand, specifically tomato, lettuce and cabbage. Also the makings for s'mores for our campout. Other than that, I already have all the ingredients I need.

I don't know if this helps anyone, but I love to make lists, so it was fun for me. Happy eating!

Food to Share

2009-08-25T10:09:00.000-07:00

This week I had too many random food thoughts to really put together into one post, so I'm delving back into my old photos. This is one of our family's favorite recipes, oatmeal-raisin scones. We don't eat them with frosting at home, we like how they're just barely sweet enough with the raisins and cinnamon. But they're also a great go-to side to bring to potlucks when you're tired of the ubiquitous brownies and cookies, as long as you put on the frosting (cream cheese is best) for eye appeal to sweet-toothed Americans...

We recently made a big double batch on our visit to Grandma in Michigan, and again confirmed that this recipe is a crowd-pleaser.

Too Much

2009-07-26T11:42:00.000-07:00

This week I even outcooked myself, and wished that I did keep store-bought items on hand just in case. I made two loaves worth of fried scones, a big batch of rice pudding, cucumber sushi (see recipe on the side), baked beans from dry beans, 2 dozen blueberry muffins, two homemade pizzas, sesame noodles, biscuits and, to top it off, tons of bread pudding from two other loaves of bread I had accidentally left in the oven for two hours while we were out of the house. I also brought a meal to someone with a new baby.

I'm really tired. Maybe we'll just live on plain rice this week or something.

But, in the meantime, here's the picture of my new yearly tradition, cucumber sushi.

I'm not a big fan of seaweed, so I was quite pleased to run across this recipe last year. It's delicious and beautiful all at once, and a nice way to use cucumbers when your garden has too many and you're running out of ideas. This year I forgot to add the ginger in with the rice, and so I dug out an old box of candied ginger I had for some reason or other. I put little bits on top of the sushi, and it was such an amazing improvement, both visually and for the taste buds. Marvelous! I'll never do it any other way now.

So whether it's too much cooking from scratch or simply too many cucumbers, that's my food theme for the week. Hopefully this coming week it will be called something like "Easy, Simple, and Quick".

2009-07-21T09:43:00.001-07:00

Teriyaki chicken, rice, sunshine carrots.

Experiments

2009-07-19T04:45:00.000-07:00

I was really sick for a couple of months, so I haven't posted in a while. Plus I figured no one but me would notice, so there was very little motivation to keep plugging away. However, this week has been a memorable one in expanding my cooking repertoire, and I thought I'd record it...for posterity.

Though our neighbors are already giving away zucchini, we're still waiting in vain for our garden to begin providing us with summer bounty. In the meantime, however, I've refused to buy produce at the store because I know as soon as I do we'll have it coming out of our ears at home. BUT, I did buy a few small items and checked out an old issue of Cooking Light from the library and had a ball in the kitchen.

First was the Summer Vegetable Saute, which wasn't a very descriptive name, but was my favorite dish of the week. Corn, black beans, green onions, celery and green pepper all stir-fried with cilantro. And I can at least thank my garden for the green onions and cilantro, which I otherwise would never pay for at the store and wouldn't have available.

Next we tried a stuffed eggplant recipe, with the eggplant pulp combined with zucchini, red pepper, breadcrumbs (homemade sourdough ones!) and fresh basil, again from the garden. It was very good as eggplant recipes go. But I'm finally resigning myself to the fact that although I am a professed quasi-vegetarian, and eggplants are so pretty and purple, I just don't like their taste. It's a shame, really. But a fun recipe to try nonetheless.

And finally, I have a few tangential comments to lead into my last experiment. First, I want to point out that though my family members are very good sports about my cooking, and generally enjoy the wide range of unusual flavors I present them, I remain the lone cilantro enthusiast here. Second comment is that I've occasionally seen 'green curry paste', or red or yellow, listed in some of my British-published cookbooks. But I've never seen such stuff at the low-end grocery store I frequent, and I haven't yet had time to search more seriously for it. I use (standard yellow) curry powder regularly, but have wished I knew more curry variations.

Enter last night's recipe, a green curry fish soup. Yes indeed. And it called for tons of fresh cilantro, so I thought I'd give it a whirl. Literally, in the blender, since I don't have a food processor. It had me process my own green curry paste with shallots, cilantro, sesame oil, lime juice, garlic, ginger, cumin, pepper, allspice and coriander. Aside from burning our eyes for an hour or so because of the finely-blended shallot-essence that was released into the air, it was a hit. I've never tasted anything quite like it, and I say that with appropriate awe and gratitude. We used it with fish chunks and some water and vinegar and rice for soup, but if I want to brave the blended onions again I think I have a way to use up all that cilantro going to waste in my garden. Even Scott, who dislikes cilantro the most, agreed that this was wonderful.

I wish I had taken a few pictures of these dishes, but I wanted to eat them so badly that I didn't bother to stop and get the camera before we dug in. So I scanned the available magazine pictures, since mine looked exactly the same, of course... Not quite, and in fact the soup pictured is a different recipe completely, but has enough similarities to what we made to be a rough stand-in. No one will know the difference.

2009-04-20T05:19:00.001-07:00

Sourdough pancakes, bacon, applesauce.

2009-04-19T05:58:00.000-07:00

Homemade pizza, fresh broccoli and carrots with dip.

2009-04-18T06:12:00.001-07:00

We were babysitting some other kids who are picky, so I had to break out the hot dogs tonight. (Ugh, I hate hot dogs so much. Even the nice beef kind, which is what we had.) Also some baked sweet potatoes and canned peas, though only I really ate those.

2009-04-17T04:21:00.001-07:00

Homemade "pork n' beans", rice, canned corn.

2009-04-16T04:44:00.000-07:00

Beef stew, leftover birthday cake.

2009-04-15T04:40:00.001-07:00

Chinese restaurant for hubby's birthday.

2009-04-14T05:12:00.001-07:00

Cream-cheesy pasta with peas and broccoli.

2009-04-13T04:52:00.001-07:00

Roast beef, creamy curried cauliflower, mashed potatoes and gravy.

2009-04-12T04:40:00.001-07:00

Stir-fried vegetables and rice.

2009-04-11T12:29:00.001-07:00

Travel food: hummus, flatbread, carrotsticks and grape tomatoes.

2009-04-10T19:11:00.000-07:00

Shepherd's pie, iceberg wedge.

2009-04-09T05:48:00.001-07:00

Penne with ricotta and grape tomatoes, bacon, fresh spinach.
(You cook the spinach in some of the bacon grease and add a capful of lemon juice.)

2009-04-08T04:42:00.000-07:00

Baked potato bar, broccoli medley, bacon bits and cheese sauce.

2009-04-07T04:52:00.000-07:00

Bean soup with tomato sauce and thyme, rice, beets.

2009-04-06T05:07:00.001-07:00

Pancakes, bacon, applesauce.

2009-04-05T07:24:00.000-07:00

Bean and cheese burritos, salad.

2009-04-04T11:03:00.000-07:00

Italian sausages, oats n' wheat dinner rolls, salad.

2009-04-03T04:31:00.001-07:00

Sesame noodles. (See recipe at side)

2009-04-02T06:37:00.001-07:00

German crock pot, canned corn. (German crock pot is cabbage, potatoes, onion, green apple, and kielbasa cooked in vinegar.)

2009-04-01T04:51:00.000-07:00

Carrot soup, sourdough whole wheat walnut bread.

2009-03-31T04:44:00.001-07:00

Pork chop-rice bake, broccoli.

2009-03-30T05:15:00.001-07:00

Sourdough pancakes, bacon, applesauce.

2009-03-29T05:16:00.000-07:00

Friends came over and brought pizza (storebought) to share. I made sunshine carrots so we would have a healthy balance.

2009-03-28T04:13:00.001-07:00

Curry rice pilaf.

2009-03-27T04:20:00.001-07:00

Lentil soup, biscuits.

2009-03-26T06:41:00.000-07:00

Layered sandwich loaf, canned beets.

2009-03-25T06:00:00.001-07:00

Beef and vegetable stir-fry.

2009-03-24T04:58:00.000-07:00

Leftovers! We even scored some good food from the Relief Society's birthday lunch that we were able to add to the dinner potluck.

2009-03-23T04:43:00.000-07:00

Sourdough pancakes, bacon, applesauce.

2009-03-22T05:48:00.001-07:00

Beef and barley soup, homemade biscuits.

2009-03-21T07:41:00.001-07:00

Homemade pizza (yum, olives this time!) and carrot/celery sticks.

2009-03-20T05:03:00.001-07:00

Chicken country captain, jello cake.