Quick and Easy Ways to Serve Carrots

Everyone knows that carrots are super good for you. They are packed with vitamins A and C, so they’re good for your eyes and immune system.  They also have calcium and iron, helping build strong bones and enriching your blood.  They have a wonderful sweet taste yet for some reason I have struggled to get my little girl to eat them. So, in addition to incorporating them into more elaborate recipes, here are a few fast ways I have found to get her to gobble them up.  What I love about these is the first two options are very simple and allow the flavor of the carrot to really sing.  The third option is a little sneaky but sometimes you just have to be a little underhanded when it comes to picky eaters. 

1)      Carrot apple slaw: Finely grate some carrots, then mix in a roughly grated apple (a finely grated apple will be too mushy). For added flavor you can add a tbs or two of orange juice and a handful of raisins.

2)      Quick carrot soup: Peel and dice 2 or 3 carrots (or more for larger amounts of soup), place in microwave safe bowl and add desired amount of low sodium chicken or vegetable stock (the less liquid, the thicker the soup).  Cook in microwave until carrots are soft. Puree with immersion blender, add salt and pepper to taste (and any other seasonings you like). 

3)      Carrot Bolognese (well, not really but you catch my drift, right?): Finely grate some carrots into spaghetti sauce. If you have carrot puree, you can use that too.  An added bonus is the carrots will cut the acidity of the tomato sauce. 

Spinach Pancakes… Veggies Hidden in Plain Sight!

One of the TV shows I watched as a kid was Popeye, so I needed no convincing to eat spinach. I actually believed the leafy vegetables had special powers.  I guess with all the recent talk about antioxidants, there was some truth to that belief.  Well, my little girl is not so easily fooled and spinach has been a tricky vegetable to get her to accept. When she was around a year old, she loved spinach and cheese omelets but when she became a picky toddler, she stopped eating spinach altogether.  I’ve had some success with mixing spinach into spaghetti sauce and store bought spinach quiche (provided it’s slathered with ketchup). I’ve also had some major flops, most recently with a macaroni and cheese Florentine.  I definitely want to widen the spinach repertoire and find something that the Little Miss can feed herself.  One of my favorite spinach dishes as a kid was spinach pancakes so I decided to give them a go, especially since I had some sour cream left from a recent enchilada dinner. When my two year old saw the pancakes, she said, “Cookie!” I wasn’t about to correct her especially if it meant a difference between her trying the pancakes and not.  Thankfully she liked them and even exclaimed, “Is gooooood!” That’s like getting a Michelin Star! 

This recipe for Spinach Pancakes comes from a book called Natural Cooking the Finnish Way by Ulla Kakonen, published in 1974 by Quadrangle. 

Ingredients:
¾ - 1 lb spinach (I used a 10 oz. box of frozen spinach)

1 cup water (for cooking the spinach)

1 egg

1 ¾ cups unbleached white flour

1 cup sour cream

1 tsp sea salt

½ tsp raw sugar (I use regular granulated sugar)

2 tbs melted butter or oil plus additional for frying

·         Wash the spinach leaves, put into a saucepan and cover with water. Cover the pan, bring to a boil, and simmer about 5 minutes, or until the spinach is limp. Drain the spinach and reserve the liquid. Chop Spinach fine. (If using frozen spinach, put it in a microwave safe bowl, cover with damp paper towel and thaw in microwave, about 2 minutes. After 2 minutes, break apart with a fork and add about ½ cup water. Return to microwave for 3-4 more minutes to finish cooking. Drain spinach in a sieve, pressing to extract as much liquid as you can. Reserve 1 cup of the liquid. Puree spinach in a food processor/mini chopper, using some of the reserved spinach cooking water to help puree. I used about ½ a cup.)

·         Beat the egg lightly and add the spinach cooking liquid. (Note: if you are using frozen spinach you will have less liquid to add at this stage because some was used in the puree.)

·         Beat in the flour and sour cream in turns.

·         Add salt, sugar, and melted butter or oil.

·         Stir in spinach. The dough should be nicely green.

·         In a small-ring pancake pan or a crepe pan, fry rather thick pancakes on both sides, until crisp and brown. Keep warm until serving time. (I made smallish “silver dollar” pancakes using a rounded tablespoonful of the batter per pancake. Because it’s a thick batter you need to spread it out a bit after placing it on the pan. I got 26 pancakes out of this batter.)

·         Serve as a main course, with melted butter, and cranberry or lingonberry preserves. (This is a very Finnish thing and the tartness of the cranberries or lingonberries is a nice contrast to the mild flavor of the spinach. Of course you can also serve these as a side dish with a meat or other vegetarian main course. A couple of pancakes also make a great kid’s snack.)

Mac-n-Cheese Cakes

My daughter doesn’t need any trickery to get her to eat macaroni and cheese, but that’s no reason to not make her food a little more interesting and what’s more, her love of the stuff makes it an ideal vehicle for the goodness of hidden veggies.  Plus, the little munchkin is obsessed with cake, so anything that even remotely resembles cake should at least get one bite.  Considering she turns her nose up at most food I offer her without so much as a taste, one bite is a success.  Another bonus is these mac-n-cheese cakes make self feeding much cleaner than just straight up goopy, sticky macaroni and cheese.  For this recipe I used a boxed macaroni and cheese mix, but if you have a favorite from scratch recipe, then by all means use that and use whole grain pasta too.  These mac-n-cheese cakes have hidden lentils and carrots all wrapped up in one cute package. 

Ingredients:

• 1 box macaroni and cheese mix (plus any ingredients needed to make it)
• ½ cup red lentils
• 1 cup grated cheese of your choice
• 2-3 finely grated carrots

Optional:

• Cooking spray
• Bread crumbs

Procedure:

• Prepare the macaroni and cheese according to instructions. When cooking the pasta, add ½ cup red lentils to the pasta water at the same time as you add the pasta. The small elbow pasta I use takes 7-8 minutes to cook and this is just enough time for the lentils to cook. Time your lentil cooking accordingly depending on your pasta.  Red lentils are a perfect addition to macaroni and cheese as they don’t require any presoaking, cook quickly, and soften and disappear into the cheese mix. 
• As the pasta and lentils cook, grate carrots using a fine grater. The finer you grate them the more easily the carrots will disappear into the cheese mix.
• Place the grated carrots into a microwave safe bowl and add ¼ to 1/3 cups of the pasta water, enough to moisten but not so much that the carrots are swimming (1 or 2 ladlefuls). Cover bowl with a damp paper towel and microwave at 1 minute intervals 2 minutes or until soft. Stir the carrots during cooking to avoid drying them out. 
• When the macaroni and cheese is complete, mix in the softened carrots and 1 cup of shredded cheese.  The carrots will have some liquid in them but this small amount of moisture is OK. 
• Spoon the mixture into muffin tins, just shy of filling them. Lightly press down the mixture with the back of a spoon to pack it in and make it firm. If you have non-stick muffin tins you can use them as is, if not, spray them with cooking spray and coat with a thin layer of bread crumbs (of course you can do this with non-stick pans too for a little added texture).
• Bake at 375 for 20 minutes or until lightly browned on top and the cakes are firm to the touch (you don’t want them to fall apart after all that work).  If you use mini muffin tins, they will cook faster. You can also choose to make thinner patties by using less of the mix in each muffin cup and cooking them for a shorter time.  
• When your cakes are done, remove them carefully from the muffin tin and allow to cool a little and set up before serving. 

I may have mentioned before that my official little taste tester is not too keen on carrots so I braced myself for rejection at dinner time.  However, these little cakes were a success and she did indeed think she was eating cake. She didn’t even miss smearing cheese sauce all over her face.  

Grandma’s Finnish Meatballs

My mom arrived about a week ago to help me in the last few weeks of pregnancy, and the timing couldn’t have been better as I now have twice weekly prenatal appointments and there is just no way I could bring little missy with me.  As my due date nears, we are making plans for easy meals that my mom can serve to missy and that we can ideally make now and freeze for easy serving later.  I’m also interested in learning some of my mom’s recipes as I’ve always loved her cooking, even though she claims to not know what she’s doing.  Pretty much everything she ever served us was made from scratch, so in my book that means mad skills!

This afternoon while missy napped we made some simple yet delicious meatballs with a cool secret ingredient (that will not be so secret anymore).

Grandma’s Meatballs

1 lb ground beef

1 yellow onion, finely minced

1 package baby bella mushrooms, finely minced

2 eggs

2 tbs uncooked cous cous

Salt & pepper to taste

Sauté the onion and mushroom, adding salt and pepper to taste. Allow to cool.

Thoroughly mix sautéed onions and mushrooms, ground beef, egg, and cous cous.  Add salt & pepper if needed (you may heat up a sauté pan and cook a small amount of the mix to safely taste it).

Form ground beef mixture into meatballs of your desired size with your hands. Ours were approximately 2 tbs of meat, so pretty small. We got about 40 meatballs. 

Place meatballs on a baking sheet and cook in a 375 degree oven 15-20 minutes. Clearly cooking times will vary depending on the meatball size. 

Can you guess the secret ingredient? Yeah, cous cous!  The cous cous cooked up perfectly within the meatballs and took the place of the more traditional breadcrumbs.  If you think it’s an odd addition to meatballs, you don’t notice them at all texturally, but they definitely make for a more moist and soft meatball because you lose hardly any of the juices as the meatballs cook, as they get absorbed by the cous cous. 

Of course you cannot make meatballs without sauce, so we made a somewhat traditional brown sauce.  Now this is not quite like the Swedish sauce most of us are familiar with, but it’s not far off.  The big difference is the Swedes add nutmeg to their well known meatball sauce and the Finns do not use nutmeg as much in everyday cooking (it’s more of a Christmas spice).  Of course, you can certainly add it to the sauce if you wish.  Basically all you do is make a béchamel sauce incorporating any drippings collected from the meatball baking sheet and add some beef stock to it. 

Brown Sauce:

1 tbs flour

1.5 tbs butter

Meatball drippings

Milk (approx ½ cup) or cream (if you want to be decadent)

Beef stock (approx 1 cup)

Salt & pepper to taste (keep in mind that if you use salted stock, you may not need to add any salt). 

I apologize that some of the amounts are approximate as I pretty much eyeballed the ingredients as I added them to the sauce.  Of course depending on how much sauce you want to make, you can add more or less liquid.   

In a saucepan or sauté pan, create a roux using the butter, flour, and meatball drippings.  Cook until the mixture resembles wet sand (this will enhance the brown color of the sauce).

Stirring constantly, add the milk and allow the sauce to thicken.

Once the sauce has thickened, gradually add the beef stock, stirring continually to avoid separation. The sauce will look thin at first but will thicken up again as it heats up.

Add salt and pepper to taste.

Add the meatballs to the sauce and heat them through. 

According to my mom you can give this a Russian twist by adding some diced sour pickles and sour cream to the sauce. 

What would you serve this with?  How about some simple boiled or mashed potatoes, egg noodles (a la a meatball stroganoff), or some lovely crusty bread, and of course your favorite vegetables?  I might add some pickled beets, but that’s my Finnish roots showing.  Now, this was a dangerous dish for me to be making with my gestational diabetes and I certainly didn’t think I could make a meal of them, but I still couldn’t resist tasting the end product. I mean a couple of small meatballs (with cous cous) with a little bit of brown sauce can’t have that many carbs.  Plus being in the last couple of weeks of pregnancy, that’s about as much as I can eat anyway!  Little missy was happy as a clam with her meatballs and even asked for seconds!  Well, she did the Oliver Twist thing, picking up her empty plate and holding it up to me. When I asked if she wanted more, she said, “more.”  Because my mom and I were lazy, we did not make the potatoes or noodles to go with the meatballs, so missy had hers with her favorite diced raw red peppers on the side.  Now, I mentioned earlier that we were planning to freeze foods but I would not freeze these in the sauce as I’ve read that a béchamel sauce will separate and just turn ugly when you freeze it.  So, if you are freezing, just freeze the meatballs on their own.  

Pork Roast with Fall Vegetables

We are a Costco family and every so often we will buy huge quantities of meat and portion it out and freeze it in our big chest freezer.  We’ve got fish, chicken (parts and a whole one), ground beef, pork, even a turkey ready to defrost for the holidays!  Of course using these cuts of meat does require some planning because of the defrosting, but I’m getting better at it and at least it gives me some time to make sure we have the fresh produce I want to serve alongside said meat. 

The other night I decided that with the weather cooling here in New England, it was the perfect time to do a pork roast with some lovely root vegetables.  I normally make my pork roast with a honey mustard glaze that also features brown sugar (that I’ve adapted from an America’s Test Kitchen recipe) but because of my gestational diabetes, glazes like that are off limits for moi! I decided to try a spice rub instead.  This was a purely experimental spice rub, but I am happy to say it came out rather tasty. 

Spice Rub:

Onion Powder

Paprika Powder

Dried Marjoram

Salt

Freshly Ground Black Pepper

I just eyeballed the amounts and shook some of each spice into a small dish but I’d say about a tablespoon of each of the spices and salt and pepper to taste would do the trick. 

I patted dry the piece of pork roast (approx 2 lbs), scored the fat cap with a diamond shape, and then patted the spice rub all over the pork (top and bottom).

I placed the pork fat side up in a ceramic baking dish and put in a 350 degree oven for approximately 1 hour. (I allowed the spiced meat to rest while I prepped the vegetables so everything went in at the same time and the meat was not fridge cold).  Of course cooking times will vary depending on the size of the meat and your oven.  I find that my oven always takes longer than recipes call for. I think I need to get it calibrated… 

I also get nervous about pork and chicken because of the risk of illness if not cooked properly.  I was shocked not too long ago when a server at a restaurant asked me how I’d like my pork chops cooked.  I looked at him dumbfounded and said “all the way.”  I mean what other way is there?  He informed me that these days you can have your pork done medium… Well, not for me, thank you very much.  I have since learned that there are acceptable temperature ranges for pork that are definitely lower than what your typical instant read thermometer is set to.  Still I get nervous, but I tend to cook my pork roast until it hits 160 degrees in the thickest part (still less than the 180 those thermometers want).  Feel free to weigh in on this issue, by the way.  Since pork does dry out very easily it is a bit tricky to find the perfect temperature.  Once the meat hits my desired temperature, I let it rest for about 10 minutes before I cut into it.  This is probably one of the hardest things to do as the lovely aromas of roasted meat waft through the house!  But if you want to preserve any shred of juices left in that meat, you need to let it rest!  I cut the roast into approximately half inch slices and returned them to the baking pan to soak up some of that lovely jus. 

Roasted Fall Vegetables

1 Large Sweet Potato

2 Large Carrots

3 Medium Red Skinned Potatoes (any will do, this is what we happened to have handy)

1 Medium Yellow Onion

3 Small Parsnips

Garlic Cloves, left in the skin (I used 3, but you can use how many or little as you wish, or leave them out completely)

Drizzle of Extra Virgin Olive Oil (enough to coat all veggies)

Salt and Pepper to taste

I washed, peeled and cut the vegetables into approximately similar sizes.  The carrots being denser and taking longer to cook can be cut smaller, but I don’t mind a bit of crunch.  You can of course use whatever vegetables you like and whatever amount you like depending on how many you are cooking for and what your taste preferences are. 

I placed all the vegetables in a large roasting pan, drizzled the oil, added salt and pepper, and tossed everything to coat evenly. The pan went in the same 350 degree oven as the pork and cooked for about the same time.  Definitely keep an eye on the vegetables and give them a good stir a couple of times to allow for even caramelization (or to avoid burning one side).  And take them out if they are done before the roast and tent with some aluminum foil to keep in the heat. 

I used to peel my garlic when I’ve roasted veggies in the past and they always end up burning because they are just so darned small!  Since I’ve seen a few TV chefs roast veggies and actually throw in an entire head of garlic peel and all, I decided to give it a go, but since I am really the only garlic eater in the household, the entire head would just be overkill.  The 3 cloves with skin intact came out perfectly roasted, soft and sweet. 

As I mentioned earlier I was very happy with the flavor of the spice rub and the pork came out tasty and tender.  The fat tended to splatter and smoke a bit which set off our hallway smoke detector (which is super sensitive, mind you) whenever I opened the oven.  But that’s a common occurrence when I cook!  You can definitely remove the fat if you wish, but it forms a beautiful crispy dark brown crust that you won’t get if you do remove it.  If you are like my husband, you will just cut the fat off when you’re eating it. 

Unfortunately I got started with dinner later than I should have so, it was quite late for Little Missy.  I had to ply her with some red pepper pieces as she grew antsy waiting for the proper meal (she by the way loves raw red peppers, and I often offer them up as an appetizer of sorts while I’m making the main meal – a great way to sneak in a vegetable!).  Because the veggies were done before the pork, I just fed her the vegs when they were ready and then the pork came later.  But I find this a pretty successful way to feed her anyway as opposed to overwhelming her with too many flavors and options at once.  

Hamburger Helper Aint Got Nothing on Me!

I have to begin this post with a disclaimer. I have never actually made or eaten Hamburger Helper, so I don’t know exactly what goes into it, but I imagine from the ads that it’s some sort of pasta, ground beef, and cheese concoction. This meal was born out of a need to come up with something nutritious for Little Missy, having not managed to drag myself to the store as I intended. In my defense, it was super hot and humid, Missy had barely napped and the house was shrouded in blue tarp as our roof was getting redone (hence the lack of a nap, even though the lighting in the house made it feel like The Napping House), oh yeah and being 24 weeks preggo on top of all that hardly made getting to the store a tempting thought. So, it was another evening of peering into the pantry and freezer to come up with ideas. Lucky for me I always stock certain things that can be whipped up into acceptable meals. I always have different types of whole grain pasta, various frozen veggies, shredded cheese, frozen ground beef and turkey. So I decided to make a cheesy, pasta burger thingy with some hidden bonus veggies. Quick and easy! Actually it’s so simple that I’m almost embarrassed to post this but, then again not every meal has to be totally gourmet, right?

Ingredients (enough for 2-3 toddler sized servings):

Whole grain penne pasta (about 1 cup uncooked)

1 frozen beef patty

Frozen mixed pepper strips (half cup or so)

Shredded cheese (1-2 handfuls)

Salt & Pepper (to taste)

Ketchup (a couple of squirts)

Take out a frozen beef patty and allow to thaw on counter as you boil water for pasta.

When water comes to a boil, add some salt if you wish and add the pasta.

While pasta cooks pour frozen pepper strips into a microwave safe bowl, add enough pasta water to just barely cover the peppers. Microwave in 1 minute intervals until peppers are cooked (2-3 minutes). Most of the water will evaporate as they cook.

Once peppers are cooked, puree them in a mini food processor and set aside.

Put burger patty on a microwave safe plate, cover with damp paper towel and finish thawing it in microwave. This should only take about a minute. Transfer thawed patty into hot sauté pan and finish cooking it, breaking it up as you go along. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

When pasta is cooked, drain it (you can reserve some pasta cooking water in case the mixture is dry) and return to hot pan. Add the pepper puree, cooked ground beef (minus any grease) and mix with a couple of handfuls of shredded cheese and ketchup.

That’s it! All done, in about 15 minutes. For anyone wanting to try a vegetarian version, I have made this with red lentils instead of the ground beef. I just added a small amount of red lentils to the pot as the pasta cooked. The beauty of red lentils is that they don’t need to be presoaked and cook up quite fast. They are barely noticeable in the cheese mixture and add a nice nutty flavor and of course tons of protein. As it turned out Little Missy enjoyed both the ground beef and lentil versions of this dish, so it will be added to the repertoire.

This is very obviously a kid dish. However, you can easily make an adult version with the same basic ingredients. Picture pasta with pepper strips, shredded parmesan and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil for example. I have yet to test any grown up friendly recipes, but promise to post as soon as I do. Of course, if you’re like me, you end up eating what you made for the kiddos because the thought of making a second dish, even with mostly the same ingredients is just overwhelming.

I Feel Like Curry Tonight

A typical dinner related conversation in our house might go like this:

Me: “I feel like curry tonight.”

Hubs: “Where are we ordering from?”

But not this time. One of my dearest friends came over recently and we made curry together. She’s promised to do this for some time now but since coming over involves hopping a flight from Europe, I’ve had to be patient. Lucky me, she was in town for a week and we had a glorious time catching up and making delicious food. My friend hails from India and I was always jealous of her because she got to eat home cooked Indian food every day growing up. Not that I’m knocking my mom’s cooking, but eating authentic Indian food every day; there’s a serious drool factor there. Turns out home cooked Indian food is quite different from the creamy stuff you get at restaurants. It’s much simpler, much healthier. That also means that it’s much easier to make. And you know what? It’s so much more rewarding to eat!

The first thing we did when my friend arrived was take a run up to the Indian grocery near my house. Walking in is quite an experience as the aromas of spices and fresh herbs and vegetables hangs heavy in the air. For me this is a little bit like going home since I grew up in Singapore and these aromas and “ethnic” groceries are quite familiar for me. (As a side note, for those of you keeping track, my heritage is Finnish and I grew up in Singapore – Foodie Heaven, as Anthony Bourdain calls it. Bourdain hasn’t been to Finland as far as I know. Gordon Ramsay has and he wasn’t impressed. Though I respectfully disagree with Ramsay’s opinion, the two countries definitely represent culinary extremes! But I digress.) We picked up some red and green peppers, carrots, fresh cilantro, garam masala, cardamom pods, paneer (Indian cheese), and fresh roti (Indian flat bread). We headed to my regular grocery for some chicken, where we decided to save money and buy a whole chicken. In any case, chicken on the bone is definitely the way to go for flavor and tender, moist meat. Our plan is to make a chicken curry and vegetable paneer.

Ingredients for Chicken Curry:

Whole Chicken, broken down or chicken pieces of your choice (how much depends on how many you are feeding)

Plain yogurt (enough to cover the chicken)

Garam masala powder

Curry powder (generic turmeric based powder)

Cinnamon powder

Cumin powder

Powdered ginger (fresh is of course OK, but we were lazy)

Garlic, minced (2-3 cloves, or to taste)

Onion, diced

Can of crushed/diced tomatoes (I like to use fire roasted, for extra flavor)

Vegetable oil for sautéing

Fresh cilantro (2-3 sprigs roughly chopped and a few left whole for garnish)

Salt to taste

Process:

I don’t have a whole lot of experience in breaking down chickens though I’ve seen it done both on TV and in person. I have the theory down, it’s just the practice that’s a little iffy. It looks so easy when someone else does it yet somehow it still turns into a bit of a struggle. For example, the whole concept of popping out the tendon just doesn’t translate into practice all that well for me anyway. Luckily I am not one of those people who cannot handle meat on the bone, so I happily attacked the bird while my friend tackled the veggies. I managed to hack off the drumsticks, thighs, wings and breasts and they don’t look too mangled. We also cut the breast pieces crosswise into two and separated the thigh from the drumstick to allow for more even cooking. I threw the carcass into the freezer for a soup.

Marinate the chicken pieces in yogurt and curry powder (overnight is best but even the time it will take to prep the veggies will be enough).

Wash, peel, and dice veggies, and dice paneer. Mince garlic.

Heat oil in a dutch oven or large pot. Sauté onion, garlic, ginger, garam masala, cumin, and cinnamon. Add the chicken pieces and allow to brown. The spice amounts are all to taste. We used a couple of generous shakes from each jar (maybe 1-2 tsp). As the spices cook, the flavors develop and each spice adds a different layer of flavor. Tasting as you cook and adding more spices isn’t a good idea as you may end up with an overwhelming flavor once everything is cooked. Garam Masala adds a lot of heat, so 1 teaspoon might be enough. Curry powder is a mixture of many spices and varies from brand to brand. It is usually milder so you can add around 1 tablespoon and then adjust according to taste as you get more familiar with your palate and cooking with spices. Cumin has a very smoky flavor, so 1 teaspoon is probably enough. We decided to keep things more mild because of our Little Missy’s delicate palate. I have to admit my friend (the expert) handled the spicing and her approach is “a little of this, a little of that.”

Once the chicken has browned, add the tomato, cover, lower the heat and allow to simmer while you prepare the other dishes. Give the chicken an occasional stir.

Add the cilantro at the very end of cooking and add salt to taste.

Ingredients for Vegetable Paneer:

1 Red pepper, diced

1 Green pepper, diced

1 Onion, diced

3 Carrots, diced

One package of paneer, cubed

Curry powder

Garam masala powder

Cumin powder

Oil for sautéing

Salt to taste

Optional: can of crushed tomatoes

The beauty of this dish is that you can use any vegetables you like. This also means that it can easily turn into a variety of side dishes once you have the method down.

Heat some oil in a deep sauté pan. Add garlic, onion and spices and allow to cook. Add carrots, peppers, and paneer. You may add a can of tomatoes or a little bit of water. We poured about half a cup of water into the tomato can for a little flavor and put that in the vegetable and paneer mixture. Cover the pan, lower the heat and allow to cook while you make the rice.

Ingredients for Aromatic Rice:

Rice (I use regular grocery store brand Jasmine rice)

Cardamom pods (5-6 or to taste)

Cinnamon (a few shakes)

Whole Cloves (1 tsp or to taste)

2-3 Bay leaves

Oil for sautéing

Water

Heat some oil in a pan, add your desired amount of rice and sauté, mixing all the time so rice doesn't burn. My friend and I had never actually done this but since her mom always sautés her rice, we decided to try it out.

Add water according to the rice cooking instructions (ie. twice as much water as rice). My friend’s mom will just eyeball the amount of water and never goes wrong. I always measure and end up having to add water before the rice is done. So, we decided to emulate mom and eyeball the water and cook it until done (not necessarily for the 20 minutes as instructed). Guess what? It worked! We added cardamom pods, opened to allow the seeds to come out, cloves, cinnamon, and the bay leaves, covered and let the rice simmer (approximately 20 minutes).

When everything is ready to serve heat up the roti in the microwave for about 30 seconds under a damp paper towel. The beauty of the chicken and vegetable dishes was that they were able to simmer away while the rice cooked and everything was ready at the same time. As my friend puts it, food is always cooked “to death” in India, so allowing stuff to simmer away until you are ready to eat won’t kill the flavor. Actually it’ll probably make it tastier. Of course you don’t want to overcook the rice! All in all the chicken cooked for about an hour, while the veggies took about half an hour. I have to apologize since I have no photos of the finished product. We served ourselves straight from the stove top and scarfed our food down without pausing for a photo opp. Also my friend and I were far too busy catching up as we cooked to stop and take photos (plus there was absolutely no need to immortalize what I did to that poor chicken).

We had a delicious meal that evening and an even more delicious lunch of leftovers the next day since the flavors just continue to develop with time. Little Missy didn’t have a chance to taste it until lunch and I am happy to report that she enjoyed it. The lesson here is to not be afraid to offer flavorful dishes to your little ones (as long as they’re not packed with heat). I definitely plan to incorporate cooking with spices into my repertoire.

In parting, I have to say cooking with my dear friend was loads of fun. There were plenty of “remember when” moments and it was a nice way to catch up, definitely better than sitting in a restaurant. Finally, I have to give a huge public thanks too to the hubs for keeping Little Missy occupied while we cooked.

If you, my dear readers make sense of these recipes and try them out, please let me know how they come out!

Steamed Veggie Dumplings Recipe

Sometime back I saw an ad on Nick Jr. for recipes inspired by the shows on the channel. One of the more intriguing ones was a recipe for Steamed Vegetable Dumplings from Ni Hao, Kai-Lan, one of Little Missy’s favorite shows. I decided to give these a try. Dumplings can definitely be a good way to add veggies to a picky toddler’s repertoire. Last week I actually went to the grocery store with a list (a rare feat) and a meal plan. Sadly all the produce I wanted to get looked really sad and wilted. I’m talking limp, brown edged cabbage, wrinkly peppers, and slimy mushrooms. I was so dejected by this initial disappointment that I quickly slipped back into my typical shopping mode of just getting the things we always get with no specific meal plans. Sigh.

I found myself back at the store the other night to pick up a few things and decided to take a look at the produce. It was looking better and I tried my best to remember the ingredients for the dumplings. The next day, after Little Missy zonked out after a marathon play session in the park, I figured I had my best chance to tackle these dumplings. It’s not easy to cook with a toddler underfoot.

Ingredients

· 2 cups finely shredded cabbage (I used Napa)

· ½ cup finely diced firm tofu

· ¼ finely chopped red pepper (I used sweet red pepper, not sure if they meant hot peppers…)

· 2 scallions sliced thin

· ¼ cup finely chopped water chestnuts

· 1 ½ tbsp soy sauce

· 1 tbsp chopped cilantro (I used 1tsp dried. I just don’t cook enough to get a bunch of the fresh stuff)

· I clove garlic, minced

· 1 tsp minced fresh ginger

· 1 tsp sesame seed oil

· Freshly ground pepper

· 48 wonton wrappers

Directions

· Combine all of the ingredients in a medium sized bowl until well blended together (except of course the wonton wrappers…)

· Line a cookie sheet with wax paper. Place several wonton wrappers on a clean work surface. Spoon about 1 heaping teaspoon of the filling into the center of each wrapper. Brush the edges with warm water. Fold over the wrapper and pinch to seal the edges. Place the filled wontons onto the prepared cookie sheet. Continue with the remaining filling and wrappers.

· Place several of the wontons onto the bottom of a bamboo steamer, about ½ inch apart. Arrange more on another layer of the bamboo steamer.

· Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper. Place the bamboo steamer over a pot of simmering water and cook until the juices are clear and the meat is cooked through, about 10 to 12 minutes. Transfer the cooked dumplings onto the prepared sheet pan and place in the oven to keep warm. Repeat with the remaining wontons.

· When ready to serve, transfer to a serving platter. Serve with additional soy sauce.

This is the recipe exactly as it appeared on the Nick Jr. website. I’m not quite sure where the meat comes in to the vegetarian dumplings. I’m guessing this was an editing oversight. It’s hard to imagine any kind of meat being cooked in 10-12 minutes. And I’m not exactly sure how you’re supposed to see clear juices when steaming these things. Maybe the recipe was copied and pasted from some meat wonton recipe, which would explain the interchanging use of wonton and dumpling.

When making the filling, I left out the ginger and water chestnuts, not being a fan of either ingredient. I also left out the garlic simply because I couldn’t see it cooking through in the 10 minutes and didn’t really want to serve raw garlic to Little Missy (or eat it myself). While the recipe doesn’t specify the kind of cabbage to use, I decided upon Napa mainly because it’s more tender and would wilt if not cook faster and is more palatable even when uncooked. I also thought with a milder taste, it would be easier for a picky eater to stomach.

I struggled a little when assembling these suckers. At first I put too much filling in each wrapper. The delicate wrappers tore as the cabbage poked through and the edges didn’t really stick together. I ended up putting a scant teaspoon (as opposed to a heaping one) in each wrapper and then crimping the edges with the tines of a fork to make sure they stayed sealed. Since I don’t own a bamboo steamer, I used a regular steel steamer that I placed inside a pot of steaming water. What this meant was I was only able to steam 6 of these at a time, so it ended up being a slow process. The dumplings became rather sticky as they cooked and were difficult to peel off the steamer and also stuck to my rubber tipped tongs. As a result, a few of them tore. Perhaps they wouldn’t stick to a bamboo steamer. Also a few of the dumplings opened up a little. But all in all, the end result was satisfactory for a first attempt. I did not put them in a warm oven, but just let them cool on a serving platter. They actually became less sticky as they cooled (and the surface dried a little). I found that the filling part shrunk considerably as the dumplings cooked, so the “pastry” to filling ratio was rather large. I think this may be resolved if you give the filling a quick stir fry to wilt down the cabbage. That way you can put more filling in each dumpling. This would also allow you to add minced meat to the recipe and not worry about it being raw.

These dumplings turned out quite mild but had a pleasant taste of soy and sesame. I am sure that had I included the ginger and garlic they would have added some kick. I’m not sure how the crunch from the water chestnuts would contrast with the otherwise soft filling (but then, that crunch is precisely what I find off putting about water chestnuts). If you are preparing these for a more adventurous eater who can handle stronger flavors you could add some heat with crushed red pepper flakes. You could also play with flavors with your dipping sauce. I added a little bit of the sesame oil to the soy sauce and it gave the sauce a little more depth. You can also let the filling sit a little before assembling the dumplings to allow the tofu to marinate in the soy sesame oil. The filling might benefit from some acidity from a little rice wine vinegar. This recipe yielded 38 dumplings for me. It was a time consuming recipe mainly because of my small steamer. I started steaming as soon as I had enough to fit in the steamer basket and then continued to assemble as each batch steamed. All in all I spent about two hours making these.

My little taste tester was a little skeptical at first. She has issues with chewy gummy texture, which these dumplings tend to have. The edges were especially chewy, so I ended up biting off a corner and then letting her eat the rest. The filling was very crumbly and the dumplings were a little too delicate for her to feed herself but she did enjoy chomping down and tearing off bites of dumpling as I held them for her. I think I will experiment with other fillings to try to incorporate more vegetables and flavors to these dumplings and figure out a way to make them more sturdy in the hands of a toddler.

Pancakes, Not Just for Breakfast

Being from a Finnish background I am used to the notion of root vegetables being used in all sorts of applications, year-round. I have fond memories of pulling the first carrots out or the ground in my grandparents’ vegetable garden and just dipping them in the rain barrel to get rid of the dirt before eating them. They were no bigger than your pinky finger and so sweet. They were especially precious because we could only have a few since of course we had to leave most of the carrots in the ground to let them grow. We’d eat carrots raw, grated, as slaws, in casseroles, stews, soups, and various decidedly Finnish dishes. But, I have to ask, what better way to get a kid to eat their veggies than to put them inside a pancake?

This recipe for Carrot Pancakes comes from a book called Natural Cooking the Finnish Way by Ulla Kakonen, published in 1974 by Quadrangle. An oldie but a goodie. Out of my several Finnish cookbooks, this is one I keep returning to because of the straightforward authentic recipes. It’s also perhaps the only cookbook I like that doesn’t have pictures. Maybe because so many of the dishes are so familiar to me.

CARROT PANCAKES

½ cup bread crumbs

¾ cup milk or light cream

2 eggs

2 cups grated carrots (about 5 medium carrots – I grated the carrots myself as store bought grated carrots tend to be dry and too coarsely grated for such a delicate batter)

¼ cup unbleached white flower

1 tbs. vegetable oil or melted butter

1 tsp. sea salt, or to taste

Oil or butter for frying

· Soak the bread crumbs in the milk or light cream. Separate the eggs. Mix together grated carrots, milk and bread crumbs, flour, egg yolks, and oil or melted butter. Season with salt. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold in.

(This recipe is pretty technical for me, having to separate eggs and all! Thankfully I have one of those egg separator doohickies. No messing around with egg shells for me. I read somewhere that cooking burns 90 calories an hour and I certainly got an arm work out with the grating and whisking – I didn’t think it was worth dragging out the hand held mixer for 2 egg whites! There’s something very rewarding about whisking egg whites by hand and seeing them transform from a gelatinous goo to a beautiful foam in just a matter of minutes.)

· Heat a pancake pan or a heavy frying pan. With a spoon, drop on the hot greased pan small pancake sized patties and fry them on both sides, until done through. (Another method: Deep fry the batter in oil, by dropping a spoonful of the batter in, as if making doughnuts.) Or bake the batter in an ovenproof casserole at 350F about ½ hour, as a pudding.

(One day I will own a nice cast iron pancake pan but I refuse to spend too much on one. I found a cute one a TJ Maxx but the pancake molds had little animal faces in them so clearly it could only be used for kiddie food and I just don’t have the space in my kitchen for something that would get such limited use, whimsical or not. I found two more at Williams and Sonoma but one pan had molds with rounded bottoms and the other had a sort of waffle design, which just didn’t work for me. For now my pancakes will have a rustic look about them.)

· Serve the pancakes with brown rice. Serve the doughnuts as a snack. The Pudding may be either a main course or a vegetable side dish.

· Serves 4 to 6.

I fried these in a 12” nonstick pan and used an ice cream scoop to measure out the batter. I got 11 pancakes and probably could get 12 if I was a little more careful about scooping consistently. The batter is pretty thick so you should spread it out a little as you “drop” it in the pan. I first tried to fry 4 pancakes at a time but that crowded the pan and I found that 3 at a time were easier to flip. The batter bubbled just like regular pancake batter does when it’s ready to flip. The finished product was a beautiful golden brown pancake with a nice crust and a very fluffy center, probably because of the whisked egg whites. The pancakes are pretty mild with a nice sweet carrot taste. Most importantly, the little nugget gave them her stamp of approval. I think next time around I will play with seasonings a little, perhaps adding some curry powder or fresh parsley to the mix, maybe even grating some apple and lemon rind. I actually added some dried parsley when I made this batch but you couldn’t taste it at all. These are a bit labor intensive to make, what with the grating, whisking and frying, so I would serve these with a roast or something else you can just leave in the oven.