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Doesn't it look yummy?

Chicken and Biscuits a la Jessica Seinfeld

So I have to admit I watch Martha Stewart.  I think she’s a freakin’ genius in the kitchen.  I don’t think though I’ve ever actually made any of her recipes because I just don’t have the time to make everything from scratch.  However, her guests are another thing. I’ve tried recipes that several of her chef or foodie guests have presented because they’re so much more feasible for a normal person with a life. 

Recently Martha had Jessica Seinfeld on her show to promote her new book, Double Delicious. She made some really cool and simple looking breakfast items and I was sold.  I didn’t rush out to buy her book but the next time I was at Costco I happened to notice it in the book section and I picked it up.  This is a continuation from her first book Deceptively Delicious and includes recipes that are appropriate for family meals any time. All recipes include some kind of fruit or vegetable puree.  The pictures are wonderful and the recipes are straightforward and fast.  I’ve made a few of them already and all have been hits with both my picky little girl and almost equally picky husband (wonder where she gets it…). 

I made this Chicken and Biscuits for dinner on one of our recent crazy snowy New England days. It was the perfect comfort food to warm you up on a cold day after spending hours battling the snow! It was really tasty with a hint of sweetness in the biscuits and a wonderful rich gravy. I had to improvise a little since I didn’t have buttermilk and was fresh out of whole wheat flour. So, I googled how to make buttermilk and found a great tip on ehow.com: 1 tbs of white vinegar mixed with 1 cup minus 1 tbs of milk will make a substitute (put the vinegar in a measuring cup and add milk to the 1 cup line and let sit for 5 minutes.) Note: if you try this substitution, this recipe calls for ¾ cups of buttermilk.  Instead of the whole wheat flour, I used enriched unbleached flour.  My substitutions must have gone somehow wrong though since my biscuit dough was too runny and instead of individual biscuits dotted over the chicken, it had a sort of biscuit crust covering the whole thing (I suspect it was the flour).  Still, it wasn’t a bad thing and the biscuit dough definitely had the buttermilky tang to it and cooked up nice and airy.  The recipe serves 6 and between my husband, our daughter, my mom, and me, there was only a tiny bit left over (enough for my daughter to have lunch the next day).  Clearly we all liked it! My little girl actually asked for thirds!  Unfortunately I don’t have a photo to share since my camera’s battery decided to die just as I tried to take some pictures but when I make it again I’ll take some photos and share them.  Probably when I make it again I’ll add some frozen peas to the gravy for some added texture and goodness.  Try the recipe, check out Seinfeld’s website at www.doitdelicious.com and buy her book. 

Ingredients:

1tbs olive oil

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cubed (about 1 pound)

1/8 tsp freshly ground black pepper

1 (8.5 oz) can reduced fat cream of celery soup (no one in our family likes celery so I used cream of mushroom soup and it tasted really good.)

½ cup non fat (skim) milk

½ cup pumpkin, carrot, or sweet potato puree

Biscuit Topping

1 ½ cups whole wheat flour

2 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

½ cup trans-fat-free, soft tub margarine spread

1 large egg, beaten

¼ cup honey

½ tsp cream of tartar

¾ cup low-fat (1%) buttermilk

Procedure:

1.      Heat the oil in a flameproof casserole or Dutch oven over high heat. Sprinkle the chicken with pepper. Add it to the casserole and cook until the chicken begins to brown, 4 to 5 minutes. Stir in the soup, milk, and vegetable puree until all ingredients are well combined. Remove from heat.

2.      Preheat the oven to 375 F. Prepare the biscuits. In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Rub the margarine into the flour with your fingertips until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add the egg, honey, cream of tartar, and buttermilk all at once. Mix just until a soft dough forms. Dot the biscuit dough over the chicken mixture. Bake 20 to 25 minutes, uncovered, until the biscuits are cooked through and golden on top. Serve immediately. 

Prep: 30 minutes

Total: 1 hour

Yield: Serves 6

The time is pretty accurate as I even had time to make carrot puree from scratch (cooking the carrots it my trusty microwave) and still it only took about an hour altogether.  

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. 

Of Fast Food and Mommy Bloggers, the Things That Make us Sane and Drive us Crazy

The February 2011 issue of Family Circle magazine states that 60% of kids eat fast food every day. It is a statistic in the sidebar of an article about a program that teaches kids how to grow and cook fresh, healthy meals.  The article didn’t refer to or explain the statistic so it’s not clear whether it’s the same 60% of kids eating fast food every day of their lives or that on any given day 60% of all kids eat fast food.  The former would be pretty tragic, but the latter isn’t all that good either.  No wonder we have a childhood obesity epidemic in our country.  If you are ever curious about the nutritional “value” of the fast food you eat, check out www.calorieking.com (it’s a fee-based diet website but you can look up nutritional values of tons of restaurant menu items, processed food items, and fresh foods without joining or paying).  It’s pretty shocking.  

I think we all try to provide the best foods for our families but sometimes it gets challenging, if not overwhelming.  Whether we have one child or several, whether we work or stay at home, as moms we are juggling so many balls that the Martha Stewart from scratch approach to cooking is simply not an option.  Through blogs, magazines, and TV shows we’re bombarded with examples of fabulous moms who cook beautiful healthy meals for their families and are seemingly perfect in all other arenas of life too.  Yes, we wish we could be like these moms; we buy their books and religiously follow their blogs. But I think we all secretly hate them for their perfection and for making us feel, well, not perfect.  A friend of mine recently mentioned she was thinking of “unliking” a mommy food blogger’s facebook page simply because she felt she could not keep up with this superwoman’s constant posts about the fantastic food her kids were eating.  It was a tongue in cheek remark but it was followed by a very interesting discussion about the reality of our hectic lives and the food we actually manage to serve our kids.  Yes, we’d all love to make our own panko breaded fish sticks (after making breadcrumbs from homemade bread, of course) but we shouldn’t beat ourselves up for getting help from the freezer aisle once in a while.  After all, we’re just trying to stay sane!

Getting back to the fast food issue, I can probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of times my two year old has eaten junk food in her life, and it’s just as often as I’ve eaten junk food in the last two years.  I’m not a junk food junkie, but that’s not to say I cook from scratch every day. I’m definitely a devotee of the semi-homemade/30-minute meal/quick fix etc. concepts. And I do on occasion serve chicken nuggets and frozen French fries, but I still try to make sure the products I buy are natural, free of antibiotics and preservatives, and generally have as few ingredients as possible.  What bugs me though is you still can’t escape the sugars, sodium and other additives when you do this, but making soup using frozen veggies and canned or boxed broth is still better than serving up canned soup or, God forbid picking up dinner at the drive through.  So, if we use the fast food statistic as a yardstick, I think I’m doing OK, and so probably are you. As convenient as the store bought prepared foods are, I am slowly cutting them out of rotation and replacing them with healthier homemade alternatives but I probably will never make my own fish sticks!

What about you?  How much help do you get from the store and how do you feel about it?

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.  

Sloppy Joe? Sloppy NO!

Recently, during the all too short time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, which this year flew by even faster with a new baby in the house I decided to take some dinner help from a can of Sloppy Joe mix. Touting a serving of vegetables in each portion, it seemed a home run.  A sure thing. What could go wrong?  To top it off the stuff was on sale at the store. But then again, I have a feeling it always is. Since dinner was coming out of a can, I even decided to lay off my health kick and bought white Kaiser rolls to go with the Sloppy Joes.  Why be a kill joy and try to offer up whole wheat rolls?

In the sliver of time I had between breastfeeding sessions, I browned some ground beef, cracked open a can of Sloppy Joe, mixed the two, and voila! Dinner was done.  Now, I did not grow up eating Sloppy Joes, but judging from the sheer Sloppy Joe induced glee of the kids I’ve babysat over the years, this stuff is like manna from heaven.  Plus my little one loves any kind of food that’s messy to eat. The messier the better, and what’s messier than ground beef mixed with tomato sauce, eaten with your hands? The name itself couldn’t be clearer about its messy nature.  I was so proud of myself when I delivered Missy’s plate, fully expecting to be able to sit back and let her have at it, whilst making a megabath worthy mess. I was already planning to stock up on ingredients for a healthier home-made Sloppy Joe mix that could become a staple of our dinner table.  I’m sure you, dear reader already know where this is headed. 

Missy would not even give it a try. I’m talking hysterical wailing, flailing arms and kicking legs.  Who would have thought food could elicit such a passionate response?  I know it’s supposed to take up to ten tries for a kid to accept new foods, but I’m not sure I’m willing to go through that kind of drama that many times.  What I didn’t get is this kid loves the main components of a Sloppy Joe: tomato sauce, ground beef, bread. None of the flavors were new and I didn’t think the veggies hidden in the mix could possibly come through strongly enough to be a turn off for the kid, but still it was a no go.  Even my fail safe trick of eating off mommy’s plate didn’t work (not fail safe anymore, I guess).  Maybe next time I need to try a deconstructed Sloppy Joe… Let’s see, freeze dried tomatoes, vegetable crisps, beef Carpaccio, and toasted croutons.  I think I’ve been watching too many cheffy shows. 

Giving Thanks and Holiday Feasts

I both love and hate this time of year. I love it for all the cooking shows and magazines full of fall and holiday recipes (that I drool over yet never make). I hate it because those same shows and magazines are a painful reminder that my husband and I are separated from our immediate families by a great big ocean and hours upon hours of travel that costs a bomb.  Oops, maybe I shouldn’t use the words “travel” and “bomb” in the same sentence… In any case, it’s around the holidays that I really miss family.  To be sure, my husband has extended family who are all very close to us and with whom we have spent recent Thanksgivings and Christmases.  We also have our share of friends that have become an extended family of sorts. But still, when you’re bombarded with ads showing happy families gathering around the table and children returning home from faraway places while coffee is brewing in the kitchen, you can’t help but feel a little empty.  I was recently talking about this very thing with a friend of mine who finds herself in a similar situation to ours. As a recent transplant to a new city not only does she miss her family and friends, but she feels extremely isolated because it seems everyone around her is gearing up for celebrating the Holidays with large family gatherings.  My take on this is that being separated from one’s family is actually more common than we all might think and that these cheesy holiday ads represent an ideal and not a norm. Families are scattered these days due to employment, deployment, or because they just don’t plain get along.  And not everyone can afford to travel even if they wanted to. 

Now that we are a family unit of our very own complete with our two year old little missy and less than 2 week old little guy I think it’s time to start thinking of establishing our own holiday traditions, especially when it comes to food.  With my Finnish background and my husband’s Irish heritage we have lots of dishes and traditions to draw upon.  I realize that my timing is not exactly on point with Thanksgiving a day away, but I have to start somewhere.  Thanksgiving was going to be a bit of a throwaway this year anyway as my son was due to be born a week later, and then decided to throw us a curveball by showing up a little early.  Not only that but with my gestational diabetes, I didn’t exactly feel like partaking in any feasts.  So, there is no turkey thawing in our fridge and no plans for oodles of the traditional side dishes.  But still, I feel the need to do something special.  Now, some of you may be gasping in horror that there will be no turkey, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, and biscuits in our household.  But really, is that necessary?  My husband doesn’t even like turkey, so what would be the point of making it, especially when you can’t seem to find any birds smaller than 20 pounds? 

This year, our menu will include a spiral ham, green bean casserole, Brussels sprouts, and potatoes of some sort.  Yeah, it’s pretty simple and not a lot of food but there are only three adults (with my mother here to help with the baby) and one very picky toddler, so why torture ourselves with loads of food to prepare and tons of leftovers?  And why put myself out cooking a feast when I am still recovering from giving birth and need to feed my baby every couple of hours?  Honestly, I’d rather spend that time bonding with my little man.  I am no Martha Stewart, so the ham is pre-cooked and just needs to be heated, the green bean casserole will be made with canned ingredients and the potatoes might, just might be a boxed mashed variety I have in my pantry (perhaps jazzed up a bit with cream cheese or something). The only fresh ingredient is the Brussels sprouts!  But the idea is to enjoy a nice meal with my family and contemplate the things for which we are thankful. Isn’t that what Thanksgiving is really about?  Oh, and since I do not have gestational diabetes anymore, there will be dessert; apple spice caramel cake (store bought). 

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.  

Wordless Wednesday

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.  

Breakfast for Lunch

I knew I was taking a big risk planning to make an omelet for the little one for lunch since the former queen of quiche and lover of all styles of egg has long been turning her nose up at anything to do with eggs (unless they are in cookie form…) but I thought maybe bacon would entice her to eat the egg… that and a healthy dose of ketchup. So, for lunch I offered up a thoroughly uninspired but filling cheese omelet, bacon, and Heinz vegetarian baked beans.

These beans are not quite like the smoky molasses beaked beans you or I might be used to but more like the ones you would find in the Irish section of the supermarket, in a sweet tomato sauce. My husband, being Irish refuses to try this version of his childhood favorite purely on nostalgic grounds. But for the price difference between an imported can of beans and a “home grown” can (both by Heinz, mind you) I see no substantial difference in taste. Of course growing up I thought the British version of beans was simply vile so there are no nostalgic memories of eating beans on toast at the kitchen table for me. My memories are more along the lines of forcing down the nasty concoction, which was all too frequently part of my school cafeteria lunch (I’m shuddering just thinking about it). I’m happy to say though that I have since expanded my palate to be able to enjoy these little tomato-ey legumes, particularly when served alongside a proper Irish breakfast (that will have to be another post).

The bacon, I am very excited to share is Stop and Shop’s Natures Promise brand, which is uncured, and nitrite and antibiotic free. I recently discovered it on the top shelf of the bacon display tucked away in the corner. I don’t know if it’s a new thing or if I’ve just never seen it before (since I don’t make it a habit to peruse the bacon shelf too often), but it has become a favorite. It has a nice but mild maple flavor and is not too salty. And of course the major selling point to me as a mom and mom-to-be was the uncured, antibiotic and nitrite free part. I can confidently feed it to my little one and eat it myself, knowing it is not harming us.

I have in the past struggled royally with making a decent omelet. The eggs always have seemed to fall apart and it’s turned more into a scramble with stuff in it. Recently I happened upon Julia Child’s PBS episode on omelets and had an epiphany of sorts. I was shocked to see simply how much butter she used in her omelet pan, but it really worked. Julia’s omelet slid nicely in the pan as she shook it, on that lake of melted butter and then slid effortlessly onto the plate. Whereas my omelets have always stuck to my non-stick pans, even with some oil. That was my problem; I never used enough fat. Silly me, thought non-stick actually meant food wouldn’t stick to it. So, a while back I thought, why waste that lovely bacon grease? Why not use it instead of butter for an omelet. I think I need to add a little disclaimer here that we don’t often eat bacon and omelets, so those of you who might be gagging at the thought of all that grease can relax. Also, with the pan hot enough, the eggs don’t soak up the grease and with enough practice you can slide the omelet out of the pan and leave most of the grease behind. You can of course wipe off some of the grease with a paper towel before making your omelet too. But I have to say that with the well oiled pan, I have not had a problem with the eggs sticking and I haven’t really even needed a spatula when de-panning (if that’s a word) except to just guide the omelet to fold over. My only downfall has been that I can’t seem to make my omelets perfectly pale yellow like Julia did, which is how they are “supposed” to be, but I don’t really mind a little brown on my eggs!

Today’s omelet was a simple Swiss cheese version made with 3 eggs and 3 slices of Jarlsberg, since momma was making enough for both of us. Little missy had about a third of it, while momma ate the rest. Missy’s slice was slathered with ketchup, just to be on the safe side. Maybe it was the ketchup, but she thought it was pizza. I wasn’t about to correct her because that meant she was eager to put the first piece in her mouth. Thankfully she kept eating it after that. The bacon she outright refused even when I tried to convince her that she was really missing out. But I think it’s a texture thing. The bacon is just too chewy. After most of the pizza omelet had been devoured missy turned her attention to the beans, which were in a separate bowl. I don’t know about you, but I have greater success when I present foods separately. This is when the messy fun began. She allowed me to feed her the first couple of forkfuls but then wanted to feel herself. At first she allowed me to guide her hand in stabbing the beans and moving the fork to her mouth but soon Little Miss Independent wanted to do it all by herself. She stuck with the fork for a little longer, managing to stab one bean at a time. Most of them even made it into her mouth. But soon she ditched the fork for her hands. Ah yes, sauce was everywhere and those slippery little things had a way of slipping onto her lap, where they wound up smushed under her butt. But you know what? The important thing was that she actually ate the eggs and beans. That was a small victory in and of itself.

Braised Carrot Soup

After my success with cream of broccoli soup I’ve been on the lookout for other soup recipes to get my little girl to eat those pesky veggies. Hannaford’s free monthly in-store magazine recently featured an interesting looking braised carrot soup recipe that met my requirements for cooking: short ingredient list and few steps. Carrots are another one of those veggies that Little Missy used to eat at the puree stage but has refused since then, no matter what form they took. Given that I had everything needed already in my pantry, this recipe was definitely worth a try. The recipe originally appeared in This Crazy Vegan Life by Christina Pirello and all ingredients are organic or natural, though I used regular stuff (perhaps I will write a post about the whole organic debate some day).

Braised Carrot Soup (serves 4, 25 minutes prep time)

Ingredients:
4tsp extra virgin olive oil, divided

1 tbs balsamic vinegar (can be pricey but I buy the cheapest stuff I can find at the grocery store)

1 ½ tsp sea salt, plus additional to taste, divided (I just used regular old table salt)

6-8 carrots, cut into small chunks

½ yellow onion, diced

2 Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and diced (I used the red skinned potatoes already in my fridge)

Scant pinch of ground nutmeg

4 cups water

2 sprigs finely shredded fresh mint, leaves removed (the one item I do not stock, so I left this out, I substituted a shake of dried parsley)

· Process:
Place 2 teaspoons of oil, vinegar, and ½ teaspoon salt in large, flat bottomed skillet set over medium heat. Arrange carrots in oil mixture, avoiding as much overlap as possible.

· Cover skillet and listen closely for strong sizzle sound. When you hear this, reduce heat to low and cook until carrots are tender and liquid has become a thick syrup. 15 to 20 minutes (depending on size of carrots). I have to say here that there wasn’t much liquid to form a syrup. While the carrots were braising I peeled and diced the onion and potatoes.

· In large saucepan, place remaining 2 teaspoons of oil and diced onion over medium heat. When onion sizzles, add a pinch of salt. Sauté for 1 to 2 minutes. Add potatoes, nutmeg, braised carrots, and water. (I sautéed the potatoes for a few minutes before adding the carrots and water to allow carrots to cook completely and to develop some flavor in the potatoes. I also added a few shakes of curry powder to the potato onion mixture at this stage since I think carrots and curry make a wonderful flavor combination. Because the braising did not produce much liquid but definitely left lots of flavor on the bottom of pan carrot, I transferred the sautéed potatoes and onion into the carrot braising pan to make the most of those flavors. After adding the water, I added a tablespoon of no sodium chicken bouillon powder and a shake of dried parsley for even more flavor.)

· Bring to a boil, cover, and reduce heat to low. Cook until potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes. Season with 1 teaspoon of salt. Simmer for 5 minutes more.

· With ladle, transfer soup o food processor and puree until smooth. Return to pot and warm through. Serve garnished with mint.

This recipe produced a wonderfully flavorful, thick, deep orange soup. I would recommend serving it as a side with any meat dish. It can even make a nice complement to a sandwich or salad for lunch. The curry I added did not feature very prominently in the final product so in the future I’ll add even more, or even add some garam masala powder for a little more kick. Hubby’s one comment, which was preceded by, “well, you know I don’t eat soup,” was that it could use pepper. I added some freshly ground black pepper to my bowl, but left it out of the pot since I was making it for Little Missy and didn’t want to overwhelm her with the pepper.

Little Missy enjoyed the soup very much, and we even have a new word: soup! I think this soup could be replicated with a host of fall veggies like pumpkin or butternut squash and made more complex with the addition of other root veggies like parsnip and turnip and perhaps even some sugar free apple sauce or some diced apple at the sauté stage. One thing I loved about the recipe is that it does not call for cream or milk but still produced a nice thick soup thanks to the potatoes. I apologize for not having a photo to share. I certainly should have taken a picture of the carrots as they were braising as they developed a beautiful deep brown color from the balsamic vinegar. If you’re nervous about the vinegar, it is barely noticeable as a separate flavor but definitely adds some depth to the soup overall. If you’re adventurous you could try garnishing the soup with a drizzle of some good balsamic or olive oil. You could even add a dollop of sour cream if you wanted to make it richer, though it certainly is not lacking as it is. A final note about the prep time: the recipe says prep time is 25 minutes, but cooking time is around 45 minutes.

Baked Tilapia Two Ways (Hint: There’s Gold Fish in this one)

My cooking has been sidelined lately after a gestational diabetes diagnosis, which requires a strict low carbohydrate, no sugar diet. I’ve never been one to read labels or think too much about portion sizes, so getting used to this new way of eating has been difficult to say the least. I can’t imagine subjecting my family to the same dietary restrictions as I have, so I am still trying to figure out how to cook for myself and the fam without going absolutely stir crazy. One thing I will say is this new diet has been a huge eye opener in terms of portion sizes and how much sugar is in everything. Apparently a serving of ice cream is just half a cup, basically what you get on one scoop! In the first weekend on this diet, I actually managed to lose a little over 2 pounds, mainly because I was so freaked out about the carbs that I wasn’t paying attention to getting enough calories. That is not the best thing for a pregnant lady! This meal of baked tilapia represents my first attempt at cooking for all of us and actually making real food for myself, as opposed to cottage cheese and vegetable sticks! As with many of my other meals, I relied on the contents of my pantry and freezer for this one. I’ve tried making baked breaded fish before and the breading has always tended to slip off the fish in a mushy mess. On a whim a while back I decided to try ground up Gold Fish Crackers instead of bread crumbs, and voila! The breading stayed on and actually tasted good too!

Baked Tilapia

Frozen tilapia loins

Extra virgin olive oil, approx 1 tbs

Ground up Gold Fish Crackers, cheddar flavor. Approx 1-2 tbs per tilapia loin.

Pepper to taste

1-2 tbs butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Place frozen tilapia loins in baking or lasagna pan

Brush lightly with EVOO

Sprinkle ground up Gold Fish crackers on each tilapia loin

Sprinkle freshly ground black pepper on each loin (there is no need for salt as the crackers are salted)

Place little nubs of butter on each tilapia loin (you can leave this out if you wish. I have made the dish with and without the butter)

For extra flavor, you can sprinkle other spices or herbs of your choice on the fish

Bake for 30-40 minutes or until the fish is tender and flaky

Since I’m not allowed to eat the breading, I covered my tilapia with lemon slices. This is a very nice alternative to the breading. The lemon kept the fish moist and delivered a nice fresh flavor to the fish.

I served the tilapia with baked butternut squash lightly sprinkled with brown sugar and pepper, quinoa cooked in chicken broth with peas, and roasted broccoli sprinkled with grated parmesan. The fish was well received by my daughter, and why not? She LOVES Gold Fish (she calls them Nemo). She wasn’t so keen on the quinoa and butternut squash though. I was not so surprised about the quinoa but she’s devoured the butternut squash before. Maybe I didn’t put enough brown sugar on it this time…I didn’t even try to give her the broccoli, which I made mainly for myself since the butternut squash would have been a no no with the sugar. I had never actually tried to roast broccoli before and I was pleasantly surprised by its nutty flavor compared to the typical steamed broccoli flavor. I prepared it by lightly brushing frozen broccoli florets with EVOO and sprinkling some black pepper on them. I added the grated parmesan when the broccoli came out of the oven.

Who wants pizza?

One of our staple freezer meals is pizza but I always hate the feeling of dying of thirst afterwards, not to mention the fact that you are limited to the few standard options for toppings that are available at your store’s freezer section. The other night I decided to go for it and make my own pizza dough. Not being one to really like planning ahead, waiting for up to a day for the dough to rise, as many recipes call for just isn’t an option for me. But I found a recipe by Giada De Laurentiis on www.foodnetwork.com that only requires a total of 3 hours of rising time. Now that I can handle. So it was actually in the afternoon that I decided to go for it, to have pizza for dinner.

For my hubs I made the typical onion and pepperoni. For myself I made something that I’ve been craving lately. A mix of toppings that my cousin and I would make weekly one particular summer in our teens: tuna, onion, and pineapple. A sort of variation on the Hawaiian, I suppose. For the tomato sauce I just used a store brand can of crushed tomato. I’m not a big fan of the prepared pizza sauces. They tend to be too salty and otherwise over seasoned. The plain crushed tomato has a clean bright taste that doesn’t distract from the other toppings. For cheese I used shredded mozzarella. The crust came out fairly thin but still chewy and not too dry or crunchy. The hubs gave his pizza a big thumbs up and actually devoured the entire 13 inch pie! I was very happy with mine and suffered major pregnancy related heartburn that night because I ate way too much. Missy was already in bed, so she got her pizza for lunch the next day.

I must say I was quite amazed when I was rolling out the dough and topping Missy’s lunch pizza. She also got a variation of the Hawaiian, with turkey breast instead of ham, and finely diced onions. For the half hour or so that it took to roll, top and bake the pizza, she was dancing around the kitchen singing, “Pizza, pizza, pizza!” It’s not like she gets pizza all the time. She’s had it maybe once before. I really couldn’t understand how she knew to be so excited about it. She even ran off to grab her baby doll and pressed the doll’s face into the oven window! With all that anticipation I was actually nervous when it was ready. What if she didn’t like it? Then what? Thankfully I didn’t have to find out because she devoured her slice and even nibbled on the edges of a second slice. In fact she was so enamored of the pizza that at dinner time, she started up her pizza song and dance again and I thought for a moment that she’d refuse to eat her fish sticks and veggie sticks (yeah, momma doesn’t cook for every meal). Thankfully though she did eat her dinner.

Even though making the pizza dough was quite a bit of work, since it makes enough for three 13 inch pizzas (or two larger ones) you could easily feed a family of three or four with one pizza and some sides and with the same effort make enough dough for two or three meals. Considering the pizza dough probably cost $2 at the most (it’s just flour, water, and yeast after all), it also makes for a super economical meal. Even your toppings won’t add that much to the cost. The recipe doesn’t mention anything about freezing, but I’m assuming you can put a ball of dough in a freezer bag and pop it in the freezer if you don’t intend to use it all right away.

Here is the pizza dough recipe and directions for baking.

Pizza Dough

Recipe courtesy Giada De Laurentiis

Prep Time:

15 min

Inactive Prep Time:

3 hr 0 min

Cook Time:

--

Level:

Intermediate

Serves:

3 (13-ounce) balls of dough

Ingredients

· 1 1/2 cups warm water, 100 to 110 degrees F, plus extra as needed

· 1 (1/4-ounce) packet active dry yeast

· 5 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra as needed

· 1 1/2 teaspoons fine sea salt

· Olive oil, for drizzling

Directions

Put the water in a small bowl. Add the yeast and stir until dissolved.

In a large bowl, whisk the flour and salt together. Add the yeast mixture and stir until a soft dough forms. If the dough is too dry, add a little extra water, 1 tablespoon at a time. If the dough is too sticky, add extra flour, 1 tablespoon at a time. Transfer the dough to a floured work surface. With floured hands, knead the dough until it becomes smooth and elastic, about 10 to 12 minutes. Drizzle the inside of a clean bowl with olive oil. Put the dough in the bowl and cover loosely with plastic wrap or a damp kitchen towel. Set the bowl in a warm, draft-free place, until the dough has doubled in size, about 2 hours.

Using a fist, deflate the dough in the center and cut it into 3 equal-sized pieces. Form the dough pieces into 3 balls and put into 3 oiled bowls. Cover each bowl loosely with plastic wrap or a damp kitchen towel and let rest for 1 hour. Remove the dough and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate for up to 1 day.

I needed longer than the 10-12 minutes the recipe states for kneading the dough but then the recipe I scribbled down months ago said to use 4 cups of flour and 1 cup of water. I did end up adding several table spoons of water to make the dough smooth and elastic and it took quite a bit of kneading (maybe 20 minutes). I also added 1 tsp of sugar as food for the yeast to make sure the dough would rise. Here is a link to the recipe as well as a video of Giada making it.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/pizza-dough-recipe/index.html

http://www.foodnetwork.com/videos/pizza-dough/53151.html

Now you would think that the logical next steps in the directions would be rolling out the dough, topping it and baking it, but you need to search for a pizza recipe (as opposed to a pizza dough recipe) to get those steps. Giada has a recipe for a Caramelized onion, sausage and basil pizza that seemingly uses the same pizza dough. I haven’t tried it, but it sounds tasty. Here is the link for the complete recipe if you want to try it: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/caramelized-onion-sausage-and-basil-pizza-recipe/index.html

I have copied the relevant parts of getting the dough ready for toppings and baking it below. The way I see it, once you have the basic instructions, you can use whatever toppings you like, which is what I did for our pizza.

Ingredients

· Cornmeal, for dusting

· Extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling

· All-purpose flour, for dusting

Directions

Put an oven rack in the center of the oven. Preheat the oven to 475 degrees F. Sprinkle a heavy baking sheet (without sides) with cornmeal and set aside.

On a lightly floured work surface, roll out the dough into a 13-inch diameter circle, about 1/4-inch thick. Transfer the dough to the prepared baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil (supposedly this prevents the crust from getting soggy from the toppings). Spread the [toppings] evenly over the dough, leaving a 1-inch border. Sprinkle the cheese on top. Bake until the crust is golden and the cheese has melted, about 15 to 17 minutes. Remove from the oven. Cut the pizza into wedges and serve.

Quite simple really. I feel like I can tackle other dough recipes now. And I have to say there is something quite rewarding about having your hands covered in flour and seeing these simple ingredients come together as a dough.