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Wednesday, September 24th, 2008

Weekly Menu Planning

I’ve been really thinking about menu planning.  Well, thinking about thinking about it.  It’s not something I do or something that I’ve ever done before but I can definitely see how putting in the time could really be beneficial.  I tried this week, I scrawled out some notes on a scrap of paper and called it a menu plan, if you can even call it a menu plan.

Here’s where I started.  We picked up some supplies at Costco this weekend and they had nice wild caught salmon so I bought some.  I also picked up a container of fresh buffalo mozzarella for no particular reason.  So really, this whole week was built around those two items.

On monday, I cut the filet into smaller steaks and prepared them with simple boiled potatoes and blanched peas.  There was a little of everything leftover so that’s where I started.  My plan looks something like this:

Tuesday: creamy pasta with salmon and peas.

Wednesday: pizza (theoretically using the mozzarella)

Thursday: chicken soup (from a frozen carcass tossed in the freezer before leaving for the wedding and whatever veg is on hand)

Friday: ?

Pretty good no?  I thought I would use the last of the bread dough in the fridge for the pizza but when they say use within 2 weeks they don’t mean 2 weeks and 3 days.  Oh, and I didn’t have any tomatoes or tomato sauce.  So, I had to improvise I superheated the oven with the pizza stone inside and spread some sun-dried tomato tapenade onto huge flour tortillas, topped with the cheese and popped them onto the pizza stone until the tortilla was crispy and the cheese was melted.  I made a nice little salad with some boston lettuce and  lemony vinaigrette and put it right on top of the crisp pizza.  Eat with fork and knife… and done.  I thought it was extremely tasty for 10 minutes of effort.  

The creamy salmon pasta was really good too and really easy.  I just sweated some onions in a little olive oil, tossed in a crushed clove of garlic and then added plenty of half and half with a splash of skim for good measure.  I simmered the cream while the pasta cooked, pulled the noodles out a minute or two early and finished them in the cream with the peas and salmon.  I cut the noodles up for Chase and she loved it, even ate the peas.  

Friday is still up in the air, maybe a certain someone will treat me to dinner out.. if I’m lucky.  Tomorrow: the unauthorized report of the day before Chelsea’s wedding (with pictures!). 

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Thursday, July 10th, 2008

My Helper

Dinnertime used to be hard.  It was a constant juggling of entertaining Chase, keeping her from destroying something and getting food on the table.  It’s getting better though, at 18 months she’s a pretty good helper and rolling up her sleeves and getting her hands dirty seems to be something she’s into.  These are a few things that she can do in the kitchen to help with dinner:

Dump- things I’ve chopped into a pot.

Season- food with salt and pepper from little bowls.

Add- ingredients like bay leaves from a bag or container, a shake of dried herbs, a scoop of flour or a spoonful of cinnamon.

Stir- we made this brine for a chicken diablo recipe Erin gave us and Chase loooved stirring the big tup of brine. 

Mash- she can get a pretty good smash using a pastry blender instead of a regular potato masher.

Oh, and taste.  She makes a fine taster.

How do you get your little ones involved in the kitchen?  We’ll be MIA for a few days but I’ll catch up with you next week!

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Monday, June 30th, 2008

Sugaring Off

This could very well be the single most money-saving post ever for us hairy gals.  I remembered my mother having a friend that made a homemade wax concoction for waxing legs.  This is the information age right?  You bet, everything you need to know about the home hair removal process called sugaring is right there at the tip of your fingers… I mean fingertips, honestly, who writes like that?  

If you Google sugaring you’ll get lots of hits but this page has some good tips.  I had to make it twice before getting it right.  I think that the key, like this person says, is to not let it boil too hard.  I got impatient the first time and cranked the heat and it was hot, like molten hot right up until the time it turned rock hard and unusable.  I didn’t end up using a thermometer so you can do this without it.  The one I have ended up going off way before the mixture even started to color so I knew it was off.  I did use a glass of water to see if the sugar would hold together when dropped in.  If you search sugaring on youtube you’ll find yet more info about it.  It will look about like this:

It totally worked and I am happy to have 42 more bucks in my pocket every month.  I didn’t even wax my eyebrows off.  

My second sugary topic is about jam.  We went back to Shaw’s and picked blueberries and cherries.  You HAVE to make this jam.  This jam is out of this world.  I found it poking around the internet for recipes.  It really delivers.  I increased the lemon juice by a tablespoon and decreased the vinegar accordingly.  Obviously I didn’t use frozen berries and it didn’t make a difference.  Now for all the cherries.  The trees were just dripping with fruit.  They were so easy to pick that even Chase filled a bucket.  You just put your hands up into the leaves and you would come back with a handful of ripe red cherries.  It was my first time picking cherries but by far the easiest of the fruits we’ve tried recently and by far the most fun.. you know, cause you can get dad up on a ladder.    That’s always good for a few laughs.  

I did proper canning this time but I did make one serving for immediate consumption.  I was sitting around last night complaining that my back was sore, that I felt bruised and then later realized that my underwear was too tight.  So tight that it made my back hurt?  You think it’s because I ate almost a whole loaf of bread slathered in jam?  It was worth it!

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Tuesday, June 17th, 2008

Fresh From the Farm

A belated happy father’s day to all.  What can I say?  I know it’s Tuesday but in in my defense I thought it was Monday all day to the point where I found myself standing in the Red Canoe asking what happened to story time.  The weekend as uneventful and quiet, perfect for us homebodies.  On Saturday we visited Shaw Orchards to to pick your own strawberries.  Doing some quick research I found that there is a pick your own that’s closer but the Shaw website promised a tractor ride and they did not disappoint.  The tractor ride was THE highlight of the day for Chase.  I picked a flat of strawberries which is way too many for the three of us.  I made one batch of freezer jam and since I don’t have any other bright ideas it looks like another batch of freezer jam it is assuming that I can find enough containers.  Somewhere in here a case of canning jars is hiding and laughing at me.  Here are a couple of pics from the day.  

It took us about an hour to get there but it was a straight shot from the city and very scenic once we turned exited off of 83.  We plan on going back to cherries, blackberries and blueberries as soon as they are ready, which they promise will be soon.  

I did some checking in the garden today and everything seems to be in full swing!  There are tiny little veggies on all the plants.  I can’t wait to eat a tomato.  I’m lying, I can’t wait to eat a BLT.  I bought about 10 pounds of bacon on Sunday in preparation.  

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Tuesday, June 10th, 2008

Cooking From the Farmer’s Market- Kohlrabi

It was hot hot hot today.  Everyone’s talking about beating the heat.  Except me.  Sometimes when the AC is on I forget that I don’t want to heat up the entire house baking two stuffing muffins.  I thought my idea was pure genius.  I had cornbread crumbs leftover from some smashed muffins that I made a few days ago.  I was going to bake stuffing muffins as a side for pork chops so that they didn’t go to waste.  Brilliant, for November or December.  I devised plan B to avoid the oven.  I soaked the pork chops in a ‘brine’ of milk and kosher salt, a technique I learned from the Magnolia Kitchen cookbook.  Well, I didn’t actually ‘learn’ it, I just followed the recipe and then returned the book before I remembered to do any further investigation, sigh.  Dipped in egg and then coated in the cornbread crumbs that I seasoned with salt and pepper.  I pan fried them in a little olive oil.  I thought that they came out looking pretty tasty if nothing else but they tasted pretty good too.  

Growing up I remember my grandmother talking about, growing and picking kohlrabi but I do not remember eating it.  I don’t know what made me ask the lady to put it in my bag when all I needed were the spring onions and basil, I guess I was feeling dangerous.  I have a copy of Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.  It’s been re-released for its 10th anniversary so the library copy is all new and sleek.  I’m going to have to invest in this one.  Not only are the recipes reliable and delicious but the information about obscure veg, like kohlrabi, is useful too.  I prepared the kohlrabi following the directions in the book.  Remove leaves, peel, cut the bulb part into matchsticks and steam for 5-7 minutes.  I shocked them to stop the cooking and then dressed them with a dollop of sour cream, a teaspoon of horseradish, a sprinkle of dill and salt and pepper… voila kohlrabi with horseradish, from page 384.  

Served with a salad the whole shebang took about 30 minutes to prepare (not including brining time).  To get the timing right, I started the kohlrabi, prepped the chops while it cooked, put the chops on to cook and finished the kohlrabi in the meantime and then tossed together a quick salad.  Done!

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Monday, June 2nd, 2008

Short and Sweet

A-ha!

Water, measuring spoons and a paint brush occupied Chase painting and measuring on the deck while I made dinner.  

Cleaning out the cupboards

We’re still out of AP flour.  I made the same old shortbread but subbed in 3/4 of a cup of oat flour and 1/2 a cup of cake flour to rave reviews.  Here’s how they looked packed up for my mid-class snack.

Cooking from the farmer’s market

I hate beets but my resolve to cook and eat fresh had me buy a bunch in spite of this.  I used a recipe from Deborah Madison’s book Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone that I borrowed from the library.  This is the second time that I’ve borrowed it I think I’m going to invest.  Super simple… grate three pounds of beets on a box grater (they will dye your hands, I learned the hard way).  Melt on tbsp butter in a skillet, add beets and cook briefly, stirring.  Season with S and P, add 1/4 water cover and cook over medium heat for another 3-5 minutes.  Remove lid and cook out any remaining liquid (I didn’t have any)  Stir in a tbsp balsamic vinegar (you could also use red wine vin or lemon juice).  Taste for seasoning and stir in 2 tbsp chopped parsley.  This might be a little off the original but is pretty much how I made it.  I will definitely make them this way again if for no other reason than to change up the veg every now and again, even Chase ate it. 

 

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Tuesday, May 13th, 2008

Hi There

Now that I don’t HAVE to sit at my computer it’s hard to motivate myself to post. Sunday was commencement. I still can hardly believe that they actually called my name. I was sure that at the last minute someone would rip the rug out from under me and I’d find out I was one credit short or somesuch. Talk about an emotional roller coaster. I think Erin hit the nail on the head when she said it was probably some colossal mind game on the part of the administration. I barely held it together. Only the fear of being remembered as the only person weeping at their graduation kept me from totally falling apart.

Things have been pretty low key here since then. I am fighting the customary cold that always descends upon me at the end of the semester. It comes like clockwork as soon as the last task, in this case graduation, is completed. We’ve just been hanging out. Now that the rain has finally stopped we were able to get out a little today and walked to the grocery store this morning and then to the park this afternoon. It’s been a long time since Chase has fallen asleep in my arms but she was close tonight. We’ve had a busy week but I’m inclined to think that she is having a growth spurt or something. She strikes me as unusually sleepy.

I completed another project. I loved the first bubble so much that I made her another. This fabric was so much easier to work with than the last stuff. It’s impossible to be intimidated by working with knits after having handled that… whatever that hideous gauzy stuff was. I have to give credit to my machine though, I don’t think I could have done it without my viking. That machine has totally revolutionized sewing for me. I have the base computerized model but now that I have worked with a computerized machine I will never.. ever go back… ever. The instruction manual is about 10 pages long, thus I actually read it. The most important piece of information in there is that most problems can be solved by either rethreading or using a new needle and it turns out to be 100% true. I have not yet had a problem that wasn’t solved one of those two ways. Not to mention that the thing doesn’t have to be oiled ever! I think it’s time she was given a name don’t you?

We had leftovers for dinner tonight. I kind of like leftovers, leftovers are kind of my “thing.” I have something of a reputation among my friends for coming up with creative ways to turn leftovers into something a little bit snappy. Ben grilled ribeye steaks for us on mother’s day. I have a few go to’s for leftover grilled meats but as I am feeling a little under the weather I wasn’t in the mood for any of my old standbys. I poked through the fridge and freezer and came up with several half bags of veg and a sheet of puff pastry and steak potpie was born. I made a little roux and then a sauce with chicken stock and a little milk with a little dollop of horseradish. It was quite good. I stuffed the leftover bits of pastry with frozen raspberries for a dessert treat.

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Friday, May 9th, 2008

The Bubble

I have so many things to write about. I’ll begin by simply saying that you can tell you had a good day when your head is pounding from all the cheap tequila. Today was a great day in spite of the crappy weather.

1. Went to the doctor today for a checkup with my new GP. I brought Chase with me and got there at 9:15 for my 9:30 appointment. At 9:30 the nurse put us back in the exam room to wait for the doc and told me to don a paper gown. I donned said gown and waited… and waited. Do you have any idea how long you can chase a toddler around in a paper gown before it falls away in tatters? Yea, there’s a reason that we don’t wear paper clothes. It was already hanging on by a thread when Chase pointed in through the armpit to make sure I knew that the gown was insufficient to cover my boobs and then reached over to just completely rip it off. Clutching the shredded remains of the gown I searched the cupboards for a new one, stuffed the old one into the trash can and did a quick change. I was pretty mad at having to wait. I was almost at the point of just cutting my losses and going home when the doc showed up. It turned out that I really like her. I have high hopes that she’ll be as good as my last GP in PHL. He was the best.

2. I’ve been stalking a pattern for a bubble dress ever since I saw a little girl sporting one on one of our recent walks. The girl’s dress was just plain black and I loved the way that looked. Of course when I went to buy fabric I bought the opposite of what I wanted. Sometimes I just don’t know what my problem is. In the end I love the way the fabric looks but what a pain in the @ss to sew. I have another yard of it. I’m going to cram it way in the back of my drawer because I never want to see it again. It was like constructing the whole thing out of pantyhose.  I again was inexplicably unable to follow the directions as written but managed to cobble together something respectable.  The best part is that it went together in one night from cutting to finishing and you have to love a dress that doesn’t need a hem.  I think I’ll have C wear it to graduation on Sunday.

3. I took some pictures of some random cuteness we picked up in the last week. I found these egg cups at T.J. Maxx. I picked up the vintage cups at value village. It’s a set of 4 and they’re super cute. I figure why not let Chase have cute cups now that she’s able to use them like a big girl and if they get chipped, meh they were cheaper than the sippy cups ever were. The juice boxes are from Costco. Chase doesn’t drink juice at home but when we’re out I find myself spending lots of money on bottle water and the like. The idea with the juice boxes is to be able to have a sip of something cold in my purse that’s not all huge and plastic. They’re adorable and only 4oz, the perfect size.

4. The giant pink beverages were an attempt at a cocktail sometime earlier this week. I saw a recipe somewhere for a Jamaican refreshment brewed from hibiscus blossoms. I wanted to try it out but took the fake it don’t make it approach and started with red zinger tea bags (artistic license). It was great until I decided to add a shot of rum. I don’t think I care for light rum. I’ll make it again as iced tea, red zinger, lime juice and sugar over ice, yum.

5. We celebrated the end of the semester today with a happy hour playgroup. Chase had 5 friends and I had five friends and everyone had a blast. I made margaritas that were so good considering how little effort went into them that it’s just stupid. At almost 1.50 each I wasn’t shelling out 30 bucks for the number of limes it would take to make enough margaritas for 5 thirsty ladies and 2 thirsty hubbies. A little research yielded the following recipe: 1-12oz can limeade, 12 oz tequila, 1/4 c cointreau, 2 qts ice I worked in two batches, poured it into a pitcher, popped it in the freezer and poured into salt-rimmed glasses as necessary. As an aside, you should probably have a blender to make these. I, of course, do not have a blender. We replaced the last one with an immersion blender when the last one died. I had to improvise a little. I started with crushed ice and used the adapter of the immersion blender that’s kind of like a food processor mini chopper thing. It was an adequate stand in and frankly after a couple of drinks no one cared anyway.

The kids had so much fun. Chase may have a new boyfriend… or two!

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Monday, May 5th, 2008

Naan on the Barbie

I saw Steven Raichlen making these on his show over the weekend and was salivating over them.  They fit perfectly into our cooking out theme and paired with shish kabobs turned out to be something of a pantry friendly dinner.  I started thinking about this way before noon while, as usual, Erin and I tried to hold off on eating lunch until a respectable hour.  What better way to stifle hunger than to think about dinner?  You’d think in time you would learn not to go down that road but the lesson never seems to take.  We’re on about day three of chicken for dinner.  It may not have been three consecutive nights but we definitely have way too much chicken in the freezer and I’m not buying any more meat until some of that is under control.  

That being said, even though I started planning in the morning I forgot all about it until 4:30.  The bread needs at least an hour and a half of rising time so it was a race against the clock to get things together so we could eat as close to our regular time as possible.  You can find the recipe here.  I mixed the dough by hand and started the kneading in the kitchenaid but it made this giant tall ball after a few minutes and had the motor straining so I finished the kneading by hand.  The recipe says to punch down and to form 2″ balls to yield 15 but I was only able to get 11, I can only assume that I was rolling them too big.  

I froze 6 portions to be defrosted and rolled out for grilling later and prepped the other 5 for tonight.  As written I think the recipe has you butter the topside of the bread after putting it down on the grill but I’m pretty sure that he buttered the dough before slapping it down on the show.  That made the most sense to me so that’s what I did.  Ben didn’t have any problem with sticking it’s a really great recipe.  Nothing beats hot fresh bread with dinner.  I guess it really should have been lavash but hey, you take what you can get.  It was quite an international feast actually.  Bread from India, kabob from, where, Turkey I guess and a little condiment inspired by tzatziki or raita.  Nobody cared where it came from as they stuffed their pie holes full of naan.  I think Chase ate about two bites of chicken but ate an entire piece of bread on her own.  The chicken marinated in a little olive oil, dijon and the juice of two lemons with a couple of cloves of grated garlic, rosemary, parsley, salt and pepper.  A good supper and I’m down to one last package of chicken!  

Even though I know the sooner I finish the work I have to do the sooner my summer begins I still refuse to work on anything.  Like right now for example I should be working on my pretrial order but I’m writing this instead.  last night I cleaned up the office in spite of its having been a total disaster for the last several months.  It just had to be done last night.  I added two drawers under my desk and mounted shelves that have NEVER been up on any wall even though we bought them when we moved into our last place four YEARS ago.  Better late than never.   I guess I’ll go get cracking on that work.  Oh, so our stimulus check arrived and I guess I shouldn’t have talked about it out loud because I actually heard the water heater heave oh, thank god before it conked out.

 

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Sunday, May 4th, 2008

Fake It Don’t Make It

I finished another project. You’d think that I love hand sewing and finishing if you saw me working on this thing today. I had to sew and re-sew and sew the snaps again before I had them right. I almost abandoned the whole thing after the first two failed attempts. These are from the same pattern I used to make the ladybug dress. The fabric is a lot busier in the final product than I had envisioned but it’s been in my stash so long that it’s practically vintage and I wanted to use it. Not to mention that Chase has a pair of blue shoes that I think will be cute.

I almost botched the pants irreparably. I can only imagine that I made a mistake in cutting but the pants had no ‘seat.’ I tried to save them by adding a waistband made from 2″ lace and removing a row from the double stitched crotch seam. I figure it’s better to get some wear out of them even if they fall apart rather than never getting to wear them at all.  The lace is from a grab bag of notions that I found at the thrift store.  I’m never lucky enough to find stuff like this.  It’s perfect because it has a flower motif that’s similar to the fabric.  I thought the frog would be cute but now I wish I had made a little felt daisy for the front.  Next time.  

During an incredibly short lived bib making phase I bought a presser foot that applies bias tape, it might have a special name but if it does, I don’t know it.  It came in a package with absolutely no instructions but it was pretty self explanatory.  It was so easy to use and gave a really nice finish.  I didn’t have any of my usual problems with catching all the layers.  My last trip to JoAnn’s I stocked up on bias tape for an easy finish on upcoming projects.  

Earlier we planted the new box. We were able to use some odds and ends that we had hanging around.  Ben added the posts from an old headboard. We’ll use them and some garden twine to trellis cukes and stake tomatoes later in the season. We bought some plants and some seeds and did some flowers. I tried to keep it simple, flowers I have had success growing in the past, sweet peas, cosmos and zinnias. In spite of my best efforts I, of course, bought duplicates of about 3 types of seeds but I did find an awesome zinnia called envy. It looks like this: Read the rest of this entry »

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