Yes, I'm trying to get back to my blog. Sorry for the lapse in blogginess. Somehow I sort of sunk into a cooking funk and haven't been very inspired over the past few months. But, alas, life sometimes gives us a kick in the pants and tells us to make some changes. Through many channels I have discovered I have high blood pressure and possibly high cholesterol. The latter was tested after eating so next week I have a fasting test which will tell me for sure. But the high blood pressure is real and must be dealt with. I am 38 years old and on two bp medications with the promise to my doctor that I would watch my sodium intake, decrease alcohol consumption, and exercise more. Clearly my doctor has never been the mother (he's a man btw) to a school aged child, worked full-time, and tried to keep up with a 2,000 square foot, two story house. Regardless, I am not ready to let my health decline so it is time to change.
We subsist on convenience foods some days and, when we don't, I have a heavy hand with the kosher salt. I have had this health knowledge about myself for about a month now and I won't lie. I'm not doing well. I've had some work stresses plus getting William back in the swing of school which leaves me exhausted and loathing the evening meal. My cupboard is fully stocked with canned pasta sauce, rice mixes, and canned beans. My freezer holds a supply of red meats and breaded, sauced delicacies. But it's time to get serious. My family is not pleased. They love flavor as much as I do and, admittedly, I have spent the majority of my years not caring about calories, fat, and sodium. I was lucky that way. But now they mock me.
Tonight I had my first minor victory. The fortunate thing about my family's eating habits are that we like steamed veggies with nothing on them. And Matt has opened my world to potatoes with no seasoning and natural potato goodness. Granted, butter, salt, and sour cream make me moan in pleasure. So what did we eat? Chicken breasts in a white wine, mushroom, and shallot sauce; fingerling potatoes tossed with a drizzle of olive oil and Mrs. Dash onion and herb seasoning, and steam broccoli naked (nude veggies...scandalous I tell you!) In the end, I did add 1/2 tsp. of salt to the chicken (that was for all 3 servings) and 1/2 tbl. of unsalted butter. It was divine and healthy. The potatoes were so so. The odd thing I find about fingerlings is they don't seem to have developed their flavor like their larger cousins have. And the broccoli was what we were used to so that was fine. It wasn't our best meal and the boys could tell I deprived them of flavor but I like to think their desire to keep me around will get us through this trial and error period. Since the chicken was a success, I will share.
3 four oz. chicken breasted pounded to 1/4 inch thick
Mrs. Dash chicken seasoning blend
enough white wine to cover the bottom of a 10 inch pan by 1/4 inch (I used Chardonnay)
4 oz. sliced mushrooms
1 medium shallot minced
1/2 tbl. unsalted butter
1/2 tsp. salt, optional
olive oil
Coat both sides of the chicken with Mrs. Dash. Add 1 tbl. olive oil to a skillet (for best results do not use non-stick) and heat over medium-high heat. When the pan is hot place the chicken breasts in the skillet and saute on each side for 90 seconds. Remove the chicken from the pan. Take the pan off the heat and deglaze with the wine and when it starts to boil, add the mushrooms, shallot, and butter. Reduce by half then add the chicken to cook the rest of the way through. Add the salt, if desired. Cook for about 5 minutes more until the chicken is no longer pink.
More to come with things I love but need to experiment with:
lentils
quinoa
fish (we love our muscle meats)
vegetarian (don't tell Matt!)
other grains that my South Beach Diet days convinced me were evil
and various fruits and veggies my family has sworn off in the past
But don't worry, there is still room in my life for comfort foods and next up will be soup recipes since my good friend, Theresa asked for some a while back and probably thinks I have neglected her.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
So much culinary potential
I cannot tell a lie. Life has been crazy and some of our dinners have been out of the box. Literally. Not that this never happens but lately it is the norm and that is no bueno. But I have had a couple of culinary adventures lately so I will recap the highlights.
St. Patty's Day...
I once made traditional Irish stew and quickly learned I do not like the taste of lamb. Too gamey for my tastes. So from that point forward I either made a beef stew with Irish soda bread or looked for other traditional Irish favorites. Then I put my spin on things because that's how I roll...as someone without an ounce of Irish blood in her. ;) This year I used cuts of stew beef slow cooked in onion soup mix and cream of mushroom soup served over mashed potatoes. On the side we had cabbage steamed with bacon because bacon makes everything better. When I say "we" I mean I devoured it, Matt tolerated it, and William had peas (at least they were green right?). For dessert I made a boxed brownie mix with a little Bailey's mixed in. At least something was Irish!
Tonight...
Picture hurricane force winds competing with the last 70+ degree day for a while. I HAD to grill. Every time I went to the grill I could almost feel the wind pushing me back saying, "Fool, take this food inside." But I was determined. And the most awesome part of the meal was that William chose half of it. We stopped at the grocery store tonight and as sides he chose salad and corn on the cob. Really, how do you argue when a child chooses veggies? You don't! So we had steaks, corn on the cob (out of season but not bad), a really pretty salad, and Matt had some grilled baby potatoes. William and I weren't in a potato place tonight. I am hoping and praying spring comes for good soon because it gives me so much more energy and inspiration for cooking.
I have a couple of learning opportunties that I am determined to conquer in the near future. I bought some baby eggplant tonight and want to see how that differs from, um, grown up, eggplant and I want to master tuna. Something about cooking a tuna steak freaks me out. I am not a rare fish afficianato unless it's in sushi but I really want to try grilling tuna. So if you have any tips or recipes let me know.
St. Patty's Day...
I once made traditional Irish stew and quickly learned I do not like the taste of lamb. Too gamey for my tastes. So from that point forward I either made a beef stew with Irish soda bread or looked for other traditional Irish favorites. Then I put my spin on things because that's how I roll...as someone without an ounce of Irish blood in her. ;) This year I used cuts of stew beef slow cooked in onion soup mix and cream of mushroom soup served over mashed potatoes. On the side we had cabbage steamed with bacon because bacon makes everything better. When I say "we" I mean I devoured it, Matt tolerated it, and William had peas (at least they were green right?). For dessert I made a boxed brownie mix with a little Bailey's mixed in. At least something was Irish!
Tonight...
Picture hurricane force winds competing with the last 70+ degree day for a while. I HAD to grill. Every time I went to the grill I could almost feel the wind pushing me back saying, "Fool, take this food inside." But I was determined. And the most awesome part of the meal was that William chose half of it. We stopped at the grocery store tonight and as sides he chose salad and corn on the cob. Really, how do you argue when a child chooses veggies? You don't! So we had steaks, corn on the cob (out of season but not bad), a really pretty salad, and Matt had some grilled baby potatoes. William and I weren't in a potato place tonight. I am hoping and praying spring comes for good soon because it gives me so much more energy and inspiration for cooking.
I have a couple of learning opportunties that I am determined to conquer in the near future. I bought some baby eggplant tonight and want to see how that differs from, um, grown up, eggplant and I want to master tuna. Something about cooking a tuna steak freaks me out. I am not a rare fish afficianato unless it's in sushi but I really want to try grilling tuna. So if you have any tips or recipes let me know.
Monday, March 7, 2011
I am a published recipe author
Sure it's for my son's weekly newsletter at school but still...
A while back the principal sent a plea to parents because Market Day sales were not going well. I proposed an idea where I would periodically submit a recipe to the school newsletter sharing how I use Market Day recipes. Well, periodically turned into a weekly gig so I have been scrambling to come up with recipes each week. I'm having fun but I have to submit my piece by Tuesday evening. Sometimes 10:00 p.m. Tuesday comes and I have an "oh shoot!" moment. But I haven't missed a "deadline" yet. I'm anxious to see if my recipes boost March sales at all.
I debuted with beef stew. Simple yet something almost everyone loves. I followed the next week with garlic crusted pork tenderloin and baby baked potatoes with a roasted red pepper sauce. Last week was Mediterranean inspired chicken piard. This week I think I will go a little more kid friendly and try ravioli "lasagna".
I'll keep you posted on the sales.
A while back the principal sent a plea to parents because Market Day sales were not going well. I proposed an idea where I would periodically submit a recipe to the school newsletter sharing how I use Market Day recipes. Well, periodically turned into a weekly gig so I have been scrambling to come up with recipes each week. I'm having fun but I have to submit my piece by Tuesday evening. Sometimes 10:00 p.m. Tuesday comes and I have an "oh shoot!" moment. But I haven't missed a "deadline" yet. I'm anxious to see if my recipes boost March sales at all.
I debuted with beef stew. Simple yet something almost everyone loves. I followed the next week with garlic crusted pork tenderloin and baby baked potatoes with a roasted red pepper sauce. Last week was Mediterranean inspired chicken piard. This week I think I will go a little more kid friendly and try ravioli "lasagna".
I'll keep you posted on the sales.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Themed Meals
When I became a mother I never dreamed I would be cooking monkeys, claws, and even dinosaur eggs. Oh wait, does that sound odd? Welcome to the world of themed meals. When we have a special event, William has come to expect a themed dinner. Sure, one may expect to make themed Halloween or Christmas treats. In fact, there are entire cookbooks dedicated to such things. But for the every day? It gets a little more challenging.
One of my past efforts include monkey pizzas after a day of playing hookie at the zoo.
Another evening involved a dinosaur meal to wrap up dinosaur week at his day care. We dined on dino claws, spines, legs, and tortillas with lava dip as well as dinosaur eggs.
So the latest effort? We discovered we have a free preview of a movie channel over the next year and one of the movies showing is Planet 51. William didn't think he would be interested so I did what any good mother would do - I bribed him. I told him we could have a fun night with an outer space meal if he would watch the movie. And guess what? He loved the movie and the food too.
But to get to that point, I put on my thinking cap and tried to think about what I had around the house that I needed to use. I somehow fell into a surplus of tortillas so my mind went to UFOs. I cut rounds out of the tortillas, spread a dollop of refried beans in between, and topped with a second tortilla, cheese, black olives, and cherry tomato halves to try an make them look like UFOs. Then I remembered that in my set of cookie cutters I had a mini star in my Christmas set and a mini moon in my Halloween set so I cut stars and moons from potato slices. These were simply roasted with a smidge of salt and Mrs. Dash onion and herb. Love that stuff! And what would any outer space meal be without a few meteorites (or meateorites if you will)? I combined some ground chicken, celery salt, and buffalo sauce to make meatballs then drizzled it with more buffalo sauce for molten meteorites.
So here are the final products:
So what's the lesson here? Some of us dream of having our own show on Food Network or even earning the title of chef. But most of us are every day cooks and when you have kids you learn to be creative. Sometimes you have to so they will eat but the most important reason is because your kids become grown ups in the blink of an eye. Matt tells me I love people through food. This is one way I love my son. We share experiences and the enjoyment of those experiences is reflected in our food. So enjoy your kids and have fun with your food.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
I love when I knock it out of the park
At the beginning of my day I had no clue what I was making for dinner. I had purchased some cleaned, sliced mushrooms earlier this week and knew I needed to use them for something. You see, I didn't have a plan for them when I bought them but they were on sale and you don't pass by mushrooms on sale right? So I started thinking of what kinds of meat I had in the freezer. I hadn't even gotten anything out to thaw before leaving for work this morning. My quickest options were chicken breasts and a pork tenderloin. I don't know how many of you have schools/churches that participate in Market Day but our school does and, so far, I have ordered monthly. My favorite item is the pork tenderloin. Compared to what I find in the grocery store, it is cheaper yet more tender and flavorful.
So I thought - mushrooms and pork loin...I can make that work. But what to serve with it? We've had a lot of rice lately so I didn't want that. And I didn't have the right ingredients to make a pasta that would make sense to that left me with potatoes. Potatoes are my nemesis. Unless they are drowning in fat, I can't figure out how to make them taste good. Baked? Boring! What to do? What to do? Oh, and did I mention the boy child is not a fan of most potato dishes? Alas, I remembered I had fresh chives in the refrigerator so I opted for mashed potatoes with chives. Sounded flavorful enough considering we weren't having gravy. But what about my lonely pork loin? What happened to that guy?
He got a good kosher salt and pepper massage then a hot sear in a little oil to get a good crust on the outside. It only took about 2 minutes per side until we had a nice golden brown crust. I then placed said loin in a baking dish and spied a bottle of white wine in my rack. I had forgotten about my pale friend. I am not a big white wine drinker but I usually keep a bottle around for cooking and drinking with lighter meals. So my friend Clos du Bois chardonnay and a splash of chicken broth gave my loin a nice little sauna to steam in. I then tossed in a good amount of the mushrooms and popped it in the oven. Now, let me tell you, the best investment I ever made was a meat thermometer that I can insert in the meat and leave there while it cooks. 160 degrees F is medium for pork. Yes, it is safe to eat pork when it is cooked to medium. Overcooking pork is bad bad bad. Now repeat that 15 times. So I set my thermometer for 155 and let it come up to temp out of the oven. Meat will continue to cook out of the oven and the internal temp will raise 5-10 degrees. Handy thing to know as I reiterate overcooked pork (or any other meat) is bad bad bad.
While the meat rested, I mashed my potatoes with a smidge of margarine, milk and chives. Then I began reducing the sauce for the pork. Since I added wine and broth to the baking pan I had a good deal left over. I put that with the mushrooms in a skillet and let it go on pretty high heat. While it was reducing I heard William call from the other room, "Sure smells good in there!" When all was said and done, each of us had a generous pile of potatoes, some corn, and perfectly cooked slices of pork tenderloin on our plate with a reduced white wine and mushroom sauce (finished with a bit of butter). William is the exception. He won't touch a mushroom. I wouldn't either at his age so I don't argue. I just wanted him to eat a decent amount of food. If it's not pasta or pizza I usually hear a lot of protest and plan to sit at the dinner table for an hour cajoling him to eat.
Well, folks, I had filled his plate to let the food cool and by the time I had plated Matt's and my dinners I looked over and he had devoured his mashed potatoes and most of his corn was gone. As I was sitting down he shoved 5...yes 5 bites of meat into his mouth and was chewing for all it was worth. I had barely touched my food and he was asking for seconds. I commented that perhaps I need to make this dinner again sometime and both of the "men" in the family gave me a full mouthed "Mmm hmm!" YES!
Matt cleaned up every last scrap of meat and potatoes, William has his fill of seconds, and I took great pride in making my family happy by throwing together a meal that I had no plans for earlier in the day.
So I thought - mushrooms and pork loin...I can make that work. But what to serve with it? We've had a lot of rice lately so I didn't want that. And I didn't have the right ingredients to make a pasta that would make sense to that left me with potatoes. Potatoes are my nemesis. Unless they are drowning in fat, I can't figure out how to make them taste good. Baked? Boring! What to do? What to do? Oh, and did I mention the boy child is not a fan of most potato dishes? Alas, I remembered I had fresh chives in the refrigerator so I opted for mashed potatoes with chives. Sounded flavorful enough considering we weren't having gravy. But what about my lonely pork loin? What happened to that guy?
He got a good kosher salt and pepper massage then a hot sear in a little oil to get a good crust on the outside. It only took about 2 minutes per side until we had a nice golden brown crust. I then placed said loin in a baking dish and spied a bottle of white wine in my rack. I had forgotten about my pale friend. I am not a big white wine drinker but I usually keep a bottle around for cooking and drinking with lighter meals. So my friend Clos du Bois chardonnay and a splash of chicken broth gave my loin a nice little sauna to steam in. I then tossed in a good amount of the mushrooms and popped it in the oven. Now, let me tell you, the best investment I ever made was a meat thermometer that I can insert in the meat and leave there while it cooks. 160 degrees F is medium for pork. Yes, it is safe to eat pork when it is cooked to medium. Overcooking pork is bad bad bad. Now repeat that 15 times. So I set my thermometer for 155 and let it come up to temp out of the oven. Meat will continue to cook out of the oven and the internal temp will raise 5-10 degrees. Handy thing to know as I reiterate overcooked pork (or any other meat) is bad bad bad.
While the meat rested, I mashed my potatoes with a smidge of margarine, milk and chives. Then I began reducing the sauce for the pork. Since I added wine and broth to the baking pan I had a good deal left over. I put that with the mushrooms in a skillet and let it go on pretty high heat. While it was reducing I heard William call from the other room, "Sure smells good in there!" When all was said and done, each of us had a generous pile of potatoes, some corn, and perfectly cooked slices of pork tenderloin on our plate with a reduced white wine and mushroom sauce (finished with a bit of butter). William is the exception. He won't touch a mushroom. I wouldn't either at his age so I don't argue. I just wanted him to eat a decent amount of food. If it's not pasta or pizza I usually hear a lot of protest and plan to sit at the dinner table for an hour cajoling him to eat.
Well, folks, I had filled his plate to let the food cool and by the time I had plated Matt's and my dinners I looked over and he had devoured his mashed potatoes and most of his corn was gone. As I was sitting down he shoved 5...yes 5 bites of meat into his mouth and was chewing for all it was worth. I had barely touched my food and he was asking for seconds. I commented that perhaps I need to make this dinner again sometime and both of the "men" in the family gave me a full mouthed "Mmm hmm!" YES!
Matt cleaned up every last scrap of meat and potatoes, William has his fill of seconds, and I took great pride in making my family happy by throwing together a meal that I had no plans for earlier in the day.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Dreaming
Ultimate dream #1- to publish a successful cookbook. Dream #2 - to cook along side Bobby Flay on Grill It! with Bobby Flay. My ultimate Food Network crush is Tyler Florance but I feel like I get Bobby's culinary perspective more. He does what I dream of...cook with spice. I love spice. Oh, how I love it. But my body betrays me and I am allergic to hot peppers. Alas! I do rebel from time to time and throw caution to the wind. I cook with peppers. I eat them followed by Benedryl.
But, holy cow, what would I give to have an Iron Chef give me the time of day???? I am so torn. Beef seems like the ultimate grilled food yet I think pork tenderloin could be my coup de grace. But it really is all just a dream. I can't plate, I would probably giggle if Matt tried to record me, and I'm not sure I have the confidence. I can't imagine anyone thinking I'm worthy of being on national television with a Food Network icon so I will sit back, watch, dream, and make my family culinarily happy. As my friends know me to say - le sigh. Let's hope spring comes soon and my best friend uncovers herself soon so I can make my family happy and get the small bit Mmmmm I dream of.
But, holy cow, what would I give to have an Iron Chef give me the time of day???? I am so torn. Beef seems like the ultimate grilled food yet I think pork tenderloin could be my coup de grace. But it really is all just a dream. I can't plate, I would probably giggle if Matt tried to record me, and I'm not sure I have the confidence. I can't imagine anyone thinking I'm worthy of being on national television with a Food Network icon so I will sit back, watch, dream, and make my family culinarily happy. As my friends know me to say - le sigh. Let's hope spring comes soon and my best friend uncovers herself soon so I can make my family happy and get the small bit Mmmmm I dream of.
I couldn't decide what to make
So this morning I did a reconnaissance and found a beef roast, a pork loin, and chicken breasts in the freezer. I was stumped. Mainly because I'm low on sides and I want to keep things like roast for weekday crockpot meals. Mind you, I just read a book that makes me appreciate food all the more so I'm determined to make the best of what I've got. But, really, is there a shortage in today's world? No. I also found some andouille and my mind was made up. For dinner tonight we are saying to heck with calories and I'm making chicken breasts stuffed with diced ham (also found in the fridge) smothered in andouille gravy with garlic mashed potatoes and broccoli. If my family is displeased they can go to be hungry. Savages. ;)
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