more bread in my future

I found an excellent deal on a Kitchen Aid 6qt professional mixer. DH & I have been talking for awhile about upgrading from the 4.5qt artisan that we have. So I bought it for xmas.  He was all about the superior motor of the professional model and the lifting mixing bowl.  Here is the thing we forgot - it is 1.5qts bigger than the one we have & 4.5qts is really pretty much perfect for us.  He made cookies last night & the beater barely beat the butter & eggs together because there was just so much more space than ingredients. I had the same problem with a loaf of bread & the dough hook.  But the solution is obvious.

Make twice as much & freeze half. If I have dough in the freezer, we'll get fresh bread more often. Plus the majority of my bread recipes are for 2 loaves & I have been halving them before mixing them (measuring out half tablespoons to divide 1 1/3 cups of milk) because our old mixer couldn't cope with a double batch of dough.  So tomorrow I am making swiss cheese bread & will make a double batch & after the first rise I will freeze half the dough.  This weekend I am making sandwich bread & wll do the same.  Last time I froze bread dough I had a dough explosion in my fridge when I thawed it. That was 3 years ago & I haven't tried since. So we'll see how it goes.

It's good to be home

You know you have been stuck in a car with small children for too damn long when you and your spouse staring high fiving one another when you spot a McD's with a play area.  It took us 9 hours to get out of Florida, a trip that should only take 6. Traffic was moving at 20mph on I75 for nearly the whole time we were on it.  No reason for it. No construction, no accidents, no flat tire or cops having pulled someone over (why would they, we were 50mph under the speed limit). At one point I had to pull over so DH could hack his way into the underbrush & find a spot for Havoc to poop. I'd been hoping to reach an exit for 10 minutes by then & only gone a couple of miles. 

I did not want to make this a 2 day long orgy of McDonalds. But you know, decent places don't offer play areas. Only fast food offers play areas and you can't really send your kids out back to run around the dumpster a few times while waiting for the diner cook to make your sandwiches.  Given that we had stopped for ice cream only a couple hours before (and had to eat it in the car because the ice cream shop was at one end of an extremely busy gas station)I was hoping to be able to get a couple of their fruit snack trays & tide the kids over with that for another hour or so until we could find a place to have dinner.  This McD's had no fruit. No fruit at all, not even apple dippers. It also had no yogurt, no juice & no milk.  They were out of everything not fried or carbonated.  So to justify killing a half hour in their play area I bought a McNugget Happy meal with fries.  The kids split it & after a half hour we were able to drive almost to the SC state line without stopping again. We got a hotel at 8pm and settled for take out from Ruby Tuesday's.  I like their turkey burger with avocado. Pity the don't to take out alcohol. I really needed a drink.

I hate the smell of cooked cabbage

My mom is making a big pot of her bean soup. It includes the ham bone from Tuesday's dinner, a bunch of great northern beans and a whole lot of cabbage.

The smell of it used to drive me out of the house when I was a kid. 

Dinner is over

The meal has been eaten. The men are watching football, Mom & SIL are napping, the little kids are in the swimming pool and I am blogging while watching them play. 

Mom made dinner. Mom always makes dinner & no help is wanted.  I try. I offer to make stuffing or a sweet potato side but Mom is on it & wants no assistance.  SIL is allowed to make kibbeh, which is served as an appetizer & is not something that was ever served in our house before SIL joined the family. We are long settled descendants of Irish, German and English ancestors who by & large came here before 1820. We do not make kibbeh, though many of us eat it.  Perhaps next year I will attempt to offer a curry of some sort.

Dinner was as usual, a large roasted turkey (unbrined, Mom doesn't hold with that brining nonsense) stuffed with Pepperidge Farm stuffing (Mom doesn't hold with that 'stuffing is evil' nonsense), mashed potatoes, Kulski noodles, gravy from a jar & some homemade cranberry sauce.  Not a green veg in sight, not even a salad.  Normally there are some canned green beans or broccoli in a bag but I think this year she gave up the fight on that. The green stuff was only eaten out of a vague sense of obligation, the bite required by manners. Occasionally some sweet potatoes with brown sugar & marshmallows appears, but we had them with ham on Tuesday.  This is the Thanksgiving meal I have eaten for 40 years.  While a part of me would love to convince her to try brining a turkey or to let me make some cornbread & sage stuffing or baked zucchini casserole, I know it really wouldn't be 'right'. It wouldn't be Thanksgiving. When it is my kitchen and my meal, then I'll do those things.  Someday, in the future, when I have more than DH & I to feed (the boys eat so little they barely count as half a serving combined) & it's worth the effort to make all that food, I will have a brined turkey with cornbread stuffing, a smoked salmon appetizer, shredded brussel sprouts with bacon, savory sweet potato casserole and whatever else comes to mind.  Or maybe my kids will look back when they are 40 & say "Ah Thanksgiving....No one could make reservations the way our mom did." 

Meals so far

We arrived Saturday night and Mom had tuna noodle casserole waiting for us. Sunday we had our obligatory Quizno's lunch run. I love Quizno's and there is one only 2 shopping plazas away from my folks place (about 4 miles). I have to drive 40 miles to get Quizno's at home. Sunday night we went for dinner at the Park Place diner, in the same plaza as Quizno's. They had a large menu & do breakfast all day. I had bananas foster French Toast. Delicious. DH had the fish & chips, which were excellent. Dad tried the Greek platter. The kabobs were good but the philo on the spanikopita was too tough to eat. Mom had another greek dish, I forget the name, ground lamb in a creamy sauce. That was good too. Havoc ordered the homemade mac & cheese and was disturbed by their use of large penne noodles. These things were huge! All in all, a very good dinner.

Monday DH & I went to the bookstore & then stopped by a restaurant we's passed on the way called Sushi Thai of Naples. We had an excellent lunch, so excellent in fact we went back on Tuesday. He had Pad Thai, medium hot. He said it had an wonderful flavor & was just right on the spices. I had tempura - shrimp, zucchini, sweet potato and a monster piece of broccoli. The tempura was good but went greasy as it cooled. Our appetizer though was the best. It was sesame tuna. A thick chunk of tuna was crusted with sesame and seared on each side briefly, then sliced thin. Those slices were lightly painted with a sweet teriyaki sauce and then a creamy wasabi sauce was drizzled over it. It was so good. I also have a caliente roll with tempura red snapper in it. Delicious They deliver but not as far as my folk's house which is probably just as well because we can't afford a $35 lunch every day.

Monday night we hit CiCi's pizza for dinner. A great place to do if you have 5 children & 6 adults who all like pizza but can't agree on toppings. Last night we had ham at home. Tonight we are going to Mel's diner for ribs.

I am making the beer batter cheese bread from Cook' Illustrated right now, to use for ham sandwiches. It smells delicious. I had already bought the cheese, knowing full well my mom wouldn't have any. I should have known she wouldn't have any real butter. I had incorrectly assumed she would have flour so I had t go out & get some of that this morning & while I was at it I bought chocolate chips and brown sugar so DH can make cookies and use up the flour & butter I bought.

I hesitate to mention it but,

Mayhem has eaten 3 dinners in a row with a minimum of fuss. Not that they were fuss free or anything, but the fuss was more of a token fuss, a fuss because it is expected, not necessarily because he is actually upset.

Sunday he had taquitos, which were his choice & therefore limited his fussing subjects. He complained about the size of the pieces I had cut for him and there was some grumbling about whether there were too many or not enough pieces on the plate.  Then he ate them and asked for more.

Monday we had cream of veg soup - potato & spinach this time - plus a salad & bread. There was an immediate flurry of protest at this meal that ended with a request that I feed him the required one bite. He eventually ate all the soup, DH feeding him nearly all the bites. He ate the required one bite of lettuce and nibbled at the bread.

Tuesday was noodle casserole with cheese and salad. Basically homemade mac & cheese with some pureed carrot for color.  There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth from Mayhem once he was dragged to the table.  He was persuaded to take the required one bite & he refused to eat more.  However, Daddy distracted him by talking about school, and another bite went in his mouth. Daddy and Havoc started singing the various letter songs that Mayhem is learning in school and in between songs Mayhem would eat another bite.  Eventually he finished the whole bowl.

Now I am in a bit of a quandary.  What should I serve for dinner tonight?  I'd planned on mock tandoori chicken because I need to use up the yogurt. But because Mayhem is eating I'm leaning toward pizza to be sure of keeping up the streak.  Perhaps instead of just baking the yogurt marinated strips plain I could bread them? But I have no bread crumbs.  I do have goldfish crackers though. Goldfish chicken strips!!!! A-ha!  We'll see how that goes.

What do we have in the house?

That is what is for dinner this week. Due to nearly $400 in unexpected eye expenses (Havoc is apparently very nearsighted) and another $300 yet unreimbursed, we had, after filling the car, less than $10 to last us until Friday. I bought milk, OJ, sugar & combined a coupon with a BOGO special on bagged salad mix, with that $10 this morning. Naturally tonight is the 3rd anniversary of the Thai restaurant and everything is half off. Alas. It was soup & salad in our house. Tomorrow night will be spaghetti & salad. Wednesday is mock tandoori chicken and, naturally, salad. I'll be having salad for lunch all week. Thursday evening is the school play & hopefully we'll be picking up those pricey glasses of Havoc's in the afternoon. Combined that makes dinner tricky. Normally I'd run though McD's or Arbys but $1.38 will barely get me one item off the dollar menu with tax. So probably PB&J & applesauce in a cup in the backseat.

We're leaving on vacation Friday morning so I would have been eating the soup, the chicken, and using up the pasta sauce anyway to clean out the fridge. I'm taking the apples & grapes with us for snacking on the trip (18 hour drive over 2 days), along with any juice, cheese & yogurt in the cooler. Last year we left a nearly empty gallon jug of milk on the counter for the 10 days we were gone. Oh.my.god. the smell! Both of us thought the other was going to dump it & rinse the jug.

Our colorful meal tonight.

My NaBloPoMo posts for the last 3 days are on my other 2 blogs.

So, what will they eat?

It's not as if they don't eat anything but goldfish crackers & pizza. They do like a variety of foods, some of them are even nutritious & many are vitamin fortified.

Havoc will eat - whole grain bagels with honey, toast with butter or honey, peanut butter & jelly sandwiches (on soft bread), Tyson chicken patties, Mrs Paul's fish sticks, taquitos, apples, bananas, oranges, watermelon, sometimes mango, dried apricots, any type of pasta in any sort of sauce (as long as it isn't chunky), pretzel, yogurt pretzels, yogurt, scrambled eggs, pizza (any sauce but only cheese, though sometimes pepperoni is ok), assorted cookies that are not solid chocolate (he's not fond of chocolate baked goods), hot dogs, meatloaf, tater tots, curly fries, tempura fried veggies (except broccoli), rice, tamako sushi, chicken noodle soup, vanilla ice cream, most breakfast cereals, pancakes and applesauce

Mayhem will eat - whole grain bagels with peanut butter, peanut butter sandwiches (on soft bread), Tyson chicken patties, Mrs Paul's fish sticks, taquitos, apples, grapes, dried pineapple, raisins, yogurt covered raisins, any type of pasta in any sort of sauce (as long as it isn't chunky), pretzel, yogurt pretzels, yogurt, pizza (any sauce but only cheese, but maybe artichokes or zucchini), assorted cookies, hot dog buns, hamburgers, meatloaf, tater tots, curly fries, tempura fried veggies (except broccoli), rice (only with spicy sauce), ice cream, most breakfast cereals, pancakes, waffles with peanut butter and most hard cheeses.

They drink heavily watered down juice, often V-8 Fusion because it has veggies in it, and milk with breakfast.

Given the above lists, is it any real wonder that I put spinach in my meatloaf and purees in my pizza and pasta sauce? Or make pumpkin waffles and sweet potato pancakes, zucchini bread, banana muffins and carrot cake?

Never the same loaf twice

Now that fall is finally here and cool weather has arrived for good, I can have the oven on for more than 15 minutes.  I have been baking more bread and making more meatloaf.  The one always affects the other.  I use the leftover bread for breadcrumbs in the meatloaf.  I make a different bread every week, so the meatloaf is never the same boring old meatloaf.  You never know what concoction I am going to serve you when I say I am making meatloaf.

Normally it involves a pound of ground beef and a third pound of ground pork.  But sometimes I add ground turkey as well or ground lamb and sometimes I buy 'meatloaf mix' and add more beef.  There was a time when I used a meat substitute to replace both the pork and the breadcrumbs.  It added a nice texture but I haven't been able to find it in stores in years.

The filler is almost always some kind of bread. I've used crumbs from cans, stuffing mix, and crumbled bread. I'm partial to using stale sage cornbread muffins when I have them. But often I never have any left.  I'll use roasted eggplant if I've made some already but that doesn't happen very often.  Roasted eggplant makes a very tasty meatloaf.  Moist and tender.  Thawed frozen spinach gets added as well.

Spices are usually garlic, ground mustard, onion powder, a bit of soy sauce and some pomegranate chipoltle sauce.  Sometimes dijon mustard if I am out of the pomegranate stuff.  Never ketchup. The first time I made meatloaf my husband said "I don't really like meatloaf, I'm not that fond of ketchup." He was surprised to learn I didn't use ketchup & happy to discover he actually did like meatloaf. 

I've had the mix go awry a few times over the years. I've used too many fatty cuts of meat, or too much filler. I've put in entirely too much mustard and not enough garlic. I've baked it too long & not long enough. But it's nearly always good, even if it isn't quite right.  I know people don't consider meatloaf to be a very creative dish but I think it is. I think it has a nice scope for variety & personal expression. It is one of my favorite meals to make

Today's meatloaf is made with ground beef & ground pork. It also includes bread crumbs from the Pepperoni Pecorino loaf I made last night. It has spinach, soy, ground mustard, garlic and the pomegranate sauce. I can't give an actual recipe because, apart from the meat, I have no idea how much of anything I used. 

Loaf of the Week - Pepperoni Bread

I decided to make this loaf to go with the beer & cheddar soup we are having for dinner. I admit that had the Food Lion had any loaves of sourdough in the bakery I would have bought that instead. But our Food Lion is pathetic, no organics, small selection in the deli & bakery. Its only redeeming feature is it sells Hornsby Crisp Apple Cider.

This is one of my favorite breads. It goes well with creamy soup, especially cheesy potato soup. It also makes a great grilled ham & cheese or toasted chicken salad sandwich.

This is adapted from the Best Little Bread Machine Cookbook, for a smaller and, non bread machine loaf.
1.5 teas yeast
2 c flour
2 tblsp wheat bran
1 tblsp sugar
1 teas salt
.25 teas pepper
1 egg
1 tbls oil
2/3 c water
1/2c Pecorino
1/4c diced pepperoni

Mix all together & knead with Kitchen Aid mixer for about 7 minutes. Let rise in a warmish place for an hour.Knead briefly, form into loaf and place in loaf pan, let rise for an hour. Bake at 350 for 35 minutes.

My bread notebook specifically states "Don't mess about with the flour. Use white!" Previous experiments with portions of whole wheat, soy and multigrained flour have not turned out well. I hadn't tried flax meal though, so this time I replaced 2 tablespoons of flour with flax meal. The dough was stickier that it should have been, but the rise was ok.

Dinner this week - Nov 5th

There is of course the ubiquitous pizza, pasta, soup, roast chicken combination. But then what? Meatloaf probably; I have a pound of ground beef I need to use and the demons will eat meatloaf.
Veggie pizza, with zucchini, yellow squash & artichoke tonight I think. Then tomorrow we can try the Cheddar Ale soup from Safeway and I'll make some pepperoni bread to go with it. Meatloaf on Wednesday with zucchini patties breaded & fried. I'm sort of tired of roast chicken. Even with the various sides & salads I serve. I think I'll make mock tandoori chicken instead and rice with carrots. That can be Thursday and I can bake a plain breast to add to some ziti forFriday. Saturday DH's boss is having a company fish fry at his home. The boys will eat hush puppies but not the fish so I'll serve them some fish sticks before we leave. (Why is Mrs. Pauls fish acceptable but not homemade? Why?) I wonder if I could ask him to cut some fillets into strips?

Sunday we have a sitter!!! I'd love to go for German but we can't afford the meal, let alone the extra babysitting time right now. I think we'll try the new Japanese place. The only other place we haven't tried is Glory Days and I'm not really in the mood for that.

Restaurant review -Thai

We have a Thai restaurant in our small town. How authentic is it? Well, the owners are Thai, from Thailand, so I'm assuming it is at least mostly authentic, especially if you get the 'Thai hot' spice option. People who have been to Thailand say it is very authentic. Did those people eat in actual Thai restaurants & homes or did they eat 'tourist Thai'. I have no idea. I don't really care either. The authenticity of the taste is of less concern to me than the taste itself.

I admit up front I do not order things Thai hot, or even American hot. If a dish comes with a spicy garlic sauce I will try it, but I am not going to ask to kick it up a notch and I lean toward more mild meals like Pad Thai or Lad Na. If am feel extravagant I'll get the Crispy Duckling & if I just want some duck I'll get the Honey Roasted Duck soup. Both are a wonderful combination of sweet & spicy. 'Authentically' both probably would have more chilies, but I'm happy with the amount as they are. My fall back dish is Pad See Ew, usually with shrimp. I prefer the wide rice noodles to the thinner ones in Pad Thai. It is flavorful buy not hot. I have been meaning to try the red curry but what I really want is someone else at my table to get the red curry so I can try it first. It is listed as 'Mexican hot' which is a bit much for me usually. I don't want to order a dish & find it is too hot for me to eat, but I don't want ask them to bland it down until I know how hot it actually is. It smells delicious, but things that smell delicious are often too hot for me to eat.

The service is better than most in the area, probably because none of the employees are from the area. They have a nice wine list too. I really enjoy this restaurant and am glad they seem to be doing well.

the Dinner that Never Ended

Last night I made my chicken & sweet potato salad for dinner. It consists of chunks of grilled chicken, steamed sweet potatoes, avocados, & crumbled bacon in a mustardy vinaigrette on a bed of spinach. People seem to really like it. I get many requests to bring it to cook outs & pot lucks. Its good hot or cold. Adults & kids both eat it willingly. except my kids.

All I really ask of them is they at least taste the food they are given before rejecting it. One bite of the stuff, that is it. In this case that means you have to eat a bite sized chunk of chicken & sweet potato. 2 bites of food, that you have eaten in the past without issue. If it has become hideous to you in the 5-6 weeks since you last ate it then fine, you don't have to finish it & can go have a mini bagel or an apple. Is that too much? Am I horrible parent for expecting this? 2 freaking bites of good tasting food you have eaten before? My kids don't seem to have figured or or like the time honored kid traditions of smothering disagreeable food in ketchup or ranch dressing or using the whole glass of juice to wash down the unwanted stuff while chewing quickly. By the time I was Havoc's age I could swallow lima beans whole with one gulp of water. I attribute my ability to swallow any size pill I am given to that early training.

Havoc eventually choked down the required bites, though each one took him well over 5 minutes to eat because he tucked in his cheek and wouldn't chew or swallow it until threatened with being served it for breakfast.

Mayhem never tried it. He just sat there saying "That's yuck." when asked to eat it, which got him moved to the time out chair for a few minutes & then back to the table and repeat. When told it would be his breakfast he said 'no it won't'. And nothing in his experience led him to believe otherwise. That threat had been made before & come to nothing because Daddy wasn't sufficiently frustrated to follow through the next morning. (Daddy does breakfast, which means pouring out the kid's cereal or toasting a waffle & then going back to bed for a half hour. He'd actually have to stay up if he followed through on the threat) Daddy seemed to have reached his point last night because the bowl was wrapped up & put in the fridge. Mayhem was given nothing else but a glass of watered juice.

This morning he asked for breakfast & was offered his dinner. He pitched a fit & ate nothing. At morning snack he said he was super hungry & asked for a PB sandwich & was again offered his dinner. He was told that once he had eaten a bite of chicken & a bite of potato, he could have a PB sandwich or a waffle or whatever he wanted, but he had to eat those 2 bites first. He protested a bit, then said ok. But when faced with sweet potato on his fork he took a sniff, announced "that yuk!" and refused to eat it. DH took the boys along on a small work expedition at a tower, he packed juice, snacks & Mayhem's dinner. He is going to take them to McD's for a late lunch when he is done, but Mayhem has to eat his 2 bites first. I told him meatloaf was for dinner & he loves meatloaf & he isn't happy he's got to eat the 2 bites first.

How is this going to turn out? Which side will win? Why has it come to this? How did it come to this? I didn't set out for a battle of wills when I made dinner last night. All I wanted was something we all were likely to eat & involved the avocado that was perfectly ripe & had to be used right now. What am I teaching him, to eat the food he is given? That I am bigger than him & can make him do things? To try new things? Possibly for the rest of his life he will hate this meal because of the drama associated with it. To this day I won't eat frozen pizza because of a drama between me & my dad when I was 10 that resulted in my crying non stop while choking down 2 frozen slices.

We pick our battles, we try to keep them as few & far between as possible, but when we do choose to have them, we go to the mat. I can't imagine a good outcome to this. He isn't going to eat those 2 bites, decide they actually taste good & ask for more. We can't back down because you undermine yourself if you do that. Don't issue ultimatums unless you are willing to follow through. The best I can hope for is at some point the desire for food he likes will force him to eat the 2 bites and next time we say 'eat a bite or it's for breakfast' he'll just eat the bite & we can all get on with our lives.

Baggage - breakfast

My husband likes cookies. He has baked a batch of chocolate chip cookies every Thursday evening for about 3 years now. He also made them on Mondays for awhile, until his pants stopped fitting. Now he takes half of every batch into the office for his co-workers to enjoy. He loves Oreos. Whenever we go past and Oreo display in the grocery store Mayhem shouts "Those the cookies Daddy wikes! We buy cookies for Daddy?" Mayhem has a prodigious memory. I have not bought a bag of Oreos in well over a year, specifically because Daddy loves the Oreos. A 2lb bag will be gone in less than 48 hours. I will have eat 4 of them & the boys each had a couple. He knows he has a problem with chocolate cookies, so I just don't buy them.

He hands this baggage of his off the children by banning Cookie Crisp from the house. Not all sugary cereal, not all chocolate cereal. They eat Frosted Flakes, Apple Jacks and even Coco Puffs at times. Theoretically he has no problem with them eating Chocolate Captain Crunch. Its only a theory because they have never asked for it, but odds are he wouldn't blink an eye. His issue is that Cookie Crisp looks like cookies and you can't have cookies for breakfast. You can have sugar in any other shape, just not cookies. I go along with prohibition because it's minor & I understand that it's his 'thing'. But really...I don't get it. Its cereal. I ate it as a kid, he ate it as a kid. Neither of us have cookies for breakfast now.

The boys have had Cookie Crisp twice, before DH told me he would really prefer I not buy it. They thought it was ok, they prefer Apple Jacks & yogurt Cheerios. But now that I have to say "Sorry you can't have that" they are fascinated with Cookie Crisp. I can't say they are desperate to eat it, they just love talking about it. We can't go down the cereal aisle without a discussion about how Daddy doesn't want them eating Cookie Crisp. "Daddy no like cookie cereal." they announce. "We not allowed to eat it. How come Daddy no like cookie cereal? Daddy like Oreos." I'm sure every stock boy in Safeway is now completely familiar with my husband's cookie issues.

I saw a recipe recently for "breakfast cookies" made with whole wheat & dried fruit & a few other wholesome breakfast-y things. If I try it I'll have to call it 'breakfast bars'

NaBloPoMo?

I think I am going to give it a try this year, even though I already know there are 4 days this month when I will be unable to blog due to travel. Still, I plan to blog all the other days, so I think I am keeping with the spirit, if not the letter of the rules. I've been blogging fairly regularly since August & blogging daily will be a good challenge for me

They suggest keeping with a theme this year. The past couple of months have been very stressful at mealtimes & I think focusing more on food, why I love food, and what I love to cook, as well as my ongoing attempts to get the little demons to eat, might be a rewarding thing. If all goes well, someday in the future I can look back at this chronicle of seemingly endless dinner drama & laugh. Boys eventually eat you out of house & home right? Teenage boys are ravening beast that inhale whatever is put in front of them, yes? That's what I am told anyway. So when those days finally arrive & I spend my time wondering how I will feed them enough, rather than how I will get them to eat anything at all, this will be an entertaining read, right? I suppose time will tell.

Dinner the week of Oct 28

Asian Chicken Noodle Soup

Chicken pesto spaghetti

Meatloaf

Warm chicken & potato salad

Pizza

Coq au vin

Steak & spinach salad

 

We had the soup last night. It did not go over well.  It was one of Safeway Select soups. We've been working our way through them. This one was too peppery and I don't just mean from a taste standpoint. I'm assuming from past experience that the boys' physical reaction to the soup was due to the chili peppers, possibly the jalepenos as well.  One spoonful & Ds1's lips were swollen to twice their size, and a minute or two later his eyes were red rimmed and he had a rash below them extending back along his cheeks. The same reaction he used to have to cinnamon and still has to strawberries. He kept crying about his mouth being all itchy until I got some milk & Benedryl in him. DS2's lips swelled up and he said his mouth hurt but that was as far as it went.  It's not as if they have never tasted spicy food before. DS2 loves pomegranate & chilpoltle sauce on his meatloaf and sesame ginger sauce on his rice. He also will eat wasabi smeared all over egg sushi. Stuff too spicy for me. So no more Asian Chicken Noodle soup for us.  I have Cheddar Broccoli and Beer & Cheddar soups in the fridge, though I think I will make curried carrot soup for this Sunday

Finally!

We at last got over our paralyzing glee (and a last minute cancellation meant we were home) and ordered delivery pizza for dinner! We also ordered a bag of cat food. The delivery guy got lost which on the one hand is rediculous because the directions are 'make a left out of store parking lot onto 607, stay on that road until it ends at a T with, 606, make a left & drive a mile'. But on the other hand is perfectly acceptable because route 607 has a couple Y type intersections where you have to go left to stay on 607 & they are not marked in advance and all seem to be slightly on the downhill side of a small rise. It's only after you are past the turn that you see the signpost showing that you are now on 640 and 607 was that way. And he forgot the cat food. But still, the pizza was good. not oh-my-god-this-is-great, but good. Perfectly good, serviceable, tasty, delivery pizza. We will be ordering again.

Dinnertime Drama

My kids are 'picky eaters'. I was a 'picky eater'. I accept their pickiness as my just reward/punishment for my own behavior. My food karma as it were. My mother never said "I hope you have a child just like you." but it happened anyway. Given my own past I know at some point my picky eaters will decide they only like the most expensive things on the menu and will only eat half of it. So I have that to look forward to.

What do you do when your kids refuse all veggies and only accept apples & grapes for fruit? You hide things in the foods they will eat. An all protein diet or an all carb diet, which is what my kids vary between. is not a good thing. I considered buying Deceptively Delicious http://www.deceptivelydelicious.com by Jessica Seinfeld recently. But in the end, did not. I already own The Sneaky Chef,which is the same premise, and don't use it much, so another book on the theme seemed a waste of money I could otherwise spend on trashy romance novels.

Apparently I (and Mrs Seinfeld) am committing a horrible crime by putting eggplant in my meatloaf in place of breadcrumbs and spinach in the pizza crust and squash in the mac & cheese. At least we are according to a bunch of people on the internet, none of whom have to feed my kids. I've been reading about it & picky eaters in general at Parent Bloggers Network http://blog.parentbloggers.com.

I'm not sure what our crime is, something willful or negligent probably. "Just serve the kids tasty veggies and they will eat it." "get them involved in the process" "Offer it at least 15 times". Lovely advice, wonderful really. And if generalities were the answer to feeding my kids, then I wouldn't need the advice in the first place.

Serve the kids tasty veggies - what makes a veggie 'tasty'? Isn't that a personal preference? DH thinks broccoli is delicious in a garlic sauce, the smell of it makes me gag.

Get them involved in the process - my oldest son absolutely loves making pumpkin pie. He loves picking out the pumpkin, scooping out the seeds, cutting up the flesh for roasting, running the blender to puree it, mixing all the ingredients. Loves it, looks forward to it eagerly every fall. We just made fresh pumpkin pie Sunday. He took one bite & won't eat any more. he does this every year. wants to make the pie, but not eat it. And this PIE for gods sake! PIE! He does the same thing with eggplant parmigiana and vegetable soup. He loves the process but won't touch the end result.

Offer it 15 times - I have offered carrots, broccoli, parsnips, sweet potatoes, zucchini, asparagus, corn and beets to name a few, to my oldest son nearly every day of his life since he was 6 months old. Allowing for a variety of veggies in a diet that child has been exposed to all those vegetables, in various forms at least 240 times each in his life. He will not touch any of them, except maybe some corn on the cob, but only at a cookout where other children are eating it.

I've tried reward, punishment, encouragment, ignoring it. I've insisted on one bite, 3 bites, no bites, eat your dinner or you go right to bed, no dessert, dessert first, downplaying it, serving the uneaten dinner for breakfast, letting them eat nothing else that night, letting them eat an apple, bagel or yogurt if they refuse dinner, making foods they like, serving them whatever I want to make kid friendly or not, giving up & letting them live on PB&J for 2 days. For the most part they just don't eat 75% of what i make for dinner & are ravenous at breakfast

They are 3 & 5 and finickyness is a part of this stage. I accept that. I continue to offer a variety of fruits and vegetables with meals. I continue to make sure they see me and DH eating a variety of them as well. I make one meal for dinner, no special meals for the kids, though I make kid friendly things for dinner (that DH & I like) several times a week (pizza, meatloaf, spaghetti with pesto) And I hide spinach in the spaghetti sauce and carrots in the pizza toppings.

And I am not seeing how I am committing a terrible sin by doing this. What is wrong with making the things my kids will eat more nutritious? No one is advocating you just hide the veggies in a brownie and never serve ratatouille again. Just make the most of what you have to work with, continue to offer variety and pray to whatever god you believe in that someday your child will say "this broccoli is delicious Mom."

Loaf of the Week - Cheddar Cheese bread

Tonight for dinner we had london broil in a garlicy marinade, spinach salad and this bread. This is a good hearty whole wheat bread with good sized chunks of cheddar melted throughout.

1.5c whitet flour
1.25c whole wheat flour
2.25 teas dry yeast
2 teas sea salt
1c & 3 tblsp warm water
2 tblsp oil
1 tbls honey
6oz cheddar in 1/2" cubes

Mix the dry goods together. Mix the wet stuff together, add to the dry & mix. Knead gently 7-10 minutes until smooth (lowest speed on stand mixer) Let rise in warm place for 1.5 hours. Knead in the cheese chunks (cheese will be busting out all over). Grease loaf pan, form dough and place in pan, let rise for an hour. Bake at 350 for 40- 45 minutes.

Mayhem was in a mood tonight & refused to eat anything, though he was eventually persuaded to eat some bread. Normally he loves this bread. I know it's just a phase but the frustration with it really starts to build after a few days.

Dinner the week of Oct 15th

Roast chicken from Food Lion (Still on special)
Homemade hot pockets
Beef barley soup & salad
lasagna
Steak & spinach salad
pork roast

It's getting cool enough to roast my own chickens, but the special runs through Nov 16th, so I'm sticking with buying them for now. Hot pockets are made with pizza dough & stuffed with chicken, pepperoni, zucchini, spinach & cheese. Lasagna because I am tired of ravioli & torellini (kids may not eat it but oh well, this is my meal) Steak & spinach salad is a standard. Pork roast was DHs idea so I have to find the crock pot. It gets tucked away in May & then gets moved around as space is needed & I never know where it is come October.

Soup is Good Food

Now that fall is really here it is time to start thinking about hearty warm meals. Soup is perfect for the chilly weather. It warms you up, is nutritious, filling and very easy to make. It can be cooked quickly or made in a crock pot and simmered all day. You can use fresh vegetables or frozen meat or noodles, or rice. You can make cream soups and clear soups and rich meaty vegetable soups. By making it yourself you can control the fat, the carbs and calories. There are as many soups as there are people; you have endless opportunities to experiment with soups.


I like soup because I am picky about vegetables. Like my toddlers I do not like to eat whole cooked veggies but am perfectly willing to eat pureed vegetables. My husband views soup as something to dunk bread into. We eat a lot of cream of assorted vegetable soup in our house. Cream of veggie soup is very easy. Fresh or frozen broccoli, some frozen spinach, a carrot (chopped or grated), a small chopped onion or a couple cloves of garlic (or both) and a can/box of chicken broth. (one small potato is optional) Simmer until everything is tender and then puree. Replace the broccoli with peas, or cauliflower or carrots for variety.

I also like it because it is a good use of the leftover chicken or ground beef from dinner the night before. Bake an extra breast when you make chicken for dinner one night. The next day you can shred it up and add it, some grated carrot and spaghetti broken into small pieces to some chicken broth and you have homemade chicken noodle soup. Use precooked ground beef (Brown extra when making tacos or chop up a leftover hamburger), a bag of mixed frozen veggies and beef stock and you have beef vegetable soup.


One of my favorite soups comes entirely out of cans. A can of black beans, a can of crushed tomatoes and a can of chicken broth (I like roasted garlic flavor because then I don’t have to worry about having garlic or onions in the house to add flavor), also a can of water or additional can of chicken broth. Pour it all in a pot and let simmer for about 30 minutes. You can eat it as is, puree some of it for a nice mix of smooth and chunky or puree the whole thing. Just buy a couple cans of each ingredient and you are always ready to make a hot, fast, nutritious meal at the last minute. You can also make this with 2 cups of dried black beans instead of canned and let it simmer all day in a crock pot or on the back of the stove.


Soup alone is a filling meal. It also pairs well with a salad and bread. Soup and sandwiches are an excellent dinner. Try some soup this week!



Black Bean Soup #1 – serves 4-6 people

15oz can black beans

28oz can crushed tomatoes

2 - 12oz cans chicken broth (or half water)

2 cloves garlic smashed

and/or one small onion chopped fine

Drain & rinse the beans. Add everything to the pot, bring to a boil, reduce the heat so it simmers, cover and let simmer for 30 minutes. Puree all or part of the soup as desired. Optionally, if pureeing all the soup add some yogurt or sour cream as you are pureeing to add creaminess and additional flavor.



Black Bean Soup #2 – serves 4-6 people

2 cups dried black beans

28oz can crushed tomatoes

2 - 12oz cans chicken broth (or half water)

2 cloves garlic smashed

and/or one small onion chopped fine

2 small potatoes cut into small pieces

Soak dried beans in cold water to cover for an hour & drain them. Add them and the other ingredients to the pot. Cover the pot, bring to boil, reduce heat to low and simmer for at least 5 hours. Alternatively put it all in a crock pot and let simmer for 7-8 hour (low) or 5-6 hours (high). . Puree all or part of the soup as desired. Optionally, if pureeing all the soup add some yogurt or sour cream as you are pureeing to add creaminess and additional flavor.



This is a base vegetable soup recipe using broccoli. It can be varied for cauliflower, peas, frozen spinach or any root vegetable

Creamy Broccoli Soup – serves 4-6 people

1 head of broccoli – chopped small (a couple of cups approx) fresh or frozen

2 cups water

2 cups chicken

1 small onion and/or 1-2 cloves garlic crushed

1 medium potato cut in small pieces


Add all to pot, bring to a boil and then cover and simmer for one hour. Puree, salt & pepper to taste and serve.


Variations – add some half and half when pureeing for extra creaminess. Leave out the potato to reduce the carbs (if you do this you may need to pour off some broth before pureeing to increase the thickness of the soup).


Baked Potato Soup – serves 4-6

3 tablespoons butter

1 small onion (or large leek, white part only)

4 large potatoes peeled & diced

5 cups of water

2 cups of milk

1/2 cup grated Cheddar cheese

Melt butter in soup pot, add onions & sauté until soft, stir occationally over low heat (about 2 minutes). Add potatoes and continue stirring for another minute until lightly browned. Add water and simmer covered for 30 minutes or until potatoes are soft. Add milk & cheese and bring soup to a boil. Turn off heat and let sit covered for 10 minutes. Mash as you would for mashed potatoes or serve as is. Salt & pepper to taste

In Praise of Pizza

(I wrote this for our Mom's Group newsletter)

We love pizza at our house & we eat it several times a month. We get Papa John’s take out occasionally and sometimes I’ll buy a frozen cheese one and top it myself, but most of the pizza we eat in my house is homemade. Pizza is EASY. Really easy. I wouldn’t make it otherwise. It will take you about 15 minutes work to make the dough the first time you do it, but once you get used to the process it will take less than 10. Most of the time involved is spent waiting for it to rise & while you are waiting you can read a book, play with the kids, whatever you want.

Pizza is a great use for leftovers, especially chicken and steak. It is incredibly versatile. You can use the leftover seasoned beef from tacos and mexi cheese mix to top the dough and have taco pizza. You can spread the dough with BBQ sauce, top with cheddar and leftover shredded baked chicken for BBQ pizza, you can layer fresh sliced peaches on it, sprinkle with some cinnamon & sugar and have dessert pizza, and you can use tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese and pepperoni for traditional pizza. Our house favorite uses pesto sauce (mixed with a little alfredo sauce & chopped cooked frozen spinach ), baked chopped chicken, diced pepperoni, chopped artichokes (canned) and mozzarella cheese. Only your pantry limits you.

I know you are thinking “I could have Papa John’s here in less time than it takes for the dough to finish rising.” Yes you can. But you have far more control and freedom with homemade pizza. You can determine the fat & calories by controlling the amount & variety of cheese. You can add additional fiber & protein to the crust by varying the type of flour; you can add herbs and spices. You can make several individual pizzas instead of one 15 inch one and let everyone top their own, no more wondering, “Which half has the onions?” Homemade pizza is cheaper too.

The dough can also be sprinkled with a little garlic & rosemary, drizzled with a little olive oil and baked for 15 minutes for focaccia. It can be formed into small balls, baked for 10-12 minutes for dinner rolls. You can roll it out really thin, sprinkle it with kosher salt, bake it for 10 minutes and have homemade crackers. The possibilities of a ball of pizza dough are nearly endless!


Standard Pizza Dough

1 packet of yeast or 2 ¼ teaspoons
¾ cup warm water – a little warmer than body temperature
2 to 2 ¼ cups of white flour – you can substitute ¼ cup with wheat germ or up to ½ cup with whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar.
Large greased bowl
Non-insulated baking pan or pizza stone

1. Stir water, yeast & sugar together & let sit for a few minutes until it looks a bit bubbly
2. Stir this mixture slowly into 2 cups of flour. It will get sticky fast & you’ll end up using your hands. A mixer with a dough hook makes this easier. You may not need the extra ¼ cup of flour unless the mix seems very sticky. Turn it out on a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth (fold the dough in half, push it forward and flat with the base of your hand, turn it 90 degrees and repeat). This will take 5-7 minutes. If you have a mixer with a dough hook, let it to the kneading for about 5 minutes, then dump the dough out and knead it about 10 times yourself.
3. Place the dough in the greased bowl and let rise until it appears about 25% larger & if you poke it the indentation remains.
4. Preheat the oven to 500, place baking stone in the oven to preheat if using.
5. Using your hands or a rolling pin, flatten the dough out, on a floured surface, into a circle or square about 12 inches wide. Place on baking sheet or on the preheated baking stone (I find using 2 spatulas, or another edgeless baking pan helps if you don’t own a pizza peel)
6. Bake the crust for 8 minutes.
7. Remove from oven and add your sauce & favorite toppings. Return to oven and bake for another 8 minutes.

A time saving tip is to make a double or triple batch of dough and freeze the extra in individual freezer bags after the rise period. It will keep for a month. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator & let come to room temperature (about a half hour) and then proceed with baking.

Add a little additional flavor to the dough by kneading in up to 2 tablespoons of dried rosemary, basil or Parmesan cheese.

dinner score

menu - 2
laziness - 4

We went out 3 times. Wednesday we had scotch eggs. Thursday was date night. DH & I went to Bavarian Chef,the boys had PB&J. Friday the boys had fishsticks & spinich salad. I had spinich salad (still full from the previous night). Saturday we went to Waffle House and tonight we had KFC because my allergies gave me a screaming headache. This is not good. Tomorrow night DH won't be home for dinner, so I'm going to do the squash mac & cheese (DH is not a mac & cheese fan). Tuesday I will make the turkey roll ups I was going to make today before the allergies made me cry. The rest of the week is open but we have gove over & above the dining out budget so we MUST stick to the menu.

Why are the cookies flat again?

My husband makes chocolate chip cookies every Thursday night. He takes half the batch into his office on Friday so he doesn't end up eating them all (at least he doesn't eat them all at home. I have no idea if he then eats them all at the office). He's been making a batch of chocolate chip cookies every Thursday night for about 3 years now. There was a time when he also made them on Mondays. So he has had lots of practice. He's tweeked the flour weight, the softness of the butter, the amount of time spent creaming, the time & speed of the mixing, the timing of the baking, the right sized scoop. The past few months he has made excellent cookies - soft, yet crisp, with a decent rise & nice consistancy. But the last 3 batches have all been flat - spread out puddles of dough, with chips sticking up at random. Why? The flour is no more or less humid than it usually is and he weighs it. Its the same local organic butter we always use, same sugar, same brand of eggs. What could be making the cookies flatten out all of the sudden?

I cooked! I cooked!

Pasta
Soup
Pizza
Meatloaf
Roast chicken from Food Lion
Broiled salmon

I've actually made something from this list every night. Monday DH was able to get a chicken. We had it with hummas, olives, marinated artichokes, and salad. Tuesday I made meatloaf with sesame ginger broccoli. Wednesday we had chicken & asparagus tortellini with pesto alfredo. Thursday we had take out. Tonight we had pizza with chicken, spinach & artichokes with pesto alfredo. I'm going to try the salmon on Sunday

The boys ate some leaves of salad on Monday & one bite each of chicken. They ate the meatloaf & refused the broccoli (DH liked it. I'm so so about cooked broccoli). They ate the tortellini. They had taquitos on Thursday beacuse it was Thai take out & they don't like anything there. They eat ate a slice & a half of pizza. There was drama Monday, drama Tuesday, and some drama tonight (Havoc decided he cannot stand toppings on pizza, despite having topped his own with his own choice of stuff). I suppose 2 drama free meals is something.

Menu the week of Sept 24

Pasta
Soup
Pizza
Meatloaf
Roast chicken from Food Lion
Broiled salmon

There's a menu for you. So inventive & clever. Lots of great meals going on at our house. I'm currently in full on surrender mode. The boys will only eat about 5 things and I'm tired of stressing about it, so they get them. Pasta is usually a Buitoni ravioli or torellini, chosen by the boys, in a spinach pesto. Sometimes I add chicken to it. Occasionally I get clever & make a gorganzola alfredo sauce & add steak. The boys will eat the pasta, but are not too keen on the add ons. Pizza is usually a chicken-spinach variation. Sometimes pesto, sometimes pesto alfredo, occasionally BBQ sauce with bacon & mushrooms added. Sometimes I add zucchini or broccoli. Sometimes I get pick up from Papa John's. The seem to eat meatloaf 95% of the time, so it is fairly safe & I stick spinach or eggplant in it, so if they refuse the veg & salad they at least get some vitamins.

The soup is for me. I get one meal a week that is what *I* want to eat and the heck with difficult demons. They can eat the salad & bread or sandwich that goes with it. The salmon was Dh's request. I'm doing it with garlic lentils. Maybe the demons will eat it, maybe not

Food Lion is running a special on roast chicken, buy 6 & get the 7th free. But unlike Safeway, which keeps track of your purchases for you (You've bought 3 of your 6 sandwiches to get a free one), Food Lion gives you a printed ticket & expects you to keep track of it. Naturally that means they end up giving away far fewer chickens than Safeway would. But that is just so cheesy. I have an MVP card. Its not like they don't have a record of the chickens I have bought. Making me keep the damn coupons is so cheap of them.

not doing so good

My plan was

Soup - curried carrot
Pasta - TBD by the demons
Roasted chicken from Food Lion
Pizza - probably chicken
Beef kabobs with pita & assorted salads

I've had 4 opportunities to make those meals. I've made the pasta & that was only because Safeway is right next to the gym & was able to run in & grab some ravioli after my Kickboxing class. Monday I had intended chicken, but when DH went to get it, they were out, so the males had fish sticks & Lipton pasta sides and I had a cheese sandwich. Tuesday I intended to make soup, but had no broth, so we had grilled cheese and salad. Wednesday we had the pasta. Tonight DH called & said "How about Chinese take out?" and since I had failed to cut up the beef to marinate or buy the assorted salads, I said "hell yes!" The kabobs will be tomorrow. Definitely. and I am going to make my own flat bread.

On the upside the boys have eaten dinner every night without protest.

Menu the week of Sept 17

Soup - curried carrot
Pasta - TBD by the demons
Roasted chicken from Food Lion
Pizza - probably chicken
Beef kabobs with pita & assorted salads

There is a catfish fry that DH's company sponsors on Sunday and he'll probably make pancakes for dinner Saturday.

Can you tell I'm not really in the mood to cook? Apart from topping the Boboli & chopping the carrots for soup I'm not doing much this week. I'm just not hungry & when I am not in the mood to eat, I am not in the mood to cook. I'm sort of interested in the soup, but I can take or leave the rest of it.

This will probably come back to bite me in the butt, but right now I am looking forward to the boys being old enough to have some real input in the meal plan. Right now their only suggestions are "pizza!" and "pasta!". I make those, but I'm hoping someday they will say "how about that mustard chicken with artichokes you made a couple weeks ago?" or even "How about if I make some stew Mom?"

Grilling is Good

(an article I wrote for our Mom's Group newsletter)

One of my favorite parts of summer is dinner on the grill. The kids seem more willing to eat food, especially veggies, if they come of the grill. Maybe it’s being able to see the fire actually cooking the food. We grill out every weekend and sometimes on weekdays as well. We make hamburgers, BBQ and chicken & beef kabobs. We grill corn, asparagus, sliced zucchini, yellow squash & beets.

I rely a great deal on marinades when we grill, leaving meat & veggies to soak in them all day sometimes. We slice everything up thin before marinating it to get the most coverage & then thread them onto wood skewers or cook them in a foil basket with holes. Thinly sliced meat & veggies cook much faster than whole steaks or chicken breasts. A skewer of steak can be done after cooking 2 minutes each side, chicken takes about 5 minutes a side. Slide the meat in long strips about a quarter inch thick, marinate and then thread onto a metal or wet wooden skewer. Depending on length, 3-4 slices will fit, folded accordion style on one skewer. Cuts of beef at least an inch thick are best for slicing – flank steak & London broil work well, a rib eye is also good. Veggies should be sliced about a half inch thick or so & flipped frequently if skewered or stirred often if using a foil basket.

These are some of my current favorite marinades. They all marinate about 2 pounds of meat.

Spiced up BBQ

1cup of your favored premade BBQ sauce
3 tbls brown sugar
1 tbls paprika
½ teas ground cumin
½ teas cayenne pepper
¼ teas salt
¼ cup cider vinegar

Combine all of the above and marinate thinly sliced chicken strips for 1-8 hours before cooking. This is also good on pork roast (grilled or in the crock pot) and makes excellent pulled pork sandwiches.

Tandoori Marinade

¼ c yogurt
¼ c sour cream
1 tbls lemon juice
1 teas kosher salt
½ teas cayenne pepper
2 teas each – brown sugar, cumin, paprika, tumeric, minced garlic (powdered is ok), minced ginger (ground powdered is ok) and garam masala

Combine all ingredients and marinate thinly sliced chicken 1- 24 hours before cooking
Serve with raita for dipping

Raita
1 cucumed, deseeded & sliced
1 cup of yogurt or ½ c yogurt & ½ c sour cream
1 tbls chopped mint
¼ teas cumin

Blend all together in food processor or blender

Chimichurri Rojo

½ c red wine vinegar
¼ c olive oil
3 tbls tomato paste
2 tbls minced garlic
1 tbls sugar
1 teas ground cumin
1 teas ground black pepper
1 teas red pepper flakes

Combine all and marinate thinly sliced beef for 1-24 hours before cooking

Garlic Marinade

2 tbls minced garlic
½ c cider vingar
¼ c olive oil
½ teas salt

Marinate sliced veggies in this for about an hour.

I'm in shock

It has been 10 long long years since I have had hot food arrive at my front door, let alone have someone other than my husband be the bearer of this lukewarm food.

But all that is about to change...
Tannery General Store has begun making and delivering pizza! And subs! And, according to the flyer, they will also deliver GROCERIES!, including wine and beer! Be still my beating heart! Pizza AND beer! Brought to my door! Even subs and a gallon of milk! MILK, delivered! Sure they don't sell produce and meat but they have the general bread, soup, chips, dairy things and they will BRING IT TO MY HOUSE!! Can you feel my glee?! I called when I got the flyer, before I let myself get all gleeful, just to check on the delivery radius and they deliver in a 9 mile radius. We live 7.6 miles away. I know because the very next morning I drove there & measured. (its on the way to my kids school, sorta) Since then I have been far to gleeful to actually call in anything. Ever wanted something for so long that when you finally get it you have no idea what to do with it? That's how I feel. Paralyzed by sheer glee.

Bad, bad baking

I've had a run of bad luck with baking lately. My second to last loaf of sandwich bread did not go over too well with the demons. I have to tread a careful edge on the whole wheat to white flour percentage with them. I thought I had found a good balance but then I tried with this loaf to add some oat bran to it. Apparently it added a barely noticeable density to the bread, which was just too much for them. Their basis for comparison is Wonder bread, which admittedly I love too, so I know I am fighting an uphill battle on the texture front. And I must admit, peanut butter on a slice of dense wheat bread is like eating spackle in my opinion (which i have not voiced to the demons, they arrived a similar conclusion completely on their own). So I decided to make a different loaf of bread, a 'fluffy sandwich loaf' it claimed and it used a similar proportion of wheat to white that had been working ok for me. This loaf had 3 rising periods, which is a pain if you are not around all day to check on it and despite that it turned out like a brick. With DS2 repeatedly begging for 'san-ich, san-ich Mama!' I bought a loaf of Wonder bread.

Then yesterday I decided to make a cake. I had some yogurt that I needed to use in the next day or so and a recipe for yogurt cake I wanted to try out. I baked it the initial 40 minutes but it was underdone so I baked it a bit longer & the toothpick came out clean (I've been having that issue with my oven with everything lately. I need to get a new oven thermometer, the last one got fried when DH ran the the 'cleaning' cycle) It smelled good and looked good. It cooled & I iced it. Dessert time came around & I started to cut it. I have never had to SAW slices off of a cake before but I knew when my steak knife was having issues sliding through it there was a problem. The outer couple inches of the edges of the cake were overbaked & rock hard. The inside was underbaked. I cannot recall the last time I have spit food out, let alone cake, but I couldn't bring myself to finish chewing it. The icing was ok, but it was Duncan Hines.

So I am on a baking hiatus. The cake problem can possibly be blamed on the high humidity - there was too much flour in the mix. Also I am just hopeless baking sweets. I can bake bread and make a delicious cobbler, but that is it as far as baking goes for me. The bread flour is kept in the fridge at a constant humidity, though I suppose possibly the humidity did something during the risings... or there could be a problem with the overm I won't know about that for awhile. It's too damn hot to be using the oven now anyway.

Baggage - labels

The mental & emotional kind, not the kind that gets x-rayed at airport security.

I have baggage. Everyone I know has baggage of some sort. Among my friends it is religious or cultural mostly, but educational, athletic and economic bags also sit on the luggage cart was well. We all have things that our family made us do, or wouldn't let us do, or were inflicted upon us by our peers. We swear these things will not happen to our children. We will do it differently. We will do it right .

My baggage is food related (with a carry on of organized sports issues). There was little variety in the meals in our house. I was labeled a picky eater at an early age, but never really encouraged to try new things. No one in my family ate new things either, at least not in front of me. I assume when my parents were in Japan and the Philippines my dad, at least, tried new foods. My mom I know existed on Mc D's french fries & milkshakes. It was a case of the pot calling the kettle black. But as a child I could not see that. I now realize that the limited variety of foods in my house was due to my parents own baggage. Dad had issues with things he would not eat from his poor childhood. Mom just lacks a desire to try new foods. So we were left with what what my dad was willing to eat of what my mom was willing to eat. Ground beef, pork chops, ham steak & the occasional grilled steak. Chicken was expensive when I was child, so we had something called 'city chicken', which was breaded pork kabobs. There was also spaghetti, lasagna & tuna noodle casserole. Vegetables were canned green beans, canned corn, canned succotash, frozen broccoli & cauliflower, both smothered in a cheese sauce. There may have been carrots, but I think not. My dad doesn't like peas. There were no other vegetables in my world, apart from iceberg lettuce

So really, looking back it is not surprising I was a reluctant eater. I can't stand canned green beans. Loathe them, always have, but as they were the veg of choice they were on offer 2 or 3 times a week. Limiting my already limited menu caused me to be labeled a picky eater. I never turned my nose up at zucchini or kohlrabi or asparagus. I was never offered them. Maybe I might have liked them. Maybe if I had seen my parents trying new foods from time to time I would have as well. Maybe not. Maybe the list of foods I refused to eat would have gotten longer. But I know now I was not and am not a picky eater. I like different things than my parents do.

Even knowing this on an intellectual level, I still carry this big bag labeled picky eater with me into every kitchen, grocery store, market & restaurant. "What's that thing?" a suspicious child's voice in mind wonders looking at a star fruit. "Eww, that's yuck." the voice says looking at the okra. "Are there onion chunks in that?" it ponders, looking closely at the stir fry on the plate. "You haven't even tried it yet."the adult me asserts. "Give it a chance." I seem to spend as much time trying to convince myself to try things as I do trying to convince my children. I succeed with myself only because the guilt of being a good example tends to overcome the reluctance. I have lived outside my parent's home for 22 years. I have made my own food choices for longer than I had to live with theirs. But the early training is still there. The reluctance to step outside the known, the encouragement to stick with the familiar. "What if is is yucky?" is the question in my mind.

I don't want that for my children. I want them to look at new foods and ask "What if it is wonderful?" So I eat the slimy okra & find other ways of preparing it. I eat the starfruit and the stir fry. I try my best to range outside my own food comfort zone & provide them with variety. And when people say my child is a picky eater I say "He isn't picky. He just doesn't like everything we do and that is ok."

Where we eat according to Mayhem.

Mayhem likes to eat out. Specifically Mayhem likes to eat pizza out. He also likes 'rice with sauce' and pancakes. Occasionally he will eat chicken fingers or a grilled cheese sandwich. Sometimes he will eat some of whatever DH & I have ordered. He loves Outback's bloomin shrooms & Chili's asian wings. Mostly I think he likes having a choice. These are the places he suggests we eat

Wee-Gee's - this is a local Italian place. He gets pizza& might eat some calamari
Chilwee Resaraunt - Chili's. He gets the asian chicken appetizer and pizza
Fire Resaurant - this is any Japanese steak house. He eats fried rice in a puddle of ginger sauce. He might eat some tamako sushi & some shrimp
Pancake Resaurant - this is any place that serves breakfast all day, usually one of the diners in town, occasionally IHOP or Dennys. He gets pancakes, no whipped cream, easy on the syrup.
Quito place - this is the local mexican restaurant. He gets taquitos & occasionally a fish taco
Outback - the only place he knows the correct name of. He eats the mushrooms and random things from the kids menu.
Tie resuarant - our local Thai place. He eats nothing. Maybe he'll have a bite of chicken satay, but usually not.

These are the places we take the kids too. There are some other great restaurants in town, but they are not really demon friendly. They serve meals to be savored, meals that take time to prepare, serve and eat. Meals on a timetable not compatible with energetic small kids. Plus they probably wouldn't eat any of the food, given what they are willing to eat.

making yogurt

When I tell people I make my own bread & yogurt I get all sorts of responses, mostly involving the time & effort. Honestly, if either took much time or effort, I wouldn't do them. Bread needs 5-10 minutes of actual effort on my part, most of of the time involved in making bread is spent waiting around - for the mixer to knead it, for it rise, and rise again and to bake and to cool. But you can do other things, even leave the house, while most of that is going on.

Yogurt is the same way, but needs even less effort. Get a quart size glass mason jar, wide mouths are best. Fill it most of the way up with milk (not skim), microwave it for 6-7 minutes until it reaches 180-185 degrees. Stick it in the fridge for about a half hour (check at 20 minutes until you know for sure) until it cools to between 110-115 degrees, stirring occasionally. You can also leave it on the counter for 45-60 minutes. Add to it a quarter cup powdered milk, 2 tablespoons of yogurt from your last batch, or that you bought and a good squeeze of honey. Stir it gently together. Wrap the jar in a bunch of kitchen or hand towels and put in a 6 pack sized insulated tote or small cooler. Fill the corners & crevices with towels/washcloths as well. Wait about 8 hours (at least 6 hours for thinner, up to 10 for thicker). Unwrap the jar & put it in the fridge, wait 8 more hours. Open and enjoy your yogurt. Seriously. The biggest problem you will have with this is finding enough small towels.

I had good intentions

We all know what road is paved with those....

I was really going to try this year to branch out on side dishes; do something more than just microwave some frozen veggie mix - MAKE THINGS! I was going to make things, to serve something more than steamed broccoli with a bit of garlic butter. I was even going to make a few veggie meals. But it's mid-August & it just hasn't happened. I still make the plans to cook these things, but by 6pm most nights just grabbing a bag of frozen peas & tossing them in the microwave seems an effort, especially since no one will eat them anyway. Peas coated in butter, peas with garlic, peas in ginger sauce, pea soup, peas with bacon. The boys will not touch them. It's draining - mentally & emotionally.

It's not just the peas or the veggies in general, it's everything. Just getting them to taste things is a miserable experience. One bite. That all I ask. Before you turn your nose up and announce "That's yuck!" to the room at large TRY THE THING FIRST!!! Just taste it. If you don't like it, fine. It's ok to not like everything. But taste it...please. I want them to like food, I want them to enjoy food. They don't have to be adventurous eaters snacking on fried mosquito larvae, but for crying out loud take a bite of chicken that is not coated in breading once in awhile.

I keep telling myself it is just a stage, normal & natural. But is it. Other people's kids seem to eat more variety, eat more willingly, don't shout 'yuck' when presented with anything but pizza for dinner. Other children will take the one bite without being asked or told to do so. I don't compare my kids to other peoples in anything but this. Learning to crawl, read, ride a bike, these are things kids do in their own time. They are skills you develop when you are physically & mentally ready to do so. What about trying food? Is this my fault? Are my genes to blame? My parenting? Somedays it just so overwhelming to me that all I can do is order pizza and savor the site of them eating something willingly.

My Favorite Muffins

Finally something baked came out right! Possibly because I used the bread flour from the fridge instead of the regular flour in the bin on the counter. I have over soft bananas so it was time for Banana Yogurt muffins. I love this muffin recipe. It's delicious! My only problem with it is I always end up needing 1.5 bananas & what do you do with half a mushy banana? I made a smoothie out of it but that isn't always an option.

This makes 12 muffins

Preheat your oven to 375 and set paper liners into 12 muffin cups.

Combine these ingredients:

1 2/3c flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

Then cut in,using 2 forks or a pastry blender until crumbly:

1/2c soft butter

Then stir in:

2/3c bran (I prefer oat, but wheat works too)

1/2c mini chocolate chips

In a larger bowl mix together:

1 egg

2/3c well mashed bananas

1/2c yogurt plain (vanilla is good too)

1/2c brown sugar

1 tblsp molassas

Then add the dry ingredients and mix until just blended, don't overmix.

Scoop batter into the paper line muffin tins. Bake about 25 minutes.

where does he get this?

The younger of the little demons, er, angels, loves spicy food. Where did that come from. DH & I are not spicy food eaters. I like flavorful stuff but heat turns me off. I am a bland eater. I'm not fond of mexican due to the peppers & I like mild forms of Indian & Thai food. I love the flavors in Japanese food & non-hot Chinese food. I like unusual spices but not heat. DH like thigs a bit hoter than me but even then he is an American Hot sort of eater (as opposed to Mexican Hot or Thai Hot, the grades that appear in several of our local ethnic restuarants). DS2 however likes it HOT. He likes spicy curry. He'll eat Wasabi ranch dip with a fork. He loves spicy taco meat. I am a bland cook & I have joked that I need to just start shaking Tabasco sauce on his food to get him to eat it. Turns out it really isn't a joke. I bought chicken taquitos because the store was out of the usual beef & cheese ones. The chicken ones are bland, even to me (and that is sayin something). DS2 loves taquitos but he doesn't like the chicken ones because thy are bland. The beef ones don't really qualify as spicy but they do at least have a nice flavor. He's only 2 and a half & doens't understand that we don't have the taquitos he wants. He sees the box and wants taquitos. Explaining they are the chicken ones he won't eat makes no difference. All he knows is that I am denying him the taquitos of his dreams. So today I went through my spice rack, looking for something to dress up the taquitos. I'd though I had some red pepper (though why I though I would have that is a mystery). What I found was curry powder (and why I have that is a bigger mystery). I made the taquitos and then sprinkled a bit of curry powder on them. They smelled good. DS2 ate them up with speed and requested more. I made another batch, including some for myself. They were delicious. DS1 was not as approving, but he is a bland eater too. He did eat them eventually.

My quest for this evening is to go through my recipie cards and find the reason I bought the curry powder so I can make it for dinner tomorrow. I'm assuming it was a Rachel Ray meal, the only other cookbook I have been using in the past few months is Giada DiLorentis & curry doens't feature much in Italian food.

Bread, lots of bread

I've been baking. Oh my have I been baking! I bake a loaf of 'sandwich' bread every week, plus I've been experimenting with random specialty loaves once a week as well. Just the past 3 days alone I have made sandwich bread, naan and a most excellent wheaty cheddar bread. I've made more bread this month with no bread machine than I made in half of 2006 with a bread machine. The Kitchen Aid mixer has been getting quite a work out between my bread explorations and DH's weekly cookie bake. We've decided it is time for an upgrade. We have the Heavy Duty version, which actually has the lowest RPMs of any of the mixers and the smallest bowl. It was a gift about 7 years ago. We're going for the 6qt professional model. Just as soon as I come across a factory refurb of an appropriate color. They are $150 less on average, but mostly of that stainless steel or gunmetal gray sort of finish which would look damn odd in my medium wood, slate and cheap white applianced kitchen. Our current one is black, which is ok, I don't want a white one. I'm hoping to find a green one but black will do.

What are your cooking skills? How have they improved/changed??

I'm a pretty good cook & for the most part I enjoy it. It can be frustrating from time to time due to my diners. Little boys are not in general the most appreciative of audiences unless I am heating up Tyson chicken patties.

I've always enjoyed cooking and been fairly good at it when I wanted to be. What I have been working on the since the boys were born was planning. Before them I would call DH at 10am and say "What do you want for dinner?" and search up recipes on the web & buy the stuff I needed on the way home from work. And if I didn't feel like cooking it was no big deal because the other person in my house was a grown adult who could find himself something to eat on his own (and was a short order cook in college). Now I have other people to feed & dinner by Tyson every night is just not my style. I end up feeling bad for eating all the processed foods. Don't get me wrong, I *like* processed foods, especially breakfast cereal, but apart from that I think it should be kept to a minimum. But lack of sleep & 2 babies pushed me into lots of boxes of meals for a couple years & I lost interest in food really. I have been slowly getting back to where I was, which makes me feel more like me again. But I have had to get a handle on planning. I make long range goals. My goal in 2004 was just to make 4 meals a week. From scratch mostly, no Hamburger Helper (HH was for the other 3 nights). I also got my recipe collection organized & went through my several dozen cookbooks and did up cards on any recipe I found interesting. For 2005 it was 5 meals a week with one new or rarely made recipe a week. Plus start keeping a log of how they turned out and changes I made. My 2006 goal was planning for 2 weeks of dinners, using the leftovers from a couple of meals creatively in other meals in the period. And baking at least a couple loaves of bread a month. My 2007 goals were to get a handle on side dishes (insread of just nuking whatever frozen veggie I have on hand or making a spinach salad. I don't like veggies but I can't let the boys know that so I need to make interesting veggie dishes to interest all of us) and to prep ahead, like when I make crock pot beef stew - prep 2 or 3 times as many veggies and freeze them so next time all I have to do is open a bag. And since my bread machine finally died on me in February while kneading a loaf of Pepperoni Pecarino Bread, I am making bread without it. The variety and scope of my bread making has expanded greatly since the machine died & in the end I think I am probably not going to replace it.

Apart from bread I don't bake. Baking requires an attention to detail I don't have. DH bakes. He has spent the past year perfecting his chocolate chip cookies. Now he is branching out into mousse! :)

Back to Blogging

It's August, the last VBS is over & school starts in 2 weeks, so it is time to get back to the routine.  That means trying to blog regularly again.

It's Lammas today, the festival of the first wheat harvest of the year, the loaf-mass.  Given that i am so fond of baking bread, I naturally planned to make a loaf for the occasion & had considered a few of my favorites.  By morning I had decided that family dynamics required pizza for dinner so I would make pizza dough.  Well, the morning went by.  I took DS1 to VBS, did laundry, I did some homework, I read to DS2, & then it was time to pick DS1 up and no dough had been started.  I knew I wouldn't get home in time to start some for dinner so I decided to buy some, even if it meant going into the crappy Food Lion (I like most Food Lions, it's just this one that sucks).  As usual the Food Lion lived up to my expectations - no frozen dough, no premade crusts, not even Chef Boyardee Pizza in a box. I ended up buying crescent rolls, generic ones because they were out of Pillsbury, and using them.  I should have just made a biscuit crust but that didn't occur to me until after dinner.  So for Lammas we had 'bread' about as far removed from fresh ground wheat as you can possibly get.  My sabbat intentions always fall through.  However, last Sunday I prepared a feast for a dozen people that included hot flat bread grilled by me on open fire (ok it was a gas grill, but there was actual fire & I have the scorched arm hair to prove it).  everyone said the meal was delicious & satisfying & this sunday I am making cheese bread for our coven's Lammas feast.  I think that covers me.  I may not have celebrated on the exact day, but I did and will be celebrating anyway.

it's not that I didn't have a plan

for the month of Feb. I did. I had put together 2 menus of 10 meals each as usual. But stomach illnesses and new flooring & DH's long work nights meant that only 13 of 20 meals actually got made.

Last week I wrecked my car. I failed to miss a chunk of tree limb in the middle of the road and did, according to my mechanic, "Significant damage" to my car. So far it looks like I owe my $500 deductible and $14 a day insurance on my rental car. The rest of the repairs and the cost of the rental are covered by my insurance. Unless it turns out that my transmission is significantly damaged. They they may call my car totalled. Add to that what will not doubt be an exorbitant electric bill because the heat ran almost non-stop through all of Feb adnthe fact that we just paid for flooring to be installed and there is no money to eat out and the grocery bill will have to be very small for the next couple of months. Planning & sticking to a menu to necessary. But planning more than 8-10 meals at a time is a bit too much for me (unless I am planning to double the amount & freeze half) so I am just doing a week at a time for now.

This week (probably in this order):
Indian Inspired Chicken with curried broccoli
Butoni tortellini & salad
Meatloaf with hidden veggies & corn
Veggie soup & grilled cheese
Broiled whitefish & veggie TBB
pizza - toppings TBD
Pork loin (to become BBQ sandwiches next week)

Target just opened recently & I've been trying out their Archer Farms snacks. We love the spinach & artichoke tortilla chips so I think I will make some sort of loaded nacho dish & serve with spinach salad. I suspect black bean soup is in my near future as well. It's been on my mind a lot. I may make it instead of the veggie soup. It might be good with the chips too. And maybe I'll make that Coq au vin from Cooks Illustrated again next week as well. Next Wednesday is Ostara so we'll have an omlette or frittata that night, maybe a quiche. Maybe some chicken & sweet potato salad on night as well. And i'll see what beef product is on sale next week for the last meal, or maybe we can grill some of those rib eyes we have if it is nice enough. Some beets with them perhaps, or turnips.

Current Menu options

Pork Schnitzel with baked zucchini
Stuffed turkey breast (Assuming I can find one not already marinated & beaten flat) and broccoli
Rosemary Beef Roast & mashed veg (crock pot)
Braciole and polenta
Pork filled Acorn Squash *new
Monte Cristo & salad
Pizza (TBD by leftovers)
Roasted chicken & vegetables
Swiss Chicken (crock pot) and glazed carrots & parsnips
Soup (TBD by leftovers) & salad.

I was going to do the schnizel last night but had a bad case of the chills & went to bed with a mug of chicken broth as soon as DH came home. He & the boys ate many Tyson Chicken Patties & leftover meatloaf.

Me & a pan of hot oil.

It's never been a good idea, but it is slowly becoming more common as I expand my repetoir. Generally speaking, in this house, if the recipe calls for more than a tablespoon or so of oil in the pan, the recipe does not get made. This is not for reasons of health but for reasons of fear - fear of burns, fear of fire, fear of smoke alarms, fear of the greasy spattered mess to clean. But today I once again ventured into the fry arena. This time it was Rachel Ray's chicken tenders. i won, but it was a struggle. The problem again was equipment. To bread the chicken you need a plate of flour, a plate with eggs and a plate of breadcrumbs. 3 plates. and since the breading takes a bit of time for me I need a cooling rack to let them rest while I get 6 of them ready for the skillet. I lack contiguous counter space of suffient size. (say that 3 times fast) So here is my problem. There is no way to be food safe & bread chicken at the same time. You don't want to be spreading raw chicken all over your counters. (not to mention the counters have plates & things on them already) So I used very tiny plates and very very slowly breaded 6 pieces of chicken. They fried up well & then went into the oven to finish cooking. I'm not good with oil due to lack of experience so it got a little to hot & a couple pieces got browner than needed but nothing burned.

The boys wouldn't eat it. It's breaded fried chicken. The one thing in the whole of the vast world of food that the little demons can be counted on to eat and they wouldn't eat it. It is very very frustrating. I don't know that they actually disliked it so much as they just were not in the mood to eat. DS2 had 2 bites of chicken and a few more of spinach salad. DS1 ended up eating maybe 4 bites of chicken & 2 of salad. It had been 3 hours since they last ate, so they should have been hungry, but all they really wanted to do was goof off. Thats been the thing lately, goof off & not eat. I think we give them plenty of time. Really 30 minutes to eat 8 bites of chicken & some spinach salad is plenty. We gave them a 10 minute warning (at the end of the 30 minutes), which was when DS1 actually ate something, and when the time was up the food was gone. Suddenly drama about being SO HUNGRY!!! Oh but not for that chicken. I'm so tired of this.

I wonder if they will eat it on the pizza tomorrow?

Bad week so far

Monday - DH calls & says he'll be home after 7p. Boys have taquitos & spinach salad for dinner. I have a danish.

Tuesday - Bunco night & I am unable to make the planned pizza because we did not have the chicken last night for me to have leftovers. Boys have mac & cheese with peas. I ate at Bunco later

Wednesday - DH calls & says he will be home around 8p. Boys have oatmeal & apples for dinner. I have a bowl of cereal.

Tomorrow I'll hit Safeway for lunchmeat (the Food Lion selection was unappealing & I don't trust the prices) and plan for either the Tandoori Chicken (if DH deigns to come home for dinner) or the Monte Cristo sandwiches.

turkey cutlets

I made Rachel Ray's turkey cutlets for dinner last night. They were very good. I had to make some modifications to method & ingredient but I like the result. My biggest problem with RR meals is the number of pots & pans used. I have a 10 year old bottom of the line stove. 2 large burners, 2 small burners. I have little storage so I am not stocked with a wide variety of stuff & assorted sizes. I don't own a pasta pot but regularly make spaghetti in what would be called 'too little water' by damn near everyone. But I have no place for a big pasta pot, so oversized soup pan it is! I have one large skillet, one small skillet and a cast iron pan of the standard size you think of when you think of a cast iron pan. I have 2 small pots and 2 soup sized pots and the oversized soup pot. I also have a dutch oven & assorted silicone bakeware. RR's equipment list can be a challenge for me, especially if you need to have more than 2 burners going. For this meal I needed a pasta pot, a large skillet and a medium skillet. Assuming I owned all these things, I could not actually have all of them on the stove at once (at least not at an effective heat because one of them would be on a small burner). I ended up with my large pot & using my large skillet twice, which meant the turkey got a little cool. I'm also lacking in counter space which made the 'dust the pasta' part of the cooking go a bit slowly & I ended up dusting a fair amount of the kitchen floor in the process. Having made the meal I am wondering how she cooked the pasta effectively in the medium skillet as I used a large one & still needed to do it in 2 batches. The sauce needed thickening with a roux I think. Also I am glad I stuck with one lemon instead of using the 2 recommended as the first words out of DH's mouth were "Thats lemony!" I will be making the cutlets again. Not with the pasta though, or not with the pasta in that way. I like pasta crisped up in a skillet but the little boys do not & wouldn't eat it. However I think just regular cooked pasta served with the thicker sauce on it and the turkey would go over well.

so far so good

This week we have had

Pesto Tortellini w/raddichio salad
Ham Scones with spinach salad
Potato & Leek soup Baked Potato Soup
Beef Ragou w/grilled winter veggies

Thursday night we had something random & Friday we had take out. The boys ate dinner every night but Saturday, when we had the ragu. They don't really care for steak, ground beef is ok but not whole bits of steak. Plus daddy had given them each a coupe mugs of hot chocolate within an hour or so of dinner. everything turned out really well, except the roasted veggies last night. The pan was on too low of a rack & should have had more oil. tonight I am going to make the Turkey cutlets one, which is new for me. We'll see how that goes.

Menu Jan 8 to Jan 21

I sat down at lunchtime & assembled a menu.

Pesto Tortellini w/raddichio salad
Fake Tandoori chicken w/grilled squash & couscous
Potato & Leek soup
Fish Cakes w/herb roasted veggies
Turkey Cutlets & Ravioli w/garlic sauteed broccoli
Ham Scones with spinach salad
Pizza
Beef Ragou w/grilled winter veggies
Chicken Tenders Parmesan w/pasta
Monte Cristo sandwich with salad

That is 10 meals, most of which have sides and one new meal (the turkey cutlets). 5 of the meals are from Rachel Ray as I had suspected might happen.

I will also be attempting banana bread and pesto bread sticks.

no menu

ok, so its the 5th and I have no menu yet. This week we ate homemade pizza (with a spinach basil crust that was really good if I do say so myself), spinach ravioli with spinach pesto, then lobster bisque from Safeway with spinach salad (Sensing a theme?), then we had chinese take out (no spinach) and tonight we had meatloaf with microwaved Green Giant mixed veggies (including spinach, what can I say, it's the only thing my kids will eat).

So far I suck at my resolutions. But i have all weekend to get my act together for the next 2 weeks & I plan to do so. I am already looking at things to do with broccoli.

new toys

We had a gift exchange with some online friends & I got some new toys. I got a really nice quality set of silicone spatulas & a silicone bundt pan. I've been looking all over for a silicone bundt pan. I saw one months ago at BB&B but didn't get it & have not seen one since. I have a few recipes that call for one but have no storage space for a metal one, especially since it won't see a lot of use. Silicone can be folded & squished into small spaces & I like that in a bake pan. I'm slowly replacing all my stuff with silicone - except my stone bread loaf pan and my special 'as seen on tv' meat loaf pan. I'm really loving the silicone stuff. I still need to replace my regular cake pans & get one of those 12 muffin muffin pans & I should be set. Then I need to convince myself it is ok to throw out the old metal pans.....