Two Kid Schoolhouse
Not cooking on Thanksgiving? Nov. 19, 2007
This will be the first year since 1995 that I will not cook Thanksgiving dinner. I am only contributing a sweet potato dish and some wine.
I'm not sure I can handle it, having Thanksgiving dinner at someone else's house. Three years ago we had dinner for 24. Two years ago it was about 20. Last year it was family only and boy were we lonely.
This year we are in a new city and planned on an "orphans" Thanksgiving. Lots of seminary students would need a place to go, we figured. But we were invited to another family's house.
So. I'm not cooking. I have to decide on only one dish. But there are so many sweet potato recipes! Do I want to go goopy and sweet, or savory? The twice-baked with sage, or the butter-pecan? I can't go too goopy and sweet. I just can't. No marshmallows, please. |
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1 sick kid + 0 fresh vegetables May. 1, 2007
equals a dinner dilemma for mom. We had canned green beans last night; can't have them again. We ran out of frozen broccoli. (Next time I'm in Costco I'm buyin' the big bag!) Corn is not a veggie. I had some spinach but it, um...
How do once a month shopper do it? Hey, how do once a week shoppers do it? |
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Sometimes happiness is a fresh box of baking powder Apr. 16, 2007
Tonight's biscuits turned out so light and fluffy it was hard to stop eating them. Yesterday's pancakes had been exceptionally good too. Hmmm... we used the same recipes we always do. What was different?
Well, maybe it was finally using up the rest of the giant Costco container of baking powder that had a "best used by" date of around September 2006. Or maybe earlier...
I kept using it because stuff kept rising. Now I realize that things weren't rising quite enough!
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When planning out meals... Feb. 9, 2007
don't forget the step of actually buying the food you plan to prepare. Tomorrow we are supposed to be eating something we call "Instapundit Chicken" because that's where we found the recipe. It's a fabulous pantry recipe, no work at all to make - just put a whole chicken in a pan, add some veggies, pour some easy ingredients over, bake. It lends itself to any number of changes and substitutions - out of teriyaki? Skip it. Don't like worcestershire sauce too much? Reduce the amount. Etc. But there is one ingredient I am missing and I can't work out a subtitute for it: I forgot to buy the chicken.
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Why is messing around with recipes so satisfying? Jan. 10, 2007
Last night I spent a very satisfying 45 minutes or so messing around in my recipe notebook. I clip a lot of recipes - from the newspaper, from magazines, from cans of beans and boxes of pasta. I have a binder full of recipes and a lot of clippings yet unfiled. Actually I have two binders - one is devoted to breads, breakfast foods, and sweets. I have a lot of cookbooks, too.
Inspired by a friend who's been doing her own recipe work lately, I decided to start organizing my backlog of clippings. I sorted and filed and recycled and just had a nice time. I am nowhere near done. But things are a little more organized.
My dream is that I'll eventually have meal plans for a few weeks so won't have to sit around wondering what to eat for dinner on a given night. I'm not there yet.
I also have a file of recipes online. I know that is an easier way to store recipes. But my recipe binder is much more fun and satisfying. |
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Whenever I start to think I'm so smart... Nov. 25, 2006
I learn, quickly, that I'm not.
Last week I had apparently "promised" to make cinnamon buns. At least that's what E tells me. I remember talking about the possibility of having company for breakfast on Friday and saying that maybe we could make real cinnamon buns. But I know I did not promise. I am careful never to promise.
Anyway, this morning I decided to make easy cinnamon buns - the kind made with biscuit dough. Because I am a very health-conscious mom (insert snort of derision here), I decided to use whole wheat pastry flour instead of white. (Reality: to use white flour I would have had to walk downstairs and move some flour from the giant bucket into a smaller container. My regular white flour canister is half-full of self-rising flour I'd mistakenly put into it. So I'm just lazy.)
The recipe said the dough would be a little sticky at first. But it never got unsticky. Undaunted (so far), I pressed on and happily sprinkled my cinnamon/clove/sugar mixture, some walnuts, and butter over my near-perfect rectangle of dough. Then I started rolling...
The dough was so soft and sticky that it wouldn't roll. C finally came over to help me, using a scraper to lift the dough so I could roll it. But holes kept appearing and filling kept leaking out. It was a mess. Finally we got it into some semblance of a roll shape, but of course I couldn't cut it into nice neat slices.
So the scent that is wafting out of the oven now is not of lovely cinnamon buns, with their spirals of luscious filling. It is the scent of cinnamon/walnut blobs - rounds of dough mushed together into the baking pan. It looks like something I used to have as a kid - cinnamon pull-aparts or something like that - that we made with tubes of biscuit dough.
They actually look pretty good. And I suspect that once they are glazed they will taste good too. Not as aesthetically pleasing as the real thing, but don't think anyone will turn one down because of it.
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Thanksgiving for 4 Nov. 19, 2006
For the past few years, we have had a huge crowd for Thanksgiving. And since some of our friends have large families, the adults are always outnumbered. It's a lot of fun, though hectic. I love to cook a big feast!
But this year my kids asked to have a family Thanksgiving. No guests. So I have to figure out how to scale down the feast for 4 people. Since I like to make several side dishes, it will be hard to do. Most veggie dishes do not make great leftovers. So far the menu looks like this:
Roast Turkey - a basic recipe, I think. We have done a maple-glazed turkey in the past but the soup that comes out of that isn't very tasty. And I have to make soup! One year we were going to brine the turkey but made a big mess and had to disinfect the cooler. I don't think we'll try that again...
Dressing - I don't stuff my turkey. I usually make a basic recipe - bread, onions, etc. - and an experimental recipe. I think last year we had a rice dressing that was very good, but I wish I had written it down because I don't remember. A feast journal is a very good idea that I really ought to implement.
Gravy - Ugh. I don't like gravy much but it seems like a necessity. I did have success with a recipe from the newspaper last year. It was made ahead using turkey legs and wings, roasted and then cooked into broth. So I may try that again this year.
Potatos - mashed. Our local paper has a recipe that can be made ahead and reheated in the oven. Love it! It is said to be the most-requested recipe of all time for that paper.
Three corn casserole - found on the internet years ago. It's the one with the box of Jiffy cornbread mix. I tried it once with a homemade cornbread recipe but it was horrid. OK, not horrid, but not... right.
Cranberry sauce - 1 bowl from a can, 1 bowl homemade. The boy loves his "pipe cranberry sauce." I prefer a not-so-sweet version.
Green beans sauteed with shallots and hazelnuts
One other vegetable - glazed carrots? Brussels sprouts? The brussels sprouts and radicchio salad recipe I hope I can find in an old Martha Steward Living magazine? Just some baked acorn squash? Hmmm....
Bread or rolls - probably from the store, not homemade.
Pumpkin pie and apple pie.
Enjoy your Turkey Day, or National Butterfat Consumption Day, or High-Carb Day... they all apply, don't they?
And remember to be thankful!
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Is corn a veggie? Oct. 22, 2006
My good friend anonymous* asks: Do you think corn is a veggie?
Well, yes and no. It is actually a cereal grain. Like most people I serve it as a veggie, but when I do, I try to serve a green salad or other non-starchy veggie along with it. I started this years ago when I belonged to Weight Watchers and corn was treated as a bread or a limited veggie (can't remember exactly) because of the high starch or sugar content. Last year my doctor gave me a food plan to follow to lose weight; it is not specifically low-carb but corn was on the limited list.
According to Wikipedia: Maize (Zea mays ssp. mays), also known as corn, is a cereal grain that was domesticated in Mesoamerica and then spread throughout the American continents.
Lots of interesting (and not so) information follows, but then we get to this: Sweetcorn is a genetic variation that is high in sugars and low in starch that is served like a vegetable.
Looking at a random low-carb site (found via google) I see corn is listed as a restricted food because it is starchy.
So there you go. I still like corn, especially popcorn, especially Black Pearl when I can find it locally. But even though I am not a low-carb follower, I don't eat a lot of it.
*At least I think this was asked by my good friend, as we had had a similar conversation once, when my dear husband was trying to get me in trouble. But maybe it was someone else. It's hard to tell with anonymous.
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Faking dinner Oct. 21, 2006
A good friend of mine (who reads here and for whom I love to cook) is under the impression that I always make fairly elaborate meals for my family. Now, I do love to cook, and do sometimes (especially for company) like to pull out all the stops, or at least some of them. (Though her family is not really company, y'know? But still.) Anyway, for my good friend's information and easing of mind, here is last's night's dinner menu:
rotisserie chicken from Winco (local discount food barn)
mashed potatoes
can of green beans
can of corn
(the vegetables were not mixed together)
bread, of course
I did make the mashed potatoes but only because I couldn't find any prepared ones at the store.
After walking down every aisle in Winco at 3:30 pm on a Friday, which is apparently when every Winco shopper goes there, filling a cart completely (including the bottom) and then having to supervise the kids in bagging all these groceries... you think I'm gonna go home and cook??
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A dinner experiment that worked Sep. 8, 2006
I'm a big fan of meal planning. I love to look on my calendar or meal-planning sheet and see what to make each day. Everything works better when meals are planned ahead. The reality is that is doesn't always work so well for me. I'll plan something and then forget to buy some key ingredient, like... chicken, for the crockpot "roast" chicken I was going to make last night. I'd never done a whole chicken in the crockpot and was dubious that it would taste good, until last weekend when a friend did one that way - it was so delicious! I rebel at calling it "roast" though - it is not roasted! Roast chicken is cooked in the oven, dry heat. This is more of a braise.
Anyway, so last night I was without chicken and had to come up with something. E had a sore throat and I'd semi-promised a stay-home day, so no going to the grocery store. I had just bought a bag of frozen shrimp so pulled some of that out to defrost. It took a minute to find a recipe to use for it online. The recipe said to grill, but I planned to saute it on the stove. No matter.
E asked for "risotto rice" as that sounded soothing to her throat. Risotto is a dish that seems more complicated than it is. It's just a certain kind of rice - fat, short grain - cooked slowly in broth (and wine if you like). It looks very daunting because it calls for constant stirring, but I've never done that. I stir it a lot, but I don't stand there the whole time stirring. Maybe my risotto doesn't come out quite right. But my family never complains. So I made some of that, plain.
I had a few red peppers and of course some onions and garlic, so I sliced those up to saute with the shrimp.
Then I pulled a bag o'salad out of the fridge. This time of year it's cheaper around here to buy the fresh greens but I'd found a good deal so had a nice mixed salad.
Oh man, what a good dinner! Everyone but E gobbled up the shrimp. She doesn't much like it even without a sore throat, but she played the sick card well last night and just ate rice. The shrimp had a bit of spice to it from the marinade, but that didn't stop J from asking for more. He ate the bare minimum amount of peppers and onions, of course. Which just left more for me. Next time I'll make it a little more spicy, I think. Eating it with the rice cools it down a bit.
What are you having for dinner tonight?
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About Me |
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Musings of a slacker homeschool Mom
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