A little grocery store adventure

Taking Elliott to the grocery store means a few new foods will come home. He is ever interested in trying something new or something we have not had in a long time. Today was no exception. Rutabagas, shrimp, a new shape of pasta, pepitas, a new frozen veggie mix, and strawberry cream pudding made their way to our cart. I am likely to say yes to most things, provided we needed something similar to it anyway. But I am known to cave on non-essentials too, even if I am not sure anyone will like it (uh, like the strawberry cream pudding). I will put a limit on how many new things from any given aisle though. For instance, today in produce he got to pick one fruit and one veggie.

Elliott was drawn to the rutabagas today since we last bought them months ago. I wanted to make soup, so I was glad to revisit them. Elliott introduced us to these over a year ago as his grocery store selection back then and was happy to watch how to prepare them and, when ready, eat them with his soup. So when he wanted to get jicama, I was willing to find out what it was and how to prepare it. Though I admit, because of placement, I assumed it was a fruit.

After this YouTube video, we figured out how to pronounce it, how to peel it, and what to do with it. And I am glad to see after a little Internet research, it can be served in fruit salads or treated as a veggie for soup or used in a "potato" salad, as in this recipe.

Anything exciting coming home with you from the store?

Happy Coffee Day

My coffee – a timeline, like most days

9:00 I start my morning with big, hot, fresh mug of my favorite caffeinated beverage.  

9:30 With half of the coffee consumed and emails checked, the cup is set aside on my desk. Often I am called away by a child or some other urgent matter.

10:15 I search for my coffee mug, forgetting it never left my desk, stupidly sip to see if it is still warm (ew, its not),  and then get called away to help someone. I place the coffee in the microwave, determined to come back and heat it up.

10:25 This time I remember to come back. I reheat coffee for 30 seconds, but in those mere 30 seconds, I get started on something else and forget my coffee.  

11:30 Feel thirsty, I look for mug on desk. Not seeing it, I realize I don’t recall finishing my coffee but assume I must have so I get a cup of tea or water. I have to hurry along to get Oliver to bed.

12:00 As I try to reheat my lunch, I discover the coffee mug, smile at my forgetfulness (which seems a habit), set coffee to side while I heat lunch, and then, finally, heat it up.

12:30 After lunch, I recall that I left mug in microwave yet again and zap it another 20 seconds. I sip a few long sips and then set it on top of my desk to do lunch clean up and a pick up of toys.

1:00 I sit down at computer, stare longingly at my cup, but now I am tired and want to just sit down. I am also knee-deep in emails, etsy, and ‘compelling’ Yahoo news stories. I just cannot get up to heat it up again.

1:15 I finally pry myself away from the computer to heat up the coffee, but I sit down to work on the computer for those long 30 seconds and forget it, again, somehow not hearing the four shrill beeps.  

2:00 I vaguely remember my coffee, but I hear Oliver waking up, so I am not going to bother to reheat it and forget it again anyway.

3:00 I finally heat the coffee up and chug the last bit down while someone asks for something at my side. I did finish my coffee, heated for atleast the 5^th time by now, if not more. I am not sure I can always really remember how many times I have hit the start button.

3:10 After finishing my coffee and sit down to check email and other news, I discover that it is National Coffee Day and remember I was typing this post!

Happy Coffee Day!

'Moo-thees!

So while the goal was to start making more meals from scratch, ones we love that just take a little more chopping and a few extra bowls and spoons to make. I guess this was not the week for that.

Trying to use up ingredients in the fridge and cabinet became the main objective this week. So for lunch many items were wash and serve - grapes and berries - or a quick slice and serve - cheese and olive oil bread. But I also have had six tubs of yogurt  to use up these past two weeks. Uh, yes, six. Hoarding coupons for free yogurt meant they all expired at once! So enter instant breakfast, lunch, dinner or snack - smoothies! (Or as Oliver says "moo-thees")

It may sound hard to believe but this may only be the third time in my life that I have made smoothies. I used to not care for the texture or worried over what to put in to them. So at first I searched recipes. And then I quickly realized I would not have some suggested items, like almond milk or limeade or even orange juice. So instead we threw in spotty bananas, less than ideal berries, and yogurt. Voila! Instant slurpable food.

Imagine my delight later in the frozen fruit section when I discovered a bag labeled "Great for smoothies!" with pineapple, mango, peaches, and strawberries all mixed up for me. And in jumbo size. Now I had every excuse to serve up smoothies whenever I pleased.

Tonight was one of those nights. The boys wanted to play at the park and I wanted to stay as long as they wanted. But in the back of my mind I fretted over supper and the nasty scene that could unfold when we walked in the door. No matter how happy we are after the park, tummy grumbles set in instantly after you leave and that can be ugly. And of course, smoothies came to mind since it is the easiest peasiest solution.

The best part of smoothies? Both boys have participated in making them and it is the first food item I have let both boys work on together in the kitchen. One peels the bananas, another one puts them in. One scoops the frozen fruit in, another presses the blend button.

So go see if your freezer has some jumbo bags of frozen fruit and go buy six tubs of yogurt. Okay, you do not need six tubs, maybe just four or five! And feel no guilt over smoothies for supper. I don’t because right now, with full bellies, Oliver is playing with his cargo trailer and Elliott is making his pirate outfit.

* To be fair, this was not their only supper. But it did buy me time to get out some leftovers and heat them up, which they likely won't eat much of anyway!

Small Mountain Meals

No, this post is not about preparing meals to make while living or camping on small mountains. While that might be interesting, remember, I am in Kansas! So read on…

Lately, meal preparation has not been on the top of my list as we adjust to school routines, try to spend ample time outdoors, and, well, I just don’t feel like standing in the kitchen to chop, slice, and cook. Even my easy meals feel laborious at the end of some days.

So, finally, I felt a twinge of motivation and made a meal plan laying out the eight meals I was willing to make over the course of the next two weeks. Typically, when I make a more elaborate meal, I make enough for leftovers - two nights of eating for one night of effort. Those leftovers, along with occasional meals we have out, make up about 14 meals. I still left my easy meals on the list – meatball subs, pizza, pasta and bread, chicken quesadillas, but I added a few manageable prep-required meals. Tonight being a weekend with Mike home, I tackled one of them – my Udon Noodle Dish – which I modified from an udon noodle package years ago.

And I was rewarded for the work involved. I was able to savor a meal I had forgotten I enjoyed so much and all the boys ate it up. Elliott is typically not a child to eat a mixture of foods together, so when he cleans his bowl up, it can make one feel pretty good.

If you are interested to give this meal a try, you will find it is not that difficult in terms of preparation, but I am starting with a small mountain. Another day, a bigger mountain!

Chicken Udon Noodle Dish

Diana’s Udon Noodle Dish:

3.5 ounces udon noodles

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 medium to large chicken breasts or pork fillets, thinly sliced

½ large onion, quartered and thinly sliced

2 to 3 medium carrots, thinly sliced using a carrot peeler (making slivers down length of carrot)

8 mushrooms, thinly sliced

salt, to taste

pepper. to taste

1 ½ to 2 tablespoons soy sauce

Cook chicken or pork with olive oil over medium heat in large skillet. When meat is done, remove to a small bowl. Add onion, and additional oil if needed, to pan, cooking for 3 to 5 minutes. Add the carrot slivers and mushrooms and cook until the vegetables are tender. If in doubt, sample a carrot or look for an orangish shade in the oil. While starting onions, boil udon noodles for five minutes or as directed on package. Drain, rinse, and set aside. Once vegetables are done, add meat and noodles back to pan. Add salt, pepper, and soy sauce. Mix well as dish is reheated. Serve immediately. If doubling recipe for leftovers, do not double soy sauce and oil. Adjust oil for amount needed to cook and soy sauce to taste.

Makes 2 good-sized adult servings.

Note: I used Hakubaku organic udon wheat noodles and modified their recipe on the back wrapper. They come in a 10.58 oz package, with three 3.5 ounce wrapped packages. Noodle amount can vary with no major consequence. Really, any of the ingredients can be altered for more or less with little consequence.

Willpower please!

I have a problem. It feels quite serious.

I had not been baking bread. But this is not really the problem. I knew it was just a matter of time until we felt settled in and I could resume such domestic duties. I make sandwich and toast breads in the bread machine and dinner rolls and loaves with my Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day book.

Here is where the problem begins. Instead of making my reliable Olive Oil dough recipe for pizza crusts and round, crusty loaves, I skimmed the book for new ideas. Uh-oh! First I hesitated on the Challah dough recipe. For those of you not familiar with the recipe, it makes four 1-pound loaves but takes 4 eggs and 1 stick of butter. It makes delicious bread, tasty and light. But, instead of hurrying to start mixing up my dough, I turned the pages and my eyes fell upon the Sticky Pecan Caramel Rolls. This is where the problem really, really begins.

Growing up my mom made tasty cinnamon rolls at the holidays. You made the dough and let it rise and punched it down and let it rise. Then, you rolled it out, spread it with butter, and sprinkled on cinnamon sugar and pecans. Next you rolled it into a long jelly-roll log. From there, my mom would shape it into a candy cane or wreath, snipping and gently turning the rolls for a lovely display. After baking, it was drizzled with icing, and decorated with alternating halved maraschino cherries and whole pecans. If it was a wreath, it got a red bow too. It was a process, often made over and over again for holiday gifts to neighbors and friends. And I have the recipe, to make whenever I want, anytime of year. But I never make them, even at the holidays, because I am lazy. Since I started making dough the way described in Artisan Bread (a big bucket full, to make four loaves whenever I want) I simply do not have any desire to make bread the traditional way anymore (except my foccacia recipe, but that is for another time!).

So when I stumbled on to the Caramel Rolls recipe, my mind’s gears started turning. What if I took the dough they recommended for their rolls, but ignored their recipe, just substituting my simple cinnamon roll steps instead? Okay, this is not a huge leap, but I hate experimenting, which has the potential to waste ingredients and my time if something fails. The trouble with this particular dough, which by now my mouth was watering over, is the Brioche dough. This dough comes with 8 eggs and 3 sticks of butter. Yes, it makes four 1-pound loaves, but still, three sticks of butter!

I have been trying to lose weight. I want to shed the baby (babies!) weight I still have hanging around. Before moving I had exercised for a whole year and had lost only five pounds. True, my cholesterol scores were greatly improved, but I wanted some lower numbers on the scale too. Since moving here, I came to some conclusions that have helped me already lose five more pounds.

1. I have to combine exercise and good eating skills (not a diet). I feel happier and healthier when I exercise which makes it easier to eat healthier foods.
2. Even if I eat less at a meal, I still feel pretty full, as full as if I ate the whole portion.
3. Leaving food as leftovers, saving treats for another day, or skipping food (like a cookie at the coffee shop) is always okay. I can always make it another day or buy it another day.

It seems pretty simple, but it is essentially willpower. The beauty of this plan is I still give myself the luxury of eating cookies, ice cream, or any snack I wanted, but just in moderation. Remembering step number 3 has been my saving point. Until a yesterday, I never felt like I was missing out on anything. Yesterday, I made the rolls.

One lone roll, just waiting to be eaten

So you can seem my problem. Favorite cinnamon rolls + easy to whip-up recipe = eating out of control. When they are hot out of the oven, my willpower melts like the sweet sugary cinnamon inside these rolls.

So, while I muster up my willpower, I will direct you to the brioche recipe and get you started on your own batch. Isn’t that nice of me? I find these little sweeties so good I do not add any icing. I suppose that is for the better!

To make these, you will need:

Brioche dough, made in advance and chilled

sugar

cinnamon

pecans

extra flour, for rolling

cooking spray or shortening, for pan

glass baking or pie pans

Spray your glass pans with cooking spray or grease them up. Mix about ½ cup sugar, give or take, with 1 to 1 ½ tablespoons cinnamon and set aside. Chop ½ to 2/3 cups pecans and set aside. Take ¼ of the brioche dough, and roll it out on a thin cutting mat with a moderate amount of flour under and on top of the dough to reduce sticking to maybe ½ inch thick, or so. Spread the surface with butter or margarine I love margarine for some recipes so I spread that on nice and thick. Next, sprinkle the cinnamon and sugar all over the butter or margarine and top that with pecans. Time to jelly roll it up! Add flour to your fingers to help it along, if dough is at all sticky. Once rolled, using sharp kitchen scissors, cut into 1 ½ inch thick rolls and place into pan with room for expansion (inch around, give or take, but they can be up against edges). Cover and let rise 60 minutes. Start oven heating to 350 degrees 15 to 20 minutes before rise time ends. Bake rolls 20-30 minutes, checking every few minutes for golden brown edges on top. Serve directly from the pan, hot or cool.

And try to share with your family and not eat too many. Maybe this little story will be inspiring as we all search for willpower!

**Apparently, I have none. The roll seduced me while I photographed it. That tantalizing swirl was too much. I ate it. End of story.**

And, AND, I just found another great recipe to use up more of that brioche dough. See, this is a serious problem!