Take It or Leave It

A Tale of Two Lentils

2008-01-06T19:35:00.000-08:00

Here's another example of how I make two side-by-side recipes that are nearly identical -- except one has meat and one does not. It may sound complicated, but really, it's no extra work. I mean, how hard is it to chop a whole onion instead of half?

In the bit I've written about our family of five, I mentioned that Gregory's favorite meal is Lentil Soup with Lemon (it's one of my favorites too). But Mike isn't keen on it, and Niko and Lena don't even like the sound of Lentil Soup. So I developed this Sausage-Lentil Soup (which I told Niko and Lena was just Sausage Soup), which is almost identical to Gregory's favorite. The difference: it substitutes the flavor sausage for the flavors of oregano and lemon juice.

So here I'll give you recipes to make the soups two ways: side-by-side and individually.

Two Soups at Once
2 Tbl. Extra virgin olive oil
1 pkg. (five links) sausage (bratwurst, sweet Italian, etc.), cut into chunks
1 Tbl. minced garlic
1 large sweet onion, diced
4 to 6 carrots, diced
4 ribs celery, diced
2 1-lb. bags lentils (brown, green or red)
2 quarts vegetable stock
1 quart chicken and/or beef stock
1 bottle beer
2 15-oz. cans tomato sauce
1 Tbl. oregano
scant ½ cup olive oil
¼ cup lemon juice

Pot A: Sausage-Lentil Soup
In a large soup pot (we’ll call it Pot A), heat olive oil over medium heat and add sausage, garlic and half each of the onion, carrot and celery. Cook, stirring regularly, until sausage is cooked through and vegetables are very soft.

Pot B: Lemony Lentil Soup (vegetarian)
Meanwhile, rinse lentils in a colander. In a second large soup pot, place half of the lentils and 2 quarts of vegetable stock. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for one hour.

Pot A:
Once veggies are soft, add 1 quart chicken and/or beef stock (I like to use 2 cups of each), beer and tomato sauce. Bring to a boil and reduce heat, simmering until lentils are soft (how long that takes depend on the age of the lentils and how soft you like them. I find it usually takes about 3 hours). If soup is too thick, thin with a little water or stock.

Pot B:
After an hour, add remaining onion, carrot and celery, 1 can tomato sauce, oregano and olive oil. Bring back to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until lentils are soft (similarly, how long that takes depends on the age of the lentil and how soft you like them. Since they’ve already simmered for an hour, I find it usually takes about 2 more hours). Once soft, add lemon juice and stir.

Pot A and B:
Season to taste (although I usually find no additional seasonings are needed).

Two soups on their own:

Sausage-Lentil Soup
2 Tbl. extra virgin olive oil
1 lb. sausage (bratwurst, sweet Italian, etc.), cut into chunks
1 Tbl. minced garlic
½ large sweet onion, diced
2 to 3 carrots, peeled and diced
2 celery ribs, diced
1 15-oz. can tomato sauce
1 quart chicken and/or beef stock (I like to use 2 cups of each)
1 12-oz. beer
Heat olive oil in a large soup pot and add sausage , garlic, onion, carrot and celery and sauté until sausage is cooked through and veggies are soft. Add tomato sauce, stock and beer. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until lentils are soft.

Lemony-Lentil Soup
1 lb. dry lentils
2 quarts vegetable (or chicken) stock
½ large sweet onion, diced
2 to 3 carrots, peeled and diced
2 celery ribs, diced
1 15-oz.-can tomato sauce
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
1 Tbl. oregano
¼ cup lemon juice
Rinse lentil and place in a large soup pot. Add stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer about an hour. Add everything except lemon juice, bring a boil, reduce heat and simmer until lentils are done. Add lemon juice and stir to combine.

Confession -- and a New Years' Resolution

2008-01-02T18:49:00.000-08:00

I step on the scale every day.

I know the experts say you shouldn't. But I just can't help myself. Good news or bad, I need to know.

And I have a second confession.

Recently the news has been bad. Very bad.

Ten pounds bad.

Usually I wallow quietly in my own self pity and try to resist the bag of chips in the cabinet, all the while telling myself I'll be good tomorrow. Well, so far that hasn't worked. So this time I'm trying a different approach. I'm telling everyone here that I plan to lose those 10 pounds.

Why 10, you ask? Well, I'm not willing to give you my goal weight (or my current weight) But I will tell you that 10 pounds will get me to a weight that ends in zero. And it will give me a Body Mass Index of 20.4 -- 18.5 to 24.9 is considered normal weight -- down from my current BMI of 21.6.

This isn't the first year my New Year's resolution has been to lose weight. Four years ago my friend and I sat in my living room and resolved to lose weight. That year we each lost about 25 pounds between January and April. That's when I had to go off The Diet (as we've come to call it) because I got pregnant with Gregory.

How did we do it? The diet isn't so much a diet as a healthy approach to life. I'll monitor my calories and keep my daily intake between 1200 and 1500 Sunday through Friday (Saturday is cheat day, but I still don't go crazy). I'll drink 64+ oz. of water. I'll post here some tips and recipes when I find things that work for me.

I'll also recommit myself to exercise. I'll workout harder when I go to the gym. And I'll look for other ways to sneak in some exercise -- taking bike rides, dancing with the kids, etc.

Check back to see how I'm doing -- I'll try to post updates regularly. And I can use all the support I can get!

Happy Russian New Year

2008-01-01T08:44:00.001-08:00

Since it's been three years now, I guess you could say that our holiday Russian brunch has become an annual tradition. Each year, on the weekend between Christmas and New Years, we invite our friends to help us celebrate our family's Russian connection by sharing the food of the twins' birthplace. Some of the foods -- like Mike's smoked salmon and my stuffed billini -- appear every year. Others come and go depending on my mood. Nearly all come from the cookbook I wrote and am selling to raise money for the orphanage where Niko and Lena lived for nearly two years (available here). And this year a Russian friend from St. Petersburg contributed an apple cake she says is just like the cake everyone makes in Russia.

This year's menu included (recipes to follow):
Smoked salmon
Sausages and sauerkraut
Rita's Bilini stuffed with sweet cheese
Carrot salad
Cocktail sausages baked in bread (OK, this one is an American classic. But we figured the kids would like it, and they do serve a lot of hot dogs in Russia)
Mushroom turnovers (I cheat with these and serve the frozen ones I get from Trader Joe's, which are quite good).
Liver pate, summer sausage with cocktail rye
Pumpernickel
Nancy's noodles
Tatiana's apple cake

Smoked Salmon
Salmon
Handful of Rosemary stems
Lay rosemary stems on the rack of a bullet smoker. Top with salmon. Close lid and smoke until desired doneness. How long that takes varies based on the temperature outside, the heat of the fire in your smoker and how often you open the lid. This time it took about two hours.
Mike says the real key though is to under cook the salmon slightly, because it will continue to cook when you take it off the grill and if you need to cook it more after that all it takes is 30 seconds in the microwave.
Serving note: This can be served hot off the grill, at room temperature or chilled. And if you have any leftovers, it makes a fabulous salmon salad when mixed with a little mayonnaise.

Sausages and Sauerkraut
3 lbs. sausage (bratwurst, kielbasa, etc. I like to mix it up)
3 small bags sauerkraut (undrained)
2 Granny Smith apples, peeled and diced
1 onion, diced
caraway seeds
1 beer
Cut sausages into chunks. Empty one bag of sauerkraut into the bottom of a Crock Pot (slow cooker). Top with one-third of the apples and onions and half of the sausage. Sprinkle with caraway seeds and empty second bag of sauerkraut into pot. Top with one-third of the apples and onions, the remaining sausage and sprinkle with caraway seeds. Top with last bag of sauerkraut and remaining apples and onion. Sprinkle with caraway seeds. Pour beer into pot and set on high for 30 minutes. Turn heat down to low and cook until sausage is done and soft, about six hours.

Rita's Bilini stuffed with sweet cheese
4 eggs
1 tsp. salt
2-3 Tbl. sugar
1 1/2 cups unbleached flour (plus)
4 cups room temperature milk
vegetable oil (for cooking)
1 16-oz. package cottage cheese (I use the 2% milkfat)
Powdered sugar to taste
Butter (for cooking)
Mix together eggs, salt, sugar, flour and 2/3 cup of milk until free of lumps and thick as sour cream. Add milk and thin mixture until it resembles the texture of heavy cream. Heat and oil a crepe pan or small frying pan and wipe out any visible oil. Using a gravy ladle, pour a very small amount of batter in the pan and swirl so there is a thin skin of batter covering the entire bottom of the pan. Once golden (watch them, it happens quickly), turn over and cook on other side. Remove to cool on a wire rack. Once cool bilini may be stacked between pieces of wax paper or paper towels and refrigerated.
Just before serving, mix together cottage cheese and powdered sugar to taste (I like to whirl the cottage cheese in the blender to make it smooth). Put about 2 tsp. cheese in a line in the center of a cooked bilini. Fold in the two sides, fold up the bottom and roll. Melt butter in a saute pan. Put filled bilini, seam-side down in the pan and saute until golden on the bottom.
You can make the pancakes as much as a day ahead of time, but don't finish until just before serving.

Carrot salad
1 bag shredded carrots
2 Granny Smith apples, grated
Lemon or lime juice
1 tsp. sugar (optional)
6 to 10 dry apricots
1/2 cup pecans, chopped
1/2 cup sour cream
Milk
Toss together shredded carrots and apples. Drizzle with lemon or lime juice. Add apricots and pecans. Mix together sour cream with a little milk to thin and pour over salad. Refrigerate at least one hour or overnight.

Hot dogs wrapped in bread
1 package cocktail sausages
1 tube Pilsbury bread sticks
Preheat oven to 350. Cut breadsticks into three to four pieces and wrap each around hot dogs, being careful to seal completely. Spray cookie sheet with cooking spray and put dogs seam-side-down on the sheet and bake until bread is golden, about 15 to 18 minutes.

Nancy's noodles
1 pkg. fine egg noodles
6 Tb. butter
1 16-oz. container cottage cheese (I use 2% milkfat)
1 tsp. minced garlic
1 16-oz. container sour cream (I use light)
3 Tbl. grated onion
Salt and pepper to taste
Grated nutmeg or paprika (for garnish)
Preheat oven to 350. Prepare noodles according to package directions. In a large mixing bowl, toss together noodles and butter and mix until butter is melted. Add everything except garnish and pour into a baking dish sprayed with cooking spray. Top with grated nutmeg or paprika (but not both). Bake until bubbly, about an hour.

Tatiana's apple cake
3 to 4 eggs (separated)
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour (plus a little if using 4 eggs)
3 Granny Smith apples, peeled and chopped
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla
Powdered sugar (for dusting)
Preheat oven to 375 F. Beat egg whites and sugar until white and thick. Add yolks, flour, apples, vanilla and cinnamon and fold to combine. Bake until cooked through and a toothpick comes out clean. Cool and dust with powdered sugar.
Tatiana said traditionally the recipe is made with three eggs, but that adding the fourth egg makes the cake rise more. If you use four eggs, you will need a little extra flour to make the batter. She also said the powdered sugar should look like snow on top of the cake.

Let them eat -- Soup!!

2007-12-27T20:08:00.000-08:00

I love soup! To me it's the perfect meal -- veggie, protein, starch, all in one bowl. In fact, I've been known to go to someone's home for dinner and rescue the turkey carcass or ham bone to bring home as the beginning of stock.

This soup was inspired by a soup we had at a friend's soup party just before Christmas. But since I can't actually follow a recipe, I made quite a few changes as I cooked.

Mushroom and Rosemary Soup
2 Tbl. unsalted butter
2 Tbl. extra virgin olive oil
1/2 large sweet onion, finely diced
1 to 2 tsp. minced garlic
3 Tbl. flour
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 1/2 cups milk
1 can vegetable stock
3/4 cup white wine
1 1/2 Tbl. minced fresh rosemary
3 cups (plus) chopped mushrooms
1 can white beans, drained and rinsed
salt and pepper to taste
Melt together butter and olive oil over low-medium heat and add onion and garlic.
Saute until very soft. Add flour, stir to combine, and cook until golden and smells nutty, about five minutes. Add soup, milk, stock and wine and stir to combine. add rosemary, mushrooms and beans, stir to combine and simmer. Cook to desired doneness (1 to 3 hours). Add salt and pepper to taste.

I served this with the popovers from the Dec. 12 post, which you can find here.

More Christmas cookies (Part IV)

2007-12-27T19:25:00.001-08:00

My parents came today -- with two gallon-size bags full of Christmas cookies to add to my pile. I'm making these next year!!

Carmel Chocolate Break-Aparts
Saltine crackers
1 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 (8 oz.) bag chocolate chips (milk, dark or white)

Preheat oven to 350 F. Cover cookie sheet with foil (use one with sides). Tightly pack about 50 Saltine crackers to cover the sheet. Melt butter and add brown sugar. Cook until makes a thick, smooth syrup. Pour syrup over crackers and spread with a spatula. Bake until golden, about 20 minutes (watch carefully as they burn easily). Top with chips and allow to melt (about two minutes). Spread with spatula. Chill and break apart.

More Christmas Cookies (Part III)

2007-12-25T19:05:00.000-08:00

So this year's cookies included the three I listed yesterday, the Russian tea cakes I posted a little while ago (although instead of tossing the cookies in powdered sugar twice, I first tossed them in cinnamon sugar before baking and in powdered sugar after baking), and:

Snickerdoodles
1 cup butter
1 1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cream of tarter
1/4 tsp. salt
Cinnamon sugar
Preheat oven to 400 F. Cream together butter and sugar. Add egg and vanilla. Add remaining ingredients, mixing until combined. Roll small pieces of dough into 1" balls and roll in cinnamon sugar. Bake 10 to 12 minutes

Oatmeal butterscotch
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
3 cups oats
1/2 pkg butterscotch chips (optional)
large handful raisins (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 F. Cream butter and sugars. Add eggs and vanilla. Add dry ingredients and combine. Drop by rounded teaspoons on cookie sheet lined with parchment. Bake 10 to 12 minutes until golden.

More Christmas cookies (Part II)

2007-12-24T20:35:00.000-08:00

I have been meaning to post here my Christmas cookie recipes. But I've been so busy with the holidays that I haven't had time until now. I'm sorry that these are probably too late to help you this year. So I guess I'm just 365 days early for 2008. I'll start with the "cheating" cookies -- ones that are basically quasi home-made, but start out with a mix.
Once cooled, all these cookies freeze well.

White Chocolate-Pistachio
2 bags Better Crocker sugar cookie mix, mixed according to package directions
1/2 bag white chocolate chips
2 to 3 handfulls pistachio nuts, shells removed and roughly chopped
Combine sugar cookie dough, chips and nuts until well mixed. Roll into balls and bake according to package directions on sugar cookie mix.

Chocolate Surprise Cookies
2 bags Betty Crocker brownie mix, mixed according to package directions
5 to 8 mini or fun size candy bars, roughly chopped (I used leftovers that I had in the freezer from Halloween)
Preheat oven to 375. Add chopped candy bars to brownie mix. Drop by teaspoons onto cookie sheet lined with parchment. Bake until cooked through, 10 to 12 minutes. Remove to wire rack to cool.

Peanut Butter Thumb Prints
2 bags Betty Crocker peanut butter cookie mix, mixed according to package directions
Jam, Nutella, fluff, etc.
Roll cookie dough into balls and place on cookie sheet lined with parchment. Depress thumb into each ball. Fill each depression with jam (or nutella, or fluff, or whatever). Bake according to package directions.

Mike couldn't stop raving...

2007-12-23T17:09:00.000-08:00

... about the quick clam chowder I threw together for dinner tonight. It was amazingly simple -- so much so that I knew that if I didn't write it down right away I would never be able to do it again. And truth is, it doesn't take that much longer than opening a can on Campbells, but it is so very much better!

3 Tbl. unsalted butter
1/2 small sweet onion, finely diced
1 tsp. chopped garlic
1 1/2 Tbl. flour
1 can whole clams
1 cup beer
1 cup water
1 tsp. clam base
1 large red potato, cut into small spoon-size chunks
milk to taste
salt to taste

Saute onion and garlic in butter over medium heat until soft. Add four and stir to remove any lumps and keep from burning. Continuing to stir, cook an additional five minutes. Add clams, beer, water and clam base. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to simmer and add potatoes. Cook until potatoes are done (time will vary based on the size and age of the potatoes). Add milk, warm through, salt to taste.
Note: If making ahead of time, once potatoes are cooked through, cool and refrigerate or freeze. Before serving bring to simmer and add milk and salt.

More Christmas cookies

2007-12-13T21:23:00.000-08:00

Here's another Christmas cookie I remember from my childhood cookie plate -- decades before Mike and I ended up in Russia. Truth is, I searched for a history of the Russian Tea Cake, and I didn't come up with much. But based on what I did find, I'm not sure these cookies are really Russian -- apparently they may also be known as Mexican tea cakes. But I'll always think of them as Russian -- and they will appear at our annual holiday Russian brunch (more recipes to come).

Russian Tea Cakes

1 cup butter
1 tsp. vanilla extract
6 Tbl. plus 1/3 cup powdered sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 F.
In a mixer, cream together butter and vanilla until smooth. Add 6 Tbl. powdered sugar and flour and mix until just blended. Add chopped nuts and mix. Roll dough into 1-inch balls roll balls in powdered sugar. Place balls 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake until golden, about 12 minutes. Cool. Roll in powdered sugar again.

Popping over

2007-12-12T20:13:00.000-08:00

I remember when I was a kid in the 1970s. On very, very special occasions, my parents would dress my brother Marc and I up and take us to the local steak house. I don't remember the steak. But I remember the popovers. I was amazed at how these delicate breads popped right out of the cup they were baked in. And when you broke open the crusty outside, steam escaped, revealing a chewy layer around a hollow center.

I moved away in the 1980s, the steak house eventually went out of business and I didn't see another popover until a few years ago at a friends house. I couldn't believe it was possible to make them at home. I thought you had to have a special pan, an industrial oven.

I've been making these popovers ever since. They're perfect when I want to serve fresh bread but don't have hours for rising and proofing a yeast bread. And with the cheese they are so flavorful that you don't even need butter.

Popovers before:

1 cup milk
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 Tbl. butter, melted
1/4 tsp. salt (less if using salted butter)
2 eggs
1/2 cup grated cheddar or Gruyere cheese (optional) *
Cayenne pepper to taste (optional)
Preheat oven t 450 F. Bring all ingredients to room temperature. Combine milk, flour, butter, salt and eggs in a bowl and mix until smooth (like pancake batter). Add cheese. Spray pop over molds or muffin tins with cooking spray. Pour batter into pan, filling each cup no more than 3/4. Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 F. (do not open oven door) and bake an additional 20 minutes. Popovers are done when they are golden and firm all the way around.
Recipes makes eight to 10 popovers.

*Cooks note: I don't believe in pre-shredded cheese. I find it's dry and doesn't melt well. And it doesn't really take that long to shred 1/2 a cup of cheese. I use white cheddar.

Popovers after:

Christmas (cookie) memories

2007-12-06T19:17:00.000-08:00

When I was young my mom would start baking Christmas cookies as soon as Thanksgiving was over. She'd carefully layer them in old Charlie's Chips tins between circles of wax paper. Dozens and dozens and batches and batches. I'm not sure I could name a favorite. That was so great about it. Every day there was a plate with six or eight different cookies to choose from. Some cookies would be there every year. Others would appear once or twice, or even for a handful of years before being forgotten.

One cookie I never forgot -- one that appeared every year as far back as I could remember -- was the Spritz Cookie.

I continued my mom's tradition of making multiple types of cookies at Christmas as soon as I was on my own. But I wasn't able to make the Spritz cookie, until now. Last year at the after Christmas sale at Target I picked up a $15 cookie press for $7.50. And yesterday I pulled it out of the cabinet and gave it a try. First I made the spritz Christmas trees. Then I varied the recipe a little (use 1/2 cup sugar and brown sugar, omitted the almond extract and instead used 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla and added green food coloring) and made wreath cookies.

The first bite took me back to my mom's old cookie plate. And when I told Lena grandma used to make these cookies, she said "They taste like Grandma's," even though she never had Grandma's spritz cookies.

Traditional Spritz Cookies
1 1/2 cups unsalted butter, softened (three sticks)
1 cup sugar
1 egg
3 Tbl. milk or cream
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. almond extract
3 1/2 cups unbleached flour
1 tsp. baking powder
Decorations (optional)
Cream together butter and sugar, scraping down the sides of the bowl regularly. Add egg, milk, vanilla and almond extracts and combine fully. Add half of the flour and the baking powder and mix to combine. Add the remaining flour and make sure thoroughly mixed.
Pack dough into cookie press (if not baking immediately, chill and bring back to room temperature before trying to press). Follow directions on press to press cookies onto baking sheet. Bake 10 to 12 minutes.
COOKS NOTE: I used the tree shape and sprinkled the dough with green colored sugar before baking.

Here are some more recipes using the cookie press that I found online. Once our Christmas cookies are gone (and that could be months), I plan to try some of them...

Cream Cheese Spritz recipe

Source: Philadelphia Brand Cream Cheese

8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 cup margarine
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

Combine cream cheese, margarine, sugar and vanilla extract, mixing until well blended. Add flour; mix well. Chill.

Force dough through cookie press onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 400 degrees F for 6 to 8 minutes or until set and very lightly browned.

Yields 108.

Gingerbread Spritz recipe

1 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/2 cup molasses
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ginger

In mixer bowl beat together butter or margarine, molasses and brown sugar. Add the egg and vanilla extract; beat well.

In another bowl, thoroughly stir together the flour, baking powder, nutmeg, cinnamon, salt, cloves and ginger. Add to creamed mixture. Stir until thoroughly mixed. Cover and chill 1 to 2 hours.

Heat oven to 400 degrees F.

Using 1/4 of dough place in cookie press. Press cookies onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 7 to 10 minutes or until set, but not brown.

Makes 5 dozen.

Mint Spritz Cookies recipe

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter, softened
2 eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract
5 drops green food coloring
2 cups unbleached flour
1/3 cups granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt

Heat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a mixing bowl, combine butter, eggs, vanilla extract, peppermint extract extract, and food coloring.

In another mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, and salt. Mix wet ingredients with dry ingredients just until moistened. Spoon dough into a cookie press fitted template of desired shape. Press cookies 2 inches apart onto baking sheet. Bake 10 to 12 minutes, or until golden brown.

Key Lime Straws recipe

1 cup butter
3 ounces cream cheese
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoon Key lime or lemon juice
1 teaspoon grated Key lime or lemon rind
Few drops green or yellow food coloring
2 1/2 cups cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder

Blend together butter and cream cheese; add sugar and cream thoroughly until fluffy.

Combine egg, lime or lemon juice, lime or lemon rind and green or yellow food coloring. Add to butter mixture until well blended.

Sift the flour and baking powder together; add to creamed mixture. Mix until well blended.

Place dough in refrigerator, and chill for about 10 minutes.

Force 2-inch ribbon strips through cookie press onto ungreased baking sheets and bake at 375 degrees F for 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned.

Yields 4 dozen.
BROWN SUGAR SPRITZ COOKIES

1 c. butter
3/4 c. light brown sugar, firmly packed
1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. salt
2 c. flour

Cream butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg yolk, vanilla and salt. Blend in flour. Knead until dough is soft and pliable. Press dough through cookie press onto greased cookie sheets. Bake at 350 degrees for 8 minutes or until light brown. Cool on wire racks. Makes 8 dozen cookies.

Spritz Cheese Crackers

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
1 large egg yolk
6 tablespoons heavy cream
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup finely grated Pecorino cheese
1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons minced fresh rosemary leaves
1 teaspoons fine salt
Pinch freshly ground nutmeg

Bring all ingredients to room temperature.

Beat the butter and lemon zest with an electric mixer at medium speed until smooth, about 30 seconds. Slowly beat in the egg yolk and cream.

Whisk the flour, pecorino, 1/4 cup of the Parmesan, sugar, rosemary, salt, and nutmeg together in a bowl. Gradually add the flour mixture into the butter mixture while mixing slowly. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, then beat on medium speed to make a slightly sticky dough.

Fill the cookie press with the dough. Assemble the press with the desired disk shape (see cook's note), and press cookies onto ungreased baking sheets. Leave about one inch between cookies. Sprinkle with the remaining 1/4 cup Parmesan and refrigerate cookies for 20 minutes.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Bake cookies, rotating pan halfway through, until golden, the cheese browns a bit, and the cookies smell nutty, about 20 to 25 minutes. Briefly cool the cookies on the baking sheets, then transfer to racks to cool. Serve or store in a tightly sealed container for up to 1 month.

Cook's Notes: These freeze beautifully. Press the cookies out into desired shapes on cookie sheets and freeze. Transfer frozen cookies to a plastic bag, seal, and keep frozen for up to 1 month. When ready to bake, lay out frozen cookies on cookie trays and bake from frozen for 25 minutes.

Some disk shapes work better than others. Since this is savory cookie, we liked the cutters that result in a cracker shape cookie, like the ribbon, clover. Stars and and snowflakes work, too.

A one pot dinner for vegetarians AND meat eaters

2007-11-29T20:27:00.000-08:00

OK. So that's probably a bit of a stretch. Sure, it's one pot. But you also need a mixing bowl and a baking sheet.

But still, it's actually easy to make spaghetti for every palate by making the sauce and the meatballs separately, bringing them together just before serving for the meat eaters.

First things first: the sauce
3 26-oz. cans tomatoes (one diced, two crushed)
1/2 head of garlic -- peeled, cloves separated and each cut in half
1/2 container fresh basil
1/2 container fresh oregano
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Salt to taste.
NOTE: I usually double the recipe. I can get six to seven meals from a double recipe and freeze all but one in individual containers for later.
Put everything in a big pot and stir to combine. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to simmer. Cook, stirring occasionally, until there is no oil sitting on top and the color turns to deep red, at least two hours. Fish out herbs and garlic.
NUTRITION: 1/2 cup sauce has 50 calories.

The meatballs:
3-4 slices bread, crusts removed
Milk
2 lbs. ground meat (ground beef, or a combination of beef, pork and/or veal)
1 large egg
1/2 cup Parm. cheese
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
Soak bread in milk. Squeeze to remove excess milk. Mix together bread, meat, egg, cheese, oil and garlic. Knead well to combine. Roll into meatballs. Heat oven to 350 F. Bake meatballs until cooked through. Drain meatballs on brown paper or newsprint.
Spread meatballs out on a baking sheet so that they are not touching and freeze at least 2 hours. Remove from baking sheet and put in a gallon-size bag. When ready to eat, defrost the needed number of meatballs.

To make this meat-free, I serve just the sauce over pasta (sprinkled with Parm cheese, optional). To make it for the meat eaters I heat the meatballs, put them on top of the pasta and top with sauce (and cheese).

Hummus

2007-11-28T21:02:00.000-08:00

A reader -- and friend -- recently e-mailed asking for my recipe for hummus. She remembered I had said something about it before, and she was getting tired of buying the prepared kind for her kids.

My kids love hummus too. And as a parent, what's not to love. When it comes to dips and spreads, this is one that has practically no fat and is loaded with fiber.

Besides, it's so versatile. Serve it as a dip with pretzels, mini carrots or pita wedges for a snack. Or spread it on a tortilla, roll and you have a simple sandwich that can last hours in a lunch box (make it even more nutritious by adding sprouts, shredded carrot, lettuce, etc.).

And while you can buy some decent commercially-prepared versions, it's so easy to make your own, and that way you can vary the seasonings to your personal taste.

Hummus
1 large can chick peas, drained
1/3 cup tahini (sesame paste)
1/2 cup lemon juice
1 to 2 tsp. minced garlic
cumin, to taste
salt to taste

Put chick peas, tahini, lemon juice and garlic in a food processor and whirl until desired consistency (I like it to have a little texture, but kids may not like lumps and might prefer smooth). Add cumin and salt to taste and stir to combine.
NOTE: When I first started making this it was hard to find tahini. But these days you can find it in most decent grocery stores. But if you can't find it, you can substitute a handfull of sesame seeds -- just whirl them in the food processor before you add the rest of the ingredients. I've seen recipes that suggest you can also substitute peanut butter. But I tried that once and thought it was so awful I threw the entire batch away.

Here's another bean dip that my kids also like. We call it Italian hummus
1 large can white beans
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 6- to 8-inch stem rosemary, leaves removed
1 to 2 tsp. minced garlic
salt to taste
Put white beans, olive oil, lemon juice, rosemary and garlic in a food processor and whirl until desired consistency. Add salt to taste.

Grandma was right

2007-11-26T20:24:00.000-08:00

Chicken soup really does help do what modern medicine can't -- cure the common cold.

That's right. Doctors at the University of Nebraska actually did some research and proved that chicken soup can help ease cold symptoms. It primarily works by reducing inflammation in the nose and throat.

Dr. Stephen Rennard's research, published in 2000, came centuries after the Egyptian Jewish physician and philosopher, Moshe ben Maimonides, recommended chicken soup for respiratory tract symptoms in his 12th century writings. And since his writings were based on earlier Greek writings, it appears the chicken soup cure is even older than that.

The study focused on the movement of neutrophils – the most common white cell in the blood that defends the body against infection. Rennard suspected that reducing the movement of this white blood cell would reduce activity in the upper respiratory tract that cause cold symptoms.

Rennard's study found the soup only worked if it included chicken and vegetables. While commercially-prepared soups did work, Rennard's research was inspired by his wife's "Grandma's soup."

Grandma's Soup
1 5- to 6-pound stewing hen or baking chicken
1 package of chicken wings
3 large onions
1 large sweet potato
3 parsnips
2 turnips
11 to 12 large carrots
5 to 6 celery stems
1 bunch of parsley
Salt and pepper to taste
Clean the chicken, put it in a large pot and cover it with cold water. Bring the water to boil. Add the chicken wings, onions, sweet potato, parsnips, turnips and carrots. Boil about 1 and a half hours. Remove fat from the surface as it accumulates. Add the parsley and celery. Cook the mixture about 45 min. longer. Remove the chicken. The chicken is not used further for the soup. (The meat makes excellent chicken parmesan.) Put the vegetables in a food processor until they are chopped fine or pass through a strainer. Both were performed in the present study. Salt and pepper to taste. (Note: This soup freezes well.)

This is timely for two reasons: we're in the middle of cold season, and now that Thanksgiving is over, I imagine many of us have a well-picked turkey carcase in the refrigerator just waiting to be turned into soup. I would imagine a good turkey soup has many of the same curative properties as a good chicken soup. Here's my favorite recipe:

Turkey Barley Soup
Leftover turkey carcase
Water
Salt to taste
Put turkey carcase in a large stock pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to simmer. Simmer, uncovered, 2 to 3 hours. Strain to separate turkey solids from broth. Let solids cool, return broth to the stove and simmer another 30 to 60 minutes, skimming off any fat that comes to the top. When cool enough to handle, pick off any turkey meat and set aside.
1 onion, finely diced
2 stems celery, finely diced
2-3 tsp. diced garlic
3 Tbl. butter or extra virgin olive oil
3 large carrots, diced
1-2 parsnips, diced
turkey broth and reserved meat
1/2-1 cup quick cook barley
Salt to taste
In a saute pan, saute onion, celery and garlic until very soft. Add sauteed vegetables, carrot and parsnip to broth and cook until carrot and parsnips are soft. Add barley and bring to a boil, reduce heat to simmer and cook for as long as required on barley package. Add meat and heat through. Season to taste with salt.

If it's fall, it must be apple time!

2007-11-12T19:01:00.000-08:00

Gregory loves apples. In fact, all three kids are into apples these days. So much so that I buy a 2-pound bag of apples every other day or so. It inspired me to go looking for a place to go apple picking.

Here in Virginia, apple season runs from June to mid-November. In fact, we only made it by a couple of days, according to Dan Brown, the owner of Bush Neck Farm in James City County, Va. Turns out it was the prefect day for it -- sunny and in the 60s. We picked two pecks of Granny Smith's in an hour.

My mom -- who is a fabulous cook -- always told me the Granny Smith was more of a cooking apple than an eating apple. It's very crisp, so it keeps it's shape when cooked, and it's tart, so it benefits from the suger you add in baking. But Gregory wanted to take a bite, so we all did. And the verdict?? It was quite good even without the pie.

It was our second surprise of the day.

The first was when the drove up to the orchard. When Mike was young he worked in an apple orchard. He had to climb up huge ladders to the top canopy of the trees and thin the fruit, picking off any apples growing within five inches of another apple.

There was no canopy of branches and leaves here. Today farmers train their apples to grow just 7- to 9-feet-tall -- "standing height," as Mike just said. And no bushy branches either. Instead the apple trees grow like grapes -- trained to grow flat along wires spreading branches wide but not full.

My favorite apple recipe is for apple pie. In fact, I am so devoted to apple pie that for me, pie=apple. Any other dessert made from fruit and a crust is a tart. But tonight I decided I want to make something simpler, something in which the apples still looked like apples. So I made these baked apples (more of my favorite apple recipes to come). And to find U-Pick farms in your area, go here.

Baked apples (measurements are per serving)
1 apple, cored
1/2 Tablespoon unsalted butter
1 to 2 teaspoons cinnamon sugar or brown sugar (depending on sweetness of apples).
Ice cream or whipped cream (optional, for serving)
Preheat oven to 350 F. Place apples in a baking dish coated with baking spray. Stuff empty apple core with butter. Sprinkle with sugar. Cover and bake until soft, about an hour. Top with ice cream or whipped cream
Alternately, wrap each apple individually in a piece of foil.

Baked apple, variation
Substitute 2 individually wrapped caramels, unwrapped, for the butter and sugar
Stuff apple core with caramel and bake until cooked through.

Chopsticks!!

2007-10-10T19:31:00.000-07:00

Today when I picked the twins up from school, his teacher shot me a big smile and a thumbs up. He's been having such a rough time settling in. But today he was actually so well behaved that he got to go to the treasure box. And what did he pick out? Chop sticks!

Coincidentally, I had already prepared a new Asian noodle dish for dinner for tonight. With the ramen and the soy sauce this one is a bit high in sodium. But it was a huge hit with all the little ones, who even ate the vegetables.

Oriental noodles with beef
2 packages Oriental flavor ramen noodles
2 cups frozen vegetables (Oriental mix is best, but I use whatever mix I have on hand)
2 cups water
4 Tbl. soy sauce
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 lb. ground beef, browned and drained

Break up noodles and place in a large saucepan. Add contents of seasoning packets, vegetables, water, soy sauce and ginger. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to simmer. Cover and cook until vegetables and noodles are tender, about 10 minutes. Add beef and stir over heat until warmed through.

1-hour breads

2007-09-29T17:32:00.000-07:00

I don't know anyone who doesn't love the smell of bread baking. There's something about it that's so comforting, and it's really hard to wait for the bread to cool a little before cutting off a chunk, slathering it with butter and taking a bite.

I grew up within smelling distance of a bread factory, and the smell of bread in the oven brings back especially fond memories for me. Before kids I would plan ahead and make loaves of fresh bread just about every week. But now with three kids, three dogs, a cat, a part-time job and a partridge in a pear tree, I rarely have time -- or have thought ahead enough -- to bake a fresh loaf of yeast bread, which can take hours to proof and rise, and often rise again.

But who doesn't have time to make a quick bread. Both of these recipes go from dry flour to bread in about an hour -- which means you can have fresh bread for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Pesto beer bread
3 cups flour (I like unbleached)
3 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1/4 cup sugar
1 12-oz. can/bottle beer
1 Tablespoon prepared pesto, bottled or homemade (see note below)
Preheat oven to 350 F. Combine flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Make a well in the center and add beer, stirring to combine to make a thick batter. Add pesto and stir to combine. Spray a loaf pan with non-stick spray and pour batter into prepared pan. Bake until cooked through and toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 45 to 60 minutes.
Note -- For other flavors, omit pesto and substitute:
1 tsp. caraway seeds and 1/3 cup finely grated cheddar cheese
1 tsp. finely chopped rosemary and 1/3 cup finely shredded Parm.
Nothing.

Soda Bread
1 1/2 cups milk
1 Tablespoon plus 1 1/2 tsp. white vinegar
3 1/2 cups unbleached flour (plus more for board)
1 tsp. baking soda
3/4 plus 1 tsp. kosher salt, divided
1 Tablespoon unsalted butter, melted
2 Tablespoons caraway seeds (optional)
Preheat oven to 400 F. Mix together milk and vinegar and set aside. Mix flour, baking soda and 3/4 tsp. salt. Add milk mixture mix until starts to form a ball (I like to do this in my Kitchen Aid mixer). Turn dough onto counter (covered with flour) and knead until fully combined. Form dough into a ball, pat down top to make a flat round and cut a deep X into the top of the dough. Brush with melted butter, sprinkle with remaining salt and bake until cooked through, about 40 to 50 minutes.

Not your mother's deviled eggs

2007-09-25T19:57:00.001-07:00

I always avoided deviled eggs. I think it goes back to when I was a kid and I thought I didn't like mayonnaise. And even though I like mayo now, I even like egg salad, but I still don't like traditional deviled eggs.

Which is why I came up with an alternative. And these deviled eggs -- which I call Italian eggs -- have become a signature dish I serve at almost every backyard barbecue.

With trial and error, and a little help from the Food Network and the 'net, I've found a few tips for making the best hard boiled eggs. First, I always buy my eggs in advance and let them sit in the 'fridge for at least a week before boiling them up. If the eggs are too fresh, the membrane between the egg and shell doesn't release and the eggs are impossible to peel. But if the eggs are a little less than fresh, an air bubble forms between the egg and the membrane and the shell easily peels off.

Put the eggs in a large sauce pan and cover with plenty of water. Place over high heat and cook for 23 minutes, turning down heat if water starts to boil over. When the timer rings, remove eggs from boiling water and immediately put in a bowl of ice water (stopping the cooking immediately eliminates the green ring that can form around the yoke if the eggs cool slowly). When cool enough to handle, remove from ice water, peel shells and return eggs to ice water to cool completely. Once cook, dry eggs well and store in the 'fridge.

6 to 8 hard boiled eggs
extra virgin olive oil
kosher salt, to taste
Cut eggs in half and carefully remove yolks. In a bowl, mash yolks with a fork and add enough olive oil until yolks are smoothly mashed and holding together. Season to taste with salt. Spoon yolk mixture into egg whites and chill until serving.

Yorktown Pub

2007-09-23T17:33:00.000-07:00

Friday was kids night out at the Y. For $15 Niko and Lena can eat pizza, go swimming, play games, etc. Grandma and Grandpa come and watch Gregort, and Mommy and Daddy can go out

Truth is, Mike and I have been out a few times recently, and we're kinda bored of our usual spots. So we decided to check out the historic Yorktown pub. We had a great time.

And the food wasn't bad either. I ordered the crab cake dinner (two crab cakes, veggie and starch for $16.95). The French fries, crispy crinkle cut fries, were great, especially when dunked in a little mayo (an indulgence). It was clear from the taste that the fryer wasn't just at the perfect temperature (too cool and the fries are soggy, too hot they burn and all you're left with is a way too crunchy shell). The veggies, green beans, were out of a can, and while I know canned beans lose a lot of their nutritional value, I can't help but like them.

The crabcakes, bigger than my hand and about a half-inch thick at the middle, were clearly hand-made. While they were a little heavy on the breadcrumbs and, as a result, a little dry, overall the flavor was great -- the delicate taste of crab combine with a kick of hot pepper and celery. And instead of being dropped in the deep fryer, these crab cakes were sauted in an pan until cooked through, making them lighter and allowing the delicate crab flavor to shine. I ended up eating one and taking the other home for lunch the next day.

Mike had the steamed seafood platter -- $19 for about a dozen each clams, oysters and shrimp that he said were better than similar meals that he's had at some of the area's "fine" restaurants.

Our server was very nice, and when our food still wasn't out 20 minutes after we ordered she came by and said it wouldn't be long. But after she came by she realized she forgot to put our order into the computer and came back to appologize. Truth is, while I was hungry, I was having so much fun just hanging out that I really didn't care all that much.
As a result, she gave us a free dessert and a free glass of wine. And we had a coupon for a free dinner, so our tab came to a total of $35 (not including tip). The key limp pie was OK, certainly not as good as last weekend. the flavor was nicely tart-sweet, but it was fracation of the size if last week's pie. And the crust was soggy.

More NC recipes, as promised

2007-09-19T22:00:00.001-07:00

Here are the two North Carolina recipes that I promised to pass on today:

North Carolina Wild-Caught Shrimp and Penna Pasta with Tomato Orange Sauce
(Compliments of Christine Zambito, director of food and beverage manager of the Lifesaving Station Restaurant at the Sanderling Resort and Spa in Duck)
1 lb. penne pasta, prepared according to package directions
1 lb. North Carolina shrimp
Salt and pepper to taste
1 Tbl. canola oil
1 Tbl. minced garlic
1 cup yellow onion, diced
1/2 cup dry white wine
Zest of one orange
1 28-oz. can diced tomatoes, drained and rinsed
1 14.5-oz can petit diced tomatoes, drained and rinsed
1/2 cup orange juice
8 to 10 fresh basil leaves, cut into thin strips (abut 2 Tbl.)

Peel and devein shrimp, leaving tails on and season with salt and pepper.
Heat oil in a large skillet. Cook shrimp in hot oil 2 minutes, stirring freqently. Add garlic and onion and saute until onion is translucent. Stir in wine and continue cooking until liquid is reduced by half. Add orange zest and cook for 1 minute. Remove shrimp and set aside.

Add tomatoes to skillet and simmer uncovered for 5 minutes. Stir in orange juice and season with salt and pepper. Simmer another 5 minutes. Return shrimp to sauce and heat through.

Add pasta to sauce and toss to coat. Stir in basil and mix well. Serve immediately.

Spinach Florentine Sauce -- good on grilled salmon or steak (compliments of Chef Eric Anderson, Flying Fish Cafe)
1 Tbl fresh chopped garlic
1 qt. heavy whipping cream
1/2 lb. butter
1 medium onion, diced
1/2 lb. bacon, fried and diced
1 lb. fresh baby spinach
1/4 c. grated fresh Parmesan cheese
1 tsp. fresh rosemary, finely chopped
1/2 lb. backfin crabmeat

Melt butter over medium heat. Add diced onion and saute 2 minutes.

Add garlic to onions and saute for 2 more minutes. Add spinach in small handfuls until wilted. Add bacon and cream. Simmer until reduced by one-third. Stir constantly to prevent scorching. Fole in cheese and crab meat and reduce heat to low for five minutes. Remove from heat and pour over prepared protein.

Key Lime Pie and other Outer Banks foods

2007-09-18T18:16:00.000-07:00

Late last month the Virginian Pilot voted the key lime pie at the Kill Devil Grille on the Outer Banks as the best restaurant key lime pie in the area (a home cook actually won, and her recipe follows). So when we made what will probably be our last trip to the beach for 2007, we decided to swing by and give it a try. And I have to say, it was a fabulous slice of pie.

Kill Devil Grille makes it's key lime pie in a spring-form pan, and as a result each slice is a generous 2-inches high, about twice as tall as a pie made in a typical pie pan. It came served on a plate dusted with powdered sugar and garnished with strawberry sauce and a dollop of fresh whipped cream.

Unlike most key lime pie recipes made with a graham cracker crust, Kill Devil Grille uses crushed vanilla waffers as the base for its crust. And the filling, made with both fresh and bottled juice, was creamy and perfectly sweet-tart. In fact, this pie was neck and neck with the home-made entry in the Pilot until it came to the last category: value. While it was certainly a value at $5 a slice, there's no way it could beat out a homemade pie for cost.

While the Pilot didn't publish the recipe for the Kill Devil Grille pie, they did have a recipe for the homemade pie from that beat it out:

Katie Reid's Key Lime Pie
Graham cracker crust
2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup butter, melted
Filling
6 egg yolks
28 ounces (2 cans) sweetened, condensed milk
1 cup Key lime juice

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Mix crust ingredients and pat into a 9-inch deep-dish pie plate with the back of a spoon. It's easier to pat the sides into place first and then the bottom.
In a large mixing bowl, beat egg yolks with condensed milk and lime juice. Pour into prepared crust. Bakes for 30 minutes. Serve chilled. Whipped cream may be put on top.
(Note for a different taste, beat egg whites until firm. Add 1/2 cup sugar gradually. Put meringue on pie and bake for another five minutes until meringue is golden.)

In one of the Outer Banks magazines I picked up also included some seafood recipes from other famous Outer Banks restaurants.

Miss O's Crab Cakes (compliments of Clara Mae Shannon, Owens' Restaurant)
1 lb. jumbo lump crabmeat
3 Tbs. mayo
1 tsp. Worcestershire
1 tsp. celery salt
1 egg
1/4 tsp. dry mustard
Dash of Tobasco sauce
3 Tbl. fresh breadcrumbs
Butter, for pan
Fresh lemon slices, for serving
Pick over crabmeat and carefully remove any remaining shells or cartilage. Do not break large lumps.
Gently whisk mayo, Worcestershire, celerey salt, egg, Tobasco and dry mustard. Fold mixture into crabmeat by hand, again being careful not to break lumps. Sprinkle with fresh breadcrumbs and fold gently to distribute.
Refrigerate 10 minutes. Form into cakes. Pan saute in butter over medium heat until done, about 3 minutes on each side. Serve with a squeeze of fresh lemon.

Awful Arthur's Garlic Shrimp and Crab (compliments of Chef Kenny McLean)
2 lbs. lump crabmeat, picked through
2 lbs. 36/40 shrimp, peeled
1 batch white wine garlic butter (recipe to follow)
paprika
Preheat oven to 375 F. Divide the crab evenly among eight gratin dishes. Top with shrimp. Dot the butter on top of the crab and shrimp. Sprinkle with paprika. Bake in the oven until the shrimp is just cooked and the tops are barely browned, about 8 to 10 minutes.

White Wine Garlic Butter
1 lb. unsalted butter, softened
1 oz. dried parsley flakes
1/2 tsp. black pepper
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
2 tsp. lemon juice, fresh squeezed
1 oz. white wine
1/2 tsp. Old Bay
Whip together all the ingredients until evenly incorporated.

Coming next: Recipes for Spinach Florentine Sauce from the Flying Fish Cafe and North Carolina Wild-Caught Shrimp and Penne Pasta with Tomato Orange Sauce from The Lifesaving Station Restaurant at teh Sanderling REsort and Spa in Duck.

Lunchbox snack

2007-09-10T19:29:00.000-07:00

While I'm on the subject of the kids' lunchboxes, I thought I'd add my new recipe for snack mix. While I love potato chips, I'd rather give the kids a crunchy snack that's not a total void of nutrition. In particular I like snack mixes that include cereals, which are fortified with vitamins and minerals. I've made several versions of the traditional savory Chex mix. But here's a version that's a little sweet, thanks to the sweet crackers and M&Ms

2 cups Golden Grahams cereal
2 cups plain Cheerios
2 cups honey flavored mini bear cookies
1 cup potato sticks or 1 cup pretzel sticks
3 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2 Tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 Tablespoon sugar (white or brown)
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 cup raisins or craisins
1/2 cup dark chocolate m&ms
Preheat oven to 350 F. Mix together cereals, bear cookies, potato sticks or pretzels in a large bowl. Combine butter, Worcestershire, sugar and cinnamon and pour over cereal mixture. Toss to combine. Coat a baing pan with cooking spray and spread cereal mixture evenly. Bake six minutes, stir and bake another six minutes. Let cool. Add raisins or craisins and m&ms.

School lunch for the picky one

2007-09-09T19:35:00.001-07:00

The only sandwich Niko will eat is peanut butter and jelly, which he calls a jelly sandwich. Which makes packing his lunch a challenge. I want to pack him something he'll eat -- it's a long day that would only feel longer if he's hungry. At the same time, I want to try to push him to try new things and accept them, and I don't want him to get to the point where all he will eat is white bread with the crust cut off.

First things first: the peanut butter. I refuse to feed the kids any of the name brand peanut butters out there. While they are made with peanuts, there's an awful lot of sugar and other stuff in there. Instead I only buy organic peanut butter, which is just crushed peanuts. And sometimes I mix it up with almond butter or soy butter or honey roasted peanut butter. Niko has never mentioned anything about the taste or texture being different. But when I tried to give him cream cheese in place of nut butter, he refused.

The butter isn't the only thing that changes in Niko's sandwich. In fact, I make sure his pb&j is different every day. I mix up the bases -- white/wheat bread, wheat pita, flour tortillas, graham crackers, Saltines, Ritz. I've even made a pb&j-s on waffles and pancakes.

I also vary the J: Strawberry jam. Grape jelly. Apple butter or jelly. Orange marmalade. Honey. Fluff.

Endless combinations. Endless options. All eaten by my picky eater.

Another date with Daddy

2007-09-08T19:34:00.001-07:00

We weren't planning it, but we ended up with a bonus sitter tonight. All week long we couldn't decide where to go or what to do. We considered all our favorite area restaurants, but it had been so long since we went someplace new. So I dragged out our Entertainment Book of coupons and we decided to pick one with a buy-one-get-one-free offer and ended up at the Blue Crab in Virginia Beach.

You can't beat the atmosphere, sitting on the deck overlooking the boats of the marina. And I'd go back for that reason alone.

We started out meal with a house salad ($4), which Mike and I split. I loved the fact that the salad was topped with shredded beets. But the dressing, while tasty, was a bit too heavy on the vinegar, and I found myself reaching for my water several times.

Mike ordered the surf and turf, which came with steamed shrimp and grilled tenderloin (although they were out of the tenderloin, so they substituted a New York Strip for $20 vs. $27), "southern beans" and smashed potatoes. First the bad. The beans were awful. They had far too much seasoning and tasted almost burnt. The potatoes were OK. But Mike said the stars of the meal -- the steak and pile of shrimp -- were perfect. Mike says ordering steak out can be hit or miss. He wants it medium-rare, with an emphasis on the rare, but each chef seems to define "rare" differently and often it comes overcooked.

I ordered the seafood scampi ($24), shrimp, scallops and lobster in a butter wine sauce with tomatoes and scallions served over angel hair pasta. I think scampi should be so garlicky that you'll be vampire-free for weeks. but this scampi was a bit bland. And it had a cheese melted on top, which seemed unnecessary. I did enjoy it, but it wasn't as good as it could have been. Or as good as it might have been had I made it at home.

In fact, next time, I'll try my homemade Angel Hair with Scallop Sauce
1 1/2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 Tablespoons butter
2-4 cloves garlic, peeled and cut in half
1/2 lb. sea scallops
Angel hair pasta.
Heat butter and oil together in a skillet until butter is melted. Add garilc and cook until golden. Remove garlic. Heat a large pot of salted water. When water is boiling, add angel hair to water and scallops to butter/olive oil skillet and saute until cooked through. Drain pasta, add scallops and butter/oil and toss to combine.

TV Dinner

2007-09-07T16:46:00.000-07:00

As a rule, I don't buy prepared convenience foods. But as with all rules, there are exceptions. And in this case it's the rotisserie chicken at Costco. You just can't beat $5 for a simply prepared healthy and juicy chicken that's as good or better than any I could make at home. Better yet, I can usually get three dinners out of one chicken, and sometimes there's even enough leftover to make chicken salad for lunch. So I've gotten into the habit of picking one up every time I go to Costco (which is at least every other week). Yesterday was one of those days.

Usually on the first night I serve the chicken sliced with gravy, rice or potatoes and a vegetable (gravy recipe follows).

Tonight I decided to treat the kids to chicken nachos using some of the leftover breast meat. It's been a long first week of kindergarten, and they were tired tonight and just wanted to relax in front of the TV. And what better TV food is there?

TV nachos
Tortilla chips (to lighten this recipe you could instead make your own baked nacho chips, recipe follows)
Shredded rotisserie chicken breast
Shredded cheddar cheese
Salsa (my current favorite is Costco's mango peach salsa)
Chopped hot peppers, olives, canned beans (drained and rinsed), sour cream (optional)
Set oven to broil. In a baking pan, spread chips, top with chicken and cheese. Place under the broiler to melt cheese (watch carefully, this can happen fast). Remove and top with salsa and any optional ingredients desired.

Light tortilla chips
8” round flour tortillas
Cooking spray
Kosher salt
Preheat oven to 350 F. Using a pizza wheel, cut tortillas into eight pieces. Spread in a single layer on a baking pan and spray with cooking spray. Bake until golden on one side. Turn over and continue baking until golden on the other side (watch them). Sprinkle with salt.

And here's the recipe for gravy for the first night (this gravy often also appears in any casserole I might make with the leftovers).

Gravy
Juice from bottom of the rotisserie chicken container
2 Tablespoons butter
2 Tablespoons flour
½ cup white wine (optional)
½ cup water or chicken stock (if not using wine, double this to 1 cup)
1-2 Tablespoons sour cream (optional)
As soon as you get home, drain the juice from the bottom of the rotisserie chicken container and set aside. If using later, refrigerate. When ready, microwave juice to liquefy. In a small sauce pan, melt butter. Add flour and whisk to combine. Add reserved juice, wine (if using) and water or stock and stir to combine, continuing to stir until thickened. Add sour cream (if using – sometimes I use it, sometimes I don't, just to mix things up a little) and stir to melt.

Check out the blogroll!

2007-09-06T20:02:00.000-07:00

Looking for a little food reading? Check out the Foodie Blogroll I recently added to the site. Looking for a blog about eating a gluten-free diet. It's there. Algerian food? Got it. Organic? Yup. And anything else you might want and more. I haven't counted, but it seems like there are hundreds of food sites and blogs listed.

And my thanks to the leftoverqueen who put it together, making it all possible. You can check out her site at:
http://www.leftoverqueen.com/

1st Day of School Breakfast

2007-09-04T17:58:00.001-07:00

Before heading out together for the first day of school -- Niko and Lena in kindergarten and Gregory in preschool -- I wanted the kids to have a good back-to-school breakfast. Everyone loves pancakes. Niko likes them plain. Lena likes a little syrup. And Gregory likes to roll them up and eat them out of his hands. And even though they're easy to make from scratch (if you make up a batch of homemade mix ahead of time), it's one of those things I rarely think to do in the morning.

But when I do, I typically make twice as many as we need. After all, they are easy to reheat the following morning. Just reheat the griddle (no need to grease it even) and throw the pancakes on for 30 seconds to a minute on each side.

Homemade pancake mix
6 cups all-purpose, unbleached flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
3 tsp. baking powder
1 Tablespoon kosher salt
2 Tablespoons sugar
Combine in a zipper bag. Be sure to shake before using.

To make pancakes
2 cups pancake mix
2 cups milk
2 Tablespoons white vinegar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
4 Tablespoons melted butter (plus more for greasing pan)
2 cups fruit (blueberries, bananna slices, etc.), optional
Put pancake mix in a large bowl and set aside. Mix together milk and vinegar. Add eggs and wisk to combine. Slowly add melted butter while stirring. Add liquid mixture to pancake mix and stir to combine (don't worry about getting out all the lumps). Heat a griddle or fry pan and coat with butter. use paper towel to wipe off most of the butter. Ladle pancake batter onto griddle, top with fruit (if using) and cook until bubbles pop on the top of pancakes. Flip and cook on remaining side until done.

Alligator on a Stick

2007-09-01T18:29:00.001-07:00

Every time Mike makes his meat sticks, you have to distract the kids with cookies and ice cream to make sure there are enough for the grow ups. When he made them Friday at a friends' house, their 6-year-old daughter decided they were alligator on a stick, and the name stuck. To make it, Mike slices flank steak thinly against the grain and lets the meat sit in the Teriyaki marinade for at least an hour. Before grilling he weaves the thin steak pieces on bamboo skewers (soaked for 15 or so minutes in water) and grills until done and then serves them with the sauce we use on peanut noodles.

But this marinade also works on other meats. Chicken tenders can be treaded on skewers the same way. Or use it to marinade chicken drumsticks (regular size or mini), tuna, shrimp, whatever.

Teriyaki marinade
½ cup orange juice
¼ soy sauce
2 tsp. ground ginger
2 tsp. chopped garlic
2 tsp. sesame oil
Mix everything together in a zip bag. Add meat and let sit at least one hour. Grill or broil.

With it's Asian flavors, I felt like Alligator on a Stick needed a Asian-inspired pasta salad. This was a hit with adults and kids alike.
Asian peanut noodle salad
½ lb. long noodles, cooked according to package directions
½ c. shelled edamame
1 4.25 oz. can tiny shrimp, drained
½ cup peanut sauce (I cheated and used the sauce I bought at Rowena's, but an alternate recipe follows)
While noodles are still hot, add the rest of the ingredients and stir to combine. Chill before serving.

Peanut noodle sauce
3 Tablespoons roasted sesame oil
3 Tablespoons peanut butter (use organic that is just crushed peanuts and no sugar)
1 ½ Tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1 ½ Tablespoons soy sauce
2 Tablespoons hot water
Tobasco sauce to taste
Add sesame oil to cooked noodles. Combine the rest of the ingredients and pour enough over noodles to coat. Store remaining in the 'fridge.

A rare dinner date

2007-08-30T18:59:00.000-07:00

I will always choose a local restaurant over a chain. That is, with one exception: BoneFish Grill. And even though others rave about their favorites (tonight a woman we ran into couldn't say enough about the salmon, $14.20), I always end up ordering the Mussels Josephine ($8.80 as a starter or $14 as an entre with a salad).

Billed on the menu as "Prince Edward Island Mussels sauteed with tomatoes, garlic, sweet Genovese basil and lemon wine sauce," I know there's a secret ingredient that makes the sauce so good that it's all you can do to resist scooping it up with a spoon like soup. Instead I request extra bread and saturate it in sauce. In fact, I would be happy with just a bowl of sauce and the free bread, but I imagine they would frown on that. And I guess I would miss the mussels.

But what was that secret ingredient that gives the sauce gentle sweetness? I guessed maybe saffron, or some other spice or herb that I didn't use often. So when I got home I did a little surfing, and I couldn't have been more wrong: it's a touch of Anisette (licorice-flavored liquor). I may have to try that sometime.

My Steamed Mussels
2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2-4 tsp. chopped garlic
Mussels
1/2 cup white wine
2 Tablespoons butter
Salt and pepper to taste
In a large stock pot, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add garlic and saute until golden (be careful not to burn). Turn up heat, add mussels and wine, cover pot and bring to a boil. Steam until mussels open, a few minutes (stir halfway through). Once open, remove mussels, add butter to pan and swirl to melt. Salt and pepper to taste. Pour sauce over mussels and serve with fresh bread.

If you are lucky enough to have leftover mussels, here's a way to turn them into a quick sauce for pasta.

Pasta with leftover musssel sauce
Leftover mussels with sauce
1/4 cup vegetable or clam stock
1/4 cup white wine
Pasta cooked 1 minute less than suggested
2 Tablespoons butter (optional)
In a medium size pot, mix together musssels with sauce, stock and wine over medium heat. Simmer to combine flavors, about 15 minutes. Put cooked pasta back into stock pot. Add butter and toss to melt butter and coat pasta. Top with sauce and heat over medium until some of the liquid is absorbed into the pasta, about 1 to 5 minutes.

And here's the knock-off recipe I found for the BoneFish mussels online tonight

BoneFish Grill Mussels Josephine
Butter, divided
Prince Edward mussels
1/2 cup red onions, chopped
2 tsp. chopped garlic
1/2 cup fresh tomatoes, chopped
Fresh basil, cut into thin ribbons
2 oz. Sambuca
Lemon juice
Coat a hot skillet with melted butter. Add the fresh Prince Edward mussels to the skillet, and cover. The steam will cook the mussels, along with the heat of the pan. It will take about 1 minute to cook the mussels. You'll know when they're done when the mussels begin to open. Add onions, garlic, tomatoes and basil and stir to combine. Remove everything with a slotted spoon. Deglaze pan with sambuca (licorice-flavored liqour). Add butter and lemon juice to taste and salt and pepper to taste. Pour sauce over mussel. Serve with fresh crusty bread.

Mike and I also really enjoyed the BoneFish house salad (billed on the menu as "crisp chopped greens, tomatoes, Kalamata olives, Brazilian organic heart of palm and roasted pine nuts. Tossed with citrus herb vinaigrette"). Here's a knock off recipe I found online during my surfing:

Bonefish, Grill Citrus Herb Vinaigrette
2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
4 teaspoons minced garlic
1 tablespoon Grey Poupon Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons lime juice
2 teaspoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons minced fresh parsley
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
Whisk all ingredients in medium bowl. Microwave on high 1 minute or till mixture bubbles rapidly around edge of the bowl. Remove bowl from microwave and whisk 1 minute until mixture forms an emulsion. Cover and chill tor 1 hour before serving.
Yields 1 1/4 cups.

A quick fresh tomato sauce that takes overnight

2007-08-28T18:11:00.000-07:00

I started making my quick fresh tomato sauce last night, peeling an entire head of garlic, cutting each clove in half, putting it all in a jar topped with extra virgin olive oil and storing it in the 'fridge overnight.

You can rush a garlic-oil infusion by heating the oil and garlic together and letting it sit for 30 minutes to cool on the counter. But that almost seems more complicated.

And the other benefit is when you take a few tablespoons out of the jar in your refrigerator, you can top it with a little more oil, shake and stick it back for the next time.

Fresh tomato sauce over spinach pasta
2 large, fresh tomatoes
2 Tablespoons garlic oil
30 basil leaves, stacked and cut into thin strips (chiffanade) I used a combination of green an purple leaves.
Kosher salt to taste
Parmesan cheese
Spinach pasta, cooked according to package directions
Seed and chop tomatoes and combine with oil, basil and salt. Stir and set aside at room temperature to blend, at least 1 hour but up to eight hours (Note: Do not ever refrigerate fresh tomatoes. The cold breaks down the flesh and turns the fruit mealy). Just before serving, cook pasta according to package directions. Drain. Top with tomatoes (and their juice) and Parmesan cheese.

This was a hit with Mike, Lena and I. Gregory and Niko refused to even try the fresh tomatoes, so they got some noodles with butter and leftovers from the refrigerator.

FitFlops

2007-08-25T20:55:00.000-07:00

OK. I know this isn't really food related. But I'll justify posting it here because it's fitness related, and food and fitness go hand in hand, right?

When a friend e-mailed me a link to a story about this new FlipFlop that was all the rage in the UK, I was curious. Don't get me wrong, I don't think there is a quick fix for fitness. But this didn't seem like a pill that makes your lose weight or a machine that pressed on your tummy while you watched TV to work your abs. But for some reason I though this sounded like it could work to me. They claimed to be engineered to force your leg muscles to work harder each time you took a step, building those muscles and burning more calories. This from the folks at FitFlop:
"Independent studies with leading UK athletic biomechanists confirm: The unique tapered softer midsole structure of the FitFlop boosts overall leg muscle activity, reduces joint strain, increases calf muscle efforts, and extends the activation time of certain muscles (your rectus femoris and gluteus maximus muscles) during every single step. So you get a workout while you walk."
I figured even if it was a little far fetched, I had to find out.

After being featured on several US news program, they were back ordered for months. But I ordered them anyway, and they finally arrived Wednesday.

Will walking in them give me a shapely butt and calves? We'll see. They are by far the most comfortable shoe I've ever worn (but, of course, they won't be very practical come winter). I measured before I wore them the first day (calves 14.25 inches, hips/butt 39 inches). I'll measure again in a month and let you know...

Eastern Shore Crab Cakes

2007-08-24T18:11:00.000-07:00

You can't visit the Eastern Shore of Virginia, situated between the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, and not have a crab cake. After all, this is the place where watermen (the local word for fishermen) make their living catching crabs. So it goes without saying that if you're in an Eastern Shore restaurant that plans to stay in business (like the Exmore Diner on Business Route 13 in Exmore, about 25 or 30 miles north of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel), the crab meat will be fresh and the crab cakes hand made.

These aren't the hocky pucks tossed in a deep fat fryer that you get in chain restaurants or in the frozen section of your local grocery store. Real crab cakes, like this one I had today, are so light they barely hold together and are grilled or satueed rather than fried. And there is very little filling to distract from the delicate flavor of the crab.

I got this recipe about a decade ago when Mike and I visited Tangier Island, a remote Eastern Shore community accessible only by boat. We had dinner that night at the Chesapeake House restaurant and stayed at the Crocket Inn (both owned by the same family). This recipe was printed in the Virginian Pilot, which had been framed and hung in the hall of the inn (which is where I copied it from). It's become my favorite crab cake recipe.

Tangier Island Crab Cakes
3 lbs. lump (or claw) crabmeat
5 slices white bread, crust removed
2 eggs, lightly beaten
3 Tablespoons mayo
3 Tablespoons Worcestershire
3 Tablespoons finely chopped fresh parsley (optional)
3 Tablespoons prepared mustard
3 Tablespoons Old Bay seasoning
Salt to taste
Vegetable oil, for frying)
Lemon wedges, for serving)
Hamburger buns (optional, if serving as sandwiches)
Put crabmeat in a bowl and pick through for shells. Quickly dip bread into water and squeese with hands to remove excess. Break into pieces and add to crabmeat. To eggs add mayo, Worcestershire, parsley (if using), mustard, Old Bay and stir to combine. Add crabmeat to egg mixture and toss lightly with a wooden spoon (if you mix it too much the crabmeat will break apart). Form into patties, about 1/2-inch thick. Place on a baking sheet and chill about 1 hour. Heat oil in skillet and gently saute crab cakes until golden and cooked through, about 3 minutes on each side. Serve with lemon wedges or on hamburger buns.

Culinary tour of sweets in Norfolk

2007-08-23T19:19:00.000-07:00

As I've already written, the kids and I are on vacation this week. Over the years Mike and I have taken them to every museum and most of the area parks. So this time I'm trying to hit some of the more off-the-beaten-path spots. Somewhat by accident today we ended up at two of Hampton Roads' best known places for sweets: Rowena's and Doumar's Barbecue. And at each we were able to meet the namesake.

Rowena Fullinwider founded the gourmet manufacturer in 1983. Today they sell a variety of specialty jams, jellies and sauces, along with signature cakes and mixes. The four of us were able to tour the factory. I was surprised at how small it was -- two industrial-size mixers, two revolving ovens and a hand-operated bottle filler. This from a company that ships around the globe.

The kids helped themselves (aka stuffed their faces) with the samples set out. The curds, lemon and key lime, were fabulous. But I can make those at home. I thought the Heavenly Curry Sauce (sweet) and Spicy Peanut Sauce were savory and unique and I had to buy one of each ($6.50 a piece, but they were offering a buy-2-get-1-free deal, so I got an extra of the curry sauce).

The recipes handed out with each bottle almost inspired me to go back into the kitchen today. But it will have to wait until next week, when my vacation from cooking is over.

Curried Rice Side Dish
1 cup dry rice
1 1/4 cups water
1 cup chicken or vegetable stock
2 Tablespons butter
1/4 cup dry fruit, chopped (apricots, cranberries, or any of the fruit mixes available)
4 Tablespoons Heavenly Curry Sauce
1/4 cup chopped peanuts
Put rice in a medium saucepan. Add water, stock, butter and fruit. Bring to a boil, cover and reduce heat to medium. Simmer 10 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand for 15 minutes. Add curry sauce and peanuts.

Curried chicken
6 to 8 chicken thighs (skin removed)
Onion, sliced thin
1 jar Heavenly Curry Sauce
Preheat oven to 325 F. Place chicken thighs in a baking dish. Top each with a thin slice of onion and pour sauce over. Cover dish with foil. Bake until cooked through, about 1 1/2 hours.

Heavenly curry dip
Block of cream cheese
Chopped peanuts
Raisins
Heavenly curry sauce
Top cream cheese with nuts and raisins. Drizzle with Heavenly Curry Sauce. Serve with crackers.

Asian salad dressing
4 Tablespoons Spicy Peanut Sauce
2 Tablespoons vinegar
2 tsp. salt free seasoning blend
Mix together.

Rowena herself came through as we were checking out and she graciously agreed to pose for a picture. I hope I'm wrong, but she looked like she was fighting cancer, and I know that earlier this year she participated in a fund raiser for the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance. I don't know if it will help, but I will be thinking about her.

As we were leaving, I saw a sign pointing to Doumar's Barbecue, and since it was almost noon and we were on vacation, I followed the arrow and figured we'd stop and have lunch. I can't say if the food is any good -- everyone just wanted ice cream.

And why not. According to legend, Abe Dumar invented the ice cream cone and a machine to make them for the 1904 World's Fair when he was 16. Abe and his family opened an ice cream stand in Virginia Beach in 1907 and they opened the current restaurant at 19th Street and Monticello Ave. in Norfolk in 1934.

Abe's nephew Albert (85 years young) still works at the restaurant, making ice cream cones on the original machine (sadly we missed that -- he's usually at the iron between 9 and 10:30 a.m.) or sitting at the counter (which is where he was when I snapped this shot today).

I usually prefer to eat my ice cream from a cup with a spoon. But I couldn't pass up an original cone filled with chocolate ice cream. It was perfect. Boxed cones tend to be too heavy and flavorless. But these were delicate and lightly crunchy and lightly flavored with vanilla. The perfect lunch.

Tavern food

2007-08-22T20:04:00.000-07:00

Today our travels took the kids and I to Williamsburg (for more about our virtual vacation from home, check out our family blog at http://360.yahoo.com/lisamikeplus3). On the way home I drove the kids through Colonial Williamsburg and past Christiana Campbell's Tavern.

While I haven't been there in more than a decade, I doubt the menu has changed much. After all, it is a colonial tavern. In fact, I think the last time I was there was with my parents before Mike and I met. But I still remember enjoying the food so much that my mom and I asked for the recipe for their sweet potato muffins. They obliged, giving us each a handout with the muffin recipe, and recipes for several other dishes as well.

Christiana Campbell's Tavern Sweet Potato Muffins
1/2 cup butter
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 1/4 cup canned sweet potatoes, mashed
1 1/2 cup flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 cup milk
1/2 cup nuts, chopped (optional)
1/2 cup raisins, chopped (optional)
Preheat oven to 400 F. Spray 1 1/2-inch muffin tins with baking spray. Cream together butter and sugar. Add eggs and mix well. Blend in sweet potatoes. Sift together dry ingredients and add alternately with milk. Be careful not to overmix. Fold in nuts and raising, if using. Fill muffin tins two-thirds full and bake until cooked through, about 25 minutes. Muffins can be frozen and reheated.

Christiana Campbell's Tavern Spoon Bread
1 1/2 cups water
2 cups milk
1 1/2 cups corn meal
1 1/4 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. sugar
3 Tablespoons butter
5 eggs
1 Tablespoon baking powder
Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease a large, shallow baking dish. Combine water and milk and heat to simmer. Add cornmeal, salt, sugar and butter and stir over medium heat until mixture is thickened, about five minutes. Remove from heat. Beat eggs with baking powder until very light and fluffy. Add to the cornmeal mixture and mix well. Pour into prepared dish and bake at 350 F. for 45 to 50 minutes. Serve hot, spooned out of pan and topped with additional butter if desired.

Hampton Crab Imperial
1/2 Tablespoon pimento, drained and chopped
1/2 Tablespoon green pepper, chopped
1 Tablespoon butter
1 lb. backfin crabmeat, picked through to remove any shells
1 cup mayo, divided
1 egg yolk
1/4 tsp. dry mustard
1 rounded tsp. capers, drained
Salt and white pepper to taste
Paprika, for serving
Preheat oven to 375 F. Grease six individual shallow casseroles or cleaned crab shells. Melt butter and saute pimento and green pepper until soft. Gently stir together crabmeat and mayo. Add pimentos and peppers and the rest of the ingredients. Spoon into prepared pans and bake until gold brown, about 30 to 35 minutes. Sprinkle with paprika and top with heavy cream sauce (recipe follows).

Heavy Cream Sauce
4 Tablespoons butter
4 Tablespoons flour
1 cup milk
salt to taste
Melt butter in a heavy saucepan over medium heat. Add flour and wisk to remove lumps. Add milk, continuing to wisk, and cook until thickened.

For a few more recipes straight from Christiana Campbell's tavern, go here:
http://www.history.org/visit/diningExperience/christianaCampbells/images/campbellsrecipes.pdf
And for recipes from some of Colonial Williamsburg's other taverns, check out this site:
http://www.history.org/Almanack/life/food/foodhdr.cfm

Ya Tibya Lublu (I love you)

2007-08-21T18:29:00.000-07:00

My love for food and a little girl named Nadyia motivated me to do something. And something became a cookbook to raise money to improve living conditions and educational opportunities for orphans living in state-run institutions in Russia.

I met Nadyia when Mike and I traveled to Russia to adopt our twins in 2003. She was so much like the daughter we came to adopt: both were born in a Soviet-era hospital in Arkhangel'sk, Russia in 2001, both abandoned by their mothers and living in the city orphanage in 2003.

But their futures will likely be dramatically different. Elena and her twin brother Nicholas are now part of our family in the United States. They ave a baby brother and grandparents and aunts and uncles and friends. They go to school, have birthday parties, take family vacations. In fact, sometimes at the kid's most happy moments, I can't stop myself from crying at the thought of what their life could have been like if we hadn't come along.

After all, they are the lucky ones. Only a small fraction of the 750,000 orphans will be adopted. Most of these children -- kids like Nadyia -- will live in a state-run institution only to be released on their own by the time they turn 18. Once out, the odds are not good: 40 percent will become addicted to drugs or alcohol, 10 percent will kill themselves. The average life expectancy for a child who grows up in an orphanage in Russia is just 30 years.

I compiled and edited "Ya Tibya Lublu: Recipes of Love for Orphans of Eastern Europe" for Nadyia and the other like her. It's available on my web site at www.arkangels.org for $17 (plus $3 shipping and handling). The recipes come from adoptive parents of children from more than 30 regions in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan (as well as a few celebrities -- more on that another day).

Of the 400 recipes in "Ya Tibya Lublu," about half are Eastern European specialities, and the rest are everyday family favorites. Some samples:

Eastern European Side Dish: Baked cabbage
1 head cabbage (green or white)
1 Tablespoon olive oil
2 Tablespoons water
3 to 4 Tablespoons vegetable or chicken stock
4 firm, ripe tomatoes, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 tsp. chili powder
1 Tablespoon parsley or fennel, chopped (optional)
Salt to taste
Put everything in a large pot and cook, covered, until all ingredients are soft.
Recipe note: This recipe comes from a mom of 16 --bio and adopted from Mexico, Russia and Ukraine. She said they ate this recipe everywhere in Russian and Ukraine during their many adoption trips.

Family Favorites Main Dishes: Christina's tuna rice
4 Tablespoons butter, plus more for finished casserole
1 onion
3 Tablespoons flour
1 tsp. salt
pepper to taste
1 tsp. mustard
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
2 1/2 cups cooked rice
2 cups milk
1/2 lb. sharp cheese, shredded (any cheese will do)
1 can tuna
bread crumbs
Preheat oven to 400 f. Melt butter in a saucepan and saute onion until soft, 5 to 10 minutes. Add flour, salt, pepper, mustard and Worcestershire and stir to combine. Add milk and cook, stirring constantly, until thickened. Add half of the cheese and the tuna. Put half of the rice in the bottom of an oven-safe casserole dish. Cover with half o the remaining cheese and half of the tuna mixture. Repeat the layers and sprinkle top with crumbs. Dot with butter and bake for 20 minutes.
Recipe note: Contributed by a mom who adopted her now 10-year-old from Khabarovsk in 1998. She said her daughter was 2 1/2 when she was adopted and could be a picky eater, but this one has always been a favorite.

Eating on vacation Part II-- Kettle Corn

2007-08-20T20:00:00.000-07:00

We love kettle corn. In fact, earlier this summer I took the kids all the way to Busch Gardens one Wednesday because I was craving it. So when we took the kids to Busch Gardens on our mini vacation from home today, we had to get some.

I did a little research, and apparently kettle corn may date back as far as the 1700s. American settlers would mix lard and dry corn kernels in a kettle and stir them with a paddle until the corn popped, adding sugar, honey or molasses, whichever was on hand.

I don't think you can replicate kettle corn at home without a kettle. You can make something that tastes similar, but you can't create the sweet crunch that you get after the kernels are tossed in a kettle.

Microwave kettle corn
1 bag microwave pop corn (no butter flavor)
1 1/2 T butter, melted
Salt to taste
Sugar to taste
Pop corn according to package directions. Pour into a bowl and top with melted butter. Toss and add salt and sugar to taste.

I've never tried this version -- I remember my mom popping corn in a pan on the stove, but I haven't tried it since the microwave came into our lives. I'm going to pick up some lose pop corn kernels the next time I go to the store though.

Stove kettle corn
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup unpopped popcorn kernels
1/4 cup white or brown sugar
Salt to taste
Coat bottom of a heavy pan with a lid with oil. Add corn kernels and cook until almost ready to pop. Sprinkle evenly with sugar. Top with lid and shake pot constantly to pop corn. Once popping has slowed, remove pot from heat and salt to taste.

Eating on vacation

2007-08-20T19:23:00.000-07:00

Since I am not, for the most part, cooking on our virtual vacation, I thought I would write a little about what we are eating while I'm taking a vacation from the kitchen.

I packed snacks and cereal (the individual boxes that I remember from my childhood trips to the beach) to eat in our hotel room Friday through Sunday in the Outer Banks, but we ate most of our meals out. The last time we were in the Outer Banks of North Carolina (two years ago) we found a restaurant we enjoyed so much that we've been talking about driving down there just to eat at the Rundown Cafe (MP .5 on the beach road) ever since.

They serve a fabulous fried coconut shrimp that you can get either as an appetizer or meal with French fries. And if you ask, they'll even serve the shrimp over salad greens ($15). Fried shrimp of any kind is a balance between coating and shrimp. Too much coating, you can't taste the delicate shrimp. Too little and it's a wasted effort. Too soggy and the whole dish is awful. But the Rundown Cafe gets it just right, with a crunchy coating laced with coconut. But what really makes the dish is the coconut sweet cury dipping sauce/dressing.

Over the years I've tried to replicate the recipe. I've tried recipes for coconut shrimp from scratch. I've tried several different brands of frozen. And I've tried making my own coconut dipping sauce. But none compare to the coconut shrimp at the Rundown.

Otherwise, our meals at the beach we nothing to write home about:
An egg/potato breakfast at the restaurant at the Nags Head Pier (MP 12 on the beach road) that were a bit greasier than necessary but good, although the atmosphere couldn't have been better -- a table on the screened porch overlooking the pier and the surf.
Cheese pizza at American Pie (MP 9.5 on the beach road). I've had better and I've had worse.
LT sandwich (a vegetarian BLT) and fries at Bob's Grill (MP 9 on the bypass road). I'm picky about my tomatoes, and these were mealy and had clearly been refrigerated. And while I love French fries of all kinds, my least favorite are the kind that are batter dipped and seasoned, like these were.

Vacation at home!

2007-08-16T20:00:00.000-07:00

This year Mike and I just couldn't get our act together. Each summer we usually go camping for a long weekend and go away someplace fun for a week or more. But this year we never managed to make any plans and suddenly we realized summer was almost over.

So, we decided to take a quick spontaneous trip to the Outer Banks Friday and Saturday. And then next week, our nanny is off, which means I'll be home with the kids. So I decided we'd be on vacation too. Each day during the week the kids and I will go off on day trips (for more about our plans and photos from our adventures, check out our family blog at http://360.yahoo.com/lisamikeplus3). And since I'm on vacation, I don't plan to cook dinner. We'll either order out, or bake a casserole I made ahead of time and put in the freezer. I like to make my casseroles in 8x8" foil pans, which you can easily cover with foil and slip into a gallon-size zipper bag and stack in the freezer.

Here are a few of my husband and kids' favorite freezer-ready foods:

Tater Tot Casserole
1 lb. ground beef (or 1/2 lb. ground beef and 1/2 lb. ground chicken or turkey)
1 32-oz. package frozen tater tots
2 c. sour cream
1 c. cheddar cheese, shredded
1 10-oz. can condensed cream of mushroom soup
1 can green beans, drained
Salt and pepper to taste
Cracker or potato chips, crushed into crumbs
Grease two 8x8" foil pans. Brown ground beef (and chicken, if using) and drain. Spread half of tater tots on the bottom of each pan. In a mixing bowl, combine ground beef (and chicken, if using), sour cream, cheese, soup and beans. Stir until mixed through. Pour over potatoes and spread evenly. Salt and pepper to taste. Cover with foil and freeze.
To serve: Defrost. Top with cracker or potato chip crumbs. Bake in oven preheated to 375 F. until cooked through, about an hour (may be longer if still frozen when baked.

Chicken and rice casserole
1 chicken breast from a rotisserie chicken (I like the ones from Costco)
Juice from bottom of rotisserie chicken
Flour, enough to make a paste (amount depends on how much juice comes out of chicken)
1/2 cup white wine (optional. You could use water instead)
2 quarts veggie stock
1 cup sour cream (I use the light kind) divided
2 Tablespoons butter
1/2 sweet onion, finely diced
2 to 4 mushrooms, finely diced
2 to 4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 cup rice, cooked according to package directions
Salt and pepper to taste
Crackers or potato chips, crushed
Chop chicken breast finely. Put in mixing bowl and set aside. Meanwhile, put juice from the bottom of the rotisserie pan in a small sauce pan and heat. Add flour, 1 Tablespoon at a time, until makes a paste. Add wine and veggie stock to make gravy. Heat until boiling, reduce heat to simmer and continue to cook until coats bottom of a wooden spoon. Add 1/2 cup sour cream and stir until melted. Meanwhile, Melt butter in a small saute pan. Saute onion, mushroom and garlic until very soft, about 15 minutes. Mix together minced chicken, wine/stock gravy, onion/mushroom saute, rice and salt and pepper to taste. Cover with foil and freeze pan.
When ready to serve, tp with cracker or potato chip crumbs. Bake one pan in a preheated 350 F. oven until bubbly and cooked through, about an hour.

Mix together leftover chicken, rice, mushrooms/onions.

Personal questions

2007-08-15T20:18:00.000-07:00

People often ask me about being a vegetarian. Do I eat the other white meat (no)? Do I eat poultry (no)? Do I eat seafood (yes)? What about dairy (yes)? Do I ever cheat (yes – keep reading for yet another confession)?

But the one I always have a hard time answering is: Why?

Truth is, the answer is complicated. Years ago when I was studying to be a certified yoga instructor, my teacher encouraged us all to give up meat for a week. I did a lot of thinking that week, and at the end of it, I had a list of reasons why I didn't plan to add most meat back into my diet:

1) I didn't miss it. In fact, for the most part, I realized I ate red meat, pork, lamb or chicken because it was offered, not because I wanted it. And if I didn't enjoy it, it was basically just calories I could do without.
2) On the other hand, I loved seafood and dairy products and wasn't about to give those up. So I didn't.
3) Not eating meat is healthier – there are fewer calories and far less cholesterol in most vegetarian meals.
4) If I prepared and ate healthier meals for me, my husband and children would eat healthier meals.
5) Livestock farms pollute the environment more than fields of grain (especially if you buy organic whenever possible, and I do)
6) The area of land it takes to produce enough to feed one person beef for a year would feed 30 people if it was instead planted with soybeans.

I also decided that if I ever craved meat of any kind, I wasn't going to deny myself. In general I think that a diet that make any food completely off limits forever is a recipe for failure. So that brings up more questions: Do I ever crave meat? (yes). And when I do, what am I willing to bend the rules and eat on very rare occasions (maybe a few times a year)? An expensive cut of beef tenderlion? Roast turkey? Grilled lamb? Nope. My tastes fall much lower on the meat food chain: Sausage. Of any kind. From liverwurst to sweet Italian links, hot dogs to breakfast patties and anything in between.

But generally I stick to vegetables and grains. And I love soy beans!

Soybean succotach
2 cups fresh or frozen soybeans
2 cups fresh or frozen corn kernels
2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Small red pepper, diced
2 stems rosemary
Blanch soybeans and corn independently until tender-crisp. Drain. Meanwhile, heat olive oil and saute pepper and rosemary until pepper is soft. Add soybeans and corn and toss to warm. Remove rosemary stems before serving.

Roasted Edamame
2 tsp. extra virgin olive oil
½ tsp. chili powder
¼ tsp. dry basil, onion salt, cumin
1/8 tsp. paprika and black pepper
10 oz. package frozen edamame, thawed
Preheat oven to 375 F. Mix together everything but edamame. Add edamame and toss to coat the beans.
Arrange in a single layer on a baking pan and roast until beginning to brown, about 12 to 15 minutes, stirring once during cooking. Serve hot as side dish or cold as a snack.
Note: This recipe is really more of a blueprint than a rule. Vary the spices and herbs. Or cut them out entirely.

I'm happy now mommy!

2007-08-14T18:33:00.000-07:00

Tonight 2 1/2-year-old Gregory was having a bit of a tempertantrum. He was mad at me because I told him he couldn't have yet another Monkey bandaid (he had one still in the wrapping in his hands and three stuck to his legs). I was getting dinner ready in the kitchen, and had it on a baking tray waiting for the oven to heat to the proper temperature. But I stopped what I was doing and I picked him up to try to console him.

"I'm sad," he said.

"Why honey?"

"You won't let me have another bandaid."

"I'm sorry honey. You already have plenty."

"Oooooo. Are those fish sticks?"

"Yes honey."

"Are we having FISH STICKS?"

"Yup. I'm getting them ready to put them in the oven for dinner."

"Ooooo! I'm happy now mommy!"

Imagine that. My most picky eater can go from sad to happy in seconds flat over fish sticks, a food I avoided like the plague when I was a kid. I mean, this is a kid who turns his nose up at the all-time toddler favorite mac-n-cheese. But truth is, fish sticks have come a long way in 35+ years.

And I will admit to sometimes throwing frozen fish sticks (or their cousin chicken nuggets, which Gregory also loves) on a cookie sheet and calling it cooking (my favorite are actually the Trident Seafood brand made from wild Alaskan pollock that I can buy in 4 lb. bags at Costco, but in a pinch any brand will do). But the truth is, it doesn't take a lot more effort to make your own.

Fish/chicken sticks or nuggets
1 lb. firm white fish (pollock, cod) or chicken tenders
Flour
1 egg, lightly beaten with a little water
Panko crumbs (Japanese bread crumbs)
Oil for frying
Ketchup, ranch dressing, tarter sauce, cocktail sauce, barbecue sauce (optional), for dipping
Cut fish or chicken into strips or nuggets and pat dry. Heat a small amont of oil in the bottom of a saute pan. Dip fish (or chicken) in flour, egg and panko, dusting off excess each time. Gently place fish (or chicken) in oil and saute until golden on one side (do not move until golden), turn over and repeat. Remove and set on plate covered with paper towels to drain off remaining oil.

Veggies, meet Grill

2007-08-12T18:21:00.000-07:00

Just about every weekend in the summer I have my husband make up a big batch of grilled veggies. He cooks them in a grill pan at the same time as he grills up whatever main course we are having for the night. Red peppers, onion, squash and mushrooms come together as a flavorful side dish to any grilled meat or fish. They're even better though the rest of the week, when the veggies turn up in everything from cold salads to hot sandwich wraps.

But in my opinion, what really makes these veggies shine is the balsamic vinegar marinade, which along with the natural sugar in the vegetables carmelizes on the grill to give the veggies a tender sweetness unlike any other. So it's very important that you use a good balsamic vinegar, and not the cheap pink colored stuff. Balsamic vinegar should be a deep purple, almost black.

The best balsamic vinegars come from the Modena region of Italy, the birthplace of balsamic. It should be allowed to mature for at least 12 years in wooden casks that allow it to breathe so that some of the vinegar can evaporate, thus reducing the acidity. The finished vinegar is then presented to the AIB -- the Italian agency that tastes and rates the vinegar, awarding it up to four leaves for quality.

Years ago my husband, a fellow foodie and I held our own private taste test, comparing a variety of different brands of balsamic vinegar. Our hands down favorite was a the Kirkland brand sold at Costco (about $12 for 1 liter, which goes a long way!). It beat out several more expensive brands that we tried. When they stopped selling it at our local Costco, when we would travel out of state I would visit other stores and stock up.

Grilled veggies
1 sweet onion, cut into bite-size chunks
1red bell pepper, cut into bite-size chunks
1 summer squash, cut in half and sliced
1 zucchini squash, cut in half and sliced
1 container mushrooms, stems trimmed (cut large ones in half)
3 Tablespoons good balsamic vinegar
1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
Put everything in a 1-gallon zipper sealed bag and shake to combine. Let sit at room temperature at least one hour, turning bag over every so often (I do it every time I walk by it). Preheat grill. Either cover grill with foil or use a grill pan and cook veggies until soft. It takes longer than I think it should, about 45 minutes to an hour.

Grilled veggie wrap (makes 1)
1 10-inch flour tortilla
Leftover grilled veggies
1 oz. cheese (My favorite is crumbled feta, but crumbled goat cheese and shredded cheddar or mozzarella are also good)
Warm tortilla in the microwave to soften, about 10 seconds. Heat veggies in microwave until warmed through, 30 seconds to 1 minute. Spread veggies on tortilla, top with cheese. Wrap.
(Estimated calories: 250)

Grilled veggie salad (serves 4-6)
1 Romaine heart, chopped
Leftover grilled veggies
5 to 10 pitted Greek olives, quartered
2 oz. feta cheese, crumbled
5 to 10 basil leaves, snipped into thin strips
1 Tablespoon sunflower seeds
1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 Tablespoons good balsamic vinegar
Toss together everything except oil and vinegar. In a separate bowl (or better yet, a jar with a lid) combine oil and vinegar and stir (or shake). Pour over salad about 10 minutes before serving.
(Estimated calories: 150)

Grilled veggie omelet (makes 1)
2 eggs (to make this low cal, use just the whites or an egg substitute)
Leftover grilled veggies
1 oz. cheddar cheese
Salt and pepper to taste
Whip eggs together. Coat small skillet with non-stick cooking spray. Heat pan to medium and add eggs, swirling pan so eggs cover the bottom. Reduce heat to low. As eggs begin to cook, use a silicone spatula to pull eggs away from the side of the pan and tip so uncooked eggs run around to exposed pan surface. When eggs are cooked through, top half with grilled veggies and cheese and salt and pepper to taste. Fold other half over, enclosing veggies and cheese in the eggs. Cover and heat on low until cheese melts and veggies are warm.
(Estimated calories: 350 with whole eggs and 175 with egg whites or substitute)

The Diet -- Cheat Day!

2007-08-11T18:42:00.001-07:00

Saturday on The Diet is cheat day. It's the one day a week when I don't really count calories. It's the motivation for sticking to the strict calorie total I allow myself on The Diet. Because if I crave something during the week (like the Krispy Kreme donuts I had for breakfast today), I tell myself that I can have them on Saturday.

Don't get me wrong. I don't go crazy. While I don't count, I try to keep my total calories to between 2,000 and 2,200 (the total for a moderately active woman to maintain weight). Actually, I find that after six days on The Diet (and after I've lost a few pounds), I fill up faster than I would before. For example, pizza is my favorite food. I have been known to eat three (plus) slices in a sitting. But today -- cheat day -- I ate one and was happy. I remember saying to myself that I could have another, since it was cheat day. But I was full after one, and I didn't want one.

Some other things I crave on cheat day:
Milano cookies
Potato chips
Cheese
Home made chocolate chip cookies
Brownies
Wine
Sausage (heck, I'm cheating, right?)
Pea salad (recipe to come later)
Cheeze Its
Good bread, toasted with butter
Anything with tomato sauce
French fries
French fries
French fries...

The Diet

2007-08-10T21:04:00.000-07:00

More than two weeks ago I came clean and announced I was going to lose nine pounds and I figured it was time for an update. As of this morning I was down three pounds. Which means I have six more to go. I have to admit I wasn't great the first week. I didn't account for the calories that added up when I nibbled on what was left of the kids' snack, or stuck my hand in the candy jar at the office. But I've been on the straight and narrow all this week. I'm not saying I didn't do those things. But if I did, I compensated for the calories somewhere else. And it paid off. Go me.

Sunday through Friday I keep to a strict diet -- 1200 to 1500 calories (Saturday is cheat day -- more on that later). Which isn't easy. You'd be surprised how quickly that adds up. But I've found some tasty foods that are 1) I quick and easy to prepare (important when you have three kids) 2) filling, and 3) low cal. Here are some of my favorite breakfasts (my current favorite is the scrambled eggs in toast) and lunches:

BREAKFAST
1 egg white, ½ oz. cheddar cheese, scrambled. 1 piece of white/wheat bread, toasted and buttered lightly. Wrap eggs in bread. Salt to taste. (150 calories).
2 hardboiled egg whites (all the protein is in the whites and all the calories are in the yolk), 1 piece toast, lightly buttered (120 cals.)
Egg salad (1 whole hardboiled egg, one hardboiled egg white mixed with 1 T light mayo), fruit (200 calories)
Pancakes, made according to package directions (blueberries optional), lightly buttered but no syrup (150 calories for 3 small pancakes)
Instant grits mixed with ½ oz. cheese and salt to taste (150 calories).
Cottage cheese (½ cup) topped with cereal of choice (150 calories).

LUNCH
Krab salad wrapped in lettuce leaves (3 fake krab sticks, chopped; 1 hardboiled egg white, chopped; 1 T light mayo), 1 oz. chips, fruit (400 calories)
Egg salad (see above) wrapped in lettuce leaves, chips (350 calories)
Quesadilla (tortilla with 1 oz. cheddar cheese, folded in half and grilled in a skillet) with salsa, fruit (350 calories)
Beans and rice (1 cup rice, cooked; mixed with 1 can black beans, drained; and salsa/cumin to taste for a batch. One serving is one cup), with shredded cheddar cheese, fruit (300 calories)
PB&J: 1 T natural peanut butter, jelly, 1 piece white/wheat toast; chips (300 calories)

DINNER:
Coming soon.....

Lightening a favorite recipe

2007-08-09T20:20:00.000-07:00

I love corn salad. It's been one of my signature summer salads for years. But recently I've been avoiding it, because my favorite recipe calls for 6 Tablespoons -- 600 calories worth -- of olive oil. And now that I've lost three pounds (woo hoo! -- six to go!) I'm not interested in a salad that has more calories than a burger and fries, no matter how tasty it is.

So tonight, on a whim, I tried cutting some of the calories out of my favorite corn salad recipe. I fully expected it to be awful. But truth is, it was just as good, In fact, by cutting out some of the useless fat, the flavor of the corn and tomatoes could come forward and shine. And now that it's not deadly to The Diet, I won't be avoiding this salad in the future.

Old recipe:
6 ears corn, kernels removed
6 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided
1 tsp. minced garlic
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil
6 roma tomatoes, seeded and diced
3 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar
Salt and pepper
Heat 3 T olive oil and garlic in a saute pan. Add corn and saute until tender-cooked, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and cool. Once cool, add basil, tomatoes, vinegar, salt and pepper to taste and let sit at least one hour before serving.

New lower-cal recipe
6 ears corn (See Note)
2 T extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil
6 roma tomatoes
2 T balsamic vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste
Boil corn untl tender-crisp. Remove from heat and cool. When cool enough to handle, cut kernels off cob. Let cool. Toss cooled corn with olive oil, basil, tomatoes and let sit at least an hour. Just before serving, add balsamic vinegar and salt and pepper to taste.
(Note: This is a great way to use leftover boiled or grilled corn.)

McDonalds Part II

2007-08-07T19:57:00.000-07:00

If it's in a McDonald's wrapper, it must be good -- even if it's carrots.

At least that's what preschoolers said in a study released this week. The kids were given identical foods wrapped in McDonalds wrappers or plain paper. The unmarked foods -- from McDonald's chicken nuggets to raw carrots -- always lost the taste test.

The study, funded by Stamford and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, involved 63 low-income children. A third
of the kids ate at McDonalds at least once a week. The study's authors say they believe the results would be the same for middle- to high-income families.

I find it incredibly sad that marketing and advertising have reached 3- to 5-year-olds so strongly.

It makes me even more committed to stay away from fast food whenever possible. And when we do go, I refuse to buy a happy meal. The kids don't need cheap toys as a reward for eating this stuff. French fries should be enough of a treat. Besides, I can feed everyone off the dollar menu for less than it would cost us to buy happy meals for everyone.

I'll never forget one time a couple of years ago when I had a bunch of errands that I had to run and it was lunch time. I zoomed through the drive through and got hamburgers and fries. After one bite both Niko and Lena took the gray rubbery burgers out of the bun, waved them in the air and asked "What's this mommy?" When I said it was a hamburger, they called it "yucky" and threw it on the floor and ate the bun instead. And I couldn't disagree with them.

A summer crop: Tomatoes!

2007-08-06T19:27:00.000-07:00

If you planted tomatoes, there's a good chance that by now you are wondering what you are going to do with all those round fruits. This year we planted just four plants, and still we have far more tomatoes than we can throw into salads and slice for hamburgers.

Once upon a time people believed tomatoes, and in fact everything in the nightshade family, was poisonous. In fact, these fruits and vegetables are among the most nutritious. They contain large amounts of vitamin C, vitamin A, potassium and iron. The stuff that makes tomatoes red – lycopene – is an antioxidant, which can stop cell damage in the body. Studies have shown that men who consume 10 servings of tomatoes a week cut their rink of developing prostate cancer by 45 percent. Other studies show that eating seven servings of raw tomatoes each week reduces the risk of developing stomach cancers, and lycopene also cuts the risk for lung, breast and endometrial cancers.

Which is all fine and good and really doesn't mean anything if you don't have some good recipes for tomatoes, since there are only so many slices you can eat on a hamburger.

BREAD SALAD
2 to 4 tomatoes, different colors if possible, seeded and chopped
½ sweet onion, sliced very thin
½ cucumber, peeled, seeded and diced
¼ cup basil, shredded
2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 oz. fresh mozzarella, diced
½ loaf good French bread (day old is good), cut into pieces
1 to 2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Salt and pepper to taste
Mix together tomatoes, onion, cucumber, basil and olive oil. Cover and let sit on the counter for at least an hour. Meanwhile, spread bread chunks on a baking sheet and broil until toasted, tossing once half-way through. Cool. Just before serving, add cheese, bread, lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste and toss to combine.

Vegetarian BLT
2 to 4 basil leaves
Lettuce
Yellow tomato, sliced and seeded
2 slices white bread, toasted
Mayo
Salt to taste
Layer Basil, Lettuce and Tomato on one slice of bread. Spread remaining bread slice with mayo (while I usually use light mayo, I splurge and use regular here). Salt tomatoes and top with last slice of bread.

Taco Tuesday

2007-07-31T17:52:00.000-07:00

People often ask how I make a nutritious meal that satisfy the demands of all five members of our family -- the carnivores, the vegetarian and one picky 2-year-old. As I said before, it isn't easy, and often I meet the other's nutritional needs before I meet mine. But occasionally I come up with a flexible meal that works for all of us. And tonight's Tuesday Taco buffet is one of those meals, because everyone can make their own, filling the shell with only the things they really like.

Your buffet can be as simple as just a handful of bowls of the basics, or mix it up and offer a huge variety of toppings. Some suggestions:

Ground beef, browned (either with or without a taco seasoning packet)
Fish sticks (prepared according to package directions)
Baked cod, flaked
Boiled (or canned, drained) shrimp
Refried beans, warmed
Shredded cheese (cheddar, jack, pepper jack, mix it up)
Shredded lettuce
Shredded carrots
Diced tomatoes
Diced avocado
Sliced olives (green or black)
Sliced onion
Sliced jalapeno
Salsa
Sour cream
Guacamole
Taco shells
Flour or corn tortillas

You can buy everything here prepared and packaged at the grocery store. But if you have just 5 extra minutes, I'd recommend at least shredding your own cheese. To keep the cheese from clumping in the package, pre-shredded cheese tends to be a drier cheese that doesn't melt well and lacks that creamy texture that I think makes cheese so wonderfully satisfying.

And if you have more than 5 minutes, try making some of the other fixings yourself.

Mango/Peach Salsa:
2 small mangoes, diced (See note)
2 plumb tomatoes, seeded and diced
1 small peach, diced
1/2 cup sweet onion, finely diced
1/2 to 1 jalapeno pepper, finely diced
1/4 to 1/3 cup chopped cilantro
1 lime
Mix together everything except lime. Roll lime on counter a few times to release the juice, cut in half and squeeze juice over salsa. Toss together and let stand at least 1 hour at room temperature.
(Note: mangos have a big flat seed in the middle. The easiest way to get at the fruit is to hold the mango on end and slice down as close to the seed as you can. Score a grid in the flesh all the way through to the skin but do not go through. Invert the skin and cut the fruit away from the skin.)

Guacamole
2 ripe avocados, seeded and peeled (See note)
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
1 clove garlic, diced
1 plumb tomato, seeded and finely diced
2 Tablespoons onion, finely diced
1/8 teaspoon ground cumin
1 to 2 drops hot pepper sauce
Use a fork to mash together avocado, lemon juice and garlic. Add remaining ingredients and stir.
(Note: To remove the avocado flesh from the pit, use a large knife to slice through the fruit all the way around the pit and twist the two halves to separate. Gently wack knife blade into the pit, twist and remove. The skin easily peels away from the flesh with a spoon or with your finger.)

Refried black beans
2 32-oz. cans black beans, rinsed and drained
2 cups water
3 Tablespoons light olive oil
1 sweet onion, finely diced
1 Tablespoon cumin
Salt and pepper to taste
Puree together beans and water in a food processor. Meanwhile, heat oil and saute onion and cumin until very soft, about 10 minutes. Add the beans, bring to a boil and reduce heat to simmer. Cook, stirring regularly, until water evaporates and beans form a creamy mass that pulls away from the side of the pan.

Old McDonald

2007-07-30T19:43:00.000-07:00

We generally don't eat fast food. In fact, my kids have never had a Happy Meal. We go so rarely that the kids think McDonalds is the farm from the song.

But when we're on the road -- which we were for 21 hours in the last three days -- it just makes sense to stop at the golden arches. Mike and I talk about stopping at a local family restaurant and taking a break from the road. And this time we even looked for an independent eatery. But in the end neither Mike nor I was willing to add time to our trip to take a risk on unknown food. At least with fast food you know what you are getting.

Of course one of the things you are getting is calories, and lots of them. What's a mom on the diet on the road to do?

It's all in the choices.

McDonalds:
I'm a sucker for the French fries. A small is just 250 calories -- of course they are basically empty calories, but sometimes you've got to treat yourself, and when better than when you are stuck in the car for hours on end?
Side salad with half a package of ranch dressing. While there's no protein, the salad and dressing comes to just 120 calories.
The kids like the four-piece chicken nuggets, which at 170 calories and $1 is a good value for those who eat chicken.

Burger King:
For 400 calories try BK's veggie burger (no mayo).

Subway:
A 6-inch veggie sub (have either cheese or mayo but not both) is like a salad in bread. Add baked chips and the entire lunch comes in at about 400 cals.

Pizza Hut:
Two slices of Thin 'N Crispy cheese pizza come in at 400 calories.

5 Questions

2007-07-26T20:38:00.000-07:00

My friend over at http://play-with-food.blogspot.com said she was probably the last person in the blog world to get involved in a "5 questions" meme that's apparently been out there for a while. She was wrong, 'cause I am. I'm new to the food blog world (I've been blogging about family/adoption/Russia at http://360.yahoo.com/lisamikeplus3 since 2005). If there is anyone out there who has found my new blog who hasn't already participated in this one and wants to, let me know.

Otherwise, here are my questions and answers:

What do you think is the hardest thing about raising children today and why?
Having confidence that you are doing the right thing, and giving yourself permission to sometimes get it wrong. Today we are bombarded by doctors and experts and well-meaning friends and family who all have suggestions to offer for how to raise your kids. And just to keep a parent jumping, all the suggestions vary. So it’s easy to second-guess yourself. Which makes its hard to be consistent – something all parents know in their heads is the most important thing they can do for their children.

How do you juggle varying dietary needs with a (mostly) vegetarian, a meat lover and young children?
It isn’t easy. And it’s one of those things I know I get wrong sometimes. Like other moms I also tend to take care of the nutritional needs of the family before I take care of myself.
But I try, and I’ve found a few tricks that make it work sometimes:
1) Make one or two vegetarian dishes a week, and make a big batch. That way there are leftovers to put out as side dishes (or main dishes for me) on the nights meat eaters rule.
2) Offer a variety of side dishes, some of which can be combined to make a complete meal. For example, I might make a chicken dish, rice and green beans. Half the rice I’ll leave plain (for my picky eaters). The other half I mix with a can of black beans (drained), salsa and a pinch of cumin – instant beans and rice and a complete protein. So I can eat beans and rice (add a little cheese) and green beans.
3) There are some dishes that you can make with or without meat. I make them without meat for me, and then add cooked meat to the servings for the rest of the family. For example: spaghetti. I make meatballs, and tomato sauce. I have noodles and tomato sauce. For the kids and Mike I add meatballs (I’ll post here my recipes for both soon).
4) When all else fails, I include a well-balanced salad (with cheese, nuts, beans, etc.), which some have as a side dish and I eat as a main dish.

In your travels, what was the least appetizing thing you ate and where was it? The most (and where)?
The worst things I’ve ever eaten were in my own home. Experiments that went awry. Most I tasted and only served to the trash can.
I’m not sure I can narrow my most appetizing down to one. Fresh pasta with pesto in the birthplace of pesto (Chinque Terre, Italy). Fresh fish and mangoes bought off the side of our sailboat moored off the island of Bequi. Ravioli at Babbo, celebrity chef Mario Batali’s restaurant in NYC.

What inspired you to start a food blog?
I love to cook and eat. I love to write. It just seemed like a natural. And, when you have three young kids, you have to find hobbies that you can do late at night after everyone is tucked in.

Do you eat to live or live to eat?
Depends. If the kids are pulling at my pants and we’re late for school, I eat to live. But whenever I can, I live to eat!

The family recipe

2007-07-25T19:50:00.000-07:00

I've been hearing about Mike's Grandmother's nut roll since we met. It was the sweet that was always there at holidays and celebrations and family gatherings.

This weekend we're traveling to Ohio to celebrate Mike's grandmother's -- the twins and Gregory's great-grandmother's -- 100th birthday. Grandma doesn't bake anymore. But luckily we got her to give us the recipe.

Great Grandma's Nut Roll
5 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
1 pkt. dry yeast
1 lb. butter
3 eggs
1 tsp. almond extract
¾ cup lukewarm water
½ cup sugar
1 lb. poppy seeds or ground nuts (grandma used walnuts)
honey
Mix together flour, salt, yeast and butter until the mixture resembles a coarse sand. Add eggs and almond extract and knead 10 to 15 minutes. Refrigerate overnight. The following day, preheat oven to 350 F. To assemble, bring water and sugar to a boil and simmer 5 minutes. Add poppy seeds or nuts and drizzle with honey. Cool. Divide dough into four pieces. Roll each piece flat and top with seed/nut mixture. Roll jellyroll fashion. Let rise 45 minutes. Bake until golden, about 45 minutes to an hour. Cool and cut into slices.

For more, check out our family blog at http://360.yahoo.com/lisamikeplus3.

(Note: Great Grandma is of Eastern European heritage, and this recipe is included in my cookbook, "Ya Tibya Lublu: Recipes of Love for Orphans of Eastern Europe," which is available online at www.arkangels.org. All of the proceeds from the sale are being donated to orphanages in Eastern Europe.)

Quick work night meals for the carnivores

2007-07-24T18:40:00.000-07:00

When I see ground beef on sale at the grocery story, I grab several pounds. Once at home, I pack some into uncooked 1/2 pound bags for making things like meatballs and meatloaf. But most of it I go ahead and brown, drain and pack into 1/2 pound bags. In my head it's my go-to meat, that I can pull out when I don't have a lot of time to cook a somewhat nutritious meal for the rest of the family. I'll pull out a bag or two and add it to scrambled eggs or tomato sauce, use it to make chili or today, I tried out this reicpe, which the family loved (check back for more things to do with ground beef in the future).

Mac 'n Beef
1 Tablespoon butter
1/2 sweet onion, diced
2 tsp. ground garlic
1 lb. browned and drained ground beef
2 cups tomato sauce
1 cup water
7 oz. dry elbow pasta
1/2 cup sour cream
Salt/pepper to taste
Shredded cheddar cheese, for topping (optional)
Melt butter in a large saute pan. Add onion and garlic and saute until very soft. Add cooked ground beef, tomato sauce, water and elbow pasta and stir to combine. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until liquid is gone and pasta is cooked through, about 20 minutes. Add sour cream and stir to melt. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Pool cake

2007-07-23T20:24:00.001-07:00

I can follow just about any recipe. Measure ingredients. Mix. Saute, boil, bake.

But decorate a birthday cake. I don't think so.

So I don't know why I decided to try making Niko and Lena a pool cake for their 6th birthday party earlier this month.

Heck, since I bought the cake (a 1/8 chocolate sheet cake from the local grocery store) and used prepared frosting (two cans of white buttercream), I'm not sure you can really call this a recipe. But despite my lack of artistic ability, I was pretty pleased with the outcome.

To decorate
Blue food coloring
1 Twisler peeler
1 Yogos roll up
1 mini marshmallow
3 pkg vanilla sugar wafers
Drink umbrellas
3 T karo syrup
1/2 jar green colored sugar
Prepared white decorator frosting in a tube
Fruit rings.

Directions: Use a knife to draw the shape of the pool. Using a knife, dig out about 1/8 inch of cake in pool.
Measure sugar wafters so they are slightly taller than the edge of the cake. Dip one tall end of wafers (reserving four wafers to decorate) in karo syrup, shake of excess and dip in green sugar. Let dry on a baking tray covered with wax paper.
Round off corners of cake. Skim coat cake (except pool area) with 1/2 can white frosting. Use remaining frosting for second coat.
Mix remaining can of frosting with blue food coloring, adding drop by drop to make the blue water and use to fill the pool. Edge pool with white decorator frosting.
Decorate with umbrellas, mini marshmallow (beach ball), remaining sugar wafers (chairs, diving board), Twisler (ladders), fruit roll ups (beach blankets), fruit rings (life preservers), etc.

Rice challenged

2007-07-23T15:10:00.000-07:00

I have a confession to make: I can't make rice. I've made all kinds of complicated things over the years -- baked bread, churned ice cream, decorated birthday cakes, roasted crown roast of lamb -- but I can't make rice. Which is bad, since it's Mike's favorite starch and one Gregory will always eat. I follow the directions, and it either turns out crunchy or mushy. I measure the water, and yet it seemed that I either use too little or too much.

That is, until I wondered why I couldn't make rice like I make pasta. I figured if instead of trying to get the water exactly right, I could boil tons of water and drain the grains when they were done. It took a little trial and error to get the timing down, but now I can make the soft fluffy grains that my family loves.

Here's the trick:

Perfect rice
5-6 cups water
Salt
1 cup rice
1-2 Tablespoons butter
Bring a pot of salted water (4 cups or so) to a boil. Add rice and stirr. Boil 14 minutes and test for doneness. Boil one more minute if still hard on the inside. Drain. Season with butter and salt and pepper to taste.

And here's one for a main-dish rice meal that everyone who eats meat loves.

Beefy rice
3 cups beef stock
2-3 cups water
1 cup rice
1/2 lb. ground beef
3 Tablespoons butter, divided
1/2 sweet onion, diced
4-5 mushrooms or 1/2 can mushrooms, diced (optional)
1 tsp. crushed garlic
Salt and pepper to taste
Bring stock to a boil. Add rice and stir. Boil 14 minutes and test for doneness. If still hard in the center, boil one more minute. Drain.
Meanwhile, brown ground beef, breaking into small pieces as it cooks. Using a slotted spoon, remove from pan. Melt 1 Tablespoon butter in pan and saute onion, mushroom and garlic until very soft. Remove from pan. Mix together rice, ground beef and vegetables. Add butter and stir to melt. Salt and pepper to taste.

Sunday seafood supper

2007-07-22T17:51:00.000-07:00

I know I said our kids were picky eaters. But we're lucky that for us "picky" includes some seafood. Salmon is a favorite. And it's a good thing, because the Omega 3 fatty acids that are found in salmon are so very good for you. Omega 3's can help lower cholesterol, which is great because high cholesterol runs in my family. Omega 3s can also affect blood pressure, blood clotting, inflammation, immune function and coronary spasms.

With the salmon we had rice (coming soon, I'll write about my rice disability) and salad.

Here are our two favorite salmon recipes:

O'Rink salmon (the O'Rinks are good friends of ours!)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp. dry ground alspice, ginger and mustard
Salmon fillet
Mix together brown sugar and spices. Rub over one side of salmon and let sit it the 'fridge at least one hour. Grill, boil or smoke.
I like this salmon bet when it's smoked in our bullet smoker (see photo). Dump a couple of beers and some water in the liquid container in the smoker and follow instructions for smoking. Usually takes about 1 to 1 1/2 hours.\

Blackened salmon (also good on tuna)
1/2 tsp. cumin, chili powder, garlic powder
2 tsp. extra virgin olive oil
Mix together to form a paste. Rub over salmon. Grill or broil to desired doneness.

Welcome to Take It or Leave It

2007-07-22T12:14:00.000-07:00

We are what some people would call a blended family. Mike and I married in 1996 and seven years later traveled to Arkhangel'sk, Russia to adopt 21-month-old twins Nicholas Peter (aka Niko) and Elena Marie (aka Lena). Exactly one year later I discovered I was pregnant (big surprise), and Gregory Michael was born in December of 2004.

I'm a part-time stay at home mom, part-time newspaper reporter/writer and the family's chief chef and laundry washer. I am also the editor of a Russian/American cookbook, "Ya Tibya Lublu, Recipes of Love for Orphans of Eastern Europe" all of the proceeds of which is going to orphanages in Russia (available online at http://www.arkangels.org).

Feeding everyone in our family is always a challenge, as I am (mostly) vegetarian, Mike's favorites are steak and pork chops and the kids are at all different points on the eating spectrum. But in general we have two rules at the table: you have to try at least one bite, and Take It or Leave It, but no substitutions. In other words, I make one dinner. Eat what you like of the offerings, but don't expect me to be your short order cook.

Here I plan to share recipes and tips for the foods we eat. I'll probably mix in a bit about nutrition, diet (like everyone I know, I always wish I was at least a few pounds lighter) and an occasional food story. I hope you'll share some with me too. But most of all, I hope we all eat well. Welcome.