Pots and Pans

Ever have one of those moments when you realize you picked the wrong pot?

Of course, I don't actually have a "right" pot for this - my bigger stockpot is about 4 times the size of this one. I used to have a perfect pot, but it scorched, and now burns anything tomato based, and rather than risk people ruining dinner again, I retired it. It's ok, it cooks down as the leafy things cook.

There is a lot in tonight's dinner that I never ate as a kid - that we would never have been allowed to even buy or cook when I was growing up, because my dad is a very picky eater - he makes my kids look like great eaters :)

This has been my go-to for using up veggies before they went bad, but now that we're not getting a big box every week, I had to buy stuff specifically for this.

"Stuff in a Pot"

1 (or more) packages of smoked sausage. I like kielbasa for this.
Lots of random veggies
garlic - we have a jar of minced garlic, so for this pot I used a big spoonful, probably 1/4 cup. Use less if you don't like garlic, or more if you're making a bigger pot
pepper (1 T or more if you make a bigger pot)
basil (1 T or more if you make a bigger pot)

Tonight, we have a bundle of Swiss chard, a leek, most of an onion, most of a bell pepper, a half dozen small redskin potatoes, the leftovers of a bag of shredded cabbage, and 3 carrots. We've used eggplant, apples, grean beans, peapods, broccoli, cauliflower, squash, sweet potatoes, and probably some other things before too.

Chop into bite sized pieces, and cook for 30-60 minutes until everything seems cooked. Serve with warm crusty bread or garlic bread.

Baby Food

As I've mentioned, my kids have food issues.

My daughter, who is a year and a half old, largely eats pureed foods - crunchy things have taken months of therapy, and we haven't even begun things that don't dissolve when you drool on them enough. She also has a feeding tube, and it's still a significant source of calories most days.

My son (age 4 1/2) used to have a feeding tube, and is not fond of pureed foods. He eats some fruits and veggies, flat breads, mac&cheese (but only Kraft and similar types), and a handful of other things. Apparently he eats better at daycare than at home, but we have to plan for what he will eat with every meal we make. We offer some of what we're eating most nights, but he's far more likely to ignore it than to eat it.

Needless to say, finding something everyone will eat is nearly impossible.

Because of my kids' medical issues, they are eligible for medicaid....which makes them eligible for WIC. WIC only offers baby foods up to a year old, because after that they should be eating table food. Needless to say, neither of my kids met that mark.  WIC was a huge help last year when I took a leave of absence from work to handle some of their medical issues, and learning to cook around the offerings of WIC has been an interesting challenge. Plus, WIC pays for the outrageously expensive prescription formulas that we use to supplement both children's diets, and without that alone, we'd go broke.

We stocked up on jars of baby food when we could get them through WIC, but we've now run through the stock, so we need to blend our own, or buy more (and since we've had an abundance of fresh fruits and veggies, blending our own makes far more sense.

Additionally, I need to thank Vitamix - they have a wonderful program that gives a discount to families doing a blenderized diet. For those not familiar with the term, it means blending table food to feed via a feeding tube. We got a substantial discount off the retail price of a blender - and then about the time we got started blending things for her tube, little miss decided eating was far more entertaining. So we haven't blenderized as much as expected for her tube feedings, but we are blending things for her to eat by mouth....and this puppy makes the smoothest baby food ever, far nicer than my hand crank food mill.

Ours is one of these:


I'm trying, every few days, to make something different. This way she gets a variety of foods, and if I make 4-6 servings of 3 things a week, I'll stay ahead of her (and if not, I'll have a crazy cooking fest on a weekend). Plus she eats yogurt (home made, from whole milk) and avocado, which are high in calories and make a good base for the rest of her meals.

This past week, I made a sweet potato, pears, and squash. Before that, I took home made applesauce, cooked a few blueberries, added it all together, and threw it in the blender.

My next challenge: meat. Because protein is important for growing children, and she's not going to get enough from other sources at the rate we're going.

....which makes me wonder whether my son would eat beans if they were cooked with some spices. Not my thing, but he's weird in his own ways.


*****

Disclaimer: Affiliate link, if you buy using it, I make some cash.

Meal Planning

For the last couple of years, we've had random boxes of fruits and veggies - first, a summer with a CSA, and then a local company that delivered a box of stuff to the door every week.

It was a beautiful thing - cut my shopping time dramatically, mostly saved us money (the CSA not so much, but the service had great prices and we split our box with a friend), and it encouraged eating things that weren't typical staples around here.

Unfortunately, the delivery service is going out of business, which means that I have to figure out what to buy again, and buy the things we're going to eat for the week, rather than planning what to eat based on what shows up on the doorstep.

Which, given my limited shopping availability, means I really need to plan things out ahead of time.

And that's not a bad thing - we're debating kindergarten or a young 5's program for my son next year, and kindergarten here is an all day event. Since he is a really picky eater, I'll be packing his lunches daily I suspect, so getting on the planning bandwagon now is good practice.

One of our plans last year was a bigger freezer. It didn't happen (too much to do, not enough time), but it will have to be done soon to make this manageable in any reasonable sense.

So...every weekend I'll be writing up our meal plan for the week. I'm subscribed to a meal planning service, 5 Dinners in 1 Hour, and I'm going to be looking at how to use her system, which is sort of a once-a-week prep setup. I got the "clean eating" version, which is ideal for us, but not everything on her meal plans each week is something we'll eat, so I'm thinking I'll take some meals from a couple different weeks. Also, she depends a lot on frozen veggies, and that's going to be a hard switch for us, given our history recently of eating almost exclusively fresh veggies (not all - we got overloaded on corn on the cob, so we threw those in the freezer, and can now have lovely roasted corn year round).

So...here's to a new future of better planning (I hope).

*****

Required disclaimer: affiliate links above; I make a small amount of money if you buy using those links. Thanks!

Birthday cakes and Aprons

This weekend was my birthday, and I like red velvet cake. 

But I'm also terribly picky about cakes and frostings, so I'm making my own cake, using a fairly old recipe that my grandmother gave me. This is the kind of thing that bugs my in-laws, because you're not supposed to cook for yourself, but I find I'm more satisfied if I do, so it's just better this way.

Besides....I mean, really, what kind of cake has vinegar in it? But this is tasty.

This is, however, the kind of recipe that makes me wish I'd taken an apron when I moved out of my parents' house. Or that I'd gotten around to buying myself one in the 18 years since I left...

I assume she got this recipe from somewhere, but the card in her recipe box yielded no clues.

Red Velvet Cake
1 tsp white vinegar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup shortening
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 oz red food coloring
2 tsp cocoa powder (not hot chocolate powder)
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp salt
1 cup buttermilk
2 1/4 cup flour

Heat oven to 350. Traditionally, this is made as a layer cake, so grease and flour 2 round cake pans, or one 9x13 pan.

Mix vinegar and baking soda in a small cup and set aside.

Cream shortening and sugar. Add eggs.

Make a paste of cocoa and 1 oz of food coloring (this is a really messy step; I never do it). Add to creamed mixture. Add remaining food coloring to mixture and mix.

Add vanilla and salt.

Add buttermilk and flour a little at a time, alternating. Mix well.

Pour into pan(s) and bake 30 minutes.  Be really watchful - this dries out quickly if you over bake.


The traditional frosting for this cake is listed below - usually, you split each of those round cakes into 2 layers, so you get 4 layers. The frosting recipe is designed for that number of layers, so I'm including alternate measurements to make a smaller amount more appropriate for 2 layers if you're so inclined.

For what it's worth, I'm not a fan of this and usually use decorator icing or a can of plain vanilla frosting.

1 1/2 cup milk (1 cup)
1/2 cup flour (1/3 cup)
1 1/2 cup sugar (1 cup)
1 1/2 cup margarine (or shortening or butter) (1 cup)
1 tablespoon vanilla (1 1/2 teaspoons)

Mix milk and flour in saucepan. cook and stir over medium heat until thick. Cool completely (this is important).

Cream sugar, margarine, and vanilla. When fluffy add room temperature cooked milk mix slowly, beating as you go. Beat until fully incorporated and fluffy.

And there you have it. Bright red, not too sweet, and just the right texture.

First Dinner Post!

Welcome to my new blog. I'm planning on talking a lot about how real people eat, because that's how it is here - this blog is not my main source of income, I don't have hours to spend in the kitchen each day, and yet we still manage to do ok on the food front. I have no desire to keep chickens, and all attempts at gardening here have been dismal failures. We have our challenges in this house, and I'm sure you have you own at your house...and yet my kids get fed. Expect some reviews and some recipes and some lunches (and my stupidly large stash of lunchbox stuff) and some dinners and anything else food related that comes to mind.

*****

Lovely post title, right?  I'm doing most of this post by phone in the middle of bedtime. I figure creativity can come later. Or not - I'm months behind on sleep as it is.

Tonight's dinner was a tossed salad (leaf lettuce, spinach, tomato, cheese,  croutons,  pecans,  plus a few cucumber slices for the husband - I think cukes are just gross) and quiche.

It started out as quiche lorraine, but QL doesn't have garlic. Or cheddar. Or parmesan. Or nearly as much bacon as I added, because this was a, "huh. I have leftover bacon. That's unheard of..." kind of a meal. And really, cooking didn't go too badly, once my spouse realized that keeping an eye on the kids was a full contact sport.

I've gotten good at handling grandma's pie crust recipe, and had quite a bit of dough left over, so I made this turnover type thing, stuffed with cherry preserves. Of course, the cherries bubbled out all over the pan, which will be a huge pain to clean....but that's why I have a housekeeper, because we can't keep up with the dishes as it is. (Elaine, if you're reading this, we love you, and we love having you back!)

It turns out that I forgot that I don't really like quiche. Every time I make it I think, "with that list of ingredients it has to be tasty" and then I'm disappointed. Oh well. The husband can have it for his lunch this week.

Meanwhile, I took the other half of the onion that went into the quiche (it was a *big* onion), and put that and some chicken breasts and about 4 heads of garlic (3 fresh that needed to be used up, peeled and sliced, and some pre-chopped-ina-jar) in the crock pot for tomorrow. Tonight I'll chop some root veggies, and tomorrow during my 40 minutes for lunch between appointments I'll throw them in the crockpot with the garlic chicken so that dinner will be ready when we get back from speech therapy. Multi-tasking is a wonderful thing.