Menu of Forgotten Items

Most people are probably eating left-overs from family gatherings this week, particularly if you hosted. In our case, we not only hosted, but were sufficiently disorganized as well as completely spoiled by generous guests that we simply neglected to make 2 entire dishes (salmon and creamed corn), and forgot to set out some special cheeses, salad ingredients, and munchies we'd bought for Easter.

So tonight, while I said we'd be eating left-overs, in fact, we had a meal composed almost entirely of "new" items that were lost in the fridge over the weekend. We had salmon, a parmesan + arugula + golden raisin salad with chipotle cream dressing, some nice cheese and crackers, plus a few left-over items.

Side note for those that know I have a kid that has survived on an 80% oatmeal, yogurt, and oj diet for 2 years: he ate some arugula with dressing tonight and asked for MORE. Cool.

Stay tuned for an image later this week, continuing along the "scenes from Easter" theme. It's horrifying and precious all at once. Someone is paying attention to details around here...

Two Takes on the Gingerbread Man

My daughter's gingy, with cute little Santa hat.

 99¢ kits at Trader Joe's. So fun! They're about 10 inches tall, so look substantial enough to hop off the pan and run away.

My son's gingy, with fangs.

Christmas Menu in progress

Bone-in ham
Sweet potatoes
Pear + feta salad
Some nice toothy wheat bread, sliced
Dessert: port + Cherry pie + ice cream
Chocolate cream pie

Sound good, Matt?

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Post-meal update:
This was ultra-easy to make, and everything was fabulous. (Hey, it's my blog. I can brag to the 4 of you that read it, right?) If you need a reliable, easy holiday menu, you can't go wrong with this. The potatoes got great reviews from everyone, including mini-marshmallow snobs. 

Bad dinner guests

Never bring your child to someone's house for Thanksgiving dinner when they were sick earlier in the day, no matter how healthy and recovered they look.

You might end up being really really bad dinner guests.

Thanksgiving carrots

Other than some appetizers, I am only responsible for carrots this Thanksgiving. Blessings! Think I'll try these: Carrots with Shallots, Sage, and Thyme.

Hope you have a great holiday with lots of tasty eats.

Be honest.

Who has eaten more of your kid's Halloween candy? YOU or YOUR KID?

(probably not relevant for parents with kids ages...7 and up?)

I'm confident I am crushing the youthful competitors in my house. We're running out of chocolate though, so I'll be slowing the pace.

Scenes from a Halloween Kitchen

I think my son was secretly delighted that he stained his hand green w/food coloring while mixing frosting for our Halloween cookies.  

A few days before Halloween he declared that the kitchen was not creepy enough. So we brought in some newly obtained seasonal lighting (bottom photo). Thanks, Colleen! Creepiness attained.

Mummies on a Stick

Think I'll make these for Halloween. They look pretty cool!
Mummies on a Stick

Week 104—A hint of bat's tongue

Mon – Thai chicken w/couscous, greens 

Tues – Fish w/chips, guacamole

Weds – Pumpkin and sausage pasta
Thurs – Goulash
Fri – Turkey sausage and veggie fry

Alts – pesto pasta w/squash; eat out

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I wrapped meal-planning directly into my shopping trip today to save some time. Crazy innovation, I know.

One of the benefits of doing meal-planning over the past couple years is that I seem to slowly (very slowly) be acquiring a list of meal plans and recipe ideas in my head. I even–gasp–have begun to veer from recipes with substitutions that work out ok. This is a tremendous step for someone who was once involved in using Cheerios as a substitute for bread crumbs when making (inedible) crab cakes.

Thursday and Friday evening we have school Halloween parties. I'll make a dessert for a cake-walk one night. Have to find some time to sew up some bat wings for a costume. I ran into a friend at the fabric store today who was working on assembling shark and eagle costumes for her kids. I felt pretty good about the bat wings considering her challenge!

Happy cooking and costume-assembling.

Memorial Day do-good

By simply viewing the following "flag cake" recipe, Taste of Home will donate a dime to the USO. That's enough for a 2 minute phone call home. So go do a good deed and check out the recipe!

Taste of Home flag cake

Irish Soda Bread

It's late. But other than green milk the leprechans are sure to leave tomorrow I want to do something to get a "taste of St Patty's Day." Here's the recipe I'm going to make:

Update 3/23: I've just made this for the second time in a week. It's wonderful! The cook time is at least 10 min longer than stated. I use currants instead of raisins and about half the caraway seeds be/c I like them...sort of.

Ingredients

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg
• 2 cups 2% milk
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 1-1/2 cups raisins
• 2 tablespoons caraway seeds, optional

Directions 

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. In a small bowl, whisk the egg, milk and butter. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in raisins and caraway seeds if desired.

Transfer to a 9-in. square baking pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack. Yield: 12 servings.

Pretzels for Lent

Indeed. Pretzels done the Catholic way are the topic of this post. In great quantity, you say? No....for LENT!

My daughter brought this recipe home from her Sunday school program. They're easy and tolerant. For example, mine rose for 4 hours because I couldn't get to them, and one batch cooked nearly 2x as long as they should have because I turned off the oven but forgot to remove them. All edible still. I just recommend that you tuck the "arm-ends" under or they look a little, um, unappetizing when baked.

As my daughter summarized: They weren't the best, but they were pretty good and I liked making them.

Recipe and story, courtesy of Creative Communications for the Parish (c).

"Many years ago, an Italian monk made a simple bread to remind his brother monks that Lent was a time of prayer. He rolled bread dough in strips and shaped them in the form of arms crossed over the heart in a prayerful gesture. These little breads were called bracellae, the Latin word for "little arms." From this word came the German word bretzel, and our word pretzel."

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1 1/2 c warm water
1 pkg active dry yeast
1/2 t sugar
1/2 t salt
4 1/2 to 5 c flour

1 beaten egg
coarse (kosher) salt

Pour water in bowl. Stir in yeast, salt and sugar to dissolve. Mix in flour and form a ball. Knead. Let rest 1 hour. Roll dough into strips about 1/2in x 6in, or to desired size. Fold into pretzel shapes and place on lightly greased cookie sheet. Brush lightly w/egg and sprinkle w/salt. Bake 425 for 15 min. Makes 2 1/2 dozen.

Week 82--Food fit for a Chilean

Mon – Waffles
Tues –  Lasagna and mandarin salad w/garlic bread; burgers for lunch
Weds – Stir-fry beef (or 5/8 Club for Juicy Lucys)
Thurs – Chicken tortilla soup (Best-Loved Slow Cooker Recipes) / open house chow for PM
Fri – Road chow
Alts– eat out; salmon & greens; steaks
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I got a mass-production size waffle iron from my mom-in-law for Christmas, so we tried it out tonight. Fabulous. It even came with a husband to make the waffles, at least on this initial run.

Our old exchange student comes from Chile tomorrow before starting an exchange semester at Iowa State University. We're thrilled he's with us this week and know, if his tastes are at all like they were 5 years ago, that meat and Coco Puffs should be on the menu and in the cupboards. Celebrating New Years with family this weekend. I think I have a little more room for sugary carbs. Happy cooking.

Hope Santa Likes Them

Tried a new sugar cookie recipe this year. I should have known it would make a lot as it called for 7 cups of flour. I don't even know how many we made, but I think it's in the neighborhood of 10-12 dozen.

I baked the first half of the cookies with my 3- and 5-year-old. You have to be in the right frame of mind to bake with people that age. I'm not sure I was completely there, but I did notice that when I finished baking the rest of the dough that night, it was a bit too quiet.

It made me think of my mom, and how she loves it when the grandkids help decorate her Christmas tree. Even if it looks awful or things get broken along the way, their excitement is contagious. What would the holidays be if you celebrated by yourself?

Peaceful...Low-stress...
And dull.

So, dig in, Santa.

Good Vibes

For all of you hosting this week, may the turkey gods be with you.

Treat, please.

Halloween isn't even technically here yet and I'm already raiding the kids' trick-or-treats they collected today. Gotta make sure they're safe, you know.

turkey bats

Saw a cool idea to press cookie cutters into cheese slices to make fun shapes to eat. We did that today with turkey slices for lunch. Bats, cats, and pumpkins. Fun!

My favorite comment: "These are really good, Mom." Like we'd just made a recipe or something.

p.s. Baptism chow

The dishes we made for the baptism were excellent to the last. I am unabashedly claiming this since all we did was follow directions. And there were hardly any left-overs. So, if you're wanting to try any of the recipes, I recommend them all.

Is there a bagel in the house?

It occurred to us last night that we have been doing an okay job of prepping for our Baptism brunch on Sunday. Too bad we've totally neglected to consider that people will be visiting throughout the weekend and there's hardly a crumb of other food in the house. Think we'll do a Sam's trip tonight and get some steaks for grilling, a side salad, and sun chips. I'm making those dolmates as well to have on hand.

Or maybe we'll just be GONE at every mealtime. Think anyone will catch on?

Baptism Brunch Menu Plan (work in progress)

I'm typing this with a warm cozy baby on my lap. Is this technically multi-tasking, or just wasting time be/c I'm spending more time on this than I otherwise might so I don't have to move?

Anyway, here's what I think we'll do for the brunch. Thank you, epicurious.com. This weekend we'll work out a schedule since a lot of these items can be made in advance. Think there will be about 15 people here to eat.

SIDES
Hot crab dip with veggies (peppers, carrots, radishes--from our garden-woo!)
Guinness Stout Ginger Cake (from "Desserts of Gramercy Tavern")
Bagels (onion recommended w/the trout-egg dish)
Watermelon slices, bowl of blueberries or some sort of fresh fruit
Hash brown brunch casserole

MAIN
Creamy scrambled eggs w/smoked trout and green onions
Baked french toast w/cardamom and marmalade  My brother made this last recipe for my neice's 1st Communion last month. It was great. Ultra-sweet.

BEVVIES
Sparkling agua
Coffee
OJ
Actually, why not mix the sparkling agua with the OJ? Nice variation, not so sweet, a bit fresca. Sounds good.

DESSERT
I'm debating ordering a cake, or making a double of the recently much-practiced Tres Leches. I'm looking at this list thinking there's a lot (too much) here both to do, and to eat. Will review w/the hubby before writing the final shopping list.