Olé!
Posted on | Wednesday, May 18, 2011 | No Comments
I decided to be a little daring and try a new recipe today: ceviche (pronounced suh-VEE-chay)! I've heard of using acid to cook fish, but I never thought to try it myself. It seemed like it would, well, taste weird. I know that technically speaking it's cooked, but I couldn't shake the whole "cooked in acid" thing. It just seemed too strange, and maybe a little bit gross.
That's Mister Sweet Potato Head, to you!
Posted on | Thursday, April 7, 2011 | No Comments
It seems that I've gotten into the habit of baking chips. Especially when they are made out of things other than russet potatoes. Last week I tried out baked kale chips (yum!), this week I thought I might try a more traditional route. Sweet potatoes! They're healthier for you than regular potatoes, and lower on the glycemic index, so why not?
I washed, peeled, and mandolined two large sweet potatoes and then sliced them into large strips. It's enough to cover two baking sheets, so plan accordingly if you want to cook more or less (I suppose you could also just cut the potatoes into wedges and save some space, too). Can I just say while I'm on this tangent that I love having a mandoline? It makes slicing produce so much easier, not to mention quicker. And you are guaranteed to have uniform slices which means even cooking!
Being inventive
Posted on | Thursday, March 31, 2011 | 1 Comment
The one big downside to having a healthier diet is that you can't always use up all the good food you buy. Especially when it's a one-person house hold that you are cooking for. And while I am fairly inventive with my meals there always seems to be some floppy celery or mushy apple that ends up in the trash.
I thought there had to be some way to use those last bits and pieces, perfectly good food shouldn't go to waste just because it's not at it's peak of freshness anymore!
And then the light bulb went off in my head: soup. I could make soup! What is minestrone but just stock with vegetables and maybe a form of pasta tossed in? I had vegetables, pasta, and stock. Albeit not all my vegetables are considered traditional soup fare, but what the heck. The worst thing that could happen is I didn't like it and we've discovered through previous culinary experiments that most recipes turn out in my favor.
So I peeked my head in the fridge. I had wilted celery, half an old onion, some rubbery baby carrots and the last few miniature bell peppers from a container I had bought last week. I also had a can of diced tomatoes, chicken broth, and whole wheat fusilli. Looked like a recipe to me!
Kale Whale
Posted on | Wednesday, March 30, 2011 | 2 Comments
As I said in my previous blog entry, I am making a bigger effort to eat better (although I have decided to simply eat the remainder of my emergency chocolate, I can't bear to throw it away). Which means the great opportunity to try new recipes that are healthier. I've found several great gluten-free blogs that are full of recipes that not only look delectable but are chock full of healthy ingredients.
Now I'd never actually eaten kale before this recipe, but I had heard people say that it is a superfood filled to the brim with healthy nutrients and fiber. You know, one of those foods we should eat all the time because it's so good for us -- like pomegranates and blueberries. Except a vegetable.
Talking about food
Posted on | Monday, March 28, 2011 | 1 Comment
Over the past six months or so I have slowly been weeding the “bad food” out of our house. Foods that offered us no real nutritional benefit, you know what I am talking about: pre-packaged snacks and frozen meals laden with sodium, "fruit snacks" with the main ingredient being sugar, or foods have more unpronounceable ingredients than I am comfortable with having in my house. I used to not care as much. Kael was – and is – a picky eater and I would often give up and feed him food I knew he would eat. Chicken strips, yogurt, waffles, and popcorn were very popular. I was buying foods that I thought were at least relatively healthy and so long as he ate three meals a day we were fine.
Then around last fall as I was cleaning out my pantry I stopped and read the labels of the food we were eating and it shocked me. Foods that were listed as healthy and good for us... weren't. For some reason that shocked me a lot. I thought we were eating healthy, that I was making healthy choices. But what I noticed more and more was that the foods we were eating were jam-packed with sugar and food dyes and fillers. So I made the decision to fix how we ate, to eat better food that nourished our bodies.
We’ve switched from Eggos to Van’s whole wheat waffles. We don’t use margarine anymore, I use olive or other oils when I cook. Apples and carrots have replaced chips and most of our sweets. Whole grain or pretzel goldfish instead of the neon orange ones. We were never soda drinkers, but we have cut back on juice and are having a go at soymilk. I use milk instead of coffee creamer. Foot Loops are now Cheerios. I make cookies from scratch with whole wheat flour and honey, I add raisins or dates instead of chocolate chips.
It’s taken time to make these changes, especially with having a child that is so focused on having a set schedule and environment. While some things have gone over smoothly others have caused emotional meltdowns when he realized his favorite Finding Nemo Fruit Snacks were gone and he’s only got dried apple slices and fruit leather.
But… this past week I began looking into food again. I've fallen off track a bit this past month and I wanted to fix that. And as I made my grocery list I realized that while I have made some significant changes, there is still so much more. It’s a lot to take in and a lot to know. To know what is in our food – specifically our diary and our meat. In my attempt to be healthier not once did I think about GMOs or that gluten could be an issue for Kael. I didn’t think about high fructose corn syrup or hydrogenated oils. My focus was on bringing the general aspect of healthier foods into our home, but I’ve realized there is a lot more to it than that.
I’m finding study after study showing that children with PDD (like Kael) and Autism benefit from gluten free diets. I know that when I ate gluten, sugar, and dairy free my joints felt better. I never thought to ask why that was, but I am now. I’m learning about how our food supply has changed in the past decade and how our meat, dairy, and much of what is boxed and shelved has changed, too. It’s a bit terrifying to truly let it in, to know all the new things in our food and exactly what I am eating. What my son is eating. And suddenly my little changes aren’t big enough.
So I’m going to start making a bigger effort. I can start by choosing foods that don’t have artificial colors or high fructose corn syrup in them and phasing out the last few things in our house that are truly “unhealthy” (goodbye emergency chocolate stash…). I can buy more fruits and vegetables and making those foods accessible to Kael. I can pay better attention to the dairy and meat I buy, and likely buy less of both. It’ll mean reading box labels more, and knowing what these words mean, but it’ll also mean that I know what is going into my body. We’re going to slowly phase out gluten. That will take a lot of time and for now it won’t be 100% possible due to budget restraints, but we can start. Once we are moved and settled into our new home this summer I can start trying new recipes and transferring us over to an entirely gluten free diet. I'm on the fence if I'd want to include casein in that phasing out as well.
For now I’m taking what I call the Grandma Approach. Did Grandma have Yellow #5 sitting in her pantry? Did she use high fructose corn syrup? How about Aspartame? Did she eat a box of Oreos and not think about it? (Maybe that last one is just me) You can see where I am going with this. Great-Grandma Bertha wouldn’t have used ingredients she couldn’t pronounce and made a majority of her food at home. The portions were smaller, and meat was a side versus the main meal. When I’m at the grocery store this week and buying my food I need to stop and ask myself if I know what is in this food, if it’s healthy.
I still want to bake, cook, take a million pictures and blog about food; but expect for that food to change a bit. Or a lot. I might occasionally vent about the fact that rice flour is horrible at becoming bread and cupcakes, or that I must have been crazy to give up Yellow #5. But I hope that along with those posts my family will become happier and healthier.
I have a long ways to go before I’m where I want to be in regards to how my family eats, but we’re on the right track and the best thing I can do is keep going.
Bananarama
Posted on | Saturday, February 12, 2011 | No Comments
I really like making cookies. I like mixing together the ingredients and dolloping them onto a baking sheet. I like how the smells can permeate my house in the best possible way. I like taking that first bite when a cookie is fresh out of the oven and just a tad bit too hot. Above all though, I like when my cookies are not only good, but good for me.
The banana.
If I had to guess I'd say used about one cup of whole wheat flower, 3/4 cup of rolled oats, a large pinch of nutmeg cinnamon and salt each, half a teaspoon of baking powder, three very ripe bananas, one egg, 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts, 1/2 cup of dates, and a little over half a stick of butter. Wet ingredients first then mixed gradually with the dry. Once a good batter is formed and drop a large teaspoon's worth per cookie onto the baking sheet. Then it's into the oven for ten minutes at 350*.
Blame Alton.
Posted on | Wednesday, February 9, 2011 | 2 Comments
We're on our fifth snow day this month. I'm becoming a pro at this whole being cooped up with a rambunctious four year old thing. Thankfully this storm wasn't nearly as bad as the previous one. It left a good four inches outside but aside from that nothing major to report. It's already begun to melt.
The ingredients were simple enough; white medium white onion chopped coarsely, two celery stalks finely chopped, a can of diced tomatoes, garlic, oregano, beef broth (although I substituted with chicken, shh), and of course the steak. I'm happy to say my slicing and dicing skills are improving with practice.
The incredible edible... eggplant?
Posted on | Friday, January 28, 2011 | 1 Comment
The vegetable (that's technically a berry) has always left me wondering if it came from another planet. Purple and strangely shaped; it looks like something Barney might tote around. I've Previously tried to cook this supposedly versatile food only to be faced with bitter leathery mess that left me bereft of the need to have such a diversified pallet. They were shuffled over with sardines, boiled cabbage, and brussels sprouts in the no-cook category.
Thank goodness for Alton Brown. I stumbled upon his Good Eats episode on YouTube explaining the wonders of the vegetable/berry. According to the king of good cookery I had made this strange food all wrong! They're naturally bitter in flavor (at least the kind Americans like myself know about) and need to have a bit of extra treatment or spices to bring out their other flavors. I had simply roasted my purple produce with a smidgen of olive oil and meant to eat it as a side dish. No wonder it tasted like a bitter chunk of shoe leather!
Mean green
Posted on | Saturday, January 22, 2011 | 1 Comment
As a kid you couldn't get me to eat a Brussels sprout if you tried. They would sit on my plate uneaten, looking like a bitter tasting bright green eyeball. Or so I thought. As an adult I've maintained a moderate phobia of this miniature cabbage, avoiding the vegetable if at all possible. But as I have learned to cook I've discovered there are a lot of foods I never tried in my youth that are really delicious. So I took a deep breath and added a container of them to my shopping cart this week.
Apparently there are a lot of ways to cook these guys. Who knew? You can cook them in butter, with brown sugar, sauteed, boiled, fried, roasted, grilled, in a salad, as a side, as an entrée... I was a little bit bamboozled as I looked for a recipe. I thought the best option would be a side, one that didn't make them taste like bitter mooshy blobs. According to the internet sauteing with a little bit of brown sugar and mixed with either caramelized onions or pecans was the way to go.
I didn't have any onions, but I did have a surplus of pecans. Bingo!
These are not the best biscuits in the world, they are merely a tribute.
Posted on | Monday, January 17, 2011 | No Comments
I woke this morning and I wanted biscuits. I needed biscuits. Light, warm, fluffy pieces of floury wonderment. Normally I'm a Pillsbury kinda girl. Unroll the can, plop them on the baking sheet, wait ten minutes and your done. Except, I didn't have any on hand today. And I really didn't feel like wrestling Kael into presentable clothing just to go buy some.
They are the easiest ingredients ever, by the way. You don't even need eggs or a mixer! Fabulous. Pretend that my salt is in the picture though, you kinda need it. Unless you enjoy bland tasting biscuits.
Soup and Suitcases
Posted on | Tuesday, December 21, 2010 | 1 Comment
Tomorrow we're leaving for Las Vegas! (I'm politely ignoring the fact our plane departs at an hour that would make the sun wince) Which means today is dedicated to packing and preparing the house. The only thing worse than realizing you forgot your camera/toothbrush/pants is to come home to a filthy house whilst battling jetlag. I speak from personal experience on both matters. To combat this I make two lists, each delegating my preparations for travel. I write out what needs to be done before I leave and what I need to bring with me. It might mean a bit of extra work but it is definitely worth it for a Type A personality like myself. Without my lists I get mean. Quickly.
I check the weather for the next ten days at my destination and then pack accordingly. I toss in a jacket and a tank top regardless of the weather just in case Mother Nature decides to make fun of meteorologists. A great example -- It's 75 degrees here in Oklahoma in late December, tourists who packed for a cold winter are sweating like pigs. Pack for weather you won't expect, the extra tank top won't kill you.
I try to pack light if I am only going to be away for a week. My normal suitcase list looks like this: two pair of pants, 4-5 shirts, a nice dress, under-things, toiletries/makeup (everything has to fit in a ziploc baggie), an extra pair of shoes, various electronics, medication, a sweater or jacket, and a pair of pajamas. Simple enough.
If the list is for Kael I add pull-ups, stroller, carseat, and 2-3 extra pairs of clothes. And his blankie. If we go anywhere without beloved blankie it will mean sudden death. I also will pack in my purse a few things that will keep him occupied.
When I pack originally my suitcase looks something like this:
Baking fixes everything
Posted on | Sunday, December 19, 2010 | 3 Comments
Thankfully, I discovered over the past few months the catharsis of baking. When I am overwhelmed and stressed there’s no better way to find that deep inner calm than to get lost in a baking project. Sure, I have times when I get in over my head and probably have a meltdown or two, but there’s nothing better than coming home after a hard day and whipping up a batch of cookies. Cookies fresh out of the oven will cure anything.
Which is why Friday evening I decided to make meringue cookies. I have a mixer, eggs, and sugar... and it couldn't be THAT hard, right? I mean, if Emeril could make meringues it shouldn't be that difficult. This mentality would become a highlight of the evening.
I obviously knew nothing about the impressive power of meringue.
Bread. ICE CREAM bread.
Posted on | Monday, November 29, 2010 | No Comments
Before I say anything else, all of the credit for this miraculous recipe goes to Leann over at How Sweet It Is. She makes me wish my kitchen were larger. And that calories were a figment of my imagination. And that I wasn't horribly terrified of fondant.
But I digress. Yesterday for breakfast I made bread. Not just any bread, ice cream bread. It was uh-mazing. Delicious. And so incredibly simple.
Don't believe me? Here's the recipe.
- Preheat the oven to 350*F
- Mix the flour and ice cream until it becomes a well-combined doughy ball. It will smell amazing. Don't do a taste test. Trust me. The bowl will be empty before you can blink.
- Pour the doughy deliciousness into a greased and floured loaf pan.
- Bake for 30-45 minutes
- Eat.
It's light, moist, and perfect. My tummy is rumbling from simply looking at these pictures. Alex chose vanilla for our trial run for this bread and it came out with just a touch of sweetness. Next time I want to try butter pecan or maybe even branch out into Ben & Jerry territory. (Phish Food, anyone?) What's even better, you could easily use soy/vegan ice cream, or sugar free varieties to accommodate for people with dietary restrictions! Perfection!
Did I mention both boys loved it? Alex gobbled up two slices before I could blink and gave the recipe to big thumbs up. Kael left little evidence aside from the explosion of crumbs all over the floor. A definite seal of approval. I foresee this being made on the weekendly basis.
Icing and Eggnog
Posted on | Sunday, November 28, 2010 | 4 Comments
Alex left this morning, which is always difficult for us. Although we value the time we spend together it always goes by far too quickly. On the bright side it will be only three weeks before our next visit (in Las Vegas no less!), and by that time Alex will be a college graduate. Yay!
I meant to blog about our icing (and eating) cookies, and making old-fashioned eggnog yesterday. But somehow the day ended before I had downloaded a single picture. Whoopsie.
This was my first try at making icing. Most recipes called for corn syrup in addition to the powdered sugar, milk and food coloring. As I didn't have corn syrup on hand we forged ahead with the more traditional recipe (or perhaps just the lazier recipe?). It turned out alright, although getting the perfect consistency was a challenge. If I make icing again I will try adding the corn syrup and see if it makes any difference.
Kael was extremely excited at the prospect of mixing the dye into the icing. We ended up making red, blue, yellow and green icing colors. Although in hindsight we should have halved the recipe to accommodate for the number of cookies, we made enough to coat about three times the amount that had been baked.
Mix mix mix!! Kael loved being an active participant in the kitchen. A lot of the meals and various baked goods I make aren't very kid-friendly (hot stoves, sharp knives, precise measurements) so it was nice to have him involved and enjoying it. 
It's time to ice the cookies! Someone is excited!
Sugar, sugar
Posted on | Friday, November 26, 2010 | 1 Comment
As it is rather late, this might come out a tad bit disjointed, but somewhere in the recesses of my brain it seems logical to post about baking sugar cookies today so I have room to blog about icing them tomorrow.
Shush, my logic is not your logic.
Dos Cosas
Posted on | Sunday, November 21, 2010 | 3 Comments
Two mega-squee things happened in the past 48 hours.
Thing 1.) I got flowers. And not just any flowers. They are handcrafted metal flowers that Alex made just for me. Because he is just that awesome and super-duper.
Pwning the Pad Thai
Posted on | Friday, November 5, 2010 | No Comments
I've been sicker than a dog for the past few days. Up until about twelve hours ago my stomach had continually attempted to secede from the rest of my body with such a fiery wrath that I almost let it. Almost. But my stubbornness to keep all my organs won out. I still feel rather nasty and wobbly on the insides but it's getting better, thankfully. I'm finally eating more than soup and tea.
On Tuesday before I became horribly ill I met up with Katy and we made some incredible food. Some of you may remember the wretched greasy atrocity that tried to pass itself off as Thai last month. We mourned our loss of potentially delicious pad thai and curry. So, being the creative girls we are, we decided to made some ourselves. It was fantastic!! We were inspired by the recipe from Rachael Ray for the main course (although we ended up using only shrimp and nixing the chicken) and the vegetable curry was kind of a spur of the moment recipe from what we found in the fridge. This is the closest thing I could find for anyone who wants a recipe.
Yum.
De-legging the shrimp. It was a messy job. Perhaps Mike Rowe would be interested.
The things a person can make from cornmeal and squash
Posted on | Thursday, October 28, 2010 | 2 Comments
This entry could also be titled, "When in doubt, call it rustic".
Rustic is such a magic word in the culinary world. By adding it to the name of a dish the sloppy appearance of said food is suddenly pretty. This especially relevant in baked goods and pastas. It excuses any mishaps and somehow makes the food even more delicious. Or maybe that last part is just me.
I have been itching to bake something this week but I couldn't decide what. Then suddenly and desperately I knew. I needed to bake muffins. Scrumptious fluffy muffins. I had seen one of my favorite baking bloggers post this recipe a few days back, and it was like trumpets sounded and the skies parted. These were the muffins I must make.
Jam-filled cornbread muffins. Her pictures looked heavenly and I became filled with glee as I realized the recipe did not require a mixer. An easy recipe that promised delectability and effortlessness? Sign me up. It came together in a blink. My only mistake was over-filling the cups (and then thinking that I needed more batter and making a whole extra batch that I had to quickly find a use for). I put them in the oven and about twenty minutes later my house smelled exquisitely like baked goods.
I opened the door and for a moment my heart sank. The muffins had exploded.
In which we discuss how incredible hollandaise sauce is
Posted on | Thursday, October 21, 2010 | No Comments
I've tried to make hollandaise sauce twice on my own and both times turned into a gigantic mess. It seems easy enough; beat egg yolks and lemon juice then add butter and whisk whisk whisk. Well, apparently my method makes fancy scrambled eggs.
What's to be done when I can't cook something? Call Katy.
I love my Katy.
Of course if you make hollandaise sauce there has to be a meal that accompanies it. We chose artichokes and blanched green beans. If you are going to ingest half a stick of butter in one meal it's best to counteract such delicious foodiness with something healthy. If only to appease your conscience.
That, and artichokes with hollandaise sauce sounded incredible to both of us. After a quick trip to the grocery store we were ready to begin.
Something sweet
Posted on | Wednesday, October 20, 2010 | 3 Comments
I am beginning to feel normal again. I still ache and my muscles are occasionally rebelling against me, but it's progress. Katy and I ended up canceling our Tuesday lunch date yesterday since I was still feeling yucky. However I couldn't let Tuesday pass without having some sort of culinary venture. So I decided to bake.
You have to understand how monumental baking is for me. I used to never bake, the concept terrified me. Unless it was store-bought and only required plopping it in the oven for fifteen minutes I avoided it. Measurements were always so precise and I had this idea in my head that any attempt at baking a cake would result in the kitchen catching fire. This isn't far from the truth; I have caught the stove on fire, and several bags of popcorn have lost their lives to the evils of my microwave.
Then one dark and stormy night (alright it was 10pm on a balmy summer evening) I suddenly and desperately wanted cookies. Kael was already asleep so driving to the nearest grocery store to buy a package of Nestle Toll House cookies wasn't an option. I looked in my pantry: I had flour, sugar, milk, eggs, butter, and chocolate chips... and I thought, why not? Amazingly I didn't burn the house down. Even more astonishing they tasted good!
Since then I've become engrossed in baking. It's not as terrifying as I thought it was. I've become motivated to not only learn to bake, but to bake well. Creating things equal to the pictures on Martha Stewart's website has become a culinary goal of mine. I won't lie, I obsess about it to an extent that might not be entirely healthy. Have I mentioned how lucky I am that Alex puts up with my special brand of crazy?
Even with this new-found passion I haven't baked very much recently. Mainly because I know a majority of said delectable creations would go to waste (or directly to my hips). But no longer! Instead of eating my way through a batch of cookies or muffins I've begun taking them to the coffee shop on campus where I work. It's just an added bonus that I get free coffee in exchange for my home made treats. It gives me the perfect excuse to bake like a fiend. And bake I have.
I know I have mentioned my Lemon Bars, but I have also made some scrumptious apple cinnamon bran muffins, confetti squares, mug cake, and most recently brownie candy cups and yogurt raspberry teacake muffins.
Oh yeah.
About
I was born and raised in California. I have also lived in Hungary, Texas, Alabama, Oklahoma, and I will be moving again this summer. Kael is my incredibly awesome kiddo who is growing up far too quickly, and Alex is my fiance who makes me happier than should be legally allowed. I write about them a lot. I'm mildly obsessed with cooking and photography. I write about those things, too.
Blogroll
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Triple Berry Sherbet1 day ago
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Summertime Sweets1 day ago
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Goodbye4 days ago
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2025 Workshop Dates1 year ago
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Mercado Central, Valencia8 years ago
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On top of the Mountain!8 years ago
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Flamingo Party Cake9 years ago
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Lemon Cornmeal Cake11 years ago
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on the ALS ice bucket challenge11 years ago
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Menace12 years ago
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birth to now14 years ago
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it's time!14 years ago
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