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Green living, playful parenting and the pursuit of happiness

Menu Plan Monday

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One of the very nicest things about life is the way

we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing

and devote our attention to eating.

-Luciano Pavarotti

So, inspired by my recent reading of Pretty Neat, I’m trying to get my life organized in all kinds of ways. I’m pretty good about matching up coupons & sales and forming a loose menu plan in my head, but then what often happens is, I’ll forget to do the early prepwork one day so I have to shift everything around and it all falls apart.

So here’s the plan for this week:

Monday: I have some burger rolls we need to use up, so North Jersey Onion Burgers made from free-range, grass fed beef. That link takes you to a video; I haven’t had the greatest success with burgers on the stovetop so I’m hoping this new technique will make a difference. Salad on the side.

Tuesday: Kids’ turn to cook; Jake will slather some country ribs in BBQ sauce and stick ’em in the oven when he gets home from school, and Mav and Cass will slice & season some oven-baked sweet potato fries. Organic tri-color peppers were on sale this week, so somebody will slice those up too (my kids will only eat raw peppers).

Wednesday: Turkey chili. This is my first time using dried rather than canned beans, wish me luck. Since the meal itself is effortlessly cooking in the crock-pot, I’ll be baking two loaves of bread for scooping purposes and for Thursday’s meal. Finish off salad.

Thursday: Roasted chicken stuffed with rosemary, garlic and lemon; cube leftover bread from night before to use for stuffing (I always use the Joy of Cooking recipe). Baked potatoes and corn (frozen, Green Giant veggies were $1 a box this week).

Friday: Leftovers; thinking that I can probably layer the chili, potatoes, corn (and throw in a package of peas) for a kickass Shepherd’s Pie.

Saturday: Kids’ turn again. We have some pepperoni sausage from Maiale and when we bought it at our farmer’s market, the dude suggested slicing it thin and adding it to grilled cheese sandwiches, dipping into red sauce, to make Super Awesome Grilled Pizza Sandwiches. So after a day of two soccer games and one flag football game, this should be easy and filling, along with a bowl of Wolfgang Puck’s Potato Soup (which is really good for a canned soup, way better than I’ve managed fresh). I’m thinking that maybe another loaf of homemade bread would probably serve well here, so I’ll make that Friday night. Look how nicely this menu planning is working out!

A little light on the green veggies this week, will have to think about some green-intensive recipes next week to compensate.

On a somewhat related note, some recipes I tried for the first time recently that were really well-received:

bbq sausage cabbage sandwichesBBQ Cabbage & Sausage Stuffed Sandwiches. There was a lot of initial resistance to the very idea of cabbage, but the smell of the onions, sausage (wild boar sausage, also from Maiale), and cabbage simmering in Famous Dave’s Rich & Sassy sauce had everyone watching the timer for dinner to be done. The recipe calls for a no-knead bread that you can start in the morning and have ready to form at dinnertime, but I went with American Bread Rolls from our cookbook bible, the The America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, since I’m pretty good with those and I figured, stick with what you know. [NOTE: that is an affiliate link which takes you to Amazon. I tried to find the actual recipe on the America’s Test Kitchen website but it wouldn’t load!]  Anywho, these were delicious, reheated wonderfully, and got bonus points for their resemblance to Hot Pockets (which the kids often covet at the store and I won’t let them buy).

potato gratinPotato Gratin with Rosemary Crust. I liked this because it used both regular & sweet potato. The kids and Jeff thought it was OK, so I’m happy to have an acceptable potato dish other than fries or smashed in my pocket. I liked it a LOT and ate it as a veg alternative on some nights when everybody else had steak (I’m not so big on the red meat these days). Prep seems really intensive but wasn’t such a big deal with a food processor; however, it seemed like it filled the dishwasher all by itself.

Broccoli with Cheetos. We had to try it once we saw the recipe. This is basically parbroiled broccoli in a gouda/parmesan sauce which is freaking DELICIOUS. I can’t say I thought the Cheetos added anything, other than a bit of crunch, but that small addition (and we’re talking about one Cheeto per serving) caused the kids to SCARF down their broccoli and ask for more. Well worth it, I think, every once in a while. Sorry, no picture of this one.

boston cream icebox cakeNo-Bake Boston Cream Pie Strata. This was great, for about three bites. It’s SO sweet. I would make this again, but cut the sugar everywhere by half. The kids loved it, of course. Jeff and I each had a slice and then couldn’t eat any more of it, our sweet tooth (teeth) satisfied for a whole week.

What’s cooking for you this week? What was a recent success?

Whole lotta inspiration over at Org Junkie— over 200 bloggers linking up their Menu Plan Monday posts at the time of this writing.

 

 

 

Attention State of Maine: Hands Off My Whoopie Pies

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pumpkin

Seize the moment.

Remember all those women on the Titanic
who waved off the dessert cart.

-Erma Bombeck

Every year in late October or early November I buy a cheese pumpkin.

These are orange/yellow pumpkins, round and flattish like a cheese wheel. They are excellent for making pumpkin purée with, as the flesh is sweet and not too stringy.

Cheese pumpkins look good in hats.

The cheese pumpkin starts out as an autumnal decoration, hanging out in the hallway, moving to the dining room table around Thanksgiving, migrating eventually to the kitchen counter.

In February we have the annual Argument About the Pumpkin. It goes something like this:

“I’m throwing this pumpkin away.”

“Why? I’m gonna make ___ with it.”

“It’s four months old. It’s no good.”

“It’s a pumpkin. There’s no soft spots. It’s fine.”

“Well, I’m not eating whatever you make with that disgusting old moldy pumpkin.”

He ate it. Along with his words.

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Pumpkin Whoopie Pies
with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Icing

For the Cakes:
* 2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon baking powder
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1 tablespoon pumpkin spice (we just used 1/2 tsp each of nutmeg & cinnamon, as that’s what we had on hand)
* 1 teaspoon salt
* ½ cup of unsalted butter, softened
* ¼ cups granulated sugar
* ¾ cups dark brown sugar
* 2 large eggs
* 1 cup of pure solid pumpkin
* 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

For the Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting:
* 8 oz of cream cheese, softened
* 4 ounces of unsalted butter, softened
* 2 cups of powdered sugar (this was way too much for me; next time I’ll cut it by half)
* 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
* ½ teaspoon of cardamom (I left this out, I don’t even know what it is)
* 1 teaspoon of vanilla
* 1 tablespoon of milk

For recipe instructions visit The Family Kitchen.

To make the purée, I hacked the cheese pumpkin into about a dozen pieces, scooped out the seeds and stringy bits, put ’em on a cookie sheet & stuck in the oven at 350 degrees until they were easily pierced by a fork, 45 minutes to an hour (my pieces were not of uniform size, have I mentioned I am lazy?). Once they were cool I just peeled the rinds off and ran them through the food processor. This pumpkin yielded about 4 cups worth of purée; I held back the cup I needed for this recipe and froze the rest into three one-cup servings.

pumpkin whoopie pies with cinnamon cream cheese filling

Food photographer I am not

Pumpkin whoopie pies are a labor of love; a multi-step process I only do once or twice a year but oh my goodness are they delicious.

We ate them warm— look at the whoopie spilling out the side— but generally speaking, if you do not have a ravenous horde at your house, despair not. They’re even better the next day.

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Whoopies are essentially a frosting sandwiched between two cookie-sized cakes, and they are indigenous to Lancaster County (Pennsylvania Dutch country). Most traditional recipes call for lard or shortening in the filling, which probably helps it from melting all over your plate when warm-from-the-oven but I prefer the cream cheese, thankyouverymuchly.

It has come to my attention that the state of Maine is trying to make whoopie pies their official state dessert, to which I say: step off, Maine. Keep your dang hands off my whoopie pies. You’ve got lobsters and wild blueberries, don’t be greedy.

Local peeps, if you agree that Maine is committing an outrageous act of “confectionary larceny,” you can sign the Save Our Whoopie petition here.

save the whoopie pies

That’s right, local whoopie pride!
Can I get a whoop whoop?

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Mama's Losin' It

Aaaand that’s my answer to Mama Kat’s prompt for this week Writer’s Workshop: Watcha’ cookin?

Watchoo got cookin’, good lookin’?
Leave me links for more deliciousness to try.

Tater Fingers are PEOPLE! No, wait. They’re potatoes.

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“To eat is a necessity,

to eat intelligently is an art.”

-La Rochefoucauld

In our house Jeff and I have a new system.

See, Jeff loves junk food. And by junk food I don’t mean the occasional McDonald’s; I mean Jeff keeps Tastykake and Lance Foods and Coca-Cola in business.

This conflicts with my food ethics. I like real food. I genuinely like squash and kale. I prefer brown rice. I own a yogurt maker that I remember to use, sometimes. I like my chickens and my cows as happy as possible.

So the happy medium we’ve worked out is, Jeff goes through the store circular each week and circles what he “needs” to get through the week. I zip the lip and put the crap into my cart and pack it into his lunches, or he forages after the kids go to bed.

Then, I cook what I want to for dinner each night and he dials down the mock puking sounds or accusations of poisoning while sitting at the table (studies indicate this influences kids’ willingness to eat the allegedly poisoned meal).

I was amused to see “Tater Fingers” circled this week.

Tater Fingers are fingerling potatoes packaged like french fries. The front cries out, “With 94% less fat, they’re the fun, healthy alternative to fast food fries!” On the back is a recipe that I meant to copy down, but basically involves slicing the taters, drizzling with a bit of oil, adding a bit of salt (we’re very into coarse sea salt at the moment) and baking at a high temperature.

In other words, “Easy Roasted Fingerling Potatoes.”

So we made them, and everyone enjoyed them very much, without coercion or complaint. (Normally I would stick fingerlings in with a roast, or prepare much as directed only cutting them into hunks rather than “fingers.” They get eaten, but grudgingly, under the “try a bit of everything if you want dessert” rule.)

Tater Fingers, aka roasted potatoes


So, excessive packaging aside, I’m not sure how to feel about this.

The price, although more pricey than your bulk Yukon golds or your reds, was equivalent to a normal bag of fingerlings, so I have no real complaint there.

I guess I’m irritated by the assumption that the only way to get kids to eat vegetables is to package it as something we think kids find more attractive- that is, fast food. Reinforcing the notion that fast food = tasty food. It’s a vicious cycle.

On the other hand, they ate it, and they looked forward to it.

And- this is a biggie- Jeff willingly prepared it as opposed to simply accepting it.

It made that meal fun. That’s good, right?

The question is, which is more important? Paying attention to the marketers targeting our kids, or simply getting better foods into them? Do the ends justify the means?

Because there’s a virtually untapped market there- produce advertising- and I’m not sure I like what I see in the road ahead.

Thoughts?