A Quick One

Tonight, I REALLY didn't want to cook. I had pretty much made up my mind that I was going to put the chicken that I'd been thawing in the fridge for another day. I felt guilty, though, and knew we shouldn't start out the week by eating like crapola.

The box of brown rice sitting in my pantry caught my eye and good ole Uncle Ben had a recipe on the back that gave me an idea. I didn't expect anything wonderful, so I didn't bother getting the camera out, but I should've! The meal was both easy on the eyes and delicious!

Here it is...

Quickie Stir Fry

-Cook 1 cup of brown rice on stovetop (per box instructions)

-Mix 2tbsp corn starch and 2tbsp water together, then add 1/4 cup soy sauce (I used Tamari, which is gluten free...not that I am on a gluten free diet, just fyi)

-Take 2 chicken breasts (Schnuck's now has hormone-free, organic free range chicken-yay!) and cook them in a skillet. I sprinkled the breasts with a teeny bit of garlic salt, onion powder and EVOO.

-Meanwhile, I had a bag of frozen stir fry containing broccoli and zucchini. Ben's recipe actually suggested other vegetables, but just use whatever you have. It's stir fry, you get the picture. I cooked it as directed.

-Once the chicken was almost cooked, I cut it into small strips (I could've, and probably should've done that first, but whatevs) and added the soy sauce mixture and vegetables.

-Top brown rice with a serving of the stir fry and ENJOY! This recipe is SUPER fast (like 15 minutes prep and cook time total) and it was really good. It contains a big serving of vegetables, plus some lean protein and whole grains. Yum.

Guilty as Charged

You may recall, from my posts last spring, we have a puppy named Berry. She may or may not be the Dark Angel of Death (that is for you, Haley). She is...a puppy. In other words, she is bad.




She is better than she was, but still, her puppy behavior still shows itself once in a while. But she is really good with Carter, so we love her anyway. Speaking of C-Bizzle, he has had a cold for the past several days, and Saturday, he felt the worst of all. He was whiny and clingy and just overall felt like crap. It was pretty pitiful. Incidentally, I woke up with the same symptoms. I was whiny and clingy had a scratchy throat, a cough and a runny nose, too.
Because of said illnesses, CB and I were stuck inside the house on the most gorgeous day of the week. We were watching TV when all of a sudden, the cable went out. And the internet. And the phone. I was pissed. (That is an understatement). After confirming with Billbowski that we had, in fact, paid the cable bill, I spent several hours half of the afternoon a little time on the phone with Comcast, trying to figure out what the &%$* was going on. After a surprisingly helpful conversation with a girl from Comcast, I still had no cable.


When Billy got home, he checked the cable box outside. Do you see where this is going?




Our sweet little Berry chewed up our cable. In her defense, the idiot that put our cable in did not correctly put the top on the box, nor did he trim the lines back at all, so how could she help herself? And look how good she is with Carter...he tipped his toy over and was trying to get it back up, and she was trying to help him. It was pretty stinking cute. I guess we'll keep her.


For now.

Beet the Beet Up

This is a follow up to my Silence of the Lambs previous beet post. I froze the beets (sidenote for people who cook their kids' food ahead of time, beets freeze well) and decided to give them a go today because Carter was NOT feeling the broccoli. Weird, because broccoli is the least disgusting thing I've fed him this week. Oh well. Back to the beets.

Here they are again in all of their staining, smelly glory

This is C's patented "get that camera out of my face and feed me something, woman" look:
The first bite went down well. Gross for me, good for C.
"Seriously, with the camera again, ma?"
That bite had some bite! Not really. It was the flash, but it's funnier to think the beets gave him that face.
Need.More.Beets.
"Woah, those beets tasted way better than they smelled."

So, in short, C-Note liked the beets. I don't think I will make them again anyway. They smelled like dirt. I tasted them because I was curious. They tasted like dirt, too.

Sick

Today, I stayed home with my little man because he had a runny nose and a cough that a lifelong smoker would've envied. (His little girlfriend, Lainey, stayed home sick with similar symptoms today. Hmm. Little Hussy must've been putting the moves on my C-Money :) We stayed in our pajamas all day. Don't judge me. I washed my face and brushed my teeth. And I cooked baby food. And cleaned the kitchen. Sick.

Buster acts hard, but he laid by Carter much of the day making sure he felt okay.

C is a trooper, though and won't let a little cold keep him down. See?

Berry wanted to make sure C felt okay, too. Carter had the decency to change into new pajamas. I didn't. But only one of us pooped our pants and needed to change our pajamas.

Carter doesn't understand why Berry runs away when he twists her ears off.
Where'd she go, Mom?
We decided to brave the kitchen for a little cooking. I made beets for the first time. I made them for Carter, of course, because beets are disgusting. He was skeptical, as usual.

Because my kitchen didn't smell badly enough with the beets cooking, I also made some broccoli for C-Note.

Here's the rundown on both of them.

Take some broccoli and wash it.

Chop the stalks into 1 inch pieces and separate the heads into florets. Steam for 15-20 minutes until the broccoli is really tender. Puree and add water.
Easy as that.

I wish I could say the same for the beets. They were a pain in the a$$. I'll tell you how to make them, but I'd suggest that you not. They are sick. I have yet to test them out on my child. I feel guilty making him eat something so disgusting.

Take some beets

Scrub them with a brush or with your super cool veggie scrub gloves.

Leave the root and 1 inch or so of the stem.

Wrap in foil

Cook at 400 degrees for at least an hour, until they were tender (I ended up cooking for about an hour and a half).

Carter couldn't believe it either. This look says "those beets are about to make me more sick than this crud I got from the babysitter's house! "

This is what the beets look like once cooked. Sick. They smell sick, too. Let them cool and then peel the skin off. Cut off the root and stem.
Perhaps I should've worn gloves. These are my fingertips post-hand washing.
They stained EVERYTHING. Luckily, I was able to clean off the cutting board and my murder weapon knife.Puree in food processor and it looks like this. Somewhat like something that would go nice with some fava beans and a nice chianti.

After cooking, I practiced my crime scene cleanup skills scrubbed down my beloved Cuisinart. I didn't want to leave a trace of the pureed brain matter beets behind. I know. My sense of humor is sick.

Okay I am off to bed. At least I already have my pajamas on :)

You say Polenta, I say lasagna

Tonight for dinner, we had the Polenta au Gratin that prepared on Sunday. Here's the rundown.

I got this recipe from Terry Walter's book, Clean Food: A Seasonal Guide to Eating Close to the Source. (Just like last night's recipe). You should all check this book out. It is a great resource, even if you're not interested in learning how to cook vegetarian recipes, as it provides recipes based on the produce that is in season.

Anyway, on to the polenta au gratin. I thought I took a picture of the ingredients, but I can't find it, so to the best of my recollection (as I cannot get up to look it up since C-Note is laying on me with a cough :( ) polenta, swiss chard, red onion, mozzarella cheese, prepared organic marinara sauce and extra virgin olive oil.

Polenta comes in a packaged tube, sort of like sausage. I found it in the produce aisle at Schnuck's. It is cornmeal that is mashed together.

Once I unwrapped it, I cut it into little disks like this:

Saute the polenta in a pan or dutch oven (I really want a dutch oven) in extra virgin olive oil for a few minutes, add about 1/4 cup of pasta sauce, and then mash together until it looks like this:

The recipe called for swiss chard, but I could only find rainbow chard. I was honestly impressed that Shnuck's had any kind of chard. Look at it! Isn't it neat looking?

Saute chopped red onion, garlic and extra virgin olive oil, then add chopped chard.

While that is cooking down, take 1/2 of the polenta and press it down into an 8x8 pan.
Layer with pasta sauce, chard mixture, and then another layer of the polenta. Then add one more layer of sauce and sprinkle with mozzarella cheese.
Bake at 350, covered in foil for 15 minutes. Then remove the foil and bake until the cheese becomes bubbly and you know the casserole is heated through.
Tah-dah!

The verdict: it was okay. I am not a huge fan of the chard. I think it would've been better with another type of green. I wanted to be adventurous, but this leafy vegetable tasted peppery or something. I mean, it was okay, but I would definitely try another green in this dish. All in all, it tasted like vegetarian lasagna. Billy had two helpings, so I guess he thought it was pretty good.

The polenta had a very interesting texture. I read that a lot of people use it as a substitute for pasta. I liked it and would like to use it different recipes. At Schnuck's, there were a few different flavors, such as basil and garlic polenta. I think next time I may try a flavored version.

Although tonight's meal was not an overwhelming success, I am feeling very adventurous giving all of these recipes a try. I hope some of you are inspired to bring some new, healthy items into the kitchen. You may be surprised just how tasty they are.

Tofu: Unlocking the Mystery

So I attempted my first recipe including tofu this weekend and we ate it tonight for dinner. I cooked it ahead of time on Sunday. C-Money helped me out. He was skeptical. I have to admit, I was, too.

On the menu, Stuffed Pasta Shells from the book, Clean Foods: A Seasonal Guide to Eating Close to the Source, by Terry Walters.

The ingredients, Kale, one large onion, firm tofu, mirin, extra virgin olive oil, pasta sauce, basil and parsley (dried).
I had two new ingredients in this dish that I had never used or worked with before. The first, and most intimidating: tofu.
The other, Mirin. It is sweetened sake and I found it in the same aisle in the grocery store as the soy sauce. I cannot figure out how to rotate this picture, so if it bothers you, you can give me instructions on how to do so.

This is what the tofu looked like once I took it out of the package. You may be asking, "what is tofu, exactly?" I'm glad you asked. The ingredients from this package say it is comprised of water, organic whole soybeans and magnesium chloride (which is extracted from either sea water or brine). Apparently (according to a very quick and lazy internet search) tofu is made by coagulating soybeans and then pressing the curd into the blocks like you see below. It was VERY watery. All instructions I have ever seen regarding the preparation of tofu say to wrap the block in paper towels and press to remove excess moisture. There was a lot. In case you are wondering where you can find tofu, I got this in the produce section of Schnuck's grocery store.
Anyway, enough about the weird tofu. I sauteed some garlic and onions in the extra virgin olive oil and mirin. Once the garlic and onions were soft, I crumbled up the tofu and added it to the mix.
I also chopped up that whole big bunch of kale and added it to the party as well. It cooks down, of course, like all other greens.
This is the filling for the pasta.
While I was preparing the filling, I was also cooking some large pasta shells. Once the shells were cool enough to handle, I scooped the mix into shells, and laid them in a casserole dish.
Then, I covered with prepared marinara sauce (organic, of course) and some shredded mozzarella. Terry Walters says to use non dairy cheese, but I am not vegan, so I used the good stuff.

I covered the pasta with foil and stuck it in the fridge so it would be all nice and ready when I got home from work today. The recipe says to bake covered in foil.

at 400 degrees
for 20 minutes
Then, remove the foil and bake another 10 minutes. This is what the finished product looked like...
I had it with a side salad of spinach. Again, I cannot rotate the picture, but you get the idea.
And now for the moment you have all been waiting for: my review of my first ever tofu dish...

When I first bit into the pasta, I thought it tasted good and had a good texture, but it was a little sweet. I thought that it was the tofu that was sweet, and in fact, it wasn't until I posted the ingredients that I remembered the mirin (sweetened sake). I think next time, I'd make it without the mirin. I prefer my Italian-style dishes to be salty and garlic-filled. I added some garlic salt to my serving, and it tasted much better.

Overall: it was a good dish and a great way to add some greens to the diet. When asked, Billbowski replied that the dish was "good." I asked him to guess the ingredients and he said, "spinach?" I told him that the greens were Kale and that the white crumbles were tofu. He then replied that it would be better with chicken. Note: he said it was fine until I told him what it really was. I think I'll tinker with the recipe and keep it in the repertoire in my attempts to reduce the amount of meat we consume, and increase the amount of plant based food (yay for Kale and spinach in one meal!). Note to self: don't tell Billy when I use tofu again.

Finally, I have a quick public apology. In an earlier post (which I would link here if I knew how to do those nifty link things) I complained that grocery stores sucked and that you had to shop at expensive health food stores to eat clean foods. I was wrong. While I am not crazy about the Kroger near my house, I have found that the Schnucks is not bad at all. They have a great produce section with plenty of organic seasonal foods. I had no trouble at all finding the ingredients for my meals this week. They also have lots of organic options for pretty much everything. Yay for Schnucks and yay for me, since Whole Foods is not a convenient weekly trip for me to make.

Next up: Polenta au Gratin.