Pass it On

Tonight I made what I call a "Food Revolution" dinner. We got Jamie Olivers latest cookbook from the library and decided to make a meal from it. The reason this entry is called "pass it on" is that in the introduction of the book he talks about the various statistics - health related/food related - that he talks about on the show. About how people eat in, but they buy take out to eat in  and that he wants people to learn how to cook and then -- pass it on -- share the love and ability to cook with others. So that's what I am doing. I am passing it on.

I will admit that I have been an avid follower of the show ever since I saw his TED Talk. I do think he's on to something. His "Food Revolution" even came at a perfect time for me -- when I was also in the middle of this personally. So....anyway, I sat down with the cook book and my husband and my daughter  (I don't know where the boy was) and decided on what we would have. Better yet, my daughter would help me cook it!

We decided on 3 things

Mediterranean Chopped Salad (Page 123)
Broccoli with Asian Dressing (Page 220)
Crunchy Garlic Chicken (Page 241)

I will go over the recipes in order that I made them so that the pictures are in order! I -- of course -- always cook the things that take the longest 1st so that ideally, the whole meal is ready at the same time.


Crunch Garlic Chicken 

1 clove of garlic
1 lemon
6 crackers (probably more -- I used saltines because he referenced a british brand that I was unfamiliar with)
2 tbsp butter
4 sprigs of parsley
sea salt & black pepper
2 tablespoons heaped all purpose flour
1 large egg
2 skinless chicken breasts
olive oil

To Prepare the chicken - peel the garlic and zest the lemon. Put the crackers into a food processor with the butter, garlic, parsley, lemon zest and a pinch of salt & pepper. Mix until it is very fine and poor onto a plate. Sprinkle the flour on a 2nd plate. Crack the egg into a bowl and beat with a fork. Lightly score the undersides of the chicken. Put a piece of plastic wrap over each and "bash" a few times with the bottom of a pan (or something hard!) until they flatten out. Dip the chicken into the flour until coated, then dip into the egg and finally into the crumbs. Make sure the entire chicken breast is coated.

Bake or pan fry. For baking - heat the oven to 475' and bake for about 15 mins.










 Broccoli with Asian Dressing

Steam about 1 1/4 lbs of broccoli. While it is cooking prepare the dressing. Grate a thumb size piece of ginger and finely chop a clove of garlic and place in a bowl. Add one fresh red chile. Stir in 1 tbsp sesame oil, 3 tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp soy sauce, juice from one lime and drizzle in a teaspoon of balsamic. Whisk together. Serve over broccoli just before serving.








Chopped Mediterranean Salad

Handful of black olives
1/2 red onion
1 red chile
3 firm ripe tomatoes
1 romaine lettuce
fresh basil
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Balsamic Vinegar
sea salt & fresh black pepper

Get a large chopping board and a large sharp knife. Take out the olive pits if they were not already pitted by pressing down on the olives with the knife.

Start chopping the harder crunchier veggies first -- peel and slice your onion, chop the chile. Chope the olives and tomatoes and bring it all to the center of the cutting bard. Continue chopping and mixing together. Add the lettuce and basic and chop well. Once everything is well chopped you'll have a big mound of salad on the board. Make a well in the middle and add 6 tbsp olive oil (I only added 4, 6 seemed like a lot!), 2tbsp balsamic and a good pinch of salt and pepper. Mix it all up and serve straight from the board or put in a bowl.



As you can see, I had my daughter helping me. She did a great job. She zested lemons and "bashed" the chicken. It was great fun. Best of all, she ate like ALL her broccoli  - and I think it's because she had a hand in making it. Sadly, the meal did not go over well with the boy. I tried to choose veggies that he'd like, instead he wouldn't try it. Oh well... next time I will cook with him and see how it goes.

So... how was everything? My favorite was the salad. I could have eaten it all. Loved it. I see more chopped salads in our future. The broccoli was pretty darn good too. My least favorite was the chicken. I wasn't overly impressed with it. It was ok, but nothing spectacular by any means. So now, go cook one of these things yourself!

Meat Free Mondays

A friend of mine posted a link on Facebook to this movement and I thought it was a great idea. I honestly have no intention of becoming a vegetarian, but I am well aware that eating less meat is a good thing both for our bodies and for the world around us. Even just last week I had a few "meatless" days - not on purpose - it just happened.

So, I hadn't really planned any meals, but I needed to figure something out! For lunch, I had egg salad. I had to think about eating eggs -- was it really like eating meat? I decided no. That it wasn't. I know others may disagree - that they aren't vegetarian etc... but I looked at it this way. Eggs are a product of a hen. The hen is going to lay an egg regardless - they aren't fertilized eggs - so they aren't animals. She just churns out those eggs every 24 - 36 hours (I had to look up chicken eggs one day because I wanted to know the hows & whys. I do stuff like this I am odd.) So, I ate my egg salad. Very simple. Eggs, mayo (real mayo, none of this Miracle Whip stuff), a little fresh ground pepper, a little kosher salt. Voila! Served open face on wheat toast. I had some strawberries on the side too. What a yummy lunch.

Dinner, I turned to my old favorite. Risotto. But, since I was making this THE meal, it needed a little extra. I decided on roasted veggies. I didn't want steamed - I wanted roasted. I think roasting veggies brings out the sweetness. It allows the natural sugars to carmelize and get all delicious. I threw in some carrots, broccoli, zucchini and red peppers and let them cook up. I did start the carrots about 30 mins earlier since I knew they would take longer. Meanwhile, I made my traditional garlic parm risotto - I could seriously eat this stuff every day! After the risotto was done, I served it with the roasted veggies over it. I decided to cook the vegetables separately because I didn't want soft over cooked vegetables. The result was fantastic!

I had a great meat free Monday!

Easter Brunch

My mother in law left today after being here for more than 2 weeks. More than half of that was spent house/cat sitting our sick little kitty cat.

When she made her plane reservation, she didn't realize that the day she chose to leave was Easter. Her plane left at 2, so since I couldn't make an Easter dinner, I decided to make an Easter Brunch. Granted, we BARELY celebrate Easter - it's definitely more for the kids & they like the candy.  But it was a good excuse to make a good brunch. I had a few things on my menu - nothing complicated. There was only 5 of us.

Breakfast Casserole
Fruit Salad
Pancakes for the kids.

First, the casserole.  I wanted bacon. We bought bacon the other night (we got yummy apple wood smoked bacon from the butchers counter at the grocery store!), so I decided that it would be the "main" ingredient in my breakfast casserole. I took to the internets and found one on Recipe Zaar. I don't know why, but I like that site for recipes. I decided on their "Breakfast Egg Casserole". Helpfully, I already had fresh spinach as well as eggs. I just needed some cheese and bread. I got work on cooking the bacon and wilting the spinach and then dicing up the bread for the casserole. Everything came together very quick and easily. Oh yeah, I added garlic. I add garlic to anything I can. I thought this might need a little extra something. It came out pretty well. David and I talked about the fact that we both felt it was missing something. We weren't sure what. I think perhaps some red pepper or Tabasco would help liven it up - or even a spicier sausage instead of bacon. It just needed a little "oomph".

After making the casserole and getting it into the oven, I started on the fruit. Very simple - nothing fancy. Cut up fresh strawberries & kiwi, added some organic blueberries and last but not least, some red grapes. Mixed it, ta da! Fruit salad. I don't like anything extra on my fruit. Just the way it is, thank you very much!

Finally, I needed something for the children. Pancakes. Now, I have definitely made pancakes using bisquick, but I wanted to use something else. Something more from scratch. I recalled Alton Brown making a "mix" for pancakes. A dry mix that could be ready to go at any time once you add the wet ingredients. I went for it. Super easy stuff. If you know me, you know I love Alton. I love knowing WHY things do things in cooking. I could go on... I won't.

Anyway, pancakes. So, I made the pancakes.

Wow. They were great! Never ever ever again will I use a mix. There's no reason. These were 100x better. Even better - the mix made about 20 so I made them all and froze them! Now, the kids have yummy, made from scratch pancakes for breakfast before school. I think I will do this more often. Oh yes, and as a bonus, I made them in the shape of Mickey Mouse! I bought a Mickey pancake former when we were at Disney. What a treat on Easter. (one more note about pancakes, I am kind of a syrup snob now... no more fakey syrup. Maple all the way. REAL maple!)

Often, I hear how people say they don't cook because it's too hard. It's SO not! This morning, I got a nice Mocha Latte, watched the Princess and the Frog movie and made an entire Easter Brunch - all before noon. I wasn't rushed, it was easy and best of all it was all from SCRATCH!

Pam & Heather's Baking Bonanza

What do you get when you have two friends who love to cook and have a bit of I'm-glad-winter-is-over enthusiasm? You get a Bake Fest, apparently. It was kind of a last minute deal. I had been thinking about the idea of baking and then Pam conveniently asks me if I'm interested in cooking over the weekend. We didn't really have a plan. My kitchen contained an abundant number of bananas to use up and I also needed to make something chocolatey. She showed up mid-morning and I already had an enormous stack of potential recipes. We settled on merely 2 recipes... at first.

What a great day. We blazed through 6 recipes in 5 hours - a real accomplishment for us since we tend to not be that motivated when we cook together. We learned that we should really start cooking before lunch, otherwise we apt to lounge around and knit rather than do anything else (not a bad idea, however). The best part is that I was able to kill (oops, recycle) 6 sheets of paper from my massive recipe file -- I have saved hundreds of recipes from magazines for many, many years.

The Dark Chocolate and Cherry Brownies from Cooking Light (above photo) seemed like an obvious first choice. If you're gonna do chocolate, go all the way -- these brownies are RICH. It helped that Pam brought some black onyx dutch cocoa powder from Savory (If you haven't been to Savory (both in Denver and Boulder), go. now. really. go.). I didn't have enough cherry preserves, so we substituted with raspberry jam (always on hand) and a few dried cherries. We weren't exactly fighting over the leftover batter (not our style), but it was as competitive as she and I can get over food.

Next came the obligatory banana recipe: Banana-Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies, also from Cooking Light. Oatmeal is good for you. Bananas are good for you. So I pronounce these cookies "healthy". We (well, one of us) even forgot to include the vanilla and they were still scrumptious. Rum was going to be the substitute for vanilla, so we'll have to try making these again.

We were curious about these spicy, Moravian Wafer cookies. They're kind of a hassle to work with (not a huge fan of rolling out dough - I'm lazy that way). Molasses and spices pack a wallop of taste, so it's a good thing these gingerbread-like cookies are small. This is as Easter as it gets around here: note the little bunnies and chicks. It would have been easier to make rounds instead of shapes with pokey, pointy parts, but our cookies look better.

Once we blew through those recipes, we realized, to our horror, that we were dangerously low on muffins.

To prevent a potential catastrophe, we made Easy Morning Glory Muffins, a recipe from AllRecipes (a regular person). It looked tasty with the shredded carrot, coconut, and dried fruit. We substituted banana for the apple (good choice), and replaced some of the oil with applesauce (also a good choice). We also switched the walnuts for pecans (my favorite). This is a recipe with a lot of potential -- I can see making these and freezing for breakfasts, etc.

Lunchtime!

Avocados, smoked swiss cheese, mushrooms, cilantro, tomato, ciabatta bread and some dijon mustard... then we were ready for more baking.


We figured that we definitely needed more cookies. I mean, who stops at only two kinds? Plus, one of us accidentally doubled the baking powder, so we *had* to make a double batch. Orange Shortbread Cookies with Chocolate Chips from Bon Appetit had been on my recipe radar since 2003. The cookies originated at a 'funky little eatery' called Bump & Grind, located in Denver. 'Funky' eh? I've been there. In fact, both Pam and I have been there together for brunch. It's certainly more than 'funky' when the cross-dressing waiter/tress decides to give a lap dance to a teenager for his birthday. And before noon, no less. The food was good, yes -- but I honestly don't remember the food. The place unfortunately closed this past month.

Finishing off our baking marathon, it seems most appropriate to make Maple-Almond Granola, since it's fast and one of the only baking items left to do (other than pie or cake or the like). We've made granola before, so we know what we like. We like oatmeal. And maple syrup. And good berries (not raisins). This granola is loose and not pressed into bars. We improvised, as usual, although Pam tried to follow the recipe (or so she says).

Back to cooking

Ah... it's so nice to cook at home again. I missed it so much. When I went to the store on Tuesday, I knew I would be buying a lot. I tried to do my best to make a list from recipes that I wanted to make. My mother in law was shocked that I wasn't using coupons. Well... most of my list was FRESH! There's no coupons for fresh veggies. This made me happy.

I don't remember where I read it, but I read SOMEWHERE that bargain shoppers are like bottom feeders. They are buying the crap. The junk. The cheap stuff. You get a coupon for Hamburger Helper, and you can get like 10 of them for $5. Or you have coupons for chips or hot dogs. Get the point. It felt good to not be a bottom feeder anymore.

Anyway, back to the point. Because I knew I would be working a lot starting Wednesday night, I wanted something easy, but good. I wanted a crock pot recipe. But after the vacation, I knew I wanted vegetarian. I also knew the kids wouldn't eat it. I Googled  "vegetarian crock pot recipes". I got lots of lentils. Lots beans. I didn't want these. One caught my eye. Slow Cooker Mediterranean Stew. Yum. It even reminded me of the ratatouille. A little. I didn't include the squash - mainly because it's not squash season so I didn't see a lot out. But I didn't need it. My crock pot was FULL!

I served it over brown rice with a side salad. Holy yum. Loved it. It is going to be my lunch tomorrow. I had a totally vegetarian day and loved it.

What did the kids eat, you ask? Well... brown rice. They like rice. Yay! I also cooked a little broccoli, cut up a few strawberries for the girl, a veggie burger for the boy.  It was all good.

I drove nearly 3000 miles and didn't go through a drive-thru

Remember my reason for starting this blog back in January? The trip? Well, it's over and done and this is a post about that trip. It's not a recipe post at all. If you are looking for one, move on. Hx has posted some yummy stuff in my absence.

This post is about not eating junk - while on vacation.

We drove all the way from Wisconsin to Florida. We did it in stages. Day 1 took us to Clarksville, TN. Day 2 took us to Atlanta and the Georgia Aquarium and spending the night in Macon (where our cars' wiring to the starter decided to die, but that's another post all together) and finally to Orlando Florida on Day 3. Driving down we packed LOTS of snacks for the kids, water, even milk (the Organic Valley boxed stuff that doesn't need to be refrigerated). We ate sandwiches instead of junk food.

Once we got to Disney we stayed at the Fort Wilderness Cabins. This is on the camp ground at Disney. I'll admit, I had never considered staying at the camp ground. People go to Disney to be pampered. But upon researching the cabins it offered everything we wanted. A room with a full bed for me and my husband, bunk beds for the kids and a full, regular murphy bed for my mom. We all had our own space. Did I mention it had a FULL working kitchen?? When we arrived on Monday evening we didn't dash for the food court or other Disney Dining options. Nope. We fired up the grill and had burgers!

Even better, the next morning I made pancakes, eggs and bacon for breakfast!! Do you even KNOW what Disney charges for food?? We were saving a ton even if the cabin was a little more than an "economy" room.  The cabin offered a private area. My mom could walk right in from the car without walking a mile to one of the million rooms. The kids could make all the noise they wanted - no one under us - no one below us. Can you tell I loved them??

On Tuesday we hit up Magic Kingdom - after that yummy breakfast. For lunch, I had scheduled reservations at the Crystal Palace. I chose this because of the offerings of vegetarian fare that various Disney web sites said that they had.  Crystal Palace is NOT cheap. BUT... since we didn't dine out for breakfast, we had one big lunch. It was a buffet. It was an awesome buffet. Most of what I had was vegetarian. I loved the ratatouille. I loved the broccoli. The mashed potatoes. Yum. By the time we were done it was 2pm and that was pretty much it for the day.

Know what the best thing was?? I didn't eat any of the junk that I usually do at Disney! Better yet?? I never felt weighed down or tired or bloated.

My point of this post is that I am clearly learning to eat better. No more junk, drive thrus, fries, burgers etc...  I crave fresh veggies now. I WANT organic food more. I need healthier stuff. I am looking forward to getting back and making my own stuff.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised (and hope!) that maybe perhaps I even lost a pound or two on this trip.

Birthday Beets

This past Friday a couple of us celebrated a friend's birthday (30th?). How great is it when the one you're celebrating for also does most of the grocery shopping, the prep work and half of the cooking before you arrive? She even asked *me* what I'd be interested in for the meal. I wanted beets, knowing they are one of her favorites as well. All I had to do was bring the wine.

So she decided on Marinated Giant White Beans and Beets from the New York Times, along with Skordalia and, for dessert, Lemon Bars. "Giant white beans" are just big lima beans in disguise, but they taste better maybe because they're bigger, or maybe because they're served with something else that's actually tasty.

We decided that Skordalia should be known as "German or Greek pesto". Garlicky Goodness! It was perfect with the beans and the entire loaf of bread we wolfed down.

Repeat after me: "Beets are delicious." I sometimes have cravings for beets. I don't care what crap your mom served to you when you were a kid - go get some, scrub, chop and roast them. Roasted beets with salt, pepper and olive oil are some of the most tastiest things on the planet. Add some sweet potatoes, shallots and maybe some dill or rosemary or topped with feta and some balsamic vinegar. It was change you into a beet lover. Golden yellow beets are also good and don't stain, but lack the peaty punch I crave. Canned beets should be banned. And pickled beets - meh. Beets are, of course, uber-healthy to boot.


Who can resist an ooey-gooey lemon bar? So glad that Pam added the lemon zest, which the recipe did not call for. Happy Birthday!