A week of small firsts

I made two new (and SUPER easy!) things to taste this week. 

1. Kale Salad (I hear so much about this lately!)
2. Cranberry Sauce (It's almost Thanksgiving!)

I love cranberry sauce in a can (it's pretty much cranberry-juice jello), but I don't have many fond memories of real cranberry sauce.  And the few times I've tried to use Kale haven't exactly been successful either... but for some reason I put both of these things in my grocery basket this week.  A little bit of internet research later, and voila - 2 unbelievably easy creations that taste great!

Cranberry Orange Sauce
This sauce came out sweet and tangy, with a strong orange flavor.

Ingredients:

• Pint of fresh cranberries
• cup or 2 of orange juice
• cup or so of water

Rinse cranberries, and check for stems.  Place cranberries in a saucepan, and add enough orange juice to cover the berries.  Cover, and bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer.  The cranberries will start "popping", and turn into a mushy fruit.  Continue cooking, adding water to get the consistency to your liking.  Stir occasionally, to avoid burning bottom.  Mash with a potato masher or puree with a blender or immersion blender, and voila!   I served as a sauce for turkey meatballs and mashed turnips, and then mixed into the baby's yogurt at breakfast - it was a hit both ways.  This could definitely work as a dessert component... maybe over ice cream or some apple pie... Mmm... pie...

PS- I tried eating a raw cranberry for fun - they taste exactly like great cranberry juice, with the texture of an apple.  Really strange, and sooooo sour!


Kale & Chicken Pasta Salad
You can play with the ratios of the ingredients, these are just suggestions

Ingredients:

• Bunch of Kale, rinsed and torn into smallish pieces - kale is very difficult to measure... I'd wager I used about 10 big leaves of curly kale - filled half of a large mixing bowl while still fluffed up.
• Zest and juice of 1/2 a lemon
• Ample Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 1/2 Tsp salt
• Roughly chopped chicken - I used about 2 cups of leftover chicken breast
• cooked pasta - I used a bag and a half of gluten free shells (I was trying to feed a crowd)
• diced granny smith apple
• Carrots or Celery - I parboiled some carrots so the baby could eat the salad too
• 1/2 to 1 cup of mayonaise
• Salt and Pepper
• (grapes would have been good to add - but I didn't have any)

Clean the kale, and place in giant mixing bowl with the salt, lemon, zest, and some olive oil.  Use your hands to "massage" the kale, working the salt, lemon and oil into the leaves. I did this for probably about 60 seconds, until the kale was slightly relaxed and shiny green (and then I let it sit while I finished preparing the other ingredients).  Mix in all of the remaining ingredients, add more oil, salt & pepper to taste, and eat! You're done!

Baby Sandwiches... Bocaditos?

I give my 1 year old sandwiches. 

Am I a bad mom?

It's not that I'm lazy... it's just that she want's whatever we're having, and she wants to be the boss of her own food.  We were at the point where she wouldn't eat her own food, but then 30 minutes later she'd be standing on her tippy toes, eating my ham and cheese sandwich right out of my hand!

Enter the mini sandwich.
I slice a piece of bread in half the hard way - making 2 really thin slices. Then I cut it into a few smaller pieces.  So far she's had peanut butter and jelly and turkey and cheese.  Peanut butter and jelly sticks together, but also sticks all over her... whereas turkey and cheese is an open invitation to play with her food, she dismantles it and eats the pieces she wants, then throws the rest on the floor or tries to feed it to us!  Today we added in thinly sliced cucumbers and tomatoes, just to add to the variety of food thrown on the floor.

The hardest part about the whole thing... is not eating her mini sandwich myself.  Those little bite size pieces are so tempting!

Fall Tomatoes

I didn't plant any tomatoes this year, since the past few years I've tried but had little success.  Amazingly, I had two volunteer tomato plants come up in random parts of my garden, and they made more tomatoes than any of my past attempts!  The tomatoes took their time to ripen, and are now finally ready to eat... now that it's October.

So now that I have a bunch of tomatoes, I tried making gazpacho!  I've had a craving for it lately, and the store bought stuff just doesn't do it for me.  So here's the (delicious) version I made up last night :)

Liz's Awesome Gazpacho

• 1 English cucumber
• 1/2 yellow pepper
• 1/4 onion
• 4 or 5 medium tomatoes
• 1 medium clove garlic
• Juice of 1 lime
• ~1/4 cup parsley
• ~2 cups mint leaves
• ~ 1/4 cup olive oil
• Salt & pepper
• 1 cup of warm (softened) cooked white rice

Roughly chop everything and add to a food processor or blender.  I used a giant food processor, you could work in batches in a smaller blender or food processor and combine pured veggies in a big mixing bowl.  Add salt and pepper to taste, I probably used around 1 tsp of salt, but if you want flavor with less salt I bet you could substitute some lime zest.

Serve cold, and enjoy!

I cooked something that wasn't chicken!!

Woohoo!  I cooked something that wasn't chicken, score!

As I've mentioned before, I have a myriad of food rules at the moment, no gluten for myself, and no milk, eggs, peanuts or soy for the baby (via breastmilk).  I added goat milk into my diet a few weeks ago (apparently it's usually cow's milk that causes trouble), and so far so good.  And SO GOOD!!  It's amazing what you can find in a grocery store these days!  So far, I have found:

• Goat milk
• Goat milk yogurt
• Goat milk drinkable yogurt (milk/yogurt hybrid)
• Goat cheese (normal)
• Goat milk cheddar
• Goat milk brie
• Goat milk hard cheese
• Goat milk feta
• Goat milk BUTTER!!!

After months of no dairy, these finds have opened up a whole new world!!  Obviously some of these taste more like substitutions than the real thing (for example, goat milk cheddar doesn't really taste like cheddar), but some of them are DELICIOUS!!  For example, one of the yogurts I tried this past week was one of the best yogurts I've ever had, ever.  It was only flavored with honey, and it was light and creamy and delightful!

Another interesting find that I'm very happy with is goat milk butter.  It's expensive, and it doesn't quite taste like butter, but so far it's been great for cooking dinner!  I've used it to cook a few different  things, and it lends a buttery flavor I've been missing for so long, while at the same time infusing the meal with a slight goat cheesy flavor.  So in other words, if it's a meal that would taste good with goat cheese added, you get a two-for-one!  Here are two easy meals I threw together earlier this week -  I realize they're both seafood - but butter and cheese go well with these mild fish/shellfish!  And they were both delicious!

Liz's Scampi-ish Shrimp with Goat butter
Ingredients

• Goat butter (1 or 2 tbsp)
• White Wine (1/2 cup?)
• Juice of 1/2 lemon
• Zest of 1 lemon
• Fresh Parsley, chopped (1 tbsp?)
• Fresh Dill, chopped (1/2 tbsp?)
• 1 carrot, shredded or grated
• 1 medium zuchinni, shredded or grated
• garlic, minced, 1 or 2 tbsp (i used 4 smallish cloves)
• Shrimp - I used about 1/2 pound (of frozen pre-cleaned split shell, I removed shells)
• Olive oil
• Salt and Pepper
• Rice or pasta (optional)

Instructions

1. Mince/grate/chop/shell your goods, and open your wine.
2. Add butter and garlic to large pan over medium heat, and have a swig of wine.
3. When garlic is fragrant, add carrots and cook over medium/low heat until carrots begin to soften.
4. Add wine if things seem dry. 
5. Add zuchinni, shrimp, and remainder of wine.
6. When shrimp are beginning to turn pink, add parsley, dill, lemon juice, and zest, and a turn or two of olive oil, stirring well to combine.
7. When shrimp are curled, pink, and opaque, season with salt an pepper to taste, and serve.

We ate this over white rice, and it was delicious.  However, the shredded vegetables are somewhat noodle-like, and it would be ok without any rice or pasta for anyone eating low-carb. There weren't many leftovers, but the small amount remaining was delicious the next day too!


Here's an even easier recipe, that highlights more of the goat butter flavor:

Liz's Baked Cod with Goat Butter
Ingredients

• Juice of one lemon
• 2 tbsp goat butter
• 3/4 lbs of fresh cod 
• fresh herbs (optional) such as parsley and dill
• salt and pepper

Instructions

1. Melt the butter, and combine with the lemon juice.
2. Place the cod filet(s) in a glass baking dish, and pour half of the butter/lemon mixture over the fish.  Flip the fish over, and pour the remaining butter/lemon over the fish.
3. Bake at 350 for 30-45 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fish.  Fish is done when it comes apart easily with a fork, and is opaque.  Garnish with chopped fresh herbs, and serve.  We had this with sauteed asparagus and beet greens, over white rice.

baby food is gross

My poor baby, I'm making her eat such gross things!  There's so much advice out there about what to feed your baby and when, and somehow it got all muddled up and really she's just stuck eating things that don't taste good!

We started with sweet potatoes, since they're super healthy and a carb, but not a grain.  I cooked them myself, and they were pretty gross.  I don't like sweet potatoes all that much, and it appears that neither does my baby.  Then she didn't go to the bathroom for over a week!  So that was the end of sweet potatoes, and the beginning of prunes, haha.

Prunes, she seems to like, hooray!  But you can't just eat prunes all day every day... so we added in some green beans.  I like green beans, but not steamed and pureed, blech!  She likes them mixed with prunes... i guess perspective is everything - i think it's gross, but she's got nothing but milk and sweet potatoes for comparison!

Now she's eating some avocado (or as i like to say, aguacate!  It's spanish but sounds japonese!), which she seems to love, hooray!  I like it too, so when she doesn't finish it, i do, haha.  Today we're going to start eating pears, which I'm excited about because then i think i'll finally stop feeling guilty about making her eat gross things... pears are nice!

But the best part of all about my baby girl eating some real food, is that I've been given the ok to add some questionable foods back into my diet - like goat milk!  Sounds strange, but when you haven't had any cheese or yogurt since december, goat milk is FABULOUS!!!  And the fancy grocery stores have all kind of goodies, like goat milk cheddar and feta!  I'm so happy, and it opens up a whole new world in the kitchen!  Soon I'm going to add back in eggs as well, and all will be right with the world.  It will still be gluten free, but baby steps.  Also, king arthur's chocolate cake is so incredible all the men (and women) in my family loved it and couldn't tell it was gluten free - my mom even made it with fake eggs!  Hooray chocolate cake!

I did it!

I finally found the time to make a baby blanket for my OWN baby!  It started out as a way to use up some silly yarn my mom gave me, but it turned out really nice, in fact I'm really proud of it!  I made up the crochet pattern using a stitch I saw gain popularity recently on Pinterest (the bobble stitch), and I think it will be a great texture for the baby to explore.

My baby's new blanket!

 I used a combination of single crochet and bobble stitches in gray and rainbow, and I finished the project by working around the edges once with the rainbow yarn in single crochet.  If it weren't so fluffy I would have done used half-double crochet stitches, but with this boucle yarn I didn't need to.  I used Lion Brand Boucle yarn (which has apparently been discontinued) and Red Heart Grey (not sure which shade exactly).

Pattern I made up (roughly, I've never tried to write a pattern before)

Grey stripe:

• foundation single crochet in multiples of 4+2, chain 1, 
• single crochet 6 (?) rows
• skip first stitch, *bobble stitch, single crochet in next 3 stitches* until end, chain 1
• single crochet 7 (?) rows
• change colors, chain 1

Color Stripe:

• skip first stitch, single crochet in next 2 stitches, *bobble stitch, single crochet in next 3* until end, chain 1
• single crochet 1 row
• skip first stitch, *bobble stitch, single crochet 3* until end, 
• single crochet 1 row
• change colors, chain 1

Repeat until desired length. 

To finish:
Working with colored yarn, single crochet all the way around the blanket.  Work in ends, wash & dry as allowed by yarn type (I put in washing machine and dryer), voila!  No blocking necessary.

Paella!

I made Paella last night, mmmm!!!!

Paella used to scare me.  It looks like it's hard to make, and I don't like shellfish.  But then one year for Christmas, my mom said she wanted a Paella pan (inspired by my recent trip to Spain), so I got her one.  And she got me one!  So ready or not, I felt obliged to at least try cooking Paella. Our first attempt was New Years Dinner 2012, a mix of chicken, seafood, and vegetable paellas.  We tried cooking two at once, which was a little overwhelming to say the least!  They were decent, but I was a little worn out from trying and decided to just stick to my crockpot risotto for a while.

Paella New Years Eve 2011-2012

Then one day a few months ago, my sister came to visit and we felt adventurous!  After browsing through my Paella cookbooks, we selected a recipe for Chorizo and Olive Paella from this cookbook.  I love chorizo!  And it turns out I love this Paella!  I made it again last night, though I skipped the addition of fancy (or any) ham, because all I had were some slices of maple ham from the deli, and I wasn't sure they'd go well with chorizo and olives!

Last night's Chorizo Paella!

Making Paella is actually very simple, and it's ok if you don't have a fancy pan.  Any wide shallow pan that is oven safe would work, and this enormous specialty pan I have makes enough for 6 or 7 people - you don't need that much!  It's similar to making risotto, but less labor intensive, almost as easy as my rice cooker risotto but much more delicious!

I don't feel it would be appropriate to post the recipe I used since I didn't write it, however, I feel that Paella recipes are likely to be very forgiving, as long as you get the rice/liquid recipe right.   This recipe that made a looooot of food used 3 cups of Arroz Bomba (fancy spanish version of arborio rice, arborio rice is fine to use for this) and 6-7 cups of broth (I say 6-7 is because the recipe calls for 6, but I put 7 cups on to boil since I knew some would evaporate).

The basic methodology is: 

• chop all your ingredients (garlic and lots of parsley are key),
• saute the meat and flavors (garlic, etc) in lots of oil, 
• stir in the rice to coat it all in flavor, 
• pour in hot broth (bring to a boil separately), 
• cook over one or two burners rotating pan and stirring occasionally until the liquid is mostly absorbed (in other words, until the risk of spilling while transferring to the oven is minimal), 
• add in any soft vegetables (snow peas in this case)
• cook in a hot oven for 10 minutes, and 
• rest under foil for 10 minutes.

Don't be afraid!  It looks scarier than it is!

What to do with all that leftover chicken

I mentioned this in another post, but as I'm sitting here eating some leftovers, I've decided it's worthy of it's own post.  The sausage flavor is delicious!

Sausage and Chicken Soup!

Ingredients (approximate amounts, I don't measure):

• 2 large cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 tbsp olive oil (i use extra virgin)
• 4 links of italian sausage, casings removed
• 1/2 medium fennel bulb, chopped (1.5 - 2 cups?)
• 2 cups chopped carrots
• 3-4 cups of cooked rice (it can probably be done with uncooked and extra water - but we had leftovers)
• several cups of spinach, rinsed and chopped or baby (it melts and disappears)
• salt and pepper
• 1-2 cups leftover cooked chicken, chopped (i used about 1 cup dark meat)
• 4-6 cups of chicken stock (i used homemade)
• 2-4 cups of water

Directions:

1. Heat the oil and saute the garlic and sausage, making sure to mush up the garlic into pieces as it cooks
2. Add the fennel, carrots, salt and pepper, and stir occasionally until beginning to soften
3. Add the chicken and the broth and enough water to cover, plus a couple of inches (depending on pot size) to account for the rice to be added later, and bring to a boil
4. Reduce to a simmer, add the rice and spinach and cook until the spinach has thoroughly melted and the carrots are cooked to your liking.  It will look like an insufficient amount of rice at first, but the longer it sits, the more water it will absorb until it balloons up and you have porridge instead of soup (don't worry, it will still taste good!)
5. Enjoy!

New Mom Survival - Crockpot Chicken Thighs!

Yesterday I explained how to very easily roast a whole chicken.  But what if you want something a little... saucier, with less raw-chicken-touching?  Easy!  Frozen chicken thighs are one of my best friends since having a baby.

It all started with this recipe, but as usual I didn't follow it very closely.  I didn't have any apricot preserves, so instead added about 1/4 cup of water and a handful of chopped dried apricots - turned out fabulous!!  Since then I've made a few variations (no soy sauce now that baby is soy-free), and have tried making up a few recipes of my own with varied success.  A few weeks ago I attempted thighs in homemade barbeque sauce, it worked out pretty well!  Tomato paste, garlic, molasses, and honey, mix up, add thighs, and cook for 8 hours!  I might add some vinegar next time, but i was pretty happy with it :)  Another time i added some curry powder and later mixed it with spinach, rice and coconut milk for a southeast-asian inspired soupy stew.  The great thing about chicken thighs is that they stay moist, and they're very adaptable.  And crockpot meals are forgiving, so if you don't measure very closely it's ok!

As a compliment to most of my chicken thigh meals, I plug in the rice cooker and make use of the steamer attachment for some carrot coins or green beans.  If you don't have a rice cooker, go ahead and add some carrots right into the crockpot with your chicken thighs, or stir in some baby spinach leaves last minute for an easy vegetable!

Back to blogging!

It's been a long hiatus, but I had an excellent excuse! Someone else required ALL of my attention for the fast few months, someone very demanding. And adorable. And complicated!

My excuse for not blogging

In addition to my own dietary struggles (colitis related - low fiber, gluten free, avoiding peanuts), I now have baby's dietary requirements... Which for the time being include presumed (hopefully temporary) allergies to dairy, soy, and eggs. What a challenge!! There was a 2 week period where I ate nothing but Home-roasted chicken and rice. And bananas - I had bananas and rice for breakfast. I lost a lot of weight... Look at the bright side, right? I've expanded my dietary horizons since then, cooking dinner many nights and even getting back into the world of grown ups - vacuuming occasionally, thinking about gardening, crocheting, reading, et cetera. Exciting things!

But to pay tribute to the food I survived on through the roughest time, here are some incredibly easy tips for making the most of chicken in your crockpot! So easy a mother of a newborn can do it!

Equipment:

• Big crockpot
• Small whole chicken (to fit in crockpot, sometimes called fryer chickens)
• Salt and pepper
• Couple of carrots
• Couple stalks of celery
• Optional: herbs, lemon, ginger, onion, garlic, etc.

Instructions for roasted chicken:

1. Thaw chicken if frozen.
2. Wash carrots and celery. Place in bottom of crockpot.
3. Rinse chicken inside and out and remove any innards. Optional: remove skin.
4. Season chicken inside and out with salt and pepper. If using any optional ingredients, stuff into body cavity or rub on now. I like to put a couple chunks of ginger and a lemon (poked with a fork) inside, and sprinkle lemon zest outside.
5. Place chicken on top of carrots and celery (to lift chicken up off bottom slightly).
6. Cover with crockpot lid and cook for 8-10 hours on low. No liquid needed!
7. Meat should be easy to remove with a fork and knife, no need for creepy picking of the chicken carcass.

Instructions for chicken stock:

1. Leave chicken carcass, vegetables, and drippings in crockpot. Remove anything too gross for your tastes, like a blob of fatty skin. And it's probably a good idea to remove any lemons, since lemon rind can be bitter.
2. Add any additional flavorings you like, such as fresh herbs or an onion (quartered).
3. Fill crockpot with cool water, cover, and cook 8-10 hours on low or overnight.
4. Ladle stock through a strainer and voila!

I like to roughly chop some chicken, carrots, celery and/or fennel and make some chicken soup with the broth! Throw in a bay leaf and some rice and you've got an easy homemade healthy meal! (tip - add a little sweet Italian sausage for a change of flavor!)