GETTING IT TOGETHER

Watermelon Pickles

2008-07-27T03:40:00.003-05:00

Quick! While watermelons are in abundance! MAKE THESE PICKLES! I would never, ever steer you wrong. As I've said elsewhere, these things are DIVINE. And as always, if I can do this, ANYONE can do this. Here's the recipe.

WATERMELON PICKLES

3 lbs. watermelon rind, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
5c Sugar
2c Apple Cider Vinegar
1c Water
2T Whole Cloves
1 ½ T Whole Allspice
2T Stick Cinnamon (I wasn't sure how to translate that, but I used 6 sticks)
1 Lemon sliced

Let cubes soak overnight in large pot in salted water to cover. Drain. Cover with fresh cold water. Bring to boil and cook over low heat until tender. Drain. Combine rest of the ingredients and stir over medium heat until tender. Boil 5 minutes. Add watermelon-rind cubes; simmer until transparent-About 15 minutes. Remove spices and pack pickles into jars and process in a water-bath canner for 15 minutes.

And here are my notes, gathered from asking around and examining other recipes:

Peel the smooth, shiny outer skin from the rind, using a potato/carrot peeler. You don't have to take off any more than the outermost skin.

For the overnight soaking, use 1/4 cup pickling salt for each quart of water needed to completely cover rind chunks. For the rind from one large watermelon (the weight of which I have NO idea), this came out to about 2 quarts of water and 1/2 cup of pickling salt.

I rinsed the cubes twice, then covered them in fresh water and brought them to a slow boil. I cooked them until they were tender but not yet translucent.

I went ahead and pre-cooked the pickling mixture just enough to get all the sugar dissolved and get the ingredients to start melding together well.

After combining everything, I'm pretty sure I let it cook for a bit longer than 15 minutes. I let the melond-rind chunks get fairly translucent, but not soft or soggy.

I would add that YES, you DO need a jar funnel. Don't be like me and think you don't. You do. You also need one of those jar-lifters, while you're at it. Now get pickling!

Pea-Hull Jelly (Purple Hull Peas)

2008-07-25T23:53:00.004-05:00

After shelling purple-hull peas, save the hulls, and wash them at least three times.

Pack clean hulls into a heavy pot, and cover with about 5 cups of water.

Boil hulls until tender. It's not the hulls you're concerned with--it's the purplish "tea" that you're making of the boiling water. Steep those babies until the water's pretty and purple.

Strain the "tea" from boiling the hulls, and pour 4 cups of it back into the saucepan.

Bring juice to a boil, then add 1 package of Sure-Jell (fruit pectin). Return liquid to a rolling boil, and add 5 cups of sugar.

Return liquid to a rolling boil again, and boil for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside for 5 minutes. Skim. Pour into hot, sterilized jars, seal, and process in a water-bath for 5 minutes. Set jars aside on a towel for 24 hours.

Pizza Night

2008-07-24T22:28:00.000-05:00

(cross posted at Ninja Poodles!)

I haven't gotten to the stage where this is all fun and easy like everyone says it's supposed to be, but maybe if we keep trying, huh? Maybe individual pizzas would be better, like Mir does. It's a heck of a mess to clean up, but maybe if I could get everyone involved in that, just like with making it, it would help? Yeah, I'm a genius. Someone let me know how that works, m'kay?

Pizza Night has potential, though. And I do REALLY love this recipe for pizza crust, adapted from the recipe that comes with Ricki Carroll's 30-Minute Mozzarella Kit, which I've discussed here already. This is one of those activities that has a very high "kid-friendly" rating, if you're keeping score.

Quick & Easy Pizza Dough (makes one 14" thick crust or two 12" thin crusts...or, you know, several that are smaller than that--whatever)

3-3.5 cups all purpose flour (I used white whole wheat)
1 pkg. or 1 Tbsp. rapid-rising yeast
3/4 tsp. salt
1 cup very warm--not hot--whey (you could also use buttermilk, or even regular milk)
2Tbsp. olive oil
1 Tbsp honey
Cornmeal for dusting pan

Combine 2 cups flour, dry yeast and salt, then stir in warm whey, olive oil, and honey until mixture is moist throughout. Stir in enough of the remaining flour to make a soft dough. Knead on lightly floured surface for about 5 minutes, until dough is smooth and elastic. Cover, and let rest on floured surface 10 minutes.

If you're in a hurry, just go on ahead with the next step after the 10 minute rest--it'll turn out fine. But if you have time, let the dough rise until doubled. It rises pretty quickly, so just get it ready 30 minutes to an hour ahead of time, and you'll have plenty of time for a rise. Then punch dough down and continue.

Lightly oil pizza pan(s), sprinkle with cornmeal, and roll dough out to fit pans. At this point, you can top your pizza(s) and bake them at 400F for 20-30 minutes 'til done. OR, if you have a few extra minutes, pre-bake the crust before topping it. Just prick the crust with a fork, and bake it for 5 minutes or so, until the surface is a little toasty. Then top and bake as usual.

Again: The steps you may omit are the rising of the dough and the pre-baking of the crust.

Yum! Now, since we've conquered the crust and the cheese, if someone has a great homemade pizza SAUCE recipe, let's have it!

Homemade Soft Pretzels

2008-07-18T02:08:00.003-05:00

There is also an Alton Brown recipe for these that looks promising, but I haven't yet tested it. But this one, this one is easy, fast, and VERY authentic with the inclusion of a boiling in water and baking soda prior to baking. I encourage you to try this, if you don't already make pretzels. If I can do it...well, you know the rest.

SOFT PRETZELS

For pretzel dough:

1 packet active dry yeast
1 C. warm (NOT HOT) water
2-3/4 C. flour
1 T. sugar or equivalent in honey
1/2 t. salt (slightly more if using kosher salt)
2 T. olive oil (you could also use softened butter)

For boiling:

4 C. water
2 T. baking soda

For topping pretzels prior to baking:

2 T. kosher salt OR herbs of choice OR cinnamon sugar OR finely grated cheeses OR anything your imagination dictates

Directions:

Add yeast and sugar or honey to warm water; let sit 5 minutes to allow yeast to get foamy.

Combine 1-1/2 cups flour, salt and oil in a large mixing bowl. Add yeast mixture and stir, or mix with stand-mixer, until well-combined. Add remaining 1-1/4 cups flour. Knead dough 3 minutes by hand, or half that time using a stand mixer with dough-hook attachment; form dough into a ball, lightly oil dough, turning to coat, cover, and rise for 1 hour. Dough should double in size. (I like to use my trusty old microwave trick here: boil a cup of water in the microwave, then push the cup of hot water into the corner and place your covered bowl with the dough in it inside the microwave and shut the door. DON'T TURN ON THE MICROWAVE.)

Punch down dough and divide it into 12 equally-sized pieces, and roll each piece into a ball (dust hands with flour to prevent sticking). Place balls on a cookie sheet or lightly floured surface. Cover lightly and rise for 15 minutes or so. Don't crowd them together on a plate like I did--it's not a disaster when they stick together, but it is a pain.

Roll each ball into a 16-inch length (make a snake!) and form into a pretzel shape. Or, divide each ball in half and roll each half into a 3-inch stick, about 3/4-inch wide. Let rest a few minutes so they can "fluff up" a bit.

Meanwhile, preheat oven to 475°F. Grease, or spray with cooking spray, a large cookie sheet. In a non-aluminum pot, bring remaining 4 cups water to a boil with baking soda. Add pretzels to the boiling water in batches (do not crowd) and boil 1 minute each, turning once.

Scoop pretzels out with a slotted spoon, allowing excess water to drip through. Place pretzels on cookie sheet and sprinkle with kosher salt or other desired toppings. Bake 10 minutes, until golden brown.

Makes 12 large pretzels or 24 sticks.

These yummy snacks are DEFINITELY best eaten right out of the oven, BUT, if you want to make a larger batch and store some, LEAVE OFF THE SALT or other toppings before baking. Bake them plain, and allow to cool COMPLETELY. Once the pretzels are TOTALLY cooled, place them into the freezer on an uncovered cookie sheet for flash-freezing. Once they're frozen solid (an hour or so--do NOT forget and leave them there overnight), place them into freezer bags for storage.

When it's time to prepare one for a snack, take it out of the freezer, and place onto a paper towel. Have your desired topping, salt, cinnamon sugar, whatever, ready to use, and working QUICKLY, one pretzel at a time, dip your finger into some water and brush the water over the tops of the frozen pretzels. Before the water can dry (seriously, work fast), sprinkle on the toppings. Then heat in the microwave in short bursts until pretzels are warm and soft. They'll be almost as good as when they were fresh from the oven.

My friend Erin informed me that her grandmother always brushed her pretzels with melted butter, and I have to admit that sounds divine. With the frozen ones, you could probably use the butter instead of water to make your toppings stick, too. That would be especially yummy with the sweet versions, and none too shabby with salt or other savory variations, either!

So now you have the straight dope: Go forth and pretzel! YUMMMMM.

Easy Cheesey

2008-07-14T19:50:00.004-05:00

You want Mozzarella Fresca. You want to make it yourself. Seriously, you do. You cannot imagine how easy and quick it is. First, just go and get this kit, since it comes with everything you need, plus recipes. It includes enough stuff to make 30 pounds of cheese. Here, watch this.

You get some milk. Your only real limitation is that it can't be "ULTRA" pasteurized. I was kind of astonished at how that limits your selection at the grocery store. If you have a cow or a goat, more power to you. Anyway, you dissolve some citric acid (included in your mozzarella kit) into a bit of distilled water, then stir that into the milk, and start gently heating it to 86 degrees F. (There is a dairy thermometer included in the kit.) The milk will curdle. This is good.

At the desired temperature, you dissolve a teensy bit of vegetable rennet into a bit of distilled water, then add that while gently stirring the milk, which has been removed from the heat. You only stir a few seconds, then just leave it alone for 5-8 minutes. When you come back, the curds should have separated from the whey. Recite "Little Miss Muffett," and then slice the curds into cubes. Optimally, they'll be fairly solid, like silken tofu, floating in clear yellow whey, so that you can ladle them out gently with a large slotted spoon, into a glass bowl.

If they're not holding together so well (these weren't), never fear. Just pour the whole mess into a giant bowl, through a large piece of butter muslin (included in the kit), and strain the whey out. What's left behind in the muslin will be your cheese curds.

In a glass bowl, zap the curds in the microwave for about a minute. (There is a microwave-free method that uses the heated whey; it's explained in the instructions that come with the kit.) Take them out and knead them like bread dough. You know, if bread dough was the consistency of ricotta. As you do this, more whey will be released from the curds, which will become firmer. Pour it off, and re-nuke the curds for about 30 seconds. Knead them again, being careful because they'll be getting hot. If you've ever made taffy, you'll be right at home. On the second or third heating, your curds will be getting melty and shiny, at least in the bowl. Knead them, and give them the stretch test.

If the cheese breaks instead of stretching, it's not quite done. Heat it again and knead some more. Start tasting the cheese, too. This is a good time to add a teaspoon or two of cheese salt (if you like--included in the kit), or any herbs or other flavor additives you might desire. Your cheese should be just about too hot to handle, and it should be getting very shiny and very stretchy!

It will also be tasting DELICIOUS. If you can get from this point to actually using the cheese in a recipe, you're showing remarkable restraint, because you're going to want to just eat it ON THE SPOT, while it's warm. No lie. My daughter tried repeatedly to convince me that "we could just eat this cheese for dinner, just like this, with nothing else, RIGHT NOW before Daddy gets home." This is a great thing to make with kids, but be sure to give them rubber gloves, since they don't have "Mom skin" on their hands.

When the cheese is shiny, smooth, and stretchable, start forming it into smallish round balls and plop the balls into a bowl of ice-water, for rapid cooling. Go ahead and make a joke about putting your balls on ice. You've earned it.

That's it! You have just made Mozzarella Fresca, and it took no more than 30 minutes, most of which were spent doing nothing but waiting. Aren't you pleased with yourself? But WAIT. That's not all. Remember all that whey you poured off the cheese? There's, like, 3/4 of a gallon of that stuff. Save it--it's liquid gold. To feel like a total superwoman (or man), go ahead and use a cup of it RIGHT NOW to make an easy, no-muss pizza dough. I'll print the recipe for that tomorrow. Tell the truth--will you not feel like something else entirely, when you serve a pizza and say that you made everything from the crust to the sauce to the CHEESE? Seriously. You are awesome. Respect.

Spoon-Tastic!

2008-07-10T22:51:00.003-05:00

This is an easy fresh corn spoonbread that is a great dish to make with kids--it's pretty much all about measuring and stirring and pouring, which are MY kid's favorite things to do in the kitchen. The recipe is from Southern Living, and is credited to Beth Trueblood of Lanesville, Indiana.

Fresh Corn Spoonbread

Ingredients:

1 cup white cornmeal mix
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar (or equivalent in honey)
1 teaspoon salt
4 cups fresh corn kernels (about 5 to 6 ears)
2 cups plain yogurt
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 cup butter, melted

Mix together dry ingredients, set aside.

Stir together corn and all remaining ingredients.

Add corn mixture to dry mixture, stirring just until blended and moist throughout. Pour batter into a 2-quart baking dish that's been sprayed with cooking spray.

Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes, until golden brown and set in the center. I may have tented some foil over the top for the last 20 minutes or so...I really can't recall. Just eyeball it, and don't let the top and edges dry out during baking.

Enjoy! It's some yummy stuff.

Fried Green Tomatoes. Yes, They're That Good.

2008-07-03T03:28:00.003-05:00

This recipe almost doesn't need words, but I'll use a FEW. Get some of these:

I have actually had people tell me that they couldn't find "this kind" of tomatoes, only the red ones. Well, these are the red ones. They're just not ripe yet. The rest of you quit laughing. There are actually people who have never seen a tomato before it hit the grocery store. Green tomatoes are apple-firm and wonderful to work with. A lot of people seem to prefer the ones that have just a hint of pink blush forming, but I like the pure greenies. I like fried pickles, too, though, so take that into account when you select your degree of green-ness.

Slice 'em up. I like to do them at an angle instead of straight across the middle, but that's just me. I promise the tomato-slicing police will not show up at your house if you do it differently.

Have a shallow dish of buttermilk, salted and peppered to taste, at hand, and as you slice the tomatoes, add the slices to the buttermilk. They don't have to soak or marinate, but a couple extra minutes couldn't hurt, right?

In another shallow dish, combine equal parts cornmeal or cornmeal mix, and flour. Take the tomato slices from the buttermilk, and dredge them in the flour mixture. I usually just lay the wet slices onto the flour, cover them, and lightly press the flour mixture into the tomato a little.

Cook in hot oil until golden-brown, then turn them over and brown the other side. The tomato slices will soften as they cook, but don't let them get all mushy. If your slices are no more than 1/4-inch thick, they should get done about the time your coating is golden-brown.

Drain slices separately on layers of paper towels, or in a wire basket or on a rack (though that won't get as much oil out as draining on paper), and serve HOT. We like ours with cold ranch dressing, but I'd love to hear any other ways of enjoying fried green tomatoes.

An alternate, and equally acceptable method is to simply dredge very thin green tomato slices in seasoned cornmeal mix and then fry them. That should get you a result like these slices, from a popular Arkansas country restaurant. Also yummy, if greasier and floppier.

Chicken & Squash Bake

2008-06-26T00:24:00.004-05:00

This is adapted from a Southern Living recipe, and it's just really good. Could easily go vegetarian--just leave out the chicken and swap the cream of chicken soup for cream of mushroom. Also, after having made it, I think it could use a whole lot more carrot, if you like carrots. This time of year, there can't be enough recipes for zucchini and yellow squash, so go get an armful and try this! It was a hit with the whole family, including my daughter, who, prior to this meal had never, ever consented to eat squash of any kind.

Chicken & Squash Bake

*2 to 3 pounds of zucchini AND straight- or crookneck yellow squash, sliced
*1 small, sweet onion (I used a Vidalia)
*Salt

Combine first three ingredients in a Dutch oven or other large, heavy pot. Add water just to cover, bring to boil, cook gently for 5 minutes. Drain veggies well. After I got the veggies out, I heavily salted and peppered the water they cooked in, and used it to boil 1/2 to 1 pound of skinless, boneless chicken until just cooked through. Then I took it out and shredded/cut it up.

Meanwhile, in a good-size bowl, combine:

*1 cup grated carrots (I think you could use twice as much if you wanted)
*8oz. (1 cup) sour cream (I used reduced-fat)
*1 can cream of chicken soup (I used 98% fat-free)
*1/2 tsp. salt (or to taste)

Fold the cooked veggies and chicken into the sour-cream mixture until well-combined. Set aside.

Melt:

*1/2 cup butter or substitute of your choice (I like Smart Balance 50/50 Butter Blend)

Into melted butter, stir:

*8oz. Herbed stuffing mix (I used Pepperidge Farm)

In a lightly greased (or sprayed with Pam) 9/13" casserole dish, spread half the stuffing mixture on the bottom of the dish. Pour all of the filling over that, then top with the other half of the stuffing mixture.

Bake, uncovered, at 350F, for 30-35 minutes, until golden and bubbly. I had to tent some foil over it at about 20-25 minutes, for the duration of the baking time.

This was Bella's bowl. The rest of us did eat off plates, but it's notable that the little one cleaned that bowl pretty well.

Some Kinda Crazy Chicken & Rice Thing

2008-05-22T19:28:00.006-05:00

Minimal housecleaning was accomplished today. And by minimal, I mean however much would keep it from being "none." I did get dinner accomplished, though, and that makes 3 nights in a row of home-cooking for my family (we had leftovers of Husband's Delight Casserole last night), and lately? That's saying something.

I started with a Spanish Chicken And Rice recipe, sent to me via Twitter by Angella. I started out only intending to change the white rice to brown rice, but that required pre-cooking of the brown rice, which in turn required altering the amount of liquid in the recipe, which I think changed the acid balance of the recipe, requiring lime juice, which made the whole thing cry out for additional spices. To cut to the chase, I'm just going to print what I made, instead of the original plus my changes. You may want to stick with the original. I'm not sure what I'd call this, but it wound up having a much more Mexican flavor to me than Spanish, but it was still good, and while it wasn't a hit with Bella due to the bell peppers and onions, Alex went back for a second helping, and I liked it.

Not-Quite-Spanish Chicken & Rice Skillet

3 cups cooked brown rice, cooked in stock (chicken, turkey, vegetable)

1 Tbsp Olive Oil
4 chicken breast halves
2 Tbsp chopped or minced garlic (I used jarred, pre-chopped)
1 medium onion, chopped coarsely (I used chopped, frozen onions & peppers)
1 bell pepper, sliced (I used a tri-color medley)
1/2 cup white cooking wine
1 14-oz. can petite diced tomatoes
1 bag frozen peas & carrots
Kosher salt & coarse-ground pepper to taste
Ground cumin to taste
Paprika to taste
Juice of one lime, or to taste

Got the brown rice cooking first--Alex does NOT like brown rice, so I have to cook the fool out of it for him to accept it. I cooked mine in some gorgeous turkey stock* that I made a couple of months ago out of this guy, and a bit of a new butter blend that I really like. While that was simmering, I started the chicken in the skillet.

I heated the skillet, and then the olive oil, to just a tick over medium heat, and placed the salted and peppered breast halves to sear in the skillet on both sides, then lowered the heat a bit, covered the skillet, and allowed the chicken to cook through a bit more.

I added the onion and peppers, which, I am not at ALL ashamed to admit, came from this frozen package.

I am not much about cleaning and chopping on weeknights, you know? These frozen bags of "recipe starters" are genius, and I'm going to be chopping and freezing some of the sweet Vidalia onions that are in season right now, for just such use in the future. I also cheated on the garlic, using jarred, minced garlic. Sue me. Chopping is for chumps.

Once the onion and peppers had softened up, I added the white cooking wine, diced tomatoes, rice, salt, and pepper. The lid went on that and it continued to simmer for 20 minutes.

Next came the frozen peas and carrots.

While those were steaming and heating through, I used two forks to pull apart the chicken breast halves, then added lime juice, ground cumin, paprika, and stirred it all well and let it simmer for another 5 minutes or so. And it was good.

*Everyone has their own method of making stock, and my way is just one of many, but I must say, I had ZERO issues with this stock turning cloudy or retaining fat in the broth--I have a freezer full of it, and it's just deep golden, clear, and lovely. This is all I did: When Alex was done filleting all the meat off the turkey, I took the frame (back, neck, wings), cut it into pieces small enough to fit in my giant Crock-Pot, and covered it with water. I added onion, celery, and carrots, and left the whole thing to cook very, very slowly all day long. I turned the heat up for the first couple of hours, just to get the frame cooked, but then dialed it down to low for 10 hours or so. When it was done, I rapid-cooled the whole crock in a sinkfull of ice-water, then filtered the liquid through a coffee filter into freezer bags for storage.

The Beginning Of Organization, And...Just YUM.

2008-05-20T20:37:00.007-05:00

I've got to start posting here again, because ever since I stopped, things have really gone downhill around the house. Apparently I need some accountability. I've tried, repeatedly, to pin down the cycle of despair, to find a starting point--you know how it goes: You can't get one area, like cooking healthy meals, in order, because the kitchen is a mess, and you don't have time to clean the kitchen because the laundry is backed up, and you can't put the laundry away because the closets are a mess, and you can't deal with the closets because the bedroom is a wreck, etc. What? Oh, that's just me? Well, so be it. It ends here. Or maybe I go down in flames--we shall see what we see.

Since everything is so interconnected, I finally just bit the bullet and chose an arbitrary place to start, and that place is meal planning and preparation. I have a week's worth of dinners and lunches planned and ingredients stocked, and the next natural step is cleaning and organizing the kitchen...again, we'll see. Bella and I have tomorrow to work on that, and I WILL be posting progress here. I'll also be regularly reporting on what we're cooking/eating, and the recipes we use, starting with tonight's dinner, which was SO YUMMY.

Last night, I put out a call on Twitter for "your go-to after-work meal," and got several great responses, most of which were quick, creative one-dish meals. This one came from Jenny (who adapted it from an old cookbook) at We're Not In Kansas Any More, Toto (she totally IS in Kansas), and she calls it "Husband's Delight." I'm printing her recipe as she sent it to me, with my minor modifications in parentheses. My changes in no way made the dish any better than Jenny's version, just slightly different.

Husband's Delight Casserole:
one bag large egg noodles - 12 or 16oz. (I used "dumpling" style noodles)
2lbs ground beef (I used ground venison)
1can tomato sauce
1 tsp. sugar (I forgot this)
salt, pepper, etc.
1 can diced tomatoes, plain or Rotel-style, according to personal taste (I omitted this)
1 bunch chopped green onions--the bulb end

16oz. (2 cups) sour cream (I used reduced-fat)
8oz. (1 cup) cream cheese, softened (I used Neufchatel)
other end of the green onions, chopped (I whirled the chives in food processor)
shredded cheese (I used about 2 cups of RF sharp cheddar & a sprinkle of parmesan)

Boil pasta. At same time, start the ground meat and chopped onions in a skillet. Brown, drain, return to skillet, add tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, salt & pepper, and whatever else you like to season.

Separately, mix up the sour cream, cream cheese, and green onions. When the ground meat mixture is cooked and has simmered for 10 minutes or so, start layering noodles, ground meat, and then cream mixture into two casserole dishes that have been sprayed with no-stick cooking spray. You can probably fit two full layers. As the final layer add the shredded cheese. Pop it into the oven at 350 or so for 15-20 min or until cheese is melted on top. Since it makes two casseroles, you can freeze one for later or give to someone else. If you freeze it, it's best to not add the cheese until read to cook.

My changes: I used ground venison because we had some on hand and it is extremely lean. I left out the diced tomatoes and just used tomato sauce instead, because everyone in my family, myself included, picks out chunks of tomatoes in any dish. I know, we're freaks. I also added garlic to the meat mixture, because venison, being so incredibly lean, does need a little "boost" in flavor.

Bella made the sour cream sauce, and pronounced it "super-delicious," which it totally was. I chose Neufchatel instead of cream cheese because it's softer even when cold, and lower in fat than cream cheese. I whirled the chives in my Magic Bullet for about 2 seconds, so that more of the chive-y goodness would be released into the sour cream sauce.

Instead of making two casseroles (which this recipe absolutely would make), I used my giant deep-dish casserole and just made one big whopping double-decker one, with a layer of shredded cheese in the middle as well as on top. I froze half of it after cooking, and saved the portion we didn't eat tonight for leftovers tomorrow. It's a LOT of food. I served it with green beans, and it was a hearty, hearty meal.

While I do like the lasagna-type presentation of layering the ingredients, it's a little fussy to assemble that way when you're pressed for time, so when I make this dish again (and I WILL make it again, because, as I said: YUM), I will probably mix everything together, including most of the shredded cheese, before putting it into the casserole dish to bake--I'll likely mix the sharp cheddar into the dish, and top it with a sprinkling of shredded Parmesan.

ADDENDUM: Jenny writes to say that she has tried preparing the dish as I describe in the above paragraph, mixing it all together, and that it monkeys with the texture of the sour cream sauce. So you're probably best off making it AS DIRECTED. I'm a hardhead, so will probably try it the other way at least once, and wind up emailing Jenny to say, "Hey, remember when you said not to do that, and I did it anyway? YOU WERE RIGHT." Because that's how I roll.

Slow-Cooked Venison With Cheesey Polenta

2008-02-03T20:32:00.003-06:00

We have a freezer full of venison from the deer Alex got last November, and I was not much looking forward to consuming any of it, my past experience with venison being less than wonderful. But all day long today, the crock-pot was bubbling away, filling the house with delicious aromas, so I couldn't help but give it a try. Also? MY husband made polenta. CHEESY polenta. Which worked with this roast so well, I couldn't believe it. Here's how he did it.

The first key, I think, was the cut of meat--what I ate was a small filet of tenderloin. Imagine the leanest filet mignon you've ever seen. Alex also prepared some other cut, which I did not like nearly as well, though he thought it was pretty good (bear in mind, he also likes foie gras), in the same manner. He started by marinating the steaks and the roast overnight in dark beer. The next morning, he layered carrots and onions in the bottom of the Crock-Pot. Then he salted and peppered the meat, and seared each cut in olive oil on a hot skillet 'til browned on each side. The roast and steaks went into the Crock-Pot over the chopped vegetables.

Over the top of the meat, he poured equal parts red cooking wine and beef broth, to which diced tomatoes and minced garlic were added. This cooked for a little over 5 hours on the high setting of the Crock-Pot.

When the meat was done cooking, he whipped up a batch of fresh polenta (which we should totally do more often, because a serving of polenta has about 70 calories, NO fat, and 1 gram of fiber), and doctored it up with just a little parm/reggiano cheese. Our roast and veggies were served on a bed of the cheesy polenta, with sauce from the roast spooned over the top.

IT. WAS. SO. GOOD. I highly recommend this for those of you who've had negative venison experiences. There was zero gamey flavor, and if I say that, you can believe me. Again, I preferred the filet, but the other cuts weren't so bad, either. Just not DELICIOUS, like what I had. Yum. I may let him go hunting again next year, after all.

Just Ticked Off

2008-01-29T22:36:00.001-06:00

Would that I were comfortable with stronger language, because it's warranted. I'm just angry. Sick, tired, and pissed off.

I'm angry that my home is a shambles, once again...and apparently until the end of time. That my young daughter already notices the differences between this home and others, and knows that THIS is wrong. I'm royally pissed off at myself for not pulling my head out and FIXING it, and at everyone else for not caring enough to HELP. I don't understand how the rest of the world can get up, take care of family, go to work, come home, take care of family, clean the entire freaking house so that it's at least in some kind of order, go to bed, then get up the next morning after too little sleep and do it all over again. I don't understand why I CAN'T KEEP UP. I don't understand why I seem to be expected to do it by myself, either, but that's a personal thing I'm pissed off about right now.

I'm sad and disappointed about my weight and health and how out of shape I am, and discouraged at how very long it's going to take me to get THAT mess straightened out. At least I'm making some progress in that arena, at least so far. I just finished my third week of Weight Watchers. Again. Woo-HOO, right? Right. I've done well (I know, for this WHOLE THREE WEEKS), but I'd be more pumped if it wasn't a dang life sentence. I had my baby just over 5 years ago, and I weigh what I weighed at that point, which is the last time I started WW.

Yeah, not much with the stick-to-it-iveness. I couldn't even keep this project going, could I? And obviously, I need to, because when I was journaling here, and reading comments here, I felt less alone, and I WAS getting things done, albeit tiny things. Right now, even the tiny things feel beyond me.

So, I don't know what's next. I may share some recipes and things, but I don't want this to turn into a weight-loss blog, because jumpin' cats, those are boring. But if I find ways to turn out good meals that are actually healthy, I'll share.

I'll have to tell you about the powdered peanut butter I discovered, at the very least.

The "Stuff" of Dressing

2007-11-21T23:59:00.000-06:00

Also? Gordon Ramsay TOTALLY validated my approach to cooking a turkey on FOX-NY News tonight, which is to cook it in pieces, rest the meat before carving, and do the carving "backstage" and serve with sauce made from deglazing the roasting pan. We're going to be eating elsewhere, and the turkey is already cooked, but I have a lovely breast/rib turkey roast thawing that I'm going to roast here this weekend.

Anyway, here's the components of the dressing we made this year. Finished product won't be baked until tomorrow. If it's a hit, I'll dig up a link to the recipe. Click the picture for more.

Surely I Can Accomplish This In One Day

2007-11-19T02:20:00.001-06:00

Planning My Onslaught On The Grocery Store

2007-11-17T21:00:00.000-06:00

What, you're not? Listen, you need to. Tomorrow is THE day. Even if you're not a coupon-clipper (and just don't tell me, if you're not, because it would cause me to weep), the grocery sales right now, they are fierce, and include probably the widest variety and largest number of items than at any other time of the year. And the beauty part is that much of what you can get on sale now can be stored for some time, and used later. The rest of my life may be in a shambles (yes, STILL), but this? This, I can do. Here are some things you can be on the lookout for good deals on between now and Thanksgiving--I have coupons for all of them, but even if you don't (*sob*), they're still on store sale most places:

*Frozen or fresh turkeys and chickens. Who says you can only cook a turkey at Thanksgiving? If you follow Barbara Kafka's roasting directions, you can do a big bird in two hours. Now is also a great time to buy roasting/baking hens, and turkey breast roasts (those are fantastic--they're still on the bone, with skin, but it's just the breast and rib meat). Buy them fresh and freeze them, or buy them frozen. Or, heck, buy them fresh, take them home, roast 'em, and debone and freeze all that great cooked meat, then boil up the bones for a rich stock, and freeze it, too!
*Fruit. Fresh, frozen, and canned. Some fruit freezes, some doesn't, but lots of flash-frozen fruit is on sale right now because people use it in pies and chutneys/sauces. Stock up. You'll wish you had some cranberries in late February, and think, "Why didn't I listen to Belinda?"
*Nuts. No, I'm not calling you names. Nuts of all kinds are on sale right now, both pre-packaged, and in bulk in the produce section. And they're normally pretty expensive, so why not get them now, even if you don't need them? They freeze VERY well--in fact, I store nuts in the freezer as a matter of course, to keep the oils in them fresh.
*Dairy products. Milk and cheese freeze, people.
*Canned broth and cream soups. These are on SERIOUS markdown right now, and armed with my coupons, if I don't bring home a sackful for free, I'll be disappointed. Like canned tomatoes, you just can't have too much canned broth or "cream of" soups, especially now that cream soups are available in low-fat, low-sodium varieties.
*Baking supplies. ALL baking supplies. Think big, here. I'm not talking about just flour and sugar, but spices, vegetable oil, pie filling (canned fruit), frozen pie crusts, chocolate, condensed milk, EVERYTHING. The whole aisle is on sale NOW. If you have room, store flour in an airtight container in your freezer.
*Bread. Again, bread freezes well.
*Root/bulb vegetables, i.e. sweet potatoes, white potatoes, onions, shallots, garlic, etc. Store these just right, and you can keep quite a few on hand.
*Dried grains/legumes, i.e. all kind of rice, dehydrated potato flakes, beans, barley, lentils.
*Cereals, especially the ones used for snacks like Chex Mix and Rice-Krispie Treats.
*Snacks. Not that YOU will eat them, but you know, your guests might be wanting to graze on dips and chips and crackers and cheese-balls and stuff.
*Sodas. But don't drink sodas. They're bad. Evil. I don't even know why I said sodas. Forget I did that.
*Dish detergent and cleaning supplies. Because, you know, people (ahem--SOME people) will be doing a lot of house-cleaning in preparation for houseguests.
*Kitchen supplies, i.e. paper towels, garbage bags, aluminum foil, plastic wrap, parchment paper, wax paper, etc.
*Toilet paper. Really.
*And in what I consider a stroke of marketing genius, ANTACIDS. Pepcid, TUMS, Pepto-Bismol, Mylanta, everything. See also: Immodium.

So yeah, hit the store for whatever's on your Thanksgiving list, but for stuff that keeps a while, freezes, or can be stored indefinitely, STOCK UP, Baby!

I'll report back with what I hope will be my tale of cutting a wide swath through the stores, leaving checkout clerks exhausted and store managers weeping. I also have some recipes I need to post that are based on using leftovers from roasted chicken or turkey.

Meanwhile, my home? A wreck. Thank you.

By the way, do we need to have The Coupon Talk? You should really only be paying for about half of your groceries, if that.

Uuuugh, slogging through quicksand.

2007-11-13T21:45:00.000-06:00

I can do it.

Daylight savings time is really kicking my butt. There's a marked difference in the way I feel, because it gets dark earlier.

Sometimes I feel like I can't get out of my chair. As if I'm stuck there like a magnet.

But I can. I can get up.

I can get up, take my meds, get ready, get on the treadmill, drink water, eat healthy, use my lightbox, power off the computer.

I can do the extra school stuff-- practicing times tables, and reading, and such, even though they're not homework, I can go above and beyond the call of duty.

I already do all the homework stuff, coordinate schedules for 3 kids, make lunches, do laundry, dishes, cleaning, groceries, meals, kiss boo-boos, counsel problems.

I can do more. I can do the things I need to to make my life run smoothly and improve the quality of life for my family.

I know I can, I just have to put my mind to it. I have to make it essential, rather than elective.

Oy vey.

2007-11-10T11:01:00.000-06:00

Oh my gosh ya'll. I suck. I have not walked, sat in front of my lightbox, taken my meds or any of the other stuff I'm supposed to do to make myself healthy wealthy and wise. I can really tell, it's taking a toll on me, and does that motivate me to action? Nooooooo. A ginormous part of the problem is the guilt. See, it's not just that doing all those things just seems overwhelming, it's that it seems to me that they SHOULDN'T seem so overwhelming, they're what normal people do every stinkin' day, why am I so precious and delicate I can't manage to accomplish them?! It's the shame over not being able to change that gets me more than not changing itself. Does that make sense?

I need to find a way to change without examining my life and feeling like a total failure, because that's what paralizes me. Of course, because who has the energy or motivation to change when they feel like scum?

Anyway, Monday I'm going to give it another whirl. I keep telling myself, just like people who smaoke, sometimes you have to practice quitting before you get it right.

Please A Man: Roast A Chicken

2007-10-28T21:10:00.000-05:00

There's not much I can do in the kitchen that makes my husband happier than just roasting a chicken, especially if I also chop up and roast some sweet potatoes, yukon golds, shallots, garlic, and onion until they're carmelized on the outside...YUM.

For roasting the bird, I rely on the method I learned from Barbara Kafka, in her wonderful book, Roasting-A Simple Art. IBarbara's all about high-heat roasting, fast and simple, and she has recipes for everything from meat to fruit using this method, and every bit of it is delicious. She credits "Simple Roasted Chicken" as being "the one that started it all." One caveat is that your oven needs to be relatively clean before you do this, or it's going to smoke. But hey--this gives you an excuse to clean your oven, which you probably haven't even thought about lately!

Prepping the bird couldn't be easier. You're not buttering it, you're not putting anything between the skin and the meat, you're not worrying about fancy seasonings--heck, you're not even trussing it, because leaving it untrussed allows the dark meat to cook through before the breast meat begins to get dry. Here's what you do, starting with the raw chicken as close to room temperature as possible:

Take your bird, rinsed and patted dry, giblets removed, place it in a shallow roasting pan (no rack necessary) and season inside the cavity thoroughly with coarse kosher salt and coarse-ground pepper. Pat salt and pepper all over the skin of the bird. Cut up a lemon or two and stuff them inside the cavity, along with chopped garlic and a couple of tablespoons of butter. If you're roasting root vegetables, set the chicken aside while you prepare them for cooking, because they'll take about as long as the chicken to cook (about an hour).

Roasted potatoes--again, easy-peasy: Chop up into 3/4" chunks, peeled sweet potatoes and Yukon Gold potatoes, with about a two-to-one ratio of sweet potatoes to white potatoes. Chop two sweet yellow onions into largish wedges. Chop garlic, or just used the pre-chopped, jarred garlic from the produce section of the grocery store. I also added chopped shallots this time around, which made the whole thing really nice. Once all the chopping is done, drizzle olive oil over everything--not too much, or the potatoes will be mushy (you can mix in a little melted butter if you want, for flavor, but it won't suffer without it), and toss to coat well, in a baking dish. DO NOT ADD SALT OR PEPPER YET.

Put the chicken and the potatoes in the preheated oven, side by side on a lower rack, at 500 degrees. You read that right--500 degrees. Roast, uncovered, for about an hour. About 10-15 minutes in, shift the chicken around (give it a little shove with a wooden spoon) so it doesn't stick to the pan. Gently turn the potatoes every 20 minutes, and before the final 20 minutes of cooking time, salt and pepper the dish, tossing to coat. I like to use coarse salt and pepper so I can better see where it's going.

The chicken is done when the internal temperature is right or when juice from the thickest part of the thigh runs clear. If the skin starts to get overdone toward the end of the cooking time (it shouldn't), tent some foil over the top to keep it from burning. The potatoes are done when they're tender, and the potatoes and the onions/shallots should be carmelizing nicely around the edges, turning dark brown. Remove the chicken to a platter to rest, and for carving. This bird was fork-tender, and perfectly cooked throughout after one hour, without a bit of dryness. The lemon flavor had permeated the meat, and no additional season was needed. The skin was golden and crispy, with most of the fat having melted away.

The vegetables were perfect, too, with just the right amount of carmelization from the starch in the potatoes. While we had plenty of leftover chicken, there wasn't one SCRAP of leftover veggies.

If you want to make a sauce for the chicken, skim the fat off the top of the drippings in the roasting pan, then place it on the stovetop to cook, deglazing the pan with wine, fruit juice, or chicken stock or broth. Cook down to desired consistency, or add a sprinkling of flour to thicken.

And you're done. Easy as can be, and you're a hero in your own kitchen. This is a great dish to serve for company, too, because it has such a BIG impact with so LITTLE effort! Plus it has the added appeal of not being very labor intensive--once you've done your prep-work, that's pretty much it. You just pop the whole thing in the oven and then take it out and amaze everyone with your Norman Rockwellian meal.

Shepherd's Pie Variation

2007-10-25T23:00:00.000-05:00

This recipe is fantastic. I didn't lie to you about the bread, and I wouldn't steer you wrong here, either. First let me say that my preferred method of cooking this is to do it in a giant cast-iron skillet, which allows you to do the stovetop portion and the oven portion all in the same dish. But I can't FIND my giant cast-iron skillet. Haven't seen it since we moved. My beautiful enormous cast-iron skillet that has been perfectly seasoned over the last decade. *sigh* This is what happens when your life is organizationally challenged, kids. Get it together before it's too late, and you lose your skillet. Anyway, just bear in mind that while I cooked this in a baking pan, I'd much rather have done it in a large cast-iron skillet or shallow Dutch oven.

What makes this recipe so gosh-darned amazing is the meat mixture that serves as the base. I've been using this recipe, called "Dad's New Zealand Mince Stew," for the last three or four years. It is absolutely to die for. A couple of notable exceptions to the recipe, though: First, do not use anywhere NEAR the amount of black pepper called for. That's insane. I use ONE tablespoon of coarse-ground black pepper, and that seems just about perfect to me. That in combination with the curry powder give this stew just enough spicy zing to counteract a cold, rainy, gray day, but not enough to be overpowering. Also, I have never simmered the stew for the two hours (!!) called for in the recipe. I don't know if I've ever even taken a whole hour. It cooks down quicker than that. I use the first 20-minute simmering period to make my mashed potatoes.

The stew recipe is fairly large. You could reserve half of it and freeze it for another meal, making a smaller shepherd's pie or some other dish from it.

To make the prep quicker and a whole lot easier, I use pre-chopped, frozen onion or "seasoning blend," which is onions, peppers, and celery. I also use pre-chopped, jarred garlic, and canned beef broth works in place of stock. And even though it's more expensive, using 93% lean beef eliminates the extra work of separately browning ground beef and then draining off the fat, and also allows you to prep in one skillet/Dutch oven.

First, make the New Zealand Mince Stew recipe. It should finish into a very thick mixture, which you then spread in a baking pan or casserole dish, or just use the skillet or Dutch oven the meat was cooked in, if it's big enough.

Then spread whatever vegetables you like, in as thick a layer as you like, over the top of the stew. You can chop fresh veggies, or you can do like me and use pre-chopped frozen veggies, right out of the freezer. I know that English peas are the traditional shepherd's pie veggie, but I hate them. Plus, I think this recipe lends itself perfectly to root vegetables. This time around, I used carrots, zucchini, broccoli, cauliflower, and yellow squash. The carrots taste the best with it.

While your stew is simmering, you can whip up your mashed potatoes. Whether you make them from scratch or use instant flakes (this is so good, it doesn't really matter a lot), make them quite thick. Doctor them up however you like. I used a bit of light butter, skim milk, light sour cream, garlic powder, kosher salt, and coarse ground pepper. This time, I went ahead and incorporated some shredded sharp cheddar cheese right into the mashed potatoes, as well. Spread the potatoes in an even layer over the meat stew and vegetables.

Bake at 375 for a half-hour or so (keep an eye on it), until the top of the potatoes is a light golden-brown, and the mixture is bubbly.

At this point, you can be finished--it does not have to have cheese. But if you like, sprinkle shredded sharp cheddar cheese over the top of the pie, and put it back into the oven for an additional 5 minutes or so, just to melt the cheese. Serve, and stand back for the rush for seconds.

You might notice that the stew recipe does not call for salt. Trust me--you won't miss it. Besides, you're salting the potatoes a little.

A really good variation on this for fall is to use mashed sweet potatoes instead of white potatoes. (You'd probably want to omit the carrots in this case.) Just mash up boiled or baked sweet potatoes, then add a bit of light butter, some pumpkin pie spice (NO SUGAR), salt and pepper. Leave off the cheese. I almost made it that way tonight, but I know I'm going to be serving roasted sweet potatoes on Saturday, so I went with the standard version.

NOT throwing in the towel.

2007-10-25T04:26:00.001-05:00

Well poop. I didn't walk yesterday. I had no excuse. Yesterday I didn't walk until 11:30 pm, and if there's anything worse than exercising, it's exercising late at night. But I did it, because I know if I skip once--danger Will Robinson!-- that could be the beginning of the end. But last night the thought of exercising was just too yucky. Once again proving that I m-u-s-t exercise in. the. morning. And today, I will. I won't let this be the beginning of the end, because as much as I HATE exercise, I do like the benefits.

Checking In

2007-10-23T08:49:00.000-05:00

It's 10:00 am, and I have gotten El Zippo done today. Well, other than getting the kids showered and off to school. (I can't do baths at night, I'm just not a night person.) I have 2 hours left before I have to pick up my son from preschool, and I really need to make the most of my time, but I'll be darned if I can't get this body out of this chair. It's rainy, and dark outside, and all I want to do is read, or watch a movie, or surf the net. So. I will try to do something comforting, in the midst of running errands. I'll dress warmly and buy myself a nonfat latte, as a reward for getting out of the house.

I have been doing very well on the self care front, thanks be to God. I have been walking, and brushing my teeth, and showering, and even flossing here and there. I've been eating pretty healthy, the house is clean, except for folded laundry in the middle of the living room, and some floors that need vacuuming. The bathrooms really need to be cleaned, but I'll get to those today.

And yet, even though things are going pretty well, I know this is the time when I need to be vigilant. This is the time when I forget how depressing it is to have a messy house. This is the time when I forget how depressing it is to be depressed. This is the time when I can easily say, "Screw it. I need a break." Just like I've done this morning. And that, my friends, is the precipice on the edge of a canyon called despair. I know that may seem dramatic or extreme, but it's a very short walk over the edge, for me. It's a thin line between loosening my grip a little, and losing my grip completely. That probably doesn't make sense to anyone except me, but that's okay, I just need to give myself a little pep talk. So maintenance is the watch word for me. Now I'm off to run errands.

Comfort Me

2007-10-22T22:13:00.000-05:00

Don't act like you didn't suspect that this might happen. By "this," I mean a week without posting. Given the nature of this blog and how it came into being, it's a wonder anything ever gets posted at all. Huge thanks to Sheryl for taking up my slack, there.

Status of my house: Well, we're not LOSING ground. And honestly, that is something. I had good meals going for over a week at a time, there, and that hasn't happened in ages. Also not having happened in ages, a whole week with no dining out or bringing takeout home. That, my friends, is HUGE. I also have to give Alex credit for keeping up with the dishes while I was cooking. Sometimes there would be some left, but he kept the pile from becoming unmanageable, and I appreciated that immensely.

We also actually managed to get about 1/3 of our bedroom clean, working together, which is no small feat. I may not have mentioned it before, but I surely will again, so...our house is weird. It's laid out weird, it's priorities are weird, and...it's just weird. It's over 3,000 square feet, but with tiny bathrooms and closets, and the smallest kitchen you could imagine. Seriously--it's an apartment kitchen, and here we sit in the middle of 5 acres, not in midtown. TEENY. But the master bedroom? It's enormous. There is no reason for a bedroom to be this large. None. It's the size of most people's living rooms. And since we came here from a wee little house, in the way of bedroom furniture, we have...well, a bed. Which itself was a maternal gift. And after several months of us using a Coleman cooler as a night-table (think I'm kidding?) and an empty ceiling-fan box with a couple of barstools as an entertainment center (again, think I'm not serious?), our mothers got together and bought us some more furniture, in the form of a couple of night tables and an actual television cabinet. This leaves about a half an acre of empty space in this bedroom, which for US, is just More Places To Pile Crap. I may take a picture of this...or I may not. I might have reached my internet humiliation threshold.

Honestly--I can already see that a huge challenge for us in keeping a livable home is going to be resisting the temptation to fill every horizontal surface with whatever random detritus happens to be in our hands at the time. From where I sit right now, I can see the Leaning Tower of Weirdness that is our dining table, and it's not pretty. Especially considering that it wasn't that long ago that it was clean. This piling on, it happens FAST. I am bad about piling, and Alex is bad about putting things off until "later." Combined, we are a deadly duo of disarray. I'd like to save Bella from this fate while she's still young enough to mold. She told me a few days ago that she wanted to do something or other at her grandmother's house instead of at home, because "our house is too trashy." Trashy. Yep, that's the word she used. And you know, when you get right down to it and start sorting and cleaning, a lot of it DOES wind up in the trash. Just think how much time and labor we'd save if we took a minute to decide that something (junk mail, newspapers, whatever) was trash, and threw it away BEFORE ever putting it down! Hey, at least I'm thinking, right? Anyway, 1/3 of the bedroom clean is like a whole normal room, and a very good start. I appreciate Alex helping, too, because when he gets going, that man can clean. And fast.

I got sick last week, and meal-planning and preparation went straight out the window. This meant that we spent a lot of money we don't have on takeout, which is really, really stupid. It's unhealthy and expensive compared to home cooking. I always feel like a failure when the takeout bags come in. But I just didn't have it in me, and Alex definitely doesn't feel like cooking a meal when he gets home from work (with our normal work schedules, I get off a couple of hours before him, so it'll be much easier for me to get dinner going by the time he gets home). We're old, tired, and out of shape. And yes, there's an additional area in which we must GET IT TOGETHER, the being out of shape.

So, now it's back to planning and cooking. Honestly, it's the planning that fells me, if I'm going to fall off the wagon. I hate the planning, and coming up with something to cook, and trying to magically divine what the people I'm cooking for will enjoy or even accept. I'm particularly unimaginative when it comes to vegetables. I tend to get some frozen veggies, steam them, and be done. Which while healthy is somewhat boring. No complaints so far, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time. I gotta say, though, I am LOVING the new frozen veggies that come in a microwavable steam-pack. GENIUS.

So, there we are, all caught up. At least right here. I'm going to post my favorite comfort food next, and would love it if you'd share yours. Don't we all need some comforting right about now? Me, I have pneumonia and it hasn't stopped raining in forever and my baby girl is growing up faster than the speed of light. COMFORT ME.

Please post your favorite comfort food, and the recipe (or a link to the recipe, if you have it posted elsewhere) here in the comments to this post. I'll figure out some way to compile them and make links for reference. My favorite comfort food is homemade chicken and dumplings, made with fat, fluffy "dropped" dumplings, and I'll be posting the recipe here tomorrow. Alex's favorite comfort food has got to be his mother's chicken tetrazinni. WOW, does he love that stuff, and what little of it I usually get to eat IS darned good. I'll get the recipe from her and post that, as well. Now it's your turn: COMFORT ME.

Don't be a hater.

2007-10-16T06:03:00.000-05:00

When I'm hatin' housework more than usual, here are a few things I do:

If I absolutely feel like I cannot do laundry, that it will scar me psychically, I just do a load of towels. Lord knows we always have plenty of towels in the hamper, and they're the easiest to do.

Set a timer, and clean for just 15 minutes. I think I got this one from the FlyLady. I joined FlyLady for about 2 days, before I realized, judging from the 18 thousand emails in my in box that I had joined a cult, or a pyramid scheme, or something. Strangely having to empty my mailbox 12 times a day, did not help me feel less overwhelmed about keeping my house clean. The FlyLady is a great system, I'm sure, but I need simple and low key. Systems make me both rebellious and discouraged.

Have a cleaning party. Write some chores on slips of paper. Buy some balloons. Stick the slips of paper in the balloons, and either blow them up, or fill them with helium. Take turns with family members popping balloons. Pop a balloon, and then everybody has to go do that chore together. Put on some music, dance and sing while you do it. When your done with that chore, give each other a cheer and a high five, make a toast with some lemonade, then do the next chore. This works really well on days when you have a lot of cleaning, and NO motivation.

Weighty Matters

2007-10-14T21:36:00.000-05:00

In the past 4 days I've exercised three times. My philosophy for exercise is much the same as my philosophy for house cleaning: keep it simple, and make it as easy as possible. So I'm not exercising to train for a marathon; I'm exercising to try to stave off death a little longer. I walk or ride my bike for 30 minutes, and I hate all 1800 seconds of it. The problem is that I've been waiting until before I go to bed to do it, waiting until the last minute, like the consummate procrastinator I am. I really need to stop doing that. I must do it first thing in the morning.

Goal #1: Walk everyday this week, first thing in the morning.

Also I joined Mrs. Flinger's weight loss group, and and contest at weight loss wars (with a $200 prize!), in hope of motivating myself. I'm playing for money now, so I just might get in gear. I really need to go to the store, as it's hard to eat salad if you have no veggies in the house. Well, I've got broccoli, but you get the idea.

Goal #2: Go to the store.

Hey, don't laugh! I gotta set goals I can reach!

Emily, my oldest, and I went shopping for clothes this weekend. She insisted she's fat, which just breaks my heart. She isn't fat, by any stretch of the imagination, but she's also not as skinny as a lot of kids her age, either. We talked about appreciating your body for all the stuff it does, not just how it looks, and that everyone has a different body type, blah blah frickin blah. We've had these conversations many times before. But the bottom line is, sometimes she's bothered by the way she looks. Here's where I'm not sure if I did the right thing. I told her that if her belly really bothers her, to try to exercise more, and eat more fruits and veggies. I hate to encourage her to change her body, because she doesn't need to, she needs to appreciate and accept it. I'm careful never to speak negatively about my body, so I don't know where she gets it, but it's everywhere. I've told her that diets aren't healthy, that' it's better just to develop good eating habits, but if she really wants to change her body, I guess my job is to educate her to do it in a healthy way.

Beer & Cheese Bread, Bernard Clayton Recipe

2007-10-12T21:44:00.000-05:00

This has got to be the best bread I have ever had. Ever. And I make it myself. So anyone should be able to do it. The recipe is from Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads, and someone has been kind enough to type out the entire recipe exactly as written in the book (is that legal?), here. The key ingredients are beer and two kinds of cheese.

INGREDIENTS:

--5 cups bread flour
--2 packets rapid-rise yeast
--12 oz. beer (really doesn't matter what kind--this batch was Miller Lite)
--12 oz. processed American or Swiss cheese (we're talking sandwich slices here, or you could even use Velveeta, if you believe that Velveeta is actually food; I prefer American)
--2 Tbsp. sugar
--1Tbsp. salt
--2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
--8 oz. Natural (block) Swiss cheese

In a heavy saucepan, heat the beer, American cheese, sugar, salt, and butter just until melted and blended.

Immediately remove from heat, and allow the liquid to cool until it's just "warm." Too hot, and it will kill the yeast, too cool and the yeast won't activate. Stir occasionally to keep the cheese blended. I pour mine out of the saucepan I heated it in, to speed the process.

Meanwhile, combine 2 cups of the bread flour with the 2 packets of yeast in a large mixing bowl and set aside. Chop up the 8 oz. of Swiss cheese into 1/4-inch pieces. Later, when you leave the room and your BAD counter-surfing ninja poodle eats the cheese, you'll have to chop up 8 MORE ounces.

Once the liquid mixture has cooled sufficiently, add it to the flour and yeast mixture you've set aside, and stir it well with a wooden spoon or with a mixer. Then gradually add in the remaining 3 cups of flour, blending by hand or mixer until the dough is a shaggy mass that cleans the sides of the bowl.

Turn dough out on a lightly floured surface, working the Swiss cheese cubes into the dough as you knead the dough for several minutes, slamming it against the work surface occasionally.

Place dough in a large, buttered bowl, turning to coat all sides. Cover tightly and set to rise until doubled, at least an hour. My personal no-fail dough rising method in this drafty house is to boil a cup of water in the microwave, then push the cup of water into the corner of the microwave, and set the dough bowl in the microwave with the hot water, shut the door and leave it for an hour.

Punch the dough down for a minute or so, working the air out of the dough, but don't man-handle it for too long.

Divide the dough into two equal portions, then with one portion at a time, press the dough out into a rectangular shape that is a couple of inches longer and wider than your loaf pans (this recipe calls for 8" x 4" loaf pans). Leaving 1/2" intact at the top end, cut the slab of dough into three equal pieces, and then braid them, tucking the ends under. (You can skip the braiding--I only do it because Bernard says to, and I kind of love him.)

Place the loaves into buttered pans (actually, I just used cooking spray, liberally applied), cover the tops with wax paper, and set to rise. I use the closed-microwave method here, too.

Recipes always say to let loaves rise to "1/4-inch above the rim of the loaf pan," but if I can get more rise in a loaf, I like it even better!

Bake at 350 degrees for 35-45 minutes, tenting the top of the loaves with aluminum foil for the final 10-15 minutes of baking time, to prevent the tops from over-browning. Turn loaves out onto a wire rack to cool, and be sure to get a slice while it's still warm, just to eat out of hand. This stuff is a meal in itself, but see Ninja Poodles! for a quick recipe for one of the best grilled-cheese sandwiches you ever had.

Easiest Ever Broccoli-Ham Casserole

2007-10-10T22:52:00.000-05:00

Start with this stuff--
leftover ham (or chicken, or mushrooms, or whatever)
1 cup or 2 cups cooked brown rice
1 cup sharp cheddar or cheese of choice
1/2 cup light sour cream
1 can reduced fat cream of mushroom (or celery, or chicken, or whatever) soup
bag of frozen broccoli
BaconSalt (or seasonings of choice)
buttered breadcrumbs:

Whomp everything except the breadcrumbs together right in the baking pan.

Top with buttered breadcrumbs.

Bake at 350 about 30 minutes, until heated through and bubbly. Tip your assistant.

Because sometimes a hot bath ain't gonna cut it.

2007-10-10T04:13:00.000-05:00

Last night I had an intense craving for ice cream. I'm not really sure what was going on, it's been an especially stressful week, and it was only Tuesday. I just needed some sweet relief. And that's how I get relief. Relief from anxiety and stress are the top two reasons I eat compulsively. Relief from boredom is a secondary reason. The feeling of needing relief is sometimes very intense, I feel like I'm in a pressure cooker, and the only way to get the lid off is to stuff something sugary in my mouth.

I decided I was not going to the store to buy a fix. At first I was going to make some zucchini bread. Hey, it's not spinach salad, but it's the best I could do at the time. But then I was just too damn tired, so I poured a bowl of cereal instead. And we didn't have any milk. And I was pissed. And my pissed-ness was out of proportion to being out of milk. And then I ate it dry.

The question that's rolling through my head is, how bad is it to self medicate? I don't drink, it makes me ill-- nausea, headache, but I know plenty of people who drink. Sometimes they drink as a social thing, but a lot of the time they drink for relief-- to chill. When I eat in order to relieve stress or anxiety, that's what I'm doing. Should I just sit with my feelings instead? Is that a healthier choice? Does medicating myself with food really stunt my emotional growth, as the pop-psych theory claims? What if I eat carrots to soothe? I'm not saying it would do the trick, but it's a healthier option, physically. Is that better? Or should I resist soothing myself with food under any circumstances. That seems like a very tall, and unrealistic order.

Now, as a Christian, [and I rarely mention my religion because a) it's personal, b) it's usually misunderstood, and c) I'm not a very good one] I know I really should be giving my anxiety and stress to God, but that seems like a very esoteric concept. How the hell (see, I shouldn't say hell) am I supposed to do that exactly? I mean I know that truly is the answer, but you may as well say flapping my arms and flying is the answer, because I don't get it. Also being the little addict I am, I need immediate relief, and frankly relief from on high takes a little too long to get here.

Use it or lose it

2007-10-09T15:16:00.000-05:00

I'm currently waiting for my husband to ~~make up his damn mind~~ decide which job he's going to take. One choice will require big changes around here, so in lieu of throwing up, I'm posting more cleaning tips! These tips have saved my bee-hind more times than I can tell.

Tip #1: If you haven't used it in a year, throw it out, or box it up. Listen, you want to get rid of clutter? You have to be ruthless. Clutter is lurking just behind the cupboard door, peering out of every nook and cranny. It will take over your house if you're not ever vigilant.

When you're going through a box, pile, or closet of stuff, ask yourself: "Have I used this in the last year?" If the answer is yes, put it away. If the answer is no, ask yourself the next qualifying question: "Does this item add to my quality of life?" If the answer is no to both questions, throw it out, sell it, or give it away, but get rid of it.

If the answer is no to the first question, but yes to the second, chances are the item is of sentimental value only, and can be stored out in the garage, where it won't have to compete for counter space with your bills and medication. The second question also allows you to keep your great grandmother's candle snuff, but gives you the freedom to pitch little Johnny's clay pot without feeling guilty.

Tip#2: Have a walk-thru at least twice a day.
A walk through is when you walk through each room in the house, and pick up everything that belongs to you. Likewise, all the other members of the family pick up and put away all the stuff that belongs to them. Our walk-thrus are after school and before bed. It really keeps messes from getting out of hand. At first these may take quite a bit of time, but before long you'll be able to do a walk-thru in 10 minutes or less. Promise!

Tip #3: Have one smallish toy bin, and one stuffed animal bin, per kid.
I'm a minimalist when it comes to toys. That's because my kids mostly play with a few toys, and instead play a lot of "pretend" games. If you have a kid who has 8 million Legos, loves each one tenderly, and knows them all by name, maybe this method won't work for you, but I think it's still employable.

If your kids are old enough to evaluate which toys are their favorites, have them fill the bin with toys. When the bin is full, that's it, all the other toys are bagged up and put in the garage. If your child is too young to really differentiate, and it's ALL his favorite, then sometime when he's at school, or at a friend's house, fill the bin with stuff you know he loves and plays with, and bag up the rest of the toys and put them in the garage. As your bagging up the toys, tell them that if they want to play with a toy, you'll get it out for them.

Now here's the dirty, rotten, sneaky trick. If two weeks or a month goes by, all the toys that still remain in the bags? Go to the giant Goodwill in the sky. I can almost guarantee that if they haven't asked for it, they're not going to miss it one iota.

Each of my kids has a small bin similar to this. Not very big, and nice and wide at the top. There's no point in buying them a big honkin' Rubbermaid monstrosity that they can't find anything in. They do have a large Rubbermaid bin to keep stuffed animals in, because they take up a lot of room, and my kids have a jillion ( I swear they procreate!). We keep larger toys, like play microwaves, and laptops on the bookshelves, but we try to keep those to a minimum.

You can tailor this idea to suit your own needs, but the point is your kids won't miss all the toys they don't have, and for the orderly challenged you've got to keep it simple, if you want a clutter-free house.

Hi, My Name Is Sisyphus, And This Is My Boulder.

2007-10-09T00:08:00.000-05:00

At least that's how I feel today. I put in something like 5 to 6 cumulative hours on household/family maintenance today, and when I went to bed, everything was just the same as it was when I got up. It's defeating, and it leads to a view of the days, months, and years stretching out before me in household futility.

I mean, I understand that there's something to be said for maintaining the status quo--in fact, it's my very failure to do that which has led me to the point where I'm puking up said failure all over the Internets. I understand how important it is to do those "little things," those thankless tasks that keep a family running. I do. But if I'm doing THAT all the time, how will I ever have time to make anything BETTER?

I mean...hours, literal HOURS on my feet in the house today, with nothing to show for it except that...well, it's not WORSE. Which, I suppose, is more than I could have said at bedtime a couple of weeks ago. When I think of what my mother came home to every day after work when I was a kid, I want to go back in time and slap myself stupid for a.) not cleaning up after my dang SELF, and b.) not kissing her feet in appreciation on a daily basis. Crap, I'm about to cry right now.

After cooking and serving dinner, and Bella's bedtime, and cleanup of dinner, and feeding of dogs and horses, and walking of dogs, and gathering of laundry, when I finally sat down at 10:40 PM, it was with one of the last remaining boxes from the infamous pile. When I opened it, it was full of such random, I-Have-No-Place-To-Put-It-But-I-Can't-Throw-It-Away STUFF, that I just took out the few books (those, at least, I can shelve) and closed it right back up. And left it sitting there, on the loveseat, and turned out the light and went to bed. Which is where I am now. Crying into my computer over the fact that (and yes, this is just hitting home in a big way--I'm a slow learner) THIS NEVER ENDS. And also that if I stop, even for a minute, we begin to slide backward. Again.

I would like to thank my husband for, without being asked, having apparently voluntarily taken up the mantle of chief dishwasher in the last couple of weeks. It is much appreciated. I'm about a thousand times more likely to cook you good food if the dishes I need to use to do so are already clean. I'll take advantage of Canadian Thanksgiving time to count my blessings.

Seriously, achievers, how do you cope? And how do you carve IMPROVEMENT time out of your meager allotment of MAINTENANCE time?

Body of work

2007-10-08T07:45:00.000-05:00

I do a pretty lousy job of taking care of my body. Here is the grim and embarrassing truth:

I shower about once a week
I brush my teeth about every other day
I never floss
I wash my face a couple of times a week, if I'm lucky
Same with moisturizer and make up
I don't brush my hair everyday
I rarely style it

I do keep my nails nice, that's about the only part of my body I pay attention to, because of course, that's the part I see. As for the inside of my body, it's pretty much the same story.

I'm really, really overweight (don't let the picture on my blog fool you, I was looking up to hide my double chin.)
I very rarely exercise
I eat way to much junk
I eat far too few fruits and veggies
I often forget to take my anti-depressant
Even more often I forget to take vitamins
I sometimes go days without drinking any water

So far my body, God love it, has been pretty tolerable of this neglect. I've been blessed with good genes, but I'm 41, nature can't save me from nurture forever. Now don't get me wrong, like a smoker who's trying to kick the habit, I do make an effort to make changes. And, although you wouldn't know it from that list, changes are slowly happening.

Despite my policy of not going to the doctor unless I'm bleeding out my eyes, just recently I went for long overdue visits to both the dentist, and the dermatologist. The dentist paid off his car, thanks to me. The dermatologist found some cancerous spots on my face, so I'm sure I'll be sending him on a nice vacation by the time he's through.

Starting this February I stopped eating fast food, and stopped bringing junk food into the house. We rarely eat red meat, and I switched to fat free dairy, when it's an option. I bought a treadmill, and a bike, which I do use occasionally. And just like that smoker, I do keep trying, practicing quitting, if you will, these bad habits. I keep forming new plans, to see what will work, and I don't beat myself up for failing, the way I used to.

My current plan, starts this morning. I'm going to take car of as many things as possible on that list, first thing in the morning. I'm going to get on the treadmill, and walk in front of my light box. I hate doing both, so I'm going to try to get them over with one shot. I'm going to take my meds, and vitamin with a ginormous glass of water, and then I'm going to take care of my hair and face and teeth. All told, it won't take me more than an hour, the time many women spend on themselves in the morning. Why shouldn't I spend one hour of the day improving my mental and physical health? An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Acronyms for the orderly-challenged

2007-10-07T08:10:00.001-05:00

Hi! Sheryl, from Paper Napkin here. I'm so glad Belinda and I are collaborating on this blog. I have a lot of areas of my life where I need to get it together, and I think you, and she, and I can all help each other, hooray for blogs!

85-90% of the time my house is clean. The rest of the time my house is either very clean, or a sty. Now clean to me, may not be clean to you. Clean to me means when I bring in groceries, I have a place to put the bags down. It means I can walk around my house without stepping on stuff. It means neighbors can drop by, and I'm not embarrassed. Unless it's my pin-neat neighbor (curse her). It does not mean a place for everything and everything in its place. I wish I were that kind of person, but I ain't never gonna be that kind of person. Plus I have 3 little kids, so I've let go of that dream. Case in point, was going to take pictures of my house to show you what clean means to me, but I can't find the battery charger for the camera.

I've always been a messy person. When I was in college, there were wall to wall clothes in my apartment, and days-old dishes in the sink, and it was the same when I lived at home. But I've always hated being messy. Messes depress me, so over the years I found a way to control it. Then I had kids, and that threw me for a loop for a while, but I've got it under control again.

There are a lot of little tricks I use to keep the house clean. The verymost important one is DLFB. When I first started cracking the whip on my inner slob, I asked myself, what are the essentials? What areas of housekeeping absolutely must be done for me to feel sane and peaceful? DLFB: dishes, laundry, floors, bathrooms. Since I'm a dork, I made a sentence to help me remember: Domestic labor feels beautiful. (I told you I was a dork.)

If I do a little bit in each of these areas daily (or almost daily), keeping the rest of the house clean seems to follow. Notice I said a little bit. I do one load of dishes a day, I run the dishwasher at night, and my kids empty it in the morning, so I can stick a few dishes in it here and there during the day. Occasionally I have to do 2 loads, but most of the time I can pack the dishwasher full enough that I only have to do one load.

I also do one large load of laundry a day. We're a family of 5, so that doesn't keep the hampers empty, but it does keep them from overflowing. I hate laundry with the fire of a thousand suns, so I try to encourage us not to cycle through too many clothes. I make the kids change after school, which keeps school clothes nice, and who cares if their play clothes are dirty? (Well, actually I care, but I care more about not having tons of laundry, so if it's a choice between my pride and more work, laziness always wins.)

As for the bathrooms, I just do one thing a day. I clean the toilets, or sometimes just one toilet. Or I swipe the counters. It takes me 30 seconds, and I'm done for the day. I keep the Windex and paper towels on the counter and The Works (which I swear by) by the toilet in each bathroom, so they're right there. Inconvenience is the enemy of clean, if you're a lazy slob. I approach floors the same way. I vacuum one room, or sweep, or mop, but never all in one day. If it seems doable I'll do it, otherwise, forget it.

Figuring out the non-negotiables of housecleaning put things in clear perspective. DLFB saved my butt, and my house. It makes house cleaning manageable, because it's just 4 things! I can do that! It gives me peace of mind, and when those things are done, it makes keeping the rest of the house clean fairly easy. I tell you the other tricks I use too. Hope they help!

Leftover-Fest Jambalaya

2007-10-05T22:31:00.000-05:00

I got several things accomplished at once today, and I'm kinda proud. Tired, but proud. First of all, the kitchen is clean. The kitchen. Is. Clean. You have no idea how big that is. I made a good, hot dinner, and did it using leftovers and Stuff I Already Had On Hand. That is also huge. AND, everyone ate it. Admittedly, Bella only ate a molecule or two, but she is the preschooler human equivalent of an air fern.

OK, so here's what I had:

Ham left over from what Alex brought home last night
A partial package of frozen tail-on shrimp
Chicken broth that I cooked boil-in-bag rice in last week, and then froze
Three leftover pieces of frozen garlic bread
One packet of instant brown rice
Half a bag of frozen chopped onions
A can of diced tomatoes with peppers, onion and celery
File' powder
Garlic powder
Thyme
Olive Oil
Butter
Louisiana hot sauce
Coarse Kosher salt

And here's what I made with it:

And here's how--again, you can change this up about a million ways, however you like. I started with a pat of butter and a splash of olive oil in a Dutch oven.

Sauteed the onion and garlic (or garlic powder) until browned.

Added about a cup of uncooked, instant brown rice, and a couple cups of chopped ham, stirred to coat in oil.

Added the can of diced tomatoes (the variety with celery and peppers added).

Added the 2-3 cups of chicken broth, that I'd partially thawed in the microwave.

Reduced heat, covered, and simmered for a while, cooking down the liquid, while also adding gumbo file' powder to thicken.

When optimal thickness was reached, added the frozen shrimp and cooked just 'til done, a couple of minutes.

Removed shrimp, pulled tails off because my family would whine about having to do it themselves, put tailless shrimp back into jambalaya, made final adjustments to seasoning and thickness, then served with garlic bread, hey presto.

This is kind of a big deal for me, because I'm bad about accumulating ingredients in my pantry and freezer, and not using them. To stop doing that is one of the goals I'm trying to reach with all this (there are MANY), because to not do so is wasteful of food and money, and we certainly don't have money to spare around here. I work too hard organizing coupon sprees to waste the spoils of my victory.

Like Sands Through The Hourglass...

2007-10-05T09:14:00.000-05:00

So are the days of our lives. Wednesday dinner? No clue. I'm thinking Alex brought something home, but I was largely unconscious. This was my dinner, because I had one of my (thankfully increasingly rare) migraines:

And since my bad headaches usually involve 36 hours or so of debilitating headache and being largely unconscious from the medication, and then another good half-day of narcotic hangover, Alex also provided dinner Thursday night, in the form of stopping by the Heavenly Ham store in Little Rock, where he had an appointment that day.

It was great, but now we have ham for days. So, Brilliant Internets! What are your genius ideas for an interesting ham-based dinner for tonight? I'm making omelettes or a quiche tomorrow morning, so don't suggest that (although, if you have a really good quiche recipe, I'd LOVE to have it).

I'm making headway on the current project, and WILL have that done by the weekend, hopefully before the Razorback game on Saturday, which I may be attending, though it's not a done deal. Speaking of the current project, did you guys read my mom's comment here? She's pretty much a super-genius, and a lot to live up to. And she has two daughters who live with Laundry Monsters, much to her chagrin. How did someone like THAT raise someone like ME? As far as housekeeping goes, anyway, it's a mystery.

So, let's have it: Ham for dinner! What say you?

Homemade Stuffed Pasta Shells

2007-10-03T00:58:00.000-05:00

Since I cheated with the frozen shells last week, I figured I'd make some from scratch this week. It's not hard, just a tiny bit "fussy." Don't be deterred, though. You don't have to stick to this recipe closely at all, just fix it to fit your taste. I did. First, brown some ground meat (or leave this out altogether and sub in some ricotta or other cheeses to keep it vegetarian). I used half lean ground beef, half ground turkey breast. I didn't tell my husband about the turkey.

Meanwhile, in a food processor or, if you haven't unpacked your food processor yet (because, you know, you've only lived here for two years), your trusty 40-year-old Osterizer blender, puree a package of fresh baby spinach, a couple shots of extra-virgin olive oil, garlic to taste (I keep the jarred, diced stuff on hand for convenience) and some "holy trinity" (onions, peppers, celery). I always buy the pre-chopped packaged frozen trio and keep several bags in the freezer. SO much better than chopping onions after work. If it's too thick, you can add just a bit of water.

Boil large pasta shells. You won't need a whole box, but I use a whole box, because a bunch of them are not going to hold their shape. Cook them just short of the "al dente" phase, because you want them tough enough to handle--plus, they'll be baking in sauce later anyway. They'll get tender.

While pasta is boiling, add your spinach puree to the meat mixture, and cook it for 10 minutes or so on medium heat. When it's done, this is where you season to taste. I used kosher salt, coarse-ground black pepper, and because the new hasn't worn off yet, some BaconSalt.

Once cooked and seasoned, transfer the meat/spinach filling mixture to a shallow dish to let it cool. You might want to stick it in the freezer for 5 minutes, even--it has to cool because you'll be adding an egg shortly, and you don't want scrambled egg in your filling.

Drain and rinse pasta, "shocking" it with cold water so it will be cool enough to handle and won't stick to itself.

Stir in a handful of fresh grated parmesan cheese and one egg to the cooled filling mixture.

Use a small spoon to stuff the shells with the filling.

Pour about a cup of pasta sauce into the bottom of a baking dish. Yes, it's sauce from a jar. I don't feel much like making fresh sauce when I get home from work, either. I used a tomato-basil variety; store-brand, even.

Lay stuffed shells over sauce in the baking dish.

Pour remaining sauce from jar over the stuffed shells. Cover, and bake at 350 degrees for about a half hour.

Garnish with grated parmesan, fresh basil, whatever you like, and serve. This is way more filling than it looks, so go easy on the portions, especially if you're serving a side dish.

The Perfect Baked Potato

2007-10-02T08:57:00.000-05:00

OK, after this I have to shut up about the BaconSalt. But seriously--buy some.

Dinner Monday night was simple enough--steamed broccoli, and baked potatoes with Smart Balance Light, Light sour cream, a sprinkling of sharp cheddar...sounds kind of "blah," huh? Well, maybe--until you add the SECRET INGREDIENT.

With the addition of zero-calorie peppered BaconSalt to my baked potato, I think I could have eaten several of them. You gotta getcha some of this stuff. Because, as they say over at BaconSalt headquarters, "Everything should taste like bacon."

Week One In Review

2007-10-01T22:38:00.000-05:00

So, dinner Saturday? This. Because we were lazy, we were tired, and they BROUGHT IT TO US. Buffalo Chicken Pizza from Larry's. Yup.

But also, on Saturday? Alex cleaned the living room to a fare-thee-well. I was stunned and grateful, because I sure didn't want to do it. There is the matter of some boxes on one side of the room, but I'll come to that in a bit. Let's continue to recap the week.

Monday, I gathered ingredients for, and Alex did the cooking of, a big pot of Corn Macque Choux. I did some laundry and some dishes.

Tuesday, a dog with a poked eyeball had to go to the vet. Alex foraged at the grocery store for a few items I didn't have, and I fried him some chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy and homemade biscuits, a rare, and rather fatty, treat. More laundry, more dishes. Bought horse feed. Did major grocery shopping on the last day of the circular sale, to maximize my coupons.

Wednesday, I made a lighter than usual version of creamy herb-chive chicken, served on whole-wheat pasta with steamed mixed veggies.

By Thursday, the grind was getting to me, and I used a dry seasoning mix to make some General Tso chicken. Spicy, but good. Served it on brown rice with some sauteed green beans. Also explained what the heck I was trying to accomplish with all this documentation. Or tried to.

On Friday, I was downright tired, and opted for a mostly prepared meal using frozen ricotta-stuffed pasta shells, jarred sauce and some fresh spinach. Internetally, I whined about what the heck is wrong with me.

Saturday morning, we got up early, and GOT OUT OF THE HOUSE. This is a big deal for us on a Saturday, which is when we usually lie around and turn into a sedentary gelatinous substance that may or may not smell kinda bad. My 10-year-old nephew came over, and we went out to breakfast (I LOVE going out for breakfast), took the kids to a playground for some exercise and photo-ops, and then for several games of bowling and arcade fun. Then we came home and Alex and Bella both passed out while I edited fortyleven pictures and posted them on flickr and then watched to see which ones might make Explore. When Alex woke up, he did the amazing living-room cleanup, most of it before I even knew what he was doing. He may not clean often (of course, neither do I), but when he does, he's thorough. We celebrated by eating delivered pizza in the nice neat room. Good times.

Sunday, it was back to rotting away, more or less. Not sure what happened there, except that the very little I got accomplished happened in the last hour before bedtime. Our sad, sad dinner came to this (and no, that ain't homemade):

Since Alex did such a nice job getting the living room to a livable state (I did it last time, but it sure didn't last long, and we're going to try to do better this time), I promised to actually FINISH a project that's been hanging over my head for, oh...nearly two years. Say hello to Project Next:
Yeah. That's my front door, folks. Or at least the door that serves as the front door, because our house faces backward on our lot. In any case, this is one side of the LIVING ROOM. And these moving boxes and miscellaneous detritus have been there since we moved into this house. In January of 2006. Are you picking up what I'm putting down? Now, this is only about half the previous pile, because I put a pretty serious dent in it a couple of months ago, before having a sinking spell that lasted several weeks. But now that I've posted THIS live on the Internets, I can't very well just let it sit there, can I? At least, that's the idea.

I hope you're not ashamed to know me.

Manicotti-Stuffed Shells with Spinach (cheat version)

2007-09-29T19:34:00.000-05:00

Friday night was another "cheater's" meal, meaning I used prepared/frozen ingredients.

INGREDIENTS:

1 box Mona's Cheese Stuffed Shells (frozen)
1 jar Prego Traditional pasta sauce
1 package organic baby spinach
Dressing of choice for spinach salad (optional)

Pour half of pasta sauce on bottom of baking dish, arrange frozen pasta shells on top of sauce.

Layer fresh spinach on top of shells, as much as you like.

Pour the rest of the sauce over everything.

Cover dish with foil, bake in 400 degree oven for about an hour. Dish up, top with Parmesan cheese, and serve with spinach salad or steamed veggies.

General Tso Chicken (Cheat Version)

2007-09-28T23:40:00.000-05:00

Super quick and easy, uses a mix.

INGREDIENTS (serves 4)

1 pound chicken, white or dark, your preference, cut into 1-inch pieces
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp. oil
1 packet Sun Bird General Tso chicken seasoning mix
1/2 cup water (I think--just follow the directions on the packet)
1/4 cup sugar
2 Tbsp. soy sauce

Instant brown rice, either boil-in bag or regular
Canned chicken broth or water with chicken bouillon

Whole green beans in microwave-steaming package
OPTIONAL: splash of teriyaki sauce for green beans

Put 1/4 cup flour in quart-size Ziploc baggie, add chicken pieces. Shake until chicken is well-coated with flour. Heat 2 Tbsp. oil in nonstick skillet, then place coated chicken pieces in hot oil and brown chicken on all sides.

In a small bowl, stir together packet of seasoning mix, water, soy sauce, and sugar until well-blended.

While chicken is cooking, prepare instant brown rice according to package instruction, except using chicken broth in place of water.

Add prepared seasoning blend to chicken pieces in skillet, toss until well coated, lower heat and cook down to desired consistency. NOTE: The long you simmer it, the thicker and stickier the sauce will be. Cooking time is short for this dish.

While the final simmering is going on, steam the green beans in the microwave. Once the chicken is done, empty the skillet and use it to toss the green beans with a splash of teriyaki for about two minutes, making optimal use of any General Tso sauce that might be left in the pan.

Serve it up and make everybody eat their beans! This really tasted like the General Tso chicken you might get at a Chinese restaurant, but without the heavy breading and deep-frying. I had to rinse most of the sauce from Bella's portion, because it was too spicy for her, and it cleared our sinuses! Family Rating: 6.5

What's Up With This, Belinda?

2007-09-27T23:38:00.000-05:00

What is this thing, anyway? Well, I'll tell you what it's not. It's not a "how-to" blog. Not how to cook, how to clean, how to organize, how to de-clutter, how to save money, etc. These topics will be addressed here, though, because what this IS, is my attempt at assigning some credibility to myself, in a desperate attempt to GET IT TOGETHER, starting NOW. And "NOW" will be repeated every day. At least that's the idea.

I'm about to set out on a learning quest, and if I ever get to the end, I'll have become my mother, and then I can stop. But until that unlikely day, I'll be steadily trying. And I'm journaling my struggle here, because in making it public I'll hopefully feel more motivated to keep the personal growth going, and also because there may be (God help you) more out there like me, who go through these same challenges.

So, here's the deal. I'm a working mom, married, with one child, a preschooler. I'm tired just about all the time. Dinner is a daily angst-fest. I come home from work and errands, with Bella, exhausted and weary, and I've gotten to where the words, "What's for dinner?" make me want to HURT SOMEONE. And that's not good for anyone. Especially Alex.

Similarly, the house. It is a wreck. And that's putting it kindly. I just can't keep up with it, and I really don't understand why. From your comments over here, I'm starting to put together that this whole thing, this "keeping of a home" is all about PLANNING. And ORGANIZATION. And HAVING A REGULAR ROUTINE. Gee, just took me until I was 40 years old to catch on. Now, whether or not I can put any of this into practice is another thing altogether, and that will be the fun (FUN! There will be FUN here!) of this journal.

Want more? There is a mountain of laundry occupying most of the central portion of my house. And it's not like a temporary thing--it's there ALL THE TIME. Things are clean, but they never seem to be put away. Ahem.

Dishes? Yeah. When they get like this, it's time to do something desperate. And that's pretty much when I make my first appearance in the kitchen in a dish-washing capacity.

Hey, stick around--there are sure to be MORE embarrassing photos of clutter, filth and squalor! Well, maybe. Unless I get leprosy, like that time on The Simpsons when Homer and Bart thought they had it from living in a messy house.

I would VERY much appreciate comments and especially tips from those of you who seem to have this sort of thing under control--you're everywhere, and YOU CAN HELP ME! I'm clueless.

What I'll be focusing on to start, hence the recipes posted so far, is meal-planning. On a recent post of mine at t'other blog, I got SO many great suggestions in the comments, and all of them boiled down to MENU PLANNING. So that is what I'm trying to do now, and I'll be posting something about every day's dinner, even if only briefly, so that I can keep track of what I'm doing, be accountable to myself for continuing to do it, and hopefully get suggestions from some of you on ways I could make it better.

Because right now, there just aren't enough hours in the day...and even when there ARE, I'm not making optimal use of them! What sort of madness is this? You tell me. I'll see you tomorrow for dinner. Lord, help me as I try to GET. IT. TOGETHER.

Creamy Herb-Chive Chicken & Pasta

2007-09-27T22:00:00.000-05:00

This is one of my favorite dishes to make for myself and to serve for company. It cooks quickly on the stovetop, or you can cook the sauce and then pour it over fresh raw chicken in a casserole dish and bake it, covered, in the oven for a longer time, if you'd rather just put something on and get out of the kitchen for a while.

INGREDIENTS (for 4 servings):

1 pound chicken breast tenderloins
4 Tbsp. unsalted butter, lite butter, or Smart Balance
1/2 tub Philly Light cream cheese with chives
1 packet Italian dressing mix (like Good Seasons)
1 can low sodium cream of mushroom (or golden mushroom) soup
1/2 cup white cooking wine
1/2 box whole-wheat angel-hair pasta (Hodgson Mills makes some)*
*NOTE--if you'd rather use refined ("regular") pasta, use a whole box, as WW is more filling.

OPTIONAL, but very good additions: capers, marinated artichoke hearts, fresh asparagus

In a non-stick skillet on medium-high heat, melt butter. As soon as it's melted, very quickly add the Italian dressing mix. Since the dressing mix is salty, you might want to only add half at this time, taste-testing along the way. You can always add more later. Stir until well-blended, working quickly.

Get the chicken breast tenders on to cook, searing both sides well, but as quickly as you can. They'll have plenty of time to cook through later--right now you just want to sear the outside.

Once the chicken pieces are seared, add the 1/2 cup white cooking wine.

Immediately add the can of cream of mushroom soup, and the 1/2 tub of cream cheese.

Stir to blend all ingredients until well melted and blended, then reduce heat and set chicken and sauce to simmer.

Meanwhile, be steaming veggies or making a salad to go along with your dinner, and setting a pot of water on the stove to boil for your pasta. Just about the time your side dish is ready, it should be time to put the 1/2 box of whole-wheat pasta on to cook. For my family, I have to cook whole-grain pastas well past the "al dente" stage, or my husband won't eat it, because he's spoiled to refined pasta! If you ARE using "regular" pasta instead of whole-grain, go ahead and use a whole box, because the whole-grain variety is much more filling.

Plate pasta, place chicken pieces on top, and pour sauce over all. Garnish with capers if your husband is weird and doesn't like them, preventing you from having cooked them in with the sauce. Serve with steamed vegetables or salad or sauteed asparagus.

If I were serving this for company, I'd use the oven-bake method, and chicken breast halves instead of tenders. I'd probably slice each individual breast in diagonal pieces, and fan the pieces slightly over each plate of pasta, then pouring the sauce from end to end over the middle.

Southern Fried Chicken

2007-09-26T08:58:00.001-05:00

There are as many variations on frying chicken as there are cooks who make it. I'm only going to talk about the ways I make it, and the way I consider to be the best.

This is NOT a dish I make frequently, because, let's face it, it's FRIED chicken, and not exactly diet-friendly. But 3 or 4 times a year, it's a delicious, special treat. I normally use boneless, skinless breast and thigh fillets, but sometimes (like in the pictures to follow) I'll use a cut-up whole chicken, as-is, because Alex likes it that way.

Lots of people deep-fry chicken. I deep-fry nothing, because I find the grease absorption to be just too much, plus you don't have as much control during the cooking process. I pan-fry chicken, and I do it one of two ways that my mother and her mother and her mother did it. One of the only things I added of my own to the process is that I marinate the chicken, sometimes overnight, in buttermilk before cooking. The acid in the buttermilk tenderizes the chicken and helps it retain moisture.

When it comes to coating the chicken, you need a wet component and a dry component. You can just use the buttermilk for your wet wash, taking the chicken pieces directly from buttermilk to the dry coating, and that works just fine, and is the method I used here. But for "classic" fried chicken, you'll want to make your "wash" with eggs. Beat a few eggs with a splash of milk, and use the dry-wet-dry method of coating the chicken: dredge each piece in your flour mixture, then dip it in the egg mixture, then dredge in the flour again. About the flour mixture--just season a shallow dish full of all-purpose flour with whatever suits your taste. It could be as simple as plain ol' salt and pepper, but you can add everything from seasoned salt to poultry seasoning to dried herbs. Just be sure it's blended well with the flour.

Of course, you don't want to coat the chicken pieces until the minute you're ready to cook them. Use a heavy skillet, preferably cast-iron, and pour in about 1/2-inch (less if you're using boneless cuts--you only want the oil to cover about 1/3 of each chicken piece) of fresh vegetable oil (never re-use cooking oil). Heat the oil to medium-high--you'll know it's ready when a bit of flour dropped into the hot oil sizzles. DO NOT add chicken until the oil is hot!

Place coated chicken pieces "pretty side" down in the skillet, and cook at med-high heat until the bottom side is golden-brown. Now you have a choice to make. If you're pressed for time, or if you just like your chicken very crispy, you can turn it over and simply continue to cook it, quickly, at the same heat until it's golden-brown all over and juices run clear when you pierce a piece in its thickest part. That will produce a fine result that anyone would be proud to serve.

BUT. If you want "classic" Southern-Fried Chicken, tender and juicy and melt-in-your-mouth divine, you'll do it just a little differently. Turn the pieces over, then reduce heat to medium-low, cover the skillet, and leave it alone for another 20-30 minutes or more, depending on the thickness of the cuts. The result is well worth the extra time, and will have people in awe of your chicken-frying prowess.

One note--no matter how you're tempted, do not crowd the chicken pieces in the skillet. The skillet shown here is a bit crowded.

Compatible side-dishes for Southern fried chicken include, of course, mashed potatoes and gravy (I'll add a separate post on making chicken gravy--it's easy when you know how, and not nearly as unhealthy as you might think), green beans served with pepper-vinegar sauce, corn on the cob, chow-chow or corn relish, and fried okra. In warmer weather, or for picnics, potato salad and coleslaw are good choices. I've never quite understood or agreed with the serving of baked beans with fried chicken, but apparently a lot of people like that.

Homemade (don't you DARE serve canned) biscuits are a must with fried chicken, and I'll post that recipe next, because it's quick, easy, and delicious, and the same recipe lends itself to delicious chicken and dumplings.

Corn Macque Choux, Paul Prudhomme Recipe

2007-09-25T00:45:00.000-05:00

This is one of Alex's all-time favorite dishes, and this most recent occasion, he actually made it for himself, leaving me free to document the creation of this fabulous dish that not many people outside the deep South have heard of. (Click any photo to go to its flickr page.)

Ingredients for 10-12 side-dish servings, or 4-6 main course servings:

4 Tbsp. unsalted butter (we just go ahead and use salted)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
7 cups fresh corn kernels, about 14 ears (we use fresh-frozen corn kernels)
1 cup very finely chopped onions (again, we use pre-chopped, frozen onions)
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp. Chef Paul Prudhomme Vegetable Magic (we used Poultry Magic)
2 1/4 cup vegetable stock or frozen corn kernels (once I used frozen creamed corn)
4 Tbsp. margarine (we just used the rest of the butter)
1 cup evaporated milk, total (I have also used heavy cream with great results)
2 eggs (we set ours out so they'd be room temp.)

In a large skillet, preferably nonstick (we actually use a big heavy Dutch oven), combine the butter and oil with the corn, onions, sugar, and Vegetable Magic.

Cook over high heat until the corn is tender and a crust starts to form on the bottom of the skillet, about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, then stirring more as the mixture starts sticking (you WANT the mixture to stick).

Gradually stir in 1 cup of the stock, scraping the bottom of the skillet to remove the crust as you stir. Continue cooking for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add the margarine/butter, stir until melted, then cook for an additional 5 minutes, stirring frequently and scraping the pan as needed.

Reduce heat to low and cook about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, then add 1/4 cup additional stock and cook about 15 minutes, stirring fairly frequently. Add the remaining 1 cup of stock and cook about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Stir in 1/2 cup of the evaporated milk and continue cooking until most of the liquid is absorbed, about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Remove corn from heat. Combine the eggs and the remaining 1/2 cup milk in a bowl and beat with a whisk about 1 minute, until very frothy.

Add this mixture to the corn, stirring well. The heat from the corn will cook the eggs just enough to give the dish a frothy texture. Serve immediately.