Regan’s Recipe Round Up - Week 3

I've spent a lot of time this week looking over the delicious dishes found on the many food tasting, spotting & gawking sites around the web. Here’s a sampling of just a few things I spotted that whet my appetite.

What did you see this week that inspires you to get in the kitchen? 

Chocolate Milk from the farmer’s market from LeelaCyd

Graham Cracker Pancakes from A Little Zaftig

Piggy Sandwich from CFFK

Swiss Chard and Chickpeas from naturallyella

Spinach Feta Pie from waitingforgateau

Triple-Cheese & Spinach Strata from onecaketwocake

Cake Balls from leavesofwheatgrass

Rosemary-Apple Grilled Cheese from Me #ShamelessSelfPromo (This is so tasty, I had to include.)

Bircher Müesli from kumquat

Chicken Tortilla Soup from thegalleygourmet

Lentils w/ Tomatoes & Gorgonzola from itpleasesus

Make Ahead Mom Meets Leftover-Hating Dad

 

This is no love story. 

In fact, my husband hates leftovers. 

It used to mean a lot of food got filed away in the trash... a concept I, in turn, hate. And no time has that been truer than now. Why?

1. Our food bill has increased with the addition of children
2. Have you checked your grocery receipt lately? 

Over the years, I have certainly developed a strategy to use many foods in a second-serving manner - the cornerstone of Make Ahead Mom has to be the leftover chicken breast, no?  

But one food I have always struggled with is the hamburger. 

I’m not a big burger eat... a good home grilled version every now and again is fine, but it’s not my go-to if I’m cooking.  

My husband, however, has this new, super special grill that has sparked within him a new interest in grilling (...and the angels rejoice! I’m frankly thrilled to have the food prep help.)

His repertoire is increasing, but burgers certainly fall into the category of go-to meals. Lucky for me, they showed up on the menu this week at his hands (angels continue rejoicing! After traveling most of last week, help in the kitchen is always welcome.) 

The problem - What to do with the leftover patties? Day old burgers are a natural choice for most people. Now, please go back and read the first sentence of this post. 

I decided to put the recipe community via the WWW to the test. The overwhelming consensus: crumble into a spaghetti sauce. 

Okay... I’ll bite. 

What I ended up with was a surprisingly good variation on spaghetti sauce. Nothing fancy. Not what you’re going to serve at your next dinner party. But a second call for burgers that would’ve otherwise ended up discarded. Would a traditional bolognese have been better? Most likely. But for a quick-and-easy (and frugal) dinner on a Wednesday night, it was pretty darn good. 

This wasn’t a complete “make ahead” meal, but my freezer did come to the rescue, sprucing things up a bit & making it an even quicker option:

Meat - These were very lean patties. The consensus was to crumble into a sauce. I actually cubed them. Texture wise the crumbled may have been better, but this worked. It was sorta like a square meatball. (Did I just say that?) I placed in a small pan, topped with sauce, doctored a little and let simmer. 

Sauce - The base of the sauce was a very simple marinara variation I made a month or so ago (and popped into individual servings in the freezer) using 1 can tomato sauce, 1 can diced tomatoes and a little refrigerated pesto. You would NOT believe how simple this is. It’s like instant marinara. Nutritionally, the best choice would be to look for no-salt-added tomatoes.   

Extras - I keep a stack of roasted red bell pepper quarters in my freezer at all times now. I stack between sheets of deli paper coated with cooking spray, for easy removal. Roasted bells can be cubed even when frozen, no need to thaw. Roasting yourself and freezing is less expensive than buying from the jar and eliminates the extra salt of the jarred version (which are admittedly quite good in a pinch.) 

I also “doctored” the overall sauce a little with a few kalamata olives, and when it was all served, added a few fresh curls of high quality, dry aged cheese. My friends at Cabot Creamery clearly have my favorite with their Clothbound Cheddar. If you’ve never tried it, please look for it. It’s unlike any “cheddar” you’ve ever tasted. If you aren’t lucky enough to snag some, a true Parmesan or good high quality domestic variation will do just fine. 

Pasta - I used up the last of my pre-cooked pasta a week earlier. So rather than cooking just enough for last night’s dinner, I cooked an entire package of whole wheat spaghetti. I portioned the rest in freezer bags and popped into the freezer for a future meal. <--- But that’s a story for another day. 

Make Ahead Mom - Stacking The Deck in Your Favor

Sometimes, the idea of what to make ahead is obvious - Curried Chicken from earlier this week, for instance. 

Sometimes, it’s more about seizing the make ahead moments with foods you are already set to cook in your kitchen. The challenge (or opportunity) is to dissect all the make ahead moments that exist within a given recipe. 

Take my Perfect Pancakes. 

A fairly easy, straightforward pancake recipe, these don’t “really” take a ton of time to make. But as any busy mom (redundant, perhaps) can attest to, finding even small bursts of dedicated cooking time can be a challenge.

That’s why I have taken an easy on-the-griddle a.m. option and turned it into one of my make ahead standbys. I do it in two ways: 

Make Ahead Method

Part 1

Stir together dry ingredients in a bowl the night before. Either cover with plastic wrap or pop the bowl into an empty, cold oven (my secret off the counter, out of the way hiding place). 

Whisk together wet ingredients, cover and in the fridge it goes. 

Put the griddle right on the stove with your spatula near by. 

[This may all seem oversimplified, but the reality is that these simple steps are what makes the difference between actually “cooking” pancakes in the morning vs simply opting for a bowl of oatmeal.]

Part 2

Invariably there are always pancakes left over. At our last home, we used to walk to the lake periodically and allow the community resident ducks to join our feast. But we are duck-less these days, and I have wised to the fact that leftover pancakes can find a perfect home in my freezer. 

People recommend a number of different ways to freeze leftover pancakes. My favorite is to stack them between sheets of deli paper, place in a zip-top and pop in the freezer. 

By stacking between deli paper, they can easily be taken one-by-one from the freezer and either warmed in the microwave or toasted in a toaster oven.

In either respect, the advance prep is certainly stacking the odds for a worry free meal in your favor. 

Healthy Habits - One Day at A Time

I was so honored to be asked by my friends at The Southeast Dairy Association to be a guest blogger on Dairy Delivers today. Having worked with the dairy association over the years, I know many of the Registered Dietitians, nutrition educators and staff who work so hard to educate the public about the benefits of calcium-rich low-fat dairy foods. These are people I am proud to call friends. 

Most importantly, they are people I am proud to say represent farmers throughout the Southeast and nationwide who, like the farmers I support at Cabot Creamery, work tirelessly to bring nutritious food to our tables. So please stop by to see what nutrition tips and recipes I served up on their menu for today!

Healthy Kitchens, Healthy Lives - in pictures - part 2

As a part of the HKHL symposium I'm attending this weekend, I had the great fortune to attend a seminar on the very real and well documented health benefits of moderate alcohol consumption. Being the wine lover that I am, I wanted to share these images... even before I'm able to share the research... I will post more about the session soon.  

Make Ahead Mom - on the move

First... the picture to the right has nothing to do with today's post. I just thought it was a super cool wine opener found in the collection of many, many openers at the CIA. 'Course at second glance, maybe it could be some sort of visual metaphor for a woman in movement, like the title... but really, it's just cool. 

On to the post.... 

Perhaps it did not make a lot of sense to intro my new feature of the Make Ahead Mom during a week I left for a business trip. I wanted to be able to detail what wonderful get-ahead ingredients I worked on this weekend. The reality is that I enjoyed a healthy cooking conference in Napa Valley (poor me, right?). It was, however, completely filled with discussions about the need to plan menus and cook ahead in order to eat more healthfully. Score one for the Make Ahead Mom.  

Anyway, I am returning inspired to not only explore new tastes & flavor combinations, but more importantly find ways to cook them in advance. You know... mise en place, Make Ahead Mom style. 

The good news is that I left behind a freezer stash of foods that have already been prepped and will be ready for the warm-up when I get in this evening. I didn’t really have this particular day in mind when I cooked them, but that, my friends, is the beauty of the system. It's ready whenever you need it. 

Curried Chicken (or Chickpeas) in Coconut-Peanut Sauce is an extremely simplified adaptation of Chicken Curry. I was first introduced to this version’s simplicity when I worked at Weight Watchers Magazine. The version we tested was vegetarian, featuring chickpeas/garbanzo beans, but over the years I have adapted it. I don’t pretend to suppose that this is an authentic Thai recipe. But it’s easy. It’s economical. And it tastes great.

Make Ahead Method

• Make sauce doubling recipe, minus the addition of chickpeas or chicken
• After sauce cools, spoon individual servings into zip-top plastic freezer bags
• Seal bag, pressing as much air out as possible
• Lay bags flat and stack in a square baking dish/pan (Try to use a dish about the same size as your bags when they are laid flat. It helps keep them from sliding around in the freezer)
• After sauce freezes, remove bags from baking dish and stack in freezer
• Do the same method with a batches of rice, laying bags flat before freezing** 

**Taking the time to lay the bags flat for freezing is important because it

1. helps keep things organized in your freezer 
2. makes the most of your freezer space 
3. aids in thawing (referenced below) by exposing more surface area

When I’m ready to make dinner, I “pull” previously roasted and frozen chicken from one large breast (I usually thaw by placing in the ‘fridge the night before. It may sound like advanced planning & strategy, but it’s really more like “Well, I guess we’ll have chicken tomorrow night” and then I go from there. You could also substitute drained, canned chickpeas for the chicken as the original version did if your chicken reserves are empty.) 

I place a bag of sauce and a bag of rice in a bowl of warm water while I pull the chicken. “Pulling” chicken is super quick and ultimately a great task for a child to help with. Just be sure they have clean hands & maybe opt for plastic forks, depending on the age of the child. The good thing about pulled chicken - it’s free-form, no need to use knives and it’s very forgiving, in terms of shape and size. 

How you assemble at this point is really up to you. Honestly, I believe microwaves are meant for more than just popcorn, so I put mine to good use. I assemble each plate with the cold, just thawed ingredients and then warm accordingly. You could very easily place the sauce & chicken in a small pot to simmer over low and then warm the rice in a similar fashion. 

I say why bother? 

More dishes = more work = less time with my kids after a long week of traveling. I may love my time in the kitchen, but I love my time with my kids more.

...and with that, dinner is served. 

Healthy Kitchens, Healthy Lives - in pictures

Just a small sampling of the eats from the first few days here in Napa....

 Opening Reception - Cabot 50% Reduced Fat Pepper Jack

Syrian Wheat Salad

Whole Wheat Couscous Salad

Rigatoni with Roasted Cauliflower and Parsley Pesto

Roasted Beets with Baby Arugula

Mixed Fruit Cobbler 

Peanut Crusted Sea Bass

 

Getting Ahead in the Kitchen

These little guys... 

...they are the reason that I officially announce March as the month of the “Make Ahead Mom.” It’s my new job. My new title. I guess I’ll call it my month, too. As one well-traveled RD in my professional community likes to say, it’s all about #MeFirst. I guess today’s my #MeFirst moment. Being mom to the ones shown above, I don’t usually have many of those - what mom does? But I digress....    

Anyway, becoming the Make Ahead Mom is not really the kind of job you sign up for... frankly, I was pretty happy with my job as “Make Dinner On The Fly At Five” mom.  

But now that we have added #2 to our flock and as #1 has gotten older, life is requiring a different approach. As innocent and peaceful as they may appear above, sometimes an image does not tell the full story (no matter how many words it is worth.)

These are busy little men with tummies that start rumbling every afternoon around 4 o’clock and even busier bodies that start knocking around the walls of my kitchen simultaneously. What used to be my unwind-over-a-simmering-sauce time has, in recent months, turned into a cacophony of laughter and crying, begging and bartering and general abandonment of organization during the evening hour.  

Enter my friend Robin Plotkin.  

Robin, a fellow RD, blogger and popular food commentator, jolted me into a new system of approaching daily meals with her regular conversations about what she was making ahead in her kitchen. I had always viewed “make ahead” as something only suitable for an entire dish (which often sounds heavy on advance prep time that I just don’t feel like I have). 

But what Robin taught me (sometimes I need a little hand holding, I guess) was that it didn’t have to be that complicated. You just get all your “stuff” ready for the week, so that assembling dinner in the coming days no longer feels like you’re juggling fire batons (And if you’ve ever cooked on a gas stove with a baby on one hip and a preschooler pretending he is a karate champion on the other side, you get the picture.) 

To read more about my introduction into this world of making ahead, as well as a few tips to get started, please see my post today on My Recipes. In the coming months, I will share more about getting ahead in the kitchen, so that you can get on with your life. 

Strawberry Gelato... finally

 

Strawberry Gelato PostScript

After a quick trip to the market with my boys, I decided today was definitely the day to break out the ice cream maker. Believe it or not... it is very warm where I am today. Warm & sunny... I didn’t say hot... but warm - definitely warm enough for the Strawberry Gelato mentioned in my earlier post today.

I've had a traditional ice cream maker for years; since I first got married, in fact. But just last year, I inherited a Cuisinart counter-top version. You know the one - you keep the bucket in the freezer and then just plug it in. None of that ice, salt mess (which is IMO only fun & nostalgic once a year... certainly not fit for a Saturday afternoon in March). When you have kids around half the fun of a recipe is the expectation and preparation. That all lived up to the hype. But as for the end-result, well, here's what happened:

• This recipe makes too much. Plain and simple. It must have been developed with a full-size ice cream maker in mind. It’s an old Cooking Light recipe circa 2001. I worked there then, and I know by then, we’d tested the counter-top versions. But I suspect they weren’t as commonplace as they are today, so I suspect that's why the large yield. If you read the reader comments on the recipe, it gets glowing reviews... with the exception of the yield. Most people feel it makes too much, as do I. The good news is it can be halved, easily. 

• Often times I tweak recipes based on personal preference, time, creativity and admittedly, laziness (yeah... I said laziness... I’m not Julia Child. Surprise.) This time I made two changes. The first, was fine: I used 1 cup buttermilk & 1 cup whole milk. I was a little iffy on the tang of the buttermilk for the rest of the family, so I cut it in half. The flavor of the gelato was great! However, the second change was not so forgiving. I didn’t cool the sugar syrup adequately before combining with the 'berries & milk. After nearly an hour of churning, I just had a really thick, slushy mixture.  

So I’ve put it all in the freezer and will check the status again tomorrow. I suspect the creamy mouthfeel is going to give way to some iciness given that it never set up during churning. But it will definitely be tasty... I’ve already established that. It’s a touch sweet, as is... but you could easily trim the sugar (and I would recommend doing so once strawberries are season. Their natural sweetness will shine without the additional sugar). 

 ... which reminds me, strawberry season IS coming. I wonder if I’ll make it to a strawberry u-pick again this year? How about you... have you done a u-pick in the past. Whatdya think? Any plans to go back? 

 Artfully eating well, 

~Regan