The Eating Habits of the Wild and Wooly Dunn's

CSA.. Vermont Valley

2010-06-28T23:09:00.000-05:00

We are members of a Community Supported Agriculture farm. CSA for short. For us this means that in th summer we go and pick up a box of veggie every other week. Our farm is Vermont Valley.

I personally would love to see us do once a week but at this point we can’t go through what we get every other week.

I hope to publish photos of what we get when we get it but so far I am not doing a great job. We got our first box on June 3rd we were on vacation and had a friend pick up our second box and I never got picture of that as one must tell one’s husband the plan before he get home with the veggies and put them away.

So here is finally the picture of what we got the first week

Flowering chives (yummy and they smell good, lettuce, spinach, more greens, radishes, small turnips, potatoes (left form late last fall) a basil plant and rhubarb.

The spinach became lasagna, the lettuce and greens were either given away, eaten in a salad, and the rest ended up in the compost, the chives flowered for a while and a few were added to some dish we made and recently composted, we still have lovely radishes and turnip in the fridge (although the radishes are yummy and I have eaten some.) The basil plant is in our garden and the rhubarb is cut and in the fridge. The potatoes became two potato au gratin dishes.

I remember that we got more lettuce, radishes and strawberries last week but beyond that I don't know what we got.

We get our next box this week. I can’t wait there will be sugar snap peas.

52 Weeks of Baking week 7 (5 for me)

2010-05-27T11:28:00.000-05:00

I vowed to make something savory this week. So I an effort to come up with some more vegetarian lunches for myself that are easily portable I decided to experiment with mini quiches. Since I wanted to experiment before I made too many lunches I decided to do them for super. I figured this was a dinner that easily customizable to the individual.

I was in a hurry and didn’t want to make a crust so I decided that I would use hash-brown potatoes as a crust but also gave my kids the option of no crust.

I used a standard muffin/cupcake pan too make the quiches. Besides eggs hash browns and a little milk, the chosen fillings were onion, tomatoes, artichoke hearts, chicken, bacon, spinach, mushrooms, and cheese.

I sprayed and floured the muffin cups. I then put approximately 1 to 1 ½ tablespoons of hash-browns on the bottom each cup that was going to have a hash-brown crust for the adults I added about a half tablespoon of chopped onion and I also added some seeded chopped tomatoes (about I teaspoon). I put this in the oven at 450 for 5 minutes.

Meanwhile I cut up the cooked bacon, the cooked chicken, the artichoke hearts, spinach and mushrooms. I mixed 1 egg per “muffin” with a little milk. I was using shredded cheese left over from a meal earlier in the week. Once the five minutes was up I took the muffin tin out of the oven and started to layer the ingredients in the cups as per the requests of the various members of my family. In the end before I put in the egg mixture there was ¼ to ⅓ cup of fillings in each muffin cup. I lowered the temperature on the oven to 350.

I filled each muffin cup so each cup was about ¾ of the way full. I then sprinkled more cheese on the top of each eggy cup. I put it in the oven for 20-30 minutes.

My son declared his crustless chicken and cheese quiche superb. My daughter said her bacon and cheese potato crust ones were delicious. My husband and I both enjoyed ours. Mine was veggies and cheese his was veggies (no artichoke hearts) and bacon.

In the future I think we will brown the onion and the hash browns before putting them in the oven skipping the step. I thin the flouring of the pan was essential as the quiche muffins did release well.

We also think that more fillings might be a good idea and possibly a little seasoning.

I am really enjoying this adventure of baking something every week. Next up baked custard.

52 Weeks of Baking week 6 (4 for me)

2010-05-18T11:09:00.001-05:00

I baked a bunch of cookies again this time my sons school bake sale in conjunction with the rummage sale and a cookies exchange here on Swap-Bot.
I like a little challenge and my swap partner wrote that she loves bar style cookies. My attempt at a bar cookie years go resulted on burned edges and uncooked middle. So I decided that I would try again.

I looked at all the recipes I had in my specialty cookie books and they all required refrigeration for storage and that would not work for either the bake sale or sending the cookies out. I finally grabbed my Better Homes and Garden book and found 2 recipes for bar cookies that seemed to fit the bill.

The first I made was a simple bar, called Terrific Toffee bars, I omitted the nuts as the school requests that all baked goods be nut free. Personally I think the nuts would have distracted from the toffee flavor. I found the recipe quick easy and painless. I made the spreading of the chocolate chips easier by putting it in the warm oven for 30 seconds. The toffee bits I used were pre-broken heath bars that I found next to the chocolate chips at my local grocery store.

I found the bars that I made following the recipe closely were tasty but thin. I wanted something a little thicker. I decided to make another batch this time in a smaller pan. I also added ½ cup of chocolate chips to the dough. The resulted in a chewer and thicker bar but with little taste difference. The bars were interchangeable really.

Next up was the oatmeal bars I wanted to make something fruity. I had a vision of a blueberry cookie bar. What I found was a recipe called Fruit Filled Oatmeal Bars. I have attached a copy of that one as well. It gave me four filling options I first chose to do the raisin filling using regular raisins instead of golden raisins. I found it quite tasty but I felt that not having a pastry blender was hard to work.

After some thought I decided to employ my pastry method for the second batch. I put the ingredients, except the oatmeal, for the oatmeal layer to my food processor and pulsed it until it began to resemble crumbs. I then added the oatmeal pulsed about 5 more times until it was well combined but not ground. I then followed the rest of the written directions. For this second batch I wanted to make it blueberry and I used dried blueberries and the same method for filling as the raisin filling with half the sugar knowing that dried blueberries are very sweet. This second batch was definitely a better batch although still quite sweet. I probably could use even less sugar next time.

So my swap partner for the cookie exchange has already gotten the package (so nice when she is only one state away) and loved them all saying that the toffee were her favorite. I watched all my bars get sold at the bake sale on Saturday and the few left for my family are gone. My kids would not eat them My husband liked them all but said that the toffee was his favorite as well.

52 Weeks of Baking week 5 (3 for me)

2010-05-06T18:18:00.000-05:00

This is definitely a long write up of my baking session WOW I hope I don’t loose you in the details.
In my house Thursday is becoming “Baking day”. But It has taken a while for me to get this all written up because I was so tired after all of it.

This week I had to make 10 dozen cookies for a swim-meet. My daughter is a swimmer on a swim team and they are hosting their spring meet this weekend. Yea I did volunteer. In the end I got the most wonderful thank you’s both by email and in person.

So I chose to make 3 basic cookies an oatmeal raisin, a Snickerdoodle, and of course Chocolate Chip.

I decided to use different recipes than I have in the past. And I decided I needed to double each of them

For the Oatmeal raisin and the Sinckerdoodles I enlisted my fun cookbook that recipe from "Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar", I am not vegan but I was introduced to some of these cookies at Christmas time. I received a box of cookies at Christmas from a good friend who is vegan and they were great I wrote about it here. The two recipes are “City Girl Sinckerdoodles” on page 46 and Oatmeal Raisin on Page 75

For the Chocolate Chip I decided to go high tech I have an iPod touch and it goes everywhere with me. A good friend of mine let me know that one of my favorite cook book now had an app. Mark Bittman’s How to cook everything. It has the whole book. I have the book it is really big.

So I paid the $1.99 and checked it out. It makes the book more searchable by ingredient and for me vegetarian. So I decided I should test it out. I chose the Classic Chocolate cookies recipe.

I did some math and came up with 7 dozen from single batches of each and that is not accounting for dropped, burned and taste-tested cookies and other manners of reducing donation count.

OK so I had some other thing I needed to do on Thursday besides bake cookies and so I shopped for the extras I needed and planned out the attack. I decided that I would work by oven temp starting with the low temp and working up and then by simplicity.

First up were the oatmeal cookies, I loved the caramel color that the dough was before adding oatmeal and raisins. These ended up a with darker undertones visually that I am used to with Oatmeal cookies. I hoped then for some caramel undertone which they sadly lacked. Don’t get me wrong they were good.

Next up was the City Girl Snickerdoodles, as I double this recipe I miscalculated how much margarine I had in the house and had to replace with some vegan shortening and a little butter.

I was so surprised at how fluffy the dough was. The making the balls was a lot easier when I put a couple table spoons of the Cinnamon and sugar mix on a small plate and rolled the balls that way. Holly loved these cookies. I will be making them again for her. Unfortunately I burned one sheet full. It was sad as I had hoped to keep more than one for the family.

Lastly at the end of the day was the Chocolate Chip cookies. So very traditional. It it is in the print version as well as the iPhone/iPod Touch app.

This is a flat chewy chocolate cookie recipe. Not a cake style one. Alton brown has a long segment on the differences in chocolate chip cookies on his good eats show. Every one in my house loved them.

I was so busy making the cookies (180 in the end that proved my insanity this week) That I didn’t take as many pictures as I would have liked.

This is my HUGE box of cookies. 10 1/2 Dozen! What a day of baking!

52 Weeks of Baking weeks 3&4 (or 1 and 2 for me)

2010-04-29T00:47:00.001-05:00

I, Vicki, have joined swap-bot and in there there is a challenge for 52 weeks of baking. As many of my loyal readers may know I have a love for making cookies. Well, I like other baking as well and I will try to make other things.

I Have decided that once my partners rate me (I send to at this point 2) I will post here what I got well the rating from the last two weeks are in.

The challenge is this (I am quoting from the swap coordinator RedRubyOnFire, who has a blog on blogger too)

“If you like me, find baking therapeutic, calming and satisfying join me on this challenge - 52 Weeks of Baking!
What we will swap - 1) A little paragraph about the day of the baking and the experience gained that day. 2) A photo of the result 3) A link to the recipe if found on line or state where it is found, and a review of it - eg: if it's good or not, or if you made some modification
All the above is only for the baking you did within the swap dates (20th - 27th April) and not those you have done previously. The challenge is to bake once a week.
What you can bake - anything!”

So this is what I have done:

April 13-20th : Peanut Butter Chocolate Pillows

I chose as my first is a recipe from "Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar", Peanut Butter Chocolate Pillows.

I am not vegan but I was introduced to some of these cookies at christmas time. I received a box of cookies at christmas from a good friend who is vegan and they were great I wrote about it here. I am challenging myself to make as many of the recipes out of it. I chose one of my favorites from the box I received.
As my readers will note this is not the first time I have cooked from this book. And this time I was really surprised at the ease of this recipe. The last recipe I made from this book involved reducing some pureed pumpkin and this was “mix and roll”. See Here is me making them.

What I may do differently next time is reduce the amount of oil a little as it is quite oily as you can see from the sheen of my hands. I was surprised that they flattened out so much. My taste testers all liked them. I found them very sweet. I don't know how to change that other than possibly buying unsweetened peanut butter or making my own. I suspect it would only slightly reduce the sweetness.

April 20th-27th Banana Bread

I was exited Last Thursday when I got out of bed. I was going to make Banana bread. I have a nice typed out recipe card that I got years ago from the assistant to my dentist and the mother of a kid I worked with. The bananas were at the point where the kids generally wont eat them and they are perfect for bread.

I hopped down stairs and began to get things together, but I could not find the recipe card. I hadn’t used it since February but it was not in any of the usual places. I saw 2 bananas were riper than I thought so I felt I was at a do or die point. So I went to the cook book shelves (yes I have a lot of cook books) Looked at many but in the end I went for my Better homes and garden cook book. I found a recipe and after reading it through decided I would adapt it. I began to get the ingredients together and grabbed the 2 very ripe bananas only to discover that they were the only 2 Bananas in the house the children had eaten the rest for breakfast.

As I had measured the flour and cracked the eggs I decided to adapt the recipe further by filling out the 1 ½ cups of bananas with some apple sauce - unsweetened simple apple sauce.

Finally I got all the ingredients mixed.

At this point I realized the oven was not on. I had set the timer for 3 hours and 50 minutes instead, ah these modern ovens with all the buttons.

So on went the oven. About 5 minutes later I started to small burning. Now this was a problem earlier in the week when my husband was making a quiche. He said the exposed crust was burning but now I know that something was spilled in the back of the oven. (I'll spare you a picture of that)

Finally about an hour after I had started to make the quick bread I put it in the greased pan and put it in the oven.

I then started this took a shower and started to clean up my mess.

At 45 minutes in I put foil on the top to prevent over browning as the book suggested. And then back in for another 15 minutes. That is all it took! The skewer came out clean. (I always use a wooden 6 inch kebab skewer instead of a tooth pick)

Here is my recipe adapted from Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook limited Edition (2005). Page 119. (the Pink for Breast cancer edition)

Dry:
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour (book calls for 2 cups all purpose flour but I like to use as much Whole wheat flour as I can)
1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon cinnemon
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ nutmeg (OK I never measure nutmeg any more I have whole nut megs that I grate using a micro-plane grater and just guess)

Wet:
1 ½ cups mashed bannanas and apple sauce
½ cup canola oil
1 cup sugar
2 eggs

Last:
¾ cup chocolate chips (not in the book but I always put chocolate in my banana bread)

(Book calls for nuts and a streusel type topping neither of which appeal to me. So I didn’t do them)

Preaheat oven to 350
Grease or oil a large Bread pan (book says 9X5X3) I am not sure the size of mine
Combine Dry ingreadents in a bowl and set aside
Combine wet in mixer bowl ans beat until well combinded
Add half of dry and stir until wet add remained and stir until mixed.
Stir in chocolate chips

Put in greased pan and in to oven Bake for 45-60 minutes until wooden tooth pick comes out clean and is golden brown If necessary cover with foil for the last fifteen minutes to prevent over browning (I did this it was amazing I have had trouble with over browned tops and underdone insides It didn’t happen this time!).

So you ask how it tastes? I liked it there was a nuttiness from the whole wheat flour and it was not too sweet even with the full cup of sugar, fruit, and chocolate chips. Griffin said it was so-so, I think he could tell the recipe change. Bill liked it and ate about half the loaf. Holly never the fan of baked good skipped out on it.

Now to plan for next weeks baking.

Long time gone and Its orange

2010-03-06T21:29:00.000-06:00

I know that I have been gone from here for over a month. I did cook and will try to make up some posts in the next week.

I want to tell you about the orange day.

Tuesday I cooked in orange.

I had two cooking experiments to do today one was butternut squash gnocchi and the other was “Sell Your Soul Pumpkin Cookies” from “Vegan Cookies Invade your Cookie Jar”.

Both seemed like huge undertakings. I was making the gnocchi from scratch, something I have only done once before with regular potato gnocchi. I was a little nervous, probably due to the fact that in the two recipes I was looking at both referred to ability to make gnocchi as if it was some mystical power.

Well I read the two recipes and decided to use the one I found on Too Many Chefs. The article mentions that she has no real idea how much flour she used and called for 1 butternut squash. The other called for 1 butternut squash that was about 1 ½ pounds. I had 2 butternut squash and was planning on using the smaller on that weighed closer to 2 pounds. So the vaguer recipe seemed the better fit to my situation.

A comment (and in the directions to the recipe I saw at Gourmet Sleuth) mentioned that one should let the freshly cooked squash sit in a sieve overnight in a bowl to let it give off some of it’s liquid. Not something I wanted to do last night but cooking the squash in the morning and letting it sit for about 4 hours was what I could manage. It gave off very little liquid in that time. So I’m not sure that would have been a benefit for me with this squash.

As always, cutting the butternut squash was hard. I ended up jamming the vegetable cleaver in to the cut I had made and pounding the works on the cutting board until it split. The result was not a pretty cut but it didn’t need to be presentable so it was not a problem. I used vegetable cooking spray to coat it for roasting, easier than trying to brush some on. (Word to the wise, don’t use baking spray that has flour in it for this application.)

Roasting the squash in the oven gave off the best aroma. The result was wonderful. I grabbed the end just under the shell/rind/skin and it lifted off with ease leaving only the golden soft sweet smelling flesh. I was easily able to scoop up the tender squash and put it in my microwave steamer basket to use as a sieve. I let it cool this way for 4 hours.

4 hours later it was time to also do the most complicated step of the cookies: reducing a cup of canned pumpkin to a half cup of pumpkin. So I put the pumpkin in a sauce pan and the eggs for the gnocchi in the bowl of my stand mixer. Taking some knowledge that I picked up from Alton Brown on one of his many “Good Eats” shows, I cracked the eggs on a plate and I mixed the eggs and squash using the whisk style beater. I slowly added the flour until it was very sticky and then slowly removed the beater while it was still on so that I didn’t have to scrape it and slow enough not to make a big mess.

Every so often I stirred and checked on the pumpkin. It said it could take an hour to reduce and then it would have to cool. With all this cooking of orange vegetables for lengthy times I was beginning to think I had a theme going and might be a bit crazy.

As I added and added flour until I had a sticky dough. Nothing went wrong with pumpkin no browning no burning and it did indeed reduce down like it said. I also ended up with a large amount of beautiful gnocchi dough.

As the pumpkin cooled I rolled and cut the gnocchi dough. I made the “snakes” of dough about a thumb thickness and cut them into 2 ½ finger width pieces.

Boiled them until they floated and returned them to the rinsed clean vegetable dish with strainer that I had cooled the squash in earlier. The kids could hardly wait and attacked them with forks and pronounced them good.

We had dinner with them in a garlic and roasted tomato jarred sauce and grated parmesan. Very yummy. I made so many that some needed to be frozen (“some” equals 119) I put the cooked gnocchi on sheets of waxed paper and left to dry for an hour (just to get the excess water off before they go in the freezer)
*

While they were drying I made the cookies. I’d never made vegan cookies before, at least not specifically. These turned out to be very easy after the pumpkin was reduced and cooled. It was, in the end, put everything in the mixer and blend it all together.

I put them in the oven and they were beautiful

I never took a picture of them finished. And by the time I realized that, we had eaten them all.

Some time simple and easy is perfect

2010-02-01T19:00:00.000-06:00

I have been under the weather for the last few days. This has meant I haven’t been up to cooking much or thinking to hard about food. It also means I got to the end of my planned menu and did not make a new menu or shopping list.

So here we got to tonight and a plan needed to happen. We had plenty of leftovers. We could of had some of that. But the kids have not been pleased with what is left.

I surveyed our fridge and cupboards. Protein in the house was turkey bacon a variety of beans and eggs. Having had plenty beans and it being Meatless Monday Eggs won.
We had a half cup or so of cheese so I thought either cheesy scrabbled eggs or a cheese omelet.

Veggies We actually had a rather large bag of green beans in the crisper. They were in great shape so there is our veggies.

We don’t have enough potatoes for a full dinner and I wanted to round out the meal the bread in the house is a wonderful whole grain and the kids don’t like it much too seedy for them. In the cupboard was several boxes and bags of pasta none of which is enough for a meal but together they work.

So we had a simple dinner of cheesy scrambled eggs, green beans and buttered pasta.

Every one was so pleased that a picture could not be taken.

So here is to really keeping it simple.

Dinner on a Saturday Night - Winter Vegetable Chili

2010-01-23T19:59:00.008-06:00

We haven’t made this in some time, but it has been a favorite vegetarian meal of ours. It’s just a bit time and effort-consuming to make and the kids usually aren’t that thrilled with it. But to heck with the kids, we’re making it this weekend.

We found the recipe on a cooking website more than a decade ago, but as far as we can tell, the website is now defunct. Fortunately, we saved it to a file on our local computer. In fact, I’d recommend that to anybody who finds good information online. You can’t expect to retain access to it in the future, even if it’s a major corporate site. Things change too fast and are outside your control. So, copy copy copy…

Winter Vegetable Chili

4 tsp olive oil
1 medium-size butternut squash (1 3/4 pounds), peeled and cut into 3/4-inch cubes
2 medium-size carrots, diced
1 medium-size onion, diced
3 T chili powder
1 can plum tomatoes (28-ounce)
1 can chopped mild green chiles (4-ounce)
1 c vegetable broth
1/4 tsp salt
2 can black beans, rinsed and drained (15- to 19-ounce)
1/4 c chopped fresh cilantro
4 T non-fat sour cream (optional)

In 5-quart Dutch oven over medium-high heat, heat 2 teaspoons olive oil. Add butternut squash and cook, stirring occasionally, until golden; remove.

In same Dutch oven heat 2 more teaspoons olive oil; cook carrots and onion until well browned. Stir in chili powder; cook 1 minute, stirring.

Add tomatoes with their liquid, chiles with their liquid, vegetable broth, and salt; over high heat, heat to boiling. Reduce heat to low; cover and simmer 30 minutes, stirring occasionally with spoon to break up tomatoes.

Stir in black beans and butternut squash; over high heat, heat to boiling. Reduce heat to low; cover and simmer 15 minutes or until squash is tender and chili thickens. Stir in cilantro. Serve with sour cream if you like.

Butternut squash is really tasty and cooks up very well, but it is a royal pain in the ass to peel and cut up. I have a large vegetable cleaver (looks like a meat cleaver, but intended for veggies). It’s got a nice and heavy blade, but I still think I need to get a wooden mallet to pound it through sometimes.

Lunch

2010-01-23T16:11:00.000-06:00

Bill and Holly returned home in time for lunch. Since they has spent the morning at our local grocery store Bill picked up some stuff we needed to make dinner and some chicken for lunch. We had in the pantry a chicken helper. Holly has decided that will eat chicken, eggs, dairy, and ham but no other meat product right now. I am am limiting myself to eggs and dairy. Bill and the kids had the chicken helper for Lunch it looked pretty good but I couldn’t bring myself to eat it.

So, I needed to fend for myself. Lunch on weekends is always a complicated question. Given a full kitchen to eat from there is too much choice. Since the noodles that the rest of the family was eating looked good the idea of noodles sounded good. I saw the flat of ramen we have and thought I know the cheap college dinner I used to make back then.

It went like this:
I package of ramen
½-1 cup frozen vegetables
1 egg beaten

Put ramen and vegetables in a pan of water heat on stove for 5 minutes on high. Stir. Drain off some of the water to soup consistency you want add beaten egg while stirring. Add ramen seasoning to taste.

But today it didn’t happen that way. Once I got the water noodles and ramen cooking I realized that I had eaten 2 eggs today and thought that I really didn’t want to have more. But I felt that I wanted a little protein in my soup. I opened the fridge. There in the meat drawer were two Smart Dogs. We had used the rest of the pack earlier this week for a veggie beanie weenies. I decided to substitute them in. The package gave the instruction of after bring the water to a boil turn it off and place the dog in for 2 minutes. So I drained down the water seasoned it brought it back up to boiling turned it off and put the cut up pieces of the Smart dog into the mix set the timer for 2 minutes.

While I waited I made my tea. Yes, more tea!

It now seems I need to write that tea post now.

Breakfast

2010-01-23T12:23:00.000-06:00

I have never been a traditional breakfast eater. My favorite breakfast has been a microwaved “baked” potato with some cheese. When my family got a microwave in the 1980s I discovered this and I would make one while packing my lunch and eat it on the bus to school Yes I was breaking a big rule. It was great in the cooler months. It kept me warm until I was ready to eat it. Sometime I wonder if I would have made two if I lived in a cold climate like I do now back then.

So here’s a bit about what we did for breakfast this morning.

Bill and Holly had to go to the local store to sell Pizza Hut coupon books for her swim team so they left a bit early. Bill had a day old fry cake. Holly had nothing. She has never been a fan of breakfast. She would prefer to wait until 10:00 before eating this has been he way since she was a baby. She would sleep nurse before 6am and then not again until after 10am.

So this is what I had.

2 boiled eggs, a tangelo, a small baked potato with cheese and a mug of tea.
Not pictured was the glass of OJ. I’m fighting a cold so I wanted to up the ante on the vitamin C.

Griffin slept but when he got up this is what he wanted.

Day old frosted fry-cake, apple, tangelo, and a tube of blueberry yogurt.
Once he had eaten some of every thing he got a glass of chocolate milk.
I know many of you are checking you blood sugar and brushing your teeth having read and seen that. Griffin needs extra calories. His Chocolate milk is whole milk with Carnation Instant Breakfast. The amount of calories in a fry-cake for it’s size is tremendous so I indulge him. In all the meal for him represented 820 calories give or take a few.

So that is our habits for breakfast on weekends.

Week days well has much less to be desired. Griffin is a toaster waffle boy complete with syrup (he has a snack at school where he takes a package of muffins and some fruit snacks). Holly might have a glass of something to drink and I am yogurt and tea. I am not sure Bill eats unless he has cereal at work.

Ah well Breakfast is the forgotten meal so much of the time.

Menu Planning again....

2010-01-12T08:48:00.002-06:00

I sit here with what Michael Pollan has called the omnivore's dilemma. The introduction to his book, The Omnivores Dilemma, begins with the question “What’s for dinner?”

On facebook and live journal I have seen from time to time the question raised by my friends. I may self have raised it. Even in my long ago office job it came up at least once a week.

I bring up Michael Pollan because Holly and I are listening to it in the car. We checked out the book on CD from the library. We find it most fascinating and disturbing. We have become so disgusted at the state of how beef get to our table in the US that we have not been able to eat meat since. I referenced this in my post on My Mother’s Curry.

So Now I need to create a menu for the week full of meals that can be both vegetarian (ovo-lacto) as well as not for the rest of the family.

-an hour or so passes-

So now that I have had time to think with all the distractions from writing this today I have My Mom’s Lasagna, Sears Penne-Rigate Casserole, Imus Cowboy Sloppy Joes (and some leftovers for the meat eaters) Soup and grilled Sandwiches and Spaghetti for a possible play date dinner night with Meatballs on the side. I also have Tuna Noodle Casserole on to see if we can manage to eat that.

Hopefully, Holly and I won’t hear some long description of how awful tuna live and how unhealthy they are before they are slaughtered for our food.

My Mom’s Curry

2010-01-10T23:09:00.000-06:00

My mom came across curry shortly after she moved to California in 1969. I think the person she got it from was Indian but really just made it with what she could in the 1960s and 1970s.

My mom came up with a recipe from the experience and from some discussion with the woman. I am probably not quite telling the story right but I have it in essence. It became a staple of my diet growing up. It mainly was a way to use up left over turkey and chicken. When we were in the UK we found ‘real” curry and liked it as well. But in my book I loved my mom’s curry.

It is simple and easy to make. The hardest part is cutting everything up or, for me, remembering all the extra’s.

The curry itself is sliced onions and some garlic sautéed. Add to it left over cooked chicken or turkey (my mom usually allows about ¼-½ cup per person). Warm through and season with curry powder. Add gravy to make a sauce and heat through.

Serve over rice with toppings

Peanuts
Sautéed sliced bananas
Chopped green peppers
Toasted coconut
Chopped hard boiled eggs
Chunk or diced pineapple
Golden raisins
Sliced scallions or green onions
Bacon (we have been using turkey bacon to cut down on fat)
Chick Peas

Today we made this for our usual Sunday night gathering. We are using low fat everything and because we forgot to thaw out the left-over turkey from Christmas we bought some chicken breasts. Also Holly and I have become “grossed out” by meat.
So I made a veggie version with squash and firm tofu. It turned out very nicely. Holly liked it a lot too.

Veggie version of Mom’s Curry:

1 small winter squash in large cubes (we used a small acorn)
1 12 oz block of very firm tofu in large cubes
12 oz vegetable broth
1 small onion sliced
2-3 cloves of garlic chopped
2 tsp arrowroot
2 Tbsp flour
4 tsp curry powder

In a sauce pan sauté the onions and garlic in oil or white wine (white wine works well to sauté when you want to save on fat). Once close to being nice and brown, add more wine or oil and the cubed squash and just toss in the pan, almost searing the squash.

Meanwhile whisk together vegetable broth, flour, arrowroot and curry powder. Pour in sauce pan with vegetables and gently stir in tofu.

Bring to boil and then lower heat until broth gets thick and squash is firm but pierces easily with a fork.

Serve over rice and top with appropriate toppings (see above)

The tofu will break up some but that is fine. Holly loved the little bright yellow tofu “bombs”. She was very happy with the curry which is great since I made this up in my head and I was worried that she wouldn’t like the texture of the squash.

My Favorite Birthday Cake

2010-01-03T21:47:00.003-06:00

I like birthday cake this should not be too much a surprise that I may like birthday cake. After my many posts on cookies. I like many cakes and eat cake as often as it comes my way. In the end my favorite is chocolate angle food with chocolate sour cream frosting.

This is a specialty of my mother and today because it is a day we will be celebrating my birthday (along with others) I am going to make it. I have mad the cake it’s self a few times the frosting is not something I make often. I don’t know if I ever have. I am glad that I have been collecting her recipes. (EDIT: 1/4/10 My Mother has reminded me that she was given the recipe by my grandmother as it is my father's favorite birthday cake as well. 1/4 is also his birthday)

Here is the recipe:

Cake:
Buy a box of angel food cake mix......yes a cheater recipe.......add 1/4 cup of sifted cocoa to the flour mixture make as directed on package.

Chocolate sour cream frosting:

2 1/4 cups powdered sugar
3/4 cup cake flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup soft butter or margarine
2 tsp Vanilla
1/3 cup sour cream
1/2 cup cocoa

Beat all ingredients together and spread on cake or cup cakes.

As I made this I remembered a few things about making it.
I don’t like using my stand mixer to make the cake as with a water only addition to the mix it just doesn’t grab the flour mixture on the sides well. I didn’t have much of a choice today as my metal bowl belong to the stand mixer and the glass bowl was in the bottom of the sink.

The cake should be dry looking on top to be done. The whole cracks on top is a good indicator but I have found that my cakes crack long before they are done they should not jiggle like jello and you really know if it is not done and you drop it and the top slides off.
One should always use a wine bottle to help it cool. The usual instruction say upside down. My pan does not fit upside down so I always do it right side up.

The colder the cake the better it frosts a benefit of living in Wisconsin in the winter. Zero and sub-zero temperatures work wonders on chilling things down. It sat in the front porch like this with another laundry basket on top to protect from stray critters. While I made the frosting.

It frosted well and tastes great. It may not be the prettiest cake but it is my favorite.

A Gift of Cookies

2009-12-24T19:12:00.001-06:00

I got a message from a friend. She sent me a package and wanted to make sure it had arrived. I hadn’t, so the anticipation began. She had sent me a necklace as a surprise this summer. What could it be?

It came next morning. It arrived early without announcement. My husband saw it as he was pulling out of the garage. I needed to go to work so I ran it in put it on the table and left. It was addressed to the whole family. I got the feeling that she made us something. I couldn’t guess what. The box was bigger than I expected. A plain brown box with some dents from it’s journey. At work as I packed other boxes full of gifts for others it was all I could think of. What could it contain?

Eight hours later I am at home with the family gathered around the box. We get the scissors and with some difficulty we manage to cut the tape from around the top flaps of the box and open them. First brown paper then finally a tin decorated with squiggly Christmas trees and stuck on top a red paper with a handmade calligraphy label. “Cookies Handmade by Sherri and Christie”

It is the first time I have gotten cookies in the mail since I was a girl. I cannot wait even with knowing dinner is waiting I pull the top of the tins and rustling through the tissue paper I pull out a green sesame cookie and a ginger snap. They are better than expected. My first taste of vegan cookies.

The above is a piece I wrote for the writing group I am involved in. Until this week I had not gotten homemade cookies in the mail for many years. It moved me so much that. I felt I should post it here. Many thanks to Sherri and Christie who both write for Vegan Cooking Club. Sherri Let me know that many of the cookies come from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar. I look forward to reading that Cookbook. The above Picture was taken after some have been eaten. Getting cookies at Christmas time was something I looked forward to as a child.

Many years We got a big box of cookies from my grandmother and I remember the wonderful Santa sugar cookies thick with icing detailing his outfit right down to his black boots. She was an artist. Living half way across the country from her I never got to see her make them. I can’t remember when she last sent some.

Meatless Shepherd's Pie

2009-12-13T00:49:00.001-06:00

A few weeks back my Friend Sherri posted a vegan Shepherd's Pie over on Vegan Cooking Club. This got me thinking. I am a great lover of shepherd’s pie and cottage pie. I did some growing up in the UK and it is standard fare there--great pub food. In my quest for Meatless Monday recipes I decided that I would take a stab at making a vegetarian version.

From what I understand and have been brought up to think, shepherd’s pie and cottage pie were inexpensive ways to stretch out meat in herding communities by adding a bunch of other things and topping with potatoes. Shepherd’s pie usually made with ground lamb and a gravy sauce. Cottage is made with beef and a tomato sauce base.

I made shepherd’s pie in cooking class as a 12-year-old in my 1st year of my English school. I remember making it, but for some reason that recipe is not in my lesson book from then. I always look there and then make it up but since I was planning on converting it to meatless, I decided I needed to start with a solid recipe.

I looked through all my cook books. I finally found a recipe for cottage pie that looked good and easy to convert in Graham Kerr's Smart Cooking. (For background Graham Kerr was once the Galloping Gourmet, he started to cook low fat and then minmax. This is a cookbook from that era and so I felt that the little meat in it could be easily substituted.) So I set out to make it.

I started with the basic recipe that Mr. Kerr wrote, substituting the meat and the bulgur with texturized soy protein (TSP). I measured and stirred and tasted. With the tasting I came up ...”Hmm needs something”. I opened my freezer and found both white puree and green puree from The Sneaky Chef. I added some of both. It needed more veggies and I added peas. This was a good improvement but it still needed something. I began to think that I shouldn’t have skipped the bulgur and next time I won’t. I looked in my spice cabinet and added garlic salt and basil (I wanted sage but could not find it). I saw sesame seeds and added about a tablespoon of those. This made a big difference. One more thing I may add in the future is mushrooms.

So here is what I made:

Vicki’s Veggie Shepherds Pie--Round 1.

2 cups TSP/TVP
Fresh parsley
Fresh thyme
2 Carrots
1 onion
1 garlic clove
Garlic salt
Marjoram
Olive oil
Vegetable bullion and 1 7/8 cup water to rehydrate TVP
1/4 cup white
1/2 cup green
Can tomato paste
1 cup veg stock
Soy sauce
Frozen peas
Lots of mashed potatoes made with buttermilk
Cheese
Basil
Salt
Pepper
Nutmeg

Rehydrate TSP with veggie stock and water. Meanwhile brown onions and garlic in olive oil. Stir in half tomato paste and TSP. Add seasonings and sesame seeds. Combine Green and White with remaining tomato paste and add to mixture. Bring to a bubble. Add frozen peas.

Put into oven-safe casserole top with mashed potatoes. Top potatoes with cheese. Put in oven until hot and bubbling

Everyone liked it but we agreed it needed something more. We are thinking mushrooms.

Beanie Weenies

2009-12-09T13:43:00.000-06:00

During Holiday time when there are parties and food constantly involved in celebrations it is also good to eat simply.

I don’t know when or where I started making this meal. I think it may be a hold over from beans on toast that I like to eat in the UK with a sausage (or banger) on the side.

For those who aren’t in the know bangers are not American sausages in the Midwest they are more like Brats, but very different in flavor.

My kids like to make or help make this meal. It is very simple and cheap.
1 large can of baked beans (I buy vegetarian beans to cut back the fat and not mix too much meat.)
1 package of hot dogs (some times we use a whole package some time we use half depends on the day. We use either turkey or all beef hot dogs.)
1-2 packages crescent rolls.
Salad. 
1. Cut hot dog and put in sauce pan with baked beans. Here is Griffin cutting the hot dogs.

He is using a “lettuce” knife. I bought it for him at the grocery store for a couple of Bucks Holly had a pink one I got through Pampered Chef. They don’t cut little fingers but have plenty of cutting power for fruit and veggies (not carrots) as well as other soft food like hot dogs.

Prepare the rolls. Holly’s favorite job here.

Cook it all. Stirring the beans and dogs. Beans and hot dogs are done when the cut ends are no longer flat and dome out a bit.

Simple easy and a quick lunch or a light dinner and it is always

Thanksgiving Day.....A week late(r)

2009-12-02T18:51:00.004-06:00

An American eating blog with out an entry about all that was eaten for Thanksgiving. What was I thinking. Well I was eating.

We cooked and cleaned and ate. Poor Holly and her newly metal filled mouth (she got braces the day before) only ate olives, nuts and bolts (Kix, Cheerios, mini pretzels, and Goldfish crackers), mash potatoes and chocolate ice cream.everything else she tried just hurt too much.

There were few leftovers after Thanksgiving. Always a good thing.
Here is a quick round up in photos (not the best pictures but they will need to suffice):

Holly and Griffin ate snacks before dinner.

You can see the nuts and bolt on Holly's lap and corn chips, cookies, and baby carrots on Griffin's. I am proud to say he mostly ate the carrots.

PIES!

Bill's Blueberry pie and two stages of his Chocolate Ribbon pie before and after the top layer of Cool whip.

And then my cranberry mold next to Holly's olives.

No pictures were taken of the rest of the food. I wish I had but all I wanted to do was eat.

We left for home sated. The kids slept and Bill and I chatted about how in comparison there is a lack of pies at his families events compared to my family (last year there was 11 pies and 13 people counting the 4 month old. The report from this year there was 7 pies and 9 people!

Thanksgiving Countdown

2009-11-26T00:21:00.000-06:00

As I write this The gathering at the Elder Dunn's homestead with the Williams clan is about 13 hours away (12 from when I posted)

Our contributions are 3 pies, a plate (or two) of cookies and a cranberry mold.

Bill has made (and I may get him to write about it later) a blueberry pie and is getting ready to finish making his favorite Chocolate Ribbon Pie.

I made a pumpkin pie. I have been experimenting with recipes for a few years now. The most disastrous one was the year I used the recipe from my mother-in-laws Joy of Cooking. It never set up. I followed the directions, I cooked an extra 30 minutes when it wasn’t set when the described time came ans went. It was still pumpkin soup. I even tried to bake it longer once we got there. It was still pumpkin soup .

This year we have a Bittman (How to Cook Everything By Mark Bittman). I had good success with a quiche of his so I tried his this year. He has a good trick of cooking the filling while you pre-bake the crust to give it a bit of a kick start. As usual I had some left over filling after filling the crust. So I fill little ramekins with it. I have now eaten one of the Ramekins. It set up well. It was tasty but a bit on the under seasoned side. The texture is good not too smooth but not grainy. Holly helped make it. She won’t eat it unless I can convince her that it will won’t hurt her newly braces filled mouth and she is hungry enough.

The cranberry mold came because I was sad to discover that my guilty pleasure of the nice jellied cranberry sauce (you know the one that comes out in the shape of the can) is full of high fructose corn-syrup. As I am trying to avoid that I thought I would make some sort of cranberry mold. I found a recipe at Williams-Sonoma. I enjoyed making it. It talks about cooking the mixture until the sauce thicken and the cranberries burst. Well they pop and can do so loudly. I didn’t follow the directions as well as I should and to try ad make up for my mistakes I added a second packet of Knox Gelatin. I hope it turns out well. I used my Tupperware jello mold as I don’t use it that often.

Now for the cookies. Griffin has been asking me to make “people” cookies with him for several weeks. After much discussion we determined that he meant gingerbread cookies. He decided that he wanted to bring them for Thanksgiving so I threw in the idea to make turkey shaped ones.
Now I looked at all the recipes that I have and got the general ingredients. I have used many times a recipe I tore out of a magazine many years ago. It was sitting on the table as I was getting ready to make the cookies and I grabbed it only to see one of our children’s cookbooks with a picture of a gingerbread man poking out of a stack of paper. I have used ‘The Children’s Step-By-Step Cook Book’ by Angela Wilkes cooking with kids many times. No only my own kids. Kids like the pictures to follow as well as the really nice photos of the ingredients at the start of every recipe. Knowing that Griffin would be “helping” I opted to use this version although I substituted molasses for the honey or golden syrup it called for as I didn’t have either in the house. After sending Bill out twice once for more cookie sheets and another time for currents. We got the cookies made.

We even made one armless and one with a light saber. We tried them and they taste really good!

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Meatless Mondays And the Wild and Wooly Dunns.

2009-11-24T00:51:00.000-06:00

As I have said before we as a family are trying to eat healthier. Our busy lives don’t always make it easy and I look for things with a way to build a tradition or a good habit or something along those lines. So I found a campaign about eating Meatless on Mondays. There is more to the whole movement than just eating vegetarian for one day a week.

Meatless Mondays has many a websites and an articles on the subject and I will post soon a list on links to things I have read or want to read on the subject. We are doing it and here comes the predicament.

We have some standbys that are meatless and I find that we are eating them a lot! Don’t get me wrong, they aren’t bad meals but I get sick of repetition and I think the kids do too. I like it when Holly is really exited to eat something because it has been awhile since we have had it. I think the kids would not care if we ate the same thing every week. But I like to vary it up for better nutrition and variety.

Our stand-bys include spaghetti just a jar sauce or this sauce paired with garlic bread (usually store bought). A version of my mom’s lasagna the recipe is will come soon or penne rigate casserole from the Family Nutrition book by William and Martha Sears. They are all pasta. We used to eat a lot of pilaf--almost a red beans and rice dish--that we adapted from Amy Dacyczyn and her Tightwad Gazette recipe. But we had a flying bean problem for a while which had us stop making it.

Back to the predicament. Not too long ago I was drawing a blank and needed some help fast I was planning the weekly menu and couldn’t think of anything to make for Meatless Monday. So I did what any mom home alone with her computer would do these days. I posted to facebook and Twitter the following:
“I really need some non-pasta, kid-friendly, vegetarian recipes or ideas.....grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup is passe too. HELP!”

I started to get responses right away I want to thank Mark, Nancy, Kate, Sherri, Stephen, Lynn, Viveka, Kristin, Heather, Karen, Jacqui, Renee, Mary, and Maggie for all the suggestions. Well maybe not the lima loaf.

I got many suggestions for dishes here is an edited list:
Quinoa
Pilaf
Fried rice
Soups and Stews without meat
Fake chicken nuggets
Tacos / burritos with out meat
Pizzas
Veggie Chili
Omelets (and other egg dishes)
Potato pancakes
Turnip Au Gratin
Quiches
Broccoli Cheese Casserole

And a few for cook books:
The Imus Ranch cooking for Kids and Cowboys
any cookbook by Jeanne Lemlin

And a few for Websites:
Vegetarian Times
http://pdxvegancookingclub.blogspot.com/
http://veganlunchbox.blogspot.com/
http://www.fatfreevegan.com

So the first thing I did was MornignStar Farms Chick'n Strips and Buffalo Wings with Green beans and French Fries. Griffin Said they were the best Chicken Nuggets I had made. And he knew they were fake. I call that a win.

I also went to the library and Checked out The Imus Ranch cooking for Kids and Cowboys. We tried the Cowboy Sloppy Joes. We all liked them. Holly was so pleased with it that when she was unpacking groceries and saw TVP she was really exited.

Menu Planning

2009-11-10T11:05:00.000-06:00

It’s Tuesday and as is the case of many Tuesdays I have the day off work. Among the many things I need or want to get done is planning a weekly menu, and doing the grocery shopping. I find this usually daunting. There are so many things to consider from time to meatless monday to what we still have on hand from last week and what we may be getting from our CSA on Thursday. And of course my picky kids. In fairness I know much more picky kids but one is under weight and we need to keep him eating and the other is a hollow athlete 11-year-old who gets stomach aches that sideline her and make her crabby if she doesn't eat enough.

I have many sources for ideas. Rachel ray publishes a weekly menu on her website as well as in her magazine. Women’s day publishes a Monthly Menu. and of course my large cook book collection and the food blogs I follow.
The good news is that this week I have no evenings to work. And the only thing we are getting from our CSA this month is fruit so I don’t have to consider that. But that 11-year-old is still swimming almost every night.

So here I sit with only the following:
Tonight will be a recipe from Rachel ray: “Chorizo Hash and Eggs” as published in her December/January 2010 magazine (Although to please the kids we are substituting bacon for chorizo)
From the November Woman’s Day November 2009 I am using the Friday 11/6 suggestion of Soup and ham and Cheese Quesadillas, for Wednesday
Thursday I will make meat loaf as the kids have been asking for it for a while. Probably from the Sneaky chef I am considering lentil bolognese from Meatless Monday for Monday but I am concerned that the timing might be off to get everyone fed on time. I wonder if it will work in a crock pot.

But I have been sitting her for almost 2 hours and I haven’t even considered Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

I also want to make some cookies this week. I picked up an copy of Martha Stewart's Holiday Cookies from 2006 at work when a coworker was getting rid of it. (Did you think I would go 2 blogs with out mentioning cookies?)

I think I will make some tea and clean up a bit an come back to the menu planning.

2009-10-31T22:57:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the lack of food blogging I am hoping that I can get one or 2 out in the next month but I will be writing more fiction.

Illness stuck the house last night only Holly and I were not here. Griffin work up with a violent stomach bug. Poor boy and poor dad.

Well when this happen we again turn to Dr. Sears. He, although probably not the originator, taught us about the BRAT diet. Banana Rice Apple sauce and Toast. Griffin easily goes for the first three. I add, from years of childhood experience, 7Up to drink and for protein chicken.
Well Once I got Home and Holly was redirected. Griffin and I watched some TV. Like all of us he settled in to watch some cooking shows on the PBS create network. He was taken by Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home. They were doing a bunch of things with chicken.
The boiled up a whole chicken with Vegetables and some herbs to start with. The first thing they did was to serve the chicken up on a bed of white rice with the vegetables. Griffin was very taken with that idea and requested that for dinner. He was also very taken with the idea of a chicken pot pie which they also made.He wants that for Thanksgiving.
Since Griffin was sick and last time he was he lost weight quickly because he didn’t want to eat more than usual. I felt obligated to make this happen. So I took a couple of Chicken Breasts we had in the freezer and put that in a pot of water with three large carrots, 3 cloves of garlic, a few wedges of celeriac and our old stnad by a Knorr vegetable bullion cube. I let this simmer for about 45 minutes to an hour. I had set the timer for 45 minutes once I got a rolling boil and then with 15 minutes remaining I started the rice cooker.
Well Griffin got rice sliced up carrot and chicken for Dinner and Bill and I spiced ours up with a little soy sauce. It worked out pretty well. The chicken was a bit dry probably from a little long cooking a being cooked straight from frozen and being boneless.

If you are curious the episode of Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home was #118 “Comfort Food: Poached Chicken, Chicken Pot Pie and Apple Tart Dessert”

I'll have to see if we can hold off on the pot pie until after Thanksgiving.

Vegan Low Fat Ginger Cookies

2009-10-12T23:17:00.001-05:00

As I have said before I like making cookies and one of the times I do this is when I feel I need to help people, and I don’t know what to do or can’t help in some way.

This prompted me to have to find some vegan ginger cookies. I searched the intenet and found several recipes. Yesterday I madethis recipe.

When I was picking recipes for a friend she was facing chemo and with that the possibility of nausea. She also loves ginger. So seeing a recipe that called for 5 tablespoons of fresh grated ginger it sounded perfect. Now I have to confess that the thought of getting the ginger grated I was a bit daunted. I made he some others for her and that is a different blog.

Now another friend is struggling with some trouble with digesting fats. It is completely unknown right now. But she too is a ginger fan and it finally sunk in that this is a almost fat free recipe. 0.3g of fat per cookie. Probably could make it fat free by using white flour instead of whole wheat.

Today was the day to try.

The things I learned were:
Alarge ginger root is about 5 tablespoons of grated ginger.
They taste best a little underdone.
I was reminded of how fibrous ginger is.
Using a good scoop to put the cookies on the pan is very important.
And if you don’t like ginger these cookies are not for you. They are very gingery. I really like them.
Those who tasted them tonight liked them. We did not inhale them but the recipe was taken home.

I will be trying this in the non low fat way and I will be experimenting with using powdered ginger because grating ginger in my food processor sucks. So I hope to have updates on these cookies in the future. Especially since I have promised them to some friends.

Cooking for Varying Diets...

2009-10-11T22:34:00.002-05:00

My wife and I are gamers and host a weekly game with friends who bring their kids. We adults take it in turns to do the food prep for the week, and therein begins the trouble.

Normally, picking foods for fussy kids ranging in ages from 5 to 11 would be bad enough. Little gremlins simply don't know enough about the good foods in life. Maybe it's because they still have most of their taste buds and all the "acquired" tastes of adulthood have more to do with us not being quite so sensitive. I don't know. But picking foods gets really tough when having to work around serious diet restrictions.

First off, one of the gamers is allergic to dairy. She still eats some amount of dairy and the allergy isn't horribly severe, but enough dairy and she'll pay for it. Now add her pork allergy. And now her symptoms that are stunningly like those for gallstones (get too much fat and be really sick) but which aren't supported by diagnostic ultrasound nor lab tests.

Then there's her husband. Large and heavy-set guy and, quite naturally, having trouble keeping his blood sugar levels in control. A very common issue in America today (and soon the rest of the industrialized world).

Player #3 has also had trouble with his blood sugars.

And then there's my wife who definitely had a brush with gallstones severe enough to drive her into a diet so low in fat that the pounds melted off her fast (screw Atkins, super low fat WORKS).

Now, try to pick a meal that won't set off anybody's ailments. It ain't easy. I predict lots of chicken will be on order for the weekly game. No one's allergic. It's relatively low in fat and it's easy to flavor. Sometimes we also turn to multiple dishes for different groups of eaters.

And that's what we had this week. It was our turn so we started working through recipes to find the right one to trot out. It being our weekly D&D game, we don't like to spend too much time during the game to do food prep. It's kind of a drag to pull away from the table and the action to cook all the time. So we were thinking CROCK POT.

We have this crock pot cook book by Dawn Hall called Busy People's Slow Cooker Cookbook. The recipes are very simple without many ingredients or preparation steps. They're also, unfortunately, fairly bland for the most part, but they're definitely a good starting place. They're also generally oriented to reduce the amount of fat per serving. Tons of recipes have under 4g of fat. For a dinner, that's not doing badly at all.

Tonight we picked a Chicken Chili recipe and doubled it so we'd have enough. It was made up of chicken and was based around a lot of Great Northern beans - I added some red beans for more contrast as well. And it turned out pretty tasty and filling. All of the adults (and 1 child) were satisfied with how it turned out (although a couple of us did think it stood well with a little punching up from some Tabasco sauce too).

For the kids, we made homemade mac and cheese, a tried and true recipe from a Campbell Soup cookbook. The kids ate well, the adults ate well. And it all worked out in the end. But it sure was a challenge to get there.

Oat, Fruit and Chocolate Chip Cookies

2009-10-10T19:05:00.000-05:00

Oh my here is my second post and as promised it is a cookie post So what has happened to all the healthy food. Well I think I will have one tomorrow. It will be interesting. Monday I will talk about we Wooly Dunn and Meatless Monday. thoes who know me know some of my struggles already.

A little back ground on these cookies. On Thursday I was in the shower getting ready to go to my last massage appointment with my massage therapist. She is moving on to other things. I felt that I needed to take her a little thank you. As I have said before I like to make cookies. It was 11:00 and my appointment was at 12:30 a 15 minute drive away. I was pretty sure that I could make some sort of cookie. So I pulled out my BHG New Cook Book. 2005 version with the Breast cancer Pink cover and flipped to the back. It has this pink section called "Eating for Life" They are recipes that are supposed to be better for you.

Now there is one cookies recipe in the section. "Oat Fruit and Nut Cookies" They sounded pretty good only I had no nuts in the house and I am always reluctant to take nuts to people to many allergies and dislikes. Now I know she loves Chocolate. I had chocolate chips. So I thought I would substitute that instead of the nuts. For Fruit I had both regular and golden raisins on hand. I got them made and packaged up and I was only 3 minutes late to my appointment and that was traffic anyway! she liked them and so do I.

Needless the cookies I didn't take didn't make it through Friday so Griffin and I made some more tonight with Crasins (dried cranberries). Again very yummy.

Oat, Fruit and Chocolate Chip Cookies

(adapted from Better Homes and Garden New Cook Book 12th edition, 2005 Oat, Fruit, and Nut cookies page A-65)

Preheat Oven to 350F

1/2 cup butter
2/3 cup packed Brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup dried fruit pieces (raisins craisins cherries chopped apricots etc.)
3/4 cup chocolate chips.

In large mixing bowl beat butter with an electric mixer until soft and fluffly about 30 seconds.
Add brown sugar, salt, baking powder and baking soda beat on medium until combined. scraping the sides as needed.
Add eggs and Vanilla until well combined scrapping the sides until well combined.
Add flour and beat on low
Stir in oatmeal fruit and chocolate chips.
Drop on cookie sheet in a size that makes you happy.
Bake for 10-14 minutes until lightly browned. Cool on a wire rack.

Vicki's Tips:
I use my Kitchen Aid stan mixer and I combine steps 2 and 3.
I try and always use parchment paper under my cookies. My sister uses silicon baking mats. The cookies don’t stick and you can literally slide them on the the cooling rack.
I don’t measure the fruit and chocolate exactly. I put them in with the mixer running until it looks right.

Griffin’s Thoughts:
Thumbs up from Griffin, he says “I like it. It made me feel good to help make them.”

2009-10-09T13:36:00.000-05:00

I love to make cookies and I can usually get people to eat them. Not always my family but people like cookies.

In order to make more healthy cookies I have been looking for low fat whole grain and lower in refined sugar cookies.

This is not always easy. My first big success was some granola cookies that I made for some friend who were having a house warming and soup party a while back. I was watching a young woman for the weekend whom as part of her disability it helped to keep here eating as little refined sugar as possible. Bill like them but neither Holly or Griffin would touch them. The young woman loved them and they didn't make it through the party. Here is the recipe. I made recipe card so everyone could have them and I gave them all out.

Granola Cookies
From: The Family Nutrition Book
William and Martha Sears

1 egg beaten
1/3 cup softened butter or peanut oil
1/3 honey or barley malt
1/2tsp. vanilla
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp kosher or sea salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 granola

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Mix the egg, butter , honey, and vanilla. In another bowl mix the salt baking soda and flour. Combine wet and dry mixtures. Mix in Granola until completely combined. Drop on cookie sheet by spoonfuls 1-2 inches apart. Bake in oven for 10-12 minutes until edges are light brown.

Note: These will be different every time you make them depending on the the flavor and style of Granola you use. I used Cinnamon Apple Granola made by Nature’s Bakery Cooperative the first time I made these. They are very similar to oatmeal cookies.

-Vicki

(If you like cookies I have 3 or 4 more cookie posts planned)

2009-10-08T19:24:00.001-05:00

Hello and Welcome to our Blog.

We the Wild and Wooly Dunns (Me (Vicki), Bill , Holly, and Griffin) really want to eat better and healthier. We all have different ideas on this. and I will give everyone that is writing here their chance to write about it. Griffin is writing yet but probably will start in the not to distant future. But as a new kindergartner he is not a writer yet.

So you will see recipes here as well as menus and critiques of food.

I hope that it is as educational for you as it is for us.

Feel free to give us some ideas for meals and such.

Again Welcome.