Breakfast

So, warm food seems to be the order of the day lately...and the heartier the better for us.

I've been doing steel cut oatmeal in the rice cooker lately. I've tried various crock pot oatmeal recipes and they never seem to work well, although many people swear differently. I think my crock pots are either too new or too large.

Anyway, I recently got a rice cooker and I love it. I use it daily, sometimes even for rice.

So, here's the latest:

1 part steel cut oats
4 parts water
cinnamon
brown sugar or maple syrup

soak over night in rice cooker
have first person up plug it in and start it (that would be my husband or me)
sometimes cook a second time

give it a quick stir and serve.

tonight, I'm trying to dried apples in it, but Ithink those will have to be added in the morning.

Awesome Musgovian Chicken and Lentil Soup

Even my pickiest is eating this as a bedtime snack right now.....The recipe says "chicken" but I made it with left over, frozen turkey from the last holiday....

12 c. broth/stock
2 c.(one can) tomato sauce
1 c. hot salsa
1 c. lime juice
left over cooked chicken (maybe 2-3 c.)
lentils (I think 2 c.)
-------------------------
cook all the above until lentils are cooked (20-30 min)
--------------------------
add 2 c. pasta. Cook until al dente.

Musgovian cuisine: this must go, that must go

This makes a HUGE batch because I mostly doubled a recipe I found. I'm trying to cook a HUGE pot of soup/chili/stew early in the week--have some officially for one meal, freeze some for a day when I forget about doing a meal (you'd be surprised how often that happens), and have some left over for kids to snack on during hte week.

Oh, for pasta, I used alphabet pasta because I found a bag buried in a drawer....the kids, especially, the older two, were giddy.

is anyone there?

Just wanted to say that I love my rice cooker.

I read that a crock pot costs 2-4 cents per hour and a stove top costs 35 cents per hour.

Figure a rice cooker must be close to a crock pot

Last night, I warmed up 4 pre-cooked, left over chicken thighs in the steamer, while I made seasoned rice below.

I'm giddy with delight.

Looking for small-footed men???

At least two of you have husbands who are not humongous...

I'm looking for a pair of men's 9 or 9.5 dress shoes, ideally black. To be worn for several hours on Sept. 13th, by Aidan, with his borrowed suit, at his grandfather's memorial service.

The black shoes I bought him 6 months ago for my mom's service are now at Goodwill, because they were 7.5 or 8. HOw dare he grow?

Since we really have no place for him to wear dress shoes (unless he gets to go to a dance with his girlio...although I think you have to be in high school to attend high school dances...not **this** high school, but **a** high school), I hate to purchase another pair, even at WalMart prices.

I'm also looking for a size 16 or 18 dress shirt...white would be safest, but a pattern/stripe would work as well....short sleeve (AAidan hates long sleeves plus I don't forsee a huge cold snap) that he could wear with a suit jacket (dark blue or black-I have a hard time telling-with a barely contrasting pin stripe).

...also at BigLots...

Annie's organic mac and cheese (not that I think it really matters at that level of food) and organic spaghetti sauce (which was really yummy on the Barilla Spinach and Cheese Tortellini for 1.30). All told, tortellini with sauce ended up costing less than $3 for four of us. Also, for those ofyou who buy bread, BL had 100% whole wheat for 1.40/loaf (my kids are begging me not to bring any more panera into our house). And cans of organic lentil soup for $1/can (for me, that's 3-4$ for soup for a meal, probably less expensive than if I made it myself if I include the energy to run the stove, oven, or crock pot.

I love BL.....otoh, they have stopped carrying the DebbieLongWhiteBaskets and are now carrying a modernized version and slightly raised their prices on them. Otooh (on the other other hand), they are a neater look and are still less expensive than the TraditionalDebbieLongWhiteBaskets at Walmart.

Zyrtec at Big Lots

for $2 for 14, 10mg tablets.

Also, puffs plus tissues for $1.60 for 160 tissues (most boxes have 132).

Also basalmic vinegarette dressing (for salad pita) for $1.50.

Our version of Nathan’s Adaptation of Kansiye (Guinean Goulash)

Nathan’s Adaptation of

Kansiye (Guinean Goulash)

2 lb. shoulder roast
1/8 tsp. black pepper
1/8 tsp. thyme
2+ cloves garlic (minced)
1/8 tsp ground cloves
pinch of cayenne pepper
1 12-oz can tomato sauce
¼ cp. Water
3 TBS all natural (no added sugar or salt) peanut butter (softened in microwave)
1 cup unsalted peanuts

Put all in crockpot for I forget how long...till done.

Very Yummy!


Brown meat with onions and garlic.
Add spices.
Combine tomato sauce, water, and V-8. Add to seasoned meat.
Add peanut butter to mixture.
Cook over medium heat for one hour until meat is tender.
Shortly before serving, add peanuts.
Serve hot over brown rice.

ww bread

Found new recipe...YUMMY!

MOdifications:

1/4 c. honey instead of honey and molasses
Add 4 t. vital wheat gluten after yeast
butter instead of margarine


Baked in breadmaker under whole wheat 2 pounds


http://www.recipezaar.com/221429

Quiche

Our version of the quiche turned out great!

Here is what I did:

1/2 head califlower sauteed
1 dozen eggs
8 oz sour cream (didn't quite make 1000 ml, but that is all I had)
salt and pepper
Mix the eggs and sour cream
8 oz. sliced swiss cheese ($1.66 at Kroger right now)
chopped bacon (I get this precooked and chopped at Aldi, don't remember how much)

Layer like a lasagna in a 9x14

Half the califlower mixture
half the bacon
half the egg mixture
half the sliced cheese
Repeat

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.


half the egg mixture

ww flour

Kroger has whole wheat flour for $2.19. Don't know what kind of quality, but cheap:)

Debbie

saving food...

After much angst, I decided to buy Debbie Meyer Green Bags for fruits and veggies, and, to my surprise, they really do work wonders! I've had bananas for over a week and peaches for 4 days longer than I thought possible (since they were ripe, ripe, ripe when I picked them).

Here someone else agrees with me.

even my carb'o'holics loved it...

Cauliflower Quiche (makes 2 quiche--I was planning on leftovers, but they ate it all)

about 1/2 head of cauliflower, sliced-ish, sauted in olive oil until not raw with garlic and/or onions
1 dozen good eggs mixed with enough fat free sour cream to make about 1,000 ml
add various herbs and spices to egg mixture
grated, good quality baby or mild swiss cheese
chopped bacon (optional)
some more grated or sliced swiss

-------------
in the bottom of each crusts, sprinkle grated cheese (or, for Brenda, in the bottom of a lightly oiled pie pan, glass works best w crustless quiche ime)
add 1/2 cauliflower mixture
sprinkle bacon
add 500 ml of egg mixture
top with slices of cheese (thinly sliced and leaving holes int he top--I did one with small triangles of cheese not touching and one sort of lattice-like)
bake 350 until firm (I think about 30-45 min, but I put them in the oven and told the family to be sure to take them out when done, and who knows....)

Anyway, Nathan is heading back downstairs at 10:30 to eat a piece, I took 3 pieces to the library where Aidan and some friends were volunteening, and they ate it all up, Tynan ate two pieces...Louis has hidden a piece for his lunch tomorrow.........

Of course, Aidan and his friends were starving and may have eaten road kill at that point AND my kids have been living on fair food all week and their bodies must be dying for some healthful food about now. Anyway, it was a huge success, and three of them have said we should have a weekly quiche night.

Need ideas...

OK, in an effort to eat more locally, simply, and healthfully, I need ideas. I've decided to stop catering so much to my kids and husband's quirks...they will eat what I make. 'Nuff said. I've recently spent time with a couple of teens whose parents made them eat what was in front of them, and, by gosh, they are delights to have around, cleaning their plates and being not only pleasant but also enthusiastic about food. I never went out of my way to trick or seduce my kids into brushing their teeth or wearing seatbelts...and they haven't grown up to have power struggles about safety and personal hygiene, so I'm going to stop worrying that I'll lead them into eating disorders...other than the disorders I've allowed them to have by letting them follow their own path regarding food....


So, now I have 1 head of cabbage, 1 head of cauliflower, 2 lbs of fresh green beans, 1 lb of good mild swiss cheese, 6 red/yellow/orange bell peppers, 1 cantalope, tomatoes, a zucchini, and some cherry tomatoes.

Do you think that a quiche with cauliflower/swiss cheese/zucchini?

Good ideas for the rest of the cauliflower? roast it? Roast it and use it in a pasta salad? What about the peppers?

I need to work more to let my kids learn that veggies can be the main portion of a meal and not just side dishes and fillers. If they fill up on veggies, they'd be a lot healthier and I'd be a lot happier (as would they in the long run).

Awesome recipe...very nutritious, full of protein, and most every one loved it

WE'll see how the judge likes it in the morning...

Nathan’s Adaptation of

Kansiye (Guinean Goulash)

1 lb. boneless beef (can use a cheap, cheap, cheap cut)
1 TBS oil
1 lg. onion chopped
½ tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. black pepper
1/8 tsp. thyme (rubbed)
2+ cloves garlic (minced)
1/8 tsp ground cloves
pinch of cayenne pepper
1 6-oz can tomato sauce
¼ cp. Water + 1 6-oz can V-8 Juice (low sodium)
3 TBS all natural (no added sugar or salt) peanut butter (softened in microwave)
1 cup unsalted peanuts


Brown meat with onions and garlic.
Add spices.
Combine tomato sauce, water, and V-8. Add to seasoned meat.
Add peanut butter to mixture.
Cook over medium heat for one hour until meat is tender.
Shortly before serving, add peanuts.
Serve hot over brown rice.

great small food print website

even with all the UK references and culture: http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/

Feeding the masses

I'm not talking about feeding hoards of teens this time around, although this would work well for that, too.

L's sister and 3 kids were here for a little over a week and each year it seems they spend more and more time at our house as opposed to Grandma and Grandpa's house. Yet, their schedule is very flexible and dependent upon the needs and desires of the grandparents, obviously. So, one day I was faced with the assumption I'd be feeding some or all of them dinner, oppressive heat, inefficient AC in the front part of the downstairs and no AC (and minimal air circulation) in the kitchen, yet the threat of thunderstorms (minimizing my desire to cook out).

So, I tossed two roasts into the crock pot around 11 pm the night before (after trimming as much fat off them as I could...they were frozen solid when I put them in) along with a bottle of bbq sauce, cooked on low all night. Removed the meat in the morning and let cool a little so I could dig through it....cut it in smaller chuncks (about 4" or so) and picked out as much of the fat pieces as I could. REturned the meat to the crockpot. Kept it on low. Took the crock pot to the deck and plugged it in (a garage would work as well and I've used our front porch when it's been raining--I think I'm the only one here w/o a garage that would work well). By dinner time, voila! bbq shredded beef.

For sides, I mixed frozen (although fresh works just as well) whole green beans with olive oil, garlic, and kosher salt in a disposable aluminim pan, covered and stuck it all on the grill along with a dozen potatoes that I'd chopped, seasoned, mixed with oil, popped into a similar coverd pan. That stuff just needs to cook, so if it had rained, no back and forth tending was required...just put it on and take it off about 30 or so minutes later (you can pre-cook the potatoes in the microwave it you want to).

We put some grapes and melon slices on the table during the meal and told the kids that a fancy bowl of cut up fruit (gonna-rot peaches with blueberries and sliced gonna-rot strawberries) was desert, and we were done.

By the way, I believe for those of us without a cow in the freezer, that roasts are BOGO this week at Kroger.

Oh, and I have enough meat left frozen for 1.5 meals (sandwiches and potato topping?) and enough for lunches or a meal with only part of my family in the fridge--the cousins didn't eat too much because they'd had a late lunch out earlier.

smallfoodprint blog administrivia

First of all, I hope I didn't step on any toes by adding email privilege to everyone...now, any post to the blog should go to not just the blog itself but to everyone's email inboxes. Debbie, I didn't use your gmail address since you use the .rr one for personal email as far as I know.

Second, there is a way to post to the blog via email. I don't know how to do it and can't get beyond contemplating how it might be done. If you want to try to figure it out, log in to the blog, go to "settings" then "email" then scroll down. More power to you if you figure it out.

Third, regarding organization of the blog: There is a "label" option at the bottom of each post in compose mode (bad sentence, but I hope you get what I mean). For this entry, I used the labels "administrivia, email, labels, reply" Posts can be searched by those labels and will be housed under them as well. So, if we used "5-ingredient or less" or "chicken" or "party food" or "101 things to do with zucchini" clicking on that label in the blog will pull up every single post of that topic.

Fourth, there is also a reply function to each published post. So, if I post a recipe and someone else posts a response (a modification, a suggestion, a more specific recipe--since I don't really USE recipes, or a "that was great and my kids ate it all", or whatever), the response will be threaded with the original post (also streamlining the archives and searching of posts).

Questions?

Chicken meal everyone loved

2 t. minced garlic
2 T olive oil
1 T chili powder
1 T. cumin
1/2 t. salt
1 T flour
1.5 c. chicken broth
3 T tomato paste
3 c. diced, cooked chicken
1 green pepper, sliced
1/4 c. green olives, sliced.

Saute garlic till soft
Stir in chili powder, cumin, salt, and flour
Add chicken broth and paste.
Cook 5 minutes on low
Stir in chicken, pepper, and olives and heat through.

I'm the only one who eats olives and green peppers. Everyone else picked them out. But, I thought it was yummy. Thad in particular commented several times on the sauce.

Spaghetti/pizza/meat ball sandwich sauce

I have been attempting to find a tomato sauce recipe my whole family will eat.  I think this may be the beginning of such a sauce.  If you have any suggestions-I'd love to hear!!  This is just a very basic, and easy to remember.

@ 1 TBSP of olive oil

some chopped onion (one small or half)

mushrooms (of course optional)

1 tsp salt

1 big clove of garlic crushed

1 tsp dried basil

1 tsp dried oregano 

sprinkle of pepper

   Saute on med/low above ingredients til totally limp-@ 10 min.

Add 28 oz can of concentrated crushed tomatoes (I use Walmart's brand $.97)

If like chunky, add small can (15oz) of diced tomatoes. (Aldi's for $.45, I think)

Taste.  May need a little more salt if added the diced tomatoes.  Add 1 tsp of sugar for the kids if needed. :)  

I've used this as pizza sauce (with Debbie's delicious pita wheat recipe) and no one complained.  It's a start..... :)

 

ice packs

Brenda is probably already aware of this having had babies at home, but the rest of you might be interested:

you can make your own squishy ice packs for injuries by adding rubbing alcohol to water in a ratio of 1:2 in a zip lock bag and freezing. Or you can fill a ziplock baggie 1/2 with dish soap and freeze.

I suggest double bagging.

Mine lasted years until we moved and I threw them away. The ones I've made recently won't last as long because I didn't have any top quality bags.