Change- it is a comin'

So, No pics today, but a quick but important update:

Our little family is moving, to a place with an oven that works.  Everything is changing.  And - in this case- particularly in my food world-- change is good!  We will have a kitchen that is a little bigger- but mostly-- we will cook.  I am so happy! Yay-- so the blog will be back and be better-- come-- oh-- september! YAY!!

A post - post London

So, I haven't been taking pictures of food (outside of beers in London).... But, we have been cooking.  And now that we're back from London (land of pies and ales, and very few veggies) we felt driven to really eat better.  So - tonight-   lots of veggies, olive oil, salt and pepper.  one grill.  and then, deliciousness. Tonight it was a weird and large combination of veggies-- zuchini, asparagus, new potatoes, mushrooms, and a few chicken tenders.  All grilled. Then we also grilled pineapples and mangos that had been hanging out in brown sugar for about an hour.  They turned out GREAT.  The mangos were good on their own, but super delicious after being grilled. We also had an incredibly soft, fresh, light sourdough bread.  So light and lovely...

Anyhow-- tomorrow night we'll make a pasta with the leftover veggies and chicken.  There were no mushrooms left- because- well-- Max lives here.  And the girl LOVEs a mushroom.

For dessert-- Stauffers has made their own fresh chocolate cookies (crisp ones) to make Ice cream sandwiches with.  So we made some with Moose Tracks and some with Haagen Daas ginger flavored ice cream.  They would be better with vanilla or dark chocolate ice cream-- but the cookies were just PERFECT!
So-- a fun night for food.
On the family note-- Max is sick and has been coughing like crazy (croup) and getting nosebleeds (yuck) and Isaac is jet lagged (as are his dad and I) -- so- I am hoping we all get some sleep.  and to encourage that.  I am drinking this

A simple Pinot Gris

It's no Organic Honeydew Ale (a delicious treat from London).  But it will do for now.  And it is definitely making me sleepy-- so -- maybe tonight, I'll sleep.  Hopefully our kids will too.

So- that's it... bread, family and wine...  things i love.

G'night...

A Mushroom Addiction

Even though we're making lots of food at home lately (and some pretty great things I must say). I've had little time to post anything new.  But tonight is an odd evening, and I thought I'd sneak this in.  We're ordering pizza, but have some mushrooms we need to use.  So as an appetizer before the pizza we are having some homemade, addictive stuffed mushrooms.

Here's the recipe my family stole from a neighbor back in the 70's.  It's simple, vegetarian, and great for serving when you have company coming and want something delicious, unusual and easy.






Stuffed mushrooms (Donna Style)

Button Mushrooms
Italian breadcrumbs
Sweet vermouth
And our addition -- Fresh good grated parmesan cheese


Clean the mushrooms.
Remove the stems and chop off the very edge where it is really tough.
Chop the rest of the stem into small bits.
In a small bowl mix the mushroom stems with italian breadcrumbs (equal amount to the amount of chopped stems you've got.  If you'd like to-- add a little parmesan here - we used about 3 tablespoons or so to about a cup of the mushroom mixture.
Add enough sweet vermouth to moisten the crumbs and hold the mixture together.  Stuff the mushrooms with the mixture.
Broil on low rack and on low broiler setting until mushrooms are soft and the crumb mixture is browned.

There is something oddly addictive about these.  I think its the sweet vermouth.  Anyhow our two year old has eaten four of these so far and would probably eat a full dozen if we let her!
Mushroom addict. :)

Orzo

I was sick all last night and all day today.  I pretty much lived on Ginger Ale, Crackers and one small yogurt.  Then this evening as I was finally feeling a little better and a little hungry I remembered:  I have children.  A family even.  I don't get to be sick.  So I had to find something that could feed them, potentially I could eat it, was made of ingredients we needed to use up right now AND  wouldn't make me gag while cooking it.  Scott and I can rely on each other for days like this-- but neither one of us likes to "stick the other" with all of the family care stuff (and clearly I was not on my deathbed - at least- not by the evening)... so ... after puzzling for a little while- this is what I made:

                                      







Orzo with Zucchini    


Ingredients:
Olive oil -2T

3 small zucchini- diced into chickpea sized pieces                                      
2 cloves finely chopped garlic
italian seasoning
Chickpeas (garbonzo beans)
Orzo (small box or bag)
Feta (1/2 cup)
A squeeze or two of fresh lemon juice
salt and pepper

Boil water and then start orzo (takes about 8 minutes for al dente pasta)

Toss Zucchini, olive oil, garlic and some italian seasoning in a skillet cook for about 5 minutes over medium high heat.  Then add chickpeas and cook until heated through.
Drain pasta - add Zucchini and Chickpeas then crumble feta and  add it in too.  Squeeze some lemon juice over it.  Salt and pepper to taste.

Simple, easy and stomach tolerant. It was also tolerated by the little people who don't normally eat zucchini, but have a hard time saying no to pasta and cheese.

We actually didn't have enough feta tonight, so i was going to add a good bit of parmesan to each of their plates, until that is, we found our two year old in the dining room eating the block of parm.  Just gnawing away on it... like a little rat...

Thank goodness it was the generic cheaper stuff (still too pricey to be a snack for a two year old!!!)... anyhow... it was good even without a lot of cheese (and it was probably better that I just keep it simple). All of this was served alongside and Icy cold, high quality ginger ale.
I think I'll have another glass right now!

Fried Chicken, Some Pudding and a lot of loudness

My children have been ungodly loud today.  KMax likes to hear herself scream.  Ike thinks that's HYSTERICAL... and they just torment the heck out of each other.  They have been so LOUD today.  My head hurts.  That's why after dinner (fried chicken that was really too big and got a little dark)

We turned Max loose on some butterscotch pudding ala Cody (find it here:  http://crashingthelastsupper.blogspot.com/search/label/dessert  )

and we were surprised by 15 minutes of total silence and fascination except for occasional humming and giggles of joy...
There was also a pudding dance.  Really... She did this:

Then she did this:

And then she finished with this move:

Oh honestly, we all feel this way about pudding at our house.

If it were socially acceptable, and not so sticky, I'm sure many

of us would smear it all over our faces.

So this was total joy.

Two words of advice:

Don't overcook the pudding.

And

Make your own whipped cream... 

So good.

I'm gonna go dance now.

Cheese Whiz is not health food- but what do I care!

So, In spite of our desire to eat less processed, more local food (and we did a good deal of this in the last two weeks)... tonight.. we used what we had on hand, plus just a few fresh purchases to make an unhealthy, delicious dinner.

First we bought good, very fresh, incredibly soft hoagie rolls.
Then we bought some Malbec.
Then we got some mushrooms (Max's favorite food-- no joke).

We then sauteed said mushrooms in three tablespoons of butter and a little bit of the malbec until they were carmelized and delicious.

Then we took the steakums and the cheese whiz from the fridge-  cooked the "steaks"... nuked the cheese whiz and spread both across those beautiful rolls.
With some steamed greenbeans and a full glass of Malbec (or milk if you are one of the little people).. it was fabulous.

The little girl here is eating hers sans steak, and with extra mushrooms.  Cheese and mushrooms- that's all she needs to be a happy.  She is her mother's daughter!
yummmmmmm.

Fried things...

So, we are trying to fit all of our "junk foods" in before we go back to healthier eating.  Saturday we ordered a pizza, tonight we will be making cream chipped beef on toast, that means that last night-- Sunday night was meant for fried food.  Spring Rolls are beloved at our house-- so that's what we went for.  We really used the things we had around and left out a bunch of yummy things we just didn't have (like bean sprouts which would've been a nice addition).  So - this adapted recipe is really ours at this point, since we stole from at least four different spring roll recipes and two separate cuisines (Thai and Vietnamese)

Spring Rolls
Ingredients:
2/3 cup onion finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic minced
1 lb ground chicken (we actually ground our own since the market didn't have any already ground)
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups of diced mushrooms (any kind you like.  We've used wild mushrooms, button, or baby bellas)
3/4 cups of grated carrots
1 cup of softened noodles
(follow the directions of the package to soften-- it can take from 2 minutes to 12 depending on noodle type--we used a mix of glass or mung bean noodles and vermicelli noodles)
3 T Oyster sauce
1 T Soy Sauce
1 teaspoon Fish Sauce (all the recipes we have call for more-- but we like oyster sauce better)
2-4 T. of Olive Oil
A drizzle of sesame oil if you have it.
A small bottle of canola oil or peanut oil to fry in.
pepper
2 T. flour
3-4 T. water
Spring roll wrappers
Sweet Chili sauce, honey or marmalade for dipping


Prepare:

I chose to begin by adding some of the oil (2 tablespoons or so) and the mushrooms to a skillet and cooking the mushrooms until they were partly done (cooked down a little bit, and a little darker in color)...you could just leave them raw and mix immediately with carrots, noodles and "sauces", but we like our mushrooms to be "really done".

So take mushrooms either cooked or raw and place in a medium size bowl.   Add to that same bowl the carrots, softened noodles (cut with scissors into 1 inch lengths) oyster sauce, soy sauce, fish sauce and pepper to taste.  Mix that all together.

Take a large skillet and add approx. 2 T. of Olive oil  and onions.  Cook until they started to caramelize, then throw in the garlic and ground chicken and cook the chicken until almost completely cooked.  Move the chicken and onion mixture to the sides of the pan, cracked 2 eggs into the middle of the pan and scrambled them up with a spatula in the pan, then mixed it all in with the chicken. Then add the mixture of mushrooms, carrots, noodles and "stuff" into the skillet.  I drizzled a little sesame oil across the top of this while it cooked because I love sesame oil, but a little bit goes a long way- so be careful and light handed if you use this.  Cook for about 4 minutes until everything is combined well and mushrooms finish cooking.  Remove from heat and let it cool a little.

When the mixture is cool enough to handle, mix together a few tablespoons of flour with a few tablespoons of water to form a slurry that will work as a "glue" to hold together your spring rolls.

Rolling:

 Cut the wrappers in half diagonally. You will have two equal triangles. Starting with the longest side toward you, place about 2 tablespoons of filling on the bottom area of the triangle. Using your fingers, mold the filling into a cylinder 2 inches long and 1 inch wide. Fold the two pointed ends of the wrapper in and roll to enclose. Dab a little flour mixture along the edges (do not use too much "glue") and seal the roll. Set aside while you finish making the remaining rolls.

To fry, preheat a large wok or fry pan. When hot, pour enough oil in to completely cover the spring rolls. Heat to about 325 degrees. Carefully place the rolls into the oil. Do not crowd the pan or place the rolls on top of each other. Fry the spring rolls until filling is cooked, about 5 to 6 minutes on each side, turning often until they are nicely brown and crisp. If they brown too quickly, reduce the heat as the oil is too hot. Remove the cooked spring rolls from the pan and drain on paper towels. Serve immediately.

We served ours with two choices for dipping - orange marmalade (which we heated for 20 seconds in the microwave to make it runny) for the kids.  And sweet chili dipping sauce (store bought) for the grown ups.  So fried, so delicious!  And even our picky non-mushroom eater had some.  He likes Thai and Vietnamese flavors, and they pretty much hide the flavor of mushrooms. So this was a clear win.  Yummy fried things!