Backyard cuisine

Hey there! Been awhile, I know, but I wrote a novel and that takes a little bit of time, you know?

Here's what we ate with dinner last night. It's pan-fried potatoes with minced garlic and fresh basil and thyme.

The potatoes were from the garden--we pulled some the other night and they were perfect, pink new potatoes. The herbs? From the herb garden, right outside the kitchen door. We bought the garlic--we don't grow our own garlic because our weird neighbor grows garlic and we don't want him to talk to us about growing garlic. But the rest was all backyard grown, and that's not too shabby, right?

The best part was pitching the dish to our beyond-picky six-year old daughter. It went something like this:

Me: Would you eat potatoes if I fried them in a pan?
Daughter: No
M: Are you sure?
D: Yes
M: They're from the garden.
D: (pauses) Okay then.
D: (few minutes later) Dad? Can you fix these for Thanksgiving dinner? They. Are. Awesome!

Now, I'm no great cook, am only now coming to the realization that you can toss herbs into a meal to give it that "flavor" thing people are always raving about. Watching her scarf those potatoes down and ask for more made me feel like friggin' Jamie Oliver or something, though.

More important than her enjoying a side dish, however, was her responding to the fact that the potatoes came out of our garden--she helped plant those potatoes, checked on them every day with us, and pulled them out of the ground just the day before. We're growing food together. Every day without fail, she runs out and gathers berries, even eating green beans raw--she doesn't eat green beans, but she'll gobble down a bean that she pulled off the plant. That, to me, is something important. She's realizing that food doesn't come from Wal Mart but from the ground, and anybody--even her barista dad--can make food come out of dirt. How far are we gonna take this? I'm not completely sure, but I do know that we're nowhere near the end of the life lesson. I mean, the tomatoes are still green and I think we can coax a few more inches out of those cucumbers.

Wait... Reverse that

It has been a while since anything new has gone up on this blog, and for good reason. Early last week we were hit with some news that greatly affects the way we eat. My gestational diabetes test came back showing some pretty high numbers. I spent three hours with a dietician last Friday and relearned how to eat, at least for the next few weeks. This will change the dynamic of our little blog temporarily... but I'm hoping that the change will also teach me a few things about measuring ingredients and appropriate serving sizes... things that I have been blatantly ignoring.

Today the Mr. did a grocery run like no other. Instead of hovering over the ingredients list on the labels, he compared grams of carbohydrates... something I for one have never done. It turns out all those beautiful organic options in the grocery are way higher in carbs than the other foods. All of summers' colorful vibrant fruit that I've been consuming at a rapid rate, is not a great option when your placenta keeps loads of sugar in your blood. Desserts, muffins, breads... um, yeah... those are going to have to wait a while before they make a comeback into our home.

The biggest change in the diet is the protein. We admittedly don't eat a lot of meat. Now I will be consuming meat 14 times in a 7 day span. This to me.... sounds awful and completely counterintuitive to a natural whole foods diet that I usually try to stick by. It is what it is, and I will do whatever I need to in order keep myself and my little baby inside healthy and safe.

As I flip through the books and guides, I am finding that some things remain true. Herbs. Herbs change a meal into something you remember. Herbs are great for your body inside and out and herbs are naturally delicious. Luckily, our herb garden has been good to us this year.

Saying goodbye to my orange juice has been one of the harder adjustments. I'm working on convincing my pallet that unsweetened iced tea is good.... with a little less honey each time I fill up this jar.

I have a few recipes that I'm working on posting this week. They will be very diabetic friendly and hopefully they will taste awesome and you will love them.

Killing as many birds as I can with this stone.

Today we are settling back into our routine after a 3 day excursion driving through beautiful Kentucky. The laundry was tackled yesterday... today is meal preparation for the week.

We returned home to a totally stressed out dog, and even though he was more than well taken care of by my in-laws, he is still a bit psychotic. I won't go into details, but lets just say our dog Charlie will be eating a special diet for the next few days until he gets back to somewhat normal.

So the morning started off with boiling chicken and cooking rice for Charlie's tumultuous tummy.
I pulled 3 chicken breast aside for us to make some delicious chicken salad for lunch for the Mister and myself.

Balsamic Chicken Salad
3 cooked chicken breast
1 - 2 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1/3 cup of relish or chopped up pickles
about a 1/3 Cup of mayo (enough to just barely cover the chicken, not coat it)
salt & pepper
fresh basil and oregano leaves
serve over fresh greens with diced roma tomato

Makes enough for 2 to 3 servings depending on the size of the chicken breast you use.

I saved the broth from the cooked chicken to start my stock for the week. I may as well as make it while the stove is still hot, right? I tossed in the remaining bulb of garlic that was trying to root itself right there in the basket, along with the bottoms of a few celery stalks since the girls were having ants on a log for lunch. Finally, I threw in the bottoms and tops of the carrots I was preparing for the next two weeks.  I tossed half the peels in the stock and the other half in the compost.

Our family eats about 5 lbs of carrots in 2 weeks. I shred a third to use for salads, soups, stir-fry and baked goods that we will eat during the week. Another third is cut into carrot sticks to snack on when the mood strikes and the final third is sliced, blanched (5 to 7 minutes) and frozen.

We ended up with 3 jars of broth. This will last a little over a week for us.

When we returned we found ourselves with some very dark strawberries and 4 brown bananas. Since we are all out of nuts I went with a new version of the banana bread I usually make.

Smoothie Bread
4 mashed bananas
1 Cup blueberries
3/4 Cup strawberries
1 Cup all-purpose flour
1 Cup whole-wheat flour
1 1/2 Cup oats
1/3 Cup flaxseed
1 egg
1 Tablespoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoon baking soda
1 Cup sugar
3/4 Cup brown sugar
1/2 stick butter

Bake 350 degrees for about an hour. Makes 2 short loaves.

I used the remaining strawberries to make a strawberry vinaigrette for salads this week and a bit of strawberry syrup for pancakes.

I set aside about a cup of the rice I made for Charlie this morning to make rice pudding for breakfast tomorrow.

Rice Pudding
1 Cup cooked brown rice
1/4 brown sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 Tablespoon butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 Cup almond milk

Cook over medium heat 15-20 minutes.

Marathon cooking day... but at least we have a good start for our week.

Making Ahead

Our herb garden is in serious abundance these days. Time to make pasta sauce!

Simple Sauce:
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 onion, chopped
2- 3 T olive oil
about 1 lb of ground beef
7 roma tomatoes
handful of shredded carrots
1 celery stalk
handful of chopped fresh spinach
handfuls of basil, oregano, thyme and parsley
salt & pepper
1 tspn half & half
1 tspn sugar
water (or broth)
parmesan and mozzarella cheese

In a large pot saute onions and garlic in olive oil. Add ground beef and cook until done. Chop 3 roma tomatoes and toss them in pot. Chop the remaining 4 romas and toss them in the food processor or blender and blend to an almost but not quite smooth consistency. Add the pureed tomatoes and other veggies to the pot. Chop herbs, taking out stems (unless you don't mind them). Throw in pot with remaining ingredients. I add about 1/3 Cup of water or broth to thin out the sauce a bit. Cover and bring to boil.Then lower heat and let simmer for about 20-25 minutes.
Cook your rotini... I used about 3 Cups, give or take.  When the pasta is near done, drain and toss in the pot with the tomato sauce, mixing the noodles and sauce together well. This is a good time to give it a taste and add any additional spices you might think it needs. In my case, it was salt and some fresh basil. Remove pot from heat and place in casserole dish.

I layer my noodles and sauce mixture with parmesan and mozzarella cheese. Bake 30 to 35 minutes in a 350 degree oven.

This makes about 12 servings, which will feed our family of four 3 times. You can divide it up and freeze it or just have a pasta-eating marathon for the next few days.

Happy Father's Day

If your kitchen smells like bourbon at 8:30 in the morning, it must be Father's Day.

I'm trying out this recipe for Bourbon Chicken Wings today. I'll let you know how it goes.

Have a beautiful day!


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Results:
I totally abandoned the recipe. What can I say... I really wanted to use my crockpot.
I rinsed the wings and salt & peppered them and then drizzled a mixture of bourbon and honey over the chicken. Broiled for 7 minutes, flipped and broiled the other side for 7 minutes.

After they were cooked, I tossed them in the crockpot with a bbq mixture that seemed right to me.

Bottle of KC Masterpiece BBQ sauce
1/3 Cup of Bourbon
1/3 Cup of Honey
about a Tablespoon of lemon juice
Garlic powder, salt & pepper

They simmered on low for 4 to 5 hours. They were awesome... but I felt like they could have been a little better. Next time I will marinate the chicken in worcestershire sauce and soy sauce overnight. And I will definitely be adding some hot sauce to the mixture. Also, after making the recipe I realized that I had a great recipe for BBQ sauce.... too late... maybe next time.

Food Budget

Everyone talks about ways to save money on your grocery bill... I'm not going to try to re-invent the wheel. But... I will tell you what we do.

We buy most of our food in bulk. We purchase our meat once a month.We have a local meat market that is pretty great. Dumas is a short drive for us and well worth it. They offer large bundles but we haven't committed that much to are our carnivorous ways just yet so we usually buy 1 pound of bacon,  5 lbs ground beef and 10 pounds of chicken breast.

Every two weeks we hit Sam's club. I stock up on the huge bags of shredded cheddar and mozzarella and a very large block of colby cheese. Cheese freezes well so it gets divided up and pulled from the freezer as we need it. The cheese usually lasts close to a month. I usually get a large bag of tilapia and salmon for the month as well. We also buy most of our produce in bulk. Strawberries, blueberries, bananas, apples, salad, and oranges. We usually will munch right through this in about a week to a week an half but I try to freeze some to stretch us out to two weeks. We buy the large bags of garden rotini pasta and brown rice and that lasts us a long while... maybe 3 to 4 weeks.

After I divide out all my meat, I count how many dinners I have. This month is 11 chicken dinners and 6 to 7 beef dinners. We eat tilapia or salmon twice a week.   The rest of the month we will eat pasta, pizza, egg, beans and vegetable dishes for dinner. If there is a special occasion I will stop back at Dumas and pick up steaks or lamb.  I make meal plans, but rarely stick to them. We stop at the grocery once a week and spend $40-$50 in little things like milk, condiments, butter, etc. We are a family of 4 and we spend roughly $350 a month in groceries. I have gotten this much lower in the past but everyone complains about being hungry and hating what I make. This is what works for us for now.

The Way We Eat

I think about food constantly. One because I'm looking at the belly of the third trimester of this pregnancy and two because the majority of my day is occupied by preparing and cleaning up food.  I like the way we eat, but I wish it were better. I think that is true for most of us. I wish we could grab eggs from our own chickens in our own backyard, but our city doesn't allow it. I wish we grew all of our own food, but we just aren't there yet. I wish what we did have to buy was all organic, but we just don't have the budget for it all the time. Ideally there would be more fruits and vegetables and less starchiness.

Growing up my mom made dinner every night and my dad made breakfast on the weekends. We ate the same every night. Meat. Potato. Vegetable. Usually in the form of a breaded and pan-fried pork chop, real mashed potatoes and veggies from a can. My mom worked long days in a factory and when she got home, I'm sure the last thing she wanted to do was put a lot of time and energy into dinner. So she consistently made the same things that were cheap to buy and she knew we would eat. Makes sense, right? We never ate chicken or pasta of any kind. It was either ground beef or pork tenderloins. We never ate salad. It was canned green beans or corn. It wasn't uncommon to have mashed potatoes, boxed macaroni and cheese and bread with butter in one meal. And we drank 2% milk every night with dinner period.  We never ate breakfast. We had pb & j packed sandwiches for lunch with crackers and money for juice. On the weekends we grilled or my dad made a pot of chili.

It wasn't until I was married did I realize that I had absolutely no idea how to cook and no clue to eat well. I was given a Better Homes and Garden Cookbook as a wedding gift. I balked at it. And then one day I was forced to open it and figure out how to feed myself and another person on a very tight budget. I still use this cookbook to this day... it's one of my favorites. (Thanks Aunt Nancy!)

Having children drastically changed my views on food. I think I may have gone a little crazy, to be honest. Our first born ate only organic for almost the first 3 years of her life. I remember almost biting through my jaw when my mother gave our daughter instant mashed potatoes. We planned our vacations contingent upon a natural food store being nearby. It was a slightly manic time for me.

My husband was vegetarian for the first 8 years we were married. While some may have found this challenge exciting and a great way to express their creativity... I was bored and frustrated. I was making three different meals for each of us... and none of them were anything that I was proud of.

Over the past few years I have tried to make food that I feel good about. I gave myself permission to screw up. To burn meals. To try things that weren't in cookbooks... and this has been an awakening. I love to cook now. I love the heat from the oven and bubbling of a pot and the way onions and garlic fill my house with a smell that makes my mouth water every single time.

Tonight I made dinner with my mother on my mind. Simple and easy.
 Meat. Potatoes. Vegetables.

Meat: Pan fried Chicken Breast
Coat a frying pan with olive oil. Drop 3 chicken breast into pan. Add 1 Tablespoon worcestershire sauce. 1 Tablespoon of soy sauce and a couple shakes of garlic powder and black pepper. I usually end up cutting my chicken right in the pan to make sure it is cooked all the way through.

Potatoes: Russet Potatoes
Par-boil 3 to 4 medium size sliced potatoes for 5 - 10 minutes until tender but not completely soft. Drain water. Add a bit of olive oil and 1 Tablespoon unsalted butter. Salt and pepper to taste. Cook Potatoes until they reach the doneness you like. For us, that's crispy and brown. Top with parmesan cheese.

Vegetable: Green Beans
Place 2 to 3 Cups of frozen cut green beans in pan. Lightly drizzle with olive oil. Add 1 Tablespoon of butter and a nice pinch of salt. Cover with lid and let cook until medium softness. Top with parmesan cheese.