Its Cauliflower Season in California, or Somewhere Else Not Montana

Creamy Cauliflower and Parmesan Soup

This thing, I used to hate this thing.

Snow yesterday and rain this morning inspired me to think south instead of thinking local, sorry Montana. Right now, cauliflower is in season down south, and its a food my husband and I love, and my children as well, incognito. Today for lunch I used my "boat motor" aka immersion blender and creamed up a yummy soup for the rainy weather.

King Louis XIV of France prized cauliflower. As a kid I hated it because I believe I recall eating it boiled, from frozen form, and it smelled and tasted like feet. Any vegetable eaten this way is terrible, don't do that to your veggies. Cauliflower is full of vitamin C, essential for tissue repair. 

Here is how I made it for lunch for my kids and my husband to enjoy:

Ingredients:

1 head cauliflower (fresh not frozen)

1/2 head of garlic, finely chopped (less if you are not a garlic fan)

3-4 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1/2 white onion

1 tablespoon butter

1 quart chicken stock (preferably homemade)

1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1/4 cup heavy cream

Cut your head of cauliflower into individual florets and put in an oven safe roasting pan. Coat with the olive oil, salt and pepper and chopped garlic and roast at 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes, tossing every 3-4 minutes to promote even browning. As your cauliflower is browning, put your butter and onions into a stock pot and start sauteing at medium heat for the same amount of time to caramelize your onions. 

When your cauliflower is ready to come out of the oven, add your stock to the stock pot on the stove with your caramelized onions and then add your cauliflower, garlic, and goodness from the roasting pan. Simmer on medium high heat for 15 minutes until cauliflower falls apart when poked by a fork. Use your immersion blender to blend the soup pot contents when all is tender, then add your Parmesan and cream and blend again.

Yes, I used heavy cream. You don't have to, but cream is so good and flavorful. It is possible to use it when the rest of the sugary, gross and fatty things in life, like processed snack foods, etc., are out of your life.

Snacktime and a Recipe for Lembas

A Rainy Sunday Equals Snacking

Today was a very cold and very rainy day in Montana, about 40 degrees most of the day with snow on the ground in the morning. One cold days I have a very hard time not eating constantly as an outlet for my boredom and a psychological response to store more calories because here come a cold spell!



Imagine this, except with the flowers weighted down unhappily by snow. That would be my yard in Montana today.

While fresh fruit is a fabulous snack, sometimes we need a little something extra, and today we needed something salty. Salty usually equally cheese for us which is perfect except my children will eat an entire block of cheese in moments if left to their own devises and then there is nothing left for anyone else. Therefor, I must bake.

Upon the advice of a fabulous friend, Emily Hankins, we decided to try her recipe for what her family calls Lembas. If anyone gets the reference to classical literature, please post a comment and I'll happily send you the kudos. Emily the other day offered me her recipe for a cheesy, filling and nutritious treat. There are a few things I may try differently next time. This treat basically contains two ingredients, with room to add more; shelled sunflower seeds and cheese. I added golden flax seeds to the mix from a local farm, Timeless Natural Foods. Flax seeds have great cancer fighting properties and are easy to add to darn near everything.

Golden flax seeds, yum.

Emily's recipe was to take one cup sunflower seeds and add one cup shredded cheese to the food processor together, pulse until combined, shape into cracker patties and bake at 350 for 15 minutes. Next time, I will try it exactly right the first time.

Today, I got a bit too ambitious and tripled the recipe, putting 4 ounces of cheddar, 4 ounces of Monterrey jack, and three cups of sunflower seeds with 1/4 cup golden flax seed into the food processor. The mix was not quite stuck together enough and I poured it onto two cookie sheets, mashed down in one big ocean of goodness and then baked it.

Granted, it was delicious, crunchy, salty, cheesy, everything I hoped for; but my versions was less cracker like and more crumbly, snackable like popcorn, so still serving its purpose. I think next time I shall go smaller and add more cheese, using parchment paper to bake on so with less sticking.

Sweet Spring Carrot Muffins from the Mom that Makes her Kids Eat Veggies for Breakfast

Orange Is Such a Lovely Color

This is what real baby carrots look like. When you see the soft, perfectly orange, not dirty versions in little prepackaged plastic sacks, they are most often big carrots whittled down, and the flavor is therefor not nearly as fabulous.

When visiting with my fabulous friend and chiropractor Julie at her Wellness Studio last week, she mentioned something thrilling, the return of spring baby carrots to our Helena Farmers Market. I was so excited my mouth watered all the way home. I have not yet made it to the market to pick some up, but in my final Bountiful basket on Saturday we received a huge bag of beautiful carrots, so with them I made due for now.

Orange is such a pretty color and my fingernails are quite orange after an evening spent dehydrating and pureeing my 20 pounds of apricots, of which I still have two huge bowls to process. Orange fruits and vegetables contain carotenoids, which can lower blood pressure and LDL cholesterol and fight free radicals. After playing around with a few muffin recipes, I came up with a way to fit one more vegetable into our diet tomorrow, in a fiberlicious way that will fill us up without adding meat to our rotation.

ORANGE CARROT CINNAMON MUFFINS

15 minutes prep, 20 minutes baking

Dry Mix:

1 3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour

1/4 cup cane sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon cinnamon

Wet Mix:

1 pastured egg

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup orange juice

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

Later Additions:

3 whole carrots, shredded

1/4 cup melted salted butter

In a large mixing bowl, mix all the dry ingredients together.

In a separate medium sized mixing bowl, cream together the designated wet ingredients together with a fork until uniformly combined.

Melt your butter in a small bowl. Shred your carrots into another small bowl.

Add the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, start stirring and then start to drizzle in the melted butter and stir until incorporated. Add the shredded carrots and stir them in too.

Use a disher to fill muffin papers almost all the way. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. Enjoy!



Best Ice Cream Base Recipe, EVER-But only for the Brave

Blackberry Ice Cream for the Brave

One of my favorite childhood memories from visiting my grandparents in Pennsylvania is picking blackberries that grew wild along a corn field and narrowly avoiding the poison oak growing around it. This week, I bought 12 containers and we've been gorging since Saturday.

A short thought for you, but a good one. Of the three delicious components of Sunday supper, including the best leg of lamb roast I've ever done with a Rioja and pomegranate reduction, I want to share about our ice cream. I happened upon a great ice cream base that I've used for mangoes and now for blackberries, and insist you try it too.

The BRAVE portion comes from the use of raw egg whites. I've been eating raw cookie dough my whole life and while there is a small chance of contracting salmonella, my family has yet too. We use happy local back yard eggs, though, and I think that makes a difference.

This recipe made everyone very happy, and I insist, you try try too. One addition i feel I need to make is that equipment here is critical to the texture. I use an electric stand mixer with a whisk attachment to beat the eggs, an immersion blender to violently merge the fruit and cream together, and I feel without them, the texture may not be the same, but the flavor will be wonderful still.

Ice Cream Base Recipe

8 egg whites

8 tablespoons cane sugar ( non refined if possible)

2 cups pureed fruit (plus 2 cups diced fruit)

2 cups organic whole cream (organic makes a huge taste and texture difference)

Chill your ice cream maker canister in the freezer.

In a stand mixer, add the egg whites and whip them with the whisk attachment on high until fluffy, opaque and white. Add 1 tablespoon at a time of sugar, while the beater is still moving until all of it is incorporated. You can turn off your blender for a moment while you perform your next piece.

In a large mixing bowl, puree the fruit with your immersion blender. Add the cream and puree further, moving the blender about the create some stiff whip.

Turn your stand mixer back on medium speed and slowly incorporate your cream and fruit mixture into the egg whites mixture. It will appear very light and fluffy.

Remove your canister from the freezer, scrape your ice cream mix into the canister, and follow the factory directions for your maker.



How I satisfied a Honey Mustard Chicken Craving,Without the Shake N Bake

Honey Mustard Chicken and a Proposal

This picture is from July 4th, 2003, the day my husband asked me to marry him while picnicking on Mt. Helena. He hollowed out the bread to hide the ring box in, but also baked Shake N Bake honey mustard chicken, one of the five things he learned how to make from his Mom.



Shake N Bake honey mustard chicken is one of my husband's happy memories from childhood, and one of the few things he knew how to make when we were first living together. I was craving it tonight, and while i promised myself, my family, and my checkbook I would not buy any meat, we don't have any frozen or fresh fowl about the house and its been a few weeks since we've had any.

Yesterday, I bought half a chicken at the Real Food Market in Helena for $5. It once lived on the Milford Hutterite Colony and died a few days ago. Why is that important? Because it tastes a lot better and is far juicier than its national, long dead counterparts. I'm not sure why, but I do know the money stays in my community.

I took my thawed half chicken, pulled a few random ingredients from my fridge, grabbed a big plastic freezer zip bag, and went to work. Honestly, I don't measure what goes into any of my recipes unless it baking, and therefor chemistry. These are just estimates:

Homemade (not Shake N Bake) Honey Mustard Chicken

1 half chicken, skin and all
3-4 tablespoons stone ground mustard (Dijon is employable here if you don't have stone ground, which is a bit spicier than Dijon)
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup white zinfandel wine
2-3 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon ground black pepper

Put chicken in the bag. Add ingredients into the bag. Zip the bag with most air out of it. Squish, massage, slap, the bag and mixture around until it mixes and permeates the chicken. Then let it rest in the fridge for awhile, an hour minimum, but I let mine go overnight.

After marinading, preheat oven to 375 degrees. Empty chicken and marinade into a baking dish and roast, uncovered, in your hot oven for 60-90 minutes, checking the internal temperature with a thermometer every ten minutes after your first hour. As soon as your chicken hits 175 degrees, remove it from the oven, cover it and the dish it is in with foil or a lid, and let it sit and carry over cook on your counter (and get juicier) for 5 minutes before you hack into it. Alton Brown taught me about carry over cooking to insure a juicy meet, his cookbooks are the best, by the way, and if you are a science fanatic, you'll love them.

My kindergartner loved the chicken. It was his favorite part of the meal. We had it alongside fresh green beans sauteed with garlic and more white zinfandel and fresh blackberries. He complimented me twice, and he is usually a very tight lipped little man. My husband, Mr. Shake N Bake, even approved. I think this one passes.

Pasta Primavera after the Museum

How I took three children to the museum and then made dinner, and we ate by 5:45, and had 6 vegetables, and my tidy trio of young gentlemen ate it all

We spend a lot of our spare time at our local museum. Sometimes, its a reward for doing well after a long week and we've needed a lot of those lately as Spring fever hits our house. Here is Elliot after a "Use-eum" at the Holter Museum in Helena.

Today I was in East Helena early because of a meeting for a student of mine, and it finished earlier than I had anticipated. My nerdy self immediately thought, "Yes, I can take the kids to the museum!" I ran home, picked up our two youngest kids and offered my husband the much coveted gift of some silence before he had to go to work for the evening. We picked up our kindergartner and rolled into Exploration Works kids museum and spent an hour playing.

That hour we spent playing was an hour I often use for dinner prep, so as we left the museum at 4:45 I was thinking quick about dinner. We do not do fast food, and as I was flying solo, I would not brave anywhere sit-down with three hooligans. It jumped in my mind that I had all the makings for a quick Pasta Primavera, and it was done within 45 minutes, where I was interrupted at least seven times to parent, etc.

Pasta Primavera

2 cups pasta (I used bow tie)

2 teaspoons salt

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon butter

1/2 cup chopped sweet onion

3 cloves minced garlic

2 cups green chard, chopped

2 Roma tomatoes, diced

1 red pepper, chopped

1 yellow crook neck squash, chopped

1 cup sour cream

1 cup whole milk

1 teaspoon pepper

1 tablespoon dried basil (or 1/2 cup fresh if you have it)

1 cup freshly grated Parmesan

Cook your pasta in boiling water until tender with a teaspoon of salt in the water. While your pasta is cooking, add your olive oil and butter together in your pan (yes both) and saute your onions while you chop the other veggies to give them a head start on sweetening up.

After the rest of the veggies are chopped, saute them at medium high heat for 5-7 minutes, stirring occasionally. In measuring beaker, mix the sour cream and milk with a whisk until combined well (some lumps will remain.) Add the milk mixture and stir to incorporate. Add 1 teaspoon of salt, pepper, and your basil. Allow to simmer for 3-5 minutes and then slowly add in the Parmesan, stirring to melt and incorporate it. Parm tends to stick to the bottom of the pan and doesn't always melt in well. I am at peace with this and ok with the chunks.

Add your drained, cooked pasta to the mix, allow to mellow together at low heat for a few minutes and then serve in bowls. It was incredible. And my kids at it all.

My Tiny Toddler ate Black Bean Paste and a Recipe for Homemade Vegetarian Nachos

How to Feed a Constantly Hungry Toddler without ever Handing them a Fruit Cup

Will is 21 months old and never stops eating. At a recent event with family at the Archie Bray in Helena, MT he carried around an adult sized piece of handmade, wood fired pizza for an hour and refused to let anyway take it away.



William Helix is a tiny legend in our family and group of friends. He's not on the growth chart for another child his age, but exceeds at everything else and never stops eating. We also don't give him prepackaged food like fruit cups, Ritz crackers, etc,  with the exception of organic granola.

To solve this predicament we cook. We cook a lot and often. Sometimes its two dozens muffins, some days its dehydrating fruit we bought in bulk from Bountiful Baskets (this weekend it will be apricots!) Tonight I was able to save enough freshly made black bean paste from his hungry little fingers to make a yummy vegetarian variation of our homemade nachos. Here's how it looked:

 

Vegetarian Nachos for a Toddler, a Mommy, a Preschooler and a Kindergartner

1 package small corn flour tortillas
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
popcorn salt to taste
1 large can black beans
1 teaspoon cumin
3 cloves raw garlic, minced
1 bunch green onions
2 Roma tomatoes
1 avocado
2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
Sour Cream

45 Minutes total with interruptions such as diaper changing

I announced I was making dinner. Several helpers appeared to eat dinner as I made it. I fended one off but the toddler remained.

I cut tortillas into quarters, spread them on a baking sheet and rubbed them with vegetable oil. Toddler rubbed vegetable oil in his hair. I lightly salted the tortillas with popcorn salt and then put them in a 425 degree oven to bake for 20 minutes, watching for burning and over browning, and kindergartner believes burned chips taste like "grossness."

As chips baked, I opened a can of black beans, a large one that I bought on impulse because it was on sale. Drain the liquid, put it in a mixing cup and added the cumin, minced garlic, and some diced green onions. I added garlic as colds are going around my work and we needed a good antioxidant boost. I then used my new toy, a sweet Cuisinart stick blender to create paste.

As I set the blender down and away, Toddler took a hand full of bean paste and started eating it like a voracious puppy.

I diced the tomatoes, sliced avocado, and chopped the rest of the green onions. I shredded the cheese, and Toddler ate a handful of it.

When the chips were done, I microwaved the bean paste for 30 seconds as Toddler yelled that it was too far away from him.

I then assembled on each individual plate this order:

Chips
Small bunch shredded cheese
Bean Paste
More Shredded cheese
Vegetables
Microwave 20 seconds to melt all together

My kids love sour cream so everyone got a dollop on top of the nacho assembly. Toddler ate a handful of it and demanded more. Toddler was out of luck, and therefor demanded a fork for his finger food and ate chips on a fork and the rest of the assembly at will.

Pastured Egg Frittata with Greens and Bacon and a New Toy

Our last Bountiful Basket provided a ton of greens; spinach, kale, green chard, and romaine galore. One of my favorite ways to use them is a in a beautiful pastured egg frittata, baked in a skillet after frying the greens in some fabulous bacon fat. 

I've made many a frittata, but with some little improvements every time, they've gotten better with time. 

BROKE MOMMA'S RULES OF FRITTATA

1) You can't cook good eggs in oil. Spraying Pam in a pan does not create the same tender flavor or easy flipping as using butter, or if you have it, bacon fat. If you are going to use fat, use fat. Your great grandmother used it and was most likely more healthy than our generation. Michael Pollan speaks to the use of cooking fats in his book, The Omnivore's Dillema.

2) Use cast iron. When its well loved, its not only non stick but also transfers to an oven for puffy frittata love.

3) Use pastured eggs. Back yard eggs. Their yolks are so orange, your frittata may look overly yellow. I buy mine from the Real Food Market in Helena because my city forbid urban chickens, something I am still sad about. There is a trick to pastured eggs too. I try and buy the cartons that have the label written by hand, not just the mass national brand or even the mass local producer. Try using the hand written cartons. They are amazing, and about $2.99 a dozen. That's cheap protein.

4) Use an Immersion blender to froth the eggs and milk together before putting it in the pan to bake. My husband bought me a beautiful stainless steel Cuisanart immersion blender for my birthday and this was its first trial. After I added my eggs and milk to a large bowl, I use the normal attachment, not the whisk, and whipped the eggs and milk together with the power of a motor boat taking off in the water! I was impressed, and the eggs were amazingly smooth. 

Here's My Recipe from Tonight-Following the Rules, Of Course

Bacon, Parmesan and Greens Frittata

1 pound of bacon, keeping the grease

1 cup fresh spinach

1 cup fresh kale

1 cup green chard

4 egg whites

7 whole eggs

1/2 cup whole milk

1 tablespoon butter

1/2 teaspoon Lawry's Season Salt

Heavy 1/2 cup freshly shredded Parmesan

* I cooked my bacon the night before, keeping th meat in the fridge and the grease in the pan to cut down on cooking time. That way It only took about 45 minutes tonight until it hit the table, 15 minutes prep and 30 minutes baking. You can always run all the work together, although it will take about 30 minutes longer if you add in cooking the bacon too.

Find some good bacon. Not shrink rap near the hot dogs bacon. Good bacon. Ours came from my parent's hog "Lunch" and I have three pounds left that I am rationing. Cut your bacon strips into 1 inch chunks and fry in a medium to large sized cast iron pan until cooked on medium heat. Remove your bacon, add in your three cups of greens and saute for 5-8 minutes until fully wilted. Turn off your stove top and turn on your oven to 375 degrees. In a large glass mixing bowl, add eggs and whites and milk. I used an immersion blender for ten seconds to mix the eggs and milk, but whisking for a minute will do the same thing. Pour in the eggs, add back the bacon, and sprinkle the cheese evenly on top of the eggs.

Transfer the pan to the oven and bake for 25-30 minutes until golden and puffy. You can insert a knife to check on whether its done; if a knife comes out clean and not dripping with eggs it is done. 

"Holy Crap I'm out of Grocery Money, but have a lot of stuff in my freezer and fridge, crock pot stew"

Yesterday we picked up our Bountiful basket after taking about three weeks off. I heard there was a flat of strawberries, eight 1 pound containers for $11. I could not pass up this opportunity. I had grown disheartened with my baskets as of late with less bountiful fruits and vegetables that were good, but not great. Bountiful Baskets still carries a heck of a deal on bread and bulk fruits, however, and this week I had to invest. We ordered our organic basket for $26.50, a sack of organic nine grain bread (5 loaves for $12) and my flat of berries. 

Unfortunately, after a busy week and a pricey basket, this meant I had both forgotten to grocery shop and run out of money to do so. Today, I ran to the store with my kiddos, ran in and ran out. We picked up 12 items, and along with my freezer stock and basket of produce, that will make up our week of meals. 

Grocery shopping actually happened in the afternoon, however. This morning my coffee tasted too good to rush and the baby was too tired not to have a long morning nap. This meant I needed to construct a meal out of what we had on hand, which was a lot after I considered what I have "forgotten" to shop for on my normal Friday afternoon trip. I considered my options and fell back to my dependable crock pot, wedding present from 8 years ago and dependable still. 

I surmised that tonight would be a crock pot stew so I didn't need to babysit it, and the meat I have was venison, so venison stew it was. After making, serving and freezing half of it for another day, it occurred to me that a small amount of base ingredients turned into a massive amount of end product. It was amazing how much so little made! Also, if you dislike the chewy texture that comes along with eat game, crock pot cooking it makes it melt in your mouth tender. My only regret was not having homemade stock on hand, but in a pinch, I love using Better than Bullion to make broth.

When I say I try to have a personal relationship with my meat, I mean it.  Here are two of my brothers, pulled tonight's dinner out of a ravine in Eastern Montana. I may not have pulled the trigger, but I did get to see it hang in the garage.

Venison Crock Pot Stew

1/2 pound venison, cut into one inch cubes

3 carrots, chopped into large chunks

1 yellow crook neck squash, halved and chopped

1 leek, thinly chopped

1/4 yellow onion, diced

1 cup wild rice

4-5 cups water

3 tablespoons Better than Bullion Beef 

1 teaspoon black pepper

4-5 dashes of Worcestershire sauce

It sounds so simple. In the order listed, put ingredients into your crock pot. Turn it on low. Let it sit 6-8 hours. Start occasionally stirring it after 4 hours. I do once an hour until its time to serve. If it seems too thick and is sticking to the sides of your crock pot too much, add more water and adjust the beefy flavor by adding more Worcestershire or more Better than Bullion in small amounts. This whole shebang cost me about $8. It will provide 10 adult sized servings. After dinner, we froze a large container of it for another day and put two leftover containers together for carrying our lunches to work. What is 10 divided by 8? Sounds like less than a dollar a serving. Yum.

"Who Wants Milkshakes for Breakfast?"

& the Physics of a Frozen Banana

Yes, I asked that question this morning, and NO, I didn't mean this:

Fast Food Does not Equal Good Food

While at the grocery last week I was inspired by an impromptu sale of bananas. It seems like we never have enough fruit in our house and bananas are a favorite that end up running out as soon as they are ripe. Bananas are a good source of fiber, manganese, potassium and vitamin B6. http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/fruits-and-fruit-juices/1846/2

Last week at the grocery, I bought two big bunches and planned to make some yummy banana items this week. This morning, our banana incarnation was Frozen Chai Banana Smoothies, and it all started with freezing four very ripe bananas. 

Organic bananas take awhile to ripen, especially if they were not exposed to ethylene gas the quicken the ripening process, a common practice to get bananas off the trees and to the market quickly. Sometimes from the grocery to a ripened state can take a week or two. Be patient. For this recipe you want your bananas to look like #7 on the chart below. The banana will be much sweeter and it doesn't matter what color it is because its going in a food processor anyway!

Ripe bananas are naturally very sweet on their own

Last night I put four bananas in our freezer. My theory was that when frozen, the banana consistency would still be pliable enough I could wrench the peel off with my bare hands. This morning I discovered that a frozen banana is both rock solid and colder than ice. Because a banana will not melt in your hands like an ice cube will when you hold it, you get a very cold item freezing the feeling out of your hand to the point it feels like it burns. Mistake. If you need frozen bananas, putting them in the freezer, peel and all is a bad idea. I had to microwave the bananas for 90 seconds to soften them enough to pull off the peel but keep them semi frozen for our smoothies. Next time, I'll peel them and cut them into 1 inch sections first, then freeze them for ease. The other make ahead portion of my recipe was to make some chai the night before so I could put it in the fridge and not worry about cooling it quickly in the morning.

Frozen Chai Banana Smoothies

(10 minutes, start to finish if you freeze the bananas and chill the chai overnight)

4 very ripe bananas

1/4 cup whole milk maple yogurt

1/8 cup milk

2 cups strong chai, chilled

1/2 tsp cinnamon

THE NIGHT BEFORE

I took three packets of Oregon Chai Tea Latte Mix and added two cups of hot water, mixed it until dissolved and chilled in my fridge overnight. 

For the bananas, peel and slice four very ripe bananas into one inch section and freeze on parchment or wax paper. Take them out of the freezer a few minutes before you start your smoothies to give them a bit of thaw time.

THE MORNING OF

Put your chilled chai in a food processor and drop in all your bananas. Churn on low until mostly integrated. Stop the food processor and stir with a spoon to check on the banana chunks and redistribute them if they are all clumped together. At that time, add in your yogurt, milk and cinnamon, and blend again until smooth. There were a few small bits of banana in ours, but still it was pretty smooth.

Pour into glasses and serve! This recipe made enough for our family of two adults, one toddler, one preschooler and one kindergartner, so a pretty good distribution in the end for about $1.50 a serving and 2 grams of protein, tons of fiber and calcium per person.

Child Friendly Pulled Pork Nachos

At the end of last week we were again at the end of the groceries. My three little boys no longer eat like three little boys but like two ravenous men, and so after six or seven days, all but my stock of staples are depleted. I decided to try something. I made a full, slow cooked pork roast last month and saved about half a pound of it frozen in a yogurt container. I had beautiful corn tortillas I picked up in bulk from Bountiful Baskets a few weeks ago, frozen. I had some leftover pizza sauce, an unused avocado, spare green onions and half a block of  cheddar cheese. With some ingenuity, we had nachos, and darn good kid friendly ones at that!

Here's what I started with:

8 small corn flour tortillas

1 tablespoon canola oil
1/2 tsp salt

1/2 pound cooked pulled pork

1/2 cup pizza sauce

3 green onions, chopped

6 ounces cheddar cheese

Cumin, Chili powder, garlic powder, black pepper, all to taste

I cut the tortillas into quarters and rubbed them in canola oil, sprinkled them in salt and baked them at 325 degrees for about 15 minutes, watching them closely so they did not burn. While they baked, I added the thawed pork, pulled to pieces and warmed them in a pan with the pizza sauce (my kids do not like the spiciness of enchilada sauce. I added in the green onions and spices until it was not too spicy but flavorful. When the chips were crisps, I piled some on everyone's plate, piled pork on top and shredded cheese and cut slivers of avocado. They were so very yummy! And the only complaint I got was that the avocado had no flavor. I add it anyway as avocados have so many good oils in them. Mashed avocado was one of the first foods I fed my babies when they were six months old!