A Fast Food Hater Gets Busy...

How We Feed Little Boys on Busy Nights, 

Without a Drive Through

No no no, ick ick ick,

I didn't think we'd be this busy until they were in middle school, but a few weeks ago we caved to the pleas of our seven year old, who wanted desperately to try out wrestling (along with its three nights a week practice requirement.) As little brothers do, Our five year old fell in love with the rough and tumble and soon joined too. Our two year old would, if they had a wrestling class for paperweights.

The rough-and-tumble go and get-um has been perfect for their energy level in the winter, but the schedule has taken some getting used to. Some nights we have faith formation classes at our local church right before wrestling, some nights we have cub scouts right after. It all translates to a slap-dash dinner time that, for my sanity and their metabolisms cannot be put off until bedtime.

This is why lately we've been eating out of bags, but not fast food sacks, Ziploc bags. 

Fast food is essentially disgusting to all of us. My kids do not like it, and it gives my husband and I heartburn and a healthy dose of regret. So, when necessary, we cop a squat outside the elementary gym, sit together in a circle, and pass around bags of different goodies so everyone can have something before practice, and we plan a good snack for at home afterword.Sometimes we just eat early and quick at home when time allows.

Fast and Nourishing Dinners that can be eaten our of Ziplocs:

Focaccia Bread:

Focaccia is a staple in our home, its quick, its filling, it travels and you can add anything to it. For one practice night this week I added freshly grated Parmesan, baby spinach, and garlic, baked it, cut it in squares and tossed it in a bag in less than an hour. Accompanied by slices of apples and salami, it was quick, delish, and NOT McDonalds!

Focaccia Recipe:

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup all purpose flour

1 packet active dry yeast

1 teaspoon garlic salt

1 tablespoon dried herb of your choice (we like basil and thyme)

1 cup warm (not hot) water

1 tablespoon chopped fresh garlic

1-2 cups chopped fresh spinach

2-3 tablespoons fresh grated paremsan

Add all these things to a stand mixed with a dough hook, mix on low until a ball forms, not too stiff but not too sticky. Coat the ball in olive oil, put in a bowl and cover with a towel. Let it rise for 30 minutes then bake it on a cookie sheet for 10 minutes at 450 degrees. 

Tiny Tea Sandwiches:

Make your family's favorite sandwich, but then cut it into quarters for easy eating. Try a new kind of bread to keep it interesting. We love using sourdough but also enjoy honey whole wheat and multi grain. Our favorite kinds of combinations are peanut butter and honey, ham, spinach and cream cheese, cucumber and cream cheese, and butter and honey/

Hand Cakes:

Essentially, buying premade pancakes, or even pancake mix, is sort of ridiculous. I use an old Betty crocker recipe and an electric griddle that takes around 20 minutes to make a whole batch, and your can freeze and fridge them for future use. To make pancake eating quicker and more nutritious than fluffy IHOP style cakes, I use mostly whole wheat flour and add a good portion of toasted nuts and shredded fruit. Last week we had a shredded green apple and toasted walnut "hand cake" and the kids feasted on instead of using forks and butter and syrup and this made it fun (eating with hands!) Also, this made it quick.

Lots of Raw Fruits and Veggies!

Who says fast food has to be a burger? An apple takes 20 seconds to slice up. An orange a minute.  

 

Tea Time at Ophus Abbey

Peanut Butter Rum Cocoa Cookies on Recycling Day

Slightly obsessed with Downton Abbey, I felt like this Sunday needed a tea time, and a treat to boot!

Its been 0 degrees or less outside for days, and somehow it happened that we HAD to go out today. When I say we I mean myself and three boys ages 7 and under. It was plastics recycling weekend in Helena, MT, and this opportunity only comes once every two months, and we skipped last chance. I found myself bundling boys after our early lunch and throwing them into our van, brimming over with old milk jugs, juice containers, and berry cases.

By the time we returned home, everyone was hungry again, and I couldn't feel my fingers. Definitely tea time, and definitely time for treats. I brewed up a pot of huckleberry tea and poured a cup for everyone, adding cream and a smack of honey to the cups for the little boys. I then commenced something yummy for tea time, and randomly threw ingredients in our mixer until these cookies, both childish and grown up, eventuated. 

Peanut Butter Rum Cocoa Cookies

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup fancy hot cocoa powder (I used Kitchen TLC hot sipping chocolate)

1 pastured egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon rum extract

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 1/4 cup all purpose flour

Add softened butter and peanut butter to a mixing bowl with the beater attachment on and cream on medium speed until creamily combined.  (Yes, we love the creamy ;)

Add the two sugars and cream together again. Then add the extracts, egg, baking powder and baking soda, and cocoa and cream together again.(Yes, MORE creamy ;)

Add your flour, mix until combined and then use a disher to put your cookies on a greased cookie sheet (about 9 to a sheet to let them have room) and bake for 7-8 minutes in a 375 degree over. My recipe made 30. An hour ago there were 30. There are 20 now. Oops.

 

 

Creative Use of Band Fruit 101 ~ Pear and Parsnip Sauce

Not Only Organic, But Also Broke

Yummy, free and very ripe band fruit

As my blog name denotes, I try very hard to keep it organic and local, but there are times where we just keep it....broke. After a fun, active, busy and at times pricey Christmas season, there wasn't a whole lot left for groceries, so we planned to dip into our stored veggies, fruits, and grains (which actually leads to alot of fun and creative meals!)

One of our last stops on our Christmas visiting was to my parent's home, where my youngest brother still resides, and performs in high school band. You know what this means? BAND FRUIT! One of the dreaded/coveted fundraisers for band is selling boxes of fruit, and then the parents who are suckered into it end up eating them hand over fist to try and get the task accomplished before they go bad.

My parents had around 20 pears, all super ripe, all super free, and in need of a home. We gladly obliged. My children, husband, and myself covet ripe fruit. During Flathead peach season I will hide in a corner with a roll of paper towels and a giant, overripe peach to avoid my children stealing a bite. With our CSA in its winter season, we haven't had overripe biting fruit in months, but we still have an abundance of store crops, one of which is parsnips. 

Parsnips are in the carrots family, but for my family they are tough to eat raw. One of the reasons is that they are, well, TOUGH. We usually shred them very thinly into slaw, saute them in butter with carrots, and dice them into stews. The other night though, we thought we'd try something I remembered from Alton Brown. On Good Eats a few years back they faked a child that wouldn't eat veggies and Alton won him over with his version of "Pearsnip sauce." His recipe involved maple syrup, zesting an orange and a few other turns and twists I did not care for (and we did not have the items to boot.) We went simple, and it turned out fabulous. 

It does involve a bit of time, I'm afraid. Its a good dish if you know you're babysitting something on the oven. I made this on risotto night and you don't have to watch this sauce, just be patient and let it happen.

Pear and Parsnip Sauce

INGREDIENTS:

2 parsnips, peeled

4 overly ripe pears

1 cup white grape juice

1 tsp cinnamon (the fresher the better)

Peel your parsnips with a vegetable peeler so none of the brown exterior remains. Cut them into 1 inch rounds and place them in a pot with the juice. Put your lid on the pot and bring it to simmer rapidly but not boil like crazy (about medium temp worked for us, you don't want your liquid to boil away.)

Allow them to simmer in the covered pot and steam until they are VERY soft, almost like a boiled potato. For me this took about 35 minutes, but it might take longer. 

Once you've stabbed the parsnips with a fork and determined them to be boiled potato consistency, cut your pears into cubes, maybe 2 inches in size, and toss them in the pot as well. 

Allow everything to steam together, occasionally shaking your pan to redistribute everything, for about 10 more minutes. Add a little juice if it all boils away. 

After that 10 minutes, remove the pan from heat drain off almost all of the liquid, leaving about 1/4 of a cup in the pan. Use an immersion blender or a food processor to blend the remains with the cinnamon and serve warm, but not hot.

Ham Salad from a Mayonaisse Hater

Healthy and Nourishing Ham Salad

I enjoy a sweet and caramelized ham like any other Montanan, but A few weeks ago, I thought something fowl would be more enticing. 

I spent a week trying to convince my husband before Christmas that a smoked turkey from Tizer Meats in Helena would be a yummy treat and a nice change of pace for our Christmas luncheon before shoving off to visit family. 

He did not enjoy this idea that one would "change pace" for a holiday celebratory meat so central to his childhood memories we even heard the story of why hogs were special from my father in law this Christmas. 

He grew up on a farm outside Big Sandy, Montana and ate a lot of chicken. The hogs they raised were for sale for the neighbors, not for eating by the family. Every now and then though they would butcher a hog for the family, and pork nights were special nights. Come to think of it, ham was always a special for for my farm based family when we visited as well, so it comes to show that this meat will never be replaced. Sorry smoked turkey, maybe another day.

With leftovers we enjoy a quick and delicious ham salad on sourdough bread, absolutely scrumptious and a very easy way to make leftover ham disappear. As a child I hated it though, and I'll tell you why.....Miracle Whip. I grew up disliking it so much that I would scrape it off any pre-made sandwich I would receive. As an adult I discovered, however, that REAL mayonnaise IS NOT Miracle Whip. 

Miracle Whip is sweeter and spicier and introduced during the Great Depression, it was not as expensive as real mayo, so many sprang for it. Funnily enough, I disliked it and now love real, organic mayonaisse. I am convinced organic eggs change the taste to subtlety delicious too. Here is how we make ham salad, and tonight we're eating the last of it on hot garlic foccacia bread.

Organic Ham Salad

2 cups leftover ham, diced and then grated in a food processor

1/2 cup organic mayonnaise

2 heaping tbl organic dijon mustard (the kind out of the squeeze bottle won't be good enough!)

1 large ribs of celery, minced

1/3 of a red onion, diced  

2 heaping tablespoons sweet pickle relish

1/2 teaspoon pepper

Combine items in bowl. Mix, taste, lick spoon and then eat a spoonful just for yourself, hiding it so noone comes after your creation. Its pretty yummilicious.

 

 

Shallots and Cream Lead to a Deeply Satisfying Night

White Outs, Church Night, and Another Use for Taters

Does anyone else think that snow means ham and cheese?

This morning I trudged through a Montana white out (please Lord let this not be a field and still the road style) to bring my 7 year old to a birthday party. After white knuckling through the white out home, I couldn't stop thinking about melted cheese. Oh, and ham, sweet, sweet ham. 

Tonight was one of the those evenings where I found myself proclaiming very loudly to my very comfortable husband that we would be going to church. After a few weeks off due to 1000 different reasons, we were overdue. At 4:00 I realized I needed to get dinner planned out or when we burst into the house at 6:00 after services, our crazy bunch would be in tears and their mother in shambles trying to feed them quickly. I had time, but not much of it.

I bought a smoked ham (small, about 2 pounds) the day before and quickly glazed it in a mixture of equal parts Dijon mustard, maple syrup,and brown sugar with a dash of pepper thrown in for good measure. I put it in a container, threw a lid on it, and set it aside. 

Then, it was tater time. My parents sent us home with three sacks of potatoes last visit and we've made it through a 2 already. We've french fried, baked, and mashed plenty, but tonight I was feeling brave, so attempted, and succeeded in scalloped potatoes. I did not have to make the elaborate cheese sauce, I sliced, diced and threw together something quaint and delicious.

I had to gamble on the same baking time and temperature my ham needed as they would be in the oven while we were away at mass, and somehow the fates smiled upon us. Here is how I made them, and baked them at the same time as the ham and everything was done when we walked in the door.

SIMPLE SCALLOPED SPUDS WITH SHALLOTS AND CREAM

Ingredients:

1 tbl butter

5 yukon gold potatoes

3 tbl diced shallots

3/4 pint of cream

1 1/2 cups sharp cheddar cheese

1 1/2 tsp salt 

1 1/2 tsp pepper

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Slice your potatoes into thin slices, about 1 cm each. Mince your shallots and set aside. 

In an 8X8 baking dish melt 1 tablespoon of butter and swirl it around until the bottom is coated. Place a layer of potatoes, trying only to overlap when necessary. Sprinkle the potatoes in the dish with 1/2 tsp of salt and pepper, 1 tbl of shallots and about 3 tablespoons of cream. Evenly sprinkle about 1/2 cup cheddar cheese. 

This is your first layer. Simple, but awesome. Now layer more potatoes on top of the newly sprinkled cheddar cheese. Lay on your next 1/2 tsp salt and pepper, 1 tbl shallots and 3-4 tbl cream, and  finish with 1/2 cheddar. Finish out the rest of your ingredients. Cover the dish with foil and bake for 1 hour 15 minutes.

 

 

On a Snowy Night, there is Mediterranean Turkey Meatloaf

There is life after Thanksgiving...

The meal was sweet, savory and delicious, but after Thanksgiving, is there still room for turkey in your life?

Many moons ago (well, maybe 6 1/2 years to be fair) I adopted Weight Watchers as a way to manage my food intake. After the post college and early marriage years of eating to excess, and whatever and whenever I wanted, I needed a reality check as to what was an appropriate food choice and portion size.

I used to be able to consume-in one sitting-an ENTIRE Papa Murphy's take and bake cheese bread (with extra cheese.) That's 1749 calories, 54 grams of fat. Nutritional Info

Thank you Weight Watchers for reminding me I really should only eat two slices, and if I drink some water and have a conversation, I would then be full. With weight watchers, I began to learn the limits of my nutrition, and looked into new foods. Its then that I fell in love with ground turkey, the holy grail of Weight Watchers protein. (Besides fish, that is.) 

Ground turkey helps keep post meal insulin low and is lower fat than red meat (although I have nothing against red meat in any way.)

I have a ton of ground turkey recipes, and tonight I employed a favorite to share with my family, as the promise of snow in Montana tonight created in me another turkey craving.

Mediterranean Turkey Meatloaf

Ingredients:

1 pound ground turkey

1 1/2 cups stuffing, wetted with 1/3 cup water

2 eggs

1/2 cup feta cheese 

1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, plus 1/4 for sprinkling on top

1 tsp Italian seasoning

1/4 cup snipped sun dried tomatoes

A NOTE on sun dried tomatoes. I don't dry mine in the sun. I do, however, take my ripe Romas in the summer and run them through the dehydrator, then store them in a freezer bag in the freezer. They are sweeter and have a lovely concentrated flavor.

Set you over to 375 degrees. In a small bowl, put your stuffing in and wet it with about 1/3 cup of water. Use your hand to mix it about until the water is absorbed. 

In a large bowl, put in your ground turkey, now wet stuffing, and all other ingredients. Make sure your Parmesan is not green container in the fridge fake Parmesan. Spring for some real stuff.

Be a He-Woman and use your hands to mix and mash it all about until evenly distributed. Get out a loaf pan, make your mix into a loaf shape, and plop it in the pan. Sprinkle the remaining 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese on top and bake at 375 degrees for 40 minutes before you use a meat thermometer to check the temp. It'll be ready to come out at 165 degrees.

How many food rules does it take to make a crazy lady?

Knock Knock

Who's there?

5 pounds.

5 pounds who? Wait.....what? Go away!

I don't own one, but I know where they live, and they always find me!

I USED TO BE 100 POUNDS heavier than I am right now. A size 20. After my oldest was born around 7 years ago I was 100 pounds heavier, and losing the weight was a long journey and an even longer education in what I am capable of. 

I have a couple, well, maybe more than a couple, food and activity and lifestyles rules I try to follow, although as of late, I have failed (hence the 5 pounds coming knocking.)

Some of these are based off of Michael Pollan's Food Rules, some of them are from other places, but in the interest of disclosure, here they are:

1) Always eat breakfast. If not it'll ruin my metabolism.

2) Always pack my own lunch to work, that way I know what's in it, don't spend money on an unhealthy one, and always eat.

3) Enjoy a family dinner. Sitting at a table is better for so many reasons.

4) When I'm hungry in between meals, I drink water or tea first, then decide if I am really hungry. First impulse to eat usually means I'm dehydrated.

5) We rarely eat out, maybe 2 times a month. Meals are made and eaten at home.

6) No fast food, that means drive throughs-ie McDonalds-We haven't eaten fast food french fries or sandwiches in three years.

7) I don't eat after 6:00 in the evening-my metabolism slows down then and going to bed while still digesting creates for me indigestion.

8) Soda is rare. Almost a never. Water is so much better.

9) We eat alot of probiotics, yogurt, kefir, etc-this helps aid good digestion.

10) I try to be active after dinner, cleaning, climbing stairs, spending time playing with kids, and when its light out walking the dog. 

11) Hot yoga! I do barkan yoga at HOT YOGA HELENA and adore it. This I have slacked on lately as the class I typically go to is at 6 AM and I have needed my sleep lately! 

Well, since I haven't posted in awhile, these are some of my bizarre food thoughts....enjoy ;)