big doings

After hearing about the fabulousness of spaghetti squash for a long time and having tried it a few times, I finally bought one.  

Well before I got to the purchasing step I had to figure out what they looked like so I could find it at the store.   They are right next to butternut squash.  WHO KNEW ALL THE SQUASH WAS TOGETHER? So I have a butternut squash (because I couldn't resist it) and a spaghetti squash ready to go.

In case anyone else is as ignorant as I am when it comes to spaghetti squash,  this is what it looks like:

(image comes from this blog, which is also the recipe I will be following tonight)

Kind of looks like a summer squash (or yellow zucchini, however you roll) on steroids.  But feels more like a butternut squash. 

Never say this blog isn't full of riveting information.

Anyway, back to the point.  Tonight I will be cooking spaghetti squash for the first time.   I really hope its good, because we will most likely be eating it for the next few nights.  I may have bought one that could easily feed a family of 8 and we are only a family of 3.5 and Baby Girl will eat approximately 2 bites.

It wasn't until I was married that I learned that I liked vegetables.   My entire life I thought I wasn't a veggie fan until I realized that it wasn't the vegetable that I didn't like, but the way my mother cooked them.  She and I have a difference of opinion as to whether or not canned French cut green beans are one step above torture.  Canned vegetables are NEVER OKAY.  NEVER.   Fresh or frozen.  That's the only acceptable method of buying/purchasing/eating vegetables.   She also cooks the hell out of her vegetables - as in boils them until all color/taste/nutritional benefits are long gone.   Gag.   Vomit.  

I'll usually roast my veggies so they still have flavor.  And crispness.  And nutrition in them.  Sometimes I will steam broccoli or asparagus,  but it's not my preferred method.   Actually I love my broccoli blanched and then sauteed but that's a lot of work and sometimes it's just easier to steam them.  I still make gagging noises while I eat it even though I'm the one that made it.   It doesn't annoy Andrew at all.  Really. 

It took me probably 27 years to learn it,  but I do like vegetables.   Oh, I still prefer them raw dipped in copious amounts of ranch dressing - but I'm willing to eat a cooked one now and then as long as my mother hasn't been in the kitchen.

I will say vegetables aside, my mother is a good cook.  She cooks her vegetables the way she likes to eat them.  It's just that she just likes vegetables that taste disgusting.  Who knows, maybe in 25 years my kids will lament about how they never got canned vegetables growing up.

I highly doubt it.

looking ahead

I need to eat more leafy green vegetables.   Why?  Because I have lattice degeneration,  which could lead to some bad things down the road (or not,  no one really knows).   Anyway,  I need to take good care of my eyes. According to people who study such things, green leafy vegetables are the way to go.   WebMD says: 

Get the Best Nutrients for Good Vision

Protecting your eyes starts with the food on your plate. Studies have shown that nutrients such as omega-3 fatty acids, lutein, zinc, and vitamins C and E may help ward off age-related vision problems such as macular degeneration and cataracts. Regularly eating these foods can help lead to good eye health:

• Green, leafy vegetables such as spinach, kale, and collards
• Salmon, tuna, and other oily fish
• Eggs, nuts, beans and other non-meat protein sources
• Oranges and other citrus fruits or juices

Ergo and henceforth,  I need to uptick my kale consumption (also, I need to start taking Omega 3 fish oil since salmon makes me gag).  I've been looking for a kale soup recipe since it's almost fall and really,  when is there a better time to make soup than fall?

My first inclination was to see what my BFF Ree Drummond has to say about kale soup.   And wow,  does it look good.   Maybe I could eat it if I spent my time riding horses around a working cattle ranch,  but I don't and I ideally want a less calorie and fat ridden recipe.   Making her recipes healthier takes too much thought,  so I went to Skinny Taste instead and found this recipe.  It looks pretty easy,  especially since I can make the "sausage" ahead of time.   So I will try it in a few weeks and see how much we like it!  

I'm feeling hot hot hot!

And I love it! 

The one downside to summer babies (of which I have two) is that I cannot enjoy the heat and all the summer fun the way I want to. A few  I stayed home while the rest of my family went on a boat ride and ended up over to the Vineyard.  Today, instead of being at the beach, I am inside in the AC while I watch the world have fun in the sun.

Next year, child - we will be at the beach every second of every heat wave!   Even though in my experience 1 year olds don't love the beach.  He'll have to adapt quickly.

I made this Pioneer Woman pasta salad recipe this past weekend.    I didn't have any parsely though,  so I skipped that step.  I didn't miss it. I enjoy pasta salad that does NOT have a mayo based dressing,  and this one was ab fab!  One does get a little sick of the Italian dressing after awhile,  but I admit I had my doubts about lemon juice and oil  (oh,  I don't every have EVOO in the house.  waste. of. money.  I used regular and it was fine).   I should learn never to doubt the Pioneer Woman though.   And she didn't even put butter in this recipe!
I forgot to put it in a bowl before transporting it to the party,  so it ended up being served in a meat marinator (this one -you know, the one that everyone and literally their mother has)

Nothing says class like serving pasta salad in a container that's designated for raw meat. 

In case anyone was wondering,  we still have not caught Mickey.   In fact,  he is mocking us by walking around the glue traps and eating the peanut butter off the snap traps without setting them off.  Jerk.

* Possible spoiler alert for Mad Men * does anyone know why Don hit the elevator button and then when the door opened he stuck his head in the door and saw that there was just a big hole with no elevator car there?  I really did not understand the point of that scene.   Then again,  most of Mad Men goes over my head.   And I'm undecided on whether or not I liked Rory Gilmore  Alexis Bledel's character.

On the way home tonight I thought about having pork chops and broccoli for dinner and I kind of wanted to drive my car into oncoming traffic.  Normally we roast fresh broccoli with some lemon and garlic,  maybe some soy sauce.  It's good,  but it's literally the only way we ever cook fresh broccoli.   I knew there had to be another way to cook it, and I had to find it because I was going to lose my mind if I had to eat roasted broccoli again.  Neither one of us enjoys broccoli that's even the slightest bit soggy (steamed broccoli would have made me actually drive into oncoming traffic,  not just kind of want to) so I was on a mission to save my dinner.  And my sanity.

With the help of Google and Allrecipes.com,  I did find a pretty good recipe - basic,  yes,  but it left me with non soggy broccoli that wasn't roasted with lemon and garlic.    Which was pretty important tonight since we didn't have any lemon.

My culinary skills are lacking when it comes to fresh vegetables.  I can roast,  I can steam (though I really don't like any steamed veggies, they get mushy and then I gag), and I can cut them up and eat them with lots of sour cream dip.   But apparently the latter isn't the "healthy" option.   I'm excited to have another way to cook broccoli.    Next up - fresh brussel sprouts!  We current only have brussel sprouts if they are frozen and microwavable,  but fresh vegetables are just so much better that I really need to figure out how to cook them.

Here is the recipe,  in case you also are looking for a non-soggy and non-roasting broccoli recipe.  Just so you know,  you do have to blanch the broccoli - but what is more fun than giving some broccoli an ice water bath?   Also,  I think it called for way too much Parmesan cheese,  I only used 2 tablespoons and it was plenty.

Friday night

Andrew and I are going ahead with our April Friday Night PW Recipe (I'm aware that Friday is still March, but sometimes we walk on the wild side like that) and are going to make this and this.

What I find amusing about this is the Mexican Rice recipe was originally posted in November of 2009 and the Quesadillas were posted in May 2010.   I never would have made them just from reading the blog, even though her recipe posts make me want to eat everything she makes.  But for some reason now that I have her cookbook, I'm all "BRING ON THE FOOD!".   I'm loving this cookbook,  it's actually getting me to make these recipes that I normally just drool over.

(Um, Ree.... even I can tell the lighting is not right in this picture!)  Mmmm....  We will most likely use canned pineapple and skip the cilantro,  but still.   Yum.  

Too bad it's only 8:50am on Thursday and I have to wait two more days!

Dr. Mom

Trying to decide if Baby Girl has an ear infection is like trying to diagnose fibromyalgia: next to impossible. She doesn't grab her ears, she doesn't run a temp, she doesn't do anything that most kids do when they have ear infections. Which means by the time we bring her in to get checked out, she has a "raging" double ear infection.

We're trying to figure it out now. Last night I was convinced that she had at least one ear infection. She woke up crying at 11:30 which she never does. We asked her teacher to keep an eye on it, and apparently she did put her head on her shoulder once and said "ow". But no one has any idea what that means. I guess tonight will be the deciding factor. If she wakes up, off to the pediatrician we will go, to pay $20 copay at the visit and $10 for the amoxicillan. We are going to run out of money in our flexible spending account before May!!

I'm in a cooking rut. I need some variety - anyone have any recipes that are easy to throw together and don't have a million calories? anyone? Tonight we had turkey meatloaf - and I make a pretty good turkey meatloaf, if I do say so myself - but I somehow messed it up tonight and it was terrible. Add the fact that the greenbeans (which are one of my least favorite vegetables to begin with) were undercooked and we very rarely have a starch with dinner... and you get one lousy dinner. I need something tasty, yet not fattening!

American Chop Suey!!

mmmmmmm........

When I was a kid, we didn't have American Chop Suey, we had something my mother called chop suey that was made with these chow mein noodles:
Whatever that dish was, I didn't like it, but I loved those noodles. I would put way more on my plate than I was supposed to! I could ask my mother what it was, but I guarantee she will not remember. She doesn't remember anything from my childhood. It's very strange...

Anyway, today I'm making American Chop Suey in the crockpot. I've never tried it before, but a friend passed along a recipe that cooks it in the crockpot. It's not really different from how would normally make it... you just throw it all in the crockpot and add the elbows at the end. I have high hopes for it though.


1 lb. lean ground beef
5 bacon strips, diced
1 large onion, diced
1 green bell pepper, diced
14.5 oz can diced tomatoes--any flavor or plain
1 can water (empty tomato can)
6 garlic cloves, chopped
26 oz jar prepared pasta sauce
16 oz package elbow macaroni
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese (optional)

Use a 6 quart crockpot. In a large skillet, brown the beef, bacon, and onion all together until the meat is no longer pink. Drain well and put in crockpot. Add everything else except for the pasta and the cheese. Stir to combine. Cover and cook on low for 6 to 8 hours or on high for about 4 hours. Stir in the raw pasta and cook on high for approximately 30 minutes or until the pasta is bite tender. Serve with a handful of cheese on each serving.

** I always use ground turkey instead of gound beef and I skipped the bacon, because who has ever heard of bacon in American Chop Suey?? Also, per usual, I added way more garlic. But we're garlic lovers!

I will let you know how it turns out!

a quickie

I had to pass this link on. I had to. I may not have time to make this recipe any time soon, but you HAVE to, and you have to tell me how it was

Shredded Buffalo Chicken Tacos

dinner time!

Oh what a snow day....

here's a picture of my girl waiting patiently for Daddy to cook her grilled cheese sandwich for lunch. You can see how thrilled she is with all us... That's definitely the face of a girl who misses daycare!
But being at home all day (though still working) did give me the opportunity to make something other than the meatloaf I had planned. I still had defrosted a pound of ground turkey, so it had to be somehow related to that. Other than stir fry (which Andrew doesn't really like) and tacos (didn't have the ingredients necessary, other than the ground turkey) I was coming up with nothing. To the trusty internet I went!

Stuffed peppers!

I followed a very simple recipe, but of course I made some changes. It's such an easy recipe, I almost didn't blog about it, because I'm sure everyone has some version of this laying around, and if not it's a simple google search away. But it was really REALLY good and worth mentioning.

ingredients:

• 1 pound ground beef
• 1/2 cup uncooked long grain white rice (we had Uncle Ben's Boil in a Bag rice - I honestly don't know how much rice that is, we used one bag)
  
• 8 ounces sliced mushrooms
  
• 3 green bell peppers (only because 1 was huge, we only needed 4 medium ones)
  
• 16 oz tomato sauce
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce (generous)
  
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder (we don't have any - I used a spoonful of minced garlic)
  
• 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning

Directions
1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees
2. Cook rice according to packaging
3. Brown turkey, add the mushrooms when it's mostly browned


OPTIONAL STEP! Realize the constant banging into your leg by something small and hard is your daughter repeatedly banging her empty sippy against it. Also realize that the small high pitched noise you've been tuning out is her saying "milk! milk! milk!" over and over again. Demand that she say please, and then, finally, pour the child some milk.


4. Remove and discard the tops, seeds, and membranes of the bell peppers. Arrange peppers in a baking dish with the hollowed sides facing upward. (Slice the bottoms of the peppers if necessary so that they stand up. Like this:

ooohh... pretty peppers. If red or yellow ones are one sale, I highly recommend those for stuffed peppers, but most of the time green will have to do!

5. In a bowl, mix the browned beef, cooked rice, tomato sauce, Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder (or minced garlic, whatev), onion powder, salt, and pepper.

this is everything except the rice... starting to look yummy! boil, rice, boil!

6. Spoon an equal amount of the mixture into each hollowed pepper. (NOTE - the original recipe calls for 6 peppers, and we definitely had some left over. We froze the remainder for 2 more peppers on some night when we are rushed)

7. Cook for one hour!

Finished product - it was SO GOOD!

catching up

I'm trying a new recipe right now... crockpot buffalo chicken lasagna. It looks really really good - we'll find out tomorrow. It is NOT low calorie, I'm just warning you right now. But if it's good, I'm going to tweak it the best I can to lower the calorie count.

Here's the recipe - just remember I haven't tried it yet, it's currently crockpotting away.

Ingredients
3 already cooked chicken breasts, cubed
jar of prepared pasta sauce (20 ounces)
1 cup buffalo wing sauce
tub of ricotta cheese (15 ounces)
2 cups shredded cheese (cheddar and mozzarella blend)
1/2 cup blue cheese crumbles
1/2 cup of water
uncooked lasagna noodles

Use at least a 5 qt crockpot, or cut back on the amount of ingredients
In a large glass bowl, combine the chicken, pasta sauce, and wing sauce
Ladle a big spoonful of the sauce blend into the bottom of the crockpot
Cover with a layer of lasagna noodles. You will have to break the noodles to get a good fit
Add a smear of ricotta cheese to the top of the noodles
Sprinkle a handful of shredded cheese on top

Repeat the layers until you run out of ingredients

Add the blue cheese crumbles to the top
Put the 1/2 c of water into the empty pasta jar and shake
Pour the water over the entire lasagna.

Cover and cook on low for 6-7 hrs or on high for 4-5

sounds fabulous, right? I did buy low fat ricotta cheese... but I used full fat shredded cheese and I don't even think low fat blue cheese exists, does it?

Okay enough on the recipe which may or may not even taste good.

Andrew is currently baby proofing the cabinet under the sink where we keep cleaning supplies - you know, poison? We probably should have done that about 4 months ago, but hey, better late than never, right? Parents of the year. Right here.

Speaking of the baby, I took her to the beach this morning. She has come a long way this summer. I put her right down on a towel, she immediately scooted over to the sand and began to shovel handfuls into her mouth. Which is disgusting and I can't understand why she keeps doing it, but it's much better than being petrified of it. And she likes the water too - basically any way she can splash me in the face, she's happy. She splashes me in the pool, in the ocean, in the bath... however she can. I'm not taking it personally... I will splash her in the face nonstop in about 4 years. HA! (what was that about parents of the year?)

And finally, if you need mindless entertainment, pick up the Queen of Babble series by Meg Cabot. I've only read the first two but they're classic chick lit and amusing enough. I'm ordering the 3rd from the library (I make I started Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet today, on the recommendation of my mother. It's been good so far - heavier than I've been reading, but I guess it's time to put the beach reads away :(

snowy Sunday and turkey chili

Last night was the first significant snowfall of the season. We got a few inches, just enough to make the world look like a Winter Wonderland. And I made my turkey chili today, so it's officially winter. I make a really good turkey chili - it's a Weight Watchers recipe, but you wouldn't know it. It has a lot of flavor and you can easily add or subtract ingredients so anyone will like it. We don't add the chili flakes, and we put 3 times as much garlic as it needs. Yummy. Here it is - I'm telling you, it's easy to make, it makes at least 6 servings so it's great for leftovers and lunch, and it's a guaranteed crowd please. You'll thank me.

1tsp canola oil
1 large onion (chopped)
2 medium garlic cloves, minced (I buy jars of pre-minced garlic. It's worth it)
2 medium carrots, thinly sliced into rounds
1 pound lean ground turkey
2 tbsp chili powder
1 tbsp paprika
1 tsp ground cumin
1 1/2 tsp ground red pepper flakes (I leave this one out, and add more garlic instead)
2 medium tomatoes, chopped
1 cup canned tomato sauce
1 cup fat free chicken broth (okay, I will admit it. I don't use fat free)
1 1/2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 cup cooked kidney beans, rinsed and drained (I just use the whole can, I don't know it that's 1.5 cups or not)
1 medium bell pepper, chopped)
1/2 tsp table salt, or to taste
1/8 tsp black pepper, or to taste

heat a lard pot coated with cooking spray, over medium heat. Add oil and onion; saute onion until soft. Add garlic and carrots and cook until garlic is softened. Add ground turkey and brown meat, about 5 minutes. Stir to break up lumps.

Add chili powder, paprika, cumin, and red pepper flakes, tomatoes and tomato sauce, broth and vinegar. Bring mixture to a boil and reduce heat. Cover and simmer until meat is tender, 30 to 45 minutes.

Add beans and pepper. Simmer, uncovered, until peppers are done, about 10 minutes. Season to taste. Yields about 1 cup per serving

I'm not currently following weight watchers, but if you are, this is a Core recipe, or 4 Points per serving.