Major Knitter

Cookies Galore

We have a funny holiday tradition.  Everybody gets to select two items for the holiday meal.  We let the boys start (since it's usually dessert and cookies and more sugar) and then BF and I round out the menu with things that resemble actual food.  This year's menu included:

• Churrasquinhos (little beef and bacon shish kebabs)
• Grilled chicken
• Roasted sweet potatoes and parsnips
• Kale
• Garden salad
• Homemade mac & cheese
• chocolate mousse
• Holiday cookies:  sugar cookies; chocolate crinkle cookies; peanut butter blossoms and green & red M&M cookies
• Fresh mixed berries

 

Do Nothing Campout

This weekend was our Troop's famed Do Nothing Campout.  There is nothing scheduled on this campout.  It's a time when the boys literally "do nothing."  In reality this means that the chefs for each patrol get a chance to shine and try their hands at some great cooking. We generally get a cabin with a stove for this campout - so they can really stretch their cooking skills.

The younger Scouts had homemade chicken dumpling soup, chocolate dipped Peppermint Joe-Joe's; and burritos.

Homemade Chicken Dumpling Soup for lunch.  One chef said "This is the best campout ever" - won't his Mom and Dad be thrilled to hear how much he loves to cook?

All-in-one burrito for dinner.  The younger Scouts did a fantastic job.  

The older Scouts planned a more sophisticated menu:  London broil with roast potatoes, mushrooms and salad for dinner.  Mmmmmm.

For dessert they made homemade Chocolate Mousse (yes, we brought the Kitchen-Aid mixer on a campout!).  Wait!  Are those finger swipes in the chocolate mousse?  Boys!!!!

It was a huge hit.  It was challenging to get the boys to understand just how rich chocolate mousse is.  Most of them took double helpings, one even took a quadruple helping and wouldn't be told otherwise.  Guess who didn't feel so good later?

But the best part about chocolate mousse is what I've told the boys for years.  

Me:  "If you can learn to make chocolate mousse, you can date any girl you want."

Scout:  "Ms. Jackson, Is that true?"

Me:  "She'll go out on a first date, just out of curiosity to see if you can really make chocolate mousse from scratch.  The second date is entirely up to you."

So now the older Scouts are set for the dating life.   Oh, and the chocolate mousse was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! 

Apple Butter Season

A few weeks ago, I took the kids up to our favorite apple picking orchard - Beardsley Cider Mill and Apple Orchard -  hurrying to get there before the orchards closed at 5:00 p.m.

When we got there, we discovered that I hadn't read the website closely enough.  The store is open daily until 5:30, but the apple orchards are only open on the weekends.  

So we had a good laugh, and spent our time in the store drinking fresh hot cider, buying apple cider doughnuts, apple pies and more.

Since we came to pick apples, we each chose a peck of apples from the store's display bushels filled with apples the owners had previously picked.

Four pecks a bushel makes, or so I believe.  We were all ready to begin the annual ritual of making apple butter.

I washed the apples;

Sliced them in quarters;

Put them in some very huge pots to cook;

Soon all the apples were cooked.  The house smelled heavenly.

A bushel of cooked apples was passed little by little through the Foley food mill.

And four pots of applesauce were set to boil for hours and hours (actually days).  I cook them over medium heat stirring every five minutes - so this is a slow laborious process.

Then I added the rest of the ingredients from the recipe and the spices that turn the applesauce into apple butter:  cinnamon, allspice, and cloves.  Now the house really smelled delicious.

Now each pot was a golden brown.  It was just a matter of cooking down the spiced applesauce until it was thick and rich.

Finally, after a few days of cooking and stirring and stirring and cooking, the apple butter was complete.  I cleaned and sterilized the Mason jars, filled each one with apple butter, and sealed them tight in boiling water according to the canning instructions.  I had such a bounty that this year I'll have more than enough apple butter to last the season.

The best part of all?  Primogeniture actually tried and liked apple butter for the very first time.  Secundogeniture and I have been fans for a long time.  Now we've brought one more into the fold.  Life is good. We love to eat it on fresh baked bread, English muffins, heck, just about anything!

 

A Sure Sign of Fall

The weather is starting to turn.  There is a chill in the air.  It makes me grab a fleece (I know, you just said to yourself, fleece?  Major Knitter grabs a fleece -- not a sweater?  Sadly, it's true).  This is my favorite time of year.  I'm sure it has something to do with my birthday being in October.  At any rate, fall is my favorite season of the year.  It always has been.  I know it's officially fall when I start buying apples by the peck, wearing fleeces, and looking for new soup recipes.  Here are three soups from this week's Troop ladies luncheon:

Lasagna Soup - recipe courtesy of Estella.  This soup is to-die for!

Here's a vegetarian French Lentil soup.  Yum.  Perfect for fall.

Finally, a Potato and Leek soup.  Unfortunately, I was short a leek, so this soup was a little lackluster.  I should have run out to the store... instead, I announced that it was lacking in zest and called it the Potato Leek lacking Leek Soup.  The recipe is amazing (when followed, which I did not since I was short a leek!).  It's a classic and favorite of mine.

It was a wonderful fall luncheon.  I used BF's grandmother's dishes that she gifted us earlier this year.  I thought a girly-girl lunch was the perfect opportunity to use them.  To top it off, I baked my Grandma Grace's sugar cookies for dessert.  I was channelling grandmothers this meal.  It was a great to have some girl time and enjoy some new recipes.  If you like soup, I highly recommend giving these three a try.

Bon appetit!

Summer Vegetables = Ratatouille

I love summer vegetables.  The farm share gets picked up every Thursday afternoon and I start trying to decide how I can possibly cook, serve and eat all those amazing vegetables.  

 

I started with a bunch of lovely tomatoes.

I washed them and cut a cross in the end of each tomato

Then I put them all in a large pot of boiling water for about 5-10 minutes.

Using a slotted spoon, I carefully removed the tomatoes from the pot of boiling water and placed them in a sink with ice cold water.

The tomatoes peeled in 4 easy sections!

I quartered the tomatoes and placed them in a large pot and cooked them over medium heat until they made a thick, rich tomato sauce, turning down the heat as necessary.  At this point I seriously considered canning my own fresh stewed tomatoes for use all winter long, but lacking a pressure cooker canner, I opted for an extra large batch of ratatouille.

I had all the perfect vegetables from the farm - eggplant, squash, zucchini, peppers, basil, onions, and garlic.

I sauteed the onion, garlic and two peppers in olive oil with freshly ground salt and pepper before adding them to the tomato sauce with a bit of vegetable broth for extra flavoring.  Then I chopped an eggplant and two zucchinis and summer squash; sauteed them in the frying pan until slightly brown and added them as well.  I let the whole mixture simmer on low for about 20 minutes before serving.  

Delicious ratatouille.  It tastes just like summer in a bowl.  Enjoy!

Detox

So my detox has begun.  It's nothing too strict - but it's based on mostly whole grains, lots and lots of farm fresh vegetables and lots and lots of fruit.  I enjoy meat, but am trying to even keep that down where possible.  I feel so much better already.

Dinner this week:  sauteed zucchini, Trader Joe's Harvest Medley Grains, and a yummy garden salad with mixed greens, yellow tomatoes, kohlrabi, beets, carrots, red cabbage, bell peppers and cucumbers.

D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S!

Our Family Favorite Birthday Cake

Or, Oh Fudge!

Mmm - Brazilian chocolate fudge cake - Bolo de Brigadeiro.

That's a chocolate caramel goo that's flowing down the sides.

Why yes, those are Hannukah candles on top the birthday cake.  OK - so you've NEVER run out of birthday candles?

It was a huge hit.  Not a crumb remained.  If you want to give it a try, here's the recipe.

Happy Birthday!

Fresh Off the Farm

The summer produce is enough to make me smile all over.  Check out this week's bounty from the farm.

Doesn't it look delicious?  Just look - cabbage, kohlrabi, radishes, zucchini, yellow squash, bok choy, kale, collard greens, salad, cucumbers, salad turnips, beets,  and even more greens than I can count.  But did you get a look at those eggs?  Look at the green eggs?  Aren't they a hoot?  Apparently they come from the Americana hen.  I never knew that!  I can't wait to taste them.  This week I was late picking up my share, so there was plenty of unwanted to claim.  I took several bunches of collard greens.

I love to chiffonade the collard greens (after washing them thoroughly and deveining each leaf).  I then saute them in some olive oil where I have first sauteed either some diced onions or garlic.  I add a little freshly ground salt and pepper and have a wonderful side dish with a rich, slightly bitter taste, that is high on the list of power foods.  When they tell you that you're supposed to eat plenty of green leafy vegetables, this is what they're talking about people.  Give it a try.  I also put very finely diced bits of collard greens (or kale or kohlrabi greens) in the boys' food.  I dice it so fine that it has the look and feel of fresh parsley.  It's good for them and they really don't know they're eating a superfood!  

Give it a try.  If you're not accustomed to the taste, perhaps you'll try the "parsley replacement" method first.  

Why I Love Being a Mom

Or, the Tale of a Short Order Cook

 

I really love being a Mom.  I don't necessarily like being the last one to bed at night, or the first one up in the morning, but I love being a Mom.  Today was one of those days that I really enjoyed, despite the fact that now I'm staring at a sink filled with dirty dishes.

I got Primogeniture up and since it's a big finals day - I made a hearty ham, egg, and cheese sandwich for him.

I got him off to school with a "Good luck on your test" and then started the process all over again with Secundogeniture.

He had other ideas about breakfast.  "Can we have pancakes this morning?"

Sure - why not!?

So, I whipped up a batch of his favorite chocolate chip pancakes and managed to get him up and off to the bus driven to school before the first bell.

Ah, the life of Mom.

Now I'd better get started on the dishes or the bliss of motherhood will dissolve into a dose of reality.

Chicken Risotto

I've always loved chicken and rice casseroles.  If they weren't so 1970s, I'd probably still be making casseroles today.  So I was thrilled when I created a family favorite chicken risotto - which is basically a chicken and rice casserole cooked in a saute pan on the stove top.

Chicken Risotto

3 tablespoons of olive oil
1/2 onion finely diced
2 chicken breasts, diced
1 teaspoon herbs de provence
salt and pepper to taste
2 cups brown arborio rice
5 cups chicken stock - heated
2 carrots finely sliced
1/4 cup finely minced greens (spinach, kale, collard greens, kohlrabi greens, etc).  This is my trick for adding more green vegetables in the boys' diet.  I mince the greens so as to appear as an herb.  Works like magic!
1/2 cup frozen peas
1/3 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

Directions:

1. In a large saute pan, saute the onions in olive oil until translucent.  Add the diced chicken breasts, herbs, salt and pepper.  Cook until brown.
2. Add the rice, stirring to cover in the chicken mixture.  
3. Reduce heat to medium heat.  Add one large ladle of the heated chicken stock to the sautepan at a time.  Cook, stirring often, until the liquid is absorbed by the rice.  Add another ladel, and keep cooking and stirring.  Continue adding ladles of stock only when the previous one has been completely absorbed. 
4. When half the chicken stock is gone, add the carrots, peas, and minced greens to the saute pan.  Continue cooking as above, adding one ladle of chicken stock at a time, until the rice is al dente and almost all the liquid is absorbed.
5. Add the parmesan cheese.  Mix everything well with a wooden spoon.

Variations - I make risotto with peas and carrots so that my boys will eat it.  Try different vegetables if your family is more adventuresome.  It's also very good with asparagus, mushrooms, diced green beans, etc.  The sky's the limit.  Good luck!  I hope your family likes it as much as mine.