To keep things interesting, I’m challenging myself with a new cooking technique each month. Last month it was making homemade bread. This month it is making my own gnocchi, which is much easier than I thought! I made this for a cooking club last week and everyone loved it! My husband and kids really enjoyed it too.
Click link for gnocchi recipe. The cheese sauce is great but I thought a little too heavy with the gnocchi, so the second time I made it with pesto.
Pesto
Fresh basil, handful
2 Cloves of Garlic, smashed
Olive oil, about ¼ cup
Parmesan, about ¼ cup shredded
Salt and lemon pepper to taste
Blend all the ingredients together in food processor while drizzling in olive oil, until smooth. Can add pine nuts or walnuts if you like. I also sometimes do half blanched kale and half basil.
I used some of the leftover mashed sweet potatoes I did not use to make the gnocchi and made chicken mango and black bean quesadillas. They were so good! Just spread a layer of sweet potatoes on the bottom half of the tortilla. Then in a bowl, mix leftover chicken with mango, black beans, cheddar, mozzarella and some cumin. Spread chicken mixture on top of sweet potato, fold tortilla over and bake in a 375 degree oven for 5-8 minutes.
I also made one of my kids’ favorites last week. Meatloaf “cupcakes” with mashed potato “frosting” and peas “sprinkles.” This is such a fun way to get kids to eat dinner. Karina enjoyed sprinkling the peas on the plates 🙂 I had so much leftover sweet potatoes from the gnocchi, that I added it to my meatloaf too!
Mix about 2-3 lbs of ground meat (whichever you like, turkey, chicken, pork, beef I like to use a mix of pork and beef), 2 eggs, 1/2 cup of panko bread crumbs, 1/2 onion – grated, 1 minced garlic clove, 1/2 cup cooked shredded vegetables (I’ve used leftover carrots, zucchini, sweet potatoes, or all three combined), salt, lemon pepper and coriander.
The key to good meatloaf is to do what the professionals do and cook a small pattie of meat in a pan and taste it so you know if the seasonings are right. I know its an extra step, but it is so worth it! That way you know to add more seasoning.
Grease your muffin tin and use a 1/2 cup measuring cup to scoop out the meatloaf mixture, roll it in your hand to make a giant meatball and then drop it in the muffin tin. Cook at 375 for about 35- 45 minutes (may be longer or shorter depending on your oven). About half way through brush with mixture of 2 parts ketchup and one part Sweet Chili sauce (I love Trader Joe’s sauce) that has been heating on the stove. At the end brush again.
Put mashed potatoes into a large ziploc bag and cut off one corner and use it to pipe mashed potatoes on top of your muffins. Then sprinkle with peas. (I just used frozen that I microwaved for 3 minutes).
For the leftover mashed potatoes and even the meatloaf, add it to your eggs in the morning and just scramble together to make a hash with some bacon or ham deli meat that you need to use up and serve with fruit. Below I gave it to my kids with some chocolate zucchini bread on Saturday. This chocolate zucchini bread recipe is good, but for me needs a little more sweetening and moisture. Kids loved it regardless!
Getting kids (and some adults!) to eat different foods can be a challenge. One way to get kids excited about food is to make it fun for them. Play up the holidays or make a regular Thursday morning an “orange” morning and only make orange food, etc. Keep trying different things and they will eventually eat when they are hungry or we find the right food or cooking method. Then it changes again the next week 🙂 But don’t despair. You are not alone. If you are worried your child is not getting the nutrients they need, talk to your pediatrician. In the meantime, keep trying different things. You never know what may work. Here are a few suggestions for Valentines Day.
“Hearty” Breakfast Cut a heart shaped hole with a cookie cutter in a piece of lightly toasted bread. Put it in a pan and break an egg in the center. A couple of minutes later, when the egg starts to firm up, flip it and cook until the egg is cooked as you like it. Here is a recipe I found.
If your kids don’t like eggs, try making heart shaped pancakes or use a larger heart cookie cutter to make heart shaped toast and top with peanut butter, nutella or your favorite spread.
Serve it with a strawberry banana smoothie! (Strawberry yogurt blended with a banana). This will give everyone a good start to a day filled with chocolate and sweets 🙂
Lunch Love
Use a cookie cutter to cut sliced pineapple and some ham into heart shapes. Serve with pita bread also cut into hearts (or not) to be dipped into hummus.You could also use the heart shaped pineapple and ham to top individual english muffin pizzas.
Another idea is to make whatever sandwich your kids like, peanut butter and jelly, cream cheese and jelly, grilled cheese and then cut it into a heart shape.
Delightful Dinner
Make polenta and then cut heart shapes for the kids! You can serve it with roasted beets and steak or chicken and squash or even shrimp and some peas for a version of shrimp and grits 🙂
For an easy appetizer put cream cheese on your favorite cracker and sprinkle with chives. My new favorite is Keebler’s Sea Salt and Olive Oil.
So we don’t have our laptop back yet, so I still can’t post the beautiful pictures of my tomatoes!! But I figured I would post to give you some ideas of what I’ve been doing with my cherry tomatoes and lemon tomatoes from the garden.
My new favorite breakfast is a tomatoes, herbs and an egg on toast. I’ve made a couple of versions, but basically you dice up tomatoes mix with a little salt, pepper, olive oil, white balsamic vinegar and whatever fresh herbs you have. Let that sit while you make a piece of toast in the toaster + make an egg either over medium or over hard or you can poach the egg (I’ve never been very good at it. Only one out of 8 tries does that come out right!) Put the toast on the plate, top with egg and then tomato mixture. Add a couple of slices of avocado if you have it.Yum. Karina doesn’t like it too much, but she doesn’t really eat tomatoes. More for me 🙂
I’ve also been grilling more pizzas with tomatoes and making bruschetta. I also made a Rachel Ray recipe with a tomato and cucumber salad. Her recipe is basically to make a meatloaf with ground turkey, greek seasoning (oregano, mint, salt, pepper, lemon zest), feta + spinach. Your own homemade gyros! One the side mix tomatoes, cucumber, salt, pepper and red wine vinegar.
Anytime you want more specifics on the amounts, please let me know! I am trying harder to make note of how much I use, but don’t always write it down. I’m happy to tell you more details!
The new fall produce has arrived at the Ballard Farmer’s Market! Last week I bought a spaghetti squash and made a new take on spaghetti and meatballs. Here is the recipe I’ve given before that is my go to for spaghetti squash. Then in a crock pot put 1 can condensed cream of chicken soup, 1 cup beef or chicken broth, 1 cup water + 1Tbsp Worcestershire sauce with a bag of frozen turkey meatballs from trader joes. Cook for 2-3 hours on low.
Fall is my favorite season so stay tune for some great fall comfort food recipes!!
Limiting myself trips to the grocery store is really helping our budget and my creativity 🙂 Life still happens when you’re on a budget however and I love to play hostess, so when we had a couple of evenings in one week where I was hosting a group of people for dinner, it was a challenge to stay in budget and still make good food, but I think I pulled it off! I based my menu around what was on sale.
One night I had the girls from my book club over and we wanted to enjoy the backyard, so I made grilled pizzas. I bought a veggie tray from Trader Joe’s as the appetizer so the girls could nibble while I grilled the pizzas. Here is the link to my blog about how to grill a pizza. First pizza was a caesar salad pizza, with chicken (marinated in caesar dressing and cooked in advance). Dough is topped with a thin layer of caesar dressing, light covering of mozzarella + chicken while on the grill. When you take it off of the grill, add the caesar salad and some shredded parmesan. Second pizza was a traditional magherita with fresh mozzarella tomatoes and basil. Third pizza was a caramelized onion and goat cheese pizza. Dough was topped with caramelized onions (made in advance) and goat cheese. This was the favorite!
Dessert was simple. 1 package sugar free white chocolate pudding, 1 package sugar free chocolate fudge pudding, chocolate chips, and sliced strawberries. Just layer ingredients and you have a trifle!
Another night we had a friends from PEPS over. I made a quinoa salad (thanks Jodi for the idea!!)and baked lemon chicken. I also was feeling very domestic and made oatmeal white chocolate chip craisin cookies. Cook the quinoa like you would rice. I used chicken stock in stead of water (you could also use veggie stock or water). Let the quinoa cool and prepare a vinagrette or use a salad dressing you like and have on hand and pour over quinoa (once cool). I used Paul Newman’s olive oil vinagrette and mixed in some pepper and lemon juice. Then add whatever you usually add to pasta salad. I used cubed colby jack, roasted zucchini and diced tomatoes. Chill and serve. [Another twist on pasta salad can be found at Family friendly food, a blog I follow.]
Baked Lemon chicken is something I have made for years and varies depending on what I have on hand. I cut the boneless chicken breasts into smaller pieces so they would cook faster and marinated them in lemon juice, white balsamic vinegar, thyme, salt, pepper, lemon zest and honey. Put the chicken into a baking pan, drizzle with honey, cover with foil and bake for 10 minutes in a 400 degree oven. Then take the foil off and bake for another 30-45 minutes (depending on size of chicken pieces).
Some weekend mornings I actually have the urge to make a big breakfast. I really wanted eggs benedict but have never made hollandaise sauce and didn’t have the time or energy to look it up at 8:30 in the morning (it was my morning to sleep in. Tim and I switch off each weekend day). I decided to make a cheese sauce (which I just learned from all of my mac n cheese experiments). I made a lighter cheese sauce (2 Tbsp butter, 2 Tbsp flour, 1 ½ – 2 cups of milk, 3-4 sprigs thyme, salt, pepper, yellow mustard powder, garlic powder, onion powder and 1 ½ cups skim mozzarella) and put that over the poached egg and tomatoes (diced and mixed with garlic, basil, olive oil and balsamic vinegar) on wheat toast. It was soooo good. I had enough cheese sauce leftover that I boiled some water while we were eating our breakfast and made pasta, mixed pureed pumpkin in with the cheese sauce, poured the cheese sauce over the pasta and baked it for 20 minutes. We spent the morning at home and then after Karina’s nap were able to go out for the rest of the afternoon and enjoy ourselves. We came home just before dinner. I reheated the mac-n-cheese and dinner was served in 10 minutes!
Luckily these meals provided leftovers again for lunch and dinners on the nights in between when I didn’t cook. Making cooking easier by giving yourself nights off is important. Those nights off don’t have to be about takeout (unless you want them to be). If you are trying to save money, make enough of one dish to have leftovers. If you don’t want to eat the same thing all week, freeze the food and then you can take different items out of the freezer and reheat on nights you don’t want to cook. But, like I have said from the beginning with this blog, everything in moderation. Not everyone is organized to cook every night and have freezer foods on hand, etc all the time. I know I’m not. Don’t beat yourself up about ordering pizza or going through the drivethru every once in a while. Taking the time to read this blog and other cooking sites shows you care about what you and your kids eat, even if you just think about trying the recipes. It’s the thought that counts J On that rogue day that you have some time and are in the mood to cook, you have an arsenal of recipes and methods in this blog, cookbooks (and more cookbooks)I mentioned and just by Googling. (Yes I think that is a verb now).
Happy cooking! Coming up…hopefully some recipes with food from my garden. My zucchini is not looking happy…
Sorry there are no pictures this week. The hard drive of our laptop died and our photos are on it! Luckily the Geeksquad was able to retrieve the info, but the computer I am working on now doesn’t have a dvd drive to read the info. Couple more weeks and the computer will be back and pictures of my garden will be up!
Karina has been a bottomless pit. I know that seems like it shouldn’t be a problem, because most toddlers won’t eat anything, but to have to feed her every 40min to an 1hr…it is ridiculous! (Especially after I just put her back to bed at 10:30pm because she wanted a snack). I’m trying not to, but if she’s hungry then I will give her a snack. I am just really trying to keep it healthy. Maybe its because she started walking this week…
So, as I’ve mentioned before I have started doing meal planning for each week and then shopping just for what I need. It has made a difference in our shopping budget and the amount of space in our fridge!
Its been a while since I posted a meal plan for the week…so, here is what I have planned for the week: (who knows if it will actually happen, but most of it is what I have on hand)
Sunday
Breakfast = smoothie (I mix plain yogurt with frozen berries and apple juice.)
Lunch = sandwiches (turkey, cheese and tomato or roast beef cheese and tomato) or leftover swedish meatballs and cauliflower mashed potatoes
Dinner = Fish (still to buy tomorrow), rice (made in the rice cooker) with edamame (frozen and then takes 3 minutes to steam in the microwave)
Snacks for Karina = cheddar cheese, grapes, apple sauce, goldfish crackers, craisins
Monday
Breakfast = one egg, whole wheat toast and sliced pear
Lunch = leftover rice and edamame + deli turkey meat
Dinner = roast pork (cooked in the slow cooker with beef stock, balsamic vinegar, worchestershire sauce, dried rosemary, garlic, salt and pepper.), cauliflower polenta (buy the tubes from Trader Joes or Safeway and just mix in some steamed cauliflower, parmesan and milk) and salad
Snacks = yogurt, whole wheat pita with white bean hummus, carrot sticks, craisins and goldfish.
Tuesday
Breakfast = oatmeal and apple slices (or a whole mini apple that I discovered at Trader Joe’s last week. A friend turned me on to their mini pears, but I couldn’t find them, then I found the mini apples – perfect size for a toddler’s hand)
Lunch = quesadilla with leftover pork, black beans and cheddar cheese
Dinner = Whole wheat pasta with tomato sauce. (If I have time, I put a couple of cans of diced tomatoes in the slow cooker while Karina’s eating her lunch, with a diced onion, some garlic, bay leaf, touch of oregano, rosemary, salt and pepper. Otherwise, I just used jarred).
Snacks = orange slices, cheddar cheese, grapes, whole wheat pita, craisins and goldfish (sensing a pattern…?)
Wednesday
Breakfast = egg, cheerios and peaches (canned peaches).
Lunch = pasta, deli turkey and green beans (frozen, steamed in microwave for 3 min)
Dinner = French onion soup (this is more for me, its an amazing recipe from Rachel Ray’s Comfort Foods…mmm…we’ll see if she likes it) and leftovers.
Snacks = apple sauce, grapes, cheddar, carrot sticks, goldfish and craisins
Thursday
Breakfast = smoothie.
Lunch = turkey, cheese and blackbean in a whole wheat tortilla wrap.
Dinner = leftovers
Snacks = peaches, cheddar, whole wheat pita with white bean hummus, grapes, apple
Friday
Breakfast = egg, toast, orange slices
Lunch = peanut butter and jelly sandwich, mixed veggies (frozen, steamed in microwave for 3 minutes).
Dinner = TBD (either order food, see what’s on sale that day at the grocery store or my husband will pick something up at Pike’s market on the way home from work).
Snacks = apple sauce, yogurt, whole wheat pita and whatever else is left in the house until I go shopping on Friday 🙂
That is a fairly typical week for us. It really has taken a lot of the stress out of cooking to have the meals planned. Things always come up though, so having a couple nights of “leftovers” or keeping pasta and jarred sauce or tortillas, canned black beans and cheddar on hand can make easy pasta or quesadilla nights or allow you some flexibility.
Karina finally meet a cheese she didn’t like this week (to my surprise)…Gorgonzola. She really is her father’s daughter…
With all the food, shopping, and rushing around it can be hard to make sure the little ones get the nutritious food they need. I’ve been buying more and more prepared food. Earth’s best makes frozen whole wheat waffles (I found them at Ballard Market). I’ve been giving those to Karina for breakfast made in the toaster oven with peanut butter (or almond butter – found cheapest in the organic section of Fred Meyer, still more expensive than peanut butter though) and then some cut up banana. Easy and fast.
She has been shunning meat these past couple of weeks. Maybe the turkey leg was too much 🙂 The only meat she seems to eat are sausages. So I’ve been buying some chicken sausages and turkey sausages. Karina has really taken to polenta. I buy the already made polenta in tubes that you can by in the grocery store. I chop it up, put it in a saucepan with some milk (keep adding until its the consistency you want), a little butter and then a handful of shredded parmesan. On a bath night, I put some of the polenta on the tray with some shredded beef mixed in and started scooping it up with a spoon! Of course some of it was thrown on the floor and walls, but she ate it.
Using frozen vegetables is such a timesaver! Especially in the morning when we are putting Karina’s lunch together to bring to childcare. While she’s eating breakfast, I just put some frozen lima beans in a bowl, cover them with water and microwave for 2 minutes. Include that with some whole wheat toast, leftover chicken or sausage and you have lunch! For snacks I’ve discovered the Safeway Organics vegetable crackers (in the baby section), which Karina loves. Those along with a cheese stick and some cut up apple or grapes and snacks are all set.
I’ve been giving Karina tastes of other foods when we go out or are at a party. She loves to taste the different kinds of cheese (especially brie), loves olives and even pickles! Giving her different tastes and texture hopefully will open her palate to eating a wide variety of foods. It seems to go in waves – what she will eat and what she won’t, so if your little one isn’t eating something, keep trying, they may eventually decide they like it. Happy Holidays!
Most of us don’t even have time to eat breakfast ourselves in the morning, but having a child now means that we have to get breakfast together for them at least, even if we still don’t eat it:)
Karina’s favorite breakfast by far is eggs. I just stir up an egg with some shredded cheese and then add in whatever we have in the fridge (leftover chicken, green onions, or sliced tomatoes), put it in the microwave for a minute and breakfast! I give her a little wheat toast and some blueberries and she is a happy little girl. I put her high chair in the kitchen, so I can watch her while I get the rest of her food and bottles ready for the day.
She also eats oatmeal mixed with cut up peaches and yogurt (yes all together) or cottage cheese with cut up plums and blackberries. I’ve stopped giving her Zwibak biscuits right now because she keeps biting large chunks and choking on them.
We’ll have to try those again when she has a better command of how big of a bite she can handle. Right now she loves to shove as much food in her mouth as possible.
I found a couple of more sites that may be helpful in the quest to find more options for kids. There are not that many out there, so if anyone has any suggestions e-mail me and let me know.
