Mamma's Cooking

Happy New Year and 99th post!

Only one more post to go to my 100th post on this blog. I am excited to keep this up as long as there are readers 🙂 Hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and have a happy new year.

I finally finished my 2012 cooking bucket list yesterday, just in time! Here’s a recap:

Cooking Bucket list for 2012 – COMPLETE!
Bread

Gnocchi

Meringues

Calamari

Flan

Lobster

Koeksisters

Oysters

Mozzarella

Pork Belly

Short ribs

Chocolate truffles

I got them all done, even though 5 were done in December 🙂 The flan came out pretty good, pork belly was tasty, Koeksisters almost tasted like my mom’s, the chocolate truffles were delicious and fairly easy and the mozzarella really felt like an accomplishment (even though I didn’t get a great picture)!

Now, on to 2013! I got a great present for Christmas – the meat grinder and sausage stuffer attachments for my Kitchen Aid mixer! I can’t wait to start! So no surprise that the first item up on my bucket list this year is…

1. Boerevors sausage (South African farmer’s sausage)

2. Souffle

3. Melk tert (a South African milk tart)

4. Pasta (not sure what kind yet, maybe spaghetti)

5. Carbonara

6. Filet a whole fish

7. Ceviche

8. Paella

9. Octopus

10. Jam

11. Yorkshire pudding

12. Cream puffs

Here’s to cooking that fulfills you, whether its conquering a recipe or technique that you have always wanted or finding out how to get a healthy meal on the table in under 30 minutes. Happy New Year!

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Thanksgiving links

I know, I know, I have been absent for the last couple of months.I’ve been doing some soul searching on my next professional move, physically moving to a house down south of Boston and now moving heaven and earth to unpack with 3 kids under 6, under foot and prepare for the holidays! Lucky to have such problems though 🙂

We are traveling about an hour and 45 minutes north on Thanksgiving and I’m responsible for the turkey, gravy and stuffing. Luckily I have found my roasting pan and bought a large bucket to brine the turkey in. My husband’s new company has a very nice perk. They give free farm fresh turkeys to each employee! When I get that turkey tomorrow I will butcher it and throw it in the brine overnight. Still haven’t figured out if I should cook it at home and bring it up or cook it at the house we are going to. Nothing like the last minute. I am going to base my turkey preparation on Kate’s Turkey recipe from Our Best Bites. The women over at Our Best Bites have amazing recipes. I have never made one I didn’t like. Check it out. Here are a couple of my favorites that may help your thanksgiving meal:

Easy Pumpkin crumble
Pretzel Rolls

Here is a round up of Mamma’s Cooking Thanksgiving posts:

Lessons Learned from Thanksgiving
My Thanksgiving Menu
Pre and Post Thanksgiving Ideas
Happy Thanksgiving

Have a great holiday everyone! I’ll let you know when I’m going to pick up the pace again and start posting more.

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How about fish tonight?

In my continual quest to eat healthier, I have been a little worried about the coming Fall. I love fall comfort food but not the calories that are in some of my favorites 🙂 I have worked fish into our diet at least once a week, twice if there is a good sale and hope to keep that up over the fall. Mainly I cook cod and salmon, but recently tried a new recipe with tilapia. I ordered cod through Peapod but they gave me tilapia by mistake (and were very nice about that and a couple other wrong items, which they took off the bill + gave me an extra $3 for gas in case I needed to run to the store).

Take about a pound of tilapia, cod or other white fish and 1st coat with mixture of 2-3 tbs melted butter with juice of 1/2 a lemon and then coat with mixture of about 1/3 cup corn meal, thyme, zest of one lemon, salt and pepper to taste. Put the coated fish into a baking dish and into a 375 degree oven, after spraying it with olive oil cooking spray, for about 15-20 minutes or until flakey.

I served it with mashed potatoes and roasted zucchini. Kids loved the fish! I know, I know, all the butter probably doesn’t make it the healthiest in the world, but you could use slightly heated olive oil mixed with the lemon juice or lemon zest (heat allows the lemon juice to permeate the olive oil a little more than if cold) or even try egg white. I make my mashed potatoes with a couple of tablespoons of low fat cream cheese and 1% milk and roasted the zucchini with salt, pepper and olive oil spray.

Tip: On occasion I actually implement the tips I find on Pinterest and this one definitely helps so that you don’t have to spend money on cooking sprays anymore. Make your own cooking spray. So far the olive oil one has worked well for me.

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Fall, Football, and Tailgating

Those who know me, know that I am not a big football fan but I have been known to host Super Bowl parties just to make the food 🙂 Fall is the season where many spend their weekends tailgating outdoors or in front of the TV cheering on their favorite teams. I was recently asked for ideas for recipes for “football food.” Here are some finger foods, slow cooker foods and grill recipes for your fun fall weekend with or without football!

Finger Foods and Dips
Cheeseburger Egg Rolls (top left of photo below)

These egg rolls were delicious! They are from Rachel Ray. Easy to make but a little time intensive to roll each one up. I served it with ketchup, mustard and bbq sauce for dipping rather than spending the time to make the sauce. The kids went nuts over these!

Corn Dog Muffins (top right of photo above)
These are from a blog called Iowa Girl Eats. I saw them on Pinterest and ran with her idea. I made them in regular muffin tins and made the Jiffy box of corn bread 🙂 and added about 1 cup of shredded zucchini and 1 cup of shredded cheddar and about 1/4 tsp of chili powder (add more if you want more chili flavor or a little cayenne if you want a kick), salt and pepper. Pour the batter into lined or greased muffin tins. I found for the regular sized muffins I cut the hot dogs into thirds and put one piece in each muffin and bake until ready. I found that these took a little longer than usual until the dough around the hot dog in the center was fully cooked.

Pigs in a Blanket with honey mustard dipping sauce. This is one of my favorites. The link is back to one of my previous blog posts about appetizers that has this recipe and the one for Spinach and Artichoke Dip and more!

Slow Cooker foods

Chili
I can’t wait to have my house smell like chili while it cooks away all day! I’m planning to make some on Monday. Its a full meal if you add those corn dog muffins above. Make it vegetarian by making black bean chili and zucchini corn muffins. I like to make my chili in the crock pot these days, which becomes a great vessel for keeping it warm while serving or bringing to a potluck or tailgate party. Throw a can or two of your favorite beans into the crock pot with a can of diced tomatoes, dice a couple of carrots and or zucchini or use whatever leftover vegetables you have on hand (corn, squash, eggplant, parsnips – so many veggies can work), an onion, garlic clove, palmful of chili powder, salt and pepper to taste.Cook on low for 4-6 hours. If you want to add meat, cook it first before putting it in the slow cooker, unless you are using stew meet, then you could throw it in and cook it all day. I have found that ground beef or turkey is mushy if you cook it in the slow cooker with the other chili ingredients.

Short ribs

I can cross short ribs off of my Cooking Bucket List now! So if you are making a meal for friends over the weekend or for Monday night football, these are sooo good! I used the ingredients for my favorite meat marinade as the cooking the liquid, equal parts balsamic vinegar, Worcestershire sauce and soy sauce with garlic and shallots.

I made a quick dry rub for the short ribs with salt, pepper and thyme and then browned them in the pan. before putting them in the slow cooker for about 8 hours (I had about 2.5 – 3 lbs of meat).

Then I took them out when there were practically falling off the bone and poured the liquid into a sauce pan and reduced it by about half. Add a little flour, 1/2 tsp of brown sugar and a little pepper and whisk together. Add more flour if you want it thicker. Use as gravy or dipping sauce. Serve with mashed potatoes or risotto or polenta.

Butternut Squash soup – My classic fall go to!

Coconut Curry Sweet Potato Soup – My new fall favorite!

Meatballs – standard go to for any gathering!

Grilled Food
Pizza – Great for an appetizer or a meal!

Your favorite Steak, pork, ribs, BBQ Chicken or sausages always are a crowd pleaser. I recently made some chicken on the indoor grill. I made a dry rub with brown sugar, salt, pepper and African Smoke spice blend from Trader Joe’s. If you don’t have that spice blend, go buy it immediately! or just use smoked paprika or chili powder. It was delicious! I served it with a beet barley risotto and some steamed carrots, not exactly tailgating food, so I’ll give my recipe for that later 🙂

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Easy lunches

Creative healthy lunches for daycare, school, on the run, at the office or at home can be stressful to make. As the school year starts we all start to get busier and need easy, healthy lunches. I admit I have fallen into a lunch rut for myself and have been eating leftovers or Lean Cuisines so that I have time to cook dinner, job hunt, write this blog, shower or maybe clean my house while the boys are napping 🙂 I’m a stickler at dinner and breakfast for us all eating the same thing. Not quite sure why that is different at lunch? Maybe because we have different schedules and it always seems rushed.

Here is a sample lunch menu for our family for the week:

Mondays, I have all 3 kids at home with me while my husband goes to work. Tim gets leftovers for lunch, the kids eat Annie’s mac-n-cheese mixed with peas and bananas on the side. I have a sweet and sour chicken Lean Cuisine.

Tuesdays, Karina is in school so I pack her lunch: 2 ham and cream cheese roll ups, a plum, crackers and a yogurt with water. Tim takes leftovers again or a ham and cheese sandwich with a banana. The boys will eat chicken nuggets with roasted broccoli and sweet potato fries. While I’m baking the nuggets and fries, I put a couple of frozen broccoli spears on the same sheet pan and just roast it along with the other frozen foods. Easy! I eat mac n cheese from Lean Cuisine (with a pinch of cayenne for more flavor).

Wednesdays, same schedule as Tuesdays. Karina’s school lunch: cream cheese and jelly on a multigrain bagel thin, grapes and a cheese stick with water. Tim takes leftovers (sensing a pattern? Luckily he likes them). The boys will eat the same as Karina but with peanut butter and jelly. If I have the energy to make sometime for myself, it usually is a salad with handful of black beans, blueberries, a little leftover meat from last night and a little shredded cheddar or feta or even a cut up cheese stick if that is all I have in the fridge. Add a little olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper and it is a tasty little salad.

Thursdays, same schedule again. Karina’s school lunch: leftover pasta primavera (cold) with yogurt and water. Boys, leftover pasta and yogurt (I try to match Karina and the boys’ lunches and make them all in the morning so I don’t have to do it twice). Tim, leftover pasta and me, probably another lean cuisine 🙂

Fridays, All 3 kids are home with me again. Kids and I will have tuna fish sandwich on whole wheat with peaches and carrot sticks with hummus.What does Tim take to work? You guessed it, leftovers.

Saturdays and Sundays, If we are all home or some of us are, we usually eat leftover homemade pizza from Friday night’s dinner and some fruit or carrots or in the fall we often have soup and a grilled cheese sandwich or quesadillas.

Here are some lunch recipes from me or blogs I like to follow:

Quesadillas you can get very creative with. The link will take you to quesadilla recipes I’ve previously mentioned.

Tomato tart from Michael Simon over at the Chew. This one requires actual cooking, but I did it the other day when we spent a rare morning at home and the kids actually were playing nicely together. I didn’t have as many tomatoes as he suggests, but it was still delicious. I also happened to have some pastry dough leftover from making the Quiche Lorraine around Julia Child’s 100th birthday. We had a little picnic with it. My kids, I don’t know how, but do not really like tomatoes, so weren’t huge fans but I loved it!

Pinterest of course has many ideas as well. My kids’ favorite one is hot dogs with pasta. Take dry spaghetti noodles and stick through cut up hot dogs. Boil it all together until the pasta is cooked. I sometimes serve it with perogies and edamame.

Catherine over at Weelicious posted some sandwich ideas recently.

Red Tricyle also has some ideas for school lunches today.

I try to make the lunches balanced with a protein, grain, dairy, fruit and/or vegetable. What do you make for you and your family for lunch? We all could use ideas!

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A week of Easy Breakfasts and Photos from Celebrating Julia’s 100th

Everything on the internet and in stores is throwing it in my face that fall is approaching. I love the fall, but can’t believe the summer has flown by so fast. (Note to self: must go to the beach this weekend!) As we all start the sometimes dreaded gearing up for fall, or just need some more ideas for breakfasts, I thought I would post some of my ideas and some links to other peoples ideas.

These need to be quick but yet enough to fill the kids up. When I do my menu plan, I add breakfasts, so my husband can just look at the board and know what to give the kids if I’m in the shower and if I am getting breakfast together, it is one last thing to think about! Here is an example:

Monday: Cheerios and Fruit. I had a proud mom moment on Sunday. These don’t happen all to often, but when they do, shout it from the roof tops! I took Karina (almost 5 years old) with me to the grocery store. We were in the cereal aisle to get Cheerios, the kids’ cereal of choice. Karina saw all the choices of different flavors of Cheerios, Dulce de Leche, Chocolate, Fruit (kind of like Fruit loops) and more. I don’t know how I managed to avoid this until now, but she for the first time, was in awe and wanted all the sugary cereals. I then pointed to the purple and white box of Cheerios, the Multigrain ones, and said how about this one? and she said Ok! Its purple! No one else witnessed this to my dismay, but now I share it with you because I want documentation before she gets wiser 🙂 She even excitedly ate her “special” Cheerios the next morning. We usually serve it with bananas or apples or whatever fruit is on hand.

Tuesday: Oatmeal and fruit. We use the Quaker Maple and Brown sugar, Low sugar version, for ease (probably not the healthiest), but I have been pinning all sorts of oatmeal recipes and just need to try some out. Like this blueberry and raspberry baked oatmeal one from So, how’s it taste? or this one from Weelicious for an overnight oatmeal that cooks in the crockpot.

Wednesday: Toast and fruit. Whole wheat bread, toasted with peanut butter or jelly or for fun some days, Nutella 🙂 Serve with strawberries, pineapple or whatever fruit is on hand.

Thursday: Eggs and Fruit. This can be as simple as just putting one egg per child in a microwaveable bowl that has been sprayed with Pam. Whisk egg and add a little cheese, salt and pepper. Microwave for about 1 minute, flip and microwave again for about 30 sec (time will depend on your microwave and how many eggs you have). Then cool and cut into pieces and serve. I (or my husband, who mainly takes care of breakfast) also sometimes add cottage cheese instead of shredded cheese or ricotta.

Friday: Cereal and Fruit again 🙂

Saturday: Eggs or toast, depending on what we have planned. If we are not rushing out of the house, I make a frittata or egg hash, which are great ways to use up leftovers. Last weekend I had a little bacon left from all my Julia Child cooking, so I diced it up and sauteed it in a non stick pan (about 4 strips). Then once the fat had rendered out and bacon started to get crispy, I added about 1/2 a palmful of sliced green onions and 1 minced clove of garlic and cooked for a few more minutes. Then I added about 1/4 cup of some of the leftover mashed sweet potato from the gnocchi I made on Julia’s Birthday and let that heat through. Season with salt and pepper. In a separate bowl, I whisked 4 eggs (for our family of 5) with about 1/4 cup milk (whatever kind you have, cream is always tastier, but not as healthy), salt, pepper and a handful of shredded cheddar. When whisked, I poured it into the sweet potato, bacon and onion mixture and cooked until eggs were ready, stirring and flipping occasionally. Served with strawberries. It was a big hit!

Sunday: Pancakes. You can serve them plain with syrup and fruit or make blueberry pancakes, apple pancakes, whatever your imagination can come up with. You can make them circles or cut out with cookie cutters to make shapes or if you have the special pancake molds (like these) you can eliminate the waste. I have Mickey Mouse shaped molds that were a gift. They are very fun easy to use. You can use them for eggs as well.

I usually buy Aunt Jemima’s Whole Wheat pancake mix and then add in fruit, either mashed bananas or blueberries. Sometimes I experiment a little more, like a few weeks ago when I added about 1/4 cup of ricotta cheese and the zest of one lemon to my regular blueberry pancakes. It was delicious! I also made some colored pancakes in honor of the Olympics from scratch, but the recipe made pancakes that were too dense. I’m back to my boxed mix for now, until I find the right recipe from scratch.

Tips for quick breakfasts:

(1) I always make extra pancakes and freeze them to be pulled out one morning for breakfast and cooked in the toaster or microwaved.
(2) I save the ends of our loaves of bread each week and put them in the freezer. Once I have enough, I pull them out on a Saturday night and put them in the fridge. Sunday morning I make French toast with them. Again make extra and freeze for easy meals during the week.
(3) Make breakfast for dinner one night a frittata or quiche and freeze the leftovers to take out and heat up for breakfast.
(4) yogurt with cereal and fruit parfaits. 1 scoop yogurt, next granola or cereal, next blueberries or raspberries, then repeat.

Other breakfast ideas: Smoothies, Waffles (frozen or in your waffle maker if you have one), muffins (whatever your favorite are blueberry, zucchini, sweet potato, sky is the limit!), or breakfast quesadillas.

Where I find breakfast ideas:
Pinterest Breakfast Recipes to Try
Weelicious
Our Best Bites (who just posted an overnight oatmeal recipe this morning!)
The Kitchn

Here are some photos from my week of celebrating Julia Child’s birthday. Fun but exhausting!

Roast chicken with potatoes and carrots (not exactly Julia’s recipe, but a “Julia-like” version)

Quiche Lorraine. Delicious! Next time I would not blanche the bacon as she suggests. It took all the bacon flavor out of it.

Potato Leek Soup. Delicious! So simple! Just potatoes, leeks, salt, water and parsley for garnish.

Julia’s Boeuf Bourguignon with Sweet Potato Gnocchi

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Happy 100th Birthday to Julia Child!

Next Wednesday, August 15, 2012 marks the date that would have been JuliaChild’s 100^th birthday. Restaurants around the country are doingspecial menus to honor Julia Child. PBS has lots of specials on TV among otherfun things on their website. Cooks and Bloggers around the country are writingand cooking to honor her memory. Here is one with 8 ideas on how to honor Julia from Robin Shreeves at the Mother Nature Network. I am going to try to make one recipe a daynext week from one of her cookbooks to honor her legacy. The French Chef was the first cooking show Iwatched on TV growing up. We watched a lot of PBS. She pioneered the era of cooking shows whichhas now exploded with popularity to a point I’m sure she probably couldn’t evenhave imagined. We all like to pretend we are cooking on a cooking show in thekitchen (don’t tell me you have never done it!) while making a meal and veryfew of us will ever get the chance to, but she made gourmet cooking accessibleto home cooks.

I have been reviewing Julie Child recipes from Mastering the Art of French Cooking to find some easyones and maybe one challenging one to make this week. If you are bored with your regular weeklymeals, picking a theme and sticking to it one week a month or however often youhave the energy for, can help spice things up (pun intended)! Or choose one night a week to make a newrecipe or make one of those hundreds you have pinned on Pinterest.

Pick a Julia Child recipe to make this week inhonor of what would have been her 100^th birthday. Don’t beintimidated. You don’t have to pick sweet breads or duck, or a fancy multi-step,multi-ingredient recipe. Make a quiche, roast chicken, pork chops, boiledartichokes or buttered green beans. It’s still a Julia Child recipe. Her goalwas to make gourmet cooking accessible to home cooks.

These are some of the recipes I’m hoping to make this week:

Chocolate Almond Cake, p677. Supposedly one Julia’sfavorites.

Boeuf Bourguignon, p.315. I’ve never made it and think Iwill while watching Julie and Julia.

Potato Leek Soup, p.37. One of my favorites. I’ve never madeJulia’s recipe though.

Quiche au fruits de mer, p.149. Sounds really fancy, butreally is just eggs, shallots or onions, butter (of course), lobster, shrimp orcrab, cheese, cream, tomato paste, salt and pepper. She also adds Madeira ordry vermouth, but I don’t have those and don’t usually by whole bottles ofthings for a couple of tablespoons, so I’ll use something else like whitebalsamic vinegar. I might even buy the crust. Shhh…don’t tell.

Crepes, p.190. These are just fancy pancakes that my kidswill hopefully love!

Moules A La Mariniere, p. 227. This is one of the onlyrecipes that I am repeating. I’ve made it before and loved it!

Poulets Grilles a la diable (Chicken Broiled with Mustard,Herbs, and Bread Crumbs), p.265. I chose this recipe because I already haveeverything for this in the house! It is similar to how I usually make chicken,but with basting. I don’t usually baste. Maybe I’ll do it, if I can stop thetwins from reaching into the oven.

Roasted Pork marinated in Marinade Simple (Lemon Juice andHerb Marinade), p.376. I also chose this one because I have most of the ingredients.

Artichauts au Naturel (whole boiled artichokes), p. 424. Probablythe easiest of the recipes. We’ll see what the kids think of these.

I’ll probably pick a couple other vegetable recipes too.

If you don’t want to cook, go out and have some oysters anda glass of champagne and have a toast to Julia Child!

#CookforJulia

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A Week of Easy Dinners

Summer is still in high gear around here, but everywhere you look there are back to school specials and even Christmas ornaments at a certain card store in the mall! To gear up for the fall, school and activities, here is a week of dinners to you from me.

Sunday – Mussels with brown rice and peas. Remember the bread to soak up the sauce! I forgot and was so sad to pour that delicious cooking liquid down the drain 🙁

Here is my best recipe I’ve tried. The rice I just made in the rice cooker with chicken stock (you could use veggie as well) and added a couple of handfuls of frozen peas after the rice was cooked.

Karina loved them! She ate so many more than the 2 I put on her plate. The boys were not so interested. This is a great cheap meal. These Prince Edward Island Mussels were $1.99/lb and one pound was more than enough for us.

Monday – Cheese quesadillas and a blackbean and corn salad.

I used the leftover rice and peas and mixed in some canned beans and a little canned corn, diced up a tomato and tossed it with a splash of white balsamic vinegar (you could use lemon juice or lime juice, even orange juice, white wine vinegar or red wine vinegar) and seasoned with salt, lemon pepper and cumin.

The quesadilla is a whole wheat tortilla with shredded cheddar and a little shredded carrot on the inside, sprinkled with chili powder. Bake for 5-10 minutes at 375. Perfect for Meatless Monday if you do that. Add in left over chicken or beef if you have it and want some meat or put shredded chicken in the non-vegetarian’s of the family.

Top with sour cream or plain greek yogurt and salsa and you are ready to eat!

Tuesday – Baked Ziti. The one pictured below is one of my favorites I made recently. It is based on this recipe from Mario Batali that he cooked on The Chew. Basically it is a layered pasta bake, like lasagne but with your favorite type of noodles. You make your favorite mac-n-cheese and your favorite red sauce (or buy the jars at the store if you are short on time). Put one layer of mac-n-cheese on the bottom, sprinkle with ricotta, layer with sauce and repeat. Not exactly the most low cal meal, but it is delicious!

Wednesday – Grilled Steak with Peaches, Corn and Spaghetti Squash.

This many seem like kind of a random meal, but it was all delicious together! I was using up the rest of the can of corn from Monday night’s dinner and we had 2 peaches left that needed to be eaten that day and I thought of using the spaghetti squash instead of potatoes. After cutting the spaghetti squash in half, I laid the halves skin side up on a cookie sheet with a layer of water and roasted it in a 400 degree oven for about 40 minutes. When it was done, I let it cool a little before taking a fork to it and scraping out all the squash. Mix in a little butter, salt and pepper and any fresh herbs you have on hand. Thyme works really well. For the steak, I rubbed it with salt, pepper, coriander and clove and cooked it on the griddle.

Karina used to love spaghetti squash, but wouldn’t touch it this time. Luckily she ate the rest of her dinner. The boys ate everything but the meat.

Thursday – Shrimp, Harvest Blend Couscous (from Trader Joe’s) and Corn

Still using up some of the canned corn, but you can use whatever vegetable you have on hand. I used frozen already cooked shrimp that I just defrosted and heated after tossing in a vinaigrette (olive oil, white balsamic, salt, pepper and garlic). You can use store bought or make your own. The Harvest Blend Couscous from Trader Joe’s is one of my favorites. You can cook it in water or use chicken or veggie broth. It has lentils, quinoa and Israeli couscous. It is a favorite around our house. Only costs a couple of dollars and half a bag makes more than enough for one dinner for our family of five.

Friday – Slow cooker pork tenderloin with mango, potatoes and yams and “pink” milk.

Pork tenderloin was on sale at Market Basket last week. I bought a small one, just over a pound that cost under $3. Perfect size for our family. I know it won’t be the same when the boys are teenagers, but for now its cheap 🙂 I made a rub for the tenderloin out of salt, pepper, coriander, garlic powder and onion powder. For the liquid I used about a cup of chicken stock and a couple of splashes of apple cider vinegar. Cooked it on low for about 4 hours. About 45 minutes before dinner time, I peeled and cubed a couple of yams and a couple of potatoes and tossed with olive oil, salt, pepper and coriander and baked for about 30 minutes at 375, mixing them a couple of times during baking. I diced up a mango and served it on top. The kids actually loved it!

The special “pink milk” the kids got was a recipe I saw on a blog I follow called Weelicious. The milk was a big hit. Fresh strawberries, milk and honey, healthier than the syrup that we usually use for pink milk. I’ve even made “blue” milk with blueberries and “yellow” milk with bananas since and the kids LOVE it (and my husband did too)! Here is a link to the recipe.

Saturday: Chicken apple sausage, carrots, zucchini and baked polenta.

Such a simple meal. I bought the already cooked polenta in a tube at Trader Joe’s. I have found it is much cheaper than the tubes at the grocery stores here in Massachusetts. Made from scratch corn meal polenta is definitely much better, but I don’t have the time to stand at the stove and babysit it. Sometimes I make it in the crockpot, which takes 6-9 hours, but you don’t have to mix it. You just set it and forget it 🙂 Anyway, I got sidetracked…I used the tube and cut it into about 1/2 inch slices and placed them on a greased cookie sheet (sprayed with olive oil spray) and then sprayed the tops with olive oil. Add a little shredded parmesan to top if you would like. I put salt, pepper and a little coriander on top of the olive oil. Bake according to instructions on package, about 20 minutes.The sausage is already cooked, you just have to heat it. I first sauteed the zucchini and carrots with olive oil, salt and pepper and when it was almost cooked added the sausage. (If you have both vegetarians and non vegetarians in the house, cook the sausage in a separate pan while you make the veggies and then just toss together for the non-vegetarians). Top with a little shredded cheese (I used cheddar) and it is a delicious, quick, easy meal!

Bucket list update:

Cooking bucket list 2012

Bread – Done

Gnocchi – Done

Meringues – Done

Calamari- Done

Flan

Lobster – Done

Koeksisters

Oysters – Done

Mozzarella

Pork Belly

Short ribs – in process

Chocolate truffles

Well, you can tell I’m not a baker because I haven’t done any of the desserts yet, except for Meringues 🙂 I have the short ribs in my fridge to be cooked this week. Then I will start on the desserts or maybe mozzarella.

Reminder to Ask Mamma if you have any cooking questions! If I don’t know the answer, I will find it for you!

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More Summer Fun…Eating on the road or after just returning from a vacation

Summer is still in full swing. Long days of fun in the sun don’t give you much energy for dinner. Keep it simple. Have a picnic in your backyard or take one to a local outdoor concert. Kids love to think that they are just snacking and not eating dinner, so make the picnic out of a bunch of snacks.

I love to bring carrots, celery, whole wheat crackers, hummus, cheese sticks, prosciutto, salami, cooked hotdogs or sausage (already cut up – use leftovers!), cut up watermelon or cantaloupe or any fresh berries, peaches, plums, or any fruit that are in season or that you know your kids will eat. Using the celery, if you have the time or energy, you can even make ants on a log 🙂 Peanut butter and raisins are a hit with many kids. You could also make ham and cream cheese roll ups. spread a little cream cheese on a piece of ham, roll up and serve. Two out of my three kids love that one! Bring some nutella to spread on the crackers as a special treat.

If you can pack a picnic for a night, pack it for a road trip. Heading up to Vermont for the weekend? Bring a picnic to eat in the car or picnic area for lunch or dinner.

When returning from a vacation, the last thing you want to do is cook or eat takeout. Keep some frozen meals on hand or stock up on Trader Joe’s frozen appetizers before you leave, so you can make an easy dinner when you get home.

Enjoy the outdoors as long as we can! This past week in Boston was crazy hot, so I’m sure many of us all fled to the AC, but now it is 70s and sunny! Perfect! Like most of a Seattle summer 🙂

I am half way through my cooking bucket list. I conquered (somewhat) oysters last week. I personally only got one open. My husband got another one open. Then I decided to roast the other four I bought to get them to open. Two out of the four did. My parents, who do not like raw seafood, enjoyed the roasted oysters that did open. My husband and I both loved the raw ones. I made a quick version of a mignonette sauce with red wine vinegar and garlic. I would try it again, but only after inspecting the oysters when I buy them, for ones that I think I can open 🙂

Cooking bucket list 2012

Bread – Done

Gnocchi – Done

Meringues – Done

Calamari – Done

Flan

Lobster – Done

Koeksisters

Oysters – done

Mozzarella

Pork Belly

Short ribs

Chocolate truffles

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What to do with BBQ leftovers

Your weekend BBQ is over and you have a fridge full of cheeseburgers, hot dogs, sausages, potato salad, fruit salad and more. Some may enjoy eating these on their own, but I like to mix it up. I make pasta with chopped up hamburgers and leftover corn, mixed with some tomato sauce or diced fresh tomatoes. Enchiladas or quesadillas are also great for mixing with burgers and hot dogs. Go back to a childhood memory, hot dogs and mac n cheese. So good! I even made a salad today with romaine, 1/2 a cheeseburger pattie (chopped), diced tomatoes, a handful of blueberries and a diced carrot. Toss with a balsamic vinaigrette and you have lunch.

Having lots of leftovers is one of the few times you can please most people in your family with dinner. Let them choose on leftover night. Someone wants the chicken from Friday night and the other wants hot dogs from the weekend BBQ. Its all good!

The mantra, “I will not be a short order cook” that I decided long before my kids even started eating solids, still rings true for the most part, but as with many mantras we all say before we become parents, what is good in theory is not always possible in practice. I believe in making one meal for my family and having them all eat it, but in reality that does not always happen For example, one child may have a lactose intolerance or allergy that the others do not, or one parent may be a vegetarian, but the others in the family eat meat. One person may be on a diet and the others don’t need to eat the diet food.

Trying to make meals that have one main component everyone can eat with “add ons” for others, may help simplify cooking or those with multiple needs. For example, make one pasta dish with vegetables and serve with roast chicken on the side (either what you cooked yourself or take some help from the rotisserie section at your local grocery store).

This also goes for entertaining or a fun Wednesday night. Things like a hot dog bar, baked potato bar, salad bar, etc, can have something for everyone. I recently did a hot dog bar for the boys birthday and made a vegetarian chili for chili dogs, but also so the vegetarians would have something to eat.

I try to make one meal for my family, but have one very picky eater. I try to put something on everyone’s plate that he will eat, so he doesn’t think he is getting special treatment 🙂 For example, I make smoothies for the kids to drink with dinner, when I have a feeling he won’t eat the dinner, so he will still get nutrients, be full and not wake up hungry at 4am.

I have been trying to simplify my cooking more and more now that the boys are really acting their age (2) and not giving me longer periods of time where I can be in the kitchen. Here is an example of a day of meals in our house.

Breakfast: scrambled eggs (eggs + chive cottage cheese), tomatoes and grapes.

AM snack: grapes, fruit leather, apple and carrot pouch (they get snacks throughout my Stroller Strides class so they don’t scream and I can work out!)
Lunch: wheat thins, carrots, white bean hummus (I love Trader Joe’s), bananas
PM snacks: whole wheat goldfish and raisins
Dinner: Pizza, pineapple and chicken skewers and smoothies

I recently made the best pizza I have ever made!! You have to pat yourself on the back sometimes 🙂 I used whole wheat dough from the grocery store and baked it after brushing it with olive oil until just about cooked. Then I brushed the dough with pesto, topped it with mozzarella (I find using the blocks of mozzarella and shredding myself melt better than already shredded, but both are good), then sliced tomatoes and placed them on top. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and bake until cheese is melted.

Cooking bucket list update:

If you have been following my blog, you know that I am cooking my way through a cooking bucket list. For Father’s Day I tackled lobster as part of a clam bake. I’m glad the boys were asleep and Tim and Karina were out of the house, so no one heard me scream when the lobster flipped himself out the pot before I could get the cover on. I over cooked it a little bit, but wanted to be sure it was cooked. Next time I’ll probably buy it already steamed. The clambake turned out well and Karina was eating clams like they were going out of style. The boys left the clams, but did try the shrimp.

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