Cooking – Page 7 – Chocolate 'N Children

June 12, 2015June 9, 2015

Food Friday – Mixed Veggies

I needed to use up a bunch of “leftover” vegetables. So I turned them into a vegetable medley. This combination of veggies was so colorful, and I love eating colorful foods.

1 Carrot – sliced
1 Green Bell Pepper – chopped in 1/2 in pieces
2 stalks Celery – sliced
2 Green Onions – sliced
1 small bunch Cauliflower – cut in small pieces
2 small Radishes – sliced
1 handful fresh Spinach
2 Tbsp butter
Salt & Pepper to taste
Grated Parmesan Cheese

Warm butter in skillet over medium heat

Add all vegetables except for the spinach

Pan fry until veggies are to desired doneness. I like mine just a tad bit crispy still so about 7 minutes.

Add spinach and cook until spinach is wilted, about 2 minutes.

Season with salt & pepper to taste

Serve with Grated Parmesan Cheese on top.

June 11, 2015June 9, 2015

CSA – Week 4

This week we have beets again. I made more pickled beets because I think the kids will like them. I’m just hoping I like them. I’m not a fan of beets.

Cauliflower. You can’t see this in the picture, but the undersides are purple. The girls were so excited about this! I’m not going to have any trouble getting them to eat it however I make it.

Radishes. Currently, I’m grating them into salads and everyone eats them this way. I even like them this way.

Green onions, four weeks in a row. I have got to come up with something other than slicing one in a salad!

Tomatoes. Last week’s were so delicious. I’m not having any trouble eating all of these.

Greens. It’s not broccolini, but something similar to kale. It’s a bit strong but I still like it.

Red lettuce. This stuff is so tasty. I love it in salads.

Kale. I still haven’t found a recipe for kale that the kids will eat. I’m going to try something new this week.

Come back tomorrow and see what I’ve been cooking!

June 5, 2015June 2, 2015

Food Friday – Beets and Tomatoes

I had 5 giant tomatoes in my CSA box. 5. I love tomatoes. But they’re giant. No one else likes tomatoes, so when I cut one up I have to eat it all somehow. They’re delicious tomatoes and I’ve enjoyed them.

Tomato Basil Salad

1 medium size tomato or 1/2 a large tomato
1/4 cup cubed cheese – I used baby swiss
4 sweet basil leaves – broken in pieces

Slice tomato in squares, toss tomato, cheese, and basil together. Add a little salt, oil, or vinegar if desired. Enjoy.

And I just had to show off a sliced tomato. Isn’t it delicious looking!

Beets was a real stumper. I haven’t made beets since, well, ever. I’m not really fond of the taste ether so I haven’t eaten them since I can’t remember when. But, they came in my CSA box and part of the reason for getting a CSA is to try new things. I only had enough beets for 1 jar so I didn’t want to bother with canning just one jar. I decided to go with the refrigerator version.

Refrigerator Pickled Beets

3 medium sized beets
1 cup sugar
1 cup vinegar
1 cup water
2 cloves garlic – peeled and sliced
Beet juice as needed

Wash beets well and remove tops and stems. Place in a pan of water and boil until fork tender (about 25 minutes) Remove from water, peel, and slice into rounds. Place in Mason Jar.

While beets are cooking, heat sugar vinegar, water, and garlic on the stove. Simmer 5 minutes then set aside to cool.

Pour sauce over beets in mason jar. Top off with beet juice (leftover in pan from boiling the beets) as needed to fill the jar.

Put lid on the jar and refrigerate. The beets will be ready to eat in 1 week. They will keep in the fridge for 1 month or so.

June 4, 2015May 27, 2015

CSA Week 3

There were so tasty things in my box this week. And some vegetables I’m not that familiar with. Be prepared for fun recipes tomorrow!

More green onions – I have got to find a use for this. This is 3 weeks in a row, and they’re all sitting in my fridge…

Radishes – the recipe I tried last time was pretty good. But no one in my family really likes radishes, so I’m going to have to try something different. Also, I have the tops this time. I’m thinking I’ll try a pesto and see whether I like the carrot top pesto or the radish top pest best.

Beets – I’ve never ever cooked beets. I’ll be looking at lots of beet recipes this week! They have the tops too. I’m pretty sure I can use these like any green similar to kale. I’ll be finding out what the taste difference is!

Spinach – we love spinach salad! I doubt I’ll have enough to do more than just salads. Especially since this is our preferred way to eat spinach.

While we’re discussing salads, here’s a head of red lettuce. I see some delicious salads in my future!

More Kale – I love cooked greens but the kids and my husband are not impressed. I’m going to try kale chips this week, maybe those will be better received…

Tomatoes – I love tomatoes. And these are huge and delicious looking. Can’t wait to start eating these.

Come back tomorrow to see what I did with all these familiar and unfamiliar vegetables.

May 29, 2015May 27, 2015

Food Friday – Second CSA Box Recipes

I still have green onions to use up. That’s on my to-do list for this week. “Find Green Onion recipes that the kids will eat”. This could be interesting…

Did you know that soups are hard to photograph? Or maybe it’s just me. I feel like I need to take a class in food photography to do this right. Anyways…we already had a bunch of carrots in our fridge and we got some in our CSA box. My 6yr old has been begging to make carrot soup, and with all these carrots I agreed that this would be a good time to give it a try.

Carrot soup

1 lb carrots – peeled, and sliced into small pieces.
1 onion – roughly chopped
2 cloves garlic – chopped
2 leaves fresh basil
2 Tbsp oil (I used coconut oil)
2 Cups chicken stock

Place first 5 ingredients in a skillet and cook, with the lid on, over medium heat until carrots are soft. About 30 minutes.

Transfer to a blender and blend until everything is blended well. Add chicken stock and blend until well combined and to desired texture.

Pour into a large pan and heat on low for as long as needed. I just let mine simmer while I made the rest of our dinner.

This soup was surprisingly rich, I was going to eat a huge bowl and just couldn’t.

We had a few carrots left over so later in the week I made carrot sticks and red pepper sticks and we dipped them in ranch dressing – which is the kids favorite way to eat carrots.

Chocolate Dipped Strawberries

These didn’t make it to the end of the day. They were eaten up almost immediately.

First, wash the strawberries and then cut off their tops. I put my tops in a tupperware in the freezer for later use in smoothies.

There’s two reasons for cutting the tops off before dipping. First, I want the tops for smoothies. Second, the kids will ask me to cut the tops off before they will eat them, so I may as well cut them off first and have tops for my smoothies.

Next, I highly recommend a decent quality dipping chocolate. I found this Ghirardelli dipping chocolate and it’s awesome. You melt it on the defrost setting in your microwave and it melts in just a couple of minutes. It’s also basically room temperature after you melt it so I don’t have to worry about the kids burning themselves on hot chocolate or melting something I don’t want melted with my chocolate when I dip.

Then, dip away!

It dries fast, by the time I had finished dipping all the strawberries, I could pick up and eat the first ones I had dipped. And they were delicious!

May 28, 2015May 21, 2015

CSA Week 2

Here’s what came in my second CSA box. Recipes for some of these items will be on the blog tomorrow!

Basil – I’m seeing lots of italian foods in my future! Did you know, basil is a spice that does better on the counter instead of the fridge. Just put it in a jar of water kind of like you would a flower, cover it lightly, and leave it out. It’ll keep longer. Not the most beautiful flower but it really does smell so good!

Kale, I really love kale. It’s one of my favorite greens. Plus I have a great recipe! (once again, come back tomorrow!)

Lettuce, luckily we love salads around here. This is such a big head! We’ve had a great spring for lettuce growing and it really shows.

More green onions, we got green onions last week as well. Apparently, it’s been a great spring for them. We don’t eat a lot of green onions so I’m struggling with what to do with them. I don’t mind them as toppings for salads, soups, tacos, etc. But no one else likes them, so I have to find a way to hide them when I cook with them. Check back tomorrow and see what I came up with.

More strawberries, they didn’t last long. We ate them up within hours of getting them home. They’re so sweet and juicy!

One green pepper. It’s pretty large, and looks delicious!

Carrots, my 6yr old has been begging to make some carrot soup. So we did, come back tomorrow and see how it turned out!

May 25, 2015May 21, 2015

Baked Bacon Recipe

I don’t know about you, but I love bacon! I especially love it in the mornings with eggs and pancakes. But, just as much as I love bacon. I hate frying it. The grease splatters everywhere!

With 3 little kids my saturday morning ends up looking like this.

4yr old climbs in bed with us at 5, husband sends her back to bed at 6. At 6:30 she’s returned to my side of the bed and wants hot chocolate. My opening and closing door has awakend the 2yr old who’s always afraid he’s going to miss something.

I get him up and head out to the kitchen with the two littlest ones. I hold the 2yr old so he doesn’t freak out in the 1.5 minutes it takes to heat up hot chocolates in the microwave. Yes, we do this every single morning. It takes the same amount of time every single morning. And still he thinks the microwave is going to drink his milk and eat his car cup.

They sit on the couch and watch their morning show on netflix. I make coffee. I sit on the couch with them and drink my coffee (actually, I sit down, get up to make little man another hot chocolate, sit down, get up and make the middle child another hot chocolate, sit down, get up and hunt for my coffee, sit back down, and finally drink my cold coffee).

I like to do a larger breakfast on Saturdays since we’re usually pretty busy once we get going.

I decide to make bacon, eggs, and pancakes. I start the bacon on a skillet on the stove. Which means that none of the kids can pull a chair up to the counter and “help” me because of the splattering grease. While monitoring the bacon, I mix up the pancakes, convince the children that I will indeed include chocolate chips in their pancakes, get some berry sauce started on the back burner of the stove (any berry will do, and the kids love it!), and then start actually cooking the pancakes.

About this time, I hear my husband hop in the shower, and my 6yr old appears and complains about how hungry and thirsty she is. The 2yr old wants to know if she can eat her pancake now and burns her finger when she tries to grab a hot one off the plate I’m setting them on. I check the bacon, calm her down, flip pancakes just before they burn, and then get her a plate with a pancake (cut up with syrup) and tell her to sit at the table with it, not the couch.

I start cracking eggs in a bowl to make scrambled eggs, little man who is insisting on hanging on my legs by now because he’s dying of starvation (2 hot chocolates are obviously not enough to tide such a tiny fella over for even 15 more minutes), complains because a bit of grease from the bacon splattered and got him. I hand him a cooled pancake to nibble on so I can actually cook and he takes it to the couch, eats half of it, and crumbles the rest.

Husband enters the room, showered and dressed and remarks that he wishes I would not let the kids eat on the couch. Because of course, both children are sitting on the couch eating instead of at the table. The 6yr old complains again about how hungry she is, but she doesn’t want to eat until the bacon is done.

The bacon is taking FOREVER! Pancakes are done, berry sauce is done, I start the eggs. Flip more bacon. A few minutes later, eggs are done and still the bacon is cooking. I dish up plates for everyone, everyone sits down to eat and I finally finish the bacon.

Husband picks through the bacon to find the crispiest pieces. I sit down at the table and the kids all ask for something to drink… And husband suggests that we should all hurry up and eat so we can go to some yard sales.

All that to say, I discovered that I can bake bacon. It’s way easier, and give me one less thing to manage in the mornings!

Baked Bacon

Oven at 375. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil. Spread the bacon out in a single layer and bake until done to your desired crispiness. Usually about 30 minutes for me depending on how thick the bacon is.

If you want something more than plain bacon, top your bacon with 1tbsp cinnamon and 1/4 cup brown sugar (mix them together first), then bake until done. For a delicious glazed bacon.

You’re bacon’s all done at the same time, and there’s no grease splattering all over your kitchen!

May 22, 2015May 21, 2015

Food Friday – First CSA Box Results

My first CSA box was full of some great stuff. Take a look at all the tasty treats here!

What did I do with all of this? Well, for starters I had fun! I love trying new recipes and experimenting in the kitchen. Here’s what I came up with.

Roasted Radishes

Thinly slice your radishes and spread them on a cookie sheet. Top with a bit of butter, salt, and pepper, and bake in the oven at 300 for about 30 minutes. Taking them out and stirring every 10 minutes.

Don’t these look delicious? I’m not a big fan of radishes, but these had a great flavor and after being baked were still packed with flavor but were not spicy like raw radishes are.

Strawberry Shortcakes

Because who can resist a strawberry dessert with strawberries so sweet they don’t need sugar!

I purchased the cake from the store.

The strawberries are easy, cut the tops off, slice, and put them on top of the cake.

I put my strawberry tops in a tupperware in the freezer for using in smoothies later.

For the whipped cream, it’s so easy! 1 cup of whipping cream, 1 Tablespoon sugar, beat with an electric mixer until it’s as thick as you want it. I like mine pretty thick. Place on top and enjoy!

Pesto

I had what I think were carrot tops, so I made some pesto to top my steamed carrots and broccoli with.

I liked the pesto on my carrots but not on my broccoli. I also tried it on corn chips and that was not good at all. So stick with using this on carrots.

4 Cups carrot tops (cut off the stems and use mostly just the leafy parts)
1 Clove garlic
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp oil
2 tsp lemon juice

Place all the ingredients in a blender and blend, scraping down sides as needed, until the pesto is finely chopped and well combined. Serve with roasted or steamed carrots.

May 18, 2015April 24, 2015

Dinner Club

A while back I found this great idea an and old cooking magazine that I had lying around. It’s called a Dinner Club. Sounds pretty impressive!

When you get down to it, it’s actually very simple.

You get 3 or 4 families together for dinner once a quarter. More often if you want, but once every three months is good for us. You rotate houses. For our first dinner I hosted. Next time, someone else will host. If you have 4 families and you meet once a quarter, each family will only host once a year.

The host family provides the main dish. Anything they want. And then the other families bring the sides and dessert. Since it’s great grilling weather, we decided to do hotdogs and hamburgers. The other families coming brought broccoli with cheese sauce, chips, brownies, and soft drinks.

You could do tacos, steaks, stir-fry, pork roast, or really anything that you want. Just pick the main dish and let everyone know what it is and then the attendees can bring the sides that they like to eat with this main dish.

We met at 4:00 on a Saturday. Since we all have kids this worked well because we had plenty of time to eat and talk and let the kids play but everyone was still able to head home and put the kids to bed on time.

We had a lot of fun! It was simple, and low pressure to prepare for. And we can’t wait to do it again!

May 15, 2015May 14, 2015

First Food Friday

We’re trying out a CSA for the first time this year. I’m so excited! To celebrate, I’m going to be doing a Food Friday series on the blog every Friday.

I picked up my first box on Wednesday, so no recipes today since I haven’t had a ton of time to work with my box yet, but you’ll start seeing recipes and tips next week. So come back.

This week, I’ll just show you what’s in my box and my initial reactions to everything.

Lettuce, a whole giant head of it. Actually, it’s a bunch, not a head, because it’s not round. Anyways…we love salads at my house so we’ll have no trouble eating this up!

Broccoli, we also love broccoli – at least I love broccoli so I think everyone else should too. I did steam some for dinner Wednesday night and it’s delicious! There’s six little heads here. Come back next week to see what I do with all of it.

Strawberries, and they’re delicious! Also, they didn’t last past Thursday, we just gobbled them up. Someone did tell me that the tops are great in smoothies. So I’ve frozen them for later smoothie making. We’ll see how it turns out.

Broccolini, at least, I think that’s what it is. There seems to be a lot of leaf and not a lot of broccoli flower. I’ve seen so many recipes for this green but my local Kroger doesn’t sell it, now I get to try it!

There’s one other mysterious green leafy item that I think is carrot tops, I’ve also heard that these are very tasty and quite nutritious but I’ve never tried them. This could be exciting. If all else fails, I’ll just use my favorite greens recipe and it’ll be delicious.

These are some rather large green onions (also see the carrot tops in the bottom-left-hand corner). One per recipe should work great.

And last item, radishes. I haven’t had a radish since I was a kid. I sliced up the tiny one that you can see in the picture and ate it just to see how spicy they are. Not too bad, but I don’t see any of my kids or my husband eating them just sliced on a salad so I’m going to have to find a better use for them.

I’m so excited to have some new vegetables I’ve never tried before to cook with, and I’m excited to have some of my favorites like strawberries and broccoli, and not so excited about the radishes.

Come back next Friday to see what I make with all of this!