Quick and Easy Dinner

I have been feeling very pressed for time lately. Seems like 4:30 comes around so quickly each day and I am suddenly staring at blankly at the refrigerator with no ideas and two rapidly falling apart children behind alternately squabbling and me asking for bowls of cereal. Last night I found myself in this predicament and came up with a really quick dinner to throw together in no time. I think it was the culmination of a few food related things going on right now.

First, I have been feeling very lazy and remembering to thaw out meat earlier in the day just doesn't happen lately. Second, we have been doing a weekly potluck with several friends every Sunday for a couple of months now. One of the couples is vegetarian, so everyone usually tends to bring a veggie meal (against the protests of the veg couple.) This has motivated me to look for creative vegetarian dishes and also to look for other sources of protein. We have long been bean eaters, but beans alone can be pretty boring.

Lastly, I recently bit the bullet and joined our local organic produce CSA. It is a little farm called Black River organics. We get a box a week and it is based on what is producing at the farm right now. And what they are growing is LOTS of greens. Hello, salad with every meal.

So that is how our food consumption is shaping up these days. Here's the little dinner I whipped up last night. Quick, easy, nutritious. Kids loved it. Viola, dinner is served.

Psuedo Huevoes Rancheros

Can o' black beans, add 1 packet Sazon seasoning, 1/4 c apple cider vinegar

pack of safron rice

eggs

cheese

salsa, hot sauce

salad

Whip all these together, sit at the table, and eat.

A watched pot...

You know the old saying, " A watched pot never boils"? Well, that may be true, but so is this: If you watch the pot until you think it SHOULD be boiling, then look away for about 15 seconds, that pot WILL boil, and boil over. This is especially true if you are boiling something

potentially messy, stinky, or otherwise not fun to clean up. And you have a glass top stove. And you just spent a great deal of time the previous day giving the kitchen a major overhaul.

Thank goodness it was just yogurt and water at the time!

Now the pot is full of Organic Cheddar-Parmesan Polenta with Fresh Herbs. Sounds fancy, huh? Not really.

My mission for this morning was to make breakfast, a contributory potluck lunch dish, AND something for dinner tonight since I have a meeting to go to as soon as my man gets home from work. All of that before 9 am, so we have time to get ourselves motivated to leave in time to do all the errands we have on the to-do list.

So of course, as soon as I got up today, I prioritized by checking my email, facebook, and now that I tweet, twitter. Yeah, I know, I know. I saw a tweet from Foodimentary that said today is "Grits for Breakfast" day, and the light bulb above my head appeared: My (still sleeping at 9am) children will have "cheese grits"(read polenta) for breakfast, potluck will be cheesy

polenta(since my kids rarely eat my food at potlucks anymore anyway), and dinner will be fresh salad and maybe some homemade ravioli from last weeks pasta day with Cheri (we'll post on that soon, I promise!). Mission accomplished!

Now I can just add scour the stovetop to the list of things to do!

Thankfully polenta is a magic food that is quick, yum, super easy and cheap! All the qualities we love over here at Eat @ Mom's! Yessiree!

Here's this mornings version...

Bring to a boil:

4 cups water

2 cups plain yogurt

a pinch of salt

Wisk in:

2 cups yellow corn meal (ours is non-GMO organic that we get in bulk from our dry goods co-op, and tastes so good!)

Once it begins to thicken, which is always faster than I expect, reduce heat to low and stir in a couple tablespoons of butter, then grate in cheese to taste. You can grate first then measure, but I usually just do it right over the pot until it looks like enough. Today I used raw organic sharp cheddar (also from our co-op and also SO good!) and organic parmesan that I found by accident at BJ's! (I was pretty stoked about it actually). I probably used about a half to 3/4 cup of cheddar and 1/4 cup of the parm.

My garden is ready to be planted next week (remember I'm WAY down south so, fall is our spring) which means hardly anything is out there. Surprisingly I scrounged up enough thyme and plenty of garlic chives to make the polenta extra tasty, which was about a tablespoon of them combined. You can use whatever herbs you grow or can otherwise get a hold of.

Then give your polenta a fancy name based on what cheese and herbs or other secret ingredients you stirred in , and you have yourself a very impressive dish to share with friends!

So now, kids are up, day is started, we're ready to tackle the to-do list, I still have a stove to clean (blog = procrastination), and I'm ready to watch my pot again, but this time I hope what's in it disappears!

::kristin::

More Mango Madness!

Yep, we're in the thick of it over here! Mango madness continues, but this time I don't mean it in an angry, ranting sort of way. More like a giddy, maniacal way. There are mangos everywhere!

We see cars at rush hour pull off the road, so drivers can help themselves to the heavy branches of fruit- laden trees that reach out over their fences. We see kids with baskets lined up along the swale in older neighborhoods hocking their backyard mangos. We even saw a lady in a bikini and sunglasses, reading a novel on a lawn chair in the back of her pick up truck parked on a busy corner. She had a big ol' sign made of cardboard that said MANGOS 3 for $1.

My kids and I find fallen ones when we go on bike rides and walks. We have taken to turning them over to check if squirrels (or the squirrels of the night, rats) have nibbled them, or if bugs have bored their way in through the thin colorful skins to have a party inside. Everyone around here loves mangos, human and otherwise, so finding them still on the tree where we can reach is less likely if its in a "publicly accessible" place, and unless you're lucky enough to find a freshly fallen one, chances are creatures have found it first, or its already so fermented and stinky from the South Florida summer that it pops in your hand like a slimy water balloon when you try to pick it up!

We found a really perfect one on our bikeride the other day and my daughter, who still rides in a seat on my bike, toted it around like her baby for the rest of the journey. Once we got home, our neighbors (who's trees you can see in my previous post) delivered a bag full of gorgeous  fresh picked mangos from their yard. It's the best thing (and the only thing, actually) that's entered our home in a plastic Walmart bag in a very long time!

Mangos are truly lovely in my opinion. These were red, pink, orange and green speckled with little black spots, meaning they are ready to eat right this minute! And that is no exaggeration. In fact, I, radical lover of food and local produce, am ashamed to admit that several of the last mangos that were given to us met their fate in our compost heap. I just didn't get to them fast enough. That would NOT happen to these beauties!

When my neighbor asked (via facebook flair of a mango-selling lady with a huge hairdo and earrings to match) if I wanted some, I promised to make some mango sorbet in return ( but only if she wore the hairdo and earrings). So I got promptly to work. Sounds pretty industrious, but besides gooey, juice covered hands, and the right kitchen gadgets, there isn't much effort involved for this summer delight! Here's how to make it:

3 good sized ripe mangos

good, local honey (about 1/4 - 1/2 cup)

1/4 cup lemon or lime juice, fresh is best, but bottled works fine

fresh grated ginger to taste (about 1 teaspoon)

Cut and cube the mangos and toss in the blender. This is actually quite easy to do, and there are so many videos showing how on youtube that I couldn't even choose one to post here. I don't like to waste anything so I peel the seed and squeeze all the extra flesh and juice from it right into the blender, hence the gooey hands! Add the other ingredients, tasting to adjust for the ripeness of the mangos, and puree. Pour the puree in to an ice cream machine for about 20 - 30 minutes. Serve and ENJOY!

That's what we did, enjoy it! In fact, the whole neighborhood did. I love to share food, especially with people who appreciate it, so mango sorbet went to the neighbors who brought them to us, and the neighbors across the street. In return we got a little sampling of their dinner, fresh caught fried snapper with stuffed jalapeños and fried mushrooms! Our across the street neighbors have promised to let us try the clams they just brought back from Alaska. I don't

 know if clams go well with mango sorbet, but I do love the reciprocation and sharing of summer foods!

Mangos will be around for a while longer, so more sorbet is sure to be on the menu, and probably my friend Elizabeth's Summer Pie recipe, which really calls for peaches. Mangos can be substituted for peaches in all kinds of recipes: cobblers, quick breads, or classic a la mode! But the summer pie is just delightful. Mmmm, I might have to make that one today. Hope the neighbors are home...

::kristin::

Mango Madness?

Warning: this is sort of a continuation of my previous pineapple pondering post, only slightly more aggravated.

Today's post could have been about my love affair with cast iron cookware, or the lovely spelt pita bread I made today for the first time, but I just read a brief article posted on facebook by NPR about importing mangos from India. Here's a short excerpt.

"At over $30 a box, that's a king's ransom for a taste of home. But I paid up.

Inside were 12 forlorn mangoes, each wrapped in a little pink Styrofoam net stocking. This is not how mangoes were meant to be sold. In India, you find them piled on the side of the street, great pyramids of red, green and gold, ripening in the lazy heat. And a vendor chants the names of his mangoes: Himsagar, Babu Himsafar, Langra."

I can only imagine how luscious it would be to sample the 1500 varieties of fresh mangos from street markets in India! One day I will walk down the little crowded alleys, haggle with vendors, and eat myself sick on rare and ripe mangos. But that will have to remain in the realm of someday, because I don't live in India. I am lucky enough, though, to live in South Florida and right now is mango season!

Mango trees are everywhere, heavy with long thin green varieties, dark purple heart-shaped varieties, bright pink, yellow, and orange varieties! I'm not too familiar with names of the mangos that grow everywhere here, but my favorite varieties are begged, borrowed, bartered and gleaned!

View from my front window: My neighbors 3 different varieties of mango trees.

In fact, I just started a fruit gleaning group to encourage people to share their fruits among their neighbors rather than let it rot on the ground as the many, many fruits ripen and we are engulfed in mango mush!

Really? We need to import more mangos from India? I'd be OK with importing some saplings for propagation here. I'm even accepting of shipping some into temperate states from my home 

state of Florida, or the mega ag state California. But I have a hard time imagining a fruit picked before its prime, wrapped in a foam net, gassed, zapped with radiation, flown or shipped half way around the world and processed through customs before sitting on the shelf at my local ethnic grocery is gonna be able to compete with the deliciousness I can get by trading garlic rolls and pumpkin cake with my neighbors who have trees.

So sorry to all you mango lovers who don't live where mangos grow, but you guys have produce that don't grow here. Eat that and save your pennies for a trip to India instead.

::kristin::

Summer Fruit Festival at Fruit & Spice Park, Redlands, FL

Pondering the Pineapple Upside Down Cake

I'm reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, or should I say, I'm STILL reading it. It's taking me so long because I'm barely getting in a chapter every few days, in between Harry Potter and Artemis Fowl. But it's wonderful!

If you haven't heard of this book, here's a very brief summary: The author and her family move to an old farmstead in Appalachia and vow to eat only what they can produce themselves for a year. It's non-fiction in case you were wondering. And it's really got me thinking...

My family lives in "Unincorporated Miami-Dade County" in a semi-rural agricultural area Southwest of Miami, Florida, between Biscayne and Everglades National Parks. There is a lot of agriculture here, but most of it is not only conventionally grown (read: guys in haz-mat suits on tractors with sprayer attachments) but much of it is ornamental

 and landscape plants. We have participated in a local CSA (community supported agriculture) program and do know some of the organic farmers, but I have been wondering what the hell I would be serving if I tried to get ALL my food from within 25 miles or so. Draceana? Impatiens?

Even still, more and more farmers are selling their land to developers. One of the fastest growing "crops" in the area now seem to be yellow houses with clay tile roofs! Not very much taste at all, in my humble opinion!

Yesterday we spent the day at my mother in law's, about an hour or so North of our house. Most visits, she makes a pineapple upside down cake, special for me since she knows how I like it. It is good, too! Moist, super sweet with a layer of crunchy caramelized brown sugar on top (used to be bottom) of the pineapples. This is a classic space-age house wife recipe: a box of this, a can of that, set the timer and VOILA! I often say that if Duncan Heinz and Betty Crocker had a baby, that baby would grow up to be would be my mother in law!

As I was gobbling up my second piece, I was wondering where it all came from. The canned pineapples were probably last year's crop from Costa Rica. The sugar was probably from Malawi or Honduras. The eggs were likely from an artificially lit factory in the midwest. And who knows what's actually even in the cake mix to begin with!? 

My mother in law was born in 1930. When she was growing up, learning to cook, becoming a mama, the majority of her food probably did come from within the county in which she lived. Only rare and exotic delicacies and foods that kept well without much refrigeration would have come from far off lands. And there I was sitting in her dining room, sucking it all down, sneaking extra pieces of crumbly sugar bits off the rest of the cake that had been flown, shipped and trucked from all corners of the globe.

It was truly a surreal moment. Where do you think our food will come from in 2030? I've always admired Saturn...

::kristin::

It's springtime!

Just got finished gorging on strawberry shortcake.  Oh so good.  I am so glad it is warm weather time.  That means that fresh fruits and veggies are back!  Here in Wilmington we have a local farm, Lewis Farm, that does U-pick strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries.  Right around May the strawberries are ready for picking and we go as many times as we can.  They are so cheap this way and they taste better than any strawberry from the store.  I like supporting a local farm too.   The girls love going and picking their own berries.  Maggie has gotten the hang of it and does really well.  River just pretty much eats her way down the rows.  I would be in trouble if they did a before and after weigh in of the children.   The berries are so ripe that you can smell them when you are walking up to the plants.  On hot days it starts to smell like strawberry wine out there with the too far gone berries fermenting in the sun.  It is such a pleasure to be connected to the food you eat and I think good for the girls to know that food is grown and does not magically appear at the grocery store wrapped in plastic.  

 

So, the thing about fresh produce is...you have to eat it!  Right away.  It is picked when ripe and strawberries especially will not last.  So for two days we eat strawberries with everything, with chocolate, on salads, in cobblers...etc.  Today, I had a hankerin' (I do live in the south ya know) for strawberry shortcake.  I had some strawberries that were still good, but not really for eating whole.  Perfect!  I looked up the recipe in the bible of cooking (Joy of Cooking) and lo and behold, they recommend putting the strawberries on scones!  My other obsession of late.  I just went back to the Tea Room this week with Maggie to have a little mommy/big girl day. My ulterior motive was to get back to their scones.  Well, the recipe for scones was really, really easy.  Here it is in a slightly altered version:

Classic Scones

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.  Whisk together:

2 cups flour

1/3 cup sugar

1 T baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

Cut up and drop in:

6 Tablespoons unsalted butter

When making something like this or pie crust, I always break up the butter with my hands.  I know you are supposed to do it with 2 knives or a pastry cutter, but I find I can do it faster and easier with my hands.  You have to do it quick so the butter doesn't warm up too much.  Work the mixture till the largest pieces are the size of peas and the whole mixture looks like bread crumbs.

Form a little well and pour in:

1 large egg

1/2 cup heavy cream

Whisk that together quick and then mix the whole thing together with a rubber spatula.  After it is mixed use your hands to knead it a bit and work the dough together.  Transfer it to a lightly floured surface and pat it out to 3/4 inch thick round.  Cut into 8 to 12 triangles and place on your ungreased baking sheet.  Brush the tops with cream and sprinkle with sugar. Bake until the tops are golden 12-15 minutes.  

The strawberries I just cut up small and added about 2 tablespoons of sugar.  For the topping, I whipped about 1/2 cup of heavy cream with 1-2 tablespoons sugar in my fabulous stand mixer. Have I posted yet about my love affair with my mixer?  I must do that soon.  I love that damn thing.  

So delicious.  I was going to save this for dessert tonight, but it had to be eaten immediately.  I am so proud that I know how to make scones now.  

My next project:  How to make fruit preserves....

Can't wait for blueberries and blackberries to come!

Amy

What's for dinner? Curry!

If you ask my kids what their favorite dinner is, the answer is always: Curry!  I am so freaking proud of that.  Before I had kids, I was always worried that they would only eat macaroni and cheese or something, but then once they arrived I realized that for the most part, kids will eat what you eat.  I know that I felt like I needed to clean up my diet a bit when my kids got old enough to want what we had.  Soda especially has gone by the wayside.  If the kids see a can near my lips they surround me like flies demanding to know what I have and can they share it? I am not totally anti-soda or treats, but I realize that if I want my kids to eat well and make good choice, then I have to model that for them.  

We have never made separate food for the kids to eat.  Even when they were infants, they ate what was on our plate.  I never made any special baby food or fed them out of a jar, they just ate what we had either mashed up or as I called it, the baby bird style, where I would chew it up a bit with my front teeth and feed it to them.  That sounds gross when I write it down, but hey, they didn't mind!  So they have been eating all of these different flavors and spices from the beginning.

Well, that is the long wind bag explanation for why my kids love curry...the real reason is that it tastes freaking awesome.  This curry tastes kind of like Thai massman curry and it is super easy to make.  Here is the recipe:

Chicken Curry

3-4 chicken breasts

3-4 medium potatoes (or other root vegetables i.e. swt. potatoes, squash etc.)

1 medium onion minced

1 green or red pepper

2 14 oz cans Coconut milk

1 T Red curry paste

2 T Fish sauce

2 T Brown sugar

Handful unsalted Cashews (optional)

Start by simmering your curry paste and coconut milk over low heat until the milk and paste are combined.  While waiting for this, chop up your onion, potato, and peppers and add to the pot.  I chop the onion up quite small for the kids and make the potatoes and peppers around bit size.  Add the fish sauce and brown sugar then bring the pot to a slow boil and cover.  Cook until the potatoes are soft.  You can also wait to add the peppers till the end if you like them crunchier (we do).  While you are waiting for this to cook, chop up your chicken breasts into bite sized pieces and cook in a skillet.  When done, drain off excess liquid and add to the pot. Viola!  Serve over rice.  If you have unsalted cashews, throw them on top!  

You can really use any vegetables, but I suggest keeping with the root veggies.  You can out in anything else you like or have.  If you want to make this vegetarian, just omit the chicken and add more veg.  

Fish sauce is the absolute integral part of this recipe.  It is the stinkiest substance on earth, but without it, Thai curry is blah.  You probably have to go to an Asian market to get a jug of it, but it will last you a long time.  I just finished off a bottle my dad got me a year ago.  He got it in Florida and drove it up here to NC.  The lady in the Asian market asked him what he was going to do with it and he told her he was driving to see his daughter and give it to her.  Her response was "No break in car!"  Seriously, I think the stuff may be listed on the EPAs hazardous waste list.  I kept mine in a freezer bag in the cabinet, just in case.   On its own, toxic waste. Combined with coconut milk and brown sugar, heaven.  

PS:  This tastes even better the second day and it freezes beautifully.  I freeze this and take it when we go camping.  It serves to keep the cooler cold and heats up quick for a fantastic camp dinner.