Lunch Box 9-23-13

My first grader's packed lunch.  Kids will eat real food if given the chance.

Black Eyed Pea Quesadillas

I posted the other day about needing to find uses for some neglected pantry staples, and when I shared on Facebook, too, I picked the brains of a couple of vegetarians I know.  One of them recommended black eyed pea tacos.  Any excuse to eat anything resembling Mexican food is fine by me.

Tonight, my husband had a work dinner, so it was just me and the two little girls- Baby Squirrel, age 6 1/2, and Baby Turtle, 22 months.  He's not often away during dinner, but when he is, I generally go meatless.  It's just easy, and a good way to cram more vegetables into my hotdog fiends for children.

One of their favorites is quesadillas.  I generally use pinto or Ranch Style beans, a southwestern favorite of mine.  You can find a good blog post on making your own Ranch Style beans here.

My pantry inventory had some black eyed peas that needed a culinary home, so I took the taco idea and ran with it, but opted for the quesadilla route instead, per my 6 year old's request.

Quesadillas are super easy to make, but the simplicity can be deceiving.  As with a grilled cheese sandwich, you can't rush the goodness.  Don't get in a hurry and turn up the heat, or you'll wind up with runny cheese and a blackened tortilla.  That's just no fun for anybody.  Take your time, and you'll be rewarded.

All you need are:

1 (15 oz.) can black eyed peas, drained (I prepare dried beans, so I used a 2-cup container from my freezer, defrosted and drained)
Chili powder, cumin, garlic granules
About 2 cups shredded cheese (I used a mixture of Kraft mild cheddar and Monterey Jack)
Coconut oil, vegetable oil, or nonstick spray
Flour tortillas
Sliced pickled jalapeños (optional)
Electric griddle or large skillet
Sour cream (optional)


Sprinkle a little granulated garlic (not garlic salt!), chili powder, and cumin on your drained black eyed peas and mash them a little with a fork.

I stopped buying aerosol nonstick spray a couple of years ago.  I use a silicone pastry brush to apply a thin layer of oil as needed.  I like Whole Foods 365 Everyday Value brand of coconut oil.  I use refined for cooking, and virgin for things like chapped skin.

Coconut oil is sometimes solid and sometimes liquid, depending on the temperature of your home.  My kitchen stays a bit warm in the summer, so my jar is liquid right now.  I just dip the silicone brush in the jar and schmear it onto my electric griddle.  Give it a good lube.

You can also use regular vegetable oil or aerosol nonstick spray, if that's what you have.

You can't have too much cheese.  Fine shreds will melt more readily.  I like a Colby-Jack or cheddar-Jack blend.  Pepper Jack would be good, too, if you're going spicy.

And for the love of cheese, don't buy it pre-shredded!

Plenty of sliced jalapeños for Mama.  I like the Cajun Chef brand, which I found in the Ethnic section of my store.  They're inexpensive, really good, and sliced more thinly than other brands. 

Slap your tortillas onto a preheated griddle or skillet.  My griddle has a temperature dial, which I set to 250º (about medium heat).  Give them a good sprinkling of cheese and spread out the black eyed peas.  Leave a little room at the edges for melting.  Add sliced jalapeños, if desired.

Top with a second tortilla if making a whole one, or fold over a single tortilla if feeding a kiddo.  Grill slowly until heated through and melted.  The tortillas should be spotty golden brown and slightly crispy.

Allow them to rest on a cutting board for a few minutes before slicing up with a pizza cutter.  Serve wedges with sour cream for dipping.

Buttermilk Biscuits

I love buttermilk biscuits.  They are everything that is right about breakfast in the south.  Many people have dumbed down their biscuity expectations with the omnipresent pop-open cans in the refrigerated section of the store.  I feel bad for those folks, for they know not what they are missing.  Flaky, tender, soft as a cloud, yet sturdy enough to hold an inordinately large slathering of butter and jam.

I have tried several recipes over the years, and most were good, but there was always something not quite right.  Now, though, Hallelujah, I believe that I have found my savior!

This recipe comes from a blog called Une Bonne Vie, and you can find the original post here.

These biscuits can be frozen unbaked according to the recipe, but I haven't yet tested the ones I froze.

Buttermilk Biscuits
Makes about 25 biscuits

4 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons salt
1 cup vegetable shortening
2 – 2 ½ cups nonfat buttermilk

Preheat oven to 450°F.

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Using a pastry blender (or two butter knives), cut in the shortening. The mixture should look like fine crumbs. Pour in buttermilk and stir until the dough leaves the sides of the bowl. It will be sticky.

Lightly flour your work surface and “plop” the dough down. With floured hands, knead the dough gently about 10 times. With a floured rolling pin, roll the dough to a ½ inch thickness. Cut into 2 – 2 ½ inch circles. (You can also just cut them into squares.) Place on an ungreased baking sheet with the biscuit sides touching. (This helps these beauties stay nice and soft.)

Bake 10 – 12 minutes, until the tops of the biscuits are lightly golden brown. Remove from baking sheet and serve them right away. These are delicious plain or with sausage gravy.

Making Life a Bit Easier…
These biscuits freeze well and are so easy to pop into the oven for an impromptu breakfast or to accompany a nice bowl of soup. To freeze, place unbaked, cut biscuits on a baking sheet (or a plastic cutting board) without sides touching. Put entire sheet into freezer until biscuits are entirely frozen. Working quickly, place biscuits in resealable freezer bags or containers. Keep them in the freezer until you are ready to bake.

To bake frozen biscuits, preheat oven to 400°F. Place biscuits on an ungreased baking sheet with sides touching. Bake 20—25 minutes or until biscuits are lightly golden brown.

Pantry Raid

My pantry can become a little overrun with dry goods on occasion.  I do so love my glass jars full of pasta, beans, rice, and other handy, non-spoiling items.  The time comes, naturally, when I need to do a little inventory and clean out. 

Here's a list of stuff I need to make use of:

• Cornmeal - I really should make cornbread from scratch, but often wind up using Jiffy brand mix.  Shame on me.
• Pearled barley - Used in beef stew in wintertime, but needs other applications, too.
• Couscous - I'm sure there's something interesting I could do with this.
• Rye flour - Purchased with the intent of making rye bread, which never happened.
• Wheat bran - Purchased for whole wheat bread recipes.  Still searching for a perfect recipe combo of flavor and texture.
• Tricolor spiral pasta - Used for pasta salad, needs other uses.
• Ditalini pasta - Used for pasta e fagioli soup, needs other uses.
• Canned beets - Purchased originally for including in smoothies.  I love beets, but nobody else in the house will eat them.
• Brown rice - Bought with the intent to eat more healthily.  We love rice in this house, but the brown just doesn't do it for us.  Maybe there's some interesting method of preparation that could change that.
• Black eyed peas - Bought for making cowboy caviar, have some left over in the freezer.  Again, I like them- nobody else is a fan.
• Lentils - I occasionally use them to make soup for myself, but would love to make them for the family without receiving grimaces.
• Split peas - See above.
• Self-rising flour - Purchased for a particular recipe that called for a couple of cups.  Not sure what to do with the rest.
• Bulgur wheat - Used to make tabouli.  Not sure what else you can do with it.
• Pinto beans - Need to eat more pintos.  Love them.
• Chickpeas - Used for hummus, which is well-received.  Something makes me think you can make blondies with these.  I'll have to look into that.
• Orzo - I make a Greek orzo side dish with Cavender's Greek seasoning, minced onion, and chopped green olives.  I'd like to do other things with it.
• Navy beans - Every time I cook navy beans, there's something to the taste that I'm not fond of.  Am I doing something wrong?

If anyone has any suggestions for an item, holler at me!  I'd love some ideas.  Meanwhile...to the Pinterest!

Remembrances of dinners past

Let's catch up on some of the things I've been cooking during my bloggy absence, shall we?

Beef kefta patties with tzatziki and cucumber, basmati rice with green onion, steamed green beans, whole wheat pita

Sweet cherry jam

Pork tenderloin, rice, cucumber tomato salad with feta and balsamic vinegar

Fried potatoes with Heinz 57 sauce, bratwurst with kraut and mustard on a homemade pretzel roll

Twice-baked potato and meatloaf

 

 

 

Baked potato soup, sauteed mushrooms, steak

New Year's Eve feast of crab cake, shrimp scampi over rice, sauteed asparagus

Roasted chicken, fingerling potatoes, carrots, asparagus

Blackberry cobbler with French vanilla ice cream

Banana walnut cupcakes with brown sugar rum buttercream

Pork chop, asparagus, corn on the cob

Twice-baked potatoes, shrimp scampi, peel-and-eat shrimp

Potato corn chowder

 

 

 

Grilled pork tenderloin, garlic mashed potatoes, broccoli

Chocolate cake with fondant flowers

Third place in my kid's school chili contest!

Bread is life.

Pot roast and veggies

My kid's April Fools Day lunch

Sheet cake with fondant roses

Cake for my cousin's wife's birthday

Sheet cake with stained glass design

Blueberry jam from local berries

Grilled spatchcocked chicken

One day of canning- strawberry jam, blueberry jam, peach butter

Chicken Alfredo with mushrooms

Cucumber tomato salad with balsamic vinegar, fresh corn, grilled Italian sausage with sauteed orange bell pepper and red onions

First Day of School Lunch

It's been a really, really, REALLY long time since I've updated this blog.

I'm not sorry. 

I mean, I wish it hadn't been neglected, but I've finally come to the realization that I don't owe this blog to anyone else.  It's supposed to be something I enjoy, and if I'm not enjoying it, then what's the point?

Anyway, now that I'm here, let's move on, shall we?

Today was my daughter's first day of school as a first grader.  Holy crap!  How did that happen?  *sobs uncontrollably*

AHEM.  OK. 

Moving on again.

When she started kindergarten last year, I began packing her lunch most days, because let's be honest...public school cafeteria food is fucking gross.  In an attempt to encourage her to eat more of what I was sending, I devised a plan for both of us to get what we wanted.  She wanted appetizing morsels for lunch, and I wanted her to eat healthy, homemade food.  Surprisingly, it can be difficult for those things to coincide, but with a little teamwork, we came up with an effective plan.

A few times during the last school year, and again right before this school year began, my daughter and I sat down together at my computer and looked at a few food blogs and Flickr photo albums featuring other people's school lunches.  The websites I chose were ones I had looked at previously, so I knew that the food depicted was in line with the way we eat at home- homemade, healthy, very little packaging.

As we browsed through dozens of photos, she pointed out things in the pictures that she thought looked appetizing, and I made a list.  I wrote down about a page and a half's worth of specific items, generalities, and combos of things that she deemed worthy of midday mastication (that's a fancy word for "chewing," you sick bastard).

This year, she proclaimed that she wanted sushi for her first school lunch of the year- sushi with shrimp.  And strawberries.  And hummus and pretzels. 

OK then.  It's a weird combo, but who am I to complain about such choices?  They're pretty damn good ones.

And so, yesterday we went to buy some pre-made sushi from our local grocery store.  It ain't fancy, but SHE'S SIX.  They were unfortunately out of shrimp varieties that didn't have spicy sauce, so she settled for a California roll.

The control freak cook in me normally would've balked at sending something pre-made for her lunch, but I'm calmed by the inclusion of hummus, which I not only made myself, but cooked dried chickpeas for.

So here it is.  My first post in however many, many months, and my kiddo's first lunch of first grade. 

 

Also, I'm learning to sew with a machine, so I made her some cloth napkins last weekend to match her new lunch box. 

 

 Thanks for stopping by.

Cooking With Kids: Flatbread and Tzatziki Sauce

My older daughter is 5 1/2 years old and has always been a pretty decent eater, but there are lots of ways I think she could broaden her horizons (kids can always eat more vegetables).  One of the methods I'm employing to help open her little mind is getting her into the kitchen with me.  Since I cook every day, teaching opportunities are plenty, but as every busy mother knows, it's often easier to send the kids out of the kitchen so you can just get shit done.  There are times that I question my sanity in having asked her to help me cook.  There's more mess, and I usually have to make up tasks to keep her occupied.

But it's definitely worth the effort in those few times when she gets to really help, and she shows pride in her work by gleefully consuming whatever we've made together.

In my endeavor to plan a fun summer before she starts kindergarten, I decided to have some cooking days together where we make things she'd like.  Yesterday was one of those days.  The girl can eat her weight in bread, and I think all kids like dipping stuff, so I settled on flatbread with hummus.  Sadly, I was out of chickpeas, so I had to modify my plans.  In comes easy peasy tzatziki sauce, that quintessential Greek/middle Eastern condiment made from cucumbers and yogurt. We have some lovely cucumbers going gangbusters in our garden right now, so this was a perfect substitute for hummus.

The flatbread recipe is one I've made before, and it was actually better this time around because the dough was gently hand-kneaded by a 5 year old instead of being over-kneaded in my KitchenAid.

My kiddo proclaimed the tzatziki good, but when she got her plate of bread and dip, she pretty much just ate the bread.  It's a start.

Adding flour and kneading the dough.  She did it all herself!

Risen dough ball.

Cooking the flatbreads on our griddle.  The lack of oven usage makes this recipe perfect for summer.

The four finished flatbreads.  These taste awesome as-is, but they're even more divine with a brushing of olive oil and a sprinkle of kosher salt.

Tzatziki Sauce
Makes about a cup and a half

1 medium cucumber, peeled, seeded, and diced small
1 clove garlic, minced
1 Tbsp. minced onion
2 tsp. chopped fresh parsley or mint
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt (you can use regular yogurt, but I like the thick consistency of Greek)
a squeeze of lemon juice
salt and pepper

Mix all ingredients in a small bowl, season to taste, and chill before serving.  This makes a refreshing dip for pita wedges, carrot sticks, or other veggies.  It's also great on grilled chicken kebabs or gyros.


Pan-Grilled Flatbread
Makes eight 6-7" breads
Adapted from Cook's Illustrated

1 pkg. dry active yeast (2 1/4 tsp.)
1 cup warm water (110-115 degrees)
1 Tbsp. olive oil, plus extra for brushing
2 tsp. sugar
1/4 cup plain yogurt
1 1/2 tsp. table salt, plus extra for sprinkling
1/2 cup whole wheat flour, sieved before measuring to remove coarse flakes of bran  (NOTE: I omitted this step and just increased the amount of regular flour by 1/2 cup)
2 cups bread flour, plus additional as needed

In a medium bowl, sprinkle the yeast over the warm water.  Stir in olive oil, sugar, and yogurt until well combined.  Add salt and flour and stir with a wooden spoon until the flour is incorporated, about 3 minutes.  Turn dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead by hand until smooth and elastic, about 12 minutes.  (NOTE: This is a great task for kids!)

Place dough in an oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and place in a warm spot until dough doubles in size, about 45 minutes.  Turn dough out onto floured work surface, divide in half with a knife, and cut each half into 4 pieces.  Using your fingers or a rolling pin, flatten each piece of dough into a circle about 6 to 7 inches across.

Heat an electric griddle over medium-high heat.  Mine has a temperature dial, so I use the 350 degree setting.  Gently place 2-3 dough circles in the griddle when hot.  Cook until small bubbles appear on the surface of the dough, about 30 seconds.  Flip with tongs and cook until the bottom is speckled brown, about 2 minutes.  Flip again and cook until the bottom is speckled as well, 1-2 minutes longer.

Transfer to a rack to cool.  These are tasty brushed with olive oil and sprinkled with salt, and eaten hot.  If they last that long, you can wrap them tightly in foil and store them at room temperature for up to 2 days.  Reheat in a 300 degree oven until warm, about 15 minutes.