Sloppy Joes and 9-year-old-approved homemade chicken noodle soup

Lunch home with the kids today. It's raining. Actually it's pouring and has been for twelve hours. It's rained more today than in the past three months. We're all going to float away.

And the kids are sick. Nothing serious, just some cold that's going around. But they are under the weather and the weather's horrible.

They've been very busy lately and meals are often pressed sandwiches on the run as they fly from one activity to another. Some meals were missed.

So they're undernourished and sick. The day is dark and rainy. What else for lunch but homemade chicken noodle soup and sloppy joes?

The fridge needs cleaning out - gotta use up the chili-cooked ground beef we had in our baked potatoes. I have a serving of leftover tomato-corn soup to refry the ground beef in. I add some tomato puree, a couple of overripe tomatoes, and sliced mushrooms leftover from pizza night. Simmer it all down, add a bit of worshestershire (pronounce the same as Bertie's last name) and sweet soy sauces.

I lightly toast a bagel per person, sloop the tomato-beef sauce over top and add grated cheddar or mini bocconcini (also leftover from pizza night) according to preference.

The stove's heat makes the kitchen a nice place to be on this cold day.

 The soup was a bag of corn stock from the freezer thawed. I added the last of the chicken-corn soup (about a quarter cup) to give it dimension and texture, then pre-cooked (al dente) and pre-cut (about 3 inches) spaghetti noodles, slivers of carrot, and sliced green onion as a garnish. Approved!

Watermelon juice & cubes

Had a large very ripe watermelon; wondering what to do with it. After we bought it the weather turned colder and rainy - no one wanted to eat watermelon anymore. It was a sort of sad reminder of summer passed.

This morning I noticed a sand dollar sized mold spot; I swooped it out of the way before they could notice.

I knew I had to act fast; once kids see mold the deal's off. I remember as a kid, my mother telling me "it's fine; just cut the mouldy part off" but I would have none of that; mould was horrific.

So this morning we had watermelon slices (cut from the other hemisphere) for breakfast, and I threw the rest of the flesh in the magic bullet. I strained the result and kept the juice. The pulp I threw on my sunflowers.

The juice was really good but very strong in flavor. One taster, whose tastebuds seem more sensitive than the rest of us, said she wasn't even sure how to react.

We refrigerated the juice. It's better cold and even better over many ice cubes; as they melt they dilute the flavor.

I made watermelon-cubes. I bet they'd be great with soda in an ice-cream float or just in lemonade or sprite. Also good in mango or calamansi juice. But the very best thing would be vodka over watermelon cubes. What an amazing afternoon cocktail! Add a shot of gin...

Easy pizza for dinner

Well I did it; I bought Pillsbury ready-to-use pizza dough. Yikes. Me, who hates prefab food and overprocessed convenience items. And even more shocking, it was pretty good.

Had I had yeast, I would have made the simple pizza dough recipe in Bittman's How to Cook Everything. But I realised too late that we have no yeast, so I ended up looking for fresh dough at the grocery store.

Long story short, it was good. Very sweet. The kids loved it and for ease of use it gets an A+.

They don't actually come over and turn on the stove for you but they do pretty much everything else. Not natural enough to use regularly but am ok to buy it for the kids and it's great as a last-minute solution. It's not health food but the user can add healthy toppings, so it's not too terrible.

I love our Friday evening pizza nights. We have a 4.30pm appointment and get home about 5.30. Usually I make my own dough; mix the ingredients to together just before we leave for taekwondo, then let it rise til we get home. Turn on the over, decorate your pizza while it heats, then cook about 15 minutes, depending on the thickness of the crust, how 'done' you like it, and the amount and type of toppings.

We all make & dress our own pizzas. It's easy to find quick gourmet toppings that are healthy. I usually pop in the grocery store on the way home and buy sliced olives & mushrooms, mini boccocini (cuts down on the amount of cheese you use but ups the deliciousness). We get filtered tomatoes, fresh basil, oregeno, rosemary... whatever's growing. The we add sliced ham or pepperoni. I often pick up a pack of previously-frozen smoked chum - tastes like Indian Candy and adds tons of umami to the pizza (and is crazy cheap - five bucks' worth is enough for about five adults). Sometimes we have canned pineapple chunks or cooked chicken; tofu, spinach... whatever's in the fridge.

It's a great Friday night dinner because everyone's tired and hungry. We don't want to have to wait to eat or dress up go out again. We want jammies, pedicures and tv. We want comfort food that feels slightly decadent. Even when overloaded with toppings, most homemade pizza is still not bad nutritionally.

Making our own pizzas allows the kids to participate, even when they're little. They get a sense of ownership over their food - an important sense to have - and it gives a chance to discuss nutrition. My kids now proudly show off their nutritionally-balanced meals; I'm so proud of them!

But the very best reason these are great friday night dinners is thing is that you're practically guaranteed to have something in the fridge or pantry, so it doesn't require much planning. If you make of buy several doughs and freeze them, it's even more guaranteed.

One person experimented with mini-pizzas - like pizza sliders. They were fun to make and tasted great.

Easy dinner

New potatoes roasted in a cast iron, in olive oil with crushed garlic cloves. On the rack below, a cookie sheet holds sliced polenta, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with coarse salt and crushed pepper. Steamed green & yellow beans from an honour booth on Protection Island (take a bag; leave a buck), and pan-fried chicken that's been marinated in chicken stock and sweet soy sauce.

The beans are great - super tasty and augmented by a few tiny cubes of feta,  sprinkle of salt and a crack of pepper.

The drink is vanilla soy milk.

Listening to your body

I've always hated having to wait when my body is hungry. I'm going to eat eventually, so why not when my body is asking for it. Do you tell your car to wait another hundred miles before you fill up, even though the tank's on E? No, you fill it up as soon as possible. And you try to avoid absolute E.

Even as a child, I knew that the phrase, don't eat now; dinner's in an hour was bogus. We had all kinds of rules about when you could eat. Not between meals, but come mealtime you were supposed to stuff yourself silly, finishing all that someone else apportioned you.

How can someone else know how much to give you? How can any thoughtful adult insist a child finish off what they the adult, took to be a right amount? My appetite varies wildly through the day, week month and year. Activity levels, season, weather - they all account for fluctuations in your appetite, as do levels of stress and physical changes or growth. Who can know better than you, how much and what kinds of foods you need?

If we eat slowly, consciously, and gratefully, we acknowledge and accept the wonder of food. We digest better, and best of all, we stop eating much earlier because our bodies are sated. When you listen to your body, you will eat exactly what you need. Cravings are telling us what to eat. Oh sure, for the first two weeks, you'll eat nothing but your forbidden food - chocolate cookies or gin or whatever. But then you'll hear your body talking to you, quite clearly actually, and you will eat really well.

Your body will thank you, and you'll feel great.

As for the kids: they'll eat. Like dogs, kids won't starve themselves. They'll eat good food, especially if you don't keep junk in the house.

Kids should always be taught, right from the start, to enjoy their food and honor their body. My family always talks about our nightly 'feasts' and how healthy they are. The kids get right into choosing foods for flavour and nourishment.

Eating lunch at home

One of my life's biggest rewards is being able to eat lunch at home. For me, lunch is the meal where fresh veggies and fruits are most important to me. It's probably related to how my digestion works; this is the time when I need most water and roughage.

I prefer to eat lunch at home because that is where I can guarantee fresh, simple and fast. Hunger comes up on me fast and I prefer not to wait much after I feel hungry. (I believe hunger is a sign to eat now, but that's the theme of another post.)

Deliciousness comes from the juicy, crunchy, moistness carrying fantastically subtle tastes of nature. And home is where I can find that. Often restaurants carry fresh but then overprocess it or it's not quite as fresh as I like. I'm picky and I'm clear; I'd rather not eat an orange than eat one that looks older than me.

Salad is, in my opinion, one of the hardest menu items to produce well, consistently, in a commercial kitchen. Oh sure, chefs get all gooey over perfect souffles or microscopic cooking, but for my money, I'd rather have something that blows me away with simple perfection.

But then you worry that might obviate the need for chefs. No, I don't think so. We still need ingredients to be assembled creatively and for some cooked dishes. I just don't see the need for everything to be over-flavoured. I would like to see a chef who excells - and can get diners excited about - fresh foods artfully presented.

Chicken Cherry

Lunch today was only a lettuce, cheese and tomato sandwich, but supper tonight is chicken that was marinated in sweet chili sauce, then low-simmered for a long time with coconut milk, pressed garlic, lemongrass and several overripe cherries. (I was so busy writing about putting cherries in the freezer that I forgot to do so with the latest batch! Almost lost them and had to come up with several uses for overripe cherries - too ripe to pit.)

Sliced the chicken (I buy boneless skinless thighs from costco; apportion, marinate & freeze), placed it atop brown rice and spooned lots of the pan juices over.

It's good - could have used more salt - but omg, the cherries are amazing. All warm & sweet and milky. Yum!

Screw chopsticks - I'm going in to get a spoon.

Oh yeah, wine is a 2008 Chardonnay by Oyster Bay Wines, NZ. It's good.

Soup for supper

Tomato, basil & lemongrass soup. Long slow simmer, then sieved.

Egg Salad and Corn Soup

Today's lunch is egg salad: two hardboiled eggs, diced on the egg slicer (cut, turn, cut), walla walla onions diced really small, and a healthy dollop of mayo. The raw onion adds the sharpness of salt (there's no salt in this dish) and because it's diced so small, it's not overwhelming. I didn't use much - maybe one or two slices off the onion. Add in a diced avo, stir and crack some pepper over top.

Got some long-simmering soup on the stove. While prepping lunch I threw a ziplock of frozen chicken stock in a pot to thaw. (Of course I removed the bag first) Added in some fresh corn I had frozen because no one ate the leftovers.

I'm about to toss in some fresh corn too; the rest of that not-very-sweet corn from the Valley. Guess last week was a little early for corn. It's probably going to be very sweet in a couple of weeks. We've had such a hot dry summer - can't wait to taste the peaches & cream corn!

Further on not wasting food

Another great idea I had was putting cherries in the freezer as soon as they start to lose their lustre. They become frozen little popsicles; juice bombs, fun to eat on a hot summer day.

It doesn't matter what, we're always intrigued by new ways to experience our food.

The cherry solution is brilliant because it takes no effort. I had always previously put the downhill cherries aside for pitting and juicing. But because pitting is such a dreary job and because I usually ended up mashing the cherries, I never got around to it and - ta da - another bowl of cherries bites the dust. Chucking them in the freezer takes 2.5 seconds, and you still get to enjoy the pit-spitting contest afterward.

Teatime

Feeling snacky around 5pm. Time for a glass of wine and a snack while I unwind. I plan to watch tv while lazing on the couch, so I want something easy, fast and that I can eat at an angle...

Shrimp in garlic basic & walla walla butter sautee.

Avo & tomato puree with roasted red pepper and yellow zucchini 'chips'. I sliced and salted the zucchini about twenty minutes ago, to draw out the water and bitterness. See post below. Rinsed it off not too well, and I am left with something for dipping into the salsa, and the salt I crave amidst this heatwave.

Wine is Quail's Gate Riesling 2009.

Honor your food - keep your knives sharp!

When our knives are sharp we don't bludgeon the food. It's a way of paying respect to the pig or tomato that had to die for us. Slicing cleanly through fresh herbs is the only way to experience their delicate flavour.

Feeling the energy of your food (yeah, I know)

I have noticed that some foods can taste really acrid or awful, due to the way they were produced. Some fresh vegetables; sweet peppers or carrots for instance, carry the energy of the water they absorbed growing up. And sometimes I find them horribly acrid. If I cook them just a little, push the water out, and enjoy the flesh, it's much more congenial.

Chicken is another food that can taste terrible, not due to the recipe. Organic or free-range chicken tastes amazing. I think we probably began to over-process foods when we started factory farming, creating those funky gross chickens. There is a funk to the taste of their flesh, that is disgusting; even the best sichuan cooking can't cover it! So food companies started over-salting, over-saucing and over-cheesing everything in an attempt to cover up the icky taste. Sprinkle liberally with msg (artificial or natural) and bam it tastes good enough.

Freshening food

I hate waste, especially with food. I've given myself the challenge of getting the most out of all the food I buy and grow, not only to save money but to honor those who do not have enough. I can't feed the world but I can stop hogging and unconscious consumption.

Which is why I put the blueberries in a new bowl this morning.

As food in my care ages it changes. What was fresh and delicious yesterday is overripe and bruised today. Tomorrow it will be in a cloud of fruit flies.

Years ago, I read an interesting idea about clothes storage - that you should display your clothes like they do in the stores. Tops, pants and others should be presented in a manner that makes them desirable, and fun to wear, so instead of a drawers stuffed full, you should have less and display it well.

I applied this to my fridge and room temp foods: it should be hard to choose from among all the succulent ingredients, and menu ideas.

As soon as the blueberries are no longer juicy fresh, I take them out of the colander and off the counter, bowl them and put them in the fridge. They will be the next smoothie or milkshake.

As the tomatoes on the windowsill start to turn black and crumple, I add them to the bowl in the fridge; ingredients for soup.

When artisanal bread gets to be several days old, no longer suitable for sandwiches or toast, I bag it and freeze it for croutons or exotic breadcrumbs.

I grow rosemary, basil, fennel, lavender, sage, oregano, mint, lemon balm, chives, and garlic. I love to garden and prefer food-bearing trees such as nuts and fruit. This house boasts an apple tree with three different apples grafted onto its espalied limbs. We have a hazelnut tree, and a plum tree. We have a hanging strawberry basket and tomatoes.

Most years I plant sweet peas and snap peas (didn't this year because I moved). Our old house had a cherry tree and saskatoonberry tree - yum!  I loved watching the children pick and snack while exploring the gardens; it gives them a sense of where food comes from and the chance to experience fresh-picked ripe food. I still remember their faces the first time I gave them a just-picked juicy strawberry. Blew their little minds.

Food is like sex - way more fun where you're attracted.

Basil, feta & tomato salad with blueberry milkshake

Today's lunch is a basil, feta, tomato salad. A quick grind of pepper and a dash of olive oil, and voila. My drink is blueberry milkshake: blueberries, milk and a bit of vanilla ice cream, blended.

Great, healthy, vitalizing. Why doesn't everyone eat well? It's cheaper than crappy prefab or fast food, just as fast and infinitely more interesting.

Bon sante!

Steak salad dinner

I just killed iPhoto. Trying to edit my photo of dinner - seared steak salad. The universe does not want me posting images, probably because the presentation looked like hell.

But man was it good. A bed of lettuce holds corn cut off the cob, thinly sliced pan-seared steak that was peppered on both sides and coarse salt on one. On one side of the bowl a sweep of steamed pea greens glistens withe a dash of olive oil. Squeeze a lime over everything then add the final ingredient of sauteed mushrooms. Yumm! Cold white wine of course.

Further on electricity

As mentioned in a previous post, I am enjoying the low-temp ability of my electric range.

I love being able to be so gentle with soup. Being gentle with our food is underrated, in my opinion. I think it affects the way we digest and accept nutrients.

Making croutons, I heat olive oil, very low. Add a few pieces of rosemary, chopped fairly fine. I keep a small plant on the kitchen windowsill - nothing like fresh rosemary!

When the herb is assimilated, I add the croutons, let them absorb the oil at this low temperature, then crank it up and let them toast. Life on the edge - am blogging while doing this.

Squash Soup & croutons with white wine

Wine is Quail's Gate Riesling 2009. I have given up reds for the most part, as my body requested - terrible allergic-seeming reactions - and am enjoying exploring whites without prejudice. I hear (the internet told me so) that experts blindfolded, preferred under 7$US wines to over 20$ wines. And since I am no expert, I can admit what I truly like ;)

Croutons are old loaf of black olive/cheese bread; leftovers stored in the freezer after it starts to go stale. There is always a moment when you realise something's not going to get eaten as it is, so often I chuck it in the freezer. Sour milk, stale bread, corn cut off the cob, bagels.

There's a dollop of sour cream in the squash soup, but it sunk. The garnish is chopped fresh basil.

Blasphemy!

I'm enjoying cooking with electricity. Better than - gasp - gas. My old gas stove did not make me happy. It was a GE sold to me by Mainland - piss poor customer service when I wasn't happy - and it was underpowered, flaky, and the element supposedly made specially for low temperatures often went out without re-lighting. I'd put a pot on to stew and wander off. Later I'd saunter in the kitchen to be greeted by the stench of gas. Could've been quite dangerous.

Cleaning the stove was a bore (admission: buying a white gas stove is stupid) and the electronic controls - located just above the stove opening - overheated twice in the two years we had it. According to a friend who has the same product, those stoves are notorious for that fault. His has never been fixed, although I don't know where he bought it.

I timed the high-powered burner: it took 25 minutes to bring 4 litres of water to a boil. I used to boil the kettle instead, then add it to the pot. Making pasta was a pain in the ass, because without the lid on, the boil would not maintain, but with the lid on I couldn't turn it down low enough to not boil over without going so low as to lose the boil.

I'm enjoying the controlability of electric, and these newer stoves are pretty precise, also very fast. In fact the first few times I cooked with electric, I burnt everything terribly!

Soup is simmering, time to make croutons.

Chilled tomato & basil soup with fresh croutons

Beating the heat by having cold tomato soup for lunch. I have a few overripe tomatoes in the fridge, some bulgarian feta cut-up but not used, walla walla onions and great chicken stock. (I make my own and freeze it in sandwich-sized ziplok bags. I'll add a bunch of ginger and am considering the yellow zucchinis or butternut squash... also have a sweet cherry pepper (like a small Bell).

Guiding indicators in the kitchen

I am organising my cabinets. I moved about two weeks ago. In the kitchen, I am in the process of refining storage. The kitchen needs to be accessible to cooks varying in stature between 176 cm and 152 cm (5'9"-5'), and in age between 9-and-a-half to over forty. (I'm almost seven in dog years!)

The kids in this family seem to be more visually oriented. If I tell them a thing, they forget, but if I show them a thing and explain its logic, they usually remember.

Even better, I ask them for input. Questions such as, if you were making breakfast, where would you expect to find this ingredient or this utensil?

I do the obvious safety things like put lighter things up higher and heavier lower.

I group canisters by color & shape - white sugars are in square, green-lidded; brown sugars in round, white-lidded canisters. Abandoning fancy labeling systems, I depend on black sharpie and have the kids write the contents on the lids. That way they get input and I get a sweet reminder of them every time I pull the canister out.

Food Abundance - so rich!

Interesting.... I find myself throwing away a bit of extra rice that doesn't fit in the canister. Listening to the radio while sorting the kitchen; cbc news tells of people starving in Pakistan. 

I decant rice purely for ease of storage - bags are floppy and my cupboards work best with uprights. In essence I'm throwing out the rice so it won't clutter up my pantry. 

I briefly wonder if that is a sin, as I take it out to the trash.