Category — Recipes

J’s attended 2 of her 3 birthday parties of the weekend, and I hung around Friday’s party long enough that I couldn’t resist taking a couple of pictures to share.

First, rainbow fruit skewers. . . cute, right?

Lucky for me, some of the kids were suspicious of the mangoes, which were recruited to represent orange even though the birthday family aren’t mango fans, either. So at party pick-up I proceeded to eat a vast amount of mango. I love me some mango, especially when I don’t have to go to the trouble of cutting it myself!

You might remember that for J’s Halloween-themed birthday party, the kids pinned spiders on the web. At Friday’s party, the girls pinned the hat on the birthday girl (yes, we pinned a hat poorly in keeping with the no-current-front-portraits tradition).

And the Birthday Girl requested the same cupcakes that she wants every year. They’re baked in ice cream cones!

When I started taking pictures for a post, my friend insisted that I recommend Pinterest for birthday ideas. (Incidentally, I’m “doing” Pinterest, too, although I’ve barely pinned anything yet.) Here’s her board with a couple of items that she pinned. Which reminds me of another great idea that I didn’t get a chance to photograph: pre-scooping ice cream into cupcake holders, then popping them back into the freezer until it’s time to serve the cake. How smart is that, right?

Recently I noticed that three of our Family Favorite recipes contain chicken and lime juice. They’re all pretty easy, so I thought that some of you folks out there might like them, too.

The girls are huge fans of Chicken Satay when we go out for Thai food, and a new favorite at home is this Chicken Satay recipe. When I went hunting for it, I found a bunch of other recipes online, too, and honestly? I bet that most of them are pretty good. There’s something about marinating that just makes this super-yummy. We usually have this with some rice and vegetables in a sauce with about coconut milk, soy, sauce, and some lime juice. I think I got that idea from Mark Bittman’s Kitchen Express book. Actually, there’s a Satay recipe in here, too, but I didn’t use that, because we still don’t own a single Mark Bittman cookbook! I know! How is this possible? Relatives, add this to the wish list, please!

Chicken Satay

Another favorite from long before we even had kids is this Curried Chicken with Mango Relish recipe from Cooking Light. Okay, the truth? After the first couple of times making this, I decided to blow off the mango relish. It’s a pain in the neck, and in my opinion, the result is no better than buying a jarred mango chutney. And even though mango chutney isn’t cheap, the recipe calls for enough mango and dried apricot that the recipe ain’t cheap, either. When I’ve got fresh mint, I make a yogurt-mint-cucumber salad, which I put into this post on gardening before. Last time we ate this, I bought some naan that was pretty good, but it made me think that I should look for a naan recipe. And then one appeared in my Google Reader that same day! I’ve got to ask The Universe for items more often.

Okay, we’ve done Thai and Indian, so we’ll continue the International Festival O’ Chicken And Lime with some chicken taco stuff! This one comes from the Rick Bayless cookbook Mexican Everyday . In fact, I already shared the salsa recipe that goes with this one. The full recipe is Green Chile Chicken Soft Tacos, but when we’re feeling extra lazy, we do the bare minimum and just give the chicken “the treatment” that is oh-s0-good and super-easy. Cook up, say, a pound of chicken with salt and pepper in a pan, and when it’s done, you add 3 tablespoons of fresh lime juice and 2 garlic cloves that are chopped or crushed, turn the chicken over a couple of times, and then shred it. Tasty.

Cute W specializes in tasty breakfast carbs, so we just had to impulse-buy the Mini Donut Maker that was at Target the week before his birthday.

Over the weekend, Cute W made our first donuts. He just used the basic recipe in the instruction manual. The donuts are so little that each one is just a tablespoon of batter.

They emerged cute and tasty:

For a basic glaze,  I tried this Food Network recipe (from Alton Brown, not that I know who he is since I don’t even have cable), and it didn’t work out too well. It had great reviews, but mine came out gritty, even though I started with powdered sugar. Maybe I wasn’t patient enough about stirring it slowly?

Whatever, man. I’ve got a life to live. I can’t stir all freaking day. I threw in some butter, which improved it, but not enough. Next time we’re going to try the Krispy Kreme recipe. I was going to link to an official recipe, but their website is acting funky. Here’s another one, though.

Cute W also bought Nutella to use as our chocolate frosting, and we had sprinkles, too. I know, I know: I was just talking about how I am such a Good Mother because I refuse to allow my children to eat sugar cereal for breakfast, and here I’m touting Nutella and sprinkles! What can I say? I’m a Woman Of Contradictions. . . .

Plain, chocolate-sprinkles, & gritty-glazed

The donuts were tasty and charming. The girls are already scheming to set up a Donut Stand on Niska-Day.

It was a busy day with Grandma and Grandpa including an 8:25 am soccer game (sounded terrible until we saw a friend who had played “the early game” before us!) which included a goal and an assist for M, rehearsals for Cute W and M for their show at church tomorrow, a cooking project, the movie Big Miracle (wholesome and enjoyable, but a little sadder than expected because I didn’t remember the story at all), some shopping, and dinner out.

Between shopping and dinner, J started to lose it. It would be understandable if she were just plain tired, but she had chills and a headache, so I fear that she’s getting sick. We’ve been driving around in two cars to fit everyone (not environmentally friendly, I know, but when relatives aren’t visiting we’re guzzling less gas than those minivans which I’m too scared to drive anyway). So I aborted the mission and J and I ditched the restaurant and came back home to cuddle in bed. Now I’m wondering if tomorrow morning we’ll a) have a nice healthy J, b) have a sick J and I’ll miss the show entirely, c) have a sick J and I’ll pull a babysitter out of the ether, or  d) have a sick J and I’ll leave her alone just long enough to drive over and watch the one song that M’s singing with the junior choir). Clearly, I’d prefer option a. Sigh. At least Cute W has a video camera.

Anyway, the cooking project was actually an attempt to figure out our edible craft project for M’s Valentine’s Day school party. M’s 4th-grade teacher wanted to try these cute cupids from Family Fun. I said “Sure!” when what I was really thinking was that they were slightly too ambitious (the two different colors of decorator’s gel shared by 21 children, the piped frosting, etc.) and also that I didn’t like how Aryan the cupid looked in our multi-ethnic class.

So I pondered how to address these concerns. Because I am freakish that way. Perhaps I should have said no. But that’s not sporting.

First, I made frosting in two colors–vanilla frosting with a bit of food coloring to make it pink and brown chocolate frosting. I figured that kids could choose and/or mix. I also got Cocoa Krispies in addition to the Rice Krispies for hair options.

One pleasing innovation was  these heart-shaped Peeps for the wings. Half a heart is even better as a wing shape than a marshmallow. This was Cute W’s idea. He’s so clever. I think that I’m going to cut them ahead of time, because otherwise I’d have to provide multiple pairs of clean scissors for 21 4th-graders. Again: ambitious.

I also decided to blow off the decorator gel. We decided that Twizzlers would work for the mouth, and we experimented with chocolate chips, M & Ms, and TicTacs for the eyes. Oh, and I got gummy hearts instead of foil-wrapped, because I couldn’t find foil that was plain red without a words to advertise something, and besides, who wants wrapped candy on their cupcakes? We’re blowing off the piped-on hand entirely. Just not happening.

The girls and I each made one cupid cupcake to test the difficulty and ponder our eyeball options. Our results: a preference for chocolate is apparent, but we actually each mixed both vanilla and chocolate. We went with different eye techniques, none of which were entirely successful.

All in all, these cupcakes make me laugh. It’s a bit like when they show you the advertisements for a Big Mac and then the actual Big Mac. Except in this case it’s the adorable cupcakes prepared by the food stylists at Family Fun vs. cupcakes prepared by actual children of mothers who are not willing to buy little tubes of icing. It’s a clever idea. The wings worked much better than I’d expected. And of course, a parent could make a full batch of those adorable cupids at home with some decorator gel and piped icing and then show up at the school party pretty much feeling like The Most Awesome Parent Ever.

But we’re all about class participation. We’re all about process, not product. Which is pretty clear from the picture. Oh, also? They’re tasty.

I realized recently that J’s been asking to make what she calls “fruit pizza” for approximately forever. Okay, not really, but she’s  been asking about once every three weeks for at least 6 months. Which is an awfully long time when you’re little. It’s a recipe called “Viva Les Galettes” from the Southern Living Kids Cookbook, which we also used for a couple of Halloween recipes.

The picture was pretty, but I wasn’t convinced that we’d eat it all, since only Cute W is a big fruity dessert person in our family. So we made the recipe (which was two fruit pizzas) before the Super Bowl so that we could bring one to share with friends.

Lucky for me, someone else already took the trouble to type in the recipe. You can check it there. But basically, we mixed a block of cream cheese together with a can of sweetened condensed milk. First of all, that was yummy. It tasted very much like that sweet fruit dip that they sell in grocery stores which I refuse to purchase on principle because fruit is sweet and does not need a fruit dip. However, I will concede that it’s yummy. It was good as-is, but we spread the filling over the center of a pie crust, folded the outer inch inward, and brushed the outer edge with egg white and sprinkled it with sugar.

Sprinkling sugar around the edges

We baked it for exactly 23 minutes as they said in the recipe, but they were a bit overdone. Usually I check early, because I think our oven’s a little too hot. But I got distracted. Still, not too bad.

Crust & pastry are finished baking

J loved cutting up fruit.

Cutting fruit

J wanted to cut the fruit herself, and I gave her a small but very sharp paring knife. It made me nervous, but she was careful. Kids tend to be much more careful with knives than adults, I think, because using them is such a special occasion.

The recipe called for peach fruit spread, and we went with cherry jam instead, because that’s what we had. After putting the fruit on, it’s just refrigerated.

All done!

The verdict? It was pretty tasty, and one of the guests at the party where we shared it pronounced it “very elegant” before she found out it was prepared by a 7-year-old. This was also a great recipe in terms of plenty of hands-on activity for kids. Especially if you’re willing to let your child wield a knife!

Guess what happened about 2 minutes after we should have already left for gymnastics on Friday?

Yes, that’s my butter dish, which was shattered all over the floor when the refrigerator door was opened with the vigor that is only possible when you are a 7-year-old with an obsessive desire for salami while your mother is standing by the door calling to you, “Come on! Please! Let’s go!”

So yeah, that was awesome.

I tried two slow cooker recipes that were limited successes, both from the Fix It and Forget It Big Cookbook.  First, I made a Macaroni and Cheese, which was this recipe. This was a decent homemade mac and cheese, and the whole family liked it. I thought that it was a little dull, so I added about a teaspoon of dry mustard, which helped. I think next time I’d throw in a bit of dried milk, too. So:  it was easy, it smelled good all day, and everyone ate it. On the other hand, no one raved about it and it certainly isn’t too healthful. But its a good slacker meal. I have no photos, but follow the link and Erin’s got lovely photos.

Then I tried Iranian Wash-Day Stew.

This one smelled super-awesome all day, and then it was. . . good. It could have been slightly more interesting. I’d make it again and add more tomatoes (not peeled) and some other vegetables.  Cute W and I liked it, J took one look and opted out completely, and M painstakingly picked out the pieces of meat. Also, I should have gotten better bread.

Tonight we made a recipe that’s a labor-intensive but delicious family favorite. It’s sort of homemade chicken fingers, which we call Mrs. Seals’ Chicken after our neighbor in Ft. Worth, Texas, who passed it to us in 1978. It’s a pain in the neck. And a mess (see photo below), but it’s super-yummy, and it’s good hot or cold, so it’s great for a picnic. Not, like, now. But you know what I mean.

Mrs. Seals’ Chicken

Ingredients:

Back when Daniel B. posted on All Over Albany about Tacos at La Mexicana Grocery & Restaurant, Cute W and I sent each other the link with messages laden with multiple explanation points about how we must try it soon. But of course, the holidays were busy. Over the weekend, Cute W planned a menu out of one of his Rick Bayless cookbooks, so it was the perfect opportunity to shop and get some takeout at the same time.

Mmmm, it was a hit with the family. If you want the nuanced, well-considered, foodie review, check Daniel’s. I’ll give you J’s review. Regarding the chicken taco, she said, “I think that I have found something new which I adore.”

And the tacos are $2. So that’s awesome. Cheaper than Chipotle, for sure.

Of course, Cute W’s dish was delightful as well: tostadas with a black bean concoction, shredded chicken, romaine lettuce with a bit of dressing, Mexican cheese, roasted tomatillo salsa, and tomatoes. Just typing it is making me a little bit sad that the leftovers are gone.

Cute W is not the only cook in the family. J invented a new dessert recipe. Simply unscrew an Oreo, add a dollop of cranberry sauce, replace the tip, and voila! Very sophisticated if you are 7 years old. And Cute W thought it was tasty, too.

Here’s a guest post from June, my colleague at Kids Out and About. She occasionally (and it’s very occasionally lately–ahem!) writes a blog called My Name is June. I Like to Cook. She also wrote the post about making pancakes. Thanks, June!

Do you order pizza on Halloween to scarf down while you pass out chocolate to the trick or treaters? Really? Lame. Really lame. If you plan ahead a little, you can make this stew in advance and then just pop it into the pumpkin at the last minute. You still have two weeks to plan and cook it, because since you’re a good parent like me, you have abdicated all responsibility for the young ‘un’s costumes to the young ‘uns. It’s good for them. Makes them use their little noggins to come up with something original using only duct tape and the leftover tulle from their sister’s wedding. Can you say “Mummy”?

So, while the little ones thrash about desperately trying to complete their costumes before sundown on Halloween, pop this fun stew into the oven and you can pull it out just as the first little monsters show up at your door and demand protection money in the form of chocolate. And let’s not even get into those of you who are too cheap to spring for anything better than a mini tootsie roll. Puhleeze. It’s once a year. But then, who am I to judge? We live so far off the beaten path that I have never had a trick or treater darken my door. I have to go sit on a friend’s porch, but not before we eat the traditional Halloween pumpkin stew. Grandma Foodie used to make it every year when I was a kid. But I’ll bring a pumpkin roll and a bottle of wine with me to my friend’s house, so she’ll be happy to see me. I might even bring her a bowl of pumpkin stew.

Pumpkin Stew

3 T vegetable oil
3 cloves minced garlic
2 chopped green peppers
2 chopped onions
2 lbs beef stew meat
2 chopped tomatoes
1 T sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 pkgs frozen corn
3 diced potatoes
3 smallish sweet potatoes, diced
2 C beef bouillon
8 peach halves
1 medium pumpkin (if you can find  a pretty large pie pumpkin, they are sweeter and not stringy)
3 T butter
11/2 tsp salt

In a large dutch oven, brown garlic, peppers, onions, and stew meat in oil. Add tomatoes and salt. Simmer 20 minutes. Add corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes, bouillon, and peaches and simmer 40 minutes.

Brush inside of pumpkin with butter and sprinkle with salt. Add stew and put lid on and bake 45 minutes at 350 degrees or until pumpkin is tender.

I think that this concludes the festive string of posts celebrating J’s birthday. This yummy pumpkin cheeseball could work for a grown-up party, too. We got the idea for it from the Southern Living Kids Cookbook, but J wanted to go with our much-loved family recipe for cheeseball. And then I decided that if there was a chance in hell that any kid besides J would eat any of it, I’d have to simplify. So I cut out all the veggies and about half of the spices.

The thing about cheeseball is that you just have to give in and use your hands. ut once you just surrender to the process, it becomes like creating a work of art. J wanted no part of “touching the ickiness.” But I had fun.

First, I sculpted the main shape, with ridges for the pumpkin.

Cheeseball shaped

Then I cut a little rectangular stencil shape and shook on some paprika.

Shaking on Paprika

The stem and leaves are from broccoli. This part, J was willing to do.

J puts on finishing touches

We served it with apple wedges, crackers, and pretzels. The kids admired it, but they didn’t eat much. I mean, come on: it was competing with popcorn balls. So, yeah. I finished it off.

J picked out Snack-o’-Lanterns from Family Fun magazine as one of her many Halloween treats. I was skeptical: they looked tough. So I made a test orange jack-o-lantern. Turns out, it wasn’t too bad:

Of course, the whole point is to get the kids involved, so I took a deep breath and handed each of them a paring knife. Generally speaking, I’m in favor of giving kids knives. They tend to be much more careful with them than grown-ups, anyway. Still, it was nerve-wracking.

Careful, honey!

You cut off the top, pull out most of the insides, and cut a face. Then we popped them into the fridge for later. For the party, we filled them with fruit salad.

M loved making these. They were her favorite of all the Halloween treats. J liked it, but she’d get frustrated, too, and so she’d take breaks between o’-lanterns. If I’m honest, I have to admit that she was partly frustrated by me stressing out and saying, “Watch the knife! Keep your fingers higher on the handle! These are sharp!” Once she even said ouch and I freaked completely, but it was just because orange juice had squirted into her eye. Phew!

Anyway, the oranges were cute, and the kids loved them!