Annika was sent home from school on Thursday with a 101.5 degree fever. By Friday morning, it was up to 102.7. When her dose of Motrin wore off Friday afternoon, her temperature spiked to 103.4. Fortunately, this is not considered a serious fever for a child (or so the pediatrician's office told me). I expected Saturday to be more of the same sick, whiny, clingy child so hot you could fry eggs on her forehead. Instead, she woke up with a temp of 99. I wish I could heal so quickly!
Annika was better, but still not well enough to attend the back to back birthday parties we had planned to attend. I planned to drop by one of the parties with Astrid still, but that left the evening wide open. I decided to make a special evening out of us being home-bound. I told Swede to pick a meal from Peter Berley's The Flexitarian Table. It is my "fancy" cookbook. The meals are delicious, but are more complex than in Fast Food Fresh (his other book) and consequently take longer to make. They are a weekend luxury.
Swede looked at me and said "anything I want?????" I replied, "sure, but if you choose something from the summer chapter, I might not be able to find the ingredients at Whole Foods." A couple of minutes later, I was on my way out the door to go to boxing class and I hear a voice call from the TV room "ooooh, short ribs!" "No! Something I eat!" I replied. Swede then complained about all the conditions I was now imposing on dinner. How selfish of me indeed, to want to spend over an hour cooking something I'll actually eat.
Swede settled for shrimp with brown butter and tons of herbs served over polenta along with roasted broccoli with parmesan.
http://www.tastebook.com/recipes/1377574-Shrimp-with-Brown-Butter-and-Tons-of-Herbs
http://mouthfromthesouth.com/roasted-broccol/
I used broccolini so I wouldn't have to peel the stems of the broccoli. I should have realized that broccolini is a bit more delicate than broccoli and checked on it earlier than the 25 minutes prescribed in the recipe. My broccolini was a little TOO brown and crispy, but still good. The crispy chunks of parmesan were delicious treats among the green (okay, greenish-brown) veggies.
The shrimp was delicious (I halved the butter sauce and polenta because there were only 3 of us). If you have never tried using brown butter in your cooking, you need to. Brown butter is rich, nutty, and (get this) buttery. You only need a little bit of brown butter for the flavor to really come through in the dish, so you can use it sparingly. But for God's sake, don't use a butter substitute - that would be heresy. The herbs mixed with butter gave it a robust savory flavor that lingered on the shrimp, but more importantly, oozed into the polenta making it delightful.
When making shrimp earlier in the week, I discovered something about buying and preparing shrimp. At Whole Foods, a 1 lb bag of peeled shrimp was $10.99. A 1 lb bag of "easy peel" shrimp was $5.99. I agonized over whether $5 was worth it to avoid peeling dead shrimp. Turns out it wasn't. I got the easy-peel shrimp and defrosted them. Turns out they are super-easy. The veins are already removed and the shell is split down the back. I turned the shrimp over to Annika and she peeled almost the whole pound herself. I am happy to have my own sous chef!
Back to last night's dinner. The food was excellent and my intentions were grand. My expectations, however, were unreasonable. Even though Annika was feeling much better, she was still whiny and annoying. As soon as I set the plate of food in front of her, she started shivering and cowering. "I'm afraid of the food," she whined. After 10 minutes of insisting she was scared of the food (all ingredients she had eaten before), she then began negotiating about how many bites she had to take. Then she climbed off her chair repeatedly and wandered around the table. Then she complained about being scared of the food. At least 5 times, I said "Fine! Don't eat! Just go to your room and go to bed then!" Every time she would promise to be nicer and more cooperative. Then she wasn't. All the while Astrid was refusing to eat her rice porridge -
spitting it out all over everything within a 3 foot radius.
Are these the Saturday nights I signed up for when I decided to have kids? It was too chaotic to even break out the sparkling wine I bought at Whole Foods back when I believed a dinner at home could be made special. Nor did I want to serve the Tammy Coe cupcake I bought at the store to share with Annika, feeling bad (at the time) that she had missed out on two birthday cakes that day. My mistake, as it turns out, was expecting to have a nice dinner by adult standards. Expecting some kind of sophisticated meal at home served only to set me up for disappointment. Next time, I will expect chaos and if it turns out a little bit better, I'll be happy.
I ate my half of the cupcake later and Swede and I drank the sparkling wine while watching The Book of Eli after Annika went to sleep. The night ended up being okay. Dinner, however, was a disaster. At least the food was good.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Monday, February 14, 2011
Making up for for not eating bacon.
As I finished reading my Hungry Monkey book, it became clear to me that I am in the minority with my bacon views. It seems to be what all the cool kids are eating. But then the author started raving about duck. Duck sounds kind of trendy and cool. And I suppose it falls close enough to "poultry" (which I eat) on the meat scale. I got some duck legs at Whole Foods (do they even make non-organic duck?) and went at it. I had to work from home today because Astrid had her 6 month checkup, so the 3 hour recipe was perfect for today. This is from Hungry Monkey:
Brown 2-4 duck legs, seasoned liberally with salt and pepper, (the recipe calls for 2, but I did not realize that each package had 2 legs until I opened them, so 4 it is) in 1 tsp butter and 1 tsp olive oil heated over medium-high heat. This requires 10 minutes skin side down, then another 5 minutes on the other side.
Remove the duck from the pan and pour off all but a tablespoon of fat. Add 1 chopped carrot, one chopped celery stalk, and one chopped onion (I doubled the carrots and celery). Saute for about 5 minutes then add 2 cloves of garlic, 1 teaspoon brown sugar (I used turbinado sugar), 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves (I used allspice because I don't have cloves), and 1/8 teaspoon of cayenne pepper (or more if you like it spicy). Saute for another minute. Add 1 can of tomatoes and 1 cup of marsala, bring to a boil. Then add the duck back in, cover, and put it in the oven for 1.5 to 2 hours at 300 degrees.
When the duck is tender, take everything out of the oven. Take the duck out of the pan and cool it enough to shred it. Once shredded (I removed the skin at this point), put it back into the sauce and simmer 5-10 minutes while it thickens. Serve over pasta (I used whole wheat curly pasta).
Oh, it was good. Sorry Donald, Daisy, Daffy. The flavor of the sauce was fantastic, savory, and hearty (I credit the marsala). The duck made it a little greasy, which is always yummy. The celery and carrots retained just enough crunch and weren't too squishy. I was a little concerned that Annika would balk at the thought of eating a beloved cartoon animal. But she dug right in and declared it "delicious"! It can't be too unhealthy, it is loaded with tomatoes, carrots, celery, and onion and most (okay, a lot) of the duck fat is poured off after browning. It was good and I felt pretty cool. Duck is no boring chicken. Maybe I can keep my "foodie" card even without the bacon.
Tonight we also fed Astrid her second meal. Her first meal was last night. It was about a teaspoon of banana mixed with copious amounts of breastmilk. And each bite resulted in the kind of face you would get from me if you fed me breastmilk. But seeing as that is her favorite food, I'm not sure why she was complaining. Annika hovered about the entire time, laughing hysterically at every face. This is cute at first, then you realize she's distracting the baby. Then it's annoying. Tonight I tried to remedy that by feeding Astrid while the rest of us (aka Annika) were occupied with our own meals.
I made some rice porridge by pulverizing brown rice in the food processor for 2 minutes and then simmering it in water. Then I mixed it with copious amounts of breastmilk (anybody seeing a pattern?). I was not hopeful. If she didn't like bananas, no way she'd like rice paste. This only goes to show you only make yourself look stupid when you try to predict what a baby will do. The rice went down much better than the bananas.
Still a lot of bitter beer face (if you're too young to get the reference, I'm not explaining it to you), but also some smiles. And a few porridge-filled raspberries blown. Awesome that she learned to blow raspberries the week before starting "solid" foods. As you can tell from my descriptions, "solid" is a total misnomer. Annika still hovered about distracting Astrid, so I put her to work and let her feed Astrid a spoonful. She managed to do this without choking her baby sister, so I'll let her do it again next time. Plus I got a cute picture out of it.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
One Reason My Husband Rocks
It really doesn't seem like that long ago I would be calling around to figure out where people were going out tonight. Yes, on a Wednesday. I went to school in Vegas. Something was going on every night. But in the exciting life I have created for myself since graduation, tonight will be spent reading a pile of papers because I took on a rush project at the last minute. You're totally jealous, right? I know. Livin' the dream.
In any event, the point is that I was short on time for dinner tonight. Due to an extremely high-maintenance four-year-old, I was also extremely short on patience. As soon as I got home, I plopped Annika in a bath, fed Astrid, and started dinner. I have to say, I am so happy we've reached the point where Annika can bathe by herself without constant supervision. The day we realized we could leave the bathroom without fear of her immediately drowning was a liberating day. I think some people recommend waiting until age five for unsupervised bath time, but the kid has been in swim lessons since 9 months old. Plus I know she's breathing (and thus not drowned) because she's always making noise - singing, bossing her toys around, or just making random sounds for amusement. And because our house is pretty small, I can hear her from the kitchen. So Annika bathed while I cooked.
No frills tonight. I made a Nigella chicken recipe that involves dousing chicken thighs with lemon juice and olive oil, sprinkling them with salt and pepper, and then baking for 30-40 minutes (longer if you use bone-in thighs). I also made the chard from the last post. While everything was cooking, I was able to get a little work done and then set the table. (At some point setting the table really needs to be Annika's job.) Magically, the kitchen cleaned itself while the food cooked! Okay, it wasn't magic, but it was pretty cool. My husband cleans. He cleans well. He cleans a heck of a lot more than I do. Counters, dishes, laundry, floors. And that is one of the reasons I'm able to work full time (often more than full time), take care of the kiddos, and still do family dinner. I would be remiss if I didn't give him some credit. There is no way I could cook every night if I also had to clean up after.
Swede grew up in (wait for it) Sweden, where they apparently don't teach their men that cleaning is a woman's work. Either that or his mom raised him differently. Either way, I am grateful. Without his willingness to pitch in, we'd be eating frozen pizza off paper plates at least three times a week (nutritionally and ecologically, that horrifies me). I figured that a couple days before Valentines Day was an appropriate time to give him the props he deserves.
Despite Annika's extreme whininess earlier in the day, dinner was fine. Annika inhaled her chicken before Swede even sat down at the table (he was back in the bedroom changing Astrid's diaper - nobody told him that was a job for mommies). Annika then skeptically examined her greens asking "what is this?" I excitedly said "chard" in the same way you would say "chips" or "donuts" hoping that might encourage her to eat a green leafy vegetable. After a couple bites, she declared it was delicious. That is what a little bit of butter and lemon juice can do for a veggie. There are very few things in life that can't be made better by butter and lemon.
Annika ate all the food on her plate long before Swede and I finished our food. Eyes shining, she looked around the table and said "dessert?" I offered her a popsicle. She asked for ice cream, knowing we have single-serving Ben & Jerry's in the freezer. I said no and like any four-year-old she wanted to know why. "Because mommy doesn't want to share her freezer stash" is not an appropriate answer, so I didn't know what to say. Swede rescued me by explaining ice cream is for the weekends (when she will either have forgotten them or they'll be gone). Annika happily accepted a popsicle, and then spelled popsicle when asked. My kid can spell desserts! I am so proud.
That's all for this week I suppose. Next week I'll be introducing Astrid to the exciting world of solid food and I'm sure I'll have a lot to write. In the mean time, I have some work to do.
In any event, the point is that I was short on time for dinner tonight. Due to an extremely high-maintenance four-year-old, I was also extremely short on patience. As soon as I got home, I plopped Annika in a bath, fed Astrid, and started dinner. I have to say, I am so happy we've reached the point where Annika can bathe by herself without constant supervision. The day we realized we could leave the bathroom without fear of her immediately drowning was a liberating day. I think some people recommend waiting until age five for unsupervised bath time, but the kid has been in swim lessons since 9 months old. Plus I know she's breathing (and thus not drowned) because she's always making noise - singing, bossing her toys around, or just making random sounds for amusement. And because our house is pretty small, I can hear her from the kitchen. So Annika bathed while I cooked.
No frills tonight. I made a Nigella chicken recipe that involves dousing chicken thighs with lemon juice and olive oil, sprinkling them with salt and pepper, and then baking for 30-40 minutes (longer if you use bone-in thighs). I also made the chard from the last post. While everything was cooking, I was able to get a little work done and then set the table. (At some point setting the table really needs to be Annika's job.) Magically, the kitchen cleaned itself while the food cooked! Okay, it wasn't magic, but it was pretty cool. My husband cleans. He cleans well. He cleans a heck of a lot more than I do. Counters, dishes, laundry, floors. And that is one of the reasons I'm able to work full time (often more than full time), take care of the kiddos, and still do family dinner. I would be remiss if I didn't give him some credit. There is no way I could cook every night if I also had to clean up after.
Swede grew up in (wait for it) Sweden, where they apparently don't teach their men that cleaning is a woman's work. Either that or his mom raised him differently. Either way, I am grateful. Without his willingness to pitch in, we'd be eating frozen pizza off paper plates at least three times a week (nutritionally and ecologically, that horrifies me). I figured that a couple days before Valentines Day was an appropriate time to give him the props he deserves.
Despite Annika's extreme whininess earlier in the day, dinner was fine. Annika inhaled her chicken before Swede even sat down at the table (he was back in the bedroom changing Astrid's diaper - nobody told him that was a job for mommies). Annika then skeptically examined her greens asking "what is this?" I excitedly said "chard" in the same way you would say "chips" or "donuts" hoping that might encourage her to eat a green leafy vegetable. After a couple bites, she declared it was delicious. That is what a little bit of butter and lemon juice can do for a veggie. There are very few things in life that can't be made better by butter and lemon.
Annika ate all the food on her plate long before Swede and I finished our food. Eyes shining, she looked around the table and said "dessert?" I offered her a popsicle. She asked for ice cream, knowing we have single-serving Ben & Jerry's in the freezer. I said no and like any four-year-old she wanted to know why. "Because mommy doesn't want to share her freezer stash" is not an appropriate answer, so I didn't know what to say. Swede rescued me by explaining ice cream is for the weekends (when she will either have forgotten them or they'll be gone). Annika happily accepted a popsicle, and then spelled popsicle when asked. My kid can spell desserts! I am so proud.
That's all for this week I suppose. Next week I'll be introducing Astrid to the exciting world of solid food and I'm sure I'll have a lot to write. In the mean time, I have some work to do.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
E-Recipes
I love my iPhone. I had a brief flirtation with the iPhone when it first came out, but it did not work with my e-mail server. So I had to settle for a Blackberry for years. That all ended when my employer announced late in 2010 that the iPhone would now sync with our work e-mail. Just after Christmas, I ordered the iPhone 4. I got it refurbished for only $99. So what if I had to sell my soul to AT&T for another two years.
What does this have to do with family dinner? Apps. I immediately downloaded Facebook, Sparkpeople (to track diet and exercise), Snooth (wine), and Beat the Traffic. (I'm not sure what this says about me and my priorities. I'm sure Freud would have a heyday analyzing what people put on their phones.) That sated me for awhile, but there had to be more. Electronic recipes, of course! I've been using the internet for recipes for awhile now. I particularly like http://www.foodnetwork.com/, http://www.allrecipes.com/, and http://www.vegweb.com/. I have been absolutely thrilled with user ratings (to tell if something is good) and user comments (that often contain suggestions to make it better).
There are countless recipe apps. I chose Whole Foods Recipes because I shop there, can easily find the ingredients, and trust Whole Foods to consult with foodies for recipes. I also chose Allrecipes. There is a cool feature that will randomly select a recipe for you. I am too picky for that, so I upgraded from the free version to the $2.99 version so I could have more advanced search options and a virtual recipe box to store the recipes I like. Allrecipes shows user comments and ratings which is key if you don't trust the person providing the recipe. I trust Peter Berley and Nigella Lawson. I'm giving Whole Foods the benefit of the doubt. Will all others, I am skeptical and need user feedback.
Around the same time I got the iPhone, I got a Kindle. It took me awhile to come to terms reading "books" without books. I love slowly turning the pages on a lazy Saturday afternoon (to the extent I have them anymore, which is rare). But the Kindle is surprisingly awesome. On the recommendation of my friend Amy, I downloaded Hungry Monkey by Matthew Amster-Burton. It is a "A Food-Loving Father's Quest to Raise an Adventurous Eater." The daughter he is trying to turn into a foodie is the same age as Annika. I relate to his humorous anecdotes. But more importantly, there are mouthwatering recipes in every chapter. The Kindle makes it super-easy to bookmark recipes that look interesting. It is the virtual equivalent of a sticky note, but it doesn't come off so easily when you throw the book in your purse, briefcase, or cupboard. I am tempted to purchase a real cookbook on my Kindle and would love to hear the experiences of anyone who has done that. It is tough. In addition to the superior pictures in paper books, there is something about a spattered and battered cookbook that makes me sentimental.
Tonight, all of our recipes were e-recipes. From Hungry Monkey, I made parsnips and chard. For the parsnips I quartered them, coated them in olive oil, salt, and pepper, and roasted them in a 425-degree oven for about 15 minutes. They were slightly crisp on the outside and mushy on the inside. They were sort of like home-made french fries, but with that distinct sweet parsnip taste. Definite thumbs up.
For the chard, I roughly chopped the leaves from two bunches (as long as I'm proclaiming my love of inanimate objects, I should give a shout out to my new food processor that has a slicing function, making this very quick and easy). Then I melted 1.5 tablespoons each of butter and olive oil in my wok. When the butter/oil were hot, I tossed in the chard and sauteed with two minced cloves of garlic. When it was nice and wilted, I stirred in a tablespoon of lemon juice. The tart lemon makes salt completely unnecessary. And the butter/oil proved that even the scariest vegetable can be made appetizing by cooking it in a bit of fat. Don't feel guilty. Fat helps your body absorb the vitamins and minerals in the veggies. Fat is practically health food.
I also made baked barramundi with lime, salt and pepper (the recipe calls for tilapia, but I had barramundi).
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/bobbys-baked-tilapia-recipe/index.html
The fish was very mild, which allowed the lime to shine through. The subtle seasoning would not work for a stronger fish like salmon.
Annika took an unscheduled nap before dinner and was super out of it when we sat down to eat. When I passed her the water pitcher she tried to drink out of it instead of pouring herself a glass. Uh oh. Sleepy four year olds are volatile. And staring her in the face was half a plate of greens. The recipes proved kid-compatible, though. She ate the fish and parsnips readily and the chard only took mild coaxing. She ate it all with no complaints, no fights, no threats to take away her DVD player. I think I have to add Hungry Monkey to my list of trusted recipe sources.
What does this have to do with family dinner? Apps. I immediately downloaded Facebook, Sparkpeople (to track diet and exercise), Snooth (wine), and Beat the Traffic. (I'm not sure what this says about me and my priorities. I'm sure Freud would have a heyday analyzing what people put on their phones.) That sated me for awhile, but there had to be more. Electronic recipes, of course! I've been using the internet for recipes for awhile now. I particularly like http://www.foodnetwork.com/, http://www.allrecipes.com/, and http://www.vegweb.com/. I have been absolutely thrilled with user ratings (to tell if something is good) and user comments (that often contain suggestions to make it better).
There are countless recipe apps. I chose Whole Foods Recipes because I shop there, can easily find the ingredients, and trust Whole Foods to consult with foodies for recipes. I also chose Allrecipes. There is a cool feature that will randomly select a recipe for you. I am too picky for that, so I upgraded from the free version to the $2.99 version so I could have more advanced search options and a virtual recipe box to store the recipes I like. Allrecipes shows user comments and ratings which is key if you don't trust the person providing the recipe. I trust Peter Berley and Nigella Lawson. I'm giving Whole Foods the benefit of the doubt. Will all others, I am skeptical and need user feedback.
Around the same time I got the iPhone, I got a Kindle. It took me awhile to come to terms reading "books" without books. I love slowly turning the pages on a lazy Saturday afternoon (to the extent I have them anymore, which is rare). But the Kindle is surprisingly awesome. On the recommendation of my friend Amy, I downloaded Hungry Monkey by Matthew Amster-Burton. It is a "A Food-Loving Father's Quest to Raise an Adventurous Eater." The daughter he is trying to turn into a foodie is the same age as Annika. I relate to his humorous anecdotes. But more importantly, there are mouthwatering recipes in every chapter. The Kindle makes it super-easy to bookmark recipes that look interesting. It is the virtual equivalent of a sticky note, but it doesn't come off so easily when you throw the book in your purse, briefcase, or cupboard. I am tempted to purchase a real cookbook on my Kindle and would love to hear the experiences of anyone who has done that. It is tough. In addition to the superior pictures in paper books, there is something about a spattered and battered cookbook that makes me sentimental.
Tonight, all of our recipes were e-recipes. From Hungry Monkey, I made parsnips and chard. For the parsnips I quartered them, coated them in olive oil, salt, and pepper, and roasted them in a 425-degree oven for about 15 minutes. They were slightly crisp on the outside and mushy on the inside. They were sort of like home-made french fries, but with that distinct sweet parsnip taste. Definite thumbs up.
For the chard, I roughly chopped the leaves from two bunches (as long as I'm proclaiming my love of inanimate objects, I should give a shout out to my new food processor that has a slicing function, making this very quick and easy). Then I melted 1.5 tablespoons each of butter and olive oil in my wok. When the butter/oil were hot, I tossed in the chard and sauteed with two minced cloves of garlic. When it was nice and wilted, I stirred in a tablespoon of lemon juice. The tart lemon makes salt completely unnecessary. And the butter/oil proved that even the scariest vegetable can be made appetizing by cooking it in a bit of fat. Don't feel guilty. Fat helps your body absorb the vitamins and minerals in the veggies. Fat is practically health food.
I also made baked barramundi with lime, salt and pepper (the recipe calls for tilapia, but I had barramundi).
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/bobbys-baked-tilapia-recipe/index.html
The fish was very mild, which allowed the lime to shine through. The subtle seasoning would not work for a stronger fish like salmon.
Annika took an unscheduled nap before dinner and was super out of it when we sat down to eat. When I passed her the water pitcher she tried to drink out of it instead of pouring herself a glass. Uh oh. Sleepy four year olds are volatile. And staring her in the face was half a plate of greens. The recipes proved kid-compatible, though. She ate the fish and parsnips readily and the chard only took mild coaxing. She ate it all with no complaints, no fights, no threats to take away her DVD player. I think I have to add Hungry Monkey to my list of trusted recipe sources.
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