Lamb Soup

I had some leftover roasted lamb from the other day so I wanted to make it into some soup.  Turned out delicious, if a bit spicy.  Looks like my dad will be eating this one ;)

Lamb Soup

Equal amounts of chopped celery, carrots, onions - approximately 2-3 cups each

minced fresh sage

minced fresh rosemary

1/2 bulb garlic, minced

approx 4 cups of diced lamb

4 cups red potatoes, chopped

3 tomatoes, chopped

bone broth from previously made stock and saved broth from roasts

1 bunch of kale, chopped

Siracha sauce, kosher salt

Saute the mirepoix and garlic in a bit of bacon fat for a few minutes and then add the sage and rosemary.  Saute for a few more minutes and then add the remaining ingredients, minus the kale, and simmer till potatoes are tender. While soup is simmering, add a bit of freshly cracked pepper and kosher salt.  Toss in the kale at the end and wilt; add siracha sauce to taste.  I accidentally overdosed the sauce and it's still delicious, but too hot for my tastebuds!  Thicken with a cornstarch slurry if you like it a bit thicker; or leave it brothy.  

I made a white bean soup as well with the seasonings of anise, thyme and bay leaf.  

Black Bean Soup and Cranberry Scones

2 lbs of black beans, soaked 24 hours

1/3 cup bacon fat

6 sm. to med. onions, diced

1 bunch celery, diced

equal amount of carrots, diced

3 bay leaves

2 tsp chile powder

2 tsp annato, ground

2 tsp ground thyme

1-2 tbsp ground cumin

1/2 lb. diced ham

several swirls of molasses

6 cubes chipotle bouillon 

home made chicken stock

canned chicken stock

juice and fat from breakfast sausage

Cook till tender and mash with a blender in the pot.  Served with cornbread muffins and garnish with cilantro, cheese and greek yogurt.  The amounts are approximate on most items...I didn't really measure.  The soup didn't need salt or pepper because of the salt from the other ingredients. The molasses really mellowed the soup; I blended it in the pot with a hand blender when it was finished.  

 Amelia and her little friends making cranberry scone dough with me. 

Oatmeal a Million Ways

We love oatmeal in our family.   It's sort of like the pasta of the breakfast world - you can throw all kinds of things in it to make it tasty and fun.   I'm trying to clean out our freezer before we move this summer, so this morning a new concoction with strawberries, coconut and almonds found its way into the cereal bowls with much success.

My basic recipe is this:
1 cup thick rolled oats (Bob's Red Mill is what I use)
2 cup water (filtered if I remember)
shake or two of kosher or sea salt
1 tsp roasted Saigon cinnamon
1 tbsp dark brown sugar

The only thing I usually measure is the oats and water; the rest I generally shake in so the measurements are approximate.  I've measured a few times and written it down so I could post it, but I keep losing the bits of paper so here it is.  We like A.LOT. of cinnamon - both because it's good for you and it's tastiness helps negate the need for some of the sugar.  I like dark brown sugar for the molasses content and the added dimension of flavor.  Don't skimp on the cinnamon.

This morning I just threw in some berries, coconut and almond and stirred it in.  If I had time, I would have toasted the berries and almonds for more flavor, but who am I kidding?  I'll never have that kind of time.

Strawberry Coconut Smoothie

I had an opportunity to teach a Gluten Free Cooking class last week for the EFMP here on base.  It was really enjoyable.  I had forgotten how much I like teaching cooking classes and interacting with people who want to learn how to cook or learn more about how food works.  While I'll never work in a restaurant as a professional Chef again, this is a way to do one of my favorite parts of that job -  teaching Chef Apprentices.

For the demo, we made Gluten Free Pina Colada Pancakes.  The ingredients were a bit expensive, but the blow was softened by buying everything but the coconut sugar at the commissary.  I found the price literally doubled out in town for the specialty ingredients.  Yikes.  I had two of them and couldn't believe how long I stayed full.  I didn't have any pineapple crunchies so I subbed dried mango, papaya and pineapple instead.

I had some leftover coconut milk after the class, so I cooked it with some strawberries that we picked from Dempsey's Farm, water and fresh lime juice.  I pureed it and let it cool.  I noticed it doesn't separate like most smoothies I make after it sits for a while, so I really liked that.  Very, very filling.  Perfect texture for Olivia to drink as well, without worrying about spilling because it is moving too fast.

Here is the approximate recipe:

Coconut Strawberry Smoothie
8 - 12 cups quartered fresh strawberries
1.5 cans of coconut milk, canned
1.5 cans water
1 lime juiced
1 tbsp brown sugar

• Simmer in Le Creuset or other heavy bottomed pan till berries are cooked.  Puree, chill.

I think this might have been really good with some of the roasted saigon cinnamon I have.  I'm guessing on the amount of water because I actually added it to cover the strawberries.

Pulled Pork Taco Meat

Last week at our home group bible study, Charlie mentioned the best way to make pork for tacos.  The next day pork shoulder was on sale for 1.19 so I took it as a sign from God to make pulled pork.  ;)

I tried to remember what he said, but I'm sure I forgot a few steps.  I didn't have a slow cooker so as required, so I just put it in a Le Creuset pot and put it in my oven for about 5 hours on low instead while I ran appointments and errands.  Came back, pulled it out, saved the liquid and shredded the meat (got rid of all the fat).  Put it back in the pot with liquid, 2 jars of salsa plus some salsa we had made, tons of cumin, a finely minced onion and one whole bulb (not clove) of garlic, minced.  Along with some salt, stirred it all up and put it back in the oven for another hour or so.  It turned out great, but a tiny bit liquid-y (yes, I know) when we put it on tortillas.  Fabulous none the less.

Again, everyone liked it but Amelia.  She had a small bite of the meat and ended up eating fruit and cheese.

Soup in a hurry

I haven't felt much like cooking lately, although in my mind I'm busy cooking fabulous food all the time.  But when it comes right down to it, I usually have about 20 minutes to get it all going at the end of the day with the way our appointments have gone lately.

Saturday I meant to cook something really complicated and delicious but felt too tired and lazy to do it. So when I realized that dinner was about 20 minutes away, AGAIN, and Rafe was outside flying a  kite with Amelia, I figured I'd better do something fast.  Plus Olivia was looking at me with her sad mouth turned down, saying "ee ee ee" and signing "eat".

So I took 1/2# hamburger out of the freezer and thawed it in the microwave.  I don't normally do that so I had to guess at what level to put it on and for how long.   Then pulled out my trusty Le Creuset pot, sauteed some onions and celery on super high heat, threw the meat in and browned it.  While it was browning, I just opened up a can of tomatoes and some corn and tossed it in along with some seasonings.  Stirred it and added couple of cans of chicken stock. Brought it to a boil and thickened it with a can of refried beans.  Turned out to be a big hit with Rafe and Olivia; not so much with Amelia.  I think she ended up eating a cheese stick.  I sprinkled a bunch of crushed tortilla chips on mine.  Delish.

Best of all, it was finished by the time they came into the house.

1 tbsp oil
2 sm/med yellow onions, minced
2 stalks celery, minced
1/2# ground beef, super lean.  (I think my package said 97% or something like that)
1 can corn niblets
1 can fire roasted tomatoes, diced
1 can refried beans with jalapeno and lime
2 cans chicken stock
kosher salt
tons of McCormick garlic pepper
chili powder
tons of cumin

Saute, add stuff, bring to a boil; eat with chips

Beans and Cornbread

Yesterday I decided to take a more proactive approach to family dinner and get back to meal planning again.  Rafe will eat just about anything, but the main reason I wanted to do it was for Amelia.  She isn't a big fan of not knowing what is for dinner.  I think she feels frustrated overall because it's her perception we never have anything she likes to eat, although she tells everyone that "Mama is a good cooker!".

I took out Rachel Ray's cookbook for kids, the Double Delicious cookbook by Jessica Seinfeld, and one of Martha Stewart's Everyday Food mags for them to look through and point out the pictures of food they wanted to try.  First off, RR didn't have pics and a lot of the food didn't seem that appetizing to me, so there were few takers on that one.  They found a lot in the other two they liked, including quinoa for breakfast (YEAH!).  But somewhere in the family planning session talking about favorite meals, Rafe told me what he'd really like to eat would be beans. Specifically, his dad's beans and cornbread.  His other favorite meal would be tbone steak, creamed corn, mashed potatoes and gravy and raw sliced onion.

Beans.

If I'd known this 10 years ago, I could have saved myself a lot of rushing around on busy nights making dinner!  Although once he told me he liked to eat raw onions with it as well, I was sort of glad when I thought about that combination coming back to haunt us later.

So for dinner that night he got the T-bone dinner (seasoned with smoked paprika, kosher salt, steak seasoning with fennel and garlic) with all the trimmings.

But today, apparently, was the bomb.  I made beans, sausage and cornbread.   Using nothing from scratch and it was the hands down favorite.  Good to know!

1 28oz can maple baked beans
1 15oz can pinto beans
1 slice leftover overcooked bacon, crumbled up to get rid of it in the beans
1 lb all beef smoked sausage, cut in half moon slices
Heat to simmering.

1 package of Betty Crocker cornbread mix
(which isn't that good by the way unless you eat it immediately, and very crumbly... I like my recipe better0
I subbed bacon grease and some leftover garlic butter for the butter in the cornbread recipe because I didn't feel like melting my good butter for the cornbread.
Cooked in cast iron skillet

1 sweet onion, diced and served on the side raw
 Mix in your beans right before eating.


Now we're all smelling fabulous and Rafe is taking Amelia to a blues concert.  Easy Sunday :)

Steak Sandwich Wrap

Rafe works just a few blocks from where we live on Parris Island.  It has been one of the greatest blessings of our stay here.  He used to work at the Air Station, but I like this so much better.  He is home for breakfast with us in the mornings and home in time for dinner at night.  He also comes home for lunch, which is mostly fun for me to get creative with lunches sometimes since he is so willing to eat whatever I make.

This recipe is adapted from a Martha Stewart recipe from Everyday Food.  I didn't have all the ingredients so I subbed with what I had. Her recipe is the original and my subs are in parenthesis.

Steak Wrap

6 slices bacon (subbed 6 tbsp crumbled bacon bits)

1/2 cup low fat plain Greek yogurt (subbed Stonyfield Farm low fat plain yogurt)

1 oz Parmesan grated (1/2 cup cheap parmesan in a can)

coarse salt (forgot to use it)

2 pieces lavosh flatbread or sandwich wrap (used Aladdin Bakes thin plain wraps)

4 tsp Dijon mustard

1 reserved cooked steak, thinly sliced (not sure how much I used, probably about 4-6 oz)

1/2 small red onion, thinly sliced (4 tbsp thinly sliced scallion, white parts)

1 cup baby arugula (2+ cups baby arugula)

The original recipe calls for mixing the yogurt and parm and layering the rest of the ingredients on two pieces of flatbread.  I really didn't feel like going to all that trouble; so I just mixed the parmesan, yogurt, bacon and scallion together and made a spread.  If I had to do it over again, I would throw in the dijon to the spread as well.  I just forgot to until I had already started making the sandwich layers.  So the end result.... just spread the mixture, layer with meat/arugula/meat/arugula and wrap.  I measured it and spread 4 tbsp on each wrap and had enough spread for 4 wraps.  Eat.  It makes a huge sandwich.  We could easily have split it (we're trying to eat smaller portions).  However, we did not and 3 hours later I'm still full.  

The reason I layered meat and arugula twice is that I think it made a better mouth full than just a chunk of meat and a chunk of arugula in a bite.  Either way works though.

Leftovers - Roast Beef Bowl

Obviously with a 5 lb prime rib and only 2 adults eating it in the house, we had plenty of leftovers.  I also had some leftover caramelized onions so I made a roast beef bowl out of those and today I made a steak wrap.

Roast Beef Bowl

• layer of mashed potatoes
• layer of caramelized onion
• smaller round layer of chunked prime rib
• gravy poured over the top

So simple (and kind of obvious) but delicious in a bowl reheated in the microwave.  I figured I could make more of those and freeze them if I froze the ingredients separately from one another on the bowl/plate I was freezing them in.  The gravy and meat can be frozen together.  You can pull the frozen bowl the night before to slow thaw in the fridge before reheating.  If you are doing it this way, you might want to actually make much thicker gravy than normal, since the thawing/reheating cycle from frozen will cause the ingredients to release more liquids.  That way your gravy will still be thick.

Rare Prime Rib

About a month ago, prime rib was on sale at the commissary for 5.99/lb.  I don't think I've ever made one at home and I thought it would be a nice treat to make for Rafe.  So I picked it up and put in the fridge, thinking I would find time to make it that week.   Never happened.  A couple of weeks went by and our afternoon schedules generally prevented me from making the prime rib for dinner in the normal way (350 degrees, 20 min. per pound).  At that rate, it was never going to get cooked!  Luckily, it was in cryovac, so the wait really didn't hurt the meat at all.

One day I just decided to go ahead and cook it, working around the afternoon schedule of doctor's appointments and school pick ups outside the house.  I took it out of the package, rinsed it quickly, threw it in a 2" half hotel pan, and liberally covered it with California garlic pepper and some kosher salt.  I threw the whole thing in a cold oven, turned the oven on to 270 degrees and left the house.  When we came back 3 hours later, I pulled it out of the oven and let it rest while I made mashed potatoes, gravy and the veggies for dinner.  The bonus to doing it this way (low and slow) was that rather than having the outside cooked well or mid well and the inside mid-rare as is the norm, it was a lovely rare to medium rare the entire way through.  One of the most perfectly cooked prime rib I've ever made.  My oven runs cold, which is why I cooked it at 270 vs. 250.  If it worked well, I'd probably do it at 250.  This was a 5lb prime rib, so at that temp instead of 20 minutes per pound cook time, I used roughly 35 minutes per pound.

Soup for a cold day...

We're big fans of soup in this house.  Today was unexpectedly cold and I was able to put together a soup from ingredients hanging out in the house and it hit the spot.  I'm also trying to use up all of our pantry and freezer ingredients in preparation for our move this summer.  I have to document everything we feed Livi exactly for one week for a study she's in, so I thought I would get back in the habit of writing recipes for the food I make.  It will help when Rafe asks me to make it again - for once I can accommodate him!  This soup ended up being much more spicy than I anticipated, so the Mia had a cheese quesadilla and Livi ended up with a peanut butter, honey, cinnamon sandwich on cranberry bread.  I always told myself that I would not be a short order cook for my kids, yet somehow I ended up exactly that.  Ugh.

Andouille, Fennel and Leek Soup
1 tbsp oil
1 yellow onion, medium diced
1 leek, diced and rinsed
1 fennel bulb, cleaned and diced (including stalk but not the fronds)

• Heat oil to almost smoke point in a heavy pot (I used my Le Creuset pot again).  Toss in the onions, fennel and leek and let sit till they are slightly caramelized (with color on them) and stir.  Continue to let sit for a bit and then stir until the vegetables just begin to get shiny. 

1 bulb (approximately 17-20 cloves) garlic, minced

• Add the garlic and stir.  Cook for 2-3 minutes more.

1 lb. andouille sausage, diced (I used Smithfield, nothing fancy)
2 Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and diced
1 Idaho potato, peeled and diced
1 (14 oz) can turnip greens with juice (seasoned Southern style)
2 Turkish bay leaves
1/4 tsp caraway seed
8 cups chicken stock (I used some saved from a roasted chicken, some from a can and the rest from a paper box)

• Add remaining ingredients and bring to a boil.  Simmer on very low for one hour.  Serve with crusty bread.

Hoppin' John - This year I'm making my own good luck!

A traditional Southern food for New Year's Day is Hoppin' John, collard greens and cornbread.  The foods are supposed to bring good luck in the New Year - beans representing coins, greens representing paper money and cornbread representing gold.  It's usually made with ham hocks, beans and rice with a bit of salt.

The leftovers are called Skippin' Jenny.  No clue as to why.  :)

Many years ago I worked as a Sous Chef at a restaurant in Kansas City called Cafe Allegro.  The Chef at the time (Sue Dubowski)  is one of the best chefs I have ever worked with - her knowledge and abilities were incredible.  I could never be half as creative as the Chefs I worked with, but I always felt blessed to be able to work under them.  She created a dish that went on the menu that I still think about to this day - Fried Soft Shelled Crab with Hoppin' John.  Her version is the best I've ever tasted.  The recipe below is as close to that as I can come.  I remember making it one night and asking one of the waiters there, who had lived in the south, to taste it as I was making it.  I added and adjusted according to his suggestions.  This isn't entirely authentic to what I made that night, but it is pretty close!  Below is what I cooked up yesterday; probably not quite the same as all those years ago.  In that restaurant, everything was cooked from scratch so the peas were cooked from dry and we used ham hocks and white rice, among other small changes.  With 2 kids and a busy holiday season, I just pulled from my pantry.  I made a roasted chicken and gave some away to a new mom down the street and we had ours with baked tilapia sprinkled with Paul Prudhomme's seafood seasoning.  Rafe loves this - I got an unqualified, "I wouldn't mind having this again" from him.  He's a guy who will eat anything I make but has just a few favorites.

I usually serve it with lemons and scallions for garnish, which is definitely not traditional.  The lemon really brightens up the flavor of the beans when squeezed over the top.

Hoppin' John
3-4 stalks celery, medium small dice
2 med. onions, medium small dice
1/5 bulb (about 6-7 very large cloves) garlic, minced or crushed
1/2 cup minced ham (or any smoky/salty meat - ham hock, andouille, bacon, smoked turkey, etc)
vegetable oil
Heat oil in heavy pan (I used a Le Creuset big pot) on high just till it begins smoking.  Add the celery and onions and let sit briefly to get color on the onions and celery, then stir.  Turn heat down and let sit for a minute or two each time between stirring - not enough to burn the celery and onion, but to start to give it some color and flavor.  When the celery and onions first begin to get a little tender and brighter in color, add the ham and garlic and stir.  Continue cooking till the flavor of the garlic has bloomed.

cooked brown rice
2 cans (15 oz each) black eyed peas
cayenne pepper
When the garlic has bloomed, add the peas and cooked rice.  Sprinkle lightly with cayenne.  Stir gently and simmer till rice has finished cooking.  Add more chicken stock as needed.  The end result should be thick and sludgy like, with beans intact for the most part.  Season to taste.  Serve with lemons on side and scallions sprinkled over the top.

Cooked Rice
1 cup brown rice
2 bay leaves
2 tbsp (approx) dried minced onion
2 cups chicken stock
kosher salt to taste
Cook in rice cooker till almost finished, but still slightly under done.  Add to pot of beans to finish cooking.

Mediterranean Fish Stew with Shrimp and Cod

1 tbsp olive oil
2 onions, peeled and medium diced
1 bulb garlic, peeled and rough sliced
1 cup celery, medium diced
1/8 tsp fennel or anise seed

4 tbsp tomato paste
2 cans diced tomato plus juice

dry sherry
shrimp stock (see recipe)  OR other seafood stock, including clam juice
oregano
1 very large pinch saffron threads
2 oranges, juiced
kosher salt

cod, diced
shrimp, peeled and deveined
parsley, chopped (opt)

chile garlic paste (optional)

Breakfast Eggs

I had a Japanese sweet potato hanging out on the counter that I bought on a whim the other day.  This morning, I was trying to think of what to make Rafe for breakfast (we were out of almost everything) and thought to throw together some things I had laying around. 

I roasted the sweet potato, cut it in slices and layed it randomly in a teflon omelette pan (super heated with oil and a touch of browned butter).  In between the slices, I sprinkled chunks of cooked chorizo sausage and topped that with some caramelized onions leftover from last night's dinner and seasoned with kosher salt and garlic pepper.

  I put the whole pan in the oven for a few minutes till the onions were hot, then sprinkled it with a chiffonade of fresh spinach.  I heated the spinach up in the oven for another minute, then poured 2 cracked eggs over the top and back in the oven it went!  Once the whites were set, I took it out and slid the whole thing onto a plate. 

The eggs are amazing, by the way.  We buy them from a local military family who raises their own chickens naturally.  They deliver to our door for $3 per dozen.  The eggs are extra large and the calcium in these eggs is so high the shells are actually hard to crack!  Much thicker than normal eggs.  The yolks are brilliant orange. 

Anyway, it came out as one of the most delicious tasting breakfast we've had in a while.  The sweetness of the caramelized onion and potato mixed with the spicy chorizo and spinach were great.  It was almost too sweet - I might like to try this again with just regular sauteed onions and not caramelized, even though I never add sugar to the caramelized onions anyway - it's just naturally sweet.  I think the balance of flavors would be slightly better. 

Rising Kindergartener

Amelia goes to a Montessori school where she's in a class with 3-6 year olds.  At any given time in class, there are children quietly working away on math, art, history, geography, napping, reading, eating snack.  They work on an individual rug that is about the size of your standard outside door mat.  After they finish each work, they take it back to the shelf they picked it out from and go get another work to set on their mats.  They stay away from each other's mats, or work together on a project.  It's all very quiet and very productive. 

There are "works" available for each stage of development, and the children choose what they work on.  Amelia has been fascinated with being one of the kindergarteners since she saw them graduate on stage last year.  In her class, she can actually do kinder work if she chooses it.

Tonight they had a meeting for parents of rising kindergarteners for questions, and I found out that while she could choose the work now, she hasn't been.  She has stuck with the work that is the precurser for the more advanced work.  When I asked her why she hasn't tried something new, she told me that it was for the kindergarteners, not her!  I had no idea that she got that idea in her head. 

So on the way home tonight, I told her the meeting was to tell us that she could now do all the kindergartener's work and you would have thought I handed her the best present ever.  She was so excited and wanted to turn around and go back to school to do her work.  At home, she was jumping around and telling Grandma all about being able to do that more advanced work now.  I'm excited to see what happens with her.  I can't believe she was holding herself back!

On another (food related) note... I made a griddled sandwich for dinner tonight using Rudi's Rosemary bread.  Sliced a bunch of brisket I had made and frozen in chunks a while back, layered it on the sandwich with some horseradish cheddar and horseradish sauce and griddled the whole thing.  It was so good!  I had some Frogmore Stew for lunch.  All of this is still eating out of my freezer and pantry.  I have a long way to go to empty out all of it.

Before and After

The house smells so good every time I walk into it today - garlic, onions, bacon - too bad none of it was for us!  I often volunteer to cook meals for people who need them.  I'm on a committee at our church and also for the base I live on to deliver fresh, hot meals.  When our church does Family Promise, I volunteer for a shift and cook for them also.  I'm often making a bit extra and handing it out to whomever is stopping by that day - Sunday when I made corn chowder, we invited a friend of Mia's over to play and they stayed for dinner.  Sometimes its my friends, and sometimes it's the excellent therapists that end up walking away with a bite or two of some goodie.

Today I made a meal for a beautiful woman who has cared for Amelia and other children during church services.  I really wanted to be able to give back to her during a time of need.  I made sweet cornbread, collard greens, and more beans and sausage to drop off.  I never thought I would like collard greens.  I've had them a time or two and they just seemed so bland to me.  But it turns out with enough bacon and onions, along with a touch of garlic, anything tastes scrumptious.  I sweat those items first, then jammed the greens into the pot on top.  Sprinkle kosher salt, cracked pepper, and sugar and put the lid on to let them cook away.  I think most people add a bit of stock but the lid was heavy and they had their own liquid.  They probably would have tasted good with a bit of heat and some acid - like maybe some cayenne or red pepper flakes, very subtle; or garnished afterwards with a shake or two of tabasco and/or vinegar.

I also cooked up some pears for Olivia and hummus for home group (bible studies in someone's home).  I made another dip for home group tonight out of stuff hanging out in my fridge.  2 blocks of cream cheese, big handful of sun dried tomatoes, a jar of feta in oil (minus the oil), 2 garlic cloves, a tiny glad container (about 1/4 cup) of pureed basil from my garden a while ago, 4-5 black olives that were left over from a salad the other night.  It turned out great.  I think it would also make a great stuffing for chicken; or with some roasted red peppers and fresh spinach spread on a hot crepe and folded for a "crepe sandwich" would be YUM.

Every time I cook now, I think of Olivia.  Every.Single.Time.  It's an awareness I wish I didn't have; sort of like the first time you found out there wasn't Santa Claus.  I think to myself...  Does this have too many carbs?  How many calories are in this dish?  How can I keep the flavor and lose the calories? 

Will this be the last time I cook this?

No, actually it feels more like the way the world changed September 11, 2001. 

The world no longer felt as safe, happy and innocent as it had just seconds before, with the sick feeling that nothing would ever be the same again.  It's how my world changed when we got the PWS diagnosis.

Baby Food

I am kicking myself for not making Amelia's baby food when she was ready for it.  I'm trying to remember now why I didn't; and I think it was a combination of things. 

She was my first baby, and I was SO particular about everything.  Rafe was still deployed; I was still working until she was 9 months old (she was in a daycare right down the hall from where I worked, so I still nursed her); I was tired basically being a single parent; I wanted her to have only organic foods, especially dairy.  As a matter of fact, she's only a few months ago had her first regular milk that wasn't organic.  I totally jinxed myself - she could taste the difference and stopped drinking milk.  She didn't even see the carton, she just told me the milk tasted funny and she didn't like it.  I finally had to switch back.

Since I was the only one who needed "real" food, I hardly ever cooked at home.  I just ate mostly fresh fruits and veggies and the food I cooked at work.  I bought Amelia's food, but the range of organic foods was limited in the area we lived in.  She never liked the taste of meat unless it was some concoction that had brown rice, beef and peas in it.  I don't blame her, I've tasted meat baby food and it's awful. 

The bottom line is that I didn't give her quite the variety of foods I should have when she was a baby.  I wanted to make her food, but for some reason I had it in my head that it was this arduous process with precise recipes.  HA!  I was so wrong. 

So now I am making Livie's food and having so much fun doing it.  It's so much easier than I ever thought.  For the most part, I just cook really good meals and then puree parts of them.  I've also recently bought some things just to make her different combinations of fruits and veggies.  I've been using my handy dandy ice cube trays (love those things!) for freezing them.  I freeze for a couple of hours, pop the cubes out and put in labeled freezer zip loc bags and fill them up again. 

One thing I've realized is how much I have been getting ripped off buying baby food.  To get that nice thin consistency that baby food stage 1 comes in, you add a lot of water to a small amount of puree. 

So far we've done:
Plaza III Soup
Beef Stew with Mushrooms
Garlic Roasted Chicken (added a bit of stock to this)
BBQ Smoked Turkey (the real smoked whole turkey, also added a bit of stock to this with the bbq sauce)
Pumpkin Applesauce (used up a bunch of apples hanging around and our Halloween decoration pumpkin)
3 Apple Sauce
Sweet Potato with Cinnamon
Butternut Squash
Peas
Roasted Root Vegetables (turnips, parsnips, rutabagas, carrots, celery, onion, herbs)
Corn, Peas, Carrots
Beans

I bought some carrots and parsnips and tomorrow I'm going to roast and puree them; pears were on sale so I'm roasting those; maybe some chicken and leeks I've got hanging around in my veggie drawer and needs to be used; cauliflower; collard greens; black eye peas and rice;  I might do something with spinach and potatoes...I think I might have some brown rice in the pantry.  I might even throw in some wheat germ or flax seed into some of the mixes. 

I've decided to cheat a little and look on baby food websites to get ideas of combinations also.  I don't bother with a recipe, just the main ingredients (like Sprout, Jack's Harvest, Happy Baby, etc)
It's so much easier than I ever thought.  Just cook, throw in food processor, blend.  Add liquid as/if needed.  Freeze.  That's the whole recipe right there.

NUMMY!

(My pot of ragu cooking away)

I know you aren't really supposed to talk baby-talk to kids, but I love the way Amelia says yummy when she likes something she eats... "nummmmy, mommay!" It's better than any 4-star review I ever had as a restaurant Chef! :)

Today we had a spicy grilled cheese sandwich with apples at lunch that won a Nummy award from my peanut gallery. I made it with 12 grain bread, 2 slices american cheese and 1 slice jalapeno cheese, with very thin slices of peeled apple evenly across the sandwich (in between the cheeses). Then cook as you would a normal grilled cheese sandwich! They were delicious and a bit spicy. I was surprized she liked them as much as she did. Then of course, this is the baby who would only eat her eggs with daddy's hot sauce on them when she first started eating eggs!

I've been a cooking fool these past few days. I made crockpot spareribs and sauerkraut, served them with garlic pepper roasted red potatoes (with kosher salt); pork curry with coconut milk, onion and garlic cloves and some fresh red chard chopped into it (I'll serve that over rice); and I'll be making pork chops with mushroom sauce later today. My crockpot has been getting a work out. Pork was half price at the commissary, can you tell? I'm going to freeze a bunch of it in individual portions so Mia and I can eat well when I don't feel like cooking.

I could use some chocolate chip cookies, though. Last time my friend Connie visited me, we made a new recipe I found - banana chocolate chip cookies. NUMMY!!