simpletruths

Kale chips

("recipe" at the end of the post)

When I'm at home I'm a bit of a muncher (I believe grazer is the current term-in-use).  That being the case I try to have healthy options within availble for easy grabbing, like carrot sticks (we've been getting the tastiest carrots in our CSA box mmmmm), fruit of all kinds, and the most recent addition - Kale chips

Trust me - as healthy as I attempt to eat if any of these aren't around I have no problem diving into the nutella.

 

Little Mr. Isn't into actually eating the kale chips (or the carrot sticks....or most of the fruit...sigh) but he does like to help in the preparation.  Yesterday he saw me taking pictures right before we popped the kale in the oven and he hopped off of the chair (small mommy heart attack) and came back in a flash with his camera.

 

Only one of the Kale pictrues in this post was taken by me..the other two are from Little Mr. - can you tell which is which?

 

 The Kale chip "recipe" is a pretty simple one:

wash and dry some Kale

remove the stem (we didn't this time because we bought prewashed bagged kale - so we'll just eat around the tough parts)

toss with some olive oil

Lay them out on a cookie sheet (one layer)

sprinkle with salt

bake @300 for ~20min

mmmmmmm - crunchy

so much has been going on - I'm pretty excited to share BUT I'm trying to stay focused. Awesome news to come this weekend.

In other news

Today, May 11, was my birthday.

So I baked

something I knew I'd like and could enjoy the rest of the week

cheddar jalapeno scones

From this recipe on smitten kitchen.

she got rice cereal - I got these

Then Mr. Man came home and brought me these

 

yea, good times

 

Happy birthday to me :)

Cookies!!

I mentioned these delicious oatmeal raisin cookies an earlier post, and I thought I'd share the recipe.  There's a story that goes with this recipe but I'll save that for another post.

 

 Yup, that's Little Mr. - his stirring and pouring techniques are steadily improving. By the time he's 5 he's going to need his own show.

 

Oatmeal Raisin cookies

Ingredients:

3/4 cup butter (the recipe says margarine...but it was written when margarine was 'all the rage')

 1 1/2 cups sugar (or 1 1/3 cup honey per the recipe)

2 eggs

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp vanilla

salt*

1 3/4 cup whole wheat flour

3 cups oats

raisins (the recipe says a handful but I'm pretty generous. I probably added close to 2 cups)***

combine butter and sugar; then add eggs, vanilla, baking soda, and salt (*(the recipe omits the salt but I've made it with and without - <strong>with</strong> is definitely better).Stir in flour. Add oatmeal and raisins.

spoon onto prepared cookie sheet**

Bake @ 350 for 12-15min

**the recipe says spoon onto "a greased cookie sheet," but I'd suggest you buy some parchment paper or silicone sheet.  Also, I like to flatten them with my fingers one I put the scoop on the sheet - I like my oatmeal raisin cookies on the thin side. Plus, since it's all whole wheat flour, making them thin helps to keep them from becoming too...hefty.

***If you don't have raisins but you do have chocolate chips (which I suggest that EVERYONE have around for emergencies) Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies are equally delightful.

A few extra raisins to snack on while we patiently wait for our cookies to bake.

 

mmmmmmmmm

 

Homemade Chai Perfection

"Tall Soy Chai please"

 

That was my morning mantra at one of the three Starbucks within a 2 block radius of my office. I've  been on the search for the perfect chai recipe for a while but since Little Miss arrived I've seriously increased my kitchen experimentation. 

There are many reasons for wanting to make my own chai at home; The Starbucks version is a little too sweet (especially since they use vanilla soy milk), Peet's just doesn't do it for me... but mostly little people are expensive and coffee house chai means $3.50 * 3 days a week *52 weeks in a year = CRAP-on-a CRACKER-jack!

so ummm yea - I'll make my own thank you :)

 

Here's what I think is the perfect Chai recipe.  There's sugar in the ingredients list but don't add it anymore I find soy milk to be sweet enough on it's own.  If you use cow's milk then you might want to add it. Also, this makes just less than 4 cups so I keep it in a large canning jar in the fridge and warm up a cup at a time throughout the week.

 

Chai Perfection :)

6 black cardamom pods, split open
~14 whole cloves
~8 black peppercorns
small hand full of cinnamon bark (I like the bark more than the sticks)*
A 1" chunk of ginger cut into a few pieces
small spoon full of brown sugar
4 cups of soy milk (or cows milk)*
2/3 cups of water
6-8 black tea bags

Combine everything, except the tea, in a medium pot over low heat. Let simmer for 15-20 minutes. Remove from heat, add tea bags and cover pot. Let steep for 10 minutes. Strain and enjoy.
Makes 4 cups.

Alternatively, or the way it's most often made in this house - put the pot on, change a diaper, tend to a crying munchkin, remember you have a pot on the stove and turn off the heat seconds before it boils over. Toss in teabags and cover until nap time.

Enjoy with a homemade lemon cranberry scone (hmmm, I should post the recipe for that too)

*I've tried it with unsweetened soy milk and with rice milk and it was no-go.  Plus it separated, and the texture was all weird.

** I used cinnamon bark instead of cinnamon sticks. I'm guessing it's around 1/2 cup worth of bark or ~5 cinnamon sticks

 

Enjoy!

a moment

Name that vegetable!

This arrived in our CSA box today. Anyone have any ideas?

Anyone...

Anyone...

 

Bueller....Beuller....

No more room in the freezer

This little lady can arrive any time, as there is, officially, no more room in the freezer. What is it filled with you ask. Well, among the regulars like frozen fruit for smoothies, spinach that I usually end up putting in just about everything and, of course, waffles - I've also been cooking and baking up a storm so we're well stocked up on:

Pumpkin chocolate chip granola bars

Mini crustless quiches

Cinnamon cheesecake bars

Caramelized onions

and won tons galore...

 

 

This is actually my 3rd batch of won tons in the last few weeks - I kept having left over wrappers or filling, so the process never seemed to have an end point.  I actually had filling left over after this batch but I just froze that too.

The recipe I use is actually a combination of a few different ones that I've seen.  Basically in a big bowl I combined chopped cabbage, ground pork or turkey, chopped up shrimp, soy sauce, mirin, sesame oil, minced fresh ginger, grated carrot, and one egg.

Then the folding begins.

 

 

 

I like this folding technique better.

 

 

mmmmmm....

count down

So this is me @ 9 months pregnant. 

 

And these are the wontons I have tucked away in the freezer

Actually Mr. Man ate all of these - I made a second batch and froze them while he was otherwise occupied  :)

Next on the maternity leave food list - french onion soup...mmmmmmmmmm

Mini Crustless Quiches

In preparation for Little Mrs. arrival I've been thinking of things that can be made ahead and frozen both for me and for the boys.

These little guys are my favorite so far:

Mini Crustless Quiches - one batch with just zucchini, another with zucchini and smoked turkey.

The recipe I ended up going with is actually a mini frittatta recipie  that was less recipe and more hmmmm what's in the fridge...

One downfall to going the muffin pan route (both mini and regular) is cleaning.  There's just no easy way to clean a muffin pan.

 

I've also gotten a bunch more button scarves finished and folded, and I just finished a couple cowls - one blue and one purple that aren't pictured. I feel like, come 10pm - I do nothing but weave in ends for an hour...and I haven't even started adding the hooks onto the earring yet...

 

Pizza Night

This is how we do pizza night!

 

 

 

Stale Bagels

The one thing about mini bagels (the ones you can get in a bag at the store) is that they always seem to go stale so quickly....or maybe we just don't eat them fast enough.

Either way, food waste is not something that I'm at all proud of. 

So what to do with stale bagels? Other than toss them in the compost or feed them to the birds. I don't know what you do but we made bagel chips!

This batch was made with garlic and parsley. 

 

 

Seal of approval.

Breakfast

We had some buttermilk that needed to be used for something so....

 buttermilk pancakes

Then there was the bucket of pears we picked from the yard

(plus some ginger and a little brown sugar) =

yummy breakfast for everyone

breakfast of champions

I worked at Cinnabon for 2 months as extra holiday help while I was in high school. 

For YEARS afterwards I couldn't even look at a cinnamon roll without feeling like cinnamon was going to start seeping from my pores.

 

Luckily for Big Mr, I've moved past that.  Plus mine aren't the size of a toddlers head, made with whole wheat flour, filled with pecans and raisins, and topped with a ginger-infused glaze...mmmmmm

Tiny kitchen, big results

We have several fruit trees in our back yard: Apricot, plum, orange, and pear.  The oranges are pretty much there for the grabbing year round - and make phenomenal orange juice on the weekends. The pear tree is still pretty small but it's already looking like it'll be bursting with yumminess in 3-4 weeks.  

The trees most on my mind right now are the apricot and the plum. As I'm writing this I have a bucket of apricots that need to be dealt with (frozen, prepped for jam, dried for chutney....something).  To give you an idea of how big this one tree is, this is the second bucket of apricots I've gotten in the last 3 days made up of only those fruits I could reach without a ladder or stool - and I'm short (5'0").

So this weekend I tried my hand at canning - and there are few sounds that are as singularly satisfying as that 'pppsss...ting' sound of properly prepped jar and lid creating an air tight seal around something you've made.

I just did a 2 small batches - the first was plum cinnamon jam from this recipe i found over at thekitchn, and the second was 'regular' apricot.

so pretty

 

There's a partial jar of each in current rotation and a few in the pantry for later. Isaiah's favorite lunch right now is almond butter and jam so I'm sure we'll make good use of these.

 

Milkshake Joy

via www.designspongeonline.com

no, wait, seriously?
An Almond Joy MILKSHAKE!

stop it!

What Katie Ate

It is no secret that I love cooking and baking and the eating and sharing that results.

And I know very recently I mentioned not having every post be about food. Then I found this blog, What Katie Ate. It's delicious.

via whatkatieate.blogspot.com

I have no idea who Katie is, apart from what she's shared on her blog. But I love her taste in food and the yummy photographs she takes of her endeavors.

seriously - look at this:

 

via whatkatieate.blogspot.com

Cherries, cherries, everywhere!!

I know I've done several food-focused posts in a row and this will be the last one for a little while - honest. Probably.

 

On the wonderful advice of a friend, we went cherry picking and this great U-pick orchard only an hour away.  There were plenty of branches low enough for Little Mr. to reach all by himself - which made him very happy. 

  

We'd read some reviews on the place on yelp before going, so we came armed with our own buckets - which meant we didn't have to wait for another family to come back from their cherry picking madness before starting our own.

 

 
 
  

So off we went.  Rows and rows of cherries - Rainier, Bing, Van...mmmmm

 

Then, of course, there was the eating of cherries. In general they're pretty great just as they are but who can resist....

 

 

or this...

 

yea... me neither

apparently I also can't seem to resist adding almonds to yummy baked cherry desserts.

If you'll excuse me, I need to get a scoop of ice cream :) 

bagels

I mentioned in an earlier post how Little Mr. is all about helping these days  - especially when it comes to cooking.  One kitchen project that was fun from beginning to end were the homemade bagels.  

Why have I not done this before? I am a big fan of the boiled carbs but usually have a difficult time committing to an entire store bought bagel - Do I really want to consume 4 servings worth of bread in one sitting? That said - "mini" bagels are usually too small, get lost during a proper toasting, and rarely seem to have the right texture.

When you make your own, you have the ultimate portion control.  And you get to pick the toppings :)

 

(clockwise from top left corner: parmesan cheese, sesame seeds, poppy seeds, cinnamon sugar, sun dried tomatoes)

 

sprinkle sprinkle

Smitten Kitchen has a wonderfully involved bagel recipe that I'm sure makes delicious bagels, but there were just too many words for me. 

 

In the oven - The sun dried tomato didn't really workout as a topping...they just got charred.

I did happen upon this bagel recipe that I could do in a day. And here are the results:

 

time to eat :)
 

The family that cooks together....

...eats together :) 

 Little Mr. is all about helping these days.  While I'm cooking he'll inevitably come up to me and say "Mommy help you?"  So at not quite 2-years old, he's pretty great and flipping eggs and general stirring, pouring, and sprinkling.  

This weekend we made two things that had lots of sprinkling involved. First up - chicken enchiladas:

  

shredded rotisserie chicken from the store since we didn't have any leftover chicken to use.

   

Queso Fresco and mozzarella 

 

corn tortillas

 

"helping" can be tricky to define sometimes...

hard at work putting everything together

 

ready for the oven.

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the finished dish. It was pounced upon almost immediately after it came out of the oven. And I LOVE enchiladas so every time I put one on a plate for myself photography is a serious afterthought :)

Have toddler, will travel

 

 

We learned quite a few things on our first excursion to NY with a toddler. Although this wasn't the first time Little Mr. has traveled afar, this is the first time he hasn't been portable (i.e. strap him in the Ergo and go).

 trying on hats in Soho
 
 

The 5 hour flight

• toddler headphones (they're smaller and don't get as loud as regular ones)
• portable DVD player and fun shows he likes but has never seen (Curious George, Thomas the train).  We actually didn't use this nearly as much as I thought we would; just a couple of 15 min episodes during his groggy after nap period.
• stickers! (my favorite)
• color wonder coloring book (this didn't work, maybe when he's a little older)
• a few favorite books (Right now we can't go far without bringing If You Give a Pig a Pancake)
• lots of snacks (fruit bars, cheesy rabbits - the whole foods version of goldfish) 

That's it. Some things worked better than others, most notably snacks and stickers.  The coloring was a nonstarter. One thing we were quite excited to discover was that the pressure change didn't seem to bother him.  I was a serious water pusher the entire flight especially takeoff and landing, but on the flight back he wasn't interested in anything  that would encourage swallowing and didn't seem any worse for wear.

Out and About in the City

We didn't bring a car seat and I'm sooooo glad! To and from the airport we reserved a car through a service that provides car seats and once we were safely at our destination, we were all subway, all the time. 

We brought the cheapest umbrella stroller we could find - and it worked great.  It cost about $20 at Babies r Us, folds up in a flash (which was important given the subway travel), was extremely lightweight and we didn't worry about whether or not it got messed up (which it didn't).

Naps happened whenever and where ever although he never really slept enough during the day...but does anyone sleep enough when they go to NY? 

We'd hoped to keep him on his 'regular' schedule just 3 hours ahead - no such luck. The sun was shining bright and he was up at 7am that first morning and his regular 6am every morning thereafter.

 tunnel of Indian food goodness.

Grownup Vacation

HA!

We didn't get to see Fela! like we'd hoped - I'll just have to wait until they go on tour. And most evening dining consisted of take out, but we had some great brunch  and amazing lunches thanks to my sister's appreciation of delicious food!

 mmmm crazy creamy cheese grits with crispy bacon crumbled on top. again mmmmmm

All in all it was a great trip, with great people and good weather.  We even got to take a requisite Central Park picture during a marathon walk through the park after which we rewarded ourselves with cookies from Levain.

 

Happy Travels!

Next posts: 

 

• Chicken and Cheese Enchiladas with tomatillo salsa 
  
• Bagels 
  
• Fall Projects