Pasta, Kale, and the Kids Liked It.

Two tricks to Kale:
1. Slice it into thin strips, disguising it as an herb.
2. Serve it so there's more carb than Kale.

I cooked mine in the pot after the pasta was drained, in olive oil and then a little water to wilt it, then I threw it on top of the pasta in the strainer and mixed it in.  If you want pasta, you'll be eating kale.

At the table to assemble themselves:

• Pasta with Kale (The pasta is Campanelle instead of Penne, and it was just right.)
• Cannellini Beans (I substituted white navy beans, and warmed them in the microwave)
• Parmesan Cheese and That Fancy Olive Oil with Herbs we were given for Christmas.
• (then leftover ham for the meat eaters, deliberately sweet to counteract the kale, since meat eaters are wimps.)

sides:

• bread
• crudites
• milk.

What next? Thinking aloud about menus.

The kids are back in school today, and I'm still trying to go from standstill to speed.

I *bought* dinner on the way home.  So pathetic.   At least my son talked me out of Jack in the Box and across the street to Wahoo Fish Tacos.

What I have are leeks and potatoes, cabbage (several kinds), kale that we've had more than enough of.  One bunch of carrots, two tired-looking tomatoes.   Lettuce, pears that may finally have ripened now the holidays are over.  A couple apples and oranges.  A bag of lemons (great Christmas present).   Half a pan of cornbread to snack on.

Soupe Pistou and Salade Nicoise require green beans.
Hamburger-less cabbage-vegetable soup is really only loved by me.
The potatoes are beautiful fingerlings.  I'm wondering about trying the Crash Potatoes from the sidebar.
I'm stuck.

Mormon Wassail

I think these days most wassail is without alcohol anyway, right?  Or it that just the circles I run in?  This wassail is culturally Mormon because it's the wassail I make, it's made in a crockpot, and it is frugal in how it uses relatively inexpensive ingredients to make something fancier.  You can usually get a deal on the oranges this time of year.

One gallon ordinary apple juice
1 cup of good applesauce, to cloud up the juice.
Zest of one orange (zest!  not grated peel!  No pith!  No chunks!)
Tablespoon of cinnamon, or more to taste.  Stir to get that cinnamon powder to get wet and stop floating.

Put that in a crock pot on high, at least an hour before you're serving this.

Decorate the bottom of two or three oranges or tangerines by sticking ~20 cloves in each.  I like to do circles.  Slice the bottom of the fruit off, float it into the punch, peel side up.

Make the same number of pretty slices of the oranges or tangerines, float those as well.

Serve in crock pot, with cinnamon sticks on the side for stirrers.

December Food Plans

What are your Christmas season food ambitions?

I did make Latkes during Hanukah week.   Kinder, Gentler Latkes from Food.com had good detailed instructions.  And, they were delicious as leftovers too.  Yes, I made that many.  I also made the Un-Fried Potato Latkes, but they weren't as successful.

So during the holiday my ambitions are:

Uh-Sides
--make wassail tomorrow so my daughter can take it to her church activity.
--I want a bunch of pomegranates in a bowl to admire and also to eat.

--more delicious salads like lettuce/pears/fresh cranberries/cheese/dressing, like this NYTimes salad winner.  The directions on the NYT site are better than on the original blog.

Meals
--I'd like to get a fondue set for Christmas and try fondues of cheese, of spicy peanut butter, or of chocolate.
--individual homemade pizzas?  I've discovered I like pizza without cheese.
--my daughter had some kind of delicious baked eggs in New York City.  Must try to imitate.
--what easy stuff dinners can we have, so we can eat but also run around shopping and having Christmas outings?

Desserts
--I want to make an orange cake again, with chocolate frosting.
--those frosted cookies my mom always made and we always decorated.


And not:
--the feast of the seven fishes.  I have NO impulse to do it; so much for my vaunted ambition.

(pescatarian) Eel for Thanksgiving

My vegetarian daughter loves Thanksgiving, and has put down my vague guilty suggestions that I should make some main dish for her, alternate to the Turkey.  She loves the vegetable sides, and declares herself more than delighted just to have all those vegetarian versions of the carb ones (mushroom gravy, stuffing that baked in the oven with vegetable broth, mashed potatoes without broth, etc.)

This year, early in the November, I heard a radio spot about the eel industry, how it is mostly processed, cooked, and vaccum-wrapped in China, even if you buy it in a restaurant here.  And, I heard one of the inevitable "what our Pilgrim ancestors really ate," which mentioned the importance of eel.

Eel.  My daughter loves unagi, and now I'd learned that I wouldn't be expected to prepare it, just warm it up from frozen.  All it took was a quick trip to my local Ranch 99 Asian market to get the prepared frozen eel.   It became the "dare" food on the Thanksgiving table, and lots of people, including the kids gave it a try.

One-Bowl Easy Apple Slices Cake

Like most desserts, only ovo-lacto vegetarian, and not remotely vegan.

Box cakes are great--except that I have a hard time remembering to keep the mix on hand for when the impulse to make cake strikes.  I like this recipe because it uses vegetable oil, so it's as easy as a box cake: no separating eggs, no creaming the butter into the sugar.   And, my version takes advantage of my apple peeler-corer.

I suppose though it is based on a basic one-bowl cake from the Fannie Farmer Cookbook, the way we're making it would put it in the genre of Breakfast Cake or Snack Cake or Coffee Cake. Does anyone say Coffee Cake anymore?

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Grease 8x11 glass baking dish

Throw in the mixing bowl:

• 2 1/4 cups flour
• 1 TB baking powder
• 1/2 teas salt
• 2 teas vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cup brown sugar, not necessarily packed
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup milk
• 2 eggs

Mix it like pancakes or muffins--just enough to get it barely mixed, like less than ten strokes.

• Then slice/core 2 or 3 apples, depending on size.  Quarter the slices, fold them in.

Bake an hour.  The basic recipe is supposed to take 30 minutes, but it always takes an hour at my house.

And no, I don't frost it.  Happy FHE.

Family Salad Nicoise

I'd only had Salad Nicoise at a restaurant, so it never occurred to me to make a family version. Instead of composing each plate, you just compose one platter or casserole dish for everyone. In our family, this works because it lets one person take more potato, while the next person skips the spuds, another person skips tomatoes, and I require everyone to take certain number of green beans.

I like the sensible Nicoise Salad recipe directions at Simply Recipes, which tell me what to do while the potatoes are boiling so the salad comes together quickly, and how to lay out salad for a group beautifully.

In general terms, Nicoise Salad is:
Lettuce
warm boiled small potatoes
warm cooked green beans
hard boiled egg
tomato
thin small slices red onion (but I use the scallions I have on hand.)
capers (sometimes we forget)
oil-cured olives (but we substitute familiar canned ones)
tuna (canned is fine--we skip the tuna sometimes and up the eggs.)
And all dressed with vinaigrette.

It's really fun with french bread and Orangina.  Viva la Faux France.