Weekend cooking

We are fortunate that both D. and M. like to cook. However, after five days of trying to come up with something that everyone will eat, M. is often burned-out, unable to bring herself to go back into the kitchen.

That is when D. steps in. He sees weekend cooking as his chance to try something new, and to eat what he wants, without having to worry whether either or both TA and PE will eat it.

As a result, on weekends, we eat more meat--barbecue, grilled hamburgers, pot roast. And more ethnic food, beyond the usual standbys of pizza, spaghetti and tacos/tortillas filled with various things. We might have borscht, blini, or Mexican food that requires more than shredded cheese and a can of beans. His bread usually comes from the oven, not the bread machine. On Sunday mornings he often makes pancakes or waffles from scratch. He broadens our eating horizons and keeps us from being bored with food.

The only problem in all of this is our unspoken rule that, usually, whoever cooks doesn't have to clean.  D.'s dinners tend to make more mess and, unlike M., he usually doesn't clean up as he goes. Also, since he doesn't figure in the tastes of TA and PE, we often have to scrounge around at the last minute adapting what has been made or finding something else that they'll eat.

But the payoff is on Monday nights, when there are enough leftovers to feed everyone and few dishes to clean, as a result. (This is why our Monday listings usually list leftovers).

It is a lovely system, for the most part, and one that we would invite other families/couples to try.

The four-five reasons we go out to eat

Because are always trying to pay off loans or otherwise save money, we've stopped going out to eat on a regular basis. Around here (metro D.C.), dinner for a family of four at the cheapest restaurant (except fast food) runs at least $40, excluding tip. 

We don't go out to eat except for the following exceptions (which have continued to change over the years):

1. When we're out of town and can't make food for ourselves anyway (this is a justification for saving up all year by not going out around here so we can taste the local cuisine wherever we go).

2. It's someone's birthday--the birthday person gets to choose where we eat (though M. often opts to have D. make dinner for her).

3. D. is out of town, so to fight our sense of isolation without him, we go out to eat once, at a restaurant chosen by PE and TA, which means it's usually McDonalds, Quizznos, or Taco Bell.

4. If we're swamped with projects or work and have no time to cook--though, usually, this most often turns out to be take-out or frozen pizza.

(5. This isn't a family event, but D. will go out for lunch while at work or after work, to socialize with co-workers; and M. will sometimes go out to lunch with friends--both valid reasons, for us, to spend the money on a restaurant. We're only frugal up to the point of not being hermits/socially isolated).

D. and M. going out for dinner and a movie is a rare occasion these days, given that a dinner date with a movie can run around $100 here, if a babysitter is also part of the cost. We sometimes go for a movie with no dinner or go out for dessert and coffee, with TA providing babysitting services.

What We Ate: May 19-23

This was an unusual week for us. D. was away, for work. On such occasions, we usually go out to eat once (one of four reasons we go out to eat). This week, we had a gift certificate to a restaurant, so we went out to eat twice--a first in the history of our household.

Monday

Leftovers (Mexican pork loin, red beans, guacamole--made on Sunday night).

What PE ate:

quesadilla and fruit

Tuesday

We went to McDonalds. M. ate a $1 fruit salad and came home and ate yogurt since she doesn't like McDonalds. TA came home hungry, despite having eaten 2 burgers. PE was happy.

Wednesday

Pizza/foccacia extravaganza. One ball of dough, four kinds of pizzas--mini foccacias with shredded mozzarella and basil; small Mediterranean pizza with  goat and feta; calzone with ham and swiss cheese; Mediterranean pizza with mozzarella.

What PE ate:

foccacia and half a ham and cheese calzone; carrots; orange juice smoothie

Thursday

(We used a gift certificate to a Mexican/El Salvadoran restaurant. Only M. loved the food.)

Friday

(Homecoming dinner)

Leg of lamb, rice, salad, green beans, white/wheat homemade bread

What PE ate:

PE refuses to eat lamb because it is a young animal (she'll eat ham and beef just fine, but doesn't see this as a discrepancy). She ate leftover foccacia.

Foods to Make: Tomato sauce

The problem with most commercial tomato sauces is that they use cottonseed oil (which isn't that good for you) and an excess amount of sugar (which makes them taste too sweet). If you have crushed tomatoes (or canned tomatoes, which you can crush), you can make your own sauce in a few minutes.

Quick way: throw 1 large can of crushed tomatoes into a microwavable glass container, add 2-3 tbsp. of olive oil, garlic powder and a few shakes of dried oregano. Cover and microwave on high for five minutes. Add a smidgen or tsp. or two of sugar, if needed, to cut acidity.

Slow way: throw same things into a pot and heat on low for an hour or more. Take the lid off at some point if you want it to thicken.

Note: I've never had luck trying to pressure cook tomato sauce--it always seems to burn on the bottom. So, the microwave is the only quick way I know that works.

5 Foods to Make/5 Foods to Buy

5 Foods You Can Easily Make Yourself

1. Tomato sauce (from canned, crushed tomatoes)

Recipe in separate post.

2. Bread crumbs

When bread is getting stale, throw it in a blender. Freeze in small containers.

3. Pizza crust

If you have a bread machine, it only takes about 5 minutes to put the ingredients together and another five minutes to roll it out or stretch it.

4. Ranch salad dressing

This is a no-brainer if you already make your own yogurt. 

Recipe: Mix half yogurt and half mayonnaise (1/2 cup each or more). Add lemon juice or vinegar, then a few shakes of garlic powder. It should taste at least as good as store-bought.

5. Bread for meals

If you have a bread machine, it only takes 5 minutes to toss in ingredients and get bread in 2-3 hours.

5 Foods to Buy

We've tried to make these things at home and it's either too messy or time-consuming to make them ourselves, or they just don't come out as good as store-bought.

1. Stuffed grape leaves

(Even with canned grape leaves available, making the stuffing and then putting it into each individual leaf takes a LONG time).

2. Sandwich bread

If you're packing a sandwich for school, it's going to hold up better if you use commercial sliced bread. I've been experimenting with adding xanthum gum and/or gluten to my bread to make it hold up better, but it's still not as crumb-free and malleable as commercial bread.

3. Potstickers/dumplings/pierogies

Again, very time consuming and the end-result at home is no better.

4. Salsa

Noted, with exceptions: Unless you're using fresh tomatoes, making salsa from canned tomatoes will not taste as good as a store-bought jar of salsa.

5. Crushed tomatoes

Unless you grow your own tomatoes, it's more economical to buy them in a can rather than canning them yourself.

What We Ate May 12-16: Turkey meatballs, desperation chicken

Monday 

Leftover pasta with tomato sauce and sausage; leftover corn

Tuesday

Desperation dinner (for more on desperation dinners in general, see 5/15/08 posting). Trader Joe's Orange Chicken, served with basmati rice. (To make it more palatable for the adults, we threw small portions of it into stir-fried celery/mushrooms/garlic along with the white rice). Mixed salad greens with ginger salad dressing.

Recipe: Ginger/soy dressing

(I made this up at the last minute)

Throw into a blender 1/4 cup oil (canola), 1/4 cup vinegar (rice if you have it), 1 tbsp. or more soy sauce, fresh garlic and fresh ginger. Add a couple of spoonfuls of tahini if you have it and blend again.

Wednesday

(I made yogurt that morning...)

Ground turkey meatballs with lime-yogurt sauce (adapted a recipe from Cooks.com, found with Google recipe search); basmati rice; broccoli. Dessert: homemade blueberry frozen yogurt with fresh strawberries.

What PE ate:

leftover TJ chicken, celery sticks with peanut butter

Thursday

Leftover meatballs with yogurt sauce; corn; rice. Later: fruit salad (strawberries, apples, bananas, raisins with a lemon-yogurt-maple sauce).

What PE ate:

(She was hungry when we walked in the door late, so she had fruit salad with lots of yogurt. Later, she ate rice and chicken, with a milk-banana smoothie).

Friday

Twisty noodles with skinless chicken breasts and broccoli in a sour cream sauce; salad. (Recipe from Google recipes... About.com).

What PE ate:

One small piece of chicken set aside after only sauted, with sesame seeds and honey added; corn; buckwheat noodles (leftover from M's lunch) with peanuts and soy sauce; corn.

Desperation dinners

There are those times when you absolutely don't know what to make for dinner. For me, it's usually around Wednesday evening. Weekend leftovers have been completely depleted, as has my ability to come up with anything new.

Or maybe you don't get home from work until 6 and everyone is hungry at 6:15.

Or, for once, you wanted to play, too--you've been out throwing a frisbee until dinnertime, and then you realize when you walk back into the house that there's no dinner waiting for you.

At such times, it's best to have on-hand a few "desperation dinners"--things your family will eat without much complaint and without much work on your part. Most of these will be frozen and ready-made. Some can be tossed together from things in cans.

As long as you don't rely on them everyday, I see no reason to feel guilty about serving them occasionally, even if you are a stay-at-home parent.

Here's what we have on-hand or make quickly for such occasions:

Trader Joe's Orange Chicken (frozen). PE loves this and can eat it again and again; the rest of us are getting sort of sick of it. You can cut the sugar in half if you use only one of the two flavor packets.

Frozen pizza. All can eat this except M., who can't eat milk. On such evenings, she might eat scrambled eggs or some small portion of a previous dinner she had squirreled away in the freezer. 

Burritos. (Assuming you have tortillas on-hand, in freezer, etc.). You also need to keep cans of pinto beans around. It helps if you have salsa and cheese, too. If you only have cheese and tortillas, make quesadillas.

Omelets. This works for everyone except TA, who hates eggs. M. makes hers with goat cheese.

Spaghetti/cheesy pasta. We try to keep small portions of pre-made tomato sauce with meat in the freezer. When we don't have it, we can make a quick, meatless sauce using a can of crushed tomatoes. If in a real rush, we'll just cook noodles and grate some cheese over them.

(Still quick but less desperate--and limited availability)

Pesto. In the summer, when we have pots of basil growing on the deck, this makes a quick meal that, unbelievably, everyone likes. We use pecorino (sheep's cheese) rather than parmesan, for M.

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I'll post additional Desperation Dinners lists in the future. I'm also soliciting ideas for other things to serve. Please feel free to share via comments.

Homemade yogurt

I used to have one of those plug-in yogurt makers, but the frustrating thing was that it only made four cups at a time—and our family consumes lots of yogurt each week. Plus, organic yogurt at my local grocery is going for up to $4/quart.

It finally dawned on me that my oven's breadproofing function could be used to make yogurt since it maintains 100 degrees, the perfect temperature for yogurt. (I've heard you can just leave on an oven light and then wrap containers in towels, but I've never tried it).

You don't need any special tools for making yogurt, just somewhere to put the milk so it can be cultured. I purchased wide-mouth quart-size Mason jars for this purpose. They can be sterilized in a dishwasher. If you're paranoid like me, I sometimes take the extra precaution of putting the Mason jars (and the large measuring cup I use to transfer the hot milk into the jars) in the microwave, half full of water, and microwave on high for three minutes; cool before using.

Tools needed:

• pot large enough to boil milk (enamel seems to work best)
  
• quick check thermometer (digital best)
  
• sterile jars or containers to pour milk into
  
• (optional) a large sterilized measuring cup to transfer the hot milk from the pot into the containers
• oven or some place to keep milk at 100 degree for four hours
  

Directions:

• Bring however much milk you want to use to almost boiling -- 180 degrees.


• Pour immediately into containers or jars and let cool to 100-110 degrees. The cooling process usually takes 60-75 minutes in my house, depending on the inside temperature. (You might want to measure the average time a few different times so you can just set a timer and know when to come back).


• About halfway through the cooling, you'll need to warm up your oven to 100 degrees. When milk cools to 100-110 degrees, add 3 tbsp. of yogurt to each quart of milk.


• Transfer jars or containers to oven. Put some kind of top on them. Keep at 100 degrees for four hours.

Tip#1

The only tricky thing I've found with making yogurt is getting the milk to exactly 180 degrees. I have a tendency to poke a thermometer into the hot milk every 3 minutes, which really isn't necessary. The laziest thing to do is to put a lid on the pot of milk and leave it on low for 10 or more minutes, then start checking every 5 minutes or so after that.

Tip#2

Try to make yogurt at least once a week, to keep the culture fresh. When your (last) container of yogurt is getting down to the last 1/2 cup, it's time to make more.

Recommended tools

• You can culture the yogurt in any kind of container, but I've found Mason jars the best containers because: they store easily in the fridge; they're cheap (I paid about $.83/each for wide-mouth jars at the local hardware store); and the jar lids provide a little bit of a seal for the yogurt after it has cooled in the fridge.
  
  
• However, I don't like the two-piece lids that come with Mason jars because they're a hassle and the outer part of the lid tends to rust after a few go-rounds in the dishwasher. Instead, I splurged and got one-piece large Quattro Stagioni lids from the Container Store. They will fit other (non-Quattro Stagioni) jars.

What We Ate May 5-9: Salmon, Chicken, and Quesadillas

Monday

Russian beef/pork pierogies (frozen, from Russian grocery), served as soup -- cooked in homemade broth (including water leftover from boiling potatoes); garlic potatoes; zuccini and celery with tomatoes and dill

Cookbooks used: Please to the Table (for garlic potatoes); zuccini recipe was improvised--I cooked in olive oil and butter threw in chives, half a small tomato and dill to make it seem Russian.

What Picky Eater (PE) ate: small omelet with cheese, carrots

Tuesday

Alaskan salmon sauteed in butter, lemon juice and sake; buttered penne; salad (prewashed salad greens with herbs)

What PE ate: penne with powdered cheese, celery slices with cream cheese

Wednesday

Quesadillas (made with Swiss and cream cheese), browned in butter in a cast iron pan, served with homemade guacamole, fresh tomatoes and spiced-up pinto beans; salad

What PE ate: plain quesadillas, sliced apples

Thursday

chicken breasts with cream/sherry sauce, served with leftover penne; french whole green beans (frozen)

Cookbooks used: Joy of Cooking (main boneless chicken recipe)

What PE ate: chicken nuggets (we forgot to set aside some chicken before the cream sauce went on top), carrots

Friday

(Confession: OK, we were supposed to go camping, but it rained, so this was the fastest stuff we could come up with, from what we already had in the cupboards and fridge)

basmati white rice; black beans (from a can) cooked with garlic, oil and cumin; guacamole (from last ripe avocado in fridge); salad

What PE ate: a small quesadilla and maybe an apple?

Intro: Who we are and what we eat

We are four people who get along fairly well except that we all like to eat different things. This makes it challenging at dinnertime, especially if it's getting close to 6 p.m. on a weekday and I haven't already started making dinner.

I also have a tendency to forget what I've made from week to week, so I'm hoping that, if nothing else, this blog will serve as an electronic menu reminder for our family. I hope it benefits you and your family along the way.

Who We Are
The four of us are: Mom (M., principal blogger); Dad (D.); Teenager (TA); and Picky Eater (PE).

What We Like

• D. likes super spicy food and can/will eat almost anything. 
• M. has a few food allergies/sensitivities we have to work around including an inability to digest all cheeses except swiss, goat and sheep's cheese.
  
• TA likes sushi, hates cooked fish, has cravings for olives and stuffed grape leaves but won't eat things like white rice or eggs.
  
• PE's favorite foods are chicken nuggets, pizza and scrambled eggs; for vegetables, she will only eat corn and raw carrots, celery, and peas in the pod, but she loves almost all fruits. (We've tried to get her to eat what's being made for everyone else, but then she just doesn't eat. She once held out for two nights in a row. Since she's very skinny, we've decided to set aside and adapt part of what we're cooking each night in order to make something she'll actually eat.)
  

Our Diet

We are all omnivores, but we usually eat small portions of meat and also often eat vegetarian meals. M. and D. tend to like ethnic foods of all varieties, and would cook more of them in TA and PE would eat them.

In addition, we try to buy organic milk; cage-free eggs (organic if they're on sale); cheese without BGH (organic usually too expensive); meat raised without hormones or antibiotics; and organic fruits and vegies, when possible. 

We never buy soda (except maybe for parties, when other people expect it), and rarely buy junk food, although we've been known to buy Dorito's. We feel no guilt whatsoever about eating small portions of ice cream whenever the mood strikes us.