textures change

Once I had a son to feed, I started changing my cooking a bit.  I like cooking, but sometimes I get tired of it, or bored with 3 meals every day, plus packing lunch boxes for me and the husband, plus parties and potlucks, and social group get-togethers and cookie exchanges.  Sometimes it's just nice to open a package of something or eat cereal for dinner or buy a bag of salad.  Well, now that I'm serving a toddler all day long I have to think about the texture of the foods, the size, the choking risk, the appeal of flavor.  Unfortunately I think I've lost a bit of crunch and rawness to my diet.  I don't want to make separate foods for all of us, so I usually make foods that my son can enjoy with us.  Soft, pureed, casseroles, soups, veggies all mixed together with the meats, and so on.  Today I miss eating raw vegetables, salad, and cereal.  I just want to look at my own food and eat it, uninterrupted, without worrying about what is being consumed over there in the high chair.  However I must say that my son is a really adventurous and good eater.  He tries anything and actually prefers foods with lots of flavor and seasoning.  Eating with your children is so important for them, so that they develop skills and tastes for real food, and not just think that eating is a chore they do while a parent observes.  And I'm proud to say that my boy will eat leftovers, so at least I've got that going for me!  :)

Surprise!! Jalapenos!

Well I had a package of gluten free corn bread that someone gave me to try out.  I also had some left over "mexican 4 cheese blend" from some tacos I made earlier in the week. I combined them and cooked it.  It turned out so fluffy and tall!

I glanced at a recipe for black bean soup earlier this week in a magazine.  I cooked up 4 cups of red or pinto beans, not sure which.  (My bean pot is a huge mixture  http://theleftoverslady.blogspot.com/2011/09/dry-beans-are-way-to-go.html).  I got out my largest cooking pot and started making my own version of black bean soup.
4 cups of any kind of beans----cooked on a separate day
1 cup of chopped peppers----from my freezer from a sale back in September  http://theleftoverslady.blogspot.com/2011/09/processing.html
1/2 onion chopped
several garlic cloves chopped
2 teaspoons of cumin
1/2 teaspoon of chili powder
sprinkling of ground coriander
1 very small can of creamed corn with the liquid
1 can of chicken broth
1 can of corn
1 large scoop of homemade green tomato salsa-------made last weekend (http://theleftoverslady.blogspot.com/2011/11/green-tomato-salsa-goes-into-crockery.html)

It was very liquid-y and so I cooked it down for one hour until it was more like chili.  I sat down to enjoy what I expected was going to be pretty mild and tasty.  WOW!  It was so hot and spicy, I could barely eat it.  What a surprise!  I try not to make food that is too spicy.  I know my green tomato salsa was spicy and I know chili powder and cumin can be spicy, but my best guess of what happened is this;  back in September I bought a large bag of peppers from my local produce market (http://theleftoverslady.blogspot.com/2011/09/processing.html).  And I'm thinking  now, that one or more of them was actually a jalapeno and not a sweet bell pepper.  I simply chopped them all up at that time and froze them in bags.  So last night I just tossed a bag of frozen peppers in.  Hahaha, well, it made me laugh, knowing that I make food without even really knowing what I'm putting into it!  Oh well, the cornbread helped and we all survived.  However, I did not feed this one to my son.

Fried Plantains

The most gigantic banana I'd ever seen:

It's a Mexican Plantain!

I recently spent 8 days in Acapulco.  My parents invited us to their condo time share and my mom asked me if I would do most of the cooking and help her with meal planning.  With 4 adults and one toddler, it just made sense to eat in, rather than eat out for every meal.  I had fun trying out my Spanish in the grocery store, when trying to find certain ingredients.  When I asked for "taco seasoning" they had to get 3 employees before someone understood me well enough and pointed something out to me.  I bought it without looking at the ingredients and cooked with it, before realizing it was soy sauce!  

We were busy swimming, body surfing, walking, and playing, so we were very hungry for our meals.  The most fun thing I cooked was a plantain.  It's a giant banana.  I picked out the biggest one I could find.  It looked as if two plantains had joined like Siamese twins, at the center and grown together.  (see photos above).

I sliced the plantain and started some butter melting in a flat fry pan on medium.  I placed the plantains in the butter and allowed them to cook for 10 minutes before flipping.  Then allowed another 10 minutes for the second side.  If you rush them, it would not be as creamy and sweet.  The end result was delicious and everyone enjoyed it.  We served it as a side dish with dinner and then I made it again for breakfast.

Airplane food and Sour apples

I like apples cooked, soft, sweet, and aromatic.  Apples are of course also wonderful when they are fresh, crisp, juicy and sour.  Depends on your preferences and mood.
One time last year I tried cooking an apple, all by itself.  Not into a cake or pie or into muffins or oatmeal.  Just an apple, on a griddle.  Then I served it on a grilled cheese sandwich.  It was a big hit with my husband, who loves apples, almost more than any other food.

I've seen apple pie recipes with cheddar cheese over the top.  Kids eat apples and cheese together for snacks. So why not make a sandwich out of it?
Tonight I'll be on a airplane and I wanted to bring a snack that would travel well, wouldn't need heating or refrigeration and wouldn't be too smelly (like tuna). Also must be kid friendly.  So I'm making apple cheddar grilled sandwiches.  It's going to be so yummy!

Eat a Rainbow!

They say we should eat a rainbow.  So last night I made a colorful dinner.

I put a frozen salmon filet into a baking dish, along with one yam, sliced up and some frozen sugar snap peas, left over from the summer harvest.  I sliced one whole lemon and drizzled the juice over everything and threw in the chunks.  I peeled and added 5 garlic cloves.  I drizzled olive oil over the vegetables and added some lemon pepper.  Baked the whole thing for 30 minutes at 375, covered with foil.

This was a risotto package from the store that I found on half price clearance.  I added a cup of cherry tomatoes from the garden, the last of the crop.  Cooked it on the stove for 30 minutes.

My 19 month old ate everything!  It was a yummy dinner, with no added salt, no wheat or gluten, no dairy.  I am trying to cook more whole foods, clean foods.  In addition, my son has been very sick and I'm attempting to use natural remedies to heal him, so this meal was fun of lemon and garlic, both of which are good for killing bacteria and boosting your immune system.  

The trick for cooking it altogether in one dish and getting it all done at the same time, was the fact that the fish was frozen and the yam was sliced thin.  Otherwise the fish would have been dry and the yam hard after 30 minutes.  

"They" also say we Americans are eating on too large of plates, so I'm beginning to serve meals on my salad plates, as you can see in this picture.  It was plenty of food and fit just fine on the plate.  

Leftover Pickle Juice

My Turkey burgers always end up being so dry.

I had saved the empty pickle jar with a 1/2 cup of pickle juice still in the bottom.

It was almost dinner time.

I got out a frying pan last night and put 4 thawed turkey burger patties in it.  I poured the pickle juice over it all. I cooked it on medium for about 15 minutes on each side.  The burgers were juicy and flavorful without being too salty or tangy.  Some of the juice was still in the pan when they were done being cooked, but I just drained that down the sink.  I think I'll remember this recipe the next time I am making turkey burgers in the house on the stove top.  It was so easy, used up some spare things and solved the dry meat problem.