Category Archives: From the Kitchen

My New Favorite Breakfast

08 Wednesday Jan 2014

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Another Big Bite - Sweet and Spicy Breakfast

I am not one for New Years resolutions.  For a few reasons.  First of all, I feel like making promises to myself that inevitably fall to the wayside in a few short weeks aren’t in any way productive.  Also, why should I wait until January 1st to make changes that should probably be made, oh, immediately?

And then I had kids.  Aaaaaand realized that I am a pretentious prick.

Setting goals is a good thing.  And being able to embrace the holiday season for what it is also is pretty realistic…  Sugar.  Chocolate.  Butter.  Cheese.  Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup.

Now that all that unhealthy eating is out of the way (Sure, I’ll snarf an entire two-pound Toblerone by myself…  Because it’s Christmas, that’s why!), and the pallet of Diet Coke we bought for visiting relations is mercifully gone, it is time to get back into the grind of everyday life.

Nope, I’m not making the resolution to go to the gym more.  But I am going back to eating things that didn’t greet my threshold in a can.

This is my just-unhealthy-ehough-to-be-good breakfast.  Fruit, eggs, veggie juice, a tiny bit of cheese and an overtly large pat of butter make rolling out of bed a teentsy more bearable for me.  Squeeze on some lime and squirt on some Siracha…. Yes.  Heaven in a tortilla.

Actually cooking breakfast is normally something reserved for the weekends, but since this only takes a few minutes to make and it is hot, juciy, spicy and sweet?  I’ll give it a go.

I have a little pan that I warm my tortillas on.  I crank up the heat to high (8 out of 10) and heat a few tortillas up once it is good and hot… About 10-15 seconds on each side.  The tortillas hang out in a clean dish towel while I cook the eggs.

Finn loves these too (without the lime and siracha); he calls them egg tacos.  And I suppose that is fitting.  We each get an egg.  I mix it for a few seconds in a bowl with a fork.  I get my spatula ready and grab a pat of butter – just a little tooooooo much butter – and get my game face on.

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Since the pan is HOT, I have to move super fast.  Drop in the butter, swirl it around and then pour the eggs right over the browning butter.  I give it a few seconds before I pull the cooked eggs to the side of the pan to allow the raw eggs to run into the rest of the butter.  I give it a flip and then plunk them onto my snuggly tortillas.  The whole thing takes MAYBE 10 seconds.

Another Big Bite - Sweet and Spicy Breakfast2

Then I throw the windows open since I set off the smoke alarm (super hot pan + butter + eggs = smoke).  After it goes off, I top my eggs with a crumbling of queso fresco, squeeze on some lime and add a dribble of Siracha.

My tummy was a-grumbling while I was diligently snapping away.

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Christmas Preppers – Our Life in Pictures

23 Monday Dec 2013

Posted by in From the Kitchen, I'm a Crafty Mo' Fo', Party Hearty

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While lotsa folks are all in for the Zombie Apocalypse, we march to a different beat around here…  The beat of the Little Drummer Boy.  Precisely, we are prepping for the Christmas Apocalypse.

I am bracing myself for the onslaught of new toys, mounds of ripped paper and excess pumpkin pie.

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Our fingerprint snowmen turned out pretty cute.

I have a secret, though…  Don’t tell anyone, but if you live too far from family for it to be expressly known that you will be visiting for Christmas, the holidays are WAY LESS stressful.  Not that I wouldn’t love to spend Christmas Eve opening presents with my brothers, it is just that we don’t have to deal with traveling and packing and sleeping on the living room floor on an air mattress.  (My mother-in-law will be dealing with those comforts, though… She comes to visit on the 26th).

Once our shopping was out of the way, the only stressful hurdle we had was to mail everything.  And after forking over fiftty effing dollars to ship four packages, I was running low on Christmas spirit.  Nothing a little baking, wrapping and light-viewing wouldn’t cure, though.

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photo 2 (1)There have been many a Christmas activity over here…  We’ve done a few crafts and some baking…

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Flour. It is FLOUR. She isn’t emulating Tony Montana.

Finn and Alice made their Christmas Lists to give to Santa…  And were not willing to have a seat on the jolly man’s lap.

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santa3Now, I have a thing for bearded men, and this dude did not disappoint.  He even had a bowlful-of-jelly shaking belly that seriously had me scratching my head to whether or not it was authentic.  He could even read every word of Finn’s chicken scratched list.  I was mighty impressed.  Even though the kids wouldn’t sit on his lap (I’m chalking it up to being starstruck in the presence of a celebrity), it was our best Santa visit EVER.  Not that there have been many.

lightsWe went to Electric Safari at the zoo.  And got cozy in our Christmas jammies…

trainsThis week we made a gingerbread house…

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Sans clothing…

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The doorbell has rung more times this week than the entire time we’ve lived here.  Each time, the kids chant, “Another package!! Another package!”  It has been hard not to let them rip the boxes open to release the smell of new Legos and Ponies.

And on Friday, Finn had his preschool Christmas party.  It is his teacher’s first year, and she thought it would be a great idea to have a Christmas luau.  Complete with pool party.  Boy, was I THRILLED to don my bikini.  My pasty white palour was the envy of all the other moms.  Oh, yes.

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swim2So, for now, I am reveling in the calm before the storm.  We relocated the mountain of packages to ride out the last few days beneath the tree.  I’ve gotta get bathrooms cleaned and bedrooms vacuumed for the MIL’s visit.  Then it is a mad rush for baking, cooking and green bean casserole making.

And with that, I bid all of you a very happy holiday.  Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa, Eid Mubarak, Happy Chanukkah, God Jul (better late than never on some of those), and Have A Good Day on December 25th.

Happy Birthday, Princess Christmas!

17 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by in From the Kitchen, Party Hearty, The "Joy" of Parenting

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alice bday10

Sunday was Alice’s second birthday.  I love the kids’ birthdays, because I can do little things that make them SUPER excited because they are so young.  I’m not sure if Alice got what a birthday was before Sunday, but oh boy, she does now.

I started gearing up for our “party” on Saturday morning…  I baked a cake that Alice picked out in the baking aslie at the grocery store – because I am a cakemix kinda gal.  She didn’t care what flavor it was… Until she saw the strawberry one.

“PINK!” She pointed and gasped like she had never seen anything so wonderful in all her life.  She was actually petting the box the rest of the time we were in the store.

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While Alice snoozed and the boys were out shopping on Saturday afternoon, I started to decorate the cake.  There is concise list of things that Alice goes bananas for; Ariel, ponies, elephants, horses.  Anything pink.  So Ariel it was.  I have spent lots of time toiling over fondant, but there was no way I was trying to gag that down again until I had tried the same process with marzipan.  Ariel was my guinea pig.  Sure, she wasn’t worthy of Ace of Cakes or anything, but Alice didn’t care.  Ariel, Flounder and Sebastian were perched atop her strawberry cake in less than an hour, and I was happy it was OVER.

Once the kids went to sleep, I got to hanging the $7 pack of gaudy Disney Princess decorations that Alice lost her mind over at Walmart.  Since we aren’t rolling in acquaintances here in C.Springs, parties are just the four of us.  Which doesn’t mean decorations and party plates aren’t in order.

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Finn woke us up with his excited little self all nuts over Alice’s birthday decorations and impending present-opening.  He was more excited than she was.

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Alice opened her presents from us in the morning, but as soon as we were done, I was ACHING to pull out the cake and open the rest of the presents.  Nathan obliged, because who doesn’t love cake for breakfast?

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So, without pause, at eight in the morning, we lit two candles, sang Happy Birthday and set about pulling barbies and tiny teapots from their packages.  It was amazing.  Especially when the Ariel barbie from Mima was unwrapped.  Cue the squeals.

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Finn was so happy for her; it was very sweet.  He helped wrapped the package he picked out for her, and set about cutting the ribbons off all the packages for her with his safety scissors.

We had taken the kids to see Frozen on Saturday for Alice’s birthday.  When we asked her where she wanted to go for lunch on Sunday, she promptly and very finally declared:

“Donalds.”

And so Chicken McNuggets were on the menu.  After a nap and lots of playtime with all her new lovlies, we packed up and headed to dinner.  Oh my god… How did she grow up so fast??

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I cannot get over that it was two years ago that I went into the hospital, terrified that having the second baby was going to throw me back into another round of postpartum depression, but instead, I left happy and snuggly with little Alice.  She was such a good baby – one of THOSE babies, and now she is turning out to be so… so… Alice.

Happy Birthday, my little lady.  You are my very favorite daughter.  (Which I can say without any doubt – and say it proudly – since you are my only one.)

Vegan Avocado-Lime Soup

13 Friday Dec 2013

Posted by in From the Kitchen

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Another Big Bite - Vegan Avacado Lime Soup

NOTE TO SELF:  Cooking dinner in the winter makes for crappy food photos.  No natural light = BLAH.

I stumbled across this recipe on Pinterest and realized that (gasp!) I had everything I needed to make it at home.  This almost NEVER happens, and I figured it could easily be adapted to be vegan-friendly.  I was right (score!), and now we’ve happily scarfed this down for dinner three or four times in the last three weeks.

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When I was a kid, I had zero idea that you could MAKE soup; as far as I was concerned, it came from a can.  We always had my grandmother’s vegetable soup in the winter, but it was an all-day shindig… There was boiling and stewing and waiting and waiting… Smelling and smelling it all day long until it was finally dinnertime.  It wasn’t until I was in junior high when my mom started making other kinds of soup for dinner; soup that only took a half hour to make.  And less to eat.

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This soup is a quickie; and pretty hard to mess up.  The only real time-consuming part is popping garbanzo beans from their shells.  This is probably unnecessary for most of the world; I just can’t help being grossed out by the shells…  It reminds me of the molted cicada shells that populated a few summers of my childhood.  If you’ve had the pleasure of living in the midwest during a cicada summer, you know what I mean.  If not, trust me; count yourself among the lucky ones.

This isn’t good banter for a food-related post…  Moving on….

After sauteing green onions and garlic in a bit of olive oil for a few minutes, popping in tomatoes, beans, seasoning, and stock, it just sits there simmering away for twenty minutes.

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We cube a half an avocado per person and top it with fresh cilantro and a few chopped green onions.  Once the soup is ready, I pour it over the avocados and let it sit for just a few minutes to warm up the avocado.  We’ve also enjoyed this using chicken stock we had in the pantry and it was even better, though not vegan.  If I were honest to my dairy-loving self, I would LOVE to top it with a bit of creme fraiche and some crumbled tortilla chips.  Feel free to do that in my honor.

Avocado-Lime Soup

  • 3/4 cup of chopped green onions (about 5, including greens)
  • 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
  • 2 Tbsp olive oil
  • 1/2 cup of chopped tomatoes
  • Juice of 1 lime
  • 1 can of un-salted garbanzo beans, drained and peeled
  • 1/2 tsp cumin
  • 1/4 tsp garlic salt
  • 3 cups of vegetable stock
  • 2 avocados, cubed
  • 1/4 cup chopped cilantro

Saute garlic and 2/3 of green onions in olive oil until tender, about 4-5 minutes.  Add tomatoes, garbanzo beans, cumin, garlic salt, lime juice and stock.  Cover and simmer on low for twenty minutes.  Meanwhile, place cubed avocado, remaining green onions and cilantro in individual bowls.  Ladle soup over avocados, allow to sit for three minutes to allow avocado to warm through.  Serve immediately.

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The first time I made this, Nathan was surprised…  “Wow.  This is like, actually really good.”  His confidence in my culinary prowess is inspiring, no?

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Finn isn’t much for avocados or lime, but Alice is one happy customer.  And that makes me happy.

Mango Sorbet

28 Wednesday Aug 2013

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Another Big Bite - Mango SorbetA week ago, there was a fire sale on mangos at Costco.

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No, not that Mango.

The fruit.  Two bucks for nine mangos?  Sure, they looked a little rough, but they weren’t even ripe yet and otherwise seemed to be just peachy.  I took the $4.00 gamble and bought two cases of them.  Eighteen mangos and I headed home to see what the other was made of.

Good investment, Lisa.  They were perfect, and so the fam and I set about eating mangos like it was going out of style.  I thought that I would end up pulling out the dehydrator on the second case.  Sure, there were three casualties.  But mango sorbet was just aching to be made…  So I made it.

After combing through my cookbooks, I realized that every sorbet recipe I had called for corn syrup, and lots of it.  Those damn “it’s fine in moderation, just like sugar” commercials that the corn growers of America put on haven’t convinced me.   Also, adding a cup of corn syrup to another cup of regular sugar is overkill in the sugar department at any rate, no matter how good or bad corn syrup is for you.

For this recipe, I cut the sugar way down.  I also used raw sugar, which toned the color of the sorbet down quite a bit.  If I had used refined sugar, those nice little scoops of mango-y goodness would be electric yellow.  I thought of skipping the sugar completely, but adding sugar is part of what makes the sorbet scoopable.  Skipping the sugar entirely would result in a slushie straight from the ice cream maker or a solid block of mango juice if you continued to freeze it in the freezer.

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Since I didn’t want to go down the corn syrup road, I brought my sugar and water to a boil, simmering it until the sugar was fully dissolved.  Then I dumped the mixture over my chopped mangos and lemon juice and let it steep for three or four hours – but I don’t think anything over an hour in the fridge – enough to cool it down – was necessary.

Mango Sorbet

  • 4 cups ripe mangos, cubed (about 4 large)
  • 1/4 cup lemon juice
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1 1/2 cup water

In small saucepan, bring sugar and water to a boil.  Simmer until sugar is completely dissolved.  Remove from heat.

Combine mangos, lemon juice and sugar syrup.  Allow to cool.  Refrigerate at least one hour.  Before freezing, blend mixture until smooth (I used my immersion blender, but a blender, food processor or potato masher would do the trick).

Freeze in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s directions.  For firmer sorbet, place in freezer-safe container and freeze for four hours.  If the mixture gets too hard to scoop, allow to thaw slightly in the refrigerator for one hour or microwave on half power for 45 seconds.

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The thought occurred to me to puree up some strawberries to pour over the top, but in the end, we were all too anxious to eat it.

Another Big Bite - Mango Sorbet2