Soft Beef Tortillas

Ingredients
2 tbsp veg oil
1/2 small red onion, minced
1 1/2 pounds ground beef
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp coriander
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups tomato sauce
10 flour tortillas

Toppings
1/2 small head lettuce, shredded
1 cup Monterey Jack cheese, shredded
1 small red or yellow pepper, sliced
1 cup canned black beans, rinsed
salsa and guacamole
1 sliced avocado
1 tomato, chopped
1 cup sour cream
4 seeded and sliced fresh jalapenos

To make beef filling, heat oil, saute onion until soft and add ground beef and cook. Drain. Add garlic, chili powder, cumin, coriander, salt and tomato sauce. Cook, stirring occasionally over low heat for 10 minutes.
You know to to assemble tortillas, right? Geesh.

Lemon Squares

From Beat This! by Ann Hodgman
Crust
1 cup all-purpose flour
8 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 slices
2 tbsp sugar
2 tsp grated lemon or lime zest
pinch salt

Filling
1 1/2 cups sugar stirred together with 3 tbsp all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tbsp grated lemon or lime zest
3/4 cup fresh lemon or lime juice
3 large eggs
3/4 tsp baking powder

Preheat the oven to 375. Butter an 8 inch square baking pan.

Crust: Place all ingredients in a food processor. Process until mixture begins to form a ball. Pat the mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan and bake for 15-20 minutes or until a pale golden all over. Take the crust out of the oven and turn down to 350.

Filling: Clean the food processor and place all the filling ingredients inside. Process until very smooth. Pour into partially baked crust and bake for 20-25 minutes or until the filling is set and beginning to brown around the edges.
Allow to cool, then chill well in the fridge.

Apple Crisp

From Beat This! by Ann Hodgman
4 generous cups peeled, cored, sliced apples
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 tsp cinnamon mixed with 1 tsp sugar
1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
3/4 cup all purpose flour
8 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
1/8 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 375. Butter a 9 by 5 loaf pan.
In a large bowl, toss the apple slices with the lemon juice and cinnamon sugar.
In a small bowl, blend the brown sugar, flour, butter and salt together - first with a pastry blender and then with your hands.
Put the apple slices into the loaf pan. Press the topping over them. Bake for one hour.
Serve with heavy cream.
Serves 4 to 6

Gluten-Free Graham-esque Crackers

Even if you don't like buckwheat, these are totally worth checking out - I've given out this recipe many times and everyone who has tried it has LOVED it.

I don't remember where I got this recipe from. I've made it about fifty million times, and it's always been good.

1/3 cup olive or vegetable oil
1/3 cup molasses and 1/3 cup honey, mixed together
2 1/4 cups buckwheat flour
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon (sometimes I also throw caution to the wind and toss a bit of nutmeg in, too.)
1/4 tsp salt
a few tsp of water, if needed.

Preheat oven to 350.

Combine all ingredients, adding extra water if needed until the dough holds together. Take a cookie sheet and flip it over - the side your normally bake cookies on will be underneath. Grease with veg. or olive oil. Flatten dough over the greased surface of the cookie sheet, and use an oiled rolling pin to smooth it out - you'll want to make the crackers fairly thin. Use a knife to score into cracker-sized crackers ("scoring" means to mark the dough but not cut all the way through it. And Now You Know.), and poke each cracker with a fork several times.

Bake for ten minutes.

Let cool and then break the cookies into crackers. Store in an airtight container or they'll get soft and gross.

Crispy Chicken Fingers

1/2 cup plain yogurt. Low fat is fine.
1/2 tsp tarragon. Skip it if you like.
a dash of salt
a dash of pepper
1 1/2 cups finely crushed Corn Flakes. Put them in a ziplock bag and let your kid pound them to atom-sized molecules.
1/4 cup grated Parmesan
1 1/2 pounds boneless chicken breasts

Preheat the oven to 400. Grease a cookie sheet OR cover it with Parchment paper.

In a bowl, mix together yogurt, tarragon, salt and pepper and mix. In another bowl, mix together the cornflakes and Parmesan.

Cut the chicken breasts into fingers or nuggets. Dip each piece into the yogurt mixture and then roll it around in the cornflake mixture. Once coated, lay each piece on the cookie sheet.

Bake for ten minutes and then turn the cookie sheet around and bake for another 10 minutes.

Pasta Salad

This recipe came with my kid's lunchbox. It's nice and easy enough to set aside things like cooked pasta and chopped broccoli the night before.

You'll need:
cooked pasta. I generally use some sort of small, kid-friendly shape. (and you'll want about a cup...)
some chopped veggies: red or green peppers, sugar snap peas (those are nicer left whole), thinly chopped cabbage...
a bit of broccoli, cut into bite-sized pieces
some grated or chopped raw carrot
a handful of bean sprouts

The dressing is:
1 clove minced garlic
2 tbsp sesame oil
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp sesame seeds (I normally use flax seeds instead, since I am No Fun.)
and some chopped cilantro. (just a tablespoon or so.)
Mix the dressing ingredients together and then toss it with the salad ingredients. Ta da.

Mashed Sweet Potatoes

This is not really a recipe. I bake sweet potatoes - and at what temperature? I dunno, I generally just throw them in the oven while I'm making something else and let them stay there until they're done - and once they're squishy AND WHILE I AM WEARING OVEN MITTS (this is important. Believe me), I cut them in half and squash them out of their skins into a heatproof bowl. Then I mash them and add some butter and nutmeg. Ta da!

Maybe your kids wouldn't love these, but my kids, God bless 'em, actually get EXCITED. I obviously am a wonderful mother or my poor kids are just really deprived. One or the other.

Pumpkin Bread

This is a lower-fat recipe and still tastes REALLY good. I make it FREQUENTLY. It's from Healthy Cooking magazine, which is a dandy publication. It makes 2 loaves - I generally halve the recipe and freeze the other half of the canned pumpkin for the next time, but maybe you need a LOT of pumpkin bread. I dunno.

2 1/4 cups sugar
2 cups flour (you can use all-purpose, although I've subbed half of it with whole wheat and it's still been tasty)
1 1/3 cups cake flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
4 eggs
1 can (15 oz) pumpkin. NOT pumpkin pie filling!
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/3 cup canola oil

Combine the first nine ingredients in a large bowl. In yet another bowl, mix together the eggs, pumpkin, buttermilk, applesauce and oil. Stir into dry ingredients until just mixed.

Transfer to two oiled loaf pans. Bake at 350 for 45-55 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with moist crumbs. Cool in the pans for 10 minutes.

Makes 2 loaves.

This is what we're gonna eat

Last week turned out to be uninspiring - two meals were so markedly horrible that I've actually crossed them out below, thus erasing them from the official record. And this week we're sick AND the kids are home for March Break, which means that I'm trying to strike the right note of foods that are comforting and also fun for the ungrateful monsters.

Sunday
Supper - Pasta with Rainbow Veggies. And an alfredo sauce, just to balance things out.

Monday
Breakfast.... Oooh! I forgot to plan something for breakfast. Perhaps someone else will make it. That would be lovely.

Lunch - This marshmallow fluff/strawberry fruit dip and a fruit tray.

Supper - Beef and Bean Burrito Bake (which obviously has a thuddingly prosaic name, but is quite nice AND really high in iron.) and a coleslaw made with lots of different vegetables, so we don't get scurvy on top of what we already have.

Tuesday - St. Patrick's Day
Breakfast - Irish Oatmeal and some baked breakfast fruits.

Lunch - Zucchini Pancakes with sour cream and applesauce.

Supper - Corned Beef and Cabbage with mashed potatoes, Irish Soda Bread and a key lime pie for dessert.

Wednesday
Breakfast - French Toast
Lunch - Stuffed Tuna Buns, raw veggie tray
Supper - Pasta Puttancesca

Thursday
Breakfast - Heavenly Hots
Lunch - Egg Salad Sandwiches and once again, the raw veggie tray of virtue.
Supper - Pork Satay, Vaguely Chinese Veggies and Brown Rice

Friday
Breakfast - Cheese Omelets
Lunch - Baked Beans and Peppers on Toast
Supper - Pizza Rustica

This Week In Food At My House

Good GRIEF, I haven't posted here in four MONTHS. I am so lazy.

So here's what we're eating this week, and let me know if you're interested in anything - I'll post the recipes IF they turn out.



Sunday:
Supper
We WILL be eating before supper on Sunday, but not at home. When we are, we're having a lemon roast chicken, mashed sweet potatoes and some cauliflower and cheese, along with a green salad with a homemade buttermilk dressing.


Monday- The 40 Martyrs of Sebaste
On my actual worksheet, you can see my scrawled notes to myself. Apparently, on Monday I'll be getting up early to make banana bread. Oh, hooRAY.
Breakfast

Scrambled Eggs and Toast, Berries


Snack (my kids have that horrible "balanced school day" thing)
Banana bread with cream cheese, orange wedges and juice.

Lunch
Pasta Salad with Veggies and Chicken, an applesauce cup, milk.

Supper
Meatballs Stroganoff, broccoli.
It isn't until you start writing down everything that you plan on making that you realize how often you eat the same things. LIKE PASTA. But that's okay. We like pasta.

Tuesday and Purim
Breakfast
Oatmeal and Frozen Berries


Snack
Bagel with Cream Cheese, Grapes


Lunch
Soup in thermos, Banana bread and cream cheese

Note to myself: Bake Hamentashen after school with the kids.

Supper
Orange Chicken and Veggie Stir-Fry , Brown Rice (note to self: double rice for tomorrow morning.)


Wednesday and Johnny Appleseed Day
Breakfast
Brown Rice Pudding (hence the doubling last night. I'm so fancy.)

Snack
Yogurt with Granola for Sprinkling, Apple, Hamentashen

Lunch
Pizza for The Boy, Egg Salad Sandwich for The Girl because she HATES PIZZA, the weirdo. Fruit Salad cups.


Supper
Crispy Herb-Coated Pork Chops, Mashed Potatoes (which I'm making double of, so we can have some tomorrow), Broccoli with an Orange Glaze, Apple Crisp.


Thursday
Note to self: get up early to make pumpkin bread. I DO THIS TO MYSELF.
Breakfast
Whole Grain Pancakes with Chocolate Chip Smiley Faces and Berries

Snack
Pumpkin Bread with Cream Cheese, Orange Wedges, Applesauce Cup

Lunch
Whole Grain Macaroni and Cheese in Thermos, Cucumber Slices and Cauliflower Trees

Supper
Cabbage Rolls, Peas, Mashed Potatoes


Friday

Breakfast
French Toast with Orange Wedges


Snack
Pumpkin Bread with Cream Cheese, Grapes

Lunch
Tomato Soup, Whole Grain Crackers and Cheese, Pepper Strips


And that's it. My husband makes supper on Fridays.
Supper

Sally Lunn

This was apparently named for a bread-seller in the 18th century, which just goes to show you how very nice the bread is, I think.

One important thing to note is that while this bread is pretty much effortless, it takes a LONG time to make (although you'll only be fussing with it in small spurts). If you want to have it with supper tonight, start making it right after lunch. Okay? Okay.

1 cup milk or cream or evaporated milk or a mix of any of the three
8 tbsp butter, cubed
1 package active dry yeast
1/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
4 eggs
3 3/4 cup all-purpose flour

In a small saucepan, add the milk and the butter. Stir over low heat until the butter is melted, and then pour into a large bowl. Let it cool until it's lukewarm and add the yeast, sugar and salt - stir and then leave it be for five minutes. The yeast should be all dissolved.

Add the eggs, one by one, stirring briskly after each. Add the flour - a cup at a time - and stir briskly again until the batter is lovely and very smooth. Cover the bowl and leave your dough alone someplace warm for about three hours - it should double in size.

Now you have a decision to make - do you want to make an impressive loaf of bread or smaller, muffin-sized buns? Butter a tube pan (a 10" one) or 24 muffin cups. Beat the dough again to deflate it, then pour it into the tube pan or spoon into the muffin cups (about half full). Butter your hands and smooth the dough down evenly and smoothly. Cover loosely with a towel and let rise for another hour.

Preheat your oven to 375.

If you're using the tube pan, you should bake your bread for about 50 minutes. If you're making the small buns, you should bake your bread for about 20 minutes, turning your pan mid-way. When they're baked, let them cool on a rack.

Butternut Squash Soup

This is a slow-cooker recipe, which makes it doubly lovely.
Brown one chopped onion in some butter.
Into your slow cooker, add:
- the browned onion
1 butternut squash (a 2 pounder, about), peeled and cubed and good luck with that part.
2 cups chicken broth. Or vegetable broth. Your call.
1/2 tsp dried marjoram
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/8 tsp ground red pepper

Cover and cook on the low setting for 6 to 8 hours.
About 40 minutes before serving, puree 1/3 of the soup in your blender until it's smooth and goopy and return it to the slow cooker. BE CAREFUL DOING THIS PART - you don't want to get hit in the face by wet squash whipping around in a blender. Not that I've done that.
Now add a cubed 8 oz. package of cream cheese.
Let it cook for another 25-30 minutes until the cheese is melted and stir it with a wire whisk until it's smooth.
(and I am throwing in a chopped peeled apple and a sprinkle of ground ginger, but this is the basic recipe.)

Banana Chocolate Chip Mini Muffins

.... or "What To Do With Those Brown Bananas."

1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour. You can also be sneaky and make 1/2 cup of that whole wheat flour, if you like.
2/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup mashed very ripe bananas (that's two big ones or three small ones, and mashing bananas is a swell job for an energetic three year old)
1 large egg
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/4 cup light sour cream (don't use fat free sour cream - it doesn't bake well)
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

Heat the oven to 350. Line your mini muffin pans with wee adorable muffin papers, or grease the cups.
In a bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt and mix together.
In ANOTHER mixing bowl, combine the mashed bananas, egg, melted butter, sour cream, vanilla, and milk. Beat with an electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Now turn the speed to looooooow and stir in the flour ingredients until JUST BLENDED. (mixing muffins too much makes them tough.) Stir in the chocolate chips with a wooden spoon. (Why wood? I do not know.)
Fill each muffin cup with a tablespoon of batter, and bake for 20 minutes or until they're golden and a toothpick comes out with no crumbs. Transfer to a rack to cool, and this should make about 36 mini muffins.

Coughing from All the Dust

This week's menu.
Sunday And My Birthday:
Breakfast - Zeppelin Pancakes and berries
Lunch - out for lunch with a friend
Supper - Southwestern Backyard Burgers, potato salad, tortellini salad, red pepper dip with corn chips AND a chocolate sour cream cake, all of which will be cooked by my husband. hahahaah.

Monday And My Husband Is Home, Hence The Nice Breakfast:
Breakfast - A really tasty cream-filled yeast raised bun with an inexplicably lewd-sounding name or maybe it's just me ("Dewey Buns"), Fruit Salad
Lunch - Brown Rice Lentil Salad
Supper - Shredded Pork Tacos, Avocado Salad and coleslaw

Tuesday And The Kids Are Back To School Tomorrow:
Breakfast - Oatmeal with Berries
Lunch - Leftover Tacos
Supper, Which Will Be A Picnic - Veggie Chicken Wraps, Raw Veggie Sticks, Pasta Salad with a vinaigrette dressing, and an ice cream sundae party at home.

Wednesday and The First Day of School!
Breakfast - Plain Pancakes with Syrup and butter, as requested
First Nutrition Break (ah, the poets of the Ontario school boards!) - Homemade hummus with raw veggies, juice
Second Nutrition Break - Zucchini Bread with Cream Cheese, Pasta Salad (which I made last night), Orange Wedges, 2 Oreos and milk
Supper - Pasta with Sausage and Peppers, Festive Tossed Salad, Birthday cake - likely - because it's my youngest brother's birthday.

Thursday:
Breakfast - Oatmeal with bananas and honey
1st Nutrition Break - Zucchini Bread with Cream Cheese, Juice
2nd Nutrition Break - Hummus and Veggie Wrap, Oreos, Orange Wedges (guess what was on sale this week?), milk
Supper - Slow Cooker Rosemary Chicken with White Beans, Coleslaw

Friday:
Breakfast - Carrot-Pineapple Muffins, applesauce
1st Nutrition Break - Cucumber Chains, Juice, Mini Muffins
2nd Nutrition Break - Little wholewheat lady bug pizzas, Oreos, milk
Supper - Butternut Squash Soup with Apples and Ginger, Honey-Oat Casserole Bread

Sour Cream Pancakes

2 eggs, separated
1 1/2 cups buttermilk (should you not have buttermilk in the fridge - although if you like to bake at all, you really should - you can sour some regular milk with a Tbsp of vinegar.)
1/2 cup sour cream. We've also used plain yogurt in a pinch, and it worked fine.
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

In a large bowl, mix together the yolks, milk and sour cream until well blended. Add the butter and just stir until it's combined.
In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda and salt. Add it to the yolk/milk mixture and beat until smooth.
Beat the egg whites until they're stiff but still moist. Gently fold the yolks into the batter.

Get your griddle moderately hot and give it a light coating of non-stick spray. We make our pancakes rather small, but you can make them however big you like. Flip them over when little bubbles appear on the top, and when the bottom is a nice golden brown. It will only need to cook briefly on the other side.

Now go get your maple syrup and eat some pancakes.

A solid way to cook vegetables

These are great - they're flavourful, but not in a child-repelling sort of way. And you get to use a wok (if you have one), which is always fun.

Heat up - on high heat - 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil in a wok or a big skillet.
Add:
1 bunch of broccoli, all chopped up. (do you eat the stems? Just peel the stems a bit and chop them - my kids actually like the stems raw, cut into long sticks!)
1 onion, diced
1 tablespoon minced ginger root
Stir-fry for a minute.
Now add:
3 baby bok choy, or 2 stems of the bigger kind, chopped up.
4 ounces snow peas
3 celery stalks, sliced really thin
5 green onions, all chopped up
And pour
3/4 cup chicken stock on it. You could use vegetable broth, if you'd rather.
Toss vegetables until everything is coated. Bring to a boil, cover and cook for 2 to 3 minutes or until the vegetables are slightly tender but still crisp.

Serves about six.

Broccoli Salad

I sort of feel like the bacon - which is totally optional - and the mayonnaise - which is totally mandatory - negate any health-giving properties this salad may possibly have. But it's handy because most kids - and big sucky adults - will eat it, and then later on you can say "but you ate the broccoli SALAD" when you want them to eat just plain ol' broccoli. Also, it is good.

You will need:
1 bunch broccoli, just the florets, chopped up attractively.

And some of the following things:
- 1 cup raisins or craisins - this is totally optional, especially if you have kids who are going to shriek "EWWWW! SHE PUT RAISINS IN THE SAAAALAD!". Not to name any names, GIRL.
- 1 cup sunflower seeds. Again, optional. The raisins are there for sweet and the sunflower seeds are there for crunch, but neither of these are going to make or break the salad.
- some crispy, crumbled bacon strips. My recipe calls for ten. TEN! We generally use about two. You don't need to use any.
- cubed (or grated) cheddar cheese. I'm going to guess and say 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup, but however much looks good for you. Again, skip it if you wanna.
- 1/4 cup diced red onion. Totally skippable.

Here's the dressing, once you have your salad bowl brimming over or not:
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon vinegar
3 tablespoons sugar. So healthy!
Mix the salad dressing together in a bowl, then toss all the ingredients together. You're going to want the salad to sit in the fridge for at LEAST two hours before you eat it.
Serves six, more or less.

Slightly Fancy Asparagus

Steam your asparagus (about enough for four people). Now drain it.
Toss the drained asparagus with two tablespoons of vinegar - balsamic, apple cider (hi, mom!), or whatever you want. Throw in a tablespoon of butter, a bit of salt and pepper and a clove of minced garlic. Serve with modest pride.

Roasted Asparagus

Preheat your oven to 450.
Get your asparagus ready - trim the ends, peel if they're fat - and lay them on a roasting pan. Drizzle them with some extra-virgin olive oil and sprinkle a bit of salt on top. Now roast them for 10 to 15 minutes.
Serve with lemon wedges.

Steamed Asparagus

Take your asparagus and trim the gnarly ends off (not the tip!). If your asparagus is thick, they'll be better if you peel the stalks, too. Find a frying pan that can hold the amount of asparagus that you want to cook without crushing them together. Cover them with water and add a pinch of salt. Now cook them on high until they're JUST fork tender - you don't want them mushy and you don't want them crispy.

Now drain them and toss them with some butter and eat.