8-Minute Dinner

Exciting news! It's light outside past 5 p.m., which means I don't feel like putting on my pajamas and getting in bed as soon as I get home! (I wait at least one hour.)

More importantly, it means that even though I really didn't feel like making dinner when I got home with the boys tonight, I resisted the urge to grab fast food and instead, got creative. And so, I present to you my 8-Minute Fancy Shrimp! (I'm sorry, I have no photo. I didn't realize it was brilliant until we'd eaten it.)

8-Minute Fancy Shrimp

You will need:

-One bag of frozen uncooked shrimp

-One bag of "themed" frozen vegetables (I used Archer Farms Southwest-inspired corn and black bean seasoned vegetable blend)

-Barbecue sauce

1. Boil a pot of water

2. Microwave vegetables according to package

3. When water is boiling, throw in frozen shrimp and cook for 2-3 minutes (until they're pink)

Put vegetables on plate, top with shrimp, make fancy criss-cross drizzle with barbecue sauce.

Ta-da! It's like you went out to eat for free!

You could do this with any theme. For example, with "Asian-inspired" vegetables, you'd just sub teriyaki sauce for the barbecue. I'm pretty sure the possibilities are endless.

(And btw, I just learned that you can boil frozen shrimp - my life is transformed.)

Top Chef, here I come!

Baking Christmas

A week from now, Christmas will be over. Even though I've been watching Christmas movies and listening to carols and shopping and wrapping and baking, I still don't know if I've been holly jolly enough.

There's a feeling stored in my mind that I think I'm always trying to recapture, although I'm not entirely sure it was ever captured in the first place. Maybe it's just an amalgamation of all of the things I've ever loved at Christmastime that, when combined, cast a glow over my memories of the season.

In my mind, there's an anonymous snowy windowsill, the only light coming from the colorful, twinkling bulbs strung along the the window frame, and I am sipping hot chocolate while Christmas songs fill the air. And the scene is pink and sweet, like a candy cane. And that's what I think of when I think of Christmas.

But if you want to be more tangible about it, here are a few holly jolly recipes I've compliled for the occasion, which I think you might want to try:

Peppermint Meltaways

Yes, Land O'Lakes is trying to sell you butter with this recipe, but you need butter when baking these delicious bits of Christmas, so it's all good.

Maple Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies

I'm thinking about giving these as gifts. Even the most cynical teenager would welcome the gift of bacon cookies, right?

Pumpkin Gooey Butter Cakes

Only Paula Deen would suggest that you use cake mix for the crust. I made these recently for our office potluck and I am now very popular at work.

Salted Caramel Popcorn

This isn't just a great recipe for caramel corn, it's from my favorite momoir author-turned-recipe queen, Catherine Newman.

Rich Chocolate Cupcakes Filled With Chocolate-Mint Ganache Topped With Mint Buttercream

Truthfully, I've only used the mint buttercream part of this recipe so far (it's great with brownies), but perhaps you are feeling ambitious? There's just no way these cupcakes could be anything less than awesome.

So Merry Christmas Week. Stay sane, bake lots and remember that gifts are not actually the point of all this.

Help Us Win!

Remember weeks ago when I told you my family was entering a contest and I'd be requesting your participation? Well...

I am proud to announce that we have submitted our video to Welch's Ultimate PB&J Challenge! As you can see, our video is an awesome homage to Iron Chef America. 

Now we need you to go to the contest site and Watch it. Rate it. Repeat. 

And please also leave a comment mentioning how hungry the video makes you for Welch's jelly...

Finalists are chosen based on which videos receive the most views and highest ratings from the general public, then it's up to Welch's and the Food Network. That means that we need everyone we know and everyone all of you know to get us into the finals! 

In case you missed that other link, click here to vote now.

Why are we doing this? The winner gets a trip for four to NYC. But this isn't just any trip, it includes a tour of the Food Network studios and dinner at one of the Food Network chef's restaurants. Now, I know you're all familiar with my love for the Food Network, but I'm more excited about the possibility of giving this experience to my kids, who choose the Food Network over cartoons most days. They have watched Rachael Ray since they were three...they get excited when they see Bobby Flay...Aidan has recently taken a liking to the Barefoot Contessa...this would be a big deal to them.  

This could be the pivotal thing that motivates little Aidan to become the next Anthony Bourdain! Or the inspiration Owen needs to take molecular gastronomy to the next level! Their culinary futures hang in the balance here! Please vote! Right now! 

P.S. My husband worked really, really hard to edit this video together. Were it not for his art school education, we probably would have been stuck with a clip of my children smearing jelly on a piece of bread. Thank you, sweetie.

The Results are In

Hooray! My weeklong calorie counting experiment is over! I know you're dying to know how it went, so please let me tell you...

First, a bit about methodology: I used the Calorie Counter site to track my daily intake. I don't know how it compares to other such sites, but it did what I needed it to do. Why a hard-boiled egg has 78 calories while a poached egg has only 71 remains a mystery to me, but whatever.

The results:

Day one was the easiest. Maybe because my body figured it was only temporary. 

Day two was the hardest and I cursed this experiment all day, but I still managed to stay at my limit. 

Day three was a bad day and so I ate a brownie. Had I not eaten that brownie, I would have been under my limit. But the brownie was delicious. 

Day four was surprisingly easy again and I made it under my limit without having to obsess about it all day.

Day five I met friends for a coffee playdate and ate a stupid cinnamon roll, which was not worth the amount of calories I imagine that it contained. Again, had I not eaten the unnecessary treat, I would have made my limit. 

Day six was Valentine's Day and, as noted in my previous post, calorie counting was put on hold. If I had to guess, I'd say that I probably went over my limit by close to 1000 calories. But it was a lovely evening. 

Day seven was alright. I was helpless against the custard bismarck a friend brought to my house. I mean, it would have been rude not to eat it, right? Other than that, I did okay. I didn't quite make my limit. 

So, no, I didn't meet my goal to stick within a certain calorie limit for a full week. However, what I learned was that if I just cut out the stupid shit that I already know I shouldn't be eating (I'm talking to you, baked goods), my calorie intake is actually at a pretty healthy level. 

And, really, the only way I could ever truly stick to a hardcore calorie limit would be to eat only packaged foods, where the calorie count is clearly displayed for me. That doesn't really jive with my love of cooking and baking, so I'm just going to be smarter about what I eat and choose recipes that have more good stuff and less butter.

In summary, eating donuts makes you fat. Vegetables are good for you. Wow, that was totally worth a week of my life. 

What a Rat Can Teach You

We let our boys choose one souvenir each while in Disney. Lucky for us, they weren't that into the gift shops, but when we did finally enter one in search of goodies, this is what Aidan picked:

It's so perfectly him (and so practical!). I'm sure we could get a copy at our local bookstore, but now every time we cook something from this book, he'll be reminded of our trip. 

Aside from being adorable, the book actually has some nice recipes that you won't mind making with your kids. (And c'mon, Thomas Keller wrote the introduction.) We had Remy's Macaroni and Cheese on Thursday night and it was easy and pretty good. (I recommend using half American and half cheddar cheese). Then yesterday we attempted Colette's Crepes. 

The recipe was straightforward. I measured everything and then let the kids dump it all in the blender. All was well until I went to lift the blender pitcher off its base, at which point the bottom stayed attached to the blade, leaving me holding nothing more than a glass tube as crepe batter tidal waved across my countertop, floor and me. (I assume the blender comes apart this way for easier cleaning, but after several similar incidents, usually involving margaritas, I have decided it's time for a new blender.)

So after quickly remaking the batter, it was time to make crepes. And they worked! We filled the first batch with strawberry preserves and cream cheese, as suggested by the cookbook. Then the next batch was chocolate chips and bananas. I made myself a peanut butter, banana and chocolate chip crepe. Delicious. 

So crepes are officially the new favorite in our house. Easy and yummy. Plus, they make you feel a little fancy when you eat them. 

Thank you, Food Network

I think I may have found the secret to getting my kids to eat dinner without any arguing: TV tie-ins.

You see, modern parenting advice tells us that TV is bad for kids, but I think it really depends on what you watch. On Sunday night, the boys watched The Food Network's Ultimate Recipe Showdown with me. This is the show where home cooks get to compete with other home cooks using their own recipes and the winner not only gets $25,000, but also gets to have their recipe "interpreted" for the TGI Friday's menu...I think that's an honor if you're a home cook and not a snobby chef who would prefer to pretend chain restaurants don't exist. 

So the theme this week was burgers and the burgers looked mighty good. Inspired, I decided to make my own special burgers for dinner last night. I'm calling them "Chive Turkey (burgers)" and all they consist of is ground turkey stuffed with chive cream cheese. 

They were a hit. Since I prefaced the meal with a "we're having fancy burgers like the ones on Ultimate Recipe Showdown," Owen, who has always refused burgers in the past, dove right in without any complaints about having never tried it before (a first, let me tell you) and Aidan cleaned his plate! This is a breakthrough for sure. 

This can only mean more Food Network for me and more happy meals (not to be confused with Happy Meals™) for my family. Win-win. 

Someday My Job Will Come

In the last week I've made cookies, cracker toffee, a ham, two kinds of pumpkin pie, carmel corn, banana bread and a potato pizza. Last night it occurred to me that perhaps I'm channeling the anxiety I feel about having to get a job into cooking. (yes, well it's always obvious once you realize it)

The good news is that I'm not eating most of what I make - just bites here and there - so I will hopefully still fit into my suit if anyone ever feels like calling me for a job interview.  **Sigh** 

Job hunting was a lot easier last time I did it. I'm trying not to take it personally, as everyone is job hunting (thanks, economy!) and December is a really bad time to job hunt anyway, but, well...I'm just not used to sending out so many resumes with so few (read: no) responses. 

I mean, I think I'm still employable. Last time I checked, writing was still a skill that fewer and fewer Americans seem to possess. I can't help thinking my status as "freelancer" isn't helping my cause, since most people seem to think "freelance" is synonymous with "unemployed" or "I-lounge-around-eating-bon-bons-all-day." It also doesn't help that all of these online application systems are completely impersonal and give you no indication of whether a human ever actually sees your resume...Hello, black hole, I would like a job.  

It's just a bummer. I know I could veer out of my field...indulge my curiosity about working at Starbucks, perhaps.  (Side note: I recently read "How Starbucks Saved My Life" by Michael Gates Gill and it does paint quite a rosy picture of the mega-corp.) But what can I say? Corporate America has made me soft. I've grown accustomed to making decent money, so it's really difficult for me to get my head around no longer being able to pick my kids up from school so that I can barely make enough to pay for groceries. 

No, I'm not ready to give up yet. There's a job out there for me. Maybe even one where I can approximate the use of my college degree. Maybe even one that won't steal my soul. Maybe even one that I (gasp) like a little. It could happen.  

Potlucks R (Not) Us

While I try to shake the intense anger and sadness that I have about our recent events with the teenager, I thought I’d tell you a story that I meant to tell you last week, but which got lost in the election euphoria.

Now that the boys are in elementary school, requests to join the PTA or, at the very least, give them money, bombard me. To assuage my guilt at constantly ignoring these requests, I volunteered to make something for this teacher appreciation dinner. (Truthfully, the dinner happened to be the same night as our parent-teacher conference, so I figured that if I was going to be there anyway, I might as well bring something.)

I got assigned a dessert. Awesome! I’ll make brownies! I thought. (Interestingly, we can bring homemade food items for the teachers, but not the kids.) But then I realized the brownie mix I had was for peanut butter brownies and since the school is peanut-free, I thought that might be a bad idea. Why I didn’t just go buy a plain brownie mix, I have no idea.

No, instead, I got this ridiculous idea to make something seasonal…pumpkin bars? Pumpkin cheesecake? No, because, you see, I already have tried and true recipes for those items…no, I thought it would be much better to Google a recipe for pumpkin cake (“The Best Ever Pumpkin Cake”) and then make said cake for the very first time and serve it to my children’s teachers.

So I did. The universe was trying to tell me not to…first we ran late at our playdate that day, so I didn’t think we’d have time to make the cake, but then, just before turning to go to the grocery store to simply buy some cookies, I convinced myself we had just enough time.

Once I was one-third of the way into making the cake, I realized the recipe called for 3 eggs and I only had 2...Oh well, I thought, how big of a deal can one egg be? (I still really don’t know the answer to that question, but I clearly was less concerned because I knew I wouldn’t be eating the cake.)

So I mixed all the ingredients – including the whole stick of melted butter that the recipe called for – and it was a weird recipe where you mix all the guts of the cake, but then sprinkle the actual cake mix on top. I had read ahead enough to know that. However, I had not read carefully enough to realize that the melted stick of butter was supposed to be dumped over the dry cake mix just before putting it in the oven. Well, maybe some of that butter will make up for that missing egg, I reasoned.

But you see, dry cake mix is just dry cake mix no matter how long you bake it, and naturally that was my last stick of butter, so I thought maybe melting some margarine and hastily dumping over the top of the cake once it was already in the oven might be good enough.

So the cake baked and, surprisingly, it came out looking fairly cake-like. However, it came out of the oven approximately 3 minutes before we had to leave to go to the boys’ conferences, which meant there would be no time for cooling.

It occurred to me that I could simply bring the frosting separately and one of the teachers would probably be kind enough to put it on later when they were ready to eat it…I remember thinking that, but next thing I knew, I was attempting to spread frosting on a burning hot pile of cake mix…it didn’t go well, but hey, it was done! All I had to do was throw on some plastic wrap and get out the door.

Any of you familiar with physics (or baking) might know what happened next…having trapped all of the heat in with the plastic wrap, the frosting proceeded to melt into a pool of bubbly froth. As an added bonus, that stick of butter that wasn’t supposed to be in there began seeping through the foil cake pan, leaving a slick, fatty film on everything it touched. Yum.

At this point, it would have been easy to just pitch the thing. To pretend I forgot my volunteer duties entirely or even go explain to the woman at the front desk that I simply f*ed up the cake I was supposed to bring. But no, by this point I was determined to get that damn thing inside that school. I mean, it smelled pretty good.

But here’s what it looked like:

As I set it down in the school office, I muttered some embarrassed apologies about not having enough time to let it cool (no need to mention the butter incident) and then I fled. They don’t know who I am! I thought. I didn’t give them my name!

Do I think anyone ended up eating the melting cake of buttery death? No, I have a feeling that if anyone dared to cut into it, they were met with a pool of oily orange slop. For all I know, it made them all vomit up all of the delicious food that the other parents were nice enough to bring. I’m kind of hoping it just got thrown out based on appearance.

In retrospect, I should have given them my name, as it would have ensured that I was never again asked to provide food items at any event. But who knows, maybe next time I’ll redeem myself…maybe next time I’ll attempt my first soufflé...or flambé! What could possibly go wrong? 

Shut Up and Eat

I am aware that motherhood is a thankless job, so please don't think I'm being naive here, but on those nights when I actually bother to cook something other than a tomato-based pasta and/or meat dish...the nights when I cook something that I actually look forward to eating...is it too much to ask that my children (teenager included) just shut up and eat it? 

I guess I don't really care if you don't like butternut squash or cranberries or pineapple or whatever other key ingredient makes this particular dish different than what we usually eat...it's fine if you secretly discuss how much you hated this dinner when I'm not around...or if you pretend that it's Hamburger Helper...but please, just stick your fork in it and put it in your mouth...before I lose it.

I would take the silent chewing as thanks enough.

Mac 'n' Cheese

Tonight I made what food critic/cookbook author Ann Hodgman claims is "the best macaroni and cheese." I did it all, the makeshift double-boiler, the evaporated milk, the Velveeta...

Let me save you all of the trouble. Not only is it not the best, my kids wouldn't even eat more than a bite. Another 45 minutes wasted in the kitchen...oh well, it was worth a try.  

The Key to the Merry-Go-Round is the Merry

I know what you’re thinking: At which gourmet bakery did you purchase that stunning piece of pastry perfection? Well, more on that in a moment, first a trip down memory lane…

Growing up, we had this restaurant called the Lincoln Dell. It was a Jewish deli/family diner/lounge. They had the best Matzo ball soup (and scary paintings of clowns hanging in the dining area). But they also made cakes. They had fake cakes on display behind the deli counter, which I longingly admired on every visit.

I coveted one in particular: the carousel cake. It was really just a standard round cake, sure, but on top was an entire plastic merry-go-round! In my preschool mind, it was heaven. Oh, how I wanted that cake. Finally, when I was maybe 5, my mom let me get it for my birthday. I’m sure it tasted…like cake. Although I’m pretty sure my mom had those plastic animals rolling around in the kitchen drawers for years to follow…maybe she thought she’d fine another use for them.

So yesterday – in a fit of boredom-inspired genius – I handed the boys two kid-friendly cookbooks and told them to each pick out a recipe. Aidan picked a simple “rainbow float” that consisted of sherbet, fruit punch and Sprite. Easy enough. But imagine my delight when Owen chose the Merry-Go-Round Cake!

This morning, after gathering our ingredients (he chose lemon cake with lemon frosting), we donned our aprons and set out to make dreams come true. The boys worked very hard decorating those animal crackers with icing. (A step I would recommend skipping - apparently this cookbook came before frosted animal crackers were available at the store.) And as you can see, I worked very hard on that canopy. Whew! Considering all we had to work from was a sketch, I think we did an excellent job.

But please, hold your cake orders. I don’t think I’ll be repeating this feat of cake genius anytime soon. I’m still trying to get the frosting out of my hair.