A little veg, a little bean, a little Mmmmm.....

This spring Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution was the big thing in our house. The funky British chef with the funny accent set out to change the way an American town looks at food, mostly through the public school lunch program. My kids could relate to the cafeteria meals, cranky lunch ladies and the difficult choices such as white over chocolate milk. I found myself saying things like, "What would Jamie say about that?" or "Jamie would love this with all the veg!"

Those who have eaten a meal or two with my family know that I have one child that will eat anything, one that won't, and one somewhere in the middle. So when they were pestering me to make Jamie Oliver's Chili Beef Nachos (said in a child's bad English accent) I finally felt like I had to give in and try it. On the show, Chili Beef Nachos was one of the favorite hot lunch meals at the elementary school and my kids were more than intrigued. Google to the rescue, and the recipe was mine.

Today I set out to make it, and thank goodness I started early as it wasn't simple. No wonder Alice the Cafeteria Lady was cranky!

Step one was to make the Hidden Veg Sauce, and you need some heavy duty equipment to pull it off. With my Kitchen Aid grater attachment (a food processor would work) I grated two big carrots, two zucchini and half a butternut squash resulting in a huge bowl of veg. To that add two diced onions and two diced red peppers, cook it all with 5 cups of canned tomatoes and some spices and get all that "lovely veg goodness" going. Next take out the Kitchen Aid hand blender and "blitz it up". I actually had to read the recipe a few times to figure out what "blitz" meant, thank goodness I had a "blitzer" to make the job easy. Ok, so there you have a huge pot of pureed veg sauce. Step one done. Phew.

Time to make the chili. Chopped onion, a pound of hamburger, add to that a quart, yes a quart, of Hidden Veg Sauce. Then add two cups of pureed kidney beans. See how this is getting too good to be true? The thought that my kids would eat all these veg and beans... I was starting to question this project. Cook it all up, throw in some seasoning, and top it off with a bunch of corn. I put it aside and waited for dinner time with high hopes.

I sat down with my fellas (Alanya is with my sister for a few days) and told them how Jamie said to put together the nachos. A handful of chips, a hearty serving of chili on top, sprinkle of cheese, shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, and I added some salsa and nonfat plain yogurt. They jumped right in and to my shock and delight, the boys were Mmmming and Yummming and wolfing it down. I have never been a mother who hides ingredients from her kids, and they both knew exactly what was in it. Somewhere in his second serving and in between bites, the picky 11 year old said, "It's all in the presentation."

So, in the end, it was worth it. Jamie does know what he's doing after all if he can get my kids to eat something with seven veg and beans with even more veg sprinkled on top. My pediatrician told me when Noah was about 6 that Noah would not eat chicken fingers at his wedding. I wasn't so sure then, but there may be hope!

A sucker for some challah

About three weeks ago Noah came home excited about an assignment at school. He had to pick a country, write a short paper, find a piece of literature from that country, find a recipe and then make the recipe and bring it in for their Cultural Buffet. From day one he said he would do Israel, his literature was a Hebrew song/poem that Jason used to sing to him when he was a baby, and his recipe was challah. Not any challah. My challah.

I do not claim to be a master of this delightful, eggy Jewish bread and I only make it rarely. A local grocery store makes a wonderful challah and I often buy it there. The problem comes during Roshashana when challah is supposed to be circular. Every year I go to the bakery and ask them if they will make it circular, with no success. I've ordered and bought circular challah from fancy bakeries and it was expensive and not very good. So we started making our own challah.

Noah describes himself as a "bread-itarian" and challah is probably his favorite. He even says his favorite holiday is Roshashana because he can eat all the challah he wants with butter and honey all over it. The boy is in heaven. So I shouldn't have been too surprised when he announced he would bring challah into the Cultural Buffet. The thought of making enough bread for the entire fifth grade to try didn't excite me, and to be honest, I tried my best to get him to change to anything else. He insisted. The approach I then took was to convince him I should buy it. He wasn't thrilled about that option.

Last night I asked Noah if he was upset I wasn't going to make the bread. He said "no, just disappointed." Mother guilt promptly kicked in. He loves my bread so much and thinks it's so good he wants to share it, and I can't find the time to make it? Guess what I did today? All day? You guessed it. The third and fourth loaf are just finishing up now. I'm a push-over.

Frugal Friday

After a crazy few weeks around here, I wanted to stop and reflect on what we did this week to cut expenses and reduce waste. What I didn't do was menu plan, which is a big no-no when it comes to frugality 101. But on the flip side I didn't stop in at a store to buy something for dinner at the last minute or order out. So, what did we do this week?

• Stocked the freezer - I used leftovers to make some "quick grab" frozen lunches for Jason. I also made up some cookie dough, scooped it out and froze it so I can make a few quick cookies if the kids have a friend over, or we want a quick treat. Last night I made dinner rolls and simply doubled the batch which allowed me to put a dozen rolls in the freezer for later.
• Fit in some sales - I took advantage of some promotions and sales which allowed me to get some Easter candy for the kids for next to nothing. As long as I peruse a few of the websites once a week, I can keep the deals on my radar and it doesn't take too much time.
• Consolidated insurance - We recently switched car insurance to the same company as our home insurance. Not only was it a better deal, we received an additional discount on our home insurance. All it took was a quick phone call to run the numbers.
• Finally, I got around to putting a small patch on a pair of Noah's jeans. Knowing he will be in shorts 24/7 in two months, it kills me to get him new jeans because of a small hole in the knee. Today he told me that the kids in his class were asking him what the thing was on his pants. These are 10 year olds. What has this world come to if pants get tossed immediately when you get a hole in the knee?? Their parents were probably all traumatized back in the 70's by Sears Toughskins with the big hard square knees!

**** For more frugal ideas, check out Jennifer's Weekly Wrapup on Getting Ahead ****

The falling price of milk... an update

In early March I posted about the falling price of milk. I thought $2.19 a gallon for skim was pretty great. Just a quick update to report I just paid $1.98 a gallon. How low will it actually go?

Stay Healthy Saturday

This week we tried a few new things in our diet including the TVP, and a recipe for quinoa stuffed peppers. If you have never heard of quinoa (pronounced keen-wah), you aren't alone. It isn't a new food though, rather it has been around for thousands of years and was the primary staple for the Incas in South America. It is high in protein and fiber and can be substituted for rice in many recipes. We hit our goal of diversifying our meals with only one big meat meal, our pot roast on the snow day, all the rest were either veggie or had small amounts of meat.

As far as exercise, I actually made it to the gym twice, and Jason's sneakers met the gym floor again today after a bit of a break. He continues to slowly drop a pound or two every week or so, and I'm in my healthy zone.

Personally, I forced myself to get outside to soak up some much need sunshine on the days the weather cooperated. Walking the kids to the bus, or chopping the ice off the front walk for a few minutes truly made a difference for me. I also finished a book, a small accomplishment as I rarely take the time to sit and have quiet time. Here's to another healthy week. Hope we don't throw it all out the window tomorrow enjoying our Super Bowl treats!

Snow Day, part 2

Well our snow day found us busy in the kitchen. I'm happy to report it was all a success. Everything tasted good, and it kept the kids busy and stopped them from arguing and driving me bananas! Benny and Paula Deen's pretzels came out awesome! I could have eaten the whole plate. Surprisingly, the salted ones were the favorite with the cinnamon coming in a close second. I hope they still taste as good by the time Jason gets home. I will definitely be making these again.

Next came the cupcakes. Even Noah got in on the action. They sprinkled coconut, walnuts, butterscotch chips and crushed candy cane on them. Ick. They had fun though, and the only time I intervened was when they licked their fingers and then reached back into one of the bowls.










With everything done and the kitchen cleaned, I ventured outside to shovel, and it's now raining as the temperature rises. The snow weighed a ton, and I'll be feeling it later. We only have to shovel about 10-15 feet of a front walk and it has never wiped me out like it did today! It's been a fun snow day, but I'll be looking forward to getting them back to school tomorrow. Too many days like this and we'll all weigh a ton!

Another snow day... what to do?

Make cupcakes! Alanya has been dying to make cupcakes and decorate them all by herself without me interfering, or telling her how to do it. (For those of you who know me you know how difficult that is!) I figured a snow day was the perfect day. We just put them in the oven, and I have a can of chocolate frosting taking up space in the pantry. She and Ben have been tossing around ideas "for toppings" - sounds like they are making a pizza!

Ben's choice for baking today was a recipe out of his Paula Deen's My First Cookbook that he got for his birthday. After much pondering, he settled on homemade pretzels with either salt or cinnamon sugar. He said he wants to try both flavors. His dough is rising and we should be getting the pretzels going right about when the cupcakes come out.

I also have dinner going already... a pot roast with veggies in the crockpot. A perfect day for it. Will post our results later today!