Feeding a large group

I'm trying to keep track of what I've been making for dinners since we started a community group with our church. We meet once a week and provide the main dish. Others bring side dishes, drinks, and sometimes dessert.

In no particular order:

Texas Chicken Enchiladas
Pasta with classic pesto (love the classic pesto recipe in The New Best Recipe... I use walnuts instead of pine nuts)
Pasta with homemade spaghetti sauce (tomato-meat sauce)
Breakfast for dinner (my favorite!--we do it once a month)--I mostly make egg casseroles, but I want to do french toast casserole too
Ham and potato soup
Appetizers for dinner (I made two appetizers--deviled eggs and spinach-artichoke dip--and every else brought one)

We have yet to try:

Chili
Lasagna
Lentil and sausage soup/stew

Protein Bars and Doughnuts

Two recipes to share:

First, the protein bars. I tweak them a little bit.

I don't have a Blendtec blender (yet!) or a powerful food processor, so I skip the dried fruit and make them in the stand mixer.

I also used almond meal (ground up almonds) from Trader Joe's.

I used flax meal, Bob's Red Mill brand, which I keep in our fridge.

I use salted peanut butter (I've used the Smucker's Natural brand the past two times) and omit the sea salt.

I also used the honey and the chocolate chips.

They are yummy and the girls like them too. Nate is not a huge fan, but that means more for us. :)

Second, the baked doughnuts.



I had to cut this recipe in half because it would have made way too many for us to consume in one sitting. Even cut in half, we saved a couple for later. They were still pretty good. I think we'll do these for Christmas instead of cinnamon rolls.

The girls had fun cutting the dough into shapes and, of course, eating them!





Just a note, these are messy to eat. Mostly because of the sugar on the outside. We had sugar all over the floor. Just a warning. :)

Being neighborly

I was so excited (and a little nervous) when we were invited to eat with our neighbors last night. I was out cutting some spinach out of our garden for part of our dinner, when Greta called over the fence that they have plenty of food and would we like to come get ourselves a plate. They had family over and were grilling out.

We had to get the girls changed, but we got over there. We even stayed and ate with them. Becca was polite to everyone. The food was yummy and we even got cake for dessert. It was nice to actually sit down with our neighbors. We felt so welcome. It was also interesting to hear a little about what it's been like for them to live in this neighborhood for 35 years.

A little later we were taking a walk down the block and we met some other neighbors in the next block who knew our friends, the previous owners.

Radishes and English Peas

I have just a couple of things left from our farm fresh delivery bin last week: radishes and English Peas. Anyone have a good way to eat either one? My mom chopped up some radishes in teeny pieces to put in tuna salad, but I have a lot of radishes, so that won't use them all up. I have to use them soon!

Yum

I'm not a raw foodist, but this site makes my mouth water. Her site has encouraged me to at least include many more raw foods in my family's meals and snacks.

I've made her Raw Chocolate Macaroons many times already. And I'd like to try the Raw Caesar Dressing, the Raw Cream of Wheat, the Sweet Corn Chowder, and the Raw Pad Thai to name a few.

The nice thing about raw in the summer is that there is no need to heat up the kitchen with the oven. In the cooler months, I like a nice warm soup or chili, but I like leaving my oven off and enjoying all the fresh produce while I can in the summer time.

Chili recipe

This is what I threw together the other night for dinner. It was so yummy. It's based on my mom's recipe for chili, but I changed a lot, so it's really not the same recipe.

Ingredients:
1 lb ground beef (recommend 100% grass fed/finished, if you can find it)
1 clove minced garlic (I use about a half teaspoon of the minced garlic in the glass jar that I keep in the fridge)
1 large can diced tomatoes (can blend/food process these, if you don't like the chunks)
1 cup kidney beans (using dried beans and Serina's recipe)
1 cup pinto beans (same as above)
frozen corn (about 2/3 of a bag or however much you like)

Spices (adjust all to your taste):
1 1/2 tsp. chili powder (I sometimes add a bit more)
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cumin (or a little more)
1/4 tsp. pepper

Brown ground beef with garlic. I don't drain mine because the grass finished beef has only a little grease and I like the little bit of extra flavor.

Add tomatoes, kidney and pinto beans and spices. Simmer on medium low or low (I like to bring it to near a boil and then bring it down to medium low and put on the top just tilted a little bit to simmer) for at least an hour.

Just a little while before eating, add the frozen corn and let it heat through before serving. Serve alone or garnish with plain yogurt (Stonyfield Organic plain lowfat yogurt is yummy on it), sour cream, shredded cheese, fresh tomato slices, avocado slices, or whatever else you like on top of it. I went for the yogurt, tomato and avocado and it was so delicious.

For Kate (hope baby girl comes soon).

Seasonal produce

A conversation with my dear friend Kate last night has got me thinking again about eating both local and seasonal produce, especially this time of year when I'd like to get nearly all my produce outside the grocery store.

Finishing In Defense of Food also has got me thinking of where we get what we eat.

Does anyone know where to find when different types of produce are in season for my region (Indiana/midwest)? I've tried to search for it, but haven't found what I'm looking for.

Updated to add:

Todd sent me a link for the Indiana Harvest Calendar (thank you!). And I was searching for local strawberries and found this page for the Indiana Local Food Guide. Looks like it has some good stuff on it.

Square strawberry cake

I think I found the recipe I will use for Becca's birthday cake. The couple times I've asked her what kind of cake she wanted, she's said, "a square strawberry cake". I didn't want to use a box mix or gelatin, so this one will work well. I'll top it with a cream cheese frosting and some sliced strawberries, I think. Oh, and it will probably be a rectangle cake instead of a square one...they both have four sides. :)

A few other things I have to do yet to get ready:
1. Dye three playsilks
2. Wrap gifts with playsilks
3. Put together easel
4. Get streamers and balloons to decorate my parents' house and her chair for her birthday day

Is that it? I guess so. Thought there was more. I decided to hold off on making her a doll sling just now since having stitches has made it awkward to sew in the past week.

Bagels

Inspired by Serina's long ago post on making bagels, I finally took the plunge using this recipe. Success! They were so good.

I used all-purpose flour for three of the cups and white whole wheat for the other cup of flour. We also sprinkled the tops with a cinnamon-sugar mixture. I did it all without my stand mixer and it wasn't hard at all. We ate most of them yesterday and I put the rest in the freezer overnight and set them out this morning to use for lunch. They were just as good.

I may post pictures when I get them off my camera.

Homemade English Muffins



Seriously, after you make these, you will never want store bought English Muffins again. They are soooo good. I really didn't have the time or sanity to make them today, but did it anyway. I used my stand mixer for the whole mixing and kneading process. I used all-purpose flour (sorry, no whole wheat this time...maybe next time) and I let the dough rise for about 6 hours, so it had a slight sour dough taste to it. You can also let it rise overnight and then give it a second rise in the morning for 20 minutes. You can freeze what you don't eat right away.

Head on over and check out the recipe.

Sites/posts I've enjoyed recently

Toddler-friendly tofu from Parent hacks--I've been meaning to have us try tofu, so this was a timely post. I found the comment section especially helpful.

Knitting on the Net--My friend Val pointed me to this site when she sent me a link about the cable cast on (which I love--it gives such a nice braided looking edge).

Jean's Top 10 Art Materials for Toddlers, via Parent hacks--For the art-impaired parent like me. It had some good suggestions and ideas that I would like to use with Becca. I haven't looked through the rest of her site, but it looks like it might have some other good stuff.

Crockpot results

We weren't too happy with the Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal. I'm sure it's not the crockpot's fault. It just was a little too goopy. I might try something like it again with less liquid.

Or maybe not since even though I sprayed the crock with non-stick spray, it's still taking me forever to get all the stuff un-stuck from the sides.

Speaking of which, I've got to go finish cleaning it up before my girls wake up and it's dinner time.

P.S. Ally has taken two naps so far today for over an hour each and is on her third right now. I love her and love having her up, but I also love having her rested. Yay! I hope it continues, but I'll enjoy it while it lasts just in case it doesn't.

Okay, I'm really off to clean up now.

And eat cheese and crackers.

Adios.

Trying out my new crockpot...finally

I finally am getting to try out my new crockpot. I threw together this Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal tonight and if all goes well, we will have it for breakfast in the morning. I'll let you know what we thought.

Farmer's Market

Gamefest has begun and we are privileged to have guests staying with us because of it. Our friends the Websters are sleeping at our place. I think Nate and Jonathan got home at about 4 am. I'm glad Karen, Becca, and I left earlier! Jonathan and Karen brought us the coolest thank you gifts from Canada: organic (or as they call it there, biologique) maple syrup and a very cool reusable grocery bag with kiwis on it. It by far is the nicest looking reusable bag I own. I love practical gifts, and unexpected ones are nice too. :)

Anyway, back to the point of the post. I think Karen and I will be going to the Farmer's Market around here for the first time this year. It just opened last weekend (I was in Michigan). I'm so excited. It doesn't open yet for an hour and a half, so I'm up a bit early.

Chicken Rice Soup and other meals

I took Serina's advice (see Feb. 12th, 2007 and a post back in July 2006 on chicken rice soup--I can't find how to link the posts) and made some chicken rice soup for the first time. I bought a pack of chicken with the bones still in it from Trader Joe's--included in the package were two chicken breasts, two thighs, and two drumsticks (I think that was all). We got at least 6 meals out of the chicken, plus I'm bringing some of the soup over to some friends' house later this week. I saved the bones in a gallon freezer bag in the freezer for later stock making once I save up enough to do that.

Here are the meals we got out of it:

1. Chicken rice soup with no-knead bread
2. Chicken salad sandwiches
3. BBQ chicken pizza (this lasted for one dinner and two lunches)
4. Chicken quesadillas (tortillas, shredded cheese, chicken, sprinkled with chili powder and cumin)
5. Chicken pasta salad (rotini pasta, diced tomatoes from can, oregano, basil, and garlic salt, cut up chicken, and feta cheese)--I ate this while Nate had left over pizza for lunch one day
6. I used the rest of the chicken today to add to my spinach salad for some protein
7. Leftover chicken rice soup in freezer to be used yet for a meal
8. Chicken rice soup to bring to friends' house

I was a little concerned about how much I was paying for the chicken, but after getting so much out of it, I have no problem spending a little more for chicken from TJ's. I liked using the chicken from the soup making because it was so moist right up until the last bit that I ate. The thing I don't like about frozen chicken breasts sometimes is that I end up having dry chicken. Because this sat in water to cook for so long and because it cooked so slowly, I think it just retained all that good moisture. It probably helped that it was still on the bone when it cooked too.