If I can bake bread, anyone can

This is the last guest poster while I am whooping it up at BlogHer. Actually, today I am packing up all of my swag and spending some much needed quality time with my family before we jump on a train and head East towards home.

Anyway, this wonderful blogger is Astacia from Life on the Run. Okay, I'm going to shut up now and let you read.


I read Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, this past winter. His words solidified my fears about conventional food. His rule on “If You Can't Say It Don't Eat” is my grocery mantra. We gave up packaged foods about two years ago. I should correct that and say most packaged foods.


We were eating a loaf every two days. I was buying 4-6 loaves every grocery shopping trip. I tried to stick with whole grain, no HFCS varieties. Then I looked at their ingredient labels. All of them had a long list of unpronounceable substances. There was no way I could remove bread from our diet. My kids would shrivel up before the end of the day. I needed a worthy substitute.


For years, I had been telling my friends “I cook but I don't bake.” To me, baking required precision and dedication. I could handles cookies but “baking from scratch” sent shivers down my spine. My soufflés collapsed, my pie crusts were dry, my cakes didn't rise.


Everytime I bought a loaf of bread at the store I cringed. I knew I could do better. I gave in to the nagging on my weekly trip to the Goodwill. There was a Mr. Coffee bread machine with instruction manual for $7.99. the directions seemed simple. The ingredient list was small. So I took it home.


My first loaf was a hit. It used the basic recipe and my husband and kids devoured it. The smell of baking bread is addicting. Not all of my loaves were successful. I have learned that baking bread is an art form much like cooking. It does not require the attention to detail that I thought I did. It turns out that baking one loaf at a time is simple. There are four ingredients for a basic loaf (flour, water, yeast and salt) and then you can experiment from there. No tiptoeing around the kitchen. No proofing of yeast or hours of kneading.


It has taken six months of baking two or three days per week for me to hit my stride. Now I have a solid routine. First, I put the ingredients in the machine according to the manufacturer's instructions. Then I set it on he dough cycle. I have discovered than I like to finish my bread in the oven. I set my timer for one hour. That's 30 minutes of mixing and then a 30 minute rise in the machine. When the timer rings, I pull out the dough, knead out the large bubbles on a floured board. I place the dough into a large loaf pan and rise it on my preheated oven for 30 minutes and toss it in the oven. 25-30 minutes later we have fresh bread.

Yummm...thanks, Astacia! Tomorrow, I'll totally dish all about BlogHer for all of you!

And they ain't Popeye!

Before I had kids, I had visions of serving healthy meals full of organic produce to my family who would, of course, be thrilled and gobble down every bite.

Yeah. Didn't turn out that way.

If your kids are like mine, they aren't very into a lot of fruits and veggies; in particular, leafy greens. And no amount of pleading, "But they are so GOOD for you!" helps. However, I've devised a sneaky way of incorporating them into their everyday diets without them even knowing! Bwahahahahahaaaaaa! I'll let you in on my secret, but only if you promise not to tell my kids!

I take fresh spinach, or any cooking green such as collard greens or kale, remove any tough or stiff stems, and then chop it up SUPER FINE. That's the key, you need to get the the leaves need to be just this side of pulverized. Actually, I don't literally chop it, I puree the dickens out of it in my food processor. I've also thrown whole spinach leaves into the freezer and crumpled them once frozen; the pieces get pretty small that way, too.

Then I just add it to whatever I'm cooking that's savory: scrambled eggs, soups, pasta or rice dishes, etc. Since the pieces are so small, the spinach flavor is lost amongst it's culinary companions (as long as you don't use too much!) and it is easily overlooked by little ones.

The first time I pulled this fast one on my kids, it was sort of accidental. I'd put some spinach that I'd pulled from the freezer into a stew I'd made. When my son asked, "What's this green stuff in the soup, Mama?" I nonchalantly answered him as vaguely as possible, "Just flavoring and decoration, like parsley." He's used to seeing green flakes in canned soups and whatnot, so he totally bought it. My daughter did, too.

I'm thinking about trying it in their mac-n-cheese.

That might be pushing it.

By the way, I linked this post here...there are other fun and informative tips to be found there! For example, while clicking links, I found this amazing one about self-defense. Coincidentally (or eerily, I dunno but I sure hope not), I was at a similar lecture myself earlier this evening. This post is full of great information...check it out!

(ps...I got the spinach photo from stockxpert. My camera is broken. Nooooooooooooooo!)

Easing back in...

Okay, so since NaBloPoMo ended on Friday, I've been...quiet.

*crickets*

For the first time since starting this blog nearly a year ago, I find myself sitting here in front of my empty blogger post page, struck mute. It seems that the wake of NaBloPoMo has left me speechless.

A friend suggested I check out WFMW, just for fun. I'd seen the buttons all over bloggy land...and, honestly, I'm not usually much of a joiner.** But seeing as how I've nothing else to offer you today (but tomorrow IS another day) and I didn't want to let too many days go by, I thought I'd break with my tradition and join WFMW, if only for today. Or maybe forever...who knows!

So the question is - do you have a go-to back up meal you fix when it's near dinner time and you find yourself unprepared? Well, confession time here...I probably cook dinner four or five times a week, on a good week. Wait? What was that snorting sound? I think it was my husband shooting Diet Coke out of his nose reading this at work tomorrow. Okay, three or four times per week. I'm sorry, readers will you cover your ears for a second? Thanks. Shhhhh...c'mon honey, I don't want to look like a total slacker in front of my bloggy peeps. Let's just say I cook dinner a few times a week, kay? Thanks. Love you, too.).

On those rare evenings that I don't have something planned (*sarcastic*), I do have some tricks up my sleeve (*honestly*). Sometimes they are even super yummy.

We always have produce on hand, because we belong to a CSA. From that weekly box full of locally and sustainably grown fruits and veggies I've actually learned to enjoy cooking, something I didn't think I'd ever do.

So I give to you my yummy and easy and healthy and adaptable soup recipe (I'm not one to really measure when I cook, so these are just guidelines):

Christine's Yummy and Easy and Healthy and Adaptable Soup Recipe

Ingredients:

*2 T Olive Oil
*1-2 QT stock of some kind (I try to always have some of those boxed types on hand, and the amount depends upon how much veggies you are using)
*one chopped onion (or leek)
*few minced garlic cloves
*two of whatever veggies you have on hand, chopped bite size (I figure people I am feeding have big mouths, so I chop larger...but remember, the larger the size, the longer it will take to cook): carrots, potatoes, green beans, mushrooms, spinach (or kale, collard greens, chard, any cooking greens are fab...frozen is fine, too), celery, tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, zucchini, whatever
*salt & pepper

Directions -
The thing that's wonderful about this soup is that it's not only delicious and full of nutrients, but it's so forgiving. Keep that in mind as you read these instructions:

Pour olive oil in soup pot. Heat on medium high a bit and toss in chopped onion/leek. Stir it a few times, throw in some salt and pepper. My general rule of thumb from there is to add veggies according to their hardness. The harder the veggie, the earlier it is to the party. Carrots go in early; they need time to soften up. If you're using green beans, they will need more time than zucchini. Make sure you stir often so that nothing gets burned.

Once whatever veggies you have on hand have had a chance to be tossed around in the olive oil and browned just a bit, add the stock to cover your veggies.

Okay, now you should be maybe five to ten minutes into the cooking process. Let the stuff simmer until it can be easily pierced with a fork. As long as the pieces aren't too big and they had a nice go at the browning process this should be done in fifteen or so minutes.

If you have cooking greens, chop them up as finely as possible...ideally, puree then in a food processor until they are barely still solid and then add them to the simmering mixture. My kids don't notice them any more than they notice parsley. Woohoo!

DONE!

Easy additions bonus round...If you've got 'em, add 'em in the last ten minutes:
Egg noodles
Pre-cooked/left-over chicken
Canned Garbanzo Beans



**(Yes, I know I post ABC Wednesday photos...I give myself a pass on that one because it's photography.)