best mother's day present ever

thing one's teacher, saint margo, compiled the favorite recipes of all her kindergarteners and created a cook book for all the moms. how she managed to take dictation on these creations with a straight face, i will never know.

here are some samples:

josie's chicken with a really yummy sauce on it (cuban chicken)

• whole jar of olives
• whole small can of tomato paste
• whole onion - skin peeled then chopped up in little slices

mix it in a blender. take it out and see how smooth it is. if it's smooth, take it out. if it's not, put it back in and blend it some more. pour it over the chicken. cook the chicken for maybe about 10 minutes or so at 8 degrees.

emma's chicken noodle soup

• 1 piece of chicken
• 100 noodles
• 1 cup of water

put one piece of chicken, 100 noodles and 1 cup of water in a bowl. cook it on a stove for 2 minutes.

sierra's homemade cupcake

• 2 cups vanilla
• 1/4 tsp coconut
• 4 eggs
• whipped cream

you put it in a mixer then mix it for 2 minutes. get a cupcake pan. put cupcake papers in. put the dough in. cook it for 3 minutes at 8 degrees.

eli's gingerbread man

• baking dough
• you can put m&ms on it

smash it. then cook it in the oven maybe 10 minutes at 20 degrees. then put the m&ms on for the mouth, the eyes and the buttons.

braeden's lasagna

• noodle thing that's bumpy - maybe about two eighths
• sauce - enough to fill the whole bottom of the blue tray
• white stuff - about this much (2 hands held close together)

first put the sauce in the bottom of the blue tray. put in the white stuff. put on the noodles. then you do that all over again. then you cook it in the oven for a minute or two. maybe at 8 degrees.

happiness is

five gallon-size bags of freshly harvested and chopped rhubarb. there are some benefits to living in minnesota.

the new math

so, if edy's slow churned ice cream has 100 calories per serving, and there are 12 servings in the carton, and you can lose weight by limiting yourself to 1,200 calories a day, then if i eat nothing but ice cream, i'll lose weight.

i see no flaw in this reasoning.

erp

on the first day of christmas vacation, my tummy found for me:

• 12 holiday m&ms
• 11 pastel mints
• 10 white chocolate chips
• 9 shakes of sprinkles
• 8 slurps of caffeine
• 7 licks of peppermint
• 6 nibbles of batter
• 5 fingersful of frosting
• 4 broken cookie bits
• 3 hershey's kisses
• 2 giant gumdrops
• and a fat slice of gingerbread hoooooouse

back to weight watchers.

god, i'm old

i have discovered that i really, really like all-bran. the taste of it. plain, no sugar.

sad, isn't it?

i've never been so glad that cheetos exist

as the apotheosis of michael pollan and the whole foods movement continues, i just read an article that published recipes from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. "lessons from an older american diet," it said.

lessons like...

calf head soup

dress the head and boil until done, remove the bones from the meat, take all the meat from the upper part of the head and chop fine, and put it into the soup, with chopped potatoes and carrots, chives, pepper, salt, parsley, sweet margery, and a little butter. stir a little flour and milk together to thicken the soup. make a hash of the meat from the under jaw. take the brains from the head, beat up eggs as for an omelet, turn this over the brains after seasoning with salt and pepper. melt some butter and turn on. set it in the oven to cook slowly. skin and slice the tongue; put into a saucepan, with butter, pepper, and salt. stew dry.

oh dear sweet fancy moses. i want to go mainline some polysyllabic chemicals right now.

ewwww

behold kfc's new "sandwich," the double down:

bacon, cheese, more bacon, another kind of cheese, and (but of course) secret sauce between two pieces of BREADED, FRIED CHICKEN!

jesus christ. too bad it comes with potato wedges and a coke instead of a defibrillator.

my secret ingredient? antennae!

in yesterday's farm box we got a big bunch of basil. i took it out of the fridge this morning to make pesto, and when i was picking the leaves off the stems, i found a chilled, confused, sluggish ladybug who had tagged along for the ride.

i took her outside, where the girls were enchanted with the new visitor and made much of her before she flew off.

i went back inside to rinse all the leaves. when i dumped them in the strainer, i found lady's compatriot, who had not survived the journey. oops.

think i'll keep that discovery to myself.

i am insufferable, and so can you!

i cannot believe how smug and self-righteous my food has gotten.

according to the manufacturers, i am a superior, enlightened being because i eat their superior, enlightened products. here's stonyfield yogurt: "this quart container helps save money and the earth. you get more yogurt per dollar and less packaging per serving."

well, ok, i suppose that's true. and i get chicago soydairy's view: "our goal is to make delicious cruelty-free food products with taste and texture similar to their animal-based counterparts."

but then there's garden burger: "we believe in healthy eating and great-tasting foods, gardens, respect for all living things, moms and dads, independence, veggies, education, healthy kids, a good earth, and happy people. we aspire to make the best-tasting vegetarian foods, always with real good ingredients. and we promise to always treat our vegetables and whole grains with dignity and respect."

dignity and respect for carrots. carrots.

great galloping gherkins!

just picked up our weekly farm share box to discover an 18 inch cucumber.

and yes, i measured it.

wonder if vivid entertainment has considered a joint venture with an organic farm?

my apologies

to kale, for ever maligning it. now that i've figured out how to cook it, it's good. so is chard! who knew? this may be the year i finally use everything from our farm share. (except the beets. eeeww.)

the wicked witch of the upper midwest

it's melting! it's meeeeeelting!

for once, a soy cheese that actually acts and looks like cheese on pizza. i can't/won't vouch for the taste, but thing two ate her entire piece so i'll take that as a thumbs up.

thank you, teese, from me and my flying monkey.

the best part about vegan baking

no eggs = eat as much raw cookie dough as you like.

wake up - dinner's ready!

it's 10 a.m., and dinner is cooking. tonight i'm debuting easy pork ragu, because any recipe that starts with the word easy is a recipe for me.

indifferent is probably the kindest term that can be applied to my cooking, and this fit the bill:  brown meat, then dump in a crock pot with some other stuff and fuhgeddabodit. i'm loving me some crock pot these days, having recently rediscovered the hand-me-down one i got years ago from a friend (hint for carbon-dating:  it's harvest gold).

maybe this pork thingie will be tasty, maybe not. all i know is i'll be able to put it in front of my people and call my part done.

kwizine at its finest.

grapefruit: the poodles of the citrus world

my kids eat like supermodels. some days all they want is cucumbers, tomatoes or grapefruit.

grapefruit, i've discovered, are high-maintenance little pissers. cut in half. take the curved knife and free each half from its peel. cut each stoooopid section out of its pithy confines. dump sections into a bowl, then wrestle out those that don't want to make the journey. 

it takes longer to prep a grapefruit than it does to eat it. too much fluffing and buffing and coaxing.

recipe for maaaaadness

profanity pizza

submitted by thing two, age 3

feeds 4. or 3, if someone refuses.

1. help mommy make pizza dough from scratch, so there are no allergens in it
   
2. help mommy roll out the pizza dough
   
3. help mommy spread organic tomato sauce on the dough
   
4. help mommy sprinkle soy cheese on a portion of the dough
   
5. watch mommy sprinkle regular cheese on the rest, carefully avoiding the soy cheese section
   
6. just as mommy prepares to put the pizza in the oven ask, "can i have oatmeal?"
   

extra credit points if, when the oatmeal is ready, you tell mommy you're too busy playing to eat it.

apples to oranges

what do you get when your 3-year-old is acting insane, your 5-year-old is egging her on, and you're out of cosmo ingredients?

you get a new drink recipe:

the apples to oranges

• juice from one clementine (when you're out of limes)
  
• apple cider (when you're out of cranberry juice)
  
• triple sec
  
• vodka, and plenty of it
  

shake over ice and hit it.

(the handsome man initially wanted to call it the clapmo, but decided that sounded like what you get if you drink too many of them.)

mount olympus, extreme northwestern division

after not cooking anything really, well, good for the last three years in deference to food-allergy baby, today i made a batch of chocolate chip cookies (after purchasing some outrageously expensive vegan pretenders at whole foods yesterday for aforementioned baby).

and OH MY GOD. 

butter! 

butter and sugar and eggs and more sugar and more butter!

i was never one of those eat-the-raw-cookie-dough types, and what the hell was my problem? raw cookie dough is the food of the gods.

******

and a post script:

who eats HALF a fresh, warm chocolate chip cookie and throws away the rest? my kid, that's who. at least, my ob claimed she was my kid. i think a dna test is in order...

a venerable family tradition lives on

thing one has discovered a new-for-her delicacy, something beloved by her mama, gramma and great-gramma before her:  peanut butter and mustard sandwiches.

(before you say that, try one. seriously.)

and since you're reading blogs, try sarah palin's. 

we have a winner

the mystery vegetable is...kohlrabi! (which wikipedia called sputniky, too.)

many thanks to my half-german friend who grew up eating her mutter's version (it's big in germany). she not only identified them but fixed them for lunch during a play date at my house today. here's how:

• peel and slice into french fry-size pieces
• steam/simmer in a little butter, olive oil and broth until fork tender (about 20-30 minutes)
• you can add minced parsley for looks when you serve, if you have it, which of course i do not

dee-licious. although cheetos would have been good, too.