More Quick and Easy Fall Dinners

Ok so I have some more quick dinner ideas to share before I bust out with the crockpot goodness. They are super good and great eats for fall and winter season dinners. I promise I will get to the crockpot meals and even some crockpot cheats. But anyway, back to the other goodies I want to share.

This particular meal my mom made all the time when I was growing up. Not only is it easy to make but it is really cheap to make as well and there is always enough for leftovers and some to put into freezer bags for dinner further down the road. This dinner is called Mash n’ Noodle. First, brown 1lb of ground meat with onion, celery, garlic, salt and pepper, meanwhile start cooking macaroni noodles in a large stock pot (about 5 cups). Drain the meat and pasta and mix them together. Next add family size cans of cream of mushroom soup, tomato soup and stewed tomatoes. Slowly pour in milk until it is a creamy consistency and dinner is done. My daughter loves to help me make this one because she can do most of the pouring of ingredients into the pot.

Another online goodie I found is a chicken and broccoli casserole although I changed it a bit to make it an even quicker meal to make. The original recipe asks you to make a homemade cheese sauce but that’s not always ideal when you have an 11 month old literally on your heels and tugging at your pant leg. First cube 3 skinless/boneless chicken breasts and cook them in a pan with some onion, salt and pepper. Meanwhile cook 3 cups of egg noodles and steam your broccoli. Pull out your casserole dish and spray it with cooking spray then add your pasta and chicken first and mix together well. Top that with your broccoli. Then break out the Velveeta and layer cheese on top. Pop it in the oven and bake at 350? for 20 minutes or until bubbling. Sprinkle some smoked paprika on top and dinner is served.

Okay now I must go and get together all my favorite crockpot recipes and blow the dust off of them. I’ve been waiting all year to start using my crockpot again. It is truly the ultimate in quick and easy dinners and the meal always turns out delicious. Again, please feel free to leave your dinner ideas or suggestions to make the recipes I’ve shared quicker, easier and tastier.

 

Quick and Easy Dinners for the Fall

Since I am a stay at home mom while my husband works I like to make sure that there is dinner ready for him when he gets home. There is nothing like sitting down together as a family at the table after a long day and enjoying a good meal. With two kids running around spending a lot of time on some elaborate meal is almost never an option. The younger one getting into the cupboards and the older one constantly asking when dinner is going to be done has definitely cause change to the dinner menu in our home. Here are some quick and easy ideas that are tasty and will leave enough for leftovers night at the end of the week.

Every kid loves mac n’ cheese and who can blame them? In my opinion, there really isn’t enough nutritional value in it. What I do to get more out of it, is put more in it. I use Kraft Thick n’ Creamy mac n’ cheese, Jennie-O lean turkey kielbasa and a choice of frozen corn, broccoli or both. My kids and husband both love it and because the turkey kielbasa is already cooked you don’t have to worry about the extra step of cooking meat. Simply take it out of the package, cut it up the way you like best and throw it in.

Another favorite is breakfast for dinner (brinner). My daughter loves scrambled eggs and while watching Rachel Ray I found new, fun twist that my daughter loves even more than plain scrambled eggs. Make your scrambled egg mixture as you would normally, fry up some bacon or breakfast sausage and throw it in the mix (you could also throw veggies in and the kids never know it). Cube up some cheese and get out your muffin pan. Spray your pan with cooking spray, add your egg mixture filling each cup about 2/3 of the way and drop a few cubes of cheese into each cup. Put it in the oven at 415? for 15 to 20 minutes. Pull them out and you’ve got brinner egg cakes!

I’m always looking online for quick, easy and healthy meals that I can make. My family and I get bored with the same dinner menu and the internet has an endless supply of ideas. Now that we are into the fall and the weather is getting much cooler it’s time to break out the crockpot recipes and I’ll be posting them very soon. Feel free to share your kid friendly dinner ideas here too.

 

Remembering Colonel Sanders: Everybody's Fave Fried Chicken Guru

I once had the decidedly mixed adventure of visiting family in the deep south where I quickly became acquainted with large trucks with humongous American flags and confederate license plates; racist billboards and bumper stickers extolling the virtues of no less than George W. Bush himself; grocery stores that refused to sell alcohol on Sundays; and fried chicken everywhere. Using my powers of observation, I was able to determine that in the outskirts of Atlanta, Georgia, Colonel Sanders is still a king.

As a recent article in TIME magazine reports, the south may be the only place where Colonel Sanders is the man. As many as 60% of Americans don’t even know that Colonel Sanders was a real person. Aren’t Americans today getting educated? Shouldn’t we all know about the cultural icon who helped make picnic lunches across America possible? Where are our tax dollars going to if not to dead and buried cultural icons like Colonel Sanders.


Colonel Sander’s life story is amazing and is a true testament to what all Americans are taught at school- America is the land of milk-and-honey, hamburgers, and french fries, and is a place where anybody can make their dreams come true with a little bit of gumption and lot a bit of luck. The Colonel did time as an attorney and even assaulted a client and was reportedly fired from numerous jobs. As is the case with many great artists, Colonel Sanders’ work wasn’t truthfully appreciated enough until after his death.

The Time magazine writer, who is lucky enough to be writing a book devoted to Colonel Sanders and Kentucky Fried Chicken, observed that after Colonel Sanders’ died, the company went through some re-branding (ie. changing their name to KFC) and that’s when they began to get quite creative with his image. The following video is a perfect example of where creative advertising geniuses may have taken the poor man’s likeness too far.

Does Colonel Sanders really have to be associated with Pokeman? Of course, I doubt that some of their unusual menu items including the KFC Double Down would have pleased the Colonel either, but then again, who am I to speak for the deceased? (For a brilliant review of what just may be the world’s unhealthiest new concoction, check this LINK).


PETA Accomplishes Something!

Thanks largely to a phone call from PETA, a restaurant in Sacramento will no longer be serving live tortured shrimp to its customers.  Where to begin?

First of all, I was struck by the news that PETA actually did something besides market itself.

All too often, PETA's main goal is to make people aware of PETA.  Sure there's always an excuse, like "stop eating meat."  But if you say "stop eating meat" while wrapping naked pretending-to-be-dead women in plastic wrap inside a giant Styrofoam tray, no one's going to remember "stop eating meat."  All anyone's going to remember is "PETA's naked dead meat lady protest."

Second, despite PETA's militant outlook and general approach to life, this change didn't happen because of a big angry protest.  It happened because PETA phoned the restaurant, explained that there had been complaints, and explained why serving live tortured shrimp was wrong.

After being engaged in a reasonable conversation, the owner of the restaurant did a reasonable thing.  He changed his mind. See how easy that is?  Weird how if you treat people with respect and common courtesy, you can get them to listen to your point and consider it rationally.  No one's mind is ever changed by being pelted with rotten tomatoes by a guy dressed in a cow suit.

Of course, in this case, one wonders why PETA's intervention was even necessary.  Does it really take a phone call from PETA for you to realize that slicing a live animal in half and squirting it with lemon juice to make it twitch in agony (which is called "dancing") is, like, wrong?  And gross?  And bad?  And so far beyond the term "inhumane" that there should be a stronger term?  Mega-inhumane, maybe, or tera-inhumane.  (Of course , a thousand tera-inhumanes equals one peta-inhumane, which amuses me greatly in this context.)

PETA is the undisputed ruler of the shock tactic.  And yet, all too often these shock tactics involve the apparent torture, death, humiliation, or subjugation of women.  I get so tired of "yet another PETA protest that uses women as silent props."  Frankly, I think it's about time that PETA started using its clout to actually make a difference in the world.  Beyond, as I said earlier, reminding people that it exists.  

Of course, one could argue that PETA would never have been able to accomplish this feat without having that marketing machine behind it.  PETA itself is the big stick these days, and these reasonable phone calls are the carrot.  

Just the threat of getting PETA involved can be enough to change policy, as I found a few years ago myself.  My town of La Conner WA is home to a flock of feral turkeys.  When the turkey population got out of hand, the town council joked about holding a "turkey shoot" or offering them free to local archery ranges.  

I and others protested, and threatened to call in the PETA shock troops if a more reasonable solution wasn't found.  In the end, the turkeys were rounded up and sent to an animal sanctuary.  I suppose in a funny way, those turkeys have PETA to thank for their lives!

Photo credit: Flickr/Jared Zimmerman

Interview with Sous Chef

Shaun, the husband of a good friend of mine, is a 27-year-old sous chef. As much as I get a kick out of Food Network (and, of course, eating food), I’d never met a chef before I met him. Shaun doesn’t bring to mind the standard image of a kitchen chef; he’s very tall and looks more like a musician than a chef. Don’t let that fool you, though; I hear he wields a mean kitchen knife! Shaun was gracious enough to answer a few questions I had about his line of work.

What led you to this job?

I wanted to further my career and education. I wrote on my resume that in my next career, I'd like to be learning more about different cooking styles. My culinary expertise rests mainly in Italian cuisine, and now I'm working in a French restaurant.


What are the hardest parts about this job?

Right now, my field is flooded with people who want to be TV chefs; it's very difficult to find good help in a kitchen because so many people went to these expensive culinary schools and once they were working, found that they probably should have went into the entertainment industry if their goal was to be on the Food Network. REAL kitchens are VERY different and liking the Food Network and having a bachelor's at LeCole Culinaire doesn't guarantee that the applicant in front of you knows how to julienne an onion or can properly execute the five mother sauces.

What do you enjoy most about this job?
The instant gratification. No sooner than when I plate the food I can tell by the customer's reaction that they genuinely enjoy the food and the look of the plate.

What have you learned from being a chef?
I've learned a lot about managerial skills, more than culinary. I've learned how to talk to employees even where a language barrier sometimes exists.


Would you recommend a career in this field? Why or why not?
Yes, if you genuinely enjoy cooking, if you really want to be a COOK, rather than a Chef or TV personality. Some people forget that you have to put in your time and climb the ladder to success. It doesn't happen overnight.


What advice would you give to people pursuing this line of work?
NEVER stop studying. You can't learn it all, you'll never be able to say, “I know everything.” There's always something new. Every tongue is different, so no two people will taste the plate the same way.

Cultural Ills: Yeet Hay

I had never heard of yeet hay until someone mentioned it off-handedly on a message board this week.  Yeet hay is an illness that befalls people who have the misfortune of eating too much greasy and/or spicy food.

I'm fascinated by culturally-specific illnesses and fears.  For example, a common belief in Southeast Asia - particularly Taiwan -  is that a fan can kill you if you leave it on all night.  As you can imagine, this is an unfortunate belief in a tropical climate.  

The fear, called "fan death," even leads manufacturers to build sleep settings into their fans.  In Taiwan most air circulation fans have a button you can push for "blow air for an hour then stop."

Yeet hay translates literally to "hot air" or "big fire air."  It is closely tied to the Chinese concept of Qi, the importance of maintaining a balance between the elements, and the underpinnings of Chinese traditional medicine as a whole.

Yeet hay is apparently specific just to the Chinese, and has not acculturated to neighboring countries or to other races.  This is interesting if you think about it.  I would have expected it to have a higher profile outside the Chinese community, considering the popularity of Chinese traditional medicine and cures, and other Chinese medical and philosophical tools like Feng Shui and the I Ching.

The four humors of Chinese philosophy are hot, cold, wet, and dry.  Yeet hay results from being too hot.  Not literally hot, mind you, but simply having consumed a lot of foods which are said to be hot.  Greasy, spicy, heavy sauces, lychee fruits, and fast food like KFC are all classic "hot" foods.  A lack of sleep is often a contributing factor.

Yeet hay runs a spectrum from "a slight sore throat and some pimples" to "mouth sores and nose bleeds."  The cure for yeet hay is to consume foods which are "cold" like chrysanthemum tea, watercress soup, 24-flavor tea, influenza tea, green bean soup, sour plum soup, and beer.

Interestingly, although many Chinese and Chinese-American people were chided by their parents for eating too much yeet hay food, there is no opposite condition.  Foods which are said to be cool are called "leurng," but parents rarely caution their children about leurng.

This situates yeet hay in an interesting point on the graph.  In fact I saw many comments from Chinese people who strongly suspected their parents were just using yeet hay as a sort of bogeyman, to keep their kids from eating too much junk food.

It's a common refrain, "I tried to explain yeet hay to my non-Chinese friends and they didn't understand OR believe me!"  It's difficult to discuss, not least because there is absolutely no way to translate the term.  A Western audience will likely never have heard of yeet hay, although I think a lot of people understand the concept of Chinese balance, yin and yang, that kind of thing.

I find it particularly intriguing that canker sores are one symptom of yeet hay.  I have been sporadically plagued by canker sores ever since I was a little kid.  No explanation has ever been unearthed, and most doctors prescribe either more vitamin C or less.  Next time I get a canker sore, I'll have to think back and see if I've been eating yeet hay!

Photo credit: Flickr/callme_crochet

Thoughts on the New Seattle

One thing I hear all the time from long-time Seattle residents is how the old, freaky-and-proud Seattle is going the way of the dinosaur, that it's being replaced with a slick, almost corporate sheen that lacks the personality of those bygone days of grunge, punk and sample-heavy hip hop. Especially as a journalist, I detect a lot of that sentiment in people who really have roots in this town. Business owners on Capitol Hill are quick to point out how what was once a strip of raucous bars is now a trendy bistro and its adjacent parking lot. They're a little less willing to acknowledge the once-decaying, now refurbished chunk of the district that's home to lively ballroom dancing venues and the recently relocated Elliot Bay Bookstore that has been a Seattle fixture for decades. Beyond the Hill, Seattle is growing and changing in some very exciting ways. The question is, should we really be lamenting the loss of Seattle's flannel days?

I can understand the fear long-time Seattleites have for the potential loss of character in the New Seattle. When things get slick they tend to get corporate and when they get corporate they tend to lose local flavor. Nobody wants Seattle to turn into a giant mall but I think there's plenty of evidence that our city's dedication to niche and creativity is alive and well, perhaps more than ever before. It's true that the computer age transformed Seattle from a gray port city into a prosperous center for innovation and modernity. That doesn't mean we've traded our heart for money, though.

Seattle has always been proud of its local music scene. After all, it's the home of Jimi Hendrix, at least half of the most influential grunge rockers and even a few unforgettable rappers. Their sounds had a way of combining the arty, urban grime of New York with the free-thinking youth culture of Los Angeles. Well, our music scene is alive and kicking in 2010. The Capitol Hill Block Party had to add an extra day this year just to fit all of its acts, Bumbershoot had one of its most successful years in history last week and we can count the likes of Death Cab For Cutie and Modest Mouse (from nearby Issaquah) among our more recent contributions to the tapestry of American rock.

The New Seattle is also one of the best places in America to drink. Not to disparage wild dives like The Comet and Shorty's (both cool places in their own right), it's awesome that it's so easy to pick up a classic mix at one of the many laid-back cocktail lounges that have popped up around Seattle in the past few years. There's also no reason to look down on the corporate influence of the greater Seattle area. After all, the city's first locally-produced vodka is currently being distilled, bottled and sold by a Boeing engineer. Just like with aspiring rock stars and struggling artists, small batch liquor crafters can have square day jobs.

Hell, even if your only job is a square day job, chances are you aren't working for a branch of the old conservative set. The Greater Seattle Business Association, an organization made up of LGBT-owned and friendly businesses, is one of the most powerful financial entities in the country, let alone in the Puget Sound region. It's not that Seattle doesn't have The Man, it's just that Seattle's Man is forward-thinking. While making his billions, he fights oppression, lobbies for civil rights and keeps the money local.

In the longview, Seattle is also taking steps to be a city of the future, something that requires money and diverse industry. The city had been talking about a light rail system for decades but only got around to building one in the past few years. The truth is that punks don't need to commute but modern businesspeople do. All of Seattle's new slickness is also resulting in the building of green skyscrapers for a cleaner, more energy-efficient century. I can't speak for those who had roots in old, grungy Seattle, but I'd rather be on the forefront of something innovative than proudly clinging to something that could only decay.

Adventures in Salmon: Salmon with Lemon Butter

Literally tons of salmon is being caught up in Alaska right now, which means there is plenty of salmon at great prices in the pacific northwest. As a result, the freezer is full of salmon (which is divided into fillets in freezer bags) and I will definitely be getting more Omega-Fatty-3’s from a natural source.

Last night, I made a really simple meal: broiled asparagus, broiled salmon, sour dough bread from a local bakery, and lemon butter for the salmon. I was eating alone, so don’t have any outside confirmation on whether or not the meal was as tasty as I believed, but it was healthy.  

For the lemon butter, I melted some butter in the microwave (nothing like a little radiation to spice up a meal), squeezed some lemon juice into the mix (the recipe called for lime juice but I didn’t have any limes on hand), and minced some garlic as finely as I could without the use of a garlic press. The mincing of the garlic involved using a large knife, smashing the garlic down with the side of the blade, and then finely chopping the garlic.

I have eaten lemon butter with other sea food recipes in the past and have absolutely loved it, so was pretty confident that it would work and to my palate, it did. Lemon butter can also be used with oysters and with white fish- I tried a variation of it once with a white wine sauce with sole that I thought worked well.

At the end of the meal, I had a little lemon butter left and a piece of sour dough, so I took the plunge and dipped a piece of the bread into the sauce. If you ever have the chance to eat lemon butter with bread, I strongly advise you to resist the temptation as the sour taste in your mouth will rival any sour patch candy you have ever eaten in your entire life. It might sound like it could be the new greatest thing since sliced bread (haha), but I guarantee that you will not like the end result.

The nice thing about salmon, however, is that there are many ways to cook it and as long as it is not burned to a crisp or undercooked which could lead to a food-related illness or a squishy fish taste inside your mouth, which I also don’t recommend. Because salmon is so prevalent in the northwest, it’s easy to get anywhere, but if you live in the middle of the country, please remember to look for wild salmon and not farmed salmon because of the health risks and environmental concerns associated with farmed salmon.

4 Things To Do With Stale Bread

It happens to the best of us: you don't get through a loaf fast enough, and it goes stale.  If you bake your own bread (as I do) it happens more often, because homemade bread isn't chock full of those preservatives that keep store-bought loaves "fresh" for longer.  (By "fresh" I mean "soft," since there's no way to tell how long ago the loaf was really baked.)

But never fear!  There are some great things you can do with stale bread.  I have learned to relish the far end of the loaf going stale, because it opens up a whole new world of options.

CROUTONS
Well, sure, there's always croutons. You know 'em, you love 'em, you probably need to eat more salad anyway.  I try to eat one "big salad with lots of stuff on it" every day.  Croutons are a valuable weapon in this effort, not just because of their texture, but because their saltiness lends a new dimension to the salad's overall taste.

Cut your stale bread into small cubes.  If I'm going to make croutons, I will often slice the bread before it goes stale, then let the cubes sit out for a while.

Toss them with oil, and salt and pepper to taste.  Add garlic salt, seasoned salt, or red pepper flakes for a little extra zing.  Bake in a single layer on a cookie sheet for about 15 minutes at 400 degrees, or until well toasted.

FRENCH TOAST
I always hated French toast when I was a kid.  That's before I learned that my mother was making it wrong.  If you try making French toast with fresh bread, you get something soggy and sloppy.  Only stale bread can stand up to the vigors of being battered and sautéed.  

French toast works best with thick-cut French bread, or with thick-cut stale bakery items like cinnamon rolls, cinnamon raisin bread, or challah.

Basic French toast batter:
    4 eggs
    1 C milk
    1 T sugar
    1 t salt
    Splash of vanilla (optional)
    1 t cinnamon (optional)

Whisk ingredients together until blended.  Soak one side of the bread, then the other.  Put it straight into the preheated pan, and cook for about 3 minutes per side.  

BREAD PUDDING

This is the ultimate comfort food!  There are as many bread pudding recipes as there are bakers, but this is one of my favorites.

BREAD SALAD (Panzanella)

Never had bread salad, you say?  This Tuscan classic is a standard lunch item during summer - no cooking involved!  It's a delicious and filling side dish, and it's a great way to get your daily ration of vegetables.  

Bread salad also works well as a casserole dish for a potluck, if you time it right.  Prepare all the ingredients on the night before, and bring the dressing separately.  Toss everything together right before serving.  You will be a hit!

Bread salad works best with a hearty Italian loaf.  Here's a basic recipe, which you can customize based on whatever you happen to have on hand at the time.

Photo credit: Flickr/jpellgen's egg nog bread pudding

The Great Food Truck Race

When I think of restaurants, I don't usually think of trucks; those are usually reserved for carnival food, right? But food trucks are actually pretty popular in many areas of the country, and many of them look pretty enticing.

I don’t know if it’s because we’re just addicted to the Food Network now or because we just miss The Next Food Network Star, but my husband and I have been enjoying The Great Food Truck Race. I sure didn’t think we would; in fact, we didn’t watch the first two episodes, and only ended up watching them On Demand one day when we were just flipping through the channels. Now, because of this show, I really want to try a bahn mi Vietnamese sandwich, as well as some French food—two things that I’ve never really experienced before.

I’d also love to buy from a food truck. Though I live near St. Louis, I’ve never seen one in this area, and when I searched for one, I came up empty. If anyone knows of any St. Louis food trucks around here, I’d love to hear about them!

Anyway, back to the Food Truck Race. Tonight we’re going to find out who gets cut and which two teams will make the final episode. It’s between the Nom Nom Truck (my favorite!), Grill ‘Em All, and Spencer on the Go. Though I really like Spencer on the Go, I think all of us Truck Race fans know that they’ll probably be the ones to be cut—last week, they only won by a thin margin when they won a food tasting test. And poor Austin Daily Press—my other favorite truck—would have won had Spencer on the Go lost the tasting challenge. I was so sad to see them go—but even more sad to see Grill ‘Em All hang around.

Those guys have been whining and crying all along, and for being heavy metal guys, that’s pretty pathetic. Really, the front man is the big whiner—the rest of his team seems to be trying their best. When they form alliances, they ditch them as soon as they’re doing well, too, which also makes them look like jerks. I know the challenge is about food, not personality, but you can’t help but let that factor in when you watch the show—which is why Austin Daily Press was so awesome. They had the best attitudes, even when they were struggling, and it was so sad to see them go. I really wish it had been Grill ‘Em All.

Now, I’m rooting for the Nom Nom Truck, which has won every round. I don’t think they’ve won only on their food, either; they are absolute marketing geniuses. I only wish I could have had some of their talents and skills when I worked in marketing briefly—I could have made a killing! They also simply seem like a nice group, though we haven’t really been able to see their personalities shine through as much as some other teams. I think as long as Grill ‘Em All doesn’t win this race, its ending will be satisfying.

Who are you rooting for? Which truck is your favorite—and who do you want to see go home?

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