Just say NO to prepackaged convenience food Pt 1

The Massive Meatball Making Marathon

At some point this week a hair brained idea made it's way into my head, and since I live alone with my kids, there wasn't anyone around to talk me out of it. The thought was, "Why do I feed my kids crap?" Seriously, why do I buy things that I know to be inferior. Convenience? Yes. Because my kids like them? Yes. Cost? Well, probably not. Because I am not capable of making those things myself? HELL NO! So I got it into my head that I am going to move away from buying these prepackaged convenience foods. Frozen meatballs, chicken nuggets, fish sticks, and the like. So when I went to the store and there was a large package of ground beef marked down, it was like a sign. So I picked it up, along with some ground pork and some lean chicken sausage. Then, because it would be silly to make meat balls and not eat any of them, I got sliced provolone and hoagie rolls for meatball subs.

So here's my "recipe" though I use the term lightly.

All lined up in rows

• 2 Lbs Extra Lean ground beef
• 1 lb ground pork
• 1 ln Extra Lean chicken sausage (and let me just say something about the chicken sausage, it was PREMIUM, the meat was minced instead of ground and it smelled super flavorful, I will use that brand again)
• 1 cup seasoned whole wheat bread crumbs
• 3-4 eggs
• 1-2 tsp thyme
• 1 or 2 handfuls of finely chopped spinach

Mix well, roll into golf ball sized balls and place on a greased sheet pan, leaving about an inch between meatballs. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes, then turn them over and bake an additional 5. Makes Approx 64 meatballs

I kept out 14 to feed my kids dinner tonight, so in the end I put up 50 meatballs for future use. These meatballs are larger than the frozen ones you can buy at the store so I think that will see us through 5 meals. And the best part is, I know what went into them and was able to choose ingredients to make them healthier than the prepackaged variety.


Bonus content: Vegetarian "Meatlessballs"

I was going to buy some veggie meatballs for myself until I thought "well that would be pretty darn stupid". So I didn't, cause I hate being stupid. The problem then became the fact that I had no idea how to make veggie meatballs, and all of the recipes I was finding online called for things I did not have. But the name of this blog IS "making do" so that's what I did. I threw some lentils and some brown rice in water and overcooked them a bit so that they would mush up a little. Then I added an egg, about half a cup of breadcrumbs, thyme, garlic powder, and some Penzy's Mural of Flavors, a little blob of the veggie base I use and the rest of the chopped spinach. Then I mixed it and rolled it into balls. I had a whole pan's worth rolled when I remembered that I had about a quarter pound of maitake mushrooms in the fridge that needed to be used. So I put them back in the mix, minced up the mushrooms and mixed everything all over again. The whole batch made about 36 "meat"balls. I used half a bag of small lentils and probably as much rice. I only used one egg because that's all I had left, I think I probably would have use 2 if I could. These meatless balls have a great flavor but would not hold up to being simmered in a sauce.

I promise these are much more than balls of grey goo

Bonus bonus content: This meal's ata girls: the bag of spinach in the fridge, the half bag of lentils on the shelf, the eggs from one of my nurses, and my fancy shmancy mushrooms

Cowboys and Ninjas

   Beastie is now five, the little stinker, which means my time will never be mine again.  Five happens to be the starting age for most extra curricular activities.  From now on my life will be classes and activities and games.  Currently it's T-ball.  If there's anyone out there who doesn't know what T-ball is, let me explain.
   T-ball is a version of baseball for the five to six year old crowd where the ball is batted from a stand (the tee) instead of off of a pitch.  There are no outs so everyone bats and no one rides the bench so everyone takes the field.  Games last one hour or three innings, whichever comes first.  That's one hour of "watch the ball. No, not the plane, the ball", "run, run, run, run, run, STOP", and "you can pee after you've run home."
   Everyone who had ever played an after school sport or who had kids who did or who even knew someone who knew someone who did knows that snacks are involved.  Snacks are ALWAYS involved.  And guess who was up for snack duty for the very first game of the season.  Yep, yours truly.  So from our first parent meeting I had about a week to come up with a semi-healthy after game snack.  After a bit of waffling I decided on Cowboy Cookies.
   Over the past week I've been asked several times, "What exactly are Cowboy Cookies?"  The short answer is "Whatever you want them to be."  The long answer is more my own opinion than anything else.  Cowboy Cookies should be hearty, and when I think of a hearty cookies I think of an oatmeal cookie chock full of all sorts of goodies.  Mine included coconut, shredded carrots and chocolate covered sunflower seeds.  Here's my recipe...

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup butter
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
  
• 2 cups flour
• 1 1/2 cups oatmeal
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 cup finely shredded carrot
• 3/4 cup shredded coconut
• 1 cup chocolate covered sunflower seeds

 

Cream the butter and the sugars together.

Add the eggs and vanilla.

Mix together the dry ingredients.  Add to the butter and sugar mixture.

Add the carrots, coconut, and sunflower seeds and mix.

Roll cookies about the size of ping pong balls.

 

Place about 2 inches apart on a cookie sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes at 350˙.

Om nom nom.

  These turned out pretty darn good.  The batch made about 50 cookies, enough for each T-baller to get 3 along with a box of milk and still have some left over for me and my other kids.  I was really surprised how much the carrot just kind of disappeared into the cookies, I easily could have doubled the amount and it would not have been too much.  Just the right kind of snack to refuel after the game.

  Beastie's team was the last to be added to the line-up so they got stuck with Black while all the other teams got colors.  At some point one of the team moms suggested the team name be the "Ninjagos" which I guess are lego ninjas (I am soooo out of the loop).  Think I'll just call them the Ninjas instead.  Go Ninjas!

Spring Cleaning Under the Gun

This past week has been crazy.  No, wait, strike that.  This past week has been totally and utterly fucked up.  It started with the lice thing and just got worse from there.  I'm not really willing to get into all of the details right this minute, maybe someday I will.  One of the outcomes of all the fuckery is that I'm under the gun a little bit about the state of my house.  My house is usually cluttered and and can sometimes descend into CHAOS (can't have anyone over syndrome) but it's not an unhealthy place for my kids.  But the clutter makes me paranoid.  So my Dad and Step Mom took my kids for the weekend and i am cleaning ALL THE THINGS!!

Chicken, dumplings, and no lice.

     I owe my sister big time. Yesterday I was at work when I got the call. "Beastie had head lice. You need to come get them NAO!!!!!11!!" So I give my boss and the charge nurse a heads up and head out the door. Pick up the kids, buy lice treatment, pick up clothes, head to mom's so I can quarantine my own house, bathe and treat kids, find NO evidence of head lice. AAARRRRGGGHHH WARGLEGARBLE!!1!!1. WFT!?
    Anyway, the kids aren't welcome back to daycare until tomorrow so I needed a sitter. Thankfully I have an awesome sister who stepped up and spent her day off with my little ankle biters. Hence the reason I owe her big. And usually when I owe her, I pay her back with food.
    We're going grocery shopping tomorrow, but in the meantime I wanted to make her a nice dinner. I had the remains of a rotisserie chicken in the fridge so I knew what I would make. Chicken and dumplings is my favorite way to use up leftover chicken, using left overs to make a whole new meal.
Tonight's version was chock full of veggies. Carrots, onions, celery, potatoes, and mushrooms. After picking what meat I could off the bones, I tossed the bones, fat and skin in some water for a quick hard boil, to make a fast stock. The veg, meat, stock, and extra broth simmered, then I dropped in the dumplings which were pancake mix with a bit of poultry seasoning. Simmer 10 minutes or so 'till the dumplings are nicely plumped. I made myself a veggie version using veggie stock and a little Kitchen Bouquet. Then we all dug in and were left a little sad when our bowls were empty.

Strawberry Rhubarb Cake

   Despite my grand aspirations, this weekend was woefully wanting in motivation.  Case in point, the strawberries and rhubarb languishing in my fridge.  They were purchased last weekend in a hunger induced binge at the market.  They were bought with the intention of making a pie.  But pie is work, there's all that soft handling, the chilling the rolling, making sure it's the right size, etc.  Screw that, I'm a lazy hoar this weekend. So I went in search of something else to make.
   Enter the Strawberry Rhubarb Cake.  A google search found me this recipe.  Buuuut, true to form, I did not have quite the ingredients needed.  No oranges to zest, but some dried lemon zest.  No heavy cream, so I used skim milk plus an extra egg yolk.  Beastie (child number 1, 5 year old boy)  helped to grease the pan, a job he found most entertaining, and took 10 times longer than necessary.
  I'm sorry, I don't have any pics to share this time, my camera is missing and I'm too busy inhaling this cake (a la' mode with strawberry ice cream) to be bothered to look for it.