A different kind of tortilla

   Siiiiigh.  Yet another post that i didn't think about till AFTER all the cooking and eating was done.  Breakfast this morning was Tortilla Espanol.  Tortilla seems to be a funny word.  In Mexico a tortilla is a flat round bread, in Spain a tortilla is a baked omelet, kinda like a fritata.  A tortilla Espanol is potatoes and eggs, baked into yummyness.
  I started with 5 or 6 small yukon gold potatoes, sliced kinda thin.  I tossed them in an oven safe skillet with garlic powder, onion powder, Mrs. Dash and lots of salt (which totally defeats the purpose of the Mrs. Dash lol).  Sautee till relatively soft, stirring only occasionally so you get some nice brown on the potatoes.  Then I beat 7 or 8 eggs and poured them over the potatoes and seasoned with salt and pepper.  I turned down the heat and turned on the oven to 350.  I let the eggs start to set on the stove top till the oven was up to temp then popped that sucker in and let it bake till the eggs were set and a knife came out clean.  I think it was in the oven for about 20 minutes.  I cut it into wedges like a quiche and served it to my famished children.  I slathered my own with a large amount of hot sauce and inhaled it.
   In making this I used up the rest of the potatoes in my fridge as well as the rest of a dozen of eggs.  I like meals that do that, a LOT.

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!

"what is that?" "dinner, now eat"

Yeah, it didn't start out too pretty

"What is that?"

"It's dinner"

"Yeah, but what IS it?"

"It's dinner, now EAT!"

A conversation carried out in my kitchen this evening.  Probably carried out in every kitchen around the world since the beginning of time.  Tonight's dinner was another experiment in substitution.  My inspiration was my mother's casserole.  All my life that wonderful dish has been known simply as "Casserole".  Probably because all other casseroles pale in comparison, this the the casserole all other casseroles want to be when they grow up, the One Casserole to rule over all.  It's pretty simple.

• One can mushroom soup
• One Cup milk
• One cup shredded cheddar cheese
• one and one half cups uncooked elbow macaroni
• one small jar chopped pimentos
• one cup cooked chicken (or chopped tofu)
• salt and pepper
• 1-2 teaspoons curry powder (or more if you're like me)

Mix all together, pour in dish, cover and bake for one hour @ 350.


So looking in my fridge, here's what i came out with

Look, I even got it on clearance!

• One package cooking cream (garlic flavor)
• splash of milk
• large package sliced mushrooms
• one small jar chopped pimentos
• one package of tofu, chopped
• salt, pepper and curry powder
• a little less than half a cup of grated mozzarella.  

The result was a thoroughly edible dinner, if I do say so myself (and I just did)

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.