Before I met FirstHusband, I had never heard of this product. Now, it’s the key ingredient to a standard recipe in our house. And the key component in the phenomenon of the disappearing carrots.
Here’s what we do:
1. Brown a roast (usually a chuck roast), put it in the bottom of the crock pot.
2. Top off the crock pot with peeled and cut potatoes on one side, baby carrots on the other.
3. Add water till it covers the carrots and potatoes.
4. Pour in Kitchen Bouquet until the water is . . . dark brown.
(sorry, I have NO measurement for you.)
5. Turn the crock pot on high for 4 to 5 hours.
6. Scoop out the potatoes into one bowl, the carrots into another and the roast onto a serving platter.
(we like our food separated. if you want vegetable chaos, mix them together, we don’t mind.)
7. Make some gravy with some of the broth. Save the rest of the broth for freezing.
8. Enjoy!
(There are never any leftover carrots. PinkGirl ate them like M&Ms on Monday night and asked for more on Tuesday. Luckily we have the leftover broth – cause THAT’s what makes the carrots so irresistible.)
I’ve mentioned before that we love watching MythBusters. And by “we” I mean FirstHusband, FavoriteSon, PinkGirl and myself. All of us. I even think the cats watch. I think they watch our MythBuster DVDs when we’re not home. Somebody is leaving them out of the case. Bob (a cat) looks guilty to me. Or maybe that’s just because of what he did to the carpet.
But I digress. MythBusters. Sneaky, fun education. We learn a LOT. (FirstHusband and FavoriteSon heckle a few things too.) In addition to the Mentos/Diet Coke phenomenon, one thing we’ve learned is how to take away “the burn” when eating spicy foods.
Milk.
FavoriteSon decided to perform his own test. He gathered up the bottles of hot sauce he got his dad for Christmas. (It’s a little game they play every year.) Bottles with names like “Smokin’ Toncils,” “Temporary Insanity” or “Blow Torch” on the labels. FavoriteSon picked a bottle and dipped a toothpick inside.
He popped the toothpick in his mouth.
Took the toothpick out.
Smiled.
Laughed.
And then grabbed his pre-prepared glass of milk. Then, wishing he had filled the glass, he left skid marks on the way back to the fridge for more.
But it worked.
A learning experience for him. Entertainment for the rest of us. The cats didn’t want to try it.
My tip this week? Pick up a container of fat free vanilla yogurt at the grocery store! Then look for No Pudge Brownie mix! At my grocery store, it’s located in the health food section. The mix and the yogurt is all you need for a GREAT no fat brownie. My kids even love it!
These fudgy, chewy brownies were created by Lindsay Frucci, who calls herself a brownieholic. Back in 1995, she decided to see if she could come up with her own fat free brownie recipe. In the process, she “made and threw away more pans of brownies than most people make in a lifetime.” Her taste testers were the two builders who were remodeling her home at the time and they “took their mission very seriously, carefully evaluating every batch of fat free brownies for taste and texture.” By the time the remodeling was complete, she had her recipe!
A two inch square brownie has only 120 calories and NO FAT! Check out the No Pudge Frequently Asked Questions page for a single serving recipe and more info!
This is one of my favorite recipes. It takes a little more prep time than I usually like and about an hour to bake, but it is SO worth it!
I saw Paul James (aka “The Gardener Guy” on HGTV) prepare this on his cooking show (Home Grown Cooking) a few years ago and just had to try it. He called it “Fruit Stuffed Pork Roll” and the credits indicate the recipe was published in a book called “Classic Cooking With Pork: Over 100 Luscious Ways to Prepare the Other White Meat” by Philippe Molle in 1997, but Amazon shows it as “Classic Cooking With Pork: 100 Luscious Ways to Prepare Today’s Lean and Healthy Pork” and I didn’t see “Fruit Stuffed Pork Roll” in the table of contents, so it appears it was altered for the show. That is FINE with me. It turned out great!
We made two of these this weekend and I took some photos along the way. Check it out.
Ingredients:
3-1/2 lb. boneless pork loin roast, trimmed of excess fat
Salt and pepper to taste
Ground coriander to taste
1-1/2 cups assorted dried fruits, any variety, diced
1/3 cup apricot preserves
1 tsp. fresh ginger, minced (I use ground)
Pinch of red pepper flakes
1/4 cup dry white wine
1/4 cup chicken stock
3/4 cup heavy cream (I mix up non-dairy creamer according to the directions on the jar)
2 Tbs. whole-grain mustard (I use spicy brown mustard)
Butcher string
Directions:
First “butterfly” the roast. When you butterfly a roast, it’s a little different than when you butterfly a single serving size of meat, like a chicken breast. This requires two cuts. I tried to show it in the photos.
Here’s the roast before any cuts at all.
Starting about one third the depth of the meat, the first cut was made from right to left – but NOT all the way through. Then the newly cut “flap” was opened to toward the left, like it was on a hinge.
A second cut was made from left to right, starting at the hinge. Again, stopping before cutting all the way through, the flap was folded to the right on the hinge. As you can probably tell, the thickness of each section is determined by these cuts. Just try to keep it relatively even.
Both sides of the meat are sprinkled with the salt, pepper and coriander.
The fruit, apricot preserves, ginger and red pepper flakes are mixed together.
And the mixture is spread over the meat.
The meat is rolled up, tied with string and placed in a lightly greased baking pan (I spray it with Pam).
The original recipe calls for it to be baked for 35 to 40 minutes, but I’ve always had to cook it about an hour. I just use a meat thermometer and bake until the internal temperature (away from the fruit) reaches 160 degrees.
The roast is removed from the dish and set aside while the wine is added to the baking dish and a wooden spoon is used to scrape bits stuck to the dish. (I have never understood the need for a wooden spoon.)
(I stopped here and refrigerated the roasts and the liquid because it was late. I’ll finish up tomorrow and take more photos.)
The liquid is added to a small saucepan with chicken stock and brought to a boil over medium-high heat. After a few minutes, the cream and mustard are added and stirred to blend. The sauce will thicken after about 2 to 3 minutes.
To serve, remove string and slice pork. Top with sauce.
We had a hankering for mangos a few weeks back and, after trying to cut up the first one, I quickly googled the instructions. (There are no photos of the first attempt, it was a mess.)
First, I cut off the bottom of the mango so it would stand up all by itself.
A mango has a large, oblong pit and the goal was to get as much fruit off of it as possible. I cut off the two sides, or “cheeks” as close to the pit as I could. (Mangos aren’t egg shaped. If you turn them, you can see two opposing sides are somewhat flat.) Then I trimmed the edges. If you look closely, the white you see is the pit.
cheekless mangomango pieces parts
Because I wanted diced mango, I cut a checkerboard pattern in the flesh (but not all the way through the skin) and pushed the skin inside out so it looked kind of like a little mango hedgehog. I forgot to take a photo of my own little hedgehog, so here’s one from Google images:
Finally, I sliced the cubes off the skin, put them in a container (square or rectangle of course) and popped them in the fridge to chill. (You may need to check on your container later. It may be empty.) Check out the youtube video for an example and a few other options:
Unfortunately, until a few years ago, my egg boiling skills were right in line with my sewing and skateboarding skills – non-existent. Besides the fact that they often had a gooey center, I – more often than not – ended up with the saddest, most pitiful deviled eggs I’ve ever seen. Then, one day, while (yet again) making egg salad after abandoning the impossible task of trying to get a lumpy, paper thin, shredded, boiled egg white half to hold deviled egg filling, I decided to Google the perfect boiled egg. (What did I do before Google?)
Here’s how I get “practically perfect” boiled eggs, every time. (“Mary Poppins. Practically perfect in every way.”)
1. Put the eggs on the bottom of a pan, in one layer.
2. Add enough water to completely cover the eggs, maybe about an inch over.
3. Add baking soda to the water (makes peeling easier)
4. Put the pan on a burner and turn it to medium-high heat.
5. Let the water come to a boil.
6. Put the lid on the pan when the water is boiling and move the pan onto a cold burner (oh, and you should probably turn off the hot burner).
(Now here’s where I mess up all the time.)
7. Set the timer for 15 minutes for Large-sized eggs (or for 12 minutes for Medium-sized eggs or for 18 minutes for Extra Large-sized eggs).
8. Put the pan in the sink when the timer goes off (or in my case, when I remember I have a pan of eggs on the stove).
9. Run cold water into the pan until the eggs are cool (I just run water until the water is cool).
And THIS is why I’m not embarrassed to serve deviled eggs to people outside my immediate family anymore:
10. I CHILL the eggs before I peel them. I put them in the fridge for 15 minutes. (Okay, so I put them in the fridge until I remember I have boiled eggs chilling in the fridge.)
11. Gently tap a cooled egg on a flat surface and then roll it until the larger cracks turn into tiny cracks all over the egg.
12. NOW peel the egg and rinse any tiny pieces of egg shell under running water.
Note: I only feed my disposal egg shells and potato skins when FirstHusband is in the mood to crawl under the sink and unclog it (that would be never).
I saw this recipe on another blog and I could NOT find it again! I looked through a bunch of Kitchen Tip Tuesday links, Works for Me Wednesday links, and a few recipe carnival links – no luck. Then, I walked away from the computer and actually made these WITHOUT a recipe! That is HUGE for me.
Ingredients:
1 package tortillas
1 can of refried beans
about a pound of ground beef
shredded cheddar cheese – at least 8 ounces
1 can of enchilada sauce
Directions:
Mix together the refried beans and the cooked ground beef.
Slather a couple spoonfuls onto the tortilla.
Sprinkle some shredded cheese on the bean/beef mixture.
Roll the tortillas and place in a baking pan.
Pour the enchilada sauce all over the rolled tortillas.
Sprinkle more cheese all over the top.
Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes.
At the last minute, I remembered I had some corn on the cob in the fridge, which I steamed in the microwave for 8 minutes.
This meal is a hit with my entire family. Now we’re ready to start experimenting and modifying the base recipe. I already altered PinkGirl’s burrito a little bit. She doesn’t like sharp cheese or enchilada sauce, so I used a slice of American (torn in half) inside her burrito and nuked it for 30 seconds (without sauce).
It still bothered me that I couldn’t remember where I saw these originally. There were even step by step photos of the blogger’s husband preparing the meal. I sat back down at the computer and it hit me. The Google search string I needed:
wet burritos may 2008
FOUND IT! Thanks to Joy over at fiveJs for introducing us to wet burritos. We love them!
UPDATE: Thanks for the comments, Joy! And I’m going to try your recipe for homemade enchilada sauce!
I have three cabinets over the bar in my kitchen. The middle cabinet stays pretty straight. FavoriteSon unloads the dishwasher in this house, so if he’s putting items in this cabinet away in the same place every time, its organized in a way that he finds to be easy to maintain. Which means, according to the Underwear Principle, that the organization of the middle cabinet is working. So that’s the good.
The cabinet to the left stays in somewhat of the same configuration most of the time. That means that for the most part, I find the items in the same place whenever I open the cabinet, but realistically, the items in there make it difficult to fit everything without moving other items around. That’s annoying. It’s annoying to move one item in order to put away another. It doesn’t always happen. So, following step 6 of “underwear, step by step,” it’s time for an adjustment to the current configuration. Here’s the “bad” cabinet before the adjustment:
So what needed adjustment? Not really the left side. The left side stays pretty much like this all the time, just with more containers (we have a lot in the fridge right now). The square containers here are all the same – in only two sizes, which nest easily. But the right side is always a jumble. At first glance, I need to ditch some more round containers. (I HATE round containers, they waste space.) Also, the cardboard “shelves” I created to hold lids aren’t holding up anymore.
So, I came up with two alternatives for the cabinet configuration. In both alternatives, I’m using an old rectangular container for round lids. (That container never sealed tightly and everything I ever tried to store in it went stale.) I’ll try out the one WITH the left sided shelf first and if the left side stays this way, I’ll leave it. If FavoriteSon says it’s easier to just stack all the containers on the left, instead of one size on the top shelf and another size on the bottom shelf, then I’ll ditch the left sided, top shelf. Either way, there’s enough room on the left side to store square lids.
Now for the ugly. This cabinet rarely, if ever, looked the same when I opened the doors. NOT working. Too much stuff we never use. Two scales, Popsicle makers we never use, too many measuring cups, shakers we never use, salad dressing bottle I can never reach. Just a mess. All the time. This cabinet doesn’t need an adjustment, it needs an overhaul.
The ice bin was supposed to hold the lids to all the containers in the middle cabinet. Within days of organizing it, it always looked like this:
Again, with the NOT working. So here’s the overhaul:
Top row, left to right – My handy, dandy Chop Wizard, a new “lid” container replacing the ice bin, rarely used but sometimes needed measuring cups, shaker and salad dressing bottle (I can reach it here!). Bottom row, left to right – ONE scale with its bowl, often used measuring cups, white ice bin holding tiny containers (for dressings and such), two divided meal containers.
Notice that one KEY component of this entire storage configuration is that I only have a few different TYPES of containers. Over the years, I’ve purchased three of the same 40 piece Rubbermaid set and discarded the larger round containers. (We use the small round containers for lunch boxes, because I don’t care if they get lost along with the lunchbox flatware). So, when they are nested, all the containers in the stack are exactly the same. I don’t have to dig through an entire stack to find the size I need buried underneath smaller containers. And when we put one away, we don’t have to wade through the stack to find the perfect nesting spot. We just pop it on top or bottom of the stack. Done. Fast. Easy. Rubbermaid doesn’t make this particular set anymore, and I don’t want add new types and sizes to our storage system. So, I just bought a “new in box” set on eBay a few months ago. I had to get rid of some because they were just shot (stains, cracks).
Checking the dates of these photos, this cabinet overhaul was done on April 12, 2008. As of today, all three cabinets are still working. By “working,” I mean that when I open them, they still look like the “after” photos above. That’s not to say they will work in the future.
I have a double set of Oneida flatware. It’s still a double set for one reason only – not ONE piece of it EVER leaves the house.
Back when PinkGirl was in preschool, I sent plasticware in her lunchbox. Mostly spoons. PLASTIC spoons.
Then I got green and started sending (washable, reusable) flatware. I don’t know why it took a few days for me to realize it, but PinkGirl wasn’t bringing the flatware back home. She was throwing her spoon away every day. She threw away her spoon. In the trash. Every day. Because that’s what she did with the plastic spoons.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t the only one “misplacing” the good flatware.
So I bought a bag of mismatched flatware at a garage sale for a dollar and dubbed it “lunchbox silverware.” It’s the ONLY flatware that ever leaves the house. Every once in a while, I buy some more at another garage sale or a thrift shop. Because it disappears. But now, when a lunchbox comes home sans spoons and forks, I don’t care.
We don’t keep it in the same drawer with the good flatware. We don’t even keep it NEAR the good flatware. We also don’t separate it like we do the good flatware, we just toss it all together. Take a look:
So, the only piece missing from my Oneida flatware set is the spoon the garbage disposal chewed up. Not bad.
I just can’t diet anymore. Can’t do it. All my life, I’ve been conscious of my weight. Whenever I’ve gone on a diet, it’s always been with a temporary mindset: “I’ll diet till I lose weight and then I won’t have to diet anymore.”
I need a more permanent solution. I need to change the way I eat. Not just temporarily, but for the long term. I need to teach my kids about health and nutrition – without warping their body image. I want to give every single person in my family the tools they need to make smart choices when it comes to the foods they eat.
To that end, I’ve been learning about nutrition and step by step, I’m incorporating what I’m learning into our family’s meals and snacks. I’ve also been sharing what I learn with my family, so we are ALL learning healthy, balanced eating habits together. When I say “we” I mean our entire family. Even 7 year old PinkGirl. We’ve been making small (but cumulative) changes in our eating habits for a few years now. It’s slow, but steady. Since we only incorporate one new change at a time, it’s been fairly painless. We also haven’t boycotted any particular foods, we just limit them if they are “less nutritious.”
Here are some of the microactions we’ve taken our our quest to eat better:
We Buy More Fruit and Make it Easy to Eat. Luckily, everyone in our family LOVES fruit. For the last few years, we’ve been buying MUCH more fruit. We tried blackberries for the first time last summer. (YUM) Some fruits are already easy to eat. Peel a banana, grab an apple, a nectarine, a bunch of grapes or a handful of cherries. Easy. But what about melon? One change we’ve made in our house is that we cut up melon and store it in Rubbermaid in the fridge. Now we don’t throw away a rotten melon two weeks after we bought it because no one took the time to cut it up. We actually EAT it because it’s ready to eat.
We Read Labels. We limit sodium, hydrogenated fats and especially high fructose corn syrup (which is in more foods than I ever thought possible). High fructose corn syrup can spike your blood sugar before you even swallow the food that contains it (well, almost). It’s even in bread. Even in “wheat” bread. We’ve learned that when the label on a loaf of bread says it contains “enriched” flour, it’s really just “brown” bread, not whole wheat bread. After reading e v e r y single label on e v e r y different kind of bread, we finally settled on Nature’s Own 100% Whole Wheat.
As we began reading labels, we began putting different things in our grocery cart. We now buy low sugar ketchup, Smart Balance peanut butter and margarine, Smucker’s Sugar Free Jam, and Barilla Multi-Grain Pasta. We make No-Pudge brownies (SO Good!). We’ve always made chocolate milk with Ovaltine instead of Hershey’s and most of the time, we have hummus and non-fat yogurt in the fridge. Juice? Only Tropicana Healthy Kids (1/2 cup serving) and a few boxes of Juicy Juice which we only use for emergency hypoglycemic melt-downs (quickly followed by a complex carb). Soda? Not so much.
We Eat More Lean Meats. We’re always on the lookout for tasty recipes. When we do eat ground beef, we buy 97% lean and rinse with hot water it in the sink to watch most of that leftover 3% fat go down the garbage disposal.
We Buy More Whole Grains. This one is easy. When we made the switch whole grains, nobody really noticed.
We Buy More Fresh and Frozen Veggies. We used to buy mostly canned veggies, and while we still do buy some, we buy a LOT more fresh produce than we used to buy. We’re working on making veggies more enticing for FavoriteSon. He would prefer to devour an entire pan of whole grain couscous or black beans and rice. His favorite is his dad’s special paella. Poor kid, he has no idea his dad adds pureed veggies to his favorite food.
So, all this said . . . I also allow “junk food” in the house.
I want to teach my kids balance. I remember how I responded to total restriction of junk food as a kid. I snuck food. Eventually, I even snuck food when I was the one restricting myself. I don’t want to risk the same reaction with my kids. I figure, there’s junk food in the world and I want them to make good choices all by themselves. I want to teach them about nutrition and give them the power to make their own choices (FirstHusband and I have veto power). My greatest victory so far? BOTH kids – after begging for a Chick-fil-A milkshakes – THREW THEM AWAY without drinking the entire thing. I asked them both, “Why?”
PinkGirl: “I’m full.”
FavoriteSon: “I don’t want anymore.”
YES!!!! It’s working!
So, the kids are allowed some junk food – IF they also eat the healthy food I ask them to eat. When they do eat junk food, they are required to stick to the suggested serving sizes and are limited as to how many times they can eat junk food in a day. Sometimes, like today, they don’t even ask for any “junk.” Sometimes they have it once in a day. Sometimes twice. Very, very rarely, three times in one day.
What do I consider junk food? Cereal for breakfast. Chips with lunch. Cookies for dessert. Candy. That kind of thing.
But I am their mother. And I’ve struggled with my weight for years. So, while teaching them (and myself) balance and allowing some treats, how do I make sure that when they go to get these treats, they will actually still be in the pantry? How do I make sure that I, myself, don’t treat myself in a moment of thoughtless munching? I remove temptation.
When I do buy junk food, I buy what I hate.
Here’ are some kid favorites that don’t tempt me one little bit:
Ranch flavored Doritos
Funions (oops. Spelled Funyuns)
Chewy Chips Ahoy (but I LOVE the regular Chips Ahoy)
Rainbow Chips Ahoy
Basically anything MILK chocolate (but I LOVE dark chocolate)
Easy Mac
Chef BoyRDee anything
Tom’s brand oven baked “Hot Fries”
when we’re not home. Somebody is leaving them out of the case. Bob (a cat) looks guilty to me. Or maybe that’s just because of what he did to the carpet. 
” and I didn’t see “Fruit Stuffed Pork Roll” in the table of contents, so it appears it was altered for the show. That is FINE with me. It turned out great!
