The Easter menu blues

For the biggest of Christian holidays, you would think that Easter would have a much more inspiring culinary history.

But pineapple–baked and cherry-studded ham? Really, people, this is the best we can come up with?

Other traditional options are lamb, turkey and a rare mention here and there of salmon.

Three days before Easter and I don’t know what I’m going to make for dinner. What I really want is some good Polish Sausage from Eby’s in South Bend. I’m not talking about the kind of polish sausage that you can get from the hot dog vendor. That is NOT polish sausage. I don’t even know what that is. I’m talking about fresh polish sausage, Chicago-style kielbasa. Sigh. I haven’t found real polish sausage here in New Orleans. Andouille, yes, boudin, yes, but no polish sausage. I may have to settle for Johnsonville Bratwurst.  Anyway, growing up, I had polish sausage every Easter and leftover polish sausage every Dingus day. Yum. I love it.  Of course I wasn’t too excited about the sauerkraut that went with it.

Anyway, back to the present.

I turned to John Besh’s “My New Orleans” cookbook for Easter inspiration. While he has full chapters given to gumbo, chanterelles and blackberries, strawberries and citrus, Easter is lumped in with other “feast days” and yes, there are more exciting things to be served for St. Joseph’s Day than Easter. For Easter Lunch, Besh would have us serve Daube of Rabbit with White Asparagus and Champagne Vinaigrette, or Slow-Cooked Baby Goat with spring vegetables– YIKES. Isn’t that a little cruel? Is this revenge for Besh not getting what he wanted in his Easter basket as a child?

No rabbit or baby goat here. No thank you.

I will likely settle on salmon, usually a hit with the family, new potatoes, carrot flan (recipe below) and coconut cake. But I’ve still got time. I’d love to hear what you’re having for Easter dinner!

Happy Easter

Pam

Carrot Flan

(recipe courtesy of the Culinary Institute of America)

12 oz. carrots, cooked and pureed
4 eggs, beat
4 oz. heavy cream
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp. ground black pepper

Combine all ingredients till smooth, do not overmix. Place a sprig of dill at the bottoms of six buttered 4-oz ramekins, or other small baking dish. Pour in carrot mixture. Put into a pan. Bake in a water bath until a skewer inserted near the center comes out clean. Remove and keep warm. Unmold and serve.



Hormone-free milk? Or a bunch of BS(t)?

Am I the only one who rolls their eyes when they see “Our farmers pledge no artificial growth hormones” on a gallon of milk? Isn’t that like letting a professional baseball player “pledge” that he doesn’t use steroids?

OK, so I may be the extreme skeptic here, maybe it’s just the word “pledge” that turns me off, but since those words started appearing on our local non-organic milk, I’ve wanted to send a couple of gallons off to a lab to be tested.

I have bought organic milk since Caitlin started drinking milk 5 years ago. I have been frightened enough by stories of girls entering puberty early, blamed on recombinant bovine growth hormone, rBGH or rBST. The hormones have also been linked to higher levels of breast and prostate cancer.

But damn, it’s expensive. Sometimes twice as much! So I was happy a couple of years ago when non-organic milk started coming out that said it didn’t have the artificial hormones. Wal Mart and Kroger, among others, now only carry milk that does not contain artificial growth hormone.

I remain, though, a skeptic of those no artificial growth hormone claims. And this week, when I started looking into the issue, I discovered that there is NO test out there to easily determine whether milk contains artificial growth hormone. You see, cows normally produce hormones and you apparently can’t differentiate even in a lab between artificial and natural hormones in your milk.

So much for my laboratory tests.

Then just how do these huge dairies, which get their milk from dozens of dairy farmers, make sure their farmers are abiding by this “pledge” not to use artificial hormones?

This week, I emailed the press folks at Dean Foods, the nation’s largest distributor of dairy products (including Horizon Organic) and asked that question. The answer was far from satisfactory. The absence of artificial growth hormones “is confirmed through our quality assurance and supplier auditing process.”

So, what now? Back to organic milk that can often taste less than great because it is pasteurized at high a high temperature for longer shelf life??

Nope. I’ve found the best of all worlds in milk from our local dairy, Smith Creamery. They don’t use artificial growth hormone, never have, and their milk is delicious. Just like the milk from my childhood. Even the skim milk tastes like “creamy milk” according to my girls. It’s pasteurized at a lower temperature so it doesn’t kill the milks flavor, and the cows are pasture fed, which I think also must add to the flavor.

I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to realize how much better this local milk is compared to even the expensive organic milk (though, believe me, Smith Creamery isn’t cheap)

I challenge you to find milk from your local dairy and conduct your own taste test. Because whether you believe artificial growth hormones are bad for you or not, that local milk is sooo much better!

School lunch vs. the lunch box

Six months ago, if Caitlin had asked to have the school lunch, I would have done the happy dance.

Last night, she asked if she could buy school lunch sometime. There was an awkward pause.

“Why?” I asked. “Because they have chocolate milk and sometimes they have pizza and chicken nuggets,” she said.

Ah…..I told her that we could pack her chocolate milk sometimes and that I could put chicken nuggets sometimes in her thermos.

She seemed satisfied with that response.  My husband was surprised, He knows how I hate the drudgery of fixing school lunches every morning.

But I had just read about a study that showed kids who ate lunch at school were more 14 percentage points more likely to be obese, twice as likely to eat fatty meats and drink sugary beverages, and consumed only 16% fruits and vegetables compared with 91% of kids that brought their lunches from home. Other things I’ve been reading also made believe that what I packed for my girls has got to be better, by and large, then what they serve in the cafeterias. Lee Zukor, on his blog, simplegoodandtasty.com, has some great recent posts on school lunches.

This was all topped off by seeing the first episode of Jamie Oliver’s “The Food Revolution” that showed the crap they were serving in West Virginia — pizza for breakfast and chicken nuggets for lunch.

Of course I’m no saint. My kids get PB&J at least twice a week. But they always get at least one fruit, sometimes yogurt and cheese. Surely, that’s got to be better than what they are served at lunch.  And at least I know when I pack their lunches, they (almost always) eat what I pack. With a school lunch, I know Caitlin would end up  drinking that chocolate milk, taking a nibble of bread and throwing the rest away.

Things can change, though, and they may. Congress has unveiled a Child Nutrition Act that boosts funding by $500 million a year. They are set to start making up the bill this week.

The Obama administration requested $1 billion.

But you’ve got to start somewhere, right??

What do your kids get for lunch??

The Myth of the 30-Minute Meal

I have a great idea for a new Food Network show: “MULTI-TASKING IRON CHEF.” The challenge would be to prepare any meal made largely from scratch — in 60 minutes. Instead of a secret ingredient, contestants would have at least one secret crisis: they’d have to take calls from work, break up sibling fights, doctor a skinned knee or help with homework. And no sous chef or spouse help.

I know I would go down in flames.

When I first thought about starting this blog, one of the major questions I wanted to answer is how, with real life constantly interfering, can anyone prepare a quick, healthy meal that their whole family will eat. I have found very few things that fit this criteria. Those so-called 30-minute recipes offered by Rachael Ray make me want to scream 30-minutes my bottom. And many nights, rather than try, I have been known to turn to ole’ Kraft Mac N Cheese and frozen chicken nuggets.

I’m happy to report I haven’t made mac in cheese in at least a month. But I have been close this week.

My downfall was that I didn’t have a meal plan in place like I have had for the past few weeks. To me, a meal plan is deciding what you are going to cook for the week and then grocery shopping for everything at once.  If you need help getting a meal plan together, there’s a very cool site called Relish.com that will basically do it for you and put together a grocery list. It’s $7 a month, but still, I’m tempted.

I started using a meal plan when I realized one day that cooking is like exercise. You have to plan for it, you have to make it a priority and you have to make a commitment to cooking.

So without a meal plan this week, I scrambled on Monday and Tuesday and had leftovers on Wednesday.

Tonight, though, I recommitted myself to cooking. It was 5 p.m. when I started and I didn’t quite have all of the ingredients, but I took on the Shepherd’s Pie recipe that I had wanted to make on St. Patrick’s Day.

The recipe, which of course I had never made before, said 45 minutes. I knew it was going to take at least twice that long.

It may have gone a little quicker if I didn’t have to blow bubbles, help curl the hair on Caitlin’s doll or cut out a paper heart for Elise. It took an hour to prepare the dish. Another 30 minutes to cook and 10 final minutes to cool down and set. Yes, it was 7 p.m. when we sat down for dinner.

Was it worth it? Absolutely. I had my doubts about the recipe, but the girls and Richard loved it (what’s not to love about hamburger and mashed potatoes? even with did have carrots, corn and peas in it)

Jamie Oliver gave a fantastic speech about the importance of cooking and teaching our kids about nutrition when he won the Ted Prize recently. I thought it was a great speech and I agreed with it all until he said, “If you can cook time doesn’t matter.”

OK, maybe in his world, but in my world, time still matters — even if you are cooking.

What are your time-savers for nightly meal prep?

Here is the recipe for the Shepherd’s Pie. And now that I’m looking at it, I’m thinking for fat and calories, this probably doesn’t meet the criteria for “healthy” but at least it’s better than mac and cheese!

Shepherd’s Pie (from Alton Brown)
Ingredients
For the potatoes:

* 1 1/2 pounds russet potatoes
* 1/4 cup half-and-half
* 2 ounces unsalted butter
* 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
* 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
* 1 egg yolk

For the meat filling:

* 2 tablespoons canola oil
* 1 cup chopped onion
* 2 carrots, peeled and diced small
* 2 cloves garlic, minced
* 1 1/2 pounds ground lamb
* 1 teaspoon kosher salt
* 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
* 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
* 2 teaspoons tomato paste
* 1 cup chicken broth
* 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
* 2 teaspoons freshly chopped rosemary leaves
* 1 teaspoon freshly chopped thyme leaves
* 1/2 cup fresh or frozen corn kernels
* 1/2 cup fresh or frozen English peas

Directions

Peel the potatoes and cut into 1/2-inch dice. Place in a medium saucepan and cover with cold water. Set over high heat, cover and bring to a boil. Once boiling, uncover, decrease the heat to maintain a simmer and cook until tender and easily crushed with tongs, approximately 10 to 15 minutes. Place the half-and-half and butter into a microwave-safe container and heat in the microwave until warmed through, about 35 seconds. Drain the potatoes in a colander and then return to the saucepan. Mash the potatoes and then add the half and half, butter, salt and pepper and continue to mash until smooth. Stir in the yolk until well combined.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

While the potatoes are cooking, prepare the filling. Place the canola oil into a 12-inch saute pan and set over medium high heat. Once the oil shimmers, add the onion and carrots and saute just until they begin to take on color, approximately 3 to 4 minutes. Add the garlic and stir to combine. Add the lamb, salt and pepper and cook until browned and cooked through, approximately 3 minutes. Sprinkle the meat with the flour and toss to coat, continuing to cook for another minute. Add the tomato paste, chicken broth, Worcestershire, rosemary, thyme, and stir to combine. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer slowly 10 to 12 minutes or until the sauce is thickened slightly.

Add the corn and peas to the lamb mixture and spread evenly into an 11 by 7-inch glass baking dish. Top with the mashed potatoes, starting around the edges to create a seal to prevent the mixture from bubbling up and smooth with a rubber spatula. Place on a parchment lined half sheet pan on the middle rack of the oven and bake for 25 minutes or just until the potatoes begin to brown. Remove to a cooling rack for at least 15 minutes before serving.

Snacking well without snackwells, crackers or candy

When I was a child, I’d whine to my mother between meals, “Mom, I’m hungry… what can I eat?”

My mom would hand me an apple.  I’d hand it back, “But I don’t want an apple! I want something else.” Mom would say “Then you obviously aren’t hungry,” and I would go snackless. (Poor me, I know)

Thirty-odd years later, I have yet to follow her wisdom. I still love non-apple snacks. I could snack all day and just forego meals.

But as much as I love them, snacks are a frustrating piece of the feeding puzzle for me. I always make sure I grab a snack for the girls to have in the car after school. Half of it ends up on the floor of my car, and for some odd reason the girls aren’t hungry for dinner two hours later. (duh).

So why do I do it? Because Caitlin and Elise have gone since lunchtime without anything to eat. They both have breakfast, morning snack and lunch within a four-hour period in the morning, and then nothing till after school. By the time I pick them up, the first thing they ask for is snack. Habit or hunger? I’m not sure.

Snacks are a hot button issue for a lot of parents. A recent study found that kids eat 600 calories worth of snacks – A DAY. A story in the New York Times on the study got about 180 passionate comments on the topic – most falling in one of two camps: the don’t-let-your-kids-snack group and the give-your-kids-a-healthy-snack camp.

I fall into the let-the-kids-snack camp. But I realize I need to reduce how often I give my kids snacks, and give them healthier choices – even apples occasionally!

The first thing I did to improve our snacking habits was to simply stop buying so many snacks. A few years ago, as a new mom, I thought Goldfish and Nutri-Grain bars were wholesome choices for my kids, certainly better than Oreos and chips, right?? Well, maybe. We moved on from Goldfish to Cheez-its and pretzels and… and soon my cupboard was filled with more snacks than real food.

Then one day I picked up a box of crackers and read the ingredients. Who knew crackers had so much CRAP in them. Half of the crackers – you know, the “whole-wheat-goodness” kind have corn syrup as one of the first ingredients.

About the time I was cleaning up my snack cabinet, I read another story in the New York Times about the snacking phenomenom, about how kids have to snack all of the time and are sent to school with huge bags of cheetos and cookies for their “snack.” The story frustrated me because while it kvetched about the problem of oversnacking, it did not offer any alternatives.

So, no cookies, I understand, but then, what? (OK, apples, I get it, but what else?)

The verdict is still out, but I’ve been buying nuts and dried fruit for the girls’ snacks. The girls seem to like this option, and Elise has stopped demanding Cheez-its. But even nature’s own snack has its pitfalls, especially when people meddle with it. Obviously, as calorie dense as nuts and dried fruit are, you can’t eat, or give your kids, the same amount as you would of Cheez-its.  And I would recommend against buying the pre-mixed trail mixes out there. I haven’t yet found one that doesn’t have chocolate, yogurt-covered something and “sugar sweetened” fruit.

I also make popcorn in a microwave popcorn popper  (I can’t STAND the stuff in the bag).

I’ve also tried my hand at making homemade cereal/granola bars. They are delicious and filing, though they are little high on the sugar and oil side. I’m about to make another batch with about half the oil and sugar. I’m guessing you can take out what you want (nuts) and add other things to the mix. I’ll let you know how they turn out. In the meantime, I’d love to hear your snack suggestions.

Cereal Bars

Makes 16 bars

1/3 cup plus 1 ½ tablespoon sunflower oil
2 ½ tablespoons light brown sugar
½ cup corn syrup
2 ½ cups rolled oats
¾ cup mixture of seeds (sunflower, pumpkin, almonds)
½ cup dried fruits

Grease an 8-inch square pan

Preheat the overn to 350 degrees

Put the oil, sugar and syrup into a pan and heat very gently to dissolve the sugar.  Ad the rest of the ingredients and mix well. Put in pan, compress as much as you can, and bake 15-18 minutes. Take out of the oven and push down again with wax paper. Let cool for 10 minutes and then score into 16 bars. Let cool completely and lift out and cut the bars. Store in an airtight container.

Our special Spring celebration.

Please pardon this intrusion from our regularly scheduled Feed Well Blog.

I want to share our little celebration with you today.

Two years ago today, Caitlin was diagnosed with Wilms tumor, a kidney cancer.

It’s a celebration because Caitlin is now as healthy as any 6 year old, and loving life. And so are we.

I can’t seem to ignore this somewhat morbid anniversary because it is so intertwined with my memories of that beautiful Spring. As I drove back and forth from the hospital, everything seemed so bright and beautiful outside compared with the dim hospital room and our pale little girl covered with tubes and bandages.

It seemed so unfair that Caitlin was missing all of the beauty outside. We lost a season, almost a year of Caitlin’s life, and we thought we were going to lose her. And for the past two years as the Japanese magnolias have bloomed and crawfish is boiled, those memories come back. But with two years now behind us, I think I’m a long way toward being healed. I’m enjoying this Spring with a special appreciation. I went for a walk in Audubon Park this morning and realized that the cleaning, cooking and shopping I had planned for today could wait. We needed to have a celebration.

So on this perfect Spring day we went to see the Irish Channel St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Caitlin was begging to go. We had planned to go in 2008 – our friends Steve, Jennifer, Adrianna, Mary and Erin were marching and they had promised to save something special for Caitlin. But after she was admitted into the hospital, they delivered a ton of goodies to her bedside instead. This year, it was very special to me to catch up with all of our friends on the parade route and have each one hand Caitlin their little treasures in person. Thank  you guys!

So Happy Spring, Happy St. Patrick’s Day and Happy Caitlin diagnosis day!

Pam

P.S. Caitlin is my inspiration for this blog. If you want to learn a little more, check out the “About Feed Well” link in the menu bar

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