Advent Gratitude, Day 2: Yes.

View of the houseboats
on the Bay Trail

It was a day of YES.

I heard Quentin squirming on the floor of my bedroom where he was camped for some reason, but instead of getting up with him as usual I said YES to more sleep and had the pleasure of waking up ninety minutes later to my husband delivering a fresh cup of coffee to my bedside table.

I'd made plans to see Breaking Dawn Part Two with a friend, and when she called to adjust them a bit, I was able to say YES to an early lunch and matinee. She chose the lunch location and so I got to enjoy a really delicious tomato soup and brussels sprout salad at a new restaurant that I wouldn't have tried otherwise. YUM and healthy too!

When I got home from my date my daughter asked if we could take an outing on the Bay Trail. YES meant I raced my kids and held my husband's hand for a few minutes, and got a little exercise which made us all more cheerful.

I could have said NO to any of these things. I could have acted JUST from responsibility, kept my eyes on my to-do list, gotten the laundry done and the sheets changed. But I said YES. I am so grateful.

Advent Gratitude, Day 1: Bridge, Not Barriers

Photo Courtesy of Peter Nijenhuis
(Creative Commons Free to Use or Share)

Friday I took my visiting family members, my husband, and my kids for a walk across the Golden Gate Bridge. I've walked the bridge many times, a few times with a kid in tow, but my husband never had, and neither had his mom.

It beat the daylights out of spending the day throwing elbows at Target or Best Buy (we saw the crowd control barriers when we took the kids shopping for their grandparents on Wednesday), it only cost us the little bit of money we spent getting greenscreen pictures of the kids taken for the Christmas cards, and I for one (perhaps the only one) really enjoyed the five mile walk the outing entailed.

So my first day of gratitude is multilayered: I'm grateful we had family visiting to share that great outing; I'm grateful that all the members of our family are healthy enough to undertake that big walk and still be happy (and happy with one another) when we got home again; I'm grateful for the afternoon nap that followed; and I'm really, really grateful to be satisfied enough with my lifestyle that I don't want to be chasing down crazy sales in an environment that absolutely kills the pleasure of the long holiday weekend.

What are you grateful for? Share in the comments -- and let's spread some of this contentment around and share it on your social media field of choice as well!!

Thankful

One of my friends is posting a gratitude a day on Facebook as a nod to "Thankful Month."

I wish I had thought of that.

So I'm thinking I'll adopt December as my gratitude month, as an antidotal lead-up to the consumer frenzy known as Christmas shopping. As my own little protest against the insanity of Black Friday, I'll start a post a day of thankfulness, every day from Black Friday through Christmas Day.

Are you in?

Share your gratitudes in the comments below, and please, share the joy with the rest of the world. Post on Facebook, or Twitter, or when you meet a friend for coffee. Let's not let consumer craziness rule our holidays any more.

REST & BE THANKFUL
(the remainder of the transcription explains who built the road and left the stone, dated 1814)
Argyll, Scotland

You Don't Have to be a Domestic Goddess to Make Homemade Broth

Homemade Broth

When you think of stock, which of these comes to mind? 

I used to buy stock as a staple. It has about a thousand uses, not least of which is making homemade, custom-seasoned soups in 30 minutes. As I've gotten more and more aware of how many insane things are in our food chain (thank you to every parent of a child with significant allergies that I've ever met, for starters), I got a lot more careful about reading labels. I expected to see something like "water, chicken bones, carrots, celery, onions, salt, pepper, and seasonings" when I read the ingredients list, but here's what I actually found:

...and that's for a premium brand stock! Sugar? Yeast? Organic chicken flavor? What IS organic chicken flavor?

The same brand discloses the ingredients list of their beef broth as follows:

• Beef Stock (Water, beef stock powder)
• Beef Extract
• Autolyzed Yeast Extract
• Sea Salt
• Garlic Powder

I don't know what "beef stock powder" or (especially) "beef extract" are, and I'm not sure I want to. According to Livestrong, autolyzed yeast extract is a kinda-sorta natural form of monosodium glutamate (MSG) and is used in the same way. Many other brands actually use MSG; Campbell's discloses the following list of ingredients on their beef broth:

• Beef Broth
• Yeast Extract
• Salt
• Hydrolyzed Yeast Protein
• Monosodium Glutamate
• Caramel Color
• Hydrolyzed Soy Protein
• Hydrolyzed Wheat Gluten
• Dextrose
• Flavoring (This one right here is a personal favorite. Why even bother???)

Just tackling one word that occurs in this list three times, hydrolysis, according to Livestrong,

Hydrolysis is a method of extraction that boils the soy protein in a vat of sulfuric acid. Manufacturers mix the resulting acidic substance with caustic soda to neutralize the acid content. While hydrolyzed soy protein contains most of the nutrients and health benefits of soy, when you consume this type of soy you also consume the unhealthy chemical byproducts of the manufacturing process. According to "Soy Protein and Formulated Meat Products," the potential harm of consuming hydrolyzed soy protein comes directly from the hydrolyzation process.

Um. Ick.

(Note that I'm choosing Livestrong as a resource for this information because it's very readable and has external links that can refer readers to more scientific sources if they so desire.)

Caramel coloring is another one of those "ingredients" that has a wide range of uses and a varying range of toxicity, with certain forms of it listed among those products disclosed as potentially carcinogenic or reproductive toxicity. Regulating agencies recognize four classes of caramel coloring based on their manufacturing process, but since packaging only discloses "caramel coloring" without disclosing which class, the consumer has no means of knowing if s/he is consuming a relatively benign form or a much more toxic version. (See the Wikipedia link for more information.)

OK, so I can never buy packaged broths again. But I still love my speedy soups, and broth is still a foundational ingredient in a lot of home cooking. So. Here's the solution.

1. Get your self a nice-sized container that you don't mind dedicating to the freezer. For this purpose, I don't mind plastic since the fact that it will be living its life in the freezer means that the chance of chemical leeching into my foods is significantly reduced. I do not like freezer bags because they can't be reused, and the Zero Waste Home groupie in me objects to them. But as a size guide, the gallon-sized bags would be about the volume you're looking for in your container.
2. Every time you plan a meal around a meat item, try to make it a bone-in version. In fact, even if it's going to be a boneless dish (like a nice chicken piccata, yum), buy the bone-in version. It's less expensive than the boneless purchase and you can put those bones to good use.
3. Whether you have the bones left over at the end of the meal or take them out as part of your prep, toss the bones in the nice big container in your freezer. I usually mix pork and chicken in one container (makes for a lovely, rich stock) and keep the beef bones separate. If you have roasted (or bought) a whole chicken, put the entire carcass in there, including any aromatics that might have been in the cavity. You can add the skin as well, if you'd like, but keep in mind that it's going to add a lot of fat to the broth that will need to be skimmed off. Additionally, I usually keep salt out of my stocks so I can manage the taste of my finished soups; skins, especially of bought rotisserie chickens, are generally highly seasoned, so you'll want to take that into account as well.
4. Hopefully, every week the night before trash day you do a fridge clean-out. During that fridge clean out, you will inevitably come across a couple of carrots or celery stalks that are floppy and not that appealing, but not really so bad off that they need to be tossed. Great! Pop those in the bowl with your bones. Every time you stem mushrooms, pop those in the bowl. Garlic, ginger, and leftover herbs all play beautifully in homemade broths. 
5. When your bowl is full, put the entire contents in your slow cooker, add a few peppercorns, any other aromatics you might not have put into your freezer container, and top off the crock with plain cold tap water. If your container had only bones and you're making the stock for a specific recipe, it can be helpful to check that recipe for specific aromatics -- carrots, celery, leeks, onions, garlic, ginger, etc. -- that might help to make your finished product really stellar.
6. Turn the crockpot on Low and let it cook 12-24 hours, or on High 6-12 hours. 

I have a six-quart crock pot, so when I cook like this I end up with a little more than four quarts of stock. I keep mine in mason jars. I usually use up my stock quick enough that it's not necessary to freeze, but if you make yours to freeze, be cautious about your containers. I learned the hard way that mason jars sometimes crack in the freezer (I think I have better success freezing in mason jars when they've chilled overnight in the refrigerator first). It is possible to buy BPA-free freezer containers, or you can just use your delicious ingredient in the same week that you make it.

Note that a beautifully made stock like this one will yield a high gelatin content (from the bones) so when it is cold it really will look like a semi-congealed meat Jello, which sounds awful. But once you heat it in your soup, it will be flavorful, rich, and satisfying. 

Bon Appetit!!

You Don't Have To Be a Domestic Goddess To Make...

Chocolate Syrup!

Here's the recipe:

1 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
2/3 cup cocoa powder (some recipes specify dutch-process)
pinch of salt
1 tsp of vanilla extract

1.  Water and sugar in a saucepan. Heat gently to a low boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar.
2.  Whisk cocoa powder into the syrup and let simmer gently for a few minutes to thicken.
3.  Stir in salt & vanilla.

Enjoy!

Finished syrup will thicken as it cools.  I found out the hard way that chocolate syrup should be refrigerated even though the components don't need to be. Don't make my mistake!

The whole recipe takes about six minutes to prepare. In fact, I am usually making the syrup while I make the kids' breakfasts on school mornings because I have just discovered that we're out as I was trying to prepare Quentin's chocolate milk. Syrup stirs into warm milk more efficiently than cocoa powder. Because my kids don't actually like milk very much, chocolate milk was the alternative to no milk at all; but that doesn't mean I have to feed them high-fructose corn syrup out of a bottle that leaches BPA.

And speaking of BPA, part of what I like about this recipe is that it makes it possible for me to avoid another plastic bottle. I can buy the salt, sugar, and cocoa powder from the bulk section of our grocery store, so I avoid almost any kind of waste at all (my vanilla comes in a glass bottle). Plus, I can customize the syrup.

Options:

• Although this syrup is quite rich and chocolaty, you can up the luxury factor by reducing the sugar (slightly) and increasing the cocoa powder (slightly) to make it even richer.
• Add-ins like a touch of cayenne pepper, cinnamon, or alternate flavors like orange or almond extracts bring a grown-up touch to the syrup. 
• Instead of using orange extract, simmer a few strips of orange zest in the simple syrup, and then fish them out before adding the cocoa powder. (you can do the same with a cinnamon stick instead)
• This chocolate syrup is also yummy in coffee, over ice cream, mixed in your favorite chocolate martini recipe, in sparkling water for an Italian soda (would be divine that with orange flavoring), or as a glaze over cakes and muffins.

Bonus: If you are going to make a chocolate martini or an Italian soda, you can make a rimming powder by running a quarter cup of sugar through a tiny blender or food processor and then mixing with a tablespoon or two of cocoa powder and/or ground cinnamon (to taste).

Why not to buy chocolate syrup:

1. The plastic bottle is unnecessary waste. Even if you go to the trouble of cleaning out the bottle so it will be recycled (dirty bottles won't be), the squirt top will not be recycled. Not to mention that you have bought and paid for a bottle that could be leaching BPA into your syrup. Yum!

2.  Convenience. The ingredients have a long shelf life without getting icky. I always have cocoa powder on hand, I always have sugar, and I always have salt and vanilla. Ergo, I always have chocolate syrup available. If I always bought my chocolate syrup, I would risk not having any available for that third child who has been patiently waiting for the hot cocoa, only to discover that he's going to be getting gypped because I ran out halfway through making the second kid's cocoa.

3.  Convenience II. Chocolate syrup dissolves into milk way better than cocoa powder and sugar, meaning no disgusting bitter lumps surprising picky kids.

4.  Quality. I love chocolate. I do not love sugar. Call me crazy, but I don't actually have much of a sweet tooth. Making my own means my chocolate syrup actually tastes like chocolate.

5.  Ingredients. See what you're paying for when you buy commercial chocolate syrup:

HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP; CORN SYRUP; WATER; COCOA; SUGAR; CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF: POTASSIUM SORBATE (PRESERVATIVE); SALT; MONO- AND DIGLYCERIDES; XANTHAN GUM; POLYSORBATE 60; VANILLIN, ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR

No Soup for You!

One of my husband's favorite childhood recipes is turketti. It was originally a use for leftover Thanksgiving turkey, and consisted of spaghetti, chopped turkey, shredded cheddar cheese, and canned cream of mushroom soup, all mixed together and baked until it is gooey, golden, brown, and delicious.

These days we serve chicketti year round -- no need to wait for turkey to show up at Thanksgiving when the kids enjoy grilled chicken almost every weekend. But it's not the meal my husband remembers. To his horror, I don't buy canned cream of mushroom soup anymore. Between the BPA of the plastic can liners, the fact that soup cans are not recyclable in our area because they are a fused material (aluminum and plastic), and the unnecessarily extensive ingredient list*, I have determined that cream of mushroom soup is a product that doesn't deserve shelf space in my pantry any longer.

The product I offer these days is actually more upscale, just as tasty, just as delicious, and only two steps more complicated than my guy's childhood favorite.

My New Chicketti Recipe:

8 oz. mushrooms, sliced
2-3 tbls butter
2 tbls flour (optional)
2 tbls sherry (optional, but delicious)
1 tsp. thyme (optional, but delicious)
1 c. milk (to make this extra creamy and delicious, substitute up to half the milk with heavy cream)
2 c. shredded cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 400F.

1/2 box pasta, cooked (I make the whole box and reserve some plain pasta for my sauce-phobic middle child)
However much pre-cooked chicken you might have on hand, chopped into bite-sized pieces

Saute the mushrooms in the butter with a little salt and pepper. When they are tender, sprinkle lightly with the flour and stir well until there are no lumps. (Proper chefs remove the mushrooms to make the bechamel, but I'm a home cook). Add the milk and sherry, if you're using it, and heat gently until the sauce has thickened. If you omit the flour from this step the sauce will be much thinner. I have seen roux recipes that call for whole wheat flour, but it's such a small amount I just go with all-purpose.

As you would do when preparing lasagna, put just enough sauce in the bottom of an 8x8 glass pan to lightly cover the bottom. Add 1/3 of the pasta, then toss 1/3 each of the chicken & cheddar cheese on top of the pasta. Repeat pasta, chicken and cheese layers for remaining ingredients, EXCEPT for the final cheese layer. Before laying down that last bit of cheese, pour the remaining mushroom sauce evenly over the entire dish, THEN lay the cheese down. Bake 20 minutes, and let cool 10 minutes or so, or until the dish is no longer nuclear hot.

NOTE That this is an excellent make ahead dish and freezes well. If you are only going to make ahead by a day or two, cover with foil rather than plastic wrap before refrigerating. Baking time is if you bake immediately after prepping the casserole.

If you prep and then freeze, defrost as completely as possible to protect the glass dish, and bake covered 40 minutes, then uncovered 15-20 minutes. If you oil the inside of the foil before baking, the cheese won't stick during the covered portion of the baking.

Variations include adding chopped broccoli or spinach, changing up the type of cheese (I would pay my family to let me make it with Swiss cheese, but so far I don't have any takers...), chopped bacon or high-quality ham, sun-dried tomatoes... basically, if it tastes good to you, odds are it will taste good in this casserole. If you're low on milk, I have made this dish with good homemade stock instead of milk, though it will be less creamy (or you can blend stock with half & half or heavy cream).

What other variations can you think of?

If this sounds like delicious comfort food in the middle of a busy week, please share with others!

*Ingredients in Campbells Cream of Mushroom Soup:
CREAM OF MUSHROOM SOUP (Homogenized Milk, Water, Sliced Mushrooms, Roux W/ Oil (All Purpose Flour (Bleached Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Canola Oil), Water, Corn Starch (Derived From Waxy Maize), Roasted Mirapoix (Roasted Vegetables (Carrots, Onions, Celery, Garlic), Water, Dextrose, Salt, Onion Powder, Canola Oil, Maltodextrin, Sugar, Natural Flavors, Xanthan Gum, Disodium Inosinate/Disodium Guanylate, Potassium Sorbate, Soy Lecithin, Caramel Color, Ascorbic Acid, Smoke Flavor. ), Diced Onions, Canola Oil, Kosher Salt (Salt, Yellow Prussiate Of Soda.), Roasted Garlic Flavoring (Roasted Garlic, Water, Vegetables (Onions, Carrots, And Celery), Dextrose, Salt, Garlic Powder, Canola Oil, Onion Powder, Xanthan Gum, Disodium Inosinate, Disodium Guanylate, Potassium Sorbate, Natural Flavoring, Corn Syrup, and Caramel Color. ), Vegetable Base (Sea Salt, Autolyzed Yeast Extract, Dehydrated Vegetables (Parsnip, Carrots, Pumpkin), Dehydrated Parsley, Olive Oil, Spices (Pepper, Thyme, Coriander, Mace).), Ground White Pepper)

What's for Dinner?

The always hungry SoRMuiJAi

Do you hate it too? That question... the one that pops up every single day right at the witching hour.

What's for dinner?

It's almost always demanded by a kid who has just been nagging me for snacks and turned her or his nose up at whatever healthy options were offered. Most likely whatever I answer (so long as it isn't pizza or boxed mac and cheese) is going to be met with a whine and followed by "Can't we go out to eat?"

No. We are not going out to eat.

or

But you like chicken cordon bleu.

Oh, you don't make chicken cordon bleu? Neither do I. Although if I did it would probably be a family favorite.

Anyway... I was asked that question one time too many when my third child was an infant, because I totally threw in the towel and subscribed to a menu-planning service that came with a grocery list. You could select what types of meal preferences you had (vegetarian, kosher, etc.) and the menu list would arrive in my email inbox, weekly, complete with grocery list. All I had to do was print the whole thing out, check the grocery list against my pantry and refrigerator, and follow the directions.

It was perfect for a very intense year when I didn't care a whole lot what went into my mouth. The menu I selected was a "healthy" option created by a registered dietician, and basic enough that I could adjust it for the 5 year old and the 2 year old without having to make anything extra. For times when I had guests coming, or knew I'd have a little help, I could also purchase the directions for make-ahead freezer meals that could be pulled out at and prepared at short notice.

After about a year, though, I noticed that it was pretty repetitive. I get bored easily and by the time Quentin was two I was feeling more capable of taking back the menu-making responsibilities. I really enjoy cooking and I love to eat. I'm willing to try unfamiliar flavors and recipes and I enjoy cooking blogs, so I didn't need as basic of menu planning as what I had been using during the "barely keeping my head above water" period. At the same time my husband's travel started picking up, so six nights a week of planned dinners was a little more than my family could use. So I liberated myself.

I do my grocery shopping on Mondays. Sunday nights we all contribute our requests for the weekly menu based on the schedule for the week. Friday is always pizza & movie night, which simplifies things a lot. My four year old always asks for shrimp, which I honor once a month. I do not plan for weekends, which evolve based on opportunity. I have developed a hard line about dinner. I am not a short order cook and what is on the menu is what is offered. There is not a whole lot of compromise going on, but I'm willing to take some pasta out before adding sauce, to serve vegetables raw, or to add dressings or dips on the side, if they require little prep. Surprisingly, my kids are becoming more adventurous in their tastes, which I attribute to their having a say in the dinner plan. We talk a lot about flavors and preferences, and I am pleased to say that Quentin, who had formerly declared vegetables his "emmamy," ate three servings of roasted broccoli for dinner earlier this week.

I'm going to take credit for that achievement.

Mechanics: 

• Friday is pizza night
• One vegetarian dinner per week (at least) 
• Try to aim for one meal of planned-overs during particularly busy weeks
• Sometimes I use cookbooks or my Evernote recipe system to help with planning
• Keep an eye on other people's menu mentions on Facebook (we usually have Taco Tuesday the week after my cousin announces it...)
• When all else fails, raid the freezer for my husband's spaghetti stash and cut up a head of lettuce

If you don't have it in you to make your own weekly meal plan, or if you'd like to see some samples of how others manage it, there are lots of menu-planning services to choose from. Some are free, others you have to pay for. Many of the paid services include a free week or two so you can find out if their ingredients and prep times are consistent with your own preferences.

I used Saving Dinner, which is associated with the FlyLady, for anyone who might be familiar with her. It is the only one I can speak to directly, so I won't recommend any others. However, if you Google "menu planning service" you'll find a list so huge that it might make you prefer to order take out. Alternatively, you can check out the blog 100 Days of Real Food. There is a page of menu plans, and also a very informative post, "Product Review: Meal Plan Services."

 Planning meals a week in advance has saved me money -- as much as 1/3 of my previous grocery bill -- and prevented food waste. It's made the witching hour a lot less painful. It's easier to stick to my grocery list knowing that I have a plan for eating what's on the list; extra purchases are likely to end up on my thighs. I'm going to even stick my neck out and say that it's helped my kids to be more adventurous eaters (they are nagging me for a "build your own salad night" this week) and best of all, it has freed my brain up for interesting problems like the plot of the novel I'm worrying over.

How do you manage "What's for dinner?" (Please feel free to share favorite outsourcing options!!)