The Dude Abides

Point Break meets The Big Lebowski

For the past few months my son was set on having a Mad Scientist birthday party. We had been watching fun science experiments on YouTube and researching ideas for transforming our garage into a labratory for his party. But then in the month leading up to his birthday he changed his mind and begged asked for a bowling birthday party at the local bowling alley. I was a little disappointed not to be able to execute the Mentos and Diet Coke experiment on our street, spraying cars and houses with soda. But then the idea of keeping my house clean and not turning it into a science lab also sounded very appealing.

My son has had a love affair with bowling from a very early age as you can see below. At three years old he was bowling in our hallway and told me, "This crown makes me bowl better." What can I say? The dude abides.

With the location and theme out of the way, we started to talk about his cake. At a restaurant later that night he pulled a notebook and pen out of my purse (any other neurotic list makers out there?) and drew a picture of the cake he had in mind, saying, "It's a surfer bowling cake where the surfer is actually bowling on the water and then a shark leaps out of the water at him!" Wow. I had no idea how that would even come together, but I brainstormed for a day or two and searched around for cake ideas on the web. I almost gave up and went to the dark side for help (the dark side being a bakery), but then I figured I could swing something along the lines of what he wanted.

I asked a few friends if they had a toy surfboard that I could use on the cake, but no one had anything like it. Then one friend suggested drawing a board, so I ran with that idea and made my own cake topper using old photos of my husband's long board and of my son surfing.

I used Mod Podge to adhere a couple of photos to stiff cardboard (an old Amazon.com box) and then I carefully cut out the figures with an X-Acto Knife.

I wish I had thought to take photos of the cake as I made it, but I was having a slight panic attack as I assembled it, thinking it was going to look like a Cake Wreck. I just focused on getting it done by that point.

I  used two boxes of Trader Joe's devil's food cake mix and baked them in two jelly roll pans so I would have plenty of space to work with. Then I baked another box cake mix in a 8x8 pan to use for the wave, cutting it to size. To make the wave, I placed a few blocks of cake on top of the sheet cake and frosted it, then I stuck a small sheet of foil into the wedge of the cake so that it would look like a wave, and I bent the foil to form the curl of the wave and covered the whole thing with frosting. I found the little bowling pins and bowling ball at a cake decoration store and used a rubber shark from our bath toys (Yes, I cleaned it thoroughly). The look on his face was priceless when he saw himself surfing on his own cake.

Simple is Best

Every single time I make these drumsticks, I wonder why I don't think to make them on those nights when

a) BART is delayed
b) I answered my phone at work five minutes before I have to catch the 5:10 train
c) Opened up my son's backpack to discover an insane amount of homework
d) I can't muster the strength to make dinner

This dinner doesn't get any simpler. It's easy enough, my kids cheer when I make it, and I always seem to have the ingredients in my fridge or freezer. Behold! The Wonder Dinner guaranteed to stop you from putting your favorite take out joint on speed dial (not that there is anything wrong with that... Hola La Corneta!) 


Apricot-glazed drumsticks: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cover a cookie sheet with foil and lightly cover non-stick cooking spray. Place 6-8 drumsticks on the pan and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Put two heaping spoonfuls of apricot preserves in a small bowl and brush it over the drumsticks. After 15 minutes of roasting, flip over the drumsticks and brush them with more preserves. Roast for another 15 minutes.

Sauteed sugar snap peas: Heat a few glugs of olive oil, a pat of butter and a pinch of chili pepper flakes in a skillet and sautee sugar snap peas till slightly tender, about 7 minutes.

Warmed baguette: Wrap a store bought baguette in foil and throw it in the oven with the drumsticks. Remove it when the drumsticks are done.

I realize this isn't gourmet, but it's homemade and as my mom would say, "There is plenty of green on the plate." The kids were infinitely more thrilled with this meal than with my attempts to convince them that Ratatouille is actually not a rat, but a delicious vegetable stew. They didn't buy it.

Loving: A New Client's Office Location

I could barely contain my enthusiasm when I drove up to a new client's office and noticed that they were conveniently located right next to a Whole Foods grocery store. I know this may seem about as exciting as learning that the library loans out books for free, but for a working mom who doesn't mind spending her lunch hour trolling aisles of Whole Foods, this was a god send. As I rode up in the elevator I whipped out my phone and edited my grocery list and menu for the week. Right there on the spot!

As I left my client's office after our meeting,  he said, "Well, I hope we'll see you around here again soon." Let me tell you, it took all the effort in the world to not force him to commit to weekly meetings with me just so I can get real in the Whole Foods parking lot.

Cracking the Quiche Code

I have always been envious of amazing food presentation, especially when it comes to food targeted towards children. The first food book I received at my baby shower back in 2005 was Annabel Karmel's First Meals. Unfortunately this book sets the bar pretty high in terms of food presentation.

 
Along with my shower guests, I ogled and swooned over the adorable pictures of food. I was 8 months pregnant at the time and was pretty sure it'd be really easy to make dishes likes these to entice my child to eat.

Definitely assembled by someone who doesn't have kids

It's the movie 'Heathers' in burger form

Just another example of how unrealistic I was before I had children. Completely, utterly, hopelessly delusional.

When my son was old enough to eat food that wasn't pureed and I was back at work , it became apparent that I didn't have time to form his food into the shape of a caterpillar or a butterfly. I needed him to eat the same food as us. But for another year I was stuck in the pasta rut and dutifully served him some kind of pasta practically every day. It was my own mother who gave me the (obvious) advice and said, "Stop serving him pasta. Give him the same dinners that you eat. He will come around." I took her advice a step further and put cottage cheese on the table as a peace offering. I didn't anticipate World War III at the dinner table, but sadly it started out that way.

One day I made my mother-in-law's spinach feta quiche for dinner and I stood at the kitchen counter and stared at it. How was I going to serve this to a 3 year old? How could anyone in their right mind expect a preschooler to willingly eat quiche, for goodness sake? This was asking too much.

But then inspiration hit. I scooped up the quiche filling, tossed it with hot pasta and placed it infront of him with no pleading, no encouraging words and no explanation.

He looked at the dish in front of him and then looked at my husband and I, trying to make sense of what was in front of him. I didn't want to look at him (remember Happy Fun Ball?), so I stared at a speck on the wall and my husband tried to look distracted while polishing a fork. He took a bite. And another bite. And another bite. And then proceeded to eat the entire bowl...which was the equivalent of two slices of quiche with 1/2 cup of pasta.

A quiche fan was born and I am proud to report that he now eats quiche by the slice with no "slight of pasta" required. But the trick still works like a charm with my 2 year old. I feel like I cracked the quiche code with my kids.

So the moral of this story is to think outside of the quiche. I can't say serving your child quiche is a great idea, but try serving it mixed with or along side a familiar food is the way to go.

Food Rut

Remember this guy from SuperSize Me?

We all get into food ruts and I am certainly no exception. For as long as I can remember my husband and I have been ordering the same two toppings on our pizza for the past 10 years - sausage and olives. No matter where we go - Little Star, Paxti's or North Beach, we always order the same thing. When I make pizza for our Friday movie nights - the one night we don't eat at the table - we are creatures of habit with our sausage and olive combo.

I was inspired (Pinspired?) recently by a recipe I found through Pinterest that looked like it was worth breaking the pizza rut for. I knew my son liked brussel sprouts with bacon as a side dish, so putting it on pizza seemed like an obvious opportunity to enjoy our veggies with a little bacon. The pizza turned out great - but I made so many modifications on the original recipe that I am just going to write it out below. We loved it, but the kids didn't think it was that great.

Oh well, I guess my bacon theory was proven wrong this time. But to an adult, this recipe was a winner!

Bacon and Brussel Sprout Pizza
Inspired by Shutterbean.com

1 batch of No Knead pizza dough
3 slices bacon, chopped and cooked (Reserve bacon fat)
1/2 cup marinara sauce
1/2 onion finely chopped
5 large-ish brussel sprouts, shredded
1 Tbls. balsamic vinegar
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
Red pepper flakes to taste

Heat oven to 400 degrees.

Fry bacon till crispy and let it cool on a paper towel, crumble bacon when it's cool enough. Reserve a tablespoon or two of bacon drippings in the pan.

Add the chopped onions with salt and pepper and brussel sprouts to the bacon drippings in the pan on medium heat, sauteing till softened - about 4 minutes. Add balsamic vinegar and stir to combine.

Spread the pizza dough out onto a oiled cookie sheet, slowly pushing it out to the sides. It takes some time to get it stretched out, so just keep pushing it out with your fingers. Spoon the marinara onto the dough and then sprinkle 1 cup of the mozzarella cheese. (Knowing we might have a revolt on our hands, we made half the pizza cheese-only for the kids). Spoon the cooked brussel sprout mixture onto the pizza and top it with crumbled bacon and then top with the remaining 1 cup of mozzarella cheese.

Bake until the cheese is browned, about 10 minutes.

About that Flank Steak...

As I mentioned in my latest menu, we don't eat much red meat. I have nothing against it, I love a good burger and I drool over the menu weeks ahead of our once-a-year trip to the House of Prime Rib. I appreciate red meat for all its iron and goodness, but buy it at my local *Safeway? No way.

This past weekend was unusually warm and I had steak on the brain. It's a practically fool proof cut of meat and my mom's marinade recipe is always a sure fire winner. We were in Bernal Heights and I stopped by Avedano's and was disappointed not to see any flank steaks. But this is where an awesome local independent butcher can shine like nobody else can. This place beyond accommodating - if you don't see what you want in the case, they happily go and get it out of the meat locker for you. If you wonder aloud how much steak will feed two adults and two children, they talk with you about it. If you excitedly describe your mom's amazing flank steak marinade, they readily agree with you that yes, she should bottle and sell it.

Avedano's reminds me of Meats of the World, the fictional butcher shop from the 'So I Married an Axe Murderer' movie, which was filmed in San Francisco: Friendly, courteous, with a slight tinge of hipster (they have curing and butchering classes for crying out loud!).

Best movie ever filmed in San Francisco.

Also, I felt like I could take my grandmother's advice for once - talk to the butcher and see what they recommend. When she and I would grocery shop together, she would ask the grocery store butcher what he recommended and then she'd look at the price per pound and decide what to make from there. However, I think she would have keeled over upon seeing at the prices at Avedano's. She appreciated freshness, but she also pinched pennies like nobody else - so paying top dollar for a steak would probably break her heart.

Yes, Avedano's is expensive, but at least they give me the peace of mind that what they weren't selling was some funky piece beef just off the freighter, this was the good stuff.  We got six meals out of that two pound steak (four dinners and two lunches) which came to roughly $4.60 per meal. That is far, far less than dinner out for a family of four and still less than a sandwich, chips and a soda for lunch.

Mom's Flank Steak Marinade
Enough for 2 pound steak
This marinade does well with time, I usually let it marinate the meat for at least three hours

1/3 cup red wine vinegar
1 Tbls. EVOO
1 Tbls. grainy mustard or dijon
1 Tbls. worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup ketchup
2 Tbls. soy sauce
1 Tbls. chopped garlic
1/4 tsp. pepper

Mix all the ingredients and pour over your steak, marinate for at least three hours.

*Mini rant: I really can't stand the way my neighborhood Safeway has a completely pathetic selection  of organic poultry. They usually only have three very sad looking packages of organic chicken, all tenders for some inexplicable reason. Surely I am not the only person looking for organic meat in my section of the city.

Loving: Lentils

The other day I was shopping at Trader Joe's and paused to look at the packaged cooked lentils. I have passed by this convenience item several times because I know I should just make them myself. I could practically hear my Depression-era grandmother's exasperated sigh at the laziness of such a thing, ("You can't find time to cook lentils? For heavens sake, Amanda!") But I really wanted to try these cooked lentils for a weeknight soup and I knew that cooking lentils after a long day of work and two hungry children nipping at my ankles was asking too much. I bought them thinking this was going to be a bust.

Holy Sweet Time Saver, Batman! I loved them and my kids ate them. I made my soup in 30 minutes last night and had plenty of leftovers to make a warm lentil salad with mustard vinaigrette to take with me to work. They were perfectly cooked with a slight bite to them. I am definitely buying those again. However, I still feel guilty about Trader Joe's frozen brown rice, but I'll get over it eventually.

Lentils are my new swoon.

Sleepover Pancakes

Growing up, whenever I had a sleepover birthday party my mother would make this gigantic puffy pancake for me and my friends in the morning. She loved to make it because all the hard work was done the night before, but we loved it because of its balloon shape and how incredibly generous my mother was with the powdered sugar and the syrup. Years later, a childhood friend told me that she thought we were rich because we had this pancake whenever she stayed overnight. I am not sure what she meant by "rich," but it certainly felt special to have my mom pull out all the stops when friends came over.

There are a number of names for this recipe: Dutch Baby, German Pancake, Puffy Pancake. But no matter what you call it, it's a showstopper. I make the batter the night before and keep it in the fridge overnight. When I take it out in the morning, I let it come to room temperature while the oven heats up. I also preheat the pan in the oven because the pancake is like a popover in appearance and texture and a preheated pan helps give it the puffy balloon effect.

I made this for my kids this past weekend and their eyes were almost as big as the pancake when it came out of the oven. Smitten Kitchen's recipe is spot on and a great one to try out.

Mission Impossible: Impossible Pie

The evening started out on a bad note, BART was delayed due to a protest at one of the stations and the kids and I ended up getting home later than planned. This is often the kiss of death for any meal that I have planned because if I get in that door late - even with a husband that will play with the kids and distract them from the kitchen - things go downhill fast. Not only was I on single parent duty that night, but I was late getting home! I soldiered on because there is nothing like a childhood craving to make me dig in my heels a little harder to get what I want.

I have no idea what made me suddenly want an Impossible Pie, but boy did I want one. The Impossible Pie was on heavy dinner rotation in my house growing up and I loved them all. I am sure my mother loved them because it was a throw together sort of dish - take your leftovers, add some cheese to it, put it in a greased pie dish, and pour Bisquick and eggs over the filling and dinner is done. I can even remember the white Pyrex pie plate coming out of the oven and wondering which delicious cheesy filling my mom had chosen for dinner that night.

A little history on how the Impossible Pie came to be. In 1981 the Bisquick company celebrated their 50th anniversary by publishing a cookbook of old and new recipes, including "a pie that did the impossible - formed its own crust as it baked." 

The Impossible Coconut Pie and Impossible Bacon Pie were the first recipes published in that book and homemakers across America quickly adapted the recipe to fit what their families would eat and sent in their recipes (with over 100 varieties!) to the Bisquick company for publication. And this was before the Internet, people! These industrious folks snail-mailed their own variations on the recipe to the company. Now we just blog about it. Crazy. The Bisquick company published these booklets for sale at grocery stores. My mom picked one up during a shopping trip and a regular rotation dish was born in our house.

So flash forward 30 years and there I was craving an Impossible Pie. I walked in the front door at 6:15 PM, flicked the oven on to 400 degrees and quickly got to work. Instead of using Bisquick, I subbed in Trader Joe's Multigrain Baking & Pancake Mix, the measurements from Bisquick to TJ's mix are exact. I mixed in a  combination of Gruyère and Monterey Jack cheeses, leftover chopped chicken and some left over steamed broccoli. I poured the TJ's mix over the filling and popped it in the oven for 30 minutes as promised. I served this alongside a small salad of avocado with cherry tomatoes. The kids loved it. And here I was thinking that they would just push it aside, but they both ate decent portions and I just sat there marveling how just one bite of that pie could transport me back to my childhood kitchen on Shawnee Lane, watching my mom bop around the kitchen while singing along to Alicia Bridges' "I Love the Nightlife" on the record player.

Thanks for the memories, Impossible Pie.

SAHM Chronicles: Mommy's Little Helper

I wish I could say that mommy's little helper was an episode of Caillou or a cold glass of Contadino sparkling Pinot Grigio (side note, if you have not tried this delight in a bottle, get thee to Trader Joe's right away!). But sadly the item that gets the most play in my dinners is this

I buy it at Costco and without a doubt it is the most used condiment in my everyday cooking. There are so many great things about this bouillon - it's organic, it comes in a tidy glass jar that can be recycled as opposed to boxes of stock that cannot, and best of all?  You measure out one teaspoon per one cup of water which means that my 16 oz jar yields 96 cups worth of stock. I mean what is not to love*?

*This post was not paid for by the Better than Bouillon folks. Just raving is all I am doing.

Fight or Flight

My husband and I recently had to take a four day trip out of state for a funeral. As our flight approached the runway on Sunday it occurred to me that I had no plan for dinner that night but I quickly brushed the thought away because I just wanted to see my kids. We got home in good time and played with the kids and began unpacking. I looked at the clock and realized it was dinnertime and I had no idea what to make for dinner. We could either go out to dinner (not appetizing to us after eating out for 4 days straight) or stay home and make do with what we had. I was in no mood to go the grocery store after 12 hours of airports and flying.

Remembering that I had some sugar snap peas in the vegetable drawer and some frozen shrimp, I thought about making a stir fry. But my toddler wouldn't eat it and I wasn't in the mood to make a separate meal for her. Then I remembered my favorite in-a-pinch Everyday Food recipe for Spaghetti with Shrimp and Bacon.

But I didn't have the exact ingredients! I figured I could riff on it and make it with what I had on hand - I also found some bacon in the freezer too! Here is what I made for dinner tonight. I am proud to report that my son asked if this version could be our new Sunday night dinner. The toddler happily ate sugar snap peas and pasta. Mom Score: 1 Family Score: 10

Shrimp, Bacon & Sugar Snap Pea Pasta

3/4 pound whole wheat angel hair pasta
3 good handfuls of sugar snap peas, ends and strings removed - roughly chopped
3/4 pound frozen peeled and deveined shrimp, defrosted (I just put mine in a bowl with warm water and they defrost quickly)
5 slices bacon
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
Juice from 1 lemon

Bring pasta water to boil and throw in the sugar snap peas for about 2 minutes. remove them with a slotted spoon (don't throw out the water, you'll use it for the pasta!) and run under cold water to stop the cooking. Set aside.

Now cook the pasta in the boiling water.

In a separate pan, fry the bacon, reserving about 1 Tablespoon of bacon grease in the pan. Cook the shrimp and garlic in the pan with the reserved bacon grease and when they curl up and are opaque, add a small ladleful of pasta water in the pan with the shrimp and garlic. Toss in the sugar snap peas and squeeze the juice of one lemon (or more to taste) into the pan. Bring to a boil and then turn off the heat.

Drain the pasta and place the cooked pasta and the shrimp mixture in a bowl together. Toss well and add salt and pepper to taste.