Life Just Got Easier!

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Cozy Comforts of Home

When the semester is in full-swing, you’ll often find me at Panera Bread, sprawled across an armchair in front of the gas fireplace. I can concentrate on my assignments without my children interrupting me and soak up some of that warmth; a pseudo-hominess in the most unlikely place.

Most of the time, I try to stick with coffee or tea–something refillable so I don’t feel too bad about the amount of time that I’ve spent with my butt glued to that chair. But as time passes, a meal becomes required; a fair trade for the productive afternoon. One of my faves is the broccoli cheddar soup. Mmmm… I almost never have soup at home, but there’s just something about it, paired perfectly with a piece of baguette. Absolutely wonderful on a cold winter’s day!

My last shopping trip to BJ’s found me in possession of a ridiculously enormous bag of fresh broccoli florets, just destined for greatness. A repeat trip today for chicken broth (6 boxes!) and cheddar cheese and I was ready to attempt a Panera copycat in my very own kitchen.

I found the recipe on Lynn’s Kitchen Adventures and it seemed a reasonable place to begin, but I will need to tweak it a bit more the next time I try this. It’s not that it’s bad–but it wasn’t quite the same. Maybe it was the low-sodium organic chicken broth I chose for my base? Regardless, it’s a great start and wouldn’t take much to reach perfection.

Broccoli Cheddar Soup

adapted from Lynn’s Kitchen Adventures

makes 6-8 servings

5 cups broccoli florets

6 cups low sodium organic chicken broth

1 1/2 cups milk (best if you use full-fat or go for half-and-half for creaminess)

1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp all purpose flour

4 cups shredded cheddar cheese

1 tsp +/- sea salt (to taste)

Steam the broccoli for 5-6 minutes until tender. (Very easy to do in the microwave!) Set aside.

In a 4 quart or bigger pan, combine chicken broth and milk and slowly whisk in the flour. Cook on medium-high heat until thickened, then add the broccoli. Cook for 5 more minutes, then add the cheese and salt. Once the cheese is melted, remove from heat and serve.

Game Day, Shmame Day

It probably comes as no surprise that I have no interest in football. Zero. Zilch. Nada. My parents are big fans which means I spent a lot of time in my bedroom during football season wondering why they were shouting at the TV. Sports fans–I don’t get it.

There is one good thing that comes out of living room football fanaticism–the food. It’s not a weekly part of the ritual, mostly saved for playoffs and the biggie, the Super Bowl itself, but it should be. If you’re going to get all worked up about how your quarterback screwed up or how they left the end zone open, you should at least have something tasty to enjoy in the process. Tailgaters do, and so should you!

So, in honor of couch coaches everywhere, I decided to make a few game day snacks…without watching the games. What can I say? I’m unconventional. They taste good with or without the pigskin.

Easy Nachos

1 bag tortilla chips

4-5 campari tomatoes, chopped

2 green onions, chopped

1-2 cups shredded mozzarella

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Cover a non-stick cookie sheet with your favorite brand of tortilla chips. Sprinkle the top with chopped tomatoes and green onions. Sprinkle shredded mozzarella (or your favorite cheese blend) on top. Bake for 10 minutes. Devour.

Layered Dip

Maybe you want your chips a different way? Well here you go:

1/2 small jar salsa

4-5 oz cream cheese

1 cup +/- shredded cheddar or Mexican blend cheese

1 bag tortilla chips or Fritos

Take a pie plate and smear cream cheese all over the bottom of it. Top with salsa or canned chili. Sprinkle cheddar cheese on top. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 minutes or until the cheese is completely melted. Dig in with your favorite tortilla chips or Fritos.

If you’re in a hurry or only need a single serving, you can also toss the ingredients in a cereal bowl, microwave for 45 seconds or so, and stir. I actually prefer it all mixed together but I also eat this for lunch more often than I should admit.

Pepperoni Bread

5-Minute Artisan Bread dough

1/4-1/2 pkg pepperoni or turkey pepperoni

1 cup shredded mozzarella

1 Tbsp butter, melted

cornmeal for dusting

Remember that 5-Minute Artisan Bread? If you have that fermenting in your fridge already, this is really easy. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. Take out a hunk of your dough (1/3 or so) and rotate it in your hands for the standard 30-60 seconds, working the dough into a smooth ball. Then lightly flour your work surface, flour the dough ball, and roll it out into a rectangle about 12″x8″. Lay out a single layer of pepperoni (I used turkey pepperoni this time) and sprinkle mozzarella cheese over the top. Roll the rectangle along the longer edge, jelly-roll style. Pinch the seam and the ends and place it on a baking sheet dusted with cornmeal. Melt about 1 Tbsp of butter and spread it on the top. Pop it into the oven immediately for 30 minutes. Let it rest for 5 minutes after coming out of the oven, then slice and serve.

Coconut Haters, Turn Back Now!

Coconut…let me count the ways I love you. Your creamy tenderness, your crispy crunch, your tropical dreams and wondrous ways… oh, how I love thee.

Last week, I found a good deal on Amazon to restock on coconut oil. I discovered coconut oil a few years ago when dabbling in the traditional foods diet (i.e. Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats). I spent a lot of time on Mothering.com and with a bunch of local crunchies trying to find the proper way to feed my daughter and myself. It was a lot of work and not much fun. You should go thank your grandmothers and great-grandmothers right now for all the sacrifices they made–they spent far more time in the kitchen than you ever will. I’ll wait…

I took what worked for us from the experience and left the rest behind. No regrets–I’m glad I tried cooking and eating traditionally, even if I couldn’t do it more than for one month–but it wasn’t something I could maintain. I just don’t have the dedication to it. Plus I like baking and that’s a huge no-no in a traditional foods diet. Boo!

In any case, rather than be a Gollum and covet my precioussss fresh supply of coconut oil,  hidden in the cabinet above the sink, I decided to make use of it right away. I pulled out my trusty Toll House recipe and got to work, tweaking it to my liking to accommodate the coconut-y dreams in my head. There is a fantastic fragrance from this dough and the flavor is a great complement to the chocolate chips and pecans without overpowering them. Adding shredded coconut didn’t affect the texture too much, though I’m sure coconut-haters would complain. It’s almost like a candy bar cookie. I’ll be working on adapting this to a cookie dough that can be (safely) eaten raw next… it’s delicious!

4 Cs

(Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies)

adapted from the Original Toll House Milk Chocolate Morsels package

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp sea salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup coconut oil, softened if solid at room temp

3/4 cup granulated sugar (I used vanilla sugar)

3/4 cup brown sugar, lightly packed

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 large eggs

1 3/4 cups chocolate morsels (I used semi-sweet)

1 cup chopped pecans

1 cup sweetened flaked coconut

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper or use nonstick sheets.

Beat butter and coconut oil until creamy. Add sugars and vanilla, beating until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, until well incorporated. Add baking soda and salt and gradually mix in the flour. Remove from mixer and stir in chocolate morsels, pecans, and coconut.

Drop by rounded teaspoons (or small cookie scoop) onto baking sheets. Bake 9-11 minutes or until golden brown. Leave on cookie sheet for 1 minute then remove to wire rack to finish cooling.

Breakfast for Dinner

Fridays are always a little hectic. The boy has preschool in the morning and then there’s the mad dash to get the girl to Kindergarten immediately following. Somewhere in between, I usually do the grocery shopping and whatever errands I need to run. By the end of the afternoon, I’m spent. I have no energy left for great pursuits.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Cupcake from Rocket

So while I’ve managed to make a new recipe just about every day for 2 weeks now, I’m copping out tonight. I’m fresh out of ideas and the ability to execute them. I really could go for some take-out –sacrilege, I know!!–but I already had my share of that from Rocket Fine Street Food this afternoon (which, BTW, the peanut butter and jelly cupcakes are amazing!). So… in my uninspired state, there’s one fall back that always works: breakfast for dinner.

Between our schedules, hubby and I rarely get to spend breakfast-time with each other. He works two jobs, I go to school and volunteer, and since we try not to pay a babysitter if we don’t have to, we’re on opposing schedules. Last Saturday, we saw each other for all of 45 minutes–I kid you not! This means that breakfast together as a family also is a rare occurrence.

To make up for it, from time to time, we have the morning meal at the end of the day instead. Bacon, eggs, pancakes… the usual hearty fare to fill bellies and souls–it’s all good! On the menu tonight: home fries, scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast. Simply wonderful!

What about you? Do you have breakfast for dinner? What are your favorite ways to flip the day upside down?

Going Bananas

I’m not cut out to be a morning person. I like my late nights, working in the silence of early morning while everyone else slumbers. “Seinfeld” repeats on the TV in the background, snuggled up in my bed, I get a lot more done than I can during the day with the crazy kids running around. The problem is that this leads to trouble getting up in the morning. This is why I requested afternoon Kindergarten for my daughter. Since the bus picks her up right in front of the house, I don’t even have to be presentable until 3PM when it’s time to trudge up to the real bus stop to pick her up.

Snow delays, however, mess with my plans. The 2-hour delay this morning should not have affected us: morning Kindergarten gets canceled, but afternoon Kindergarten is supposed to go on, same as usual. Except it didn’t. At the usual time, I threw on a jacket, grabbed the girl, and we went out to wait in the snowy driveway for the bus’s appearance. We waited. And waited. And waited some more. The next thing I knew, 20 minutes had passed, school was starting, and the bus was nowhere to be found.

I dashed inside to make myself somewhat acceptable for public appearance and found the little guy sitting on the potty, waiting for his butt to be wiped. Damn, damn, damn! He was still in his pajamas, too, despite having his clothes laid out for him an hour prior. Rush, rush, rush! I was not planning on this!

Finally, we were all ensconced in the car, luckily only minutes away. But since my daughter usually rides the bus, I didn’t know where to drop her off. She told me one of the five entrances to choose from, but that door was locked. Back to the car, we had to drive over to another parking lot to get to the main entrance door where we were buzzed in and I had to go to the principal’s office–I felt like I was in trouble. All I had to do was sign her in and she was fine to go to class–15 minutes late–but I was in a tizzy. What a whirlwind!

Going bananas… Yeah, life with kids is like that. Luckily, I made some Banana Oatmeal-Nutmeg Scones this morning before the craziness. Biting into one when I got home was a reward for managing to get ourselves together to get her there in only 15 minutes. But also a reminder that unless I want to go bananas again, maybe I should do a better job of getting myself ready in the morning.

The recipe comes from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From My Home to Yours. I was looking for something different than the typical banana bread or muffins that is often the destiny of blackened bananas on countertops everywhere. What was nice is that this isn’t overly-sweet, though you could add some strawberry jam to perk it up a bit and your fillings would feel just fine. The chunks of banana worked well in this scone. I was unsure about the nutmeg at first and almost switched it out for cinnamon, but now I’m sold–I’ll keep it! Going bananas… not so bad in the end.

Banana Oatmeal-Nutmeg Scones

adapted from Baking: From My Home to Yours

makes 12 scones

1 large egg

1/3 cup plain Greek yogurt

1/6 cup 2% milk

1 2/3 cups white whole wheat flour

1 1/3 cups old-fashioned oats

1/3 cup vanilla sugar (sugar that you put vanilla beans in)

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

10 Tbsp cold unsalted butter, cut in small pieces

1 medium ripe banana, cut into small pieces

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Line 1 or 2 baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.

Stir the Greek yogurt, milk, and egg together. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, mix together flour, oats, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg. Drop in the cubes of butter and mix them in with your hands or a pastry blender until you have pea-sized crumbs.

Add the cut up banana and then pour the egg/yogurt/milk mixture into the bowl. Stir with a fork until the dough comes together. Be careful not to over-stir. Then with your hands, knead it in the bowl, turning about 8-10 times.

On a floured work surface, dump out the dough and separate it into 2 portions. Flatten each into a disc about 5 inches in diameter and cut each into 6 triangles. Place on the prepared baking sheets. You can freeze them at this point if you want to save them for another day. You won’t need to thaw them to bake–just add 2 minutes on to the baking time.

Bake for 20-22 minutes or until golden and firm. Remove to a wire rack to cool completely.