adventures in once a month meals, part deux

Well, I'm four months in. Let's make this quick:

- yes, i still love it. super duper a lot.

-yes, i've had some mess ups with amounts, and a couple recipes that didn't go over well with everyone. including this "Black Bean Ranch Tortilla Casserole", which SOUNDS like it's awesome but really is quite nasty. nasty enough that personally i'm of the opinion that the original recipe blogger was playing some sort of joke on everyone dumb enough to layer smashed tortilla chips, ranch dressing, yellow squash and a bunch of other stuff...but moving on.... but honestly these issues are far and few between.

- i discussed my food budget in the last post, and I'm happy to report that in the last 4 months of doing this I've saved a total of $700. SEVEN HUNDRED DOLLARS. not that I have that money stashed under my bed (or even on my bed so i can roll around in it). it went to important things like underwear and socks and...i don't even know what. but seriously, SEVEN HUNDRED DOLLARS. hard to beat that.

- i have talked at least 5 friends into giving it a whirl. i should sell this trash.

- i just used up the last of my sam's club giant box of gallon freezer bags and foil pans last month. they lasted me through 4 EPIC COOKING DAYS. not bad.

- jeremy helped me cook a few times, and we actually had a nice system going. having a partner wasn't as confusing as i feared. but schedule-wise it works better if i cook on mondays, so i'm flying solo once again. :(

- aaaand, that's about all i can think of right now.

my July menu has a large percentage of grill meals, because it's summer after all. and i bulked up the lunches a bit since all the kiddos are home. it's nice to know they're not eating boxed mac and cheese every. single. day.
and that's what i love about this whole process, in a nutshell.

xoxo
googiemomma out.

adventures in “once a month meals”

hello, hi, how are ya? long time, no see, kiss kiss and all that jazz.

it’s been so long since i wrote here that i’m not entirely sure i even remember how. my computer was like what? whoa! what are we even doing here? is this real life??? but blogging—and conversely, Not Blogging—are a two edged sword. Not Blogging has been sad, because i missed it, but also at the same time freeing and exhilarating. and the more time i spent Not Blogging, the easier that Not Blogging became.

lots has changed over the last year, and lots has stayed the same. there have been many things i seriously, like for realsies cross my heart almost but not quite fully considered blogging about. what inspired me to finally dust off the ole laptop and put pen to paper fingers to keyboard is my first foray into the world of once a month cooking. or, as one commenter on my instagram account put it “cook for a day, eat for a month.”

let’s be real: dinner time is the pits. cooking for a large family consisting of one vegetarian, one gluten free, one threenager who’s stock answer is“i don’t like it” to everything you put it front of her unless it’s a gogurt or mac and cheese, and 7 different palates, plus just being busy…ugh.
i’ve always tried to shop for 2 weeks at a time, with a menu, plan and list in hand. but so many nights jeremy would come home from work to a cold stove and a wife with no clue…and then suddenly it’s 7:30 and everything’s going to take too long so let’s just order.

what really pushed me over the edge was 2 separate incidents occurring in the last month.
o1) we went on a 2 week vacation. TWO. WEEKS. two glorious, sunshine-y weeks full of ME NOT COOKING. do you know how hard it is to get back in the swing of things after 2 weeks of all your children picking their meals from—literally—a buffet of options every day? that you didn’t need to cook or clean up? let me tell you: REALLY REALLY FREAKISHLY HARD.

whaddaya mean mom’s not serving prime rib AND lobster tail tonight?

it feels like every day since we’ve been home i’ve said to myself okay, this is it. time to get back in the swing, back on the saddle, back in the groove, back somewhere that includes schedules and regular meals. but then every night it’s dinner and i’m all let’s get dressed fancy and go to the dining room where our waiters will serve us and sing! wait, what?

hello incredible beach where i don’t have to cook. how i miss thee…

and then…
o2) when i finally did my major post-vacation food shopping trip, we missed a bag. one bag, not a huge bag in terms of size, sat in the living room for an entire evening, then overnight, until the next morning when i went to do the school run and found it there. it was the bag with all the meat. (cue crying and wailing). chicken, roast, ice cream…about $50 worth of food—and the staples for about 1/2 of my planned meals—garbage. i never made it back to the store for replacements, so more nights than are healthy we were scrambling for meals.

SO. obviously something needs to change. we need a reset, with a new plan of action.  a family can not live on pizza and mac and cheese alone. no matter how much certain 3 year olds wish that to be so.

with that in mind i stumbled across onceamonthmeals.com and it is AWESOME. (***also, you should know i’m not sponsored or paid in any way for this. people who don’t blog for a year aren’t exactly raking in the big sponsors lolz. this is just a girl, telling a blog reader, how she feels.)

i signed up for the “pro” plan which gives me the option to customize my menus. at $16/month, about 1/3 of the cost of one pizza night for us. (they also have a regular plan for $10/month)

when you figure out your menu, you select how many servings you need and then you get EVERYTHING. i mean, EVERYTHING:

those links on the right take you to printable sheets for EVERYTHING. did you hear me???? EVERYTHING.  on the left is the top of my menu. i swapped out one breakfast i was sure no one would like for the blueberry breakfast grilled cheese, because duh.

when i want to swap, i can specify what i’m looking for: another gluten free vegetarian easy assembly breakfast anyone?

they make it fairly idiot-proof. and that’s saying something. so, proud owner of one Brand Spankin’ Shiny New Pro Membership i set off on my first EPIC COOKING DAY…day…day…day… <---because there really should be an echo to make it more dramatic, dontcha think?

wanna know how it went? read on…

STEP ONE: the planning

WHAT I DID
i picked a mix of dinners: some vegetarian, some meat, some gluten free. i chose to cook 8 servings of each because 1) teenagers ya’ll and 2) maybe leftovers?
i also built a custom gluten free menu for gigi (oh yeah, gigi bear has been gluten free for about 4 months now and it’s worked wonders but we’ll talk about that later) and cooked 2 servings of each of those meals. that way i’d have a nice little stockpile of meals and snacks just for her, for when the rest of the family is gorging on gluten. also, breakfasts have been the toughest with this. so i’m hoping some solid pre-cooked GF options in the freezer will help us steer away from the expensive GF bars that have been a fallback.

on the hardware side of things: i borrowed 2 crockpots (because i broke mine, but i only used one in the end) and took a ride to IKEA for a new large stockpot (which i needed anyway) and some more measuring spoons and cups. you honestly can’t have enough measuring implements during EPIC COOKING DAY.

WHAT I’LL DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME
that’s easy: break it up. i figured since i was only doing 2 servings for gigi’s menu i could squeeze it in. but what that meant was i was cooking 8 servings of 10 meals and 2 servings of 10 other meals and snacks, each requiring prep and cooking and packing and freezer space. it was a lot, and i’ll definitely continue making separate meals for gigi, but on their own day.

STEP TWO: the shopping

WHAT I DID
we shopped on friday. no kids, just jeremy and i (yes, it was glorious) and my printed out lists. we started big and worked our way down: we hit up the local restaurant store first, where we snagged a 40 lb. case of chicken breast for $1.36/lb. my menu called for 31 lbs., and he usually cooks up a couple pounds a week for his lunches. that was a no-brainer. we also got a good deal on ground beef and a few other things. next up was sam’s club, where we got our roasts and some other staples. 3rd stop was aldi’s for the bulk of the “regular” groceries. a quick run in the local korean market for our herbs and sauces, and finally a breeze through the super wally for the last remaining items.
this may sound like a lot, but the restaurant depot and sam’s are next to each other, and the other stores run in a straight line to my house, all on the same road, and about a 3 mile drive to the furthest point.
it took us about 4 hours to shop, and maybe another 45 mins to unload and put everything away.

WHAT ABOUT THE COST???? okay, i’ll share some figures with you, because who cares it’s the internet.
my monthly grocery budget is currently hovering around $900. this includes all our food, toiletries, cleaning supplies, dog food, etc. it has grown substantially in the last 2 years as our children grow. yes, it’s more than my mortgage payment. so while you’re probably all HOLY GIANT GROCERY BILL BATMAN!!! remember we’re feeding 7. it’s about $30/day, so about $4.29/person/day for breakfast lunch & dinner. so take your average month and times it by…whatever. i actually don’t think we spend all that much, relatively speaking.

on friday, all told we spent about $580—and this includes a solid $40 worth of “packaging supplies”. we bought a case of quart freezer bags, a case of gallon freezer bags, industrial sized rolls of parchment paper and foil, etc. things i won’t have to buy again for a few months.
i am going to have to buy a few things in a couple weeks (think milk, fruit, etc.), but i’m guessing i won’t spend more than $200 at the high end.

SO that means—if this works, and this genuinely feeds our family for an entire month, we stand to have saved at least $120, or almost 15% shaved off our monthly food bill. looks like momma needs a new pair of shoes.
BUT…that remains to be seen as the month progresses. will update.

WHAT ABOUT STORING ALL THAT FOOD???? i put away all the “normal” groceries, but all of my EPIC COOKING DAY items went on the counter. we lined them up neatly and i even had ava label the tops of the cans so i could see it all at a glance.
we have a fridge on top/freezer on bottom type refrigerator and a small chest freezer. we cleaned both of those out before we went shopping, getting rid of old items and mystery meats. all of our purchases fit, with some creative jengatetrising, which is totes a word i just invented but should be a real thing. i do it all the time. 

WHAT I’LL DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME
honestly, can’t think of much. i checked some sales ads, but we got better prices the way we did it. so score one for us.

actually, i take that back because i just thought of one minor thing: i went by the shopping list as gospel, and it all worked out fine, but there were a few things that were slightly off. like for some reason i had to buy 13 packets of taco seasoning?!?!?! which killed me not because of price (they’re like 34 cents each) but alllll the sodium! yikes! i couldn’t imagine any recipe that would require 13 packets of taco seasoning? in the end i only needed 2 1/2 packets, which a) calmed my heart and b) left me with a LOT of extra taco seasoning it will take me years to use up. so next time i’ll go over my list a little more thoroughly and double check some of the amounts. taco seasoning is NBD because i wasted like $2, but i’d be pretty angry if i bought 11 extra blocks of cheese or something.

and on a related note…anyone need any taco seasoning? 25 cents a packet!

STEP THREE: the prep day

WHAT I DID
they stress and stress the importance of “prep day”. don’t think you can just roll that into your EPIC COOKING DAY. prep day needs to be a day on it’s own. and this is absolutely the truth.
sunday morning it took ava, jeremy and i about 90 minutes to do all the prep. this is pre-cutting, slicing and dicing veggies, pre-cooking some rice, pasta and chicken, etc. this makes EPIC COOKING DAY run much more smoothly.

jeremy cut up 14 onions. ha. dude was straight-up sobbing by the end of it. but he volunteered for that job and i love him for it.

i also made sure the kitchen was clean, looked over my lists one more time to double check i had everything, and then banned everyone from setting foot in the kitchen. don’t. even. think. about. it.

WHAT I’LL DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME
two major things:
1) more prep. there are things they didn’t specify to prep that i wish i had—and i’m not saying it’s their fault. for instance, we bought block cheese instead of pre-shredded, and i didn’t think to shred it on prep day. that took a big chunk of my time on EPIC COOKING DAY. so next time i’ll look over my menus a little more carefully and make sure i’ve really done all the prep work i can.

2) label amounts on the prepped items. there were times a recipe would call for xx amount of something, like cilantro. so i pull out my bag of pre-chopped cilantro and i’m thinking, well it says 1/4 cup, and this looks like 1/4 cup, so is it this whole bag? or no? (spoiler: i put in the whole bag. and i shouldn’t have, i needed some for another recipe. oops.) same thing with onions…2 sliced onions on prep day is listed as xx amount to go in my recipe. a little more or less in this won’t kill anyone, so i go to dump in the whole thing, but wait! do i actually need 1/3 cup of sliced onions somewhere else down the line for another recipe? obviously i could just measure, but this process is all about efficiency. having to slow down and find the measuring cup to double check is annoying, when i could just pre-mark the amounts. so yeah, next time i’ll just label everything.

STEP FOUR: the EPIC COOKING DAY

WHAT I DID
okay, so i was literally dreaming about cooking the night before, i was that worked up. i was equal parts scared to death and stoked to get cracking. (yes, stoked.)
i woke up at 7 and got dressed—hair up, bra on, comfy shoes on. this is another thing they recommend, and i think it’s a good one. my typical M.O. would be to just jump in with both feet and no bra, but that’s a decision i’d be sorely regretting 10 hours later. i brushed my teeth and drank my coffee and got going.
and went…
and went…
and went…
it took me 15 hours start-to-finish. i sat down one time for 5 minutes to say a prayer with everyone before dinner. around 2 i took a 10 minute breather and drank another cup of coffee and threw a green smoothie down my throat.
now, realize that part of the excessive amount of time is because i saddled myself with 2 menus. like i said i plan on changing that up. from what i’m reading average is around 8-12 hours, but yes 15 is possible. a lot depends on the menu you choose and the amount of food you’re making. things that go in muffin tins took longer because i had to do 2 cycles in the oven, whereas if you’re making 4 servings you may get it all baked in one go. i browned 5.5 lbs. of ground beef, which takes longer than 2 or 3 lbs. so everything was stretched out a bit for me.
i think the key to this endeavor is organization. i taped up my cooking day schedule on the cabinet where i could easily see it.

here’s some cruddy phone pics to illustrate: (and note—this is exactly how the instructions print out for you. step by step. ev-ree-thing.)

i did use my tablet for the recipes and that worked fine. i tried to keep things grouped together: salt, pepper, baking powder all in one place so when i used them they went back and didn’t get lost in my mess. i tried to wash my measuring cups/spoons/pans/pots/etc. as soon as i was finished with them, and stay on top of wiping down the counters and stove. if you don’t keep up with it you’ll have a destruction zone on your hands in no time. i had at least 2, sometimes 3 different recipes going at the same time and it took all of my brain power to keep it straight.
i had an area for all my “groceries”, an area designated for cooling items, and just outside of the kitchen i had a little table set up with all my aluminum pans, foil, freezer bags, parchment paper, etc. so that stayed together. see, organization is king. oh, and i clipped my permanent marker to my shirt. but i still lost it approximately 542 times.

this is the picture i posted on instagram, and like i said it truly is “organized chaos”. i’m fortunate to have a decent sized kitchen, but i still think this is doable in a smaller kitchen, especially if you’re not cooking quite as much. i did use up every square inch of my counter space though.
what about having help? these instructions are really written for one person, in my opinion. i think if there was more than one person doing this it would get confusing and annoying. that said, when ava came home from school she helped me roll all our galumpkis, and it was nice, because i was really flagging at that point. but later when everyone was kind of just…IN the kitchen, it made me crazy.

WHAT I’LL DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME
this is tough, because there are some major things. our regular freezer is dying a slow, lingering death. stuff isn’t completely frozen, but ice cream is great. so in an ideal world? i’ll have a new one before then. i’d also like a bigger stand up freezer. the chest freezer is kind of a pain to organize.
on the not as major side, i probably won’t bother printing their labels again. they were finicky and i couldn’t get them to print correctly so i ended up just writing about 1/2 of my labels with permanent marker.
obviously, as discussed, i won’t cook 2 separate menus in one day.
also, because neve and harrison are both home during the day (cyberschool) i didn’t make arrangements for elliot to go somewhere. i regret that now, because she spent her day in front of the tv, and i wish i had set up at least a few hours playdate for her.

STEP FIVE: the aftermath

WHAT I DID
because i cleaned as i went, the kitchen was surprisingly not terrible when i was done. while my last things were cooking i loaded the dishwasher one more time (for a total of 3 runs that day), gathered up one last load of trash (for a total of 3 full bags and 2 recycling bags that day)and wiped down the counters. then i piled up all my food and organized it between the 2 freezers—some dinners on the bottom of the chest freezer for later in the month, snacks and quick meals for gigi in the kitchen freezer, etc.
and i took this awesome picture:

yeah, i’m a little bit proud of that. want the run down?
12 breakfast blueberry grilled cheese sandwiches
48 bacon cheeseburger bombs
50-ish baked ravioli bites
2x bean enchilada casserole
2x drip beef
3x grandma’s galumkis (about 40 of them)
2x lemon garlic dump chicken
16 peaches and cream waffles
1x slow cooker chicken sandwiches with roasted pepper aioli (and another serving that they ate for dinner that night)
2x slow cooker salisbury steaks
2x swiss cheese chicken
2x thai chickpea pasta
2x thai salmon tacos (which we changed to tilapia because harrison got sick once after having salmon and now it’s a no-go for him)
10 freezer poptarts
48 egg cheese & veggie breakfast tarts
12 GF cereal bar cookies
36 GF sausage cheese breakfast muffins
2x GF chicken noodle soup
2x GF mac & cheese
2x GF spaghettios
GF cheez-its
GF sweet potato snacks
20 GF chicken nuggets
and for the life of me i swear there’s something else and i can’t remember it now.

BUT HOW DOES IT TASTE? well, so far we’ve tried almost all the breakfast foods (hey, some break while you’re cooking), and most of the lunch/snack foods, and they’re all quite yummy. the chicken sandwiches they had for dinner got good reviews, but maybe less onion next time. the galumpkis were delicious tonight. gigi’s GF mac and cheese was good, considering it’s gluten free.
which brings me to…

WHAT I’LL DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME
some recipes i won’t bother with again: the GF chicken nuggets were a joke. they were complicated, expensive (3 lbs. of ground chicken, at over $3/lb, plus gluten free bread crumbs) and they refused to stick together. i tried everything i could think of, refusing to let that much money be wasted. in the end they’re passable, but they’re more like medium sized patties vs. nuggets, and i’m not sure how much gigi will eat them.
and there are some recipes where the effort vs. reward scale is skewed. the sweet potato snacks were kind of annoying (cook the sweet potato, add a bunch of ingredients, roll out the dough, bake, reroll the scraps, bake more, etc…) and didn’t make very many. and they’re not great. so scratch that one.
but those are things that can happen with any recipe, so i think it’s just a matter of trial and error.
we’ve been in a dinner rut—feels like i’m constantly making the same things, so i’m trying to branch out and be a little more adventurous /with my choices in this process (thai chickpea pasta, anyone?). i’ll most definitely have some fails, but we’ve already had some wins.

OKAY, BOTTOM LINE IT FOR ME

will i do this again?
one thing i read on the site basically said that by the end of your EPIC COOKING DAY you may hate this and swear you’re never, ever doing it again. and that’s totally understandable. but come back to me 3 or 4 days from now and see what you have to say about it then.

dude, my body HURT last night. i had to take tylenol pm to sleep. i was wiped out.

BUT. tonight’s dinner was popped in the oven, and my kitchen is cleaner than it’s been after a weeknight dinner in months. tomorrow’s dinner is thawing in the fridge, and wednesday’s dinner is on the blackboard menu so i’ll know what to pull out of the freezer for thawing tomorrow. and the next day, and the next day….

and hey, look, i even had time to blog.

i think i can say definitely YES, i’ll see you next month onceamonthmeals.com.

any other questions? ask away…i’ll try to answer ;)

here piggy, piggy

every year for the last three years we’ve done an end-of-summer pig roast, hosted at my parents’ house.

and every year i take a ton of photos, intending to put some up here and share the details and invites.

and every year…i don’t.

well let’s change that. i’m currently working on the invites for this—our 4th annual pig roast. who wants a free printable invite?

or maybe you’d like last year’s invite…

(it read: “this little piggy went to THE yourlastname’s”…and the date/time info was one line right above “please bring a covered dish”)

r i g h t  c l i c k  and save that trash for your own piggy roasting adventures.
with love, from the momma to you.

(all fonts/graphics from free sources, including but not limited to: the graphics fairy, dafont)

now, who wants to indulge me by looking at some photos of years past? coughcough i gave you a free printable invite coughcough.

you doooo? aw. how sweet. ;)

the formula for an memory-making pig roast is simple: TONS of food + TONS of friends + games and prizes for the kids + marshmallows + bonfire to end the night.

oh. and a pig.

// 2 0 1 0  P I G  R O A S T //

that year they put an apple in the pig’s mouth. i’ll spare you those photos.

i must have been hungry that year. most of my pictures are of the food.

babies! who aren’t babies anymore! :(

// 2 0 1 1  P I G  R O A S T  //

here’s the awesome thing about this picture: little miss emma there with the disgusted look? she’s not pushing away the gross pig. she’s reaching out for a piece of meat.

this was hands down my favorite photo: gigi, age 2, and emma from above, watch as the men start carving up the pig.

my baby was a baby. and my brother was a hipster.

the kiddos made foam hats that year—a blanket with thousands of foam stickers and markers and a hat for everyone. you would have thought they hit the jackpot.

and we end the night with a bonfire.

// 2 0 1 2  P I G  R O A S T //

do you see how many tables of food there were last year?????

boys. ugh.

you may recognize this little nugget…

the important thing is always having the right tool for the job.

so there it is. one large-ish post covering all three prior pig roasts. #4 coming soon.

my banana bread brings all the boys to the yard.

i won’t admit to purposefully allowing our bananas to reach the mostly dead state.

i wouldn’t ever smack my children’s hands away from the fruit bowl and offer them apples instead of bananas…leaving all the ripe bananas to hit that space right between super mushy sweetness and rotten trash.

you know what i mean—that stage where you look at them and think either i make banana bread today, or i toss them tomorrow.

but….

if i happen to stumble across some bananas in that not-quite-dead-yet stage, well…far be it from me to allow them to become trash.

banana bread it is. but i don’t feel like messing around. i want an easy to throw together bread that requires very little thought and even less cleanup afterwards. so you can mess with mashing bananas in one bowl and creaming sugars in another bowl and mixing dry ingredients in a third bowl if you want….but i’ll stick with my one mixing bowl banana bread, thankyouverymuch.

it’s pretty much insane. and i’m pretty much certain that calling it a “bread” is a bit of a misnomer. it’s got chocolate chips and peanut butter…but there’s enough banana in it that i’m going to stick with bread and allow my children to eat it for breakfast.

enjoy.

+ notes +
this makes 2 loaves (yes, loaves. this is bread, remember?)
i do everything in the bowl of my kitchenaid mixer. one bowl, one paddle attachment, one spoon. easy.

+ ingredients +
3 eggs
1/2 c brown sugar (not packed too tightly)
1/2 c white sugar
1 stick butter, softened
4 over ripe bananas
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 c peanut butter
2 c flour
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1 bag chocolate chips

+ directions +
put eggs, sugars and butter in mixer and blend with paddle attachment until well blended.
add in bananas and blend again until thoroughly mixed.
add in vanilla and peanut butter and mix.
add the flour, and sprinkle the salt and baking powder over the top, then mix just until blended together.
stir in 3/4 of the chocolate chips, and divide batter into 2 greased or sprayed loaf pans.
sprinkle remaining chips on top.

bake at 350 degrees 50-55 mins.

insane, i say.

asparagus with feta and vinegar

alternate title: Asparagus for the Asparagus Hater.

true story.

i’m typically no fan of the asparagus. we have been nurturing a crop of it in our garden for three years now…truthfully, for me it’s more of an experiment and exercise in persistance vs some longing for bountiful harvests of fresh asparagus.

this year we picked our first stalks.

three. to be exact. one of which was too woody anyway and got chucked.

anyway, i saw a post from @lorchick on instagram (thanks lady!) where she showed an asparagus/feta dish. hmmm asparagus + feta? sounded good. sounds like something the mister would like (he’s the asparagus eater of the family). so i looked up a few recipes, allowed them to meld and process in my brain and then extracted this.

let me tell you something: the first time i made it i bought one pack to add to our measly three homegrown stalks. that first batch never even made it to the dinner table. jeremy and i and the oldest three hunched over the stove eating stalk after stalk. when it was gone we grabbed crackers to dip in the sauce lingering in the pan. the next day i got about three texts from him…i want more asparagus. i can’t stop thinking about the asparagus.

file that under “married almost 15 years”. used to be asparagus = me. used ta bes don’t count anymore ;)

so i went back to the store and bought more asparagus. LOTS more asparagus. and made it again. and this time, i took pictures to share with you.

make it. it’s made an asparagus eater of me. the oldest two googies were fighting over the leftovers on their sister’s plate. smelly pee is just a bonus.

it’s that good.

ASPARAGUS WITH FETA AND VINEGAR

okay this may be the world’s worst recipe. more a set of vague ideas than actual recipe.

first: i used the honey ginger balsamic we bought at a local specialty vinegar shop. if you can get your hands on some of this, i highly, HIGHLY recommend it. it’s a white balsamic, and the touch of sweetness with it is…just yum. i can’t even be more eloquent than that. if you don’t have it and can’t get it, i would maybe sub either a good balsamic or red wine vinegar and add a touch of honey and a sprinkle of powdered ginger. mix this up in a bowl first and then add it to the recipe.

also, i didn’t and don’t measure anything. it’s a splash and a pinch and a spoonful. i did my best guesstimating, but my best advice is go with what feels right. it’s just olive oil and garlic—you’re not gonna hurt anything. ;)

final note: i don’t add any salt. the feta is plenty salty, and the final taste—a combo of sweet, tangy, salty, a little spicy and a touch of bitterness….yummmm…don’t need any more salt.

INGREDIENTS
+ 2 bunches asparagus (3 lame stalks from your garden optional)
+ olive oil
+ chopped garlic
+ lemon juice
+ honey-ginger vinegar
+ pepper
+ crumbled feta

DIRECTIONS
+ preheat oven to 425F.
+ prep asparagus stalks by washing in cold water in and breaking woody ends off (just hold both ends and bend. wherever the asparagus naturally breaks is bueno. throw away the bottom, keep the top. good job for littles.)
+ put the asparagus in a bowl and add enough olive oil to coat.
+ toss in a spoonful of finely chopped garlic (about 2 cloves)
+ add lemon juice and vinegar. i’d say about 2 tablespoons of each.
+ pepper to taste
+lay out on baking sheet in single layer
+pour the rest of your sauce on top
+ bake 10-12 minutes, or until tender and lightly browned.
+ top with feta and put back in the oven 1-2 minutes
+ eat it. ALL.

just thought you’d want to know: number of times i said “asparagus” in this post—20.

i wouldn’t joke about such a serious subject.

i don’t claim to be an expert on many things. there are definitely things i enjoy, things i’m maybe even good at…but an authority? no.

there are two areas, however, in which i consider myself to be fairly well versed, and neither of them actually involve sewing. those that know me personally will find themselves unsurprised to hear they are macaroni and cheese and chocolate mousse.

as to the first: i can make a mean macaroni and cheese with whatever i have on hand. there is no set recipe in this house—it’s flexible and adaptable to the whims of our respective palates. sometimes it’s classic—elbows with a smooth bland and creamy sauce. sometimes it’s adventurous—campanelles with a five-cheese sauce and a hint of a bleu cheese bite. i even have a lighter, healthier version using silken tofu that would shock you.

but today it’s the second item on my list i need to discuss with you. my husband well knows that on perusing any dessert menu i remain completely unmoved until i hear the magic words: chocolate mousse. and i’m not talking some fake chocolate pudding thing. no no no bleh pffft hack hack spit spit. save that for your diner salad bars and school kids lunches, no offense bill cosby. i’m talking a real, dark, fluffy chocolate mousse. the kind that manages to be both light and whippy yet dense and heavy at the same time like some kind of magic trick. the kind where the chocolate flavor is so deep and rich you need a smidgen of real heavy lightly sweetened whipped cream to cut every spoonful.

yeah.

mousse like this:

mousse that’s all don’t be greedy, because you won’t be able to finish me if you take too much. i’m that good.

this is that mousse.

the recipe is called chocolate of the gods, and i found it because i was searching for a dessert to use our newest balsamic vinegar with.

dark chocolate balsamic…yummmm. have you ever been oil and vinegar tasting? a wine tasting would truly be a waste of my time. the only kind of wine i drink comes from the refrigerated section of the store and gets laughed at by true connoisseurs. but these gourmet vinegars are incredible—the flavor so smooth that you can sip them straight and you won’t believe the swill you’ve been putting on your salad up ‘til now. an 18 year aged balsamic bears as much relation to the grocery store stuff as a ford fiesta does to an aston martin. whoa hey you don’t come here for car metaphors, right? i’m forgetting my audience…ummm, it’s like comparing a pair of dollar store scissors to a sharp and shiny new set of ginghers, lovingly nestled in their velvet lined box. yeah. like that.

anyway, this mousse recipe does call for balsamic, i used the dark chocolate because, why not?

but what would you think if i told you that the main, number one, first ingredient in this recipe starts the way a good guacamole recipe would?

with two ripe avocados.

it’s a simple recipe. but there was a moment, as i pureed those avocados and got ready to drop in the balsamic vinegar and soy sauce WHAT? yes, SOY SAUCE.

i thought maybe, just maybe, i was the victim of an internet joke? nah. can’t be. everything you read on the internet is true.

avocados, in. balsamic, soy sauce, agave nectar (the original recipe calls for maple syrup, which i didn’t have. i sub’d agave nectar), a tablespoon of sugar, a splash of vanilla.

puree.

this is not a joke, right?

add one cup of cocoa powder.

and that’s when it started to look like something.

it was dense and heavy, which two of the only three (!) reviews mentioned, so i took the added step of folding in some heavy cream i whipped.

and that’s when the magic happened. this. this is is real, dark, fluffy but dense, deep chocolatey flavored mousse.

this pagan mousse has made a believer out of me.

chocolate of the gods

recipe adapted from food.com here

ingredients
+ 2 large ripe avocados
+ 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp agave nectar
+ 2 tbsp sugar
+ 1 tsp vanilla extract
+ 2 tsp. dark chocolate balsamic vinegar, or 1 tsp. good quality balsamic vinegar
+ 1/2 tsp. soy sauce
+ 1 cup cocoa powder
+ 3/4 cup heavy cream

peel and chop avocado into chunks. put first 6 ingredients (up to and including soy sauce) in food processor and process until smooth. add cocoa powder and process until blended. whip up heavy cream and fold into chocolate/avocado mixture.
delicious right away, even better after a day in the refrigerator. trust me.

bulking up for winter: the weekend’s food in review

the end of last week into the weekend brought the breathe of fresh air i’ve been longing for. the snap in the air prompting the need for a sweatshirt on our morning outings prove that fall is just around the corner.
it’s coming.

i feel like i come alive with the change of summer into fall. i wake from a heat-induced coma and the first place i head is the kitchen.
a summer of stovetop, crockpot and cold meals has me yearning for the pop of my oven knob. 350 degrees beckoning and welcoming me like an old friend.

my first foray was a sorely missed family tradition: homemade bread. jeremy and i don’t go crazy with organics and natural foods. with seven mouths to feed on a single income quite honestly we can’t afford to. but we do, however, believe in homemade and simple. less is more—i.e., less preservatives, less chemicals, less –orbitals and –uctoses and –uloses. to that end we went a solid 2 years without really buying bread from the store. i made three loaves a week for our dinners and lunches. but with my last pregnancy and, well…all that…the homemade bread took a backseat to the business of simply surviving.

finding our new normal as a larger family required some things to be paused for a bit, and the two piping hot loaves i pulled from the oven on friday signified, for us, a return.

one loaf was gone in minutes—all 7 of us gathered around the counter dancing slices a bit too hot for the fingers back and forth while butter melted and dripped down our chins but it was so SO good we blew and chewed and breathed heavy to try and cool it even though it was already in our mouths.

saturday night brought mac and cheese enjoyed outdoors, followed by marshmallow roasting and the sounds of frank sinatra on pandora. then opa stopped by to sip a glass of wine and change the station to harry chapin…provoking laughter and stories of his youth and how he was thisclose to joining the marines during the vietnam war and how different would our lives have been then?

meanwhile i ran back and forth to the kitchen, checking the challah bread i had stuffed with cinnamon, raisins and brown sugar for sunday morning. strange how it didn’t quite look the same as smitten kitchen’s version…more like an unfortunate intestinal disorder.

thanks for that visual, dear.

but it was delicious all the same--another loaf gone this morning.

we round out the weekend with a pumpkin butter cake—hello. what more information do you need beyond those three words: pumpkin. butter. cake. yessssss. harrison’s request for a pumpkin dessert to take to mom-mom and pop’s house sunday night sends me on an internet search. a rewarding internet search.

it’s a curse and a gift: my talents lie in potatoes and mac and cheese and to a lesser extent with baking, but even there we have enough unqualified successes to encourage my continued experimentation.

and saturday night we sat around the fire and gigi made us all “sandwiches” of graham crackers and burnt marshmallows, smiling ear to ear as we raved and praised her skills. and i laughed to jeremy how did our children learn to equate showing love to someone=cooking for them?

but we know how.

because twice this week guinevere, done her cyber schooling for the week, has wandered into the kitchen and created chocolatey peanut-buttery deliciousness and texts me “we need more chocolate chips” when i’m out at the store.

and because so many mornings this summer my children as a group presented me with breakfast in bed—a rubbermaid bin lid serving as the tray for my microwaved eggs and toast with peanut butter and coffee with what tasted like 7 sugars.

because we teach by example.

because i have my parent’s example and my parent’s genes—the ones that love a full house and good food and laughter and noise and pots of sauce and pounds of spaghetti and that’s just how it’s done.

and because in turn we make giant vats of soup and deliver them to all our sick friends when a vicious cold takes them down by the dozen. and 8 months later they (my children) are still talking about it.

so yes, in our house cooking=love.

and jeremy and i say only half-jokingly that we were born in the wrong century. truly one where my rubinesque figure** and our prolific child creating abilities would have been more esteemed would have suited us much better.
but we are here in 2012, headed so soon into 2013 (how did that happen???) eating and feeding our way into a happy house full of memories—both those already made, and those to come.

come on fall. i’m ready for ya.

**(insert crudely photoshopped image of my head on an appropriate painting. which i briefly considered for laughs and quickly dismissed because i’ll spare you that mental image)

wordless(ish) wednesday: cooking up trouble

my middle two—harrison and ava—have developed quite the love of cooking lately.

if you follow me on instagram you’ve seen some pics of my breakfast in bed, and last nights adventures in chocolate.

opa—always one to encourage a love of both cooking and reading (two subjects about which he’s passionate)—gifted my little chefs with this…

the source of many of our…err…delightful culinary adventures, shall we say?

thanks for that, opa.

and so i fight my worst type-A traits, allowing them to mash and beat and mix and stir and cook…

and i swallow my annoyance at a broken smoothie maker. it’s just a smoothie maker, after all.

and i choke down enjoy nutmeg eggs (???!??!) and lemon apples and watery “iced” coffee.

(this morning’s breakfast—two plates of eggs, pancakes, apples, oranges, french toast and a frozen waffle. all for me.)

memories, folks.

it’s all about the memories.