Pizza Night

 Viv and I have always loved making pizza at home.  Sort of like our version(s) of fried rice, pizza is often a "clean out the fridge" type of concoction.

Often, I make dough in my bread machine, but this time, I bought the dough that you can buy in the Publix bakery.  One thing I've found about their dough, though, is I let it sit out at room temp for hours.  Otherwise, it's practically impossible to roll, stretch, pat out, etc.  It just doesn't cooperate if it's too cold/cool.

Tonight, we wanted to use up some of the vegetables that we have on hand. We went with onion, roasted red pepper, olives, artichoke hearts, mushrooms, garlic, bacon bits and some blue cheese crumbles (on my side.)

Pizza Pre-Bake

Get in our bellies!

One thing I do when I make pizza at home is, as you can see, I pat the dough out onto a jelly roll pan. I spray it well with either PAM or sprayable olive oil, pat the dough out, then pre-bake it at 500 degrees for about 5 minutes. It's good to poke some holes in the dough with a fork or knife.  This helps get the underside of the crust crisp, as well as, firming up the top side before you start with your toppings.  Bake in the oven for about 10 minutes, and there you have it.  I'm not pretending that this is just like a pizzeria, but for home pizza, it is pretty damn good!  

We Love Dumplings!

 I started making wontons back in high school.  My mom had come across a recipe for "Tex-Mex Wontons" and we made them for pretty  much every party we hosted.  In essence, it was taco meat folded into a wonton skin and fried. They were awesome.


After college, my friend Susannah showed me how she makes her famous dumplings.  You may call them potstickers. Do you know the reason they call them that? If you steam a wonton skin, it becomes soft, pliable and kind of gummy.  So, they will stick to a pot in a heartbeat unless you know what you're doing. So what do you do?  You fry the bottoms of your dumplings in a thin layer of oil until they are crispy.  Then, carefully (very, very carefully) add water to the pan and cover it quickly to steam.  The fried bottom keeps the dumpling from sticking to your pot.  Skip this step and you have one stuck-to-the-pot fiasco.

So, ever since Susannah taught me this technique, I've been making my own.  They are ridiculously easy and so darn tasty.

Tonight's batch started with about a pound of ground pork.  I grated ginger and garlic over the meat, added chopped green onion and chopped water chestnuts.  Then I added just a little soy sauce for flavor and mixed it all up with my hands. 

Then, I placed about 2 teaspoons of meat into the center of my wonton wrapper, wet the edges with water and just twisted them up.  

Like I said, heat a thin layer of oil in a skillet with a good fitting lid.  Fry the bottoms of the dumplings until they are browned and easily lift from the skillet.  Next, add about 1/4 cup of water.  I shield myself with the lid as I add the water to prevent spatter and then cover it quickly.  Let steam a couple of minutes and that's all she wrote.


I like to mix up a dipping sauce of soy sauce, rice wine vinegar and some sliced green onion.  Simple and delicious.

Tonight, I served the dumplings with a vegetable fried rice, using peas, carrots, green beans, onions and scrambled egg.

This is a great way to spice up dinner at home and you can make big batches and freeze these little babies for another day. And, just like stir-fry or fried rice, you can make your dumpling filling with pretty much whatever you have available: ground pork, turkey, chicken. Ginger & garlic, green onion, carrot, bean sprouts, you name it.  Don't let this simple dish not make its way into your home.  So very easy and something interesting on the plate.  Enjoy!

Homemade and Homegrown

I've often said that one day when (not if, WHEN) I win the Powerball that I'm having a salad bar installed in my house.  Having won the Powerball, I'll also be able to employ a full time salad bar attendant to keep it all nice and fresh & pretty.  But in the meantime, I have to either seek out a good salad at a restaurant or make one myself.  As we all know, anything homemade is better every time.  But, salads can be like sandwiches...they always seem to taste a bit better when somebody else makes it for you.

Today was a salad day, but I had no one around to make one for me and alas, I still haven't gotten my salad bar and attendant.  So, I whipped up what I'd say turned out to be a beautiful and delicious, super-fresh veggie delight.  And crazy simple.  I tore some romaine, sprinkled a little cheddar, a few croutons, sliced some olives, my homegrown cucumber, my dad's homegrown tomato and my homemade bleu cheese dressing.  

Usually, I'm not a big cucumber fan.  But, I have noticed a homegrown cuke always tastes better than a grocery store one.  I slice them thinly and sprinkle with salt and boom, I'm a cucumber eater.  My dad's tomato was perfectly sweet and a beautiful blood red.  Again, a little bit of salt and some pepper and it was divine.  Cheddar I don't  know how to make, but I assure you, if I did, I'd make it myself.  Same thing with olives.  Trust me; if we could grow olives in South Carolina, my backyard would be a veritable grove.  

Now, salad dressing, I've told you about before. With a couple of exceptions, I don't buy dressing.  It's just too damn easy to make yourself and (you know what I'm going to say...) it's so much better when you make it yourself.  I love this guy's recipe, but I do thin mine with milk.  This recipe makes a super thick and chunky dressing.  It you want/need it to be more liquidy, the milk does the trick. If you're a bleu cheese lover, try this dressing.  Like, now.

We're lucky here in the South because we can grow practically everything  (ok, except olives, artichokes, oranges, but pretty much everything else). And we still have a couple months in our growing season so take advantage of all that our markets and your own gardens have to offer!

AT LAST! A real menu for children

Kids are people too. But you wouldn't know it to look at most restaurants' children's menu.  I think "picky eaters" aren't born, they are taught. Of course, there are exceptions to this statement, but for the most part, I think I'm right about this.  

My mom told me years ago about an article she read. There was an experiment involving kids and their eating habits.  On day 1, the kids came into a room to find a long table filled with cookies, cakes, pies, ice cream, chocolate, potato chips, Doritos and the like. They also found grilled chicken, fish, green beans, spinach, squash, broccoli, fruits, etc. As expected, on day 1, the sweets were quickly demolished and the "real food" left untouched.

However, this began to change gradually. Each day, less and less of the sweets & junk food were consumed and more and more of the good stuff.  By the end of the week, the kids were eating full, balanced meals with maybe one dessert selection.  The conclusion?  The kids ate what they needed. Their bodies needed (wanted) the nutritious foods to survive.  The novelty of the junk wore off quickly even though the kids had unlimited choices of "fun" foods in front of them. 

This has been my basic philosophy about feeding my daughter: make available what she needs. From the time we began giving her solid foods, my husband and I focused on giving her good, balanced meals and we changed it up a lot.  We have continued to offer new, different dishes and meals to expose her to the great big world and to encourage healthy and adventurous eating.  Some foods are a hit, some not.  But, I don't give up.  I'll try them prepared differently next time and guess what?  Eventually those foods make it onto the "thumbs up" list.

Going to a restaurant with a child can be a challenge.  Most have a kids menu, but frankly, they usually just make me mad.  You've seen it before...the unhealthy, junky, uncoordinated selections they make available to your child.  Chicken fingers, french fries, macaroni and cheese, grilled cheese, corn dog.  And don't forget the lovely sides: jello, applesauce, fries, yogurt. 

Kids are people too!  When was the last time you waltzed into a restaurant and said "Yes, I'll have the corn dog with a side of applesauce and macaroni."  I'm betting NEVER.There's a place in the Vista that has macaroni for kids.  We ordered it one time.  I swear to you, they cooked an entire box of Kraft macaroni and cheese, dumped the whole pot into a bowl and served it to my 4 year old with an adult-sized soup spoon.  So, she was given a portion size fit for Paul Bunyan, a spoon that won't fit in her mouth to eat a bowl full of crap from a box that I don't even make at home.  

Here's a tip:  you're a restaurant.  Cook!  Make some macaroni. It's not that hard. Serve kids a smaller portion.  Or, for that matter, how about just serve ANYTHING on your menu at a kid-sized portion and price?  Now, that is sheer brilliance, if I do say so myself.

Ok, ok, ranting aside, the real purpose of this post is to give major applause and accolades to Harper's in Five Points. We went in today after church.  Viv received the usual kids menu with accompanying crayons.  I started looking it over and almost fell out of the booth.  I have never, ever, ever seen a children's menu like this!  Actual entrees, vegetables, includes a dessert and only $6. Take a look:

  
Notice anything?  There is salmon, grilled chicken, BBQ sliders, roasted vegetables, fruit as well as brunch items.  Now with this, you can build a real meal for your child.  Viv chose the grilled salmon with honey mustard glaze.  She really does love salmon.  She was talking about ordering French toast when the salmon caught her eye. She selected fruit as her side and the scoop of ice cream for dessert.  Just for the record, despite what she circled above, I did give in and let her have a Dr. Pepper since her soda consumption is practically non-existent, but I 86'd the milkshake.

This is the plate she was served.  It looked fantastic and I had to try it.  It was perfectly cooked, you could taste the wood fire, nice "crust" on the outside.  It was delicious.  

I was euphoric through the rest of our lunch, because I was so jacked that someone finally gets it.  Kids don't need to live off cheese, fried chicken and pasta.  And, what kind of idiot puts PB&J on a menu?  Restaurants need to act like restaurants and cook.  Cook for all your customers regardless their age. Kids will eat real food.  But you have to make it available to them.  If every restaurant would adopt my "just make a smaller portion" concept (anybody remember "ladies' portions?), we could have kids everywhere experimenting and developing their little palates every time they eat out.

Kudos to you Harper's!  I hadn't been to your restaurant in a long time (no reason, just hadn't made it in) but I tell you what, we'll be in frequently now.  Thank you for offering vegetables and lean proteins to our kids.  Thank you for serving them an appropriate serving size at an appropriate price.  You get it.

Pacific Rim

I've told you guys before how easy it is for me to get burned out on chicken.  But, when you think about it, if you're a meat-eating person, it's hard to exist without chicken. Not only because it's so versatile, but because it's a very lean protein, which we all know is better for us than, oh let's say, fatty mutton from Kazakhstan. As a funny aside, I met a girl once who was performing an internship in Kazakstan...and she was a vegetarian.  It was a very long year in her life.

Back to chicken.  As much as I love it and appreciate it, I can become bored with it very easily.  This is one reason that I have a library of cookbooks to see me through these chick-a-bore times. Today, I hit one of those moments when I thought about dinner, pictured chicken and then nothing but static on the monitor. I went to the fridge and took inventory and came up with a stir-fry idea based on a recipe I've read about 401 times over the years. "Pacific Rim."

Topped off with some almonds and peanuts

 This was a lovely stir-fry consisting of carrots, red bell pepper, broccoli and chicken flavored with a sauce of soy sauce, basil, a little curry powder, corn starch, and chicken broth. I served it over rice stick noodles and a side of pea pods (snow peas). I altered the printed recipe a bit, based on what I had on hand. The result was quite nice.  I particularly liked the subtle combination of the basil with the curry and soy.  I also included a smidge of crushed red pepper (only a smidge because of the wunderkind).  It still may have been a bit on the spicy side for her tastes, but she ate her dinner without complaint.  Well, that's not completely true; she wasn't crazy about the rice sticks.  Those of you with kids know that if all they reject is noodles, you're doing something right!

 

Cornucopia

I know I go off all the time about how much I love the Brown Box Veggies folks, but here I go again.  I have been jonesin' for my veggies big time after I committed the cardinal sin two weekends ago.  Yes, I admit it.  I ordered a box and <gasp> forgot to go pick it up. To say I was devastated is an understatement the size of Texas. If I must force myself to find a bright side, it's that the Veggie Gals, as they like to call themselves, donate any unclaimed boxes to a charity.  But, dammit, that weekend, I wanted to be my own charity and I forgot.  

So, as you can probably guess, I've been pining away for veggie weekend ever since. I mean, we've been eating <again, gasp> grocery store produce.  But today was the day!  I wasn't going to have a repeat of last time.  I had a reminder and alarm set on my phone, a sticky note on the inside of the front door, and I had a small carrot tattooed on my index finger to remind me.  I even arrived early.

Yowza is all I can say.  When the Veggie Gal handed over the box, it was all I could do to carry that sucker to my car.  It was heavy.  Really heavy.  But I bolstered my strength with the eager anticipation of opening this treasure chest and carried that bad boy to the car. Once home, I cracked it open and it was like that scene when Vincent opens up Marcellus' briefcase.  

The golden light shone upon my face.  

So, getta load of this y'all:

I got squash, zucchini, parsley, Roma tomatoes, onions, over a dozen jalapenos (Neil is in heaven), cabbage, cucumbers, pea pods, peaches, apples, pears, and the largest head of romaine I have ever seen in my life.  Seriously, in the romaine world, you wouldn't want to pick a fight with this big guy. See for yourself.

Perfect lunch box sized pears & apples

Cabbage: the red-headed stepchild of the vegetable world. Undeservedly so. I see eggrolls and stuffed cabbage rolls in our future.

The largest head of romaine I've ever seen

Neil's dietary staple

Uhh, I'm thinkin' salsa? 

This amount of pea pods in the grocery would probably cost half of what I paid for my glorious Brown Box Veggies!

If you know me and my addiction to anything pickled, guess what I'm gonna do with these little cuties?

 Tonight we took advantage of yellow squash, pea pods (snow peas, you may call them) and coconut shrimp. I'm thinking it was a hit since there was NOTHING leftover.  As the cook, that's always a good sign. As a hater of leftovers, that's always a good sign! 

Ok, I realize I'm repeating myself, but if you haven't ordered from Brown Box Veggies before, get online RIGHT NOW! It's a killer deal, it's local produce and it is simply a joy to open that box and see what surprises you'll find inside. Oh, by the way, I was just jerking your chain about that carrot tattoo.  I doubt that even Peter Cottontail would pay money for that!  :-)

The Lowly Legume

Everybody knows that legumes are good for us.  You know that, right?  But, have you ever really thought about what the definition of legume is?  Does it mean any kind of dried bean or pea?  Something that grows in pods?  Is it only starchy vegetables?  According to Dictionary.com, legumes are defined as:

the large plant family Leguminosae (or Fabaceae), typified by herbaceous plants, shrubs, trees, and vines having usually compound leaves, clusters of irregular, keeled flowers, and fruit in the form of a pod splitting along both sides, and including beans, peas, acacia, alfalfa, clover, indigo, lentil, mesquite, mimosa, and peanut.

Simply put, they are plants whose edible fruits come in pods.  And, they are nitrogen-fixers, which means they grab nitrogen from the air, and convert it into nutrients that enrich the soil.  Oh yeah, and they're really good for you.  They contain vitamins A & C, tons of fiber, iron, phosphorus, magnesium, calcium, riboflavin, folate and niacin, just to name a few.  They are nutrition powerhouses. So, why are they treated like the low man on the totem pole?

My cousin grew up hating, I mean hating, all beans and peas. He's now approaching 40 and can eat some varieties, but still can't get really excited about them. I, on the other hand, grew up loving green beans, green peas, field peas, black-eyed peas, kidney beans, black beans, snow peas and crowder peas.  

Field peas and crowders are some of my favorites but let's think about this for a moment.  When is the last time you saw either of these on a restaurant menu?  Not even "country cooking" joints like the Thicket feature them.  And, if you grab frozen "field peas" in the grocery store, they aren't field peas.  They're small little peas, they're tasty but they aren't a real field pea.  And crowders are even more scarse.  Unless you live in a town that still has working farms on the outskirts, like here.  

Last year I stopped at the corner of Oak Drive & Mineral Springs Road. There are two old guys who stake out this corner with fresh veggies.  On this particular day, they had "boo-koos" of crowder peas.  I couldn't even remember the last time I saw anyone selling them.  I bought up a huge bag of them and excitedly brought them home.  Crowders are called that because they crowd together in the pod.  This is actually a good characteristic because it makes the pods split open easily and then you just run your thumb under the peas and they pop right out. Takes no time at all to shell these babies.  Now, try shelling butter beans.  That's a whole other story entirely.  But, crowders aren't very glamorous.  They're kinda pale, round, not much personality, but they taste awesome.  

All you have to do is cook them in some salted water.  The salt enhances their natural earthy flavor.  (When I say "earthy" I don't mean they taste like dirt.) They just have a deep, rich flavor all their own. I've read some recipes in which people want to add bell peppers, onions, garlic, etc.  You can do all that if you want, but crowder peas are just perfect on their own merits.

My 7 year old never ceases to surprise me by liking what most kids won't even consider and rejects what most kids practically survive off of.  She couldn't care less about mashed potatoes, but she can mow through some collards faster than a John Deere. So, you can guess what I'm about to tell you.  She digs crowder peas!  I can't wait for my cousin Brooks to read this.  He will probably gag a little, you know, childhood flashbacks.  As parents, we all try to expose our kids to as many foods as possible and hopefully expand their horizons.  Sometimes it works, sometimes not. Some kids are inexplicably picky, some are as adventurous as Evel Knievel. And sometimes they simply surprise you.

If you're unfamiliar with crowder peas, head out to the Farmer's Market, the Soda City Market, or whatever is near you and check them out.  They are inexpensive, easy to shell and cook and they pack a wallop of vitamins and minerals.  Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that they freeze well.  Just shell 'em and pop them into a freezer bag and they'll wait for you.  

Dining al Fresco out of a Brown Box

Ok, I'm not IN a brown box.  But, I am in love with a brown box.  This past Saturday was my 2nd delivery from BrownBoxVeggies.  I am their new biggest fan. For those of you who are unfamiliar, the "Veggie Girls" stock up a big box of fruits and veggies to deliver on the 1st and 3rd Saturdays of the month.  They reach out to as many local farms as possible to grab what's fresh and being harvested right now.  Then, they pack the box FULL of what they've found and sell it to people like us for only $22!  I couldn't duplicate what I received for $22 in a grocery store and the produce was fresher and didn't go bad on me before I could use it all.

My first box was so beautiful, I almost cried when I opened it.  Even my little one got excited helping me unpack.
  

OMG!  Look at this!

This box contained broccoli, parsley, tomatoes, spinach, kale, Carolina Sweet onions, squash, zucchini, pears, oranges, potatoes and asparagus.  A true cornucopia.  We used every bit of it with delight.  So, this past Saturday was my 2nd go-round.  Sorry that I didn't take a photo of Box #2...we dove in and never looked back!  This time we received Carolina Sweets, cabbage, collards, oranges, grapefruit, tomatoes, radishes, Romaine, corn, strawberries, apples and dill.  Lots and lots of dill.  I'm talkin' about two humogous bunches each about 3" around and 12" long.  My head is reeling trying to figure out what to do with all of it.  This week might be the week I dive in and try to make my own pickles.

But, first, dinner.  Of course, when you think of dill, one of the first ideas you have is salmon.  Since my daughter is eating salmon (happily) I'm cooking it every chance I get.  I whipped up this dinner and we ate al Fresco on the patio.  NOW, my title makes some sense, huh?  Salmon with dill sauce, sauteed pea pods, and yellow rice.

Here's what I did.  I salt and peppered two 6oz. salmon fillets (skinless).  I placed them on foil and topped each with some slices of Carolina Sweet onions and lemons and wrapped up the foil tightly to enclose them.  I baked them for about 20 minutes or so at 350°.  While that was happening, I made this sauce:

2 Tbs light mayo
2 Tbs sour cream
1 Tbs white wine
1 1/2 tsp capers
1 tsp finely chopped Carolina Sweet onion
1/4 tsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp horseradish
1 Tbs fresh dill, chopped
1/4 tsp garlic salt
pepper   
 

Then, we just drizzled the sauce over our salmon and devoured it!  I'm a sucker for anything pickled, so I think I'll actually add a few more capers next time.  I have actually eaten capers out of the jar with a spoon before.  (The first step is admitting it, right?) Thank you Veggie Girls for my jam packed boxes of loveliness.  And, you may be the reason that I finally embark on this pickle making project.  The idea of canning is a little intimidating, but I can't let all this dill go to waste! If any of you need some dill, I can hook you up.