January 26th, 2011

We had a spaghetti squash taking up space on our refrigerator for days weeks months.  I was certain it had gone bad, but cut it open and it was fine.  Who knew!  So I decided to roast it in the oven.

All done from oven spa treatment!

Scrap it out with a fork and it automatically comes out like spaghetti! 

tossed it with sautéed garlic, parsley, salt, and pepper.  It made a great side dish to the mini meatloaves that Lauren picked out from Cooking Light.

Meat loaf, meet squash.  Squash, meet meat loaf.

January 25th, 2011

My 2 favorite sections in the St. Louis Post Dispatch are the Wednesday Eat section and Friday Go section.  I look forward to the Go section more this time of year because I love to see what award nominated movies have finally made it to St Louis and the critics reviews.  I rarely cut out recipes from the Eat section, but have from time to time or it gives me ideas, especially when our garden was in full harvest mode and I was searching for recipes for Midwest crops.  I also like the recipe exchange for local restaurants.  It’s fun to see how a restaurant makes the dish and alarming at the amount of fat is in it, no wonder it tastes so darn good when you’re eating out!  A couple months ago there was a recipe for Spinach Pie from Adriana’s on the Hill.  I decided to give it a try.  I love the idea of pie of any form.

Adriana's Spinach Pie

It was decent, but don’t think I’ll make it again, because when I defrosted the spinach in the microwave this happened.

The microwave caught on fire, melted the glass plate, and has been unusable ever since.  The good news is after a week of phone calls and paperwork requests, LG is sending out a technician on Wednesday to assess the situation.  The bad news is I can’t reheat the leftover spinach pie in a quick like manner.

January 22nd, 2011

So we were supposed to be leaving this morning for Kansas City to celebrate Christmas and Elizabeth’s 10th birthday celebration, but an intimidating forecast caused us to stay put.  We were really disappointed since the girls and I haven’t seen Trent’s family since Thanksgiving.  We spent the morning at the YMCA and headed home for lunch.  I wasn’t really planning on cooking today, so I opened the refrigerator and assessed the situation.  There was asparagus.  “What about asparagus frittata?”  I asked Trent.  “I’m not in the mood for eggs, I already had breakfast.”  Hmmm, back to the drawing board.  Re-assessing I came up with a rice dish risotto style, but with regular rice.

It is so fun putting Sydney down for naps in her big girl bed, it makes her look so little!

I finally whined enough convinced Trent it was a good idea to order new bedding for Sydney last night.  The quilt she has right now was from my Great Aunt Anna.  I like it, but wanted Sydney to have new bedding since Lauren did when she got her big girl bed.  I like to keep things even.  Sydney’s favorite color is purple, so it’s purple-ish bedding with flowers and Lauren has the exact same bedding, only pink.  I’m excited to get it and set it all up.

That night Markham invited us over for dinner.  She made Beef and Fennel Ragu from a recipe in the St Louis Post Dispatch that was awesome with a great salad.  I had mine over crusty bread and it was perfect comfort for yucky January. 

January 21st, 2011

So they say if your kids cook with you, they won’t be as picky.  If you have the kids help with a garden and growing food, they will be more willing to try things.  If you have them try foods 10-15 times they will eventually get used to the taste of that food.  If you sneak in pureed veggies, they won’t notice and will eat the food.  If the kids go grocery shopping with you, they will more likely eat their dinner.  If you just put out what’s for dinner without alternating anything, the kids will eventually eat what’s in front of them without dirty sock faces and extensive inspection of said food.  I’ve tried it all.  Many times.  I do have to say growing the garden probably worked the most.  Lauren discovered her love for raw tomatoes, she pops grape tomatoes like they’re grapes.  Sydney discovered her love for sage.  The pureed veggies in things does work too, zucchini and carrots in pasta sauces or chili is my main trick. But I’ve also sabotaged what would have been a well liked meal by going overboard with the puree thing.  The whole thing seems like an exhausting and winless battle.

So one of my goals is to spend more quality time with Lauren in the afternoons when Sydney naps.  I’ve gotten into a bad habit of doing projects, computer stuff (like I’m doing right now), or house stuff once the weather got cold and shunned us indoors.  When the weather is nice, Lauren and I spend much of our afternoons outside doing various things and it’s great.  So I had a couple of cooking magazines I wanted to page through and was under a blanket on the couch and Lauren asked if she could lay with me under the blanket.  We paged through a Everyday Rachel Ray and a Cooking Light.  Lauren loved looking at all the food and picked out all kinds of recipes she thought looked good and asked if I would make them.  Done and Done.  First on Lauren’s list:

 

Walnut and Breadcrumb Pasta with a Soft Egg.  I would never have picked out this recipe, but it was absolutely fantastic!  I’m not a soft egg person, but the yolk make a delicious sauce for the pasta.  It felt like a simple, yet elegant dish for some reason.  For the girls, I made hard boiled eggs and put them separate from their pasta.  They both ate dinner happily and Lauren was even mad at me for eating the leftovers for lunch the next day….oops. 

January 19th, 2011

This week in school Lauren is “Star of the Week.”  It’s a fun project (albeit one that requires many mom to do’s) that Lauren and I have been working on.  She had to do a poster and get up in front of the class and talk about it.  The poster also had a sheet of paper where she filled out all her favorite things.  She brought a bag home from school and picked 5 toys to put into it and show them to the kids in her class.  The tricky part is the toys had to stay at school all week.   Logically, Lauren wanted to take her absolute favorites, *those* toys that I knew would be a cause of tears that first night when she realized her comfort toys are snug in her classroom and not in her bed.  So we picked kinda sorta favorite toys (translation – ones she wouldn’t miss at home).  She also brought in a snack for her class, peanut butter and cracker sandwiches.  No peanut allergies in her class thankfully.  It was already a short week with MLK day on Monday and we ended up having a snow day on Thursday.  So Star of the Week was really star of 3 days, but she never noticed.

Lauren dresses herself in the mornings and does a good job.  She had her big presentation of her poster and toys…..with her shirt on backwards.  Never noticed when she left the house, but noticed immediately when she came home…after the fact.  Her teacher took these pictures and sent them to me.  I love getting a sneak peak of Lauren in action at school.

Dinner was a holiday tortellini soup from Taste of Home.  I guess the holiday was star of the week and MLK Day??  I think I must have picked up the magazine at the Y one day or something, it’s been in my recipe binder forever and this is the first time I tried it.  It was easy and I thought the kids would like it, which kinda happened.  They picked out the tortellini, but I think a couple pieces of spinach sneaked into their bellies.

January 16th, 2011

Night of the Golden Globes and Sydney got her big girl bed!  Big day in the house of Bonds.  The girls love watching the red carpet, so I decided to do a dinner of appetizers to eat in front of the TV while we seriously discuss fashion.  Statements like “oh mom, she’s got a big necklace, that’s fancy” or “oh, that’s Rachel from Glee” or “Giuliana changed her dress!” or “Black Swan girl, Black Swan girl!” are as deep as we go (and no, the kids haven’t seen Black Swan, but they have white swan Barbies and I told them when I went to see the movie the premise and about it actually being a ballet, so now whenever they see the movie poster or Natalie Portman, she’s black swan girl). 

Family favorite nibbles and when the girls went to bed, I made ricotta and pea puree crostinis.   Lauren, Trent, and I are huge fans of french onion dip with veggies.  If I have it in the house, it’s all I think about when I’m hungry.  So for a special occasion I bought some and did a bunch of veggies.  I think Sydney ate the whole bowl of olives with some cheese crackers.  Oh well, it’s golden globes, I’m taking a night off of playing household nutritionist. 

January 15th, 2011

So today was the last day for Sydney to be in her crib, tomorrow she’s getting a big girl bed.  My parents are giving us Julie’s old bed from their house, which I am excited about.  It’s long overdue, but we said we wanted to wait until after the holidays.  Not sure why, I guess one thing at a time (but really I just wasn’t ready to be a crib free house, this crib has been part of our lives in that spot in this room since 2005), so Holidays first, big girl bed next was the plan.  I had to take a picture of the crib to list it on Craigslist, but I forgot to do it until Sydney was already in her crib for naptime. 

I am so glad I took this picture with her in it (the picture I used for craigslist you can’t see Sydney’s face).  The end of an era!  I am completely shocked at the age of 3, Sydney has never climbed out of her crib either, she is a total monkey and loves to make playground equipment out of any household furniture.

For dinner I made Rachel Ray’s Poppy Teriyaki Glazed Chicken.  I omitted the plums because Trent and the girls love plums (stick with me on this), but I knew they wouldn’t eat them warm in the dish, so why waste perfectly good plums when the family will have them for snacks in their natural state.  I also omitted the poppy seeds because Trent had a drug test at work coming up (that is actually not remotely true at all, I’m just in a mood and thought of that Seinfeld episode with poppy seed bagels).  Overall it was good, not awesome or life changing, but a decent meal.

January 12th, 2011

Trent is having drinks after work with a college friend, so the girls and I are on our own for the night.  I keep it pretty simple when it’s just us girls.

Olive oil, garlic, sage, butter, salt, and pepper.

Simmer in a small skillet until it makes a super yummy sauce.

To toss together with gnocchi.  Super fast and super delicious.

Enjoying it in your finest princess frocks is completely optional.

January 11th, 2011

Whenever I get chilly, which is 95% of the time during January, I like to do a roasting meal to get the kitchen nice and warm.  Kevin and I are going to see Kings Speech tonight, so I did all my roasting the afternoon, which means the kitchen is nice and warm while I get things done.

I had all kinds of various vegetables in the frig, so I roasted the whole lot.  It took 2 cookie sheets to roast, but once they are done, they shrink up on you.  I season with garlic salt (using actual chopped garlic for a long roast will cause it to burn) and pepper, roast at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes for these veggies.  I also take a whole head of garlic, cut off the top third of it, put in foil, and roast that too.  I then pureed the roasted garlic with chives, parsley, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper to make a vinaigrette. 

 

Tossed everything together with some barley I cooked on the stove.

Dinner!  Oh, and King’s Speech was incredible!  Loved it!  Looking back the only thing that bothers me is this.

Okay, so Helen Bonham Carter looks all period peace-ish put together as the doting king’s wife. 

Then wears this bad 80’s inspired wanna be Madonna dress with mismatched Christmas themed shoes to the Golden Globes?  Sydney said it best when she said “look mom, Lady Gaga’s on the red carpet!”

January 10th, 2011

I just had to go onto all my 2011 posts thus far and change them from “2010” to “2011.”  Apparently my fingers just want to keep on typing 2010 for a bit longer, which does make it confusing, so I am now properly titling things.  Keeping on with my slow cooker good recipe search I found this one in Family Circle (they do a section on slow cooking recipes every month in their magazine).  It was an Indian Spiced Chicken recipe.

Ingredients

• 3  pounds  boneless, skinless chicken thighs
• 2    onions, thinly sliced
• 3    garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2  cup  golden raisins
• 1 3/4  teaspoons  garam masala
• 1/2  teaspoon  salt
• 1/4  teaspoon  black pepper
• 1  cup  low-sodium chicken broth
• 1/2  cup  plain yogurt
• 2  tablespoons  cornstarch
• 1/3  cup  toasted slivered almonds
• 2  cups  cooked basmati rice (optional)

Directions

Combine chicken, onions, garlic, raisins, 1 teaspoon of the garam masala, 1/4 teaspoon of the salt, the pepper and broth in slow cooker bowl. Cover and cook for 3 hours on HIGH or 5 hours on LOW.

In a small bowl, stir together the remaining 3/4 teaspoon garam masala, remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt, the yogurt and cornstarch. Remove chicken to a platter and keep warm.

Whisk yogurt mixture into slow cooker bowl and cover; cook an additional 15 minutes or until sauce has thickened. Stir in almonds and serve sauce with chicken over rice, if desired.

I swapped out 1 lb. boneless skinless chicken breasts for the 3 lbs of chicken thighs, added a little more of the garam masala,  and a can of chick peas.

Girls dinner.  They loved the rice and toasted almonds, but not so much the stew.

Trent’s dinner, he didn’t like the raisins.

Mine (I do love me some chives as a garnish).  I loved it, but no point in making a big meal like this just for myself while watching my family sulk at the first sight of their plate, so unfortunately, the recipe’s new home is the recycling container.  But I would recommend the recipe to someone who likes indian inspired fare.

January 7th, 2011

7 ingredient night!  I invited Ryan, Kevin, and Bethanie over to be my official judges, albeit my friends who aren’t in the habit of saying negative things (well  maybe Ryan if he’s in a snarky mood….but that’s why I love him).

The 7 ingredients:

1. Peppadews

2. Grapefruit

3. Steak

4. Bacon

5. Ginger

6. Pears

7. Heavy Cream

So I decided to make a ginger and soy marinated flank steak and serve that with wasabi mashed potatoes.  It was a Rachel Ray recipe and I highly recommend.  I followed the recipe completely and plan to make it again.  Good twist on steak and potatoes.  So now that takes care of steak, ginger, and heavy cream.

We started the meal off with Ina Garten’s Pink Grapefruit Margaritas.

That takes care of grapefruit.  Now to the peppadews, which I had to google. 

I love pickled or roasted peppers, however Trent HATES all peppers and won’t eat anything a pepper has touched.  It’s a deal breaker for him. Then I found this recipe from Guy Fieri for a peppadew aioli.  Now I have never made an aioli from scratch before, but the chefs on TV make it look easy.  I thought this might be a good use for the peppadews (although an aioli is a mayonnaise, which Trent doesn’t like either, so not sure why I think this will go over well). 

This isn’t my aioli.  I forgot to take a picture of it (which I do EVER SINGLE TIME I have people over!), but this is what it looked like.  I promise.  It was crazy fun to make, I felt like a scientist making a thick sauce out of thin ingredients.  Now an aioli needs something to go on top of.  Guy Fieri made cauliflower croquettes for the aioli, but I didn’t think it would go with everything and to have cauliflower and potatoes is alot of white food.  I had bacon left and a great Ina Garten recipe for zucchini pancakes.  I put the bacon in them.

And of course no picture of everything all plated together, which I intended to do.  That takes care of everything but pears.

We started with a pear salad with toasted walnuts, prosciutto, blue cheese, and mixed greens. 

So there it is.  I had such a great time doing this I think I’m going to do the 7 ingredient challenge once a month or so.  Thank you to everyone who left an ingredient as a comment!

So Trent, Ryan, and Kevin all agreed to do an honest review.

This is what Trent said (and yes, it’s my husband….):

I must say - I really thought the meal was delicious!* I was very surprised how well the 7 ingredients were incorporated to make a complete meal.  The dishes that were created were certainly well beyond my creative mind.  I was especially impressed with the how the pears were used to make a walnut and blue cheese salad - fantastic!  I was also really impressed with the use of the peppadews. I think everyone going in thought that this ingredient might give you the most trouble given that you hadn't ever heard of them and once you learned what they are you realized there was a good chance that (at least) I wouldn't like them. Actually, I  thought they added a great flavor to the aioli!  The surprise hit of the night, in my opinion, was probably the wasabi mashed potatoes - just the right amount of wasabi to keep you coming back for more!
Trent
*for journalistic integrity purposes I should point out that I am married to the chef.

This is Kevin’s review (and to be honest if I served Kevin raw ramen noodles with frozen fish eyes he would say the saltiness of the eyes brought out the crunchy earthly texture of the noodles, he’s that kind).

Jenny’s use of 7 seemingly “uncombinable” ingredients resulted in a truly fabulous dinner.  Two of my favorite dishes were Jenny’s ginger-glazed steak (ginger being one of the 7 ingredients) and her zucchini/bacon cakes (bacon being another of the 7 ingredients).  The steak was done to perfection, and the ginger brought out a sweetness and zestiness that reminded me of an Asian beef dish.  The combination of zucchini and bacon was incredibly delicious; the bacon brought out the zucchini’s earthiness in a way I never would have expected.  The star of the show, in my opinion, were the wasabi-infused mashed potatoes.  Wasabi can be a difficult one to balance.  Jenny’s use of it in the potatoes, however, resulted in a fantastic complement of flavors.  Overall, Jenny used great creativity in pulling together 7 rogue ingredients to create a fun, flavorful, memorable meal.

Kevin   

Ryan emailed me the morning of the meal and was sick and couldn’t make it.  I sent him a doggie bag via Kevin that he had a couple days later when he was feeling better.  He did not have the salad or margarita.

So it was a total home run!  I had mine as leftovers since I was home sick :(  The wasabi mashed potatoes were perfect.  I'm not a fan of wasabi in general, but this was a subtle hint of kick that made them perfect.

The steak was tender, perfectly seasoned.  I also greatly enjoyed the yummy zucchini cakes with the fun aioli.  I assume that was peppadew and i liked it--had a real kick. 

Everything turned out incredible and I'm, as always, beyond impressed with jenny's talents!

Yay!