Football Food!

Because the weather is crummy, and we don't have a babysitter, and it's not supposed to be the most exciting game, we decided to stay home and watch today's LSU game vs. North Texas at home today. We're having some friends over to watch the game here, and are making yummy football food to munch on. Should be fun!

I made a few tried and true recipes: Pineapple Habanero Salsa, Monterey Nacho Snack Mix, and a BBQ Chicken Pizza (minus the chicken).

The salsa was inspired by a salsa of the same name that we had in Hawaii the last time we were there. It was almost painfully spicy (just the way I like it), and sweet and tangy. This recipe calls for fresh pineapple, but some time I'd like to try roasting the pineapple first, which I think would add a nice smoky depth to the salsa. We loaned our propane tank to the in-laws after our power came back on last Sunday, so maybe next time!

The Monterey Nacho Snack Mix is something I've made at least a half dozen times over the past several years. I found the recipe on Allrecipes.com awhile back, and have tweaked it somewhat to make it much spicier. I use about 10 times as much Tabasco Sauce as the original recipe calls for, as well as several tablespoons of crushed red pepper.

I've blogged about BBQ Chicken Pizza before. It's one of my favorite ways to eat pizza, and is good with chicken, seitan, or grilled tofu, or just minus all of those, as I made it today. Red onion, cilantro and BBQ sauce are the key ingredients that make this recipe awesome, so adding a meat or meat alternative is just extra. I love this pizza!

I also made a plain cheese pizza for the kids, because come on...who doesn't love a cheese pizza?

Hooray for football food!

Soda Crackers

This is my first time making soda crackers from scratch. It was really fun! Another time when I don't have as much going on, I'd like to try cutting them into prettier shapes, or baking them in one perforated sheet, then breaking them apart once they've cooled, but today I just did squares. And lopsided squares, at that, since I didn't have a ruler. ; )



I used vegetable shortening and soy milk, to make this a vegan recipe.

We ate these tonight with some vegetable soup. I'm not going to post it as a recipe since for me, vegetable soup is one of those "just throw it together with what you happen to have on hand" things. Tonight I used onion, celery, carrots, garlic, crushed tomatoes, kidney beans, green beans, black eyed peas, vegetable stock and water. Yum, yum, yum!



Soda Crackers

2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup plus 2 Tbsp shortening
2/3 cup soy milk

Preheat oven to 375.

Combine flour and baking powder in a medium mixing bowl. Cut in shortening. Stir in soy milk to form a dough. Gather dough into a ball, and divide in half. Roll out one portion of the dough to 1/8-inch thickness. Cut into squares and place on a baking sheet. Prick each square several times with a fork. Sprinkle with salt.

Bake 10 to 12 minutes, or longer as needed, until the crackers are crisp and just beginning to brown lightly. Keep an eye on them, as the time may vary widely with different types of baking sheets. Remove crackers to a rack, and cool completely.

Chocolate Dipped Stuff

Brad's away this weekend, drilling with the Navy Reserves, so I'm home with the kids for two days. It's amazing how quickly I've forgotten what it's like to parent solo. It's been wonderful having Brad home for the past four months, but I'm realizing how spoiled I've become. The kids were about to drive me nuts today, so we went to the store, picked up some chocolate, strawberries, pretzel rods, bananas, sprinkles and popsicle sticks. We came home, melted the chocolate, and started dipping.



Fun! If it were just me, I would have done something a little more grown up, like drizzling white chocolate over the milk chocolate. Or spiking the chocolate with bourbon. But this was all about the kids today, so I let them take the lead, and that's why nearly everything is covered in rainbow sprinkles.



So if you find yourself bored, melt some chocolate and start dipping! It's fun!

And what to do with the leftover chocolate? We smeared it on some pancakes leftover from breakfast, topped with sliced strawberries, then folded them and scarfed them down. Chocolate strawberry tacos. Yummy!

Quesadillas

I have a real aversion to leftovers. I hate to eat them. I don't know what it is about me, but there are very few things I can drum up enough interest to eat as leftovers. Tuna noodle casserole, macaroni and cheese, cold fried chicken, and cold yakisoba or chow mein, and that's about it. I try to cook fairly small dinners, so as not to have any leftovers, well, left over. I purposely planned leftovers of the black beans and rice the other day, to use in last night's burritos, and we must be on a roll now, because Brad just made some yummy toasted quesadillas with leftover tortillas, pico de gallo and cheese. Usually we shortcut these and just nuke 'em in the microwave, but today Brad went the extra mile and toasted them in a hot skillet. Yum, yum, yum!



The recipe, if you can call it that, is really simple. Place pico de gallo and shredded cheese on half of a flour tortilla. Fold over in half. Heat a little vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Cook quesadilla on each side until toasted and crispy. Cut into wedges and serve hot.

Voila!

Oatcakes

Brad first discovered oatcakes when he was deployed to Kabul, Afghanistan, of all places. One of the soldiers he worked with had family send him boxes of Walker's Highland Oatcakes in care packages, and he'd share them with everyone in the office. I've looked for recipes to make them at home, but there seem to be different schools of thought when it comes to oatcakes, with some being thin and cracker-like, and others being more like soft pancakes. I just wasn't sure where to start, not having ever eaten them myself. When we were in the Seattle area for a few weeks this past December, we found some when we were strolling through Port Townsend, Washington! Brad was excited to have them again, and I was excited to finally have a starting point for selecting a recipe.

Then we moved, and I promptly forgot about them. ; )

But today, bored out of my mind, I was thumbing through Nigella Lawson's How To Be A Domestic Goddess cookbook, and saw a recipe for oatcakes! They sounded like they would be fairly similar to the Highland Oatcakes, and only called for a handful of standard pantry ingredients (oats, salt, baking soda, butter and water), so I headed to the kitchen to try them.

I only had old-fashioned oats, not quick-cooking, and I'm not sure if that made a difference or not, but the oats mixture did not form a stiff dough like the cookbook said it would. It just got sticky, and then stickier, so I ended up adding in a little flour to try to get it to a decent texture for kneading. It was still really tacky when I began kneading it on a floured surface, but it was definitely manageable. It rolled out like a dream, too, and then I used a pizza cutter to cut it into rectangles.



They turned out really well! I rolled them a little thinner than I had intended, so they're not as thick as Walker's Oatcakes, but they're still really good. Next time I'll just roll them thicker and see how they turn out. I made a double batch this time, and it made 32 thin crackers, so next time I'll probably make a triple batch and that should make about the same number of thicker ones.

I brought one to Brad, hot out of the oven, and within 20 seconds he was in the kitchen getting a handful. : ) Success! He said that in Kabul everyone liked to eat them with peanut butter, but they're also good with a slice of cheese, or a little butter, or some jam. I bet they'd be really good with Nutella, too...yummmm. I had some today with pumpkin butter, and they hit the spot.

Oh, and they smell like popcorn. Wild, huh?



Oatcakes
adapted from Nigella Lawson's How To Be A Domestic Goddess

2 cups plus 2 Tbsp rolled oats
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking soda
2 Tbsp melted butter
12 to 28 Tbsp very hot water

Preheat oven to 400.

Combine oats, flour, salt, baking soda and butter in the bowl of a stand mixer. Turn mixer to low, and begin to drizzle in water, one tablespoon at a time, until the mixture forms a sticky dough. Turn dough out onto a liberally floured surface, sprinkle with additional flour, and knead one or two minutes, flouring the surface and your hands as needed.

Roll out to about 1/8 to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut into rectangles or circles, place on an ungreased cookie sheet, and bake 15 to 18 minutes, or until edges are beginning to brown lightly, and the cakes hold their shape. Remove to a cooling rack.

Serve with peanut butter, butter, jam, cheese, Nutella, or whatever you like!

Extreme Tots

Brad cooked dinner tonight because I was at a Women's Council welcome tea all afternoon, and especially after spending all morning making the rainbow jello, I just wanted an evening out of the kitchen. Brad's a fantastic cook, lest you get the wrong idea from tonight's menu, and think the only things he can cook are grilled cheese and tater tots. ; ) We just wanted some cheap and easy comfort food for dinner tonight, and Brad, awesome man that he is, stepped up and cooked it.

A month or two ago we were across the street from Sonic, and saw a huge sign advertising their "extreme tots". We were intrigued -- how does one make tots extreme? -- so naturally we drove over to see what they were all about. Turns out they were tater tots smothered in chili and cheese, topped with onions and pickled jalapenos, and drizzled with sour cream. OMG YUM! We ordered some, and they were just as fabulous as they sounded. Totally ghetto food, but sooooo yummy!

This is our own homemade version of extreme tots. Seriously, what's not to like?



Extreme Tots

Frozen tater tots
Chili
Shredded cheddar cheese
Diced onions
PIckled jalapenos
Sour cream

Cook tater tots according to package directions. Heat chili. When tater tots are done cooking, arrange them on a plate, spoon chili over them, sprinkle with cheese, onions and jalapenos, and dollop with sour cream. Serve hot.

Rainbow Jello

This is a fairly time-consuming recipe, but it's totally worth it at the end, especially if you have kids. You can do this in rainbow colors, or customize colors to your event -- red and green for Christmas; orange and yellow for Thanksgiving; green, yellow and purple for Mardi Gras; purple and yellow for LSU tailgating. I went with rainbow colors today. The store was out of blue jello, so I bought some nasty little kids' squeeze bottles of blue punch, and used one of those with unflavored gelatin for the blue layer. It worked.

You can make this in whatever shape pan you want. Bundt pans make a particularly attractive mold, or you can make it in a square or rectangular pan and then cut it into individual squares for serving.

Brad suggested I make purple and yellow ones with vodka for tailgating next football season! Oh, baby!

Rainbow Jello

Small boxes of Jello, in rainbow colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, or whatever colors you want)
Cool whip, sour cream or plain yogurt

Grease a pan with baking spray. Clear out a level spot in the refrigerator. Put the prepared pan in the refrigerator to chill.

Add one packet of Jello to 1 cup of boiling water. Stir 2 to 3 minutes to dissolve completely. Pour 2/3 cup of the Jello into the prepared pan, and chill for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, add enough Cool Whip to the remaining Jello to make 2/3 cup. Stir to completely melt the Cool Whip. When first layer has set for 15 minutes, carefully pour Jello/Cool Whip mixture over it, and chill for 15 minutes. Repeat with remaining colors. Once all layers have been poured, allow to chill for at least 2 hours. Unmold onto a serving platter, if desired, or cut into squares and serve.

Note: The way I did this was to mix up the next color as soon as I poured the first layer of the previous color. For example, as soon as I poured the first layer of yellow jello, I heated up water and mixed up the green jello. Once it was dissolved, I poured 2/3 cup of the green jello into another measuring cup, then stirred in the Cool Whip to the rest of it. You need three measuring cups to do it this way. That gives it some time to cool down a little before it's time to pour it into the pan, but not so much time that it begins to set up too much to pour.

For serious?

I made popcorn for the kids a couple weeks ago, for movie night while we watched Enchanted (one of the cutest movies ever, by the way). When my 5 year old saw that I was making popcorn, she got all excited and said "oooooh, do you have any cream cheese?" Huh? Yep, my crazy kid likes cream cheese with her popcorn. Now, her obsession with cream cheese is nothing new. This kid will literally eat a brick of cream cheese like most people eat a candy bar. She discovered it when I was making a cheesecake and she swiped the remaining bits of cream cheese on the Philadelphia wrapper. After that, we couldn't leave an opened container of cream cheese in the fridge, or we would find it later with a bunch of finger dip marks in it. That crazy kid...

So yeah, she somehow came up with the idea to combine cream cheese with popcorn when we had a babysitter over, and now she doesn't want her popcorn any other way. I humored her today -- we were having Mommy & Meg's Day of Fun, after all -- and stirred a couple tablespoonfuls of cream cheese into her popcorn. It took some work to distribute it evenly, but you know what? It was actually pretty good!

I tried to get some pictures, but it's kind of hard to adequately show white cream cheese on white popcorn. You can get the idea, though, I'm sure, and that smile on her face says a lot, too.

My take on tamagoyaki

I started making tamagoyaki (Japanese rolled eggs) last year when I began packing bentos for the kids, and Meg has been hooked ever since!  That girl has an astonishing affinity for eggs, particularly of the hard-boiled, scrambled or omelet variety.  One of her favorite things to eat is a plain egg omelet...no cheese, no meat, no veggies, just eggs.  Tamagoyaki is great in that regard, because it doesn't have any filling.  Traditional tamagoyaki has dashi stock, sugar, salt and soy sauce whisked into the egg before cooking.  For Lydia I usually just add soy sauce and sugar, for a nice salty/sweet flavor, but Meg prefers hers with just plain eggs and nothing else.



I learned to make tamagoyaki from this tutorial, and have been off and running ever since.  I have a cheapo rectangle pan that I bought at the Daiso in Japan, but I've had the best luck just using a standard crepe pan.  

Meg asked for this for breakfast this morning, so I whipped one up.  I will try to take more photos of the cooking process next time I make it, but for now, here it is:  the finished product!

She likes it!



Updated:  Meg requested this for breakfast again today, so I snapped a few more pictures of the process.  Here's how it looks after several layers, while the last layer is cooking.



Here it is all rolled up.



Then I used a sushi mat to shape it into a triangle, then sliced it and had time to quickly snap a picture before Meg devoured it.

Chewy Granola Bars

I made these granola bars last week, as part of our ongoing effort to save money. Granola bars at the store aren't too expensive, but the cost adds up after awhile, especially considering how incredibly inexpensive and easy they are to make from scratch.

I made a double batch of these to maximize my time, and made one pan with dried cranberries and sunflower seeds, and the other batch with mini chocolate chips. The cranberry ones were hands-down the family favorite, but both were good.

Brad and I have class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, straight from 9am to 1:30pm. We leave the house at 7:15am and don't get home until about 3:00, so I've taken to packing us some quick snacks to eat in the 10 minutes as we walk between classes. I have a bento box about the size of a steno pad, with 3 divided compartments. I stick some granola bars, chunks of fruit, string cheese, hard-boiled eggs, baby carrots, and other similar foods in there, and it works out really well. If not for this, we'd either have growling tummies by the time we got home, or else we'd drop money at the Student Union for a Chick Fil-A. Either way, not a good option, so the bento box and these granola bars are saving us money and improving our quality of life. ; ) You can't beat that!

Chewy Granola Bars

4 1/2 cups rolled oats
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
2/3 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup sunflower seeds

Preheat oven to 325. Lightly grease a 9 x 13 pan with Pam.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the oats, flour, baking soda, vanilla, butter, honey and brown sugar. Stir in the dried cranberries and sunflower seeds.

Lightly press mixture into the prepared pan. Bake for 18 to 22 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool for 10 minutes then cut into bars. Let bars cool completely in pan before removing or serving.

Variations: Instead of dried cranberries and sunflower seeds, use any desired ingredients. Some options are mini chocolate chips, cinnamon chips, chopped walnuts, pecans or other nuts, mini marshmallows, raisins, etc.

Monterey Nacho Snack Mix

6 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon cumin powder
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1 tablespoon lime juice
2 tsp Tabasco Sauce
2 tsp crushed red pepper
4 cups white Cheez-Its
4 cups Fritos
2 cups mini pretzels

Heat oven to 250 degrees.

Heat oil in a large baking pan with sides. Add Worcestershire Sauce, cumin, chili powder, onion powder, lime juice, Tabasco Sauce and crushed red pepper; mix well. Add remaining ingredients and gently stir until evenly coated.

Bake 45 minutes, stirring frequently. Let cool, then stir in an airtight container.