It turns out I have a lot to say about picky eaters. And again, this does relate to thrift, because dealing with a picky eater can cost you a lot both in money and your mental well-being.
Does mental well-being sound histrionic? It's not. As a culture, we're weird about food. Everything we eat should be a gourmet delight! and organic! don't forget local! better be cooking that shit yourself! how happy was your bacon before it was killed?
And all of this weirdness gets multiplied when it comes to your kids and how you feed them. Having a picky eater can be really tough when friends and family notice, comment on it, offer advice, get together behind your back to judge your parenting with little scorecards like the Olympics judges use, and you're a 2.0 . . . okay, that last thing probably isn't happening . . . that we can prove.
Sidenote: I know there are adult picky eaters, but I don't have a lot to say about them. Pretty much my thoughts on adult picky eaters are: have you heard of this new thing called a sandwich? Go make yourself one, sailor.
One tactic I forgot to mention in my previous post was: get lost in the fifties, baby. Think about a June Cleaver dinner, or maybe what Betty Draper fixed before Don came home smelling like booze and strange. These women fixed basic dinners: some protein, a starch, a veg. Chicken cutlet, rice, some green beans. Use this idea as a blueprint, and you avoid the pitfalls of casserole (too much stuff, stuff is undeniably compromised by TOUCHING OTHER STUFF,) stirfry (again, lots of slutty touching of components,) stuff with sauces (the offending sauce can simply be added to your portion,) and whatever foodstuff(s) your child knows is poison.
However, you are not doomed to eating like a convalescent, because you are going to (metaphorically) slip your plain dinner components into a filmy negligee for the adults. Stick with me on my metaphor Tilt-a-Whirl, kids.
Here's how this shakes down. You make something like chicken piccata, but cook the kid's piece until it's done through, and set it aside. You go on to finish the recipe, which is now extra-saucy (mrow.) You cook some noodles, which will go under your chicken and soak up your delightful sauce. Your child's noodles will go onto a completely separate part of the plate from his/her chicken, possibly with a demilitarized zone in between. You take a portion of steamed broccoli and toss it with a tad of butter, some salt, maybe a teensy dash of red paper flake. Child gets a portion that is perhaps lightly salted or lightly buttered or given whatever seasoning child will tolerate.
Your child has fried chicken, plain noodles, and plain steamed broccoli. You have chicken piccata over pasta with spicy broccoli. Everyone eats, everyone is happy. This can happen in many iterations: you have maple-dijon pork chops, fruited couscous, and glazed carrots. Child has a plain pork chop (maybe with ketchup -- just avert your eyes,) plain couscous, and maybe carrot sticks. You have chicken parmesan, angel hair tossed with pesto, and green beans with tomatoes and basil. Shortstack has chicken fingers with marinara dipping sauce, plain noodles, and green beans with whatever level of seasoning doesn't cause a kerfuffle. Etc., etc., world without end, amen.
These ideas preserve the peace, preserve your sanity, and preserve you from spending a lot of money cooking two dinners. And these aren't the fanciest, most localganic, most impressive ideas, AND THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT. People are so rough on parents (mainly moms) in general, and particularly over how we feed our kids. The truth is, we feed our kids the best ways we know how. And on that note, I'll leave you with a quote from the ever-awesome Jan : I
refuse to take credit for my kids' relatively adventurous eating,
because that means that if they were picky eaters I would have to take
the blame. No.
Say no to anyone who assigns you blame for how your kid eats. We know you're doing your best.
Thursday, February 6, 2014
Monday, January 27, 2014
Feeding a picky eater
One might wonder what feeding a picky eater has to do with being thrifty. I mean, the poors will eat lentils and rice and like it, right?
No.
For a lot of us with new humans, it's not as simple as lentils and rice. And no matter how cheap the food you are cooking, it's not cheap at all if your shortstack won't eat a bite. Here are a few tips from a thrifty mama who went through The Cheese and Starch Years, and survived.
Prior to having a baby -- prior to even being pregnant with a baby -- I had very lofty plans about feeding him. He would eat along with his parents, enjoying everything from curry to sushi to mushrooms to Sriracha sauce. I would never be a short-order cook. I knew, with the clarity bestowed to the very stupid, that if he got hungry enough, he would eat what I fixed, or one of the healthy snacks I would always have on hand.
Oh, Karma is a mean, mean bitch. She even toyed with me a little: when Crash first ate solids, he loved carrots and sweet potatoes and green peas. I remember sitting at a restaurant when he was about a year old, and how he scooped up mushrooms from my veggie pizza.
Karma was hanging out with her mean girl friends, Payback and Hindsight, chuckling.
Somewhere in the six months after his first birthday, Crash decided he no longer ate green things, or orange things, or really anything. For the next four years his list of foods were bread, pasta, cheese, peanut butter, and some fruit. He didn't eat things he'd previously wolfed down. He didn't eat meat. He didn't eat vegetables. He didn't eat ketchup, much less marinara sauce.
I got lots of "helpful" "advice" during these years, and some actually helpful advice, and I figured some things out over time. Here's an overview of what worked and didn't work for me.
If he gets hungry enough, he'll eat it. NO. Spoken by someone who has absolutely no clue how stubborn kids can be. Also, toddlers (and I) do not make good decisions when they get hangry (hungry + angry.) Also, even if one's child eventually gets hungry enough to eat the offensive item, you won't care anymore because your sanity will have long since disappeared in the face of the relentless goddamn whining. Also, you know who favored this parenting tactic? Joan Crawford.*drops mic*
He should eat X number of bites of X number of what's on his plate. NO. Oh, yes, let's take a stressful situation and throw some math into it. This is going to lead to hair-splitting over how many atoms of matter constitute a bite; whether that bite was so big it actually counted as TWO bites; whether bites have to be chewed; if bites can be consumed in shot fashion with a milk chaser; and in the case of many children I know, including my own, gagging and/or horking right there at the dinner table.
The only variation of this that ever worked with Crash was a bargain made in desperation: when trying a bite of something new, he was allowed to spit it into my hand if it was just as horrible as imagined. This did not garner a lot of dinner party invitations for us, but he was four and not in high demand on the entertaining circuit.
Present foods over and over; it can take a child up to ten times to accept something new. SORT OF YES. Ten times, a hundred times, who's counting? I began to think Crash was testing his data thoroughly, and making sure broccoli didn't kill me on the third try, or the thirtieth, or the three hundredth. Eventually he decided his data set was large enough, and tried broccoli.
Along with the above: present food in different ways. HELLS YEAH. When I was a picky little thorn in my own mother's side, we frequently had green beans, cooked Southern style (i.e., cooked so soft you could take your dentures out to eat them, with a greasy chunk of pork product.) It wasn't until I was in my twenties that I realized green beans were allowed to have texture and taste like anything but pig fat. Texture is a huge thing for kids, so if a kid doesn't like steamed broccoli, he might like it raw, or roasted, or in cheese sauce.
Which leads to: to a certain extent, try foods under cover. I am not a proponent of stuff like pureeing beets and hiding it in spaghetti sauce. I read a whole cookbook based on that theory, and my thoughts after reading dozens of recipes involving hiding squash puree in brownies and white been puree in pancakes were, a) this lady has an unhealthy involvement with her food processor; b) how much nutritional value is left in a small serving of vegetables that have been cooked, pureed, cooked again, and divided between 4-6 servings? and c) ain't no-freaking-body got time for that.
That said, some subterfuge is good. My undercover ideas involve cheese, bread, and ketchup/tomato sauce. The first broccoli Crash ate was diced finely and put in a cheese quesadilla. He then progressed to a grilled cheese with broccoli, and broccoli dipped in queso, and now to steamed broccoli with a little lemon butter. He will now eat a number of veggies (okay, three - onions, mushrooms, and red bell peppers) in spaghetti sauce as long as they are diced fairly small. I think this is much less crazy-making for the cook; besides, what message does it send that vegetables are so heinous we're slipping them into dinner like Micky Finns.
Model eating a variety of foods. YES. Kids are awesome bullshit detectors, especially when it comes to what you do as opposed to what you say. So eat good stuff, in front of them. Yes, this may entail being somewhat of a short-order cook, and what of it? You get to eat delicious chicken tikka masala, kid eats tortellini, marinara, and some carrots and apple sticks. Everybody is fed and happy, and maybe the enticing smell of masala will coax your child to try a bite (that you keep offering, no pressure, and he can spit it out in Mom's hand.)
Also, a variation of this modeling thing happens when your picky eater goes to school and begins eating with friends. And suddenly, He of No Red Sauce starts eating marinara because his friends at school eat it. Let peer pressure be your friend for once.
Cook with your kids. Yes, Yes, Yes, A Million Times Yes. I bought Mollie Katzen's Pretend Soup more or less in desperation, and I cannot praise her children's cookbooks enough. I believe it was from Pretend Soup that I got the broccoli in grilled cheese idea. She has 3 cookbooks: Salad People I think skews for toddlers; Pretend Soup for older toddlers to maybe 6 or 7; and Honest Pretzels from maybe a very together five-year-old and up. The recipes are done in picture form for kids, with a standard format for adults following. There are tons of safety tips. The recipes are decently healthy (octo-lacto vegetarian,) but not oppressively HEALTHY. We use all three cookbooks today, even through C. is twelve.
Now that I've gotten my embarrassing girl-boner for Mollie Katzen out of the way, you don't need to buy a cookbook or even check one out of the library. Cooking with your kids doesn't have to be some big frakking Martha Stewart deal with matching gingham aprons. Buy a box of mac and cheese and let your child cook it, with appropriate supervision. Buy a box of cake mix. Shit don't have to be fancy, and even a box of mac and cheese teaches important skills -- there is a reason there is/was a show for adults called How to Boil Water.
Keep in mind these things: kids are messy and slow and ask a lot of questions. Don't anticipate that cooking with your child is going to be some perfect little moment you can Instagram. My very own child, now twelve, who knows so, so, SO much better, recently decided he would break an egg for me by throwing it up in the air and letting it SPLAT in the bowl which already contained flour and sugar and whatnot. I would like to say there weren't heated words as I picked eggshell out with tweezers, but there were. And that is okay, because THINGS WERE LEARNED. Like the far reaches of mom's vocabulary.
And my own piece of advice: fuck the haterz. And the busybodies, the know-it-alls, the mommier-than-thou, the well-meaning *cough* grandparents. Fuck your spouse if he or she has a lot of IDEAS about mealtime, without having a lot of actual real live help. Do the best you can, don't make yourself crazy, give the child a multivitamin, and pour Mommy and/or Daddy an adult beverage.
My last piece of advice, given the sometimes demoralizing one-upmanship between parents, if you encounter a parent who likes to humblebrag about how little Saffron eats everything, goodness, we can't keep kale in the house -- just breathe.
Breathe.
Breathe, and imagine how in fifteen years, Saffron will be sneaking out the bedroom window to meet a romantic partner, named Skull.
With a spiderweb tattoo.
On the face.
Breathe.
No.
For a lot of us with new humans, it's not as simple as lentils and rice. And no matter how cheap the food you are cooking, it's not cheap at all if your shortstack won't eat a bite. Here are a few tips from a thrifty mama who went through The Cheese and Starch Years, and survived.
Prior to having a baby -- prior to even being pregnant with a baby -- I had very lofty plans about feeding him. He would eat along with his parents, enjoying everything from curry to sushi to mushrooms to Sriracha sauce. I would never be a short-order cook. I knew, with the clarity bestowed to the very stupid, that if he got hungry enough, he would eat what I fixed, or one of the healthy snacks I would always have on hand.
Oh, Karma is a mean, mean bitch. She even toyed with me a little: when Crash first ate solids, he loved carrots and sweet potatoes and green peas. I remember sitting at a restaurant when he was about a year old, and how he scooped up mushrooms from my veggie pizza.
Karma was hanging out with her mean girl friends, Payback and Hindsight, chuckling.
Somewhere in the six months after his first birthday, Crash decided he no longer ate green things, or orange things, or really anything. For the next four years his list of foods were bread, pasta, cheese, peanut butter, and some fruit. He didn't eat things he'd previously wolfed down. He didn't eat meat. He didn't eat vegetables. He didn't eat ketchup, much less marinara sauce.
I got lots of "helpful" "advice" during these years, and some actually helpful advice, and I figured some things out over time. Here's an overview of what worked and didn't work for me.
If he gets hungry enough, he'll eat it. NO. Spoken by someone who has absolutely no clue how stubborn kids can be. Also, toddlers (and I) do not make good decisions when they get hangry (hungry + angry.) Also, even if one's child eventually gets hungry enough to eat the offensive item, you won't care anymore because your sanity will have long since disappeared in the face of the relentless goddamn whining. Also, you know who favored this parenting tactic? Joan Crawford.*drops mic*
He should eat X number of bites of X number of what's on his plate. NO. Oh, yes, let's take a stressful situation and throw some math into it. This is going to lead to hair-splitting over how many atoms of matter constitute a bite; whether that bite was so big it actually counted as TWO bites; whether bites have to be chewed; if bites can be consumed in shot fashion with a milk chaser; and in the case of many children I know, including my own, gagging and/or horking right there at the dinner table.
The only variation of this that ever worked with Crash was a bargain made in desperation: when trying a bite of something new, he was allowed to spit it into my hand if it was just as horrible as imagined. This did not garner a lot of dinner party invitations for us, but he was four and not in high demand on the entertaining circuit.
Present foods over and over; it can take a child up to ten times to accept something new. SORT OF YES. Ten times, a hundred times, who's counting? I began to think Crash was testing his data thoroughly, and making sure broccoli didn't kill me on the third try, or the thirtieth, or the three hundredth. Eventually he decided his data set was large enough, and tried broccoli.
Along with the above: present food in different ways. HELLS YEAH. When I was a picky little thorn in my own mother's side, we frequently had green beans, cooked Southern style (i.e., cooked so soft you could take your dentures out to eat them, with a greasy chunk of pork product.) It wasn't until I was in my twenties that I realized green beans were allowed to have texture and taste like anything but pig fat. Texture is a huge thing for kids, so if a kid doesn't like steamed broccoli, he might like it raw, or roasted, or in cheese sauce.
Which leads to: to a certain extent, try foods under cover. I am not a proponent of stuff like pureeing beets and hiding it in spaghetti sauce. I read a whole cookbook based on that theory, and my thoughts after reading dozens of recipes involving hiding squash puree in brownies and white been puree in pancakes were, a) this lady has an unhealthy involvement with her food processor; b) how much nutritional value is left in a small serving of vegetables that have been cooked, pureed, cooked again, and divided between 4-6 servings? and c) ain't no-freaking-body got time for that.
That said, some subterfuge is good. My undercover ideas involve cheese, bread, and ketchup/tomato sauce. The first broccoli Crash ate was diced finely and put in a cheese quesadilla. He then progressed to a grilled cheese with broccoli, and broccoli dipped in queso, and now to steamed broccoli with a little lemon butter. He will now eat a number of veggies (okay, three - onions, mushrooms, and red bell peppers) in spaghetti sauce as long as they are diced fairly small. I think this is much less crazy-making for the cook; besides, what message does it send that vegetables are so heinous we're slipping them into dinner like Micky Finns.
Model eating a variety of foods. YES. Kids are awesome bullshit detectors, especially when it comes to what you do as opposed to what you say. So eat good stuff, in front of them. Yes, this may entail being somewhat of a short-order cook, and what of it? You get to eat delicious chicken tikka masala, kid eats tortellini, marinara, and some carrots and apple sticks. Everybody is fed and happy, and maybe the enticing smell of masala will coax your child to try a bite (that you keep offering, no pressure, and he can spit it out in Mom's hand.)
Also, a variation of this modeling thing happens when your picky eater goes to school and begins eating with friends. And suddenly, He of No Red Sauce starts eating marinara because his friends at school eat it. Let peer pressure be your friend for once.
Cook with your kids. Yes, Yes, Yes, A Million Times Yes. I bought Mollie Katzen's Pretend Soup more or less in desperation, and I cannot praise her children's cookbooks enough. I believe it was from Pretend Soup that I got the broccoli in grilled cheese idea. She has 3 cookbooks: Salad People I think skews for toddlers; Pretend Soup for older toddlers to maybe 6 or 7; and Honest Pretzels from maybe a very together five-year-old and up. The recipes are done in picture form for kids, with a standard format for adults following. There are tons of safety tips. The recipes are decently healthy (octo-lacto vegetarian,) but not oppressively HEALTHY. We use all three cookbooks today, even through C. is twelve.
Now that I've gotten my embarrassing girl-boner for Mollie Katzen out of the way, you don't need to buy a cookbook or even check one out of the library. Cooking with your kids doesn't have to be some big frakking Martha Stewart deal with matching gingham aprons. Buy a box of mac and cheese and let your child cook it, with appropriate supervision. Buy a box of cake mix. Shit don't have to be fancy, and even a box of mac and cheese teaches important skills -- there is a reason there is/was a show for adults called How to Boil Water.
Keep in mind these things: kids are messy and slow and ask a lot of questions. Don't anticipate that cooking with your child is going to be some perfect little moment you can Instagram. My very own child, now twelve, who knows so, so, SO much better, recently decided he would break an egg for me by throwing it up in the air and letting it SPLAT in the bowl which already contained flour and sugar and whatnot. I would like to say there weren't heated words as I picked eggshell out with tweezers, but there were. And that is okay, because THINGS WERE LEARNED. Like the far reaches of mom's vocabulary.
And my own piece of advice: fuck the haterz. And the busybodies, the know-it-alls, the mommier-than-thou, the well-meaning *cough* grandparents. Fuck your spouse if he or she has a lot of IDEAS about mealtime, without having a lot of actual real live help. Do the best you can, don't make yourself crazy, give the child a multivitamin, and pour Mommy and/or Daddy an adult beverage.
My last piece of advice, given the sometimes demoralizing one-upmanship between parents, if you encounter a parent who likes to humblebrag about how little Saffron eats everything, goodness, we can't keep kale in the house -- just breathe.
Breathe.
Breathe, and imagine how in fifteen years, Saffron will be sneaking out the bedroom window to meet a romantic partner, named Skull.
With a spiderweb tattoo.
On the face.
Breathe.
Friday, August 9, 2013
Why Dye? And How to Dye With Rit.
Why would you want to dye things? Well, a lot of reasons...you love the fit, hate the color. Something's faded. Want a change... Your towels are boring. It's that or Paris and you have no passport.
There are lots of reasons to dye stuff, and dye is cheap and easily available. There are lots of blogs and instructions out there on how to do so, but it quickly gets intimidating and scary and obnoxious and...yeah.
(Side note. I loathe buying towels, and so I rarely do. They often get bleach stained and gross around here, so I sloshed some of the scariest into a purple dye bath recently. Now they're cheerful. Yay!)
Additional caveats--polyester will not dye with Rit. Cotton and cotton blends will, as will rayon, wool, and silk. Natural fibers come out closer to the bottle color, but nothing will come out exactly like you expect. Ever.
How to dye with Rit Dye:
I am including pot instructions and washing machine instructions.
Pot:
Fill pot with water. Empty in your RIT packet, or if liquid, the bottle. Add 1 cup of salt and 1 cup of vinegar. Add a dash of whatever detergent you have on hand--cheap shampoo (dollar-store-this-should-not-touch-my-hair-shampoo, dishwasher detergent, dish soap, whatever). Stir until all is dissolved.
Wash your garment. While still wet, dump into the pot. Stir periodically. When it's been there for about an hour, dump into the sink. Rinse until the water runs clear, or you're bored. Wash in the washer, run through the dryer. You're done.
Top-loading Washing machine:
Wash your garment/fabric first. Then with the lid open, let the washer fill again. Dump in your dye--powder or liquid. Add 1 cup of salt and 1 cup of vinegar. Add a dash of whatever detergent you have on hand--cheap shampoo (dollar-store-this-should-not-touch-my-hair-shampoo, dishwasher detergent, dish soap, whatever). Drop the lid and let it agitate for a minute or two until all is uniform in color. Open the lid to let it soak in.
Pop back to the washer occasionally and shut the lid to let it agitate for a minute at a time to stir your fabric/garment around. When you've hit about an hour of this, let the cycle run through. Then heave everything into the dryer, and you're done.
If you want splotchier results, add your fabric or garments dry to the water. If you want them more even, add them wet. If you need anything to match, do it ALL AT ONCE. You will never get the same results twice. Do not expect anything to come out like the dye label. And have fun!
There are lots of reasons to dye stuff, and dye is cheap and easily available. There are lots of blogs and instructions out there on how to do so, but it quickly gets intimidating and scary and obnoxious and...yeah.
(Side note. I loathe buying towels, and so I rarely do. They often get bleach stained and gross around here, so I sloshed some of the scariest into a purple dye bath recently. Now they're cheerful. Yay!)
Additional caveats--polyester will not dye with Rit. Cotton and cotton blends will, as will rayon, wool, and silk. Natural fibers come out closer to the bottle color, but nothing will come out exactly like you expect. Ever.
How to dye with Rit Dye:
I am including pot instructions and washing machine instructions.
Pot:
Fill pot with water. Empty in your RIT packet, or if liquid, the bottle. Add 1 cup of salt and 1 cup of vinegar. Add a dash of whatever detergent you have on hand--cheap shampoo (dollar-store-this-should-not-touch-my-hair-shampoo, dishwasher detergent, dish soap, whatever). Stir until all is dissolved.
Wash your garment. While still wet, dump into the pot. Stir periodically. When it's been there for about an hour, dump into the sink. Rinse until the water runs clear, or you're bored. Wash in the washer, run through the dryer. You're done.
Top-loading Washing machine:
Wash your garment/fabric first. Then with the lid open, let the washer fill again. Dump in your dye--powder or liquid. Add 1 cup of salt and 1 cup of vinegar. Add a dash of whatever detergent you have on hand--cheap shampoo (dollar-store-this-should-not-touch-my-hair-shampoo, dishwasher detergent, dish soap, whatever). Drop the lid and let it agitate for a minute or two until all is uniform in color. Open the lid to let it soak in.
Pop back to the washer occasionally and shut the lid to let it agitate for a minute at a time to stir your fabric/garment around. When you've hit about an hour of this, let the cycle run through. Then heave everything into the dryer, and you're done.
If you want splotchier results, add your fabric or garments dry to the water. If you want them more even, add them wet. If you need anything to match, do it ALL AT ONCE. You will never get the same results twice. Do not expect anything to come out like the dye label. And have fun!
Friday, May 31, 2013
The Remains of the Cornbread
So, you made my super-awesome cornbread, and despite your best efforts, you did not eat it all. Like most quick breads, cornbread is best fresh out of the oven. You can reheat it, but it loses some of the awesome. Fortunately, there are several good ways to use the leftovers.
- Make breadcrumbs. This assumes you haven't added anything like corn kernels or bacon. Crumble the cornbread onto a baking sheet and bake in a 350 oven until dry. Whiz through the food processor. This is a great way to use up odds and ends of bread or stray crackers, and you can just mix the crumbs together, regardless of their origin, assuming they are roughly the same age.
- If you are better at using your freezer than I am, cube it and freeze it to use for cornbread stuffing for Thanksgiving. I will never, ever remember to retrieve this after it disappears into the freezer. You may be smarter.
- If you have a lot of leftover cornbread, make bread pudding. I don't mean the savory kind with creamed corn (I am not linking to any variations of this because creamed corn gives me the heebie-jeebies), but a dessert pudding. The texture of this is very nice, light and fluffy. Someday I will try it with crumbled bacon as an add-in, and maple syrup for a sweetener.
- Four cups of cornbread chunks
- 4 eggs
- 2 cups of milk
- 1/4 cup sugar/honey/maple syrup - I went with sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- optional add-ins: 1/2 cup chocolate chips (my choice,) raisins (yuck,) other diced dried fruit.
- Preheat oven to 375. Spray a loaf pan with Pam, put cornbread in the bottom. Scatter optional add-ins over the bread.
- Beat eggs, milk, sugar or other sweetener, and vanilla together; pour over bread
- Bake for 50 minutes until set and lightly browned.
- Make cornbread panzanella. This is not to be confused with a ubiquitous Southern recipe that takes leftover cornbread and a million other ingredients and slathers it with quarts of mayonnaise or ranch dressing in some kind of Slumgullion of the Dammned. This is a nice, simple, summery salad. My only note to this is I think it's tastier if you toast the cubes of cornbread a little before assembling the salad. Helps the texture. Oh, and feta cheese.
- Okay, if you really want it: Slumgullion of the Damned.
- And, again from Crescent Dragonwagon, Featherbed Eggs. I pared down her original, which called for an entire skillet of cornbread since my goal is to use up leftovers.
- Half a skillet of leftover cornbread, crumbled and left to dry overnight. If you can remember it's in there, crumble the cornbread in the skillet you baked it in and leave it in your oven.
- 4 eggs
- 1 cup milk
- 1/2 cup grated cheese (Cheddar or pepperjack work well here)
- Salt/pepper to taste
- optional dashes of hot sauce or Pickapeppa sauce.
- Preheat oven to 350, FIRST TAKING OUT THE CORNBREAD YOU MAY HAVE LEFT IN THERE
- Spray an 8x8 baking pan with Pam.
- Layer cornbread chunks, then cheese.
- Beat together eggs, milk, and seasonings. Pour over the cornbread.
- Bake for approximately 30 minutes. Mixture will be set and and lightly browned.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
My Cornbread Manifesto
I've had this simmering (baking?) in the back of my mind for quite a while, but haven't had the opportunity to get in front of a computer. By the way, here's a spare thrifty tip: don't knock a full glass of wine into your laptop. Your laptop has a stunted palate and will be satisfied with PBR.
Breads, along with pastas, rice, noodles, etc., have a long history as a way to supplement more expensive ingredients. As a good Southern girl, cornbread is one of my ancestral foods, and it is often misunderstood outside the region. Pull up a chair, now, and be enlightened.
One of the first misunderstandings is what makes Southern cornbread. Cooks Illustrated, usually my ultimate cooking authority, states that 'Southerners use 100 percent white cornmeal, and they like their cornmeal crumbly, dry, and flat--about an inch thick.'
Christopher Kimball, you ignorant slut.
That is a regional variation within the South, but not representative of the entire South. My mom, who is my ultimate authority in Southern cooking, says that is preferred when you can't afford flour or sugar.
Another misunderstanding is that cornbread is never sweetened. Possibly this confusion arises from the fact one should never sweeten grits, lest you offend Chicomecōātl, the Aztec goddess of corn, and cause her to materialize, extract your heart, and ruin breakfast.
Never sweeten grits; do sweeten cornbread -- a little. Cornbread is not cake. It should be sweetened just enough to enhance the corn taste.As far as the white/yellow cornmeal -- I have never cared what color my cornmeal is. I typically use white because that is what comes in the bag of White Lily self-rising cornmeal mix. My other two cornbread rules are more rigid: use buttermilk, and use a cast iron skillet.
I understand that buttermilk is not as widely available in supermarkets in some regions. Try to seek it out, though, because souring milk with lemon juice is not a terrific substitute (but will do if your back is against the cabin wall.) Once you get your hands on some real buttermilk, you can even start making your own, as noted in Foodie with Family. Buttermilk is not a one-trick pony, either. You can use it for cornbread, biscuits, pancakes, homemade ranch dressing, or as a fab marinade for chicken. Soak chicken pieces in buttermilk for 1-24 hours, and then bread or season it and cook as you wish. You could even go full-on-Southern and try my grandfather's favorite lunch in summer: fill a glass halfway with crumbled leftover cornbread. Pour in buttermilk. Eat with a spoon.
I suppose you have to have the leftover cornbread first, and I should get around to the recipe -- but one final word on equipment. Use a cast iron-skillet. I can and will write loving odes to the wonders of cast-iron, but in the meantime, just use one. It is essential to form a nice crust on the cornbread.
Okay, recipe! Mine is loosely adapted from Crescent Dragonwagon's Skillet-Sizzled Buttermilk Cornbread, from her Soup and Bread cookbook.
As mentioned, I use White Lily self-rising cornmeal mix, but it's another regionally available thing, so I've included a sub.
Preheat oven to 375.
Two cups self-rising cornmeal mix
or
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 to 1 1/4 cups buttermilk.
1 egg
1/4 cup corn or canola oil (basically anything but olive)
1-2 tablespoons of sugar, or preferably honey.
butter or bacon grease
Mix your wets together, then mix lightly into the drys. This is a quick bread, so don't over-mix -- lumps are fine. Let the batter rest for a second while you tend to the skillet.
Put 2-4 tablespoons of butter or bacon grease (or get evil and use a little of both) into the skillet and put the skillet in the oven for a few minutes. You want the skillet to get nice and hot and the butter/grease to melt. CAUTIONARY NOTE: if you are busy getting dinner together, possibly with kids or pets running around and chipping away at your sanity, USE A POTHOLDER. Not that I have ever reached into a hot oven and grabbed a hot skillet handle with my bare hand, because I am smrt.
Carefully remove your HOT skillet with the HOT melted oil in it, and carefully tilt to coat the bottom of the skillet. Then pour your batter in (SZZZZZZZ!!!) and pop it back in the oven. Bake about 25 minutes, until golden brown. Then write me (or Crescent Dragonwagon) a thank-you note.
Allowable additions to cornbread: corn kernels, drained diced green chiles, non-fancy grated cheese (pepper-jack is as gourmet as you want to go,) or crumbled bacon (which you can cook in your cast iron skillet, and thus provide you with bacon grease.)
Tomorrow I'll follow up with how to use your cornbread leftovers, should you have them.
Breads, along with pastas, rice, noodles, etc., have a long history as a way to supplement more expensive ingredients. As a good Southern girl, cornbread is one of my ancestral foods, and it is often misunderstood outside the region. Pull up a chair, now, and be enlightened.
One of the first misunderstandings is what makes Southern cornbread. Cooks Illustrated, usually my ultimate cooking authority, states that 'Southerners use 100 percent white cornmeal, and they like their cornmeal crumbly, dry, and flat--about an inch thick.'
Christopher Kimball, you ignorant slut.
That is a regional variation within the South, but not representative of the entire South. My mom, who is my ultimate authority in Southern cooking, says that is preferred when you can't afford flour or sugar.
Another misunderstanding is that cornbread is never sweetened. Possibly this confusion arises from the fact one should never sweeten grits, lest you offend Chicomecōātl, the Aztec goddess of corn, and cause her to materialize, extract your heart, and ruin breakfast.
Never sweeten grits; do sweeten cornbread -- a little. Cornbread is not cake. It should be sweetened just enough to enhance the corn taste.As far as the white/yellow cornmeal -- I have never cared what color my cornmeal is. I typically use white because that is what comes in the bag of White Lily self-rising cornmeal mix. My other two cornbread rules are more rigid: use buttermilk, and use a cast iron skillet.
I understand that buttermilk is not as widely available in supermarkets in some regions. Try to seek it out, though, because souring milk with lemon juice is not a terrific substitute (but will do if your back is against the cabin wall.) Once you get your hands on some real buttermilk, you can even start making your own, as noted in Foodie with Family. Buttermilk is not a one-trick pony, either. You can use it for cornbread, biscuits, pancakes, homemade ranch dressing, or as a fab marinade for chicken. Soak chicken pieces in buttermilk for 1-24 hours, and then bread or season it and cook as you wish. You could even go full-on-Southern and try my grandfather's favorite lunch in summer: fill a glass halfway with crumbled leftover cornbread. Pour in buttermilk. Eat with a spoon.
I suppose you have to have the leftover cornbread first, and I should get around to the recipe -- but one final word on equipment. Use a cast iron-skillet. I can and will write loving odes to the wonders of cast-iron, but in the meantime, just use one. It is essential to form a nice crust on the cornbread.
Okay, recipe! Mine is loosely adapted from Crescent Dragonwagon's Skillet-Sizzled Buttermilk Cornbread, from her Soup and Bread cookbook.
As mentioned, I use White Lily self-rising cornmeal mix, but it's another regionally available thing, so I've included a sub.
Preheat oven to 375.
Two cups self-rising cornmeal mix
or
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 to 1 1/4 cups buttermilk.
1 egg
1/4 cup corn or canola oil (basically anything but olive)
1-2 tablespoons of sugar, or preferably honey.
butter or bacon grease
Mix your wets together, then mix lightly into the drys. This is a quick bread, so don't over-mix -- lumps are fine. Let the batter rest for a second while you tend to the skillet.
Put 2-4 tablespoons of butter or bacon grease (or get evil and use a little of both) into the skillet and put the skillet in the oven for a few minutes. You want the skillet to get nice and hot and the butter/grease to melt. CAUTIONARY NOTE: if you are busy getting dinner together, possibly with kids or pets running around and chipping away at your sanity, USE A POTHOLDER. Not that I have ever reached into a hot oven and grabbed a hot skillet handle with my bare hand, because I am smrt.
Carefully remove your HOT skillet with the HOT melted oil in it, and carefully tilt to coat the bottom of the skillet. Then pour your batter in (SZZZZZZZ!!!) and pop it back in the oven. Bake about 25 minutes, until golden brown. Then write me (or Crescent Dragonwagon) a thank-you note.
Allowable additions to cornbread: corn kernels, drained diced green chiles, non-fancy grated cheese (pepper-jack is as gourmet as you want to go,) or crumbled bacon (which you can cook in your cast iron skillet, and thus provide you with bacon grease.)
Tomorrow I'll follow up with how to use your cornbread leftovers, should you have them.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Inspirations
Kate here. I've been head down in festivals and refashions, and wanted to pass along some lovely inspiration sites (you don't have to sew, or can sew on a minimal level, and still find these useful)
New Dress a Day --Marisa does a lot of interesting stuff with clothing.
Refashionista -- Jillian's refashions tend to be a bit more basic, but I do like her bravery.
Craftster --massive number of forums. Happy poking-about.
New Dress a Day --Marisa does a lot of interesting stuff with clothing.
Refashionista -- Jillian's refashions tend to be a bit more basic, but I do like her bravery.
Craftster --massive number of forums. Happy poking-about.
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Lentils
Kate asked me to post about lentils. Coincidentally, I recently shared my favorite lentil soup recipe with a friend, and she wondered, "Why are lentils always a punchline to jokes about vegetarian food?"
I think lentils have a bad reputation for several reasons. One is the association with vegetarians -- lentils share this burden with tofu and eggplant. Second, lentils are associated with goldanged furriners; closely related is an association with poverty. Just like you can't read an early twentieth century novel's description of a tenement without the obligatory smell of stale cabbage, you can't read anything about cutting your grocery bill without a mention of beans/lentils and rice. And thirdly (I think -- I've lost track,) most lentils do not plate prettily. I have read that puy lentils and beluga lentils keep their shape through cooking, but since I live about two hours from any place that supplies such a thing, I don't know. I rely on commonplace brown lentils and the enormous bags of red lentils my beloved Cabana Boy brings me from The Big City; and both those varieties cook up -- well -- they have lovely personalities. Also, they are fucking delicious.
Besides the deliciousness and the cheap-as-fuck-ness, lentils have two other lovely qualities. One is that they cook up in thirty minutes or less, no soaking or bullshit (although you might want to eyeball the little fuckers for rocks or whatever -- I have found a few pebbles mixed in.) The other is that lentils lack the chemical flirbberigibiticide that makes you fart. What else do you want, a fucking letter of introduction?
One of my fave soups utilizes brown lentils. This has a certain Mediterranean flair, except for the sweet potatoes. If the sweet potatoes offend your sense of culinary authenticity, I suggest youleave them out fuck right off to another blog.
Somewhat Mediterranean Lentil Soup
The next recipe is totally different, has an Asian flavor profile, and is vegan -- wait, come back. If "vegan" makes you nervous, use chicken broth instead. However, I have served this soup to many a dedicated carnivore and the only person who didn't like it was my father, whose food issues are many and varied (Side note: until I was 14 or so, I had no idea that other families did not always serve pork and beans with their pizza, because we always did, because my dad is weird.)
Red Lentil Coconut World Domination Soup
Last of all, this is not a recipe, but an idea. My kid has a lot of sensory issues, and food texture is a big one. Beans are among the worst things for him because of the kind of pasty texture. However, I tried the following recipe from one of my absolute favorite food blogs, and it worked. And this is a great idea for a couple of reasons -- not only does it stretch out the meat, which is typically the most expensive ingredient, but it supplies some extra fiber, which can be very nice for anyone whose menu is limited. Plus, he totally fell for it, and got seconds. Sing song voice: kid tested, mama approved.
I think lentils have a bad reputation for several reasons. One is the association with vegetarians -- lentils share this burden with tofu and eggplant. Second, lentils are associated with goldanged furriners; closely related is an association with poverty. Just like you can't read an early twentieth century novel's description of a tenement without the obligatory smell of stale cabbage, you can't read anything about cutting your grocery bill without a mention of beans/lentils and rice. And thirdly (I think -- I've lost track,) most lentils do not plate prettily. I have read that puy lentils and beluga lentils keep their shape through cooking, but since I live about two hours from any place that supplies such a thing, I don't know. I rely on commonplace brown lentils and the enormous bags of red lentils my beloved Cabana Boy brings me from The Big City; and both those varieties cook up -- well -- they have lovely personalities. Also, they are fucking delicious.
Besides the deliciousness and the cheap-as-fuck-ness, lentils have two other lovely qualities. One is that they cook up in thirty minutes or less, no soaking or bullshit (although you might want to eyeball the little fuckers for rocks or whatever -- I have found a few pebbles mixed in.) The other is that lentils lack the chemical flirbberigibiticide that makes you fart. What else do you want, a fucking letter of introduction?
One of my fave soups utilizes brown lentils. This has a certain Mediterranean flair, except for the sweet potatoes. If the sweet potatoes offend your sense of culinary authenticity, I suggest you
Somewhat Mediterranean Lentil Soup
The next recipe is totally different, has an Asian flavor profile, and is vegan -- wait, come back. If "vegan" makes you nervous, use chicken broth instead. However, I have served this soup to many a dedicated carnivore and the only person who didn't like it was my father, whose food issues are many and varied (Side note: until I was 14 or so, I had no idea that other families did not always serve pork and beans with their pizza, because we always did, because my dad is weird.)
Red Lentil Coconut World Domination Soup
Last of all, this is not a recipe, but an idea. My kid has a lot of sensory issues, and food texture is a big one. Beans are among the worst things for him because of the kind of pasty texture. However, I tried the following recipe from one of my absolute favorite food blogs, and it worked. And this is a great idea for a couple of reasons -- not only does it stretch out the meat, which is typically the most expensive ingredient, but it supplies some extra fiber, which can be very nice for anyone whose menu is limited. Plus, he totally fell for it, and got seconds. Sing song voice: kid tested, mama approved.
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