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Teaching young children to use knives.

Jamie asked me to write a bit, in the Sane Mom Revolution tradition, about training toddlers to use real knives.   Jamie was thinking about this post from when my 9-y-o daughter was about three and a half, which featured this shot:

In that picture, my daughter is using a serrated knife with a rounded tip to strip collard leaves off the stems for me.

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 When I was a young mother with my first child and all my theories were new and untested, I was very fond of a book called The Continuum Concept, by Jean Liedloff.  

(You thought attachment parenting was crunchy?  Meet something crunchier.)

I foresee someone raising their eyebrows that a person like me would find something to like in TCC, a book which has been roundly criticized by a large number of people across the spectrum of parenting philosophies and social positions, for a number of reasons.  I'm still fond of it.  If you should decide to pick it up, my advice is to consider it a philosophical memoir rather than a work of scientific anthropology.   The key takeaway concept:   humans thrive best in an environment which contains those cues which our nature evolved to expect* from its environment.

[*N. B.  You can substitute for "evolved to expect" the phrase "was designed by God to expect" if you want, it works just as well.]  

That goes for surroundings (sunlight, mother's milk, a certain cycle of seasons of hunger and plenty, earth beneath our feet) as well as social cues from others (language, interaction with siblings, adults with work that can be imitated).

So, Liedloff is writing informal observations of a group of people living in the South American rainforest among whom she resided for a time, and she commented about how the young children are surrounded by real dangers and yet rarely (note: not "never") are seriously injured by them.

One of the most striking [dangerous situations] is the omnipresence of machetes and knives, all razor sharp, and all available to step on, fall against, or play with.  Babies, too young to have learned about handles, picked them up by the blades and, as I watched, waved them about in their dimpled fists.  They not only did not sever their own fingers or injure themselves at all, but if they were in their mother's arms, they managed to miss hurting her either...

The boys, from the age of about eighteen months, practiced archery with sharp arrows, some enthusiasts carrying their bow and arrows about most of their waking hours.  Shooting was not confined to designated places, nor were any "safety rules" in effect.  In my two and a half years there I saw only the one arrow wound I have mentioned.

...And there are the rivers, in which ... a child swimming farther out in the current than his strength and ability allow has a good chance of being smashed on the rocks or... branches.... The children who bathe and play in the river every day must gauge their ability accurately under all conditions.

The operative factor seems to be placement of responsibility.  The machinery for looking after themselves, in most Western children, is in only partial use, a great deal of the burden having been assumed by adult caretakers.... The continuum [by which Liedloff means our human ability to adapt, with limitations, to our environment] withdraws as much self-guardianship as is being taken over by others.  The result is diminished efficiency because no one can be as constantly or as thoroughly alert to anyone's circumstances as he is to his own...

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Mind you, I am not leaving razor-sharp knives and machetes about for my children to step on and for my babies to pick up.  This is, fundamentally, because I do not live in an environment where that works, where everyone is used to the omnipresence of razor-sharp knives and machetes and treats them accordingly.  I live in an environment where knives are kept out of the way, on a magnetic strip (see photo above) where no one will accidentally step on one or slice their hand by mistake when carelessly reaching for a whisk.

 And so I work with my children and knives in a way that makes sense for that environment: the environment where knives come out when it is time to cook, and are put away when the cooking is done.

But I still can use the takeaway here:  I prefer my child to take some of the responsibility for keeping herself safe from knife wounds.  If I take all of the responsibility, keeping the knives safely locked away -- well, that only works until I make a mistake, or until she enters an environment that I cannot control.  If I teach her to use a knife correctly and carefully, and step back so she knows she has to be careful, then she can protect herself even if I forget and leave one lying about.

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I've had the knife shown above since my first child was pretty small.  It began life as a combination knife/cheese spreader that came with a picnic set we received as a wedding present.  When I wanted it to become a child-sized knife, Mark cut the handle shorter with some power tool or another, and used a Dremel to ever-so-slightly blunt the serrations, which had been quite sharp.

I mention this just to note that the most important thing for starting to teach a small child how to use a knife may well be to choose a "starter knife" that doesn't strike fear into your heart.  You're not going to be very confident in your child's ability if, every time he picks it up, you visualize him falling off the stepstool and landing on the point of the knife.  Choose a knife that you're going to be comfortable letting your child actually use, holding it with his own two hands.  

The non-pointy tip of this knife means I don't worry about death-dealing stab wounds.  And that was important for me, personally.  YMMV.

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Although the tip is rounded and the serrations have been slightly blunted, the edge of this knife is still sharp.  Sharp enough to cut most vegetables, and -- crucially -- sharp enough to cut your fingers, too.  Probably not a maiming, stitches-requiring wound (with blunted serrations, you'd have to saw at your thumb a little bit) -- but enough to hurt and bleed and need a Band-Aid.

And that brings me to the next point about teaching kids to use knives.  It's good for them find out that careless knife work can hurt them.  I don't particularly want to run to the ER, so for early knife work I chose a less-than-razor-sharp knife.  But I welcome that first moment when a child tries to cut the zucchini while holding it, instead of having it flat on the board, and --zzzing -- she has a minor, painful cut on her palm.   And then while I'm bandaging her up we can talk about why that happened, and how she can prevent it from happening the next time.

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Here are three types of knives that can work:

Top:  My child-sized knife, the one my daughter is pictured using in the first photo.  Middle:  a piece of toddler cutlery from IKEA (not as sharp; will cut butter and zucchini and avocado).  Bottom:  a spreader (the tip is curved, which makes it less useful for cutting, but is good for learning how to use a knife to spread).  

I've also heard good things about the knives that come in a pumpkin-carving set (take note!  those might still be on sale somewhere!), the plastic "lettuce knives," and a wooden-handled "crinkle-cutter" like this one.   

(Montessori suppliers, like the one at the previous link, often have tools sized for children -- here is a plastic knife that would work for a child, here is a hand drill for woodworking, here is a saw.  Although my husband, who does more woodworking than I, prefers to teach children to use a coping saw, and to saw with a miter box.)

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Once the knife is selected, you are mostly teaching children to observe the same knife safety guidelines that the adult cook should observe.  Familiarize yourself with these!  Articles can be found all over, and some comprehensive cookbooks will include an introduction.

See, e.g., here, here, here.

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 The next thing to do with small children who are first using knives is to prep them for success.  Some things are hard to cut; some things easy.  Some things start off hard but get easier after they have been trimmed.  

Don't give a toddler a butternut squash or a whole carrot.  How about a peeled banana for her snack?  How about a stick of cold butter that needs to be added in pieces to the pastry flour?  How about a zucchini, halved lengthwise and placed flat side down so it can't roll, and the ends trimmed off?  

Later, if the knife is sharp enough, the vegetable can get harder; children will be able to slice a potato, for instance.  But keep trimming the vegetables (halving the potato, for example, or cutting the cantaloupe into peeled wedges for her to cube). They may as well not deal with vegetables that will roll until they've really mastered slicing.  You're modeling a practice that's good for grownups to use too:  mise en place.  After a while  you can teach how to trim an onion or a zucchini to get it into that no-roll, easy-to-chop form.

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Early on teach them always to put the vegetable on a cutting board, never on the counter or on a plate (a stray stroke down onto the turned-up edge can flip it), and certainly never to hold the vegetable in their other hand.  (You may have to refrain from using a paring knife to peel apples in the child's line of sight for a time, or they are sure to copy your apple-in-hand technique.)

At first teach them how to hold the handle of the knife with one hand and place their flat palm on top of the blade, and push down to cut a large, not-too-hard vegetable.  (This works with any knife, and the crinkle cutter is particulary good.)  With one hand's fingers wrapped around the handle, and the other hand's fingers flat and above the blade, a finger cut just won't happen.  Watch, and correct the child if she bends her fingers down, or tries to cut with one hand while repositioning the food with the other hand.  

You're not teaching a useless skill here.  This flat-hand-on-the-blade technique, with a bit of rocking added to it, is the same one that adults use to mince garlic or dice onions with a chef's knife.   

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Advanced knife work does involve putting the fingertips more in harm's way.  We do often need to hold food in position with one hand while cutting it with the other.  This bit is tricky even for grownups sometimes, but the most fingertip-safe way to hold a vegetable while cutting it is to curl your fingertips under slightly so that the part that protrudes the closest to the blade is part of the knuckle.  Yes, you might graze your knuckle, but (unlike a fingertip) you can't actually sever it.  And it's a slightly unnatural way to hold a vegetable (until you are used to it), so while you are learning it forces you to be attentive.

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I suppose I would be remiss if I didn't mention that in the workplace, frequent users of sharp knives sometimes use cut-resistant gloves on the non-dominant hand.  But I doubt these come in child's sizes, and anyway, I wonder if the awkwardness and loss of sensation might not create more problems than it solves for the ordinary kitchen user.

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All along, the most important thing to teach children who use knives is attentiveness. You should stay close by, not because you need to hover to keep them safe, but because there are many opportunities to teach features of knife safety that they might not think of on their own.  Things like:

• Don't climb down from your stool to retrieve a dropped vegetable while your knife is in your hand.  Put the knife down on the counter, then climb down.
• Don't let any part of the knife stick out over the edge of the counter when you put it down.
• Don't let any part of a cutting board stick out over the edge of the counter.  (If there's a knife on the cutting board, it could be knocked off).
• Don't let the baby climb up onto your stool with you while you're cutting.  Call for help and I will take him away.
• Don't gesture with the knife.  (NAG, NAG, NAG)
• Don't let people take bits to eat off your cutting board while you are cutting.
• Don't climb down from your stool to put the knife in the sink while your knife is in your hand.  Put the knife on the counter, then climb down, then carry the knife to the sink.
• Don't try to watch a screen or read a book while you cut.

 Later, these lessons can become more advanced cooking lessons.  Time in the kitchen with a child is eventually rewarded -- if nothing else, you may wind up with your own prep cook or even sous-chef.  And we all could use one of those.

Crunchy Hawaiian Chicken Wrap: or, How to get a dozen kids to eat their vegetables, courtesy of the USDA and some of that mayo-vinegar-sugar dressing.

You guys!  Believe it or not, this sandwich wrap (in which broccoli slaw figures prominently) was just proclaimed unanimously a hit by three families' worth of homeschooling kids.   And also their moms. 

I adapted it from the USDA school lunch recipes by taking the 50-serving quantity and, approximately, quartering it.  The filling is gluten-free, so have a corn tortilla option for the GF kids.

Our kids, oddly enough, thought it was a little too sweet.  It does have a lot of sugar -- but I thought the sweetness was perfect.

Crunchy Hawaiian Chicken Wrap  (12 generous servings)

Dressing:

• 1/2 cup       mayonnaise
• 6 Tbsp        white vinegar
• 1/2 cup        sugar
• 1/2 Tbsp    poppy seeds
• 1 Tbsp        garlic powder
• 1 Tbsp        chili powder
•                     Salt to taste

Also:

• 2.5 lb         frozen, boneless skinless chicken breasts, cooked and diced
• 12 oz          bagged "broccoli slaw"
• 6 oz            bagged julienned/matchstick carrots
• 5 oz            baby spinach leaves, chopped
• 20 oz        canned crushed pineapple, drained
• A mix of burrito-sized and taco-sized tortillas

Combine dressing ingredients with a whisk.  In a large bowl, combine broccoli slaw, carrots, spinach, and pineapple.  Fold in dressing.  Chill. 

At mealtime, serve about 2/3 cup of for a burrito-sized wrap, less for smaller taco-sized wraps.

It took me about ten minutes to throw the filling  together in the morning before school (with chicken I'd cooked ahead of time). I served these with peas and with string cheese on the side.  We all agreed that a bowl of honey roasted peanuts would have been a nice topping for added sweet-and-salty crunch.  Some of the kids requested a side of beans to make it more "taco-like."  

Definitely going in the permanent rotation...

 

In search of a kid-friendly vegetable soup: Tortilla-lime version.

As part of my efforts to serve a first course at the start of our family dinners (see here, here, and here), I've been hunting for a vegetable soup that the kids will happily eat.  If only I could find one, I  thought, I could make gallons of it, freeze it, and have it ready to go as the first course for any dinner.  Or if it was well-liked enough, we could have it several days in one week.  

Ideally, it wouldn't contain potatoes (which don't freeze well at all), and it would be meatless.  Even better if it would go together quickly and contain plenty of different vegetables.

One possibility is minestrone, which most of the family loves, but we think of minestrone as a main dish; we pile Parmesan cheese on it and have it with a salad and crispy garlic pita chips.  So it can't be a first course without ruining the tradition, unless it's leftovers.  

Another is tomato soup, but again, this soup already occupies a niche in our diet:  90% of the time, it is an equal partner with grilled cheese sandwiches.

Carrot soup and butternut squash soup are classic ideas, but I think of them as autumn recipes, and don't much want them in the spring and summer.

Last week I started trying new recipes.  My first soup attempt was an enormous pot of Alton Brown's garden vegetable soup, with the potatoes removed and extra carrots and corn added.  I don't know what happened to it, but everyone agreed it had a funny "soapy" taste.  Too many leeks?  Insufficiently rinsed pot?  I don't know.  I don't think I'll try to make it again.

Today I tried to adapt a sopa de lima recipe to make a vegetarian version.  I started with a corn-cilantro stock that appears in a tortilla soup recipe in Mollie Katzen's Vegetable Heaven, and then I followed an old cookbook recipe for chicken-tortilla-lime soup, replacing the chicken with extra vegetables.  I borrowed a page from the Colombian soup sancocho de gallo and saved time by cutting the corncobs for the stock into manageably small chunks that could be transferred to the soup; this saved the work of cutting the fresh corn off the cob to put kernels in the soup and the cobs in the stock.

It was good, bright with citrus and not too spicy for the kids.  If I wanted it to be a main-dish meal, I'd introduce a can or two of cooked black beans or pinto beans, and pass a big bowl of chips.

Here you go:

Vegetarian Tortilla-Lime Soup

For the stock:

• 3 ears fresh corn, each cob shucked and cut crosswise into five or six chunks (still on the cob)
• 1 bunch fresh cilantro, left whole
• 2 bunches green onion (about 16 green onions), cut into 1-inch lengths
• 8 cups water
• 2 tsp salt, or to taste

For the soup:

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 large yellow onion, chopped
• 1/4 cup (or more!) minced garlic
• Finely minced jalapeño chile to taste -- I used a couple of teaspoons, no seeds
• 1-2 zucchini, cut into quarter-rounds
• 1-2 carrots, peeled and diced
• 1 can (15 oz) diced tomatoes with juice
• 1 bunch fresh cilantro leaves, chopped
• 6-8 Tbsp fresh lime juice (2-3 limes)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Tortilla chips for a garnish
• Paper-thin lime slices, cut into quarters, for garnish

Combine stock ingredients in a large pot, bring to a boil, and simmer about 30 minutes while preparing the rest of the ingredients.  Strain the stock, reserving the corncob chunks (most or all of the onions and cilantro can be discarded).

In a soup pot, warm the olive oil. Add the onion and sauté, stirring occasionally, until soft and translucent, about 10 minutes.  Add the garlic and jalapeño and cook for 1-2 minutes.  Add the stock and bring to a boil; reduce to medium-low. Add the carrots, tomatoes and zucchini, cover, and cook until the vegetables are tender, 20 minutes or so.

A few minutes before serving, add the cilantro, lime juice, salt and pepper, and the reserved corncob chunks.  Taste and adjust seasoning.  

Ladle into bowls (including at least one corncob chunk in each), top with lime slices and a few tortilla chips, and serve.

 

Sunday dinner paradigm shift.

Have I really not ever written a whole post about this? I can't believe it. I must have put everything on Facebook. Well, going to do it now.

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Sunday afternoons wipe me out. If we don't have a planned family fun activity scheduled, I will often wander upstairs right after lunch, lie down for "just a few minutes," and the next thing I know it is 4:30 and I feel like I have been run over by the special truck that comes on Sunday afternoons just to run me over.

And then, of course, it is time to get dinner on the table.

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I like being in charge of cooking. Really, I do; one of the things that makes our life so lovely is that I enjoy cooking, never really get tired of it; I achieve moments of flow in the kitchen, chopping and stirring; I love trying new recipes; I like eating, so it's nice for me that (being the cook) I get to make whatever I feel like eating; I like choosing menus that will fit into our week. The only thing about it that isn't much fun is trying to make the grocery list and menu plan when I am feeling rushed, because then I know I will make suboptimal or boring choices and that makes me less happy than everything being interesting and well-chosen, but it is still okay.

Mark is capable in the kitchen if necessary and has his own little repertoire of things to make when for some reason I am unable to make dinner. Which is great. The kids like his stuff (chilaquiles, bacon-vegetable-tomato spaghetti sauce, the rarely seen lasagna) and so do I.

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We used to use Sunday afternoons for Mark to catch up on household projects and for me to plan my school stuff for the week. Then a few years ago Mark had a sort of -- I don't know -- head-of-household conversion experience and started working on remaking our Sundays to be more restful with more family fun time in them.

This has been a slow change, but it has made a big difference. Saturdays are more busy now -- I do my school planning in the afternoon on Saturdays, and often we have a big housecleaning binge from everyone -- but Sunday afternoons are truly more fun and family-focused. We don't clean the house, just the necessary dishwasher-loading and the like. We take walks sometimes, or naps while the kids do their own thing. I have learned to suppress my inner busy person and just enjoy hanging out, ignoring the sword of Damocles which is things I could be doing right now so that I could relax LATER even BETTER when the things are all done.

Because you know what, the things are never done and if I am going to be restful I have to seize it from the jaws of things that are not yet done.

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Sunday dinner was a sticking point, though. Because you have to eat, and making the dinner was my job.

I remember once (I was pregnant, which is probably definitely relevant) walking into the messy kitchen about 3 pm and bursting into tears because Mark had been insisting that we all relax and have fun on Sunday because it was Sunday and as a result no one had cleaned up anything in the kitchen all day and now I had to MAKE DINNER in the MESSY KITCHEN and everybody got a day of rest but MEEEEEEEE and I don't remember how that ended but I think takeout was involved.

But it all changed soon after the 15-month-old was born almost a month early and just a couple of days before New Year's Eve. We felt deprived of a party, so when I was just starting to sit at the table for dinner again -- maybe 10 days postpartum -- Mark went to the store to buy festive food. He remembered how after a previous birth, his parents had sent us a gift basket from the fancy grocery store, and he bought the kinds of things that were in that basket, and things that pregnant women are supposed to avoid these days. Lox, and several kinds of crackers, and good runny cheese. Cut vegetables with some kind of dip. And fancy salami, maybe proscuitto, and some sweet things too. Party food! We sat around the table, a brand-new family of seven, and devoured cheese and crackers. Probably there was good beer, or maybe some bubbly. It was great. Satisfying. Festive. Special.

And -- this is crucial -- almost no work at all.

It was sitting around that table with the new baby that we had the epiphany we had been waiting for. This was how Sunday dinner needed to be, for as long as we were busy raising young children. It was the solution to the puzzle that had eluded us for so long.

Making food from scratch is not restful enough. Leftovers (at least on their own) are not feast-ive enough. But bought hors d'oeuvres -- enough for everyone to get their fill -- are both festive and easy! Problem solved!

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Now Sunday dinner prep looks like this: At least two kinds of crackers (even if it's just saltines and Triscuits) are set out in bowls, and sometimes a take-and-bake baguette is popped in the oven and sliced. Someone slices salami (or summer sausage); someone arranges 2 or 3 kinds of cheese, usually a mix of fairly inexpensive cheddars and goudas appreciated by the kids, with one good cheese appreciated by me. If we have leftover deli meats of other kinds, those go out as well. (An alternative to the sausage-and-cheese platter: lox and cream cheese on cocktail rye. Mm.) We keep a small stock of jars and cans of fancy olives and preserves and spreads and pâtés and things, which we add to whenever we happen to see something interesting while out and about, and one or two of those goes on the table. We cut up peppers and celery and carrots and radishes, and put them out for dipping, either with bought hummus or with good olive oil, salt, and pepper -- a trick we learned in Rome. We open wine or beer, and the kids may have juice boxes or soda if they have some. It takes maybe 20 minutes to put on the table and is not hard to clean up.

And it feels like Sunday.

We call this kind of dinner "plate," borrowing a word from the family of a friend. I think smorgasbord would be a better word, but plate has stuck.

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We can't keep the work at bay forever. After dinner on Sunday it's back to the grindstone, cleaning up and prepping for the week. But I feel like we've finally hit the sweet spot.

A lot of "wow this is the best solution ever to our problem" doesn't stick. I post about my life-changing new idea with enthusiasm, my readers tell me I am a genius [polishes nails on lapel], and then after a month or a season or a new baby I give up, slink away, and never speak of my formerly great idea again.

i have a feeling this one is robust enough to stick, at least as long as we can afford cheese and crackers.

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White chicken chili for a group.

Here is something easy for a crowd who doesn't mind a little spice. I brought it for dinner at H's after a co-schooling day, and everyone liked it but one girl who eschews all spiciness. H, who was born and raised in Texas, proclaimed it Rio Grande-worthy.

Easy, too -- I prepped it the night before, toted it to H's house, put it in the crockpot during lunch cleanup, and we taught all afternoon while it stewed away.

 

It is adapted from the Slow Cooker White Chicken Chili at Budget Bytes. Here is my version, doubled to feed two families of seven. Eat it with Fritos (really), shredded Jack cheese, sliced jalapeños, and Quick Curtido (recipe follows).

Slow Cooker White Chicken Chili -- Medium spicy

Serves 10-12 with accompaniments, cooks 4 hours, prep is about 15 min at the start and at the end.

• 1.5 to 2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts -- I used IQF pieces, partly thawed
• 3 small yellow onions, finely chopped
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 Tbsp ground cumin
• 4 tsp dried oregano
• 1/4 to 1/2 tsp cayenne powder, or to taste
• 32 oz. jarred green salsa -- I used Herdez, a medium imported Mexican variety
• Four 15-oz cans pinto beans, drained and rinsed
• Two 15-oz cans small white beans, drained and rinsed
• Two 4-oz cans diced mild green chiles
• 32 oz chicken broth

Put everything in a 6-qt slow cooker, cover, and cook on HIGH for 4 hours. Remove chicken and shred with two forks. Mash some of the beans into the broth to thicken it, then return the shredded chicken to the cooker and give it a good stir.

Serve in bowls with plenty of Fritos, Jack cheese, jalapeños, curtido (below) and other toppings. Serves 10-12 if there are lots of Fritos.

Quick Curtido (Mexican Slaw)

• Eight cups thinly sliced cabbage -- about half a big one or one small one
• Four carrots peeled and shredded
• One fresh jalapeño, ribs and seeds removed, minced
• 6 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 4 tsp white sugar
• 2 tsp salt

Place the cabbage, carrot, and jalapeño in a large bowl. In a small saucepan, heat the vinegar, sugar, and salt, stirring until just dissolved. Slowly pour the hot brine over the cabbage mixture and toss well. Transfer to refrigerator for at least one hour, but longer is better -- 24 hours is about perfect. Serve cold as a topping for hot chili or an accompaniment for a variety of spicy dishes.

 

 

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A soup for when it's cold out but you want something spring-like in it.

March is pretty awful in Minnesota, if you ask me.  My Facebook newsfeed generally fills up with pictures of other people's crocuses coming up, while outside we are still in the dreary, sloppy, sometimes frigid grip of wintry weather.  

This year it's been Opposite Day for weeks; we had a two-week-long respite, with temperatures in the mid-fifties and sun, while my Facebook newsfeed filled up with East Coast friends' pictures of drifted snow and blizzards.

Me on Pi Day, probably a new record for earliest run around the lake with the jogging stroller.  I'd say earliest spring run but it was still technically winter.

 

So today I have got a great soup for you!  It's cold enough that a steaming bowl of soup and a hunk of bread is exactly what you want for dinner, but don't you want one with the promise of spring-green vegetables to come?  

 The protein here comes from red lentils -- please don't substitute another kind! -- and chickpeas, but it seems light rather than heavy; the burst of smoky flavor doesn't come from bacon or ham, but from smoked paprika, one of my favorite kitchen secrets.   It's light enough to be the "vegetables" that accompany a simple supper of plain baked chicken or fish and rice, and it can be made from start to finish after the chicken goes in the oven.  I had the leftovers for lunch today; the kids had pumpkin waffles, and I selected a particularly crisp one to dunk in my soup.

I only adapted this recipe VERY VERY slightly from this one at Once Upon a Chef.  

Smoky Chickpea, Red Lentil, and Vegetable Soup from Jennifer Segal at Once Upon A Chef

• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 finely chopped yellow onion
• 4 minced garlic cloves
• 1 large carrot diced small
• Heaping 1/4 tsp smoked paprika
• 3/4 tsp cumin
• 1 quart chicken stock
• 1 can diced tomatoes (14.5 oz), undrained
• 1/3 cup red lentils
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme
• 2 bay leaves, optional (I was out of these -- the soup was fine without them)
• 1 tsp salt
• Couple of grinds of black pepper
• 1 can (14.5 oz) chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• About 12 oz frozen vegetables:  green beans and peas, or one of those bags that has cut green beans, corn, carrots, and peas (that's what I used); or spinach.

Sauté the onions in olive oil until soft; add garlic, carrots, smoked paprika, and cumin and cook 2 minutes more.

Add broth, tomatoes, red lentils, thyme, bay leaves if using, salt, and pepper and bring to a boil.  Cover and simmer 10 minutes.

Add chickpeas, cover, and simmer 10 more minutes.

Remove bay leaves.  Use immersion blender to puree the soup about halfway -- leave some chunks!

Add remaining vegetables and simmer till hot.

Enjoy!

Fish on the way home: a repost from several years ago.

This is from 2008. If you have trouble with the link, try going to the original post.

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Here's the deal with fish at our house:

1. Some time ago I put my foot down and said, darn it, I'll cook fish once a week, but it has to be good fish. Fish from a reputable fish counter, where we can ask whether it's been frozen or not and when it was caught and whether it was wild-caught or farmed and whether it is being sustainably managed or not.


2. We shop on Saturday, but we want to eat fish on Friday. A day when my fridge and pantry is especially empty; a day too long past shopping day to keep fresh fish.


3. The cheap grocery store where we shop on Saturday doesn't carry especially good fish anyway.


4. Therefore, the plan is for Mark to pick up some fish on his way home from work on Friday, either at the co-op or at the expensive grocery store (motto: "Costs a lot more, but WE have baggers").


5. But! These places have different fish for sale each week! And at different, unpredictable prices! And you don't really know what you want to buy till you get there and are standing in front of actual fillets and steaks!


6. It's me, not Mark, who carries an extensive many-branched decision tree of recipes in my head. He is a smart guy; he knows that if he's coming home with fresh fish, buying a baguette, some salad greens, and a couple of lemons is a satisfactory solution. A safe solution. An engineering solution. Works for any fish. But if we're going to do this every week, we'll get bored with lemon fish/bread/salad.


7. Enter The Fish Buying Decision Tree. (Download fish_on_the_way_home.doc)

With this document, printed out, slipped in a page protector, and kept in the glove compartment or bike bag, Mark can bring home useful additional stuff that, with the fish, I can turn into dinner.

Caveats: The document is written for my family, not yours. The combinations are not guaranteed to please you. Also, it assumes the presence of certain pantry staples: canned broth, herbs and spices, soy sauce, wine, onions.

Finally, the document doesn't actually contain any recipes. If you want to try reconstructing them, try Google, possibly including the search term "Mark Bittman," who wrote the three cookbooks I drew on most heavily to construct the chart.

Of course, everyone should have a couple of fish recipes that rely on tinned fish for those days when stopping on the way home isn't practical. My quick one is a pasta salad with tuna, mint, tomatoes, and capers; the more involved one is fried salmon patties with succotash and pot greens.

 

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Spicy placebo.

Sick MrsDarwin posted her hot toddy recipe a few days ago in between coughs:

[MrsDarwin's] Hot Toddy

In a large cup, combine 1 spoonful honey, juice of ¼ lemon, 1 cinnamon stick, small dash tabasco (optional but recommended) and the tea bag of your choice. Stick 3 cloves into 1 small lemon wedge and add to the cup. Pour in a slug of bourbon, as much or as little as you like. Fill cup with boiling water, stir well and let steep 5 minutes. Savor slowly; repeat as necessary.

 

I confess I'm bemused by the combination of caffeine and booze, Irish coffee notwithstanding.  But hundreds of miles away, I have been coughing and sniffling and sipping my own concoction, the one I always go for when I have the latest creeping crud.  

I leave out the tea, because I want to sleep, and I leave out the alcohol, because it rarely makes me feel healthier.   The rest of it is borne out of a mix of vague theoretical herbalism (I heard that the allium family is supposed to have anti-viral properties, and isn't honey a natural cough suppressant?) and desire, after several days of my nose not working, to sip something -- anything -- that I can taste. 

I give you Erin's Spicy Placebo:

Into a mug place:  

• 2 slices lemon
• 1 slice orange
• Several thin slices of fresh ginger
• 1 fat clove of garlic, crushed with the flat of a knife
• 1-4 thin slices of fresh jalapeño chile

Pour boiling water over and steep for several minutes.  Stir in a generous dollop of honey and sip slowly, breathing in the pungent steam.

People generally look at my drink with alarm.  I have no idea whether the contents of the cup are, in fact, therapeutic.  I only know that they make me feel better, as the tingle of the chile penetrates my sinuses and the pleasant ginger-scented vapor settles my stomach.   This is good enough to keep me coming back to it time and time again.  

When I run out of lemons and oranges, I substitute a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar to keep the mixture tangy; I can't smell the citrus anyway, so one acid is probably as good as another.  If I close my eyes and picture lemons and oranges, I can almost fool myself.

If you happen to know for a fact that garlic's antiviral properties are exaggerated and that honey is no better than plain hot water at suppressing coughs, I only ask you to keep it to yourself.  This stuff is working for me, better than anything else this nursing mother wishes to take, and I would hate for anything to happen to the web of belief that keeps it that way.

Last night my father-in-law offered me a slug of brandy for my mug and I tipped just a little in.  It wasn't bad.  I haven't decided if I want to modify my recipe or not, but I do want to note something Mark told me he read once:  the more expensive that people believe a "medicine" to be, the more likely they are to experience the treatment as successful.  I suppose I might be willing to add some booze to my brew, but if so, I'd better be prepared to stick to the top shelf.

Apple pecan crisp, GF if necessary.

So, our Thanksgiving was spent with friends here in Minneapolis, one other family with four children roughly matched to our children's ages.  Although each family contains one person who is a pretty good cook if we do say so ourselves, neither one of us particularly wanted to roast a beast; so when he suggested that we order alambres al pastor from the local taqueria, open till 6 on Thanksgiving, and share homemade appetizers and desserts, we said "Olé!"

our friend's homemade guacamole and fresh tomatillo salsa

 

alambres al pastor ...  beast (porcine type) roasted on a spit, sliced thinly and broiled with onions and green peppers and bacon, served with tortillas 

 

fellow friends who also have no family living in the state, seated at my schoolroom table turned into a "grownups table"

 

I made the best apple crisp I have ever made, and Mark (who loves all fruit crisps) has declared it worthy of its own blog post.  The topping was filled with enough pecans so as to be practically praline.  I adapted it from this recipe at Once Upon A Chef, which I found by Googling "apple pecan crisp."  I doubled it to make two pans of crisp (the recipe below is for the original un-doubled recipe), toasted the nuts, and replaced the wheat flour with finely ground oats in order to accommodate our friend who lives with celiac sprue (and chooses to eat oats, which is somewhat controversial in the celiac community).  

The apples I used were about fifty percent Gold Rush apples given to us by Mark's dad, and fifty percent Granny Smith for tartness and structure.  Mixed apples make the best fillings, but you want to make sure that at least some of them are tart "baking" apples so you don't wind up with applesauce.

Apple Pecan Crisp (GF)

• 1 cup pecan pieces
• 3/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp old fashioned rolled oats (divided)*
• 1/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp light brown sugar, packed
• 1/2 cup plus 2 Tbsp granulated sugar (divided)
• Pinch salt
• 6 Tbsp very cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2" dice
• 2 and 1/2 pounds tart baking apples
• Cooking spray or butter for the pan

Preheat the oven to 350°F.  Generously grease a two-quart baking dish (a 12"x8"x2 oval or an 8"x8"2" square will work).

In a heavy dry skillet, toast the pecan pieces over medium heat until golden brown and fragrant, stirring constantly.  Do not allow to burn.  Transfer to a plate to cool.

Put 1/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp of the rolled oats in a food processor and process until ground to a coarse "flour."  Then add the brown sugar, the salt, and 1/4 cup of the granulated sugar and pulse till combined.  Add the butter and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse meal.  Transfer to a bowl and stir in the oats and pecans.  Set aside.  

(At this point the mixture can be refrigerated overnight and the recipe can be continued the next day, which is what I did to save time on Thanksgiving.)

Peel the apples, core them, and slice them 1/4" thick.  In a medium bowl, toss the apples with the remaining 6 Tbsp granulated sugar.  Transfer the apples to the prepared baking dish and cover with the oat topping. 

Bake in the middle of the preheated oven, uncovered, for 40-50 minutes or until the apples are bubbly and concentrated and the topping is toasted and brown.  (In my experience, you just have to keep checking until it looks right.)

Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

___

* If gluten is not a problem:  You can replace the first 1/4 cup plus two tablespoons of oats, ground in the food processor, with an equal volume of wheat flour, simply pulsed with the sugars and salt to combine.  That's what the original recipe called for.

Mardi Gras recipe hack: Bread Machine king cake.

Reposting from 2012.  (Original post is here)

+ + + 

Back just after Epiphany, I received this great email from a reader named Jenny:

I just wanted to let you know that I tried your faux cinnamon roll recipe... but not for cinnamon rolls. 

Down here in New Orleans, Epiphany heralds not so much the end of the Christmas season as the beginning of the Mardi Gras season. The famous parades don't really happen until a couple of weeks before Mardi Gras itself--but the balls and banquets begin on "Twelfth Night". An important (hee) part of this whole Mardi-Gras-season is, of course, King Cake. Every local bakery makes them--you can get them at coffee shops, grocery stores--just about anywhere, in this town, at this time of year.

King Cakes are usually a brioche made into a circle and decorated with icing and purple, green, and gold sugars (the "official" colors of Mardi Gras). I tried my hand at making one a few years ago, but I find brioche difficult to work with. And then I started having babies. And I stopped trying to get a handle on homemade brioche and started using a bread machine. 

But your bread-machine cinnamon roll recipe has saved me! It makes a delicious King Cake bread!

 I used your recipe...

[added by bearing:  here's what you put in the bread machine, taken from the link above]:

•    2 and 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
•    1 and 1/2 tsp bread machine yeast
•    1/2 tsp salt
•    1/2 tsp cinnamon (cardamon is also nice, as is chai spice)
•    3/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp milk (or you can use apple juice; omit the sugar)
•   3 Tbsp sugar
•   1 Tbsp coconut oil (or butter)
•   1/2 cup raisins or currants

 

....but when I took the dough out of the machine, I sort of stretched it into a long snake--which I then flattened out and dotted with small pats of butter and an additional sprinkling of cinnamon and white sugar down the center. I folded up each side to enclose the cinnamon/sugar/butter and then laid the whole thing in a ring on a baking sheet.

 [After the second rise of about 30 minutes, bake it at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes --- edited by bearing].

When it came out and had cooled a bit, I did a simple powdered sugar/milk/vanilla glaze and then added the colored sugars.

Everyone loved it. My husband, an actual New Orleans native, proclaimed it "the best King Cake he'd ever had", even after I'd accused him of just trying to get in good with the chef (ha).

Anyway, thanks for the recipe! The good/bad news is that now we've decided that since it is, in fact, better than store-bought King Cake, I am now assuming the role of Official King Cake Baker from now until Mardi Gras... 

I've attached some photos of the cake, in case you're interested.

Am I? Am I?

 

.

 

I almost feel bad about this because... this is a reasonably healthy recipe!  That's why I use it for an everyday, if fun-to-eat, breakfast bun.  It's made from 100% whole wheat flour, a little bit of coconut oil, milk (or apple juice if you want), and not even very much sugar.  No eggs even.  Heck, you can make this recipe vegan if you want!  Not exactly in the spirit of Mardi Gras!

It is possible to make non-faux cinnamon rolls in the bread machine, with a brioche-style dough, if you want a richer version (e.g. with eggs and milk and butter and not so much whole wheat flour).  But Jenny is right that brioche dough is harder to work with, so this may be a lower-stress version as well as a lower-sugar-buzz version.

Traditionally you're supposed to hide a trinket inside the cake, and the person who gets the trinket has some kind of obligation or wins a prize or is lucky or something like that.  Be careful not to choke on it!