Consider the vegetables of the field ...

I'm not a vegetarian in any way, shape, or form, but I think they're on to something. The vegetarians I know are all very healthy, certainly when compared to my sick-and-tired self. I like vegetables, if they're prepared well. Nothing turns my stomach faster than soggy overcooked spinach. Pasty canned peas are a no-go. Caprese salad with fresh mozzarella?  Give me all you've got. Greek salad with cucumbers and tomatoes? Yes, please.

Three of my cooking heroes have me thinking about vegetables. A few years ago, Mark Bittman introduced the concept of a “less-meatarian” in his book, “Food Matters .” Not vegetarian, just cutting back on the amount of meat you eat. Micheal Natkin, of Herbivoracious, has been kicking up amazing vegetarian fare for years. The awe inspiring Jose Andres has started focusing on vegetables with his new restaurants, hoping to popularize vegetables and make them the “new bacon.”

What's interesting to me, from a faith-based standpoint, is that it falls right in line with the Word of Wisdom. For those who don't know, the Word of Wisdom is the dietary and health commandments that Mormons believe were given to us by God. They're found in our modern scripture set, the Doctrine & Covenants. This is passage I'm thinking about:

Doctrine and Covenants 89:11 - 16
11 Every herb in the season thereof, and every fruit in the season thereof; all these to be used with prudence and thanksgiving.
12 Yea, flesh also of beasts and of the fowls of the air, I, the Lord, have ordained for the use of man with thanksgiving; nevertheless they are to be used sparingly;
13 And it is pleasing unto me that they should not be used, only in times of winter, or of cold, or famine.
14 All grain is ordained for the use of man and of beasts, to be the staff of life, not only for man but for the beasts of the field, and the fowls of heaven, and all wild animals that run or creep on the earth;
15 And these hath God made for the use of man only in times of famine and excess of hunger.
16 All grain is good for the food of man; as also the fruit of the vine; that which yieldeth fruit, whether in the ground or above the ground—

My daughter's are on-again-off-again vegetarians. The degree of their vegetarianism varies from hour to hour. My wife is an almost-carnivore. If she could just get by with Mountain Dew and roast beef with ranch dressing for the rest of her life, she would. My youngest is the pickiest, most unpredictable eater I've ever known. Her only constants are sugar and tofu. I'm an omnivore. I'll eat just about anything, as long as it tastes good.

Making dinner that we'll all eat is a challenge. My wife's not too difficult because she hates to cook. As long as I throw some meat her way from time to time, she won't bite me. With younger daughters I've learned to hope for the best while trying to contain my frustration. I spent two hours cooking this, and you won't even try it? Go make your own dinner, then. As for me, it has to taste good or I won't keep eating it. In fact, it's got to taste better than good. As Micheal Natkin might say, it's got to taste freaking delicious.

To that end, I've decided I want to learn to cook vegetables that are freaking delicious. My go-to source for learning to cook delicious food is Christopher Kimball and his staff at America's Test Kitchen. I've learned, over the years, that I can count on them to give me solid advice, solid recipes, and solid techniques. I don't like every recipe of theirs I've tried, but the vast majority are excellent. Some of I've modified to fit my own tastes and situation, but I know I'm not going to go completely wrong with them.

So, I bought their new vegetarian cookbook. A few of the recipes I've already made, getting them from other sources. There's so darned many more it was worth every penny, though. The first recipe convinced me I was right to buy to it, a summer vegetable gratin. Even my carnivorous wife enjoyed it. Their classic gazpacho was amazing, too. I still like the gazpacho recipe I've been using, I just have more variety, now. As I start to work my way through it, I'll be sharing my variations on them. Why? Because I know you, too, want to make and eat food that is healthy, and really freaking delicious.

New Year in the Tiny Kitchen

With the new year upon us, I wanted to update any of my readers that are still paying attention. Moving from a three bedroom house to a three bedroom apartment has been a challenge. Going back to college has put a damper on my blog output, as well, in case you didn't notice. Did you notice?  No? (whimper …)

 Self-pity aside, moving to a campus apartment has been an interesting challenge. We lost more than half our square footage, overall. I'd bet my kitchen lost half it's square footage and at least two-thirds of it's counter space. See that picture, up there on the right? That's extent of my built-in counter space, these days. The nice part is we still have quite a bit of cabinet space and room to put up a shelving unit on the wall, opposite the oven; that acts like our pantry.

A small kitchen doesn't mean we have to stop cooking good food. We've come up with a few solutions to increase our counter space and had to rethink the way we buy and store food, but it's working out pretty well so far. We brought an old aquarium stand with us that we turned into a table for the microwave, and we've stacked some of our flour, cereal, and sugar storage buckets in one corner. When not open, they provide temporary landings for bowls and such when I'm cooking, so that helps a bit.

For more counter space, we got a few sink cut-outs. These are the left over material when kitchen counter manufacturers cut a space out for of a new counter top to make room for the sink. You can often get them for pretty cheap from a cabinet shop or, if you're lucky, from a friend or family member who happens to be a finish carpenter. You could just buy some finished wood from a lumber yard or home improvement store, if you needed to, although I suspect it would be more expensive.

One sink cut-out sits on top of the microwave, turning that into counter space. We also have a larger one that we sometimes put on top the stove, to hold the dish strainer when we wash dishes and provide more space if needed. I just have to make sure I don't have the stove turned on at the same time.

 Speaking dishes, we have to do them completely by hand; we don't have a dishwasher anymore. Because of the limited counter space, it gets to be quite a mess if we don't keep up on them.

 Even though we've left a lot behind, I think things are going pretty well. We are all doing well in our respective schools and things are, mostly, settling in. One thing about going back to this school that appeals to my foodie nature is that it's an agricultural college. That means lots of college level food classes. Even though it's not part of my degree, the cheese making class has caught my attention.

I'll get back to my new years celebrations, now. You should, too. I made four different kinds of dip, including garlic-hummus and some bread sticks. I'll try to share the recipes later.

 Happy New Year and too all, good eating.

Leaving the Kitchen

To save money on gas, I’ve started riding the bus to work. Because it takes twice as long to get to and from work, now, my wife and kids have started to take over cooking supper.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

I know, I know. In almost every other Mormon household it’s expected that the ladies do the cookin’ while the men-folk work in the fields. That stereotype is a bunch of crock, by the way, historically as well as modernly, but we’ll go into that later. Maybe.

The point is they’re not used to it. From the day my wife and I got married I’ve done the bulk of the cooking and grocery shopping. She hates cooking and is frankly better at fixing most broken stuff around the house than I am, and it’s worked out pretty well for us so far.

Now I’m worried. Remember, my wife hates cooking. My kids know a little about it. My 11 year old has taken to it pretty well, but her repertoire is limited. When people don’t like to cook, they tend to rely on premade stuff. More expensive. Less tasty.

So far, it’s been okay. The only thing I’ve had to do is ask for more vegetables. “Yes, dear, I enjoyed the things you called “chicken enchiladas,” but it would have been nice to have something green to go with it.” My wife caved into my wishes by steaming some broccoli the next evening. I only hope that they will continue this trend of making things better and better as time goes on.

My other concern is grocery shopping. Out of necessity, I’ve gotten pretty adept at finding ways to lower our food budget. Some things are still worth paying more for, but other items are not. I’ve been teaching my daughters how to calculate a deal. They know how to compare cost per ounce, not just what seems to be the cost based on the sticker. “On Sale” doesn’t always mean a better deal. In fact, my local grocery store is notorious for putting things “on sale” for the regular price, right before they raise it. Because my daughters know how to check this, I’m not too worried about them. The trouble is that my wife is going to be doing most of the shopping. She hates grocery shopping as much as she hates cooking, maybe more. Consequently, she’ll go for convenience and expediency as much as checking the value and price. Case in point, the last time we went shopping she stocked the cart high and paid out about half again as much as I would have. I’m not saying we couldn’t use the things she bought. She just makes me nervous.

The real reason for all this concern is that, whether I like to admit it or not, I’m a control freak when it comes to the kitchen and pantry. At least I have been. The kitchen has been my domain for so many years; it’s hard to give up its daily control. Letting things go is good, though. Or so they tell me. It’s not like I won’t still be cooking on the weekends. I just have to get used to the idea that my kitchen is being occupied by a well meaning alien invasion force.

Making a Pinky Pie

Making food should be fun. Sometimes it’s not much fun, I’ll admit. Creating food that is fun to see, and eat, can be rewarding, though, even if making it presents a few problems.

One of our family’s traditions is that I make my kids a special birthday cake, decorated according to their interests and personality. For better or worse, my 20 year old son is a Brony. For those who don’t know, a Brony is an adult fan of the My Little Pony show. Yes, Virginia, my son watches a show  designed for little girls. He’s not alone. There are plenty of adults from all walks of life that love that show. With that in mind, I had to figure out how to make the Boy a My Little Pony themed birthday cake.

The Boy is not a huge cake fan. Neither is his younger sister. His favorite My Little Pony character is named Pinky Pie. In a state of punnific inspiration, I threw out the cake idea and make him a birthday pie, instead.

I didn’t have a lot of time with this one so, I did the only thing a sensible person would do. I turned to the baking shelves in the grocery store and bought a cheese cake mix, adding a bit of red food coloring to make it pink.

Next came the pattern. I’d found a Pinky Pie t-shirt for sale on the web, and downloaded a picture of it, copying the stylized portrait of that particular little pony onto a sheet of paper to make a pattern for the top of the cake.

Fortune smiled on me in the form of left-over fondant in the freezer. I mixed more red food coloring with some of it to fashion the mane, and left the rest white for the eyes. For the iris, I mixed up some blue food coloring with granulated sugar and sprinkled it on top. The rest was a combination of red and black decorating gel.

A word of warning about decorating gel. Don’t apply it until just before serving. It will separate and seep a colored sugar-water over the rest of your project if you let it sit very long. Blech.

I’m not going to kid you. It was fun, but it was a pain. I had trouble with the pattern. It stuck to the top of the cheesecake when I was trying to transfer the outline. The fondant kept getting way to warm to handle way too quickly and didn’t want to behave, especially for the mane. The blue sugar didn’t want to lay down where I wanted it to. (In retrospect, I should have made the irises from blue fondant). I had to make it a day prior to my son coming for a visit, due to scheduling problems, and so I was mopping up red and black seepage from the gel before showing it to him. ARRRRGGGG!

The work was worth it, though, at least in retrospect. It really was fun to present, and eat. My wife and daughters were impressed. My son was ecstatic. How could he not be? I’d make him a Pinky Pie for his birthday.

Juice of the Gods

Sorry, true believers. I’m not talking about chocolate.

A few months ago I came across a movie, “Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead.” This described me pretty well so I decided to watch it. Here was a guy from Australia, with a rare auto-immune disorder, documenting a two month juice fast. He talked about the science behind it, why he needed it, and showed his results. Starting out rather chubby, he ended up looking really good by the end of the movie. I was intrigued.

About halfway through, he encountered a guy about twice his size at a truck stop who had the same auto-immune disorder he was suffering from. This guy was bigger than me. These days, that’s saying something. He had a tough time at first, but in the end he was looking trim, fit, and happy. I was impressed. Eventually, I got my wife to watch it with me and we decided to try it, sort of.

Researching various juice fast sites and plans, we settled on a compromise plan. Instead of just having juice and water all day, this one lets us eat dinner with our kids. I’m a firm believer in the benefits of eating dinner at the table with your family, regularly. I didn’t want to miss that if I didn’t have to.

This plan recommends only vegetables for dinner. That’s not going to happen. I might inflict weird dietary rules on myself, but I’m not going to force my family to follow me. I’m also not going to sit at the table with a glass of juice while the rest of my family is

After three days I’ve not lost much weight, but weird things are happening. For starters, my daily diet cola has lost is savor. Most soda has, actually. I don’t feel as well when I drink them and I actually get a headache. I tried eating tater tots one night and I felt like I had a lump of clay in my gut. No more tater tots. Yuck.

Overall my desire for certain kinds of food is waning. I find myself more interested in vegetables than other kinds of food, now. I think this is a good thing. It’s made me more willing to buy a wider variety of vegetables, even those that seem more expensive.

Which brings me to my next point: the finances of it are interesting. Juicing all day isn’t all that cheap, but it’s not actually that expensive (unless you go completely organic). It’s made me realize that vegetables aren’t as expensive as some of them seem. Those that seem expensive, like kale, beets, parsnips or leeks, are certainly more money than lettuce and celery, but not really any more than other kinds of foods we were buying. Certainly they’re less expensive, and better for you, than most process foods.

I’ve dedicated myself to trying this for at least 5 days. After that, we’ll see. With only two days to go, I’m suspicious I will continue for a while longer. Even if I don’t continue with the juice fast, though, juicing in general has become part of my life. More vegetables and legumes will be hitting my table. Pigs and cows everywhere will rejoice. Vegetables are fruit will live in fear. The Mormon Foodie has shifted his palette.

Canned Soup: The Real Story

As a foodie I would never admit to ever making canned soup. That would be a blasphemous affair just short of the sort of things you have to confess to your Bishop to fully repent of. Fortunately, the Atonement makes any times I may have accidentally opened up a soup can and heated up the contents, with the intent to consume, something I don’t have to admit to.

According to Doctrine and Covenants, Section 58:42, “Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more.” If the Lord isn’t going to remember them, I’m certainly not going to bring them up.

With that in mind, I want to reveal to you the real directions for making canned soup. These have been gleaned from countless experiences doing so. By other people. Don’t ask is they were my experiences. Then I’d have to repent for lying.

Directions:

1. Laugh at the directions on the can. Openly mock those involving a stove while merely ignoring those describing the microwave.
2. Open the can by either using a can opener or pulling sharply up on the pull tab. If using a pull tab, use colorful language as the pull tab breaks before the lid comes off. Attempt to pull the lid off using a multitude of inappropriate kitchen tools before giving up and just grabbing the darned thing
3. Immediately slice open thumb on lid. Curse more while cleaning and bandaging the wound. Ignore the blood in the soup. Throw the lid forcibly into the garbage can to punish it for what it’s done.
4. Dump the contents of the can into a microwave safe (meh) bowl. Loose appetite while looking at the congealed mess that bears little to no resemblance to soup. Add water, as desired, to thin the mess down. Never use more than half of the recommended amount.
5. Microwave on high until it reaches the temperature of molten lava and burns to the sides of the bowl.
6. Remove from the microwave and eat directly from the bowl, trying to avoid burning yourself until it cools, but failing.
7. Ignore the mess left in the microwave from the exploding soup and let someone else clean it up.

Making Hal 9000 – Part 5: It’s Full of Stars

Read part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4 of the Hal 9000 Cake Project

Now that the base cake was done and the difficult, if somewhat lacking, candy eye were completed, it was time to add the details and finish the cake.

First, I needed to add a grill texture to the bottom of the cake to simulate Hal’s speaker grill. I put the frosted cake back in the freezer, saying another “thank you” to my wife for that tip, and let the frosting harden up a bit. Removing it from the freezer, I took my chef’s knife and make very shallow cuts in the frosting, horizontal and vertical, creating a passable speaker grid.

Next, I shaped a piece of blue colored fondant for the name label at the top and put the candy eye in place. I used white cake gel to add the trim and write HAL 9000, as well as cover up the seam around Hal’s eye.

I’ve decided I don’t like cake gel for these kinds of things. It was too gooey and didn’t give me great results. I had already resigned myself to getting whatever I got with this cake, though. The mission was finished. It’s degree of success had yet to be measured.

I don’t know if the result was worth all the trouble or not. The cake impressed my wife and kids, even if it wasn’t exactly what I’d had in mind. I did learn a few things along the way. I keep telling myself, “Next time, I’ll know this and can try that,” but I’m not sure they’re be a next time. Not with Hal, anyway.

Maybe I can make candy lightsabers. Hmmm …

Making Hal 9000 – Part 4: I’m Afraid I Can’t Do That, Dave

Read part 1, part 2, and part 3 of the Hal 9000 Cake Project

Then next problem in the mission came from the cake, itself. Or, rather, from it’s covering.

Black fondant would have given me a smoother finish, but I don’t like to completely cover cakes in fondant. I don’t like eating that much fondant in one sitting. I prefer butter cream frosting so, I settled on chocolate frosting and a brown Hal.

I cut the cooled cake in half, placed one half on top the other, and glued them together with frosting. I next trimmed the sides to get the correct dimensions and a smoother edge. So far so good. The trouble was, the frosting wouldn’t stick. Or rather, it stuck too much. The crumb of the cake was so tender that whenever I tried to spread it over a trimmed side, it would tear the cake apart. It didn’t matter how much I whipped and mixed and soften the frosting, every stroke with the knife tore piece after piece of cake away from my beautiful rectangle.

Unlike David Bowman, my shipmates weren’t dead. My wife knows that when she sees me sitting at the table with my head in my hands and swearing, it’s a pretty clear sign that something is wrong. Responding to my distress call, she came over, assessed the situation, and suggested I put the cake in the freezer for a little while.

My wife has taken one more cake decorating classes than I have. That’s not hard to do, considering I’ve never taken any. The point is, she knows of what she speaks. She just doesn’t like the actual work involved in decorating cakes, so doesn’t do it very often She happy to let me be the glutton for punishment that I am.

The freezer trick worked wonders. Unfortunately, I had to make a run to the store to pick up more supplies. I ran out of chocolate frosting 3/4’s of the way through.

Things were looking up, though. I had the frosted cake, and a defective candy eye. The rest was just details.

Making Hal 9000 – Part 3: Open the Pod Bay Doors, Hal.

Read Part 1 and Part 2 of the Hal 9000 Cake Project

As you can see in the picture, the set up on the scoops isn’t very solid. I needed a way to make them as level as possible while the candy cooled and hardened, so I put them on top of two bowls. As I stuck the red eye into the candy goo from the second batch, the scoop tipped, pouring molten candy over my cupboard. Speaking in tongues, I worked as fast as I could to pour more candy in the scoop and move the red light piece back to the center without burning myself. This worked great until pushing things around upended the ice cream scoop, dumping more candy.

The third time was not the charm. This time I tipped it over trying to clean up the candy that had spilled. It was like a little kid. Get something clean just in time for the kid to make another mess.

Finally I got things settled, with the red light buried much deeper than I’d hoped. By that time I was tired of it, though. Sometimes projects aren’t finished so much as they are abandoned. I would live with whatever the result was, or trash the candy eye altogether. Hal would not get the best of me any more than he did David Bowmen.

If that had been the only problem, I might not have lost my mind.

Making Hal 9000 – Part 2: Would You Like to Play a Game of Chess?

Read Part 1 of the Hal 9000 Cake Project.

The tricky part was going to be Hal’s eye. I knew that, going in. The plan was to make a clear candy shell for the outside, and a red tinted shell for the glowing center. I hunted around town a bit and found two ice cream scoops that I thought would work for molds. Next, I found a couple of recipes for “stained-glass candy” and counted myself set.

The first batch of candy worked pretty well. I poured the outer layer of Hal’s eye first, then tinted the candy red and poured the “red light” piece. Unfortunately, the candy didn’t behave as I had hoped. It had caramelized slightly, giving the clear candy a yellow-tan tint instead of being crystal clear. I also had trouble making it a shell. I couldn’t pour the inner candy out of the mold, and still have it stick enough to the sides, to make a shell. I was stuck with two solid pieces, each half of two different spheres.

Like any good astronaut, I had a back-up plan, using only colored fondant to make a 2-D version of Hal’s eye. In the end I decided that wasn’t good enough. I would try again with another recipe that would give me better results.

I didn’t find one.

In the end, I settled on embedding the “red light” I had made in the first batch into the outer clear shell of the second batch. This is where the real nightmare began ...

Making Hal 9000 – Part 1: A Cake Odyssey

January 12th is the birthday of HAL 9000, the computer installed in the Discovery spaceship from 2001: a Space Odyssey. Why anyone but a die-hard science-fiction fan-boy would care is beyond me. Being a die-hard science-fiction fan-boy, I decided to celebrate Hal’s birthday by making a Hal cake and watching 2001 with my kids. They were happy to do it. They're suckers for chocolate cake.

I was nervous going into the project, although I knew I could do the main body pretty easily. The iconic face of Hal is just a long rectangle, after all. It was the eye that bothered me. That glowing, red, menacing computer eye! I had three goals in mind. It had to be 3-dimensional, recognizable and above all, edible.

Cue “The Blue Danube”

I started by making a single-layer chocolate cake in a 13 inch by 9 inch cake pan. I bought a commercial cake mix, knowing I had quite a bit of work cut out for me with the decorating. This was going to have to take place over a couple of week nights, and I wouldn't have that much time in the evening.

The cake was baked the first night, and then cut and shaped the next. I cut the full cake in half, setting one half on top of the other, and trimmed it to make the sides and top even. So far so good. The second night, I would make Hal’s eye.

Little did I know, this part of the project might prove to be as doomed as the Discovery mission.

To be continued ...

Favorite Holiday Cookies

When it comes to Christmas food, cookies rank high on the list of staples. All kinds of cookies. For us, they're synonymous with Christmas. I always try to make at least one cookie recipe I've never tried before. If you got some suggestions, I'm all ears.

In order to help get us into the Christmas cookie spirit, here are links to my favorite holiday cookie recipes.

Five-Spice Cookies
Icebox Sugar Cookies with Variations in Flavor and Variations in Style
Orange-Spice Sugar Cookies
Tangerine Dainties

Family Food History

How many of you have a family cookbook? It occurred to me this might be a good idea. Sure, I’ve got the recipes I like up on the blog, and a dozen or more cookbooks on my shelves, but there’s no central place the find all the recipes my family likes to eat. If we had a family cookbook, it would be easier for my wife and kids to make the things we like, without trying to hunt down the recipes in a dozen cookbooks or the internet.

I also have a collection of the recipes used by three generations of home cooks: my mother, her mother, and her mother’s mother. A great treasure, I know. Right now they’re scattered between several index cards, old newspaper and magazine clippings. Wouldn’t it be great if they were included in the family cookbook, along with my own recipes, as well as the modifications I’ve made to some of their recipes? Can you imagine it? Four generations of home cook’s experience in one binder. It boggles my mind.

With that boggled mind, I started compiling these recipes into a book. It’s been slow going. To make it easier I’ve been using some cookbook software, but I’ve got a very old copy that will need to be replaced sometime soon. I settled on a few categories that made sense for me:

• Appetizers
• Salads and Dressings
• Sandwiches
• Soups and Stews
• Vegetables
• Rice, Grains and Beans
• Pasta and Pizza
• Eggs and Breakfast
• Fish
• Meat
• Poultry
• Breads
• Desserts

Next, I got a large 3-ring binder and created divider cards for each category.

The next, ongoing, step is going through my blog archives and the recipes from my ancestors, entering them one at a time into my cookbook software. The software allows me to insert pictures, so I’ve been doing that where I could, as well. As I add them, I print them and put them in the notebook. To help get the rest of the family involved, I asked my oldest daughter, a growing talent in graphic arts, to design the cover.

I’m both excited and daunted by the project. It’s a kind of “family food history,” a genealogy of familial food. When I finish it, I’m planning on making a gift of it to my siblings and other relatives. I hope they like it, but it's a long way off.

How do you organize your family’s recipes?

Food Joke Friday – Stressful Dieter

Those of us watching our weight, and hoping that we aren't just watching it grow, may have a common interruption to our diet plan: stress. Usually, stress comes from work, children, or spouses, but there are other known causes. In any case, I've decided to pull back the curtain and reveal the typical stressed out dieter's daily meal plan.

Breakfast
3/4 cup cooked oatmeal with cinnamon and 1 tsp Stevia based sweetener
1/2 grapefruit
8 oz. skim milk

Lunch
4 oz., lean broiled chicken breast
1 cup raw green lettuce salad
1 teaspoon “light” vinaigrette dressing
1 cup herbal tea, Stevia sweetener optional
1 Oreo cookie

Then STRESS happens.

Mid-Afternoon Snack
The rest of the Oreos in the package
1 pint of Chocolate Cookie Dough ice cream
1 jar hot fudge sauce
2 cans diet soda

Dinner
1 large loaf buttery garlic bread
2 liters diet cola
1 large supreme pizza
3 candy bars

Late Evening Snack(s)
1 pint of Rocky Road ice cream
1 complete Sarah Lee Frozen cheesecake, eaten directly from the freezer
1 bag potato chips
1 tub sour cream based Ranch dip
1 can diet soda
1 serving of guilt topped with a resolution to do better tomorrow.

Rinse and repeat.

What's in Your Disaster Preparedness Kit?

Following news of the disaster in Japan, each breaking development more troubling than the last, the number of people that are cut off from food, clean water, or adequate shoulder, is growing. In Utah, we have been given warnings for several years that a major earthquake is on its way. Unfortunately, many of us are not prepared for disaster.

While we may not be able to do much sent donate money towards the relief efforts in Japan, we can prepare ourselves and our own families for possible disaster. Just a few simple steps to and be taken to ensure a basic level of preparedness. According to FEMA's Ready.gov website, good idea to have a basic disaster preparedness kit at home, in your car, and even in your office. Looking at a recent disasters, is not hard to see that food and water becomes scarce very quickly.

Items to include in a basic emergency supply kit:

• Water, 1 gallon per person per day for three days. This one will be used for drinking, cooking and sanitation. Water purification tablets, or some other water purification systerm, is also recommended.
• Food, at least three days worth. Canned foods, dry goods, or any properly stored non – perishable food items are needed. Some companies still emergency food supply kits that can make purchasing them easy.
• Battery powered or hand crank radio. Get one that will tune in to the NOAA weather station. News of where to go in case of an evacuation of other important information will be broadcast from there.
• Battery powered or hand crank flashlight. An LED headlamp may also be a good idea to keep your hands free during an emergency.
• Extra batteries and/or a solar charger.
• First aid kit. Include any prescriptions you can't do without.
• He reflective emergency blanket. Made of mylar, lightweight plastic sheets reflect radiant body heat back to you.
• A whistle. These can be used as signals to call for help if you are trapped.
• Dust mask, to help filter contaminated air.
• Plastic sheeting and duct tape to create a makeshift shelter or patch holes in an existing shelter.
• Moist towelettes, plastic garbage bags, feminine hygiene items, and plastic ties for help with personal sanitation.
• Basic toolkit loading a wrench or pliers turn off utilities.
• Can opener. Vital if your kit contains canned food.
• Local maps, case you need to take unfamiliar roads during an evacuation.
• Include a cell phone with chargers, power inverter, or solar charger.

You may also want to consider packing:

• A change of clothes. Think in layers to prepare for all kinds of weather.
• Boots or shoes that will protect your feet and dangerous conditions.
• Copies of important documents such as, passport, assurance documents, and contact list.
• Camping items such as sleeping bags, tents, waterproof matches, candles, and a mess kit.
• Food and water for your pets.
• A fire extinguisher.
• Emergency flares, especially if you keep the emergency preparedness kit in your vehicle.
• Books, blank paper and pencils, crayons, and anything else you can think of that will serve as age appropriate entertainment that doesn't require electricity.

Putting together your own emergency preparedness kit can bring peace of mind as well as needed supplies.

Photo credit: Ics9

Food Blogging at a Snails Pace

Hello gentle readers! As much as I'd like to give you a treatise on slow food, today it's more about slow food blogging. I just want to apologize in advance if my post frequency slows down and becomes even more erratic than normal. I've been diagnosed with carpel tunnel syndrome in my right wrist. Typing much without aggravating it is a bit rough, not to mention keeping my wrist brace off the keyboard. Fortunately I'm left handed so I'm not completely down for the count.

Hmm. Maybe I should pick up some speech recognition software.

Saving Dinner

How many times have you gotten started making dinner and then discovered you were missing a key ingredient? I'm sure there are plenty of us out there that have had that problem.

No? So, it is just me after all.

As stressful as a sudden cooking challenge can be, it can also be an opportunity to test your cooking skills.

This last weekend, I'd planned to make a vegetarian dinner of cornbread stuffed acorn squash, garlic mashed potatoes, and a green side salad. No problem. It was the weekend and there were no other plans. I had all day to work on dinner. I could prep some things early and then finishing up dinner would be a snap.

The first part of the plan was executed flawlessly. I composed a quick salad of fresh green lettuce, cucumber, and sweet bell peppers. The mashed potatoes and stuffing both came from a box.

Hey, I'm a foodie, not some over-zealous gourmand. Even I don't cook everything from scratch.

The acorn squash would take about an hour or so to prepare so, I stowed everything in the refrigerator for later. Thinking myself safe, I headed off to play Tomb Raider Anniversary on the Wii until I was needed back in the kitchen. I needed a bit of jumping and running and grabbing and flipping and shooting for a few hours.

Well, I was actually just pushing buttons and waving the controllers around like an idiot, but it still looked cool on the TV screen.

Once it got closer to dinner time, I sent one of my house elves, a.k.a. my nine year old daughter, down to the pantry to retrieve the acorn squash. We’d had the squash for a little while but, winter squash keeps pretty well so we should be fine, right?

Not on your life. After cutting into them I realized they’d deteriorated to the point where they had nearly as much skin as flesh. They had  an odd odor as well. Not bad, really, just not right. Being the paranoid food-safety conscious twit that I am, and not wanting to eat, let alone serve, bad tasting crap food, I threw them out.

Now what? I had a starch dish (potatoes) and a veggie dish (green salad), but no main dish to throw the other starchy bits (the stuffing) into. No focus for the meal. That’s just boring.

Boring dinner? Not in my house, Mister.

Whenever I’m in a lurch for ideas, I consult my true blue kitchen friends, my cook books. Even if I don’t find an immediate solution, at least they give me ideas.

Okay, what else did I have in the fridge? Maybe some protein. Ham? Eggs? Onions? More green peppers? They were possibilities, but what should I do with the stuffing?

Flipping back to my mainstay cookbook, inspiration struck. I decided to make a perverse version of a quiche using the cornbread stuffing as the crust. The eggs should hold it together, nicely. I might have made stuffed green peppers but I didn't have enough of them.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure how it would come out. I decided to make it in a spring-form pan to help make presentation a little more interesting. I wanted a perverted quiche, not a perverted casserole.

I do wish I’d greased the bottom of the pan better, though. The stuffing stuck fast to it. Fortunately I was able to cut it away with a long slicing knife after I removed the sides of the pan.

I wish I could say I’d better planned this dish because it turned out to be quite a hit. Only my six year old, who won’t eat much except macaroni and cheese and peanut butter sandwiches anyway, didn’t have seconds.

Unexpected cooking challenges will happen from time to time, no matter how well you plan out your meals. They don’t have to be tragedies, thank goodness. Instead, they can be opportunities to improvise new dishes. Sometimes those dishes will be terrible and only fit for the garbage can. Other times, they can turn out to be new family recipes that may just become a staple in your cooking repertoire.

Now if I could just remember how much of what ingredient I put in that darned thing, then I could share it with you.

Illustration credit: Yarik Mishin

Provo Gurls (Off Topic)

Okay, I know this isn't food related, but it still made me smile. I just think it's fun when Mormon's embrace the stereotypes and then make fun of themselves with them. This is BYU's sketch comedy group, Divine Comedy, doing a parody of Katy Perry's "California Gurls"

Mormon Coffee

This guest post comes from my friend, and fellow food blogger, Mark Hansen.

We Mormons often refer to ourselves by the scripture that calls believers a “peculiar people”.  We are that, indeed.  One of our quirks that makes a lot of other people scratch their heads is our “Word of Wisdom”, particularly the part that prohibits drinking tea and coffee.

Over the years, there’s been much debate over the interpretation of this injunction, which we call the “Word of Wisdom”, but nonetheless, it remains, and the faithful follow it, often not fully aware of why.

That discussion is not where I’m going with this, trust me.

Because, here, in our food blogs, we’re not about theological debates.  We’re all about food.  And this particular letter of our law has led many of us to partake in alternatives.  For example, rather than drinking traditional teas, many of us will often indulge in herbal teas, mints, lemons, etc...

…And it has also earned a wink and a nod to the product known as Pero, or in some circles, “Mormon Coffee”.  It’s made simply from four ingredients: malted barley, barley, chicory and rye.  It’s a powder, and you mix it with boiling water.  I, myself, like it with a bit of honey.  I also like it made with milk, but I think I like it better with just honey.

Well, today, I thought it would be fun to try some twists, just for fun.  All of these were mixed just as the directions said, but with a bit of honey added to taste.  I experimented a little, and tried various amounts and combinations.  I came up with four that both my son and I really liked.

Spice Pero

This one was the first one I tried, and it took me three attempts to hit amounts that I liked.  I started with, as the instructions on the carton state, a heaping tablespoon of Pero powder in my cup.  To that, I added a little more than a quarter teaspoon of cinnamon, and a little less than a quarter teaspoon of nutmeg.  I boiled up some water and poured it in.  I added the honey last of all.

I found that stirring it for a longer time really helped the flavors to settle in.  This one was interesting, and complex.  The sweet would hit me first, and then the richness of the dark Pero.  Finally, the zing of the cinnamon would dance in.  The final result was tasty and unique.

Pero with a Punch

This one took a couple of tries, too, because the first one was way too hot!  Again, I put the heaping spoonful in the cup, and then shook in a short sprinkle of cayenne powder.  In went the water and then the honey.  I really liked this one.  It had edge.

Peppermint Pero

I wasn’t sure how to get the mint into the drink.  My first thought was to use a mint tea bag, but I didn’t have one of those.  But, I did manage to find a peppermint candy!  We ground that up with the back of a spoon and dropped it in the cup with the Pero powder.  The fact that it was candy added some sweet to it, and the aftertaste of the mint really shone through.  I still did add some honey, as well.  My son and I both thought this was our favorite.

Some Final Hints

Don’t just heat the water, boil it.  If it’s not that hot, it won’t dissolve all of the powders, and steep the spices.  Also, the longer you let it sit, stirring, steeping, and cooling, before you drink, the more settled in the flavors get.  Often, by the end of the cup, it tasted its richest.

I sure had a lot of fun trying these out, and found some flavors that I’m sure to keep using all through the long cold winter.

Thanks for the great tips Mark! I like to sweeten my Pero creole style, with a little molasses. It's also great sprinkled over vanilla or chocolate ice cream. I don't think Pero tastes like coffee, but it does have the same toasty appeal, without the caffeine.


Mark dishes on dishes in dutch ovens at Mark's Black Pot and on Mormon life at Mo' Boy.

Weekly Meal Planning Part 2 – Bagging Dinner

After introducing you to the idea of creating meal bags as part of our weekly meal planning, it's time to get down to actually putting the meals together. Now that the plan is made, each day's recipes have been printed, and the needed groceries acquired, its time to assemble each day's meal bag.

Start With the Bags

We started by getting nine moderately sized gift bags, one for each day plus two extra. We needed the extra bags because we're doing the prep on Saturday morning, but we're planning from Monday to Sunday. That way we've got enough for the overlapping days. We also got a box of sandwich bags and a box of gallon sized freezer bags.

First, we took seven freezer bags and marked them with a number, 1-7, to correspond with the numbers we wrote on the printed recipes. We made two number 6's and two number 7's, because they are the extra days. You can number the gift bags, too, although we don't. You'll see why you don't need to, as we go along.

Prepping According to Plan

When assembling the meal bag, take the a gift bag and corresponding freezer bag and set them aside. I put the freezer bag on the counter and the gift bag on the kitchen table for easy access. Next, grab the recipe that goes along with those bags. For example, Monday is day #1 for us so, to prep for Monday I would grab the printed recipes and bags that all have #1 printed on them.

Look at the printed recipes for that day and see what ingredients need to be refrigerated and which ones don't. Ingredients that need refrigeration are going to in the freezer bag. Those that don't need to be refrigerated will end up in the gift bag.

The goal is to make cooking easier and faster the day you are cooking it. We're deferring the prep time from the day we cook to the day we prep. Figure out how much measuring and prep work you can do ahead of time, and what will just have to wait. For dry ingredients, once you measure and prep an ingredient, it can go into a sandwich bag, and then into either the gift bag or the numbered freezer bag. By putting it into a cheap sandwich bag, first, you can reuse the numbered freezer bags without having to wash them each time. We want to make things easy, not fill up the local landfill single-handed.

Also look and see which ingredients are used at the same time in the recipe. Those that can be stored in the same bag. For example, if you're adding a bunch of herbs and spices in the same step, those herbs and spices can all be combined in the same sandwich bag.


Preparing the Ingredients

Prep the ingredients the best you can. For example, chopping or grating vegetables before hand, putting them in sandwich bags, and then in the freezer bags. Canned goods, that closely match the amount you need for the recipe, can just be put in the gift bag. You don't need to open the cans. Any amount that you don't need can be refrigerated for use, later, the day you cook that meal.

Liquid ingredients aren't going to fit in a bag very well. I worry the sandwich bags will leak. In those cases you can just leave those ingredients for the day you cook, or put them in some other container. We've started experimenting with prepping sauces and dressings and putting them in small jars or used and washed cottage cheese cartons in the refrigerator. I'll put a piece of masking tape with the number of the day on them, just like the bags. So far I've not found a case where I needed to use more than one per meal.

Some cooking could be done on the prep day, if want. Be careful about that, though. Most food doesn't last as long in the refrigerator after it is cooked. Where possible, I try and avoid freezing anything that needs to be cooked that week. I don't want to spend time defrosting it the day I'm cooking, or remember to take it out of the freezer the day before.

Storing the Meal Bags

Once the prep is done, and the ingredients are sorted, put the printed recipes for that meal in the gift bag. The gift bag can then go to the pantry and the freezer bag put in the refrigerator, until needed.

That's it! When the evening meal comes long, just get the appropriate bag and follow the directions in the printed recipe. Much of the prep work has already been done so, it won't take as long to put together. If you've done the prep right, you know you've got everything to make that meal because it's already in one of the bags.

We've been doing the “meal bag” thing for about 3 weeks now, and so far it's worked out pretty well. The only downside are those days when I feel like experimenting in the kitchen. I'm not as spontaneous with ingredients as I used to be. In fact, I kind of have to “plan” my cooking experiments more than I used to. There's something to be said for being able to look at the available ingredients and put something tasty together.

Still, I think the meal bags are working out better overall. There's less stress of “what to make,” or “I'd like to make THIS tonight. Do we have the ingredients?” We know we do because it's all in the bag. As a side effect, I think it's helping us to rotate our food storage better and control our weekly grocery costs. We not as eager to rush out and buy something from the grocery store on a whim if we've already got it on hand. Last week we planned meals that only used ingredients from our food storage, so we didn't have to go grocery shopping at all. I don't want to that every week, mind you, but it was comforting to know we could.

Photo credit: Maira Kouvara