Strawberry Season / Growing Boys

Today officially marks the opening day of our favorite local berry patch.

We recently stumbled across a local grower of strawberries, raspberries, peaches, apples and pumpkins. We visited there for the first time last summer just in time for raspberry season. Today they are opening for strawberry season. Hopefully we can visit there next weekend for some fresh local berries.

In the mean time I ran across a pretty good sale at the local grocery on strawberries. They were from California, which is half the country away, but they looked good and the price on 4 whole pounds was pretty good. I thought I was probably overdoing it by buying so much, but these growing boys went through them in no time at all. I bought another 4 pounder about a week later, and those too are gone.

Our oldest son is now 5 1/2 and our youngest is 2 1/2. We have managed pretty well on not noticing their food intake very much, but all of a sudden they are eating supper and then following that with bowls of cereal. They are looking for snacks left and right, eating lots of apples and pears, string cheese, yogurt and more cereal. I suddenly realized that our grocery bill is probably going to take on a whole new meaning with these two boys!

So, local strawberry patch -- here we come! Hopefully that will sustain these two guys a little bit.

A Rainbow of Motivation

Now that I'm no longer eating for two; and after enjoying all the pasta dishes and freshly baked pastries that kind friends and family brought us to help celebrate our new baby - my husband and I are gearing up for a major food and meal evaluation and overhaul. We have come to the end of the road. Again.

We are going to try to cut out all refined carbs for at least two weeks and then slowly add some healthy complex carbs after that. We've done this before and always feel so much better after we get through those first couple days and weeks. If I can sort of detox from all the sugar then I don't seem to crave it as much after that.

Fortunately we are entering into a great time of the year to eat healthy food. The farmers markets are starting back up and although we didn't get a CSA subscription this year, there is tons of great local food around. In preparation for our big start early next week I have been stocking up on the fresh (not yet local) veggies. I love to snack on fresh peppers. Sometimes with hummus or Ranch, but always great straight out of the fridge. For some reason they always taste better if there is more than one color. And if I can snack on four colors in one snack, even better!

Hopefully, by being a bit more mindful about our food and once again giving a little thought to what we are eating will help us feel better and have a bit more energy and positive outlooks with our active family. The first couple weeks without all the sugar might bring a little crankiness, but hopefully be worth it.

Best Chocolate Chip Cookies!

I'm not the cook in our family. When my husband and I were first married I tried to cook. It was very frustrating to me. The ideas were easy to come by, but the timing of it all seemed to get me. Don't get me wrong, I'm familiar with all the techniques and reading recipes. Occasionally I venture into the kitchen to bake some muffins or something fancy like an apple tart. I'm good at making eggs and grilled cheese sandwiches. I can make some pretty good soups too if I set my mind to it. But I feel like all the mental focus it takes doesn't make the end product worth it. I'm pretty certain that if I was left to my own devices I would eat more salads and peanut butter sandwiches.

My husband on the other hand seems to make cooking look so easy. He makes some incredible food, just on a daily basis. His latest claim to fame is making the best chocolate cookies ever!

Our son requests them as his treat to take to preschool. If I'm home when my husband is making these, they are the absolute best when they first come out of the oven.

He found the recipe on epicurious.com. They are perfect!

Yield: Makes about 28 large (4 1/2-inch) cookies
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (16 ounces)
Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 375°F. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment or wax paper.
Whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl.
Beat together butter and sugars in a large bowl with an electric mixer at high speed until pale and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Lightly beat 1 egg with a fork in a small bowl and add 1 3/4 tablespoons of it plus 2 remaining whole eggs to butter mixture, beating with mixer until creamy, about 1 minute. Beat in vanilla. Reduce speed to low and mix in flour mixture until just blended, then stir in chips.
Scoop 1/4 cup batter for each cookie, arranging mounds 3 inches apart, on 2 baking sheets. Flatten mounds into 3-inch rounds using moistened palm of your hand. Form remaining cookies on additional sheets of parchment.
Bake, 1 sheet at a time, until golden, 13 to 15 minutes. Transfer cookies to a rack to cool and continue making cookies in same manner using cooled baking sheets.

Cooks' note: Cooled cookies keep in an airtight container at room temperature 3 days.

Raspberries!

A couple of weeks a go our little family drove about thirty minutes north of town to do some raspberry, apple and peach picking.

It was a gorgeous day for a drive to the country and the fruit was gorgeous.

Our oldest son seems to be the perfect height for picking rasberries. He did a great job picking the plump berries and ploping them gently into his bucket. We even managed to see a huge garden spider nestled in one of the bushes. Our youngest son ate as many berries as he could and then managed to somehow dump out his dad's full bucket of berries to all of our dismay.

We also picked some wonderful Gala apples and some peaches that we were able to enjoy for quite some time. I'm thinking we need to go back again soon. I heard the peaches were done for the year, but there are still raspberries and now the Braeburn apples are ready. Maybe we should try for some raspberry jam for this winter?

Salad Ideas

photo via Francesco Tonelli for The New York Times

I know everyone seems to be excited about Mark Bittman's "101 Simple Salads for the Season", but I can't help thinking and talking about it too. I appreciate Mr. Bittman's Minimalist cooking ideas and I love to eat salads.

I rely on a usual salad during the week. Mixed organic baby greens, that I either receive in our CSA box or that I pick up on sale or at a big box store, buying club (to my dismay), and then I usually add tomatoes, cucumber, bits of red onion, sliced and roasted almonds, chunks of grilled chicken, and finally some shredded parmesean. I usually top it with a balsamic vinaigarette that I pick up when on sale.

This is my go-to, never tire of salad. It's easy to plan for and throw together. It's easy for me to get it all ready the night before so I can just grab it and head out the door to work if I take it for my lunch. If the guys at my house all want to eat big pasta dinners for supper I can quickly make this salad and eat it instead.

But, sometimes it's good to break out of your routine right?

The NY Times article is amazing for giving new ideas. I mean, have you ever thought about number 13? (A red salad: Combine tomato wedges with halved strawberries, basil leaves, shaved Parmesan and balsamic vinegar) or how about this one: 78. What happens when your Chicago hot dog falls apart: Toss together tomato wedges, chopped pickles, hot peppers, shredded lettuce and a few slices of broiled or grilled hot dog. Dress with a vinaigrette made with mustard (should be yellow for authenticity, but ...) and celery salt. (You could throw in freshly made croutons; inauthentic, but better than a hot dog bun.)

I'm not sure the hot dog salad is something I'll ever make, but you get the idea.

There are lots of interesting things that Mark Bittman suggests. Some ideas are definitely worth looking into!

A delicious summertime dinner

We have been brainstorming on what new things to eat this summer.
It's so nice to think ahead with meal planning. And it helps with the budgeting and managing life with little kids.
Since I'm the dreamer and my husband is more the do-er, it works well for us for me to come up with a meal plan for the week and then leave my husband alone to make the meals.
We rely on old standbys week to week and then summer comes along and seems to throw everything for a loop.
We have little outdoor activities that come up like bike riding, playing in the sandbox and going to a family swim night, so my husband has less time to prepare and cook. We don't like heating up the house during the summer so we like to keep things a bit simple.
Since subscribing to the C.S.A. we have sort of had to live on the edge, waiting to see what arrives in the box each Thursday. Although we are loving the surprises, it's harder to plan a full week ahead.
I ran across this recipe here and thought it sounded so wonderful. (It's pretty good is one of my new favorites!)
We had everything on hand except for the puff pastry and goat cheese. The garlic, onions, tomato and basil all came in our CSA box this week so on our grocery trip today we picked up the pastry and cheese.
I'm thinking that everything might be better with puff pastry!

Here's the pastry, carmelized onion & garlic and goat cheese:

Here's with a slice from the gigantic heirloom tomato and basil grown locally:

A little sliced parmesean:

This photo isn't the greatest, but they smelled delicious right out of the oven!

And here's the final product:

All the flavors really came together with this one. It also seems like a great recipe to have some variations with. I could see putting all sorts of things on a puff pastry. We had some fresh zucchini fries as a side to our tomato tarts and that was pretty tasty too. I could envision adding zucchini to these tarts. Some pine nuts might be nice....the ideas keep coming.

It's giving me all kinds of ideas for meal planning! Puff pastry might be something to always keep on hand!

(I should add that our kids weren't big fans of this. Our youngest son, who loves pizza, gave it a really good try, but wasn't interested. Our oldest son wouldn't even try it. They both agreed that they preferred cold cereal for breakfast, so they were easy to please tonight!)