kirstencan

Ye Olde Crock Pot

I have been trying hard to better utilize this classic kitchen tool.  There are a few nights a week where we don't get home from activities until after we'd be eating most nights.  My goal on those nights is to have something hot and nourishing ready to eat when we get home.  

And I mean READY.  So on those nights I don't put make any of the recipes that call for steps after cooking.  Ready to dish up as soon as we get home.  And I'll tell you, pulling into the garage and smelling a yummy soup or something when you're hungry - that's good stuff.

So, yeah, there are soups.  Soups are good.  The kids have pretty much gotten over their pickiness for soups and will eat whatever.  For a long time (and I know this isn't unusual) they really didn't like soups that weren't blended.  

But we do get tired of soups, so I try to do that only once a week.  The other days I've been trying to use it for other things.  

A few things that've at least been partially successful:

Pasta:  I'll cook pasta (al dente if I'm paying attention - which I'm usually not) and throw it in the crock pot before we leave along with some marinara and cheese.  Meat sauce if we're feeling it. It just keeps everything warm till we get home.

"Enchiladas":  Definitely need quotation marks here, because I just layer corn tortillas with green enchilada sauce, cheese, and beans (refried + black usually).  Tastes delish, but looks like mush when it comes out.

Hot dogs:  This was kind of a fun find, actually.  Right before we leave I dump a big can of baked beans in the crock, and add hot dogs to the top.  Whole, not sliced.  They cooked great, and we just threw them into buns when we got home.  

Baked Potatoes:  Super easy to bake in the crock (my favorite way to bake potatoes in the summer, especially), but we just have to make sure all the toppings are READY and in the fridge before we leave. 

(Obviously most of these have salad or something to go with for vegetables).

So what else?  I have a few good crockpot cookbooks (this one is our fave), but I am always looking for more ideas!

Eggs

It finally happened!  We have eggs from our chickens!

Most of the hens lay brown eggs, but a couple lay blue-green colored (those are the ones I picked, and that is why I picked them!).

I packed a few in an origami box to give to our awesome next-door neighbors.  In part as an apology - these chickens have been bawk-BAWKing a lot as they figure out this whole egg-laying thing.  They'd better quit it...

I made french toast today, and here is what they look like compared to a store-bought (though cage-free organic) egg.  Three are ours, and one is bought.  

They are a little smaller and very orangey! 

We tally up the eggs in our egg book as we find them.  

Kinda fun to try and figure out who is laying - we sure were excited to see those blue eggs!

What we ate

Jennifer posted some of her menus recently.  I think it's fun to look through someone else's menu plans. 

Menu making is the hardest part, isn't it?  But if I don't make a menu, dinner falls into the 'scrounge' category too often.   We generally have a handful of weekly menus posted on the fridge all the time - I wish it was easier to reuse them, but it seems like that never works out...

I decided to show you our menu for the last week.

You already saw Saturday:  Korean beef stirfry with broccoli and rice.

Sunday Aaron grilled greek beef kabobs.  We had them with pita, onions (some of us), spinach and yogurt.

Monday was supposed to be lettuce wraps, but costco didn't have the butter lettuce I wanted, and so I made up a green curry with chicken and veg.  Love that it turned out.  Not only turned out, but everyone gobbled it up! I think it might be magic curry...

Really, though, you can't go wrong mixing a tablespoon of curry paste (pick a flavor!  We like green, massaman and panang) with a can of coconut milk.  Add that to some stuff (onion, garlic, cauliflower, carrots, bell pepper, spinach, chicken).  Enjoy.

The girl likes bringing leftovers like this for lunch, she says it makes her friends jealous. ;)

Tuesday was super easy mexican tostadas/pizzas/whatever.

Warmed corn tortillas, melted cheese on some, added refried beans and topped with another tortilla.

Served with salsa, sour cream and spinach - have you noticed the recurring spinach theme?  Gotta use up that costco box!  Some weeks it's cabbage or another veg on repeat.

Wednesday I tried a new recipe for falafel.   It was killer, we all LOVED it.

I hate frying stuff and never do it, so that was interesting/a treat, and it did smell like falafel in here for a long time, but they turned out great!  I made a (garlicky!) tzatziki sauce to go with - it was tasty - and they made great leftovers for lunch the next day.

Thursday was busy - pasta night!

Except me, I don't love pasta.  I had my greens earlier in the day and helped myself to granola and vanilla yogurt.

Friday... we splurged.  Busy evening, so the boys and I picked up some burgers after taekwondo, on the way to pick up the girl at dance, before the millions of kids we invited over for a movie night arrived.

We had popcorn.  Lots of it.  I guess that's our whole grain? :)

This week's menu looks like:

Sat: hot dogs/date night (we hit Pei Wei)

Sun: pizza (we make pizza most Sundays - I kinda can't believe I documented a week where we didn't!)

Mon: easy egg sandwiches (busy)

Tues: chicken sausage/brown rice/broccoli

Wed: sloppy lentils

Thur: keema (indian-spiced ground beef) leftovers in the freezer - yes!  Will find veg...

Fri: chicken nuggets?  something easy/gross

 

What's your menu look like this week?  Or do you not do a menu?  How does that work?

Lunch Lately

Well, the first quarter of school is over, and the packing lunch interest is definitely waning. ;)  I am not recording every lunch I make, but I still take photos occasionally.  Here are a few semi-interesting lunches of late:

Some kind of wrap... ham and cream cheese + lettuce I think? Multi-grain chips, carrots, grapes. 

Ham rollups (we rarely buy lunch meat) with a little mustard on the side, yogurt, hardboiled egg, grapes, and what looks like french fries is actually pancakes from breakfast cut into strips.

So at the grocery store one day, someone stocking cereal handed me three little sample boxes of Cheerios protein.  So I chilled her thermos in the freezer with just a bit of milk in it overnight, then filled it with more milk in the morning.  Cereal for lunch!  Also mixed nuts, dried pears, and oreos.  For the record, that cereal was a hit.

If one can get their act together enough to make ebelskievers at 6:00am, one packs said ebelskievers for lunch with nutella (and oranges).

Yogurt with mixins, hardboiled eggs, triscuits, homemade granola bar, laughing cow cheese, orange slices.

Leftover homemade pizza with carrots + dip, and an apple pie bar (YUM!).

Leftover spaghetti with marinara, ground beef, and cheese (warmed up at school), dried cinnamon apples, veggie straws, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and a sad attempt to dress up her lunch for Halloween.

My favorite lunch when I was little!  Hot dogs!  I packed a cold hotdog (cut in half) in a baggie, along with a glass container to warm it up in.  Bun, Swedish mustard + ketchup, dried apples, spinach (and Hallween candy).

Leftover bismati rice + saag (on the bottom of the container.  It's a spinach curry - SO YUMMY), naan, dried pears, and mini oreos.

Bagel, dried pears, mixed nuts + raisins, laughing cow cheese.

PB&J (I did it!), homemade granola bar, toffee almonds, crunchy curls, apple slices.

Still love the lunchbots.  I packed them up with semi-random snacky stuff for a shared lunch for the boys and I at the Renn Faire.  Granola and Nutrigrain bars, almond butter, laughing cow, mini oreos, grapes, apples, string cheese and crackers.  Worked great.

Lunch Gear

So once again, packing lunches is a new thing for us.  There's more about what we've packed so far here.

Today I'm talking gear.  When I was looking around deciding which lunch gear to get, not all of my questions were answered, so I hope this is helpful to someone!

First up, here's the bag we picked, it's a Wildkin double decker.  I really like the idea of having two compartments, one for cold, one for warm.  Or one for cold, one for snacks or something.

I bought it on amazon, finding a REALLY good price on this one specific color in the summer. 

Reviews reported that it would fit an Easylunchbox in the bottom section.  Since my ziploc divided containers are the same size, that was important.  These things should be stored flat, not sideways!  I was afraid the bag would be huge, but it is a great size.

It seems to work pretty well, I don't think it insulates as well as this other lunchbag we have (pottery barn - discontinued), but it works!  It also has a long shoulder strap, which is great as the girl doesn't have a locker, so she has to carry her lunch with her all day.

She brings a water bottle every day that goes in her backpack pocket, so it doesn't need to fit here, but smaller water bottles (not her 24oz camelbak) or juice boxes would totally fit in the upper section with other food.

We are using two main containers.  Ziplocs and Lunchbots.  The ziplocs are great containers.  I'm still trying to use less plastic, but these are just REALLY easy to pack.  Reviews say that the lid seals better than the Easylunchbox, but may not last as long.  Supposedly they are BPA free.

Here's how a ziploc looks in the lower section of the bag (it does zip):

Here's how the ziploc container (again, about the same size as the Easylunchbox) compares to the lunchbot (duo pictured). 

Lunchbots are about the same size as the large section of the ziploc.

But speaking of lunchbots - I love them!

I ordered one (the duo as it seemed the most versatile) on amazon, but then found them on sale at Zulily and ordered two more.  Glad I did!  Besides packing flexibility, I like having them around to pack for the boys/me if we're heading out.  So we have the uno, duo and trio boxes.

They wash up great in the dishwasher, and I do have really hard water, so you'll see some spots, but they come off easily (when I'm not lazy).

The lids go on securely, but aren't leakproof.

If you look below, you'll see why the divider isn't leakproof either.

See how juicy stuff would flow right through that seam?  So I say hummus is a yes, but applesauce/yogurt, etc are no-gos.

Lunchbots are more expensive than plastic containers for sure, but they should last forever.

You can totally pack enough food, even for an adult, depending on how you pack them.  If we're not packing the lunch tight, or are packing sandwiches or something bulkier, like our piroshki, then sometimes we need to send two of these containers.

Next up on my perfect world wishlist is the bento trio.  It's a bigger size lunchbot, close to the ziploc size. Sounds ideal.

Here's how a lunchbot fits inside the wildkin bag (it is sitting on a thin ice pack in this photo).

And lunchbots fit in the top section, too - ziplocs only in the bottom.  Yes, we keep a tin of tiny altoids in there, too!  Inspired by my always-too-garlicky hummus. ;)

You can almost fit two lunchbots in the bottom section.  I'll bet it would zip, but haven't felt the need to cram them in like this.

I got a set of these little dipper boxes from Easylunchbox.

Here's how they fit in the ziploc:

And the lunchbot:

They're kind of a weird size, I think.  Great for something like salsa or nuts, a bit big for salad dressings, too small for applesauce or yogurt.  In a perfect world I'd have these stainless lunchbot mini containers, and while I believe you get what you pay for... the plastic ones were a lot cheaper to start out with.

Oh, also I haven't had much luck washing the little dippers in the dishwasher - they flip over.

Now for hot lunch:  We got the 16oz Thermos container (like this, but our color isn't showing and I definitely didn't pay that much.  If you keep an eye on prices you can really get good deals on amazon).

Seems to work fine, the folding spoon is nice.  She told me they have a microwave at school, so maybe this wasn't as big a deal as I thought.  I do prime it, by filling it with boiling water before I fill it with food.

*Edit:  We've now tried her thermos for cold smoothies, too and it works great!  She makes her smoothie at night and sticks it (and her empty thermos) in the freezer.  In the morning I thaw the smoothie enough to get it out of the container and into the thermos (I think it would be way too hard if we froze it directly in the thermos).  By lunchtime it is 'the perfect consistency!'  - slushy.

Here is how the thermos fits (top section only) in the lunch bag.

Now you may remember that we already HAD bento containers.  Cute, cute bento boxes.  Well, years later they really smelled 'plasticky'.  Very.  I wouldn't want to eat out of them.  Then I looked up BPA info and it looked like ours weren't BPA free.  So we ditched them.  However I did keep some of our bento stuff:

Someday I might want silicone cups but for now I am using what I have, which are these cute daiso ones paper ones.  I kept a couple of little forks, they are great because you can put the fork back in the little box, which keeps the lunchbag clean.  However they're not very sharp, meaning probably not so effective on salads...

I've already shown you the silicone smoothie pops, which only fit in ziploc or lunchbot uno.  They are working well, but reportedly are just 'cold drinks' by the time lunch rolls around.  But that's fine.

I also kept a couple bento straps, just for fun.

I already told you about our cloth napkins.

...Let's see... ice packs?

We have the 'standard' ice pack blocks, but also the slim ones, which fit above and under whatever is packed in the bottom section.  Those are perfect for this bag/box combo.

The only thing I'm missing is a smallish container for a single snacky thing, like popcorn, one muffin, etc. to be packed separately for a snack.  I may pick up (or put on my Christmas wishlist) a couple of lunchskin reusable bags for that.  I've only packed two disposable baggies in her lunches so far, but I'd rather not use any.

I still really enjoy packing lunch kinda bento style.  The divided containers make it very easy to add variety/nutrition, as we found out years ago.  Also it's not a big deal if you run out of bread or anything.  There's always little bits of something in the cupboards that will fill the boxes.

I'll leave you with the last couple of days' lunches:

Quesadilla with salsa, hard-boiled egg, orange slices, chocolate chip cookie (broken up to fit!)

Leftovers from last night's dinner:  Indonesian pineapple spicy chicken salad.  The Uno container has cabbage, carrot, and red bell pepper, the duo has chicken, peanuts, peanut dressing, crushed pineapple (all to add to the salad), and a muffin (leftover from breakfast - for snack).

Yes, I do put the lids on the mini dippers, but they look better in photos without.

I think that's it, hopefully someone can use this excessive information - Any questions?

First packed lunches

So I did have to pack lunches one other year (6 years ago?), when the Redhead went to an all-day autism preschool, but he likes boring lunches so it wasn't fun.

I know it's weird, and all you public school moms who've done this every day for YEARS for multiple kids are rolling your eyes at me... but yeah, I'm kinda liking this.  I think we've done a pretty good job of variety for her first three weeks of school!

The first thing I did (besides completely fixate on the idea of packing lunches MONTHS ago, and making notes, researching gear, buying a book, reading blogs and pinning ideas - I did mention I fixate on stuff?) was help the Girl compile a list of foods she likes (she's picky), broken into categories.  It's posted inside a cabinet door in case of bleary early-morning brain.

Also, if she complains about a fruit or veg, I can be like: Nope, it's Girl-approved, you put it on your list!

I don't mind packing her lunch for her.  She has to get up so early and get ready for school (and school is a new thing!), I don't mind doing this to help her out.

I seriously don't know why I felt like documenting her lunches, but I did:

First day of school requested sandwich: Bagel with onion cream cheese, deli turkey, lettuce; pringles, dried pears, chocolate

Raisins, smoothie pop, string cheese, pretzels, cinnamon almonds, hard-boiled egg, triscuits

Corn muffins, tortilla chips, homemade (garden!) salsa, smoothie pop, dried pears, carrots + dip, hard-boiled egg

(Hard-boiled eggs have a paper twist of salt with them)

Mac'n'cheese (I try and stock up on Annie's organic when it goes on sale), carrots + dip, zucchini bread, dried pears, toffee almonds

Leftover pasta + marinara, side salad + italian dressing, raisins, string cheese, pretzels, nutella

Pizzadillas (whole wheat tortilla with 'pizza cheese' (leftover jack+cheddar+spices) and pepperoni, pizza sauce to dip, granola bite, smoothie pop, orange slices, pirate's booty

Cottage cheese, black bean hummus, pita, hard-boiled egg, orange slices, energy bites

Pirate's booty, granola bites, dried pears, string cheese, smoothie pop, hard-boiled egg, zucchini bread

Sandwich FAIL*, smoothie pop, energy bites, mixed nuts + raisins, orange slices

*I tried to make a basic PBJ sandwich with my Totoro cookie cutter.  The strawberry jam came out of the eyes and looked pretty disturbing.  Luckily since I did such a shoddy job of it she thought it was the Millenium Falcon and was not scarred.

Cheddar cheese-filled piroshki,* apple slices, mixed nuts

Mac'n'cheese, carrots + dip, peach cobbler, energy bites

Dumplings + rice, asian cabbage salad with sesame dressing (all from Costco, dinner the night before was easy and yummy!)

*The piroshki (filled rolls) are leftovers, they have little toothpick holes in the top so we could tell which were cheddar and which were pizza and which were keema (Indian-spiced ground beef +peas - YUM).  She was boring and wanted just cheese for lunch.

French toast with syrup and apple slices, cheese stick

Grapes, laughing cow cheese, triscuits, sunflower nuts, zucchini bread, yogurt

 

..................................

Things of note: 

We are still figuring out the right quantities of food.  Breakfast is at 6am, and school isn't out till 3:30, and we are usually running her straight to dance.  So snacks are needed.  The first day of school she said she was hungry by the end. I think I overcompensated the next week or two!  And then yesterday (french toast) she was starving again.  Sometimes there is a string cheese, nutri-grain bar or something little thrown in her bag also, for her morning break in classes.

Make-aheads + leftovers are key!

Most of these photos are taken at 6am - dark + bad lighting, sorry!  With the exception of the dumpling bento - I packaged that all up when I was putting away dinner leftovers.  Lunch packing with leftovers rules.

If it's not leftovers, I don't pack lunch at night.

I don't pack lunches for my boys at the same time.  All the same food is available to them, but why repackage it before lunch?  Plates work fine and take up less dishwasher real estate.  Also, The Redhead would be happy with the same lunch EVERY DAY.

Super easy veg/chip dip:  equal parts Sour cream (or plain yogurt) and mayo plus a little Mrs. Dash onion + herb seasoning (purple lid).  So easy, natural, and no msg, salt, or yucky stuff.  You can mix up just a tiny bit for lunch if you want.

I've never bought string cheese before!  The packaging + price has always held me back, but they went way on sale (back to school cheese?) and have a long expiration date and she loves them, so I did it.  Easy protein, I'm sold.

Everything is served cold unless it's in a thermos jar.

Yesterday she said to me, "So, are you sick of packing my lunches yet?"  And I replied, "Nope." "Good!"

A totally unnecessary gear post coming up.

Make aheads

*First: I'm afraid my last post made my kids sound like entiteled, selfish brats.  They really are seriously over-sentimental (and just HATE CHANGE), not selfish. I promise.

So the whole lunch-packing thing has been going pretty well.  Into week three and I don't hate it yet, so that's cool.  The Girl has been good about making things to freeze or stick in the fridge on the weekends.

Here are some chewy granola bars/bites. 

BTW, I finally figured out that these last a lot longer if you cut/package them up and stick them in the fridge, rather than leave them out for people to nibble on.  Duh.

And last week we tried this recipe for energy bites (minus the raisins and with wheat germ instead of flax seed).

She has also added to the freezer:  a double batch of zucchini bread, corn muffins, smoothie pops, and I make hard-boiled eggs regularly to throw in the fridge.

Good stuff.  More about lunches soon.  Also peaches, because wow, we have gotten a lot of those.

And random, but food-related:  I stopped by Costco on the way home from taekwondo with the boys last weekend.  Famous last words:  "I only need two things, I don't need a cart."  Ha.  I figured even if I found one or two extra things that I had the boys to help carry stuff.  Wasn't counting on the plethora of awesome samples that day and their hands were full of popsicles, afghan food, sushi...  So, yeah, that was dumb and we looked ridiculous!

Pears

We have a pear tree.  Technically we have two, but one doesn't produce anymore (fire).  Only two of us like pears (sadly, I'm not one of those two), and most years we end up wasting some of the fruit. 

So rather than just painting them, I decided to try drying them.  We have a dehydrator that we've barely used.

I cut the pears into a bowl of water + lime juice.

I dried two trays to try it out.  But guess what, the girl liked them (Mikey likes it!) and even said they tasted like candy.  And we had more pears, so...

We ran the dehydrator back on the porch so we didn't have to hear the fan all the time.

(Four trays)

I don't like dried fruit, but I have to admit, these are good! 

I ended up drying 10 trays total.  I figure I could fit about 3 pears per tray (I got better at squeezing them in), so that's 30 pears preserved!  And way easier than canning.  Those 30 pears fit into two of these (3 cup?) pyrex containers and are in the freezer to last an extra long time.

Mostly I just got excited that I found a fruit the girl WANTS to eat!

Jerk Salad

Romaine, leftover jerk chicken (recipe from this cookbook that we love), brown rice, a pineapple-sesame salad dressing pineapple I made up, extra crushed pineapple, and a squeeze of lime over the whole thing.

I am always ridiculously pleased with myself when I come up with a good leftover + salad lunch.  They are my fave.  Apparently I should do this more.

Smoothie Pops

Recently picked up a fun new kitchen toy, in part to get The Girl to eat more fruits and yogurt and stuff.  They are silicone popsicle molds, have you seen them before?  I bought these.

The kids usually make smoothies with our little magic blender.  I found that one magic blender size smoothie makes about 5 pops.  Or 4 and someone eats the extra.  This batch has mixed berries + wild blueberries, greek yogurt, and a little almond milk.  After it's blended, I usually add a tablespoon of chia seeds.

It can be messy to fill... but not too bad when you get the hang of it! I overfilled these a little, and their lids popped off in the freezer.  Standing them up in the freezer can also be tricky, but I think we found our sweet spot.

The kiddos like them, and sometimes just fill them with strawberry yogurt, too.  They would work great in school lunches - and work as an ice pack!

Clean up is easy - dishwasher!

Anyway, we've been having fun with them.