sarah's blog

I turned 29 recently, and though the day itself was pretty forgettable (save a delicious lunch at Meat and Bread with my other half and our littles, left) and the babies absolutely did not get the memo that they should cut me any slack, overall it was a good last birthday of my 20s.

John gave me a gift certificate to the Dirty Apron cooking school for a class of my choice. Months ago when we first looked at our apartment and walked down the streets of the neighborhood we walked by the school and it’s restaurant and commented on what fun it would be to take a class. Of course he remembered and now I get to choose to learn a little about French cooking, West Coast cooking, proper knife skills, etc. – and enjoy the amazing meal we’ll make. Of course a perk of this gift is that it means 4 hours of peaceful focus on something other than bottles, naps and diapers!

So 29. Maybe a bigger deal if I had the time to sit and think on it. But 28 was a busy, crazy year and 29 will likely be the same. Besides the year I got married, and maybe even including that, this may be the year of most change in my life. I don’t even have to explain beyond saying on my 28th birthday I didn’t have twins and on my 29th I did. That is all.

I have had enough time to reflect on making a couple small birthday resolutions for myself that I’d like to work on in my last year of my twenties. Nothing major really, a couple personal things I’d like to be different when I turn 30. Because of the events of this last year I haven’t had much time to focus on myself (hopefully that doesn’t sound like I think it might) and have started to feel a bit like a stereotype of a new mom: never do my hair, don’t like the way I look in anything, spend my time making sure my babies eat well and get physical activity whether I ever do or not.

So I’ve made some resolutions to help me break out of this funk, learn how to incorporate “regular girlie stuff” back into the life of a mom of twins and generally go into my 30s feeling like a yummy mummy and not a cliche.

And they are…

• Drink more water. A lot more. For my skin, for weight loss, for general youthfulness that will stick with me into my 30s.
• Take better care of my skin. It’s changed since having kids and for the first time since high school I think about how I don’t like it. So I’ve invested in better products, taken more time on it (and let that baby laundry pile up, oh well) and plan to start getting facials on a regular basis.
• Work out. Ya, like just do it. Because I don’t, ever. I’ve set some measurable goals with John and he’s committed to taking care of the babies for chunks of time that I can go to classes at the gym. My goal is to be in better shape when I turn 30 than I was before I had kids.

Ya, my goals are all personal and a little simple and maybe a bit, I don’t know, vain. But the thing is I don’t want to stay in the First Year Mom fog forever and when my kids are old enough to watch me I want them to see a person who is healthy, confident and happy in their own skin. I want to be so pumped to be 30 I’m counting down the days.

Let’s go 29, we got work to do.

We’re spending the next six weeks living in a house with two other families. We’ve worked out a system of cooking, cleaning and copious amounts of coffee making. Then someone got a brilliant idea to have a lobster dinner party.

So Sunday night we boiled 12, count ‘em, 12 lobsters for supper.

I’ve only tasted lobster once before (on our honeymoon in Cuba) so seeing them come in the door in a cardboard box, being chased around the house by a friend holding a squirmy one and seeing them go into the pot alive and come out red and ready for butter was a stretching experience for me. But I ate some, enjoyed the rest of the feast – and the atmosphere surrounding the whole process.

Ten people living under one roof can be a lot of fun and we’re already talking about our next lobster night.

I started another edition of Eating Down The Fridge last Friday so I’m wrapping it up today. Boy that went fast.

All in all, not a bad round of clearing out and trying some new “creative” ways to use up ingredients. I definitely still have a few things hanging around but without buying ingredients I just wasn’t able to find a way to make them work.

So what did I clear out in the last few days?

On Thursday we did the usual breakfast and leftovers for lunch.

For supper I made a slow-cooker meatloaf which used up the ground beef we had. The recipe is in the Company’s Coming cookbook of slow-cooker recipes so I won’t write it out here but you can ask me for it if you don’t have access to the book.

Then yesterday I had cream of wheat for breakfast which I had to buy because I finally used up those Hearty Medley things. Within the rules. For lunch J took the last of the soup from our friends and I ate a strange combination of the rest of the leftover Spicy Chicken Bake, the last of the yogurt, the last of a box of healthy-ish cookies I bought because I tried them on a plane once. (You can find the full selection here, I bought the blueberry brown sugar with flax. Yum.)

For supper we totally scored: a homemade lasagna from our dear friend, Lynsey, who dropped by to hang out with me in the morning. It was all pre-cooked and ready to go so all it needed was a bit of time in the oven to reach its full melty potential. It. Was. Delicious.

Today we only had coffee for breakfast (it’s Roll Up The Rim time so it was a Timmy’s run) because we were meeting up with friends for dim sum (yes, again). An old friend and former roommate, Laurie, was in town. Sidenote: Kirin at City Square Mall has a great mango pudding.

For supper we got to enjoy more of the lasagna from Lynsey -and there’s still more for tomorrow! Then I did a bit of searching online and found a recipe for a peanut butter pie that would use a couple ingredients I have been really trying to get rid of. I’m not going to put the recipe on here for a few reasons, namely:

a) all the ingredients come from a box and that is too 1980s for even me to be proud of
b) the instructions were basically non-existent and there were a few things that would have been good to know like the fact that the peanut butter and icing sugar would be very tough to mix well, and
c) because it’s pretty ugly and had better taste good or else it has nothing going for it.

The important thing is it sounds like it will be decent and it used a box of vanilla pudding, most of my peanut butter, half my icing sugar (which I can never find uses for and hangs around for ages), the graham cracker crumbs and the milk. Not half bad.

So I’m recipe-less today but here’s the list of what I used up in the last few days of this Eat Down…

Ground beef
Box of blueberry brown sugar with flax cookies
Box of vanilla pudding
Bag of graham cracker crumbs
Litre of milk
Container of yogurt

This wasn’t my best Eat Down – I barely touched the list of example items I gave in my first post – but it was probably the one where I purchased the least new food during the week. Having said that, we ate out more than usual and our meals contained less fruits and vegetables than I’m comfortable with so next time I’ll stock up on those before we begin.

That’s it for this time, I’ll let you know how the pie turns out.

On Monday I just had yogurt and coffee because we were going for dim sum at 10:30 with J’s coworkers. So for what amounts to Chinese brunch we had an assortment of items like Chinese donuts in rice noodles, steamed buns, chicken feet (just J on that one) and other delicious treats. There was even some leftovers for us to bring home. Score.

For supper I got really creative and using frozen chicken breasts, a can of Rotel, panko Japanese-style bread crumbs and tex-mex shredded cheese I made a delicious chicken bake. The pictures don’t really do it justice because it’s not the most beautiful dish but it was warm, spicy and filling. I added the rest of our leftover potatoes as a side and dug in.

On Tuesday I had the Quaker Hearty Medley cereal and coffee, J had his bran and coffee. I was never a breakfast creature of habit before, in fact you’ll recall I barely liked eating breakfast at all. But getting up at 6am every day now requires that I fuel up and microwave oatmeal is quick and healthy. If I didn’t care about that second part it would be Poptarts believe me.

For lunch J took the rest of the dim sum and I had the soup we scored at our friends’ house on Sunday. Yum.

For supper I made the M&M Meats slow-cooked pot roast (which is amazing and easy and makes tons of gravy) with rice and a chickpea salad. This used up a roast, a lemon, a can of chickpeas, and an onion.

Yesterday we did the usual for breakfast, more leftovers for lunches and then out to #1 Beef Noodle for supper. Yes that is its name. I also broke some rules and bought some egg tarts, a pork bun for J and a butter cream bun for me at the Chinese bakery that puts things on sale before the mall closes. You might remember that place from our date night awhile back.

So that’s about it up to today. Below are a couple little homemade recipes and the list of items I was able to use up. I’m not claiming any of these recipes as gourmet, I just offer them as perhaps inspiration to make up your own dishes because all of them start from an idea I find online and then build depending on what I have in the kitchen. They won’t win any awards and would probably offend some chefs for their randomness but I feel a sense of accomplishment when I can make something out of nothing so boo to them. [sticking out tongue]

Quick & Random Chickpea Salad
Can of chickpeas, drained
Small onion, whatever kind you have
Lemon or lemon juice
Cilantro
Olive oil
White wine vinegar
Dried dill
Sea salt and fresh ground pepper

Pour drained can of chickpeas into medium mixing bowl. Chop onion into very small pieces and add as much as you would like (I didn’t use the whole onion because I wanted a higher chickpea to onion ratio. Could I BE more nerdy when I say that?). Drizzle with olive oil and add a splash of white wine vinegar. Shake on a good amount of dill, salt and pepper and finely chopped fresh cilantro. Toss and taste, then add more of whatever you think it needs. Keep covered in the fridge (the onions will smell) and enjoy as a side or as a lunch on its own because chickpeas are great for you!

Spicy Chicken Bake
2 Frozen boneless chicken breasts, thawed
Can of Rotel (if you can’t find this in Canada – we have ours brought up from Texas – grab a jar of salsa)
Panko Japanese-style bread crumbs (buy a box and use it to bread all kinds of things. They are crunchy and hold up well in the oven)
Olive oil
Sea salt and fresh ground pepper
Fresh cilantro
Kraft tex-mex shredded cheese (or just cheddar if that’s what you’ve got)

Heat oven to 350F. Place chicken in baking dish (cut them in half to make four pieces total if you don’t want to worry about them being cooked evenly). Pour Rotel or salsa over chicken. In small bowl mix bread crumbs with salt, pepper and cilantro. Drizzle with olive oil and mix well. Sprinkle heavily over chicken and salsa. Put in oven until chicken is done (cut one open and check that it’s white all the way through), about 20 minutes or so. Take out of the oven and sprinkle with as much cheese as you want and put back into the oven just until melted and bubbly. Remove and enjoy with rice or veggies.

Things I used up…

Chickpeas
Onion
Lemon
Can of Rotel
Box of Panko bread crumbs
Box of hearty medley breakfast cereal

As I mentioned last post we’re cleaning out the food that’s just hanging around our kitchen from my pre-babies stockpiling. Here’s how we’re doing so far.

Yesterday I had a Quaker Hearty Medley hot cereal. I do not recommend them over my usual oatmeal. Also had a bowl of yogurt and a cup of coffee, of course.

J had bran cereal and coffee. So nothing random used up for breakfast yet.

For lunch we ate leftover pasta from Anton’s.

For supper I cooked up our last two M&M frozen salmon filets, all the brussel sprouts and a bag of assorted new potatoes. If you’ve never tried them they even have blue potatoes, though I actually don’t like the blue ones that much. I find them drier like a russet/baking potato and prefer the flesh of the red or yellow ones.

For breakfast today it was yogurt and coffee for me and cereal and coffee for J. Lunch was at a friend’s place (where sidenote: So & Lo were super cranky and challenged our ability to enjoy ourselves and not feel bad for our hosts) and we ended up coming home with a container of homemade soup. Score.

Supper was a bit outside the rules… we got McDonalds. I’ll confess, we have a weakness for it, me especially, so on nights when we don’t want to cook we look through our coupon box for our Mickey D’s coupons and that’s how we justify it. Heck, we don’t need to justify it, it was delicious and that’s all you need to know.

So I haven’t gotten very far in using up stuff, though we did kill the salmon fillets, brussel sprouts and potatoes. However tomorrow I’m going to make up a package of vanilla pudding and I’ve got a simple chickpea salad I’m going to try, probably with a good amount of substitutions for all the things I don’t have.

We’re off to a slow start. I’m accepting recipe ideas for the list of items in my previous post if you’ve got anything that helps me use them without breaking the e.d.t.f. rules.

In case you’re curious, here’s how I cooked the sprouts. If you think you don’t like them but have only had them boiled, give this a try. They went from something I never cooked to arguably our favorite veggie side.

Roasted Brussels
Fresh brussel sprouts, washed with ends cut off and sliced in halves
Olive oil
Sea salt
Fresh ground pepper

Set oven to 350 F. Put brussel sprout halves in medium bowl, drizzle on a good amount of olive oil. Sprinkle salt and pepper to taste. Toss to coat sprouts completely.

Dump out on baking sheet (I use a large stoneware one) and spread out. You don’t have to but I turn each sprout half so the outsides are facing up and they lay flat on the cut side. Because I am OCD. If there are loose leaves get them on the pan too, they are the best part!

Put pan in oven and cook until the sprouts are easily pierced with a fork (I’d say about 10 to 15 minutes) and the outside leaves are getting a bit black and crispy on the edges. Leave them a bit longer to crisp more or turn the oven to broil for a couple minutes. BUT watch carefully, this will crisp the leaves quickly.

Scoop off pan into serving dish. So simple but so addictive.

It’s time to bring back some old topics I’ve blogged about. I’ve looked through my blog and have some ideas for a few things but I’d like to start with an Eat Down The Fridge because it’s so needed in our house right now. Not that we have a lot in the fridge – I recently went out of town so John not only let it get empty but also cleaned it which. was. awesome.

So our fridge is actually pretty bare but our pantry and freezer are another story. Starting about a month before the babies were born I began stocking up on food for when we would be SO hungry but only have the energy for something that hops up onto the counter and makes itself. We also filled our freezer with M&M Meats products to which we became total converts once we were willing to admit we’re not really foodies, sometimes we just want to eat.

But as always happens, a full and bountiful pantry eventually becomes a hodgepodge of half-used items and ingredients that seemed like a good purchase at the time. So now that we’re not in Survival Mode anymore (a.k.a. never let the kitchen get empty or we may go without a meal) and our gracious and amazing friends and family have been able to stop cooking for us (which was seriously the only reason we ate balanced meals for the first two months) I’m ready for a good old fashioned e.d.t.f. cleanup.

What’s hanging around my kitchen…

• Half bag frozen tropical fruit
• Half ziplock bag frozen strawberries
• 3 Boxes vanilla pudding mix (which I was ashamed to notice were on my list in my original e.d.t.f. post. yikes.)
• Jar shredded coconut
• Jar ground almonds
• Half bag whole wheat spaghetti noodles
• Half bag frozen green and yellow beans
• Jar carob chips

You remember the rules, right? Let’s see what I can come up with over the next week and how many good recipes I can make using the randomness of my kitchen. Let the eat down begin.

I made The Pioneer Woman‘s chocolate chip cookie sweet rolls the other day. So sweet, so yummy, so so bad.

Tips for making them from my experience: warm and soften the cream cheese in the icing before blending it with the other ingredients so it doesn’t get lumpy, listen to the recipe when it says to let the buns cool a bit before pouring on the icing and don’t be afraid to let them get good and brown on top. I hate overcooking anything so I took mine out just a bit too early.

The dough process was different than any I’d made before but was totally worth it, and I plan to try making her other sweet rolls too.

Before we left for our trip I did a mini Eat Down The Fridge but never finished saying how it went. It’s been too long for me to remember what we ate meal by meal, so I won’t do that this time.

We only had a few days in which to do it and really the main idea was not to buy perishables before being gone for a week so I wouldn’t say there is too much to report other than one good recipe and one good idea.

Good recipe:

As mentioned in my food list, I had four oranges to use up. And I wanted to bake. Thus, SunKist Orange Honey Muffins.

SunKist Orange Muffins (with personal modifications like not referring to them as SunKist oranges every single time)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
1 egg, slightly beaten
1/3 cup honey
1 orange -grated peel
½ cup freshly squeezed orange juice
½ cup milk
¼ cup vegetable oil
2 oranges , peeled, sectioned, and drained (optional)
1 Tbsp. sugar

1. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl combine the egg, honey, grated orange peel, orange juice, milk, and oil; add to dry ingredients all at once.
2. Stir quickly until dry ingredients are just moistened but have a lumpy appearance. Spoon batter into 16 paper-lined 2-1/2 X 1-1/4-inch muffin cups, filling about two-thirds full.
3. This step is optional and I would only recommend it if you like cooked fruit. I think I would skip it next time. Place one orange section on top of each muffin and sprinkle with sugar. Bake at 400F for 20 to 25 minutes, watching carefully that they do not become too brown.

We loved these muffins, the grated orange peel gave it a nice flavor without being too sweet. They were easy to make and used two of my four oranges.

Good idea:

I was looking for a way to use/preserve my bag of yellow onions when I came across this idea (I cannot for the life of me find the blog, when I do I will link it up and give credit) to pre-cut and freeze them. So I grabbed all but one onion and proceeded to cry my way through chopping half of them and slicing the other half. Then I spread the onions out on baking trays, covered them with plastic wrap (which still does nothing to stop your whole freezer and fridge from smelling like onion for the rest of the day) until slightly frozen.

The onions were then broken up and scraped into plastic baggies, double bagged and labeled as chopped or sliced with the date. I now have a convenient way to add onions to my cooking, and because the pieces were frozen individually first, there won’t be a big chunk of onion to mess with, I just shake out how much I need. Best of all, no food waste.

All in all a good week of EDTF. I even made eggs benedict one day with homemade hollandaise sauce (the recipe was so-so) which I did not realize used SO MANY EGGS. In one breakfast I pretty much wiped out our dozen eggs. For future reference eggs benedict with hollandaise sauce is pretty much eggs with a topping of butter eggs.

We’re having friends over for supper on Monday and I’m planning to make Pork Tenderloin with Sticky Lime Glaze. Stay tuned.

It’s that time again folks: John and I are Eating Down the Fridge!

We’re going out of town for a family wedding (yay little brother!) and we need to not buy groceries and use up perishables before Tuesday. I realize this is not a full week this time but it is a good excuse to be creative and get some new recipes. Or maybe revive some old ones?

Remember the Slow-Cooked Fruited Millet, or Beet Goat Cheese Salad? Yum. Well we don’t have any of the ingredients to make them, so maybe new recipes is where we’ll go.

As is tradition, here is a list of randomness from our kitchen, this time focusing on perishables that need to go before our trip.

3 Limes
4 Oranges
A dozen eggs
3 Red potatoes
Bag of onions
3 Packages of vanilla pudding mix
Half a can of lima beans
1/2 Cup quick rolled oats
1 Block of sharp cheddar

Today, Day One of Five, we ate leftover Indian food from our date last night (get those coupon books and use all the two for one deals for affordable dates) and if John is still hungry he is getting sliced cheddar cheese on crackers.

Due to the fact that I’m 3 months pregnant with deux bébés I can’t get by on unbalanced meals so this will be more of a challenge than usual. Couple that with the fact that the usual rules don’t apply because the food will spoil while we’re gone, it will be interesting to see what we come up with.

I’ll let you know if I test and approve any good recipes, or suggest some of your own.

After over a month of feeling sick just entering our kitchen and a complete inability to cook anything, I am feeling 1000% better. Not a typo, literally 1000.

I mean, I want to cook, I want to eat (okay I wanted to eat the whole time, like 10 times a day) and I don’t lose my lunch over the smell of the refrigerator! My eagerness to enjoy this new-found normalcy has produced some meals I’m proud of, and I have cooked up some recipes that I would recommend to you guys. Since I have not posted about food in awhile (would you really want to hear my “recipe” for canned tomato soup, buttered noodles or plain popcorn?) I am excited to talk about all the delicious flavors and smells I am loving again.

First up: on Friday we had our friends Landon and Lisa over for supper and I made individual chicken pot pies. (more…)