Chicken Soup with Rice

The first night after the Eat Local Challenge was over, I got a nasty cold. I was achy and cranky and not up to cooking.

So I ordered take out. Thai Food from Thai Ginger, one of the best-loved Thai places in North Portland.

And, it was…salty. That’s what I noticed first. The vegetables were quite cooked and salty. But then the Pad Thai was super sweet and oily. Before I could bring it up Clara noticed, too. “Salty,” she said, with a bit of surprise. (She’s getting a very keen palette, that one, though it doesn’t often seem to be working in my favor.)

After a month of eating food that was either my own local “good grub” or fancy Northwest Palette, this food that is usually one of my favorites seemed really foreign and off.

But I appreciated the leftover white rice the next night when I made chicken soup. I’d roasted a whole chicken over the weekend to carry though the week, something I’ve been doing often. The only problem I’ve found is that these organic chickens I’m buying barely have enough meat for two meals. I need to find some local farmer with fat chickens.

lemon thyme (I really love this photo)

Hopefully, enough rosemary

These are yet two new additions to my herb garden. I’ve been blowing through the rosemary so fast my little plant was about down to stumps and I was going to have to start wandering the neighborhood with scissors. I fell in love with the lemon thyme in the garden of or cabin on Orcas Island. Both go great stuffed under the skin of roasting chicken.

Anyhow, we had leftover chicken and this white rice and I had a container of frozen stock I’d made previously thawing in the fridge. After we eat all the meat off the carcass I make stock and freeze it, then bring it out as we finish the next roasted chicken to make soup.

I’ve included measurements in this to give you a place to start, but they’re all approximate and totally open to adaptation. This is one of those dishes you can tailor to whatever you’ve got in the pantry, which is pretty much how we roll, if you hadn’t noticed. Edited to add: My friend, Leah, pointed out that celery is always a good addition to chicken soup and I totally agree. In fact, I prefer it with celery. I just haven't accepted that I have to start buying Cali-grown veggies yet.

This soup was a bit thick since I had relatively little liquid and the rice with potatoes made it starchy, but I liked the heartiness. The tarragon was a nice change of pace, though the next day I had the leftover for lunch and the nutty, garlic flavor had intensified significantly.

There is just no way to make roasted chicken look good in photos.

Chicken Soup with Rice

2 - 4 cups of chicken stock, depending on how thick you want your soup
about 2 cups of chopped roasted chicken (or ½ cup per serving)
2 – 3 carrots, chopped
3 – 4 potatoes, cubed
½ cup onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced or chopped
1 tsp. dried tarragon
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup cooked rice; white, wild or brown, depending on taste

That's the rice. And veggies, of course.

The Knob Creek is my "cough medine." Add hot water to a shot for a soothing nightcap.

1. Heat the stock in a sauce pan on medium heat until just steaming. Add garlic and onion and let warm for a few minutes.

2. Add carrots and potatoes and let simmer, covered, for 5 – 8 minutes, until just tender.

3. Add chicken and tarragon, then salt and pepper to taste and stir. Next add the cooked rice. Simmer 5 – 15 minutes until flavors meld to desired taste.

Mmmmm.

ELC: The summary

September is over, the leaves are yellow and collecting in my flowerbeds. And the Eat Local Challenge is over.

How’d we do?

1. As much as possible, eat produce grown and meat and eggs raised in Oregon and Washington.

Grade: B

Of course, we strayed here and there, but for the most part this is what I bought at the store and markets. And it was easy! Our dinners were almost always all local (except for spices and condiments) and we ate well. Sausage, potatoes, veggies, chicken—all easy to get here. Breakfasts were second-best with eggs being the main player, rounded out with local fruit and accompanied by gluten-free pancakes (not at all local) or Bob’s Red Mill Rice Cereal (local company, rice from Cali).

Lunches were another story. See below for how well I did at making Aaron’s lunch (I made two, then not at all). And I had a lot of business lunches, though those really couldn’t be helped. Even the good days were a little dull with random leftovers. In fairness to myself, that’s how I always do lunch because I work at home and barely have time to eat. But I would like to make more interesting and satisfying lunches with local foods. I’m thinking soups this winter…

2. If it’s not local ingredients, buy from a local company.


Grade: B+

There are lots of local food companies here and our neighborhood grocery store, New Seasons makes it easy to spot local foods with their little shelf tags. They also make it easy to discern which is local produce by displaying place of origin labeling on prices signs.

We ate a lot of Kettle Chips, Kettle cashew butter, and Bob’s Red Mill products. All yummy.

3. If not locally produced nor a local company, then organic.

Grade: A-

This was pretty easy. The only thing that wasn’t local and wasn’t organic was the gluten-free pancake and cupcake mixes.

4. Bring lunch to work.

Grade: F

Totally flunked at this. Mainly I just forgot about it. And Aaron always likes to have a lot of food so our meager leftovers wouldn’t work for him. Sometimes he made his own sandwiches, I noticed. But I’m certain he ate out a lot. Not his fault, I’m the one who didn’t buy the right kinds of foods. But I still don’t know what those are.

5. If we eat out, eat at locally-owned restaurants that use locally-grown ingredients.

Grade: A

Again, this is easy. Portland is bursting with fabulous local restaurants and cafes (even the NYT think so). There were times when I was eating out and I felt guilty when I was eating something totally delicious because I knew the meal wasn’t entirely local. But I know a good chunk of at least the in-season ingredients were local, and I kept the dollars in my local economy, creating a bigger channel for local producers to sell into. And that’s the whole point, isn’t it?

6. Stick to the average American food budget. In this case $144 per week.

Grade: C+

Oh, I tried. And I got close. But I know just eating out one night a week through us over, and even without that, we were usually a bit over. There were a few things I could have done differently but chose not to: 1) bought cheaper eggs that were local but from a big chicken factory; 2) skipped the chips, as they’re not a necessity (we just wanted something snacky); 3) bought less fruit and more vegetables; 4) gone without the gluten-free products (if you don’t know, they’re $$$).

But then there are few things I did that I don’t normally do: 1) bought a lot of ground meat because it is always cheaper and bought whole chickens instead of parts; 2) bought the bare minimum of veggies except when it came to potatoes, which I bought a lot of; 3) when and item of produce was at its peak, bought a lot of it.

I do know how to buy food when you have no money, because I’ve done it before. But wow, after too many years of black beans, cheap cheddar, and ramen, I found my limits to deprivation. I really wanted the nectarines and the neighborhood-grown grapes and the strawberries and the cantaloupe. I knew if I didn’t indulge now they’d be gone for a year. So I indulged.

So could you feed a family of four on $144 with local food? Yes, but it might suck.

7. Start a garden.

Grade: A-

I did it! I bought starts and we have greens!

What I didn’t do is plant seeds. It's late but I may do it anyway to see what happens.

8. Preserve.

Grade: B-

I really didn’t do much beyond freezing a few things. Work was crazy and I didn’t have extra food prep time. And, with the self-imposed budget constraints, I didn’t want to buy more than we could eat. Will I regret this in February? I don’t know. But next year I’ll definitely do more.

Our exceptions:


1. Pamela’s Ultimate Baking Mix – Oh, yes, lots of this. And Bob’s Red Mill’s Rice Flour (the rice if from California) – Didn’t use this at all.

2. Gluten-free pastas. Skipped these completely! Shocks me. We just ate potatoes instead. I don’t think we’ll go back, either. Too expensive.

3. And along those lines, if I can’t find a local or organic or gluten-free or dairy-free version, I’ll buy whatever. Yep, we had lots of Cherrybrook chocolate cupcakes. Someday maybe I’ll get creative and make a tower of pears or something and stick candles in it.

4. We’ll eat whatever is already in the house, wherever it came from. Amazing how much food is always in this house. And how sad is it that I had to throw away two things of CANNED soup? Who has canned soup so long that it goes bad? Me, apparently.

5. And the ones that gets everyone: coffee and olive oil. As expected. We bought organic olive oil (though I may be narrowing in on a totally US grown olive oil) and fair-trade coffee from local companies. I’m starting to look at shade grown. Any opinions?

Some other challenges we took on again, because this isn’t just about the food:


1. Bike, walk, or train as often as possible.

Grade: B+

We did really well on this! I walked to preschool most days, or drove what I’m now calling the BioBeast (the F250 that runs on biodiesel—its freakin’ huge). Aaron only drove a few times—he even brought home Clara’s new pink birthday bike on the train! Hung it from the commuter hooks and everything. He got some looks. Oh, I wish I had pix of that.

But we wanted to do more. So we signed up for Flexcar, a service that lets you rent a car by the hour (you go to where it’s parked and then park it in a designated spot when you’re finished). The thought is that we’ll go down to a one-family car. When walking or pub trans won’t work, and Aaron’s got the BioBeast, I can use the Flexcar. We’re still in “test mode” on this and I’ll blog more on this.

I’m also eyeing this little girl:

Trek Bike 7300 WS.

So. Cute.

2. Buy (almost) nothing new.

Grade: A-

We bought new stuff for the yard, like lumber, soil, and some tiki torches. And it was all pretty much new, as I expected.

But I haven’t seen the inside of a Target in over a month. Didn’t buy new clothes, though I did buy some tops for Clara at a second-hand store, Tickled Pink on Killingsworth.

What did I do about gifts? This was harder. For a friend of Clara’s I bought a handmade stuffed animal from Tickled Pink. New, but not mass produced or imported. And for my brother I actually bought him local food—two cheeses, mustard and bread from the New Seasons bakery. He loved it.

3. Tell friends about what we’re doing.

Grade: B-

I’m still a little shy about this. But we did have a potluck and asked people to bring local food, but didn’t make a big deal out of it. There were lots of Kettle chips, tomatoes, cheeses and potatoes salad, all delicious. But I didn’t speak up about our experience. I still fear appearing preachy.

And…


I dropped a dress size.

We’re totally off packed snack food. Not sure why we thought we needed those at all. Though Clara actually asked for something “that comes in a package.” And she keeps asking about all the cereal with cartoons on the boxes. Damn marketing.

Even though there were moments when I felt guilty because I was sure we weren’t local enough (my husband assures me we are), I’m glad I made this sustainable for us. Because I think we can keep this up. I just have to figure out the lunch thing.

Edited formatting because Blogger is puking all over my code.

Seasonal Transitional Dinner

The kind ladies at Enviromom, Renee and Heather, whom I met at Green Sprouts last weekend, gently pointed out that I haven’t been posting a lot of recipes. And they’re right. It’s been so hectic around here I haven’t been taking the time to make notes and take photos. But last night I did, and here’s a great example of what we’re eating for dinner these days.

This meal is “seasonal transitional,” meaning it’s taking the best of the end of summer and the beginning of fall. It has a few non-local (to me) ingredients but most ingredients can probably be found just about anywhere in North America right now.

Potatoes have become our new pasta. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this. I appreciate that they’re loaded with good vitamins and minerals. Clara is still boycotting them, but everyone else seems to like them fine. I used to dislike potatoes, too, because I thought they took too long to cook (they don’t if you slice them thinly) and they’re high on the glycemic index, something I try to avoid, at least at dinner. I think I also wasn’t storing them correctly and that affected the flavor. Now I keep them in a paper bag in a cupboard and I’m enjoying them much more.

Fennel still feels very exotic to me as this is the first season I’ve ever cooked with it. I know! I love the licorice taste and Iris devours the celery-like stalks. Even Aaron, who dislikes licorice, likes it. Clara hates it. Shocker!

Chop the fennel bulb like you would an onion. Chop the stalks like celery.

Apple Fennel Salad

-1 fennel bulb, chopped in half and then into thin slices (See Note)
-1 Granny Smith apple, or any variety of your choice, chopped into 1” chunks
-1 small carrot grated, more if you like
-1/4 cup red cider vinegar
-2 tbsp. olive oil
-2 tsp. local honey

1. Toss together fennel, carrot and apple in a salad bowl.
2. In a separate bowl combine oil and vinegar and stir in honey. Whisk or stir briskly with a fork. Toss with salad to coat.

Note: You can dice the ends of the fennel stocks like you would celery.

Apple Fennel Salad

What do you call this kind of potato dish? It’s not casserole, it’s not a hash (though if you diced the potatoes it could be, I’m just too lazy to go to that much work). So I’m just calling this a “Fry Up.” Because that’s just what you do—throw potatoes and meat together and fry it up. This will not win any culinary awards. This dish is pure sustenance. Given our budget constraints with the Eat Local Challenge it works because it's a filling, nutritious and tasty, cheap dinner.

I seriously made this up as I went. That’s how I cook most nights. The beauty of cooking with fresh, whole foods is that you know the flavors will be strong and present and the texture of the foods will be at their best. If you've got those things, you don't have to do much else to the food.

In the case of this particular potato dish I wanted it to complement the salad, since that was the dish with the strongest flavors. I didn’t want to add onion or garlic, like I normally do with my staple potato dishes. And I certainly didn’t want to add anything too sweet. So I decided, as the potatoes were cooking, to chop up a carrot and toss that in. Then I actually added a few sprinkles of dried fennel seeds. I know that seems like fennel overload but the dried seeds are considerably less potent and have an earthy flavor. The flavors just faded into one another, like different hues of the same color. And Clara ate the carrots.

The Fry Up

Potato and Ground Pork Fry-up
-1 lb. of ground pork (or turkey or beef)
-1 tbsp. olive oil or butter
-2 red potatoes, cut into 1/8” slices
-1 small chopped carrot (more if you like)
-Dash of pepper and salt
-¼ tsp. of dried fennel seeds

1. Sauté the meat in a frying pan until cooked but not browned. Set aside in a separate bowl.
2. In the same frying pan heat the oil or butter on medium heat about 30 seconds. Add the potatoes and carrots (see note). Cook covered about 4 minutes, separating frequently. Add ground meat to potato mixture. Cook 4 more minutes or until potatoes are tender and meat is browned.

Note: Add the carrots later in the process if you like a really crisp carrot.

And there you have it. A simple, flavorful salad and a total peasant dish, literally meat and potatoes. Virtually all local and pretty cheap, too.


Edited for picture correction.

Keeping Perspective

What happened to September? Oh, I know: school started, clients came back from vacation, and I had to get back to work. I love my work and I’m so lucky to be able to do it at home and spend so much time with my kids. But it interferes with my blogging.

Last Saturday, while Clara and Aaron were off at a birthday party, Iris and I took the bus up to Peninsula Park for the Green Sprouts Organic Baby and Family Fest. We ran into our Alma midwives, Cynthia from Zoom Baby Gear Cloth Diapers. I will always be grateful to the women at Alma for supporting me through my pregnancy and to Cyn for loaning me the cloth dipes that got Clara potty trained. I also made friends with a woman at the Flexcar booth and signed up for a membership! I’m thinking of selling my car. More on this later.

One of the best parts of the event was meeting Heather and Renee from EnviroMom. They've got all kinds of ideas and insights that make your life a little bit greener. I’d heard of them a few months back when they got some local press and loved their style. As I’ve written about before I can become obsessed and single-minded about my food values, despite what I preach: Every little bit helps. I truly need some like-minded friends to help me keep my perspective!

How have we been doing with the Eat Local Challenge? Still, pretty good. I mean, I’m sticking to the plan and not buying much that isn’t absolutely local. All of our produce, meat and eggs are from Oregon and Washington. I tried to go a little while without corn tortillas and gluten-free bread, and I may have been able to live on wild rice and potatoes, but this wasn’t working with Aaron’s or Clara’s bag lunches so I bought more today.

I’ve also been out on business meetings and kid outings quite a bit and I know not all of what I’m eating is locally made. Still, I’ve stuck to local companies, keeping the dollars in the community. I think my biggest transgression was buying corndogs for the girls and me (I know, likely not even gluten-free) at the Oregon Zoo. We joined friends there in the morning and I really didn’t think the kids would hold up long enough for lunch. But they did, little buggers, and I had to feed them. We’d already polished off the cheese and strawberries I’d brought along. I admit those dogs were yummy. But! The Zoo did offer local apples, which we happily munched.

Some days I feel like we’re not eating any more locally than we were before the challenge. Then I realize that we’ve done fine without packaged pasta, tuna fish, and rice bars for the kids, which is new for us. (Although today, at New Seasons, Clara specifically asked for “something that comes in a wrapper.”) And while I haven’t taken meticulous notes on my spending in the last 10 days, I only spent about $12 at the farmers market last week, and about about $80 at New Seasons. We’ve done a good job of working with what we’ve got. And less is going to waste.

I tried to make our exceptions workable for our family so that this could be a sustainable practice, not just a one-time challenge. We may be getting there.

Eat Local Challenge is almost here!

The Eat Local Challenge is upon us again and we’re going to take this opportunity to step up our game a bit. It’s summer and it’s been easy to eat mostly local since the farmers’ markets opened but we know we can do a little better. I’ve been meaning to search out local providers of some odds and ends—like vodka and vinegar, goat cheese and farm-fresh eggs—but I’ve needed a kick in the pants to get me going. This is it.

And since eating local, for us, isn’t just about what we eat, but about keeping dollars in our local economy, reducing our usage of fossil fuels and building community, we’re going to add a few other commitments to our September Challenge. Because I’m totally insane.

Here’s what we’re committing to:

1. As much as possible, eat produce grown and meat and eggs raised in Oregon and Washington. I thought about doing the 100 mile thing, but the kind of research involved is just not realistic for us right now (though I'm finding in my prep that I'm still doing plenty of Googling as it is). This regional approach isn’t going to be all that different from what we’ve been doing but I’m going to do my best to find some local suppliers so I’m buying from them and not the grocery store. This, I’m sure, will be my biggest challenge given the time involved, but it’s something I’ve been meaning to do anyway. I especially want to find farm-fresh eggs. After eating local, fresh eggs on Orcas Island, we’re all totally hooked.

2. If it’s not local ingredients, buy from a local company. We want to keep those dollars in our own economy.

3. If not locally produced nor a local company, then organic. Now if you’re familiar with Jamie from 10 Signs Like This and her tips for eating local published on the Eat Local Challenge website you know that her #2 is if not local, then organic, and following that if it’s not organic then buy from a local company. For us, we’ve reversed these and here’s why: the vast majority of organic products in our local grocery store are made by companies that are owned by giant conglomerates [see a chart here] and I’m not convinced they’re committed to sustainable farming or reducing their carbon footprint. So most non-local organic is low on our list.

4. Bring lunch to work. This mainly applies to Aaron, since I work at home, but realistically it’s going to be up to me to make it possible, since I do all the food shopping and cooking. hopefully, Aaron will be happy with local leftovers.

5. If we eat out, eat at locally-owned restaurants that use locally-grown ingredients. We usually do this anyway. Portland is pretty anti-chain. Though this may mean neither Thai Ginger nor any Fire on the Mountain Buffalo wings this month.

6. Stick to the average American food budget. We need to do this anyway, and the Penny-Wise Eat Local Challenge of last April is a great inspiration. Our budget, according to their guidelines (from the US Department of Labor’s Bureau Statistics): 2+ persons in the family, 2 wage earners: $144 a week. This will definitely be a challenge. I often spend twice that.

7. Start a garden. I’ve got the tomatoes going. Now it’s time to get going on those late fall crops. Did I tell you that recently I was mistakenly referred to as a farmer? And it was better than being told I look like Gwyneth Paltrow?

8. Preserve. I don’t know if I can commit to any more than the jams, butters and straight freezing of fresh produce I’ve been doing. I just commit to keeping it up.

Our exceptions:

1. Pamela’s Ultimate Baking Mix. I justify this because it’s not going to do us any good to hunt down a local supplier of wheat; we can’t eat it. I do have a local supplier of wild rice – Oregon Jewel -- but at $6+ for 4 servings we can’t afford to buy this to mill into flour. I don't even know if wild rice can be used as flour. And I already use Bob’s Red Mill’s Rice Flour (the rice if from California). The Pamela’s mix is the product that helps me incorporate a lot of leftover local produce into our diets.

2. Gluten-free pastas. Again, if I can find a local supplier, or local ingredients, I’m there. But this is a staple that makes the local stuff come together.

3. And along those lines, if I can’t find a local or organic or gluten-free or dairy-free version, I’ll buy whatever. We’ve got a lot of birthdays coming up this month and I think I’m going to have to buy a lot of margarine for baking so no one gets a horrendous exzema breakout from butter.

4. We’ll eat whatever is already in the house, wherever it came from. I’m not letting perfectly edible food go to waste.

5. And the ones that gets everyone: coffee and olive oil. We already either buy coffee from a local company and/or fair trade. And I buy olive oil that’s produced in California rather than Italy. I wish I could use butter for sautéing, like the 100 Mile Diet folks did, but that’s too much dairy for Aaron and Clara.

Some other challenges we’re taking on, again, because this isn’t just about the food:

1. Bike, walk, or train as often as possible. Again, we do this already, but we’re going to really try to stay out of our cars as much as possible. This requires a lot of planning ahead and takes extra time. But since I’ve been walking Clara to preschool a few days a week and walking or taking the train to the farmers’ markets I’ve managed to work off the final pounds of pregnancy weight. Aaron recently started biking to work a few days a week, too, and loves it. He’s committing to taking the train, instead of driving, on the days he doesn’t bike.

2. Buy (almost) nothing new. This is just for me, and there are going to be a lot of exceptions. We’ve got some remodeling projects going on and I’m going to try to get a lot of materials salvage, but I won’t be able to avoid Home Despot, I know. I’m talking about clothes, random things for the house and kitchen--the little things you can go without for a few days (or forever) until you find a used version or make it yourself.

3. Tell friends about what we’re doing. I feel like I must talk about local food constantly and I’m boring everyone. Actually, I don’t. (I just think about it. Sometimes, obsessively.) The best way I can think of to do this is have a potluck with all of my favorite people. Oh, yum.

In my head this all sounds easy and only a step-up from what we’re currently doing. And now that I have it all down on paper I’m, uh, panicking.

Can we really do all this?

If you're taking the Eat Local Challenge, even if you're just committing to one local meal a week, let me know in the comments below! I need all the company in this that I can rally.

Collard green soup

So that menu planning thing. It did work, mostly, in that two nights in a row I knew exactly what I was cooking for dinner and that I had the ingredients on hand. And, bonus, most of the ingredients were either grown locally or came from locally-based companies.

Except, I made a few erroneous assumptions:

1) I could get apples. Nope. There are no local apples this time of year (I think they’re about to come in). I suppose if I’d thought a little harder I would have realized this. I haven’t seen any apples at the farmers’ markets. But because apples and pears were the only local fruit I could reliable get at the grocery store all winter I didn’t even consider if they were available or not. They’re not. They only had Fujis.

2) I could get fresh green beans. Nope, not at my grocery store. The only ones they had were from California. This irked me. I know that I bought a bunch at the farmers’ market a few weeks ago. I emailed the produce manager and was told that there just weren’t enough to buy. The local producers were all growing specialty varieties. I would have bought those!

The other thing that derailed my efforts was a last-minute trip to Walla Walla (my second in a month) to see my sister while she visited with my dad. (He further lured me with the promise of picking pears from his tree, which I happily took him up on.) So after Wednesday I wasn’t even in town. I took the girls with me so my husband played bachelor all weekend, attending fancy Pearl District parties and a co-worker’s birthday celebration. This meant he did not eat any of the greens in the fridge. And they are starting to get that less-than-fresh feeling.

Thus, I made soup.

This is definitely a hearty soup and one that I would usually make in the colder months, but I had a bushel of collard greens to use up. And since I am this week a sales rally widow and my husband wasn’t home for dinner I had to choose a recipe that would use a lot of collards. The kids didn’t eat the collards at all since they were still a bit tough even after simmering in the broth for 20 minutes total. But this soup has so much else in it they were full and happy and went right to bed without much whining. Which, when you’re a sales rally widow, is a very, very good thing.

There was at least one time-out during the making of this dinner.

This recipe would also probably work nicely with kale or another sturdy green, and you could add potatoes or turnips or other root vegetables.

It's festive-looking, no?

(Gotta Use Up These) Collard Greens Soup

-3 tablespoons olive oil
-2 cloves of garlic, minced or pressed
-1 small (2 cups) white onion (I used Walla Walla sweet, since I’ve still got ‘em coming outta my ears)
-1 teaspoon fresh fennel leaves, chopped (see note)
-2 small carrots, chopped
-1 small zucchini, chopped into quarter rounds
-1 teaspoon dried marjoram
-3 - 4 cups beef broth (see note)
-1 15 oz can kidney beans (see note)
-1 cup cooked pasta, such as penne or macaroni (optional)
-3 cups of packed collard greens, stemmed, de-ribbed and sliced into 1 inch strips
-salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat the oil on medium. Sauté the garlic for 1 minute. Add onion and sauté another 2 minutes.
2. Add fresh fennel leaves, carrots and zucchini and sauté for 1 minute.
3. Add stock and marjoram. Let simmer uncovered for 10 minutes.
4. Add collard greens and kidney beans and let simmer another 10 minutes. Greens may lose their brightness, but you’ll want to let them go the whole 10 minutes to soften them up.
5. If adding cooked pasta, do this now. Turn the heat to low (or off) and let the pasta heat up, about 5 minutes.
6. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Note:
1. I just had some fennel hanging around and wasn’t sure what would happen if I put chopped leaves in as I’d never put chopped, fresh fennel leaves in anything, and I think it’s technically a garnish. It worked! I tasted the soup as it simmered and I think the flavor was enhanced by the fennel. Not sure what would happen if you used dried.
2. For a vegetarian dish, use vegetable broth, but change the beans to a white or green bean.

She won't eat potatoes covered in her favorite cheese, but she'll *chow* on this soup.

I just scooped the whole parts out for her. This one will basically eat anything.

She *would* hate potatoes

Last Tuesday night’s frittata was hearty and delicious, though Clara boycotted the potatoes. I believe she does this to spite me. And I don’t care because potatoes are a neutral, like tofu, they’re gluten-free AND they’re easy to find locally year-round so I will continue to cook them. I believe frittata will become a regular in my repertoire and will up our weekly egg intake from three dozen to four. (This is not an exaggeration.) And it’s good for getting rid of vegetables.

(This seems to be a theme with me lately—getting rid of food, rather than cooking with it and enjoying it. But I am enjoying this food. Perhaps I'm just suprised by this fact.)

The prep.

Except for the zucchini, I'm still doing this all by hand. Can't get into the food processor.

The sauté

The food photography session at Blogher was exceptional, though it's only made me see how bad my photos are. I have a great digital SLR, I just haven't read the manual. How lame.

Does it look yummy? It was, depsite the moody photo.

It doesn't help that I have filtered daylight as well as all sorts of halogen light sources in my kitchen.

Again, really bad white balance. But I'd been at this for about an hour and was starved so I just snapped this and was happy that this one was eating, and eating happily. The other one didn't get her picture in this post, just to spite her.

Zucchini Potato Frittata

Serves 2 adults, 1 hungry toddler and a picky 3 year-old. Goes great with a sturdy green salad (think fresh Romaine and beefy tomatoes).

2 tablespoons olive oil
4-5 baby red potatoes, cut into thin slices
1 medium onion, cut into thin slices
1 clove garlic, minced or pressed
1.5 cups shredded zucchini
4 large eggs, beaten
7 – 10 fresh basil leaves, chopped
1/2 cup shredded goat mozzarella (or swiss or feta, or skip cheese to make this dairy-free)

1. Heat the oil in a small oven-safe skillet. Add potatoes and onions and sauté until softened, about 8 minutes.
2. Add zucchini, garlic and basil leaves and sauté about 2 minutes, until zucchini is soft.
3. Pour eggs over vegetables and tilt pan to evenly distribute. Add salt and pepper to taste then sprinkle cheese over the top.
4. Cover the pan and set heat to low and cook for 10 minutes. Check it often!
5. When the eggs are set remove the pan from the stove and place the pan in a preheated broiler for about 2 minutes, until the cheese is just golden.
6. Cut frittata into wedges and serve.

adapted from Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home

Muffins to the Rescue (of the aging foodstuffs)

Pamela’s Ultimate Baking and Pancake Mix saves my ass practically on a daily basis. It does contain a little dairy, but I overlook this for the sake of my sanity. This fast and easy mix allows us to have (quick) pancakes and waffles on the weekends like normal people and I can whip up muffins for the kids when I need to use up some fruit, or veggies, as it were. And kill an hour or so. Clara is the perfect age for "helping" and Iris is happy if you give her a spoon to lick.

Now if you're a from-scratch muffin connoisseur, you may not be impressed with this mix. But if it means the difference between having or not having some of the foods so basic in our culture, you may find it more than adequate. And like I said, it's an easy way for me to sneak in more local foods.

Zucchini Muffins

This past week I still had a ton of zucchini left after the arm-sized zucchini from the farmer’s market. (Wish I had a photo of that monster.) (This will teach me to buy the biggest zucchini when they’re priced by the item rather than the pound.)

So I made zucchini muffins. Followed the instructions and added about a cup of shredded zucchini. Yum.

pick, pick

These went so fast I didn't get any shots of the full bounty. Clara is tired of waiting for me to take photos of this last muffin so she resorts to picking at the crust in the tin.

It's not gorgeous, but it was yummy.

At last, sweet success. (God, she looks like her father here.)

Raspberry Muffins

I also had a bit of frozen raspberries left over from last year’s crop. I mistakenly put the bag in the refrigerator instead of the freezer and they thawed so I had to use them up. Again, the magic baking mix to the rescue! I used about 1 cup of berries.

My favorite bowls

(That bowl in the lower right was a gift [part of a set] from a dear friend for my wedding. Every time I use them I think of her. Happily, she's recently come back into my life after a long absence. )

She's pretty good at stiring, if she can stop licking the spoon long enough.

Normally, you put the fruit into the mix while it's still frozen so that it holds its shape and doesn’t “dye” the batter. But we weren’t going for aesthetics.

Next time, no paper cups

I did bake these a few minutes longer than the recommended 18 – 20 minutes because of the extra moisture. This worked, mostly, but I wish I hadn’t put these in cupcake cups. They stuck to the paper a little. Still, no one around here cared.

Ah, who cares if they're magenta?

Finally. Pizza.

Serving food at Clara’s preschool is always an exercise in “living without.” For her third birthday party I brought fruit on a stick since no one seems to be allergic to fruit. (I’m not going to post a recipe other than to say I bought wood skewers, cut up melon into chunks and added some grapes. I made 18 skewers and it took a really long time.)

We’re lucky that one of the teachers, Andrea, has celiac disease so she’s always on ball about making sure there is food for all of us when the school has gatherings. At the last event Andrea served something that I didn’t know existed: gluten-free, dairy-free pizza! I had been buying this horrible, tough and sticky rice crust from Nature’s Hilights (can’t find a website for them, strangely enough) and I was about to give up on pizza altogether.

The pizza Andrea served was the Spinich Pizza with Rice Crust from good ol’ Amy’s and it really wasn’t bad. It’s not something I would ever serve to guests, but both Clara and Iris couldn’t get enough of it so I’ll put that on my shopping list.

Baby's First Chocolate Cupcakes

I’m not going to whine and sob about how my baby—my last baby!—is now a year old and then not even really a baby anymore! And she’s walking! And yesterday she said, “Da’nt UP!” Which means, “I want up!” Even her sister, the QUEEN of gab and sass, wasn’t talking this early.

But seriously. For some reason this birthday didn’t hit me with all sorts of panic and regret that I will never hold my own newborn babe in my arms again. Maybe I'm learning to live in the moment. Or maybe I was actually was looking forward to an excuse to have a bunch of people over, play hostess, and watch the kids go crazy in the kiddie pools.

I really like to make a big deal out of my kids' birthday parties. It's the only kind of party you can throw that’s expected to be unsophisticated, loud, with tons of sugary food and no fancy hors d'oeuvres. Compared to say, a dinner party with only real grown-ups and kids sent over to grandma’s house, it’s very low pressure.

This was my third kid birthday party and this time I actually felt like I knew what I was doing. I did an Evite instead of paper invites. I didn’t do balloons. The goody bags only had a little candy and a little plastic crap. The house was clean hours before guests arrived. My mom and I made a salad and we put out a cheese and pesto torta (these always make me feel so fancy). I actually got the cupcakes made the day before and frosted them after the kids went to bed.

But no, I didn’t make them from scratch. I’m still too intimidated to try gluten-free baking. Too much chemistry! Instead I used a gluten-free boxed chocolate cake mix from Cherrybrook Kitchen that I tested out over Mother’s Day. I really thought I’d never find anything as good as Pamela’s mixes, but this one was even better. Not too sweet, with a deep, dark chocolate flavor. Moist, but not oily. The frosting—I made it with margarine—was a little salty, but I decided it was a nice contrast to the cupcake itself. And not only is it gluten-free, it’s dairy-, eggs- and nut-free, too.

And the birthday girl, of course, thought they were delish.