I Got What You Need!

Drinking right now: Organic English Breakfast Black Tea, origin: India. $35.99/lb

What a week! I defenestrated my meal plan quite literally and had a week of "let's see what's in the pantry and make recipes up!" Of course, then I realized that my new pantry (that is, the way my pantry looks since I stopped stocking up on microwave items) is bare, and everything's in my fridge. Really, most everything we are cooking with comes from the refrigerator at this point. I have so many vegetables that both crispers are full and I'm stacking the tougher greens on the bottom shelf. I took this picture early last week, before I went and bought more vegetables on Thursday. Notice the beverages as well: water, tea, and agua fresca. More on that later.

Experimental dinner number one was a "throw it together and see what happens." I didn't get any pictures, and I really should have because it was beautiful. Razi had requested quinoa earlier in the day, so I set to cooking some first (pro tip: you can cook it in a rice cooker with the exact same ratio of grain to water as rice uses.) I discovered the steamer tray that goes with my rice cooker while rummaging, so I stuck that on top the cooking grain and added sugar snap peas and shrimp. In a saucepan, I threw together maple syrup, lemon juice, walnuts, salt and pepper, soy sauce, and chives.

That was all great! I mixed it all up and served it with a frozen lasagna I found in the freezer, then at the last minute toasted some bread with butter and garlic salt (a staple from childhood.)

Experiment number two...well, I'll have to fill this part in later, because I can't honestly remember what the next thing I cooked was.

The final experiment for the week was a chickpea curry. Now, I don't enjoy Indian food. I'm sorry, but I really don't like spicy food; that seems odd with all the spices I use, but I really cook with small quantities. I had a can of chickpeas in the pantry and they seemed like a good base for dinner, and I do enjoy Thai curry, so I set out on the internet to grab a curry recipe. I found one for chickpea masala curry, a recipe that depended on masala garam--which I didn't have made, but had the ingredients for. What I was really missing were any whole vegetables to put in. I was planning on potatoes at least, then got into cooking and found the potatoes had gone bad.

Anyways, one thing led to (or subtracted from) another, and I ended up with insanely spicy chickpeas and onions with a lot of heat and no actual flavor. I'm kind of embarrassed about the whole thing, because I have never in my life had a meal flop like this. We actually had to throw it all out and I made grilled cheese instead.

Bento Bento Bento

The reason we had only three big dinnertime meals this week is Bento! As I proposed last week, I started making lunches to send with my husband for work. The timing works great, because I'm making his lunch when it's lunchtime for the boys and me, so I just make extra and pack his before the rest of us eat (right after he leaves for work.) Razi has always preferred eating the larger meal of the day earlier, and Beorn and I don't mind jumping into that routine either.

I won't get into exactly how this is improving my husband's health, but trust me that he and I began seeing benefits after just three days. I've found that I've lost weight as well, but I think it's been happening over the last month and not just this week.

I don't really want to post recipes yet, as I'm still very much exploring what's good and not. So far we've had two really good and one pretty good (I need a different kind of miso, but it made excellent soup!) My bento isn't very pretty yet, but it's coming along.

Actually, yeah...

Aimee's Miso Soup

2.5-3 c water
1/2 c bonito flakes
2 TBSP Akamiso
1 TBSP torn nori

I looked at a couple of miso soup recipes and compared them to what I had in stock at the moment. I'd made miso soup a few years back, but it was pretty dull tasting--as is the miso soup you get in those instant packets. I decided to keep it simple, though this would probably be good with vegetables (like daikon) or green onions as a garnish (which I had, but decided to forgo as I'm running short.)

I brought the water to a slight boil, then added the bonito flakes. I simmered them in the water for about 5 minutes, just enough to color it slightly. Straining the flakes out (my husband said "What IS that stuff?"), I added the miso and dissolved it in the weak stock. I kept the soup simmering as I did this, careful not to let it boil again. After all the miso was dissolved, I tore some strips from a sheet of nori and added them, then brought the whole thing to a boil briefly and served it hot.

Awesome, awesome, awesome. The Akamiso was pretty salty, so I was confident not adding any spice, salt, or soy sauce. When you prepare the stock, you're supposed to use something that escapes my mind at the moment in addition to the bonito flakes, but I didn't have any. The seaweed you're supposed to use is wakame, but I had only the nori sheets I've been using. I don't know how blasphemous the entire dish was, but it was delicious, quick,and super-easy.

Onigiri has become one of my favorite snacks to make.

Razi refuses to eat the ones with eyes, but also refuses to let me make them without eyes.

Back to the Drinks...

One thing I've struggled with awhile is my children's refusal to drink plain water. I feel for them, because I hate it myself. It used to really make me sick, until I figured out in college that it wasn't the water but what was coming through in our tap that made me so sick (I learned this by testing water around our campus and comparing the results to other tests around Tennessee and Kentucky. If you live in southeast Tennessee, do yourself a favor and filter your water, seriously.) Even filtered water isn't a big treat still, though we do keep a clean pitcher cold in the fridge all the time.

We really started Razi off badly by letting him drink juice all the time. I don't have the fortitude at this hour to go through the ins and outs of why we did and didn't drink certain things, but juice is a habit we had so much trouble getting him off of. In the last few months, I'd been compromising by buying kool-aid for them to drink the majority of the day. I can't stand the sickly-sweet stuff, and I knew it wasn't good for them, so it's been top on my list of "crap" to replace.

I would tell people I was looking for alternatives, and they'd say "Oh but I love kool-aid!" and change the subject. Really though, it was staining and eating away at every single plastic container I put it in, so I couldn't imagine what it was doing to their insides.

I came across a post on someone's blog where she said her family drank frozen juice from concentrate, mixed a little stronger and with some sugar. Well, that took care of a lot of the additives, but what about all that sugar (in corn syrup form, first on the list of ingredients every time)? I looked to try it anyways, and couldn't find anything worth using. Then I walked past the Latino section of our frozen aisles and saw Goya pulpa--the heart of the fruit, frozen. No syrup, nothing added, so I brought home four packages of differing fruits.

I would let a package thaw, mix it with a gallon of water (or less, if needed) either in a pitcher or in the blender for the chunkier ones (papaya), then add some sugar. This worked great! I was still concerned about sugar, but it was better and cheaper for the most part.

I used this for a week, then noticed the kids hating when I would water the fruit down. Things like Passion Fruit worked well, but took a great deal of sugar.

When I started making the iced tea for Akalee (which is going great!), the kids began begging to try it. Call me out if you want, but my mom always let me drink tea and I turned out fine (if not a bit of a tea nut.) It occurred to me that I could be making the tea for them too, especially since sweet tea takes less than half the sugar I was putting in the fruit-water (not to mention the amount of sugar in the fruit itself.)

It's been another week, and my master plan has finally come to fruition (which is why I finally feel comfortable writing about it.) The kids get up, drink a glass of whatever juice I have made, then drink water and tea until dinner when they get chocolate soy milk (I'm working on that one, too--more on that later.) The tea is introducing them to more subtle flavors in drinks, and I think they're appreciating flat water more.

The biggest thing that worries me about tea is the caffeine; not because of energy issues, but because I know it's making them pee more. My solution to that is to just start buying decaffeinated teas for the iced tea we're drinking--it'll be better for all of us.

Before it comes up: yes, I've tried Stevia and I hate it. Yes, it was the herb, not a similar product. No, I haven't tried coconut or agave syrup, and I'm open to suggestions. No, I don't use refined sugar. I like everything I use to have actual taste so I can use less of it (that's going to be an entire post soon.)

Before I go, I'm adding a poll to the blog somewhere. It should be over to the right, and I'd like you to check it out and tell me what you think: should I have printable versions of my recipes?

Heh, heh, glad I could help!