What to do with that (some kitchen tips)

Bits and pieces...

1. If you have a few less-than-tasty apples, not rotten but lacking texture, it's easy to turn them into applesauce. Peel them, cut them up (no cores), and cook them in a slow cooker or on a low burner.  Cook till they're fairly soft, then mash them with the back of a spoon. The process by which mealy apples can be reconstituted into decent applesauce would make a great homeschool science lesson. (It's all about cells.)

2. If you have a cup of orange marmalade, you can mix it with soy sauce, ginger, and garlic to make a good cooking sauce for four pork chops. If you have half a cup, you can do two pork chops. We found the recipe in a freezer-cooking download from $5 Dinners, and it is the best orange sauce we've tried--way better than recipes using frozen orange juice. There are variations of the recipe all over the Internet, but it's basically a smaller version of this recipe on the Smucker's website (but with soy sauce instead of teriyaki sauce).

3. If you have a few small, slightly stale dinner rolls, you can slice them into thirds or quarters, spresd them with garlic butter, and toast them to go along with spaghetti or stew.

Easter food, in progress

 Orange-flavoured cream cheese candy

 Lemon-flavoured cream cheese candy

 Cake in a pizza pan, ready to add fruit and other toppings tomorrow

 Sauce cooking for Tofu-Almond Lasagna

 Lasagna, assembled. I will bake it tomorrow.

Sweet potato salad.

Oh, leave us alone and let us eat

The Deputy Headmistress posted a response to this article, "The Joy of Cooking?", which is an academic-style paper with this as its abstract:

"Sociologists Sarah Bowen, Sinikka Elliott, and Joslyn Brenton offer a critique of the increasingly prevalent message that reforming the food system necessarily entails a return to the kitchen. They argue that time pressures, tradeoffs to save money, and the burden of pleasing others make it difficult for mothers to enact the idealized vision of home-cooked meals advocated by foodies and public health officials."

The DHM made several comments ("Aliens in the Kitchen") based on the body of the article, but I could stop right there with the abstract. I don't cook for either the foodies or the public health officials, any more than I homeschool for the magazine publishers or the school board. My inspiration these days is mostly my own inclination and imagination, combined with what we are able to buy in an increasingly expensive food market, and my motivation is my family.

And yes, besides living on a limited income (for anyone who doesn't know, my husband has been self-employed for two years and we were living on one rather low salary for years before that), I have cooked and continue to cook for picky eating, food intolerances, adolescent meal-skipping, and medically-required diet adjustments.  Not to mention a budding vegetarian and some vegan extended family members. Let me put it this way: as one of the main family cooks and grocery shoppers,  I have my own set of challenges; you probably have yours.  I meet mine as best I can, and I limit myself to occasional gripes when prices go too high or something I sweated over turns up the family noses.

Big deal. That's how you cook for a family.  We have food in the fridge and the freezer and the cupboard.  All the food groups are there.  It's more than enough to keep us going.

And it's only when I start listening to the "foodies" as the authors call them, or to the so-called public health experts, that I get out of whack.  Those public health experts, would those be the ones who want to ban not only peanuts (I'm okay with that) but dairy and other so-called problematic foods from the school system? Leave us alone and let us enjoy our occasional quart of chocolate milk.

As far as preparation goes, North Americans have never had it easier. Low budget or not. See the little casserole dish above? Can you identify the contents?  I bet you can't.  That's butternut squash "butter," like pumpkin butter or apple butter.  I made it last night with a containerful of leftover squash, mixed with some honey and spices. You put it in a pot on the stove or in your slow cooker, and cook it on low for awhile, then mash or puree it to your liking.  What did I really have to do?  I pulled the cooked squash out of the fridge and put it in a pot. (I didn't even have to grow the squash, although I know people who do.)  I squished the honey out of a plastic container.  I stuck a teaspoon into the cinnamon jar and the ginger.  How hard is that?  Not exactly a burden.

And if I didn't want to make squash butter myself, I could have made the choice to go to the store and buy something else to put on my bagel.

But it's only when researchers make what we eat too complicated that we suddenly think we have a problem.  It's not about enacting anybody's idealized vision, it's just about eating.

Related posts:
Keep Your Nose Out of My Lunch Bag
This Doesn't Tug My Heartstrings
I'm Not an Anomaly, I Just Make Dinner
On Not Throwing Out Food, or, Let's Rustle Up Some Grub

What are the really basic cooking skills?

This is not a new post, but I'd never seen it before, and the comments are interesting (and I don't think there are any really rude ones). What should everybody (that is, not every cook, just every normal person) know how to do in a kitchen?

I agree with the one comment that everybody, no matter what their circumstances or food style, should know how to make three different main meals more or less from scratch, something simple but decent enough that they could also feed a friend or two. It's a reasonable-enough don't-leave-home-without-it goal, and it's one that they could probably learn from just one issue of a family or food magazine. If you have and use tools like a slow cooker, this can be even easier. Our Treehouse classic: open lid, put in sauerkraut, put in meat, put on lid, plug in, turn on.  Cook.

What's your personal survival list?  What do kids need to learn so that they don't end up like this poor guy on the Possum 911 line?  (Fast-forward to 13:27.)

A can of pineapple? (What's in your hand?)

Canned pineapple is a regular occupant of our pantry shelf, but sometimes it sits there awhile waiting to get used.  But there really are a lot of ways to eat canned pineapple, even if you bought rings and want crushed, or the other way round.  A food processor will turn bigger pieces into smaller ones quickly, or you can just get out the knife or scissors and chop or snip.  If you have small pieces and need bigger ones, you can often use them anyway; upside-down cake tastes just as good with tidbits as with rings.

Here are some ideas for using up a can on the shelf...or the half-can in the fridge.

1.  Freeze it and run it through the food processor as sherbet.  If you freeze the fruit plus juice in ice cube trays (without processing it), you can let kids eat the cubes instead of Popsicles, or suck on them if they're not feeling well. After our first Squirreling was born, I was told to drink pineapple juice to keep my fluids up (it was supposed to be less irritating for the baby than citrus juice.)

2.  Put it on Hawaiian pizza. Or fruit pizza.

3.  Add it to sweet and sour meatballs, or ham, or one of those oddball baked-bean recipes.

4.  Make Potluck Cake.  Or add it to carrot cake or carrot muffins, or another fruit bread like banana bread.  Pineapple Purée  (see #1) works great in baking.

5.  Combine it with rhubarb, in muffins or other desserts.

6.  Heat undrained crushed pineapple and thicken with cornstarch, as a sauce for cake or waffles.  This works better if you have more juice, less fruit.

7.  Make fruit salad.

8.  If you have big chunks, put on toothpicks with other bits of fruit, marshmallows, etc., for mini-kebabs.  Or on skewers with peppers and meat or chicken, for big-kebabs.

9.  Mix with cottage cheese or yogurt, granola, and other fruit for breakfast sundaes.  I know that's basically fruit salad again, but it tastes different in the morning, doesn't it?

10.  Smoothies.  Or eat the fruit and then add the juice to other fruit juice, punch, or lemonade.

11. (bonus--I knew there was one I'd forgotten). Make Sue Gregg's Pineapple Yogurt Pie.

Linked from Festival of Frugality #384 at Evolving Personal Finance.

Five thrifty food tips from Mama Squirrel

As I've posted before, and as Peg Bracken liked to say, you don't always need fancy recipes, and sometimes you're better off without them.  Peg wrote, "Worst of all, there are the big fat cookbooks that tell you everything about everything.  For one thing, they contain too many recipes.  Just look at all the things you can do with a chop, and aren't about to!  What you want is just one little old dependable thing you can do with a chop besides broil it, that's all."  (The I Hate to Cook Book)

Well, we are not broiled-chop people, but you get the drift.  My own "little old dependable thing" for meat has usually been putting whatever-it-is on a layer of sauerkraut, and either baking it or slow-cooking it.  I have an "old dependable" basic muffin recipe, a meatloaf recipe that suits us, a favourite way of making macaroni and cheese, and a few other fall-back, no-fail things that keep us functioning. 

But it's the flexy-recipes, patterns rather than strictly-enforced lists of ingredients, that help us make the most of what's around.  These can turn out delicious, or they can be flops.  Experience has a lot to do with that.  Here are a few hints we've learned along the way.

1.  Size and shape:  The other night, I made what was basically spaghetti-and-meat-sauce but with a chunk of leftover roast beef.  The wrong way to do this would be to cut large chunks or slices of meat and to use long pasta like spaghetti.  That is one recipe-for-messy waiting to happen.  Better idea:  cut the chunks quite small, and also use small pasta like shells or fusilli.  We also glued it together, so to speak, with a bit of mozzarella melted on top.   Rule of thumb:  things that go on the fork at the same time work better when they're approximately the same size.  Stew, big chunks.  Soup, small pieces.

2. Seasoning: the above-mentioned pasta dish could have been very flat, but I used the spaghetti seasonings here (more or less--less sugar), and added beef broth as part of the liquid. If you're using low-or-no salt ingredients (such as no-salt-added tomatoes) and a little salt isn't a medical problem, then you might want to check for that.

3.  Don't put things in that don't belong.  We had some gravy left over from the roast beef, but that would have made the spaghetti sauce taste terrible.  It's not a crime not to use every last available ingredient.

4.  Colour.  Seventh-grade home ec teachers love this one, but it's true.  Sometimes you can't help the food at your meal being mostly one colour, but if you can add a bit of contrast (even if it's frozen peas), it cheers up the plates.  Some vegetables lose colour in cooking, so you might want to add them (or cook them) at the last minute.

5.  If you're not sure which foods go together, try making up a name for your dish based on the flavours and ingredients you're using, and see if it sounds like something you'd order off a menu.  If not, you might want to rethink.  For instance, Banana-Cherry Muffins sound tasty; Pumpkin-Cherry, not so much (although many people obviously disagree with me on that).  Beef-Mushroom Pasta Skillet sounds good; Beef-Turnip Pasta Skillet, no.

Photos (except for Peg Bracken) by Ponytails.  Copyright Dewey's Treehouse.

Homeschooled kids and cooking--not always what you'd think

The expectation that homeschooled girls should be jacks-of-all-housekeeping trades reminds me of a joke I read a long time ago in Reader's Digest:

A young couple decided they needed an au pair, and arranged for a girl to come over from Northern Finland. When she arrived, the wife asked, "Can you cook?"
"No," said the girl, "My mother always did that."
"Can you do housework?" asked the wife.
"No, my oldest sister always did that."
"Well," said the wife, "You'd better just look after the children."
"I don't know how," said the girl. "My youngest sister always did that."
"What can you do, then?" asked the wife, in desperation.
"Well," said the Finnish girl brightly, "I can milk reindeer."

I've always liked to cook, and read cookbooks. My first cookbook was a Dell Home Activity Series workbook called Cooking is Fun, Book One, published in 1970.  Someone gave it to me when I was about seven, and I wrote the names of my favourite foods inside the cover: my grandma's "eldirberry pie" was one of them.

I also had a project, when I was about nine, of cutting out recipes from old copies of Lady's Circle and Woman's Day, and pasting them into a scrapbook.  Some I did end up trying.  Some were a bit too ambitious.

(Yes, that is Annette Funicello on the cover.)

So between kids' cookbooks, ladies' magazines, Brownie badges, and occasional helping in the kitchen, I got at least an idea of how meals got put together. By the time I was in middle school,  I was still better at cookies and cakes than at cooking dinner; but I eventually figured that one out too.

How has it been different for my homeschooled girls?

I don't know that any of them paid a lot of attention to meal-making until they were actually old enough to see some benefit in being able to fix something for themselves.  When they were younger, I think they spent more time helping their dad with outside and fixit chores than they did hanging out in the kitchen.  They did help get groceries, and helped stir things together when I asked them to;  they helped make jam and Christmas cookies and Easter kiffle.  We use food and kitchen tools a lot for school (though not necessarily in "cooking class"): we do math with measuring cups (and, when they were younger, cereal and raisins), we do science experiments with celery or corn syrup or popcorn, or make edible models of the atmosphere. Sometimes we've tried new foods when studying other countries.  Last year we did some spice studies.

Because the recipes I make (or make up) aren't terribly complicated, I've often made a point of saying, "You liked that chicken we had for dinner? You could make that, you know. All you do is..."  Often I just get rolled eyeballs, but I figure some of it has to soak in.  I've also collected up a few extra copies of my favourite cookbooks, so that the girls will have their own, if and when they want them.  (Of course I could just tell them to check the blog...)

Another strategy, for kids who would rather read than cook (or read cookbooks), is to introduce them to "food fiction," especially with a frugal or make-it-work twist. Ginnie and the Cooking Contest. Little Nino's Pizzeria. Bread and Jam for Frances. Stone Soup. Understood Betsy, who learns that there's no right or wrong about making applesauce. The whole Beany Malone series (although we have only a couple of the novels, plus the cookbook). Little House on the Prairie, especially Farmer Boy. Maybe Grace Livingston Hill's novels, when they're old enough not to think romances are icky. I would probably not include the Warton and Morton Toad books, unless you like beetle brittle.

The Apprentice surprised me during her high school years with the dinners she knew how to make, or with interesting snacks she would occasionally produce when younger-sister-sitting.  If asked, she would say something like, "well, of course I know how to do it; I'm just not that interested."  Crayons still says she would rather do something else (she also says she's never moving out).

Ponytails at one point watched a lot of cooking shows and online videos, and liked to try out things like crepes.  This semester she is taking food and nutrition at public high school, and she's had to answer a lot of assigned questions about holiday meals, what's in the refrigerator, and so on.  One day the teacher had a lot of leftovers from another course, so she had the class make up their own casseroles; Ponytails came up with something involving turkey sausage and broccoli soup that sounded amazing. 

The Apprentice has been equipping her own kitchen recently; she has a room in an off-campus house, and she stays there a couple of nights a week because of her summer classes.  (In the fall she'll be there all week.)  Right now she has the kitchen on her floor all to herself.  So she's been putting all her prior learning to practical use.  Last week she even made herself slow-cooker pork chops and mashed potatoes--with real potatoes.

I think they'll do fine.

Elderberry pie photo found here

Linked from Four Moms: Cooking with Children.

What's for supper (last night)? Sloppy Joes and frugal thoughts

We used to make Sloppy Joes with canned Manwich Sauce (bought on sale for 99 cents).  A few years ago we started making them from the Beany Malone recipe, and we liked them pretty much except that I had to remember to keep a jar of chili sauce around.  Later I modified the recipe (less chili sauce, no salt) to have a lower sodium content.

When I thought about making Sloppy Joes yesterday, I wasn't sure how long the half-eaten jar of chili sauce in the fridge had been there--that's how long it's been since we've made them.  Then I remembered the Sloppy Joe recipe at A Year of Slow Cooking, which is also in Stephanie's first cookbook.  It's a different style from Beany's--mostly spices and seasonings added to the browned meat, plus water and a can of tomato paste.  I made it on the stove instead of in the slow cooker, and added in a chopped pepper, because peppers, after several weeks, finally went on sale for under a dollar a pound. Mr. Fixit, who sometimes has problems eating tomato-ish, onion-ish dishes, said that this recipe didn't cause him any aftergrief.  I also noticed that it's very easy to control the sodium in this recipe--the amount of salt you add to the mix is up to you.  No MSG or anything else nasty either.

So unless I happen to have a fresh jar of chili sauce on hand, we will probably keep making Stephanie's recipe.

Oh, and the frugal thoughts?

Just that if you had to go out and buy all those seasonings at once, you might not consider Sloppy Joes to be a frugal dish.  But I already had everything called for, even onion flakes and celery seed, so for us the cost of the "mix" was very low.  I think about it the same way if I'm making granola:  the last batch I made (from the Common Room recipe here) had coconut, orange extract, wheat germ, almonds, and sunflower seeds in it; but those were ingredients I already had on the shelf and wanted to use up, not things I went out and bought specially.  

A teaspoonful of spice is different from a cupful of coconut, of course.  The trouble with buying spices, unless you scoop them in bulk, is that you have to buy a whole package or jarful in the beginning.  (I buy both frugal-brand-in-a-bag and bulk seasonings.)  But you do start to accumulate them after awhile, so putting a bit of paprika and cumin and cornstarch together to make Sloppy Joe mix barely registers in the cost of a meal.  It's like starting a new hobby, something like folk art painting or knitting where you have to start out buying not only tools but every single colour of paint or yarn that you need; eventually you can stop buying so much and just use what you have, replacing only as needed.

Of course it costs the same in the end, since eventually I have to replace the ingredients used up (or maybe I don't bother for awhile). But if they're there on the shelf, you might as well use them.

P.S.  Crayons wants to know if people make "Tidy Joes."

On seeing how the "other half" grocery shops

After those posts about poverty (and not feeling particularly hard done by), Mama Squirrel had the interesting experience last weekend of doing the grocery shopping at a "regular grocery store," instead of the discount supermarket where the Squirrels buy most of their store-brand acorns.  At the discount supermarket, adding a frozen pizza and some ice cream to the cart is not much of a stretch; but we were walking through the land of "real prices"--and you know what, if I had to shop there every week I would start to feel poor. (Isn't that funny? Some people would feel "poor" shopping at the discount place because it's not so fancy.) It means something to have access to very reasonably-priced groceries instead of being held hostage to two-dollar-plus canned goods vs. eighty-nine cent ones.
So don't get me wrong: "scratch week" (because we didn't get our usual convenience foods) was not really anything to complain about. It was a good week to do some baking (because we didn't buy cookies) and to make homemade macaroni and cheese, and a batch of pancake syrup, and a batch of the bran muffins that Mama Squirrel discovered recently and that the squirrelings think are as good as the coffee-shop type. And eat up the vegetables in the crisper drawer. UPDATED LINK 

And we've refilled our pantry and our freezer now, and we are thankful (on Thanksgiving weekend) to have access to good food, a big old Caprice that holds a large trunkload of groceries, and family to eat it with.